FR JULIAN'S WEEKLY BLOG
21/12/25
’m sure we were all horrified by the events at Bondi beach last weekend, when 15 Jewish people were killed apparently by Islamic extremists. Those killed were taking part in a large celebration of Hannukah. This a ‘festival of lights’ marking the rebuilding of the second Temple in Jerusalem in the 2nd century BC. It lasts 8 days, and is marked by the daily lighting of a candle on a ‘menorah’ from the central candle, the ‘attendant’. It is a major festival, and is especially popular amongst secular Jews, occurring around the time of Christmas.
The rise of anti-semitism has been seen over all the world and in this country, perhaps triggered by the events of October 7th 2023, and purportedly in response to the Israeli reaction in their subsequent actions in Gaza. Whatever the perceived reason, indiscriminate violence against any group, identified by religion, ethnicity, gender or sexuality can never be justified. It is abhorrent to all right-thinking people, and above all, to God.
We are preparing to celebrate the birth of the Prince of Peace, whose central command was that we should love another. Overlooking Jerusalem on the Mount of Olives, is the church of Dominus Flevit – Jesus wept. We are still causing his tears to flow by our action and inaction.​
14/12/25
As the season of Advent gloriously unfolds before us, this Sunday we shall be focussing on St John the Baptist. St John was controversial, both followed and rejected – just like Christ himself. He attracted crowds to the Jordan where he offered a baptism of repentance. King Herod imprisoned him, yet liked to listen to him, although St John’s condemnation of Herod’s marriage led to his eventual martyrdom.
St John’s elderly parents conceived him after divine intervention. Tradition has it that he was part of the Essene community, strict Jews in the community which wrote the Dead Sea Scrolls. He was called to Judea to proclaim the baptism of repentance, in the ‘wilderness’, dressed in camel hair and eating locusts and wild honey. It was in to the ‘wilderness’ that the scapegoat was sent, carrying the collective sins of the Jewish nation at the great festival of Yom Kippur. And it was St John who physically pointed out the Messiah, Jesus, as he too (unnecessarily) came to baptism himself.
St John was the last of the Old Testament prophets, recalling the Jewish people to their faith in God. In 1833, John Newman recalled the C of E to its true faith in his sermon against ‘national apostasy’. It strikes me that we need to recognise the Baptist and Newman amongst us today.​