Once again, we had a lovely service this morning.
It was a red-letter day – not just because it was the feast of St James but also because we were able to SING as a congregation! What a joy it was – even behind mask faces! Link to service at bottom of page.
After the service we all enjoyed coffee in the garden.
This was followed by the baptism of Jaxon Hunter Slavin, infant son of Kelly and Anton, grandson to Clare and Steve and great grandson to Pamela and Gordon.
It was a service of great joy and celebration as we welcomed Jaxon into the Christian family of Christ with prayer and in the scarcement of Holy Baptism.
Eighth Sunday after Trinity 2021 St Andrew’s Milngavie
2 Kings 4:42-44
Ephesians 3: 14-21
John 6:1-21
In these days of pandemic, we may find ourselves experiencing a mix of emotions; fear, anxiety frustration, hope and despair. And so, we console ourselves with prayer, our daily routines and whatever may bring us comfort and hope, in the same way I suspect as those who have gone before us.
The people of the OT especially in difficult times, like those of the exile, longed for the Messiah to come but they expected only prophets, because they were all that God had sent them so far. Elisha had provided for God’s people through miraculous deeds as we hear in today’s reading as he feeds one hundred people during a famine with twenty loaves of barley and fresh ears of grain. Numerous other prophets like Isaiah and Hosea had drawn people back to God when other diversions had arisen and they had taken other paths, mostly leading to conflict and pain.
In the period of Roman occupation people had run to John the Baptist for reassurance and evidence that God had not forgotten his people, but then John was killed. So they turned in expectation to Jesus who seemed so much more than just another prophet. Here was someone who could rescue the diseased from their ailments, who offered reassurance of God’s love for them and security to those rejected by the religious authorities as unfit for temple worship. And Jesus fed them. He fed their minds with the truth, fed their hearts with the compassion he preached and lived, and fed their bodies with nourishment created by a miracle.
They ran to this man expecting a prophet of old, but because they were prepared to believe, they received the gifts which only God could give them. This was the God who Jesus referred to as his Father, and who then proved through Jesus that he was indeed the Father of all.
Later, with his friends, Jesus would also demonstrate his power over the waters of the lake as we read about him walking on it towards his disciples in the boat away from the crowd.
So for the time being the disciples had received what they needed: the reassurance that, in spite of all that had gone before and the Roman occupation, God had not forgotten them. Their continuing faith brought this man to them and his availability to them in their need was that proof.
Where do we find our comfort, in these days of uncertainties as we feel our wat through the pandemic endeavouring to navigate the pitfalls which life throws at us?
We now know more about God than the crowds fed by Jesus which we heard about this morning because our knowledge is filtered through the wonder of the resurrection.
We know what God is really like because Jesus told us and showed the extent of God’s love for us throughout his ministry in his teachings and miracles which we read about in the gospels.
No longer is God to be the stern and authoritarian patriarch of the ancient times, one who filled with the world with awe and anxiety. God became the person the unsure might find comfort, the weary would find rest and the hungry would be fed. While remaining the Lord of all creation, in majesty and power, God demonstrated a loving presence more encompassing than anything we could even imagine, nurturing and giving hope to all who turn to him.
Since Jesus we are no longer alone. Our strength comes not only from bread, hope and guesswork. We have seen the face of God, and the actions of the Almighty, in the person of Jesus. To know him is to know the extent of God, to have the totality of God and the Kingdom of heaven among us.
Paul in his letter to the Ephesians prays that his readers may be strengthened by this belief. Paul tries to put into words the full extent of the love of Christ for his people, glorying in its width length, height and depth. Eph 3:18
Human words cannot adequately express this love and yet it is available in all its fullness to those who put their faith in Jesus Christ. We need to discover that God can do “immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine.” Eph 3:20
“I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith…….” Eph 3:16
“Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine…..to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” Eph 3:20-21