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Who Is Jesus? Advent 2019

Dec 2019

Sermons in this series

Dancing the Song of Mary

Date: Sunday, December 22, 2019 Teacher: Rev. David L.S. Robertson Duration: 10 mins 16 secs

Passage: Luke 1:47-55

Series Who Is Jesus? Advent 2019

Description: Maybe I’m nostalgic. Maybe I’m a little bit melancholy. Maybe that’s part and parcel of this season of Advent and Christmas when we find ourselves perhaps a little more attentive to the wider mysteries and promises of the Biblical texts. In fact, I think the nostalgia and melancholy are rooted in the reflective questions that surface during this season. For me this week, I have been thinking about what are God’s intentions for God’s people? And by extension, what does it mean for me and us to be a people of God? I believe that Advent and Christmas are remarkable times in the Christian year that like the winter sun are intentionally in our eyes, seeking our attention, yearning to stir us deeply and place us in touch with the incarnate love of God in Jesus Christ so that we arrive at a deeper understanding of who we are as a people of faith. I think that in the midst of our grief, the stresses we face, the disturbing and disrupting nature of our political world, and the prevailing weakening of a social matrix where care of neighbour is disappearing, it can all feel disconcerting and even overwhelming. Sometimes I feel God is dismissed outrightly as something quaint or even irrelevant. The net result is a fundamental slippage in accountability to something greater than ourselves. This is a problem. And yet, the winter sun gets in our eyes. The Biblical texts spark us to yearn for lasting wisdom and once again our faces are turned into the mystery of our faith at Christmas. We have a renewed awareness of God’s power at work that can do more than we can ask or ever imagine.

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Jesus - Our Anchor of Hope, Our Morning Star

Date: Sunday, December 15, 2019 Teacher: Rev. Susan Lukey Duration: 16 mins 14 secs

Passage: 2 Peter 1:12-19

Series Who Is Jesus? Advent 2019

Description: Who is Jesus for you? Who is Jesus in our faith? These may seem like obvious questions, but the answers, when we pause to reflect, take us deeper into our Christian faith and into the practice of that faith. In this Advent season of waiting once again to celebrate the arrival of God’s beloved son, we prepare our hearts by asking the question of ourselves and of each other – Who is Jesus? The image we are offered this week in scripture and through the Advent candle lighting ceremony is that of Jesus as the Morning Star. But what exactly does that mean? The image of Jesus as the morning star comes from the 2nd Letter of Peter. It is also used in the book of Revelation. Jesus is our morning star. In 2nd Peter, we are invited to anticipate the dawning of a new day when the morning star rises in our hearts. We know that moment, don’t we? As prairie people, with the wonderfully broad eastern sky, we have watched and waited for the sunrise, ready to welcome a new day. It is those moments just before the sunrise which are so magical and mystical. The sky has that special colour – more blue than black – as the light of the sun begins to warm the sky long before it breaks the horizon. The stars shimmer – and there is that one star, the morning star, that is especially bright. Actually, the morning star is the planet Venus – a mere 330 million kilometres from us, much closer than any of the nearest stars. It is Venus that announces the dawn and welcomes the sun, sparkling brightly as we watch and wait for the sun to return to us in its orbit, warming the earth and brightening our homes. It is such a powerful image - the morning star. We all have those times in our lives when we wait for the dawn, times when life is shadowed, depressing and filled with gloom. Grief, depression, tragedy, loss of a job, divorce, the economy, loss of good health or mobility – there are many circumstances that leave us unable to see what is good in life, what is joyful. It can feel as if a shadow has descended over us, and it is hard to believe that there will be hope and love and joy ever again in our lives.

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Who is Jesus? A Wise and Compassionate Teacher

Date: Sunday, December 01, 2019 Teacher: Rev. Susan Lukey Duration: 12 mins 33 secs

Passage: Isaiah 2:1-5 & Matthew 13:54-58

Series Who Is Jesus? Advent 2019

Description: Who do you say Jesus is? What names and words to describe Jesus come immediately to mind? Once, Jesus confronted his disciples with that question, “Who do you say that I am?” If he were to stand before you today, and ask that question, what would be your response? Many names have been used to describe and name Jesus through the last two thousand years since his birth. Some of these may have been the words that came into your mind when I asked the question. Lord, Saviour, Messiah, Christ, Healer, Teacher, Rabbi, Friend, Shepherd, Light of the World, Son of God, Word of God, Emmanuel. For some of us, Jesus may be very real as a spiritual presence, a loving presence we have felt near to us, encouraging, challenging and caring. For others of us, Jesus may be more of a historical figure, a wise rabbi who lived two thousand years ago, whose words and actions stirred people to live compassionate and courageous lives. Some of us have the gift of feeling Jesus’ presence; some of us have the gift of being Jesus’ presence for others. We all have different perspectives, understandings and experiences of the one called Jesus – Yeshua, in his own language. We each will have our own response to “Who do you say Jesus is?”

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