Sermon: "A Snapshot of the Soul", Psalm 88 (June 28, 2026)

In one of his commentaries, John Calvin calls the psalms, “an anatomy of all the parts of the soul,” because he believed that there was no human emotion that can’t be found within this collection of poetry. And he’s right: themes range the gamut from ecstatic joy to sorrowful remorse to righteous anger. In fact, many of the psalms incorporate several emotions all together at once: lament, repentance, thanksgiving, and praise all in one convenient package.  

Sermon: “Imago Dei: In the Image of God’s Spirit”, Isaiah 11:1-10/Matthew 3:1-11 (December 1, 2019)

(Week 1 in our Advent series on how we reflect God's Image)

---------------------------------------------------------------------

It’s the beginning of a new liturgical year and Advent is upon us, as you can tell by the beautiful paraments that once again adorn our worship space. This past week, I joked on Facebook that we should start calling these purple ornamentations “prepare-aments”, since purple is the color of the liturgical seasons of preparation. In all seriousness, though, it’s important for us to remember the preparatory aspect of Advent. In the context of worship, we usually talk about it in terms of preparing for the arrival of Emmanuel, God-With-Us, the Messiah…but what does that really mean? What does it entail? Certainly, our preparation doesn’t begin and end with purple paraments (excuse me; prepare-aments) in the sanctuary and bright, colored lights hung outside our homes. This sort of preparation is fun, but in the grand scheme of things, it doesn’t accomplish anything particularly meaningful. I mean, it’s meaningful to us individually—I’m a huge fan of traditions and the feelings they evoke—but aside from providing the “warm fuzzies”, it doesn’t actually really do much, aside from making the spaces around us look pleasant.