The Manse

Thursday 31st of December 2020

 

Oh, what a year that was…..

 

My dear friends of St John’s and St Leonard’s in the Fields – and to all who join us in fellowship and worship occasionally or regularly, across the continents.

 

Greetings at the end of the year and at the beginning of a new year to you and all in your family circles.

 

May I begin by thanking my friend and fellow minister Alex for his superlative ministering to you all, particularly over these past two months as I recuperate. I am so grateful. It is very much my hope that at the end of January I may be able to resume Ministry once more, dependent of course upon medical advice.

 

It was on this day 76 years ago as 1944 moved into 1945 that, in the late hours of the Old Year and the early ones of the New Year, Dietrich Bonhoeffer in his Berlin prison cell wrote the poem “Powers of Good”. The first and last verses are:

 

With every power of good to stay and guide me,

Comforted and inspired beyond all fear,

I’ll live these days with you in thought beside me,

And pass with you into the coming year.

 

While all the powers of good aid and attend us,

Boldly we’ll face the future, come what may,

At even’ and at morn’ God will befriend us,

And oh, most surely, on each newborn day.

 

Those poignant words of a different era are, I believe, apt as 2021 stretches before us – with hope and promise, with healing and gratitude, with vaccine and new beginnings and, yes, with sad remembrance too: for these lines speak to us of God with us in times of pain and joy and for what life in all its diversity, complexity and beauty will always mean.

 

As the New Year begins I send you my very best wishes and commend you to God’s eternal embrace: for God will indeed go before us and lead us into new avenues of peace, of understanding, of hope, love and faith as we are reconciled one to another and walk into the year of grace 2021 – holding the hand of One who was born, died and rose again that we might have eternal life.

 

Go with God and entrust all you are and all you love to His mighty powers of good.

 

With every best wish

John

January, 2021.

 

My Dear Friends,

 

Through the dark, demoralising and anxious days of 2020 I have written a series of Pastoral Letters holding out a positive word of hope and encouragement, urging us to look to the future with faith. Yet we found ourselves at Christmas facing a second wave, under more severe lockdown, and seemingly back to where we had started. We are wearied of it all!

 

There is, however, a clear light in the darkness promising that 2021 will be a new and better year. Already the Pfizer-BioNTech jab is being administered to our most vulnerable citizens. Today, as I write this letter to you, the Oxford-AstraZeneca vaccine has been approved for use by the Regulatory Agency. This has been described as “a game-changer” and as “a significant moment.” The government is now pledged to roll out an ever increasing programme of vaccination. This is a cause for great rejoicing.

 

And yet, so poisoned have our politics become; so cynical and untrusting are we of each other – that we read with alarm that a significant percentage of Scots are hesitant to accept a vaccine. My friends, having prayed so long for deliverance, don’t let scare stories or conspiracy theories tempt us to shun the answer to our fervent prayers.

 

In the Second Book of Kings, at chapter 5 and verses 7, 13 & 14 – we read the story of Naaman, the Syrian general who suffered from leprosy. The King of Syria sent Naaman to the King of Israel asking for a cure. “When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes in dismay and exclaimed: How can the king of Syria expect me to cure this man? Does he think I am God, with the power of life and death? It’s plain that he’s trying to start a quarrel with me.”

 

The prophet Elisha, however, told Naaman exactly what he needed to do in order to be cured. But Naaman was too proud and suspicious. Surely there must be a better way – a different way? It was his servant who advised him: “Sir, if the prophet had told you to do something difficult, you would have done it. Now why can’t you just wash yourself, as he said, and be cured?” And we read: “So Naaman went down to the Jordan, as Elisha had instructed, and he was completely cured.”

 

My Friends, let us move on into the future in faith and hope and confidence.

 

Liz joins me in sending our love to you all, together with our very best wishes for the coming year.

 

Alex.

Covid 19

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Due to Perth and Kinross going into level 4 Covid 19 restrictions the Kirk will close

after the Christmas Day worship until we are back to Level 3.

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Services will be live streamed during these times.