Sermons
Each week, we post Sunday’s sermon by Rev. Eric Anderson. If you can’t join us on Sunday morning, try following #3tweetsermon on Twitter.
Sermon: “Jesus’ Witnesses”
May 28, 2017: Seventh Sunday of Easter John 17:1-11, Acts 1:6-14 It's confession time. Early in my ministry — I’d been a pastor for less than five years — I finished worship one Sunday with the sense that I’d heard that sermon before. And not just because I served two churches in those days, and preached…
Sermon: “Wonders and Signs”
May 7, 2017: Fourth Sunday of Easter Acts 2:42-47 “Many wonders and signs were being done by the apostles” – a better translation would be, “through the apostles,” meaning that God was acting through them – but that’s not the point. One of the characteristics of the first days of the Church following Pentecost was…
Sermon: “Hidden Messiah, Visible Messiah”
April 30, 2017: Third Sunday of Easter Luke 24:13-35 Ah, Easter. In colder climates, it’s the season when spring takes hold, when leaves re-adorn the trees, and when the first flowers bloom. Here, we’re seeing the avocado fruits start to grow, and various fresh fruits are on their way. For the editors of the lectionary,…
Sermon: “Love Beyond Sight”
April 23, 2017: Second Sunday of Easter John 20:19-31 Poor Thomas. Every year, on the Sunday after Easter, the Revised Common Lectionary and the other lists of Bible readings for Sunday which are its relatives bring up this story. And for Thomas, that’s got to be embarrassing. He didn’t make it into the Acts of…
Sermon: “A Simple Story to Change the World”
April 16, 2017: Easter Sunday Matthew 28:1-10 Author Frederick Buechner has written: “It has always struck me as remarkable that when the writers of the four Gospels come to the most important part of the story they have to tell, they tell it in whispers. The part I mean, of course, is the part about…
Reflection for Easter Sunrise 2017
April 16, 2017: Easter Sunday Preached at the sunrise service, Wainaku Executive Center, Hilo John 20:1-20 Maybe the weather was bad the first Easter Sunday morning. Because everyone, pretty much, who saw the risen Jesus that day had trouble recognizing who he was. The prize for Longest Time Spent With the Risen Jesus While Unaware…
Reflection for Maundy Thursday 2017
April 13, 2017 1 Corinthians 11:23-26 This is a precious, wondrous, solemn, and holy night, this Thursday of Holy Week. In English, we call this day "Maundy Thursday." "Maundy." What's "Maundy," you might well wonder. It's another example of what happens to words in another language that come into English. It comes from the Latin…
Sermon: “When Jesus Wept”
April 2, 2017: Fifth Sunday in Lent John 11:1-45 “Jesus wept.” That’s the shortest verse in the Bible, in the King James translation of 1611. It’s longer in the New Revised Standard Version of 1991: “Jesus began to weep,” which is probably a slightly better rendition of the three words it takes in the gospel…
Sermon: Blessings the Wrong Way
March 26, 2017: Fourth Sunday in Lent John 9:1-41 Last week’s alternate ending to the story of Jesus and the woman at the well went so… Well… (Get it?) ...That I thought I’d try another Alternative Story of Jesus. So here goes. Oh, let me know how I’m doing with these, OK? The disciples observed…
Sermon: “Inviting Questions”
March 19, 2017: Third Sunday in Lent John 4:5-42 Among the marvels of the Internet is a web site called, “How It Should Have Ended” (caution: there's some four-letter words sprinkled throughout that site), which offers alternative endings to popular movies. For instance, the characters in the Lord of the Rings might have flown to the…
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