What is in Kelvin's Head?

  • Easter Sermon 2013

    In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

    Early in the morning, in the cold early light of the day, some of us gathered to celebrate this Great Feast. Bishop Gregor lit the Easter Fire outside and then we processed into church to welcome the risen Saviour with hymns and confirmations and baptisms and great rejoicing. And afterwards we made our way to the Synod Hall for a splendid breakfast rejoicing in the good news that on Easter Day there are no calories in anything.

    I was reminded as we ate our breakfast together of an Easter celebration that took place some years ago whilst I was at college.

    It was the custom in that University Chapel for a great basket of Scottish Morning Rolls to be processed to the altar to be blessed. One of the rolls would be chosen to be the bread for communion on the altar and the rest would be put to one side and then these were shared as a breakfast after the service.

    One this particular occasion, I remember the University Chaplain choosing the bread roll carefully from amongst those offered to him. It was to become the Bread of Promise after all.

    He put it upon the silver paten. He said, The Lord be With You and went on to bid us Lift Up Our Hearts.

    It was easy to do. It was Easter and our hearts were all rejoicing.

    When he finished the Eucharistic Prayer, he carefully and devoutly took the Bread of Heaven in his hands and broke it carefully. And as he did so, I thought I saw a moment of deep prayer.

    He stood frozen to the spot and then a shiver appeared to go through him. It was as though the Holy Spirit has suddenly descended upon him.

    We waited a moment and then he said, “oooh”.

    We looked at him in anticipation. (more…)

    , , , , ,

One response to “Eid, Pride and Abraham’s Sacrifice”

  1. Tim Avatar
    Tim

    As one who grew up(?) in churches leaning toward the view “it’s a tough story for a tough world, how else would God be just?” in varying degrees, I agree the face-value-narrative understanding of the story is repellant.

    One thing stood out for the first time during Sunday’s reading: the plurality in Abraham’s line – “…and we will return to you”. I’ve been idly wondering about that since.
    It doesn’t make the story wholly acceptable as Abraham still ploughs on ever closer.
    But if one’s goal is to find a “by faith, Abraham” in there, better to say it’s the prior confidence that things will somehow work out well (which I thought was how Hebrews was trying to define it), than to locate the commendable quality in violence (which, by rabbiting on about resurrection, Hebrews does).

    In the absence of other clear & wholly mitigating contexts in which to place the story, certainly it’s simplest, easiest and probably best to file it under “that’s how they saw God back then” and move swiftly on.

    Oofft.

    Reply

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Previous Posts

  • Vet

    Back to the Vet. Madam has a sore eye. Another wrestling match to get her there.

  • I'm back

    Arrived back today. Just found out that several of my websites, though not this one, had been defaced by cybervandals whilst I was away. One really does wonder why sometimes.

  • Blog Break

    Time for my annual Blog Break. I’ll not be blogging for July, but will be back at the start of August.

  • Clerical Day

    [starts 0900] Devotions (such as they were) and thinking about last night’s bizarre dream. Check webfeeds. Meeting with electrician and lighting expert re bulbs blowing at great height. Answer messages and e-mails. Several international ones re current Anglican position on The Usual Topic and about who actually said what at the big ACC meeting. Visit…