Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Wednesday Holy Week Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Wednesday Holy Week Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B HOLY WEEK WEDNESDAY... ...I remember as a child being fascinated with some really old Russian dolls. Made out of thin wood, they came apart in the middle with a satisfying squeak, revealing a smaller one inside. Then the next, and the next. Eventuall…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Sunday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Sunday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 1: SUNDAY Psalm 32 A long time ago, when I had just learnt to drive, I ran out of petrol on a lonely country road. I gratefully accepted some fuel from a nearby farmer. What he didn’t tell me was that it was a mixture designed not for a car, but for a lawn mower. I got back …
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
EK 1: SATURDAY Matthew 17.1– 9 Imagine yourself as a fifth member of the party, going up the mountain with Jesus leading the way, Peter beside him, and James and John following too. The last days and weeks have been utterly bewildering. Nothing like this has happened to you befor…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Monday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Monday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 1: MONDAY Matthew 5; focused on 5.1–12 The worst mistake we can make about this famous and stunning passage is to see it as a list of rules (you’ve got to try hard to be poor in spirit, to mourn, to be meek, and so on). It isn’t. It’s a royal announcement that God is turning…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Friday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Friday: Week 1 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 1: FRIDAY Matthew 9; focused on 9.9 –17 Those of us who now use computers take it for granted that they will have a large internal memory. This is stored on what is called a ‘hard disk’, as opposed to what we used to have, back in the 1980s, which was a ‘floppy disk’, which …
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday: Second Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday: Second Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 2: SATURDAY Matthew 13; focused on 13.31–33, 44 – 46 An earthly story with a heavenly meaning.’ I used to think that that old Sunday- school definition of a parable was a harmless comment. I now think it’s more likely to be dangerous nonsense. Jesus didn’t tell parables to p…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Friday: Week 2 in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Friday: Week 2 in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 2: FRIDAY Matthew 12.22–50; focused on 12.27–32 27 Just in case anyone thought that the vision of a gentle, humble Messiah meant that he would be a pushover for every evil power that came along, the present passage sets the balance straight. One of the things everybody knew …
Lent for Everyone Year A - Sunday: First Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Sunday: First Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 2: SUNDAY Psalm 121 1 I must have sung this Psalm a hundred, perhaps a thousand, times before I stopped to think about the famous first verse. (I have seen it carved above doors and mantelpieces in mountainous parts of the country, sometimes in Latin.) ‘I lift my eyes to …
Lent for Everyone Year A - Thursday: First Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Thursday: First Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 1: THURSDAY Matthew 8; focused on 8.23 –34 Let’s go on that boat and think what it was like. It’s a small lake, as lakes go, but sudden storms come sweeping down from the hills. All of us in the boat know of people who’ve been drowned there, of whole boats that have been swa…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Thursday: Second Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Thursday: Second Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 2: THURSDAY Matthew 12.1–21; focused on 12.15 –21 To get the full flavour of what’s going on here, you should really read not just Matthew 12, but Isaiah 42 as a whole. Actually, even that isn’t really enough, because Isaiah 42 is a key passage within a much larger unity, Is…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: First Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Tuesday: First Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 1: TUESDAY Matthew 6; focused on 6.5 –15 At the very heart of Jesus’ vision of the kingdom – of heaven’s kingdom coming on earth – we have a picture of one person, secretly in their own room, praying. Prayer is a mystery. I’ve often heard people saying, with a sneer, ‘It doe…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Monday: Week 2 of Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Monday: Week 2 of Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 2: MONDAY Matthew 10.1–15 Every so often, usually just after a change of government, there is a spate of political autobiographies, as former leaders do their best to cash in on the public’s hunger to find out ‘the inside story’. One of the most fascinating elements of such …
Lent for Everyone Year A - Wednesday: First Week in Lent Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Wednesday: First Week in Lent Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
WEEK 1: WEDNESDAY Matthew 7; focused on 7.15 –23 One of the great lies of our time is to suppose that because Jesus brings forgiveness, and urges us to be forgiving people, meek and gentle, there is no sharp edge to his message. To hear some people, you’d think the whole of the C…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Maundy Thursday Year A
Lent for Everyone Year A - Maundy Thursday Year A
by SPCK - N T Wright
OLY WEEK: MAUNDY THURSDAY Matthew 27.1–32 27 A few years ago there was a great railway disaster. Two trains, approaching London, speeded on to the same bit of track. Many were killed, several injured. There was a long official enquiry. At the end of it, after countless hours of a…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Maunday Thursday Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Maunday Thursday Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B HOLY WEEK MAUNDAY THURSDAY... ...When I taught in Oxford University, I used repeatedly to ask the Theology Faculty for funds to take students to the Holy Land. Having been there myself, I knew that you could learn things in a few days on site that wo…
Lent for Everyone Year A - Saturday after Ash Wednesday Year A