Talks, Sermons and Reflections

Luke 1.26-38 Today - this last Sunday in Advent, which happens to be Christmas Eve, we remember Mary It means that we have the story of the annunciation this morning and the birth this evening. Shortest pregnancy ever! And this morning I would like to focus for a few minutes on Mary's Yes to God: 'Here am I, the servant of the Lord; let it be with me according to your word' She did not need to say Yes. Indeed, she is contrasted to Zechariah (the double reference to ‘the sixth month’, [Luke 1.26,36] places the annunciation in the context of the story of the birth of John the Baptist) Many similarities: an angel appears to him and tells him that Elizabeth his wife will have a baby. But clearly Zechariah responds with unbelief: How is this possible? I'm really old and my wife is getting on. He is a priest in the temple of God and he does not believe the word of God. And so he is struck dumb. He cannot speak because he has nothing to say. But Mary responds with faith. She s...

John 2.1-11 Later in the service, at the prayer before we distribute the bread and wine, we will hear the words, ‘In the water made wine the new creation was revealed at the wedding feast. Poverty was turned to riches, sorrow into joy’. That is what Jesus is doing when he turns water into wine. He takes one of the key elements of life – the ancients had four key elements: earth, water, air, fire (I’d have done a lot better in chemistry if we had kept to those four and not found 118 different elements – the periodic table killed me). But he takes water and he turns it into wine. Not just any old wine – but the best. And not just a little: he produces about 1100 bottles of wine. Click below to listen to the talk It is a very human story. This time, last year when we looked at this passage, we were celebrating the wedding of Olga Fabrikantova and Simon Burke  - and this story is about a wedding, a village wedding. Often these weddings would ta...