Sermon Archives

April 3, 2016

Come, Lord Jesus!

Six years ago Tyndale House, an evangelical Christian publisher, released a book called The Boy Who Came Back from Heaven: A Remarkable Account of Miracles, Angels, and Life Beyond this World. This book begins with the story of how six-year-old Alex Malarkey, and his father, Kevin Malarkey, were involved in a traffic accident. The accident […]

March 27, 2016

A Table Full of Love

There is a lot of mystery that surrounds the resurrection. No one knows how it happened—there were no witnesses to the actual resurrection. It took place in the dark of a tomb. And in this last chapter of John, the mystery of resurrection, love and forgiveness continues. There is mystery too, that surrounds this last […]

March 20, 2016

Desire and Resistance

A regrettable part of Christianity is the deplorable way we Christians have sometimes treated Jews. Even we in the Anabaptist tradition have been guilty of a certain amount of anti-Semitism. For instance, a few years before he turned Anabaptist, Balthasar Hubmaier preached vigorously against Jews in the city of Regensburg where he was then living. […]

March 13, 2016

The Smell of Love

She couldn’t get the smell of death out of her nostrils. It seemed to cling to her—her clothes, her hair, her skin. It didn’t matter where she went, or how many times she had bathed, the smell went with her. It didn’t matter that Lazarus was now alive and eating with their friends; he had […]

March 6, 2016

Two Lost Sons

Most of my life I’ve assumed that this parable is about repentance and forgiveness. People get to the theme of repentance and forgiveness partly by focusing on the younger son, often called the prodigal son. People also get to this interpretation from verses 18 and 19. In those verses the starving younger son decides to […]

February 28, 2016

Clinging to God in the Wilderness

The sun beats down. The fatigue sets in.  The food stores are depleted, and there hasn’t been fresh water for days. The wind howls, as do the jackals that have been trailing at a distance – better them than the king’s army looking for your blood. And the doubt sets in: you know that everything […]

February 21, 2016

Do Not Fear

When the promise is first given, it comes with a call for Abram to step out in faith, to follow God’s call to an unknown land and an unknown future: “Go from your country and your kindred and your father’s house to the land that I will show you. I will make of you a […]

February 14, 2016

Surviving the Desert

If you search the Internet for “desert survival stories,” you’ll find lots of heart-warming stories about people who get rescued from danger in the desert. For example, the story of a woman named Victoria Grover appears on many websites. In 2012 Victoria, then 59 years old, was hiking in the high desert of Utah. Her […]

January 31, 2016

When Your Mission Is Rejected

In the late 1870s, a young man named Vincent van Gogh decided to become a minister in the Dutch Reformed church. At first glance his decision to become a minister made a lot of sense, because his father and several uncles were ministers, which more or less made ministry the family business. Moreover Vincent was […]

January 24, 2016

Do not Fear; only Believe

In what feels like another lifetime, I preached on the story of the hemorrhaging woman. Looking back on what I recall of what I said, I’ve done my share of cringing. I was a summer student pastor, having finished one year of seminary. In a moment of compassionate insight this week for my younger self, […]

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