Tag: John the Baptist

What sort of witness must I have been for Jesus? Not a very good one. Let’s pray, especially at Christmas time, that we are not afraid to speak and act in ways that show we believe that, in that birth in Bethlehem, the Saviour of the World was born.

Which local valleys would you fill and which hills would you make low? For this is a word of God for us here and now, in this time and place.

In Matthew, John says to Jesus: “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” Jesus’ answer, spoken or not, is “I come to you”.

He takes time to talk about being ‘beloved’ – but there’s no loitering in fields with shepherds or journeying in search of a wandering star.

The first step onto the moon was a watershed in history. Our perspective could never be the same. Our Gospel is another ‘before’ and ‘after’.

Where are you from? What are the places, the people, the experiences that formed your path? How does it help you understand who you are?

Old Trafford has a number of places of worship. Our banns were heard at St Hilda’s, Old Trafford. But far and away the largest place of worship has thousands of adherents. Every Saturday, or thereabouts, they gather to chant devotion to their god. At times they will invite the leader of the worship, dressed in black, to improve his eyesight. They cheer whenever the team in red puts the ball into the net…

I don’t know if you have made any new year resolutions? I haven’t. From past experience, intentions to eat more healthily, take more exercise and, in the past, to stop smoking would all be consigned to the rubbish bin by January 4th.

So if it is true that royalty, sex and religion sell newspapers then if there had been a tabloid newspaper in Galilee in the first century, the events we heard about in our Gospel reading would certainly have made the headlines. Even without a newspaper, stories about that birthday party would have spread rapidly throughout the region. It is a sordid, shabby and shameful tale.

There’s a novel called ‘Night flight’ and in it there’s this line: “In every crowd are certain persons who seem just like the rest, yet they bear amazing messages.” Amos was minding his own business when God interrupts him, taps him on the shoulder and makes him an offer he couldn’t refuse…