C, Midweek Lent 4 - The Lord's Prayer #5 - Matthew 6:10b,12 "Forgiving us in Heaven"

 Your will be done in heaven – Forgive us our sins

Tonight, and next week we focus on the petitions “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” and “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us”.

We will split these petitions into two parts, as we peel off another layer of the Lord’s Prayer, to see how the Holy Spirit brings us to the Father, through Jesus Christ, as the gap is bridged between our evil and the Father’s holiness.  And next week, we will examine God’s will on earth being done when we forgive each other.

But first a clarification in the word order of the text.   The English translation does not help us much with the progression of the Greek text, which actually reads, “Let become the will of you, as is in heaven also on earth.”  In the English text, God’s will on earth comes before his will in heaven.

However, the Greek version of the forgiveness petition reads much the same as the English, reading, “And send off (or forgive) to us the debts (or sins) of us, as also we have sent off (forgiven) the debtors (sinners) of us.” 

Therefore, tonight we focus on God’s relationship with us.  Theologically speaking, here we are dealing with God’s will being done in the vertical.  This is how he repairs the breach between himself and us, so we can have a relationship with him as our loving Father.

In our society today everything is geared to encourage us to follow what’s pleasing to us.   God’s will is what pleases him.  So, what does God want from us?  Or better asked, why are we here on earth?  What is our purpose, why do we exist? 

Today we have a society in deep depression over these very questions.  Left to our own efforts, understanding and feelings, we look into ourselves and see foolishness and despair.  Society lives not knowing what or why it lives.  It also dies not knowing why it dies, where it’s going, or why it’s going to experience death.  Faithlessness and hopelessness, is leaving many to question their purpose, leading to fatalistic living and chaotic dying, in the darkest possible way.

When one looks into their heart, they see what Jesus says comes out of the heart, and they see they are defiled by the commonality of their humanity. 

Jesus says, “What comes out of a person is what defiles him.  For from within, out of the heart of man, come evil thoughts, sexual immorality, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, sensuality, envy, slander, pride, foolishness.  All these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” (Mark 7:20–23 ESV)

Many are pleased with these things in their lives.  But when the things that please, no longer please, many lose hope rather than turn to what pleases God the Father.

So, what pleases our Father?  Last week we heard that his kingdom is coming, and we need to be led away from all kingdoms that tempt us away from his kingdom coming to us.

It pleases God when his kingdom comes to us, and we are not tempted to believe otherwise.  When we come into his kingdom, we get back what humanity lost in the garden of Eden.  We get our relationship with God, so we can once again receive from him and worship him for doing so.

In our humanity there is no way we will ever come to the decision that we need to receive from God and glorify him and worship him to fulfil our function or purpose as humans living on this earth.  Rather we are without fear in God, without trust in God, and are overcome by desires to please ourselves.  However, God the Father is pleased to come to us and implement his will of forgiveness amongst us.

It pleases God to come to us through the perfection of Jesus Christ who completes the fulfilment of the Law.  Not only does it please the father but it also pleases Jesus Christ, whom we are told in the book of Hebrews, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God”.  (Hebrews 12:2 ESV)

Jesus’ joy was to please his Father.  We hear testimony of this when, in the Garden of Gethsemene, he prayed, “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)

It was Jesus’ joy to take the blame for that which is our shame.  Likewise, even while suffering horrendous pain from the injuries that would lead him to suffocate and die a torturous death, Jesus said to his accusers and killers, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” (Luke 23:34 ESV)

And to the criminal who rightly was suffering for his crime, and said to the other crucified criminal who railed at Jesus, “‘Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.’  And he said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’  And he said to him, ‘Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise.’”  (Luke 23:40–43 ESV)

Jesus came to fulfil the will of God.  As the Apostle John says, “He came to his own, and his own people did not receive him.  But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God,  who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.  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 1:11–14 ESV)

God’s will is to forgive us through Jesus Christ.  When he does this the vertical relationship is restored.  Jesus fulfils the first table of the Law, the first three commandments from the Ten Commandments. 

It was Jesus’ pleasure to have no other Gods than our Father in heaven.  It was Jesus’ pleasure to glorify God’s name and not use it in vain.  Instead, he was faithful unto death.  And Jesus kept the Sabbath holy in his life and in his death.  Jesus did this in joy, it was our Father’s will, and this pleased our Father in heaven!

God is pleased to forgive.   God the Father does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked. 

 Through the prophet Ezekiel, God tells the exiled Jews three times, he hates death, saying, “Have I any pleasure in the death of the wicked, declares the Lord GOD, and not rather that he should turn from his way and live?” (Ezekiel 18:23 ESV)

“For I have no pleasure in the death of anyone, declares the Lord GOD; so turn, and live.” (Ezekiel 18:32 ESV)

“Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel?”  (Ezekiel 33:11 ESV)

God wants nothing more than to forgive you and bless you with his presence.  Jesus has come down Jacob’s ladder and gives us access to God, by being lifted up on the cross.  This is the vertical reconciliation and God calls you to believe it.

He does not want us to try building towers to him.  Humanity has tried this before and still God had to come down and see what was going on at Babel.

Now we are reunited as one language in Jesus Christ.  The Holy Spirit showers us with Pentecostal blessings.  Now, you and I, can stand together, before God the Father believing, and receiving from him, the forgiveness of our sin.

We can ask our Abba, Father, praying, “Your will be done, not my will!  Forgive me my sin, help me to believe I am forgiven, and need not try to earn my forgiveness.”

We now live in the knowledge of Jesus Christ! Our purpose is restored.  We can praise our Father in his kingdom, for his power and glory!

This is God’s good and gracious will and it pleases him when we know who we were created to be and do, what he created us to do.  Amen.

Next week we focus on our horizontal relationships when we forgive each other through the freedom given in Jesus’ forgiveness of us and how the Holy Spirit makes the Father’s will, our will.

C, Lent 4 - 2 Corinthians 5:16-21, "Ambassadors for Christ"

 2 Corinthians 5:16-21   From now on, therefore, we regard no one according to the flesh.  Even though we once regarded Christ according to the flesh, we regard him thus no longer.  Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation.  The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.  All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; that is, in Christ God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation.  Therefore, we are ambassadors for Christ, God making his appeal through us.  We implore you on behalf of Christ, be reconciled to God.  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.

When the prodigal son returned home the father runs out to receive him.  The younger wayward son who formerly treated his father as dead, comes home, and the father celebrates saying to the older son, “It was fitting to celebrate and be glad, for this your brother was dead, and is alive; he was lost, and is found.”

In Saint Paul’s second letter to the Corinthians, he says we are, “Ambassadors for Christ”.  He also says because we no longer regard Christ in the flesh, we are to regard anyone in Christ as a new creation.  He says,  “The old has passed away; behold, the new has come.” (2 Corinthians 5:17)

However, being honest with myself here in this text, I struggle!  I see many of my Christian brothers and sisters, and behold, I fail to see the newness of Christ in them.  I don’t see them as new creations, but as the same old, same old, as my inner being grates against the grain of their personality. 

I might tolerate them trying not to be rude to them, but in God’s word I am called to be reconciled to them, as Christ has been reconciled to them.  How can I be reconciled to them when all I want to do is distance myself from them?  The longer I stand in their presence the greater the risk is of me opening my mouth and causing greater separation.

How am I to be an ambassador for Christ, when within the depts of my being, I seek to rid myself of those I really do not want to be around?

Alternatively, there are those with whom I really love sharing my time!  I welcome the opportunity to have experiences with them, sitting around, chewing the fat in friendly fellowship.  I yearn for a repeat of good times with them, as I have had with them in the past.

But even here, if I am honest, has nothing to do with being an ambassador for Christ.  I don’t want change according to Jesus Christ, for the benefit of Jesus Christ!  I want sameness for myself!  I would rather be one of those proverbial birds of a feather, flocking together.  Perhaps I believe there is safety in numbers, or in familiar surrounds, company, or like-mindedness.

So, what is it that I actually want?   What is it that I’m seeking?  What is it that I really want to worship?

What I do find is a fundamental, deep desire to trust only in myself.  I assess things by way of my reason or thoughts.  My feelings fill me with a spirit of what I believe to be good or bad.  So, I look at the deeds of others and measure them according to what I think best for me.

Like the older brother in the parable, so often I do not act as a true ambassador.  I don’t see anything new with my brothers and sisters in Christ.  I see the same old garbage, I hear the same old, I, I, I, prattle, and “I” feel the self-serving desire to distance myself.

So, the question I ask myself, what actually is an ambassador?  I need to look more into what reconciliation is, or how being reconciled works.  I realise I am so weak!  I need the Holy Spirit to open God’s word in my heart!  I need a new spirit because my human spirit wants nothing more than to silence that which I find annoying, it wants my word to be the last word.

The first thing we can examine is, our Heavenly Father’s love.  Like the father’s love in the parable of the prodigal son, God’s love has nothing to do with any one’s ability to love him back.  God’s love is not conditional on what we do or do not do.  

God’s love “is”, it just is!  It exists and streams from his being to all without prejudice or favour.  Our Father in heaven’s love is impartial and it flows to all people through Jesus Christ, regardless of their faithfulness to him or their rejection of him.

My love, however, struggles with partiality and prejudice.  My love is given conditionally to those to whom I know will return it to me in kind. 

As a Christian, as one who is freely given God’s love of forgiveness, God expects me to learn through lived experience, the reason I receive his love has nothing whatsoever to do with my performance.  I am a being created by God, to be loved by God, despite what “I am and do” as a child of fallen humanity.

This puts me in the same position as those who had knowledge of God through his Word, in Jesus’ day.  I am the same as those who had access to God through the Law and the Prophets of the Old Testament.  The teachers of the law, the scribes, the Pharisees, the Sadducees, the militant Zealots, and the everyday faithful Jewish mothers and fathers are the same as you and me. 

They are the elders of Judaism and the Law.  We, are the elders or seniors of Christianity.  Therefore, we are ambassadors of forgiveness and renewal through Jesus keeping the Law.  We are ambassadors of Christianity because we continually receive the reconciling work of the Holy Spirit. 

The word ambassador in the Greek is presbuteros, and means elder or a representative, and it’s from where we get the word presbyter or presbyterian.

The elder brother in the parable should have stepped in to stop his brother leaving and functioned as mediator between his father and the younger son.  Similarly, we, as elder brothers in the Christian faith, who’ve knowledge of Jesus Christ and experience the forgiveness of our sinful nature and deeds, should likewise, be merciful ambassadors or presbyters.

However, it’s easier for us to be more like the elder brother in the parable.  We grumble against our brother receiving love and mercy from the father, rather than celebrate the new life and sonship the father has lavished on his child who has been redressed and recovered by his love.

There are a number of issues needing to be addressed with us, as the elder brothers.  My sin separates me in just the same way as my wayward brother.  I have received the same reconciliation as my brother because of my Heavenly Father’s love.  And I do not determine the time frame or parameters for forgiveness, lest I exclude myself from being redressed or recovered by my own deluded decisions.

The sins one does, are not a sign that one has become a sinner, but that one always was a corrupt sinner, and all people need to be recovered by God’s love and forgiveness.  Therefore, the covering of sinfulness begins in baptism and is an ongoing event, worked by the Holy Spirit every day of one’s life.

Apples fall from apple trees, and oranges from orange trees!  The fruit that falls from the tree does not make the tree!  Fruit can identify what the tree is, but the tree is, what it is, regardless of it producing fruit or not.  Similarly, sinners produce sin.  The being of a sinner is their being, irrespective of them sinning or not.  You are a human being, being human, regardless of what you do!

However, this does not justify us, doing despicable human things!  This is not permission to keep sinning, but instead it’s a lesson in God’s compassion, forgiveness, and love.  It’s here we have an opportunity to look intently at Jesus Christ and see our sin, what it did to him, and learn from it.  We also look at Jesus Christ and see his righteousness, what it has done for us, and learn from this as well.  We see the being of Jesus, as a human being, being and doing what we were originally created to  be and do.

This is a crucial lesson learnt as ambassadors for Christ.  If each of us don’t learn from our sins and experience of God’s mercy and forgiveness, we end up being ambassadors against Christ.  You and I become ambassadors for ourselves.   Our hair might go grey, and age might set in on our faces, but an ambassador of oneself, will remain a spiritual baby having not learnt a thing from life in Christ’s forgiveness.

This is why Saint Paul implores and pleads for the Corinthians to be reconciled to Jesus Christ.  To stop being infants of the faith, continuing in sin, without learning about themselves from it, and its forgiveness, to trust and follow Jesus. 

We are people who know our human nature and spirit and rely on the covering of Christ with his Holy Spirited nature.  Paul pleads and prays, “be forgiven, forgiving, sinners!”

Yet here I am, day in day out, still struggling to let the Holy Spirit, to see my brothers and sisters in Christ as new creations.   When I fail to see them as new creations, I fail to see myself as a sinner needing daily forgiveness!

However, the Holy Spirit works in us the ability to see we need a Saviour.  We need a big brother who is the true Ambassador, and this Ambassador is Jesus Christ.  Jesus is the Ambassador!  The Ambassador of all true ambassadors, the Reconciler of all faithful reconcilers!  The Holy Spirit brings us to the Ambassador’s embassy, the tent embassy, the temple embassy of his body on the cross.

Jesus Christ is a true elder brother!   Not me, not you, the pharisees, nor anyone else can be this elder brother as Jesus is.  He is the perfect reflection of our heavenly Father’s love. He is the Mediator, and he is the Reconciler.

So, we see in ourselves traits of the prodigal son and the pharisaic older brother, what can we do?  We run to the true elder brother to cover and reconcile us to our Father.   

We hear the Word of God in Psalm thirty-two and see the wisdom of the Father’s love, Jesus’ faithfulness, and the Holy Spirit’s work in our continual reconciliation and forgiveness. We pray to our Father, knowing from the bitter experiences of our sin that we are surrounded by his steadfast love!

I uncover my guilt and acknowledge my sin.  The Holy Spirit leads me to say, “I will confess my sins to the Lord”.  And I know that he promises to forgive the iniquity of my sin!  I hear the promise of Jesus’ presence so the rush of great waters, my great sin, will not overcome me. I know I am blessed, my transgressions are forgiven, and the sins I cannot cover, are covered by Jesus!  

You and I are delivered, forgiven, and covered.   The Holy Spirit is our counsellor, teacher, and instructor.  He reconciles us into Jesus Christ and enables us to be ambassadors for Jesus Christ.  Amen.

C, Midweek Lent 3 - The Lord's Prayer #4 - Matthew 6:10a,13a "Lead us into Your Coming Kingdom"

Matthew 6:10a,13a   Your kingdom come … Lead us not into temptation.

After our Father in heaven has shown us his holiness, made us holy, and sent us back out into his world, having been made holy by the blood of Jesus, we go with the promise that God’s kingdom is coming. 

What a beautiful promise we have, despite all the transient kingdoms of this world, an eternal imperishable kingdom that’s coming by God’s gracious mercy and will, to all who believe in him.

In actual fact, his kingdom has already come to us, it is coming to us, and it will come to us as promised. 

Our Father’s heavenly kingdom has come to us through Jesus’ death and resurrection.  His kingdom has come to us, through the water and the word of our baptism into Christ the King’s death and resurrection.

The kingdom daily comes to us through the word of God as the Holy Spirit deposits the kingdom within us and guards it for Jesus’ and our sake.  And because we have received the kingdom by the work of Jesus at the cross, and the work of the Holy Spirit bringing us to Jesus, we can call on our Father, just like a little child runs with open trusting arms, to his or her daddy.

Because the kingdom of God is with us, in us, and eternally around us, we can tell our Father all things with which we need help, both good and bad.  We have no need of fear of rejection when we confess to him all our failures, looking for forgiveness for all disasters we have brought on ourselves and others.

The kingdom of God will also come to us in the future.  We live with the promise that God’s kingdom is coming, despite having to travel the way of death, as a result of sin.  But the promise for us, is that the death we will experience, won’t be a death of eternal separation from God, but one in which we will be transformed into holy heavenly beings. 

What that is we do not exactly know.  But we wait with eager expectations knowing that the old, will be done away with and finished.  We will see Jesus in all his glory, and we will see ourselves for whom God originally intended us to be.  You will see the new you, that which for now, God has hidden within the sinfulness of your human flesh.  All who have died trusting in Christ will see their completion in Christ, which even now the Holy Spirit is depositing within.

Our Father’s kingdom is holy.  He is holy in his kingdom.  We are made holy for his kingdom, we are being made holy for his kingdom, and we will be made holy for his kingdom.  At this point in time, we know and live in holiness by faith, and in hope we look forward to our holiness being revealed, once our earthly death strips us of our sinful nature.

Coupled within the Lord’s prayer, place alongside the promise of the heavenly Father’s coming kingdom, is the plea for us not to be led into temptation.  These temptations are temptations to seek, find, or build for ourselves different kingdoms as well as being deceived into believing God’s kingdom is not for us, or not coming for us.

The petitions, “your kingdom come” and, “lead us not into temptation”, are petitions for the working week. 

As we go to work on Monday we pray “your kingdom come”.  We go to work each new week with the will, not to work for ourselves a contrary kingdom, to the kingdom of God.   But we go bearing the kingdom of God, so others might see something different in us, and we might be given the opportunity to be the conduit, through which God’s kingdom can come to them.

But we also go, knowing because God is giving us his kingdom,  he also sends the Holy Spirit with us, to lead us.  We go out from God’s house each week with faith.  Not our faith!  But faith given by the Holy Spirit, faith in Jesus Christ having been raised from the dead, who now sits at the right hand of God the Father in his kingdom.  This faith comes from hearing the word of God.  Therefore, the kingdom also comes when we hear the word of God!

We go out into the kingdoms of this world knowing, like Jesus, we will encounter many trials and temptations.  But as we go, we do so, praying for him to lead us.  We are being led out from God’s house in faith, knowing our destination is back in God’s house next week, where we once again will be rested and restored, fed, and forgiven.

There is a temptation that God’s kingdom is not coming which lead many to live a fast life of working for the weekend.  This kingdom usually ends in hangover, but worse it also leads to fatalism, violence both sexual and physical, depression, self-destruction, community chaos, emptiness, and hopelessness.

The faith with which we go out, is also intertwined with hope, because of the father’s love for us.  Faith gives us the means to live with Christ in our day to day lives.  Likewise, hope helps us to die with Jesus, in our day to day lives. 

When there is no hope in Jesus, humanity is ultimately overcome with the hopelessness of death.  But the sinful self, seeks to trust in its own blind principles, and impotent powers.  The old Adam is constantly wooed and seduced by the powers and principles of the world.  Behind this is the devil with all his powers and principalities.

So, when God seeks to kill things in us like pride, self-righteousness, vain glory from our goodness, lust, jealousy, hatred, greed, and other passions of the flesh, the old Adam within, the human spirit, fights against God killing these things. 

The old Adam is overcome by temptations of the things God seeks to kill within us.  Through enticement by the world, and the devil, the old Adam is led to choose kingdoms of its own doing, while rejecting the one holy kingdom of God.

However, all contrary kingdoms to God’s coming kingdom, are houses of cards.  They are thinly veiled kingdoms of hopelessness.  But the devil knows, if he keeps us in the darkness of this deception, our hopelessness will become eternal.  Our hope in false kings and fake kingdoms will take us to death but not through it!

For us, though, we go out into the kingdoms of this world in faith, bearing Christ to a world that’s losing its hope.  You and I are a “faithful presence” of God’s kingdom coming to those who need God’s kingdom, but for whatever reason are not receiving it. 

We are those who are being led from temptation, into repentance, through forgiveness, and into the coming kingdom.  We are witnesses of weakness, demonstrating the hope we have, through the daily deaths we suffer, where we allow ourselves to die, day by day, for Jesus to live in us, and through us.

We endure deaths like, aging, loss of abilities and confidences, bearing of false witness against us, slander, bullying, rejection, loss of property, depression, and destitution.  We also suffer when we recognise the poverty of our spirit, so we can confess our sin.  All kingdoms must die so we can see God’s kingdom coming in all its power and glory.

Finally, our physical death comes too.  But this is the final glorious coming of the Father’s kingdom for those who have allowed the Holy Spirit to drown them in the death of Jesus Christ and raise them to a new life in Jesus Christ’s resurrection over death. 

Faith will lead us out into this last week here on earth, just like all the other weeks.  However, this week will end, once and for all, having had our faith and hope realised when we open our eyes to the eternal house of God the Father, and see Jesus seated at his right hand.  We will see God’s glory streaming with pure unadulterated love, from the throne of his kingdom having come.

Then we will worship forever, that our Father’s kingdom has come, and we have been led by the Lamb of God and the Holy Spirit, into the power and glory of our Father’s kingdom.  A kingdom of eternal peace, joy, and love.  Amen.

Next week we hear our Father’s will in heaven is to forgive us our sins, and we will hear how he does this and continues to do this.

C, Lent 3 - Luke 13:1-9, "Just Desserts"

Luke 13:1–9 (ESV) There were some present at that very time who told him about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices.  And Jesus answered them, “Do you think that these Galileans were worse sinners than all the other Galileans, because they suffered in this way?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.  Or those eighteen on whom the tower in Siloam fell and killed them: do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others who lived in Jerusalem?  No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”  And he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none.  And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’  And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure.  Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.’ ”

At the present time fighting goes on in the Ukraine.  Recently, floods have killed and displaced families in Australia.  The last couple of years have been testing on a worldwide scale due to Covid-19.  Before that, extreme dry led to black skies, where day turned to night, as bushfires ravaged our country and smoke filled our lungs.  Not to mention, the daily occurrence of tragedies and violence that affect many communities, families, and individuals.  

When you hear of these things happening, reported on the news, or spread as gossip in social media, how do you react?

 It is easy to become an accuser.  To think or say, “They probably deserve it?”  And if it is someone close who has offended us, it’s even easier to let the self-righteousness rise within and think or proclaim, “they’re getting their just desserts!”

We have been conditioned as watchers and judgers.  To join the army of armchair accusers, or the thumb-texting throng of thugs.

There are many bad things going on in the world.  How are we to view them?   We are baptised into Jesus, yet still struggle with desires, feelings, and thoughts they’re getting their just desserts. We so often find ourselves choosing a “It’s what they deserve” mentality!

With this mental frame of mind, Christians often make three mistakes, asking ourselves…

“Are we to recoil from the world and build walls around ourselves, insulated with cottonwool, to protect ourselves from the “evils” of the world?”  If we do this, we might just have found ourselves constructing a comfortable coffin in which to die all alone!

“Should we seek to infiltrate the world order, or should I say, disorder, to bring in a world Christian order?  Then I can implement what God wants!”  The problem here is that what would get implemented would be my law of disordered affairs.  Not God’s order or peace!

“Should we try to find favour with the world, and make the church a “safe place”, acceptable and relevant to the world?  Then they won’t get what they deserve because together we will make for ourselves a better society in which to live!”   No!  We would become so safe; God would not be tolerated.  And without God being with us, how safe would we be?

These three all fail. The first, a neutral curved in on the self-mentality.  The second, a militant war-mentality.  And the third, a goodness-mentality.  The three are not reality but are the narrowness of the human mind seeking answers in the self.

The report comes to Jesus that the Romans had killed some Galileans sacrificing to God.  Like us, the people were looking at the Romans for being the guilty aggressors.  They should not have been anywhere near those sacrificing let alone killing them and letting their blood desecrate the sacrifice.  They would have expected Jesus’ condemnation of the Roman pagans for doing this. 

Then again it was Galilean Jews who were killed and not the Jews of Judea.  Everyone knows that the Galileans are not as good a Jews as the Judean Jews!   Perhaps this is why they were killed, and the Romans desecrated the sacrifice!

Jesus then leaves off the Romans and Galileans and speaks of an accidental disaster where a tower falls on eighteen Judeans. Well, maybe they were not as good a Jews as those whom the tower did not fall!

Such is our mentality, to think this way.  But Jesus says, “No”!

To get an understanding why Jesus tells his hearers, “No!”, let’s go back to what’s going on today, and change the story a bit, so we can simply see the error of our ways.

Fighting in the Ukraine, Ukrainians and Russians are dying, some are killed just living in their country.  Some are Russian men, whom if they do not follow orders, will end up in something like a gulag in the former Soviet Union, or worse, shot.  Are the Ukrainians and Russians getting what they deserve?   Now picture them and replace them with Jesus Christ!  Would he be getting what he deserved?

Those who have died from Covid-19.  Those who have been denigrated for not being vaccinated, or those vilified for being vaccinated.  Replace them with Jesus Christ.  Is he getting what he deserves?  Those drowned by floods, burnt to death by fire, or who have lost everything, what if they were Jesus Christ, would they still be getting their just desserts?  Or the parents who have lost a child, what if you replace the parents with Jesus Christ, or the child with Jesus Christ?  Is Jesus deserving of these deadly desserts?

We soon realise how crazy it is to play, tit for tat, suffering for sin.

When Jesus hears about the tragedy of Galileans slaughtered or the Judeans flattened, he does not attribute fault, nor accuses the perpetrators or victims.  Instead, he addresses those before him, and says, “No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all likewise perish.”

Jesus addresses the mentality presented to him, and dives straight to the heart of the issue.  He does the same with us too, who are no different to those of his day, as he walked to Jerusalem to die. 

With a mentality of “getting one’s just desserts”, we will not just die, but eternally die!  This is the mindset like that of believing in good and bad karma.  But good and bad karma is just another name for knowledge of good and evil, where we become the judge of what is good and what is bad, without the knowledge of Jesus Christ.

Jesus demonstrates that all of us would be condemned to death if we got what we deserved.  Like the fig tree we would have long been ripped out of the ground and thrown out. 

Jesus tells us, now is always the opportune time of repentance, when we judge otherwise, we accuse and condemn ourselves the moment we open our mouths in judgement.  We reveal we deserve death and are guilty, just as much as anyone who has died. 

Perhaps the death of others is a warning to you and me!

So, as we walk in remembrance towards the cross with Jesus, we picture him nailed to the cross, but as a Saviour nailed there in our place.  We picture ourselves rightfully on the cross for our sin and all the sin in the world today. 

And as we do, we realise it could be me, facing death right now!   We see in others the same sinner that’s in me.  We do not excuse; nor do we accuse!  But we intercede, we pray as if we were Jesus, who continues to do the very same thing for us. 

In fact, we are called to be little Jesus Christ’s picking up our crosses, dying to self, and resolutely marching towards our resurrection and eternal life having been made perfect with the blood of Jesus Christ. Amen.

Heavenly Father, you sent your Son, Jesus Christ, to take our place as the fruitless tree, and was crucified on a cursed tree, to give us life and make us fertile, through your death and resurrection.  Send you Holy Spirit upon us to lead us in your perfect mercy and compassion, so we can work as the body of Christ, sharing steadfast love with others, who need to receive the Gospel.  Amen.