Sunday's coming!

2 Corinthians 8: 7-15     Mark 5: 21-43 Let’s just think about the Gospel reading for a moment from the point of view of Jairus. Jairus is one of the leaders of the synagogue and he comes to find Jesus. We’re not sure exactly where Jesus is when this story is told, but he is somewhere in Galilee, because Mark tells us he and the disciples have crossed back over the Lake, back to the West. Jairus’s daughter, who is only 12, is desperately ill. Jairus has heard that Jesus – the strange local lad, who seems to be some sort of rabbi and healer - is back in the area, so he goes and finds him. He falls at his feet, begging him repeatedly to come and heal his daughter. He must be filled with joy when Jesus agrees to come with him and they set off towards his house. There is a crowd, Jairus wishes they’d get out of the way – there’s not a moment to lose. Then Jesus stops! And starts asking who touched him. A woman comes forward and admits it was her – she was bl...

1 Kings 19: 4-8     John 6: 35, 41-51 Commissioning of Marius Mazuru as Local Church Leader at Pilgrim church. It is great to be here at Pilgrim Church – named to remember the puritans who left from Plymouth to find religious freedom in America. I thought it might help us, as we are a new stage of the journey for Pilgrim church, to remind ourselves what it means to be a Pilgrim? Sometimes we talk as if pilgrimage was just an inner journey that we make – to become better people or stronger Christians. But today we cannot forget that there is actual journeying involved if we are to be faithful to God. The Pilgrim fathers (& mothers) set out to cross the great dangerous expanse of the Atlantic Ocean: and Marius has crossed many borders to make Plymouth his home. Where I was brought up, in Merthyr Tydfil in South Wales, we used to make an annual pilgrimage to the ruins of a tiny chapel outside the town, called ‘Cwm y Glo’. In Welsh that means : valley of coal....

Job 38: 1-11; Mark 4: 35-41 - Middle Lambrook URC 350th anniversary. Stilling the storm Tell me, in accents of wonder, how rolled the sea, Tossing the boat in a tempest on Galilee; And how the Master, ready and kind, Chided the billows, and hushed the wind. Well, that’s what happened, according to Mark’s gospel – but why is he telling us this story? Mark – which is thought to be the first gospel to be written down – is the shortest gospel: so short indeed that it has almost nothing to say about the resurrection of Jesus. Some of the oldest versions of Mark end with the women running from the empty tomb of Jesus and the phrase “they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid”. Yet Mark did not write down his gospel until about 30 or 40 years after the resurrection, so you would think he would have heard about the resurrection of Jesus. Mark starts his gospel with “the gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God”, and he records all the events that happen in...