❖ Video (Whole Worship Service) ❖ Audio (Message) God’s Weakness That Surpasses Any Force or Power Luke 2:1-7 Message for the third Sunday of Advent Mari Ikeda It’s the third Sunday of Advent today.To start my message today, I’d like you to have an image in your mind. I have used this image in a different context before. It’s domino toppling, especially not a linear sequence, but a planar one. The trick is to stand dominoes to be toppled automatically one after another by toppling only the first domino. It feels nice to make all the dominoes fall just by flipping and toppling the first one by our finger. It…

❖ Video (Whole Worship Service) ❖ Audio (Message) The Light Shines On You  John 1:6-9, Matthew 2:1-3 5:14-16, Isaiah 60:1-3 Message for the second Sunday of advent Andy Nagahara Christmas is the time to remember the birth of Jesus Christ. And the four weeks before Christmas are called Advent. We light two of the four candles that are placed in the chapel only at this time of year, for today is the second Sunday of Advent. As you can see, we were also able to decorate for Advent and Christmas last Sunday after the service. Decorations for the season have been common for quite some time, even in non-Christian households,…

❖ Video (Whole Worship Service) ❖ Audio (Message) What Lies Beyond “It Wasn’t Supposed to be Like This”  Luke 1:5-25 Mari Ikeda In the church calendar, the four weeks of Advent has started from today. Today I’d like to pick up the story of Zachariah and Elizabeth in Luke’s Gospel 1:5-25.Have you ever felt about your life, “It wasn’t supposed to be like this?” Perhaps for some of you it is exactly how you feel now, while there should be people who have gone through such feeling in the past. It might be a loss of health, a loss of someone important, or a loss of dream. In anyone’s life,…

❖ Video ❖ Audio (Message) י (Yodh) The History of The Kingdom of God Series: Finding the Gospel in Psalm 119ーA Hymn to the Law　10/22 Psalm 119:73-80 Andy Nagahara The tenth in the series of Psalm 119, called Hymn to the Law, is the tenth paragraph in the entire series. It is verses 73 through 80, where the tenth letter of the Hebrew alphabet, Yodh, is placed at the beginning of each line.　This character is thought to derive from a hieroglyphic script that depicted a hand (Hebrew: יד yad). As we read today’s section two verses at a time, we can see the history of God’s relationship with us, who…

❖ Video (Whole Worship Service) ❖ Audio (Message) “You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased” John 1:24-34 Mari Ikeda Today, we’re going to read John 1:24-34. It’s about John the Baptist’s testimony. I’d like to divide it into three parts and read accordingly. Firstly, let’s read v.24-28. 1. We cannot save ourselves (24-28) 24 Now the Pharisees who had been sent 25 questioned him, “Why then do you baptize if you are not the Messiah, nor Elijah, nor the Prophet?” 26 “I baptize with water,” John replied, “but among you stands one you do not know. 27 He is the one who comes after…