Good Friday Meditation by Mark Wakefield on March 21 2008
Matthew 27.32-44

Simon of Cyrene carries Jesus’s cross. Originally from North Africa, he had probably come in from a neighbouring village to attend Passover in the holy City of Jerusalem. And here he is, unwittingly caught up in a deadly and sordid drama that would turn the tide of human history.

A Sermon preached at St Mary’s, Primrose Hill by the Reverend Robert Atwell on Palm Sunday 2008

What happened in Jerusalem two thousand years ago? It’s a straight-forward question, but not that simple to answer. Anyone who has participated in a dramatic reading of the Passion as we have just done knows how many different characters are involved. It would be quite a task simply to list all those who must have come across Jesus as he rode triumphantly into Jerusalem on that first Palm Sunday, who witnessed his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane late on Maundy Thursday night or his execution barely twelve hours later.

Sermon preached by Mark Wakefield on March 9th 2008
Ezekiel 37:1-14/Romans 8:6-11/John 11:1-45

Early on in my broadcasting career I landed a job as a Researcher on the Current Affairs programme Panorama. To this day it remains one of the best jobs I have ever done.

What made it so was the kind of access to people's lives that working on such a well known and respected programme made possible. As a Researcher I could find myself in the homes of miners fighting pit closures and unemployment one week and sipping a gin and tonic mixed by none other than the legendary Denis Thatcher in the Prime Minister's study at Number 10 the next week. It really was the most wonderful privilege.

ASH WEDNESDAY 2008
A Sermon preached by the Reverend Robert Atwell at St Mary’s, Primrose Hill

Ashes are always significant. Perhaps the remains of a barbecue in the woods or of a bonfire in the back garden: signs of companionship or of a family outing. But ashes can also be signs of something terrible. When I was in New York recently, friends shared their memories of 9/11 and how for weeks afterwards when walking down their street in Lower Manhattan they would discover bits of ash, blown by the wind, caught in their hair or stuck on their clothing. Even more terrible must have been the ashes blown by the wind from the crematoria at Auschwitz and Treblinka.