Isaiah | The Irreverent Reverend

Trinity Sunday: Can You Handle the Truth?

31/05/26
Trinity Sunday

Isaiah 40:12-17, 27-31
Matthew 28:16-20

The first Sunday after Pentecost is always Trinity Sunday. That special day when we are meant to celebrate the Christian doctrine of the Trinity: God the Father, Jesus the Son and the Holy Spirit. Celebrating foundational Christian doctrine might not sound all that exciting, but it is!

It is always worthwhile to remind ourselves about the essence of our Christian faith after the seasons of Lent, Easter, Ascension and Pentecost. The church year now rolls along until Advent as the big festivals are complete.

The Church has marked Trinity Sunday since the mid 800’s. It was instituted to speak against the heresies of the early church as they worked out how to understand the nature of Jesus; was he only a man? Was he divine? A combination of both? How could the church understand and explain how God can be three and one.

Reference to the Trinity is woven through our services; each time I or we say ‘in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit‘. We repeat it each week in the Creeds. The entire Christian story is retold in the Eucharistic prayer before Communion; listen for the references again this morning.

It is difficult to understand and at some point needs to be believed as part of the mystery of God. But don’t simply jump to that conclusion (or not) as tempting as it is!

The doctrine of the Trinity sets out to tell the whole truth about God, even though it is difficult. The full Christian story is that God created the world, redeemed it through Jesus and is present in the world and our lives through the Holy Spirit. All equal, all the same.

From theologian Alistair McGrath,

‘Let’s pretend that God is simply someone up in heaven, who made the world. That’s the way many Greek philosophers thought about God. It’s not a difficult idea. So why don’t Christians just adopt this simple view of God? The reason is clear. This may be an easy idea to understand, but it is a totally inadequate view of God, from a Christian point of view. Why? Because this scaled-down God is the distant and far-removed creator of this world, who never becomes directly involved in its affairs. And Christians know that God just isn’t like that. For Christians, God entered into this world in Jesus of Nazareth: “the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory” (John 1:14). Good theology is about telling the full story, and enabling us to see the full picture. And that means weeding out inadequate ideas about God.’

Trying to deepen our understanding of the Trinity, should help us to expand our faith ideas of what it is to be a Christian. How? The Trinity should challenge us with the truth about God. Being a Christian is not solely about turning up to church or simply being a good person. The truth of God will always be more than our minds can cope with.

The truth of God will always convict and remake us. We are created in God’s image as everyone is. We cannot remake the image to suit ourselves. It is an image we are to grow and mature into.

Secondly, the Trinity shows us that God is dynamic. God is on the move. He flows, he dances. This proves that the idea of a distant God is inadequate. We pray and worship, we believe that God is creator and lord, we know that the Spirit guides and moves us to action.

We see the action of God in Isaiah 40. The Israelites are in Babylon by force as the prophecies of the coming exile have come true. Jerusalem fell to King Nebuchadnezzar and the Babylonians in 587 BC. This section is dated from the 540’s.

Isaiah is addressing people who have suffered the trauma of exile after 40 years. There is a new generation who did not know the ‘old’ Jerusalem. The writer is bringing hope and comfort to the community whose exile is coming to an end by the grace of God. He is reminding them of God’s vastness: a God who can measure the waters in the hollow of his hand, enclose the dust of the earth in a measure, and weigh the mountains on scales. Nations are like a drop from a bucket.

The writer makes the case that God can be trusted to save the exiles. He wants to and he can. God is the source of power and will renew the strength of the exhausted and weary. Isaiah is imploring the old generation to tell the new generation about God.

Jesus’ final commandment to his disciples in Matthew’s Gospel is to ‘Go! Make disciples of all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.’ They were not to stay still in Jerusalem and never change. Thank God they did go. God is always waiting and watching over us. He wants us to move and change; to become the people He created us to be.

Now some who heard Jesus that day doubted, hesitated. Why? Maybe they were not sure of what they were seeing? Was it really Jesus? Or a vision? They were not the first people who had trouble recognising the post-resurrection Jesus.

Disciples are learners and followers; if you want to learn and follow then you are in good company. We need to make more of them. This is not about securing more members to the group but securing wholehearted commitment to Jesus, to the Trinity. We do that by following the example of Jesus and being open to the work of the Spirit in our lives. What might that look like for you?

Take comfort in the words of Jesus, ‘I am with you always, to the end of age.’ The Trinity is not something we will ever fully understand but it is an attempt to tell the full story of God. Not the absent one but the God whose love and presence can be known here and now in the ordinary every day.

God is not forgetful or careless. No one who measured the water in the hollow of his hand or weighed the mountains on a scale lacks attention to detail. Remember that God is inexhaustible. God is unending energy. Jesus is unending energy. The Holy Spirit is unending energy.

Lean into God for comfort and encouragement. Lean into Jesus and follow his example. Lean into the Holy Spirit and ask for energy and imagination. Lean into each other as we continue to learn and grow together. May we be transformed by the Trinity.

Pentecost: The Great Festival

24/5/26
Pentecost

Acts 2:1-21
John 7:37-39

Creator God, as your spirit moved over the face of the waters bringing light and life to your creation, pour out your Spirit on us today that we may walk as children of light and by your grace reveal your presence. Amen.

Pentecost can be one of those Sundays where it is hard to come up with new material. We have the same readings every year, the same thing happened. What should be different is our reaction, has it deepened, changed? Have we experienced the work or movement of the Holy Spirit since Pentecost last year?

The story of the first Pentecost is overwhelming. No one knew what to expect. The disciples had hung together as Jesus had told them to. They were at their weakest point; tired, afraid, unsure and were waiting and expecting something to happen.

The Acts reading has the very public falling and filling of the Spirit; it would have been delightful, raucous chaos. Fear not if this makes you nervous. Not every filling of the Holy Spirit is a dramatic event. The Spirit falls on people the way they need to be met. All that is required is a willingness, a desire.

Pentecost is about people experiencing God in new ways. God is drawing new people from every nation at the time towards him. In Acts, the people, mostly Jews, are encountering the Holy Spirit and being changed. Jesus changes people. We are seeing an in-breaking of the Kingdom of God.

After the ascension of Jesus there was wide speculation that Jesus would return soon, likely in days or weeks. Certainly not 2,000 years and counting. There are fewer things that are worse than waiting for something with no idea when it will actually happen. The early followers of Jesus are waiting like this, staying together might have helped.

They also had something to look forward to; the Jewish Feast of Weeks. There are three pilgrim festivals in the Jewish calendar; Passover, Shavuot (Feast of Weeks) and Sukkot (Feast of Tabernacles). Each year faithful Jews were commanded to travel to the temple in Jerusalem to celebrate.

For centuries 50 days after the Passover, the Jews have celebrated with a feast, traditionally called Shavout. The number 50 points to fullness, ripeness, to a time that is ready for something to happen. This Feast lasted for seven weeks and a day. This was already a time of celebration. Pentecost happens 50 days after the resurrection of Jesus at Easter.

In the Feast of Weeks and at Pentecost, God was creating for himself a new people. When the disciples received the Spirit, they became witnesses for Christ. Here Jesus is forming a people for himself; His church and we are that church.

Shavuot and Pentecost are times to remember and give thanks for all that has been done for us. The Jewish people were to remember and celebrate their release from slavery by being generous to each other, feeding the widows, the orphans, the poor and other unfortunates. Our works, how we give our time and money should be a reflection of all that Jesus has done for us.

Looking back to the past to help explain a current situation is a common Jewish method of interpretation or understanding called ‘midrash’. This is what Peter is doing in Acts 2 when he refers to the prophecy of Joel to explain to the mostly Jewish crowd what is happening beyond ‘we are not drunk at 9 am.’ Joel announced that God was going to do something very special on Mount Zion (which is in Jerusalem). Peter is reminding and confirming that.

Pentecost also helps us to look ahead. In the few lines of John’s Gospel chosen for this morning Jesus is again preparing people for the coming of the Spirit. This time he is at the third feast, the Feast of Tabernacles, Sukkot.

The Feast of Tabernacles was to commemorate the 40 years the Israelites spent wandering in the desert. It is celebrated by dwelling in temporary outdoor booths (sukkahs). It is over seven days in the autumn; similar to a harvest festival to mark the end of the agricultural season with offerings of olives and wine. It was the most popular of the three pilgrim festivals.

The “forefathers” of the Jewish people are to be welcomed during the seven days of the festival, in this order: Day 1: Abraham; Day 2: Isaac; Day 3: Jacob; Day 4: Moses; Day 5: Aaron; Day 6: Joseph; Day 7: David.

All of these are remembered for their faith. All of them were imperfect, inconsistent and some did some shocking things; murdered, built idols, almost killed his son, slept with another man’s wife and set him up to die in battle, stole from his brother. And that is only some of the things that are documented.

The members of this group had moments of greatness when they remembered their dependence on God. This is a hallmark of this feast.

It is at this feast where Jesus is in John 7. Jesus sent the disciples to Jerusalem and told them he was not going to the festival. At this point in his ministry Jesus is growing in popularity; public teaching and healings are receiving attention from those in authority.

He then goes to Jerusalem in secret, shows up in the middle of the festival and begins to teach in the temple. The crowd is astounded. It appears that Jesus begins to teach on Moses’ day; Moses who received the ten commandments and led Israel to the promised land. Moses who stood on holy ground in front of the burning bush. The authorities want to arrest Jesus but they do not.

Then on the last day of the festival, the greatest day, Jesus appears again. The final day was David’s day. Jesus is from the house of David; it has been prophesied that the Messiah would come from the house of David. The final day was meant to be a day of joy and recitations as they waiting for Messiah to arrive.

There he is. It is thought Jesus spoke up after the ceremonies were over, the official bits done. Jesus is announcing that He is the fulfilment of all that the Feast of Tabernacles anticipated. Jesus is calling for people who are hungry and thirsty to come to Him. There is something familiar in Jesus’ words which echo Isaiah 55:

“Come, all you who are thirsty,

come to the waters;

and you who have no money,

come, buy and eat!

Come, buy wine and milk

without money and without cost.

²Why spend money on what is not bread,

and your labor on what does not satisfy?

Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,

and you will delight in the richest of fare.

³Give ear and come to me;

listen, that you may live.

I will make an everlasting covenant with you,

my faithful love promised to David.

Jesus came to save us, to heal us and change us from the inside out. We are not meant to be the same once we have met with Jesus. The Holy Spirit leads and guides us, it brings joy and peace beyond what we can imagine even in the most difficult of circumstances. The Spirit is often most powerful when we are at our most weak, tired, out of energy and resource.

Abundant life is what Jesus came to bring. Not just a little but or enough but big and abundant. Jesus is still pouring out his Spirit on people for their own salvation and to change and heal. It is literally the breath of life. We need to drink it in, let it be the breath of our lives.

At Pentecost we can be refreshed and refilled. It is not always dramatic but comes in the quietness and weakness.

Spend a few moments asking for the Holy Spirit to come. Fill those places where oxygen levels are low. Where the air is stale. Where they are signs of suffocation; where water needs to flow again.

Epiphany 2: Who are you really?

Vaccaro, Andrea; The Infant Christ with the Infant Saint John the Baptist; The Bowes Museum; http://www.artuk.org/artworks/the-infant-christ-with-the-infant-saint-john-the-baptist-45149

2nd Sunday of Epiphany
18/1/26

Isaiah 49:1-7
1 Corinthians 1:1-9
John 1:29-42

In the Epiphany season we are encouraged to look, see and find afresh. The wise men saw a star, followed it and found Jesus, King Herod saw a threat and tried to eliminate it.

In John’s Gospel this morning, John the Baptist saw Jesus coming towards him – two days in a row! John called those around to look and see the Lamb of God. The Christian life is a continual cycle of looking, seeing and finding. It is part of what we are called to do.

It is rather fitting that the first recorded question Jesus asks his disciples is ‘what are you looking for?’ I think it is still a relevant question for us today too. In terms of your faith, what are you looking for? In those deep places within, what are the desires and drives of your faith?

As we move into a new year what are you hoping for, expecting, asking for, looking for in your Christian life? Anything? Nothing? Same Same? Something? Do you know? It is worth giving some time this week to ponder the question as though Jesus was sitting in front of you and asking ‘what are you looking for out of your faith?’

It is not an easy question. Fear not if it has thrown you already! The disciples gave a rather lame answer to Jesus. The best they could come up with was ‘Rabbi, where are you staying?’ As though Jesus was asking them if they had lost their keys or a jumper. Jesus’ question is much deeper than that. The disciples had just heard John the Baptist’s exclamation of ‘here is the Lamb of God!’ and had started to follow Jesus; at least physically follow Jesus if not yet spiritually.

‘Who are you really?’ is more likely the question the first disciples was trying to ask. The disciples, as followers of Judaism, would have been waiting for the Messiah.

The reading from Isaiah this morning is among the oldest and best known parts of the Old Testament. There are 4 passages in Isaiah known as the Servant Songs. These Songs introduce and share the profound idea of salvation through suffering. This was not how people thought about suffering or salvation at that time. If you suffered you had done something wrong; think the Book of Job.

The identity of the servant is revealed gradually from song to song but it is still concealed. In Isaiah 49, the servant speaks for the first time in his own voice and in a very individual way. He has been chosen by God to carry on the mission of Israel where Israel had failed.

The mission was to restore the people of God (the Jews). God is going to give the servant as a light to the nations, that salvation may reach to the end of the earth. This means to everyone – not only the Jews.

If the disciples recalled any of these passages, it would have been an overwhelming experience and would most certainly require something of them. Jesus’ answer also required something of the disciples as it was an invitation to ‘come and see’.

So they went and saw where Jesus was staying and spent the whole day with him. What a day that would have been! The disciples obviously saw something that day that changed them forever. If the answer to ‘what are you looking for?’ ends up being ‘come and see’, will you be willing to go and see?

What about this year?

How about you as a person? Are you looking for more life? Time? Money? Health? Belonging? Certainty? Affirmation? Consolation?

Jesus’ invitation to come and see is an invitation to leave our comfortable places, an invitation to challenge what we think we know and change our perspectives. Come and see is an approach to life that is expansive, dynamic and exposes us to new experiences and ideas. When Jesus offers this invitation it is to be fully seen and fully loved by the one who created us.

Like all invitations that come to us, we have the option to turn it down. To stay where we are and not see anything new. We have a choice of what we look for, what we prioritise.

When Jesus looks at us, He sees our deepest desires, hungers, curiosities, needs and wants. He saw it in those first disciples and called out to them. Jesus is still calling us now. As followers of Jesus we are to take the braver path, the follow where He is leading us.

Christmas Day: All Around Us

Christmas Day
25/12/25

Isaiah 62:6-end
Titus 3:4-7
Luke 2:1-20

God our Father,
whose Word has come among us
in the Holy Child of Bethlehem:
may the light of faith illumine our hearts
and shine in our words and deeds;
through him who is Christ the Lord.

One of the many things that I love about this season is how the story of the first Christmas comes alive. We see it in the pictures on Christmas cards; we hear it in the words of Christmas carols; we see the drama played out in Christingle and Crib services. Even in the commercialisation and secularisation of our society, the story of that first Christmas does get told. Not always in words but in the symbols and pictures; seen if we pay attention to the world around us.

This morning we come together to celebrate the birth of Jesus. The baby laid in a manger. We need to not only look at the manger but in the manger. In the simple manger, in the smallness of a baby, we get a glimpse of the greatness of God.

Luke very deliberately mentions the manger and the child lying in it in three separate verses. Yes of course he was lying in the manger; no crib for his bed and all that.

Mary laid her firstborn son in a manger.

The angels tell the shepherds about the child lying in a manger.

The shepherds went with haste and found the child lying in the manger.

The manger was the sign to the shepherds. It told them which baby they were looking for. It showed them that the angel knew what they were talking about. It was important to give the shepherds their news and their instructions.

Why does this matter? It was the shepherds who were told who this child is. This child – the Saviour, the Messiah, the Lord.

Yet the manger isn’t important in and of itself. The manger is a signpost, a pointing finger to the identity of the baby boy who’s lying in it.

The shepherds’ arrival may have helped Mary and Joseph to confirm what had been their own secret up to now. What would it have been like for Mary and Joseph as the shepherds arrived? The secret is now out! I am not sure if you have had the experience of a secret being let out!

It can be quite shocking and uncertain. What happens next?! Who knows!? Maybe it was a relief after all that they had been through that God was faithful to his word. God is faithful to his word. Always. What a relief that is. In this uncertain world and in uncertain times we can look to the manger and know that God is faithful.

We also need to look in the manger, not just at it. Many people, Christians too, come to see the manger but they never look in it. For some Jesus remains the baby forever. A baby that is easily contained in the manger that gets brought out once a year, looked at, and then put away again.

When my nephew Riley was 5 years old, he and my sister had a bedtime conversation that went like this:

Riley: ‘Mom, how old are Great Grandma and Great Grandpa?’

Sister: ‘they are both 90’

Riley: ‘Mom, when will they go to heaven?’

Sister: ‘I am not sure but Jesus will be waiting to greet them when they go.’
Riley: ‘Mom – how old is Jesus?’

Sister: ‘Well he was born 2000 years ago but Jesus doesn’t age and has always been around.’

Riley: (with all the exasperation of a 5 year old) ‘Mom – Jesus is a baby!’

It is quite easy to take this view whether we are 5 years old or not. Jesus was never meant to be contained to the manger. Nor did Jesus just appear one night in Bethlehem as if out of nowhere. Jesus has always been around; part of God and the Trinity. He is more than a Baby!

The name of Jesus will go on forever.

Jesus. The very name at which one day every knee will bow.

Jesus. The very name at which every tongue will confess.

Jesus. A name with no parallel in any vocabulary.

Jesus. A name with power like no other name?

The angel Gabriel tells Mary, ‘he will be great’. Oh yes he is.

As we celebrate today, let’s spend a little more time at the manger worshipping the baby born to us. The baby who becomes the Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.

I love these names. I can identify with each of them as titles for the Child that has been born to us. He is my Counsellor when I struggle; Mighty when I am weak; Everlasting when unwanted changes come my way; the bringer of Peace when I am distressed.

I hope that you will know and experience the great love God has for you this Christmas. Not just at Christmas but at every moment of every day of your life; when things are calm and happy but more so when you are stirred up throughout.

I hope that you will know the Lord’s favour upon you.

I hope the name of Jesus falls sweetly on your ears and off your tongue.

The Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace lead you and guide you always.

Baptism of Christ: Into the Deep

12/1/25
Isaiah 43:1-7
Luke 3:15-17, 21-22

In this season of Epiphany (which lasts until the end of January) we will be looking at the epiphany experiences of Jesus and some of the people around him. Epiphany means ‘a moment of great or sudden revelation or realisation.’ I am not sure if you have had an epiphany moment but they are quite extraordinary!

Those moments when some new idea, knowledge or thought blows through your mind and you suddenly and sometimes drastically see the world, people, and a situation in a totally new way. Epiphany moments can cause a fundamental change in one’s life. Epiphany moments are not always dramatic affairs. They can happen in a quiet moment and you know that something has changed in your mind or heart. However they come to us, these moments are significant.

So it feels somewhat awkward to ask you: when was the last time we felt truly insignificant? I heard a great Epiphany sermon from a Lutheran pastor while on a family holiday a few years ago. He started the sermon on this particular Sunday with that question. When was the last time we felt truly insignificant? It kind of took me by surprise.

Earlier in the week I had considered my insignificance while sitting and watching the waves of the Pacific Ocean pound the beach. Over and over again, day in, day out. There was nothing I could do about it. I could not stop it or control it. I did not have the power. I could not even begin to begin to try. Little old me, sitting on a beach (not even considering the number of grains of sand I was sitting on) on a dot in the middle of the Pacific Ocean watching water. Insignificant or what?!

Actually I am and I am not. Same for you. We are all significant and insignificant.
How do we know this?

The Lord is addressing all of Israel in chapter 43 as He offers reassurance, ‘He who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: Do not fear for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.’

This was meant for the whole nation of Israel; all twelve tribes. This is also very personal too; ‘I have called you, Sarah, Heather, Peter, etc’. You and I are not insignificant because He has called us by name. The Lord will also be with you; ‘When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.’

Notice the ‘when’ and not ‘if’. Expect the waters, they will rise. Yet we will not be overwhelmed because He is with us. It does not always take a lot of water to be overwhelmed. Something that seems relatively minor can overwhelm us. When this happens we are to go or return to the Lord. He will be with us.

The next sign that we have to disprove our insignificance is found in the baptism of Jesus which is what we are remembering today. For many of us baptised as babies we may not see our baptisms as a moment of epiphany. Yet it is! We can hopefully find that moment in the baptism of Jesus for ourselves.

The crowd who were listening to John the Baptist that day were full of expectation. They questioned whether John was the Messiah. Notice that Luke adds the detail that the questioning came from the heart. There was a deep need for the Messiah to come. People were needing hope and a future; they were hungry. John answers the crowd with the reassurance that one more powerful is coming who will baptise with the Holy Spirit and fire. John had been preaching about repentance; the need to turn around, walk away from the sins that separates us from God.

Jewish law dictated that the people had to perform ritual washing when they had been defiled. This was the religious practice after normal bodily functions, like menstruation and childbirth for women, ejaculation for men or contact with a corpse. Bathing was required to remove various impurities.

John’s baptism of repentance transformed the ritual washing for physical impurities to moral impurity; those things that water cannot wash away. Baptism took place publicly as those who witnessed became responsible for helping the baptised to live the life that baptism signifies.

John had previously referred to his listeners as a brood of vipers. He was not preaching a message of fluff and ‘just be a good person’, or ‘as long as you don’t hurt anyone else’. John was preparing them not for salvation but for repentance, he was preparing them to encounter Jesus, the only one who could bring them salvation.

Picture that scene for a moment: the crowd of people have confessed their sins and go down into the River Jordan to be baptised. Then Jesus comes along and stands with his cousin on the bank. In the next moment Jesus and John are standing in the water too. Jesus is baptised; drenched in the same waters where they had confessed their sins. This is all about symbolism but do you see Jesus almost wearing the sins they had confessed in those waters? In the waters of baptism our sin is washed away through the work of the Holy Spirit.

This is the baptism that Jesus offers us. There is power in the water of baptism. Do we live like there is? What an amazing privilege it is to be baptized. We never have to feel insignificant again. We are called by name into the deep waters of baptism where He is always with us. He took on our sin and paid the price for us.

After Jesus was baptised heaven was opened and the Holy Spirit descended upon him like a dove. The voice of God ‘You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.’ This little glimpse of heaven! Jesus was about to be taken into the wilderness for his 40 days of temptation. I would like to believe that the sound of that voice stayed with him.

In the vastness of space and time, in the brevity of life we are insignificant yet we are called by name. We belong to God. The voice that called down from heaven is the same voice that calls our name. God is with us when we pass through the waters and the rivers and in the deep waters of baptism. We are significant to God and to each other.

May our prayer be to walk into our significance as God’s chosen children. Baptised in love and grace; knowing full-well that we are His beloved and with us He is well pleased.