Sermons by Rev. Immanuel van Tonder

SERMON: GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD Back in 1918, a traveling salesman named Charles Wilden visited the studio of the photographer Eric Enstrom. Impressed by what he recognized as kindness in the bearded man’s face, Enstrom asked Wilden to pose for a picture.  Eric intended to capture an…

SERMON: Thy Kingdom come One of the highlights of visiting New York for me is a special place in Central Park West, the John Lennon Strawberry Fields memorial, with a beautiful mosaic with the word “Imagine”(seen on the front page of the bulletin).  It is only a few hundred yards from the spot where the former Beatles member was shot dead on December 8, 1980. …

SERMON: Hallowed be they Name         When you hear the word “hallowed”, what comes to mind?  What kind of emotions surface when you hear the word “hallowed”?  We don’t use the word “hallowed” frequently in everyday speech, except when we pray the Lord’s Prayer. Many people do not have an idea of what “hallowed” means. It is no wonder that many I read of many…

LORD’S PRAYER 1: THE PRAYER OF CONNECTION People across the USA are losing interest in prayer.  Pew Research conducted a survey last year from May 29 to Aug 25 among a nationally representative group of respondents and found that 45% of U.S. adults say they pray daily compared to 58% who…

AS BLOW, SO ABOVE: HAPPINESS IN THE TREE OF LIFE: PSALM 1  The Tree of Life is a beloved symbol in many cultures and beliefs worldwide.  It links heaven and earth, uniting above and below. The tree has many characteristics that lend easily to symbolism. Many trees take on the appearance of…

“The Scream” is the popular name given to a work of art created by Norwegian artist Edvard Munch in 1893. On May 2nd, 2012, the painting was sold in 12 minutes for $120 mil.  The story behind the painting was that Munch and two friends (seen in the background) went for a walk. Suddenly, there were two piercing sounds that rang out from both sides of the road. They…

Luke 12:32-40 Before the pandemic started only 5% of people worked from home. At the height of the pandemic up to 60% were working from home. After several false starts, office workers are slowly returning to their desks.  Many companies like JPMorgan Chase, Morgan Stanley, Meta, Tesla, Wells Fargo, and Microsoft urged workers to go back to the office.  Other companies…

SERMON: Theme: Choosing the better part: One Thing instead of many things. Luke 10:38-42 Physics has a wonderful term called degrees of freedom. What it means is that an object that is free to move in one dimension has one degree of freedom. It can move back and forth in a straight line. But this…