Sermons

In need of some inspiration or motivation? Read or watch a sermon by Pastor Kubke!

Ash Wednesday, 2010 "Tears"

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.

Midweek Sermon: March 3 "Hands"

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!