A, Post-Pentecost 4 Proper 7 - Matthew 10:24, 38-39 "The Calmness of Christ"
One can imagine being in the centre of a tornado would be
an extraordinarily frightening experience.
Your attention would be drawn to the whirling winds and debris swirling
around you, threatening to kill you.
Therefore, one can assume one would not be focusing on the calm eye of
the storm.
Unlike a tropical cyclone, a tornado is very narrow! Many who have experienced a cyclone directly
overhead, report of an eery stillness in the eye of the storm, before the other
side of the storm arrives with opposing winds.
In a tornado’s eye, being much smaller, one might be still, but your
attention would be drawn to the close proximity of the cyclonic danger.
Jesus’ life was like the eye of a cyclonic storm. Chaos surrounded his calm, disorder around
order! In the three years of his ministry leading up to his death, Jesus was
the calm eye of the storm.
At the beginning of his ministry after his baptism, the
Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tested. This was the beginning of the storm! One might imagine it as a brewing tropical
storm, a low deepening in depression, becoming a cyclone.
However, at the other end of his ministry, Good Friday had
developed into a full-blown tornado. The
chaos intensified as the swirling winds of darkness and death closed in, making
his worries in the wilderness, look like a minor inconvenience.
We are going to be tempted by ourselves and the world, as
well as receive satanic attention, just as Jesus did in the wilderness through
to the cross.
We are baptised into Jesus’ subordination, into his
humility, his cross! The Holy Spirit is
leading you in your wilderness, just as he led Jesus from the wilderness to the
cross, and through death. Jesus relied
on the strength of the Holy Spirit and the faithfulness of God the Father! Now you are called to rely on the Holy Spirit
as he leads you in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ! He continually seeks to place Jesus in you,
as you’re called to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.
But as we walk his way of the cross, we’re called to walk
in faith rather than fear. It’s
understandable that one might be fearful as they walk. In his earthliness and humility, Jesus was
acutely aware of the fear we face since he bore our flesh and was constantly in
the centre of the raging storm of sin against him.
Jesus’ fear, however, was not a negative frightful fear,
but rather, a faithful fear that looked not to the chaos around him but to the
faithfulness and peace of our Heavenly Father!
Jesus calls you to the same reverent fear he had for our Heavenly Father.
He says of those who seek to distract us from the Father into
fear as a result of their cyclonic chaos, “So
have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed,
or hidden that will not be known. And do
not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both
soul and body in hell. Fear not,
therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows. So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I
also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven, but whoever denies me before men, I also will
deny before my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:26, 28, 31–33 ESV)
In the cyclone of your life, your Father and your Saviour,
Jesus Christ, want you to spread the calm of Christ, making the eye of other people’s
storms, the salvation of Jesus Christ.
In our baptism we are given the ability to acknowledge
Jesus, having been baptised into his calm over chaos, his order over disorder! Just as Jesus bore the Holy Spirit, you are
given the Holy Spirit who faithfully seeks to reveal the reality of sin, but
even more so our worthiness having been baptised into Christ.
When we acknowledge Jesus, as Lord, we acknowledge our need
to be baptised into his death.
Therefore, we acknowledge our sin and the ongoing work of the Holy
Spirit, whom Jesus sent. We do this
acknowledging in the reality of the chaos, because despite the chaos of the
storm, we have been turned and calmed by Jesus at the centre of our storm.
Your acknowledgement of Jesus to others, spreads his calm,
because Jesus is the only peace in every storm that leads to death. Acknowledgement of Jesus is knowing our
cross and death, but even more so our life in him. We pass on this life when we acknowledge
Jesus before others!
Denial of Jesus is a denial of the life he gives through
death. Our denial before others leaves
them without life, in eternal death too!
When one leaves the calmness of Jesus Christ, they enter the tornado and
chaos of drowning in eternal death and darkness.
Left in this state, Jesus denies and does not acknowledge the
denier before the Father. Why? Because in denial one has not considered
Christ to be a worthy Saviour.
However, Saint Paul tells young pastor Timothy, a trustworthy
saying, “If we have died with him, we
will also live with him; if we endure,
we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us; if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for
he cannot deny himself.” (2 Timothy
2:11–13 ESV)
Paul reiterates what Jesus has said! But proclaiming Jesus after the resurrection
he adds, “if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”
Now that Jesus has died, been raised, and ascended, he
sends the Holy Spirit in baptism. If we
are faithless, Jesus remains faithful to us.
He knows the Holy Spirit will be faithful within the baptised. The Holy Spirit will seek to lead the lost
back to our Heavenly Father by showing them Jesus’ worth through his word. He might also give the lost glimpses of death
with the experience of suffering to shock and recreate faith.
Although suffering sounds bad, it is actually good news for
all who doubt their salvation, their baptism!
Jesus faithfully cannot deny himself! So, while there is life in someone who has denied
their baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit seeks to kill
that which does not believe and give the newness of life in Jesus Christ.
Pauls says to the Romans, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that,
just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too
might walk in newness of life. For if we
have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united
with him in a resurrection like his. Now
if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.” (Romans 6:4–5, 8 ESV)
What Paul says to Timothy he repeats to the Romans, “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe
that we will also live with him. (Romans
6: 8, 2 Timothy 2:11 ESV)
Believing is made possible in us, by the Holy Spirit. Our suffering and death centres us on the eye
of the storm, Jesus Christ. He is the
only one who saves us from the storms of life and places us in the tranquillity
of his resurrection, in the peaceful presence of our Heavenly Father.
Jesus also so says, “Do
not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to
bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34 ESV)
There is chaos yet to come, even within our own households! This should not surprise us since the chaos
comes from within each of us. However,
our knowledge of the cyclonic chaos of our sin, revealed and covered by
forgiveness, is what stops a believer becoming conceited, keeping one humble!
Because of your sinfulness, there will always be chaos
inside and outside the church. What keeps
order is the calmness of Jesus Christ. Ironically
he does this with a sword. He keeps
calmness in the church with the double-edged sword of his word, saving us from
the disorder of human words and ideals. Jesus’
calming word is the silencing word of Law and Gospel.
The cross reveals the reality of the Law and the
Gospel. One who allow the Holy Spirit to
bring them to the calmness of Christ, knows his worth and follows. The person who joyfully takes up the cross discovers
they have this newness of life because of the Holy Spirit. And
therefore, willing allows the loss of the old life, their words, and the spirit of
the self.
Losing one’s life to the cross, in this world for Jesus’
sake, one will also find themselves eternally gathered by the Holy Spirit into
the calmness of Jesus’ eternal presence, having been delivered from the storms
of this life.
Jesus says, “Whoever does not take his cross and follow
me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds
his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
(Matthew 10: 38-39 ESV)
Amen.
