Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 27th, 2008 No Comments »
Sermon by guest preacher Pearl Hoover. In the third sermon of a series on healing, Pearl, a graduate of Associated Mennonite Biblical Seminary and a former pastor of the Northern Virginia Mennonite Church, related three stories, two from the Gospels and one from her own experience. From the story of Jarius’s daughter as found in Mark and the one of the bleeding woman, Hoover illustrated how we wait for Jesus for our healing. “Do not fear, only believe,” Jesus told the woman. In the story of Tom Fox, the Christian Peacemaker Team worker who lost his life as a hostage in Iraq and whom Hoover befriended, she related a moving story of Fox, who only had his hands free for 20 minutes a day,using that time to rub and pray for his guard’s swollen foot. “When we are healed,” she said, we are called to bring healing to others.”
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Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 20th, 2008 No Comments »
Sermon preached by Barbara Moyer-Lehman, associate pastor, Park View Mennonite Church, Harrisonburg, VA. In the second sermon in a series on healing Barbara insists that God cares deeply about us, always stretching out his hand to us. He is wanting to heal us, sustain us, hold us up. Basing her remarks on the story, found in Mark 3:1-6, she quotes Jesus as saying to the man with the withered hand: “Come forward, stretch out your hand.” Implicit in Jesus’ words and action is that it makes all the difference as to how we, as his followers, react to this invitation to healing. It is important “how we receive him,” she said, inviting the congregation to get beyond their wounded spirits, their self-pity and their self-perceived weakness to receive God’s healing.
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Posted in Uncategorized on Jan 13th, 2008 No Comments »
Sermon by pastor Phil Kniss, January 13, 2008. This is the first in a series of three sermons on healing. This first one focuses on our need to become aware of the “holy desire” to be made whole. This desire is rooted in our being created in the image of God, who desires wholeness for us and for all creation. Phil draws on the gospel story in Matthew 10, the healing of blind Bartimaeus, whose “holy desire” to see again was quickened in him by Jesus’ compassionate question, “What do you want me to do for you?”
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