"Are you the one who is to come, or should we wait for another?" John the Baptist asked Jesus, from his prison cell. Ever since we saw the "oubliette" in the bottom of the Castle of the Count of Ghent, in Belgium, I can better understand the depths of discouragement from which could only have come such a question. To find out what an "oubliette" is, and what we have in common with John, check out our third Advent Sunday (December 16, 2007) message at Emmanuel Mennonite Church, at C:\Documents and Settings\User\My Documents\Sermons\Advent3-07.doc. One thing we have in common with John is his task, so ably depicted in the famous Triptych of Matthias Grunewald of the Crucifixion, from the Isenheim Altarpiece, 1515, copied above. Click on it to enlarge it and see where John is and what he is doing. That’s our calling too.

Mathew Swora, pastor