What are you wrestling with at the minute?

Relationships; jobs; getting back to normal after the pandemic; money worries; inner demons; an unknown future?

Today’s story from the Old Testament is about a man who finds himself wrestling with God, as he faces up to the harsh reality of what he’s done and who he’s become. The struggle is a real one, and it almost breaks him, but he ends up with a new name and a better path to follow in life.

Tune in today so see how ‘Jacob’, the grasper, becomes ‘Israel’, the one who grapples with God, and what this ancient story has to say to you and me in the middle of our struggles.

Today we're thinking about the fact that we are remembered by God, but also that we have to work at remembering God in the midst of our busy lives. We talk a little about some of the ways that we do that, and we also take leave of the Mackenzie family who are moving away to Australia to be with family after a long involvement with our congregation.

https://youtu.be/LkzofVoyg04

What makes for a hero? Muscles? Smarts? Superpowers?

Today I’m suggesting that the real heart of heroism is, in fact, the heart! When we see selflessness, courage and purpose in someone, that’s what true heroism is about, regardless of who they are or what they happen to look like.

The anointing of David illustrates that point well. He was the smallest and youngest of his brothers, yet David was the one Samuel was told to anoint as King. Remember, God said, people look at the outside, but I look at the heart.

This morning we thought about that with help from the Marvel Comics Universe, Star Wars, and the Lord of the Rings; from Rosa Parks, Nelson Mandela and Volodymyr Zelensky. From Janet Zirugo, a 70 year old grandmother from Zimbabwe looking after the orphaned children in her extended family, and of course from Jesus – who is the exemplar of a hero who looked nothing like a hero in his most heroic moment – bleeding out from a hundred wounds on a cross that he chose to bear for us.

Selflessness, courage and purpose. That’s what makes someone a hero.

This Sunday, John the gospel writer chooses to focus on Peter in the last chapter of his telling of Jesus’ story.

Peter got at least as much wrong as he got right in following Jesus. He was the kind of guy who’d act first and think later. Who’d open his mouth to speak and end up putting his foot in it. Nobody’s kind of role model.

And yet, John ends his gospel spelling out what resurrection life – life lived with the risen Christ – looks like, using Peter as his example.

Together life, forgiven life, called life. For all his faults, that’s what we see in Peter’s story. And if there’s hope for him, there’s hope for all of us.

The post-resurrection encounters with Jesus often have this strange feature that he’s not recognised straight away, even by folk who knew him well. Cynics draw any number of conclusions from that. Today, I’m offering some more nuanced reasons – some practical and some spiritual - why this might have been the case, but reminding us that the key thing is that in every case, Jesus draws alongside his friends. And that doesn’t change.

We ended the time with a few minutes of contemplative music and prayer to help us focus on the Christ who is with us now, in the midst of whatever we’re going through in life.

Meditative music from Wilderthorn - please check out his Youtube Channel for some more superb meditative creations.

https://youtu.be/sJXVXfe_or8

This morning in our all-age service we ranged from the joys of ‘Wordle’ all the way back to 6th century depictions of the resurrection from the early church! And those ancient images helped us see the story in a new way. Easter Sunday isn’t just an individual story about Jesus being resurrected. It’s a corporate story about humanity being raised *in him*. And if that’s true, it means that death isn’t the end for any of us, despite how it seems.

Christ is Risen! And we are raised in him.

Happy Easter!

A picture tells a thousand words, someone once said.

Today we’re looking at a very familiar story, the story of the Prodigal Son, but looking at it in a different way: seeing where our imaginations take us as we try to visualise the story for ourselves. What might the images we conjure tell us about the story, about ourselves and about God?

This way of approaching Scripture is as old as the hills. It’s called ‘imaginative contemplation’ and it breathes new life into passages we know so well that they’ve almost stopped speaking to us.

https://youtu.be/dkCVOtpUTJ4

The story of David and Goliath feels all too real these days, given what’s happening in Ukraine. That situation was very much in mind today as we met for all-age worship, but so too were the giants that many of us are facing in our everyday lives – weariness, fear, apathy and sadness as this pandemic and the fallout from it drags on.

Like David, we need a handful of smooth stones to help take down these enemies. Tune in to find out what they are.

The courage of those who know the danger and yet stay put, refusing to be bullied….

The bullishness of those whose power makes them think they’re invincible and can do whatever they want…

The desire God has to see his human family reconciled to one another and to Him…..

The impossibility of reconciliation while we’re unwilling to recognise the humanity of the other – that they, like us, are made in the image of God.

Didn’t expect to find all of this in Luke 13:31-35, but a timely passage for the days we’re living through.

Lent.

When less is more;

When the wilderness proves fruitful;

When faith gets tested

and that testing builds character.

40 days in your year to take stock,

rethink,

listen,

deepen,

pray.

Lent.

There’s more to it than giving up Crunchies…..

https://youtu.be/ZDppF0U-SaQ