Rev elations

  1.    The Bible       The Reformation was about the re-discovery of the Bible as a text that individuals could read and interpret themselves. As Luther wrote in Article 62 of his 95 theses: ‘ The true treasure of the church is the most Holy Gospel of the glory and grace of God’. John Tyndale (1494-1536) translated the Old and New Testaments into English for the first time. A job he had to complete in hiding in Germany. Nonetheless he was found, persecuted and sentenced to death, being killed in 1536. He is a founding father of the Reformation and his English text was the main source document for the King James Bible. The Bible emerges in the Reformation as a radical and contested text; one that is not just the property of an elite religious class. As it was translated into vernacular languages it could be read and understood by ordinary Christians – or at least ones that could read! This development coincided of course with the advent of th...

The 18th October is the Feast Day of St Luke. And what a lot we should be thankful for! It might seem blindingly obvious to say, but, we know about Jesus because people who met him, encountered him and believed in him, wrote about him . Without their testimony and witness, we today, would know nothing about Jesus. It makes me feel a sense of awe and wonder – we stand in a great line of witnesses. By Anonymous Russian icon painter (before 1917) Public domain image (according to PD-RusEmpire) - http://www.museum.ru/alb/image.asp?12822, Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=3597619 It is often said that St Paul created Christianity as we practice it, but St Luke is also without comparison. St Luke wrote the Gospel that bears his name and the Acts of the Apostles, which means he wrote 25% of the New Testament. Now, consider this, without St Luke we wouldn’t have Mary’s narrative and story. It is St Luke who tells us about Mary’s feelings and her co...

St Francis was born in 1182 in Assisi to a wealthy textile merchant – he was a well-loved and well-provided for child and young adult. As a young adult he was the leader of a band of unvirtuous drunkards, wealthy and gluttonous! He hated the sight of lepers, who in that time had to live on the margins of the city. English:  St. Francis of Assisi receiving the stigmata, detail from a four-foiled plaque from a reliquary. Engraved, chased, enameled and gilt champlevé copper, Limoges or Italy, 1128–1230 (?). The times that Francis grew up in were unsettled, with growing wealth through trade but also with many armed conflicts. His ambition was to be a knight. Assisi was at war with Perugia- and so he went to war and was imprisoned for a time. After he came home he also experienced a period of ill-health. This was to be a turning point in his life. In1208 his life was changed by hearing a sermon- in which he heard the commission to preach. At another time he was praying in the...

Our reading from the Gospel of Matthew (18:21-25) today is a lesson in forgiveness. Most importantly the story highlights our responsibility to be humble in receiving and giving forgiveness. If God is merciful with us, so should we too be merciful with one another. Perhaps you would like to cast your mind to the last time you said sorry to someone, or to the last time somebody said sorry to you. How hard was it to say sorry and how hard was it to put aside the hurt that somebody had caused you? An assembly I remember from Primary School was one in which the teacher spoke about the hardest word there was to say in the world; the word he was talking about of course, was the word ‘sorry’ . Putting aside hurt is one thing when somebody has said something out of turn, or snubbed us in some way, but the work of forgiveness and repentance only gets harder when the hurt escalates; the nature of human failing means that the level of hurt and damage we can do to one another is almost ...

            You may have noticed people wearing dark glasses in the news recently. They were attempting of course to look at the sun. The great shining light bulb in the sky that we long for and hide from in equal measure. They were waiting for the solar eclipse, when the sun was only visible by its outer rays – when darkness and cold descended during the day. A natural phenomenon that reminds us that we are dependent upon the movement of our planet and the position of the sun and moon for our experience of light and dark, for our experience of time. It was for some a religious experience: an experience of transcendence that reminds us of our dependence upon the created universe. People were awed, shocked, could only exclaim: ‘Oh, my God!’. I’ve been to France for my holidays and whilst there we visited the Bayeux Tapestry. In the tapestry, you can see a drawing of Halley’s comet. It was read as a harbinger of defeat for the upstart Harry. A ...

Mark 15:40-16.8 There were also women looking on from a distance; among them were Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James the younger and of Joses, and Salome. These used to follow him and provided for him when he was in Galilee; and there were many other women who had come up with him to Jerusalem. The Burial of Jesus When evening had come, and since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the sabbath, Joseph of Arimathea, a respected member of the council, who was also himself waiting expectantly for the kingdom of God, went boldly to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus. Then Pilate wondered if he were already dead; and summoning the centurion, he asked him whether he had been dead for some time. When he learned from the centurion that he was dead, he granted the body to Joseph. Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone a...

Girl in Hammock, Winslow Homer, 1873, from Wikipedia  This is a faithful photographic reproduction of a two-dimensional,  public domain  work of art. Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn of me; for I am meek and lowly in heart: and ye shall find rest unto your souls. I am not normally someone who finds it easy to rest or relax; I have a sense that that is true for many people! However, my son received a hammock for his 6 th birthday and it’s been enjoyed by the whole family. We are blessed by having some of the most fantastically beautiful trees in our garden, huge glorious trees, which at the moment, in their varying versions of green and burnt amber are an absolute delight to view from the hammock. Looking upwards from a horizontal position really enables you to breathe in their grandeur and awesomeness in an overwhelming way. Together with the gentle rocking, it really is an experience ...