Rev Chris Roth

  Isaiah 6:1-8; Psalm 29; Romans 8:12-17; John 3:1-17 We have now completed the major cycles of the Church year. Starting in Advent when we expect the coming messiah (and his coming again), then we moved into Christmas and celebrated the incarnation (God with us- in the flesh). From there we moved into Epiphany when we see the manifestation of Christ’s power and divinity, and then we followed Christ into the desert for the 40 days of Lent as (in repentance) we seek to be purified as we prepare for Holy Week and Easter (where we remember the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus). The season of Easter is completed with Pentecost, which is after Christ ascends and God sends the Holy Spirit to fill the disciples to carry on his mission. … And it is appropriate that, as this part of the cycle completes, we are given the vision of the Trinity as we enter into Ordinary Time, or the Season after Pentecost. In the Book of Common Prayer, the upcoming season is named according to its relatio...

Ezekiel 37:1-14; Psalm 104:24-35; Acts 2:1-21; John15:26-27; 16:4-15 Today we celebrate the feast of Pentecost. It completes the 50 day season (7 weeks) of Easter, which is sometimes called Eastertide. The word comes from the Greek word for ‘fiftieth’, and it has its roots in the Jewish Feast of Weeks (Shavuot), which took place on the 50th day after Passover. It was the celebration of the wheat harvest, and was also the time when they celebrated God’s giving of the Law to Israel on Mount Sinai. It is one of the three festivals (Passover, Feast of Weeks, and Tabernacles) when the Law commanded every Jew in the land of Israel (who was able-bodied) to go to the Temple in Jerusalem to make sacrifices. So, during these festivals the city of Jerusalem would be very busy with pilgrims, both with people from Israel arriving, but also Jews from outside Israel would be making pilgrimage if they had the ability to travel. The Book of Common Prayer calls this day Whitsun, or Whitsunda...

Acts 1:15-17, 21-26; Psalm 1; 1 John 5:9-13; John 17:6-19 John can be a little bit tricky to read. You really have to slow down. You have to read John the way you read poetry. There are words that repeat and fold in on each other. It can be a bit confusing if you don’t slow down and really meditate on the words by reading and re-reading. … So, I thought it might be helpful to slow down and walk through this passage. This is what the Puritans used to do when they preached. They would just walk through and explain what is being said, so I thought we might try that today. … You may want to have your Bible in front of you as we do this. This is an incredible piece of Scripture- we get to overhear Jesus praying to his Father. Our gospel reading begins with verse 6-  “I have made your name known to those whom you gave me from the world. They were yours, and you gave them to me, and they have kept your word.”  … To make God’s name known means more than to know the sounds someone ...

  Acts 10:44-48; Psalm 98; 1 John 5:1-6; John 15:9-17 Our Gospel reading is very interesting today. We see both the word “love” and the word “command” come up over and over.  “If you keep my commandments, you will abide in my love …” (15:10).  “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you” (15:12).  “I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another” (15:17). We see the same in our epistle reading.  “By this we know that we love the children of God, when we love God and obey his commandments. For the love of God is this, that we obey his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome” (1 Jn 5:2-3). They aren’t words we usually associate with one another. “Love” feels so soft, and “commandment” feels so hard. … The Catholic Priest and spiritual writer Henri Nouwen insightfully wrote,  “we often confuse unconditional love with unconditional approval. God loves us without conditions but does not approve of every hu...

  Acts 8:26-40; Psalm 22:25-31; 1 John 4:7-21; John 15:1-8 Our reading from Acts shows the Gospel spreading out from Jerusalem to touch those in other parts of the world, as Philip shows the Ethiopian eunuch how the words of Isaiah relate to Jesus and his suffering on the cross. Our Psalm connects very much to Jesus. He was quoting it on the cross. St. Augustine said,  “The passion of Christ is recounted in this Psalm as clearly as in the gospel”.  As we read it, we can’t help but witness the passion of Jesus. And in verses 27 and 28 we see the spread of the Good News of Jesus and the worship of Israel’s God beyond the land of Israel. We read,  “All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the Lord; and all the families of the nations shall worship before him. For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations” (22:27-28).  So what is implied in placing this Psalm with our Acts reading is that the spreading of the Gospel to the nations, lik...