Blog for the congregation and members of Dromore Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church - Dromore Non-Subscribing Presbyterian Church

Love like a Lamb - The power of gentleness and innocence

18/1/2026

Love like a Lamb - The Power of Gentleness & Innocence
Isaiah 49:1-7; Psalm 40:1-11; 1 Corinthians 1:1-9; John 1:29-42

Some people, especially here in Northern Ireland have had the privilege of growing up close to farms. Others of us have not. And that makes a big difference when we hear a phrase like “the Lamb of God.”

For those of us who have never stood in a field full of newborn lambs, we may not quite feel what the Bible is pointing to. But anyone who has had this experience would know that lambs are astonishingly vulnerable and also astonishingly joyful. They are all legs and awkward leaps, skipping and kicking for no reason except that being alive feels good. They trust the world before they have any reason not to. They are gentle, open and unguarded.

Fortunately for those of us who have not grown up on farms with live sheep, one can catch a glimpse of this watching short video’s of lambs on the internet.

I watched a few lamb video’s on Youtube this week preparing for this sermon. It is seems that there is perhaps almost nothing more disarming than a little lamb at play.

And so when John the Baptist sees Jesus and says, “Behold, the Lamb of God,” I believe we should not assume that he only pointing to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross, as most Christians theologians almost automatically assume. He is also pointing to a way of being in the world.

Yes, the lamb will later be associated with sacrifice, echoing imagery from the Old Testament, and that is an important part of the Christian story. But in Scripture and more specifically as it relates to Jesus, sacrifice is not ultimately about violence; it is about self-giving love. And before the lamb is ever to be regarded as some kind of ancient sacrificial victim, it is first a creature of innocence, joy, and trust.

And so when the writer of John’s Gospel has John the Baptist declare “Behold the Lamb of God” is it perhaps that he is saying: “This is what God looks like when God comes near”? Not armoured. Not weaponised. Not dominating. But gentle, open, vulnerable, innocent and full of life.

And John goes on: “Behold, here is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.”

But notice that the word is not the sins, plural, as if it were only about individual moral failures that he is talking about, but rather “the sin of the world”, suggesting that the Lamb comes to take away the collective sin of the world, to heal the collective brokeness of humanity (which clearly includes individual sin, but is also something much bigger..

The word ‘sin’ in Biblical Greek means to miss the mark. It is descriptive of someone who is aiming to hit a target (say with a bow and arrow) and the arrow misses the target, or falls short. And so sin describes our collective human tendency to miss the target… to miss the point of life. To fall short. And what are we falling short from? The Way of Divine Love. And so when John speaks of the lamb who takes away the sin of the world, he is talking about all the collective ways in which humanity falls short of Divine Love. He is speaking of the deep, tangled web of fear, violence, domination, and separation that distorts human life. And we see it regularly playing out not only in individual lives around us, but almost every day displayed in some way on the news on the TV.

And how does the Lamb take it away?

Not by overpowering it. Not by crushing enemies. But by exposing it. Violence is unmasked by gentleness. Hatred is undone by love. Fear is healed by trust.

The Lamb takes away the sin of the world by refusing to participate in it, and by drawing humanity into a new way of being. This is exactly what Isaiah saw when he spoke of the servant of God:

“I will give you as a light to the nations, that my salvation may reach to the ends of the earth.” (49:6) God’s servant does not save by conquest. God saves by light – shining the splendour of God’s light.

And this becomes breathtakingly clear in the Book of Revelation. In the great vision of heaven, the throne of the universe is not occupied by a warrior, a general, or an emperor. It is occupied by a Lamb. The writer of Revelation is suggesting that most powerful force in the cosmos is not domination or violence, as the early Christians were experiencing under Roman rule. The most powerful force in the cosmos is vulnerable love. As we read in the little Chinese book of wisdom, Tao Te Ching (the Way and it’s Power): Verse 43 “The gentlest thing in the world overcomes the hardest thing in the world.”

The Lamb reigns, not by killing, but by being faithful. Not by coercion, but by self-giving. This is how God conquers the world: by conquering hearts and minds. Not through fear. But through and inspiring love that is so strong, pure, gentle and so true that it draws everything back to itself.

But we must not imagine that this means insipid weakness. In Revelation while Jesus is referred to as the Lamb who sits on the throne, he is also in other places referred to as a Lion. But the strength of the Lion is lived in service of the Lamb on the throne otherwise it simply becomes unbridled power lived out under the motto ‘might is right’ - as we are seeing displayed on the world stage right now. For Jesus, might is not right. His strength and courage are in service of the inner Lamb who gives himself to the world in gentleness, innocence and joy.

But when the first disciples hear John call Jesus the Lamb of God, they do not receive a theological lecture. They receive an invitation. Jesus turns and says,
“What are you looking for?”
They reply, “Where are you staying?”
And he says, “Come and see.”
That is how the Lamb leads. Not by force. Not by command. But by invitation.
To follow the Lamb is not just to believe something about Jesus. It is to step into his way of being in the world to become people of the Lamb shaped by gentleness, joy, humility, and as the story unfolds, courageous love.

Isaiah puts it this way: “The Lord called me before I was born… He made me a light.”

To follow the Lamb is to become light in the world — not by shining harshly, but by quietly illuminating the world with kindness, mercy, and truth.

So what does it mean for us to follow the Lamb? It means choosing tenderness in a brutal world. It means choosing the courageous and vulnerable path of healing, reconciliation and forgiveness in a vengeful culture. It means choosing joy in a fearful age.

It means daring to live unarmoured. In a world that says, ‘Above all else protect yourself’ the Lamb says, ‘Give yourself’. In a world that says, Win at all costs, the Lamb says, Love with costly love. In a world that says, ‘Be strong and don’t give anything away’, the Lamb says, ‘Be faithful and open’.

And the story of Jesus tells us strangely, and wonderfully this is how is how the God heals the world.

But John does not say, ‘Understand the Lamb.’ He says, ‘Behold the Lamb.’ Look. Pay attention.
Let your heart be moved.

This is what God is like. This is what love looks like. This is the power that holds the universe.

And this is the way we are called to walk: Not as conquerors, but as companions of the Lamb --
bearing joy, gentleness, and light into a wounded world.

In closing, a few questions: Jesus says to the disciples:

“What are you looking for?” And that is perhaps a question directed to each of us today. What is it that you are looking for in life. What is the deepest desire of your heart? What are you looking for? The disciples reply… Where are you staying? They see something in Jesus that has drawn them to him. They want to know what it is that Jesus life is grounded in, rooted in. What is at the centre of his being that makes him so different? Where are you staying? They ask?

Jesus replies… ‘Come and See’.

Where are we staying? What forms the centre of our lives. What are we grounded in or rooted in? What would it mean to hear the invitation of Jesus in the passage: Come and see?

Come and see, the Lamb, who takes away the sin of the world. The one who invites the whole world to begin again, with a clean, fresh slate.

And that is essentially the journey of the Christian life… come and see.

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Jesus, Baptism & the New Israel

11/1/2026

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Baptism into the story of the renewed Israel.

One of the most distinctive features of Matthew’s Gospel is the way it presents Jesus not simply as an individual religious figure, but as one who re-lives, gathers up, and fulfils the story of Israel itself. Matthew presents Jesus as creating the church as the renewed Israel.

And so Matthew, the most Jewish of all the Gospels appealing to a Jewish audience, wants his readers to see Jesus as walking the ancient path of Israel again, this time faithfully, this time fully, so that Israel’s vocation might at last be redefined and brought to fulfilment in Jesus.

We see this from the very beginning.

Jesus is born under threat, as Moses was. He is taken into Egypt as Israel once was. Matthew explicitly quotes the prophet: “Out of Egypt I have called my Son.” What was once spoken of Israel is now spoken of Jesus. He is the Son who embodies the people.

In baptism he passes through the waters and then enters the wilderness, where he is tested for forty days, echoing Israel’s forty years of testing in the wilderness. But where the early people of Israel struggled with hunger, temptation, and idolatry, Jesus remains faithful.

Later on in Matthew Jesus calls to himself 12 disciples – Matthew, like the other Gospel writers presents Jesus as reconstituting and renewing the 12 tribes of Israel, not from the top down, but from the bottom up.

Matthew is not being subtle in his Gospel. He wants us to understand: Jesus is re-living Israel’s story, bringing it to its true fulfilment, not as a geographic and political entity, but as a servant people of God, that is (as shown at the end of the gospel) to embrace and comprise of all people and all nations. The new Israel – a servant people from all nations.

And it is within this framework that the baptism of Jesus must be understood.

In the Scriptures, water is never just water. It is the place of chaos and danger. But also the place of new beginnings. In Genesis creation itself begins with the Spirit hovering over the waters. In Exodus, Israel becomes a people by passing through the Red Sea. A generation later In the book of Joshua, they enter the Promised Land by crossing through the Jordan River.

And so when Jesus steps into the Jordan to be baptised by John, Matthew wants us to hear all of this resonating in the background. The parting of the heavens echoes the parting of the seas. Jesus is bringing the ancient story of Israel to its true fulfilment and restoring it to its true vocation.

Just as Israel passed through the waters to leave slavery behind, Jesus passes through the waters as the one who will lead a deeper liberation, not from Pharaoh, but from everything that binds and diminishes human life including human sin and waywardness, the result of the inner Pharoah within each of us.

And just as Israel crossed the Jordan to begin life in the promised land, Jesus emerges from the Jordan to invite people into the deeper and truer Promised Land of God’s Kingdom, which is not so much a place but a realm of the spirit that can be lived in even here and now.

And so in Jesus, the story of Israel is being re-capitulated, gathered up and re-enacted, and in the process redefined, restored and renewed.

In Matthew’s version of the Baptism of Jesus, John the Baptist hesitates. He seems confused why Jesus needs to be baptised. And Jesus responds with words found only in Matthew: “Let it be so for now; so that we can fulfil all righteousness.” In Matthew, righteousness does not simply mean private virtue or moral superiority. It ultimately means faithful participation in God’s saving purpose.

By entering the waters of Baptism, Jesus is standing in solidarity with his people, identifying fully with their history, their sin and brokenness, their longing, and their unfinished story. He does not bypass Israel’s journey. He walks it from the inside renewing that story as he does so, and giving it fresh meaning and purpose, by entering it more deeply and faithfully than before.

And as Jesus emerges from the water, we read that the heavens open, the Spirit descends, and a voice speaks: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.”

This is a richly layered moment.

These words echo Israel’s identity as God’s son or child rescued from the land of slavery, but they also draw directly from Isaiah’s Servant Songs, especially the declaration in Isaiah 42 of the servant in whom God delights, upon whom God places the Spirit, and through whom justice will come to the nations. And the words of Isaiah 42 echo the voice from heaven at Jesus Baptism, the servant of God is described as follows:

“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen, in whom my soul delights; I have put my spirit upon him; he will bring forth justice to the nations. (This is Jesus' Baptismal vocation… how is this vocation to be lived out…? Isaiah continues...)

He will not cry out or lift up his voice or make it heard in the street; a bruised reed he will not break, and a dimly burning wick he will not quench; he will faithfully bring forth justice.”

Matthew is telling us that Jesus is to fulfil Israel’s vocation as the Servant of God to bring justice to the nations not through military might and domination of its enemies (as many were hoping), but through servant-hood, gentleness, and faithfulness.

Jesus’ mission to bring justice to the nations through servant-hood flows not from striving, but from belovedness.

It is important to note that Matthew connects baptism with discipleship. At the very end of the Gospel, the risen Jesus commissions his followers to go, make disciples of all nations, baptising them and teaching them to live the way he has taught.

Baptism, in Matthew, is not simply simply a ritual of belonging. It is entry into a story, a way of life, a pattern of faithfulness modelled by Jesus. In Baptism we become part of the story of the renewed Israel reshaped and renewed by the life and vision of Jesus, the servant of God. To be baptised is to pass through the waters with Jesus. It is to leave behind the ways of domination that define much of our ego driven world, and instead to learn the way of the servant: a way of humility, gentleness, justice, mercy, and costly love.

This is why Matthew repeatedly links discipleship with self-giving. On his journey to the cross Jesus gathers his disciples together to remind them of the call to servant-hood:

‘You know that the rulers of the nations like to lord it over the people, and their high officials enjoy exercising their authority and dominance over them. Not so with you. Instead, whoever wants to become great among you must be your servant, and whoever wants to be first must be your slave – just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.’

Did you hear the word servant in there that connects with Jesus - God’s chosen and beloved servant in baptism and in Isaiah 42 who will bring justice to the nations not with domination and military might, but through gentleness, humility, faithfulness, and courageous and costly love. This is the meaning of Baptism and it all flows from that baptismal declaration of beloved-ness.

To remember Jesus’ baptism is metaphorically to remember our own. It is to recall that we, too as God’s beloved, are being drawn into a larger story, invited to become part of the story of the true and renewed spiritual Israel, not as an ethnic, political and geographic entity, but as a servant community made up of people from all nations defined by the story of God’s beloved servant: a story of healing, hope and costly and loving service to make the world a more just place.

A final comment on the symbolism of the story. The splitting open of the heavens in Jesus baptism, not only connects us with the parting of the waters in Exodus, but also with the splitting of the veil in the Temple near the end of Matthew’s Gospel. This suggests that the Way of Jesus costly servant love, breaks open the boundaries between the life of heaven and the life of earth, between the so-called sacred and the secular.. When we truly live as disciples of Jesus, living out our beloved-ness in the world, so the way of heaven breaks open upon on the earth. The whole world becomes the temple of God’s Spirit, the Promised Land of God’s Love… and all life becomes imbued with a sense of the sacred.

As followers of Jesus we are not asked to invent meaning from scratch. In the Baptism of Jesus, we are invited to step into a story already being fulfilled. And as we do, the same promise holds:

The heavens are open.
The Spirit is present.
And the voice still speaks:

You are my beloved.
Now walk the way.

As Jesus says soon after in Matthew’s Gospel “Come, follow me”.

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Epiphany - Hidden in Plain Sight

4/1/2026

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Epiphany and the Magi: Seeing What Was Hidden in Plain Sight

In the Church’s calendar, today is designated as Epiphany Sunday. The word epiphany comes from the Greek epiphaneia, meaning a "conspicuous appearing", a manifestation, an unveiling, a revealing. It speaks of a moment when something that was always there suddenly becomes visible, when the curtain is drawn back and we see more clearly than before.

We all would know epiphanies from our own lives. Moments, both large and small, when we suddenly see ourselves, another person, or a situation in a new light. And we find ourselves saying, “Aha! How could I not have seen that before?”

So perhaps the question for us today is this: What is the epiphany in the story of the Magi? What is it in this story that might have caused Matthew’s original readers to sit up and listen? What new insight, hidden in plain sight, was being revealed?

And perhaps just a word of preface. Many scholars would suggest that the story of the Magi is not pure history, but rather that Matthew is wrapping the story of Jesus in images and themes from the Old Testament, in this case, using Isaiah 60:1-6) in order to bring out the deeper meaning and significance, as he sees it, of Jesus life.

And so I read this story, I can see at least two perhaps three, moments of epiphany, moments where the early Christian community may have said, “Aha!”

The first moment of epiphany is this: God is not always found at the centre of power.

The Magi begin their search in the most obvious place, Jerusalem, the holy city, the seat of political and religious authority. They go straight to Herod’s palace, assuming that a newborn king must surely be found at the centre of power.

But what they find there is not joy or worship, but rather fear and constetrnation. Herod is “disturbed,” Matthew tells us, “and all Jerusalem with him” (Matthew 2:3). In other words when a tyrant is disturbed everyone else is disturbed. The coercive power of Herod feels threatened. The palace becomes a place of anxiety, manipulation, and violence rather than revelation.

The religious experts can quote the scriptures. They know Micah’s prophecy about Bethlehem (Micah 5:2). But knowledge alone does not lead them to worship or movement. They remain static, unmoved, unchanged.

And so the Magi must leave the centre in order to find the truth. The star leads them not to a throne room, but to an ordinary house (Matthew 2:11) (there is no stable in Matthew’s version of the story). Not to dominance, but to the seemingly ordinary. Not to force, but to love made vulnerable.

This is the first epiphany: God’s presence is not guaranteed by proximity to political power, tradition, or religious authority – which often express themselves in coerciveness and attempts to control. God often meets us at the margins, in humility rather than control, where trust, courage and openness meet.

That insight would have unsettled Matthew’s original readers - and it perhaps should still unsettle us.

The second, and perhaps even more radical epiphany is this: The people of God are not defined by ethnic belonging or ancestry.

Throughout the Hebrew Scriptures, there is a creative tension, sometimes even a conflict, between two understandings of what it means to be Israel.

One understanding is exclusive: Israel is a chosen ethnic group, set apart from others, defined by bloodline, boundary, and separation. And chosen-ness very quickly into privilege, being chosen over others rather than for others.

The other understanding is vocational: Israel is chosen for a purpose, to be a blessing to the nations. To be, in the words of Isaiah, “a light to the nations” (Isaiah 49:6). To embody divine justice, mercy, and compassion so that others might be drawn into the Divine Light of God’s grace.

This second vision is beautifully expressed in passages like Genesis 12:3, “Through you, all the families of the earth shall be blessed.” And in Isaiah 60, where nations are drawn to Israel’s light.

These two visions exist side by side in the Old Testament, and the tension between them becomes especially sharp after the Babylonian exile.

Jerusalem fell in 586 BCE, and many were taken into exile. When the Persians allowed the exiles to return around 538 BCE, after roughly 50 years, not everyone returned. In addition some had never been taken into Babylonian exile. Some had remained in the land; others had formed families and relationships across ethnic lines.

When leaders like Ezra and Nehemiah began rebuilding Jerusalem, they pursued a strict policy of ethnic and religious purity. Ezra 9–10 describes men being ordered to send away their foreign wives and children. Nehemiah likewise enforces separation from surrounding peoples (Nehemiah 13), reflecting deep tensions between the returning exiles and those whose lives and identities had been shaped outside the experience of exile.

This exclusionary vision became highly influential in Second Temple Judaism, shaping the religious atmosphere into which Jesus was born. But it was not the only voice.

And this leads to Matthew’s Epiphany that Jesus restores Israel’s deeper calling.

Matthew’s Gospel makes a bold claim: Jesus comes to re-live the story of Israel, and to restore it to its original, expansive purpose.

This epiphany begins already in Matthew chapter 1. In a genealogy where women are rarely named, Matthew deliberately includes several, and not “respectable” ones. Tamar, Rahab, Bathsheba and Ruth. Matthew is making a point that two of Jesus ancestors are foreigners, Ruth, a Moabite, and Rahab a Canaanite. These are small clues. From the very beginning, Matthew signals that God’s redemptive story has always included outsiders.

Then in chapter 2, the curtain is drawn back even further. The first people to recognise and honour the Christ child are not insiders, priests, scribes, or king of Israel, but outsiders, Gentile Magi, astrologers, foreigners guided by a star. This is not incidental. It is revelation.

Later in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus will redefine belonging even more explicitly: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father” (Matthew 7:21). And in Matthew 25, the will of the Father is made unmistakably clear: feeding the hungry, welcoming the stranger, visiting the sick and imprisoned, clothing the naked.

Finally, at the very end of the Gospel, what was hinted at in chapter 2 becomes unmistakable. The risen Christ commissions the disciples to go to all nations (Matthew 28:19). God is not concerned with a single ethnic group, God’s concern is for all people everywhere.

What was hidden in plain sight at the beginning is made explicit at the end.

In closing, this Epiphany story of the Magi could be described as a threshold story. It stands on the edge of something new, between old assumptions and a wider vision of God’s grace. And that makes it especially fitting for the beginning of a new year. Like the Magi, we stand at a threshold. The road ahead is unknown. We do not have maps for the journey ahead, only signs like the star that sometimes appear, disappear and then re-appear. We are invited to move forward with curiosity and trust rather than certainty, courage rather than control. Following the light of the inner star that is often shines only enough light for us to take one more step ahead.

So what is the invitation of this story for us?

Perhaps it is to look for God beyond the familiar centres. To expect divine wisdom in unexpected places and unexpected people. Perhaps it is to allow our understanding of belonging to be stretched, to recognise that the family of God is larger, more generous, and more surprising than we imagined. And perhaps it is to trust that when we truly encounter the light of Christ, we too will be changed.

Matthew tells us that the Magi “returned home by another road.” You cannot encounter revelation and go back the same way.

So as we stand at the threshold of this new year, may we have eyes to see the light that still shines, courage to follow it, and grace to walk a different road, toward justice, mercy, and love that reaches beyond all boundaries.

Amen.

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The Tyrant & The Holy Child Within

28/12/2025

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The Tyrant, and the Child within

Our passage today from Matthew 2:13-23 is among the most disturbing in the Christian story.
It speaks of raw unadulterated political power, terror, and the slaughter of innocent children.

Interestingly, historically speaking, we have no independent evidence outside Matthew’s Gospel that King Herod ever ordered a massacre of children in Bethlehem. Ancient historians who describe Herod’s reign don’t mention it. But his reign was brutal, and the fact that he killed even his own sons to protect his own power shows he was entirely capable of carrying out such an atrocity. Even so, many scholars over time have also noticed that this story closely parallels an earlier story: the story of Pharaoh ordering the death of Hebrew infants, while the baby Moses is hidden and saved.

This strongly suggests that Matthew is not simply reporting an event, but telling history through what some scholars call ‘typology’. In other words the echoes of an older story and an older sacred pattern is used to amplify a deeper truth in the story of Jesus. And so in Matthew’s hands, Jesus becomes the new Moses. Egypt becomes a place of refuge while on this occasion it is the land of Judea and it’s ruler that becomes the land of oppression. Once again, a tyrant fears and exterminates little children. And once again innocence is threatened by power.

And so many scholars today would say that this story is theologically true, even if it is not historically provable. It represents a universal pattern, not just an event. It tells the truth about how power reacts with ruthless cruelty towards the vulnerable and the innocent when it feels it is under threat.

Matthew is revealing how easily entrenched power and privilege is threatened if the only truth it knows is the truth of power and dominance. He also reveals that when a truly alternative way of being human enters the world, empires of power respond with violence.

And so firstly in this story, we can say that King Herod, is not merely a historical king. Herod is the embodiment of all fear-driven power: ego, paranoia, the ruthless need to control and dominate.

And we can recognise the spirit of Herod all too easily on the world stage. We see it when civilians are bombed in the name of security. When children are killed as “collateral damage.” When terror is unleashed to protect ideology or territory or wounded pride. When the power of the state is misused and abused and innocent people become its victims.

When we see such events unfolding on our TV screens in various places in the world, they express the same ancient pattern: fear defending itself through ruthless violence.

This is the truth that Matthew is telling us about the world. But the story is not just about events that occur outside of ourselves that we can point to in judgment somewhere else. The story also invites each of us to turn inward so see these patterns within ourselves.

And this is where Jungian psychology and Voice Dialogue Therapy invite us to tread carefully, because it is always easier to point outward and say, ‘There is Herod’. It is much harder to ask: Where does Herod, the fearful tyrant live in me?

According to Carl Jung, those things that we refuse to see in ourselves don’t simply disappear - they go underground and gain power. Voice Dialogue therapy puts it like this: Every voice within (and we all have multiple voices within) that we disown controls us from the shadows.

Both Carl Jung and Voice Dialogue Therapy would suggest that the tyrant Herod is an inner voice that lives inside each of us. He is the part of us that reacts when we feel threatened. The part that tightens, hardens, lashes out. The part of us that says, I must stay in control at all costs or I will not survive. He is the tyrant within, desperate to stamp out the voices that leave us feeling threatened and vulnerable.

And the inner Herod shows up in ordinary relationships: When criticism feels unbearable and we respond, lashing out with anger. Heod appears when fear makes us manipulative or dismissive towards others. When we protect our ego rather than our integrity. When we sacrifice compassion for the illusion of control and safety.

Left unchecked, this inner Herod builds a fortress around the heart with weapons pointing outward always ready to attack.

And I guess the question we are left with is this: How does this voice of Herod lose power within us and also outside of us in the world?

As with so many things in life the answer to our inner healing (and the healing of the world) always begins with awareness: This is the surprising strategy for dealing with tyrants both of the outer and inner varieties.

Awareness does not say: Deny Herod exists. It says: Name him. And in the light of such awareness the inner Herod already begins to lost his grip. It is like the story of the Emperor with no clothes… as a child names the truth about the Emperor’s nakedness so the Emperor begins to lose his power. It begins with awareness and the willingness to name the Herod’s that live within us and indeed the Herod’s that live in our world.

Identifying the Herod within, can begin when we can say to ourselves, “This is my fear speaking inside of me”, “This is my need for control”, “This is my inner Herod reacting”. And when we do this, the Herod within us already begins to lose his the grip on power. This is true also of outer tyrants. Behind every tyrant in this world fear is speaking, a deep seated need for control. But the more people can name tyranical behaviour for what it is, the more the Herod’s of this world will lose their grip on power.

But awareness alone is not enough to loosen the power of the Herod within. Herod loses power within us not only when he is named, but also when other voices inside of us are strengthened. And especially the Christ voice within us, the voice of humility, of trust, integrity, and love. These must be nurtured and given space to grow. Not dominance. Not suppression. But a wiser authority.

Secondly in the story there is the figure of Rachel: “A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more.”

Rachel represents all innocent victims of history. But she also represents something within each of us us. Rachel is the part of us that feels, the part that grieves, the part that knows pain and refuses cheap consolation.

If Herod builds walls and lashes out with violence, Rachel weeps. And here is a crucial truth:
Listening to Rachel is one of the strongest antidotes to Herod.

A colleague of mine in South Africa, Rev. Trevor Hudson, early on in his ministry asked a mentor what would help him grow to become a good minister. The mentor replied: ‘When you preach, always remember that there is a pool of tears next to every person sitting in the pews.’

That is not only pastorally true, it is psychologically true. When we attend to suffering, our own and others’, our hearts begin to soften. And softened hearts begin to break down the walls of protection and defensiveness that Herod builds.

And so Rachel in our story asks of each of us: What pool of tears do you sit beside today? What grief in the world are you tempted to ignore because it feels overwhelming? What grief within yourself have you learned to silence?

Listening to Rachel, both out there in the world and in here, in our own hearts, keeps Herod from building defensive walls around our hearts and from ruling unchecked within us.

And finally in the story, there is the child. The Christ child does not confront Herod head-on.
He is hidden, protected, and taken into exile. Psychologically, this is the inner child of joy, truth, and tenderness, the most vulnerable part of us.

When fear dominates us, the inner child goes into hiding, creativity and playfulness dims within us, a sense of wonder retreats, and our love becomes cautious. But the story does not end in exile. Herod dies. Not through violence, but through time, truth, and the slow work of transformation. And when fear loosens its grip, the child can return from Exile.

And as the inner Herod loses power, space opens for joy. For trust. For a more spacious way of being human.

And so this is not just a story about ancient cruelty alone. It is a mirror held up both to history, and to the soul.

And it asks us, gently but firmly:
Which voice will rule our hearts? The voice of Herod? Or the Voice of the Holy Child of Inocence and Joy?
Which child will we protect?
And which tears are we ready to hear?

Amen.

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Christmas Day

25/12/2025

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Carol Service

22/12/2025

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Invitation to Joy

14/12/2025

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The Audio Recording of Today's Puppet Show...

The Leap of Joy - Luke 1:39–45

The lighting of the Advent Candles invites us on a journey. We begin with Hope - a candle lit in the growing darkness of winter. We move into Peace - the place where stillness begins to steady us. And today we arrive at Joy - not the loud, glittering joy that often fills December, but the quiet, deep joy that rises from within us when life begins to stir in unexpected places, and unexpected ways.

Our passage today from Luke 1:39-45 is a story of two women, Mary and Elizabeth. Two women who live on the margins of their society. Two women holding mysteries within their bodies. Two women whose meeting becomes one of the great moments of joy in the entire biblical story.

And this morning, I want to reflect on the three invitations this story gives us on this Third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Joy.

1. Firstly Joy in Friendship and Relationship

Luke tells us that “Mary got up and hurried to the hill country” to visit her cousin Elizabeth. She has just received the most bewildering news of her life. She is young, unmarried, vulnerable, and suddenly carrying a story too big for words.

And where does she go? She goes to someone she trusts. Someone whose wisdom and presence can hold her uncertainty. Someone who understands what it feels like to carry a strange new life within her. She goes to Elizabeth.

This is one of the key places where joy begins, in relationship, in the human connections that see us, steady us, and strengthen what is emerging within us.

I have always been moved by a saying from the Buddha that fits this passage perfectly. Ananda, his cousin and attendant asks a question: Is friendship half the spiritual life?, to which the great sage answers: “Spiritual friendship is not half the spiritual life, it is the whole of the spiritual life.”

At this junction in their lives, Mary needed Elizabeth, and Elizabeth needed Mary, and joy grew between them in their togetherness.

This is true for us as well.

In our world, and especially in our part of the world, loneliness is an epidemic. Northern Ireland has some of the highest levels of isolation and emotional distress in the UK, and tragically, our suicide rates reflect that, particularly among men who for a variety of reasons don’t open up or form deep relationships quite as easily as most women do. So many carry their burdens alone. So many have no Elizabeth to go to, no one to speak their truth to, no one who brings out their deepest and best self.

The Visitation reminds us that joy is rarely found in solitude. It is found when we share the journey together, when we dare to reach out, when we dare to be vulnerable, when we allow others into the sacred spaces of our lives. Joy is born when one soul recognises another. This is what happens in that little hill-country home. Two women recognise each other’s sacredness. And joy begins to rise.

2. Listening to the Leap of Joy Within Us

The second invitation of the passage is deeper and perhaps more mysterious. When Mary greets Elizabeth, Luke tells us that “the child leaped in her womb.” Elizabeth feels it instantly, a surge of recognition, a moment of inner clarity, a pulse of joy.

We may not carry children in the literal sense, but we all have a metaphorical child that still lives within us, something within us that leaps when truth comes close; a stirring of the heart; an inner yes; a quiet movement of joy or resonance; a flash of recognition that says to us: ‘Pay attention. Something sacred is happening here.’

Most of us have experienced this inner leap at some point. Sometimes it comes as a sudden warmth, a feeling of rightness. Sometimes it comes as excitement, surprise, or a sense of possibility.
Sometimes it’s a pull toward someone, or a nudge toward a path we’re meant to walk.
Sometimes it’s simply the feeling that this moment matters, something significant is happening.

Advent invites us to listen to that leap, to trust that inner movement of joy, because joy is not always loud. Joy is sometimes the quietest of inner shifts. It lives in the deep places of our hearts, waiting to be noticed.

Mary’s arrival awakened something in Elizabeth that she had not yet recognised. Sometimes another person awakens joy in us. Sometimes it may be a line in a poem, or a conversation, a piece of music, a memory, a moment of silence and inner stillness.

If we are open and aware, we might discover that our inner life is full of these movements, tiny leaps of awakening, small signs of life, inviting us to move in the direction of love and joy. But we must learn to listen.

And so one of the deep truths of this story is this: Joy is not something we manufacture, it is something we notice. Joy is something we welcome when we feel it leap.

And Advent, this season of waiting, watching, and listening, is the perfect time to pay attention to the movements of life, joy and love within us.

What is leaping within you today? What desire? What hope? What stirring toward something new?

Elizabeth felt the leap of joy, and she knew Life (with a capital L) was speaking to her. May we have the same courage to listen when God, the Divine, The Greater Life whispers joy into our hearts.

3. Joy Overflows in Blessings

The third movement in the story is simple but profound. Elizabeth feels the leap of joy, and immediately she begins to bless Mary.

“Blessed are you among women.”
“Blessed is the fruit of your womb.”
“Blessed is she who believed.”

Joy in this story is not a private experience. It spills outward. It becomes blessing. It becomes affirmation. It overflows into encouragement.

This is the heart of spiritual companionship. Elizabeth doesn’t just receive her own joy, she recognises joy in Mary. She speaks words that strengthen Mary, words that confirm Mary’s calling, words that help Mary stand tall and strong in a moment of confusion. This is what blessing is: seeing the sacred in others and naming it out loud.

At important moments in our lives, all of us need someone who speaks blessing into our lives, someone who sees our goodness, who honours our courage, someone who encourages the life growing within us. All of us need someone like Elizabeth.

And sometimes, just as importantly, we are called to be that Elizabeth for someone else: To listen deeply, to affirm gently, to bless generously, to help others hear the truth of who they are, to bring out the best in them when they are unsure, afraid, or carrying something fragile.

Blessing does not need to be grandiose. It is often as simple as saying:
“I see you.”
“You matter.”
“You are doing better than you think.”
“There is goodness in you.”
“What you feel is real.”
“You’re not alone.”

These are words that create joy, words that create courage, words that create life. And Elizabeth’s blessing of Mary causes joy to overflow in Mary as she bursts forth in the song, as she sings the Magnificat, ‘Tell out my soul, the Greatness of the Lord’ as it is expressed in our opening hymn today.

And that is how joy always works. Joy awakens joy. Blessing creates blessing. Courage calls forth courage.

And so, as we continue our journey on this Third Sunday of Advent, the Sunday of Joy, our passage today reminds us that we all need an Elizabeth and we are all called to be one for others.

We all need someone in our lives we can turn to, someone who steadies our hearts, someone who blesses us and who brings out the best in us.

And sometimes, perhaps today, perhaps this week, we are invited to become Elizabeth for someone else, to be that safe place, that encouraging voice, that blessing presence, for a person who is anxious or confused or standing nervously on the edge of something new unfolding in their lives. .

Joy is born in these shared spaces, in these moments when one soul recognises another.

This is the heart of Advent joy, not the joy of noise and spectacle, but the joy that awakens when we meet each other with love, listen to the leap within us, and speak blessing into the world. Amen.

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The Wisdom of Pondering (Advent 2)

7/12/2025

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The Wisdom of Pondering Luke 1:26–38

There’s a line many of us know from the Beatles song Let It Be: “When I find myself in times of trouble, Mother Mary comes to me, speaking words of wisdom, let it be.”

Whether intentionally or not, it is a song that echoes the deep wisdom of the story of the Annunciation. In a moment of disruption, confusion, and fear, Mary becomes a voice of stillness in the midst of life’s turbulence. She becomes a picture of the soul that can pause, reflect, ponder… and eventually say, “Let it be.”

Today I’d like to explore this story from Luke through the lens of three simple words or phrases:
Ponder… Virgin… Let it Be. But first, a brief word about the story itself.

The Annunciation is for many a literal historical event. But throughout Christian history there have also been those spiritual writers, mystics, contemplatives who have said that the deepest truth of this story lies in its symbolism. That it is not only the story of something that happened once, but the story of something that happens in us again and again.

The meeting of Mary and Gabriel can be read as a picture of the soul encountering mystery. Mary becomes a symbol of the receptive, open, gentle inner spirit within each of us. Gabriel becomes the voice of divine wisdom that still speaks within the depths of the human heart. And the conception of Christ becomes an image of divine love, divine wisdom, divine compassion taking “flesh” within us. And so we read the story not only for what it says about Mary, but for the way it reveals dimensions of the spiritual journey, the journey of the soul awakening to love.

And that leads us to our first word today.

1. Ponder: Luke tells us that when the angel appeared to Mary, “She was deeply troubled and pondered what kind of greeting this might be.”

That word ponder is worth pausing on.

We live in a culture that no longer knows how to ponder. Our lives are filled, saturated, with noise, stimulation, scrolling, notifications, busyness, the radio or tv on constantly in the background.
For many today, the moment there is silence, we instinctively grab for the phone… as Wendy and I were reminded about two weeks ago when our mobile network went down. For four or five days there was hardly any signal at all, and for the first three days we kept reflexively checking. It was astonishing how compulsive the checking felt. But then something else happened: after three days, slowly, we both began to relax into the quiet that opened up. Space to breathe. Space to think. Space to feel. Space… to ponder.

Pondering is the art of giving something enough room in our minds and hearts for clarity to arise.
It is different from worrying. It is different from obsessing To ponder is to hold something gently in awareness, not forcing a solution, not rushing to an answer, but letting it settle.

This is where the Tao Te Ching gives us a powerful and vivid image.
It asks:
“Can you wait until the mud settles and the water becomes clear?
Can you remain unmoving till the right action arises by itself?”

Whether or not the words “pond” and “ponder” are etymologically linked, the image is beautifully appropriate. A pond becomes clear not by stirring it, but by letting it be still.

When we ponder, we become like that pond. All the sediment of fear, anxiety, ego-stories, old hurts, agitation, slowly begins to sink. And then the inner water becomes clear.

This is what Mary does. Before she speaks, she ponders. Before she responds, she reflects. She gives space for wisdom to rise.

And so the story invites us into the same practice. To create interior space. To stop filling every moment. To let some silence return. To let our souls unclench.

Without pondering, nothing new can be conceived in us. Which leads to our second word.

2. Virgin: Mary responds to Gabriel, “How can this be, since I am a virgin?”

The word virgin is overflowing with symbolic meaning. Beyond the physical meaning, the tradition has always recognised a spiritual dimension. At the deepest level, virginity represents the untouched, unspoiled, original purity at the centre of every human soul, untouched by the ego’s calculation, cynicism, or bitterness. It is that inner place of innocence, not childish naïveté, but the pure awareness beneath our fears, ego-stories, conditioning, and wounds.

Jesus said, “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” And many contemplative teachers have suggested that this purity of heart is nothing other than the clarity of consciousness when the mud has settled.

It is the untainted core of our being, the place where love already exists, even when we feel we have lost it. The place to which the spiritual journey returns us.

Interestingly, we also use the word virgin to describe things in nature that are untouched by human interference: a virgin forest, a landscape unspoiled, a space where life can flourish freely.

In this symbolic sense, Mary the Virgin represents the inner sanctuary where love can be conceived;
that quiet, open, receptive part of us that listens deeply, that is capable of hearing the whisper of Spirit, that does not grasp or force but receives.

Love is always conceived in that inner virgin space: the space made clear through pondering,
the space made still enough for something new to arise.

And what arises next is the third phrase.

3. Let It Be

Mary’s final response to the angel is: “Let it be unto me according to your word.”

This is the wisdom of surrender. Not a passive resignation, not giving up, but a deep, trusting openness to the movement of God within. It is the same wisdom the Beatles sang,
perhaps unintentionally echoing Mary’s spirit: “Speaking words of wisdom, let it be.”

Letting be is the natural companion of pondering. When we ponder, we create space. When we let be, we trust that clarity will come in its own time. We stop forcing solutions. We stop demanding immediate certainty. We stop fratically trying to push the river.

In the contemplative tradition, this “letting be” is essential. Insight cannot be manufactured, it arises when conditions are right. Compassion cannot be forced, it grows naturally in a softened heart. Love cannot be commanded, it springs up when fear relaxes its grip.

Neale Donald Walsch writes that there are only two basic energies in life: fear and love.
And Mary’s “Let it be” is the movement out of fear into love. “Do not be afraid,” Gabriel says,
because only when the grip of fear loosens can love emerge. As the first letter of John reminds us, Perfect Love drives out all fear.

Letting be means trusting the deeper wisdom within us. Trusting that God, the Divine, is at work even when we cannot see how. Trusting that something holy is being formed in the quiet places of our hearts.

This is how Christ is conceived within us: in pondering, in purity of heart, in letting be.

I’d like to share with you now two stories that perhaps give flesh to these insights today:

The first is the story of Thomas Merton:

Thomas Merton, the Trappist monk and writer, lived for years in silence and contemplation at the Abbey of Gethsemani. Much of his early monastic life was spent wrestling with questions of identity, purpose, and the tension between solitude and human solidarity.

One afternoon, after years of pondering, waiting, and letting the inner mud settle, he was given permission to go into Louisville for an appointment. Standing at a busy street corner, surrounded by shoppers, he suddenly experienced a profound moment of clarity.

His journal describes it this way: “I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people… There is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.”

That insight didn’t come from effort, analysis, or theological argument. It came after years of inner stillness, years of letting God soften and re-form him. When the mud settled, the water became clear, and he saw the divine presence in everyone around him.

He later said that moment changed the direction of his life. It opened him to a more compassionate, outward-facing spirituality.

And secondly the story of Einstein and his quiet hour.

Albert Einstein often said his breakthroughs didn’t come while working, but while walking, daydreaming, or simply sitting in silence.

He kept what he called an “hour of thought” every day. No papers, no equations, no distractions.
Just quiet sitting. Letting the problem rest. Letting the “mud settle.”

The breakthrough insight that led to his Theory of Special Relativity did not come during intense calculation, but rather it came when Einstein was daydreaming about what it would be like to ride on a beam of light.

Einstein’s greatest ideas emerged not from frantic activity, but from deep pondering, spacious awareness, and interior quiet.

And so the Annunciation becomes not only Mary’s story, but our story. A story of how the divine meets the human heart. Of how wisdom speaks within us. Of how something new, something Christlike, can be conceived in our inner depths.

When we ponder, we give the waters time to clear.
When we honour the virgin space within, we return to our original purity and openness.
And when we say “Let it be,” we open ourselves to the gentle unfolding of divine love.

This Advent, perhaps the invitation is simple: Make space. Be still. Let fear soften. Let love arise.
Let it be.

Amen.

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