Category: Lent
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“I will lift my eyes” – a Facebook Live sermon, based on Psalm 121, preached for The First United Methodist Church of Orlando, on March 29, 2020
Last Sunday morning, before worship, a First Church friend sent me a beautiful YouTube video of the University of British Columbia Choir, singing a choral arrangement of Psalm 121, called “I will lift my eyes,” that literally moved me to tears.
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Anticipated Restoration
I find remarkable comfort and encouragement in these stories from Holy Week. If Jesus couldn’t find twelve better disciples than these, then maybe there’s hope for me and my ministry. If Jesus, knowing the disciples would fall short when he needed them, still planned to forgive and restore them afterward,…
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Lent, Yoga etiquette, and other opportunities for growth…
If we could just accept that everyone is doing the best they can – given their maturity, morality, manners, etc. – perhaps we would have more reasonable expectations and be a bit slower to judge.
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Post-Easter Pondering
On this Monday after Easter, I thought it might be useful to reflect on what this Lent has meant to me; specifically, what I’ve learned from the discipline of daily blogging.
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Darkness covered the land… (A Good Friday Sermon)
I wonder when the sun shined again. Did the sun return that day, after Jesus was taken down from his cross, or did the darkness remain, as afternoon passed into the night? Was it dark, when they laid Jesus in his tomb? Did the sun rise with the dawn on…
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Offended by Jesus…
If we follow Jesus because it’s logical, or reasonable, or easy, we aren’t really following Jesus. If we aren’t offended by Jesus, even as we follow him, then we might not be paying attention to what he has said.
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Preparing for Easter
If you don’t preach, you might be surprised to learn that writing sermons for Easter and Christmas Eve are very difficult. Why? Everybody already knows the stories. Even if you’ve never walked into a church before, Easter and Christmas are still likely to be stories you have some degree of…
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The Spiritual Advantages of Tending vs. Recharging (Warning: technically speaking, this might be utter nonsense. But, hopefully you’ll get the point)
What would my spiritual life be like if it was regularly connected to a spiritual tender, that kept me connected to my power “Source,” all of the time?
vancerains.com 