At the beginning of his first letter to the Corinthians, Paul writes, “The message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God” (1 Cor 1:18) ‘The power of God’; the God who brought everything into existence – who, in Jesus […]
Sermon Topic: Christ's Death
The Cost of God's Love
In the Name of our Lord Jesus Christ, welcome. Today following this liturgy we have no coffee hour, neither do the clergy do our normal greetings at the door. We are not being unfriendly; rather, of all Sundays in the year today is the Sunday of the Lord’s Passion – as we heard, his trial, […]
The Shape of Love
“For God so loved the world…” Without question that has to be the best-known Bible verse in the world. John 3:16 – you see it on billboards, in stadiums, in tracts and on bags. You hear things like, God is love or God loves you. People say this love is what Christianity is all about. […]
The Total Self-Offering of Jesus
After the tears of Jesus, weeping over his friend Lazarus who had died, weeping over the city of Jerusalem, the human city that has turned away from peace; after the tears, and after also his tenderness, his gentle washing of the disciples’ feet, his tender mercy shown to all who come to him, after his […]
The Cross is not a Problem to be Understood
Ken Leech once said, “The Cross is not a problem to be understood but a mystery into which we enter.” Jesus chose to be involved in the lives of ordinary people; he chose to experience all that it is to be human; he “made himself of no reputation, and took upon him the form of […]
Pieta
Henri Nouwen, reflecting on the death of his mother and the profound grief he experienced said this: “Eternity is born in time, and every time someone dies whom we have loved dearly, eternity can break into our mortal existence a little bit more.” (A letter of Consolation) It is because God has experienced death in […]
God is in the Darkness
When the phone rang at two o’clock in the morning I knew it was the hospital. I was on call as a parish priest in the East end of London. I prayed it wasn’t maternity…it was worse…it was the children’s ward. “Come quickly”. When I got there it looked as if there had been a […]
Suffered under Pontius Pilate, was Crucified, Dead, and Buried
In the Name of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Ghost. Amen. This is the sixth sermon in our series on the Apostles’ Creed, as we take it phrase by phrase. The Apostles’ Creed, which is the creed of Holy Baptism in Western Christianity, is used at Morning and Evening Prayer […]
He Descended into Hell
In the Name of God: Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen. “He descended into hell.” We have to proceed with extreme caution when we dare to speak of divine things, and with all the more fear and trembling when we delve into mysteries about things like places of the dead, “that undiscovered country,” as Hamlet […]
The Exaltation of the Holy Cross
Many, many centuries ago, not long after the world was made, when I was a curate in my first parish, I was, like most curates in those days, in charge of the youth group. The group decided during one Lent that they would like to erect a large cross outside the church in time for […]
