Sermons

 

The Second Sunday of Lent - 1st March 2026

May I speak of Christ through Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit

What are we here for?

A short answer is: to worship God with all the love and strength we can muster. For God is Love, and we are to love Him with heart and mind, body and soul, in humility. In giving ourselves to God, in turning to Christ, His mercy rescues us, forgives and makes us more Christlike.

Becoming more Christlike is a slow process. It happens unconsciously, we may not be aware of it though others may discern signs of it in us. This slow shaping happens in several ways. One is when we enter joyfully  into our worship in all its aspects;  a second is by being blessed with good teaching, preaching, and conversation about faith; a third is by our own prayers and faithfulness, in secret.

As we hear God’s word and mull it over we let ourselves be changed by it so that we grow closer and closer to Christ. Christ moves from being outside us to becoming part of us, leaving his mark on our heart (Romans 2.29) .That takes time, maybe more than a lifetime. Who knows? It’s a slow and gradual process for most of us but it is our calling. Paul put it vividly: He Jesus must increase in me, I must decrease. That in me which resists him must be changed through grace and the power of His Spirit.

Over Lent and the church’s year the NT readings we hear come from Matthew, Mark, Luke and John and often St. Paul as well as Hebrews  & other letters. To get a fuller picture of Jesus, at work, praying and teaching, we need especially to draw from the Gospel writers and Paul. This getting to know our Bibles is like having a conversation with a particular reading: listening carefully, responding, quizzing it.

Today I am going to focus on Jesus’s conversation with Nicodemus (Jn. 3.1-17). One scholar, David Ford, believes that John knew of the Synoptic gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke) written say 70 AD onwards. And we have four more Wednesday evenings to look closely at parts of Matthew: it’s the Sermon on the Mount on the 4th March.

John’s account is later. John expects us to look beyond the literal interpretations of Jesus’ words and to expect metaphor, imagery and even symbolical meanings. A metaphor is when, for example, someone is described as hard as stone. They are not literally made of stone. It’s a comparison. And symbols occur when, Christ says a person has to be born again to enter into the kingdom of God. It is not a physical birth but a spiritual one.

Nicodemus was a Pharisee (one of at least 6,000 at the time) and teacher, respected within the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Court of 70 members in Jerusalem, that ruled Jewish life which was based on the law which was set out in the first five books of the Bible. Nicodemus is Greek for ‘conqueror of the people’. He was not warlike but a persuasive, wise teacher who later counsels his colleagues to give up arresting Jesus: ‘Does our law judge a man without first giving him a hearing and learning what he has done? (Jn. 7.51)’

He came to Jesus secretly one night, praises him:‘Rabbi we know you are a teacher who has come from God’ – and mentions the ‘miraculous signs you are doing’. The turning of water into wine which had just happened was one such sign. Why does he visit Jesus? Clearly he wants to know more, have a private conversation. We don’t know more than that. But night time was when the Rabbis studied and Jesus by day was likely to have been busy and about. Nicodemus was wanting  a private chat: something Christluke was pulling him?

Jesus does not want small talk, a chat. He raises the stakes. He explains what true membership requires: baptism even if you are old in years. Nicodemus. gets a theological’ teach in’ which flummoxes him and leaves him nearly speechless though able to ask two questions: ‘How can a man be born again?’ and ‘ How can this (these things) be?’  

It’s a strange meeting, more of a lecture from the young Rabbi, who first establishes that he is from God ; that he is going to be ‘lifted up’, crucified, before he returns to heaven – so preparing Nicodemus and us for that, which is not the final ending. There is then a pronouncement that sums up the gospel and what we, John’s readers, need to believe and hold on to.

‘For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.’ (Jn.3.16) 

Eternal life is what Nicodemus is offered; as are we: life with God. Being Christlike brings eternal life and does not end with death. 

After Jesus’s crucifixion Nicodemus joins Joseph of Arimathea in preparing Jesus body for burial by bringing ‘a mixture of myrrh and aloes, about a hundred pounds weight.’ (Jn.19.39) The two anoint the body and wrap it up in linen before placing it in the garden tomb. Nicodemus is a player in John’s gospel; and possibly a disciple after it?

Munna asked us, ‘What significant moments have there been in your Christian journey?’ For me there was the time when I had turned my back on ordination. The Coventry Vicar whose church I would have gone to, sent me a postcard. He wrote just this: All shall be well and all manner of thing shall be well, (quoting Mother Julian). He was right.

Those words feel true today for us here and for this vacancy.

                                                                                          Jeremy Harvey, Reader 

The First Sunday of Lent - 22nd February 2026

 

“If” - Matthew 4: 1 – 11

“If” – I F If, two little letters but what an impact they can have on our lives!
How often do we say “If only…..” when we are looking back on an event or situation but it is not actually helpful for us to do that.

In today’s Gospel we hear the word “If”, in the sense of casting doubt on what is true and what we believe.

Last week when we heard about Jesus’ transfiguration, which was a wonderful, mountain top experience, he still had to come down from the mountain and begin his walk to Jerusalem and his inevitable death. 
And now today, after Jesus is baptised; the start of his ministry blessed by his father; he is then immediately led into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil. 

And the devil, says to Him – “If you are the Son of God, command these stones to become loaves of bread”

“If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from the Temple.”

And for the third time, “If you will worship me, then I will give you all the kingdoms of the world.”

Jesus answers his oppressor by quoting Scripture in response, although it is interesting to note that the devil uses Scripture himself for the second temptation.

Jesus overcomes these tests through holding onto what he knows is true; through knowing God’s Word, and believing that He has a ministry ordained by his Father.

This is not the only time though that Jesus is attacked in this way.

When Jesus is arrested in the Garden of Gethsemane, on Maundy Thursday, 
he stands before Caiaphas the High Priest. He challenges Jesus saying “I charge you; tell us if you are the Messiah, the Son of God.”

And again here, Jesus responds by quoting from Scripture.

And then on Good Friday, when He is hanging on the cross, those who are passing by, hurl insults at Him and shout, “Come down from the cross, if you are the Son of God!”

The temptations then were not confined to those forty days but throughout Jesus’ ministry and yet He obeyed his Father and did not yield to any other path than the one set before Him. 

Often in our lives as Christians, we can doubt our own beliefs and God’s calling for us. 

How often do we think to ourselves “If you were really a Christian, you wouldn’t do ……”

“If you really believed, then your prayers would be answered as you wanted”

“If you really trusted in God, then others would see that your life is different”

How do we respond to our doubts, our questions and the worries we have as to whether we are really good enough to be a Christian?

One way would be to respond using words from the Bible and knowing that we don’t have to be “good enough” at all but we simply need to accept God’s love for each one of us.

Another way of dealing with worries and questions is to do what we are doing today; coming here and worshipping God together.  

Being faithful in our prayers, our fellowship, our ministering to each other – coming not just when everything is right in our lives but at all times regardless.

When we were children, we always had to go to Sunday School unless we were ill in bed or on holiday away from home. It didn’t matter if we’d had a good week,  a sad or difficult week or the more usual, a boring week, we still had to go.

I just accepted it at the time, but we were actually being taught a very valuable lesson; we come to church to worship regardless of our own situation or thoughts or feelings. 
And when we are struggling, that is when we need each other most; others minister to us when we need help and then we can support other people when they need it.

It is through this faithfulness that when we have these thoughts or others say to us “Are you a Christian?” then we can answer with confidence 
“Yes I am and I know what my faith means to me”.  
We may even get the opportunity to tell them a bit about it!

So in this Lent, let us think about being faithful; it may mean giving up something that is unhealthy for us, but we could take up something for Lent; taking more time with God; stepping away from our usual routine to pray or to read our Bibles; 
or perhaps doing something positive to help someone else.

When we say the Lord’s Prayer later in the service, let us just pause at that line 
“Do not lead me into temptation”. Let us think of another translation which says 
“Do not bring me to a time of testing, or of trial”.

And then we can speak out with assurance, “For the kingdom, the power, and the glory are yours now and for ever”. Amen

Ruth Cook, Reader

Ash Wednesday - 18th February 2026

So, we embark once more upon the season of Lent with Ash Wednesday. The ashes these days, no longer, it seems, come from last year’s Palms Sunday crosses being burnt, but are specially purchased. Perhaps with good reason!  I can vividly remember myself in my first parish just before my first Ash Wednesday service there, gathering in lots of palm crosses, and putting them in a tray in the vicarage oven. This created a huge stink in more senses than one, as a ghastly smell permeated through the kitchen and through the whole vicarage and I was in deep trouble. In subsequent years, I was banished to the garden for this task.

Back to ashes later.

Lent is a season to be observed, not just for its own sake, but always with Good Friday and Easter in view at the end of the road. For the keeping of Lent first began with those who were to be baptised at Easter - which in the early Church was the time of initiation - and these candidates undertook preparation by fasting and prayer for their new life in the risen Christ which would begin, so appropriately, on the Day of Resurrection. Likewise, those who had been excommunicated from the Church for some grave and public sin, these also were prepared by acts of penance to be re-admitted to membership of the faithful.

It was not long before the Church realised the benefit to all Christians of joining in this period of prayerful expectation and, with the candidates, reaffirming their baptismal vows at Easter.

Today's service, characterised by silence, reflection and penitence, thus sets the mood, not just of Ash Wednesday itself, but of the whole season which today begins. There is a stark simplicity about it, providing vivid contrast with the Easter celebration to come; and from now on, except on a couple of major festivals such as the Annunciation and the Celebration of the Institution of the Eucharist on Maundy Thursday, from now on, with these exceptions, the Gloria is omitted at all Eucharists; the use of music in sung services is restrained; and alleluias and similar expressions of joy are usually avoided until we greet the resurrection on Easter Day.

At the heart of today's service is, of course, the Liturgy of Penitence with the Imposition of Ashes.
Why ashes? What is the meaning of this particular symbol?

Well, one of the things about symbolism in general is that any particular symbol is able to convey a multitude of possible meanings; far more is caught up in one visible object or action than could ever be put into one or many words. And this is equally true of the symbol of ashes.
For example, to those who have open fire places, or solid fuel boilers, ashes might in one sense speak differently from those who don't endure such heating methods. They are the visible sign and reminder of a fire gone out; when the wife cries, "Ashes", the husband receives an unwanted reminder of an unpleasant chore to be done ... the clearing of the grate. But it must be done; it must be cleared so that the new fire can be lit. And so one could suggest that today's ashes are reminders, and remainders of spiritual fires extinguished, of sins to be cleared and souls to be cleansed before the new fire of Easter Day can fan into flame.

More traditionally, ashes are a sign of our mortality - dust you are and to dust you shall return, dust to dust, ashes to ashes; a remembrance that we are created by God, as it were, out of the dust of the earth; that our life comes from God, not of ourselves. And as we look towards Easter, we must realise again that it is only from God and through God that we can hope to receive new, full and eternal life.
Ashes, also, are a sign of sorrow and disgrace; there is long, biblical precedent for this as a sign of mourning and Penitence; fine clothes and make-up give way to sackcloth and ashes. And particularly, in this case, penitence and sorrow for the failure to live up to our baptism promises, promises to turn to Christ and renounce evil, promises we know we have not fulfilled as well as we might. These ashes are imposed in the sign of the cross on the forehead, where once, at baptism, we were marked with the sign of Christ in water and oil. How we have marred and spoiled that sign, that image of Christ within us! As we look to renewing or reaffirming those Baptism promises at Easter, so we acknowledge our past failure to live up to them.

But yet, this mark of sorrow and disgrace, of self-abasement and self-denial, is also a mark of hope and victory ..... for it remains the sign of the cross. It is under that sign, in such humility and self-loss, by sacrifice and on the cross that victory is won; so once more we find ourselves looking forward, setting out on the path that leads to Calvary; and beyond Calvary to the Easter Garden. Our cross of ashes is a visible sign of hope, of forgiveness, reconciliation and new life in Christ.

Therefore, having performed our liturgy of penitence, we shall continue in this service to the liturgy of Eucharist, of thanksgiving. Again, with Good Friday and Easter always in view, we cry not only "Lord have mercy" but also "Thanks be to God".
AMEN

Rev'd Peter Furber

Ash Wednesday - 18th February 2026

I wonder what kind of reception the woman in our gospel reading today received from her husband, her family and friends, when she returned home? Maybe they wouldn’t let her into the house! Jesus may have forgiven her, but did they?

Some of you may regularly listen to the Archers. One of the story lines in recent months has been about George Grundy’s return to Ambridge after a prison sentence.
His actions which sent him there, endangered the lives of several people in the village and they have not forgiven him. They have refused to give him work, banned him from the pub and generally made his life miserable.

We pray to God “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”. What confidence is expressed in these words! Confidence that God will forgive us because of course we have readily forgiven all people who have hurt or harmed us;  or hurt or harmed those close to us, whom we love.
We do not doubt that God is always ready to forgive us when we ask, but there does seem to be a condition- that we forgive other people.

We know we cannot put our relationship with God in one compartment of our lives and the way we treat other people in another. When Jesus was asked “Which is the greatest commandment?” he gave us two. Love God and love your neighbour he said. The 2 commandments are really one. When we are open to the love and grace of God we will love our neighbours. 

The ability to love our neighbours comes from God.                                     
Forgiveness also; as we experience the love and forgiveness of God so we are able to love and forgive our neighbours.                    

I am not suggesting that this is easy. Think of the person who continues to struggle with life after the death of a child, or another relative or friend, when that death is caused by a drunken driver, or a teenager carrying a knife. Grief, anger, disbelief, are all present, it can take a very long time to live with such pain and hurt. 

Some people confuse forgiving with forgetting, I don’t think we can ever forget hurts, or injustices experienced, or hostile behaviour from other people, but we can learn to forgive.
When Peter asked Jesus how often we should forgive someone who had wronged him, thinking seven times would be generous. Jesus replied 70 times seven, which I calculate is 490 times! Jesus of course is meaning forgive without limit, do not count the number of times someone hurts or harms you.

If we hold on to the actions that have hurt us, if we see some actions as unforgivable, we become enslaved by those events we cannot live as God intends us to live. Many of us will know someone who has been hurt by a family member or former friend who is still living with that hurt many years later, is can make them bitter, affect other relationships, and prevent them from embracing life in the present.
                                            
We are called to be Godlike, merciful, 
forgiving the sins of others as God has forgiven them.
Jesus said “Love your enemies, pray for those who persecute you. You must be perfect.as your heavenly Father is perfect”
We are called to be Christlike, to love, to show mercy to others, to forgive those who hurt and harm us.

Tonight I have spoken only of our need to forgive those who hurt or harm us. Sometimes we find it hard to forgive ourselves the harm we have done to others. We feel guilty and living with that guilt can be a burden which also prevents us from living as God desires. 

Opportunities to meet with those we hurt or who hurt us, to speak of what has happened, to be reconciled to one another can help to build better relationships. 

Some of you may know about the Corrymela Community in Northern Ireland, a charity that for 60 years has brought people, both Catholic and Protestant, together, to break down barriers, to reconcile people that have thought of others as “different”, as people to be avoided. Understanding can grow, relationships can be repaired.

The war between Israel and Hamas has made it harder for Israelis and Palestinians to trust one another. Yet there are still groups of women who have lost loved ones who are still speaking to one another across the divisions that are so deep. They share stories of loss and grieve together. Even today when they cannot meet physically, they meet on Zoom  or in a 3rd country such as Cyprus. 

There are many organizations, so many people, who are working for a greater understanding between communities and individuals, who are working for forgiveness and reconciliation. 

At the heart of our faith is forgiveness and reconciliation, we are called to live out these values in all our relationships.

We began by looking at 2 stories about sinfulness, the woman who had committed adultery and George Grundy who almost killed several people and lied about it. It is easy to think we would not behave as they behaved, that there are degrees of sinfulness, that God expects us to forgive the little things, but are we expected to forgive everything? Everybody?

We are all sinners in need of the grace of God.
Tonight we come to God who is Love, who is Merciful, who is always ready to forgive us: if we turn to God and acknowledge that we are sinners, sinners just like everybody else, ready to forgive everybody who has sinned against us..

Rev'd Janet Fulljames

The Sunday next before Lent - 15th February 2026

It seems to be more difficult to admit to being Christian in our time than ever it was in previous centuries.  We who are gathered here are all disciples of Christ, just as Peter, James and John were, when they were taken up a mountain to witness the Transfiguration of Jesus, and therefore our religious duty is exactly the same as theirs.  

We too should be bold in our WITNESS to the love, power and majesty of God as sublimely embodied in Jesus, the beloved Son, mystically transfigured in front of three chosen disciples enveloped in a mystery beyond their understanding. 

And yet somehow our 21st century culture with its materialism, consumerism and scepticism makes it hard for us even to profess belief in God, let alone to confess our faith that Jesus is the Son of God, graciously revealed to us as our Saviour by the Holy Spirit. 

If we are courageous enough to court the ridicule of the majority of our sceptical fellow citizens by publicly declaring our Christian faith, we are quite likely to be criticized as irrational and deluded, objects of pity rather than admiration.   

I admit that I envy those fervent evangelicals who have come to faith because of a powerful personal experience of the Holy Spirit transforming them from within and enabling them to become directly aware of the presence of God with them. In this context I always think of John Wesley feeling his “heart strangely warmed” at the moment of his conversion to a deeper faith and a surer calling. 

I have never been so blessed as to experience such an overwhelming moment of ILLUMINATION and conviction as was granted to the three disciples accompanying Jesus on the mountain of Transfiguration.  Thereafter they KNEW that their friend and teacher was none other than God’s anointed.    

Although the mystical event that they witnessed was alarming to them, nevertheless it confirmed for them that the voice from heaven which they heard, just as had happened at Jesus’ Baptism in the river Jordan by John at the start of his public ministry, ……..this second divine affirmation of Jesus was telling them that standing before them was indeed the Son of God and his Messiah, sent to earth to proclaim good news to the poor and to demonstrate by personal example how God’s K’dom. of justice and peace was to be built on earth as it already exists in heaven.    

If I were to name the two most influential figures in the development of the Jewish religious tradition in the Old Testament, I think that I would suggest Moses and the prophet Elijah.  We heard in our reading today from Exod. 24 how Moses had the powerful and mysterious experience of being in the presence of God on Mt. Sinai to receive directly from Him the divine commandments and the laws that were to guide the chosen people of God on the path of righteousness.   

Moses stays on the mountain top within the mystical cloud that shrouds the BRILLIANCE of God’s glory for a significant 40 days of personal communion and reflection, before he descends, fortified, to join his people and deliver God’s commandments and laws inscribed on stone tablets. 

Elsewhere in the Old Testament (1Kings 19:12) Elijah is summoned by God when he is on the run from his murderous enemies.  He finds himself in the Lord’s very presence, manifested in that “still small voice”, as the authorized King James translation puts it, or as a later translation says, “in the sound of absolute silence”.  Both Moses and Elijah need this transcendental experience to steel them for the arduous tasks that God has assigned to them. 

The parallels between the account of the Transfiguration in Matt.17 and the event described in Exod. 24 strongly imply that Matthew Is representing Jesus as a new Moses.  Both of them behold the GLORY of God, affirming their status as God’s chosen agents to do his will in the world and to direct other people on the way to that same ILLUMINATION which has been granted to them by God’s grace.   

Furthermore Moses’ 40 days within the sacred cloud prefigures Jesus’ time of preparation for his ministry for 40 days in the wilderness, when he is tempted by the Devil without being diverted from his true calling.     

In the Jewish scriptures GLORY (shekinah in Hebrew) is the hallmark of God’s presence.  It manifests his majesty, his sovereignty, his benevolence and his immeasurable power.  

In later Christian theology shekinah became identified with the presence of the Holy Spirit empowering, inspiring and encouraging people of faith to witness to their love of the God who has sent his beloved Son into the world to redeem us from our slavery to Sin and reconcile us to our Creator once and for all by the Cross.   

If I were to think of the two most influential New Testament figures other than Jesus himself in the proclamation of the gospel and the spread of the Christian faith far and wide, I would point to Peter and to Paul.  In our reading from 2.Pet.1 the presence of Peter, James and John at the Transfiguration is put forward by Peter as the experience, the mystical vision, that gives authenticity to the Apostles’ proclamation of salvation through faith in Christ. 

The three chosen disciples have in person witnessed the majesty and true GLORY vested in Jesus by his Father at the Transfiguration.  Their message of hope for the world, learned from Jesus, has a persuasiveness borne of their ILLUMINATION on that mountain that Jesus is God’s Son and that he will come again in the POWER of God to judge the earth in accordance with ancient prophecies.   

Matthew’s entire gospel portrays Jesus as fulfilling significant Old Testament prophecies, but of course the most important assertion of the gospels that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son and the chosen Saviour sent by God, was rejected by the religious authorities of Jesus’ day with fatal consequences for him.   

Like Peter, James and John, Saul on the road to Damascus was blinded by the Light of God’s Glory and he also hears a commanding voice, that of the Jesus whose followers he has been assiduously persecuting. Light and sound alert Saul to the grievous error of his understanding of God’s will for him.  He is transformed from Saul to Paul and becomes Christ’s most eloquent missioner to the Gentiles, eventually suffering martyrdom for his faith.    

The disciples on the mountain have heard the voice commanding them to LISTEN to the Son, and so Peter urges the readers of his 2nd Letter to do exactly that, in order that they too may receive the confirmation of the truth about Jesus that has been made known to the Apostles.   

The image of divine GLORY repeatedly found in all our three readings today reminds all of us that God is Light.  That Light is what has the power to ILLUMINATE the truth about God’s good purposes for the world and for its healing.  If we but LOOK hard enough and LISTEN attentively enough to what Jesus has to teach us by word and by example, then we will be on the right path towards deeper understanding and true righteousness. 

Maybe I have not been blessed in the direct way that Moses, Elijah, Peter and Paul were in being given the chance to stand in the enveloping RADIANCE of God’s presence and feel his power all around, but I have seen enough GLIMPSES and heard enough WHISPERS to encourage me to keep on searching for that blessed assurance of God’s love and mercy that has been granted to the saints and the martyrs of our faith. 

For example, as a 14 year old on an adventure training week in Snowdonia, led by some young schoolmasters at my secondary school, on our first day we grudgingly trudged the 7 and a half miles of the Snowdonia Horseshoe covering 4 peaks, 3 of them over 3,000 feet and one just under that height. 

We had been promised spectacular views of the surrounding countryside, but on reaching the highest point of our walk we were confronted by nothing other than a thick enveloping mist.  There was no ILLUMINATION for us, no mystical epiphany, for we could see absolutely nothing.  What an anticlimax.  For the next five days we enjoyed rather better weather, as we walked over a good number of the nearby hills and found ourselves becoming fitter, more energetic and more enthusiastic by the day. 

On the last day of the trip we were to do the Horseshoe again in the hope of better luck with the weather than we had had earlier.  As we climbed, the Spring sun grew warmer, until we reached the summit of Snowdon in cloudless skies. 

We looked around us and there many hundreds of feet beneath us was the sapphire water of Glaslyn, which in Welsh means the Blue Lake.  The intensity of the lake’s colour and its tranquillity were utterly arresting.  We felt as though we were on the top of Everest, as we took in the surrounding topography.   

I thought that I had never before seen anything quite as enchanting as this view and I inwardly thanked God for that moment.  This was my moment of ILLUMINATION, my GLIMPSE of that deeper reality that underlies the surface of things.  Here and now was a beginning of a new understanding and a deeper appreciation of the sublime magnificence of God’s creative power.   

And again, as a teenager I went to the Town Hall in Birmingham just before Christmas one year to hear the annual performance of Handel’s Messiah given by the City of Birmingham Orchestra and Choir.  I have never really believed that this Oratorio was composed by any human hand, but that it can only have come about by the creative hand of God, so perfect is it in every note.   

The opening Aria of Part 3 is sung by a Soprano soloist.  As she began, “I know that my Redeemer liveth and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth.  Though worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh shall I see God”, I felt tears trickling down my cheeks and was grateful that the light was too dim for anyone else to notice that I had heard at that moment a WHISPER of God’s presence in such intensely beautiful singing. 

Have you, I wonder, experienced such instances of encounter with beauty which felt like an undeserved privilege?  Throughout my life such occasional moments have made a deep impression on me, have changed my outlook on the world and deepened my conviction that we are at every moment surrounded by God’s love. 

It is the failure of most people to appreciate this truth that in my view has created all the selfishness and conflict in the history of the world.  “Do not be afraid,” said Jesus to his disciples, bewildered at seeing him transfigured before them.  

For us who know in our hearts that we are unconditionally loved and forgiven by our Creator, whatever our failings and weaknesses, there is never any reason to be afraid, for Jesus is Emmanuel and our God is with us at all times.

As we approach the reflective and penitential season of Lent, let us determine to be more attentive to those GLIMPSES and those WHISPERS of the simple truth that God loves us enough to have sent his beloved Son sacrificially to give up his life, that we might ALL be redeemed and saved.    

Amen.                 

Rev'd Munna Mitra

The Second Sunday before Lent - 8th February 2026

Presentation of Christ in the Temple - 1st February 2026

 

Imagine, if you will, the scene. It is the Temple, at the heart of Jerusalem, the heart of Israel…
It is in ordinary day in what we might now call late September. The place is thronging, people everywhere all going about their business. It’s noisy. The moneychangers and dove sellers are plying their trade all hoping that their stall will be where the people come. There is the sound of sheep, goats, waiting for the sacrifice… the Temple staff fussing about their duties, the police keeping order. The occasional priest wafts through the courtyard, the crowds parting before them out of respect, and perhaps a little fear.

In the corner is the rather crumpled figure of an older woman. Maybe she’s slightly dishevelled, giving off an air of slight eccentricity. The Temple staff work round her, perhaps with a hint of irritation. For she is there every day – every night for that matter – but at dawn she always finds that special place, that pool of light, as the rising sun pierces a high window descending to the floor. She always knows the time. She’s studied how the sun rises and falls, you can set the clock by her. Every morning, she has to find that place, and stand in it.

This is Anna. Anna the widow. Anna the eccentric old lady. Anna who is always there, part of the furniture. Anna the gently ignored, a member of the lost tribe of Asher …Anna the prophetess… one of only seven that appear in Scripture. Anna, the daughter of Pennel, whose name means one who has come face to face with God.

By the way, the name Anna means one who is graced and favoured. Ironic really, for Anna seems, at first sight, to have been a little short of grace and favour. Happily married for seven years before disaster struck so that she became one of the most vulnerable categories of person in society – the widow. That was when she was in her twenties. Now she is 84, alone and fending for herself these last 60 years.
She had had a choice. She could have dwelt in bitterness, wallowed in her misery and grinding poverty. It wouldn’t have been unreasonable; such was her lot. Plenty of us do just that. But Anna chose a different path. Instead of turning in on herself, she turned to God. She turned to the light. 

Taking root in the Temple and rooted in prayer, she had become fascinated by the passage of sunlight around the building. Living through one of the most difficult times in her nation’s history … the Romans … the evil of Herod’s puppet reign … she had made connections with a God who had promised that one day a New Light would shine in Israel, and with it the dawning of a new age.

Of course, she had known Simeon. Rarely had they exchanged many words, but she knew that he knew. He knew the light was coming. And he had been promised he would not see death until he had come face to face with the Messiah. Time was short, though: he too was old, and as many of us know, old age doesn’t come alone. She had seen him shuffle into the Temple to say his prayers.

Today it was different. Old men rarely have a spring in their step, but day that is exactly what Simeon had, entering the Temple his eyes darting to the right and to the left as if he was looking for someone.
You know how it is, when you are looking for something you know is there, and then you suddenly light upon it… that sense of relief, perhaps even of joy. Simeon catches sight of this North country couple, an older man and a young woman ever so slightly nervous at the scene around her, waiting in the queue with their own bundle of joy, for a priest to come and, “do what was required by the Law of the Lord.” He takes the child in his arms as he utters those time-honoured words…

“Lord, now let you servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation…”

And Anna can contain herself no longer as an avalanche of praise to God pours from her lips.

The four adults smile a deep smile of knowing and of joy. Around them the life of the Temple goes on as it does day after day. No one else has seen what has happened that day. But, no matter, God has visited his people.

St John would later write…

“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.”
“And the word was made flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s son, full of grace and truth.”

This story, which only appears in Luke’s Gospel, is one of those moments you get in Scripture when everything seems to come together in a moment of revelation. A key moment in which we get a glimpse of what God is doing.

If you care to sit down with this passage and a good, devotional commentary – not one of those academic ones, but one that speaks to your soul – you will see that the story is packed with significant detail… the names and their meanings, the history, echoes from the Old Testament, upon which so much of the New depends if we would truly understand it. To redeem a certain phrase, the blessing is in the detail.

What is easy to overlook is the ordinariness of people’s lives, even in a story like this…
The long, tiring journey from Bethlehem to Jerusalem, with a seven-day old baby, which brings a weary Mary and Joseph to the Temple to fulfil a religious law – echoing that journey of only the previous week from Nazareth to Bethlehem to fulfil a civil one.

Anna’s tragic early life. Her decision to spend the rest of her days, 60 years or more for a glimpse of God’s purposes, her Saviour. Sixty years of waiting doggedly, day in day out, perhaps even being the butt of the odd joke. Certainly, humoured more than she was loved.

Simeon, bravely holding on to something that the rest of his people and even the clergy, seemed to have forgotten – or placed into the realm of a future dream more than a present reality. He had received his promise, but on his darker days, with each ache and pain of older age wonder whether he would make it.

We too live ordinary lives. We go to work we come home. We pay our bills. We have our families to look after, to worry about, to live alongside warts and all. We see the world around with the troubling and the troubled. Even saying our prayers can sometimes feel more of a duty than a joy. A life full of beginnings and endings, some that are what they are, others deeply significant, occasionally leaving us wondering which is which. And in our darker days we echo the words of the Psalmist when he says… 

“How long, O Lord. How long…”

But every now and again, if we are awake, we will see a glimpse of glory. It may be in a chance encounter, kind words or actions – even a smile. A great view or a lovely day. Or it may be that in the humdrum study of the Scriptures or a time of prayer we will suddenly “get it” in a way we never had before. And perchance we will see God at work, hid from our eyes but never far away, steadily working, steadily loving us towards the renewal of all things.

In this Candlemas service, on this last day of the Christmas season, as we will later hear the Choir sing those words of Old Simeon in a version of the canticle we call the, “Nunc Dimmitis,” we take one last fond look back at the Crib, for Lent is near and the Cross looms into view.

Today we are invited to remember that Christmas and Easter, the Crib and the Cross, death and resurrection, are two sides of the same coin. Each day, each month, each outworking of every Christian year as we live out the seasons, all point to Light who came into the world, the Word made flesh who dwelt among us, to the One who says to the thief…

“Today you will be with me in paradise,” 
And to us, “Behold I am with you to the end of time.” 

At the end of, “The Last Battle,” the final book of C.S.Lewis’ Narnia Chronicles, there is one last terrific battle between good and evil. Aslan brings the world to an end, and leads the faithful into his own country, urging them to go, “further up and further in… for the term is over, the holidays have begun!” 
Meeting with friends from past adventures, long since dead, Aslan explains that they are now in the true version of Narnia, the previous version being an imperfect shadow.

Lewis was cagey about whether he connected in his mind Aslan with Christ, but for the reader the parallels are there. For I do believe we have a vision of what we might call Heaven, and glimpse of what it might mean to inherit eternal life.

And so, the series ends as Aslan declares that the life they had known was only the beginning of the true story. A story which goes on for ever, and in which every chapter is better than the one before.
Amen.

 

Second Sunday of Epiphany - 18 January 2026
Joint Covenant Service with Rowbarton Methodist Church

Last week, at St Andrew’s, we recalled Jesus’ baptism by John. We recalled our own baptisms and gave thanks for them. We remembered that it was at that moment that we, officially at least, became Children of God, loved, held and sustained by the love of God.

Conversion is usually a process rather than event. Next week, we can, if we wish, commemorate the Conversion of St Paul. That was a very particular conversion, striking and spectacular, as God took this angry young man by the scruff of the soul, so to speak, for a particular purpose at a particular time. It is a reminder that this Epiphany season, the showing of the Christ Child to the world, is about mission. But we should also remember that not everybody comes to faith by falling off a horse.

But for all of us there is that moment of decision; that point that we said, “This is what I believe.” Like John Wesley, we may suddenly find our heart strangely warmed. Yet it may be some time before we work out what we are meant to do with our faith. For in the end, it is not about our personal love affair with God, it is about change. Change within ourselves and change in how we live… and serve.

That last bit. Service. That is what today is all about. It is that moment when we say to God…

“Here I am, warts and all. But I know you love me and have more confidence in me than I can ever have in myself. Allow me to serve you and your Kingdom as you have served me. And give me your grace that you might hold me lest I fall.”

This then, is the heart of this Covenant Service.

When I am preparing couples for marriage, I often say that in God’s eyes we are sealing a covenant not a contract. A contract stands or falls on whether the participants do what they have agreed. In the biblical use of the word covenant, one’s promise is kept no matter what. In marriage two people promise to love each other no matter what – as God does. In the same way baptism expresses God’s love which says…

“I love you no matter what … you may drive me up the wall, make me tear out by beard in frustration … but I will never stop loving you.” 

This is what it means to be a Child of God.

But we are recalcitrant children. We are not always obedient. We are not always faithful. It is not for nothing that few acts of worship do not contain, somewhere, an opportunity to confess our sins. The ones that do usually contain an act of baptism or the renewal of baptismal vows. They do the same job. It is a response to God’s love, frail as it may be.

Of course, none of this is new to God.

Right from the start humankind has messed up…

Remember Adam and Eve, the serpent and apple.

Remember Noah and the flood, not forgetting the rainbow. God always leaves us a way back.

Remember too, the people of Israel worshipping the golden calf before Moses had even come down the mountain with the Ten Commandments.

And so on – that troubled cycle of sin and redemption. A troubled and troubling humanity, but a gracious God, who never gives up.

It is for that reason we speak of covenant. God never gives up. We might think this is all about us, and we certainly have a part of play in this relationship, but in the end, it is all about God and his faithfulness.

And it is on that basis that we stand before God and offer ourselves in his service, knowing our unworthiness and sin, but also knowing that God has confidence in us even when we do not have confidence in ourselves.

Remember too that our offer of ourselves is an act of humility. Because we rely upon God, because God sees the bigger picture, which includes our potential as well as reality, we may not necessarily choose how we serve. Our readiness to serve is only so that we may employ the gifts and skills we have been given. In that way each one of us helps to make up the whole, and the whole is not quite whole when one of us is missing.

Put it like this…

One day, a Church was preparing a special birthday party for a greatly respected member of the congregation. They were going to use their church hall, of which they were very proud, but which also had become rather ramshackle over the years. The preparations were almost complete when the lady delivering the birthday cake arrived. However, as she entered the hall, suddenly she tripped over a piece of torn lino and the cake came crashing to the floor.

This was the signal for the whole church to swing into action.

The one who had the gift of leadership said, 

“Right, let’s get organised. Someone fetch a broom.”

But the one who had the gift of service had already gone to get the broom. 

The prophet in their midst spoke up and declared,

“I told you this would happen if we didn’t fix that lino!”

The teacher among them agreed saying…

“There is indeed something we can learn from this.”

Meanwhile, someone who had a ministry of encouragement was comforting the poor unfortunate who dropped the cake, saying…

“It wasn’t your fault, it was the lino…”

And not wishing to see the birthday celebration spoiled, one who was invested with a spirit of generosity quietly slipped out to buy a new cake.

St Paul wrote…

“The gifts he gave were that some would be apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ.”

Of course, all that sounds very nice, very effective… very cosy. But sometimes exercising your gift can be costly.

I remember once hearing a minister saying that his congregation, who took the gifts of the Holy Spirit seriously, told him that they felt that he had the gift of prophecy.

It troubled him. He didn’t want to be a prophet. Prophets are unpopular. Nobody feels entirely comfortable around a prophet. Sometimes people don’t listen to prophets. Sometimes being a prophet can be frustrating, unrewarding or both.

It’s not that prophets foretell the future, at least not directly. Prophets say, “If you pursue this course of action, then that consequence will follow.”  Prophets name the elephant in the room. Prophets ask us to come out from behind our masks of pretence and face our realities. And sometimes, bad things happen to prophets.

No one wants to hear that they should have fixed the lino. They all knew it was broken. Maybe they also knew that they hadn’t taken responsibility for it. Maybe the Health & Safety lead had been asleep. Maybe the church council were too mean to get new floor covering. And so on…

No wonder the poor chap didn’t want it.

But we would all be the poorer without our prophets.

It was Richard of Chichester who prayed for strength to give and not count the cost, to fight and not heed the wounds.

But he also asked not to heed any reward except to know that he had served his God.

So it is with a certain sense of trepidation that we renew our covenant with God this day, willing to serve, but not quite knowing what that will mean for us. But that is what having faith is all about, stepping out knowing that God is faithful and has our back.

And I must say, I’m rather glad.

Before I finish today, given that I retire in exactly 3 weeks time, I just wanted to thank you who are part of Rowbarton Methodist Church for your fellowship these last 16 years. The partnership St Andrew’s has with you is a very precious thing and it has borne a great deal of fruit. May God bless you as you all go on serving alongside each other as partners, neighbours and friends, and may you be a blessing to the community we serve.

Thank you for listening.

 

Revd Preb. Robin Lodge

 

Baptism of Christ - 11 January 2026

In a few minutes time in this service, we are going to gather in our hearts and minds around the Font and give thanks for our baptism… that moment when we became, formally at least, Children of God. It is an opportunity to rededicate ourselves to God, as, in a similar way we shall do when we meet with the Methodists next door for their Covenant Service. It is a moment of response. A response to the love of God freely given to us. It is also the response to an invitation.

John the Baptist made a whole ministry around invitations to respond to God. As we now know, he was the promised Elijah, whom the Scriptures taught would come to prepare Israel for the Messiah, and ours. It was a striking message, like nothing else they had known. John’s call to repentance found it’s mark with the ordinary people in a way the existing religious authorities never managed to do. John was direct. He appealed to the heart.

A good many people came to him for baptism. In all the films made about the life of Christ there is this queue, and, although John meant every bit of what he did, there must have been an element of “next, please,” after a while.

Opinions differ about how well John and Jesus knew each other before the moment described by Matthew this morning. They were cousins, but they may well have lived very different lives up to this point. No matter, because when Jesus appears before John as the next in line, John knows exactly that he has come face to face with God.

“I need to be baptised by you, and do you come to me?”

“Let it be so now.”

Let it be so now. For now is the time. Now is the time for the Christ to be revealed to the world, and if that is in any sense going to work, the Christ must follow the path of every human being, for that is the whole point of the Incarnation. Even the one who is without sin humbles himself and submits.

At that moment John knew his work was done. As he would say not long after, “He must increase. I must decrease.” Before him lay only Herod’s prison and the executioners sword.

I could not possibly say how many children and adults I have baptised in nearly 36 years of public ministry. But there are some that come to mind…

Baby G. … an emergency baptism in hospital following a severe shaking by a frustrated father. Her inability to stop crying nearly killed her.

Ruth who walked into church off the street one day with no church background, liked what she saw and stayed.

George moved by the anniversary of the D-Day landings to look again at faith – conditionally baptised before confirmation. The church of his real baptism was bombed in the war and no records remained.

Each one, some consciously, some unconsciously, came to that point where God met them in their lives and invited them to walk with him.

When I was a curate I would sometimes have to take the monthly baptism service at which we could clock up to six families at a time – and note I said families not children! 

For various reasons, of my three daughters I only baptised Emily, our youngest, myself. It was a moving occasion, although, at the moment of baptism I had to remember that I was dad as well as Vicar. It’s just what you do. Children are brought to font. You baptise them. It’s part of the job.

So sometimes, a priest needs to be challenged to remember that, in that moment, God is touching their lives in a very special way. And, perchance, as I hold the baby over the font, they see God over my shoulder. I hope so anyway. Very spiritual beings are babies. Less to get in the way.

I doubt many remember the occasion. I certainly don’t remember my baptism. If you were baptised as infants, I don’t suppose you do either. But whether we remember or not is – in the end – unimportant. Because God remembers. And whether they perceive it or not, God sticks around.

Baby G ended up brain damaged. But she remains a child of God.

Ruth continued to grow in faith, though I’ve lost touch years ago now. But her baptism was a sign to her unbelieving but curious husband.

George has since died and has realised the inheritance received at his baptism – whenever it was.

For baptism is a sacrament and that is what makes it so powerful. Now at theological college one is taught that a sacrament is an outward sign of an inward grace – an action that reveals a spiritual reality within in. But in ordinary speak I suppose you could say that in a sacrament God keeps his promise to do something for us. In baptism he promises to count us among His people. And in the Eucharist he undertakes to empower and nourish us spiritually through the bread and the wine for the journey that we undertake from that moment on.

When preparing couples for marriage I often say that in God’s eyes we are sealing a covenant not a contract. A contract stands or falls on whether the participants do what they have agreed. In the biblical use of the word covenant, one’s promise is kept no matter what. In marriage two people promise to love each other no matter what – as God does. In the same way baptism expresses God’s love which says, “I love you no matter what … you may drive me up the wall, make me tear out by beard in frustration … but I will never stop loving you.” This is what it means to be a Child of God.

At that moment, it’s as if we can hear God say once again…

“This is my Son, the beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

But the journey of faith is a turbulent one. God keeps his promises, but we do not always keep ours. We have not always been faithful as God is faithful. We have made mistakes, some of them in all honesty, deliberate ones. It is these sins that have violated the covenant we have with God, and it is these sins that again and again God has forgiven us. It is in the very face of that loving, patience of God that we naturally want to rededicate ourselves anew to Him, to renew the covenant we have broken. For George, an unhappy event 50 years before was transformed into an opportunity to proclaim with triumph the new life he had found. With God the invitation is always open, to be taken and to be taken anew as he says…

“This is the way. Walk in it.”

So today we can give thanks for the baptism we have received, and if you haven’t received yours, there is still time. In the sprinkling of water from the font we can feel embraced and included once again. And next week in our Covenant Service, we can stand before God and say…

“Here I am, warts and all. But I know you love me and have more confidence in me than I can ever have in myself. Allow me to serve you and your Kingdom as you have served me. And give me your grace that you might hold me lest I fall.”
Amen.

Revd Preb. Robin Lodge

Epiphany of our Lord - 4 January 2026

Back in the days of the old British Rail, commuter lines leading to London were, for a time, marketed as Network South East. On occasions, as a loss-leader to encourage off peak travel, a Network Day would be held when you could get unlimited travel for a day around the region for about £5.00, from memory. (This was the 1980’s!).

It was the sort of occasion when train buffs like me would have a field day, and when a Network Day was advertised while I was training for the ministry in Chichester I travelled from that South Coast city all the way to Aylesbury in Buckinghamshire, calling in on the way to buy a pair of jeans in Marks & Spencer’s … in Kings Lynn!

Most of the time, however, more sanely, we book our rail tickets so that we come back the same way as we went out. Usually, we’re given a ticket in two parts – Outward and Return. Different pieces of card for different purposes.

Before you take down all your Christmas cards, take a look at the ones that feature the Wise Men. I’d be fairly confident to bet that, unless they’re actually with the Holy Family, they will be making their outward journey from the East – probably modern-day Iran – towards Bethlehem. They’ll be following that famous star. One of them may well be pointing to it as they travel.

No one ever depicts the Wise Men coming back.

Outward journeys are different from return journeys. We make an outward journey full of expectation about our destination, especially if the place we’re heading for is new to us. We think about what we will do when we arrive and the people we will meet. The journey home is less exciting. We’re heading for the familiar, and while we may also be thinking about what we’ll do when we get back, the chances are that those things will be a lot less exciting than where we have just been.

The wise men’s return journey, however, was a bit of an exception.

They, like us, had set out with that same sense of expectation. They had seen a star, and, according to their training, it was an unusual star. One that presaged something rather special. A king. But not just any king – not even an M&S one(!) – but a king with a difference. A king with world-changing implications. They just had to take a look.

It wouldn’t have been an easy journey. It’s likely that had to cross deserts and mountains, valleys and plains, their camel train a very different one from my mis-spent youth! But it was worth it. At least, it would be when they got to Herod’s Palace in Jerusalem. Only when they arrived the baby wasn’t there. In fact, no one knew where the baby should be. So Herod called his own wise men and asked them. The answer was Bethlehem. Without delay, the Magi continued their quest.

What happened when they found the Infant Jesus was important. The puzzlement of Mary and Jospeh, their polite but mystified acceptance of the gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. Odd gifts for baby, not that teddy bears and cloth books had been invented yet, and whether they twigged the threefold meanings of kingship, divinity and death, of all things, is not recorded. But none of this need be our focus right now – I’ll come back to that. The main things is that, having done what they came to do, they got up, mounted their camels and set out on the long journey home … by another route.

What the Magi made of Herod when they got to Jerusalem is also not recorded. There would undoubtedly be a language barrier, and probably a cultural one too, not to mention the protocol of turning up unannounced at a royal palace. We now doubt the three travellers were kings in their own right, but they would have thought of themselves as important. If you owned camels and servants, you were important … and rich.

So we don’t know whether they decoded Herod’s manner, not that he would have given anything away. They would know that kings are instinctively nervous about rivals, but it is unlikely that they knew that such was Herod’s paranoia, he had even murdered his favourite wife and two sons. When he told the Magi that once they had found the new king that he too would come and worship, naïve or not, they probably accepted that Herod too was caught up in these momentous times and possibly batted not an eyelid.

It’s at times like this, when reason and good sense lead away from the intended outcome of God’s plan that God chooses to intervene.

Now, I don’t know how you react to your own dreams, but I tend not to make major decisions on the basis of mine. They’re usually too muddly anyway. But if you happened to have a dream that was so striking that you shared with your nearest and dearest the next day, and then found that they all had had exactly the same dream, you might think that there was something in it.

Was that how it was for the Wise Men? Again, we don’t know, but what we do know is that their return journey was very different from their outward journey. And as return journeys go, that one was remarkably different too. They set out, probably via alternative deserts and mountains, valleys and plains, this time with no special star to guide them – just what they knew of the heavens from before. In an age with few if any reliable maps that wouldn’t have been easy.

But it is something they knew they had to do and that wasn’t just about their collective dream, it was about what they found in that little house in Bethlehem… not a regal king, but a tiny baby in quite ordinary surroundings. Yet they knew that they had been led to a momentous discovery. Partly that the good and the great were not always found in palaces. It was that most of all, they knew in the hearts they had come face to face with God, and it had changed them forever.

T.S.Eliot puts it rather well in his famous poem, “Journey of the Magi,” which ends with one of the wise men speaking in reflective mood some time later…

All this was a long time ago, I remember, 
And I would do it again, but set down
This set down 
This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? 
There was a Birth, certainly We had evidence and no doubt. 
I had seen birth and death, 
But had thought they were different; 
This Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us,
like Death, our death. 
We returned to our places, these Kingdoms,
But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, 
With an alien people clutching their gods. 
I should be glad of another death.

If you choose to come home by train on another route, you’ll have to buy another ticket. The old one is not valid for the new route. But some journeys, costly as they are, are worth making.
Amen.

Revd Preb. Robin Lodge

 

 

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