What do we most like about Christmas?
I like the quiet. Everything stops and there’s time to wonder.
Because the nights are dark and long there’s time to wonder about the moon, the planets and the stars.
I look at them and think ‘what must he be like who made all of these?’
If I can fill my mind with the sight of the moon, Jupiter, Orion, the Pleiades and so on I can imagine the mind of God.
If my mind can take in the starry sky God’s mind can take in so much more because he sees all and loves all.
God doesn’t just see one section of the sky he sees the whole of it and all the skies above all the planets in the universe.
God sees right back through history to the when there were no stars at all!
Who’s sitting by the List of Rectors of Horsted Keynes?
Can you give me the dates of the first Rector? Richard de Berkyng became Rector in 1177.
That means Christmas has been celebrated in this Church at least 834 times.
When did people first come to this area?
500,000 years ago – the earliest human remains were found 20 years ago in Boxgrove outside Chichester.
When did life on earth begin?
5 billion years ago. That’s 5000,000,000 years.
How old is the universe?
14 billion years. That’s three times as old as life itself.
It began with what scientists call the Big Bang but Christians know that by another name.
Tonight we are celebrating the revelation of the meaning and origin of the universe.
At one point in time chosen by him as the best time, the Creator of the Universe chose to show his face in Bethlehem in Judea some 2011 years ago.
This Jesus, the anniversary of whose birth we keep tonight, is nothing less than the Big Bang!
We know this from the way he died and rose at Easter more than from the stories of his birth, as in one of the earliest Christian texts from the letter to the Hebrews Chapter 1 verse 2. There it says Jesus, born in Bethlehem, is God’s Son whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds, the one who reflects God’s glory, the exact imprint of God’s very being who sustains all things by his powerful word.
This Jesus born of Mary in a stable made the Big Bang bringing time and space into being. He sustains all things which means he holds you and I together! He is to be heir or inheritor of all things.
We come from him, belong to him and we go to him.
So Christmas to me is a time to wonder!
To wonder at the stars above, the earth below, the existence of life and why human beings are here – and to see afresh in Jesus the power that brought us into being.
What sort of power?
The power of love - love wider than the ocean, immense as the earth and stars and cosmos - love that sees and enfolds all that is!
Love that came down at Christmas. The Love that set the world in motion to begin with became one of us for 33 years starting in Bethlehem.
This is nothing we could ever work out for ourselves but something God has revealed to us. Being a personal God he could do so and did do so in the birth, life, suffering, death and resurrection of Jesus his Son.
Christmas is about the love that makes the world go round!
The orange, the candle and the red band tonight stand for the world, the light of the One who made it and the blood he shed for us out of love upon the Cross.
Love came down at Christmas – so let’s celebrate it with our Christingles.
Sunday, 25 December 2011
Sunday, 18 December 2011
Advent 4 18th December 2011
How does Jesus come into our lives?
He comes by the Holy Spirit.
He comes by the Sacraments.
He comes by the Word of God.
He comes by holy people as they rub off on us.
He comes by circumstances – which links to a second question:
Why does Jesus come into our lives?
He comes to bring us into his life, death and resurrection – and here is the rub.
Look, as the Church invites us to do so today, at his Mother.
She was first to welcome Jesus into her life – and where did it lead her?
She was led into hardship, led to a shaming pregnancy and a Cross of sorrows before taking the shine of glory.
I want Jesus in my life. I want the shine of glory – but, if I am honest, I don’t want hardships!
This is where Jesus sorts us out because it's by endurance of hardship that salvation is forged.
The great Christian writers speak of the need to gratefully accept most of what comes our way, including suffering and hardship.
Sharing life with Jesus means self-sacrifice.
Mary gives us the clue. I am the Lord's servant, she says in today’s Gospel, let it be for me according to the Lord's will and not my own.
Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit, the sacraments and scripture.
He also gives us hardships but we have to decide whether to endure them or quit.
In that decision we bring Jesus closer or we push him further away.
In recent weeks a good number of us in the congregation have had to endure hardships directly or alongside a loved one. Some of us have shown remarkable fortitude.
Last Sunday’s preacher announced he’d started chemotherapy and so engaged us dramatically with the practical side of faith.
He left me feeling I was a fair weather Christian!
I was reminded that the means by which we grow in holiness aren’t necessarily sermons or books or forms of prayer, the right sort of retreat or spiritual guide.
The means of our sanctification, of our cleansing from sin, healing from hurt and so on lies in the day to day circumstances of our life as we welcome them as the Lord’s gift.
As we read in Psalm 112:6,7 the righteous will not be overthrown by evil circumstances...he does not fear bad news, nor live in dread of what may happen. For he is settled in his mind that the Lord will take care of him.
The spiritual writer De Caussade in his book Self-abandonment to Divine Providence emphasises how our welcoming of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament Sunday by Sunday focuses the welcoming of the Lord in every circumstance that comes our way.
Jesus is as ready to meet us in the circumstances of our life as he is to meet us in the Sacrament of Bread and Wine.
To be glad deep down in your heart in every situation is a grace given by God, a grace we have to seek - just as Mary sought divine help to brave her expressed fear: How can this be?
If we aren't glad at heart it may be because we’re not fully submitted to God’s will revealed in the circumstances of our life.
Jesus comes into our lives – by the Spirit, Sacrament, Scripture or by circumstances - to bring us into his own life, death and resurrection.
He is ready to help us face discomfort so that his resurrection life may grow in us by the Spirit and our old proud and sinful nature is further humiliated and put down.
As we prepare for Christmas may we have our spiritual ears open to hear God speaking into our lives so that we might decrease in self orientation and gain within us the love of Christ that will never fail.
He comes by the Holy Spirit.
He comes by the Sacraments.
He comes by the Word of God.
He comes by holy people as they rub off on us.
He comes by circumstances – which links to a second question:
Why does Jesus come into our lives?
He comes to bring us into his life, death and resurrection – and here is the rub.
Look, as the Church invites us to do so today, at his Mother.
She was first to welcome Jesus into her life – and where did it lead her?
She was led into hardship, led to a shaming pregnancy and a Cross of sorrows before taking the shine of glory.
I want Jesus in my life. I want the shine of glory – but, if I am honest, I don’t want hardships!
This is where Jesus sorts us out because it's by endurance of hardship that salvation is forged.
The great Christian writers speak of the need to gratefully accept most of what comes our way, including suffering and hardship.
Sharing life with Jesus means self-sacrifice.
Mary gives us the clue. I am the Lord's servant, she says in today’s Gospel, let it be for me according to the Lord's will and not my own.
Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit, the sacraments and scripture.
He also gives us hardships but we have to decide whether to endure them or quit.
In that decision we bring Jesus closer or we push him further away.
In recent weeks a good number of us in the congregation have had to endure hardships directly or alongside a loved one. Some of us have shown remarkable fortitude.
Last Sunday’s preacher announced he’d started chemotherapy and so engaged us dramatically with the practical side of faith.
He left me feeling I was a fair weather Christian!
I was reminded that the means by which we grow in holiness aren’t necessarily sermons or books or forms of prayer, the right sort of retreat or spiritual guide.
The means of our sanctification, of our cleansing from sin, healing from hurt and so on lies in the day to day circumstances of our life as we welcome them as the Lord’s gift.
As we read in Psalm 112:6,7 the righteous will not be overthrown by evil circumstances...he does not fear bad news, nor live in dread of what may happen. For he is settled in his mind that the Lord will take care of him.
The spiritual writer De Caussade in his book Self-abandonment to Divine Providence emphasises how our welcoming of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament Sunday by Sunday focuses the welcoming of the Lord in every circumstance that comes our way.
Jesus is as ready to meet us in the circumstances of our life as he is to meet us in the Sacrament of Bread and Wine.
To be glad deep down in your heart in every situation is a grace given by God, a grace we have to seek - just as Mary sought divine help to brave her expressed fear: How can this be?
If we aren't glad at heart it may be because we’re not fully submitted to God’s will revealed in the circumstances of our life.
Jesus comes into our lives – by the Spirit, Sacrament, Scripture or by circumstances - to bring us into his own life, death and resurrection.
He is ready to help us face discomfort so that his resurrection life may grow in us by the Spirit and our old proud and sinful nature is further humiliated and put down.
As we prepare for Christmas may we have our spiritual ears open to hear God speaking into our lives so that we might decrease in self orientation and gain within us the love of Christ that will never fail.
Saturday, 3 December 2011
Advent 2 8am 4th Dec 2011
From the Old Testament passage, Isaiah 40.3 A voice cries out: ‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord’
Words fulfilled in the coming of St John the Baptist recorded in the Holy Gospel who came proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
A few thoughts this morning about repentance.
The word ‘repentance’, in Greek metanoia, means turning, turning humbly to God and to my brother and sister in sorrow for sin.
Repentance is a thoroughly practical business. It means coming humbly before God and practically before my neighbour, both of whom are hurt by my sins. It is no good mouthing religious words in church to God without the practical back up of asking forgiveness from the people we have hurt when that’s obviously appropriate.
Christians change their lives by amputation not by compromise. We go places – we go to heaven – by our decisiveness under God.
If only we could see what we’re missing through holding back from a deeper repentance!
A preacher was on his way to Church but had a row with his wife. Hard words were exchanged. As he closed the garden gate the Lord said, “Go and make peace with your wife.” “But Lord,” he protested, “I’m already late!” “O.K.”, the Lord replied, you go and preach your sermon but I’ll be staying here with your wife.” Because he was a man of God he went back to the kitchen.
When he finally made it to Church he preached one of the most powerful sermons of his ministry.
Every decisive act of turning to Jesus is costly to pride - but it brings with it the gift of the Spirit and a fresh empowering for Christian life and ministry.
Advent challenges us to deeper repentance. For some of us this might get expressed in the use of the Sacrament of Confession which is always available by arrangement with the parish priest. There’s an old Church of England saying on confession which might help you. It’s all may go, none must go, some should go
It’s a subtle trick of Satan’s to make repentance look lurid and not as down to earth, boring and matter of fact as it really is for most of us. If you read the newspapers you will see terms like repentance and sin most always associated with something lewd.
By contrast the sin of unforgiveness which is probably just as destructive a sin as sexual misdemeanour can get applauded in the media.
Then what about the sin of self-sufficiency write pride? Living as a self-made man worshipping your creator! It’s quite fashionable! But where will it lead you?
In Advent season the church calls us to deepen our humility before God and our love for him and for our neighbour.
Advent might be a chance to think about why some of our prayers are not being answered. Sometimes there’s a reason and God might show us it in an attitude or a way of behaving we need to deal with. It’s said, I repeat, Christians change their lives by amputation not compromise!
Our decisive welcoming of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament in church should focus the decisive welcoming of the Lord in every circumstance that comes our way and our decisive casting aside of temptation.
Jesus is as ready to meet us in the circumstances of our life as he is to meet us in the Sacrament of Bread and Wine. We need to repent – to turn away from evil to Jesus - again and again, hour by hour. I believe we can only be glad at heart and overflowing with the life and joy of Jesus if we do so!
A person who’s not resigned in a positive way to the will of God revealed to them in the circumstances of their daily living is someone who’s being worn away and destroyed. This is why St. Paul encourages us to give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (1 Thess 5v16 18).
Maybe we need to bow down to the Lord in trying circumstances, thanking Him instead of complaining to him about them, seeing them as a gift from his left hand, ending any sort of argument with him about our circumstances
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord – sometimes it seems that God gives us directions best when we admit we’re in the wilderness!
Advent is a call to decisiveness in preparing the way of the Lord deeper into our hearts.
So in the coming weeks let’s be decisive in tackling the things that should have no place in a Christ filled life.
Words fulfilled in the coming of St John the Baptist recorded in the Holy Gospel who came proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.
A few thoughts this morning about repentance.
The word ‘repentance’, in Greek metanoia, means turning, turning humbly to God and to my brother and sister in sorrow for sin.
Repentance is a thoroughly practical business. It means coming humbly before God and practically before my neighbour, both of whom are hurt by my sins. It is no good mouthing religious words in church to God without the practical back up of asking forgiveness from the people we have hurt when that’s obviously appropriate.
Christians change their lives by amputation not by compromise. We go places – we go to heaven – by our decisiveness under God.
If only we could see what we’re missing through holding back from a deeper repentance!
A preacher was on his way to Church but had a row with his wife. Hard words were exchanged. As he closed the garden gate the Lord said, “Go and make peace with your wife.” “But Lord,” he protested, “I’m already late!” “O.K.”, the Lord replied, you go and preach your sermon but I’ll be staying here with your wife.” Because he was a man of God he went back to the kitchen.
When he finally made it to Church he preached one of the most powerful sermons of his ministry.
Every decisive act of turning to Jesus is costly to pride - but it brings with it the gift of the Spirit and a fresh empowering for Christian life and ministry.
Advent challenges us to deeper repentance. For some of us this might get expressed in the use of the Sacrament of Confession which is always available by arrangement with the parish priest. There’s an old Church of England saying on confession which might help you. It’s all may go, none must go, some should go
It’s a subtle trick of Satan’s to make repentance look lurid and not as down to earth, boring and matter of fact as it really is for most of us. If you read the newspapers you will see terms like repentance and sin most always associated with something lewd.
By contrast the sin of unforgiveness which is probably just as destructive a sin as sexual misdemeanour can get applauded in the media.
Then what about the sin of self-sufficiency write pride? Living as a self-made man worshipping your creator! It’s quite fashionable! But where will it lead you?
In Advent season the church calls us to deepen our humility before God and our love for him and for our neighbour.
Advent might be a chance to think about why some of our prayers are not being answered. Sometimes there’s a reason and God might show us it in an attitude or a way of behaving we need to deal with. It’s said, I repeat, Christians change their lives by amputation not compromise!
Our decisive welcoming of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament in church should focus the decisive welcoming of the Lord in every circumstance that comes our way and our decisive casting aside of temptation.
Jesus is as ready to meet us in the circumstances of our life as he is to meet us in the Sacrament of Bread and Wine. We need to repent – to turn away from evil to Jesus - again and again, hour by hour. I believe we can only be glad at heart and overflowing with the life and joy of Jesus if we do so!
A person who’s not resigned in a positive way to the will of God revealed to them in the circumstances of their daily living is someone who’s being worn away and destroyed. This is why St. Paul encourages us to give thanks in all circumstances for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you. (1 Thess 5v16 18).
Maybe we need to bow down to the Lord in trying circumstances, thanking Him instead of complaining to him about them, seeing them as a gift from his left hand, ending any sort of argument with him about our circumstances
In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord – sometimes it seems that God gives us directions best when we admit we’re in the wilderness!
Advent is a call to decisiveness in preparing the way of the Lord deeper into our hearts.
So in the coming weeks let’s be decisive in tackling the things that should have no place in a Christ filled life.
Bluebell railway carol service 3rd December 2011
The Reverend Wilbert Awdry would be glad to hear of a clergyman selling books about Jesus on the railway.
His daughter Hilary protested that a recent television series on her father’s Thomas the Tank adventures would have dad spinning in his grave. They’d changed all references to Christmas to ‘winter holidays’.
This year is Awdry’s centenary and I’m glad Bluebell has not just one but two chaplains here tonight and 5 minutes on the programme geared to put Christ into Christmas rather than take him out!
Am I getting steamed up? I hope not – sorry – I hope so – standing where I’m standing!
The great thing about Jesus is he’s bigger than any religion even Christianity. Now he really is out for inclusivity and an inclusivity that goes beyond political correctness.
Jesus came to show God isn’t just God of the paid up followers of religion but everyone’s God. He paid a price for that in rejection, suffering and death.
When he rose from the dead – no historical event has been as closely examined than that Easter event – it was God’s way of putting this truth on the map.
God’s not the God of insiders but of outsiders. That’s why he was born outside the inn in a cave and died outside the city on a Cross.
We’ve every right to criticise his followers when they close ranks and make Jesus inaccessible to non-members.
The Reverend Awdry knew some church folk like that. Grumpy Gordon is modelled on a difficult parishioner!
How about the Fat Controller? We don’t know who’s behind the name but I’m told he’s been as much a victim of Thomas the Tank rewriters as Christmas.
Is it so amazing that the Christmas story angers some folk so much they don’t want it repeated in a public place?
The idea of God as a personal God who’s made us and come in person to show us his love and seek entry into our hearts can rattles cages! Some resent the idea of a God who sees all they do and to whom they’ll have to give account.
I beg to differ. I beg them see in Jesus one who makes God actually credible.
If God really is love that would need to have been demonstrated in history and the person of Jesus is the best witness to it we’ve ever been given – read my book!
Oh dear – forgive me! Clergy like trains can get pushy and demanding! We don’t need tons of coal like a train but we still ask too much of folk sometimes!
A priest once had the privilege of speaking to the comedian Groucho Marx. I’d like to thank you, Mr. Marx the priest said, for all the joy you’ve brought into the world. Quick witted as ever Groucho replied And let me thank you, Father, for all the joy you’ve taken out!
Well that’s not our task at the Bluebell Chaplaincy – I hope not!
A clergyman had mourners in hysterics at a Crematorium. He’d rushed into the Chapel from a distant place carrying his sat nav. As the coffin was laid on the trestles a tinny voice resounded: You have reached your final destination!
Over all the earth, down through twenty centuries the warm light of Jesus has continued to shine drawing people to a great destination.
It’s been given to lighten our minds, warm our hearts and energise our lives - if we will welcome it.
Just as the light of the coal and its heat energises the cylinders of this train the Christ Child is given to energise our living, warm up our souls and to get them moving in worship and service towards a great destination.
Over Christmas there’ll be plenty of opportunities to stoke our inner furnace as we go to Church.
What Jesus announces is this: there’s a refuelling possible in life. There’s a warming of the heart.
There’s a joy from outside of ourselves waiting to come in if we’ll but welcome its source.
Joy to the world! The Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; let ev’ry heart prepare him room.
Let’s sing again and warm our hearts as we do so!
His daughter Hilary protested that a recent television series on her father’s Thomas the Tank adventures would have dad spinning in his grave. They’d changed all references to Christmas to ‘winter holidays’.
This year is Awdry’s centenary and I’m glad Bluebell has not just one but two chaplains here tonight and 5 minutes on the programme geared to put Christ into Christmas rather than take him out!
Am I getting steamed up? I hope not – sorry – I hope so – standing where I’m standing!
The great thing about Jesus is he’s bigger than any religion even Christianity. Now he really is out for inclusivity and an inclusivity that goes beyond political correctness.
Jesus came to show God isn’t just God of the paid up followers of religion but everyone’s God. He paid a price for that in rejection, suffering and death.
When he rose from the dead – no historical event has been as closely examined than that Easter event – it was God’s way of putting this truth on the map.
God’s not the God of insiders but of outsiders. That’s why he was born outside the inn in a cave and died outside the city on a Cross.
We’ve every right to criticise his followers when they close ranks and make Jesus inaccessible to non-members.
The Reverend Awdry knew some church folk like that. Grumpy Gordon is modelled on a difficult parishioner!
How about the Fat Controller? We don’t know who’s behind the name but I’m told he’s been as much a victim of Thomas the Tank rewriters as Christmas.
Is it so amazing that the Christmas story angers some folk so much they don’t want it repeated in a public place?
The idea of God as a personal God who’s made us and come in person to show us his love and seek entry into our hearts can rattles cages! Some resent the idea of a God who sees all they do and to whom they’ll have to give account.
I beg to differ. I beg them see in Jesus one who makes God actually credible.
If God really is love that would need to have been demonstrated in history and the person of Jesus is the best witness to it we’ve ever been given – read my book!
Oh dear – forgive me! Clergy like trains can get pushy and demanding! We don’t need tons of coal like a train but we still ask too much of folk sometimes!
A priest once had the privilege of speaking to the comedian Groucho Marx. I’d like to thank you, Mr. Marx the priest said, for all the joy you’ve brought into the world. Quick witted as ever Groucho replied And let me thank you, Father, for all the joy you’ve taken out!
Well that’s not our task at the Bluebell Chaplaincy – I hope not!
A clergyman had mourners in hysterics at a Crematorium. He’d rushed into the Chapel from a distant place carrying his sat nav. As the coffin was laid on the trestles a tinny voice resounded: You have reached your final destination!
Over all the earth, down through twenty centuries the warm light of Jesus has continued to shine drawing people to a great destination.
It’s been given to lighten our minds, warm our hearts and energise our lives - if we will welcome it.
Just as the light of the coal and its heat energises the cylinders of this train the Christ Child is given to energise our living, warm up our souls and to get them moving in worship and service towards a great destination.
Over Christmas there’ll be plenty of opportunities to stoke our inner furnace as we go to Church.
What Jesus announces is this: there’s a refuelling possible in life. There’s a warming of the heart.
There’s a joy from outside of ourselves waiting to come in if we’ll but welcome its source.
Joy to the world! The Lord is come! Let earth receive her King; let ev’ry heart prepare him room.
Let’s sing again and warm our hearts as we do so!
Saturday, 26 November 2011
Advent Sunday 27th November 2011
He shall come again in glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead that we may rise to the life immortal
What difference does this Cinderella of Christian truth make to us.
I say Cinderella because the doctrine of the Second Coming must be about the most neglected of doctrines. It gets eclipsed by Christmas, which now covers Advent and beyond, and is tinged with such sentimentality that many preachers get scared off attending to the four last things: death, judgement, heaven and hell.
The first benefit of the doctrine of the Second Coming is it puts us in our place!
What you are before God - that is what you are and no more. The doctrine that He shall come again in glorious majesty to judge us warns us to avoid the error of valuing ourselves overmuch by what others say about us.
No one can take away or enhance who we are before God.
This is a very difficult truth to take on board and get into our hearts of hearts. The blame or praise of any other human being is of no matter compared to God's praise or blame. If what we find others think of us inflates or deflates us overmuch we’re not fully centred on the Lord.
Fear God and there’ll be no one or nothing else to fear!
The second benefit of the doctrine of the Second Coming is the reminder it gives that once we accept the love of Christ there will be no need to fear his judgement. As St Paul writes to the Romans,'There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus' (Romans 8.1).
The universe will be ended by Jesus Christ and he is the one who first came to reveal the Love that moves the sun and the stars in Dante's immortal phrase.
If all through our Christian lives we have been looking to Jesus his appearing 'in glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead' will be consummation not condemnation.
In Lent we read Bishop Tom Wright’s commentary on Matthew's Gospel. The former Bishop of Durham writes about the Second Coming in his book Simply Christian. There he encourages us to see the Lord’s return as less about our being snatched up into heaven than about the New Jerusalem coming down in which Jesus will reappear as King of Heaven.
Bishop Tom sees Jesus now as present, I quote, hidden behind that invisible veil that keeps heaven and earth apart, and which we pierce in those moments such as prayer, the sacraments, the reading of scripture and our work with the poor, where the veil seems particularly thin....one day that veil will be lifted; earth and heaven will be one; Jesus will be personally present, and every knee shall bow at his name; creation will be renewed; the dead will be raised; and God’s new world will at last be in place.
If the first benefit of the doctrine of Christ's Second Coming is to put us in our place and the second is to remind us that place is one of being loved, the third benefit is to open up a vision of the purpose of all things so as to spur us on.
This world isn't just here! It’s God's world made for God’s purpose! The kingdom of this world is to become the kingdom of our God and of Christ, his Son.
He shall come again in glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead that we may rise to the life immortal.
God’s a personal God who’s created a world where personal beings who bear his image stand not at the centre but, in Teilhard de Chardin's phrase, as the 'structural keystone’ of the universe.
Almighty God made the universe to put in the centre of it his Son, Jesus Christ.
The first Coming of Jesus was into the womb of a holy woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary, demonstrating that we human beings are no mere compartment of the animal kingdom but are capable of union with God.
His Second Coming will occur when human beings, drawn to Christ and his Church in the Spirit, have completed the divine plan 'to bring all things together in Christ'. (Ephesians 1.10)
Materialists, ecologists are inevitable pessimists when they look at how the world is going. Christians though see in world events a forward movement. As Christ waited for the holy woman to be his Mother he now awaits a holy people to be his Bride so that as heavenly Bridegroom he can one day embrace his church so that we may rise to the life immortal.
Christ awaits the purification of his church for this consummation just as he had to await a woman for his conception. The purification of the church is inseparably bound up with the evolution of the created world that moves forward in history engaging through Christian mission with the good news as it spreads from pole to pole, news of the salvation which is God's gift in his Son Jesus Christ.
I could go on - what riches there are behind the doctrine of the Second Coming - but we need to land this exalted vision here into some practicalities.
To summarise, it is a benefit and not a bane to know there is judgement. Many unbelievers may be unbelievers because they resent deep down the idea of a God who sees all they do and to whom they will one day have to give account. We should not resent it - and if we do we should repent of our pride!
In Advent season we provide a number of occasions for deepening repentance, our sense of need for God. Tonight we have a special evensong with conscience examination. The sacrament of confession is also available tonight, on Christmas Eve and by appointment.
Next Sunday after the 10am all age eucharist the ministry of prayer for healing will be available to individuals, something the PCC has agreed we provide after every all age eucharist. Such prayer for physical, emotional and spiritual needs can be very helpful. On Tuesdays in Advent we have an extra Eucharist at 10am and our Wednesday evening 630pm worship is going to include a time of silent reflection.
In these ways and in our own individual prayer and bible study we can engage with the wonder of Advent season as it speaks to us of the love and judgement of God in Christ and his purpose for the church and the world.
The Lord is concerned with our lives and with all we and his concern is one of pure love! As Christians we are in the words of St Gregory the Great one in him who is everywhere. That union in the Holy Spirit is to be manifested when the world reaches its consummation and God is all in all in perfect love with the saints.
It is a glorious truth that no one can take away or enhance who we are before God - the love he has for us is will be everlasting!
As we welcome that love in Holy Communion this morning let’s hold in our hearts those we know who know not the Lord Jesus praying they too will open their hearts to him and experience the love of the Lord!
What difference does this Cinderella of Christian truth make to us.
I say Cinderella because the doctrine of the Second Coming must be about the most neglected of doctrines. It gets eclipsed by Christmas, which now covers Advent and beyond, and is tinged with such sentimentality that many preachers get scared off attending to the four last things: death, judgement, heaven and hell.
The first benefit of the doctrine of the Second Coming is it puts us in our place!
What you are before God - that is what you are and no more. The doctrine that He shall come again in glorious majesty to judge us warns us to avoid the error of valuing ourselves overmuch by what others say about us.
No one can take away or enhance who we are before God.
This is a very difficult truth to take on board and get into our hearts of hearts. The blame or praise of any other human being is of no matter compared to God's praise or blame. If what we find others think of us inflates or deflates us overmuch we’re not fully centred on the Lord.
Fear God and there’ll be no one or nothing else to fear!
The second benefit of the doctrine of the Second Coming is the reminder it gives that once we accept the love of Christ there will be no need to fear his judgement. As St Paul writes to the Romans,'There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus' (Romans 8.1).
The universe will be ended by Jesus Christ and he is the one who first came to reveal the Love that moves the sun and the stars in Dante's immortal phrase.
If all through our Christian lives we have been looking to Jesus his appearing 'in glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead' will be consummation not condemnation.
In Lent we read Bishop Tom Wright’s commentary on Matthew's Gospel. The former Bishop of Durham writes about the Second Coming in his book Simply Christian. There he encourages us to see the Lord’s return as less about our being snatched up into heaven than about the New Jerusalem coming down in which Jesus will reappear as King of Heaven.
Bishop Tom sees Jesus now as present, I quote, hidden behind that invisible veil that keeps heaven and earth apart, and which we pierce in those moments such as prayer, the sacraments, the reading of scripture and our work with the poor, where the veil seems particularly thin....one day that veil will be lifted; earth and heaven will be one; Jesus will be personally present, and every knee shall bow at his name; creation will be renewed; the dead will be raised; and God’s new world will at last be in place.
If the first benefit of the doctrine of Christ's Second Coming is to put us in our place and the second is to remind us that place is one of being loved, the third benefit is to open up a vision of the purpose of all things so as to spur us on.
This world isn't just here! It’s God's world made for God’s purpose! The kingdom of this world is to become the kingdom of our God and of Christ, his Son.
He shall come again in glorious majesty to judge the living and the dead that we may rise to the life immortal.
God’s a personal God who’s created a world where personal beings who bear his image stand not at the centre but, in Teilhard de Chardin's phrase, as the 'structural keystone’ of the universe.
Almighty God made the universe to put in the centre of it his Son, Jesus Christ.
The first Coming of Jesus was into the womb of a holy woman, the Blessed Virgin Mary, demonstrating that we human beings are no mere compartment of the animal kingdom but are capable of union with God.
His Second Coming will occur when human beings, drawn to Christ and his Church in the Spirit, have completed the divine plan 'to bring all things together in Christ'. (Ephesians 1.10)
Materialists, ecologists are inevitable pessimists when they look at how the world is going. Christians though see in world events a forward movement. As Christ waited for the holy woman to be his Mother he now awaits a holy people to be his Bride so that as heavenly Bridegroom he can one day embrace his church so that we may rise to the life immortal.
Christ awaits the purification of his church for this consummation just as he had to await a woman for his conception. The purification of the church is inseparably bound up with the evolution of the created world that moves forward in history engaging through Christian mission with the good news as it spreads from pole to pole, news of the salvation which is God's gift in his Son Jesus Christ.
I could go on - what riches there are behind the doctrine of the Second Coming - but we need to land this exalted vision here into some practicalities.
To summarise, it is a benefit and not a bane to know there is judgement. Many unbelievers may be unbelievers because they resent deep down the idea of a God who sees all they do and to whom they will one day have to give account. We should not resent it - and if we do we should repent of our pride!
In Advent season we provide a number of occasions for deepening repentance, our sense of need for God. Tonight we have a special evensong with conscience examination. The sacrament of confession is also available tonight, on Christmas Eve and by appointment.
Next Sunday after the 10am all age eucharist the ministry of prayer for healing will be available to individuals, something the PCC has agreed we provide after every all age eucharist. Such prayer for physical, emotional and spiritual needs can be very helpful. On Tuesdays in Advent we have an extra Eucharist at 10am and our Wednesday evening 630pm worship is going to include a time of silent reflection.
In these ways and in our own individual prayer and bible study we can engage with the wonder of Advent season as it speaks to us of the love and judgement of God in Christ and his purpose for the church and the world.
The Lord is concerned with our lives and with all we and his concern is one of pure love! As Christians we are in the words of St Gregory the Great one in him who is everywhere. That union in the Holy Spirit is to be manifested when the world reaches its consummation and God is all in all in perfect love with the saints.
It is a glorious truth that no one can take away or enhance who we are before God - the love he has for us is will be everlasting!
As we welcome that love in Holy Communion this morning let’s hold in our hearts those we know who know not the Lord Jesus praying they too will open their hearts to him and experience the love of the Lord!
Thursday, 3 November 2011
All Souls Day 2011
How do we see death?
The right instinct for self-preservation would see it as our enemy. Much of our physical life and energy is taken up in looking after our bodies and protecting them from harm. There is, alas, little attention given in modern medicine to facing up to death on this account, since, at a natural level, when a patient dies it is seen as a defeat.
As we mature in spirit a new perspective opens up and we ponder death as the stranger it is. In that pondering there lies a quest for meaning, not least when those we love are taken from us. There is strangeness especially in sudden death or the death of a child. Death puts a strange, uncomfortable question to every one of us so that death has become in the 21st century as unspeakable as sex was in the 19th century.
Many stay with death as enemy or stranger. Some though, and here faith comes in, some go on to see death as a friend. If faith means anything, it has to see beyond death to an unseen God who sees all, loves all and desires nothing to be lost. When faith and death meet it is death not faith that is changed. In the words of John Donne Death, thou shalt die.
A Christian is a far sighted one. Someone adventurous. One whose confidence in the victory of Jesus over death spurs them on. One who presses through the false boundaries of unbelief, sin, apathy, fear, sickness and, last of all, death, towards the gift of God in Jesus Christ.
To be a Christian is to be opposed to nostalgia in the sense of wanting to stop the flow of time and change. Christian faith is a forward journey with an eternal perspective that welcomes the challenges and surprises of life with Spirit given creativity since Jesus Christ is ever new.
If you live your life not content with a boring sameness but with what is other than, or apart from, yourself, this fascination draws you forward day by day into the possibilities of God which exceed your imagining.
If you centre in love on what is other than yourself you get prepared to face what is the ultimate strange ‘other’ – I mean death. We come to see death as nothing more than the frame of our earthly life. A frame is the picture’s friend. It shows it off. Without the defining of our life’s duration in time the span of our life would stretch into an infinite void. Without being born and dying we would be ageless beings. No one would be older or younger than anyone or anyone’s parent or child – we would be no one at all!
Who I am in my inner self is what matters ultimately. This is a product not just of heredity and environment but of my own free choices - to love or not to love. By growing love in my life I make of myself, with the Lord’s help, a being stronger than death.
This is what the scriptures are speaking of when they say love never ends. As we heard in the 23rd Psalm if I should walk in the valley of darkness no evil would I fear. You are there with your crook and your staff; with these you give me comfort. To live with love takes us out of ourselves and into the forward movement of He who is love itself.
Hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts. (Romans 5.5) Or, as we heard in today’s Gospel, it is (the) Father’s will that whoever sees the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.
To live a human life is a process of formation that reaches its end in death in a more profound sense than end-finish. All that we are is moulded in us through our life in time so that we can be taken into our end-fulfilment in eternity.
The best preparation for death is through the inner wisdom of faith that presses us forward to live in hope day by day and to give ourselves in love to God and neighbour.
Three things abide – faith, hope and love – and the greatest of them is love.
Love is the best preparation for death because it takes us out of ourselves and shapes our inner self so we see our physical death as no enemy or stranger but the last friend we encounter on earth.
Saint Francis expressed this neatly when he gave death honoured place in his great hymn of creation: And thou, most kind and gentle death, waiting to hush our latest breath! Thou leadest home the child of God, and Christ our Lord the way hath trod.
On All Souls Day the Church invites us to ponder death not as enemy or stranger but as our friend because of this future orientation we hold.
It reminds us that love is the key to facing death.
Beyond contemplating our own mortality and need of God today we are showing love for our own dear dead. To pray for departed loved ones is to enfold them in our love, as we did in their life time, knowing, through the risen Christ, that the love which animates our prayer is stronger than death.
The faithful departed have passed beyond the frame of death into eternal love. The destruction of death destroys everything about us that is destructible but it cannot destroy loving commitment to God and neighbour.
Death, thou shalt die. As we offer prayer for our loved ones at the eucharist on All Souls Day we do so confident, in the love of God, that purifies them and us, building our lives on the unshakeable foundation that is Jesus Christ.
The right instinct for self-preservation would see it as our enemy. Much of our physical life and energy is taken up in looking after our bodies and protecting them from harm. There is, alas, little attention given in modern medicine to facing up to death on this account, since, at a natural level, when a patient dies it is seen as a defeat.
As we mature in spirit a new perspective opens up and we ponder death as the stranger it is. In that pondering there lies a quest for meaning, not least when those we love are taken from us. There is strangeness especially in sudden death or the death of a child. Death puts a strange, uncomfortable question to every one of us so that death has become in the 21st century as unspeakable as sex was in the 19th century.
Many stay with death as enemy or stranger. Some though, and here faith comes in, some go on to see death as a friend. If faith means anything, it has to see beyond death to an unseen God who sees all, loves all and desires nothing to be lost. When faith and death meet it is death not faith that is changed. In the words of John Donne Death, thou shalt die.
A Christian is a far sighted one. Someone adventurous. One whose confidence in the victory of Jesus over death spurs them on. One who presses through the false boundaries of unbelief, sin, apathy, fear, sickness and, last of all, death, towards the gift of God in Jesus Christ.
To be a Christian is to be opposed to nostalgia in the sense of wanting to stop the flow of time and change. Christian faith is a forward journey with an eternal perspective that welcomes the challenges and surprises of life with Spirit given creativity since Jesus Christ is ever new.
If you live your life not content with a boring sameness but with what is other than, or apart from, yourself, this fascination draws you forward day by day into the possibilities of God which exceed your imagining.
If you centre in love on what is other than yourself you get prepared to face what is the ultimate strange ‘other’ – I mean death. We come to see death as nothing more than the frame of our earthly life. A frame is the picture’s friend. It shows it off. Without the defining of our life’s duration in time the span of our life would stretch into an infinite void. Without being born and dying we would be ageless beings. No one would be older or younger than anyone or anyone’s parent or child – we would be no one at all!
Who I am in my inner self is what matters ultimately. This is a product not just of heredity and environment but of my own free choices - to love or not to love. By growing love in my life I make of myself, with the Lord’s help, a being stronger than death.
This is what the scriptures are speaking of when they say love never ends. As we heard in the 23rd Psalm if I should walk in the valley of darkness no evil would I fear. You are there with your crook and your staff; with these you give me comfort. To live with love takes us out of ourselves and into the forward movement of He who is love itself.
Hope is not deceptive, because the love of God has been poured into our hearts. (Romans 5.5) Or, as we heard in today’s Gospel, it is (the) Father’s will that whoever sees the Son and believes in him shall have eternal life.
To live a human life is a process of formation that reaches its end in death in a more profound sense than end-finish. All that we are is moulded in us through our life in time so that we can be taken into our end-fulfilment in eternity.
The best preparation for death is through the inner wisdom of faith that presses us forward to live in hope day by day and to give ourselves in love to God and neighbour.
Three things abide – faith, hope and love – and the greatest of them is love.
Love is the best preparation for death because it takes us out of ourselves and shapes our inner self so we see our physical death as no enemy or stranger but the last friend we encounter on earth.
Saint Francis expressed this neatly when he gave death honoured place in his great hymn of creation: And thou, most kind and gentle death, waiting to hush our latest breath! Thou leadest home the child of God, and Christ our Lord the way hath trod.
On All Souls Day the Church invites us to ponder death not as enemy or stranger but as our friend because of this future orientation we hold.
It reminds us that love is the key to facing death.
Beyond contemplating our own mortality and need of God today we are showing love for our own dear dead. To pray for departed loved ones is to enfold them in our love, as we did in their life time, knowing, through the risen Christ, that the love which animates our prayer is stronger than death.
The faithful departed have passed beyond the frame of death into eternal love. The destruction of death destroys everything about us that is destructible but it cannot destroy loving commitment to God and neighbour.
Death, thou shalt die. As we offer prayer for our loved ones at the eucharist on All Souls Day we do so confident, in the love of God, that purifies them and us, building our lives on the unshakeable foundation that is Jesus Christ.
All Saints’ Festal evensong 30th October 2011
We will see him as he is, and all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure. 1 John 3.2-3
We shall see him says St John. The Christian hope set forth on the Feast of All Saints is no less than this.
In placing the Blessed Sacrament before us at evensong the Church gives us a focus and a reminder of the vision of God.
As one of our Eucharistic hymns says; O Christ whom now beneath a veil we see. May what we thirst for soon our portion be. To gaze on thee unveiled and see thy face. The vision of thy glory and thy grace.
Tonight at Benediction we gaze on Jesus enthroned but under the veil of bread. One day we shall see him unveiled in heaven with all the saints.
We shall see him and this is a call to purify ourselves, just as he is pure.
Two thoughts.
We shall see him
The vision of God is too wonderful for me alone. This is the understanding we receive from the second reading which speaks of a great cloud of witnesses.
There’s a movement called inclusive church working for women and gays. I would not dare to criticise it, of course, but inclusion in Christianity is something much more profound and far reaching than liberal Anglicanism.
True inclusivity is this – the democracy of the dead! It’s the inclusion through the Risen Christ of witnesses from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages before the throne of God.
Some forms of Christianity are good at throwing a line to unbelievers and drawing them in. They go on to promote their spiritual development as a one to one hotline to Jesus. Today’s Feast presents the drawing power of Jesus not as a line but as a net. The communion of saints is a net that by example and prayer draws us together around the throne of God to worship him day and night within his temple.
We shall see him
My text from St John’s First Letter complements the Hebrews passage which reminded us heaven is something corporate. It reminds us that to be a Christian is to live for the vision of God centred in hope of the heavenly vision of God.
I remember vividly a scene in the play A Man for All Seasons in which Thomas More stands before his accusers. He swears to be truthful saying he believes any untruthfulness will lose him the beatific vision. It is the thought of seeing God face to face that sustains him, and indeed sustains many of us in our tribulations.
This is the one true and only blessed life Saint Augustine writes to Proba that we should contemplate the delightfulness of the Lord for ever, immortal and incorruptible in body and spirit…Whoever has this will have all that he wishes…There indeed is the spring of life, which we must now thirst for in prayer, so long as we live.
To believe in heaven is to yearn in that way for the delightfulness of the vision of God. Now, in the silence, as we gaze upon Jesus veiled in the Blessed Sacrament, we have a chance to anticipate this joy which we will one day see face to face with all the saints.
We shall see him says St John. The Christian hope set forth on the Feast of All Saints is no less than this.
In placing the Blessed Sacrament before us at evensong the Church gives us a focus and a reminder of the vision of God.
As one of our Eucharistic hymns says; O Christ whom now beneath a veil we see. May what we thirst for soon our portion be. To gaze on thee unveiled and see thy face. The vision of thy glory and thy grace.
Tonight at Benediction we gaze on Jesus enthroned but under the veil of bread. One day we shall see him unveiled in heaven with all the saints.
We shall see him and this is a call to purify ourselves, just as he is pure.
Two thoughts.
We shall see him
The vision of God is too wonderful for me alone. This is the understanding we receive from the second reading which speaks of a great cloud of witnesses.
There’s a movement called inclusive church working for women and gays. I would not dare to criticise it, of course, but inclusion in Christianity is something much more profound and far reaching than liberal Anglicanism.
True inclusivity is this – the democracy of the dead! It’s the inclusion through the Risen Christ of witnesses from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages before the throne of God.
Some forms of Christianity are good at throwing a line to unbelievers and drawing them in. They go on to promote their spiritual development as a one to one hotline to Jesus. Today’s Feast presents the drawing power of Jesus not as a line but as a net. The communion of saints is a net that by example and prayer draws us together around the throne of God to worship him day and night within his temple.
We shall see him
My text from St John’s First Letter complements the Hebrews passage which reminded us heaven is something corporate. It reminds us that to be a Christian is to live for the vision of God centred in hope of the heavenly vision of God.
I remember vividly a scene in the play A Man for All Seasons in which Thomas More stands before his accusers. He swears to be truthful saying he believes any untruthfulness will lose him the beatific vision. It is the thought of seeing God face to face that sustains him, and indeed sustains many of us in our tribulations.
This is the one true and only blessed life Saint Augustine writes to Proba that we should contemplate the delightfulness of the Lord for ever, immortal and incorruptible in body and spirit…Whoever has this will have all that he wishes…There indeed is the spring of life, which we must now thirst for in prayer, so long as we live.
To believe in heaven is to yearn in that way for the delightfulness of the vision of God. Now, in the silence, as we gaze upon Jesus veiled in the Blessed Sacrament, we have a chance to anticipate this joy which we will one day see face to face with all the saints.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
