C, Palm Sunday - Luke 19:37–40, "Within One Short Week"

Luke 19:37–40 (ESV) As Jesus was drawing near—already on the way down the Mount of Olives—the whole multitude of his disciples began to rejoice and praise God with a loud voice for all the mighty works that they had seen,  saying, “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” And some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to him, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples.”  He answered, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out.”

The crowd on Palm Sunday welcomed Jesus with great gusto, as he rode that donkey towards Jerusalem.  This was the new King David, whom they hoped would ride into the capital, overpower the Romans, and route the fake King of the Jews, King Herod.

But as Jesus nears Jerusalem, he weeps for it, the City of David, named “Yara Shalom”.  A city named, as a place flowing with peace.  Jesus knew that as in the past, in coming days there would be no peace, he would be tossed out of the city as rubbish, like unwanted excrement the Son of God would be thrown out as useless.  No!  There was to be no peace, safety, or friendship to be found in this place named “flowing peace” – Jerusalem!

Ever since the kingdom of Israel split into Judah and Israel, prophets had been killed for calling Jerusalem and Samaria back to God and his peace.  Time after time messengers had come, calling kings, priests, and the Levites back to God.  What reward did they receive but hatred, stoning, and death!

Things had not changed much.  Herod the Great wanted to kill the baby Jesus, and now his son Herod Antipas, was seeking to do the same. 

Earlier in Jesus’ ministry some Pharisees came and said to him, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.”  And he said to them, “Go and tell that fox, ‘Behold, I cast out demons and perform cures today and tomorrow, and the third day I finish my course.  Nevertheless, I must go on my way today and tomorrow and the day following, for it cannot be that a prophet should perish away from Jerusalem.’  O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing!  Behold, your house is forsaken. And I tell you, you will not see me until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord!’ ”  (Luke 13:31–35 ESV)

Now the Father was sending his very own Son, who knew Jerusalem and all Israel wanted a king unlike him.  They did not want a king of flowing peace, instead they wanted a piece of a king who would do what they wanted.  They wanted a politician, a zealot, a popular man making magical moves to heal, restore and protect their gods of greed and want.

And so, we see this man of Galilee enter the city with great expectation, that he was going to confront the Romans and challenge their authority.

But surprisingly, he doesn’t!  Instead, he enters the house of God, the temple in Jerusalem, and challenges the worship practises of those who also secretly saw him as a threat to their security and authority.  And so, with great suspicion they interrogate him, saying, “Tell us by what authority you do these things, or who it is that gave you this authority.” (Luke 20:2 ESV)

This looks little like a king coming to assume his kingship in a city flowing with peace.  Jesus knew and we now know by the end of this week the only thing to flow would be Jesus’ blood as it flowed from his head, his hands, his feet, his back, and from the spear wound in his side.

Within one week all would seemingly fall to pieces.  Peace would not flow; things would change.  Support would be withdrawn.  The crowd would turn on him.  His disciples would scatter!   The Son of Abba, our Father, would be swapped with a different son of a father, Barabbas the criminal!  Discipleship at the cross broke down and was shown to be pathetic and useless!  In the face of death denial reigned.  Jesus was abandoned, all love ran away and evil surged in.  The tide was out, and Jesus was left high and dry.  Dead on the cross.

Within one short week, what had happened?  On Palm Sunday, the stones would have cried out if the disciples kept quiet!  On Good Friday Peter did not dare associate himself with Jesus, lest he be numbered as one of the Galileans with him, and be stoned like many prophets had before.  And then sealed behind a large stone in death, the Lord lays buried in a tomb.

But it was Steadfast Love laying in that tomb.  The King of Kings lay in the vault of death.  Jesus the Christ, the Messiah, the Son of God, the Son of Man, took humanity through a tide change.  It was the lowest of low tides, but the tide of love had changed forever.

You see, at the beginning of the week, the love of the people was a veiled love.  The crowd was there, the emotion was there, the hype was there, the support seemed to be there, but the love that was there was self-love.   The love that was there, was a love that veiled everyone’s evil within.

Within one short week, from Sunday to Friday the tide of love, ebbed and was found wanting.   What was exposed at that low was the loveless evil of humanity.  The emotion and hype of the mob ebbed and exposed fear and hatred.  Politicians and priests were exposed as people pleasers.  And the closest supports sought self-preservation over steadfast sentry duty supporting the Saviour.

Nevertheless, steadfast love lay hidden behind stone.  From there he would descend into hell and shine the steadfast love of God in the darkness of death.  There, the dead will always know what they refused.   There, Jesus exposed their rejection of steadfast love from God, and salvation from the evil of sin within, so God would count them without sin.

Within one short week the tide would turn, God silenced the love of man, and from the grave the love of God was raised.  The stones that would have cried out if the disciples could not have praised God on Palm Sunday, saw the stone rolled away and the steadfast love of God raised and revealed in all glory.

What kind of a King are you seeking this Easter? 

What type of people is this King of Kings looking for?

Our Father is looking for sinners?  Those who believe, their love is a cover for evil, their love is sin!  The Risen King is resolutely looking for those who seek steadfast love, to cover their evil, with the robes of his righteousness.  Jesus Christ is looking for those who need his steadfast love – this week, next week, and every week of their lives, so they might live in the hope of their resurrection to eternal life. 

Jesus Christ is seeking those who need forgiveness, who need change, who know they are nailed to a cross of eternal death and need him and his holiness to be exchanged with their weakness.  These are our deadly, hopeless, and evil ways, which were brought to light, forgiven, and covered within one holy week.  Amen.

Blessed are those whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Let us not cover up our sin; but confess it, receive forgiveness, and believe what God has covered.  Let us be surrounded by shouts of deliverance and pray (Palm 32), “Blessed is the King who comes in the name of the Lord!  Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!” (Luke 19:38)  Amen.

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, Epiphany 6 - All RCL Readings "A Level Playing Field"

Jeremiah 17:5–10  Psalm 1:1–6  1 Corinthians 15:12–20   Luke 6:17–26

The Gospel reading before us today is Luke’s parallel to the Sermon on the Mount recorded in Matthew Chapter five.  Luke however begins by saying, “Jesus came down and stood on a level place”, which here in Luke is why it earns the name, “Sermon on the Plain”.

Jesus had just chosen the twelve disciples, or twelve learners, on the mountain and coming down from doing this, teaches the crowd together with the disciples.

As Matthews Gospel records, Jesus teaches not just Judeans and folk who had come from Jerusalem, but also Gentiles too.  The Gentiles he mentions in his account are from the seacoast of Tyre and Sidon, this is the region of Southern Lebanon today.

Although the locations seem different between the two accounts, the material Jesus teaches is the same.  He teaches what it is to be blessed.  And it is where we get the name Beatitudes, as beatus is the Medieval Latin word for blessed.

However, Luke also adds a parallel list of woes.  Four blessings are counted by four woes, whereas in Matthew’s Sermon on the Mount there are nine blessings.  These are the four in parallel…

“Blessed are you who are poor, for yours is the kingdom of God.  “But woe to you who are rich, for you have received your consolation. 

“Blessed are you who are hungry now, for you shall be satisfied.” “Woe to you who are full now, for you shall be hungry.”

“Blessed are you who weep now, for you shall laugh.”  “Woe to you who laugh now, for you shall mourn and weep.” 

“Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man!  Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets.”   “Woe to you, when all people speak well of you, for so their fathers did to the false prophets.”

After the Israelites crossed over the Jordan into Canaan, the land of milk and honey, Joshua led the Israelites, proclaiming blessings and curses from Mt Gerizim and Mt Ebal, as Moses had commanded them to do beforehand.  (See Deuteronomy 27-28, Joshua 8:30-35)  

Jesus is the new Joshua announcing blessings and woes.  We know Joshua and his generation died.  Following him, came Judges in Israel who were called to lead the Israelites out of their curses back into the blessings of God.  Unlike Joshua, after Jesus died, he was raised in glory.  In fact, Joshua, like all who die, waits in hope for his resurrection blessing through Jesus Christ.

Paul speaks on the blessings of Jesus’ resurrection and mirrors that against, “if Christ was not raised from the dead”.  If Jesus did not die or was not raised from death, Paul says our faith is vain and futile.  We would be still in our sins.  In other words, we would be the most cursed of all cursed to walk the earth, having falsely trusted and testified about God.

However, we are blessed because Jesus Christ has risen in power over our sin and death.  This blessing was begun in us when we were baptised into Jesus’ death and resurrection.  So, what do these “woes” have to do with us now that we are baptised into Jesus’ death.

Jesus’ death has everything to do with our woes!  Just as much as his death and resurrection has everything to do with our blessedness!

In fact, Jesus becomes cursed for us, and we receive his blessedness.  Our sinfulness is hung on him on the cross.  A completely desolate, destitute, and deserted Jesus Christ descended into hell in our place.  But, because he was without sin in himself, but selflessly bore our sin according to the will of God the Father, he was raised and has received all the blessings of the first-born Son of God.

Unlike Jesus, we are still journeying through this life.  We live with the hope of our resurrection, but also with the reality of the curse and its woes.  These have been with humanity since Adam and Eve turned from God to the desolation of life without fear in God, without trust in God, and with all love directed inward, towards both one’s good and evil desires.

Just as those from the coastal plains of Tyre and Sidon, as well as those from the hill country of Judea and Jerusalem were taught together with the disciples by Jesus, he levels the playing field with us too.  He levelled the playing field for Jews and Gentiles who heard the same plain message at the Sermon on the plain.

Today it’s still relevant for all believers and unbelievers, pagans, and people of all religious persuasions, and Christendom too.  We all face the droughts of life and the final desolation of life in death.

All of us face the “Blessings and Woes” of Jesus’ Sermon on the Plain.  For those not in Jesus Christ the woes and blessing are an inexplicable riddle or a cruel twist of fate in which one lives.  No matter how much good one strives to accomplish, the result is the evil of death.

However, for Christians guided in the knowledge of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit gives plain and simple understanding, in the curses and blessings of us living with the curse of sin and our deeds of sin, and at the same time as living with the blessedness of forgiveness that covers sin. 

As the psalmist says in Psalm 32, “Blessed is the one whose transgression is forgiven, whose sin is covered.  Blessed is the man against whom the LORD counts no iniquity, and in whose spirit there is no deceit.  For when I kept silent, my bones wasted away through my groaning all day long.  For day and night your hand was heavy upon me; my strength was dried up as by the heat of summer.  [Selah]  I acknowledged my sin to you, and I did not cover my iniquity; I said, “I will confess my transgressions to the LORD,” and you forgave the iniquity of my sin.  [Selah]” (Psalm 32:1–5 ESV)

The Holy Spirit wills us to confess our sins to God.  We acknowledge the poverty in our life and receive the wealth of God’s blessing in Jesus Christ.  For now, it is held in faith and in the hope of the dissolution and death of all life sources other than Jesus’ resurrection.

So too, the death and resurrection of our hunger and fullness, our weeping and laughter, and our exclusion as evil as well as the perverted goodness in pleasures and popularity.

Jesus is like the weed and feed we buy to hose our lawns.  He kills the weeds and feeds our faith in the weary walk through the drought-stricken desolate deadliness of our days we spend here on earth. 

This is not about bringing down the tall poppies around us and making us better than our neighbour.  No!  It’s about the weeding and feeding within each of us, so we all grow together, healthy, and strong.  Like a healthy lawn pleasing the gardener, who has gone to the effort of painstakingly weeding and feeding it.

Jeremiah warns those of us who trust one’s own strength to feed and fertilise themselves.  Those who do, kill themselves with the salts they seek within themselves.   He cautions, “He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come.  He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.”  (Jeremiah 17:6 ESV)

But those who live in the drought-stricken desolate deadliness of our days are called to be weeded and fed in the solution of God’s salvation. 

“Blessed is the man who trusts in the LORD, whose trust is the LORD.  He is like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought, for it does not cease to bear fruit.”  The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately sick; who can understand it?  “I the LORD search the heart and test the mind, to give every man according to his ways, according to the fruit of his deeds.” (Jeremiah 17:7–10 ESV)

God is making desolate the weeds of our sin with his forgiveness in Jesus’ death and resurrection.  The wickedness of our sin is being levelled in God’s judgement, poured out on Jesus.  We now live on the splendour of Jesus’ holy faithfulness that led him through death into life with our Heavenly Father.

God knows the way of the righteous because the Holy Spirit continues to destroy your wickedness and make you holy and righteous in Jesus Christ.  Therefore, God knows you better than you even know yourself. 

You have heard him and are being healed from this life’s disease!  Your unclean human spirit, which causes trouble in this life, is being cured of the curse and is being blessed in the body of Christ.  Amen.