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FREE:

A Holy Week Letter to Jesus
 
by Pascack Pastor 
 

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Prayer for a Walk in Christ's Passion.

Almighty and ever-living God,
in your tender love for the
human race you sent your Son
our Savior Jesus Christ to take
upon him our nature,
and to suffer death upon the cross,
giving us the example of his great humility: Mercifully grant that we may walk in the way
of his suffering, and also share in his resurrection; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

 

Children's Sermons:

Sermons:

 

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Sermon Excerpt

God Took Our Shame
various texts
by Rev. Thomas Hall

Philip Carey is a nine year old who’s just entered a private boy’s school in England in Somerset Maugham’s novel, Of Human Bondage. But all is not right with Philip Carey, for he suffers from talipes, a disease that has left one foot grossly deformed. His clubfoot fascinates the other boys and so on his second day at school, Philip ends up being "pig in the middle" and roams the playground trying to tag boys as they dash across the circle. He tries hard to tag them, but they’re too quick and he too clumsy. Then one boy decides to mimic Philip by clumping and dragging his foot across the playground. Soon all the boys are limping and hooting their way past frightened Philip dragging one foot behind them, choking with laughter. Later that night, three of the boys stand in the dark before Philip’s bed.

"Let’s have a look at your foot," says one of them. "No!" says Philip and jumps into bed and bunches the covers up around his leg. The three boys pin Philip’s arm and twist it. "Why don’t you show us your foot quietly?" When they add more pressure, Philip, gasping and horrified, thrusts his foot out from under the covers. "Beastly," says one. Another traces the outline of the deformity, as if the foot were somehow an object detached from Philip. When the headmaster appears, the boys scamper back to their beds but Philip turns into his pillow and clamps it with his teeth to contain his tears. He cries because he is ashamed of his foot, but also because he’s ashamed that others have gawked at his deformity.

Philip Carey is that kid in all of us. For we all carry within us this primitive human emotion called shame. We’re all Philip Carey because we bear on and within us, our own deformities and deficiencies. And worse yet are those painful moments when our shame is uncovered and exposed for others to see.

That’s the story of Adam and Eve redux. Once they stepped out of God’s order and cosmos, they discovered that they were naked. And for the first time in their lives, they could not stand up to the scrutiny. It wasn’t that they just flinched when they saw each other exposed, but that suddenly they realized that they were threadbare and vulnerable . . .

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Children's Message Excerpt

No Small Jobs in God's Eyes
kids' talk based on Mark 11:1-11
by Rev. Randy L Quinn

Did you like waving the Palm Branches this morning as we sang? (They probably did.) Why do you suppose we did that? It was to remember the way people welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem. It was like a one person parade that everyone came to watch and to wave to as he came by.

Do you think it would have been fun to be there the day Jesus came into Jerusalem, riding on his donkey?

Would it be more fun to be one of the disciples who probably walked along with him as the crowd cheered? It would be like being in a parade with him, wouldn’t it? Everyone would be watching and cheering and we would probably feel pretty good about being there that day.

But I don’t know if you were listening when we read the story. How many of you heard what Jesus told two of his disciples to do before the “parade” began? He didn’t tell them to follow him in the parade and he didn’t tell anyone to wave palm branches. They thought of that on their own.

Does anyone remember?

He told them to go and get a donkey (Mk. 11:2). That probably wasn’t very exciting, was it? But it was important....

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