Sermon Tone Analysis

Title

If You Do Not See the Real, Keep Quiet

Outline

Today everyone has their opinion and a platform to share it on

Today everyone seems to be out seeking their own good, e.g.

“my healing”

Today silence is at a premium - we often need quiet noise to get it

Our Hebrews reading talks about the excellence of Jesus

But it points out that he had qualities (“high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens”) and ministered in a “place” (“a high priest, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle that the Lord”) that we know nothing about other than through revelation that uses analogies

Listen and meditate if you want to understand

Our Mark gospel gives us the other side of the coin

Jesus is proclaiming the gospel of repentance and commitment to the rule of God.

But people throng him so that he has to get into a boat, not because of his message, but because their heard of his miracles (“Hearing what he was doing”)

Now he did heal many, for in evangelistic situations healings point to the reality of the rule of God, but in the throng the message gets lost, that he is God’s humble king, that the kingdom of God is about him, and that its nature is not like the kingdoms of this world.

The only messages people could remember were those of demons (“You are the Son of God”), and while the demons were correct, when the devil speaks truth he is lying - in this case they were either trying to “blow his cover” and get people excited or perhaps get him convicted of blasphemy.

Only his true disciples were with him in quiet and got the message, even if they did not always understand it until later.

Friends, remember this

To “get” the message of Jesus one needs to get away from the excitement and listen, meditate in quiet

It is there that one grasps unseen truths and deeper reality.

It is there that God speaks to one about transformation

Excitement is fine from time to time, but to grasp real life and deeper realities spent time in meditative prayer or even come to adoration

Readings

FIRST READING

Hebrews 7:25–8:6

25 Therefore, he is always able to save those who approach God through him, since he lives forever to make intercession for them.

26 It was fitting that we should have such a high priest: holy, innocent, undefiled, separated from sinners, higher than the heavens.

27 He has no need, as did the high priests, to offer sacrifice day after day, first for his own sins and then for those of the people; he did that once for all when he offered himself.

28 For the law appoints men subject to weakness to be high priests, but the word of the oath, which was taken after the law, appoints a son, who has been made perfect forever.

CHAPTER 8

1 The main point of what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken his seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, 2 a minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle that the Lord, not man, set up. 3 Now every high priest is appointed to offer gifts and sacrifices; thus the necessity for this one also to have something to offer.

4 If then he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are those who offer gifts according to the law.

5 They worship in a copy and shadow of the heavenly sanctuary, as Moses was warned when he was about to erect the tabernacle.

For he says, “See that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”

6 Now he has obtained so much more excellent a ministry as he is mediator of a better covenant, enacted on better promises.

RESPONSE

Psalm 40:8a, 9a

8 so I said, “See; I come

with an inscribed scroll written upon me.

9 I delight to do your will, my God;

your law is in my inner being!”

PSALM

Psalm 40:7–10, 17

7 Sacrifice and offering you do not want;

you opened my ears.

Holocaust and sin-offering you do not request;

8 so I said, “See; I come

with an inscribed scroll written upon me.

9 I delight to do your will, my God;

your law is in my inner being!”

10 When I sing of your righteousness

in a great assembly,

See, I do not restrain my lips;

as you, LORD, know.

17 While those who seek you

rejoice and be glad in you.

May those who long for your salvation

always say, “The LORD is great.”

GOSPEL ACCLAMATION

2 Timothy 1:10

10 but now made manifest through the appearance of our savior Christ Jesus, who destroyed death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel,

GOSPEL

Mark 3:7–12

7 Jesus withdrew toward the sea with his disciples.

A large number of people [followed] from Galilee and from Judea.

8 Hearing what he was doing, a large number of people came to him also from Jerusalem, from Idumea, from beyond the Jordan, and from the neighborhood of Tyre and Sidon.

9 He told his disciples to have a boat ready for him because of the crowd, so that they would not crush him.

10 He had cured many and, as a result, those who had diseases were pressing upon him to touch him.

11 And whenever unclean spirits saw him they would fall down before him and shout, “You are the Son of God.” 12 He warned them sternly not to make him known.

Notes

THURSDAY, JANUARY 19, 2023 | ORDINARY TIME

THURSDAY OF THE SECOND WEEK IN ORDINARY TIME

YEAR 1 | ROMAN MISSAL | LECTIONARY

First Reading Hebrews 7:25–8:6

Response Psalm 40:8a, 9a

Psalm Psalm 40:7–10, 17

Gospel Acclamation 2 Timothy 1:10

Gospel Mark 3:7–12

GREEN