Ascension Written Sermons

Joy and Hope Rob Gieselmann, Christmas 2016 (A) (rhinocerous joke: why do you never see a rhino hiding in a tree? They are so good at it) Broadcaster Alistair Cooke liked to tell the story about planning a Christmas entertainment show with Leonard Bernstein. You remember Leonard Bernstein - he conducted the New York Symphony and composed the scores for West Side Story, and Peter Pan.   The group was tossing   ideas around, when Cooke suggested they offer a shortened version of Handel’s Messiah – Cooke noted, a hackneyed idea, but people will like it nonetheless. Bernstein looked bewildered, and confessed: Messiah ? I don’t know the work. Imagine that, Leonard Bernstein unfamiliar with Handel’s Messiah. Somewhat ironically, Bernstein composed his own version of a faith symphony, years later, for the grand opening of the Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts. Bernstein aptly named his work, Mass, a postmodern interpretation of the Christian mass. At first, the enti...