Rev Chris Roth

Acts 5: 27-32; Psalm 118: 14-29; Revelations 1: 4-8; John 20: 19-31 Jesus has been resurrected. He is alive again, but in a new way. He isn’t alive the way Lazarus was alive again. Lazarus was brought back to life- But he was brought back to the same kind of life that he had before. He would die again someday. But Jesus was resurrected into a new kind of life. The New Testament scholar Bishop NT Wright says that Jesus went through death and out the other side into a new kind of life. In our gospel reading, the disciples are afraid, and they are hiding behind locked doors. And somehow Jesus just appears in the room. He wasn’t knocking on the door asking to be let in. He is just suddenly there among them. He shows them the scars from the crucifixion in his hands, feet, and his side, … which happened just the previous Friday. He wasn’t in need of medical attention. He was okay- More than okay. … He isn’t a ghost, and this isn’t a vision. He has a body. His body has continuity ...

John 20: 1-18 On Good Friday we looked at how The Gospel according to John revisits Genesis. [1] So, John begins as Genesis begins, but he includes Jesus as the Word of God-  “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. 2 He was in the beginning with God. 3 All things were made through him, and without him not one thing came into being. 4 In him was life, and the life was the light of men. 5 The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. […] 9 The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God. 14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we ha...

  John 18:1-19:42 The Gospel according to John begins by revisiting Genesis. [1]    “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being  in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.” … "He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him”  (Jn 1:1-5,10-11). Today we see what it means that the Word, who was both with God and was God, is not accepted by those who were made by him. Our reading today begins in a garden. And like the garden of Genesis, this too becomes a garden of betrayal. The incarnate Word, through whom “all things came into being” is in a garden. Th...

Luke 19:28-40;  Isaiah 50:4-9; Psalm 31:9-16; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 23:1-49 This is our last week dealing with the Seven Deadly Sins, which are the major diseases of the soul. It can be uncomfortable to see these;  sins in ourselves, but a diagnosis is actually ‘good news’. When we have a diagnosis, then we can start to treat the problem. Today we are looking at anger, sometimes it is called wrath. … Some in the Early Church describe an internal ‘incensive energy’ within us as a driving force that arises naturally in us. [1] They saw this energy as needing to be purified through prayer and wisdom, and then it can be used to resist temptation, and to fight against evil thoughts. But this energy is really only to be directed at our own sin and evil, but not against other human beings. For them, this energy can turn into anger, and for them it is almost always bad. We will naturally feel anger when something doesn’t go our way. If something or someone we value is disres...

2 Sam 11:1-27; Psalm 51; 1 Cor 6:12-20; Matt 5:27-30 We are continuing our series on the Seven Deadly Sins. This week, the deadly sin we are looking at is lust. This is another desire that many in our society want to amplify and capitalize on. Sexual imagery is blatant in TV shows, movies, music, magazines, and in advertising. It is used to grab hold of our attention, and it has been very normalized. We are immersed in an overly-sexualized culture that is often using sexual imagery to manipulate us into buying things and watching their content. The effect of this is that we can be left with these images floating in our minds, and with an exaggerated sense of the importance of sex. We can be left thinking that our happiness depends on being sexually attractive as well as sexually active. Thinking about the way our society treats sex, C.S. Lewis in his book Mere Christianity asks us to imagine a culture where people gather around a covered dish. The cover is slowly lifted while peopl...