Glory
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
And the glory of the Lord shall be revealed, and all flesh shall see it together; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it.
The first thing that I notice about The Outraged Christ is that it is made of wood.
A human body portrayed with wood in such a raw manner puts me in mind of the creation narrative in Genesis 1.
Come, enjoy rewards and crowns I have prepared for you. Ἐλέησον, ἐλέησον, ἐλέησον.
The thing about temptation is: it’s quite tempting.
Which actually, given the way I tend to think about temptation, is a bit of a surprise.
This year, the RNLI celebrates its bicentenary. Since its formation, the charity has saved over 144,000 lives at sea. In 2022, they saved 389. Still, millennia after the the composition of today’s Bible readings, and after our recent eras of massive growth in maritime technology, and health and safety, the sea is a mighty adversary to be feared. An agent of chaos which cares not as it indiscriminately claims the lives of sailors, refugees, and holidaymakers.
When I’m at weddings, I often find myself sat with a critical eye.
I think to myself, “Oh, I wouldn’t dress the bridesmaids like that.
It was a hot summer’s day back in 2018. An empty water bottle sat on the desk in front of me, its contents were now dripping down my brow and back as sweat.
We are made in the image of God. What’s more, we are made in the image of the Triune God, the plural God who says, “let us make humankind in our image,” the one God who “created humankind in his image.”
Tonight, we are gathered in order to remember. We are gathered to remember 390 people whom we know to have died this year, and countless others who have suffered and died at the hands of violent individuals and cultures. We remember them tonight in a mass, the very centre of memory in our Christian tradition, a people who remember Jesus who suffered, died, and rose again.
The Hebrew word for saint is קדש, in Greek, ἁγιος, and in Latin sanctus. When these words appear in the Bible we usually translate them “holy”, so a saint is really just a holy person.