Sermons

Sermon on John 10: 22-30 and Acts 9:36-43 Mirfield Upper Church Sunday, 8th of May 2022 Revd Dr Dorothea Bertschmann May I speak in the name of the living God Who is Father, Son and Holy Spirit There is nothing which says “spring” to me like sheep grazing peacefully in the sunshine or resting in […]

The Second Sunday of EasterActs 5.27-32     John 20.19-end I should like us to think about a verse in St Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 28 verse 2. “The Angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone and sat upon it.  Alleluia. Alleluia.”          This verse is sung at Mattins as the antiphon […]

Lent V: Passion Sunday 3.4.2022 – HR. Readings: Isaiah 43: 16-21; Ps. 126; Phil. 3: 4b-14; Jn. 12: 1-8  May it be given me to speak in the name of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. AMEN “Mary took a pound of costly perfume, anointed Jesus’s feet and wiped them with her hair,” says the […]

These are notes, as the sermon was not fully written out. Funeral good friend. He had two sons. Refused  to talk to each other’ Blessed with the best set of brothers and sister that anyone could wish for but even between us there have been moments…. Ever since Cain and Abel stories of fraternal conflicts […]

My thoughts are not your thoughts, nor are your ways my ways, says the Lord. *************** Sometimes a biblical text doesn’t seem very encouraging for a preacher, or indeed for those who are hearing the sermon. The prophet Isaiah has God’s Word place an abyss between God and us, what we understand and do: as […]

War, Identity and Home If a certain tendency, in at least some parts of the world, to over self-confidence in our advanced state as modern human beings needed any puncturing, the events of the last weeks must surely have let a considerable amount of air out of these tyres. The images and reports from Ukraine […]

Jesus Tempted in the Desert I start my sermon not in the Judean desert, but in a place well known to some of us: Hogwarts school and the world of Harry Potter. In Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, a boy called Cedric Diggory is killed by Voldemort. Professor Dumbledore speaks about him to […]

SERMON 27 FEBRUARY 2022 The Sunday next before Lent (Quinquagesima) In the early centuries of the Christian Church the best cosmologists were in Egypt.   For that reason Christians relied on the Egyptian calculations to know on what Sunday the great Festival of Easter would occur in any particular   year.   The Patriarch of Egypt, such as […]

Fr John preached without notes, and so we regret there isn’t a text to post.

“He came down with them and stood on a level place, with a great crowd of his disciples and a great multitude of people”. **************************** The level place: – life can be confusing at the best of times, and few would argue this is the best of times. How comforting it would be to have […]