From Rev’d Caroline – carolinesymcox@googlemail.com, 01285 712467
Readings for Sunday: Malachi 4.1-2a; 2 Thessalonians 3.6-13; Luke 21.5-19
To hear Caroline’s sermon click on the arrow below.
The following is taken from the Parish Newsletter for Sunday 16th November 2025.
As we move through this November season, our readings, and our thoughts, begin to turn to Advent – that time of reflection and preparation as we look both to the coming of our Lord at Christmas, and His coming at the end of time. Our readings this Sunday especially prompt us to think about the fact of Jesus’ return in the future. How hard or easy this is for us to think about depends very much on our situation, I think.
I had always thought that being a priest might dissuade Jehovah’s Witnesses from knocking on my door. I was wrong. Not so long ago, a lovely pair of ladies from the Jehovah’s Witnesses knocked on the Vicarage door, and engaged me in conversation. I was happy enough to speak with them – it’s always interesting to see what people think. And having established that both they and I believed in the Bible, they immediately turned to a single topic. “Don’t you think,” they said, “that the end times are with us? Don’t you agree that all those things Jesus talked about are happening right now? All those wars, and terrible happenings?”
I answered honestly. “I don’t know. And I don’t think we’re supposed to know.” Jesus is very clear when he speaks to the disciples, that his return cannot be predicted. Terrible things will happen, and there will be great challenges to peoples’ faith, but those things won’t be indicators of a change immediately to come. When people are in very tough places, the thought of the Lord’s return can be an enormous comfort. When they are comfortable and happy (comparatively), that thought can be a scary one.
But Jesus speaks clearly to both camps – don’t bet on your own understanding. Jesus will return, and so we must be ready. We must be as ready when things are comfortable as when things are hard. We must be expectant, but ready to keep living life fully until the moment when things change. As I said to those ladies from the Jehovah’s Witnesses – it shouldn’t make any difference to how I live, whether I think the end times are now, or if they are coming in ten thousand years. My life must look the same – faithful, awake and expectant – in either case. Because we just don’t know.
So we live, we work, we share the love of God, and the hope he gives us for both the future and the present, and we know that in God’s plan, the rock we stand on is his promise to be with us in the Spirit, now and always. Let us be dwelling with Christ here and now, ready and willing for when he returns.
Rev’d Caroline
Updated 17th November 2025