Dear Friends
We see in our society a significant rise in nationalism, something which has not happened in this country for nearly a century. There is a longing, a yearning, for cultural identity and, to a certain extent, a fear that it will be lost through various means: “we need to defend our roots,” they might cry out, “we need to protect our identity and values.”
Our problem with this is there is little cultural identity to defend. Through the last two or three centuries our people have had to migrate to towns and cities to find work and have lost their closeness to the soil, for many in our country the Christian faith has been ripped from them as the new religion—chasing money, chasing change, chasing progress—and Christianity has been transformed into morality, judging who gains the title “deserving” and who has brought their misery upon themselves. Family breakdown has continued in this process: firstly through separating cousins, aunts and uncles, nephews and nieces, out of our “family unit,” a process that now seems ordinary, and latterly even marriages are broken up or never even begun. Our culture is far from being defensible, it is bare. Other cultures have songs to share, about all we could muster would be a half-hearted rendition of the national anthem where some might struggle with the words, other nations have stories to tell yet we can barely remember some of the members of Robin Hood’s Merry Men or even three of King Arthur’s knights. Over these three hundred years, anyone challenging this so-called progress has been dismissed and ridiculed as backward, stupid and not worthy of attention.
Yes, indeed, our culture is dying, and any attempt at reviving a long-lost past is likely to fail, so what are we to do? We cannot join ourselves to the past for it is dead. We instead must join ourselves to a living culture, a culture which teaches us that the greatest act we can perform is to serve one another, even to the point of laying down our lives, so that the other person may live. And we live this culture when we come together and worship our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, some in our society are waking up to the inadequacies in our culture and they yearn for something—for reason, for truth, for identity, for purpose. And this is found perfectly in Christ, crucified for us that we may be united to Him, risen that we may have Life, glorified that we may be freed from all that afflicts us. Let us turn more fervently towards Him, let us bring Him into our world and our society, let us declare our citizenship not of the earth but of heaven, let us bring true worth and value to those in this country who need to experience His love and be transformed by His Gospel.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
The last of the prophets, the greatest of all those born of women, (see Matthew 11:11, Luke 7:28) had been arrested. And at his arrest, the Lord leaves Nazareth and dwells in Capernaum by the sea, that those who sat in darkness might see a great Light. This great Light, the True Light, (see John 1:9, First John 2:8) “shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.” (John 1:5)
And I, too, sit in the darkness—the darkness of ignorance, the darkness of sin, the darkness of unrighteousness, the darkness of hopelessness, the darkness which cannot even imagine a glimmer of light. I sit in the darkness and the Friend of the Bridegroom (see John 3:29) comes and announces the coming of the Light and I have him arrested, shut up away from my comfort. Because I have made an existence in the darkness, a home in the darkness, and the coming dawn frightens me: when the Light comes my disgusting nature will be apparent for all to see, I will no longer be able to linger in the shadow of death.
Yet whether I like it or not, the Light comes. And I see the misery I have inflicted upon myself and upon others: the stench of death is all the more apparent in the Day and the decadence is revealed as decay. Sat in my own filth of sin Christ sees me but is not repulsed by me. And He looks directly at me, staring into my soul: but He does not justify the one who I have become, rather He says directly to me, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.”
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Read this Sermon, Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 16th January
Discussion on Isaiah, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 17th January
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Sunday 18th January
Matins & Divine Liturgy, 9 am
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Online session is via Google Meet: please get indd 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.
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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
webenquiry@orthodoxeastleigh.uk