(All our songs this morning are from Singing the Faith (StF) numbers will be given where available)
Welcome to our Sunday Service, today shared on paper across our circuit and with the congregation at Wilsden Trinity Church a local Ecumenical Partnership, with the Methodist and United Reformed Churches working and worshipping together and led by Martin Bashforth one of our Circuit Local Preachers.
Click on the blue links to follow them for bible readings and associated links
Call to worship:
Grant us O Lord, ears to hear your voice;
Eyes to see your beauty;
Wills to obey your commands
And hearts to love your name,
So that, hearing, seeing, obeying and loving
We may come at last to the joys of your kingdom,
Through Christ our Lord. Amen
Song – Come, Christians, join to sing
Prayers
Lord God, we come to you with hearts that are cold,
that they may be warmed by your selfless love.
We come to you with hearts that are sinful,
that they may be cleansed by the Saviour’s precious blood.
We come to you with hearts that are weak,
that they may be strengthened by your Holy Spirit.
We come with hearts that are empty,
that they may be filled with your divine presence –
Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen
Song – STF 25 – God is here as we His people
Reading
Psalm 133 – In praise of living in peace
Song – My peace I give unto you
Intercessions
Please pray for the needs of the world. There may be urgent issues which have arisen in between the time these notes are being prepared and your use of them. Please include them.
Issues you may wish to cover include:-
The war in Israel/Gaza; the war in Ukraine; the General Election; Climate Change;
Food poverty; the Circuit staff; neighbours or relations who have needs; ourselves.
The Lord’s Prayer
Song – STF 696 – For the healing of the nations
Reading
Sermon
This is one of my favourite stories from the New Testament. I say that because I can relate to it personally. I cannot say “I’ve been there, seen that, got the tee-shirt” because I have never been in a boat on Lake Galilee during a storm.
But I do have very fond memories of being in a boat on Galilee, where I was fortunate to experience the peace and beauty of the place. In May 1993, Chrissie and I were invited to join a tour of the Holy Land, led by Rev Derek Hoe. With a bus load of people from all corners of West Yorkshire, we spent a week touring the rugged countryside from the Golan Heights down to the Dead Sea, from the seaside town of Joppa (now called Jaffa) to Nazareth and Bethlehem. And we then spent a week in Jerusalem. It was a wonderful experience and one of the highlights (there were actually very many highlights!) was a boat trip across Lake Tiberias, as it is now called, from the town of Tiberias, over to Gedara, where Jesus sent the evil spirit from the wild man, into the herd of pigs, which then charged into the lake.
As we sailed at a leisurely pace across the mirror-like surface of the beautiful lake, I was very moved. Gazing at the Judean hills, there was not a single thing to be seen, which had been created by humans, since the days when Jesus was alive. The hills that I was looking at, were exactly the same hills with which Jesus would have been familiar. For a brief moment, my own eyes were seeing what Jesus himself saw. I was quite overwhelmed and it brought tears to my eyes. I had such a strong sense of Jesus’ presence alongside me. What a special moment!
Within a few more minutes, along came another blessing, which caught me by surprise. The captain stopped the boat and turned off the engine. We sat motionless, for fully 5 minutes on the dead calm lake. The silence was palpable. Peace, as I have never known it. With the beauty of the Galilean hills, it was the nearest I have been to heaven in all my 77 years.
But I’m still not finished! Along with our English party of 30 or so passengers in the boat, was a similar-sized group of German Christians. Their pastor had obviously had a conversation with Derek, our leader, and as we sat motionless on the lake, each in turn read this passage from Mark’s Gospel, Derek in English and the pastor in German. I had studied German at A-level, and so I was able to follow every detail of the story as the pastor read it. I was struck very forcibly by the notion that Jesus is not just my Saviour. He doesn’t just belong to the Brits. He is the Saviour of all nations, and I was thrilled to witness Christians who spoke a different language, having the same reverence and devotion to my Lord.
During my lifetime, I have worshipped in a protestant church in France; I have sung hymns alongside Philippinos in Jerusalem and Kenyans and South Africans in West Yorkshire, and sung hymns in Urdu with Pakistani Christians at St Andrew’s. I am always thrilled to share my love of Jesus with people whose mother tongue is not mine. It reminds me of the global reach of our faith. What a joyful hymn: “Christ for the world, we sing; the world to Christ we bring, with one accord.”
Our church fellowship at St Andrew’s has been enriched, as we have welcomed Christian brothers and sisters into our family, from Pakistan, the West Indies, Zimbabwe, Nigeria and Iran.
I hope you don’t mind me indulging myself, this way, in nostalgia and internationalism. I think it is important for us all to recognise that it was because God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that all who believe in him might have eternal life.
I now need to come down to earth, and look at what this passage of scripture is saying to us all.
Firstly, it illustrates for us the humanity of Jesus. He was clearly exhausted from his busy ministry of healing and teaching, so he suggested that he and the disciples should withdraw from the crowds and escape to the other side of the lake for a break. In fact, he was so tired that before they had sailed very far, he fell fast asleep.
If ever we feel overwhelmed by the demands of our Christian calling, we can draw encouragement from knowing that Jesus has been there before us. He knows how we feel – and he cares!
I imagine that, as the boat left the shore, the surface of the lake would be as flat and mirror-like as it was on the day of our excursion. But there is a quality about the Sea of Galilee, which you may not know about. The lake is more than 600 feet below sea level. It is surrounded by table lands beyond which the great mountains rise. Rivers have cut deep ravines through the table lands down to the Mediterranean Sea. These ravines act like great funnels to draw down the cold winds from the mountains and this is what causes the storms. They can arise within a matter of minutes and cause great turbulence of the water. Storms of the ferocity of the one describe in the Bible reading are by no means unusual. It would not be the first time those of the disciples who were fishermen would have experienced it. Nevertheless, even they feared for their lives.
And in such a time of alarm, they instinctively turned to their only hope of survival. They woke up the sleeping Jesus and appealed to him to save them. I wonder what they expected him to do? Their boat was being tossed around like a cork; the waves were lashing over the sides of the boat and filling it with water; the wind was blowing a gale. They could have had no idea what Jesus would do, but they turned to him in their desperation. He was their only hope.
What happened next was a miracle. Jesus stood up in the boat and said, simply, “Be quiet!” And the wind died down and the water became flat calm again.
Such a quick result from their appeal to Jesus should, you would think, have given much relief and great satisfaction to the disciples. Jesus had performed many miracles in front of them. They ought not to have been surprised by his action. But clearly, this was a miracle of all miracles. And the reaction of the disciples was to be terrified. “Who is this man?” they said, “Even the wind and the waves obey him!”
There is a hymn we used to sing some years ago, which goes: “With Jesus in the boat we can smile at the storm, as we go sailing home.” The underlying thought behind the hymn is that the presence of Jesus can bring peace to any troubling situation. Not only in the context of a rough sea or a roaring gale, but in every area of our lives, when we are disturbed, anxious or fearful. Having grown through our childhood years, I am sure we can all recall being be alarmed or fretful about something which we found threatening (I am sure we have all been there). How comforting was it to reach out for the hand of Mum or Dad and know instantly, that all was well?
Growing into adulthood, doesn’t insure us against times of stress and anxiety. In fact, it will generally be acknowledged that adults suffer more from stress and anxiety than do children. The responsibilities of parenthood; financial pressures; caring for elderly relatives; increasing demands of busy jobs are all contributors to mental health problems amongst many adults.
Increasingly, we need to reach out for the caring hand of Jesus, to steady our rocking boat and slow down the pace of life, so that we can catch our breath and get things into a perspective with which we can cope.
Are you a watcher of Springwatch and Autumnwatch on BBC1? I have been impressed recently by the feature which is now included each week, called “A mindful moment”. For those who don’t watch, there is an interlude during the programme, when the presenters move over and let nature do the talking. Film sequences are shown, with no commentary and no music. There are just natural sounds – like a babbling brook, or the call of a distant cuckoo, or the breeze rustling in the trees. What a calming effect it has, and without doubt, it is good for our mental health.
A Christian would say that the ‘mindful moment’ is a gift from God. And why not, when God created the earth and all that is within it. He knows our need for beauty, serenity, peace and tranquillity. And as a generous Creator, he delights in giving good things to us.
With the benefit of our Christian faith, we should not be surprised that Jesus was able to calm a vicious storm. For we believe that it was Jesus – the Word of God – who spoke the wind and the waves into existence, at creation. When in Genesis chapter 1, we read that God commanded “Let the water below the sky come together in one place, so that the land will appear”, the Word who spoke the command was Jesus; there at the beginning of all things. We are reminded of this in Chapter 1 of the gospel according to John. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God and the Word was God. Through him, God made all things. Not one thing in all creation was made without him”. The disciples did not have this understanding, even though Jesus was living with them, and so they were astonished at his miraculous powers.
The truth we gain from this story is that the presence of Jesus can bring peace to troubled hearts, wherever and whenever people own his presence. In one sense, the disciples were privileged to have the living, breathing, walking and eating Jesus in their midst 24/7. But how much more privileged are Christians in the post-Pentecost age, in whose hearts Jesus, through the Holy Spirit, can actually make his home?
When we find ourselves in a panic, or weighed down by worry, or stressed by the pressures of life, we can call on Jesu’s presence and find in him strength and confidence. He is closer to us than our own breath.
The motto of the United States government is: In God we trust. That should always be our watchword too. There are a number of occasions in the New Testament where Jesus rebukes his disciples for having ‘little faith’. Let us not hear him saying that to us. We are not dealing here with a human being, who achieved great things during his life on earth. We are talking about God himself! Of course, the wind and the waves obey him! He created them. He holds the whole universe – bigger than our human minds can take in – in the palm of his hand. Our God IS a great big God!
In the words of a hymn:
For the love of God is broader
Than the measures of man’s mind,
And the heart of the eternal
Is most wonderfully kind.
Are you in need of peace at this time? Turn your eyes upon Jesus. Tell him your burden. Ask him to give you peace. Believe in his all-embracing, unconditional love. And ….“that peace, which is beyond human understanding, will keep your hearts and minds safe in union with Christ Jesus.” Amen
Song – STF 351 – In Christ alone my hope is found
Benediction
Go into the world to walk in God’s light,
To rejoice in God’s love
And to reflect God’s glory.
And may the blessing of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit,
give you peace now and always. Amen
