Sonneman SM-3050-24 - Sonneman Tent Floor Lamp - Rubbed Bronze

SM-3050-24 - Sonneman Tent Floor Lamp - Rubbed Bronze

Due to the application of some finishes, color of an actual fixture may differ from the one shown on the image

Fixture Type: Floor Lamp
Family: Tent
Finish: Rubbed Bronze

Fixture Dimensions: Base 10" x H Adj. 39" - 57" x Ext. 14 1/2"

Number of Lights: 1
Lamping: 1 - 75W E-11 Minican Halogen (included)
Switch: Built-in high/low switch

There is an abstract concept in the biblical readings today.

There is a concept of ordinary and extra-ordinary.

David makes an ordinary promise to God. King David had built and consolidated political power all through his life and now he had the clout to build a stone temple where he decides to build it which is in Jerusalem. David is perhaps having his regrets. He is aging and hedging his bets. He has not served God as much as his has served his own ambitious career.

David is making a promise to God to make a permanent temple to house the Ark of the Covenant.

The portable tabernacle was surrounded by tents and protected the Ark. The tabernacle traveled all around the countryside and from town to town. A wandering people and a wandering sacred object needed a permanent place and home.

David would not rest until he had made a place for God and His temple. These lines precede the official reading of Psalm 132:8-18. I invite you to read them.

God will return David's promise with an extraordinary promise of his own. He makes the promise to make a great king to come out of the house of David which of course is Jesus.

In Galatians 4:21-31 there is this theme of ordinary and then extraordinary.

Abraham in his old age wants an heir. His wife is fairly old and not likely to bear him any children. Abraham has a second wife so to speak, a slave woman who bears him a son.

Abraham's first wife does bear him a son. God had made a promise for Abraham's descendents to be plentiful. God fulfills his promises.

Abraham's son by the second wife is an ordinary happening. It takes two to tangle as my parents' generation would have described fertility and the likelihood of a blessed event coming out of an emotional, sexual connection between a man and a woman.

The birth of a son to his aged wife has an extraordinary quality and follows through on the power of God to do what he wants and when he wants to do it.

We mere mortals might hear the promise of redemption or a new day dawning and sit around or stand around and wait with some doubts with the thought that it might happen. We do this instead of knowing that it will happen. We lose faith. We need miracles to excite us and get our attention.

And there in the gospel of John is one of the cornerstone miracles of Jesus' ministry. He feeds five thousand of his followers with a handful of loaves and fishes.

No doubt his apostles have seen many a miracle. The extraordinary was ordinary to them in terms of Jesus' miracles. If they blinked or sneezed they might miss just another miracle.

Jesus tells Phillip to take notice of his surroundings. Hold onto your hat! Here comes an extraordinary event.

There is no great quantity of food readily available. You've got a mighty big crowd hungry both for the word of God and for the daily bread of life.

Jesus takes a handful of food, blesses it in God's name and started to feed the people. And when he was finished there were plenty of leftovers to be gathered.

All are fed who come to God's table.

Let me say it again.

All are fed who come to God's table.

You do not go away empty.

Faith opens doors to greater realities then previously can be thought of.

What each and every one of us can think of or see as ordinary, we must bow in awe to God who can conceive and accomplish extra-ordinary things in our midst.

In Galatians there is a quote of the Prophet Isaiah, 54, first verse, about the joy of a woman who has never given birth and having so many children. If you go on to the second and third verses there is a description of making the tent bigger, stretching it wider and of course the abundance of children and descendents.

So too like the tired tent of the Tabernacle and the Ark of the Covenant wanting a bigger, better and permanent home, the Church, the people of God, have made a mighty tent on this earth to hold us and our beliefs.

We are descendents of these people mentioned in the Bible through Jesus. Galatians 4:28 "My bothers and sisters, you are God's children because of his promise..."

Jesus is the descendent of David, the first great king of Israel who makes the first Temple possible. David is a descendent of Abraham, the founder of the line of faith in one God that stretches back close to three thousand years.

We are all the children of faith. We are not ordinary people. We are Christians. We are extraordinary.

Let us lead by example.

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