December 3rd (Advent 1)

by Ray Gentry
Daniel 3:1, [2-7] 8-30

"You are commanded, O peoples, nations, and languages, that when you hear the sound of the horn, pipe, lyre, trigon, harp, drum, and entire musical ensemble, you are to fall down and worship the golden statue that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. Whoever does not fall down and worship shall immediately be thrown into a furnace of blazing fire.”

As I read through this week’s text I wished that it was during Pentecost and not Advent. Our loose focus during Pentecost was empire and, dang, this would have been a perfect fit. I’m certainly not going to avoid that part of the text; we’ll just have to Advent the text a little as well.

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