The glass shattered with a nauseating pop. And somewhere on the other side of a broken garage window, my cousin’s carelessly tossed rock landed with a sickening thump. My cousin and I sprinted like mad down an alleyway hoping to find some cover. And over our shoulders, an angry voice cried out after us: “Hey,Continue reading “The Scapegoat”
Author Archives: First Presbyterian Church
Pastoral Meditation: Times and Seasons
Pastor Grant M. VanderVelden shared this message at the funeral for Norb Palmer on Saturday, February 19, 2022. The Scripture lessons were Psalm 23, Ecclesiastes 3:1-8, and Matthew 5:3-12. Our lives arrange into a rolling litany of different seasons, rhythmic times for every purpose, surely appropriate for the moments at hand. And so it wasContinue reading “Pastoral Meditation: Times and Seasons”
Liberty Isn’t Lawless Living
Standing bare-footed before a burning bush and attending nervously to the address of God, the Old Testament prophet Moses receives a daunting task: “Go and free my people from slavery in Egypt.” Thus said the Lord in the Scripture lesson from the book of Exodus that we heard last Sunday. Moses reluctantly obeys his intimidatingContinue reading “Liberty Isn’t Lawless Living”
Does God Care?
When last we were together, we were traveling with the Old Testament’s Abram, whom God has told to step out in faith and get going. Abram and his wife, Sarai, pack their bags and fly off into the unknown on the wings of God’s promises too breathtaking to take in and almost too good toContinue reading “Does God Care?”
Get Going
As we heard a couple Sundays back, the story of God and us starts off bright and beautiful with God’s creation of the cosmos and everything in it. But what happens after that doesn’t bode well for the future of the world. Lured into naughtiness and disobedience by a crafty serpent, the inept and blunderingContinue reading “Get Going”
Living East of Eden
We have just begun a spiritual journey from one end of the Bible to the other in hopes of better understanding the big-picture story of God and us, and, along the way, we aim to become more faithful disciples of Jesus Christ through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit. Thus last Sunday, weContinue reading “Living East of Eden”
In the Beginning
The better you know the chapters and verses of the Old Testament – and the more you take to heart the stories held tenderly and eternally in those ancient words long preserved, the wiser you’ll become for salvation in Jesus Christ. So says the apostle Paul. Of course, finding Jesus crouched down behind every desertContinue reading “In the Beginning”
Because God Breathed
The apostle Paul this morning serves up a classic text that affirms the supremacy of the Bible as the Book among books. Now nearing the end of earthly life’s race and ready to receive his heavenly crown of righteousness, the one-time persecutor of Christ’s followers shares a moving, heartfelt testimony about the power of God’sContinue reading “Because God Breathed”
A Different Road
So often have we heard the Christmastime story about the coming of the Wise Men – and sung the time-honored carols about their intrepid following of a yonder star – that some of us probably can quote by heart the details of their bold voyage across field and fountain, moor and mountain. But what weContinue reading “A Different Road”
Is There Any Better Gift?
Spiritual writer Richard Rohr well sums the significance of Christmas in one challenging sentence: “Frankly, Jesus came to show us how to be human much more than how to be spiritual, and the process still seems to be in its early stages.” Jesus’s birth indeed challenges those who celebrate the gift of the Christ ChildContinue reading “Is There Any Better Gift?”