Freelton Strabane United Church
To live our discipleship with integrity and grace.
Horseshoe Falls Regional Council
Reign of Christ
November 24 2024
Minister: Rev. Will Wheeler, B.A. M. Div. 905-659-3380 E-mail: [email protected]
Music Director Joan Simpson
Call To Worship
Lo! he comes, with clouds descending,
once for our salvation slain
thousand thousand saints attendings
well the triumph of his train
Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia
Christ the Lord returns to reign
Yea, amen! let all adore thee,
high on thine eternal throne;
Savior, take the power and glory;
claim the kingdom for thine own:
Alleluia! alleluia! alleluia!
Thou shalt reign, and thou alone.
Prayer
O God, we praise and adore you. You are truly without beginning or ending - your reign is eternal and your being all-powerful, and yet you chose to reveal your power in the most powerless and vulnerable manner - as a baby. As you shared our humanity in Jesus, you gave the world a new understanding of power. We know now that power is not to be used to dominate, but to serve others as Christ did. He transformed the love of power by the power of love. We gather today to celebrate your rule of love in our hearts as we experience it in Jesus and through the enabling gift of your Spirit. We offer this prayer of gratitude for these blessings in the name of Jesus, our Servant King. Amen
One: Let us listen to the word of God
All Our ears are open
One: our lesson is taken from Revelation 1:4b-8
One Let us listen for the Word of God.
Gospel John 18:33-37
One: The Word of God for the People of God
All Thanks be to God
In the Infancy Gospel of Thomas where you find stories of Jesus as a young child (not the best behaved child) There is a story of a Teacher who decides to teach the boy Jesus. The teacher showed him all the Greek letters the alpha through the Omega. Jesus then begins to question the teacher and said to him “ you do not know the Alpha according to nature, how do you teach others the beta? You hypocrite. First if you know it teach the alpha then we shall believe you about the Beta. In other words, explain the truth behind the alpha and in explaining that truth you will understand the nature of the following letters and their truth.
Begins to ask the man to begin to understand truth. Many years later this question of truth comes up again.
Pilate to Jesus Are you the king of the Jews?
Jesus Do you ask this on your own, or did others tell you about me?
Pilate I am not a Jew, am I, your own nation and the chief priest have handed you over to me What have you done?
Jesus My kingdom is not from this world. If my kingdom were from this world, my followers would be fighting to keep me from being handed over to the Jews. But as it is my kingdom is not from here.
Pilate So you are a King?
Jesus you say that I am a king. /For this I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.
Pilate What is truth?
A fundamental question is asked here. What is Truth? What a question. What is truth? Some would argue that truth is that which is support by facts.
A tree is a tree by the fact that it is a living thing made up of organized cellular structure. This is a truth. It is not true that a rock is a tree as they are fundamentally different.
This is what is known as the correspondence theory which is often traced back to Aristotle’s well-known definition of truth “To say of what is that it is not, or of what is not that it is, is false, while to say of what is that it is, and of what is not that it is not, is true”—but virtually identical formulations can be found in Plato This does allude to a relation (saying something of something) to reality (what is), the relation is not made very explicit, and there is no specification of what on the part of reality is responsible for the truth of a saying. As such, the definition offers a muted, relatively minimal version of a correspondence theory.
What happens when you do not have facts that would support a truth?
The more I read about the various philosophies of truth the more it became clear that each would have a flaw and there fore not be a truth but a thought or opinion.
What is truth. Could truth be that which we hold as a corporate belief making it a fundamental truth based on our belief that it is true?
The nature of truth is as diverse as its definition. It is freeing, and yet can be terribly painful
What is Truth? Is It what people are searching for.
Perhaps it is the nature of this very question that drives us forward and calls us to continue on In our lives. That constant quest.
The Natural tendency, in pursuing a large questions, is to use the faculties God has given us. Art, critical thinking, and scientific experimentation. These are the human means by which we try to make sense of the world. If we cannot gain insight into a matter by ever more deeply probing inquiry, then it must be the case that no answer exists. I know sounds a lot like Aristotle
Can it be that the answer cannot be found in knowledge, art or science but something beyond investigation and interrogation?
Can truth be found or understood in Faith? It lies just beyond the reach of philosophy and well beyond the reach of science. It eluded Pilate, who was too world weary to know the truth if it walked up and looked him in the face. It eludes many who seek after truth in various and contradictory ways.
Yet Faith is within the grasp of the simplest of minds. Faith is that incomprehensible gift that makes the humblest person content and answers the most confounding questions of great thinkers. It is illogical, impenetrable and not testable. Human reason is blinded by its searing flow, yet its beauty spread revealing through the prism of a believer’s heart.
Faith answers the question
What is Truth? The question remains unanswered and answered. It is answered in each of our own understanding of the nature of God. In striving to understand the nature of God then we are able to discern God with in us and come to own our own truths. The truth is those things those beliefs those faiths that we hold true. Each of us comes to our own truths.
Can I give you the definite answer. No. Well yes.
Consider Martin Luther. The Father of the Protestant reformation. What faith what conviction it must have took for him to nail his 21 confessions of belief to the cathedral door in Wittenburg . The pain of wood receiving the nail was the labour pain of the birth of the protestant church. The same as the pain the wood received in receiving the nails of crucifixion the very birth of our faith the truth of God’s love.
These Confessions became for him his truth. They became a truth for a whole new way of Christian thinking. These truths found upon the older truth of Apostles Creed, the Nicene Creed. We believe in Jesus Christ, born of the virgin Mary, crucified under Pontius Pilate, descended into hell resurrected on the third. They became the foundation for our truths as a denomination. In the Articles of Union, A New Creed a New Song of Faith.
We are not alone we believe in God who has created and is creating.
What is Truth? It is many things. For me the Truth in is my faith in those great words of comfort in my life which will be in time my epitaph. “We are not along. In life in death in Life in Death God is with us We are not alone. That and the Lord will provide.
There is much we still do not know about the truth, even we believers with faith. We ask questions of each other all the time: What exactly happens when we die? What is heaven like? (Will there by chocolate cake or Scotch) What is God’s precise will for my life? When will Christ return? And the Perennial favorite WWJD What would Jesus Drive? .
We still have plenty of questions about the truth and the faith that reveals it.
We will continue to search for truth in our lives and find it in our faith. But allow me to perhaps provide you with a insight to this question of truth
I will tell you the answer to the ancient question It is whispered in each Ordained clergy ear just as the Spirit is invoked upon them just as they lay there hands on you and you feel the great weight of your call. What is Truth?
That God loves you. That is what truth is. That is the foundation of faith. The answer to all we need to know.
That “We are not along. In life in death in Life in Death God is with us We are not alone.
Prayers
In the demands of the everyday, in the fluidness of life we long for that which can give us a touch stone to hold on to. We find comfort in the truths that we have found for ourselves. The greatest of those truth is that you are our God and that you in all the joys and sorrows that this life brings are with us. It is comfort that we can come to you to say thank you for the day or to ask for wisdom. That we can come to you for a place to poor out our fears and sorrow.
We pray for your broken and troubled world. We pray for those that mourn and live in fear. We pray for those suffering under cruel heal of persecution and genocide. We pray for those that have felt the cruel had of oppression who have now become the oppressor.
We pray for your broken and troubles world.
We pray for those whom we have been called to journey with.
Those whom we hold in our hearts and those whom we name before you.
The great truth is that you are with them where ever they maybe on their journey.
The truth is that we are blessed to be in this place, to be surrounded by our sisters and brothers in Christ. We pray that you will continue to bless our Church and the work that we have taken on in your name. May we continue to allow your Spirit to lead us making this a place of comfort and support We offer these prayers to you in Christ our Lord. Amen
Prayer
Take this moment, sign and space, take my friends around; here among us make the place where your love is found
Take the time to call my name, take the time to mend who I am and what I’ve been, all I’ve failed to tend.
Take the tiredness of my days, take the past regret,
Letting your forgiveness touch all I can’t forget.
Take the little child in me scared of growing old’
Help me here to find my worth made in Christ’s own mold.
Take my talents, take my skills, take what’s yet to be
Let my life by yours and yet let it still be me.
Amen
Sending Forth and Blessing
One: The holiness of God shines upon you and empowers your witness and service.
All: We will meet God in prayer and walk with god in places of human need.
One: In all times and places God blesses us. We go now to be channels of God's blessing
Blessing
One: Now may you know Peace and May God the one who brings us comfort surround you, May Christ our Joy walk with you. May the Continued presence of The Holy Spirit illuminate our path and keep us safe until we can gather again in community. Amen
It's time to make a tea or coffee and call someone who would enjoy hearing your voice. Have a blessed week
Yesterdaywe honour our heritage.
Todaywe know that we are not alone,that we live in God's world.
Tomorrowwith God,we will discoverthe undiscovered country.
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