Stretching the Sermon

Claire Walker wants to share this with her HCC family … Right before the COVID-19 outbreak took hold in Canada, God was leading me to spend time in the book of Habakkuk. Looking back I think maybe it was to prepare me for what was to come. About a month ago I was questioning God about suffering that was happening around me. “God, why? Why are you allowing this?” I didn’t understand. Now here we are in the middle of a global pandemic and we may find ourselves asking the same question of this type of suffering. People all over the world getting seriously ill and some dying, people are out of work, and generally living in fear. With all that is going on many of us may find ourselves asking: “God, why? Why are you allowing this?” We don’t understand. We can’t understand. We can’t always understand what God is doing because He is so much bigger than us, but because He is so much bigger than us, we can trust that He knows what He is doing, whether or not we can make sense...

It happens to us all at one point or another. We can be more willing than ever to do something, committed and determined. But we fail to do it because we are relying on our own strength, which we soon realize just isn’t enough. Jesus’s own disciples were no exception. Something that stands out about the events leading up to Jesus’s death is the incredible patience and self-control that He displays during these excruciating hours. Although none of us will ever undergo anything near the extent of the horrific suffering that Jesus experienced on the cross, we all hope that in the most trying moments of our lives that we would display the same character of Christ that He demonstrated for all of us in His darkest hours.             My guess though is that during these moments we are more likely to resemble the disciples right before Jesus’s death, than we do Jesus Himself. Despite our best intentions we find ourselves diverting...

For the last 5 weeks James and Greg have told us that Jesus knew of the tragedy that would come to Him if He returned to Jerusalem. But how did He know? Did God tell Him in a dream or in an audible voice? Did an angel visit Him with the news? Did another prophet tell Him? The answer is much simpler. Jesus knew what was going to happen to the Messiah because God’s Word had prophesied hundreds of things about Him in great detail. He also knew that He WAS the Messiah because of the calling in His spirit and because of the training received from His parents (surely, at least one of them must have told Him about the angelic visits and the miracles surrounding His birth). We also must remember that Jesus was God, in the flesh. He didn’t just know the Word … He Is the Word (John 1:1-14). Jesus knew the things that were going to happen to Him, beyond His control, on that Friday , because He knew God’s Word. For example, He knew that … He would be betrayed by a friend    ...

We have all heard about the incredible pain and suffering that Jesus endured on the cross. How, as the sin of the world was being poured out upon him, He cried out in anguish, “my God, My God, why have you forsaken me.”  For the first time since the beginning of all things, Jesus felt separated from His Father in Heaven. In that moment Jesus became a curse for us that we might be saved through Him. So why did it crush Him so? Was it the brutal physical pain of being nailed to the cross, or was it something much worse? I once read an article by Dr. RC. Sproul, a renowned theologian, who explained what it meant for Jesus—a Jew—to become a curse for us. It shed light on His pain and anguish as it was happening … not simply the physical pain and suffering, but the suffering of his spirit. If you really want to understand what it meant to a Jew to be cursed, I think the simplest way is to look at the famous Hebrew benediction found in Numbers 6:24-26, one which clergy often us...

In James’ sermon yesterday ( viewed here ), he talked about "Marvel Movie Moments" where the hero-to-be suddenly gets a look of determination in their eye that tells the audience that everything is about to change ... and it’s going to get nasty for the bad guys. My first pastor instilled in me a deep appreciation for one moment in the Gospels, a moment which I was taught to see as a watershed in Jesus’ ministry, following which He became an unstoppable freight train. James reminded me of that moment as he read this text: When the days were coming to a close for him to be taken up, he determined to journey to Jerusalem. (Luke 9:51, CSB) This was many weeks or months before His final week. As James pointed out, the word “determined” here is more nuanced in the original Greek. The NIV says that, “Jesus resolutely set out for Jerusalem.” We can’t say that He didn’t know what was coming because He had been dropping hints about His coming death throughout His minis...