C, Easter 4 - Revelation 7:16-17 "Hunger and Thirst"

Revelation 7:16–17 (ESV)  “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; the sun shall not strike them, nor any scorching heat.  For the Lamb in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and he will guide them to springs of living water, and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.”

The transfer of power happens in many ways.  At its most elementary is the transmission of creative power that occurs to produce the following generation.  Man gives of himself in marriage to the woman; woman gives of herself carrying and giving birth to a child.  They both give to the child as a family and then the child grows and does the same with someone else’s  adult child.

Therefore, one generation serves the following generation.  They continue the creative process which God began and sustains in every generation since.  God gives each successive generation breath, having first breathed life into Adam.

From this first transmission of life in Adam comes all other transmissions of power between humans —  their empires, in politics and business, in sport, society, institutionally, sexually, and family. Where power passing began and was broken between Adam and Eve and their sons Cain and Abel.

The transfer of power can occur chaotically with bloodshed, or with order.  However, just because it occurs with bloodshed does not mean it’s bad, and similarly just because it occurs with order doesn’t necessarily mean it’s good. The transfer of power between humans is corrupted.   

Because of our sinful nature, it’s hard to tell if bloodshed or order has been ordained by God.  Yet at the cross bloodshed and order that brings eternal peace are bound together in the death and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, whom all in the heavenly realm glorifies, saying, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:10 ESV)

The reality is the Lamb of God is our Shepherd, and to him belongs salvation.  This is the truth and love by which God works in our sinful world through his bloodshed and peace, rather than our perceived truths or the peace and order in which we take pleasure, and love.

Last week and today we’ve heard from Revelation of the Lamb’s sevenfold worthiness, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!” (Revelation 5:12 ESV)

The transfer of power from God’s perspective, as God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit, sees that these seven elements of worthiness always remain with him.

We can see the corruption within ourselves and within the world when we see ourselves and others seize these seven elements of worthiness, as God’s alone, and steal them for ourselves.

Like the world, we hunger and thirst with desire to bask in our own power, wealth, wisdom, might, honour, glory, and blessing.  But when this occurs within a believer, they know it’s sin, and in having the knowledge of sin within revealed, they flee to him to whom salvation truly belongs — the God of truth and love.

When Simon Peter is called to the death of a disciple, Tabitha, or Dorcas, he is met by widows displaying her works.  She is dead and has been bathed for presentation to those who’ve come to pay their last respects before her burial.  Why has Peter been invited to come by the disciples who mourn her death?  We’re not told! 

This event in Acts occurs between Peter healing Aeneas, paralysed and bedridden for eight years, and the call of Cornelius’ a Gentile, and the conversion of him and his family, the giving of the Holy Spirit and their baptism into God’s church.

Although we don’t know why Peter was called to Tabitha’s side in her death, what happens on this occasion and the events before and after, calls us the hearers of God’s word, to understand the transfer of God’s power works contrary to transference of power everywhere else.

Living in our society today, I am pleasantly surprised, when hearing of Jesus’ healing in the Gospels, God is glorified and not Jesus.  Most didn’t know Jesus was God’s Son, so they didn’t know they were glorifying Jesus when they glorified God!  Now when we hear of Peter’s work in his healing, preaching, and raising of the dead, those who witness don’t believe in Peter, but believe in the Lord.

God’s transfer of power stands out, way ahead of the rest of the world.  When power is passed on in our world, the glory passes onto the next generation.  It matters not much whether there is order or bloodshed in this passing of power, glory does not remain with those who were before.  Sporting finals fade as future finals come and go, politicians riding the wave of an election win are put to pasture, corporates sway and institutional supremacy falls and rebuilds elsewhere, and a family’s fortune is usually inherited by the next generation. 

The power and glory pass on, and the previous powerful party is relegated “to history” as they pass away in death.  In today’s climate, history is not always looked upon favourably.  Unless you’re a keen genealogist, most would not be able to name our ancestors beyond our grandparents, at best.  Their glory and power have been drained down to us.

The transfer of God’s power is different!  This is because the hunger and thirst stay with God; those who believe, hunger and thirst for salvation that comes from God.  Or, to put it another way, God satisfies the hunger and thirst of those who hunger and thirst for him.  The Shepherd satisfies the sheep, because the Shepherd causes his sheep to remain in places where they’re caused to be fed and watered, producing restoration and righteousness within, through the worthiness of God’s name, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

For those who hear God’s Word, and respond to his call within it, receive the transition of power just as Peter received it and passed it on to Tabitha. However, the transfer of God’s power from Jesus to Peter, Peter to Tabitha, and Tabitha to those who witnessed her resurrection, didn’t transfer the power from God, so that God passes away, becomes unglorified, and forgotten. 

This is what the devil, the world, and our sinful human nature wants.  They want the hearer of God’s Word to forget everything comes from God’s kingdom, power, and glory, and for the hearer to return to believing in themselves and the world.  The devil, the world, and our sinful selves tempt us to transfer all power to ourselves; to believe salvation doesn’t belong to God alone.

In his nature as God the Son, Jesus didn’t hinder the glory from going to God in his ministry.  Yet when he was born and baptised into his ministry the Holy Spirit was given to him.  This demonstrated to his disciples, and us, that Jesus became the same as us.  Jesus put aside his Godliness, and relied on the Holy Spirit, as we too, need the Holy Spirit in our lives.  Not because we have a divine nature like Jesus to put off!  But in Adam’s transfer of corrupted power, we have lost the original ability to see our salvation in God alone.

Peter and the disciples saw the Holy Spirit’s work in Jesus, and even so, didn’t receive the transfer of power without misunderstanding and misuse.  After Jesus’ resurrection they needed continual acts of the Holy Spirit, so they could act in the stead of Christ.  Because of the Holy Spirit, they served as Jesus served and allowed all worthiness to be recognised in Christ alone.

Two thousand years on from Jesus’ death, resurrection, and ascension, and the bestowal of the Holy Spirit, the worthiness of the Shepherd’s salvation, sees all power, wealth, wisdom, might, honour, glory, and blessing remain with him, who together with our Father and the Holy Spirit are worshipped and glorified!  As we so often pray.

If the Holy Spirit was not given, Peter, nor you or I, would be able to receive the sevenfold worthiness of Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, and would not allow this Lamb to be our Shepherd, nor pass on his truth or love.

Jesus taught us to pray, for our Father’s kingdom to come, because salvation belongs to God. The Holy Spirit empowers us to pass on the power of God’s truth and love, through our daily baptismal bloodshed in Jesus’ death, and resurrection in repentant peace, having had our hunger and thirst satisfied in our salvation through Jesus’ body and blood.

For the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, are in the Shepherd.  He satisfies the hunger of his sheep with his pleasing pastures, and he quenches the thirst of his lambs with springs of living water.  Amen.

C, Easter 3 - Revelation 5:11-12 "Worthy is the Word"

Revelation 5:11–12 (ESV)   Then I looked, and I heard around the throne and the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, “Worthy is the Lamb who was slain, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing!”

This weekend has brought to a climax, weeks of words.  Through all these words, every person has been asked to consider who and what is worthy of their support.  Words all working towards enticing you to choose who is worthy to be a winner.

How does one work out who or what is worthy?  What is worthiness?

When hidden reality was revealed to John, the question of worthiness was asked of him. 

John tells us, “Then I saw in the right hand of him who was seated on the throne a scroll written within and on the back, sealed with seven seals. And I saw a mighty angel proclaiming with a loud voice, ‘Who is worthy to open the scroll and break its seals?’ And no one in heaven or on earth or under the earth was able to open the scroll or to look into it, and I began to weep loudly because no one was found worthy to open the scroll or to look into it. And one of the elders said to me, ‘Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.’” (Revelation 5:1–5 ESV)

We too, might want to weep loudly with a world of words competing for worthiness within.  Vying for our attention is all sorts of stuff coming at us from every direction. Words from others, words from what one reads, words from what one hears!  Words in the airways, coming from the mouths of others, meet our ears and enter in.  We try to make sense of these words with our own internal words.  These are words we’ve heard in the past, and for whatever reason, hang onto as truth. 

Some of the things we’ve heard in the past have proven to be good at first but then have soured and left a very bad taste in our mouths.  On the other hand, some words sound wonky and unlikely to be right, but time or experience has proven them to be true for now. It seems the amount of information at our fingertips today has not made us more informed.  Instead, it seems to have made us more cynical and sceptical.

The electronic world in which we live has allowed us to become a knee jerk society.  Words seem to jerk us around, pulling at us, tugging on one’s inner strings, this way and that, to impatiently persuade in an instant.  Words appear to have lost their influence from a creative single truth.  Words have become a tool of persuasion.   Truth is no longer objective, but rather, it’s now optional!  

Many having been won over in the past by words less than truthful, become cynical and sceptical.  Hearing, seeing, authorship, reality, are less and less trusted in an artificial world where everything has become “subjective and temporary”.  No “objective or supreme” truth can be trusted.  In other words, we no longer trust anything apart from what’s within the self. 

We live in a world where truth has no foundation, which has led to a world of confusion and chaos.  The loss of objective truth outside of us, is most dangerous for everyone in the world, when truth is lost in God’s church, to the subjective chaotic lies branded as truths.

When worthiness is lost to subjectivity, people go back into the self, collectively and individually seeking self-worth.  We ask ourselves, “Who can open the scroll of truth in our society today?”  Some place their trust in this; others in that!   A war of words begins.  It’s politicised, polarising, and paralysing.   It’s a war of half-truths and sin.  One’s subjective truth is pitted against another, and if left to fester, brother is separated from brother, children are detached from parents, neighbour becomes nasty towards neighbour, race riots against race, one population plunders another, due to misguided self-worth. 

We find ourselves teetering on the edge, asking, “What is not a lie?  What’s truth?  Everything’s a lie!” 

In his revelation, John sees all this in himself and everyone else.  He sees the lie of his humanity, and the contradiction of words within himself and within the world.  He weeps that no one can open the scroll and unseal the Word of Truth.  But an elder proclaims to him, “Weep no more; behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, has conquered, so that he can open the scroll and its seven seals.” (Revelation 5:5 ESV)

The Lamb of God has conquered!  He is the Tree of Life, the Root of David.  The Lion of Judah, the Lamb of God, is risen as God’s Ram from Mount Moriah having been sacrificed with his head in the thorns.  He is the Word made flesh, the Objective Truth made Subjective Flesh, the Son of God and the Son of Man.  Now his flesh has been raised in objective truth as the only Worthy Word!

What is truth?  What is not a lie? Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh.  Who or what is worthy? Not you!  Not me!  Not our words!  Jesus Christ is worthy because the testimony of the water, in which you were baptised, because of the testimony of his blood, which you take and drink for the forgiveness of sins, life, and salvation, and because of the testimony of the Holy Spirit, which is greater than any testimony of humanity (1 John 5:6-12).

Jesus is the only one worthy to open the scroll, the truth of his Word.  His life, death, and resurrection is the only true eternal testimony.  The word of neither women nor men, neither politician nor pastor, is greater than Jesus’ Word.

Unfortunately, many even inside the church have become cynical and sceptical towards the truth of Jesus’ Word.  We are all tempted to take his word and filter it through our human understanding, to make Jesus, worthy in a way we see fit. 

We are told in Hebrews chapter thirteen, “Remember your leaders, those who spoke to you the word of God. Consider the outcome of their way of life, and imitate their faith. Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and forever.”  (Hebrews 13:7–8 ESV)

In this unchanging sameness John looked and saw, “a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, with seven horns and with seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God sent out into all the earth. And he went and took the scroll from the right hand of him who was seated on the throne.” (Revelation 5:6b–7 ESV)

Remember the pastors you have called here in this parish. These are repentant men sent by God to point you to the worthiness of Jesus Christ, and the scroll he has opened, not to themselves or for their own worthiness.  By the power of the Holy Spirit, these men have not called you to be illuminated by the world.  But have called you by the worthiness of the Lamb to illuminate him in the world with his sevenfold character in the Holy Spirit.

The scroll of the truth is open by Jesus Christ.  Let the Holy Spirit open your heart to the sevenfold character of Jesus’ worthiness, as God’s only begotten Word of Truth.  Through his death and resurrection, Jesus’ worthy character is one of power, wealth, wisdom, might, honour, glory, and blessing.

With regards to power, not only does Jesus have power, but he has omnipotent eternal power. 

Jesus’ wealth is a wealth that survives your grave and is rich in eternal life. 

The wisdom of Jesus’ Word is unfathomable. But at the same time, its clarity is so simple a child can grasp it. 

Despite being the Lamb of God, Jesus’ might, is second to none.  Not even a foolish fox could devour this Lamb's worthiness!  You are little lambs under the Lamb of God, protected by the worthiness of his might!

Jesus’ worthiness has a greater value than silver or gold!  Therefore, you, priests of God’s kingdom, can give away your earthly kingdoms, trusting in the honour or prize of Jesus’ worthiness.

The glory of God’s children is in the worthiness of Jesus’ power, wealth, wisdom, might, and honour.  This glory begins with God, but it also ends with God — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Test yourself to see you’re not a blockage hindering God’s glory.   Pray that God disciplines you as disciples of his glory.  As disciples of his glory, Jesus makes you worthy, that is, holy in the sight of God our Father.

Therefore, in Christ’s worthiness you are priests in God’s kingdom, eulogised by Jesus’ worthiness.  All the eulogising pomp and ceremony of ourselves in our death is now worthless compared to the goodness of Jesus, in the worthiness of what he has done for you.  You and I are not blessed in ourselves, but in the worthiness of him alone, his blessedness makes you and me a blessing to others.

So, let the sevenfold Holy Spirit of God that rested on Jesus and led him to death, and through it, rest on you.   As Jesus allowed the Spirit to lead him, let the sevenfold Spirit open your heart to Jesus’ worthiness.  To reject all other power, wealth, wisdom, might, honour, glory, and blessing and be made worthy of eternal life by Jesus’ power, wealth, wisdom, might, honour, glory, and blessing. 

Worthy is the Word of God, yesterday, today, and forever. Amen.

C, Fourth Sunday of Advent - Micah 5:2-5a "Micah's Shepherd Prophecy"

In the days of the split kingdom, Micah was tasked to tell Israel and Judah of their impending destruction.  Both kingdoms had become conceited and presumptuous in their existence, bending God’s Word to suit their disobedient desires and pleasures, refusing to repent, not listening to those God tasked with the call to heed his Word and change their ways.

And why should they listen to Micah?  He was a man from Moresheth, near the former fields of the Philistines.  His imagery speaks of a remnant of the mighty Israel, shepherded again from Bethlehem by a new king who will lead in the strength of the Lord.  This new leader will come after the annihilation of Jerusalem and Samaria.

Although the book of Micah is just seven chapters, we are told the Word of the Lord came to him during the reign of Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah, before the Samarians were exiled to Assyria and the Judeans were exiled to Babylon.

Israel and Syria joined forces to attack Judah when Ahaz was king.  Before and after him his father Jotham and Hezekiah his son did what was right in God’s sight.  But Ahaz did not, he appealed to the king of Assyria who attacked and conquered Syria.  After this, Ahaz, king of Judah, went to meet the Assyrian king in Damascus, the capital of Syria, he had just won.  While meeting there with the Assyrian King, Ahaz saw the altar used in Damascus and ordered a replica be used in the Jerusalem temple instead of the bronze altar God had consecrated.

To this and other similar behaviours, God says through Micah, “Hear, you peoples, all of you; pay attention, O earth, and all that is in it, and let the Lord God be a witness against you, the Lord from his holy temple. For behold, the Lord is coming out of his place, and will come down and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains will melt under him, and the valleys will split open, like wax before the fire, like waters poured down a steep place. All this is for the transgression of Jacob and for the sins of the house of Israel. What is the transgression of Jacob? Is it not Samaria? And what is the high place of Judah? Is it not Jerusalem?” (Micah 1:2–5 ESV)

God’s justice was not only to descend upon the kings, priests, and prophets of Judah and Samaria, but on all from the greatest to the least.  Therefore, judgement fell on Israel not long after, when Assyria took Israel into exile.

However, Hezekiah, the son of Ahaz did what was right and restored Judah and Jerusalem back under the Law of God and God blessed him.  Yet even so, when Hezekiah was ill, envoys from Babylon came to him, and he showed them the treasuries and storehouses of Judah to which the prophet Isaiah prophesied…

“Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have stored up till this day, shall be carried to Babylon. Nothing shall be left, says the Lord. And some of your own sons, who will come from you, whom you will father, shall be taken away, and they shall be eunuchs in the palace of the king of Babylon.” (2 Kings 20:17–18 ESV)

A reprieve occurred for Judah in the face of their Israelite brothers being exiled to Assyria, and Judah under Hezekiah heeded God’s Word spoken through prophets, such as Isaiah and Micah.

When Hezekiah died, his son Manasseh rebuilt the high places that God, foretold of their destruction through Micah, and were physically demolished by King Hezekiah.  Now, this renewed disobedience set Judah up for exile too.  Bringing to fulfilment what Micah and Isaiah had forecast. 

God then stopped speaking to Israel for four hundred years, fulfilling the silence prophesied by Amos, “Behold, the days are coming,” declares the Lord God, “when I will send a famine on the land— not a famine of bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of the Lord. They shall wander from sea to sea, and from north to east; they shall run to and fro, to seek the word of the Lord, but they shall not find it.”  (Amos 8:11–12 ESV)

God had handed them over to themselves, and it didn’t go well for them.  The land of milk and honey they were given, became desolate.  Those prophets whom they loathed for speaking the Word of God, disappeared.  God left them to themselves even after they returned from exile.  Even more so, the Jewish priests had become use to worshipping their own way without God.  They were smug in their desires and embroiled in political scheming.  Now under the rule of the Romans their way had become so wicked, they bowed to Herod the Great who began building the second temple in Jerusalem in 20 B.C.

Then this happened…  

Now 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.  They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea, for so it is written by the prophet:  “ ‘And you, O Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for from you shall come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’ ” (Matthew 2:1–6 ESV)

Forced back into the Word of God, Herod and the Jews discovered the prophet Micah and his prophesy from chapter 5:2-5a. 

But you, O Bethlehem Ephrathah, who are too little to be among the clans of Judah, from you shall come forth for me one who is to be ruler in Israel, whose coming forth is from of old, from ancient days. Therefore he shall give them up until the time when she who is in labour has given birth; then the rest of his brothers shall return to the people of Israel. And he shall stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God. And they shall dwell secure, for now he shall be great to the ends of the earth. And he shall be their peace. (Micah 5:2–5a ESV)

Now that Jesus has been born in Bethlehem, he shepherds his people.  He does this with his Word of Law and Gospel.  We are God’s people now that Jesus has redeemed us through his death and resurrection.  Yet like the Jews and the Israelites, we seek to go the way of the world around us, just as the Jews did and were caught napping at Jesus’ first coming.

He is coming again, yet many even within the church have turned from “the whole council of God’s Word”.  Leaders in the church, proclaim messages of hope, peace, and love, without addressing sin and calling people to repentance.  We have become fixated on our feelings of happiness without allowing the Holy Spirit to finish us in the joy of God’s holiness.  The second coming of Christ is set to catch out many, just as it did the first time.

If God can destroy the kingdoms of Israel and Judah, his very own chosen people, for not adhering to the work of the Law, what will he do to those who call themselves Christian and do not abide in Jesus’ work of the Gospel?  Who grieve the Holy Spirit by not allowing the Spirit to bring them to salvation humility in the Gospel through the humiliation and mortification of the human spirit in the Law.

Although Jesus came as the Shepherd, he came to be the Lamb of God. Like a shepherd who leads his sheep through the gate, in all humility he entered the gates of death as the sacrificial lamb. 

Are you allowing him to humbly shepherd you through death to life eternal?  Are you being shepherded into the holiness of God’s new heaven and earth in which righteousness dwells?  

Or are you shepherding your own righteousness, like those whom God allowed to be humiliated and perish in their sinful refusal to repent at Jesus’ first coming?

The church is proving itself to be no different to the Jews when Christ came the first time.  The way is wide that leads to destruction, even for God’s people when they choose not to hear his Word.  It’s tragic how so much of the mantra coming from our “human high places” proclaims a love that has nothing to do with being prepared by the Holy Spirit for the holiness of God, through the love of Jesus at the cross.  Like the Jews in Jesus first coming, don’t be turned in on yourself, using God and his Word to worship yourself!  Pick up God’s Word, hear and heed the warnings of the Apostles at the end of the New Testament!  Don’t be like the Jews who killed the prophets and were surprised by what was written in the prophets of the Old Testament when Jesus was born!

However, allow the Holy Spirit to humiliate the heights of human haughtiness within you.  To crush the arrogant altars and idiotic idols within.  Allow the Spirit to work you, so you heed the call of Moses, Micah and the prophets, Jesus the Good Shepherd himself, and the Apostles, to be led in humility, just as Jesus Christ was at his first coming. 

The Shepherd now seeks to shepherd you in the strength of the Lord, as members of his holy remnant, so you’re not surprised by his second coming.  

Come Lord Jesus Come! Amen.

B, Midweek Lent 2 - Mark 14:22-52 "The Cup Passed On"

The way of the cross ramps up a notch as Jesus takes the Passover meal and redefines it with what is about to happen to him. 

The Passover, a meal practised by the Jews since the days of Moses, was a meal  first prepared in haste before the angel of death passed through Egypt pouring out the tenth plague upon all first born.  The angel spared only those who had the blood of the lamb smeared over their doorway, those who had eaten the lamb roasted over the fire together with bitter herbs, dressed for a quick departure from Egypt.

Jesus now takes this remembrance meal and gives it a renewed function.  We remember what he said and did with his word, instituting the bread of the Passover meal with his body sacrificed on the cross, and the cup of wine with his blood poured out as a sacrifice which would, and continues to, save many.

Now that the cup of salvation in his blood is instituted, the new covenant is set to be fulfilled.  The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world heads out to the Mount of Olives for the events to be enacted which would make Jesus the Lamb to replace all sacrificial blood required for the old covenant.

Jesus’ interaction with Peter takes on special significance as he tells the disciples what is about to happen.

Jesus said to them, “You will all fall away, for it is written, ‘I will strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered.’  But after I am raised up, I will go before you to Galilee.”  (Mark 14:27 ESV)

Some years prior Zechariah prophesied, “On that day there shall be a fountain opened for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem, to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness.”  “Awake, O sword, against my shepherd, against the man who stands next to me,” declares the LORD of hosts. “Strike the shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered; I will turn my hand against the little ones.” (Zechariah 13:1, 7 ESV)

Jesus was that fountain of blood, he was the Son from the right hand of the Father, who was incarnated as man, as the shepherd of Israel, was about to be struck.   Jesus’ little ones were to be scattered as the shepherd takes the place of a sheep to be slaughtered, of whom the disciples are Jesus’ little ones.

Peter flatly disagrees with Jesus saying, “Even though they all fall away, I will not.” (Mark 14:29 ESV)

Even after Jesus tells Peter he will deny him three times, Peter says forcefully, “If I must die with you, I will not deny you.” (Mark 14:31 ESV)  The other disciples also agree with Peter.

In the wake of this reading, we heard on Sunday, Jesus scolds Peter with the harshest of rebukes.  We hear,  “But turning and seeing his disciples, Jesus rebuked Peter and said, ‘Get behind me, Satan!  For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man.’” (Mark 8:33 ESV)

John Mark was Peter’s scribe.  The Gospel of Mark is Peter’s account of Jesus’ ministry written down by John Mark.  Incidentally the naked young man we hear leaving the scene in Gethsemene, is believed to be the author of this Gospel.

How Jesus deals with Peter, which Peter proclaims, and Mark records, seems quite abrupt.  Perhaps today the sensitivities of many would be offended.  We can learn much, however, from not only Jesus’ abruptness, but also the willingness of Peter to preach about his weakness recorded in the pages of Mark’s Gospel.

Peter’s forceful and impassioned statements  “Even though they all fall away, I will not” and “If I must die with you, I will not deny you”  stand in absolute contrast to what happens next.

In Gethsemene, as Jesus prays, we see his human flesh as our flesh.  Peter, James, and John see it too.  Jesus is willing, yet in the weakness of human flesh, he prays and waits, despite being dumbfounded, distressed, and overwhelmed by the weight of the world he is about to carry.

He leaves Peter, James, and John to pray alone.  Jesus knows his fate.  In the flesh of humanity, he struggles knowing what is going to happen to him.  Like any human that learns of their impending death, and struggles with its reality, so too does Jesus!  

With the weight of the known, Jesus stumbles and falls to the ground, he prays that the hour of suffering and death might pass over him.  But he is the new covenant, he is the new Passover Lamb, he has instituted at the last supper, all that God the Father has led him to do.  And he is led by the Holy Spirit to give him the spirit with which to be the Passover Saviour!

Hear in Jesus’ struggle, Jesus hates death.  Like any of us that pray when our utter helplessness is pressed upon us,  Jesus prays, “Abba, Father, all things are possible for you.  Remove this cup from me.” (Mark 14:36a ESV)

In true faith, Jesus prays a confession about the nature of God the Father.  Everything is possible for God our Father!  With his Word he could have removed the cup from Jesus!  But knowing the evil and the good this cup bears he contradicts what he’s just said and continues, “Yet not what I will, but what you will.” (Mark 14:36b ESV)

What are the disciples doing?  Is Peter waiting, watching, and praying as Jesus asked?  The one who confesses Jesus as the Christ, the one who says, even if I die with you, I will not deny you, cannot even stay awake.  When Jesus returned from praying, he did not find Peter, James, and John supporting him with prayer, but sleeping.  Three times this happened, impressing on us the reality that even if the spirit is willing, we need the Holy Spirit to enliven our weak flesh.

Judas comes to betray Jesus, with him is a mob from the chief priests, scribes, and the elders.  When they seized Jesus, one of them gets his ear cut off.  Mark does not report who, but in John’s Gospel, we’re told its Peter. 

In keeping with Peter’s lack of understanding, demonstrated throughout the Gospels, Peter cuts off the servant’s ear, overcompensating for his inability to stay awake and pray with, and for, Jesus.

But Jesus having come to fulfil the scriptures drinks the cup the Father has given him to drink, and all left him and fled.

Some years later Peter is martyred by Nero on an upside-down cross.  In coming weeks, we will hear more about Peter as he denies Jesus and the cock crows. 

The change in Peter who comes from understanding only the things of man to enduring death knowing the things of God, is a comfort for all in the church of the living God. 

Peter drinks the cup Jesus drank.  But it is said that out of respect for his Lord he was crucified on a cross upside-down. 

The event that is Peter’s life, saw a work of God, that took time!  From Jesus calling him on the sea of Galilee, working with the erratic ebbs and flows of his faithlessness and faith, right the way through to where he trusts the Holy Spirit to lead him as the Spirit led his Lord, even to death on an upside-down cross, all occurred in the fullness of God’s time.

In this Lenten season, there is opportunity for us to reflect on the work God is doing in us.  Our life is God’s event, he works in us as he did in Peter.  He gives us a cup of salvation and servanthood from which to drink, and the Holy Spirit will enable us to drink it over time!  Let us pray.

Heavenly Father, thankyou for working with Peter, even as you were sending your only Son to the cross.  Thankyou that our life is your event and that you are patient with us, willing us with your Word.  Help us not grieve the Holy Spirit.  But drink the cup of the new covenant, deny ourselves, pick up our cross, and drink deeply from the font of forgiveness, servanthood, and salvation.   Amen.  

A, Lent 3 - Exodus 17:1-7, Psalm 95:6-9, Romans 5:1-11, John 4:5-42 "Water and Word Aeration"

A new town and new experiences.  Not knowing what to expect, one hopes when turning on the tap one will have good water to drink. 

So, the tap is turned, the water seems clean, but there’s a strange metallic smell.  What on earth is this smell?  Suddenly sceptical of the scent, I warily taste the water.  Not great, but not bad either!  One might say, “mediocre”.  I thought to myself, “I’m just going to have to get use to this.”

Later on, I put a load of washing on.  After the cycle finished, there on my clothes was an orange stain.  “Woe is me, what on earth is this”, in all my life I had never seen anything as vile as this.

There was stain all over my clothes and orange gunk in some of the folds.  From where, had it come?  Later, I found out this was normal for the water supply.  The water reservoir was not enough for the city of forty thousand.  And the area where the water was dammed was high in iron, that is, the orange stuff staining my clothes.  I couldn’t believe an Australian city in the late twentieth century could have such an antiquated and disgusting supply of water. 

Three months after I arrived, the grand opening of the new water treatment plant was at hand.  Because I was working in the media, as a camera operator, I had the privilege of videoing the opening and the workings of the new plant.

This new plant did not use excessive chemicals to clean the water.  Instead, it used thousands of tiny air bubbles, pumped through the water, lifting the iron scum to the surface, and cleaning the water of orange metallic substance and smell.  Such a simple process and thankfully from then on, with all the other residents, I had town water that was refreshing, had no smell, and was colourless.  Liked the chocolate Aero bar advertisement, “it was the bubbles of nothing that made the water something!”

In the Old Testament reading today we hear the Israelites grumble to Moses about going thirsty in the wilderness.  Like me they whinged about water.  “Woe is me; we have no water!” 

Jesus in Samaria, likewise, is thirsty.   He asks a Samaritan woman, stained from ill repute, for a drink.

Rightly, “the woman said to Jesus, ‘Sir, you have nothing to draw water with, and the well is deep.’ Jesus said to her, ‘Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,  but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again.  The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.’” (John 4:11a,13–14 ESV)

Jesus, like the Israelites, is without water.  He has nothing with which to gain access to the water.  The Israelites in the wilderness have no water.  Why is it that Jesus trusts the Samaritan woman for water, yet the Israelites do not trust God working through Moses to quench their thirst?

The Psalmist says to the hearer, “Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!  For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.  Today, if you hear his voice,  do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,  when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.” (Psalm 95:6–9 ESV) 

This Psalm together with the account from Exodus seventeen, places a warning before us to realise we need to come before God our Father, trusting he is our Maker, and he will shepherd us through the wilderness of this life.  Indeed, Lent is a time to stop and take stock of how God has sent Jesus to shepherd us in the wilderness of this life.

Jesus came not as the shepherd but as the Lamb of God.  But now, in the wake of his victorious death and resurrection, he is the Shepherd of his people, and he guards us with the Holy Spirit in his Word. 

Yet, we do well to clearly see the picture of Jesus at the well and understand just how lowly a picture this is.  We also do well to heed the warning of testing God, as the Israelites tried him in the wilderness.   But also see just how kept the Israelites were, having been freed from slavery in Egypt, and protected by God through the words of Moses in the wilderness.

Here Jesus has nothing, and he was thirsty.  He was in Samaria, Samaritans were nothing to Jews, but Jesus in all humility asks an adulterous Samaritan woman for water.  She is nothing to a Jew and yet Jesus comes to her with nothing but his Word.

On the other hand, the Israelites quarrel with Moses, they fight with the one through whom God’s word came. 

What is going on, in these two events?  The Israelites saw God’s Word as inferior in Moses and forgot his work.  Jesus trusts the work of God, and therefore his Word works.   

How does this play out practically for you and me?

It’s as simple as the bubbles of air removing the orange iron from the water.  In fact, the issues the church faces at the moment, understanding just what the substance of love and unity actually is, and how it plays out in the church’s cleansing, understanding, and obedience to God’s Word. 

In distinguishing issues of gender equality in the church, apart from society, discernment must return to, and be seen in, the simple process of how the Holy Spirit gives faith and understanding of God’s Word.  Just as the water is made clean with bubbles of air to remove impurities.

The Holy Spirit wells up the purity of God’s refreshing Word in us.  We cannot do this ourselves and nor should we begin the futile exercise of trying!   One will end up sinning against the Holy Spirit if they do!

When we are baptised, we are washed with water and the Word.  Like the Israelites, we are cleansed of sin in the water, just as the Israelites were of the Egyptians in the Red Sea, and at the end of forty years were led by Joshua (the Hebrew name for Jesus) across the Jordan into Canaan, into a paradise, the land of milk and honey.

But because Israel continued to sin in the land of milk and honey, Jesus reverses the order to fulfil all righteousness.  He comes from paradise, from the right hand of God the Father, is born into the bondage of humanity, baptised into death, and given the Holy Spirit at the Jordan,  and goes into the wilderness of human existence to be tempted, but does not succumb to the temptation.  From temptation he enters the Red Sea of death, where his innocent blood was spilt in bondage on the cross.

Today, we live with God’s Word too, so we might have faith in Jesus Christ.  But what is this faith, how do we get it, how does one believe?  Seeking faith  in oneself, individualism, vainglory, or self-worship are always the reasons for confusion and chaos in the church.  When these occur, the ways of the world invade our thinking, muddying the waters of God’s Word, and stain his church!

Jesus gives clarity in what he says to the Samaritan woman.

“‘But the hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for the Father is seeking such people to worship him.  God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.’  The woman said to him, ‘I know that Messiah is coming (he who is called Christ). When he comes, he will tell us all things.’  Jesus said to her, ‘I who speak to you am he.’” (John 4:23–26 ESV) 

Like Jesus, who received the Holy Spirit in baptism, so too do we.  The water and Word are one in baptism.  The water receives its power from the Word.  We receive the Word made flesh, Jesus Christ, and we receive the Holy Spirit. 

The Holy Spirit aerates the Word of God with in us and separates the sin from the self.  He removes our stained being and gives us faith in Jesus and his Word.  He wills and moves us to place ourselves in submission to God.  Rather than disagreeing with God, returning to the bondage from where we’ve been freed, we bow to God hearing the Word of our Lord Jesus Christ, with the effervescence of the Holy Spirit bubbling within.  

Saint Paul gives us a theological trinitarian summary in Romans five, saying, “Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.  Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God… …and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:1-2,5 ESV) 

Let us come and worship God, not what we love, or think, or feel.  These are the idols and ideologies the Holy Spirit is trying to cleanse from you.  These are not bubbles of nothing, nor are they hot air coming from our own nothingness, puffing, or pumping up our ego.  No!  These bubbles are the loving works of God the Holy Spirit, with the softening waters of God’s Word within.  So, our hearts are not hardened by our goodness or our evil.

Jesus Christ seeks to aerate his Word in us by the Holy Spirit, to bring the muck and stain to the surface to be removed.  Like Jesus, we have nothing with which to get the water, but his Word together with the water are freely given through which the effervescence of the Holy Spirit works, welling up within to eternal life.  The fizz of the Holy Spirit kills and clears the muck, pouring the loving purity of Jesus Christ into our hearts.

Do not let your sin, my sin, or another’s sin harden your heart, so you cut yourself off from hearing the Word of God, hearing God’s forgiveness, and receiving the love of God in Jesus’ body and blood, through which the Holy Spirit unifies and wells us up to eternal life.  Amen.