Tag: Advent

New Possibilities

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment
Sermon for Sunday, December 7, 2025 || Advent 2A || Isaiah 11:1-10

Today’s sermon is about the unexpected grace of new possibilities. As we continue in our Advent season of preparation and anticipation, we practice opening ourselves up to how God is moving in our lives in the same type of unexpected ways that God moved in the lives of Mary and Joseph as they welcomed Jesus into the world. Mary practiced this openness when she said “Yes” to the angel. Joseph practiced this openness when he made a family with Mary despite pressure to reject her. Our openness to new possibilities is a symptom of the hope we place in the God who makes all things new. So let’s talk about new possibilities today: first we’ll look at the beginning of this morning’s reading from the Prophet Isaiah, then we will talk about three ways we can test that the new possibilities we are reaching for come from God.

Continue reading “New Possibilities” →

Tolle Lege

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment
Sermon for Sunday, November 30, 2025 || Advent 1A || Romans 13:11-14

Today marks the beginning of Advent, the four week season to prepare for Christmas, that great and joyful mystery of God’s Word becoming flesh in the person of Jesus of Nazareth. Advent is a time of preparation and anticipation, a time in which we share the story of Jesus’ earthly family getting ready for his arrival, along with the words of the Hebrew prophets who came close enough to God to imagine a world where peace and reconciliation come to pass.

So today, on this First Sunday of Advent, lets talk about preparation. But instead of talking about our immediate preparations for this particular celebration of Christmas, I’d like to zoom out and talk about how God use the raw materials of our entire lives to prepare us to become the people God dreams for us to be.

Continue reading “Tolle Lege” →

The Dawn from on High

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment
Sermon for Sunday, December 8, 2024 || Advent 2C || The Song of Zechariah (Luke 1:68-79)

There’s a wonderful scene in the movie The Two Towers, which is the middle film of The Lord of the Rings Trilogy. I know I talk a lot about Star Wars in sermons, but my love for The Lord of the Rings is even greater than my love for Star Wars. So stick with me while I describe the scene. The people of Edoras have left their homes to take shelter in the great bastion known as Helm’s Deep. A few days before the flight to the supposedly impregnable fortress, the wizard Gandalf raced out of Edoras on his majestic steed Shadowfax in order to round up the cavalry spread across the country of Rohan. “Look to my coming at first light on the fifth day,” Gandalf told Aragorn. “At dawn, look to the east.”

Continue reading “The Dawn from on High” →

Sabbatical Retrospective, Year 2016: The Spiritual Desert

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

During my sabbatical, I’m not writing new sermons, so on Mondays I am choosing one post from every year of WheretheWind.com to highlight. Near the end of 2016, I was going through time of dryness spiritually, and this sermon grew out of that.

Continue reading “Sabbatical Retrospective, Year 2016: The Spiritual Desert” →

Daunting Tasks

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment
Sermon for Sunday, December 24, 2023 || Advent 4B || Luke 1:26-38

(I was off yesterday, so no sermon from December 31st, but I preached two different sermons on December 24th. Last Monday, I posted the Christmas Eve sermon. Here’s the one for the Fourth Sunday of Advent.)

The reading we just heard from the Gospel According to Luke is one of my absolute favorite passages in the Gospel. I find the character of Mary so utterly compelling, so much a model for our inspiration. She only shows up a handful of times in the story, so let’s take this opportunity today to talk about Mary and about how her interaction with Gabriel sheds light on our lives.

The church calls the event of Gabriel coming to Mary the “Annunciation,” with a Capital A. This event gets its own feast day on March 25th (conveniently, exactly nine months before Christmas). Few events in the Bible have been painted more often by artists than the Annunciation. If I were laying out the story of the Gospel like a novel, then the Annunciation would be the Inciting Incident of the book because Mary’s “Yes” at the end of the passage sets in motion the rest of the events of the Gospel.

Continue reading “Daunting Tasks” →

Winning Christmas??

Published on by Adam Thomas1 Comment

In the Gospel, Jesus mentions that we can tell when summer is coming by the budding of the fig tree. He recognizes that we’re pretty good at figuring out what’s ahead. Arthritic knees feel the storm before it strikes. “We’ve got to talk” means Friday’s dinner date is off. Red sky in the morning, sailor take warning. If we humans are paying attention (even just a little bit), not much can slip by us.

Continue reading “Winning Christmas??” →

Theological Geography

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment
Sermon for Sunday, December 5, 2021 || Advent 2C || Luke 3:1-6

When I was in high school, I was a huge geography nerd. Geography was one of my specialties on my high school’s quiz bowl team. I knew every capital of every country in the world, all the major rivers and seas and mountains – you name it. One time in a competition, I had to fill out a map of the countries and capitals of Central and South America in less than two minutes. Let me stress…I cannot do that anymore. But I still find geography fascinating, and today’s Gospel lesson has a geographical bend to it. John the Baptist quotes the Prophet Isaiah, who proclaims that God will raise up valleys and lower mountains and make roads straight and even.

In today’s Gospel reading, and, indeed, in the whole season that spans Advent, Christmas, and Epiphany, geography takes on a very theological dimension. That’s what we’re going to talk about this morning: theological geography. I hope you’re as excited as I am.

Continue reading “Theological Geography” →

A Most Ingenious Paradox (updated)

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment
Sermon for Sunday, November 28, 2021 || Advent 1C || Jeremiah 33:14-16

Did anyone stay up late last night to watch the ball drop in Times Square? I didn’t. If memory serves I have stayed up until midnight on New Year’s Eve exactly once in my life. I think it was my senior year of high school, and I’m pretty sure my friends had to keep waking me up. So, I was definitely asleep for the ball drop last night. But did any of you stay up? Show of hands?

No one?

Did I open up the wrong sermon?

Continue reading “A Most Ingenious Paradox (updated)” →

Season 3 of the Podcast for Nerdy Christians

Published on by Adam ThomasLeave a comment

In August 2019, Carrie Combs and I launched the Podcast for Nerdy Christians, and we’ve had a blast ever since sharing discussions at the intersection of our faith and our nerdiness. Sometimes we joke that we created the podcast so we could talk about all the nerdy things that we can’t fit into our sermons. Then again, I recently talked about Stranger Things in a sermon, to go along with my copious Star Wars references.

Continue reading “Season 3 of the Podcast for Nerdy Christians” →

Advent with the Beginning of Luke

Published on by Adam Thomas2 Comments

Announcing “Advent with the Beginning of Luke,” a new daily devotional book for your Advent observance. Entries from December 1st through Christmas follow the first two chapters of the Gospel according to Luke – from the birth announcements of John and Jesus to the songs of Mary and Zechariah to the birth of Jesus, and culminating with the presentation in the temple. This Advent study will make a meaningful addition to your personal or group preparation for the feast of the Incarnation. Continue reading “Advent with the Beginning of Luke” →