Christ Our Hope Sermons

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The first Easter Sunday was quite different than it is for us today, arriving at the day in celebration after a long season of anticipation. But in some ways, we are not so different from  those women who first found the empty tomb, because we sometimes still bring that heaviest of questions before God: is it really true that Christ rose from the dead?  Fr. Jeromie Rand preaches an Easter sermon inviting us into that question, and more importantly, into the implications of the answer being "yes." Support the show (https://cohac.churchcenter.com/giving)

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Ash Wednesday marks the start of the season of Lent, the period of 40 days leading up to Easter. Lent is a season often characterized by what it lacks, what we set aside - the small things we "give up," the "alleluias" we take out of our liturgies, the adornments we remove from our worship spaces. But the Good News of Jesus - and the grace of God, made possible through His redeeming work on the Cross - is not set aside, in Lent or any other season. . Support the show (https://cohac.churchcenter.com/giving)

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In Mark 1:7-11, we hear of Jesus’ baptism by John the Baptist, the first of St. Mark’s recorded events of Jesus’ life and a central piece of the ongoing revelation of God’s glory through Christ. Not only does John recognize the culmination of his own ministry – preparing the way of the Lord – but more importantly, he bears witness to the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove on the baptized Lord. With this vision, the voice of God declares Jesus to be His “beloved Son.” Whatever else John’s mostly-unknown successor might be, the most important thing about Him was who God declared Him to be. These were the definitive statements of His identity – what God said about Him was more important than His successes, failures, or what anyone else said about Him. And this is true of us as well. This series, which will carry us through the season of Epiphany, walks through key events in the life of Christ culminating in His Transfiguration on the mountain with the disciples. Each of these events lends us an add

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Primary texts for this sermon: Ephesians 1:11-23 & Revelation 7:9-1711 In him [Christ] we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will, 12 so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory. The apostle Paul was in prison when he wrote those words to the Ephesians - not the usual place to pen a message of hope. Yet Paul writes of a present hope, alive and well in his heart, rooted in the present, eternal reign of Jesus Christ. How can we look around our own world and gain that kind of confidence, especially in times as fraught with trial as the year 2020 has been? Though we aren't meant to deny the reality of our circumstances, we also must remember not to mistakenly let them be the root of our faith, or our faith will not endure. Like Paul, our steadfast hope is in Christ alone, whose reign is not an abstraction but a present reality. Fr. Jeromie Rand delivers a message

<apocalypse: noun: from Greek apokaluptein ‘uncover, reveal’>37 And [Jesus] said to [them], “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. 38 This is the great and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. 40 On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”In the above excerpt from Matthew 22, Jesus delivers an answer to Pharisees asking which of the Old Testament commandments was the “greatest.” With this response, Jesus provides the lens for viewing and contextualizing everything they knew of Scripture at the time. And today, if we view Scripture through that same lens, we are quickly confronted by how much we fall short of those two central commandments to "love God and love neighbor."In this sermon, Fr. Jeromie Rand delves into the deepest implications of Christ’s “apocalyptic” (or revelatory) message: when we see our inability to completely orient our lives around this “love