Christ Our Hope Sermons

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 rede...

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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 bapt...

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Primary texts for this sermon: Ephesians 1:11-23 & Revelation 7:9-17 11 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 Ephesian...

<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 excerp...

In Matthew 22:15-22 , the Pharisees pose a loaded question to Jesus: "Is it lawful to pay taxes to Caesar, or not?” Jesus replies with the well-known adage, "Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar's, and to God the things that are God's.” As Jesus often did when answering these sorts of insincere questions, He answers in a way that gets at the heart of the matter. In doing...

Primary Scripture for this message - Philippians 4:4-13 In chapter 4 of his letter to the Philippians, Paul exhorts: "Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice." Taken apart from the rest of the chapter, this instruction might seem less like an invitation to joy and more of a task or worse - a burden. After all, if we mistakenly interpret this to mean that being a Christian r...

In Philippians 3:14, the apostle Paul spoke of "pressing on toward the goal, to win the prize for which God has called [him] heavenward in Christ Jesus." Improperly interpreted, we may mistakenly think this means our salvation is dependent on our own striving. But "try harder" is not the message of the Gospel.  Bishop Ken Ross focuses on this chapter of Paul's letter to re...

Obedience - especially in a Biblical context - means more than just following a set of rules. This idea runs counter to much of our modern understanding and use of the term, where there's at least an implicit message that to "obey" means to align oneself with a certain standard of behavior. So how can we ensure that when we talk about "obeying" God, we're doing so wit...

Jesus' parable of the Laborers in the Vineyard [Matthew 20:1-16] is just as perplexing to us today as it was to the disciples: a landowner sends laborers into his vineyard to work, but at the end of the work day pays them all a day's wages, whether they worked a full day or only one hour. From a business sense, this would be a baffling decision on the part of the landowner. But as an ill...

A well-known parable of Jesus is recorded in Matthew 18:21-35, that of the unforgiving servant; despite having received unconditional forgiveness for an impossible debt he owed his master, a servant immediately - perhaps even cruelly - calls in a much smaller debt owed him by a fellow servant. Jesus uses this parable to contrast the behavior we ought to exhibit to one another - forgiving one anoth...

In a community as diverse as the global Church - people of varied life experiences, economic backgrounds, political stances, and ethnicities - what are the qualities that remain constant, both in our day-to-day life and in our gatherings of worship? What are the truths that are applicable to all believers, let alone all people ? In his first sermon to the congregation of Christ Our Hope, Fr. Jerom...

Relationships between believers are a significant component of Scripture, particularly in the growth of the early Church. The apostles - with their various strengths and giftings - helped to create the environment for the Gospel to take root, grow, and thrive through their relationships with individuals and communities. To some, the apostles were mentors. To others, they were friends and peers. Bu...