Church Year & Holy Days

I Am a Hypocrite

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“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! For you are like whitewashed tombs, which on the outside look beautiful, but inside they are full of the bones of the dead and of all kinds of filth. So you also on the outside look righteous to others, but inside you are full of hypocrisy and lawlessness.”
~ Matthew 23.27-28

I Am Terrified & Doubtful of What Happens When I Die

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Since the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death…. Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested.
~ Hebrews 2.14-18

Advent Prayers [Mon 12/11/17]

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Opening Prayer

Be pleased, O God, to deliver me.
O LORD, make haste to help me!
-from Psalm 70:1

-silence-

The Gloria

Glory be to God the Father,
God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit;
as it was in the beginning, so it is now,
and so it ever shall be, world without end.
Alleluia- Amen!
-the “Gloria Patri”

Scripture Reading

Isaiah 11:1-5
A shoot shall come out from the stump of Jesse,
and a branch shall grow out of his roots.

The spirit of the Lord shall rest on him,
the spirit of wisdom and understanding,
the spirit of counsel and might,
the spirit of knowledge and the fear of the Lord.

His delight shall be in the fear of the Lord.
He shall not judge by what his eyes see,
or decide by what his ears hear;
but with righteousness he shall judge the poor,
and decide with equity for the meek of the earth;
he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth,
and with the breath of his lips he shall kill the wicked.

Righteousness shall be the belt around his waist,
and faithfulness the belt around his loins.

-silence for reflection, meditation-

Prayer

-pray for yourself, your loved ones, friends, enemies, the church, and the world-

Prayer for the Week

God for whom we watch and wait,
you sent John the Baptist to prepare the way of your Son:
give us courage to speak the truth, to hunger for justice,
and to suffer for the cause of right,
with Jesus Christ our Lord-
Amen

[From the Liberti Church 2017 Advent + Christmas Prayerbook. Photo by Monica Ayers.]

Advent Reflection by Alyssa Mallgrave [Sun 12/10/17]

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A couple of months ago, I went camping alone, totally isolated somewhere in the middle of Pennsylvania. Dirt roads, no signal, completely in the dark. I thought it would be a cool spiritual experience – it was not. Instead of the perfect night’s sleep I had hoped for, I laid awake for hours. The sound of every falling leaf reminded me that I was alone, causing my imagination to devise ridiculous scenarios of what I assumed was an inevitable demise at the hands of a bear, a murderer, or some other unlikely adversary. I was terrified, and as soon as morning came, I scrambled back to civilization.

Scripture talks about the wilderness a lot, and this is how I picture it: alienated from society, totally vulnerable, and constantly on edge. But you don’t necessarily need to travel very far for this kind of experience. For some of us, the wilderness is right here in our city, our homes, and our everyday lives. And regardless of where we find it, we all know that this is a world that’s deeply broken and in need of redemption.

Long before Christ was born, God spoke words of comfort to the Israelites through the ancient prophet Isaiah, assuring them that a messiah would one day come to rule and to serve them in a glorified world, where valleys rise high and mountains bow low. But they’d need to get ready – in the wilderness, they’d need to prepare the way for this coming Lord. Continue reading →

Advent Reading [Sat 12/9/17]

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The extraordinary thing that is about to happen is matched only by the extraordinary moment just before it happens. Advent is the name of that moment. The Salvation Army Santa Claus clangs his bell. The sidewalks are so crowded you can hardly move. Exhaust fumes are the chief fragrance in the air, and everybody is as bundled up against all the fuss is really about as they are bundled up against the windchill factor. But if you concentrate just for an instant, far off in the deeps of you somewhere you can feel the beating of your heart. For all its madness and lostness, not to mention your own, you can hear the world itself holding its breath.

-Frederick Buechner, “Salvation Army Santa Claus Clangs His Bell”, from Goodness and Light: Readings for Advent & Christmas

[From the Liberti Church 2017 Advent + Christmas Prayerbook. Photo by Monica Ayers.]

Advent Reflection by Lauren Clausen [Sun 12/3/17]

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When I think about the Advent season this year, I feel a bit overwhelmed. Not only does it mean that there are Christmas presents to buy and wrap, parties to attend, cookies to bake and decorations to put up, but it means that the weather is turning, the light disappearing and the cold creeping in. As the days grow shorter my inclination is to turn inward, to hunker down in the coziness of home and use the chill as an excuse to stay in. And in the midst of this season—this combination of frenzied holiday preparations and cold that makes you want to just hibernate for a bit—we are supposed to spend time contemplating our sin, the darkness of the world, our need for the light of Christ. Sometimes it feels like a lot just to focus on all the trappings that come with Christmas, but we are called to more. We are called to Advent as a time of recognizing that we dwell in darkness until the arrival of the One who set things alight.

Thank goodness for Scripture, which gives word to the realities whose existence we sometimes find it easier to forget. This passage in Isaiah does just that, calling on God to “rend the heavens and come down” because “we have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a filthy cloth.” Come down, Lord, here where we are so sinful that even our good deeds are filthy. Come down here where we are selfish. Here where we ignore you, here where we’re mired in sin. Come down here where there is “no one who calls upon your name,” where were find it easier to pretend you don’t exist.
Continue reading →

These Days After Pentecost: On Law & Spirit

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In the Christian Church Calendar, we are currently in a season that is numbered according to the Holy Day of Pentecost, the day we celebrate the Holy Spirit falling on the apostles fifty days after Jesus’ death (hence the name Penta-cost).

Jesus had told the disciples to go out into the world ministering this Gospel to the world, but first, to wait. What would be so important as to put the brakes on the mission of God in the world?

The Holy Spirit.
Continue reading →

“The First Christian Sermon” [a sermon, ironically]

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Well, I’m finally coming off a whirlwind month of preaching three out of four weeks while our lead pastor is on vacation…and while I keep doing my full-time day job. So now, hopefully I’ll be able to post more here again. I do want to share with you these sermons though.

This summer, my church is going through different key texts in the book of Acts, chronicling the opening years of the Christian movement in the world. In the first of these sermons I’ve done during the past month, I got to preach on the Christian holiday of Trinity Sunday and my text was the very first Christian sermon ever preached–Peter’s Pentecost message. I tried to weave these together best I could.

The text is Acts 2.22-39, and here’s the sermon audio. Feel free to send me any thoughts, questions or concerns:

You can also download it here, or subscribe to our podcast. If reading is more your style, here are my notes for your perusal. Continue reading →