Know Tea

I had a sermon prepared for today, the Second Sunday after Epiphany.  It was all about Jesus turning the water into wine, and about the New Wine that God promises us in the Bible.  I think it was an interesting, entertaining, and compelling sermon.  I hope it was.
That was before the earthquake.  Before you and [...]

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What is Christmas?  You may think you know the answer already, and maybe you do.  After all, you’re here, right?  Preaching on Christmas Eve can be the proverbial preaching to the choir.  But we are creatures of our time and of our culture, no matter how hard we try not to be.  Because of this, [...]

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I ended my first on this topic with this thought:
This is the shape of the Church Calendar that has been in place since the Fourth Century.  It not only predates the Reformation of the 16th Century, but it even predates the Great Schism (between East and West) of 1054 by almost 600 years!  So this [...]

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The last post gave some background on the origins of the Church Year and why Christians have celebrated the seasons of the Church Year since at least the Fourth Century AD.  In short, observing the seasons and rhythms of the Church Year gives believers a sacred sense of time:  a way to celebrate God’s mighty [...]

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This post is mainly for the great group of talented musicians we have at our church now, but if the rest of you want to listen in, that’s fine.
Being a liturgical church in a mostly non-liturgical part of the country, visitors usually run into some things that require explanation.  On the most basic level, there [...]

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The name “Good Friday” seems odd to some, but not when we remember that the words “God” and “good” are related to one another in all the Germanic languages (of which English is one):  God is good.  God is the source of all goodness.  God defines and is himself the very definition of goodness.  Thus, [...]

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Tomorrow is the Eighth Day of Christmas, a.k.a. the Holy Name of Jesus (it was on the eighth day that Jesus was circumcised, and the Bible tells us that it was at his circumcision that he was given the Name of Jesus).  On the civil calendar it is also New Year’s Day.  No matter which [...]

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Brief note here.  Getting ready for church, which prompted this thought:
So many people tell us every year to “keep Christ in Christmas.”  How about keeping the “mas” in Christmas?
“Christmas” is “Christ’s Mass.”  Christ’s Eucharist.  Christ’s Holy Communion Service.  Christ’s Lord’s Supper Service.  Whatever the terminology of your particular tradition may be, the Communion Service in [...]

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A friend E-mailed me today to let me know that this little ol’ blog was mentioned in passing in this month’s issue of the Confessional Presbyterian journal, an extremely conservative publication.
In said journal, a Mr. Frank J. Smith makes this comment about me and about this blog:
“It might be worth noting that one of the [...]

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It’s amazing to me how most of the Christian life boils down to the Golden Rule:
“So whatever you wish that others would do to you, do also to them, for this is the Law and the Prophets.”  (Matthew 7:12, ESV)
I was struck by this when we were studying Zahl’s Grace in Practice.  I was struck [...]

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