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Rev. Chelsey Harmon lives in Vancouver, BC and is a bivocational pastor at The Bridge Community Church (CRC) in Langley, BC. Chelsey is also on staff at Churches Learning Change, a non-profit that aims to help congregations and leaders pursue personal and congregational transformation. She earned her M.Div. at Calvin Theological Seminary (2009), a ThM in Spiritual Theology at Regent College (2023) and is currently a part-time PhD student at the University of Edinburgh’s School of Divinity where she studies historical examples of Trinitarian mysticism and theology.
Chelsey has been writing sermon commentaries for the CEP website since 2019.
John 15:1-8
Commentary
Easter 5B
Do you prefer to translate Jesus’s oft-repeated menō as “remain” or “abide”? Remain surely carries the tone of a command, but Jesus also uses the word descriptively, relating a mutual being together. Maybe it’s just me, but when I hear Jesus say, “Remain in me…” I picture him simultaneously reaching out his arm and gently…
John 10:11-18
Commentary
Easter 4B
Jesus’s rich self-revelation as the Good Shepherd gives us a number of aspects to highlight in a message about God’s provisional care. Within his identity as the Good Shepherd, there’s a stark comparison to the “hired hands” we silly sheep get wrapped up in following—only to be abandoned to the hand’s selfish bravado. There’s the…
Luke 24:36-48
Commentary
Easter 3B
We have a different version of last week’s text. It is a gift to us because it highlights another aspect of the human condition. Instead of last week’s gripping fear keeping the disciples from action and belief, this week they are confused and trying to reason things out. The results are the same: both situations…
John 20:19-31
Commentary
Easter 2B
The second Sunday of Easter brings us to this text. The disciples have heard from the women that Jesus has risen from the dead but they are so afraid that they have locked themselves up tight, worried that their lives are in danger by those who put Jesus to death. Fear trumps the witness of…
Mark 16:1-8
Commentary
Easter Day B
Mark’s Easter story is a shocker. Even though it’s the earliest written of the gospel accounts, it has the least amount of details and Jesus himself is merely talked about in the passage. And once you’ve become accustomed to the John’s intimate garden encounter between Mary and Jesus or the women’s quick obedience in Matthew…
John 12:12-16
Commentary
Palm Sunday B
What sets John’s account apart is perspective. Instead of following the story play out from among the disciples and Jesus’s instructions, John tells a story more focused on what the crowd is doing and saying. In fact, even though all attention is on him, Jesus doesn’t speak a word in John 12.12-16. The larger narrative…
John 12:20-33
Commentary
Lent 5B
Comments, Questions, and Observations There are many familiar themes in this week’s passage: losing one’s life in order to gain it, following Jesus, Jesus speaking about his impending death, and the way that his salvation work expands to all the nations. At the start of Lent, we heard the Father boom down with a message…
John 3:14-21
Commentary
Lent 4B
What would Lent be without at least one Sunday focused on confession and repentance? This is that Sunday. We plop right into a conversation in verse 14, though it’s pretty much Jesus talking from here on out to Nicodemus. Even more disorienting, we start with this reference to an Old Testament story from Numbers 21….
John 2:13-22
Commentary
Lent 3B
So far in Lent we’ve reflected on why we should we heed Jesus’s call to repent and believe that the Kingdom of God has come near, and we’ve realized that we have no idea how God works but that we need to follow him on the crucifix journey in order to learn. This week we…
Mark 8:31-38
Commentary
Lent 2B
Though it is not included in the lectionary selection, it is worth looking at the verses prior to our text. Seeing Peter go from acknowledging the truth about Jesus, the Christ, to doing what he does here, well, it’s quite the lenten journey. Clearly, Peter does and doesn’t get it. His mental model of what…
About Chelsey Harmon