Sermon Archive

Text: Romans 5:1-5 Some of you might remember me sharing this story. When I was a student in Vancouver, I offered to run a Bible study at the church that I was presently attending. I was still in school, studying for my M.Div. and thought that this might be a good and healthy experience… That is, until I began to receive some very odd remarks from the minister and the congregation. “Good luck!” some people were heard to say. Others would come up to me and ask, “Is it true you’re going to be doing the Bible Study this fall?” When I nodded, they would give me a handshake with two hands to say, “Bless you…” I was beginning to get a bit worried. Had I wandered into a minefield, and they were all trying to warn me about something? As the fateful first day approached, I began to hear more and more odd comments about “the three…” Admittedly, I was nervous… but also a bit naïve, I think. I had done all of my preparations, and had pulled everything together, notes, display pieces, study guides....

Text: Acts 2:1-21 (Pentecost) Some of you may not know this, but I am a bit of a Rollercoaster nut. For the past few years, Sarah and myself have been Season’s Pass holders for Canada’s Wonderland, and we’d go as often as we were able. Of course, having a young child means that the types of rides we would go on would be very different than our usual preferred fare. However, at least on day last summer, Megan was in daycare on our usual day off, so Sarah and I decided to take advantage of that and hit as many roller coasters in the park… including the massive new super coaster called the Behemoth. If you’ve driven past Canada’s Wonderland on highway 400, it’s hard to miss. It dominates the south end of the park, dwarfing every other ride. It’s the big attraction… and when there are no other line-ups in the park, people are lining up to get onto the Behemoth. According to the technical specifications, it lifts you 70m (about 230 feet) into the air, before sending you into a dive that pus...

Text: Acts 1:1-11 Today is Ascension Sunday, the day that we mark the occasion of Jesus returning to God’s side, and the prelude to next week, one of the most important days of the Christian year: Pentecost. After spending five Sundays in a row in the Divine Throne Room in Revelation, things get a lot more down-to-earth this week. We deal not with these great impressionistic images of encouragement, but something much straightforward… a simple story of the disciples spending their last moments on earth with Jesus… but it doesn’t quite turn out the way we think it might. Following his resurrection at Easter, Jesus has been spending time with the disciples. He has been preparing them for the real work that lies ahead. Until now, the disciples had spent much of their time listening and learning. At some point, they would have to take that responsibility for themselves, because it was only a matter of time until Jesus would no longer be with them in a physical sense. Jesus was preparing th...

Text : Revelation 21:9-10; 22-22:5 Even though she is not here this morning, I wanted to say how grateful I am to Kelta for taking the lead and preaching at last week’s service. When she told me she wanted to continue the theme for Revelation during the Easter season, I told her that she really didn’t have to… but she was genuinely interested in really exploring the symbolic images of the New Heaven and New Earth. I’m grateful for her message, and for her willingness to tackle something that for many is intimidating. I’ve consistently said that Revelation is not something that we should fear at all… and in fact it bears some of the most profound messages of hope in the entire Bible. We just need to re-acquaint ourselves with the highly impressionistic style of language that John used… something that the early Christians would have easily understood. Oddly enough this week’s reading from Revelation was originally supposed to cover the same verses as last week, and then continue on… I th...

Text: Revelation 7:9-17 This past Tuesday I was knocked out with a rather nasty 18-hour flu bug. It was a gift from my daughter. So instead of dealing with church business, I lay in bed for much of the morning, trying to encourage the room to stop spinning. I managed to pry myself out of bed around 11, answer a few work-related emails, and then I went downstairs to dine on a cup of chicken noodle soup and a few crackers. I then lay down on the couch, and put in a DVD to watch two of the middle episodes from the mini-series “Band of Brothers.” For those not familiar with it, “Band of Brothers” was a multiple-award mini-series that showed on the US HBO network in 2001, and was subsequently released to DVD. It follows Easy Company of the US 101st Airborne Division during the Second World War, from their training in the United States, through D-Day, right until the days following the surrender of Japan. The Second World War was the greatest ordeal humanity has ever struggled through, and...

Text: Revelation 5:11-14 I need to eat a bit of crow this week. Last week I remarked as to how rare it is that the Book of Revelation shows up in the three year cycle of readings. I said that statistically 1.6% of all of the readings in the lectionary come from the last book of the Bible… while by comparison 20% of the Book of Praise draws its inspiration from the same source. Strictly speaking, that’s still entirely true… it’s just as valid… but what I failed to remember is that the readings show up in clusters. You might have noticed that this morning’s New Testament reading also comes from Revelation… and so is next week’s, and the week after that… and well… pretty much every Sunday clear on up to May 16th… the week before Pentecost. So not only does the lectionary have just a handful of places that Revelation shows up, but it clusters most of them together in one place! Unfortunately it adds to the challenge, because frankly, many mainline ministers aren’t all that prepared to prea...

Text: Revelation 1:4-8 Tonight is our celebration hymn sing. I have to admit I’m looking forward to it, because it’s a chance for us to sing songs of our faith that have a particular meaning for each of you. They might be in memory of someone, in celebration of an event, or chosen simply because we like them. Whatever the reason, it’s an opportunity for us to get together and simply let the song be the prayers for the evening. When Roger and I were putting together this evening’s program from all the requests that you had submitted, we found it fascinating that when we did this the last time only about one-third of the choices made this time are the same ones from last time. It means that tonight will not be a carbon-copy of the service we did three and a half years ago, but will still be a chance for us to gather together and to sing the songs of our faith. …and while we’re at it, here’s an interesting coincidence. Here we are at the Second Sunday of Easter, and today is one of those ...