​This time last year at extremely short notice, I was asked to preach on Remembrance Sunday in Brixton Prison.

This was quite a challenge because there had been no Christian Chaplain in Brixton for several months.  That was why I got a rather panicky telephone call from the Governor’s office 24 hours before Remembrance Sunday 2017 asking me, even though I was not ordained at the time, if I could come in and lead the service as a layman.

For good measure, this military sounding voice on the line said rather firmly 

“And the Governor does want a proper, formal Remembrance Day Service with a full two-minute silence”.  

Aye, Aye Sir, I more or less replied but with some anxiety.

Proverbs 8.1,22-31, Colossians 1.15-20, John 1:1-14 

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of all our hearts be acceptable to you O God, our Strength and our Redeemer. Amen.
 
Today’s lectionary readings took me a little by surprise! It feels only yesterday that I was preaching from chapter one of John’s Gospel on Christmas Day. This past week the two Christmas trees at St Stephen’s finally came down, along with the rather sad looking Christmas Ponsettias on each window sill. The crib set was carefully packed away, and at 8am on Friday morning we celebrated the feast of Candlemas – the Presentation of Christ in the Temple. At the beginning of that service I read those poignant words: “Today we are looking back to the day of Christ’s birth and forward to the coming days of his passion”. The message was clear - these are transitional times. How then do we inwardly digest the poetic prose of John’s gospel at this particular time on the Second Sunday before the start of Lent?
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Readings: Isaiah 64: 1 – 9, Corinthians 1: 3 – 9, Mark 13: 24 - end

​ “Will we enter the season of Advent with faith or with fear?”
This was the challenging question put to our congregation by Father Jamie in his Sermon here two Sundays ago.
So let me pick up his gauntlet with the help, or arguably with the hindrance, of today’s readings. 
​

Alleluiah! Christ is risen. He is risen indeed, alleluiah!
​
How long we have been waiting to say those words. We have literally been in quarantine
for the last six weeks. That after all is what forty days and forty night are - quarantine!.
For this period of time Alleluiah has been struck from our vocabulary. In the Middle
Ages the Sarum Use liturgy instructed that a chorister should be whipped out of the
cathedral on Ash Wednesday to symbolise the Alleluiah being whipped out of the
liturgy. There were times when I was Precentor of Salisbury when I thought seriously
about reintroducing that ancient tradition.

​This is where life begins;
this is where the church begins;
this is where you and I and the world around us begins again.
Here in the darkness (you must close your eyes and imagine the
darkness!) - in the darkness, the emptiness and the silence -
before any candle was lit we gathered together. We had nothing, -
all our success, our status, our prestige, our respect and position
in the community, have been stripped away. Like the Lord we saw
crucified yesterday we stand naked. Ecce Homo : Behold the Man
said Pontius Pilate, as he presented the Christ to the multitude.
Homo in Latin but Adam in Hebrew - Behold Man. Here we
behold ourselves - humankind - stripped of our pretension -
revealed as we truly are.

You probably know the medieval English carol Tomorrow shall be my
dancing day.

Tomorrow shall be my dancing day
Sing, O my love, O my love, my love, my love; This have I done for my
true love.
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It’s a carol usually sung at Christmas - but the original ballad contains
these rather unChristmassy verses: