Pastor’s Column Christmas 2022 We can’t find the meaning of Christmas - or even the meaning of life for that matter - at Target or Amazon or Wal-Mart, or any other store. God knows we try, though, don’t we? The visible world does give us what it can though, entertainment, comfort, pleasure, cool stuff; it anesthetizes us for a while – with suffering mixed in - and that’s about it. But this is all the world has to offer. It is unable to give us real meaning, because at heart w

Pastor’s Column 4th Sunday of Advent December 18, 2022 Joseph her husband, since he was a righteous man, yet unwilling to expose her to shame, decided to divorce her quietly. Matthew 1:19 How did it come to pass that Mary and Joseph were to be married? We don’t know, but most likely it was an arranged marriage. In any event, St. Joseph certainly had no idea what he was getting into when he and Mary were married. Joseph was placed in a situation that was, to say the least, del

Pastor’s Column 3rd Sunday of Advent December 11, 2022 People travelled great distances to see John the Baptist. John wore a camel’s hair coat, ate locusts and wild honey and ministered at the Jordan River, all of which evoked images of the prophet Elijah returning. What a sight this must have been! John was an apocalyptic preacher. His was a message of repentance and consequences. He tended to emphasize the need of repentance to avoid the perfect justice of God. Because of t

Pastor’s Column 2nd Sunday of Advent December 4, 2022 A voice of one crying out in the wilderness Prepare the way of the Lord, make straight his paths! Luke 3:1-6 Advent actually is a kind of spiritual wilderness journey. The desert can be a very hostile place for the unprepared, but it can also be a place of great beauty. It is not for nothing that John the Baptist cries out from the wilderness. In fact, in order to hear God, there has to be a place of wilderness within us.