Dear Friends
Life is hard. The utopia promised to us by revolutionaries, religious leaders and politicians has failed to materialise: whatever time-saving devices we purchase, however much automation we are able to make in the home or workplace, whoever rules over us we must still work at life, work at living, work at being. Life is, truly, hard.
Into this world of difficulty and travail Christ comes. He comes without the hollow promises of a tyrant, without the deceit of a crooked salesman, without the sweet lies of an alchemist: he comes, rather, to reveal the Kingdom. “The time is fulfilled,” the Lord cries out to you and he cries out to me, “and the Kingdom of God is at hand. Repent, and believe in the Gospel.” (Mark 1:15) Christ comes and he does not deny the difficulties of life, the challenges of life, but gives them purpose and direction.
Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake and the Gospel’s will save it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels.
Mark 8:34–38
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, friends, God does not pretend that the challenges of your lives do not exist, yet he allows each one of us to let them be our cross on which we crucify our ego, our sin, our earthly self. Because our Lord offers us something else—when we die to our life in this world we may live to the life of the next, where there is no sickness, sorrow nor sighing but life everlasting.
Now I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away. Also there was no more sea. Then I, John, saw the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice from heaven saying, “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.”
Apocalypse 21:1–4
Do not listen to the false promises of this age but to the eternal of the next. God is calling you, here and now, to participate in the Kingdom through his Church, “the pillar and ground of the truth.” (1 Timothy 3:15) Come and hear not the false promises of this age but the true of the next. Come and see.
Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God, Amen.
“You are good;” says the ruler to the Lord, “vouchsafe me the answer to my question. I am learned in the Old Testament, but I see in you something far more excellent. For you make no earthly promises, but preach the Kingdom of Heaven. Tell me then, what shall I do to inherit eternal life?”
This, my brothers and sisters in Christ, should be our question to the Lord, our desire, our longing. The Lord is not a fairy-godmother, offering tricks and trinkets for our earthly life, but the eternal King who offers us immortality. “Therefore I say to you,” the Lord tells us, “do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food and the body more than clothing?” (Matthew 6:25)
Read last Sunday’s sermon, Reorder our lives.
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Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 3rd December
Discussion on the book of Genesis, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 4th December
Vespers, 6.30 pm
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh
Sunday 5th December
Divine Liturgy, 9.30 am
At St Francis’ Hall, Eastleigh
Online session is via Google Meet: please get in contact for the details.
Please join us: all are welcome, come and see.
Attending Church
We will be meeting at St Francis’ Hall, Nightingale Avenue, Eastleigh, SO50 9JA. We ask you to wear a mask unless exempt. Come and See.
Can I help you?
I am here for you, you need only ask. Is there a way I can support your life of faith? Get in touch.
Can you help the mission?
Yes, absolutely. Offer yourselves to the Lord: pray! Make available to him all your talents and ask him how he would like you to use them — listen for his reply.
Your prayers!
With love in Christ
Fr Alexander
[email protected]