Rev. Don Erickson

I wouldn’t always live along the Hudson. I first moved away when I was just 19 years old. In many ways, I kept moving. But it wasn’t the river I was running from.  In fact, wherever the place I lived, I’d always miss the Hudson and the Catskills in the distance hovering over the river. Most years, I’d make it home for Christmas, the river sometimes frozen over or almost. And the Catskills by then were touched with white like my hair these days. Of course, I don’t remember my first Christmas. I was merely 8 months old in the December of that year with its momentous music. That year of 1971 ended with a couple Christmas-themed songs that transcended the season, Happy Xmas (the War is Over) by John Lennon and Yoko Ono, and River by Joni Mitchell. Can you hear Joni Mitchell sing? It's coming on Christmas They’re cutting down trees And putting up reindeer And singing songs of joy and peace…   In 1971, the Christmas traditions sung about happened. Like every year, t...

We come to the climax of this sermon series. We’ve discussed who we are – created in God’s divine image. We’ve discussed how this divine image is covered over with the baggage of our humanness. Now we turn to the one who removes that baggage and returns us to our original state as God’s divine image. We turn to the one who finds us east of Eden, gathers us, shepherds us, and lays down his life to be a bridge back to Eden. Imagine a huge bridge over troubled waters. A huge flow of people walk that bridge from east of Eden into Eden. For each individual in that stream of people, Christ is their personal bridge to God, a bridge to the garden of their hearts, a bridge to a relationship with God, a bridge back to our original nature, our divine image. Christ through his work on the cross removes the baggage covering that divine image, allowing us to begin again. We can say Jesus wipes the slate clean, getting us back to square one where we are at-one with God. Christ and the Cross at-on...

The highest Jewish holiday is Yom Kippur, a day of atonement, a day of starting again. Think about this, you Christians reading this - Jesus honored Yom Kippur. Atonement is a universal theme. There is a need in us to be reconciled with those we're disconnected from for whatever reason. We see this theme in music often. Who doesn't love a good apology song? Anyway, here are 4 songs that loosely tap into the meaning of Yom Kippur (some less loosely than others, I might add).

Before we get into our discussion of what the Christian tradition has come to call the Fall, I want to begin with a refresher of last Sunday’s big takeaway. That we, being created in God’s image, are God’s self-portrait to the world and in the world. I’d like to add something to this before we move on. I John 4 reminds us more than once that God is Love. God is not just loving. God not only loves the world. God is love itself. This has really wonderful applications. I encourage you sometimes when you’re reading the Bible, insert the word Love with a capital L whenever you see God or Lord or even pronouns for God. It often gives a new, beautiful meaning to the text.   Here’s an example, Genesis 1:26a, 27. Then Love said,  “Let us make humans in our image, according to our likeness…”      So Love created humans in Love's image,     in the image of Love were they created;     male and female Love created...

Not too long ago, Corey and I were discussing his childhood. He mentioned something fascinating to me. He said he remembers the moment he became self-aware. He talked about how when he was 3 years old he woke up from a nap while we were driving in our 1998 Subaru Forester and sort of woke up to the realization that he was who he was, an individual with a mind, with thoughts, and feelings. This blew me away. Still does. I don’t have this kind of memory. In some ways, the story of humanity’s creation in Genesis 1, that poetic narrative amounts to a discovering and a revealing of the truth about who we human beings are. The writer, inspired by God, wakes up to the realization that God created us in a special way, unique to the rest of creation, God created human beings in his divine image. Have you ever looked at a famous painter’s self-portrait. Van Gogh’s famous self-portrait comes to mind. Now, we have all of Van Gogh’s other beautiful paintings. You see something of Van Gogh in th...

Not too long ago, Corey and I were discussing his childhood. He mentioned something fascinating to me. He said he remembers the moment he became self-aware. He talked about how when he was 3 years old he woke up from a nap while we were driving in our 1998 Subaru Forester and sort of woke up to the realization that he was who he was, an individual with a mind, with thoughts, and feelings. This blew me away. Still does. I don’t have this kind of memory. In some ways, the story of humanity’s creation in Genesis 1, that poetic narrative amounts to a discovery and a revealing of the truth about who we human beings are. The writer, inspired by God, wakes up to the realization that God created us in a special way, unique to the rest of creation, God created human beings in his divine image. Have you ever looked at a famous painter’s self-portrait? Van Gogh’s famous self-portrait comes to mind. Now, we have all of Van Gogh’s other beautiful paintings. You see something of Van Gogh in thos...