A Centurion’s Response – Good Friday Sermon, April 22, 2011
“A Centurion’s Response”
Luke 23:44-56
This week we’ve been hearing about the various people around Jesus. We’ve looked at the religious leaders, the Pharisees and the Sadducees and what Rev. Peter reminded us was an explosive situation. We’ve looked at Judas and were reminded by Pastor Rick about how his heart was hardened and never really open to the amazing love and grace being offered by Jesus. We’ve looked at Peter with Father Thomas, and were invited to look through Peter’s eyes how he rejected Jesus and was strengthened and changed by the experience, allowing him to become the leader he would be for the new church. Yesterday, Marion looked at Pontius Pilate and the pickle he found himself in, where he had to choose between doing the right thing, and saving his own job. And we know the choice he made.
Today, our focus is on the cross. But we’ve also heard of some more who were following Jesus on this day. We heard from Pilate’s wife. We heard of Simon of Cyrene called into action to help carry the cross. We heard of the daughters of Jerusalem, the women who were following Jesus down the street wailing and weeping. At the foot of the cross, Jesus spoke to his mother, who was accompanied by Mary, wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene, and the disciple whom he loved. Finally we heard the words of the Roman Centurion who was active in the death of our Lord. Each of these characters had small roles in the events we remember here today, yet look at their responses.
Each of them were not disciples of Jesus, yet here they are in the stories. In some cases they are witnesses who are pulled into the story, such as Simon of Cyrene. Yet all of them are bearing witness to the divinity of Jesus Christ by submitting and, in their own ways, proclaiming who he is. read more…
Who Is This Guy? – Palm Sunday Sermon, April 17, 2011
“Who Is This Guy?”
Matthew 21:1-11
Today is a day of celebration! Jesus has returned to Jerusalem! As he rides by on the donkey, people are dropping branches and coats on the ground, spreading them across the road as he passes. People are walking ahead of Jesus, and they are calling out, “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest heaven!” This is truly a great celebration.
But why? Why the sudden, spontaneous celebration? Why is this day different than any other day? Why this grand parade? read more…
For the young people
I know I haven’t been posting much besides political updates, and there’s a reason for that. First, I haven’t had a scripted sermon for a couple of weeks now, taking a Bible study approach to our readings lately. Second, I was away last week, and didn’t have to preach today. This week I should be getting back into the groove as far as posting something useful! 🙂
But, I need to post another election issue. This time it deals with the youth of our community.
My wife was at a meeting last week at the school where a report was delivered from school tests from two years ago. Two years ago the grade primaries were tested nationally, and the report has come in.
In this town (with two elementary schools) 45% of grade primary students were in the bottom 10% of the entire country. This means they didn’t possess simple skills like being able to hold a pencil.
So, I now add to my list of questions for local politicians what are they going to do to address this critical issue in our schools and for preschoolers who are starting off their education already behind the rest of the country?
I have yet to get a response to any of the questions found here, yet. They have been sent these posts, and they will be asked point blank should any of the candidates bother to canvas on my street.
Mark, Kathy, Cecil? Here’s looking to you. You want my vote? Start giving some answers to some critical issues for this town.
Next up, I will start to look at political platforms as to how they address these issues, now that all parties have revealed their platforms.
From Where I Sit…
Earlier this week, I posted about what some of the needs of my community are in regards to the upcoming election. At the end of the article, I mentioned I would be mentioning my own personal issues, and here they are.
1. Help for small businesses. There has been a big expectation that big business can save us. I believe in quite the opposite. It is the small business owners who really drive our economy help build community in our communities. These people need better support and flexibility so they can hire local workers and weather various peaks and valleys in the economy.
2. Clean energy. As I sit here in my coal powered house (all local power comes from goal burning power plants), I can’t help but wonder when the country is going to embrace the huge abundance of green energy we have all around us. There’s no reason we shouldn’t be taking advantage of wind, solar and tidal energy. People complain about the noise if windmills? Have you ever parked next to a coal plant and listened to the noise from one of those? They just reclaimed old mining grounds in our town, and now there is a huge empty field where the wind blows off the water constantly, why are there no wind turbines capturing this and supplying our town with energy? Why has there been no attempt to take advantage of the geothermal potential with the miles and miles of abandoned mines which stretch out all around us? It’s time to step out and take bold new steps in terms of energy production. Our planet demands it!
3. Investing in sustainable projects. I’m not going to be very popular with this point. It is expected that later today our Prime Minister will make an announcement in regards to the Lower Churchill Energy Project. This has a lot of potential, no doubt. But what I hear politicians saying is it will create thousands of jobs in the local economy here in Cape Breton. This makes no sense to me. The cable will run by here on it’s way to everywhere else, how will this create thousands of jobs. It may create some local construction jobs, but I believe the “thousands” is very exaggerated. Yes, the project is a good idea, let’s not make it into something it can’t be.
The other huge project being considered around here is to dredge Sydney harbour to allow for development of a large shipping yard. Why don’t we just pour the $38 million into the harbour and watch it wash away? This project makes no sense to me at all. Halifax, with 2 shipping terminals and an extensive transportation system, runs no where near full capacity. But we’re more than happy to throw good money at a hopeless project, then even more to upgrade our highways and railway for the potential transportation requirements that won’t be needed because the port won’t be utilized. I’m sorry, but this project is being set up as a grand saviour for the Cape Breton economy, in the end we’ll see it was not. You want to help the local economy? See point #1 above.
These are my own personal thoughts around this election and some issues I would like to see addressed on top of what I have already identified in my post earlier this week. Next week I hope to start looking at the policies of the various parties and pitting them against what I have identified in these two posts.
Stay tuned!
Warming Up For An Election
Here in Canada, in case you haven’t heard, we are in full election campaign season.
So far there’s been a lot of yelling back and forth about what so-and-so is going to do if we vote him into power. Personally, I don’t have a care in the world about this kind of hate, propaganda, attacking style of campaign. What I want to hear is how the parties are going to address the issues I care about.
Today I’m going to address some of the issues I see as important to my own community.
I live in an economically depressed region of the country. We have extremely high unemployment (some estimates are better than 50%), huge dependency on welfare, and drug (and thus crime) problems. read more…