Since my “pre-sermon ponderings” ended on an ambiguous–yet hopeful–note, I thought some folks might like to see the finished sermon manuscript.  The manuscript, of course, is not the sermon.  It is what I intended to say.  And it is pretty close, I think, to what I actually said.  And I can hope that it’s somewhat along the lines of what people in the congregation heard.  Unless God needed them to hear something else, in which case I hope they heard that instead.