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Showing posts with the label Revelation 21:1-5

For Everything a Season

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I've been thinking a lot about our reading from the Old Testament this week. It's probably the most famous section from the book of Ecclesiastes, and many of us probably know it as a pop song, rather than a quotation from the Bible - from the song ' Turn! Turn! Turn! ', made famous by The Byrds in the 1960s. The concept that there is a season for all things under the sun has been what's got me thinking this week. In the past four days, I've been to two funerals. I've absolutely been thinking about there being a time to weep, a time to mourn, and a time to die. For one of the funerals I attended, that idea of 'a time to die' was fitting. Marion was 91 years' old. She and her husband Philip had raised a son, of whom they had excellent reasons for feeling proud, seen their two granddaughters grow into successful and strong women, and lived to see and enjoy the presence of four beautiful great-grandchildren, the latest being Miriam, my daughter....

The God of Destruction

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This sermon was preached on the morning on November 15th 2015, a few days after the terrible attacks in Paris on the night of November 13th. The sermon was written before those attacks, but required some last minute tweaks to take them, and their effect upon us, into account. In researching and writing it, I am indebted to another sermon I found online preached by the Rev'd Dr Willimon in 2012 - A World Rocked by God . If you have the time, I highly recommend reading it. Part of me toyed (for a moment only, mind) with reading out his sermon instead of writing my own. I'm sure you'll see the sermon below owes much to it. The readings were Daniel 12:1-3 , Hebrews 10:11-25 & Mark 13:1-8 . Before I start my sermon, I’d like to invite you to take some time to look around you. Notice the walls, the ceiling, the beautiful stained glass, the intricate tiling on the floor, the pew on which you are sitting. All this? With all the years it has been here, and...