Sunday's coming!

John 15: 1-8, Acts 8: 26-40 Perhaps, like me, you were brought up with the song “he is the vine & we are the branches..”. I think of it whenever I hear that reading from John’s gospel – where Jeus says “I am the vine..”.  And yet actually what Jesus says next is not ‘You are the branches, but “ I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinegrower. He removes every branch in me that bears no fruit. Every branch that bears fruit he prunes to make it bear more fruit.”. So it seems that Jesus is wanting to explain to his disciples how they are connected to him, live in him, rely on him. But that is not an end in itself: as disciples we are the branches, joined to Jesus, abiding in Jesus – but for the purpose of bearing fruit. So what does ‘fruitfulness’ look like? What does fruitfulness look like in the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch? The Ethiopian eunuch (we are never told his name) is a person of great importance – he is in charge of the treasu...

Easter Day          Mark 16: 1-8, 1 Corinthians 15: 1-11 Very early, on the first day of the week, just after sunrise, the women came to the tomb. I imagine some of you might be morning people – you like to be up early, or maybe work means you need to be up early, or maybe you have a small child who has not yet learnt the meaning of the term “lie-in” (in my experience it takes about 13 years..). So you may be very well acquainted with the dawn. Others of you might be like me and only see the dawn on very rare occasions. Apparently today the sunrise was officially at 6.49 – but of course dawn starts before that, as the darkness of the night starts to give way to the first streaks of light and colour in the sky. For those without too much direct experience, here is a beautiful description someone recently shared with me, by Virginia Woolf in her novel The Waves. This begins in the dim moments of gathering light that proceed daybreak...