Pentecost 2 - 29 May 2016 - Year C

Pentecost 2 - 29 May 2016 - Year C

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

The text for this meditation is written in the 7^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Like: Verses 1 - 10

When Jesus had finished saying all this in the hearing of the people, he entered Capernaum. There a centurion’s servant, whom his master valued highly, was sick and about to die^. The centurion heard of Jesus and sent some elders of the Jews to him, asking him to come and heal his servant. When they came to Jesus, they pleaded earnestly with him, “This man deserves to have you do this,  because he loves our nation and has built our synagogue.” So Jesus went with them. He was not far from the house when the centurion sent friends to say to him: “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.” When Jesus heard this, he was amazed at him, and turning to the crowd following him, he said, “I tell you, I have not found such great faith even in Israel.” Then the men who had been sent returned to the house and found the servant well.

Things that are unlikely and are uncommon are often of great interest to people. There are people who are really interested in rare coins. Certain gemstones are valuable and desirable because they are uncommon. It is likely that when walking through and art gallery we are in awe of the rare works of the Master Painters! Football, the sport of summer, is full of uncommon feats. Commentators will express things like how uncommon it is for a first grader to drop a high ball. People love that kind of stuff! And people tend to like what is not common and what is not likely.

Jesus liked it when he saw something truly uncommon. What was that thing? Great faith. In fact, we know of only two times that Jesus ever saw and remarked about the great faith of someone. One was the Canaanite woman whose daughter was demon possessed. The other we hear about in our Gospel reading. As we look more closely at the Centurion, perhaps we see a bit of ourselves…and something we aspire to. In this meditation can we give some thought to unlikely and uncommon faith?

Capernaum was a city on the northern shore of the Sea of Galilee. A particular Roman centurion was stationed there. He was a Roman soldier who had charge over 100 men. When you hear that, you would imagine him to be a hard man, authoritative, not a man to be trifled with. To the Jews, the Romans were the oppressive enemy and a commander like this was one to be feared. This centurion, however, was different…really different!

Everything about this man was unlikely. He loved the Jewish people. He had a synagogue built so that the Lord’s people could worship. He was humble. He sought help from Jesus but didn’t try to pull the “Do you know who I am” with Jesus in order to impress him or convince him to act on his behalf. He didn’t even go to Jesus, but instead sent Jewish elders.

It was the Jewish elders who spoke so highly of him and felt that he deserved the Savior’s help. But the most unlikely thing about this man was his faith in Jesus! You wouldn’t think that a Roman soldier would put his faith in Jesus. To the Romans, Caesar was god. He was the one to be honored and worshiped. Later on the Romans would kill Christians for professing faith in Jesus and for not worshiping Caesar. But there he was—as unlikely as it was—putting his trust in Jesus!

This man’s faith was of the UNCOMMON variety! He knew, for instance that if Jesus just spoke, what he was asking for would be done. Listen to this: the centurion sent friends to say to (Jesus): “Lord, don’t trouble yourself, for I do not deserve to have you come under my roof. That is why I did not even consider myself worthy to come to you. But say the word, and my servant will be healed. For I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it.”

His problem was that his invaluable servant was at death’s door. This servant was so important and the situation so serious that he sent to Jesus for help. He wasn’t bragging when he spoke of his authority and his ability to tell people things and they would do it. He was explaining that his power made that possible. In the same way, he knew and trusted that Jesus’ great power worked similarly. All Jesus had to do was say the word and his servant would be healed. He absolutely believed that.

Friends, Jesus was amazed! He told those who were there that he had never seen such great faith! You would think that the person Jesus said that about would have been a little Jewish grandma who clung to the promises of the Messiah…or one of the Pharisees…or a synagogue leader…or at the very least, some Jewish person! But no! This UNCOMMON FAITH for anyone to have, belonged to a Roman centurion! And we don’t even know his name.

His name is not important, but his faith certainly is. If Jesus points to his as the greatest faith, perhaps we should consider it for a moment to see if we might learn from this centurion. So what was his faith like? His faith led him to love God’s people (the Jews) and others (his servant) and to love God’s house (he built a synagogue). He didn’t make a show of his authority or abuse it. He showed humility and reverence as he did not want to put Jesus out in any way. He simply believed that Jesus had the power to give life to a dying man—something only God could do. He was certainly right about that.

Jesus is true God. He showed that in his preaching, his teaching and the miracles he performed. He had not only the power to give life to a dying man, but power to earn eternal life for every person!

You and I have something in common with this centurion. Our faith is just as unlikely as his. Even if we aren’t Italian and we’re not a Army Officer, we are still similar to this Roman centurion when it comes to faith because our faith is unlikely too! In one respect, our faith is an impossibility because left to ourselves, we could never believe; we would never believe. By nature every person is blind to God’s ways and can’t understand them. By nature every person is spiritually dead because of sin.

By nature every person is an enemy of the holy God. The sinful nature in each of us corrupts us so completely that we don’t even have the desire to look God’s way, much less believe in him.

If we think that the centurion’s faith is unlikely simply because he was a Roman, a soldier—that’s only the half of it! Like us, he was also a sinner by nature. Left to themselves, no one wants to hear about this Jesus who never did anything wrong in God’s eyes and died on a cross to pay for all the things we do that God calls sin. On their own, no one wants to hear anything about there being the only one way to heaven and that is through faith in Jesus Christ. If we combine these facts with some of our backgrounds, we might say that it seemed VERY unlikely that we would have the faith we have today!

God the Holy Spirit deserves the credit for the faith we have because without him working through God’s Word and through baptism, not only is our faith in Jesus as our Savior UNLIKELY, it is impossible.

I doubt that there are very few of us, who would step forward and say “That’s me! It’s like he’s talking about me!” A humble and deep faith like that centurion’s wouldn’t do that. Friends, we know our weaknesses of faith well enough to understand our need to repent to Jesus for our lack of faith sometimes and our weakness of faith and the doubt we harbor in our hearts, even while we’re requesting something from God. Jesus lived and died and rose again to forgive those sins too…and he does.

What do we do if we admire this centurion and, because of Jesus’ love for us, want to please Jesus with our faith as that centurion did? He had perhaps seen Jesus and listened to him. He had absolutely heard about him—and probably a lot since much of Jesus’ ministry took place in and around the Sea of Galilee and Capernaum in particular. Great for him, but what about us? How do we get that strong faith today? – Jesus still speaks to us today through the power of God’s Word in the Holy Scriptures.

It’s so easy these days to hear of Jesus and have him speak to us because his Word is so accessible. There are Bible apps for your phone and tablet. We can get daily devotions automatically delivered to our email. We’ve got a Bible or two at home. We may even have one in our car and at work.

The Holy Spirit works through the Word to create a greater trust in Jesus our Savior and to help each day with our concerns—whether they be a sick and dying friend like the centurion or other challenges like aging parents, children to raise, bills to pay, never- ending health concerns, relationships. For all of us, finally, it is this faith in Jesus that will be the only important thing when on the Last Day we will stand before the holy God.

Faith in Jesus as our Saviour is the only thing that matters that day and on into eternity. The faith we have today is a testimony to God’s grace because it was not just UNLIKELY, but impossible without him. The UNCOMMON faith of centurion is uplifting to see and provides us with a reminder to keep our faith strong so that on that Last Day we will stand with Jesus in heaven. Amen.

The love and peace of God, which is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Holy Trinity – 22 May 2016 – Year C

Holy Trinity – 22 May 2016 – Year C

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

It is my intention to embrace all the Bible texts for today, (proverbs 8: 1-4 &22-31 – Romans 5: 1-5), but focus primarily on the Gospel reading John 16:12-15:

¹² “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear. ¹³ But when he, the Spirit of truth, comes, he will guide you into all the truth. He will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears, and he will tell you what is yet to come. ¹⁴ He will glorify me because it is from me that he will receive what he will make known to you. ¹⁵ All that belongs to the Father is mine. That is why I said the Spirit will receive from me what he will make known to you.”

In the ‘Athanasian Creed’ we confess “And the catholic faith is this:  That we worship one God in three Persons and three Persons in one God, neither confusing the Persons nor dividing the substance.” 

Today is Holy Trinity Sunday, the last of the festival days.  It’s the day we dust off that esteemed Athanasian Creed, named after St. Athanasius, the great confessor and defender of the Nicene orthodoxy, who was banished from his own pulpit five times defending the great truth:  that God is three and one at the same time.  Three distinct persons - the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  Yet only one God in essence - and there is no other god than this God.

The Tri-unity of God is a paradox.  A paradox is finding truth in two seemingly contradictory things at once.  The word “tri-une” itself is paradoxical.  Three - yet one; (or) one - yet three. 

At first glance the Holy Scriptures continually present us with seemingly contradictory statements  God is three and one.  Jesus Christ is true God and at the same time true man.  A justified believer is both sinless and sinner.  It’s all paradox (contradictory).  In a world that demands a neat and tidy either/or answer for anything, Christianity comes with a “both/and.”

Three divine Persons, one divine Being called God.  Let’s be honest.  If we were inventing a god and a religion, we wouldn’t go this way.  We’d keep things simple and straightforward.  Religion is hard enough to promote in a secular world.  Why make things more difficult than they have to be?  The trouble with that is we don’t make up our ideas of God.  God tells us who He is.

We must take the tri-unity of God seriously for this one reason:  Jesus revealed it.  He’s the One who died and rose from the dead, and so whatever Jesus says, is gospel truth.  Jesus is the one who prayed to His Father and yet said, “I and the Father are one.”  Jesus claimed to be sent by the Father as the only -begotten Son of God, and yet He said that to see and have Him was to see and have the Father.  He promised that He and the Father would send the Holy Spirit who would take what He received from the Father and hand it on to Jesus’ disciples.  He commanded His disciples to make disciples of all the nations by baptising them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit and teaching them everything He had entrusted to them. 

Friends, this is the source of Holy Trinity Sunday and the three creeds we confess.  That’s why confess the somewhat cumbersome Athanasian Creed with all its eternals, and uncreateds and incomprehensibles and threats of hellfire to all who don’t believe it.  It’s because this is the God that Jesus revealed to the world.  Three distinct Persons and yet only One, undivided God.  A paradox.

If you want to see an artist’s attempt at capturing the paradox, spend a little time on the ‘Net’ and do a Google search for ‘Artists impressions of the Holy Trinity’.  You will see virtually hundreds of expositions of the doctrine of the Trinity by famous artists throughout time. (Example Above) You see it gets people thinking and talking and discussing.  How do you illustrate this paradox without slipping into the old trap of having three gods or having a god with three faces?  What the creeds try to do with words, the artists try to do with paint and canvas.  It isn’t easy.  In fact, the Eastern Orthodox Church forbids members from even attempting it, though people still do.  There’s a deep drive in us to try to make some visual sense out of it.

This may all seem like so much doctrinal hair-splitting to some.  The Athanasian Creed might seem like an exercise in hair-splitting.  Doesn’t the Bible keep things nice and simple? Is this all really necessary?  Couldn’t we “just believe in Jesus” and let it go at that.  Rational nonconformists claim “Doctrine divides”. 

Friends in Christ, it’s never a healthy sign when the church, or baptised believers for that matter, abandon any interest in Christian doctrine and turn to their own spiritual experiences.  It’s a sign of the church grown lazy and distracted.  The creeds didn’t (and don’t), cause divisions; they identified, labelled, and diagnosed the divisions.  Doctrinal indifference weakens and divides Christ’s church on earth.

GK Chesterton, the eminent Christian writer and apologist who died in 1936, said this about his own modern-day disinterest in doctrine: - “In all the mess of modern thoughtlessness, that still calls itself modern thought, there is perhaps nothing so stupendously stupid as the common saying, “Religion can never depend on minute disputes about doctrine.”  It is like saying that life can never depend on minute disputes about medicine.  The man who is content to say, “We do not want theologians splitting hairs,” will doubtless be content to go on and say, “We do not want surgeons splitting filaments more delicate than hairs.”  It is a fact that many a man would be dead today, if his doctors had not debated fine shades about doctoring.  It is also the fact the European civilisation would be dead today, if its doctors of divinity had not debated fine shades about doctrine.” (The Resurrection of Rome, in For All the Saints, II, 27-28)

We might add to Chesterton that our own civilisations are dying and may already be dead, because we no longer take an interest in the fine points of doctrine.  What Chesterton called “the mess of modern thoughtlessness” has become a culture of “dummies.”  There are even books with the titles “Christianity for Dummies” and “The Bible for Dummies.”  When you no longer believe anything faithfully and firmly, the fine points of doctrine are no longer worth fighting for.

So what do we do with this paradox of God’s tri-unity?  What does it mean for us beyond the fact that God can’t easily be pictured, and the best we can do are triangles and St. Patrick’s three leaf clovers?

First, it means that God Himself is never alone, personally speaking.  He is in communion - the Father in communion with the Son in communion with the Holy Spirit.  When God made man in the beginning, He said, “Let us make man in our image.”  You might say that creation is a divine committee job, a collaboration of the Father’s ideas, the Son’s Word, and the Spirit’s breath and life, all working together. 

That still doesn’t quite catch the fullness of the paradox, I know.  But at the level of our human language, it’s the best we can do.  It’s one reason, I believe, that it was not good for the man to be alone when he was created, and why God separated male and female and made them two separate beings.  We are made to be in community and in communion as God Himself is in communion.

Secondly; the doctrine of the Trinity teaches us that it is the Wisdom of God, the Word, that orders everything.  In the book of Proverbs, Wisdom takes on a person and speaks (in a female voice, because the word for “wisdom” is feminine).  Wisdom was with God in the beginning, appointed from eternity, from before the creation.  Wisdom was the craftsman at God’s side, His right hand, rejoicing in His whole world, delighting in mankind.

You might say that all of science and mathematics is a celebration of this Wisdom that made all things and gave everything order and place. The laws of science exists because the Wisdom of God brought order out of random chaos.  The whole reason we can even speak of scientific laws and principles is that the universe operates by divine Wisdom.  God is a God of order, and He makes things in order.
In the New Testament we meet God’s Wisdom face to face in the person of Jesus.  He is the Word Incarnate, the Word made flesh, the Word through whom all things were made and in whom all things hold together and have their being.  He’s called the “first-born” of the creation, the image (icon) of the invisible God, the fullness of God dwelling in human flesh.  To know Jesus is to know the ordering Wisdom of the universe in a personal way.

Imagine seeing a magnificent building, a structure that commands your attention.  It makes you want to know who built it, who designed it.  Take a long, meditative look at your hand. Wiggle each finger.  Flex each joint.  Take note of the muscles and tendons and blood vessels.  Notice the shape and size of each finger.  How do you think that hand came to be?  By accident?  A quirk of nature?  Luck?  Of course not!  It’s the Father’s design, the Son’s execution, the Spirit’s life that made this hand and keeps it going.

Jesus told His disciples, “I have much more to say to you, more than you can now bear.”  And those men spent three years of “quality time” with Jesus.  Literally walking and talking and eating with Him, and they still can’t bear all that He has to say.  It’s a nonsense to think that we’ve exhausted everything. We may have read the Bible a dozen times all the way through from Genesis to the Revelation and we still don’t know everything there is to know.  We may have memorised the our catechisms, gone to Christian schools, studied under the best teachers, have enough degrees to wallpaper a small room, but we’re still only scratching the surface.  Jesus promises more to come.  There’s always more with Jesus, until our last second is past, when we inherit the fullness of what the Father has given to the Son who gives us by His Spirit.

Thirdly; the doctrine of the Trinity describes our relationship with God.  It’s a triune relationship in union with the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit.  That’s how it began at our baptism “in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.”  The apostle Paul says, “Thanks to Jesus and the justification that came through His death and resurrection, we now have peace with God through Christ and access through faith.”

God has made peace with the world, with each and every one of us, in the death of Jesus His Son.  In trusting that peace, we have access to the Father through His Son.  Jesus said, “No one comes to the Father except through me”, and in His death on the cross, He drew all things to Himself and in His resurrection He presented the whole redeemed creation to the Father.  The disaster of human sin, including the contribution each of us makes, has been answered in the blood of Jesus, and now by that blood, we have access to the Father.  We can come to Him as dear children coming to their dear Father, with boldness and confidence.  In Christ, we are part of the family.  Father God has poured out His Spirit on us, in our Baptism and whenever we hear His Word.  The Spirit reveals the love of God to our own hearts, so that we are able to say “our Father.”

Every prayer is about the tri-unity of God.  We pray to the Father.  We pray through the Son, through His priesthood, His sacrificial death, His blood.  We also pray in the Holy Spirit who reveals Jesus Christ to us, who works faith in our hearts, and who delivers our words to the ear of God.

The tri-unity of God is our life with God.  We are children of the heavenly Father.  We are brothers and sisters of God’s only-begotten Son, Jesus, our Saviour.  We have the Holy Spirit as our Comforter, our Advocate, our Guide.  We are always surrounded by the three Persons of our one and only God who made us, who saved us, who restores us and makes us holy in Himself. 

This isn’t some theological abstraction in a book. The practical consequences of this are that we can rejoice that we will share in the glory of God, and already do by faith, and we rejoice even in our sufferings.  That’s right, even in suffering, because God is in the middle of all of it.  He made us, He redeemed us, He keeps us going.  He’s not going to abandon us when things get rough.  He will see us through.  Not around, but through. Through whatever it is we’re asked to face, whether sickness or persecution or hardship or struggle, the Triune God is at work producing patient endurance, building character, and creating hope in our hearts that will never abandon us
Blessed be the Holy Trinity and the Undivided Unity. Amen

The peace and love of our great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.

Feast of Pentecost - 15 May 2016 - Year C

Feast of Pentecost - 15 May 2016 - Year C


Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

The text for this meditation is written in the 2nd Chapter of the Acts of the Apostles: Verses 1 - 21

When the day of Pentecost arrived, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly there came from heaven a sound like ga mighty rushing wind, and hit filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 And divided tongues as of fire appeared to them and rested on each one of them. 4 And they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues las the Spirit gave them utterance.
5 Now there were dwelling in Jerusalem Jews, devout men from every nation under heaven. 6 And mat this sound the multitude came together, and they were bewildered, because each one was hearing them speak in his own language. 7 And they were amazed and astonished, saying, “Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us in his own native language? 9 Parthians and Medes and Elamites and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, 11 both Jews and proselytes, Cretans and Arabians—we hear them telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” 12 And all were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, “What does this mean?” 13 But others mocking said, “They are filled with new wine.”
14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, lifted up his voice and addressed them: “Men of Judea and all who dwell in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and give ear to my words. 15 For these people are not drunk, as you suppose, since it is only the third hour of the day. 16 But this is what was uttered through the prophet Joel:
17 " ‘And in the last days it shall be, God declares,
what I will pour out my Spirit on all flesh,
and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
and your young men shall see visions,
and your old men shall dream dreams;
18 even on my male servants and female servants
in those days I will pour out my Spirit, and they shall prophesy.
19 And I will show wonders in the heavens above
and signs on the earth below,
blood, and fire, and vapour of smoke;
20 the sun shall be turned to darkness
and the moon to blood,
before the day of the Lord comes, the great and magnificent day.
21 And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’



Today is the Feast of Pentecost – the Sunday when we focus on the revelation of the Holy Spirit fifty days after Jesus rose from the dead and ten days after He ascended into heaven.  The three readings that the church has chosen for this day all point to some aspect of the work of the Holy Spirit.  The Old Testament reading tells us that the Word of God is powerful enough to bring dry bones back to life.  The Epistle is the account of Pentecost itself.  The Gospel is Jesus’ promise to send the Holy Spirit and His description of the benefits that the disciples will receive from the Holy Spirit.

A search through the Holy Scriptures reveal to us that the Pentecost described in the above text was not the First Pentecost.  Pentecost is the Greek term for the Feast of Weeks and God established the Feast of Weeks when He gave the Law to Moses on Mount Sinai.  It was one of the three festivals that required the Men of Israel to gather together at the place of the Lord.  The other two feasts were the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of Booths.  The Feast of Unleavened Bread is a week-long celebration that begins the day after Passover.  The Feast of Booths was a time for remembering the forty years of wandering in the wilderness.  Moses summarised this when he gave his farewell sermon in Deuteronomy: [Deuteronomy 16:16] “Three times a year all your males shall appear before the Lord your God at the place that he will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, at the Feast of Weeks, and at the Feast of Booths.”

The reason I mention this, is that I just marvel at how God prepared Israel for the coming of the Messiah even as God was giving the Law to Moses on Sinai.  Jerusalem would have been full of pilgrims when Jesus died on the cross because it was Passover – right at the beginning of the Feast of Unleavened Bread.  In a similar way, Jerusalem would be full of pilgrims on Pentecost – right at the beginning of the Feast of Weeks.  The Sound of the mighty wind and the appearance of the tongues of fire were a call to gather the faithful men of Israel – the faithful men who had gathered according to the Law given to Moses so many centuries ago.

The Holy Spirit called the faithful men of Israel together as the beginning of the New Testament church.  Up until now, these pilgrims had been faithfully waiting for the coming of the promised Messiah.  Now the Holy Spirit called them together to inform them that the long awaited Messiah had come in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Now their faith was not to be in the promise of a Messiah who would one day save them.  Instead, it was to be in Jesus of Nazareth as the Messiah who had come and kept God’s promise.

Importantly, for all who were present and those who were to come the Holy Spirit let His presence be known in a rare and spectacular way on that day; but, the ultimate goal of this spectacular display of sound and light was to draw the faithful Pentecost pilgrims together so that they could hear about the mighty works of God.  The proclamation of the mighty works of God was so important that the Holy Spirit even gave the disciples the ability to proclaim those mighty works in the native languages of all the faithful pilgrims who arrived on the scene.

The mighty works of God focus on the person of Jesus Christ and the forgiveness that He earned for the entire world.  Seven weeks earlier, the Romans crucified this man.  They mocked Him, spit on Him, beat Him with rods, scourged Him with whips, and then nailed Him to a cross.  Jesus Christ died on that cross, but it was not possible for death to hold Him and He rose from the dead.  Now the disciples were telling the faithful that they were witnesses of all these things.  These are the mighty works of God that the disciples were telling to the faithful in their own native languages.

The true work of the Holy Spirit is not in the tongues of fire or the sound of the mighty rushing wind.  The true work of the Holy Spirit is in the proclamation of the mighty works of God.  As Jesus said in today’s Gospel, “When the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me.”  The sound was impressive and it drew a crowd.  Never the less, the main work of the Holy Spirit witnesses about Jesus.

What does the Holy Spirit’s message sound like then?  In the Holy Gospel, Jesus said, “When he comes, he will convict the world concerning sin and righteousness and judgment.”

Our own nature is inclined to think that good people go to heaven and bad people go to hell.  The difficulty comes when we try to determine who is good enough to go to heaven and who is so bad that they are definitely going to hell.  The Holy Spirit steps in and settles the argument.  He convicts the world of sin.  He tells me that I am not good enough to go to heaven and that I deserve to go to hell.

He comes to me and tells me that I have lost many opportunities.  He says, “As a husband, you have not loved your wife as Christ loved the church.  As a father, you have not brought up your children in the fear of the Lord.  As a son, you have not honoured your parents.  As a pastor, you have not cared for my sheep.  Do not even begin to think that there is anything you can do to earn your way into heaven.”  He convicts me of my sin and shows me that I am indeed totally helpless before God.

If the Holy Spirit left me in that state, I would be most wretched – but He doesn’t.  The Holy Spirit convicts the world of righteousness.  The Holy Spirit beholds me in my helpless state before God and says, “There is a righteousness that belongs to you.  This is the righteousness of the Son of God – Jesus Christ.  The righteousness of His perfect life is yours.  The price that He paid is dearer than you can possibly imagine.  He bought you with His holy precious blood and His innocent suffering and death.  With this dreadful price He exchanged His righteousness for your sin.  Now He offers salvation to you for free.”  There is sweet comfort in the Holy Spirit’s conviction of righteousness for it is the righteousness of Christ unto salvation.  It is the Holy Spirit who makes the righteousness of Christ available to us through faith.

In addition to this, there is the Holy Spirit’s conviction of judgment.  The world wants to stand in judgment over us, and Satan thinks he is God Himself.  They take it upon themselves to judge between right and wrong – between that which must be condemned and that which must be accepted.  Even though the message of salvation through Jesus Christ is for the entire world, Satan and the World insist that this message is divisive, narrow-minded, intolerant, and bigoted.  The world brings this thinking against God and His Christians in an effort to exterminate the message of the Gospel.

The Holy Spirit fights the judgment of this world with his own conviction of judgment.  He draws our attention to the fate of the ruler of this world – Satan.  Satan’s judgment is already sealed.  He is the one who brought God’s beloved creation into the state of sin and for that he will suffer forever.  As the Holy Spirit reveals the fate of Satan to us, He assures us that judgment and condemnation by the world is not the judgment of God, but that it is the judgment of the devil who is already condemned by God.

God carried out His judgment against sin when He punished His son in our place on the cross.  Now the Holy Spirit reveals God’s judgment.  God looks at all believers in Christ and says, “I see only the righteousness of my beloved Son, Jesus Christ.  There is no condemnation.”

The Holy Spirit could probably introduce us to Christ in an infinite number of ways, but He has chosen to introduce us through the Word of God.  He works and sustains faith in us through the Word of God that we hear with our ears and read with our eyes.  He works faith in us with the wet Word of Holy Baptism as we combine the Word of God with water according to Christ’s command.  He sustains our baptismal faith as we confess our sins to God our Father and hear Christ’s Word of forgiveness on the lips of our pastor.  He strengthens our faith as Christ Himself comes to us as the living Word in His body and blood.  In these ways, the Holy Spirit has chosen to connect us to our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

Now we might well ask, “How powerful can words really be?  Are words really that important?”  The answer to that question comes to us from the Old Testament Book of Ezekiel. God actually commanded Ezekiel to preach a sermon to a congregation of dry bones.  Ezekiel preached according to the word of the Lord and the dry bones became an exceedingly great army.

The Word of God is powerful – not because we say it or use it – but because God stands behind it with His promises.  God has promised: [Isaiah 55:10-11] “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

The Holy Spirit works through the Word to put the finishing touch of faith on our salvation.  God the Father sent His Son into the world [John 3:17] in order that the world might be saved through him. The Son has purchased our salvation with His holy, precious blood, and His innocent suffering and death.  The Holy Spirit brings this salvation to us as He calls us by the Gospel, enlightens us with His gifts, and sanctifies us in the one, true faith.  So the work of justification is complete.  We do nothing.  God does it all.  Because God does it all, our salvation is secure and we shall live forever with Him.  Amen

The peace and grace of our great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Easter 7 – 8 May 2016 – Year C

Easter 7 – 8 May 2016 – Year C

Grace to you and peace from our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Amen

 The text for this meditation is written in the 17^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St John: Verses 20 – 26:

20 “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word, 21 that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. 22 The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, 23 I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me. 24 Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. 25 O righteous Father, even though the world does not know you, I know you, and these know that you have sent me. 26 I made known to them your name, and I will continue to make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.”

Did you know you are mentioned in the Gospel reading for today? You are. Jesus is talking about you–in fact, he is praying for you–in the passage known as his “High Priestly Prayer” in John 17. In the first part of that chapter, Jesus has been praying for his disciples, the ones he would be sending out soon as his apostles. You know, Peter, James, John, Andrew, Matthew–there were twelve of them. But then as verse 20 of John 17 progresses, Jesus shifts his prayer to include others, as well. He says: “I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. . . .”

Have no doubt that when Jesus says “these only,” he’s referring to the disciples he’s just been praying for, those who would be his apostles. But then he goes on to say: “but also for those who will believe in me through their word.” - and it’s here he is talking about we (and me). Yes, you. For you are among those who have believed in Jesus through the apostles’ word–the inspired witness of the apostles that we find in the New Testament Scriptures. Through the gospel that has been preached to us, through the apostles’ teaching, through the sacraments the apostles were commissioned to pass on to the church from generation to generation–through the apostolic ministry of Word and Sacrament, you and I have come to believe in, trust in, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. This means that you and I are included in this prayer of Jesus when he prays for “those who will believe in me through their word.” Here in his High Priestly Prayer, “Jesus Prays for Us.”

Now what are the things that our Lord prays for us? What does he want for us, what is his will for us? Several things. The first thing he asks for us is this: “that they may all be one, just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us, so that the world may believe that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given to them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one, so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.”

This is the unity of the church Jesus is praying for here, a unity not based on warm fuzzy emotions or in holding hands and singing Kumbaya, but more than that, it is a unity created by God’s own work of binding us to himself, giving us the gift of faith, his work of uniting us in the life of the triune God. Notice how Jesus describes this unity: “just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you, that they also may be in us,” and again, “that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may become perfectly one.” In theology, this is what we call the “mystical union,” that all believers in Christ are one, incorporated into the life of the one true God, in the one true church. You know how we say in the Nicene Creed, “I believe in one holy catholic (or Christian) and apostolic church”? Well, we believe in it, that is, we believe there to be but one church, because that is what God has created and what Christ here is praying for. This is the “una sancta catholica et apostolica ecclesia,” the “one holy catholic”–“catholic” in the best sense, meaning “universal”–the one “in all times and all places” church, consisting of all believers made holy by the blood of the Lamb and trusting in him, the church built on the foundation of the holy apostles. This is the unity that Jesus is praying for–praying for us–here in his High Priestly Prayer.

Thank God that he has brought us into his one church! The Holy Spirit has given us faith to believe in Christ our Saviour, and now we know the Father’s love. We all believe in one true God, and we all have been baptised in the name of the triune God, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. This is a God-established unity that cannot fail. This unity exists even now, in spite of all the divisions and fractures and errors we see in visible Christendom. Friends, this unity will last forever, when by God’s grace those warts and flaws in the church will no longer be seen, when they will be healed–when Christ will present the church to himself as a bride radiant and beautiful, holy and without blemish.

Now of course we want to do everything we can to walk in the oneness God has given his church. We want to make every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. Speaking the truth in love, the church will be built up and grow strong, not being blown around by every wind of doctrine, but rather holding to the faith once delivered to the saints. We will work for accord in the church, seeking consensus in the pure doctrine and striving for a God-pleasing uniformity in church practice. This is a fitting follow-up to what Jesus is praying for us.

There is an outcome that will follow, as we dwell in God and he in us and we are built up in the one apostolic faith. Our oneness in God results in mission, as Jesus says: “so that the world may believe that you have sent me,” and again, “so that the world may know that you sent me and loved them even as you loved me.” More and more people will come to faith in Christ as the church lives in, and manifests, and testifies to, the love of God in Christ. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” This is the love of God we have received and experienced, and that love then shines through us out into a sin-darkened world, drawing more and more people from every nation into the one holy church.

It’s happening all around the world today. What Jesus is praying for in this prayer is coming to pass as the church grows and the gospel goes into every corner of the world. In Africa, In Asia, in South America, the church is growing by leaps and bounds. In Ethiopia, in Kenya, in Sri Lanka, Indonesia, Singapore, in Argentina and Peru, we see the church expanding and new beachheads for the kingdom being established on every shore.

This is the same gospel that has saved us, my brothers and sisters. It speaks of God’s own Son coming down from heaven and being made incarnate here on earth. It is the good news of Jesus Christ, true God and true man, bearing the sins of the world in his body on the cross. He is the one and only our Saviour God has given for all people everywhere, the only one we need. In him we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. Christ won this for us on the cross, purchasing our salvation with his precious blood; and then he rose, victorious in the strife, defeating all our foes for us – death, the devil, the grave, the condemnation that you and I deserve by our sins. These all are overcome by the death and resurrection of God’s Son, Christ our Saviour. Now ascended into heaven, he sits at God’s right hand, ever living to make intercession for us as our own High Priest. Jesus promises that he will come again at the last day, to take us home to be with him forever.

The other thing Jesus prays for us in this prayer of his in John 17. Jesus prays to his Father as follows: “Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given me, may be with me where I am, to see my glory that you have given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world.”

Jesus prays this as he is about to go to the cross, to complete the saving mission for which he was sent. Then will come his resurrection and, forty days after that, his ascension into heaven. So when Jesus prays that we may be with him where he is, to see his glory, this is talking about our eternal life in heaven in the age to come. There we will see his glory, undimmed and undiminished. There we will be with him, and we will see him face to face. What a glorious day that will be! An endless, joyful eternity with our Lord and with all his people, in a paradise restored and made even better!

It’s what we see described in the reading from Revelation ^{22 (12-22).} The new Jerusalem, the holy city. The river of the water of life, flowing through the city, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb. The tree of life–that tree we were barred from, when we were driven out of the garden after our fall into sin. When the new day comes, when Christ returns and takes us home to be with him forever, then we will have access to the tree of life, eternal life, ours as a gift. “Blessed are those who wash their robes, so that they may have the right to the tree of life.” That’s us. We have had our robes washed white in the blood of the Lamb, our sins washed away in the waters of Holy Baptism. Therefore, in Christ, we will have the right to the tree of life.

Friends, this is paradise restored–creation restored, and made even better. No more sin or sorrow or death. Only life and abundance and joy. The blessed vision of seeing our Lord Jesus in his glory. The joy of worship around the throne with the whole company of heaven. The heavenly banquet feast. This is what we have to look forward to. This is our hope, our lively hope that animates all our days. We look forward to that day with great expectation. “Come, Lord Jesus!” is the church’s fervent cry. And, dear ones, this will be the ultimate fulfilment of Jesus’ own prayer, his High Priestly Prayer, the prayer he prays for us, that we may be with him where he is. God grant it, for Jesus’ sake. Amen.

The peace and love of our Great Triune God that is beyond all human understanding, keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen