Dr. Harold McNabb

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Hi,  I am glad you all came for this Sunday's Kids Camp re-union Sunday. It's a special day too.
Today is the first day of what we call "Advent". Advent is when we begin the celebrations that lead up to Christmas, and every Sunday, we remember something about Jesus and what it meant for Him to be born into the world.

A few weeks ago at Thanksgiving, there was a wind storm and  the power went out at my house. The turkey was almost cooked, but not quite. The potatoes and other vegetables were not quite ready either. People were asked to bring the food cooked, but they hadn't been prepared and decided to do the cooking at my house. And the pumpkin pie needed . . .

Read more: "Getting Ready For Jesus" (A Children's Sermon)

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Colossians 1:15-20

Some of  people of Colossae had some beliefs that we would consider pretty strange.
They seemed to believe that the god who created the material world was an evil god, not the one true god, but something called an emanence. They believed Jesus was an emanence too, and just one of many.

In a crude way, their belief about getting to heaven was sort of a spiritual version of Mario Brothers video game.
There were ladders to various levels and along the way you had to avoid or battle emanences who would derail or block your progress. They believe in rank upon rank of angels and spiritual beings.

The whole thing was so complicated, that it really became a kind of first century version of dungeons and dragons, for the elite.
It was way too complicated for ordinary folk.

Read more: People Think That Jesus is Cool

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Luke 21: 5-19
It wasn't that long ago that scientific theories for most natural phenomena were founded on a theory of "gradualism". That's not the name, but reflected our views of the natural world. We believed that dinosaurs were replaced by mammals who adapted to the changing climate. We believed that climate change was gradual. In fact we believed that most natural occurrences were a slow process. This may be true in certain cases, but the scientific world now embraces the notion that big changes may, and in fact often are not gradual, but the result of dramatic crisis events.

The prevailing theory is that the dinosaurs were wiped out quickly, perhaps by a meteorite and not slowly by competition. Even climate changes, which are not infrequent in geological time, seem to happen rather suddenly rather than as a slow process.
The magnetic poles suddenly reverse themselves.
Our world is one in which change seems to take place in dramatic sudden shifts.

Read more: The Rockies May Crumble

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2 Thessalonians 2:13-17

In the 2002 winter Olympics, the Canadian men's team won the gold medal in the speed skating relay. The two strongest competitors were the US team and the team from Canada. The first US skater fell and though it only took a few seconds to recover and begin skating, that miscue put him far behind. The Canadian team won easily, but what was curious was that each of the US men's team skated slower and slower in turn to the point that the team was lapped by the winning team from Canada. Just the knowledge that they were out of competition had a disheartening effect and took away their motivation.

I will occasionally tape a sports event on TV if I cannot be home to watch it. I will usually not fast forward to find out who wins, but if I find out somehow that my team has lost it just take away my interest. If on the other hand, I know my team has won, I am so eager to watch that I will even fast forward through commercials to see the next set of downs or period of hockey.

Read more: Standing On the Promises

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Habakkuk 1:1-4, 2:1-4


In Friday's Times Colonist is a picture of  Stephen Truscott. He was convicted as a 14 yr old boy of the murder of a girl named Lynn Harper, and sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted just before abolition of capital punishment, and he was paroled after serving about ten years. Since then, his case has become a cause for those seeking to overturn wrongful convictions. Reviews of the trial and the evidence seem to point to a false conviction, but 45 years later, he is still waiting to see if he will finally be exonerated.  Forty five years is a long time to live with the label of murderer if you in fact are innocent.

But we know that justice in this life is always an approximate thing. We do our best, at least we hope we have done our best, and we believe that's enough. Sometimes its not enough and the innocent suffer.

And in a nutshell that's what the book of Habakkuk is all about...injustice and where is God when it happens?

Read more: Living Faith in an Unjust World

  1. Persistent in the Pursuit of Justice
  2. Thanksgiving Sets Us Free
  3. Give Thanks With a Grateful Heart
  4. You Will Always Be Rich Enough to Be Generous

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