Dear Friends
Christ is risen!
As far as we can tell, humanity has always had rituals and in our day, too, they are all around us. People like to keep to a routine—meet up for a coffee with friends to talk, blow out candles on a cake, shake hands when greeting others, celebrate an event with a fancy meal—our rituals add greater depth and meaning to our lives.
None of these are necessary, we could as easily send a friend a text message, avoid a birthday cake completely, greet with a slight nod and an event need not be marked with a meal when simply the word “Congratulations!” would do. Yet the deritualisation would be jarring and leave us missing something, missing meaning, missing that which joins us to both our past and our future. And yet we so want to have meaning, we want to have a purpose, we want to have a goal: necessary this is not, but it makes us alive in a way merely writing it on a screen or hearing it said lacks warmth, lacks life, lacks significance.
Christians have a ritual, one which vivifies and enlightens, which connects me not only to my own past and future but to the whole of our race.
For I received from the Lord that which I also delivered to you: that the Lord Jesus on the same night in which he was betrayed took bread;
First Corinthians 11:23–25
and when he had given thanks, he broke it and said, ‘Take, eat; this is my body which is broken for you; do this as my remembrance.’
In the same manner he also took the cup after supper, saying, ‘This cup is the new covenant in my blood. This do, as often as you drink it, as my remembrance.’
And through this ritual we serve we are transformed, we are transfigured. Not in a theoretical sense, not in a sense of “hearing the words,” but by participating in life, “For as often as you eat this bread and drink this cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death till he comes.” (verse 26)
Gathering together on the Lord’s Day we make a stand. We no longer merely state our faithfulness and fidelity to the Lord, we participate in it, we take part in it, we are active in it. We bring forward our cares for this life and exchange them for immortality and we cry out with the Psalmist,
Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good;
Psalm 33:9 ʟxx
Blessed is the man who hopes in him.
Let us, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, gather together to celebrate the Victory of Christ through the Liturgy, let us participate in the Victory of Christ through the Liturgy, let us be transformed by the Victory of Christ through the Liturgy, that we may proclaim with all the more strength and fervour,
Christ is risen from the dead
Trampling down death by death
And to those in the tombs
Bestowing Life.
Christ is risen! He is risen indeed!
We serve a meal following the Liturgy on Sundays. All are welcome.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
Christ is risen!
John’s Gospel, my dear brothers and sisters in Christ, is beautiful: it is quite different in structure and style than the other three because, it seems, the Beloved Disciple is deliberately picking out many of the words and actions of the Lord not included by the other evangelists. The Apostle John is putting forward testimony—trial testimony—to show,
“In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” (John 1:1)
And,
“the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth.” (1:14)
And, as we have heard today,
“these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that believing, you may have life in his name.”
The Theologian does this through narrating seven Signs showing Jesus to be the Christ—changing water into wine at the wedding of Cana (2:1–11), healing the nobleman’s son (4:46–54), healing the paralytic by the pool of Bethesda (5:1–15), feeding the five thousand (6:1–14), walking on the water (6:16–21), healing the man born blind (9:1–12) and the raising of Lazarus from the dead (11:1–43). On none of these occasions do we know how the Sign was brought about—though it would be complete hubris on my part to believe I could even attempt to understand the exact detail—but that the Sign took place: and believing this testimony, we are pointed to Christ.
And the eighth Sign of St John’s Gospel, the Resurrection itself, likewise has no explanation how, but it was necessary that the disciples experience it, experience the risen Christ, that we may be shown the divinity of Christ. They had heard the report of the women disciples, whose “words seemed to them like idle tales, and they did not believe them.” (Luke 24:11) And Thomas maintains for us this necessity of tangible evidence,
…
Read this Sermon, Signs and Testimony.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 17th May
Discussion on the Gospel of Matthew, 8 pm.
Online only
Saturday 18th May
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm.
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Sunday 19th May
Matins and Divine Liturgy, 9 am.
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
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 meet at 3rd URC Scout HQ, Kings Rd, Chandlers Ford SO53 2EY. The Scout hall is behind and to the left of the URC Church. 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 parish?
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 the risen Christ
Fr Alexander
[email protected]