The Narrow Path

  Saturday, May 31, 2025 Psalm 59 Deuteronomy 1:22-45 John 15:26-16:11 Observance: The Visitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary to Elizabeth You May Remember (John 16:4) It is tough work being a teenager. Everything is new; there is very little life experience to draw on. Not only that, but the body is dumping a full course of growth hormones into you, and you often cannot understand why you feel the way you do. They say life is full of surprises; and nothing is more surprising than the moment-to-moment experience of teenage years. Yet as we get older we think we have it all figured out. We plan a course for our lives; we rely on what we have learned through personal experience combined with the cultural wisdom of our peers. Then something unexpected happens, and one finds themselves sitting in a hospital room with a chaplain trying to understand why, in spite of their lifestyle, they are where they are. Surprises are not always fun. Often ...

  Friday, May 30, 2025 Psalm 72 Deuteronomy 1:1-21 John 15:12-25 Friends (John 15:15) No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all that I have heard from my Father I have made known to you. The history books talk of the difficult professional relationship between the clergy and civil authorities of the first colony in New South Wales. Apparently the difficulty arose over two different ideas about the role of religion in society. Because while the governor, looking over the boatloads of criminals for which he was responsible, thought the church was useful to teach morals, the church had gone ahead and sent an evangelical priest who wanted to save souls. Jesus says that we are no longer his servants, but his friends. While other religions might demand submission to a set of morals and regulations, the Lord of creation instead offers friendship. Unfortunately for our na...

  Thursday, May 29, 2025 Psalm 93 Daniel 7:9-14 John 14:12-29 Observance: Ascension Day Presented Before the Ancient of Days (Daniel 7:13) I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven     there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days     and was presented before him. Today is Ascension Day, and I really think we in the church ought to celebrate it more enthusiastically. We have managed to make Christmas and Easter – the Incarnation and the Resurrection – two big festivals for which the government has given us time off work. But what about the next part of the story, when the risen Christ ascended into heaven, and was given all authority and dominion by the Father? Perhaps I have just answered my own question. Do we know of any government that likes to admit they do not have the final word? When Christ ascended into heaven, Daniel saw “one like a son of man”, me...

  Wednesday, May 28, 2025 Psalm 71 Exodus 40:17-38 John 15:1-11 Again, Comfort (Psalm 71:21) You will increase my greatness     and comfort me again. Once you start looking for Jesus in the Old Testament, you start seeing him everywhere. And this Psalm, which is a prayer of comfort in time of affliction, begins to sound awfully like Jesus during his Passion if you read it in his voice. Since we are in Christ by faith, we can join our voice to his in such prayers and pray them through him for ourselves. And what assurance we have when we do so! Whatever troubles we go through in this short life, we know that Jesus copped it worse, when he drank the cup of God’s wrath down to its dregs. We also know that Jesus’ tender heart towards his people means that, when we do go through our own troubles, he knows exactly how bad it is for us. His heart is filled with compassion for us, and he continually intercedes on our behalf – and we e...

  Tuesday, May 27, 2025 Psalm 68:1-20 Exodus 35:20-36:7 John 14:8-13 Sufficient For All, And More (Exodus 36:6-7) So Moses gave command, and word was proclaimed throughout the camp, “Let no man or woman do anything more for the contribution for the sanctuary.” So the people were restrained from bringing, for the material they had was sufficient to do all the work, and more. One of the most mis-quoted Bible verses I have heard comes from 2 Corinthians 12:9. You have probably heard it before: “God never gives us more than we can handle”. Yet what St Paul actually writes is that God said to him “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. When we go through trials and struggles God actually gives us more than we can handle, so that his strength may shine through in our overcoming those trials and struggles, and we may...

  Monday, May 26, 2025 Psalms 65; 70 Exodus 34:27-35:9 John 13:36-14:7 Observance: Augustine of Canterbury, missionary and bishop (d. 605) You Know The Way (John 14:4) [Jesus said] “And you know the way to where I am going.” The very start of John’s Gospel has Jesus telling his disciples that, if they want to know where he comes from, then they should “come and see”. And now, as we are moving towards the end of the Gospel, he tells them that they now know the way to get there. Following Jesus is the way to get to his Father’s house. It is not for nothing that the very first Christians called themselves “Followers of the Way”. Our first instruction book for new Christians, the Didache (compiled before 300 AD), opens by talking about how there are two ways, one of life and one of death. The way to the Father is the way to life. Yet, paradoxically, that way passes first through death: the death of Jesus. This Way is not easy. But it is realisti...

  Saturday, May 24, 2025 Psalms 56; 57 Exodus 34:11-26 John 13:21-35 All Will Know (John 13:25) By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another. Family is wonderful. Family is also difficult. As the old saying goes, you can pick your nose, and you can pick your family, but you can’t wipe your family off on the couch. Jesus gives us a new commandment – to love one another. Surely this isn’t new; didn’t he teach us to love our neighbours and enemies back during the Sermon on the Mount? There are plenty of ideas of why this commandment is “new”, most of which surrounds the idea of unconditional love. That Jesus teaches us to love all people, and to love them incredibly, is true. But here, tonight in the upper room immediately before his arrest, what is new about this commandment is that he is teaching us about what the love between Christians is to be like. Loving fellow Christians can, at times, be the...

  Friday, May 23, 2025 Psalms 54; 55:1-12 Exodus 33:18-34:10 John 13:12-20 Do You Understand? (John 13:12)   When Jesus had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? We must have all heard this story a thousand and one times: Jesus, after sharing his final Passover meal with his disciples removed his outer garment, tied a towel around his waist, and washed his disciples feet, wiping them with the towel. He asks us, once again: do we understand what he has done to us? Well, of course we do! Just as he has humbled himself and washed the feet of his friends (and the feet of his betrayer), we also must humble ourselves and be servants of all. Then again, perhaps we understand nothing of it. The second Person of Almighty God, the eternal, pre-existent Word, has condescended not only to take on human flesh, but to wash the feet of his creatures. This i...

  Thursday, May 22, 2025 Psalm 51 Exodus 33:1-17 John 13:1-11 Know You By Name (Exodus 33:17) And the Lord said to Moses, “This very thing that you have spoken I will do, for you have found favour in my sight, and I know you by name.” These first books of the Bible are useful for us because they tell us a whole lot about where we have come from, and why things are the way they are. One can imagine the family sitting around the dinner table after the plates have been cleared away, and the children asking the parents “where did we come from?”, and the parents answering in the words of Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning, God”. Today’s passage from Exodus gives us another Genesis story: it tells us the reason why God sticks with us our whole life, even though we often give him plenty of good reasons not to. If we are the children sitting around with our parents and asking them “why” and “how come” type questions about God’s abiding presence with us...

  Wednesday, May 21, 2025 Psalm 50 Exodus 32:15-35 John 12:44-50 Glorified In Our Help (Psalm 50:14-15) Offer to God a sacrifice of thanksgiving,     and perform your vows to the Most High,  and call upon me in the day of trouble;     I will deliver you, and you shall glorify me.” “ Glory” is one of those funny words that we think we know the meaning of, but often fail to explain fully. Certainly there is an idea that it is a display of greatness – God is the God of glory, in that he displays his greatness in the heavens, the earth, the sea, and all that is in them. Another part of the definition of “glory” is that it is when everything goes according to how it ought. So when God is glorified, we mean that God is doing exactly what God loves to do and does well, and that it is also out on display for all to see. Keep that in mind with our passage from Psalm 50. God is glorified when we ask him...

  Tuesday, May 20, 2025 Psalm 48 Exodus 32:1-14 John 12:34-43 Sitting And Rising (Exodus 32:6) And they rose up early the next day and offered burnt offerings and brought peace offerings. And the people sat down to eat and drink and rose up to play. When one reads this story about the golden calf, it is difficult not to see the rebellious Israelites not as apostates or heretics so much as very naughty children. Having done their naughty business of forging the golden calf, they then sat down for breakfast. Afterwards, they got up to play. I cannot help but contrast this against the Lord’s instructions for the Passover meal. I don’t suppose we should read too much into it, but then again, the Lord did say to eat that meal standing ready to move out, in order that they then be brought to a place of rest. This dynamic of standing and then sitting (with regards to the Passover meal), or sitting and then standing (before the golden calf), sugges...

  Monday, May 19, 2025 Psalm 45 Exodus 31 John 12:20-33 Observance: Dunstan, archbishop of Canterbury (d. 988) We Would See Jesus (John 12:20-21) Now among those who went up to worship at the feast were some Greeks. So these came to Philip, who was from Bethsaida in Galilee, and asked him, “Sir, we wish to see Jesus.” St John’s masterful writing style is on full display this morning. Philip, the one to whom the Greeks came seeking Jesus, and Andrew, the one who went with Philip to Jesus, are two of the first disciples to have been called by Jesus at the very beginning of the gospel. And the invitation from Jesus at the start of the gospel is “come and see”. From the very beginning people have been wanting to see this Jesus. Now there are more than a few young men beside an inland lake coming to see Jesus. There are Greeks, men who had travelled far to be at Jerusalem for the festival. The call of the Lord is already beginning to spread...

  Saturday, May 17, 2025 Psalm 40 Exodus 30:11-25; 34-38 John 12:9-19 Rejoice And Be Glad (Psalm 40:16) But may all who seek you     rejoice and be glad in you; may those who love your salvation     say continually, “Great is the Lord !” Psalms are a funny type of scripture to try and work out. They are prayers – but for whom to say? We are blessed to be in a sort of Psalm renaissance at the moment, fortunately, where believing scholars are returning to the old ways of interpretation. Psalm 40 is an excellent case study of this traditional, orthodox method of study. We know, from the book of Hebrews, that this Psalm is a prayer of the second person of the Trinity; that is, it is a prayer by Jesus. Hebrews 10:1-14 goes into Psalm 40:6-8 as a declaration of the Son of God coming to save his people through is incarnation, passion, death and resurrection. If we take all of Psalm 40 to be the words of Jesu...

  Friday, May 16, 2025 Psalm 38 Exodus 29:38-30:10 John 11:55-12:8 The Fragrant Perfume (John 11:3) Mary therefore took a pound of expensive ointment made from pure nard, and anointed the feet of Jesus and wiped his feet with her hair. The house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. Today’s readings seem to have a lot of smells in them. Exodus speaks of God’s sanctuary filled with sweet-smelling incense, while Mary fills the house with the fragrance of the perfume with which she anointed Jesus’ feet. The book of Revelation contains a couple of references to incense alongside the prayers of the saints: the elders fall down before the Lamb while holding the golden bowls of incense, which are the prayers of the saints; and elsewhere an angel is standing at the altar with a golden censer, having been given a much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints. (Revelation 5:8; 8:3-4) If you are fortunate enough to worship at a churc...

  Thursday, May 15, 2025 Psalm 37 Exodus 28:1-6; 29:1-9 John 11:45-54 Befriend Faithfulness (Psalm 37:3) Trust in the Lord , and do good;     dwell in the land and befriend faithfulness. “I think, taking it all round, I used to be happier when I was mostly hard up – and more generous. When I had ten pounds I was more likely to listen to a chap who said, ‘Lend me a pound note, Joe,’ than when I had fifty; then I fought shy of careless chaps – and lost mates that I wanted afterwards – and got the name of being mean. When I got a good cheque I’d be as miserable as a miser over the first ten pounds I spent; but when I got down to the last I’d buy things for the house.” Henry Lawson wrote these words in his short story A Double Buggy At Lahey’s Creek, where the man of the property is going back and forth over buying his wife an expensive but comfortable doubly buggy. The farther from poverty we get, the greater the fear of it, he c...

  Wednesday, May 14, 2025 Psalm 34 Exodus 25:31-40; 27:20-21 John 11:38-44 Observance: Matthias, apostle and martyr [ if not observed on February 25 ] Taste And See (Psalm 34:8) Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!     Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him! Raising a toddler has its own set of challenges that one thought they would never face. As one who enjoys dinner time – the gathering of the family, the setting of the table, the catching up over the day that is past, the joy of good food with loved ones – it is difficult to understand why the toddler turns up his nose at the plate in front of him. It is not as if I am punishing him with boiled cabbage or anything like that; he eats what we eat, and we eat pretty well. Taste and see that the Lord is good, exhorts the Psalmist. The Psalm contains only a little about living in God’s ways – speak the truth, seek peace – but has plenty about how good God is. It is...

  Tuesday, May 13, 2025 Psalm 35:1-17 Exodus 25:1-22 John 11:17-37 See How He Loves! (John 11:36)   So the Jews said, “See how he loved him!” None of our Gospel writers give us much in the way of editorial comments about what tone of voice people used. We have to try and figure out what the lesson for us is based on other things in the text. But sometimes we get a really big clue that tells us exactly what a certain scene was like. Today, Jesus has come to the place where his friend Lazarus died, and his emotional response is such that the onlookers are obviously moved. Yes, Jesus could have come earlier, and stopped Lazarus from dying in the first place. But Jesus already explained his delay – a great miracle had to be done. And so he delayed until God’s power of life over death could be shown to the crowds. But that doesn’t mean Jesus is heartless. Jesus has done more for us than we will ever really properly comprehend. To have drunk the...

  Monday, May 12, 2025 Psalm 31 Exodus 24 John 11:1-16 Misplaced Alarm (Psalm 31:22) I had said in my alarm,     “I am cut off from your sight.” But you heard the voice of my pleas for mercy     when I cried to you for help. You may or may not know this, but currently the entire Australian Anglican church is celebrating what is called “Hope 25”, where every single parish across the nation has been encouraged to put on some sort of witness to the hope we have in Jesus Christ. Since we like to define Anglican beliefs through what we pray, it seems right that we turn to the prayer book of the Bible – the book of Psalms. Today’s Psalm is a corker when it comes to describing what it feels like to be a person of hope in a fallen world. There are so many reasons that get thrown up in our lives to discourage our hope. Our eyes can become wasted with grief; our years spent with sighing and sorrow; our strength fai...

  Saturday, May 10, 2025 Psalm 25 Exodus 23:20-33 John 10:31-42 Little By Little (Exodus 23:30) Little by little I will drive them out from before you, until you have increased and possess the land. The pursuit of holiness can be quite frustrating at times. We can find ourselves crying out with St Paul that we have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out. (Romans 7:18) But there can be great comfort if we were to just sit down and look back over our lives and see that how, little by little, God has driven back those parts of us we don’t like, while the bits we do have had time to settle in. It may be risky to read these words from God to Moses about the upcoming invasion of Canaan and directly translate them to our own spiritual development. This way of reading the Bible is how the ancient Church did things, and sometimes they did it quite well. There is also the danger of losing the immediate context of the passage an...

  Friday, May 9, 2025 Psalm 22:1-22 Exodus 23:4-17 John 10:19-30 Appear Before The Lord (Exodus 23:17) Three times in the year shall all your males appear before the Lord God . How are we to live our lives as physical and material beings, while still acknowledging the reality of the spiritual and supernatural? Today’s text from Exodus really brings this tension to our attention. We have been given a whole load of test cases which teach us some helpful principles to guide how we ought to treat one another in general. Avoid bribes; treat people fairly; if you see someone who hates you struggling, then go and help them. Now God is saying that there also needs to be times when we down tools and go and worship him, which means we have to trust that the things we leave behind will be safe. Three times in the year all the males had to leave their properties, entrusting their safety to the Lord, while worshipping him at the place of meeting. Two aspects ...