Nitezche apparently said “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.”

“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger”.

The women who approached the tomb on that first Easter morning were strong women, women with a history of being made stronger.

Mary Magdalene, was a strong woman, a woman who had many experiences in her life which made her strong, not least that when she met Jesus he is described as casting seven demons from her.

These are the women who have watched the crucifixion, they have watched Jesus die. This watching someone the love and hoped in die, didn’t kill then, maybe it made them stronger.

These strong women know what they need to do, at the earliest opportunity they go and buy spices and go to do the things they know they have to do.

I wonder how they felt as they went that morning?

What mixture of grief and despair filled their hearts?

They were mourning for their beloved friend and the person they thought would be the hope of their nation, their people.

They knew that what didn’t kill them would make them stronger, but Jesus’ he had died.

And so they got on with coping in the practical way that strong people do.

Earlier this year someone I know had to break some tragic news to a series of different people.

She described how she realised on each visit what she had to do, she would go in, turn the heating up and put the kettle on.

This was part of the whole scenario of practical things she had to do around breaking the bad news that she had to tell.

The women on the way to the tomb thought had a practical problem, they were strong women, but they knew that they couldn’t roll the stone away, they would need to find someone to do that for them.

Sometimes grief focuses on a small practical point, in amongst the whole haze and disorientation of grief sometimes there is a practical aspect which becomes the focus.

For these women that morning their concern was the stone, they needed to find a practical human solution to the problem of the stone, so that they could do what needed to be done.

 When they arrived at the tomb they realise how wrong they’d been, No that’s not the right phrase, they don’t realise instantly that Jesus has been raised from the dead with all the implications that holds for them and the whole of humanity, the first thing they think about is the stone.

They looked up and saw that the stone had been rolled away.

They had been walking with their heads down, then they looked up and saw that the stone had been rolled away.

Their main practical human problem had been solved. They had worried about the stone, and now the stone was not a problem.

Since the stone is not a problem so they go in to the tomb. Probably thinking to themselves, well at least we can get on with properly attending the body.

When they get into the tomb then they realise that this has been no helpful human hand moving the stone. This was God’s hand at work and the angel says to them.

“Don’t be alarmed,” he said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him.

But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’ “

I love the way Angels always have to begin with don’t be alarmed…don’t be alarmed, our dead friend’s body should be here, and the stone is rolled away and his body is gone and you say “don’t be alarmed”. Don’t be alarmed, of course we are alarmed, you are turning our world upside down, we are strong women but this is almost more than we can bear.

I wonder what of the angel’s words went in as they flee from the tomb. They are afraid, they are trembling and bewildered and run away from the tomb.

They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid. Their strength was gone.

They said nothing until after Mary Magdalene meets Jesus and then has to tell the others.

A few weeks later Peter understands enough about what has happened to say this.

“All the prophets testify about him that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”

It begins to dawn on the disciples what has happened, all the things which Jesus said which appeared to be nonsense, now begin to make sense.  Like when Jesus said this.

“For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.”

All the pieces begin to fit into place and the events around Jesus’ death and resurrection become much clearer. Peter, Peter who was singled out in the angel’s message, Peter even preaches that this love of God is for everyone, not just the Jews, but for all.

Maybe Nietzche is right, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.

But meeting the angel made these strong women weak, at least at first.

These women knew that Jesus really had died.

They knew, they had watched him die, they knew death, they knew that when blood and water poured from a body then death has happened some time ago.

Jesus had died, but death had made him stronger.

Jesus had died but he was stronger than death.

Jesus died so that we could all be made stronger.

Jesus died, and was resurrected, so that we could all be stronger than death.

I am about to say something which may be a little controversial. Yesterday morning I realised that this is the only church I ever remember going to where we don’t exchange a sign of peace in the modern language communion service. By this I mean when the priest says, peace be with you and you all reply, and also with you. Then we don’t turn around and great each other and say peace be with you. I don’t mean this to be a criticism, it is merely an observation, and I suppose I’ve been to communion in about 30 different churches I can think of.

In mediaeval times it was all much easier, the priest kissed a peace of wood with a handle called the pax board, and it was passed around the entire congregation and everybody kissed it. Kind of nice and symbolic, and also a good way to share all sorts of contagious mediaeval diseases.

 

In the gospel reading Jesus comes into the room and says, Peace be with you. Peace be with you…

I wonder what that peace means to us?

How does that peace of Christ affect our lives, it was about to radically change the lives of the disciples, but what does that peace mean to us.

Jesus knows that they need reassurance to go with that peace and so he says touch me and know that I am real, touch me and know that I am real.

This peace that Jesus brings this peace which affects our lives, this peace should affect us profoundly.

Jesus give Thomas what he needs to have this peace, Jesus appears to him, and says touch me and believe. Thomas got this title of doubting Thomas but I think that’s just not fair, he wasn’t their when Jesus appeared to the others, why should he believe them why should he trust that it wasn’t just some mass hysteria and wishful thinking. Why should he believe and live in the peace that Jesus gives until he encounters Jesus for himself, until he knows in his heart that it is true.

When Jesus comes and brings Thomas his Peace, Thomas believes.

I wonder when you have felt closest to Jesus? Some people have incredible visions of Jesus, real senses that he is with them in a room or a vision in a place or on a particular occasion. Some people don’t have visions in this way, maybe you feel close to Jesus when the gospel is being read, or when you come up to communion, or maybe when you are praying quietly on your own.

For myself one of the times that I felt close to Jesus was actually in the holy land. We were in a place called Gadara, one of the cities of the Decapolis which overlooks the Sea of Galilee, possibly the place of the Gadarene swine, but maybe not. Even if not, we know that Jesus went there. They had excavated the road back to its first century level, built from black volcanic rock, and we walked on the road, the main street which ran from the harbour and into the city gates, Jesus walked on that road, Jesus walked there. That for me was where I felt close to Jesus, strangely closer than at the Baptism site, possibly because no-one had managed to build a big church there, it was just an ordinary pavement, but Jesus had walked along it.

 

So how did Jesus’ peace affect the first believers?

We hear in Acts that all the believers were one in heart and mind. No one claimed that any of his possessions was his own, but they shared everything they had.

This peace had affected everything, even their view of possessions, and remember this is in the time where there was no state support, if you gave it all away the chances were that you could really end up with nothing. But still they did it.

But perhaps I am more intrigued by this idea that the believers were one in heart and mind. There is this phrase I like to use, unity without uniformity. We don’t all have to be identical, we don’t have to be clones to be united. Christ’s peace should give us this ability to be as one in heart and mind, whilst we are still different.

Part of this peace which comes from Jesus is to do with not having to be afraid. We  don’t have to be scared, any more. I was at a talk last week and the speaker said, “you can’t kill a Christian, you can only transfer them.” It’s a bit trite to say it like that, but it’s true. When we have this Peace of Christ which is available to us we can be confident, and we don’t need to be afraid.

Christ still offers us this peace, and my question today is how does that peace affect us, ourselves and how we interact with other people.

Looking peaceful is a thing which I think church leaders must have to learn, sitting still I think it was probably called in the old days. Or as is sometimes called out in our house, ‘Can you not sit at peace’. A few years ago when I was a curate we had a visiting priest come and celebrate communion on Ash Wednesday and Ian said to me afterwards, did you see how still he sat, he was really peaceful.

But this peace is about more than just sitting still, something deep, deep down in us makes us assured, this is Christ’s peace.

So back to the beginning and the sharing of the peace in communion.

How do I feel as the priest in charge that we don’t exchange a sign of Christ’s peace in the service. To me it’s just strange, it’s odd, because it’s all I’ve ever known I feel it’s missing, but I’m not about to impose it.

What’s important is that you have Christ’s peace with you and in you all the time, that is what I want to encourage. I want to encourage you to be   like Thomas and the disciples, living your lives transformed by the peace which comes to you from the risen Christ. And that by living this transformed life of peace, the lives of those around you will also be transformed.

If you have a copy precede this by reading the Charlie and Lola book “Whoops but it wasn’t me!”

 

Genesis 50:15-21

Matthew 18:21-35

 

 

So what is it that you should be drawing at the moment?

 

 

What is it the thing which you have in your house which you would least like to get broken. It may like Charlie be your favourite homemade rocket. I’d be really upset if someone broke our piano, despite the years of neglect it suffered now it is being played regularly again I think I would really not want to see it broken. That would be a whole lot of sorry needed.

 

Forgiveness is a difficult thing to talk about. It’s hard when you are little to talk about forgiveness to most children, a snatched book, a broken space rocket, of course they are important to children at the time, little lessons in being sorry and forgiveness. Perhaps that is what adulthood is all about, every adult knows in one way or another what it is to be betrayed.

 

Joseph had been betrayed in perhaps the most spectacular way, but what would have happened to him if he had not forgiven his brothers. On a practical level when they first came to him he could have simply forbidden their food request and that would have killed then. Would that have been a just response from Joseph, yes maybe it would, it would also have killed his beloved Father and his beloved brother Benjamin. So in one way he was doing what he really wanted to do, but after his Father had died his brothers were worried that their punishment is on its way. Joseph says this most remarkable thing to them, “what you have intended for evil God has used for good”.

 

God has turned things around for Joseph, but it was only Joseph’s choice to forgive which meant that God could make this possible.

 

One of my yearly theological thoughts was about forgiveness, not last year but the year before. There is usually something I spend a year or so wrestling with and then something else appears and I ponder on that for a while.

 

So where did I get to with forgiveness?

 

I got as far as this.

 

Forgiveness is not about saying that something which happened was right, when it was wrong.

 

Forgiveness is not about saying that something didn’t hurt, when it did.

 

Forgiveness is about not letting it hurt you any longer.

 

Forgiveness is not about saying that something which happened was right, when it was wrong.

 

Forgiveness is not about saying that something didn’t hurt, when it did.

 

Forgiveness is about not letting it hurt you any longer.

 

That’s as far as I got, but I still think it stands well, because the more I think on it the more I feel it reflects the way that God forgive us and so should reflect the way that we forgive each other.

 

I make no apologies for the songs today being about God’s mercy, the height, the depth, the breadth, the overawing length of God’s mercy.

 

How many times should we forgive?

 

We should forgive that magic number of times which actually means that we should go on and on forgiving forever.

 

How many times does God forgive us?

 

God forgives us that magic number of times that means that really he goes on forgiving us for ever.

 

As Christians we become more like God, we gain some of his characteristics, we become holy, little by little, and we are encouraged to forgive as God forgives us.

 

God is merciful, God’s mercy has no height or depth or breadth or length.

 

We pray to become like God,

 

When Jesus teaches his disciples to pray he assumes this will happen,

 

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

 

Joseph forgave, and in that forgiveness God worked good for Joseph, his whole family and those around him. When we forgive, God works for good in us, our family and those around us.

 

Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us.

 

1 Corinthians 1:18-25

John 2:13-22

 

Activity 1

Making a boy bishop….

Today’s first reading is about wisdom and foolishness.

In the olden days not very long after this church building was first built they had a tradition called the feast of fools.

On that day in the cathedral a boy would be made bishop for a day and everyone would have to do what the boy said.

What would they do well first of all they needed a boy.

He would be dressed up in robes and with the Bishops hat, and he would have the special Bishop’s staff we don’t have one of those to hand so this churchwarden’s wand will have to do.

The boy Bishop would have lots of helpers who would have to do whatever he said.

What would you choose to do if you were the boy Bishop in charge of the church today?

It seems a very funny thing to do but the reason they did it was to remember that the things which the world and even the teachers might think are big and clever are not necessarily the things which God thinks are big and clever. In the reading it says that for Christians Christ has become the wisdom we need to understand God, however old or young we are we can still be that wise as Christians.

So having a boy bishop used to remind church leaders not to be wise like the world is wise but to reply on the wisdom that comes from God himself.

 

 

 

Activity 2 Mr Topsy Turvy

Reading Mr Topsy Turvy from the projector…

Today in the talk we are supposed to be remembering the words from the Lord’s prayer which say Your Kingdom come your will be done.

I think that fits very well with the readings and story that we have had today

Mr. Topsy-turvy is about more than having his legs, nose and hat in the wrong places. Where he lives is different, his clock is different, the way he reads and thinks are different, the way he communicates and appreciates the world is different.

God’s kingdom is like that. Jesus goes into the temple and says you have got it all wrong. Jesus literally turns things over in the temple because the humans have got it completely wrong about what God would like his temple to be like.

The humans had got it all wrong and the other bible reading reminds us that while the world thinks power and might and human knowledge are good that’s not what God’s kingdom is about.

 

There is another famous bit of the Bible which is the song which Mary sings when she is told that Jesus will be born.

In Mary’s song she sings about God’s kingdom. God has put the world topsy turvy, the rich are not important, they are brought down form their thrones. All our worldy expectations no longer apply because God is bringing about his kingdom. Mary saw how this was shown in God choosing her to be Jesus’ Mum, and we see this again and again throughout the whole bible and the Gospels, how God’s way and kingdom is not a human kingdom.

 

The question is of course are we prepared to live in God’s topsy-turvy kingdom, which is not like the kingdom of the world. If we have thrones will we swap them and give the lowly their place. If we have no thrones will be let God build us up and lift us up to our throne. The message translation has a very good paraphrase of verses 51-53. ‘He knocked tyrants off their high horses, pulled victims out of the mud. The starving poor sat down to a banquet; the callous rich were left out in the cold.’

Are we prepared for the culture shock that the move to God’s kingdom will bring about. Culture shock occurs when you move form one place to another place where things are so different that you psychologically find it very hard to cope with the differences. Although on reflection the move into God’s kingdom is more like Future Shock, where you open your front door and discover the world you thought you knew isn’t the same place anymore, for example imagine if you’d fallen asleep in the 1950’s in the village and then woken up this morning, on the surface things look similar but everything has changed. From cars to modern mobile technology and the global political situation it is completely different.

Mary had not only grasped that this huge kingdom shock was happening, but she was willing to live in God’s new kingdom and take her part in it, despite the huge personal cost it would entail for her. Mary knew that the Kingdom of God was where she belonged and we as Christian’s belong there too, we should follow her example to live in this topsy-turvy world of the kingdom of God.

Some of the adults will be thinking about Your Kingdom come your

will be done later in the week and I wanted to ask them to think about some things during the week. I wonder what human power or position of respect you have that you would be most reluctant to give up for God’s kingdom. Who would you least like to let sit in your seat of power once you’ve given it up. As a Christian how does God’s topsy turvy kingdom affect your money, your possessions and your personal relationships?

 

When we baptise T in a few minutes we will be praying for him to learn what it means to grow up in God’s kingdom. That these values of God’s kingdom will be the values that he learns to love and use to guide his life. We will be remembering that wherever he is God will always be there beside him  and he can live in God’s kingdom not only now while he is alive here on earth but forever.

 

 

 

Phil preached a really good sermon on this next installment in our Lent series…

You can find it on the church website  www.boxchurch.org

 

Today here in our church, at Ditteridge and in the Methodist church we are beginning a series through Lent where the same topic will be the basis of the preaching and the study groups in the week.

We decided to look at the Lord’s Prayer. And so today we begin with the beginning of the Lord’s prayer, Our Father.

It has been known, as some of you know. That I do from time to time remove a sermon from the archives, dust it down and repeat it somewhere else. Today held a very special temptation for me with regard to this, because my first ever sermon, just over 20 years ago, was on this topic. The fatherhood of God.

I had thought that I had seen my notes and my visual aids quite recently when I was looking for something else in the attic. So yesterday afternoon found me in the attic, I had given myself a short period, if I couldn’t find it in that time, I wouldn’t go on any further in the hunt.

So I searched, I opened boxes of my past and quickly rustled through them I resisted the temptation to look at too many photos from the old photo box and when in the end I couldn’t find it with the papers I thought it would be with I came back downstairs again, albeit carrying my music stand which had been missing for at  least ten years.

Partly I guess I wanted to find the sermon notes as an exercise in self reflection more than anything else. I was curious to see if I would still say the same thing about the fatherhood of God as I had said all those years ago. Twenty years ago the world was a different place, and I was a very different person, in some ways.

I wonder if you can remember January 1989, We were just beginning to wonder if Glasnost would come to anything, the Berlin wall was still standing, mobile phones were the size of briefcases, well bricks at least, you could usually only e-mail from university to university and it would be another five years before the www would be invented.

So what did I say? And would I say it again today?

The problem with any first sermon is that you really want to get all your theology ever into 15 minutes, you’ve been offered a platform and you may never get it again, so what to say? I was lucky in one way I got to chose the theme, and I chose ‘God our Father’. This is a good start because actually you can fit almost all your theology into that theme. So I had to sit down and work out what I was actually going to do.

This was of course where the rebellion set in, I was brought up in a very straight down the line evangelical church, sermons had three points, the beginning the middle and the end.

I however wasn’t going to do it like that, I made a huge visual aid on string, it said God our Father and hung across the front of the church.

We must have been a hip and trendy church for 1989 because I remember having the clip on radio mike.

So for each of the letters of God our father I had a word, a word which described the Fatherhood of God. The question is of course, can I remember any of them, at the moment I am having trouble remembering where I have put my keys, so I think this is a challenge but I thought last night I’d give it a go.

Grace

Originator

D

O

U

R

Forgiveness

A

T

H

E

R

 

Perhaps that these are the only ones I can remember are a symbol of the journey which I have made, and which all of us make from the fresh faced youth of 18 until we are 20 years older.

Fatherhood is an incredibly complex issue, and it always has been. You only need to look at Abraham’s issues with Fatherhood to realise that it all started being complicated at the very start of civilisation and things haven’t changed very much over time.

I do distinctly remember saying something like, however bad our own relationship with our own Father is we somehow know that isn’t right, we know what a good Father would be like.

Do I still think that?

I think I do, although I wonder what Elisabeth Fritzl and others who have been seriously abused by a Father would say.

 

So why do we call God Father?

We call God Father because Jesus told us to.

I’m not sure that I would actually want to go through the list of twelve points all with their supporting bible verses any more.

Maybe twenty years on either I or the world have moved, or both. I don’t need to tell you why, Jesus said so, and deep down we know why.

As U2 say and I am often fond of quoting, at the crisis point, “what you don’t have you don’t need it now, what you don’t know you can feel it somehow”.

God our Father, God full of Grace, God the originator of all things, God full of forgiveness.

The gospel passage today talks of Jesus being acknowledged by God as his son, this is my Son with whom I am well pleased.

Jesus knows he is God’s Son, he immediately goes into the desert to pray and fast and his son-ship is confirmed to him. Maybe it’s in that time in the desert that he understands that it is not only himself who is and will be God’s child: but everyone.

When Jesus comes up out of the water the declaration is for him.

“You are my Son,” then Jesus goes into the desert.

By the time Jesus comes out of the desert he has changed. We hear that

Jesus went into Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God

.”The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news!”

What’s the good news, part of the good news is to do with the fact that we are all children of God, not just Jesus.

In 1 Peter it says this.

For Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

Jesus brings us to God, Jesus brings us to the point where when the disciples ask Jesus to teach them how pray, Jesus replies pray like this.

Our Father,

Not almighty and merciful God in whose presence we are nothing but worms,

Not Omnipresent, omniscient and omnipotent being who created the universe look on me the humblest of your creatures.

Jesus said, when you pray, say Daddy.

Theologically that’s a huge step, Jesus here to show us that God is for us not against us, Jesus saying God wants you to call him Daddy.

For the Jews of the time, and for the Greek thinkers including the Romans that is a huge departure for them from any image of God which they held.

We were at a wedding once, and the Father of the groom was going to lead the prayers. This person was a Reverend Professor and I’m not quite sure quite what I was expecting, but what I was expecting was not what he said, he started off along the lines, “Well father God, what shall we pray for this couple, should we pray for a new car, they surely need one, should we pray for a pay rise, because they need that too…” Then he continued to pray a very beautiful prayer about growth in faith and commitment and lots of wise things…

He knew, he had caught the vision of this Our Father thing. We should be proud if we can pray like children, because that’s the way Jesus teaches us to pray.

Mike Riddell writes this

“God wanted someone to play with, so he made children, but they keep growing up, so he has to keep on making more”

One of the strongest images in the Bible about the fatherhood of God is in the story of the prodigal son.

It’s at the end of Luke 15, there are two sons, one runs off squanders the money on the equivalent of Armani, fast yachts and women, the other stays faithfully with the father and is a bit upset when the prodigal returns and the Father is overjoyed. I always used to side with the stay at home brother, well it just didn’t seem fair, why should he run off squander all the money and return home again not to shame but a party…

What does the Father say to the son? He says this

‘My son,’ the father said, ‘you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.

But we had to celebrate and be glad, because this brother of yours was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.’ “

You are always with me, and everything I have is yours.

All these years I have been trying to be a faithful child of God, has it just been a curtailment of fun and experience. God says everything I have is yours, would I have wanted to live even for one day not living in that assurance? Would I have wanted to run away placing myself in a position where I believed I wasn’t a child of God? Would I have wanted to willingly go to a place where I didn’t know my position in the universe? No I wouldn’t, not for one minute. We might not feel prodigal most of the time, but however faithful we are the truth is that we do all stray away at some time and need to come back towards God.

So today we come to God “Our Father”, maybe we come as the faithful child, the child who has lived reassured that we are always with God. Maybe today we come as the prodigal whom God rushes out to meet in an undignified way as we return.

However we come we do not have the option of not praying to God as Our Father, the perfect Father, the best Dad in the universe, our Dad, Daddy, Abba.

 

Matt 6: 8b   your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

9.”This, then, is how you should pray: ” ‘Our Father

 

 

 

If you are reading this blog in Wellington you may recognise a certain resemblance to a sermon you have already heard. Most of the quotes are from the re:jesus website and you can obtain the Steve Turner poem there, which is obviously by Steve Turner…

Mark 1:29-39

And the whole city was gathered around the door.

 

The whole city, was gathered around the door.

 

The whole city.

 

Gathered around the door.

 

The whole city of Capernaum, apparently it’s a characteristically Marcan exaggeration, but it felt, it seemed like the whole city was gathered around the door. Later on as Simon and his companions find Jesus they say “Everyone is searching for you.”

 

Imagine a whole city gathered at the door. We perhaps find that hard to visualise, but think about a large gathering: For example the funeral for Princess Diana; or the crowds queuing and queuing through the night to see the body of the Queen mother. People who felt compelled to be there, for all sorts of reasons.

 

The Jesus we hear about in the Gospels is a very attractive character, to all sorts of people, for all sorts of reasons. He had Paparazzi and crowd control problems like you would never believe. Again and again the crowd chase after him. It seems whenever he is trying to get some peace and quiet to sort out what is going on in his head and to pray, he is followed. He even had to run away in the morning while it was still dark so that they wouldn’t follow him straight away.

 

For years one of the main searches in theology was trying to find the historical Jesus. What of that which is reported in the Gospel did Jesus actually say, where did Jesus actually live, what did Jesus actually do.

 

What is it about Jesus, which is so attractive? We know he teaches as one who has authority, we know he heals the sick, we know he has compassion on sinners, we know he offers people the opportunity to repent and to turn their lives around, we know he is a fascinating person, we know all these things.

 

Imagine that you are in Capernaum, imagine that you are in the crowd gathered around the door, imagine that you are there pressed in amongst the crowd that seems like the whole city, it’s still warm even though the sun has just gone down. What is it about Jesus that makes you want to be there, in the pressing warm crowd. Do you want to listen to him teach? Do you want him to heal you? Do you want him to heal your wife, or son, your husband or your daughter? Do you want to just touch him? Do you just feel you need to be there, somehow close to him, you need to be close to Jesus.

 

There is of course something extra special about Jesus. He is not just another itinerant preacher, faith healer or general troublemaker. Jesus is special, Jesus is God, God here on earth, God walking on the earth, God wearing clothes, God’s feet getting rubbed and mucky as he walks through the streets of Capernaum wearing sandals. God sitting in that house over there, where the whole city is gathered around the door.

 

Throughout history we have not forgotten Jesus, but we have forgotten most of the other itinerant Middle Eastern Jewish preachers of the period contemporary with Jesus. We only remember Barabas because he plays a part in Jesus’ story.

 

Jesus has fascinated through the ages.

 

It started with the disciples

 

Who is this? Even the wind and the waves obey him!”

Jesus’s disciples (1st century, Mark 4:41)

 

Jesus was a puzzle to Julian the Apostate, Roman emperor in the mid 300s.

 

“Jesus has now been celebrated about 300 years, having done nothing in his lifetime worthy of fame, unless anyone thinks it is a very great work to heal lame and blind people and exorcise demoniacs in the villages of Bethsaida and Bethany.”

 

In the 1500s John Knox said this

“No one else holds or has held the place in the heart of the world which Jesus holds. Other gods have been as devoutly worshipped; no other man has been so devoutly loved.”

 

Blaise Pascal, was a French mathematician and philosopher in the 1600s

“Not only do we not know God except through Jesus Christ;

We do not even know ourselves except through Jesus Christ.”

 

 

H.G. Wells, the British author said this

“I am an historian, I am not a believer, but I must confess as a historian that this penniless preacher from Nazareth is irrevocably the very centre of history. Jesus Christ is easily the most dominant figure in all history.”

 

Albert Einstein, said this

“As a child I received instruction both in the Bible and in the Talmud. I am a Jew, but I am enthralled by the luminous figure of the Nazarene….No one can read the Gospels without feeling the actual presence of Jesus. His personality pulsates in every word. No myth is filled with such life.”

 

Mikhail Gorbachev said this of Jesus

“Jesus was the first socialist, the first to seek a better life for mankind.”

 

Douglas Adams, author of the hitch hikers guide to the galaxy said this

“2,000 years ago one man got nailed to a tree for saying how great it would be if everyone was nice to each other for a change.”

 

But where does that leave us now, here in Box in 2009. We believe, that Jesus is here gathered with us in this building, we believe the promise of God that when two or three are gathered in his name he is with them.

So where are the crowds?

Some may say that people aren’t interested in Jesus any more. That simply isn’t true. When Diane Duyser sold her ten year old piece of toast which had an image of Jesus’ mother burnt on it, she got a price of 28,000 dollars and 1.7 million people looked at the auction. People gather around streetlights which give shadows resembling Christ, people are intensely interested in Jesus, we don’t need the Da Vinci code to tell us that.  Simon was right when he said to Jesus “Everyone is searching for you,” it’s still true.

 

But there are not crowds gathered at the door of the church?

What would we do if the whole of Box was gathered at the door?

 “We heard that Jesus was here so we came to see.”

 

The problem is the “they” don’t believe or realise that he’s here. How has the word stopped getting about? What should we be doing about it?

 

Perhaps we need to start acting like we believe it.

I want to finish with a poem by Steve Turner,

my favourite Christian poet,

we might not agree absolutely with everything he says

but it gives some interesting food for thought.

 

How to hide Jesus by Steve Turner

 

There are people after Jesus.

They have seen the signs.

Quick, let’s hide Him.

Let’s think; carpenter,

fishermen’s friend,

disturber of religious comfort.

Let’s award Him a degree in theology,

a purple cassock

and a position of respect.

They’ll never think of looking here.

Let’s think;

His dialect may betray Him,

His tongue is of the masses.

Let’s teach Him Latin

and seventeenth century English,

they’ll never think of listening in.

Let’s think;

humble,

Man of Sorrows,

nowhere to lay His head.

We’ll build a house for Him,

somewhere away from the poor.

We’ll fill it with brass and silence.

It’s sure to throw them off.

 

There are people after Jesus.

Quick, let’s hide Him.

 

 

Psalm 24:1-6, Hebrews 2:14-end, Luke 2:22-40

 

Waiting for consolation

 

Waiting for consolation.

 

Sometimes in newspapers or on the television we see press photos of people who are waiting for consolation.

 

Usually sitting alone with their head in their hands or staring blankly ahead of them. These photos often involve the person sitting on a pile of rubble which was once their home which has bee overcome by violence, earthquake or some other natural disaster. These pictures poignantly display the magnitude of their loss, and are both extreme but entirely pertinent examples of people waiting for consolation. Even across thousands of miles and whatever cultural gulfs that divide us we know and can almost feel this person’s harsh reality, they need consolation, they wait and we never know if any consolation is found for them.

 

Simeon was waiting for the consolation of Israel. Did Israel need consoling? Apparently it did and Simeon was waiting for the consolation. Israel was an occupied nation. They weren’t sitting on a pile of rubble in fact the temple in which the action for today’s story from Luke takes place has not long been rebuilt. But the temple had been rebuilt by a puppet king who wasn’t even a real Jew, although he pretended to be, who ruled the people of Israel with a cruelty which even the Romans found shocking. Israel stands in need of consolation and Simeon is waiting.

What did the consolation mean for Simeon?

 

We hear in the Psalm, one of those songs of hope, which would have been sung in the temple, we hear that those who seek God’s face will receive blessing. Simeon is seeking God, and he knows that he has been blessed.

 

Simeon knows that this little baby, this is the consolation he has been waiting for. He knows that the salvation Jesus brings will be “a glory to your people Israel”.

 

A glory to your people Israel.

 

The psalm though also has more to say, how does it begin?

 

The earth is the Lord’s and everything in it.

 

The earth is the Lord’s and so is this consolation only for Israel? No Simeon goes on to say that Jesus will be a light for revelation to the Gentiles, that’s everybody who isn’t Jewish. Simeon knows that God’s consolation isn’t only for the Jews but for everybody.

 

I wonder if today some of us here feel that we are waiting for consolation, or that we have waited for consolation, for ourselves, for a place or a situation.

 

Sometimes it’s hard to be human. Jesus knows this. The reading from Hebrews reminds us how hard it is to be human. It says how Jesus had to be made like his brothers in every way so that he might become merciful and faithful and so that he could achieve the freedom for us all which he has achieved.

 

It is only because Jesus has experienced the darkness and difficulty that lies in being human that he could pave the way for us all to be children of light.

 

We have all just lived through our annual blue Monday, apparently in Britain the third Monday in January is the unhappiest day in the year, it’s supposed to be a combination of the post-Christmas darkness, breaking our New Year’s resolutions, and having no money after Christmas etc. etc.

 

I don’t suppose Blue Monday applied in the same way in Jesus’ time but people carried their own burdens of sadness, grief and disappointment. They did feel that they lived in darkness, and Jesus was the light.

 

There are so many images of Light and Dark in the Bible and if sometimes they do seem a bit obscure we do know what they mean really, Jesus said ‘I am the light of the world’. He as an adult recognised what Simeon had said about him as a baby.

 

The reality that Jesus can turn our darkness into light is an important reality for us each as individuals. Sometimes it doesn’t feel that can be the case, that the darkness is overwhelming, maybe our faith seems just the dimmest flicker of light. God promises to be our light in dark times and dark places, and when we are struggling we need to hold on to that promise that the God who created the heavens and earth by saying ‘Let there be Light’, has promised that he will always light the way for us.

 

So we live in the light, the light to lighten the Gentiles and we rejoice that as it says in Isaiah “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light…”

 

What do we do with the light that we have?

 

Handily Jesus has something to say about this.

 

14.”You are the light of the world. A city on a hill cannot be hidden.

15.Neither do people light a lamp and put it under a bowl. Instead they put it on its stand, and it gives light to everyone in the house.

16.In the same way, let your light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.

 

It is our duty and our joy that we take this light with us. In a very real way we bear the Christ-light for others, those who are not strong enough to hold their own, those whose own light has been blown out, or shines dimly in the buffeting of illness, or grief, or tragedy.

 

As one hymn says

 

I will hold the Christ-light for you

 in the night-time of your fear;

 I will hold my hand out to you,

 speak the peace you long to hear.

 

 

Today we are commissioning our Pastoral Care Team, we will hear a bit more about how this will work in few minutes. These are people who have volunteered and undergone training so that they can do this Christ-light bearing officially on behalf of the church.

 

This doesn’t take away the responsibility of all of us to undertake this role for those around us, but for these we pray for shortly there will be distinct tasks, caring and taking the light on behalf of us all. They will bear with them the light of Christ.

Jesus Christ, Simeon’s consolation, Our consolation, and the consolation of the world.

 

Everything was created through him;

      nothing—not one thing!—

      came into being without him.

   What came into existence was Life,

      and the Life was Light to live by.

   The Life-Light blazed out of the darkness;

      the darkness couldn’t put it out.

 

 

Genesis 14:17-20, Rev 19:6-10, John 2:1-11

 

I wonder what was the best party that you ever went to?

We had a party in church and Box House last night as a launch, a beginning of something, and it was a very good party.

 

But I’m not sure if it was the best I’ve ever been to.

I think I really enjoyed Iona’s 6th birthday party, There are parties which I went to as a student which I really enjoyed. And there have been other times, times when a cup of tea and a piece of cake soon escalated into a party.

 

So what makes a good party?

Food is important, company is important, a sense of being able to relax and sometimes a sense of marking something important as was the case with Flo’s birthday party earlier in the year.

 

Today’s readings in effect tell the story of three parties, they each in their own way reflect the common themes of parties, food, company, peace and a sense of marking a transition.

 

Abram had to go to war. I don’t think it was what he particularly wanted to do but his nephew Lot had been taken captive and the only way to obtain freedom for his family members was for Abram to fight. He fought and he won. That sounds like a good old fashioned excuse for a party. This was however a party with a difference.

The king of Sodom came out to meet him. Then comes the mysterious Melchizedek. We don’t know much about Melchizedek and at this point in the story of Israel we are hearing mainly about Abram and his journey into montheism.

 So it does come as a bit of a surprise to hear that Melchizedek was a priest of God most high. They are having a meeting a celebratory party and what does Melchizedek bring?

Not what we might consider as particularly good party food. No sausage rolls, no cake, not even any canapes or some of Diana Northey’s famous asparagus pinwheels.

He brings bread and wine. Bread and wine, this is ringing lots of familiar bells for us.

We know about bread and wine, we know about the meal which will become the passover, we know that these will also be offerings in the temple, we know that when Jesus celebrates the passover feast with his friends they also will share bread and wine, the meaning of this sharing will grow and grow for them following the death and resurrection of Christ, and the formation of the church.

 

 But we know that because we have snuck ahead and read the last chapter of the book. But here we are right at the beginning of the story of the Israelites. Abram isn’t even Abraham yet but still we find Melchizedek  bringing bread and wine. And with the meal, with the party comes the blessing. Melchizedek  blesses Abram and blesses and remembers God’s role in all this, and Abraham responds by giving from his booty to Melchizedek sharing the gifts from God with his fellow believer in God.

And so on to our second party of blessing, right at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. Jesus and his disciples had been invited to the wedding.

There’s the terrible disaster that they have run out of wine, now I know I need to be careful about what I say here in the Methodist church. They have run out of wine and Jesus miraculously makes them more.

Jesus loved parties, he was always going to parties, and if there wasn’t one already then he would start one.  I wonder which of the parties Jesus’ goes to in the Gospels is your favourite. Maybe it’s this wedding feast, maybe it’s the big picnic with thousands of people, maybe it’s the beach barbecue after the resurrection, maybe it’s the Last supper itself or maybe you like the bit where he says to Zaccheus, You get down from that tree, the party is at yours tonight.

Each of these parties show the common theme of parties, food, company, peace and a sense of marking a transition.

This passage in John is one of the passages in which you can enter into many theological debates. You can ask “Why did Jesus say to his mum, My time has not yet come.

Did Jesus insult Mary when he called her woman?

Why does Jesus make so much wine?

Why does Jesus make it in the jars which were used for ceremonial washing?

Why were there six jars and not a good Jewish story number like seven.

How did he do it?

Why was the wine so good when it could have been just OK wine?

We could spend the next twenty minutes discussing any one of these  but what happens at this party.

Is there company? Yes there is Jesus’ Mum and Jesus’ disciples, there must have been other people too. Cana is about six miles from Nazareth, not too far away, we never find out who is marrying whom, because this party has other bigger consequences.

This is the first of Jesus’ recorded miracles. Why did Mary ask him to do it? Was she just beign a good pushy Jewish Mum or did she realise after what had happened in the Jordan that his time had actually come after all?

 

The disciples were there, these were very new disciples, the reading suggests that this was the first or second day that they had been disciples of Jesus. They were at the wedding too, we don’t know if it was a mutual friend or relation or if they came because they were with Jesus.

 

So we have the company, so what about the food. Well actually it’s quite hard to talk about the food without beginning to speak about transition.

Jesus came to bring about change and transition, transition from the old to the new. To show everyone that God wants the best for us. So Jesus makes the best wine. The absolutely best wine, and in such abundance. This is a transition for everyone there who had been at the party of an unprepared host, and suddenly they find themselves with the best wine.

Some commentators make a lot of the number of jars. They say it’s six, a traditionally incomplete number which is then turned into completeness by the presence of Jesus.

Some commentators make a lot of the fact that these were ceremonial washing jars. Jesus is taking the duties of ceremonies, and sweeping them away instead filling the space with blessing.

Whatever we may think about those thoughts we do actually know what it was about. The transition of this party is that Jesus revealed his glory and his disciples put their faith in him.

This was part of us realising that God was for us and not against us, and an important journey for the disciples, and for Jesus as he makes his first steps into this public ministry.

So what about the party in Revelation, The angel said, Blessed are those who are invited to the wedding supper of the Lamb.

That seems an odd phrase but remember Jesus is called the Lamb of God as he goes to be baptised by John.

Behold the lamb of God.

Lamb strangely enough is not a traditional sin offering, a ram or sheep or goat but not a lamb. A lamb indicates Passover, where the curse of death is removed or taken away but he presence of the lamb.

So company in heaven, John’s revelation has plenty of company, what sounded like a great multitude, and shouting. The sort of exceptionally loud party to which in other circumstances one might call the Police.

However the company of multitudes, and food, well not specified but we do know there will be food because it is described as a feast or a supper. The transition, the transition in the vision is that John is moved to a new desire to worship.

So what of today how can we be transformed by our parties.

When we come together we meet and we share the company of one another, we are commanded and expected to come together in worship. We come together us humans, but secure in the promise that God is also with us, and so for our company we have us and God.

As for food, we have in some services, communion and eating and drinking together later brings us together, we also have spiritual food of the scriptures, prayers and hymns and songs.

So what about the transition, I guess that will be different for all of us. When you leave here today you won’t be the same as when you came in.

 

 

Just in case any of you think I’m slacking with my blog, I was on holiday on 18th January so no sermons to post…