Talks, Sermons and Reflections

Matthew 24.36–44 Romans 13.11–14 The illustration for today is this! If you forget everything that I say, remember this. Listen here to the audio of this sermon Morning is coming. The alarm clock is ringing! This is not the time to be pulling the duvet over our head. It is the time to wake up. “Now is the moment for you to wake from sleep” (Romans 13.11) 1. Wake up! Hold on to the truth that he will come again. “Therefore you must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming …” (Matthew 24.44) The crucified and risen and ascended Jesus will return again to this creation as King, and he will bring in God’s kingdom in all its fullness. We say in our creed: "He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end" I used to struggle with the idea of the return of the Lord Jesus. How could it be possible? If he returns to Jerusalem, how would we know here in Moscow? And how will it work if I’ve already died? Will people float up into the air...

Luke 23.33-43 This is the season from All Saints to Advent, and this final Sunday before Advent is when we are reminded of 'Christ the King' Listen to audio of the talk here And the first reading that we had today (from Colossians 1.11-20 ) speaks of Christ as the ruler of all: This Christ is the King of all creation: he is the image (eikon) of the invisible God, in whom all the fullness of God dwells All things were created through him and for him He is the one who holds all things together He is the one who is the head of creation (that is what it means when it says that he is ‘the first born of creation’) and he is the head of the new creation (the church, the community of those who are born from the dead) He is the one who can reconcile all things. It is in our individual relationship with him, as we become part of him and he becomes part of us, that we each discover our unity, that we are part of each other, and that every other is part of us. And so we have the image of C...

Military conflict, whatever it is called, is awful This year is the 40th anniversary of the Falkland’s conflict. I was in touch recently with the person who served as the chaplain on board HMS Conqueror, the submarine that sunk the Belgrano. He spoke of how that still today weighs very heavily on his soul. Later in this service we will hear the poem Annabelle . It was written by Tony McNally, who suffered from PTSD. He served in the Falklands and after his Rapier Missile unit jammed as a result of a minor electrical fault, watched helplessly the destruction of the British ship Sir Galahad, ‘as if at the cinema’. The images of the dead and badly burned bodies of the Guardsmen on the shore and in the water kept coming back to haunt him. War is awful. Jesus, in our second reading today, foresees the Roman destruction of Jerusalem, an event that took place in AD70. He foresees the devastation, the hell that lies ahead: ‘They will crush you to the ground, you and your children within you’. ...