Seeker

Advent begins today on this 1st Sunday of Advent. The Advent story starts in darkness, with people who struggle in a world gone wrong and long to see a glimmer of hope. If all’s well for you today, thank God for that! But someone near you or far away is feeling a depth of darkness. Sometimes we are in darkness, or alongside others in their darkness, desperate for God to do something to put things right, crying to God with Isaiah, “O that you would tear open the heavens and come down” (Is. 64:1). Advent is about the coming of Christ. Christ’s coming is the answer to each prayer cried in darkness. That cry was answered in Jesus’ first coming, the Light of the world breaking into human life as one of us, to share our darkness, to bring us to light and life. Advent also looks forward to when Christ comes again in light and glory. In the meantime, in the gospels, Jesus urges us to, “Keep awake”. In Mark 13: 24 – 37, Jesus uses the image of a doorkeeper who must stay awake, ready for the hou...

In this time of the coronavirus pandemic, we’ve got used to maintaining social distancing. We try to stay 2 metres apart from people outside our households, except in certain permitted circumstances. As humans we are adaptable. Keeping apart from others is becoming a way of life. I feel concerned about the adverse effects of that on people’s mental health. Most of us have adapted, but staying apart from those we would normally be physically close to isn’t natural. Humans are created as social beings. We need each other. I support the rules, for my own and others' protection, but long for them to end. While we continue to find ways to live with a pandemic, I draw comfort from the knowledge that God doesn’t distance himself from us. One of my favourite sentences in the Bible is from James 4: 8  “Draw near to God and he will draw near to you.” That sounds as if we have to take the initiative in bridging the distance between ourselves and God. Thankfully, we don’t. If we want to to ...

As far as I can remember, today is the first Remembrance Sunday when I have not attended a Remembrance service in church or an Act of Remembrance at a war memorial. I hated such events when I was a child and completely failed to understand why they seemed so important to my parents, grandparents and their generations. As a teenager I was highly critical of the way that Remembrance Sunday and Armistice Day events appeared to glorify war - or so it seemed to me. I was wrong. Since then I have begun to understand why it is so important to remember both lives lost in war and those who survive. It is important to honour both the dead and the living. It is important to remember the worst people do to each other, the best people do for each other, the courage and selflessness shown in war as well as the pain, fear and brutality. It is important to acknowledge our human failure to live together in peace as diverse children of one God. It is important to remember in order to strengthen the comm...

Today is the day to remember especially those we love but see no longer because they have died. 2020 have been particularly hard for those who have been bereaved this year without being able to be present at the death, or attend a funeral, or having a funeral that was very different from what they would have wanted in 'normal' times. 2nd November is known in the Church of England as the 'Commemoration of the Faithful Departed' or 'All Souls Day'. On 2nd November 2018 my post for All Souls Day asked, 'should Christians pray for the dead?' I gave a partial answer, which was neither yes nor no. Part of my answer was that it depends how you think of intercessory prayer (praying for others). I referred to Michael Ramsay, a former Archbishop of Canterbury who wrote that true prayer for others isn't so much making petititions or using any words. It's being with God with others on our hearts. Some people find it helps to light a candle or place flowers ...

Today the church celebrates All Saints Day, also known as All Hallows Day. Some of the other days in the year are dedicated to named saints, like St Andrew's Day that falls at the end of this month. Today, 1 November, All Saints Day, is a day to give thanks for all the saints, not just the special ones. I like the way Paul used the word 'saints' to mean something very different from unusually special people who end up with a halo in a stained glass window. Whenever St Paul wrote to a church he wrote "to the saints...", all the Christians in that place. His letter to the Romans begins, "To all God's beloved in Rome, who are called to be saints...". It's a calling most of we Christians don't live up to at all well. We "called-to-be-saints" are saints-in-the-making, ordinary fallible people who make mistakes. We're not perfected saints in heaven. Well you knew that didn't you? At the head of this post is an image of an oil pai...