Grace Anglican Church Gastonia, NC

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Deep Desire that Leads to a Great Gift, Luke 22.14-30 Download On the night that Jesus would be handed over and betrayed, he instituted the Communion meal. He transformed the Passover Supper into something new that would feed us with the gift of his sacrifice and new life. In fact, Jesus deeply desired to share this Passover with his disciples and through that deep desire off...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Raised to be Unbound from Sin, John 11, Ezekiel 37.1-14 Download In the raising of Lazarus from the dead, Jesus proclaims that he himself is the resurrection and the life. These things are not abstract promises, but are fully embodied in Jesus himself, which will be completely revealed to all through his death and resurrection into his glorified state. The Valley of Dry Bones...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran From Blindness to Seeing, John 9, Ephesians 5.1-14 Download When Jesus and his disciples encounter a man born blind, they wonder about the cause of the blindness, but Jesus wants to reveal that this someone that God can work in and he calls them to be about the work of the Father in all that they do. Image: William Blake, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Submitting Our Desires to Christ, John 4.1-42 Download Just after the Israelites left Egypt, they find themselves in the wilderness without water and cry out against Moses as their desire for water becomes overwhelming to them. When Jesus meets the Samaritan woman at the well, he merely asks for water and the conversation leads to a discussion about living water that gives ne...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Christ the Foundation Places our Focus on Him, John 3.1-16 Download Nicodemus went to speak with Jesus and got more than he was expecting. Jesus points Nicodemus to the reality that it is the Holy Spirit that causes faith that will be founded upon the one lifted up that our eyes might gaze upon him alone for salvation. This remains true to this day. Christ as our foundation m...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran The Remedy to Temptation and Death, Matthew 4.1-11, Romans 5.12-21 Download Jesus’ temptation in the desert should not come as a surprise for us. For him to be our substitute and representative, he must undo where Adam failed. In the Garden, Adam gave in to temptation and sinned. In the wilderness, Jesus said ‘No,’ and resisted Satan. He then cast him away from himself. Jesus...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Transfigured to Encourage, Matthew 17.1-9 Download Image: Giovanni Bellini, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons. Location: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The-Transfiguration-1480-xx-Giovanni-Bellini. JPG

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Jesus' Great Compassion Leads Laborers Forth, Matthew 9.35-38 Download When Jesus is healing and teaching in the Gospel of Matthew, we hear of his looking upon the crowds with compassion and calling upon his disciples to pray for God the Father to raise up laborers to go into this harvest of people who need the Good Shepherd. This passage is part of our readings for World Mis...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran The Foolishness of the Beatitudes, Matthew 5.1-12 Download Often when we hear the Beatitudes, we are given a picture of them being a step by step process to becoming holy or as ways that we are supposed to behave or think in order to get God’s blessings. However, they are really something all believers have in Christ because he is the one who has lived a life that reflects th...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran From Compassion to Repentance to Following, Matthew 4:12-22 Download When Jesus begins his public ministry, he starts in the town of Capernaum after John the Baptist has been arrested. Why start here? Is there something unique about this place? How does Matthew’s reference to Isaiah 9 help us? Father Jeremiah walks us through this amazing moment in his sermon today. Image: Du...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Your Baptism Matters Because of Jesus, Matthew 3.13-17 Download When Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River, he changed the meaning and the blessings of John’s baptism. As we are baptized into Christ, we receive the blessings of him being our representative and our substitute. Through that union with him, we receive life and salvation from the Father because the Spiri...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran All the Blessings In Christ, Ephesians 1.3-14, Luke 2.41-52 Download In Ephesians 1, we hear from St. Paul of various spiritual blessings that are bestowed upon us through our union with Christ. Even the Holy Spirit himself is given to us on account of who Jesus is! Alongside that we hear of Jesus being in the Temple when he was twelve years old and amazing the teachers there...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Why Do The Angels Sing_ Download One of the greatest hymns for Christmas is Hark the Herald Angels Sing . In this hymn, Charles Wesley reminds us of the heavenly reality of where Jesus comes from, that he is God incarnate for us and that through him, our sin nature can be overcome. This beautiful hymn is the basis of Father Jeremiah’s sermon for the First Sunday of Christmas....

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Born to Make Us Heirs, Titus 3.4-7 Download Through the birth of Christ, we have become heirs by baptism and faith in the promises of God. St. Paul reveals this reality to us through his writing to St. Titus. Image: St. Paul writing to the Thessalonians, by Jan Lievans, Public Domain. Image location: https://www.wikiart.org/en/jan-lievens/st-paul-writing-to-the-thessalonians

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran God's Faithfulness is Fulfilled this Night Download On Christmas Eve, we reflect on the reality of the birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. With the birth of Christ, there comes the fulfillment of all of God’s promises to his people in the Old Testament. Image: Giotto, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons .

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Quiet Faithfulness in Our Work, Matthew 1.18-25 Download We don’t always think about St. Joseph very deeply at Christmas. Yet, he is an important part of the whole story. He was called by God the Father to raise Jesus as his son and to take care of him and Mary throughout his days. And then he vanishes from the text. His faithfulness was quietly executed and completed. What d...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Patience that Leads to Joy, Matthew 11, Isaiah 35, James 5 Download John the Baptist sends his disciples to ask Jesus if he is the one to come. John has found himself imprisoned while pursing obedience to the Lord. He has also wanted his disciples to leave him and follow Jesus. What are we to make of John’s question? Is he question Jesus’ messiahship? Or is he wanting his own...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Repenting for the Coming King, Is. 11, Matthew 3, Romans 15 Download When John the Baptist went out preaching repentance and baptism, even Pharisees and Sadducees took notice. They came out to hear him and to be baptized. But he called them out calling them a brood of vipers and wanting to know who warned them to flee the wrath to come! Many think that John is utterly rejecti...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Waiting on Advent, Isaiah 2, Matthew 24, Romans 13 Download As we enter this time of Advent, we are reminded that we are called to wait on Christ during this season. We are to turn with repentant hearts toward preparing for his coming at Christmas, in the future, and even now through Word and Sacrament. Christ comes to us continually to make us ready to receive him and celebr...

Bishop Terrell Glenn Where History is Headed, Matthew 25.31-46 Download In this picture of the Last Judgment, Jesus speaks to those who served him in the least of his brothers and those who didn’t. What does this reveal about judgment? What does this reveal about how closely we identify with Jesus? Image: Last Judgment (Ravenna) , photo by Jim Forest, no changes made, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0 . Image locat...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Future Hope for Present Change, Luke 21:5-19 Download Jesus speaks of wars, tumults, earthquakes, and diseases as well as persecutions for his followers. All of these things are what has been taking place since his death and resurrection throughout the world around us. What are we to make of that? How should we live in the midst of these things around us? What is our anchor i...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Heavenly Minded for the Resurrection, Luke 20.27-28 Download Jesus is asked an absurd question by the Sadducees about the resurrection. Instead of answering their question, he redirects them because they have a false understanding of what the resurrection is actually like. When we don’t understand the reality of continuity and discontinuity of the resurrected and glorified st...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran Belonging to God as a Saint, Revelation 7, Ephesians 1 Download All Saints’ Day is an old feast day within the Church. It hasn’t always been on November 1, but that is where it has been for 1300 years now. Why do we celebrate such a day? Why remember the saints and commemorate the work of those long dead? It’s because they are not truly dead, but live in Christ awaiting the r...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran A Pharisee, a Tax Collector, and the Atonement, Luke 18.9-14 Download When Jesus told the parable of the Pharisee and Tax Collector, there was a great deal packed into it. The Pharisee was certainly believing in his own righteousness, but what does the tax collector mean when he asks for mercy? When we ask for mercy, we aren’t merely asking God to overlook our sins, we are as...

Fr. Jeremiah Caughran The Heel-Grabber, the Widow, and the Slumberless God Who Blesses, Gen. 32, Luke 18.1-8 Download Jacob wrestles with God. The Widow wrestles for justice. The slumberless God seeks to bring blessings to his people. This is the reality that we are confronted with in our various texts this Sunday. How do we wrestle with them and be drawn near to a God through our own prayers? Ima...