Transformed:
becoming like Jesus in suffering

Holy Trinity Church, Huddersfield, Sunday 8 July 2018

Back to my usual church after a week at my Dad’s place, and the overall impression was that it was too warm. Even the thick stonework of a pre-Victorian traditional English church could not keep the heat out. It was cooler than the outside temperature, but not by a lot, so that by the time I had stopped sweating from the walk down I was halfway through an after-service coffee and it was time to walk home, uphill in even more heat.

The service was the least of our worries, my wife’s mother is in hospital, which was taking up most of our attention, as it should.

The sermon was on the part of Mark’s Gospel where Jesus tells of his coming execution, It was full of anecdotes of people known to the preacher who had trusted in Jesus through suffering, but as it had no personal testimony of suffering did not catty much weight to me. I have been in constant pain for over 12 years and in that time have lost my father-in-law to cancer and in the last two years my mother has also died. Through this, I have learned to trust God in the dark times of life. The sermon had nothing to add to my personal experience. That is not a criticism, there may be some who needed to hear this.

Just another service to me. However God speaks to people differently and at different times. Our worship leader on the day had a different impression to me, and I thank God that he speaks to us personally in different ways. This was her post service Facebook status:

EDIT TO ADD:

I may have been a bit hard on the sermon in this blog: As a way in to allowing Jesus into suffering it was good. If you were to refer to it as stage 1, I have already been through stages 2 and 3.

Also, it must be really hard to do a sermon on suffering when you have not suffered much yourself.