The Green Chalice by Mark Coleman

I met Jesus Christ this week. Your reaction to this will be either: How impressive, what a holy man our Vicar is. Or on the other hand what a poser ? A religious extremist ! When I took holy communion to an elderly woman who lives alone in great mental anguish, I was with Jesus Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane. When on Christmas Eve we hosted a lunch for the homeless, I met with Jesus Christ abandoned by his disciples and maligned by the authorities, because that is how things are for the many in this town whose lives are precarious. They are a problem…fortunately at Christmas there are many good-hearted volunteers who are happy to welcome them. And there’s Jesus again, in the smile and the hospitality of the volunteers, reaching out with love. Not on a sunny hillside in 1 st Century Palestine but on a wet Lancashire hill, but there he was looking with love on the needs of those who are poor, addicted, seeking refugee and asylum from war. I met with Jesus there, in the Christian, t...