Text: Luke 7:11-17 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. The images and events within Afghanistan over the past month have been hard to watch. For those who served in Afghanistan, the emotions are mixed and raw. For some, this is where they were forced to grow up and mature - battling for life and death. For others, it is a place where they were given emotional or physical scars that will remain for the remainder of their earthly life. Life would be easier if you could leave the experiences behind when you depart a war, but that's not how it goes. Instead, the dark memories of war patiently reside within one's head and await to be aroused when the journey of this life comes in contact with a sound, a taste, a smell, or an image that immediately takes one back to the battle, back to the fight, back to the death. The images of the past month, the death of thirteen service members in Kabul, did this for me as I am sure it did for many of y
January 17, 2021 John 2:1-111 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. Where is your faith? We must ask this question of ourselves routinely, even daily. We ask this question for good reason, because where the object of one’s faith is, there also will the heart reside. If you thought the turn of the calendar would usher in a better year or that the year 2021 could not be worse than the previous year - your televisions, the news you read and consume, the twitter scrolls after dark reveal a very different story. Mobs storming the nation’s Capitol, National Guard patrolling the streets and calling the Capitol home, winds of impeachment swirling before inauguration, and questions of a peaceful transition of power ringing in the minds of citizens. (Isn’t it great living in the D.C. area?) While you’d like to believe these events affect only the people you do not know, you quickly realize the happenings of this world affect all of your families, the
February 17, 2021 Matthew 6:16-21 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen. The words you heard at the beginning of this evening’s service should echo within your head, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” Instead, they likely will fade from your memory even before you arise tomorrow and make the sign of the cross, beginning a new day in Christ Jesus. The thing is, you don’t want to hear these words – they speak to your sinfulness, your lack of repentance, and ultimately your mortality. The pastors are no different, as you approach, we quietly, yet reverently speak the words into your ears as we trace the cross of ash upon your forehead, “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” In seminary, a professor would not only request, but demand to serve during the Ash Wednesday service on campus. In deafening silence, you heard the feet of the Christians shuffle across the cement floor to the front of the semin
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