I have called you by name

Isaiah 43.1-7
Luke 3.15-17,21,22
The other day I had an appointment for a check up at the dentist. I went along but the receptionist couldn’t find it – I’d made a mistake it was not January 4th but April 4th. So I was quite relieved.
Like most people I don’t like going to the dentist even if it’s just for a check up but there is one thing I do like about the dentist in Downham Market – the one in the High Street, Instead of sitting and waiting for a number to come up on a screen the dentist himself comes into the waiting room and calls your name, it makes the whole experience more pleasant. And I do have to say the dentist I have at the moment is the best I have ever had!

Of course if he saw me in the street he probably wouldn’t recognise me and I wouldn’t expect him to remember my name.

We’ve all been in the situation where we bump into someone we’ve met before and we just can’t remember what their name is. I try all sorts of things and one thing that works best is if I associate them with someone else who has the same name. So if i meet an new Carol I make a picture of them with Carol NL if it’s Wendy, – with our Wendy, Nick and John and so on….

Crazy but True

Mark 3:20-35

I don’t know about you but sometimes I think about what I believe and know it is a crazy story.  A man appears on earth, claiming to be the Son of God . He is said to have gone about healing people and teaching them wonderful things but in the end he is put on cross and killed. His followers then start saying he has come alive again, and that anyone, just by believing in him and confessing their sins can live forever. Doesn’t that sound like an unbelievable story? You just couldn’t make it up!

May 8th – everything will be new and shiny!

Easter 3b Acts3:12-19, Luke 24:36-48

luke,I’m really looking forward to waking up on May 8th because then we will begin living in utopia- at least that’s what the politicians tell us if we vote for them. Lots of promises, money put into the NHS, tax relief for hard working families, improvements in schools, one party was pledging 18 billion pounds in tax cuts, hope not despair, everything will be refreshed, everything will be new and shiny.

In Jesus day they Jews were expecting a new king, someone who would overthrow the Romans and give them back their land so they could govern it themselves. When the new king came everything was going to be different,  there was going to be a new utopia.  Unlike us, they didn’t live in a democracy, they had no vote.

Now the Secret is Out!

Ephesians 3:1-12

Matthew 2:1-12

So we have had Christmas, we have cooked and eaten  delicious food, wrapped and unwrapped presents, we have entertained others and visited our friends and relations, we have sung about angels and shepherds, Joseph and Mary and the child in the manger, we have heard readings about the Word becoming flesh, of no room at the inn, of shepherds abiding in the fields and today of the Magi.

Shepherds and Angels

Carol Service

How many of you have been in a school play? that might have been 20,40, 60 or even 80 years ago! I always desperately wanted to take part, and remember auditioning unsuccessfully for many roles.  But once in primary school I did get a part as we acted out the Pied Piper of Hamelyn, the story of the Piper who rid the town of rats, so you can probably guess what I was … yes I had a  non speaking part as a rat, I can still picture the tail, a lady’s stocking, – tights were still to be invented –  stuffed with newspaper and I wore boring grey trousers, a grey top, and a rat mask. (Actually I have a tail and mask here to show you!)

I was the lowest of the low!