Sermons

Joy. Joy! Joy? Joy. One of the more beloved songs to sing in Advent and Christmas is, “Joy to the world.” Many of us have great memories of singing it as children, perhaps as carolers, definitely in larger groups at church or carol sing-a-longs. But do we actually believe it? Do the church and the people ...

How are memory and peace connected? I suppose an equally useful question is, Are they connected? I think they are. I think they are connected in a particular way. I don’t know anyone who is opposed to the notion of peace. In fact, I know many people who are completely in favour of peace. It comes ...

One of the best things about following the church, or liturgical, year is getting more than one first day of the new year. The church year begins with the first Sunday of Advent, which as I type is today . . . Happy New Year! Many people use the first day of the year to look ...

I would like to begin by saying I am very grateful to the church leadership for the opportunity to take the past four Sundays off. The break was much needed and very appreciated. Thank you! The last Sunday of the Liturgical year is called Christ the King Sunday or the Reign of Christ Sunday. As I was ...

If we have a High Priest why does the picture to the left have a red X through it? Have I lost my mind? No I haven’t but of course I’d say that regardless. What the picture with the X is trying to communicate ...

What would anyone need with a high priest? In the Judeo-Christian tradition, there has been no need for a high priest since the destruction of the temple in Jerusalem. Various Christian groups have hierarchies of one sort or another but I’m drawing a blank on one with a formal high priest. This Sunday the Hebrews text ...

We don’t talk about angels very much, and I’m afraid I’m not going to talk about them a lot this Sunday, but they will come up. The book of Hebrews is a very interesting book, we don’t even know for certain who wrote it. Nonetheless, it is well worth the time we might put in to ...

We all know we are supposed to share.* We even do it at least now and then but today is Presbyterians Sharing Sunday for the Presbyterian Church in Canada so it is worth taking a closer look at what this might mean. Presbyterians Sharing is the name of the combined efforts of Presbyterians all across Canada ...

Wisdom. This is another word, from a quite short list of religiously significant words, that hasn’t been debased or redefined into uselessness. Wisdom still means something to almost everyone even if it is hard to define. It is a word with generally positive connotations and something virtually everyone wants. We want political and other leaders to ...

Sometimes we think “if only I had enough self-control I wouldn’t say anything dumb or hurtful.” It is a really good thing to not want to be hurtful and it’s not a bad idea to try not to say dumb things but there’s only one problem; this seems to be beyond us. I don’t want to ...