There is an invitation and an offer we should not refuse.
It’s not to Mcdonalds or to the chic coffee shop with the luxurious decor it is not priced for added extras, frills and froth and choices.
Forgiveness does not come in small medium and large sizes.
Christ paid one price for all kinds of sin, for all those things great and small which every person does or does not do over a lifetime. The things which trouble us and bring us tears
Jesus Christ is waiting, standing inviting all who will, to come in and accept forgiveness and joy which will always taste heavenly, better than the finest roasts and divinest chocolate. Other acceptors of His offer will happily bear witness to this. Jesus is waiting for you, me, everyone who is troubled in heart and mind to come as little children do and look towards the Green Hill and the Cross where he paid it all
He died that we might be forgiven, he died to make us good; that we might go at last to Heaven, saved by his precious blood.
Cecil Frances Humphreys Alexander (1818-1895) from There is a Green Hill Far Away
Jesus breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit”
Our Gospel Reading this morning was from St John’s Gospel chapter 20:19- end.
Revd John Bridge gave us an excellent inspired and inspiring Sermon prompting questions from the listeners afterwards.
Preaching is a gift of the Holy Spirit, and borne on the Breath of God, preaching sows good seeds waters what is sown and nurtures the believing heart. After His own personal encounter with the Risen Lord, Thomas known as the Twin and known as DOUBTING Thomas became BELIEVING Thomas and went on to many, seemingly impossible things for his Lord and his God. We are so blessed to have a Vicar who has received the Gift of the Spirit to preach to teach encourage and inspire
“RECEIVE THE HOLY SPIRIT”
Listen, there was once a king upon his throne, annointed with great honour. He sent forth his dove into the world, which dropped the tiniest feather from its wing. The king raised the feather, blew on it, and commanded it to fly. The feather flew, not because of anything in itself, but because the air bore it along.
Thus am I: but a feather on the breath of God.” – Hildegard of Bingen (1098 – 1179)
Our Hymn at Communion this morning
Breathe on me, Breath of God, Fill me with life anew, That I may love what Thou dost love, And do what Thou wouldst do.
Breathe on me, Breath of God, Until my heart is pure, Until with Thee I will one will, To do and to endure.
Breathe on me, Breath of God, Till I am wholly Thine, Until this earthly part of me Glows with Thy fire divine.
Breathe on me, Breath of God, So shall I never die, But live with Thee the perfect life Of Thine eternity.
Jane Proud was our intercessor this morning, and I am sure she won’t mind me telling you this, has been hampered by many challenging disabilities since a child, but here she was leading us in prayer so beautifully, a feather on the Breath of God. Often we find it is not the strongest, the ablest but the weakest, least physically able who carried along as feathers on the Breath of God bring Glory to the King.
BLESSED BE THE GOD AND FATHER OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST, who according to His great mercy has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the RESURRECTION of Jesus Christ from the dead
Lone Flower, hemmed in with snows and white as they But hardier far, once more I see thee bend Thy forehead, as if fearful to offend, Like an unbidden guest. Though day by day, Storms, sallying from the mountain-tops, waylay The rising sun, and on the plains descend; Yet art thou welcome, welcome as a friend Whose zeal outruns his promise! Blue-eyed May Shall soon behold this border thickly set With bright jonquils, their odours lavishing On the soft west-wind and his frolic peers; Nor will I then thy modest grace forget, Chaste Snowdrop, venturous harbinger of Spring, And pensive monitor of fleeting years!
William Wordsworth 1819
I spent happy moments this morning browsing in the parish churchyard. True the churchyard shows it’s age but it is that time of the year when it also shows the young buds of spring, although the old and twisted trees are starkly bare against the blue sky now in a little while, and it is a very little while, green buds will begin to burst, daffodils will be showing their yellows, even this morning buds were beginning to rise from their green bladed sheathes. Blue crocus are clustered here and there, in a very little while hazel catkins will wave their flags too, as Spring blows her trumpet, sounding reveille.
So good afternoon friends in Rowley and much farther afield, whatever you may be doing, and whatever plans you are making for the weeks ahead, we wish you well from St Giles and Rowley, happiness in the planning and the doing.
The snowdrops are lifting up their heads amongst the debris of winter and this brings to mind the rubble, twisted, collapsed buildings of Turkey/Syria
The tragic, devastating loss of life and destruction caused by the earthquake in Turkey/Syria is in everyone’s mind, and causes us to tremble at just the thought of the loss, whole families, parents separated from children… it is a pain and grief we can feel even at so great a distance. The snowdrops bring to my own mind other times of disaster and loss and off struggle to break through heaviness and difficulty… always there is the thought when I see snowdrops raising their heads of the difficulties these tiny venturous harbingers have in pushing up from the earth and into the light…. But they do, and so we pray will the people of Turkey and Syria. That is all we can do and give to the relief agencies what we can, trusting that God will use our gifts and many hands to work miracles with them.
Nicky: ” I don’t run anymore But know I need to start running more – towards Jesus”
Nicky is the younger with husband, two young adult children and a job as a Teaching Assistant keeping her on the go No time for running Shoes.
Jean is the the older woman, who can only sigh for the times when ‘The Springfield Whippet” was her nickname.
Revd Barrie just recovered from Covid, regularly dons his running shoes and to ease his way back to fitness is preparing to deliver the Easter ‘flyers’ through Rowley’s letter boxes.
“It will do him good,” Dr Katie, Barrie’s wife told Churchwarden, Yvonne.
So three people, five with Yvonne who does her running, her way, and Dr Katie all running, ON GRACE.
Everyone entered in the race of life is running on GRACE.
And I run toward the goal to take the victory of the calling of God from on high in Christ Jesus
Philippians 3:14 ~ my paraphrase
As we all know life sometimes trips us up, gets us down. I share the following story, a true one from a faithful runner who knows trips, falls, tears and many smiles in the hope that it may encourage someone.
“I have always known God’s secret stairs. You know the ones I mean; he comes down them sometimes to sit on the one just outside our bedroom door and listen to our prayers. I have always known those stairs, stone ones, marble ones stretching from his house in heaven, perhaps the self-same ones Jacob saw when he laid his head on his stony pillow at Bethel, Well, I was so tired, so low in spirits, that I pressed my face into my pillow and just cried. One of those times when you don’t have the words to make the prayers, even if you knew how to pray… so I just cried. Then I heard the footsteps. Someone, a man’s footsteps, running down those secret stores, down, down they came swiftly like a man on an urgent errand, right down, straight past my bedroom door, fading into silence. I stopped crying. I think my heart may have stopped momentarily. Had Jesus passed me by? Then the footsteps began again, from a long, long way down, – this time running upwards to come to a stop right outside the door. A tap on the door,
“Everything all right in there? Really thought you’d slipped right down to the bottom there. Didn’t you know I would be right with you?”
The person who tells this story, remembers laughing with joy at this point; and says no matter how bad things get, however much we want to give up, we should just listen out for his footsteps on the secret stairs. When we need him most and cannot run for Jesus or run to him because of lack of fitness in our body, heart or mind, at our lowest point The Lord will always come running to us.
To pray is not to be weak-but strong Strong in the Lord of Hosts whose Angel stands with us. Neither are we defenceless. We don’t trust in ourselves; in prayer we are clothed with the whole armour of God
Always remember not one of us who prays – prays alone
Finally be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power
Put on the whole armour of God so that you can take YOUR stand against the devil’s schemes
Ephesians 6. 10-12 N.I.V.
The battles against the ills pains and evils of this world are not won by politics but by those on their knees
And my Bible is opened again with the Book of Genesis. The very name of the very first book of God’s Torah means in Hebrew beginnings.
The beginning of God’s word, the beginning of Creation…. His beginning with us, the extending of the divine hand of grace to me, you and all mankind…
Whatever, where ever, who ever, we are today,
Let us pray that all children all men and women may be blessed by the call of God to return to Eden that in His goodness God will bless them in the reading and study of His word and in the love and patience, gentleness of good teachers..
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come to the still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free
Wendell Berry
As I watered the plants on the window sill, I heard the sound of childish giggles and watched as children found delight in discovering grass, buttercups and daisies they could play in under Mom’s watchful eye.
As the weeks of Lockdown roll by, more and more family groups are coming to explore the wide grass verge and bombard Moms and Dads with queries, “What’s this one called?” And, “What’s that tree?” Sometimes Mom or Dad will know the answer and sometimes not. Many today have lost touch with the wild things. Today’s children do not enjoy the freedom to roam many of us older people had when growing up, freedom to search out wild flower specimens to take home and press flat, with the help of a stack of books piled on top. And yet more and more want to be sure that the flowers, butterflies, bees, birds and trees are going to be there when their own children and grandchildren are grown up.
It is such a shame that not all have a garden of their own to take refuge in during Lockdown days. To live in an apartment or high rise flat with no Balcony must be no fun at all. To have the responsibility of family, especially children to feed and take care of must be a dreadful worry for many.
I think Jesus understood that, when He spoke about the birds of the air
Look at the birds flying about! They neither plant nor harvest,nor do they gather food into barns: yet your Heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they are?”
Matthew 6:26 (CJB)
Well, yes. We are worth more than many sparrows to our Heavenly Father and we can trust Him to take care of us and we can like Wendell Berry find the “peace of the Wild things” and “rest in the grace of the world” – freedom from our worries. Even the simplest pot plant on a window sill, buttercups and daisies in a jar, and the briefest flash of a butterfly wing can lift our spirits. Imagine yourself as the smallest bird and let your heart and mind settle in God our rest and nest.
Robin Photo by Trish Cornford
Father, we pray for all those who are worried about what tomorrow may bring, all who are shut in with no garden, all who live alone and rely on Carers to help them with the ordinary things of life, like getting up in the morning and getting in bed at night. Those who need someone to remind them to take their medication: those who worry about them. Those who stand by to come to our aid at the drop of a hat, paramedics, ambulance crew, firefighters and police. We pray for those who cannot rest for fear someone needs them. Lord we pray for all these, for all who are sick, for all who are dying that they may hear your beloved and gentle voice calling them to come home to the nest the Lord Jesus has carefully made for them. How could your love do otherwise? In The Name of Jesus we ask it.
Did Jesus Christ die that I might be forgiven. Yes He did, really did. I might not have understood what sin was, or even why such a lovely, lovely person as my Saviour and friend could have been treated so badly, or why my Father in heaven should have let it be so. But, I knew it was so. I knew, with all my heart, that Easter Day was so, and that, Thomas really did touch the nail marks (John 20. 26-29]
No doubts at all God loved me and I loved Him.
Do I believe it now. 60 years plus later?
Yes I know it is so.
And I know that it is so, because my Father wished it to be so.
The tiny cup and saucer inscribed with the Lord’s Prayer was a gift from an elderly lady whose errands I used to run…. she has been with the Lord many years now, but the cup and saucer remain with me. I called this post the Children’s Prayer because this is the first prayer I ever learnt, so far back in time that I have forgotten who taught it to me. My wonderful Saviour standing in Heaven at God’s Right hand, still prays it with me.
Our Father, who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name;
Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done; on earth as it is in Heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation; but deliver us from evil.
As a little girl I would always add “For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory. Amen.
On this lovely Sunday, I pray that you will know for yourselves all the awesome power and wonder of the Resurrection.
My Peace Lily had grown and grown. So it was tapped out of the pot, soil shook from the root ball and carefully separated into 14 parts (including the parent plant)
Pressing the baby lilies into new compost and smaller pots, I recalled a verse from the N.K.J.V …2 Timothy 2:15
“Be diligent to present yourself approved to God a worker who does not need to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth”
The N.I.V. reads: “Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who does not need to be ashamed and who correctly handles the word of truth.*
Whilst the J.B. (Jerusalem Bible) says, “Do all you can to present yourself in front of God as a man who has come through his trials, and as a man who has no need to be ashamed of his life’s work and has kept a straight course with the message of truth”
Hmm!
I could vaguely remember that the Greek word translated as divide and straight (it is translated as straight in the N.R.S.V we use in church as well)! had something to do with ploughing straight furrows, so I looked it up. It actually means I cut (or carve) … and so I define….
Well, I was thinking to myself as I broke the plant-lets apart, be careful, do it right, don’t damage the roots; if you do the babies won’t grow.
It’s like that for teachers, and preachers of God’s word, if they don’t handle the scriptures properly, then their work comes to nothing, or the understanding of the those who listen, or read (not everyone could read in the days of Timothy and Paul) is not correctly informed, making it absolutely essential that teachers and preachers pass on the scriptures and their messages faithfully and accurately.
Ploughing furrows? Well teachers and preachers don’t only sow the Gospel seed and water it, they also need to prepare the ground, a good straight furrow, drawn through the soil at the right depth means the roots are going to grow straight and true, and in due time, the plants stand tall and straight.
St Giles still continues in interregnum. But still continues steadfastly to meet every Sunday at 10:15am and 6:30pm for worship and prayer. The Ladies Class still continues to meet at 2:00pm on Tuesdays, currently we are exploring Creation, this Tuesday we talked about green and growing things; all the Peace Lilies have now been re-homed.
tidesandtidings 