Lent is a time, for sure, to recognise our need for God, but it is also a time to rejoice in the faithfulness of God, who will not let us go.  A time to recognise the very nearness of God.  

Psalm 27 speaks into that feeling because it is primarily a reflection on the nearness of God to us as we journey through life.  It’s a reflection on how God protects us and guards us even in the most difficult times of life, and how we can practically seek God out when life is tough for us.  Lent is not only about sackcloth and ashes.

Psalm 27 reminds us of closeness and intimacy that we share with God.  This sounds great when things are going well, but what about when we are struggling.

There is a saying that the very worst lie has a kernel of truth.  Now a lie is something that is completely untrue; so the most deceptive form of this has at its core a truth that has been manipulated to mean the opposite.

This is how the devil lied to Jesus and how we too, are lied to.

As we read Luke’s version, I think a helpful way to do so is to view this passage as two competing narratives.  The first story line is the story that Jesus draws on in order to resist the devil and successfully navigate the lies told to him.

The second story line is the narrative the devil presents.  From the text, we see that he is bold, cunning, clever, and powerful.  It is the devil who tempts, not God.

Our Old Testament, New Testament and gospel readings for today all have something to do with our faces.  Moses and Jesus on the mountain of Transfiguration.

And, according to Paul, all believers who, when with unveiled faces we see the glory of the Lord as though reflected in a mirror, are being transformed into that same, yet ever intensifying glory.  For this comes from the Holy Spirit.  

As I say quite often, I have the great privilege of seeing your faces when we worship together and as I have also mentioned, they are different at the end of the service than the beginning.

They are softer, more peaceful, and yes, more radiant.  This is not my imagination.  So if this is evident after a worship service; imagine what they would look like after a direct, one-on-one meeting this God.

Over the last couple of weeks the readings have filled us with the glorious truth that when we are blessed by God, flowing in his full current and allowing our souls to magnify the Lord, all we do for the Lord will also be blessed and bear fruit for the world to eat.

In order that they may taste and see that the Lord is good.

Today we are looking at the second half of Luke’s record of Jesus’ ‘sermon on the mount’. (except in Luke, Jesus has led the people to a level place, so in Luke it is the ‘sermon on the plain.’)

All of today’s readings are similar in that they make the stark comparison between trusting and follow the Lord God Almighty, or trusting and following mere mortals.

All our readings show that living a faithful, trusting life in Christ, God the Son, attracts blessings, and living a life trusting and hoping in fleshly mortal strength attracts what Jesus calls ‘Woe’ (Luke 6:24-25), and Jeremiah more bluntly, ‘Curses’ (Jer 17:5).

If we are blessed, we are fulfilled in some way, and live a fortunate life, knowing in a very present sense that God is with us personally, helping us, and that he loves us very much and is always faithful.

This is the blessed life and everyone wants this, I think.  Happiness and a fortunate life by being fulfilled in some way.

What wonderful readings to have in this season of Epiphany!  The season we celebrate God revealing himself as the Saviour of all the World.  Our God reveals himself to us.

Our readings from Isaiah and Luke this morning have quite a bit in common.  The most obvious is that they are both a commissioning:  of Isaiah and the disciples.  Last week we heard the commissioning of the prophet Jeremiah as a boy.

The wonderful OT reading from Isaiah is transcendent and truly intimate at the same time.  It is well-known and loved by many people, especially clergy.

They speak of it as the passage that God revealed himself to them and asked, “who will go for me?” and they have answered from the very core of their spirit and soul, “here am I, send me.”

Paul – the only thing that matters is faith worked out as love.

Today our reading from Paul’s 1st letter to the Corinthians continues directly on from last week, and is a particularly well-loved and popular passage of Scripture.  It speaks about love, and does so beautifully.

Because it is so spiritually powerful, it demands much from us and is a hard reading in many ways because we can struggle to understand the breath-taking beauty of the great love of God revealed here.

But it is also one of the most faith-affirming passages in Scripture and brings as very close to God indeed.

Over the next two Sundays we will be looking at an extended passage from Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.  The two week’s readings flow directly and logically; joined by the phrase, “and now I will show you the most excellent way” (1 Cor 12:31).

So next week we will be talking about the most excellent way to achieve what is set out in today’s passage from Paul.

First some context, Paul is writing about the strange and paradoxical nature of Christianity.  We can only come into the Kingdom of God through personal faith in Jesus Christ; yet once we do, we become part of the body of Christ, the Church.

We become one with each other, yet irreducibly and utterly unique. We don’t at all become the same – we faithfully become more and more ourselves. This is the mystery Paul is trying to explain to the Corinthians.

In our gospel reading from John today we have the first of Jesus’ seven miraculous signs recorded by John, the changing of water into wine. 

But it’s about more than that too, this is a story about how involved Jesus is in our everyday lives, not just when we may feel we are close on a Sunday, and how Jesus transforms how we live on a day-to-day basis.

Epiphany is the celebration of the revelation given to us that Jesus Christ is Lord of all the earth – Jews and Gentiles. This is at the heart of the good news of Jesus Christ.

For all the gospel writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, and for the early Church, John the Baptist was the start of this ‘good news’ of Jesus, which is of course what the word ‘gospel’ means.

So John the Baptist is the beginning of the Good News of Jesus Christ.  He begins by prophesying that the Kingdom of Heaven has come near.  The phrase Kingdom of God or Kingdom of heaven is itself an Old Testament phrase used to describe the breaking in of God’s kingly rule into the world.

Today we celebrate the Epiphany of our Lord, which means ‘revelation.’  God revealed to people who were not Jews, whom we call the Wise Men, that Jesus Christ was the Messiah, the Son of God who would reconcile all people to God, Jews and Gentiles. 

This is because God so loved the whole world (not just Jews), that he gave his only son so that all who believe in him could be brought back to their loving Father and not perish, but have eternal life.

So the big revelation of this season of Revelation is that God loves you and me in and through this Jesus, this Son of Man and Son of God, whether Jew or non-Jew.

Today’s passage from Paul’s letter to the Colossians is about love and encouragement.  This is that utter love that starts with God’s view of us as holy and beloved.

Worship together is our response to that love and parishes (just like we are doing) grow when they are united in worship of the one who has set us apart and loves us.

The result of this is we are constantly encouraged in our common walk with Jesus.  When we grow stronger as a people of praise and worship, we grow closer and form deeper and richer bonds with each other.

The story of the Shepherds at Christmas has a lot to teach us.  We hear of them only in Luke’s Gospel and only in the second chapter.  They come into the narrative and then are never heard from again.

The shepherds are the first people to hear the Good News.  This is who God decided would be the people who first saw the coming of the Kingdom of God.

Something remarkable is happening here, but it begins like all things with the very unremarkable.

In our watching and waiting this Advent, we have looked at the way in which we go about the waiting, and what happens in us and through us when we truly wait on the Lord, like a vine waits on its tree.

What happens when we wait like this is we demonstrate (or show) the fruits of repentance we have looked at this Advent; hope, peace, and joy, in fact the whole orchard of the fruit of the Spirit.

This week we look at love, which binds all these things together.

Today, the third Sunday of Advent is known as Gaudette, or Rose, Sunday.  Gaudette is the Latin word for ‘rejoice,’ and today we look again at that precious little sapphire; joy.

So far, during this period of watching and waiting in Advent, we have spoken about the certainty of our hope in the coming of Jesus and its bringing of peace.  The consequence of these fruits of hope and peace is that hard to find thing.  Joy. 

We continue our waiting for the coming of, the advent, of Jesus.  Remembering with wonder the incarnation of God as a little baby and looking to his coming again in great hope to fulfil and bring to completion all things.

Last week we focused our waiting on hope, and today, via John the Baptist, we look at how we can be filled with peace in this time of waiting.  John is the great prophet who bridges the old and new testaments. 

The message that he gives in the gospel reading today is about Jesus’ first coming, but it also applies to his return, for which we wait.

Today is the first Sunday of Advent, and the word means ‘coming’ or ‘arrival’.  Advent is not a time to rush around preparing for Christmas, it’s really a time of developing a spiritual and mental clarity by slowing down and patiently watching and waiting for Christ to come.

Preparing ourselves for the coming of Jesus – born fresh in our hearts through the infant Saviour.  And then in joyful anticipation of his coming in glory like a Bridegroom to his Bride.

Each week we will light an Advent candle, nestling in the Advent wreath.  These candles represent hope, peace, joy, and love. 

Today is the final Sunday in the church year and also in our diverse series on receiving the Kingdom of God.  Two weeks or so ago we spoke about Judgment Day in our look at a passage from Isaiah, so I have taken a different approach today when looking at our reading from Daniel so as not to repeat myself.

One of the great spiritual heroes is Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Pastor who failed to obey Hitler and was killed by the Nazis in the last days of WW2 in an act of pure spite that gained nothing for them.

In a letter written from his Nazi prison cell, Bonhoeffer says, ’God [in the person of Christ] is the beyond in the midst of our lives. (Letters and Papers from Prison. April 30, 1944).

We continue our broad theme on how we receive the Kingdom of God and today we look at it from the perspective of the NT letter to the Hebrews.

We can receive this kingdom of Jesus himself because of his one, perfect and sufficient sacrifice.  He is our great high priest forever.

Now, all the NT writers were Messianic Jews, i.e., Jews who believed that Judaism itself has been fulfilled in Christ Jesus.

The writer to the Hebrews is no exception; except that he is writing to practising orthodox Jews, and he demonstrates the messianic nature of Jesus particularly through Jesus’ role as great High Priest forever.

Coming up to Advent, we have some wonderful readings, two of which we have just heard; the truly wonderful stories of Ruth and Naomi and the gospel account of the widow and her two measly copper coins.

We have been speaking much about the Kingdom of Heaven and the obvious thing that connects these passages is that the Kingdom here is coming through and by way of widows – who along with orphans the Old Testament describes as those most in need and care from the community.

This was so in Jesus’ day as well as Ruth’s, c. 900 or 1,000 years earlier.

Both are stories of how God uses the culture of the times to do his will in our society and teach us how we are supposed to care for each other.