Sermon Archive

Colossians 3:14-17 Did you hear that? It’s the collective sigh of relief now that Christmas has come and gone. Consumers are recovering from Boxing Day combat, and now we’re sliding on into New Year’s Eve. We’re in that “in-between” time from the end of one party and heading into the next. I have little doubt that the decorations in the malls are already coming down. After all, there’s only 48 shopping days until Valentine’s… so wreaths will soon be replaced by hearts. But it’s still Christmas. I think we have become so used to the ways that the Malls tell time that we almost entirely forget that the Christmas season started on Friday morning. Christmas is not over, not by any stretch of the imagination. Those of you who have gotten to know me know that I try to resist stampeding into the Christmas carols during Advent. It’s because Advent is its own season… with its special message of anticipating the coming of Christ. But Advent gets overshadowed in favour of getting ready for Christ...

Text: Luke 1:1-20 I bid all of you welcome on this Christmas Eve, where we come together to give and receive, to share in the wonders amidst the cold winter’s chill, and listen to ancient stories that captivate still. And yes, with it being Christmas Eve, my tradition stays, tonight is the fifth time I’ve offered this way, of preaching the message somewhat diverse, I hope you don’t mind it’s completely in verse. Through word rhythm, and pattern, and rhyme, I hope it helps us to listen this time. Rather than some distant mouldy old story, we may catch a glimpse of God’s true glory. So please, relax, listen and enjoy, and I don’t mind if children make noise. It’s part of it, the package you see, the story is about a child, a little baby. It is a rare occasion when stories are told, that the words the King James can unfold, the tale of Christmas in a very special light, of what the shepherds heard that first holy night. Now normally, I prefer versions more practical, rather than the words...

Text : Luke 3:1-6 The Gospels are more than simply telling the story of Jesus. As I mentioned last week, the expectation of a Messiah around the time that Jesus was born was so high, there were many different ideas about who the Messiah might be, and how the Messiah would appear to the people. The expectations were so high that when Jesus lived, it’s not surprising that many… perhaps even a majority of people… weren’t able to see God right in their own midst. The writers of the gospels are doing a lot more than just telling the story of Jesus. They’re making a case for Jesus as the one who fulfills the expectations of being the Messiah, the holy one of God. It’s why the gospel writers, Luke and Matthew in particular, are constantly drawing these links back into the Hebrew Bible. After all, the desire, the hope for one who would come and redeem the people had been building for centuries. When it came to Jesus, perhaps hindsight was 20/20… and perhaps reminds us that often our own experi...

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...

Text : John 8:31-36 I have been finding through the Bible for Dummies course that we have been doing that those who come really appreciate the work that I’ve been doing to give the historical background as to how the Bible came together… as well as where each book finds itself located in history. This is more than just a “when was it written” kind of approach, but understanding the events that were going on when a particular book or section of the Bible, and how they addressed those events… If anything the Bible makes far more sense when we really get a feel for what both the people of Israel experienced through the Hebrew Bible, as well as the genuine struggles that the early church faced. Even so, it would be a mistake for us to think that those experiences and struggles ended in the early 2nd century. After all, it may surprise you to learn that the Creeds that we say around Baptism and Communion you won’t find anywhere in the Bible. Why? Because they came later… when the church fac...