Presby-Musings

This week we are continuing the sermon series that we started last Sunday--a Sunday that happened to be the  Sunday of Sundays in the Christian calendar .  We celebrated Easter with style last week.  For the second year in a row we had over 800 people experience worship at First Church.   At our casual service, the Crossing we had 100 more people in the room than we did last year.  Everyone dressed up, wore hats and looked awesome.  Families came en masse, some of them even brought their wayward Uncle Larry, who never goes to church.  And now it's the Sunday after the Sunday.  Most of the snowbirds are gone.  Uncle Larry isn't here.  It's just us.   Easter is over.  Jesus is risen.  Now what?   This feeling that we have today is not unlike what the disciples of Jesus felt after his resurrection.  There was joy at first, then elation, then unbelievable purpose and then he left.  Jesus appeared ...

Later this month, my wife Merideth and I will be leading a group of over 35 people from several different churches on what will be our third trip to the Holy Land as a couple.  Honestly, I can’t wait to return to Israel .  It is a special place to me personally—a feeling I am sure that anyone who has been there shares with me. While we are on tour in Jerusalem , we will visit a first century tomb on a site that has come to be known as “The Garden Tomb .” Whether it is the actual site of the tomb of Christ, as opposed to the traditional site under the Church of the Holy Sepulcher is a matter of some debate. But what I do know for sure is that the tomb we’ll visit at the Garden Tomb site is empty.  So is the tomb under the Church of the Holy Sepulcher—it’s empty as can be.  And, for that matter, so is any other tomb that might be uncovered and thought to be the real tomb of Jesus . Because Jesus is risen, my brothers and sisters.  He is risen indeed. ...

This week we are going to be launching a brand new sermon series, a study on the New Testament book of James .  James has always been a challenging book. and wasn't actually included in the canon of the New Testament until at least the second century--even though many early Christian communities were reading and studying it. The great reformer Martin Luther couldn't stand James, and argued for it being excluded from the New Testament because of what he described as too much of an emphasis on works and not enough on grace. But when you read through the book of James--at least when you read through it with a Jesus tinged lens--you get a different picture of this complicated and almost in-your-face letter that was written nearly two thousand years ago to Christians who were facing hardship and persecution. Before we go any further, though, we need to answer the most obvious question that you might be ready to pose at this point: Who was James? James was called many...

Over the course of the last two weeks, we've explored the first two of what we call "The Five Things ," the core values of our church.  The Five Things are: Worship, Pray, Grow, Love and Serve. We've been working on a very basic premise throughout this entire series:  "We are made of what we value."  This isn't just a metaphor, as it turns out.  As we've learned, the tens of trillions of atoms that make us us are being exchanged with other things and other people at the rate of billions per second.  And this exchange of energy affects us in very real ways. Which explains why being surrounded by negativity, darkness, depravity, sadness and the like has a negative affect on our mood, our outlook and even our physical well-being. And it also explains why surrounding ourselves with beauty, truth, hope, peace and love has the exact opposite affect.  The Apostle Paul , who wrote half of the New Testament in the Bible once wrote about this very th...

This Sunday is Palm Sunday , the beginning of Holy Week .  At our church we'll be celebrating this special day by singing hymns and praise songs at the top of our lungs while children run around our church waving palm branches. Christians know how to party. The story that we essentially reenact every Palm Sunday is found in each of the Gospel accounts.  This week we'll be studying Matthew's version, which is found in Matthew 21:1 -11. Before we open up the text and start reading this story--a story that is often called "The Triumphal Entry" of Jesus into Jerusalem --I need to tell you about a "triumphal procession" that took place before this one. It was initiated by none other than Pontius Pilate himself--the Roman governor of the region.  At each of the major feast days in Jerusalem, Pilate would process with his soldiers from his headquarters at Caesarea Maritima on the coast, across the Judean wilderness and into Jerusalem. Pilate's...

This week I am continuing the sermon series that I've been working on with my church for the past several weeks--a sermon series entitled "One Way?"  Throughout this sermon series we've been discussing how followers of Jesus can demonstrate with their lives all the ways that Jesus is the way to God . We're doing something a bit differently this week.  I'm starting off by diving straight into the text.  As I teach, however, I want everyone to hold on this one big idea, which is going to loom large for us as we dig into the story: Jesus is the One Way to God that shows us what God is really like.   Let's get moving--we've got a lot of ground to cover. This is the story of how Jesus raised a man named Lazarus from the dead.  The story of Lazarus being raised from the dead only appears in the Gospel of John . In Luke's Gospel Jesus tells a parable about a rich man and a poor man named Lazarus, who die and go to opposite  places, if you kn...

When I was a youngster I wasn't exactly what you might call "easy on the eyes."  Not that I am now, mind you, but back then---things were pretty messed up.  There is a school photo I recall that stands out far more than any other.  I was perhaps twelve years old at the time. For some reason I was clad in a dress shirt, a sweater vest and a clip on tie that had the most garish decor could imagine silk screened on it.  My hair was sort of plastered to my head, my ears were sticking out and my enormous glasses sort of rounded out the ensemble perfectly. My eyes are crossed pretty severely in the photo on account of the fact they tend to do that because I am blind in one of them.  Sometimes, like in this photo, they cross more than others. To sum things up... I was looking good.  Here it is: When I think about that photo, I just want to reach into it and put my hand on twelve year old Leon's shoulders... and shake the living crap out of him. "Dude! ...