Sermon 23rd September 2007

Today’s sermon, from our Vicar, Cameron Barker, is based on the reading from 1 John 5:6-13

How can I be sure? In a world that's constantly changing. How can I be sure where I stand with you?' That's not a question posed by one of the world's great philosophers or theologians, by the way. It was actually asked by Dusty Springfield in a song in 1970 (and then by David Cassidy in 1972). But it’s a good question: it's the exact question that we're asking God this morning: 'How can I be sure? In a world that's constantly changing. How can I be sure where I stand with you?’
Now I think God wants to give us 3 reasons why we can be sure of where we stand with him. But before we look at those 3 reasons, I want to say 3 other things in advance. Then we can be clear of exactly what we're talking about.
Firstly, we need to be clear what we mean when we talk about being sure of our faith. Being sure of our faith is not the same as knowing all the answers. Of course Christians can, should, and must grow in understanding our faith. Hopefully that is part of what we do week by week. When we gather here on Sundays, it's not just to worship God. It's also to grow in our knowledge and understanding of God and our faith. That is very much at the heart of our current series. As we look at these fundamentals of the Christian faith, so we should be growing in our understanding of what we believe and why. And there are many other opportunities on offer to grow in our faith and understanding too – like in the small groups that meet around the parish.
But never in this life are we going to end up with all the answers. We can attend church every Sunday; we can study the Bible and pray every day; we can meet with others to do those things together every week. But there will always be things that confuse us. There will always be questions and probably even doubts in our mind. But that doesn't mean that we can't be sure of our faith! There are things we can be sure of. We can be sure of these facts that we heard in our reading: God loves us; he gave his Son for us; and he's totally committed to us. And knowing those things helps us cope with the uncertainties, with the doubts and the difficulties. The way I think of it is this: “what I know helps me to live with what I don't know.”.
The second preliminary thing I want to say is this: we can only ever be sure of our faith if we've already made the first step of faith. We can only be sure of our faith if we have already turned to God. We first have to admit to God that we need him to put us right with him. We need to ask him to give us the gift of his Holy Spirit so we can live with him and for him. Only if we've done those things can we begin to be confident in our faith. We’ve looked at how to do that already in this series, and we'll revisit it again later. And we will have a chance to make a public declaration of faith at the end of our series. But, in the meantime, if you feel you still need to take that first step yourself, have a word with me or John afterwards.
The third preliminary thing to say really introduces the 3 main points I believe God wants us to hear today. And it's this: ultimately our faith doesn't depend on us; it depends on God. The Christian faith is all about a relationship. It's about a relationship between us and God. But it isn't a relationship of equals. That reminds me of the story of the ant and the elephant. While walking through the jungle, they came across a narrow rope bridge – which they decided to run across together. When they got to the other side, the ant turned to the elephant and said: 'Boy, didn't we make that bridge shake'!
In our relationship with God, he is very much the senior partner. God is the stronger one, by far. He's the one who can and will keep us going. If our faith relied on us, we'd get nowhere, slowly. But we can be sure of our faith by being sure of God's faithfulness. If he's taken the trouble to make us his children through the death of his son, we can be sure that he can and will keep us as his children.
So what are the 3 things God wants to say to us, to help us be sure of our faith in him? I believe he wants to say to us that we can be sure of our faith because of what he has said. We can be sure of our faith because of what he has done. And we can be sure of our faith because of what he is doing.
So, let's take them in turn. We can be sure of our faith because of what God has said. Most of us are emotional yo-yo's – feeling up 1 minute, down the next. Our feelings can play terrible tricks on us, and can be more changeable than the weather. Sometimes we might feel good about being Christians; the next we ask whether it's all worth it. So if we base our faith on how we feel, we won't get very far. No, we need something that's outside us, beyond us, to hold onto. And God has given us just that in the Bible.
Later in this series we're going to look in more detail at why we read the Bible. But here's a taster of why. From the beginning to the end of the Bible, God never stops making promises. In it he never stops reassuring us of his love and commitment to us. And we can rely on those promises. We can rely on them when we feel good; and we can especially rely on them when we feel bad. Let me give you just 1 example. Suppose God feels far away: you feel maybe as if he's left you, deserted you even. Well, read Revelation 3:20, where Jesus says, 'Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with them, and they with me'. In other words, if we have asked Christ into our lives there's no doubt about how he's replied to the invitation. However we may feel, if we have asked him in, he is in – and he is in to stay. So we can be sure of our faith because God tells us that we can be.
Secondly we can be sure of our faith because of what God has done. When Jesus was on the cross, just before he died, he cried out: 'It is finished.' He wasn't just saying his life was over, he meant much more than that. Time and again in the NT the writers say Jesus died 'once and for all'. In other words, Jesus death on that one day in that one place has significance for all people and for all time. It wasn't an accident: rather God was doing something – finishing something – of enormous significance through it.
He was making it possible for the sins of the whole world to be forgiven; and for each of us to know him, through the death of his Son. We can have a faith, because Jesus died. We can be sure of our faith because God gave his Son to die on the cross for us. That's the point John made in our rather complicated reading. He says Jesus’ baptism and crucifixion are 2 witnesses to the fact that God was doing something unique in Jesus. The third witness is the Spirit. And what all three witness to, says John, is this: God has given us eternal life, and that life is in his Son.
And finally we can be sure of our faith because of what God is doing. There’s a bumper sticker which say, 'Please be patient, God hasn't finished with me yet'. We may not be into bumper stickers, but this one reminds us of something important: God is still at work on us today. He doesn't treat us like clockwork toys: he doesn’t wind us up when we first become Christians, and then leave us to unwind by ourselves. Quite the opposite: as Christians we are not on a downward curve, but an upwards one, because God goes on working on us and in us. Some of what he does will only be evident from the inside; but some will be seen from outside too.
From the inside, as time passes you should have an increasing conviction about the truth of the Christian faith. You should have an increasing assurance of the fact that you are God's child. You should experience a growing love – for God, and for other people. You may at times have a sense that God is specially close to you, or that he's even actually speaking to you very specifically. These internal changes, which only you may be aware of, can and should also help you to be sure of your faith.
But things should be happening externally too. One of the most exciting things about the work I do is seeing how God takes people and changes their lives. I could tell you any number of stories about how God has made people more like Jesus. Yes, there may be times when we doubt that God has done anything with us, when we doubt just about everything about our faith. It's at times like that when we must distrust our feelings, and hear what other people say to us – because they often know us better than we know ourselves. We need to hear them say to us: 'look, you are different, you have changed, it's not a dream, it is real'
So, we can be sure about our faith, because of what God says in his Word; we can be sure of our faith because of what God has done in Jesus; and we can be sure of our faith because of what he is doing in our lives. Let's pray ...

Sermon 16th September 2007

Today one of our Lay Readers, Trevor Tayleur, preaches, based on the passage from Matthew 27:62 – 28.10

Did Jesus Rise Again?

In 1957 the BBC broadcast a spoof documentary about the spaghetti harvest in Switzerland. The hoax Panorama programme was even narrated by Richard Dimbleby who was of course a very distinguished broadcaster. It featured a family carefully plucking strands of spaghetti from a tree and laying them in the sun to dry. Of course, the broadcast was just an April Fool's Day joke. But soon after the broadcast ended, the BBC began to receive dozens of calls from viewers, wanting to know how they could grow their own spaghetti tree. To this the BBC reportedly replied that they should "place a sprig of spaghetti in a tin of tomato sauce and hope for the best".
To be fair to the viewers, spaghetti was not widely eaten in Britain in the 1950s and it was thought to be an exotic dish. But the spaghetti harvest broadcast has gone down in history as one of the most successful April Fool’s Day jokes. Some people would place the story of Jesus’ resurrection, which we’ve just heard in the Gospel reading, in the same category; for them it is a story without foundation. For others it is the most significant event in the history of humankind. So, what is the truth? Did Jesus really rise from death?
This is actually a vital question. If Jesus didn’t rise from death, then we are wasting our time this morning. We might as well pack up, go home and watch TV. St Paul put it graphically in his letter to the Corinthians, “and if Christ has not been raised from death, then we have nothing to preach and you have nothing to believe.” Christianity stands or falls on whether the resurrection actually happened. And that’s what we’re going to be examining today.
We’re going to be looking at the Biblical account of the resurrection. Two weeks ago Cameron explained that the historical evidence for Jesus was overwhelming; there was more evidence for Jesus’ existence than there was for Julius Caesar, for example. And the Gospels were written either by people who knew Jesus themselves or who talked directly to eyewitnesses. The Gospels have very solid foundations. And they provide at least 3 convincing reasons why we can believe that Jesus rose from death.
The first is the empty tomb. When Mary Magdalene and the other Mary arrived at the tomb, it was empty; Jesus wasn’t there. There seems little doubt that the tomb was empty. When Jesus’ disciples first started to preach the Good News, they didn’t do so in some far away city such as Athens or Rome. No, they started in Jerusalem itself, where it would have been easy to prove what they were saying was false, simply by producing Jesus’ body. If the empty tomb had not been generally accepted as a fact in Jerusalem, the disciples would have been laughed out of court. Their opponents could simply have gone to the tomb, opened it and produced the body. The tomb was empty. But the question is - how did it become empty? Some alternative theories to the resurrection have been offered.
One suggestion is that Jesus didn’t really die; that he wasn’t completely dead when he was removed from the Cross. According to this theory shock from the loss of blood on the Cross, his wounds and all that he suffered sent him into a semi-coma. And when they put him in the tomb, the smell of the spices and cool air revived him. So when he came out of the tomb, the disciples assumed that he had risen from death. How likely is this theory to be true? Not very likely at all! If it is true, it means that Jesus successfully survived a horrendous beating and the loss of a lot of blood, crucifixion and the loss of yet more blood, and then being stabbed with a spear, leading to more loss of blood through a gaping wound. And what’s more when the Roman soldiers stabbed him with a spear, John’s Gospel tells us there was a rush of blood and water out from his wound. Now John wouldn’t have known it, but this is actually a well-known medical fact today: Jesus’ blood had separated into clot and serum, and it’s a sure sign that he was well and truly dead.
But let’s suppose that he hadn’t died; that he had gone into a semi-coma. Can we really believe that he then survived another three days in the tomb with no food and water, that he came to without any medical assistance, got himself out of tight wrappings, walked on pierced feet and single-handedly moved a huge stone away from the entrance and ran off without being noticed by highly trained Roman guards? This seems highly improbable, to say the least.
And even if he had somehow managed to do all that and found his disciples, he would have been in desperate need of medical attention. His disciples would hardly have gone around proclaiming that this half-dead man had risen from the dead. The claim that Jesus didn’t really die cannot explain the empty tomb.
Another theory is that the disciples stole the body. Again this is extremely unlikely. As we can see from our Gospel reading, the Pharisees had taken steps to make sure that this wouldn’t happen. They had gone to Pilate and asked him for a guard to stop Jesus’ disciples stealing the body, and Pilate had given them the guard. These would have been highly-trained, professional soldiers. The Roman army was famous for its iron discipline. It’s almost inconceivable that the whole unit would have gone to sleep, as was later claimed. Also, it’s very improbable that the disciples would have had the guts to do it. They were depressed and afraid. They thought it was all over. They would have been far more likely to have kept their heads down – which the Gospels say they did – than to try to steal the body. It’s extremely unlikely that the disciples stole the body. But could the authorities have stolen it instead?
This suggestion is equally improbable. They would have had no motive: in fact they had the exact opposite of a motive! And even if they had a motive, if they had stolen the body, why didn’t they produce it when the disciples first started to proclaim that Jesus was alive. That would have crushed the infant Christian Church at birth. So why didn’t the authorities produce it? The answer is simple: they didn’t have it.
The best explanation for the empty tomb is that Jesus was alive; he had risen from death. The empty tomb is a major piece of evidence supporting the resurrection. A second piece of evidence is Jesus’ appearances to his followers.
The resurrection accounts list as many as 11 different appearances of Jesus, starting with Mary Magdalene and ending with the apostle Paul. On one of these occasions, he appeared to over 500 people. It’s not possible to argue that all these people were hallucinating; the variety of situations and the number of individuals involved disprove this possibility – “group hallucinations" don’t provide a plausible explanation. Further, many of the people involved were very down to earth. They were fishermen, tax collectors and sceptics like doubting Thomas. And they weren’t seeing a “ghost”. These appearances were very physical and real. Jesus ate with his disciples; he suggested that they touch his side and his hands and he even cooked breakfast for them one morning on the shore of Lake Galilee. There is ample evidence of Jesus’ resurrection appearances.
And the third piece of evidence is the disciples’ changed lives. If they had stolen the body, everything that followed would have been a gigantic lie. Now, we know that the disciples weren't the bravest of people; the disciples fled after Jesus’ arrest and Peter, their leader, denied that he knew Jesus three times. Would this rather timid bunch of people have faced the hardships that followed if they had known the resurrection was a lie? Would they have been willing to be beaten up, would they have been willing to be whipped and thrown into prison for a lie? Would they have been willing to die for a lie? People may be willing to die for their faith if they believe it’s true. But people will not die for their faith if they know that it’s a lie. Their changed, totally transformed lives provide further evidence for the resurrection.
I’ve only been able to scratch the surface of the arguments. And if you want to read more, I can recommend a couple of books, The Resurrection Factor by Josh McDowell or Who Moved the Stone? by Frank Morrison. Frank Morrison was a lawyer who set out to write a book to dispel what he thought was the myth of the resurrection. Instead, he concluded that Jesus did rise from death and ended up writing a book that was the exact opposite to what he had originally planned!
Richard Dawkins has defined faith as “blind trust, in the absence of evidence, even in the teeth of evidence”. That is blatantly wrong; there is strong evidence in support of the resurrection. But it would be a mistake for me to end here. I believe that the resurrection is an historical fact, but I suspect that the Devil also believes that it’s a historical fact. Christianity is much more than a historical fact.
So what difference does it make, that Jesus rose from death? Last Sunday John ended his sermon with these words; “At the foot of the Cross we find restoration and wholeness.” Jesus died for us on the Cross to restore us to God, and he defeated death. Jesus is alive. He is living today! On Easter Sunday at the start of our service the leader declares, “Alleluia! Christ is risen.” The response that we give, and which Christians have been giving for centuries is, “He is risen indeed, Alleluia!” These words aren’t simply blind faith; the evidence tells us that they are true. “Alleluia! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, Alleluia!”
Let’s pray.
Father, Sometimes we may know something is true, but we’re unwilling to accept the implications of the truth. Help us to believe that Jesus is risen indeed not only in our minds, but also in our hearts and in our actions. Amen.

Sermon 9th September 2007

Our Associate Vicar, John Itumu's sermon is based on the reading from Romans 3: 21-26

Why did Jesus die?

Arrested in the middle of the night, Jesus is brought before the Sanhedrin and Caiaphas, the High Priest. He is beaten up and taunted the whole night and early the following morning, condemned to scourging and crucifixion.
Stripped of his clothing and his hands tied to a post above his head, the Roman legionnaire steps forward with the flagrum; a short whip consisting of several heavy, leather thongs with two small balls of lead attached to the ends of each. This heavy whip is brought down with full force again and again across Jesus’ shoulders, back and legs. Every lash tears and extracts body tissue as the balls of lead sink deeper and deeper; turning his body into a huge continuous bleeding wound.
When the centurion in charge determines that the prisoner is near death, the beating is stopped. They throw a robe across his shoulders and place a stick in his hand for a sceptre and then a small bundle of flexible branches covered with long thorns is pressed into his scalp. A huge heavy wooden cross is placed on his shoulders – he stumbles and falls from weakness; someone else helps to carry it.
At Golgotha, the beam is placed on the ground and Jesus is placed backward against the wood. The legionnaire feels for the depression at the front of the wrist then drives a heavy, square, wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the wood. The other hand too. The left foot is then pressed backward against the right foot, and with both feet extended, toes down, a nail is driven through the arch of each. He dies an agonising death – and to be sure that he is dead, a lance is driven through his ribs.

Well that was crucifixion; the Roman method of dealing with criminals which served as a great lesson to would be offenders. 2000 years on, the cross(crucifix) is a jewellery item – adorned by folk from all over the world – and which often means nothing to the wearer. When you look at the cross again, or if you wear one, be reminded that it was symbol of shame, scandalous; and such a cruel form of execution that Romans abolished it in AD 315, because even they, thought it was inhumane.

And so why did Jesus have to die on a Roman cross? If he was as kind, loving, compassionate; if he healed the lame, blind, fed crowds of hungry people, stood up with the marginalised in society; he didn’t murder, steal or molest children.
Why do you kill such a man? Why did Jesus die? That is the question we will be asking and answering this morning.

We have a huge problem in our world today – recognizing our sinfulness. Coming to terms with our sinfulness is the single greatest revelation that can happen to a human being. It is a revelation that wealth, status or education cannot offer; only a simple broken heart full of humility will admit this. And that is when life begins. You and I need to admit that we are sinners.

Paul reminds us in Romans 3: V23 …for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God…

The root cause of sin was a broken relationship with God right at the garden of Eden. The bible paints a multi-dimensional picture of the weakness of humankind. It starts with a couple but spreads to a family, a dynasty, a city, an entire nation and indeed all humanity. To declare oneself to be without sin is to deny being human.
But we have hindrances that blind us from recognizing this:

Hindrance 1:
When we look out -there is always a worse person than us.

I get annoyed when cars zoom past at 70mph down a 30mph road and think to myself– surely it’s dangerous and they should get caught.
But when I get flashed at by the 30mph sign – slow down… I think but surely, I am rushing to an important service or whatever…
Talk about different standards for ourselves! All is sin regardless.

Humanly speaking of course, there are degrees of sinning and therefore differences – but all fall short of God’s expectations.
No one even approaches God’s standards. We all fall short of God’s image in which we are all made but which we all fail to live up to. Someone once put it this way:
The prostitute, the murderer, the liar, paedophile are short of it; but so are you. Perhaps they stand at the bottom of a mine, and you on the crest of Mt Everest; but you are as little able to touch the stars as they.
All have sinned – in Paul’s world, Jews and Gentiles, in our world the black, white and yellow people. All means everyone who answers to the description of human being.

Hindrance 2:
We have an awesome capacity for making excuses, an art we perfect with time – it is always the other person’s fault…
Here is a record of actual things written on accident claim forms:

· 'The guy was all over the road. I had to swerve a number of times before I hit him.'
· 'My car was legally parked as it backed into the other vehicle.'
· 'The pedestrian had no idea which way to go, so I ran over him.'

Does that language sound familiar? All have sinned.
The bible says a few things about sin.

Sin pollutes - Mark 7:20-23
Jesus said that our problem is not on the outside - what we eat - but the inside:
'What comes out of a man is what makes him 'unclean'. For from within, out of men's hearts, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, lewdness, envy, slander, arrogance and folly. All these evils come from inside and make a man 'unclean'.'
It’s all in our hearts.
Supposing on a flip chart now, for any one of you, is going to appear all the things that you have thought and said and done this week – all the secret things. Promising to show it the following week to all who appear on it today and every Sunday –
I think in consequent weeks church would increasingly become an unpopular place to be. These things on the inside pollute us.
And maybe it was only one or two things you could identify with in the list, but however little sin pollutes.

Sin is powerful
These things take a grip on our lives. Jesus said, 'Whoever sins is a slave to sin.' John 8:34
We have seen alcohol, heroin, shoplifting, or stealing cars and other habits easily get a grip on people's lives. It is equally true of the less obvious things. A bad temper or lust or greed or slander, gossip can get a grip on our lives.

There is a penalty for Sin
These things have consequences. Romans 6:23: 'the wages of sin is death'. This means all sin regardless of its magnitude. The bible frequently reminds us that one day we will stand before God in judgement. (Matt 25:14-30; Luke 19:12-27; 1 Cor 3:12-15 etc)

Sin separates us from God
The prophet Isaiah (59:1-2) says that the things we do wrong cause a partition between us and God. And ultimately that leads to an eternal separation from God.

But thank God, Christianity doesn't end there - that's where it starts. Christianity is good news because despite God’s wrath upon sin, he so loved the world that he did something about it.

And all are justified freely by his grace through redemption that came by Christ Jesus. This righteousness is given through faith in Jesus Christ to all who believe.

That is why Jesus had to die on the cross. Christ shed his blood in a sacrificial death for us sinners. In the OT God had instructed that sin be dealt with sacrificially and blood was involved.
Leviticus 16 describes what happened on the Day of Atonement
God instructed Aaron to bring two goats. One was slaughtered for the sin offering for the people; blood was sprinkled on the cover of the ark in the Most Holy Place - tabernacle. On the second goat, Aaron would lay hands on its head and confess over it all the wickedness and rebellion and sin of Israelites, and send the goat into the wilderness and release it. The need for shedding of blood ingrained an understanding of the holiness of God and the consequences of sin.
In Hebrews 9 we read that Jesus entered the tabernacle, the most holy place once for all by his own blood, so obtaining redemption for you and me. That is why we declare that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.

Jesus died for you and me, in our place, as a substitute. Let’s try and make sense of that with an illustration:
Two great friends were at school together, all the way to college. But after College, they went totally separate ways. One went on to become a judge, the other went on to become a criminal. And one day, the criminal appeared before the judge. He'd committed a terrible crime to which he had to plead guilty.
The judge loved his old friend, and at the same time he was a judge. He couldn't simply say, 'Don't worry, I'll let you off' - that wouldn't have been justice. But he couldn't simply impose a penalty on him, because that wouldn't have been love.
This is what he did - he fined him the appropriate amount for the offence – which was huge. And then he took off his wig and gown, and he came down and wrote out a cheque for the fine and he gave it to his friend.

Because God loves us, he has come down to earth in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ and paid the penalty for us. We were captives, slaves in bondage to our sin but Jesus has brought us out of captivity, by shedding his blood, out of love as the ransom price.

The love, the idea, the initiative and the action are all God’s gift to us. We can say that God gave himself to save us from himself. Jesus said on the cross – it is finished, accomplished! This demands a personal response because we can only receive this gift by faith.
You see when the judge came down from his position as judge and handed his friend the cheque, his friend had every right to say, 'sorry, I don’t need it' – but with grave consequences.


I want to offer you a chance to respond to the love and mercy shown by Jesus at the cross. You know your life – the delights and the mess. Here is an opportunity to offer them all to God. Your doubts, pain, un-forgiveness, finances, children …everything
At the foot of the cross we find restoration and wholeness. Amen.

Sermon 2nd September 2007

The sermon is from our Vicar, Cameron Barker, based on the reading from Matthew 16:13-18

WHO IS JESUS?

He was born in an obscure village, the child of a peasant woman. He grew up in a different village, where he worked in a carpenter’s shop until he was thirty. Then, for three years, he was a travelling preacher.

He never wrote a book. He never held an office. He never had a family, or owned a house. He didn’t go to university. He never visited what we would call a big city. He never travelled more than 200 miles from the place where he was born. He did none of the things we usually associate with greatness. He had no credentials but himself.

He was 33 when the tide of public opinion turned against him. His friends ran away. He was turned over to his enemies, and went through the mockery of a trial. He was nailed to a cross between 2 thieves. While he was dying, his executioners gambled for his clothes, which was the only property he had on earth. When he was dead he was laid in a borrowed grave through the pity of a friend.

Twenty centuries have come and gone, and today he is the central figure of the human race, and the leader of human progress. All the armies that have ever marched; all the navies that have ever sailed; all the parliaments that have ever sat; all the kings that ever reigned, put together, have not affected the life of people on this earth as much as that ONE SOLITARY LIFE.

That anonymous piece of prose says it all, so very well. No-one who looks at the world today can deny the impact that Jesus of Nazareth has had on it. Look at our own country. It's not just that our towns, cities and villages are full of churches built in his honour. It's also that the whole fabric of our society has been affected by him. Many of our schools and hospitals were started by his Church as a way of serving him – like the school in our own parish, for example. Much of the law in our country was framed as an attempt to give expression to his teaching. It's true to say that so much of what we take for granted today only exists because a man named Jesus was born in Bethlehem 2 000 years ago.

But why has he had such an impact? The simple answer is that it’s because of who he is. It’s the nature, the character of the man that has given him such impact on our world.

So who is he? That’s the question we’re looking at today, as we begin our autumn series: who is Jesus? Between now and the end of November we'll be examining some of the key fundamental beliefs of the Christian faith. We'll be thinking about what we believe as Christians; about why we believe it; and about what that means for how we live each day. That's a crucial part of being mission-shaped – that we know and understand what we believe, so that we can explain it to others when they ask us.

The talks in this series will shorter than normal. That's to give us time to respond, to think and to talk afterwards. There will be a chance to do that after each service, and mid-week too (at St John's on Thursday evenings at 8.) And, at the end of this series, there will be a special opportunity to respond to what we'll have heard and seen in it. We'll explain the detail of what that will be during the course of this series.

But this is where it all starts – with the issue of who Jesus was and is. That question is absolutely foundational to the rest of our series. It's foundational because in the coming weeks we’ll go on to tackle the range of questions that naturally arise from asking who Jesus is.

So, who is Jesus. Well, the reality is that he’s many things to many people. Ask anyone you know who they think Jesus is, and they will almost certainly give you some kind of an answer. Their answer may surprise you, so why not ask your friends and family, and hear what they have to say. A few years ago there was song written that put many of the answers about Jesus' identity to music. I'll spare you the singing, and just read the lyrics:

Some say he was an outlaw,
that he roamed across the land
with a band of unschooled ruffians
and a few old fishermen.
No-one knew just where he came from,
nor exactly what he’d done,
but they said it must be something bad
that kept him on the run.

Some say he was a poet, that he’d stand upon a hill,
that his words could calm an angry crowd
or make the waves stand still,
that he spoke in many parables
that few could understand
but the people sat for hours just to listen to this man.

Some say he was a sorcerer, a man of mystery
that he walked upon the water
that he made a blind man see.
That he conjured wine at weddings,
did tricks with fish and bread,
that he made the lame to walk again,
and raised people from the dead.

Some say a politician, who spoke of being free,
he was followed by the masses on the shores of Galilee.
He spoke out against corruption and bowed to no decree,
but they feared his strength and power,
so they nailed him to a tree.

Yes, Jesus really is many things to many people. But more often than not, Jesus is what people want him to be. They have some cause or concern that they champion. Then they paint a particular picture of Jesus, so that they can conveniently recruit him to their cause. But as we’ll see in a moment that really won’t do ...

Now to some people of course, Jesus is the stuff of fairy tales. He has no more basis in fact than the tooth-fairy, and faith in him is just a blind leap in the dark.

I know I told this story here recently, but it bears repeating now. It's the one about a missionary running an orphanage in the Middle East. She was driving her jeep when she ran out of petrol. She had no jerrycan in the car. All she could find was a potty. She walked a mile down the road to the nearest petrol station, and filled the potty with fuel. As she was pouring the petrol into the tank, a very large Cadillac drew up, occupied by wealthy oil sheikhs. They were absolutely fascinated to see her pour the contents of the potty into the jeep. One of them opened the window and said, ‘Excuse me! My friend and I, although we do not share your religion, we greatly admire your faith.’

And to some people believing in Jesus is just like that. It’s a blind leap in the dark that has no basis in fact or reason or history at all: faith and fact are quite separate. To such people faith is, as one little boy once put it, ‘believing things that you know aren’t true.’

So, some people reject belief in Jesus because to them it’s as irrational as believing that there are fairies at the bottom of your garden. Other people want to hold on to Jesus. But they want to have him on their own terms, to make him into what they want him to be.

But neither of those approaches will do at all, because they ignore what is critical. What's critical is that faith in Jesus can be – and must be – based on solid, historical fact. We needn’t doubt Jesus’ existence: there's more historical evidence for the existence of Jesus than there is for the existence of Julius Caesar, for example!

Jesus is mentioned by the Roman historians Tacitus and Suetonius, and by the Jewish historian, Josephus. But our primary source of evidence about Jesus is in the pages of the New Testament. And it’s important for us to remember that the New Testament is not a collection of fairy stories. No, it’s solid, sober, well-documented history. The gospels were written either by people who knew Jesus themselves, or by those who talked closely to such eyewitnesses. We can rely on the picture of Jesus that the New Testament gives us. And it’s the picture that the New Testament gives us – rather than our own fads and foibles – that must decide the question, ‘Who is Jesus?’.

It’s that question which is asked time and time again in the gospels. ‘Who is this man?’ is the question that puzzled Jesus’ disciples and opponents alike. And it’s that question which is at the heart of the short Bible passage I read earlier. In it, Jesus first asked his disciples how other people answered it. And they came out with a whole catalogue of views: ‘Some say John the Baptist, others say Elijah, while others say Jeremiah, or some other prophet.’ His disciples framed their replies in the religious language of the day. But it’s not that far from people today who label Jesus as a revolutionary, or a pacifist or a guru.

But Jesus then took the question and made it personal: ‘What about you? Who do you say I am?’ I stopped at that point; but there was an answer given. It was Simon Peter, who replied. He's most notable in the gospels for getting things wrong, but he got this one right: ‘You are the Messiah/Christ, the Son of the living God.’ We know that he got it right because of Jesus’ reply: ‘Good for you Simon, son of John! This truth did not come to you from any human being, but it was given to you directly by my Father in heaven.’

And, interesting as it is to ask what other people think of Jesus, sooner or later each one of us must answer this key question for ourselves. So it is as if Jesus turns to each one of us today, and says to us: ‘What about you? Who do you say I am?’

Who do you think Jesus is, then? And, if he is who Peter said he is, then what does that mean for you; and what will he want from you? It’s those critical questions that we all have to answer for ourselves at some time in our lives. And it’s those critical questions which this series can and will help us to ponder – and to answer – over the next three months. So now let’s pray that we'll do just that.