Sharing some thoughts

Today we celebrate the life of St John the Evangelist. One of my favourite gospel readings comes from the gospel according to John (John 12:20-36). It was set in the context of the Feast of Passover, one of the holiest days of the Jewish faith. Jewish people would travel long distances to celebrate the festival together at the Temple. Some of these people were the Greeks who met Philip in our reading – and came up with the simple but incredibly profound words, ‘Sir, we wish to see Jesus’. Sometime ago I was talking with someone who said that when he was travelling in Africa, a Bishop came up to him on the Saturday evening and asked him to preach at the big confirmation service the following day. He hurriedly prepared what he thought he was going to say and the following morning climbed up into the pulpit about to preach, and in front of him he read a note that had been left for him. It said very simply, ‘Sir, we want to see Jesus.’ Suddenly all the words he had to put down to ...

“The past, the present and the future  I’ve reached the final chapter of this little book and want to try and sum up something of what I’ve tried to write. To do it I’d like to think about the classic novel by Charles Dickens, ‘A Christmas Carol’. I’m pretty sure you will all know it reasonably well. Some of you will have read the book, many of you will have seen one of the many television or film adaptations of it.  At the heart of the novel are a number of things and these are just some of them :  The possibility of good triumphing over bad  The possibility of redemption for anyone The recognition of a need to look back in order to learn lessons for the future  A willingness to respond to a need for change  Sometimes change takes time, but sometimes it happens immediately ! With a fleeting glance it’s very easy to describe Scrooge as a rather unpleasant, miserable and mean man. All of these things are true without doubt, but this was a person, upon furthe...

  Longing for light - Waiting in darkness   Advent is a controversial season in the church calendar for some. It divides opinion as to whether it should remain a ‘sombre season’ of anticipation awaiting the celebration of the birth of Jesus and his promised coming again, or whether we should join in with the rest of society in building up to Christmas and taking the opportunity of sharing the wonderful story of why Jesus was born.  Recently I spoke to a fairly new Christian who didn’t know what Advent was. And why should they have ? As churches, we’re really not very clear about it a lot of the time. I tried to explain the intricacies of it as much as I could. I explained some of the different views, views of people who embraced Advent completely and didn’t allow any Christmas celebrations until after dark on Christmas Eve and others who joined in completely with the celebration of Christmas throughout December whilst still not ignoring an Advent message of anticipation,...

  Today is the last Sunday in the church year. Next week, Advent Sunday, marks the start of the new Christian year as we begin to reflect specifically on our readiness to meet Jesus, whether that is in the celebration of his birth at Christmas, or at his promised second coming.   This is the Sunday that has been designated as Christ the King Sunday, a day to reflect on our relationship with God and to ask the question of whether Christ really is the King of our lives.  In our readings today we’re drawn into this reflection... The reading from Jeremiah (23:1-6) talks about a common biblical topic - shepherds. Shepherds were caring and attentive. They were willing to risk everything to guide and protect the sheep in their care so it’s not surprising that this was used so commonly as an indication of how God cares for his people.  But in this reading from Jeremiah, things have started to go wrong - these shepherds weren’t caring for the sheep in their care. In f...

  ‘I have set before you life and death, therefore choose life’. This text based on a passage from Deuteronomy (30:15-20) appears on a stained glass window I was told about this week in a small Monmouthshire church. It obviously speaks of the wonderful invitational nature of God, but it could also be interpreted as being somewhat confrontational in terms of its challenge perhaps.   I’m certainly going with invitational in terms of us making a decision whether or not to accept the invitation to enjoy a relationship with God, a relationship he maintains with us in spite of our reluctance or even hostility. Tullian Tchividjian wrote, ‘What keeps me connected to God is not that I hold tightly on to him, it’s that he holds tightly on to me even when I let go.’ But back to the window and to the link with Remembrance Sunday. The window is entitled the Risen Light of Christ and of course shows the risen Jesus. It’s a reasonably traditional portrait but what makes this window differ...

2022 has been another traumatic year - the recovery from COVID has been happening, but much more slowly than hoped, the Ukrainian war has caused misery not just in Ukraine but with countless issues elsewhere as well. Added to those things we have had chaos in government in Westminster, and a cost of living crisis which is having a real effect on everyone…   And for the Church in Wales, things have also been pretty tough - again, the return to any sort of normality from COVID has been slow - whilst there are different pictures coming from different places, overall there is a thought that attendances in our churches are still about 30% down on pre-COVID attendances….  And as a diocese we have recently launched a new vision and from the vision we have drawn up an expectation of growth. That expectation has to happen if we are to prevent the Church in Wales disappearing but more importantly that expectation is based on the reality of trusting in God for our future, and on the ...

  There’s a story about a couple of brothers who had led a gang who had caused all kinds of trouble and raised money through lots of immoral activities. When one of the brothers died, the other went to see the Vicar and asked if he could have a church funeral.    The Vicar paused for a moment and then agreed – the brother then asked the Vicar if he would be prepared to say his deceased brother was a saint. The Vicar paused  again  and the brother offered £50,000 for the church if he would do it, and so the Vicar eventually said he would.    When the funeral came it began with hymns and readings and prayers and then came the eulogy. The Vicar spoke of how evil the deceased man had been, how he had robbed people, and assaulted people, and how he’d raised money through all kinds of immoral earnings.    The living brother was beginning to get a little uncomfortable thinking the Vicar had lied to him, but as he was thinking that ,  the Vicar ...

  Today is Bible Sunday – the day when we are especially called to give thanks for the word of God and the day perhaps to ask ourselves whether we know it well enough and whether we really try to know it…  As you will probably know the bible remains the best selling book in the world, also, strangely, it is apparently the most stolen book in the world ! An incredible 100 million copies are sold each year in all kinds of forms, including now of course ‘Apps’ for telephones so that it can be carried around even more easily than ever before. I don’t even know how many languages I could name, but it would certainly be nowhere near 3000 but the bible has apparently been translated into over 3000 languages (according to United Bible Societies - Oct 2022)…  There is an incredible passion for this book – And yet for us as Christians we can sometimes be a little lethargic in our reading and study of the bible – we might describe it as a manual for life...