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1. Sunday Dinner
Luke 24:13-35
Sermon
Alex Gondola
Remember Sunday when you were growing up? Maybe a lot of your families were like mine. Sunday was a special day. Sunday dinner was a special meal. It was almost always the best meal of the week. Mom put a roast of something (roast chicken, pork, lamb, beef) in the oven to cook all morning. Then the family went off to church. When we returned around noon, the roast whatever was still cooking. But t...
Sermon
Mark Ellingsen
"What happens to you when you die, Dad?" "Of course, son, if you believe in God, you go up to heaven where you will be with God and the angels." Does such a response sound familiar to you? Is not this the answer with which most of us were raised: That when you die, your soul, free from the body, will go to heaven. Is that what happens? Is that what you all think? Do not despair. I shall not call f...
Sermon
Thomas A. Pilgrim
A man and his little grandson were out walking down the beach one afternoon. They saw a crowd of people gathered around a man who had been overcome by the heat of the sun and had suffered a sunstroke. The grandfather was trying to explain this to the boy. The little fellow looked up at his grand father and said, "Grandpa, I hope you never suffer from a sunset." We have gathered today to celebrate ...
Sermon
Steven Burt
Luke’s narrative here is one of those narratives that we can easily picture. It was late afternoon on the very first Easter day, and two disciples -- apparently not of the original twelve -- but nevertheless, two disciples, were walking along the dry dusty road from Jerusalem to Emmaus. They were pretty down-in-the-mouth for they had just lost their messiah, Jesus of Nazareth, the one they had tho...
Sermon
Johnny Dean
Before I went to seminary, I was an avid reader. I especially enjoyed reading novels by authors like Stephen King. Often I would literally devour a novel in one or two days. Then, a few weeks later, I would go back and read the same novel again at a slower pace to make sure I hadn’t missed anything the first time through. Seminary requires a tremendous amount of reading, much of it dry as dust and...
Sermon
Peter Rudowski
Parables - short stories - are very effective ways to communicate ideas. Again and again we read in the Scriptures parables which are used to communicate God’s message to us. Jesus is a master at the short story. He tells us that the kingdom of God is like a father who had a son leave home with his inheritance. The son is welcomed home after a disastrous journey. Or, the kingdom of God is like a w...
Sermon
Louis H. Valbracht
I always wonder what an agnostic or an unbeliever or a skeptic does on Easter Day. Have you ever wondered that? Out of curiosity, let’s join two of them on the first Easter day. For them, the story was all over, the last curtain was rung down. Their hopes lay shattered. Their dreams lay twisted and ruined. Easter Day found them on the way back home to Emmaus, back to the old home town, about seven...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
Our scripture lesson for our communion meditation is the 24th chapter of Luke.  Will you follow me as we hear the word of God, beginning with the 13th verse of the 24th chapter?  (Read Luke 24:13-24) Let us pray. Come Holy Spirit, heavenly dove, with all your quickening powers.  Come shed abroad a savior’s love and that will quicken ours.  Amen. A few weeks ago, I shared with you a story of a Be...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
The Emmaus walk is one of the most significant, spiritual renewal experiences in which I have ever participated. You may have heard something about this experience, perhaps you read about it in The Courier a few weeks ago. Almost 100 membership of Christ Church have shared in it, and at the end of April, members of our church and other churches in Memphis will lead the first Memphis Emmaus for men...
Sermon
Mike Ripski
Turn in The Hymnal to the very front – where the pattern for worship is located. Note the title given to the way we Christians worship together. Our worship is a Service of Word and Table. This morning’s text illustrates how the risen Christ meets us through Scripture and Sacrament. PART I (Luke 24:13-28 is read.) It is Easter evening. Two who’d been part of the Jesus Movement were heading home...
Sermon
Robert Leslie Holmes
Here again we find Luke the physician at his best. Although not one of the original twelve, in his own exquisite and unique way this doctor-disciple of Jesus gives us details with clarity indicating that he is close to Jesus and the disciples and can speak with the authority of an eyewitness to the things he tells us. In his opening phrase in the passage, Luke tells us that "two of them were going...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
Ours is an educated era. Yet we seem to be filled with facts while remaining ignorant of true understanding. In these texts the greatest teacher we have ever known, Jesus, demonstrates an educative scheme designed to fill our hearts as well as our heads, and destined to get our feet moving along with our minds. The texts examined this week demonstrate the biblical understanding of Truth (aletheia...
13. You Will Never Walk Alone
Luke 24:13-20, 25-26, 28-35
Sermon
Mark Trotter
Summer is not far away now. It is a time when many people travel. If you are going abroad, I am sure you have already made plans to do so. If you have told anybody about your plans, I am sure you have gotten a lot of advice on where to stay, where to eat, and what to see. Through the generosity of many of you in this church, Jean and I were able to take a trip to Germany last summer. We had a won...
Sermon
King Duncan
Young Helen Keller was imprisoned by her circumstances. She could neither see nor hear. She could feel with her hands, but without sight or hearing, how could she know what it was she was feeling? One day her teacher Ann Sullivan took Helen down a familiar path to the wellhouse. Someone was drawing water there. Ann let the water run over one of Helen's hands and in sign language spelled into the ...
Sermon
King Duncan
There is an 80-foot tall maple tree in Milford, Connecticut that hasn ™t changed much over the years. There are new leaves every spring, of course, and the leaves fall off every autumn. And there is the spot where a limb came off when Hurricane Gloria blew through in 1985. Other than that missing branch the tree on Hawley Avenue has looked the same for as long as anyone can remember. The spot whe...
Sermon
King Duncan
"I've got some good news and some bad news to tell you. Which would you like to hear first?" the farmer asked. "Why don't you tell me the bad news first?" the banker replied. "Okay," said the farmer, "With the bad drought and inflation and all, I won't be able to pay anything on my mortgage this year, either on the principal or the interest." "Well, that is pretty bad," said the banker. "It ge...
Sermon
King Duncan
Karl Barth, one of the twentieth century’s most famous theologians, was on a streetcar one day in Basel, Switzerland, where he lived and lectured. A tourist to the city climbed on the streetcar and sat down next to Barth. The two men started chatting with each other. “Are you new to the city?” Barth inquired. “Yes,” said the tourist. “Is there anything you would particularly like to see in this ...
Sermon
King Duncan
A woman named Lidia DeGormez and her husband were in the hospital waiting room shortly before the birth of their second child. They met a young couple also waiting for the wife to deliver. Lidia’s husband commented that the two mothers-to-be looked so much alike they could be twins. Before long, both soon-to-be-Moms went into the delivery room. Lidia’s baby, a girl, was born first. Lidia was cover...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
Willie Nelson sings it. I'm sure some others sing it, too, but not like Willie! Now I want you to know that I don't live in the world of country music -- nor do I live in the world of opera. What some people who live in the world of opera and look down their noses at country music don't know, or haven't admitted, is that the story-line of opera and country music is often the same. It's the story o...
Sermon
Maxie Dunnam
Blue eyes crying in the rain! Who knows where that sentence comes from? It’s from Psalm 14 verse…no, you know better. It’s from a haunting country ballad and no one sings it better than Willie Nelson. I’m not a country music buff but I like some of it – especially Willie. Recently I had to spend about three hours driving, and I tuned in to a good country music station. I recommend that experience,...
Sermon
Leonard Sweet
Transition times. Life is full of them . . . times of transition. As Eve allegedly said to Adam as they were leaving the Garden of Eden, “We are living in a time of great transition.” Transition times. No times are more filled with possibility and promise. No times are more filled with peril and despair. In transition times, everything is possible, and everything could fall flat and fail. Th...
22. I Smell Bread
Luke 24:13-35
Sermon
Mebane Pridgen McMahon
(Communion) Notes: For effect, I had many bread machines throughout the sanctuary and as the worship concluded, the hot fresh bread was ready. It was true. I smelled bread. Rev. Mebane Pridgen McMahon How many of you remember the popular sitcom of the 1970s called MASH? If you do, then you recall that it was about a group of doctors and nurses trying to make sense of their assignment to the 4077...
Sermon
Eric Ritz
The story of "Wrong Way Riegels" is a familiar one, but it bears repeating. On New Year’s Day, 1929, Georgia Tech played UCLA in the Rose Bowl. In that game a young man named Roy Riegels recovered a fumble for UCLA. Picking up the loose ball, he lost his direction and ran sixty-five yards toward the wrong goal line. One of his teammates, Benny Lom, ran him down and tackled him just before he reac...
Sermon
Eric Ritz
One of the most significant books I read in seminary was titled THE MEANING OF REVELATION by Dr. H. Richard Niebuhr. Dr. Niebuhr probes the difference between history as lived and experienced, and history as observed by an external spectator. History is constantly being made each and every day of our lives. The Christian Church exists in a real world, but how do we discern between the external re...
Sermon
Eric Ritz
For me, no appearance on the first Sunday after Easter is more vivid or beautiful than the scripture lesson shared by the Gospel writer Luke of the episode that takes place on the Road to Emmaus. S. MacLean Gilmore describes it "as a story of singular grace and charm." As our Gospel lesson begins we see that Cleopas and an unnamed disciple are leaving behind the bitter memories of Jerusalem and a...
Showing 1 to 25 of 99 results