Lossiemouth Church of Scotland

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…]

In his sermon for the second Sunday of Easter (08 April 2018), Rev. Geoff McKee contrasts the rose-tinted view of life in the early Church found in Acts 4:32-37 with the daily struggles set out elsewhere in the gospels. “Those were the days, my friend!” He goes on to analyse and explain one of the basic statements of Christian belief – the Nicene Creed – as set out in the title to this post.

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

Acts 4:32-37 (New International Version)
The Believers Share Their Possessions
32 All the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of their possessions was their own, but they shared everything they had. 33 With great power the apostles continued to testify to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus. And God’s grace was so powerfully at work in them all 34 that there were no needy persons among them. For from time to time those who owned land or houses sold them, brought the money from the sales 35 and put it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to anyone who had need.

36 Joseph, a Levite from Cyprus, whom the apostles called Barnabas (which means “son of encouragement”), 37 sold a field he owned and brought the money and put it at the apostles’ feet.

Unlike me, some of you will be old enough to remember the summer of 1968.

It’s a wee while ago now, almost fifty years in fact.

If you can remember back that far, then you may remember a song that topped the charts that summer. A song written by Gene Raskin and sung by Mary Hopkin: Those were the days.

Do you remember it? Don’t worry, I’m not going to sing it! But remember the chorus….

Those were the days my friend
We thought they’d never end
We’d sing and dance forever and a day
We’d live the life we choose
We’d fight and never lose
For we were young and sure to have our way.

‘Those were the days’ – how often do we say that?

We look back and we will see those days, whenever they were, through rose-tinted spectacles.

This passage in Acts of the Apostles has that kind of rose-tinted glow all around it, doesn’t it?

It’s like that through every generation.

Even for those of you who remember the great years of the 1950s in the Kirk. The old-timers back then would have been waxing lyrical about the years before the War!

So, when we’re looking at a passage like this in Acts of the Apostles, we’ve got to be careful that we don’t place it on a pedestal and admire it as a kind of exhibit.

This is not about idealised Christianity, for that would make it absolutely useless and it would set it against the rest of the New Testament witness which is absolutely grounded in the reality of the daily struggle to witness faithfully. ‘Those were the days my friend’; absolutely, but we live now and what can we learn for now? [Read more…]

Rev. Geoff McKee’s sermon for Easter Sunday (01 April 2018) discusses worldliness: concern with material values or ordinary life over a spiritual existence. Jesus knows our names and he calls each of us by name. The challenge we face is to keep looking to Jesus rather than (competitively) at the person next to us.

Download a copy of the sermon in PDF format by clicking here.

John 20:1-18 (New International Version)
The Empty Tomb
20 Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance. 2 So she came running to Simon Peter and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved, and said, “They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don’t know where they have put him!”

3 So Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. 4 Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first. 5 He bent over and looked in at the strips of linen lying there but did not go in. 6 Then Simon Peter came along behind him and went straight into the tomb. He saw the strips of linen lying there, 7 as well as the cloth that had been wrapped around Jesus’ head. The cloth was still lying in its place, separate from the linen. 8 Finally the other disciple, who had reached the tomb first, also went inside. He saw and believed. 9 (They still did not understand from Scripture that Jesus had to rise from the dead.) 10 Then the disciples went back to where they were staying.

Jesus Appears to Mary Magdalene
11 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realise that it was Jesus.

15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.

One of the surprising aspects for first-time Commissioners to the Church of Scotland’s General Assembly in Edinburgh is that, for many, the most moving moment of the Assembly occurs during the final session on Friday afternoon.

Some Commissioners don’t even last that long and are on their way home when the names of those ministers who have died since the last Assembly are read out by the recently retired Moderator along with the name of the last Parish in which they served.

It’s usually a long list but one finds oneself listening intently to all the personal names and all the Parishes and by implication the people who have served their local churches through the ministries.

It’s very moving.

It’s moving because it means something when a name is spoken. We all have names which are, of course, personal to us.

I’ve told you the story about ‘Fruit Stand’ before but it’s worth telling again!

When the 1960s ended, San Francisco’s Ashbury district reverted to high rent, and many hippies moved down the coast to Santa Cruz.

They got married and had children. But they didn’t name their children Melissa or Jack.

People in the mountains around Santa Cruz grew accustomed to their children playing with the likes of ‘Frisbee’ or with little ‘Time Warp’ or ‘Spring Fever’. And eventually ‘Moonbeam’, ‘Earth’, ‘Love’ and ‘Precious, Promise’ all ended up in public school.

That’s when the nursery teachers first met ‘Fruit Stand’.

Every autumn, according to tradition, parents bravely apply name tags to their children, kiss them good-bye and send them off to school on the bus.

So it was for Fruit Stand.

The teachers thought the boy’s name was odd, but they tried to make the best of it. [Read more…]

For the fifth Sunday of Lent (18 March 2018), Rev. Geoff McKee discusses the covenant promise given in Jeremiah 31:31-34 and fulfilled through Jesus Christ. By this stage in Lent, we sense Jesus’ weariness. He required great persistence and determination to see things through – an example we must all follow because, in the end, these qualities will serve us better than education, talent and even genius.

Click here to download a PDF version of the sermon.

Jeremiah 31:31-34 (New International Version)
31 “The days are coming,” declares the Lord,
“when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel
and with the people of Judah.
32 It will not be like the covenant
I made with their ancestors
when I took them by the hand
to lead them out of Egypt,
because they broke my covenant,
though I was a husband to them,”
declares the Lord.
33 “This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
after that time,” declares the Lord.
“I will put my law in their minds
and write it on their hearts.
I will be their God,
and they will be my people.
34 No longer will they teach their neighbour,
or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’
because they will all know me,
from the least of them to the greatest,”
declares the Lord.
“For I will forgive their wickedness
and will remember their sins no more.”

It has been said that any argument has two sides, and they’re usually married to each other.

I read the following poem recently:

“A horse can’t pull while kicking.
This fact we merely mention.
And he can’t kick while pulling,
Which is our chief contention.
Let’s imitate the good old horse
And lead a life that’s fitting;
Just pull an honest load, and then
There’ll be no time for kicking.”

The relationship between God and humanity had gone horribly wrong.

This was despite the fact that they were in a kind of marriage relationship, through promises made by God and Israel, where both parties had made covenant promises.

God was emphatic that he had kept his promises and that humanity was unfaithful – and the majority of humanity was also quite sure that God had not kept faith with them.

And so, in this situation of marital breakdown, a critical crossroads appeared. Was the relationship doomed and a divorce imminent, as the prophet Hosea had lamented, or was there going to be a breakthrough that would bring reconciliation? [Read more…]

The Ten Commandments (Exodus 20:1-17) is Rev. Geoff McKee’s scripture for the third Sunday in Lent 2018 (04 March). Drawing on a powerful story told by H.A. Ironside, he explains why the Ten Commandments help us understand the difference between law and grace. Why, despite the lack of a “No spitting” sign, there is no spitting on the floor of the beautiful house.

Click here to download a PDF version of the sermon.

Exodus 20:1-17 (New International Version)
The Ten Commandments
20 And God spoke all these words:

2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery.

3 “You shall have no other gods before me.

4 “You shall not make for yourself an image in the form of anything in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the waters below. 5 You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the Lord your God, am a jealous God, punishing the children for the sin of the parents to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me, 6 but showing love to a thousand generations of those who love me and keep my commandments.

7 “You shall not misuse the name of the Lord your God, for the Lord will not hold anyone guiltless who misuses his name.

8 “Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. 9 Six days you shall labor and do all your work, 10 but the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God. On it you shall not do any work, neither you, nor your son or daughter, nor your male or female servant, nor your animals, nor any foreigner residing in your towns. 11 For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea, and all that is in them, but he rested on the seventh day. Therefore the Lord blessed the Sabbath day and made it holy.

12 “Honor your father and your mother, so that you may live long in the land the Lord your God is giving you.

13 “You shall not murder.

14 “You shall not commit adultery.

15 “You shall not steal.

16 “You shall not give false testimony against your neighbour.

17 “You shall not covet your neighbour’s house. You shall not covet your neighbour’s wife, or his male or female servant, his ox or donkey, or anything that belongs to your neighbour.”

How difficult it is to do the right thing!

One of the most famous criminal trials in history was that of Benjamin Francois Courvoisier – in London, in 1840.

He’s a character who is now immortalised in Madame Tussaud’s Wax Museum.

Courvoisier was a Swiss valet accused of murdering his elderly employer, Lord William Russell.

What made this trial notorious was the argument for the defence.

The police had bungled the investigation.

The evidence against Courvoisier was entirely circumstantial or had been planted. One of the officers had perjured himself, and the maid’s testimony brought suspicion on herself.

The defence barrister, Charles Phillips, was convinced of the innocence of Courvoisier and cross-examined witnesses aggressively.

At the beginning of the second day of the trial, however, Courvoisier confessed privately to his lawyer that he had committed the murder.

When asked if he were going to plead guilty, he replied to Charles Phillips, “No, sir, I expect you to defend me to the utmost.”

Phillips was faced with a dilemma.

Should he declare to the court that the man was guilty, or should he defend Courvoisier as best he could?

Should he break the confidentiality of the client-lawyer relationship or should he help a guilty man to possibly go free?

Which is more important – truth or professional duty? [Read more…]