"Our 27 Months"

In the twenty-seven months Linda and I have been with you at Sardis Presbyterian Church, we have been recipients of your gifts, hospitality, and affirmation. In serving this great congregation, we are cognizant that we stand on the shoulders of giants. What a privilege to be part of this community of faith.

Effective Monday, January 8, 2018, The Rev. Dr. Joe B. Martin, IV, will be your new pastor. I am counting on you to welcome Joe B. and his family in your usual gracious style. I suggest the following to assist the Martin family in getting immersed in the life of Sardis.

1.  Pray for them.

2.  Give them your name more than once.

3.  Share your hospitality with them.

4.  Anticipate God’s continued blessing on Sardis Presbyterian Church.

I expect to hear good things about you and your shared Christian witness with Joe B.

God bless you again in 2018.

"A Better Seat At The Manger"

This weeks blog is provided by

Dave's son, Rev. Peter McKechnie. 

“A great and wondrous sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, with the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars. She was pregnant and cried out in pain as she was about to give birth.  Then another sign appeared in heaven: an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns on his heads. His tail swept down a third of the stars out of the sky and flung them to the earth. The dragon stood before the woman who was about to bear a child, so that he might devour her child as soon as it was born. And she gave birth to a son, a male child, who is to rule all the nations with an iron scepter…”.    Romans 12:1-5

Ever seen THAT illustrated on a Christmas card?!  …Me either.

Desire forging design!  Destiny living in danger! An infant King! A resident threat! And the fight is on…  Revelation 12 reads as Heaven’s raw, thundering parallel to the soft, earthy narratives that we circle around this season.  At the same instant there was no room at the inn, there was a rumble in the eternities.  Powers and principalities clash, the Bible tells.

Philip Yancey calls Jesus’ birth “…the Great Invasion…” and a “…daring raid… into the universe’s seat of evil!”  Want a candy cane with that?

This year, this Christmas, I wanted… no, needed to get another angle, a new view, a better seat at the manger.  Truthfully, I am always living in danger of domesticating the divine.  See, I’ve begun to feel as though I’ve wrung all of the wonder and expectation right out of the stable. Everything just seems so familiar. The donkey ride, the desperation, shepherds on night-shift, the angelic presence, drive-by kings; I mean I’ve heard it all before.

And then I rediscovered Revelation’s angle on the birth of Christ! Jesus came not to be coddled, but to recapture our hearts, to win us back, charging into a world that isn’t so serine and civilized.  Truth is, there’s so much at play in this moment of child-bearing! Heaven and earth conspire and the Creator King is at it again, this time giving us his most precious gift: The Prince, His One and Only, our Peace!

I love thinking on the Truth that boldly says I’ve got a Messiah that’s crazy for my heart and willing to war for it!

What do you need to rediscover about Christmas?  What’s going to keep this season from sneaking back into a religious routine?

Peter McKechnie

"What Is Faith"

The Sunday school teacher asked his class of 13 years olds, “What is faith?”  A young girl fired back, “Believing something you know isn’t true.”

Tragically, many people hold that view.  Christianity does not have to take a back seat in the market place of ideas.  To be a Christian does not mean you have to kiss your brain goodbye.   Believing something does not make it true.  Refusing to believe it does not make it false.  Belief in Jesus Christ fits the facts infinitely better than disbelief.

The assignment was to, “call his name Jesus.”  The name Jesus means to save.  Christ came as a light in our darkness to save us.  In a world doubled over with hunger and violence, Jesus represents a move from the ridiculous to the sublime.

The rational does not get you to God.  You need revelation. The revelation God sent our way is in the form of a baby, his son, Jesus Christ.  Christ is the solution to our personal pollution.  Jesus Christ is not a truth you master, but a truth before which you surrender. God’s answer to meaninglessness is not a principal or a program but a person, Jesus Christ.

Faith is not belief without proof but trust without reservation!

We are invited to trust in Jesus Christ because through him, events are altered, lives are changed, relationships are healed, and love proves stronger than hate.

May the joy of knowing you have a savior make a difference in your life starting today.

Merry Christmas!

O God, words fail us when we try to express thanks for the Savior.

Help our lives to express our gratitude.  Thank you for this tangible

expression of your love.  We celebrate that this day and always.

In the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Blessings!

"Cuteness and God Are Unbeatable"

Christmas cards range from the irreverent to the poignant. The best-selling Christmas card ever for Hallmark is one with three little girls wearing halos.  They look like three little angels.  The message on the card is simply, “God bless you, love you and keep you.”

Cuteness and God are unbeatable.

In the first century, there was nothing about a census.  Wealth and power were concentrated in Caesar Augustus.  He needed taxes and troops. There were only two reasons for a census: a new tax assessment and the discovery of youths eligible for conscription into Rome’s military service. The Roman Empire appeared to control the entire world.  That empire stretched from Britain across Europe down to North Africa and eastward into Asia.

Jews were considered too subversive to serve in the Roman army.  Therefore, the census in Palestine was for the sole purpose of taxation.

The actual government edict said every man had to go back home to be counted.  The old tribal ancestries held good.  Joseph was required to travel the 80 miles from Nazareth to Bethlehem to his family home.

Bethlehem meant house of bread. We believe that Jesus Christ is the Bread of Life.  While the Roman Empire has long since vanished, we once again celebrate the birth of Jesus.  It is the strongest story in the world; the story of God’s search for us.  In love, God sent His Son to save us from our sins.

Two thousand plus years ago in that historic but unremarkable village of Bethlehem, in the puppet state of Palestine, it became perfectly clear.  The clarity meant God loves us.  Why else a baby in moldy hay, the child of peasants?

That’s the love we celebrate today.

Blessings!