MAC KIRK

Today in the calendar an often over-looked day is ' Holy Innocents", December 28 , part of the twelve days of Christmas. It is red for a reason, the sacrifice of the babies. We remember the children today that Herod had killed as he sought to kill Jesus the baby. One of the hymns about this says,' O blessed babes of Bethlehem , Who died to save our King, Ye share the martyrs' diadem....And unto them grace was given , A Saviour's name to own, And die for Him who out of heaven Had found on earth a throne...' We focus rightly on the baby Jesus who is our Saviour this season ;and it is good to also remember the babes who died because of the wicked Herod. God had a purpose in what happened here to protect the baby Jesus, " Herod, when he saw that he was mocked of the wise men, was exceeding wroth, and sent forth, and slew all the children that were in Bethlehem, and in all the coasts thereof, from two years old and under, according to the time which he...

Good Shepherd Sunday What are we afraid of? What makes us cringe? Can we overcome our fears? My fear is really loneliness for God, and I need to claim His promise to never leave me or forsake me, no matter what. Even death cannot defeat my life that is held by Christ. He is risen, and He is alive evermore, and He gives to us eternal life here and forever. " No one shall snatch them out of My hand" 10:28 " I give them eternal life" " They shall never perish" ( Be removed, be destroyed, cut off, to die with ruin) I can face my crippling fears. All things work together for good for my good and God's glory...whatever happens God is in it. He is our Good Shepherd. He leads us beside the still waters. There is life after death, with God and His people forever. Here I am to glorify Him and enjoy Him forever. This is my the goal of the Christian to let all things be in His hands. Unfortunately we do not always feel this way. We are buffe...

3rd S of Easter John 21 :1-14 Silence means rest, rest of body and mind in which we become available for him whose heart is greater than ours. That is very threatening; it is like giving up control over our actions and thoughts, allowing something creative to happen not by us but to us. Is it so amazing that we are so often tired and exhausted, trying to be masters of ourselves, wanting to grasp the ultimate meaning of our existence, struggling with our identity? Silence is that moment in which we not only stop the discussion with others but also the inner discussions with ourselves, in which we can breathe in freely and accept our identity as a gift. “Not I live, but He lives in me.” It is in this silence that the Spirit of God can pray in us and continue his creative work in us. . . . Without silence the Spirit will die in us and the creative energy of our life will float away and leave us alone, cold, and tired. Without silence we will lose our center and become the victim of th...

Peace in our lives John 20 Peace used in the Gospel here is the greek word eirene which we get our English word for peace, irenic. Peace is used in the sense of rest, quietness and of course in the Jewish sense of peace with God and others, now our Christian faith. It also means : irḗnē (from eirō, "to join, tie together into a whole") – properly, wholeness, i.e. when all essential parts are joined together; peace (God's gift of wholeness)." Biblehub.com John 20:19 Bishop Sheen in his Life of Christ said this about peace & John 20 at the appearance of Jesus here, "...(He) brought about peace by the Blood of the Cross, He came in His own Person to bestow it. Peace is the fruit of justice...Peace is the tranquility of order, not tranquility alone; for robbers can be tranquil in the possession of their spoils. Peace also implies order, the subordination of the body to the soul, of the sense to the reason, and the creature to the Creator. Isaiah said t...

Easter 2019 Someone asked me what Easter means to me in one word . I said " Resurrection-new life". It was not hard to distill it down into what Easter is about as I thought about it . It is the hope of eternal life in this world and the next, the promise that those who have died we will see again. Now they live in our memories and soon we will see eye to eye with our new bodies in heaven. That is what Easter is and to any Christian as well certainly. On that first Easter , at the break of day, Mary Magdalene, Joanna and Mary, the mother of James came to the tomb. They had already prepared spices resting on their Sabbath, that is Saturday, after Jesus died on the Cross on Good Friday. They were serving Him even in His death. They came to the tomb, the stone was already rolled away, and they went into the tomb, " and found not the body of the Lord Jesus." 24:3 They were met by two men in dazzling light. They are told, " He is not here, but is r...

Maundy Thursday 2019 Luke 22:14-30 Jesus' great desire was to eat the Passover with His disciples. We often forget that this is what was going on. vs 14-15 of Luke 22 tell us that. This year Passover is tomorrow nite. But we are not Jews . We are Christians who believe all of the OT was fulfilled in Jesus Christ, His only Son our Lord. I was reading thru some devotionals and came across this letter from CS Lewis. " Dear Mrs. Neylan, Sorry you’re in a trough. I’m just emerging (at least I hope I am) from a long one myself. As for the difficulty of believing it is a trough, one wants to be careful about the word “believing.” We often mean by it “having confidence or assurance as a psychological state” – as we have about the existence of furniture. But that comes and goes and by no means always accompanies intellectual assent. For example, in learning to swim you believe, and even know intellectually, that water will support you, long before you feel any real conf...

Palm sunday 2019 We call this time in the life of Jesus the " Agony". It was in the Garden of Gethesame, the Mount of Olives where Jesus had often gone to spend periods of reflection perhaps on His life, mission and purpose. Agony is a trauma which may include extreme mental and physical suffering. The central vs I wish to discuss is vs 22, Luke 22, " Not my will, but yours, be done." How did Jesus come to this answer? He was human as well as divine and was truly tested as a man. He prayed to God for guidance. " And he knelt down , and prayed." The usual form for prayer was to stand, but on this occasion at it was especially difficult, he knelt. We too face decisions in our lives when we must ask God for His purpose for us. We are human too with fears, doubts, perplex issues and problems. We cannot face them alone. Others can help ---yes, we call some friends, mentors and guides. Another person who listens with discretion and discernment is s...