Christ Church Mandurah Resources

 John 20: 19 ccm When people ask me what are my favourite Bible passages, I have to say John chapter 20 is right up there. John 20 is the chapter I go to when I need to be reminded of Jesus, the passage I go to when I need to be comforted, and the passage which made the confusing business of faith come together for me. I can remember being asked to prove the existence of God, by someone who was determined to prove that God couldn’t possible exist – it just wasn’t logical, it wasn’t rational and there was no scientific evidence. My defence was to read to him John chapter 20. Because John 20 is the story of how very vulnerable, confused and emotional people came to a real relationship with the resurrected Jesus and to experience their own personal Easter resurrection. It is my story and I suspect it is the same for many of you here this morning. It is the story of Mary Magdalene, of some bewildered disciples, and of Thomas, the disciple who couldn’t believe his friends. This is the s...

JOHN 12:20-33 21 march ccm I may have shared with you before about the very first funeral service I was asked to conduct; I was a very new deacon.   I had been caring for a lady in the parish with Parkinson’s disease, and when she died her family asked me to conduct the service. I think you can imagine how nervous I was; I so wanted to get things right for this family.   After the service, one of their friends came to me and said “the funeral for a Christian is always a celebration”.   I must admit, I was quite shocked and I thought he was nuts.   I couldn’t see any reason to celebrate. But I have learned that he was right – he was right and at the time I just didn’t get it.   Any priest will tell you that there really is a distinct difference between the funeral service for a Christian and for those who have no faith. And the difference is because of Easter.   As believers, we might not understand everything about Easter, we may have trouble getting ou...

 John 2:13-22 7 MARCH 2021 As we reach the halfway point of Lent, things are beginning to take a more serious turn. Jesus is in Jerusalem, and as we read John chapter 2, Jesus begins to be noticed, but for all the wrong reasons. The Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke have the Temple clearing taking place just days before the crucifixion, but John has Jesus clearing the temple during the first of 3 Passovers he mentions in his Gospel. Jesus certainly had an audience. Every Jewish male was expected to make a pilgrimage to Jerusalem during the week-long festival of unleavened bread, during which the Passover was celebrated. So at this time The Temple was crowded with visitors, and the temple authorities crowded it even more by allowing money changers and merchants to set up their stalls in the outer Court of the Gentiles. We might wonder what made Jesus so angry: it certainly wasn’t his first visit to the Temple and he had surely seen all this before. It wasn’t just that the merchants ...

 Mark 1: 9-15 The late British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was once asked by a journalist what she believed to be the basis of the Christian faith. Her reply was just one word “choice”. For her, faith was all about making a choice. The choice to believe and follow or to reject it all as fairy stories and just rely on ourselves to handle whatever life brings? I didn’t often agree with Mrs. Thatcher, but in this instance I believe that she was right. Lent gives us the opportunity to make a choice about our faith and about Jesus. In fact, I would say that Lent is one of the seasons of the church which demands we think about our faith. No matter which year it is in the church cycle of readings, there are some constants. One is the story of Jesus being tempted in the wilderness following his baptism where he is affirmed by God. As Jesus was in the wilderness for 40 days to prepare himself for his ministry, the 40 days of Lent is a time of preparation for us as we lead up to the mom...

Mark 1: 21-28  From our first reading this morning, we learn that the people of Israel are familiar with the role of prophets. Moses promises the people that God will raise up prophets for them in the future, and they will know if the prophet is really from God when they see what the prophet does. If someone prophesies contrary to God’s word or if the prophecy doesn’t happen, then they will know that this is a false prophet. They will recognise God’s prophets by their actions, and by the fruit they produce. The prophets led Israel for over two hundred years, until Saul was proclaimed king by Samuel at the insistence of the people. You see, the nation of Israel demanded a king so that they could be like other nations, forgetting that they were God’s people and God had set them apart. And even during the reign of their kings, there were still God’s prophets who shared God’s message with them. None of the many prophets of Israel could perform the ministry which Jesus performed. None o...

 Mark 1:14-20 I am not a very patient person at times, so I hate ringing businesses which don’t have a real person to answer the phone. You know the ones – you call a number and press 1 if you want this, press 2 if you want that, or you yell down the phone trying to make the stupid machine at the other end actually understand what you are saying. The other thing that gets me is when they put you on hold and play awful music, and then they tell you every so often “please stay on the line – your call is very important to us”. I always feel like yelling, “If I am that important, answer the phone then”. On one occasion, I rang the RAC to pay a bill, and after pressing this number, then that number, I was not impressed when they put me on hold. Suddenly a real person answered and said “how may I help you”. I explained what I wanted to do, and the voice asked for my name. I said Absalom, and began to spell it as usual. Suddenly this disembodied voice said “Is that you Cheryl”. I was stun...

 JOHN 1 43:51 17 JANUARY 2021 When I was ordained as a priest, a friend who is a member of the order of St Benedict, gave me a book called “The Glenstal Book of prayer”, published by the Benedictine monks at Glenstal Abbey in Ireland. In the book there are a number of readings from the rules of St Benedict, the founder of their order.  One rules states “Let us open our hearts to the divine light, and with startled ears let us listen to what the divine voice is calling out every day, urging us : today if you should hear his voice, harden not your hearts.”  I particularly like the phrase “listen with startled ears”, because I know like many people, I have listened to God with startled ears. And yet perhaps I should not be surprised, for our psalm today tells us that God knows every little thing about us. Our first reading told us something of the prophet Samuel, who had lived in the Temple since he was a young child, when he was left by his mother. Hannah in gratitude for h...