Here is this morning’s sermon on friendship which was delivered in a rather chilly church.

There is something iconic about the friends who take their paralyzed friend to Jesus.

I remember doing it in Sunday school. We listened to the story. We acted it out. We coloured it in.

There is something wonderfully visual about the story of them carrying him towards the house where Jesus is and then kept out by the crowd taking him up onto the roof and carefully lowering him down towards the healer.

It is an iconic picture postcard of the healing Jesus.

This morning, I want to use those friends as the starting point for what I want to say. A leaping off point for thinking not about the healing miracle that Jesus does but about the miracle of healing and wholeness which friendship itself represents.
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