Sermon Archive

Reflections on the Advent Readings As some of you may know, a group of us went to see the Dead Sea Scrolls on November 21st. Being Saturday, it was quite busy… I was fascinated by how the display was set up. For those of you who were there, or who have been to see the scrolls on your own you’ll know what I’m talking about. The entry are has this massive wall of what are made to look like bricks, each inscribed with a quote from what are often called the “Sectarian” scrolls found at Qumran. The quotes were written in Hebrew, and Greek, inscribed into the surface, and then the saying was translated into both English and French. It’s quite impressive, to be sure. The display continues, trying to set the time period into context. It shows artefacts from the period, including pottery, coinage, maps, pictures… the kinds of things that you might expect to see. As one gets closer and closer to where the scrolls actually are, the lights are getting gradually darker and darker. The grand-ness of...

John 18:31-38 It seems to be such a contrast of images. Today is Christ the King Sunday, the last day of worship before Advent begins… it is in all respects New Year’s Eve for Christians. Throughout the year we have walked through all the different seasons of the church, anticipating the coming of Christ, celebrating his arrival at Christmas… his revealing in Epiphany… his sacrifice in Lent, and the glory of Easter. During the season of Pentecost… we focus on how we respond to God’s grace… and just as we’re getting ready to start the cycle all over again, we have this powerful image of Christ as King. This is all well and good… but when we do encounter Jesus in John’s Gospel, he is anything but king-like. We find Jesus standing before Governor Pontius Pilate; a prisoner, bound and humiliated. He awaits a horrible, suffocating death upon a bare wood cross. The only crown he will wear is one of thorns, and only stripes of office he will carry are the cruel welts from a whip. It would ...

Text : Revelation 21:1-6a The first day of November is called All Saints Day… for the most part it’s not a day that we celebrate all that much. We celebrate the night before quite well… for those of you who are parents or grandparents, the real challenge is to make sure our children don’t make themselves sick from eating too much candy. Yet before Halloween, there was All Saints Day… a day that the church celebrated all those often unknown and un-named people who had so cheerfully and passionately built up the body of Christ in their lifetimes. There were those saints who had specific dates devoted to them… St. Valentines in February, St. Patrick in March, St. John the Baptist in June… but for every well-known “official” saint there are thousands of unsung faithful people. All Saints Day became a way to include all of them… and has now been celebrated for 1400 years… although these days we tend to pay more attention to the night before! Usually we try to celebrate All Saints on the Sun...