You’d think God’s people would be in a better mood. The Lord has just liberated them from Egyptian slavery through the parted waters of the Red Sea, and they’ve been enjoying their first month or so freedom. But their path to full liberty in God’s Promised Land steers them into desert wilderness.
Category Archives: Sermons
Jesus Calling
In her memoir “The Year of Magical Thinking,” author Joan Didion shares the many thoughts that flooded her heart and mind during the year after the sudden and untimely death of her husband, John. Unable to accept the utter finality of death, Ms. Didion quietly believed that maybe, just maybe – somehow, someway – her husband would come back to her.
Funeral message: In Communion
Have you ever sung with your children on a long road trip – to keep them happy, or least occupied – while your minivan hurtles down some seemingly endless ribbon of interstate highway?
The Sun Also Rises
Think, for a moment, about the astrophysics of a sunrise. The dizzying mechanics are cosmic in scope: The earth spinning on its axis at 1,000 mph, orbiting in a 584 million-mile track around a star that’s about a million times larger than our planet, so far distant that its light – dashing through space at nearly 300 million miles per second – travels more than eight minutes before kissing the face of the earth.
Finding Courage to Face the Cross
This final Sunday of Lent is more popularly known as “Palm Sunday.” But it’s also known as “Passion Sunday,” which recalls the suffering of Christ that unfolds in the days ahead, as Jesus travels the final steps of his journey to the cross. Knowing the destination to which he is bound serves as our invitationContinue reading “Finding Courage to Face the Cross”
Dying to Grow
Jerusalem in the days leading up to Jesus’s crucifixion provides the setting for this morning’s Scripture lesson. But it is recent events taking place in nearby Bethany that set the stage for everything we’ll shortly hear from the Gospel of John. In Bethany, Jesus has been hanging out with his friends Lazarus, Mary and Martha,Continue reading “Dying to Grow”
Upside-down and Backwards
John 3:16 – “for God so loved” – is one of the most familiar and recognizable verses of the New Testament. The statement is full and true on its own, but like all Scripture, you miss out on a lot when you avoid drinking-in the intoxicating concoction of verses that come before and after. TheContinue reading “Upside-down and Backwards”
Time to Clean House
What’s it going to take for us to believe? What’s it going to take for us to believe that God desires a change of heart and mind in each of us? What’s it going to take for us to believe that God has given to Jesus all the power and authority necessary to affect thatContinue reading “Time to Clean House”
Splintered Faith in a Splintered Savior
The telling of hard truths is an intimidating endeavor. Perhaps the only thing more difficult than the telling of hard truths is the acceptance of hard truths. And this morning’s Scripture lesson tells some really hard truths and shares the honest human struggles to accept them. Hard truths are, well, hard, because they challenge ourContinue reading “Splintered Faith in a Splintered Savior”
You Are Beloved
Lent begins in the wilderness, and that’s not a particularly safe place to be. In any wilderness, you face tangible risks both physical and mental, and in the Bible, wilderness always signals a place of grave spiritual peril, too. Wilderness is scriptural shorthand for the realm of the devil, the danger of temptation, and very-realContinue reading “You Are Beloved”