During Advent, you may notice several changes to our typical Sunday liturgy which are designed to set this season of the church year apart. The portion of our service dedicated to confession contains two musical responses (“Lord, have mercy,” and a sung “Amen”), as well as a time of silent prayer, to emphasize this aspect of worship during a penitential…
Advent is a season of preparation. For centuries, Christians have used the month prior to the celebration of Christ’s incarnation to ready their hearts and their homes for the great festival. While we moderns tend to do a good bit of bustling about in the crowded hours between Thanksgiving and Christmas, that hardly constitutes the kind of preparation Advent calls…
G.K. Chesterton famously wrote, “Thanks are the highest form of thought” and “gratitude is happiness doubled by wonder.” Having been away from Parish for an entire month, Karen and I feel the truth of that perhaps more than ever. We know that we are blessed beyond measure—and we are so glad we are able to express it so clearly together…
Psalm 110, one of the clearest messianic prophecies in the psalms, gives us a picture of a king who is both ruler and priest. This morning, the hymns we sing celebrate both of these realities as they are fulfilled in Christ. In Praise, My Soul, The King Of Heaven and O Christ, Our Hope, we declare our fealty to our…
Isaac Watts (1674-1748) was without a doubt one of the most beloved authors of hymn texts in Christian history. His poems, which have been set to melodies by countless composers in the past three centuries, include classics such as When I Survey The Wondrous Cross and Alas! And Did My Savior Bleed, as well as three we’ll sing today: Blest…
Certainly a candidate for one of the greatest love songs in all of Scripture, Psalm 45 was likely written in honor of King Solomon’s wedding. But as John Calvin puts it, “there can be no doubt, that under this figure the majesty, wealth, and extent of Christ’s kingdom are described and illustrated … to teach the faithful that there is…
Continuing our short series on the “Royal Psalms,” this week we come to Psalm 2, the great warning to the nations of men that they must yield to Christ’s kingship: “Kiss the Son lest he be angry” and “break them with a rod of iron” (Psalm 2:9, 12). The service begins with the hymn Crown Him With Many Crowns, acknowledging…
Letsie III is king of the Kingdom of Lesotho. Every orphaned child in Lesotho is given his last name. Consider that: the king gives his name to those who are the most vulnerable and weak in his country. The current sermon series is a study in the royal psalms. Each psalm highlights a different aspect of God’s rule and reign…
In his letters to the Ephesians and the Colossians, the Apostle Paul discusses the role of singing in worship, instructing his readers to sing not only to the Lord but also to “one another” (Ephesians 5:19; Colossians 3:16). Well this morning, in several of the hymns we sing, we are actually singing to each other. In O Put Your Trust…
In today’s sermon text, Paul writes to the Thessalonians so that they might not grieve “as others do who have no hope” (1 Thessalonians 4:13). He details the glorious “coming of the Lord” (vs.15), in which Christ returns with the sound of the trumpet (vs. 16), and all His people, living and dead, “will always be with the Lord” (vs.…