Category: Sermon

St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, Canon Claude Schroeder

Well, let me begin this morning wishing you all a very Happy Easter, in fact the very happiest of Easters!

Given the current circumstances, that probably comes across as something of a provocation. I mean, how can I wish you a happy Easter when all the things that we associate with the celebration of Easter, Easter flower arrangements and Easter music, a sense of new life associated with the coming to life of the earth again at springtime, Easter brunch with family and friends, and the delight and joy of children hunting for Easter eggs, has been taken from us? And we find ourselves plunged into this nightmare of a pandemic that has enshrounded the world in blanket of sickness, death, fear and anxiety and that has left many of us wondering, if, how, and when we are ever going to recover from this?

Continue reading “Easter Sunday – April 12, 2020”

Good Friday 2020 – Revd. Nathaniel Deng Mayen

This particular Good Friday! Oh my God! For most of the people I have talked to and who have attended the church for most of their adult lives, this Easter season is special in many ways.

Continue reading ““It is Finished”: Our Sacrifice is Complete”

Jesus knew that his time had come. John tells us that in the very first verse of our Gospel passage this evening. The hour had come for him to depart out of this world and to return to the Father. Knowing that, Jesus continued to love his own who were in the world, and to love them to the end.^[1] He still does. Endlessly. It’s the John 3.16 kind of love—much more than just warm fuzzies—like the fierce love of a mother or father—“a love that needs no love in return, that is is intelligent and purposeful, always directed to the need of the other.”^[2] Love that is imperative. Like the Maundy in Maundy Thursday. Maundy comes from the Latin, mandatum, meaning commandment as in the gospel reading

Continue reading “Love Wash Eat Drink Remember—for Maundy Thursday 2020”

St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church. Palm Sunday, April 5, 2020, Beth Christianson

Well, I think this may go on record as the strangest Palm Sunday I have ever passed in my life in the Church.  Last year at this time, we were parading in St. Mary’s with palm branches, palm crosses, and banners.  We sang, we lit candles.  When I think back, my imagination conjures up sound and motion and color.  Today, I am thinking of each of you in your homes, with your loved ones.  I hope that you are singing together, and that you found something to stand in for palm branches!

Continue reading “The Mind of the Messiah”

St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church, Canon Claude Schroeder (John 11. 1-45)

Today we have come to the Fifth and final Sunday in the season of Lent, and the story of the Raising of Lazarus from the dead. This is the fourth in a series of encounters from St. John’s Gospel this Lent, where Jesus has been demonstrating His power to heal, save, and deliver us from all the powers of evil which threaten and destroy human life and God’s good creation. 

Continue reading “March 29, 2020 Lent 5”

Canon Claude Schroeder ( John 9. 1-41)

So today we are continuing our Lenten sermon series, “Becoming the Story We Tell” where, in the Gospel lessons from St. John, we are exploring the meaning of Baptism, our “birth from above by water and the Spirit.” (John 3.5)

St. Paul, speaking of Holy Baptism, wrote, “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.”( Romans 6.5). Baptism is union with Jesus in His death. What was the death of Jesus?  The death of Jesus Christ on the Cross was a death to sin. It was a death in which He entrusted Himself to God in love and obedience. It was a death unto life with God, and by that death He has defeated the power of death on our behalf, and was raised bodily to life again. 

Continue reading “Lent 4, March 22, 2020”

St. Mary the Virgin Anglican Church Regina Lent 2 March 8, 2020 Canon Claude Schroeder (John 3:1—7)

The theme which we are exploring in our small groups this Lent and on Sunday mornings at St. Mary’s “Becoming the Story We Tell” which is the story of God’s love made known in creation and in the birth, baptism, temptation, preaching, teaching, miracles, suffering, death, resurrection, ascension, sending of the Holy Spirit, and the coming again in glory of His Son Jesus Christ our Lord to judge the living and the dead. This is the story that is embedded in both the Apostles and Nicene Creed, and in the calendar that governs our worship here at St. Mary’s.

Continue reading “Lent 2 March 8, 2020”

Sermon on Matthew 4:1-11

Canon Claude Schroeder

Lent has arrived! I know it doesn’t look like it much outside today, but Lent is the Church’s springtime. It’s a time when new life begin to appear, and as we begin our journey with Jesus to Jerusalem.

Our Gospel for today: after His Baptism by John in the River Jordan, Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil, and he fasted 40 days and 40 nights. It’s this temptation that I want to talk to you about this morning.

Continue reading “Lent 1 March 1, 2020”

Sermon by Canon Claude Schroeder

We come today to the final Sunday in this season of pre-Lent: Quinquagesima, from the Latin word tor 50, in anticipation of the 40 days of Lent which starts on Wednesday.

“Then Jesus took unto the 12 aside and said to them, “See ​we are going up to Jerusalem, and everythinq that is written about the Son of Man by the prophets will be accomplished.”

Lent is a journey with Jesus and his disciples to Jerusalem.

Continue reading “Quinquagesima Feb 23, 2020”

Canon Claude Schroeder. Luke 20: 27—38

At the end of the service today we will be calling to mind and grieving the loss of the millions of war dead in conflicts past and present, and offering prayers for them and for the world. You know the older you get, the more funerals you end up going to, and after a while you have more friends and family who are dead than alive. You are reminded of the prospect of your own death, and the need to prepare.

Continue reading “Trinity 21 – November 10, 2019”