Posts tagged Jesus
In A World of Darkness, New Hope Emerges
In A World of Darkness, New Hope Emerges

Acts hints at the uncertainty and fear the disciples felt after Jesus ascends to Heaven - what now? The world still looks the same and bad things still happen. It’s like the new Obi-Wan Kenobi series where we see him tired, afraid, and alone after the Empire has wiped out the Jedi and the light seems to be gone. We may feel that way, too. Surrounded by a world where sin seems to be overwhelming, staring up at the sky too, wondering where God is in all of this. The answer is found in our joint compassion and action.

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CommunicationsStar Wars, Jedi, Reality, Fantasy, Compassion, Protect, hope, Holy Spirit, Obi-Wan, JesusComment
Homeless Jesus: A Lens of Love
Homeless Jesus: A Lens of Love

Take a New Year’s style inventory about your paths and destinations of faith. Think about the paths you have walked to bring you closer to God, to find Jesus in the world, and to deepen your faith experience here on earth over the past year. The sculpture “Homeless Jesus “ by Canadian sculpture Timothy Schmultz reminds us to view our neighbors differently, ourselves differently, and our lives differently as we journey onward.

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CommunicationsJesus, journey, Magi, Epiphany, destination, artComment
Sharing God's Divine Food
Sharing God's Divine Food

The challenge is not to be complacent. Just because we are served and have our food does mean we get to sit back and enjoy it all to ourselves. We need to be reminded the food is not just for us. The calling therefore is to be motivated distributors of this divine food as often as possible. To be the ones who take down the walls that prevent others from getting enough to eat or the care they deserve.

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Pastor MikeGod's love, Jesus, equalityComment
Be Still & Know
Be Still & Know

Rest seems like a luxury that only a few can afford and it can even sometimes be seen as a shameful transgression in our go-go-go society where busyness and exhaustion are worn as badges of honor. But we’re told that rest is what Jesus instructs the disciples (and us) to do. Be Still and Know that I am God. This is our invitation and command from God…To stop and listen to the God we are called to serve to see what that God actually wants us to do and be in this place and time, to stop and trust in God instead of our own wisdom and guidance.

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Communicationsdiscipleship, Jesus, be still, rest, relaxation, stress, healing, Holy SpiritComment
The Best Way to Destroy Your Enemies
The Best Way to Destroy Your Enemies

It’s a human thing to struggle with love for those we do not know or like. In scripture, we often lose sight of the fact that Jesus is not only fully divine, he is also fully human. And as fully human, He would have had the human proclivity to see the world in terms of insiders and outsiders, friends and enemies. But Jesus didn’t just teach this love of neighbor, he lived it, concretely, healing and breaking bread with those he met, even those considered outsiders and enemies.

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Communicationsenemy, friendship, Jesus, humanity, differences, Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr., loveComment
Uprooting Hate
Uprooting Hate

Jesus, in his attempt to bring love into the world, sat down with people who the world hated – the roman soldier, the tax collector, the prostitute, the leaper and the daemon possessed. Jesus broke down the walls of hate by bringing others with him so they too could help uproot and kill the plants of hatred from within. We can break down the roots of hatred, too. It starts with hearing the story of those whom we hate.

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Pastor Mikehate, hatred, Jesus, love, understanding, empathyComment
Refining Your Inner Coach
Refining Your Inner Coach

Transfiguration Sunday was also Valentine’s Day and served as a reminder of love in all its forms, including love for yourself. It starts with an assessment of your inner voice. This inner voice is the coach that will be with you for your entire life. Your coach speaks to you about everything, and the more you hear it the more it shapes you. What do you want your coach to say?

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Pastor Mikeinner coach, coaching, Transfiguration, Jesus, Gospel of mark, Valentine's Day, love, encouragementComment
How "Fever" Calls Us to Serve
How "Fever" Calls Us to Serve

One of the most wonderful aspects of scripture is its ability to speak meaningfully to our lives today, no matter what is happening around us. It could be a single word that triggers a reaction like never before. The word from this week’s reading has to be “fever.” The fact that we can’t go to appointments, some stores, or other venues without getting our temperature taken makes us pause and consider how being sick changes life’s daily activities and what effect it had on communities in scripture as well as today.

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Pastor Mikefever, pandemic, Jesus, healing, miracles, sickness, community, serviceComment
You Are Enough
You Are Enough

In the life of Jesus, we saw how God enters into our world and meets those who are marginalized, suffering, oppressed, and rejected. He doesn’t disregard them as impure or unworthy, even though that is what his culture says about those who have diseases, are possessed by evil, or who are Gentiles. In story after story, we see Jesus breaking boundaries, confronting evil, and showing God’s love is stronger than anything sin and death can muster in our world.

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Communicationsthe good place, heaven, sin, evil, disease, poor, marginalized, faith, unclean, JesusComment
Embrace This Kairos Moment
Embrace This Kairos Moment

In English, we use the word “time” to mean several aspects of time. In the original Greek of the New Testament, there are two different words. The first word for time is “Chronos” as in chronological time. This is the word used for linear time, like today, tomorrow, next month, or next year. Think of the days and weeks on a calendar, moving in one direction. The other word used for time is “Kairos.” The word Kairos is reserved for very special moments in time. This is one of those moments.

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Pastor Miketime, disciples, discipleship, Jesus, fishermen, life, changeComment
Bound By Your Neighbor's Affliction
Bound By Your Neighbor's Affliction

Affliction is real, especially right now in ways that are seen and unseen. But it is our God’s work of love and consolation that offers rays of resurrection hope about what tomorrow could look like with God’s help. We may feel that comfort today, but we can never forget we are bound to our neighbor’s affliction. And until such a time when affliction is gone, we are all in this suffering together.

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Pastor Mikeaffliction, suffering, pain, Corinthians, Jesus, resurrection, consolationComment
The Resurrection and Affirmation of the Body
The Resurrection and Affirmation of the Body

[In 1 Corinthians 15] we get a taste of the lawyer side of Paul. His legalistic tendencies come out, as he makes a case for the people of Corinth to believe in not just Jesus’s own death and resurrection, but also their own resurrection. Like so many people before them, and people after them, the Corinthians are unsure about just what happens when perhaps the one common human experience finds us—death… But believing in their own resurrection—that one was harder to hold on to.

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communicationChrist, Jesus, death, resurrection, end of the world, PaulComment
To Dust You Shall Return
To Dust You Shall Return

Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return. Every year we come here to our sanctuary in the evening hours of a winter night and walk forward to receive black ash pressed into our foreheads in the shape of a cross as we hear these words – you are dust and to dust you shall return. These words are an ominous reminder of the fragility of life and our own mortality.

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Pastor MikeJesus, God, plague, healing, illness, Christian, dust, Ash Wednesday, mortalityComment
You're No Angel
You're No Angel

Let’s be honest for a moment. We have all show the true color of our inner heart. We have all shown we are not as angelic and loving as we take ourselves to be. Instead of brushing off these past moments, or continuous, words and gestures as one-off occasions let’s just be clear and say there are elements of our pasts and pains placed upon us that have shaped us in ways we can never fully recover.

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Pastor Mikesin, Gospel, gospel of mark, Bible, communion, Forgiveness, Decisions, Jesus, grace, evilComment
You're Missing Out!
You're Missing Out!

The acronym FOMO (Fear Of Missing Out) is one that we often hear and perhaps experience. The stories of the women in this Gospel lesson show them missing out, or at risk of missing out. Jairus’ twelve-year-old daughter is, in her culture, at the cusp of adulthood — as in our culture she would be on the cusp of increasing responsibilities and independence. The death of a young person with a full life ahead of them seems somehow harder to bear than other deaths; we reflect on all the things that person will miss out on.

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communicationGospel, gospel of mark, miracles, Jesus, baptism, communion, church community, fear, illness, parablesComment