Sermon Blog

  What would you consider to be the greatest sports comeback in history? Duke actually gets a mention in some lists.   Their comeback from twenty-one points down to Maryland in the second half to win by nine, and then go on to win the national championship two days later. Many sports enthusiasts label an event from nearly ten years ago to be the all-time greatest.   They were down by three games in the best of seven series and no one in the history of their sport had ever come from that far behind to win the championship.   Yet as they overcame injuries, including one that resulted in a now infamous (at least in the world of baseball) “bloody sock,” the Boston Red Sox shook off their 86 year old curse and defeated their archenemy New York Yankees to claim the American League Championship before going on to win the 2004 World Series. The thing about sports victories, though, is that they are temporary.   In 2002, Duke didn’t even reach the final f...

  It’s early y’all.   It’s not a lot different that it was for the women on that morning nearly two thousand years ago.   It would have been a little cool, the grass damp from the morning dew.   The birds may have been singing.   The sun was slowly breaking over the horizon.   The women, though, were probably oblivious to it all.   Their world had settled into eternal darkness on that Friday afternoon when the skies grew black, and if black can get darker, it did for them as Joseph of Arimethea and Nicodemus took the body of Jesus off the cross, laid it in an empty tomb, and then sealed it shut.   These women would have taken no notice of birds singing and the sun climbing into the sky.   Some of you here can relate.   You have laid a loved one to rest.   You know what it is like to be cold, numb, and blind to what is going on in the rest of the world…you just know that your world is dark.   Like many here who spend time...

How many of you remember the 1984 commercial with “Fred the Baker” as he got up day after day after day to make the donuts?   You would watch him get up, barely awake, and drag himself out the door on the way to make the donuts, then return home from making the donuts…over and over again until he finally meets himself, saying, “It’s time to make the donuts,” and responding to himself, “I made the donuts.”   While we all laughed, you could see the weariness on his face as he got up to repeat the same task he has done the previous day. Despite the humor intended, many of us could sympathize with Fred.   Most of us can think of times in our lives where we found ourselves having to repeat the same task or the same job or make the same efforts over and over again.   We may not have had to rise before dawn, but the weariness of repetition would set in, especially if the actions we were repeated were because the results of what we had done the first time were onl...