Emmanuel Fellowship Ministries

11/22/2023

Wanted to let the friends and families of Emmanuel Fellowship Ministries know Wesley Kennedy will be ordained as a transitional deacon (will be ordained a priest within the year) on December 1. If you would like his address to send a note of congratulations, prayers, or gifts, please PM me and I will send it to you.

08/16/2023

Selah ... [Pause and consider]

"There is so much unbelief in the world, for too many people speak of God unworthily and never stop finding fault with His activities in a manner they would not dare use toward the most incompetent workman. What we really want to do is restrict His work so that it conforms to the rules and boundaries that our limited reason considers suitable."

~~ Jean-Pierre De Cussade,
"Abandonment to Divine Providence"

01/31/2023

01/01/2023

"At the name of Jesus every knee should bow... and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord." Philippians 2:10

New Year’s Day (the 8th Day of Christmas) is the “Feast of the Holy Name," (also called "The Circumcision of Our Lord") in observance of the events described in Luke 2:21. “On the eighth day, when it was time to circumcise the child, he was named Jesus, the name the angel had given him before he was conceived.” In accordance with the law of Moses, the infant Jesus was circumcised. The one who fulfilled the law (Mathew 5:17) submitted to the demands of the law and, as a result, shed his first drops of blood on this day as our incarnate Savior. January 1st and January 6th (The Feast of the Epiphany) are two parts of a whole: January 1st observes Christ’s salvation to the Jews, serving as the fulfillment of the law of Moses, and January 6th proclaims Christ’s salvation to all the nations of the earth. In the short verse of Luke 2:21, the Lord is officially given the name of “Jesus.” This Holy Name, proclaimed by angels, is the Name at which every knee, both Jews and Gentiles, shall bow and every tongue confess that He is Lord. It is in honor of this Holy Name of Jesus that we, as Christians, begin each calendar year.

One more detail worth noting, about the artwork - "IHS" is a Greek monogram for "Jesus Christ," used by ancient Christians as shorthand for the Holy Name of Jesus during the years of the early persecutions.

Almighty God, your blessed Son fulfilled the covenant of circumcision for our sake, and was given the Name that is above every name: Give us grace faithfully to bear his Name, and to worship him with pure hearts according to the New Covenant; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

"Our Church Speaks" prints and calendars available at www.ourchurchspeaks.com.

12/28/2022

Who shall I be at Christmas?

Shall I be as old Israel, caught in captivity and under the domination of powers and attitudes and thoughts alien to the person whom God has chosen me to be?

Shall I be as the scribes and priests and Pharisees, so caught up in my own expectations and my own sense of how things ought to be, my own sense of knowing what is right that I am not open to the One Who is coming?

Shall I be as Herod, threatened by not being the main character in the story, hurting and wounding and killing the souls of others in my rage and resentment?

Shall I be as the wise men from the East, unsure of what exactly is occurring but having seen the sign of hope as from afar, making the difficult journey and bringing whatever I have in worship to the One Who is born?

Shall I be as the shepherds, hearing the gospel of great joy out in the fields, struck in fear and astonishment at what I am hearing, yet hastening to see what has been spoken?

Shall I be as Mary’s kinswoman Elizabeth, with what is within me leaping at the presence of the Lord of glory even as He is yet unseen, even as I do not understand Him, even as His mother has come to me?

Shall I be as Joseph, given this gospel in words that seem to make no sense in a situation that makes no sense in a world that surely will not understand, called to be faithful in serving one who is serving the Lord Who serves us all?

Shall I be as the Virgin Mary, given a great task by God, asked to give up myself, asked to give up what is most precious and intimate as a dwelling place for the Lord of glory Himself, asked to remain forever pure, asked to become a place of prayer for all who come to me?

And shall I be as Christ, for there is nothing but Christ and nothing after Christ, for He is my hope, for He is my longing, for He is the One Who has come to redeem me? And to be like Him—that is my all. There is nothing else. As I kneel at the manger, as I go to see a beautiful newborn babe -- there, I meet God. And there I become for Him whatever He wants. There I become His own child, His own brother, His own family, His own.

At Christmas, I will be His own, for He has made Himself my own.

To the Christ Who is born for us be all glory, honor and worship, with His Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever, and unto ages of ages. Amen.

--

For inspiration for this sermon, I owe a debt to this piece by Metropolitan Georges (Khodr) of Mount Lebanon: “Who Shall I Be at Pascha?” http://araborthodoxy.blogspot.com/2014/04/met-georges-khodr-who-shall-i-be-at.html

12/26/2022

NOEL

by J. R. R. Tolkien

Grim was the world and grey last night:
The moon and stars were fled,
The hall was dark without song or light,
The fires were fallen dead.
The wind in the trees was like to the sea,
And over the mountains’ teeth
It whistled bitter-cold and free,
As a sword leapt from its sheath.

The lord of snows upreared his head;
His mantle long and pale
Upon the bitter blast was spread
And hung o’er hill and dale.
The world was blind,
the boughs were bent,
All ways and paths were wild:
Then the veil of cloud apart was rent,
And here was born a Child.

The ancient dome of heaven sheer
Was pricked with distant light;
A star came shining white and clear
Alone above the night.
In the dale of dark in that hour of birth
One voice on a sudden sang:
Then all the bells in Heaven and Earth
Together at midnight rang.

Mary sang in this world below:
They heard her song arise
O’er mist and over mountain snow
To the walls of Paradise,
And the tongue of many bells was stirred
in Heaven’s towers to ring
When the voice of mortal maid was heard,
That was mother of Heaven’s King.

Glad is the world and fair this night
With stars about its head,
And the hall is filled with laughter and light,
And fires are burning red.
The bells of Paradise now ring
With bells of Christendom,
And Gloria, Gloria we will sing
That God on earth is come.

12/16/2022

“Angels do not have sensible voices, but mentally they offer up constant praise to God. This is their whole occupation; their entire life is dedicated to this. And you too, brother, when you enter your closet and shut the door, i.e. when your mind no longer wanders to and fro, but enters the inner recesses of your heart, and your senses are locked up and kept away from the things of the world, and in this manner you always pray, then you are like the holy angels, and your Father, seeing your secret prayer which you offer to Him out of the treasury of your heart, will bestow upon you openly great spiritual gifts.”
(St Gregory Palamas on the ‘Prayer of the Heart’)