Scripture Readings: Ezekiel 2:1–5 | Psalm 123 | 2 Corinthians 12:2–10 | Mark 6:1–13
[The Lord] “said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me.” (2 Corinthians 12:9). Today we gather to worship the Living God as the stewards of the enduring witness of St. Luke’s Church, a place of worship which has stood vigil in this community, pointing our parishioners and neighbours to the Gospel of Jesus Christ for nearly 200 years. The gravestones around us serve to remind us of the many lives of those who have faithfully served Christ Jesus in this community, and who have now gone before us into glory. Today, we give thanks to God for their lives, and their labours… laying many of the foundations on which we have continued to build today. And whether we here can remember all of their stories in detail or not… we rejoice that they are all remembered by God, and trust that they now find their rest in His loving arms. Their time and presence here in this Parish matters. These brothers and sisters in Christ were all a part of God’s work in this part of God’s world… helping those around them live out their faith, grow in God’s love, and share the hope of the Gospel. And their presence here also reminds us that our presence here matters too. That we now serve as witnesses to God’s work here in Gondola Point… a much needed service, especially as fewer and fewer of our neighbours seem to be familiar with the Good News of Jesus: with God’s saving love, the forgiveness of sins, and the New Life offered to all in His holy name. Faced with this high calling, it might be easy for us to get a little discouraged at times: to feel the great weight of the legacy that we’ve been entrusted with, while also not necessarily knowing how best to share the Good News of God’s New Life with those around us. Thankfully, our Scripture readings this morning have some encouragement to offer us: important reminders of the strange and wonderful ways the Living God works through His faithful people, helping them share in and point others to His power at work even in our weaknesses. In our first reading from the book of the prophet Ezekiel, we heard a clearly less than positive message from Yahweh: God was sending Ezekiel to share His message with a stubborn and hard-hearted people, and there was no guarantee at all that they would listen to him. And yet, despite the discouragement that he might have felt that his fellow Judaeans in exile in Babylon would likely not heed God’s word, Ezekiel could be confident that the Lord would be at work in and through him in ways that God alone could truly foresee. And sure enough, though his contemporaries paid little heed to his faithful prophetic service, God did work in and through Ezekiel in powerful and unexpected ways. For example: Ezekiel probably had no clue that his words would be read by a bunch of New Brunswickers in Gondola Point thousands of years later, as we seek to live God’s way today! You and I are part of his story… a part of a living community that reaches all the way back to those ancient times… whose members have passed down the faith, one generation to the next… one people group and culture to the next… sharing the Good News through their faithful words and deeds, despite all sorts of hardships, missteps, misunderstandings, rejections, and even persecutions. And as our Gospel reading reminds us, Christ Jesus our Lord Himself faced fierce rejection by His own people… first in Nazareth, and then ultimately at the cross. But the Good News is that God transformed that rejection into God’s gracious gift of reconciling love through the atoning death and resurrection of Jesus Christ again from the dead. What seemed like utter defeat and failure became the ultimate victory of God’s great love. A love that we have tasted, and share in today, and are called to share with those around us. After the episode in Nazareth, Christ Jesus sent out His first disciples to share the Good News of His Kingdom with their world… inviting one household, one neighbourhood, one community after another to receive it. And Christ continues to do so today through His disciples gathered in His name, even here in Gondola Point. We too are a part of this same story: called to share his Good News through the lives that we lead, and through the love that we share. And this is true even when we feel weak and uncertain of our own abilities. In our second reading, we are reminded of St. Paul the Apostle’s faithful service, carried out despite the great difficulties that he faced… including a persistent problem he referred to as a thorn in the flesh and “a messenger of Satan”. He pleaded repeatedly for the Lord to remove this chronic problem, whatever it may have been, but instead the Lord assured Paul that His divine grace would be enough to see Paul through… that God’s power is made clear in the weakness of His servants. 2 Corinthians 12:7-10, “Therefore, to keep me from being too elated, a thorn was given me in the flesh, a messenger of Satan to torment me, to keep me from being too elated [That is, too puffed up or exalted]. Three times I appealed to the Lord about this, that it would leave me, but he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” So, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may dwell in me. Therefore I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities for the sake of Christ; for whenever I am weak, then I am strong.” Now the point St. Paul is making is not that we should go out of our way to make ourselves weak, or to seek out suffering. But rather, to see that our weaknesses, troubles, and struggles pose no barrier at all to God’s Kingdom work, and can actually serve to reveal the power of God’s great love in ways we could never have imagined or planned. We are called to place our trust in Christ’s power, and in God’s grace, not in our strengths… or in what we see as stable circumstances. With God we are strong even when we are weak… for His power and love are at work in us. So many of our sisters and brothers in Christ who have gone on before us have had to face times of great uncertainty, struggles, and weaknesses, and yet God’s grace was enough for them, and carried them through to the end. And so, like St. Paul, and these our brothers and sisters, whose bodies lie buried here, and who now are at rest in the arms of the Risen Lord, waiting until His coming again, let us in our time be faithful witnesses to Jesus Christ in every circumstance that we face, trusting that His grace is enough to see us through, and that He will keep on working in and through us to share the power of His saving love with Gondola Point and our world. Amen.
0 Comments
Scripture Readings: Lamentations 3:22–33 | Psalm 30 | 2 Corinthians 8:7–15 | Mark 5:21–43
“The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” (Lamentations 3:22-23). Our world is hungry for hope. For better or worse, long gone are the days of progressive optimism… the notion that we humans can figure out the solutions to just about any crisis we come across… given enough time, money, technology, and motivation. True, these things can all be put to good use… alleviating all sorts of real problems… but then new ones keep popping up. And all the old ones seem to find new ways to unravel all our nicely laid plans. We could talk about the generations of people being raised in poverty just down the road in Saint John… or those struggling quietly behind closed doors here in the valley. Or the growing numbers of our neighbours living without a home, or the opioid epidemic all across our country. Or the millions of people who are being crushed by famine, and war… made worse by our changing climate, and not to mention all those who are being invigorated and incited to act, not out of compassion, but out of fear and prejudice… seeing violence and oppression as the only path forward. So many today are hungry for some kind of hope to cling onto… but have no clue where to turn to find it. Our Scripture readings today don’t paint a rosy picture of the world we live in… they don’t offer us simple or easy answers for how to bring and end to all of the suffering and pain… inside, and all around us. But they do point us to the One who we can turn to even in our darkest moments… so that we can receive from Him the hope we need, and start to share this hope with those around us. Our first reading today is taken from the book of Lamentations; a collection of powerful and poetic prayers expressing the grief and anguish felt by God’s covenant people after the fall of Jerusalem. After centuries of living in the land God gave to them, while for the most part ignoring their commitments to walk in the ways of the Living God, the Babylonian Empire showed up and turned the world of those who lived in Judea upside down. The holy Temple of the Living God built by Solomon… the centre of their people’s spirituality and society, lay ransacked and in ruins. God’s chosen people were defeated, crushed, and deported to foreign lands. The survivors felt abandoned… at a complete loss, and with no idea how things could turn around. A grim situation that has been repeated so many times around the world, including today. And in that time of desolation, some of God’s people found the words to share their pain and despair… honestly expressing to God and to one another, the sense of hopelessness that had overtaken them. The book begins with a metaphor of Jerusalem and its people as a woman whose future has been snuffed out. Lamentations 1:1-4, How lonely sits the city that once was full of people! How like a widow she has become, she that was great among the nations! She that was a princess among the provinces has become a vassal. She weeps bitterly in the night, with tears on her cheeks; among all her lovers she has no one to comfort her; all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they have become her enemies. Judah has gone into exile with suffering and hard servitude; she lives now among the nations, and finds no resting place; her pursuers have all overtaken her in the midst of her distress. The roads to Zion mourn, for no one comes to the festivals; all her gates are desolate, her priests groan; her young girls grieve, and her lot is bitter. And on and on it goes. And yet, even in this deep desolation, the poet turns to Yahweh, the Living God. Not to offer easy answers, but to reach out towards the Lord in faith… in the midst of their grief, seeing Him as their only hope. Lamentations 3:19-24, “The thought of my affliction and my homelessness is wormwood [bitterness] and gall! My soul continually thinks of it and is bowed down within me. But this I call to mind, and therefore I have hope: The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. “The Lord is my portion,” says my soul, “therefore I will hope in him.” Against all expectations, at the centre of their Lamentations the poet places their hope in God: in Yahweh’s steadfast love… not in the absence, but in the midst of their afflictions. When all other hopes appears utterly lost, the poet looks to the LORD. And this is a theme that runs all throughout the Bible: time and again this sacred story calls us to place our hope in the Living God, whose steadfast love endures forever. In our Gospel reading today St. Mark tells the story of two other hopeless situations: a daughter who is dying, and a woman whose sickness will not end. Arriving on the shore after His dramatic calming of the storm, Jesus is met by a desperate parent who begs Him to come and rescue their child. Then on the way, we’re told of the desperate act of a woman suffering from a chronic, stigmatized, and debilitating disease. Just like Jerusalem in the opening lines of Lamentations, these two women were facing desolation, and they had no one else to turn to. And yet they weren’t without hope… and in their troubles they both turn to Jesus. One through the public, earnest pleas of their father… who repeatedly begs Jesus to heal her. The other turns to Jesus with a secret hope she dares not share aloud, even with Jesus Himself! But even so, she reaches out to Him in hope… trusting that even the slightest touch of Him will be enough to bring her relief. At this point, St. Mark amps up the tension in the story… which is an important question for us to consider in our own contexts too. And that question is: how close will Christ Jesus actually get to those who are suffering and hopeless? How near is He willing to draw to those who are themselves considered untouchable? As we may know, one of the most isolating parts of the affliction of the woman who bled those twelve long years, is that for that whole time, she would have been considered unclean by her community. Of course, it might make good medical sense, in the past and today, to be concerned about unknown diseases, and afflictions in order to guard against any dangerous contagions. Our own experience in the early days of COVID-19, when much was unknown about how it is passed along can remind us of how tricky these things can be. But it was not for primarily medical reasons that the woman with the hemorrhage was seen as unclean. It was part of the Israelite understanding about the sanctity of life itself… and the strict rules governing how humans were to relate to the Living God. God was, after all, holy, sacred… uniquely set apart, and needed to be treated as such… in part by maintaining clear boundaries between His holy presence and anything associated with the forces of death. Now to be ritually unclean was not an indictment of someone’s moral character… it was a common, but usually temporary experience that everyone would go through from time to time for a whole host of reasons. If someone was in an unclean state, they simply needed to isolate themselves for a time, and then perform some specific purification rites before rejoining the life of the community. But what if the isolation kept on going? Imagine if you had to stay completely socially distant for twelve years… while everyone else could just go back to their old lives. On top of the physical toll this person had to endure, they were also facing their afflictions alone… cut off from the life of their people, and apparently kept at a distance from the Living God Himself. This part of St. Mark’s Gospel invites us to contemplate not only if there is hope in hopeless situations… but if there is hope for the people who seem to be hopeless themselves. And one of the truly amazing things that stands out about how Jesus relates to people, even unclean people, and hopeless people, is how He draws near to them. He does not wait for them to be completely ready and made right before connecting with them, but rather He reaches out to them in the midst of the painful messes they find themselves in. Jesus did not let the normal boundaries define who was able to experience the presence and power of the Living God… revealing something I think is incredibly important: In Christ Jesus we see that God is not removed from those who are afflicted… even from those considered outsiders for all sorts of reasons. No, in Jesus, God has truly drawn near to us all… placing Himself within our reach… present and eager for us to turn to Him in faith… to place our hope in Him, and so to experience His life-giving, and cleansing power. When the hemorrhaging woman touched Christ’s cloak expressing her secret hope, Jesus immediately acknowledges her bold faith in Him. And even though everyone else thought that her ritual uncleanness would spread through that desperate touch, it turns out that drawing near to Jesus actually serves to restore and cleanse her instead. And this same willingness to reach out to those who seem hopelessly cut off from is at play when Jesus arrives at the house of the synagogue leader, and takes the hand of his dead daughter. Again, this was an act that itself would have made anyone else ritually unclean. But again, Jesus reaches out to this dead child, and His life-giving power completely restores her. In Jesus, St. Mark wants us to see that God is not threatened or limited by our afflictions, as desperate as they may be. Nor is He repelled by our uncleanness… standing far off from us to avoid contamination. No, in Jesus, the Living God has drawn near, and reached out to bring His healing, cleansing, and life-giving touch to our world. In Him, we know God is very present to our sufferings, and is at work to rescue us up close and personal. This means that no one is beyond the reach of God’s mercy. All are invited to draw near to Him in faith, and to receive from Him the forgiveness, freedom, and hope that He offers to us all, through Jesus Christ… even those we might be tempted to see as hopeless. Our world is indeed hungry for hope, and Jesus Christ is eager and able to fill us up with a hope that endures… not based on what we are capable of on our own, or what we see happening all around us… but based on the Good News of the steadfast love of the Living God made know to us in Jesus Christ the Risen Lord. What does this mean for us His people today, as we seek to not only draw near to Jesus in faith, but also to faithfully follow His ways and share this Good News with our world? Well, many things. But for starters, it means that we too are meant to reach out even to those who seem hopeless, and to extend God’s steadfast love to them… embodying His mercy and care as we serve as Christ’s hands and feet, and hope-full presence in our world in all sorts of ways. One tangible example of Christians doing this comes from our second reading in 2 Corinthians, as St. Paul encourages his listeners to put God’s merciful presence and power into practice by providing for the needs of others… for strangers living in far off Jerusalem. Though it’s not necessarily clear just from our reading today, one of St. Paul’s projects was to gather a collection on behalf of the Christians in Jerusalem, to provide support and relief as they were suffering from the effects of a severe famine. And so, in our reading, St. Paul was offering the Corinthians encouragement to embody God’s generosity towards their brothers and sisters in their need. Even though Jerusalem was hundreds of miles away… and they may not have met each other personally, St. Paul knew they were all still a part of God’s family, and they were being invited to share God’s love with them in this hands-on way… to be shaped by God’s own merciful heart, and to bring help to those without hope. And St. Paul could see this as an opportunity to help the Corinthians to become a bit more like Jesus… learning to truly care for one another in their afflictions… practicing love for their fellow Christians, and in the process, growing in love towards all their neighbours. And to this end, St. Paul reminds them of the way that Jesus shared God’s great love with them. 2 Corinthians 8:9, “For you know the generous act of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, so that by his poverty you might become rich.” He is of course speaking of the cross, where Jesus gave up everything… His divine glory, earthly security, community, bodily autonomy, all sense of dignity… all in order to reach out to our world of hopeless sinners… stretching out His hands in suffering to bring us the cleansing forgiveness and life-giving power of God’s steadfast and holy love. And in His resurrection, Jesus gives us good reason to hold onto hope: in Him we know that not even our worst desolations… our suffering, isolation, and even our death can stand in the way of God’s rescuing love. In our day, there are plenty of people who are facing what seems like truly hopeless situations. People facing famine in places like Gaza, and Sudan… and there are also those struggling to make ends meet right here in New Brunswick. There are people that we might be tempted to consider outside of our area of concern… untouchable… hopeless. How might God call us to share His love and His hope with them? To be His merciful hands and feet, as we seek to be faithful to God’s ways today? And how can we support our fellow believers? Our neighbouring Christians in their struggles? Like the Corinthians, how can our hearts be opened to the whole family of God, not just our own community? And as we learn to love one another beyond our walls, also learning how to love all of our neighbours better as well? And finally, when we feel overwhelmed and hopeless ourselves… facing afflictions we can’t overcome… and when we can’t seem to see a clear way forward… let us draw near in faith to Jesus Christ, our merciful Saviour, and receive from Him the forgiveness, freedom, and hope that He offers us all… the hope found in the steadfast, and saving love of God alone. I’d like to close now with the prayer of General Intercession as found in the BAS. Remember, Lord, your people bowed before you, and those who are absent through age, sickness, or any other cause. Care for the infants, guide the young, support the aged, inspire the faint-hearted, and bring the wandering to your fold. Journey with the travellers, encourage the oppressed, defend the widows, deliver the captives, heal the sick. Strengthen all who are in tribulation, necessity, or distress. Remember for good those who love us, and those who hate us, and those who have asked us, unworthy as we are, to pray for them. Remember especially, Lord, those whom we have forgotten. For you are the helper of the helpless, the saviour of the lost, the refuge of the wanderer, the healer of the sick. You know the need of all and have heard each prayer: save us in your merciful lovingkindness and eternal love; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. Trust Him, Even In The Storm - Sermon for the Fifth Sunday After Pentecost (June 23, 2024)6/23/2024 Scripture Readings: Job 38:1–11 | Psalm 107:1–3, 23–32 | 2 Corinthians 6:1–13 | Mark 4:35–41
“He woke up and rebuked the wind, and said to the sea, ‘Peace! Be still!’ Then the wind ceased, and there was a dead calm.” (Mark 4:39). Many years ago, when I was a teenager back in the neighbourhood of Thunder Bay, I had the blessing of spending time in the summers at my Grandparent’s cabin on Hick’s Lake. It wasn’t a huge lake. A strong swimmer could cross it width-wise if they wanted to. But it was just about perfect for learning to swim, to fish, and to canoe. And I can recall one fateful day when my Dad, my cousin, and I decided to take the canoe down to the far end of the lake… which was a blast… until the storm clouds showed up. Suddenly, we were faced with some very strong headwinds… fighting whitecap waves, and pelting rain as we slowly made our way back to our cabin. At one point it seemed we were finally making progress, but then our canoe suddenly caught the wind the wrong way and we found ourselves clear across the lake again. In that moment, I remember being frightened, and frustrated, and aching from having to paddle against these fierce forces of nature… and I really don’t know how we would have made it back without my Dad’s steady guidance and strong hands hard at work from the back of the canoe. It was certainly a humbling experience, and one with important lessons I hope that I’ll never forget. And one of those lessons is that weather is a wonderful reminder of how much we really can’t control in life. There are many aspects of our day to day lives that we can seem to manage… or at least, we feel like we should be able to manage them. But weather is much bigger than us. It's beyond our capability to master. We can only do our best to observe it, to prepare for it, and respond to it. And as we are reminded all the time these days, there are some truly terrifying forces at work in the natural world: wildfires, floods, heatwaves, tornados, hurricanes… all of which can cause great destruction… and which can also serve to remind us of those other experiences in our lives that can also feel out of our control: like illnesses, and loss. And addictions… insecurity… poverty… injustices… and war. We know that people all over our world keep getting swept away by all these terrifying realities that we mere humans just can’t seem to master, as hard as we may try. Our Scripture readings today do not hold out the promise of preventing us from facing these troubles and storms of life… but they do direct us to the One who is not only with us in the midst of them, but who we can trust truly cares for us in our moments of fear and suffering… and the One who can overcome them… and help us to overcome them too. Our first reading today is a passage from the final chapters of the book of Job, where we hear the Living God respond to Job’s complaint against God on account of his unjust sufferings. The book of Job as a whole is a profound exploration of so many questions that we still struggle with today… and we don’t really have time this morning to work through all of the wisdom it has in store for us. But in our passage today we get a good glimpse of God’s response to Job: a stark reminder that we humans simply can’t see the big picture… nor can we master the world with all its wonderous and dangerous capacities. But as frightening and frustrating as this can seem, this passage is good news for us, because at its heart, this is an invitation to trust the One who can! Yahweh alone is the One who wields power over all the forces of the earth. It is no struggle for him to master the winds and the waves that simply overwhelm us. And so in Job, we are invited to trust in the Living God even without knowing all the answers… without clinging onto the illusion of control… without even any explanations. It’s an invitation to trust God precisely when it’s hard, and to find Him trustworthy. And in our reading today from the Gospel of Mark, we see Jesus displaying God’s own power in silencing the storm, to the amazement and fear of His disciples. I mean, its one thing to see your Rabbi as a great teacher, and a miracle worker. It’s another thing entirely to witness Him silence a storm with just a word. “Who then is this,” they said to themselves, “that even the wind and the sea obey him?” Far from just being a great man, Jesus was able to do things that the Living God alone can do. But Jesus does something else in this story that is of great importance for you and I today aside from revealing a glimpse of His power and glory as the Son of God: He rests in the boat in the midst of the storm… completely entrusting His fate, despite the dangers all around Him, into the hands of His Father in Heaven. And this is the call to action of this story: not only to stand in awe of and worship Christ Jesus for His great power over the forces of nature… but also to trust in the Living God… in our loving Father, when we are in the midst of our storms… in whatever forms these storms may take. Notice that, just like with Job, the disciples had done nothing at all to deserve the dangerous situation they found themselves in. It’s not like the storm was the result of their poor planning, or as a punishment for their mistakes. Actually, St. Mark tells us that it was Jesus Himself who leads His followers into this situation where they are in danger. This serves as an important reminder for us to avoid the temptation to try to assign guilt when life’s storms descend, either on us, or on others. True, these challenging moments might be helpful to remind us of the fragility of life, and of the importance of living faithfully each day… but storms come upon the righteous just as much as they do upon the unrighteous. Suffering itself is not a sign that God is out to get us, or is punishing us for wrongdoing. But it is always an invitation to trust in God’s character, in His compassion, and in His saving love… which is exactly what the disciples struggle to do in our passage. The violent storm tempts them to question Jesus’ concern for them… God’s concern for them: “they woke him up and said to him, ‘Teacher, do you not care that we are perishing?’” (Mark 4:38). How many times have those same thoughts entered into our minds, if not our lips, when the waves and the winds rage around us? How many times have we asked God, “if you love us, why is this happening?” In many ways, I can deeply sympathize, and identify with the disciples, and with this question… and maybe you can to. But Jesus’ response invites us to consider some other important questions: Like what do we think would have happened if the disciples had simply let Jesus keep on sleeping? Would they really have perished, as they feared, if they had not awakened Him? Or did Christ really have good reasons to remain calm, trusting in His Father’s love? And was it really because Jesus didn’t care about them that He could rest silent in the stern of the boat, instead of shielding them from having to experience the terrifying storm raging around them? Or was this a way to invite His disciples, including you and I today into a deeper faith? When we encounter the silence of God in the midst of our storms, is it because God does not care about us? Is it because He is powerless to still the wind and the waves that we find ourselves in? Or… is our Father calling us to trust Him? To place our faith in Him, and in our Saviour Jesus Christ, especially when it’s hard? To believe even when we struggle… and start to go under… and even if we should perish, to remain confident in His rescuing… and resurrecting love? There is of course another moment in the Gospels when Jesus clearly displays this deep trust in His Father’s power and love… not when He was threatened by the wind and waves, but by the shadow and specter of the cross. In Gethsemane, Jesus pleaded with His Father that if it was possible to take the cup of suffering from Him. But in the end, Jesus entrusted His life completely into the Father’ hands, allowing His life to be drowned by the consequences of our sins… suffering great pain and humiliation… abandoned by all, and crucified as a criminal. Jesus trusted His Father even to the point of death… and the Good News is, He was not let down. God raised Jesus again from the dead, overcoming not simply the powers of the weather, but the strongest foes ever imagined: the powers of spiritual darkness, of sin, and of death itself. And Jesus has been revealed as the victor, not by avoiding suffering, but by faithfully enduring the worst it could throw at Him, and by being raised again to God’s new life, no longer subject to these defeated foes. And this is how Christ calls us to share in His victory… not through avoiding suffering ourselves, but through faithfully enduring it, trusting in the saving love of our Heavenly Father, and in Jesus Christ our Risen Saviour, and in the Holy Spirit of God still at work within us. Our reading today from 2 Corinthians Chapter 6 calls us to consider St. Paul’s own experience as a faithful apostle of Jesus: weathering all sorts of storms… sometimes quite literally, being shipwrecked multiple times... and in the end, laying down his life as a witness to Jesus… trusting in the Risen Lord to share His own victory with him, and with all who place their trust in Him. 2 Corinthians 6:3-10, “We are putting no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry, but as servants of God we have commended ourselves in every way: through great endurance, in afflictions, hardships, calamities, beatings, imprisonments, riots, labors, sleepless nights, hunger; by purity, knowledge, patience, kindness, holiness of spirit, genuine love, truthful speech, and the power of God; with the weapons of righteousness for the right hand and for the left; in honor and dishonor, in ill repute and good repute. We are treated as impostors, and yet are true; as unknown, and yet are well known; as dying, and see—we are alive; as punished, and yet not killed; as sorrowful, yet always rejoicing; as poor, yet making many rich; as having nothing, and yet possessing everything.” Regardless of the turbulent circumstances that St. Paul found himself in, time and again, as He sought to serve the Risen Christ, he trusted in the saving love and the power of God to bring about God’s good will in the end… to bring to completion the New Creation begun that first Easter morning as Jesus Christ overcame the grave… the Good News that invites us all to believe in, and take part in sharing with our world. Back in the boat, Jesus called out the disciple’s lack of faith… not in an abstract, academic sense… but in the life or death moments when the pressure’s on: “Why are you afraid? Have you still no faith?” (Mark 4:40). And maybe Christ Jesus is asking you and I this same question this morning in our own moments of doubt. A question of correction, yes, but not of condemnation. Jesus knows why we are afraid. There are lots of things to be afraid of these days. But even so, He calls us all to trust Him when we find that we are afraid. To trust in His victory of new life over death… to trust in His great compassion and love, for us and for our broken world… to trust that, even if we do suffer and perish, we know that in Him there is the promise of God’s eternal life… and that no matter how terrible the storms we face may be, in Jesus the crucified and Risen Lord, God is with us and always will be. Amen. Scripture Readings: Ezekiel 17:22–24 | Psalm 92 | 2 Corinthians 5:6–17 | Mark 4:26–34
“He also said, ‘The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how.’” (Mark 4:26-27). What’s your favourite kind of flower? My favourite are Forget-Me-Nots. Aside from being simple, small, and yet beautiful, they also remind me of a time in my life when I was preparing to answer a calling to ordained ministry in the Anglican Church. A few of us who were also about to be ordained were on a silent retreat at the Roman Catholic monastery in Rogersville. It was a time of deep prayer, and of serious reflection on the implications of taking this step… and I can recall feeling overwhelmed at times, and very conscious of my own limitations… my own smallness compared to the mission ahead of me, and the whole Church I was called to serve. But then I went for a walk around the monastery grounds, and found a little path to a grotto… a solitary outdoor place of prayer. And in that peaceful place, where God’s Spirit continued to quietly invite me to trust in His guidance and grace, I found myself surrounded by Forget-Me-Nots. They completely lined the pathway, these little blue flowers… and this image is still vivid in my mind… an image which now helps me not to forget how God works through these simple and small ways to bring about His good will… drawing us closer to Him, and inviting us to trust in His gracious, life-giving love, for us and our world. When we moved to our home some years back, we found all sorts of wildflowers around the property. And to my delight, amongst the various wild plants and weeds, there were a few Forget-Me-Nots at the end of our driveway. No idea where they came from, but there they were. And for the first few years, they remained just a few in number. Easily overlooked. But then last year, instead of just mowing them down with the grass, I let them be… hoping that maybe they would spread a bit. And this year, to my growing delight, we now have a big patch of them… as well as a few more patches springing up nearby. Now I know that’s the way with Forget-Me-Nots, but like all growing things, even those that seem so commonplace, familiar, or insignificant… there’s an amazing and mysterious beauty at work in life if we take time to notice it… inviting us to humbly reflect on how our own lives fit into creation, and the Living God’s ongoing work within it. And in today’s Gospel reading, Jesus our Lord gives us two parables about God Kingdom using the imagery of planting and growing: wheat planted by a farmer, which then grows into a harvest, and a small mustard seed which then grows into a shrub big enough to offer shelter to the birds. These are moving images, but we need to remember that Jesus used parables not just as relatable word pictures about general truths… Jesus used them to offer true insights into who He is, and into what He is doing. They are about God’s Kingdom. Meant to reshape our ideas about what God is up to, and our place within His will for His world. Sometimes these parables seem pretty straightforward and familiar. Sometimes they seem a lot more mysterious. But if we want to actually understand the Good News that these sayings have to share, we need to remember their purpose: they point us to Jesus Himself, shining light on what He is up to… bringing about God’s good Kingdom even now. The parables we heard today are spoken by Jesus at a particular moment early on in St. Mark’s Gospel: after Christ had already called the Twelve disciples, had been confronted by the religious experts, and carried out many miracles. And so at this point, many of the common people in that region had begun to take notice of Him. People with all sorts of different ideas about what God’s Kingdom and God’s King should look like. At the start of Mark Chapter 4, we can read that Jesus “began to teach beside the sea. Such a very large crowd gathered around him that he got into a boat on the sea and sat there, while the whole crowd was beside the sea on the land. He began to teach them many things in parables” (Mark 4:1-2), including the two parables we read today. Mark 4:26-29, “The kingdom of God is as if someone would scatter seed on the ground, and would sleep and rise night and day, and the seed would sprout and grow, he does not know how. The earth produces of itself, first the stalk, then the head, then the full grain in the head. But when the grain is ripe, at once he goes in with his sickle, because the harvest has come.” It’s a simple and profound image: a seed planted in the ground comes to life in ways completely hidden from human agency. It’s something that happens all the time, all around us, but it’s still mysterious… outside of our understanding and direct control. Of course, all the gardeners here today know a bit more than the rest of us about what might help plants to grow; what kinds of soils and fertilizers works best, and so on. And those a bit more scientifically minded might have a better understanding about the whole process of plant cell replication, etcetera… but remember: this parable is not really about plants… it’s using plants to make a point about God’s Kingdom. About how it grows in ways we often don’t recognize, understand, or control. And yet, when the harvest is ready, there is a real need for us to respond rightly. Then there’s the second parable about the mustard seed. Mark 4:30-32, “He also said, “With what can we compare the kingdom of God, or what parable will we use for it? It is like a mustard seed, which, when sown upon the ground, is the smallest of all the seeds on earth; yet when it is sown it grows up and becomes the greatest of all shrubs, and puts forth large branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade.” Any botanists among us (or those like me with access to Google), might be tempted to point out that orchid seeds are actually smaller than mustard seeds… but to focus on this detail is to miss the point of what Jesus is getting at: that something so seemingly insignificant and easily overlooked is designed to transform into an unexpectedly outsized blessing for others to share in. Like many other examples of abstract wisdom found in the world… these parables might provide some edifying food for thought for anyone to consider. But for those of us who are followers of Jesus Christ, these sayings have a much more direct message, with real implications for how we go about the work of God’s good Kingdom. In short: we simply can’t accurately assess the potential growth of God’s Kingdom based on appearances! It is in so many ways mysterious… outside of our understanding and control… and able to exceed all of our expectations. And yet, we are all still graciously called to take part in it… trusting the Living God to do His work, as we seek to do His will. This means that we don’t need to be discouraged when the things of God seem small and insignificant. And we are warned against placing our faith in what seems like success by human standards. After all, God’s Kingdom is not all about us! It’s not based on our own potential or lack thereof. By God’s grace, we have a real role to play, but it is God’s power at work in us that brings about His New Life… often in really mysterious and unexpected ways. Christ Jesus Himself is the prime example of this. He is Himself the Living God, the Eternal Son whose glory was hidden like the grain of wheat, not in soil, but in the life of an ordinary human being like us… the life of a humble carpenter’s son from Nazareth… and yet there He was mysteriously and powerfully accomplishing God’s redemptive and life-giving work in ways beyond all expectations… healing the sick, confronting those who were misleading God’s people, and setting people free from the powers of darkness… and calling for people like us to respond to what He was up to with faith and obedience. And just like the tiny mustard seed sown in the ground, Jesus Himself would suffer a fate reserved for those whose lives are seemingly deemed insignificant… crucified as a criminal… publicly shamed and reduced to nothing from a human point of view… and yet from His death God’s New resurrection life bursts forth, upending our world for good… defeating the powers of darkness and death, and offering shelter and salvation for all the peoples of the world, calling us all to come and discover our truest home in Him. And as we Christians reflect on the life, and death, and resurrection of Jesus our Lord, we also come to understand the place of the Church within God’s good Kingdom as well. These parables point us first to Jesus, and call us to respond to Him in the light of the truth that they share. Just as God’s mysterious and hidden power was present and at work in and through Jesus in His earthly life, so too God is present and at work through His Spirit in the life of the Church today. The community of God’s faithful people may not seem all that significant in the world’s eyes… but that doesn’t mean God is not still at work in us, even in ways that we don’t understand. Even if it’s hard to see, God’s life continues to bear fruit in us as we draw near to Him in faith… as we let His word shape our imaginations, and spread its roots deep in our hearts… as we turn from our sins, and receiving His gracious forgiveness… offered through Christ’s own broken body and blood shed at the cross… and then as we put into practice all that we have received… walking in His ways, and tending to the life of God growing inside us through the Holy Spirit. Like a grain of wheat, God’s Kingdom is at work in us in ways we can’t always measure or observe… but we can be faithful and ready to respond when the time is right for Chris’s work in us to bear its good fruit. And just as Jesus Himself was cast aside, and His life considered a small thing to those who opposed Him, we too His people should not be surprised when we find ourselves dismissed as too small to matter, or to make a difference. God’s people might be a minority, but with God’s own Spirit still at work in and through us, we can become a real blessing to our world… helping all those who are lost to come into contact and receive the saving love of the Living God. These parables offer an important word of hope for the Church in the West these days: we don’t need to despair over having small numbers, or when we seem to only be making slow progress… and we don’t need to chase after quick ways to draw crowds, or get things done at the expense of faithfulness to the call of Jesus Christ to trust and follow Him. True, the more people who come to follow Christ Jesus, the better. And if our projects and programs seem to succeed, that’s great. But the point is: we can never clearly assess what God intends to do in and through His people, and He loves to use what seems weak and insignificant in the eyes of the world to bring about His gracious Kingdom. So, when we are tempted to be discouraged, or overwhelmed by the challenges that lie before us, let us not forget that God’s Kingdom grows in all sorts of surprising, and unexpected ways, with God’s Holy Spirit showing up where we least expect Him to, and when we need His grace and guidance the most. Let us not forget that Christ Jesus is the source of our confidence and life, and that if we follow Him in faith, our very real limitations won’t stop Him from drawing us into His good work. Let us not forget that God’s Kingdom is so much bigger than you and me… and yet, we are all called to share in its joys, in its labours, and in its blessed life. And let us not forget that Christ Jesus calls us share this Good News with the world around us too. I’d like to end now with a poem I wrote a while back called A Penny in God’s Pocket. A penny in God’s pocket Of infinitesimal insignificance; Almost perfectly pointless. And yet… Hidden, not forgotten. Lovingly remembered, As holy fingers play. Toying with this secret Silly treasure Tossed by all the rest. A penny in God’s pocket Almost nothing at all, But held by One Who makes all out of nothing. Amen. Scripture Readings: Genesis 3:8–15 | Psalm 130 | 2 Corinthians 4:13–5:1 | Mark 3:20–35
“If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand.” (Mark 3:24-25). A divided house cannot stand. There’s a lot of wisdom in these words. So many troubles our world is facing today highlight the truth of this saying. Whether we’re talking about politics, or business, or personal relationships… how can we expect to do all that needs to be done if we’re always attacking and opposing each other? Where else would we expect that path to lead then to our own destruction? And yet, we just keep on dividing. And to make sure we don’t go pointing fingers at everyone else, it’s important to remember that we Christians have a pretty divided history as well. Over and over again, we’ve found ourselves falling into the same old traps as everyone else. What we’re dealing with is truly a universal human problem. So then, what is the way forward? It’s not to expect the world around us to suddenly start getting along… and it’s not necessarily to just go along with what the world around us expects either. We Christians, as divided and struggling as we may be at times, have been entrusted with a particular vision of what we all need to come together again in unity… a vision which our Scripture readings today invite us to explore. Like so many other aspects of life, this Christian vision of unity begins back in the book of Genesis, and is connected to the story often referred to as “The Fall”… a powerful exploration of the origins and source of all of the divisions that keep on plaguing humanity… the start of our turning away from the Living God, and from one another… from those we were created to care for and bless… those we are meant to love, and to be loved by in turn. The book of Genesis is intended to set the stage for how the rest of the story of Scripture unfolds. And in our reading today we see the beginning of a broken pattern that plays out, again and again. A problem much bigger then mere human stupidity and sin… as big as those problems may be… a problem involving dark spiritual forces in rebellion that feed and fuel our self-destructive desires. But this story also points us beyond the problem to the hope that we Christians have of how God can set us free from these divisions… how God intends to put His beloved but fractured world back together again. The background of our passage today from Genesis Chapter 3 is that Yahweh, the Living God has created our world, and human beings to serve as His image… His representatives on Earth, reflecting and enacting His good rule over all His good world. But then we humans were tempted to reject this high calling. A crafty, cunning Serpent… a mysterious creature already in rebellion against Yahweh, convinces them to reject God’s instructions and to reach out and seize wisdom for themselves… tragically trying to make themselves like God, but without God. Too late, they realize that this is actually a trap, and that the ‘wisdom’ and ‘freedom’ from God’s ways that they sought really just led them to shame, and fear, and feeling exposed, and cut off from one another. And in that moment, the Living God Yahweh comes to meet with His beloved image-bearers. The gig is up, as they say. But notice how God first responds to the rebellion of the humans who have turned away from Him: The Almighty Creator… the One who understands all mysteries, and fathoms all of the factors that are at work in the universe, doesn’t arrive on the scene with angry accusations… but with questions, not playing dumb, or interrogating… but questions that invite them to turn back to Him and find life. An invitation they do not receive. “Where are you?” God is depicted here as searching for His beloved people… longing to be with the ones He created to share in His divine fellowship and love. He already knows where they are, but invites them to stop hiding and to come to Him. “What have you done?” He already knows what happened, but rather than attack and accuse, God invites them to tell the truth. He’s creating space for them to confess. To clearly acknowledge their sin, their betrayal, and to seek His mercy and forgiveness… because He longs to offer it. But instead, the humans begin accusing each other, and God… shifting away the blame from their own shoulders… no longer free to love, and to be loved… and free then to fail, and find forgiveness. Now they were both bound to fear, and cut off from one another, and from their Creator. The humans no longer trusted in God’s goodness, His mercy, and His love… and so they could no longer fulfill their calling to reflect God’s character to one another, and to the world. And this story is just as much about us as it is about Adam and Eve. It’s the Bible’s diagnosis of the deadly sickness that’s infected humanity… exposing the source of the misery of sin. But this is not a story without hope. For God traces the human’s rebellion to its deeper source… to the rebel Serpent… a symbol of spiritual forces in creation who have cut themselves off from the ways of the Living God. And over this Serpent, God pronounces his verdict: this agent of evil will one day be undone… and by the work of one of Eve’s own descendants at that. Though the Serpent sought to cut off humanity from the love of the Living God, Yahweh Himself would ensure that this division would itself be healed… that a human one would somehow overcome the power of evil, and reconcile us to our Creator and to one another. But not without a high cost: even as this descendant of Eve crushes the head of the Serpent, they will themselves be bitten… suffering a deadly strike, all to bring God’s estranged family back together again. The rest of the Bible tells us how this story unfolds, and today, we turn to the Gospel of Mark, and the story of Jesus to see the hope it has to share: So far in Mark, Jesus has been busy performing miracles, healing diseases, drawing eager crowds, offending certain religious people… and driving out demons… directly confronting the dark spiritual forces who had cut themselves off from the ways of the Living God, and who were at work wreaking havoc in peoples lives… doing what they could to deceive, and bring misery to daughters and sons of Eve, and lead them to self-destruction. St. Mark clearly depicts Jesus, and through His power, Jesus’ disciples, as those who are undoing the work of evil… setting people free from the tyranny of shame, of fear, of estrangement… of sins that cut us off from one another… so they could finally experience the new life of the Living God together. And it seems Jesus was causing quite a stir. So many people wanted to taste this freedom… pressing in to get close to Him… desperate to experience this new life for themselves, and for those they love. And the same is true today! People may not be pressing into our doors… but the very same spiritual hunger… and desperation for freedom from shame, and fear, and isolation… our neighbours and our world are searching everywhere for it… whether they recognize it or not… we’re all trying to connect again with the life we were always meant to share… full fellowship and communion with our Creator, and with one another. And the dark deceptive forces of evil are still at work today too! Leading people to look for life in ways that actually strip away our capacity to love and be loved. Cutting ourselves off from those around us… searching for our own wisdom, and our own so-called freedom to do whatever we want… which just leads us to death. But thankfully, Jesus is still at work in our world today… and He is still drawing people to Himself… inviting all those who are cut off to come out from hiding, and to step into the light… inviting us all to stop making excuses, and to speak the truth… inviting us all to resist the temptation to point our fingers at others, and instead to place our trust in His power and His desire to set all things right… to set all of us right. Jesus is inviting us all to believe today in God’s reconciling love… which Christ came to complete. At the start of our passage from Mark this morning, we heard how Jesus’ own family… His mother, and siblings were unsure of what to do with Him. He had turned out to be so unlike anything they had imagined… all the strange things He was saying and doing… and they were starting to be concerned that others were thinking that Jesus had lost His mind. And so rather than recognize the Living God’s life-giving power at work in Him, His own family come to collect Him… to get Him out of the public gaze… before He does something to bring shame on Himself, and on them too. Like Adam and Eve, Jesus’ mother and siblings felt vulnerable, exposed, and afraid. So they want to hide Him away. We’ll come back to this point again, but sandwiched into this story of Jesus and His family, we find Him being challenged by the religious Scribes from Jerusalem… the biblical and spiritual experts of the day, who were actively opposing His ministry, and seeking ways to discredit Jesus… pointing their fingers at Him… blaming Him of trying to lead God’s people astray, and being in league with Beelzebul… a name for the dark spiritual powers rebelling against God that the Serpent in Genesis also represents. Like Adam and Eve, the Scribes eagerly accuse Jesus of being the source of the problem, making the case that “…by the ruler of the demons he casts out demons.” (Mark 3:22). Ironically, the Scribes are actually the ones reflecting the ways of the Serpent… and the word that Jesus uses here for the spiritual enemy of God’s people highlights this for us. Mark 3:23, Jesus responds: “How can Satan cast out Satan?” The word Satan is not really a proper name… it’s more like a title, with a clear meaning: Satan means the Adversary… the one who Opposes… or, importantly for us today, Satan means the Accuser. Imagine a sort of spiritual prosecutor… one who is always seeking to find fault and to project blame on others. That is the heart of Satan. And remember how Adam and Eve turned on God and one another after listening to the Serpent… after embracing its lies… they blamed each other, instead of acknowledging their own failures, and their need for mercy, forgiveness, and for new life. In Mark Chapter 3, the Scribes fall into this same pattern, following in the ways of the Serpent… the Satan, the Accuser… but are in fact they are trying to blame and accuse the sinless One who had come to save them. And Jesus responds to their false accusations just like God did in the Garden of Eden… by asking questions that cut through the lies, and invite His listeners, back then and today, to let go of our prejudices and fears, and find in Him God’s gift of New Life… trusting that Jesus is not leading us astray, but is in fact confronting the powers of evil that have deceived us, again and again, and are still trying to lead us to destruction. Mark 3:24-29, “If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand. And if a house is divided against itself, that house will not be able to stand. And if Satan has risen up against himself and is divided, he cannot stand, but his end has come. But no one can enter a strong man’s house and plunder his property without first tying up the strong man; then indeed the house can be plundered.” “Truly I tell you, people will be forgiven for their sins and whatever blasphemies they utter; but whoever blasphemes against the Holy Spirit can never have forgiveness, but is guilty of an eternal sin.” The reason Jesus has power over the demons is not because He is in league with them, but because He is truly stronger then them… He is the One God had promised to send, the descendant of Eve who would crush the head of the Serpent, and shatter the chains of evil and death. Jesus is inviting the Scribes to take back their hasty accusation… and to trust in Him instead. They could chose to let go of their doubts… and listen to His invitation to turn around… to step into the light, and find the freedom of God’s forgiveness and mercy… or they could keep on acting like the Serpent, and find themselves guilty of accusing God, and cutting themselves off from His New Life. This is what Jesus means in His warning about blaspheming the Holy Spirit: That’s not an accidental misunderstanding, it’s when we clearly see God at work in the world, and harden our hearts to Him… choosing to accuse God Himself of being the source of evil. It’s a heart posture that makes it impossible to approach God and receive forgiveness from His hand. Which is why it is unforgivable. A prescription will do us no good at all if we won’t go to the pharmacist. And we know the direction that this story goes: the Scribes choose to conspire with others to kill Jesus… executing an innocent man at the cross to preserve their own sense of power, and status among God’s people. And just like God promised in Genesis, the One sent to crush the Serpent’s head would also suffer a deadly strike… but in dying in the place of sinners, Jesus Christ God’s Son disarmed and defeated the powers of the Accuser, the Satan, and opened up the way for humanity to be set free: to receive true forgiveness for our sins… to let go of our shame, and fear, and need to accuse one another, and cut ourselves off from one another… and instead, to share in God’s grace, and mercy, and compassion, and to share this with those all around us. At the cross, Jesus broke through everything that keeps us apart from God, and from our fellow humans… and in rising from the grave, Jesus began God’s new creation for us all to share in… led now and empowered by God’s Holy Spirit to live God’s way every day. What does this look like? It looks pretty different from how the world around us seems to want to do things… because God’s New Creation doesn’t play by the Serpent’s rules anymore. It may seem strange to our neighbours not to get caught up in accusing others, or when we own up to our failures… and instead of being crushed by guilt, we find the freedom that forgiveness makes possible. The strangeness of the Christian life is nothing new. From the start, Christians stood out precisely because they lived by a different pattern… they cared for the outcasts and the poor… they refused to take part in common practices that demeaned and exploited others… they actively sought ways to overcome the divisions that kept people apart… be they ethnicity, class, gender, age… seeing all of humanity as invited to share in God’s family, and in Jesus Christ, invited to recover at last what it means to reflect God’s image in the world. Many might be drawn to this strangeness. Many will resisted it. Many will be confused by it. But one thing’s for sure: if our lives simply mirror the world around us, they won’t reflect God’s New Life. Back to the Gospel of Mark, and to Jesus’ own family trying to restrain Him… to keep Him from getting out of control… to keep Him in line, and out of trouble. Mark 3:31-35, Then his mother and his brothers came; and standing outside, they sent to him and called him. A crowd was sitting around him; and they said to him, “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” If the way of the Serpent… the Accuser, is the way of division… cutting us off from God and from one another… then the way to find unity, peace, and true communion comes from following God’s ways today: from placing our trust in Jesus, God’s Son who came to set us free from our sins, and gave His life at the cross to draw us all into God’s great family. Jesus invites us all today to trust in Him… to believe that in Him, the Living God has finally confronted the powers of darkness… disarmed and defeated them, and that He is at work through the Holy Spirit to bring about New Creation in our midst. Jesus invites us to come to Him… so He can save us by His blood. So He can teach us to truly do God good will instead of our own. So He can bind up our wounds, and bring us together into His family, united to our loving Creator and to one another through all that Jesus has done for us all. What is the Church to do in our divided world? We are to do the will of God the Father: to trust in Jesus, and live His way here and now… creating space in our homes and communities for others to hear God’s voice calling to them to receive His forgiveness, new life, and reconciling love… and be set free to share this love with everyone else at last. Amen. Scripture Readings: Deuteronomy 5:12–15 | Psalm 81 | 2 Corinthians 4:5–12 | Mark 2:23–3:6
“Then he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent.” (Mark 3:4). What are some of your favourite ways to rest? To unwind a bit and relax for a while? Maybe it involves a leisurely stroll on the beach… or a good book, a glass of wine, and a warm bath. Maybe it looks like sitting around with some friends… or finding a quiet moment to ourselves. Whatever our ideas and ideals around rest might be, one thing’s for sure: one way or another, we all need it. We humans need time to be restored… time to recover our strength… to refocus… to remember the blessings we have received… and where these blessings really come from. And our readings today from the Scriptures invite us to reflect on the sacred rest that the Living God offers His people… not just a break for our bodies and minds… but the blessed rest of His new life. Our first reading today from Deuteronomy Chapter 5, is from one of the two places in the Torah, the first five books of the Bible, where the famous Ten Commandments are listed. These Ten Commandments served as the cornerstone of the Living God’s covenant partnership with Israel, setting out the clear parameters of the life of God’s chosen people. And as we heard, the fourth of these Commandments was to observe the Sabbath, the sacred seventh day of rest, and to keep it holy… to set it apart, not to pursue their own interests, but to honour the Lord their God and all that He has done for them. In other words, Israel was to regularly practice rest for an important purpose: to celebrated… to keep alive in their hearts, and minds, and bodies, the story of God’s great compassion… God’s concern for justice… and God’s saving, and sustaining steadfast love. Week after week, they were to break up the rhythm of their daily work to remember what the LORD had done for them by coming to their rescue and setting them free from slavery. Deuteronomy 5:15, “Remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God brought you out from there with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm; therefore the Lord your God commanded you to keep the sabbath day.” The Israelites didn’t save themselves from Egypt… nor did anyone else come to their aid. No one pitied them. No one cared… but God cared! And God saw their plight. And God Himself saved them with an outstretched arm from the power of Pharoah. What happened to them was pure grace. A gift of God’s great compassion, justice, and steadfast love. And so now, God’s people were to rest to remember the freedom and new life that the LORD had won them. Before that, they had no rest… or freedom. They had been trapped, and exploited, and oppressed by a tyrant… but now, the Living God had given them a whole new life… one they were to ensure everyone got to share in… rich and poor… women and men… strangers… even their animals were equally set free to share in this sacred rest. Deuteronomy 5:13-14, “Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God; you shall not do any work—you, or your son or your daughter, or your male or female slave, or your ox or your donkey, or any of your livestock, or the resident alien in your towns, so that your male and female slave may rest as well as you.” The whole community was given this gift of sacred, Sabbath rest… a chance to regularly relive the experience of deliverance… of being set free to be restored, and to remember the grace, and justice, and steadfast love of the Living God who rescued them. This gift of new life was to be baked into the pattern of Israel’s weekly rhythms… a constant reminder that even though they had been slaves, God had saved them, and shares with them the blessings of peace and rest… providing for them, attending to them, and offering them a glimpse of the glorious future that awaits them: God’s ultimate rest when the world is set right and God’s blessed reign fills all of creation. At its heart, the Sabbath was a sign of God’s salvation already achieved in the past, and of the blessed future rest that awaits His faithful people. But tragically, God’s people tend to forget our story… and according to the prophets, over the centuries Israel too forgot the grace, the compassion, the justice, and the steadfast love of Yahweh, the Living God, and they gave themselves over to their own desires… and became enslaved again to sin… transforming the way they treated each other… leading to the practice, not of sacred rest, but of injustice, exploitation, and oppression… reflecting the image of the tyrant Pharoah, instead of their gracious Saviour. And as the old saying goes: “the corruption of the best is the worst”… and even God’s good gifts like the Sabbath, can get turned into a tool to build up self-righteousness… or worse… a weapon of oppression… creating misery instead of sharing in God’s new life. And of course, this is a warning for all of God’s people… not just ancient Israel… we know that over the centuries, and even today, we the Church can just as easily fall into this same pit. But the Good News reminds us that even then, the Living God can lift us up, and set us free… that God sent His Son into the world, not only to rescue the oppressed… but to break sin’s hold on oppressors too. Turning now to our reading today from the Gospel of Mark, we see Jesus of Nazareth, God’s own Son on the scene, bringing about God’s sacred rest… God’s gracious compassion, concern for justice, and steadfast love in ways that really challenged how many in His day understood what it meant to keep the Sabbath holy. As we saw earlier, the Sabbath was one of the Big Ten Commandments… a practice of deep faithfulness to the Living God, and a commitment to His covenant. But over the years, strict Sabbath adherence had sometimes been used as a way to build up people’s public image… to show off one’s own status within the community. And when this happens, the good gift of the Sabbath gets twisted into a tool of self-righteousness… a sign of how good and ‘godly’ we are… and no longer serves as a reminder of God’s grace, which we can do nothing at all to deserve. And it can also become a weapon… a way to attack and accuse those who do not fall in line with our way of doing things… instead of as a sign of God’s great acts of salvation… rescuing the hungry, the hurting, the lost and oppressed… and bringing them His blessed rest. But that is exactly what Jesus Christ has come to do… to achieve God’s greatest gift of freedom and release… to win for His world lasting peace and rest… to offer and embody the fullness of God’s sacred Sabbath… in Himself. Our passage starts off with the story of Jesus’s disciples plucking grains of wheat as they walked along on the Sabbath. Some of his critics, eager to find fault with Jesus, pointed to this simple act of grabbing a snack as an example of law-breaking… of deeply dishonouring God’s holy Commandments… and proof that Jesus Himself was not in line with the LORD’s ways, and so should be opposed. In response, Jesus recalls a story from Israel’s past, when King David, out of great hunger, shared the sacred bread from the Tabernacle with his followers… and yet remained faithful to God. It’s not that He’s saying that the Sabbath doesn’t matter, but that those who were using the Sabbath to condemn those who were hungry had forgotten what the Sabbath was all about: not just avoiding work for no reason, but to cultivate a way of life that was based on the grace of God… a living reminder of His great compassion, concern for justice, steadfast love for the vulnerable, and the blessed life that He would one day bring about for good. And when Jesus enters the synagogue, we see Him again challenge His critic’s vision of what the Sabbath’s all about. In this gathering of their faith community, Jesus sees someone with a withered hand… a man who, because of his injury, would not have been able to do much work any day of the week… and who could not undo the damage, or deliver himself from his suffering. In other words, Jesus saw someone in deep need of God’s grace… and so Jesus brings Him new life. Mark 2:4-5, “Then he said to them, ‘Is it lawful to do good or to do harm on the sabbath, to save life or to kill?’ But they were silent. He looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart and said to the man, ‘Stretch out your hand.’ He stretched it out, and his hand was restored.” Right before the doubting eyes of the crowd, God’s gracious compassion, concern, and steadfast love breaks through the bonds laid on this man’s life… finally setting him free to experience and enjoy the blessed rest that the Sabbath was always meant to recall. Far from dishonouring this holy time, Jesus was bringing its deepest purpose to light… a gracious invitation to share in the blessed life of the One who is Himself the Lord of the Sabbath. In these two episodes, St. Mark is showing us something profound about Jesus: He is the Lord even of the Sabbath. Jesus is the One who shares God’s blessed life with us. He is the One who sets us free. He is the One we can truly turn to for God’s grace, His compassion, justice, and steadfast love… the Cornerstone of our faith, and the One who deserves our truest devotion. And in Jesus Christ, God’s holy Sabbath has come to life… reaching out to us in whatever slavery we might be facing today… in our own struggles with sin, with our fears and doubts, with the heartbreak, and burdens, that we cannot seem to be rid of, no matter how hard we try… and He says to us all: “Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28). How will we respond to Him today? Are we willing to let Jesus sustain us? To heal us? To correct us? To deliver us? Or like those who saw the miracle in the synagogue that Sabbath long ago, will we harden our hearts, and look for ways to resist and reject the work of the One who came to bring God’s gift of rest to all? Saying yes to Jesus, following Him means letting our lives be reshaped by the grace, compassion, justice, and steadfast love of the Lord. It means regularly taking time to remember what God has done in Jesus to set us free from our sins, and from everything else that keeps us trapped in slavery. It means embracing a new way of life that retells this story, keeping it alive in our hearts, and minds, and bodies, and seeks to share this Good News with those around us. It means coming to Jesus, week by week, as we gather in His name, to hear His word, and to receive together the gifts of His body and blood… His own life given to save us… pointing us forward in hope to await His return to set all things right, both in our own lives, and in the world around us. And so, with the Holy Spirit of God at work in us, may we look to Jesus our Saviour, and find in Him the rest we need today. May His grace, and compassion, and justice, and steadfast love sustain us, and set us free to serve Him without fear. May His new life reshape our hearts, and minds, and bodies to take part in His healing work in our corner of His world. And may we share this Good News with others, so that they too can come to Him and find God’s blessed rest. Amen. Scripture Readings: Isaiah 6:1–8 | Psalm 29 | Romans 8:12–17 | John 3:1–17
“For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.” (John 3:16-17). Why spend time reflecting on the identity of the Living God as Trinity: the Three in One, and One in Three? Short answer is: Because this is the way God has revealed Himself to the world! It’s God’s self-disclosed identity. If we want to get to know someone, we do well to pay close attention to how they show themselves to us: how they introduce themselves… the stories they share, their mannerisms… what makes them unique. If we want to truly know someone, and share real fellowship with them… if we want to love them, then we can’t just settle for surface level assumptions… or worse yet, decide for ourselves who we might want them to be… projecting our own ideas and ideals on them, instead of just letting them be themselves. And so, we Christians take time to reflect on the nature of the Living God as Triune because we believe, as mysterious as it may seem, that God truly is Three in One, and One in Three: The Father is God. Jesus Christ the Son is God. The Holy Spirit is God. These Three are all equally God. And yet, at the same time God is One. All our words hit a wall here because we are dealing with Someone who transcends all of our categories…. Someone wholly unlike anything else in Creation. Someone completely beyond compare. But even so, this Someone has drawn near to us… in order to draw us near to them. This Someone has opened His heart to us, and invites us in… despite all our doubts and our failures. And though our words hit a wall, God’s Word has broken down everything that stands between us and our Triune Creator… taking on our human life, and lifted up for us at the cross, so that all those who believe in Him may have eternal life. And now because of Jesus Christ, God’s Word made flesh, God’s Spirit has been breathed into us to bring about something new in us, and through us: God’s new creation… His divine and holy life leading us out of the ways of darkness and into God’s kingdom of light. And just like that, as we start trying to tell the story of the Good News, the story of our faith, we find ourselves talking about not just any conception of God… but the Trinity… the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit… because the Good News is this God’s story… it is Their divine invitation to come to know who They are and what They are up to… and to take part in it too. We celebrate the truth of the Trinity, and take time to contemplate what it means for us, and for our world because it is truly inseparable from the Good News we have been given to share in, and to share with everyone. Our Scripture readings today shed important light on this Triune Good News… not to explain the mystery away, but to draw us into it… to help us begin to get to know the God is, and who has always been Father, Son, and Spirit, so that we may draw near to Him in faith, and receive the holy love He longs to share with His world. Starting with Isaiah, and his vision of God’s throne room… the Holy sanctuary of Heaven that the Temple in Jerusalem pointed to. In this moment the prophet is painfully aware of his own sinfulness… and of God’s glory and holiness… and how dangerous it is for him to be so close to the LORD. Sometimes it’s hard for us to wrap our heads around what the authors of the Bible meant by words like holy, but I think this is a pretty helpful image: holiness is like the sun. The sun is bright, it illumines the darkness… it’s the source of life on earth… it is ultimately Good. But the sun is not safe! If someone draws near to the sun they end up burned up. Serious protection is needed just to get a bit closer… not because the sun is bad, or means any harm, but because of the frailty and limits of our human bodies. Something similar is going on in Isaiah’s vision: he’s drawn into God’s presence, close to the Holy One, the Living God revealed in all His splendor… and so Isaiah rightly thinks his days are numbered… because he is painfully aware of his sin… his failures to be like the Living God… holy as God is holy. But rather than being struck down, an angel is sent with a burning coal from God’s heavenly altar to transform Isaiah… to do something to him to purify him… to cleanse him… to graciously make him holy, and able to stand before the Triune LORD, and not be consumed… but rather, so that he could be commissioned… sent on his own mission to share God’s words of warning with His unfaithful covenant people. Isaiah’s story is a long one that we don’t have time to explore this morning… but notice that in this vision, he, and we along with him, are given a glimpse of God’s unique glory and holiness. The Living God is not just some impersonal force, or divine wish-granter, just waiting around to make our lives a bit nicer down here… He is the Almighty… the Glorious and Holy One, the Sovereign LORD over all creation. And in His Holy presence, we humans are in trouble. Something in us is out of sync with His life and light, and if it were just up to us we’d have no hope. But as Isaiah discovered, it’s not just up to us… and we are not without hope. For the Almighty, the Holy One does not desire our destruction… but our transformation… our purification… our cleansing from sin and all that keeps us far off from sharing in His glorious presence. And so, as Isaiah is graciously made able to stand in God’s presence, and share in the LORD’s divine holiness, we can see something true of God’s will for all of us. In short, the Living God Himself can overcome all that stands between Him and His human creatures… He can cleanse us, and transform us, and make us able to share in His holy life. And as we heard in our Gospel reading today, it’s not just that God can do these things… God wants to do these things! And we know this because, out of love for our broken, messed up world, God the Father freely gave His own Son Jesus Christ to save all who trust in Him. John 3:16-18, “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him. Those who believe in him are not condemned; but those who do not believe are condemned already, because they have not believed in the name of the only Son of God.” The life, and death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ is God’s own gift of love to us and our world… because Jesus Christ is truly God Himself, taking on our humanity in order to save it. Jesus is not just some designated servant… some middle-man doing the hard work while the Father sits by watching… Jesus is the Living God incarnate… the Living God-in-the-flesh… God laying down His life in love to save sinners like us… to cleanse us by His blood… to make possible our forgiveness and freedom… and draw us together to the Father… so that through the Holy Spirit we can be transformed to truly share in His blessed life. And here we turn to our reading from St. Paul’s letter to the Christians in Rome, and to the Apostle’s understanding of what the Christian life looks like: our transformation… being led by God’s own Spirit away from the darkness of our old lives, and into the light of God’s family. Romans 8:12-14, “So then, brothers and sisters, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh [that is, according to our old sinful and selfish desires]— for if you live according to the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God.” God’s Spirit has been given to us to truly transform the way we live each day. But this isn’t about some unwelcome interference from on high, bent on sapping our freedom and joy… or an attempt at intimidating us to get us to change our ways out of fear of punishment. Far from it! For the Spirit of God is moved by the very same love as the Father and the Son… transforming us the way a child is transformed by being welcomed into a loving family. St. Paul goes on in Romans 8:15-17, “For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry, ‘Abba! Father!’ it is that very Spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs, heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ—if, in fact, we suffer with him so that we may also be glorified with him.” The Spirit of God draws us into the holy love of the Trinity… bringing us into the same bond that has existed for all eternity between the Father and the Spirit and the Son. The Spirit nurtures in us the very same love that Jesus expressed on earth when He would pray to His Abba, His Father… a connection of true trust, and intimacy… and which empowered Him to face all sorts of trials and suffering… even to the point of laying down His life, because He was convinced of the untold depths of His Father’s life-giving, resurrecting love. The Spirit of God brings this same love that fills the life of the Trinity into our lives by drawing us in faith to Jesus, God’s Son, and through Him into the arms of our loving Almighty Abba-Father. And the Spirit is also at work sharing this same love through His people with those who do not yet know Him… who have all sorts of strange ideas about what God is like, and what God wants, if God even exists at all. People who have no clue that God truly cares for them, and has done everything Himself to deal with their brokenness and sin… giving His life out of love to bring them forgiveness, and freedom, and lead them out of the darkness, and into the glorious light and blessed life that has no end. The Trinity, God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, have shared their holy love with us, and have shown us God’s heart for everyone: sending Jesus not to condemn the world, but so that it might be saved through Him. We are the ones who have already heard this Good News, and have begin to be transformed by it already. We are the ones who have been entrusted with this story of salvation, and who are called to share it… to share in the sufferings of Christ Jesus… the long-suffering love of God for His lost children. How can we help those in our lives come to know this God??? The Triune God who loves them so? The God who we might not be able to wrap our heads around, but who has still wrapped His arms of love around us, and who longs to do the same for absolutely everyone? How can we help them come to know this God if we don’t draw near to Him ourselves? If we are content to remain at a distance… how can we share His love with one another and with our world? May the Holy Trinity Himself, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, continue His cleansing, empowering, and transforming work in us all so that, convinced of God’s great love for us all, we might draw near to Him always, and share the Good News of His story in everything that we do. Amen. Scripture Readings: Ezekiel 37:1–14 | Psalm 104:24-35 | Acts 2:1–21 | John 15:26-16:15
Happy Pentecost. Today we celebrate one of the most significant moments in the story of the Church… when the disciples of the Risen Lord Jesus, gathered together in uncertainty and expectation, suddenly received the gift of the Holy Spirit of God… filling them up with His life-giving presence and power. In many ways, Pentecost celebrates a brand new beginning. The beginning of the Church… the creation of this one, world-wide community of those bound to Christ Jesus, and bound to one another in Him. But Pentecost also marks another beginning: the beginning of the end… of the completion of God’s New Creation, begun in the Risen Christ Himself, and spreading all throughout the world through the lives of His faithful people… from Jerusalem, to Gondola Point, and beyond. And while this new beginning started two thousand years ago… we don’t simply celebrate Pentecost as an irrelevant event from the distant, dusty past… but as an invitation to take part in the Living God’s ongoing work here and now, and everywhere… making all things new, and bringing His beloved world to it’s proper destination… to the blessed end that His power alone can bring about. Above all, we celebrate Pentecost today because it brings to light the world-changing implications of the Good News of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord… the results of who He is and what He has done for us, and for our world. Pentecost points out the true purpose of the Church, and the power that is at work in and through God’s people… two thousand years ago, and even today. The story of Pentecost and the arrival of the Holy Spirit is about God’s rescuing love, putting our broken world back together… beginning with those who have come to believe the Good News of Jesus… but this story does not begin in that famous upper room encounter we heard about in our reading from Acts. It is a story that has been unfolding all throughout the Holy Scriptures… a story of hope passed down through generations… hopes based on the promises of the Living God to His covenant people, through the words of His holy prophets… hopes that, despite how truly hopeless things may seem, they can trust the Living God to stay true to His word, and to ultimately bring them to life. We heard part of the story of Pentecost in our first reading from the Old Testament today, when we heard the words of the prophet Ezekiel, and the vision that he was given of the valley of dry bones… a vision offered to Israel at a time when the fate of God’s chosen people seemed hopelessly lost. As we might recall, Ezekiel had this vision after being carried off into exile in Babylon… after Jerusalem and the Southern Kingdom of Judah had been conquered by their enemies… which in this case was a tragic consequence of turning away from the Living God, and seeking a path for themselves that seemed best, but ultimately led to death. And so, at this point in the story, Ezekiel and his fellow Judaeans had lost everything… their land, their freedom, their future… their sense of connection to the Living God, and to one another. Sadly, we don’t have to think too hard to recall people in our own day and age who are facing very similar situations: whole communities completely destroyed… families ripped apart by war… hopes and dreams for the future that once seemed so promising going up in smoke. And even in our own corner of the world, there are, of course, those who are experiencing this same sense of hopelessness in their own personal ways: maybe through a sudden loss of health… or loved ones… or through the ending of a familiar and comforting way of life. And we can think of Church communities facing hard decisions these days about how to move forward… how to carry on Christ’s mission in their changing neighbourhoods… and perhaps considering having to close their doors. When we face these kinds of painful, and heartbreaking situations, it can certainly feel like the end. And yet, throughout the centuries, the Living God has continued to breathe new life into even the bleakest circumstances, bringing healing and help and hope even to the hopeless. And this is exactly what He did for those in Exile along with Ezekiel: God Himself promised to bring life to His people again, beyond all their expectations. Even though on their own, they may have had no more hope of turning around their situation than dry bones do of getting up and walking about, the same God who brought all creation into being, and who would one day raise Jesus Christ from the dead, can indeed bring life and hope to His people again. Ezekiel 34:11-14, “Then he said to me, ‘Mortal, these bones are the whole house of Israel. They say, ‘Our bones are dried up, and our hope is lost; we are cut off completely.’ Therefore prophesy, and say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am going to open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people; and I will bring you back to the land of Israel. And you shall know that I am the Lord, when I open your graves, and bring you up from your graves, O my people. I will put my spirit within you, and you shall live, and I will place you on your own soil; then you shall know that I, the Lord, have spoken and will act,’ says the Lord.” And as the Lord promised, He stayed true to His word: despite all expectations, the exiled people of Judah were eventually able to return to Jerusalem, and begin rebuilding their lives. The loving-kindness of the Living God had rescued them from their hopelessness, and given them a new beginning. But a new beginning to what end? What was supposed to come next? What was the purpose of God raising His devastated people to new life? Was it just so that they could keep going about their own business? To fall back into the same old self-destructive ways? Or did God have something more in store? Something more for them, and for those around them too? Remember how in His message to Ezekiel, God promised to put His own Spirit within His people… to share His own holy life with them. To not simply have them go back to how things were before, but to draw them together to Him, and to each other in holy love… which of course, is no simple thing. And right after he receives his vision of the valley of dry bones, God gives to Ezekiel another message of hope… about how God will heal the broken divisions within God’s family, which at that time seemed completely insurmountable. Long before they were carried away into Exile, Israel had torn itself apart in civil war. During the reign of King David’s grandson, the Northern tribes of Israel revolted against Judah, and split away… setting up their own rival kingdom, and for centuries the two kingdoms lived side by side in deep tension… and sometimes even warring against each other. God’s people had gone from being one family set apart to love God and each other, to becoming enemies. That is, until the Assyrian Empire showed up on the scene and conquered the Northern tribes, leading its people away into the far regions of the East, never to return. They were completely lost to one another… swept away beyond the hope of reconciliation. Again, it’s kind of easy to see parallels of this story at work in our world today: communities that were once united now seeming to be fracturing beyond all hope of restoration… so many of our neighbours eagerly aligning themselves with divisive and even hate-fueled cultural and political agendas. It seems harder and harder to imagine how our communities and society could ever be brought back together again. But this is precisely the hope that the whole story of Pentecost holds out for us: the hope of a brand new beginning heading towards the blessed end of God’s reconciling love. Right after his vision of the valley of dry bones, Ezekiel is given another message from the Lord: the prophet is to take two separate sticks, and join them into one… symbolically showing the exiles in Babylon what the Lord has in store for His divided people. Ezekiel 37:15-23, “The word of the Lord came to me: Mortal, take a stick and write on it, ‘For Judah, and the Israelites associated with it’; then take another stick and write on it, ‘For Joseph (the stick of Ephraim) and all the house of Israel associated with it’; and join them together into one stick, so that they may become one in your hand. And when your people say to you, ‘Will you not show us what you mean by these?’ say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I am about to take the stick of Joseph (which is in the hand of Ephraim) and the tribes of Israel associated with it; and I will put the stick of Judah upon it, and make them one stick, in order that they may be one in my hand. When the sticks on which you write are in your hand before their eyes, then say to them, Thus says the Lord God: I will take the people of Israel from the nations among which they have gone, and will gather them from every quarter, and bring them to their own land. I will make them one nation in the land, on the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all. Never again shall they be two nations, and never again shall they be divided into two kingdoms. They shall never again defile themselves with their idols and their detestable things, or with any of their transgressions. I will save them from all the apostasies into which they have fallen, and will cleanse them. Then they shall be my people, and I will be their God.” What a picture of hope! Not only would the Living God restore the exiles of Judah from their hopeless situation, but God would also bring back all of their estranged and exiled fellow Israelites to be by their side again. God promised here to reconcile His shattered people… gathering all who had been scattered, and reuniting them in His hand… repairing all those long centuries of divisions, and bitter enmity, and making them one… together again under the reign of one King. And this is the hope-filled story of Pentecost that we find at work in our reading today from Acts Chapter 2: here we see the Living God starting to fulfill His promises to bring His people back together again, filled with His life-giving Spirit, and living God’s way under the reign of Jesus, the Risen King. Here in Acts, we are told that devout Jews from every nation had gathered in Jerusalem… for one of their ancient annual festivals, celebrating the first fruits of the harvest by offering them back to the LORD. God’s covenant people, scattered throughout the Mediterranean world, had all made a pilgrimage to worship the LORD, and had no idea of what God had in store for them. At just the right moment, God’s Holy Spirit is given to Jesus’ followers… to the disciples who had already been given the Good News, and the mission to share it with the whole world… but who had also been told to wait in Jerusalem until they had received this power from on high. And then it happened: with a rush of wind, and the appearance of fire descending on each of them, these ordinary people were given something they could never create on their own: God’s own life-giving presence within them… filling them with His holy love… the very same love which filled and flowed through Jesus Christ our Lord. And what does this Spirit do? He empowers the disciples to speak in languages they never knew before… He helps them to overcome all the barriers of culture, and communication, so they could connect with their fellow Jews from all over, who had been cut off from them before. Think about that for a moment. The first thing that the Holy Spirit does in the lives of Jesus’ disciples is to begin reconciling God’s scattered people… bring together again this fractured community by the Good News of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord… the Promised Saviour King that Israel’s prophets had spoken of centuries before, who reigns now at God the Father’s right hand. But as great as this new beginning is for the Jews gathered in Jerusalem that day, God’s Holy Spirit doesn’t stop there… as we know, that was just the beginning! The story of Acts is all about how this Good News of God’s Saviour King Jesus is going out to all the world… beginning from Jerusalem, and spreading into Judea, Samaria, and beyond. In the last few weeks, we heard the story of how the Good News of Jesus was shared with the Ethiopian eunuch, and with the Roman Officer, Cornelius, and his family… and as this same story goes on, we know that this Good News has travelled to the very ends of the earth, inviting absolutely everyone to place their trust in Jesus, and share in the new life of His Kingdom… a new life made possible by the gift of God’s Holy Spirit within us. This is Good News for our world today: that despite all the divisions and devastation we see around us… despite all the losses and lingering doubts… we know this is precisely the soil in which the Spirit of God brings about New Creation… breathing new life into even our dry bones, and filling us with God’s holy, reconciling love. And this same Holy Spirit is still active in our world, working through the lives of those who trust and follow Jesus, the Risen King, serving as His hands and feet together, not to destroy, but to make all things new… leading His people towards the blessed end of God’s eternal Kingdom… and giving us all our own part to play in sharing this Good News with everyone. As the prophet Joel proclaimed: ‘In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord’s great and glorious day. Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ (Acts 2:17-21). What are the ways that we need the Holy Spirit to be at work in our lives today? What new beginnings do you and I need Him to bring about in and through us? Maybe we need a renewal of hope for God’s world? Reassurance that the Living God will not abandon His creation, but will bring it new life, just as Christ rose from the grave. Maybe we need the Holy Spirit’s gift of conviction? Inviting us to turn around… to repent of our sinful, and selfish ways, and to find God’s forgiveness and freedom offered to us in Jesus, our Saviour King? Maybe we need reconciliation? Finding ourselves torn apart inside… or cut off from those around us. Whatever we are facing today, Pentecost reminds us that even when things seem to be at their darkest, the Living God Himself is still with His people, and His power at work in us can do infinitely more than we could ask or imagine. Pentecost calls us to hold onto and share the Good News that God’s rescuing, and life-giving love in Jesus Christ is making all things new, and bringing about God’s New beginning for His broken but beloved creation. And so, may the Holy Spirit of God fill us today with the faith, and love, and hope we need to take part in this new beginning He has in store for our world, through Jesus Christ the Risen Lord. Amen. Scripture Readings: Acts 1:1–11 | Psalm 93 | Ephesians 1:15–23 | Luke 24:44–53
“While he was blessing them, he withdrew from them and was carried up into heaven.” (Luke 24:51). Today is Ascension Sunday: the final Sunday of the season of Easter, and a time to commemorate the moment when Jesus Christ the Risen Lord was taken up from the sight of His disciples, and into the highest heaven… to take His seat at the right hand of God the Father, and from there to take up His royal reign forever. The feast of the Ascension calls us to look toward heaven, and recall the real reason for our hope for our world… not the hope of a retreat somewhere else, but the hope of the recuing reign of the Risen King. And these days, we don’t need all that much reminding that our world stands in real need of some real hope to hold onto… reasons to not give up, and get to work bringing about things like beauty, peace, and light. But sadly, and for some time now, it seems that many of us Christians have forgotten the true hope we’re called to share with the world around us, and have instead placed our hopes in getting to escape from it. Seeking simply to be swept away from all of this darkness and mess we humans have made. But as common as this message of escape might be, even in Christian circles, it isn’t the real hope that the Bible or the Christian faith is about at all. In the Holy Scriptures, and in the Creeds we find, not the hope of being rescued from the earth… but the hope of being rescue along with the earth… set free to live under the reign of our Saviour King forever. And so, as we turn now to our Scripture readings for this morning, and take a closer look at what the Ascension of Jesus Christ really means, pay close attention to why we can have real hope for the future of our world. Turning first to our second reading, from St. Paul’s letter to the Ephesians, we find the Apostle commending the faith and the love of this early Christian community. Ephesians 1:15-16, “I have heard of your faith in the Lord Jesus and your love toward all the saints, and for this reason I do not cease to give thanks for you as I remember you in my prayers.” And yet, it seems that St. Paul recognizes that there is something this Church community was needing… namely, he prays for them to have hope… to understand the story that they were a part of already in the Risen Christ, and to know where this story is headed, despite the darkness and difficulties they were facing in their day. Ephesians 1:17-19, “I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation as you come to know him, so that, with the eyes of your heart enlightened, you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance among the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power for us who believe, according to the working of his great power.” St. Paul can be a bit wordy at times, but his meaning here is important for us to here today: we too need to come to understand the hope that we are called to as Christians… both the glory that awaits us, and how God’s power is at work bringing it about. We can’t just lean on wishful thinking, or cling to vague ideas about a happy afterlife, somewhere out there, over the rainbow… we have been offered real, concrete reasons to have hope for our future: and that is God’s life-giving power which we have seen at work raising Jesus Christ from the dead… and in His ascension to the right side of God the Father. St. Paul goes on in Ephesians 1:20-21, “God put this power to work in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come.” While many of us today find it easy to imagine that the point of Jesus leaving His disciples was to go off somewhere else, for the first Christians like St. Paul and the rest of the Apostles, it clearly meant something very different, and much more hopeful: the ascension of Jesus was not His escape from the world… but His elevation to it’s highest throne. He’s not abandoning creation, He’s taking charge of it! Taking His place in the divine command centre, so to speak… to guide and direct God’s people, and to empower us to carry on the work of His Good Kingdom here and now. And so, the Church… the worldwide community of those who have turned our lives over to Jesus Christ in faith, and who have already received the gift of His saving love… we are the ones who are now called to share this hope… the hope of the Risen Saviour King. Ephesians 1:22-23, “And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” The Church community, the shared life of us believers… not simply on Sundays… our lives together are to be the main location on earth where the Kingship of the Risen Christ is acknowledged, and made known. Our lives are to be the sign that, above every other claim to power, authority, and might… Jesus Christ is Lord of all… and that one day, every other power, as St. Paul puts it, will find its proper place under His feet. That’s a startling image for us, for sure. How is it Good News to be placed under the feet of a king? This is an image of being conquered! In ancient times, vanquished foes would have their victorious opponents symbolically stand upon their necks. Wasn’t the ascension of Jesus supposed to be about offering hope to our world? What kind of hope are we talking about here? Of course, some Christians have picked up this kind of imagery in the Bible, and run with it… imagining that Jesus wants to violently overthrow all who dare oppose Him, or those who get in His people’s way. We know there are those who have thought this way for centuries… from the early Christian Emperors in the late Roman times… or the medieval rulers of Europe… or advocates of Christian nationalism here in North America today… those who would use Christianity to justify their own aggressive grasping after worldly power… and who seek to rule by actively destroying the hopes of those who aren’t on their side. This is how tyrants have always ruled… following a principle we could call “Limited Concern”: insisting that our tribe, our culture, our way of life must be on top, and in control… that our will must be done… and who cares what happens to everyone else. But it’s not just tyrants and moral monsters that have a habit of seeing the world this way. Lots of us may simply limit our concern to our little corner of the world, in much more subtle ways. In our reading from Acts Chapter 1, and its account of the Ascension, we see can that even the disciples had a hard time shaking this mindset of ‘limited concern’… but Jesus Christ the Risen Lord, calls for a very different approach for His people, back then and today. Forty days after Easter, the disciples excitedly ask the Risen Lord: Are you about to bring God’s good kingdom to Israel at last? They knew all of the prophetic promises that had helped Israel hold onto hope for centuries… promises from God that despite the devastation and darkness of Exile, the Living God would again rescue and restore His people, that the Messiah-King would one day come… and that from Jerusalem the blessed reign of God would be victorious. And Jesus knew the limited scope of their hopes… focussed on Israel’s restoration alone. Israel’s peace. Israel’s future as God’s beloved children. And all this mattered to Jesus too. But He had, and has, a much bigger mission in mind… offering a hope that far exceeds their expectations… one which would fulfill all of the promises of Israel’s prophets… by extending God’s good reign to the ends of the earth. Acts 1:6-8, “So when they had come together, they asked him, ‘Lord, is this the time when you will restore the kingdom to Israel?’ He replied, ‘It is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority. But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” The Good News of God’s reign is not just for one people, one culture, one nation… it is for all the earth to enjoy! All are invited to believe, to be loved, and to be inspired by this whole new vision of where our human story is headed. The disciples were more concerned with their own corner of the world. And we are concerned about our own corner too, here in Gondola Point. And so is God. The Good News of the Ascension of Jesus Christ reminds us that Gondola Point is to be a real part of God’s good Kingdom. And we are His witnesses here… our lives display His Lordship today. But to be clear, the hope of the Ascension is not about some of us being elevated over our neighbours… sitting by watching while others are crushed underneath Christ’s feet. Listen to what St. Paul says here! Ephesians 1:21-23, the Father elevates Jesus “far above all rule and authority and power and dominion, and above every name that is named, not only in this age but also in the age to come. And he has put all things under his feet and has made him the head over all things for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all.” Jesus is lifted up, elevated above every name… all things are under His feet… including you and I. This is not about how we Christians can make our kingdom come, and our will be done… but God’s alone. Absolutely everyone and everything is now underneath Christ’s feet. Again, this image may strike us today as disturbing, rather than as Good News, and a reason to have real hope. But that is because we keep forgetting what God’s Kingdom and God’s will actually looks like. Along with our non-Christian neighbours, we tend to keep imagining that God’s rule is basically oppressive, damaging… about keeping us from truly experiencing the “good life” we deeply desire. But again, the Ascension reminds us that the One who has been both raised from the dead, and raised to the highest throne of heaven is none other than the One who gave up His life to save His beloved world! The One who has been given the ultimate authority in the universe… the One who will one day call us all to account, and sort out all of the mess we humans have made in every corner of creation… this is the same One who stretched out his hands in suffering, to be nailed to the cross in our place… dying to save, not just Israel… or any one people, or nation, but the world through the Father’s self-giving love, which the Scriptures have pointed us to all the way through. Luke 24:44-48, “Then [Jesus] said to them, ‘These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.’ Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures, and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” The same Jesus who died to save us while we were still sinners… to bring us true forgiveness, and the freedom of God’s New Life… the same Jesus who still bears the scars of the cross even now, is the same One who reigns on high, and because He does, we can have real hope for our world today. Christ’s resurrection, His victory over the grave is the first sign of God’s intentions for the world we see around us. As dark and as devastating, and even as dead as things may seem at times, the very same power that was at work raising Jesus Christ to eternal life will also rescue and reconcile all things, sorting out His beloved creation in justice and love, putting everything back together again in its proper place… underneath the nail-pierced, peace-bringing feet of our Saviour King. And as Christ’s people, here and now, our place is to be His witnesses… to live as those who are already existing are under His good reign: learning more about, and living out our faith… growing deeper and wider in God’s great love for all… and sharing the hope of His good Kingdom, both here in our little corner of the world, and beyond. This is a tall task, but not one that we are expected to do all by ourselves. We’ll have more to say about this next week, as we celebrate Pentecost, but it’s a key part of the whole story of Scripture, and especially the Ascension: the same power of God that raised Jesus from the dead, and that will one day restore our broken world, has already been poured out on those of us who place our faith in Jesus… the power of God’s own Holy Spirit. As Jesus the Risen Lord is lifted up to the Father’s right hand to reign, He sends the Holy Spirit to empower His people to live God’s way in the world. We hear this in Luke 24:49, where Jesus says, “And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.” And in Acts 1:8, “But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth.” And right before our reading today from Ephesians, St. Paul says this in Ephesians 1:13-14, “In [Christ] you also, when you had heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and had believed in him, were marked with the seal of the promised Holy Spirit; this is the pledge of our inheritance toward redemption as God’s own people, to the praise of his glory.” As I said, we’ll talk about the Holy Spirit more next week, but these passages remind us that the Ascension is certainly not the end of the story, but simply the beginning of a whole new movement… the power of God’s Holy Spirit at work in His people, as we share the hope of His Good Kingdom with our world. So, may the Good News of the Ascension of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord to reign at the Father’s right hand, fill us with the hope that our Saviour King has no intention of abandoning this world He died to save… the hope that His justice, and mercy, and faithful love reach out to every corner of creation… and that the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, and which has been poured out into the lives of His people today, will bring God’s broken world back together again in Christ, once and for all. Amen. Scripture Readings: Acts 10:44–48 | Psalm 98 | 1 John 5:1–6 | John 15:9–17
“Who is it that conquers the world but the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” 1 John 5:5. What are we fighting for? What are we striving for? What purpose are we pursuing? A lot of folks today see themselves as being at war… and not just those who are in literal battlegrounds like Ukraine Sudan, or Gaza. Alongside, and fueling these armed conflicts are all sorts of other kinds of clashes… wars of words, and ideas, and policies… mixtures of political, cultural, ideological, social, economic, and yes, religious elements, all vying against one another… striving to win the hearts, and minds, and lives of the world… or at least, enough of their corner of the world to make sure that they can get their own way, whatever that may be. And sadly, we know there have been all sorts of ways that Christians have also embraced this combative impulse over the years… turning our faith into just one more weapon to achieve our own goals… and as a powerful tool to demonize those who are different from us. But we find a completely different vision and approach at work in our Scripture Readings this morning: Not an attempt to force the world to bend to our will… but a willingness to trust Jesus, and to humbly seek to do God’s will in a world that often does not… and in so doing, we are invited to see God’s power at work in ways we might find really hard to imagine. In our first reading today from the book of Acts, we find the tail end of the story of St. Peter and Cornelius… and two very different worlds colliding. St. Peter we know was a descendant of Abraham… an Israelite… from a community set apart centuries earlier by the Living God Himself to share in God’s holy life up close, so that the world might come to know, and trust, and obey God’s ways, and experience the blessings of His steadfast love. But St. Peter was also an Apostle, one of the students of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord, who had been charged with a particular mission: to tell the world the Good News of Jesus, and to teach them to live God’s way… trusting, obeying, and following Jesus. St. Peter had shared in Christ’s earthly ministry from the beginning… and had been entrusted with carrying it on… shepherding the early Christian community, and leading the way for the Church as it began to grow. If anyone could be said to be a figure of authority when it comes to the Christian Faith… a champion of the cause and bold advocate for the cause of Christ, surly it would be St. Peter. In him we can see God’s faithful people, those striving to do God’s will. And on the other hand, we have Cornelius: a Roman military officer, stationed in occupied territory… part of the system set up to hold the conquered people of Israel in line at the edge of the sword. Understandably, for most Jews, Roman soldiers were the very embodiment of their oppression. The ones who could not only take away their freedom at a whim, and frequently used violence and fear to get their way… these soldiers were also a grim reminder that Israel’s unique role in God’s story was in real peril. Against all their expectations, Gentile, non-Israelite nations had conquered their people hundreds of years earlier. And although at times they had regained some sense of self-governance, under the Romans this partial and fragile autonomy was hanging by a thread. Many felt vulnerable… resentful… angry… hungry for real freedom, for a renewed sense of communal identity… for restored hopes for their future… for wrongs to be righted, and new life to begin at last. I know there are lots of people in our world today who could identify with the plight of the Israelites who were living under Roman oppression all those years ago… people whose lives have been overthrown, and who live in constant fear, anguish, and bitterness. And there are also lots of people who want to see this kind of oppression come to an end… who are seeking to take action against injustice, and come to the aid of those in need. Fighting and striving to try and make the world a better place. But as noble as this impulse can be, it can also lead us down the same path towards supporting oppression, and injustice ourselves… seeking to conquer “the evil other side”, and merely taking their place as oppressors instead. And so along with the question “What are we fighting for? What is the goal that we are striving for?”, we also need to be asking “HOW are we striving to achieve the victory we seek?? And as I said earlier, our Scripture readings help us envision and imagine another way to “conquer” the world. St. Peter and Cornelius come from two opposite sides of a historic and at times bloody conflict. But as we will see, the Living God is at work in both of their stories… striving to bring about a very different kind of victory… one which we are all invited to fight for in our own lives today. This part of the story begins in Acts Chapter 10, where we are introduced to Cornelius, and quickly discover that any prejudices we might have about Roman soldiers… and anyone for that matter, don’t tell us the whole story. As it turns out, Cornelius was not really a typical Roman soldier. Acts 10:2 describes him as “a devout man who feared God with all his household; he gave alms generously to the people and prayed constantly to God.” This does not mean that Cornelius had officially converted to the Jewish religion… but even though he remained a Gentile outsider, he treated the Israelites around him well, and even gave donations to support those in need. In both his private and public life… his words and deeds, it seems that Cornelius the Roman officer, was striving to serve the will of Yahweh, the Living God. And God takes notice. God sends and angel to Cornelius with a message… to send for a man named Simon Peter, in a nearby town, and listen to what Peter has to say. So Cornelius obeys, and sends his own messengers to go find Peter, and invite him to come and speak with him. Or course Peter would not likely have been all that eager to go visit a Gentile Roman officer… even a “good one”. Not only was there the whole Israelite-Gentile divide we already talked about, but remember… not that long ago, Peter had seen his Master Jesus arrested, and put to death by Roman soldiers. Peter had lots of reasons to see Cornelius as the enemy of his people, and of God’s work in the world. But of course, God knows all this too. And so God sends Peter a message… a vision that convinces him to set aside his prejudices, and to go with the Gentile messengers. St. Peter obeys God, and goes to visit Cornelius. And when he arrives, he learns something vital not just for Peter, but for all of us Christians today. Acts 10:34-35, / “Then Peter began to speak to them: “I truly understand that God shows no partiality, but in every nation anyone who fears him and does what is right is acceptable to him.” Think about that for a second. No partiality. No distinction. It dawns on Peter that God is fighting not just to rescue Israel… but to reach out to rescue people from every nation that fear Him and do what is right. That is, who have their hearts and lives in line with Him. What does that look like? Let’s keep reading. Acts 36:43, “You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ—he is Lord of all. That message spread throughout Judea, beginning in Galilee after the baptism that John announced: how God anointed Jesus of Nazareth with the Holy Spirit and with power; how he went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with him. We are witnesses to all that he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They put him to death by hanging him on a tree; but God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear, not to all the people but to us who were chosen by God as witnesses, and who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead. He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one ordained by God as judge of the living and the dead. All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” St. Peter tells Cornelius the Gospel, the Good News of who Jesus is, and what Jesus has done… and for the first time, it occurs to Peter, that this Good News is meant for people like Cornelius… Gentile Roman soldiers… just as much as it is meant for his own people. And this is the explosive truth that has been driving the Church’s mission forward for over two thousand years: the Good News of Jesus is not about one side coming out on top, and crushing the other side… it’s not about retribution, or revenge… but about reconciliation… about the forgiveness of sins on all sides… the repairing of the wounds tearing humanity apart in so many ways… it’s about the love of the Living God made know to us in the crucified and Risen Lord Jesus Christ, who alone is the one who will judge righteously, and sort out all of the messes we have made of God’s good world. And this is where we come to our reading today. Cornelius believes the Good News of Jesus, and suddenly the Holy Spirit of God shows up, filling up all these Gentiles, just as He had filled up the Apostles at Pentecost. No partiality, no distinction made between people like Peter and Cornelius. God Himself is fighting to bring everyone… everyone… back into His loving arms. And this is what we Christians are supposed to be fighting for… and striving for… the Good News that in Jesus Christ the crucified and Risen Lord, the Living God is truly saving our world. How do we strive or fight for this Good News? Not with the sword and violent force. Not by grasping after political influence and authority. Not by vilifying those who are different, and fueling prejudice, hatred, and the evils we see around us, like many do in the name of Christianity… but by faith. Trust in Jesus… living our lives in the light of who He is, and in what He has done for us all, is how we fight for the Good News… and strive to serve God’s Kingdom. N.T. Wright puts it well, reminding us that the decisive battle has already been won for us: “The victory that conquers the world is the saving death of Jesus. And those who by faith cling on to the God who is made known personally in and as the Jesus who died on the cross—they share that victory, that conquest of ‘the world’.”[1] We fight for the Good News by trusting Jesus, and doing what He taught us to do through His words and through His life… resisting the impulses to demonize those who are different… or simply seeking after our own desires… we fight for the Good News by loving one another, by loving our neighbours… and even our enemies… the way that Christ Jesus first loved us. Turning again to our Gospel reading this morning, let us hear again the words of our Risen Lord: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing; but I have called you friends, because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask him in my name. I am giving you these commands so that you may love one another.” (John 15:9-17). Christ has no secret agenda, or hidden battle plan. We know what our Master is doing: saving God’s world through love… /and He calls you and I to trust Him, and to join Him in this good fight through the power of the Holy Spirit at work in us who believe and obey Him. Love one another. This is the fight we are in. And in Jesus Christ, this is the fight we will win. Love one another. Not just when it’s easy. Or when we feel like it. Love one another as Jesus loves us… laying down His life even for His enemies to transform us all into His family. Again, N.T. Wright says it well: “No other god, no other power, no other being in all the world loves like this, gives like this, dies like this. All others win victories by fighting; this one, by suffering. All other gods exercise power by killing; this one, by dying.”[2] This is how we Christians are able to “conquer” the world: through faith in Jesus Christ… trusting and following Him as He defeats darkness with light, evil with goodness, lies with the truth, fear and prejudice and hatred with self-giving love. St. Peter and Cornelius, as different as they may have been, were brought together by the love of God… tearing down the many barriers that stood between them. Cornelius and his family received the same Holy Spirit, and so they are baptized… leaving their old lives behind to share in Jesus’ life and story… and welcomed into the one, holy, catholic, and apostolic Church. How might the love of God be at work breaking down the barriers in our lives today? Who might the Lord be asking us to share His love with in our words and actions? What ways of fighting and striving might the Holy Spirit be calling us to let go of today? How can we support one another, as we place our trust in the Good News of Jesus together? Amen. [1] Tom Wright, Early Christian Letters for Everyone: James, Peter, John and Judah, For Everyone Bible Study Guides (London; Louisville, KY: SPCK; Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 164. [2] Tom Wright, Early Christian Letters for Everyone: James, Peter, John and Judah, For Everyone Bible Study Guides (London; Louisville, KY: SPCK; Westminster John Knox Press, 2011), 165. Scripture Readings: Acts 8:26–40 | Psalm 22:25–31 | 1 John 4:7–21 | John 15:1–8
“God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him.” (1 John 4:9). What is the Gospel? How many of us would feel comfortable answering that question if someone asked us? But really, what more important question is there for Christians to have an answer for? The word “Gospel” simply means “Good News”, and goodness knows our world today is in real need of some good news… especially the Good News that we Christians have to share. And yet, a lot of us Christians struggle to put into words what exactly this Good News is that we believe in. We might have a sense of it, but still feel uncertain and hesitant when it comes to actually discussing it. And so, it makes sense for us, from time to time, to step back and make clear in our minds what the Good News is all about. And that is what our Scripture Readings this morning invite us all to do. Our first reading from the Book of Acts tells of the meeting of two strangers in the days after Pentecost. But before we explore the story in detail, we should take a few moments to get a clearer picture of who these two strangers in the story were: first, there is Philip, one of the first Christian deacons, a follower of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord, who was entrusted with the responsibility of take care of the widows and other vulnerable members of the growing Christian community. Philip had just been in Samaria, the region north of Judea, where he was at work telling them about Christ, God’s Messiah, and ministering to them in Jesus’ name. The second stranger is an Ethiopian eunuch, someone who fit into neither the male or female categories of the day, either a eunuch from birth, or because of surgical procedures later in life. In the ancient world, eunuchs were often chosen to serve in important positions within royal courts, and given great responsibilities… and as we heard today the traveller in our reading was a court official in charge of Queen Candace’s whole treasury. On top of that, they were likely well educated, which can also be seen as they were reading the Scriptures when Philip met them, hungry to understand the meaning behind the sacred writings of Israel’s prophets… having traveled from Ethiopia to Jerusalem to worship the Living God. But in Jerusalem, they would have been made conscious of the fact that they were an outsider. Despite their achievements and honour back home in their own community, as a Gentile and a eunuch, they would not have been able to enter the main courts of the Holy Temple. And yet, even as they returned home, they were still hungry for more… eager to draw closer to the Living God… reading through the scroll of Isaiah, and trying to understand the story… struggling to make sense of it all. How many of us can identify with them at times? How many of our neighbours are in the same boat? Struggling to make sense of what this God Story is all about… and what it has to do with them? This is the reality of so many of our neighbours in Canada today. Not many can make sense of the story of Scripture… and why it’s supposed to be Good News… especially young people. And that’s really no surprise. For most families, at least a few generations have already gone by without much connection to a Church community… and the stories they’re hearing and seeing in the news don’t often seem all that appealing. And many Canadians, including some of us who attend Church, don’t really have a hot clue what to make of the Bible… writing it off as irrelevant, or worse… as a source of prejudice, injustice, hatred, and fear. As part of the problem our world is facing today… not part of the solution. Who will help them understand why we see the Christian story is truly Good News… not just for those of us already in the know, but Good News for everyone! Turning back to Acts, we find a sign of great hope for our neighbours: even though we might not always see them… or understand their questions and struggles… God sees them. God understands. Even though we might miss the opportunities we have been given to connect with them, God Himself is reaching out to them. God Himself is seeking to meet with them and connect with them. And even though it might mean we get carried away to places and situations that we may never have dreamed of, or desired, God Himself can use, and longs to use us His people to help our neighbours come to know the Good News He’s given us to share. And so, here in Acts Chapter 8, we hear that Philip is led by the Holy Spirit away from a busy and fruitful ministry with the Samaritans, to what seems like the least likely place to make a difference… to a deserted road in the middle of nowhere… in the wilderness… on the road to Gaza. This place-name calls up all kinds of images from recent events… stories of terrorism, and retaliation… of brutality, and bloodshed… of innocent lives lost, families and whole communities destroyed… cycles of violence unchecked. Another part of our broken human story where we turn our backs on our neighbours… close our hearts to strangers… and think the only way forward for us and our “side” is to wipe out or beat down the “other side”. But in Acts, something else happens on the road to Gaza: the Living God brings two strangers together… two people separated by personal, cultural, ethnic, and gender differences… and instead of division, we find fellowship. Instead of prejudice and fear, we find hope and understanding. Instead of barriers, we find freedom… and a welcome into a new family. Instead of the same old broken story… we find the Good News coming to life. And we find God Himself bringing it all about. We find the Holy Spirit of God tell Philip to go talk to this stranger, and so he does, and finds them eager for someone to help explain what the Scriptures were trying to say, so he invites Philip to join him. Acts 8:35-39, “Then Philip began to speak, and starting with this scripture, he proclaimed to him the good news about Jesus. As they were going along the road, they came to some water; and the eunuch said, “Look, here is water! What is to prevent me from being baptized?” He commanded the chariot to stop, and both of them, Philip and the eunuch, went down into the water, and Philip baptized him. When they came up out of the water, the Spirit of the Lord snatched Philip away; the eunuch saw him no more, and went on his way rejoicing.” What might have seemed at first to Philip as a random encounter with a complete stranger, had become the beginning of a whole new life together as siblings within the family of God. The Spirit sent Philip to the right place, at the right time, and with the right words to help somebody that God loves, and that Jesus died to save, come to believe the Good News, and be baptized into Christ’s family. Though the eunuch still had all sorts of questions, and struggles, the Living God new them, and God wanted them to know the Good News of God’s rescuing love for them. And thankfully, Philip knew the story too, the story of how Jesus of Nazareth died and rose again, fulfilling the hopes and promises of Israel’s Scriptures and prophets, which point to God’s great world-wide rescue mission. And with the help of the Holy Spirit, Philip shared this story and somebody’s life changed for good. The eunuch responds to the Good News with faith, is baptized, and then set loose to go home again and share this Good News with their neighbours back home in Ethiopia. What would they say to them? What is the Good News they shared? We don’t have their words. But the question returns to us here in Gondola Point: What would we say? Here’s what I would say, and what the Christian Church has proclaimed since the beginning: The Gospel, the Good News, is WHO JESUS IS, AND WHAT JESUS HAS DONE. I’ll say that again: The Good News is WHO Jesus is, and WHAT Jesus has done. Everything else flows from this… the story of Jesus Christ the Risen Lord is the Good News. It’s a story that begins in the very beginning… and weaves its way through the whole broken story of humanity, reaching out to, and embracing all of us, everyone, in order to lead us all into God’s life together… challenging all our assumptions about how to relate to our neighbours and strangers, and even ourselves… and sharing with us the Good News that God sees, and understands, and loves us, and longs for us to love one another too. And that in Jesus, and what Jesus has done for us all, we can let God’s love lead the way. A great place to start when it comes to telling this story, and learning how we can respond to it faithfully, is our second reading today, from the first letter of John 4:7-12, “Beloved, let us love one another, because love is from God; everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, for God is love. God’s love was revealed among us in this way: God sent his only Son into the world so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins. Beloved, since God loved us so much, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God lives in us, and his love is perfected in us.” This is the Good News of Jesus Christ that we have all been entrusted to share with our neighbours. Regardless of who we are, or where we come from… or how far off or excluded we might feel… or how many questions or struggles we may face, the Living God loves us… and He has sent His Son Jesus to be the atoning sacrifice for us all, to set us free from our sins… to bring us life, and to make it possible for us to truly share God’s love with one another. The Good News is Who Jesus is, and what Jesus has done: God’s Son, who died and rose again to save our world through love. Everything else we say and do as Christians either explores and shares this story… or it’s missing the point. Of course, the point of reflecting on the Gospel, and seeking to understand the nature of the Good News is not just about having the right answers… knowing the right words to say… it’s about entering into and growing deeper in this life-giving connection and relationship of love that this Good News points us to: restored fellowship with the Living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and with our neighbours, who are all created to bear His image. And this connection changes us… it has an effect on our lives, and who we are becoming. On the choices we make, the ways we related to those around us, and the corner of the world we inhabit. Philip was where he was, and responded the way he did, because of His ongoing connection to God. He knew and trusted in the Good News, and was ready to follow the Holy Spirit’s lead, even if it seemed strange at the time… and so God worked through Philip to share the rescuing love of Jesus with the Ethiopian traveler. There’s a great word for this special connection with God that’s used both in first John and in our Gospel reading today: Abide. Abide. To remain with… not just for a moment, but for a lifetime. Not just knowing about, but living alongside. If we truly want to grow… and to help our neighbours come to know the Good News meant for them… Good News they really do need… like branches attached to a vine, we must abide in Jesus. We must share our lives with him. John 15:4-5, “Abide in me as I abide in you. Just as the branch cannot bear fruit by itself unless it abides in the vine, neither can you unless you abide in me. I am the vine, you are the branches. Those who abide in me and I in them bear much fruit, because apart from me you can do nothing.” And turning back quickly to 1 John 4:13-16, “By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and do testify that the Father has sent his Son as the Savior of the world. God abides in those who confess that Jesus is the Son of God, and they abide in God. So we have known and believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and those who abide in love abide in God, and God abides in them.” The Good News is WHO Jesus is, and WHAT Jesus has done. And if we want this Good News to take root and bear fruit in our lives, then we must abide… remain in Jesus, believing in the love of God for our broken world that Jesus Christ has made known to us, and putting that love into practice with one another, and with anyone God puts in our path… knowing that God sees, and understands, and loves them, and longs for them to believe this Good News too. Amen. Scripture Readings: Acts 4:5–12 | Psalm 23 | 1 John 3:16–24 | John 10:11–18
“I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.” (John 10:11). Why did the farmer fire the shepherd? He kept on falling asleep whenever he tried counting them. Today, the fourth Sunday of the Season of Easter, is sometimes called Good Shepherd Sunday, as the Scripture readings assigned for the day invite us to reflect on how Jesus Christ the Risen Lord continues to care for and watch over His people today. As we may recall, the ancient image of the Living God acting as a shepherd of His people Israel in the Old Testament remains a powerful picture of His dedicated care and concern for them… working for their good, even when they stubbornly wander away from Him, and head towards danger. Our Psalm this morning, Psalm 23, which beautifully expands on this metaphor, is probably one of the most well known and well loved pieces of poetry ever penned. It’s author, King David, who had himself been a shepherd for a time, depicts Yahweh, the Living God, providing personal, gracious, and intimate care in his own life… and the lives of God’s people. And as we heard in our reading today from St. John’s Gospel, Jesus taps into this tradition… but with a twist. He picks up this well known imagery about God… but then He applies it to Himself. “I am the good shepherd.” He says… and in a profound way, these words identify Jesus with Yahweh, the Living God. It's easy for us English speakers to miss this connection a first glance. But to understand the force of what Jesus is saying here, it helps if we know a bit of Hebrew… and can recall a bit more of the wider story of the Bible. Way back in Exodus, when yet another lowly shepherd, Moses, was tending his father-in-law’s sheep on Mt. Sinai, he suddenly found himself face to face with the Living God, the Creator of all, speaking to him from a burning bush. And what God said changed Moses’ life for good. God told Moses that He had seen the suffering of His people in slavery, and He was determined to do something about it… and God’s way of doing something was to send Moses back to Egypt, and have him tell Pharoah to let His people go. Moses was, of course, an Israelite himself… and so it might not seem out of place for God to commission him to take part in rescuing his own people. But even so, Moses hesitated. He was afraid. And so he started coming up with all sorts of excuses. Saying anything he could to get God to change His mind, and choose to use someone else. One of the excuses he tried is important for understanding our message this morning. It’s found in Exodus 3:13-15, “But Moses said to God, “If I come to the Israelites and say to them, ‘The God of your ancestors has sent me to you,’ and they ask me, ‘What is his name?’ what shall I say to them?” God said to Moses, “I Am Who I Am.” He said further, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’ ” God also said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘The LORD, (or Yahweh) the God of your ancestors, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, has sent me to you’: This is my name forever, and this my title for all generations.” “Thus you shall say to the Israelites, ‘I Am has sent me to you.’” The Living God’s Name, given here to Moses, for the first time, is I AM. Or I WILL BE. Moses is to say that The One Who Is… Who Is the very essence of existence itself… The One Who Is eternally faithful and constant… The One Who Is has sent Moses to rescue Israel, and lead them into the Promised Land… WHO WILL BE providing for them, protecting them, and prodding them towards the way of life. And as it turns out, God remains true to His name. He is completely faithful to Israel, leading them like a shepherd, caring for and providing for them… but they keep scattering this way and that, and chasing after the gods of the other nations, and completely abandoning the ways of their Saviour. Yet even when Yahweh allows His people to get themselves into trouble, He never gives up on them… but looking on them with compassion and concern, time and again He consistently reaches out His hand to save them. Now this sacred Divine Name, that God tells to Moses is hard to make sense of grammatically… especially as it came to be considered far too holy to say out loud. When it’s spoken by God Himself, it’s I AM WHO I AM. When others say it it’s THE ONE WHO IS, and this is where we get the name Yahweh from… the holy, personal name of Almighty God. Over time, in the Hebrew imagination, the phrase I AM comes to be associated with the Divine Name, and to have this sacred significance… something fitting for the Living God alone to say. And in St. John’s Gospel, written many centuries later, many scholars have noted that Jesus repeatedly refers to Himself using these loaded words “I AM” in ways that connect Him directly to the Living God’s saving work in the world. Though there are other examples, there are seven times that John quotes Jesus use this phrase to refer to Himself as the unique source of God’s provision and deliverance: John 6:35, I AM the Bread of Life… John 8:12, I AM the Light of the World… John 10:9, I AM the Gate or Door… John 11:25 I AM the Resurrection and the Life… John 15:1, I AM the True Vine… and today’s reading from John 10:14… I AM the Good Shepherd. In his masterful way, this is St. John helping us to see that in Jesus Himself we are actually seeing the Living God Himself at work. That Jesus is none other than Yahweh, the ONE WHO IS, the Eternal Son of God, having taken on human existence, and dwelling among us… to be our Saviour… our Redeemer… and our Good Shepherd. Not just back then, but today! For Jesus remains our Good Shepherd even now. While Moses had been a shepherd for a season, before he was caught up in God’s mission to lead Israel out of slavery and through the wilderness into the Promised Land. But Moses’ ministry ended. Before they entered into that good land, Moses died in the wilderness. And King David had also been a shepherd, before being chosen by the Living God to be Israel’s anointed King… but his service also came to an end. David died, and he was buried, and his descendants led Israel far from the ways of the Living God. But the Good News of Easter is that, even though Jesus our Good Shepherd, laid down His life for His sheep at the cross… dying for us all as the fulfillment of Yahweh’s universal rescue mission… Jesus was also raised again… resurrected to bring God’s New Life to the world. And according to Jesus, this was always part of the plan. John 10:17-18, “For this reason the Father loves me, because I lay down my life in order to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it up again. I have received this command from my Father.” Having taken up His resurrected life, Jesus remains our Good Shepherd even now. He is still THE ONE WHO IS and THE ONE WHO ALWAYS WILL BE there for us… to comfort, and correct, and guide, and provide, and lead us away from danger and disaster, and into the Promised Life of God’s good Kingdom. And so, when we find ourselves feeling lost… or frightened… or stuck in a mess of our own making… we know we can turn to our Good Shepherd, and trust that He will be right there with us through it all… and He will not leave us to fend for ourselves, because we know in His great compassion and love, He’s already laid down His life for our sake, and risen again to save us… and not just us! Remember His words in John 10:16, “I have other sheep that do not belong to this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd.” Words to remember whenever we’re tempted to become self-focused, and forget God’s saving love is for all. But at times we might wonder: how does Christ keep caring for His flock today? Where are we supposed to turn to experience His love in our lives? One thing we can safely say about Yahweh, the Living God, is that He’s consistent. And although there are lots of ways that God can and does directly connect with us, and care for us, one of the primary ways that He keeps choosing to do so is through the lives of other people. People like Moses… as hesitant as he was to take part in rescuing his own enslaved community. And people like David, who was dismissed as unimportant, and overlooked until the Living God raised him up to the throne. People like St. Peter and St. John, who in our reading today from Acts Chapter 4, carried on Christ’s own mission to share the Good News of God’s Kingdom through their words and their deeds. And God works through people like you and I here today, who have our own parts to play in God’s story. Turning to Acts for a moment, let’s take a quick look at what these disciples were up to. Or rather, what Jesus Himself was up to in and through them. Last week we heard how these two Apostles were approaching the Temple in Jerusalem to worship, in the days after Pentecost. By this time, the Spirit of God had been poured out upon Jesus’ followers, filling them with God’s divine life in a whole new way. At the gate to the Temple, they saw a man who could not walk, begging for alms. Like Yahweh, way back in the Exodus story, they saw this man in his sufferings, and they did something about it: they reached out, took him by the hand, and in the name of Jesus he was completely healed. This caused quite a stir, and then they began to proclaim to the crowds that it was not them, but the Living God Himself, the One who had raised Jesus from the dead, that had healed this man… boldly proclaiming in Acts 3:16 that “by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.” Faith in Jesus’ name had restored the man to health. Not faith in the disciples’ abilities. Or wisdom. Or way with words. It was Jesus the Risen Lord, the Good Shepherd, at work in their faithful actions and words, through the power of the Holy Spirit of God within them. Here we pick up the story again in Acts 4:1-12. “While Peter and John were speaking to the people, the priests, the captain of the temple, and the Sadducees came to them, much annoyed because they were teaching the people and proclaiming that in Jesus there is the resurrection of the dead. So they arrested them and put them in custody until the next day, for it was already evening. But many of those who heard the word believed; and they numbered about five thousand. Just like Jesus, their Good Shepherd, these two disciples were laying their lives down, suffering for the sake of the sheep… putting themselves in troubles’ way to help others come to know the Good News of the Risen Lord. Back to Acts: “The next day their rulers, elders, and scribes assembled in Jerusalem, with Annas the high priest, Caiaphas, John, and Alexander, and all who were of the high-priestly family. When they had made the prisoners stand in their midst, they inquired, “By what power or by what name did you do this?” Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them, “Rulers of the people and elders, if we are questioned today because of a good deed done to someone who was sick and are asked how this man has been healed, let it be known to all of you, and to all the people of Israel, that this man is standing before you in good health by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified, whom God raised from the dead. This Jesus is ‘the stone that was rejected by you, the builders; it has become the cornerstone.’ There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given among mortals by which we must be saved.” Like Moses before Pharoah, St. Peter and St. John were drawn into God’s plan to set His people free… to share with them the Good News of God’s victory over sin and death, and the promise of New Life through Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord. Even though God’s people had been wandering, and their leaders had led them astray, God didn’t give up on them! And through these two faithful disciples, through their willingness to stand firm and bear witness to the truth, Jesus the Good Shepherd was at work gathering His flock together again to lead them into life. But this is not only true for folks like Peter and John… Jesus the Good Shepherd can and will work through all of us… all who will trust and follow Him, to carry on the good work of God’s Kingdom. How? Certainly not because of our own abilities. Or wisdom. Or special skills. He might end up using these parts of our lives, but then again, He might just as easily work through our weaknesses… our moments of fear, and our struggles… the moments we need our Good Shepherd most of all. The truth is, Jesus Christ continues to work through the lives of His people when they choose to trust Him, and walk in His ways: Simply living out our faith, helping our love to grow, and sharing our hope with those around us. This is the idea at work in our first reading today… how God’s people participate in the work of the Kingdom… and make ourselves available for Jesus to work in our lives: 1 John 3:16-18, “We know love by this, that he laid down his life for us—and we ought to lay down our lives for one another. How does God’s love abide in anyone who has the world’s goods and sees a brother or sister in need and yet refuses help? Little children, let us love, not in word or speech, but in truth and action.” And further down, in 1 John 3:23, “And this is his commandment, that we should believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.” Faith and love. Trust in Jesus, and compassion for those around us. This is how Christ works through us. And Jesus our Good Shepherd is at work in our world, and among us here at St. Luke’s. We can experience His compassion and care in the arms of His children, our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. We can come to know His good guidance, assurance, and even life-giving corrections through one another… through the love of God at work in our hearts, and words, and actions, as we listen to His voice together, and follow Him in faith. And when we need Jesus our Good Shepherd, let us draw near together, and find His love in our midst, ready to reach out and embrace us all. And let us especially remember that Jesus wants to work through us to share His saving love with our world in truth and action. Amen. Scripture Readings: Acts 3:12–21 | Psalm 4 | 1 John 3:1–7 | Luke 24:36–48
“Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” (Luke 24:46-48). Today we continue our journey through the season of Easter… 50 days of celebrating and contemplating the beautiful reality of the resurrection of Jesus Christ our Lord. This Good News that Jesus lives stands at the centre of the Christian faith. It is the foundation for everything else that we believe about God’s purposes, for us, and for our world. And this morning, our Scripture readings invite us to explore the deep but often overlooked connection between the resurrection of Jesus, and the message of forgiveness. Why is forgiveness of sins such a big part of the story of Easter? The connection to Good Friday seems a bit more straightforward. After all, it was at the cross Scripture tells us, that the Living God dealt with our sins once and for all, like in our reading last Sunday from 1 John Chapter 2, which says Jesus is “the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 John 2:2). It was through His death that our Lord became God’s way of dealing with our world’s failures… offering Himself as the sacrifice to reconcile us to God and to one another… making atonement… at-one-ment… for us through His broken body, and blood shed on our behalf. Exploring the full meaning of the cross is a lifetime’s work. And there are multiple ways that the Bible invites us to think about and understand what Christ’s atonement actually entails. One picture or image alone can’t capture the depth of it’s significance. One way that Christ’s work on the cross is portrayed in Scripture is as God’s victory over the forces of darkness… defeating evil, disarming the powers of death, and undoing the devil’s schemes to separate us from the love of the Living God. Christ conquers our oppressors at the cross. Another biblical image is that, on the cross, Jesus offered Himself up as a sacrificial offering, that cleanses us of the stain of sin… purifying us from our own evil and guilt, so that we can be prepared to properly share in the holy life of the Living God. Christ cleanses us at the cross. Yet another well known image from the Bible is the language of redemption… a word that specifically refers to the payment of a ransom to set free those who are captives… settling all our debts, and breaking every bond so that we can be free to start a new life in God’s blessed company. Christ pays the cost for our freedom at the cross. These are just three of the most common ways that the Bible itself talks about Jesus’ death, and what it accomplished, and all these images are deeply connected to the Christian conception of forgiveness: rescue… cleansing… freedom. But if all Jesus needed to do was to die on the cross… why is it that none of the disciples were talking about the Good News of God’s forgiveness in Jesus’ name on Holy Saturday? Before Christ rose again? What changed their minds and convinced them that Christ’s death was not just another tragedy… another failure… another example of all that is wrong with our messed up, broken world? What changed their minds was the wonderful, world-changing news that Jesus didn’t stay dead… He rose again from the grave, and lives even now. And that reality changes everything! The resurrection of Jesus proved that what had happened to Him was not just some tragic event… but the Living God transforming even our worst failure into the way He would deal with all our sin once and for all. In our Gospel reading from Luke Chapter 24, the bewildered disciples see Jesus their Rabbi alive again. Eating, drinking… seemingly more alive than ever before… no longer under death’s power, but filled full with the Holy Spirit’s life. Luke 24:36-43, “While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.” And when he had said this, he showed them his hands and his feet. While in their joy they were disbelieving and still wondering, he said to them, “Have you anything here to eat?” They gave him a piece of broiled fish, and he took it and ate in their presence.” The disciples took some time to put two and two together… but I don’t think we can blame them. They simply could not imagine that what they were witnessing was really true… and yet it was! Jesus had died, but He was alive again. Against all hope, He had passed through death, and come back better than before. What we humans have always feared… the grave, Jesus endured, and overcame… not just for Himself, but for us all. No wonder it took a few moments to sink in. And as they still struggled to get their heads around the Good News their Lord had risen again, Jesus starts showing them from the Scriptures that this had been God’s plan all along. That Jesus was sent to suffer and die, and be raised again to new life… as the culmination of God’s great rescue mission to restore His beloved but broken world. Luke 24:44-45, Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures…” This is what the whole story of the Bible is pointing us to… Christ’s death and resurrection. The whole story hinges on what Jesus did on the cross… and on His rising again. And the resurrection of Jesus showed the first disciples, and it shows you and I today that God’s great rescue plan worked! It has all been accomplished! It’s got God’s final seal of approval. We’re not just left wondering if death and darkness will somehow still win in the end… or if we still bear the stains of our sins… or if we will ever be set free. Jesus was not abandoned to the grave, but raised in glory. All that He came to do, He has done. His atoning work to bring reconcile us to God has truly worked. In Him, we are truly reunited to the Living God, and can have peace with one another. We don’t need to doubt God’s intentions towards us, or despair that we are too far gone to be forgiven. The resurrection of Jesus is the guarantee that while the Good News may seem too good, it really is true! And as witnesses to this world-changing truth, Christ’s disciples… back then and here today, now had a key part to play in this story: Luke 24:46-48, “and he said to them, ‘Thus it is written, that the Messiah is to suffer and to rise from the dead on the third day, and that repentance and forgiveness of sins is to be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem. You are witnesses of these things.” The first disciples were His witnesses in their day, and we are His witnesses in ours… sharing the Good News of Jesus, the Risen Lord with everyone, and proclaiming forgiveness of sins in His name. Why? Because our world desperately needs it! Consider the unending cycles of violence and retaliation tearing families, communities, countries, and our world apart at this very moment. Think of the destruction of Gaza that Israel’s armies brought down in response to the terrorism they endured… and now the threats of retaliation and spreading conflicts within the region. Think of all the untold numbers of needless deaths and suffering, and evil that we humans have committed against each other over the centuries… conflicts driven by fear, and pride, and bitterness… and wrath... and hunger for revenge. Consider all those who are weighed down by shame, and guilt, and feelings of worthlessness… which drives so many to seek relief in self-destructive ways… trying to numb the pain for a moment at least… and cutting themselves off from the connection to those around them. Consider all those who are trapped… unable to break free from all sorts of bonds: from destructive habits… from toxic relationships… from crushing circumstances, some far beyond their control… desperately trying to make it through just one more day, and longing for some relief. The Risen Jesus sends us into this world… into our world… with the Good News of the real forgiveness that it needs more than ever. And this Good News is meant not for some, but for all nations! A truly worldwide rescue has been enacted… staring in Jerusalem, where God’s own covenant people crucified the Messiah, Jesus Christ… and where He was raised from the dead… turning even our worst failures on their heads. For it was while we humans were at our absolute worst… killing our sinless Saviour at the cross… that God was at work conquering our true foes… cleansing us of our sins by Christ’s own blood… and paying the high cost for our freedom… then raising Christ again to bring His divine new life about, turning our world upside down by this gift of forgiveness and self-giving love. This all connects in our first reading this morning in Acts Chapter 3, and St. Peter’s response to the crowds gathered at the gates of the Temple, after seeing a man healed before their eyes. Just before our reading takes place, we are told how this healing came about in the days after the Risen Lord poured out the Holy Spirit on the Church at Pentecost. Acts 3:1-10, “One day Peter and John were going up to the temple at the hour of prayer, at three o’clock in the afternoon. And a man lame from birth was being carried in. People would lay him daily at the gate of the temple called the Beautiful Gate so that he could ask for alms from those entering the temple. When he saw Peter and John about to go into the temple, he asked them for alms. Peter looked intently at him, as did John, and said, “Look at us.” And he fixed his attention on them, expecting to receive something from them. But Peter said, “I have no silver or gold, but what I have I give you; in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, stand up and walk.” And he took him by the right hand and raised him up; and immediately his feet and ankles were made strong. Jumping up, he stood and began to walk, and he entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God. All the people saw him walking and praising God, and they recognized him as the one who used to sit and ask for alms at the Beautiful Gate of the temple; and they were filled with wonder and amazement at what had happened to him.” We could say so much about this passage, but one point will do for now, and that is that: faith in Jesus Christ the Risen Lord connects us with the power and life of God’s new creation. God remains at work in the lives of those who trust and follow Jesus… to carry on what Christ began. But as the crowds gathered, Peter and John take the opportunity to share the Good News that had restored this man’s legs, and brought him so much joy. Acts 3:11-16, “While he clung to Peter and John, all the people ran together to them in the portico called Solomon’s Portico, utterly astonished. When Peter saw it, he addressed the people, “You Israelites, why do you wonder at this, or why do you stare at us, as though by our own power or piety we had made him walk? The God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, the God of our ancestors has glorified his servant Jesus, whom you handed over and rejected in the presence of Pilate, though he had decided to release him. But you rejected the Holy and Righteous One and asked to have a murderer given to you, and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses. And by faith in his name, his name itself has made this man strong, whom you see and know; and the faith that is through Jesus has given him this perfect health in the presence of all of you.” Again, St. Peter pulls no punches. He makes the guilt of his own people clear. But then he makes clear the way forward: Acts 3:17-21, “And now, friends, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did also your rulers. In this way God fulfilled what he had foretold through all the prophets, that his Messiah would suffer. Repent therefore, and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, so that times of refreshing may come from the presence of the Lord, and that he may send the Messiah appointed for you, that is, Jesus, who must remain in heaven until the time of universal restoration that God announced long ago through his holy prophets.” Repent. Turn around and trust in Jesus. Let what God’s Messiah has done wipe away your sins, so you may be forgiven… and share in God’s new life here and now, as we await Jesus’ return and God’s universal restoration. In other words, St. Peter says to start living resurrection lives now… because in Jesus, the Risen Lord, God’s new creation has already begun. This same idea is shared in our reading from the first letter from St. John, where the apostle points us to the gracious love of God that draws us into the new life of His family: 1 John 3:1-3, “See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are. The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God’s children now; what we will be has not yet been revealed. What we do know is this: when he is revealed, we will be like him, for we will see him as he is. And all who have this hope in him purify themselves, just as he is pure.” St. John says that in Christ, and what He accomplished for us at the cross, we have become the children of God… adopted into God’s family, to share in His life, and become like Him. This beautiful truth calls us into a new way of life, leaving behind our old ways, and looking ahead to our hope of being raised to be with Jesus forever. This is our destiny as believers: We will be like Him… resurrected like Him, with new bodies filled with God’s Spirit, /and no longer subject to death. We will be like Him… cleansed from all our faults and failures… and all that keeps us from having full fellowship with God and with each other. We will be like Him… set free from slavery of all sorts… to self-centredness, fear, hatred, bitterness, shame… set free to truly love, and truly live God’s way forever. The Good News of Christ’s resurrection offers us true forgiveness of sins… so that we can start the new life of God here and now, showing the world all around us the Good News of the Risen Lord in all its fulness by how we live. It means leaving our sins behind… placing them in Christ’s hands at the cross… and trusting Him to deal with them. It means letting the reality of Easter reshape our minds and our imaginations… our understanding of what God is up to, and our own part in His worldwide rescue mission. It means trusting that, even when we fail… Jesus Christ the Risen Lord remains ready to forgive us. Calling us to turn around, take His hand, and let His holy love transform us. And it means trusting that, even when others fail… and fail badly… that Jesus Christ the Risen Lord remains ready to forgive them too! That the promise of true forgiveness of sins in His name is meant for everyone. The resurrection of Jesus assures us of God’s gift of forgiveness. Jesus really did accomplish God’s atoning work for us. Jesus really did begin God’s new creation. Jesus really did open this new life up to us, and to everyone who will turn to Him and trust in His name. And because of this Good News, we His people today really do have work to do: to show the world… our friends, and family, and neighbours, and strangers, and even enemies… both by our words and especially our actions, that in Jesus’ name, forgiveness really is possible… as we await with hope Christ’s coming again in glory to restore all things. Amen. Scripture Readings: Acts 4:32–35 | Psalm 133 | 1 John 1:1–2:2 | John 20:19–31
“Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not written in this book. But these are written so that you may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing you may have life in his name.” (John 20:30-31). Last Sunday, along with Christians all around the world, we celebrated the start of the season of Easter… fifty days celebrating the victory of Jesus Christ over the grave, and everything that tries to stand between the Living God and His beloved world. And as the end of our Gospel reading this morning reminds us, the story of Easter is not just an old story from the past that we remember once a year… Easter’s about God’s New Beginning that has started right in the middle of our world’s old story… taking us by surprise, and drawing us in a whole new direction… leading us who believe into new life through faith in Jesus Christ the Risen Lord. And this, St. John tells us is the whole reason why he wrote his Gospel account: so that we “may come to believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that through believing [we] may have life in his name.” But that might leave us wondering: What does St. John mean when he says that through believing, we may have life in Jesus’ name? What kind of new life is St. John talking about, and wanting us to share in? Well first things first: of course St. John, like the other Gospel writers, tell us the story of Jesus Christ… and in particular, they tell us about His death at the cross, and His rising again from the dead. From the start, Jesus Himself and what He’s done for us all is the absolute core of the Christian faith. And it’s through faith in Jesus Himself, St. John tells us, that we now have access to the gift of life in a whole new way. And of course, as the story of Jesus the Risen Lord is the story of God’s saving love overcoming evil, and even death itself, a big part of the new life that St. John has in mind is that believers will share in Christ’s victory over death too! Just as Jesus was raised from the dead, so too those of us who are now united to Him in faith will be raised up as well. The name Christians have for this promise of hope is the resurrection of the body. But just like anything new, or mysterious, or different from our day to day experience, sometimes we can struggle to understand how the reality of resurrection fits into the bigger picture, both of our faith, and the shape of our daily existence. The Anglican Bishop and scholar, NT. Wright has studied and written a lot about what the first Christians meant by this word resurrection, which over the centuries has often been mixed up a bit with other ideas about the fate of the faithful from outside the Church. In his book, Surprised By Hope, Wright puts it like this: resurrection “wasn’t a way of talking about ‘life after death’. It was a way of talking about a new bodily life after whatever state of existence one might enter immediately upon death. It was, in other words, life after ‘life after death’.”[1] Life after life after death. I like that. The point he’s making is that the Christian Church does not simply proclaim the hope of leaving this physical world behind when we die… exchanging our bodies for the bliss of some disembodied heaven. No, the Church offers us the hope of being with God in heaven the moment we die… as we then await the fulfillment of God’s New Creation when Christ returns… and when we too will receive new, restored, and renewed resurrection bodies just like Jesus did on Easter Morning. As it did over two thousand years ago, this message still messes up all our old categories about the world we know. So much about it is still a mystery, which we can explore but not yet fully understand. But one thing at least is clear from the teachings of the Apostles: whatever happened to Jesus Himself when He rose again from the dead is the fate of all of us who are united to Him in faith. The resurrection of the body is a cornerstone of the Christian faith, and as Wright points out: “It is the element which gives shape and meaning to the rest of the story we tell about God’s ultimate purposes.”[2] And Wright is not wrong to put such a strong emphasis on the resurrection. The Apostle Paul in his letter to the Corinthians makes this even more striking claim: 1 Corinthians 15:13-20, “If there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ has not been raised; and if Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified of God that he raised Christ—whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised. For if the dead are not raised, then Christ has not been raised. If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have died in Christ have perished. If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have died.” St. Paul goes on… and on and on in this Chapter about the reality of the resurrection… and we could easily do the same this morning. And I actually want to encourage us all to read through 1 Corinthians Chapter 15 this week, to hear St. Paul carefully help his listeners wrestle with the Good News of the resurrection of Jesus. But as important and vital as this hope of the resurrection is… it’s not the only thing that the Apostle’s meant when they thought of the new life that we receive through Christ Jesus the Risen Lord. That’s because the reality of the resurrection puts the rest of our lives here and now on a whole other track. It’s not just about what will happen at the end, it’s the grounds for an entirely new way to live every single day. And our Scripture passages this morning offer us a vision of some of the central parts of what this new life in the name of the Risen Jesus actually looks like in practice. Our first reading from the Acts of the Apostles Chapter 4, gives us a good glimpse of how the very first Christians lived their lives together shortly after that very first Easter: “Now the whole group of those who believed were of one heart and soul, and no one claimed private ownership of any possessions, but everything they owned was held in common. With great power the apostles gave their testimony to the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and great grace was upon them all. There was not a needy person among them, for as many as owned lands or houses sold them and brought the proceeds of what was sold. They laid it at the apostles’ feet, and it was distributed to each as any had need.” (Acts 4:32-35). This picture of real people, with real problems, but with real confidence in the reality of the resurrection of Jesus gives us a crystal clear vision of God’s good intentions for humanity, and the shape of the new life in Christ: a new and caring community… where we truly love and serve one another. No room for selfishness, or exploitation of others. No needs unmet by freely offered generosity. No fear of being alone, or forgotten… with everyone embodying the love of God all because of the Risen Lord. This truly beautiful image is one that we Christians have struggled to put into practice ever since those early days… frequently failing to live up to this vision… forgetting or simply setting aside the radical self-giving love that the Living God has given us in Christ, as well as the calling to share this same self-giving love with one another. But even as we struggle to do so, God is still at work in those who believe, creating a new community of care… of love that goes beyond just feelings and words, and takes root in action. This is the kind of life that the Good News of Jesus offers to us all … and invites us to work towards. This is the shape of the new life that is possible for those who believe in the Risen Lord: a community of active love. But what’s to be done when we fall short of this ideal, as we so often do? How do we keep sharing in God’s new life when our old failures and faults come back to haunt us? Turning to our second reading, from the first letter of St. John, we find that we are being called to take part in a community of love… that is committed to living in the light… fully exposed to the truth. In this letter, St. John uses a lot of strong either/or images… clearly contrasting the basic alternatives for us to choose from. Feel the force of the message he lays out here: “God is light and in him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with him while we are walking in darkness, we lie and do not do what is true; but if we walk in the light as he himself is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. (1 John 1:5-7). To share God’s new life in the light, it means leaving behind all our darkness… our sin… all the things we do that keep us from loving the Lord and our neighbours… with our hands, and our heads, and our hearts. In other words, we are called to be holy… sharing in the holiness of Living God… embodied in all the choices we make every day… and made possible by the sacrifice of our Saviour. St. John goes on, emphasizing that this high calling is not at all based on our own perfection, or sinlessness, our own ability to walk in the light… but in Jesus Christ, the Risen Lord… who came to save sinners like us! 1 John 1:8-2:2, If we say that we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he who is faithful and just will forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say that we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us. My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous; and he is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not for ours only but also for the sins of the whole world.” Again, it all rests on Jesus Himself, and what He’s already done to save us sinners, and the whole world! The new life Christ gives us is deeply committed to leaving our darkness behind, and learning to walk God’s ways. This life is also committed to the truth… to integrity, and honesty, even when this means owning up to our own failures, trusting that we truly can be forgiven… turning in faith to our Risen Lord, Jesus our Saviour who gave His life at the cross to save all us sinners, and who rose again to reconcile us in God’s love forever. So to quickly recap: the life that we receive in Christ Jesus is an invitation to share in a caring community… that is committed to following God’s holy ways together… which also means being honest about our failures, so that we can find the freedom that comes with forgiveness. And this takes us at last to our Gospel reading this morning, and the story of St. Thomas. Now before we go branding Thomas as “the Doubter”, it’s important to remember his place in the story so far: the other disciples had all experienced a visit from the Risen Jesus. They saw with their eyes and believed… but Thomas missed out, and can’t bring himself to. It’s all too good to be true. And yet, despite his deep doubts, Thomas doesn’t just walk away. No, the next week he’s right there with the other disciples when Jesus again appears to them. Now would Jesus have tracked Thomas down if he hadn’t stuck around? If he had just decided to skip town instead? Maybe. Maybe not. But as St. John tells the story, he wants us to see something really important at work in Thomas’ encounter with Jesus: When we find ourselves struggling with our faith… then there’s no better place to go to experience the Risen Christ than to connect with other Christians… ones who are likely still trying to wrap their own heads around the reality of the resurrection… who don’t yet have all the answers, but who are still trying to be faithful to the Good News that Jesus is Risen. But our confidence and hope doesn’t rest on those around us, it rests on the Risen Jesus Himself who loves to show up in the gatherings… in the lives of His people, even when our eyes can’t see Him. He’s here! The new life we receive through faith in Jesus Christ the Risen Lord is not just about what happens to our bodies in eternity. It’s also about God’s new life that’s beginning right now: as we becoming a community that loves one another, that walks together in Gods holy ways, helps each other stay true, and also find forgiveness when we fail. It’s a life that rests on Jesus Himself, and all that He has done already to save us. A life that we know will have no end, as we look ahead to sharing completely in Christ’s resurrection. Amen. [1] Tom Wright, Surprised by Hope (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2007), 163. [2] Tom Wright, Surprised by Hope (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2007), 160. Scripture Readings: Exodus 12:1–14 | Psalm 116:1–2, 12–19 | 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 | John 13:1–17, 31b–35
“I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35). This is the commandment of our Lord, and it is exactly what our world needs right now: a community of people who love one another the way that Jesus loves. Of course this sounds great at first glance… but time and again we tend to shrink back when it comes down to putting His kind of love into practice. Then suddenly, love doesn’t seem quite so easy… or so appealing. That’s because, as we know, love is messy. Love is challenging. Love is vulnerable. Love means getting close to folks, not just when they’re at they’re best… but even when it’s incredibly uncomfortable. And love means letting others get close to us as well… and not just when we’re at our best… it means taking the risk that our masks might slip… that they might see through our careful defenses… a whole other level of discomfort! This kind of love looks a lot like faith… taking the risk to entrust ourselves… our real selves, warts and all, to each other. Taking the risk to try our best to be trustworthy too… to do what we can to be there for one another… to have grace and patience with one another… to challenge and forgive one another… to offer to each other all that Christ Jesus our Lord has offered to us. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. Love is exactly what we need. What our neighbours need. What the world around us needs. But will we be willing to share it? Our Lord pulls no punches in His high expectations for His people. And to make it clear what this love looks like, He humbly assumes the role of a servant… a slave… and one-by-one, the High King of Heaven stoops down to clean His disciple’s disgusting feet. Imagine their discomfort… their confusion, their dismay… as their Master, the One they thought was about to bring God’s Good Kingdom to earth in triumphant glory, kneels down in front of them… wiping away the grit and grime from their road-weary toes… and arches, and heels… not just as a symbolic gesture, but as an act of deep compassion… of kindness… of attentiveness… of willingness to deal with they’re mess, right up close… reaching out in love to make them clean. This is an almost unthinkable level of care and intimacy… inviting us to let down our guards… to allow ourselves to be exposed, cared for, and cleansed… first of all, by our Lord Jesus Christ, through the cross He endured to deal with all our messes… cleansing us by His precious blood. But then Jesus empowers us to share His love with one another… to put it into action in our lives. To let His love lead the way. Love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another. This is what we need… as messy, and as uncomfortable, and as strange as it feels… this is what we all need: to share with one another what Jesus Christ our Lord first shared with us: God’s love. And this is exactly what our world needs today… in the face of the ongoing devastation from the brutal conflicts in Gaza… Ukraine… Haiti… Myanmar… Sudan… and more… where armies not only destroy another other, but the lives of so many civilians… regular people, all made in God’s image, swept away by waves of violence. And in the face of all the social divisions and hatred that keeps tearing our communities apart… fueling mistrust… fear… prejudice… and turning our human family against one another. In the face of our world’s indifference to the poor… to the sick… to the elderly, the vulnerable… the environment… turning our backs on our responsibility to care for one another, and all of God’s creation… content to leave it to others to do the hard work of cleaning up the messes we have all made. Our world needs us to be a people… a community who are willing to do the uncomfortable work of sharing God’s love with His messed up world. Tonight we remember that Christ Jesus our Lord stepped into the mess we have made of God’s world… and stooped down to cleans it, one foot… one life at a time… and now He calls us to follow His example. Tonight we remember that His life was broken and His blood shed to put our world back together… bound together by the forgiveness, mercy, and grace of the Living God, offered to us all in Jesus’ name. Tonight we remember His commandment: to love one another as He has first loved us. And that this is how the world will come to know God’s rescuing love… when we His people take the first step of faith, and strive to love one another. In a moment, I will offer us all an invitation in Jesus’ name to come forward and have our foot washed… as an uncomfortable, but powerful way to say yes to Christ’s gift of compassionate, cleansing love… and as a commitment to obey His command to share this love with one another… and with God’s world. Whether we come forward, or stay in our seats tonight, may the Holy Spirit of God graciously work in all our hearts and minds to cleanse us from everything that keeps us from loving one another as Christ Himself loves us. Amen. |
Rev. RObRev. Rob serves as the Priest-in-Charge at St. Luke's Gondola Point, and as the School Chaplain at Rothesay Netherwood School Archives
June 2024
Categories
All
|