Dranesville Church of the Brethren

In a hopeless situation, the Israelites were promised that their city would become the center of the universe and a beacon of peace for the future. We look forward to its complete fulfillment during Advent.

Repentance is really important when we come to worship, but we need to use our resources when we do. Without good instruction, we might end up making the same mistakes and learning the same lessons over and over.

If our words in worship are not backed up by our actions, then we are fooling ourselves. Worship that does not transform us is sinful.

Sometimes worship can be so bad that it actively makes things worse. The way that you live informs the way you worship, and worship can be dangerous because it can confirm your delusions. Repentance and self-examination is crucial when you go to God in worship.

It is easy to get lost in the beauty of the story of the return of the younger brother and miss the older brother entirely. In order to be called a son or daughter of God you must have fellow Christians as your brothers and sisters. Feasting together is a way of celebrating that "this my brother or sister was dead, and is alive again."

Jesus' forgiveness is available to even those who sin horrifically through their own fault. That means our forgiveness needs to be, too.

Persistence in prayer is key to aligning ourselves with God's will, and this is difficult because God's will is so different from our own.

Give to Caesar what is Caesar's and Give to God what is God's, but what is Caesar's and what is God's?

"Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors" is a seemingly obvious prayer which is nevertheless hard to pray. While we are sometimes led into sufferings and temptations, it is God who always delivers us from it, as he did with Christ.

In the Lord’s prayer, we pray so that we can be equipped to keep God’s name holy. This is a humble prayer of repentance, not a showy prayer of self-flattery. We also pray for God’s kingdom of heaven to come to Earth as in Revelation, in hope that the world would be set to God’s good intention.

The fasting of the Jewish people over the continued exile is no longer necessary because the kingdom is here. Whenever we feast together, we do so just like Jesus did because of our joy that God is here with us. God’s forgiveness was available for anyone to join that feast, but Jesus invited all the wrong people. The kingdom wasn’t for the self-righteous but for sinners and tax collectors.

Jesus’ new kingdom doesn’t just involve following the small, easy, minutiae of God’s law, but instead makes massive changes to a person so that they can actually follow the most important and difficult parts of the law. They’re no longer play-actors, but actually genuinely have a pure heart. This allows them to make peace in the world, so that it looks the way it was supposed to. However, these pe...

The Israelites wanted the end of exile to mean that they can exact vengeance on the Gentile nations that oppressed them. Instead, if the exile was going to end, they would have to be gentle and merciful to those that showed them no such courtesy. Gentleness is harder work than fighting, since it means taming your angry impulses. But God’s new kingdom is not based on anger but on love. Jesus was me...

Jesus shows a new way of being Israel, and says that the promised end of exile is not going to come through revolution or through the Law but through meekness, mourning, and gentleness. This was not the message anyone really wanted. Gentleness is harder work than fighting, since it means taming your angry impulses. But God’s new kingdom is not based on anger but on love. Jesus was meek, poor, and...

God’s presence finally returns completely to his people, and all the chaos and evil of the present world is defeated. God gives his first orders as the undisputed king of creation, and justice is finally provided to his creation. Where once Jerusalem was the capital of Israel, it now becomes the capital of the Universe. This vision should inform the work we do on Earth, as we hope to make it look...

Since God has proven faithful to all his promises, even when they seemed impossible, we can be certain that he will continue to be faithful. If God has given up his own Son, we can be certain that there is nothing that will keep him from saving the world. The Church lacks all the power necessary to do what God has called them to do, but they have God backing them, and all of history is leading tow...

Through his death and resurrection, Jesus has enacted a kingdom. The Old Testament hope that “All Authority in Heaven and on Earth” would be given to the Messiah in chapters like Psalm 2 is finally fulfilled. But this didn’t result in the immediate “end of history” as many of the prophets might have thought, but instead the kingdom of God coexists with other evil kingdoms, and it’s the Church’s jo...

John’s crucifixion narrative is stylized as the coronation of Christ on Earth, which is a totally countercultural message. The powers of the world are completely oblivious that they are accidentally telling the truth about Jesus (he actually is the king of the Jews, the crown of thorns is a real crown, etc.), because they are unable to understand anything other than raw power. The cross exemplifie...

There is an important pun which foreshadows the crucifixion, the Son of Man must be lifted up/exalted so that the nations would be healed. Jesus was lifted up on the cross, but that was also his exaltation which gave him glory. This turns the idea of being “exalted” or respected on its head, since true glory comes from sacrifice and apparent shame rather than grasping for power. Understanding this...

Jesus is baptized in the Jordan River, and the return of God to his people, which ends the exile, is evident both in the opening of the heavens and in Jesus himself. Matthew re-tells the story of Israel in his narrative where Jesus takes the place of Israel e.g escaping persecution in Egypt (Passover), being tempted in the wilderness for 40 days (Israel’s wandering in the wilderness for 40 years)....

Jesus comes as the rightful king of the world, but the Jews must make a choice between following God’s Messiah or following Rome. While the Jews decide to follow Rome, the Gentiles in the story follow Jesus. The coming of the Messiah necessarily forces you to answer the question of whether you follow him or follow the scary powers of the world. A new law emerges for the new people of God, which is...

When Israel was finally finished with the exile, the full reign of God on Earth would finally be realized. As opposed to before, when the glory of God was hidden from humans, now all flesh would be able to see it together. The reign of God means that all the blessings of the covenant come to God’s people and all the curses of the fall are eradicated in a New Creation. Israel’s sins meant that they...

When God sent Israel into exile, it wasn’t merely punishment but a plan to bring the blessings of the covenant to the whole world. Since Israel was dispersed, the knowledge of God was able to spread through the whole world. In doing so, Israel was tasked with bearing the suffering of the whole world. Since they failed, Jesus instead bore that suffering and exile on the cross (“my God, my God, why...

God’s plan and Israel’s hope for their kings was that they would be extremely powerful and obedient to God. When they were at their best, opposing Israel’s king was the same as opposing God, since the king was the manifestation of God’s rule in the world. Since Jesus was Israel’s perfect king, Psalm 2 became one of the Early Church’s favorite scriptures. The fact that God through Christ has comple...

God makes a covenant parallel to his covenant with Abraham with the kings of Israel, represented by David. God is far more generous to us than we think we can be to him. The King of Israel became the representative of the people to God, and since Israel was the representative of the World, the king was the representative of the World. It makes sense then that Jesus’ righteousness becomes the right...