Minister’s Message – May 26, 2024

Reading:

In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord sitting on a throne, high and lofty; and the hem of his robe filled the temple. Seraphs were in attendance above him; each had six wings: with two they covered their faces, and with two they covered their feet, and with two they flew. And one called to another and said:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord of hosts;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”
At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

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Minister’s Message – May 19, 2024

Bible reading: Acts 2:1-14.

Message.

Some years ago, Moira and I were on holiday in Hungary and visited the historic city of Székesfehérvár: it’s about an hour’s journey by train from Budapest. When we got to the station to catch the train back, I was pleased to see from the timetable that a fast train was due in about ten minutes. I went to the ticket counter and said (or tried to say), “Budapest – Intercity – ketto (which means ‘two’)”. The ticket lady said something in Hungarian which I didn’t understand, and didn’t offer us any tickets. I tried again and had the same result; for some reason the tickets weren’t forthcoming. Eventually I did manage to buy two ordinary second-class tickets, but I was puzzled.

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Minister’s Message – May 12, 2024

Bible reading: Acts 1:12-17, 21-26.

[After Jesus’ Ascension] the apostles went back to Jerusalem from the Mount of Olives, which is about half a mile away from the city. They entered the city and went up to the room where they were staying: Peter, John, James and Andrew, Philip and Thomas, Bartholomew and Matthew, James son of Alphaeus, Simon the Patriot, and Judas son of James. They gathered frequently to pray as a group, together with the women and with Mary the mother of Jesus and with his brothers.

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Minister’s Message – May 5, 2024

Bible reading: Acts 10.

Message.

Simon Peter never thought he’d be famous; he just expected to spend his life as a fisherman (hopefully a successful one) at Capernaum. But that Jesus bloke had changed everything; he’d called Peter to follow him and that is what, with a few wobbles, he had done. As time passed, Peter had become one of the most prominent (or perhaps most outspoken) of the disciples. It was he who had first dared to say what they’d all been thinking: that Jesus really was the hoped-for Messiah, sent from God. It was he who was taken aside by Jesus as the others were eating their breakfast and told, “Feed my sheep”. And it was he who stood up in front of the Jerusalem crowd at Pentecost and tried to explain the amazing sights they had seen and sounds thy had heard. After his sermon, and after he and John had very publicly healed a lame man outside the Temple, Peter had become a marked man, the figurehead of this new and controversial religious sect. 

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