Sermon for October 6th, 2019

Isaiah 55:6-11 (OT page 685)

6 Seek the Lord while he may be found,
    call upon him while he is near;
7 let the wicked forsake their way,
    and the unrighteous their thoughts;
let them return to the Lord, that he may have mercy on them,
    and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
    nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
    so are my ways higher than your ways
    and my thoughts than your thoughts.

10 For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven,
    and do not return there until they have watered the earth,
making it bring forth and sprout,
    giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater,
11 so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth;
    it shall not return to me empty,
but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
    and succeed in the thing for which I sent it.

John Wycliffe: The Morning Star

If you don't speak Latin, and if you were able to hear and understand the words of the scripture passage we just read, you have one person to thank more than any other: John Wycliffe.

John Wycliffe was not a Presbyterian, and he lived almost 150 years before the start of the 16th century Reformation that gave birth to the Protestant movement, but he is often called the "Morning Star" of the Reformation.

The planet Venus is the original "morning star," and it shines most brightly in the night sky just a few hours before dawn. It has long been a signal to sailors, travelers, and astronomers that the darkness is almost over, and a new day is about to begin.

In the same way, Wycliffe was a lone beacon of light in a dark time for the Christian church (the end of the medieval period). He was also a harbinger, a precursor to several new converging eras of social, political, artistic, cultural, scientific and religious renewal: The Renaissance, the Reformation, and ultimately the Enlightenment.

Of course, Wycliffe alone was not responsible for all these movements. In his own lifetime, his key ideas were rejected and condemned by the church, by his peers, and by his country. But