Sunday's coming!

  John 20:19-31 You might think that the story of doubting Thomas is not a very good choice for a church anniversary. Don’t we want to celebrate the sure foundations on which this chapel was built? Don’t we want to talk about faith and certainty and vision and hope for the future? It’s hard to think there would be a chapel here now if everyone then had based their lives and their actions on doubt!   But this is not actually a story about doubt at all: in fact the word ‘doubt’ only appears once in this story, when Jesus says to Thomas ‘do not doubt’. Meanwhile the word ‘believe’ is used six times. This is a story about believing.   Having missed out on the appearance of the risen Jesus to the disciples, Thomas is clear that he needs to see for himself in order to believe that Jesus is risen – he rather   gruesomely states that he wants to feel for himself the wounds Jesus suffered at the end of his life:   "Unless I see the mark of the nail...

  Easter Sunday: Luke 24: 1-12   I wonder how you feel about the response with which we began our worship: “Christ is risen”, "he is risen indeed, alleluia" ?   There’s a young mum I know who says to her children, when she doesn't quite believe what they're saying 'really?'. It can be “we’re going on a school trip to the moon!” (“Really?”) or something as simple as “I’ve finished tidying my bedroom”. “Really?”. Sometimes I feel like making that my response to the statement ‘Christ is risen”… “Really?”.   If you're not quite sure about the whole resurrection thing this morning you're in good company.   The women went to the disciples with the story of everything they had seen and heard... the stone had been rolled away, they’d seen the empty tomb,   then there were two men in dazzling clothes, who reminded them of what Jesus had said   - that he would rise again – and these two angelic creatures had said 'why look for the l...

  Introduction to reading   Today’s reading is the story of Mary of Bethany anointing Jesus’ feet – it’s John chapter 12   verses 1-8. In Chapter 11 of John’s gospel – just before the reading we’re about to hear, the story is told of the raising of Lazarus. Surprisingly, perhaps, the earlier chapter introduces Lazarus, & his sisters Mary & Martha, and then says: (11.2) This Mary, whose brother Lazarus had fallen ill, was the woman who anointed the Lord with ointment and wiped his feet with her hair.   But the story of the anointing of Jesus is not told in Luke’s gospel until after the story of the raising of Lazarus. If someone was reading chapter 11 for the first time, they would find that the astonishing story of the raising of Lazarus from the dead is told using a reference to today’s amazing story – so amazing that the writer of the gospel could assume that people might know the story already.   This is a famous story – there are v...