Posts Tagged: Jesus

The Last Words of Christ: Paradise

Last week we sat at the foot of the cross and heard, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.”  These words from God’s Word open our mind and heart to the counterintuitive power of grace.  How are we to respond to a “Grace that is greater than all our sin,” as… Read more »

The Dance of the Divinely Human and Humanly Divine (Luke 2:41-52)

The day after Christmas is nearly unavoidably anticlimactic.  The presents have been opened, television programming seems blasphemously normal, and mom and dad get to experience what presents the children actually enjoy and which presents they said they wanted but have not yet bothered to acknowledge.  This year on the day after Christmas, Christie and I… Read more »

Prayer for Thanksgiving

Gracious God, who clothes the grass of the field and feeds the birds of the air, on behalf of the church and the world we offer our prayers. We pray to you more from our need to be transformed by our awareness of them than from any need of God to be reminded of them…. Read more »

Prophetic Windows

I want to warn you.  I am about to say a dirty word.  There’s no way around it.  It’s a word you do not use in polite conversation.  You don’t bring it up amongst strangers.  Are you ready for it . . . “Evangelism.”  There, I said it.  Several years ago while in undergrad, evangelism… Read more »

Shake Off the Dust: Mark 6:1-13

Several weeks ago the youth group traveled to Carter County, TN to serve with Appalachia Service Project.  Mission trips such as these are miracles.  They are miracles not only because youth wake up at 7:00 am for a whole week during summer vacation either to dig a drainage ditch or repair bathrooms or hang drywall… Read more »

Jesus, Pilate, and Barabbas

Much like Jesus’ betrayal, arrest, and denial, we again find ourselves as a self-reflecting audience of a three-act drama.  Last week we discovered that Peter’s denial, “I do not know or understand what you are talking about,” was a fearful expression narrating the mob’s fear of the unknown, the council’s fear of what Jesus’ messianic… Read more »

Being the Church, Rev. Matt Rawle

Wednesday, March 23, 2011 Being the church Rev. Matt Rawle There’s nothing like the church. It is a place where strangers are welcomed, the hungry are fed, a holy community is formed, and where Jesus promises to be present. There’s nothing like the church. It’s a place where Christians shun strangers, hold onto to self-preserving… Read more »

No to Bread, but Yes to Bread–Matthew 4:1-11, Lent 1 A

                                Each year during the season of Lent, as we begin our journey to the cross and the empty tomb, we begin in the wilderness with Jesus and the devil.  So for a few moments let us walk through our text this morning, taking time to meditate on each verse. –Then Jesus was led up… Read more »

Don’t Worry, Be Happy? Matthew 6:24-34, Epiphany 7 A

Click here to listen! “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth.”  One of my friends in ministry shared with me the blessings and woes of working with his… Read more »

Don't Worry, Be Happy? Matthew 6:24-34, Epiphany 7 A

Click here to listen! “No one can serve two masters; for a slave will either hate the one and love the other, or be devoted to the one and despise the other.  You cannot serve God and wealth.”  One of my friends in ministry shared with me the blessings and woes of working with his… Read more »