Sermon Tone Analysis
Overall tone of the sermon
This automated analysis scores the text on the likely presence of emotional, language, and social tones. There are no right or wrong scores; this is just an indication of tones readers or listeners may pick up from the text.
A score of 0.5 or higher indicates the tone is likely present.
Emotion Tone
Anger
0.13UNLIKELY
Disgust
0.13UNLIKELY
Fear
0.13UNLIKELY
Joy
0.56LIKELY
Sadness
0.65LIKELY
Language Tone
Analytical
0.78LIKELY
Confident
0UNLIKELY
Tentative
0.43UNLIKELY
Social Tone
Openness
0.73LIKELY
Conscientiousness
0.61LIKELY
Extraversion
0.03UNLIKELY
Agreeableness
0.93LIKELY
Emotional Range
0.5LIKELY
Tone of specific sentences
Tones
Emotion
Language
Social Tendencies
Anger
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9
Remember your Death
One Sunday Morning the Youth asked me what Lent meant.
I knew that I was not going to do well with this question.
This is a hard topic to describe to young people for two reason.
One, it is a BIG church term, a loaded church experience.
The second reason is that it is hard to describe the Lenten experience as a joyful exciting one when really, it isn’t.
If we are being honest, we say that Lent is a time where we remember that Jesus died for us.
That is Good News because at the end of it all it means that our sins are forgiven.
But as Christians, we are called to spend six and a half weeks just with the fact that Jesus died so that we don’t have to spiritually die ourselves.
We die to our sins.
And we will physically die someday too.
But we have the gift of eternal life.
Yet, before we start thinking about the joys of heaven we have to deal with the death of this world.
Think about how you would tell that to a group of teenagers who many have not grown up in church.
What I will do in talking to teenagers and trying to relate to them is that I will fall back into my mindset of when I was a teenager and think, “how would I describe this to myself when I was their age.”
What I failed to remember, or really did not have the time to process was the fact that I was a teenager in the 90’s which was the era of grunge, or all doom and failure.
There was a saying back then that went something like, “You are dying from the moment you are born.”
Out of my mouth before I could stop pours out this statement to our lovely happy young people.
What I wanted to say was, “You are dying from the moment you are born, yet through the death of Christ you can live forever more.”
They hear the first half of that sentence and begin to say, “What?” “What do you mean?!” So, I stop and tell them that I don’t mean that they are going to die right now, nor do I think or hope they would die soon.
So I spend the rest of our time trying to back track out of that statement and really reflect on the true meaning of Lent.
Pray and Read Isaiah 53
Jesus was not anyone really special when he first walked the earth.
He was not handsome, he was not admired.
The prophet Isaiah and even in the gospels we read tells us this truth.
In fact, he looked just the same as every other Jewish male of His time.
It would have been difficult to pick Him out from a crowd.
Unless the crowd knew exactly who He was.
As a matter of fact, depending on the location, Jesus was either sought after for His graceful healing or to be accursed for what was perceived by the elite as being a heretic and a rebel.
He didn’t have anything that anyone would want.
He healed, He taught on the majesty of the Kingdom of God and many wanted to be healed by Him and to hear what He had to say.
However, to be His friend would mean that you too would be ostracized and rejected, possibly even killed.
Who would want that?
Even up to the every moment of His death, He was afflicted, bullied, and despised.
He did have friends, who believed in Him, and really believed in Him.
Yet they to would abandon Him when He was caught and executed.
He died a death that non of us would ever want, a death that was violent with excruciating physical pain, deep emotional afflictions and being shamed by society.
Every kind of horrible death you can think of, our Savior experienced.
Maybe we do need to spend some time thinking about this.
Why?
Because we will also die someday.
Our death is not likely to be in the same manner as Jesus of Nazareth, but we will all die someday.
Yet, because He died in such a way, we can live free of eternal pain, eternal shame and live in peace for all eternity.
What a gift.
Do you realize what this really means for us?
Do you really know why Jesus had to suffer like He did?
Do you really know why Jesus lived like He did?
Why He was poor?
Why was He plain or average?
Why did Jesus and His friends risk their lives for the message?
Why was all His blood poured out?
Why was He shamed and found guilty by everyone?
Why did He have to bear all of our sins?
Why is it that by His wounds we are healed?
May we seek His grace during these forty plus days.
May we humble seek the answers to these questions and discern the gift that was given for each of us through our fasting, prayers, and in service to those in need.
< .5
.5 - .6
.6 - .7
.7 - .8
.8 - .9
> .9