Sharing some thoughts

Most of you will have visited a great Cathedral, many will enjoy looking around wonderful Church buildings, whether wonderful for their beauty and splendour, for the things contained in them, for the atmosphere of peace, or for all kinds of other reasons. Hundreds of years ago many Churches were built to celebrate the glory and wonder of God. It was thought that the more impressive the Church, the more it glorified Him. This philosophy behind the building of Churches has continued into relatively recent times – I think the largest Cathedral in Britain is the Anglican Cathedral in Liverpool. I love visiting Liverpool and have always fancied taking a Parish trip on the 3 Cathedrals tour – the Anglican Cathedral, The Roman Catholic Cathedral, nicknamed Paddy’s Wigwam, and of course the third Cathedral, Anfield, the home of Liverpool Football Club ! Anyway this huge Cathedral in Liverpool was built to glorify God certainly, but it was also built to show the power and wealth of the City...

This week I was reading an article containing some reflections. It was about how life changes as we get older and notice different things around us. Some of the points went like this, I’m not into working out at the gym. My philosophy is not no pain, no gain, but no pain, no pain ! Another said, I looked in the mirror and I’m in good shape – round is a shape ! And there was another, As you get older you have to stay in shape – my mother in law started walking 5 miles a day when she was 60. She’s 97 now and we’ve no idea where she is. And then just one more, I’ve always wanted to be somebody, but I should really have been more specific ! As we go through life, our ambitions, our hopes and many of our thoughts change. This even includes our attitude towards bad things happening to us or to other people. As we get older we see more, we’ve had more experiences, and inevitably some of those experiences will not be good. Sometimes we can even become hardened to pain, but whether th...

There’s a story about a Sunday school teacher who was asking his class questions one day. He began, ‘If I sold my house and my car, had a big garage sale and gave all my money to the poor, would that get me into heaven ?’’No !’ the children all answered. ‘If I cleaned the Church every day, mowed the grass, and kept everything really clean and tidy, would that get me into heaven ?’ Again the answer came back, ‘No !’ ‘Well then, if I was kind to all people and animals, and if I gave sweets to children, and chocolates and flowers to my wife, would that get me into heaven ?’ Once again the same answer came back, ‘No !’ ‘Well’, continued the teacher, ‘then how can I get into heaven ?’ A 5 year old boy shouted out, ‘You’ve got to be dead !’ Sometimes the most obvious things stare us right in the face, but we miss them, and how true this is so often of our relationship with Jesus. In the gospel reading that we have heard today we have his famous statement, ‘I am the way, the truth and...

There’s an anonymous poem which reads, ‘Peace is not won by man’s eternal strife, Peace is the power of God in human life. It dwells with joy and love, is manifest in grace; The star above his crib, the light that is his face.’ It’s very easy to forget sometimes the real peace that we can receive from a relationship with Christ… We continue to celebrate the Easter season in our Church calendar, and Easter really is the essence of what our faith is about, and how our peace has been won. And for that reason Easter can never be celebrated just as a season from which we move on – in the same way, this is true of Christmas. Jesus was a child born to dominate all earthly empires – a child born to condemn poverty, intolerance, injustice, greed, not afraid to speak out whatever the cost, yet he was a child born to offer humanity another chance, a child not born with great military power and might but born to preach a message of peace and love, and show us a God of peace and lov...

Several years ago a woman awoke in the middle of the night to desperate, cries of "Help! Help!" Thinking that her husband was in distress, she shook him violently. Then, realizing that he was fast asleep, she got out of bed, headed into the living room where the shouting was even louder. "Where are you?" she called out. "In the fireplace," was the reply. There, dangling in the chimney, was a burglar stuck upside down. Police and firefighters eventually freed the would-be thief, but only after dismantling the brickwork around the fireplace. What was interesting in this story was that whilst the homeowner waited for help, she turned on the living room lights and sat down to record the sight with her video camera, and apparently she got her Bible and read part of the gospel we heard this morning (John 10:1-10), Jesus said, "Very truly, I tell you, anyone who does not enter the sheepfold by the gate, but climbs in by another way, is a thief and "...

It was Palm Sunday, and the family's 6-year old son had to stay home from church because of a bad throat. When the rest of the family returned home carrying palm branches, the little boy asked what they were for. His mother explained, "People held them over Jesus' head as he walked by." "Wouldn't you know it," the boy fumed. "The one Sunday I don't go to church, and Jesus shows up!" Today we have a very different version of Jesus appearing, but for some time not even being recognised. The account of Jesus meeting two of his followers on the Road to Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) is filled with all kinds of questions about why they couldn’t see him for who he was, but to concentrate too much on those questions is perhaps to ignore perhaps the main thrust of the account, and that is to question our own ability to view and walk with the Risen Lord Jesus. Why these 2 followers couldn’t recognise Jesus is a mystery. We are told that their eyes w...