A, Post-Pentecost 4 Proper 7 - Matthew 10:24, 38-39 "The Calmness of Christ"

Jesus says, “A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.   And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10:24, 38-39 ESV)

One can imagine being in the centre of a tornado would be an extraordinarily frightening experience.  Your attention would be drawn to the whirling winds and debris swirling around you, threatening to kill you.  Therefore, one can assume one would not be focusing on the calm eye of the storm.

Unlike a tropical cyclone, a tornado is very narrow!  Many who have experienced a cyclone directly overhead, report of an eery stillness in the eye of the storm, before the other side of the storm arrives with opposing winds.  In a tornado’s eye, being much smaller, one might be still, but your attention would be drawn to the close proximity of the cyclonic danger.

Jesus’ life was like the eye of a cyclonic storm.  Chaos surrounded his calm, disorder around order! In the three years of his ministry leading up to his death, Jesus was the calm eye of the storm.

At the beginning of his ministry after his baptism, the Holy Spirit led him into the wilderness to be tested.  This was the beginning of the storm!  One might imagine it as a brewing tropical storm, a low deepening in depression, becoming a cyclone.

However, at the other end of his ministry, Good Friday had developed into a full-blown tornado.  The chaos intensified as the swirling winds of darkness and death closed in, making his worries in the wilderness, look like a minor inconvenience.

We are going to be tempted by ourselves and the world, as well as receive satanic attention, just as Jesus did in the wilderness through to the cross. 

We are baptised into Jesus’ subordination, into his humility, his cross!  The Holy Spirit is leading you in your wilderness, just as he led Jesus from the wilderness to the cross, and through death.  Jesus relied on the strength of the Holy Spirit and the faithfulness of God the Father!  Now you are called to rely on the Holy Spirit as he leads you in the faithfulness of Jesus Christ!  He continually seeks to place Jesus in you, as you’re called to walk through the valley of the shadow of death.

But as we walk his way of the cross, we’re called to walk in faith rather than fear.  It’s understandable that one might be fearful as they walk.  In his earthliness and humility, Jesus was acutely aware of the fear we face since he bore our flesh and was constantly in the centre of the raging storm of sin against him.

Jesus’ fear, however, was not a negative frightful fear, but rather, a faithful fear that looked not to the chaos around him but to the faithfulness and peace of our Heavenly Father!  Jesus calls you to the same reverent fear he had for our Heavenly Father.

He says of those who seek to distract us from the Father into fear as a result of their cyclonic chaos, “So have no fear of them, for nothing is covered that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known.  And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.  Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.  Fear not, therefore; you are of more value than many sparrows.  So everyone who acknowledges me before men, I also will acknowledge before my Father who is in heaven,  but whoever denies me before men, I also will deny before my Father who is in heaven.” (Matthew 10:26, 28, 31–33 ESV)

In the cyclone of your life, your Father and your Saviour, Jesus Christ, want you to spread the calm of Christ, making the eye of other people’s storms, the salvation of Jesus Christ. 

In our baptism we are given the ability to acknowledge Jesus, having been baptised into his calm over chaos, his order over disorder!  Just as Jesus bore the Holy Spirit, you are given the Holy Spirit who faithfully seeks to reveal the reality of sin, but even more so our worthiness having been baptised into Christ. 

When we acknowledge Jesus, as Lord, we acknowledge our need to be baptised into his death.  Therefore, we acknowledge our sin and the ongoing work of the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus sent.  We do this acknowledging in the reality of the chaos, because despite the chaos of the storm, we have been turned and calmed by Jesus at the centre of our storm.

Your acknowledgement of Jesus to others, spreads his calm, because Jesus is the only peace in every storm that leads to death.   Acknowledgement of Jesus is knowing our cross and death, but even more so our life in him.  We pass on this life when we acknowledge Jesus before others!

Denial of Jesus is a denial of the life he gives through death.  Our denial before others leaves them without life, in eternal death too!  When one leaves the calmness of Jesus Christ, they enter the tornado and chaos of drowning in eternal death and darkness. 

Left in this state, Jesus denies and does not acknowledge the denier before the Father.  Why?  Because in denial one has not considered Christ to be a worthy Saviour.

However, Saint Paul tells young pastor Timothy, a trustworthy saying, “If we have died with him, we will also live with him;  if we endure, we will also reign with him; if we deny him, he also will deny us;  if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.”  (2 Timothy 2:11–13 ESV)

Paul reiterates what Jesus has said!  But proclaiming Jesus after the resurrection he adds,  “if we are faithless, he remains faithful— for he cannot deny himself.” 

Now that Jesus has died, been raised, and ascended, he sends the Holy Spirit in baptism.  If we are faithless, Jesus remains faithful to us.  He knows the Holy Spirit will be faithful within the baptised.  The Holy Spirit will seek to lead the lost back to our Heavenly Father by showing them Jesus’ worth through his word.  He might also give the lost glimpses of death with the experience of suffering to shock and recreate faith.

Although suffering sounds bad, it is actually good news for all who doubt their salvation, their baptism!  Jesus faithfully cannot deny himself!  So, while there is life in someone who has denied their baptism into Jesus’ death and resurrection, the Holy Spirit seeks to kill that which does not believe and give the newness of life in Jesus Christ.

Pauls says to the Romans, “We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.  For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.  Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.”  (Romans 6:4–5, 8 ESV)

What Paul says to Timothy he repeats to the Romans, “Now if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him.  (Romans 6: 8, 2 Timothy 2:11 ESV)

Believing is made possible in us, by the Holy Spirit.  Our suffering and death centres us on the eye of the storm, Jesus Christ.   He is the only one who saves us from the storms of life and places us in the tranquillity of his resurrection, in the peaceful presence of our Heavenly Father.

Jesus also so says, “Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword.” (Matthew 10:34 ESV)

There is chaos yet to come, even within our own households!  This should not surprise us since the chaos comes from within each of us.  However, our knowledge of the cyclonic chaos of our sin, revealed and covered by forgiveness, is what stops a believer becoming conceited, keeping one humble!

Because of your sinfulness, there will always be chaos inside and outside the church.  What keeps order is the calmness of Jesus Christ.  Ironically he does this with a sword.  He keeps calmness in the church with the double-edged sword of his word, saving us from the disorder of human words and ideals.  Jesus’ calming word is the silencing word of Law and Gospel.

The cross reveals the reality of the Law and the Gospel.  One who allow the Holy Spirit to bring them to the calmness of Christ, knows his worth and follows.  The person who joyfully takes up the cross discovers they have this newness of life because of the Holy Spirit.   And therefore, willing allows the loss of the old life, their words, and the spirit of the self. 

Losing one’s life to the cross, in this world for Jesus’ sake, one will also find themselves eternally gathered by the Holy Spirit into the calmness of Jesus’ eternal presence, having been delivered from the storms of this life.

Jesus says, “Whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me.  Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” (Matthew 10: 38-39 ESV)

Amen.

A, The Transfiguration of our Lord - Matthew 17:1-9 "Uncovered Glory"

Matthew 17:1–9 (ESV)  And after six days Jesus took with him Peter and James, and John his brother, and led them up a high mountain by themselves.  And he was transfigured before them, and his face shone like the sun, and his clothes became white as light.  And behold, there appeared to them Moses and Elijah, talking with him.  And Peter said to Jesus, “Lord, it is good that we are here. If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.”  He was still speaking when, behold, a bright cloud overshadowed them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.”  When the disciples heard this, they fell on their faces and were terrified.  But Jesus came and touched them, saying, “Rise, and have no fear.”  And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.  And as they were coming down the mountain, Jesus commanded them, “Tell no one the vision, until the Son of Man is raised from the dead.”

My dog loves to get bones.  Unfortunately, because he is part Labrador, he tends to gulp them down, with an expectation that another is coming.  Therefore, we often give him bones that are frozen, so at least he has to work on them longer, so you might say, to get better value for money out of them.

To my dismay, when we give him a frozen bone, he waits till no one is watching, then finds a secret place in the garden to bury it. 

This is a terrible practice. A nice clean bone gets covered in dirt and once retrieved from the ground any meat on it is shrivelled and engrained with grit, often with the addition of meat ants who’ve come to join the festivities.

But it just doesn’t happen with frozen bones.  If the bone is large and he is not finished chewing it, he has to hide it, to keep it for later, so he can enjoy its goodness later on.

Like my dog, Peter sought to cover Jesus, Elijah, and Moses when they were uncovered on the Mountain of Transfiguration.  Perhaps he sought to keep Jesus’ glory covered for later on!

Up on the mountain the figure of Jesus changed.  Strikingly, vividly, and with this change appeared Moses and Elijah speaking with Jesus. 

The three disciples did not understand what was going on. And nor should they!  Not until Jesus had been raised and had ascended into heaven.  Not until the Holy Spirit came at Pentecost giving understanding and knowledge of who Jesus is, and what he did for us in his life and death with them at that time.  Not until his resurrection then ascension to the right hand of the Father for us.

Glowing in all the glory of God, Jesus is the Son of God, radiantly reflecting his holiness which had been hidden within.  God was giving Peter, James, and John, a glimpse of the eternal glory hidden within Jesus’ human body.

Having seen Jesus’ form change into something glorious, Peter pipes up with an idea.  To build shelters for Jesus, Moses, and Elijah.  Just like my dog burying his bone in the dirt, Peter seeks to cover the uncovered through his dirty human effort, to freeze in time the radiance that was now shining from Jesus.

But Peter’s covering was inappropriate.  His tent was not needed and nor could his work of building it contain the glory of God. Jesus was on the wrong mountain, and the time was not right for his work to be nailed into history.

However, God covered Jesus, Moses, Elijah, Peter, James, and John, with the bright cloud of his Word saying, “This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him.” (Matthew 17:5b ESV)

It’s interesting to note that the brilliance of Jesus’ transformation pleased the disciples as Peter says, “Lord, it is good that we are here.  If you wish, I will make three tents here, one for you and one for Moses and one for Elijah.” (Matthew 17:4 ESV)  But when God the Father envelops them with his covering Word, they fell on their faces in overwhelming fear.

God cannot be locked away from us, nor can the Son or the Holy Spirit.  We cannot build a place to hide God within and without God we cannot be uncovered and made free.  In fact, we cannot cover God in love, “we cannot  love God unless we have received the forgiveness of sins.” (Apology of the Augsburg Confession, Art 4:311, Tappet Edition)

Goodness or pleasure are not found in Peter building three coverings, but in God’s pleasure in Jesus Christ and the goodness of God’s Word where we are called to, “listen to him”, “listen to Jesus”!

Now, I like to talk to my dog.  I talk to him most of the time when I am with him.  My daughter thinks talking to my dog is a sign that I have lost my mind.  Maybe she has a point.  I often ask my dog for advice when I am trying to fix or make something at my workbench.  He looks at me, listening with full attention, with his head cocked to the side.  Surprisingly, he does not answer.  The other day I was telling a relative this and he said, “I bet if the dog spoke back to you, you’d drop dead!”

Hopefully unlike my dog, I do listen to God and his Word.  That I don’t act like I’m listening just to have the pleasure of getting a pat.  But that I hear, and in hearing Jesus’ Word, I receive the uncovered glory of God.  In receiving his Word, I allow the Holy Spirit to temple grace, faith, and love for others, within me.  And I respond in kind, with joy, confessing my sin in the protection of God’s covering, showing others that God’s covering shields me from sin and death.  And that they can have this eternal covering too.

Jesus is present with Moses and Elijah transfigured on the mountain.  He stands with the two great men of the Law in the Old Testament.  The Word of God is joined to the Law on the mountain and the experience of the three disciples turns from, “it is good to be here”, to “not good”.  The disciples fell face down with fatal fear, seemingly death was about to touch them.

Yet the touch they felt was not death but that of Jesus.  “Jesus came and touched them, saying, ‘Rise, and have no fear.’  And when they lifted up their eyes, they saw no one but Jesus only.”  (Matthew 17:7–8 ESV)

They left the Mountain of Transfiguration and glory, but Jesus left knowing full well he was on the way to the mountain of disfiguration and goriness, Golgotha, where death would touch him.

Jesus calls you to follow him.  He touches you with his Word, he touches you with the Holy Spirit, so we stop building our own coverings of pleasure that neither protect us from sin nor death.

God has no pleasure in death.  On the Mountain of Transfiguration Jesus stood with the Law men uncovered in glory, but for only a moment, revealing his perfection under the Law.

He took that perfection under the Law and bore your disfiguration on the Mountain of Atonement, at the cross of Calvary.

As we walk through these days, Jesus does not want you to seek your own coverings.  But rather, from him and the Father, the Holy Spirit continually comes to rescue you from the deadly shelters of your own efforts, your own truths, and your own lives. 

The Holy Spirit seeks to cover you with Christ, and in this covering, he smothers to death the human spirit, that seeks to bury and hide your need for forgiveness.  Your human nature continually seeks to cover God’s need for forgiveness with the dirt and grit of your own good and evil.  Such is the dogged nature of us all.

The Holy Spirit covers you in Christ, so you can be transfigured with Christ, so you can be with God the Father in the eternally pleasing place of Paradise.

Amen.

A, The First Sunday after Christmas - Matthew 2:14-16 "The New Israel"

Matthew 2:14–16 (ESV)  And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt  and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”  Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 

The Christmastide infanticide at Bethlehem is a gruesome and horrible picture against the blessed nativity of Jesus.  Herod the Great, the illegal king of Israel, ruthlessly but unsuccessfully seeks to weed out the infant King of Israel threat. 

As Mary and Joseph escape to Egypt, in their wake Herod’s anger and rage brings death to all baby boys born in Bethlehem up to the age of two.  On the twenty-eighth of December, the church commemorates “Holy Innocents”, the children who died at the hand of Herod.  They are martyrs, not because they confessed the name of Jesus and died, but they are the most holy of martyrs because they were murdered in innocence and weakness, suspected as being Jesus the Christ Child, the true King of Israel.

Jesus was born into the danger of weakness and death.  But God protects the Christ-child through Joseph, and they escape to Egypt.  Years later Jesus’ Heavenly Father would allow his innocent Son to be handed over to death on the cross outside Jerusalem at the Passover, Easter.

There is a sense of irony in Jesus’ escape to Egypt, as sixteen hundred years beforehand Egypt is the oppressive place Pharoah had ordered midwives to murder Hebrew children by throwing them into the Nile River.  In that very river baby Moses survives.  The Moses story then comes to a climax sometime later in the tenth plague.  This is when God destroys all first born whose houses do not display Lamb’s blood on the doorposts. 

This would be the first Passover and Pharoah would grant the nation of Israel release from slavery.  Now the King of Israel was being carried by Mary and Joseph back to the land of slavery to escape from Herod’s murderous anger.  It was only after the death of Herod that Jesus and his parents made an exodus out of Egypt.  It was only after the death of Egypt’s firstborn that Moses, Aaron, Joshua, and the twelve tribes of Israel were freed to make that first exodus, sixteen hundred years earlier.

One might think Jesus is a new type of Moses coming out of Egypt.  But Jesus is not just a prophetic leader like Moses, he is not just a priest like Aaron, nor does he just bear the Greek name of the Hebrew, Joshua, which means “Yahweh frees, makes safe, saves”, in that he will save his people as a fighting saviour!

Jesus comes out of Egypt as the New Israel to save Israel.  Not as Moses as prophet, Aaron as priest, or Joshua as a strong and courageous warrior.  Death threatened this fragile human, and death continued to destroy innocence around him. 

Why did Jesus have to be the new Israel?  Why did God allow the death of the innocent?  And for that matter, why does he allow dreadful death to continue today?

This all has to do with anger and time.  The anger of God as a result of humanity’s, and Israel’s inability to follow God.  Secondly, the anger of humanity, collectively and individually, as a result of their refusal to follow God, then its subsequent fear because failure continues through the pursuit of pleasure.  Thirdly, God had to allow for the right time to fulfil his faithful plan of salvation.  We need to wait and trust him for the completion of his plans, the fullness of time!

So, Jesus in the fullness of time, is the completion of Israel.  In Jesus’ exodus out of Egypt he fulfils a faithful exodus, not into freedom but into death and suffering as the Son of Man.  The Son of Salvation, the Servant of Man, the Servant of Salvation, your salvation, Israel’s salvation, and humanity’s salvation!

Why is Jesus the New Israel?  To understand we need to know what the old Israel is to God and to us humans, and how Jesus fulfills his role as the Suffering Servant, the Son of Man.

We now look at God’s anger, humanity’s anger, and time.

Humanity proved they were unable to follow God.  After Adam and eve turned away, Cain, through his parents’ favouritism, also turned away from God, and in jealous anger killed Abel. 

Humanity became completely corrupt in the days of Noah, resulting in God rebirthing the world through the flood.  But even after the flood, humanity continued to challenge God at Babel, from where he dispersed them with the confusion of language.

God then chose to work through one man, Abraham, the father of Israel.  Israel went into slavery in Egypt.  After four hundred years God redeemed them through Moses.  In the wilderness and then in the promised land of Canaan, Israel continued to turn away from God.  God forgave, but the kings, priests, and Israelite people could not keep the Law to the glory of God.  Not even King David, God’s chosen one, was without sin.

Through this period God poured out his anger on Israel when they turned from him.  There was no one righteous, not one.  Only by God’s grace did Israel survive.  The Israelites continued to anger God using the Law to justify and glorify themselves.

The prophet Hosea, after years of corruption in a split kingdom, prophecies a faithful son, a faithful Israel, saying, “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.” (Hosea 11:1 ESV) We hear, today in Matthew’s Gospel, this was fulfilled when Jesus came out of Egypt. 

But Hosea also laments, “The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols.  My people are bent on turning away from me, and though they call out to the Most High, he shall not raise them up at all.” (Hosea 11:2, 7 ESV)

God exiles the northern and southern kingdoms of Israel and Judah and then falls silent for another period of four hundred years.  The anger of the Israelite people festers within.  Its people become more influenced by pagan doctrines.  God’s people had become so turned in on themselves that murder and deception became a regular occurrence within the temple and kingdom authorities.

The people of God became so diabolical, no king was able to be led by God, no priest sought to glorify God, and no prophet spoke on behalf of God.  It was here that the time was right for the New Israel to come out of Egypt.  Israel, embodied in one person, in God the Son, Jesus Christ, the Son and Servant of Man!

We hear, “after Jesus was born in Bethlehem of Judea in the days of Herod the king, behold, wise men from the east came to Jerusalem,  saying, “Where is he who has been born king of the Jews?  For we saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”  When Herod the king heard this, he was troubled, and all Jerusalem with him;  and assembling all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Christ was to be born.”  (Matthew 2:1–4 ESV)

It sounds as though they were caught off guard!  Such is always the case when we are turned in on ourselves.  We fail to realise the reality around us.  Nevertheless, Herod the Great, loathed by the people of Judah because he was not a Jew, was angered and sought to use the Wise Men to find and kill his competition.

This is the world Jesus was born into, and this is the world in which we live today.  In the fulness of time the Son of God became a human,  so that humanity could come to God.  There was no way a king, a prophet, or a priest could raise up Israel or humanity to participate with God to glorify him. 

Jesus became the New Israel to please God but also to bear the brunt of God’s anger against you, me, and humanity.  The anger that we hear so much about in the Old Testament, has now been poured out on the Christ child, in Jesus’ servanthood suffering on the cross.

The anger of humanity that fell, as deathly sin, on those baby boys at Bethlehem suspected as being the New King of Israel, is also carried and set free by Jesus Christ.

We are told of Jesus Christ, the New Israel, that, “For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering.  For he who sanctifies and those who are sanctified all have one source. That is why he is not ashamed to call them brothers”.  (Hebrews 2:10–11 ESV)

And the author of the letter to the Hebrews continues, “Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil,  and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.  For surely it is not angels that he helps, but he helps the offspring of Abraham.  Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.  For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.”   (Hebrews 2:14–18 ESV)

Jesus is your brother, he bears the wrath of God for you, and frees you into innocence and holiness, by his life, death, and resurrection. 

In 2023, life and death will continue, but for those who continue remaining and abiding in Jesus Christ, there is no anger from God, just opportunity for repentance and forgiveness.  And despite the anger of humanity, death, and the devil, God is continuing and will continue to make those holy who suffer and endure by the power of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Amen.

A, Pentecost 10 Proper 14 - Matthew 14:22–33 "Comply and/or Die"

Immediately he made the disciples get into the boat and go before him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowds.  And after he had dismissed the crowds, he went up on the mountain by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone,  but the boat by this time was a long way from the land, beaten by the waves, for the wind was against them.  And in the fourth watch of the night he came to them, walking on the sea.  But when the disciples saw him walking on the sea, they were terrified, and said, “It is a ghost!” and they cried out in fear.  But immediately Jesus spoke to them, saying, “Take heart; it is I. Do not be afraid.”  And Peter answered him, “Lord, if it is you, command me to come to you on the water.”  He said, “Come.” So Peter got out of the boat and walked on the water and came to Jesus.  But when he saw the wind, he was afraid, and beginning to sink he cried out, “Lord, save me.”  Jesus immediately reached out his hand and took hold of him, saying to him, “O you of little faith, why did you doubt?”  And when they got into the boat, the wind ceased.  And those in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (Matthew 14:22–33 ESV)

Sit up children of God and know that the day of salvation is drawing near despite satan raging against the church in these days. Interpret the times to the glory of God and proclaim life in the midst of pandemic death.

These are testing times.  There is no doubt our world is straining under the pressure of affliction at the moment. However in humanity’s struggle what is overlooked is, “why this has come upon us?”

There has been much busyness by governments around the world to stop the virus; to stop the deathly march of covid-19 and to bolster the economies of countries’ financial hopes.  These are testing times.

But why are we being tested?  Who is testing us?  What in each of us is being tested?

You and I are being tested, the children of God are being tested.  The denominations of Christendom are being tested as the turbid waters of these days churn in waves of pandemic flooding the planet.

Peter and the disciples were being tested too.

Why would Jesus force us to get into a boat and sail to “the other side”?

We are told Jesus set them in the boat and then sent them ahead across the lake while he dismissed the crowd.

You must go, it’s time to leave, the five thousand have been fed, and it’s time to be alone in social isolation.

It’s what one does in isolation that tells what one is really like!  What I do when I am alone, what I think about privately and what I desire in secret reveal what a person “is” in the presence of God.   And this is where the testing reveals the result.

In the last couple of weeks as the threat of a second wave of covid-19 threatens to sweep over us and border restrictions are being strengthened with more police and military personnel I thought to myself the military should have guns and enforce the closures with their weapons.  “Comply or die” I mused in the confusion of fear and self glorification lurking within my human spirit.

Contrary to this Jesus seems to force the disciples to cross the border from stability and food and fellowship with the five thousand into the darkness of isolation and waves of death that well up without notice on the Sea of Galilee.

Galilee was known as Galilee of the nations. Likewise the nations of our planet have suddenly been gathered into its own swirling whirlpool of suffering and testing.  And here Jesus tests by sending his disciples into what appears to be satanic seas and a hellish death.  Rather than “comply or die”, it would have seemed that they must “comply and die”.

In their exhaustion after hours of rowing against the wind and the waves, blisters on their hands, the feed of fish and bread long burnt away in their bellies and aching muscles tired beyond sleep, they believed Jesus had left them in social isolation.

You and I along with the rest of humanity always become zealous in socially isolating ourselves from God.  As individuals, as families, as church, as society and country, a human’s greatest desire is to be free from being the reliant creatures God has made us to be.  Yet now we find ourselves in social isolation; we wanted to be all alone and now we’ve got it! 

What St Paul tells the Corinthians, God calls us to hear!  

God chose things that are not, to bring to nothing things that are. (1 Corinthians 1:28 ESV)

Paul also says to the Romans, (God) gives life to the dead and calls into existence the things that do not exist. (Romans 4:17 ESV)

Covid-19 has come from nowhere to everywhere in the blink of an eye.  Covid was nothing to us a year ago and a year later it’s bringing much of our existence to nothing!  On its arrival every god we sought to sustain us is being rendered completely useless and impotent. The human spirit is shaken to its core and it sees itself in the reality of a satanic sea without a saviour.

Then Jesus approaches us in our isolation.  Our reaction is fear.  The “comply or die” judgement we have wished upon others seems to have ensnared us.  We have become slaves to the oars of our own efforts; enslaved to the gods of our social loneliness.  Has our kingdom come?  Are we receiving the wages for what we’ve done?  What will this phantom do who approaches us through the winds and the waves?  We know we have never fully complied.  In our selfish isolation will he make us now die? 

Jesus speaks to us in his Word?  “Sit up child of God!  Take courage children of God. I speak from my Word!  Have I got your attention?  I am your Saviour, do not fear.”  Return! Listen to God’s Word.  Pray for the Holy Spirit; don’t trust your human spirit! 

It’s right here Jesus takes the “comply or die” of the human spirit and turns it on its head.  It’s no longer the snare trapping us in our kingdom of social isolation and fear which waves and churns within.  God is calling from without saying, “Come!”  Step out from your human spirited kingdom into mine.

Jesus’ invitation to Peter was a call to “Comply AND die”.  So Peter steps out of the boat but as soon as he does his human spirit doesn’t want to die and he doubts; he two faces himself!  Trusting not in the face of Jesus rather he once again sees his reflection in his sea of social isolation from Jesus and begins to sink.

The more Peter tries to save himself the more he falls into the deadliness of his situation.  The more I try to comply with my own desires, the more it kills! This not only affects me but all others I have been called to serve.  Not only do I fall into a sea of suffering I pull everyone else in around me too.

But Jesus’ call to “comply and die” is not compliance with the self!  It’s compliance with him and his Word.  Having been tested we realise we’re nothing without him, and the hope we place in ourselves is a dead hope.  But in complying with Jesus we’re called to die and as we do we cry out to our only true hope, “Lord save me!”

Jesus reached out his hand and saved Peter and those within the boat.  They worshipped him as the Son of God.  Jesus was opening their eyes to his kingdom.  Not a kingdom of laws and compliance from death, but rather a kingdom which called them to put to death faith in themselves and trust in the King who saves from death through death.

Our human spirit, governments all around the word, and satan call for compliance OR die.  Fear is not far from us in these times of turbulence on this pandemic planet.  But Jesus has complied and in doing so he also died.  He calls us to comply and die.  Comply with him which frees us to die to self.

Despite our social isolation, when we die to self, when we allow the Holy Spirit to daily drown the human spirit Jesus brings you into compliance with his kingdom.  And this is a good kingdom with a good end.

Just as Jesus said to Peter in the boat, “Take courage, it is I! Come!” Jesus says to you “Behold, I am coming soon. Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book.”(Revelation 22:7 ESV)

As we in the world are tested for Covid-19, God tests his children with his Word saying, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near.  Let the evildoer still do evil, and the filthy still be filthy, and the righteous still do right, and the holy still be holy.”  “Behold, I am coming soon, bringing my recompense with me, to repay each one for what he has done.  I am the Alpha and the Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end.”  Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life and that they may enter the city by the gates. (Revelation 22:10–14 ESV)

The Spirit and the Bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who desires take the water of life without price. (Revelation 22:17 ESV)

Jesus says, “Surely I am coming soon.” Amen. Come, Lord Jesus!  The grace of the Lord Jesus be with all. Amen. (Revelation 22:20–21 ESV) 

A, Christmas Eve/Christmas Day Titus 2:11-14 "SOS: Message of the Bible"

“For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age, waiting for our blessed hope, the appearing of the glory of our great God and Saviour Jesus Christ, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness and to purify for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.” (Titus 2:11–14, ESV)

Grace mercy and peace to you from our Lord Jesus Christ, who has appeared and will appear again at the time our Father in heaven has designated. Amen.

It’s no easy thing for us to wait. Waiting for Christmas to come, waiting for it to go, perhaps? Waiting for the glory of God to appear once again as it did some two thousand years ago! Waiting for the salvation of God to be finished, fulfilled, taking all our fears and tears away once and for all.

What kind of Christmas have we made for ourselves? One might ask, “What kind of salvation are we really looking for? What are we actually waiting for? Is Jesus really the reason for the season of Christmas 2016?”

One thing for sure, our whole world, our local community is tired. Tired of what we have made Christmas as we wait for it to come. And wait for it to leave as the hangover of Boxing Day sets in amongst the flotsam and jetsam of gifts that continue us in the tiredness of this age, with all the wrapping and rubbish in which we garb ourselves for a bit of self serve salvation.

Like me; you, your family, your friends, the community, and the world is tired. This tiredness is the result of a world sailing further and further away from that which promises to give us true rest. Not just from waiting, but from having waited for, and received, what we’ve wanted.

And so desire has given us its gift and now we’re tired; tired of living with what we truly love. But perhaps to those whom God has appeared this tiredness is not such a bad thing. Our tiredness has made us aware of our sin! We’ve been awakened! The gifts we seek no longer satisfy. We’ve come to realise the worldly self help we’ve sought to enlist is really dragging us under.

It’s right here in our tiredness and in the realisation of failed worldly salvation that the all-encompassing graciousness and faithfulness of our Heavenly Father comes to the fore, and shines, despite our continual faithlessness. For those who have been baptised into Christ Jesus, the message of Christmas, and the whole message of Jesus Christ, is still alive and well, despite our human desires, good and bad!

In amongst the noise and distraction of today, just as in the days the star shone over Bethlehem, God appears. Humbly, quietly, lowly, and graciously God was with humanity; and is still with humanity today! In amongst all the things we want, but tires us to despair, God sends salvation. Even today in our tired world and our tired hearts he sends salvation.

But we are called to hear something very unexpected in the Christmas message, and the whole gospel message. Something subtle and counter cultural which is often over looked or taken for granted!

The unexpected is this: God himself saves.

When we realise we’re castaways, that there’s no more life in us; not even enough energy, or sense, to send a message in a bottle that may never be found, God himself sends the SOS. Waiting till we can wait no longer wait, tired beyond exhaustion, swamped in the self and shipwrecked; we no long have to worry, “Will God get my SOS; will someone get my message in a bottle?”

Human nature thinks it has to save itself, like a castaway putting a message in a bottle, or scratching out an SOS on the beach. But good news for those who are tired and exhausted on brink of despair; God sends the SOS, God is the SOS.

But when God sending us his SOS, our human natures respond in a very strange way! This is you and I still try to live like we’re on a deserted island, keep our wrecked reality hidden and therefore alive, not realising we all struggle with the same sin of separation as every other person God rescues. Yes! For whatever reason human nature seeks to hang onto the sin that keeps us in separation from each other and eventually leads back into separation from God. Even within each of us who know of God’s love revealed in Jesus Christ, there’s the temptation to fight the SOS of God.

Now we add to our tiredness more tiredness by hiding our sin like it’s a treasure buried in the sand. But it’s a vulgar treasure we return to when we think no one’s watch, like a dog that returns to its vomit. We become tired from redigesting the very thing that made us tired in the first place.

And if we’re not exhausted enough already, we make ourselves even more tired with the charade of keeping up appearances, pretending not to be toters and touters of the very treasures that tire.

So that’s a trilogy of tiredness: Tired from sin, tired from trying to keep our sins hidden, and tired from pretending that sin doesn’t exist in our lives.

But let the reality be clear. See what the singer sees...

Walked out this morning

Don't believe what I saw

A hundred billion bottles

Washed up on the shore

Seems I'm not alone at being alone

A hundred billion castaways

Looking for a home

And we continue to send and seek our own SOS, as Sting from the Police once sung...

I'll send an SOS to the world

I'll send an SOS to the world

I hope that someone gets my

I hope that someone gets my

I hope that someone gets my

Message in a bottle

However, the gift of the Immanuel infant, the SOS Christ child, gives us a new home. He’s given to fight the very cause of our tiredness and trouble, he is given training us to renounce ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self-controlled, upright, and godly lives in the present age. He is given to gather us for himself a people for his own possession who are zealous for good works.

Good Works when where tired! So what are these good works? Well the good work that precedes all good works is that of believing. In Jesus ministry he was asked...

“What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.” (John 6:28–29, ESV)

In fact when we work at believing, by hearing God’s word, studying it, allowing ourselves to be immersed in it we are allowing the Holy Spirit to bring to fruition all the good works God has prepared for us in advance to do.

Right here the SOS is continued, not by us, but in the same way God the Father sent Jesus to be our SOS. Both God the Father and the risen Jesus send the Holy Spirit to continue the work of salvation. The SOS continues! Not from what we do! But because we allow God access into ourselves; into the castaway!

And so the Holy Spirit brings us to the Father and the Son as a people, his people, gathered and redeemed from all lawlessness, and is actively purifying us as his own eternal possession. Our gift of salvation, God’s SOS, becomes one of life welling up in us to eternal life, even in the weariness of our age and the struggles of our day to day lives.

This leads us to the second work of God, the work of confessing our sin. We now no longer have to weary ourselves keeping up false impressions. Rather we can confess that which tires.

“If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us. If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us.” (1 John 1:8–10, ESV)

See how the cycle of God works? Grace leads to grace, God’s good work leads to God’s good work in us, and through us. We are a bunch of castaways in communion, in community, and in fellowship tired from the same sinful natures, tired from the same sin in the world. Tired from the trilogy of sin that drags us under!

We believe we are sinners, we believe we are sinners being saved. It is peculiar to the human nature that God brings us into fellowship with each other, and does not separate us because of our sin. Yet even more than being brought into fellowship with each other, we are brought into fellowship with Jesus Christ, son of Mary, but also Son of God. A fellowship not born out of a baby’s cuteness but born for the fellowship of rescued sinners borne on the cross!

So the third good work is the Holy Spirit’s work of fellowship, allowing us to serve each other. Jesus Christ extends his great work through us to each other, so we might shine Christ to each other; hearing confession, praying and bearing the weakness and tiredness which Jesus bore as well.

The power of our fellowship is not us appearing powerful, but in allowing God to be powerful in his continual conquering of our weakness as a fellowship, and as individual sinners too. Hear the word of God from James 5...

“Is anyone among you suffering? Let him pray. Is anyone cheerful? Let him sing praise. Is anyone among you sick? Let him call for the elders of the church, and let them pray over him, anointing him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer of faith will save the one who is sick, and the Lord will raise him up. And if he has committed sins, he will be forgiven. Therefore, confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person has great power as it is working.
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins.” (James 5:13–16, 19-20, ESV)

So in summary, we all suffer at the hand of our own sin. The noise of it makes us tired. However, Jesus is sent from God the Father to be our SOS, and the Holy Spirit continues the SOS by gathering us together with each other with Jesus Christ.

This SOS is not something we throw out as a message in a bottle with the hope of maybe being rescued. No! This SOS comes as the message of the bible, pointing us to God and what he does and continues to do.

Calling us out of doubt and the tiredness of our lives into the living promises of true salvation through Jesus’ death and resurrection!

The beginning of the story is wonderful and greatBut it's the ending that can save you and that's why we celebrate
It's about the cross it's about my sinIt's about how Jesus came to be born once
So that we could be born again
It's about God's love nailed to a treeIt's about every drop of blood that flowed from
Him when it should have been me
It's about the stone That was rolled away
So that you and I could have real life somedayIt's about the cross (Ball Brothers, It’s about the cross)

A, Lent 5 - John 11:17-27 "Resurrection Standing"

On his arrival, Jesus found that Lazarus had already been in the tomb for four days. 18 Bethany was less than two miles from Jerusalem, 19 and many Jews had come to Martha and Mary to comfort them in the loss of their brother. 20 When Martha heard that Jesus was coming, she went out to meet him, but Mary stayed at home.

21 “Lord,” Martha said to Jesus, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died. 22 But I know that even now God will give you whatever you ask.” 23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.” 24 Martha answered, “I know he will rise again in the resurrection at the last day.”

25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; 26 and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this?” 27 “Yes, Lord,” she told him, “I believe that you are the Christ, the Son of God, who was to come into the world.” (John 11:17-27)

Just two weeks prior to Easter Sunday, the day we celebrate the resurrection of our Lord, it is fitting to look at what resurrection is and what it does. The texts for today, the fifth Sunday in Lent, give us opportunity to examine resurrection; which is, the act of being raised to life.

We use the word resurrection for many things in this earthly life. Such as parents resurrecting things after their little children have been at them, especially things like books or toys that get broken through harsh treatment. Or one only has to imagine what would need resurrecting if a two year old is let free with an ink marker or lipstick when no one’s around.

But then we might speak of resurrection when restoring something. One might resurrect trees, plants, crops, or even homes after a wild storm. Perhaps resurrection might happen when one takes the time to repair or revive an old motor, a piece of machinery or furniture. Perhaps it’s a business after bankruptcy or a political career that receives resurrection. Whatever it might be receiving resurrection, the fact is — it is brought back to life and has been caused to stand as it once stood.

Notice with everything one might resurrect, it needs someone or something else to cause the resurrection; to make it stand, or go, or work again. And when things are brought back to life these objects stand or exist to do what the one resurrecting wants them to do. But if the object resurrected doesn’t do what it’s meant it usually ends up on the scrap heap, or back on the workbench because its resurrection was not complete the first time. Perhaps the thing is still in the process of resurrection.

Even actively living things like plants, crops, or trees when resurrected, do what they were originally intended to do. So too, do living organisms like businesses or political careers! Although they are living, they re-stand where they once stood, caused to do so by an exterior influence.

So resurrection is to re-erect, or caused to re-stand once again. And it’s no difference when we focus on the resurrection of Jesus, and all who ever since have placed there faith in Jesus Christ, and live their lives as his resurrected ones. Jesus’ death and resurrection is all about God’s plan to have us resurrected to re-stand and remain standing in peace with him.

The texts before us today all speak about living lives as the resurrected children of God. And being resurrected as his children we live in the hope that we too will receive the eternal resurrection into his heavenly glory at our death.

In Psalm 130 the psalmist says, “If you, O Lord, kept a record of sins, O Lord, who could stand?” What is being said here is that sin must be punished with death before God. Sin knocks us down so we cannot stand. So there’s a yearning for resurrection here, and the next line of the Psalm tells us where the resurrection or the ability and strength to stand comes from, “but with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared.” It comes from the Lord through forgiveness.

Therefore, we live every day, resurrected by the power of God the Holy Spirit, who has come to us through water and the Word. In baptism we are daily reconnected with Christ who gives this forgiveness won at the cross. In our sin we are the dry bones in the desolate valley, and now the Word made flesh gives us flesh and life by the Spirit. We’re resurrected and caused to stand by Christ, and now we’re called to remain standing with the aid of a crutch, namely, faith in Christ and the cross. When we throw this crutch away thinking we can stand by ourselves, we become guilty of insurrection, which is a sinister selfish uprising. And when we do we’re worth about as much as the dry bones in Ezekiel chapter thirty-seven.

In fact, it was humanity’s insurrection in the first place that brought the need for our resurrection. In Romans eight Paul talks about our insurrection, our seeking to stand by ourselves, as being hostile towards God. But he goes on to address our need of resurrection and continued restoration by the Holy Spirit who also raised our Saviour, Jesus Christ, from death.

…if Christ is in you, your body is dead because of sin, yet your spirit is alive because of righteousness. And if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies through his Spirit, who lives in you. (Romans 8:10-11)

Further to this we are like Lazarus. Jesus loved Lazarus and his sisters; he loves you too. But we like Lazarus are dead in ourselves. There is nothing we can do to resurrect ourselves day after day in our lives leading to death. In fact, our deathliness is such that our bodies have the same ability to save themselves as did Lazarus’ four day old blue and bloated body. Therefore, it’s to God’s glory that each day our lives are resurrected from the death our sinfulness deserves.

Having been raised in baptism, and having had the bandages of death removed daily so we can stand re-erected before God, God now calls us to live as children of the resurrection. He calls us to turn from all insurrection of crediting ourselves through our own merits.

Jesus now calls us to live and believe he is the sole agent of resurrection, since he tells us in his word ‘I am the resurrection and the life’. Our believing, our faith, our trust, is none other than standing and remaining in what the Holy Spirit placed us in and placed in us; that is, Jesus’ death and resurrection standing up outstretched in us, displaying all the forgiveness of the Father.

You will stand because Jesus is able to make you stand. In fact you are standing, and have stood, only because Christ is standing resurrected in you.

So stand firm, you are in the process of being resurrected. Therefore, be resolute in your resurrection, confess and flee your insurrection, and consider Jesus Christ who is faithfully ever-present saying, “Listen! I am standing at the door, knocking; if you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me. To the one who conquers I will give a place with me on my throne, just as I myself conquered and sat down with my Father on his throne. Let anyone who has an ear listen to what the Spirit is saying to the churches.” (Revelation 3:20-22) Amen.