November 12, 2021
Dear Prairie Avenue Family,
Thanksgiving is just less than two weeks away, and today's forecast offers a few snowflakes. Some may celebrate (and others may dread) this occasion. As Daylight saving time leaves us going to bed at 8 pm, since it already feels like midnight with sunsets at 4:41 pm, we see the cold, dark days of winter ahead of us. The days grow again just a few days ahead of Christmas, slowly marching back to spring and summertime seasons once again.
It is the times and seasons that are the subject of this Sunday's sermon. How much do we need to know about God's plans? The disciples privately want to know. Jesus offers little (other than warnings that false messiahs and misinformation will be rampant) to add to their request. It is as if he does not know (which is true!) when the great "day of the Lord" will come! There is enough information available to anticipate and participate in the kingdom coming to earth now, but stay on guard, it will catch some off!
Be sure to let Sondra Lehew know (217-433-9725) if you plan to attend our upcoming Thanksgiving dinner on Sunday, November 21, at Noon in Fellowship Hall.
Worship This Sunday:
More Than Enough: Enough to Know
We catch the disciples doing a little sightseeing around the temple mount and admiring the quality of construction. Some stones utilized for the platform were forty feet long, twelve feet high, and eighteen feet wide! The temple was still be finished in Jesus' time (it was finished in 63-64 AD, just seven years before the Roman army would completely remove all of the upper structures and raze Jerusalem to the ground in the Jewish Revolt of 70 AD), but Jesus seems unimpressed. It declares not one stone will be on top of the other! The current mount reflects this happening, as only the platform (with the Muslim holy site the Dome on the Rock at the former temple site) remains today.
It will be Jesus' condemnation of the temple (and its corrupt administration) that will be an accusation during his trial. Imagine a structure that served like the US Treasury Building, Capitol, White House, and national Cathedral all in one. And Jesus speaks in opposition of it, declaring its destruction nigh! No wonder the inner circle of the disciples (Peter, James, and John) along with Andrew seek privately more information about this imminent national tragedy and disaster.
Jesus offers in the 13th chapter of Mark just a hodgepodge of signs and events to happen and come. But he also insists that you should not be led astray by those who will come to mislead and misinform about God's plans. Only God knows the timeline for the "day of the Lord." Wars, rumors of wars, earthquakes, and famines will occur. But these are not signs of the end. Routine history is not a guide to follow and solve! Be alert, these are birth pangs of the new kingdom coming to pass. Don't be caught interpreting particular events and people as markers or signs. Be faithful, the good is on the way with every suffering that is to come.
Too many fixate on the Second Coming and the End Times. The truth reveals that Jesus' arrival was the beginning of the end. For how long is not ours to know (or even Jesus' concern!), and frankly, the human and natural disasters listed can be seen in any given year! The world around us is in bondage and decay; it is growning with the deep pain of broken bonds and pain-filled separation. We are torn, frayed, and broken. As followers of Jesus, people of God in the world, we have seen enough to know that another reality defines our lives and can define our world. We have enough evidence of the goodness of God all around us to insist that the brokenness we see is not the final story.
Beware of those giving insider information about God's plans. Now is the time to extend your faith into being part of the good still working into the world!
Birth pangs anticipate new life. Suffering will come. Joy is just around the corner!
Church Thanksgiving Dinner
Sunday, November 21, 2021, Noon
Fellowship Hall
I hope to see many of you at our upcoming Thanksgiving dinner, after last year's hiatus. As usual, it will be a time to elect board officers, elders, deacons, and trustees. As our finances continue to be somewhat uncertain, we will not present an annual budget for 2022. Rather we will continue to pass quarterly budgets that can be presented and approved at board meetings. Our current quarterly budget runs through the end of the year.
