The kingdom of Christ the King

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew’s Wickford this morning:

Jesus and Pilate
head-to-head
in a clash of cultures.
Pilate is
angular, aggressive, threatening
representing
the oppressive, controlling
Empire of dominating power,
with its strength in numbers
and weaponry,
which can crucify
but cannot
set free.
Jesus is
curves and crosses,
love and sacrifice,
representing
the kingdom of God;
a kingdom of love,
service and self-sacrifice
birthing men and women
into the freedom
to love one another.

The way of compassion
or the way of domination;
the way of self-sacrifice
or the way of self;
the way of powerlessness
or the way of power;
the way of serving
or the way of grasping;
the kingdom of God
or the empires of Man.

Stephen Verney, a former Bishop of Repton, in ‘Water into Wine’ his commentary on John’s Gospel, notes the way in which this Gospel consistently speaks about there being two different levels or orders to reality. What he means by this are different patterns of society, each with a different centre or ruling power. He gives as an example, the difference between a fascist order and a democratic order: “In the fascist order there is a dictator, and round him subservient people who raise their hands in salute, and are thrown into concentration camps if they disobey. In the democratic order … there is an elected government, and round it persons who are interdependent, who share initiatives and ideas.”

So, what are the two orders that he sees described in John’s Gospel? In the first, “the ruling principle is the dictator ME, my ego-centric ego, and the pattern of society is people competing with, manipulating and trying to control each other.” In the second, “the ruling principle is the Spirit of Love, and the pattern of society is one of compassion – people giving to each other what they really are, and accepting what others are, recognising their differences, and sharing their vulnerability.”

When Jesus says that his kingdom is not from here (John 18. 33-37), in this world, he means that it is not a kingdom of the ego dictated by the needs and insecurities of the one in power, instead his kingdom, which comes from elsewhere, from God, is a kingdom of compassion, acceptance, difference and vulnerability.

When John writes of Jesus as faithful witness in the Book of Revelation (Revelation 1. 4b-8), he means that Jesus, as witness, revealed to us the very image of God as he was God in human form. His actions and teaching together are the fullest expression of God that can be given and seen in a human being.

As firstborn of the dead, he was both the first to rise from death with a resurrected body and then the one who leads us into that same experience so we can also rise from death and live forever in God’s presence in a new heaven and earth that are joined together to become one.

As ruler of the kings of the earth, he is pre-eminent over all earthly monarchs because as God’s Son he precedes them all, being involved in the creation of the world and all that exists, and, through his life, death and resurrection, sits at the right hand of God and has the name that is above all other names and before which every knee in heaven and on earth must bow.

His death is the act by which we see that we are loved absolutely by God because he does not hold his only Son back from the sacrifice of his own life, breaking for a time the bond between Father and Son. Both were necessary for that to happen in order that we might come to know the depth of love that both have for us as human beings.

Whenever we respond to that love, we become part of his kingdom of love in which his people are his priests because they worship by living lives based on the example of Christ the King. A king and a kingdom where “the ruling principle is the Spirit of Love, and the pattern of society is one of compassion – people giving to each other what they really are, and accepting what others are, recognising their differences, and sharing their vulnerability.”

The Jesus whose kingdom is not from this world is Christ the King, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the ruler of the kings of the earth. He came into the world to testify to the truth and everyone who belongs to the truth listens to his voice. He loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood making us to be a kingdom, priests serving God his Father forever. To him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen.

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Crown Him With Many Crowns.

At the heart. On the edge.

Here's the sermon I shared at St Andrew's Wickford today for the Feast of Christ the King:

Like many parents, Christine and I couldn’t bear to get rid of the toys and books that our daughters had enjoyed as children. We stored them in the attic and they moved with us as we moved from our curatage to a vicarage and back to our own home. We then brought them down from the attic for our eldest grandson. The book that Joshua loved most from our collection is called ‘Puzzle Mountain’, a book which, like the better known ‘Where’s Wally?’, has characters and objects to find on each of its busy pages. The story is about a journey to the top of Puzzle Mountain to protect a rare flower but the story is only a part of the book’s interest. What Joshua particularly loved was to find the hidden characters on each page. In other words, he loved answering the question of where those characters were at each stage of the story.

The parable of the sheep and the goats (Matthew 25.31-46) asks us to reflect on the question of where Jesus is in this story. The story begins with Jesus at the centre in the position of power, authority, majesty and judgement. It is the end of time with the Son of Man coming in all his glory to sit on the throne of his glory and separate all the people of all the nations, one from another. It’s a centralised image with power and judgement centred in and dispensed by one person. As such, it’s a traditional image of monarchical, political, judicial or hierarchical power.

Yet, although this is where the story begins, it is not where the centre of the story actually resides. There is a redefining of the centre and the margins, the heart and the edge, that is the challenge which is at the heart of this parable. The judgement made within the story is one made on the basis of the extent to which people have been with those on the edge; those who are hungry, thirsty, strangers, naked, sick or imprisoned. This is about compassion – bringing food and water, welcoming, clothing, caring and visiting – but is not simply about gestures of humility and service towards others. The deeper insight of this parable is that we encounter Jesus in those on the edge. Those on the edge can be Christ to us and we need to be on the margins ourselves because that is where Christ is to be found most fully.

This story is, therefore, a retelling of the story of incarnation; of Christ giving up equality with God to become a human being who suffers and dies for the sake of all. It is also a retelling of the story that the Bible, as a whole, tells. The Old Testament has a core narrative which associates God with the powers that structure, order and rule society; a story with Judges and Kings that for many today is viewed as patriarchal and oppressive; meaning it is unlike the kingdom that Jesus later revealed. However, the core narrative in scripture is subverted by a counter narrative in which God hears the voices of those who are victims and is found with the oppressed in order that they can journey from oppression to freedom. These two narratives may actually be two different ways to interpret the story told in the Old Testament. The question as to which is the correct reading remains open until Jesus comes to be the fullest revelation of the nature of God that can be seen in human form. These narratives, therefore, culminate in the story of the incarnation in which God becomes the ultimate scapegoat sent out from the centre into the margins carrying the sins of all for the sake of all.

This parable, the incarnation and the salvation history found in the Bible all ask the question of where is God to be found. They turn our expectations upside down by saying that God is seen most clearly among those on the edge. This is how we are trying to understand our mission and ministry in Wickford and Runwell and is what we share more widely through the HeartEdge network. We seek to celebrate, enjoy, and embody God being with us – the heart of it all. This is not a narcissistic notion that we are the heart, but a conviction that God is the heart and we want to be with God. The word ‘heart’ refers to feeling, humanity, passion, emotion. It means the arts, the creativity and joy that move us beyond ourselves to a plane of hope, longing, and glory. It also means not standing on the sidelines telling the government what to do, but getting into the action, where honest mistakes are made but genuine good comes about, where new partners are found and social ideas take shape.

The edge speaks of the conviction that God’s heart is on the edge of human society, with those who have been excluded or rejected or ignored. God is most evidently encountered among those in the margins and on the edge. We aren’t about bringing those on the imagined ‘edge’ into the exalted ‘middle’; it’s about saying we want to be where God is, and God’s on the edge, so we want to be there too.

This parable, the incarnation and the salvation history found in the Bible take us further still as they turn our traditional understandings of heart and edge upside down and reveal that it is from the edge that the centre or heart is renewed. Our traditional expectations in society and, often, within the Church are that leadership, power and direction all come from the centre - the heart - of a society or nation or organisation or church. Our expectation has been that those on the edge need to be drawn into an exalted centre where they will also in time be exalted.

That is the basis for much charitable endeavour, particularly the charitable endeavours of the wealthy or powerful. It is also the basis of the flawed trickle-down theory of economics which argues that centralised wealth eventually trickles down to empower those who are poorest and furthest from the centres of wealth or power. Whether we think in terms of charity, economics, education or evangelism, these are instrumental approaches in which those at the centre possess what those at the edge need and benignly bestow their largesse on others, always in limited measure. They are approaches based on patronage rather than empowerment.

These stories turn that kind of thinking on its head. The defining characteristic in these stories is that of being on the edge with those who are hungry, thirsty, naked or imprisoned. God is seen in those on the edge therefore the edge is now where the heart of God is fully revealed. The edge is where God is fully seen and can be encountered meaning that the edge is now the place from which renewal can come.

Left to their own devices those at the heart with power and influence accumulate more power and influence centrally. To fully reflect Christ's characteristics of service and sacrifice we need to understand that the edge and the heart have to become one. It is only as power and influence is devolved from the centre to the margins that society reflects the rule of Christ by reflecting the characteristics of Christ in letting go of power and serving others.

Christ divested himself of power, influence, authority and prestige when choosing to be born as a human being in relative poverty and obscurity in Bethlehem. Christ moved into our neighbourhood bringing the human and divine together, bringing the heart to the edge, and thereby renewing the Godhead by bringing our humanity into the heart of the Trinity, so that we become one.

As a result, those who are at the centre – however defined - are called to divest themselves of power in order to be with those on the edge. So, like Joshua looking for the hidden characters in ‘Puzzle Mountain’, we need to be those who ask where Christ is in our world. This parable pictures Christ as being in the centre and on the edge but the parable is clear that being on the edge is what defines Christ and should also define us, as his followers. 

This parable, similarly, challenges us to go to the margins and to live on the edge if we are truly to find Christ and be found with Christ in the renewal of church, society and God that he promises and towards which he leads us. That means we do something that Joshua and I can’t do with ‘Puzzle Mountain’, which is to enter the story ourselves. This parable is a story we can enter, making the question posed in the parable not just where is Christ, but also where are we. When we see Jesus on the throne of judgement, that is the only one question he will have for us: “Where have you been?

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Ralph McTell - Streets Of London.

Thought for the Week: The Servant King

Here's my Thought for the Week at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

The Servant King

The Jewish leaders jeered at Jesus: ‘He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Messiah [or King] whom God has chosen.’ The Roman soldiers mocked him: ‘Save yourself if you are the King of the Jews.’ One of the criminals hanging there alongside him hurled insults at him: ‘Aren’t you the Messiah [or King]? Save yourself and us!’ All of them were asking ‘What kind of King are you then? If you are a King then behave as we expect a King to behave.’ Their mockery came because Jesus did not look or behave as they expected a King to do.

This Sunday is the Feast of Christ the King when we celebrate Christ as a King who turns the notion of Kingship on its head; who is seen as King at the point when he is least powerful and most vulnerable – at his own death. In Philippians 2 we read of Jesus letting go – stripping himself – of everything which made him equal with God in order to become a human being like us in order to serve us and die for us. On Maundy Thursday we celebrate Jesus’ decision to become a servant to those he had created when we re-enact his washing of the disciples feet and his words that ‘You call me Teacher and Lord, and it is right that you do so, because that is what I am. I, your Lord and Teacher have just washed your feet.’ Jesus makes service of others the true vocation and measure of Kingship.

Jesus turns the meaning of Kingside upside down. No longer is Kingship to be understood in terms of garnering wealth and power for oneself in other to defend others. Now it is understood to be about service; giving your life that others might live. Jesus, as the servant King, says to us, ‘I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one another’s feet. I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you.’

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King's X - King.

The end of the Church Year

Here is the Thought for the Week I've put together for the newsletter at St Martin-in-the-Fields:

Advent, the beginning of which we celebrate next Sunday, marks the beginning of a journey that we undertake each year as we travel through the Church Year. That also means that this Sunday we have come to the end of that journey, as we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King.

At the beginning of the Church Year we celebrate Christ’s coming into our world and all the ways in which he comes to us again. At the end of the Church Year, we celebrate Christ as past, present, and future King over all the earth, at the same time that we express our faith in a coming Kingdom where the world will once again fully reflect its creator.

On our journey through the Church Year, we follow in the steps of Jesus as he is born, ministers in Galilee, is crucified, and rises again. On that journey we also celebrate the coming of the Spirit at Pentecost and reflect both on the mission of the Church and what it means to be a disciple. By making this journey we remind ourselves who we are and whose we are.

We are reminded that God is with us, in Christ, throughout the year and through all the seasons of life. We are here because of Christ. We journey through the Church calendar because of him. We gather, ‘neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free’, because we are one in Christ. It is Christ who presides over his kingdom, his Church, our journey and the table where we share his supper – the Eucharist. Here, throughout the Church Year, we can all come freely week by week to experience and participate in the means of grace that visibly exhibit to us the heart and mind of Christ the King.

(Adapted from http://www.crivoice.org/christtheking.html)

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Brooklyn Tabernacle Choir - Christ The King.

The Servant King

It is an interesting question to consider why most societies in human history have had some form of monarchy? In some respects, it seems a strange thing to do because it involves the majority of people voluntarily giving wealth and power to one person – the King.

Why would we allow one person to monopolise power and wealth in that way? Well, it seems to have happened because the King then organised and led the army with the aim of ensuring peace and prosperity for their subjects. Simply put, it was a quid pro quo arrangement on the basis that, if you protect us, we’ll allow you to lord it over us and enjoy a better quality of life.

Today we celebrate the Feast of Christ the King but, of course, we are not celebrating Christ as the usual type of human King. We are not even celebrating Christ as a greater type of monarch than our current Queen – god-fearing as she is and with greatly curtailed powers compared with many of her forbears. Instead, we celebrate Christ as a King who turns the notion of Kingship on its head; who, as our reading today (Luke 23. 33 - 43) makes clear, is seen as King at the point when he is least powerful and most vulnerable – at his own death.

The sign saying the King of the Jews hung over Jesus’ head as he was dying on the cross was, for Pilate, a statement of the charge against him. For the crowd on Golgotha, it was a source of mockery – ‘Save yourself, if you are the King of the Jews!’ For the second thief, it was a future hope – ‘Remember me, Jesus, when you come as King!’ For Jesus it was a present reality. The second thief asked ‘Remember me … when you come as King’ and Jesus replied, ‘today you will be in Paradise with me.’ Jesus was saying, ‘Today, not tomorrow or in the future, is when I am King.’ 

What kind of King deliberately becomes a victim and allows himself to killed though? It is the total reverse of what we expect from a King. In Philippians 2 we read of Jesus letting go – stripping himself – of everything which made him equal with God in order to become a human being like us in order to serve us. On Maundy Thursday, in particular, we celebrate Jesus’ decision to become a servant to those he had created when we re-enact his washing of the disciples feet and his words that ‘You call me Teacher and Lord, and it is right that you do so, because that is what I am. I, your Lord and Teacher have just washed your feet.’ Our Lord and King is also a servant. In fact, service of others is the true vocation and measure of Kingship.

More than this, his service of others, as their King, leads all the way to his death on the cross – the laying down of his own life for the sake of others. As Philippians 2 puts it, ‘He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death – his death on the cross.’ The true King lays down his own life for the love of his people (all people). Jesus is that true King who turns the meaning of Kingside upside down. No longer is Kingship to be understood in terms of garnering wealth and power for oneself in other to defend others. Now it is understood to be about service; giving your life that others might live. Jesus, as the servant King, says to us, ‘I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one another’s feet. I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you.’ 

Peter said to Jesus, ‘Never at any time will you wash my feet!’ Jesus answered, ‘If I do not wash your feet, you will no longer be my disciple.’ Some of us, on Maundy Thursday, are like Peter and don’t wish to have our feet washed. For whatever reason, we find it difficult to publicly expose our feet and have someone else wash them. How much more difficult, then, do we find it to genuinely follow Christ’s example of service by laying down our lives for the sake of others? 

Christ challenges all of us, myself included, to let go of the things that prevent us from serving others just as he left all that he had with God in heaven. To allow the force of challenge that Christ as the Servant King poses to us we have to be prepared for the Holy Spirit to question the extent to which we serve others now. Each of us do currently serve and support others in and through this Church as well as in our family, community and work commitments but, equally, each of us, myself included, place constraints on the extent to which we serve others and may use our service of some to mean that we are critical of others. To be true to the revelation of Christ as Servant King, we need to allow God to challenge the extent to which those constraints and attitudes are where he wants us to be.

Christ’s example of service is a constant challenge to us to confront those areas of our lives where we currently hold back from giving ourselves in service of others. We naturally find it difficult to follow that example of service by fully laying down our lives for the sake of others. But that is what we have to move towards if we are to continue to experience his rule and reign – his Kingship - in our lives. Jesus said to Peter, ‘If I do not wash your feet, you will no longer be my disciple.’ because if we're not allowing him to serve us then we certainly won't be able to follow in his footsteps by serving others:

“This is our God, the Servant King, / He calls us now to follow him, / To bring our lives as a daily offering / Of worship to the Servant King … So let us learn how to serve, / And in our lives enthrone him; / Each other’s needs to prefer, / For it is Christ we’re serving.”

In what ways does the example Christ sets as our King challenge each of us today in this area of serving others? That is the true meaning of the feast of Christ the King.

‘After Jesus had washed their feet, he put his outer garment back on and returned to his place at the table. “Do you understand what I have just done to you?” he asked. “You call me Teacher and Lord, and it is right that you do so, because that is what I am. I, your Lord and Teacher have just washed your feet. I, your Lord and Teacher, have just washed your feet. You, then, should wash one another’s feet. I have set an example for you, so that you will do just what I have done for you. I am telling you the truth: no slave is greater than his master, and no messenger is greater than the one who sent him. Now that you know this truth, how happy you will be if you put it into practice.’

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Graham Kendrick - The Servant King.

Advent: Beginning the journey

Advent marks the beginning of a journey that we undertake each year as we travel through the Christian Church Year. On this journey, we follow in the steps of Jesus as he is birthed in a stable, as he walks the dusty hillsides of Galilee, opens blind eyes and makes the lame to walk again, as he teaches the multitudes and the disciples, as he is crucified, and rises again. On this journey we also celebrate the coming of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost and reflect both on the mission of the Church and what it means to be a disciple of the Christ. By making this journey we remind ourselves who we are and whose we are.

We do so knowing that the Kingdom of God that Jesus brought is a present reality in our lives. And yet we also know that there is a future Kingdom over which God will reign in Christ, a Kingdom in which the world will once again fully reflect its creator. Last week on the Feast of Christ the King we celebrated Christ as past, present, and future King over all the earth, at the same time that we expressed our hope and our faith in that coming Kingdom.

Today we look forward to our journey this coming year, as we will express each week our faith in the transforming power of God at work in our world, and in our Church, and in our lives to restore all of creation to his purposes.

The royal colour of blue begins the Church Year in Advent, a word that means "coming". We pace this season of four Sundays hearing again the silence of the prophets, experiencing the breathless waiting of the Israelites hoping for a Messiah. We sing the song "O Come, O Come, Emmanuel" with longing, not because we seek a Messiah yet to come to the world, but because the Christ has come and we long for him to come to us again. The quiet pace of Advent is in direct contrast to the bustling commercialism of the secular holidays. And so we begin our new year in Advent, reminding ourselves that in the midst of the worldliness of our lives we need to renew our relationship to this King who has come.

In the season of Christmas we change the sanctuary colours to white and gold, a celebration of the purity of the infant who was born in a manger, and yet a King with all the splendour of God come to dwell with his people. Christmas Day is both the culmination of the waiting of the Advent season, and the beginning of twelve days of celebration as we rejoice in the gift of our Saviour and the daily rebirth of grace in our own lives.

Epiphany means "to make known," and in the season of Epiphany we remember the ways and events through which God revealed himself through Jesus Christ. The colours of Epiphany are usually the colours of Christmas, White and gold, the colours of celebration, newness, and hope that mark the most sacred days of the church year.

As with most aspects of the Christian liturgical calendar, Epiphany has significance as a teaching tool in the church. The Wise Men or Magi who brought gifts to the infant Jesus were the first Gentiles to acknowledge Jesus as "King" and so were the first to "show" or "reveal" Jesus to a wider world as the incarnate Christ. This act of worship by the Magi, which corresponded to Simeon’s blessing that this child Jesus would be "a light for revelation to the Gentiles" (Luke 2:32), was one of the first indications that Jesus came for all people, of all nations, of all races, and that the work of God in the world would not be limited to only a few.

Epiphany is now observed as a time of focusing on the mission of the church in reaching others by "showing" Jesus as the Saviour of all people. It is also a time of focusing on Christian brotherhood and fellowship, especially in healing the divisions of prejudice and bigotry that we all too often create between God’s children.

With the ashes on our heads after the service of Ash Wednesday, the sanctuary colours for Lent turn to a sombre purple or violet and even to black at the end of the Passion Week. Throughout the six weeks of Lent we pace the length of Jesus’ three years of ministry. Throughout the weeks we relearn the faces and names of people who, like you and me, were sometimes faithful and sometimes selfish; people who heard the good news and responded and others who laughed and scorned; men, women, and children who heard Jesus’ words and watched his life and came hungry and were fulfilled, or who walked away because they could not use him for their own ends.

It is a long season, a season that calls us to stop and take a look at our life in the light of Christlikeness, and humble ourselves before our God who says to us gently, "Come, let us talk this over. Though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be white as snow; though they are red as crimson, they shall be like wool. If you are willing to obey, you shall eat the good things of the earth." (Isaiah 1:18-19 NJB)

The season of Lent culminates in "Passion Week," from a Latin word that means "to suffer." Starting with Palm Sunday and the joyful entry of Israel’s Messiah-King in to Jerusalem, it ends with that very same crowd yelling "Crucify him, crucify him." In between these two days, the week’s events are remembered with various services that may pace the Passion Week: Maundy Thursday, Good Friday, Tenebrae, and the Holy Saturday Vigil.

Easter morning dawns and Mary Magdalene weeps at the tomb until she is told the good news "He is not dead! He has risen!" And that call echoes down through the centuries as Christians around the world joyfully cry out "Christ is Risen! Christ is Risen indeed!" year after year on the highest and holiest day of the Christian calendar.

Easter lilies adorn the sanctuary, the colours change to the brightness of white and gold to portray the purity and kingliness of our Risen Savior. There is no joy compared to an Easter Sunday after the solemn pace of Lent. Three days before we buried our beloved Jesus; today He lives! We wept with Peter on the night he was crucified, and on Easter we are awed anew by the great news that He Lives!

And the fifty days of Easter ring jubilantly with the new life and new hope that the Risen Saviour brings to us, to our world, and to all peoples who open their hearts to him. We listen in on the conversations of the disciples as they struggle to wrap their human hearts and minds around this new revelation. We watch as those who previously had persecuted the people of God now fall on their knees in awe and wonder. We experience anew for ourselves in this season the freedom and joy and the power, strength, and life that is our heritage as the people of God.

The red of flames is the sanctuary colour of Pentecost as we remember the great rushing wind and the dancing flames like fire, and the words of Jesus, baptizing his disciples with the Holy Fire of the Spirit. The disciples and followers of Jesus were one moment huddled in fear in a small upper room. Then the Holy Spirit came in power and they rushed out of the building and into the streets, telling everyone about the good news in ways that all could understand. Today? Well, one day we are ordinary people, the next we are his evangelists, and pastors, and healers, and mercy-bringers, and the Body of Christ, redeemed by his blood, one in ministry to the entire world. Are you willing to be filled with the Spirit?

Ordinary time includes the counted Sundays between Pentecost and Advent. Since there are no Holy Days in this time it serves to remind us of the ordinary times of life. The book of Acts and the Epistles give us a clear picture of ordinary people, going about ordinary lives, but doing extraordinary things that built the Kingdom of God. The Church was growing by leaps and bounds, both the individuals within it and the worldwide Church. So we use the colour of Green to depict this growing time, and pray for the same thing within our ordinary lives. We hear again the Good News, we are instructed in the ways of the world and the Kingdom, and we are shown the vision of the Church and our responsibility within it. We hear afresh the voices of the gospel writers, the prophets, and Paul, Peter, James, each exhorting us to respond anew to the call of God to be his people in a world that is hungry for the grace, love, and peace we bring into every minute of life, if we are walking in the Light, if we are "abiding in the vine."

Ordinary? Yes, but through our lives God brings the living water to a thirsty world in our offerings of service and mercy that we offer to others on a daily basis. And this is the extraordinary way that God builds his Kingdom - through ordinary people like you and me.

At the end of the Church year on the Feast of Christ the King we are reminded that God is with us through all the seasons of life, as the writer of Ecclesiastes so poignantly reminds us. We are here because of Christ. We journey through the Church calendar because of him. We gather, "neither Jew nor Greek, male or female, slave or free", because we are one in Christ. It is Christ the Saviour-Shepherd-King who presides over his kingdom, his Church, our journey and the table where we share his supper – the Lord’s Supper, the Communion, the Eucharist. Here we can all come freely week by week to experience and to participate in the means of grace that visibly exhibits to us the heart and mind of our Creator, our Saviour, and our Sustainer.

As we gather together today to begin this journey once again may we feel the freedom, the joy, the strength of Jesus’ presence in our spirit. Remember his words - "Look, I am with you always; yes, to the end of time." (Matthew 28:20 NJB) May we begin the journey afresh today knowing that he accompanies us every step of the way. More than that, that every step we take on this journey we are treading where he has trod. So, go well and may the road rise to meet you. May the wind be always at your back. May the sun shine warm upon your face; the rains fall soft upon your fields and as we journey may God hold you in the palm of His hand. Amen.

(This sermon has been adapted from http://www.crivoice.org/christtheking.html).

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Enya - O Come, O Come Emmanuel.