lyd

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Had a flurry of thoughts as I went to bed last night, and felt I needed to write them down. It ended up being a poem about darkness and light, and more contextually, depression and the promise that the joy will come again.

I had this verse in my head:

The light shines in the darkness; and the darkness will not overcome it (John 1:5)

Depressive thoughts cloud over me,
I forget who I’m called to be.
I tend to just sit there and stare
into space. I forget you are always there;
The light, the one, the way,
That shines even in my darkest of days

Lord, when I forget the direction I’m travelling in,
When my way is obscured by my sin;
You are the one who is always there,
Always waiting to answer my unspoken prayer

And yes, Lord, you hear me when I call.
And You’ll always catch me when I fall

I pray in this moment of awful silence
That you’ll reach into my heart and bring me some guidance.
Break this frozen heart of stone
So that once more, together, we may be one

And Lord as I bring these prayers to you
I see already you’re unblocking my view
Help me to see you more clearly each day
Until in your gentle arms I will one day lay

And as these prayers move from earth to your home
I imagine the sight of your eternal throne.
And I praise you now, though weak and poorly
Because you deserve endless, pure glory

For yours is the Kingdom, for ever and ever
No matter how much my poor soul is weathered.
So I join with the angels, and at once we say
Amen, AMEN! To your plans each and everyday.

Amen

This is a sermon I have prepared for tomorrow’s service, and here are the readings it is inspired from:

Acts 3: 12-19
Psalm 4
1 John 3: 1-7
Luke 24: 36-48

Easter is one of the most important and fundamental festivals in Christian history, and thus it is right that we celebrate it for 6 weeks and more. We are now in the third week of our Easter Celebrations; and the main theme of today’s lectionary readings is hopefulness. Before we set off on our journey of hope, though, we need to be aware of a few things:

1) The Gospels were written in the light of Jesus’ resurrection, otherwise they would not have been written and/or worth telling
2) Jesus must have risen from the dead; otherwise he wouldn’t be God’s son as we so clearly believe.
3) The story would not have stuck around for so long (2000 years plus) if it were not true and of God.
4) Through Jesus death we are made worthy to live in the light of the resurrection, as 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.
5) God loves us exactly as, whom and where we are. This Gospel message of hope applies to YOU and YOU and even me, the self-proclaimed stuffer-upper. It’s an agape, an undeserved, no purchase necessary, VAT free, pure, solid love.
6) Therefore, when we see that things are going wrong, God is still there. All we can offer is imperfection, but God uses us to His glory.

Now we have this groundwork in place, we might be able to understand the readings a little bit more.

The reading from Luke’s Gospel today is striking. The disciples, who were in mourning after the death of their leader, were discussing how people had seen Him, debating whether this was true or not. They had a shock in store! All of a sudden, out of nowhere, Jesus appeared to them. No longer were they in doubt about the fact Jesus was still around, but they were fearful that he was a ghost. Now, Jesus, always the one to calm the situation down, says “Peace be with you, why are you frightened?” He invites the disciples, each in turn, to use their senses of touch and sight, to prove that it is actually him. Humans tend to need things to be tangible in order to believe in it. I certainly am a doubting Thomas, I need to see, touch, and hear things before I believe in them.
The fact that the disciples were able to believe so deeply in Jesus returning from the dead meant that they were able to receive new gifts; their minds were opened so that they could understand the scriptures. How awesome would it be if we could all completely understand the scriptures? It would put ministers and preachers out of job! Unfortunately though, no matter how deeply anyone gets in to the study of scripture, it is humanly impossible to fully understand the divine nature of the complexity of God. However, there is good news. In John’s letter it says that we are Children of God. There is a slight snag even to this though, as we don’t and can’t know fully what this means this side of eternity. We can trust in the hope that this promise gives us; however, as God will never disown us once we are His. We are children of God. We will become more like Him. We are renewed and refreshed in His image. We will sin no more. We will become purer. But only through he who died on the cross.

This divine privilege comes with responsibilities though. We are all saved but the cross, and therefore we are witnesses of the saving gospel, and we have a duty to perform. We need to go out there, and tell people about the saving grace of God. As the famous hymn goes “How can they know if they have never heard the gracious invitation of His word?”

The challenge set before us all then, and not just preachers and ministers, is to talk about God, tell of this outrageous saving love that passes our understanding completely. But first and foremost, we need to inwardly change, to accept God’s love for us, even if we don’t understand it.

Let us pray.

Lord, you knew us before we were born.
You know the very desires of our hearts.
You know our strengths and our weaknesses, our joys and sorrows, our achievements and our failures.
Help us to know you more fully, so that with confidence and joy we can go out in to the world to spread the awesome liberating gospel of salvation.
In the name of your son, and our saviour, Jesus Christ, Amen.

I bought a book from amazon recently that was written by Peter Owen Jones, the dude who put together the BBC documentary “Around The World In 80 Faiths”, and have just had it jump off the bookshelf at me whilst I was reaching for my commentary.

Tomorrows lectionary psalm is Psalm 4, which *just so happens* to be in this book. I thought I’d share it with you….

You can hear my inner voice.
I know you fathered goodness and released me from another darkness.
And then I began to understand how limitless I grew,
How I already knew this prayer.

And the rest of you, your heads bowed before magazines,
paying your own tribute to human being,
So you shoot to nail me with those lies you beleived.

But I have felt divine love.
I have been heard.
I have spoken without needing words

How many mothers you dreamt dead with your triggers, is how many brothers you lost.
You’re counting the cost in sleeping pills,
You are ill with anger.
Be still and know you are not a stranger to the Lord.

There will always be those voices sayins “if only we were rich”, and “what does this distant God care, his face is turned away from here.”

But you, Lord, have poured your happiness in, so much richer than the times I forgot to worry, safe in some flimsy plenty,
And soon I will sleep, lie down in your peace, which is freedom without fear.

Amen.

I was really excited to find that I had three comments on my blog this morning.

Now I am greatly disappointed because they are all spam. *sob*

I was really excited to find that I had three comments on my blog this morning.

Now I am greatly disappointed because they are all spam. *sob*

Pastry

Easter Sunday.  A day of hope, joy, and celebration for many. New life abounds.

The ressurection happened on this day. Jesus was raised from the dead, conquering death and bringing Glory to the Father.  He is bringing glory back to its rightful place; restoring the relationship between God and men by removing the power of death.

Shoop da woop!

In my infinite wisdom (OK, inablity to say no/judge how much time I have in a week), I am doing of the craziness this coming week.

On Thursday, I am travelling from York to Birmingham for a meeting with my Methodist Job (136 miles). I am staying here overnight as the meeting continues until Friday at 4pm, when I will be travelling from Birmingham to Maidenhead (96 miles), to see my little little sis, EJ, overnight.
From Maidenhead on the Saturday morning, I will be travelling into London (30 miles) for an Emerging Leaders meeting with the Church Methodiste, which finishes at 6pm; at which time I will be getting a train to Ely (77 miles), to see my big sis and my godwiggle. I am staying there until Tuesday morning, at around 6am (AAAAAARGH!), when I will be getting a train to the Manchester (192 miles), for a consultation with REACH as the Vice Chair of United Faiths.
I will then go home from Manchester to Shaw (12 miles), where I get to chill and do such things as washing (dire need for this by then). From Shaw I will then travel to Scarborough (102 miles), for the Yorkshire and Humber Faiths Forum Residential meeting.
From Scarborough I will travel back home to York (41 miles). And sleep. A lot.

Will I ever want to see a train again??!
Why do I do these things??
BECAUSE I HAVE PASSION!

(Note: all distances seem to be pedantic and specific, but its mainly guesswork and taken from http://www.freemaptools.com/distance-between-uk-postcodes.htm)

Limbo

Limbo is often an enjoyable game, where people are challenged to go as low as they can underneath a pole without falling over. The person who can go the lowest wins.

The word limbo also has another meaning, according to thefreedictionary.com (yes i know, dodgy source); “An intermediate place or state.”

I don’t know how you feel, but Easter Saturday always feels like a day in limbo to me.  You’ve got Good Friday, Jesus’ Cruxifiction, on one side, and Easter Sunday, the Ressurection, on the other; with seemingly not much in between apart from a period of quiet waiting.

For the disciples, too, it must have been a time of limbo. Their Rabbi, Jesus had died.  And more than that, he had been violently killed by the system.

Peter, named by Jesus as the Rock, had denied Jesus three times.

The rest of the disciples had scattered, running away from the authorities, wondering what to do next, in a deep state of grief and anxiety. It was a very low time for them.

But there is hope, the story doesn’t end here…

**TO BE CONTINUED**

…. It wouldn’t be as popular.

I was chilled when I saw this. The way we put ourselves across as a welcoming church could be taken like this….

What can we do?

What do you think?