Between Advents
Sermons for the Lectionary, Year C, Advent through Eastertide
Imprint: Wipf and Stock
Between Advents continues Bruce Taylor's series of sermons for the Common Lectionary (Revised), offering theologically rich, sacramentally reflective, ecumenically compatible, and biblically centered proclamations for the Sundays and major feast days of Year C, from Advent through Eastertide. Included is an appendix, featuring a sermon preached in departure from the lectionary on the occasion of a high school baccalaureate service conducted shortly after the United States military invasion of Iraq. His strong commitment to Christian unity and deep appreciation of the heritage and contemporary relevance of the church and the importance of individual discipleship are a common thread in these sermons for the first half of the church year featuring Gospel readings from Luke. Included is a sampling of engaging story sermons, illustrating how this style of preaching can be used in lectionary-based preaching. Preachers and devotional readers alike will find Between Advents to be a valuable companion as they discover the profound beauty of sacramental worship through the course of the liturgical year and meditate on the Scripture passages commended for Christian worship in the lectionary cycle.
Bruce L. Taylor is a retired Presbyterian Church (USA) minister and attorney, now living in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains near Denver, Colorado. A graduate of Northwestern University, the University of Denver, the Iliff School of Theology, and Union Theological Seminary in Virginia, he served congregations in Texas, Nebraska, Kansas, Nevada, and Oklahoma. His doctoral dissertation chronicled the Presbyterian missions and ministries among the Navajos. He has authored four previous Wipf and Stock titles.
“These fine sermons are evidence of a dedicated and very able homilist. They bring together a significant grasp of the scriptural settings, combined with Jesus’s message for then and now. Bruce Taylor is a fine writer and storyteller, skilled at weaving together the lectionary passages of the day. These sermons provide a helpful model for those tasked with preaching Sunday after Sunday. I warmly recommend them.”
—John Ambrose, pastor, lecturer in Christian worship, and hymnal editor
“As what one sees depends on where one stands, Bruce Taylor chooses a revealing vantage point for the sermons in Between Advents. Taking his cue from Luke the evangelist, Taylor’s pastor’s heart preaches from where we are in salvation history, between Jesus’s first coming and his second. With Christ now fully revealed, God calls Christians to give this world a foretaste of the next, the heavenly banquet of the kingdom of God.”
—Fritz West, author of Scripture and Memory: The Ecumenical Hermeneutic of the Three-Year Lectionaries and member of the Consultation on Common Texts
"While a sermon is a live, face-to-face encounter, incomplete without the body language of both the preacher and the congregation, a written manuscript or transcript of a sermon is, in itself, a potent genre for Christian devotional reflection. It is a gift to see how a preacher at a given point in time weaves together an illuminating vision from a biblical text with deep pastoral concern for a given group of people in their own unique context. May readers be deeply blessed as they learn to see 'the-Bible-in-motion' in ways that fix our eyes on Jesus and equip us for the journey of faith.”
—John D. Witvliet, Calvin Institute of Christian Worship, Calvin University and Calvin Theological Seminary