This Sunday The truth is that I can’t wait to spend some time this Sunday with everyone looking at John 21 and the resurrection record in the text. Jesus shows up on the beach and grills fish and bread for hungry seamen, especially three noteworthy characters: Peter, Thomas, and Nathanael. More about them on Sunday. It’s been a joy to dwell in that passage this week and go back through the commentaries on John as well. I probably have 30 or more commentaries and several more studies about this Gospel, including sermon collections. Here’s a Pastor that has some wonderful... Read this post

At Christ Community Church, we won’t ever be endorsing any candidates for any office at any level of service. We will faithfully proclaim Christ and his Gospel, administer the sacraments, offer worship, and teach the Scriptures. We will pray for all who serve in the civic realm. We will work for the common good of our city and neighbors. That doesn’t mean we think politics is inconsequential. It means we know that Christ is supremely more important than politics, that Christ is political in a radical way that contemporary politics doesn’t usually understand, and that we know what our work... Read this post

Upon Further Review Wednesday Night and Isaiah The study of a text as artistic and musical as Isaiah is bound to inspire painters and writers and it was especially delightful to see that on display at our last Wednesday evening gathering of the term. You can watch the video here: https://christcommunity.org/isaiah-study/ (go to Part 18).Mary Grace and Diana offered outstanding examples of the how reflection on the text of Scripture can capture the imagination, inspire the heart, and move us to effectively communicate the message via a different medium. I enjoyed studying Isaiah with both morning and evening communities, and... Read this post

Amazed Easter 2017 The Lord be with you. I love all the decorations and feasting, all the hallmarks of joy we rightly share today. Easter is beautiful. But the truth is that if we wanted to be really Biblical and recreate the ambiance of the first Easter, we’d have to decorate with tombstones and sepulchers. The ladies in the passage, after all, were on their way to a cemetery. In the dark. Kind of creepy, really. And they were anxious. They were on the way to anoint the body of their dead teacher according to their burial customs – things... Read this post

Make no mistake: if he rose at all It was as His body; If the cell’s dissolution did not reverse, the molecule reknit, The amino acids rekindle, The Church will fall. It was not as the flowers, Each soft spring recurrent; It was not as His Spirit in the mouths and fuddled eyes of the Eleven apostles; It was as His flesh; ours. The same hinged thumbs and toes The same valved heart That—pierced—died, withered, paused, and then regathered Out of enduring Might New strength to enclose. Let us not mock God with metaphor, Analogy, sidestepping, transcendence, Making of the... Read this post

The rising of the sun had made everything look so different – all colours and shadows were changed that for a moment they didn’t see the important thing. Then they did. The Stone Table was broken into two pieces by a great crack that ran down it from end to end; and there was no Aslan… “Who’s done it?” cried Susan. “What does it mean? Is it magic?” “Yes!” said a great voice behind their backs. “It is more magic.” They looked round. There, shining in the sunrise, larger than they had seen him before, shaking his mane (for it... Read this post

We read in the Apostle’s Creed that Jesus “descended into hell.” Some Christians are unsure about this idea today. A couple years back Matt Chandler preached a popular sermon series on the Creed. “Even to this day,” he said, “there are large swaths of evangelicals who read the creed but leave out ‘descended into hell’ because we don’t believe He actually went to the place of hell and did that. Right? The Bible certainly doesn’t teach that.” The explanation I heard as a teen said the line referred to Christ’s agony on the cross. That’s the angle Reformed Protestants have... Read this post

If you find yourself in hell today – and perhaps it’s even a hell of your own making – let me remind you of Holy Saturday and the words of the Apostle’s Creed: “And he descended into hell.” If you’re in hell today, know Christ has gone before you and conquered the most terrible and fearful and darkest of realms. He rose again. He will yet raise you. And as you make this journey, even through hell, he is with you. “If I make my bed in hell, you are there” (Psalm 139). Do not fear. Do not despair. We... Read this post

On the seventh day God rested in the darkness of the tomb; Having finished on the sixth day all his work of joy and doom. Now the Word had fallen silent, and the water had run dry, The bread had all been scattered, and the light had left the sky. The flock had lost its shepherd, and the seed was sadly sown, The courtiers had betrayed their king, and nailed him to his throne. O Sabbath rest by Calvary, O calm of tomb below, Where the grave-clothes and the spices cradle him we do not know! Rest you well, beloved... Read this post

This service is very unusual, isn’t it? It’s uncomfortable. We are used to walking into this room with handshakes, hugs, high fives, and even a holy kiss or two. But tonight we gather in silence and in darkness. Why? A Question at Passover: Why is this night different than all other nights? We could ask this question of tonight’s gathering too. We could wonder why the darkness, why the silence, why the somber tone, and why all the focus on the cross? We need this focus desperately. Why? We forget how great our need is. We forget how great our... Read this post