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Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Day of Pentecost Year B
Gazing on the Gospels Year B - Day of Pentecost Year B
by SPCK - Judith Dimond
Day of Pentecost John 15.26-27 16.4b-15 Gaze on the disciples at the back of the room, ones we don’t hear much about, Alphaeus or Thaddeus for instance. They’ve long stopped concentrating, and they give each other secret glances of puzzlement. Is it blasphemy to suggest they are …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Fifth Sunday of Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Fifth Sunday of Lent (Passiontide begins) Jeremiah 31.31–34 Hebrews 5.5–10 John 12.20–33 Imagine the simple request echoing along the corridors of church bureaucracy. It is passed from office to office, from secretary to secretary. It is left on voice-mails and e-mails, faxed…
The Pastoral Letters - Grace, Hope and Holiness
The Pastoral Letters - Grace, Hope and Holiness
by SPCK - N T Wright
Grace, Hope and Holiness Titus 2.10-15 Soon after the Russian revolution, a group of journalists and social commentators paid a visit to the newly formed Soviet Union to see how the revolutionaries were getting on in establishing a new type of society. They were shown the model c…
Mark for Everyone - Jesus Predicts His Death
Mark for Everyone - Jesus Predicts His Death
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 8.31—9.1 Jesus Predicts His Death... ...I watched from a window as the riot police got ready. They looked like sportsmen preparing for a match, putting on pads and helmets, gloves and special outer clothes. Only this wasn’t a game. It was real. They didn’t …
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 12 Year A
Twelve Months of Sundays Year A - Proper 12 Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
Twelve Months of Sundays – Year A Ordinary Time Proper 12 Genesis 29.15–28 Romans 8.26–39 Matthew 13.31–33, 44–52 ‘All things work together for good to those who love God.’ Probably not the first thought that sprang to Jacob’s mind the morning after his wedding, on discovering ho…
Mark for Everyone - Signs of the End
Mark for Everyone - Signs of the End
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 13.1–13 Signs of the End... ...The place to start to understand this passage is in the middle, at verse 8: ‘These are the beginnings of the birthpangs.’ Jesus’ disciples would have known more about birthpangs than most modern men. I watched three of my four…
Mark for Everyone - The Burial of Jesus
Mark for Everyone - The Burial of Jesus
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 15.40–47 The Burial of Jesus... ...Yesterday a friend came to see me in great excitement. He had been in Jerusalem a few weeks earlier, and had happened to be present when an archaeologist stumbled upon a previously unknown first-century tomb, just outside …
Mark for Everyone - The Raising of Jairus’s Daughter
Mark for Everyone - The Raising of Jairus’s Daughter
by SPCK - N T Wright
Mark For Everyone MARK 5.35–43The Raising of Jairus’s Daughter... ...Right on cue, as the suspense heightens, messengers come to tell Jairus that his daughter has now died. He shouldn’t bother Jesus any longer. Telling Jairus not to be afraid, and just to believe, in that setting…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday: First Week in Holy Week Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday: First Week in Holy Week Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B WEEK 1: SATURDAY... ...Fans of detective stories will know the drill. The main lines of the plot are reasonably clear, or so it appears. But somewhere on the way there will be a clue, a hint, a nudge, which the alert reader will pick up. The culprit …
A twisting wind that wreaks such devastation
A twisting wind that wreaks such devastation
by Andrew Pratt
A twisting wind that wreaks such devastation, a town like matchwood torn and turned around; an act of God? Or nature's self destruction? Here people die, trees rooted from the ground. It seems there is no safety in this carnage. And where is God when random death walks in destro…
Broken bread and conversation
Broken bread and conversation
by Andrew Pratt
Broken bread and conversation, sharing food and drinking wine. Jesus punctuates the story talks of symbol, speaks of sign. When they ate, each time of meeting, they were to remember this, not some mystic magic moment, just a time of human bliss. Time for friendly reminiscence, ti…
Faith is the tight-rope of travelling people
Faith is the tight-rope of travelling people
by Andrew Pratt
Faith is the tight-rope of travelling people, taut between mountains of mercy and grace. Pilgrims remember the fears of their parents, trials and deliverance they had to face. Hope kept the balance when human experience met with the fire and the dangers of life, torture and stoni…
Beyond our context, out of time
Beyond our context, out of time
by Andrew Pratt
Beyond our context, out of time, can we believe the things we read? Are these imagined, false or fact, or signs that we should test and heed? A woman dies then finds new life, a metaphor or something real? The narrative has truth to tell in what we see and what we feel. Verses 3-…
GOOD FRIDAY HYMN - Mid laughter and derision
GOOD FRIDAY HYMN - Mid laughter and derision
by Andrew Pratt
GOOD FRIDAY HYMN - Mid laughter and derision - This hymn pictures the scene around the death of Jesus and then challenges us. TUNE: THORNBURY Also available in PowerPoint Format - Click Here Extract: Mid laughter and derision, with mocking, mournful cry, see evil's quiet corrupti…
How can we look, and not be moved
How can we look, and not be moved
by Andrew Pratt
1 How can we look, and not be moved by lives that end and eyes that plead, where parents cry while families part amid their last despairing need. 2 Once we were distanced from the ones that suffered while we stood to stare. God give the gift of empathy that we might offer more th…
Hymn - As hollow as her loneliness