Lent 2, February 17, 2013

Last November we welcomed a cat into our family.  Actually, “welcome” may be too kind a word.  But –whatever — bottom line is:  we now have a cat.  Our dog Moe of course, was there first and it’s his turf.  But he did attempt a friendly welcome to the new animal.  I think he really wanted to be friends, or at least he seemed willing to sniff out the possibilities.  But the cat would have none of it.  She made it very clear . . . with her teeth and with a frightening guttural hissing sound . . . that she and the dog, at best, would have a parallel existence in the house.  They would NOT be friends.  If Moe kept his distance, they could co-exist, but nothing more.   Moe has not forgotten that message.  And he knows how to avoid trouble.  

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“On the Night He Was Betrayed” Part 2, February 20, 2013

ON THE NIGHT HE WAS BETRAYED . . .

We see a very human Jesus.  And some very human disciples.   Jesus and his friends had come to the olive grove so that Jesus could pray.  Actually, they were all supposed to pray but only Jesus followed through. 

Perhaps the image you have in your mind of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane is like the one I remember hanging in our living room  — with Jesus’ hands neatly folded wearing beautifully clean flowing robes, kneeling reverently at a rock, eyes toward the sky with a nimbus encircling his head and beams of light coming down from heaven.  Hardly the picture the Gospels paint.  There we find a man in turmoil – sweating, bleeding — feeling the impending doom that was his destiny. 

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Lent 1, February 17, 2013

“God never gives you more than you can handle.”   True or false?

We say this a lot and even try to comfort others with it.  But is it true?

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“ON THE NIGHT HE WAS BETRAYED” Part 1 Ash Wednesday, February 13, 2013

INTRODUCTION

ON THE NIGHT HE WAS BETRAYED . . . .

There are a few words from the Bible we hear repeated every Sunday.  Words that have evolved from just texts of Scripture into worship texts.  “On the night he was betrayed” are words very familiar to use because we hear them every Sunday as we prepare to celebrate the Lord’s Supper – Jesus’ real presence for us in bread and wine.   We hear them again tonight.  The Gospel writers tell us the details about what happened on the night Jesus was betrayed.  But the words “on the night he was betrayed” are not from the Gospel accounts of Jesus’ life.  It was the apostle Paul who put Jesus’ words about the Lord’s Supper in the context of that night.

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Transfiguration, February 10, 2013

Some of you are here today because of an invitation you received.  We welcome you today and we are so happy to have you here.  The idea of our “Come and See” Sunday was to invite our friends and neighbors to come and see what is happening here at Grace of God and to discover who we are.  So . . . here we are!  Actually the idea of “Come and See” is not really about this church or the people here – it’s about Jesus.  We all come here to see and to listen and to know and to experience the grace of God in JESUS.  So all of us today have been invited to come and see HIM.

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Epiphany 4, February 3, 2013

I wish I had been there to see their faces.  I’m not really a fisherman but I would have loved to see the disciples reaction to the real fish story recorded in the Gospel for today.  I remember the expressions on the faces of my three older kids in a boat many years ago as they reeled in 20″ Northern Pike while fishing with their Grandpa in northern MN.  Pretty exciting!  But probably nothing compared to the eye-popping experience of the disciples on the sea of Galilee fishing with Jesus.

The story in today’s Gospel begins like a good story should “One day . . . “ It was a pivotal day; a day when something incredible and miraculous will happen and at least one life will never be the same.

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