Why the Resurrection Matters

Why the Resurrection Matters.

Sunrise Service Sermon

I expect most of have seen the BBC’s version of “The Passion” over this weekend. For those of you who haven’t yet - and who might be planning to use the new BBC iPlayer! - I think I should warn you...it is rather bloody!

There’s been a rash of rather bloody crucifixion films in the last few years. The most notable, of course, was Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ”. You’ve got to have a pretty strong stomach to watch that one, I can tell you.

When that film was released, it was touted as “the greatest evangelistic opportunity in 2000 years”. Many no doubt well- meaning Christians thought that if they could just get their friends to come and see it, they would be instantly converted by seeing what Jesus went through for us on the cross. But...actually...there hasn’t been an explosion in church membership. I wonder why that is.

Whether through film, paintings, or statues, the graphic details of crucifixion - , primarily seem to be about making us feel sorry for Jesus. The underlying thought seems to be that we sort of owe it to him to follow him, because of what he did for us.

Of course, the fact that Jesus, the Son of God, died at all dramatically demonstrates the depth and meaning of his sacrifice. It does us no harm to remember who Jesus is. He is the Alpha and Omega. The Beginning and the End. He is the one who has the power to make all things new...and who promises a new heaven and a new earth. C.S. Lewis spent some time in his book, Mere Christianity, thinking about what it meant for Jesus to come and live as a human being. He wrote: “The Eternal being who knows everything and who created the whole universe, became not only a man, but (before that) a baby, and before that a foetus inside a woman’s body. If you want to get the hang of it, think how you would like to become a slug.”

But if it wasn’t for Easter...these remarkable actions on the part of God would quite probably have gone unknown, and un-remarked by the rest of humanity. Jesus wasn’t the first man to die in a horribly painful way...and he wasn’t the last. His disciples knew that, and the historical records of the time - the Gospels - tell us that after his death they thought that the whole thing was over. They hid in an upper room - terrified.

But the fact of the Resurrection...the fact that Jesus shrugged off death, and rose from the tomb, had an incredibly dramatic effect. It transformed the lives of Jesus’ friends, and from there it transformed lives throughout the whole world.

It is sometimes said that it doesn’t really matter whether or not we believe in the Resurrection. Some people have suggested that Jesus didn’t actually rise from the dead...it was just that his presence with the disciples seemed to live on with them, after his death. Some people suggest that Jesus was only alive in the sense that any dead person is alive to us...in our memories. But I don’t think that interpretation matches the facts.

First of all, people don’t give up their own lives for a memory. We know that many - if not all - of the disciples were persecuted, hated, tried and martyred for their assertion...their absolute certainty...that Jesus had got up from the grave. They could not deny what they had seen with their own eyes...no matter how much they were threatened and beaten. Now in these days we know that people will give their lives for religious dogma - for what they’ve been brainwashed with by the mad mullahs of Al Quaida. But the sacrifice of the Disciples was something quite different. For them to have denied that they had seen Jesus rise from the dead, would have been like us having to deny that grass is green.

Secondly, if Jesus had not risen from the dead, why didn’t the Roman or Jewish authorities simply produce his body to disprove it? That would have quickly stopped the resurrection rumour in its tracks. But there was no body to produce.

Jesus calls us to follow him, not only because he died for our sins...not because we feel grateful to him (although of course we should). The message of Easter is that Jesus calls us to follow him because he lives!

As one of us, Jesus not only died, but was raised from the dead and now lives with the Father. And he says that he wants to share his joy and his life with us. Jesus isn’t looking for our sympathy; he’s inviting us to get involved. He’s looking for us to join his followers in proclaiming that there is another way than the way of war and violence and hate, of greed and consumerism and poverty. And he’s inviting us, ultimately, to come home to the love of our heavenly Father. That’s why he died...to give us life, and to call us home. Not to illicit our pity.

So it does matter what we believe. If we believe that Jesus only lived in his disciples’ memories...then he died there too - when they died. And our faith is based on nothing more than a vague wishfulness - a totally unproveable hypothesis that maybe God exists, and maybe we have somewhere to go after we die.

If, on the other hand - as all the evidence suggests - he really rose from the dead, still lives today, and calls us to life and to heaven...then that is worth something. That is a truth worth hanging on to. That is a fact worth telling our neighbours about. That is something worth celebrating.

Alleluiah...Christ is Risen!

Matthew 21: “The Stones Cry Out”

Palm Sunday. "Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!" We hear these words, we sing these songs but I wonder if we understand the impact of Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on the people of his time? This day marked the end of the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and the beginning of his end. He was moving into the final week of his earthly ministry - a climactic moment. It did not just happen - Jesus planned eveything very carefully. He had even arranged for a donkey to ride on, and had agreed a coded message with the owner - so that when the Disciples turned up and took the donkey, the owner wouldn't complain.

It was very important for Jesus that he should arrive in the city on a donkey. He knew the prophecy from the ancient book of Zechariah,

‘Rejoice greatly, O daughter Zion!

Shout aloud, O daughter Jerusalem!

Lo, your king comes to you;

Triumphant and victorious is he,

Humble and riding on a donkey

On a colt, the foal of a donkey’

Jesus’ actions were an unmistakeable claim to be the Messiah, God’s messenger to the world. Jesus normally walked everywhere. This is the only time we see Jesus travelling other than on foot. That is why the people pulled branches from the trees and shouted ‘hosanna’. This is why they threw their garments on the ground to welcome the King of Kings into the holy city. This is why they began to sing the psalm of praise, Psalm 118 that pilgrims always sang on the way to Jerusalem: a song of victory, a hymn of praise to the God who defeats all his foes and establishes his kingdom:

'Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.

...With boughs in hand, join in the festal procession

up to the horns of the altar!'

But what did his disciples understand by all of this? Throughout the Gospel records we see Jesus struggling to help his disciples understand the sort of kingdom that he had come to usher in. But some of his disciples, even on Palm Sunday, still harboured ideas of Jesus coming to overthrow the Romans and to restore the power of the Jewish State. Whatever Jesus said, whatever Jesus did – it seemed that his disciples couldn't free themselves from some very human notions of power and victory.

Palm Sunday is all about power – the power of God – about the power of God which is of a different order to the powers of this world. You see, God’s power is not like the power of Caesar or of Napoleon or of the USA just multiplied. God’s power is not like that.

That is the point made in one of the crucial moments of Jesus Christ Superstar - the Rock Opera. Jesus and his followers are seen arriving in Jerusalem. Simon the Zealot is urging Jesus to go ahead and get the crowd to follow him to get rid of the Romans. Simon declares. ‘You’ll get the power and the glory for ever and ever and ever.’ And do you know what Jesus replies? Very gently, against all the noise of Simon the Zealot, he sings,’ Neither you, Simon, nor the fifty thousand, nor the Romans, nor the Jews; nor Judas; nor the twelve, nor the priests, nor the scribes nor doomed Jerusalem itself, understand what power is; understand what glory is; understand at all.’

You see - God’s power is shown through Jesus and through his self-giving and sacrifice, and suffering. Jesus Christ and him crucified; that is the power and wisdom of God. As St Paul said, "the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God". (1 Cor 1:18). It's a different order of power that works not through violence and victory but through love, service and sacrifice.

But you know - it is possible for us to see both those kinds of power at work today. On the one hand, we can see the power of violence and victory - as we see armies marching against each other around the planet, as we see selfish companies and individuals grabbing all the riches and wealth that they can, as we see man's inhumanity to man continuing to spread around the world. But we can see the other kind of power as well.

Every time that someone stands up against the violence and greed. Every time someone reaches out a hand to help another human being. Every time a hospital is opened, or a school is started, or a refugee is fed or given a tent - that's the power of God at work...showing us that there is another way...the way of love, service and sacrifice. And actually - I think - if you were to count up all the people in the world who are involved with education, healing, loving their families, relieving poverty, serving their church or their local community, or working for reconcilliation - and then counted up all the people who are money grabbing war-mongers...you know I think we'd see, pretty quickly, that God's power is very much in evidence. I think you'd see really who is reigning on Earth.

We hear about the atrocities - the terrorist bombs, the famine and poverty - because they are real, and they are horrible. But what we don't hear about is the day to day normality that most people actually live with. God is the God of normality. He delights in the simple loving acts of families, and communities and churches all over the world. He delights in those communities around the world who are not obsessed with grabbing power, and working every hour He sends to buy the latest gadget, or the bigger house - those communities, instead, who take just what they need from the land, and spend the rest of their time pursuing friendship and art and community. His power is found there. He is there.

That's why we can sing, with such joy, that Jesus Reigns over all the Earth! Because although we hear more about the bad stuff in the world - the reality is that God is alive...and 'God is working his purpose out as year succeeds to year.'

When Jesus rode into Jerusalem, on that first Palm Sunday, he was profoundly misunderstood. But the power of God that he was embracing and sustaining and sending forth throughout that first Holy Week has continued to shape and affect lives all around the world ever since. The power of God is not about war and conquest, its about love and sacrifice. The power of God is not about gaining wealth, its about gaining simplicity.

If only we could really get hold of that message in our modern, consumer-society! We live in a society which is raping the earth of all its resources. We are on a road that is leading to disaster. Every conflict that our world has ever seen has been ultimately about human notions of power...the power to control the earth's resources...the power to impose my ideas over yours...the power to fill my pockets with gold, while yours are empty.

But Jesus' idea of power is absolutely the opposite to those kinds of notions. Jesus says "God's power is found in love, in serving others, in forgiveness and sacrifice." Unless we repent, and turn away from our selfish, power-grabbing, war-mongering, planet-raping, pleasure-seeking, wealth-hunting way of life...then quite simply, there will be no hope for us.

Jesus’ entry into Jerusalem on a donkey brought him closer to the Cross. The people looked for victory and hailed their hero – many would not have been there if they had known what lay ahead - and indeed they had fled by the time it became clear what was to happen.

And as ever the Pharisees are there, going along on the edge of the crowd, watching everything. They become anxious about what will happen if the authorities in Jerusalem think that this is a messianic demonstration going on. They shout across to Jesus, ‘tell your disciples to stop all this noise and celebration’ and Jesus replies, ‘if they were silent, even the stones would shout out.’

From Jesus’ point of view a great celebration is what there should be, because he is coming to his final act in bringing God’s salvation to the world. Yes, even the stones would cry out if people were silent.

For our point of view - the point of view of those who know not only the story of Palm Sunday but of Good Friday and of Easter, this is a call to cry out in celebration. We are called to be living stones, building up the house and kingdom of God in our time.

And so as we share today in the last supper of bread and wine, let us recall the new age that Jesus came to usher in, an age not based on military power or might but on suffering and service, love and obedience. And let us commit ourselves anew to being people of his Kingdom - people who embrace his way of living...the way of self-sacrifice and love.

As a sign of that commitment, I'm going to ask you to make a gesture this morning. When you come to the rail, to receive the sustaining power of the body and blood of Jesus, we are going to offer you a Palm Cross. After you have received the bread and the wine, please reach out and deliberately take that cross, as a sign that you are taking up the challenge that Jesus offers us. Take that cross home with you - and put it in a prominent place. Let it be a reminder, throughout the rest of this year, of the fundamentally different way of life that Jesus calls each one of us to embrace. Not the way of power, and wealth, and consumerism. The way of love, of self-sacrifice, of simplicity, and of peace.

Amen

Ezekiel 37: Dry Bones or New Life

We've all heard, and probably sung, the song 'Dem bones Dem bones Dem dry bones'. Its a lot of fun. 'The toe bone's connected to the foot bone, the foot bone's connected to the ankle bone'...and so on. But what's it actually all about? What is the meaning of this ancient story of Ezekiel's vision there for? Why has it been passed on to us, down the centuries?

Let's think a little about the context in which it was written. Now forgive me if I tell you things you already know - but I usually find that there are at least some people in every congregation whose knowledge of Jewish history is a little vague! And why shouldn't it be? It's not something that we are taught very often nowadays.

The book of Ezekiel was written during the period known as the Exile. About 600 years before Christ, the nation was conquered by the Babylonians, and most of the leadership, the wealthier Jews, royalty and the priesthood were taken to Babylon - in modern day Iraq. According to the Scriptures of the time, this was a punishment from God, for a nation that had stopped worshipping the true God, and turned instead to other Gods. For about 70 years, the cream of Jewish society languished in Babylon - slaves to the Babylonians.

It's from that period that we get the great laments like Psalm 137..."By the rivers of Babylon we sat down, and we wept when we remembered Zion" (Zion is of course the name of the mountain on which the city of Jerusalem is built.) It's also from that period that we get books like Daniel - with its tales of Jewish men serving in the Babylonian courts. It is also, incidentally, the period in which scholars believe that the Law of Moses - the first five books of the Bible - were substantially edited and expanded into the form we have today.

So let's put ourselves in the position of the Exiles. Here we are, thousands of miles from home - strangers in a strange land, singing sad songs of longing for Zion. We are homesick for our ancestral lands. We believe that God has sent us here as a punishment for the disobedience of the whole nation. And so, naturally enough, we begin to think about how we can please God enough to allow him to change our circumstances, and send us back home.

In such an atmosphere, two things tend to happen. The first is that priests start to insist on greater adherance to the Law - and so, as scholars tell us, they set about codifying and editing the collection of laws which had been handed down...seeking to establish laws that will change people's behaviour...so that they will please God. It was out of that process that the Pharisees arose. By the time of Jesus, when the nation was once again under occupation, the Pharisees believed that if the whole nation could keep all of the religious laws for just one day, then God would rescue them from their oppressors. That's why they got so upset when they saw Jesus treating their laws with such disdain.

The second thing that tends to happen in these kind of circumstances is that visionaries arise - prophets...who tell people that they need to trust in God...for God is at work and on the move. So, in the book of Daniel for example, we see visions of how the various nations surrounding Israel will be defeated, and how the Kingdoms of Israel and Judah will be re-established. And that is the theme that the prophet Ezekiel is also pursuing...

At the very start of his book, Ezekiel tells how he saw what calls 'visions of God'. But we might actually turn that phrase around, and say that what he was seeing was 'God's vision'. In other words, through his visions, Ezekiel was being given a 'God's eye view' of events...looking at things from God's perspective. In his great vision of chapter 37 - the story we heard just now - Ezekiel looks across the valley and sees dry bones scattered all around. As he learns later in his dialogue with God, these bones represent the people of Israel - who have been lamenting to God that they are like dry bones...as good as dead.

But God's perspective is different from theirs. He doesn't just exist in the moment...God is not limited by time and space as we are. He hears the complaints of the Israelites...but he also sees into their future...a future in which the nation of Israel will be restored in Jerusalem. So, through Ezekiel, he promises them, in verse 12, "I will bring you back to the land of Israel". Then in verse 14, he says, "I will settle you in your own land".

We might ask - how will he accomplish this? The answer comes again in verse 14: "I will put my Spirit in you, and you will live". The words used here are an echo of the story of the first man...who was created by God out of dust...but who needed God's Spirit, God's breath, breathed into him in order to live. God describes himself as the very life that courses through our veins...both as individuals, as nations, and as the whole human race.

Once again, we are invited to see things from God's perspective. From the perspective of the Exiles, life looked pretty bleak. They had been ripped from their homes and from their land. They were under the domination of a foreign power. They had been in that condition for decades...and they couldn't see how things could possibly change for them. But God knew what he was doing.

The Exile - as terrible as it was for the Exiles themselves - gave to the world a rich body of Scripture. The writings of the Exile, like Ezekiel, some of the Psalms, the book of Daniel and so on...they all speak to us of how God remains God, and very much active and alive, even through the toughest of circumstances. That is not to say that God himself causes those tough circumstances...time and time again (as we saw in the Nazi holocaust for example) it is not God who causes the suffering...but man's inhumanity to man. But God is present in the suffering - looking for ways to bring good out of it...to transform it from death to life, from defeat into victory.

There is, of course, no more powerful example of God doing that than through the event of the Cross. On the cross, as Jesus cried out 'why have you forsaken me?' he appeared to be at his lowest ebb...as good as dead... dried up bones. But there, just at the moment when evil had seemed to overcome good, the moment when the Son of God has been nailed down...God intervenes; and transforms the situation utterly. From being a cross of defeat, it becomes a cross of victory. Sin is defeated, and all humankind is offered eternal life. The resurrection - the greatest reversal of fortune in history - powerfully proves that God is at work.

So what about us? What can we learn from these stories that can apply to our situations? Well, I think that if we begin to see our lives and experiences from God's perspective...trusting that what he has done in the past he will do again in the future...then I think we have reason for hope. There are two levels to this; the level of the church itself, and the level of our personal experience of God.

Perhaps, like me, when you look at the church worldwide - appearing to tear itself apart over theological issues...you might have a deep sense of gloom. Perhaps, like the Exiles, you feel that you want to cry out to God..."when, O Lord, will the trouble be over? When will you rescue us?" But, if we pause to look at the situation from God's perspective...with a God's-eye-view...perhaps we can begin to see another pattern emerging. There is no doubt, for example, that the theological splits of the church are man-made. They are examples of human arrogance...human beings who believe that they've got a personal hot-line to God...and that they know better than their fellow Christians how God wants them to act.

But I think God takes that human folly, and in typical topsy-turvy Kingdom ways...somehow manages to redeem it. Can you imagine, for example, how small the church would be if every church did things the same way? If all churches were like our church, they would only attract a certain number of people...people, in our case, who find comfort in the ancient words of the Prayer Book, and who enjoy singing psalms. But instead, because of the very issues that divide us as a world-wide church, there are a fantastic variety of ways in which people can experience God at work. Suddenly, seen from a God's-eye-view, the human folly of argument and division becomes a divine opportunity for colour, variety, and infinite creativity. In the same way that God saw the dry bones of Israel as an opportunity for divine action, he sees the dry bones of the church as a chance to break through...and let people experience God in all his glorious creativity.

And on a personal level - I think God invites us to see him in action in our lives too. Ezekiel's vision invites us to see that however tough our own circumstances, however difficult is the journey of faith for us, God is at work...breathing his Spirit into our situation...looking for ways to bring glory out of defeat, and life out of death.

Because that's the kind of God he is.

Mothering Sunday

Readings: Luke 2: 34-35 + 1 Sam 1: 20-28

Here we are again. Another year has turned, the daffodils are peeking up through the soil, and children all over the country are either presenting their mothers with breakfast in bed… or, right now, rushing down to the newsagents in a last minute attempt to find a card or some flowers!

Motherhood is of course something that most people have to grow into. It’s a road that is paved with all sorts of good intentions…many of which get thrown out of the window the first time that your darling little baby turns to you and says ‘No…I won’t!’. Motherhood – and for that matter fatherhood – sort of creeps up on us. Here are five signs which conclusively prove that you have become a mother – which I found on the internet:

• You start spending regular half hours in the bathroom…just to be alone!
• You start hoping that tomato ketchup is a vegetable, since it’s the only one that your child eats.
• You find that, without thinking about it, you’ve cut the crusts of your husband’s sandwiches
• You hear your own Mother’s voice coming out of your mouth when you say “NOT in your best clothes!”

And finally…the most telling sign of all…

• You use your own spit to clean your child’s face.

This morning’s readings invite us to consider something of both the joy and the pain of motherhood. In our first reading, from the 1^st Book of Samuel, we see Hannah, Samuel’s mother, celebrating the birth of her long-awaited son. She is so grateful to God for the gift of a child, that she offers him back to the Lord – to serve in the Temple under Eli the Priest.

That’s a passage that has particular resonance for me – if I might be allowed to share a personal story. A few hours after I was born, it was discovered that I had a life-threatening condition, in which my tummy was twisted 360 degrees – so that no food would pass down my pipe. I was rushed to the Bristol Children’s Hospital, and while I went through very invasive surgery to correct the problem, my own mother prayed and prayed for her first child.

Obviously I survived. And around 35 years later, I went to visit my parents, to tell them of my decision to offer myself for ordained ministry. My mother was deeply touched by the whole event – because, as she explained, when she had been praying for me all those years before, she had said to God “If you let my son live, I will offer him to you!”. Like Hannah, my mother had decided to give her son back to the Lord. And as with Samuel, the Lord honoured the gift.

I’m just lucky that I didn’t end up being called Samuel myself!

In the chapter immediately after the passage we heard, Hannah celebrates the gift of her son with words that sound very similar to the Magnificat of Jesus’ mother Mary: “My heart rejoices in the Lord; in the Lord my horn is lifted high. My mouth boasts over my enemies, for I delight in your deliverance” (1Sam2:1). Later in the same song she sings of the Lord that “He raises the poor from the dust and lifts the needy from the ash heap” – very much a pre-echo of Mary’s exaltation, from Luke chapter 1, that “He puts down the mighty from their seat and exalts the humble and meek”.

This is typical Biblical imagery about what God does – about what the Kingdom of Heaven is like. The Kingdom is a topsy turvey place – in which all of our human perceptions of what life should be like are turned on their head. It’s a theme that we see repeated in our second reading.

When Mary and Joseph presented their new son Jesus to the Lord at the Temple, Simeon prophesied over the child – whom he recognised by divine light to be the promised Messiah. And his prophecy contained some strange words – topsy turvey words: “This child is destined to cause the rising and falling of many in Israel…” (Luke 2:34)

When we look at the subsequent story of Jesus, we can see what Simeon meant. Jesus would take simple, poor folk – fishermen, labourers, civil servants – and transform them into leaders of what would become a world-wide church. The great and powerful of the day, however, would have a different fate. The High Priests of Israel would be hated throughout the millennia for their part in Jesus’ downfall. The Temple itself would be destroyed in AD 70. Pilate would become the epitome of the distant ruler who washes his hands of his own responsibilities – and the mighty Roman Empire itself would ultimately fall…while the Kingdom of God advanced down the centuries. The kingdom of God was not advanced by political leaders, Caesars and Herods, but by simple everyday folk – like you and me. Later in his life, Jesus would pick up on these themes – especially in what are known as the Beatitudes: “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the Kingdom of God…” (Luke 6:20)

Both Mary and Hannah exalted at this prospect. There was real joy in the gift of motherhood they had been given, because they glimpsed something of the potential of the child they had borne.

But there is a darker edge to the prophecy of Simeon too. At the end of his promises about all that Jesus would achieve, there is a dark foreboding in his final line: “And a sword will pierce your own soul too” (Lk 2:35).

Simeon knows his Scriptures. He knows, for example, that Isaiah had prophesied that the Messiah would have to die to achieve his ultimate goal of saving the Earth. He knows that the path Jesus must tread is going to a difficult one. Perhaps he also knows that Jesus must out-grow the earthly human family of Mary and Joseph – and move to embrace all those who love God. There is the occasion when the boy Jesus stays in Jerusalem to discuss theology with the priests – rather than returning home with his parents…(which is the very next story in Luke’s gospel). And do you remember the occasion that Jesus was told of his mother and brothers being outside – when he responded that his mother and brothers were now all those who hear and act on God’s words? (Lk 8:21)

And that is something that many mothers – and fathers too – must experience. As children leave the nest, and make their own way in the world – there can be pain at their passing. There is a sense in which all parents are called to give back the gift of their child to the God who created them…just as my mother, and Hannah, and Mary did.

And there is worse pain still at the moment of losing a child…as many do. It is right, I think, that we should remember this morning the parents of Madeleine McCann, and now, in this latest week, the parents of little Shannon Matthews. Awful pain. Wretched. And their pain is repeated over and over again in the hearts of mothers and fathers of children – sick children, dying children, abducted children, abused children – throughout the whole world.

There is something for us to ponder here. Can it be that, in acknowledging the reality of this kind of pain, the Bible is warning us, all of us, not to hold too tightly on to the things of this world – even the relationships with which we are blessed?

God knows the kind of pain that human beings are capable of inflicting on each other. Whether that pain is caused by the evil actions of a few individuals – the child abductors and abusers. Or whether it is caused by the failure of the entire human race to stop killing each other, and to focus our efforts instead of finding cures for sickness, and starvation, and death. Can it be that by enlarging the scope of his own family to include all those who hear and obey God’s words, Jesus is inviting us to do the same? Can it be that Jesus is saying that he knows what a rotten place we humans have made this world. But here, in the Church, is a place where the topsy turvy Kingdom of God can at least offer a different way of being…a more collective way, a more community –based way. A way of mutual support – of holding one another up through all the pain of life, and yes of Motherhood.

Perhaps we would do well to remind ourselves of the original meaning of Mothering Sunday – the day when people returned to the church in which they were brought up…to their ‘mother church’…to remind themselves that we are not only given the blood-relations with whom we are blessed…but the whole of God’s people…all the brothers and sisters, and fathers and mothers in Christ that we share.

Amen

A New Job

Regular readers will be interested (I hope) to know that I've been appointed to a new job. I've been asked to take on the role of Team Rector of North End - a parish of three churches in the north of Portsmouth. You can read more about the parish on their website at www.stmarkportsea.co.uk.

I expect to take up the post towards the end of May. Clare, Emily and I are really looking forward to the opportunities and challenges ahead - though we will, of course, miss the lovely people of Warblington with Emsworth.

There will be plenty of time to reflect on our time in Warblington and Emsworth over the coming months. For now, I just thought everyone who may be interested should know that I'm on the move!

Original Sin? (A Sermon for the First Sunday of Lent)

Lent already? It only feels like yesterday that we were celebrating Christmas together! Well I suppose that’s what we get for aligning a Christian festival to a pagan one! Easter, as I’m sure you know, was superimposed onto an existing pagan feast of the goddess Eastre – the so-called ‘goddess of the dawn’. Which is why we still have eggs and bunnies, and all that lovely imagery of new life.

But for now, we’re in the period of Lent… and period in which we pause, and hold our breath before the celebrations of Easter morning. And, of course, it’s a time for examining ourselves, and for asking ourselves whether we’ve fully understood the full implications of the Easter message that we are about to celebrate in 40 days time.

This morning’s readings, which come straight from the authorised lectionary for this year, invite us to consider one of the key messages of Scripture…the rather disturbing notion that we are all sinners, who have inherited our sin from Adam.

It’s a message that many people struggle to hear. I think that I will never forget the first funeral that I conducted soon after my ordination as a deacon. When trying to explain to the family that we would have a prayer for forgiveness near the beginning of the service, they asked, “what’s all that about then?”. I replied, innocently, that it was a chance to ask God for forgiveness of our sins…at which the family erupted. “Sinners!” they said. “We’re not sinners…and our Gran definitely wasn’t one!”

I could see that I was not going to get very far with this particular family. The idea of sin had become irretrievably linked in their mind with heinous crimes like murder. They had no concept that sin could be something far less dramatic. I found myself rather amused a little later however, when I asked them what their dear Gran’s favourite leisure-time occupations had been. “Oh”, they said, “she liked to go out into the country on Sunday, and do a bit of poaching!”

So what are we to make of this word ‘sin’ – what is actually meant by it? Clearly it includes murder. But what else? Are we really meant to define ourselves as sinners who have all erred and strayed from God’s ways like lost sheep. Are we really the ‘miserable offenders’ that we declared ourselves earlier to be – in the words of the confession? I think that if we are honest, most of us probably don’t see ourselves in quite that way. We are normal, honest, church-going people aren’t we? I doubt that any of us have done anything particularly evil this week. I can’t imagine that many of you have been out murdering anyone in the last seven days!

The Genesis story tells us that the Serpent tempted Eve to eat the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He told her that if she did so, she would be like God – understanding the difference between good and evil. He also told her that God was lying when he said that she would die if she ate the fruit.

And of course, the Serpent was lying…on both counts. Physical death arose as a direct consequence of Eve’s, and then Adam’s actions. But more than that, the Serpent lied when he said that Adam and Eve would become like God, understanding the difference between good and evil. Patently, that was not true. Oh, we can understand the very basics of the difference between the two… but we are not capable of making the tough decisions about what is right or wrong. If you want proof of that, just think of all the ethical issues that the church has grappled with throughout the centuries. Slavery? The equality of the sexes? Attitudes to abortion, or stem cell research? Even the current debate in the Anglican Communion about the rightness or wrongness of homosexuality.

We are simply not wise enough to be able to judge these issues with any sense of certainty. All our decisions are provisional, and open to challenge by equally committed and faithful people who are grappling with the same questions. Our knowledge of good and evil is certainly far less than God’s.

So the story of Adam and Eve – whatever we think of its merits as an actual historical event – is a powerful statement of what happens when we human beings try to make ourselves like God… when we move from allowing God to shape us, and try instead to shape ourselves. We end up in a mess. We become subject to sin. We create societies and cultures which are infected with incompetence, and the inability to reach clear moral decisions about just about any important issue.

It might also be helpful if we see sin like an infection. The things that our ancestors got wrong, continue to affect us – or infect us today. And the things we are getting wrong (like destroying the planet, or tolerating great evil around the world) will affect, or infect our descendents. I think that’s the idea that St. Paul is leading us towards, in our second reading, when he says that ‘sin came into the world through one man, and death came through sin, and so death spread to all because all have sinned’ (Rom 5:12)

So if sin has infected the world, like a disease, what is the cure? Well St Paul outlines the remedy for that too. He makes a comparison between the first Adam – the man through which the infection of sin first entered the world – and the ‘second Adam’ – which of course is Jesus. (We might like to remember that the word ‘Adam’ simply means ‘Man’). In other words, the first Man (with a capital M) has now been replaced by the second ‘Man’ (with another capital M). The way of disobedience – of thinking that we are capable of living without God – is replaced by the way of obedience…modelled by Jesus up to and including the point of death. That’s what Paul means when he says, in verse 19: “For just as by the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man’s obedience the many will be made righteous”. Paul himself summed this idea up much more succinctly in his first letter to the Corinthians, when he said “All in Adam die. All in Christ are made alive” (I Cor 15:22)

There are, I think, two distinct ways in which this new life is offered to us through Jesus. The first is, plainly, through his death. Again in Paul’s words, a little earlier in Romans chapter 5, “For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly” (Rom 5:6) By a mechanism which remains an eternal mystery – something that we can only begin to grasp with our feeble human minds – Christ death had the effect of wiping away our sin. Entire branches of Christianity have been founded on trying to understand the depth of that statement. Was Jesus sacrificed in our place? Were our sins attributed to him so that he was punished for us? Or was his death an immense example of how far God is willing to go to draw us back to his ways? Did he, in some way, pay a ransom to the Devil to free us from the Serpent’s clutches? Substitutionary atonement. Penal substitution. Ransom. Redemption. Moral example – all these, and many other ways of grappling with the meaning of Jesus’ death have been offered – even by different writers in the New Testament. But what they are all pointing to is essentially the idea that Jesus – the second Adam – somehow undid the damage of the first Adam. Jesus was the cure to the infection of sin.

And the second way that Jesus offers us new life is quite simply through his teaching. If his only purpose was to die for us, then he could quite simply have done that without spending three years telling us what else we needed to know.

What Jesus called us to, throughout his life of teaching, was the idea that we can chose to live under the Lordship of God – the Kingdom of Heaven, the Kingdom of God. Jesus offers us the chance to live in a kind of relationship to God – similar to that of a subject to their King, or a child to their father. We are offered God’s way of living, through the teachings of Jesus. It’s a way of poverty, and of peace. It throws aside notions of power and wealth and warfare and exploitation. It reaches out to the poor and the sick – and declares to the meek and the humble that theirs is the Kingdom of God.

And Lent is a period when we might spend some of our time thinking about that very question. Accepting entirely that Jesus has done all that is necessary for our salvation; we then need to consider whether we have truly begun to live the eternal life that he offers us now! Jesus said that he had come so that we may have life, and have it to the full. (John 10:10) He didn’t just mean life after death – he meant eternal life that starts NOW. Jesus’ challenge is that we are capable of living lives that are pure, holy and, in Paul’s words to the Romans, ‘made righteous’ – now.

So what about us? Have we heard the voice of Jesus, calling to us across the centuries? “Repent” ‘Turn away from doing things your way – and turn to my way’. The Kingdom of Heaven is breaking through now… you can live a righteous and holy eternal life…now.

Let me invite you, then, to take time this Lent to slowly, deliberately, and prayerfully read through the Gospels. Take time to let Jesus’ radical call to a new way of living get soaked into your mind and into your consciousness. Take time to begin fully living eternal life, in the ‘family’, the ‘community’, or the ‘lordship of God’. Now. It’s there for the taking.

Amen

Just Dust and Ashes

Isaiah 58. 1-12 & Matthew 6.1-6, 16-18 Ash Wednesday.

(Please forgive this slightly early posting of tomorrow evening's sermon. It's just that if I don't do it now, I'll probably forget!)

Do you remember the dustmen's strike of the late 1970s? I do – simply because of one very memorable event – which happened soon after we had moved into a new house. My Dad decided to deal with the overflowing rubbish bin by the simple expedient of having a bonfire in the garden. However, he wasn't quite as careful as he might have been – and accidentally consigned an aerosol can to the flames. Sure enough, the can exploded – sending a missile over the fence at the bottom of our garden, to land in the open kitchen door of a new neighbour.

Our neighbour, who turned out to be the headmaster of our local school, came screaming out of the house. "What on earth to you think you are doing?!" My Dad was, of course, very apologetic – but thought that this rather bossy man was over-reacting a bit. It was only an accident after all. He was then rather puzzled by the neighbour's next question: "What would have happened if a net had been there?". "Well," replied my puzzled father, "I suppose a net would have caught it!". What Dad didn't realise, was that 'Annette' was the headmaster's daughter!

(From the Blog point of view...I wonder if my Dad will exercise his right of reply...in the comments section below?!)

Ashes were something we got used to many years ago. Everyone had bonfires, in the time before smoke-control zones. I guess most of us have had the experience of raking ashes out of the grate, in the days before central heating. Ashes are just rubbish, aren't they? The product of burning something away. Just carbon. Waste, after the heat and light are gone.

So why, tonight, are we going to put this rubbish, this ash, on our heads? I want to suggest three reasons why we maintain this tradition - though I am sure there are more.

First of all these ashes are a reminder of who we are. The Bible tells us that we came from the dust and to the dust we shall return. As I'm sure you know our bodies are made up of about 50% water, and about 22% carbon (which is all that ashes are in the main). Mixed in with that are a couple of pounds of nitrogen (such as we find in good compost) and a couple of pounds of calcium (like the chalk hills of the Downs). On top of that there are about 30 or 40 other trace elements. But if I were to have all those elements here, and threw them all into a bucket, would I be able to make a human being? No, of course not.

The mythological imagery of Genesis tells us that the first human was formed out of the dust of the earth by God and then God breathed life into that dust. That is a powerful image. God is the source of our life – and the ashes we will use later on remind us of our utter dependence on him. Without the breath or Spirit of God moving in us, we are just ashes – dust: lifeless - worthless.

Secondly ashes are also a sign of repentance. As well as being a time of preparation for Good Friday and Easter, Lent is a time of mourning for our sins. It is a time when we are called to repent, turn away from our sin – which why, throughout Lent, we do not sing the Gloria, but focus instead on the Kyrie. "Lord have mercy, Christ have mercy, Lord have mercy". For many of Lent will involve giving up something which we enjoy, as a personal discipline, and as a sign of our repentance.

Repentance is of course a key biblical theme. Time and time again the Old Testament prophets called people to turn away from their way of doing things, and to turn towards God's way. Sometimes, as we heard from Isaiah just now, that even meant repenting about the way that repenting was done! Fasting - or the giving up of food - was (and still is) an excellent discipline. It is designed to train us in the task of looking to God for spiritual and physical sustenance. It was an outward sign of a contrite heart - a heart that longed to be obedient to God.

But in Isaiah's day, fasting had become sort of fashionable, and as a result, hollow. Isaiah, speaking for God, says "Such fasting as you do today will not make your voice heard on high. Is such the fast that I choose, a day to humble oneself? Is it to bow down the head like a bulrush, and to lie in sackcloth and ashes. Do you call this a fast - a day acceptable to God?"

Then, as we heard in the reading, Isaiah goes on to outline what true fasting, true repentance will look like. It won't be a mechanistic tradition of wearing certain clothes, and going without certain foods, or, in our case, for example, just performing again the ancient traditions of Ash Wednesday. It won't be the public wailing and showy-ness that Jesus condemmed in our Gospel reading. Instead, true repentance will be the complete changing of our minds to be more like the mind of God. This, of course, means being like the God whose heart is for the poor, and the hungry, and the homeless, and the weak. It means not being religious - but being practical, outward looking, loving our neighbour as we love ourselves. It means moving from a state of receiving God's love for us as individuals, into expressing that love for other people, through our actions, through our prayers, through our giving.

This year the Bishop of Liverpool has suggested that we should give up using carbon for Lent – or at least to cut down on its use as much as possible. That is a really tangible way of loving our neighbour – cutting down on our personal use of planet-destroying carbon emissions – that will ultimately flood, and starve, some of our poorest neighbours around the world. Let's turn off some lights. If you have any clusters of lights, like a small chandeliers, for example – why not remove one of the bulbs for lent – as both a real contribution to climate change, and a symbolic statement of our commitment to live with less? Perhaps you might leave the car at home? As we are marked with the carbon of Ash, in a short while, perhaps we might like to make a commitment to reduce our own carbon use this Lent...and then, hopefully, throughout the rest of the year.

But there is one final point I want to make. The people in Biblical stories put the ashes on top of their heads - so why do we put them in the sign of the cross on our foreheads? It's not just because we ministers are of those who have just had their hair done! We make the sign of the cross because it is a reminder of how we are marked for Christ. It is in once sense a reminder of our baptism, when we were signed with the sign of the cross. And the cross of ashes also reminds of the mark of the Lamb as it is described in the Book of Revelation. Revelation tells of an angel marking the faithful before the tribulation. These faithful would then be protected. The mark of the cross is a mark of ownership. These ashes tonight remind us that we are Christ's, we belong to him; and that he died so that we might live.

So let me summarise. These may be just a few ashes, but they mean a lot. First, they are a symbol of our need for God, for His breath of life. We are nothing but dust and ashes apart from Him.

Secondly, they are also a symbol of our repentance and mourning. They are a way of showing on the outside what is happening on the inside. Our trust in our own powers and abilities has tarnished the image of Christ in us. We have failed to live as he commands us to live. We've allowed ourselves to be seduced by the wealth and comfort of the world, while our neighbours are starving. The ashes are a sign of our deliberate repentance, our turning away - from our way of being, to God's.

Finally, in the midst of our repentance, these ashes, marked onto our forehead, are a sign that we are forgiven and marked as Christ's own. The very burning away of our sin by the fire of God's love makes us God's own. And as his own we are stamped and certified as children of God through the cross.

So as we come today to have the sign of the cross placed on our foreheads, let us

• remind ourselves of our need of God, the source of our life, without whose life we are just ashes and dust
  
• commit ourselves anew to living for him
  
• remind ourselves that we are forgiven, and marked as Christ's brothers and sisters; children of our heavenly father.
  

Amen

Is There Anybody Out There?

(Preached at St James Church on 30 January 2008)

The parable of the persistent widow (Luke 18: 1-8) is an obvious encouragement for us to be persistent in prayer. I’m sure you’ve heard a dozen sermons about how important that is – and I know I’ve talked in the past about the different techniques that we can use to help us in what is a vital task. One of the most helpful tips is a mnemonic around the word ‘prayer’ itself: Prayer, Reverence, Adoration, Yearning, Expectation, Requests

But that’s not what I really want to focus on this morning. Instead, I want to move into a realm of honesty about prayer…and to tackle what is sometimes a difficult subject in Christian circles…namely, the uncomfortable feeling that many of us have…the worry that whilst everyone around us seems to be a prayer warrior – storming the gates of heaven on a daily and committed basis – for some us, its just not that simple. Some of us try, we really do try, to reach out to God with our minds and our souls…but we just don’t feel that we are getting through.

And if we are honest, some of us even end up asking “Is there anybody out there?”. Am I hitting a spot for some of you? I know that’s been an experience for me.

What I want to offer this morning is a bit of re-assurance. This sense of emptiness, of blankness – of even wondering whether God is there at all – is a very real, and very normal part of the Christian life. Even Jesus, you will recall, was forced to ask “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me”. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say that it is not the people who experience such blankness that I worry about – it’s the people who seem to hear God talking in their ear at every turn of the road. Those are the people I worry about!

I think that what frequently happens is that people have had good experiences in the past, maybe in personal prayer, maybe in a church service, maybe at other times. But they now find that they no longer have that kind of experience. God seems to have gone – and that can be very upsetting. But we need to remember, I think, that the way forward is not the way back! God leads us on a journey through life – and wants to reveal himself to us in different, perhaps even deeper ways.

Here’s a suggestion – if you are one of the many people who struggle with prayer. Try taking a day, or just a few hours, in which you do not set out specifically to pray, but do just what you want to do, however totally secular it may seem. Go for a walk, wash the car, visit a friend, read a book. Whatever it is, take your time over it; try to be aware of everything around you; be aware of your own feelings, thoughts and sensations; seek to constantly sharpen your awareness of everything your experience. Look for the insect on the leaf, be aware of the cleanliness of the paintwork, see the smile in the eyes of a friend, experience the deep emotions of the book – and if you do, I shall not be at all surprised if you emerge from the experience with your whole sense of life being enhanced – and a new sense that you have been in touch with something greater than yourself.

You see, I fear that most of the time, we tend to live our lives on auto-pilot, half asleep. If we take time, and make the effort, like the persistent widow, to look for God in all the situations of life…he is there to be found. We may not be able to see God himself – but we may be able to see his activity around us, and in us, and through us. To quote the old proverb: “You cannot see the wind – but you can see its effects”.

I have a suspicion that it is often at those times when God seems most unreal to us in prayer, when we really do wonder whether there is anybody there at all, that we can, ironically, suddenly become most aware of the glory of God – ‘out there’ in the world and in people. When we grasp that – and when we move beyond the moment of crying “My God My God why have you forsaken me” suddenly God can become even more real to us. When we grasp that the life of faith is not primarily about me and my personal connection with God – but about me and other people and the whole planet being caught up with the Lord of the Dance – then, perhaps, we can begin to grasp something of what God really is doing in the world. Sometimes the church has been guilty of over-personalising the ‘God to human’ relationship.

The church can be guilty of pandering to the modern phenomenon of ‘individuality’ – and of failing to teach us that we are called, first and foremost, to be members of the body of Christ – a corporate, community based concept, in which God is found not primarily through individual experiences, but through a shared experience of living together as brothers and sisters – experiencing God with and through each other.

And if, like the persistent widow, we continue to persist in looking for God – we have assurance that he will reveal himself in ever more surprising and exciting ways. “Seek, and ye shall find”. But we need to seek in the right places.

Christmas...Shattering the Illusion

If you look below this bit of text, you will find a link to a sermon that I preached last night - in audio form. If you click on the link, it should open in your media player (it is an mp3 file for those who understand these things!) This is a bit of an experiment...so please tell me whether you like hearing sermons this way, or whether you prefer to read them.

This sermon lasts just under 15 minutes...so why not grab a cup of coffee before you settle down to listen. You will almost certainly need a broadband connection to listen to this... dial-up connections will not be fast enough.

Advance warning...if you are planning to come to next Sunday's Carol Service at Warblington Church, I will be preaching this same sermon again. So only listen to it now if you don't mind hearing it twice!

Carol Service Sermon 2007

Let me know what you think!

John the Baptist

Here's the text of my sermon to be preached tomorrow morning at 8.00am Communion. Yes... apparently there are two 8 o'clocks in the day.

Matthew 3: 1-12: John the Baptist and the Kingdom of God

“In those days, John the Baptist appeared in the wilderness of Judea, proclaiming, “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near”.

John the Baptist is one of the more strange characters of the New Testament. He wore clothing of camel hair – which I imagine was rather itchy – and seems to have lived exclusively on locusts and wild honey. I imagine that getting wild honey out of a wild honey-bee hive is rather a tricky thing to do. So poor old John was probably covered in bee-stings as well.

John is traditionally viewed as the last of the Old Testament prophets. He follows the tradition of living apart from civilisation, and of calling people to repent of their evil ways. So, let’s picture the scene – picture a rather dirty fellow, who has probably never visited a barber, dressed in camel-hair, covered in bee-stings and with honey stuck to his shirt, munching on a locust...and declaring at the top of his voice “Repent! For the kingdom of heaven has come near”.

I wonder what our reaction would be if we met someone like that in the streets of Emsworth – or even here inside the church. I think we’d probably try to get him arrested under the vagrancy act!

But there was something about John that attracted people to him. There was something about his message that, according to Matthew’s Gospel, had people coming out to him in the wilderness from “Jerusalem, all of Judea, and all of the region along the River Jordan” (Mt 3:5) And let’s remember, these weren’t Sunday drivers out for an laugh at the strange fellow in the desert. These were people who would have travelled many hours, and in some cases many days, in hot, dusty air – to hear for themselves the amazing – even scandalous - things that this man of the desert was saying.

John was not a man to mince his words either. He taunted the religious leaders of the day with phrases like “You viper’s brood” (Mt 3:7) He warned them against the complacency of their religion. “Just because you are Abraham’s children,” he would say, “don’t go thinking that gives you an automatic right to heaven” (Mt 7:8 - paraphrased)

But, despite his acid tongue, John still managed to draw people to him. One of those who were attracted to John was Andrew – the brother of Simon Peter. According to John’s Gospel, Andrew was a disciple of John’s – until, that is, John pointed out who Jesus was... at which point Andrew switched allegiances, and joined up with Jesus.

I find that an interesting little detail in the history of John the Baptist. It’s interesting that although he recognised who Jesus was, he did not himself, become one of Jesus’ followers. Rather, one of his own disciples (Andrew) left his side and went to be with Jesus (which would have been a very unusual thing for any disciple to do in those days).

There are, in fact, a number of strange inconsistencies about John. First there is the fact that he didn’t join up with Jesus. Why didn’t he set aside his baptising, and become a follower of the Lord? And then there’s the fact that when he was in prison he sent word to Jesus to ask him if he really was the Messiah...despite having recognised him as such by the Jordon.

There may be a number of explanations for these strange aspects of John’s behaviour. One suggestion is that he had a different vision in his head of what the Messiah would do – he seemed to expect a Messiah who would be full of swift judgment against the evil people of the day. See what he says in Matthew’s gospel:

“...he will gather his wheat into the granary; but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”. (Mt 3: 12) John’s mental picture of the Messiah was based in the language and concepts of the Old Testament. He expected the ‘great and terrible Day of the Lord’. And when it didn’t happen quite as he expected, he perhaps proved more reticent to join up with Jesus. Maybe that’s why he sent word from his prison – saying to Jesus, “are you really the Messiah?”.

There are some historians who think that John remained ultimately unconvinced about Jesus – and that he actually went on preaching the coming of a another Messiah (having found Jesus to be, in his judgment, just a little bit wet). Historians point out that John continued to have disciples after he had met Jesus, and continued to baptise people in his own way. There are many references to the ‘baptism of John’ throughout the early years of the New Testament – suggesting that in some ways John was almost a rival to Jesus.

That may be... but it is clear from the Gospel accounts, that for at least the one glorious moment of Jesus baptism, John saw the light... he saw clearly who Jesus was, and heard the confirmation of that from heaven itself. But perhaps, just perhaps, John was never quite able to give up his own idea of what the Messiah would be like...should be like. From today’s reading we can see that John expected an imminent judgment to be enacted – he uses the metaphor of an axe which is being put to the root of the trees – a sense in which ‘any minute now’ the tree is about to be chopped down. John expects action – he expects the Lord to arrive with a winnowing fork – scattering the grain into the air and separating out the wheat from the chaff – and he expects it to happen soon.

But Jesus has a subtly different agenda. He himself speaks of the coming day of judgment, and the separation of sheep from goats – later in Matthew’s gospel in fact. But Jesus places that event at some distance in the future. First, he has work to do – to call as many people as possible to repentance, and to give the greatest possible opportunity for people to choose God’s way of living over their own. He is so committed to that path – and so reluctant to embark on the eventual task of judgment - that he is prepared to give up his own life so that we might find our way back to God.
And I wonder whether we ourselves can sometimes be a bit like John. Certainly, as a human race, we have often been guilty of making God in our image – instead of understanding that God makes us in his image. How many wars have been fought on the basis that we actually think God approves of them? How many acts of cruelty have been perpetrated in the belief that God is somehow being served through them? Are there ways in which we conduct our lives which are inconsistent with the reality of Jesus – and the way in which he calls us to live?

My daughter, like many Christian teenagers, wears a bracelet on which is inscribed the letters “WWJD”. They stand for “what would Jesus do” – of course – and it’s a phrase from the 1970s (at least!) which has perhaps become dulled by over-familiarity. But it’s still a good question. What would Jesus do in the face of the rampant poverty of the developing world? What would Jesus do in the face of corruption among leaders of so many nations? What would Jesus do when faced with the commercial pressure to ‘spend, spend, spend’ at this time of the year? What would Jesus do in the face of globalisation and climate change?

Emily also has a t-shirt with the question “Who would Jesus bomb?”... but that’s a subject for another discussion altogether!

During this time of advent, the story of John invites us to prepare for the coming of Jesus – the true Messiah. We are invited to prepare for the Lord who says “love one another”, and who seeks to draw us to himself so that we might discover God’s love. Matthew’s point in telling us the story of John is that our understanding of who Jesus was, and is, needs to be re-interpreted in the light of Jesus’ advent as the forgiving, accepting, non-retaliatory suffering-servant-king – whose strength is precisely in his meekness.

May you know the peace of Christ as you prepare to celebrate his coming once again this year. May you know the reality of Jesus – and through soaking up the stories about him in the Bible, begin to gain an ever-more-fuller understanding of who he was and what he stood for. And may that knowledge transform you. Day by day, so that you may truly know who you are...a loved child of God...and what you stand for.

Amen.