Alleluia! Christ is risen! Tomorrow is the third Sunday of Easter and we will be fifteen days into our fifty-day celebration of the most fundamental truth of Christianity: Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead. Is Jesus your Lord? If he is, celebrate his rising to new life, his ascending to his heavenly throne and his sending of the Holy Spirit with us this Easter: we have another five weeks of celebration until Pentecost (27 May this year)!
Fr Mike Healey (priest-in-charge)
Today is The Second Sunday before Lent: Lent begins on Ash Wednesday (22 February this year) and continues for forty days (not counting Sundays) until Easter Day (8 April this year). The forty days of Lent often remind people of the forty days Jesus spent in the wilderness before beginning his public ministry, although that period of forty days itself obviously reminds us of the forty years the people of Israel spent in the wilderness before entering the land (Numbers 13:25 — 14:38) as well as having several other echoes in the old testament (Exodus 34:27,28; 1 Samuel 17:4-10,16; 1 Kings 19:8).
But Jesus did not spend forty days in the wilderness simply to make a point: he went to be tempted by the devil (Matthew 4:1; Mark 1:13; Luke 4:2). This is a story we could all benefit from thinking about this Lent. The devil tempted Jesus with satisfaction that could never last (Matthew 4:3; Luke 4:3), with lies (Matthew 4:9; Luke 4:7) and with misinterpretations of God’s word (Matthew 4:6; Luke 4:10,11). This is the same way the devil tempted Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden: with satisfaction that could never last (Genesis 3:6), with lies (Genesis 3:4) and with misinterpretations of God’s word (Genesis 3:1) and the devil tempts you and me in the same way. It is important to remember that the devil is a liar first and foremost (John 8:44). The satisfaction he seems to offer is temporary and the interpretation of the bible which he offers is wrong. His promises are lies. We can resist temptation by the power of God the Holy Spirit and we can resist lies with the truth of God’s word.
This is what Jesus did in his replies to the devil in the wilderness. When the devil tempted him with temporary satisfaction, he replied by explaining that it is God’s word that gives lasting satisfaction (Deuteronomy 8:3). When the devil tempted him by misinterpreting the bible, he replied with a true interpretation (Deuteronomy 6:16). And the verses Jesus quoted were from a passage in Deuteronomy which explains the purpose of the forty years the people of Israel spent in the wilderness. Jesus did not simply pick verses here and there (since ‘a text without context is a pretext’ for our own — or the devil’s — preconceptions). He interpreted Deuteronomy 6 — 8 as an explanation of the forty years in the wilderness and the forty days he was spending there. And the theme of that passage is, of course, that there is one true God and other gods are lies (Deuteronomy 6:4,5,12-16; 7:3-6,16,25,26; 8:3-6,10,11,14,17-20). When the devil tempted Jesus by lying, that is the truth with which Jesus replied (Deuteronomy 6:13). Why not read Deuteronomy 6 — 8 this Lent and think about that?
Fr Mike Healey (priest-in-charge)
Today we (at S Mary’s) are celebrating The Presentation of Christ in the Temple (the feast is actually on Thursday, exactly forty days after Christmas Day, but the Church of England allows us to celebrate it on the Sunday between 28 January and 3 February). We are celebrating Jesus being taken to the Jerusalem temple forty days after his birth and being met by the prophets Simeon and Anna.
This feast marks the end of the Christmas season. We have celebrated Jesus’ birth (as promised) as one of God’s chosen people, at Christmas, his appearance to the other peoples of the world (as represented by the magi) at Epiphany, God’s self-revelation as Trinity at Jesus’ baptism, and now the season is completed with a celebration of Jesus’ first visit to his temple in Jerusalem.
This may have been his least controversial visit to the temple but, even on this occasion, the challenge of Jesus and his gospel was apparent to some. Something to think about as we turn towards Lent (which begins in less than a month).
Fr Mike Healey (priest-in-charge)
Yesterday was Christmas Day, which means today (the second day of this forty-day season of Christmas and Epiphany) is the Festival of Stephen, the first Christian martyr.
A martyr (the word comes from a Greek word meaning ‘witness’) is someone who insists on the truth of Christianity even when it means being executed or murdered. This is still happening today: Stephen was the first of many Christians who are killed just because they will not deny our faith in Jesus.
A lot of early Christian leaders, including, it is thought, ten of the original twelve apostles, were killed because they insisted that Jesus is Lord and God raised him from the dead. Think about that next time someone tells you that the stories about Jesus’ miraculous birth were not written to be taken literally or that the story of his resurrection is a sort of metaphor. Merry Christmas!
Fr Mike Healey (priest-in-charge)
Today is Remembrance Sunday and the gospel reading we used at S Mary’s for our remembrance service is Jesus giving orders to the eleven disciples before his arrest. He told them that the greatest love a person can have for friends is to lay down his (or her?) life for them.
Today we remember and honour those who have given their lives away, or had them taken away, in war. But as Christians we remember and honour Jesus, who gave his life to save us from sin and death and now spends his life praying for us in the presence of God the Father. Thank God for Jesus.
Fr Mike Healey (priest-in-charge)
Tomorrow is The Fourteenth Sunday after Trinity. It is also the Sunday when we are celebrating our harvest thanksgiving at S Mary’s. It can be difficult to understand why we celebrate harvest festival, especially now that most people live in cities rather than the countryside, but I think we can look at the fruit and vegetables we give thanks for in three ways:
1) The produce people gave thanks for in less urbanised times was what they produced: literally the fruits of their labour. We can follow their example by thanking God for what we have produced, as indicated in Psalm 127:1.
2) The produce people gave thanks for was what they received for their work: they were not in it for the money but, originally, received their produce as their pay. We can follow their example by thanking God for our pay, as indicated in Deuteronomy 26:8-10.
3) The produce that people gave thanks for was what they enjoyed: just as some of us say ‘grace’ before eating a meal or ask for God’s blessing in the form of marriage before becoming partners, we can thank God for everything we enjoy because he is the source of all goodness, as indicated in Ecclesiastes 3:9-13.
Thank God!
Fr Mike Healey (priest-in-charge)
Today is The Seventh Sunday After Trinity and today’s reading from Matthew is the story of Jesus (and Peter!) walking on the water. Jesus’ walking on the water has always been seen as a proof of his divinity: Isaiah reminds us that it is God who makes a path through the sea. But the part about Peter walking on the water is worth taking note of as well.
Peter was happy to get out of the boat and walk to Jesus across the sea, even though the weather was already rough, and he did all right as long as he was looking at Jesus. But when he was distracted by the bad weather around him, he began to sink. This could be just another story about how the impulsive Peter went wrong but we could do a lot worse than follow his example of prayer to Jesus: ‘Lord, save me!’
Fr Mike Healey (priest-in-charge)
Today is The Sixth Sunday After Trinity and, at S Mary’s church, we are baptizing two people during our Sunday morning mass. Baptism seems to be a very popular service among people who do not go to church regularly but it is great to be able to baptize people at a service where there are plenty of regulars. Baptism is not a family affair or, rather, baptism is not something that just involves the birth-family of the person baptized. Baptism marks the adoption of a person into the family of the church: the family of God.
Fr Mike Healey (priest-in-charge)
Today is The Fifth Sunday After Trinity and we have for our gospel reading at our principal service the end of Matthew 13, a chapter full of Jesus’ parables. The parables make it clear that, for some, the kingdom of Heaven is the most important thing there is (as in the parables of the hidden treasure and the pearl of great price). They also make it clear that those who do not ‘sell everything’ to get the kingdom will come to regret it. We may not appreciate the importance of God’s kingdom now but, when it has come to its fullness, it will be huge.
Fr Mike Healey (priest-in-charge)
Sunday was The First Sunday after Trinity: the church’s calendar has gone back to ‘Ordinary Time’. The New Testament reading set for Sunday was Romans 6:12-23 and this gave us an opportunity to consider a very basic Christian teaching: The wages of sin is death but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord. Sin — being my own God, putting ‘I’ in the middle — leads to death, just like working earns a wage. But God wants to give you life in Jesus, as a free gift, through Jesus. It’s that simple.
Fr Mike Healey (priest-in-charge)
