Covid-19 

Dear Friends
I hope you are your families are all keeping safe and well. Time is passing quickly as we approach Easter and Spring. Perhaps you have been able to venture into the garden over the last week and appreciate the wonder of creation as many plants and flowers are showing signs of new life. You may be lucky enough to have daffodils starting to flower which always remind us that we are moving to spring and towards longer days and better weather. As we see the signs of new life it provides hope for the future.
Again this week the national daily number of new coronavirus infections continue to fall. Some areas of the country are still seeing smaller outbreaks but overall the situation is improving with the roll out of the vaccination programme. Next week will see many children back to school and this begins the road map to ease restrictions and move us gradually to times when we will slowly but confidently be able to meet with limited numbers of people. I am sure that many children and their families will be anxious about returning to school and we hold them and their teachers in our thoughts and prayers this week.
I am sorry to report this week the death of Helen Boulton (daughter of Christine) who was formally a member of the Sunday School at Trentham. Helen had sadly been unwell for a number of years. Please hold her son George, sister Julie, mum Christine and their extended family in your thoughts and prayers.
Our bible reading this week comes from the Gospel of John Chapter 2 v13-22 and is the account of the cleansing of the Temple. This is one of only three events that occur in all four Gospels.  In the account provided by John the story comes right at the beginning of Jesus’s ministry but in Matthew, Mark and Luke, the story comes during Holy Week right at the end of Jesus’s ministry. Often scholars believe that the accounts from the Synoptic Gospels of Matthew, Mark and Luke are historically more accurate. John however tends to use stories about Jesus as metaphors and symbols. It is likely that this event occurred during Holy Week and was perhaps the last straw for religious authorities as Jesus was seen to be challenging the fabric of the religious institution. The fact that John places the account at the beginning of his gospel is important as he is focusing on the ministry of Jesus in its totality. John’s understanding is that Jesus came to renew the Jewish faith; to challenge our institutional views of God and to bring passion and purity back into the worship of God.
The story occurs as Jesus went to Jerusalem for the Passover, this would have been a custom for all Jewish males, so the City would have been very busy. Many of the traders would have seen this as peak time for the sale of animals for both sacrifice and food. Jesus went to the Temple at the height of this busy period. Here he found many people including tradesmen and money changers who would have been going about their usual business, using the Temple as a place of trade. It was here that Jesus made a whip of cords and drove them out of the Temple and overturned the tables of the money changers. He instructed those selling to “Take these things out of here ! and stop making his fathers house a marketplace”
 The Jews asked him what sign he could show for doing this and Jesus answers with “Destroy this temple, and in three days, I will raise it up” This was clearly confusing for the Jews who reported it had taken forty six years to build the Temple. In the reading however Jesus is not speaking about the Temple building but about the temple of his body which would be raised after three days. Here Jesus is stating he is the new Temple and the building is not needed to represent God’s presence on earth.
Often writers focus on the apparent anger displayed by Jesus at this time but in many ways that misses the point of the story. It is unlikely that Jesus was caught up in the heat of the moment. We read that he made a whip of cords. He took time to reflect and time to make the whip; the actions of cleansing the temple were not done in impulsive anger, rather as righteous anger as part of a plan to fulfil scripture. Jesus may have been angry about the Temple being used as a market but this was a regular occurrence and one he is likely to have seen before. In effect it was business as usual in the Temple for the crowds and the traders. Perhaps that is the purpose of the story, that Jesus went into the Temple to challenge the business as usual. The business as usual may have been routine it may have occurred due to predictability and a sense of security. Perhaps the traders were happy doing the same thing and this became the norm. In undertaking their normal business perhaps the crowds and traders had forgotten that they were in the presence of God and in His Temple. May be they recognised they were in a physical building with animals, crowds and coins but they may have forgotten that God was more interested in them as people than their festivals and that God wanted them more than their offerings.
Jesus was saying that the old way of faith was no longer appropriate, that the heart of faith had been lost in ritualism and sacrifice. Jesus was confronting people of God with a deeply uncomfortable truth; this was a moment for them to re-assess. Like those in Temple, we sometimes forget that we are the temple of God and life can become a series of tasks or transactions. Life can become a marketplace rather than a place for meeting God and one another. As we get involved in our daily activities we focus on the business as usual. In the Temple Jesus was challenging the norm he was seeking to overturn this and showing the importance of ministry. The Word became flesh (John 1.14) water became wine (John 2,9) and now the temple is becoming human. Jesus is interrupting business as usual.
When we celebrate the words of The Last Supper we hear the words “Do this in remembrance of me” Jesus is not asking us to get angry or participate in a routine activity. He is not asking us to continue with business as usual. He is asking us to show compassion to one another, to forgive one another, to tell our friends and neighbours the Good News of salvation. He is asking us to challenge the politics of greed and to pursue justice and mercy as we protect the vulnerable. As Micah reminds us “What the Lord requires of you is to do justice, and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God” In doing so we follow Jesus’s example and challenge the norm as our body can be used as a Temple for God. Brian Evans a Christian Writer summarises this well “Christianity is not about becoming better people. It’s not about becoming a better version of ourselves through self-improvement. It’s about looking outside of ourselves to the only One who has the power to change us from the inside-out. It’s never about following a set of rules or becoming the best we can be. It’s about looking to Jesus, the only One who is worthy of our trust”
 
You can join with friends from the Church and Circuit by joining the weekly Zoom Service at 11.30am each Sunday morning (by either computer or telephone) using the links below.
Topic: Sunday Service 11.30 am
Time: This is a recurring meeting
Join Zoom Meeting
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/4775422768
or just click here.
Meeting ID: 477 542 2768 (No password is required)
Dial by your location
0203 481 5237
0203 481 5240
0203 901 7895
0131 460 1196
0203 051 2874
Meeting ID: 477 542 2768
We also have a telephone service each week using WhyPay at 10.00am on Sunday morning.
If you wish to join this the number is 0333 0110 946 and the Room Number is 47927697# and the Pin is 1145#
Please do continue if you are able to pray at 6.00pm each evening and join with others from our Church so that we can unite in the power of prayer.
Please also pray for those on our prayer list.  
Ashley, Debbie and family
Stuart and Sylvia
Frank
Ralph
Pat
Kevin and family
Joyce
Beryl
Karen
Ken and Pat
Chris and Dianne
Malcolm, Anne and family
Arthur
Eileen and Carl
Rev Alex
Don
Margaret B
Alan
Doreen
Jean
Beaulah
Alan and Heather
Linda and family
Carol, Dave and Logan
Janet, Steve and family
Les, Olga and family
Roy and Thelma
Charles
 You can find reflections and biblical stories on our Circuit YouTube channel including new material added weekly from Rev Linda, Rev Jeff and others at:
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBhbVptj0forVkUfmmsvd_w
or just click here.
Please continue to stay safe and know that you are surrounded by the love and prayers of your Church family.
With every blessing
Ian