December 20, 2009 – Fourth Sunday of Advent – Rev. Lana Sandahl
December 20th, 2009“An Inward Stirring of Peace”
Finally! All the pieces of recording equipment worked today! Click on the title above to hear Lana’s Fourth Sunday of Advent (Peace) sermon. Keep listening when she’s done — we also recorded today’s anthem!
Readings:
Micah 5: 2-5
But you, O Bethlehem of Ephrathah, who are one of the little clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to rule in Israel, whose origin is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labor has brought forth; then the rest of his kindred shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and feed his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall live secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth; and he shall be the one of peace. If the Assyrians come into our land and tread upon our soil, we will raise against them seven shepherds and eight installed as rulers.
Luke 1: 39-45
In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leapt in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit and exclaimed with a loud cry, ‘Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leapt for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.’
From the Writings of Swedenborg
“In the process of taking on human manifestation, God followed God’s own design…God introduced God’s design into the universe as a whole and into each and every living thing in it. It is a law of the divine design that the closer and closer we come to God, which is something we have to do as if we were completely on our own, the closer and closer God comes to us. “ [True Christian Religion, paragraph 89]
