Lenten Devotional: Easter

Christ has risen, he has risen indeed!

We have made it through the Lenten season and have come to an empty tomb and the good news: Christ has risen, he has risen indeed. I hope that you have found some time in the Lenten season and during Holy Week to slow down, breathe deeply, and draw nearer to God. Although Lent and Holy Week are more somber occasions in our liturgical year, they are ones we need. We need a season that urges us to slow down, to reconnect with God, and to remind us that if we allow ourselves to sit in the darkness, in the suffering and grief we can be more present in the celebration and to trust that we never sit in either suffering or celebration alone. 

I hope and pray at the end of this Lenten season you are able to lean fully into the joy and celebration that Easter brings. May you feel the presence of our Risen Lord and Savior near to you now and always.    

Christ has risen! He has risen indeed! Thanks be to God!

—Margaret Fleming

About the author

Margaret Fleming has been a member of Second Presbyterian Church since 2017. A native of Mt. Pleasant, she found herself back home after graduating from Columbia Theological Seminary in May 2020. She resides in Mt. Pleasant with her husband Will, a fourth-year medical student at MUSC. She is a candidate for ordination in the PCUSA and is currently serving as a Chaplain Resident at Roper Hospital.

Margaret's ordination service will be held on April 18, 2021 in the sanctuary.

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“Meeting people at their point of need and inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ.”

Easter Sunday 2021

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EASTER SUNDAY

Festival Communion Service Sunday, April 4 at 10:30 a.m.

Easter is a time when we have enjoyed record participation in our Sunday service as well as our highest giving during the offering. Please consider giving cheerfully and generously this joyous season, whether in person, online, or by mail. Download the service bulletin here.

Easter Sermon:

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Easter is a time when we have enjoyed record participation in our Sunday service as well as our highest giving during the offering. Please consider giving cheerfully and generously this joyous season, whether in person, online, or by mail.

“Meeting people at their point of need and inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ.”

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Good Friday 2021

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GOOD FRIDAY

Service of Tenebrae: Seven Last Words

Friday, April 2 at 7:00 p.m.

Download service bulletin

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Easter is a time when we have enjoyed record participation in our Sunday service as well as our highest giving during the offering. Please consider giving cheerfully and generously this joyous season, whether in person, online, or by mail.

“Meeting people at their point of need and inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ.”

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Greetings

Online Church is posted on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m. Watch here.

Find upcoming events and announcements here.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, April 4, 2021

Dear Friends in Christ – 

We have taken this Lenten season to accompany Jesus in his final days. 

What have we learned? 

That Jesus in his humanity is far more interesting, more competent, more radical, more intentional than we may have thought. Would the forces he opposed have killed him eventually? Probably, but we have seen Jesus leverage relationships and time to fulfill ancient prophecy, and to insure that this disruption in time would accomplish what needed to be done. 

The longed-for Messiah arrives in the Holy City at Passover to liberate God’s people from navel gazing to radical inclusivity. We employ the Gospel of Matthew. The earth quakes. Roman guards are stunned. An angelic presence reminds us that Jesus has plans and we’ll find his resurrected self in Galilee, just as he said. 

This Easter we’re open – to worship together, masked up and safely spaced. Invite your friends and let’s worship our God of righteousness, paradox and love.  

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Interested in becoming a member of Second Presbyterian? Email Cress for more information.

Listen to sermon podcasts here. Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.

Maundy Thursday 2021

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MAUNDY THURSDAY

Communion Service Thursday, April 1 at 7:00 p.m.

“What Love Looks Like -Bellies Full & Feet Clean”

John 13:33-35

Download service bulletin

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Easter is a time when we have enjoyed record participation in our Sunday service as well as our highest giving during the offering. Please consider giving cheerfully and generously this joyous season, whether in person, online, or by mail.

“Meeting people at their point of need and inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ.”

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Lenten Devotional: To Be Patient and Wait for the Lord

To Be Patient and Wait for the Lord

It is hard to believe that we have already made it to Holy Week. Easter is coming upon us quickly, and yet, there is still so much that must happen before we celebrate a tomb empty and our Lord risen. The seasons of the liturgical year teach us a rhythm in which we can live our lives. Most of the seasons, I have found, urge us to slow down, sit still, be patient and wait for the Lord. I believe Holy Week is a special invitation to sit and wait for the Lord.

There is something powerful about sitting in the discomfort of Holy Week. Throughout the Lenten season, Rev. Darwin’s sermon series has guided us through Jesus’ final days and we have been practicing sitting with and learning from that journey alongside our Savior. I often think about the disciples and how scary, jarring, and heartbreaking the last few days must have been. Especially when Jesus dies.

For the past few years, it has become an important practice for me, personally, to try and sit in that discomfort of grief and darkness of Good Friday and the uncomfortable unknown of Saturday. Because I have learned time and time again that when I sit in the grief, suffering, and darkness of my pain or others’ I can more truly and fully join in the celebration, the brightness, and the joy. Let us accept the invitation to be with Jesus on this journey this week so we might be able to truly celebrate when Easter Sunday arrives.

—Margaret Fleming

About the author

Margaret Fleming has been a member of Second Presbyterian Church since 2017. A native of Mt. Pleasant, she found herself back home after graduating from Columbia Theological Seminary in May 2020. She resides in Mt. Pleasant with her husband Will, a fourth-year medical student at MUSC. She is a candidate for ordination in the PCUSA and is currently serving as a Chaplain Resident at Roper Hospital.

Margaret's ordination service will be held on April 18, 2021 in the sanctuary.

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“Meeting people at their point of need and inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ.”

Palm Sunday 2021

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PALM SUNDAY

Virtual Palm Processional

Palm Sunday sermon: “The Beginning of the End”

Livestreamed Worship Service from Palm Sunday, March 28 at 10:30 a.m.

Download service bulletin

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Easter is a time when we have enjoyed record participation in our Sunday service as well as our highest giving during the offering. Please consider giving cheerfully and generously this joyous season, whether in person, online, or by mail.

“Meeting people at their point of need and inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ.”

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The Beginning of the End

Online Church is posted on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m. Watch here.

Find upcoming events and announcements here.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 28, 2021

Dear Friends in Christ —

Throughout the season of Lent we’ve engaged Jesus’ Final Week, discovering a more complex man, intentional leader, and shaper of the narrative. We’ve discovered someone who kept the mission in sight and provoked authorities and created situations as necessary to accomplish the goal of defeating those forces that divide and separate us.

This Sunday we start at the beginning of the week. The Messiah enters the Holy City from the Mount of Olives on the back of a colt in fulfillment of prophecy. We’ll see that each parable, each turn, each visit, meal and conversation moves the needle to and through humiliation, ridicule, and torture to love’s triumph.

Don’t miss this chance to accompany the Lord of life through human horror to God’s defining moment.

Let us abide together with God in love —

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Interested in becoming a member of Second Presbyterian? Email Cress for more information.

Listen to sermon podcasts here. Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.

Holy Week 2021

Our usual Holy Week services will be offered in the sanctuary masked and socially distanced and also livestreamed. Join us as we journey to the cross together for services on Palm Sunday, Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, and Easter Sunday.

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Download service bulletin

Download service bulletin

PALM SUNDAY: Worship Service Sunday, March 28 at 10:30 a.m. Watch the virtual palm processional here. Thanks to everyone who sent in photos and videos.

MAUNDY THURSDAY: Communion Service Thursday, April 1 at 7:00 p.m.

Download service bulletin

Download service bulletin

GOOD FRIDAY: Service of Tenebrae Friday, April 2 at 7:00 p.m.

EASTER: Festival Communion Service Sunday, April 4 at 10:30 a.m.

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Easter is a time when we have enjoyed record participation in our Sunday service as well as our highest giving during the offering. Please consider giving cheerfully and generously this joyous season, whether in person, online, or by mail.

“Meeting people at their point of need and inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ.”

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Lenten Devotional: Vulnerable Prayers

Vulnerable Prayers

Becoming more human or allowing ourselves to get more fully in touch with our humanity has been a theme that has continuously been coming up for me in this season of Lent. Yesterday, I had the honor of preaching at Second and I preached on Mark 14:32-42, Jesus praying in Gethsemane, if it has been a while since you have read or heard this scripture, I urge you to give it another read. 

In the text Jesus is wrestling with God and praying what I believe is an incredibly human prayer: “Abba, Father, for you all things are possible; remove this cup from me; yet, not what I want, but what you want” (Mark 14:36). I know I have prayed a similar prayer and I wonder, have you? I find that this text brings me comfort for many reasons, one being that Jesus is so human here as are his very sleepy disciples. I can’t help but see this text as an invitation; an invitation to allow God into our messes, even the ones we create ourselves. I have hope that when we pray raw and vulnerable prayers, like Jesus did in the garden, God honors them, hears them, and is present with us as we offer them—even if God doesn’t necessarily answer them in the ways we think God ought to or in the ways we might want. 

May we be renewed and strengthened by the love of God this week and always. May we take heart in knowing our Lord never falls asleep and is always awake. May we try and stay awake, but be willing to accept God’s grace when we inevitably fall asleep. 

—Margaret Fleming

About the author

Margaret Fleming has been a member of Second Presbyterian Church since 2017. A native of Mt. Pleasant, she found herself back home after graduating from Columbia Theological Seminary in May 2020. She resides in Mt. Pleasant with her husband Will, a fourth-year medical student at MUSC. She is a candidate for ordination in the PCUSA and is currently serving as a Chaplain Resident at Roper Hospital.

Margaret's ordination service will be held on April 18, 2021 in the sanctuary.

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“Meeting people at their point of need and inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ.”

A Pivotal Moment--Gethsemane

Online Church is posted on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m. Watch here.

Find upcoming events and announcements here.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 21, 2021

This Lenten season, we have been following Jesus throughout his final week. This Sunday we reach the Thursday of his final week and a lot happens. We will walk alongside Jesus as he prepares his disciples for what is to come—anointing, betrayal, denial, arrest, and death. Mark 14 is a chapter full of the events of Thursday and Mark 14:32-42 shares the account of Jesus in Gethsemane, a vulnerable fully human moment and also a pivotal one.

Let us gather together to journey alongside and worship the One who became fully human, who knew suffering, and who loves us with an everlasting love.

Grace and Peace,
Margaret

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Margaret Fleming has been a member of Second Presbyterian Church since 2017. A native of Mt. Pleasant, she found herself back home after graduating from Columbia Theological Seminary in May 2020. She resides in Mt. Pleasant with her husband Will, a fourth-year medical student at MUSC. She is a candidate for ordination in the PCUSA and is currently serving as a Chaplain Resident at Roper Hospital.

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Interested in becoming a member of Second Presbyterian? Email Cress for more information.

Listen to sermon podcasts here. Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.

Lenten Devotional: Suffering and Celebration

Suffering and Celebration

Last week, I wrote about how Lent is a time to do things that will draw us closer to God and in doing so we become more fully human. By acknowledging our reliance upon God and learning what it means to answer the call to follow Christ, we recognize not only our full humanity but the full humanity of others. In answering the call to follow Christ we are invited to move closer to people and their pain, to bear witness to their suffering and in learning to be present in the suffering we learn how to more fully celebrate in times of joy.

The society we live in offers us amazing ways to numb ourselves to the pain of this world—our pain and the pain of others. A few of my personal favorite numbing tools are scrolling through social media, store websites, and buying things I don’t need all in the search of a quick fix to alleviate pain or to make me happy. However, as I wake up to my full humanity by drawing closer to God—I learn that the numbing does not help but rather hinders real relationship. In this Lenten season I am personally being challenged to connect fully, without numbing, to my humanity and the humanity of others. It hurts, it is some of the hardest work we have to do—yet it is holy as it draws us closer to one another and to the One who created us all and calls us beloved.

As we enter into this week, may we do so as fully human. May we step into others’ pain and suffering and into their joy, laughter and love with our whole selves and may we find that Christ goes with us, Christ is already there, and that Christ surrounds us. 

—Margaret Fleming

About the author

Margaret Fleming has been a member of Second Presbyterian Church since 2017. A native of Mt. Pleasant, she found herself back home after graduating from Columbia Theological Seminary in May 2020. She resides in Mt. Pleasant with her husband Will, a fourth-year medical student at MUSC. She is a candidate for ordination in the PCUSA and is currently serving as a Chaplain Resident at Roper Hospital.

Margaret will be preaching at Second Presbyterian Church on Sunday, March 21, 2021 and we are excited to host her ordination service on April 18, 2021.

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“Meeting people at their point of need and inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ.”

Eyes Up

Online Church is posted on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m. Watch here.

Find upcoming events and announcements here.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 14, 2021

Dear Friends in Christ —

How often— from work to drive home radio— do you hear folks refer to Wednesday as ‘hump day’? Like an imagined mountain you climb, the midpoint of a project, an accomplishing of something that’s required after which you slide, you cruise.

Scholars, theologians and preachers don’t know what to make of Wednesday of Jesus’ final week. Scripture doesn’t tell us how Jesus and his friends spend the day. Some suggest it was a ‘personal’ day spent with friends. Others find it hard to believe Jesus would just ‘take a day’ given the time frame of passion week. I won’t speculate.   

This Sunday we engage the lectionary. We’ll touch on both Testaments that direct our attention where in our redemption will be found. 

Eyes up! 

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Interested in becoming a member of Second Presbyterian? Email Cress for more information.

Listen to sermon podcasts here. Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.

Lenten Devotional: Being Human

Being Human

During the season of Lent, we practice intentionality. We intentionally give up things or put on a new practice in order to draw closer to Christ. I believe as we deliberately make space and time to become silent and draw closer to God, we are ultimately drawing closer to our own humanity. We learn more and more to rely on the One who created us and sustains us. 

The things we choose to give up or the practices we choose to put on are intended to keep pointing us back to God. Every time we desire that thing we gave up, we are faced with our humanity and the temptations that come with being human and we are met with our need for God’s grace, patience, and love, which God continues to freely give. Or perhaps we put on new practices and as we do them we draw closer to God and we sense more and more God’s presence of love in this big world and with each one of us. 

In this season of Lent, I hope and pray that as you are reminded of your full humanity you will feel God’s presence of love encompassing you, embracing you, loving you and sustaining you throughout this journey.

—Margaret Fleming

About the author

Margaret Fleming has been a member of Second Presbyterian Church since 2017. A native of Mt. Pleasant, she found herself back home after graduating from Columbia Theological Seminary in May 2020. She resides in Mt. Pleasant with her husband Will, a fourth-year medical student at MUSC. She is a candidate for ordination in the PCUSA and is currently serving as a Chaplain Resident at Roper Hospital.

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“Meeting people at their point of need and inviting all into a dynamic relationship with Christ.”

Jesus' Final Week: Tuesday

Online Church is posted on Sunday mornings at 10:30 a.m. Watch here.

Find upcoming events and announcements here.

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SERMON SNAPSHOT: Sunday, March 7, 2021

Dear Friends in Christ —

Do you know the name Harold Camping? He founded Family Radio Network; he predicted Jesus would return on May 21, 2011 signaling the end of the world. Evidently Jesus didn’t get the memo.

And civilzation didn’t crumble at Y2K.

And the ancient Mayans miscalculated as well.

What is it about the apocalypse that conjures such speculation? Perhaps if we look at another meaning – an uncovering, a disclosure, a revealing of great knowledge – it may be easier to understand the fascination. I doubt many of us are yearning for the end of it, or this, or that or all of it! We aren’t those who ponder a rapture – ascending through the clouds, bumping into Jesus on his way, the final reckoning in his pocket.

In our text this week, Jesus covers ground and he doesn’t have much time. Time is accelerating so he gathers his chosen to Olivet. There, he reveals trials to come. He is clear in what must happen, but when it comes to his return, he just says, “Be ready.” So we’ll do our part in grateful obedience and in inexplicable joy – yes, joy, even in the scrum of these days.

We sing. We pray. We proclaim. We share Christ’s table. You’re expected and will be celebrated. 

In anticipation – 

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Interested in becoming a member of Second Presbyterian? Email Cress for more information.

Listen to sermon podcasts here. Click here to view all Second Presbyterian Church videos. Find upcoming events and announcements here.