Sometimes in life we need a bit of help to see better.

Magnifying glasses and microscopes help us see things more closely. Binoculars and telescopes help us see things that are far away. All of them help us see well beyond our natural range.

Today, in Luke 6,  Jesus says that we must learn to love our enemies, and that’s going to involve seeing them differently – seeing them through the lens of God’s love. That’s a big ask, and we’re going to need help to do it because it’s well beyond what we can manage naturally!

These are the waters we’re paddling in this morning in our All Age worship.

Money, human needs and desires, justice and compassion, being your own person and going against the flow.

All of these are addressed in what Jesus says to us in today’s reading from an ancient book which, according to some, has absolutely nothing to say to modern people like us…

Luke 6 – the sermon on the plain – is where we’re sitting today.

He was a big man; hands like shovels. Gruff outside, but a good heart inside. Practical. Took things at face value. Trusted his senses. Nobody’s fool. Kept his religion, but kept it at arm’s length, maybe. Did the necessary.

And then one day this guy commandeered his fishing boat and sent him out to the deep waters for the most life-changing catch he was ever going to have.

Peter’s story is there to inform ours. Change happens when we get close to Jesus. When we move from being mere observers –watching from the shoreline - to participants and co-workers in the story he’s telling.

I once heard the Irish poet and writer John O’Donohue say that, for each of us, there are probably about six or seven thoughts in our minds that – to a large extent – have determined how our lives play out. Just six or seven thoughts, he says, and they entirely shape your life.

We’re in similar territory in today’s sermon – thinking about the power that words have over us, for good or for ill, and reminding ourselves that God’s prior word to us in Jesus is the one that should order all others. As we make room to listen for what he speaks into our lives, all the other voices find their place, or are shushed to silence, before the truth he brings us.

Today we read the well-known story of the wedding at Cana where Jesus turned water into wine. But how did Jesus feel at a wedding – seeing this young couple commit to one another for better for worse, for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health? Was there a hint of sadness knowing that he’d never know that kind of love?

I don’t think so because the truth is – Jesus has a bride and the New Testament tells us exactly who she is. Tune in for the big reveal and the trumpet fanfare……

https://youtu.be/pktbWEvnlDY

This Sunday, Harry Burns from ‘When Harry Met Sally’ gives us a way in to talking about why Jesus got baptised and what baptism means for us:

**SPOILER !!**

At the end of the movie Harry races through the streets of New York to catch up with Sally, the woman who’s been his best friend for years and who he finally realises he loves. He bursts into the New Year’s party she’s attending and confronts her on the dance floor with a declaration of his love that begins a whole new phase in their life together. And – as he tells Sally - it’s not because he’s sad, and it’s not because he’s lonely and it’s not because it’s New Year’s Eve. It’s because “when you realize you want to spend the rest of your life with somebody, you want the rest of your life to start as soon as possible!”

For two millennia, baptism has been that beginning for Christians. Not just a Kodak moment in the church, but the beginning of a Way to live from the cradle to the grave. A way that leads to life, as we become who we are in Jesus through cultivating the good and dying to the bad in our lives.

If you’re baptised, what does your baptism mean to you? How are you living it out?

https://youtu.be/qBzfe_hQspo

Welcome to the Cheeseboard!

You know the little bites at the end of a big meal that fill out the corners?

That’s what this service is – a few wee tasty stories to keep you thinking as we enter a New Year together.

There’s a little extra bit after the benediction this week, so please stay tuned for that too.

Every Blessing for 2022!

Paul

This morning in our Bon Accord service we’re thinking about touch. One of the hardest things about the pandemic has been not being able to hug or hold the ones we love as we normally would.

Touch is such an important way of expressing love, and we see that all throughout the Christmas story. Today we’re remembering that one of the reasons God became a human being in Christ is so he could draw close and genuinely touch people with his words, his hands, his kindness and his healing. That’s what Christmas is all about – God drawing close in ways we can understand.

Today we’ve entered the season of Advent, leading up to Christmas. Some will be remembering the story of Jesus’ birth in Bethlehem; some might even remember that the man Jesus promised to return again at the close of the ages to restore all things – the so called ‘second coming’.

But what about the interim time? What about now? Does Jesus just bookend history (and our lives) or does her pervade it?

This morning we’re remembering that Advent is as much about the present as it is the past or the future. We can know God with us now, if we have eyes to see and ears to hear.

https://youtu.be/qU6Vkhwwu14

Ever been on the receiving end of a ‘conversation’ that was one-way traffic?

Did you leave feeling like you’d were nothing more than a conveniently receptive pair of ears?

Have you ever wondered how God feels being on the end of all our prayers? All our talk?

What would prayer be like if we spent more time listening and less talking? And how do you even begin to listen for God anyway?

Some practical help with all of this in this morning’s service from Belhelvie.