MAC KIRK

  The Sixth Sunday of Epiphany Jer 17:5-10 Ps 1 1 Cor 15:12-20 Luke 6:17-26 ( and the 70 Days before Easter- Septuagesima) " Count Your Blessings"   ---Why is it that disasters and bad things seem to highlight the news and our lives?  We pay attention !  But the good things are not so important it seems at least .  The hymn " Count Your Blessings"  Rev. Oatman Johnson wrote over 3000 hymns. This one is well -known.  It says so much.  Today's Gospel has many positive and blessed thoughts from our Lord. It is a Beatitude on the plain .  Matthew has it on the mount.◄ Luke 6:17 ► "And he came down with them, and stood in the plain, and the company of his disciples, and a great multitude of people out of all Judaea and Jerusalem, and from the sea coast of Tyre and Sidon, which came to hear him, and to be healed of their diseases" He had just called the  12 Disciples/ Apostles . He spent the night praying before He did it.  He heals the...

  The Fifth Sunday of Epiphany Judg 6:11-24 Ps 85 1 Cor 15:1-11 Luke 5:1-11  "The Call" "Little Transmitters In 1972, NASA launched the exploratory space probe "Pioneer 10." Its main mission was to reach Jupiter and send back information about that planet. It was a bold plan because at that time no satellite had gone beyond Mars. Pioneer 10 accomplished its mission and so much more. It swung past Jupiter in November, 1973, then passed Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto. By 1997, Pioneer 10 was more than six billion miles from the sun. Despite that immense distance, Pioneer 10 continued to beam back radio signals to earth. The most remarkable thing was that those signals were powered by an 8-watt transmitter, which radiates about as much power as a bedroom night light. Not even the most optimistic scientist could have ever imagined what that little 8-watt transmitter could do. So it is when you and I offer ourselves to God in faithful obedience. It’s just incr...

  Candlemas, Presention of the Lord in the Temple. Luke 2:22-40     Some things are defining.  " Men declare themselves by their attitude to Him ( Jesus).  They cannot ultimately be neutral.  When men see Christ suffer , their reaction shows on which side they stand."  The Gospel According to St. Luke by Leon Morris  I want to focus on Luke 2: 34 "And Simeon blessed them, and said unto Mary his mother, Behold, this child is set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel; and for a sign which shall be spoken against; 35 (Yea, a sword shall pierce through thy own soul also,) that the thoughts of many hearts may be revealed." 1. Simeon blessed them.  He had been waiting to see the infant Christ child, and here 40 days after His birth He does. He utters words that are famous in many traditional Services at Evening Prayer since the 4th century.  We call it the"   Nunc Dimittis" literally now let depart... The Salvation He was w...

  3rd Sunday after Epiphany: Neh 8:1-12 Ps 113 1 Cor 12:12-27 Luke 4:14-21  "Jesus is the Pattern for our Ethics ( as was His custom-ethos or ethics)" WORDS OF WISDOM “Feeling good about ourselves is essential in our being able to love others.” FRED ROGERS  ( he was a Presbyterian minister , and we could learn from how he applied his faith to apply ours in some good way) The I Corinthian ch . 12 reading talks about this in a very graphic way, " the members should have the same care one for another. 26 And whether one member suffer, all the members suffer with it; or one member be honoured, all the members rejoice with it. 27 Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular." We may want to say it this way.  Jesus is the pattern for our ethics.  In Luke the word custom, " as was His custom" is the greek word ethos.  "The Greek verb "ethó" primarily means to be accustomed to or to be in the habit of doing something. It implies a repeat...

  2nd Sunday after Epiphany.  Lessons: Isa 62:1-5 Ps 96; 1 Cor 12:1-11 ;John 2:1-11; Message- " Jesus Manifested His Glory" "The Jews attached great importance to the high moments of life. Thus a wedding was not just a brief ceremony, but an experience shared by the entire community. The typical wedding feast could last up to seven days. That sounds strange to our modern way of thinking, but this offered a bright interlude in an otherwise dreary existence. The ceremony would begin on Tuesday at midnight. After the wedding the father of the bride would take his daughter to every house so that everyone might congratulate her. It was a community experience. Weddings were a time of joy. Years ago, when Johnny Carson was the host of The Tonight Show, he interviewed an eight year old boy. The young man was asked to appear because he had rescued two friends in a coalmine outside his hometown in West Virginia. As Johnny questioned the boy, it became apparent to him and the audie...

  1st Sunday after Epiphany. Isa 42:1-9 Ps 89:1-29 or 89:20-29 Acts 10:34-38 Luke 3:15-22  ; " Epiphany Living"   The first thing I do in preparing the message for the Sunday is to look at the season, and the lessons.  The hymn we will sing at the end of the service is a seasonal hymn in that it talks about this in one of the stanzas left out in the hymnal. "Oh, lead me, Lord, that I may lead The wand’ring and the wav’ring feet; Oh, feed me, Lord, that I may feed Thy hung’ring ones with manna sweet."   That is the point of Epiphany.  The Gospel is for all, not just for us here. Another vs left out " Oh, give Thine own sweet rest to me, That I may speak with soothing pow’r A word in season, as from Thee, To weary ones in needful hour."  Epiphany is manifesting and showing God's power and love to others , so that they too would be fed with God's manna. This is the example of the Wise men in Matthew 2 that we read last week..."there came wise men...