Acts 1.6-14; 1 Peter 4.12-14; 5.6-11; John 17.1-11

Today’s Gospel reading comes from John’s account of the Last Supper. After the meal, Jesus first teaches his disciples and then moves into prayer to God his Father. Today’s words came from that prayer.

We need to take seriously the themes of that prayer - in some ways it is Jesus’s last testament to the world. In his conversation with the disciples he foretells his betrayal, gives the new commandment to love one another as he has loved them, he predicts Peter’s denial and talks of his forthcoming departure.

He then explains that when he goes he will not be leaving them on their own for the Holy Spirit will come, and moves on to a reflection on the vine and the disciples’ need to remain rooted in him.
After that he concentrates for a bit on the fact that they will face opposition, moves on to what the Holy Spirit will do and acknowledges that his disciples will feel pain and will suffer, but that joy will come again.

And then he moves into the prayer from which we heard this morning. At the end of today’s passage, Jesus ask for God’s protection for his disciples “So that they may be one, as we are one”. Jesus clearly recognised the threat to unity that existed for the first disciples and has exited throughout history for Christian.

Christians frequently disagree with each other. We only have to look through the pages of the New Testament to see how this has been part of Christian life from the beginning.

There were the disputes about circumcision and whether it was necessary; there were arguments in the Corinthian between those who followed different leaders; there were problems between Jewish and Gentile Christians; between rich and poor; people fell out with one another, and truly struggled with unity.

And this has not changed through the ages - churches have split and divided; Christians have left one church and gone to another; or stopped going altogether for reasons such as “we didn’t like the vicar”. I find it comforting to know that Jesus recognised that unity was going to be hard.

And today we are facing a lack of unity, not only between people of different Churches, but also within our own Church, the Anglican Communion.

As I’m sure you are all aware, the key issues splitting the church at present are the role of women - whether they may be priests and bishops; and the debate about homosexuality and whether gay people can be accepted as part of the Church or not.

I’m not going to talk this morning specifically about those issues, but I hope that we can reflect together on what causes disunity and divisions, and what behaviour contributes to unity.

First, some of the causes of division. One major source of disagreement is how one should interpret the Bible.

Some believe that it must be taken literally at every turn, particularly the New Testament.

Others believe that interpretation is much more a question of looking at the context in which words were spoken and written originally and then addressing how those words might be applicable to us today in our very different society.

Others would say that what was relevant for the first century is not relevant for us today so we shouldn’t take too much notice of biblical injunctions.

And it is hard to see how people who interpret the Bible differently from each other will ever come to agree. But agreement with someone and living in community while accepting difference are two separate things.

Splits come when people decide that they can no longer live with those who disagree with them. The differences in ethics or doctrine mean that they think Christianity is being watered down by those with whom they can’t agree, so they leave to form their own community, where they can be sheltered from those whom they see as not real Christians.

But difference in belief is only one part of the problem. There are people in churches - many of them - who live happily side by side with people who have differing views on interpretation of the Bible, on doctrine, ethics and so on. So something else must also be causing disunity.

I had a think about this as I was writing this sermon, and some of things I came up with were: a fear of those who are different or believe different things; a sense of feeling threatened by those who believe different things; being hurt by the attitudes of others; impatience; closed minds; self-righteousness; pride; an avoidance of the other.

There may well be many more. But all these things pull people apart. Fear and feeling threatened by those with whom we disagree can lead us to want to have nothing to do with them.

Being hurt by others can lead to wanting to run away and avoid those who have hurt us. Impatience leads to an unwillingness to talk and listen to those who have something to say.

Closed minds means that we have trapped ourselves by an unwillingness to learn and change and grow in faith.
Self-righteousness is a fault of those who are very quick to judge others, but unable to take, as Jesus said, the log out of their own eyes.

Pride can lead to an ability to accept that we might be wrong. Avoiding those with whom we disagree means that all dialogue is halted.

Clearly Jesus though that unity was important. So, what can enhance our unity with others. The starting-place must surely be acknowledging what we have in common. That’s not sweeping under the carpet the fact that we might disagree with someone, but we may realise that we have more in common with each other than what separates us.

For Christians our unity is in Christ.

All Christians are part of Christ’s body - think about Paul’s words to the Corinthian Church - “The body does not consist of one member but of many. If the foot would say ‘because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it less a part of the body. And if the ear would say ‘because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body. If the whole body were an eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where would the sense of smell be? But as it is, God arranged the members in the body, each one of them, as he chose.” And Paul goes on to stress that it is the weaker members of the body that should be treated with most honour. Usually when a church splits, it is those who see themselves as strong who take themselves off elsewhere.

Unity is enhanced too when we recognise that what we have in common is also the grace of God. And God shows no impartiality when it comes to grace.

As Paul reminds in the letter to Romans - “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.” A counteraction to self-righteousness is the recognition that we too are in the wrong.

Something else that helps unity is when we come together with those from whom we hold different opinions. By coming together, we can learn from each other as we listen and come to a deeper understanding of the others’ point of view and why they think what they do.

When we understand more, it is usually easier to be more compassionate, and not just condemnatory. I’m always saddened that it isn’t only the conservatives who condemn the more liberal - often people at the more liberal end of the church can be just as vitriolic in their condemnation.

A humility and a willingness to learn from others is also important when we disagree with people. We may not change our views but we then again may. It is always worth holding in our minds the fact that we may be wrong.

But I think the three most important builders of unity are love, forgiveness and prayer. When we face those with whom we have difficulties with an attitude of love, the love for another becomes more important than the difference of opinion.

The New Testament contains injunction to encourage one another. Nowhere does it say knock down people not the same as you, tell them they’re useless, moan about them. Always it is about loving and encouraging others.

When we are willing to forgive those who are perhaps insensitive to us and what we think and feel, we can begin to build community again.

And prayer is the most important of all, for what sustains us in our faith is our relationship with God. What ensures that we can be held together by God’s grace and our trust in Christ is prayer. It is the starting-point of our relationship with God for it is how we sustain that relationship. And it is through sustaining that relationship and growing as a Christian that we will become more able to love those with whom we disagree, to care for those who are different from us, to encourage and not condemn.

Being at unity is about more than not falling apart. It is about creating a community where all are valued, where all are loved, where everyone is equal because they are children of God.

And as a unified community, we will be far better witnesses to the world of Christ’s love and Christ’s reconciling work than we ever will be falling out with each other.

Acts 1.6-16; John 17.1-11

Last Thursday, the Church celebrated Ascension Day. Today’s first reading is one of the two biblical versions of that story. In times gone Ascension Day was a day that most Christians celebrated - I expect there are people here today who remember going off to church from school for a service - or even having a half-day off.

My secondary school always had a service - outside. Or at least it usually started outside; on several occasions I remember having to up sticks half way through in order to remain dry when the heavens opened and sent down rain. And in France, they still have it as a Bank Holiday.

Sadly, Ascension Day now is little remembered. In this benefice only 9 people, one of which was me and one of which was the organist, came to our service.
And yet, Ascension Day is a key festival in the Church’s year. It’s a continuation for the Easter story - the day when we remember Christ going up to heaven to take his place at God’s right hand. The day when Christ takes on the mantle of his kingship.

But the Ascension is not only important for Jesus. It was the day on which Jesus handed over his ministry and work to his disciples - the day of their commissioning. Their work was to become Jesus’s witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth. No small task.

But a task that they managed to do. Ten days later, when the promised Holy Spirit came upon them, they were filled with God’s life and energy, and set about the task Jesus had set them - to be his witnesses, to tell his story, to show his love in their words and deeds.

Had they failed to act and continued staring up into the sky then we would not be here today celebrating Libby’s baptism.

And baptism and the Ascension are linked - the Ascension became the day of the disciples’ commissioning; our baptisms are the day of our commissioning. In baptism we are made full members of Christ’s Church, and with that membership comes a call, a call to do as the disciples were called to do - to be Christ’s witnesses, to tell his story and to show his love in words and deeds.

Libby is obviously too young today to be able to put this into action for herself. But her parents and godparents are taking on a big responsibility in the promises and commitments they are making today. It is mainly through their example as she grows up that she will initially learn about what it means to live as Christian.

And today brings a reminder that it’s not just Libby who is being commissioned. Those of us who have been baptised have a responsibility to the community of Christians into which we were baptised. There is a role and a task for every member in the Church; some of us are very clear about what that means; others will need to do some more exploring.

But we cannot get away from the fact that the message of the two men - Men of Galilee, why do you stand looking up towards heaven? - is one for us too. We can’t just stare into space wishing Jesus were here still, doing all the work. We too must stop hanging about and get on with living our Christian lives.

It’s interesting that we’re told the disciples work began with prayer. After they left the spot were Jesus ascended and returned home, they and others, constantly devoted themselves to prayer.
I hope that Libby will learn to pray as she grows up, for prayer is at the heart of any relationship with God, for it’s how we communicate with God; it’s how we come to know God for ourselves.

A baptism is a good time for all of us who have also been baptised to think about our own Christian commitment too, and how we have responded to the commission to witness to Christ that comes with membership of the Church.

The two main things to witness to are God’s love and God’s forgiveness, both of which are inextricably linked with baptism. When we baptise Libby with water, we are symbolising God’s forgiveness, God’s ability to wash away the effects of what we have done, the things we have done that have harmed others or that have not been up to God’s standards, the things we have said that have caused hurt - and, of course, we have to remember that Jesus taught that even our unloving thoughts are things for which we need to ask forgiveness.

And God’s love is also an integral part of this service. God’s love for the child he has created. God’s love for all of us, which is why he forgives us when we get it wrong. Loving parents know that when their children do something out of step, they don’t stop loving them. God is the same; God’s love for us never ends in spite of what we do, and that’s part of this celebration of baptism.

My hope for Libby is that she will grow to know God’s love for herself, that she will see it lived out by those whom she loves, that she will experience forgiveness for herself. My prayer too is that she will learn to pray and become part of the church community, and as she grows, to accept the commission that her baptism brings to be a witness to Christ’s love in her words and actions. Amen.

Acts 2.42-47; 1 Peter 2.19-25; John 10.1-10

If we see pictures of Jesus depicted as a shepherd, they are usually quite namby-pamby, soft and gentle ones. He might have a lamb around his shoulders, but more often than not, he’s also dressed in a white nightie, perhaps with a crook, and usually with a gentle, loving expression on his face.

It’s very much an idealised picture, and quite far from the reality of what being a shepherd would have been like in his time.

A shepherd in those days lived a dangerous life. Shepherds needed to be men of courage. They were usually rough rather than refined; in coarse and dirty clothes, rather than diaphanous white, pure garments.

They lived on society’s margins, were not able to take part in Temple worship since they were considered ritually unclean, and were often considered to be dishonest men.

So, why did Jesus choose to liken himself to a shepherd?

It’s imagery that goes back a long way before Jesus himself. Today’s Psalm reminds us of that. Possibly written by King David, it certainly originated hundreds of years before Jesus. At its purest, shepherding is a good image for leading the people. A shepherd guides, cares for, defends and nurtures the sheep. That too could be seen as the role of a leader.

But the major problem was that the leaders of Israel often didn’t live up to the shepherd-ideal. Their sheep, the people, were often badly treated. If we look through some of the teachings of the prophets, we see their denunciations of these shepherd-leaders.

Zechariah has harsh words from God for the shepherd-leaders who detested the Lord, and talks of a shepherd “who does not care for the perishing, or seek the wandering, or heal the maimed or nourish the healthy, but devours the flesh of the fat ones, tearing off even their hooves”.

Ezekiel complains about the leaders of his time in these words: “Thus says the Lord God: Ah you shepherds of Israel who have been feeding yourselves! Should not the shepherds feed the sheep? You eat the fat, you clothe yourselves with the wool, you slaughter the fatlings: but you do not feed the sheep.

“You have not strengthened the weak, you have not healed the sick, you have not bound up the injured, you have not brought back the strayed, you have not sought the lost, but with force and harshness you have ruled them.”

But this passage, though, is not one without hope. Ezekiel continues his message from God. “Thus says the Lord God: I myself will search out the sheep, and will seek them out. As shepherds seek out their flocks when they are among their scattered sheep, so I will seek out my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places to which they have been scattered on a day of clouds and thick darkness.

“I will bring them out from the peoples and gather them from the countries, and will bring them into their own land; and I will feed them on the mountains of Israel, by the watercourses, and in all the inhabited parts of the land. I will feed them in good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel shall be their pasture; they shall lie down in good grazing land, and they shall feed on rich pasture on the mountains of Israel.

“I myself will be the shepherd of my sheep, and I will make them lie down, says the Lord. I will seek the lost, and I will bring back the strayed, and I will bind up the injured, and I will strengthen the weak.”

So, when earthly leaders fail, God will be there.

This is what Jesus is fulfilling. Ezekiel’s prophecy is being worked out in the life of the Good Shepherd. The imagery of the passage we heard from John is not straightforward, since Jesus talks about being the gate, rather than the shepherd, though if we were to read on we would see how the imagery changes.  But though the pictures change, one thing is clear - Jesus is making out what makes a good shepherd.

Let us pick up on some of what he says.

First, a Good Shepherd is one who knows his own sheep. To most of us, one sheep looks pretty much like another. Though I’m sure farmers know the differences between their sheep, most people don’t spend enough time with them to know them properly.

I was watching sheep in Dorset last week, and, though I wasn’t taking much notice of individuals, the only differences I could really tell you about were between the lambs, which we small and frisky, and often wandered around in pairs, and the older sheep, who were less full of life and more often than not on their own, unless they had their lambs with them. The other major difference from field to field was the colour of the dye on their backs, marking to whom they belonged.

In the time of Jesus, they didn’t use dye to mark out their sheep. A genuine shepherd knew his sheep well enough to know their personalities, their idiosyncrasies, the qualities that mark one sheep out from the next. And likewise the sheep become able to recognise the voice of their own shepherd.

Second, a Good Shepherd leads their sheep devotedly. They seek out the best grazing land for their flock, they defend them from wild animals, they guide them away from dangerous precipices, and in Jesus’s time, they would lead their sheep from the front. As a shepherd would lead and the flock follow, so Jesus leads those who choose to follow, through narrow paths and safely guides them.

The imagery so far concentrates on what the shepherd does for the sheep. The shepherd provides and cares, and guides.

When Jesus speaks of himself as the gate, the imagery shifts to concentrate on the response of the sheep. The joys of the sheepfold are there for all who enter it by the gate. The fold is where the sheep will find protection and safety. As a sheep that walks through the gate finds itself in the security of the fold, so those who put their trust in God through faith in Jesus find a deep security, far greater than anything worldly could give.

We have hope in these words. But, there is also a warning contained within John’s passage. The warning is that there are others who try to gain our allegiance. The world is full of voices that shout out for us to follow them. I’m sure we can think of some, people or issues that demand our attention, and offer to fulfil us.

Each of us will have different tempting voices, calling us to put our trust in them - for some it’s the lure of celebrity and adulation; for others money; for some it’s power or injustice; laziness or apathy; selfishness or the cult of no-time.

We too are faced with other calls and it can be hard to keep listening for the voice of Jesus, which sometimes seems to be drowned in the noise of the world around. But what Jesus offers, for those who follow, for those who listen to his voice, is an abundance of life that nothing else can bring.

I come that they may have life, and have it abundantly. In this Easter season, we continue to reflect on what that abundant life means.

Irenaeus, who lived in the second century, said that “the glory of God is a human being fully alive.” The resurrection brought Jesus back from the dead, and restored him to abundant life. The resurrection is also about our restoration to abundant life. We do not yet have this fully, but the promise of Christ is that that is what he has come to bring.

To ensure that we receive this abundant life, let us tune into the voice of the Good Shepherd and follow his pathway and leading. Let us be sheep who hear the voice of our shepherd, who do not become distracted with other noisier, demanding calls, and who put our trust fully in Christ, that we too may have life, and have it abundantly. Amen.
(with thanks to Derek Tidball’s Meeting the Saviour BRF 2007)

Acts 7.44-60; 1 Peter 2.2-10; John 14.1-14

I wonder whether you have ever had the experience that I frequently encounter where you are in the car in a place you don’t know, quite happily following signposts to where your destination or a specific place on the journey that acts as a marker from which you want to go on, when suddenly that one place disappears from all the next lots of signs - and the next one. Perhaps you’re at a roundabout and there is no indication at all as to which exit you should take.

And, if you’re anything like me, you pick the wrong one and end up getting lost. And, because you’re lost and don’t know where you are, the map doesn’t make a great deal of sense, either, since in order for a map to work, you need to know where you are starting from.

It reminds me of that old Irish joke, which I’m sure you’ve heard before about a man asking for directions. “Well, if I were you,” comes the response, “I wouldn’t start from here.”

The feeling of being lost, whether we are talking about physically being lost in a place we don’t know or an emotional sense of lostness where we’re not sure where our life is leading, is an unsettling and disconcerting one. It can be quite a frightening experience - I will admit to several occasions where I’ve ended up in tears because I’ve been driving on my own in the dark and have ended up thoroughly lost. Being lost certainly can induce in us a sense of being our of control.

Jesus is talking with his disciples in our Gospel reading about going home. He talks about being in his Father’s house and preparing places for his disciples so that he can take them there too.

It’s a reading that is very often read at funerals - it’s one of the standard ones given in the Common Worship order for the funeral service, and if we look at it carefully we can see why it is appropriate for such a service. The idea that there is place prepared in the Father’s house is a comforting one that gives hope that though there has been a death in human terms, the life of the person who has died still goes on elsewhere.

I was told by a funeral director of a clergyman who had three funeral sermons. The first involved a train. When we leave a station on a train, the people on the platform wave us goodbye and we disappear from their sight. They know we are still there, but they cannot see us. His second sermon made the same point, though the image was a boat sailing over the horizon. And I’m sorry to say that I can’t remember what the third was except that it involved a dog - don’t ask me - but also relayed the same message as the boat and the train. What that cleric was trying to do, of course, was to get across the message that, though death is a separation, life goes on elsewhere.

Jesus went home so that we also have a home to go to. What is a home? A home is a place in which we belong; a place of security and freedom; a place, if we’re lucky that we share with those whom we love.

A home is a resting-place, a place to which we can retreat from the busy-ness of life. Now some of those boundaries become muddled, because our lives are so complicated and many of us these days work from home, which confuses the boundaries. But at heart, a home is a resting-place.

Our heavenly home is something to which we can look forward. We know that Jesus has gone before us. Thomas is worried about getting there - he hasn’t got a map, he doesn’t know even really where the destination is.
And Jesus responds with those famous words: I am the way, the truth and the life.

Our map for the journey is Jesus. If we continue to follow Jesus, we will reach our destination without fail.

Death is something that none of us can avoid. But we can have some say about how we approach death. None of us knows the time or the date when we will die. But we can do everything in our power to ensure that we are prepared for it.

And the way to prepare for death is through prayer and relationship with God and living out the Christian life.

Stephen, in our first reading, was facing death. It was not a death he sought, but a death that was imposed on him because of his witness to Christ. He was willing to give up his life for his God. I wonder whether we would ever make that sacrifice, if we were required to.

It’s very different from the idea of the suicide bomber. Stephen accepted his death but it wasn’t sought, it was a consequence of his living for God.

Similarly with Jesus - he faced his death with courage but he didn’t kill himself as the suicide bombers do. And people continue to give up their lives for God because they know that their home awaits, the home where Jesus has already made a place for them. The Great West Door at Westminster Abbey depicts ten of these.

Many of us do not think about death until it stares us in the face. But part of the Christian life is about preparing for a good death and for the life beyond. I suspect if we knew that we were going to meet our Maker next week, we would sharpen up our discipleship. Being a Christian is not just about going to church on a Sunday or  being nice to our neighbour. The decision to follow Christ is a life-changing decision, since it should involve the whole of our lives.

Being a Christian means we always have before us the path and pattern of Jesus, and our destination - that place that he has prepared for us.

That destination is a great and wonderful one. Death is something that people try to avoid, except in extreme circumstances - either through suicide when life gets too much or similarly through euthanasia. We try to stop the ageing process - just think how many pills and potions are out there that claim to arrest that process.

We try not to think about our own mortality too much. We live so much of our lives in there here and now. But in the same way that Jesus’s life led constantly towards his death, so ours do too. Every day we live is a day nearer to the time when we shall find ourselves in that place prepared for us by Jesus.

Somehow we have to embrace the fact of death rather than to flee from it. For through death comes freedom and peace.

Some words of Dietrich Bonhoeffer:

Come now, highest feast on the way to everlasting freedom, death.
Lay waste the burdens of chains and walls
which confine our earthly bodies and blinded souls,
that we see at last what here we could not see.
Freedom, we sought you long in discipline, action and suffering.
Dying, we recognise you now in the face of God.

Death brings freedom. Our deaths will bring us life in its full abundance and glory. That’s one of the great paradoxes of Christianity that in order to receive life in all its fullness, we need to die.

And, before our physical death, we need too to die to self, to put on Christ’s clothing of love and care and compassion, of loving God above all else, of making everything in our lives secondary to our love for God. And when we love God with all our heart and soul and mind and being, we discover that the fulfilment of Christ’s second commandment - to love our neighbour as ourselves - follows naturally on.

So let us pray for the courage and strength to face the fact of death, not to run from it, but to keep in mind always the promises of Christ, that he has prepared a dwelling place for us. Let us live each day as if it were our last. Let us know deep within our hearts that we have a map and a guide in Jesus - Jesus the Way, the Truth and the Life.

Stephen faced his death with courage - his final words were active words “Lord, receive my spirit.” Words addressed to God; words that echo Jesus’s self-giving: “Lord, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

May we too be prepared by following Christ with all our being for that moment when our death brings us the true freedom of eternal life. Amen.

Acts 7.22-31; 1 Peter 3.13-22; John 14.15-21

I expect most of you are familiar with the phrase separation anxiety - something that most young children experience at some point. They become anxious when their mother leaves them with someone else, and usually end up screaming their heads off.

I remember not long ago holding my friend Helen’s baby daughter so that Helen could go to the loo - we were in a pub at the time - and whatever I did I couldn’t stop Sophie crying. I have to say I was becoming rather self-conscious and embarrassed. Nothing would stop her crying - we sat, we walked around, we tried different positions of cuddle, and so on.

But the minute Helen returned, Sophie was all smiles again. It wasn’t me doing anything wrong; it’s just that I was not Sophie’s mother.

Jesus’s disciples are experiencing a different type of separation anxiety. Today’s passage from John comes as part of his Last Supper story. Jesus is talking to the disciples about the fact that he is going away.

Those of us in church last week we heard him say how he needed to do that in order to prepare dwelling places for them so that he could then return and take them with him. We heard Thomas wonder about this, expressing his uncertainty about where Jesus would be going, and Jesus responding with those wonderful words “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life.”

Jesus also reminded them that when he had gone they would be able to do works greater than those he had done.
Today’s reading follows directly on from last week’s. The disciples are having to face the truth that Jesus will not be with them for ever and are worrying about how to cope with that. As a mother provides continuing reassurance for the baby suffering from separation anxiety, Jesus is providing his disciples with the reassurance they need.

A good mother will always be around for her child. Though she may temporarily disappear, she will return. In earlier life, the child is obviously more dependent on her than in later years, but a good mother will always be there for her children, however old they become.

And Jesus is promising that he will always be around. His presence will have a different form. He won’t be with them in person - but he will send his Spirit. The word used in the Greek literally means one called alongside but this involves difficulties in interpretation.

Some theologians prefer to use more of a transliteration than a translation and refer to the Spirit as the Paraclete so that they don’t have to define exactly its meaning, and thus risk limiting it. Others translate this word as Comforter, Counsellor, Advocate, Consoler, Helper.

It is important to notice too that Jesus says he will send Another Paraclete - that implies that he too is one and highlights that the Spirit will represent the Father in the same way as he himself has done.

Tom Wright in his John for Everyone explains how some of these different interpretations can explain the different roles of the Holy Spirit.

The word “helper” he says, “doesn’t simply mean someone who comes to lend assistance in our various tasks.

“It certainly does mean that as well: the Spirit comes to give God’s people the strength and energy to do what they have to do, to live for God and witness to his love in the world.”

The other two interpretations that he picks out are “comforter” and “advocate”.

Firstly, comforter - literally - someone who comes with strength. This is what he says: “Comfort is a strange and wonderful thing. Have you noticed how, when someone is deeply distressed, after a bereavement or a tragedy, the fact of having other people with them, hugging them and being alongside them gives them strength for the next moment, then the one after that, then the one after that?

“Outwardly nothing has changed, The tragedy is still a tragedy. The dead person won’t be coming back. But other human support changes our ability to cope with disaster. It gives us strength.

“When the spirit is spoken of as the comforter, this kind of extra strength to meet special need is in mind.”

And then he moves to the advocate - a term derived from the Latin word to call. He says this: “An advocate stands up in a court of law and explains to the judge or jury how things are from his or her client’s point of view. The advocate pleads the case.

“Jesus assumes that his followers will often find themselves, as he found himself, ion the wrong side of official persecution. He saw the situation, as centuries of Jewish tradition had done before him, in terms of the heavenly law court with God as the judge. In that court, his people can rest assured that their case will be heard, that God will constantly be reminded of their plight, because the Spirit will pleased on their behalf.”

The disciples need not be anxious about separation from Jesus, because he will still be with them through the Holy Spirit. The Trinity cannot be divided up, so if the Spirit is with them, so also is the Father and the Son, living in that eternal dance with one another.

And the astounding thing is that the disciples, then, and us, now, can be a part of that eternal dance. Jesus said: “on that day you will now that I am in my Father, and you are in me, and I in you.” There will be no separation. For John, believers don’t just copy Jesus, they participate in him and his work. He becomes part of them. Christ removes the distance between us and God.

At the heart of that participation is love. Not just love as a feeling such as those feelings you experience when you first fall in love with someone and can’t stop thinking about them and long to be with them all the time, but also love that is about action and attitude and the well-being and concern of the other.

In the marriage service the questions that is put to bride and groom is “will you love?” not “do you love?” Will you love - will you love unconditionally:

“from this day forward;
for better, for worse,
for richer, for poorer,
in sickness and in health.”

Jesus’s love is unconditional. Jesus’s love remains whether we are aware of it or not. Jesus’s love draws us to himself and incorporates us into the life of the godhead.

It is not dependent on whether we have sinned or not - the love is always there. And our response to that love is to keep the commandments. For that is what those who love Jesus do - their love for Jesus is defined by the fact that they keep the commandments. And what are those commandments? To love God and to love others.

Sometimes people when they first become Christians have a similar experience to when we first fall in love with a person - that longing and desire to be with them, that deep joy, that all-consuming love that makes it hard to focus on anything else.

But most of us are now at the “will you love” stage. Will we love Jesus? How do we show that love - we live it out by loving God and loving others.

That means striving to love at all times, striving to love and forgive rather than to seek revenge, striving to let God and others be themselves rather than becoming bitter because they are not what we want them to be, striving to make God and others the focus of our attentions even when we are sidetracked and distracted by other things.

Christians need to be honest with themselves about their love for God. We need to look at our lives and see where we lack love for God or for others. And we can do that in utter security because Jesus is with us through the Spirit - and his love never fails. We are never rejected by God or pushed away because we don’t live up to the standards of love.

And now we are back where we started. Jesus reassures his disciples that his love for the means he’s not deserting them, his love remains; and the Spirit of God will dwell within them so not only is his love with them, it becomes a part of them.

And, for us, the most wonderful part of all of this is that these are promises for us too. Jesus, through the Spirit, dwells with us too. We too become caught up in the eternal dance of love.

Acts 2.14a, 22-32; 1 Peter 1.3-9; John 20.19-31

Why do we believe in some things and not in others?

If I were to tell you that as I was writing this sermon yesterday morning I looked out of the window and saw a flying saucer on my lawn, out of which three funny little green men appeared, who frightened the guinea pigs, and caused the dog to bark and the cats to flee, you’d probably not believe me.

But, if I tell you that yesterday afternoon I went to the cinema and saw a really great film, you might be more likely to believe me.

And if I then ask you to believe that I am currently in Buckland church, leading a service and at this moment preaching a sermon, you would, I hope, definitely believe me.

The first of those three scenes - the one that you would be least likely to believe - sounds a little far-fetched. Seeing little green men walking on the lawns of Barkway is something that really does not happen in the normal sphere of life. I can pretty much guarantee that it’s not an experience anyone in church this morning has ever had.

As for my trip to the cinema, I wonder how many of you believed in that. In fact, it was not true. I spent yesterday preparing for today’s service and then visiting people, some following funerals for a member of their family, and some more general parish visiting.

But I guess that more of you were ready to believe that I had been to the cinema than that I had seen aliens. Going to the cinema is something that people do as part of life in the 21st century.

It’s an experience to which most people can relate, and it certainly doesn’t sound far-fetched to say that I’d spent yesterday doing that.

Perhaps, if you’d stopped to think a bit more, you might have remembered that Saturdays are a working day for me, so perhaps a little unlikely that I’d taken an afternoon off to see a film, but not beyond the bounds of possibility, especially as one of the busiest weeks in my working calendar has just ended.

As for me leading a service this morning in Buckland church, I’m sure that is something in which you all believe. Why do you believe that? Because you are experiencing that for yourself. You are sitting here in Buckland church, listening - or not - to my sermon. You will have already heard me welcome you, give the notices, announce the hymns, and so on.

Thomas just could not believe initially in the risen Christ. We’ve no idea where he was that Sunday evening, but we do know that he wasn’t with the others when Jesus appeared to them. But it’s not necessarily surprising that he struggled to believe them. Dead people just don’t come back to life. He’d clearly forgotten about Lazarus, whom Jesus had raised earlier in his ministry.

I can’t believe that, Thomas was thinking. Dead people do not come back to life again. That is not part of the experience of normal life. I need proof.

To ask for proof is a natural thing to do when we are faced with something that we do not believe. Proof, after all, is what will change our mind. If I had managed to bring with me to church this morning one of the little green men whom I claim to have seen, more of you may have believed the story.

So, Thomas’s declaration that he would only believe if he could see and touch the risen Christ for himself, is understandable. It shows a lack of trust on his part in those who told him they had seen the Lord, but they were telling him something extraordinary. The stranger something appears to be, perhaps the more proof we feel we need.

When Thomas had the proof he needed, he was quick to acknowledge Christ as God.

An orphaned boy was living with his grandmother when their house caught fire. The grandmother, trying to get upstairs to rescue the boy, died in the flames.

The boy’s cries for help were finally answered by a man who climbed an iron drain pipe and came back down with the boy hanging tightly to his neck.

Several weeks later, a public hearing was held to determine who would receive custody of the child. A farmer, a teacher, and the town’s wealthiest citizen all gave the reasons why they felt they should be chosen to give the boy a home. But as they talked, the lad’s eyes remained focused on the floor.

Then a stranger walked to the front and slowly took his hand from his pockets, revealing severe scars on them. As the crowd gasped, the boy cried out in recognition. This was the man who had saved his life.

His hands had been burned when he climbed the hot pipe. With a leap the boy threw his arms around the man’s neck and held on for dear life.

The other men silently walked away, leaving the boy and his rescuer alone.

Those scarred hands had settled the issue.

It was a similar experience for Thomas. True recognition came when he saw the scarred hands and side of the one who loved him more than anyone else.

The scarred hands and side of love.

The resurrection did not remove the wounds of Jesus, it only transformed them.

And that’s great news for us. It means that the resurrected Jesus is still aware of human frailty and sin. Its marks remain on his body.

Those marks draw us. They remain proof of what Jesus went through for us, proof of his love.

A composer writes music, but it only takes on true meaning when players play it. A clock maker designs and builds a beautiful clock, but it only tells the time when the owner winds it up and sets it correctly - or in this day and age - changes the battery.
God has already done the hard work of the Gospel in raising Jesus to life, but in this world it lives through us. We have to live out that resurrection life, and we’re given the Holy Spirit in order to do that.

It was the coming of the Holy Spirit that changed the disciples from a frightened bunch of people into a powerhouse of orators, witnesses, proclaimers of the resurrection - as we heard in the extract from Peter’s speech in our first reading today.

I’m not convinced that Jesus’s words to Thomas “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.” are a rebuke as many see them. Rather, I think they are encouragement to those of us who are not able to see Jesus with our eyes. 

John tells us that that’s why he’s written his Gospel, so that we may believe. His story started with that amazing prologue “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.”

Now, here at the end of his Gospel we’ve come full circle - Thomas is explicitly naming Jesus as God.

The wounds in his side show that it is the same Jesus, the one who was crucified who has been raised, not some new model or replacement without defects. It’s the Jesus who has suffered who is now alive that Thomas recognises as God.

Because the risen Jesus is also the wounded Jesus, we can be sure that when we face troubles and grief, he will walk through them with us as he walked through his own suffering. He will not leave us to battle alone.

Because of his wounds, we can receive healing and forgiveness.

Because of the resurrection we can know that this world with its troubles is not the end.

God’s life is open to all of us. We don’t have to be free of hurt or sin or perfect in all our ways for that resurrection life to be with us. Thomas believed once he had experienced the risen Christ for himself. Because of the Holy Spirit, that is something that we too can do. We can’t see Jesus in person, but we can experience his risen life.

Jesus didn’t condemn Thomas for his lack of faith; he gave him the opportunity to find the proof he needed. It’s an encouraging story for us too. Thomas asked for the proof - Jesus offered it to him. If we ask for the life of the Holy Spirit to be with us, Jesus will grant that gift.

The resurrection means that the living presence of the risen Jesus in our lives each day is something we can experience. We saw in our first reading how it inspired Peter in his witness. It can inspire us too, if we allow ourselves to be open to its work.

The life of the Spirit in the world is, if we need it, the proof for us of the risen Christ. “Blessed are those who have not seen yet have come to believe. Our blessing includes the gift of the Holy Spirit, the gift of the risen Christ dwelling within us and around us.

Christ is risen. He is risen indeed. Alleluia.

FATHER, FORGIVE
Luke 23.32-43

I’m sure most of you will know that in the early 20th century the people of Armenia suffered greatly at the hands of the Turks. Estimates of how many Armenians were killed range from one to two million, but no one now denies that this was genocide, though it took many years for it to be recognised as so officially.

A story from the time tells of a Turkish officer who raided and looted an Armenian home. He killed the parents, and gave the daughters to his troops - it takes little imagination to know what happened to them. The eldest daughter he kept for his own pleasure.

Eventually she managed to escape, and trained to become a nurse. Sometime later she found herself working in a ward for Turkish officers. One night, by the light of a lantern, she saw the face of that Turkish officer who had treated her family so badly. He was terribly sick. Without exceptional nursing he would soon die.

That nurse was in a very difficult place. In such a situation, the desire for revenge would have been understandable. But she worked hard to restore him to health, and as a result of her ministrations, he began to recover eventually.

One day the doctor and nurse stood by the officer’s bed. The doctor remarked that without the nurse’s devotion the man would be dead.

The officer looked at the nurse and said, “We have met before, haven’t we?”

“Yes,” she said. “We have met before.”
There was silence. Then he asked, “Why didn’t you let me die?”

She replied, “I am a follower of him who said, ‘Love your enemies’.”

Jesus was a man who lived not only by his words, but also by his actions, and we are called to follow that example. Forgiveness is a living-out of love.

We see him now, hanging on the cross, in total agony, surrounded by his enemies, by those who want him dead. Crucifixion is a brutal and undignified method of execution.

The soldiers were carrying out just another day’s work; there had been other crucifixions in the past; there would be more in the future. They had no idea of what they were really doing, killing the Son of God. No doubt to them, Jesus was a trouble-maker and what they were doing would help to keep the peace - certainly that’s what their Roman master believed.

An ordinary day. But the ordinary becomes exceptional. Jesus, in the midst of the brutality and lack of dignity, responds with grace and goodness. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

These soldiers did not know their guilt. And, we too are not always aware of the sins that we commit. Sometimes we are all too aware of them. But Christ’s message of forgiveness crosses the centuries and is for us too. Christ is our King; Christ is also the example and pattern for our lives.

Forgiveness is not easy; receiving forgiveness is not easy; forgiving ourselves is not easy. But Christ’s message from the cross shows that he desires us to be liberated from our guilt. Guilt is a destructive emotion. It eats away at us and corrodes us. It grips us and torments us. Guilt can be a force for good, since it is what enables us to accept that we have sinned. It helps us to know, unlike the soldiers, that we are doing wrong.

But guilt that becomes too dominant denies what Christ has done for us. Christ’s suffering was to enable us to be freed from the effects of sin. Christ’s suffering brings forgiveness. When we are unable to receive forgiveness, from God, from others, from ourselves, we are rendering the sacrifice of the cross powerless.

It is not easy. It requires us to accept that we have failed and then to let go of that failure and the harm that it has done. We may need to make amends, to put our forgiveness into practice, to make efforts to restore broken relationships.

Jesus’s was innocent of his crimes; the criminal hanging with him recognised his guilt. Jesus’s response - today you will be with me in Paradise - should give us hope. Jesus’s forgiveness knows no bounds; it is there for us to receive.

As we watch him hanging on the cross, let us open our hearts to receive his forgiveness, and ask him for his love to flood us so that we might be helped towards forgiving those who have done us wrong and caused us pain.
 

BEHOLD YOUR SON
John 19.19-27

I wonder, if you could look forward to your dying moments and plan your final words, what they would be.

Of course, that’s a pretty impossible task, for none of us knows the circumstances in which the ending of our lives will come. We don’t know whether the end will be sudden or drawn out; we don’t know whether we will be prepared or not; we don’t know whether we will feel at ease with the thought our death; we don’t know whether we will be in pain or at peace; we don’t know whether we will be with those whom we love or whether there will be no one at all with us to hear those final words.

You will probably have worked out by now, if you have looked through the order of today’s service, that I have chosen to focus this year on Jesus’s final words.

There are seven sayings in the Gospels uttered by Jesus while he was hanging on the cross. The headings of the sections in this service derive from those sayings - the two not explicitly mentioned will pop up in my talks - one has already done so - so we will in some way reflect on all seven of Jesus’s last words.

Much of what happens while Jesus is on the cross is public, but this scene is a private moment, between Jesus, his mother, and the Beloved Disciple. It’s a moment in which Jesus’s compassion and care are seen, in contrast to the taunting and mocking crowds around him.

Jesus looks down from his lofty position and sees his mother and his friend and understands their pain. Death is always hard, but facing the death of one’s child must be one of the most profound sorrows that human beings ever face.

In the midst of the brutality of the situation, Mary’s presence and Jesus’s words add some humanity. In his dying moments, as he watches his mother’s pain, Jesus can do nothing more than to show his love for her. He cannot come down from the cross and take her home. He cannot reach out and put his arms around her in a deep embrace. All he can do as he hangs there is tell her that he loves her.

And he does this by creating a new family. In the moment of separation, Jesus creates community. Mary and the Beloved Disciple are the beginnings of the new Christian family. In effect, what he is saying to them, is “I love you, Mother”; “I love you, friend”; “Love one another.”

In our fractured and fragmented society, where communities are struggling to retain a sense of neighbourliness and friendship, where people live in suspicion of their next door neighbours, the church and its people can make such a difference by continuing to emulate the example of Jesus.

In this country, we have to accept that the reality of church life at present is that numbers are declining, commitment is diminishing and faith in God for most people is of little or no importance.

But, I wonder, how much we help ourselves. What an impact it would make if you said and acted as Jesus has done, if we said to those we meet - I love you. Now, clearly we’d have to be very careful about how we did this - in our sex-mad age, the word love sometimes loses its true meaning. But many, many people never hear the words of love. Many, many people never experience the actions of love. And, it doesn’t take much.
Jesus’s love for the world was the ultimate sacrifice. Sometimes that is what is asked of us, but mostly all we need to do is utter that loving word of care, or notice when someone is struggling with life - I’m always struck by the story of the stranger who uttered in the ear of the dying Stephen Lawrence - You are loved. You are loved.

That is what Jesus is doing from the cross. That is the message we are called to give to the world. And, even when we struggle to love people, we can still offer them the words of God’s love, of Christ’s love on the cross.
 
WHY HAVE YOU FORSAKEN ME?
Psalm 22.1-8, 14-15; Matthew 27.45-47

Forsakenness, abandonment - it’s something that many people experience for a variety of reasons.

Perhaps they are grieving the death of someone they love. A very common part of the grieving process is a sense of abandonment by the one who has died. Sometimes this leads to anger at the deceased for leaving the living person alone.

Perhaps the sense of abandonment comes for a child whose parent has, for whatever reason, deserted them, whether physically or emotionally.

Perhaps it comes from the desertion by one lover of another.

The sense of abandonment can lead to very profound feelings - emotions that are almost too painful to put into words. Abandonment can leave one with a sense of deep, deep pain that nothing seems to be able to take away. It can lead to a sense of isolation, a deep hole within oneself that nothing can fill. The loss affects the whole of one’s being, it can be overwhelming. It can manifest itself in physical pain as one longs for the friend who has gone. It can bring a person to a point where utter desolation is all they feel, where life has lost its meaning, and their overriding wish is obliteration, for it is existence itself which causes the pain to go on.

The deep hurt experienced by those who are abandoned can be healed, but more often than not, it isn’t. Certainly it takes time - months and years - to get over an abandonment, and many people are left with deep wounds and scars that nothing can alleviate.

The more intimate the relationship between the abandoner and the abandoned, the deeper the pain.

Jesus has already faced a series of abandonments. One of his closest friends has betrayed him. Another has denied that he even knew Jesus. The crowds who hailed him as their king on Palm Sunday have since cried out for his death. As he hangs on the cross, his friends have fled, leaving only a very faithful few.

But that’s not the end of the forsakenness. Jesus utters a cry of such anguish that it pierces the heart - “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

The relationship between Jesus and God was the most intimate relationship ever experienced. The sense of dereliction apparent in that cry from the cross is so great because of the closeness of the relationship.
In using the words of Psalm 22, he also brings to mind the silence of God, to whom he cries out. Psalm 22 expresses the feelings of one who has been forsaken. It communicates his feelings that he is no longer human, because of the way that others treat him.

And it is no surprise that that is how the Psalmist sees it. For one of the things that marks human beings out is their ability to give and receive love. Love, of course, is a risky business. Those who do not love will never experience the pain of love going wrong. Those who do make themselves vulnerable to the loss of love.

For any of us to be abandoned by those we love brings deep desolation. What it means for Jesus to be forsaken by God, his creator, his source of life, his Father, the object of his total love cannot be expressed in words, so deep is the dereliction. In that cry from the cross is Jesus’s own agony, which has been echoed by others through the years.

What stands out, and those who have experienced abandonment will probably recognise this, is that the one to whom Jesus cries out is the one by whom he has been forsaken. In the midst of his desolation, he calls out to the one by whom he has been deserted, longing to be heard, yearning for a restoration of the relationship.

At the heart of his sense of loss he is still crying out to God, still communicating, which implies that God is there to hear his cry, but at this point chooses not to act.

Since we believe in a loving God, we know that God’s own heart would have been breaking at this point too. For within the very heart of God, a deep separation is going on between Father and Son, a ripping apart of a unity, a whole. For Jesus is not only God’s Son, but God himself. The integrity of the godhead is being challenged through the crucifixion. The pain of separation is felt on both sides.

There is a trite saying - if God feels far away, guess who moved? The Bible teaches us through this story, through the words of Psalm 22, through the story of Job, how little truth there is in that saying. The horror of the crucifixion is that in some profound way God had abandoned Jesus. But Jesus was not a mere puppet in this sacrificial work; it was a path he chose to take.

It was an abandonment that needed to happen if the power of resurrection and life was to be complete. Only a total darkness and death could bring about completely new and restored life. For the whole of creation to be redeemed, the sacrifice needed to be complete.
 

I AM THIRSTY
Psalm 69.13-21; John 19.28-30

Without water, we shall all die. Dehydration is one of the fastest ways towards death.

Physically, Jesus will have been extremely thirsty by the time he utters these words. We are not told, but it is possible that he has had nothing at all to drink since the cup of wine which he took and blessed at the Last Supper. In chronological terms, that was not that long ago, but if we think about what he has undergone since then, the hours seem to grow longer.

There is a profound contradiction in all this. These three words, “I am thirsty,” show the extent of the sacrifice and separation from God that Jesus is undergoing.

John’s Gospel says a lot about water. Right at the start we see John baptising in water. Then at the wedding of Cana, Jesus uses the water, to bring new life to a jaded celebration by turning it into wine. He tells Nicodemus that new birth comes from water and Spirit.

His next encounter, in John chapter 4, is with the woman at the well. He offers her water that will put an end to thirst for ever - Jesus said: “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”

After the feeding of the five thousand in chapter 6, he reiterates what he has previously said; “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”

And at the Festival of Tabernacles in chapter 7, he again returns to this theme: “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.”

Water means life. Life in all its fullness. Water means physical life and spiritual life.

Back in Isaiah chapter 55, the call is issued - Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. Even further back, during the Exodus, water is brought forth from the rock.

Water is symbolic of the life that God gives.

And now, Jesus is thirsty. That life, physical and spiritual, is slipping away from him. The one who provided for the thirsty is in need of a drink. Yet again, Jesus’s abandonment is brought home. In John 7, Jesus follows his words by explaining that the living water comes in the form of the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus uttered his words of abandonment, we became aware of a split in the very nature of God between Father and Son. His words of thirst reveal now another split, between Son and Spirit. Again we see the godhead ripped apart.

And why? Why does Jesus suffer this agony, this abandonment, this tearing up of the bonds, this rift at the very heart of his being?

He does it for us. It was for us he died on the tree. It was for us he suffered separation from God. It was for us that he thirsted.

It was his love that nailed him to the tree. It is his love that is offered to all of us, a love shown through the greatest gift and grace he offers - forgiveness.

Forgiveness is the heart of the Gospel. Forgiveness is not cheap. Forgiveness is something distinctive about the Christian way that we can offer to the world.

For forgiveness does not condemn, but recognises that we have all failed and fallen short of God’s glory, all of us, that is, except the one whose sacrifice was perfect, the one who deserved no punishment, for he had done no wrong.

Jesus’s thirst highlights the separation from God’s living waters that he experiences on the cross. For John, water is life. In order for us to flow with living water, with the life of God, Jesus undergoes a loss of life.

This was no false separation from God and God’s life, as some would have us believe. That would have been ineffective in conquering sin and death. Only a true separation could bring about our salvation; only a true death could bring about our life.

That is what Jesus is undergoing on the cross, a total separation, a true death.

Our sin no longer condemns us to a future without hope, but because of Jesus’s taking on himself a hope-less situation, our future remains strong. We do not need to take upon us the thirst of Jesus, for the living waters are there for us to tap into, flowing with life and God’s grace.

As Jesus thirsts, may we open ourselves to drinking from the water that enables us never to thirst again.
 

IT IS FINISHED
John 19.30; Luke 23.44-47

Two different endings to this story, depending on which Gospel one reads.

In general, Jesus’s cry from John’s Gospel is considered to be the penultimate thing he said, while the words in Luke are the very end of the story.

Most of us live lives full of unfinished business: the phone call not returned, the letter to which we haven’t responded, the book half read, the diet not kept. Right at this moment I can answer yes to all four  of those charges.

Some of these unfinished things may not seem large in themselves, but in a particular context they might take on serious consequences.

The unfinished diet for someone at risk of heart attack because of their weight is a serious proposition. The telephone call to which we haven’t responded may mean the ending of a relationship. The letter we didn’t reply to might have been the last one we ever received from someone who then died.

Much of our unfinished business affects not only us but others too. The marriage that is wrecked because the row was never mended, the evicted tenant now living on the street because the bills were never paid and help was not sought, the broken promise that smashed someone else’s trust in us and so on.

What unfinished business is lurking in our lives? We may never get a chance to complete it, if we don’t address it today.

So much guilt arises when someone dies and leaves unfinished business behind them - the words of love never spoken, the forgiveness never offered, the wounds not healed. Unfinished business that goes to the grave leaves a lasting impression on those who have been failed. The grave also may prevent us from finishing what we have to do with the one who has died. It is little wonder that Jesus warned people to sort things out with others before they approached the altar with their gift, leaving it there if necessary while they went away to make amends.

Our unfinished business so often leads us into sin - so much of it reveals a lack of love for another who has perhaps hurt us, so much of it depends on sins we have not forgiven, so much of it depends on our pride or sloth - those deadly sins.

Our unfinished business matters because it leaves things in a way that is less than loving to the one with whom the business is to be conducted or sells ourselves short.

By contrast, Jesus was able to go to his death uttering the words: “It is finished.” A cry of triumph and of victory, not of work left undone. Jesus’s work has been completed, accomplished, and is now finished.

To say that something is finished can mean one of two things - it can have a negative meaning - it’s all over, we’ve finished, can imply a relationship that is broken; a life that is over unfulfilled; a dream that has died.

But it can also mean that something has been accomplished - an artist putting the finishing touches to a painting, a poet writing the final word of a masterpiece, a Messiah who has fulfilled the work he was sent to do, to put an end to death by dying for us, to put an end to darkness by the conquering power of light, to put an end to despair by bringing hope, to put an end to hatred by never living in any way but the way of love.

That cry on the cross is a great cry of triumph - a cry of finished business. When Jesus speaks of his future a few days earlier, this is what he says: “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit.”

The death of the seed is necessary for life to continue. Jesus’s work has been completed, the seed is ready to die, so that greater life might ensue.

God’s work is nearly over. But there is one more sentence to be uttered: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” In that last utterance, Jesus makes clear that the property of death to induce fear has lost its power.

This is a death undertaken willingly. These are not words of resignation and powerlessness; these are words of power. These are words that express Jesus’s willingness to embrace his death for the sake of others.

These words sum up all his self-offering - in them is an act of will, an act of choice, an act of utter trust in God to make all things well.

Jeremiah 31.1-6; Acts 10.34-43; John 20.1-18

A rather grouchy husband made it into heaven along with his wife.

Strangely, though, he still seemed to be rather grumpy.

“What’s wrong now?” asked his wife. “Can’t you see, we’re in heaven? This is beautiful — the music’s great, the food is out of this world, the mansion has everything and more we’d ever dreamed of, the golf course is the best we’ve ever seen, there’s no fees, no taxes, our health is fantastic, why aren’t you happy? What’s wrong with you?”

The husband replied, “you we hadn’t made me eat that miserable oat bran, we could have been here ten years ago.”

What a sad view of one’s experience of heaven! The husband is so bound up with what he’s previously missed out on that he has lost all sense of celebration and thanksgiving for all the joys in his new existence.

The Christian Church too so often loses sight of the resurrection and the life and joy that it brings. We keep the 40 days of Lent, but it seems that once Easter Day itself is over, the 40 days of Easter pass us by. People go back to work after a long weekend off, the Easter eggs eaten, and life returns to normal.

Life never returned to normal for those first disciples who rushed to the tomb that first Easter Day. Mary Magdalene, according to John, was the first to arrive, early in the morning. She is panicked by the fact that the stone has been removed. We’re not told that she gets as far as looking inside, but she’s obviously made the assumption that the body is not longer there.

So, not sure what to do, she rushes off to find Peter and the other disciple. They dash to the tomb to see what has been going on. The other disciples, who is never named, peers into the tomb, notes that the linen shroud is still there, but then hangs back from going inside.

Peter, though, is never one to hang back. He goes straight inside the tomb, and spots not only the linen wrappings but also the cloth that had been around Jesus’s head. Then the other disciple follows Peter in and believes.

We’re not told exactly what it is that he believes. John wrote his Gospel in order that people might believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing they may have life in his name. And that, for John, is what faith is about.

But what the disciple believes in this story is made somewhat ambiguous by the sentence that follows about them not understanding the scrupture that Jesus must rise from the dead. The two disciples go back home, believing that the body has gone, but as far as we know, not that Jesus is alive again.

But Mary is too upset to go anywhere. She stays where she is weeping. And now she too looks inside - something she hadn’t done earlier. She sees two angels there. They ask her why she is crying. She explains that Jesus has been taken away and she doesn’t know where he is.

And then she turns round and finds a man standing there, who also asks why she is crying. Her mind can only cope with rationality - her conclusion that this is a gardener makes absolute sense in some ways - who else would be in a garden?

And if anyone was going to have moved a body, then the most likely person would have been the gardener.

It takes only one word to transform her perspective from the normal sphere of human thinking to the joyful recognition of the resurrection. “Mary.” There must have been something in the way that he said it. I imagine it was a bit like the way in which a mother, in spite of a clamour of noise from other children, will always know the cry of her own child.

Mary, in spite of the clamour of voices going on in her head, knows immeditely who this gardener is once he has spoken her name.

And now he has returned she tries to cling on to him. She doesn’t want to experience the pain of separation from him again so tries to hold fast to him in the hope that he won’t disappear.

But he won’t let her, and gives her a message to take to the disciples and bids them hurry to pass it on. “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.”

The resurrection is important, it is a sign of God’s decisive action in our world, it makes a difference. However, we are not to spend ages staring at the marvel of the empty tomb, but to carry the message of the resurrection to others.

Mary does as she is asked, although the initial message she gives to the disciples is somewhat different from the one Jesus asked her to convey - I have seen the Lord, she tells them - though she then goes on to tell them what Jesus has said.

We come to this scripture so many years after the events it describes. But it has not lost any of its power. It has transformed lives, brought hope, joy and salvation to millions of people down through the ages from the time of those first disciples.

Our reading from Acts is a speech given by Peter in Cornelius’s house. We become aware of how he has been transformed by the power of the resurrection. Just a few days ago, we heard how he denied Jesus three times in the courts of the High Priest. All through the Gospels he has seemed an unlikely figure for Jesus to have chosen as the foundation stone for his church.

He’s the one who so often get sit wrong, or speaks out before he has really though about what he is saying.

Peter should give all of us hope, since God takes who he is and uses that - he doesn’t ask Peter to become something or someone else before he uses him to deliver the message of the resurrection. He uses Peter as he is. And God wants to use us as we are.

Of course, once God starts using us, transformation follows. After the resurrection Peter is radically transformed: he preaches Christ crucified and raised from the dead, so that those who hear him believe and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. He is no longer the simple fisherman with a gift for saying the wrong thing, he has insight and wisdom and he teaches with courage and conviction. But, at the same time, he is still Peter.

The message of Easter is in part about God’s mighty power: God’s power to raise Jesus from the dead, God’s power to save us from our sins and to bring us to eternal life. But it’s not just that.

It is also a message about a message: a story about the importance of passing on the story, of not delaying, of sharing the good news.

Jesus is risen, we do not need to be afraid. Everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name. So we are freed from our fears and our sins, freed to carry the message of the resurrection through our words, free to carry God’s love to others through our actions. God has shown that His truth and love are more powerful than sin and death, so we can have new confidence to live our lives so that they bear witness to that truth and they show that love in action.

On his return from 16 years spent in Africa, David Livingstone told the students of Glasgow University “What sustained me amidst the toil and hardship, and loneliness of my exiled life? It was the promise, ‘Lo, I am with you always, even unto the end.’”

That is the message that we too have to share with the world. Because of the resurrection, Christ is no longer confined to one place or a particular moment in time. Mary could not cling on to him and make him stay where she was, for he could not be confined. He is with us, right now, to the end.

He is with us in times of sorrow and in times of joy. He is with us when life is painful and when we are celebrating. If we believe in the power of the resurrection, our lives can never just go back to being normal, for once we have met the risen Christ, we too are transformed. It will affect everything we do - the way we live our lives, the way we react to other people, the way we conduct ourselves.

Christ’s life is our life. Christ’s life is blossoming all around us - we just have to look up and see it.

Tom Wright, Bishop of Durham, says this: “Where God’s people celebrate Jesus Christ’s resurrection, they discover new possibilities opening up in front of them.”

May we, like Mary, open our eyes to new possibilities opening up in front of us, as we celebrate the resurrection.

Christ is risen, alleluia!

Matthew 26.36-46

I wonder what you pray when things are looking tough and the future appears to be rather a gloomy one. Or when you’re in trouble and everything’s going wrong.

If you’re anything like me, and like, I’m sure most of the rest of the population, our prayers when we’re up against it go something like this:

Dear God, please help me. Please take away the pain. Don’t let this bad thing happen to me, and so on. Give me strength.

The human inclination naturally wants us to avoid hardship and difficulty. But I’m always struck by Jesus and his example. We heard earlier some of his prayer. How different from many of our own. And, yet, how alike too.

In the run-up to the crucifixion, I think we see the humanity of Jesus, and the vulnerability of the human Jesus, perhaps in a way that we don’t elsewhere. We see the Jesus who asks his Father to take away the cup of suffering that he is undergoing.

Jesus is praying just before his betrayal and arrest. Judas’s betrayal has been foretold, and Jesus has some idea of what he is to do. He has also just told Peter that he will deny him three times. What must it be like to know that your friends are going to desert and betray you, right at the hour of your greatest need?

Jesus is clearly suffering heavily - we’re told that his prayer is agitated and that he is deeply grieved (check translation), that he has thrown himself on the ground to pray, and that the friends who were with him have fallen asleep. The abandonment that he faces on the cross when they all run away has already begun.

But where Jesus differs from many of our prayers is that he doesn’t continue to focus on his suffering but then moves his thoughts and focus on to doing God’s will. He follows his plea for an end to suffering with those haunting and powerful words: “Yet not my will, but yours (check translation).” And then his prayers continue - “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done.”

God’s will at this point involves Jesus’s great suffering. It’s one of the paradoxes of the Christian Gospel that the loving, compassionate God allows his Son to suffer so greatly, indeed needs that suffering to take place in order for his plan to be fulfilled.

And Jesus could have walked away. But he didn’t because he always put God’s will before his own human desires.

He was the man who is God - a God who limits himself in order to become human and experience the life we do, and much worse, in order for the resurrection to take place and for our salvation.

We pray frequently in the Lord’s Prayer - Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name. Thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.

But our prayer can only really be a true one, if as well as saying the words, we live it out in our actions. Our Lent Group was talking last Monday about how we discern what is God’s will, for if we are to do God’s will, we need to know first what it is. And at heart that comes back to our relationship with God.

We only get to know someone by spending time with them, by listening to what they think and feel.

It takes time to build up strong friendships with people - and it’s only those whom we know really well about whom we can ever say we know what they’re thinking about something.

It’s a bit the same with God. We discover God’s will by spending time with God, through reading Scripture and spending time in prayer.

Of course many of the things we wrestle with our not talked about explicitly in the Bible, but there are patterns and principles we can find there which can help us make decisions about God’s will. We know, through Jesus’s teaching what the values of the kingdom of heaven are. Those are God’s values.

We see those values in the example of Jesus and how he lived his life and the people he enjoyed spending time with.

And, of course, once we know what God’s values are, we then have to put into practice living according to his will, so that we can, with Jesus, say about everything we do - yet not my will but yours.

There’s a story of an elderly Scottish woman - I don’t think her being Scottish is particularly significant - who is making her way through the countryside.

Each time she comes to a crossroads, she tosses a stick into the air. Whichever way the stick comes down is the road that she takes. At one intersection, however, an elderly man saw her toss her stick into the air not once but three times before resuming her journey.

He was curious. “Why are you throwing your stick like that?” he asked.

“She looked at him and replied: “I’m letting God direct my journey by using this stick.”

“Then why did you throw it three times?” asked the curious man.

“Because,” the woman replied, “the first two times God was pointing me in the wrong direction.”

Sometimes where we want to go and what we want to do is not the same as God wants. I wonder if you are aware of times when God has been prompting you in one direction but you’ve constantly tried to go the other way or to make God’s plan fit in with yours.

We need always to ask ourselves: is my life following God’s will, or not? Or do I make compromises? Do I long for honour for myself? Do I shut my mind to things that seem too hard or too big even though I know them to be God’s way because the sacrifice seems too great?

Do I tell just a little white lie because I’m afraid to be honest with someone? Do I end up being rude to someone because I’m in a bad mood? Do I end up being less than polite because I’m in a hurry?

There are all sorts of ways in which our lives reflect a lack of God’s will, often without us even realising it.

It’s not always easy to know what God’s plan is, and often we only discover later when we can look back and see the direction in which God has taken us, sometimes against our will.

Sometimes we will get no clear signals and will have to rely on God to close seemingly open doors.

Sometimes we just have to step out in faith and trust that God will lead us to do the right thing or go the right way.

At other times we will feel as if we’re floundering around not knowing where we’re going or what we’re doing. In my own life, I’ve had several times where I’ve not really known what God was playing at, and it’s only been in looking back that I’ve seen how God’s hand was guiding me. But that’s not made it any easier at the time. Sometimes we just have to say to God, we don’t understand where you are leading, help us to trust in your will.

So it’s not easy, but it is something that each one of us is called to do, to be aware of God’s guidance, to fit our will with God’s and not try to make God’s will fit in with ours. And it’s important for the little decisions involved in the way we live our lives, as much as for the big life-changing decisions: how we use our money, what time we make for God and for other people, how we rate the needs of others compared with our own.

I find it endlessly interesting to see what people nowadays consider essential for life, with many getting in to debt because of things they feel they can’t live without - the new television, the exotic holiday, the expensive party or wedding. Of course, all these things are nice to have, but compared with the basic essentials of life - shelter, food, clean water, medicine, love - not really a high priority.

But God is not like the mother of three notoriously unruly teenagers who was asked whether or not she’d choose to have children if she could live her life all over again. “Oh, yes,” she replied. “Just not the same ones.”

That’s not God’s attitude towards us. We’re told in John 3.16 that God loved the world so much that he gave his only begotten Son so that all who believe in him might not perish but have eternal life.

We’re not told that God gives up on the children who misbehave or who are not able to put his will first in everything. We’re told that in spite of that, God keeps trying to call us back.

God doesn’t send us back when we don’t meet the standards. God continues to love us. And our response to that love matters.

I suspect that where many of us struggle is in receiving God’s love. We make that initial response of faith. We strive to be good Christians. We beat ourselves up when we go wrong. We feel desperately guilty - or some people go the opposite way and make excuses - for their lack of prayer or service. We haven’t got time is a constant cry.

We need to allow ourselves the time and space to discover what it really means to be loved by God. We need to allow that to sink deeply within us.

If we know truly what God’s love means, we will have a sense that we are valued and worthwhile, because we are created and loved by God. I know more Christians who struggle with issues of worth than those who don’t. And when we know deep down that we are loved by God, then it become easier to do God’s will in everything.

When our security is found in God and not in the good opinion of others or in material things, then it becomes easier to do the will of God. Sometimes it will mean standing out against the world, or against those whom we love, or against possibly even our fellow Christians. That’s not easy.

In order to do that we sometimes need to let our defences down. We need to accept time and time again that it is God not us who is at the centre of the universe. That God loves us in spite of our imperfections.

That is so hard for most of us - because it goes against our natural inclination to want a good life for ourselves. It goes against much of the flow of our society which lives by a Gospel of what I want I will get. It’s hard for children in this day and age, who live with those messages, to learn to accept the boundaries. I know too many parents, with whom I have sympathy because no one enjoys putting up with whining and moaning children, who admit to giving in to their children’s demands just because it’s easier to do that.

A young police officer was taking his final exams at Hendon Police College in north London. He was faced with this question:

“You are in patrol in outer London when an explosion occurs in a gas main in a nearby street.

On investigation, you find that a large hole has been blown in the footpath, and there is an overturned van lying nearby. Inside the van is a strong smell of alcohol. Both occupants - a man and a woman - are injured.

“You recognise the woman as the wife of your Divisional Commander, who is away in the United States. A passing motorist stops to offer you assistance and you realise that he is someone currently wanted for armed robbery. Suddenly a man runs out of a nearby house, shouting that his wife is expecting a baby, and that the shock of the explosion has made her go into labour. Another man is crying for help - he’s been blasted into the canal but cannot swim.”

Bearing in mind the provisions of the Mental Health Act, describe in a few words what action you would take.”

The officer thought for a moment, picked up his pen and wrote: “I would take off my uniform and mingle with the crowd.”

Rick Warren in the Purpose Driven Life says this: “Nothing shapes your life more than the commitments you choose to make. Your commitments can develop you or they can destroy you, but either way they will define you. Tell me what you are committed to, and I’ll tell you what you will be in twenty years. We are what we become committed to.”

It’s our decision whether we want to become more like Jesus, whether in 20 years’ time or even 20 days’ time, people will look at us and see that what is distinctive about us is our commitment to Jesus. If our commitment is to God’s will above all else, then that will shape and change us and transform us. Many people fear change, but I can assure you that any changes that come about because we seek to do God’s will will ultimately be for our benefit.

They might involve some opposition. They might involve others not understanding our position. Christians often get bad press because they are seen to be judgemental or to be always saying no to things that everyone else thinks are acceptable. But we are called to be different. We are called to live with different values. And it’s not only those outside the Christian community that need to take note of those values. Jesus’s fiercest criticism was reserved not for the sinners and prostitutes, the unclean and the outcast, but for the religious authorities.

Are we different? If so, what is it that is different about us? Is it our disapproval of the world around and our standing apart from it? Or is it our willingness to get involved with that and transform it? Jesus didn’t stand on ceremony. He didn’t avoid the people whom others thought might contaminate their pure lives. He was right in there, talking to them, building relationships with them.
He didn’t stand apart from the world - his whole life was given to seeking to transform the world, which led to the ultimate sacrifice of his life and an agonising death, both physically and emotionally and spiritually. Just think of that cry from the cross which echoes the words of Psalm 22: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Do we, like the police officer in his exam take off our uniform and mingle with the crowd, or do we always wear the armour of God: the belt of truth, the breastplate of righteousness, shoes that make us ready to proclaim the Gospel wherever we go? Do we take with us the shield of faith, the helmet of salvation and the sword of the spirit?

When our time comes and they write our obituary, what, I wonder, will they say about us? Obituaries often sum up where the commitment of a person lay.

God doesn’t expect us to be perfect - he knows so well that we are not. After all, it’s his world and his people that we sin against. But God does ask us to centre our lives around him and his will - the greatest commandment of all is to love God with all our heart and soul and mind and being.

We don’t need to be perfect to stand out from the crowd, we need to be in tune with God, willing to be open to doing God’s will, seeking God’s help and recognising our dependence on God for everything we have, everything we do and everything we are.

Of course, we’ll get it wrong at times; of course we’ll go our own way.

But that’s why God sent Jesus, that’s why Jesus went through that agony in the garden - because we couldn’t make ourselves perfect, in spite of what Jesus said in Matthew 5.48 - be perfect as your Father in heaven is perfect.

Christians are people who are not perfect, just forgiven. And we see this lived out in Jesus’s trust of the disciples after the resurrection. The disciples who fail him. The disciples who fall asleep in the garden while he wrestles in prayer. The disciples who ran away when he was on the cross. The disciples who included Peter who denied Jesus three times. And yet, it was those very same people to whom Jesus entrusted his commission to go and make disciples of all nations.

So let’s sum up.

First we have Jesus’s example to follow - in great agony he was able to put the will of God first, but we can know that he knows our struggles to do just that, because he too was tempted.

Second, we need to know God’s will. That discernment comes from a life of prayer and a knowledge of Scripture. There is no one who cannot make either of those things part of daily life. Even people who cannot read can pray and nowadays the Bible is available on tapes and CDs and so on, so that all may listen to it read, even if they cannot read it themselves. There is always time to pray, even if it means getting up ten minutes earlier in the morning.

Thirdly, when we know God’s will, we need to do it. That’s not always easy, but God will help us, we have the support of other Christians, their encouragement and prayers, and best of all, we know that if we fail, we can trust in God and his forgiveness, we can trust in God’s love knowing that God will not reject us but help us to stand up when we fall, brush ourselves down, and start again.

Loving God, give us open hearts to you. Inspire our lives by your Holy Spirit. Increase our faith and trust in you, so that, with Jesus, our cry may always be: “Yet not my will, but yours.”

We give thanks for his example, that even when he was suffering the greatest agony, he was able to put your will first, and we pray for strength that we might always have the courage to follow his example.

We ask this in the name of Jesus Christ, your Son, our Saviour. Amen.

Exodus 17.1-7; Romans 5.1-11; John 4.5-32

There’s something wrong. There’s something most definitely wrong.

Jesus and his disciples are in Samaria, a place Jews normally avoided like the plague, preferring to take the longer route through Jericho when they were travelling from Judea to Galilee in the north.

The disciples have gone into a Samaritan town to buy food from, presumably Samaritans. But Jews and Samaritans have no dealings with each other.

There’s something wrong. There’s something most definitely wrong.

It’s midday but a woman is out collecting water. People just don’t do that.

They don’t come out in the hottest part of the day to do a heavy job. Women usually fetched water in groups, enjoying the chance for a chat and catching up with the latest gossip. But this woman is on her own.

There’s something wrong. There’s something most definitely wrong.

And we could go on. Jesus starts a conversation with the woman. Men just didn’t do that in those days. Here’s a quote from rabbinic law: “One should not talk with a woman on the street, not even with his own wife and certainly not with someone else’s wife.” And another one: “It is forbidden to give a woman any greeting.”

And the woman he’s chosen to talk to is not only a Samaritan and an outcast, she’s cast in the story as immoral, living with a man who is not her husband, having already been married five times. And Jesus is on his own with her. Not the done thing.

It’s a bit like those children’s puzzles where you have to spot what’s wrong with the picture. There might be someone hoovering the floor but the plug is not in the socket but trailing behind the vacuum. There might be a picture of a bicycle without a chain or a piano with no keys.

If this story were such a picture, we would find lots of things wrong.

The contrast between the woman at the well and the person Jesus encountered in last week’s Gospel reading could not be greater.

Last week those of us in church heard about Nicodemus, a man, a learned teacher, a respected Jewish leader, member of the Sanhedrin, the council, a man who followed the law strictly.

But there is something the two have in common - an encounter with Jesus.

It’s an encounter with Jesus that God longs for each one of us to have. And sometimes that encounter will take us to places that we’d perhaps rather not go to.

When Jesus started talking about the woman’s marital situation, she changed the subject rather rapidly and started a conversation about where worship should take place.

I expect many of us have things we’d rather not talk about, things perhaps in our lives of which are ashamed, or things that just hurt too much to be reminded of them, things that might bring the tears welling up to our eyes, or the resentment building up inside.

Jesus offers the woman living water - the word used for living is the same as running. She’s a bit confused to start with since there is no river or stream nearby. But she’s pretty keen for it; “Sir, give me this water, so that I may never be thirsty or have to keep coming here to draw water.”
Without water, no one can live. Without Jesus’s water of life, no one can be fully alive.

But encounter with Jesus can allow that living water to seep into our lives.

I wonder how we, twenty plus centuries later, can also have such an encounter. We’re not going to go to a well and find Jesus sitting there, but I guess many of us long for more in our lives.

Perhaps we long to feel God’s presence more closely, or to sense that deep joy that some others seem to know. Perhaps we long for a deep hurt to be healed or for God’s comfort in a time of loss.

So, how can we encounter Jesus today?

I think there are a number of ways.

Sometimes people experience Jesus’s presence out of the blue and as a complete surprise. The woman was not expecting to meet Jesus when she went out to get her water.

But for most of us, that’s not how it works most of the time. We need to set time aside away from the busyness of daily life. We need to put other demands on hold so that we can give priority to God. We need perhaps to reassess what takes first place in our lives.

We can encounter Jesus through the pages of Scripture. That’s something we can do each Sunday here in church as we hear the Gospel reading, but it’s also something we can carry on during the week.

If you find it hard knowing where to start with reading the Bible or difficult to understand, why not try using Bible reading notes. The Bible Reading Fellowship is well experienced at these and produces different types of note for different levels of reading - as does Scripture Union. If you’re interested in knowing more, come and have a chat at some point. They can be a helpful way in, especially if you’re not sure where to start.

Through reading our Bibles each day, we can grow in faith and learn more about what it means to follow Jesus and to receive that living water.

And we can use our Bibles in different ways. We can read them as we would any book, perhaps using notes to help us understand more. But we can also read in a different ways.

We can take the stories of Jesus and read them reflectively, perhaps concentrating on one story for a whole week. Read it and mull it over. Ask whether there is anything Jesus might be saying to you through it.

A Reader at a church I used to attend would liken it to eating a boiled sweet. When you have a boiled sweet, unless you’re very impatient, it takes a while to eat it. We roll it around our mouths, licking and sucking it, and letting the taste develop. We stay with it for a while before we crunch it.

One way of reading a Bible story which often leads to an awareness of encountering Jesus is to mull it over, reflect on it, pray through it, ask what it might mean for me today, ask what God’s message might be for you. Take time to know Jesus through the Bible’s pages.

But there are, I believe, other ways too in which we can encounter Jesus. The woman stepped aside and took time to talk to him. She could have ignored him or given him the drink he asked for and gone on her way. But she didn’t. She took time to listen and respond to him. If we want an encounter we Jesus, perhaps we too need to step aside and take the time to talk and listen to him.

Deepening our spiritual life takes effort. So often we see God as an add-on to our lives, when in fact, the first commandment is to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength.

Only we can make that decision for ourselves. We can decide that we haven’t got time to make the effort. We can decide that coming to church on a Sunday is perhaps enough for us. Or we can decide like the woman at the well that we’re going to allow our whole life to be affected by our encounter with Jesus.

At the end of the story, the woman leaves behind her water jar and dashes back to the city to tell everyone about Jesus. Commentators see symbolism in her leaving the jar behind. It’s a sign that she has left behind her former life and started on a new path. She has been transformed from outcast to evangelist.

What I wonder might we have to leave behind if we are to allow space for a life-changing encounter with Jesus?

Lent is a good time to think about where our priorities lie. It’s a good time to ask whether we want those springs of living water welling up with in us. It’s a good time to pay attention to the spiritual side of our life.

It’s a good time to assess our priorities and to ask where Jesus fits into our life and think about whether we want more.

It does take effort and time, but the riches that we gain, as the woman discovered, are immeasurable and beyond anything we might have to leave behind.

And we don’t have to do it alone. We have each other and we have the Holy Spirit to help us along our journey to a deeper encounter with Jesus.

Amen.