Janet’s Blog

The two disciples who were on the road, were walking, the seven miles to Emmaus. Why they were going is not clear but whilst they were walking they were discussing everything that had happened, they are often portrayed in one sense as being a bit spineless, perhaps running or rather walking away form it all. We don’t really know but we know they were walking and putting some distance between themselves and all the events in Jerusalem.

It is difficult for us to understand how they felt, because we already know and understand the ending, really these two people were walking through the valley of the shadow of death. They had nothing but the utter hopeless desolation of grief, and some rantings of hysterical women.
Then Jesus came up to them, even when in effect they were walking away from him.

In my experience there are different aspects to running away from a situation, one is that you just can’t bear a situation and feel that you have to leave. Another aspect is more complex, one where you want to run, not so much only to escape, but also to know that someone who cares would be bothered to come and find you, to look for you and to say, please don’t go because you are important to us, you are important to me.

Sometimes God does that, sometimes when we are walking away, God meets us there. And often not in the way we are expecting.

The two disciples are very sad, and they actually say, “we had hoped that he was the one to redeem Israel.” Then they explain what had happened with the women and the other disciples going to the tomb.
Jesus explains to them all about what happened and why, and they encourage him to stay with them, and when Jesus’ breaks the bread they realise that it is him, and then he is gone.

Then the disciples go straight back to Jerusalem, straight back the seven miles they had walked in daylight, straight back in the dark, no possible accusations of spinelessness now, I’m not sure I would fancy walking that journey in the dark even these days. But God has met with them.

They had been walking yes, they had been walking to Emmaus but whilst they were walking they encountered God and that is what gave them the life, the strength, the breath and the energy, to turn straight around and go back to the others.

Someone I know leads retreats and one of the exercises he gets people to do is called an Emmaus walk, people go out in pairs and they must be silent, unless they are talking about their experience of God. This exercise tends to be an invigorating one, people come away feeling that God has been walking them as they walked. In fact they often feel like the disciples when they say “Were not our hearts burning within us while he was talking to us on the road.”

What message then for us to take back from this passage. Maybe a thought about how when we are walking, even when we are walking away from him, God can come and walk with us, and fill us with transforming resurrection life, if we are willing to recognise him to walk alongside and share with him.

I hold up my hands, this was my last year’s Easter Sermon, I could give you a list of excuses (like being 50% and newly in post) but I was happy to say it again in a new place…

How do you know if you’ve been burgled?

For Mary,
when she approached the tomb,
and saw that the stone had been removed.

It was like she came home
and the front door
which had been securely locked,
was swinging open,
only it was worse,
 because it wasn’t things inside,
  it was the body of her beloved Jesus.

She runs

She runs to get help.

The men come, running.
When they get there they don’t find evidence pointing to a burglary.
Instead of disruption they find neatness.
If the body had been stolen, the grave clothes would have gone.
If Jesus had humanly come back to life and struggled free, things would be messy, unitdy, bits of spice and grave clothes scattered from the struggle.
Instead the grave clothes are neat and tidy.

The men see and they believe,
we are told that they don’t yet understand what has happened,
so what do they believe.
They believe that this is not a burglary.

They do not call for forensics, because they recognise God’s fingerprints are all over the scene.

They are witnesses, they know that Jesus is gone, that God has taken him, but they do not yet know that Jesus is alive. They do not feel that they have anything much to tell, so they simply go home.

Mary, Mary stands weeping outside the tomb.

She is distraught, dislocated with grief, she thought she knew what had happened.

She thought Jesus had died,
she thought he was buried in the tomb, and she thought it was here. She thought she would be able to go and see him, or at least where his body was.

Now she stands, alone, not knowing what to think. Has Joseph of Arimathea had the body moved, and no-one’s told her,
Has someone stolen it, what about the grave clothes then.

Her grief is overwhelming, she looks down to where the body should have been, perhaps he’s there after all.

She sees instead two angels, sitting at either end of where Jesus’ body should have been.

Angels are normally very scary beings, and usually when they appear in a bible story they have to start off by saying ‘Do not be afraid’.

Mary cannot be any more afraid than she already is, they have no warning for her. No they have a simple, compassionate, message from God,

‘Why are you weeping?’

‘Why are you weeping?’

‘They have taken away my Lord and I do not know where they have laid him.’

Why does she turn around?

Does she turn away because this is one more thing she cannot comprehend, the last straw, and she has to turn her back on it.

Or does she sense he is there?

She sees him, but she does not recognise him. Her eyes are full of tears, her mind is full of possibilities, and impossibilities. But the one thing she is not expecting, is that this man, appearing from nowhere, viewed through her haze of tears, she is absolutely not expecting this man is Jesus.

Jesus asks her. ‘Why are you weeping?’ Jesus echoes the words of the angels, the compassionate message of God.

Then Jesus says ‘Whom are you looking for?’
Mary doesn’t bother to say ‘Jesus of course’ she just says
‘if you have taken him, where have you put him, so I can get him.’

Jesus calls her name.

‘Mary’

She realises in an instant that it is Jesus? He has called her name and she recognises the caller.

Suddenly, her life has changed, her understanding of reality has been completely upturned in a fraction of a second.

Jesus tells her not to cling on to him, but to go and tell the others what has happened. She becomes the apostle to the apostles.

Mary, who thought she was alone, but found herself surrounded by angels and God himself, Mary who thought the tears were never going to stop, Mary called by name by Jesus, sent to tell the others that Jesus is alive.

Those disciples who had no news, who simply had to go home, will soon hear all the implications of their observation of God’s work.

The news is more than that Jesus is alive, Jesus says, ‘my Father and your Father, my God and your God’ we are reconciled to God through Jesus. That is God’s message.

Jesus’ first words in the Gospel of John are ‘What are you looking for?’

‘What are you looking for?’

What are we looking for this Easter?

If you come looking for a dead body, we don’t have one here.

Our business is not with death, our business is with resurrection.

God says to us this Easter.

‘Why are you weeping?’

God says to us

‘What are you looking for?’

God calls us, each one by name.

We turn to him, he says, ‘I am your God and Father’

But don’t’ cling to me,

Go and tell the others, what God has done’

If I asked you to name an earthquake, which one would you choose?

When I was growing up the most famous earthquake in the world seemed to be the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco. It was big, in places the ground moved up to 20 feet up the way. If you look up 20 feet now you can imagine what that was like. 3,000 people died and much of the city was destroyed by the earthquake and the fires which raged afterwards.

There have been other great earthquakes, some of which have killed huge numbers of people. The Great Mexican earthquake in 1985 may have killed up to 30,000 people.

The Iran earthquake in 1990 killed 35,000 people.

The Kobe Earthquake in 1995 killed 6,500 people, and also had a huge economic effect on Japan, the global stock markets, and is credited in bringing about the downfall of Bearings Bank.

The Izmit earthquake in 1999 killed 17,000 people in Turkey. The Kashmir earthquake in 2005 killed nearly 80,000 people.

On Boxing Day 2004 there was a huge earthquake in the Indian Ocean, the earthquake didn’t kill so many but the resulting Tsunami had a devastating effect on coastal areas in eleven countries.

I wonder over history which earthquake has had the biggest impact on the course of world events.

Earthquakes are scary things. Earthquakes literally turn the world upside down. Earthquakes shake away the security of us knowing that the ground is firm beneath our feet. Earthquakes break down the pride of human achievement in buildings based on the stability of their man made foundations. Earthquakes bring down the roofs which we build for our own protection. Earthquakes raise beaches metres up away from the sea, they open up chasms and ravines in the ground, they can throw people up in the air, then back down to the ground. Yes earthquakes are very scary things.

The two Mary’s had been having a very scary time, the temple guard, the roman soldiers, the governor and high priest himself had been threatening their friends. Then eventually their worst fears had been realised and Jesus had been killed, shamefully, excruciatingly in full public view.

The women went to look at the tomb, what good did they hope it was going to do? In this gospel we don’t hear that they take spices, just that they were going to look at the tomb. Maybe they were trying to establish a bit of certainty in their chaotic lives. Maybe they needed a bit of ‘closure’ as we would call it today, or maybe they were taking a step on the grieving pathway.

These women, who had watched Jesus die, were accustomed to suffering. We don’t know the details of the suffering, but we know that it had made them strong. Sometimes resulting strength is one, of the reasons God allows suffering. I like to think of these women as the tough squad of the disciples. Because they needed to take in their stride what was about to happen to them.

There was a violent earthquake, as if these women’s world had not been disrupted enough already, there was a violent earthquake. An earthquake which shakes the ground, deafens the ears, churns the stomach, throws you to the ground. Then an angel, rolled back the stone of the tomb and sat on it.

The guards, the not-so tough squad, the men, were so afraid of the angel, and the earthquake, they shook and became like dead men.

I’m not saying the women weren’t scared, but they did seem to be capable of holding it together, unlike the guards. The angel of course says to them ‘do not be afraid’. Angels need to say things like that, because in times of confusion when God is doing something cosmically important, the people to whom the angels are sent need to know that it’s OK. Mary, Joseph, the shepherds…just a few examples.

The angel explains to the women, I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples: ‘He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.

Earthquakes turn the world upside down, and in the events of Easter God has been turning the world upside down, maybe the earthquake, this violent earthquake, was merely a sign of this process. The women hurried away from the tomb into their new upside down world.

This upside down world, where the big brave guards are quivering wrecks.

This upside down world where angels reveal the mysteries of the universe to the women.

This upside down world where the dead are no longer dead.

They hurry away from the tomb, we hear that they are afraid and yet filled with joy. Being afraid and yet filled with joy, I have heard that described in the past as excitement. The women are excited, they run, as if that is enough already, then Jesus meets them, they clasp his feet and worship him, and Jesus echoes the words of the angel when he says to them ‘Do not be afraid’.

Jesus tells them not to be afraid in their new upside down world.

God has not only been turning the world upside down,

he has been turning the universe upside down.

Jesus who died is alive,

grief has been turned into joy,

the things which Jesus had been saying all along, suddenly make sense.

Jesus’ and the angel’s commands for the women, not a parable about the kingdom of God,

No in this new upside down world it’s clearer, simpler, just “Do not be afraid, Go and tell my brothers.”

The woman are excited by the new upside down world which has been shaken not only by a physical earthquake, but by the cosmic earthquake of the resurrection, they meet and worship the risen Jesus, they accept his reassurance not to be afraid, and they do the simple thing that he asks them to do. He asks them to tell the others what they have seen and to take them a message of hope.

This Easter can we be excited?

This Easter are we willing to meet and worship Jesus?

This Easter can we accept his reassurance not to be afraid?

This Easter can we do the simple things Jesus asks us to do?

This Easter can we tell the others what we have seen and take them a message of hope?

I wonder which earthquake has had the biggest impact on the course of world events?

Phil Daniels preached on Maunday Thursday at Chapel Plaister, thank-you Phil (it was good), I was concentrating on celebrating communion and doing foot washing in a church with no running water.

Good Friday morning Phil and Alice put together the family service (thank-you Phil and Alice), I led the afternoon service, we listened to John 18 and 19 and then I read the wine and blood story which I got from a Czech airline magazine…

In the Manchester Passion, the BBCs portrayal of the passion narrative played out on the streets of Manchester two years ago, we see the last supper set in a night street by a burger van. Jesus takes a burger roll and shares it around his disciples whilst he tells them what is going to happen. They are sitting on a bench, on a wall, on the street. Judas’ mobile phone rings he answers it and walks off into the darkness of the night.

As we gather this Wednesday of holy week it is for us the beginning of the long watch. We can see the darkness falling and know it will be a long, long time until Easter Sunday.

“As soon as Judas had taken the bread, he went out. And it was night.”

Night is a difficult time, it is dark, you need to put a lot of energy into providing light and heat. There are shadows, opportunities to trip and to hide. As Jesus is about to find out, it is hard at night to see clearly who are your enemies and who are your friends.

Night leads to confusion, as Peter will find out before the cock crows.

Night leads to despair, as those who flee the garden on Jesus’ arrest will feel only too keenly. Night will be for Jesus a consequence of betrayal, let us not fool ourselves that it is only Judas’ betrayal. The perils and dangers of this night for Jesus are a consequence not only of the betrayal of him by all his friends, but also in a very real sense, the betrayal of God by the whole world.

Jesus knows that night is falling but he is not looking to despair, he is already looking to glory.

When Judas was gone, Jesus said, “Now is the Son of Man glorified and God is glorified in him. If God is glorified in him, God will glorify the Son in himself, and will glorify him at once.

The disciples, would I think have been scratching their heads.

Jesus at his enigmatic best.

That’s the problem with night, it makes it hard to believe that the dawn will come. Jesus knew that the glory of the eternal morning was already on its way, and he knew that the night would come first.

Tony Campolo used to say ‘It’s Friday, but Sunday’s a coming’.

We know in our hearts, or maybe in our heads, that when darkness and troubles fall around us that there will be a dawn from God. But sometimes we find it hard to remember.

This is why we give candles to those being baptised, to remind them ‘to walk in the light of Christ all the days of your life.’

This holy week as we watch the night develop, and listen to the story, so pervaded with darkness, let us wait with eager anticipation for the revelation of and Easter dawn.

And when darkness falls in our own lives, may God be with us and inspire us to remember that the dawn, God’s dawn will come for us too.

This was my ‘classic’ super hero Palm Sunday sermon - some may have heard it before…

We had a Palm Sunday family service with Baptisms, for complex pastoral reasons…not sure I would do it quite that way again

Who is your favourite super-hero? Batman, Superman Wonderwoman, Spider-man, the incredible Hulk, Thermo man? The Incredibles are of course a whole family of superheroes, and if anyone here ever sees Storymkakers they even have super baby.

As I see it with superheroes of any description the first thing you need is a disaster or a pickle or a really tight corner. Then someone, who can shout ‘Rescue me, Help, Help, Save me.’

Why am I wittering on about superheroes on Palm Sunday. The thing which first put it into my head was that somewhere I heard ‘hosanna’ translated as ‘Rescue us’. I was so puzzled by this I’ve looked into it and ‘Hosanna’ means literally ‘Save us’.

This surely then makes Jesus a superhero, crowds of people are lining the streets shouting ‘Save us’ ‘Rescue me’. Such a large crowd surely a job for Superman, or some other really topnotch super-hero. But Jesus wasn’t an ordinary super-hero, and not just because he didn’t wear his pants on top of tights. Jesus didn’t swoop in full of his own super hero importance. But he was riding on a donkey, I may not be an expert on superheroes, but I do know that superheroes do not ride on stupid little donkeys. Even prince charmings ride mighty steeds, not donkeys.

But this didn’t seem to bother the crowd. They seemed confident that even riding on a donkey Jesus was the super hero for them. And to prove it they brought out the red carpet, well they put cloaks and branches on the ground to welcome him, and the donkey.

In superman when he flies by they say, ‘Is it a bird, is it a plane?’ No it’s Superman.’ But what sort of superhero was Jesus. It says in the story from Matthew, the whole city was in turmoil asking “who is this?” but the crowds knew “This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth in Galilee.”

They knew who Jesus was, they knew what he’d been doing, he’d been, curing the sick, healing the lame, giving sight to the blind, making deaf people hear and all the sort of things that a first century Palestinian super-hero should be doing. And now he had come to their city and they wanted him to rescue them. But what from?

The Romans, the years of oppression and centuries of servitude. Some thought he was it their Messiah. Israel would be the best, most powerful nation in the world. Others just knew that they needed this Jesus.

What happened, to our super hero on a donkey. It was the donkey that was the clue all along. Jesus wasn’t coming to rescue the Israelites from the Romans, Jesus was coming to rescue them and the whole world from themselves, from the things any human does which separate them from God. The crowd were right to greet him triumphally, to shout at him ‘rescue me’, but they thought they needed rescuing in a different way.
He knew how they really needed rescuing. Within the space of days, Jesus the superhero would be dead, and just when it seemed he could rescue no-one any more. He would be resurrected, rescuing everyone, anyone who’ll cry ‘Hosanna’ rescue me.

Fifth Sunday of Lent

John 11:1-45

In 2005 Lenny Henry went to Ethiopia filming for comic relief. The project they were filming picked up a boy on the streets of Addis Ababa. Perhaps he was ten. He had been kidnapped in the country, essentially by slave traders, who were going to sell him into forced labour. They had brought him hundreds of miles to the city, somehow he had got separated from the men who had taken him, and he was found some weeks later desperately trying to get by living on the streets of Addis. The project took him to its shelter, fed him and helped him adjust to being safe again.

Then they sat him in a small truck with some people from the project and drove him home. He was a small boy and he had been missing from his country community for months, his family had no phone, no post, no communication with the outside world. As the truck drove up the road towards his home village they had no idea that their son, whom they thought was dead, was about to come running and smiling and living into their lives again.

The boy goes up to the hut where his family lives, his Father comes out of the hut, hugs his Son and is so overwhelmed that he falls prostrate on the red earth. His mother comes out and screams and cannot let go of her boy, there are tears everywhere. Sister, brothers, aunts, are simply overwhelmed at this act of grace and undeserved fortune, because in their life the grief and fear of death with which they had been living for so long, has been overcome by grace and life and the reality of the living boy whom they believed was dead and gone forever.

What does it feel like to be alive again once you’ve been dead?

How can we work out when something is dead in the first place? Biochemically it’s quite a difficult question, and looking just at a cell, one of the constituent parts of the body it is hard to tell when death occurs. But taken out of the laboratory death is characterised by the lack of life, of breathing and heartbeat and all the things which are needed to keep an organism as a whole alive.

It is not long after death, especially when mixed with heat, for example that of middle eastern climate, that death begins to smell.

When Jesus asked them to take the stone away from Lazarus’ tomb, Martha, ever practical, said, ‘there is already a stench because he has been dead four days’.

The workers who were clearing the site of the world trade centre disaster were continually running out of one supply, Vicks decongestant rub, they used it to disguise the smell of death which they toiled amongst for hour after hour.

Lazarus was dead, he was dead as a dodo, or a parrot for any monty python fans. So dead that the tomb would smell retchingly bad if it was opened. So dead that there was no doubt about his deadness. Jesus however needed to confront the horrid smelly reality of death, the death of his friend,

Some people talk about coming back from the dead, those who have had near death experiences are usually profoundly changed by them. Actually most people I know who have had heart surgery have been profoundly changed by that too. I guess having your heart stopped and started again as they certainly used to do in heart surgery is as close to technical death as is a good place to go and then come back.

Lazarus was brought back to life to bring glory to God. Jesus wept over Lazarus’ death and was sad but knew that it would be for God’s glory.

Jesus joined in with Mary and Martha’s grief and then he was able to turn their mourning into joy.

Jesus makes people do extraordinary things, Martha who should not have left the house in her grief, except to visit the tomb, goes to meet Jesus. What does Jesus say to her? Jesus says to her ‘I am the resurrection and the life.’ And then that extraordinary double sentence ‘Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die.’

What does that say? That says, in effect ‘O death where is thy sting, O grave thy victory.’

Death will be conquered through Jesus.

Martha through the midst of her grief, knows and loves and trusts Jesus and says ‘yes Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.’

Jesus knows about life and death and grief and all that goes along with that. Lazarus’ resurrection shows God’s power, but of course Lazarus dies again an earthly death. In a way this story prepares us for when Jesus will die and be resurrected. But Jesus’ resurrection is different. Jesus does not need unwrapping from the grave clothes when he comes out of the tomb, Jesus does not come alive to earthly glory, but to heavenly glory.

 Somehow in a way we don’t understand Jesus’ resurrection changes the world, well the universe. I t changes the spiritual dimensions forever, and demonstrates God’s love and his grace for us.

In the U2 song Kite there are the following lyrics…

I’m not afraid to die

I’m not afraid to live

And when I’m flat on my back

I hope to feel like I did

God wants us to be alive, here and now, to live our lives in all their fullness.

God’s power brings resurrection to eternal life for us, but God’s power can act in our life here and now. How many people do we know who live like they are dead already?

How many aspects are there in our own lives which we should be keener to let God resurrect? That part of us, that facet of our life which is dead? How does this death affect us? And the people around us?

How would such a resurrection within us bring us to life and like Lazarus’ physical resurrection, Glorify God.

Isaiah 49.8-15
John 5.17-30

A teacher stood at the heavenly gate,
His face was scarred and old.
He stood before the man of fate
For admission to the fold.
“What have you done,” Saint Peter said,
“To gain admission here?”
“I have been a teacher, sir,
“For many and many a year.”
The pearly gates swung open wide,
Saint Peter rang the bell.
“Come in and choose your harp,” he sighed,
“You’ve had your share of hell!”

Poem’s of that sentiment are often applied to people from various different professions but it was as a teacher’s poem when I first encountered it and so I offer it to you today.
It shows various things of course, one of which is that we don’t like talking about death and so we joke about it.

Issues of life and death are difficult things to understand and difficult things for us to cope with.

Despite all the clever things which we scientists like to think we know actually life is one of the biggest mysteries. When my eldest daughter was three she had a deep desire to know the answer to one question which was , “where was I before I was made?” She asked my Mum, and my Mum was about to launch into a purely biological explanation when I had to quickly stop her. “No, Mum this is a theological question she wants to know where she was before then.” Fortunately my theological college principal agreed with me that, “God hadn’t made you yet.” Is in fact the most theologically accurate answer that we could give.

Whilst little one’s struggle with the beginning of life questions, we as we get older also struggle with the end of life questions. What will happen when my heart stops beating and I stop breathing and my cells stop working, or whenever and whatever death actually is, occurs?
The gospel passage is full of discussion of life and death, some of which can be interpreted in a multitude of ways.

Jesus says “I tell you the truth, whoever hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life and will not be condemned; he has crossed over from death to life.” So we believe in Jesus and we have eternal life, whatever that means, eternal life with God. I think perhaps not a pearly gate and a harp, but I of course don’t know. All the images we have in heaven are based on people’s individual vision’s of heaven which are based in their culture and understanding. So in Isaiah heaven is like God overflowing the temple surrounded by incredible creatures. In revelation we read of similar things in heaven and precious stones and seas of glass. John in revelation is struggling to find words to describe the indescribable.

Jesus talks about judgement, at the resurrection, we don’t like to think about judgement. We like to think that hell is empty and that in the end everyone is in heaven, except perhaps for the worst few most evil individuals .

We of course don’t know, and it is not our place to judge others, only God can judge. We are told by Jesus quite clearly that there is eternal life, but we are not told what that eternal life will be like. We don’t know if those who have died unbelieving and unrepentant have the opportunity to come to God and seek forgiveness or not, and it is not our place to know.
When I was a child I went to quite a conservative evangelical Anglican church, where there was much emphasis on personal faith and conversion leading to eternal life.

One of the ladies in our congregation suffered a terrible tragedy, both her parents were killed in a car accident, and as far as she knew, they had no faith in God. There would have been many in that congregation who would have doubted that there was a place in heaven for this lady’s parents. She was talking to me once and said this ‘I don’t really know about what happened in the time around their death, I don’t know if they had the chance to come to God, but I do know that God loves them even more than I do, and I have to trust him with that.’

We don’t know exactly what, how or why eternal life and judgement is going to work, but we know that God loves us, he sent Jesus to die and be raised to show us that he loves us, and we have to trust him with that.

I have preached on today’s Colossians passage quite a few times in the past three years, because in 2006 it was my ‘wedding’ passage.

It happened to be the passage which those who were interested in such things chose for themselves, I then suggested it to those who were less interested.

Because none of the families knew each other, this meant I could have one basic wedding sermon which was then adapted for each couple.

So what did I say to these couples.

I would begin by saying how in the passage there was a good word, ‘bear ‘ where it says  ‘bear with one another’, and how vicars like words like ‘bear’ because they have many different meanings.

Then, if I thought it wouldn’t provoke too many giggles, I would talk about bearing oneself to each other in marriage in both a physical and spiritual and emotional sense. 

I would talk about bear in the sense of children, maybe they already had, maybe they would. 

I would talk about bearing with each other, putting up with things which were hard, when as it says in the theme tune to friends “it hasn’t been your day, your month or even your year.”

Then I would ask, How then can we bear with one another in marriage? Putting up with the difficult times and carrying the burdens with each other.

The reading talks about being clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience. It sounds great doesn’t it, it will of course not always go to plan, however much we try and whatever our good intentions.

This is when forgiveness becomes important. They say “don’t let the sun go down on an argument,” sometimes this won’t happen but we need to try forgiving as God has forgiven us.

God doesn’t love us because of what we can do, he loves us unconditionally, nothing we can do can make him love us any more or any less, and because of this he forgives us.  And I would say we should try to be like this in a marriage.

Then  I would admit to having so far been a bit gloomy about marriage but say that marriage is great, and it’s important to really enjoy the good times.

The reading says, “above all clothe yourselves with love which binds everything together in perfect harmony, and let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts and be thankful”.

Being thankful is so important. Carrying things together, bearing things together is not just for trouble, it’s for the good times as well.

It’s as much about carrying in the new sofa together, or the suitcases on a great holiday, as it is about carrying grief and sadness with each other.

There is a famous song, which says “there may be trouble ahead, but while there’s music and love and romance, let’s face the music and dance.”

 I like to think of this not as carrying on ignoring potential difficulties, but being thankful and enjoying the here and now, the good times, in the confidence that when trouble comes, they as a couple with God’s help, will be able to bear it, because they will bear with each other.

To remind the couples of this I would give them a small present, to help them to remember to bear with each other. A small wedding bear.

But although this passage is instructive and useful as a wedding reading, that’s not what it was written for.

It was written for the church, and so can we as a church listen to the points from the sermon.?

Can we as the people of the church bear with one another with love, can we carry things together in the good times and the bad.

Can we as the people of the church forgive each other? Even perhaps daring to not to let the sun go down on an argument.

Can we be clothed with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience? 

Can we be bound together in harmony and be thankful, in the good times and the bad?

Let us pray that we can.