renewal – exultemus

This is the text of the final talk in a series of talks for Lent 2017 given in the parish church of St Peter and St Paul, Lufton

John Newton, born in 1725, led an unpromising early life, pressed into the Royal Navy, captured and enslaved, he became the first mate and later captain aboard slave ships. During a serious illness in West Africa he acknowledged his need of God and was converted. In time, not immediately, he renounced his former life, married his childhood sweetheart and after a time working in Liverpool as a tax collector sought ordination. It took him seven years, because of his life as a slaver and as a virtual pirate, to persuade a Bishop that he should be accepted and was eventually made perpetual curate of Olney in Buckinghamshire in 1764. He worked there for seventeen years until he moved to St Mary, Woolnoth in London, where there is a memorial to him.

At Olney his assistant was William Cowper. Together they compiled a new hymn book, Olney Hymns, in 1779. The hymns were written not for the church services but for the prayer meeting. Continue reading “My God, how wonderful thou art”

We are just a few days into a new year. New years are strange things. Nothing changes between December 31^st and January 1^st but there is a palpable sense that there is a new beginning, an opportunity for things to be different. Hopes are expressed that the new year will be happy and prosperous (by implication unlike the old year just ended) and we often resolve to eat more sensibly, to drink less, to exercise more, to be less judgemental, to be more patient, to read more, to watch TV less, to sort out the attic, to paint the hall – but by about now we know that those things are not going to happen; life will continue exactly as before.

Changing our life always seems harder than we thought but transformed lives lie at the very heart of our Christian faith. Paul describes becoming a Christian as a completely new life and as a leaving behind of our old life. How can we who died to sin go on living in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life (Romans 6.2b-4); So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5.17). Jesus too speaks of change being a requirement for discipleship, If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me (Luke 9.23). Continue reading “One day at a time”