Monthly Archives: March 2013

What do you make of Easter?

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What do you make of Easter?

A much needed long weekend in which you can relax, catch up with friends, gather with family. An excuse to indulge: chocoholics delight!

These are not bad things – enjoy and be thankful.

easter-lily-Christ-risen

But please reserve your greatest thanks for God. Remember again the promise of an empty tomb. Hear the words again: ‘He is not here, he has been raised.’ Why are we surprised by such words? This is what Jesus always said would happen? And now that it has we’re invited to live in his resurrection.

And here’s the tragedy – too many of us fail to live as Easter people; resurrection people. We shuffle around – timid, barely raising a smile at the greatest news ever heard. Christ is Alive!!! Death is defeated!!! Our sin forgiven!!! We live again!!!

Let us celebrate with thanksgiving: as the hymn ‘We are an Easter People’ by Bill Wallace puts it “… our fears have died, we rise to dream, to love, to dance, to live”.

 

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to the Cross

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A sermon for Palm/Passion Sunday 24th March. Luke 19:28-41, 22:39-48

Entry to JerusalemThis Sunday we enter what the church calls Holy Week, a week that traces the final days of Jesus’ earthly life and invites us to enter the journey for ourselves: some of us will attend to prayer and bible reading, and if that’s for you there are suggested readings that I sent out by email this week and on our web page and Facebook there’s a link to a book you can download there.

Sometimes this time in the church year can seem a little ho hum, been there done that. We know the details of Palm Sunday, the Last Supper, Good Friday, and Easter. We are going through this again? Why? Continue reading →

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Holy Week Devotional

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Holy Week begins on Sunday March 24 this year, Palm Sunday.

As a preparation for Easter and to help maximise the impact of the Easter weekend I believe it is helpful to use the week before it in prayer and bible study.

There are many ways to do this, but one good resource, and it’s free, I have discovered is a small book from John Piper, which will make the lead up to Easter more meaningful for you.

Love-to-the-Uttermost-copyAbout the Book

Love to the Uttermost: Devotional Readings for Holy Week is designed for Lent 2013. The readings begin on Palm Sunday (March 24), end on Easter Sunday (March 31), and aim to focus our attention on Jesus he displays his love to the uttermost (John 13:1). These meditations on the self-giving love of Christ are all excerpted from the preaching and writing ministry of John Piper.

Comprised of eight excerpts (plus one prologue reading) selected from John Piper’s extensive writing and preaching ministry, this new devotional was compiled and shaped for use in personal devotions or family and group settings.

As Pastor John explains, this one term — uttermost — is loaded with significance. When used of Jesus’s willing death for his friends, it means he endured unimaginable degrees of suffering to do so (John 13:1, NAS).

To love to the uttermost is to love freely, without reserve or limit, and without flaw or failure. As we watch his arrest and trial and death unfold for eight days, we gaze on a God-man who begrudges no pain or reproach on his pathway to redeem lost sinners. This is the man who “humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:8).

“Fix your gaze steadily on him,” John Piper writes of Holy Week, “as he loves you to the uttermost.” To that end, you can download the free devotional — Love to the Uttermost — in three formats:

Note: To load the eBook on a mobile device it may be necessary to view this blog post from within your device, then to click the download option.

Table of Contents

Editor’s Preface
Prologue: A Vision for Holy Week
1. Palm Sunday: Seeing the King on Palm Sunday
2. Monday: He Set His Face for Jerusalem
3. Tuesday: Depth of Love for Us
4. Wednesday: Why Jesus Is All-Trustworthy
5. Maundy Thursday: Thursday of the Commandment
6. Good Friday: What Good Friday Is All About
7. Saturday: A Holy Week Volcano
8. Easter Sunday: Such Amazing Resurrection Love

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Prodigals

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a sermon from Erin Pendreigh as preached at St John's and St Andrew's 10 March 2013. Scripture Luke 15:11-32

Who do we identify with this morning?

Illusion (Young woman Old lady)

Have a look at it this image for a moment – who do you see?

Do you see the young lady – or the old woman?

Try as I might I can only see the young lady.

I have tried turning my head this way and that – but the old woman just won’t appear for me.  I have a memory of seeing this picture a while ago and I am sure that I could see both – I thought I must have been really clever —- but I wonder if it was that I was just open to the possibilities.

So who do you see? Continue reading →

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The Naked Truth

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A sermon for Sunday 3rd March 2013. Read Isaiah 55:1-9, Luke 13:1-9

In Hans Christian Andersen’s fairytale “The Emperor’s New Clothes,” the emperor wanted everyone to tell him how good he looked in his new clothes. He’d employed the best tailors, spent a load of money and he was convinced he was the envy of the world – a man to be admired.

By THÓRARINN LEIFSSON. www.totil.com

Yet we all know he was naked! No one would tell him the uncomfortable truth, that he’d been tricked, that he was as naked as the day he was born, except for one little child, who naively called out: “Look, he’s not wearing any clothes!”

Most of us shy away from speaking the bad news, the uncomfortable news so bluntly – and when someone else does it we don’t know where to look.

Continue reading →

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