It’s close to the beginning of the holiday season – and our Old Testament Reading told the story of the first known package holiday. Not arranged by Airtours, Monarch or Thomas Cook – this holiday was arranged by God.

Elijah has been working all hours as the head prophet in the Yahweh organisation. Business has not been that good. The competition has been gaining ground. It seems like bankruptcy is on the cards. Yahweh (Israel’s God) could well go out of business – or succumb to a hostile and aggressive takeover by the Baal conglomerate.

The tension is brought to a head on Mount Carmel in 1 Kings 18. Elijah challenges the opposition. A credibility test – whoever wins is the real God.

I hope you know the story well – Elijah wins. Baal cannot provide the fire to light the sacrifice on his altar. Yahweh, the God of the Bible, sends fire down from heaven. The whole Baal organisation is in turmoil – Baal’s prophets are killed. Elijah is on cloud nine. But things are not quite that simple – the chief shareholder of the Baal conglomerate is incensed. Jezebel, the Queen, will not go away, she issues threats on Elijah’s life.

How does Elijah respond? The tension of recent events has got to him. Rather than

confident trust in God, built on the foundation of what God has just done at Mount Carmel, Elijah panics – he runs. It’s a classic case of depression and stress – he’s taken on more than he can handle. He can now only see problems where once he saw opportunities. Run down, feeling hopeless, he runs off into the desert. And it is this story that we have read in our OT reading today.

I don’t know about you but there have been times in my life when I’ve been just like Elijah in our reading. Stressed out, having lost perspective on life, God seems to have disappeared. … It isn’t always something as drastic as Elijah’s experience that affects us. It’s strange isn’t it how often when we review something we have done, that it’s the negative things we remember rather than the good. Or, I wonder, have you ever had the experience in some unguarded moment of tearful emotions overcoming you. Sometimes holidays, perhaps because we begin to relax, or perhaps because of the memories they evoke, are times when life is particularly hard – times when we’re prone to self-pity – even times when God feels distant.

How did God deal with his faithful servant Elijah in this time of darkness. It’s important to note is that he doesn’t tell Elijah to snap out of it – or to buck his ideas up. No! First he allows Elijah time to rest and sleep; then he makes sure that he is well fed and watered; and then he takes him on a forty day excursion to the mountains. At times we need to hear this – rest and recuperation are God’s gifts to us – listen to the words Jesus speaks in Matthew’s Gospel: “Come to me, all you that are weary and carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.”

Secondly, God helps Elijah to see that although he, God, can work in power, he is to be heard most clearly in the silence. God’s words of comfort to Elijah are not spoken in the wind, the earthquake or the fire, but are whispered gently to him in the silence. Time away from noise and busyness are times when we have a better chance of hearing God. Times when we can be resourced again for faithful service.

I don’t know what you are feeling about the events of this past week (23rd June onwards). Following the EU referendum this week, we find ourselves in a strange place.  Of those who voted, just over half are rejoicing and just under half are mourning.  It is a time of uncertainty, not just for our nation but for all sorts of people, including people we know and love.  In the news and on social media, there is all sorts of nasty stuff going around and this saddens me  but I can also understand that there are high emotions around.

I freely admit that I voted “remain” and reflecting on how I have felt, I thought it would be good to share a post written by my wife Jo on facebook just 24 hours after the result was confirmed. She was inspired to write the following as a status post on Facebook, just to help people understand what she feels at moment feel like…..

So a new day dawns. .. and yesterday’s news wasn’t just some bad dream.  A new and uncertain future lies ahead and I will be committed to being part of that future even though it’s not what I voted for.  BUT (and it is a big but)…  at the moment I’m grieving and it hurts and as I write this I feel the tears welling up. 

When I lost my dad, I grieved and then I healed but in between I tried to deny it, I was angry, I tried bargaining  (if only I had done….), I cried and eventually acceptance came.  Healthy grieving needs all these things to happen.  So, please bear with me, and all those who feel like this today.  If you voted leave, please recognise our hurt, let us grieve so that in time we can join you on this new journey for our nation.

In the days to come, we might say things we wouldn’t normally say and act out of character but please forgive us just as you would a friend whose just lost a loved one.  I will bounce back  but it won’t be today or even tomorrow. …

This is an emotional time for many. If we are to find a good future for our country, we need to spend some time focussing on healing, we need to take time out.  Those grieving need to have space to do so, those rejoicing need to be allowed to do just that – but the future that we need to keep our eyes fixed on is one where we can be reunited.  This is not going to be easy – neither campaign was particularly honourable – and some unpleasant stuff on both sides, so there is work to be done by us all.

At Diocesan Synod on the day before the vote, Bishop David spoke about how the Church had a role to play after the referendum in setting a good climate in which the people of our nation can reunite and work together whatever the outcome might be.

I am writing this blog on the morning of what the Church of England calls the 5th Sunday After Trinity and the readings set for the day include part of the reading from 1 Kings 19. And a passage from Galatians 5. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians, was wanting these new Christians to understand what living like Jesus was all about.  He says that it’s all about loving your neighbour, that it’s about not trying to destroy each other, it’s about living in a way that does not damage ourselves or our relationships.

So he says, these are the qualities you need to develop as Christians, to be a people who are able to love their neighbours…..

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

He describes these as the fruits of the Spirit, the good things that Holy Spirit brings to the fore in our lives. If I could, I would give you a piece of fruit and ask you to think just for a short while about what it is that you like about that piece of fruit, its juiciness, its sweetness, its purity, its …………….. The fruits of the Spirit bring refreshing hope into the lives of our communities and it is these fruits of the Spirit that need to grow in our own lives and in our dealings with others, particularly at this time….

love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.

Let’s ask God’s Spirit to help these fruits to grow and flourish in us. Let’s focus on them in the days ahead.

I’d like to conclude now with a prayer published by the Church of England after the vote on Thursday….

Life can drain us, it can pull us down, often we can feel defeated. Holidays are God’s gift to us, their times when we can chose to make space for him. Times when we can pick up our Bibles again. Times when we can make space to pray. Times when we can set aside noise and competition, even battle, and listen to God’s still small voice of hope. And if we are not going away, it is important from time to time that we make space for ourselves, when we can be generous to ourselves, when we too can hear once again God speaking words of love to us in that still small voice of hope.

Eternal God, Light of the nations, in Christ you make all things new: guide our nation in the coming days through the inspiration of your Spirit, that understanding may put an end to discord and all bitterness.

Give us grace to rebuild bonds of trust that together we may work for the dignity and flourishing of all; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

Jeremiah’s Words to the Exiles in Babylon:

“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”

These are some of the clearest and strongest words in the bible encouraging us to pray for the places that God has placed us in. They are amazing words spoken to a people in exile. In this passage from Jeremiah God challenges his people, who are refugees in a foreign land, to pray for the city and the country in which they now live as foreigners and strangers.

There are passages in the New Testament which encourage us as Christians to see ourselves first as citizens of heaven rather than citizens of an earthly kingdom.

Philippians 3:20: But we are citizens of heaven, where the Lord Jesus Christ lives. And we are eagerly waiting for him to return as our Saviour.
Hebrews 13:14: For here we do not have a lasting city, but we are seeking the city which is to come.
Ephesians 2:19: So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints, and are of God’s household.

The writers of these passages in the New Testament are encouraging their readers to see the events happening to them in the context of their citizenship of heaven. That is where we, as Christians, belong. Primarily, not here on earth but in heaven.

However, the passage from Jeremiah reminds us that we cannot give up on this world. If we are citizens of heaven, we are also residents of England, of Greater Manchester and of Ashton-under-Lyne. And through Jeremiah’s words, God calls on us to pray for the place we live in. … To pray for the welfare of the city.
So, we are called to pray for our town: local councillors; local schools; local businesses, shops and industry; those who keep our streets clean and safe; medical practices and drop-in centres; dentists, health workers, carers, befrienders; those who provide transport – Metrolink, busdrivers, taxi drivers; for our neighbours; for our foodbanks; for charities based in our town – St. Peter’s Partnerships; Action Together; Citizens’ Advice; Faiths Utd; TARA; Age Concern; Mind, etc. ……

We need to pray for ourselves as we serve out town and as we seek to strengthen God’s rule, God’s kingdom – for the Town Centre Chaplaincy; for growth of our congregations so that we will have the human resources we need to serve others; for us to hear God’s voice and participate in God’s mission.

We need to pray for friends, acquaintances and family, for their faith to grow, for them to come to faith in Jesus. …. We encouraged our congregation members to commit ourselves to praying for friends to come to faith by taking away a leather band, tie it round a wrist with a knot in for each person being prayed for, each time we are aware of the leather bracelet, we pray for each of those friends.

We need to pray for God’s Kingdom to Come and throughout the period from Ascension Day to Pentecost we offered opportunities to pray each day. Over 40 different people prayed together at different times of the week and others chose to pray quietly in their own homes.

God said through Jeremiah: “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”

And finally – here in the passage in Jeremiah is one of the clearest reasons for us to be places of welcome, for our Churches to welcome the stranger, the exile, the refugee, the asylum seeker. Why? … Because we too are strangers and exiles in our own land, we are citizens of another kingdom and we serve first another king. Our first allegiance is not to our government, nor our town but to Christ. We are exiles living in a foreign land, ambassadors for the kingdom of heaven. We must show the loving welcome of our Lord to those who are exiles and strangers, otherwise we betray our kingdom. God’s kingdom. …..

“Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you into exile, and pray to the LORD on its behalf, for in its welfare you will find your welfare. For surely I know the plans I have for you, says the LORD, plans for your welfare and not for harm, to give you a future with hope.”

This prayer was offered for our use during the week:

God of the displaced, we give thanks that when we are insecure,
you offer us security,
when we are abandoned, you come to find us.
You invite us to embed ourselves in community,
to discover that you, already among us, enable the flourishing of all that is good.
We pray in the name of Jeshua of Bethlehem,
of Egypt, of Nazareth, of Calais, of Syria and Palestine,
of Ashton-under-Lyne,
of the asylum seekers holding centres, the detention centres, the boats in the Mediterranean ………..
Amen.

I wonder whether you can imagine what it was like to be the man at the pool in John 5:1-18. The story goes that the first person into the water when the water bubbled up would be healed. What might it have felt like to have been lying by the pool of Bethzatha for 38 years? Waiting for that chance to get to the water first, but always being too slow to get to the water before someone else.

What might it have felt like, in that hot climate, to occasionally put your toe, in the clear cool water of that sheltered pool?

What might it have felt like, after talking with Jesus to be able to walk again?

Just imagine what it was like for that man to have his life changed by Jesus, so much so, that after many years of being disabled he could walk again?

It is good to use our imagination, …. whether it is to feel the coolness of the water, or to imagine the long years of hopeful but frustrating waiting of the man by the pool. Or to imagine the way life can be utterly changed by just one encounter with a special person.

It is possible that each one of us has something in our lives like one of these different experiences … joyful experiences, waiting experiences, frustrating experiences, surprising experiences, positive experiences

Our churches in Ashton usually have baptism service on the first Sunday of the month. 5 children were baptised in our services today.  Everyone present at those services  was participating in the service, not just those who led intercessions or lessons, not just the priest, the parents and the godparents, everyone was a participant not a spectator.

The young ones being baptised are very unlikely to remember the experience, but everyone else present will remember the services they participated in and in remembering this service, they will have the opportunity to imagine what it was like when they, themselves, were baptised.

If we were baptised as infants, a service of baptism is an opportunity to imagine … to imagine just what happened to us at our own baptism.  Wonderful promises were once made over us, just as they were over the young ones today. God promised us that he would be there for us, God surrounded us with his love and with the love of our families, friends and the worshipping congregation of the church in which we were baptised.

Wherever we are in our lives right now, we can continue to be like the man at the pool who was always waiting for something good to happen to him, or we can turn to the one who can change our lives for ever – the Lord Jesus Christ. Just as Jesus changed that man’s life for ever, so can he change ours. Baptism is the promise of that, the deposit, the security.

Each of us who have been baptised only need to turn to God for support and help and he will be there for us. God does not make us a promise that everything in our lives will be brilliant, not even just OK. But God does promise that he will be there for us, alongside us in all the experiences of life bringing encouragement and strength.

As the children we bring for baptism hear God’s words of love, telling them that they are special and secure in that love, we have the chance to remind ourselves that we too heard just those same promises made over us and to realise that God continues to reach out in love to each one of us.

What might it be like to have a friend, who is always there for us, through thick and thin, through whatever life throws at us. A friend who will never let us go?

This is just what Christians believe about Jesus, this is what God promises in baptism. Today we can choose to take him up on the promises we received at our own baptism.

Just think, just imagine what that could be like!

No, not the 2006 film with Denzel Washington (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%A9j%C3%A0_Vu_(2006_film)), nor the chain of sandwich and coffee bars (http://www.dejavu.uk.com).

Have you ever had a sense of ‘déjà-vu’? That rather odd feeling that you’ve been somewhere before, or that you’re going through the same experience that you’ve had in the past? Often there’s quite a sense of dislocation about the whole thing – everything seems odd and you wonder what is going on. Perhaps you’re on holiday, visiting a cathedral, and suddenly it seems as if you have been in that very spot before. Or maybe you are having dinner with a group of friends, discussing something, and you have the feeling that you’ve already experienced the same thing – same friends, same dinner, same conversation.

Surveys have shown that 70 % of people report having experienced some form of déjà vu. The highest number of incidents occurs in people aged between 15 and 25 years old. Some doctors attribute déjà vu to simple fantasy or wish fulfilment, others ascribe it to a mismatching in the brain that causes the brain to mistake the present for the past. Some people would like to think it’s related to a past-life experience.

So, have you had such an experience? ……… Peter must have been having some sort of double-take as his story unfolds in our Gospel reading. You might be able to imagine him feeling the sense that he’s been here before, and then gradually remembering what it reminded him of. And I think that this happens twice for Peter in today’s Gospel.

The first time is this ‘fishing-thing’. Can you remember another similar occasion in Peter’s life? What happened then? …. It is a story from early in Jesus’ ministry – he purloins Peter’s boat to speak to the crowd on the sea shore and then, instructs Peter on where to fish. The catch is large and Peter is overwhelmed and he says – ‘Depart from me Lord, for I am a sinful man.’ Jesus ignores Peter’s outburst and asks him to follow him.

The second is Jesus’ series of questions – ‘Do you love me Peter?’

In the first instance, Jesus is gently reminding Peter of his calling to serve as an apostle – a ‘fisher of people’ – a follower of Jesus. In the second incident, Jesus reminds Peter of the time he most obviously failed. The time when he denied Jesus three times.

We are told in the Gospel story that after Peter had denied Jesus three times he went out and wept bitterly. … He’d been the one who had bragged that he would never desert Jesus, yet he had been the one who had most obviously failed to stand by Jesus at his trial and Crucifixion. … Peter must have felt devastated at Jesus death and guilty and ashamed of his own behaviour.

So how did Peter feel when he discovered that Jesus was alive again? Somewhere in the midst of the feelings of elation was at least a nagging doubt, perhaps an even stronger feeling, that the way he’d behaved was unforgivable. Peter must have felt that he had nothing to offer Jesus, that his failure was just too great. How would Jesus speak to him when they next were alone? Would there still be that deep sense of friendship and trust, or would there always be a barrier between them? And I guess, that if it had been left to Peter, he would have always felt a barrier between himself and Jesus that he could not cross. His own failure weighed heavily on him.

So what does Jesus do? We’ve seen it happen in the Gospel reading. He first gently reminds Peter of the circumstances of his first calling as a disciple. He then provides Peter an opportunity to express his faith and his love for his Lord – and we’re told that it was a painful experience for Peter. But Jesus is making it so very clear to Peter that he’s welcome back as a close friend, that forgiveness is real and that his calling as a disciple still stands.

So, the question for us today is, “How does Jesus deal with us when we fail him?” We feel that we can’t meet him face to face, yet God wants us to believe that the same forgiveness and love is available to everyone, how ever deeply we feel that we have failed. Peter’s story makes that so very clear. … None of us will betray God’s trust in us in any greater way than Peter did. Peter was welcomed back and re-commissioned by Jesus to serve him as a leader in his Church. We can have the same confidence that we are welcomed back as repentant sinners, welcomed back into the loved of God.

And often, there is for us, something like a sense of déjà vu about the whole thing – for, time and again, God provides us with the opportunity to serve him again even though we have failed, even when we have repeated the same failures. And in doing so he gives us the opportunity to discover that we have grown and changed through the love he has shown us.

ISAIAH 55:1-9  28^th February 2016

There is a true story told of a group of sailors shipwrecked in the Atlantic, off the Brazilian coast. They were marooned for days on a small life-raft. Their small supply of water ran out long before they were eventually rescued by a passing ship.

The ship’s captain asked them why they were so dehydrated. Obviously they answered that they’d run out of water. ‘No water?’ said the captain, ‘You only had to reach over the side of the boat for an endless supply.’

We all know that you can’t drink sea-water because of the high salt content – but these men had been marooned in the middle of the freshwater stream which pushes out into the Atlantic from the River Amazon.

The shortage was an illusion. All they had to do was drink!!!

Hunger and thirst are compared in our passage from Isaiah with our need for God and his love. God invites Isaiah’s listeners to draw from heaven’s storehouses of wine, milk and bread. Isaiah highlights just how strongly our need for the love of God determines our lives.

God speaks through Isaiah, inviting the people of Israel to receive from him, from God, all that they need for life. And as God invites Israel to receive from him, so he invites us. God=s not so much concerned here with physical hunger and thirst, but with that sense we have at times that there must be more to life than we are experiencing, or the, at times overpowering, need to know that we are loved. Isaiah is convinced that as we come to God; as we listen to him speaking through his word; as we receive his unconditional love for us – then, and only then, will we find that our deepest needs have been met.

For many years we have lived in a society that has been telling us that this is not true. That if God isn’t dead, he has certainly become an irrelevance. Since the 17^th Century. and the Enlightenment we have been told that Science and Rational Thought will give us the answers to all our problems; that as the human race advances ‘enlightened thinking’ will mean an end to evil and will bring the gradual dawning of a new rational scientific age of harmony. An age that no longer needed the ‘Spiritual’ – that no longer needed God.

In the 20^th Century, we discovered that advances in knowledge do not change the human heart. In that century we saw some of the greatest evils committed by the most advanced of nations.

We’ve been left with a world which is suffering environmental damage, where the majority live in poverty while the minority feast on untold riches. As we come to terms with the state of our world, it’s no longer anywhere near as obvious that advancing human knowledge will create a better world.

People are dissatisfied, disaffected, and they’re looking for other ways to make sense of their lives. People are looking for spiritual answers – a trip into any bookshop on the High Street will illustrate the point. In the last few years significant shelf space has been given over to special ways of knowing, to alternative ‘spirituality’. As a society we are searching for meaning; we are looking for peace and wholeness; we are thirsty, we are hungry and we’re scrabbling around all over the place looking for answers.

It is no longer possible to argue that people are not ‘spiritual’ beings. We all have a sense of the spiritual, and of spiritual need. Men as well as women. Michael Nazir-Ali, one time Bishop of Rochester quotes some research done at the end of the 20^th Century among working men. This research found that a significant proportion of ‘working men’ at some point in their lives have gone through a ‘spiritual’ experience, but have not felt able to talk about it with their mates. Their experience was buried and not allowed to affect their lives at work, in the pub or at home.

It’s just like we’re in the boat with those castaways off the Brazilian coast. All they had to do was reach over the side to quench their thirst. All we have to do is reach out to God in Jesus. And if we do,  just as Isaiah describes, God will quench our thirst and relieve the aching pains of hunger Just as he reaches out to his Old Testament people in love, so he will do for us.

Listen to what God says through Isaiah:

“Incline your ear, and come to me; listen, so that you may live. I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love.”

I wonder whether you recognise these statements as you read them …. could tell me where these words come from?

“Britain only succeeds when working people succeed. We plan to reward hard work, share prosperity and build a better Britain.”

“Strong Leadership, a Clear Economic Plan a Brighter and more Secure Future.”

They come respectively from the 2015 Labour and Tory Manifestos.

Who first spoke these words?

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour, the day of vengeance of our God.”

It wasn’t Jesus, but the prophet Isaiah!

These words come from the latter part of the book of Isaiah. They are the prophet=s manifesto for his ministry among the people after the exile in Israel. A place of hope and new life. They follow the passages that we know as those of the suffering servant. The one who Isaiah sees as taking the sins and problems of the people onto his own shoulders.

In our Gospel passage Jesus speaks out these same words as his own manifesto. In hearing those words read, people listening to him will immediately have recognised their context in the scroll of Isaiah. They should have understood that in claiming these verses as his own manifesto, Jesus was not only taking the place of the suffering servant of Isaiah but also the predicted and long awaited Servant of the Lord.

His own kith and kin in Nazareth listened to him as he spoke but singularly failed to hear what he was really saying. They were impressed with how he spoke. However, their failure to understand what he was really saying is obvious. They knew him so well, “this local boy made good!” At least they thought they did. You might be able to imagine their response – the knowing nudges, the delighted smiles as they turned to one another and said, “Is not this Joseph’s son?”

And we heard Jesus response. He immediately sets about correcting their wrong perceptions. It is as though he says; “No, no, a million times no! This is not the son of Joseph but the Son of God.”

They can only see him in the setting of their own village, they want him to do here in Nazareth just what he has done in Capernaum. Their vision cannot see beyond the confines of their own village. “Listen,” says Jesus, “I have come with a message of good news not for Nazareth only, but for all Galilee, indeed for all Israel, and – although this will scandalise you – if Israel turns out to be as blinkered as narrow-minded as you people of Nazareth, then Israel will forfeit the good news, while the rest of the world will receive it.”

The praiseworthy words of Jesus’ manifesto suddenly seem to be anathema to the people of Nazareth. Their pride in their local son, turns to rage; “Who on earth does he think he is. What right does he have to speak in this way? Not only is he rebuking us but he is also challenging the very tennets of our faith. The Messiah, saviour of the whole world – heresy, blasphemy, the devil’s work.”

Admiration turns to fury. They determine to kill Jesus.

The Gospel is good news not only for the Jews but for the whole world. This is the message that Luke continues to develop throughout his gospel. Good news for us! And it is good to give time to hearing once again the message that God’s grace extends to us here on the very edge of Europe, far from the places Jesus knew and loved in Palestine.

It’s true, this is a message of grace and hope. There are no buts, ifs or maybes associated with the breadth of God’s love. None at all.

However, this story itself carries a but, a very big but. … You see now, today, here, the story expects us not to stand on the sidelines watching the action but to ask who we should most identify with.

It would be lovely to be able to say; “O, we are the Gentiles Jesus’ refers to – isn’t it good to be included in God’s love!”

Clearly, however, Luke does not just intend us to have a warm fuzzy feeling as we read his gospel. He wants to challenge us. Luke intends that we, the people of God, identify ourselves with the people of Nazareth, the ones who want to domesticate Jesus …. Christ is ours, he is one of us, we have grown up with him, we have seen him at work.

Luke wants to challenge us to move us on.. He, and Jesus, wants us to join him in implementing Christ’s manifesto.

You see, Jesus sees us not as voters but as members of his party, he expects us to be activists, he expects us to share his values. To understand that ministry for Jesus is not just about feeling safe and secure in our faith. To understand that ministry is about: “preaching good news to the poor; proclaiming freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind; releasing the oppressed, and proclaiming the Lord’s favour.” To understand that we have to work to make God’s kingdom a reality here where we live and work.

And sadly, if we are not prepared to move forward with Jesus, to work with his manifesto, he will find those who are willing to do so. He will move on. Just as he walked through the crowd at the top of the hill he will refuse our agenda and pursue his own.

So let’s listen again to Jesus’ manifesto and as I read it out, let’s commit ourselves again to serving him in our own community.

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

ISAIAH 43:1-7 & LUKE 3:15-17, 21-22

Please take a moment or two with me, if you will – to imagine what it was like to be the nation of Israel at the time of the prophet Isaiah. …

To the south is Egypt a major power, still striving to keep its place in the world. To the north and east, Assyria, seemingly at the height of its power – a particularly vicious nation who pursued a policy of ethnic cleansing – completely devastating conquered lands, killing many and dispersing the rest around its empire, destroying any sense of national cohesion, minimising the possibility of rebellion. But Assyria was fragile, it had expanded too quickly and was itself on the brink of being overrun by a rival empire from further east – the Babylonians.

So what was it like to be Israel, or Judah, trapped between these mighty forces, sitting slap bang in the middle of the main trade routes between the powers; placed right on the main military roads?

Can you imagine the sense of fear, of terror, at the forces ranged on each side of them? Can you feel the uncertainty of Israel’s leaders as they try to evaluate who will win? Which side should they make a treaty with? Which side can be trusted? Can any of these powers be trusted?

Can you see the sense of dread on the faces of the ordinary people as they watch army after army moving back and forward across their land? Hoping against hope that the army will have moved through the territory before it chooses to stop. For when an army stops, it eats. And where does its food come from? From the farms, the fertile valleys, the families near where it stops. And ancient armies never paid for their food, they raped and pillaged – not only the land but the people.

What was it like for Israel to be caught in the middle of forces over which it had no control? Tossed hither and thither by the events of the day? ….

It is into this kind of situation that Isaiah speaks God’s words:

Do not fear for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through rivers they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.

What do these words mean to Israel?

They were already feeling swamped and overcome. These words are not a promise that everything will be fine. They are rather a promise that whatever Israel suffers God will be with them. Whatever difficulties they face God will walk through those difficulties with Israel.

Do not fear for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.

What does God want to say to us today through these words? What does God want to say to us on the Sunday when the Church of England asks us to remember that Christ went through the waters of Baptism? What does God want to say to us, at the beginning of a New Year?

Adult baptism by full immersion is a graphic picture of death and resurrection. … Christ’s own baptism prefigures his death & resurrection. It points forward to the time when he passed through the waters of death & in doing so experienced the desolation of being deserted by his Father. The time when the Godhead was rent asunder for love of us. … Christ’s Baptism & his death are the greatest evidence that he has experienced the worst that life can throw at us. That as we pass through the turbulent waters of life, God will be with us. “Do not fear,” says God to each of us. “Do not fear,” says God to us as communities of Christian believers, as churches in Ashton, Tameside and the UK.

Do not fear for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you.

God does not promise us exemption from the struggles of life, the difficulties that others face. Rather, God promises to be with us through the experiences of life. And it is grasping the truth of this which the Bible calls faith. It is what sustained ancient Israel. It is what can sustain each of us as we embark upon the journey of another year with all that it may bring.

Do not fear for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.

These are words that each of us needs to hear for ourselves.

We can dismiss God’s words in our Gospel reading. We can say that God meant them only for his special Son. Although I think they were meant for all of God’s children: “You are my Son, my Daughter, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” They are just the words we each need to hear.

But we can dismiss them, we can disbelieve them, if we choose to, because God said them to Jesus and he was a special case, wasn’t he? And so we don’t hear that the words spoken to us as well!

We cannot, however, so easily dismiss the words of our OT passage. They were spoken to God’s servant Israel, to God’s people. They are words for us, promises to hold onto in the most difficult of times. Words for us today as stand at the start of a new year:

Do not fear for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine. When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through rivers they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through the fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Saviour.

The first Christians were Jews. They came from a small backwater in the Roman Empire. A seemingly irrelevant outpost in a bustling and cosmopolitan world. They faced a big question. How could they help people throughout the Greek speaking Roman world engage with Christian faith? How could a faith which was initially expressed in the framework of the Jewish culture be comprehended by people of very different cultures? Throughout the book of Acts we see people like Paul, Peter, Silas Barnabas, Timothy, James and others struggling with these questions – they knew what Christian faith looked like for a Jew living in Palestine, but what should it be like for a Greek intellectual in Athens?

Their situation mirrors our own. Just like they did, we wonder how we can make what we believe intelligible to people in today’s world who have little or no experience of Church and who see Christian faith as largely irrelevant, who enjoy Christmas as a traditional event but who believe little of the content of the story.

Our Gospel reading today is the gospel writers= attempt – at the beginning of John’s Gospel to relate his Christian story to a world that was alien to it. A world which was culturally very different from that of the gospel writers. How could they convey the Gospel to the Roman and Greek world – the good news which was so bound up with Jesus’ divinity and humanity. They had experienced Jesus as both divine and human. How could they explain to others that a divine being became human? How could they help people understand? As they reflected on this they realised that their scriptures – the Old Testament had at least a couple of ideas that would help them.

We meet the first idea that they used in Genesis – in the story of Creation – God spoke and something happened. God only needed to say a few words and a whole world and universe came into being. Words for God were not just things to say, concepts to express or write down. Words were effective, they achieved something. God’s Word was God at work in the world.

The second idea came in other parts of the Old Testament. There they found passages about Wisdom. In parts of their bible, our Old Testament, “Wisdom” is spoken of as a personality, a person, who existed before the worlds were created. Wisdom at God’s side as he created. Wisdom as the craftsperson moulding creation and delighting in what was made.

Listen to these words from Proverbs:

“Does not wisdom call, and does not understanding raise her voice? … The Lord created me at the beginning of his work, the first of his acts long ago. … Before the mountains had been shaped, before the hills, I was brought forth. …When he established the heavens, I was there, … when he marked out the foundations of the earth, then I was beside him, like a master worker” (Proverbs 8)

As Jewish Christians were asked about Jesus by their Greek neighbours. As the first theologians tried to explain the events of the first Christmas, how God could be born as a baby in Bethlehem. They saw something in the Greek culture that would help them to explain better to Greek and Roman people, just what they meant by Jesus being the Word and Wisdom of God, both divine and human.

The word for “Word” in Greek is “logos”. Greek philosophers used that word “logos” in a special way – by the time of Christ – they used it to refer to the ordering principle of the universe. Sometimes they used “nature” and “logos” interchangeably. What they meant was that there was an organising principle behind all of nature. The principle by which life held together – perhaps “wisdom.” And as Greek philosophers talked of “logos” they almost gave it a personality.

Christians realised that here was a way of explaining to Greek and Roman people just who Jesus was – and the first verses of John’s Gospel were born. John gives the “Word,” the “logos,” a central place. He describes the “logos” as God, the Creative Word, who took on flesh in the man Jesus Christ. … “God active in the created world” = “logos.” … God’s Word expressed as a human being. However difficult it is for us to understand today, those Christians successfully managed to translate the story of the incarnation into a form that Greek and Roman people understood.

The challenge to us is similar. … To find ways of expressing what we believe, in ways that people in today’s world will understand. We cannot just say, it worked in the past so it will work again. We cannot just do the things we have always done. We cannot continue to use only the words that we understand. We cannot continue to be just the church we have always been. Words and customs move on. Meanings change, hopes and fears change. The world is shrinking and ideas from the four corners of the world now influence the values of every society.

You only need to think of the way that the meanings of words have changed.

‘Comfort’ – what does that mean now? But on the Bayeux Tapestry it means something completely different. …. There is a picture of Bishop Odo ‘comforting’ his troops, so the legend says at the bottom of the tapestry. The picture does not show a team huddle like we sometimes see on a sports field, rather it shows Bishop Odo with a spear behind his troops urging them forward as he pushes the spear into their rear ends – really comforting!

‘Organic’ – until very recently that was a group of chemicals which contained Carbon – a mixture of different substances both noxious and benign. Now we use it to mean wholesome food, untainted by many of the chemicals which would naturally have fallen into the ‘organic’ grouping.

You’ll know many other words which have changed their meaning over the years. Those changes are like small snapshots on what has been happening in society – a process of change which is accelerating not slowing. And if we don’t change we will be increasingly misunderstood and become increasingly less and less relevant – having little or nothing intelligible to say to people who need to know the love of God.

As we participate in a process of change we do just what Jesus did ….. The Word, Jesus, became flesh and dwelt among us full of grace and truth. God changed, God became human, God learnt new things, expressed himself in different ways, felt tired for the first time, experienced limitations for the first time. God changed so as to bring his love to his creation. The early church changed its rules, expressed itself in new and different ways, so that its mission to the Roman world might be effective. And we are called to do the same to look for new ways to communicate the Gospel to those who live around us but who have none of the history of Church involvement that we have.