Fr
Kevin’s Sermon on Sunday 7 November 04
Fr
Kevin’s sermon on Sunday 27 February 05
About two weeks ago I went to see the film The Return of the King, the third and
final film of the trilogy The Lord of the
Rings. Apart from the appearance of
a gigantic and absolutely revolting spider, one of the most memorable scenes
from the film features the hobbit Pippin.
Prompted by the wizard Gandalf, Pippin climbs the beacon at the top of
the pinnacled city of Minas Tirith and sets fire to it, setting off a signal
which is picked up by watchmen far away. As the spectator is whisked above the
cold, dark mountain ranges; from the peaks, beacon after beacon flares into
flames, raising the alarm. A powerful moment!
One of my first sights of All Saints Church was at night. From the other side of the River Stort, the
church stands up high on the hill, and with its floodlight expertly positioned
by Paul, it looks like a beacon. At night one is aware of how both All Saints
and St Michael’s face each other across the valley, like beacons.
Today’s Gospel reading from Luke picks up this theme
of light. Mary and Joseph bring the
infant Jesus to the Jerusalem Temple for the rite of Purification. As they enter, they come across old Simeon,
who had been told by God that he would not die until he had seen the
Christ. As he takes up Jesus in his
arms he realises that that moment has come.
He speaks of Jesus as the Light to lighten the non-Jews - the Gentiles,
and the glory of God’s people, Israel - words which the church recites every
day at Evening Prayer. Simeon says
Jesus is to be light to the World; indeed in John’s Gospel Jesus himself says,
“I am the Light of the World.” the
beacon of hope in a darkened world.
Now, Jesus is the final stage in God’s rescue plan. God had originally chosen a special people,
Israel, the Jewish nation who were to the light to the nations. However, they had failed God in their
vocation. So he raised up Jesus, Himself
a Jew, to be the Light to the Nations, to be the Light of the World. It is through Jesus, that God desires to
draw all people back to Himself and establish his Kingdom.
That torch has been handed to us. Jesus Himself calls us to be the light of the world, like a city set on a hill that
cannot be hidden. St Paul speaks of our
being like lights in the midst of a dark and perverse world. All of us, every
church and every Christian are to give light to all around. We are to be
beacons of hope.
I wish to pay tribute to the wonderful work of all
who have gone before us here and especially to my predecessors. At the
beginning of a new chapter in the life of All Saints, it is a good moment to
ask the question, “ What church are we seeking to be?” Or, rather perhaps the
correct question to ask is, “What kind of church is God calling us to be?”
Today’s Gospel gives us real clues.
First, we
are to be an upward looking
church. If we are to be the light of the world, and not simply
peddle darkness and sinfulness, we need to be
Light. We are to share the life of Christ. We do this by staying close to Him;
in prayer, obedience, faithful attendance at the Eucharist and in our own daily
reflection on Scripture - in other words, we are to nurture our own spiritual
life. Now there’s a danger here. It is perilously easy for our own devotional
life to turn in on itself, to become an end in itself. We can end up being pious for piety’s sake,
or get so wrapped up in the trappings of worship that we forget the larger
picture. God hates religiosity. I have a word for this: “Yuk”! We must always
remember that worship and the Eucharist especially, is the springboard to
mission. In our worship God wants us to celebrate His love for us, His presence
with us, and to enjoy Him!! And having
shared moments of intimacy with Him we are then to move out and share his love
and grace with others.
At the end of the Latin Mass, the priest says Ite missa est - the Mass is ended, go!
Get out! Having received Jesus in the most holy Sacrament, we are then
dismissed, we are to go! This is one reason why we have moved our notices from
the end to before the service. In our
liturgy we are not to dilly-dally but to go immediately. By all means, go and
serve each other over coffee, but then go and serve Him out there!
If our Eucharist is the springboard to mission, then
we must also ensure that all our services are accessible to the visitor and
enquirer. We need to grow “seekers’
eyes” – to develop the ability to see what we do though the eyes of a seeker or
enquirer, and if necessary, be prepared to adapt and change, so that we lose
no- one.
So, first we need to be light. Secondly, we need
to be the light of the world. We need to be both an upward looking and outward reaching people. We are to go
where God wants us – out in the world. We are called to carry on the work of
the Kingdom of God. As Jesus entered our world, as he became incarnate, as he
became flesh in the womb of Blessed Mary, so he calls us to be out in the
world, to be where people are hurting. To be where people are. Who this week at work or at school looks down and
needs to be loved? Who needs a kind
friend or a sympathetic ear? Who around me could do with a hand-up? Who needs
their shopping done, or a lift to the surgery? Remember, Jesus said that
whatever you did for the least of my brethren, you did it for me. People don’t need just words – they need
love in action. We need to be out there doing this.
We are also to be out in the world, influencing for
good our community and the structures of our society, to establish God’s
Kingdom of justice, integrity and peace in the social and political life of our
town and country. I know many at All
Saints are already involved in the community, in the schools and especially All
Saints School; in ASHOA, helping at the Hospital, with Small Saints and in so
many ways. But we all need to be ready both to share the love of Jesus with
those around us and be active in
shaping our community life.
So we are to be both an upward looking and an
outward reaching church. We are also to
be an all-embracing or inclusive
church. We are to be light to all peoples. That means we cannot discriminate on any grounds. I was thrilled
more than I can say when I learned that we support the ministry of St Botolph’s
Aldgate, the church in the East End of
London which has done ground breaking work in ministering to the homeless, the
dispossessed, those with HIV/AIDS, and others who don’t always find a welcome
in other churches. I was gratified and
actually rather amused the other day, when I found their internet website,
carrying what is almost a Government Health Warning!
“St Botolph’s is a friendly inclusive church. BEWARE!
Here we practice the inclusive Gospel of Jesus Christ. This means you may be mixing with
tax-collectors, sinners, adulterers, hypocrites, Greeks, Jews, women as well as
men, homosexuals, the disabled, dying thieves, and other sinners; black people, Asians and other ethnic minorities,
Muslims, Bishops, bigots, peoples of other faiths, strangers from Rome and
Nigeria, heretics, etc, etc - even you, dear guest are most welcome; in fact
anyone like those who Jesus mixed with.
So beware, this is not a private club,
WELCOME TO ALL!”
Now I am aware that one
or two of these may sound slightly controversial, as well as tongue in
cheek! I shall not even begin to
address any of these issues today. But I do think that it should make us think.
As Jesus is the light for all
peoples, so he calls us to be light to all
around us, both to welcome and actively to seek out all people, whoever they
are. Bishop Christopher in his address at last Monday’s licensing service spoke
of the inclusive Kingdom of Jesus Christ.
If we are to be faithful to Jesus and to His inclusive Gospel then must
love and welcome even the strangest of people.
First, we shall become a Growing church, and I am talking quite unashamedly about numbers.
We need to grow. It is part of Our
Lord’s commission to us. Secondly, we shall need to develop every member ministry. That does not
mean we all become vicars! Neither does it mean doing my bit to ‘help the vicar
out’! What it does mean is that every one of us needs to develop and share our
God-given skills and gifts, and that some take
actual responsibility for areas of the church’s ministry; in order that His
Kingdom may be extended.
So to return to Pippin the hobbit and to where we
started. Our Lord Jesus through his
incarnation, death and resurrection, has lit a Kingdom beacon of life, hope and
grace in this cold, dark world, that has never been put out. My prayer is that
each and every one of us, will be so lit up with the fire of His love that
others will see it, catch the fire, and that our lovely floodlit church may not
be just be a symbol, but that All Saints will continue to light a Kingdom fire
in Hockerill, in Bishops Stortford and beyond.
I close with words of Dr David Hope, our great
Archbishop of York, speaking of the
need for Anglican catholic Christians to engage spiritually with the world.
“That perspective of forwards and onwards is ours
today. Our forebears in the catholic
movement were zealous for the transformation of the Church and the conversion
of England. That task remains and if we
are at all to address ourselves to it then we need not only to recover the full
meaning of ‘catholic’ – in the sense of wholeness and inclusiveness, rather
than issue driven and exclusive, and quite irrespective of whether we consider
ourselves to be of the affirming variety or any other for that matter – but
also to realise that we are being called to look beyond ourselves to the vast
and increasing numbers of people for whom the Christian message is either of
little importance or totally irrelevant.
That is the thrust of the Eucharist – we are to go forth to love and
serve the Lord, to go with confidence and joy in the name of the risen and
living Lord Jesus Christ.”
Amen.
Contact
Aren’t women wonderful!
In the beginning there was
Adam…
So
God asked him, “What’s wrong with you?”
Adam
said that he didn’t have anyone to talk to.
God said that He was going to make Adam a companion and that is would be
a woman.
God
said, “This person will gather food for you, cook for you, and when you
discover clothing she’ll wash it for you. She will always agree with every
decision you make. She will bear your
children and never as you to get up in the middle of the night to take care of
them. She will not nag you and will always
be the first to admit she was wrong when you’ve had a disagreement. She will never have a headache and will
freely give you love and passion whenever you need it.”
Adam
asked God, “What will a woman like that cost?”
God
replied, “An arm and a leg.”
Then
Adam asked, “What can I get for a rib?”
The
rest is history.
What a wonderful woman in our
gospel reading to have put up with seven husbands like that!
Inform
The part of Luke’s gospel from
which our reading today comes in a series of stories and parables – pictures,
which together build up the gospel story.
Crucial to the gospel story
is the Resurrection, the raising of Jesus from death on the first Easter Day.
When the first century Jews thought of the resurrection it wasn’t a disembodied
state after death, but a future event in which the dead would be alive in a new
bodily way. The Sadducees denied all
this. So they told stories just like
the one in today’s gospel to illustrate just how stupid they thought belief in
a resurrection was.
Jesus told them that they had
missed the plot. The Resurrection
supplies the wider context in the whole Christian story. Resurrection life is and will be dynamically
different. Sorry to disappoint some of you, but in heaven, there’ll be no sex,
no marriage; why? Because there will be no need to continue a particular family
line. We will have new bodies, suited
to their new environment in the new life to come.
What is absolutely basic is
that one day there will be a resurrection. Its mind blowing.
Our ultimate goal is
transformation until we attain the resurrection. But resurrection life begins now. It begins at our baptism.
In a few moments I shall pour
water over Thomas in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy
Spirit. In the early church and in some
churches today baptism in administered by full immersion. James and Gemma, please have no fear – for I
promised not to do that to Thomas today!
But baptism is a vivid picture of death, of burial, burial under water
and then as the candidate is lifted up out of the water, of being raised to
new, resurrection life in the power of the Holy Spirit. For all of us who have
been baptized, have died. We have died
with Christ Jesus and so we are now risen with Him. We have already entered into resurrection life. But not only is resurrection the key to
understanding our baptism, resurrection is the underlying principle in the
Christian life. And so while we remain
on earth we are, in the words of Charles Wesley to be:
‘Changed from glory into
glory, till in heaven we take our place!’
Baptism involves a change, a
move from death to life; this change continues throughout our lives and beyond
our physical death. Why change? Because God’s purpose is that we are to grow
into the likeness of Christ. There can
be no growth in our individual lives or in the lives of the church without
change. So if we are to be faithful to
our Christian vocation and calling, then change is inevitable. And change means pain and loss – inevitably.
So we are in a dilemma: On one hand, many of us see the church as a
bastion of changelessness and tradition in a changing and often frightening
world. Some of us even cling to it and
resist all attempts to change anything because we want to keep it as our
comfort zone, to use the church as a comfort blanket against the nasty, cold,
unpredictable world outside. As one who
has undergone dramatic change and upheaval in my professional, family and
private life over the past six years, I have a lot of sympathy with those who
feel that way.
But, on the other hand, we
have to recognize that God is concerned with our growth into resurrection
life. He is concerned with our maturity
as Christians, he want us to grasp that resurrection life now; both as
individual Christians and as church communities.
It is also vital that we
grasp hold of resurrection life now, for the church is God’s agent of change in
the world. The early disciples were
enjoying a heady but cosy time in the early Jerusalem church. But, when persecution came, it was a cloud
with a silver lining, a blessing in disguise.
For God used that persecution to drive the early disciples out into the
wider world where they should have been, out in the wider world, telling
everyone else the good news of Jesus.
So, there is a tension
between our instinct to resist change on one hand and on the other, God’s
desire to change us to be a growing and therefore changing people, so that in
turn, through us, He in His power may change the world.
Apply
I hope it will be obvious
from our Patronal Festival Sung High Mass last Sunday that I prize and
treasure traditional catholic worship in
very highly indeed. It is a tradition which I hope we will continue to develop
here in all its richness. However,
whatever tradition or practice we may hold dear in the church, it must never
become an end in itself.
We have, this week entered
the Kingdom Season; a time following
the Sundays after Trinity and All Saints when, for three Sundays before
Advent, we remember the ultimate mission of the church –our mission - the establishment of the Kingdom of God
under the Kingship and Lordship of Christ.
All of us constantly need to
be reminded that we have a King in heaven whom we are to serve, and not
the other way around. But isn’t it all
too easy to pay lip service to this?!
We have just sung Jesus, my
prophet, priest and King, my Lord, my way , my life my all…..
So I ask the question of us
all: ‘Is Jesus really our King, your
King, my King?’
Is Jesus, really my Lord, or
am I Lord of my life or my church? Do I
make my plans for my life and then ask God to bless them? Or do I strive to fashion my church the way
that suits me, in the way that I feel comfortable with without ever stopping to
consider that this may not be quite what God has in mind. And anyway, do we ever stop to ask ourselves
whose church is it anyway?
Or to put it another
way. In what or who do I place my
security? If Jesus were to come along
and touch things in my life, my money, my family, my relationships, my work, my
church membership and ask me to change or even give them up; how actually would
I respond? We need to put our trust in
God, who is unchanging and yet constantly makes all things new, rather than
placing our trust in the church, which by virtue of its calling to be the agent
of God’s kingdom is constantly evolving and constantly changing. The early baptismal formula was Jesus is
Lord. Is Jesus actually Lord of my
life? If Jesus is not Lord of all then
he is not Lord at all.
So, may we like Paul strive
to : Leave the things that are behind and reach out to that which is before,
that we may win the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus?
Let us have the courage to
embrace change and grow, to face change – for only that way will we ever hope
to enter into resurrection life.
Amen.
Grace on skis!
“Sin is a slippery slope downhill at varying speeds. Follow God’s rules.” So ran a notice on a board outside a church I once passed.
Three years ago whilst skiing, I experienced a personal outworking of this principle. Today is your chance to have a good laugh at the Vicar! On that occasion, I got lost at the top of a closed piste. But ignoring the signs, thinking that I knew best, I decided to try my luck, only to find that a hundred yards downhill, the snow gave way to a dangerous steep slope of stones and slushy mud. Disaster struck when I slipped, fell spread-eagled face down in the mud and slid rapidly down the mountainside leaving my skiis and poles behind, I was alone. No help was at hand. Meanwhile, people on the chair lift running high above me jeered. What I needed was help; not self righteous, “Serve you right!” It was only the appearance of a kind French Piste Patrolman which saved the day. I felt extremely foolish; as he helped me down I steeled myself for a real ticking off; expecting to be hauled over the coals; to have my lift pass confiscated or to be fined, or both. But I didn’t get what I deserved; in fact I got what I didn’t deserve; for he was kind and polite, understanding and encouraging. For me that was a moment of real grace.
Why do I tell that story? Because I believe that it is in its own way a picture of human life. If we are really honest, most of us struggle under the weight of failure of some sort. Many of us know what it is to have ignored warnings, made mistakes, taken a wrong turn onto a slippery slope only to slither out of control. For some of us our mistakes have become a messy lifestyle; and each of us sometimes wonders if God can possibly love ‘me’, let alone deal with the mess of my life?
Smashing the barriers
The woman at the well in our story today from John’s gospel was just like that. Jesus came to a town of the hated half-Jews, the Samaritans. Now, other women would come and get their water from a town centre well earlier in the day when it was cool; so why was this woman here at noon in blistering heat, easily half a mile outside town? We discover why later; she was regarded as a social leper: five times married and now living with another man to whom she was not married. She was regarded as an immoral woman and therefore, forced to get her water when the other women weren’t around. She had slithered down the slippery slope and had hit the bottom.
What is extraordinary is that Jesus approaches her and asks for a drink. Jesus broke all the cultural rules with a triple whammy. One she was a woman. Jewish men would not often talk even to their wives in public and yet here is Jesus talking to a strange woman. Two, she was a Samaritan woman, a half Jew and a hated enemy. Proper Jews didn’t even give Samaritans the time of day! Three, this Samaritan woman had a past. She was a social pariah because of her immorality. And yet, none of this seems to worry Jesus in the least! What follows is almost funny repartee. Instead of the still or stagnant water of the well, Jesus offers her living, or running water. She notes that he hasn’t got a bucket! (So, is Jesus greater than Jacob who gave them the well?) Jesus then comes back at her with an offer of water which will slake her thirst for ever, and she’s then totally flummoxed. What’s happening? She’s a bit cheeky and flirty, so does she perhaps wonder if Jesus is making advances?
Jesus asks her to call her husband. She suddenly realizes that he game is up: she admits that she has no husband. He then gently exposes her secret, that she has had five husbands: not to humiliate her, neither to condemn or lecture her, but to bring her face to face with herself and God. Why and who she is, is gently brought out into the open. That is Grace.
But this is getting too hot for her. Quick! - Diversion tactics! Get him talking about theology – it always works(!) – ‘Jesus, where is the right place to worship God, on this mountain or in Jerusalem?’ But Jesus was not to be put off by such devices. He tells her that her worship must be in spirit and in truth. To which her line is, ‘Oh, very interesting – of course one day the Messiah is coming. He’ll explain all that complicated stuff’ Phew! But there’s no way off the hook, for then Jesus tells her straight – that he, the one who is speaking to her, is the Messiah. She runs off to her friends and they too believe. There is a real breakthrough, reconciliation: where enemies become friends.
Many of us might label this woman unredeemable, unsalvageable, unteachable and beyond help. She not only made mistakes, her whole lifestyle was a mistake. But as far as Jesus is concerned this woman is redeemable, salvageable and teachable. Perhaps at the heart of the string of broken relationships was her search for love and affirmation and wholeness that only God can give. Perhaps she, like us, had tried to fill that God shaped space inside with other things. But Jesus treats her with kindness, gentleness, compassion and respect; he listens to her, he treats her with dignity.
Jesus didn’t rub it in; he rubbed it out. Mike Yaconelli in his book Messy Spirituality puts it well:
“Jesus didn’t focus on her mistakes; he focused instead on her desire for God. Jesus recognised her lifelong search for God in all the wrong places and honoured her unsavoury past by looking into her heart instead of looking at her bad choices.”
Jesus met her where she was, in her mess, her brokenness and led her to Himself. As we shall sing in a moment in FW Faber’s wonderful hymn:
‘There’s a wideness in God’ mercy like the wideness of the sea. There’s a kindness in his justice which is more than liberty.’
No longer defined by her past, she has a new future. Jesus sees her present desire which makes her past irrelevant. It’s the same for us. Jesus doesn’t rub it in, he rubs it out. Our brokenness and mess is the place where we meet Jesus and find life.
Today - Royals and
Gays – an Inclusive Gospel
The gospel of Jesus is inclusive. In today’s gospel story Jesus broke down the barriers, he welcomed a foreign woman of loose morals; but elsewhere, he also welcomed Roman soldiers, collaborators, prostitutes, adulterers, sinners, lepers and outcasts. Now, I am not saying that repentance and morality don’t matter, because they do. But the thrust of the Gospel is inclusive: Jesus came to call the spiritually sick not the healthy; he came not to call the righteous but sinners to repentance. As Paul put it in our Epistle reading: “It was while we were still sinners that Christ died for us.” The Kingdom of God is where those who don’t belong suddenly find they are welcome guests, and those who think they belong suddenly find themselves outside.
Two opportunities for God’s grace are being played out in the public arena just now. First, by their own admission, it is true that both Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles have a past which has led to brokenness and mess. I believe the Archbishop of Canterbury is right to support them in their desire to regularize their situation, both legally and theologically. Its a positive step forward to ask for the grace of God in the blessing of their marriage.
Secondly, you will no doubt be aware of the potential split in the Anglican Communion following the Primates’ discussion of the Windsor Report at their meeting in Northern Ireland this past week. The Windsor Report is not actually about homosexuality. It offers a way of preserving unity and ensuring a means forward when there is contention and disagreement between the different Anglican Provinces. However, this crisis was, of course, precipitated by the ordination of a practising gay man as a bishop in the States and the introduction of rites of blessing for same-sex relationships in Canada. Now is not the time or place to enter into detailed exploration of the morality of homosexual relationships; except to say that I do think that the Bible is less clear on this issue than many people claim. I also know that none of us come to such issues empty handed but with our own preconceptions and prejudices based on our cultural and ethical upbringing, and I also know, from my own experience, how easy it is to read these back into the Bible and make it say things it doesn’t actually say. But, most of all, what I want to say is that this is not an armchair theology issue. This is to do with real people: people who are hurting, who are feeling rejected by the church and excluded. To many gay and lesbian people the church is enemy number one! And its our fault!
The Bishops in successive Lambeth Conferences and the Primates in their recent communiqué, emphasise their welcome and affirmation of gay and lesbian people within the church and their commitment to their pastoral care. But such assertions are patronizing and hollow unless we start listening to them and their experience. We cannot have a proper discussion of homosexuality in the absence of gay and lesbian people, any more than we can have an informed debate about racism without listening to the experience of those of races different to our own! What is crucial now is that the church, and I mean we, humbly listen to homosexual people; that we give them the kindness, dignity and respect that Jesus gave to the Samaritan woman, without judgment. Anything less is sub-Christian. I also have to say (with a smile) that it is a good job that Prince Charles is not gay; otherwise the church would be in much more of a flap than it already is!
Grace for us all
But not judging is the thing we find hardest:
“But we make his love too narrow by false limits of our own; and we magnify his strictness with a zeal he will not own.”
None of us have any right to judge. Indeed, says Jesus, the measure we give will be the measure we receive. All us of need humbly to recognize that we too are utterly dependent on the grace of God, a recognition which is the antidote to much Pharisaical posturing. Our present state, with all its failure and compromise and mess is where we start. The Good News is that if we haven’t got our act together, and let’s face it, few of us have, then we are in the right place for God. We begin where we are, not where we are not! Jesus said, ‘Blessed are those who know their need of God, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Or in another translation blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ Our mess is the raw stuff of spirituality. So let’s be encouraged, for as FW Faber concludes:
“There is grace enough for thousands of new worlds as great as this; there is room for fresh creations in that upper home of bliss. If our love were but more simple, we should take him at his word; and our lives would be all gladness in the joy of Christ our Lord.”
So be it!
A couple had two little boys,
age eight and ten, who were excessively mischievous. The two were always getting into trouble and their parents could
be assured that if any mischief occurred in their town their two young sons
were in some way involved. The parents
were at their wits’ end as to what to do about their sons’ behaviour. The mother had heard that a priest in the
town had been successful in disciplining children in the past, so she asked her
husband if he thought they should send the boys to speak with the priest. The husband said, “We might as well. We need
to do something before I really lose my temper!” The priest agreed to speak with the boys, but asked to see them
individually.
The eight year old went to
meet with him first. The priest sat the boy down and asked him sternly, “Where
is God?”
The boy made no response, so
the priest repeated the question in an even sterner tone, “Where is God?”
Again the boy made no attempt
to answer. So the priest raised his voice even more and shook his finger in the
boy’s face, “WHERE IS GOD?”
At that the boy bolted from
the room and ran straight home, slamming himself in the loo.
His older brother followed
him into the loo and said, “What’s happened?”
The younger brother replied,
“We are in BIG trouble this time. God
is missing and they think we did it!”
Today God has gone
missing! Today is the day of the Great
God Robbery! Or so it might appear.
We’ve just heard how the two
Marys, subdued and tearful went to the tomb on that first Easter Day. They went in mourning, with spices and fresh
linen to complete the burial of Jesus, the man whom they had loved and
followed. When they arrived at the tomb there had been a great earthquake, the
heavy stone covering the entrance to the tomb had been rolled away and the tomb
was empty – the body had gone! The Great God Robbery?
There was a figure sitting on
the door-stone, a messenger from God, an angel, who told them that, far from
being the scene of a body snatching, a robbery; this tomb was empty, for Jesus
had risen and they were to expect to see him in Galilee. It was as they turned to go to tell the men,
that they bumped into Jesus himself, and falling at his feet, worshipped him.
Jesus told them not to be afraid, but repeated the message the angel had given
them; to tell the disciples to go to Galilee where they would see him.
Its all very dramatic, an
earthquake, swooning guards, an angel and messages. Tom Wright, Bishop of
Durham says that, ‘Some think, of course, that Matthew has added some of these
details to make the story appear more spectacular than in the other gospel
accounts; although you might as well say that the others missed them out
because, if you’re telling a story like this around the world, you don’t want
people to laugh at the details and then to dismiss the event itself.’
The point is that God has done something new and spectacular ! Easter
is not a fairy story. It is true!
Jesus is alive! The fact is that Jesus has been raised from death. So, Jesus is with us, today! Now we are not
talking about the Resuscitation of a dead corpse - we are talking about Resurrection! – the raising of the man Jesus
to a new kind of life, a new plane of existence! No one has ever done this before, or since. That makes Jesus Christ unique.
Jesus once asked his
disciples this question, “Who do you say I am?”
Peter alone among them,
realized that Jesus was the long awaited Jewish Messiah, the Anointed One, the
Christ. But then Jesus told them the
shocking news that, as Messiah, he was to be rejected, and tortured and die on
a cross. Three days later he would then
be raised to life again, resurrected.
Well that sounds like the acid test to me. A Man who claims to be God; to suffer, die and rise again and who
doesn’t, is clearly a fraud; but if he does what he claims to able to do, then he is genuine, he is
telling the truth.
Some of you will know the
Narnia stories, like the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe. They were written by C. S. Lewis, who was a professor at Oxford
University and once an agnostic, who wrote:
“I
am trying here to prevent anyone saying the really foolish thing that people
often say about Him (Jesus): "I'm ready to accept Jesus as a great moral teacher, but I don't accept
His claim to be God." That is the one thing we must not say. A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things
Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic on
a level with the man who says he is a poached egg or else he would be the Devil
of Hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the son of
God: or else a madman or something worse.”
Then Lewis adds:
“You
can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you
can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come up with any patronizing nonsense about His being a great
human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.”
The fact is that the
Resurrection of Jesus is the proof of who Jesus is. The Resurrection of Jesus
vindicates him as the Son of God; The
Resurrection of Jesus vindicates him as the Messiah, the Anointed One, the
Christ; The Resurrection of Jesus vindicates him as God himself.
So I will ask the Question
again. Who do you, who do I say Jesus
is? Who is Jesus for you?
We can’t meet Jesus today in the
way the women did that first Easter Morning.
But he is here now spiritually, by his spirit. We can and should meet Jesus in spirit and get to know him as we
worship him, as we meet him in this Eucharist in the Sacrament of the Altar –
in bread and wine, as we pray and learn from him. “A personal and intimate relationship with Jesus, our Living Lord
is central to what being a Christian is in practice.” (Bishop Tom Wright)
Jesus is alive, he is here
with us and he asks each of us that question?
Who do you say I am? There may
be some of us here who have never considered that question. If you would like to have the opportunity to
find out more, then there are some booklets at the back of church by the door
as you leave. Please do take one - they are free – and read and reflect. There may be others of us who have been
Christians for a long time, perhaps for as long as you can remember. If you too would like a opportunity to think
afresh through the claims of Jesus,
then please also take a free booklet.
But be well assured that whatever decision each of us come to now, if
Jesus if Risen, if he is our Lord if he is God, which Easter declares him to
be, then logically, one day we will all have to stand before him and meet him
face to face.
Its knowing Jesus Christ
personally which changes and transforms us.
What is it you and I struggle with?
Is it the habits of a life time?
Concerns for the family?
Problems at work? Financial
problems? Personal problems? The priest asked the two naughty boys, Where
is God? The answer is that God, Jesus Christ is here, he’s alive and he is here! He’s Risen from the dead, he
stands here in his love and wants to receive us and help us; he wants to make a
difference to all our lives.
Where is God for you? If God
is missing in some way, then welcome Jesus today. Find an answer to the question that Jesus asks us all, the most
important question we shall ever have to answer: “Who do you say I am?” Discovering the answer to that question will
make all the difference.
The story is told of a
workman who was harassed by his co-workers because he lived a life of strict
sobriety, never gambled, and always spoke of the Bible and Jesus with
reverence.
"If you believe in the
Bible and Jesus," they said, "you must believe in impossible things
like water turning into wine."
"Ah, I believe in much
more than that," he said.
His mind went back to the
days before his conversion, and the broken life he lived then. He thought about
the change Jesus Christ had worked in his heart and mind. And he said to his
buddies, "I believe in MUCH more than just changing water into wine. I've
seen beer turned into furniture, betting slips turned into food. I have seen my
woman miserable because she was married to a gambling addict made radiantly and
permanently happy because her man was changed before her eyes.
"Yes, I believe in
miracles."
Last
updated 3.12..05