Pentecost 4 – 2 July 2017 – Year A

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

The text for this meditation is written in the 22 Chapter of the Book of Genesis: Verses 1 – 14:

Now it came about after these things, that God tested Abraham, and said to him, “Abraham!”  And he said, “Here I am.”  And He said, “Take now your son, your only son, whom you love, Isaac, and go to the land of Moriah; and offer him there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains of which I will tell you.”

So Abraham rose early in the morning and saddled his donkey, and took two of his young men with him and Isaac his son; and he split wood for the burnt offering, and arose and went to the place of which God had told him.  On the third day Abraham raised his eyes and saw the place from a distance.  And Abraham said to his young men, “Stay here with the donkey, and I and the lad will go yonder; and we will worship and return to you.”  And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son, and he took in his hand the fire and the knife. So the two of them walked on together.  And Isaac spoke to Abraham his father and said, “My father!”  And he said, “Here I am, my son.”  And he said, “Behold, the fire and the wood, but where is the lamb for the burnt offering?”  And Abraham said, “God will provide for Himself the lamb for the burnt offering, my son.”  So the two of them walked on together.

Then they came to the place of which God had told him; and Abraham built the altar there, and arranged the wood, and bound his son Isaac, and laid him on the altar on top of the wood.  And Abraham stretched out his hand, and took the knife to slay his son.  But the angel of the LORD called to him from heaven, and said, “Abraham, Abraham!”  And he said, “Here I am.”  And He said, “Do not stretch out your hand against the lad, and do nothing to him; for now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”  Then Abraham raised his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him a ram caught in the thicket by his horns; and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the place of his son.  And Abraham called the name of that place The LORD Will Provide, as it is said to this day, “In the mount of the LORD it will be provided.”

This is a situation that is so hard to envisage! Abraham has waited his entire life – over 100 years – for this one son to be born.  He left home and family to follow the promise of God over twenty five years before.   Then Isaac was born.  When Isaac was thirteen or fourteen, he was undoubtedly passed through the ritual of the coming of age, the predecessor to what the Jews call “Bar-Mitzvah” today.  So, it was some time after that in which the events detailed in our text take place.  Sarah was still alive, so we know that Isaac was under thirty-five, or so, and that is all we can tell.  The point being that Abraham has waited a long time for Isaac.

Abraham is probably about one hundred and twenty-five years old.  Now God tells him to take his son out into the wilderness and offer him up as a burnt offering to God.  It is difficult to imagine what must have been going on in the mind of Abraham.  The Bible only tells us of his faithfulness.  The most revealing thing our text tells us is Abraham’s response when Isaac asks about the lamb for the sacrifice, “God will provide.”

Imagine, when Abraham spoke the words “God will provide”, he surely must have felt crushed and frightened.  Nevertheless, he followed the command of God.  We could make all sorts of judgments about why – Abraham’s wealth, God’s previous faithfulness, you know, all of the worldly reasons to understand Abraham’s willingness to be faithful in this extreme command.  None of them are certain, however, and none of them are likely to be true.  In such an extreme situation surely Abraham was faithful because Abraham believed.

His faith is demonstrated in his answer to Isaac – God will provide for Himself the lamb.  Isaac was the miracle child, and Abraham did not question God’s ability to do more miracles.  Abraham thought God would raise Isaac from the dead.  That is what the book of Hebrews says.  By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac; ^{Hebrews 11:19} “He considered that God is able to raise men even from the dead; from which he also received him back”.

 Abraham trusted God to provide, and so he was willing to sacrifice his son …  and God provided.  He provided for Abraham in a way I suspect Abraham had never envisioned.  He stopped Abraham at the very last moment, and provided the lamb for sacrifice, caught by its horns in the bush nearby.  Abraham passed the test and worshiped God: Imagine the joy and relief in the hearts of Abraham and Isaac as they left that place and headed home.

Hebrews tells us that Abraham received Isaac back from the edge of destruction as a type of the resurrection from the dead.  This type goes deeper, however.  Abraham was the father who was sacrificing his only son, just as God did for us.  God was under no command from another.  It was His plan and His will to sacrifice His Son for us and for our salvation.  In acting out this human struggle, Abraham provides an example of what this takes, and a human picture of the father giving his son.

Mankind marvel, when they stop to consider it, that Isaac went along with the whole thing.  We usually have this picture of the young boy, twelve or thirteen, and that could be possible, but I suspect that he was older, and well able to flee or to fight this hundred and some year old man, if necessary.  But Isaac carries the wood for his father – and that would be no small pile of sticks, for the kind of sacrifice that they intended.  He must have allowed his father to tie him up and lay him on the pile of wood in the altar area for the sacrifice.  No matter what may have been going through his mind, he humbly did what his father asked him to.  In this, Isaac is a type of Christ.

Christ humbly followed the plan and will of His Father.   He knew throughout His life who He was and where He was going to end up.  He walked that road and was faithful.  He faced the wrenching sorrow of the garden of Gethsemane, the awful dread.  He went to the cross, and the torture that led up to it, humbly, willingly – in so far as it was His will to be obedient to His Father.  He allowed Himself to be tied, and placed on the altar of the cross for sacrifice.  The only real difference of consequence is that no voice from heaven stopped the hand of the executioner for Jesus.

Abraham looked up, when God commanded him to stop, and saw the ram caught by its horns.  God told Abraham that he had demonstrated his faith and absolute trust in God, being willing to give up that which was most precious to him for the sake of his God.  Similarly, God demonstrated His great love for us, and His desire to rescue us from sin and death and hell by offering up that which was most precious to Him – His only-begotten Son.  Because Jesus suffered the torments of hell and died in our place, we are forgiven, and we will never die.  Our body will rest, as did the body of Jesus, in the grave for a time, but like Jesus, we will commend our soul into God’s presence and keeping, and we will live — both between the day of our body’s death and the day of resurrection, and, following that day of the resurrection of all flesh, we will live in joy and glory with the Lord eternally.

God provided the sacrifice for Abraham in the ram caught in the bushes, and He provided it for us in Jesus Christ. This is the reality that reveals to us the meaning of the symbolic events which underlies the Biblical declaration; “In the mount of the Lord, it will be provided.”  Back then it was a specific unnamed hill in the land of Moriah.  In 30 A.D. it was a hill named “Golgotha,” just outside the city walls of Jerusalem.  Jesus wasn’t trapped, however, but willing – out of love for us, and for His heavenly Father.  Because of Jesus, “He that believes and is baptised shall be saved.”

Abraham received Isaac back from the dead, as it were.  That is how Hebrews put it.  Isaac hadn’t really died, but he was marked for death, and as good as dead at his father’s hand, if God had not intervened.  His release from death was a type of resurrection – it demonstrates to some degree the resurrection of Jesus.  It is for us a type of Jesus’ return from the dead - Jesus is the first-fruits of our resurrection – that is to say that we shall also rise from the dead as Jesus did, as part of His resurrection, because we are His body, and we have joined Him in His death and resurrection through baptism.  Just as Isaac pointed forward as a type to the resurrection of Jesus, Jesus points forward to our own.

The Lord will provide; and He has; but this text is not just about history.  It actually demonstrates to us that the Lord will provide.  When God wants us to serve, to do some specific thing, or just to be faithful, the Lord will provide.  We will never face any situation where God cannot meet our needs.  We will never face any circumstance where God will not provide what we need in order to be faithful to Him.  Abraham demonstrated his trust in God, and similarly God tested Abraham to assure us of that we also can similarly place our trust in Him.  This is the heart and soul of God’s message to us in this Scripture passage.

God calls us to trust Him and be faithful.  We cannot need more than God can provide, and if we are faithful, and are doing what is faithful, the Lord will provide.  We are “the mount of the Lord” today.  He does not identify with any geographic location any longer.  It is not Mount Sinai.  That was once the place, but when the children of Israel left the holy mountain, God went with them.  He provided Manna and water and guided them to the holy land, promised to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.

Then they built the temple, and God claimed it as His place – the place of His presence on earth among men.  Then He came in the person of Jesus.  He was Immanuel, “God with us.”  When Jesus left this earth, He made His holy people the place of His presence.  That place is not ancient Israel, or their modern descendants, according to the flesh.  That place is us — His Christian Church on earth!

“In the mount of the Lord it will be provided.”  We, the Church, are that “mount” and when we are faithful, God will provide.  Through His abundant grace, He provides for us all of the time, even when are not faithful: But certainly we may enjoy the greatest comfort and confidence in His provision and blessings when we are faithful, as Abraham was faithful, and as Jesus was faithful!  So we should never be discouraged or tempted to find a better way than simply being faithful.

Continually the modern Christian trends offer up various innovative programmes and “new measures” to grow the church and ensure success and survival.  It is an interesting historical fact that the term, “new measures”, has been in use for some 150 years. Whilst innovation can be useful, we must never forget that  God, however, has called us, through Jesus Christ to His Word, and the Sacraments; and to trust in Him.  If we walk together in God’s Word, and encourage one another in faithfulness and trust in God, and do those things that the Lord lays before us to do, the Lord will provide.

He may not do everything we would like Him to do, nor bless us in the ways that we dream about.  God’s will is that the Gospel be preached, and His people demonstrate it by their lives of faithfulness, grounded in His Word, and trusting in His promises.  His will is that we live the faithfulness so thoroughly that others see it and ask us about it, and we witness to them the hope that is in us.  His will is that we receive His Holy Spirit in Holy Baptism, to gather to hear His Word, to eat His holy Supper, and to encourage one another and love one another in the fellowship of His holy ones in the body of Christ. 

God’s will is that we trust Him.  Trust Him, not ourselves.  Trust Him, not your own wit and wisdom.  Trust Him, not the opinions of those around you who think they know better.  Abraham did the unthinkable because God told Him to do it, and God said.  “Now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only son, from Me.”  God did the impossible in Jesus Christ, to save us, to show us His love, and to teach us to trust in Him.  Now it is our turn.  Now it is time for us to be faithful.  ^{Proverbs 3:5-6} says, “Trust in the LORD with all your heart, And do not lean on your own understanding.  In all your ways acknowledge Him, And He will make your paths straight.”

Trust in the Lord, and walk faithfully.  Then we will know with absolute certainty that the Lord will provide. Amen

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

Pentecost 3 – 25 June 2017 – Year A

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

The text for our meditation is written in the 6^th Chapter of St Paul’s letter to the Romans: Verses 1 - 11

What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it? ³ Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? ⁴ Therefore we have been buried with him by baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life.

⁵ For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. ⁶ We know that our old self was crucified with him so that the body of sin might be destroyed, and we might no longer be enslaved to sin. ⁷ For whoever has died is freed from sin. ⁸ But if we have died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. ⁹ We know that Christ, being raised from the dead, will never die again; death no longer has dominion over him. ¹⁰ The death he died, he died to sin, once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. ¹¹ So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus.

I wonder how many of you have heard of a weapon called the AK-47 assault rifle?

It was invented by a Russian general named Mikhail Kalashnikov. This has become the weapon of choice for revolutionaries; and poorer militant communist and Islamic nations because it is inexpensive to produce, simple and effective and almost impossible to destroy. To this day it is almost exclusively the weapon of choice used by terrorist groups. Australians and Allied troops have been facing them since the conflict in South Vietnam right through other theatres of war until this very day. When the general was confronted about the number of lives his weapon had taken, he replied, “I have no regrets and bear no responsibility for how politicians have used it.”

General Kalashnikov died in December of 2013, and shortly before his death he might have regretted his words. In a letter he wrote to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, he asked, “If my rifle took away people’s lives, then can it be that I am guilty for people’s deaths, even if they were enemies?”

You know, all of us have sins hidden in the back of our minds and in the corners of our hearts. These private sins give us grief any time they come to the surface of our thoughts. Even though they might have been forgotten by others, and even though we have been forgiven by God, the sins still bother us. The apostle Paul offers us this assurance: “Sin will have no power over you, since you are not under the law, but under grace.”

There is a common belief in society in general that living a good life and doing good deeds is enough to get into heaven when they die; you may be surprised by the number of Christian Denominations who preach this doctrine.  In our Biblical text; Romans 6: 1 – 11, St Paul tells us something quite different.  Paul tells us that the only way we can gain the new life that salvation offers is to die a spiritual death. In other words, our sin-filled nature has to die, and the only way it can die is if we accept Christ in faith.

Just as Christ died, was buried, descended to hell and rose again, we also have to be “buried” with him by baptism into faith. Only then can our link to our old, sinful life be severed. When we die to sin, death has no more power over us. We are reborn into a new life in Christ, just like Christ was resurrected from the dead. Our new “body” is clean, and free from sin.

There are those who also believe that once, through God’s grace, our sins are forgiven, they will continue to be forgiven, even if we continue on sinning. As Paul states; ^{Rom 6: 1-2} “What then are we to say? Should we continue in sin in order that grace may abound? ² By no means! How can we who died to sin go on living in it?”  The German Theologian and martyr, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, described this attitude as “cheap grace.” People who have this attitude are forgetting one thing. Grace may be cheap for us, but it was not cheap for Jesus. He paid a heavy price, because he paid for God’s grace with his life. Grace is not a ticket to a sin-filled life. Grace does not give us permission to sin. God’s loving grace is the free offering that leads us to salvation. Grace is not the same as salvation. Grace is the coming together of Jesus’ perfect sacrifice and his obedience to the gospel. We do not go to heaven because we want to go. We get to go to heaven because of God’s grace, but only if we accept it by faith.

Reconciliation to God requires repentance, and repentance requires remorse. Remorse requires responsibility because we have to accept responsibility for our actions. Repentance restores relationships. Reconciliation reaps rejoicing, as in the Parable of the Prodigal Son when the father rejoiced at the return of his wayward younger son.

The key to salvation is baptism. Water baptism is an outward expression of the inner transformation of Christ. As we come to the water, we come to Christ. As we are washed in the water, we are buried with Jesus, and as we rise from the water we are raised with him to a new life. As we walk away from the water, we show that we are walking with Jesus in a new way of life. We can also cry “It is finished” because everything that can be done about our sins has been done by Jesus. Our old way of life has been crucified with Christ and we have been freed or justified from sin. Once we have been freed from sin, the Holy Spirit gives us understanding of what we have been taught about our relationship to sin to our own lives. The Holy Spirit is that ever-present conscience that empowers us to turn away from sin in our lives.

When we are baptised, we die to sin just like Christ died for our sins. We become a new creation, and as such the Holy Spirit empowers us to live a new, resurrected life in the power of our Christian Faith. From that time there comes the good works; not to save us but to bless us by being a blessing to those around us. ^{James 2: 14-15}“¹⁴ What good is it, my brothers, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can that faith save him? ¹⁵ If a brother or sister is poorly clothed and lacking in daily food, ¹⁶ and one of you says to them, “Go in peace, be warmed and filled,” without giving them the things needed for the body, what good^[a] is that? ¹⁷ So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”

You see, we are called to make the same type of sacrifice that Jesus made. Christ calls us to serve just as He has served so that those who have not come to this faith in Christ, may see God’s grace, love and peace lived out in human form.

When we are baptised, we become united with him and our sinful lives are buried with him. Our sinful earthly life to that point is over and a new life begins. Our sins have been removed. The barriers that have kept us from the joy and freedom of the Gospel have been broken down. We are free to live Christ’s love. We have been made righteous because of Christ’s sacrifice. God declares that we as sinful people are righteous, and that righteousness is based on a belief and trust in Jesus instead of on our good works. God credits Christ’s righteousness to sinners who believe in Christ and accept what he did for them on the cross. God declared all sinners innocent when Jesus paid the price for our sin..

The Law of Moses, as written in the first five books of the Old Testament, was good, holy and righteous, but, as demonstrated right throughout the entire Old Testament, it could not be kept by sinful humans, and so it was like a curse on God’s people. The Law could only show God’s standard and condemn people who could not keep it. It could only trouble people’s consciences about their deeds just like General Kalashnikov’s conscience troubled him.

The message of St Paul is so liberating, his message of our salvation is so clear, through God’s abundant Grace we are free of the Law, we can call out “it is finished”; and yet the sad truth is that for many of us, we are still in captivity. Some of us are captive to shopping. They can’t pass up a sale, even if their homes are already full of unnecessary stuff. Some people are slaves to food. Some people are slaves to their jobs; power; recognition; wealth; stubbornness; self righteousness. Corporate leaders are slaves to greed. If we are all honest with ourselves we have to admit that we are a slave to the priorities in our lives that sometime override the grace filled freedom of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. These obsessions make us feel guilty in Christ’s presence and condemn us and rob us of the liberating freedom and peace of true Christian living.

Allow me to quote a true story from the book “ Habitation of Dragons by Keith Miller. (Abridged)

One evening several years ago I was dining with a friend in a cafeteria when a good looking young woman walked up to our table. I recognised her as a member of the large Sunday-school class I taught. We began to talk and after 40 minutes she said wistfully “I really believe you’ve found hope in your faith and I would honestly like to make this beginning commitment of my life to Christ ….. but I can’t do it.”

‘Why not?’ I asked gently

‘Because I’ve got a personal problem that I can’t seem to resolve.’ She was biting her lip and looking down at a paper napkin she had folded into a small bulky square.

‘But that’s why Christianity is called “Good News” I said coming on strong. ‘We can’t solve our basic hang-ups and separations. I can’t promise to change anything. All I can do is to accept his love and grace.’

‘But’, she hesitated ….’I don’t feel acceptable until I whip this problem.’

‘Listen Susan, the old song doesn’t say “Just as I am when I whip my major problem”.  It says “Just as I am without one plea”, one problem, one guarantee’

She looked at me with the strangest dawning look of hope. ‘Do you really believe that?’ she said.

‘I’d bet my life on it.’

She looked down at her hands for several minutes. ‘All right’, she said, almost as a challenge, ‘I’m committing adultery every Thursday night with a man who has a wife and young children. And I cannot quit. Now can I come into your Christian family?’

I just looked at her, I certainly had not expected that. My first conditioned reaction as a Christian Churchman would have been to think that she is not ready for Christ.

Suddenly, I realised how phoney we Christians are. Of course we would expect her to quit committing adultery. We don’t mean ‘Just as I am without one plea’. We actually mean, ‘Just as I am when I promise implicitly to straighten up and quit my major sins’. This girl had nailed me with her honesty. She knew that she did not have the strength to quit her ‘sinning’, and yet it was her weakness that had brought her toward Christ in the first place.

I thought about Jesus and what He would have done. Then I looked up at her, ‘Of course you can commit your life to Christ just as you are’.

‘He knows you want to quit seeing this man, and I don’t know where else you could ever hope to find the security and strength to break up with him. So if you commit your life to Christ right now, then Thursday night, if you can’t help meeting your friend, take Christ with you. Ask him to give you the strength to break off the relationship.’

Susan stepped across the stream and became a Christian.

Do we ever feel challenged or unacceptable like Susan, do we carry doubts in our daily Christian living

In times of trial, it is comforting to turn to the age old Hymn by Joseph Scriven.

What a friend we have in Jesus, All our sins and griefs to bear! What a privilege to carry everything to God in prayer! Jesus knows our every weakness; Thou wilt find a solace there. Amen.

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