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.
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Emotion Tone
Anger
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Analytical
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Openness
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Conscientiousness
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Extraversion
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Agreeableness
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Tone of specific sentences
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Anger
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I was born in Brantford, ON Canada.
If you’re into hockey, your ears will perk up.
Oh, Brantford!
The birthplace of Wayne Gretzky!
I was born in Brantford, ON Canada.
If you’re into hockey, your ears will perk up.
Oh, Brantford!
The birthplace of Wayne Gretzky!
Now that doesn’t mean much to me, but my brother took great pride in it.
He’d brag that he was born, not only in the same town, but the same hospital, probably the same room!
Most people have the same feeling of identifying strongly with their birthplace.
Next year the world cup will be played.
Across Canada, people will be waving the flags of their countries of origin.
Sure, their Canadian now, but they’re proud of their homelands!
Bethlehem
The same thing is true about Bethlehem.
The town is significant among God’s covenant people.
It’s King David’s hometown - King David was a famous war hero, poet, and king.
He ushered in the golden age of Israel and established nearby Jerusalem as his seat of power.
The house and line of David might have been scattered across the country, but Bethlehem was their home town.
Micah spoke of Bethlehem many years earlier.
People were nostalgic of the days of King David when Micah the prophet brought the word of the Lord.
Rightly so, the level of corruption in Jerusalem had grown.
People longed for justice and righteousness, especially in the royal family.
So God’s word comes through the prophet, that another great ruler will come from Bethlehem.
The humble little town of Bethlehem will produce another ruler over God’s covenant people.
It’s a promise that gets forgotten.
Micah’s words are probably chalked up to hopefulness for the renewal of David’s dynasty.
And then a descendant of David makes the trek from Nazareth to Bethlehem.
He brings along his pregnant wife.
They need to register for a census in his hometown of Bethlehem because he’s of the house and line of David.
Oh joy, an interruption to go be counted for more taxes!
But . . .
While they’re there, Mary gives birth to her firstborn, a Son and swaddles him in clothes and lays him in a manger.
This baby, born in sleepy little Bethlehem, was the one.
Jesus is deeply rooted in the dirt of Bethlehem.
He’s the shoot of the stump of Jesse.
It shows something of Jesus’ humanity.
He’s from Nazareth, but his roots can be traced to Bethlehem.
Not only is he from David’s house and line, but God maneuvered the geopolitical situation in the Empire so that Jesus was born in Bethlehem.
It’s awkward for Mary.
Probably her mother wasn’t there when the baby was born.
Probably there were no sisters or childhood friends to oh and ah.
Bethlehem probably had a midwife, but it wasn’t the familiar face Mary knew from Nazareth.
When God the Son came to earth and humbled himself to become a person, it was just as real, just as messy, just as humbling, just as beautiful as the birth of every other child.
The nonsense that the body is bad and spiritual is good gets a serious blow when God himself becomes human, being born in the dusty town of Bethlehem.
It’s the beginning of the renewal of all creation.
The creation was stained by sin by our first parents’ disobedience.
Since their first sin, the ground was infested by thorns.
It’s something we’re all stuck in.
I cannot live up to God’s call to righteousness and holiness.
Can you?
Sin is serious.
It always causes death and corruption, not just because God’s righteousness demands that the death sentence for treason be carried out, but because it is the nature of sin to cause death.
Sin isn’t just punishable by death, it is always a fatal choice, poisoning and killing relationships and corrupting and polluting the environment.
We’re dying and sinners face the doom of an eternity cut off from God’s goodness
But God is merciful and loving.
He would rather die than lose his creatures and his creation.
So Jesus took on flesh.
He was born in Bethlehem.
He suffered, was rejected, and died on the cross.
His dead body was laid in the ground and the stone rolled in front of the opening.
On the third day he rose again.
He’s the firstborn among the dead.
Sure there were people who had been revived before - Jesus’ friend Lazarus among them - but Jesus’ resurrection was different.
By his death and resurrection, Jesus conquered our great enemies sin and death.
They no longer have power over him.
His body was raised to life and glorified.
All who have faith in him gain life and are glorified with him.
Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of the renewal of ALL creation.
This is an important point: Jesus’ physical birth and physical resurrection give us the reassurance that our salvation isn’t just something spiritual.
Our bodies are redeemed, renewed, and revived.
The earth is redeemed, renewed, and revived.
There’s a new heaven and a new earth.
New Jerusalem
There’s an objection I hear regularly about the new creation.
People who love living in a small town and farmers are skeptical of having to live in a city.
People voiced this concern in rural New Brunswick and I hear it in Tillsonburg - I heard it again this week.
I can relate.
I grew up in a city.
Except for the first couple years of our marriage, I’ve lived in the country.
Who can get excited about living in a city?
But this isn’t just a city in the ordinary way, yet it’s also not a heavenly city.
The New Jerusalem descends from heaven and gets firmly planted on the earth.
God’s dwelling place is with humankind on the earth.
All the tensions are resolved.
Even the tension between city and country.
Size
It won’t be cramped.
You know that the numbers and dimensions in Revelation are figurative, but you can’t help but marvel.
12 000 stadia by 12 000 stadia is big!
Look at the map.
As a cube, it’s enormous.
The international space station is visible as a bright spot racing across the sky.
It is at 408 km above the ground.
The walls of the New Jerusalem are 5X higher than that!
We didn’t read into , where we find that the city streets aren’t dead.
They might be made of gold, but there is life and growth and crops in that city.
Best of all
rev 22: 2
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