Sunday's coming!

  Luke 2:22-40 We heard earlier the prophecy of Malachi – the expectation of a time when the Lord will come suddenly to this temple in fire and purification. As we turn to Luke’s gospel account of the presentation of Christ in the temple, we see the Lord coming in a very different way – in a 6 seek-old baby. I ask you to travel there in your imagination and ask “what do you see?”.   If we had been in the temple with Simeon and Anna that day, at one level we would have seen nothing very extraordinary. Here is a family obeying the religious law, performing a traditional act.  According to Jewish law, set out in Leviticus, families were commanded to present their male children at the Temple in Jerusalem at 40 days old, to give thanks to God and pray for the purification of the mother and health of the child.     We would have seen, that day, a common sight – a couple with their first-born, come for purification. They are not rich – for they have 2 birds to off...

  Mark 1: 21-28 Today’s Gospel reading recounts what happened in the synagogue at Capernaum right at the start of Jesus ministry. We are reading it as part of our Epiphany readings – asking ourselves what this reading teaches us about how to see and experience the things of God.   It’s not a long passage. Jesus goes to the synagogue on the sabbath and is a kind of ‘guest preacher’ from nearby Nazareth. The people are amazed at the way he teaches – with authority – though (frustratingly) Mark does not tell us what he says.    Then a man ‘with an unclean spirit’ shouts out – he recognises Jesus: first as ‘Jesus of Nazareth’ and then as ‘the Holy One of God’.  If Epiphany is about the reality of God being shown to people, then this man, tormented soul though he is, sees who Jesus is and declares it.  Jesus heals him; and the crowd wonder all the more at the authority Jesus shows – in his healing  and  his teaching, this is something new.   I mus...

Jonah 3:1-5, & v10       Mark 1:14-20 One of the interesting things about being a URC minister is the emails that we get. I had one this week with the title “Saying yes like we mean it” – from a group of ministers in the United States called the “Congregational Consulting Group”.    “Saying yes like we mean it” was a fairly typical title – designed to make you open the email to see what on earth it was about. Reading on :”  Most churches of any size have a process for saying “yes” to a set of goals they believe are in response to God’s call, whether that call be to grow in size or grow in the Spirit or to be more active in the community. But when we say “yes,” do we say it like we mean it?”.   The article was written from the point of view of a rather larger church than any of ours in the Landsker Pastorate.    It talked about management boards setting goals which the paid staff of the church board would go on to implement. It discussed b...

Genesis 28: 10-22 (not the lectionary reading!); John 1: 43-51 I love the Sundays of Epiphany – starting with the visit of the Magi (which we celebrated last week) and then moving on to other stories of God’s presence on earth being revealed to people. I think what I most love is the idea that we don’t just pack away the Christmas decorations and forget about God’s love being incarnate in Jesus, but we allow the story of Jesus’ coming to earth to open our eyes to other ways in which God’s love is present to us.   What can be better to start the new year than a series of reminders that God is with us and that we can expect to meet with God in 2024.   Today we heard two very related Biblical stories of God’s presence.   The first is the vision given to Jacob, when he saw angels going up and down a ladder between earth and heaven.    You might think that Jacob is a specially holy person to be given this vision: nothing could be further from the truth. Jacob is the ...