St James' Church of Scotland, Lossiemouth

For Christ, For You

Lossiemouth Church of Scotland

Prospect Terrace, Lossiemouth, Moray IV31 6JS.

The Union of the former Parishes of St. Gerardine's High Church and St. James' Church

Minister: Position vacant, though not officially a "vacancy" yet.

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You are here: Home / Archives for 2

How Isaiah’s encounter with God in 740BC shapes our modern worship

May 27, 2018 by 2

Isaiah 6 is Rev. Geoff McKee’s scripture for Trinity Sunday (27 May 2018). It would be easy to get bogged down in technicalities about a 3-in-1 God; instead, the Isaiah passage delivers us from intellectual conundrums, as Geoff explains. He sets out 3 important truths which Isaiah’s experience reveals about the nature of worship. It is fascinating to see how much Isaiah’s encounter with God – which can be dated to 740BC – shapes our modern worship.

You can download a PDF version of the sermon here, if you wish.

Isaiah 6:1-8 (New International Version)
Isaiah’s Commission
6 In the year that King Uzziah died, I saw the Lord, high and exalted, seated on a throne; and the train of his robe filled the temple. 2 Above him were seraphim, each with six wings: With two wings they covered their faces, with two they covered their feet, and with two they were flying. 3 And they were calling to one another:

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord Almighty;
the whole earth is full of his glory.”

4 At the sound of their voices the doorposts and thresholds shook and the temple was filled with smoke.

5 “Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the Lord Almighty.”

6 Then one of the seraphim flew to me with a live coal in his hand, which he had taken with tongs from the altar. 7 With it he touched my mouth and said, “See, this has touched your lips; your guilt is taken away and your sin atoned for.”

8 Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send? And who will go for us?”

And I said, “Here am I. Send me!”

How do we end our prayers so often?

What do we pray?

‘In the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost’.

Ann Spivack wrote in a magazine article: “While our friends from India travelled around California on business, they left their 11 year-old daughter with us. Curious about my going to church one Sunday morning, she decided to come along. When we returned home, my husband asked her what she thought of the service.

“I don’t understand why the West Coast isn’t included too,” she replied. When we inquired what she meant, she added, “You know: in the name of the Father, the Son, and the whole East Coast.”

This Trinity thing can be confusing, can’t it.

Is the Eternal Functional Submission of the Son taught in Scripture?

The Bible indicates that the Son submits to the Father while he is incarnate (John 5:19 and so on), and that he continues to into the future (1 Corinthians 15:27-28).

But does it also teach that he has done so from eternity past?

Is the Eternal Functional Submission of the Son novel?

That is: was it articulated, or even entertained, in the ancient church, or by the Reformers?

Is the Eternal Functional Submission of the Son heterodox, or even heretical?

The debate began with a claim that Eternal Functional Submission is not just wrong, but that it involves “reinventing God”, producing a different deity to the God of Nicene orthodoxy.

Is there a separation of the divine will?

Here’s the point many critics of Eternal Functional Submission are making –

For the Son to submit to the Father’s authority, there must be a distinction between the will of the Father and the will of the Son (otherwise submission would make no sense).

Which is fine, as long as we’re talking about Christ after the incarnation, since Christ has two wills.

But if we’re talking about Christ before the incarnation, then we’re saying the eternal God has two wills—and that is a denial of divine simplicity.

Does the Eternal Functional Submission of the Son imply that Christ only had one will? This is the flip-side of the previous point.

Take the Gethsemane prayer. Was Jesus saying “not the will of the Son, but the will of the Father,” or “not my human will, but your (and in fact my) divine will”?

If the former, as some Eternal Functional Submission advocates have argued, does that lead to the conclusion that Christ had just one will? Does the Eternal Functional Submission of the Son involve denying the Eternal Generation of the Son?

And so it goes on… Are you asleep yet?

What a travesty that the nature of our God is reduced to intellectual conundrums. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Sermons

Why the ascension of Christ is at the centre of salvation

May 14, 2018 by 2

The opening verses of the Acts of the Apostles and the ascension of Jesus Christ to heaven are Rev. Geoff McKee’s text for Ascension Sunday, the seventh Sunday of Easter (13 May 2018). Geoff explains how what is probably the most understated of the three key events which make up Christ’s act of salvation (his death, resurrection and ascension) is, nevertheless, central to salvation.

You can download a PDF version of the sermon by clicking here.

Acts 1:1-11 (New International Version)
Jesus Taken Up Into Heaven
1 In my former book, Theophilus, I wrote about all that Jesus began to do and to teach 2 until the day he was taken up to heaven, after giving instructions through the Holy Spirit to the apostles he had chosen. 3 After his suffering, he presented himself to them and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. 4 On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command: “Do not leave Jerusalem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about. 5 For John baptised with water, but in a few days you will be baptised with the Holy Spirit.”

6 Then they gathered around him and asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?”

7 He said to them: “It is not for you to know the times or dates the Father has set by his own authority. 8 But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes on you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.”

9 After he said this, he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.

10 They were looking intently up into the sky as he was going, when suddenly two men dressed in white stood beside them. 11 “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky? This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back in the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

We find ourselves this morning right at the end of the Easter season.

Our minds may be more at ease now, as the astonishing stories of the resurrection have had time to influence us afresh, stimulating our thinking and inspiring our living.

But right at the end of the season we are hit with another concept that puzzles and perplexes us.

Where is Jesus now?

Where is the Father’s right hand anyway?

Ascension Day always occurs on the Thursday prior to the Seventh Sunday of Easter, forty days after Easter Sunday.

We do not gather for worship on Thursday and so today is our celebration of the Ascension of our Lord.

I think it is fair to state that this is the most understated of the three key events which make up Christ’s act of salvation: his death, resurrection and ascension. The three may be only truly understood as a unity and so neglect of one will distort our understanding of the whole.

If the resurrection stretches our incredulity with its outrageous claim of new life from death then the ascension likewise seems to beg us to believe beyond reason.

Comic stained glass windows depicting a cloud with a pair of legs sticking out underneath it may make us laugh but it’s uncomfortable because what on earth – or beyond – was going on?

What are we actually being called on to believe here?

One of the essential elements of the incarnation is that Jesus entered into space and time to live and identify with humanity.

His resurrection body carries the marks, the evidence of that space/time experience and his continuing existence in the resurrection body implies that that space/time experience is real in some kind of meaningful sense.

Recognising the work of Augustine and the insight of Albert Einstein, we can acknowledge that time is a further dimension of spatial location.

You are receiving this sermon at 57.43.14 degrees North and 3.17.35 degrees West at (time of day) on Sunday 13th May.

Where is Jesus, in those terms, at this precise moment?

Of course, we can’t specify that.

We can say, consistent with the New Testament, that he is not here, but that he is elsewhere, at the right hand of the Father.

Could we say that he has ascended to the future; the future in God that changes the present?

For example, when we pray, “Give us this day our daily bread” we may also be praying, ‘Give us this day our future bread” – the bread that is promised to us now, which we are awaiting (because it can be translated that way).

None of this is easy, but we must not settle for less than the fullness of Christ.

Jesus remains fully human, located in time and space, yet unseen by us.

If, indeed, he is in the future of God’s purposes, we can be sure that he reaches to us from that point. He is not too far away. He is not remote.

The early church believed that the very particular ministry of the ascended Christ to all of humanity and the created order is prayer.

He remains both truly God and fully human and he continually prays for us.

Now for all of us – and especially for those of us who struggle with prayer (and I would think that would make up the majority of us) – that is particularly good news. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Sermons

The gospel of Jesus Christ – for all nations and races

May 6, 2018 by 2

Rev. Geoff McKee has Acts 10:44-48 as his Scripture for the sixth Sunday of Easter (06 May 2018). This passage makes clear that “the unstoppable gospel of Jesus Christ is for all nations and for all races.”

You can download a PDF version of the sermon by clicking here.

Acts 10:44-48 (New International Version)
44 While Peter was still speaking these words, the Holy Spirit came on all who heard the message. 45 The circumcised believers who had come with Peter were astonished that the gift of the Holy Spirit had been poured out even on Gentiles. 46 For they heard them speaking in tongues and praising God.

Then Peter said, 47 “Surely no one can stand in the way of their being baptised with water. They have received the Holy Spirit just as we have.” 48 So he ordered that they be baptised in the name of Jesus Christ. Then they asked Peter to stay with them for a few days.

I read the following recently in a blog article about racism in the Church.

“It isn’t exactly evidence of great insight, though, to say that “racism is wrong”. The more urgent question is: why is racism so persistent in human societies? Why, when we know the devastation that racism can wreak, is prejudice against someone on the basis of race or ethnicity something that is so casually evident?

Let me put it more pointedly: why is it that, even though I know that racism is terrible, I still find within my own heart evidence of racist assumptions? I still assume, pretty much, that white guys should be in charge of most things. And, as the flipside, I do catch myself suspecting the motives of people who are not like me. Typical, I catch myself thinking, they can’t control their kids. They are always stealing. They are all corrupt. They breed like rabbits.”

“Even though I know that racism is terrible…”

The Holy Spirit has been working on humanity for two thousand years, placing within most of humanity a deep-seated unease with racism.

And yet we can do our utmost to quench the Spirit of God. Some have even managed to so grieve the Spirit of God that all that is left is a chasm of darkness. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Sermons

Why Christians must share the Good News of Jesus without partiality or prejudice

April 30, 2018 by 2

Rev. Geoff McKee’s Scripture for the Fifth Sunday of Easter (29 April 2018) is the story of Philip and the Ethiopian eunuch, from Acts of the Apostles (Acts 8:26-40). Geoff explains how the central message of this passage is not the “easy” one – about the Gospel spreading out to foreigners and foreign lands – but, instead, that the Good News of Christ is truly for everyone. And Christians must discard any partiality or prejudice in spreading that message.

You can download a PDF version of the sermon by clicking here.

Acts 8:26-40 (New International Version)
Philip and the Ethiopian
26 Now an angel of the Lord said to Philip, “Go south to the road—the desert road—that goes down from Jerusalem to Gaza.” 27 So he started out, and on his way he met an Ethiopian eunuch, an important official in charge of all the treasury of the Kandake (which means “queen of the Ethiopians”). This man had gone to Jerusalem to worship, 28 and on his way home was sitting in his chariot reading the Book of Isaiah the prophet. 29 The Spirit told Philip, “Go to that chariot and stay near it.”

30 Then Philip ran up to the chariot and heard the man reading Isaiah the prophet. “Do you understand what you are reading?” Philip asked.

31 “How can I,” he said, “unless someone explains it to me?” So he invited Philip to come up and sit with him.

32 This is the passage of Scripture the eunuch was reading:

“He was led like a sheep to the slaughter,
and as a lamb before its shearer is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.
33 In his humiliation he was deprived of justice.
Who can speak of his descendants?
For his life was taken from the earth.”

34 The eunuch asked Philip, “Tell me, please, who is the prophet talking about, himself or someone else?” 35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.

36 As they travelled along the road, they came to some water and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water. What can stand in the way of my being baptised?” [37] 38 And he gave orders to stop the chariot. Then both Philip and the eunuch went down into the water and Philip baptised him. 39 When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord suddenly took Philip away, and the eunuch did not see him again, but went on his way rejoicing. 40 Philip, however, appeared at Azotus and travelled about, preaching the gospel in all the towns until he reached Caesarea.

The following open letter was published in the lead up to the Southern Baptist Convention in the USA in June 2014, when a motion would be proposed condemning transgender identity.

“Dear Southern Baptist Convention,

I know that you are considering passing a resolution against transgender identity this week at your meeting in Baltimore. In anticipation of this vote, I write to you as a fellow believer in our Lord Jesus Christ, the saviour of the world, the person to whom I have given my heart and soul and whom I spend my life serving.

I was raised Southern Baptist in Stanly County, North Carolina, in a devoted Christian family.

My dad grew up in Nigeria, the son of Southern Baptist missionaries who taught there. The theology and worship of my Southern Baptist church was a core part of my identity as a child, and in many ways, it continues to form the person I am today.

Growing up, I was desperate to be a good Christian and to earnestly give my life, my heart, and my soul to the Lord. I was also trans. I knew I was a girl from a very young age, even though the world saw me as a boy. It wasn’t easy. I fought against this. I fought with every tool I had. I prayed and I prayed and I begged.

I went through the act of being saved over and over, thinking each time that if I was perfectly contrite and sorrowful, Christ would save me from being trans, from being a girl.

When I was about 16, I was on a youth retreat up near Liberty University. My youth group was staying in cabins out in the woods. At one of the evening praise and worship times I fell down on the floor praying that God would fix me. My minister prayed over me. I hoped, I hoped incredibly hard that that would be the moment where I was fixed, but of course it wasn’t.

I couldn’t “fix” being trans because it’s how God created me.

Isn’t it the role of Christians to minister with those who are excluded and marginalised?

I ask you, as fellow believers, to join with us in the Episcopal Church and other traditions as family in standing with trans and gender non-nonconforming people rather than against us.

Don’t make the world harder for trans folks. Instead, let’s explore together the ways that our gender, in all its beautiful diversity, is a blessed gift from God.

Thank you for listening.

Your sister in Christ, Vivian Taylor”

In March this year, the Church of Scotland published a pastoral aid resource entitled: “Diverse Gender Identities and Pastoral Care”.

This was with the intention of offering support to ministers and members of the Church of Scotland, to inform and to assist those offering pastoral care.

Now, you may wonder, in our series of sermons on the Acts of the Apostles texts offered to us by the lectionary at Easter, what this subject has to do with the text before us today.

Well, I would want to emphatically state – everything. [Read more…]

Filed Under: Baptism, Mission, Sermons

How the power of Jesus is not demonstrated in what he did but in what was done to him

April 25, 2018 by 2

For the Fourth Sunday of Easter (22 April 2018), Rev. Geoff McKee’s scripture from Acts of the Apostles is the story of John and Peter’s encounter with the religious authorities after the healing of a cripple, in Jesus’ name. Geoff discusses how crucial it is that the Church should serve – and not stifle – the power of Christ. He also points out the – perhaps surprising to us – fact that the power of Jesus is not demonstrated in what he did but in what was done to him.

You can download a PDF version of the sermon by clicking here.

Acts 4:5-12 (New International Version)
5 The next day the rulers, the elders and the teachers of the law met in Jerusalem. 6 Annas the high priest was there, and so were Caiaphas, John, Alexander and others of the high priest’s family. 7 They had Peter and John brought before them and began to question them: “By what power or what name did you do this?”

8 Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9 If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10 then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11 Jesus is

“‘the stone you builders rejected,
which has become the cornerstone.’

12 Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

A Total Solar Eclipse occurs when the Moon moves between the Sun and the Earth, completely covering the disc of the Sun.

When this occurs, the shadow of the Moon is cast onto the Earth along what is called the path of totality. Everyone and everything within that path is plunged into an eerie darkness for a few minutes. You do not see a total eclipse – you experience it.

It is very unwise – and, in fact, dangerous to one’s sight – to look directly at the sun. We don’t do it because it is very uncomfortable and we know the dangers anyway.

So, to see the effects of a solar eclipse safely, we must use something like a camera obscura to help us. A closed box with a pin-hole will project the image and the effect can be viewed safely.

The Jews believed it was very unwise, and even perilous, for any human being to gaze directly upon the being of God.

With very few exceptions in their spiritual history, such an encounter with God brought instant death.

Yet, the people desired to be with their God and to know him. That relationship could not be experienced at a distance.

What were they to do? [Read more…]

Filed Under: Sermons

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Sunday Services at Lossiemouth CoS – Oct-Dec 2025

October 19, 2025 By 2

This list will be updated as and when required but, in the light of Geoff’s retirement, here’s how things are panning out so far.

Services start at 10:30am unless otherwise stated.

Thank you to everyone who is helping to cover these services and to arrange cover.

Read More

Recent Posts

  • Sunday Services at Lossiemouth CoS – Oct-Dec 2025
  • Harvest Thanksgiving 2025
  • Rev. Geoff McKee retires
  • Proposed Sale of the former St Gerardine’s High Church Buildings – Update: October 2025
  • Jesus Ascends to Glory
  • Holy Week Services in Lossiemouth Area Churches of Scotland 2025
  • What we can learn from Jesus being tested by the devil in the wilderness
  • Recent Church Services and Sermons
  • Why your current role in life is where you should be serving God
  • A Service for Everyone in Lossiemouth – World Day of Prayer 2025
  • Lossiemouth area Church of Scotland Services for Christmas 2024
  • Nine Lessons and Carols – Fourth Sunday of Advent
  • Why no one has hope until we all have hope
  • The numerous prophecies of the coming of Jesus
  • Watch for this – The time is coming

Contact Us

We would be glad to hear from you. Feel free to contact our Minister, Rev. Geoff McKee, or attend one of the events or groups detailed on this website.

Our Minister

Our Minister is Rev. Geoff McKee.

Lossiemouth Church of Scotland is a registered Charity No. SC000880.

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Our mission is to be a Christian community sharing the love of Christ, reaching out to the people in this area and encouraging them to worship God and grow in the knowledge of the care and love of Christ.

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