B, Post Pentecost 6 Proper 8 - Mark 5:21-43 "In Touch"

In Luther’s explanation to the third petition we hear, “God's will is done when he hinders and defeats every evil scheme and purpose of the devil, the world, and our sinful self, which would prevent us from keeping his name holy and would oppose the coming of his kingdom.”

In the gospel reading today, two females, have the evil of the devil, the world, and their selves hindered and defeated by Jesus in a very public and personal way.

A twelve-year-old girl on her deathbed.  The daughter of Jairus, a synagogue ruler, seeks out Jesus, falls at his feet and implored him to help.  Jesus agrees and walks with Jairus to his home with a crowd pressing around.

As he walks to the twelve-year-old, a woman with a twelve-year menstrual bleed reaches out and touches Jesus.  The touch is so powerful she feels the healing within.  Jesus senses it too.  Not so much the touch but the power that’s exchanged in the touch.  Why does he feel it?  What is it that he feels?

Jesus feels and knows God’s will is being done within the woman, something the disciples ridicule Jesus over, as there are people pushing in on them from all directions.  Jesus has no reason to doubt the power of God the Father, and the Holy Spirit.  He completely trusts in the power of God having received the Holy Spirit in his baptism by John in the Jordan.

Jesus also knows the faith of the person who touched him, having felt power leave him.  Perfectly in touch with those around him and with our Father, who sent him, and the Spirit who led him, Jesus is the perfect conduit through which power flows.  There is no resistance to this transmission of power, no power is sinfully kept for himself, the full power that God desires, flows to the woman through Jesus.

There is no financial cost to the woman either.  All other physicians, bled her financially dry but didn’t stop the bleed, causing her more pain than she was already suffering.  But the cost for the woman was face and faith, the death of pride and faithlessness.

Jesus gives the woman opportunity to reveal herself.  Something that is hard to do.  Something had happened between her and Jesus, that only they know.  Now, the woman in fear, reveals all to Jesus and those standing around. 

This was a cause of shame to the woman.  We all know of things we have done or conditions we bear that on revelation would cause us shame, public humiliation, and embarrassment.  However, this is a spiritual shame that the devil and the law had over the woman for twelve years.  Levitical Laws put in place by God through Moses meant she could not come into the temple.  We don’t know if others knew or not, but in her confession now all knew she was unclean for twelve years.

Yet her faith in Jesus was great, it was her eleventh hour, in the eleventh year.  A last-ditch attempt to be in touch with God.  Why did her touch work?   

In the second half of the third petition Luther says, “And God‘s will is done when he strengthens our faith and keeps us firm in his Word as long as we live.  This is his gracious and good will.”

The woman had heard the promise of his word.  Perhaps she heard or saw something prior to the events that led Jesus to walk with Jairus to his house.  Perhaps she only knew of Jesus in this event.  Nevertheless, God’s will is done in her, as he strengthens her faith, and firmly leads her to the Word made flesh.

The will of God worked within the woman to keep God’s name holy and opened up the way for her to receive the work of God’s will from heaven.  Jesus says to the woman, “Daughter, your faith has made you well; go in peace, and be healed of your disease.”  (Mark 5:34 ESV)

This woman, once unable to keep God’s name holy is named by God the Son, as a daughter of heaven.  She has been brought back in touch with God by faith.  A power separate to her, working within her, that the world of doctors of medicine and law couldn’t fix, a power that evil does want her to have!

In this time the little girl dies.  Someone comes and tells Jarius to no longer bother “the teacher” any longer.  In the rawness and reality of physical death, Jesus tells Jairus to “Do not fear, only believe.” (Mark 5:36b ESV)  He receives similar ridicule as to that of the disciples after the woman touched him, when he tells the mourners the girl is not dead. 

Yet again God’s will is done as Jesus takes the girl by the hand and hinders and defeats, the faithlessness of the mourners, the power of death, and the purpose of the devil to separate people from God’s holiness and will.  He reaches out through death and touches the girl, saying, “Talitha cumi,” which means, “Little girl, I say to you, arise.” (Mark 5:41 ESV)

Here again the perfect power of God flows through Jesus for the will of God to occur.  God’s will is done in heaven.

God’s will is done, Jesus puts people back in touch with God and his holiness.  The twelve-year-old girl raised to life and the woman with a bleed, ware healed and reconnected with God.  But Jesus was not finished, he now bore the burden of the bleed, and the deadly illness of the girl. 

God’s will in heaven needed to be finished at the cross.  The victory of the twelve-year-old girl and woman was completed at the cross, so through the witness of the cross to the world, all people would benefit from God’s will in heaven and on earth.

The will of God is concisely explained by Paul,   “For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though he was rich, yet for your sake he became poor, so that you by his poverty might become rich.” (2 Corinthians 8:9 ESV)

God’s will is to put you in touch with your poverty, so that you can experience his richness and share that on earth.  When you share the richness of God, you participate in the will of God on earth, having received God’s will from heaven in the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ. 

From his grace and poverty, like the woman and the female child, God seeks to put us back in touch with the wealth of God. 

As Jesus cried out for mercy on earth but was handed over to death, we too may have to endure suffering rather than healing like the two females.  What God intends for you is that you take hold of the power of his will in Jesus’ death.  The power of God’s will in the resurrection.  The power of God’s will, worked as faith within you by the Holy Spirit.

Jesus is in touch with you.  He feels everything you feel about him, even when you feel nothing and think he is not feeling anything.  The Holy Spirit constantly reaches out and touches you through his word to bring you to God’s holiness, to hinder and defeat what’s within, when it’s against him and his will.

Today many would ridicule us if we said they were dead.  But without the will of God working within a person that’s exactly what a person is, living but dead!  It’s God’s will on earth, to allow him to activate you and me to be the conduits of God’s grace, to forgive as we have been forgiven.  To tell of our forgiveness and what God has forgiven!  To not hold back the richness of God for those who live in the poverty and darkness of death.

Like watchmen in Psalm one hundred and thirty, our being waits for the rising of the Son on the last day, just as Jesus yearned for our resurrection that would come after his death.  This is why Jesus said in the garden before his arrest, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.”  (Luke 22:42 ESV)  Jesus is your watchman!

Jesus hoped in the Lord, because with him there is steadfast love, and plentiful redemption.  Jesus was redeemed and raised from death.  Through him, it’s God’s will to save you from all your iniquities, to follow his way, the way of the cross. 

God’s kingdom has come.  God’s kingdom is coming.  and God’s Kingdom will come!  Let his will be done in you, on earth, so the power and the glory are God’s alone.  Amen.

B, Post Pentecost 5 Proper 7 - 2 Corinthians 6:1–13 "Big Problems & Narrow Hearts"

2 Corinthians 6:1–3, 11-13 (ESV)  Saint Paul says, “Working together with him (Jesus Christ), then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.  For he says, “In a favourable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favourable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.  We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry… We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open.  You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections.  In return (I speak as to children) widen your hearts also.”

Nine foot six is a problem.  The Israelite army closes ranks.  No one wants to go out and face this enemy.  The problem seems too big to handle, let alone defeat!  So much so, King Saul and his army fall on their faces in fear, frozen and unable to find someone to fight Goliath.

The terms were simple.  Send someone to fight and if Goliath wins, and his opponent dies, then Israel becomes a servant to the Philistines, and if the one whom Israel sends kills Goliath, then the Philistines will become servants of Israel.

Like the advertisement says on television, “Chances are you’re about to lose!”  Goliath was a monster of a man.  He was a military machine!  Just shy of three metres tall, two hundred and eighty-nine centimetres in height!  That’s nine foot six inches of muscle covered in metal.  It’s no wonder all of Israel fell flat on their faces, prostrate in fear.  To say, “the odds weren’t good” was the understatement of all understatements!

Unbeknown to Jesse, he sends David from shepherding his flock to visit his brothers with the Israelites who are cowering before Goliath and the Philistines at the front line.  David goes to the battlefront and hears Goliath, the champion of the Philistines, taunt Israel.  Even despite the reward of riches, the king’s daughter in marriage, and freedom for his father’s household from Saul’s leadership, no one steps forward to fight Goliath.

To the shame of David’s oldest brother Eliab, which angers him, David says, “What shall be done for the man who kills this Philistine and takes away the reproach from Israel? For who is this uncircumcised Philistine, that he should defy the armies of the living God?” (1 Samuel 17:26 ESV)

The youthful David, fresh faced and handsome, full of the Holy Spirit, says to King Saul, “Let no man’s heart fail because of him.  Your servant will go and fight with this Philistine.”  (1 Samuel 17:32 ESV)

But this young boy who previously had been made Saul’s armour bearer, through his playing of the lyre, could not even bear the weight of Saul’s armour for battle.  So, he faces Goliath without anything but trust in God and five smooth stones.  But he does not face Goliath in fear!

Picture it!  David wearing his shepherd clothes facing off against the three-metre giant with a brass helmet, wearing a vest weighing fifty-five kilograms, that’s one hundred and twenty-one pounds.  Probably more than what David weighed!  Goliath bears a javelin slung across his back and brandishes a spear with a head weighing six and a half kilograms, that’s fourteen and a half pounds.  Verses a boy with a sling and a shepherd pouch holding five smooth stones!

David runs to the battle without shield or sword.  Before David stood Goliath, but he did not see the threat.  He saw victory in the Lord saying, “You come to me with a sword and with a spear and with a javelin, but I come to you in the name of the LORD of hosts, the God of the armies of Israel, whom you have defied.  This day the LORD will deliver you into my hand, and I will strike you down and cut off your head. And I will give the dead bodies of the host of the Philistines this day to the birds of the air and to the wild beasts of the earth, that all the earth may know that there is a God in Israel,  and that all this assembly may know that the LORD saves not with sword and spear. For the battle is the LORD’s, and he will give you into our hand.” (1 Samuel 17:45–47 ESV)

For all intentions and purposes, it seemed that Saul was putting David forward for defeat, but the chance David would die was nil.  As a result, David stood over the headless body of the pagan thug that once tormented Israel.

Trouble also appeared to brew on Lake Galilee, as Jesus slept on a cushion in the back of the boat.  The feeling of impending death filled the disciples as waves surged into the boat.  It was Jesus’ idea to go to the other side, and now it looked like they weren’t going to get there.  They woke Jesus thinking he did not care for their circumstances.

But they were less aware of their circumstances than was Jesus.  They saw the problem, but they did not see the answer, Jesus Christ in their midst. Jesus knew his death was coming, but not through the chaos of a watery grave. With a couple of words, he stills the storm, and with a couple more, he puts the fear and faithlessness of the disciples in front of them!

The disciples learn a lesson!  The power invested in Jesus by God the Father calls them to faith.  But it wasn’t the kind of power we would expect from the Son of God, who put his divine power aside to be the person you and I were meant to be.  Jesus’ power was that of complete trust in God the Father who carried Jesus along by the power of the Holy Spirit.  It was this power in which they were called to trust!  And so too us!

Jesus’ earthly forebear, David, similarly was carried along by the Holy Spirit, to face the problem that Saul and the entire Israelite army couldn’t conquer.  David too trusted in God the Father to deliver him from the heathen henchman, despite being overshadowed by this military monster.

In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul says, “We have spoken freely to you, Corinthians; our heart is wide open.” (2 Corinthians 6:11 ESV)

Prior to this Paul gives quite an extensive list of problems one endures as a faithful servant of God, of which three times he seeks to open wide the hearts of the Corinthians with his Holy Spirit inspired words saying that, “Working together with him (that is Jesus Christ), then, we appeal to you not to receive the grace of God in vain.  For he says, “In a favourable time I listened to you, and in a day of salvation I have helped you.” Behold, now is the favourable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.  We put no obstacle in anyone’s way, so that no fault may be found with our ministry.  (2 Corinthians 6:1–3 ESV)

Paul calls them to graciously receive the grace of God, for at a gracious time God has listen and gives salvation, therefore now is the time to graciously receive salvation.  There is no time like the present to allow the Holy Spirit to grow one’s faith in God.  To make one’s heart wide in the Lord!

What causes a narrow heart? What causes a lack of faith?  Paul tells the Corinthians, “You are not restricted by us, but you are restricted in your own affections.”  (2 Corinthians 6:12 ESV)

Literally Paul says they are restricted by their own spleen, their own intestines, their own indwelling!  To put it in today’s language, one’s own feelings!  

All people are challenged today, for their narrowness of heart in putting individualism, emotionalism, and one’s own affections before God, his word, and his will in his word.  To many Christians it seems there are many goliath problems.  Waves are coming into the boat, threatening the life of the boat and its occupants.

We are called not to lay prostrate in fear, nor be overcome by the fierceness of those who seek to subvert the narrative of God’s church by watering down his word.  God calls you to open wide your heart, to trust what he says in his word as Jesus’ way forward.

As people of the church, each one of us will have to face spiritual problems and work out what is the heart of the matter.  There are only two people who know what a person believes, yourself and Jesus Christ.  You owe it to yourself and Jesus Christ, to allow the Holy Spirit to expose and make your heart wide through repentance.  A deeper love of Jesus Christ comes only through allowing him to forgive your sin.  So, you allow the Holy Spirit to show you in the word, when your emotions and individualism are the Goliath problem.  The Holy Spirit seeks to widen your heart, so you do not sink in yourself! The only way forward is Jesus’ way in submission to his word!  The way of affections or one’s own feelings imposed onto the word of God is contrary to God’s way.  

Many issues come to our attention as Christians living in a pagan society.  As Christians we are called to trust God works in his church through his word.  His will is being done through the processes faithful to him and his word in his church! 

There are impasses in the church, not in what we might suspect though!  Rather most deadlocks occur because faith is misplaced with the deception of sight or emotions!  It’s not an impasse, so to speak, but rather faithlessness in Jesus’ way in the word of God, in the processes given in the life of the church for eternal life, and the effective way of the Holy Spirit in the baptised priesthood of all believers to make disciples of all nations. 

It is both a big problem, but it’s not a problem at all! 

When we allow the Holy Spirit to work the reception of the word of God in us, the problem is no problem at all.  He will cause to make our hearts wide, to repent of our affections and return to Jesus’ word that calms the storm and brings the Goliath within to repentance.  When you allow this, you do not receive the grace of God in vain!  Amen.

B, Post Pentecost 4 Proper 6 - 2 Corinthians 5:6–17 "A Godly Home"

2 Corinthians 5:6–10 (ESV)  So we are always of good courage. We know that while we are at home in the body we are away from the Lord,  for we walk by faith, not by sight.  Yes, we are of good courage, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord.  So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.  For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.

Paul writes to the Corinthians, as he does to all whom he writes, to call the congregation into faithfulness to Jesus Christ, who is the faithful King of Kings!

While he is with them, he is meek, but in his absence his letters are far from gentle.  In his letters to the Corinthians, he calls them to repentance; to turn away from the comforts of their pleasures to the comforts of Christ. He calls them to take good courage from his guidance even though what he says to them does cause them internal suffering and hurt.

He says, “For even if I made you grieve with my letter, I do not regret it—though I did regret it, for I see that that letter grieved you, though only for a while.  As it is, I rejoice, not because you were grieved, but because you were grieved into repenting.  For you felt a godly grief, so that you suffered no loss through us.  For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death.”  (2 Corinthians 7:8–10 ESV)

Paul prepares the Corinthians for the resurrection of the dead.  He goes to great lengths to unpack this in his first letter to the Corinthians in chapter fifteen, as some in the congregation claim there is no resurrection, which left unchallenged by Paul would have pushed the Corinthians back into a worldly grief that produces eternal death.

Today in the reading from Second Corinthians chapter five,  Paul calls for courage to walk by faith and not sight, to please the Lord while we are in our bodily home, as we wait to be home with the Lord.

He sobers them, and you and me, with a reminder that on our way to being home with the Lord, “we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, so that each one may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil.”  (2 Corinthians 5:10 ESV)

In saying this Paul affirms what Jesus himself says, “When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on his glorious throne.  Before him will be gathered all the nations, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats.  And he will place the sheep on his right, but the goats on the left.”  (Matthew 25:31–33 ESV)

While Jesus dwelt amongst his apostles, he teaches them to preach this.  We hear Peter speak of Jesus’ judgement to the Gentiles, saying, “he commanded us to preach to the people and to testify that he is the one appointed by God to be judge of the living and the dead.”  (Acts 10:42 ESV)

Paul says to the Corinthians, and to you and me, after you leave your bodily home, you will receive your due for what you’ve practised, whether good or evil.  A little further on in the text he says something quite strange at its first hearing, “For if we are beside ourselves, it is for God; if we are in our right mind, it is for you.”  (2 Corinthians 5:13 ESV)

Here Paul is using the same home language as he first used with the Corinthians, “Home in the Lord or at home in the body”.  When they are beside themselves Paul and other’s whose work is to teach, are at home with the Lord, and seek the hearer to have a Godly home too.  If Paul and other teachers are in their right minds, they suffer in the home of their bodies, to make homes for the hearers with the Lord.

Paul and those who are called to proclaim the truth of the resurrection of Christ and his judgement are led by the Holy Spirit, having been sent by Jesus Christ to guide all disciples of Christ, now that the old self is dead.

We hear, “For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died;  and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:14–15,17 ESV)

Now that you are a new creation, you’re called to examine yourself.  You are invited to look at what germinates within you, to see what kind of home you desire for yourself and what kind of home you proclaim to others, with your thoughts, with your words, and with your actions.

Psalm ninety-two also talks of seeds sprouting and trees growing.  In it the psalmist compares a stupid man as sprouting grass, here one moment, but doomed to destruction, versus the righteous person, like cedars and palms planted in the courts of the Lord, whose evergreen life still bears fruit in its old age.

The psalmist uses the picture of cedars and palms because of their longevity and their fruit, but he also uses them because the cedars are the biggest trees living on the highest mountains of the Middle East.  The palms are date palms, a tree that gives life in the desert, with a fruit that’s the sugar of the Middle East, a tree of life in a desolate place. 

But the psalmist uses the image of the cedar and the palm for the righteous, because those who came into God’s presence to sabbath in the temple, were surrounded by the cedars of Lebanon that built and lined the temple.  The walls of the temple were carved with palms, so that those who came into God’s house came into his sabbath rest on the seventh day.  A re-creation of the garden of Eden, with trees of life.  They came to make a Godly home with the God who seeks to dwell with his people.

As we are at home in our bodies, God seeks to cause Godly grief within you and me.  Those who don’t carry Godly grief put trust in their bodily home and fail to recognise the body is a temporary failing dwelling.  God seeks to sustain you through death to finally reveal the new creation, you’ve hopefully allowed God to work.

At the resurrection our seed of either good or evil will receive its reward.  What will the resurrection reveal about the type of seed that’s germinated within you?

We might be surprised that what we perceive as being good, might just be what God deems as evil.  Whereas the good God looks for, are the very deeds, we tend to overlook and avoid most of the time.

Here again God works for Godly grief that leads to repentance!   In fact, humility leading to repentance is one of the great goods that God seeks, glorifying God’s work of creation, Jesus’ work of redemption, and the Holy Spirit’s work of leading us to drown the human spirit, the old self, in daily repentance.   

Follow Jesus alone!  He is the way, the truth, and the life!   The good, God seeks, are works of faith in him, and what he is doing.  Godly grief leads to a Godly home!  But bodily glory leads to worldly and bodily grief, and eternal death. 

Finally, the pictures of the mustard seed, and the man broadcasting seeds of grain, as parables of the kingdom of heaven, are pictures of God planting humanity and Jesus Christ.

The sickle will be put into God’s crop, and the good seed will be sieved from the bad.  Jesus became the smallest of seeds for humanity and was buried in the ground in death.  Our seed is made good only by this Mustard Seed.  In his resurrection this Mustard Seed has germinated and grown larger than the cedars of Lebanon, and his fruit is sweeter than the sweetest of dates.  In his resurrection, Jesus is the new glorious temple for our new creation in which to rest and tabernacle, with God our Father!

Don’t try to convince God of your goodness, using the tree of your knowledge of good and evil.  It didn’t work for Adam and Eve, and it won’t work for you either!

Those who wish to receive a Godly home on judgement day, will do well to allow the Holy Spirit to make their home in this Mustard Tree, to rest and remain in these branches of Jesus Christ, the Tree of Life!  Amen.

Heavenly Father, you have sent us Jesus Christ, who has constructed and gives us his way with the timbers of the tree of the cross, who is the Tree of Truth on that cross, and the Tree of Life, from whom the Holy Spirit descends to gather us into his branches and helps us bear our cross.  Heavenly Father, give us good courage to trust our home is in the shade of your eternal love.  Amen. 

B, Post Pentecost 3 Proper 5 - 1 Samuel 8:5b–7 "The Royal House of Jesus Christ"

You are priests in the royal house of Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.  Those who allow themselves to be moved by the Holy Spirit to do the will of God the Father, are brothers, sisters, and mother of the King.  Being family of the King makes us royalty!  We are in the Holy House of the royal family when we allow the Holy Spirit to bring us to our Father, through the Holy Royal Son, who had his coronation when he was crowned as King at cross of Calvary.

There has been no other leader like Jesus Christ, before him, or since!  Jesus stands head and shoulders above every other leader.  The political leaders we have today are a far cry from Jesus, or even the kings chosen by God to reign over Israel.

The political spectrum from conservative to progressive, in Australia and across the world, in political realms, social realms, in modern Israel, Islam, other faiths and even the Christian church, are a far cry from the former Kingdom of Israel.  This is because every rule today is political, driven by popularity and people, and not by God.

When Israel settled in Canaan, God raised up judges to lead and adjudicate the tribes of Israel.  The common predicament for Israel was that they “did evil in the eyes of the Lord”!  They followed the ways of those who lived in other kingdoms and defiled themselves with their gods.  Samuel is known as the seventh judge of Israel, despite there being more than seven judges before him.  He is seen as the completion of the judges of Israel.

So, it’s no wonder Samuel may have felt offended when the tribes of Israel came asking for a king to rule them like the other nations around them.  We hear the elders of Israel say, “Now appoint for us a king to judge us like all the nations.”  But the thing displeased Samuel when they said, “Give us a king to judge us.” And Samuel prayed to the LORD.  And the LORD said to Samuel, “Obey the voice of the people in all that they say to you, for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected me from being king over them.”  (1 Samuel 8:5b–7 ESV)

God allowed Israel to have its king.  The first was Saul, then David was chosen by God through Samuel when Saul was rejected.  When David was nearing the end of his life, he anointed Solomon his son as King, with Zadok the Priest and Nathan the Prophet in attendance.  This occurred when another of his sons, Adonijah, took it upon himself to become king.

The kingship of Israel from this point on falls into various levels of corruption after Israel splits into two kingdoms.  Two common phrases are heard in the leadership of the kings.  “And he did what was right in the sight of God.  And he did what was evil in the sight of God”.  The Kings of the northern kingdom of Israel became corrupt and led the people in the sins of the nations around them.  The only exception was King Jehu who executed Jezebel, and King Ahab’s descendants.  However, he also didn’t walk in the laws of God and led Israel in their sin.

The kings of Judah were not much better, where still most did not follow God’s leadership.  The rejection of God first happened in the days of Samuel, and in getting their king Israel and Judah ended up following the sins of the nations around them who had kings.

It was not meant to be this way!  Israel was meant to be a nation of priests, a blessing to all other nations.  When they camped at Sinai after leaving Egypt, God commanded Moses to tell the Israelites, “Now therefore, if you will indeed obey my voice and keep my covenant, you shall be my treasured possession among all peoples, for all the earth is mine;  and you shall be to me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.’ These are the words that you shall speak to the people of Israel.”  (Exodus 19:5–6 ESV)

Leadership today unfortunately, but not surprisingly, follows the same ugly pattern as Israel’s fallen kingship.  What begun through a theocracy, focused on God and trusting in God, lost God’s centrality when the kings became gods to themselves and the people.  Today political messiahs seek popularity as they preach prosperity so they can be voted into power.  It seems the same political problems that plagued the kingship of Israel and Judah, still pursue those who hold power over the populace today.  And it matters not whether they are of conservative or progressive ilk because our leaders reflect us who put them into power, rather than God from whom their authority exists.  We have professional politicians who care little for their constituents, and they care less for God or his gift of authority to lead.

God gives us the leaders we want.  When we want conservative leaders to conserve our sinfulness he gives them to us.  When we want progressive leaders to progress our sinfulness, them too he gives to us.  It is not the politicians or the public service that’s the problem.  It is you and me who put them there!

The problem also existed and continues to exist in kingdoms where leaders become tyrants.  Democracy continues to crumble as constitutions built on the Ten Commandments, are eroded and supplanted by our individualism and its great god of pleasure.  The great socialism experiments of last century continue in the wake of Hitler and Stalin, in regimes where people vanish if they speak out against the mob.

Unfortunately, we have not learnt from our failures through kingdoms, democracies, and socialisms, where today a “public-pleasure” socialism has arisen where the individual is god of the self, reflected in the mirror of electronic devices.

Inside the church this public pleasure socialism is at work too!  All the sins of the Israelites, the gentiles, and past generations of progressive and conservative Christianity are being repeated and built upon.  Like the Israelites, we in the royal family, seek to oppose Jesus Christ our King and stand in his place and in his power.

You and I are called to repentance whenever we remain silent and fail to stand up for those suffering for Jesus Christ and his gospel of repentance and forgiveness.  When others are accused for being out of their minds for proclaiming Christ and his word, to our shame, because of fear we don’t defend them, or the truth of God’s Word.

You and I are called to repentance when God’s love is watered down into a feel-good fellowship, to the exclusion of the Holy Spirit’s true unifying work, of bringing us in repentance to the cross.  You and I are called to repentance when we’re tempted to build our own kingdoms, rather than stand in the royal house of God, a house not made with hands.  We’re called to repentance, when we seek the transient over the eternal, and seek to put off light momentary affliction and the eternal weight of glory, in favour of pleasures that are wasting away with our bodies!

This is where we’re called back to Christ the King, and let him bind the strong man within us, whose spirit is turned against God’s royal order and the work of the Holy Spirit.  God calls you to confess your sin and trust he truly wants to forgive you. 

You are called to trust Jesus as the King of Kings.  He is the only man of the people, having died for the people.  No politician ever did that!  And definitely not without sin!

We are now God’s kingdom of priests, baptised into the priesthood of all  believers.  The Holy Spirit leads you to stand under the Word of God, so he can use you for the royal duties of forgiving as Christ has forgiven you. 

You and I are called to be conservative with the forgiveness of sin, shamelessly desiring this forgiveness that Christ freely spreads amongst those who believe in him and stand under him in forgiveness.

You and I are called to also be progressive with this forgiveness too, by submissively nurturing God’s word within!  Standing under it, so the Holy Spirit can continue changing your heart and those to whom you bear Jesus Christ and his word of forgiveness.

When we live under the forgiveness of sin before the world, we can be confident we do not sin against the Holy Spirit because we carry the same spirit of faith as that of Jesus Christ as to what has been written in God’s Word. 

So, like Saint Paul, “we also believe, and so we also speak,  knowing that he who raised the Lord Jesus will raise us also with Jesus and bring us with you into his presence.  For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.  So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day.”  (2 Corinthians 4:13–16 ESV)

Just as Jesus walked the way of the cross, led by the Holy Spirit, for his royal coronation, know that the Holy Spirit helps you carry your cross for your royal coronation into the kingdom of heaven.

Amen.