Introduction
George MacDonald
Unspoken
Sermons Introduction
Every story begins somewhere.
Some begin with a hero. Others with a mystery, a battle, or
a quest. The greatest stories begin by inviting us into another world—a world
that is strangely familiar and yet unlike the one we thought we knew.
George MacDonald's Unspoken Sermons are such a story.
At first, I thought of them as thirty-six independent
sermons, each standing on its own. Like many readers, I would return to
favorite passages, underline memorable sentences, and admire MacDonald's
remarkable ability to speak of God with both tenderness and fire. Yet I always
had the sense that something larger was holding the sermons together, something
just beyond my reach.
Over time that "something" slowly came into focus.
MacDonald was not writing thirty-six separate sermons. He
was unfolding one Divine Narrative.
Not a story with characters and chapters, but one great
narrative that begins with our origin in the Father, follows our awakening
through the Son, and leads us by the Spirit into the fullness of the life for
which we were created. Each sermon is a step along that path. Read together,
they form one continuous conversation about God, humanity, and the purpose of
creation itself.
At the center of the collection—both literally and
figuratively—stands one simple declaration.
"The most beautiful and
challenging thing in the world is to cry, 'Abba, Father,' from a full heart!
And I would help everyone I could to call upon this Father."
I have come to believe these words are the heart of the Unspoken
Sermons. Everything before them points to them. Everything after them
reflects upon them. From this summit the whole landscape comes into view.
The journey begins with The Child in the Midst.
MacDonald does not begin with sin, separation, or judgment.
He begins with relationship—the irreducible truth from which everything else in
the Divine narrative flows. Before there is redemption, there is the Father.
Before there is obedience, there is belonging. Before there is becoming, there
is being. We are first invited to see ourselves as children whose life has its
source in the eternal fellowship of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
From there the journey unfolds.
Love becomes the consuming fire that burns away all that is
false. Faith becomes trust in the Father's goodness rather than certainty in
our ideas. Obedience becomes participation in His life rather than submission
to an external law. Again and again, MacDonald returns to one great theme: God
is not seeking servants to manage but sons and daughters to raise.
Then comes Abba, Father!
Here the entire journey gathers into focus. We are not
moving from orphanhood into sonship, but from childhood into maturity, a spiritual
coming of age. We do not become God's children by discovering Him; we awaken to
the Father who has always been the source of our life. Salvation is not the
creation of a relationship that never existed before. It is the healing,
restoration, and fulfillment of the relationship for which we were created from
the beginning.
Transformation, therefore, is not becoming someone else.
It is becoming what we are!
MacDonald describes this transformation as naturally as a caterpillar becoming a butterfly. The butterfly is not a different creature. It is the revealing of the self that was hidden within the caterpillar all along—the unrevealed self—waiting to emerge. So, it is with us. Beneath our fear, selfishness, and illusion lives the child created in the image and likeness of God, waiting to awaken into the freedom of love.
The final sermon, The Inheritance, brings us home.
There MacDonald overturns nearly every popular picture of
heaven. Our inheritance is not a place filled with rewards, possessions, or
endless pleasures. Our inheritance is God Himself. Heaven is uninterrupted
fellowship with the Father through the Son in the communion of the Holy Spirit.
It is life shared, love given, joy multiplied, and every unique child becoming
a gift to every other.
The journey ends where it
began. With relationship.
Perhaps that is why these sermons have remained alive for
more than a century. They do not ask us first to accept a system of theology.
They ask us to look again at the face of God revealed in Jesus Christ. They
invite us to question every thought that makes the Father less loving than the
Son, every doctrine that hides His goodness, and every fear that keeps us from
trusting the One who has always desired our fullest possible life.
This website grew out of my own journey through these
sermons.
What you will find here is not an attempt to improve on
George MacDonald’s writing. No one could. My hope has simply been to make his
thought more accessible to modern readers. Each sermon includes an
introduction, an outline of its themes, a careful modern-language paraphrase,
and selected quotations from the original so that his own voice is never lost
beneath mine.
If these pages accomplish anything, I hope they do what
MacDonald's writings have done for generations of readers.
Not merely explain God.
But help us meet the One he met!
And perhaps, as the mist slowly lifts, we too may find ourselves praying with our whole heart,
“Abba, Father!”
Series One Introduction - The Gospel
Series Two Introduction - The Way of the Gospel
Series Three Introduction - The Fruit of the Gospel
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Continue your Quest . . .
If you're new to George MacDonald's Sermons, I recommend beginning with three sermons, I call the Trilogy, that together provide a wonderful overview of the entire collection...
These suggestions grew out of my own journey through the Unspoken Sermons. They are not required reading, but they may help illuminate themes you'll encounter along the way. They are his Sermons Point, Theme and Reflection.
First Reading in the Trilogy- Child in the Mist
Second Reading in the Trilogy - Abba, Father!
Third Reading in the Trilogy - The Inheritance
Or Sermon Two - Consuming Fire
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