Christ Church Jerusalem

23 May 2021 - Pentecost - As we commemorate the outpouring of God's Holy Spirit, Rev. David Pileggi reminds us that the Gospel is not merely about salvation and personal transformation. The Gospel is about healing creation and the relationships between individuals and people groups. Unity is a work of the Holy Spirit, however we must walk in love, repentance, and holiness to maintain unity, especi...

Epistles are not documents of mass production, even when in encyclical form. Documents that are encyclicals are meant to be copied and passed around to several communities, though most readers of the encyclical likely heard the document read in public and did not read it themselves. Paul identifies himself as an apostle, literally ‘one who is sent’. The concept of ‘agency’, that is of an agent bei...

16 May 2021 - Seventh Sunday of Easter - How do you become a better you? A whole segment of the publishing industry is devoted to self-help books, but those assume that our problems can be solved by ourselves. All of us are sinful and unclean so that our desires distort into potentially deadly cravings. Matthew Dalling reminds us that God sent Jesus to make us new creations, that his commands are...

Deacon Aaron Eime begins a new study on Paul's Letter to the Galatians. Notes for this study can be found at https://www.christchurchjerusalem.org/sermons/bible-studies/letter-to-the-galatians/ ‎ Blessed by our teachings? Consider saying thank you with a small (or large) donation. www.christchurchjerusalem.org/donate/

9 May 2021 - Sixth Sunday of Easter - In this age of anxiety, Rev. David Pileggi says the church worries too much about end-time prophesy and the latest heresy or apostasy. There is an unhealthy focus on wickedness and evil. The Scriptures remind us that God is the faithful king of all the world and that his goal is reconciling the nations back to himself. Our response to God's faithfulness and lo...

The end of the book of Deuteronomy contains the account of the death of Moses. The Bible in itself does not insist that Moses was the sole author of the Torah. Tradition has it that Joshua penned the final song of Chapter 33 and documented the final moments of Moses’ life. It has been assumed that the whereabouts of the burial place of Moses has been deliberately obscured by God Himself so as to i...

2 May 2021 - Fifth Sunday of Easter - Jesus calls himself the vine, calling on an image recurrent throughout the Scriptures, and places his followers as branches of himself. Jesus tells us that the Father is the vinedresser who meticulously prunes and trims the branches so that they will produce the sweetest fruit. Neville Jones reminds us that we are called to trust the the Vinedresser's discipli...

Following his song the next act of Moses is to bless the people before he himself leaves them and this world. The song of blessing has some similar characteristics to the blessing of Jacob in Genesis 49. One major feature of the blessing from Moses is the absence of the tribe of Simeon. Much of the blessing is in the third person, leading many to conclude that Joshua is recorder of the blessing. L...

25 April 2021 - Fourth Sunday of Easter - As a sheep, the choice of which voice you listen to is a matter of life or death. Ezekiel warned the wayward shepherds of Israel that their selfishness was costing the lives of the sheep. The shepherd psalmist writes about having to trust God to survive in the wilderness. Jesus then, in the midst of the pandemic of death, offers the sheep eternal life both...

The final song of Moses foretells a disastrous future for Israel, one of idolatry, violence and dispersion. The song is a national prophetic warning which does not have to come to pass should Israel heed its words. Israel’s behaviour will elicit emotions of jealousy and anger from God. Jealousy and anger are not sins in and of themselves; they are authentic feelings that God Himself can also feel,...

April 18, 2021 - Third Sunday of Easter - There is a debate of where specifically the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus took place. For some, faith seems diminished by not being able to pinpoint the exact locations. Our confidence in the resurrection, Rev. David Pileggi tells us, does not lie in identifying the place. The proof is found in 2,000 years worth of lives changed by the joy of knowi...

The last act of Moses is to break into song! We always knew he had it in him. The song is formed kike a psalm, using Hebrew-style parallelisms. The song of Deuteronomy 32 assumes that the children of Israel are already in the Promised Land, have succeeded in the conquest but have fallen into idolatry. Thus this final portion of the Last Words of Moses is heavily prophetic. The Song of Moses became...

11 April 2021 - Second Sunday in Easter - Death. If death is normal, then why do we have so much trouble with it? It does not feel normal. We are wired to hate death. Many in the world cope by saying there is nothing after death or by holding on to a fuzzy hope of an uncertain eternal existence. The resurrected Jesus gives us another view of death, says Canon Daryl Fenton. Disciples who encounter...

4 April 2021 - What are we to make of Mark's abrupt resurrection account? Is it clumsy writing? Or does it fit right into a narrative that starts abruptly and highlights Jesus as the frustrated rabbi to his fearful and blind disciples? Rev. David Pileggi has us consider the words of the young man in the empty tomb, who offers the frightened women a word of peace and reconciling mercy from the resu...

28 March 2021 - On Palm Sunday, we remember Jesus' triumphal but humble entry into Jerusalem. Jesus enters not only as a king but as a prophet warning Jerusalem -- not wagging his finger but weeping over his beloved city and his people. Rev. David Pileggi exhorts us to hear Jesus' critique of the corrupt Temple and search our hearts for the same arrogance and compromise that warranted God's judgme...

Moses is coming to the end of his monologue as well as his life in general. God has decreed Moses will not cross the Jordan and that the day of his speech, his 120th birthday, will be his final day in this world, putting in place a tradition that says heroes of God die on the same day as they are born. Moses says God Himself will cross the Jordan with the Israelites. God has been with the people i...

21 March 2021 - Fifth Sunday in Lent - To have eternal life is to have God's life. Before new birth, however, there has to be death to self, to the world's definition of life. Rev. David Pileggi encourages us to rediscover that Jesus' life -- his teaching, example, death, and resurrection -- not only saves us but shapes what our salvation looks like. We are invited not just to remember Jesus' deat...

Moses concludes his retelling of the Torah, the deuteronumos or mishna torah, linking everything once again to the individual's heart and soul. The initial future of Israel, however, was not going to be too promising. The previously mentioned blessings and curses of chapters 27 and 28 were to befall the people of God. The future was exile. In its success of the conquest of Canaan, Israel was going...

14 March 2021 - Fourth Sunday in Lent - In Numbers 21, the children of Israel sin and bring a plague upon themselves. God in his mercy allows them to restore their relationship with him through a strange device, a bronze serpent on a pole. One thousand years later, Jesus tells Nicodemus he is the one who will restore relationship between God and his people. Canon Daryl Fenton reminds us that relat...

As Moses’ speech draws close to its end, he once again reiterates the sacred history of the people following the Exodus from Egypt leading up to a reiteration of the Covenant of God. The opening verse almost reads as though there were actually two covenants given to Israel, one at Mount Sinai(called Horeb) and the other here on the plains of Moab. Some Jewish commentators, like Rashi, say that Mos...

7 March 2021 - Third Sunday in Lent - As we consider Jesus' cleansing of the temple, Rev. David Pileggi cautions us not to dismiss the temple as unimportant or merely a picture fulfilled in Jesus. The temple was a divine institution where heaven met earth, where God came down to dwell among his people. Jesus was zealous for this special place and is similarly passionate for the holiness of the Chu...

28 February 2021 - Second Sunday in Lent - In the the second week of Lent, Deacon Aaron Eime reminds us that we practice spiritual disciplines -- like fasting and alms giving -- to get more of God. When we give, God gives us himself and his blessings. Yet, this getting of blessings creates a tension so that we struggle to give more. So in our giving, Jesus invites us to suffer with him in the way...

Sharon Alley discusses humor and irony in the book of Esther. As many might know, Esther is the only book of the Bible where God is not mentioned by name. Sharon helps us unpack this nuanced book further and shows us how, through different elements, we can see the footprint of God's redemptive work in Esther. Blessed by our teachings? Consider saying thank you with a small (or large) donation. www...

Chapter 28 continues the pattern of blessing and extreme curses that has been prevalent throughout the Torah. Other nations had covenants that included blessings and curses as well. The difference with the Torah is the covenant is not between a human king and his people but with God and Man. Because Hebrew has no punctuation in its sentence structure, Moses uses a double sh’ma (that is he says the...

21 February 2021 - First Sunday in Lent - As we begin Lent, we remember that the Spirit of God thrust Jesus into the wilderness to test him. This is a real test of Jesus' trust and of his identity affirmed by the voice of God at the Jordan. God tests the righteous, Rev. David Pileggi tells us, to show us who we really are. Satan and the world want us to fail. God wants us to succeed and sends us i...