The Narrow Path

  Thursday, May 1, 2025 Psalms 1; 2 Exodus 16:22-17:7 Luke 24:13-27 Observance: Philip and James, apostles and martyrs Cried To The Lord (Exodus 17:4) So Moses cried to the Lord , “What shall I do with this people? They are almost ready to stone me.” We see in today’s first lesson a story that plays out in our own lives, every day, multiple times a day. Firstly, there are the people: they are being led through the wilderness by a column of smoke by day and a column of fire by night, an unmistakable sign of God’s presence. And yet in their grumbling they blame Moses for leading them into the wilderness. God’s providential hand is guiding their lives literally every step of the way – and they cannot see it. Next, we have Moses. The manner in which the people complained to him must have been terrifying, for he thought they were going to kill him. But his first reaction – almost an instinct by this point – is to turn to God in prayer. In fear for his ...

  Wednesday, April 30, 2025 Psalms 148; 149 Exodus 16:1-21 Luke 24:1-12 Left Til The Morning (Exodus 16:20) But they did not listen to Moses. Some left part of it till the morning, and it bred worms and stank. And Moses was angry with them. Singing good hymns is really important for Christian discipleship. We can argue back and forth whether we should be singing along to a guitar or an organ and not really get anywhere. But the important bit is twofold: it should have a memorable tune and solid words. And so when we read today’s first lesson about bread from heaven, do you start hearing the sounds of Welsh male voices off in the distance? Jesus himself used today’s scene from Exodus to describe how we are to feed on him spiritually. Grumbling just as their ancestors did, his accusers demanded a sign, perhaps like Moses in the wilderness. In response, he preaches on how we are to feed on him spiritually in order to live forever; the manna in t...

  Tuesday, April 29, 2025 Psalm 145 Exodus 15:19-27 Matthew 28:11-20 Observance: Catherine of Siena, spiritual teacher (d. 1380) I Am With You Always (Matthew 28:20) [ Jesus said ] … I am with you always, to the end of the age. Our God is not a distant God; we do not have to call out from the other end of the house to get his attention. Nor is he a mechanical God; there is no switch to flick to set him to “blessings: on”. God is not stingy, nor is he even sensible in the amount he gives away; his mercy is over all that he has made. Consider also the name of God we are given in today’s first lesson: “I am the Lord, your healer”. Christ the Great Physician heals all our diseases, and behold, he is with us always, to the end of the age. The scriptures are laden with repeated declarations from the Lord of two things: that he is good, and he is near. Jesus, as the greatest revelation of God, is the one in whom we die, and the one in whom we l...

  Monday, April 28, 2025 Psalm 19 Isaiah 50:4-11 Acts 12:25-13:13 Observance: Mark, evangelist and martyr [ Transferred from April 25 ] Astonishing Teaching (Acts 13:12) Then the proconsul believed, when he saw what had occurred, for he was astonished at the teaching of the Lord. Today we observe the feast of St Mark. The actual feast day is April 25; however, we had two good reasons to move it. Firstly, because this year it fell in Easter Week, and I’m sure the evangelist would have been happy to be transferred for the sake of our Lord’s resurrection. Secondly, because we also had ANZAC Day, which as we should be proud to always keep in mind, was invented by an Anglican priest. Your local RSL may not have included it in their ceremony, but it has its own Proper Collect to pray, as well as two full sets of readings to choose from. Back to St Mark. We read an account from St Luke’s Acts of the Apostles who mentions a certain John, also called Mark...

  Saturday, April 26, 2025 Psalms 137; 138 Exodus 14:15-30 Mark 16:9-20 Proclaim The Gospel (Mark 16:15) And he said to them, “Go into all the world and proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” One of the highlights of my life in ordained ministry so far happened through our welfare ministry. I happened to be sitting with some people who were waiting to be served, and we were speaking about nothing of real consequence; merely talking about the general state of the world and our place in it. By a miraculous movement of the Holy Spirit, one of the people got a curious look on their face and asked, “so what is it that you Christians believe, then?” Believe it or not, we do get given opportunities to present the gospel to people. Jesus commands us to “go into all the world”, not hide ourselves away in caves, and through this lifestyle, “proclaim the gospel to the whole creation.” So the question for us, is, have we prepared a gospel presentati...

  Friday, April 25, 2025 Psalm 135 Exodus 13:17-14:14 Mark 16:1-8 Observance: ANZAC Day Whatever He Pleases (Psalm 135:6) Whatever the Lord pleases, he does,     in heaven and on earth,     in the seas and all deeps. The Lord does whatever he pleases; so let us consider what he has done, and see how it tells us of what pleases him. Pharaoh and his men wanted to enslave the Hebrews; so it pleased the Lord to drown them in the Red Sea. Were the Hebrews to pass through the main highway then they would be exposed to war; and so the Lord was pleased to lead them peacefully through the wilderness. The wilderness was a big place with not much to guide a traveller’s way, so the Lord was pleased to lead them himself, in pillars of fire and smoke. The Lord is both creative and good, and so it pleased him to make a good creation. Sharing in the good work of creation pleased the Lord, so he made man and wo...

  Thursday, April 24, 2025 Psalms 130; 131; 133 Exodus 13:1-16 John 21:15-25 Many Other Things (John 21:25) Now there are also many other things that Jesus did. Were every one of them to be written, I suppose that the world itself could not contain the books that would be written. We are all characters in the grand narrative of God’s story. In our own side-plot, we are the main character; but bring all those side-plots together and we find ourselves swept into the main thread, which is the work of the Triune God in the redemption of his people. Some Christians may feel a little put out by the fact they are only side characters. Yet not even the biggest supporting characters were proud of that fact; take John the Baptist’s famous line, that “I must decrease, so that he may increase”. When God told Abraham to look up into the night sky and try and count the number of his descendants, you and I were not even visible to the naked eye; we were off in some ...

  Wednesday, April 23, 2025 Psalms 124; 125; 126 Exodus 12:37-51 John 21:1-14 Thrust Out (Exodus 12:39) And they baked unleavened cakes of the dough that they had brought out of Egypt, for it was not leavened, because they were thrust out of Egypt and could not wait, nor had they prepared any provisions for themselves. Christ is risen, alleluia! And with not a minute to waste. Before his salvation was applied to us by his Holy Spirit, we were dead in our sins; sore oppressed in the land of misery. But when the light of his countenance came upon us, we were thrust out of the darkness under the careful, watchful eye of the Lord. There is no mourning for what we have left behind. Spite, malice, wickedness: all that leaven of the old man is dead and buried in the tomb. Let the dead bury their dead, and let us put our minds to the life of light we have been led into. Not only we were led out of the darkness, the darkness thrust us out. How co...

  Tuesday, April 22, 2025 Psalm 118 Exodus 12:21-36 John 20:19-31 Peace (John 20:19) On the evening of that day, the first day of the week, the doors being locked where the disciples were for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” When Jesus hung on the cross, he spoke. Seven statements of his are recorded for us in the Gospels, and they are of infinite value to the Christian pilgrim. But what about the first words he said after his resurrection? We read yesterday what he said to Mary Magdalene: “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” (John 20:15). With the grieving, he is tender. He is also pastoral; he leads her from grief to joy. Jesus shows off his pastoral skills with the disciples behind the locked door, too. Fear is the word St John uses to describe the situation in the room, and the opposite of fear, according to Jesus, is peace. And again he said to them, peace. St T...

  Monday, April 21, 2025 Psalms 121; 122; 123 Exodus 12:1-20 John 20:1-18 For My Brothers Sake (Psalm 122:8) For my brothers and companions' sake     I will say, “Peace be within you!” Christ is risen, alleluia! How was your Lent? How was your Holy Week? How was your sacred three days of the Great Triduum? What I love about this time of year is that it feels like, by comparison to the rest of the year, a time of being spiritually supercharged. The slow burn of Lent, the imminent catastrophe of Holy Week, the dread of Maundy Thursday, the horror of Good Friday, the slow exhale of Holy Saturday, and the unspeakable joy of the party of Easter Day – time truly is a gift from God to be used in order to get to know him better. And yet all these things have already happened. We do not re-enact so much as remember Christ’s passion, cross and resurrection. Now that we explode into Easter Week, we hopefully have a new and greater ...

  Saturday, April 19, 2025 Psalm 30 Genesis 2:1-3 John 19:38-42 Observance: Saturday in Holy Week [Easter Eve] Rested From All His Work (Genesis 2:2) And on the seventh day God finished his work that he had done, and he rested on the seventh day from all his work that he had done. What do you suppose most people think Jesus was doing when he lay dead in the tomb? The medievals, with their famous imagination, came up with the idea of “the harrowing of hell”, whereby Jesus descended into the place of the dead, did battle with Satan and released the prisoners he had come to save. It is a brilliant piece of historical fiction, but it doesn’t quite seem to line up with the rest of the Bible. Jesus’ final words on the cross were “it is finished”. At those words the curtain in the temple split in two from top to bottom; the old covenant was finally fulfilled, and the eternal Son of the Father had done in time and space what he had been doing sin...

  Friday, April 18, 2025 Psalm 40 Genesis 22:1-18 Mark 15:21-41 Observance: Good Friday Delight In Your Will (Psalm 40:8) I delight to do your will, O my God;     your law is within my heart.” When faced with the horrific tragedy of the cross, we ought to always remind ourselves to ask the question “why?” The cross of Christ is the single defining moment of all human history, and the great revelation of God to humanity. There is very good reason why Psalm 40 is set as our Psalm for today’s Morning Prayer. This very good reason is explained in Hebrews 10:1-10. There, it says that “when Christ came into the world, he said”, and then quotes Psalm 40:5-7. The words of this Psalm are the words of Christ himself. We are then taught that it was God’s will that Christ should die on the cross. The reason for this is so that we may be sanctified by his death. Sanctification is one of those words that like to call “Christ...

  Thursday, April 17, 2025 Psalm 55 Exodus 24:1-11 John 17 Observance: Maundy Thursday I Am Praying For Them (John 17:9)   I am praying for them. I am not praying for the world but for those whom you have given me, for they are yours. In this chapter of John’s Gospel we have an insight into how the Godhead talks about us. When God the Son and God the Father commune with one another and discuss what is happening, and the topic moves to us and our considerations, this is how they speak: they speak of love. Consider that we are actually thought about in the first place! Jesus speaks of being glorified in the presence of the Father in the glory he had before the world existed – and yet he is also thinking about us. Just as the Father and the Son are one in glory and majesty and holiness, he prays for us. We who are so far from being one, let alone having any glory or majesty or holiness. Not only are we on God’s mind, we are thought of h...

  Wednesday, April 16, 2025 Psalm 88 Jeremiah 11:18-20 John 16:4b-33 Observance: Spy Wednesday Your Hearts Will Rejoice (John 16:22) So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you. Bound together in all our meditations on the love of God is the fact that God is Trinity. As much as the forthcoming loss of Jesus from the disciples was cause for much distress, he had to leave them for a little while, so that the Helper would come to them. Yet let us be honest about the heartbreak here. After all that Jesus has said and done and is saying that he is about to do, the prospect of now being separated is heartbreaking. For Jesu, joy of man’s desire to be taken away, is soul-crushing. Nevertheless, he tells us the truth: it is to our advantage that he goes away, for if he does not, the Helper will not come. But go he did; and the Helper has been sent. The technical, theologic...

  Tuesday, April 15, 2025 Psalm 27 Lamentations 3:1-30 John 15:1-16:4a Tuesday in Holy Week Greater Love (John 15:13) Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends. The witness of Christian martyrdom is a curious conundrum. When presented with the choice to denounce Christ publicly in order to avoid pain and death, is not the pragmatic choice to do so, in order to live another day and obtain the chance to keep telling people about Jesus? Such was the decision made by the first European Christians in Asia. They would proclaim the Gospel secretly, and when brought before the authorities, would cross their fingers in front of a statue of Buddha, so that they could get away with their lives and keep telling people about Jesus. Why do people willingly go to death on account of the name of Jesus? Pragmatism, logic and rationality fly out the window when we consider Jesus’ reason for going to the cross. Because he did...

  Monday, April 14, 2025 Psalm 21 Lamentations 1:1-12 John 14 Monday in Holy Week Is It Nothing To You? (Lamentations 1:12) Is it nothing to you, all you who pass by?     Look and see if there is any sorrow like my sorrow,     which was brought upon me, which the Lord inflicted     on the day of his fierce anger. What do we mean when we say that “Jesus died for our sins”? It is a declaration that requires no little amount of faith; the type of faith that can know something truly, but can never perceive it fully. Certainly when Christ hung on the cross he was suffering the punishment for sin that we all deserve. Yet at the same time, two wrongs do not make a right. Punishing an innocent man for the sins of another is noble, but it does not make a watertight case. When Jesus spoke to his disciples immediately before his arrest (as we read in John’s gospel today) he speaks about persons being...

  Saturday, April 12, 2025 Psalms 99; 100 Exodus 10:21-11:10 Luke 21:29-22:6 Stand Before The Son Of Man (Luke 21:36) Today is the last day before the last week of Lent. We have travelled with Jesus through the writings of St Luke, and learned a lot about what we ought to do and where we ought to direct our thoughts. Tomorrow is Passion Sunday, when we must pass through the tragedy of the cross in order to reach the joy of the resurrection. So let us prepare our hearts in quiet reverence, and hear Jesus’ final public words, before he draws into the privacy of the upper room with the Twelve. Jesus speaks into the tension between the “now and not yet”. He talks of the second coming, of the great and terrible Day of the Lord which filled the minds of the Old Testament prophets. Yet he is also preparing us for what is to come at the end of his first coming. That is to say, the same attitude is appropriate for both situations. All the things we see in ...

  Friday, April 11, 2025 Psalms 95; 96 Exodus 10:1-20 Luke 21:20-28 Observance: George Augustus Selwyn, first missionary bishop of New Zealand (d. 1878) Straighten Up (Luke 21:28) How often have we heard a fellow Christian claim, in solemn tones and with a long face, that we are in the end times? Look at this country’s government, or that country’s natural disaster; look up and down and everywhere around, anguish everywhere, and surely this is the end, they say – and with an appropriately miserable look on their face! What an upside-down attitude these doom-sayers have. Have they not read? Have they not seen? If bad things happen in the world, that is nothing to write home about. There is nothing new under the sun – pray to the Lord about it, and then go and see what practical help you can offer. But if these things are indeed proof of Christ’s imminent return, then why the long face? Because when Christ returns there will be no room for sad...

  Thursday, April 10, 2025 Psalms 92; 93 Exodus 9:13-35 Luke 21:1-19 Settle In Your Minds (Luke 21:14) I’m sure all of us know what it is like to sense tension with someone else. Maybe they don’t understand what we’re on about; maybe they do, and they are being stubborn. And so we find ourselves in the shower, or sipping on a cup of tea, or being distracted while trying to read a book, rehearsing just what we would like to say to them. What if that tension were over the most noble and important issue in the world; what if that issue was about Jesus and his death and resurrection? Letting our thoughts wander can be a helpful spiritual discipline. Yet we must remember how to get back home again, and Jesus wants us to make him that home. If we were arrested tonight, and held in prison awaiting a trial before God-hating authorities, how would we spend that time? The words we would need in order to bring our accusers to our side, that is, to bring abou...

  Wednesday, April 9, 2025 Psalm 89:39-53 Exodus 8:20-9:12 Luke 20:27-47 Observances: William Law, priest and teacher (d. 1761); Dietrich Bonhoeffer, theologian (d. 1945) God Of The Living (Luke 20:38) Something I think all of us Christians struggle with is the fact that we need to balance the Bible’s repeated calls to righteous living alongside our own need for humble self-reflection on our own unrighteousness. It is so easy to proclaim “thou shalt not”, yet so difficult to flip it into a “thou shalt”. Take the current debate in the Church about marriage, for example, while thinking about Jesus’ response to the Saducees in today’s reading. At first glance, the resurrection seems like it will be pretty miserable: no marriage in the age to come! Yet what if our attitude to marriage is the same as that of the Saducees. They seemed to think that marriage was, in itself, something to be grasped at. Grasped at by the men and the woman in this li...