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Showing posts from May, 2019

Sermon, "Rising Strong: Tabitha," Acts 9:36-43

Sermon 5/19/19 Acts 9:36-43 Rising Strong: Tabitha For the last several weeks, as we’ve journeyed through this season of Easter, these days between Easter Sunday and Pentecost Sunday (which we’ll celebrate in June,) we’ve been talking together about the unfolding story of the Resurrection. Sometimes we think of the Resurrection Jesus as a one time thing - a fixed event that just happens and we’re done with it. We sing “Christ the Lord is Risen Today,” and we mean that day, Easter day, and then we move on to the next thing. But I hope we as we’ve spent these weeks with the Resurrected Jesus, seeing how the message of Resurrection sinks into the disciples and transforms them bit by bit, you’ve come to better understand why we call ourselves “Easter People,” and why Easter is a whole season, not just a day. Resurrection isn’t something that we can check of our to-do list - “done.” It is ever unfolding in our lives. Today is the last Sunday in our “Rising Strong” sermon series

Sermon, "Rising Strong: Breakfast," John 21:1-19

Sermon 5/12/19 John 21:1-19 Rising Strong: Breakfast I’ve been thinking about learning how to swim this week. I was not a strong swimmer as a child. We never had more than a wading pool at home, and although we’d go to Delta Lake State Park often enough, I never really moved beyond a determined doggy paddle. The first time I cared about my swimming ability was the first summer I went to Camp Aldersgate. The swim area there is still set up more or less the way it was when I was a child. There were three sections, roped off with buoy lines and docks. The front section was for beginners. It was large, wide, but the water didn’t get up much past my waist when I was a first time camper at 9 years old. The intermediate section was next, a small section, with water that went a bit over my head at the back side of it, and then there was the advanced section, where the water was all over my head, and there was a floating dock in the corner off of which you could dive and jump to your

Sermon, "Rising Strong: Emmaus," Luke 24:13-35

Sermon 5/5/19 Luke 24:13-35 Rising Strong: Emmaus " That same evening, a couple of hours before dark, Cleophas, Jesus’s uncle, and his wife, Mary, who’d been at the cross, were making their way unhappily toward Emmaus, a town seven miles northwest of the city at the end of Ayalon Valley. Two hours’ walk. An overnight stop over on their long journey back to Galilee. Get a leg of the journey out of the way. More importantly, get away from the cauldron of Jerusalem and its destruction of their profoundest hopes. The open road was more dangerous after dark, but it was a place to breathe and unburden themselves of the shattered Illusions they dared not broach in the city, even in whispers. (1) Arguing, as spouses sometimes do. Mary was cautiously exuberant, hoping the news was true - and more importantly, rerooting their hopes. The tomb was definitely empty. Even stubborn Simon admitted that. And, say what you want about the Magdala woman, she was there when they killed h