No-one expected Christ’s ministry to be quite what it is – yet it is the model for our own ministry.

In Baptism, we are called to be Christ-like in our response to God’s loving-purposes. Jesus grew up to be compassionate, generous, kind-hearted, loving and forgiving. It is those Christ-like qualities which we nurture in ourselves and in others.

The cross inside the church, above the communion table, shows that we all need to keep coming back to the cross of Christ – our relationship is an ongoing thing.

We continually need to receive his help and healing in good times and bad.

It may appear “foolishness” to many, but to those that experience this relationship with God it has the ring of truth.

what might appear foolish to the rest of the world is what we as Christians are baptised into – the suffering of the cross, for without the suffering of the cross then Christ could not have risen.

Corinth, according to the Book of Acts, was one of the more successful of Paul’s churches and yet the picture that St. Paul gives us today is far from rosy:

'It has been reported to me by Chloe’s people that there are quarrels among you, my brothers and sisters'.

Did you see the TV Series –“The Toughest Place to be a............”?

• A London binman with semi-destitue Indonesian binmen in Jakarta;

• A Cornish Fisherman in Sierra Leone;

• Sussex firefighter in Brazilian forests;

• Devon dairy farmer with subsistence cattle farmers in Kenya;

• A London Cabbie in Mumbai.

Being in someone else’s shoes is not something we can easily do.

It may be fun, challenging, or exciting, to receive insights into a different life!

Swapping jobs is one thing, how about bodies? How might we fare if we had to suffer the disability of the woman in the Luke's story:

"On a Sabbath Jesus was teaching in one of the synagogues, and a woman was there who had been crippled by a spirit for eighteen years. She was bent over and could not straighten up at all."