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Our story begins with weeping. Mary is outside the tomb of her beloved Jesus. That is where John places us on Easter morning. Not with a blaze of certainty and triumph, not with everything neatly resolved, but with a strong and grieving woman. She is in this place of loss, trying to make sense of…
The mission of Jesus was, in essence, the building of community: a community that embraced people of both genders, of different classes and religious backgrounds, of different nationalities and ethnicities. Although at its heart it was a Jewish vision, it was also universal in its scope and it’s potential. The Messianic beliefs of prophets like…
There was a time in my life, when I took a big step into the unknown. I did not have the words to tell anyone about it. And I fell over and I got back up and I did that again and again until I mostly stopped falling over. Mostly. I’m not talking metaphorically; I’m…
1. My theme today is “Sons of Adam, Daughters of Eve”, so by way of introduction I’m going to read a short passage from the story of the first man and the first woman, Adam and Eve, as it appears in Genesis, the first book in the Bible: ‘The man named his wife Eve because…
“He prayeth well, who loveth well Both man and bird and beast. He prayeth best, who lovest best All things both great and small. (Coleridge – The Rime of the Ancient Mariner pt 7) Those opening words, were the words of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, from his poem ‘The…
One of my many memories of Christmases past is from 1968. It was hearing the astronaut and commander of Apollo 8, Colonel Frank Borman, reading the opening words of the book of Genesis as his spacecraft and its three-man crew orbited the Moon and he looked down on this “good earth”. This was the precursor…
I. Who was There: It is Advent, the time of preparation for the festival of Christmas. At its heart is the story of the birth of Jesus, as told in the gospels of Matthew and Luke, and it is a story retold in that great seasonal tradition, the Nativity play. Advent is the time for…
The most potent symbol of Pentecost is fire – the “flames like tongues of fire” that appear to the disciples of Jesus gathered in the upper room and which come “to rest on each one.” And the fire itself is the sign of the Holy Spirit with which the disciples are filled and so transformed…
What does Easter mean to people nowadays? I found myself asking this question when I was walking through my local cemetery one day during Holy Week, between the hope of Palm Sunday, and the despair of Good Friday. Passing by a new grave I was confronted by what, to me, was a truly bizarre sight…
Two thousand years ago, on a Friday morning in Jerusalem, at the season of Passover, a young Jewish rabbi named Jesus was led out to be executed, to be crucified on the orders of the imperial Roman authorities. That is what we commemorate today. In the eyes of the Romans he was a trouble-maker guilty…
Ipswich Unitarian Meeting House 