Words of Welcome

  Hebrews 12:18-29 There’s an old Jerry Lee Lewis song that goes back before my time, which describes what it feels like to go through an earthquake. "There's a whole lot of shakin’ goin’ on." I don’t know if you’ve experienced an earthquake, but having lived in Southern California, I’ve experienced a few of them. Fortunately, I’ve lived far enough away from the epicenters that while I experienced a bit of shaking, it wasn’t too frightening. However, my brother-in-law and sister-in-law did experience a whole lot of shaking from the 1989 Santa Cruz earthquake. They were at Candlestick Park, getting ready to watch the World Series, when the quake struck. They decided not to go back when the Series resumed, so I got to go to the make up game along with my father-in-law. When you live in California, earthquakes are part of life, just like tornadoes in Kansas and hurricanes in Florida.    Earthquakes are mysterious and dangerous. You never know when they’ll strike, but e...

Psalm 130 Do you feel like crying out to God in this moment of uncertainty?  Do you feel like you are living in the depths of life? Spring may be breaking through the winter blues, but it’s difficult to enjoy the coming of spring when we’re supposed to stay home and stay safe. This morning we turn to Psalm 130 , which begins with a word of lament and ends with a word of hope. The Psalmist begins:  “Out of the depths, I cry to you, O Lord.” Then along with the Psalmist, we plead with God, “Lord, hear my voice!” It’s at times like this that I appreciate the Psalms, which give voice to our laments. They remind us that it’s okay to grieve our losses, even if they’re momentary. As William Blaine-Wallace writes, “grief is prayerful attention, an awareness, acknowledgment, and embrace of life-the-way-it-really-is” [Blaine-Wallace, When Tears Sing , xxiv.]. This is the way life is right now. We’re watching as the Coronavirus marches across the globe. We watch as ...

1 Thessalonians 5:12-28 We have reached the Third Sunday of Advent. We have lit the rose-colored candle, which symbolizes the message of joy. The Psalm for the day declares that “The Lord has done great things for us, and we rejoiced.” Then in the closing verses of the Psalm, the people sing: “May those who sow in tears reap with shouts of joy. Those who go out weeping, bearing the seed for sowing, shall come home with shouts of joy, carrying their sheaves” ( Psalm 126:5-6 ). As we gather to celebrate this message of Joy, we hear the words of Paul to the church at Thessalonika. If you want to get a sense of what the church looked like in its earliest days, this letter to a Macedonian church is a good place to go, since this is believed to be the oldest part of the New Testament. What we have read are Paul’s final exhortations and benediction. There’s a flurry of information here that can overwhelm the reader and leave the preacher puzzled as to how to deal with it. Fortun...

1 John 4:7-12 When I was in high school, we often sang a song in Bible study that drew from the Song of Solomon.  It went like this: I am my beloved’s, and he is mine. His banner over me is Love.  ( Song of Songs 6:3; 2:4 ) Who is the beloved whose banner over me is love? If you read the Song of Solomon in a straightforward way, you’ll discover that this is a most explicit love song. But, down through the ages, Christians have read this song allegorically to describe Christ’s relationship with the church. Christ is the Beloved, and those over whom the banner of love flies belongs to him.      In one of the weddings at which I officiated, the Scripture text was taken from the Song of Solomon. Among the words shared that day were these: Set me as a seal upon your heart, as a seal upon your arm; for love is strong as death, passion fierce as the grave.  Its flashes are flashes of fire, a raging flame. Many waters cannot quench love, n...

Hebrews 12:18-29 I’m a survivor. Yes, I’ve survived several earthquakes, although none of them have been massive. The largest quake we ever experienced was the Northridge Quake in 1994, but it was centered miles away from our apartment in Rancho Cucamonga. That quake started with a jolt and then a rumble. The moment it struck I didn’t know its intensity or its epicenter, but I knew it wasn’t a train going by the complex. So I jumped out of bed, grabbed Brett, and headed for the door jam. The quake didn't last long, just a mater of seconds, but it rattled my nerves, and it was a while before we got back to sleep. We later learned that it was a 6.7 earthquake that, wreaked havoc on the Los Angeles basin. It led to the deaths of 17 people, injured scores more, and took down important freeway overpasses and numerous buildings in the San Fernando Valley. When I got to work at the library in Pasadena, which was much closer to the epicenter, I discovered I had a mess to clean up – inclu...