Author: ROSAMOND MISKIN

One of the features of the early, 1^st century Church we can’t have missed as we’ve heard the readings in our worship over these weeks of Eastertide is uncertainty. The disciples continued to meet together for prayer and fellowship, but firstly, they were chastened by the memory of their Lord’s brutal crucifixion and the experience of having failed him. Secondly, even after ‘the third day’, the gradual awareness that Christ was risen spread… yes, joy, but also startlement. His appearances in their midst wrong-footed them at every turn, and the mixed emotion this drew is summed up well by the Gospel writer St Luke who, after the risen Lord has appeared and shown them – and invited them to touch – his hands and feet, describes the disciples in a telling phrase: ‘And while they yet believed not for joy, and wondered…’ . But it’s the Gospel of Mark – generally thought to be the first to have been written – that seems to reflect this complex picture consistently throughout its pages.

The starting point of that instruction by Jesus in today’s Gospel from Mark is as he and the disciples are coming out of the Temple in Jerusalem. One disciple remarks on the grandeur of its buildings, leading Jesus to prophecy starkly that those same buildings will all be thrown down and destroyed (as indeed they were, by the Romans in the year 70). Later, when they all ask him when this will come about, and how they will know. Jesus prefaces his explanation by saying, ‘Take heed lest any deceive you’. Though Mark’s account of this prophecy is, as with many others of Jesus’ sayings, virtually duplicated by Matthew and Luke in their own Gospels, this practical realism  – even scepticism – is a characteristic of Jesus throughout Mark’s portrayal of him. In spite of its brevity (or maybe because of it), Mark has traditionally been the least popular of the Gospels because of its comparative terseness – with fewer of the recorded miracles and less of the conventional teaching included within it, its puzzling air of secrecy, and the repeated failure of the disciples to understand Jesus.  Scholars have suggested variously that his Gospel is written for a church which, in the wake of the rapid spread of the faith to the Gentiles recorded in the Acts of the Apostles, had perhaps become too intoxicated by success, and the sensational, and was now baffled again by failures and opposition as it came under persecution. Rowan Williams observes that the Greek word at the very opening of Mark (translated as ‘The beginning of the gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God’) can also carry the meaning of ‘the first principal’, which might imply a stripping-back to the foundations. In a commentary on Mark, Williams suggests that we are meant to identify with the confusion and bafflement of the first disciples – maybe to bring to our reading and hearing of Mark our own dismay at the state of the world around us and the disunity of the church in our own day.

The cross is of course central to all the Gospels, but particularly so in Mark – about one third of his is taken up with the events of the last week of Jesus’ life. Lord Williams invites us to imagine living as Christians in the trouble spots of the world now and what it might be like to read the Gospel of Mark there, and he writes:-

‘These are the sorts of people for whom Mark was writing; writing to reinforce a faith in the God who does not step down from Heaven to solve problems but who is already in the heart of the world, holding the suffering and pain in himself and transforming it by the sheer indestructible energy of his mercy.’

Throughout Mark we are reminded of the complete ‘otherness’ of the Way of Jesus Christ from the ways of the world, and we’re therefore discouraged from ever imagining that we completely ‘get it’. The economy we are invited to live by is not of some plan for growth and prosperity (however necessary such things may be in commerce and government), but simply that of the Spirit of God – the Holy Ghost. As we heard just now, even those about to face persecution were told: ‘take no thought beforehand what ye shall speak, neither do ye premeditate: but whatsoever shall be given you in that hour, that speak ye’. We may well wonder at the abundance of faith that would really take. ‘Premeditation’ may not be the solution, but Jesus made clear by his teaching and his own example that prayer is the currency of the divine economy. In the Gospel’s first chapter he strides into Galilee ‘preaching the gospel of the kingdom of God’, saying that the kingdom ‘is at hand’ and calling people to repentance. Before long he announces to his disciples ‘Unto you it is given to know the mystery of’ that  kingdom – a kingdom which is not of this world, in which repentance completely alters our perspective on living and changes our values. So it is that, when ‘he that shall endure unto the end’ is commended by Jesus at the close of this morning’s Gospel, that ‘enduring’ consists not in grimly bearing all that life deals to us and simply hoping for it to get better, but in praying daily for his kingdom to come and waiting on his Spirit.

 

 

 

This Easter, has its backdrop several unique items of news, on earth a concerning international conflict, closer to home, a new Archbishop of Canterbury, and in space a voyage to the dark side of the moon.

When I was 9 years old, Robert Runcie was appointed Archbishop of Canterbury. I dared to ask my headmaster if I could be let off afternoon lessons to watch it. Disarmed, the Head collected me from double-geography, and joined me for most of it; nerdishly, I commentated, he smiled indulgently.

Fifty years on I watched again before rushing for the 16.30 train from St Pancras to Canterbury West, missing the end, to arrive at Kent University for the evening reception – the ecclesiastical version of the Oscars-after-party!

I was struck by a conversation I had with the cabdriver en route. He’d been watching the service, his enthusiasm obvious. “I used to love history at school” he exclaimed, “today I feel part of history, a woman Archbishop!” He was from Brazil he said. “We love the Archbishops here. They often leave the station and wave at us cabbies, we know them all.”

He was continuing the long tradition of locals honouring their resident Prelate. She is Metropolitan of All England, second in precedence only after the monarch, but his Bishop. It was lovely.

Archbishop Sarah’s inauguration took place in Passiontide, on the Feast of the Annunciation. Adjacent to Holy Week, Theologically Nativity and Passion are never far apart.

The mantle the Archbishop wears is a heavy one indeed. The clasp of the physical cope she had made when she first became a Bishop, is her nurse’s buckle, a reminder of the connection between her vocations.

One more vignette on this year’s journey to Easter. On Wednesday evening, it was a privilege to share the Seder, with Jewish neighbours, who invited us to join their celebration of Pesach. Passover is a lunar Festival. The first New Moon after the Spring equinox. These celebrations are nearly always in synch. Paques in French, Pasca in several languages, underlines that the Church regards this feast as the Christian Passover; something the word Easter does not underline for us in English.

For our Jewish friends and neighbours Passover has constellated to it so many traditions. One which is very poignant and not much discussed is eating fish or chicken, to avoid any associated with the blood libel, a cruel projection onto English Jews in medieval times.

In the Seder, with its foundational connections with the Eucharist, Christians are on familiar ground; the same but, oh so different too, and wonderfully so. The family tells again the ancient story of the Exodus; youngest and oldest have their roles, the generations converge. Time concertinas, past becomes present.

Given the world’s complexity, to be taken back to the foundational story of God’s disruption of tyranny and salvation of His people, and to share, for a moment its origins, was moving beyond words.

The resurrection, for St Matthew, most Jewish of the Gospels, is a moment of earthshattering disruption too. There is an earthquake, as in Matthew’s account of the crucifixion – they spell the same reality. There is a terrifying angel too, on Easter day, not unlike the one who greets Mary in Luke.

In Matthew’s Gospel from Herod at the beginning, to Pilate at the end, and the wilting soldiers at the tomb, Jesus’s life unfolds in the shade of tyrannical powers. Their paranoia leads them to stifle opposition – in Herod’s case, even when it’s just a baby.

The tomb is sealed, not a precaution, but an assertion: this story is over. And Easter is God’s answer: no it is not.

This Easter the Church has a re-set with Archbishop Sarah’s enthronement.

Reflection will chart the road ahead. Recognising the failures to safeguard the vulnerable; revisiting the compromise option for same-sex unions which united all voices in opposition to the proposals; and finding a way to foster a healthy environment for the future, are unenviable tasks.

The women at the tomb that first Easter were not asked to form a committee or refine a vision statement – thank God, we have had enough of those in the last 14 years! The angel gives them a commission.

“And they departed quickly… with fear and great joy.”

It is in going—not in complete understanding—that they become the first witnesses.

The stone is moved by the act of God, Jesus already having risen.

“Do not be afraid.”

Not because there is nothing to fear, we live in a world full of reasons to quake. The women are still afraid. But fear in Matthew no longer has the last word.

And as they depart, uncertain and fearful, on the way they encounter not an idea, not a programme, but a person. The risen Christ.

This Passover, with astronauts heading to the moon to explore its dark-side, while earth has its own that it struggles to bring into the light, let us have eyes to see the Risen Christ. Despite our fears, may we bear witness to him who is our light and our salvation.

On this day, Good Friday, when we remember and reflect upon the death of Jesus on the Cross, I am going to imagine that I am standing near the Cross and gazing in sorrow at the body nailed upon it. A body that is close to death.  It is the body of a man who has been severely flogged and whose head is bleeding from the Crown of Thorns placed upon it.  This tells me all I need to know about the acute suffering of Jesus on the Cross, a suffering that was given to us by God, through his son Jesus, to save us from the power of sin and offer us the promise of eternal life in his Kingdom.

While I stand by the Cross, I have a longing to see the face of Jesus which I cannot see because his head is drooped as life ebbs away from his body.  Such a vision would, I believe, give me a glimpse of the divine.

Emerging from this act of my imagination, I have studied texts written by a PhD student and authors of commentaries which affirm that we cannot in any event say for certain what Jesus looked like, either in face or body. The PhD thesis attempts to explain this absence in a variety of ways and I will mention a few.

One explanation is that Jesus is a boundless character for whom a physical description would not be apropos to his characterisation. Another is that physical descriptions in Jewish scripture are rare. This in contrast to the description given by ancient biographers of the physical appearance of kings, slaves and philosophers in the Graeco-Roman world. The author of the thesis writes that Jesus can be described as a king or a slave but not physically described as such because his kingdom was not of this world, and he is only a slave in the sense of being a slave on the Cross. He shares with philosophers a description of the simple attire that they wore but the ancient biographers were less concerned with the physiognomy of philosophers as the emphasis with them was upon their souls. Nor was the image of Jesus well known in iconographical representations as the evangelists lacked the motivation and capacity to manipulate the distinction of Jesus’ ‘public’ appearance and reality which was one of the main functions of kingly descriptions in ancient literature and, as the thesis gives it to us, a ‘kingly’ appearance might not have been able to convey the kingship of Jesus which was not of this world.

Can we then have any indication of what Jesus looked like?  We could make our starting point using the statement made by Pontius Pilate to the crowds when he presented Jesus, scoured and crowned with thorns.  He said ‘Ecce Homo’ meaning ‘behold the man’. This is a start, but it does not give us any indication of what Jesus looked like beyond the fact that he was a man. We do have a description of Jesus in Isaiah chapter 52 as having a ‘marred appearance’ beyond that of human semblance and his form beyond that of mortals’.  This dramatic description is given for Jesus as ‘the suffering servant’ and was popular amongst the Early Church Fathers but to my mind it sits at odds with the presentation of Jesus to the crowds by Pontius Pilate. How could a ‘form beyond that of mortals’ be presented as ‘the man’. It also sits at odds with the fact that Jesus went unnoticed to the Festival of Booths, as given in the Gospel of John.  How could he have done this if his appearance was out of the ordinary?  The implication here is that Jesus was average looking and I favour that conclusion as I find it hard to believe that the disciples and the people Jesus encountered in his ministry would have done so if his appearance was beyond that of human semblance.

What I do believe is that in an ordinary looking man we are given a glimpse of the divine in his appearance at certain moments in the Bible.  One such is the Transfiguration when the face of Jesus ‘shone like the son and his clothes became dazzling white’. In Revelation, Jesus is described as ‘the Son of Man, whose head and hair were white as white wool, white as the snow; his eyes were like a flame of fire, his feet were like burnished bronze, refined as in a furnace’. It was this divinity that enabled him to perform miracles and to rise from the dead.

We may not have a description of what Jesus looked like, but we could say that the silence about his appearance is there to give us a full understanding of who he was and how we can perceive ourselves in relation to him and to God.  My view is that, as given in the opening sentence of John’s Gospel, ‘in the beginning was the Word’. The Word was with God and the Word was God’.  In Jesus, as the Son of God, the Word became flesh.  It became flesh but the Word came first.  The flesh signifies because it was crucified on the Cross but as the Word came first so the Gospel writers draw our attention to the words of Jesus, and his actions, rather than his appearance. We need primarily to hear his words. For example when says: ‘I am the way, the truth and the life’. This statement reflects his boundless character. Also, we, as Christians, need to see ourselves, as St Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, not walking according to the flesh but according to the spirit.

Let me finish by returning to the realm of my imagination to hear the words of Jesus saying ‘it is finished’ and watch his body being taken down from the Cross in the sure knowledge that his death is not a defeat but a triumph over the power of death and a prelude to the glory of the Resurrection.

 

AMEN

 

 

 

 

About 20 years ago, the son of a friend of mine had to do a school project on “My Hero.” His father, my friend, also a clergyman was proud but somewhat surprised by his son’s choice of topic, so he asked him “Alex, why did you choose Jesus as My Hero?” “Well Daddy” said Alex “I couldn’t spell Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

The word hero is used rather casually today. Sports people are called heroes if they defeat a better team against the odds. Think how often you heard the word hero at the winter Olympics or in the 6 nations rugby. Popstars are called heroes if they do some physical task and raise money for charity. Much as I like sport and music, I am not sure that I would call sport stars or musicians heroes. In fact I am sure I would not (stand fast Paralympians perhaps).

In my work as a military chaplain, I have however worked with a number of heroes. In the hospital at Camp Bastion in Afghanistan and in the desert of Iraq, there were any number of heroes and heroic events. The fact that such events were conducted in 50 degree heat, in mud-summer, made them even more remarkable. In the 10 degree heat of NW1 in this season of Lent however, what can heroism say to us?

Our gospel story this morning is about Jesus asking the  Samaritan woman for a drink of water. What’s this story about? Well, we could think that it is about sin and repentance and moral purity – except that it’s not. It isn’t a story about morality, sexual or otherwise.

Stories with women at the centre don’t happen very often in our scripture. When they do, they often want us to understand the story as a miniature morality lesson with a woman as the tawdry example. There’s Eve, for example, castigated as the one through whom sin and death entered the world.

And there is Mary Magdalene, friend of Jesus, one of his first disciples. We know her as a harlot, though none of that comes from scripture. What does come from scripture is that she was the first witness to the Resurrection.

Women are not very often at the centre of our scripture stories, and when they are it’s often because they did something important, something worth noting and remembering, something that sets a good example of faith. Women show up so infrequently in our scripture stories, that when they are there, it might be a signal to look closer, dig deeper, wait for the critical message that will be revealed.

If we look in a Bible that names stories – you know the kind that puts story titles on the top of the page, we see that this story from John’s Gospel is often known simply as The Woman at the Well. Sometimes it is known as The Woman of Samaria. Both of these factors are important to the story in identifying who she was.

First, a woman. Second, a Samaritan woman. Third, an immoral Samaritan woman. By anyone’s reckoning, she is a rather poor choice for an illustration of goodness – someone highly incredible as a disciple. In her own time, she was nobody to a Jewish man.

This is the longest conversation recorded in the New Testament between Jesus and anybody. There has to be something in this story more important than how many men she had known.

Consider the story. Jesus asks the woman for a drink of water. She expresses her astonishment that he would talk to her. He says to her that if she only knew who he was, she’d be asking him for a drink – of living water. She says, “Okay. May I have a drink of this water?” He says, “Go. Call your husband!” Now, to this point, she’s talking about plain old well water. And while that’s the drink that Jesus asked from her, it is not the water he offers to her.

After the woman realizes Jesus is the Messiah, after she realises what he’s been talking about as “living water,” she takes her new and tentative and shallow and not-yet-fully-formed faith and tells someone about it.

She went back to the city, the scripture says, and talked to people about her experience. “Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony… And many more believed because of [Jesus’] word. They said to the woman, ‘It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.’”

That’s the highpoint of the story: the believers. And it all started when she believed, and when she told someone else of her belief.

Her understanding may have been incomplete; “He can’t be the Messiah, can he?” But it was enough to hook people, to make them think, to invite them in. “Many Samaritans in that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony.” This woman, who is often remembered badly in Church history, who would not have been considered a credible witness, was an early disciple.

This woman, whose witness and testimony were only as strong as: “He cannot be the Messiah, can he?” brought many to faith. So think: how will history remember you? Will it be for your behaviour, or for your testimony?

This woman, the Samaritan woman at the well, is an example to us of discipleship. However strong or weak or confused or partial or new or unclear or even certain your faith, it doesn’t matter. What does matter is that you are faithful.

The encouragement to spread the Good News, to talk of faith and the wonders of God, permeates scripture. That’s what this gospel story is about. We may not be called to be heroic, or to be like a figure in an Arnold Schwarzenegger movie, but we are called, like to the woman at the well, to be faithful. Don’t strive for heroism, strive to drink from the living water offered by Jesus.

When asked for a drink of water, what will you offer from your own well? Amen.

 

Good morning and welcome to the first Sunday in Lent, as we prepare for
the Eastertide Feast of our resurrected Saviour, shining on a hill some 40
days away. With prayer and offerings on our regular Christian menu, the
speciality Lenten plat du jour is fasting…usually by “giving up” something.
But beware! Temptation lives between desire and denial and solicits both
to deliver its victims into the arms of Sin. It is many-headed in its forms,
seductive in its charms and clever in its approaches; fortunately, it is also
singular in its source and its defeat. Although temptation shapes the arch of
God’s salvation plan from Genesis to Revelation, it is in the desert that its
trajectory is secured by the faithful obedience of the Son of God, fully
human and fully divine.

Let’s dismiss one possible “remedy” for temptation at the outset, and that is
human performance of denial or righteous demeanour. Included in the Ash
Wednesday service was Jesus’ advice to shun the outward appearance of
fasting as a “humble brag” that may impress everyone BUT God. Instead,
prepare to meet our Father in one’s best personal order, befitting the
privileged personal relationship he offers us. God will know if you have
been fasting as a path to spiritual growth and not as an exercise in
personal PR or self-enhancement.

For fasting is more than limiting food intake –it is a liberation from
disordered desire and a positive choice to turn to God. Fasting is stepping
up to our identity as his child and partner in creation, formed in his image,
and a vital support to living with temptation. Not because it builds our will
power, but because it brings us closer to him. At coffee last Sunday, I
spoke with a parishioner who noted that she already missed the beauty and
colour of church decoration denied in Lent. Yet she also noted that its
absence focuses her eyes on the crucifix on the altar as never before. It
appears that any of our God-given senses may provide the insight that selfdenial
can bring, though the eyes might do a lot of the heavy lifting for
temptation and the ears might hear a siren song that goes straight to the
heart.

Though Lenten array is the order of the day, we are scarcely starved of
cinematic colour and theatrical effect in our readings…FIRST we have one
foot… yet… in the Garden of Eden with the serpent and our hapless foreparents,
NEXT we’re in the Desert, watching Jesus experience desire yet
not sinning, being vulnerable to the devil himself yet asserting the word of
God to turn away temptation. Is it too simple to state that Eve and Adam
fail, blighting humankind and all creation, until the Son of God incarnates
and triumphs first in the desert, to suffer and triumph ultimately on the
cross? Please do take away this reassuring message for Lent – that the
living God sustains our salvation through Jesus Christ, the New Adam for a
restored world. What is also evident is the foundational role both Garden
and Desert play in our story and those spiritual landscapes in our psyche,
worship, and cultural expression.

In the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve live in unburdened harmony with
heavenly and earthly creatures, greeted by the Almighty in the cool of the
evening. They are God’s apex beings here below, chosen to enhance and
administer the garden that provides effortlessly. Only one commandment
has been given from God directly to Adam: eating the fruit of the tree of the
knowledge of good and evil was forbidden upon pain of death. This tree
growing in the exact centre of this blessed realm must surely have been an
energetic conduit for and physical beacon of God’s overflowing wisdom and
love, encoded with the divine plan, and not to be hacked. Death of
innocence follows, and grievous death of relationship with God and each
other.

Enter the subtle serpent with treacherous intent whilst Eve is on her own.
Here is temptation’s first tactic, to isolate a victim and disrupt relationships.
Next, he employs rhetorical tricks to confuse and generate mistrust,
beginning with a corrupted leading question: “Hasn’t God told you not to
eat from every tree?” Eve must have felt doubt and confusion for the first
time, beginning to worry that all might not be as it appears. What else has
she missed? For indeed the fruit looks good enough to eat and..it is so
very beautiful and desirable that it seems a shame not to possess just
one…Then the snake strikes with an outright contradiction to God’s
message, “You shall not die!” Permission isn’t needed to take matters in
your own hands and be like gods yourselves. Hearing these words, Eve
thinks of how much good the fruit may do for Adam, as well!

The deed is done, Adam and Eve fall and with them all creation, particularly
their tempter, not named in this account, presumed to be the serpent later
known as Satan. Death indeed arrives in endless, painful procession. 1
John chapter 2 best describes the 3-part template for fatality by temptation:
“For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes,
and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the
world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God
abideth for ever.” God did not create anything evil. Including the twolegged
creatures he made with agency, because only free beings can love.
They can also find ways to abuse any of his good gifts.

Cue the arrival of Jesus of Nazareth, whisked into the desert by the Holy
Spirit from the Jordan River of his baptism, with the Father’s spoken
affirmation ringing in his ears. Here, the New Adam and Son of Man begins
a new Exodus as Messianic King entering the Promised Land. That’s a lot
of historical and theological baggage to carry as he begins a solo 40 day
fast in desert wilderness BEFORE he encounters the devil…although I
prefer to envision the Holy Spirit as his implicit companion and support, as
she is for us. He submits his flesh and his spirit to be emptied out. As time
spent in the spiritual dojo, the desert trials inspire Lenten practice to discern
God’s will through discipline and reflection upon his word. The contrast with
the Garden of Eden is stark, where temptation overcomes faith and
obedience to God despite overwhelming provision of his goodness and
love.

Meanwhile in the desert, hunger sets in with a vengeance. The devil
appears at the appointed time with 3 temptations carefully set to increase
Jesus’ spiritual risk, like examination by the pharisees and elders who plot
to kill him later. Staged first in the desert, then on a pinnacle of the temple
in Jerusalem, and finally, upon a towering mountaintop, each temptation
intensifies the appeal of securing legitimate and desirable ends by
illegitimate and self-serving means — manifesting bread to satisfy personal
appetite, enjoying recognition of special spiritual status for personal
advantage, acquiring sovereignty over all peoples without first winning
hearts and minds. The first two are launched with a dishonest question that
attacks Jesus’ very identity and mission “If thou be the Son of God…” The
final one reveals the devil’s real intention of manipulating Jesus to bow
down and worship him.

Each time, Christ replies not with his own words but with a quote from the
Scriptures. Deuteronomy features. The 5th book of the Pentateuch, it
relates a series of covenantal addresses delivered by Moses on the plains
of Moab just before his death and Israel’s entry to the Promised Land. Each
chapter reaffirms fidelity to the Sinai covenant that binds God and his
chosen people with obedience to his commandments and statutes, and is
powered by exclusive, responsive love and loyalty down the ages. At least
from God’s side! How well Jesus knows chapter and verse, so well he can
wield them swiftly as a sword and spot when the devil twists God’s word
against his own. In the phrasing of the second temptation–to cast himself
from the top of the temple with the certainty God will send angels to the
rescue–the devil quotes Psalm 91 accurately, but removes the covenantal
context of God’s protection, there for those who obediently rely upon him
with faith and without demand for proof or guarantee of how such
protection is provided. New Testament scholar Craig Evans writes that the
Qumran community well-known to John the Baptist and to Jesus believed
Psalm 91 to be effective for use in exorcisms of demons, as a “battle
anthem against the devil”. A cheeky choice by Satan.

By the third temptation – delivery of the powers over all the kingdoms all at
once ––our Lord had clearly had enough. He dismisses Satan by name,
with a portion of the Sh’ema passage, the great prayer of fealty to God
resounding in the evil one’s ear. All at once, the angels that ever watch
over him arrive, no doubt with a divine Deliveroo to ease the pangs of his
human flesh. And they ministered to our Lord so he might stay the course
with us and for our sake.

Wishing you a fruitful sojourn in the desert wilderness this Lent, hungry to
hear the word of God, and up for a fight with a personal demon or two.
AMEN.

What is sin? This important question on Ash Wednesday goes to the heart of the matter. Words from the Miserere – Psalm 51, a broken and contrite heart O Lord thou shalt not despise, hint at the anxiety that people of conscience have over the morality of their actions and their relationship with God. We need to begin by recognising that sin is not simply wrongdoing or moral failure. What we acknowledge today is that there is an undeniable fracture in our relationship with God, with one another, and with creation itself, which grieves the heart and impels us to renewal. The message of the Scriptures is that the impulse to renew is actually with God and the task of Lent is align ourselves with that will for connection – atonement.

Sin is the turning away of the heart, its distortion and narrowing, so that we no longer see God’s light clearly. It is, as Rowan Williams once observed, not merely the breaking of a rule but the refusal of communion, the refusal to be who we are in God’s image.

“Turn ye even to me with all your heart,” cries the prophet Joel, “and rend your heart, and not your garments.” True repentance is not external theatre but an inward reorientation. Likewise, Jesus in Matthew’s Gospel warns against fasting “to be seen of men,” teaching us that the

penitential life is one of interior truthfulness before the Father who “seeth in secret.”

In the Christian moral tradition, the Church has spoken of venial and mortal sin—not as legal categories but as ways of discerning the seriousness of our estrangement. Mortal sin represents a deliberate, conscious severing of our relationship with God: the will’s turning away from love. Venial sin, though it wounds, does not destroy that relationship, but reveals how fragile and partial our conversion still is. For some as they prepare to make their confession, or use this season to reflect on mortality this is a vital tool to discern the character of what might be troubling them. Yet the purpose of naming sin is never condemnation. The Church names sin so that it may proclaim the greater word: forgiveness.

Repentance, therefore, is not despair but hope. As St. John Chrysostom said, “Repentance is the medicine of the soul.” It is a turning toward the light, a rediscovery of what it means to live freely and joyfully in God. The Church’s absolution is not a human invention but the living assurance that Christ’s victory over sin and death is effective here and now, even in us. When the priest pronounces forgiveness, it is not a permission to forget our sins but a call to live as those who have been found again.

Why then do we need a penitential season such as Lent? It is not for prolonged wallowing in wretchedness. Rather, it

is a season of truth-telling, a time to acknowledge our frailty and to seek the radiance that follows confession. Lent is “a time when we allow ourselves to be seen for what we are, so that God’s grace can be seen for what it is.” The ashes imposed today are not a mark of defeat but of honesty, dust that carries the promise of resurrection.

Alexander Schmemann, an Orthodox Theologian I return to often, insists that fasting and repentance are not gloomy duties, but acts of joy. The Lenten fast, he says, is the rediscovery of Eden: a return to the simplicity and harmony of life before sin’s distortion. In fasting, we renounce not the world but the corruption of our desires, and we learn again to receive all things as gift. The Orthodox liturgy sings, “Let us begin the fast with joy,” for penitence rightly understood is liberation.

So, this Lent, let us turn again, not to despair, but to delight. We journey not into darkness but toward dawn. The rending of the heart is the opening through which grace enters. The ashes upon our foreheads are the sign not only of our mortality but of our belonging to the One who can raise even dust to glory.

“Rend your heart, and not your garments.” For where the heart turns, there is home, and where there is repentance, there is joy.

What did the caterpillar say to his friend as he saw the passing of an iridescent butterfly? “You’ll not catch me going up in one of those things!” – Metamorphosis.

From: Alice Through the Looking Glass

‘There’s glory for you.’

‘I don’t know what you mean by glory,’ Alice said,

‘I meant “There’s a nice knock-down argument for you.”’

‘But glory doesn’t mean a nice knock-down argument,’ Alice objected

‘When I use a word’, Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone: ‘it means just what I choose it to mean-neither more nor less.’ Lewis Carroll

Glory is at the heart of this moment, which we know as Transfiguration but in Greek is Metamorphosis.

The word Glory in ancient Greek comes from a word meaning opinion, distinction or fame.

When the Hebrew Scriptures were translated into Greek in about 220 BC something rather remarkable happened. This Greek word got a little hijacked. A word which meant opinion or fame took on greater and deeper meanings.

From of Old, what was known and what dwelt with God’s people was his majesty, presence and abiding, even tenting, was part of the meaning of one of the words. The various different words in Hebrew were translated by the word Doxa in Greek. This filtered through into the New Testament, through the translation of the OT.

The classical Greek word has given way in the Greek of the New Testament to a word which speaks of God’s presence, his weight and his shining. Michael Ramsay summarises an investigation he made of the word Glory thus:

In so far as doxa is the divine splendour, Jesus Christ is that splendour and in so far as the state of light and radiance awaits the Christian, that light and radiance draw their meaning from the presence and person of Christ: such is the place of Jesus Christ in relation to the divine glory that it is possible to speak of the glory of Christ, and by those words to mean no less that the glory of God himself.

 Back to metamorphosis.

Being changed was one of the great issues in ancient Greek thought. Real things in Greek thought did not and could not change. They were constants in the real divine realm. On earth, where everything was a shadow, appearance gave way to its divine image and type; the true soul of human beings was in a sense liberated by death, that was the only change to be contemplated.

Jesus’ metamorphosis (his transfiguration), was the revelation of who and what he was: the true radiance of God’s glory.

Jesus revealed God’s weight, and his very being and essence made clear that heaven and earth had been united; and even, that past, present and future culmination had been anticipated.

The end, the very end, was already here – this is what the narrative of the Transfiguration is telling us.

St Irenaeus said at the end of the 2^nd c. that “the glory of God is a human being fully alive” while “the life of humanity consists in the vision of God.”

Through the eyes of those three, Peter, James and John (they are us, of course), Jesus shows us humanity in all its richness, glory and beauty. It is somehow the end in the middle.

The wonderful poet of our days, Malcolm Guite captures what Peter speaks of:

For that one moment, ‘in and out of time’,
On that one mountain where all moments meet,
The daily veil that covers the sublime
In darkling glass fell dazzled at his feet.
There were no angels full of eyes and wings
Just living glory full of truth and grace.
The Love that dances at the heart of things
Shone out upon us from a human face
And to that light the light in us leaped up,
We felt it quicken somewhere deep within,
A sudden blaze of long-extinguished hope
Trembled and tingled through the tender skin.
Nor can this blackened sky, this darkened scar
Eclipse that glimpse of how things really are.

With the Lenten path before us, with whatever mountains there are to climb or deserts to stumble through, we have this vision to contemplate and take solace from. We may look at the suffering of God in Christ, and remember that we will share in his resurrection glory, then even suffering and death become part of the path to glory.

And here in the Eucharist, as Christ is again transfigured, metamorphosed, in this bread and wine, let us strive and long to see the presence of the Glory of God.

 

 

 

 

• Thanks to Father William for the invitation to preach, and it is lovely to be here and worship in St. Mark.
• From today’s passage, we see

1. Christ is hurt when the Church is hurt
2. Christ comes down from heaven to meet Saul
3. God does not take away Saul’s passion but transforms it
4. Persecuting the Church

• Christ asked Saul, “Why do you persecute ME?” Christ identifies His Church with Himself, which is true as we call the Church the body of Christ.

1. Christ feels the same pain as the believers on earth feel
2. As individuals, though we are different from each other, like body parts, we make one body. So pain in one part is felt in the whole body.
3. And as Jesus is the head of the Church, He also feels pain if there is pain in any part of the body
4. That gives us a beautiful message, fellow believers, that one person’s pain in the Church must be felt by us all as we are one body
5. Christianity is the most persecuted religion till today since the first century
6. In the early church, the Great Persecution
7. Similarly, in different countries like Nigeria, Sudan, Pakistan, but God has kept His Church as testimony against all these powers, and there is peace for us, as in the Book of Revelation, that one day God will wipe the tears
8. Since we are one body and affect each other, we must be careful that our actions and egos do not cause division in the Church
9. On the other hand, as we pray for the unity of the Church, we must be mindful of our gifts, actions, and words so that they can be used to build the Church, as Saint Paul says in Corinthians
10. God always meets us

• In our passage today, we see Christ coming down and talking to Saul, not the other way around
• The beautiful thing about God is that He always comes to us in our sins and in life away from Him. We are not required to go and find God, but He comes to us.
• We just celebrated Christmas, and in Advent, we always reflect on the Good News that God came down from heaven in flesh and lived among us. God always takes the first step, and our human responsibility is to cooperate with God’s grace and love, which knocks on the doors of our hearts.
• Now you can say, great! Jesus met Saul. Where is God today and now in my suffering, pain, and difficult circumstances? I never met Him!

1. He is here every Sunday when we gather, where 2 or 3 gather in my name, I am among them, and that is why former Archbishop Rowan Williams and traditionally Church has believed that Church (community of believers) is “the meeting of heaven and earth” where Christ is present among us.
2. He is present, in the preaching of the Word, when the Holy Spirit calls to live a life with Jesus and dwell with Him, as last Sunday’s reading from the Gospel of John taught us, when Jesus said to John’s disciples comes dwell with me
3. He is here whenever we celebrate the Eucharist and when we eat the blessed Body and drink the Blood of Christ
4. God transforming emotions and passions

• When God comes near His creations, He does not destroy it but transform it
• As Irenaeus says, “the Glory of God is a human being fully alive.”
• As in Exodus 3:2-5, when God spoke to Moses through a burning bush, but instead of burning down, it radiated. Similarly, Paul, when Christ visited Him did not take his passion away but transformed it, and it was Paul, later with the same passions and zeal, who led the Church, preached the Gospel, got beaten many times, lived in prison, said who can separate us from the love of God, and finally died for Christ.
• When God comes near, He does not consume like a bush or Paul but puts us on fire to proclaim His word.

Connection with the Eucharist:

• So today, as we partake in the Eucharist, as you eat and drink Christ’s Body and Blood,

1. I invite you to respond to God’s love by offering yourselves with your gifts to serve Christ’s Body, His Church, which is serving each other. It was wonderful to see last Sunday people offering themselves for God’s service. Let us continue that!
2. And let God come near you in this year 2026, and let God’s grace transform you like Paul. I assure you that you will see the radiance which will not consume you but will make you more alive!

• May God use us like Paul to proclaim the Gospel that Jesus Christ is Lord!

Gloria:

All Glory be to the Father and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and ever shall be, world without end. Amen.

 

 

‘I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nought, and in vain ….’ Those strikingly negative words stand out for me from our readings today.  We heard them read as the words of God’s servant in Isaiah’s 49^th chapter, after the Lord’s claim that he formed and shaped him ‘from the womb’, and in response to the Lord’s call to glorify him. They are words that suggest unworthiness, or even despair; I gather that the Hebrew word translated as ‘nought’ can also mean chaos, implying that this individual might feel he has wasted his energies in empty and futile pursuits. That pessimistic outburst makes stark contrast to all the rest of today’s scriptures, whose overwhelming theme (even in Isaiah) is God’s call to us – both to his light, and to bring his light to others. Jesus’ penetrating question to those two disciples of John the Baptist who start following him at a distance – “what seek ye?”, and his tantalising reply when they ask him ‘where dwellest thou?’ -“Come and see”, are brimming with invitation and possibility. His words speak to people’s deepest longing in any age.

It seems that there was much civil unrest – not unlike the unrest seen in so many parts of our contemporary world – during the years of Jesus’s ministry, with many Jewish zealots acting and campaigning against the occupying Romans. The Romans were so unsettled by this that the Jewish historian Josephus recounts that they crushed one violent uprising which started in Galilee with such force that they crucified 2,000 Galileans. In that region, many hopes were being pinned on a future Messiah who would throw out the Romans and restore the dignity of the Hebrew race, and in some popular literature the image of a ‘lamb’, who would come to destroy evil, was prevalent. This may have been what initially came to the minds of John the Baptist’s disciples when he referred to Jesus as ‘the Lamb of God’ as he came towards them. But Christian understanding of this term would of course come to be shaped by a later chapter of Isaiah, which refers to a ‘servant’ who would bear the sins of the people ‘like a lamb to the slaughter’; not a warrior, but a servant Son of God who would take the consequences of human greed and hatred upon himself, to place us in a different relationship with Him and with one another. In his famous writing, ‘The City of God’, this shift of relationship was summed-up by St Augustine in vivid terms which are perhaps controversial and provocative, but seem to speak into the chaos, disorder and anxiety we are seeing just now:-

There exist in this world two cities created by two kinds of love: the earthly city created by self-love reaching the point of contempt for God, and the heavenly city created by the love of God. The earthly city glories in itself, whereas the heavenly city glories only in its Lord. In the former, the lust for power controls its functionaries and determines the fate of the nations it subjugates; in the city of God those in authority and those under them serve one another in love.

If you prefer a slightly more nuanced expression of the Christian response to God’s call now, you only need to look to today’s Collect, which simply acknowledges that ‘in Christ’, Almighty God makes ‘all things new’, and which asks God to ‘transform the poverty of our nature by the riches of [his] grace’. Perhaps Jesus’ question, ‘what seek ye?’, is at heart an invitation to know ourselves. It is God’s grace that gives answer to the despair of imagining that our lives are unworthy and that all our efforts for good are futile. This is what the Collect asks God for: ‘by the renewal of our lives make known thy heavenly glory’. This is what happens in this morning’s Gospel after Andrew and the other disciple ‘come and see’, have their first encounter with Jesus, and then Andrew immediately brings his brother Simon Peter to him. And John the Baptist should not be ignored as one who demonstrates to us this Grace of God as Jesus himself was now emerging to prominence. Here was a man who had disciples of his own, who would dramatically call people to repent, and was used to being at the very centre of all the high theatre of that repentance, with people flocking to him for baptism in the River Jordan. And yet here he is, now ‘reduced’ (in the eyes of the ‘earthly city’) to pointing people onwards to ‘the Lamb of God’ who is, in his words, “a man which is preferred before me”, and who will baptize with the Holy Ghost – stepping aside, to recede into the background. He offers a salutary reflection, not just for those of us in the more obviously self-advertising world of the arts, media and business, but equally for those who exercise office or ministry in the church, whose unity we pray for this week.

God’s servant in Isaiah, having protested ‘I have laboured in vain, I have spent my strength for nothing and vanity….’, then relents: ‘yet surely my cause is with the Lord, and my reward with my God’. John’s cause, his orientation, his reward was similarly ‘with the Lord’. May ours be, also.

 

“Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.”

“Epiphany” means manifestation—the unveiling of God’s hidden purposes. Today’s Gospel isn’t so much a tale of exotic visitors Theology as drama, a show: “Gentiles shall come to thy light, and kings to the brightness of thy rising.”

Let’s concentrate on the protagonists: Herod, the Magi, and their Gifts, and of course the Star, quite literally?

Like Luke, situates the Nativity in the reign of Caesar Augustus; Matthew “in the days of Herod the king…”

Herod, the mighty man standing on the borders of Rome and its rival, the Parthian empire – stands for a discredited regime.

Herod not merely a tyrant but a symbol of usurping powers that had corrupted Israel’s priesthood and Temple traditions in the first century. Observant Jews despised him as much as they feared him.

Matthew’s Gospel is suffused with Temple imagery: light, kingship, frankincense all evoke worship of the first Temple – memories of which had been eclipsed by reforms in the time of Josiah, Exile and then Herod. This extraordinary construction was breath-taking but also a vanity project.

 Herod is not just a ruler threatened by a child; he is the corrupted temple confronting the rightful one.

Herod is “the shadow side of Epiphany.” Charles Causley’s poem Innocents’ Song spells both crackling evil and absurdity:

His fingers made of fuses

And his tongue of gingerbread?

“Go and search diligently for the young child”; yet he avoids the search, in fact a tactical as well as a spiritual error.

The Star of Bethlehem has fascinated every generation. Was it a real astronomical event: a conjunction of Jupiter, Saturn and Mars in 7–6 BC just as a supernova exploded in the distant heavens? We know these things coincided just then. Or was it something richer than mere astronomy: a sign, the light of the Shekinah – God’s glory, returning to the world, an echo of the glory that once filled Solomon’s Temple that Isaiah had seen and Ezekiel had seen depart?

For one commentator I admire greatly, the Star is light reserved for the Temple itself: the manifestation of divine wisdom, guiding seekers back to the place of true worship. Margaret Barker reminds us that in Hebrew tradition, stars are not mere bodies of light but symbols of angelic powers, heavenly messengers. The Magi see what others cannot: a cosmic sign of God’s restoration.

Pope Benedict’s book about the infancy narratives suggests the Star connects heaven and history: it shows that creation itself bears witness to Christ. The rejoices at His coming. The light of reason and the light of revelation are not enemies; in Christ they converge.

Thus, whether we interpret the Star as physical or metaphysical, it shines as a cosmic event and spiritual insight. Interestingly, the Star does not compel belief; it invites a journey.

Who were these wise men from the East, who made the journey?

Traditions are legion about them, material for many more sermons.

Dr Barker sees them as representatives of a wider world of Temple wisdom. Their journey the return of wisdom to its source.

For Benedict they are pilgrims of truth: men who have not yet received revelation but are open to it.

Surely their journey is our journey: from partial light to full revelation, from seeking to worship, from knowing to meeting.

Their offerings so familiar; in the symbolic world Matthew inhabits, each gift is a confession of faith.

• Gold for kingship: not earthly sovereignty but the rule of divine wisdom.
• Frankincense, used in the temple, signifies divinity, an offering to God alone.
• Myrrh, for anointing at burial points towards the mystery of suffering and redemption.

Dr Barker draws attention to the way these gifts echo the temple treasures: gold of the sanctuary, incense of priestly worship, and myrrh for consecration.

The child is, in her reading, the true Temple, the restoration of that lost glory Isaiah foresaw: “They shall bring gold and incense; and they shall shew forth the praises of the Lord.”

Pope Benedict sees the gifts as signs that foreshadow Good Friday and Easter. Even at his birth, Jesus is recognised as King, God, and Redeemer.

These gifts tell us who this child is, before he even speaks.

Epiphany, then, is not their journey only; it is ours. The Magi are prototypes of every soul seeking truth.

What does it mean for us to “come to Bethlehem”? It means to allow our searching to end in worship. To kneel before the Christ-child is to confess that truth is personal, not abstract.

The Magi, by their journey there by the light of a star, and home, by another way, and their gifts, teach us that knowledge finds its fulfilment not in mastery, but in adoration.

Now the virginity of Mary and her giving birth were hidden from the ruler of this age, as was also the death of the Lord – three mysteries to be loudly proclaimed, yet which were accomplished in the silence of God. How, then, were they revealed to the ages?

A star shone forth in heaven brighter than all the stars; its light was indescribable and its strangeness caused amazement. All the rest of the constellations, together with the sun and moon, formed a chorus around the star, yet the star itself far outshone them all, and there was perplexity about the origin of this strange phenomenon, which was so unlike the others.

Consequently all magic and every kind of spell were dissolved, the ignorance so characteristic of wickedness vanished, and the ancient kingdom was abolished when God appeared in human form to bring the newness of eternal life.

Today, Gaudete Sunday—the Church says rejoice. In the midst of Advent’s quiet longing and sobriety, a note of joy, rose-coloured and unexpected. Yet the readings set before us are not obviously joyful. They speak of waiting, of suffering, of imprisonment, of questions emerging from the darkness of prison cell. And perhaps that is precisely why today’s joy matters so much. Christian joy is not a denial of pain; it is the radiant hope that God’s promises are trustworthy even when the world is not.

James writes to a scattered, beleaguered community and urges them, “Be patient, therefore, beloved, until the coming of the Lord.” He invites them to look to the prophets, whose witness, over the generations cost them dearly. James surely had in mind John the Baptist, the last prophet who suffered, a herald who has paid with his freedom and would pay with his life.

John sends word to Jesus: “Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?”

Jesus responds not with ideas and theories but with evidence: “Go and tell John what you hear and see.” The blind see. The lame walk. The poor hear good news. This is not a Messiah who vaunts earthly power but one who heals, restores, and lifts up. Jesus adds, “Blessed is anyone who takes no offence at me.” Blessed is anyone who can recognise that God’s justice arrives clothed in mercy, and God’s strength in vulnerability.

This tension between justice and mercy, between suffering and joy, between prophetic boldness and patient waiting – this is where the Church finds itself in every place and age of its existence. This is what meet and right means in the Eucharistic prayer.

There is many young child eager for lunch, who can smell the roast chicken at those words. Meet not roasting in the oven but in the sense of just and true.

The Church can be perceived to be too quiet about justice. James and John Baptist remind us that prophetic witness has always been costly and is often misunderstood. Only in the last few days the Church spoke clearly in rejecting the lure of ideologies which promise security through exclusion and identity through fear.

It calls relentlessly for just peace in regions of conflict and the rejection of genocide; the cries of Cardinal Pizzabella of Jerusalem, and Anglican Archbishop Hosam continue to ring out and be echoed by the wider Church. It has not ceased to cry out for Ukraine, nor to lament the violence tearing Sudan apart. These are not comfortable statements; they are the Church attempting, however imperfectly, to stand with the prophets, to lift its voice where human dignity is crushed.

On Wednesday, the King attended a service in the Abbey where the preacher spoke of the persecution and the death of the Catholic Bishop of Oran, a fellow Dominican killed with a Muslim colleague after a journey back from Algiers, by extremists. At his funeral many Muslims present chanted “he was our Bishop.” A most affecting account. A Christian young woman from Pakistan told her story. At university she was the only Christian in her year. No one spoke to her except to try to convert her to Islam. She has taken refuge here.

Christian witness is not only protest and it is not simply lament. It must be infused with joy, or it ceases to be recognisably Christian.

Gaudete Sunday reminds us that justice without joy becomes brittle, and joy without justice becomes hollow. The joy of Advent is not mere optimism; it is the deep, Spirit-given confidence that Christ is already at work healing the broken and lifting up the lowly. Christian joy arises precisely when we align ourselves with that work.

So, as James says, we must be patient—but this is not a passive patience. It is the patience of farmers, who prepare the soil and trust the rain; the patience of prophets, who speak truth knowing it may take generations to bear fruit. It is the patience of John, who dares to ask hard questions.

This Advent, may our waiting be active, hopeful, courageous. May we be unafraid to speak for peace in a world seemingly addicted to conflict, fearless proclaiming God’s kingdom is near, which is the truth of the Eucharist itself: we can touch it and taste it.

And above all, let us rejoice. For even now, signs of the kingdom break through: compassion offered in dark places, peace pursued in war-torn lands, courage shown by those who refuse hatred’s easy answers. Kindness and humanity shown to those who are not in the habit if receiving those gifts. These are the works of Christ in our midst. “Go and tell what you hear and see.”

 

William Gulliford

 

The Old Testament Lesson

Isaiah 2: 1-5

THE word that Isaiah the son of Amoz saw concerning Judah and Jerusalem.  And it shall come to pass in the last days, that the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established in the top of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills; and all nations shall flow unto it.  And many people shall go and say, Come ye, and let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the house of the God of Jacob; and he will teach us of his ways, and we will walk in his paths: for out of Zion shall go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem.  And he shall judge among the nations, and shall rebuke many people: and they shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more.  O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.

The Epistle

Romans 13: 11 – end

AND that, knowing the time, that now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed.  The night is far spent, the day is at hand: let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and let us put on the armour of light.  Let us walk honestly, as in the day; not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and wantonness, not in strife and envying. But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh, to fulfil the lusts thereof.

The Gospel

St Matthew 4: 36 – 44

BUT of that day and hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.  But as the days of Noah were, so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark,  And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. Then shall two be in the field; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Two women shall be grinding at the mill; the one shall be taken, and the other left. Watch therefore: for ye know not what hour your Lord doth come. But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. Therefore be ye also ready: for in such an hour as ye think not the Son of man cometh.

==

 

 

 

“Lord, let these words be not my words but your words. Use them in spite of me, and let them point always to Christ. Send your Spirit, that the people may hear your word in faith. Amen”

On this first Sunday of Advent – when the key characters in our Christmas story are just discovering the roles in which they have been cast, we start our preparations, looking forwards to the birth of Christ the King. Before the journey of the wise men starts or Mary and Joseph set out for Bethlehem (with Bayleaf who we are hoping to see next week), we have an opportunity to stand back from the excitement of the story unfolding and to reflect on god’s bigger plan. The Christmas story is one step as revealed in part to us through the words of the prophets, disciples and apostles in the scriptures. Today’s readings clearly take us beyond this impending moment of birth and lead our gaze through Isaiah’s prophecy, to the ‘Mountain of the Lord’s house’, the highest of the mountains. As we stand in awe at the nations streaming to, with curiosity and peace in their hearts, we are reminded of the glory to come when Christ returns at the end of days.

Reflecting on my relationship with Christ and readiness to meet him, in light of this morning’s readings has been both challenging and encouraging. Both Matthew and Paul refuse to pull their punches when it comes to complacency, compromise or cold-heartedness in our journey as Christians. However, they also encourage and equip us – to remain prepared, persevering and purposeful.

There are many aspects of this morning’s readings that are disturbing and uncomfortable. I struggle to reconcile the images in Matthew of the sudden flood sweeping through with no warning, or the instant disappearance of a co-worker from the field, with the loving and forgiving father described in the scriptures. I know I am not the first and have little expectation that I will ever truly comprehend. But like many who have gone before – and probably many who are here beside me today – I will continue to seek to comprehend and be thankful for the chance to understand a little more of gods will and wisdom as I proceed on my journey to discover my next role in gods plans.

Isaiah was called by God in 740BC, the year King Uzziah of Judah died. Judah by this time is a region in its own right, distinct from Israel. It was formed by the tribe of Judah – the descendants of Judah,  Jacob’s 4^th. Son. The tribe of Judah had become the most powerful of the 12 tribes of Israel and split from Israel following the death of King Solomon in about 1000 BC. Judah then is our modern day southern Israel, bordering the region of Gaza (then Philistia) to the north west and Israel to the north. Judah’s northern boundary included the city of Jerusalem. At this time the Assyrians were in their most powerful and expansive period, pressing in from all sides, although it wasn’t util the Babylonians in around 586 BC that Judah was completely conquered.

Clearly this context resonates with current tensions in that area and throughout the world at large which should reassure us of the continuing relevance of the scriptures both New and Old testament, to our present-day world.

We read in Isaiah ‘In days to come the mountain of the Lord’s house shall be established as the highest of the mountains and shall be raised above the hills; all the nations shall stream to it.’ This is widely agreed by Christians to refer to the period of Christ’s glorious return at the end time, as also described by both Matthew and Paul in our other readings. To the people of Judah this could have been a description of their idea of heaven on earth. To have peace and a chance to learn from and walk with God.

One of my struggles in the past has been the idea of repentance as an act of fear – fear of judgement from God, fear of missing out, fear of hell. Perhaps for some people this is a clear step along their journey to knowing Christ. However, the picture Isaiah paints feels different and much more positive… A people that long for peace, the chance to walk and learn together, where no one is hungry, no one is persecuted or trodden down. As someone who would say they are a Christian, these values and ideas resonate and together with the recognition that despite my flaws, imperfections and frequently missed opportunities to demonstrate Christ’s love – I can walk forwards with confidence, knowing that I am forgiven and that every day represents a new start.

In our service this morning we will take time to reflect and recognise our ‘wrongdoings’.  Whilst this is a vitally important part of the Eucharist, this is not our core focus. This is a chance to reflect, recognise, be sorry and clear our minds of any obstacles so that we may confidently approach God at the altar and leave renewed to continue our walk with him.

With that vision of the triumphant return of the king and raising up of Jerusalem in Isaiah, we are now challenged in the passages from Matthew’s Gospel and Paul’s letter to the Romans – exhorting us to be prepared for the return of the King on that day.

Matthew opens with ‘about that day and hour no one knows, neither the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father’ – a clear warning that this return could be at any moment and will be unexpected. He goes on to say that ‘Then two will be in the field; one will be taken, and one will be left. 41 Two women will be grinding meal together; one will be taken, and one will be left.’  We get a clear sense of the suddenness and finality of this moment, with no chance to reflect or repent. For a modern, cinematic portrayal of what this may feel like, I refer to you to Avengers : Infinity War. Thanos (the villain) diagnoses an unsustainable universe and decides to use god like powers to randomly eliminate half of all life in an instant. The immediate disappearance of 1 in 2 people clearly demonstrates any lack of time to prepare, act, say goodbye or sorry, or perform any last action and the long-lasting impact and reaction for those left behind is painful to watch. Whilst I am not holding this up a prophetic model of the moment of Christ’s return, it may help us understand the finality of this moment and underlines the need to be prepared now. Perhaps this advent season is the opportunity to address those nagging guilts, those unresolved regrets, or that put off phone call and most importantly, to ensure we are focused on developing a personal relationship with God.

Regardless of how literally we interpret such prophetic passages, this is a very clear warning followed by clear instructions as to how to prepare and not be taken by surprise. To be expectant and live as if the moment was imminent.

Earlier in this chapter of Paul’s letter to the Romans, he has already reminded us what is expected ‘⁹ The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,”^[a]and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbour as yourself.”^[b] 10 Love does no harm to a neighbour. Therefore, love is the fulfilment of the law.’  Recall also the parable of the good Samaritan where Jesus teaches that our neighbour is anyone in need. These days we are unlikely to meet a beset upon Samaritan in need of help – but there are many around and among us that are in need. We must stay watchful and be compassionate in our actions.

And like Judah we are surrounded by a world that does not always share our convictions or values. Frequently through the scriptures, the challenge of living, as Christ would live, to show love to our neighbour, is compared to battle. Every day we face demands, distractions clamouring for our attention, images and stories of those around us in great need and the possibility of judgement or ridicule from others if we step outside the accepted social norms.

Thankfully, again we are not expected to face this challenge unequipped – we are reminded to put on the Armour of Light and even more literally, to ‘. put on the Lord Jesus Christ’. Paul will go on to describe in more detail, the armour of God in his letter to the Colossians. He finishes his description.. ‘In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. ¹⁷ Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God’.

And so, as our advent journey starts and we prepare to celebrate the wonder that God the Son became man for us, let us remember why. And let us head the warning and exhortations of this morning – to remain prepared for the return of the Messiah, to be persistent in our watchful and active waiting and to be purposeful in this world, demonstrating the love of Christ to our neighbours whereever we may meet them.

Thanks be to God.

May I speak in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.

Nigel Farage, the leader of the political party known as ‘Reform’ has described this country as ‘broken Britain’. Organisations not functioning properly, a weak economy and an increase in homelessness are examples of this breakdown.

Many people would agree with this dismal picture of where we are today.  Recently, I was chatting over coffee with one such person, who was anxious about this situation. My instinctive reaction was to produce a sentence that I have found helpful in keeping hope alive.  I said that ‘today’s rocks are tomorrow’s road’.  In other words, when things break down out of the breakage comes a way forward that involves a restructuring of what has gone before.  However bleak the landscape it is still the landscape upon which the new can be created and eventually flourish.  New generations with new ideas can make this happen.

You may think that I am being wildly optimistic and that humanity with its never-ending wars will eventually be wiped out in a nuclear war, if it has not already been wiped out by catastrophic climate change. Understandable, but this does not square with the Christian story of destruction and renewal.

In today’s Gospel reading we are given the ultimate example of such destruction and renewal.  In this reading, Jesus is taken to the hill outside ancient Jerusalem where he was crucified, also known as Golgotha, meaning “Place of the Skull”.  The word ‘skull’ immediately suggests the words ‘skeleton’ and ‘death’. To quote from the book entitled ‘Dismas, the Penitent Thief’ by Mark Thomas Jones, this place was a ‘bleak, forbidding and rocky landscape, one that is desolate and devoid of hope’.  Here, Jesus was crucified on the Cross, flanked by two criminals.  The nails pierced his hands and feet, the crown of thorns pierced his head and he was left to die, as were the two criminals either side of him, a slow and agonizing death.

Here we see so much breakage; the rocks, the bodies broken on the Cross and the breakdown of the women who wept around Jesus. Many artists over the centuries have conveyed this grim scene.  ‘Crucifixion’ by Thomas Eakins, painted in 1880, well depicts the barren landscape and desolation and the 1946 ‘Crucifixion’ by Russell Drysdale gives the bleak and hostile nature of the landscape, based on his experience of severe drought in Australia.

Yet, we as Christians know, do we not, that despite all these rocks, tomorrow’s road will be put before us. A glimpse of this promise is given to us in today’s reading when one of the criminals, Dismas, says; ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’ and Jesus replies ‘Truly, I tell you today you will be with me in Paradise’.  Here is an indication that out of all this extreme sorrow, God’s kingdom will come.  As the Jerome Biblical commentary expresses it: ‘punishment is not God’s final word’. The death of Jesus on the Cross is not an ending but a death that saves us from our sins and offers us eternal salvation in the kingdom to come.  As the Commentary on Luke by Woodward, Gooder and Pryce expresses it; ‘we are led by way of the Cross to an apprehension of God’s love. The love that bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things to the end’.  That is why Jesus does not give in to the meanness and arrogance around him.  In Paul’s letter to the Colossians, Paul gives a great summing up of all that has occurred.  He writes that ‘God has rescued us from the power of darkness and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins’. For Paul, Jesus is the image of the invisible God.  All things were created through him and for him.  In him God has reconciled to himself all things, earth and heaven, by making peace through the blood of the Cross.

This is our Christian hope of light following darkness and we can make it the motive for us to persevere when the rocks surround us, reminding ourselves that however bleak a situation we are in, God will never abandon his creation. He is working his purposes out and trusting in his love for us we can continue to seek ways to create a better world.

If we want a further affirmation of God’s loving care for us we can find it in the Old Testament. In the Book of Jeremiah, we learn that God says woe to shepherds who scatter his sheep.  He will gather them and look after the remnant. In Psalm 46, God defends city and people.  God, the Psalmist writes, is our refuge and strength. He breaks the bow and shatters the spear. Here we see that it is God who does the breaking when it comes to any threat being made against his sheep.

Returning to today’s world let us not despair but hold on to this promise of eternal life and do what we can to turn the dry wood of the Cross into a beautiful, life enhancing green.

 

AMEN

“As some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, Jesus said,  As for these things, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.”

I wonder if you have ever asked: why were the Gospels themselves written? This event, which in the Gospel narrative Jesus is predicting (in 33 AD) as happening in the future, had probably just happened when Luke wrote his Gospel down.

And it was probably because of this event that Luke (following Mark’s lead who may have even written his version on the eve of the Temple’s destruction and mirrored by Matthew) felt the need to write it down. The destruction of the Jerusalem Temple in AD 70, was so cataclysmic, so much a sign that Jesus’s words were coming true, so reminiscent of comparable moments of crisis in Israel’s past that truly the literati of late 1^st c Christianity had to make some sense of these terrifying and portentous events.

It’s worth quickly considering the history: Rebels had defeated Roman forces under Cestius Gallus in AD 66. This encouraged wider rebellion. Rome retorted as thwarted mighty empires do; Nero appointed Vespasian, a highly competent general, with his son Titus, as second in command, to crush the revolt.

Rome subdued the northern territories. Josephus, the Jewish commander in Galilee, was captured – he turned coat and becomes an advisor to Vespasian. His history is a vital record of the events.

Nero died in June 68, and so began the Year of the Four Emperors. Vespasian was proclaimed emperor in 69 AD and returned to Rome, leaving Titus to conclude the prosecution of Judaean War.

Civil strife undermined the city’s defence. Titus laid siege between April–September of AD 70. And in August the Temple was burned to the ground.

It’s hardly possible for us to imagine what the ramifications of this destruction were. Herod’s Temple was comparable to the great Pyramid at Giza. As a place of pilgrimage there was nothing to rival it. The Jewish faith was unique in Rome as having a licit status outside Paganism. To destroy such a monument, and its depiction on the arch of Titus, still there today in the Roman forum, was to make an ultimate of the subjugation of any who considered rebellion.

Judaism’s central place of encounter with God was gone, destroyed.

Jesus could see the dangers these beautiful precincts were in 40 years or so before they were no more. And his words were remembered and appropriated and crucially committed to the literary form we know as the Gospels between AD 70 -90.

Today is safeguarding Sunday. It’s also the anniversary of Archbishop Justin’s resignation last year. I don’t propose to rake over old and sad coals. But putting trust in edifices and institutions which seem immutable is understandable. Today’s Gospel helps to remember words from the hymn, Tower and Temple are sadly prone to fall to dust.

Beauty, longevity, or sacred status do not guarantee safety, however much we may have wished they might.

As we reflect on making the Church a safe good and dependable place, let us be extremely mindful of the terrible failures to protect vulnerable people in the life of the Church.

We have to ensure that the heart of our ecclesial life is an inherent honouring all people as created in the image and likeness of God. As we develop a culture of Safeguarding in the Church, we are paying attention to terrible failures to have lived up to these expectations in the past. Too often the culture of the Church, despite its doctrines, has harboured and not critiqued very bad behaviour, often towards the weak and vulnerable. As the Church learns from appalling abuse in the past, it wishes to be ever more intentional about connecting how it orders itself with consistently good training and patterns of behaviour that allow no room for any form of abuse, and a conscious way of being with one another which honours the likeness of God we each reflect.

My sense is that all in the Church are working together to foster an atmosphere of confidence in one another, which means our interactions are safe and healthy, and where trust can be placed in those in authority.

Malachi foresaw the destruction of the Temple four centuries before Jesus did. For Malachi God’s judgement is the dawning of justice, with healing in his wings – words reminiscent of the carol Hark the Herald Angels sing. The “wings” are either rays of the sun, or metaphorically as the edge of a garment for either they are to seen God’s desire for protection and justice.

I was struck by a Theological reflection we were sent to consider by a Theologian called Dr Krish Kandiah:

“Safeguarding must never become synonymous with an obligatory bureaucratic tick-box exercise… Theology is as vital to the church as a compass is to sailors in a storm. Safeguarding is the true north of all service the church has to offer.”

In the first reading, we hear Job’s raw cry: “O that my words were written printed in a book, engraved on rock forever.”

Job longs for his story of innocent undeserved suffering, to be captured.

In an oral culture the engraving of words into rock was itself a prophetic statement, an echo even of the commandments hewn into the stone tablets of the law

He knows, despite his trials, “my Redeemer liveth, and that he will stand on the latter day upon the earth.”

In the Gospel of John, our Lord says: “Greater love has no man than this: that he lay down his life for his friends.”  Not servants but friends, friends who are invited to share in his purpose: “This I command you: love one another.”

Job’s yearning to have his words carved in stone, reminds us of how stories matter, how lives count.

St Paul was the first author of the New Testament. He wrote letters, the foundations essentially of the early Church. Each precious, the first written words which spoke of Christ.

A letter is a testimony that its author has lived, loved, suffered, believed. This year, at the National Memorial Arboretum a new letter been unveiled: the memorial for Gay and Lesbian service personnel – a bronze sculpture in the shape of a crumpled letter.

Designed to evoke the letters which incriminated, in its new form is a letter from the past to the present; from those who served without recognition – to those who serve now, and to the nation that pays them tribute.

This bronze sculpted letter records that those people once humiliated and derided mattered; that their life and service will not remain crumpled or erased.

Job’s confidence that his Redeemer lives; AND Jesus’ laying down of his life—both point to the deep truth that love rescues, restores, transforms.

Service in the forces is deeply associated with sacrifice, risk and obligation. At the heart of the Christian calling in service is redemption and sacrifice is the outworking of love.

And so we remember on this the 80^th anniversary of the end of the second world war and 107^th of the Armistice of 11 November 1914, those who died for their friends and for their nation; and in remembering we also affirm their service, their lives, their identities, their faithfulness, are not lost, but held in God’s redeeming purpose.

The unveiling of the memorial on 27 October 2025 by the King bears witness to redemption of memory, of dignity, of belonging.

Jesus says “This I command you: love one another.” The ultimate service is laid‐down life. Our armed forces personnel serve on behalf of the nation and its peace. They risk, stand ready, and endure.

This Remembrance Sunday we honour them, we honour you from 20 Squadron of the Royal Logistics Corps: not only those who gave the last full measure of devotion, but those who serve every day.

As we reflect on the Memorial unveiled this year within the Church, we are challenged too as we continues to wrestle with how to interpret Scripture, in the light of the insights of modernity.

It is good that we gather on Remembrance Sunday to mark how service, identity, sacrifice and love are bound together and point to the ultimate reality of our redemption.

Job wanted his complaint written on rock; he trusted that his story would not disappear. And to Jesus’ friends, Jesus gives the commandment of love, the promise of redemption, the example of the laying down of one’s life.

The design of a bronze “crumpled letter” suggests the frailty of what was once hidden, but its solidity and engraved words turn testimonies of exclusion into public and royal affirmation.

Job declared “And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God: Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another.

The message of that puzzling book is that injustice gives way to serenity, and a final vision of God’s loving purposes. They are fulfilled in his Son who laid down his life for his friends. Amen.

I realised when planning this sermon that in an intentional way I have been studying the Bible for over 40 years. I started A level RS in 1985, here is my Bible, and my Greek Testament; and here is something I am so excited about, I was showing the SC the other, a Synopsis of the New Testament.

I thought was going to tell you something about the significance of NT Synopsis, because it’s a subject which has always interested me; but found myself compelled to tell another story, one which is ancient but also deeply Camden.

In the British Library, a 25 minute walk from here, and in our Borough, lives perhaps one of its greatest treasures. The Codex Sinaiticus. I thought I’d try to find out something about the Bible in exploring the history and uniqueness of a Bible.

The word codex means “book” and Sinaiticus refers to Sinai where it was found. It is a Greek manuscript of the Christian Scriptures, written in the fourth century, by scribes using animal-skin parchment (vellum).

The codex stands at a key moment in the history of the book: when scroll became codex, from papyrus roll, to bound vellum book. It is one of the earliest, largest, most ambitious Christian manuscripts of its kind, and resonates with the anniversary of Nicaea, which we have been celebrating, as it seems it originated soon after.

We think from the writing, in Greek capitals, and the quality of vellum, it was produced in Egypt, or possibly coastal Palestine, around A.D. 340. It compares with the other major early Greek codices of the Bible: for example, the Codex Vaticanus, contemporary, and the Codex Alexandrinus (5th century).

It’s unclear exactly when it got to St Catherine’s monastery in Sinai, it is no surprise that something that must have been known to be so precious, was kept there for safe-keeping, possibly during the rise of Islam, if not before.

The story of how the Codex came to England is almost a thriller. The key figure is the German biblical scholar Constantin von Tischendorf (1815-1874). In 1844, on his first trip to St Catherine’s Monastery, he was shown 129 large parchment leaves from the codex, and he managed to secure 43 leaves which were taken back to Leipzig, Germany. The story goes that these leaves were in a basket intended for the fire, but whether that detail is legend or fact remains debated. He went back two years later to claim more, but was rebuffed.

In 1859 Tischendorf made a third journey, under the patronage of the Tsar, who had more money to burn that the King of Prussia, and was finally allowed to study-and secure the main body of the manuscript — 347 leaves  which ended up in St Petersburg in Russia.

In 1933 the Soviet government, strapped for cash, and with no love of the Church, sold that portion to the British Government, and today the majority of the Codex is held in the British Library in London. Meanwhile, 43 leaves remain at Leipzig University Library, a few leaves at the Russian National Library, and a number is still at St Catherine’s.

There is a certain “James-Bond” feel to the tale — desert monasteries, hidden manuscripts, diplomatic negotiations, clandestine removal. Some say Tischendorf was a hero saving the ancient Bible; others say he was opportunistic. The question of ownership and provenance remains debated.

Why tell this story on Bible Sunday? Because the Codex Sinaiticus, a Bible, helps us to understand some crucial truths about “The Bible” itself.

1. The sheer number of animal skins, the labour of scribes, the materials and binding show that in the ancient world a Bible of this kind was a precious item. The life-time earnings of a worker would have gone into it. It was centuries before Tyndale’s dream of every ploughboy or even girl having a pocket Bible might materialise. That’s another story – the rise of Print and with it, Protestantism.
2. The Codex shows many signs of corrections, marginal notes, multiple scribes, and evolving textual tradition. The text did not appear by magic, but through human hands, scribes, scholars and communities.
3. The very survival of such a manuscript reminds us that our Bible stands in a chain of communities, cultures, books and translations.
4. The fact that this book, so close to home in London, reaches back to the 4th century, and thereby nearer the time of Christ and the early church, is full of Christian significance. Just as the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, so the Word-written became bound, preserved, handled, read, preached, shared. We are touching the incarnate Word when we open our Bibles.

As Isaiah the Prophet said in our Old Testament reading: “I have sworn by myself, the word has gone out of my mouth in righteousness, and shall not return: that unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear.” (Isaiah 45:23). The Codex Sinaiticus gives tangible witness to that great Word going out of God’s mouth, being carried through centuries, and reaching our lips today.