Sometime within the last 15 or 20 years a shift took place in the church. What was forever Palm Sunday, focusing on Jesus’ entrance into Jerusalem the week before his death, became Passion Sunday. The reason for the shift is sad really. Realizing that most people won’t go to church on Maundy Thursday or Good…
Today we are wonderfully “out of season” as we hear the stories we typically hear on Christmas Eve, sing a Christmas hymn, hear a Christmas anthem and ponder what it means for God to be born in the world in the way in which He was. And while the two versions of the story I…
The Apostles’ Creed is like an ancient road map of the Christian faith, written by the church in the first couple hundred years after Jesus died. Jesus himself did not put out formal doctrinal statements, either about himself, the world, God, or anything else. Rather he lived a life, taught in metaphors and parables, and…
We’re almost finished with our journey through the Apostle’s Creed, and along the way we have gone through controversial lines, misunderstood lines, historical lines, and confusing/impossible lines. And it seems to me at first glance that “the forgiveness of sins” seems to be in the wrong place. Shouldn’t it be in one of the first…
The version of the creed that many of us may be familiar with, says “Maker” rather than “Creator.” And there is an important distinction between these two. To make suggests making something out of something else the way a person makes wooden boxes out of wood. To create suggesting making something out of nothing the…
We begin our believing in God the Father Almighty. Father – Almighty: two words, which are fundamental and have a lot to say about who God is and how he relates to us. Almighty – all powerful, strong, can seem distant even. Father, on the other hand, is personal, relationship, providing and caring. This morning,…
In ancient times, hundreds of Christians, under interrogation, refused to bow down to the empire’s gods, stood their ground and declared, “I believe in God the Father almighty, maker of heaven and earth,” and were executed for saying so. They had not long before left their old life behind and risked everything by choosing Christianity.…