The Cranmer Group Podcast

Tim looks at how God shows his love for the world above all through Jesus lifted up on the cross, through whom we receive reconcilation and healing  (John 3:14-21)

Through John 2:13-22, and  1 Corinthians 1:18-25, Bronwen helps us to think about why Good Friday is - although at the time it looked very different to Christ's followers - in fact "good" to all who believe in Jesus.

Tim, with the help of Mark 8:31-38, encourages us to consider the true nature of Jesus as Saviour; and what it really means, to be one of his followers. Through looking at the reasons - 'personal', 'legal' and 'cosmic' - why Jesus had to die on the cross, Tim helps us to think of ourselves as having, in and through Jesus, a new agenda, a new identity, and a new hope.

Through the story of God's first covenant of grace, made after The Flood not only with Noah but with the whole of Creation (Genesis 9:8-17), Annie points us to Jesus as the very foundation on whom all of God's promises rest.

Bronwen helps us to understand better who God is, through the revelation of the transfigured Jesus as the very glory of God (Mark 9:2-9).

Tim helps us to reflect on what God is truly like, in and through the person of Jesus - "the image of the invisible God", as he is referred to in Colossians 1:15-23. Christ is both this perfect expression of human-ness, and yet also the Word of God who brought the universe into being, as expressed in that most famous of Christmas scriptures, John  1:1-14.

Through the example of the faithfulness to God of Simeon and Anna (told in the account  of Luke, chapter 2, verses 22-40 - the Presentation of the infant Jesus in the Temple), Bronwen helps us to consider what it means to dedicate our lives to God.  
Where do we see that our personal dedication to God has been, or still is, working? What has been a sacrifice? What has been a joy? What has been life-giving? What is next? 

Annie considers how we may attune ourselves to the call God places on each one of our lives, to best use for Him the gifts with which He blesses us. She especially does so by looking at God's call on Jonah, as the Lord sends him to call the people of Nineveh back to His ways (Jonah 3 and 4).

In the story of Jesus's calling of two of his first disciples, from John 1:43-51, Tim encourages us to say to others, using Philip's words to Nathanael, "come and see" this Jesus whom he has encountered. And for those of us who may not yet know Jesus in our lives, Christ's words slightly earlier in John's Gospel, to Andrew and Simon Peter, "Follow me!" are spoken to us too - why not follow Jesus in your life too?

Now that all of our Christmas decorations have been packed away, Tim takes the opportunity to focus in on the stable, and the infant Christ in the manger. He considers what the story of the Epiphany - the making known of Jesus to all, through the figures of the Magi - tells us of the essence of Jesus Christ, and what it asks of us. Like the Magi, with their gifts for Jesus, what do we have in our hands, to give in worship to our Lord and Saviour?