“What are you looking for?” Those are the first words spoken by Jesus in the Gospel of John. And across the centuries Jesus keeps asking us that same question. And it is a good question to ask ourselves at the start of the year. What are we looking for?
Our search for the truth will sometimes bring us to a manger, sometimes to a river, sometimes to a cross. But in every case, we have reached the right place because Jesus is in all those places. Jesus is there in our suffering and in our transitions, in our times of refreshing and our new beginnings. The question is, are we still searching? Are we still following stars? Or have we settled for the destination we reached last year or ten years ago?
Rev Pam Hynd's sermon for the first Sunday after Christmas
(apologies for the audio glitches)
I wonder Who’s your favourite character in the Christmas story? And before you all say baby Jesus, I’ll rephrase the question: Who’s your favourite character in the Christmas story apart from baby Jesus? Theres one character who always makes me smile. They all make me smile, really, But there’s one part in particular who I find mysterious and intriguing Exotic and, frankly a bit random.
One of the most important questions for us to be asking after the Bindi Beach attack is, “How can we show our love to a community that has been so traumatised?” What can we do that can possibly make a difference?
I love the slogan: “If we want singing and dancing after the revolution then we must have singing and dancing during the revolution.” I love it because the same applies to the Kindom of God. The Christian life is not about gritting our teeth and deferring all joy into the indefinite future. It is about bringing that future into the present and living in the joy of it now. If we don’t practice the joy of God’s Kindom now, we will not be fit to enjoy it when it fully arrives. If we want singing and dancing in Heaven, then we must have singing and dancing now!
We look at the idyllic world of the Isaiah fragments: so disturbing because of how far away the longings of our hearts are from the realities of our lives. We could harden our hearts with cynicism and say such a vision could never be. OR we can eat locusts! We can strengthen our resolve to be fierce and prophetic like John the Baptist – eating our fear and growing stronger in our opposition to violence.
Rev Pam Hynd's sermon for Advent 1
Rev Pam Hynd's sermon for Christ The King
This is what happens when people groups are displaced: Sacred places are desecrated Authority structures are undermined Ownership rights are ignored Alliances are broken And lives are destroyed. This is a picture of the attempted annihilation of the very identity of a people group. When Christians read Jesus’ words now, we think it looks like a prediction of the end of the world. And to the people who lived through it, that is exactly what it would have felt like. It was the end of their world. And it has happened again and again and again through history.