Fifteen minutes! You’ll be happy to know that that is not the length of my sermon! That’s my rough estimate of the time it took for the life of a desperately ill woman to be totally changed through her contact with Jesus. It wasn’t long, as Jesus was being pressed by an important man to come home quickly with him. But fifteen minutes changed forever the life of an insignificant, ordinary woman, whose name we don’t even know.

Let’s try and imagine the scene. Jesus has just returned from the far side of the Sea of Galilee. His reputation as...

 Job 38:1-11  Mark 4:35-41

Today’s reading from Job and today’s Gospel have a common theme, and that theme is questioning – humans questioning God and God questioning humans. 

In our Old Testament reading God asks Job:

“Who is this that darkens counsel by words without knowledge?”

In the Gospel, we have a series of questions. During the storm the frightened disciples wake Jesus up and ask him:

“Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?”

Jesus stills the storm and then asks them:

“Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?”

And the passage ends with a further...

When I was teaching three decades ago we always began the new school year by planting spring bulbs; that we would hope would grow in secret over the coming months and bring us great joy in the dark months of the new year. The bulbs of daffodils and hyacinths never failed to delight the children or the staff and they came to represent more than just pretty flowers blooming in the Winter.

For me they became a symbol for the ‘secret growth’ my young changes were undertaking during the academic year. As the bulbs came to maturity so too were...

“... the Lord, he gave them the Garden of Eden, and everything that was needed to feed on, except for the tree of the knowledge of life, but he hadn’t reckoned on Adam’s wife!”

Those are words from a song I sang in primary School about 50 years ago! It goes on the tell the story of Adam and Eve’s temptation and the gaining of knowledge they didn’t need to have which led to God’s displeasure and despair of his human creation.

Adam and Eve were very content in the Garden of Eden, until they ate of the tree of...

“Observe the Sabbath day and keep it holy, as the Lord your God commanded you. For six days you shall labour and do all your work.” Deuteronomy 5:12-13

Although keeping the Sabbath is not in the top three commandments, it is closer to the number one spot that say number 10. So, like all the commandments in their due it is important in our faith and religious practice. Why though, is it one of the Ten Commandments and does it have much relevance to life today?

Personally, I believe that we should pay great attention to this commandment (and all...