Sharing some thoughts

Today’s gospel reading begins with some of the most powerfully symbolic words we read in the Bible – ‘when the days drew near for him to be taken up, Jesus set his face to go to Jerusalem ’ (Luke 9:51 ). Quite an innocuous sentence perhaps, but this one verse marks the turning point in Jesus’ ministry – up to this point he has taught people, he has encouraged and preached, he has challenged people, he has performed miracles, and he would continue to do these things, but now he is moving on to another part of his mission – the trip to Jerusalem and to the cross. Thinking about a trip I read a joke this week about a couple who were going on holiday. They were standing in line waiting to check in their bags and the husband said to the wife, ‘I wish we’d brought the piano.’ The wife turned and looked at him as if he was stupid (something wives often do to their husbands from my experience !), but anyway she asked ‘Why would you want to bring the piano ? We’ve got 6 bags already !’ ‘Yes...

Today in the Church Calendar, we celebrate the birth of John the Baptist. I once read a little article about John the Baptist which was entitled ‘How hard did the baby cry ?’ The point of the article was to ask how much noise this little baby made, and whether at that time he was already signalling his intention to move into an outspoken and often unpopular ministry. John was born into a good home – his father Zechariah was a Priest, and would have been well thought of and influential. John would have certainly had the chance, and whether he took it or not we don’t know, of a good education, yet what we do know about him was that as he grew up he left the security of the family, and went out into the wilderness telling people to prepare for a Saviour who was coming soon. And he did this in a very powerful and dangerous way. He did it by attacking the authorities, by attacking the religious leaders, and by very bluntly telling the people that they needed to repent of the thing...

Apparently when the Emancipation Proclamation was about to be signed in the United States all the papers were ready and the only thing missing was the President’s signature. Abraham Lincoln had been shaking hands with so many people that morning that his hand had swollen and he didn’t want his signature to be at all shaky. He refused to sign with his hand shaking because he wanted people to know that the signature was firm and represented his confidence in setting the slaves free. Paul’s letter to the Galatians that we heard from this morning (2:15-21), is often referred to as the emancipation proclamation for the Church – it is written by Paul who had been set free from the slavery of corruption, hate, intolerance and his desire to persecute any Christians, and it defines the freedom of Christians won through the death and resurrection of Jesus. Of course Paul wrote at a time when there was a lot of controversy over the new Christians’ need to remain faithful to the Jewish la...

The great preacher Charles Spurgeon told the story of a time when he went to give some money to a lady who was in desperate need. He knocked on the door but the woman wouldn’t answer because she thought it would be someone asking for money. What was actually a gift of something, she thought would be a demand for something. In this evenings reading (John 3:1-17) we are reminded that so many people who are offered the gifts of Jesus are not prepared to open up their lives to him. However someone who was prepared to question a little bit further was Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a leader of the Jews. He was prepared to hear the call of Jesus and enquire that bit further, and it was he who got the answer from Jesus that we must be born from above in order to see the kingdom of God . In recent times the term of born again Christians has become slightly derogatory, but it really shouldn’t be because every Christian must be born again. The fault with the phrase has been the use of it in ...

Whenever I see a reading from the book of Proverbs I am reminded of the story of a football match played one night. As the teams were playing the lights went out, and they called on an electrician to sort out the problem – he tried hard but failed, and then another man came forward who said that he knew what to do. Somehow he managed to communicate to some of the crowd to wave an arm in the air – still nothing happened, so he got some more people to do the same and this time asked them all to wave both arms in the air – as they did this the lights suddenly came back on proving the old Chinese proverb that ‘many hands make light work’ ! Anyway that’s quite irrelevant for this morning, and you may very well wonder what I’m talking about, but that sense of confusion and mystery is particularly appropriate for today, Trinity Sunday. Trinity Sunday is the day when we reflect on the person of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit – the 3 parts of one God. This week I was chatting to som...

When we celebrate Christmas most people know its something to do with Jesus’ birth. At Easter most people know that it’s special for some reason to do with Jesus being killed and rising from the dead…..but Pentecost ? Well most people know that it often coincides with a Bank Holiday… but very few people can tell you much more than that about it. Yet, this day is important, because Pentecost is the birthday of the Church, and God has given us the wonderful opportunity of being a part of it. In the Book of Acts we read about the beginning of the Church. It says : "When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them" "Now there we...