A, The Third Sunday of Easter - Psalm 116 "Resurrection from the Self"

Psalm 116:1–19 (ESV) I love the Lord, because he has heard my voice and my pleas for mercy. Because he inclined his ear to me, therefore I will call on him as long as I live. The snares of death encompassed me; the pangs of Sheol laid hold on me; I suffered distress and anguish. Then I called on the name of the Lord: “O Lord, I pray, deliver my soul!” Gracious is the Lord, and righteous; our God is merciful. The Lord preserves the simple; when I was brought low, he saved me. Return, O my soul, to your rest; for the Lord has dealt bountifully with you. For you have delivered my soul from death, my eyes from tears, my feet from stumbling; I will walk before the Lord in the land of the living. I believed, even when I spoke: “I am greatly afflicted”; I said in my alarm, “All mankind are liars.” What shall I render to the Lord for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the Lord, I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints. O Lord, I am your servant; I am your servant, the son of your maidservant. You have loosed my bonds. I will offer to you the sacrifice of thanksgiving and call on the name of the Lord. I will pay my vows to the Lord in the presence of all his people, in the courts of the house of the Lord, in your midst, O Jerusalem. Praise the Lord!

The picture of two disciples, Cleopas and the other unnamed, standing on the road to Emmaus discussing the Resurrection Day’s events is a good picture of our human condition. These two men are completely turned in on themselves. They are completely puzzled by the reports of Jesus’ resurrection in the wake of his crucifixion three days earlier.

Their hopes seemed dashed as they report to the unrecognised, resurrected Jesus.  This Jesus was to be the redeemer of Israel, they lament, and now there’s a confusing report from the women who say they saw two angels at the tomb and that Jesus was alive.

The two on the road to Emmaus go over and over the events, round and round in circles much like us today when something has happened and the airways, social media, influencers, and commentators fill one’s ears with information built on, truths, half-truths, gossip, and Chinese whispers.  The longer the story is out there moving from mouth to mouth, the greater the embellishments, the greater the speculation, the greater the misinformation!

Notice that the discussion between the two left them looking sad.  Their conversation left them without hope.  So turned in on themselves, they were kept from recognising Jesus.  I reckon Jesus could walk past me most of the time and I would not notice him.  It’s not that Jesus is unnoticeable, but rather it’s my inability to notice anything much other than my own self-centredness.

Like the two on the road to Emmaus, humanity in the presence of God, has the uncanny ability to make it all about the self, so curved in on ourselves that we are!  It was not so much that Jesus had died, that there were angels at the empty tomb, but how hearing these things turned them in on themselves!  The meeting on the road to Emmaus shows us how much we need God to daily bring us out of ourselves, from our thoughts, words and worries within, to be outward looking in the place where God has put each of us!

We need Jesus Christ to bring us out of ourselves into an outward looking posture that sees both him and the people we are called to serve in his name.  Unless this occurs and continues to daily occur, we become no different to the Emmaus men before Jesus opened the word of God to them and revealed himself in the breaking of the bread.

Unless Jesus does this work of resurrecting us from ourselves, we act in just the same way as the Jews did throughout the history of God meeting with them in the temple.  Israel became fixated on the temple rather than on him who gave them the temple through his word.  They became more concerned about keeping the law than about the access gained to God’s mercy through the rituals of the law.

What is the purpose of being a Christian?  If you had to make a defence for your faith, what would you say?

Now stop! I want you to notice what just happened in you when you heard these questions?  When someone asks you why you are a Christian, or why you go to church on a Sunday, how do you respond? Do you respond?  Or do you just freeze up, go blank, and don’t know what to say?  How much worse is it when someone sets out to prove your Christianity wrong, or tries to ridicule you or shame you for your Christian beliefs? Does your defence of the faith fall short?

If it does it’s because you’re like the two on the road to Emmaus.  You’re looking within for the faith to answer or understand.  And looking within fails every time!  Just as the Jews failed to find God even when God was present in the temple,  just as we do today when we know the bible as a book of biblical facts, without letting it function as the sole source of faith.  In other words, Christianity just becomes a transaction to make the individual impersonal, cold and clinical. 

Some might claim that faith is personal, having undergone a lifetime of conditioning by the copout that “Jesus is my personal saviour!”  Yes!  What Jesus did for you was very personal for him, but it was a very public act for you and me!  Many hide behind Jesus as a personal saviour, that Jesus died on the cross, rather than allowing him to function as the public Saviour, who died on the cross, “for me”!

It’s when we come to testifying that Jesus died on the cross, for me, that we begin to arrive at the need to allow true Christianity to take effect within.  It changes us from being like the two disciples on the road to Emmaus to the Apostles who stood with Peter at Pentecost to publicly declare Jesus Christ risen from the dead, in the face of the Jews who put him to death. 

Jesus challenges you just as he did the two on the road to Emmaus, saying, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!” (Luke 24:25 ESV) He leads us from within ourselves and the confusion and quickness of the world to his word when we allow the Holy Spirit to help me, for me!

God sent Jesus to resurrect the Jew from themselves.  Jesus became the new Adam to save humanity from itself­—to resurrect you from yourself!  Why?  It’s not to cleanse the slate so we become good people; it’s much more than that!  It’s to make us holy so we can be with God forever. 

The reality of Christianity, the reality of the cross, the reality of God’s word is best summed up in Revelation chapter twenty-one verse three, “And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, ‘Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God.’”(Revelation 21:3 ESV)

Psalm 116 set down for today, the Third Sunday in Easter, is the reality of those who tarry here in this existence of life and death.  As is heard at a funeral service, “in the midst of life we are in death”, but the greater reality proclaimed by the Psalmist is: “In the midst of death we are in life!”

We who look inwardly to ourselves remain in death, but those whose eyes are  opened to the reality of dwelling with God, covered with the blood of Jesus’ death and resurrection, live face to face in the midst of life eternal, face to face worshipping God in his glory.  That’s what being a Christian is all about!  That’s what the gospel of Jesus’ death and resurrection is all about!  That’s what the temple in the Old Testament was all about!  God with man was broken at Eden but was put right by Jesus our Immanuel (God with us). Indeed, our humanity is continuing to be put right in the calling, gathering, enlightening, and sanctifying work of the Holy Spirit, who brings us into holy fellowship with God and each other through the blood of Jesus.

Psalm 116 speaks of our human reality but does not leave us in it.  Instead, it reveals the reality of our salvation despite affliction and the knowledge that I with all humankind, are liars; that is, we are full of deception, disappointments, and cannot make good with God.  But Jesus has made good what we never could. 

Therefore, despite the deadliness of my humanity, the death of his saints, is precious in the sight of the Lord!

God has saved you and me so we can be with him in his holy presence.  Jesus has been raised from the dead, so like the two on the road to Emmaus, we too might be resurrected in his resurrection.

Therefore, call on the name of the Lord; pray that he continues to deliver your soul!  Call on the name of the Lord; life up the cup of his salvation!  Call on the name of the Lord; offer to him the sacrifice of thanksgiving! 

We are in God’s presence, he hears your voice and your pleas for mercy, therefore, continue to call on him as long as you live, Amen.

BIBLE STUDY: Resurrection from the Self
Psalm 116 & The Road to Emmaus
“From Inward Curvature to Resurrected Living”

 INTRODUCTION

Psalm 116 and the Emmaus story (Luke 24:13–35) both reveal the deep emotional reality of life with God. They show us people who are distressed, confused, inward‑curved, and overwhelmed — and a God who hears, draws near, delivers, and opens eyes.

This study invites us to notice our own inwardness, to see God’s outward rescue, and to walk in the resurrected life the Holy Spirit gives through Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.

1. OBSERVATION — What do you see?

Read Psalm 116 and Luke 24:13–35.

1.     What emotions does the psalmist express in Psalm 116?

2.     Which emotions dominate the first half of the psalm?
What words or phrases show this?

3.     Which emotions dominate the second half of the psalm?
How does the tone shift?

4.     In Luke 24, what emotions do the two disciples show on the road to Emmaus?

5.     What emotional similarities do you see between the psalmist and the Emmaus disciples?

6.     What emotional differences do you see?

7. What do you notice about how God responds to these emotions in both passages?

 2. INTERPRETATION — What does God seek to do with you through his Word?

1.     What does the psalmist’s distress, anguish, and fear reveal about the human condition?

2.     What does God’s response — hearing, inclining His ear, delivering — reveal about His character?

3.     How does the emotional shift from distress → rest reflect the movement from death → life?

4.     What does the sadness and confusion of the Emmaus disciples reveal about how easily we become inward‑focused?

5.     Why do you think the disciples could not recognise Jesus at first?

6.     What does Jesus’ response — drawing near, listening, opening Scripture — reveal about how God meets people in confusion?

7.     How do both passages show that God must act first before we can see clearly or respond faithfully?

8. What does this teach us about the nature of faith — especially the difference between “looking within” and “receiving from God”?

 3. APPLICATION — What’s the Holy Spirit teaching about yourself and God?

1.     Where do you see yourself in the emotions of Psalm 116 or the Emmaus disciples?

2.     When you face distress or confusion, what is your usual instinct — to look inward or to call on the Lord?

3.     Psalm 116 shows a God who is present, who hears, inclines His ear, and delivers. How does this challenge or comfort you?  Your current prayer life?

4.     Where might self‑absorption or inward focus keep you from noticing Christ’s presence?

5.     Jesus opened the Scriptures before He opened their eyes.
What does this teach you about how God forms faith in you?

6.     The psalmist responds with thanksgiving, vows, and public worship. What might a concrete response of thanksgiving look like in your life this week?

7.     Today’s sermon emphasised that Christianity is not merely personal but public. Where, or how, might God be calling you to speak or act publicly in faith?

8. What is one inward‑curved habit God may be calling you to release? What is one outward‑looking practice He may be calling you to begin?

 CLOSING PRAYER

Lord Jesus Christ, you draw near to us in our confusion, our distress, and our inwardness. You open the Scriptures, open our eyes, and open our hearts. You have given us the Holy Spirit to deliver us from ourselves. Let your Holy Spirit turn us outward to see You, to love others, and to walk in the land of the living. Fill us with your Holy Spirit to teach us to call on Your name, to lift the cup of salvation, and to offer the sacrifice of thanksgiving. Remind us that we are in Your holy presence all our days. Amen.

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

In the gospel reading before us today, Jesus speaks of the temple in Jerusalem and its desolation.  But not only its demise through destruction but also the collapse of creation in future events of chaos!

When what we know and have depended upon for everyday life disintegrates, the restless hearts of humanity will boil over with fear and horrors that history hasn’t even experienced.  The destruction of Jerusalem and its temple—a place where heaven met earth and God dwelt with man—all those years ago in 70 AD, stands as a reminder and warning to us that the collapse of creation is coming. 

God says, “For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind. But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create; for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness. I will rejoice in Jerusalem and be glad in my people; no more shall be heard in it the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.” (Isaiah 65:17–19 ESV)

However, the hearts of those who elevated their created surroundings into their hope were overcome with unquenchable anguish.  Those who lift up this life as their heavenly paradise are heading for devastation just like the temple.

In stark contrast to these terminal times is the enduring name of our Lord, Jesus Christ.  He is the new temple.  Through him, heaven meets earth.  He is created like you and me, but he is also eternally begotten.  Not only did he have a human beginning, conceived in the womb of a woman, God the Son has always been there eternally enduring with our Heavenly Father.

Like the temple in Jerusalem, we find a place with God in Jesus’ person.  No longer do we need to have our sin atoned for in the sacrifice at the temple with the spilling of animals’ blood, but we’ve had his blood spilt for us.  The temple of his body was bludgeoned, beaten, and bled; left like temple rubble was Jesus dead on the cross.

We know the temple in Jerusalem has never been rebuilt and will never be resurrected.  Nevertheless, Jesus has!  He lives and rules eternally at the right hand of the Father in heaven.  We also know Jesus lives and rules eternally in the hearts of those who allow the Holy Spirit to create life-giving faith.

As the walls of Jerusalem’s temple crumbled and Jesus’ days on earth ended in chaos, we can expect the same thing to happen to us.  As creation shows its signs of coming down, those living in Christ will increasingly be handed over to torturous times.

Human spirituality will increase, as people look for answers.  Those who are faithful to Christ and his word will be rejected by those seeking spirituality in fruitless idols. Those led by the Holy Spirit will get the blame when temporary human temples tumble down.

This includes “so-called” Christian people too.   Many who call themselves Christian, in whom Christ is temple-ing through Holy Baptism, will cast him out of the temple of the human body, perishing through delusion and deception. They will be caught up chasing myths, whipped into uncontrollable frenzies by mob mentality. In fact, some of the greatest attacks against Jesus Christ and his faithful, will come from within the ranks of dysfunctional church institutions.

Like Judas Iscariot, there will be those who act towards the faithful, as he did towards Jesus Christ. With Christ one minute, then against him the next.  There’ll be those who worship Jesus with us one day, and then the next, turn on us and hand us over to all types of torture, just as Jesus was, and the countless martyrs have been since.

As the true church of Jesus Christ is moved by the Holy Spirit to be God’s mouthpiece, it’s not going to win any favours from the those whose idols are exposed by the light of the truth!  However, when the world is shaken, and you begin to witness horrors happening around you, to you,  know the end is drawing near.

Jesus tells us not to be afraid, not to go after those who come seeking to stand in Christ’s place, or who seek to bully you with fear and dread.   Jesus calls you and all who believe to stand firm in what our help really is.  And our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth. 

Confess your sins and call on the name of the Lord, and he will forgive the guilt of your sin.  In fact, you will only endure in him, his word, his flesh, enabled by the Holy Spirit, who will fire faith within.  He will empower you with endurance as the day of death destroys all temporary goods and evils.

You might wonder how you might survive these dreadful days!  These times are here and have been here ever since Christ ascended into heaven — the Holy Spirit was sent at Pentecost.   From when the Jewish temple was sacked in Jerusalem in AD 70, and every temple and idol God has allowed destruction of since! 

These times of chaos and destruction also come to us individually in our death.  One day there will be a final event on earth, but for many, we’ll be faced with the destruction of our mortal frame first, just as the temple was destroyed and so too was Christ, on the cross.

But those who live in the body of Christ are adorned with the nobility and eternal beauty of Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit in the faith he gives.  Just like one who loves living in the light continues in the upkeep of the candle or the wick, those who allow Jesus Christ to be lifted up as their Saviour, will be lifted up in faith, hope, and love towards him. 

True believers will want to be in Jesus’ presence face to face in the warmth of his love, so they allow the enduring fuel of the Holy Spirit — faith, to burn within.  For them it’s no longer the temple of the human frame primarily important, but he who lives within making it a holy temple of the Lord.

So, it won’t be a surprise when others hate you for not upholding the righteousness they believe to be beneficial.  They won’t like hearing about the truth of our darkness as we confess our sins to the Lord. They will seek to deceive you and make you doubt Christ rather than enlighten you with the word for hope.  Why?  Because the true light of Christ threatens to expose their pleasure in their unrighteousness.

If you’re wondering if you’re one within the ranks of Christ, know you are when you allow the Holy Spirit to lead you to repentance, returning you to Jesus’ righteousness, rather than a righteousness of your own. Trust Jesus is — the only way, the only truth, and the only life! 

When the struggle is real and it’s before you, Jesus promises, “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.” (Luke 21:13–19 ESV)

Hear what’s happening!  Some may be put to death, but not a hair of the head will perish!  Holy Spirit assisted endurance gains life.  In faithfulness to death, you gain true life!  Just as Jesus endured by the will of the Father, enduring in the Holy Spirit, and knowing full well he would die, we too can endure, knowing full well we too will die.  But like Jesus, death will have no hold over us, your death will be a restoration to whom you were always meant to be, not one hair of the head will perish.  Some of us might even get a few head hairs back, and some lose a few hairs from where they shouldn’t be growing!

In fact, even today as God allows the idols and temples of your heart to be destroyed, he is calling you to endure in the joy and love of having your sinful self, daily drowned in repentance, having all your righteousness die, so Christ might fulfil all righteousness within you. 

As you notice the kingdoms and nations raging, the earth shaking, and the hatred of those against Christ directed towards you, know that death has already been dealt its death in you, because having been buried with him in baptism …you were also raised with him through faith in the powerful working of God, who raised him from the dead. (Colossians 2:12 ESV)

In other words, what now can truly harm you?  Nothing, when you allow him to daily raise you through repentance in faith!  And in the true faith that God gives, he will faithfully fill you with peace, joy, and love. 

Do you realise hell is for Satan and his angels!  It’s not meant for humans! God's will for humanity is to daily raise and recreate within us the new enduring eternal nature of Jesus Christ.

Jesus says, “But when all these things begin to take place, straighten up and raise your heads, because your redemption is drawing near.” (Luke 21:28 ESV)  God is working in you, enduring in you, with the holy goal that you gain your eternal life in him.  Amen. 

C, The First Sunday after Christmas - Luke 2:41-52 "A Lost Child"

Mary and Joseph are in great distress as they search for Jesus.  After three days they feared the worst but expected the best.  Anyone who has lost a child knows the feeling that washes over oneself when a child goes missing.

The story of the twelve-year-old Jesus missing as the family returns from the Passover feast, could be the original script for the Christmas movie franchise, Home Alone.  The extended family leaves to go on holidays with much chaos and confusion only to leave the youngest child behind.  The mother only realises when they have taken off and are high in the sky.

But it’s not little Kevin who’s been left behind, but Jesus.  And he’s not the youngest, but the oldest, Mary’s first-born son.   Yet every parent knows the feeling when the realisation hits home when a minor is missing.

Separation anxiety is bad enough when parent and child are split up on the first day of school, moving out of home, or marrying and making their own way in the world.  We’ve heard about Hannah making a linen robe for her little boy, Samuel, seeing him only once a year as he serves with Eli in the temple.  Imagine that, seeing your little child once a year!

But that would  be a blessing for those who don’t know their child’s location.  How much worse is it when a child’s whereabouts is not known?  The mind races!  Have they been taken?  Are they alive? Where are they?  One fears the worst!

And then there’s the relief when one sets eyes on the child safe and sound.  Along with the joy of the lost being found, there’s also chastisement, especially if the child has wandered off of their own accord.  Measures are put in  place to protect the minor from going missing again.

Then there are those who have lost children in death.  December twenty-eight is the remembrance for the Holy Innocents, the children martyred by Herod in his rage to rid himself of the rival Christ-child King.  Unimaginable is the grief of those who’ve lost a child, seemingly before their time!  Children are expected to bury their parents, not the other way around.  This would have to be one of the worst things a parent has to confront.

But there is relief for Mary and Joseph.  When Jesus is found he says, “Why were you looking for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49 ESV)  Here Jesus mentions his Father, but it’s not Joseph.  In fact, Mary is the only parent mentioned by name.  Mary and Joseph didn’t understand what Jesus said to them.  Yet Mary remembered and pondered Jesus words, passing them onto Luke at some stage in the future for him to record it in his gospel account.

We know Jesus was not the natural born son of Joseph.  He was incarnate by the Holy Spirit when Gabriel, the archangel spoke to Mary.  Not naming Joseph can be viewed as a deliberate exclusion by Luke, the gospel’s author.  The boy Jesus, naming God as his Father and not his earthly father, Joseph, is a lesson for all fathers to ween their children from their fatherhood.  To teach and instruct their children about their adoption by the Heavenly Father in baptism.  God does not have grandchildren, just sons and daughters!  So, it’s mum’s and dad’s responsibility to hand their children onto their God and Father — Jesus’ Father who is in heaven.  In a similar way Elkanah and Hannah did this with Samuel.

One can imagine Samuel not understanding what was going on when he was young and sent to the temple to live with Eli.  Mary and Joseph also didn’t understand Jesus, having to be in his Father’s house. When we teach of God’s adoption in baptism, children may not understand, and as parents we might sinfully seek to have our children glorify us over God.  But through enduring teaching of our children, they will believe they are sons and daughters of the Father, long before they understand, if ever!

Losing a child is traumatic, no matter if it’s permanent, in death, or even, just for a time!  In a picture similar to Hannah and Elkanah, God the Father, gave up his one and only Son, to be born to human parents, Mary and Joseph.  However, Samuel’s ministry before the Lord differed greatly from Jesus’ ministry.  Jesus’ ministry was a baptism into death.  From the moment Jesus was conceived, he became the child, who was to be lost in death so humanity could be found by the Father, with life in Christ!  

Three days lost was too much for his parents to bear and understand, how much more his death on the cross, descent into the grave and hell, and resurrection on the third day?

How difficult it is for us to understand God the Father turning his back on his one and only Son to allow him to be the Son of Man, to be the Holy Innocent One for us, serving us salvation and innocence in exchange for our guilt and sin.  Serving you salvation to save you from your humanity!

The generations of children growing up today face a myriad of challenges that see too many realise their corruption only to give up and commit suicide.  Some take a longer road to death by giving themselves over to their desires that don’t deliver the perceived pleasures they thought they were going to get.  Like a throwaway Christmas present, over time they realise they’re on the garbage heap of life.

From the moment a child learns to say “no”, every human has always sought to make the pleasure, “all mine”!  These desires and pleasures become sexual in adolescence and adult life.   Then somewhere in there, we add the fixation of amassing goods; wealth and possessions that really aren’t all that good.  And when, and if, these temptations die down, honour and glory become more important as we seek to leave a legacy of our desires that ultimately, lead us to death.

How difficult it is for us children to turn our backs on the addictions that cause death.  So much so, the hopelessness realised in these days is accelerated in parallel with the ease and quickness of the ability to get, and be failed by, our desires and pleasures.

How difficult it is for us to understand that from the moment the Son of God was conceived within  Mary, he was saying “yes” to the will of our Father in heaven.  That when Jesus lay in a manger as a weak human baby, the Son of God was willingly putting aside his divinity to be in an environment of desire, disease, and death.  To serve and save humanity as the Son of Man! 

When he was a toddler and the holy innocents were being murdered by Herod’s men, he understood his mission as the Son of Man, and the Son of God, was to be innocently crucified on the cross, to save us from our desires, diseases, and death. 

Even now as he is at the right hand of God the Father, in all his risen glory, he continues to carry us in prayer before our Father. 

Our Father, together with his Son, send the Holy Spirit to serve us in a way that leads us from our evil, temptation to furnish our kingdoms of destruction and unwillingness to forgive.  To forgive!  To know and welcome God’s will is being done.  To hope in God’s kingdom coming in power and glory!  And to know and believe we are holy, because Jesus is our holy bread, despite the unholiness that leads every person to death.

What we consume and hang onto in this world is death.  We call it life and living, but it’s not!  However, a deposit of life has been placed within your shell of deathly existence.  When Jesus lay in the manger and when the children of Bethlehem were being murdered, he saw you!  When Jesus was asking questions of the teachers in his Father’s house in Jerusalem, when he wept over Lazarus’ death, and when he wept over Jerusalem, he was learning your death and weeping over you.  When he was nailed to the cross, when our sin nailed him there, he said of you, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34 ESV)

And because you do what God does not want you to do, he and Jesus constantly send you the Holy Spirit!  So, you too, do not like what you do, but allow the Holy Spirit to lead you in your destruction of death, and resurrection to life eternal, even now in this earthly existence. 

The Father of Lies, the devil, and society in all its good and evil, rages against the destruction of death.  So too does the Old Adam within and it seeks a resurrection of its own that seeks to reestablish the savagery and death from which you’ve been rescued.

But our Lord and Father wins the battle over the devil, sin, and death, through his Son Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. 

See the almighty heavenly joy, when you, the lost child, are brought by the Holy Spirit into the Father’s house.  See also the heavenly choir sing, “Glory to God in the highest”, when our Father is glorified in his Son Jesus Christ, by the Holy Spirit, at your resurrection and return to be with your Heavenly Father, face to face forever. Amen.

Let us pray. Father welcomes all his children to his family through his Son, Father giving his salvation, life for ever has been one.  Lord God Holy Spirit, let us daily die to sin, let us daily die with him.  Holy Spirit, walk us in the love of Christ our Lord, so we live in the peace of God, our Father.  Amen.

B, Post Pentecost 26 Proper 28 - Mark 13 "Final Day Failure to See Failure"

On January sixteen, two thousand and three, the National Aeronautical and Space Administration in the United States of America, launched space shuttle Columbia into a sixteen-day orbit around the earth for an extensive scientific mission.  It never touched down!  In the sixteenth minute before it was due to land, mission control lost contact with the orbiter as it broke up on re-entry over Texas and Louisiana. 

The greatest fears were confirmed as video from the media was broadcast to the US nation, unbeknown to mission control in Houston, who were still trying to reestablish contact with Columbia.

A chunk of foam, not unlike the expander foam you can buy at a hardware store, just twenty-one to twenty-seven inches long by twelve to eighteen inches wide, that’s about half to three-quarters of a metre by thirty to forty-five centimetres.  It broke off the large propellant tank strapped under the shuttle, just eighty or so seconds after launch, smashing into the reinforced carbon-carbon covering the left wing of the orbiter.

There were concerns over the incident by some at NASA, but it was dismissed because it was unbelievable that foam could damage, let alone, destroy reinforced carbon-carbon on the wing of the Columbia.

The scientific mission of Columbia was ended, ironically,  by a scientific impossibility, as some believed.  However, in the aftermath of the disaster, it was shown through experiment that foam could destroy reinforced carbon-carbon, when it’s travelling at high speed.

The fracturing of foam was known to NASA.  Yet people at NASA control still kept sending astronauts into orbit knowing brittle bits of foam were being dislodged.  Some of which earlier had caused damage to one of the Atlantis shuttle’s solid fuel rockets without catastrophe, since these are ejected after launch, not needed for re-entry. 

However, the damage to the Columbia space shuttle orbiter proved fatal on re-entry, due to catastrophic destruction of the left wing’s protection from the foam collision on take-off.  Therefore, without this protection, the super heating that occurs on re-entry, opened the vehicle for destruction, and the crew was lost.

The great pleasure in NASA,  and the accomplishment of a successful mission dissolved into NASA’s and the United States’ realisation of their greatest fears. What they had marvelled over as their greatest achievement brought about their greatest fears, destruction and death!

The disciples marvelled at the stones and the buildings of the Jerusalem temple, to which Jesus replied, “Do you see these great buildings? There will not be left here one stone upon another that will not be thrown down.” (Mark 13:2 ESV)

This was not the first temple but the second.  Solomon’s temple had long been sacked, and in its wake, Herod set about to construct the second temple.  Last week we heard in Solomon’s Psalm one hundred and twenty-seven, “Unless the Lord builds the house, those who build it labour in vain. Unless the Lord watches over the city, the watchman stays awake in vain. It is in vain that you rise up early and go late to rest, eating the bread of anxious toil.” (Psalm 127:1–2a ESV)

However, the Jews didn’t take heed of God’s Word, nor the four hundred years of events that led to Jesus’ coming.  Rather, they vainly trusted in themselves and their deeds, forgetting what led to Israel’s and Judah’s destruction and desolation.  Hear the unbelief of the people when God sought to call their vanity to account through Jeremiah…

“Thus says the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel: Amend your ways and your deeds, and I will let you dwell in this place. Do not trust in these deceptive words: ‘This is the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord.’ Behold, you trust in deceptive words to no avail. Will you steal, murder, commit adultery, swear falsely, make offerings to Baal, and go after other gods that you have not known, and then come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, ‘We are delivered!’—only to go on doing all these abominations? Has this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? Behold, I myself have seen it, declares the Lord.”  (Jeremiah 7:3-4, 8–11 ESV)

From Mark’s Gospel we hear Jesus prophesy the reality of Jerusalem and its temple in the end times.  After the destruction and desolation, that saw their forefathers exiled to Babylon and beyond, having not remained under the warnings from God in his Word, they continued refusing to listen to Jesus, the Son of God, and sought their own desires causing desolation and destruction.  

In these last days, in which we have been since Jesus’ resurrection and ascension, the church continues to test God with its opposition to his Word, and fails to heed its warnings, as it seeks to place its trust in culture and the authority of the mob.

Our General Pastors’ Conference and General Convention of Synod, like NASA, like the Jews, has not listened to God and his Word, nor the advice of previous synods, nor two thousand years of Christ sustaining his church from desolation and destruction. 

At best, what is done has occurred through apathy, as a deception of the “abomination of desolation standing where here ought not be” (Mark 13:14)  That is, evil in the place of Christ, masked as an angel of light, working through mischief to lead the apathetic into a unity of ignorance that’s false and leads to destruction.

At worst, like those who lead others into deception, some are acting with deliberate disobedience before God and his Word, by placing themselves over the Word of God in seeking to conform the church to the catastrophic cultural corruption all around us.   

So, like NASA and the pressure upon it to be popular and positive, the church is led into negatives that lead to the worst.  Without addressing the issue that was the worst, the worst occurred at NASA.  Nothing was learnt from the “sins of the past”.  Nothing was done about the foam breakage issues, until it was too late.

The greatest fear in front of us in God’s church, is that we become lost to our baptismal salvation, like the crew and vehicle of Columbia.  In ignorance, we trust in the word of others, rather than God’s Word, and tempt finding ourselves on the wrong side of God’s judgement.  

We can lose control and burn up so close to salvation, through apathy and deception, or active wilful disobedience.

Don’t let what others say, “is a harmless little piece of foam”, when it can destroy your baptismal faith!  Don’t allow your faith to become a piece of foam that destroys you.  Don’t let that which is meant to protect you become dislodged so that it destroys you!  If you think this can’t happen to you, I invite you to open God’s Word and allow the Holy Spirit to show you that it can, and has, to God’s chosen people, who had “the temple of the Lord”, that ultimately, he allowed to be destroyed in 70AD.

Speaking of NASA and the disaster, a shuttle chief engineer said, “I feel ashamed!  So, who’s guilty? I’m not just going to say the program managers are. We’re all guilty. If you don’t speak up for your own system and you’re victims of this environment, we’re guilty too!” (Rodney Rocha – NASA Shuttle Chief Engineer, Series 1 Episode 3, The Space Shuttle That Fell To Earth, ABC Television)

How do we galvanise ourselves against our greatest fear, eternal death and destruction?  On judgement day it’s no good saying to God, “I believed in Pastor Heath!  I believed in the bishops!  I believed in the LCANZ!  I believed in what I felt, in what “I” thought about God.  We have to believe “the Word of God”!  To open it!  Read it!  Pray for understanding, worked in you by the Holy Spirit, so you stand in submission under Jesus Christ and his Word!  God calls you to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.” (Philippians 2:12–13 ESV)

Jesus says to you who desire to fear and love God, who fear eternal death over earthly death, “See that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name, saying, ‘I am he!’ and they will lead many astray.” (Mark 13:5–6 ESV)

The seemingly harmless pleasures, “the pieces of foam”, within each of us, within our congregation, parish, district, and synod, can destroy us and bring eternal desolation.  Therefore, be strengthened in the Word of God to be on guard against your sinful self; the evil within.  Be strengthened against the cultures of chaos working through others; the evil from without!   Be strengthened against the abomination of desolation standing where he ought not be; that is, the devil, the evil one, inside and outside the church!

Since Christ ascended into heaven, the commonwealth of God’s holy church has always been tempted into becoming common by losing the holiness of its wealth.  Two thousand years into the end times, some have lost sight of what makes us holy, that sets us apart from the world, as God’s children, as his commonwealth. 

This commonwealth community of God is a republic of repentance.  Our eternal wealth is built on the knowledge of our failures having been forgiven.  The Holy Spirit leads us as a republic of repentant sinners constantly being forgiven in Jesus Christ.  The fragility that fractures this faith, is your human spirited apathy or wilful disobedience to participate in the Holy Spirit’s republic of repentance. We’re being made one as the Holy Spirit works common repentance, reviving us as God’s renewed public property, a holy commonwealth in Christ.

Your fear of failure needs you to understand your weakness and ability to fail!  If you don’t, you will place your faith in yourself; the very thing that causes your failure.  Failure to repent, to know you need to repent, is catastrophic!  

An accident investigator of the Columbia tragedy said, “This was a known failure. But I think failure to imagine being wrong, the failure to imagine the consequences of failure, are catastrophic.  And I think it’s this whole notion of the failure, to imagine failure.” (Patrick Goodman – Accident Investigator, Series 1 Episode 3, The Space Shuttle That Fell To Earth, ABC Television)

Like NASA, the Jews failed to recognise their failure to follow God’s Law and their failure by trusting in the temple the Lord gave them, rather than his Word.  When we fail to recognise our failure and the forgiveness offered because of our failure, and place faith in what fails us, we become like those who believe in the temple, rather than God who gave the temple.  And like those who believed a cheap piece of foam couldn’t harm reinforced carbon-carbon.

The only safe ship that will deliver you through the atmosphere of failure and death into eternity, is the eternally enduring coverings of Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh!  Amen.

B, Easter 3 - Acts 3:14-16, 1 John 3:2-3, Luke 24:45-49 "The Author of Life"

Acts 3:14–16 (ESV)  But you denied the Holy and Righteous One, and asked for a murderer to be granted to you,  and you killed the Author of life, whom God raised from the dead. To this we are witnesses.  And his name—by faith in his name—has made this man strong whom you see and know, and the faith that is through Jesus has given the man this perfect health in the presence of you all.

1 John 3:2–3 (ESV)  Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.  And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure.

Luke 24:45–49 (ESV)  Then Jesus opened their minds to understand the Scriptures,  and said to them, “Thus it is written, that the Christ should suffer and on the third day rise from the dead,  and that repentance for the forgiveness of sins should be proclaimed in his name to all nations, beginning from Jerusalem.  You are witnesses of these things.  And behold, I am sending the promise of my Father upon you. But stay in the city until you are clothed with power from on high.”

*******

The Author of life is raised by God from death.  The Author of life opens the minds of those who are gathered before him.  And he calls those gathered to wait;  to wait to be clothed with power from on high.

The power with which the church is clothed is the power of life!  This life-power is the authority of Jesus’ resurrection.  The promise of God is this: we are made his children.  Life is authored within us by the resurrected Author of life, Jesus Christ, the Son of God!

God has placed us in a holding pattern of life.  Although we experience the corruption of dying and death in our daily existence, we are called to expect the revelation of being like Jesus.  But this will only be realised when we see him as he is, at his return, at our eternal resurrection.   Until then, we are dying in this existence!  But we’re dying to live! 

The holding pattern is revealed within us as faith, having been clothed with power from on high.  Faith is not a feeling, although faith can make us feel good at times, for which we are thankful!  But faith gives each of us an expectation of being made like Jesus, despite what our experiences and feelings tell us in this world.

As we age, we experience, the effects of sin on our bodies.  Some of the things we suffer might have come as a result of sinful deeds.  From the sinful things we’ve done!  But the reality is, even if we did nothing wrong, if we did not sin, we would still suffer from our human being, being human, that in its very nature is sinful.

The nature of our being; its feelings, its thoughts, its works, the mechanics of our physical bodies, our senses of sight, touch, taste, smell, and hearing, exist and fail in the deconstruction that’s death.  Therefore, we all suffer!   

Jesus came into his own dying creation to reinject it with life, lost when humanity was separated from the tree of life.  For Jesus to fix his creation, he suffered in his creation, suffering that led to death.  The Creator died in his very own creation, so life could be recreated within a creation existing in death.

After Jesus was raised and ascended into heaven, and was hidden from our sight, it may have seemed that all returned to what it was before.  After all, death still exists!  People are still given to following the deadliness of their human nature and hide their sin.  But the reality of true life is now a reality of faith, that exposes the truth about us and the truth about Jesus Christ!

Peter and John are in the temple after the first Pentecost.  The apostles’ minds had been opened by Jesus as he appeared amongst them after the resurrection.  They no longer cowered and hid from the Jews.  In fact, at Pentecost they proclaimed the risen Lord to the Jews, and many became believers.

A man, lame from birth, begging at the temple, walks as a result of Peter’s  proclamation.   They who had their minds opened by Jesus, now open the minds of others.  This was not an act of Peter or John, but rather an act of the Holy Spirit, working with and through the apostles, and within the man who having been healed, “entered the temple with them, walking and leaping and praising God.” (Acts 3:8 ESV)

The irony of this first healing event should not ever be lost on us!  Here the man whose sinful nature prevented him from entering the temple, now enters the temple.  His inability to enter was not from any sin that he had done, but rather it was the consequences of the nature he received at birth. 

Like him we are lame in every way before God and have no earthly way of entering into his presence.  But now like the lame man who walked and leapt his way into the temple, praising God, we can praise God in his presence too!

But the temple curtain has been torn, and God is no longer found at his mercy seat in the Holy of Holies.  Where is God if he is not in the temple sanctuary? 

Well, God is in his sanctuary!  However, the sanctuary has changed!  God now lives within his children.  He tabernacles within!  God now enters the Jerusalem temple, as Peter and John enter the temple, as the dancing praising healed man enters, and also enters in those who had received the Holy Spirit, as a result of that first Pentecost.

We know that the temple in Jerusalem was destroyed by the Romans in seventy AD.  From Good Friday, God no longer sits on his mercy seat in the Jerusalem temple.  In mercy he now rests in the hearts of those who believe.  God now covers the sinful nature of believers, despite the sin that still comes from believers.   By 70 AD, the believers had long been dispersed by persecution from the Jerusalem temple.  God’s mercy now sat in the hearts of the dispersed, and the temple was sacked.   It no longer had a purpose in God’s plan of salvation!

Today, God gathers us as church in Jesus’ resurrection victory.  He gathers us by the power of the Holy Spirit and will continue to do so as he has promised!  The promise we have is that we are God’s children now, called together in power from on high.  Faith in the name of Jesus has made you strong.  Jesus sees and knows you!  The faith that’s received from Jesus, by the Spirit, gives you the perfection of Jesus, for life eternal as we die. 

So, God authors holy life in you now, through his holy word and holy sacraments.  Repentance and forgiveness of sin, confessed, received, believed, and seen only through faith, enlivens and enlightens you, despite the corruption you see working within.

As God opens your mind in his word, he shows you two things, which matures faith within. 

First, he enlightens us with an ever-increasing sight of the sinful nature and its deadliness.  This would drive us to despair and eternal death if he did not graciously and mercifully reveal it to us in a timely manner.  God does not expose us to more than we can bear.

The second thing he does after revealing an ever-increasing sight of our sin is an ever-increasing sight of his merciful presence in his word and sacrament.  This occurs when we are gathered, being forgiven, and fed, so he might continue to tabernacle within us as church.  We then disperse, taking the mercy of God out into the dispersion where others have an opportunity to see Jesus working within us, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to confess him and to confess his forgiveness of our sin.

The maturing of faith allows you to witness what Jesus Christ works within your being, despite being sinful.  You clearly see your sin and inability to work your way out of it.  But through knowledge of Jesus, his death and resurrection, and the acts of the Holy Spirit, mature faith finds it’s completion in hope. 

Therefore, everyone who hopes in Jesus Christ is purified as he is pure.  The Holy Spirit works this deposit of the pure holy of holies within you, where the Father sits enthroned on his mercy seat.  Jesus is the mercy seat of God, the Author of life within. 

So, as forgiven and covered sinners, we trust less and less in ourselves, and wait more and more, for the Author of life and his eternal lifegiving goodness. 

Amen. 

B, Lent 3 - Psalm 19:14 John 2:13-22 "Acceptable Fellowship"

Psalm 19:14 (ESV) Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.  Amen.

The words of Jesus’ mouth and the meditation of Jesus’ heart, as he drove the traders and their stock out of the temple, destroyed the fellowship of both, those changing money, and those selling animals for Passover sacrifices.  It seems Jesus was angry as he bound cords, made a whip, and drove them out of the temple!  What type of fellowship was Jesus dispersing?

Jesus’ disciples remembered words from the first half of Psalm sixty-nine verse nine, “For zeal for your house has consumed me.”  (Psalm 69:9 ESV)  Also, we can consider Psalm one hundred and nineteen, verse one hundred and thirty-nine, as Jesus rouses the temple traders and their wares, “My zeal consumes me, because my foes forget your words.”  (Psalm 119:139 ESV)

Rather than anger, Jesus was jealous for his Father’s house!  His words were solely concerned with our Father’s word!  If we consider this jealousy as anger, his anger was restoring fellowship rather than wrecking it.

However, anger does destroy fellowship!  We all know when we become angry, or someone becomes angry with us, we lose connection with the other party.  This is the sin of presumptuousness; when one seethes and becomes high-handed.  Fellowship and peace fly out the window when our feelings and the musings of the heart, become words unacceptable in God’s sight.

Instead of God being our rock and redeemer, in our anger, through our fear and lack of trust in God, we presume from our internal reckonings, we are good and righteous, they are bad and wrong.    Therefore, we presume, “they” need correction. 

However, our presumptions are assumptions with little to no evidence. God is put out of the picture and is replace with our assumed divinity!   What  is good for us is not necessarily good for God who knows what is truly good and evil, the true reality of our way, our truth, and our life!

Jesus is the way, the truth, and the life of God the Father.  His way in all things, including his way in the temple, is begotten of the Father.  Jesus’ word is “the truth” and is begotten of our Father in Heaven.  The life Jesus lives, being led to the cross by the proceedings of the Holy Spirit, is also begotten by God our Father.

What appears to be anger on Jesus’ part is far from the divisive anger you or I perpetuate.   Even the most righteous human anger kills fellowship.  Whereas Jesus’ jealous word, works to restore our fellowship with God and our fellow human beings.

At the sermon on the mount Jesus equates our anger with murder.  Murder kills fellowship!  Yes, literally for the one murdered.  But it kills fellowship with God, for the one who has lifted his hand in murder.  Even an insult of “you fool” cost the name caller their fellowship.  Jesus tells us, “Whoever says, ‘You fool!’ will be liable to the hell of fire.”  (Matthew 5:22 ESV)

Jesus takes our words of anger and stretches them, so neither you, nor I, are free of God’s judgement in the Ten Commandments.  God knows all active aggression hidden behind closed doors!  God knows all passive aggression hidden behind a polite smile!  He knows the disobedience of your human heart.  Anger in all humanity’s activities.  Anger in the buzz of business.  Anger within cultures and between countries.  Anger over lack of other’s discernment.  Anger instead of empathy.  Anger born out of frustration.  Anger between generations, and anger even between the sexes!  God sees all unacceptable fellowship played out between people today, as sin.

Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.

Paul tells Timothy what to expect as a result of the fellowship breakdown of humanity before Christ  returns.

“But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty.  For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy,  heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not loving good,  treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God,  having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.  For among them are those who creep into households and capture weak women, burdened with sins and led astray by various passions,  always learning and never able to arrive at a knowledge of the truth.”  (2 Timothy 3:1–7 ESV)

Today as God is being killed in our society, it’s as if humanity is a hive of bees busy buzzing away in  human activity.  Yet, when the beekeeper comes to check on the hive, his workers become increasingly agitated, for being disturbed, and attack he who has given them their hive as their home.

Before Jesus came,  temple Judaism had become like a hive of bees devouring themselves!  Their hive was empty of honey, God’s word was used presumptuously, against each other, therefore, against God.  Fellowship had failed.  Paul reminds us in his letter to Timothy that in the last days this will happen too.  God and his fellowship will not only be killed in society, but bold presumptuous attempts to kill him will occur inside the church before Christ comes again.  This is because we in the church busy ourselves with the same love of self, as those outside.

Yet Jesus says to the Jews of the temple, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” (John 2:19 ESV)

Begotten by God, Jesus was raised by God the Father, and by the Holy Spirit who proceeded from the Father to raise Jesus from the dead!  Like a seed planted in the ground, the life of God contained in the perfect husk of Jesus’ human flesh, sprouted back to life.

The temple was destroyed, and the Son of God, raised up the temple of his church.  You and I are seeds of the Son, grafted into fellowship in Christ.

But what of the fellowship Jesus dispersed with a whip of cords?

We return to Psalm sixty-nine to the words of God the Son, written down by King David…

“Let not those who hope in you be put to shame through me, O Lord GOD of hosts; let not those who seek you be brought to dishonour through me, O God of Israel.  For it is for your sake that I have borne reproach, that dishonour has covered my face.  I have become a stranger to my brothers, an alien to my mother’s sons.  For zeal for your house has consumed me, and the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me.” (Psalm 69:6–9 ESV)

”Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.“ (Psalm 69:16 ESV)

“You know my reproach, and my shame and my dishonour; my foes are all known to you.  Reproaches have broken my heart, so that I am in despair.  I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none.  They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.”  (Psalm 69:19–21 ESV)

Jesus’ zeal consumed him!  He cleansed the temple!  Yet he became the reproach!  He allowed his fellowship with our Father to be severed, so God might temple within us, and reseed in us fellowship with the father.

No longer do we need to fear the world, or what the world is doing within the church.  After all, it is God’s church, and those who resist God’s correction, God’s call to confess and receive forgiveness, will not be blameless and innocent of great transgression.

But for those who willingly receive God’s word, allowing the Holy Spirit to bring them to confession so that they not only glorify God for the gospel of salvation, but even love the Law of God despite its condemnation of their sin.

God’s Word in the church is sweet like honey.  In Psalm nineteen we hear, “The law of the LORD is perfect, reviving the soul; the testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple;  the precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes;  the fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever; the rules of the LORD are true, and righteous altogether.  More to be desired are they than gold, even much fine gold; sweeter also than honey and drippings of the honeycomb.  Moreover, by them is your servant warned; in keeping them there is great reward.”  (Psalm 19:7–11 ESV)

When we hear and busy ourselves under God’s word, God’s church is a harmonious hive.  May we like the Psalmist, be kept from presumptuous sins, so they do not have dominion over us, nor separate us from the forgiveness of our Lord Jesus Christ, our Rock and Redeemer.  Let us pray.

Lord God Holy Spirit may the words of our mouths be Jesus’ Word of forgiveness and fellowship, and the meditations of our hearts, be acceptable in the eternal sight of our Father in heaven.  Amen.