Jesus in the locked houses

Painting of Thomas with Jesus by Caravaggio

Now, it was Sunday, and Jesus’ followers were locked in their homes.  Some were fearful of coronavirus and what it meant.  Jesus came and stood among them and said: “Peace be with you!”, and then he showed them his hands and his side.  He told them that these wounds were a sign of how he carried the wounds of the world on the cross.  All our hurt, and suffering, our sense of separation from God and each other, our fears and even death.  As he showed these wounds he said again: “Peace be with you!”. 

Thomas was not with them when Jesus came, and he said, I can’t believe that it is true. I saw him die.  I need to touch him to know it is true, then I will believe.  Jesus, not wanting anyone to miss out on knowing that he really is alive, comes again into the locked room.  Standing there again he says: “Peace be with you.” Thomas, sees him and doesn’t need to touch him to know him: “My Lord and my God”.  

John, writing all these things down for us (John 20.19-31), says that these things are written for us that we might believe that Jesus is the Son of God, and in believing that we might have life in his name.

And so this is where the rubber hits the road for us.  We have journeyed with Jesus to Jerusalem.  We have witnessed his death.  Last Sunday we celebrated his resurrection.  Now a week later we are still in lockdown, not knowing for how long or what the future will bring.  This is where we are faced with what we really believe.

Over the last couple of weeks I have heard some Christians talk about this period of time as being an extension of Holy Saturday, that time of almost limbo and waiting to see whether the death on Good Friday really will lead to the new life promised for Easter Sunday.  But I think that this part of the Easter events resonates more.  Jesus is risen, and for those in lockdown, for us in lockdown, can we believe that it is true and that Jesus is really risen?

In John's gospel, firstly we read about Peter and John believing that Jesus is alive when they see the linen cloths collapsed as the body they had wrapped became a new and very different body.  Mary’s testimony after Jesus called her by name was: “I have seen the Lord.” Now the disciples in the locked room believe when they see and hear Jesus standing among them.  Jesus is no ghost, his physical body holds wounds he invites Thomas to touch.  At a time where we feel so aware of what and who we touch this offer seems more powerful.  It is in the offer to touch the wounds of Christ that Thomas’ eyes are finally opened and he calls Jesus his Lord.  Says Jesus you are more powerful than my fear or my unbelief.  You are Lord of all.

If we think about ourselves in our current situation, I wonder how you are feeling?  Are you fearful at home?  Are you unsure about the future? Perhaps like Thomas you feel isolated from your family and friends? Do you have a desire to know that Jesus is with you?  

You might be feeling all of these, and so perhaps more than ever we need to remember the promise of God that nothing can separate from the love of God found in Jesus Christ, and even in our locked down state, Jesus comes to be with us.

In our reading from the Acts of the Apostles (Acts 2.22-32), Peter quotes from Psalm 16 as he talks about Jesus journeying through death and out the other side.  Jesus was not abandoned to death, in fact through his death he freed all those who had died! Today the Orthodox church celebrates Easter, and what you see in icons of the resurrection is Jesus leading the dead from their tombs.  Jesus raised from the dead promises that we can join him in eternal life.  And that eternal life, life in the kingdom of God can start for us now!  Psalm 16 includes this verse which Peter quotes: “You have made known to me the paths of life, you will make me full of gladness in your presence.”

As we begin to talk more about the effects on our mental health of living locked down and often in fear, then psychologists are recommending practices that Christians have followed for thousands of years.  Looking for things to be grateful for is one.  Just take a moment now, look around your room or out the window.  What are you thankful for? 

The verse says ‘you will make me full of gladness in your presence’, when Jesus comes into the midst of fear and locked down houses, he does not bring coronavirus, his presence is a different sort of contagion, he brings contagious holiness, contagious peace.  Imagine again that Jesus is present with you now in your room.  If he were there, what would he be saying to you?  Can you hear him say: Peace be with you?  It may feel impossible to imagine Jesus is with you, but Jesus did do the impossible.  The room was locked. But when the disciples realised that Jesus were there, they were glad.  “You make me full of gladness with your presence”

And Jesus leads us into paths of life.  Our life currently feels very different, but Jesus breathes on the disciples in the locked room, breathes the Holy Spirit on them.  Remember, Jesus is the one who baptises us with the Holy Spirit, and gosh don’t we need the Holy Spirit to help us!  We are probably all feeling more helpless than we have ever done, more uncertain about what the future holds. But in the midst of that Jesus says: “Receive the Holy Spirit.” Let us pause for a moment, you might want to be still close your eyes and turn your hands upwards as a sign that you do want to receive the Holy Spirit.  It is not magic, but God always wants to work in partnership with us, and as physical people our actions help to focus our minds and demonstrate the intention of our hearts.  Jesus says: “Receive the Holy Spirit.”

One of the roles of the Holy Spirit is to reveal Jesus more clearly to us. It is good to ask God to help us know the presence of Jesus more clearly at this time, and to ask for the peace that passes understanding, and the perfect love that casts out fear.  Perhaps you need self-control, or patience as you live more closely with others.  Perhaps you need to rediscover joy, or to reconnect with kindness. Perhaps you need God’s help to forgive.  These are the work of the Holy Spirit in us.  

So my prayer for you all this week is that you will find space to be quiet this week, to remember that God is with you, and to receive the gift of the Holy Spirit who will comfort you and help you.  

Poem for Easter

A bunny, a chick and egg opened wide

Children excited at chocolate inside

Families gathered – together – apart

Love draws us in, connects up our hearts



A man on a cross, a tomb opened wide

Fear and excitement, there’s no-one inside

Friends huddle together, distress off the chart

But love draws them in, connects up their hearts



A stranger, a road, bread broken wide

A room that is locked, but still He’s inside

New family created, new life at its start

Love draws us in, connects up our hearts.

Let love draw you in and connect up your heart

Can I tell you something?  Well, there was this man Jesus from Nazareth, a prophet, he taught with powerful words that cut to the heart, and did amazing things, healing people, raising them from the dead, feeding thousands of people with a boy’s packed lunch, loving the unlovable, opening our eyes to see what God’s word really means… we hoped he would be the one to redeem Israel – no-one else like him has ever come before.  But on Thursday, he was arrested by the chief priests and handed over to Pontius Pilate, he was beaten and mocked and sent to be crucified on Friday morning.  We saw him through the crowds, falling over again and again under the weight of the cross, and heard the hammer on the nails, watched as the cross dropped into the ground.  The sign above him said ‘Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews’ – did Pilate believe it was true?  We didn’t know what to believe, and then the sky grew dark, I felt a strange kind of fear grip me, the hours passed, I felt rooted to the ground. And then Jesus cried out, ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’ and the tears fell down my face, how could this be happening.  Then Jesus cried out again, I couldn’t hear what he said but it was like all sound and all reality was just sucked away, I couldn’t breathe, and time stopped…


Then like an exhale, the earth beneath me began to shake, I fell to the ground, and heard the soldiers shout out, ‘Surely he was the Son of God’.  And then I ran and ran, the ground shaking beneath me…


Later I heard that in the temple the curtain had torn in two, and Joseph, you know – the one from Arimathea, the rich one on the Jewish Council – he went straight to Pilate told him Jesus was dead and asked to take his body to be buried.  They moved quickly because sabbath was coming and were able to wrap his body in grave cloths, and seal the tomb with a rock.  All day yesterday we didn’t know what to do between the tears and the questions, should we stay here in the city, or is it all over, should we go home, what should we do?!!


Then this morning the two Marys went to the tomb and as they watched an angel appeared and rolled away the stone.  They said: ‘Do not be afraid, I know you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified.  He is not here, he is risen, just as he said.’ 


Can you imagine yourself there?  Listening to an eyewitness account, what would you make of what you had just heard, let’s press pause and take a poll… If you were in Jerusalem and you had just heard that story what would your response be to Jesus disappearing from the tomb?  Is it: whateva! – I don’t care, they must be high, someone stole his body, he wasn’t really dead, I don’t know but it’s scary, I want to find out more, Jesus is alive


All of these responses would have happened.  For many years, I had the first response – whateva! I don’t really care.  But I remember so vividly that first Easter in April 2000, a few weeks after I became a Christian, and we were in church and singing a song with the chorus ‘Jesus is alive’, and suddenly I felt a rush of fear and excitement, and a flood of realisation that what I was singing was true.  Jesus is alive!


Today, for the first time since St Catharine’s church building was finished in 1915, we are not gathered in the building to sing and to celebrate that truth.  It feels painful not to be together.  I was so looking forward to my first Easter with you.  And yet, I think we learn something at a deeper level today than we could normally.  As the women come to the tomb, they hear the angel say ‘He is not here’, ‘Jesus is not here’.  And we can imagine perhaps approaching our church building, and in the quiet, hearing that same voice saying: ‘He is not here’. 



The women hurry away from the tomb, and suddenly there is Jesus, he greets them and they fall at his feet and worship. 


They like us begin to realise that Jesus is with us in a whole new way.  Our buildings are important because they provide a place to gather together, but our church is not our building.  Our church is us, each person, each household, touched by the love of God, by the truth that Jesus is alive.  It is that love that draws us together and connects up our hearts.


Our first reading came from Acts 10.34-43 – this book which is like part 2 of Luke’s gospel – tells us about the events that followed Easter Sunday.  It mainly follows those who believed that Jesus had died and been raised again, and the whole book tells how those followers travelled about with this news, facing incredible hardship and persecution because they believed the good news they were carrying was world changing.  No other event in the history of the world has rung true with people in every generation, culture, nation and language.  No other event in the history of the world has changed the lives of the people who choose to believe, and to act like it is true.  God will never compel us to believe, that is not what love does. Love draws us in, it connects up our hearts.  


In our church services we often say the Creed together, it is a summary of our Christian faith that has been repeated by believers for hundreds of years.  Here in the reading from Acts we see a very early summary of Christian belief.  And it is extraordinary because the words are spoken by Peter, a Jew, to Cornelius and his household, Gentiles.  Peter is having a conversion, realising that the good news about Jesus is for all people, not just the Jews.  Jesus is Lord of all.  And we see how God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit are together at work making this offer – the opportunity to respond to God’s love made known in Jesus Christ – God makes this offer to all.  We are not created to be alone, we are created to be with God.  At the moment you may be feeling alone, and isolated, I think we are realising perhaps as never before how we are made to be in relationship, with each other, the world and with God.  Our promise from God is that through Jesus all these relationships that have been fractured can be healed and restored.  God’s love draws us in, and connects up our hearts.

So what are we to do, on this day of all days, the high point of the Christian year, a day when we desperately want to be together to celebrate a love that overcomes even death.  We want to be with those we love, our family (both church and birth) and our friends.  And the loss of that perhaps feels more painful today.  I wonder if we don’t run from the pain of that sense of separation, but sit with it, I wonder if we will feel something of what God feels towards us.  God offers us unconditional love, there is nothing you or I can do to earn it, and when we turn our back on it, I think God feels the pain of that separation.  So would you let yourself today, wherever you are, would you let yourself be loved by God?  To say sorry for all the times you have turned away, and to turn back, God’s arms are always open, God’s forgiveness is always there.  Let love draw you in and connect up your heart. 

Man borrows donkey...you'll be amazed by what happens next!

Sometimes I wonder what a culturally relevant Bible translation would be like. I think in our social media driven world, today’s reading would probably have the title: ‘Man borrows donkey. You’ll be amazed by what happens next!’


Today, as we take time to reflect on Jesus riding a donkey into Jerusalem, on what we now know as Palm Sunday, I pray that we will encounter God, and be amazed all over again at who Jesus is and what He was preparing to do in the week ahead.

I was fortunate to spend a month in Israel and the West Bank in 2014 and that has helped me to picture more clearly where Jesus would have been and what is happening. It brought God’s story closer to walk on the same hills as Jesus walked. So, as we begin to engage with Palm Sunday let’s place ourselves in the shoes of those who are journeying up to Jerusalem. Some people are very good at visualising scenes, for others this may be more tricky.  


Perhaps close your eyes and try to picture a dusty trail up a hill. Jerusalem is surrounded by hills. Jesus and His disciples were approaching via Bethany, which means you can’t see Jerusalem until you get to the top of the Mount of Olives, and then just in front of you, the old city of Jerusalem is laid out. Temple Mount is right ahead of you, almost level with your line of sight, but you see the hillside dropping away into the Kidron Valley, before you go uphill again and approach the huge city walls that seem so big once you are underneath them.


The road is probably packed with pilgrims coming up to Jerusalem for Passover. Three times a year the Jewish men, perhaps with their families, made that pilgrimage journey to the Temple in Jerusalem for the important festivals. Passover was the biggest festival, the celebration of God delivering Israel from slavery in Egypt. This tradition of pilgrimage to the Temple would almost certainly be more than 500 years old, and perhaps going back nearly 1000 years to when Solomon built the first Temple. The people were used to the ritual of coming together to sing their songs of praise to God. In particular, they spoke out or sung psalms 113-118. These 6 psalms (called the Hallel – prayer of praise; think of hallelujah – praise God!) take Israel through her history as the people of God. They praise God for Gods love, and care, and mercy for the whole world. For the great miracles and salvation God has done for Gods people in the past and the miracles and salvation God will bring in the future. 


The road is packed, we know from John’s Gospel that many Jews who had already arrived in Jerusalem earlier in the week had gone out to Bethany when they heard that Jesus had raised Lazarus from the dead. People wanted to see Lazarus and Jesus for themselves. You can almost sense the buzz in the air, because of what had happened people were supposing that the kingdom of God was to appear immediately. Imagine the pilgrims singing these psalms of God’s salvation and love, and this huge anticipation that the moment was upon them, the Messiah the great deliverer of Israel was here, the kingdom of David promised for 1000 years would be established. So this is the scene in which we hear those verses from psalm 118.


Then there was Jesus, riding a donkey’s colt, in the midst of the people. Matthew quotes the prophecy of Zechariah 9.9 that the king will come to Jerusalem riding a donkey’s colt. I don’t know about you, but there is something very comforting about seeing these Old Testament prophecies fulfilled.  It is a reassurance that even in the times – like we are in at the moment - that feel like everything is in turmoil, even in this we can be assured that God knows the end from the beginning, and that what is happening now is still part of God’s story of being at work in the world.  God is still working together with us to work all things together for good.  And so back to that dusty hillside, and the familiar words that have been sung for centuries from Psalm 118.26 change, the people aren’t singing ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD’. They are singing ‘Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the LORD’.

Man borrows donkey. You’ll never guess what happened next! The people who saw Him proclaimed Him their King! Shall we cheer and wave our branches?



Imagine you are in the crowd cheering for Jesus, excited that he is the Messiah, the coming King.  What do you expect Jesus to do next?



The crowds will have been used to seeing kings and rulers parade into cities in royal splendour wearing their grand robes and riding their warhorses.  Do you remember when I was in Swansea at the start of February, at the same time that Prince William and Kate visited.  The streets were packed with people waving their flags and cheering.  And the police and bodyguards stopped the traffic and scanned the crowd before William and Kate got out of their bullet proof car, waved to the crowd, and were ushered into the building.   It was clear that someone important was there.  As I stood on tiptoes crushed in with people around me – a strange thought now after the last couple of weeks! – it made me think about Palm Sunday and the crowds straining to see Jesus.


But what did they see?  A poor man in simple clothes, riding a colt.  The crowd welcome him as king, but he rides in humbly.  The crowd would expect him to lead them in confronting the Roman authorities, to reclaim the kingdom of Israel, to exert power in a human way. But this is not what we find when we click through on the ‘Man borrows donkey’ story. We are amazed at what happens next because it is not the story we thought it would be. The triumph of God was never going to be one established in human terms of military or political power, the strong overwhelming the weak.  The triumph of God comes in Jesus making himself vulnerable, of allowing himself to be killed, and showing that it is not a love of power that ultimately wins, but it is the power of love.  Jesus loves us through death and out the other side.

Matthew tells us that when Jesus entered Jerusalem the whole city was stirred and asked ‘Who is this?’  I think in some ways we are beginning to see the world asking a similar question in the midst of this unsettling time.  


One Italian doctor has written: “Until two weeks ago, my colleagues and I were atheists. It was normal because we are doctors. We learned that science excludes the presence of God.” Then: “Nine days ago, a 75-year-old pastor was admitted into the hospital. He was a kind man. He had serious breathing problems. He had a Bible with him and impressed us by how he read it to the dying as he held their hand. We, doctors, were all tired, discouraged, psychologically, and physically finished. When we had time, we listened to him. We have reached our limits. We can do no more. People are dying every day. We are exhausted. We have two colleagues who have died and others that have been infected.” Then he and his colleagues realized, “We needed to start asking God for help.” He testified, “When we talk to each other, we cannot believe that, though we were once fierce atheists, we are now daily in search of peace, asking the Lord to help us continue so that we can take care of the sick.” The 75-year-old pastor died. The doctor finished by saying, “Despite having had over 120 deaths here in 3 weeks, we were not destroyed. The pastor had managed, despite his condition and our difficulties, to bring us a PEACE that we no longer had hoped to find.”

The News at 10 had Archbishop Justin Welby on to ask: “Where is God in what is happening?”  With the closer awareness we have of death, and in a world turned upside down, a lot more people are asking: Who is this Jesus?


And perhaps we need to ask ourselves the same question.  Who is Jesus to us? 

The crowd wanted God to be and act in ways that met their agenda, we can often do the same.  But God doesn’t just ignore that. God listens to all our prayers. God encourages us to realise we are loved, forgiven and blessed. And over time we begin to realise that is not because we deserve it, or we are particularly special, it is so that we can love others, forgive others and bless others in Jesus’ name. 


When life seems overwhelming, problems too big for us to overcome, like Jesus dying when we thought He would be King, we can trust that God is involved and at work for us and with us. Appearances can be deceptive. 


Man borrows donkey. And He is King. But so much better than anything we can ask or imagine. 

Into death

Image: Peter's Denial by Robert Leinweber

Sermon for St Catharine's Gloucester on 29th March 2020 based on the Bible readings: Luke 22.31-34 (Jesus foretells Peter's denial) and John 11.17-35 (Raising of Lazarus)

When I was praying back in November about the Lent course and what we would be looking at each week, I felt like God gave me the outline for the course and readings, and in week 6 – which is today’s sermon – I felt God was giving me the title ‘Into death’.  I mulled that over for a while, and when I realised that today was going to be the best date for the APCM, I slightly chickened out, and decided that rather than speaking on ‘into death’ at the APCM I would speak on ‘living as the church’, and so that is what went into the Lent booklets.  The strange thing was that I have kept that original scrap of paper on my desk for the last four months, and kept looking again at that title: ‘Into death’ and wondering what it meant.  Well, that has become very clear in the last couple of weeks!  And I have felt strangely comforted that God already knew that we would be facing this situation with coronavirus way before we did.  So today we will be looking at what it means to journey into death and how Jesus is with us even in that.  After Easter we will return to the Lent course and what it means to ‘live as the church’, and I expect our answer on the other side of coronavirus is going to look rather different to what we imagined before.

In our readings we see Jesus present in two forms of death: the death of our hopes and expectations about our own faith, and the physical death experienced by Lazarus.  In Peter we see the death of his own expectations about himself, and what he is able to do for Jesus: ‘Lord I am ready to go with you to prison and to death’.  But Jesus knows Peter better than Peter knows himself, and He knows that Peter will deny Him three times.  I wonder where you find yourself this week.  For those of you who have had the physical reality of the church as an anchor point in your weeks, there will be a deep grief at the loss of that, alongside the loss of so many other things.  Like Peter, facing the death of Jesus and the loss of all that was familiar, you might find facing the reality of these changes too painful and demanding.  We are being pushed out of the familiar, out of our comfort zones. And we see in these few short verses, that the test Peter will go through, like the test we are facing will be severe.  Jesus in fact makes it clear that Peter will be unable to come through it by himself.  But here is the amazing promise, that Peter will not face it alone.  At his side stands Jesus, who promises to be praying for Peter and for his faith.  As we will hear again today in the words of the eucharistic prayer, Jesus is still praying for us today, interceding for us at the right hand of our Father.  And Jesus promises that Peter will turn back, and when he does Jesus encourages him to strengthen those around him.  

Over these weeks ahead, we are all going to face tests of our faith and trust in God but hold on to this promise from our faithful God, Jesus is praying for you and is with you through this.  You may well turn away, you may well realise that you are not the Christian you thought you were, you may well come face-to-face with the reality that you can’t do for Jesus all that you hoped you could.  And what do we do when that happens?  I think that is where the gift of confession comes in.  Because how do we know that Peter did indeed go on to deny Jesus three times?  We know because Peter himself must have told others the story.  And this is the true gift that God gives us, because the truth is that we can’t hold on to God by our sheer willpower - even Jesus on the cross thought His Father had forsaken Him - but God is the One who holds us and prays for us.   And so our testimony on the other side of this, if we are willing to acknowledge we have been unable to make the journey alone, will be a humble testimony of the faithfulness of God towards us.  Confessing our weakness and receiving God’s mercy and strength.

In our reading from John, we begin to get a glimpse of the hope that we have in Jesus as we face the death of all that is familiar, and face the reality of physical death more acutely.  Lazarus has been dead for four days before Jesus comes.  For Jews this was a sign that the spirit had left the body, and hope was gone.  Martha shows great trust in Jesus, that Jesus still could make a difference.  And we learn that resurrection hope does have a name, and that name is Jesus.  Jesus is the resurrection and the life.  To be bound to Jesus by faith is to be able to share now the life which is beyond physical death.   

Martha realising this tenderly draws her sister Mary aside, and relays the news that Jesus wants to speak to her, Jesus is calling her to come, and a spark of faith perhaps arises in Mary and she goes quickly to Jesus, or perhaps she is ready to take her anger out on him? She falls at Jesus' feet bringing no request, just her tears. And I'm not sure whether she is (angry) Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died, is (bitter) Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died, or is (in grief) Lord if you had been here my brother would not have died. Whatever it was she showed no obvious faith in Jesus, and as she and the crowd of Jews weep, Jesus shows extreme emotion too, which ends with him crying alongside them.  God weeps over our loss, suffering and trauma.  God promises to be our comforter, the one who draws alongside us, even in death.

It may be at the moment, you don’t know how to answer the question ‘where is God in all of this?’ for yourself or for those around you.  And there is no easy answer when we might want God to click fingers and make this alright.  But that is not the Christian faith.  The Bible tells us that the world is broken and messed up, and the Christian faith is not one that offers an easy fix.  It is a faith that says that God enters the brokenness and the mess, and journeys with us through it, praying for us, and strengthening us.  Recognising that things are not as they should be and offering to work with us to make things right again.  It is of a deeper hope than a quick fix.  It is hope of the healing of all things.  We have an opportunity in the midst of this to truly face ourselves, realise we just cannot to this life alone, throw ourselves on the mercy of God, and work with God to reset our lives, to value the things that are really important.  We already see it happening all around us as life is simplified.  I cried on my doorstep on Friday evening hearing the clapping and cheers and fireworks at 8pm.  People coming together and valuing the NHS and others who are sacrificing themselves for others. 

The Christian story is one of journeying into death and out the other side into new life.  Of giving up our need for control and learning to trust God.  It is not an easy journey but God is with us all, God loves us all, and is faithful to us all.  Amen.

Some questions to think about this week:

·       What hopes and expectations about yourself and God are you having to give up?  Can you offer those to God?  What is God giving you in exchange?

·       Are you able to face and confess your fears to God?  What happens when you do?  Can you receive God’s comfort and mercy and peace? 

·       Jesus says that he is the resurrection and the life.  What does that promise mean for you right now?

Gratitude

Have you come across a gratitude jar?  I was recently given one for my birthday.  The idea is that you have a jar set aside into which you put slips of paper or card with a brief note of something you are thankful for that day.  You could do it every day, or in my case, whenever you remember.  The important thing is taking a few moments to think – what am I grateful for today? It could be anything, so have an open mind, and then jot that down on a piece of paper and pop it in the jar.  As the jar fills up it is a visual reminder of all the things that you are thankful for but is also a great encouragement to go back to at different times.

It is often small changes that can yield big results in our lives and trying to live from a place of gratitude is a simple change that begins like yeast to work its way through the whole of our lives.  If you are stuck in a cycle of comparing yourself negatively with others, what would giving thanks for what you do have begin to shift in you?   

Whilst a gratitude jar might be new, the Bible has been advocating this way of life for a long time.  In fact, when Paul was writing to one of his churches he even commanded them – Be thankful! Being thankful is an overflow of remembering that we are chosen, loved and forgiven by God.  Because God chooses us, loves us and forgives us, God asks those who follow God to do the same, to love as we are loved, to forgive as we have been forgiven, and then to let the peace of Christ rule our hearts.  It is these things that lead us to a place of thanksgiving (Colossians 3.12-15).

Sometimes it is easier to be thankful than others.  This morning I put my cup of tea on the floor as I went to get something in the other room.  Needless to say, as I walked back into the room I kicked my cup with great accuracy and the tea flew everywhere! The quiet moment I had been looking forward to sitting in the sun with a book for a few minutes was lost as I tried to soak up the tea and scrub the stain.  It would have been easy to be angry and frustrated.  But I found myself thankful for hot water from the tap that help me rinse, for a house safe and secure with a fluffy carpet, for the fact that I could bend down and get back up without a problem.  Life is often not straightforward, but thankfulness can change our perspective.  Why not give it a go?

Christmas Eve - Earthrise

Photo credit: Apollo 8 astronauts with NASA Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter data

Fifty years ago tonight, Christmas Eve 1968, the crew of Apollo 8 did what no human beings had done before, in their tiny space craft they orbited the moon, seeing the far side of the moon for the first time, and then they saw the earth rise over the horizon. This is the photo they took. Thanks to space exploration we have become used to seeing the earth from space, but just 50 years ago this sight of the fragile earth rising made people catch their breath and wonder at creation.

In the last of their 10 orbits of the moon the crew of Apollo 8 did a live television broadcast to earth watched by over 1 billion people. I find it extraordinary and moving to watch this (link below) and hear the astronauts ask for God’s blessing on all on earth. There is particular power in these words being spoken on Christmas Eve as we remember that God’s way of blessing the earth was to be born a baby in Bethlehem. In chapter 3 of John’s Gospel we learn that it was because of God’s great love for us that Jesus came to live amongst us, to die for us and to show, by rising from the dead, that even death cannot separate us from the love of God. Borman, Lovell and Anders (the three crew of Apollo 8) speaking much later about the mission spoke about how they had tried to work out what to say on their TV broadcast with little success when one of their friends wives suggested starting at the beginning. And so they read out the first 10 verses of Genesis 1 - the first 10 verses of the Bible - a reading that became part of space history. 

The Bible starts with these words: in the beginning - God. In the beginning - God. Before anything was made that has been made, Christians believe that God was. In fact the very name of God - Yahweh - is I am who I am, the one who is without beginning and end. But God doesn't just be, God speaks and acts. And tonight's readings from Hebrews (1.1-4) and Johns Gospel (1.1-14) tell us more about God's speaking and actions. In the beginning - was the Word. John as he writes is taking us back to before the creation, back to what is recorded in Genesis 1.  To understand where we've come from we go back to the beginning.  In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made and without him nothing was made. And the word became flesh and made his dwelling among us - literally pitched his tent.  

This is an extraordinary claim, that God who spoke that blue Jewel we call earth, that we call home, into existence would give all that up to be born a fragile baby on a fragile planet. Why should we believe something so incredible?

I know that believing this is part of my job as a vicar (!) but the longer I have thought about this story the more convinced I am that this is the only story that makes sense of the world we see around us.

There are only two options about our existence. Everything came about by chance or everything was created by a higher power. Now of course everything is possible, but for me the probability of chance producing our beautiful planet with the right conditions for life seem so small to be unrealistic. Even if I accepted that it is possible for the ecosystem to bring forth the plants, animals and intelligent humans, I would have to believe in the survival of the fittest, and if I believe that then it is a mystery why we would ever be kind, or would choose to love and to set ourselves aside for the sake of others.  Because when we do that, it's not survival of the fittest, it is letting someone else take advantage of you. But the world I see in all its brokenness is a world where people are good and kind, where each of us long to be loved and accepted. Where we believe in right and wrong. And these are not pointless, they are the things that give our lives meaning. 

And that is partly why I believe a higher power created everything, and I have come to believe that higher power is God the Trinity, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, and that tonight we remember the extraordinary moment in the history of our planet when God was born as a baby, in a stable in an insignificant town in an oppressed nation. 

When I saw the readings for tonight I smiled because at the very moment we remember that Jesus arrived in the blood and mess of human birth in the dirt of a dark stable, we have these astonishing readings from John and the author of Hebrews as they try to do what no human words can do – try to paint a picture of what it means that this same baby is God.

The Hebrews passage where we have four verses is actually one sentence in Greek. Like the author doesn’t want to pause with the excitement of who Jesus is!  The author tells us that God has spoken throughout history in the words of the prophets, but now in Jesus we hear God direct because when we see Jesus we see God.  Jesus radiates God’s own glory, is the exact imprint of God’s nature, and he upholds the universe by the words He speaks.  When we see the earth rise above the surface of the moon, that is the work of Jesus Christ, and when we remember that there are 7 billion of us living on that tiny blue planet, all equally loved by God, it is mind blowing.

And yet, here we are at a stable in Bethlehem remembering that this is the promise God has made – to be God with us.  With us in our weakness, vulnerabilities, in the mess of life and death.  When we see earth as those astronauts did we realise how fragile we are in comparison to God, and how easy it would be for God to crush us or control us.  But the story of Christmas reveals who God really is, God’s offer of love comes in a way that forces no-one to believe and offers everyone the chance to turn away.  The reading from John’s gospel says although the world was made through him, the world did not, does not, know him. 

So this is the story of Christmas, it's a love story. God loves you and created you with purpose. God offers all who believe the opportunity to become children of God. This is an unconditional love that says: I love you, will you love me?

I hope your answer today will be yes.  

If you want to listen to the Apollo 8 Christmas Eve broadcast of the Genesis 1 reading here is a link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vvNxhlP1jA