Sermons

Worship | Easter Sunday | Turn/Return | April 17

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859.

Sermon | Return from the depths, turning toward life

Texts: John 19:38-20:1,11-18; 1 Peter 3:18-22

Speaker: Joel Miller

When I say “Christ is Risen” you say “Christ is Risen Indeed.”

Christ is Risen…

Every story, we are told, has a beginning, middle, and end. Our lives track this simple outline with our birth, our life, and our death.

It’s one of the great wonders and delights of Easter to break the mold of this story.

On Easter morning, “early on the first day of the week,” as John and the other gospels tell us, Mary Magdalene, and other women, visit the tomb. This is a story that starts with a tomb. Good Friday, the day of Jesus’ death on a cross, is what begins the Easter story.

The cross has come to be...

Good Friday Service | April 15

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859.

Prelude

Guitar improvisation

Quartet - VT 325 | O Sacred Head Now Wounded, Vs. 1 and 2

Welcome

Call to Worship

On this night, as the shadows deepen,

We come to be present with Jesus.

With the glory of Palm Sunday behind us and the victory of Easter not yet come,

We will sit together in this space with our listening and breaking hearts.

In this world that is at once beautiful and tragic,

We seek to be present with all who suffer.

We will be present with ourselves

In the dark valleys of life, when sorrow threatens to overwhelm,

We long for a safe and sacred space to sit with our grief and our questions.

Jesus Christ, holy friend,

We know that you are here with us.

Let us...

Worship | Palm Sunday | April 10

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859.

Sermon | Parades and parables of peace | Palm Sunday
Text: Luke 19:28-42
Speaker: Joel Miller

We all have places we return to each year. These are the places that remind us who we are. Or at least give us a chance to reflect on who we’ve been and who we are becoming. I’m likely in the minority of people my age whose parents still live in the house where I was born and raised. Going back to Mom and Dad’s, or to the farm, or 1471 – the county road address I memorized at a young age – Going back there, even if for a brief stop, is always full of memory and meaning. A family cabin, or a camp, or a beloved destination spot can become a spiritual home that we return to, a place we can...

Worship | Lent 5: Turn/Return | April 3

CMC Worship Service 4/3/2022 from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859.

Sermon by Carolyn May

Over the course of this Lenten season our theme has been Turn/Return. Our gospel reading today begins with Jesus’ return to a town called Bethany. The last time he was in Bethany was in the chapter just prior to this one. In that chapter he went to Bethany because his dear friend Lazarus had fallen ill. By the time he actually arrived at Bethany he learned that Lazarus had been dead for four days already. Jesus is greeted by the same sisters we encounter in our story today, Mary and Martha. Martha first meets Jesus and they have an exchange in which Jesus tells Martha that he is the resurrection and the life and that surely Lazarus would rise. When Mary comes to Jesus she immediately falls to his feet and weeps. She says, Lord, if you had been here my...

Worship | Lent 4: Turn/Return | March 27

3-27-22 CMC service from Gwen Reiser on Vimeo.

The video above includes the full service, except for the time for sharing.

Permission to podcast/stream the music in this service obtained through One License with license A-727859.

Sermon | Inheritance
Text: Luke 15:1-2;11-20
Speaker: Joel Miller

What if, you could have your inheritance now? All of it. What if all you had to do was ask? “Mother, Father, give me the share of the property that will belong to me.” And they do it. Everything divided out in proportion to what would have been yours is now yours. You can do with it as you please.

There’s the furniture – with the end table your grandfather made from the maple in the fencerow. The piano. That favorite chair that survived every move, mostly. Some quilts and rugs and paintings and books. So many books. Your mother’s wardrobe and the scarves that belonged to her mother. The silverware and plates are yours to use or sell or give away. I’m making this up, but you get the idea. Fill in your...

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