MAC KIRK

“ Alleluia. Christ is risen.   The Lord is risen indeed. Alleluia.” Luke 24:1-12   “ And their words seemed to them as idle tales, and they believed them not.   Then arose Peter, and ran unto the sepulcher; and stooping down , he beheld the linen clothes laid by themselves, and departed, wondering in himself at that which was come to pass.” 24:11-12       Idle tales.   This word comes from medical terminology of someone who is delirious.   How much attention do you pay to that kind of person in that kind of state?   I usually laugh when I listen to such people visiting them or seeing them.   Now I am not trying to be mean to them, but some of their talk is obviously coming from the medication after surgery.          It was “ Mary Magdalene, and Joanna , and Mary the mother of James, and other women that were with them, which told these things unto the apostles.” 24:10   Remember Mary Magdalene?   She was the woman spoken of in Luke 8:2-3 who “had been

Good Friday Meditation       “ M y God, my God, why have you forsaken me? * and are so far from my cry and from the words of my distress? 2 O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer; * by night as well, but I find no rest. 3 Yet you are the Holy One, * enthroned upon the praises of Israel . 4 Our forefathers put their trust in you; * they trusted, and you delivered them. “   Jesus spoke on the cross these words from Psalm 22. Matthew 27:46   . When he was arrested he said to Peter, “ the cup which my Father has given me, shall I not drink it?” John 18:11     He obviously also heard Peter’s denial of him. “ Simon Peter and another disciple followed Jesus. Since that disciple was known to the high priest, he went with Jesus into the courtyard of the high priest, but Peter was standing outside at the gate. So the other disciple, who was known to the high priest, went out, spoke to the woman who guarded the gate, and brought Peter

“ The Voices of Palm Sunday”   Luke 19:28 -40 & Luke 22:14-23:56       “ And when he was come nigh , even now at the descent of the mount of Olives, the whole multitude of the disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen” Luke 19:37           What did the disciples hear?   They heard all the praise and rejoicing of the people and the other disciples.   Jesus was coming as a King on a lowly colt in fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy of Zechariah 9, “ Rejoice, greatly, O daughter of Zion ; shout, O daughter of Jersusalem: behold thy King cometh unto thee: he is just, and having salvation; lowly, and riding upon an ass, and upon a colt the foal of an ass.”   Salvation was here.             What do we hear?   I hear a lot about listening in this quote from Henri Nouwen,    “ Listening is much more than allowing another to talk while waiting for a chance to respond. Listening is paying full attention

The Power of the Blood of Jesus Christ ” Hebrews 9:14      I was looking for a sermon illustration to begin this sermon and then the dog bit me.   Well, it was my fault.   I thought a bagle with cream cheese could go from my hand to her without any problem.   I forgot that it did not work the last time either.   I was fortunate.   She bit but did not get too much of a hold as I quickly withdrew my hand up remembering the last time !   It woke me up for sure.      Perhaps we need the encouragement of a timely reminder, “ Nothing but the blood of Jesus can take away our sin.”   That is what the hymn says.   That is what the scriptures tell us in Hebrews.   “ And every priest stands daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins” 10:11   No matter how much we try we cannot push our way into heaven by our good thoughts, deeds, or sacrifices.   Being nice will not get us there either and trying to persuade someone to come back t

“ Luke 15---- Looking at Repentance from a Well-Known Lesson “        Today we re-look at a familiar lesson from Luke’s Gospel.   It may be seen as a continuation of last week’s discussion of repentance from the Epistle of I Corinthians where the Apostle Paul encouraged us to remember that all of the lessons from the Old Testament were written for our example.   There were reasons to repent.   God has provided a way of escape that we may be able to bear the testings and temptations we have in this life.   We were also told we should not “tempt Christ” .      This week another reason is given to repent.   The parable of the prodigal son paints a picture of a forgiving and receiving Father .   This is a picture of God as well for the person who “ came to himself” 15:7 The younger son realizes his need has not been satisfied with the world’s goods “ riotous living where he wasted his substance”      There is first a realization that when one turns to God in repentance that

“ God is Faithful in All Circumstances of Our Lives”   I Corinthians 10:13       God is faithful.   That contains a lot .   He is faithful to His Word, to His promises that He has made and to His people that He has called .   It is sometimes hard to believe this in our world of distress, problems, difficulties, temptations and fill in the blank. The beginning of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians tells us this :   “ God is faithful by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord.” 1:9   We do not always feel that this is the case.   But objectively it is so.   Nothing can change this fact. God will not void His promises to us despite our own unfaithfulness.       In the tenth chapter we are told of the fact “..but with many of them God was not well pleased.” 10:13 Who is He talking about?   The reference is to Numbers 14:29   They were the people who murmured against the leaders and against God and God said, “ your dead bodies shall fall in th