Author: admin

Mark 1:40-45

A few months ago, while holidaying in one of our large capital cities, I was taken aback by the amount of people asking passers’ by for some change, initially I felt sorrow for them-in that the passers’ by were simply that-they passed by as if the person wasn’t even there-

But after a few days, due to the regularity of being approached, I could see how easy it is to forget that each of these people  are unique: different in hurts, backgrounds, passions and loves.. 

It seems that without even trying, but due to the regularity of the situation-they seem to become as one.

Just this bunch of people-that when we encounter or think of as a collective, are easy to just pass by.  To not get our hands dirty so to speak.

There was a cartoon in a recent paper that spoke volumes of this type of situation. There’s a hall all lit up and full of people in fancy cloths. Out the front, standing next to a sign that reads “Charity Gala ball for the homeless” is a bedraggled and needy looking man, and upon looking to enter is advised “no ticket, no entry”. 

It’s a satire-tical look at the situation that hits home.

Thankfully for humanity, Jesus is not scared to get his hands dirty.

As we heard:

“a leper came to him and falling to his knees before Him, and said to Him, If you are willing, You can make me clean. And moved with compassion, Jesus stretched out His hand, and touched him, and said I am willing, be cleansed”.

The significance of Jesus touch is great.

Because leprosy is of a highly infectious nature, lepers were shunned by society.

Kicked out of society.

They had to live in camps, leper colonies outside the towns and cities-Leper Colonies. They were not to approach or touch no one and should anyone begin to walk near them, they had to call out “Unclean, Unclean” to warn them to stay away.

A doctor who recently conducted research into this disease in India said, “It’s a repulsive disease. It attacks the nervous system which causes the victim to lose all sense of touch and pain, initially in the fingers and toes, then spreading up the arms and legs.

Without a sense of touch, the ill person eventually damages their toes, fingers and feet. They will knock them, cut them, get infections and not even notice”.

He said that upon seeing so many people in this leper colony without fingers and toes he asked them how it happens. Some said they knocked them off, but many said they did not know, but they seemed to lose them at night and in the morning there was no trace of them left.

One night, he sat with a leper while he slept. He saw rats chewing the persons toes and fingers-but the victim did not wake, for he felt nothing.

If we were in Israel, would not we too stay away from this leper?

But Jesus reaches out and touches him-and cures him.  

But this was much more than a physical disease.

It was a disease of hopelessness.  Because being deemed “Unclean” they could not attend the temple or tabernacle worship.

They could not enter the house of God.  In a sense, they were banned from God, from hope.

The seriousness at that time of this leper’s inability to attend the temple cannot be understated. A Scholar noted that the trashing, or destruction of the temple in Israel by the Romans

is regarded by the Jews as much worse a tragedy than the Holocaust.

This leper, this man, had no physical hope, and worse, seemingly no spiritual hope.

But Jesus reached out touched him. Reaching out his saving hand-and gave him access to His Father.

Gave him hope. The same hope that we received when Jesus reached out and touched us.

In sending the leper to the priest, Jesus is preaching through illustration,

He is providing an opportunity for the priests and others, to see and hear the leper’s testimony. A testimony that is much more complete and moving than only if it was a statement about his physical healing.

The same picture, the same testimonies can be heard today, or at least they should be. Physically, God provides for us with shelter, food and clothing. He provides doctors, nurses and a government with a social conscience. Everything good we receive is a gift from God.

But like the leper, we have received more, much more.

Our gracious God gave us his Son. Who has brought us forgiveness and restored our relationship to God the Father. He covers with his blood the hurtful and hateful things we have done. The pain we have caused on others and the messes we have made.

His gives us life and we rejoice.

The Lord got his hands dirty in dealing with our sin, to bring us back to him.

The same hands he reached out to the Leper, to clean him.

The same hands that reach out to non-Christians.  Not a group of nameless people. But individuals that hurt, love and yes, are looking for hope.

But hope that is misplaced and fleeting if outside of Christ. God knows the hope they need, the only hope this world has to offer-

hope in His Son, our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.

God loves us and he loves them. God has brought us peace, and he looks to bring them peace-they just need to see it and to feel that blessed hope. Christ died for our sins, and he died for theirs.

His hand reached out to us, and he reaches out his hand to them. How did his hand reach out to you, maybe as an infant  you were carried to him in Baptism? Maybe as an adult someone brought you before the Word of God.

How does his hand reach out to those that as yet do not know him?

Through his church, through its members and through us.

Luther’s morning prayer basically covers our daily life as a Christian.

“In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, amen.  I give thee thanks, heavenly Father, through your dear Son Jesus Christ, that you have protected me through the night from all harm and danger. I ask you to keep me this day, too, from all sin and evil, that in my thoughts, words, and deeds I may please you. Into your hands I commend my body and soul and all that is mine. Let the holy angel have charge of me, that the wicked one may have no power over me. Amen.”

(and) Daily, the Lord carries us out to them, the people he has placed before us, so that we can carry them back to him. We are not the saviours, but we are the cleansed lepers who go to them with our testimony of Jesus. Go to them with Jesus testimony, that no matter what their ills, he wishes to wash them clean. To bring them peace, love and hope. To give them life, now and eternally.  Amen.

Text: Isaiah 40:31

Those who trust in the Lord for help will find their strength renewed. They will rise on wings like eagles; they will run and not get weary; they will walk and not grow weak.

Ever wondered what it would be like to fly? I don’t mean flying in a plane, or dangling beneath a kite or parachute. I mean sticking your arms out like a bird, or out front like superman if you like, and soaring above the earth; banking over the forests; skimming over the rivers; darting through mountain canyons; diving down and scaring the living daylights out of the members of your family; breathing deeply in the fresh air of free and effortless flight! And if you are someone who is scared of heights, imagine if you had no such fear. You could come and fly with the rest of us.

From the early pages of history people have looked at the birds and wanted to fly. You may have seen on TV people flying in a wind tunnel but that’s not soaring high above the clouds. You have seen people jump out of perfectly good planes and ‘fly’ at least for a while, but gravity does it job and the skydiver has no choice but to pull the ripcord on his parachute.

I’m sure every kid at some time has wanted to fly. Maybe it’s been a theme in your dreams but like all dreams there comes a rude awakening when you wake up and discover that you are still a prisoner of gravity. As much as we really wish we could fly, we have to walk to the bathroom, walk out to the kitchen for breakfast and walk to school or work. We aren’t built for flying.

As adults we don’t think about flying as we did when we were kids. Not only aren’t we built for flying but we also carry a lot of baggage – we carry too much weight. Not only the kind of weight that shows up on the bathroom scales but the weight of worry, anxiety, paying bills, keeping the boss happy, and how our health crisis will turn out. All this weighs us down.

If you own your own business and you wonder if you’ve thought about everything and planned for every contingency. You do care about those who work for you, and you realise that there may come a time when you will have to put off some of them. And this weighs you down.

Then there’s your family. The people you love. You see your parents getting older; perhaps becoming infirm. You see your children struggling in this or that. Perhaps you’ve hit a rough patch in your marriage. When you were a kid love wasn’t so difficult and so demanding. But that’s because you were mostly on the receiving end of it. And now you are called to be the one who gives it; called to be the one who loves. This too can weigh you down.

So what about those dreams of flying high above the world in complete freedom and in the open spaces where there is not a worry in the world? Nah! Not anymore! Life is way too heavy to entertain such thought. Flying – that’s okay for kids to dream about because they don’t have the worries we have but for us the world is too real. A bit like gravity – we can’t ever get away from it.

And yet, what does the text from Isaiah say? “Those who trust in the Lord for help will find their strength renewed. They will rise on wings like eagles; they will run and not get weary.” Hmmm. “They will rise on wings like eagles”. With renewed strength they will soar above the earth with the powerful wings of an eagle. I don’t know about you, but Isaiah’s got my attention! Suddenly my childhood interest in being able to fly is renewed. Floating, drifting, circling, free as a bird. Is there a way to overcome the gravity of our lives, a way to lighten our loads, a way rise above it all? Is this just a dream, wishful thinking, belonging to the world of fantasy along with fairies, flying dragons and magic carpets?

Just to put these words about flying like eagles into context. The prophet Isaiah was writing to the people of Israel during a time, when they felt like their strength was sapped and they had no hope. Like us, they were worried. The news wasn’t good. The dreadful Assyrians were breathing down their necks, and later it would be the Babylonians who would take them all away to live in exile. As they thought about all the stuff that was happening around them, they were weighed down and overwhelmed by the seriousness of their situation.

They started to say things like, “God doesn’t really care about me! How can he? Look at all this bad and difficult stuff that is happening all around us. He’s not really in charge of things!” (Isaiah 40:27).

You see what was happening here? They began to see their problems as being bigger than God himself. They forgot that the creator of everything, the everlasting Lord, whose love for his people means he will never grow tired of helping them, just might be able to help them with all their worries.

You see over the years a subtle exchange had taken place. They exchanged their faith in God for a kind of do-it-yourself kind of attitude. We do the exact same thing! This DIY kind of Christianity excludes God from certain areas of our lives. I know God is there but I can handle this myself.
“Let’s see, my work, hmm, no that’s not God’s problem.
Finances, no. I can fix that.
Relationship problems, no. That’s my responsibility.
My love life, no God doesn’t know anything about that, that’s my area.”

Without even giving it too much thought we exclude God from different aspects of our lives. We can fix it we say and maybe it works okay for a time. But then we begin to feel the weight. Our blood pressure rises. We toss and turn. We get sick. We become depressed. The joy goes out of our lives. We despair. We slowly realise that the DIY approach isn’t all that successful after all.

I’m sure that a lot us, including myself, have to admit to doing this at some time, if not more often than we care to admit. We sideline God and try to be our own god. We believe that we can do it alone, but that’s something God never intended us to be. God didn’t make us to stand alone against everything that threatens our safety and happiness. God made us to rely on him.

This is where Isaiah comes in and we have this wonderful passage that was read earlier. He asks, “How can you be so dumb. Don’t you know who stretched out the heavens, made the earth and filled it with people? Don’t you know that it is God who created the stars? There are millions of them, and yet he knows when one of them is missing and if God knows each individual star, it follows that he knows each one of us personally and calls us by name. He knows when we are in trouble. No one can ever accuse God of turning a deaf ear to our needs.

Then comes these wonderful words,
“Don’t you know? Haven’t you heard?
The Lord is the everlasting God; he created all the world.
He never grows tired or weary.
No one understands his thoughts.
He strengthens those who are weak and tired. 
Even those who are young grow weak; young people can fall exhausted. 
But those who trust in the Lord for help will find their strength renewed.
They will rise on wings like eagles;
they will run and not get weary;
they will walk and not grow weak.” (40:28-31)

Jesus affirmed what Isaiah said when he said things like, “Come to me, all of your who are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” or “Your heavenly Father knows all about the sparrows even though there are so many of them and he knows when a hair falls from your head. In the same way, he knows each of us intimately and personally” or “I am the good shepherd and I know each of my sheep and if one should get lost, I will go so far as to sacrifice my life to rescue that lost one”.

Jesus assures us that there is not a moment when we are not under his love and care. Yes, there will be times when we will intentionally and unintentionally lock him out of our lives. There will be times when we could have saved ourselves a heap of stress and pressure if only we had trusted in the Lord for help and realised that he is ready, willing and able to give us renewed strength and a fresh outlook on life and its problems.

The apostle Paul realised that he knew what he ought to do and trust God more but found more often than not that he did what he knew he shouldn’t do. There were times when he was physically exhausted and drained, not knowing what will happen to him next. But in each case he came back to this one point, “God can raise me above all this. His love is so powerful that I can be confident, content, and certain no matter what the circumstances. The Lord will help me to face each thing that terrifies me and give me the strength to continue”. In the end Paul says, “I can do everything through him who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).

As Isaiah said, “Those who trust in the Lord for help will find their strength renewed. They will rise on wings like eagles; they will run and not get weary; they will walk and not grow weak”.

In other words, trusting in God to give us the strength that is beyond our own strength to deal with any situation, we can rise on wings like eagles. We can fly. We can soar high above our problems; we can fly free with the sky as the limit. God wants us to fly like eagles.

When we trust in God and his love for us and entrust our lives to the one who gave his life for us on the cross, everything else is dwarfed in comparison to the largeness and authority of the Lord. He is bigger than any problem we might face. And as we learn to trust him, we begin to see things from his perspective. He draws us upward in faith, so that we begin to get a bird’s eye view of things, or more correctly, a God’s eye view of things.

Remember the dreams about flying, the fantasy stories like Peter Pan where children could fly; well they are not too far off the mark. We too can fly even though our feet never leave the ground. We can rise above everything threatens our security with a strength that comes from God. “Those who trust in the Lord for help will find their strength renewed. They will rise on wings like eagles”.

Text: Psalm 40:1,2

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along.

What a week this has been. Last Sunday we were thinking about and praying for the people up north in Rockhampton, Theodore and other places out west as flood waters surged through their communities leaving a trail of mud and debris, flooded houses and ruined businesses and farms. I was worshipping with my parents thousands of kilometres from here and we prayed for those people up north.

Within a few days unexpectedly this whole situation came closer to home than we would have preferred. The day I was due to fly back from Adelaide ferocious storms and subsequent flooding hit our community. Then there was the devastation that hit Toowoomba and the Lockyer Valley and the loss of life that accompanied such an “inland tsunami” as it has been called. Then the flooding of the Brisbane River with homes, schools, the central business district of Brisbane shut down, sports facilities inundated with muddy sludge.

We witnessed on our TVs the bravery of those who rescued people being washed away by fast flowing water or from the roofs of their homes. We witnessed the despair of those who tried to save people only to watch helplessly as those in the water were swept away. We saw men and women, some victims of the floods, others rescue workers, others state and community leaders fight back tears as they recalled what had happened and what was still unfolding.

Right now people are going back to their homes and discovering the devastation. Some houses have been completely destroyed, cars wrecked, slimy oozing mud covering everything in their homes and businesses.

People and congregations around the world Canada, USA, Denmark, Japan, – around Australia who have come to know St Paul’s through the internet have emailed that they are praying for those affected by all that has happened. WE are told that this is the largest natural disaster that our nation has ever had.

One man in his email said that he couldn’t help but ask the question, “Where is the hand of God in all of this?” Maybe he is reflecting the same thoughts as the psalmist when he calls on God to help him. He wrote in Psalm 69,

Save me, O God, for the floodwaters are up to my neck.

Deeper and deeper I sink into the mire; I can’t find a foothold to stand on.

I am in deep water, and the floods overwhelm me.

I am exhausted from crying for help; my throat is parched and dry.

My eyes are swollen with weeping, waiting for my God to help me.

The writer isn’t talking about floodwaters in a literal sense but using this image to refer to the many things that are threatening to overwhelm him and drown him in grief and pain, and yet in spite of this he calls on God to help him. He is exhausted from praying. He believes that God knows what is happening and wonders why God has let all this happen – he is waiting for God to intervene. The imagery of these verses about floodwater, mud and sludge and being overwhelmed emotionally could well be a description of the experiences of this past week and how people are feeling. We understand and can sympathise with those who join the writer of Psalm 22 and ask, “My God, where are you? Why have you abandoned me just at the time when I need you the most?”

The writer of Psalm 147 says that God sends the snow and frost and hail

God speaks, the ice melts. God breathes, the waters flow.

If we believe that God directs the weather

that God speaks and the earth shudders

that God can calm the waves with a word

it follows then God has power over a flood and a bushfire.

Is it possible to take one more logical step and say that God causes disasters like those we have seen this week or perhaps stands back and lets them happen?

In recent memory we have had bushfires, drought, tsunamis, cyclones, other places have had snowstorms and blizzards and now floods – all involving loss of life. That’s not to mention all the human tragedies like September 11, wars, abortions, suicides, and so on. It only takes a small step to conclude that if God is a loving God as Christians claim then why does he do nothing to prevent floods, tsunamis, and bushfires, brain damaged babies and youth suicide? How can anyone be expected to believe in a God like that?

Sometimes we try to defend God and in the process give pat simplistic answers that really aren’t very helpful when people are struggling to come to terms with personal loss and suffering as experienced by our fellow Australians at the moment. Answers like –

“God has sent this to test (or strengthen) our faith” or

“One day we will be able to look back and see why God has allowed this to happen”.

We might even say that these natural disasters were never intended when God created the world, but to use Paul’s expression “because of death and decay, all creation is groaning” – groaning as a result of the sinfulness of humanity.

Though there is truth in these statements from a head knowelge point of view, they aren’t all that helpful in a situation of overwhelming emotional pain and anguish. They don’t help the suffering person who is trying to make sense of his/her pain. They only add to the conflict in their minds of how God can allow this to happen to the people he claims to love.

There is one thing that is clear. We have more questions than we have answers. There is certain hiddenness about God. There are so many things that we don’t understand about the way God works.

As Christians it’s ok to question God and ask him what he thinks he is doing. The writers in the Bible did that when trouble overwhelmed them. Didn’t Jesus call out from the cross quoting Psalm 22, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me”? No doubt there will be times when each of us in the depths of trouble and overwhelming emotion question God and ask where he has been during everything that has been happening.

We are people who like to have answers. We are uncomfortable with the whole notion that something is beyond our grasp. We have an acute sense of what is fair and just and what we have witnessed this week doesn’t match what we would consider to be fair and just. What have people done to deserve this kind of trouble? We have to admit that we don’t have all the answers.

We have to say that the indiscriminate way that natural disasters strike people confuses us, makes us sad and even angry and we wish we had more answers to the questions that fill our minds.

The question that faces us is this: In pain, in suffering, in bewilderment and confusion, in sickness and in disasters, can we still trust God to be our God?

Can we love God in spite of the cards that are dealt out to us in life?

I guess for many of us we can keep on trusting most of the time, but occasionally something hits us and really overwhelms us like a raging torrent. It strikes us so deeply that our love and trust in God is rocked.

Because we have been shaken to our very core, we find it hard to have the faith, the strength and the trust to hang on to God. Our own personal resources to cope are as low as they can get.Thank goodness God is right beside us, holding on to us and keeping us safe. Even when we think God has left us all alone in our personal sadness and grief, God promises that he will keep on loving us and holding on to us and supporting us and helping us whatever may happen. As Christians we know that when we have come through it all we realise that it has been God’s strong hand that has held us up above the thing that wants to drown us.

It just so happens that the psalm set down for today is Psalm 40 and it says it so well, “I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along”.

The writer has come to the realisation that even when it seemed that God hadn’t heard his prayer and his pleas for help, he was there all the time. He did hear his cry and he has lifted him up out of the mud and sludge of despair; he has set his feet on solid ground and steadied him when he felt as if would fall again.

As we think back on all that has happened in our lives, the mistakes, the tragedies, the one thing that enables us to keep our senses is knowing that the love of God supports us through every tragedy and difficult time. It is the love of God we see in Jesus that assures us that God does care. Even when we are in the murkiest and muddiest places the psalmist reminds us that the love of God will hold us up and steady us as we move on with our lives and that he will hold on to us even when we are too weak to hold on to him by ourselves. In the arms of Jesus we know what kind of heart God has for us no matter what may happen.

Without a doubt, we struggle to make sense of the disasters that cause so much ruin and pain in our world. There will be times when we will seriously question God’s wisdom.

We will struggle to make sense of the disasters and find ourselves saying again and again, “I don’t understand”.

But one thing we do understand is that God’s goodness and love can be trusted, that gives us a new hope for the future and that’s all that counts.

As the writer of the psalm said,

I waited patiently for the Lord to help me, and he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the pit of despair, out of the mud and the mire. He set my feet on solid ground and steadied me as I walked along.

Sermon for the 1st Sunday after Epiphany – The Baptism of our Lord.

Bible reading: Mark 1:9-11

A few years into the Vietnam War, and two years after John F. Kennedy’s assassination, one of the most popular songs of last century hit the charts in 1965:

What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
It’s the only thing that there’s too little of,
What the world needs now is love, sweet love,
No, not just for some, but for everyone.

And if the world needed love then, it needs it more than ever now. From the Middle East, to the average home of Adelaide, there seems to be too little love. But is that true?

If God is love, and God so loved the world that he gave his only Son so that everyone who believes in him should not die but have eternal life, how can we say there’s too little love? There is plenty of love. God has enough love for the whole world. God didn’t just love some, but everyone. Everyone who believes in God should not die, for lack of love,but have eternal life, filled with love for God and for one another.

From Eden on, people have turned away from the love of God, to find love elsewhere. Always without success. God is love. Love comes from God. (see 1 John 4) To look for love anywhere but in God is to seek in vain, to find nothing more than “clayton’s love”, to be left disappointed and ultimately cynical. Sin is the rejection of divine love, turning away from a relationship of love with God.

And that’s how we find our world. Turned away from God’s love. Not believing there is a God of love. Not loving God. Struggling to love their partners in marriage, their neighbours, their enemies. There’s plenty of love, yet people are starved of love. It’s crazy!

But God is filled with love for the world. He loves the world so much he sends his dearly loved Son into the world, to become one of us. And finally his Son grows up and joins the crowds flocking to the Jordan for Baptism, not because he needed baptism, but because we loved-starved ones do. And God his Father spoke to him at his Baptism.

What did God his Father say to Jesus at his baptism?

You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.

What a wonderful way to speak to your Son. These are the first words the Bible records the heavenly Father speaking to Jesus his Son, on earth, and they are words of love and affirmation: You are my Son … I love you … I am very pleased with you. At his Baptism, and launch of his ministry, the Father makes quite clear that Jesus is his Son, that he loves Jesus, that he’s proud as punch of him.

Isn’t it good when we hear a Father telling his Son how much he loves him and how proud he is of him? But there’s more. Jesus says: As the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. The love the Father has for Jesus, Jesus passes on to us. Through Jesus we are drawn into this relationship of love between the Father and the Son. But there’s more:

Jesus goes on to say that: those who love me will be loved by my Father. As the Holy Spirit softens our hearts to love Jesus, the Son, God the Father also loves us.

What a breakthrough! So many people only see God as angry, punishing, judging. They think Jesus seems quite friendly, but not God his Father. They like the God of the New Testament, but not the God of the Old Testament. Yet both are the same. The love of Father & Son is the same.

In some churches this Sunday (the Baptism of our Lord) is Baptism Sunday. Elsie never liked Baptism Sunday, but because she was such a committed Christian she endured it. What made it worse this Sunday was that somebody had taken her seat – probably some of the families of those to be baptized.

Elsie’s church had a custom that after the baptism, the pastor would take the newly baptized infant to a member of the congregation to hold as the pastor prayed for the child.

This day the pastor headed strait to Else and to her dread gave her the infant to hold. That week Elsie visited the pastor to explain why she was so uneasy on Baptism Sunday. She’d fallen pregnant at 16. Her father pulled her out of school on the pretext that she was needed on the farm. When the baby was born it was not well. She did not call the pastor for fear he would condemn her. She did not have the baby baptized. The child died at 14 days. After all these years she still worried about it. Every Baptism Sunday drove her to sorrow and guilt.

The pastor used the Baptism of Jesus to explain how loving God is. As Jesus came out of the water …

he saw heaven being torn open and the Spirit descending on him like a dove. And a voice came from heaven saying: You are my Son, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.

Only in one other place does Mark tell us anything is torn apart. That is when the curtain of the temple is torn apart at the death of Christ, showing that through Jesus we have access to the love and mercy of God. God takes dramatic measures to drive home to us how much he loves us. He tears open the heavens; he tears open the temple curtain. Through it he shouts: I love you …I love you …I love you.

Is something holding you back from hearing and experiencing God’s love for you? Something you’ve done long ago, or been told long ago by a pastor or parent or teacher?

God tears open the heavens, and the temple curtains, to shout: I love you… I forgive you.

In a world of voices shouting: you’re no good… you’re not worthy… you’re a failure…you’re a sinner… God breaks open the heavens to tell his own Son how loved and precious he is – and his only Son loves you the same way. See the way Jesus treated all the people he met in his ministry; see how Jesus loved even his enemies as he died for all our sins on the cross; see how Jesus came to you in your baptism and welcomed you into his family of love; taste how Jesus still comes giving his body and blood in the Lord’s Supper.

Remember how Jesus said: love your neighbour as you love yourself? Because God and His Son Jesus love you so much, and are pleased with you, you can be pleased with yourself, you can accept yourself, you can love yourself. You don’t have to walk around as a miserable sinner, burdened down with guilt, despising yourself. In Christ, God loves you and forgives you and renews the image of God in you. You can breath in his love, and go out to love your neighbour as you love yourself.

All around you sit people who are equally loved by God, and Jesus says about them: love one another as I have loved you. (You might even want to glance at one of them now!) And Jesus said that because God is totally loving and compassionate we can go even further and love our enemies, those who for whatever reason have no time for us. And finally, when God opens our ears to hear his love, and our eyes to see it, and our hearts to receive it, His Spirit will move us to love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength.

In God, the world has all the love it needs. Through God’s love breaking into the world in Jesus there is enough love to go around, not just for some, but for everyone. Amen.

Text: Luke 2:25-27

There was a man named Simeon living in Jerusalem. He was a good, God-fearing man and was waiting for Israel to be saved. The Holy Spirit was with him and had assured him that he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s promised Messiah. Led by the Spirit, Simeon went into the Temple. When the parents brought the child Jesus into the Temple to do for him what the Law required, Simeon took the child in his arms and gave thanks to God.

 
Knowing that I liked to travel and visit new and different places someone in the family gave me a book entitled Unforgettable places to see before you die (Steve Davey, BBC Books). As the title suggests the author travelled around the world with a photographer and produced a beautiful book of places that, in his opinion, were unforgettable and worth visiting. If you were going to make a list of things to do and see before you pack your bags for the last time, the places mentioned in the book are worth considering. If you look around book stores or check out the internet you will find lots of advice on things you should do and places you should travel to before you die.

One author had written a similar book with 100 things to do and see before you die and intended to do them all before he was too old to travel. However, he died at 47 barely halfway through his list.

There was a man named Simeon. He had done everything he had wanted to do in life except for one thing – to see the Messiah God had promised in the scriptures. We are told that he was a good, God-fearing man who longed for the day when God would send the saviour. We are also told that the Holy Spirit had promised him that he would not die before he had seen the promised Messiah.

Because Luke emphasises this fact we are led to believe that Simeon is now an old man and still waiting for that day when he would see God’s promise fulfilled. Maybe because of his advanced years Simeon knew that God would do as he had said very soon.

We don’t know what Simeon expected to happen and I doubt very much that he was expecting a baby. One thing was clear there was still one more thing he wanted to do before he died and so we have this image of an old man waiting and watching, looking and searching for a sight of the Saviour.

Mary and Joseph had bundled up their six-week-old baby boy and made the trip from Bethlehem to the temple at Jerusalem, where they planned to present their firstborn son to the Lord and make a sacrifice for Mary’s purification, as the Law of Moses required.

Simeon is led by the Holy Spirit to the temple that same day. Maybe it wasn’t on his list of things to do that day but somehow he knew that going to the temple was what God wanted him to do. Since he had been promised that he would see the Messiah before he died, he couldn’t afford to ignore the fact that for some reason God wanted him to be at the temple on that day and a certain time.

It seems strange that we don’t have any recorded conversation between Mary and Joseph and Simeon, but it seems the parents from Bethlehem sensed the deep spirituality of this old man with his outstretched arms asking if he could hold their child. Old Simeon sees in this tiny child the salvation that people have been waiting for. Here in his arms is the one who will save all people. Simeon says that now he had done all the things he had wanted to do in life and was ready to die now that he had seen the promise of God fulfilled. Cradling the infant Jesus in his arms, Simeon prays to God.

“Now, Lord, you have kept your promise, and you may let your servant go in peace. With my own eyes I have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples: A light to reveal your will to the Gentiles and bring glory to your people Israel.”

And after he had blessed Mary and Joseph, he went on to tell them more. Simeon had described this baby as a bright light that will reveal God’s will to all people. As you know the brighter the light the deeper and darker the shadows. Many people rejoiced to learn who Jesus was but there were also many who would clench their fists out of anger.

The Saviour would force people to choose whether they really wanted to get close to God or not. He would expose those who didn’t.

He would remind them that he and the Father are one and that to reject him would also mean rejecting the one who sent him.

There will be those who will deny that he is the only way to be reconciled with the God of the universe and it is only through him that it is possible to enter into the Father’s presence in heaven.

This child will cause a great divide throughout all humanity – those who will believe and trust him as their Saviour and those who will reject him and do their best to get rid of him.

Simeon said to Mary as he passed the baby back to her, “This child is chosen by God for the destruction and the salvation of many in Israel. He will be a sign from God which many people will speak against”. We know that throughout his life on earth and ever since this has been the case.

Simeon didn’t know that Mary would see Jesus die on a cross but he did know that, when Jesus suffered rejection and humiliation, she would also suffer. “Sorrow, like a sharp sword, will break your own heart,” Simeon said.

There was a woman whose name was Anna; eighty-four years old, and she too was looking for and speaking of this Saviour who was to come. The Bible says that she never left the temple; she stayed there day and night, fasting and praying that one day she would see the One whom God had sent to redeem Israel.

Again, God brought them together at the right time, and Anna prophesied that this child would redeem Israel. All her years of watching, waiting and fasting suddenly came to an end, as she told the people in the Temple who this child was. For Anna too her life was now complete. Of all the things that she had experienced in life, and of all the things she had achieved and done, this was indeed the most important and most exciting. Her list of things that she wanted to do before she died was complete.

There are reasons why these two people are featured on the first Sunday after Christmas.

The first is the irony that, while Simeon could not die until he met the Saviour in person, we cannot really live until we meet the Saviour. We can journey through life, happy enough, perhaps. We can be successful, and comfortable, and joyous people, but we cannot be at peace until we know that the Saviour has come to love us – one by one – love us into the Kingdom of God. Simeon’s joy was complete when he encountered the Saviour sent by God. Likewise our joy can only be complete when we encounter Jesus as our Saviour. He is not just a figure of interest from the stories of the Bible. He is our Saviour, the one who has been sent into our lives to drive out the darkness of sin and death and bring us the light of forgiveness and eternal life. It is only when we realise that Jesus came into the world for each of us personally that we can find true joy that will rise above any of the hurts and dangers that we will encounter along life’s path.

Secondly, we see in these stories of Simeon and Anna, evidence that the religious life is not a brief sprint, as we sometimes presume, but it is a marathon.

In an age of instant gratification, where the pursuit of a particular passion may last several weeks or months, these figures from the gospel of Luke spent many years seeking God’s blessing.

In an age where religious fervour lasts as long as it makes people feel good, and when things are no longer exciting they go on to something else that will give them a buzz, these two elderly figures remind us that faith and trust in God, commitment and dedication to what God wants of us, and religious fervour and commitment to God’s church is not a matter of a few weeks, months or even years.

For us, waiting for next Christmas might seem like forever; for Simeon and Anna, their watching and waiting spanned many decades. I’m sure there were times when they must have been impatient with God, depressed about their fellow Jews and their misguided ideas of worship and how God should act, and wondered whether God would really carry out his promise of a Saviour, but none of that deterred them from hanging in there, trusting God and waiting for that moment when God would bless them and they would be blessing to others as they pronounced to one and all that they have seen the salvation that God had promised. In fact, they could describe to others what it was like to hold the fulfilment of God’s promise in their arms.

The third reason why Simeon and Anna feature straight after Christmas is that they bring us back to why there had to be a Christmas in the first place. We have seen the baby in the manger and heard the story about the angels and the shepherds. We have heard the ancient prophesies about the Saviour. Simeon and Anna remind us that God’s plan of salvation will include cruelty, pain, torture, whips, nails, and dying.

God has come to earth – this child is a light revealing God’s love and bringing salvation for all people. He is our Saviour 24 seven, 365 days of the year for the rest of our lives. That’s something to get excited about. Jesus has come from heaven to earth for me – for you.

Let’s take this Christmas joy with us into the New Year. Even if we should die this coming year, suffer illness or face various kinds of misfortune, we can have that deep down joy and confidence knowing that Jesus is Saviour. He is our light, our strength and comfort every moment of the year ahead and every day of our lives.