Sunday's coming!

My latest letter for the E Newsletter: Dear Sisters and Brothers in Christ, The church year is now in that strange time between Ascension and Pentecost. Jesus, who was dead, is risen but his resurrection body can no longer be seen. Jesus has returned to God the Father and he has promised his disciples that the Holy Spirit will come and be their comforter and guide… but nothing has changed yet. The disciples know that they cannot follow Jesus in the way they were doing – literally walking in his footsteps  - but they haven’t yet worked out what the new way of following  Jesus will look like when they walk the way of Jesus Christ as his new body, the church. We, too, are in a strange time, as the COVID19 restrictions on society are loosened somewhat, but the life we knew last year still feels a long way distant, and the future very uncertain. There is a document written to help local churches prepare for the “new normal” – you can find it on the Synod Website   ...

More covid musings.. this one from a letter to ministers in the South Western Synod: I was recently reading the account of Jesus walking on the water in John chapter 6 (v16-21). I realised I am much more familiar with Matthew’s account, where Peter attempts to join Jesus on the water, or Mark’s account, where Jesus climbs into the boat and the storm subsides; and of course Mark also tells us the story of Jesus asleep in the boat and woken to still the storm. This account in John chapter 6 feels more like the situation we are in at the moment: the storm is raging and we cannot help feel afraid. We know we need Jesus to help – but we might also wonder how that help will come to us. When Jesus appears, walking on the water and speaks to reassure the disciples, they are ‘ready to take him on board’ and immediately they reach the land they were headed for. They never actually have the absolute reassurance of having Jesus safely inside the boat with them, yet he helps them be wher...