I wonder do you know what last Monday was? The first Monday to begin the first proper week back to work after Christmas and New Year is nick-named

‘D-Day’. D-Day as in ‘Divorce Day’!

There was a whole line of people waiting to file divorce papers, and it’s very interesting, because the guy in front of me... (I am only jesting, I promise you)! However, it is the true that there are more divorces filed on that particular Monday than any other day in the year. Hence it is nick-named ‘D-day’.

Every person I have spoken to has had (to quote) a ‘wonderful Christmas’. Now that doesn’t really tally with all the statistics you read. Are we deluding ourselves or do we have atrocious memories, or have I been largely talking to Church people and that has, in some way, made some kind of difference?

There are many versions of this story, and this is just one of them: A biker was riding along a Californian beach when suddenly the sky clouded above his head and, in a booming voice, the Lord said, “Because you have tried to be faithful to me in all ways, I will grant you one wish.”

The biker pulled over and said, “Build me a bridge to Hawaii so I can ride over anytime I want.”

The Lord said, “Your request is very materialistic. Think of the enormous challenges for that kind of undertaking; the supports required to reach the bottom of the Pacific, the concrete and steel it would take, it will nearly exhaust several natural resources. I can do it, but it is hard for me to justify your desire for worldly things. Take a little more time and think of something that could possibly help mankind.

The biker thought for a long time and finally he said, “Lord, I wish that I, and all men, could understand our wives. I want to know how she feels inside, what she’s thinking when she gives me the silent treatment, what she means when she says ‘nothing’s wrong’.”

And the Lord replied ... “You want two lanes or four on that bridge?”

We’re making decisions all the time. We make decisions about marriage and divorce; we make decisions at home and in school. We make decisions about our job, and in our job. In fact, the range of decisions now is so vast that many believe it is a serious contributing factor to stress; it’s not just at Christmas and New Year! We even make decisions about Church, and there we make decisions about what we believe in.

When I was with the Bishop a number of weeks ago while he is doing his ‘visitation’ of all his clergy, I happened to mention that if I didn’t attend Glencraig Church, I’m not sure where I would go to Church in the Diocese. Nobody’s perfect and we all have our faults. But, I suppose, the first decision is whether you would go to Church at all, and then the next decision is where you go.

We make decisions about what we believe and the way we worship all the time; people are happier now and freer than ever to ‘shop around’ for a Church. I have no doubt that being a Christian and the way we worship is the result of a decision-making process. It is a decision of the heart and it is a decision of the mind.

You are in Church this morning because you have decided to be here. You have decided to believe the Christian gospel of love, even when there are perhaps reasons you can find not to believe. But in your heart of hearts you know it is true. It is a result of decision to believe, a decision to commit and a decision to do what Jesus would do. Jesus has completely identified with us in his entire ministry from his Baptism by John, to giving us life through his death and resurrection.

God only speaks twice in the New Testament, and both times he says the same thing, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” If God thinks this is worth repeating, you would think this is highly significant; and it is! It is of supreme importance. The phrase is a combination of two quotations. The first is from Psalm 2, verse 7. Every Jewish person would know that this Psalm is a description of the Messiah, the mighty King of God who was to come, ‘This is my Son, whom I love’.

The second part is a quotation is from Isaiah 42, verse 1, which is a description of the Suffering Servant. When you think about it, it is quite incredible that God himself reveals this kind of information about Jesus at the very beginning of his ministry and then again to reaffirm it near the end of his ministry; that, indeed this the Chosen One of God and also that the way in front of him is the way of suffering and the way of the cross.

In that moment there was set before Jesus both his task and the way to the fulfilling of it.

The story is told of Richard Bellinger who was the young son of a Baptist minister in South Carolina. One Saturday night Richard decided to shine his father’s shoes for the next day. The following night his father put a silver dollar on the bureau of his son’s room with a note commending his son for what he had done, and telling him that the dollar was his reward.

The next morning, when the father put on his shoes, he felt something hard and metallic in one of them. When he took off the shoe and reached inside, he found the silver dollar he had given to his son the night before. Along with dollar was a note that simply read, “I did it for love!”

In what way, or in what place, we have decided to follow Him is really quite immaterial; to make the decision at all is the important thing. And nothing we can do is enough to repay him, for he did it out of love.