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Once crimson poppies bloomed
Once crimson poppies bloomed
by Andrew Pratt
Once crimson poppies bloomed out in a foreign field, each memory reminds where brutal death was sealed. The crimson petals flutter down, still hatred forms a thorny crown. For in this present time we wait in vain for peace, each generation cries, each longing for release, while w…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Good Friday Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Good Friday Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B HOLY WEEK GOOD FRIDAY... ...We stopped the car outside the most unlikely looking house. One wall looked as if it was going to collapse at any moment. The door was hanging off on one hinge. An upstairs window was broken. There was a rustle in the bush…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Monday Holy Week Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Monday Holy Week Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B HOLY WEEK MONDAY... How much did you earn last year? Or, if you don’t earn a regular wage, how much did it cost you to live last year? Think about that sum for a moment. Now imagine that someone who had that amount of money sitting in the bank decide…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 5 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 5 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 5 1 Samuel 8.4-11 [12-15] 16-20 [11.14-15] 2 Corinthians 4.13-5.1 Mark 3.20-35 So: did God want Israel to have a king, or didn’t he? The question haunts not only this passage in 1 Samuel but much of the rest of the account of the monarchy, from the ill-fated Saul right dow…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Third Sunday before Advent Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - The Third Sunday before Advent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
The Third Sunday Before Advent Jonah 3.1-5, 10 Hebrews 9.24-28 Mark 1.14-20 ‘Once, only once, and once for all.’ The hymn that starts thus withdraws with the left hand some of what it gives with the right, hinting that Christ’s unique sacrifice is still somehow present in the e…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Friday after Ash Wednesday Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Friday after Ash Wednesday Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B FRIDAY AFTER ASH WEDNESDAY... ...Three times yesterday the doorbell rang unexpectedly. First it was the engineer; he came to inspect the foundations of the outhouse. Then it was the builder; he came to measure for some windows that need replacing. Fi…
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 14 Year B
Twelve Months of Sundays Year B - Proper 14 Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Proper 14 2 Samuel 18.5-9, 31-33 Ephesians 4.25-5.2 John 6.35, 41-51 Come, believe, and eat. Simple yet profound, carrying us with characteristic Johannine effortlessness from bread by the lake to the bread of life. The bridge between them is Jesus himself, who will give his fles…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday Holy Week Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday Holy Week Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B HOLY WEEK HOLY SATURDAY... ...It is hard to tell which was more horrible. We watched on the television, some while ago now, as the earthquake off the coast of Japan produced a terrible tsunami. The waves came crashing in, the enormous power of millio…
New Testament Wisdom for Everyone - The First And The Last
New Testament Wisdom for Everyone - The First And The Last
by SPCK - N T Wright
5 THE RENEWAL OF THE WORLD THE FIRST AND THE LAST Matthew 19: 23-30 Once, as a boy, I watched a large party of hunters on horseback chasing a fox over open country. Even if you disapprove of foxhunting, as many do, it was a fine sight on a cold wintry day. Down the hillside they …
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Wednesday: Second Week in Lent Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Wednesday: Second Week in Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B WEEK 2: WEDNESDAY... ...People sometimes have the idea that the world of the Bible is rather like the world of some old churches: quiet, serious, a bit old-fashioned, with nobody ever doing or saying anything to shock or frighten people. Sometimes, i…
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday: Week 5 in Lent Year B
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B - Saturday: Week 5 in Lent Year B
by SPCK - N T Wright
Lent for Everyone Mark Year B WEEK 5 SATURDAY... ...Reports suggest that there are plenty of people today who are so distant from the story of Jesus that they can watch a children’s play about him without realizing what’s going to happen. They are then shocked to the core at the …
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 14 Year B
Lectionary Reflections - Year B - Proper 14 Year B
by SPCK - Jane Williams
Proper 14 1 Kings 19-4-8 Ephesians 4. 25-5.2 John 6: 35, 41-51 On the grounds that there is no point in telling someone to do something if they are already doing it, the Ephesian community must be quite like a church you know well. It is interesting how much of this section is co…
What news is good? That Christ will live forever?
What news is good? That Christ will live forever?
by Andrew Pratt
What news is good? That Christ will live forever? Beyond a cruel death an empty grave? And whether this is fact or faith means nothing unless Christ's Spirit gives the means to save. If we endure derision, in this moment, or share communion bread within this place, unless our liv…
Rhythms of remembering - Lent - Saturday Morning Prayer
Rhythms of remembering - Lent - Saturday Morning Prayer
by SPCK - Hannah Ward & Jennifer Wild
LENT - Saturday Morning Prayer Blessed are you, O God: you watch with us in our darkness. My soul waits for you more than the night-watch for the morning, more than the night-watch for the morning. Psalm 130.5...
Journeying With Mark Year B - Passion - Holy Week
Journeying With Mark Year B - Passion - Holy Week
by SPCK - Woodward, Gooder and Pryce
5 Passion – Holy Week Exploring the text The Revised Common Lectionary’s decision to intersperse Mark’s Gospel with John’s Gospel is nowhere more frustrating than in Holy Week. As we noted in the Introduction, Mark’s Gospel builds from the moment that John the Baptist bursts on t…
Four Gospels, One Jesus - The hour of glory