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The Spirit immediately drove (Jesus) out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. Mark 1:12f.

I’ve always had a problem with Lent, or at least with the way I have been encouraged to keep it, or by the way I have interpreted that encouragement.

Jesus, come! for we invite you,

Guest and Master, Friend and Lord;

now, as once at Cana’s wedding,

speak, and let us hear your word:

lead us through our need or doubting,

hope be born and joy restored…Amen

I’ve just quoted the first verse of  the 20^TH CENTURY Epiphany hymn by Christopher Idle. I hadn’t come across it before.

Today, anticipating the Epiphany on 6th January, we remember the Wisemen bringing their gifts to the child Jesus. They were foreigners and Magi – the intellectual, scientific and religious experts of the day, but they obeyed the summons; admitted that for all their wisdom they needed guidance. They humbled themselves; and they were open to changing their plans. And they brought as gifts the most costly and precious things they had.

Psalm 46: A reading for Remembrance and Lockdown 2020

1 God is our refuge and strength,
a very present help in trouble.
2 Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,
though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;
3 though its waters roar and foam,
though the mountains tremble with its tumult.
4 There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,
the holy habitation of the Most High.
5 God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved;
God will help it when the morning dawns.
6 The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter;
he utters his voice, the earth melts.
7 The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.
8 Come, behold the works of the Lord;
see what desolations he has brought on the earth.
9 He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;
he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;
he burns the shields with fire.
10 ‘Be still, and know that I am God!
I am exalted among the nations,
I am exalted in the earth.’
11 The Lord of hosts is with us;
the God of Jacob is our refuge.

I expect that most of us have been to a meal or a party at a friend’s or a relative’s house. We would have been invited with a spoken or a written invitation. When we knocked at the door it would have been opened and we would have been welcomed and our coats taken. We would have been shown in and at some point told where the bathroom or toilet was. When the time came for the meal, if it wasn’t an informal buffet balancing food on our laps, we would have been invited to sit on chairs at a dining table with knives and forks set out before us. And if a neighbour turned up that had not been invited then they would not have been let in.

Christchurch Brentor           Matthew 18:12-22            6^th September 2020

Where two or three are gathered in my name, I am there among them.  v.20. That is a very well-known promise that we Christians like to claim as a great encouragement. Commentator William Barclay puts it like this: Jesus is just as much present in the little congregation as in the great mass meeting. He is just as much present at the Prayer Meeting or the Bible Study Group with their handful of people as in the crowded arena. He is not the slave of numbers. He is there wherever faithful hearts meet, however few they may be, for he gives all of himself to each individual person.

As I was meditating on our gospel reading, the words of the great old hymn by Charles Everest kept going through my mind:

Take up thy cross the Saviour said, if thou wouldst my disciple be

Deny thyself, the world forsake, and humbly follow after me.

The words ‘take up thy cross’ come just after Peter has tried to impose his own plans, his own ideas on Jesus and was thoroughly rebuked…..get behind me Satan…..you are setting your mind not on divine things but human things…..Headstrong Peter and the other disciples were sure they knew best and needed to learn to humbly follow and trust God in all circumstances, even if it seems totally counter-intuitive. You’re not in control, or, as Eugene Peterson in the Message paraphrase puts it: Jesus says: You’re not in the driver’s seat, I am- Jesus is! Jesus was calling them, and us too, to a life of self-sacrifice humbly following after him.