"The Son is the radiance of God’s glory and - the exact representation of his being, sustaining all things by his powerful word." - Hebrews, chapter 1 I’d like to try and paint three pictures in your mind, without PowerPoint, if possible! Please do bear with me. The first starts with a question! Have you ever seen a partial eclipse of the sun? You know, when the moon moves across the sun and it looks like someone’s taken a bite out of the sun itself. It’s usually a big thing, predicted for weeks ahead with lots of publicity and TV coverage. If the weather is good and it’s a clear day, you can see the passage of the moon really well. I remember looking at several over my life, one in Cornwall in mid-summer, which was quite amazing, one in the back garden here on the Wirral, six or seven years ago, and one when I was at school. The thing I recall most about that one was that the teachers distributed black plastic photographic film. We had to hold the film up against the sun
I was recently in a Zoom meeting when someone said “I feel like a lump of coal”. We were discussing the current world crisis and its effect on the church and ourselves as individuals. The person who said this was feeling very low due to her own personal circumstances and I began to think about the meaning of what she said. A dirty piece of coal does not look attractive and seems quite useless. In fact, unless it is in a fire burning with other coals, it will not do what it is meant to do. If a single coal is taken out of the fire, it no longer burns - it dies. We are like coals and we need fellowship with others as part of spiritual growth. This is very difficult in the present situation when we can’t meet together in groups and it is easy to feel alone and isolated. Coal is made of carbon and we can learn a lot from exploring the various kinds of carbon. We are all equal in the eyes of God. We are one but we have different characters, even changing at different times. L
Everlasting God, we pray for our new King. Bless his reign and the life of our nation. Help us to work together so that truth and justice, harmony and fairness flourish among us; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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