A worship service was held at 10.30am in the church on Sunday 1 March.  The service was simultaneously broadcast on the Church Facebook page.  For the next four weeks, you can catch up by following this link.

There was a prayer meeting in the small hall from 9.30am – 10.00pm with a focus on praying for children, young people and families in the Hilton community.

The Bible passage is 2 Chronicles 33: 1-16 and David Whillis led and preached.   The sermon begins at 47:18 in on the video.

 John writes:

The message of David’s sermon was that, in the words of the famous hymn, ‘The vilest offender who truly believes, That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.’  David introduced us to an Old Testament Jewish king called Manasseh who ‘did much evil in the eyes of the Lord, arousing his anger’. (2 Chronicles 33:6)  Manasseh made a mockery of the Temple, filing it with idols.  He, and the nation he led refused to listen when God challenged them (v10).

So they were attacked by the King of Assyria’s army. Manasseh was captured, taken to Babylon, and humiliated.  But there, at that rock-bottom situation he began to see things clearly:

In his distress he sought the favour of the Lord his God and humbled himself greatly before the God of his ancestors. And when he prayed to him, the Lord was moved by his entreaty and listened to his plea; so he brought him back to Jerusalem and to his kingdom. Then Manasseh knew that the Lord is God. (vv12-13)

On his return to Jerusalem, Manasseh showed the genuineness of his return to the Lord by rebuilding the city’s defences, and restoring the pure worship of the Lord alone.

Then he restored the altar of the Lord and sacrificed fellowship offerings and thank-offerings on it, and told Judah to serve the Lord, the God of Israel. (v16)

It’s a crackingly good story, and it speaks to us today. There can be few offenders more vile and repugnant than Manasseh seems to have been.  And yet, he is pardoned, forgiven, received home like that other Prodigal in Jesus’ famous story. (Luke 15:11-32)

It speaks to all of us who have messed up our lives in whatever way, who have grievously wandered away from goodness and from God, who feel alienation, guilt and despair that there is forgiveness, there is a way back, there is restoration and healing, there is joy – though there will always be a sadness that there were times when we embraced the dark. 

This forgiveness and restoration comes through Jesus, as the old hymn reminded us. Our forgiveness and restoration comes at great cost – the cost of Jesus death on our behalf.

After speaking to the children, David invited us all to sing ‘Jesus loves me’, with its chorus ‘Yes Jesus loves me.’  And he distributed around the congregation A4 sheets with ‘YES’ printed on them in big, bold letters. He asked us to hold our ‘Yes’ in the air each time the word appears in the song’s chorus. ‘Yes, Jesus loves me! Yes, Jesus loves me.’ For me lifting up that ‘Yes’ was the most meaningful part of the service, a way of embodying my response to the love of Jesus.  I can see I might be at home in one of those services where people wave flags as an expression of praise to God.

But I also know that familiarity can drain symbolic actions of their meaning. If we were asked to hold up our Yeses every Sunday, or wave banners every Sunday, I know that for me the visceral power of these symbols would ebb away, and they would become simply part of the service.

Anyone with any contact with Christian faith knows that Jesus Christ died for our sins, and for this sins of the world. We know that forgiveness and restoration through Christ is available to all of us, each time we mess up.  And yet this knowledge becomes part of life, somehow disassociated from our inner thinking. We can know that Jesus saves, and yet still feel burdened by guilt, but the sense that we are too bad, that we don’t deserve forgiveness.

Or perhaps we have left God behind while still outwardly carrying on with life and maybe even coming to church.  Yes ‘Jesus saves’, we think, but I’m fine, I don’t need saved. I’m not a prodigal daughter or son.

We need something to awaken us, something to get round our defences, to speak challenge and peace to our troubled hearts. And God’s Spirit can do that through a less familiar story like that of Manasseh. Just as waving the ‘YES’ this morning freed me to say ‘Thankyou’ to God, so an unfamiliar store can prompt us to see ourselves right there, with Manesseh, with the people who bought into his agenda. It can bring us to our own rock bottom where our eyes are opened we find Jesus waiting for us, looking at us with gentle gravity, and saying ‘What took you so long?’