Talks, Sermons and Reflections

  John 6.35,41-51 “Our hungers are so deep. We are dying of thirst. We are bundles of seemingly insatiable need, rushing here and there in a vain attempt to assuage our emptiness. Our culture is a vast supermarket of desire.” (William H Willimon, Feasting on the Word) The audio of this talk can be found here And Jesus says “Whoever comes to me will never be hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty”. Can it be that this crucified, resurrected Jew who lived 2000 years ago in Palestine is able to meet – not only meet but satisfy - our deepest desires and longings? There are four staggering claims that Jesus makes in our reading.     1.   He has come from heaven in a unique way   Jesus claims, “I am the bread that came down from heaven”. It is a staggering claim. So much so that the people complain. Not because he said he was bread, but because he claimed that he had come from heaven. “How can he say that. We know his parents. Joseph an...

John 6:24-35 Baptism is a door into another world. Like the wardrobe in CS Lewis, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. It takes us from this world into another world And this other world is more actually more real than this world In this world, this is God.  This bread stands for all the things that this world offers The satisfaction of our physical desire The craving for experience I have been struck this week listening to the commentary on Radio 5 live on the Olympics. I think that it is quite telling that the focus of the commentary is far less on what is happening in the actual event, or even on the athletes expertise or skill or strength. Instead it is on their emotions and feelings on winning or losing. This bread stands for all the things that we live our life for: sensation, love, stuff, thrills, status, adventure, security The people in the story we read have just seen Jesus feed a huge crowd with 5 loaves and 2 fish. They are wowed. They say, ‘Move over Rachel Reeves. W...