Author: ppadmin

Who gonna’ roll that stone?

Easter sermon

Easter morning, Sunday 24 April 2011
Marion Correctional Institution
(maximum security prison for men)
Text: John 20:1-18

by Ken Sehested

        It was still dark when Mary Magdalene crept away from her home, down the street, up into the garden to where Jesus had been buried two days before. Joseph of Arimathea had bravely volunteered to take Jesus’ body away from the Golgotha killing ground. Nicodemus, with whom Jesus had earlier met secretly at night, also came to the burial place, bringing traditional ointments and spices to retard the smell of a decomposing body, along with linen, the customary burial garment of the time.

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Dueling psalms

A litany for Good Friday, with texts contrasting Psalms 22 and 23

by Ken Sehested

Oh LORD, you are my shepherd, I shall not want.

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, from the words of my groaning?

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Bounty and abundance

A litany for worship inspired by Psalm 116

by Ken Sehested

Jump for joy, oh people! For amid the screaming commercials and blithering campaign ads, the Redeemer has heard our aching voice.

God hears! God knows! This is our assurance against all blistering deceit.

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Refuge in the shadow

A collection of Scripture for Holy Week, on "darkness" and "shadow" as the place of God's abiding presence

by Ken Sehested

Turning from darkness (death) to light (life) is a major theme in Scripture. But there is also a minority report, where darkness and shadow are the place of God’s abiding Presence.

“Hear a just cause, O Lord; attend to my cry; give ear to my prayer from lips free of deceit. Guard me as the apple of the eye; hide me in the shadow of your wings.” —Psalm17:1, 8

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Breath of Heaven

A litany for worship inspired by Psalm 71

by Ken Sehested

O Breath of Heaven and Earth’s Delight, to your shelter we flee from enmity’s fright.

Incline your ear to each whimpering voice collapsed by the weight of earth-splitting fear.

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News, views, notes, and quotes

Signs of the Times  •  10 March 2016  •  No. 62

Processional. St. Mary’s Academy (New Orleans) Marching Band.

Invocation. “Pleni sunt caeli et terra gloria tua. Osanna, Osanna in excelsis” (“Heaven and earth are full of thy glory. Hosanna, hosanna in the highest”), “The Ground,” by Ola Gjeilo, performed by the Heritage Concert Choir at Western Washington University.

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Sustain the weary with a word

A litany for worship inspired by Isaiah 50:4-9a

by Ken Sehested

Is there no song to be sung, no bell to be rung, no laughter from the fields at play with their yield? Would that my mouth be formed and my lips unleashed to speak a word, a true and hearty word, to all grown deaf with grief.

Make our tongues worthy—make them constant and true—to sustain the weary with a word.

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By Thy might

A litany for worship inspired by Psalm 31

by Ken Sehested

The Rock of the Righteous is our God:

Who marks the boundaries between justice and vengeance;

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Mutinous lips

A litany for worship inspired by Psalm 118

by Ken Sehested

From the depths of distress, every sail sagged and limp,
my mutinous lips offer insurrecting sighs.

With heart-aching hope doth my voice still rejoice.
Incline us, consign us, to steadfast Embrace.

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Wedding on the oncology ward

A meditation on the hurried-up wedding of my youngest and the occasion of International Women’s Day

by Ken Sehested

Introduction: It is right and proper to retrieve and celebrate the memory of women of significant achievement who model excellence, infused with righteousness, for us all. However, the vast majority of such women (and men) are highly contextual, inconspicuous, and will only be known to a handful of witnesses. Kathy Waters is one of those.
        The following is a meditation, circulated to friends, after the collision of trauma and joy surrounding my youngest’s wedding. I did not realize until now that these events from 14 years ago coincided with International Women’s Day.

 

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