Sermons

A talk from 9 Lessons and Carols in 2017.

The world can be a dark place.

It’s been quite a year. I searched the internet for newspaper headlines from 2017. I got many screens full, from all over the world.

Here are some:
Suspected cop killer shot dead.
British meat in horse hormone scandal.
Carnage at pop concert.
NHS cuts 15000 beds in 6 years.
UK relations with Russia at all-time low.
Trump ready to strike Kim’s nuclear sites.
Some victims of tower blaze may never be identified.

Life can be tough. And we come to God, come to church, read the Bible, wanting to feel better. And often we do. But sometimes, God raises our hopes that things will get better, not just that we’ll feel better. We have to live in a world where there’s a mismatch. A mismatch between the promises of God and the realities of life. A mismatch between sermons that invite us to trust God and a life that feels like it’s falling apart anyway.

Daniel knew all about this. He was in captivity, in Babylon. And then he opened his Bible.

Sometimes, the world appears to be utterly chaotic. Evil can appear unchecked. It can seem as if there’s no-one at the driving wheel, no-one at the controls. History is one big runaway train.

This is the most important service we hold each year – our quarterly combined services. It’s such a precious thing to come all together, to worship God as one church. There are good reasons why we don’t do it every week, but it’s vital that we come together, once in a while.

Indeed, the two PCCs have been going through the process of formally merging our two parishes. It is increasingly the case that our two churches work together in partnership, so we’re cementing that partnership for the generations to come. That’s a really good thing to be doing.