Sermons on Lent and Easter

Finding Life

This Sunday is Palm Sunday so we will be moving backwards in the Gospel of John to accommodate for that. As with so much of John, the Palm Sunday passage is pretty different in that what surrounds it is not Jesus turning over tables in the temple (that was in John 2) but the raising of Lazarus. We’ll dig into it all and how it all connects to one of John’s primary themes: Life! -Pastor Paul

Not These Sheep

This Sunday we’ll take a look at John’s account of when Jesus arrested. It, like so much of the Gospel of John, is rich with meaning and connections to other places in John’s Gospel and the Scriptures as a whole. -Pastor Paul

Be Human

This Sunday we keep plodding through the Gospel of John with the famous story of the resurrection of Jesus dear friend, Lazarus. This is a long and full story, rich in symbolism and the complexities of life, death, friendship, grief, anger, and love. In that sense, it is deeply, deeply human. We’ll see what bubbles out of it for us this week! -Pastor Paul

They Know His Voice

This Sunday we take a big leap in the narrative, moving all the way from John 4 to John 10! Furthermore, this Sunday is before Lent begins on Ash Wednesday. We once again will not have an Ash Wednesday service, as this Wednesday is a third Wednesday and therefore the night of our community meal, which we thought was more important and felt we could not effectively do both. So I will be addressing some Ash Wednesday/Lenten themes on Sunday…

More Idle Tales, Please

… Jesus was crucified because of the culmination of his work defending the defenseless, bringing in those who were cast out, declaring clean those who were labeled unclean, and in so doing, challenging the religious/political systems of the day, or as the powers that be usually interpret it, insurrection. But at his death a curious thing happens. Luke 23:47 says, “When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, ‘Certainly this man was innocent.’” Kind of a powerful…

The Stones Will Shout Out

I have long said that I believe that Palm Sunday may be the most misunderstood Sunday in the Christian Calendar (with Pentecost right on its tail!). Too often the story stops with the crowds waving palm branches and shouting “Hosanna” (neither of which exist in Luke’s Gospel, by the way!), and don’t get to the part of Jesus weeping over Jerusalem, and then shifting from grief to anger and driving the money changers out of the temple. It’s a wild…

Reimagining Evangelism

Hello, Beloved of PPUMC! I write today with great excitement. Do you know what yesterday was? It was the Twins Home Opener! One of my favorite days of the year! And this Sunday we get one of my all time favorite passages. We will be looking Zacchaeus, who was a wee little man. This story is a mere 10 verses, but it packs a huge punch, and in it will be dealing with the dreaded “E-Word”… “evangelism”. I’m looking forward…