During my first year at Seminary I attended my first Homiletics class. It was taught by Rev. Dr. Glenn Nielsen, who inspired me to try and become a good proclaimer of God's Word. Dr. Nielsen could stand in the middle of our class and practically create a sermon on the spot! It was amazing to me.
One day I asked him how he did it. His answer? "By learning all the things I'm teaching you in this first class."
What was he teaching us? The basics. He warned us at the beginning of the class that we were going to do a lot of what might seem like tedious work. But by picking a text, studying the text by looking at the Sunday in which the text is being used, looking at the text in the original Hebrew or Greek language, doing a word study, seeing how that key word is used in other verses, finding the doctrine being taught in the text and looking at commentaries, one would be ready to write down the goal of the sermon and then write the manuscript.
It was tedious work. But by the time I left Dr. Nielsen's class and along with the other Homiletics classes to took, I had down the basics of writing a sermon.
Fast forward about 21 years later. Last week I had two sermons to write. One was for Gerry Schemers' memorial service. I had been very close to Gerry and I knew that it would be an emotional service for me. I worked on the sermon Tuesday and Wednesday; the service was on Thursday.
Along came Friday and I need to write another sermon. Since I hate writing on Saturday (too much pressure for me) I was determined to get something down on paper. The text was the last verses of Mark, chapter two where Jesus rocks the boat of the Pharisees, so to speak, by declaring Himself to be Lord of the Sabbath.
I remembered something I had heard in a video Bible study - Mark, chapter two is a series of confrontations between Jesus and the Pharisees. That thought caused me to think of something I had recently read about how fight or flight were the two basic options a person had when finding themselves in a threatening situation or confrontation. In looking at all the confrontations in the chapter it became clear that Jesus was fighting on our behalf. Jesus has the authority to forgive sin - our sin. Jesus is Lord of the Sabbath - a Sabbath in which He gives us rest.
Jesus doesn't flee - from His confrontations with the Pharisees but He doesn't flee from His appointment to suffer and die for our sins at the cross. Jesus lets nothing stand in his way from redeeming us from eternal death and punishment.
With all of that information, I could write.
Looking back at the manuscript, I saw thoughts that could have been better developed and realized that a couple of points could have been strengthened. But I did produce a sermon. It seemed to preach well, based on the feedback I received.
And it wouldn't have happened if I had not learned the basics.
