Proclaimer Blog
Make the most of a quieter week
I’ve lots of books on preaching on my shelves, but one of the most unusual is undoubtedly “The Hardest Sermons You’ll Ever Have To Preach” – a collection of two dozen or so sermons preached at hard moments – deaths, national tragedies, suicides and so on. The sermons are a bit of a mixed bag, to be honest, but each is accompanied by a few pages of pastoral notes outlining the preachers’ approach, why he chose this passage, some pastoral wisdom and so on. It’s a very helpful book.
Especially because next week I will have to preach one of the hardest sermons I’ve ever had to preach. One of our students’ baby died at term and I’m taking the funeral next Friday. It’s a tough assignment, all the more so because these situations require pastoral time in an already squeezed week. I generally spend about 8 hours on a sermon, so, all other things being equal, I’ve got to find at least that over the next few days to prepare this hard, and also important sermon. (So, John/Mike/Olu if I don’t reply to your emails you now know why!)
Most of us who are preachers don’t preach absolutely every week, or have slightly lighter loads at times. I hope you use this down time (or reduced time) wisely – reading, praying, resting, thinking and so on. But here’s another thing that I would add to the list: at least do some thinking and preparing for some of these hard moments. If you’re a pastor (and you are, Mr Preacher), then these moments will come at some point. The chances are you will be needed straight away to counsel and comfort. You’ve got to – if you can excuse the frivolity – have something up your sleeve.
I don’t mean that you just preach the pre-packaged funeral sermon. You’re not the journeyman funeral guy. But you need to be able to hit the ground running. I’ve done a lot of funerals, but this is the first of this type, and I wished I had given it more thought before it happened.
For the record, I’m preaching Psalm 139 which gives us the all-knowing God’s creating in the womb alongside the numbering of our days. It is honest about the struggles of life (“If only you would slay the wicked”) and calls us to self examination (“Search me, God”). It also points us towards another who was knit together in his mother’s womb and for whom his days were numbered – another whose life was cut short: but who conquered death and gives the same hope to all who trust in him.