Anglicans and other Christians who use the Christian liturgical calendar will know that we are now in the long season of Trinity (or Pentecost). This is the ideal time of the year to explore the outworking of God's Spirit in our Christian lives. We could say, this is the time (as always) when we should ask ourselves how our faith in God through Jesus Christ is expressing itself in our heads, our hearts and our hands.

Something wonderful began on the first Christian Pentecost in Jerusalem - a new empowerment, a fresh Presence of God's Holy Spirit, came upon the infant church of Jesus Christ. Without the Holy Spirit's enegising and guidance, the church of God would have long ago succumbed to its weaknesses.

The history of the Christian Church has had its glorious chapters and its times of decline and failure. Yet, time and again, the Spirit of God has come again in power upon the church to renew its love for God and others, and to anoint its witness with supernatural power.

It is a theological mistake to think that the Holy Spirit came once upon the church and that there is no more to be had of the Spirit. We can pray - we must pray - for a fresh baptism of the Holy Spirit in power for our living, and working and loving. Come Holy Spirit!

The season of Ascension begins this Thursday. At this time of the year, the church celebrates the continuing Incarnation of Jesus Christ, now at the right hand of the Father in heaven. Of the five great acts of Jesus the Messiah and Son of God (birth, death, resurrection, ascension and return), the Ascension is probably the most neglected in the minds and hearts of church members. Yet the fact and implications of Christ's ascension bodily to heaven is of immense importance to our faith and living.

The departure of Jesus from their earthly fellowship did not disappoint his disciples; they worshipped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy, praising God (according to Luke 24:52-53). They understood that the departure of Jesus to heaven meant his greater influence and abiding presence with the disciples through the Holy Spirit (Jn. 14:15-21).

During this season of Ascension-tide, let us remember how our Lord Jesus continues to intercede for us in heaven, how he sends us grace and mercy to help in time of our need and how he is a presence with us in our daily walk and witness.

We have arrived at Holy Week, when the climactic events of our salvation occurred in Jerusalem so many years ago - the death of the Son of God on the cross of Calvary and his astonishing rising to new bodily, resurrection life a few days later. One observation out of the richness of meaning in this "good news" can be made here.

Here with the cross of Christ we see the stunning action of God in becoming weak and suffering the consequences of sin for sinful people. He did not think it sufficient to  stand on his authority and glory as the Son of God, but emptied himself of immunity from suffering and entered into his own judgement on sin. In doing so, God in Christ showed that he is Love, not just Power. "Christianity", observed G.K. Chesterton, "is the only religion on earth that has felt that omnipotence made God incomplete."

To a suffering, imperfect humanity, this is truly amazing grace from God! Instead of staying only on the Creator side of the line between us and the deity, our God in Christ has come over to our side and entered into our problems, carried them, borne their sting and effects, and having exhausted the penalty of justice, has opened a way back to fellowship with himself.

Whether you believe in Christianity or not, you have to admit that in doing this the omnipotent God shows a wonderfully generous, compassionate and gracious face.

P.T. Forsyth described the Christian gospel (message) as "God's utmost for man's worst". The Anglican Collect Prayer for the Fourth Sunday in Lent expresses this same Biblical message: " grant that we, who justly deserve to be punished for our sinful deeds, may in your mercy and kindness be pardoned and restored, through our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ."

This aptly catches the dramatic nature of Christianity - it is both more severe in its diagnosis of human failure and amazing in its assurance of God's grace. Most of us do not want to admit how serious our sin-problem really is, and hence, we are not appreciative of God's offer of pardon. The two go together - the problem of sin and the amazing grace of God in forgiveness.

If we avoid the difficult truth about human nature - about ourselves - we will not be able to appreciate the love of God in Christ. After all, if we feel basically deserving of God's love, it is an entitlement, not a gift. We may even feel that God is treating us pretty poorly in life.

And what is this mercy and kindness of God? It is nothing less than the real God himself bearing his own judgement on our own sins! Think about this, take it in, and you will be constantly PARDONED AND RESTORED. Truly Christianity is GOOD NEWS.

Today is Ash Wednesday, the beginning of the season of Lent according to the time-honoured tradition of the church calendar. In the ancient church, the six weeks before Easter was used as a time of preparation for candidates for baptism. It was inspired by the "forty days" of fasting and spiritual preparation of our Lord Jesus in the wilderness. In time, the whole church, not just the baptismal candidates, adopted this season as a time of reflection and fasting.

Now it is not just at this time that we should give ourselves to repentance, fasting, prayer and study; these are disciplines for all periods of our spiritual lives! However, it is good that we dedicate time for a special focus on our walk with God.

The Prayer Book Collect for the first day of Lent places the emphasis on repentance, not on the outwards means of penitence such as fasting. The gospel calls us to real, inner contrition, an awareness of our sins and the need for forgiveness. The problem for many of us is that we deny our spiritual failures and avoid real self-examination.

This prayer reminds us that God is the giver of real penitence: "create and make in us new and contrite hearts, that we, lamenting our sins and acknowledging our wretchedness . . '. There is an irony here, because it is only those who truly understand their sins before God, who are able to appreciate the amazing grace of God: " may obtain from you, the God of all mercy, perfect remission and forgiveness; through Jesus Christ our Lord." 

"Penitence", note Paul Zahl and Frederick Barbee, "means seeing things as they are and flinging back that discouraging truth to God to take care of and dispose." May we all take time to examine our lives honestly before God and recall his amazing grace to us in Jesus Christ.

Most of us know what it is to be "counting the days" - until some big event (birthday, retirement, a baby coming). The expectation shapes how we feel about our days of waiting. 

In the Anglican worship tradition, the three Sundays before the season of Lent (called by the strange names of Septuagesima, Sexagesima and Quinquagesima) make a countdown of the days until the celebration of Easter (70, 60 and 50 days respectively). They are the countdown before the countdown that is Lent! In Lent we are invited to give ourselves to reflection and prayer on the meaning of our lives, our sins and the cross of our Saviour. This puts us into the right frame of mind to appreciate the grace and power of God for us in Jesus Christ.

The Collect Prayer for Jan. 27 invites us to remember our spiritual weakness: "through the weakness of our mortal nature we can do nothing good without you". And then to cast ourselves on the help of the Lord our God, " the strength of all who put their trust in you".

We tend to forget our weakness and need, or the Saviour's power and victory. Are you marking the days until the special anniversary remembrance of Jesus Christ our Lord's tremendous victory over death - not just that he continued to exist somehow, but that he was RAISED - returned to life after death, back here in our world?

In the Anglican worship tradition, the weeks of the new year are the season of Epiphany, when we recall the purpose of Christ's coming - to reveal the light and truth of God to the nations of the world. "Epiphany" is a Greek word for "appearing" or manifestation (1 Tim. 6:14; Titus 2:13). .

In Jesus Christ the living God manifests himself to us in many ways: his grace, his love, his power and his transforming presence. Each of the weekly Collects of the Epiphany season explores one of these facets of Christ's revelation of God.

Let us not be discouraged by the darkness and hostility of a God-rejecting world, since it is the darkness that the light of God can really be seen for what it is:  the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it (Jn. 1:5). 

One way that Christ's light shines in our world is through his people. An Epiphany prayer for us is found in the Anglican Collect for the first Sunday in this season. it is a prayer that we may with God's help, so perceive and know what things we ought to do, and also may have the grace and power faithfully to perform them, through Jesus Christ our Lord." Here then is a prayer for each of us this new year - let Christ so shine in us and through us, that our world will see the difference God makes.

Happy New Year! This is the traditional greeting for the season after Christmas, when the old calendar year finishes and a new year opens. In Australia it happens in the lazy days of hottest summer, when many of us rest with family, at the beach, in front of the cricket, and having time out from the busyness of life.

Some people make resolutions for a new year. For Christians, there is always the possibility of new things - not achieved in our strength of resolution, but through the purposes of our God, who has a great track record of doing new things. Think of it: NEW universe (out of nothing); NEW salvation (breaking in with surprise at Bethlehem and Calvary); NEW presence of God with people (in the Holy Spirit, given to the Church); NEW life in Christ; a NEW family for us (the church of God); NEW power to change and grow in the character of Jesus Christ.

Let me encourage you to think about how God will do new things in 2008.

What is the message of Christmas? For those who are followers of Jesus Christ, there is a gospel or good news in Christmas - the best news of all. Here the essential message of Christianity can be found. On Christmas Day around the world millions of Anglicans will be praying Archbishop Cranmer's superb Collect Prayer for the day: "Almighty God, you have given us your only Son to take our nature upon him and as at this time to be born of a pure virgin: grant that we, being born again and made your children by adoption and grace, may daily be renewed by your Holy Spirit ..."

Here is the best news of all: that God is really with us in Christ (God's only Son took our nature upon him and entered deeply and truly into human life). Not only that - this Son of God gave us new birth through his grace, dying for our sins and raising us to new spiritual life. And to cap it all, this same God who became Incarnate with us, who died for us, now daily lives in us and renews us by His personal Divine presence, in the Holy Spirit.

Truly, every day for the Christian is Christmas Day - the day of good news from God.

This week many Anglicans will be praying the collect for Advent 3, "that the course of this world may be so peacably ordered" through God's guidance that we, the church "may joyfully serve God in all godly quietness". We are all affected by the lack of peace - even strife - that is so much a mark of this time of year. Let's pray that we can be people who have God's peace with us, in us and flowing out of us, so that our world may be influenced by the peace of God that passes understanding.