exultemus

Blog

  • Welcome to exultemus!

    Welcome to exultemus. Through this blog I hope to give air to my thoughts about the world as seen through the eyes of faith.

    I have been a priest in the Church of England for more than forty years and am now retired and living in South East Cornwall. I worship at St Neot, and am happy to help out in local churches when asked.

    You are welcome to leave comments agreeing or disagreeing, but I reserve the right to remove any offensive or unnecessarily personal remarks. I may respond – if your comments seem likely to start an interesting debate.

  • Light of the world

    The East Window in St Bartholomew’s Church, Warleggan, Cornwall

    The text of a sermon preached at St Bartholomew’s Church, Warleggan, Cornwall on Sunday 15th March 2026

    the readings were 1 Samuel 161-13 Ephesians 58-14 John 91-41

    You were darkness once, but now you are light in the Lord; behave as children of light, for the effects of the light are seen in complete goodness and uprightness and truth.

    These are the opening words from the verses of Ephesians read as this morning’s New Testament reading. They are all about light – and in particular about the light in which we live as Christians as a result of our having been baptised.

    Paul, here, is reminding the Ephesian Christians to whom he is writing how much their lives have been transformed by their faith in Christ. It is like the difference between darkness and light. Not just walking out of darkness into light, but actually becoming light. They are not in the light, but they themselves are light.

    And now, having become light, they are called to show up the works of darkness for what they are. Having themselves been transformed they are to transform the world around them.

    In this morning’s gospel reading Jesus proclaims himself to be the light of the world.

    I am the light of the world is one of the seven I am sayings in John’s gospel – I am the bread of life; I am the light of the world; I am the door; I am the Good Shepherd; I am the resurrection and the life; I am the way, the truth and the life; I am the vine.

    Each of them reveals something important about who Jesus is and what his ministry is to achieve. They all appear in John’s gospel and on every occasion John seems to be saying to us, Pay close attention to this bit – it’s really important!

    Jesus sees the man, a man who was born blind, not, he says, because either he or his parents sinned but so that the works of God might be revealed in him.

    And immediately, before anything else happens he says,

    As long as I am in the world
    I am the light of the world.

    The placement of this saying here seems to suggest that we need to interpret all that follows with the knowledge that Jesus is the light of the world, and to expect that this blind man will find his world filled with the light which Jesus brings..

    John’s accounts of the events of Jesus’ ministry can be quite lengthy and complex. But this is how the story develops.

    Jesus makes a paste, daubs it on the man’s eyes and tells him to wash in the pool, which he does and is now able to see.

    His neighbours find it hard to believe that this is the same man who was blind. How can such a thing happen? He reassures them that it is he and that the man Jesus healed him.

    The Pharisees interrogate the man, he tells them what Jesus did and how he received his sight. They debate among themselves whether Jesus can possibly be from God. How can he be? He breaks the Sabbath. The man tells them that Jesus could do this because he is a prophet.

    His parents are questioned, How is it that your son can now see? – but they dodge the question by telling the questioners to ask their son, he can speak for himself.

    So they do. They say Jesus is a sinner. The man responds with a remarkable profession of faith,

    Whether he is a sinner I don’t know; all I know is that I was blind and now I can see.’

    When they say that they don’t know where Jesus is from, he replies,

    That is just what is so amazing! You don’t know where he comes from and he has opened my eyes! We know that God doesn’t listen to sinners, but God does listen to people who are devout and do his will. Ever since the world began it is unheard of for anyone to open the eyes of someone born blind; if this man were not from God, he wouldn’t have been able to do anything.

    When he meets Jesus again Jesus asks him whether he believes in the Son of man. When Jesus tells him that it he, who has given him his sight, who is the Son of man he responds,

    ‘Lord, I believe,’ and worshipped him.

    Notice how the man has come to confess Jesus – from the man Jesus, who opened his eyes at the beginning of the story, to a prophet, when the Pharisees ask him who he thinks that Jesus is, to a man from God, when he is challenged to agree with the Pharisees’ assessment of Jesus as a sinner, to, when he learns who Jesus truly is, calling Jesus Lord and worshipping him.

    For this man it has been a journey from blindness to being able to see, but more importantly a journey from darkness to light.

    And, a journey from being ignorant of who Jesus is to worshipping him as the Son of God.

    The Pharisees, on the other hand, remain in darkness. They cannot recognise the truth of who Jesus is. They cannot come to the light because they are wilfully blind,

    Jesus said: It is for judgement that I have come into this world, so that those without sight may see and those with sight may become blind.

    Hearing this, some Pharisees who were present said to him, ‘So we are blind, are we?’

    Jesus replied: If you were blind, you would not be guilty, but since you say, ‘We can see,’ your guilt remains.

    Those who acknowledge Christ are in the light – indeed they are light.

    And this is where we started with Paul and the Ephesians.

    You were darkness once, but now you are light in the Lord; behave as children of light, for the effects of the light are seen in complete goodness and uprightness and truth.

    But being light, as well as being a blessing to us, is a challenge as well. It is not enough to be in the light but it is a call, a commission – to become light and to be light in the world.

  • Glory on the mountain

    The Church of St Neot, Cornwall

    This is the text of a sermon delivered in the Church of St Bartholomew, Warleggan and the Church of St Neot, Cornwall. The readings appointed were, Exodus 2412-end 2 Peter 116-end Matthew 171-9

    George Mallory, who died in 1924 on his third attempt to climb Everest, when asked why he wanted to climb the mountain famously replied, “Because it’s there.”

    Mountains undoubtedly have a strong grip on the human imagination. People climb them, they ski down them, they paint them, they photograph them, they write legends about them, they compose symphonies about them, they imagine them to be homes of their gods, sometimes they even worship them as gods.

    I suppose it’s the sheer size of them, the effort required to reach their summits, the imposing grandeur of them.

    In Matthew’s gospel Jesus ascends a mountain three times. The first time it is to deliver his famous sermon on the mount,

    Seeing the crowds, he went onto the mountain. And when he was seated the disciples came to him. Then he began to speak.

    He ascends a mountain again at the end of the gospel when he appears for the last time to his disciples,

    The eleven disciples set out for Galilee, to the mountain to which Jesus had directed them. When they saw him they worshipped him, though some hesitated. Jesus came up and spoke to them. He said, “All authority in heaven and earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, make disciples of all nations…”

    The third occasion is recorded in today’s gospel reading – the seemingly strange story of the transfiguration.

    Jesus took with him Peter and James and his brother John and led them up a high mountain on their own. In their presence he was transfigured: his face shone like the sun and his clothes became as dazzling as light.

    These events which take place on mountains are all key moments in the life of Jesus.

    On a mountain he delivers the central messages of his teaching. On a mountain his glory is revealed to his closest disciples. On a mountain he takes his leave of his disciples, commissioning them to continue the proclamation of the gospel and to make, and baptise, more disciples.

    But it is the second of these events that we are concerned with today.

    Jesus leads his closest disciples – Peter, James and John – up the mountain where he is transfigured. His appearance is changed and his face shines like the sun. His clothes become dazzling as light. This is unmistakably an image of glory. The three disciples are seeing Jesus, not as a mere man, but as the Son of God, as his divine nature is revealed in his transfiguration – and the voice heard from heaven confirms this truth,

    This is my Son, the Beloved; he enjoys my favour. Listen to him.

    These words were spoken at his baptism by John, but that was before these disciples had been called. These words are for their benefit – and they clearly made an impression as Peter recalls them in his second letter (2 Peter 116-17),

    we witnessed his majesty with our own eyes. He received glory and honour from God the Father, when a voice came to him from the transcendent glory, “This my Son, the Beloved…”

    And through all this time Jesus has been accompanied on the mountain by two great heroes of the Old Testament – Moses and Elijah. Representatives of the Law and the Prophets.

    They had both had their own visions of God’s glory on mountains.

    Elijah, when he was fleeing the wrath of Ahab and Jezebel. He hid in a cave on Mount Horeb and the Lord passed by and Elijah was strengthened by the Lord’s appearance in the still, small voice.

    Moses was called up onto Mount Sinai to receive the Law. In the presence of the Lord on the mountain Moses’ face became so radiant because he [the Lord] had been talking to him. He covered his face when he came down the mountain and removed the veil when he went up the mountain to speak with Lord.

    The significance of both the mountainous location of the transfiguration and the appearance of these two figures from history will not have been lost on Matthew’s Jewish audience (Matthew certainly targetted his gospel to Jewish Christians).

    Mountains are places where God is encountered, and are associated, through Moses and Elijah with the the revelation of his glory.

    Moses ascends the mountain to receive the Law and Jesus, the new Moses, delivers his new Law on the mountain.

    The Jews believed that Elijah would return before the great and awesome Day of the Lord. The prophet Malachi tells us so in the very final verses of the book of the Old Testament that bears his name. So his appearance here with Jesus would support Christians’ claims that Jesus is the Messiah in the minds of the Jewish converts Matthew was writing for.

    This is the purpose that this story has for Matthew and the Christians he was writing for, but what does it say to us today? Why does it matter for us that Jesus was transfigured?

    Jesus, by the way he lived and the things he said set us an example of how to live in the way God requires of us. But, important though it is, that is not principally what Jesus is about.

    The context of this short story in Matthew’s gospel is important. In the preceding verses Jesus has asked his disciples, who do you say I am? Peter answered him,

    You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God,

    And then, having praised Peter for his perception, Jesus makes the first prophecy in Matthew’s gospel of his passion,

    Jesus began to show his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day.

    Then, from this point Jesus’ story becomes more and more focussed on his death and resurrection.

    In this context this story of transfiguration becomes a vision of what will be true about Jesus in eternity because of the death and resurrection of Jesus. It’s a glimpse of his glory before the resurrection.

    It is what John, who let’s not forget was on the mountain with Jesus, said in the prologue of his gospel,

    The Word became flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that he has from the Father as only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

    Many commentators have suggested that the story of the transfiguration could have been a resurrection story which – by accident or deliberately – has become misplaced. A theory supported by an account of the resurrection itself in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter which bears a remarkable similarity to this account of the transfiguration.

    This story is told to make clear to us who Jesus is.

    It says that what is really important about Jesus, and what Jesus’ life is really all about is his death and resurrection and what that achieves for us.

    We’ll have plenty of opportunity to reflect on that during the next three months, of Lent, Holy Week and Easter.

    But for us today it is enough to be reminded that Jesus, the incarnate God, died on the cross and rose again for our salvation.

    And, because the death and resurrection of Jesus makes sense of everything from the story of the creation in Genesis to the account of the heavenly Jerusalem in Revelation, that is what this story does – it tells us that this is all about Jesus’ death and resurrection and our salvation!

  • Who do you say I am?

    St Wyllow, Lanteglos by Fowey, Cornwall

    This is the text of a sermon preached on Sunday 18th January 2026 at the Church of St Wyllow, Lanteglos by Fowey, Cornwall

    Isaiah 491-7 1Corinthians 11-9 John 129-42

    Look, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

    I have seen and I testify that he is the Chosen One of God.

    Look, there is the lamb of God.

    Three things that John the Baptist says about Jesus to his disciples in this morning’s gospel reading. In what he says he uses two of the titles of Jesus that are applied to him in the New Testament – Lamb of God and the Chosen One of God (in the second case some of the original Greek texts have Son of God rather than Chosen One of God).

    These are just two of the many titles applied to Jesus – Lord, Master, Rabbi, Son of God, Son of Man, Lamb of God, Son of David, Logos, Messiah – there are others.

    Some of them Jesus uses of himself, some are used by others.

    When John uses them here they are intended to draw his disciples’ attention to Jesus. They are spoken as a witness.

    The previous day John had told the priests and Levites who had come to question him about who he was that he was not the Christ, or Elijah, or the Prophet, and that there was another to come after him whose sandal strap he was not fit to undo.

    And now as he sees Jesus coming towards him. Look, he says to his disciples, there is the lamb of God that takes away the sin of the world.

    John points away from himself and towards Jesus. The principal role of John the Baptist in John’s gospel is not as a baptiser but as a witness. Indeed, in this gospel the baptism of Jesus is not recorded at all. What is recorded is John’s witness. This is what he came to do – point the way to Jesus.

    And very effective he is. Immediately two of John’s disciples go after Jesus and spend the day with him, as a result of which one of them, Andrew, finds his brother Simon Peter and tells him, We have found the Messiah.

    Andrew takes Simon to Jesus, who says to him, You are Simon son of John, you are to be called Cephas (which in Hebrew means Rock. In Greek it is Petros or Peter).

    In the few verses following our reading the next day Jesus, meeting Philip, calls him to, Follow me. Philip fetches Nathanael and tells him that Jesus is the one written about by Moses and the prophets. When told that he is Jesus, son of Joseph, from Nazareth. Nathanael expresses surprise that anything good could come from Nazareth, but after meeting Jesus and being told by Jesus that he had seen him under a fig tree replies, Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the king of Israel.

    In just a few verses of John’s gospel we have heard Jesus given the titles, Rabbi, Messiah, Lamb of God, Chosen One of God, Son of Joseph, Son of God and the king of Israel.

    Clearly, to each of the characters here who use a title for Jesus that title is significant to them. These titles mean something important for them.

    So important are these titles that they are the means by which they tell other people about Jesus. They immediately give others a clear sense of who Jesus is and why he is important.

    They use the titles as a means of witnessing to Jesus.

    All of which begs the question, Who is Jesus to us?

    This was a question that Jesus asked his disciples (Matthew 1613), Who do people say the Son of man is? And when they answer he asks them, more pointedly, Who do you say I am?

    We all need to ask ourselves, Who do I say Jesus is?

    It’s a crucial question with a crucial answer. And it is a question that no one else can answer for us. Each of us has to answer that question for ourselves. Why is Jesus important to me?

    And in our answer we might use one of the titles from the New Testament – Master, Lord, Teacher, Saviour, Son of God.

    But there is a good chance that we will want to use a title, or a phrase, of our own – the One who answers my prayers; he teaches me the right way to live; he forgives me and shows me how to forgive; he is the one who challenges me to be a better person; he sacrificed himself on the cross for me.

    There are many things we could say about him. You’ll have your own ideas. Your ways in which he has touched your life and transformed it.

    That is what makes us a Christian – recognising in Jesus someone who touches and transforms our life by the ways in which he has answered our prayers; by the way he challenges us to review our life; by the manner in which he shows us the way to walk in life; by the way he opens up for us the reality of eternal life – even if we aren’t always clear what that means.

    For each of us it is the way that he has touched our life that will dictate how we see him.

    And how we see him will affect what title we will apply to him. And for us those titles will matter – in just the way they mattered to John and Andrew and Nathanael because they speak of what he does for us.

    They also matter because they give us a way of speaking about him to other people. And because we are then speaking from experience and our witness, like that of John, or Andrew will be all the more compelling because it will be genuine – we will be speaking of what we know rather than simply saying what we’ve been told.

    The traditional titles of Jesus are important because they speak of the experience of the Church across the centuries, but the titles we give him today speak vitally of our own personal experience.

    As an example: to say Jesus is Lord to a person who has no experience of him could well be meaningless to someone whose only experience of a lord brings up an image from the TV of an old codger dozing on the red benches of the House of Lords.

    But to speak of the way in which Jesus has answered your prayer or made you a better person might elicit a more positive response.

    The Lordship of Jesus could make more sense into the future.

    Jesus comes to us and touches our lives in many different ways – and it is the ways in which he affects us that will give us ways to name him and to witness to him.

    Jesus says to us time and again, Who do you say I am?

  • This is my Son, the Beloved

    An icon of the Baptism of Christ

    This is the text of a sermon preached for the Baptism of Christ, Sunday 11th January 2026, at the Church of St Melor, Linkinhorne, Cornwall

    Isaiah 421-9 Acts 1034-43 Matthew 313-end

    Then Jesus appeared: he came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John.

    Up to this point in Matthew’s gospel all that has been recorded is the genealogy of Jesus – tracing his ancestry back to David and then to Abraham, a story of his birth, the account of the coming of the magi and the gifts they bring – gold, and frankincense and myrrh, the flight of the Holy Family to Egypt and their return to Nazareth, and an account of the proclamation of John the Baptist.

    And now with these words Matthew begins his record of the adult ministry of Jesus,

    Then Jesus appeared: he came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptised by John.

    This is Matthew’s way of telling us that it is what follows that we need to pay close attention to. All that has come before is important because it tells us who Jesus is, establishes his credentials if you like – a descendant of David and Abraham, affirms his status as an Israelite and as the anticipated Messiah; conceived by the Holy Spirit; that he is Immanuel, the God who is among us; recognised by the Gentiles in the persons of the magi; and witnessed to by John as the one who inaugurates the kingdom of Heaven.

    Jesus’ appearance at the Jordan where John is baptising marks the beginning of his adult ministry. It’s a watch this space moment.

    And the moment does not disappoint.

    John objects that it should not be him baptising Jesus so much as Jesus baptising him. But Jesus insists that by doing this they should do all that uprightness demands, with the humility that is a hallmark of much of Jesus’ ministry.

    Now is not the time to rock the boat. John has an important ministry, preparing the way for Jesus. Jesus is not ready to deflect attention away from John and onto himself. The time for that is not far away, but it’s not now.

    So far in his life Jesus has been an unknown. This is the moment when he takes the stage. He may have no need to repent but his acceptance of John’s baptism is a symbol of his fresh beginning, of his turning away from his home and family life and following the path set out for him by God.

    When we speak about repentance it’s not just about being sorry for sins. It is also, crucially, about our turning around and taking a new direction in our life.

    Jesus may not have had sins to repent of but this is a moment in his life when he turns around and takes a new direction, putting the past behind him.

    And we see other moments in the gospels, all of them significant, where Jesus turns and sets himself in a new direction.

    Moments such as, when Jesus visits Jerusalem with Mary and Joseph, in Luke’s gospel (Lk 241-50) with his parents and is chided for causing them anxiety and he responds,

    Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?

    The moment in the wilderness when he rejects Satan’s enticements to sin (Mt 41-11)

    Then Jesus replied, ‘Away with you, Satan! For scripture says: The Lord your God is the one to whom you must do homage, him alone you must serve.’

    And the moment when he sets his face towards Jerusalem, in Matthew’s gospel (Mt 1621-23),

    From then onwards Jesus began to make it clear to his disciples that he was destined to go to Jerusalem and suffer grievously at the hands of the elders and chief priests and scribes and to be put to death and to be raised up on the third day.

    And there are other moments – in the Garden of Gethsemane, before the chief priests and Pilate when he is put on trial – where Jesus consciously makes the choice to obey God’s will.

    And, like his response to John at his baptism, these are all moments of repentance in the sense of turning in the right direction.

    And so John relents and baptises Jesus.

    And when Jesus, having been baptised by John, came up out of the water,

    suddenly the heavens opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and coming down on him. And suddenly there was a voice from heaven, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him.’

    It is as if these five verses affirm all that has been claimed for Jesus in the preceding two and half chapters and set the context in which the whole of the rest of the gospel should be read.

    And more than that. The events around Jesus’ baptism are one of the keys, together with the events at the end of the gospel – the passion, death and resurrection – to our understanding of who Jesus is and the significance of all that he does.

    We cannot read the gospels without the knowledge that Jesus is proclaimed, at his baptism, to be God’s Son, empowered by the Holy Spirit; just as we cannot read them without the knowledge that, three years later, Jesus will be put to death on the cross and will rise again after three days.

    These are the events that define Jesus and our understanding of him.

    So what does it mean to us that the Holy Spirit comes down on Jesus and that he is acclaimed with these words,

    This is my Son, the Beloved; my favour rests on him?

    These events reveal, right at the beginning that Jesus’ life and ministry are God-given and God-empowered.

    This truth may seem obvious to us now but it is important that this truth is revealed at the outset of his activity and not simply revealed to us by his death and resurrection.

    Jesus’ actions – his miracles, his healing of the sick and the disabled, his teaching, are as important for us to reflect on as the significance of the self-sacrificial act at the end of his life.

    God is revealed in every part of his ministry – not just in his dying and rising again. The whole of his story is important for us.

    At his baptism Jesus turns his life towards God. And this is something he does again and again throughout his life.

    This story reminds us that turning towards God is something we need to do again and again. And as we do our faith is renewed, and, like Jesus, we are blessed by the presence and infilling of the Holy Spirit to fulfil our calling in Christ.

  • Emmanuel – God-is-with-us

    The Nativity scene from the Reredos in St Mary the Virgin, Chilthorne Domer, Somerset. Carving by the Pinwill Sisters

    This is the text of a sermon preached at St Neot, Cornwall at Midnight Mass 2025

    The readings were, Isaiah 92-7 Titus 211-14 Luke 21-14 (15-20)

    Each year, on the 29th May, here in St Neot we celebrate Oak Apple Day. It marks the restoration of the monarchy in 1660 as a branch of oak is hauled to the top of the church tower and remains there until the following May.

    That date not only marks the restoration of the monarchy but also the restoration of Christmas celebrations, because in 1647 Parliament had passed an ordinance saying,

    That the said Feast of the Nativity of Christ, Easter and Whitsuntide and all other Festival days, commonly called Holy-dayes, be no longer observed … within this Kingdom of England …

    The puritan parliament had banned all festivals, not because they were opposed to the Christian religion, but because they considered such festivals to be,

    a popish festival with no biblical justification.

    For thirteen years Christmas was indeed banned.

    Of its restoration the Poors Almanac said,

    Now thanks to God for Charles’ return,
    Whose absence made old Christmas mourn.
    For then we scarcely did it know,
    Whether it Christmas were or no.

    Well, we all know that it’s Christmas now with the endless stream of Christmas specials and the supermarket and perfume adverts on TV, the cards, the decorations, the lights, the Christmas carols, the Christmas songs, the parties – this is all part of our modern Christmas.

    Sometimes I wonder if the puritans didn’t have a point. But “No!” Happily, we do not live under such strictures. We are able to celebrate the birth of our Saviour as we gather in church to worship, or as we get together with family or friends and exchange gifts, or sit quietly in front of the TV and listen to the King’s Christmas message, gin and tonic in hand (other drinks are available).

    However, we celebrate Christmas, whether as a religious festival or a secular party, or even if we choose to ignore it altogether, muttering “Bah! Humbug” to any unwelcome reference to the season of goodwill, we are free to keep it in our own way. And, I’m delighted that you have chosen to celebrate here, in church, as we begin our celebration of the birth of our Saviour, the God, who in Jesus becomes incarnate – true God and true Man, fully divine and fully human.

    But what is it that has brought you here tonight?

    Perhaps for you it’s a family tradition to start the Christmas celebration by attending midnight mass to sing the carols, to enjoy the flickering lights of candles shining in the half light of the church and to make your Christmas communion.

    Maybe, over the past months and years, watching the news on TV, seeing the slaughter of innocent people in Ukraine or Palestine and Israel or Sudan or Bondi Beach you’ve been deeply affected.

    Possibly you’ve been troubled by news of the increasingly disastrous weather affecting many of the world’s poorest in places like Jamaica, Cuba and the Philippines recently, and heard the weather forecasters on TV telling us that the climate crisis has caused this year to be the second or third warmest on record, or that during the heatwaves of the summer numbers of vulnerable people are suffering or even dying. And you’ve thought there has to be a better way to run our world, a better response to the problems facing us, a more positive way to be found to be human than this. Perhaps there’s some hope to be discovered in the coming of the Prince of Peace as a baby in a stable in Bethlehem.

    Perhaps you worship here, or, if you’re visiting, in your own church Sunday by Sunday. You are a committed Christian and celebrating the birth of Jesus is your top priority in this Christmas season. You enjoy the parties and the Christmas songs and the Christmas movies and the family get-togethers but praising God for being born a human infant and bringing hope to the world is what Christmas is really all about for you.

    Possibly the weaponisation of Christianity by the far right to bolster their political campaigns has reminded you of a latent faith in Jesus Christ and made you think you want to realign yourself more closely with the mainstream Christian church.

    Maybe you’ve been dragged along by a parent or a friend, not quite sure why you’re here. It seems harmless enough but do I belong? Is this where I want to be?

    It could be that you’re just curious. You want to know more. Does this story about angels and shepherds and wise men have something worthwhile to say to us today? Is it just a pretty story or are there deep truths wrapped up in it?

    I have to say to you now that none of these are bad reasons for being here; whatever the reason that brought you – it’s a good one – you are in the right place!

    I am confident that for, most likely, everyone here there is something about the Christmas story that we find compelling and beautiful. It doesn’t matter whether we believe this story to be an accurate, factual description of the birth of Jesus, or if we see it as a metaphor for the way in which God deals with his creation.

    Either way the story is one full of deep truth and beauty. It speaks to us of the love of God and his desire for his whole human creation to know him and to find hope in him.

    This story reminds us that God loves all people – white and black, rich and poor, the oppressed and the oppressors, the victims of war, those injured and killed, those who flee and seek a safe place to be and to bring up their families, and the perpetrators of war and terror, good and evil alike. God’s sending of his Son is evidence of his desire for all people to be called to seek him and find him – to repent and find renewal, hope and peace in the child that today we see in manger and on Good Friday we shall see hanging on the cross and on Easter Day defeating death and rising to new life and bringing us with him.

    And it’s all there in this simple story.

    For in Luke’s gospel the angel tells the shepherds, when Christ is born,

    I bring you news of great joy, a joy to be shared by the whole people. Today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you; he is Christ the Lord.

    In Matthew’s gospel we are reminded of God’s words through the prophet Isaiah,

    Look! the virgin is with child and will give birth to a son whom they will call Immanuel, a name which means ‘God-is-with-us’.

    In John’s gospel we are told,

    to those who did accept him he gave power to become children of God

    and

    The Word became flesh, he lived among us, and we saw his glory, the glory that he has from the Father as only Son of the Father, full of grace and truth.

    A Saviour who is born to us, whose name tells us that he is God-with-us, who reveals to us the grace and truth that is in God’s Word become flesh – God become human; God Incarnate.

    Does Christmas tell us that God will solve all our problems? That if we pray the right prayers, or believe the right things, or perform the right rituals God will sort everything out for us?

    No! Christmas doesn’t tell us this at all.

    It tells us that God is on our side. That God is alongside us – when we suffer, he suffers with us. When we’re frightened he shares our fear. When we’re justly angry he shares our anger. When we’re delivered from pain, suffering or sorrow he shares our relief. When we’re happy he shares our joy.

    Because, in Jesus, God became human – just like you or me. The miracle of Christmas is not that a baby was born in Bethlehem, but that the baby who was born in Bethlehem is the God who shares our human nature so that we might share his divine nature.

    God can change us, when we’re ready to be changed; God can change the world, but only when we’re ready to change it. It’s something that we have to do together.

    Christmas is a challenge to allow change to happen – in ourselves, each one of us, and in our world.

    I wish you a blessed, holy and happy Christmas, a Christmas in which Jesus reveals himself to you and transforms you into his image.

  • Should we expect someone else?

    The Church of St Melor, Linkinhorne, Cornwall

    This is the text of a sermon preached at the Church of St Melor, Linkinhorne, Cornwall

    The readings were, Isaiah 351-10 James 57-10 Matthew 112-11

    Are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect someone else?

    This is the question that John the Baptist’s disciples are sent to enquire of Jesus.

    But before we think about this let’s remind ourselves of what John was proclaiming in the wilderness before he was arrested and thrown into prison.

    Repent, for the kingdom of Heaven is close at hand.

    I baptise you in water for repentance, but the one who comes after me is more powerful than I, and I am not fit to carry his sandals; he will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire. His winnowing-fan is in his hand; he will clear his threshing-floor and gather his wheat into his barn; but the chaff he will burn in a fire that will never go out.

    John’s message was of the need for repentance, but he knows that he was only preparing the way. After him will come another who will baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire. The one who comes after him will bring judgement. Those who are found worthy, the wheat, will be saved; those who are found unworthy, the chaff, will be sent to eternal fire.

    John is certain of his message and confident that the one who follows will complete his work, bringing in the final judgement, in a way that he cannot.

    The question that he sends his disciples with suggests that he’s not entirely sure that Jesus is the one who will do that. He’s starting to wonder whether this a false dawn. He’s having some doubts – perhaps because, sitting in prison, hearing reports of Jesus from his disciples, he’s become afraid that it’s all falling apart.

    He’s heard what Christ was doing and he’s not sure that Jesus is quite the Messiah he was expecting. And so, the question,

    Are you the one who is to come, or are we to expect someone else?

    The answer that Jesus gives uses quotes from the prophet Isaiah in chapters 35 and 29 where the prophet describes his expectation of the Messiah,

    the blind see again, and the lame walk, those suffering from virulent skin-diseases are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the good news is proclaimed to the poor; and blessed is anyone who does not find me a cause of falling.’

    In his reply to John Jesus clarifies exactly who he is. It is, of course, not just John and his disciples who hear this reply but also Jesus’ own followers – and us. Jesus is fulfilling the scriptural explanation of the identity of the Messiah. Maybe this is the part that John has not fully understood about the Messiah.

    Jesus does bring judgement as the next few chapters of Matthew’s gospel reveal, but for now his primary purpose is to bring hope to the blind, the sick, the disabled and to proclaim good news to the poor.

    John needs to think again about who the Messiah is, and what he is to do. He needs to understand that it’s not all about judgement; it’s also, and vitally, about proclaiming the gospel and bringing hope and renewal to the hopeless and the lost.

    There’s an advert on TV at the moment for a financial advice company which promises to see their clients as individuals and not to put them in a bucket. It’s a slightly odd metaphor but we get the point. This is what John has done with Jesus; he’s put him in a bucket – he thinks he knows what a Messiah should do and therefore is finding it hard to see that Jesus is truly the one he is expecting.

    To use a different metaphor John needs to take the blinkers off and see who Jesus really is. He needs to rethink and reevaluate. He cannot see the whole truth about Jesus because he is only looking for a part of it.

    As we find ourselves in Advent with its focus about preparing and looking for the second coming of Jesus today’s gospel has a timely message for us. What sort of Jesus are we awaiting? Are we ready to allow him to reveal himself to us or are we so sure that we know him that we would not recognise him if he came in a way we were not prepared for.

    There are many facets to Jesus’ life and ministry,

    Jesus the babe of Bethlehem; Jesus in the wilderness; Jesus the healer; Jesus casting out demons; Jesus the teacher; Jesus feeding the crowds; Jesus walking on water: Jesus changing water into wine; Jesus raising Lazarus from the dead; Jesus on the cross …

    You get the idea. You can’t pin Jesus down but so often we try to; we can so easily put him into a bucket.

    It’s good therefore from time to time to review what we believe about Jesus. And Advent is as good a time as any to do that. In the days leading up to Christmas as we think about what it means for us that Jesus came as a baby in Bethlehem we can challenge ourselves to think deeply in our prayers about what it means for us that God’s Son became human and lived among us as God and man.

    We need to ask ourselves in what ways Jesus challenges us. Perhaps we don’t feel challenged by him. But I believe that we should. If we’re not challenged by him we’re not really listening to him. Jesus challenged everyone who met him.

    Some were challenged to realise that their lives were going in a wrong direction – Zacchaeus the tax collector, Nicodemus, the Pharisee who came to him by night. Some were challenged to see themselves as valued and loved by God – the woman at the well, those possessed by demons or with disabilities. Some were challenged to see themselves as people who could be used by God – the twelve disciples. Some were challenged to reevaluate their lives – the rich young man.

    If we don’t see ourselves as challenged to be changed, to be transformed, by Jesus it may be that we have put him in a bucket which makes us feel safe and affirmed by him, but also makes us deaf and blind to what he is calling us to become.

    We can use this time of Advent to take him out of the bucket and let him reveal himself afresh to us. Jesus continually renews us and takes us in new directions.

    He is always revealing new things about himself – and about us. To learn from him we need to be ready to see him as he is revealing himself to us each day and hear him as he speaks to us the new things he is revealing to us.

    We must never assume that we already know him. He is never unknowable for he is always revealing himself to us. What gets in the way of our knowing him is us. It’s us believing we already know who he is.

  • Christ the King

    Interior view of St Tallanus Church

    The text of a sermon preached in the Church of St Talannus, Talland, Cornwall on Sunday 23rd November 2025, the Feast of Christ the King.

    The readings were, Jeremiah 231-6 Colossians 111-20 Luke 2333-43

    Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

    The words of the thief as he hangs with his companion and Jesus on their crosses.

    Today we celebrate the feast of Christ the King. It might seem strange therefore that our gospel reading recounts events from the crucifixion of Jesus. Hardly what we would expect to be how Jesus’ kingship is most clearly revealed.

    And yet, everybody in this account seems to be obsessed with what kingship might mean for Jesus.

    In the verses before those we heard read this morning we hear how the Jewish leaders brought Jesus before Pilate and make this charge against him,

    We found this man inciting our people to revolt, opposing payment of the tribute to Caesar, and claiming to be Christ, a king.

    Jesus they say claims to be a king – and therefore a threat to Roman authority.

    Pilate, finding no case against him sends Jesus to Herod. Herod questions him but Jesus is mute. Herod and his soldiers dress him in rich clothes, as if he were a king, and mock him, as if to say, Call yourself a king? You’re a nobody.

    Returning to Pilate Jesus is condemned and led away to be crucified. Again he is mocked, first by the Jewish leaders,

    He saved others, let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.

    In their eyes these words,the Christ of God,make Jesus a king. They are challenging him to use his kingly power to save himself from the cross.

    The soldiers crucifying him mock him, saying,

    If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.

    Then they crucify him and place the inscription above him on the cross,

    This is the King of the Jews.

    They too jeer at Jesus because he seems a poor imitation of a king. He has no power to prevent his execution. He has none of the trappings of a king. He has no army, no subjects, no power, no authority, no palace, no kingdom, no respect. He is at their mercy, a feeble and condemned man with no hope.

    And then there’s the first thief. In spite of his own suffering he mocks Jesus from the cross,

    Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us as well.

    Perhaps there’s the merest hint of a hope that it might be true, but ultimately it’s just another insult like all the others, Some king you turned out to be.

    And finally there’s the second thief,

    Have you no fear of God at all? You got the same sentence as he did, but in our case we deserved it: we are paying for what we did. But this man has done nothing wrong. Then he said, Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

    Jesus replies,

    In truth I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.

    At last, someone who gets it. Of all the characters in the whole account of the passion in Luke’s gospel only the second thief sees who Jesus truly is.

    He sees the same man who has been arrested, tried, condemned, mistreated, scourged, crucified and who now hangs, a pathetic figure, dying on the cross but also sees – a King.

    He alone sees that Jesus’ kingship has nothing to do with rich clothes, fine palaces, servants, armies, power or territory.

    He alone sees that the floggings, the mocking, the condemnation, and the crucifixion are necessary for Jesus to enter into his kingdom. Where everybody else thinks that the crucifixion and Jesus’ inevitable death marks the end of Jesus’ fortunes, the good thief sees that this is just the beginning. This death leads to resurrection and the salvation of all who believe in him.

    Jesus is not the sort of king, the Jewish leaders, the Roman soldiers, the crowds expect. He is a king who lays down his life for all who believe in him and brings them into his kingdom; a kingdom unlike any other for Jesus Christ is a king unlike any other.

    It is now that Jesus is entering into his kingdom. And with him the good thief. And following them all who know that Jesus is the King. This is not an end, but a beginning.

  • Stones and Kingdoms

    Antony Gormley’s Sound II, Winchester Cathedral

    This is the text of a sermon preached at St Bartholomew’s, Warleggan and St Neot, Cornwall on Sunday 16th November 2025The readings were, Malachi 41-2a 2 Thessalonians 36-13 Luke 215-19

    Earlier in the year when my wife, Hilary, and I were on holiday in Hampshire we visited Winchester Cathedral. We’d never been there before and we were struck by how beautiful and how holy it was. Like many of our cathedrals it has a number of lovely chapels and tombs of bishops and dignitaries, including Jane Austen, from centuries past. There is the site of the shrine of St Swithun, a former bishop of Winchester who is responsible for the shocking weather of the summer most years. It has wonderful stained glass and marvellous statues, some ancient and some modern, including an inspiring sculpture in the crypt by Antony Gormley. We thoroughly enjoyed our visit to this wonderful cathedral. It is large and ancient and speaks of the faith of the builders and the permanence of the religion which it represents.

    A bit like the temple in Jerusalem which so impressed Jesus’ disciples.

    Jesus though has something for them, and us, to think about,

    All these things you are staring at now – the time will come when not a single stone will be left on another; everything will be destroyed.

    The permanence of the temple and all that it represents is illusory. Not a single stone will be left upon another. A time will come when the temple is no more. If even the magnificent temple cannot survive what else can fall? What can we depend on? What is reliable?

    The answer Jesus gives can hardly have been very encouraging to the disciples.

    Wars, revolutions, nation taking up arms against nation, earthquakes, plagues, famines. There will be terrifying events and signs from heaven.

    But, says Jesus, these events are not to be taken as signs of the end. We’ve already heard that the end will come at a time nobody expects.

    The time, though, is near at hand. Before the end Jesus warns that his followers will be arrested and persecuted. They will called on to justify themselves before kings and governors because of their faith in Jesus.

    Their resolve must be not to have prepared a defence but rather to wait until the time and trust that Jesus will give them an eloquence and wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to resist or contradict.

    Some will even be put to death but he urges them to persevere even in the face of betrayal by relations and friends and that perseverance will win them their lives.

    What are we to make of all this? How can any of this be relevant to us today?

    The first readers of Luke’s gospel will have understood that everything Luke records Jesus as saying here has already happened.

    The temple has been destroyed and Jerusalem razed by the Romans. Christians are already being routinely persecuted for their faith – Peter had been imprisoned, James was beheaded and Stephen stoned to death.

    The temple that had seemed so secure and enduring is now rubble, the security that Jerusalem had known has now gone, the things that had once appeared certainties now seem transient. There is no peace, no guarantee of anything. Everything is unpredictable.

    And what is so different in our own time?

    Nothing. There are wars in the Middle East, Ukraine, Sudan, Myanmar, Syria. There are natural disasters in Jamaica, Cuba and the Philippines. The world is facing a climate crisis which is already starting to affect many developing nations, and even the developed nations are seeing changes in their climate. There is persecution of Christians in many parts of the world.

    Jesus is describing our world as surely as he describes his own. The things that he says must happen fall into a category that we might describe as inevitable.

    This, says Jesus, is what we always have to deal with.

    It’s tempting to imagine that these words of Jesus are a prophecy, a prediction about what will happen in the future, in the time after his resurrection.

    But, as we read these words they do not feel so much like something about what will happen in the future as what we see happening in the world around us.

    And that surely is true in whatever time we live.

    Jesus is simply describing the world as it is – and always has been, and doubtless always will be.

    Jesus is telling his disciples – and us – that such events may be unpredictable but they are also inevitable,

    And when you hear of wars and revolutions, do not be terrified, for this is something that must happen first, but the end will not come at once.’ Then he said to them, ‘Nation will fight against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be great earthquakes and plagues and famines in various places; there will be terrifying events and great signs from heaven.

    All of this may not appear very encouraging. Perhaps hardly at all the sort of message we expect to hear from Jesus, but he has more to say following these words which are not in our gospel reading today,

    they will see the Son of man coming in a cloud with power and great glory. When these things begin to take place, stand erect, hold your heads high, because your liberation is near at hand.’

    So with you when you see these things happening: know that the kingdom of God is near. In truth I tell you, before this generation has passed away all will have taken place. Sky and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.

    We cannot be immune to the effects of these events in our world, but Jesus wants us to understand where we should look for all that is permanent, dependable and trustworthy, because that is not to be found in the world, not even in our great cathedrals, or castles, or kingdoms or empires.

    Jesus wants us to look to the kingdom of God to find hope, security and eternity.

    The world will never change – it is the way it has always been, and always will be. But Jesus offers us something different, something which can be relied upon.

    And that something is the kingdom of God which Jesus’ coming has inaugurated. The events that follow this in Luke’s gospel – the passion, death, resurrection and ascension of Jesus are what make the difference.

    Remember how in John’s gospel Jesus says,

    Destroy this Temple, and in three days I will raise it up.

    The world offers only impermanence, uncertainty, pain and suffering. Human lea byders cannot be relied upon. Human enterprise is transient and unenduring.

    Jesus, though, offers something profoundly different. He opens for us the way into the kingdom of God. It is only in this kingdom that we can find the hope that the world can never offer.

    The warnings that Jesus gives in today’s gospel reading are intended to remind us to be aware that the world cannot offer us anything lasting or enduring – only God, and his kingdom are eternal. Stones crumble and are thrown down but only the word of God endures to eternity.

  • Love v Scripture

    The cartoon above appeared in the Church Times on 7th November 2025

    How we use scripture is crucial to our mission and to our personal growth in faith. It is one of the ways that God shapes us as Christians.

    For Christians scripture, the Bible, has authority. In the Church of England it is believed that scripture has authority for the establishment of doctrine (The Thirty Nine Articles of Religion, Article 6, Of the Sufficiency of the Scriptures). Nothing can be established as essential to be believed unless it can be justified by scripture. The faith as outlined in the Creeds fall into that category – they don’t require us to affirm anything that cannot be justified by scripture.

    That all seems very simple – we believe what scripture teaches us. Reading the Bible should tell us everything we need to know.. When we read the Bible it will clearly reveal the God-given truth to us. But, of course, it is never that simple.

    The moment we open the Bible to read it, in the privacy of our home or in the worship of the Church, we interpret what we read. We bring our own context to it.

    When preaching I often (almost always) say when trying to understand a biblical text that context is key. But I do not refer only to the context in which Jesus said the things he said, or did the things he did, but also in the context in which we read the text.

    It is almost always a mistake to read a verse from the bible in isolation. Think of John 13.14,

    If I, then, the Lord and Master, have washed your feet, you must wash each other’s feet.

    If we read that single verse and tried to apply it in our own lives even our Christian friends would think us a little odd. Out of context it is an instruction to literally wash each others feet; but in the context it is about becoming the servants of each other and about treating each other with humility and generosity.

    If I were to read that single verse with the wish to find out what Jesus wants me to do (my context for reading) then I shall want to be washing feet. But if I read it wanting to find out how Jesus wants me to respond to my Christian companions it will tell me so much more.

    This, broadly speaking, is the message that this cartoons gives. In the one case we would be using scripture to find out what love means. In the other we would be using love to determine what scripture means.

    This is just a single example but the point, I think is well made. The bible doesn’t so much tell us what love means, but love tells us what scripture means. Scripture reveals so much more when we come to it not looking for answers but for guidance; not so much looking for instruction as for clues as to how to work out our discipleship for ourselves.

  • A small first step

    Pope Leo XIV and King Charles III praying together in the Sistine Chapel

    On Thursday 23rd October 2025 King Charles III and Queen Camilla visited the Vatican. There they met with Pope Leo XIV. So much so ordinary you might think. But the King and Pope prayed together in the Sistine Chapel. The Catholic Pope, leader of the world’s Catholics and the Supreme Governor (not head) of the Church of England prayed together.

    Now you might suppose that a Catholic and an Anglican praying together is not so very strange at this point in our history – and you would be right; normally! But symbolically, at least, this is very significant indeed.

    There has been a deep division between Rome and the Church of England for around half a millennium, five hundred years. The division was caused by the Pope’s refusal to grant Henry VIII a divorce from Catherine of Aragon. Henry rejected the Pope’s authority and made himself head of the Church in England. Everybody knows that from their school history lessons.

    Of course, as always, it’s rather more complicated than that. There was a lot of political activity with Henry needing to form alliances and raise money to support his military ambitions. In addition, the same debates which were going on in the Reformation in continental Europe were also affecting Church life in England. Many of Henry’s leading church leaders were keen to see a reformation in England. The advice he received about how to gain his political ends will have served the interests of those who wished to see the Reformation take off in England.

    When Henry severed links with Rome he had no wish for the Church to change at all. He wanted the same Mass to be said, the same prayers, the same ecclesiastical setup. Hence the Church of England maintained much of its catholic practice. But it also underwent significant changes at the hands of Thomas Cranmer and other bishops of the time. Out went the Latin, in came the English Bible and liturgy, changes were made to the liturgy in the Book of Common Prayer, clergy were permitted to marry, traditional catholic doctrine was challenged and teachings closer to those of the reformers took its place.

    Catholics were persecuted in England and relationships were severed. It was not until the 19th Century that the temperature started to cool. The Second Vatican Council saw the Catholic Church become more open to dialogue with the Protestant and Anglican Churches.

    There are still many barriers to organic unity between the Anglican Communion and the Roman Catholic Church. These include some key doctrines of the Catholic Church, the ordination of women as priests and, especially, as bishops in the Anglican Communion. The readiness of Anglican Churches in north America, the United Kingdom and elsewhere to sanction the ordination of non-celibate homosexuals and to sanction same-sex relationships is a notable stumbling block for unity. However, things change, albeit slowly, in the Catholic Church and the same issues threaten unity within the Anglican Communion and the Church of England itself itself.

    So, to return to the prayers of King and Pope and its significance. No English monarch has prayed with the Pope (although the late Queen visited Rome and welcomed Pope John Paul II when he visited the UK) since the division with Henry VIII. When previous meetings took place praying together was not considered appropriate. That it is today reveals a greater openness to celebrate what we share in common. Perhaps too it suggests that we are prepared to start out on a path towards unity. It’s along way off yet but it cou;d the first small step.

    But symbolically it is a huge step forward. In the journey towards the unity of the Church, which is surely Christ’s will, it is a tiny, almost imperceptible step along that path. However, both Catholics and Anglicans know the deep significance of symbols – and that praying together is the surest path to unity.