Dying Jacob, full of years and lacking nothing in wealthy Egypt, gathers his sons and tells Judah of a ruler whose robe will be soaked in wine and whose eyes will be darker than wine (Genesis 49). This sermon reads that strange, poetic image as a record of a vast longing, the same one that returns in our myths, our songs and every era, including years of pandemic and of war across the eastern border. The promised King did come, yet his clothes were dusty from the road rather than stained with wine, until a certain wedding in Cana (John 2). Listen if, in a world where you have almost everything, something is still missing.
The First Promise of the King
The Promised One
When we live in the present, it’s sometimes easy to forget about eternity and live as if what is here and now were all we can expect. However, the Apostle Paul, in his First Letter to the Thessalonians, though writing about very everyday matters, constantly reminds his readers of eternity, and every chapter of this letter ends with a reference to the second coming of Jesus. He does this because, even though we live in the present and struggle with the here and now, we can learn to view our lives, our daily struggles, and our everyday choices from the perspective of eternity-and that changes everything.
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