Scripture Readings Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen! Do you ever lay awake at night, pondering the intricacies of life?? You know those all important questions like “If a tree falls in the forest, and there is no one there to hear it, does it make a sound?” The obvious answer is “no, it doesn’t.” But the squirrel it lands on sure does! Or what about Jolene, do you ever wonder about her? I mean, if Dolly Parton wo

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen! Behold! A Canaanite. A Canaanite woman! That’s about all the information we are given in the Gospel reading, other than Jesus and the Disciples were way up north in the coastal area of Tyre and Sidon. I’ve always wondered, did she have one of those stickers on that said “Hello! My name is Canaanite Woman”?? It’s actually kind of a weird scenario. “Canaanite” ha

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen! Our Gospel reading from St. Matthew this morning picks up where we left off last Sunday. Jesus had just did the miracle of feeding the 5,000+ size crowd with only 5 loaves and 2 fishes. They were in the desert, a desolate place, the Tim Horton’s had already closed, the Disciples were imploring Jesus to send the crowd away to scavenge food for themselves. But in

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen! One of my kids’ favourite books when they were little was called “Pancakes, Pancakes!” It was written by Eric Carle. He’s the same guy who also wrote “The Very Hungry Caterpillar.” His books always have this very distinctive illustration style too. It’s a hand painted tissue paper collage thing that gives the illustration a kind of weird styling. In the pancake

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen! Everybody knows the ‘genie in the magic lamp’ schtick. Aladdin. Disney. You know the gist. They find the lamp, give it a rub a dub and viola, a genie pops out and grants you 3 wishes. Imagine if it was true though. What would you wish for? My first instinct was to wish for unlimited wishes! But I’m sure that violates the genie’s fine print agreement somewhere.

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen! Back in the old country, a grandpa and his grandson were walking home from the market with their donkey. As they walked along, the folks along the way began to laugh and make fun of them. “Why are they both walking beside the donkey?! You’d think one of those fools would ride!” Upon this scorn and peer pressure, the old man put his grandson on the donkey’s back

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy, and peace be to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Amen! Do you ever notice how pretty much everyone loves Christmas? There in the manger lies the little Lord Jesus, cute and cuddly, asleep on the hay. Shepherds, angels, Mary, Joseph, and barnyard animals all gathered around the newborn King. The prophet Isaiah painted this beautiful picture centuries earlier: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Happy Father’s Day to all the dads out there! Father’s Day is another great reminder that none of us would be here without you! It really is fascinating when you think about it. God Himself instituted fatherhood and motherhood for the purpose fulfilling the original “great commission” at the dawn of creation: “So God created man in his own image, in the image of Go

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! One evening, a man was out for a walk along a beautiful beach on the pacific ocean. As he journeyed along his way, he was admiring the gorgeous sunset and the sound of the waves crashing onto the shore. He noticed another man down the beach in the distance. As he approached this other man, he noticed that from time to time this man would stoop down, pick something

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Pretty much the last place on planet earth I’d ever choose willingly to go is to the hospital. Especially the ER. I’m impatient and hate waiting. In Moose Jaw, it’s an automatic 3 hours and probably more like 6-8 of just sitting around waiting to get looked at. Don’t you long for the days when the doctor came to your house and fixed you up with merely the contents

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! I’ve got a real interest in early church history. As Lutherans, we tend to kind of default to the Reformation with Luther and the other Protestants. But that was only around 500 years ago. What happened before that? How did Christians understand God and theology way back, like 1,900 years ago!? It’s fascinating really. Often we have ideas about God and faith that r

Scripture Readings Grace, mercy and peace be to you from God our Father and Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen! Last Sunday at confirmation we were talking about God’s presence with His people. When you read the Scriptures, you can see a definitive pattern emerging about this. Eden, the garden-temple that we talked about last Sunday, was the starting point. God was present in a very intense way with Adam and Eve. In a world without sin and death, you had a literal paradise.

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Our ‘once-Christian’ culture still bears some of the fingerprints of the Church. Christmas. Easter. Thanksgiving. The bigger holidays are still there in concept, even if the actual Christian meaning has become eclipsed by Santa and a bunny and a turkey. Even our weekend days of Saturday and Sunday reflect the Sabbath and the day of our Lord’s Resurrection that used to be days off from work. Now they’ve just bec

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! A little boy was furiously riding his tricycle around the block over and over and over again, all the while tears streaming down his face. He was holding a teddy bear and his blue blanket was dragging on the ground as he went. A nearby police officer, having seen the crying boy go around and around, stopped him and asked him if he was OK. The little boy told the cop that he was running away from home! The offic

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Back in the day, when I was in Seminary, we got to go on a field trip of sorts to Calgary, AB. And who doesn’t love a school field trip, right?! I remember in Kindergarten going down south of Moose Jaw to the Bunnyview Pet farm! The Seminary field trip unfortunately didn’t involve farm animals. It was quite the opposite. It was an inner city immersion kind of experience so we bumpkins could see what it was like

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! “Hey Dan, what are you doing here?” “Oh hey! We just moved to Chaplain.” … “Chaplain? … Do you have family there?” … “No.” … “Do you like salt?!” That’s basically how it all started, right out there in the Narthex! When God brought Pastor Dan and Connie to Emmanuel it was a very exciting time indeed. Immediately, I saw an opportunity … to make life easier on myself! … If we call Dan, that means I don’t have to

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Old Beatrice Brown was known as the ‘chicken lady’. She loved chicken and made the best chicken soup this side of Parkbeg! She went down to the local butcher shop to go and buy a fresh chicken. “I’ll have a chicken please” said Beatrice. The butcher went into the back and grabbed his last remaining bird from the cooler. After weighing it he said “that will be $12.54 ma’am.” “Do you have a larger one?” Beatrice

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Today’s Gospel lesson is definitely one of my all time favourites. The Disciples on the Emmaus road. St. Luke alone records this event and he places it as the first detailed post-resurrection appearance of Jesus, immediately after the women’s report of the empty tomb and Peter’s independent fact-checking: he “rose and ran to the tomb; stooping and looking in, he saw the linen cloths by themselves; and he went h

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! In this last Lenten Bible Study we did on The Chosen, Season 3, they pointed out a phrase that the Jews often said to each other. “Shalom Shalom.” If you remember episode 7 where the Roman Gaius asks Peter why he says it twice, he answers “Well, once means ‘peace.’ Twice means ‘perfect peace’ … complete wholeness.” This isn’t just The Chosen movie magic, either. It is actually a Biblical greeting that comes fr

Scripture Readings Christ is Risen! He is Risen Indeed! Alleluia! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen! No matter on which syllable you place the emphasis, it is all true! The stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty! The crucified Lord and Savior Jesus Christ was not there! The neon sign outside the tomb flashed “vacant!” “He is not here! He has risen,” the angel said to the bewildered women. “Come, see the place where He lay. Then go quickly and tell Hi