Holy Trinity Winchester Podcast

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To understand the words of Jesus in John 10, we must observe that John 10 follows immediately after John 9, the story of the man born blind. In that story, Jesus healed a man born blind. And yet the Pharisees, a group of religious rulers, did everything in their power to debunk this miracle and therefore to reject Christ as one sent from God. The blind man was eventually cast out from the Synagogue for not going along with them. At the end of that story, there is an exchange between the blind man and Jesus, overheard by some of the Pharisees in which Jesus tells them two things about themselves: firstly, that they are in fact the ones who are blind, meaning that they have no spiritual insight or understanding. And, secondly, that, although they are blind, they nevertheless say that they see, and so their guilt remains.He follows this saying with what is said in John 10: “…he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber”. In this saying he identifies the Pharisees as those who do not enter the sheepfold by the right way. We might say that he means that they approach the task of shepherding the people inappropriately.What they ought to do is to enter by the door. For, as Christ says, “…he who enters by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the gatekeeper opens. The sheep hear his voice, and he calls his own sheep and leads them out”.The door, then, is Christ. He will say twice slightly later in verses 7 and 9, “I am the door”. The shepherd represents the good spiritual leader, who enters by Christ. And he enters the sheepfold, which is the Church. The sheep are God’s people. The doorkeeper, who opens the door is surely the Holy Spirit, the one whom Christ said would lead his people into all truth (John 16:13).Some of the Church Fathers believed that the door could represent both Christ and the Scriptures and this seems a good interpretation. John Chrysostom, for example, said, “The Scriptures He calls the door. They call us to the knowledge of God, they protect the sheep, they shut out the wolves, they bar the entrance to heretics. He that useth not the Scriptures but climbeth up some other way, i.e. some self-chosen, some unlawful way, is a thief…Some other way, may refer too to the commandments and traditions of men which the Scribes taught, to the neglect of the Law” (John Chrysostom, Homilies on John).That is a very insightful observation. In Jesus’ time, there were those who shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces by teaching commandments of men that were on the surface meant to help people to live by the Scriptures. But, in fact, they lead people away from the true meaning of the Scriptures, and so separated them from the God. The greatest extent of this, of course, was when they refused to acknowledge that the Scriptures were really all about Jesus, and that they pointed towards him.But the preaching of something else other than Christ and the Scriptures can take many forms. We must heed the message of John 10: there are wolves and they do seek the lead the sheep of God astray. This is part of the reason that we have John 10 in our Bibles: it is to exhort us to listen for the true voice of Christ in the Scriptures, as preached by faithful shepherds, and to listen for and to that voice, and not to follow the voice of another.It is one of the great tragedies of the modern Church that preaching the Scriptures appears to be some kind of novelty! Friends, there is no point in preaching if we do not preach the Scriptures and if we do not preach Christ. The Holy Spirit will not bless such preaching. The sheep will not listen to it. Their hearts will not be stirred to love for God and for Jesus. They will recognise it for the emptiness that it is and they will look elsewhere and go elsewhere to find true nourishment.A quotation from the English Puritan, Richard Baxter, comes to mind: “We speak as dying men to dying men. There is no time for embroidery.”I have no time to say anything else to you – anything that proceeds from my imagination or from my opinion or from my own blessed thoughts. You may be interested to hear about these things in other contexts. But here, as I stand before you, I have only one task, one duty, one burden, which is to deliver the message to you - the message that comes from God himself. Woe to me if I stand in the way! Woe to me if I let my ego or my insecurity eclipse the glory of Christ which is revealed in the Sacred Scriptures. Friends, do not listen to my voice, but listen for the voice of the true and Good Shepherd!Again, there is quite a lot of talk at the moment of revival and a renewal of interest in Christianity. No doubt there are various boardroom meetings in centralised locations, considering how this propitious cultural moment might be seized for the benefit of the Church. Good questions to ask perhaps. But the only answer is Christ and the Scriptures. We do not need think tanks and diocesan strategies and complex vision statements to understand this. Christ tells us plainly. Preach the Gospel! Preach the Scriptures! Christ says to his shepherds: You have orders. Obey them! To the sheep: listen for his voice and follow!The sheep will hear his voice and they will follow because they will know that they will find true spiritual nourishment. So cancel the diocesan think tanks! Cancel the boardroom meetings! Cancel the complex vision statements! Cancel the political virtue-signalling. And let one notion reign supreme and entire: the Gospel, the Scriptures, Christ above all!The Chief ShepherdAnd yet all of this is incomplete without one further recognition: and that is that the true Shepherd, the chief Shepherd of all, is Christ himself. Our reading this morning is curtailed before Christ reveals this to us: “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” And this is contrasted with the previous statement: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”God has given the gift of the pastoral ministry to the church: bishops, priests, teachers of the faith. These are essential ministries because the people need to hear the Word of God taught, explained, and proclaimed. And yet we all have to remember – people like me more than anybody else – who and what we are proclaiming. As the Apostle Paul said, ‘We preach not ourselves, but Christ Jesus the Lord’ (2 Cor. 4:5). This is what it is all for: the Scriptures, the preaching, the Sacraments, the Church itself - it is all meant to point us to Jesus Christ.The Good Shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. Yes, the pastor of the people of God must sacrifice for them and for their good. He must protect them and lead them. But ultimately, we all must follow after the Chief Shepherd, who is Christ. And we all must remember that he laid down his life for us, that we might know forgiveness and everlasting life. And it is essential to recognise this about pastors and teachers, so that we avoid the error – prevalent in the first century church as much as it is today – of celebritising and venerating the shepherds of the Church in place of Christ himself. Ultimately, you do not follow me, or another priest or pastor, or a YouTube influencer. You follow Christ, as I do also.Today, we frequently encounter what could be called “The Cult of Leadership”. I do not believe that “leadership” is a biblical word. Use it if you like, but it speaks more of a secular, bureaucratic or even political approach than true pastoral ministry. The true shepherds of the Church do not sit on top of an organisational hierarchy, issuing commands and bossing people around as apparently omnicompetent CEOs. Rather, they preach the Scriptures, sacrifice for the flock, protect them from wolves, and they always remember that they are in fact part of the same flock, the same flock that follows the true Shepherd, Jesus Christ.Abundant Life“If anyone enters by (the door),” says Jesus, “he will be saved and will go in and out and find green pasture”.This is a beautiful image, which reminds us, of course, of Psalm 23:‘The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters.He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.’And Christ’s saying here can be interpreted in different ways, but the main point is quite clear: entering through Christ the door and the Scriptures, the sheep will be led out to pasture. They will find food and rest, and they will be lead to a place of peace and restoration.One of my favourite interpretations of this passage comes from St Augustine:‘Going in must refer to inward cogitation (that is meditation; considering the Scriptures, contemplative prayer and so on); going out to outward action’. And then he quotes from Psalm 104:23, ‘Man goes out to his work and to his labour until the evening’.In Augustine’s interpretation, going in represents the spiritual practices of encountering Christ in the preaching of the Church and in meditating upon Christ in prayer and contemplation. Going out represents our daily activities: our work, our labour, our interactions with the world and with other people. In both our meditation and in our action (in prayer and in work), Christ tells us that we will find green pasture in him, that is spiritual food, fruitfulness, and the restoration of our souls.He says this in another way in v.10 of John: “I came that they might have life and have it in abundance.”Again, this can be interpreted in different ways, but the basic point is clear: Christ came to give us something wonderful that is only available in Him. Regular attenders of this Church have probably heard me say before that there are two words for “life” in the Greek New Testament: one, bios, refers to biological life, which we share with the animals and the plants. The other, which is zoe, refers to spiritual life, the life of the heart that is made aliv

The Hopelessness of our Earthly JourneyOn the Road to Emmaus, we meet two disciples. One of them was named Cleopas, the other not named. Ancient sources suggest that it was in fact Luke himself, but we simply do not know.The risen Christ drew near to them and yet they were kept from recognising him. We are told that they were downcast and looked sad. From their words, we understand that they had lost hope. And this was because Jesus of Nazareth, a man mighty in word and deed before God, had been delivered over and crucified. And so their hope was gone.In a sense these disciples stand for all of us insofar as we do not have a vision of Christ. Many people simply do not know Christ and have never known him. For those who follow Christ also, we frequently lose sight of him. In fact, might I be so bold as to say that to maintain a vision of Christ in the tumult and difficulties of everyday life in this world is so hard.We may say, of course, that we know Christ and we may call ourselves Christians. But to truly see him, to truly know him, to be aware of his presence and to acknowledge him in all things and in every place and at all times, this is the great challenge of the spiritual life. And we should not underestimate it. It seems that our natural state, even as followers of Christ, is to lose sight of him all the time – to have our attention taken away by a million other things.From about the fourth century of the Church onwards, the Roman Empire began to be Christianised. For many followers of Christ, this presented a challenge as the Christian faith took on a more worldly form. These radical followers of Christ decided that they had to leave the world in order to hold a vision of Christ before them and so they went out into the desert, far from civilisation, to devote themselves to a life of prayer and constant watchfulness.We can still read many of the stories and sayings of the so-called Desert Fathers today. For example, a saying of Abbot Antony:Just as fish die if they remain on dry land, so monks, remaining away from their cells (that is, their individual room in which they would pray and meditate), or dwelling with men of the world, lose their determination to persevere in solitary prayer, so we must return to our cells, lest remaining outside we forget to watch over ourselves interiorly.If we do not pray as Christians, and watch over ourselves, then we are like fish out of water, dying for what truly nourishes us.The Greatest Bible StudyJesus came to these disciples out of love. He sought to change their situation from one of hopelessness and sorrow to joy and love. And he does the same for us today! The risen Christ is alive – not just in our hearts – but in heaven. For he rose from the grave and he sends his Holy Spirit upon the Church and upon the believers within the Church.We see a marvellous illustration of this in our story this morning. In fact, we see in many ways the beginning of the Christian Church and an early version of our liturgy.How does Christ bring these hopeless disciples from sorrow to joy?To begin with, he opens the Scriptures, but in a very particular way. We read from the words of the two disciples that they had misunderstood what Jesus was there to do: they thought he was a political saviour, who would overthrow the Romans. But they had failed to see that God’s plan of redemption in Christ was so much greater than this. Their expectations had to be challenged, shattered even, so that the glory of our redemption could be seen more clearly.Christ said to them: “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Was it not necessary that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”What followed was the greatest Bible study in history: ‘And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself’.So it was not just that they read the Scriptures (what we call the Old Testament) but that Christ showed them that he truly is the key to understanding what they mean.There is a famous quotation from St Augustine: ‘The New is in the Old concealed; the Old is in the New revealed’. What this means is that, in the Old Testament, Jesus was always truly present but yet unseen. The New Testament and the Gospels show us what the Old Testament was really about: Jesus Christ. And when we look at Jesus, we can understand more about him – who he truly was, what his mission was all about – if we read the Old Testament in light of his life and deeds.Now it seems that these two disciples knew about the Messiah’s glory but not his suffering. They did not understand that the cross had to come first before the resurrection, the humiliation and passion of the Christ before his exaltation and vindication.Perhaps Jesus read to them from the prophet Isaiah, chapter fifty-three, a text we considered on Good Friday: ‘…he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his wounds we are healed’.“That was about the Christ,” he may have said. “For our sins, he was punished and wounded. And through his woundedness, we have been healed. This is what the cross was all about. Can you see it now?”Let me jump ahead in this story. Later on, once Christ had vanished from them (more on that in a moment), the disciples said to one another, “Did not our hearts burn within us while he talked to us on the road, while he opened to us the Scriptures?”Friends, do we not yearn to be set on fire with love for Jesus Christ? Here, then, is one of the keys: the Scriptures, but the recognition that, within them, Jesus is truly revealed to us. Christ “opened” the Scriptures to these two disciples. The Scriptures were unlocked by the key that is Christ. He healed their vision. And they saw him. And what was the result? Their hearts burned within them.We may think again here of the great Patristic Father, St Augustine, who frequently spoke of the heart that burns with longing and love for God:‘You called and cried out loud and shattered my deafness. You were radiant and resplendent, you put to flight my blindness. You were fragrant, and I drew in my breath and now pant after you. I tasted you, and I feel but hunger and thirst for you. You have touched me, and now my hurt burns for your peace.’St Augustine, Confessions, Book XFriends, let us be satisfied with nothing less than hearts set on fire with love for God. All other loves, all other burning, pales in comparison to this.As the great Patristic Father, Origen, says to us: ‘We must not only employ the sacred literature but also pray to the Lord that (Christ), himself taking “the sealed book,” may deign to open it. For it is he who “opening the Scriptures” kindles the hearts of the disciples so that they say, “Did not our hearts burn within us whilst he opened to us the Scriptures?” (Origen, Homilies on Exodus).The Breaking of the BreadAnd there is one more main part of this story: Christ took bread, blessed it, broke it and gave it to them. And then they saw who he truly was, and he vanished from their sight.Why did he vanish? Because he was establishing the pattern that all his faithful people would follow in the age of the Church: that is, he would be bodily in Heaven but he would be present on earth every time the Eucharist is celebrated. From then on, he would be made known to the disciples in the breaking of bread. This is how he is made known to us still today.But do not buy in to the false choice between Scripture or the Eucharist – Evangelical or Catholic. A true Christianity is both. And we see this illustrated for us in this story.Remember that Christ showed through the Scriptures that the Christ should suffer and afterwards enter into glory. What then is the Holy Eucharist? It is surely the bringing into the present of all of these realities at once: the story of the Messiah written in Bread and Wine, Body and Blood. Remember the words of the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 11, ‘For as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes’.In other words, we remember his passion, his death upon the cross, but we also proclaim in the Holy Eucharist that he rose again and that He will come again in glory. The Scriptures open this mystery to us, and without them, we would not understand the deep meaning of the Eucharist. Similarly, the Eucharist brings into the present the story that the Scriptures tell us. They make Christ tangibly present to us and with us in the Incarnation, in his Death, in his Resurrection.The Liturgy of the ChurchAnd to say a final word, this is why the liturgy of the Church is as it is. Christ is not made known to us in a single moment of magical consecration. Nor is he made known simply in the preaching of Scripture. He is made known to us in the entire liturgy of the Mass that we observe on days like today. Our service is in two main sections: the Liturgy of the Word, and the Liturgy of the Eucharist. We are following the pattern of the disciples on the Emmaus Road.If the preaching is any good, it will reveal Christ to the faithful and cause their hearts to burn with passion. And as the Holy Eucharist is celebrated, we take our newly-enlightened understanding with us to that holy table, that holy altar, upon which Christ is made tangibly present to us once again in the forms of bread and wine. We receive Christ through our ears as we listen to the Scriptures proclaimed; we receive Him into our very selves as we feed upon His body and drink His blood in the Sacrament of the Eucharist. This is how we recognise Him. This is how we are built up in our faith.And, from there, from here, we are sent into the world, having encountered the risen Christ. Like those two disciples on the Road to Emmaus, our vision is healed, Christ is revealed, and we make known to the world what has happened to us: we have seen the Lord. And he is rise

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

A sermon given by Fr Jamie Franklin on Maundy Thursday, 2026. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

The Transformation of TimeThe week of weeks begins today. But what exactly does it mean to be a Catholic Christian who observes the liturgical calendar? And what is the significance of Palm Sunday and Holy Week?To begin with, we must recognise that we have been inculcated into a certain view of time: the time of the secular. Secular time implies that all time is the same and that one event simply follows other. We are cut off from the seasons and their festive observances because of technology and advanced infrastructure and thus we experience our lives as a succession of moments that tragically lead to annihilation and death. We can fill time with pleasure or kill it with distraction, but it can hold no more meaning for us than this.But t’was not always so. The pagan world, into which Christianity was born, knew its own pattern of feasts and festivals as of course did the Jewish religion. This pattern was taken up by the Christian Church and transfigured in the light of the Gospel. We are its heirs. And we can keep the flame alive, even in the darkness of the surrounding culture.But we must recognise that there is no neutral view of time. Nor is there a neutral way to inhabit time. We are faced with a choice: secular time or Christian time.Christian time does not see things as one moment after other with the present slipping into the past and the future leading nowhere. It sees time as transfigured in the light of eternity. This is most obvious when we consider the story of the Incarnation, and of Christ’s death and resurrection. For, in these events, we see the eternal breaking into the midst of ordinary life and giving it an eternal meaning. Our everyday reality is transfigured. Nothing can be the same. Life is not just one thing after other. Rather, it is a journey with Christ through this world and, from this world, into eternity.Palm Sunday and Holy WeekPerhaps that sounds somewhat vague. So let’s consider Palm Sunday and Holy Week. The liturgy that we have already enacted together has taken us from Christ’s triumphal entry into Jerusalem to his trial, condemnation and crucifixion. We have been part of two crowds: one shouting “Hosannah to the Son of David!” and the other demanding that a murderer be set free instead of Christ and crying out, “Let him be crucified! Let him be crucified!”This is a powerful illustration of what I’m talking about. Through the liturgy, we are inhabiting the lives and actions of these characters. We welcome Christ and we praise him. We give him thanks for his goodness to us. But, through our sin and our desire to be free from a life with God, we crucify the Son of God afresh. We would prefer Barabbas to be free than Christ. So, we cry out, “Let him be crucified instead!”As we recognise the fickleness of hearts and how our loves go astray, we are broken inside. We become like Peter who betrayed Christ and denounced him. And we are brought to deep contrition and sorrow for our sin. Our love has faded like the morning mist. How has it come to this? How could we have wandered away from Jesus in this way?Again, we do not just remember these things. We participate in them. They become a reality to us, here and now. And this is supremely true during this week of weeks. Through the liturgy of Holy Week, we stand in the places that Christ and his disciples stood. We are in the Upper Room as he washes his disciples’ feet, and our hearts are moved by his great humility. We are thrilled and perplexed at the institution of the Holy Eucharist. We are cut to the heart as we stand in the shadow of the cross. We kneel before it in sorrow and profound contrition. Our hopes are drowned in agony as Christ is buried in the tomb with death and evil appearing to have the final word.And we stand with Mary Magdalen outside the tomb, perhaps not even sure why we are there. And then we hear the resplendent and happy news (which I will not even utter at this moment). But, suffice to say, that we are made one with this joy. Our hearts are lifted and we are changed.We are changed. Time is changed. The world is changed. And, from this place of transformation, we enter back into the world with a message of a different kind, a different story, a different and better hope. This is the purpose of the liturgy.Have this mind among yourselves…I have probably said enough. I hope you will continue with us on this magnificent journey. Indeed, it is the greatest journey every taken, the greatest story ever told.Above all, let us identify with Christ, if we may be so bold. Let us seek to walk the way of the Incarnation and of the Cross. I close with a brief meditation on the words of the Apostle Paul in Philippians 2:5-11.Whilst they are in the midst of their everyday squabbles, Paul reminds the Philippians of Jesus. “Have this mind among yourselves…” he says. In other words: identify with Jesus. Not only, “Be as Jesus was”, but allow his Spirit to live in your hearts and embody that Spirit in your lives now. Be a living embodiment of Jesus Christ.And what does he remind them of specifically? That Jesus was in the form of God, but that he did not count this equality with God something to be held onto. That he emptied himself by becoming a servant to us and by becoming one of us. This “emptying” of Jesus has been the subject of much speculation. But, suffice to say here, that it does not mean that Jesus ceased to be God. Rather, he retained his Godhood and was still God when he became a man. He emptied himself by taking up a human life and suffering as we do. This suffering he did not know in Heaven, but he accepted it out of love for us.Again, we see this supremely this week, as we remember the rejection of the crowds, the mocking of the soldiers, the agonising pain of the cross, the cry of desolation, the yielding up of his spirit, the tomb. This was the fullest extent of Christ’s self-emptying. It could not have been complete than this.Additionally, this demonstrates Christ’s humility, which he displayed by becoming obedient to the will of the Father, and that to the point of death, even death on a cross.And, due to this, God has exalted him and given him the name that is above every name, that, at his name, all creatures will bow and take his name upon their lips.May you, then, be like this, says the Apostle Paul. May you be united to Christ in his humility, in his obedience, in his love, and, because of all of this, in his exaltation. For, he who humbles himself will be exalted.Friends, let us have all of this in mind, as we journey together through this Holy Week to the Upper Room, to the cross, to the tomb, and to the glory of the resurrection.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

Genesis 2: 15-17; 3:1-7 ; Romans 5:12-19 ; Matthew 4:1-11The Temptation of Adam and EveAs is usually the case on the first Sunday of Lent, we are given the story of Christ’s temptation in the wilderness for our Gospel. But, in order to understand the symbolic significance of this story, we must go back to the book of Genesis and to the temptation of Adam and Eve.As the story of Genesis tells us, God created a good and glorious world and, within it, he placed a garden paradise. In that garden, he put a man and a woman, Adam and Eve. The first two people, made in his image and given dominion over all the creatures of the earth, given the commandment to be fruitful and to multiply.At the beginning of our reading, we are told that the Lord God put the man in the Garden of Eden, to work it and to tend it. God gave the man every tree of the garden, except for one, the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. God said to the man, “Do not eat of this tree, because, in the day that you do so, you shall surely die” (Gen. 2:15-17).We may wonder why the Lord God set up Adam and later Eve in this way: was it a trick or some cruel test of submissiveness? We speak here, of course, of deep mysteries, but it seems reasonable to say that God was seeking a response of obedience from Adam. In other words, he was looking for Adam to exercise his freedom to obey God and therefore to draw closer to him.This is an important observation because it relates to all human experience: God has given us freedom to choose. We can choose how we live. We can live righteous or unrighteous lives. We can be good or evil. Most fundamentally, we can offer our lives to God in faith and obedience or we can ignore God and live as though he were not there and as though he does not demand anything of us.Consider how profound this work of God is: our will – what we decide to do – is most truly the thing that is ours. God has truly given this into our hands. Everything else belongs to him except this. All we can say to God is that we offer ourselves to him. We have nothing else to give.…Or indeed, to withhold. And this is precisely how the story unfolds. The tree is given so that Adam and Eve might obey God. And yet, slightly further on in the story, we hear of a serpent in the Garden speaking to the woman, Eve. The serpent represents the devil, who we meet in the story of Christ in the wilderness. In the Garden of Eden, he begins by contradicting God’s words and saying that by eating of the tree the man and woman shall not die. And then he says something very interesting, “God knows that when you eat of it, your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Gen. 3:5).The devil is crafty. He is a liar, but he mixes lies and truth together to confuse and attack Eve. For it is true that God’s purpose in creating humanity was to make us like him. And the devil repeats this truth to Eve. Likewise, to have her eyes opened and to know good and evil was, in a sense, what God intended for her.But there is a crucial difference.God’s purpose for the man and woman was to know good and evil by rejecting evil through obedience.The devil’s purpose, on the other hand, was for them to know good and evil by embracing evil through disobedience and therefore knowing through direct experience what it was to disobey and to know evil.There was, in other words, a sense in which Eve would become like God. But it was not the sense that God had in mind – quite the opposite, in fact. For disobedience – then, as now – would separate Adam and Eve from God, whereas obedience would have united them with him.The Christian life is filled with temptation. We want that which is immediately pleasurable or pleasing to us. Through the grace of God, we can often embrace what he gives us as a gift from his hand. But there are many, many times when we must say, “no” to what is placed in front of us.Observe the dynamic: We have some kind of desire in life. Perhaps it is something unfulfilled – a desire for success in one’s career, a desire marriage and family, the fulfilment of some childhood longing. It could simply be a desire for pleasure or gratification of some sort.In order to have these desires fulfilled, we are often presented with a choice: the wrong thing now or to wait until the right thing presents itself.The wrong thing will be instantly gratifying but will lead us away from God and lose the lustre with which is shone in the beginning.The right thing may be difficult but it will lead us towards God and will make us receptive to whatever he has for us in the future.Adam and Eve made the mistake of going for the first option: disobedience, gratification, followed by desolation and spiritual death.Because of their example and the power of their actions, we follow in the same way. And thus we are destined for the same end.This is a sad story but it is not the end of the story.The Obedience of ChristWe turn now to Christ’s temptation in the wilderness.Immediately, we see that it was a work of the Holy Spirit to take Christ to the wilderness to fast forty days and to be tempted by the devil. We see that this is a retelling of the story of the Garden of Eden. Like Adam and Eve, the man, Jesus Christ, was put in an uncultivated place by God to abstain from food and to be tempted by the devil.Christ, then, is re-enacting the story of Adam and Eve, but doing it in the right way. It is like he is another Adam but, instead of disobeying God by the listening to the serpent’s voice, he is obeying God by contradicting it.The Early Fathers of the Church called this concept “recapitulation”. And the point of it is that, whereas Adam and Eve disobeyed God, Jesus uniquely and perfectly obeyed the voice God, living a perfect life and offering it in sacrifice to God upon the cross. In doing so, Jesus thus opened up a new way for humanity to be united with God.In our New Testament reading, Romans 5, the Apostle Paul speaks of Christ’s righteousness which is given to us.The Greek word that lies behind the words “righteousness” and “justification” in the New Testament is vigorously debated by scholars. But the essence of this word is to say that the perfect life of Jesus – and his perfect obedience – are, in some mysterious sense, transferred to us.And thus we are brought to God through Jesus and we are given power to live in a different way. We are given power to be obedient to him and to grow into ever closer union with him.Union with ChristAnd, yet, this gift of righteousness is not simply something static, like a kind of title which means very little and makes no difference to our lives.Rather, the gift of Christ’s righteousness transforms our hearts so that we desire to grow in union with God through Christ. We understand that what is being offered to us – in comparison with the deceit of sin and evil – is true life, true joy, true peace. And so we choose that instead. And we go on choosing that as we grow closer to the one who offers it to us.This is why Lent, really, is such a joyful time – because it gives us an opportunity to make that decision (to prefer God to other things) over and over again. Lent is not just about putting away obvious sin. That is, of course, very important and Lent is a good time to focus on this.But Lent is really an intensification of the entire Christian life, which is a stretching out for God, a desire to grow closer and closer to him, with every act of sacrifice or abstinence offered in petition that this may be the case.And, as we do these things, an unworldly joy emerges within us, a stillness that does not depend on the gratification of the flesh or the lust of the eyes or the pride of life. We glimpse the ultimate reality, our peaceful destination, our true home. And we recognise that we are willing happily to do without anything to arrive there.And so friends, we give thanks for the work of Christ in rejecting the temptation of the devil. We give thanks that he lived a perfect life for us and laid it down in his death. We receive his gift of righteousness. And we stretch out to grow closer to him and to God this Lententide.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

Exodus 24:12-end; 2 Peter 1:16-end; Matthew 17: 1-9Lent and mystical encounterIt’s hard for me to believe that Lent begins again in only three days from now. Time seems to move so quickly. Once again, the Church gives us the story of a mountaintop experience to reflect upon - that of the Transfiguration of Christ. This is paired with the story of Moses’ encounter with God on Mount Sinai.Now, if you’re anything like me, you might think about Lent with a certain amount of dread. When I mention to my children that Lent is coming up they can see no good in it. For them, it is simply a time when they can’t eat as much sweet stuff as normal.And we can so easily think about things in that way: Lent is just about giving things up and having less fun and so on. Thought about in this way, Lent is very depressing. It can even be life-denying and a kind of rejection of God’s good creation.But what if we reframe this slightly? Let’s say that Lent is not so much about giving stuff up or even doing more but about seeking an encounter with God, seeking a mystical union with the divine presence.I believe that making changes in our regular patterns of behaviour can be very beneficial. The effects can be physical, psychological or spiritual. So, if I said to you, that Lent gives you an opportunity to be united with the divine presence and so to know greater peace, love and joy, might that be a slightly more attractive picture?But the key to all of this is making the decision to prefer God to everything else. It is to recognise the futility of life without God and of pursuing ends which are less than God.To quote the mystical poet Rumi:‘God said,“The world is a play, a children’s game,and you are the children.”God speaks the truth.If you haven’t left the child’s play,how can you be an adult?Without purity of spirit,if you’re still in the middle of lust and greedand other wantings, you’re like children…The same with the fightings of mankind.It’s a squabble with play-swords.No purpose, totally futile…Don’t wait till you die to see this.’Rumi, A Children’s GameWe see something of this reality in the mystical experience of Moses and the disciples in the story of the Transfiguration.Both of these mystical encounters take place on a mountaintop, far away from the civilised world and the concerns of ordinary life. Moses is told to wait upon the mountaintop. He takes Joshua with him and delegates his great responsibilities to Aaron and Hur. The cloud of God’s glory covers the mountain, and Moses waits for six days in that silence until, on the seventh day, the voice of God calls to him out of the midst of the cloud.How does six days of nothing but silence strike you?Again, in Matthew’s account of the Transfiguration, we are told that Jesus took Peter, James and John with him up the mountain “after six days”. Six days before, Peter had confessed that Jesus was the Christ, and Jesus had told his disciples to take up their crosses and follow him.This six day wait links the story of the Transfiguration with the story of Moses on Mount Sinai. The point being that the same glory that was revealed to Moses on Mount Sinai was revealed to the disciples through Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. Both were manifestations of the divine presence.A point I would like to emphasise is that both encounters involved solitude, quietness, and waiting. In Scripture, these things almost seem a prerequisite for an encounter with the divine presence. Perhaps we can learn from this.Lent is not about doing moreOne of the mantras of the modern world might be “more is more”. We are constantly being told that we do not have enough: money, pleasure, success, leisure. Whatever it might be.And this constant hectoring creates a sense of unrest and anxiety. We imagine that, in some state in the future, we will obtain that which we have been seeking and be at rest. But, of course, we can never get there because there is always more.It is important to see that something like this can apply to the spiritual life also. We can think all we need to do is make more effort: more church, more Bible, more prayer, more devotion. And there may be times of course during which taking up practices can be helpful.But Lent gives us an opportunity to take a kind of spiritual stock take: Is all of this activity really helping me in my search for God? Maybe I need to slow down a bit and think about what might be helpful.Let’s talk about a core discipline of Lent: fasting. There is so much to say. But consider that fasting is about not doing something for a time – not eating. What happens when you stop doing something like eating? Well, you get a bit hungry or very hungry depending on how long you do it for. And you make space and you leave time. And, in this sense, you become a little bit more like Moses on Mount Sinai and Jesus in the wilderness.We need time and space and silence to encounter God. Fasting opens up a space. It opens a space in our diaries. It opens a space in our bodies. And it opens a space in our hearts.Consider one of the other themes of Lent, which is abstinence – “giving things up”.Why might we abstain from something? We could take any example. Say some kind of food or drinks: alcohol, coffee or sweet things. One of the things we find when we decide to abstain from something is that we are quite dependent upon that thing emotionally or psychologically. The very thought of giving it up is painful. And so, when we do give it up, a kind of space opens. And we can allow ourselves to feel that little sense of need. We can take that sense of need to God in simple prayer, asking that he might meet that need, asking, in fact, that he might show us that this need is always for Him anyway. And so, when we open that space for him, he gives us the gift of himself.I would also like to suggest a practice that I am sure will be beneficial for many people, which is an “Information Fast”. I was speaking earlier about silence and quietness. The fact is that we cannot achieve quietness on the inside if we don’t have it on the outside. That goes not just for sound but also for information. I have got no idea of the physio-chemical processes that are at play in the interaction between my body and my smartphone or laptop. But I am certain that, if I have too much of this type of interaction, there is a kind of internal noise and stress which is difficult to negate. Conversely, if I switch off from all of these things – social media, the internet, messages, emails, online news, scrolling, checking things, listening to podcasts – then somehow I also switch off internally, and it’s like a peace emerges from the stillness.It is no exaggeration to say that filling up every space we have with staring at a phone has become a very common practice in our world. Do we ever stop and ask ourselves what we are doing to ourselves and, more importantly, what effect this is having on our internal, spiritual lives? It is like all of us are taking a drug that hasn’t been tested and the long-term effects of which are not known, and that we are doing this all the time.Maybe Lent could involve some radical changes. Maybe it’s no podcasts, no scrolling, no social media. Just for Lent. You can go back to it afterwards. But perhaps you won’t want to.Again, this is not about doing more. It’s about doing less. It’s about stopping and making space for God.What shall I do with this space?You might ask, “What shall I do with this space?”Firstly, please resist the urge to fill the space with more activity and more busyness. See it as an opportunity to refresh your soul. Perhaps you will do nothing but wait in silence, as Moses did on Mount Sinai. Perhaps you will use it to be more attentive to the things of God in prayer or meditation.You may use the time to walk in quietness and open yourself to the presence of the divine in the natural world.You may become aware of somebody who is near to you whose needs are known. And you may have time and energy to attend to that person’s need in some way.Whatever you do, do it calmly and with gentleness. The answer is not more. The answer (and the great challenge) is less.Holy BaptismThis morning, we have the great pleasure of baptising a new member of God’s family. In the Book of Romans, the Apostle Paul tells us that baptism is a kind of symbol of death and rebirth. This is all the more clear when we baptise an adult: it is a turning away from life lived without reference to God and a turning towards a life lived in conscious fellowship with God and obedient to his purposes.It is thus the ultimate way of making a space for God. For as we are baptised we offer God ourselves: our lives, our bodies, our souls. God has set things up so that we can offer ourselves freely – or not – to him. And this is ultimately all that we have to give.When we baptise, we also renew our own baptismal vows, remembering that we were given the gift of faith by our parents or that we were brought into God’s family, the Church, when we were slightly older. But, wherever we find ourselves on this journey, this ritual gives us an opportunity to repledge ourselves to God and to realign our hearts with him.We must always remember that joy is the purpose of God for us. (And this remembering is especially important as we enter the Lenten season.) Everything that we offer to God – our lives, our deaths, our habits bad and good, our pleasures, our pains – are given so that we might draw closer to him and so be deepened in our joy. And so, brothers and sisters, let us rejoice now and always.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

Genesis 1:1-2.3; Romans 8:18-25; Matthew 6: 25-end This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

Isaiah 9:1-4; 1 Corinthians 1:10-18; Matthew 4:12-23In today’s Gospel reading, we hear the essential message of Jesus’ ministry: his command that we repent and turn to God, and his call to follow after him. May you granted grace to turn to God and to know his presence as we worship together this morning. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

The Second Sunday of Epiphany; Isaiah 49:1-7, 1 Corinthians 1:1-9, John 1:29-42Today we are very happy to welcome as our guest preacher the Bishop of Winchester, Philip Mounstephen. Bishop Philip is an experienced pastor, teacher and leader and I’m sure that we will benefit from his wisdom and knowledge.In our Gospel reading, we are reminded of Jesus’ baptism and his calling of the first disciples. May you hear his voice this morning as we gather for worship in this place. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

“Do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus.”Worldly CrisisThe story of the birth of Jesus Christ begins in a rather odd way, at least from a human perspective. We can see this if we put ourselves in the shoes of Joseph, the man who was betrothed to Mary. Who knows what hopes and dreams they shared together? We know of Joseph that he was the descendent of King David and of Abraham. And we are told in the text that he is a “just man”. Mary is a young woman living in a small and obscure agricultural village in lower Galilee called Nazareth. She was a relative, likely a cousin, of Elizabeth, the mother of John the Baptist. But really we know very little else. Outside of the New Testament there is little – if any – information about either of them.I think it would be fair to say that both of them were quite ordinary people. They lived in a place that was far from any urban centre. There was no middle class in that time and place, so anyone outside of elite circles was either a peasant or a labourer. We are told that Joseph was a tekton, which probably means he was a carpenter. He was a skilled worker and he worked with his hands.It’s important to take note of this. We are about to see how ordinary people respond to a crisis in faith. This is for all of us, not for a spiritual, economic or aristocratic elite. There is something very simple and everyday at the heart of the Christmas story. Indeed, this is one of the central themes of the Christmas season.And so we are told that before Mary and Joseph came together, Mary was found to be with child from the Holy Spirit (Mt. 1:18). The meaning is clear: Mary and Joseph were not married and had not engaged in marital relations. And yet she became pregnant. Matthew tells us that this was a miracle, an act of God by the Holy Spirit. But, of course, Joseph knew no such thing. Put yourself in his shoes. This would have looked like a straightforward instance of adultery under the terms of Mary and Joseph’s betrothal.The implications would have been bad: although stoning for adultery was rarely if ever carried out during the Roman period, it was nevertheless the legal penalty. And there were social and personal implications, particularly in a small place like Nazareth: Mary would face public shame, disgrace, ostracism and damaged to her reputation. In modern terms, she would be damaged goods and could not expect to be married in the future.It is fair to say that this was a massive crisis for Joseph: a time of great uncertainty, confusion and sadness. We do not know what passed between him and Mary. But we can imagine that there was a period in which Mary was reassuring him of the truth: her virginity, the message from the Angel Gabriel and everything else that she knew. And yet Joseph could not bring himself to believe.And can we blame him? Who could believe such a thing? We are apt to believe that the weary world will just continue in its weary way, with all of its suffering, all of its shattered dreams, all of its disappointments.A Human SolutionAs I mentioned earlier, Mary and Joseph were betrothed to one another. This meant that they were not formally married and would not have had marital relations. But this betrothal was nevertheless a legally binding agreement. If it was true that Mary had committed adultery, as Joseph must have believed it was, then he really had two options. To continue with the marriage was impossible. Option one, therefore, was to expose Mary to public disgrace and to seek the harshest possible penalty. Joseph didn’t go for this. Instead, because he was a just man, he sought to divorce her quietly, to spare his beloved from shame.As I say, this was because he was a just and good man. But, at this point, he was only a just and good man. He had not yet been touched by supernatural grace. He was doing the best he could with the situation as he found it. He was limited by the tragic boundaries that beset us all in this world, the unhappy dilemmas in which we find ourselves, the least worst options.Again, who could blame him? To believe anything else would have been near impossible. But, to quote from the nativity story in the Gospel of Luke, Joseph was about to find out that nothing is impossible with God.A Divine and Unexpected WayAnd so, Joseph considered these things. And perhaps he was still in two minds. Perhaps he continued to be confused by it all. And, Lo, the Lord’s angel appeared in the midst of this darkness and told him the truth, “Joseph, Son of David, do not fear to take Mary as your wife, for that which is conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins”.God has something far greater and more wonderful than the bounded and melancholy future that you imagined for yourself. For this is a work of the Holy Spirit and you must receive it in faith and trust. Your options are not as bad as you thought. Not anywhere near.Friends, let’s pause here and consider the wonder of this message, the wonder that we anticipate as we approach the Christmas season. You thought that the world was empty and dark and hopeless and inevitable and, yet, something amazing has happened, something so unexpected and wonderful that nobody could have imagined or predicted it. You thought that things were like this but now…now God has come. And all of your categories and thought and expectations are exploded into nothingness or expanded into infinity. He is able – and willing – to do far more than anything that you could ask or imagine. He turns what looked like a crisis into the greatest adventure imaginable. He transforms the desert into springs of water. He restores the life which appeared to be broken beyond all recognition and hope.This was true for Joseph. Friends, it is true for us also. Take it into your heart. Christmas in the moment when everything changes. Christmas is the moment when God comes to save us all. This is the great and marvellous and wonderful, unexpected and divine way. It is waiting for you also. You can’t see it yet. That’s part of the point. So you have to have faith. But allow that expectation that flows from faith to well up in your heart and do not resign yourself to a sense of sad inevitability. That is not how God works.Godly ActionA further word on the message of the angel, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.”Now it’s already clear why Joseph might be afraid. Word may have got round. There are, indeed, hints later in the Gospel stories that it had. Joseph would have been risking social scandal and ostracization, perhaps worse, for himself, Mary and this child. He was also risking being made a fool by all of this. If he got it wrong, his life and Mary’s and the child’s could be in ruins.And yet the angel told him anyway: don’t be afraid. That is: don’t be afraid in your heart. But, also, don’t be afraid to take action – godly action. The fact is that God calls us to live an adventurous life in which we take action for him. Those actions involve risk and, frequently, suffering. But all to a purpose. We can allow fear to hold us back and keep us from even beginning. But the angel says – and God through him – “Do not fear”. Take action in the sight of God.My question to you: what action is God calling you to do that you are afraid of? What sacrifice are you not yet willing to make? What obstacle are you still afraid to overcome? Ask yourself and think deeply. Is there a risk that God is calling you to take for him? Is there a sacrifice? Is there an action, a task, an adventure? Friends, do not let fear hold you back.And why not allow fear to dominate? Let’s go back to the Christmas message. Have you forgotten? This child has been conceived without an earthly father through the power of the Holy Spirit. God has the power to bring life out of nothingness, without blood, without flesh, without the normal patterns of men and women. If God did that at the first Christmastide, what is he not able to do for you?The new life conceived in Mary’s womb whispers to us all: “There is no need to be afraid. God is making all things new through Jesus. Everything you need will be provided freely in the most extraordinary way. God’s provision is beyond anything you could ask or imagine.”Sins will be forgiven. Even death itself will be overcome. The miraculous life in Mary’s womb will one day be snuffed out by man’s hatred and cruelty and yet raised again through the power of God. And at the very end of the story, that life will illuminate all things in heaven and upon the earth.Such a wonderful miracle. And how unexpected all of this was and continues to be. The Christmas season, so nearly upon us, invites us to believe that that which is impossible for man is possible for God.So please consider this story today and recall the mighty power of God. Recognise that this power is at work in you today and that you too are called to act for the Lord with faith and not fear. What would you do for him if you were not afraid?May we have faith, then, in the miraculous power of God that conceived Jesus in the womb of Mary, which is at work in the hearts and lives of those who believe in him now. May we be freed from fear and strengthened to take godly action, even in the face of risk and loss, in imitation of St Joseph the just man, the husband of Mary and father to Jesus Christ.In the name of the Father of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

Today’s Gospel reading is fascinating. If we understand what is being said, it is devastating, addressing some of the deepest questions of life and faith. Let’s open our hearts and listen closely.John’s QuestionIt begins with John the Baptist in prison, hearing about the deeds of Christ. He sends a question through his disciples, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”Pause for a moment and remember last week’s sermon on Matthew 3: John’s passionate invitation to prepare the way of the Lord, his stinging rebuke of the Pharisees, his terrifying prediction that the one to come would yield his winnowing fork, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning the chaff with unquenchable fire. Things seem to have changed. What is going on?Interpreters differ but I like to think that we are seeing a very human side of John – a human side that, to be honest, I recognise through my own experience of life and ministry. Life is filled with mountaintop experiences. Times when we seemed to be filled with the wind of the Holy Spirit. Times when it seems that we understand somehow what life is all about and what we are supposed to do.But then there is the other side: when all of that just seems to slip away. Sometimes it’s just because we’ve woken up on the wrong side of bed. Life seems miserable. God seems distant.And there are, of course, much worse things – the kind of things that John was facing: imprisonment and death. And life is filled with these things too: we stand around the coffins of our loved ones and say our goodbyes; we receive the call from the doctor that tells us the news is not good; the divorce papers come through the door. There are many such things in life. They change us forever. And they may not heal in this world. They may not be redeemable at all. We have to live with them.I believe that John was having one of these dark nights in prison: having once been so powerful in word and deed, now beset with a doubt or, at least a question: Was I right? Have I given my life for the right thing? Did I place my trust in the right person? Or have I made a mistake?Friends, this question reveals to us the human response to a life lived in faith. It is normal to wrestle with doubt and difficulty. In this passage, Jesus tells us that nobody greater has been born among us than John and even he doubted and was beset by challenge and trial.It is part of the life of faith in this world that we must do so too.Jesus’ ResponseLet’s look at Jesus’ response, which is quite stunning: “…the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them”.Jesus is here referencing two prophecies from the book of Isaiah, passages that were taken to describe the Messiah, the coming one and deliverer of Israel of whom John the Baptist spoke.One prophecy is Isaiah 35, our Old Testament reading this morning, which is a vision of an entirely renewed and recreated universe in which the old enemies of sin, suffering and death are done away with forever: “Behold your God will come…He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened and the ears of the deaf unstopped; then shall the lame man leap like a deer, and the tongue of the mute sing for joy”.The other prophecy is Isaiah 61: “The Spirit of the Lord God is upon me, because the LORD has anointed me to bring good news to the poor; he has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted, to proclaim liberty to the captives, and the opening of the prison to those who are bound; to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, and the day of the vengeance of our God”.Jesus’ answer would have been straightforward if that was all there was to it. He would have been saying quite clearly, “Yes, I am the Messiah. I am the coming one who was foretold in the prophet Isaiah”. But that is not the way John would have heard these words.This is because Jesus deliberately left out part of the prophecy from Isaiah 35 and 61. He mentioned the blind receiving their sight, lepers being cleansed, the deaf hearing, the dead being raised, and good news being preached to the poor. But he stopped there. He didn’t mention liberty for the captives or the opening of the prison to those who are in chains. Nor indeed did he mention the year of the Lord’s favour or the day of the vengeance or our God. Imagine how John would have heard these words. They described what the Messiah would do, indeed what he was doing: healing, restoring, preaching the kingdom, raising the dead – miracles and proclamations. But no liberty for captives, no opening of the prison. No vengeance upon the occupying Romans who had put him there. Jesus was sending a message to John to be interpreted something like this:“Yes, I am the Messiah. And I am proving it through healing, raising the dead and proclaiming the Kingdom. But the Kingdom of God is coming in my time and in my way. And for you, John, you must follow in the way that I will walk. You must suffer and die, as I must suffer and die. There will be no liberty for you, nor any opening of the prison.”“Blessed is the one who is not offended by me…”And this is why Jesus ends his saying with the words, “Blessed is the one who is not offended by me”. It is a message to John: Don’t allow yourself to be offended by this. The word for “offended” can also be translated to mean tripped up or scandalised. In other words: you must keep faith with me through this trial. You will find true spiritual blessedness if you do.Friends, let’s stop here and consider what is being said to us. One of the things that we can draw from it is that Jesus did not come to deliver everyone from the suffering that we face in this life. If he wanted to do that, he could have done it. He certainly would have done it for the one he described as the greatest person to be born of a woman, John the Baptist. But he didn’t. And in this world, he saves none of us completely from suffering and he does not save us from death. He did not bring heaven to earth totally in his first coming. He did not end all injustice. He did not take away all diseases. He did not make wars cease. He left John in prison. And he leaves us in this world with all of our pain. We watch those around us grow frail and die. We see the healthy become sick. We stand over the graves of our parents and sometimes even our own children.But “blessed is the one who is not offended by me”. Blessed is the one who does not hold up his hands and walk away. Blessed is the one who, with faith in God, accepts this earthly state of affairs.Many people walked away from Jesus in the time of his earthly life because they could not – or would not – accept the things that he said or did. This text is a challenge to us not to do the same: he could prevent you or your loved ones from dying. He does not do so. Do you accept this? Are you willing to accept this without being scandalised by it? Such texts as this also help us to be prepared for suffering when it comes: Christian faith is no insulation from the normal pains we encounter in this world. When we suffer, no strange, unusual or unexpected thing is happening to us. This is just life. Death is a part of life. And it is a life that Jesus allowed to go on in this way.Death and Rebirth – The Pattern of the UniverseAnd yet, how are we to understand this? Why did Jesus not bring an end to all suffering, all sickness, all war, all death when he came? He could have done so. Why didn’t he?Jesus could have simply come to this earth, ended all disease, death, suffering and sin forever by a single word. And yet, instead of doing that, he healed some people and raised a limited number from the dead. But the main and central work with which his ministry climaxed was his death on the cross followed, of course, by the glorious rebirth of the resurrection. The New Testament even speaks of his being made obedient and perfect through what he suffered, as though Jesus himself was made complete in some way through these experiences.As difficult as it sounds, the answer to the question must be that our suffering is producing something in us and through us that is greater that is more important and outweighs even the present experience of pain and grief. Indeed, the Apostle Paul speaks in exactly this way in Romans chapter 8: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to us”. And in 2 Corinthians 4: “This light, momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison”.What do these passages tell us? They reveal to us something of the secret of the universe, something that we already know in a sense. We see it in so many ways: it is through the labour of the farmer or the gardener that the crops or the flowers grow; it is through the hard work of the athlete, that his muscles are made strong and his body enhanced; it is through the diligent and patient study of the scholar that his mind is made knowledge and supple; it is through the suffering of childbirth that new life is born into the world. It is death, always, death to comfort, death to self, death to inactivity and sloth, death to one’s own immediate desires, death to a life free from pain and struggle that leads to something new, that leads to life.And all of this points to one of the greatest truths of all: that our suffering in this world, when united to Christ, will lead to a life so glorious and wonderful that we cannot possibly imagine it now. All of those pictures of death and rebirth that we see in this world are but a mere foreshadowing of that great life, that great joy which is inevitably coming.The writer to the Hebrews tells us to look to Jesus, ‘who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross’ (Hebrews 12:2). And so there is the link between this day – Gaudete Sunday, a day of rejoicing – and our suffering. If we will unite our suffering to Chr

John the BaptistOur reading today is about John the Baptist and his baptism. Let’s begin by observing that John the Baptist would not have come across as a respectable character but as a madman. We do not have time to go into it in detail but, although he was from a priestly line, he was nevertheless a marginal figure – “The voice of one crying in the wilderness” – wearing a camel’s hair garment and a leather belt, eating locusts and honey.And what was his message? “Repent for the Kingdom of Heaven has drawn near”. “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.”God himself is coming. Prepare your souls to receive him. Give him a straight path to your heart.Another way to translate the word for “repent”, metanoia, is “change your heart”. The Kingdom of Heaven is coming, so change your heart. Change your actions, your outlook, your priorities, all in the light of this.The baptism of John was a different baptism to the baptism we receive now as Christians. It was a baptism of water for repentance, a ritual washing related to a Jewish ritual called the mikveh. In other words, it was a personal response to this message, a personal response of a change of heart. It was like they were saying, “I intend to cleanse myself from sin, from the inside out, so that I might be prepared for the coming of the Lord.”This is the kind of change we are to consider in the season of Advent. We are to ask ourselves, “The Lord is coming and how do I want my heart to be when he arrives?”The Pharisees and SadduceesA key part of our text today concerns the Pharisees and Sadducees drawing near for baptism. These people represent the religious authorities of the day. Theological and spiritual experts. Memorisers of the Law. Preachers of sermons. And yet, they receive a stern rebuke from John, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bear fruit in line with a change of heart. And do not presume to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father,’ for I tell you, God is able from these stones to raised up children for Abraham. Even now the axe is laid at the root of the trees. Every tree therefore that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire’.What was John rebuking in these people?Let’s observe several things:No repentance – Firstly, they were not repentant. Not willing to change their hearts. They wanted to join in the ritual but they were not willing to be obedient to what the ritual represented.This is religion without transformation. Friends, this is everywhere in our world and it is everywhere in the Christian Church. This is kind of empty religion that inoculates us against the real thing. Sometimes called “nominal” Christianity or something like that. It is the process of going through the motions without really meaning it from the heart.God is not interested in occasional church going or religious observances. He is interested in your heart. He wants a transformation that occurs at the very deepest part of your soul. A transformed life follows from this. That’s why John says, “Bear fruit in line with a change of heart”. The fruit is the outcome of a changed heart. We change first, deep down within, and so we give our lives to Christ.Trust in ethnic or religious status – Again, the Pharisees are rebuked for thinking that their ethnic and religious status will save them. They think, because they are children of Abraham, that they will be fine. But John lays waste to this idea, “God is able to raise up from these stones children of Abraham”.In other words, ethnic and religious descent is ineffectual and irrelevant without a change of heart, without true repentance.Do not presume to say to yourself, “I was baptised as a baby.” Do not presume to say to yourself, “We’ve been involved in this parish church for several generations.” Do not presume to say to yourself, “I give money to the church and serve on the rota”.These are all good things but they have to be accompanied by a genuine change of heart.Religious hypocrisy that leads others astray – Finally, religious hypocrisy that leads other people astray. The phrase used by John to describe the Pharisees is “brood of vipers”. Jesus uses the same phrase to describe them in Matthew 23. There he launches into a tirade against these people.Again, there isn’t time to go into all of it but here is an idea: Jesus rebukes the Pharisees for not practicing what they preach. In other words, they preach a moral life, they preach devotion and obedience to God and yet they do not practice it.Jesus tells the Pharisees that they keep the letter of the law but they neglect the deeper parts of it and so they miss the point. They tithe their spice racks but they do not practice justice, mercy and faithfulness – all of which are a reflection of a changed heart.On the outside they look good – good clothes, good hair, good religious apparel – but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence and they are filled with dead men’s bones. They are pretending to be righteous. They are acting. This is ancient cos-play.“Woe to you Pharisees and Scribes, hypocrites! For you shut the kingdom of heaven in people’s faces. For you neither enter yourselves nor allow those who would enter to go in.” Matthew 23:13I’m not saying this because I think anyone here in particular is a Pharisee or a Sadducee. I’m saying it because something like this is a temptation for all of us. And I’m saying this because I want to make it clear that is not true religion. It is not what it means to be a follower of Christ.Let me be emphatic and say again: to prepare the way for Christ is not to change some external feature like one’s appearance or activity. It is to change the heart. It is to change not what is outside but what is inside. It is to give one’s heart to Christ in love for him.The Baptism of JesusHaving said this, let’s look at the baptism of Jesus. This was a different baptism to that of John, a new type of baptism.What is different? Well, earlier I said John’s baptism was a sign of repentance and faith. Here, there is something more: “I baptise you with water for repentance, but he who is coming is mightier that I…He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”Faith and repentance are a part of Christian baptism, as they were in John’s baptism. But all throughout the New Testament, we are told that Christian baptism is also linked to the gift of the Holy Spirit.One other example: after Peter’s sermon at Pentecost, those listening responded by asking him what to do, “Repent and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38).When we are baptised into Christ, we receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. This means that Christian baptism is not just something that represents our repentance but it is a sacrament through which the power of God works. Indeed, in Christian baptism, God himself comes to live within our hearts.This means something quite wonderful: it means that the power of God lives within us and that he gives us the power to change.This is why we do that strange ritual in which the priest flicks holy water at the people in the church. It is to remind ourselves that the Holy Spirit lives in us and that He was given to us at our baptisms. It reminds us that God’s power is within us and that therefore we can live the Christian life with his help.And if you have not been baptised and would like the Holy Spirit to come and live within your heart, then let nothing hold you back.Jesus came to baptise not only with water, but also with the Holy Spirit.With the Holy Spirit and FireOne further point: when John says, “He comes to baptise with the Holy Spirit and with fire”, what does the fire represent?In my view, the context of the passage makes it clear that John means here the fire of judgement. There are two other references to fire in this passage: “Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire” says John. And, speaking of Christ, “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor and gather his wheat into the barn, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire”.Christ will baptise with the Holy Spirit and he will baptise with the fire of judgement.To put it in plain English, John’s message is therefore something like this:“Repent of your sin and start living a life that proves that you are sorry. Be baptised into Christ and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit and this will give you power to live a new life. The alternative is the fire of judgement. No amount of religious observance will save you. Choose.”Maybe this doesn’t some like an uplifting Christmas message. If not, I’d encourage you to remember that the one who holds the winnowing fork in his hand is the one who was laid in the manger as a baby. He is the Word who became flesh and dwelt among us. He is the one who emptied himself of his glory and became obedient to the Father by dying for us. He is the one who rose again to give us the hope of everlasting life with God.And so, may we, by the mercy and the grace of God, in light of his appearing amongst us in Christ, change our hearts, bear fruit in keeping with repentance, and be empowered by the Holy Spirit to heed these words.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

“You also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”May I speak in God’s name, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen.The Coming of the Son of ManThe context for our passage today is the coming of the Son of Man, meaning the return of Christ. This is a basic part of our orthodox profession of faith: ‘He shall come again in glory to judge both the quick and the dead’, as the Nicene Creed puts it.In this passage, Christ tells us some crucial facts about what his return will look like. And if we listen to him and really take him seriously then our mindset and our lives should change. We cannot possibly hear these words and believe that Christ really spoke them and not be shaken to the core.What, then, do we learn about his return from this discourse?Nobody knows when it will beFirstly, nobody knows when the return of Christ will be: not the angels of heaven, not even the Son himself, but only the Father. The precise timing of the return of Christ is a mystery hidden deep within the Godhead. Nobody knows it. (Matt. 24:36)There have been many attempts to predict the return of Christ but such attempts are folly and lead to disaster and distraction. There is a reason that God has kept this a secret. We can speculate that the reason is because God desires us to live the kind of life that Jesus tells us to live: one of spiritual alertness and preparation. We wouldn’t do that quite so readily if we had convinced ourselves that the return of Christ would not happen for, say, ten thousand years.The fact that we do not know and that it could be now or it could be in ten thousand years means that we must always be prepared for it.It will be as in the days of NoahSecondly, the return will be as it was in the days of Noah: “…in those days before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage…they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away” (Matt. 24:38-39).Christ could not be plainer: the ordinary course of the world will be continuing as it usually does and people will not be expecting what is to come.In those days – that is the days of Noah – people were doing all the normal things – eating, drinking, marrying and giving in marriage. In the final days, it will be the same. People will be doing those things. In our day, we might say that people will be binge-watching TV and going to work and taking their children to birthday parties and going on holidays.All of those things will be going on as normal and most people will be oblivious.Again, we might be tempted to soften what Christ is saying here. But he is speaking of Noah’s flood as a literal historical event in which the vast majority of the human race were swept away. It will be like that before I come also, says Christ. Most people will be getting on with things as per normal and they will be taken by surprise.The Greek word from which we get “flood” in this passage is very resonant: kataklusmos. This is where the modern English word “cataclysm” comes from. Kataklusmos means literally a deluge that passes over everything. Nothing is untouched by it. It affects everything in the world.As was Noah’s flood, so will it be when the Son of Man comes.“One will be taken and one left…”“Then two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and one left” (Matt. 24:40-41).What does Christ mean by this? There is a very widespread misinterpretation of this passage that has been around for about two-hundred years. That misinterpretation says that the ones who are taken are those who are “raptured” by Christ into Heaven before a period of tribulation through which the rest of the earth’s population will pass. This interpretation did not exist in the Church until about 1830 and it is a misunderstanding.The immediate context helps us to see: “…they were unaware until the flood came and swept them all away.” Those who are swept away are the same ones who are taken. They are swept away or taken by the kataklusmos of the Coming of the Son of the Man. And the ones who are left are the ones who are not.The nature of this sweeping away is not entirely clear but we can speculate that it is not positive but constitutes a judgement upon the sin of the world. Like those who were caught in the flood, it is not something that we wish to face ourselves.“Stay Awake…Be Ready”Again, if we take seriously what Christ is saying then we will be shaken by these words. And we will ask ourselves what exactly can be done? Christ tells us, “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not what on what day your Lord is coming” (Matt. 24:42) And, “you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect” (Matt. 24:44).You must stay awake and be ready.Let’s go back to the story of the flood for a moment and draw out another implication: in the days of Noah a flood came and swept away most of the people. But God also provided a means of salvation: a warning and an ark. And everyone who stepped aboard that ark was saved from the coming judgement.As it was in those days, so it is now. God has provided a means for us to be saved from the coming judgment, and the means is Christ, the Gospel and the Church. As the second century Church Father Tertullian said,The ark of Noah was a type of the church, and Christ is the true Noah. Just as the ark, made of wood, carried within it those who were delivered from the flood, so the church, built upon the wood of the cross of Christ, carries safely through the waves of this world those who are washed in the baptism of Christ.Friends, the coming judgement is a hard reality to get our heads around. But I would like to emphasise again two things: firstly, these are the words of Christ and we should take them seriously. And, secondly, God has done everything he can to give us a way to be saved and that way is still available now.Elsewhere, Christ tells us, “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved” (John 10:9). Christ is the ark of salvation and Christ is the door. The door is open still and he invites all to walk through it.How would I live in this were true?What then is spiritual this awake-ness and preparedness of which Christ speaks? It is keeping the reality of the Gospel before our eyes and living as though it were actually true.Think about this for a moment: if all of this were true – if Christ really were coming back at some point which I did not know and if a flood-like cataclysm would follow in his wake and if the Gospel and the Church were the ark of salvation – how would I live?Speaking for myself personally, I would remind myself of this reality constantly and do everything I could not to allow myself not to be sucked into the ordinary concerns of others who did not share this knowledge.I would stop sinning as much as I possibly could and I would seek to cultivate a love for God above a love for the things of this passing life.I would invest in the things of God every day and lay up my treasures in heaven – my wealth, my energy, my attention, my focus – in the expectation of an eternal reward.I would pray all the time for myself and for others and I would seek for opportunities to share this news with everyone and anyone who would listen. I would also avail myself of the other means of grace.I would turn everything I do towards this one end. I would make all of my activities serve this one purpose: to be awake, to be alert, and to be ready at all times.Let me ask you, then: What would you do, if you believed this were true? If you believed that Christ may return at any moment but that you and others around you might not be ready for such a thing? How might this change your mindset? How might this change your life?Images of Total CommitmentWhen studying this, I was put in mind of a passage from the Apostle Paul. To his young protégé Timothy, he wrote:‘No soldier gets entangled in civilian pursuits, since his aim is to please the one who enlisted him.‘An athlete is not crowned unless he competes according to the rules.‘It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.’2 Timothy 2:4-6Paul uses three images in rapid succession to describe the Christian life: a soldier, an athlete, a farmer.What do all those three lifestyles have in common? Total commitment to the cause.A soldier prepares for the battle. If his preparation is not diligent, he and perhaps his friends will die at the hands of the enemy. He therefore commits himself with total focus to the mastery of his weapons and to the tactics that are most likely to secure the victory.The athlete similarly conditions his life to the greatest degree possible: his food, his drink, his sleeping, his exercise and practice. He diligently learns his craft and gives every day to its mastery. Everything is tailored to this one end: to compete and to win the prize.The farmer rises early to spend all day wracking his body to tend to his animals and his crops. The farm needs constant attention and he can rarely – if ever – leave it. It is his life’s love and his life’s commitment.Similarly, the Christian life is a calling to total commitment, thinking to yourself: What does Christ call me to do? What does Christ call me to be? How does Christ call me to think if these things are really so?Let me be somewhat confrontational (and I ask myself the same question here): Is that how you make decisions? The athlete, when offered a tempting snack, says “No” because he is training for the event. Do you have a similar mindset when you a presented with a choice? Do you think first and foremost of your commitment to Christ or do you instead simply evaluate things according to your own judgment and the spirit of this age?Friends, let’s wake up and recognise that the reality of which Christ speaks is a far greater and more lasting reality than the one we encounter in the everyday. ‘The hour has come for you to wake from sleep,’ says Paul in our New Testame

A King Without a CrownToday, we celebrate the feast of Christ the King of the Universe. Why, then, are we given the text that we have just heard? We have just listened to a story in which this supposed king is taken to a place called The Skull and crucified by the Roman Empire between two criminals. The clothes of this condemned man were stripped and divided between the soldiers: he would not need them anymore.The religious rulers scoffed at him: for all his talk and miracles, he could not save himself. He was not the Messiah, the Christ, the Chosen One of God.The secular authorities, similarly, mocked him. They had heard that he called himself a King to rival Caesar. And, yet, if he had been a king, then surely he would have had the power to save himself. Their leader, Pilate, erected a sign which was put above his head, ironically stating, “The King of the Jews”.We know from elsewhere that his closest followers had abandoned him, that the man he had chosen to lead them had denied him three times out of cowardice.Now, one of the criminals condemned to die next to him joins in the chorus of scorn: “Are you not the Christ?” he asks, “Save yourself and us!”Truly this man appeared forsaken by all the world. How could he be a king? How could he be worshipped? How could he possess any authority, when the manner of his death was thus?The One Who Saw the TruthAnd, yet, that day, there was but one who saw the truth: the other criminal crucified alongside Christ.Speaking to the first criminal who mocked Christ, he asked him, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds.” In other words, he recognised his own sin and guilt before God, and his own need for God’s mercy.“But this man has done nothing wrong,” he said. This man is sinless. This man bears no guilt as we do, but he is dying unjustly at the hands of the Jewish and Roman authorities.But it is really the final saying that ought most to astonish us: “Jesus,” he said, addressing Christ by his first name, intimately, in an act of loyalty and trust, “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.”Think for a moment what he is saying: Did this criminal believe that Jesus would escape the crucifixion and become a successful political revolutionary after all? Of course he did not. He must, therefore, have believed that Jesus was indeed the true Messiah, that he would be vindicated by God by being raised from the dead, and that he would, at some point, inaugurate the Kingdom of God in this world. And so, he asked Christ: When you become King, when your magnificent power and authority is truly revealed, remember me. Accept me as your loyal subject; have mercy upon me, even though I rightly bear the punishment for my sin here upon this cross.The Astonishing Response – Pure GraceAnd Christ’s response is no less astonishing: “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”What does Christ mean by this? Firstly, let’s observe that this is a moment of pure grace. This dying criminal did not have time to amend his life through good works, to be baptised or receive Holy Communion, to attend church or carry out religious rituals. He could not do anything but throw himself upon the mercy of God in Jesus Christ. And the response was pure grace: an acceptance of his plea, a promise that he would be where Christ was going.Before I say more, let me elaborate on this. It is true that God has given to Christians so-called “means of grace”. These are channels of God’s grace by which he strengthens our faith and blesses us as we seek to live the Christian life. Baptism is a ritual washing of sin and renewal by the Holy Spirit. Holy Communion is our spiritual food for the journey. Prayer is the means by which we commune with God spiritually. The Church is Christ’s body, through which we encounter his presence whenever we meet. And we could name many other things. These are all tools that God gives us to grow in holiness and in our relationship with him. And all are important to live the Christian life.But what we learn from the story of the penitent criminal is that, as the great Prayer of Humble Access puts it, God’s nature is always to have mercy. That is, we are acceptable to him not because we avail ourselves of the means of grace, not because we grow in holiness, or for any other such reason. We are acceptable to him because he chooses to have mercy upon us when we ask for it.Once again, consider this penitent criminal. What does he do? Number one: he acknowledges his sin: “We are receiving the due reward of our deeds”, he cries out. This is the first step towards true repentance: we acknowledge the wrong that we have done to others, to ourselves, and before God. We experience conviction of sin, and we cry out to God for mercy.Notice, again, that we do not, at this point engage in good works to make ourselves acceptable to God. Rather, we follow the pattern of this broken criminal and of others like Blind Bartimeus and the Tax Collector of Jesus’ Parable…We cry out, “Lord Jesus Christ, Son of David, Have mercy upon me, a sinner!” And we say with King David, “Have mercy upon me, O God, according to your steadfast love” (Ps. 51:1).He confesses his sin. He asks for mercy. And he receives it.Friends, this is what God desires for all mankind: that we all follow this same pattern. We have all sinned and fallen short of God’s glory. God desires that we be reconciled to him and that we ask for his grace and mercy. Is this truth not supremely demonstrated in the words of Christ as he was being crucified by those who hated him? “Father, forgive them,” he prayed, “for they know not what they do”.Have you come to an end of yourself? Are you in need of God’s forgiveness and mercy? Then come to him. Do you feel spiritual cold and far away from him? Then come to him. Are you fearful or ashamed? Then come to him. Come to him and you will receive the precious ointment of his grace.The Apostle Paul puts this truth beautifully in his letter to the Ephesians, ‘For by grace you have been saved, through faith, and this is not your own doing: it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast’ (Eph. 2:8-9).All of this is embodied, of course, in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, by which we simply come to him and receive him in faith and confidence that he will make his dwelling with us. What could be a simpler act of faith than this? To approach, to believe, to kneel, to receive?The Astonishing Response – The Promise of Life with ChristAnd there is one more part to this which we must mention: “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”This is clearly a promise that the criminal would be with Jesus, wherever he was going. But where was he going? The word “Paradise” would have been familiar at the time because it was used in a Greek translation of the Old Testament called the Septuagint. It was used specifically to describe the Garden of Eden, from which Adam and Eve were expelled by God when they disobeyed him. In that story, an angel with a flaming sword was placed at the east of the garden to guard the way to the tree of life and to prevent re-entry.Jesus is saying, quite simply, “I will take you back to the Garden of Eden – I will take you back to Paradise and you will be with me there.”Notice also that he says the word, “Today”. Now, in the original Greek, the word “Today” simply means, “Today”. In other words, Jesus is saying, “When you and I die upon these crosses today, we will be together in the Garden Paradise of God.”This is an astonishing statement and should not be passed over lightly. Christ is promising immediate translation into the presence of God upon death.This is an idea that is confirmed in various other places in Scripture. For example, the Apostle Paul said that to be away from the body is to be at home with the Lord (2 Cor. 5:8). In the letter to the Philippians, he tells us that he desires to depart from this life to be with Christ, ‘for that is far better’ (Phil. 1:23).Now, it must be said that the Bible also tells us of a future state in which the dead are raised in glorious new bodies and at which point the whole of the universe will be wonderfully recreated without sin, brokenness, pain or death.This is not the state Jesus speaks of to the condemned criminal. Rather, he speaks of a state in-between our present lives and that final, glorious and resurrected world. This in-between state is the Paradise of God. We do not know exactly the details of that place but it is surely glorious and rich and abundant. For it is a return to the Garden Paradise of Eden where we will walk with God himself in the cool of the morning.Conversely, there is very little evidence upon the lips of Christ or the Apostles that the souls of Christian believers “sleep” upon death until the resurrection. Nor is there really any Scriptural evidence for the doctrine of Purgatory, which was developed after the time of Christ and the Apostles. That doctrine says that most believers, although their sins are forgiven, must still endure a potentially long and painful period of purification before they can enter fully into the presence of God. Our passage today is a notoriously difficult one for theologians who hold this position, since it is very difficult to reconcile with that idea.I have to be honest also and say that I believe that the Doctrine of Purgatory obscures the reality of the Gospel as it was taught by Christ and the Apostles. The Gospel offers us true forgiveness and reconciliation with God now in this life, based upon our repentance and faith. Good works follow but they are not how we obtain forgiveness. And, more to the point, the Gospel tells us that we have a real and tangible hope that we will be with God in Christ as soon as we die: our sins forgiven and removed from us, our souls cleansed by the power of God. No further need for pain and purification but eternal life given to us

“Teacher, when will these things be?”At the beginning of our Gospel passage, some people speak to Jesus of the Temple, saying that it is adorned with stones and votive offerings. Jesus replies in an unexpected way: “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”His disciples ask him when these things will be and what signs will accompany such a monumental event. Jesus then begins a discourse in which he warns of false messiahs, international wars, tumults, earthquakes, famines, pestilences, terrors and great signs from heaven. He also predicts the persecution of his followers: arrests, trials, and ostracization from their own families.What is all this about? Most scholars and theologians have agreed that Jesus is doing two things in this discourse. Firstly, he is predicting the destruction of the Second Temple, which occurred in A.D. 70 at the hands of the Roman Empire.But this alone does not account for the imagery of the passage. In the typical style of the Jewish prophets, it seems that Christ was speaking of events both near and far. He was speaking of the destruction of Jerusalem and using that as a symbol of the very end of history. In Christian theology we call this subject “Eschatology” or we speak of it as the “End Times”.Signs of the EndI have already mentioned that Jesus describes a situation of great global instability, talking of natural disasters on an unprecedented scale: famines, pestilences, earthquakes. He speaks of international wars: kingdoms and nations turned against each other. He implies that people will, at this time, be terrified. And he tells us that many will come in his name, saying, “I am he!” and “The time is at hand!”Let’s think about this for a moment. We can observe a clear dynamic in the text.It starts with a crisis – perhaps something unprecedented - which leads people to be afraid. And, being afraid, they look for solutions that promise hope and deliverance. More than that, they look for people who promise these things.These false messiahs of whom Jesus warns are very interesting. Firstly, they are not purely secular but invoke the name of Jesus Christ, claiming to represent him and his values.Secondly, they exalt themselves: “I am he!” they say, and “The time is at hand!” Meaning, of course, that their rise to prominence is the crucial moment of history and that they will bring deliverance.There is also urgency about these statements: “It must be now. You must do what I say immediately and, if not, we will all be doomed because of your lack of compliance.”This is a psycho-spiritual dynamic that, Christ warns us, has the capacity to deceive and lead astray many. He is telling us so that we might be aware of it and so that we might not suffer this fate.But what is the relevance?You may ask, “What is the relevance of these things if we are not living either in AD 70 or in the final moments of history?”I would answer this question in two ways. The pattern Christ describes is for all of history and not just for the very end. We know this because the pattern is observable not just in AD70 but at all times.These discourses are given to us so that we might recognise the signs of the times. As strange as it might sound, we may very well be getting close to the end of history. It will come at some point and so Christ tells us these things so that we might be prepared.To elaborate on this theme, Christ appears to be describing global crises that affect the majority – if not all – of the world’s population. Indeed, this is confirmed when we look at other relevant texts in the Bible. We might look here at Revelation 13, which describes a diabolical beast given authority over every tribe, people, language and nation. “All who dwell on earth will worship it” (Rev. 13:8) we are told. Later in the chapter, a second beast rises out of the earth and is given similar authority. The beast is said to cause all, small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to be marked on the right hand or the forehead with the mark of the beast, which is the beast’s name and the number of its name. No one can buy or sell unless he has the mark. The number is six hundred and sixty-six (Rev. 13:11-18).One must be cautious with the symbolic imagery here, but Revelation 13 really does seem to be describing the creation of a worldwide economic system. People will be locked out of this system unless they take the mark of the beast upon themselves. Who knows whether this will be a literal mark upon the body or a mark of some other type. But what is clear is that it will apply to everyone in the world and will constitute some pledge of idolatrous loyalty to the beast who has set himself up in the place of God.I mention all of this because we now live in a world in which this sort of thing is possible for the first time. This is true of many things of which Jesus speaks in this passage: global wars, for example. These have only been possible for about a hundred years or so. Worldwide famines: these are perhaps uniquely possible now because of the interconnected global supply chain that could leave nations starving were some economic, climactic, cyber or technological catastrophe to come about.It is only now that a false messiah could arise and appear on billions of screens simultaneously the world over to proclaim his message of universal deliverance. It was not possible before. It is now.And we’ve seen previews of this dynamic: global crises arise concerning disease, the climate, war, and other things - and voices arise demanding conformity and obedience in exchange for safety and deliverance: “Entrust yourself to us completely and we will save you!” Be wary of these sorts of promises. Remember to be discerning, even in the midst of the tumults of our times.What does Jesus tell us to do?Jesus gives us some clear commandments about what we are to do – not just at the end but always. Let’s listen to him.Firstly, “Do not be led astray” and “Do not go after them” (v.8), that is, the false messiahs. I have already observed that fear may lead us to make unwise decisions. This is why Christ says to us, “Do not be terrified” (v.9). Now this doesn’t mean, “Feel no fear” because we cannot totally control what we feel. But it means, “Don’t allow fear to dominate you. Make your decisions based upon faith in Christ and not fear of disaster”.Observe here also that peer pressure plays a role in all of this. It’s very tempting to go with the crowd, especially at a time of crisis. Later on, Jesus warns us that we may even be rejected by our closest family members. Be prepared for this. It is not always the case that we must be in a minority but as followers of Christ we must be prepared to say “No” to the people who are around us because we are saying “Yes” to Jesus – not always but sometimes.How can we tell when we are being led astray? There is no simple answer to this question. But we might observe that when we are told to disobey the commandments of God - or even to worship another God in some idolatrous fashion - then we are in spiritual danger. The deception will probably be more subtle at first but it will tend in this direction.The guarantee is to know who Jesus is, to know what he says, and to be prepared to follow him come what may.I recall here the words of the Apostle Paul in the Book of Romans, ‘Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect’ (Romans 12:2). We can only know what the will of God is if we attend to the revelation of God in Jesus Christ which we learn about primarily through the Holy Scriptures. If you don’t understand the content of the faith then you will have no defence against the deception that arises from the world. That is true now and it will be increasingly true towards the end.Secondly, we must persevere. Christ warns us that persecution will come. Especially at times of global crises but at other times too, the world will place pressure on us to conform. We will be rejected by those closest to us. We will be delivered up to political authorities for Christ and we will be tried before them. Do not be afraid, Jesus tells us: I will be with you and I will give you a mouth and wisdom which your adversaries will not be able to contradict. “You will be hated by all for my name’s sake. But not a hair of your head will perish” (vv.17-18).These are the promises by which we are to hold fast. Christ tells us elsewhere, “Do not fear those who can kill the body but cannot kill the soul” (Matt. 10:28). Rather, put your trust in God who will sustain both according to his power and his steadfast faithfulness.May God give to us a spirit of discernment, that we may be able to know wisdom from error, truth from lies, and the spirit of Jesus Christ from the spirit of his enemies.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

How blissful the destitute!“Blessed are you who are poor,” says Christ in the translation we have just heard. I would like to use a slightly different one:“How blissful the destitute!”The word for “blessed” or “blissful” (makarios) has been translated various ways including “happy”, “fortunate” or “prosperous”. But in my view “blissful” is the best because the original word had connotations of divine or heavenly bliss. Our word “blissful” captures this better than the alternatives.“Blissful” also speaks of a present state. Whatever Christ is speaking of is bliss – joy, happiness, heavenly light in this life now.But it is not long before we run into a problem: “How blissful the destitute!”Again, our translation mentions “the poor”. But “the destitute” captures it much better. For destitution is utter emptiness, devastation, ruin, loss.This is not a state of material poverty but the spiritual and existential reality of one who has realised his true standing in his relationship with God.So the question is: How do bliss and spiritual destitution go together? What is Christ talking about?The answer is that it is in the recognition of our radical need for, and dependence upon, God that we encounter bliss or blessedness. For it is in this recognition that the illusion of the world passes away and we come face-to-face which that which truly is.Let’s consider the different types of destitution that we must acknowledge:Firstly, the destitution of repentance. Sin, most simply, is the wandering of a soul far away from God. Like the Prodigal Son in the far away country. Repentance is the return of the soul to God.Why do we sin? On the deepest level it is because we believe that sin can bring us deeper satisfaction than God. Therefore, repentance is the overturning of this belief and the actions that go with it. It is motivated by desire to find true life, joy and happiness in the place where it can really be found.Be encouraged, therefore, friends, if you feel the conviction of the Holy Spirit, calling you to repentance. This is simply a calling back to God, to the source of all life and hope. Yield to this conviction, knowing that God will have mercy as a Father has compassion on his children, and that he desires for you to know him again.Secondly, we speak about the destitution of soul. This is the recognition that, without God, I have nothing.The great mystical theologian Meister Eckhart put it like this: we are all created by God and exist within God. All things are held in being by God and shine with his radiance. God has given us powers – the ability to live, to breathe, to sense, to act. But, somewhere along the line, we have forgotten that these powers come from God and that, at every moment, they are sustained by him. We are alienated from God not because God is separate from us. Indeed, God cannot be separate from us because he is present everywhere and is sustaining all things continually. Rather, we have forgotten him. We have strayed from him in our minds and in our souls. We imagine that our powers and abilities are all that we are without. We are like a reflection in a mirror that has forgotten its original image.Destitution of soul, then, is the recognition of this reality. It is the recognition that we so often look to the things of this world for ultimate life, joy and peace and that, yet, the world can give us none of these things apart from God.I think here of the discipline of fasting, that is, of not eating anything. In my experience, nothing brings about this realisation more quickly and efficiently than the attempt to fast. It is not only that the body feels hungry but that the soul begins to cry out: “I must have food or I will never be satisfied. There is no happiness for me in this life without it.”And this is true of so many other things also: we tell ourselves that, unless we have this or this or this, then we can never know contentment and peace. And, yet, were we ever to obtain those things, then the joy would be passing and often trivial.Recognising this is a kind of devastation. For example, when fasting, I look at my soul and I see how radically dependent it is upon food, how it cannot be happy without it, and I am dismayed by this, particularly if I thought that I was a very spiritual person who really loved God. For I am not.So we see that the world holds no deep satisfaction for us, that we, as it were, inhabit a vast and empty wasteland with no sustenance, no life, no light, no joy. And, as we recognise this, something comes to birth within us: the desire for that which truly brings these things, the desire for God. And this desire for God leads us to seek him, to know him, to find him. And this is bliss.“Yours is the Kingdom of God”And this is why Jesus tells us that destitution leads to bliss. This is why he says, “Yours is the Kingdom of God.” Later on in this passage he will talk about future, but here he speaks of a present reality: yours is the Kingdom of God.This reminds me very much of another saying of Jesus in Luke 17: “The Kingdom (of God) does not come as something one observes, Nor will persons say, ‘Look: Here it is’ or ‘There it is’ for look: The Kingdom of God is within you.” (Luke 17:20-21)The original language makes it abundantly clear here that Jesus is not speaking of the Kingdom of God among you or in your midst, but within you. It could also be translated “inside of (you)”. Whatever you prefer, the meaning is clear: the Kingdom of God is not a visible reality out there in the world. Nor is it arriving in that way. But it is already a present reality within you. All you have to do is to recognise it.Let go of all that hinders you from realising the Kingdom of God within you and you will find it. Turn not only from sin but from the desire for things apart from, and outside of, God. Turn from the illusion that you are, or that the world is, without him, and you will see him in all things. Yours is the Kingdom of God.A Word on HeavenAnd, yet, even with all of this, one must also say that there is something greater to be realised: “How blissful those who are now hungry, for you shall feast; how blissful those now weeping, for you shall laugh; How blissful you when men hate you and when they exclude you and reproach you and reject your name as something wicked, for the Son of Man’s sake: On that day, rejoice and leap about; for look: Your reward in Heaven is great; for their fathers accordingly did the same things to the prophets.” (Luke 7:21-23)Here Christ speaks of a future reward. Again, it seems that some of these phrases should be interpreted in a spiritual sense: those who are hungry are those who hunger and thirst after the righteousness of God. Those who weep are those who mourn over their sin and their distance from God. Those who are persecuted for Christ are those who have preferred him to the things of the world. And the world has hated them for it.If then you hunger, weep and suffer, rejoice and leap about! Why? Because a great reward, an unimaginably great reward, awaits you. Imagine the world and all that is in it, transfigured by eternal glory, and that all of this, after only a short time, will be yours forever.And one final word…And one final word, since this is All Saints Day. In our reading from the book of Ephesians, the Apostle Paul tells us that the Church is the body of Christ, the fullness of the one who fills all in all. What exactly does Paul mean by this phrase?It seems that Paul is saying two things: firstly that Christ is the fullness of God and that he is everywhere present in all of the universe. But, secondly, that the Church (the gathering, the ekklesia) is the fullness of this fullness. This must mean that the Church is the place where the fullness of Christ’s presence is, at it were, fully realised, established and intensified.Think about that for a moment: this place, filled with normal people like us, with all of our brokenness, our sin, our problems, our mess, this place is the place where the fullest fullness of God is realised. This is the place where Christ is, if you like, on display. This is the place where men and women are drawn to him, to know him, to live for him and by him. What an incredible joy and privilege to be in this place.In you, in me, in us together, the Kingdom of God is present and is coming. Rejoice!In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

How can a person be right with God? This is one of the most central questions to all of human existence. It’s probably true that most religions are an attempt on some level to answer this question.When considered seriously, human beings know that it is not an easy question to answer. Most of us have some awareness of what Christians would call “sin”. That is, that we fall short of the moral standard that is required of us. And that, in some way, this distances us from God in his holiness and purity.How can be right with him? How can we have communion with him?The Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector speaks to this question in such an important way. Let’s consider it.The PhariseeTo begin, Jesus spoke to “certain persons who were confident in themselves that they were righteous whilst despising everyone else”.The word for righteous relates to the question I just mentioned. It comes from a group of words that is used frequently in the New Testament, the root word of which is dikaiosune. This word relates not only to moral uprightness but to being justified in the sight of God.So these people’s answer to the question of how I can be right with God is essentially through my own personal moral goodness.In this story, the Pharisee enters the Temple with great confidence, standing upright and praying about himself. One of the things he says is, “I fast twice a week and tithe from everything whatsoever that I earn.” Now, it’s true that he thanks God for his wonderful situation but really this comes across as a religious gloss on what is essentially pride in his own religious accomplishments: “Look at how great I am.”And the way that this is made clear is in his attitude to other people: “God, I thank you that I am not like the rest of mankind – rapacious, unjust, adulterous – or even like this tax-collector.”Why compare himself to other people in this way? Simply, because it makes him feel good about himself. I am right; they are wrong. I am good; they are bad. I’m committed; they are lazy. And so on and so on.I have to say that I’ve come across a lot of this sort of thing in the Christian world. Christ obviously understood people’s hearts and could foresee this. Whole denominations of the Christian Church become obsessed with comparing themselves favourably to other Christians. “I thank you, God, that I am not like other men. I’ve got my doctrine straight. I do not compromise over moral issues. I am in the right part of the Christian Church. I am upright in every way and will not have any contact with those who are unclean in my sight.”For anyone on the receiving end, it’s a deeply unpleased and ungracious attitude. It’s amazing how easy we find it to take the teaching and example of Christ and to turn it into fractious, ugly, judgemental and without love, charity, or humility.I should say that I think this is a particularly apt word for those people who consider theological orthodoxy and the tradition of the Church to be important, indeed central, to the faith. This can quite easily turn into the kind of self-righteous Pharisaism that Jesus denounced.The Tax CollectorHaving said that, there are some things that we can do to avoid this kind of nasty religion. Let’s think about the Tax Collector. Jesus tells us that he stood some way off and wouldn’t lift his eyes to heaven and that he beat upon his breast. Even his body language spoke of his awareness of his unworthiness before God.He said, quite simply, “God, grant mercy to me, a sinner.”So, firstly, he recognised the problem: I am a sinner.This is perhaps an unfashionable observation today: we are all sinners. What does this mean? It means that there is a moral law which is grounded in the holiness and perfection of God and which is binding on every single human being alive. And it means that we often fall short of what is required of us in this regard and we frequently therefore encounter feelings of guilt and shame.For some people, that description will be more than familiar. Many people’s lives are beset by guilt and shame – for things done in the past, for habits that one can’t shake in the present. Christian or not, we know that we are falling short. We know that we’re not doing what we should be. But we can’t meet the standard for some reason. We just keep failing.For others, they may be less aware of sin. They may be like the Pharisee: self-righteous and upright in comparison with those they find contemptible. But those who have this attitude are self-deceived. They are sinners too. But they choose not to focus on the areas of their lives and character where they fall short.This is a way of testing what I am saying: think about the greatest moral failure you have in your life. It could be a habit that you can’t shake for reason. Or it could be an instinctive or emotional reaction that you have to something that you can’t seem to stop. We can come to church and get ourselves together for a couple of hours. But what about the rest of the time?As I say, this is true for everyone, including me and including all apparently religious or holy people. I, Fr Jamie Franklin, your priest, am a sinner. I don’t need to go into it all here and now but I could certainly do so. I get things wrong on a daily basis. My wife and my children know this about me. Anyone who knows me well know this about me. I want to do certain things. I want to be a certain way. But the things I want to do and the way I want to be somehow don’t come about for some reason. Perhaps I’m making some slow progress, but, on the whole, I am frequently astounded at my lack of holiness, despite my best efforts. And I am meant to be a priest. I am meant to help others in their faith. And yet I can’t do it myself. What use am I?And perhaps it’s the same for you. Perhaps you have the same voice in your mind: I can’t believe I’m still like this. I’m meant to be a Christian. I’m meant to take the name of Christ and yet still I persist in my rebellion and sin. What could I possibly do or be for God when I am like this?Let me encourage you, friends – or rather let the words of Christ encourage you – there is hope. But this hope does not come from ourselves by making more moral effort. It comes from God. It comes from Christ and the Gospel.This is clearly implied in the prayer of the Tax Collector. “God, grant mercy to me, a sinner.”The Greek word for “grant mercy” or “be merciful” is hilaskomai, which is a word that means some thing like, “expiate” or “make atonement for”.To understand this, let’s go back to that original question: How can I be right before God? One of the central answers that people have come up with in many of the world’s culture and religions is “sacrifice”: I am obviously sinful, but I can atone for my sin by making a sacrifice. That sacrifice might be of food – a libation poured out to the gods – It might be an animal, slaughtered and offered up. In many world cultures the sacrifice has even been that of human beings.The Good News that comes to us from the Gospel is that atonement has been made for our sin. A sacrifice has been offered. This sacrifice is not of food or animals or other people. But this sacrifice has been offered by God himself through Jesus Christ. Our sin is such a serious problem that it required the greatest sacrifice imaginable, which is the sacrifice of God’s own Son, given for us upon the cross.Through the cross, God has purchased our souls for himself. Through the cross, our sin has been removed from us and put upon God’s only begotten Son, Jesus Christ. Through the cross, our unrighteousness has been placed upon him and his righteousness – his rightness with God – has been given to us.So, for the Christian, the answer to the question: How can I be right with God? Is that we can be right with God through the blood of Jesus Christ. Only this great, final, complete and perfect sacrifice is sufficient to atone for the sins of the whole world.So, friends, I stand before you a miserable sinner like everyone else. You are the same as me. And, yet, we can be here together, justified by God’s grace, reconciled to God through his Son, Jesus Christ, without shame, without guilt, without fear, without the need to compare ourselves with others – whether favourably or unfavourably. Our atonement is accomplished; the sacrifice is complete. The Tax Collector returned to his house justified.The Beginning and the WayFriends, let the truth change your hearts. Refresh yourselves in the waters of God’s mercy. One of the most amazing things about the Gospel is that it not only gives you a way to begin, so to speak, a way to come into the presence of God. It gives you the desire and the means to continue striving after holiness. It changes you inside to know that God has shown his love in such a sacrificial and lavish and complete way. The only response can surely be a life laid down in love and service for him: Given all of this, how can I keep from singing his praise? How can I keep from giving my love and my life when he has already given so freely and so completely for me? The message of the Gospel is what changes us, from the inside-out.Two different religions: one of pride, self-righteousness, obsession with rules and appearances; one of humility, dependence upon God’s grace in Christ, a transformation of the deepest depths of the heart so that love may motivate, love may inspire, love may endure.“For everyone who exalts himself with be humbled, but the one who humbles himself will be exalted.”In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

“Behold, I know that there is no God in all the earth but in Israel…”2 Kings 5:15Naaman the SyrianI’ll start with the story of Namaan, commander of the army of Syria.This was a period of peace between historic enemies Israel and Aram. Namaan was commander of Syria’s armies but a man afflicted by leprosy or a similar skin disease. Through apparent chance, an Israelite girl knew of the prophet Elisha who could heal Naaman.So Naaman, with permission of the king goes to Syria. First taking huge gifts of gold and clothing to the king of Israel, who is powerless and melodramatic.This is contrasted with Elisha, confident in God and without fear.Naaman came to Elisha’s house with his horses and chariots but Elisha would not come out. Sending a messenger saying, “Go and wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored, and you shall be clean.”Imagine the wounded pride of Naaman, commander of the armies of Syria, expecting first the king and then the prophet and getting only a message to demean himself by washing in a foreign river.He was angry, saying, “Behold, I thought that he would surely come out to me and stand and call upon the name of the LORD his God, and wave his hand over the place and cure the leper. Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better that all the water of Israel? Could I not wash in them and be clean?” So he turned and went away in a rage.In other words, “I was expecting something spectacular. Instead I’m being told to demean myself. If I wanted to a bath, I need not have left my home country.”And yet his servants demonstrated greater spiritual insight in their response to him. Our translation – the English Standard Version – falls very short at this point, giving us almost the exact opposite sense to the original Hebrew. It says that the servants said, “My father, it is a great word the prophet has spoken to you; will you not do it?”Compare this with almost any other translation and you will see the difference. Consider the Revised Standard Version, ‘“My father, if the prophet had commanded you to do some great thing, would you not have done it? How much more, then, when he says to you, “Wash, and be clean?”’This captures the point perfectly: if the prophet had said for you to do something really difficult, you would have done it. You were up for the challenge. But he’s told you to do something easy, so why not give it a try? What’s the worst that can happen? What have you got to lose? Not very much, and yet you’ve got everything to gain.As a modern paraphrase says, ‘“Master, if the prophet had asked you to do something hard and heroic, wouldn’t you have done it? So why not this simple “wash and be clean?””’Well, we know what the answer is of course: pride. I am too good for this simple answer. I am too important. There must be something exceptional I am called to because I am exceptional.And so, a moment of clarity for Naaman, who listened to sense and went and washed in the Jordan seven times and was cleansed.‘Then he returned to the man of God, he and all his company, and he came and stood before him. And he said, “Behold, I know there is no God is all the earth but Israel; So accept now a present from you servant.”This humble obedience led to spiritual revelation and thanksgiving.The Story of the Ten LepersWe see a similar dynamic in the Gospel reading, the story of the ten lepers. They came to Jesus asking for healing and he gave them a simple command: “Go and show yourselves to the priests.” As they were doing it, they were healed.And yet, one came back, a Samaritan, a foreigner, to give thanks to Jesus and praise to God. “Were not ten cleansed? Where are the nine? Was no one found to return and give praise to God except this foreigner?” And Jesus said to him, “Rise and go your way; your faith has made you well.”A Humble FaithWhat is the point of these stories? Can we not see ourselves so clearly in the figure of Naaman the Syrian who wanted something spectacular but was in fact called to humble obedience?It is hard to accept perhaps that we are called to the same thing: to repentance, faith in Christ, and obedience to God. Much of the world is not interested in this because they are too hard of heart and proud to accept that they are just like everyone else.But this applies to those in the church also. It is very easy to imagine that the basic message of the Christian faith is too simple and easy, that there must be something more to it, that there must be some intellectual or political component that will be more engaging.Before I criticise this, let me say that Christianity is, of course, deeply intellectually robust. I do not criticise anyone for having an intellectual engagement with the faith. This is quite necessary in many contexts.Nor do I criticise anyone for thinking about the political implications of Christianity. These are important questions and, again, are necessary in certain contexts.However, it is a constant temptation for the Church and for individual Christians to become distracted by an overtly intellectual or academic version of the faith or (and to be honest I think this is a much worse temptation) a political version of it.The attitude appears to me to be something like this: Those unsophisticated Christians may speak about repentance, faith, the Scriptures, the Gospel, eternal life, heaven and hell, and things like this. But I speak about relevant political issues that will make me and my Church appear more relevant in the eyes of modern people.This is a terrible spiritual mistake and it can leads to a deadening of lively and real faith.Perhaps I can put it like this: you may have a Christian politics; you should not have a political Christianity.The cart comes before the horses: repentance, humility, faith, obedience, day-to-day walk with God in holy devotion. All of this first. Political implications a distant second and much of the time not at all.“A worker who has no need to be ashamed…”Let’s finish with some words from our reading from 2 Timothy: ‘Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.”‘A worker who has no need to be ashamed’ – This idea crops up in Paul’s letters frequently: don’t be ashamed.Why does he feel the need to keep saying this? Because the world will try to shame you. It’s one of the ways the enemy will try and dampen your faith and ultimately destroy it. If he can’t get you to walk away from the Lord. He will make you feel a bit silly, so that you’ll pipe down a bit.But you, do your best to present yourself to God as one who has no reason to be ashamed. Like Naaman, humble before yourself before God through obedience and faith and you find healing, restoration and peace. Only die to your pride so that the power of God can live in you.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

“Behold, his soul is puffed up; it is not upright within him,but the righteous shall live by faith.”Habakkuk 2:4The Faith that Moves Mulberry TreesToday I’m going to be talking on the subject of faith: a small word with immense importance.We begin with our reading from Luke’s Gospel. The context is that Jesus has just told his disciples that they must continually forgive those who sin against them.“Increase our faith!” they say. In other words: this is extremely hard. We will need more faith in order to be able to do it.Jesus’ response: “If you had faith like the grain of a mustard seed, you could say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea’, and it would obey you”.The point is not about moving mulberry trees but that forgiving your enemies is only the very beginning of what faith can accomplish. Think much bigger than that.The disciples will do great things for the Kingdom of God, taking the Gospel all over the world and preaching to all sorts of people. And they would die for the faith eventually.We too can accomplish great things for God if we have faith. But faith is crucial to all of it.So this request – Increase our faith! – is a good one for them and all of us.What is Faith?“What is faith?” Here I look to the words of the Apostle Paul to his young disciple Timothy:‘I am reminded of your sincere faith…For this reason I remind you to fan into flame the gift of God…’ 2 Tim. 1:6Firstly, faith is a gift of God. It does not come from us initially but is an invitation to believe. We are invited. He offers the gift and we choose to respond or not.This is important. Paul says that God ‘saved us and called us to a holy calling not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began’ 2 Tim. 1:9.The glory belongs to God because he initiates and he empowers the response. Remember that we are called by grace and not according to our own brilliance – far from it.Secondly, faith is a response to God. There are two parts to this, both reflected in the Greek word used for faith in the New Testament – pistis.Faith is believing and trusting in the promises of God. Hebrews says, ‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen’ (Heb. 11:1). There is an intellectual component to faith.We have faith that God is who he says he is and that he will accomplish his word. Specifically, that he will forgive us for our sins, reconcile us to himself and give us eternal life through Jesus.But “pistis” can also be translated “faithfulness”, which indicates an ongoing life of trust and commitment.When we turn from sin we are exercising faith. When we adopt godly habits and obey God’s commandments, we are exercising faith.Paul was telling Timothy: keep preaching, keep pastoring, keep ministering. This was how he exercised faith.Slightly different for each of us: keep demonstrating the love of Christ to your spouse or in your workplace, keep sharing the Gospel with others when you have the chance, keep working for the Kingdom of God. There are many ways we are called to exercise faith.But see how faith is two things: belief and commitment. Without this commitment the belief part doesn’t mean very much. Like saying, “I love my wife” but never doing anything to demonstrate that love. Our commitment is a sign of our faith.What does faith result in?Paul says, ‘God gave us a spirit not of fear but of power and love and self-control. Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord…but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God’ 2 Tim. 1:7The result of faith: freedom from fear. Fear of insult or rejection, loss or the future, failure and disappointment. Why? Because we look to the power of God to accomplish his purposes.Paul often mentions the resurrection in the context of faith: ‘(the power of God)…which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Saviour Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel’ 2 Tim. 1:11In other words: if God has already achieved this for us, then he can and will do everything else necessary.The result of faith: power, love, self-control, the capacity to share in suffering for the Gospel. Faith transforms us. As we look to God through Jesus, we are changed more and more into the image of Christ.An example: when we look to certain people we become like them. Think of YouTube: if we look at fitness influencers, we think about fitness more and take on their values. Same for eg gardeners, beauty stylists, or musicians etc. The thing that look at is the thing that we become like.If we look to Christ, we will become like him, having power, love, self-control and the ability to suffer in obedience to God.How do we get more faith?This leads us back to the disciples’ original request: Increase our faith! How do we get more faith to serve God and accomplish great things?The Apostle Paul uses a lovely image: ‘Fan into flame the gift of God.’ A fire inside that needs to be tended.This is an invitation to the spiritual life, which is varied in its manifestations. But the principles are the same. It begins with looking. It continues with acting. And it is further strengthened through reflection.Looking – Looking is about reflecting upon the things of God and speaking to God in prayer. We do this when we come together and alone and in smaller groups. Each time we pray, meditate on Scripture, spend time in silence, receive Holy Communion, we are looking to God, reminding ourselves of his promises, and communing with him in spirit.This is where you get the petrol in the tank. If you don’t know how, there are people and materials out there from which to learn.Acting – Simply: do what God calls you to do day-by-day in faith. For me, it’s writing sermons and other things, pastoring people, taking services, being a good husband and father, and a few other things. What is it for you? How might doing these things in faith change your perspective on them? Might not be immediately clear. Reflect upon it. Ask God to show you.Reflecting – Something Paul does all the time. Not just acting and seeing God come through, but noting his faithfulness.Later in 2 Tim, at the end of his life: ‘The Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the Gentiles might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. The Lord will rescue me from every evil deed and bring me safely into his heavenly kingdom. To him be the glory for ever and ever. Amen.’ 2 Tim. 4:17-18.Look back on times when you have needed to trust God. See how he has provided for you. Many times like this for me: not knowing next steps, worried about money, worried about challenges. And, yet, I’m here. I’m okay. God has provided thus far and he will do so again until the end.“Lord, increase our faith!” A wonderful prayer. By looking, acting and reflecting, let’s put it into practice.In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

Now war arose in heaven…In a departure from my normal practice, I am going to speak today on our New Testament reading which comes from the Book of Revelation, chapter 12:7-12. This passage describes a war in heaven between Michael and his angels and the Great Dragon, Satan, and his angels. Michael prevailed and the Dragon was thrown down to the earth along with his angels. A loud voice is heard, telling the author John that the authority of God’s Kingdom and of his Christ have been established because the accuser of the brethren has been thrown down to earth.“And they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Therefore, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them! But woe to you, O earth and sea, for the devil has come down to you in great wrath, because he knows his time is short!”What is all of this about? First, we have to understand that the Book of Revelation is written in the Apocalyptic genre. Apocalyptic literally means an unveiling. So this book is an unveiling of the spiritual realities that are normally hidden from our eyes. The book does this by using symbolic language and imagery. A lot of the time it is not clear whether it is speaking about an event in the past or the future or indeed if it talking about a specific event at all rather than a pattern that repeats throughout history.Here we see a cosmic battle in progress between two sets of angels. Who are these angels? Most commentators have said that this passage, only with other in Scripture, implies that Satan and his angels were created by God as loyal subjects but that, at some point, they rebelled against him and sought to overthrow his authority.The other angels with Michael their leader represent the angels who remain faithful to God. These loyal angels are spoken about throughout Scripture as those who protect God’s people, those who protect, guide and help them, those who deliver messages from God to humanity, those who strengthen and encourage, those who execute God’s judgement upon the wicked for his people’s benefit, and those who worship God alongside believers. Finally, in a Parable of Jesus, it is implied that angels escort believers into heaven when they die.In our passage, then, we see rebellious angels fighting against those who remain loyal to God, a cosmic war.The Fall of SatanSatan loses this battle and is thrown down to earth. The story implies that whatever influence Satan had in heaven is now transferred to the terrestrial realm, the world that we live in now.The symbolism tells us that the cosmic rebellion of Satan against God has decisively failed. Satan is defeated in the heavens and there is a very real sense that he is defeated in our world as well. However, he is still at large and active today.Interpreters are divided as to whether Satan’s fall is an historical event that happened once at some point in the past. But what we can say from a symbolic perspective is that Satan’s fall is ongoing every time sin and rebellion against God is overcome in this world.What is the activity of Satan now? The first thing we can say is that, due to Satan’s defeat in heaven, he is full of wrath because he knows that the time is short. He has been defeated in the cosmic realm and he has been defeated in our realm also. However, he seems to have been granted a certain amount of time to ply his mischief before his final destruction. He is aware of this and therefore is full of rage. He wants to take people with him to his final destruction.His tactics are deception and accusation. He is called here by the loud voice in heaven (which perhaps is the voice of God himself), “the deceiver of the whole world”. This does not mean that literally everybody in the world is deceived by him but that he has influence to deceive all over the world. He wants to people to believe lies in order that he might lead them away from God.He is also called “the accuser of our brethren” which indicates that his agenda is to condemn humanity. It could be that here is indicated specifically those who are Christians and part of the Church. He accuses of insincerity and failure those who are seeking to live a godly life, to discourage and deflect them from the path to God. He seeks to bring about feelings of guilt and condemnation so that we might no longer believe in God’s grace and therefore wander away from him.To the Pharisees who opposed him in John’s Gospel, chapter 8, Jesus said, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, and does not stand in the truth, because there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks out of his own character, for he is a liar and the father of lies.” In his discourse on the Good Shepherd in the same Gospel, Jesus tells us that, “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”The devil is a liar, an accuser, a thief, and a murderer. He seeks to steal, to kill, and to destroy.Why is it important to say all of this? It is because we have to recognise that we, along with the holy angels, are at war with Satan and with the powers of evil. The good news is that we have the victory in Christ (which I’ll say more about in a moment), but we have to be realistic about this. We have an enemy and our enemy has a plan.Friends, do not be deceived. You have an adversary. He will destroy your faith. He will destroy your family. He will destroy your future. He will destroy whatever witness you have for Christ. He will ultimately destroy your soul if you allow him to. Be wise to him and oppose him. As the Apostle Peter said, ‘Be sober-minded; be watchful. Your adversary the devil prowls around like a roaring lion, seeking someone to devour. Resist him, firm in your faith’ (1 Peter 5:8-9).They have conquered by the blood of the Lamb…And yet perhaps the most important thing of all has not yet been said: “And they have conquered (Satan) by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death”.This sentence is a guide to spiritual warfare in a nutshell. What does it tell us? Firstly, that the victory that we have over Satan, sin and death is not from our own power but it is from Christ. Specifically, it is the blood of Christ that overcomes the accusations of Satan.This is a reference to the cross of Christ. It is true that we are guilty of sin. When Satan accuses us, he may at least partially tell the truth. We are all sinners. We have sinned. We will sin. And we do sin. We will fail and fall in our Christian lives. There is no doubt of this. To that extent, Satan is correct. However, he is not correct that there is no hope and that there is no forgiveness. There is hope and there is forgiveness and it is through the cross of Jesus Christ that they are purchased for us. In the words of the beautiful hymn, Before the Throne of God Above:When Satan tempts me to despair and tells me of the guilt within;Upward I look and see him there, who made an end to all my sin.Because the sinless saviour died, my sinful soul is counted free,For God the just is satisfied to look on him and pardon me.Friends, Christ has taken our place upon the cross. He has died for us, receiving whatever penalty was due. We are free from condemnation and guilt in him. As the Apostle Paul said, ‘There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus’ (Romans 8:1). Let Satan say what he will.But, secondly, the saints conquer the devil through the word of their testimony, for they loved not their lives even unto death. Here we see something of what we are called to as those who have been set free by Jesus: we are to bear witness to the Gospel in all the world. We are to speak for Jesus, inviting people to believe the truth and to come to know him for themselves.Make no mistake friends, there will be a cost for speaking for Jesus. Jesus promises us this: “Blessed are you when others revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for so they persecuted the prophets who were before you” (Matthew 5:11).This, paradoxically, is how we overcome: by bearing witness to the truth of the Gospel even through persecution and death.Friends, Christians do not employ the same diabolic tactics as these: we do not lie; we do not slander; we do not murder. We bear witness to the truth, even to death. We overcome not through our own righteousness but through the blood of Jesus Christ. Rejoice, friends, therefore with St Michael and the holy angels: the battle belongs to the Lord.In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

‘To the King of ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honour and glory forever and ever. Amen.’The Lost SheepWe begin today with a familiar scene from the life of Jesus: tax collectors and sinners drawing near whilst the Pharisees and scribes grumble.Now, the objection of the Pharisees and scribes is not elaborated but it is fairly sure to say that they were concerned about maintaining separation from those who had defiled themselves through sinning in order that they (that is, the Pharisees) might maintain ritual purity. They had a view of sin which is similar to the view that we have of infectious diseases: if you get too close, you risk contamination.But, of course, this is not what all of this is really about: what it is really about is their sense of religious pride and their hardness of heart towards the people they were supposed to love and serve in the name of God.Jesus, as ever, came to show the world a different way. And so he tells a parable about a man with a hundred sheep. He loses one and leave the ninety-nine to go and find it. And then he comes home, calling his friends and neighbours to himself, rejoicing.There is more joy, in heaven, he tells us, over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine who need no repentance.In other words, the reason that he eats with tax collectors and sinners is because God seeks those who are willing to repent and to be reconciled to him. This brings about rejoicing in heaven. And God’s seeking those who are lost is manifested in the Incarnation: Christ leaving his throne in heaven to become as we are, to enter our world, to journey far from his homeland, so that he might find us and save us.The irony of Christ’s statement about ninety-nine who need no repentance is that such people really do not exist. The Pharisees may have thought they needed no repentance, but they were wrong. With the exception of Jesus Christ, every human being who has ever walked the face of the planet must repent before Almighty God for our sins. And this is not just a one-time act, but a continuous act of self-examination and humility that accompanies us on our earthly journey.So, if you find yourself today, or any day, feeling the weight of your sin, being aware of guilt or shame, the good news of the Gospel is for you. God offers you forgiveness in Christ. And, again, this is not a one-time offer but a continual offer of mercy and grace, a continual invitation to return to the fold, to come back to God, and to know his loving and saving presence once again.“The grace of our Lord overflowed for me”I’d like to mention here the Apostle Paul, from whom we get our New Testament reading in the letter to Timothy. Paul was a high-ranking religious official and intellectual, just like some of these men. He was of the tribe of Benjamin, he was a Pharisee and he considered himself to be completely righteous under the law.What changed for him to bring him out of his religious delusion was an encounter with the risen Jesus, whose church he had been persecuting. He recognised his ignorance and his rejection of the true God who had been manifested to the world in Christ and so he said the words we read today, “The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost”.But notice how Paul had to recognise his own sin in order to receive the grace and mercy of God, even to the point of calling himself the foremost of sinners. This demonstrates the truth of a spiritual law, which is that, the more we recognise our own sinfulness, the more we recognise the grace and mercy of God for us.Another way of putting this is that, if we want to be found by Christ, we have to recognise that we are like lost sheep, that we have strayed from the right path, as Paul says, in our ignorance, in our unbelief, in our weakness, and we need Christ to come into our world and rescue us.The Woman and the Lost CoinI’d like to say something about the other story in our Gospel reading today, that of the woman who loses one of her ten coins and sweeps her house diligently until she finds it. She then calls her friends and neighbours together, rejoicing that she has found her lost coin. Again, Jesus tells us that there is joy in heaven before the angels of God over one sinner who repents.In some ways, this story is the same story as that of the lost sheep and the diligent shepherd. However, many of the Church Fathers saw in this story in particular an image of the Church. The shepherd naturally calls to our mind the image of Christ, the Good Shepherd, leaving his home in heaven to bring those who have strayed back to God. Here we see a humble woman. The details in the story imply that her house is modest and that she is therefore probably quite poor. She has ten coins which are worth about ten days’ wages. Perhaps this is all that she has in the world. It is not much. She loses one and therefore she goes about seeking for it diligently.And so we receive a beautiful image of the Church through this parable. We are engaged in the same mission as the Good Shepherd, Jesus Christ. But we do not come from a place of great strength or power. Rather, we begin from a place of weakness and humility, from a place of repentance and poverty.We have not much more to give to the world than the knowledge of God and of his joy over sinners who repent. So much the better therefore when God disabuses us of pride in our natural power or our natural resources. As the Apostle Paul says elsewhere, ‘Consider your calling, brothers: not many of your were wise according to worldly standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the wise: God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is lower and despised in the world, even things that are not, in order to bring to nothing things that are, so that no human being might boast in the presence of God’ (1 Cor. 1:16-29).Where are you in these stories?I ask you to consider where you find yourself this morning? Have you to repent of your religious pride or your unwillingness to admit to God or to others where you have been wrong? Might you see your sin a bit more clearly and be more willing to identify with the sinners, the tax collectors, the lost sheep, the lost coin? The good news, as I say, is that, if you are, then you will find a doorway opened to the very presence and joy of God. For this is the reason that Christ came into the world.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

The Ascent of HumilityI begin my sermon today with a quotation from the Rule of St Benedict. St Benedict said the following to the monks with whom he shared a common religious life:And so, my brothers, if we wish to reach the highest peak of humility and if we wish to attain quickly that heavenly exaltation towards which we climb by means of the humility of this life, we must set up for our ascent the ladder that Jacob saw in his dream, on which the angels appeared to him, descending and ascending. For we should surely interpret their descent and ascent as referring to the descent we make by self-exaltation and the ascent by humility. That ladder is our life in this world which God raises to heaven if we are humble in heart.“The descent we make by self-exaltation…”We find ourselves today, once again, in the midst of a story about a confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders of the day. This time, we see Christ dining at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees. And after once again healing on the Sabbath Day (an incident which is skipped over in our reading) and observing the Pharisees taking the seats of honour, Jesus tells a parable:When you go to a wedding feast, don’t choose the places of honour because someone more important than you might show up. Then with shame you will have to occupy a lower seat.But instead choose the lower seat first, so that, if a better seat becomes available, you might be invited by your host to move up higher.Now, there is of course a truism about life here but there is also a loaded subtext. For Jesus is in fact using this parable to critique the religious establishment of the day.I spoke last week about the legalistic spirit of the religious rulers of the time. Here we see another aspect of this legalism which is spiritual pride. The Pharisees chose the places of honour, quite literally, when they dined at table. But this spoke of their more general desire for religious exaltation.What specifically were the Pharisees seeking? We can find an answer in the words of Christ elsewhere in the Gospels. In one other place in Luke, for example, he says, “Woe to you Pharisees! For you love the best seat in the synagogues and greetings in the market places.” And in the Gospel of Matthew, “They do all their deeds to be seen by others. For they make their phylacteries broad and their fringes long, and they love the places of honour at feasts and the best seats in the synagogue”.Perhaps the most famous example we might give is from the Sermon on the Mount: “Beware of practicing your righteousness before others to be seen by them…when you give to the needy, sound no trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, that they may be praised by others…when you pray, you must not be like the hypocrites. For they love to stand and pray in the synagogues, and at the street corners, that they may be seen by others.”In other words, the Pharisees and hypocrites of the time were using their religious observances and statuses to be exalted in the eyes of others. They were doing what they were for a show, so that others might think highly of them and praise them.Consider also one further feature of Jesus’ parable: “When you are invited by someone to a wedding feast, do not sit down in a place of honour, lest someone more distinguished than you be invited by him, and he who invited you both will come and say to you, ‘Give your place to this person’”.Now, this is exactly what had happened. Spiritually speaking, the Pharisees and religious rulers had arrogantly taken the highest place and when someone more distinguished arrived they were unwilling to step aside and let him take the glory that was rightfully his. That distinguished guest was of course Jesus himself, the Messiah of Israel. So arrogant and hard of heart has these Pharisees become that they had taken even the seat of the Messiah and would not yield when he arrived.Now, before we move on too quickly, let us examine our hearts. It is a very human thing to want to be seen by others, to want to be praised, to want to be exalted in the eyes of men, to consider fame, status, or notoriety attractive and desirable. We often seek such things in the church itself – to be seen as successful in ministry, to have an important and visible role – or we might desire such things in our professional, social or family lives.But Christ is telling us that this is the way that leads to spiritual death. If this is our motivation, if this is our true desire, it can only lead to spiritual blindness and humiliation. In the words of St Benedict, it leads to the descent we make by self-exaltation.The Ascent by HumilityThe good news is that there is a far better and more excellent way to be exalted – the ascent by humility. Firstly, it must be said that the aim of this ascent is different to the descent by self-exaltation. The aim of this ascent is not to be praised by men but to be exalted by God and to approach more nearly the throne of his grace.Observe how these two ends are actually opposed to one other. We cannot seek both the praise of men and the favour of God. This is why Jesus tells us to be wary of conducting our religious observances in the presence of others and says, “go into your room and shut the door and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you”.So, it is not just that we are seeking the same thing by different means. It is that the pure of heart seek not the praises of men but the presence of God. This is surely a means for combatting the spiritual pride that inevitably arises in our hearts: to practice in secret, to not seek to be seen by others, to focus on our own spiritual walk and our own desire to know the presence of God in our lives. This is what it means to take the lower place. For the host will be God himself, who will say to us as we seek him in humility, “Friend, come up higher”.Within the mystery of God, this law has been most excellently illustrated in the Incarnation itself. “Have this mind among yourselves,” wrote the Apostle Paul to the Philippian church, “which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself to the point of death, even death on a cross”.By becoming obedient, Christ himself gave up the riches of heaven and his status as equal with the Godhead, and took the form of a man, becoming a servant, being made obedient to the Father to the point of death on a cross. The humility by which we are called to ascend is, therefore, a humility that partakes mysteriously of the nature of God himself. It is a participation in the life of Jesus Christ.The Apostle Paul goes on to say, “Therefore, God has highly exalted him, and has given him the name that is above every name, so that, at the name of Jesus, every knee should, bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.”After humbling himself, Christ was exalted to the right hand of the Father. We are encouraged through his teaching similarly to ascend to God, that we might know him more closely and imitate him more nearly.To put it very simply, then, we ascend to God through love: love for him and towards him, and love for our brethren expressed in acts of service. This is truly the meaning of Christ’s words when he both warns and encourages us: “Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he who humbles himself will be exalted”.There are a legion of saints and holy people who have illustrated this principle throughout the history of the Church. Many of them, by the very nature of their humility, will be known only to God alone. They are those who have truly shut the door to the world and given their lives to secret acts of prayer and charity for the love of God.But occasionally, we have an example of an obscure and poor saint whose love for God and life of service has been chosen as an example to encourage and inspire the rest of us. You might be familiar with the short spiritual work called The Practice of the Presence of God. This work is about a man called Nicholas Herman. Herman was, according to his biographer, ‘a lowly and unlearned man’. A footman and a soldier, he eventually became a Lay Brother among the barefooted Carmelites at Paris in 1666 and was afterwards known as “Brother Lawrence”.Brother Lawrence gave himself to simple acts of love and service, done in the name of God and for the love of God. He used to note how even acts which he found boring and tedious such as washing the dishes in the monastery kitchen could be offered up to God in love for him. He became so used to the practice of the presence of God that eventually he found no difference between the established times of prayer and the hour for work or rest. For the presence was with him continually and always, as he offered each moment, each task, to God.Now, of course, nobody would ever have heard of him had not the people around noticed his otherworldly holiness and certain of them decided to make a note of it for future generations. Such was his humility that he never had it in mind to pass on what he had learned. One of his biographers says, ‘Will anyone find fault with me for ranking together the great Masters and Doctors with an obscure lay-brother, when one finds in his simple words and life the same full purity and perfection of Christian precept and practice, which the greatest lights of the Church have handed down to us, and which all alike have drawn from Jesus Christ, Who hides himself from those who in their own imaginations are wise and prudent, revealing Himself to the humble and lowly of heart?”We must imagine not. Friends, let us not seek to be exalted in the eyes of men. But, rather, let us serve others in humility

A Conflict on the Sabbath DayOur Gospel reading begins with a conflict between Jesus and the ruler of the synagogue on a particular Sabbath Day. Jesus had called a woman with a disabling spirit to himself. He had laid his hands on her and healed her. The ruler of the synagogue had taken exception to this, arguing that this counted as work and that it could have waited till one of the other days of the week.Before we look at Jesus’ response, we need to provide a little bit of background to understand what is going on here. After all, it might seem strange to us that a religious ruler would forbid supernatural healing on the grounds that it wasn’t the right day of the week to invoke it. Surely, if the healing had come from God that was reason enough to endorse it? So let’s see what is behind this objection.The Story of the SabbathThe Old TestamentWe have to go right back to the beginning of creation and remember that the Sabbath Day was instituted by God himself after he had created the world. The first six days were days of creation – days of work – and on the seventh day God rested. And he blessed the Sabbath Day and made it holy because it was a day of rest (Gen. 2:1-3).We go from there to the giving of the Ten Commandments. The people of God are told to observe the Sabbath and keep it holy, to labour on only the other six days of the week and not to do any work. Not only members of the family or the tribe should rest but even the livestock, even the male and female servants, even the sojourner who was within their gates. And the logic given is as follows:“You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm. Therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the Sabbath Day” (Deuteronomy 5:15).In other words, God did free the Israelites from slavery in Egypt so that they could continue their life of slavery in another location. The Sabbath Day helps them remember that they are divinely liberated from this oppression.The Intertestamental PeriodIf that all seems quite clear, think again. Human nature being what it is, the people of God began to try and work out what exactly was meant by this commandment and how it should be put into practice. In order to safeguard against breaking the Sabbath commandment, various rules were put into place by the religious leaders of the time. In the period after the writing of the Old Testament, which began about four-hundred years before the coming of Christ, the religious authorities began to place a greater emphasis upon the minutiae of the Sabbath observance. The rules were eventually written down and compiled in a work called the Mishnah. But, at the time of Jesus, they were kept by oral tradition. They were human interpretations of divine commands.So, for example, certain types of carrying were considered to violate the Sabbath commandment. In order to work out what types of carrying were acceptable, four domains were defined: private, public, semi-public, and exempt areas. It was prohibited to carry an object from a private to a public domain or to carry an object four cubits (about a metre and a half) in a public domain. So handing an object from the inside of a public house to the outside was prohibited because it constituted passing something from a private to a public domain. In addition to domains, the quantity of a carried object was significant: enough food for a family meal or an amount of ink sufficient to write two letters was prohibited.Carrying is just one example. All types of work such as sowing, ploughing, reaping, kneading, baking, writing, building, kindling fire, were prohibited. Items such as tools, expensive dishes, writing implements, stray stones and many others were not allowed to even be touched. Other activities such as doing deals, climbing trees, and shaking fruit from trees were also banned.I’m sure you get the point. There were a lot of don’ts associated with the Sabbath day before the time of Christ. And one wonders, with some justification, whether the authorities had somewhat missed the point.Missing the PointA brief word on this missing of the point. It’s very easy to do. It was easy for the religious leaders of the day. And it is easy for us as well. Let’s look at the problem before we look at the solution.One of the words we might use here to describe this situation is “legalism”. Legalism, as the name suggests, is a preoccupation with law and rules. People who are legalists are normally quite good at keeping specific rules but they neglect to observe the deeper meaning behind the rules. They keep the letter of the law but not the spirit of it.In our story today, for example, the ruler of the Synagogue is upset that Jesus has healed on the Sabbath. But Jesus reminds him of the compassion of God: “Ought not this woman, a daughter of Abraham whom Satan bound for eighteen years, be loosed from this bond on the Sabbath Day?” (Luke 13:16).The religious leaders knew their Scriptures, and this statement would have instantly recalled the Fourth Commandment as given in the Book of Deuteronomy. Why was the Sabbath given in the first place? Firstly, because God rested on the seventh day. But also to remind the people that God had brought them out of slavery in Egypt. He had liberated them from bondage and, on the seventh day, they were to remember this liberation and give glory to God for it.Through this emphasis upon rules and regulation they had turned an ordinance that was meant to liberate into an obligation which heaped oppression upon people and brought them into bondage.It is very easy to take the gifts that God gives us and to turn them into a burden, into bondage. We must remember this in all our observances: this is a gift from God that is meant to give you life, not take it away. As Jesus says elsewhere: “The Sabbath was made for man, not man for the Sabbath.”In addition to defining legalism, we should also note the attitude that often goes along with it: spiritual pride and miserable religion.Spiritual pride comes from the sense that we sometimes have when we believe that we are keeping the rules and others aren’t. It gives us a warm feeling of smugness and superiority and, in its more advanced stages, we begin to believe that, if only we were in charge, we could tell other people what to do and then they would be as good as we are. It leads, in other words, to a desire to dominate and control other people.Miserable religion is the kind of joyless atmosphere that all of this creates. Here are the words of the poet and visionary William Blake:I went to the Garden of Love,And saw what I never had seen:A Chapel was built in the midst,Where I used to play on the green.And the gates of this Chapel were shut,And 'Thou shalt not' writ over the door;So I turn'd to the Garden of Love,That so many sweet flowers bore.And I saw it was filled with graves,And tomb-stones where flowers should be:And Priests in black gowns, were walking their rounds,And binding with briars, my joys & desires.William Blake, ‘The Garden of Love’Friends, let’s not only repent of our legalism but let us rejoice because the news we bear is so much greater and liberating than all of that misery.The Lord of the Sabbath DayUltimately all of this comes to who Jesus of Nazareth is. This remains the critical question of all of history. And this is really the question over which Jesus and the ruler of synagogue were arguing.In healing on the Sabbath Day, Jesus knew exactly what he was doing. He knew that it was not forbidden to do such a thing in the Scriptures but that the human authorities had pronounced it so. He did it intentionally to provoke controversy. Not only that, but he answered back to the ruler and called him a hypocrite, pointing out their inconsistency in feeding their animals on the Sabbath but not liberating those who were bound.Jesus was interpreting the Scriptures in contradiction to the religious authorities of the time. He was putting his own interpretation above theirs and therefore making himself a superior authority to them.As he says elsewhere, “The Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” (Luke 6:5). My authority to define the Sabbath is greater than that of any religious leader. I am the Lord of the Sabbath.We are told that, at this point at least, ‘all his adversaries were put to shame, and all the people rejoiced at all the glorious things that were done by him’ (Luke 13:17). In interpreting the Sabbath in this way, Christ had reminded everybody that the purpose of God in the giving of the Sabbath was the same purpose that God always intends in his commands: to demonstrate his compassion and love and to lead his people to greater life, light, and joy.So really all of this is not about the Sabbath – although it is, of course – but about Jesus: who he is and what he reveals about God. And it is good news. By his very presence, Jesus reveals a greater authority than that embodied in manmade rules and religion. By his teaching and action, Jesus reveals to us a God of compassion, love and liberation. If we can entrust ourselves to him without fear, if we can bear in mind at all times that the commands of God are not burdensome but are given for our liberation then we too can find life in him.Holy BaptismFriends, today we baptise and welcome a new believer into the Church. This is indeed a joyful day. Not a day of mourning and misery. Not a day even to focus on sin and repentance. But a day of liberation and rejoicing. Only shortly after our passage this morning, Christ tells the world that “there is more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who need no repentance” (Luke 15:7) and that “there is joy before the angels of God over one sinner who repents” (Luke 15:10). Notice there that it is not the joy of the angels but joy before the angels. That is, the joy of God.There is no God hidden behind Jesus Christ

“Is not my word like fire, declares, the Lord, and like a hammer that breaks the rock in pieces?” Jeremiah 23:29Fire Upon the Earth“I came to cast fire on the earth, and would that it were already kindled! I have a baptism to be baptised with, and how great is my distress until it is accomplished!”At first glance, today’s Gospel reading might be hard to understand. It might also be hard to accept when we do indeed understand its meaning. But it teaches us such an important lesson that we must attend closely to it. So, let’s follow the flow of thought in Jesus words.What is Christ meaning when he speaks of casting fire upon the earth and being baptised with a certain baptism?The Greek word for baptism is baptizo and in means “immersion” or to be covered with something. Christ therefore refers to something that will completely overwhelm and overshadow him. Commentators agree that this refers to his passion and death upon the cross.This might be surprising for us at first since we associate the word “baptism” with the sacrament of baptism. And yet we can remember here that baptisms were and are regularly carried out by so-called full immersion in which a person is literally immersed completely in the water of a large baptismal font or pool.In comparing the sacrament of baptism to the baptism of his death, he is making a point about the comprehensiveness, the awfulness of what is going to happen to him. Like a shroud, his passion and suffering will be cast over him and will immerse him completely.And this thought leads to the second image: Christ’s casting fire upon the earth. The image of fire is used in many ways in Scripture: most notably to represent the Holy Spirit, and to speak of the word of God. But whatever image we prefer, fire here represents the powerful working of God in the world after Christ’s death, resurrection and ascension. In other words, it represents the work of the Gospel and the Church in the age in which we live now.Fire is powerful: it consumes, it burns, it creates chaos, it divides, it kindles, heats and makes alive. It is the perfect image for the Gospel.Christ tells us plainly: he is ready for this baptism and distressed before it is accomplished. He longs for the fire of the Gospel to be cast upon the earth.Peace or DivisionAnd then perhaps the hardest part of the reading: “I have not come to bring peace but rather division.”In other words: “You thought I came to bring unity and peaceful co-existence upon the earth within the human family. Not so. My identity, my ministry, and especially my death and resurrection will in fact be a source of great division and heartache.”He chooses the most intimate image of the human family to make this point: even within a household, father will be divided against son, son against father, mother against daughter, daughter against mother, and so on.Notice here that Christ is not saying that this sort of division is a positive thing and he is certainly not saying it should be sought out by his followers. Rather, it is an inevitable consequence of his ministry.Nor is this a contradiction of the fifth commandment – honour thy father and thy mother – which is upheld by Christ in various ways, not least in his rebuking of the religious leaders of the day for giving financial contributions to the Temple but not supporting their parents in their old age.The point Christ makes here – as he does at other times – is that God is to come before all. And that honouring God must come even before the highest earthly obligation which is to honour our parents.Cyril of Alexandria puts this well:“If honour is to be paid to parents, how much more to your parents’ Creator, to whom you owe gratitude for your parents!...You are not forbidden to love your parents, but you are forbidden to prefer them to God.”We might also wonder what to do with the words Christ spoke to his disciples when he appeared to them after his resurrection: “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you, not as the world gives do I give to you…” and so on.In addition, the Bible speaks in many other places of peace: the Apostle Paul, for example, speaks of the peace which passes understanding in the book of Philippians, and he identifies peace as one of the Fruits of the Holy Spirit in Galatians. There are doubtless many other examples.Friends, we must recognise that there is no contradiction here: when Christ speaks not of peace but of division, he speaks of the kind of division that occurs between his own followers and those who oppose them. When he speaks to his disciples of a peace that he gives to them – and when the Apostle Paul speaks of a similar thing – he is speaking of an internal peace that occurs between brothers and sisters in Christ and the peace of God which we carry in our hearts.This is the peace that passes understanding of which Paul speaks. By this he means that it is a peace that endures hardship while the world around cannot understand. It is a peace that endures in the midst of suffering, opposition, sorrow, persecution, and so on, because it is a miraculous work of the Holy Spirit.So we can see that both are true: in a sense Christ did come to bring peace – the greatest peace the world has ever known. Although he did not come to bring peace amongst all people but rather division over that most crucial question: Who do men say that the Son of Man is?Are you ready?I will refrain from an explanation of the final part of our readings for time’s sake. But suffice to say that he there encourages his listeners to understand the spiritual meaning of the times and not only the physical meaning of the changing of the seasons.I would like to pass from this explanation to some application, asking the question, “How does this apply to our lives?”The basic point to draw from Christ’s words is that division will inevitably arise in this world over the question of following Jesus. This is true on a matter-of-fact level: if we prioritise our walk with Christ above all else then this will not be something that we can share with those who do not know Christ and do not walk with him.But we musn’t hesitate to go further. The cost of following Jesus is to be divided in a very significant way from those who do not follow him. And it is, to a very great extent also, to be actively opposed by many of them.We are fortunate in this country not to experience severe persecution for our faith. But the history of the Christian Church – and the reality for many millions of Christians today – is one of persecution, suffering, rejection, and death.This fact is often hidden from us because of the bias of Western media but to give some recent examples: in Nigeria, Islamist group Boko Haram and Fulani militants are responsible for thousands of kidnappings and abductions of Christians. Churches and homes are burned and Christian communities face ongoing threats and violence.In the Democratic Republic of Congo, Christians face violence and murderous attacks from organisations such as the Allied Democratic Forces, who are, in fact, an Islamic militant group.In India, it is estimated that about two attacks on Christians occur every day with anti-conversion laws and arbitrary imprisonment of Christians very common.In Mozambique, ISIS and affiliated groups burn the homes and churches of Christians with reports of abductions and beheadings increasing this year.The Chinese Communist Party exercises strict control over the Christian Church, rewriting the Bible to align with state ideology. Pastors and believers face arrest, surveillance, and social credit system penalties for non-compliance. Many North Korean defectors, who escape to China from the brutal regime of persecution in North Korea, are sent back to North Korea, where the Chinese authorities know they will face torture, forced labour, imprisonment or death.When Christ speaks of division, this is the kind of thing he is talking about. This is the kind of thing he experienced himself: the division of persecution, suffering and death. He therefore poses a question to us by implication: are you willing to suffer the consequences as he did? Are you willing to suffer division from your fellow man, persecution and even death for him?Why would we be willing?You might be thinking at this point that this sounds heroic and noble, but why would anyone want to follow Jesus to the cross? Why would anyone want to suffer division and persecution? The answer can only come this morning from our second reading, Hebrews 11 and 12.In this passage, we read of the so-called ‘heroes of faith’. It starts positively: through faith, Gideon and David conquered kingdoms, stopped the mouths of lions, and so on. But then we hear these words: ‘Some were tortured, refusing to accept release, so that they might rise again to a better life. Others suffered mocking and flogging, and even chains and imprisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in two, they were killed with the sword. They went about in skins of sheep and goats, destitute, afflicted, mistreated…wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth’.Why? Why would anyone suffer in this way? The answer for them is the same as the answer for us, as it was the same for Christ. What does the passage go on to say?‘Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the same, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.’ Hebrews 12:1-2Friends, that is the answer: through faith – that is trust in the promises of God, belief in the reality of that which is unseen yet nevertheless promised – we believe that, though we may die for and with Christ, nevertheless we will rise to a better life, that there is an indescribable and indestructib

“Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes…”The Future Shapes the PresentWhat we believe about the future shapes how we live in the present. We spoke last week about how God can set us free from slavery to the God of Mammon, from anxious toil and restlessness. Today we hear from Christ something about how we to think about what is to come.Before we look more closely at these words, it’s worth noting that, when it comes to the future, we live in a world which is profoundly lacking in hope. On an individual level, the average modern secularist thinks little about his own mortality or about what is to come on the other side of death. As a society, we tell ourselves stories about the imminent end of the world and, due to this profoundly negative narrative of eschatological despair, we struggle to see the continuance of our own species as a positive thing.It's so important, therefore, that we attend to a specifically Christian eschatology. That is, a Christian vision of the last things and the end: the end of our lives and of the end of this world.In our passage today, Christ speaks of what doctrinally is called his Second Coming. He came for the first time in the Incarnation. He lived, died, rose, and ascended into Heaven. He will come again. This will be the second time. This will be the Second Coming.We live in the middle of those two times. And we therefore wait for him to come again. We wait for the close of history which will be brought about not through any means of man or through the explosion of the Sun, but through the return of Jesus.This is what the story Christ tells us is about.The Night of this Life“Stay dressed for action and keep your lamps burning,” Christ tells us, “and be like men who are waiting for their master to come home from the wedding feast, so that they may open the door to him at once when he comes and knocks.”What an evocative image to which we can all relate. It is nighttime in the house of the master. Who knows how long the servants have been waiting for his return? And yet he still has not come. They know he will come but they do not know when. They are tired. They are longing for their beds. Their eyes are drooping. They are, perhaps, wondering if he will indeed return at all that night or if he has found somewhere else to stay. Their only option is to stay awake and alert, even in the midst of all of these questions and doubts. Because the only thing they know is that he is coming at some point. But they do not know when.We’ve all been there of course, diligently trying to stay awake because we are waiting for something late at night with eager anticipation. I remember as a young child desperately trying to stay up to watch Match of the Day on a Saturday evening and somehow finding myself awake the following morning in my bed having missed the programme entirely and been put there by my mother.Christ is telling us, then, that the world and the time we live in is a little bit like that. It is the night before the coming of God. And the night is soporific. It calls to us to lie down, to sleep and to enter a world of dreams, a world in which there is, in fact, no master, a world in which the master will never return and in which therefore we have no need to stay awake at all.Our dreams are various – of the ultimate reality of the material world, of comfort, of wealth, of distraction, of entertainment, of sexual self-expression, of power, success, prestige, aesthetic pleasure. There are endless dreams. And yet the dreams don’t call us to wake up to the great reality that we will face at some point.Being ReadyHow, therefore, are we to resist the siren call of sleep? Christ gives us a picture of spiritual alertness. He speaks of being dressed and ready for action – or, more literally, of having one’s loins girded. This phrase refers to the gathering up of a long, flowing garment and the tucking of it into one’s belt. In the contemporary world, we might speak of pulling our socks up or rolling up our sleeves. He speaks also of having our lamps burning.Many historic commentators have seen in these two images a calling to both the active and contemplative life. The active and contemplative life are the two sides of the life of the Christian reality. In the contemplative life, we keep burning the lamps of our minds as we meditate upon the word of God, as we speak to him in prayer, and as we fill our minds with edifying and spiritually uplifting thoughts. Cyril of Alexandria tells us that the burning lamp represents ‘the wakefulness of the mind and intellectual cheerfulness’.‘We say that the human mind is awake when it repels any tendency to slumber off into that carelessness that often is the means of bringing it into subjection to every kind of wickedness.’ – Cyril of AlexandriaIn opposition to this, Christ says, keep your lamps burning. Fill your mind with the truth and shun thoughts of sin and wickedness the instant they occur to you. In this way, you will stay intellectually and mentally awake.What about this image of girded loins? This speaks of our readiness to respond to the calling of God with acts of service and love. In the same way that we must train our minds for godliness, so must we train our bodies.The overall picture is of a physically and intellectually alert servant, fully aware of what he must do when his master returns and capable of carrying it out. How does this speak to you? Are your loins girded? Is your lamp lit? What steps do you need to take to wake up?The Marriage FeastLet us consider one further feature of this story which is that the master is away at a marriage feast and will return from thence. When we think of the Second Coming our minds might be filled with the fear of judgment and with fiery wrath visited upon the earth. And, yet, Christ gives us here quite a different picture. When we return from a wedding feast that involved a beautiful reception and a mutual sharing in the joy of the bride and groom, with food and drinking, singing and dancing, surely we are in a fantastic mood, glowing with the overflowing happiness of the newly united couple. Will not the master in the story be of a similar disposition when he returns?Again, Cyril of Alexandria has great insight here: ‘…Christ will return as from a feast. This plainly shows that God always dwells in festivals that are fitting for him. In heaven above, there is no sadness whatsoever since nothing can occasion grief.’This is the joy that the master brings with him back from the wedding feast: the very joy of heaven itself, the Kingdom of God come to earth.The servants are willing to stay up, happy to do so, because they are anticipating the joy of their master when they open the door to his expectant knock.And, then, the most amazing thing of all: “Blessed are those servants whom the master finds awake when he comes. Truly, I say to you, he will dress himself for service and have them recline at table, and he will come and serve them.”In other words, the master is so happy, so overflowing with joy from his beautiful evening that he doesn’t want it to end: “Let’s not go to bed yet,” he says, “But let’s have another drink and some more food. Come, you are tired, you are weary from waiting up for me. Sit down and I will prepare to continue the feast I have been enjoying, now with you, my friends.”We can paint in our minds a very austere vision of God – of an angry father, of a displeased judge, of an unmerciful slavedriver. And, yet, are these visions true to the vision that Christ consistently offers us? This is a vision of grace and joy. The sleeping servants do not enjoy this happy scene because they’ve gone to bed. That was their decision. But, for those who stayed awake, great joy remains.Wait for the LordAnd yet waiting and hoping can sometimes take its toll. It is not easy to continue always with the spiritual life. Discipline, faith, effort, resilience – all of these things are needed, sometimes more than others…especially when we are tired and weary of the fight.This is why Christ tells us this story: to encourage us to continue. I was reading this week a passage on the spiritual labours of St Anthony of Alexandria, one of the pioneering fathers of Christian monasticism. When he withdrew from the world to engage in a life of prayer and devotion, he was beset on all sides by intense and diabolical demonic attacks. He was psychologically tormented and tempted in every way, and yet he persisted through all trials and his name resounds throughout the history of the Christian Church.The great spiritual writer, Thomas Keating says this of his life:‘What was (Anthony’s) method of resistance? Faith, determination, and incessant prayer. Anthony was resolved not to give up the spiritual journey. This is his timeless message to those on the journey: never stop waiting for God, never stop trusting in God, never stop praying to God…‘To each of the temptations Anthony gave the same basic response: determination to persevere in the spiritual journey, trust that God would give him the grace to do so, and incessant prayer. Each of these three dispositions is an exercise of faith, hope, and love.’Thomas Keating, Invitation to Love: The Way of Christian ContemplationFriends, go and do likewise in your own lives. Never stop waiting for God. Never stop trusting in God. Never stop praying to God.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

Ecclesiastes – The Futility of LifeIf you have never read the Old Testament Book of Ecclesiastes, I really recommend it. It’s about the complete pointlessness of life. Even arch-atheist Richard Dawkins has, at points, declared his admiration for this book particularly in the King James translation.Ecclesiastes is an unflinchingly honest analysis of the problem of the human condition, namely its vanity, or its futility. Unlike pretty much every other book in the Bible, Ecclesiastes is not really about God. Rather, it is about us and specifically us as we might seem to be if we don't consider God.At the beginning of the book Solomon begins to seek for wisdom is that is done in this world. Some pursuits, such as the pursuit of knowledge might seem to be more valuable than others such as the enjoyment of laughter, feasting or riches, but ultimately they are all futile. Ultimately they are all in vain.The vanity of all of these things can be observed in different ways, but there is a common root to all of it – namely, the impermanence, the transience of this life. The fact that, whatever we have, can be taken away in a moment now and will be taken away forever when we are gone. This transience lends to life a kind of absurd quality, which disturbs us, and so we try not to think about it very much. We distract ourselves from it.In our passage today, Solomon speaks of toil and riches. Why is toil so vain? Why is wealth so futile? Because, ‘I must leave it to the man who will come after me’. And he may be a fool and do stupid things with everything I’ve earned. And, what is worse, I may not even get to enjoy that which I have. ‘Sometimes,’ Solomon writes, a person who has toiled with wisdom and knowledge and skill must leave everything to be enjoyed by someone who did not toil for it’. And, what is perhaps even worse, is that I have worn myself out in all my toil for wealth which I will not enjoy and which will be left to a fool after me.‘What has a man from all the toil and striving of his heart with which he toils beneath the sun? For all his days are full of sorrow, and his work is a vexation. Even in the night his heart does not rest. This also is vanity’. – Ecclesiastes 2:23In my opinion, one of the greatest films of modern times is a film that was made in 2002 called ‘Igby Goes Down’. Igby Goes Down is about a wealthy teenage boy who lives in New York and rebels against the vacuousness of his family and social milieu. Part of the film is about his relationship with a character played by Jeff Goldblum, who is called D.H. D.H. is an immensely rich real estate magnet who exudes confidence and satisfaction but who is really deeply manipulative and even wrathful beneath the surface.In a telling exchange Igby and D.H. speak of a third person who has suffered some recent trouble. “I believe that certain people in life are meant to fall by the wayside,” D.H. says, “to serve as warnings to the rest of us; signposts along the way.” “To where?” Igby says. D.H. pauses and then says, as though the answer should be obvious, “Success.”Now, of course, the problem with that answer is that success implies some other ultimate criteria, some goal or point to life that can, at least theoretically, be fulfilled. “Success”, without reference to anything else, is a meaningless word. And that, ultimately, is the point of the film: that wealth and social prestige and “success” in all of this is futile and ugly and tasteless and empty. Just like Ecclesiastes tells us, it is vanity. It is right to feel as Igby does, repelled by it, disgusted to his core. As he says in one emotional outburst towards the end of the story, “Everybody’s cold. Cold to the bone. Cold to the brain. Cold to the marrow.”“Be on your guard against all covetousness…”The reading from Ecclesiastes is well-chosen because it is echoed in the words of Christ to a disgruntled man who asks Jesus to adjudicate a dispute between him and his brother over their inheritance.“Man, who made me a judge or arbitrator over you?” He said to the man, “Take care, and be on your guard against all covetousness, for one’s life does not consist in the abundance of his possessions.”And then he goes on to tell a story that could almost be taken from Ecclesiastes: a man has some luck with his harvest and becomes rich. But he can think of nothing better to do with his crops than to pull down his old barns, build bigger ones and store them there. “And I will say to my soul, ‘Soul, you have ample goods laid up for many years; relax, eat, drink, be merry.’”And, friends, is this not the creed of the modern age: work hard, earn wealth, retire and relax. You’ve made it.And the story continues: “But God said to him, ‘Fool! This night your soul is required of you, and the things that you have prepared, whose will they be?”What is the mistake that this man made? Our New Testament passage tells us, the Apostle Paul writing, ‘Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry’.Covetousness, which is idolatry – in other words, when we put wealth first in our lives, we worship it as though it were a God. It might look like we just work hard and want to have a decent life, but really what we doing is giving ourselves to the promises of mammon. And these promises, as we have already seen are worthless and empty. Even if we succeed, we will not have what we truly want, which is peace, joy and happiness. And we may simply die whilst we are trying. Wealth is a terrible God. This is why Christ tells us to be on guard.The AlternativeMaybe we might say to ourselves, “Well I can see why the pursuit of wealth is so futile but is there anything better to do with our time, our energy, our talent than this?” The answer, friends, is “yes”. There is something that is much better that you can do.“So is the one,” Christ tells us, “who lays up treasure for himself and is not rich towards (or in) God.”Christ doesn’t shy away from economics. But he tells us that we are investing in the wrong thing. To invest in earthly wealth is to put our resources into stock that will crash inevitably. But if we invest in God, if we seek his first his kingdom, if we cultivate a relationship with him, then we are investing in something that will never fade away, that cannot be taken from us. As the Apostle Peter tells us, Jesus has caused us to be born again to a living hope, ‘to an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, and unfading, kept in heaven for you, who by God’s power are being guarded by faith’ (1 Peter 1:3-5).I love Psalm 127, particularly in the version from the Book of Common Prayer:‘It is in vain that ye rise up early and so late take rest and eat the bread of carefulness, for so he giveth his beloved sleep.’ Psalm 127:3How many of us are wearing ourselves out serving the God of Mammon, serving the God who makes us toil and sweat for an ever-diminishing return? Friends, let us put this idol away, let us grind it down and cast it aside for the powerless illusion it really is. And let us seek the true God, whose riches endure forever.The ApplicationWhat then should be done? The application will be different for us all. But the commonality will be that as we worship the true God and recognise the futility of riches, we will recognise the relative value of our wealth in our own lives – to buy food, to procure shelter, to pay for things that will give us enjoyment, to share with others, to give to the church, to leave an inheritance to our children. We will see the good that wealth can do but we will also see the terrible temptation that it puts before us.This is why Christ appears so harsh in the story. A man has been robbed of his inheritance. Surely Christ should be on the side of justice? But, no, instead he sees into the man’s heart. Just as he sees into our hearts. “Be on your guard against all covetousness." You say you trust in God and worship him alone but how much does heart cleave to the number in your bank account? How are you shaken when it is not what you had hoped? How difficult you find it to be generous because wealth has a hold upon your heart and you are really trusting it to keep you safe from all danger? How much is your mind fixed simply on procuring more and more and more?The solution, once again, and very simply, is to be rich, as rich as possible. But to be rich towards God.I will finish with the words of the Apostle John, ‘Do not love the world or the things in the world…For all that is in the world – the desires of the flesh, and the desires of the eyes and pride of life – is not from the Father…And the world is passing away along with its desires, but whoever does the will of God abides forever’ (1 John 1:15-17).May you abide in him. May you be truly rich in him.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. 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“Lord, teach us to pray.”Our Gospel reading this morning begins with Jesus praying in a certain place. When he finishes, one of his disciples makes a request: “Lord, teach us to pray.”At these words our ears should prick up for a couple of reasons. Firstly, we may be aware that there is no comprehensive account of the spiritual practices of Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospel accounts. We are sometimes given hints as to how he cultivated his relationship with God – not least his frequent withdrawals to the so-called wilderness or deserted place – but there is no ten-step guide, no celebration of the disciplines of Christ that we may follow exactly. So passages like this are as close as we will ever get to a how-to guide from Jesus.Secondly, we may have some intuition of the notion that prayer is what we so desperately need as human beings. “God’s breath in man returning to his birth,” in the words of George Herbert, “Softness, and peace, and joy, and love, and bliss”. It is only the arid desert of late modern western secularism that we have lost all sense of prayer and of its centrality to human existence. Prayer has become an esoteric, even weird, practice that certain “religious” people enjoy but which most people see as an irrelevance to daily life and something to be called upon only at times of extremity and, even then, perhaps not.But what if we are wrong about all of this? What if prayer is really the doorway not only to a relationship with God but to an entirely new vision of reality? As William Blake said, “If the doors of perception were cleansed, everything would appear to man as it is, infinite.” And how, but by prayer and the cultivation of a spiritual sensibility, can the doors of perception be cleansed? How can we obtain a higher vision of reality but by prayer? I have no doubt in my mind that this, and nothing less, is what is offered to us by Christ.Let us also recognise Christ is not only teaching his disciples how to begin at prayer but how to continue in it. He is not only teaching the ABC but the A to Z of prayer. Prayer is the ultimate democratic exercise, because it is given to each one of us, not only to the spiritual elite or to the ordained. It is a calling from our Father to cultivate our relationship, so often neglected, with him.Perhaps you are new to prayer? Perhaps you did it once but do it no longer? Friends, I encourage you to listen now, not to me, but to Jesus. For he will teach you – very practically – how to begin and to begin again. And not only to begin and to begin again but also to continue on.The Lord’s PrayerLet’s think then about this most exalted prayer of all, the so-called Lord’s Prayer. In Luke, we have a simplified version to that which we find in Matthew. To my mind, this makes it all the better.To begin, let’s see to whom this prayer is addressed: a single word, “Father” – not even “Our Father” as it is in Matthew. This speaks of God’s personal relationship to us as his children. And the point here is not that God is as one of our earthly fathers in all of their flaws and weaknesses. But that the very best earthly fathers, with all of their love and compassion, are as nothing compared with our Heavenly Father.Consider this if you doubt God’s love for you. Remember the words of Psalm 103: As a Father shows compassion for his children, so the Lord shows compassion to those who fear him. Remember the story of the Prodigal Son and of the loving Father, whose eyes scanned the horizon as he awaited with a longing heart only for his child to return. Your heavenly Father waits for you also to come to him in prayer. This is the God you approach.Secondly, the content of the prayer. It is quite simple: there are five requests.The first request asks quite simply that God’s name be hallowed: that is, that in our own lives and in the lives of the people out there in the world, that God’s name would be honoured, respected and loved.The second request is like it: that God’s Kingdom would come. It is perhaps helpful here to refer to the more familiar form of the prayer found in Matthew: that the Kingdom would come and God’s will would be done in earth as it is in heaven. In heaven, God’s perfect reign is established in life, joy, love and infinite bliss. We are praying, then, that would happen here in this world now.To speak personally, this is where I often pause because it seems the apex of the prayer. It must be applied first to my soul: may thy kingdom come here, now, in love and joy and peace and goodness and all the fruit of the Holy Spirit, in me. May thy Kingdom come in my family, my acquaintances, in the church, in the nations of the earth.And let’s notice also before we come to the other requests that this is the most exalted request of all: that we experience the presence of God’s Kingdom – that foretaste of the bliss of heaven of which I spoke last week – now. This level of contemplation is the highest point of prayer because it is a direct communion with God himself, not for what he can give us but only for his presence.And yet this is more. We move to specific requests for ourselves and for this life: Give us this day our daily bread. In other words, give us that which is necessary, what is needed for us, for each day.Do not try to conceal from God your needs and your worries: he knows them already. Elsewhere in the New Testament we are told: ‘Let your requests be made known to God’ and ‘Cast your cares upon him for he cares for you’. Let him know of your needs. Christ commands us to ask.Forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us. This speaks for itself really and it reminds us that for us to be forgiven by God we must extend the same love, mercy and goodwill towards those who have wronged us. That is easier said than done and that is why we must pray for God’s help.And, lastly, having commended ourselves to God and asked him for everything that we need: Protect us, deliver us from evil. May we not be complacent about the fact that we face a powerful enemy who stalks around like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour. We must recognise that in our own strength we are vulnerable and so we need God’s protection.But how do we pray?Christ has taught us what to say – to ask for his Kingdom to Come and to ask for what we need from him – his presence, our daily bread, forgiveness and protection. But how should we pray this prayer? What does it mean?I have some suggestions, and I am here speaking in the context not of liturgical prayer – that is, the kind of prayer that we all pray together – but in your own personal moments of prayer. Again, observe just how simple this tool is that Christ gives us. Any one of us today, if we do not currently pray, can take this tool and put it to use right away.Firstly, you could simply find a quiet place, focus your mind by closing your eyes and observing a couple of moments of silence. And then you can pray the prayer straight through. It will only take a few seconds. That’s one way, and maybe that is a good place to start. If that is what you feel you can manage then do it. And maybe you might want to do it two or three times a day.And secondly, you could pause after each phrase or couple of phrases and elaborate either in words or in the silence of your heart. As an example, take the request for daily bread. Ask yourself what you need – material, physical, spiritual, emotional – and then ask God for those things. Perhaps you are struggling to offer forgiveness to someone. Name that person in the presence of God at the right moment. Perhaps you are beset by temptation or even an evil habit. Ask God to deliver you. Don’t worry if you don’t have something to say after every phrase. Rather use them as a prompt to pray about what is on your mind and your heart.However you do it I hope that it seems clear to you how to start. Jesus really does want you to begin to pray. So don’t delay.PersistenceI have almost run out of time to talk about the story that Jesus tells following on from the prayer, but just to say a couple of brief things about it. It concerns a man who is sleeping and is rudely woken up by his friend at midnight, telling him that he needs some bread to set before a guest. The sleeping man will not get up at once but, we are told, because of his friend’s impudence he will get up and give him what he needs.Now the point here is not that God is like that man who was asleep but that God is infinitely more inclined to answer our requests than he. If that man, who quite reasonably wanted to stay asleep in his home with his children, would get up when entreated, then how much more will God answer us when we come to him?The great climax of this story is when we are told of the friend’s “impudence”. The Greek word here could also be translated “persistence” or “shamelessness”. That last translation is my favourite.Christ goes on to speak of children, who ask their parents for food. Here it is eggs and fish. But in my experience it is any type of food my children like and which they think might be in the kitchen – apples, oranges, bananas, grapes, cereal, chocolate – the list is endless. They are not embarrassed about it. They feel no shame. And they know that, if they keep asking, they might get what they want eventually.Again, if they get what they want when their parents’ will and resources are limited, how much more will God with his limitless resources and love answer us?But you may ask why this is all necessary: why this shameless, impudent persistence that Christ calls us to in prayer? Why must we not only ask, seek and knock but go on asking, seeking and knocking all the days of our lives?The answer to this is simple: God is not a genie in a lamp or a slot machine that pays out. Rather, he is a Father, and he wants to have an ongoing relationship of spiritual communion with us. It is quite clear that God answers our prayer in amazing, unexpected and wonderful ways. But, when he doesn’t, or when he

The short story of Mary and Martha occurs only once in all of the Gospels. And yet throughout the history of the Church is has attracted much attention. It has been taken to be a commentary on the interplay between the active and contemplative life, with Martha representing the active life of service and Mary representing the contemplative life of prayer and devotion.As such, the questions it poses for us in the modern world are still crucial to our personal and spiritual well-being: How are we to find true rest and happiness? Where and how are we to direct our time and energy? What role does prayer play in the midst of a busy and distracted world?The story begins with Mary sitting at the feet of the Lord listening to his teaching whilst Martha serves. After a while, Martha grows exasperated and asks Jesus to rebuke her sister for not helping, to which Jesus replies with the immortal words, “Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her”.We must attend closely to the words of Jesus here because, as he almost always does, he subverts our expectations in his desire to lead us to true life.Action and AnxietyIn the character of Martha and with only a few words, the author Luke describes our modern condition.We are told that she is ‘distracted with much serving’. The Greek word from which we derive “distracted”, perispao, has several meanings including distracted, pulled away, overburdened. All of this implies a centre from which Martha has been removed, something that is taking her away from where and from what she should be.Later on, Christ tells her that she is anxious and troubled about many things. The Greek here for ‘many things’ here is pollawhich indicates a multiplicity of concerns that replace the one thing that is necessary.Before we talk about that one thing that is necessary consider what is being said here: Martha is being removed, taken away from where and from what she should be by a multiplicity of things. Instead of having a singular focus, her focus is multiple. She has many thoughts swirling through her head, her imagination is filled with, in the words of St Augustine, ‘a confusing crowd of phantasms’. Her body is tense. Her nerves are raw. Her teeth are set on edge. She is, in the words of one contemporary author, trying to make ‘a millimetre of progress in a thousand different directions’.Is this not a portrait of our modern state? Encouraged by our technology to redirect our focus every two seconds, moving from email to email, from social media post to social media post, from channel to channel, desperately seeking interest, enjoyment, validation?Christ tells Martha that she is “anxious” and “troubled”. This word for “anxious”, merimnao, is used elsewhere in the Gospel sin Matthew when Christ gives the Sermon on the Mount: “Therefore I tell you: do not be anxious about your life”. Whatever else Christ wants for Martha, and therefore for us, he does not want us to be anxious, full of care and worry for the things of this world.Although it is certainly true that Martha is doing a good thing – even a very great thing – by welcoming Christ into her home and serving him, she has nevertheless allowed herself to be overcome by anxiety through activity and she has missed the one thing that is necessary.She therefore serves as a warning, a question and a calling to us. In the midst even of our good intentions, how can we find another way?The Good PortionIn contrast to her anxious service, Christ tells Martha only one thing is necessary and that, in sitting at his feet and attending to his teaching, Mary has chosen the better part or the good portion and that it will not be taken away from her. Let’s consider these words.Firstly, only one thing is necessary. In other words, what is truly necessarily is not a multiplicity of things. Nor is a particularly complicated concept to grasp. What is necessary is the presence of Christ and this alone.But this naturally raises the question: necessary for what? And the answer is necessary for whatever it is we are all looking for? What, after all, is the point of all of our activity, our busyness, our service? Surely it is a searching and a striving after life, joy and happiness. One thing is necessary for this, therefore, and that one thing is Christ.Notable thinkers throughout the Christian tradition can provide us with examples here. In his radical autobiographical work, St Augustine recounted his search for life, joy and happiness not in God but in the things that God had made. ‘I rushed upon the beautiful things you had made,’ he wrote as a prayer to God, ‘They held me far from you, those things that would not exist if they did not exist in you.’ As he continued to search for joy, he came upon the gradual realisation that the joy he was seeking for was really the same thing as a search for the Christian God. He had been hearing echoes only, seeing traces of that life, joy, beauty and goodness that is God in his creatures. And, yet, when he came to know the source of these traces, he concluded in the famous words, ‘You have made us for yourselves, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you’.The point I am trying to make here is that we are all seeking the same thing: namely, happiness, joy and life, what is good, what is true and what is beautiful. But it is the good wayfarer who understands that the source of all of these things is ultimately God himself and not the things that he has made. This is the mistake that Martha made: although God was present to her, in her home, she allowed herself to become distracted and therefore lost sight of the one thing necessary.The Final EndNotice I said earlier that Martha’s service was a good, perhaps even a great, work. This is indeed true and we must be careful to promote and not disparage works of Christian charity and love. But contemplation, love for God and the joy of his presence, is the highest and final end of mankind. Not only do we find our home in God but this home is our eternal destiny. And this surely must be the meaning of Christ’s words, when he says that Mary has chosen the better part “which will not be taken from her”.All of our works and activities will cease eventually. But what will never cease is our relationship with God, for whom and with whom we are destined to live eternally. The author of the fourteenth century mystical text, The Cloud of Unknowing, puts this especially well when he observes that Mary’s ‘perfect stirring of love that begins on this earth is of a piece with that which will last without end in the bliss of heaven, for they are one and the same’.Too Heavenly Minded?As I speak of these things, you might be reminded of a criticism that is sometimes made to the effect that a person is too heavenly minded to be of earthly use. What is meant by this is that a person is so busy thinking of God, heaven and notions of transcendence that he cannot in fact apply his mind to any practical and therefore useful considerations.And yet, nothing could be further than the truth, for in the economy of God it is precisely those who are most heavenly minded that are of most earthly use. This truth is captured particularly well by Cardinal Robert Sarah in his wonderful book The Power of Silence. He speaks of a spiritual “pedagogy”, by which he means a pattern that Jesus lays out for us:… we should always make sure to be Mary before becoming Martha. Otherwise, we run the risk of becoming literally bogged down in activism and agitation, the unpleasant consequences of which emerge in the Gospel account: panic, fear of working without help, an inattentive interior attitude, annoyance like Mary’s toward her sister, the feeling that God is leaving us alone without intervening effectively…All activity must be preceded by an intense life of prayer, contemplation, seeking and listening to God’s will…Ours is a time of continual movement which often leads to restlessness, with the risk of “doing for the sake of doing”. We must resist this temptation by trying “to be” before trying “to do”.Friends, as Christians what we have to offer the world is Christ. Above everything else this is what we have to offer. And our acts of service are ultimate to facilitate this sharing of Christ. But the fact is that we cannot share Christ if we do not know him in our lives and if, instead, we have only an interior attitude similar to that which is spoken of by Cardinal Sarah: panic, fear, inattention, annoyance, and anxiety. The world is filled with people whose restless activity inculcates such traits and it does not need more of them.Another way of saying this is that what the world really needs is holiness and holy people who radiate the grace, peace, joy and love of Christ. And this holiness cannot come about unless we first sit at the feet of Christ and are radically transformed by his presence. And it is from there and that place that we can move into the world and offer to the people in it our acts of love and service. But the fact that we have sought Christ first and before, and that we are people who continually seek the face of Christ…this will make all the difference.Come to me…Our story today tells us therefore that we are to be like Mary first and foremost and not as Martha. Mary was like one who heeded Christ’s words, “Come to me all who labour and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gently and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls”. This rest is necessary for our acts of love and service and it is the eternal joy to which we are invited, the joy which we can taste now, even in this passing life.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit <

In one sense, the literal meaning of the Parable of the Good Samaritan is quite clear. We could summarise it by saying that we ought to prove ourselves to be good neighbours to those around us, to those who are in need. Perhaps it is simply this that Christ’s wishes to tell us.But let’s not rush too quickly to this interpretation. Let us consider first the symbolic meaning of this story. The early church was uniform in believing that the Parable of the Good Samaritan was not teaching us simply to love other people. Rather, it is a Parable that teaches us how God has loved us in Christ. This may have been veiled from the minds of the original listeners, but it is nevertheless the truth.The shocking first detail of the story is that it was not the priest or the Levite who stopped to help the man who was in need. These are the ones who we would expect to do so. They are people like me, who wear clothes signifying their religious role. And, yet, they were too busy, preoccupied and disinclined to help a man who was truly broken.The Samaritan, on the other hand, represented an ethnic group and a religious sensibility that was resented by the Jewish people of the time. Christ’s story is subversive because it was the Samaritan and not the religious officials who stopped to help the man who had been beaten and robbed.But, there is an even deeper and more subversive aspect to this observation, which is that, in speaking about the Good Samaritan, Christ was in fact speaking of himself.Consider the words of the great Early Church theologian Origen:‘The priest is the law, the Levite is the Prophets, and the Samaritan is Christ. The wounds are disobedience. The (stable), which accepts all who wish to enter, is the church, The two denarii mean the Father and the Son. The manager of the stable is the head of the church, to whom its care has been entrusted. The fact that the Samaritan promises he will return represents the Saviour’s second coming.’Or the words of St Augustine:‘God our Lord wished to be called our neighbour. The Lord Jesus Christ meant that he was the one who gave help to the man lying half-dead on the road, beaten and left by robbers.’And, again,‘Robbers left you half-dead on the road, but you have been found lying there by the passing and kindly Samaritan. Wine and oil have been poured on you. You have received the sacrament of the only-begotten Son. You have been lifted onto his mule. You have believed that Christ became flesh. You have been brought to the inn, and you are being cured in the church.’It is so important to recognise this level of the story. Without it, the Parable of the Good Samaritan becomes simply a moralistic fable, telling us that it is not our status that makes us morally good but our actions. That message is valuable enough but this is not where God begins with us.The reason for this is because we do not begin in a place of strength and ability. Rather, we begin in a place of weakness and sin. We are like that man who fell among robbers, being stripped of our dignity, beaten and bruised by sin, both our own and that of others. We are helpless in and of ourselves and have no power to heal or save ourselves.The Samaritan represents the work of Christ and, in the deepest sense, the compassion of God for us. He then has had compassion upon us. He has bound our wounds. He has poured on them the oil and wine which cleanses and heals us. He has placed us upon his animal and taken us to a place of safety, refuge and restoration. This is all the work of Christ. And, as Origen tells us, as we are healed and restored within the ark of the Church of God, we await the return of the Son of God, who will bring to us ultimate healing and will bestow upon us everlasting life.Christ is the Samaritan. God wished to become a neighbour to us and he has done so in the coming into this world of Jesus Christ. He ‘wished to be called our neighbour’.Consider for a moment how this might apply to you: What mercy the Lord has had upon you. What forgiveness he has bestowed. What patience and love he has displayed. What providential care he has given to you. How he has brought you through every trial and then to this place. How he has given you strength and provision for each day. All of this is the work of Christ, the Good Samaritan.“You go, and do likewise.”It is from this place of profound gratitude to God and for his love for us that we proceed. And here we recall the answer of the lawyer to the question, “What shall I do to inherit eternal life?” And the response, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbour as yourself.”These two commandments summarise all of the Old Testament Law. To live by them is to fulfil that Law. And yet we must observe their connection. Loving God is not distinct from loving our neighbour. To love our neighbour, we must also love God. And to love God, we must love our neighbour.What I mean by that is that it is the love of God, living within us, that gives us the power to love of our neighbour. When we observe the goodness of God in our own lives and meditate upon it, we are (gradually, slowly) changed inside. And it is this change deep down inside of us that helps us to love those whom God has placed around us.As the Apostle John says elsewhere, ‘Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God…In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us’ (1 John 4:7,10-12).The love of God is manifested now in our love for one another. This is a love which begins with God’s love for us in Christ and is displayed in and through us.Who is my neighbour?Let’s return to this question then, “Who is my neighbour?” This is what the lawyer asked and what he meant was, “Who am I to love? How am I to tell where to place my care and affection?”Christ’s final question turns the question on its head. After telling the story of the Good Samaritan, he asked, “Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbour to the man who fell among the robbers?” The lawyer replied, “The one who showed him mercy.”In other words, the issue isn’t who we deem to be an object worthy of our love and care but on how we can prove ourselves to be a neighbour to others.Again, as Christ has drawn near to us in the Incarnation, we are to draw near to others in love and service to them.The Parable teaches us that these opportunities are often the ones that present themselves to us in the most immediate and obvious way. And, yet, they may be the ones we are least willing to take. In the story, it was “by chance” that the priest and the Levite and the Samaritan were walking upon that particular road. And, yet, we can hear the humorous irony in Christ’s statement here: nothing is “by chance” but all is by the providence of God and according to his plan.It is not then by chance that you are surrounded by the people and places that you are. It is God’s calling to you. It might not be particularly exciting to love your family members, your friends, your colleagues, whoever you find yourself immediately acquainted with, to serve those whom God has put in front of you. But, like the priest and the Levite, if you cannot or will not serve them, then what hope have you in your love and service of others?This is not to say that we ought not to find ways to love and serve that are not immediately obvious. But it is to say that it is almost always the case that there is a family member, a friend, an acquaintance, someone in church, perhaps, who could do with a visit, a kindly word, an act of service, a phone call. Are you willing to pay attention to these people and to respond to God’s calling?I recently read a short parable by Tolstoy. I don’t have time to tell the whole story but suffice to say that it is about an emperor who is trying to find out the answer to three questions:What is the best time to do each thing?Who are the most important people to work with?What is the most important thing to do at all times?His wise men and advisors prove useless in answering these questions, so he visits a hermit who lives in the mountains and asks the questions. But instead of answering them the hermit gets him first to tend his flower beds, and then to help a wild man who emerges from the woods and is wounded. This wild man turns out to be an enemy who was planning on killing the emperor. The emperor’s attendants had recognised him and wounded him on his way. But, being tended to by the emperor, he confesses and they are reconciled. At the end of the story, the hermit addresses the emperor’s initial questions:“Yesterday, if you had not taken pity on my age and given me a hand with digging these beds, you would have been attacked by that man on your way home. Then you would have deeply regretted not staying with me. Therefore the important time was the time you were digging in the beds, the most important person was myself, and the most important pursuit was to help me. Later, when the wounded man ran up here, the most important time was the time you spent dressing his wound, for if you had not cared for him he would have died and you would have lost the chance to be reconciled with him. Likewise, he was the most important person, and the most important pursuit was taking care of his wound.“Remember that there is only one important time and that is now. The present moment is the only time over which we have dominion. The most important person is always the person you are with, who is right before you, for who knows if you will have dealings with any other person in the future? The most important pursuit is making the person standing at your side happy.”And, inde

In our text this morning, we witness Jesus sending out seventy-two people to various towns and places to prepare the way for his coming. He gives them encouragement and instruction which are still relevant for his followers today.“The harvest is plentiful but the labourers are few”What does Christ mean by this statement?To begin with, for those he was sending out, there was great opportunity for the message. Many folks would listen to them. The harvest is plentiful.But does this translate into our own day? Is there receptivity to the Gospel now? I would say that there is.It is certainly true that there is widespread indifference today, and this can be wearying. But we can focus instead on those who are receptive to Christ. And these people do exist.Some of you may have heard the following story:One day, a man was walking on a beach after a great storm. Thousands and thousands of star fish had been washed up on the shore. The man came upon a young boy who was picking up the star fish, one by one, and gently throwing them back in the sea. The man approached the young boy and asked him why he was doing this since there were countless thousands of star fish along the shore. “You can’t possibly make a difference,” he said.The boy picked up another star fish and threw it back in the ocean. “It made a difference to that one,” he said.It is true that we cannot save the whole world. And nor does God call us to. But we can make a difference in what God puts in front of us – to the people he calls us to love, to the tasks he calls us to complete.This leads to the second part of Christ’s statement: “The labourers are few”.I take this to mean that those who are truly willing to respond to the call of God to serve him are rare. Most are preoccupied with other things. And it is certainly easy to be so in our day and age.The question for us, then, is: Am I willing to be available to the purposes of God? To be like the prophet Isaiah, who responded to the question, “Who will go for us?” with, “Here I am, Lord. Send me.”That kind of thing is easy to say, particularly for young and enthusiastic people. But Jesus elsewhere tells us to count the cost before promising things which we are not willing to give.It sounds exciting to put ourselves in God’s service, but it involves a complete commitment: our attention, energy, relationships, finances, food, even our lives.Most profoundly, it involves our willingness to suffer, to pick up our crosses and to follow Christ wherever he calls us to go.Even given this challenge, we can still ask God sincerely, “What would you have me do? Where would you have me go?”And we can ask ourselves, “Is anything holding me back?”“Lambs in the midst of wolves”Christ continues by saying that he is sending out the seventy-two as “lambs in the midst of wolves”. And he continues by telling them, “Carry no moneybag, no knapsack, no sandals, and greet no one on the road.”What is referred to here is the manner of our going out. Consider the gentleness and innocence of lambs in comparison to the aggression and violence of wolves.As followers of Christ and his messengers, we are told to conduct ourselves differently to the world. The world is a very harsh place filled with aggressively ambitious people, filled with anger and violence, filled with selfishness, and, as a result, filled with pain.A lamb sent out in Christ’s name seeks not to add to all of this sin and misery but to be different. To be a source of grace. To be gentle, to be present for and to other people in love, as Christ was.And why does Christ tell his disciples not to take any provisions with them? Literally, here, to teach them to rely upon God’s power and provision. And we can learn a similar thing.It is all too easy to find confidence in the material means of our existence: our money, our intellectual capacity, our status. The established Church very much has this problem. Perhaps we have this problem in our own lives.And yet Christ sends his workers out into the world in weakness and poverty. This reminds us that we are not offering anything to the world except for Christ himself.This might be an encouragement to those who feel weak in themselves. Perhaps you feel weak: tired, unwell maybe, ill-equipped, not knowledgeable enough, not good enough. Many of us struggle with feelings and thoughts like this. But this is no bad thing because it reminds us that God manifests his power not in spite of our weakness but through it. The growth of God’s Kingdom is always a miracle, and it comes about not as a result of our strength but as a result of his power.At the end of his important book, The Benedict Option, the author Rod Dreher tells the story an earthquake that shook the region of Norcia in 2016. Norcia is, of course, the birthplace of St Benedict, who, as the founder of Western monasticism, is one of the most influential people in the history of the Western Church. After the first earthquake in 2016, the basilica of the monastery church in Norcia became too unstable for worship and the monastery buildings uninhabitable. The monks were forced to flee and to pitch their tents in the ruins of an older monastery where they continued their life of prayer. Five days after, more earthquakes shook the region with the strongest earthquake to hit Italy in thirty years coming on Sunday October 30th. This destroyed the fourteenth century Basilica of St Benedict along with every other church building in the region.Prior to the earthquakes, Dreher had been researching the Benedictine monastery in Norcia. He reflects on all of these events in this way:…when I left Norcia earlier that year, I envied the monks the security of their mountain fastness. But I was wrong. There is no place on earth entirely safe from catastrophe. When the earth moved, the Basilica of St Benedict, which had stood firm for many centuries, tumbled to the ground. Only the façade, the mere semblance of a church, remains…Now (the monks) can begin rebuilding among the ruins, their resilient Benedictine faith teaching them to receive this catastrophe as a call to deeper holiness and sacrifice. God willing, new life will one day spring forth from the rubble.The monks saw in this loss an opportunity for deeper holiness, sacrifice and humility. We learn from this story that even the most secure and established safeholds in this life can be shaken. The things that we rely upon can be removed in a single moment. And yet, when this happens, when we feel bereft, there is always a call to greater and more singular reliance upon the power of God.Ask yourself, then: What am I relying upon that is not Christ? What does Christ want to bring you to the end of? What strength? What confidence that is not him? When we let go of these things there is great freedom.“Rejoice that your names are written in heaven.”The final saying of Jesus that I would like to remark upon comes after the seventy-two return from their mission with joy, telling Christ that even the demons are subject to them in his name. Christ’s reply is quite interesting: “…do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven”.We see here a relativisation of what we might think of as ministry success: the fleeing of the demonic powers, the turning of hearts and minds to Christ. Now, of course, there is much joy in this. The great theologian Thomas Aquinas thought that preaching was an even greater joy than contemplation. He said about this that, “It is better to illuminate than merely to shine”.But Christ here wants to caution us against finding our joy primarily in what we are able to do for him. Rather the greatest joy of all – and indeed the purpose of our existence – is to know God. The knowledge of God is available to all – from the greatest evangelist to the most humble and youngest believer. It is offered to everybody.Ministry success comes and goes. Church movements are, at one time, successful and, at another, not so much. But God is always the same and our relationship with him lasts forever.Perhaps, at the end of this, you feel that you have let every opportunity pass you by. Perhaps you have regrets. If that is the case, I ask you to consider this: today is a new day and you still here listening to these words. Today is a day of grace. Today is a day for you to respond to his calling. Today is a day for you to know him.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

The Christian life is to be a follower of Jesus, which means listening to him, being like him, and doing what he did but in our own day and in our own lives.In our passage today, we receive some very deep insight into what this means. This insight is, in fact, so deep that we can only touch on it briefly.To summarise what we just heard, we begin with a Samaritan village rejecting Jesus and his message. The followers of Jesus are angry about this and they invoke the spirit of the prophet Elijah, who called down fire from heaven to consume the prophets of Baal. Jesus, however, rebuked them and led them on to another village.In some manuscripts, a further saying of Jesus is recorded. These days, scholars believe that this further saying was probably not part of the original text, but it is nevertheless interesting. After rebuking the disciples, Jesus said, “You do not know what manner of spirit you are; for the Son of Man came not to destroy people’s lives but to save them.”Then, we have three encounters. The first person says he will follow Jesus, but Jesus reminds him that “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head”. The second person is called to follow Jesus but he wants to bury his father. “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But, as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God,” says Jesus. Finally, someone else wants to follow but also wants to saw goodbye to the folks at home. “No one who puts his hand to the plough and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God,” Jesus responds.I think we can glean at least three insights from this text which speak powerfully to our modern predicament.Dissociate from the Love of The WorldThe first is that we must dissociate from the love of the world. That is, we must not allow the opinion of others and of our message to distract us from God’s calling upon our lives.When the disciples came to the Samaritan village, they may have been excited at the prospect of a successful evangelistic mission. Their hopes were clearly disappointed and they responded with anger, we might say murderously so.Jesus’ response is very telling: Let’s move on to another village. We noted also that a further saying was attributed to Jesus to the effect that had not come to destroy but to save life.The first principle here is that we must be prepared to be rejected and ignored as followers of Jesus. A pupil is not above his master. It’s a hard thing to recognise but God has not promised us success in evangelism or in church growth. In our world today, we experience widespread indifference to the Christian faith and rejection of it.What we are told to do is find fertile ground for the Gospel and to sow the seed when we find it. I believe that this is what is behind Jesus’ saying in the Sermon on the Mount: “Do not give to dogs what is holy, and so not throw your pearls before pigs” (or, more famously, “Do not cast your pearls before swine”). What Jesus means by this, I think, is that many simply will not receive the treasure of the kingdom and so we should expend our energy on sharing it with those who will.In the first letter of Peter it says, ‘Always be prepared to make a defence to anyone who asks you for a reason for the hope that is in you; yet do it with gentleness and respect’ (1 Peter 3:15). The fact that not everyone will ask such questions because many have no interest in the answers. But, for those who do ask such questions, we must have some idea of what we are going to say.Yet, whatever we do say, we must do it with gentleness and respect. That is, the way that our message is delivered must match the content of the message. We must do so with love, respect, gentleness and, very frequently, with courage.So, if you are rejected and ignored for being a Christian, pray for those who do those things and move on to the next place, to the next person who may be willing to receive the treasure of the Kingdom.Find Rest in GodThe second principle I draw from these vignettes is to find rest in God. When a man comes to Christ and says he will follow him wherever he goes, Christ challenges him by pointing out that he is, in fact, homeless, wandering from place to place, without somewhere to lay his head. The implied question is: Are you prepared to do that also? Are you prepared to go without? Are you prepared to take up your cross and follow me?These are all serious questions and it is indeed very easy to say that we are willing to commit ourselves to following Christ and yet to fail to match our words with our deeds.But the deeper point I want to draw out here relates to following Jesus on the road of discipleship. Jesus had nowhere to lay his head. To the eyes of the world he must have looked like a crazy man: poor, homeless, possibly dishevelled and unappealing to those in higher society. His value system was inverted in their eyes. He was a man with different priorities.The fact is, he prioritised the Kingdom of God and his relationship with his heavenly Father above everything else. And this gave him the peace and the joy and the rest that he needed which everybody else looks to the world to supply.It is not just that we must give things up in order to follow Christ. This is frequently true. But we mustn’t lose sight of the fact that are called to give some things up so that we might gain the greatest thing, which is the presence of God himself.Christ had no home but the home he possessed in his Father’s love. This is what we are called to also.In the Late-Modern West, it is very easy to be completely dependent upon our vast material resources. Spiritual disciplines such as fasting and generous giving, teach us to detach ourselves from these dependencies. But they are very deeply rooted in us, so it takes a lot of time.A crucial part of this process is not only to detach ourselves from the things of this world but to cleave to the presence of God. If we can find the presence of God for ourselves and know his peace and his joy in our lives, then we find that we naturally less dependent for our solace and our wholeness on the things of the world. Paradoxically, the things of the world become more enjoyable because they are placed in their proper contexts. We seek them not to make us whole in some kind of ultimate way but as gifts of God which lead us to thankfulness and further joy in him.This is what Christ was inviting this person to. This is what he invites us to also.Don’t Make Excuses…Even Good OnesFinally, we are exhorted not to make excuses, even excuses which are good. We hear two examples: Let me bury my father. Let me say goodbye.We must hold here in tension the fact that elsewhere Christ upholds the fifth commandment, which is to honour your father and your mother, in his dispute with the Pharisees (Matthew 15:4-6). He is not here preaching radical detachment from one’s family. Rather, he is seeing through the excuses that are being made to the real issue, which is truly an unwillingness to commit fully.The first man says that he would like to bury his father. Jesus’ challenging reply indicates to us that sometimes we must put following him even above our own families. Indeed, there are sometimes instances in which our families may try and prevent us from following Jesus: are we willing to prioritise him?The second man says he wants to say farewell to those at home. Christ tells him not to put his hand to the plough and look back. Again, it is very easy to look back to things in the past: our old way of life, the sinful habits that we have left (or are leaving) behind and to see in them something attractive, to feel wistful and nostalgic for what is past. We may look at past regrets, things which make us feel ashamed or guilt. But like St Paul said in the book of Philippians, to be a follower of Christ we must forget what lies behind, if it distracts or hinders us, and we must press on toward the goal of knowing Jesus Christ (Philippians 3:13-14). The fact is, friends, if you have come to know Christ and to be forgiven by him for your sin and given a new life in him, then you really don’t have to be preoccupied by the past anymore. Let it go. Allow it to become something irrelevant to you. You have a new life. You have a new mission. You have a new calling.We can always make excuses. Those excuses can be very good excuses, but excuses nonetheless.If you are rejected, move on to the next village. Find nowhere to lay your head. Let the dead bury their dead. Put your hand to the plough and don’t look back.This is something at least of what it means to follow Jesus.In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

A Legion of DemonsIn great misery and nakedness, he wandered among the graves of the dead. He was in utter wretchedness, leading a disgraceful life. He was a proof of the cruelty of demons and a plain demonstration of their impurity.Cyril of Alexandria, Commentary on LukeThese are the words of the early Church Father Cyril of Alexandria, describing the plight of the man possessed by a legion of demons in our Gospel story this morning. So we begin a journey through the Gospel of Luke on which we will be taken by our lectionary over the Sundays of ordinary time. And we begin with one of the most intense and extraordinary situations of all. For modern, apparently civilised people like us, all of this may sound very strange: a person possessed by man demons, his nakedness, madness, ravings, the chains he broke with superhuman strength, talk of the abyss, and the destruction of a herd of pigs.How do we understand then the plight of this poor man and its relationship to our lives? We can pick out a few thingsFirstly, it is quite clear that this man was living in a Gentile region, and so this would have been his first encounter with Israel’s Messiah, Jesus Christ. We can also see that his torment had lasted a long time and removed his dignity from him, removing him from civilised company and causing him to live among the tombs. So driven and controlled was he by these demonic powers that he could not be bound by a chain, but was possessed of such agitation that he broke free from all physical constraint.When Jesus approached him, the demon spoke through the man’s body. A conversation ensued in the course of which Jesus asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion.”The word “Legion” in context referred to a unit of the Roman army which numbered 5,000 men. How to understand this? Literally, that the man was possessed by many demons and therefore must have been opened in some way to a radical form of evil.But symbolically, we might see here something of the human condition as it is affected by sin. The great Church Father St Augustine spoke of his state before he came to know Christ by saying, “I have become a question to myself”. What he meant by this was that he was confused and tormented by the tangle on contradictory impulses that existed within his soul, desiring at one time one thing and at another time another thing. But, upon obtaining anything, his impulses and desires would shift and he would never come to know the true rest and happiness for which he was searching.We can surely understand, then, what is symbolised by the legion of demons that possesses this man because surely we are all familiar with this sense that we too are composed of many different, shifting and, at times, contradictory desires. We are, in that sense, questions to ourselves, not understanding ourselves – what we need, what we desire, what can truly make us happy and give us peace. And so we follow whichever voice within us shouts most loudly in the hope that, by following, we may find relief.And we might even go further and say that we can fully identify within this man’s torment and the beastliness of his existence. When we think of ourselves in our lowest moments – when we are truly possessed by the impulses of sin in anger, lust, or some other uncontrollable passion – we recognise that we are, in some real sense, possessed by something. We are not in our right mind but have given ourselves over to base impulses which control us and degrade us so that we are not how and what we know we should be.We are invited by our Gospel reading today, then, to step back from ourselves and to observe. What do we see? We know that there are times when we are possessed and controlled by powers that are, in some sense, outside of ourselves, of our real selves. We know that we need God’s help – Christ’s help – to deliver, heal, and restore us.An Encounter with ChristThis is the situation. What is the answer? The answer can only be the grace of God in Christ. Observe how Christ has crossed a tempestuous sea to arrive at the country of the Gerasenes where this possessed man dwells. This man did not seek him out but found him already present to him in his misery and in his death-like state.And so the good news is for us: the grace of God has been made known to us in Christ. He comes to each one of us without our asking him to. He invites each one of us to respond to him in faith. And, as we respond to him in faith – and as we continue to respond to him in faith – we are restored to the image in which humanity was made to begin with, that is, the image of God.In our story today, all of this happens in a flash: Jesus encounters the man and casts out the demons, and then man is simply healed. That is the Christian life in miniature. Jesus Christ is in heaven at present and he has sent his Holy Spirit upon the Church and upon his followers. We encounter him now in lives of prayer, through the Sacraments of the Church, particularly in the Sacrament of Holy Communion, and through the Word of God.We see the effect of all of this in a beautiful image: ‘The people went out to see what had happened, and they come to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid’ (Luke 8:35). Whereas once this man has been naked, undignified and possessed, now he was clothed and given his dignity again. He was in his right mind. The Greek word from which this comes is sofroneo, which speaks of being of sound mind, in possession of one’s faculties, of having wisdom.All of this – this peace, this wisdom, this dignity – comes from the man’s proximity to Christ and his attentiveness to his words.A word of encouragement again: for us, this is a process which takes times. Can I be honest and tell you that I am frequently disappointed with my progress in the spiritual life? Not only with my lethargy, but also with my inability to control my conflicting impulses. Friends, it is the same for all of us. Do not wallow in shame, but come to Christ and allow him to heal you and to bring you back to your right mind. It’s all here for you in the manifold grace of God which he has given to his Church.A Word on What Happens NextFinally, a word on what happens next. The man asks to accompany Jesus on his way, but Jesus will not allow it. How often we feel that we would like to remain in a state of pure spiritual contemplation but we are denied it by the clamour of the world and the demand that daily life places upon us!Here also, being healed of his demonic possession, this man is able to play a role in the Kingdom of God. This too happens to us: as we grow and mature in our faith, God is able to use us in the Church and in the world to advance his Kingdom. When we are possessed by evil, we can only think of ourselves and our own base desires and needs. No responsibility is given to us, nor should it be. But, as we grow in holiness, we are given more to do. This is the deal. It is the law of the Kingdom of God. Jesus himself says this later on in the Gospel of Luke: “Everyone to whom much was given, of him much will be required” (Luke 12:48).What is the job Christ gives to this man? ‘“Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him’ (Luke 8:39).The mission is no different for us: to proclaim what Christ has done for us. But, friends, let us not be burdened by this task, as though the Church is nothing but a religious pyramid-scheme and we the miserable underlings who are called to propagate an arbitrary message to bring in the customers. It can sometimes be communicated like that and feel that way.Rather, let us observe the order: recognition of our own lostness and our need for Christ, the gracious balm of his presence, our own growth in holiness and wisdom, and then the commission: go out and let the world know all about this Jesus. Let your light so shine before men.Now, of course, life is not always so simple that things progress in such a linear order but I think there is a great truth here. In order to share Christ with the world, we must first have encountered Christ in a of tangible way. When we encounter his love and his goodness, we sense his life and his power living within us and it becomes natural for us to share him with the world. We resemble him. We look like him. Speaking of his love and goodness becomes not a burden, but a joy, flowing out from us like a river from the ocean or like a beam of light from the sun.Friends, are you tormented in your soul? Let me exhort you to come to Christ, sit at his feet, allow him to turn you around, heal you, bring you back to your right mind and to a place of peace. And then, to go out into all the world and share his goodness with those are similarly in need.In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

Pentecost 2025For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel: “In returning and rest shall ye be saved, in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength.”Isaiah 30:15The Turmoil of the World and the Silence of God ContrastedIn silence, not in the turmoil and noise, God enters into the innermost depths of our being. Father Marie-Eugene de l’Enfant-Jésus was right when he wrote…“This divine law surprises us. It goes so much against our experience of the natural laws of the world. Here below, any profound transformation, any great external change produces a certain agitation and noise. The great river, for example, reaches the ocean only by the sounding onward rush of its water.”Cardinal Robert Sarah, The Power of Silence: Against the Dictatorship of NoiseHow right Cardinal Sarah and Father Marie-Eugene are in these observations: what is considered worthwhile by the world is always measured in visible, often frantic activity, and in ways that be quantified, counted, evaluated, often in financial terms. Significant achievements are things that can be pointed out: great works of physical, economic or bureaucratic infrastructure.And we almost always think of ourselves and our own lives in this way too: what is valuable about me and what I am is what I produce, what I can be seen to be doing by others, maybe also by God, maybe by myself. Every movement, every action is rushed, every step speaks of a desire to get further along a path to somewhere else. When we stop for a moment, it might seem that we struggle to be present to the place we are and to who we are.Cardinal Sarah goes on: ‘If we observe the great works, the most powerful acts, the most extraordinary and striking interior transformations that God carries out in man, we are forced to admit that he works in silence.’Indeed, when the Prophet Elijah sought the face of God, he found what he was looking for not in a great wind, not in an earthquake, not in a fire, but in a still, small voice.The Holy Spirit’s PeaceI point this out because it brings us face-to-face with the question of Pentecost: that day when God poured out his Holy Spirit upon the early believers and the Christian Church came to birth. Many things are said about the person and work of the Holy Spirit in the New Testament, but I want to focus on only one theme this morning, that which is spoken about by Jesus in our Gospel reading:“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things…Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.”In context, this saying comes after the disciple Philip has asked Jesus for reassurance and more broadly in the atmosphere of anxiety created Jesus’ talk of him leaving the disciples.Again, everyone can relate to this context in a general sense: our lives are characterised by uncertainty, agitation and anxiety. It is part of the human condition, but it is also part of the modern condition.I think of a TV programme from the nineties I used to watch. It was called ‘Stressed Eric’. It is about a man called Eric Feeble, a forty-year-old divorced father living in London. His daughter Claire is 6 and allergic to nearly everything. His son Brian is 10 and has learning difficulties and a fixation with putting everything in his mouth. His au pair Maria is an unreliable 18-year-old with a drinking problem. And his ex-wife Liz, now a Buddhist, constantly nags him. His wealthy and snobbish neighbours, the Perfect family, highlight his weaknesses. And in his workplace he has to contend with a rude and overbearing boss, Paul Power, and a useless secretary, Alison. As the events of his life grow ever more stressful, a vein throbs and pulsates on the side of his head.Imagine how much more stressful Eric’s life would have been in an age of smart-phones and ubiquitous broadband internet and email.In the modern world, we exist under the threat of constant demands upon our time and focus. Our attention can be fragmented and fractured in a hundred directions with the touch of an iPhone or the opening of a laptop. This is profoundly bad for what has come to be called our “mental health”. And it is no coincidence that, since the release of the iPhone in 2007, rates of depression, anxiety and suicide have skyrocketed amidst young people.It seems to me that, as our technology has developed, our ability to live wisely has diminished. We have the capability to contact one another from across the globe. We can access any information about anything at any time. But we are missing the one thing which is necessary, which is the ability to flourish as the people we were created to be.In contrast to all of this, Jesus offers us peace, a peace not as the world gives. “Let not your hearts be troubled,” Christ tells us. The word for troubled in Greek is tarasso, which means to be stirred up, disturbed or unsettled – again, a familiar feeling in today’s world.This peace is also a silent peace. And this is because the work of the Holy Spirit is a work that happens within us, unseen by the world.And here we might reference our reading from the New Testament for this morning: ‘For you did receive the spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received the Spirit of adoption as sons, by whom we cry, “Abba! Father!” The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God’ (Romans 8:15-16).In other words, the Holy Spirit reassures our hearts that we are God’s children. But, again, this is not something that can be represented in a slideshow or quantified on a spreadsheet. It is the silent and interior transformation that the presence of God brings about in us.And I must stress at this point that this reality – the peaceful, silent, patient interior transformation of the Holy Spirit – is often something that the Church itself works against. This is because even in the Church we can be too busy, too rushed, too concerned with frantic activity and with the attempt to prove ourselves. We too embrace the performance mindset with a terrible effect upon our spiritual healthBut the great truth is that the work that God wants to do in us is mostly achieved not through frantic activity but by the patient opening of ourselves to God’s presence and through attentive listening to interior voice of the Holy Spirit.The Peace of ContemplationPerhaps you hear these words of Christ – “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give to you” – and you desire to know this deep peace. How can we receive it?We involve ourselves here in something of a paradox, described by the writer of the book of Hebrews who writes: “Let us therefore strive to enter that rest.”There is, in other words, an aspect of this search which involves slowing down, stripping back, and switching off. But there is another part of it which involves an active seeking after the presence of God.And here we can talk about the discipline of silence: silence is at once the greatest challenge and the greatest peace. It is the greatest challenge because, if we spend time in silence, we are confronted with who we really are: with our anxious thoughts, with our wayward desires, with our frantic minds. Sometimes when people begin to engage the discipline of silence they realise just how loud is the noise within their heads. It can be almost too much to bear. As Blaise Pascal said in his Pensees: ‘All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone’.And yet, it is only in the place of silence that we can truly come to know this peace of which Christ speaks. This is not a reward for sitting still, but the result of quieting the mind and the heart, so that these frantic and demanding voices are diminished and so that the presence of God within us can be made known. I believe that this is the meaning of Jesus’ words in John 14:16 when he speaks of the Holy Spirit: “You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you”. And elsewhere when Jesus says, “The Kingdom of God is within you” (Luke 17:21), which expresses a similar truth.That truth is that God is already present to your soul. He is already within you, which means that the Kingdom of God is within you. Why then do you not feel him? Why do you not know him? It is not because you have not found him out there somewhere in the world but because you have not noticed him dwelling in here. And you have not noticed him because the noise is just too loud and because you have not yet cultivated an inner silence.I invite you, in closing then, to the contemplative life, to the practice of silence, solitude, and prayer. If you have not practiced these things then, never fear, you can start at any time. Again, you already have everything you need to find this peace within you. You have only to begin the journey.In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

After the AscensionThis Sunday falls directly after the celebration of the Ascension of Christ last Thursday. We find ourselves liturgically in the in-between time after Christ’s going away and before his sending of the Holy Spirit upon the Church.The fact that Christ ascended into heaven and left the disciples without his physical and singular presence raises the question: How will God be manifested in the world now? What witness is there of the truth of the Incarnation and the Gospel after Christ has been taken up? The answer is simple, and we see it in our passage today.In this passage, we hear the prayer of Christ, of Son to the Father. He prays for ‘those who will believe in me…that (through them) the world may believe that you have sent me’.God is no longer visible to the world as he was when he walked the earth in the person of Jesus. You can no longer visit him, or feel his physical touch, or hear his audible voice…except through those who will believe in him. That is, through the Church, through you and me. We are Jesus’ body on earth now. The task is ours to witness to the world of the reality of those things we believe: that he was born, that he manifested God’s love and wisdom to the world, that he died for all, that he was raised again, that he was taken into heaven. We are God’s representatives to this truth.The Oneness as a WitnessHow will this truth be manifested to the world? Through the oneness of those who believe:“I ask…for those who believe in me…that they may all be one…so that the world may believe that you have sent me.”The conclusion we draw here is that the oneness of the Church will be a witness to the world. With the implication that division in the Church will impair the Church’s witness. So we had better have a think about this oneness – what it is and how to get it – so that we can more clearly speak of Christ.What does this Oneness consist of?Some English translations use the word “unity” here where ours uses “one”. I like “one” better. First of all, it is a direct translation of the actual Greek word “eis”. And, secondly, because it speaks more clearly of what Christ goes on to say.“Unity” may or may not speak of intimacy, of love, of the dynamism of a shared life.But “oneness” does. Think of the way we might speak of “oneness” today. How might we use that term? Perhaps the most readily available example is that of a husband and wife who have become “one flesh”, “one body”, almost one person as their lives have been brought together in a radically new way.How does Christ pray that believers should be one? We can pick out three things, which are all aspects of the same reality:Firstly, the oneness of Father and Son in their relationship with one another: “…that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us.”Secondly, a unity of glory: “The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one.”Thirdly, this idea of glory is linked to the love between Father and Son: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”The fathers of the early church wrestled with passages like this and others which appear to speak of a very close identity between Jesus, God the Father and the Holy Spirit. After some time, they eventually formulated the doctrine of the Holy Trinity. This doctrine tells us that there is a oneness in God which is shared by three persons – the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. And theologians like St Augustine spoke of Holy Spirit as the “bond of love” between the Father and the Son, that is the way by which the Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father.Doubtless we speak here of a reality that is far beyond our comprehension. And yet the amazing thing is that we called by God to be a manifestation of the oneness of the Holy Trinity here on earth today.Let me put it this way: the best way of understanding what the Holy Trinity is, is to look at the Church at its highest, as the love of God is manifested between those who believe in Christ.There are lots of questions that such a statement might raise in our minds. When we say the words “the Church” we often think of bishops releasing statements about political controversies or synods arguing about theological and ethical issues. Without wishing to dismiss any of these things as a complete irrelevance, let’s shift our focus to the real world and to real things. Think of the warmth and love that you have experienced through the Church, through this parish maybe, or others you have attended. Perhaps you’ve not experienced it too much, but you’ve seen it. And, even if you haven’t, I can guarantee you that it is there and that, imperfect though it is, it is unlike anything else in the world.How do we achieve this Oneness?I’ve said so far that Christ prays for the oneness of believers. I’ve said that this oneness is a manifestation of God’s love as he is in the Holy Trinity. And I’ve said that the Church can therefore teach the world about who God is through the love of believers.That’s a lot to take in, but we need to say one more thing about how we might achieve this. To begin, let me say that this is the work of a Christian lifetime. It is not done in an instant and it takes time, commitment, patience, faith. But we ought to be encouraged by the very existence of Christ’s prayer and the fact that through the Holy Spirit we have it recorded for us: the oneness of the Church is something Christ desires and which must be at least partially achievable.I want to say that there are individual and corporate aspects to this oneness. And I will here use an analogy from football.Imagine that you are part of a great football team like Barcelona or Bayern Munich or Manchester City. Experts will know that, in recent years, all three of those teams have at one point been overseen by perhaps the greatest manager of the modern age, Pep Guardiola.Now, as an individual player, how can you bring about the greatest level of oneness in a team managed by a visionary like Pep? There are two ways: firstly, you sit at Pep’s feet and study his ways. You become a follower of Pep. You become his disciple. You hang on his words. You spend as much time as you can with him. Eventually, his philosophy goes so deeply into you that you start to resemble him, not just in your playing but in your way of life.What’s the second thing? The fact that you are becoming like Pep in this sense connects with the rest of the team, who are (hopefully), all doing a similar thing. If a player is not learning from Pep and doing his own thing this will bring a lack of oneness. It will bring division. The team will not play as well. But, if all of the players are connected to Pep in this way then they will be more united, more connected to one another, and the team will be a manifestation of his footballing philosophy. It will be, in that sense, one.Forgive me for comparing (even by analogy) Pep Guardiola to the Holy Trinity. But there is something here I hope that is helpful. Individually, we are united to God in Christ and through the means of grace in our Christian lives – through prayer, study of Scripture, meditating either silently or upon God’s Word, through the sacraments, through corporate worship, through fellowship with one another, through lives of obedience and holiness. This starts with you and me, with God’s calling and our response. The Church as a whole can’t do this for us.But it is through this work of personal transformation that we contribute to the life and oneness of the Church. We are made one with other believers who are on the same journey, undergoing the same process, which is referred to in the theological literature as “sanctification”. That is, becoming holy, becoming set apart for God.Why can we not do this alone? In the case of Man City it is because they must play as a team because those are the rules of football. But here we might want to give a slightly more theological answer. As I have already said, the way that God is manifested in the world now is through the Church. And God is not a single, solitary unity, alone and unloved until he created people to love and to love him. Rather, God is a dynamic community of Father, Son and Holy Spirit in eternal union, oneness and joy. And that is why the Church must be both individual and corporate, both one and many…because that is how God is.And do we not feel something of this God-like life when we gather together? Sometimes church is hard, of course. We are feeling tired. Or something we are doing doesn’t go well. And so on. But, at its highest, is it not true that we can sense at least something of the presence of God here amongst us in our shared love of one another, in our shared love of Jesus Christ, and in our shared unity of purpose?Indeed, God is here. This is very gate of heaven. Or, at least, it is as close as we will get until we enter the reality of which this is but a shadow. In the meantime then, let us fulfil the longing of Christ’s heart: that we may be one – that we may be one with God and that we may be one with one another in holiness, purpose, and love.In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

Guest preacher Fr George Westhaver, Principal of Pusey House Oxford, speaks about the way that Jesus communicates the life of God to his people. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

Could this be heaven for everyone?When you were at school you may have read George Orwell’s novel Animal Farm. The story is about a hostile takeover of a farm led by two pigs called Snowball and Napoleon. The animals have come to believe that their human owner is an oppressor and that they can create a much freer and equal society by throwing off his yoke and running the farm themselves.But, of course, once they have secured control of the farm, the lofty ideas drafted by the elite porcine liberators are quickly watered down until their meanings have been changed or reversed altogether. Certain things that the pigs said were not permitted became permitted. Other things that were said to be permitted were banned. And certain slogans were produced that seemed to contradict those they went before: “Four legs good, two legs bad” became, over time, “Four legs good, two legs better”. And “All animals are equal” famously became “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others”.Animal Farm is about our seemingly innate desire to build a heaven on earth. If only we could change this or that change, implement this or that philosophy, we tell ourselves, we can do it. And, yet, every time we try, we fail, and we fail with catastrophic consequences.The reason for this is because we attempt to bring heaven to earth without the help of God as a manifestation of human pride. We attempt to use politics to do what only God can do, which is, as our passage from the Book of Revelation today tells us, to make all things new.Joseph Ratzinger, who would become Pope Benedict XVI, said, ‘Wherever politics tries to be redemptive, it is promising too much. Where it wishes to do the work of God, it becomes, not divine, but demonic.’The Heavenly CityIn Revelation 21, we see the end of the story of the whole Bible: the complete recreation of the cosmic order. Did you know that the ultimate Christian hope is not just that our souls will go to heaven when we die but that the entire universe will be recreated and that we too will be recreated? Even our bodies, which decay and die in this life, will be raised up again to live in this new world.Revelation shows us this: the old heaven and the old earth pass away and a new heaven and a new earth are created. And then we see a very strange image: the holy city, the new Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. This is the literal coming together of heaven and earth. The image of a bride and her husband implies a nuptial union between this world that we live in now and the heavenly realm. We cannot possibly understand this in any detail but we do know that God promises to dwell with his people. And we are told in a great promise that in this place there will be no more tears, for God will wipe them away from every eye. There will be no more mourning, nor crying, nor pain, for the former things will have passed away.It is no coincidence that this reading is chosen for the Easter season: when Jesus stood up and walked away from the tomb, he began a project of cosmic renewal. Again, not just so that we would live forever in a spiritual realm, but so that the whole of the universe might be redeemed from the curse of sin which it came under back at the beginning of the story.And this, friends, is the answer to that human longing for heaven on earth, which is so often manifested in a prideful attempt to do it on our own. From the very beginning God has been coming down to earth: walking in the Garden of Eden and beckoning to Adam and Eve, descending to Abraham, Moses and the Prophets to call a people for his own possession, and ultimately, taking the form of man in the coming of Jesus to this world in the incarnation.The point is that we cannot lift ourselves up to God. We need God to come down to us. And this is not just for no reason. It is so that we might be lifted up to him. Another aspect of the end of the story that is often not spoken about enough is that God does not intend just to save us, but to unite us with him, making us like him, so that we might even share something of his divine nature. The Eastern Orthodox call this “theosis” or “divinisation” and it is summarised in the great church Father, Tertullian’s statement, “God become man, that man might become God.”The truth is that we can become God-like: but it is a gift, a salvation that is offered to us in Jesus, not something that we achieve without God and in our own strength.Thy Kingdom Come…You might be wondering what the practical implications of this are: Should Christians be involved in politics if we cannot really achieve our aims? Would it be better to withdraw and focus on more spiritual matters? I’ll not wade too deeply into these waters today, but one thing I will say is that, without God, our efforts are limited at best and, at worst, can be extremely destructive.This is because the greatest need that we have in the world is not a change of a societal or political structures but a change of the human heart. Think back to those pigs in Animal Farm: they intended at first to change things for the better. But the wealth and material privileges that they were confronted with tempted them and distorted their initial good intentions. Their hearts were bad, and this was a more fundamental problem that the initial oppressive conditions of the farm. They would be become tyrants and overlords on a scale much more wicked than even the original farmer.The same is true of all of us if we were put in charge. Friends, we don’t need a new system. We need a new heart. And this is something that we can all work on, regardless of whether or not we are politically engaged. Indeed, it is something we must all work on because this is what it means to follow Christ: it means to become like him and to be changed into his image from the inside-out.Think of the prayer that Jesus taught us: “Thy Kingdom come. Thy will be done. In earth as it is in heaven.” It relates to the passage from Revelation. There we see the moment when that prayer is fully fulfilled.How could God fulfil it now? What does it mean when we pray that prayer? I would suggest that a good way of praying it is as a prayer for oneself: God, change my heart. May heaven begin here and now in me. May I be a manifestation of something that comes from above in this world here and now to the people who are around me.This prayer is also a prayer for the Church. For the Church at its highest is indeed a manifestation of the heavenly realm, as we join together in worship and the celebration of God’s goodness to us. It is also heaven-like when we love one another in the way that Jesus commands in our Gospel reading today: “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another.” If we seek to fulfil that commandment, with the help of God’s grace and the power of his Holy Spirit, truly we will be manifesting something of the heavenly realm here on earth today.“Behold, I make all things new…”Just to finish, I’d like to mention this beautiful moment in the reading from Revelation as the one who is seated on the throne announces, “Behold, I am making all things new.”As I have already said, this newness in all things will only fully come at the end of history. But it has also already begun now. And, in a sense, the reason that many of us are here today is because we have already tasted of that newness, that freshness, deep down things, as the poet Gerard Manley Hopkins said. We know that the world is weary and needs to be remade. And we know that we ourselves have a similar need.I found faith for myself as a young adult at university. I’ve had to consider this story recently a few times because I’ve been asked about it and I’ve written about it. A very significant part of my journey was my first experience of going to church at that time. I’d been to churches before but the experience I had of the vibrancy of the community and the love of the Christians I met for one another and for God was not something I had ever experienced before. Almost instantly I fell in love with the church. And even though being involved in the church is often extremely painful and takes you to the point of despair, I have never stopped loving it, wherever I have found it in my life and in whatever manifestation.When one has been part of the Church for a long time, it is easy to forget what a wonderful and beautiful and special thing it is. There is nothing like it out there in the world. We are gathered together not because we are like one another but because we are called to worship Jesus together and to be signs of his love in the world. And we are empowered to do this by his very Spirit which is given to us in this worship, through his Word and in the Holy Sacraments. This is truly unique. This is truly fresh. This is truly good newsThis is my desire for myself and for you as individuals Christians. And it is also my desire for the Church, and for this church in particular: that you and I and we together might be a witness to this new thing that God is doing in Jesus. This new love which he has manifested to the world in Jesus, particularly in the laying down of his life upon the cross. And this hope to which he calls us: of a world that will one day be enveloped in his love, renewed, remade and restored.May we, friends, be a sign of this hope and an outpost of the divine in this place, putting away anger, malice, slander, hatred and rivalry, and instead taking up love and charity, forgiveness and reconciliation, service and self-giving. This, indeed, is that way that heaven can be manifested upon the earth.In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit

The Raising of Dorcas to LifeThe readings that take place in the Octave of Easter are all about people coming back to life. Today’s reading from the book of Acts is an example. The story is simple enough: a disciple of the way called Tabitha dies for no apparent reason. Some other disciples hear that the Apostle Peter is nearby. Peter comes, puts out the mourners, kneels down and prays. Then he says to her, “Tabitha, arise”.‘And she opened her eyes, and when she saw Peter she sat up…Then, calling the saints and widows, he presented her alive.’This story, in almost all of its details is remarkably similar to a story that people told about Jesus when he walked the earth. In that story, it was a little girl, the daughter of a ruler of the synagogue named Jairus who died as Jesus was on his way. Like Peter, Jesus went into the house of the dead girl and put out those who were mourning and went in to her. Jesus took her by the hand and said, “Talitha, cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise”.‘And immediately the girl got up and began walking (for she was twelve years of age), and they were immediately overcome with amazement.’For all the similarities there is a crucial difference: in the story of Peter, Peter kneels down, interceding and beseeching God to raise this girl from the dead. In the story of Jesus, Jesus does no such thing. Unlike Peter, Jesus simply takes the dead girl’s hand and says two words, “Talitha, cumi”. This is most important because it indicates that even the great Apostle Peter never possessed the authority by himself to do what he did. Only Jesus of Nazareth, who truly was the Christ of Israel, could command the power of death with only a word and death itself would flee at his voice.This power that Jesus demonstrated is the same power that enabled him, after his bloody and awful crucifixion and after his three days lying dead in the tomb, simply to stand up and walk away. The Christian claim is that this power is still at work today in this world and that we can know this power in our own lives.A Great Multitude from Every NationWhat about our reading from the Book of Revelation? Anyone who is familiar with this book will know that it is laden with symbols that can be very confusing, even for those who have knowledge of Scripture. What we can see quite clearly here is that John, who wrote Revelation, is a having a vision of heaven:‘After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!”’Now, the Lamb here is a way of talking about Jesus, who is not a literal lamb but one who was slain as a sacrifice for sin as a lamb might have been in Old Testament times.Let’s put these two readings next to each other: the story from Acts and the vision from Revelation. We might rewind slightly the story from Acts to the beginning of that book. The disciples were, at that point, a small band. They had indeed seen the risen Jesus and they were waiting for the promise of the Holy Spirit, though they did not know what this meant. They were waiting, tiny in number and alone, probably scared that they too might be targeted by the Roman authorities, certainly not a group that imagined that they would have some kind of significant impact upon the world.How is it that this tiny band of believers grew to the great multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language that the Apostle John describes in the Book of Revelation? What happened in between to make that possible?It is very easy in the secular West to dismiss Christianity as a spent force, to believe that the Church is in decline, that one day soon it will no longer be of relevance and that some other over-arching philosophy or even religion perhaps might take its place. We can have the overconfidence of a Richard Dawkins, who was famously pictured wearing a t-shirt that said, ‘Religion: Let’s end it together.’ Or we can be like the famous intellectual sceptic Voltaire, who, in 1776 said that, “One hundred years from my day, there will not be a Bible on earth except one that is looked upon by an antiquarian curiosity-seeker.” And, yet, if Voltaire had lived another fifty or so years, he would have found that his former residence in Geneva was then being used by the Evangelical Society of Geneva as a repository for Bibles and religious tracts.He may also have been surprised to find out that, in 2025, Christianity would be the largest religion in the world, with over 2.4 billion adherents, or approximately a third of the human beings alive at the time. Some other surprising facts: the growth of Christianity is particularly strong in Sub-Saharan Africa, which has grown over about a hundred years from 9 million to 734 million adherents. In Asia, over the same time period, adherents have grown from 28 million to around 460 million. In Latin America, the amount of Christians is projected to reach 686 million by 2050.What about apparently intellectually and scientifically superior Western countries like Britain? Even here the decline of Christianity and the secularisation of our nation appears to be reversing. A 2024 report by the Bible Society, ‘The Quiet Revival’, found a surprising 56% increase in church attendance across all age groups between 2018 to 2024. Among Generation Z (ages 18-24), attendance quadrupled from 4%-16%, with young men now outnumbering young women, reversing a significant historical trend.Friends, do not be discouraged. Aslan is on the move. Jesus is alive and he has not abandoned his Church. He is with us still.Knowing JesusAnd this leads me, finally, to our Gospel passage, John 10. It reminds me again of the remark of C.S. Lewis to the effect that, if we really listen to the claims of Jesus, we cannot simply say that he was a nice moral man and a good teacher. He was either a liar, making up claims about himself to garner fame and wealth; he was a lunatic, believing himself to be God; or he is truly Lord, and what he said about himself is to be believed and followed.Listen to some of his words: “My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all…I and the Father are one”.Jesus speaks here of a relationship that he establishes with his sheep, with those who follow him and trust him. He says that he knows them and implies that those who follow him know him also. Now he is not speaking here only of those who would follow him at the time. As he says, “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.” This is a relationship that endures, beyond Christ’s cross, tomb and resurrection. It is a relationship that endures throughout history and even beyond death. Indeed, it is a love that is stronger than death. The love of God given to us in Jesus.Unlike English, many languages have two words for knowledge. A language like French, for example, indicates that you can knows things or people in different ways. In French the two words are ‘savoir’ and ‘connaître’. ‘Savoir’ is about ideas, skills, factual knowledge. I know how to change the tyre on my car. I know how to put together a budget. Whatever it is. But ‘connaître’ means something quite different: it speaks of personal knowledge, relationship with another person, love, even intimacy. Indeed, if I may be so bold, in the Old Testament, when a couple enjoy intimacy together, they are said to know one another. This knowledge is connaître, the knowledge of personal relationship and often of love.This knowledge is the kind of knowledge of which Jesus speaks in this passage. The Pharisees were the religious experts of their day. And they accused Jesus left, right and centre. But this was because it turned out that they only had a technical and rigid knowledge of the Scriptures and of God. There was no love in their hearts. It was a knowledge that only existed in the mind. And so they did not hear the voice of God in Jesus.But when Jesus speaks of knowing him, he speaks the language of connaître, that is he invites us to hear his voice, which still speaks today; to love him and to trust his words; to follow him, like a sheep follows a shepherd. And it is this knowledge, this love, intimacy, trust, this following, that will bring us eternal life.One final distinction here: the New Testament speaks of two types of life. One is biological and is called bios. The other is spiritual, eternal life, and is called zoe. For every human being, our parents give us bios, which is natural life. But only God, and only Jesus Christ, can give us zoe, which is supernatural life, life animated by the power of God himself, the kind of life that does not perish when bios ends, but which endures forever. This is the kind of life that deep down we all long for, and this is the life that is offered to us in Jesus. This is the life that is offered to you today.Now, we hope and pray that Persephone (and all of our children) will know God in both ways – savoir and connaître – and will know not just biological but eternal life. Parents and godparents – like all Christian parents – your role is to supply Persephone with teaching, encouragement and godly example. You will be as a sign of God to her, the best you possibly can be, saying sorry to God when you get it wrong and trying to do better by his grace. But you must know that, in the end, it is only the power of God in Jesus that can make Persephone’s heart come alive to him, that can bring her to spiritual life. And, so you must, along with all of these other things, pray for the power of the Holy Spirit. For without him, you can do nothing.Imagine you are lik

The Greatest Paradigm ShiftJust over three-hundred years ago, people saw the world through Isaac Newton’s eyes. Newton described a world that was regular, clockwork, where things were entirely predictable. Gravity pulls things to the ground, objects move in straight lines, time is the same for everyone, everywhere. It was a clockwork universe.But in the beginning of the twentieth century, this view of reality was fundamentally changed by a man called Albert Einstein who developed what was to become his world-famous theory of relativity. Einstein shocked the world by demonstrating that not everything obeyed Newton’s laws. When things are moving extremely fast, for example, or when they are affected by extreme gravity. Huge things like the sun warp space, and light can bend around stars in such circumstances. Time itself can stretch or shrink depending on how fast you are moving. If a rocket zooms through space at near light speed, time moves slower than for someone standing still on Earth. In short, this theory demonstrated that our view of time, space and motion all depend on where we are and how fast we are moving. Everything is relative. Nothing is fixed.Einstein’s theory of relativity changed everything. Previously the world had been seen as a stage set on which nothing moved. Now, it was as though the stage was constantly shifting, and the sets were being changed and the props were being moved around. The map of reality was being redrawn. And it was no surprise at all to find out that many people struggled to accept it.When asked to explain the theory of relativity, Einstein said, “Put your hand on a hot stove for a minute, and it seems like an hour. Sit with a pretty girl for an hour, and it seems like a minute. That's relativity.”I speak of this because I am trying to demonstrate something of the strangeness and the wonder of the resurrection of Jesus Christ. His rising from death was the moment when absolutely everything changed. The Jewish people had expected that the Messiah would be a warrior-king who would lead the sons of Israel to victory. Even when Jesus explained to his disciples time and time again that he would rise from the dead, they could not understand what he was saying. Their picture of the world simply couldn’t fit that fact in.What was needed was an entire paradigm shift, a reordering of their reality. They would need to let go of the old certainties and embrace an entirely new vision of the world. Their thinking was far too small. God’s plan, you see, was not simply to overthrow the Romans and liberate the Jews. His plan was to redeem the entire universe through the conquest of sin and death.The Preaching of the ResurrectionIn the Book of Acts, whenever the early Christians get a chance to preach their message to anyone, they always include as a central fact the resurrection of Jesus from the dead. Our reading today is an example of this and a very good summary of the early Christian message. What does the Apostle Peter say to his listeners?- He begins by telling them that God wants to reach everybody in every nation.- He speaks of Jesus preaching good news of peace, being baptised and anointed with the Holy Spirit, doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil.- He tells of Jesus’ crucifixion, that he was put to death by being hung on a tree.- ‘…but God raised him on the third day and made him to appear, not to all the people but to us who had been chosen by God as witnesses, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.’- He has been appointed by God to judge the living and the dead, the prophets bear witness to him and everyone who believes in him will receive forgiveness of sins through his name.Doubtless, there is lots to unpack there but let’s consider this claim that Jesus was raised from the dead. Now Peter is not saying that Jesus’ corpse was reanimated and that he was just like a normal man walking around again. Something far more incredible than that had happened. Jesus had been raised by God to a new kind of life, a life animated by the power of God himself, a life from another dimension, an indestructible life that would never be snuffed out.Pagan MelancholyIt's certainly true that the pagan world had conjured up myths about the conquest of death and had even suggested that the soul of a person may survive death and migrate to a heaven-like realm. But, in the end, the world into which Christianity was born was tinged by melancholy and despair. The great spiritual writer Robert Crouse described the picture of that world like this:We must ever keep an upward course, we must cultivate the virtues, and be discipled by suffering; but we must know that, in the end, there really is no end, no final paradise for us. That is the nature of things, the everlasting order of the universe. We can make our idols, to be sure, our eternal empires and universal panaceas; but we cannot but suspect that they have feet of clay, and when we see that, the issue is despair.Robert Crouse, Images of Pilgrimage: Paradise and Wilderness in Christian SpiritualityAs we reflect upon these things, do we not see a similar mindset in our world today? There are differences, of course, but we too make our idols and soothe ourselves on notions of goodness and morality, whilst we medicate ourselves with food, drink and modern technology, all the while knowing, somewhere deep inside, that none of these things can answer the deepest questions and provide rescue from the ultimate enemy, which is death itself, and the annihilation of all our hope and life.In one of the greatest films ever made, Clint Eastwood’s Western ‘Unforgiven’, the aged gunslinger William Munny reflects upon a recent assassination he and his younger associate the Schofield Kid have just undertaken: “It’s a hell of thing killing a man. You take away all he’s got and all he’s ever gonna have.” This is what death does to all of us. This is our caste of mind. This is our picture of the world. Unless there is something else, something more.The Implications of the ResurrectionAnd the resurrection of Christ says exactly that. In Christ’s death and burial, we see our own. We see our dying moment. We see our funerals. We see our gravestones. But, in his resurrection, we see something else also: a future hope beyond the final enemy, beyond that taking away of everything we have.Just like the theory of relativity, the resurrection completely changes our view of the world. For a start, we realise that Jesus is not dead but he is, in fact, alive. On Easter morning, we shout with joy, not, “He rose!” but “He is risen!” Present tense. Because it is still true today. Jesus is alive. He reigns in Heaven with God the Father. He is present to his Church through his Spirit and in the Holy Eucharist. He dwells with us in our love for and joy in one another.Secondly, the resurrection teaches us that we can trust Jesus. When he told people that he was Israel’s Messiah and that he would rise from the dead, that prediction proved correct.When Jesus made this prediction – the most outrageous, outlandish prediction you can possibly imagine, “I am going to be killed and rise from the dead after three days” – he got it right.If he was right about this, surely, he is right about everything else also. Surely, we can trust him with our very selves, with our very lives.And the final thing to say about this is that the resurrection of Jesus gives us hope. Hope that death is not the final word in God’s universe. In perhaps the greatest passage on the resurrection in all of Scripture, 1 Corinthians 15, the Apostle Paul tells us that Jesus’ future is bound up with our own, and that, as Jesus was raised from the dead by the power of the Holy Spirit, so those who put their trust in him to save them from death will be raised up and given everlasting life and joy.And this, friends, is why we have as our Old Testament reading this morning, Isaiah 65, a vision of a universe completely restored, indeed a vision of this universe interpenetrated by the heavenly realm itself, a new heavens and a new earth, a heavenly Jerusalem, a vision of the life and the world that we have always longed for but perhaps never believed might just be true:“For behold, I create new heavens,and a new earth,and the former things shall not be rememberedor come to mind.But be glad and rejoice foreverin that which I create;for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy,and her people to be a gladness.”Isaiah 62:17-18The fact is that Jesus’ resurrection is the beginning of this new world, the beginning of the new creation, the pivotal moment at which it was proved beyond doubt that there is a power in the world stronger even than the power of death. What is that power? That power is the love of God.And, friends, this is the most wonderful thing: even today, even now, especially now upon this Easter morning when we celebrate this joyful happening, we can taste something of that power, that life, that love which would not abandon the soul of Christ to the grave but raised him victoriously in his triumph, never to die again. We taste this power in the joy of our Easter celebration.Christian, do you suffer? Do you labour? Are you losing the will to go on? Are you in pain? Are you wondering if there is any hope at all in this tired and weary world? Take heart. The tomb is empty. He is not there. He is risen. See the place where they laid him. As the great hymn says: Death is conquered! Man is free! Christ hath won the victory! Alleluia! This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com

“Behold, my servant shall act wisely;he shall be high and lifted up,and shall be exalted.”The Exaltation of the Suffering ServantAbout seven-hundred years before the time of Jesus, the prophet Isaiah spoke of a servant of God who would be exalted, before whom kings would shut their mouths. But when we read the text of Isaiah 52 and 53, we see no ordinary exaltation. What do we see?His appearance was marred beyond human semblance, his form beyond that of the children of mankind. He had no form or majesty that we should look at him, and no beauty that we should desire him. He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief, as one from whom men hide their faces. He was despised, and we esteemed him not. He was oppressed and he was afflicted, like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, like a sheep before its shearers is silent, so he opened not his mouth. By oppression and judgement, he was taken away, and as for his generation, who considered that he was cut off out of the land of the living?What kind of exaltation is this?Friends, there can be only one answer to this question. It is an answer that the Apostle John knew very well and referenced frequently in his Gospel: ‘"And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.’ He said this to show by what kind of death he was going to die"’ (John 12:32-34).In a word, this exaltation – so contrary to all expectations - is the exaltation of the cross of Jesus Christ. And it is fair to say that this type of exaltation was – and remains – a mystery and a great shock when we consider it.Those of us who have walked the Stations of the Cross already this morning have heard of Christ’s suffering. We see it too in the book of Isaiah and in our Passion reading. How he was betrayed, arrested, beaten, spat upon, scourged, nailed to the cross, and finally crucified, dying slowly in agony, suffocating almost to death as his legs gave way under the pressure of his own weight, and eventually pierced in the side with a Roman spear, so that blood and water flowed from the wound.What can we say to these things? How are we to make sense of them? The Song of the Suffering Servant in the Book of Isaiah helps us.We see in this passage that the suffering of this servant was not without purpose. It was not just bad luck or a cosmic accident but it had an end in mind. We find it here, in the heart of the passage. We may even call this the very heart of the Bible itself.“Surely he has borne our griefsand carried our sorrows;yet we esteemed him stricken,smitten by God and afflicted.But he was pierced for our transgressions;he was crushed for our iniquities;upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,and with his wounds we are healed.All we like sheep have gone astray;we have turned – every one – to his own way;and the LORD has laid on himthe iniquity of us all.”Isaiah 53:4-6This passage tells us about ourselves: that we are full of grief and sorrow, that we are not at peace with God, and that we are in this condition because of our iniquity and transgression. The other way of putting this is to say that our sin has separated us from God who is the source of all life and goodness. We are far away from him and we need him, yet we cannot know him as he intended because we have rejected him through our sin and lawlessness.The suffering of this servant, then, is for us, that this situation might be changed, that we might be brought to peace with God and reconciled with him. And the servant does this by carrying our sorrows, by being pierced for our transgressions, by being crushed for our iniquities, by having the iniquity of us all laid upon him by the LORD.We see here a clear vision of the cross, and we understand that the suffering of Jesus was undertaken out of love for us. He was indeed pierced by the nails that fastened him to the cross. He was crushed under his own weight as he was crucified. He did not open his mouth when he was led away, but continued in silence as his sentence unfolded. His grave was made between two robbers, and he was buried in a rich man’s tomb. The Suffering Servant is Jesus. And the death that he died upon the cross was for us, so that our sins might be removed and so that we might forgiven by God and reconciled to him.The AtonementThe theological term for this event is the atonement, when the sins of the world were atoned for by the sacrifice of Christ. In the New Testament and in later times, people have tried to make sense of this, to understand how it works and what exactly it means. There are various theories of the atonement that attempt to explain it. And you may be wondering about that yourself at this very moment. I would like to say two things in response.I start with some wise words from CS Lewis’ Mere Christianity:We are told that Christ was killed for us, that His death has washed out our sins, and that by dying He disabled death itself. That is the formula. That is Christianity. That is what has to be believed. Any theories we build up as to how Christ’s death did all this are, in my view, quite secondary: mere plans or diagrams to be left alone if they do not help us, and, even if they do help us, not to be confused with the thing itself.The point Lewis makes is a good one: not to get bogged down in the theories of how it works, but to focus on the cross itself, the act of redemption that happened there. ‘That is what has to be believed.’ We may not understand exactly how, but we trust that this is indeed the truth: Christ’s death for us has saved us if we will ask for God’s forgiveness and be reconciled to him.But there is one further point that I would like to make. All through history, human beings have offered sacrifices to the gods or to God in the hope that the divine realm will look favourably upon them. We have this instinctive sense that giving something up – sacrificing it – for God is like an offering, we might say a gift, to him. The thing we go without is the thing that is offered to God.The Mosaic Covenant – that is the Law given to Moses – told the priests and people of Israel to sacrifice many things – animals, crops, food. But we also know that none of these sacrifices were significant enough in themselves to remove the sin of the people. And this is why they would have to be renewed so often.The Cross of Christ reveals a startling truth about all of this, which is that there is only one gift, one sacrifice, one offering, that can truly remove our sins from us. There is only one thing of the most surpassing value that can be offered to God for us, to redeem us. And that thing is the life of God himself in Israel’s Messiah, Jesus Christ. Only Jesus, who was fully man and fully God, who lived a perfect, pure and spotless life, only his life was precious enough to accomplish our redemption.The great medieval theologian and Archbishop of Canterbury, St Anselm, called the atonement a gift that surpasses every debt; that, in its infinitely precious worth, it is enough to satisfy the justice of God that all sins can be forgiven, cancelled, and washed away. Anselm said, "The life of this Man [Christ] is of such surpassing worth that it is sufficient to pay the debt for the sins of the whole world, and infinitely more."Approaching with ConfidenceSo what is our response? We find something of it in our New Testament reading: ‘…since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us…’ (Hebrews 10:19).We approach God now not needing to sacrifice anything further that we might be forgiven and know his love. We approach him on the basis that the sacrifice has already been made, the battle has been won. When Christ cried out upon the cross, “Tetelestai!”, “It is finished!”, he meant that his mission had been accomplished, the atonement had been made, the gift given, the debt paid, and forgiveness and eternal life purchased forever.What is left for us to do now is simply to approach, on the basis of this grace in which we stand, entrusting ourselves to God, believing him that he will forgive us our sins on the basis of Jesus’ Cross. Not through our own righteousness, or our own goodness, or our own sacrifice, but because of him.This is why this day can truly be called “Good Friday”, because, although the worst thing in the history of the world happened on this day, yet through the mercy and the providence and the power of God, the mystery was revealed, and it turned out that all of this was for the redemption of world.Give thanks, friends. Venerate the cross with me. The glorious cross of Christ on which hung the salvation of the world.Amen. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit holytrinitywinchester.substack.com