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Ash Wednesday, 2010 "Tears" |
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Luke 19:41-42 Ash Wednesday February 17, 2010 Tears A sermon by the Rev Roland Kubke
My mother has a physical problem with her tear ducts. When it is very cold outside, her eyes tear up terribly. It gets even worse when she is in a warm, dry room after having been outside in the cold. The tears simply flow without stopping. The conditions were exactly right for the worst kind of tearing one day, when she went to a government office in order to resolve some issue relating to her pension. She dried tears the entire time she was in the line up and she was still tearing quite badly when she finally got to talk to someone. It turned out that she was in the wrong building. The person behind the desk had noticed her in the queue, and thought she was crying. She took pity on my mother and phoned ahead so that when my mother arrived at the right building, she was ushered directly into an office without having to wait in line again. My mother had tried to tell the person that she wasn’t crying, but that made the official pity her even more. In the end, my mother got the issue with her pension resolved very quickly. When all was said and done, my mother was left marvelling over the power of tears. Tears are not like the other things that we associate with our bodies. Most other things we simply recognize as being necessary. Tears, too, are very necessary for physical reasons, helping to keep our eyes healthy. Yet, we usually don’t think of tears as windshield washing fluid for the body. Instead, most of the time, most people associate tears with emotion. Of course tears don’t represent just any kind of emotion. Even when someone cries in anger, there is something very vulnerable about tears. Tears say that you are being overwhelmed by something. They say that you are experiencing love or disappointment or embarrassment or joy, or fear or pride to a very great degree – so strong that you can’t control your emotions. Whatever it is you are saying or doing, if you are doing it with eyes filled with tears, you are saying that you really mean it. This Lent, in our midweek Lenten services, we will using the human body to provide pictures that help us apply God’s Word to our situation in life. We will have the opportunity to see how God was able to use the human body of Jesus in order to rescue us from the tragedy of sin and disobedience. Jesus did not save us with the might of God alone; He also saved us through meekness and vulnerability and humility. He saved us when God brought the power of His Spirit into union with a human body out of compassion for those who were lost! In Jesus, we see a unique combination of strength and weakness and we see that in the tears of Jesus. |
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Midweek Sermon: March 3 "Hands" |
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Wednesday, March 3, 2010 “Hands” A sermon by the Rev Roland Kubke
139:10 “Even there Your hand will guide me. Your right hand will hold me fast.”
How well do you know the hands of the people that you love the most? It could be that someone has something unusual or interesting on their hands, like a scar, or like fingers bent with arthritis, or fingers missing. In that case, you would be able to describe their hands quite readily. Then again, you may never really have paid much attention the hands of the people who are nearest to you and you don’t know too much about them. Give it some thought, though, and you would likely be surprised to discover that you would be far better at recognizing the hands of the people you love than you might think. You see, next to your face, your hands are the part of you that most other people see the most often. Other people see your hands quite a lot when you eat meals together around the table, or share a bowl of popcorn in front of the TV. You shake hands and hold hands and write exams with your hands, wave with your hands and hold up hymn books with your hands, all in full view of other people. You declare your marital status or display wealth by the rings that you have on your hands, which attract attention to your hands. You show your age and you show the kind of work you do by the condition of your hands. You may think of hands simply as that part of the body you need most to get things done. There is much more to your hands than that. They are actually second importance only to your face when it comes to communicating things and expressing yourself and letting others know who you are. This Lent, we are using the human body as a picture to help us to understand the meaning of our Lord’s sacrifice for our sins. Jesus took on a human body to use that body to bring God’s Word to us and then to win our salvation for us. He had a human body so that He could sacrifice that body and then win our own bodies and souls over to God for all eternity. He had a human body so that He could hold out His hands over us and use His hands to bless us. Today we are looking at how hands fit into God’s plan, and we thank God that His hands not only guides us, but His right hand holds us fast! |
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Midweek Sermon: February 24, 2010, "Hearts" |
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"A Sure Evidence" Midweek Lent 2 “Hearts” A sermon by the Rev Roland Kubke Ezekiel 36:24-28
There is a prairie bird that has an unusual behaviour pattern. When you walk through the prairie grasses and come too close to the nest hidden on the ground, the bird shoots up into the air and then drops back down again. It acts like it has been injured, holding its wing out to the side and fluttering around as if the wing were broken. It hops around just out of reach, enticing you to chase it or try to catch it. Then, when you are far enough from the nest, it simply flies away and circles around until you are out of sight. This behaviour works quite well if you play along with this bird's bluff. If you call the bluff, however, and go right to where the bird first flew up, you can find the nest every time. In fact, because of all the commotion the bird makes, the nests of this species are the easiest to find of all the ground nesting birds of the prairies. This prairie bird defends its nest and its young by deception, but that deception often gives away more than the bird intends. You can find a similar thing in the lives of some people who call themselves Christians. There are people who look like the very picture of devotion to God. They portray a great deal of confidence in how they live their religion. However, they do not really believe, and they hide their unbelief under an outward show of piety. They use their appearance of faith to deceive. They use their appearance of faith to deflect themselves and others from the truth that they don’t really trust in God at all. This year, our Lenten series is looking at the human body as a source of pictures that illustrate important truths in regard to our saving faith. This evening we are looking at the heart. The heart is a very interesting part of the human body. It pumps millions of times in a lifetime, and it just never takes a break. It is the only muscle that never tires out and never has to relax in order to keep going. Many people use the heart as a picture of love. You may be surprised to see that the Bible goes much deeper than that when using the heart as a picture of who we are. In a biblical sense, the heart is actually a picture of the soul. The status of your heart is actually a description of who you are as a person and it is a picture of your character. In the Bible, your heart is really about your genuineness. It is a picture of your integrity. We thank God that we are people who have received a new heart by God so that, through Christ, we are people of spiritual integrity! |
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Midweek Sermon: March 10, "Voice" |
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Lenten Midweek 3 Voices March 10, 2010 A sermon by the Rev Roland Kubke
Luke 23:23-25, Mark 15:33-35
Have you ever searched for a radio station and then come across a station that was broadcasting in another language? If you stayed on that station for a little bit, you may have been able to guess what language you were hearing. Then again, it may have been so foreign to your ears that you couldn’t even do that much. You knew you were listening to words, but, as far as you were concerned, you were only hearing sounds. You were hearing the sound of a voice or the sounds of voices together. You were hearing the tone of those voices, and you probably could tell if the people were angry or excited or nervous or calm or confident, but other than getting a sense of emotion out of those voices, you were doing nothing much more than hearing voices. So far in our Midweek Lenten series this year, we have looked at tears, hearts and hands and seen how these things related to our human body give us pictures to help us understand God’s plan for salvation. Today, we are looking at voices. Today we have the opportunity to see how God has equipped us not just to hear voices, but to respond to them with understanding. God has enabled us in faith, through the power of the Holy Spirit to hear the voice of our salvation! |
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