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Sermon: Maundy Thursday. Strong people cannot always be strong for you. |
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Holy Thursday April 1, 2010 John 13:15-16 “I have set an example that you should do as I have done for you.” A sermon by the Rev Roland Kubke
It seems that every office and every other workplace has at least one employee who does the work of two or three people. While everybody else watches the clock, this person does not leave until the most important work of the day is actually done. When others panic as soon as the routine is upset and some unexpected thing comes up, this person stays calm and always seems to know exactly what to say and exactly what to do. It doesn’t take long and both the managers and the employees start to ask for favour upon favour. They come to this person even with their personal problems and asking for personal advice. The become so dependant on this person always being there for them that they don’t even see how much they rely on that person. Finally, it gets to the point where this super-employee just can’t take it all anymore. The unfair workload gets to be too much, or family or personal concerns take away some of their ability to handle things, and they can’t be that strong person anymore. All they can be is like everyone else. How do the others respond? Do they cheerfully give back as they received and gladly take on some of the load to help their trusted rock and confidant? Sadly, human nature doesn’t work like that. Many people seem to lash out at the person whom they had hoped to rely on for all time. Many accuse that person of betraying them, or deceiving them or being a hypocrite for turning out to be human after all. Many respond with great anger and disappointment, pushing away the person who had been so unfailingly kind and compassionate, and then abandoning them when that normally strong person needs help the most. You see, there seems to be this idea that strong people must always be strong, and if at any time they prove not to be, then they have to be revealed for being a faked and treated accordingly. That, dear friends, explains our Gospel lesson for this evening. John said, “Jesus knew that the Father had put all things under His power, and that He came from God and was returning to God.” Jesus, the Strong One who could cast out demons and control storms and feed multitudes and stare down Satan himself by raising the dead, was going to change direction in the next few days. The time had come when the strongest, most stable, most unflappable, most dependable, most capable and most competent man who ever lived on this earth would set aside His strength. Jesus, who knows the human heart so well, knew exactly how the people who so much depended on Him would respond. He knew that they would lash out against Him, accuse Him of betraying Him and abandon Him. How did Jesus prepare His disciples so that they would not destroy themselves in their anger over seeing the weakness of Jesus? He pulled out a towel and He washed their feet. He said, “I have set an example that you should do as I have done for you.” Do you see what He was doing? The example He set was to look after the people who were looking after Him! Thank God that He gives us the faith by which we can look after the people we rely on the most, because only then both sides of the equation be blessed! |
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Good Friday Sermon: We all share responsibility for the problem of sin. |
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John 18:18-38 “Yes, it is Your Problem!” Good Friday April 3, 2010 A sermon by the Rev Roland Kubke
How do you go about sinking the greatest ship that money can buy? Ask the Captain of the Titanic, if you could. That infamous ship hurtled through the icy North Atlantic at what passed for breakneck speed in April, 1912. It neither slowed down nor changed its course, despite the fact that it was passing through one of the most dangerous and most familiar iceberg fields on the ocean. Why? Because the owners of the Titanic wanted to break a record for how quickly the Atlantic could be crossed. Was there danger involved in such a fast crossing? If you could have asked the ship’s owners, they would likely have answered that safety was not their problem; it was the Captain’s problem. If you were to have asked the ship’s navigator whose problem this was, he would likely have pointed to the Captain. Indeed, everyone working on board that ship would likely have said it was the Captain’s problem. The Captain is the Captain; it is his responsibility and his problem. Yet, if you were to ask the Captain himself, he likely would have pointed to the owners of the ship and said they gave the command; they invested in the ship’s unsinkable design; they were the ones who stood to gain money and fame for the ship’s speedy arrival in New York. He was doing it for them. It was their problem. It certainly was dangerous to rush across the North Atlantic in April, but the problem? If you had the chance to ask, you likely would have discovered that most people thought the problem belonged to someone else. This morning as we revisit the last hours of our Lord’s journey to the Cross, we will see what happens when people say, “That’s not my problem.” Thank God that Jesus never said that when He saw the problem of your own sin! Thank God that Jesus made your sin His problem so that your conscience could be won over for God! |
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Sermon: The One Stone of Easter marks the place of life, not of death! |
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Matthew 28:2 “One Single Stone” Easter Celebration Service A sermon by the Rev Roland Kubke April 4, 2010 An angel of the Lord came down from Heaven, and going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.
If you’ve ever been to the driest part of the Prairies, it doesn’t take much to notice that things are very different there. In those parts, there are very, very few trees. There aren’t even many shrubs. In fact, for large stretches of hundreds of square kilometres, all there is to see is gently rolling swells with very short grass and wildflowers and lichens and the occasional cactus hiding close to the ground. It’s not even a solid carpet of plants. Look closely, and you will notice that the plants are spaced apart with nothing but crusted dirt between them. With a landscape like that, nothing much changes. What is there stays there. You can still see the ruts that the wheels of the Red River carts and the horse drawn wagons made on the original wagon trails long before there were things like gravel roads or pavement. You can even see the teepee rings of simple rocks that were just big enough for a native woman to carry. Those stones still sit on the surface of the ground looking like they have just been placed, even though for hundreds of years many of them have been lying where they have been set down. Indeed, the only way you can even tell that they have been there that long is because they have a crust of orange red lichens growing on top of them. In Saskatchewan and Alberta, on the part of the Prairies that we call the Palliser Triangle, even a single stone announces that someone was here long ago. One single stone, with its scratches or its etchings, or its placement on the ground, or any other sign of human touch, can announce that someone once needed that stone to mark the place where a person has lived! In our Easter Sunrise Gospel this morning, Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome were about to do one of those most difficult things imaginable. They would have had many worries as they hurried to the tomb. Would they have enough supplies to properly anoint the dead body of Jesus so they wouldn’t have to go back for more when the last thing in the world they wanted to do is take this trip a second time? Would their hearts break beyond anything they could stand when they saw the dead face of our Lord? Along with all those unspoken concerns came the most obvious one of all: would they even be able to get to the Lord’s body? What lay between them and the Lord was one single stone, but that one stone was a very great obstacle indeed. The great surprise of Easter is that the stone was already rolled away when they got there. Mark tells us in our Gospel lesson, “An angel of the Lord came down from Heaven, and going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it.” That one single stone had been rolled away because God Himself had seen to it. It had been rolled away to mark where Jesus had lived! Does that one single stone still mark the place for you where Jesus has lived? By God’s grace, it certainly does so, so that you, too, may share in the joys of Easter! |
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Easter Sunrise: The picture of Easter has you in it! |
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Mark 16:1-8 Easter Sunrise A sermon by the Rev Roland Kubke April 4, 2010
Do you have one of those larger picture frames in your home that has a mat cut with different shapes so that you can put a number of different pictures into the frame? If you have one, you know that the idea is to select snapshots to tell some kind of story. It can be the story of the family. It can be the story of one single person. When you look at the completed project, you have a montage, a collection of pictures that say a great deal more about the people in them than one picture alone could say. That is what the Easter Gospel is like. All four of the Gospel writers share in the joy of telling what happened that first Easter morning. Each one of those Gospel writers have contributed different pictures to put into that glorious frame. It is a frame that is shaped like a cross, and the picture in the very centre of it, the picture around which all other pictures have been placed, is the wondrous sight of the open, empty tomb! That entire project comes together to tell a story, the story of joy that leads everyone who believes to say together, “Christ is risen! He is risen indeed! Hallelujah!” |
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