Rev Chris Roth

  Mark 11:1-11; Isaiah 50:4-9; Psalm 118:1-2, 19-29; Philippians 2:5-11 ;   Mark 14:1-15:47 Palm Sunday is kind of like Holy Week packed into one day. Palm Sunday is when we begin the slow journey towards the cross that makes up the last week before Jesus is killed. We inch along with him. We listen to his teachings, and even imagine ourselves as part of the crowd that is leaning-in to hear him. … It requires a certain kind of emotional strength to walk through these days. It is the kind of strength that is needed to walk into the hospital room of a friend who has been diagnosed with a terminal disease, and to actually talk about that diagnosis rather than change the subject and talk about the weather. It is the kind of strength needed to attend the funeral of someone you love. … Some people do almost anything they can to avoid that sadness. To them, Good Friday is “such a downer”. It is uncomfortable, so they don’t attend. … But tragedy and sadness are a part of life. We migh...

  Jeremiah 31:31-34; Psalm 51:1-12; Hebrews 5:5-10; John 12:20-33 When Jesus speaks about his “hour” and being glorified he is referring to the cross. As you know, the symbol of Christianity is a cross. It is so normal to us that we don’t usually grasp how strange it is. To pre-Christian Rome It was offensive and grotesque. It was a shameful and horrifying way to die. The cross has sometimes been a difficult aspect of Christianity to explain for missionaries in non-Christian societies. It is natural to think, if the universe was just and made sense, that Good people shouldn’t die that way. If a good person does die that way, then we quickly jump into questions about how the universe can be a just place when things like that happen in it. The universe doesn’t make sense if they do. In the 16th century, a Jesuit missionary named Matteo Ricci arrived in China. He was a brilliant renaissance man who quickly mastered Chinese language and culture. In the style of Paul in Acts, Ricci a...

  Numbers 21:4-9;  Psalm 107:1-3, 17-22;  Ephesians 2:1-10;  John 3:14-21 The Hebrew people in the book of Numbers seem to constantly get stuck in a pattern of ingratitude as they wandered in the wilderness. I’m sure we can’t really judge them for that. We live with technology, medication, and access to information and food that most of humanity that has lived on this planet couldn’t even dream about, … and yet we never seem to lack a reason to complain. So maybe we can identify with the Hebrew people as they wander the wilderness and grumble. When we meet the Hebrew people in our Numbers reading (chapter 21), they are in the middle of complaining. Despite the miraculous way God has rescued them from slavery in Egypt, they complain that they were better off as slaves. They complain that they will starve, and God provides them with manna for food (Ex 16). They complain that they are thirsty, and Moses strikes a rock and God provides water (Ex 17). They complain that t...

Exodus 20:1-17; Psalm 19; 1 Corinthians 1:18-25; John 2:13-22 We have great readings today. First, we read the Ten Commandments . It has been a long tradition in the church that when we examine our lives, one of the ways to do that is to turn to the Ten Commandments and we compare them with our lives. We read them with our hearts tuned to the deeper purposes and principles behind the commands. So the warning against idolatry isn’t just about whether we have bowed before a stone statue of Zeus lately, rather it is about if we have put anything on God’s throne in our life. Honouring your father and mother isn’t just about treating your parents well, it’s also about honouring elders and showing gratitude for what our ancestors have built and handed on to us. When we read about murder, it isn’t just about killing someone, but it is also about anger, which Jesus suggests is the seed of murder (Matt 5:21-26). Adultery isn’t just about a sexual act outside of marriage, it is also about allow...