St.Oswald’s, Walkergate - Newsletter 1

We will be holding our St. Oswald’s A.G.M.on Monday 18th April @ 7:30 p.m.

We hope very much that if you are a regular with us, youwill make every effort to come to this important occasion inour church’s year, as we look backward and forward in the workof the gospel in our area.

ELECTORAL ROLL One of our preparations for the A.G.M. is the updatingof the Electoral Roll. This update is required to ensure wehave an up to date list of those eligible to vote at meetings likethe AGM. As this is an update, you only need to fill in aregistration form if you are currently not on the Electoral Roll.You can check the current list at the rear of the churchbuilding, or by contacting Keith Solomon.

Signing up like this is the way in which people indicate theircommitment to a local congregation, like ours. Only those whoare on the roll may vote for the new Church Council at theA.G.M.. In order to qualify for the roll, a person must be over16 years of age, be resident in the parish or have habituallyattended St. Oswald’s for a minimum period of 6 months priorto the A.G.M.

Application forms may be obtained from the rear of the churchbuilding or from Keith Solomon.

If you have any questions about eligibility or need any help to fillin the form, please do see Keith or any member of the staff.

February 20162

Alternate Saturdays

February 13 Team 4 27 Team 1March 12 Team 2 26 Team 3April 8 Team 4 22 Team 1

February 7 Ann 14 Marion 21 Alison 28 MavisMarch 6 Vera 13 Ann 20 Marion 27 Alison

BAPTISMS, WEDDINGS & BANNSThose with enquiries are invited to come to the

Vicar's Vestry in St.Oswald's Church, MONDAY EVENING‘sbetween 6.30 and 7.30pm. KEN is always glad to see anyoneneeding spiritual help and advice.He may at times appear busy, but this should never deter any enquiries.

We extend our sympathies to the friends and family of :

Mary Dawson

Lily Tate

Brian Graham

Frank Bullock

Isobel Bowie

Monday 15th February Theatre Royal - Pat Stevens

Monday 14th March at 7.30pm

St.Oswald’s, Walkergate - Newsletter 3

Maundy Thursday, 24th March7.30pm The Lord’s Supper

(a Fellowship Meal)

Good Friday, 25th March10am Family Service

10:45am Easter Crafts2pm An Hour at the Cross

Easter Day, 27th March10am Family Service

and short Holy Communion

The brochure for this year’s House partyis now out. In it you will find all theinformation you need. If you are

thinking, “Is it really for me?”, why not asksomeone whose been before. Let them tell youwhat it’s like. We’re pretty confident they willsay it’s a weekend not to be missed.

So ... why not think about coming toCober Hill this year.All you have to do is: Decide to come, graba form and fill it in, then return it to LenRobson; or any member of staff

Our speaker this year is:Michael Farrier

Teaching us from Ecclesiastes

February 20164

Monday 25th to Sunday 31st JulyThis year we will be repeating the theme of‘Superheroes’. More details soon, but pleasehave these dates in your diary, and please con-tinue to pray for the work that is done to preparefor this important event in our church calendar.

News of leader training dates to follow.

Sunday 6th March10.00 a.m. Family Service

with YPG’s.Please join us to give thanks for the gift of our Mothers.

On Good Friday morning at St Oswald’s we will be holding anotherof our special events for children and their families.

More information will be available in our next magazine, or on ourwebsite www.walkergatechurch.org /specialevents and watch outfor the Easter Programme

St.Oswald’s, Walkergate - Newsletter 5

We reflect with David Holloway, Vicar of Jesmond Parish Church, on thedoctrine of the divinity of Jesus and the Trinity.

At Christmas we sang again Charles Wesley’s great carol Hark! theherald-angels sing. But why do we sing in the second verse the words:

Late in time behold him come,

Offspring of a virgin’s womb.

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see!

Hail, the incarnate Deity!

Pleased as Man with man to dwell,

Jesus, our Emmanuel?

This is an amazing statement that Jesus, the baby in Bethlehem, is Godincarnate - God come in the flesh. He is “Emmanuel”; that means “God withus.”

Many people find it difficult believing in the deity of Christ. But that isright at the heart of the Christian faith - that God himself came into theworld as a man one, to show us what he is like; two to show us what we, asmen and women, should be like; and three, by his death, to save us from themess we are in.

Gandhi once said (and millions like him have said): “I cannot ascribeexclusive divinity to Jesus. He is as divine as Krishna or Rama orMohammed or Zoroaster.” Jesus, they say, is just one among others.Some then try to say that the bible did not really teach that Jesus wasGod incarnate. That belief, together with the doctrine of the trinity, theysay, came from the influence of Greek thinking on the early church. Such“orthodoxy”, they conclude, is not biblical.

That is clearly wrong. The bible does teach the deity of Jesus. He wasmost certainly a man. but the bible teaches most certainly he wasalso “God come in the flesh” - God incarnate.

continued on next page ....

February 20166 The Old TestamentJehovah is the traditional translation of the Hebrew consonants YHWH -the special name for the one true God. The Jews said that this name wastoo sacred to be pronounced. So they replaced it by a variety of names -such as “Lord” or “the Name”.

From Exodus 3.14 we know that YHWH was derived from the verb “to be”:

God said to Moses, “I AM WHO I AM. This is what you are to say tothe Israelites: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’”

But on a number of occasions Jesus refers to himself by using “I am”. InJohn 8.58, for example, he says in controversy with the Jews:

before Abraham was born, I am!

Had he been saying he was merely a pre-existent being he would have said,“before Abraham was, I was.” The Jews realised the implications of whatJesus was saying. “They picked up stones to stone him” for blasphemy(v59).

At the time of his trial, Jesus was asked by the high priest about hismessiahship. He replied, “I am. And you will see the Son of Man sitting atthe right hand of the Mighty One and coming on the clouds of heaven”(Mark 14.62). The violent reaction from the high priest can only beexplained if this was a claim to deity. He said, “you have heard theblasphemy” (v64).

And there are many other roles or titles of Jehovah (Yahweh) from theOld Testament used of, and by, Jesus - author of eternal law, light, rock,bridegroom, shepherd, forgiver of sins, redeemer, saviour and judge.

In Isaiah 45.23 God says of himself (through the prophet):

before me every knee will bow; by me every tongue will swear.

But in Philippians 2.10 Paul says:

at the name of Jesus every knee shall bow ... and every tongueconfess that Jesus Christ is Lord.

St.Oswald’s, Walkergate - Newsletter 7The TrinityJesus was indeed “making himself equal with God” as we read in John’sGospel (5.18). He was beginning to teach that the “unity” of God involveda true uniting of three “persons” in the Godhead or in the diving nature;and he was claiming to be one of them.

The New testament never systematised the many statements of Jesusabout his relationship to the Father. This happened years later in theearly church. So the world “trinity” never appears in the New testament.But the reality is there. In the last book of the bible, revelation, there isa vision of the Lamb (Jesus) sitting on the one throne with God. It is “thethrone of God and of the Lamb” (Rev 22.3). There was an essential oneness.

The “trinity” means “three in one” and “one in three” - “trinity in unity” and“unity in trinity”. This is not “tri-theism” or “three Gods”. Nor is it simplythree aspects of God. rather there are three “persons”, where the wordperson applies to the distinctions within the one Godhead - “Father”, “Son”and “Holy Spirit”. Within the “oneness” there is communication, fellowshipand identity.

The “trinity” is clear in the baptismal formula that the risen Jesus tells hisdisciples to use in Matt 28.19:

Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptising them intothe name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.

At the end of 2 Corinthians, Paul pronounces a benediction in which thethree persons of the trinity are named as partners with co-equal power tobless:

May the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ, and the love of God, and thecommunion of the Holy Spirit be with you all (v14).

The “Trinitarian” pattern is elsewhere in the New testament. And inRomans 9.5 Paul is quite explicit about the deity of Christ:

from them [the Jewish nation] is traced the human ancestry ofChrist, who is God over all, for ever praised! Amen.

Then in Collosians 2.9 Paul writes:

February 20168in Christ all the fullness of the Deity lives in bodily form.

In Titus 2.13 he writes:we wait for the blessed hope - the glorious appearing of our greatGod and Saviour, Jesus Christ.

The bible clearly teaches the deity of Jesus Christ. The doctrinalformulas of the early centuries were simply systematic reaffirmation’s ofthe bible in the face of similar denials as are made today. There is nothingnew under the sun!

ConclusionAt the time of the Reformation in the 16th century Martin Luther said:

he [Jesus] ate, drank, slept, waked; was weary, sorrowful, rejoicing;he wept and he laughed; he knew hunger and thirst and sweat; hetalked, he toiled, he prayed ... so that there was no differencebetween him and other men, save only this, that he was God and hadno sin.

Earlier this century Archbishop William temple said:it is now recognised that the one Christ for whose existence there isany evidence at all is a miraculous Figure making stupendous claims.

C.S.Lewis said:the discrepancy between the depth and sanity, and (let me add)shrewdness, of his moral teaching and the rampant megalomaniawhich must lie behind his theological teaching unless he is indeed God,has never been satisfactorily got over.

What is to be our conclusion? Doubting Thomas at first could not believein the resurrection of Jesus. Subsequently he had the evidence and metthe risen Jesus. His conclusion, and the submission his conclusion required,were so clear: “My Lord and my God” (John 22.24-29).It was Paul who said:

If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in yourheart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. (Rom 10.9)

†

MINISTER Ken Moulder 263 6249

WARDENS Bob Winter 225 Fossway 265 0162

Chris Downs 8 Holmside Place 276 0060

PCC SEC’ Julie Jude 1 Laburnum Ave 263 0865

TREASURER Bob Winter 225 Fossway 265 0162

MAGAZINE Len Fallick 43 Julian Avenue

For details of daily events, please see the inside back cover.

SUNDAY 9.30am Holy Communion 11.00am Family Service &

Young People’s GroupsExcept 1st Sunday of each month10.00am Family Service & Short Communion (NO 9.30 or 11.00am services)

6.30pm Bible Study at St.Oswald’s

MONDAY 6.30pm Enquiry Hour (Vicar’s Vestry) 7.30pm P.C.C. Meeting (2nd Monday) 1.45pm Wives Club (3rd Monday)

TUESDAY 9.30-11.00am Toddlers Group 6.15pm Bible Study & Supper

at Osman’s (years 10+) 7.00pm Youth Club & Bible Study

at St.Oswald’s (years 6+)

WEDNESDAY 9.30am Holy Communion 1.30pm Women on Wednesday 7.30pm Bible Study at 1039 Shields Road 7.45pm Bible Study at the Vicarage

THURSDAY 3.30pm J.A.M. at Walkergate School 7.30pm Bible Study at 4 Firtree Avenue

Please ask for details of :Monday 5.00pm Beavers

6.00pm Rainbows 6.15pm Cub Scouts

Tuesday 6.00pm BrowniesFriday 7.00pm Scouts & Venture Scouts

www.walkergatechurch.org