Psalm 116 Acts 2:37-41 1 Peter 1:17-23 Luke 24: 13 – 35 In his poem, ‘The Lake Isle of Innisfree’, W.B. Yeats pictures a man so consumed with longing for home that even in the middle of a busy street, all he hears is the sound of the lake, more real than the shadowy place…
John 20:1-18 Recently a group of Swiss psychologists have published research showing that the closer we are to someone, the less visual our memory of them is. What they mean is that we’re often better at remembering what strangers look like than our nearest and dearest. This is because we remember people we love at…
Mark 16:1-8 1 Corinthians 15:19-26 Some years ago someone received a letter from the then DHSS, informing him that his benefit would be stopped at the end of March 1986 because he had died. The letter then went onto say, “you may reapply if there is a change in your circumstances.” Someone once wrote into…
Ezekiel 37:1-14 Romans 8:6-11 John11:1-45 It’s very easy to bemoan all that’s wrong in the world. It can be ever so easy to sit in our armchairs and see doom and gloom in the news. It can be very easy to think things have gone to the dogs, and how much better it would be…
John 19:25-27 Being Lent, we gather at the foot of the cross, yet today is Mothering Sunday – originally a pagan festival, held in honour of the Mother goddess Cybele. After Constantine converted to Christianity, the Roman Empire began to celebrate it as a Christian Festival, honouring the Blessed Virgin Mary and Mother Church. During…
John 13:34-35 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 Today is a Sunday most preachers dread. It’s almost impossible not to offend or upset someone. Some celebrate, and others endure. For some it is an especially joyful occasion to give thanks for mothers, for others it is a difficult and painful time, in so many different ways. A teacher…
Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95, John 4:5-42, Romans 5:1-11 Do you not say, ‘Four months more, then comes the harvest’? But I tell you, look around you, and see how the fields are ripe for harvesting. The reaper is already receiving wages and is gathering fruit for eternal life, so that sower and reaper may rejoice…
Genesis 12:1-4a John 3:1-17 Leaving the known for the unknown takes a lot of courage, so Abram did something pretty remarkable when he upped sticks and took his wife and family (and all their possessions) into the unknown – trusting that the Lord would indeed bless them in their journeying and on into a promised…
Matthew 9:9-17 Thirty years ago this week the last long national strike began, when Arthur Scargill led the miners out. A big part of English culture certainly used to be that the most respected and honoured manual worker was the miner. I suspect that if you lived in Surrey, the miners’ strike didn’t make a…
Genesis 2:15-17, 3:1-7 Matthew 4:1-11 Adam and Eve’s choice There days we can choose our GP and our Dentist, we can choose which consultant and which we’re referred to, we can try and choose our children’s schools, we can choose all manner of telephones (remember the days when you could have a black one a…