MAC KIRK

  A Door is Opened A Door Was Opened   The Revelation of Saint John    "... if you yearn for a deeper life, a full life, a sane life, that is a door"    Clarrisa Estes " if your religion doesn't make you feel good to be alive, what is the point of it?"   Tom Robbins One more which has been helpful to me, " Happiness often sneaks in a door you did not think was open" " After this I looked, and, behold, a door was   ( perfect participle)opened in heaven"   Revelation 4    1.   The Open Door-   When others come to us and try and open up about a problem, are we open?   One of the most trying things is to get couples to open up about their problems.   Usually it takes finding the real problem in counseling as the presenting problem is not the real problem.   We may say this about our own lives as well individually.   When we think that our problem is such and such it may be something else , a deeper problem?   What does real openness r

  Pentecost am I a spiritual person or not? Pentecost , but the real issue is " Am I am spiritual person or not?" ACTS 2    Today I want to ask some deeply spiritual questions because somehow in our day these questions are in the background.   What is the foreground?   It depends on who you ask of course.   Some struggle with age related issues and we can id with that.   Some have issues related to what kind of worship should we be having in our culture and others just are not engaged in a deep way perhaps in some of the questions I want to ask today.   Of course we always have the foreground issues of the look of the building (which is important), etc......and who is coming or not coming to hear the preaching of the Word and receive the Holy Communion.   These may be good things to think about today .   We should do that.    As we look to the Scriptures today you will see in your bulletin where we are .   If Luke wrote Acts, and I believe he did , we should go back to

 Ascension Ascension " the day in which He was taken up"  Acts 1:2 1:11- " This same Jesus who was taken up from you into heaven, will so come in like manner as you saw Him go into heaven." Creed says " He ascended into heaven" Sundays , WED and Fridays during penitential times the use of the Litany prays " By thy glorious Resurrection and Ascension- Good Lord, deliver us." Where did He go? 1.  Luke 24:51 "...and as He was blessing them he was separated from them and was carried up into heaven." We prayed " Grant , we beseech Thee,  Almighty God, that like as we do believe thy only-begotten Son our LORD Jesus Christ to have ascended into the heavens; so we may also in heart and mind thither ascend, and with him continually dwell..." We have an anchor of the soul. Hebrews 6:19 in which we believe it is " impossible for God to lie... a sure and steadfast hope, and which enters the Presence behind the  veil." A good anc

Making of Sermons Rogation Sunday, 5th S. after Easter I had the privilege of talking with a gentleman in California when I was there who used to discuss things with me in the retirement home where my Dad was living. I found out later I could never win an argument /discussion as he always seemed to have an answer. I found out later he was the retired head of the Rhetoric dept and debate at Stanford Univ. No wonder. After several visits out there to see Dad we became friends and still discussed but I was more prepared knowing who he was . He wrote a book recently on " The Rhetoric of the Pulpit" by Dr. Jon Ericson, and dedicated it to me along with several others who had read his mss and assisted in that way. One of the things he says in his book which I rather like is " There are numerous wrong ideas about preaching...point 1-the pastor needs to come up with a great sermon every Sunday." Instead he says, " rather present your sermon. You are a particular person