A, The Second Sunday of Advent - Romans 15:1-7,13 "Advent Pleasure"

God has placed you and me, on this earth, at this time, and in this place, we know as Australia.  Living in Australia, along with the rest of the western world, we are privileged to experience a lifestyle that many in the world don’t get to experience.  We have been blessed with prosperity that gives way to pleasures, people in other parts of the world would not even be able to begin to imagine.

At this time and in this place, with this privileged prosperity and its pleasure, people are experiencing suffering at a level never experienced before.  The pleasure, privilege and prosperity that is our expectation from life, takes the prosperity, the privilege, and the pleasure for granted, rather than receiving these things as a gift with thanksgiving to God. 

At this time and place we find our pleasure no longer gives pleasure, our privilege reveals selfish partiality, and our prosperity exposes our poverty.  We suffer at the hands of our pleasures to such a degree, people in other parts of the world would not even be able to begin to imagine.

Advent is the season for hope and peace, joy and love.  A season for waiting.  A season of patience.  A season to depart from the darkness and be delivered into the light of new life.  And a season of expectation to receive and pass on the gift of forgiveness.

John the Baptist came baptising with a baptism for repentance.  There was expectation the Messiah, was coming.  Israel and the Jews had not experienced any revelation from God, for approximately four hundred years.

There was hope, and where there’s hope one prepares oneself for what one is waiting.  Expectation of the Messiah meant many were flocking to the Jordan River, where John was baptising with a baptism of repentance. 

Over the course of one thousand years, the Israelites lived in prosperity, privilege, and pleasure, given by God through King David and others.  But in the time and place of John the Baptist this was all just a distant memory.

The pleasures of Israel no longer gave them pleasure.  The privilege given to the people of God was lost.  And the prosperity of God’s chosen nation, was taken and tossed about between the powers that overran them.

In this time and in this place, you and I suffer at the hand of pleasures that no longer please, you and I suffer at the hands of prosperity that no longer prospers, and you and I suffer at the hands of privileges that enslave.

Perhaps like the Israelites it’s time to turn from what’s within to that which we have been without!  What is it that you have been without?  Hope?  Peace?  Joy?  Love?

Instead of hope, our society today promotes, wanting without the waiting.   Patient expectation through endurance and encouragement, waiting for the fullness of time, where a community wills one in its group to grow and mature, is impatiently shoved out of the way.  Growth and development are trampled, along with fellowship and community building, in favour of instant gratification. 

The problem being since what is wanted is easily gotten, easy come - easy go, the mirage of desire moves and something else is wanted.  Impatience prematurely gets what it wants and wastes unripe fruit.  Without waiting, one does not learn to be satisfied with what one has been given, by God.

Instead of peace, our society today promotes a peace that builds walls.  When these walls are built by us in the name of peace, fellowship is broken, and individualism ends up oppressing us.  One ends up locking oneself in on oneself.   We become slaves to the darkness within, and stuck there, find a whole bunch of loneliness and despair. 

Instead of joy, our society today promotes, sickly sweet happiness.  In one’s impatience we can’t wait for the fullness of time.  We eat unripe fruit, and it sours the second it hits our palette.  So, we go looking for artificial happiness.

Happiness is different to joy.  Joy is built by people in community creating fellowship, while happiness can be celebrated by an individual without any outside influence.  Artificial happiness is saccharine and extreme and it’s usually found to be a cover for loneliness and despair.

Instead of love, our society today promotes unleashed desire.  Rights revealing what is wrong with us and our society, while our wrongs are recognised as right.   Love is no longer about sacrificed and service, but rather about satisfaction of feelings. 

However, two things are experienced when love is centred on the self.  First, confusion and chaos rules as each person’s love competes for supremacy.  Second, people seek satisfaction that’s never fulfilled.   The more one desires this kind of love, the more allusive love proves to be!

In the season of Advent, in this time and place in history, we find ourselves between two competing realities.  The hope, peace, joy and love of Christ’s coming has been departed from and  forgotten in favour of the advent of new and renewed human ideals. 

So, what have we found there?  The advent of new and renewed ways of suffering!         

Now we might think this is a terrible thing.  It might be, if it continues to deliver us into the darkness of ourselves.  However, this is also the time and place of great opportunity for true hope, peace, joy, and love, in its advent through Jesus Christ.   Jesus says, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock.”  (Revelation 3:20a ESV)

Every day and in every place, Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, meets you in the suffering of those in our society.  Jesus makes his Advent to them through you, allowing the Holy Spirit to bring sufferers to the Advent of Jesus’ suffering and death for true hope, peace, joy, and love!

Saint Paul describes Jesus’ Advent of knocking and waiting in this way, “We who are strong have an obligation to bear with the failings of the weak, and not to please ourselves.  Let each of us please his neighbour for his good, to build him up.  For Christ did not please himself, but as it is written, ‘The reproaches of those who reproached you fell on me’”.  (Romans 15:1–3 ESV)

While we please ourselves, we follow the ways of the world, in the same way as did the Israelites.  One’s suffering at the hands of seeking these pleasures, is a reminder Jesus continually sends the Holy Spirit knocking on our doors.  To enter and forgive.  To restore and return us through Jesus’ suffering and victory on the cross.  To see in our forgiveness, the pleasure of God to forgive those who have not the will nor the way to turn to the Saviour who suffered for humanity.

Just as those waited for the coming of a messiah in the time and place of John the Baptist, we continually wait for the final Advent of the Messiah, Jesus Christ.  As we wait for this final most glorious and treasured advent, like those in John’s day, we allow ourselves to be prepared for Jesus’ final victorious Advent.  

The Holy Spirit prepares us by leading us from our sinful suffering into the Word of God, where we endure and are encouraged.  This is also the place and the time in which Jesus makes his Advent through us.  He returns us to his first Advent where he saved us through our baptism into his death and resurrection.   

As we rightly suffer reproaches for being in Christ, know the reproaches of those who reproach you fall on Jesus.  Paul points us to God and his word, “For whatever was written in former days was written for our instruction, that through endurance and through the encouragement of the Scriptures we might have hope.  May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.  Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God.” (Romans 15:4–7 ESV)

The strange thing that occurs when God leads us from our suffering as a result of seeking our pleasures to suffering for the things that please God, we find ourselves waiting in hope, living in peace with joy and love, for those who suffer at the hands of seeking their pleasure, as well as with those who suffer seeking to please God.

As puzzling and paradoxical as it might seem in this Advent, this is the profound prosperity, privilege, and pleasure God seeks for all who suffer within, without him!

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope.  (Romans 15:13 ESV)

Amen.

A, The First Sunday of Advent - Matthew 24:42-44, Romans 13:11-14 "Stolen From..."

Written on a one metre ruler in my High School’s woodworking shop was, “Stolen from the Manual Arts Dept.”   

I have forgotten many things learnt from school, but I’ve never forgotten this quirky identification on the teacher’s blackboard ruler.  It probably says quite a bit about the sense of humour of my manual arts teachers.  Humour blended with sarcastic cynicism, that appeals to the Australian psyche, which no doubt has come about through experience of misfortune.

Imagine finding this ruler in the English or science classroom!   It would have been enough to have the teacher’s name on the ruler, but seeing, “Stolen from the Manual Arts Dept.”, one is entertained by the comedy of the teacher going to rule a line on the blackboard, or whiteboard, only to discover being ruler-less.

In Matthew chapter twenty-four, Jesus seems to say something equally as quirky as that which was written on the teacher’s metre ruler.  Jesus says, “Therefore, stay awake, for you do not know on what day your Lord is coming.  But know this, that if the master of the house had known in what part of the night the thief was coming, he would have stayed awake and would not have let his house be broken into.  Therefore you also must be ready, for the Son of Man is coming at an hour you do not expect.”  (Matthew 24:42–44 ESV)

So, are we to be ready, staying awake, so that we will be stolen?  Or are we to be ready, staying awake, so we are not stolen?  Is Jesus coming to thieve us from the master of this world, Satan?  Or is the call to stay awake, a call to stop the forces of evil stealing our salvation, through being lured back into a sleep of unbelief and death?

Jesus uses what seems to be a mixed metaphor or contrary image in his warning, making us ponder, “who is the master of the house, who is the thief, and for what must one be ready?” 

Like the manual arts ruler identified in the science classroom, are we staying awake to be picked up and found?  Or, are we staying awake so we’re not picked up and stolen to a place where we just should not be? 

If I am the master or the servant, do I need to be stolen or do I need to protect myself not to be stolen?  If Jesus is the thief, from what am I being stolen?  What am I staying awake and waiting for?

If the thief is sin, death, or the devil, how does staying awake protect my identity, so it’s not stolen?

One must let the context of Jesus’ words determine what he is teaching us here.  Jesus continues, “Who then is the faithful and wise servant, whom his master has set over his household, to give them their food at the proper time?  Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes.”  (Matthew 24:45–46 ESV)

But the servant who has not stayed awake, eats and drinks in drunkenness and violence, and is sleeping in a wicked life that leads to death.  This is the person who has not remained awake and has been stolen by death.

In Luke’s parallel account, Jesus says, “But stay awake at all times, praying that you may have strength to escape all these things that are going to take place, and to stand before the Son of Man.”  (Luke 21:36 ESV)

Here Jesus calls us to stay awake so we can escape and not be stolen by the cares of life.  As chaos increases, we’re not stolen back to a hopeless sleep of eternal death.

So, the anomaly to “stay awake”, is one that can be viewed both ways.  We stay awake ready to be rescued and stolen by Jesus when he returns, and we also stay awake, so we are not stolen by worry and doubt, which allows sin, death, and the devil to break into those whom Christ has made holy!

But how does one stay awake?  How is one stolen by God?  Or, how does one remain awake so they are not stolen by death?

In Revelation twenty, John reports the hidden reality of how we are stolen from the jaws of the evil one, kept awake,  sustained and saved from eternal death.  This is the picture he sees and reports to the church…

Then I saw an angel coming down from heaven, holding in his hand the key to the bottomless pit and a great chain.  And he seized the dragon, that ancient serpent, who is the devil and Satan, and bound him for a thousand years…  Then I saw thrones, and seated on them were those to whom the authority to judge was committed.  They came to life and reigned with Christ for a thousand years.  Blessed and holy is the one who shares in the first resurrection!  Over such the second death has no power, but they will be priests of God and of Christ, and they will reign with him for a thousand years.  (Revelation 20:1, 2, 4a, 4c, 6 ESV)

For the sake of brevity, I haven’t given you the full text.  However, I encourage you to read the whole of Revelation chapter twenty through to the end.  When you do you will see and hear the victory that belongs to Jesus Christ and all who remain awake in him.  Or, who allow themselves to be stolen by him from our sinful selves and the deceptive world in which we suffer and by which we are tempted.

But a few things are worth noting from what I have read to you from Revelation twenty. 

The devil is bound for a thousand years.  He has limited power in this era that began at Jesus’ incarnation, life, death, resurrection, ascension and will end upon his return.  The thousand years is the perfect time only known to God the Father.  In the fulness of this time when his purpose is complete, God the Father will send Jesus Christ, and Jesus will come again to this world.

In this era of the church, perfected by Jesus Christ, we reign with him having already died in our first death, and that death was at our holy baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection over sin and death.

In fact, those who stay awake in Jesus Christ, are continually being woken through the waking work of the Holy Spirit as he calls, gathers, enlightens, and makes us holy in the Gospel of Jesus’ death, resurrection, and forgiveness. 

Jesus will come, returning like a thief in the night.  But let us remain awake to the reality of our reign with Christ.  Though, for now, it is hidden from all those who have not been baptised into Christ or who have fallen back into a sleep ending in death!  We live in a generation that is stolen!  In a culture that is not awake to Jesus Christ.

But when we allow the Holy Spirit access to keep us awake, we are blessed!  The devil has been bound.  We live in the daily resurrection of our baptism into Jesus Christ.  We live with the freedom to be witnesses and martyrs of the faith.  We do so, because the second death and the devil, have no power over us.

We might think of our hope in Jesus Christ, as Hell Out and Permanently Eliminated for those awake in Jesus Christ.  Or, Jesus has stolen those he loves from eternal death, Jesus is stealing those he loves from eternal death, and Jesus will steal those he loves from eternal death.

If we are stolen from Satan, and he is bound in what he can do, we still need God’s waking protection in the Holy Spirit.  This is because there’s still limited power and principals of evil being exercised in the world.  By our sinful human spirit, and our corporate human spirit, feeding and fuelling the desires of a corrupt world.

Finally, Paul encourages us in Romans chapter thirteen, “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.”  (Romans 13:8 ESV)

Then he continues, “Besides this you know the time, that the hour has come for you to wake from sleep.  For salvation is nearer to us now than when we first believed.  The night is far gone; the day is at hand.  So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armour of light.  Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarrelling and jealousy.  But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.” (Romans 13:11–14 ESV)

Here he calls us from the desires of selfish love to being loved by God!  When we remain in God’s love, like the manual arts ruler, we bear the quirky sign of God, “Stolen by God, stolen from sin, death and Satan.”

Let us continually remain awake in the Holy Spirit!

Rather than being identified as “Stolen from God, stolen by sin death and the devil”.  We endure being “Stolen from sin death and the devil because we’re stolen by Jesus Christ.”  Amen.

C, The Last Sunday of the Church Year Proper 29 - Luke 23:33-43 "Jesus Remember Me"

Luke 23:33–43 (ESV)  And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left.  And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments.  And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!”  The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine  and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”  There was also an inscription over him, “This is the King of the Jews.”  One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!”  But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.”  And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”  And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

At the place called the Skull, or in Aramaic, Golgotha, everything in creation came to a head.  The Head of our faith, the Head of the body of Christendom, Jesus Christ, Son of God and Son of Man, finished everything and brought a new beginning through his resurrection.

Here, life dealt with death, holiness overcame evil, hidden love was uncovered, true love was unhidden.  The Son of God was revealed and lifted up on the cross having been concealed in the flesh of humanity.  

Saint Paul uses the word “preeminent” in his creedal statement to the Colossians.  We hear of Jesus, “He is the head of the body, the church.  He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.” (Colossians 1:18 ESV)

In Greek, preeminent is “protos”.  Jesus is the first, the prototype, the one through whom all receive their identity and image. 

First, we receive our identity as human flesh.  Like Adam we are terrified by our sin, suffering, dying and death.  

Then, we get our identity as human flesh, forgiven by Jesus Christ, born in the flesh of Adam, but not prone to sin as are we.  

You do well to live with this remembrance as Jesus Christ, the Preeminent First One, remembers you!  

Speaking of remembrance, cemeteries are often referred to as remembrance parks.  On seeing or visiting a cemetery, what are you reminded of?  

When you look at the grave of a loved one, what do you remember?  Do you see their descent into the ground and remember loss?  Or do you look past the grave and funeral, seeing crosses that mark most graves and remember the resurrection?

When you remember, does the Prototype, the Risen Head of the church come to mind, welling up peace, purpose, and pleasure within?  Does the Head, fill you with delight and hope?

For those who do not believe in Jesus Christ, cemeteries are places of death, loss, and inconsolable grief and hopelessness.  The cemetery, for those who do not believe, is a place of remembering “what was – but is no more”.  In despair one might hopelessly think, “God did not save Jesus from death, nor has he saved this person in the grave.”

On the other hand, those who believe in Jesus Christ, cemeteries are places of sadness too!  But it is a sadness being overcome with hope and joy.  The graves of those who have died believing in Jesus Christ, have been made holy by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. 

We remember this of those who have died in faith and now rest from the troubles we still endure.  We remember Jesus’ death.  We also welcome our rest in the grave, glorious resurrection, a perfected creation, and worship face to face before Jesus Christ.  In cemetery remembrance gardens we look forward to, and remember Jesus’ promised garden of, paradise.

We also remember the Head of the Church has crushed the head of the evil one at the place of the Skull, Golgotha, and through death brings life. 

St Paul encourages the Colossians to remember in the Holy Spirit that our Heavenly Father, “has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son” (Colossians 1:13 ESV).  

So too, we are called to remember the work of God, by the Holy Spirit.  We are continually being transferred from kingdoms of darkness and hopelessness to his kingdom of light and eternal love.

However, in our weakness, we humans struggle with the reality of death.  The human spirit wants to avoid death.  The Old Adam does not want to trust what he cannot see and experience for himself.  He wants to continue taking and re-taking control.  He wants to double back on himself, like a deceptive fox, avoiding the revealing light and love of God’s work of forgiveness and love.

Like the first thief on the cross, your Old Adam, our sinful human spirit, wants the Son of God to sin by saving himself from death and then free us from impending suffering and death as well.  But cheating death like this, like criminals on the run, we would always have one eye over our shoulders knowing we cannot hide from God.  Death will return to enslave if Jesus didn’t die to pay our debt.

Like the other thief, we do well to remember our sin and guilt.  To know that God cannot be mocked, or shamed, into dismissing our sin.  If he did, he would no longer be God, my sin would desecrate his holiness, my debt would go unpaid, and knowledge of eternal destruction would make living seem like being on death row.

This thief knew his debt would bring him to his death.  Unlike the other criminal, he knew a last expenditure of power taunting Jesus to save himself from death, would not save Jesus, him, or the other criminal from death.

Something in this second criminal, made him believe that Jesus was indeed the Son of God, the King of the Jews, and that through death, Jesus would overcome death.  

Did he hear the blasphemous taunts of the soldiers, Jews, and other criminal and believe the truth hidden in their taunts?  Did he read the inscription above Jesus that he was the King of the Jews?  Did he hear Jesus’ word somewhere else in his ministry before the crucifixion? 

We don’t know!  But we do know, he remembered his sin, he remembered Jesus had done nothing wrong, and he also looked forward in hope to Jesus coming into his kingdom!

In faith and hope he said, “‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’  And he [Jesus] said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’”

What a wonderful promise!  Today you will finish up with me, out of pain and suffering, past death in paradise!  Jesus then gave up his spirit and died on the cross.  Death was finished, full atonement was made, all righteousness was fulfilled.

Earlier before Jesus died, he said, “For if they do these things when the wood is green, what will happen when it is dry?” (Luke 23:31 ESV)

But when he was crucified and as they cast lots to divide his garments, “Jesus said, ‘Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.’” (Luke 23:34a ESV)

Today the wood is very dry.  There seems to be not much greenness in the cross, devoid of power, little hope is seen in the future of the church; dissolution and death of denominations within Christendom looks real.

We might want to cry out to God in disbelief, “If Jesus is the Son of God, let him save us and our church!”

But Jesus has saved the church, he is saving the church, and he will save those who are his church.  Those who are his church remember their sin, know Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the Chosen One, to die in payment for sin.  

The wood of the cross has long dried.  But the power of the cross is still green.   Like Aaron’s staff in Moses’ hand covered in blossoms, Jesus’ death still oozes resurrection life.   

Jesus Christ is the evergreen verdant “Tree of Life” in the centre of Paradise.  The Holy Spirit wills you with the sword of God’s word to remember and trust in Jesus, to death, and through death.  He wills you to hope in Jesus Christ, the Son of God.  He is the Head of your salvation, the Chosen one!  He is the King of kings, and Lord of Lords!

Know and remember that God is with you through death.  That to death and through death, we believe, therefore confess, “Jesus Christ, Son of God, remember me.”  Amen. 

C, Post-Pentecost 23 Proper 28 - Luke 21:5-19 "Endurance and Opportunity"

Luke 21:5–19 (ESV)  And while some were speaking of the temple, how it was adorned with noble stones and offerings, he said,  “As for these things that you see, the days will come when there will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.”  And they asked him, “Teacher, when will these things be, and what will be the sign when these things are about to take place?”  And he said, “See that you are not led astray. For many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and, ‘The time is at hand!’ Do not go after them.  And when you hear of wars and tumults, do not be terrified, for these things must first take place, but the end will not be at once.”  Then he said to them, “Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom.  There will be great earthquakes, and in various places famines and pestilences. And there will be terrors and great signs from heaven.  But before all this they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.  This will be your opportunity to bear witness.  Settle it therefore in your minds not to meditate beforehand how to answer,  for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.  You will be delivered up even by parents and brothers and relatives and friends, and some of you they will put to death.  You will be hated by all for my name’s sake.  But not a hair of your head will perish.  By your endurance you will gain your lives.

People spoke with great pleasure about the appearance of the temple,  in the presence of Jesus.  Yet Jesus taught that all would be thrown down.  Jesus said the temple would not endure, and in seventy AD it was destroyed by the Romans. 

In the first century, after Jesus’ ascension, many believed he would return.  Still today we wait for his triumphant return.  And as those who gushed over the temple, still today we are tempted to glorify the goodness of the church’s buildings, denominations, and organisations.

In recent years denominations have become hated for the abuse that’s been revealed in its ranks.  Sexual misconduct and its coverup to protect the “good name” of the denomination has led to a royal commission and safe place policy being enforced in a bit to stop sexual misconduct within the denominations of Christendom.

Pleasure seeking in denominations has been a temptation and led denominations away from the centrality of enduring in Christ. 

It’s no different in the LCANZ either.  Our misguided pleasure is also having an impact on us too. 

However, unlike some denominations that have hidden their clergy to protect the good name of the denomination and its institution, we have gone to the other extreme to protect the “good name” of the LCANZ when allegations of sexual misconduct occur.

The temptation to which we’ve succumb is to throw clergy and parishioners out of Christ’s presence as soon as an allegation is made.  Pastors and parishioners are being delivered up guilty, hated, and considered as dead. 

In doing so we, the LCANZ, stand in contradiction to Jesus Christ, unable to give the forgiveness of sins to those who have sinned in this way, or be forgiven by those restored for wrongly being accused and thrown out into the darkness.

Where Jesus’ love should be coming to light in the forgiveness of sin as we walk with sinners in their accountability under the Law of the land, the love that comes to life is self-interested and cold; governed by the pleasure to preserve insurance policy law, the protection of the polity of the LCANZ, and uphold the popularity of the institution in the world.

The pleasure of the LCANZ in presenting itself to the world as one with the world, continues to reveal a terrifying truth amongst us that our church is no better than any other, and like the temple in Jerusalem, must die with all other denominations, must crumble with all of creation, for Jesus Christ to endure with us to eternity.

In recent years we have seen the world become increasingly polarised — morally, politically, and socially.  Fear has increased and so too has suffering.  The more we humans run after our pleasures the more we suffer from the pain of doing so!

Those of us who remain in Jesus Christ and endure in his love, don’t go searching for pain or pleasure.  Both find us as they did for our Lord Jesus Christ when he walked in the reality of his death and destruction, pain and suffering, and the reality of resurrection and ascension to the right hand of the Father.

Jesus did not need to go looking for suffering.  In his incarnation, he was born into a suffering world.  Nor did he need to seek pleasure.  He came to please his Father, to do his will, to forgive and bear the sin of the world.

In the midst of death and destruction, pain and suffering, righteousness and resurrection, Jesus had opportunity to bring peace between us and God the Father.  This peace surpasses our understanding, and it sustains us throughout the ages as worldly chaos continues to grow.  This peace, and the opportunity Jesus took to secure our peace, pleases God the Father who freely sustains all who endure in Jesus Christ.

In the LCANZ, things are becoming progressively worse, regardless of the best light one attempts to shine on the situation.  It is no surprise as we seek to progress with the world.  Practically progression with the world means living more by sight than faith. 

When we look for beauty in the superficial structures of the church rather than our One True Eternal Structure of the church, our Triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, we will find an increase in our suffering, as God withdraws and hands us over to our desires.

Theologically this progression is not progressive but deteriorating regression.   Faith in the institution of our denomination, its numbers, its finances, its pastors, its buildings, or its history, are all idolatries and a regression of faith.  Nevertheless, God tells us it will be this way as creation continues to crumble into chaos.

How do you respond to this increased chaos? 

There is temptation to panic, worry, and doubt God.  However, Jesus tells us of the reality to prepare us, so we are not surprised as it occurs.  He gives us future truths, not so we plan protection for ourselves, but so we remain in him for our eternal protection and endurance.

We will not need to seek pain and suffering as Christians, but we can expect it!  It’s promised by Jesus here in his word. 

Nor do we need to seek to make the church a place of pleasure.  This will only bring suffering on us as a result of being sinfully disobedient.

However, God has already made the church a place of pleasure through the forgiveness of sins.  The many deaths and resurrections the Holy Spirit leads us through, to the final resurrection to eternal life, is also God’s pleasure in which we joyfully live in faith, hope, and love.

Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,  looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.  (Hebrews 12:1–2 ESV)

Even as we enter deeper and deeper into the last days of deception and disarray, may the Holy Spirit polarise you in Christ’s love.  Just as Jesus shone his light in the midst of darkness and his death,  may you let the Holy Spirit reflect the brightness of Christ’s forgiveness, more and more, despite the darkness of our days. 

In the future, greater things will occur, despite worse and worse things happening.  Jesus promises greater opportunity to let God’s light shine bright as the darkness of corruption and chaos gets worse inside and outside the church.  For you who endure in Jesus Christ, he will endure within you, despite confusion and deception.

The prophet Malachi says of those under God, “But for you who fear my name, the sun of righteousness shall rise with healing in its wings.”  (Malachi 4: 2a ESV) 

Just as Jesus endured and died to bring us peace in the face of death and destruction, we too are called to see and allow God to work in us as agents of peace and proclamation, even as things seem to become progressively more impossible in the LCANZ.  Don’t be surprised the greatest tribulations any Christian will face in the future, will be from within denominations seeking fulfilment in their own pleasure.

Jesus promises, “…they will lay their hands on you and persecute you, delivering you up to the synagogues and prisons, and you will be brought before kings and governors for my name’s sake.”  (Luke 21:12 ESV)

But in the centre of the confusion and trouble we will face as Christians, just as Jesus endured trial and tribulation, he will be with us, and just as he bore witness to the truth, “This will be your opportunity to bear witness.”  (Luke 21:12–13 ESV)

Our endurance and opportunity won’t come from our meditation on our own sufferings or pleasures, but from Jesus himself who promises, “for I will give you a mouth and wisdom, which none of your adversaries will be able to withstand or contradict.”  (Luke 21:15 ESV)

Your great pleasure is Jesus’ faithfulness and love toward you!  Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father joyfully send the Holy Spirit to bring you to him and the Father, to endure, despite the greater descent of creation into depravity and coming destruction.

However, your destination is sealed by Jesus’ death and resurrection.  When you are tempted to join in with the hatred of those who oppose Jesus Christ, inside and outside the church, in the name of what pleases, cast yourself on Christ’s pleasure to forgive.

When you endure in Jesus, the Holy Spirit gives you the words of Christ to testify to your sin, confess his forgiveness of your sin, and give your accusers and haters opportunity to confess their sin and Jesus to work his pleasure of forgiving their sin too.  Amen.

C, Commemoration of All Saints - Rev 14:12-13, Lk 6:20-26, Eph 1:11-14 "When Death Looms Large"

During times like today, the celebration of All Saints, or when attending a funeral, one’s thinking about life and death is heightened.

At this time all peripheral issues are moved off the table.  We think about our loss, and we ask ourselves, “What has become of our dearly departed loved one?”

This can be a time of great grief and great joy, all mixed together into one.  Sadness and loss blended with remembrance and joy! 

Amongst the confusion of emotion, questions of, “Why?  How?  Where?  What?” all sit unanswered as the reality of life and death looms large, pushing all other things off the agenda.

At some point during our search for answers to questions about life and death we ponder our own mortal reality, the hidden reality of the future.  What will happen to me?  What will my death look like?

This reality bears too much for some to consider.  The inability to control one’s future reality, sends them scurrying back into their peripheral world, away from what they cannot control. 

Are you one of those who hides in the busyness of day-to-day distractions, controlling things and others, working so you don’t think about your mortality?  Busying yourself, trying to forget you’re just a mere blip in a sea of eternal something?  

When life and death issues loom large in the face of one’s transience, one’s transitory human state, some are led to ponder things transcendent, spiritual, and the like.  Knowing control is not an option once death arrives, some turn to the greatness of someone or something else. 

Within Christendom, that someone or something else is the Lord Jesus Christ.  Sent by God the Father, he entered humanity’s culture of death—your blip, your reality, your uncontrollable deadly state—to bring an eternity of light and life.   

Have you ever found yourself asking, “Will I go to heaven?  Is there really a heaven and a hell?  Is God real?  Is Jesus the Son of God or is he just a person who claimed to be ‘the Son of God’?  Should I take back control and turn away from God’s promises?  That is, if God is real, and, if his promises are really true?”

For some, the transcendence of God’s love, seems too much for them, since the mere blip of their transient reality seems too small, unimportant, or dark, for God to shine the greatness of his love on them.

All at some time struggle with some sort of thoughts and feelings like these. 

As God’s children we should expect this kind of testing.   Why?  Because we are told to expect all sorts of trials and tribulations that tempt us as they did Jesus.

In fact, Jesus told his disciples, and he says to you,   “Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  “Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.  “Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.  “Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!  Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”   (Luke 6:20–23 ESV)

But with this Jesus also warns his disciples and us who chase after peripheral things and not the kingdom of God, saying, “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation.  “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry. “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.  “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”  (Luke 6:24–26 ESV)

So, hearing the blessings and woes, one is tempted to use their own knowledge to decide where they stand, “blessed or cursed”.  But Jesus spoke the beatitudes and the woes for a greater purpose.  He seeks to propel you to the cross, to his cross, to your cross of death, to not only seek his kingdom and his righteousness, but to believe it and receive it too.

In seeing one’s good name, laughter, fullness, and richness, one will also see the reality of one’s poverty, hunger, tears, and rejection.   A knowledge of one’s blessings and curses, goods and evil, must give way to seeking a knowledge of Jesus Christ, if we are to have any hope of going to heaven. 

With his word, Jesus leads us from a knowledge of ourselves to a knowledge of himself, exchanging our cross of death and destruction, with his cross of death and resurrection.

As we ponder our brief transient life here on earth, in the reality of God’s transcendence over all things, God calls us to endure.  But not to endure in the temporary peripheral things of death.  Rather, he sends the Holy Spirit to lead us to his eternal word and revive us in what he promises us in it. 

John relates to us in Revelation what God’s will is for us, saying, “Here is a call for the endurance of the saints, those who keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus.  And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.” “Blessed indeed,” says the Spirit, “that they may rest from their labours, for their deeds follow them!” (Revelation 14:12–13 ESV alt) 

Here there is a “yes” from the Holy Spirit who concurs, that dying to the self, and resting in Jesus’ faithfulness, is the best good work which he produces within.

Paul also calls the Ephesians, and us, to see that our destination is a preordained inheritance sealed by the Holy Spirit, who leads us to hope in Jesus.  Saying… 

In him we have obtained an inheritance, having been predestined according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his will,  so that we who were the first to hope in Christ might be to the praise of his glory.  In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit,  who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.  (Ephesians 1:11–23 ESV)

At times when death looms large, let the Holy Spirit lead you to hear the word of truth.  Let the Holy Spirit clear all the peripheral issues off the table and impress on you the guarantee of your inheritance with all who have been hallowed, with all the saints.  Amen.