B, Post Pentecost 13 Proper 15 - Ephesians 5:15–17, 21 John 6:51-58 "Flesh Vs Flesh"

Ephesians 5:15–17, 21 (ESV)  Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. …submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Wisdom verses wisdom.  Understanding verses understanding. Feelings verses feelings.  Passions verses passions.  Human flesh verses the flesh of Jesus Christ.  Jesus Christ, the Son of humanity, the Son of God, came to bridge the divide between the fallen flesh that dies and our Father in heaven who is the light and life of all creation together with his Son and the Holy Spirit.

John’s gospel begins with words written to remind us of Genesis chapter one. 

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.  He was in the beginning with God.  All things were made through him, and without him was not any thing made that was made.  In him was life, and the life was the light of men.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.  And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:1–5,14 ESV)

The flesh of God meets the fallen flesh of humanity at the feeding of the five thousand.  In the wake of this extraordinary meal, the Word of God made flesh, engages with the flesh of humanity, the understanding, the feelings, and the passions of humanity.

A Lutheran pastor on moving to a town was targeted by the local Jehovah’s Witness, who lobbed on the manse doorstep not long after the minister was installed into the congregation.  After the Witnesses gave their usual testimony of heresies and half-truths, the Lutheran pastor spoke about the resurrection of Jesus Christ, Holy Baptism, and the body and blood of Jesus, that we’ve heard Jesus say, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.  Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.  For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink.”  (John 6:53–55 ESV)

Once the pastor said this truth to the Jehovah’s Witnesses, they erupted with scorn and contempt, at the implications of eating and drinking Jesus’ body and blood.  The Jehovah’s Witness don’t believe in blood transfusions, and these Witnesses construed the consumption of Jesus’ body and blood as cannibalism.

As Jesus taught this to those in the tabernacle at Capernaum, it’s understandable how the Jews and the disciples would have heard a similar message to that of the Jehovah’s Witnesses.  After all, sense would have only been made of Jesus’ words in John six, after the resurrection and the giving of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost.  As well as through the lived experience of the early church as they were called, gathered, enlightened and made holy by the Holy Spirit in the Word of God.

Similarly, we who have been baptised into Jesus’ death and resurrection have been drowned in his body and blood in the waters of Holy Baptism, fed on his Holy Word of life, and given his body and blood in the bread and wine of Holy Communion.  In all three of these holy elements, we continually receive the Holy Spirit who gives, sustains, and builds faith in those who do not reject the holy three — Word, Water, and Wine — of Jesus’ bread of life!  

Now that you and I have the Holy Spirit in the Holy three, faith is generated within, lighting up the darkness that needs lighting up with the fires of the Spirit within.  The battle that ensues within all of us is now the battle of… human wisdom verses Jesus’ wisdom…  human understanding verses Jesus’ understanding… our feelings verses God’s feelings…  our passions and desires verse the passion of Jesus Christ. 

The human flesh and spirit of our old Adam and its works is confronted by the Holy Spirit’s work to daily enflesh us in the body and blood of Jesus Christ, for forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation!

But the human will is strong!  The old Adam seeks a resurrection of its own.  Our human spirit, in seeking a knowledge of good and evil from within the self, works within to push out the Holy Spirit, together with the knowledge of Jesus Christ. This battle wears on each of us and makes one tired.  Eventually this battle leads to the breakdown of the self — mind, body, and soul — resulting in death. 

But the will of God is such, that even despite death this does not have to end in eternal death, and the separation from God, that the devil, the world, and the old Adam seeks!

What the devil wants the old Adam to hear in the world is a message of confusion.  That muddled message is loud and strong today!  It’s a deceptive message of unity while our way of living is one of disunited individualism.  We’re being taught to fight for the longings of identity, equality, and rights of the individual’s understanding and feelings over everything else.

Saint Paul reminds the Ephesians not to be driven by feelings.  He calls them not to be foolish!  Not to be moved by the will of what is within.  This is literally to not be driven by gut instinct!  To exchange faith in Christ with the desires of the self in one’s own knowledge of what one thinks is good and evil.

Paul’s command is just as important for the internal confusion of your learnt individualism, and the disorder in today’s creation!  Just as much as it was for the troubled church in Ephesus, existing between pagan female cultic worship and the witness of Judaism rejecting Jesus Christ.

Paul warns, “Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. Therefore do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. And do not get drunk with wine, for that is debauchery, but be filled with the Spirit, addressing one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody to the Lord with your heart, giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of reverence for Christ.” (Ephesians 5:15–21 ESV)

Paul speaks to the Ephesians concerning the powers and principalities at Ephesus (Ephesians 1:21, 2:2, 3:10, 6:12). Jesus confronts the powers and principles within each of us in his call to consume his flesh and blood when he spoke at the synagogue in Capernaum.  You are warned to look within, to oust worldly wisdom, and make way for the Holy Spirit who brings wisdom in the will of God. 

We are warned that the days are evil, contrary to what the world is telling us!  We’re to understand in what we’re taught in the Word of God that the unity with the nations that Israel sought was contrary to the will of God.  The church today is still being tempted into a unity with the nations against God’s will rather than God’s call for the church to make disciples of all nations.

In Paul’s warning there’s a caution for us to guard ourselves against consuming a worldly wisdom, of feeble flesh, fleeting feelings, and chaotic misunderstanding of what is good and evil.

When you heed this warning, you allow a repentance of the heart, to turn back to God.  You turn from being conservative and progressive.  That is turning back to Jesus Christ from conserving or progressing your sinful self-directed powers and principles, as well as conserving or progressing the world’s powers and principalities. 

Having been turned, we feed not on our understanding, feelings, wisdom, faith or flesh.  But like Jesus who said to our Father in heaven, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you. Remove this cup from me. Yet not what I will, but what you will.”  (Mark 14:36 ESV) We too, allow the cup of salvation to come upon us as we allow the Holy Spirit to do the will of God within us.  To sacrifice our wisdom, understanding, feelings and faith in ourselves as we carry our cross too.

The Holy Spirit enables us to take up the faith with reverence for Jesus Christ and carry the cross we’re called to bear, rather than burden ourselves with a faith in ourselves.  Just as Jesus submitted to the cross for your forgiveness, the Spirit empowers you to submit to others out of reverence for the work Jesus Christ did to save you from confusion, chaos and death.

The light shines in your darkness, and your darkness has not overcome it.  So let the wisdom and understanding, the feelings and faithfulness, the power and passion, of Jesus’ Word made flesh, shine in your darkness.  The Holy Spirit seeks to reflect the glory of Jesus Christ from you into the places where God wills you to be.  Amen.

And the peace of God which surpasses all understand, keep our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

B, The Third Sunday after the Epiphany - Mark 1:15 & Psalm 62:5-12 "Standing under Jesus"

Understanding Jesus Christ, in its simplicity, is simply standing under Jesus. 

Understanding Jesus is so straight forward, a child or an adult can stand under him, the poor or the wealthy can stand under him, a new convert can stand under him, and so too can a mature believer on their death bed.

Why then do we struggle to understand Jesus?  Is it because when one seeks to stand out from under him, that the outstanding person has little to no understanding of Jesus Christ?

From where does one get an understanding of Jesus?  One gets it from standing under Jesus’ Word! 

Standing under Jesus can only occur when the fullness of the Good News comes to us, causing one to repent and believe. 

Therefore, we trust!  We believe and receive the Holy Spirit, moving us to confession, bringing us to Jesus’ power over sin and death.

Standing under Jesus, we need the Holy Spirit, so we are willed into God’s Word.  We all know this by how difficult we can find it to engage ourselves in God’s Word. 

When you seek to read the bible, notice how easily you’re distracted by other tasks that always seem to pop up!  Before you realise it, the bible is not opened, the dust settles, and weeks pass by!  The devil then works on the spirit of the sinful self and guilt drives you further away from receiving the Word of God.  Therefore, standing under Jesus’ Word, requires the full help of the Holy Spirit. 

When one is starved of God’s Word, every other word floods in, to fill the void.  The word of the human spirit within, is led by the words of the world, so one becomes use to being without the Word of God.

This is the struggle all face who seek to stand under Jesus.  Our old nature would rather us forget and lose interest in prayer and praying.  Confessing one’s sin, hearing God’s Word preached, and practicing the faith in a God pleasing way, becomes detached and dysfunctional!  The busyness of life quickly takes over and the spirit within becomes comfortable with the status quo.

Standing under Jesus requires faith.  Faith does not come from understanding, but rather, the other way around, understanding comes from faith, and faith sees one standing under what we allow our ears to hear.

As Paul says to the Romans, “For ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.’  How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have never heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?  And how are they to preach unless they are sent? As it is written, ‘How beautiful are the feet of those who preach the good news!’  …So faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.” (Romans 10:13–15, 17 ESV)

Jesus understands that standing under him, requires us to be put in a position of hearing.  Not just any word, but the Word of Jesus Christ.  God the Father, together with God the Son, know this.  That is why we receive the Holy Spirit when we hear the Word of God.  He leads us to the Father through the Word made Flesh, Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ spoken word drew an immediate response from Simon, and Andrew, James, and John.  So much so, they left their families and Galilean fishing boats and followed Jesus.  Through Jesus’ word the fishermen became his disciples and followed him. 

We are discipled by Jesus and grow in our understanding of Jesus, when we stand under his written Word, just as those of his disciples, who remained under his word.  All, with the exception of Judas Iscariot, and that didn’t end well for him!

To get a greater understanding of Jesus Christ you are called to stand under his written Word.  Standing under it allows the Holy Spirit to work faith in the Word within you!  The Holy Spirit continually points us back to Jesus’ way, the truth of Jesus’ Word, and his life.

We are in the season of Epiphany.  In it we hear that Jesus is proclaimed as the Son of God.  In the New Testament, Jesus is declared as the Son of God, some forty-three times.  Of these, it’s recorded only four times in the Gospel of John, where Jesus refers to himself as the Son of God.

Jesus is the Son of God, but as Paul tells us in Philippians, “though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,  but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.” (Philippians 2:6–8 ESV)

Jesus put aside his standing as the Son of God and stood under God the Father, and indeed stood under all of humanity as the Son of Man.  He served you, and still does, in human flesh!

Standing under the Father, Jesus Christ demonstrated great faithfulness towards the Father and all who trust in him.  His understanding or nature was such, he put aside his self-assurance in his  divinity, and lived in the weakness of the flesh, allowing himself to be guided perfectly by the Holy Spirit.

When Jesus, the Word made flesh, went away to pray, he prayed his Word, the Word of God.  The Psalms are Jesus’ Words of prayer, given and written down years before he was born. 

When we stand under the Psalms as an anthology of Jesus’ intimate prayers, our faith is encouraged by the depth of his faithfulness to God the Father.  He allows his servanthood to stand, not on his Godliness!  But rather, is led by the work of the Holy Spirit.  Therefore, the Psalms give a very personal insight into Jesus’ life as he submits to the will of God the Holy Spirit.

In the same way, when we stand under the Psalms, the Holy Spirit increases our understanding of the perfect relationship between the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Standing under God’s Word of the Psalms will increase faith!  So, we allow the Holy Spirit to lead us just as Jesus was led by the Holy Spirit. 

Jesus was led by the Spirit to do the will of the Father, having put aside his heavenly divinity.  As faith grows within us, we are led to do the will of the Father, when we put aside our human spirit’s self-assurance and desire for ill-gotten selfish divinity.  Faith allows us to surrender and lets the Holy Spirit point us to God the Father and God the Son.

To understand Jesus’ life, understanding the Word of Jesus’ prayers written in Psalms is as simple as standing under the word by questioning; who is speaking, who is the speaker addressing, and who is the speaker speaking about?   Is a singular person speaking or listening?  Or is it a group of people, usually Israel represented by those gathered in the temple? 

We get understanding of the Psalms and can stand under the Word of the Psalms when we realise, how we, as individuals, or, as a heavenly congregation, are grafted into Words of the Psalm by Jesus himself!  Into Jesus either, as the only Son of God, or, as the head of his body, the new Israel, the church.

Psalm sixty-two demonstrates the perfection of the Triune relationship, and the faithfulness of God’s perfection into which we are grafted by Jesus.

(Psalm 62:5-12)  For God alone, O my soul, wait in silence, for my hope is from him. 

Here, the speaker is speaking about our Father in heaven to the hearer.

He only is my rock and my salvation, my fortress; I shall not be shaken. On God rests my salvation and my glory; my mighty rock, my refuge is God. 

The speaker hear is King David having been given these words from the Word made flesh, the King of kings, Jesus.  So, Jesus is the real speaker of these words having inspired King David by the Holy Spirit to write them down.  By the Holy Spirit, it’s Jesus who confesses and knows God the Father is his rock, salvation, and fortress.  He trusts God despite the weakness of his flesh.

Trust in him at all times, O people; pour out your heart before him; God is a refuge for us. Those of low estate are but a breath; those of high estate are a delusion; in the balances they go up; they are together lighter than a breath. 

Jesus trusted in God our Father at all times on earth, and he calls us to do so too.  Jesus our King calls us to pour our hearts out to our Father in heaven.  Jesus, the Son of God, put aside his divinity and gave up his human spirit on the cross.  God is a refuge for us because Jesus is our Good News.  

Jesus did this for Israel; he is the New Israel, into which we have been grafted.  When weighed up, next to Jesus’ perfection in the flesh and sacrificial suffering as the Lamb of God, our human haughtiness and lowliness are as long lasting as a warm breath on a cold morning.

Put no trust in extortion; set no vain hopes on robbery; if riches increase, set not your heart on them. 

Israel failed in the wilderness for forty years, then continued in failure right the way through to Jesus’ revelation as the Son of God.  Similarly, we fail time and time again in our lives too.  Jesus, the new Israel, did not fail having been tempted by the devil in the wilderness for forty days.  Jesus calls us to trust in his work, rather than our lifetime of fruitless works, vain expectations, or earthly riches!

Once God has spoken; twice have I heard this: that power belongs to God,  and that to you, O Lord, belongs steadfast love.  For you will render to a man according to his work.

Alone Jesus hears only God speak.  Therefore, we hear him proclaim two things he hears and abides by about our Heavenly Father.  That power and steadfast love belong to God! 

We know from the gospel; God the Father rendered the man Jesus according to his work.  We know; the Holy Spirit led Jesus to finish his work of suffering and death and was then raised to life by the Holy Spirit having completed this work for our sake. 

The Holy Spirit works faith within us to trust the power of God.  We become willing recipients of his steadfast love made complete, for us, and in us, by the Holy Spirit.  The Holy Spirit creates and maintains our faith in God’s promises, in his Word.  God the Father renders or completes our salvation when we believe the work of his Son Jesus Christ, hearing by the power of the Holy Spirit. 

When we stand under Jesus and his Word, we allow the Holy Spirit to foster faith within.  Then we understand, standing in daily repentance and belief, is standing under Jesus.  Trusting the gospel or good news of our salvation is knowing the kingdom of God is ours eternally.  Amen.