Hillside Swedenborgian Community Church

“Welcoming God’s Joy. . .In God’s Time”

Click on the title to download the sermon!

Readings:

Isaiah 12:2-6

“Surely God is my salvation; I will trust and not be afraid.  The Lord, the Lord, is my strength and my song; he has become my salvation.”  With joy you will draw water from the wells of salvation.  In that day you will say: “Give thanks to the Lord, call on his name; make known among the nations what he has done, and proclaim that his name is exalted.  Sing to the Lord, for he has done glorious things; let this be known to all the world.  Shout aloud and sing for joy, people of Zion, for great is the Holy One of Israel among you.” 

Matthew 1:18-25

This is how the birth of Jesus Christ came about: His mother Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be with child through the Holy Spirit. Because Joseph her husband was a righteous man and did not want to expose her to public disgrace, he had in mind to divorce her quietly.

But after he had considered this, an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream and said, “Joseph son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary home as your wife, because what is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins.”

All this took place to fulfill what the Lord had said through the prophet: “The virgin will be with child and will give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel”—which means, “God with us.”

When Joseph woke up, he did what the angel of the Lord had commanded him and took Mary home as his wife. But he had no union with her until she gave birth to a son. And he gave him the name Jesus.

Spiritual Experiences n. 5155  Concerning Heaven and Its Joy

All joy, bliss, prosperity, happiness and delight, in the heavens, is in the affection of use for the sake of use, and is according to the quality and quantity of the affection, and according to the quality of the use; in fact, heaven is a kingdom of uses; and if anything else than use is regarded as an end, as eminence, self-glory, or gain, which looks elsewhere than to use itself, thus [any end] which regards self, and the world for the sake of self – then, in proportion to the extent to which it [i.e. the end of use for the sake of use] perishes from the affection, in the same proportion is the quality of the affection changed; since it is use on account of self which is the end; and, as far as this is regarded, so far is [a man] not in heaven, and is destitute of the life of heaven. And if use for the sake of self has dominion, then he is no longer in heaven, but in hell and, then, he enjoys no reception of any prosperity, or happiness, interiorly.