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Mother of God

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Luke 2: 1-20

Christmas Eve, 2013

 

Mary, the mother of Jesus, was a young girl betrothed to Joseph when she found herself to be pregnant. For some reason—apparently a heavenly one—Joseph chose to marry her despite this apparent pre-marital slip-up. Jesus was her first child. It appears that she bore at least three more boys, and possibly a daughter. She helped raise one older boy, James, who was likely Joseph’s son from a previous marriage. Three other sons are identified: Joseph, Judas, and Simon (Matthew 13: 55). Certainly James was a disciple of Jesus—though not one of the Twelve apostles–and possibly Simon and Judas as well.Read More »Mother of God

Joseph, Jesus’ Father ‘According to the Flesh’

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Matthew 1: 18-25

Romans 1: 1-7

“… In Matthew, Joseph plays an important role…. His ‘doing what was right’ can hardly mean his ‘fidelity to the Law’ but his compassion… The one has come in whom God in person dwells among mortals (Immanuel) and who thus will be the salvation of his people (Jesus). The importance of Jesus’ subsequent life, not his birth, is the reason for placing such stress on the obedience of Joseph, who, in the light of God’s great promise, can give up his previous moral principles to fulfill God’s command literally.” The Good News According to Matthew, Eduard Schweizer.

We know Joseph, the husband of Mary, is Jesus’ father “according to the flesh,”  as Paul puts it in our reading from Romans.This is important because it is through Joseph that Jesus is established as being a descendant of David, “according to the flesh.” Of course, “according to the Spirit,” God is Jesus’ father. But we know Joseph from the stories of the birth of Jesus. The last appearance he makes in Scripture is in Luke, when 12-year-old Jesus disappears while they are on a trip to Jerusalem. His parents search for him frantically and find that he is at the Temple, teaching the elders, who are amazed at his wisdom. We don’t have any more stories about Joseph after that. Scholars generally assume Joseph dies while Jesus is still quite young.Read More »Joseph, Jesus’ Father ‘According to the Flesh’

OBSERVATIONS ON THE GIFT OF THE MAGI, By Dr. Rev. Warner Bailey

The brave face of youthful pride.  Example, the calling card with the complete name.  The incongruity of this placement.

The abandonment of youthful love.  Jim and Della.  How many of us started out in similar circumstances?

The adoration of Della for Jim and her consuming desire to find a Christmas gift that adequately conveyed her adoration of him.  And by the end of the story we discover that Jim adores Stella just as much and is driven by a similar desire to find a gift which measures up to this adoration.Read More »OBSERVATIONS ON THE GIFT OF THE MAGI, By Dr. Rev. Warner Bailey

DECISION, Sermon by Dr. Rev. Warner Bailey

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Isaiah 35.1-10   Luke 1.68-79   Matthew 11.2-11   James 5.7-10

December 15, 2013

Following Jesus is not a casual pastime.  You have to plan.  You have to decide.  You have to make an effort.  You have to put your skin in the game.  In the words of Jesus, you have to go out.

Speaking to the crowds about John the Baptist, Jesus put to them the question:  Why did you go out in the wilderness to see him?  What made you take the effort, spend the money, use up your time, and say No to many other options so you could go out to see John the Baptist? Read More »DECISION, Sermon by Dr. Rev. Warner Bailey

Celtic Christ

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World Communion: Encircling Christ

By Rev. Dr. Fritz Ritsch

October 6, 2013

“Lest anyone, then, be excluded from access to happiness, God not only sowed in human minds that seed of religion of which we have spoken but revealed Himself and daily discloses Himself in the whole workmanship of the universe. As a consequence, people cannot open their eyes without being compelled to see him.” John Calvin, Institutes of Faith, I. V. i.

 Philip Newell writes that his infant son Cameron liked to take his midday nap in his carriage in the wooded backyard of their home in England. “One day, toward the end of Cameron’s nap when I thought he would soon be waking, I went out to the yard. There he was, lying on his back in the carriage, fully awake but perfectly still. He was looking at the light dappling through the leaves of a fig tree. I paused to watch him. After a while, he lifted his arms to the light in a type of response. I was witnessing a communion with the Glory that dapples through creation. As I stood watching Cameron, I remembered, perhaps the earliest memory of my life, doing exactly the same thing as an infant, lying under a tree watching light dapple.” [1]

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The Virtues: Generosity

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Psalm 150

II Corinthians 9: 4-15

 

Juanita Cowan was a child of one of the founding families of Broadway Presbyterian, our predecessor church. she was aunt to Peggy Kennedy, great aunt to Katie Hinckley, and great great aunt of Katie and Greg’s three daughters, Trinity, Emory, and Addison. Ms. Cowan was a child when the Great Southside Fire of 1909 burned down Broadway’s original building, across from the site that is now Broadway Baptist Church. Ms. Cowan wrote the history of St. Stephen, and she wrote of being a young child when the rebuilt Broadway Presbyterian Church was completed. “On January 1, 1911, the congregation gathered at the tabernacle and marched to the new building singing ‘Onward Christian Soldiers,” she wrote. “The new building was of beautiful red brick… The sanctuary in brown tones inspired reverence, especially in a small child; even when there was no service going on, I felt I should whisper.”Read More »The Virtues: Generosity

The Virtues: Courage

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Joshua 1: 1-9

Hebrews 13: 1-8, 15-16

God’s people stand on the border of The Promised Land. They’ve wandered the desert forty years, and over that time they’ve been led by Moses. But now Moses is dead, and Joshua, son of Nun, is in charge. Joshua is no stranger to physical courage. He’s a warrior; he was one of the twelve spies sent to investigate Canaan when they first came upon it.

But in our passage, God is calling Joshua to a different kind of courage.

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The Virtues: Hope

The Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind, a powerful image of suffering prayer.
The Lord answers Job out of the whirlwind, a powerful image of suffering prayer.

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Romans 8: 18-25

The difference between hope and faith is not always clear. It comes down to this: Hope is in the future, faith is in the here and now. Hope is what we long for, what we pursue, what we dream of, but don’t have yet. As Paul says in Romans, “Hope that is seen is not hope.” Faith, on the other hand, is how we make hope visible in the here and now; it is how we put that hope into action. As Hebrews says, “Faith is the substance of what we hope for; it is the evidence of things unseen.” Faith makes our hope concrete in our lives. But our hope is the thing we’re really after. The Olympic athlete longs for the gold medal; when that hope pushes her to train harder and better, it has turned into faith.Read More »The Virtues: Hope

The Virtues: Temperance

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Psalm 107: 1-9

I Corinthians 9: 19-27

Luke 12: 13-21

“Temperance… now usually means teetotalism. But in the days when the Second Cardinal Virtue was christened ‘temperance,’ it meant nothing of the sort. Temperance referred not specially to drink, but to all pleasures; and it meant not abstaining, but going the right length and no further.” —C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Book 3, Chapter 2.

 

Jesus says of the rich fool, “this is how it will be with whoever stores up things for themselves but is not rich toward God.” That could be a description of the self-indulgent man, as Aristotle describes him in his Nicomachean EthicsRead More »The Virtues: Temperance