Sermon

Easter 2018. Jason Ho on Mark 16:1-8. Mark’s resurrection narrative ends abruptly — the women see only the empty tomb, the disciples not yet understanding — and it is precisely this opening that invites every reader to take up the work of bearing the resurrection witness themselves.

BMCC’s 2018 Good Friday service — meditation, hymns, and Communion, remembering Christ who gave himself for the world. Good Friday is the night we must walk through before we reach the resurrection. May we be still before the cross, and receive again the Lord’s love and sacrifice.

Palm Sunday. Lead pastor on Mark 11:1-11. The crowd shouts ‘Hosanna’ expecting a militant messiah — Jesus instead chooses humility and the road of suffering. Peace and justice are never to be found in violence.

Jason Ho on Mark 4:35-41 — ‘Who is this?’ Jesus sleeps in the storm; rising at a word he stills the wind and sea. In the storms of our lives, this is who he is — both the companion who shares the boat and the Lord who silences the waves.

Lead pastor on Hebrews 10:33-35. To face the giants of our lives — public reproach, the seizure of our property, persecution — the believer holds fast to confidence in the One whose reward awaits. The secret is not strength, but endurance rooted in trust.

Lau Kim-ling on Genesis 9:8-17 — the Noahide covenant marked by the rainbow. ‘Restorative #MeToo’: in the wound of sexual harassment and power-abuse, restorative justice is not cheap forgiveness but the perpetrator, the survivor, and the community entering together the long process of truth and reconciliation.

Lead pastor on Matthew 26:1-5: ‘Jesus’s New Year.’ While religious leaders plotted his death, Jesus’s ‘new year’ was the road toward the cross. How do we view our own life-thresholds and turning points? Real new life often begins from letting go and taking up the burden.

Jason Ho on Mark 1:12-15 and 3:1-6 — Jesus’s wilderness of temptation interwoven with the synagogue where he heals the man with the withered hand on the Sabbath. How may we still blossom nakedly, authentically before the Lord in the wildernesses of our own lives?

Dr. Chen Wen-shan, Assistant Professor at the Department of Religion at Yu Shan Theological Seminary (Taiwan), visits BMCC to speak on Matthew 15:21-38 — Jesus and the Canaanite woman. Dr. Chen has been a leading scholar of feminist theology, disability theology, restorative justice, and the religious right in Taiwan. She was a founding signatory of Taiwan’s interfaith marriage-equality petition and wrote the preface to Rev. Ngeo Boon Lin’s books.

Lead pastor on Luke 17:21 — ‘the Kingdom of God is within you.’ The Kingdom does not arrive with observable spectacle; it is already breaking out among us, in the lives that bear love and justice. To live in the Kingdom is to live as if it is true now.