Pentecost 2 – 19 June 2022 – Year C

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

The text for this meditation is written in the 8^th Chapter of the Gospel according to St Luke: Verses 26 – 39:

²⁶ Then they sailed to the country of the Gerasenes, which is opposite Galilee. ²⁷ When Jesus had stepped out on land, there met him a man from the city who had demons. For a long time he had worn no clothes, and he had not lived in a house but among the tombs. ²⁸ When he saw Jesus, he cried out and fell down before him and said with a loud voice, “What have you to do with me, Jesus, Son of the Most High God? I beg you, do not torment me.” ²⁹ For he had commanded the unclean spirit to come out of the man. (For many a time it had seized him. He was kept under guard and bound with chains and shackles, but he would break the bonds and be driven by the demon into the desert.) ³⁰ Jesus then asked him, “What is your name?” And he said, “Legion,” for many demons had entered him. ³¹ And they begged him not to command them to depart into the abyss. ³² Now a large herd of pigs was feeding there on the hillside, and they begged him to let them enter these. So he gave them permission. ³³ Then the demons came out of the man and entered the pigs, and the herd rushed down the steep bank into the lake and drowned. 

³⁴ When the herdsmen saw what had happened, they fled and told it in the city and in the country. ³⁵ Then people went out to see what had happened, and they came to Jesus and found the man from whom the demons had gone, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed and in his right mind, and they were afraid. ³⁶ And those who had seen it told them how the demon-possessed man had been healed. ³⁷ Then all the people of the surrounding country of the Gerasenes asked him to depart from them, for they were seized with great fear. So he got into the boat and returned. ³⁸ The man from whom the demons had gone begged that he might be with him, but Jesus sent him away, saying, ³⁹ “Return to your home, and declare how much God has done for you.” And he went away, proclaiming throughout the whole city how much Jesus had done for him.

 

Is there a spiritual difference between this demon-possessed man and an unbeliever? Surprisingly, the answer is, “No.” There is no spiritual difference between these two. Both are spiritually dead, blind, and enemies of God. 

Now obviously, one is greatly more visible before one’s eyes than the typical unbeliever, but both are the same. Now wouldn’t it be nice if we could see which ones were unbelievers by their very actions and say, “Ah, now there’s one we need to evangelise. Oh, there’s one we have in our own fold”? But it’s not so easy. 

This is interesting because this historical account is remarkable in many ways. Jesus leaves the fairly Jewish region of Galilee and goes across the Sea of Galilee to an area that was decidedly pagan both in its culture and in its worship. 
Going across the Sea of Galilee to evangelise over there and to proclaim the Good News…we know it is a very pagan region because they kept pigs. That never would have been done in a Jewish region.  

Now note the condition of the man whom Jesus comes upon. First off, he has no clothes. He has no home. He lives among the tombs and is driven into the desert by the demons. And he is not in his right mind because later in the text it refers to his return to a right mind. He is demon-possessed. 

Merely on seeing the Lord Jesus he bows down before Him and cries out both in shame and in fear. Now an interesting aspect of this text…When he bows down and cries out, there ensues a conversation and in fact, of all the situations of demons encountering Jesus, this is the longest conversation by far that’s recorded in Scripture. But after this great, long conversation, Jesus takes these unclean spirits, drives them into unclean animals, and sends them into an unclean death. End of story. 

It is really what happens to the man afterwards. And subsequently it is really what happened to you at the font. For if you are in agreement with the initial statement that spiritually, there is no difference between this demon-possessed man and an unbeliever, then we have a lot in common with this man. Now granted, we were not running around without clothes on, although lots of times, little kids do that a lot around the house. 

But Jesus takes what is unclean and makes it clean. He takes you and me, who have no faith in God, who are not possessed by God, and cleanses us and makes us clean, driving out the unbelief and demon, and instilling Himself in that space and that place of emptiness and makes us clean. 

Having cleansed us, He doesn’t leave us alone and wash His hands of us and say, “Okay, now you’re on your own. Go and do great things.” He brings great protection to you and me, for having cleansed us by making that which was unclean, clean, He clothes us, just as He clothes the man in the great historical account. 

Paul talks in that epistle reading about this clothing or raiment that God alone gives, tells us; 
“For as many of you as were baptised into Christ have put on Christ [have been clothed with Christ].” And having been clothed as you and I have been, after having been cleansed, we are protected by Christ’s righteousness. 

He does not let us go then. He brings more support. He plants us in the field known as the Church and having planted us in the field known as the Church, He knits us together into a family, whereas Paul says in the epistle reading, “we are all children of God through Christ Jesus”. We are all heirs of the same heavenly Father. We’re not alone in this venture in which God has placed us. He supports us in this that He alone has brought upon us.  

Next, He enables us to speak. The demon-possessed man could not speak and could not receive. After his healing, he is found at the feet of Jesus, just as we are at the feet of Jesus this morning. And each time you are opening that Word of God, you are at the feet of Jesus. He is the instructor. You are the receiver. He is the confirmation instructor. You are the confirmand. He is the catechist. You are the catechumen. And by being in such a position, you are the one who is being enabled to speak and proclaim that which God has done for you. 

But having protected us and supporting us and enabling us, He now commends us as He commended that man. The man wanted to follow Him and go about Galilee with Jesus and the disciples. Jesus says, “No, you stay here. You do the work of My heavenly Father here.” 

And before we think, “Oh, that’s easy. He just went about preaching and proclaiming God”, you have to put yourself in this man’s shoes. He was well known in that region as a demon-possessed man. The people all kept their distance from him and now the very people who have kept their distance from him are hearing from him about this same Lord Jesus Christ who changes this man’s heart, having slaughtered a whole herd of pigs. 

They don’t want Him around. The text says the people of that region say to Jesus, “Get out of here. We don’t want you around.” They’re fearful of it. And that’s the kind of environment in which God has placed this demon-possessed man who now is in his right mind, clothed, clean, and enabled to proclaim. The region in which he has been placed, the people in whose lives he has been placed, and all that has been brought about by this event makes it very difficult for this man to proclaim…which is just like you and me. 

God has placed us in among people who are fearful of the Lord Jesus and what He brings, just as this region was. For most of us who have grown up in the church, this does not cause us fear. This place causes great comfort. Jesus and what He brings to us does not put us at odds. It is embraced and received.  

But for most of the people with whom you interact, who are not believers, one could say it scares and intimidates them and puts them on the defensive. They are the ones who need to hear it the most and they are the ones whom God has given to you to tell what God has done for you. 

When we think of God’s design, how He brought into this man’s life the Light of Life, and how He illumined his darkness…when you and I ponder what God has done for this man and where He placed this man, you and I cannot think that we were haphazardly placed where God has placed us. The people with whom we are interacting have been placed in our lives for our proclamation.  

We are the ones who has been made clean. We are the ones who have been clothed. We are the ones who have been made heir. We are the one who sits at His feet, and we are instructed and are given words to speak. And we are also the ones who have been commended by God to go forth. 

We, like the man who has been healed from the demon, wish to follow in His steps and go elsewhere. Absolutely. You and I know there are those people with whom we have to interact and we’re thinking, “Lord, send somebody else”.  Even family members who are difficult… “Lord, please, somehow bring me a different family”. But they are the very ones whom God has placed in our lives for that reason. It is not haphazard. It is divine in its design. 

The same Jesus about whom we come to worship and sing hymns about, who comes and brings all these gifts with Him…You and I know we’ve received such glorious gifts, and if that’s not enough, you and I know we’ll receive it again when He gathers us around His table to feed His hungry souls, telling us to open wide our mouths that He may fill us with His abundant Grace. But then He commends us to go and proclaim that with which He has filled our mouths, to those hesitant unbelieving people in our lives. No one else has been commended to proclaim to them that He has done for you, but just you. 

But don’t forget. Just as He sent this man into territories unaware and unknown, remember He cleansed him. He protected him. He supported him. He enabled Him and He commended him. So He has done to you. Do not forget that. 

The good news is that the Holy Spirit used this man.  The next time Jesus came to this neighbourhood, the countryside emptied itself to come and sit at Jesus’ feet and learn from Him. Church history tells us that this town became the site of one of the earliest churches among the gentiles and is still revered to this day.  It is even possible that representatives from this church attended the Council of Nicaea that formalised the creed that is a formal confession of our faith.  The Holy Spirit removed the fear of these people and replaced it with faith.

Always keep in mind that is Satan’s desire, for you to forget such glorious things that He has done, and that is your and my own flesh fighting God’s commendations for us. And yet that is where God has placed us, for those people are the ones for whom He has designed your words, out of your mouth, that which has been filled by your God to proclaim. Go and do likewise as a son and daughter of the King. In Jesus name, Amen. 

The love and peace of God which passes all human understanding, keep your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus to life everlasting, Amen. 

Holy Trinity Sunday – 12 June 2022 – 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, (Authors of the Nicene Creed) 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 “triune” 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 we 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. 

 

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 person would be dead today, if their 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. COVID is a curse, the extremely rapid developments of COVID Vaccines was the wisdom of God in action.

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 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.  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.