Luke 3:1-6

 

John – out in the desert – was in the great tradition of the Hebrew prophets. And here, we see him aware that the time was upon Him to fulfil the destiny given to him right from his conception when still in his mother’s womb, he first encountered a baby to be called Jesus being carried within his Aunt Mary’s womb.

So, in responding to a calling from God he came in from the wilderness and began to preach a message of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.  Luke names a list of rulers who probably wouldn’t have been happy with this scruffy looking prophet from the desert coming to the people and trying to put things right, especially if they thought that the one who was coming would take over their leadership from them.

Yet he came proclaiming boldly, “to prepare the way of the Lord; to make his paths straight”, this is the message of the prophet Isaiah and John the Baptist is here to put it into practice.  Times are about to change people, hear ye, hear ye!  The mountains are about to move, the whole landscape will change, crooked will become straight and rough will become smooth.  But most importantly, all flesh will see the salvation of God.

Bold statements that saw the people distracted with superficial things come out from Jerusalem to see him. They were intrigued by this strange phenomenon of a wild man preaching repentance. They were fascinated by surface level things like his camel hair suit, wild hair-do and homemade leather belt and his fiery and passionate message of challenge. They wanted to interview him and then tell all their friends about their remarkable experience. “Who are you?” they asked. His answer was short and to the point: “I am not the Christ.” “Are you Elijah?” “No!” “Then who are you?” they persisted and though they had their doubts about who he was, his message to their ears was clear: Repent.

Repent at Christmas? Isn’t that the message of Lent, when we hear of all that torture, blood and suffering of this Jesus to whom John was a sign? But not at Christmas! Christmas is nice. Christmas is about a cute little baby and carols and presents and food and shopping!

Yes, repent approaching Christmas. John calls us to approach Christmas with honesty and openness to the Word of God. He calls us to repent our way to a merry Christmas.

Advent means “coming” and it requires a thoughtful and reflective approach to the coming of God into our humanity; with all our muck, sin and death. We prepare for Christmas by repenting. Repenting for John is more than having a change of heart or a feeling of regret. It is more than a New Year’s Eve resolution. Repentance is a turning away from ourselves, and in simple trust and faith in God’s grace, turning back to him.

Advent marks the start of a new church year, and it is customary at the start of any year to reflect on the past, look at the present and contemplate the future. We find ourselves reflecting on what God has been up to and what he will do in the future. In tough times when we feel a bit alone, it is pretty easy to start to worry about our future and feel as though we have to make everything happen by ourselves, without God!  Then there is always all those things we see and hear on TV these days – so much fear and terror. So many tragedies, so much suffering.

But into this comes this fiery witness – John. He calls us away from our worries and puts our life into perspective – God’s perspective. He displays God’s passion to have us back with him. John shows God’s deep concern for us and points us sinners to the medicine for our disease – the antidote to our worry, the security for our future – Jesus.

Each of us is invited to come to Jesus one-on-one. John says prepare for the advent – the coming – of Jesus. We can’t rely on our pedigree as a dyed-in-the-wool Lutheran or an extra special member of this parish. There is no room for pleading ignorance concerning God’s call to come clean with him and repent. No, there is only room in our hearts for the grace of Jesus –that’s what it’s all about.

For us Christians, there is a lifetime of living that comes from this grace that fills our hearts. We are called by the Lord through John to reflect on what we do with the Lord’s grace and love.

Consider the following….

• If you have food in the fridge, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep, you are richer than 75% of people in the world.
• If you have money in the bank, in your wallet/purse and spare change in a jar somewhere, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy.
• If you woke up this morning with more health than illness, you are doing better than the 1 million who will not survive the week.
• If you have never experienced the danger of battle, loneliness of imprisonment, agony of torture or pangs of starving, you are ahead of 500 million people.
• If you can attend a Christian church meeting without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death, you are more blessed than 3 billion people.

Sobering facts that see us hearing the voice of John more as the God fearing Jews coming out from the Holy temples of Jerusalem than the wondering “un-godly, unknowing” gentiles

So, is it time for us to do a similar thing. To hear his message from the wilderness and repent, I think so. Just as it is also the time that we take his message with us into the wilderness knowing of the need to call the world to repentance and make the way straight for the coming of the kingdom of God?

Many would say that we now live in a post-Christian society, that our society has become more secular than Christian or in some parts of the world other faiths have taken precedent.  Perhaps the world view right now is not so different from the time of John the Baptist, with everyone looking out for themselves and building their own kingdoms, trying to take what is someone else’s for their own benefit.

We could also say in some ways that the those of us who would call ourselves a part of the kingdom of God, the church, aren’t that different to the rest of society.  We are distracted by the need to get ahead, to have all the right ‘toys’ in our houses, garages and driveways, we work too hard to have time to play, we focus on our own needs instead of the needs of others and building the kingdom of God is fairly low on the agenda for a fair majority of us.  So yes, John’s message is for us too, and especially during this Advent season as we journey along the path to Christmas.

And maybe as we go, we can share our hope, our vision and our faith with those around us by becoming quiet and caring prophets as we through our actions make the path just that little bit smoother for others to see the salvation of God as well.

Amen.

Post message reflection partly based on the writings of Duke Ellington

Imagine weaving your way through an ancient crowded marketplace. Pots are clanging, merchants are squabbling and a donkeys are braying as they wait to be unloaded. Your sandals scrape on cobblestone. Someone carrying an arm load of palm branches brushes quickly past you, knocking you to the ground. “Sorry!” he shouts without looking back. “I’ve got to be there when he comes!” You rise and taste the blood on your upper lip. Oth­ers are scurrying by—some with little children in their arms, some hand in hand with their lovers, one with no hand at all. A man with a withered leg hobbles up and pauses to catch his breath. “Why is everyone in such a hurry?” you ask. “It’s the healer!” he grins through three crooked teeth. “He’s coming this way.” You decide to follow. A dozen ornately clad religious teachers push briskly past. One seems excited. The others appear annoyed. “He is a great rabbi!” brags the one. “We’ll see about that!” scowl the others. You approach the gate and the crowd begins to cheer. They lift their palm branches high, like a thousand fans for a pharaoh. “Hosanna!” they shout as a wave of excitement fills the air. “Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord! Peace in heaven! Glory in the highest heaven!” You strain to see what is happening, looking for a warhorse, a chariot or a god. What are they waiting for? Whom are they cheering? A king? A healer? A general? And then you see him—the man on a donkey. Crowds are parting to let him pass—this strange and welcomed visitor. Not a king. Not a general. No person of prestige or power. A simple man on a donkey, with power to rivet the crowds. The religious teach­ers march up and order him to silence the masses. You press closer and see Him looking at the broken, hungry, oppressed and lost people, and then from His heavy eyes you see a single tear drop and wonder of such a man being honored so greatly, yet so greatly honors those before Him.  . (Pause) In a moment, you are transported to the streets of your town. Crowds are scurrying. Tinsel is glittering. A tiny speaker is blaring, “Here comes Santa Claus,” above a plastic Christmas tree. You look up, half expecting to see the man on the donkey, but all that greets your sight is a mass of anxious people, a blur of bustling crowds. Credit cards flash. Tills ring. Bright wrapping paper is bound with bows but no one is speaking—no one. They all seem in such a hurry, but no one says a word. So silent about the king whose name alone bears witness to the approaching holly day. Holy day. Holiday. There is nothing said about the healer, the teacher, the king—no praises, no whispers, no words.

Then suddenly you hear those words mentioned by the veterans on that one day of the year when they once again march united, and come to understand the power and hope of those words said for their fallen comrades through the trust of what awaited them because of the one man who defeated death that life become eternal:

The tumult and the shouting dies—
The Captains and the Kings depart—
Still stands Thine ancient sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire—
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of the Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—
Such boastings as the Gentiles use,
Or lesser breeds without the Law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard—
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard.
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy Mercy on Thy People, Lord!

As we celebrate Advent-the coming of our Lord Jesus, we again see our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ the Son of God look toward the broken, hungry, oppressed and lost people. And look toward us and ask that we bring before Him our needs and the needs of our world. Bring before Him our fears, and the fears of the people that all will see and know the hope that is He. Amen

Jeremiah 33: 14-18, 1 Thessalonians 3:9-13, Luke 21:25-36

This Friday just gone, Australian Cricket has done another world first. A day/night test match with a pink ball. And this Friday just gone was also a year to the day that Australian cricketer Philip Hughes was lost to this world from a cricket ball to the back of his head.

Friday three days ago was an emotional day for those test cricketers on Adelaide oval. The dawn of a new era, and the memory of one past in the shape of a man that had seemingly touched them all. A man, a test cricketer who the current caption at the time Ricky Ponting remarks to fondly of when he was batting alongside this young Phillip Hughes in only his second test and having seen the “new guy” getting a truly hostile welcome from the mighty South African fast bowlers-and being the caption and in trying to support him through this testing time and asking him how’s he going, was proud to be told by this young man short in stature but who played tall while under fire with smile beaming “that this is test cricket, this is what’s it all about, this is what I’ve been waiting for and I love it.”

Rarefied air like that of 747 aeroplane pilot fighting in a crippled plane with hundreds of souls on board. Rarefied air like soldiers in war and those fighting our dry and dusty lands bushfires who do “their job” for other’s lives by putting their own at risk, and rarefied air  like that of a lady who recently on her death bed whispered the last words that her Pastor would hear from her: “see you on the other side.”

The rarefied air of today’s scripture pointing to a time like no other: “For then there will be great distress, unequaled from the beginning of the world until now and never to be equaled again.

A time that will see “..On earth distress of nations in perplexity and bewilderment…people fainting fearfully at what is happening….the powers of heaven shaken” and the powers of darkness stalking the earth to wreak havoc on the horrors of our inhumanity, our wars, crimes against our brothers and sisters and the never ending desire to rebuild our towers of Babylon and exalt ourselves as God.

A time Matthew 24 tells us that “If those days had not been cut short, no one would survive, but for the sake of the elect those days will be shortened. At that time if anyone says to you, ‘Look, here is the Christ! Â’ or, ‘There he is! Â’ do not believe it. For false Christs and false prophets will appear and perform great signs and miracles to deceive even the elect if that were possible. See, I have told you ahead of time.”

A time of when the powers of darkness will play their last card as spoken by the prophet Daniel who warns that “when you shall see the abomination of desolation, standing where it ought not, (let him that reads understand,) then let them that be in Judaea flee to the mountains.

A time where Christians find themselves standing on the brink of desolation when everything goes wrong and all their foundations crumble. When every light goes out and all their cute clichés of piety have exploded and they find themselves sitting in the dark. A time I fear that I separate from my family and not run to the mountains, but have the courage to stay and attest to the true one and only saviour Jesus Christ.

Pray such testing times like that of Abraham with his Son Isaac on the alter, or that of Christians huddling before a lion set to devour them, not be the times that wait us.

The time when the world will ask with scorn of “Where is your God now and who is this Son of man of that you talk?” A question both then and now of things seemingly out of control that would deceive even the elect if had we not have been guided by Christ to the truth of his life.  The truth that our human minds cannot fully grasp but know in faith.

The truth that He is the Son of God. That Jesus Christ, no less than the Son of God who took on our flesh and bones and blood and nerves.  The Son of God who He himself has been through His tribulation and suffered in the dark in the Garden of Gethsemane with his own bloody sweat on his forehead as the rancid vapor of the guilt of the entire world burned upon His Holy soul.

The Son of God who journey to Jerusalem to be delivered to the hands of men who on the cross with His mission near completion cries to His Father “why have you forsaken me” when the sins of the world, the sins of those past, the sins of us and those of the future which like a searing sword tore through the flesh and heart of the one man who was without sin. The one man without sin, yet the one man forsaken for that moment by God the Father to accomplish our redemption, atoned for all our guilt, purchased our forgiveness, crushed the juggernaut of death and brought life and immortality to light.

Jesus Christ the Son of Man who walked through His tribulation so great that only the Son of God could have achieved it. And Jesus Christ the Son of Man with a love so great that only He, the Son of God could suffer it again through the lives of the very ones He came.

Our Tribulation in which He walks in front, alongside and behind that we fall not to the snares of the evil one, but be guided from fear to faith for when the time will be, and in fact already is: when everyone will speak against the faith and when all the evidence will screams at us, “So where is your God now?”

Christ with us for the time that will, and in fact is already is: when fear will grip those of the earth by their throats to choke off all these “myths” about a God who steers the course of history to its goal.

The time that will be, and in fact already is where the elect will not fall to such traps. The time now where those of the faith-you and I when asked by our own fears and when asked by the world of “where is your God know” can respond not with what may appear but which what is.

To know in faith and in the rock solid truth of scripture that the Son of man has never lost control and never will. That God is today right where He was when Jesus took his cross, right where He was when his apostles went to death for him and right where he was when the martyrs joined their voices in a hymn of praise before the Emperor and the bloodthirsty jeering crowds as the lions roared. And right where He is now, right by your side here today, just as where He will be when you are welcomed to your heavenly home. 

A professional Golfer after practicing hour upon hour was asked if all that training can improve his already near perfect game. A question to which he replied: “I don’t train to get better, but train that when I approach the ball lying in the woods that I know without question that I will make the shot.”

The end times started when Christ won our battle on the cross and the end times will finish when all will see Him coming again in the clouds and like that golfer we need not consume ourselves with distractions other than what is at hand, for we have been brought to the faith in the truth. We the elect have not been deceived by the turbulence of a world in rough times but remain in His green pastures.  His green pastures that see us not in fear or a world desolate to us in the faith. But His green pastures known to us that see this as a time like no other. A time to not doubt but to lift our eyes and see Christ.  A time not to give in and let the world go its merry way to self-destruction while we idle away time. A time not to be give up and cry I’m beaten and surrender to the world with all its passions and distractions. 

No, this is our time. A time that gives us reason to not give up, but to give out. To give out with all we are and all we have of what the grace of God has made of us and given us-to speak the joy we know in Him who is the Lord of all, to call those the Lord places before us that they not fear of what may will be, or is already hear, but be called to the faith of Jesus Christ that trusted His life to that of The Father, that they may have faith in Him.

When each of us came to faith we are told the angels and heavens erupted in joyous song. A moment that for each of us did our Savior on the cross know,” that’s what’s it’s all about” and while we may not have to face devouring lions, bushfires,  the gun of an enemy or the ferocity of a 150 kilometer an hour  leather missile in the guise of a cricket ball-in Christ we do know what it’s all about and with Christ by our side we see those people and situations He places before us, and in knowing what awaits us in our heavenly home, know that the person or the moment we are given before us, that we after a life of being pruned, brought to faith and given the knowledge of salvation and peace-know that it could be the moment that may been waiting for us all our lives that will see the heavens again erupt for that one person’s eyes being  opened and given faith in our, and their Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  

You have been blessed, and these are blessed times for blessed are you who come in the name of the Lord. Pray it be so for all.  Amen.    

“The gift of Christmas presence”

Luke 1:26-28

When I was young, on Christmas Eve we would open our presents from Father Christmas and on Christmas day all our families would gather together at a home of one of our relatives in the most central location. It was great fun playing back yard cricket against our cousins and their mum’s and dad’s. I enjoyed all of the day except when it was time for the communal opening of our presents from our mum’s and dad’s. I always wished we could have stopped at just getting the big fella’s presents the night before, not because I wouldn’t have minded a few more, but because in the communal session, I could always see how my mum and dad seemed not embarrassed, but more sought of as second class parents because of the inferior type of present that they could provide compared to the other’s given. I didn’t care, but they seemed to and I always felt sad for them and just wished we didn’t have that part of the day.

Those times in our early days often follow us around later in our lives where we try and compensate in the other way and if we look at it from the two ends of the scale: The children of a poor family who may grow up and try to shower their own kid’s with presents, and the children of a rich family who may grow up with the in-built longing to not so much shower their children with presents but to be present in their lives.  Or, we just mutate to another form of the same which I only know too well where instead of feeling sorry for my mum and dad in their thoughts of not having the ability to furnish me with great gifts like the others around them, to know feeling like them on a daily basis when I line up my pathetic and spiritually poor bank account of self and service towards our Lord and Saviour. Guilt and wallowing in self-regarding shame or guilt and wallowing in self-hiding pride.  Shame diffused through the bottom of a glass or shame diffused and hidden through the striving for wealth, respect and position.

 I’ve had a crack at most of them but each of us have our default position when the dark clouds of self-worth hit amongst the certainty of our desire to run from it in the way that is only known to each of us, only to find that when we get there-that there it still awaits bigger and stronger, asking for not less but for more of the same as we increase the self-medication of moving closer to the park bench and empty bottles or closer to the leather padded Lear jet seat traversing the world in might and prestige.

Ironically, neither of these book ends of society are either wrong or necessarily better or worse than the others. I’ve met CEO’s who truly understand that the position they hold is of great importance not to themselves, but to the thousands of families that rely on them doing their job well so that the company remains strong and that their employees remain secure. Just as I’ve met a man who didn’t drink, seemed clean and well-spoken and who chose the freedom of sleeping on a bus stop bench happy with either the balmy nights and storm clouds or the clear nights and sparkling stars as his blanket. Both were great people and because they “got what is was all about” neither ridiculed or judged other peoples place in the world.

Our upbringing and our experiences can shape our sense of who we are and how we see things and it is often enlightening to see that come out in the answers people give in one of my favourite shows “Family Feud” and this week, one contestant when asked what is made of straw and in replying “a bed” was rewarded with four points and laughter from the audience, at which hearing, the smiling compare of the show Grant replied “come on Australia, it’s one of the best stories ever told.”

Maybe it was a throw-away line or his statement of faith, but either way it struck me that on a show where to win you need high point scoring answers, we were given an answer of little point value and use towards the prize on offer.

Similar on New Year’s Eve 2000 in the back ground on the T.V. was the countdown to voting on the greatest Australian song in history and upon reaching number one, a well-known Aussie Band said “oh that’s easy because it doesn’t matter where we play in the world there will always some drunk Australian ask that we play Cold Chisel’s Khe Sahn.

I agree and it has great heartfelt and real lyrics about a soldier returning from Vietnam and his struggles to fit back into society and one verse summarises it well by saying:

“And I’ve travelled round the world from year to year
And each one found me aimless, one more year the worse for wear
And I’ve been back to South East Asia
But the answer sure ain’t there
But I’m drifting north, to check things out again.”

In writing this, I just noticed the word count and realized how long winded my introduction has been without any “God talk”. I’m sorry for that but so can be our searching for answers and contentment on this earth.

It is such a wonderful thing to see Jordana being baptised today into the arms of Jesus at the age of six weeks old and hearing His promise now imbedded into her very self that “Whoever believes and is baptised will be saved.” What a great promise to receive and though Jordana does not understand it now, just as I did not fully understand when I was baptised as a twenty nine year old, she to like myself will see that the Lord does not make that statement lightly and in fact is prepared to go into the lowest pit or above the highest mountain to show himself that we may come to believe in Him.

The same Saviour sent to earth to be born to a humble girl called Mary who through becoming pregnant out of wedlock would have been the target of ridicule, rumour and out right disgust, trusted the message from the angel Gabriel that she was chosen to be not the mother of grace, but the daughter of the grace given to her and the world through the long promised Messiah and Saviour that she carried in her womb.

The same Mary who over the next 30 years would see here baby boy grow into a man and then be brutally tortured before being hung from a cross amongst criminals. A moment where the Blessed Mary may not have felt so blessed.

A long time Pastor once asked me what it is like in the real world when the troubles come. The death of those close, the stuffing up and being stuffed up and at times feeling alone and helpless. My answer was the same as then as it is now-not a lot: because in my chasing and searching both outside of Christ and with Christ I’ve felt the wraths and the joys of what life in both worlds can bring. Times of being blessed by the unlikeliest of people and situation in the front bar of a hotel and times like that of the blessed Mary where we stand confused at the foot of suffering.

I bought a new CD this week where a song’s chorus goes “I don’t know where I’m running but I know how to run, cos running’s the thing I’ve always done” which reminded me of a little boy I knew used to know who would be woken in the middle of the night and told to run to safety through the paddocks to the neighbor’s house and today if you meet this man and look closely you will sometimes still see that little boy still trying to run from himself and though each step seems aimless and another the worse for wear, Jesus Christ run’s with him. Not to ridicule, lector or place demands. But to guide, lift up and ask that he know the truth that is Jesus Christ himself who has been with him the whole way asking and pleading over and over again that we head to His cry in Matthew chapter 11, verse 28 to “come unto me, all who that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.”

When my son was three years I went to him under the cloud of anguish and “asked that he forgive me for not being the Father I wished I could be”. To which he replied “what do you mean dad, you’re a great dad” and today just as we see a little child called Jordana before us, so do the three to be admired most, The Father, The Son and the Holy Ghost see today your inner self and though to others and indeed to yourself you have hidden it away’, to them you need not because as you come before God the Father with Jesus Christ His Son and your Saviour by your side He sees not crimes of an enemy to be punished, but the anguish of a child needing to be covered cover with His love. His love that knows your journey. His love that has wept with you in the times of distress and cherished the moments with you when freed from them.

This Christmas we may or may not get the presents we would like but we can be assured that the greatest story ever told is not a fable or about some fictional scenario designed for bring out a false sought of hope in this world, but the story of truth arriving on this earth some 2,000 years ago given to little Jordana today and for her years ahead. A promise not from our actions but from His given to us on a cross in Israel 2,000 years ago where He gave up His earthly life that in ours we need not search or run no longer, but be still and rejoice that though the road may have been long and arduous, it has and will lead you home. Praise be to God. Amen.

In today’s Gospel, we see this wild looking character John the Baptist announcing the arrival of the long-time promised Messiah as recorded right through scripture.

The Old Testament was a time of prophets and promise. It was a time of waiting, or anticipation-and then it happened. God sent “his one and only Son” and the New Testament is the time of celebrating the promise fulfilled.

The Advent season focuses on the coming of that Messiah as we are invited to enter into the Old Testament experience of yearning and hoping and waiting.

Just like our children wait in expectation before they are allowed to finally open the presents sitting under the Christmas tree, so are we invited during these weeks of Advent to enter that spirit of painful expectation spiritually and if we can sense the pain and frustration of the Old Testament people, we can better rejoice at the fulfilment when the angels finally announce that “today in the town of David a Saviour has been born to you, He is Christ the Lord.”

To feel the pain of the wait and finally the Joy just as in our lives sometimes all we have is the promise as said in well-known form that “Faith is only faith when you have nothing else to hold onto to.”

Yet the Old Testament prophets did not know what to expect. They knew it would be a righteous Branch sprung from the stump of David’s house as recorded in Jeremiah where “The days are coming declares the Lord, when I will fulfil the gracious promise I made to the house of Israel.

But the Prophets did not know that the Messiah would be God himself.

They had no concept of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit and so they couldn’t possibly anticipate that the Second person of the Trinity would be born as one of them with the Father sending his “One and only Son.”

We know from their writings that He would exercise kindness, justice and righteousness on earth, but how could they possibly know of the righteousness that Jesus would bring of forgiveness of sins won on a cross for they were anticipating that the Saviour would be for justice and righteousness for their nation rather than for all people and for all eternity.

Them and us, sometimes all we have in life is the promise, and we just wait. We wait and God surprises.

Problem is it’s hard to wait and we can feel it from the palmist and from ourselves as they and us cry: “Out of the depths I cry to you, O Lord; O Lord hear my voice. I wait for the Lord, my soul waits, and in his Word I put my hope (Ps. 130:1,5).

Sometimes all we have in life is the promise and it can hurt.

Times in our lives when all we had was the promise.

Times when you were in the depths and cried to the Lord, and all you could do was wait.

Painful times that you may remember as you recall the loneliness, the frustration, the anger, the doubt and maybe then the guilt of having such feelings. The how can God love me like this with my accusations and mistrust.

Maybe you are feeling that way today as we approach Christmas because while it is a time of celebrating Jesus arrival, it is also a season that can bring to the surface all the frustrations and losses and fears of life.

For many people, these weeks before Christmas are the most painful days of the year and can’t wait for it to be over.

Many people wear a mask of “good cheer”, but inside feel only pain and hurt and frustration. Outside it’s yes: Merry Christmas and Oh yes, the singing and the bells are wonderful. But inside it’s “I don’t have the perfect life like everybody else has.

I can act it, but I’ll never have it and as I don’t want to spoil it for you, I won’t tell you how I’m really feeling and this can go on for year after year. Will the pain ever end? Will Christmas ever pass?

Christmas is one of, if not the time of greatest depression, loneliness, and suicide in our society.

Sometimes all we have in life is promise and hope, and we wait. But the promise and hope that comes from God himself. And he is a God who fulfils his promises and that is what we celebrate at Christmas and daily in our lives that from Galatians, “When the time had fully come, God sent His son, born of a women.”

All this was happening in the fullness of God’s time just as there is the fullness of time in your life.

Think Back. Remember those times of pain and frustration and doubt?

Remember how your good Lord saw you through them. Most likely he didn’t lead you out as you anticipated, but he did lead you out-“in the fullness of time,” when it was right and when you were ready.

Our heavenly Father did it in Jesus and He did it to you in your life and he’s still doing it now. That’s the story of our life in God. It’s a life of Trust. It’s a turning over of our fears and worries and burdens. It’s a freedom of knowing he’s in charge, a confidence that he will act. Our whole Christian life is waiting on Him. Trusting him in His love, His will and His goodness.

In Christ you are saved and forgiven today because you know Him and He knows you. You are blessed.

Yet there are those around us that behind the mask if we looked, we would see the hurting.

The one’s we go to and hold their hand in God’s name and help to hang on and wait. To tell them the Christmas truth: That God kept his promise from the Old Testament and sent His Son.

Because to them and to you, God keeps his promises to all who wait on him and in the fullness of time, in the most unexpected ways, he stills sends his Son to us-to restore, to build and to lavish us with his love. Thanks be to God. Amen.

“No more or less about it”

1^st Corinthians 1:3-9

Mahammad Ali is well known as an American former professional boxer, generally considered among the greatest heavyweights in the sport’s history and a noted activist for racial justice. He was also dyslexic and had trouble reading long words and in 1975 before 2,000 Harvard graduates gave a speech referencing the advantages they had been given in education up and against the same that he had not been given and urged them to use that knowledge to change the world for the better.

Seemingly polar opposites in upbringing and opportunity and at the end someone from the crowd yelled, “give us a poem” to which he replied and gestured: “Me, we.”

Sometimes more is less, and less is more and in my first reading of today scripture from 1^st Corinthians 1:3-9, I was not overwhelmed as to any great theological insight from the Apostle Paul.

How wrong I was.

Roots: The Saga of an American Family is a novel written by Alex Haley and tells the story of an 18th-centuryAfrican, captured as an adolescent and sold into Slavery in the United States of America and follows his life and the hardships and injustices he and others like him suffered and to which this book went onto be considered one of the most important U.S. works of the twentieth century.

That author, Alex Haley went onto say:

Never read a Jonah Lehrer book, peeped a James Frey lie, or knowingly bookmarked a Jayson Blair article. While fraud soaks the roots of some great literature, the truth is always better, even if or when it shakes our realities.

1^st Corinthians 1:3-9: “Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus. For in him you have been enriched in every way with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge. God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you. Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed. He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Those words from Paul are placed directly before he addresses some serious issues within the congregation of the Corinthians such as divisions in the church, members exerting their foolish human wisdom over others together with the occurrence of sexual immorality, idolatry, pride, abuse of the Lord’s Supper and even doubts as to authenticity of the bodily resurrection of those in Christ.

Big ticket items and Paul seems to address these issues in what we would call the sandwich effect with something less important said both before and after the meat of the message. Like on a talent show where the judge would start with “Your hair looks nice”, then ultimately the meat “that the problem is you can’t sing” and then concluding with something positive to take away with such as: “have you tried juggling?”

Paul is doing no such thing in his address to the Corinthians and in those opening seemingly fluffy opening statements he is offering the meat of the truth in which only then, can anything else ever be addressed.

Less is more:

John 3:16 “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.”

Less is more:

Luke 23: 42-43: (Then the thief on the cross) said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. (and) Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

In the English language we have words like know and no that we can tell apart by how they are spelt and in their context: “I know what you mean” or “Cathy can I have some money, No to cannot.”

Less is more and so today, I am not intending to shake any realities but confirm them for you by simply letting Paul tell you of the truth that he was chosen by Christ to do. Verse by verse as it was given to him and in the unadulterated form, meaning and not subjective, but actual meaning with all its dots and dashes as written in the Greek language that would be translated no differently by an unbelieving scholar, to that of a believing one.

^{Verse 3Â} Grace and peace to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.

Here is concise, sweet Gospel that sets up this text to in which every verse does Paul make mention to Jesus with each repetition bringing out another nuance of the pairing of both grace and peace together as one. Being the source of our salvation is always and only in the grace of God in Christ which then and only then do we have the peace of God in Christ. Paul here to you makes an implicit reference to Christ’s divine nature in that the grace you have received, is from the unmerited kindness of God which caused him to elect you in eternity, call you by the Gospel, redeem you and preserve you in the faith.

^{Verse 4Â} I always thank my God for you because of his grace given you in Christ Jesus.

Paul lists grace as the first and essential gift, to which many gifts have been added. Over your life, this grace has been preached to you and by that grace, you have believed the message. By grace you have been kept in the faith and equipped for the life of faith, and Paul here, is giving you his upmost confidence that God will preserve you and this congregation in spite of your weaknesses.

^{Verse 5Â} For in him you have been enriched in every way with all kinds of speech and with all knowledge.

Enriched in every way. Not enriched by yourself nor in your own right, but enriched in Christ. Not enriched as others who speak eloquently but without knowledge and therefore blessing. Not being blessed with the knowledge, but do not speak either because are not able to or do not care. But enriched in Christ, you are equipped with both the knowledge of Him and the will to speak of in your testimony.

^{Verse 6Â} God thus confirming our testimony about Christ among you.

Your testimony of which Christ is both object and author, and in this word play gives imagery of Christ as a strong root or a secure anchor to which your testimony concerning Christ has taken firm hold.

^{Verse 7Â} Therefore you do not lack any spiritual gift as you eagerly wait for our Lord Jesus Christ to be revealed.

This statement and its contrast to charismatic teaching is striking and emphatically in the highest order, that no Christian congregation is lacking any spiritual gift, together with emphasizing, that one true mark of your Christian faith to you individually and our whole congregation collectively, is that of waiting expectantly and not dreading the Second coming and of been given the spiritual gift of equipping you for that wait.

^{Verse 8Â} He will also keep you firm to the end, so that you will be blameless on the day of our Lord Jesus Christ.

You here today, just as you have come to faith in Christ, so too He will root and anchor you securely to the end, and having been given the gift of perseverance, you will stand before God the Father not sinless in this world, but blameless and not liable to either charge or accusation because of the grace you have given through the shedding of the blood of Jesus Christ his Son for you.

^{Verse 9Â} God is faithful, who has called you into fellowship with his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.

In the original Greek, faithful is the first word in the sentence, making it especially emphatic and giving unending assurance that God keeps his promises and is faithful to the end as seem in the bond between Jesus Christ and you. A bond from eternity, brought to pass in our time that will forever last in eternity.

There you have it and if you believe that the word of God, the bible is his true and inspired word. you can have no debate as to truth of Christ and the riches he has showered on you.

And if not, your debate is not with me, Paul or a Greek language translation expert but with God himself.

I know that was more like a bible study and a bit long winded, but bear in mind that these are the first two text books I received when studying to understand the word of God when training to be a pastor. 869 pages of biblical commentary on the words alone in the 50 chapters in the book of Genesis, and as much as I would like to get that started, I think we’ve all had enough for today because though there are those that seek to fraudulently soak the root of the Gospel with false or fanciful misinterpretations or outright lies, the truth is always better.  And that truth is Christ who stands unseen before you today when you come to the alter in Holy Communion. Unseen by you, but not by His Father and ours-God the Father.

God the Father who promised us a Saviour, and delivered. God the Father who has promised to all those that believe in His Son to have eternal life, and delivered. Delivered not tomorrow, but today, because his promise is to you from eternity, brought to pass in your time, too forever last in eternity.

Today, not I, but the Lord has spoken and pray that we all have ears to hear, minds to remember and hearts to be uplifted that when we see our sins before us and the rocky road ahead, we hear His sweet voice come to us and see our path cleared and our soul restored and know truly that in these days before, that He is with us. Just as in that day to come, when truly, we will be with Him in paradise.” Amen.

“The way, the truth and the life” 

MATTHEW 2:18-25

 

It astounds and shocks me that some of the Christian faith, some even with high title struggle with, and even deny the virgin birth because if there is one thing that perplexes me in the Gospel, the Virgin birth is not it and concur with Martin Luther when he stated:

“The miracle of Christ as Virgin born is a trifle for the mighty God. That God becomes a man is an even greater miracle and that Mary and Joseph find the angel’s messages to them credible is even more amazing.” Likewise for us: “The hardest point for us, is not to Believe he is a Virgin’s Son and God himself, but to believe that he came for us”.

That He came to bring forgiveness in Himself to thieves, murderers, drunks, prostitutes, drug addicts, for wall street bankers, soldiers, politicians, farmers, bankers and you: I do not find hard to believe. What I find hardest point to believe is that I’m in that list. Not hard to believe the sin side, but hard to believe the grace side.

But I do, as should you because it is does not matter who you are, what you have done or what you think of yourself, it is who He is, what He has done for us and what He thinks of us”.

Those in prison on death row, those working the streets and us here attending worship are united in sin and deserving righteous judgement, yet in turning our lives towards God in repentance and asking for and trusting in Christ, we are also united in His death for our Sins and united in eternal life in His resurrection.

In an Australian made movie about Football the coach gives a great Grand final three quarter time address where he talks of a mother being attached by a strong man looking to hurt her baby and asks his players to imagine the scene and see this lady, reach into that inner strength and find a way to protect her child no matter what the cost.

That intangible inner strength that comes through an unexpected situation where without time to access the situation and think through things, you respond and find a way you never thought possible. Those moments happen and we hear of them in soldiers, police officers, those fighting fires and in everyday people thrown into a situation abounding in peril.

That inner strength that comes when there is no time to think, and may not have come if there was time to think.

Time if we had available that may lead us to not looking for a way in, but a way out.

Truth is, though we would like to think we would do this or that, the truth is that given a situation of danger we will never know whether we would fight or flee as too when placed in a situation requiring our charity and service to others that although we hope we would, we may not as we way up if we can afford the money or the time, or even if they deserve it as we offer some excuse to flee.

Point is that like a recovering alcoholic can never be sure of total abstinence, nor can we be sure of anything that we will or won’t do or of what will and won’t happen.

So to with the Gospel if we look at what we have or haven’t done or of a sin with a hold on us or one we’ve beaten because in forgiveness and salvation before God the Father, only in the acceptance of and trust in Christ must we stand and accept the way He found for us.

To find that inner strength He gave us of faith, that like Joseph and Mary being told of the uncomparable, we too trusting in the Lord can dispel ridicule and judgements from self and others and have the inner strength of faith to give in to ourselves and listen to Him who gave Himself.

The human race was bound in sin and death, but God the Father found a way out for us by giving His own Son Jesus. Jesus who in the garden of Gethsemane asked His Father is there another way.

There was not then and there is not now for Jesus Christ the saviour is the only way, the truth and the life.

In that scene from that Aussie footy movie the coach talks of a mother being attached by a strong man looking to hurt her baby and asks them imagine the scene and see this lady, reach into that inner strength and find a way to protect her child no matter what the cost.

A fictitious speech designed to instil in them the minds of warriors that they “go to war” on the playing field.

God the Father seeing His child under attack reached into himself and found a way. God the Father seeing His child under attack. Seeing you and me, His children under the attack of sin reached in and gave himself, His only beloved Son that we not need the minds of warriors, but minds of those knowing peace.

God found a way out for us and that is why we celebrate Christmas.

There is a saying: Cheap grace. Cheap grace said by those who use it towards Christians who seem to take the grace they have received in Christ too lightly.

Maybe that is so. As so can be it in apposition when we see the greatness of our sins blurring and diminishing that grace.

God found a way for us and that is why we celebrate Christmas. We celebrate the birth of a small boy who would grow to be hung on a cross and killed so that when we see the mountain of wrongs we have done see a Father, our Father saving His child, saving you no matter what the cost.

We celebrate Christmas because when we are at the end of our tether with nothing left to give, we see what He gave us.

Jesus walked this earth on His way in compassion healing, helping and loving those in need that came before Him, as too are we on our way to those that the Lord sends before us.

Jesus on His way taught and lifted up the despondent in the truth that no sin is too great for forgiveness in Him.

We on our way are lifted up because we see a Father give His little boy to be lifted up on a cross.

God found a way to save His child, to save you and that way was not cheap and that is why we celebrate Christmas. We celebrate because we see that in Christ no sin is too great, no failure too huge and no amount of misgivings we have of self to vast before The Father for those who trust in Christ His Son, our Saviour.

We live by grace. A grace so costly that how could we, how dare we doubt it as we see God the Father looking at you and me in Sin and finding a way for us. His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ who walked like a lamb to the slaughter that we know the love of The Father and the way the truth and the life that is Jesus himself, and that is why we celebrate Christmas.

We celebrate today because we know the costly truth. That today because of Christ your sins are forgiven and in trust in Christ alone you are saved and given eternal life.

A gift to us at a cost so great that we not ask how could even we be forgiven, but a gift so great that we ask how could we be not?
Amen.

“The gift of giving”

Isaiah 35:1-10

A friend of mine took his son and daughter in their early teenager years with him on a camping holiday into the desert. Actually he dragged them with him. No internet, mobile phone coverage, hair dryers or hot showers. Yet on their return some six weeks later, they couldn’t wait for the next trip “outback”.

A silent hot and dusty arid land of treeless plains where nothing runs into nothing.  Yet a land that seems to transform and to where you end up seeing and sensing an unimaginable beauty in the nothing.

It doesn’t change; it changes you as to those who come to know and spend time in Christ where things that were once adversity become gain, where weakness becomes strength and setbacks enhance.

In today’s Old Testament reading the people of Israel are in exile and enslaved in Babylon and in their despair we can hear the words from Psalm 137 and the song “By the rivers of Babylon” where they cry:

“For there they carried us away to captivity requiring of us a song; now how shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land, and yes we wept when we remembered Zion”.

Words of a time past, yet words we too we carry in our heart and mutter from our lips when we too are under the captivity of the adversity, weakness and set back from those moments and times in our lives when we are brought to our knees and weep in despair.

I was once told of a statue of Christ in Germany where unless you are on your knees you cannot see Jesus’ face clearly. As was the case with the Israelites in exile when they heard the good news of God through the prophet Isaiah, and as too us from Christ himself where in Him “the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them”.

Like rain in a parched desert and in the waters of Baptism, Christ restores our arid hearts and lives with His bottomless well of love and in our adversity we see His freeing hand and strength and are renewed like in the promise from Isaiah where “everlasting joy is upon our heads as we have now obtained gladness and joy and all sorrow and sighing has fled away”.

Sounds wonderful, yet reminds me of when talking to one of my friends and after he proudly stated that he and his wife had never had an argument made me wonder which one of us wasn’t normal.

One of the Pope Paul’s (I think) once said that after having been told of a problem said to himself, “goodness, I better tell the pope about this”, only to respond “hang on I am the pope”.

So too can it be as Christians living in our world fractured by sin where even though we know the truth of Christ and the gladness and joy that He has brought us, we can still-no, we still do struggle to live it.

Not unlike now as we await the celebration of the greatest gift we and the world have received in the Birth of Jesus Christ. A time of great joy. Yet a time for non-Christians and indeed Christians alike that can magnify the loneliness of the outcasts of society as they see families and friends gather as to for those grieving the loss of loved ones.

That people have said why can’t every day be like Christmas may depend on which side of that ledger you sit.

The thing is every day is Christmas because in belief and trust in Christ everlasting joy is upon your heads and you  have obtained gladness and joy because in faith in Him alone, you are forgiven and most certainly will be re-united with those in Christ that have gone before where sorrow and sighing will be no more.

That is what Christ came for and that you know who He is and what He has done for you is the fulfilment of His great sacrifice.

In faith in Christ alone, your sins are forgiven and you have eternal life-that’s the deal. Yet while that is signed and sealed we still live in our world and our own lives disturbed by sin and so we live like a child who sees their name of a gift under the Christmas tree.

The gift has already been given and it’s already theirs, yet they must still wait and go about daily life until the day arrives when the gift is fulfilled in its entirety.

So to with your gift of eternal life in Christ under the heavenly Christmas tree where a place for you has already been prepared and awaits you. In trust in Christ, the gift of eternal life has already been given and is already yours. You can see it, yet its total fulfilment is still to come and so like a child waiting for the actual day, we live our daily lives in the season of Christmas.

Christmas day is the fulfilment as is meeting our Saviour on our last day. But until then, we live everyday in the Christmas season where we have that sure hope, but we also have the sure reality of our lives of mixed emotions.

Mixed emotions of hurt that can crush and happiness that lift up. Failures that can lead to despair and achievements that may threaten unrighteous pride. Yet living in the Christmas season everyday and keeping our eye on Christ and His promise of what awaits, we see that in the hurt we can look forward to the fulfilment of His promise, as like in the moments that threaten to puff us up with pride we are brought back to the reality of just how slight it is in relation to what awaits.

People think being a Christian is about rules and they would be right if we didn’t already have our gift of eternal life under the heavenly Christmas tree. But the unseen reality is that the gift is there with your name on it and when you see that, the “rules” to be humble and help and serve others in our lives don’t become a chore but a gift.

You have been forgiven in Christ and most surely your room in heaven awaits you and in knowing that truth, you can live everyday not having to, but wanting to. Not crippled in our sin, but uplifted in forgiveness. Christmas is about the gift of Christ as is every day and while you may not be able to open your present just yet, it most certainly is yours and that is what brings endurance in hardship and life and joy in the big and the small of our lives.

Paul said to run the good race and indeed if you run your race knowing of the truth of what awaits you, though there are hills and gullies before you and though you fall and your legs grow weary need not concern you because when in either the gullies and on the hills you can rejoice in seeing Christ come to you in others, and rejoice that in either being battered and bruised or fresh and unscathed that in Christ, you as you are have been saved, and that you as you are-can live in the joy of being a gift to others. Amen.

“As nutty as a fruit cake”

Isaiah 11:1-10, Romans 15:4-13, Matthew 3:1-12

The three bible readings today talk of the world in relation to God’s promised gift of Him sending a Saviour. In the Old Testament reading the prophet Isaiah forecasts and talks of the Messiah King that is yet to come. In the Gospel John the Baptist is heralding the arrival of that very person, Jesus Christ who is now on their doorstep and in the Epistle from the book of Romans, Paul the apostle tells of now having received through Christ the foreshadowed promise mercy and forgiveness, that we can now live in harmony with each other in hope, joy and peace.

Three periods of time apart from each other in the history of our world. Before Christ, meeting Christ for the first time and then the result of realising His presence.  Three periods of time in history experienced by three different sets of people.  Those looking and waiting for a Saviour, those walking with the Savour and those affected by Him. Separated apart by large chunks of time but not unlike us ourselves on our own individual spiritual journeys of before, meeting and then the after effects of Christ in our own short journeys in this world.

Before, meeting with and after. Three stages of Christian life and I wonder which one you are in at the moment?

Charles Wesley, a great servant of God, a great missionary and  one of the initiators of the Methodist Church travelled by boat to preach the gospel to parts of the world that had not heard it and on his return after being asked how we went replied “Yes, many souls have been saved, but who is going to save mine”.

Before, meeting and then growing in Christ. I wonder which one you are in at the moment, just like I wonder which one I’m in.

When our son Josh turned three, I took my long service leave to look after him while my wife Cathy started some part time work with the Bendigo Bank.

It was six months of the most cherished time in my life but one Saturday morning, while playing computer games together the phone rang and a man said that Cathy had been involved in a car accident on her way home from work and that she was fine but a little shaken. We jumped straight in the car and after telling Josh of the situation I could see that he was a little worried for his mum. So I told him the truth of what I understand the man ringing had told me. It’s fine Josh, it’ll be just a small dent in the car and after we give mum a hug she’ll settle down and she’ll drive her car home.

As we turned the corner looking down a hill, about 500 metres away I could see two shiny cars, both written off in the middle of a very busy intersection. Two tow trucks, a fire engine, an ambulance and several police cars and I said to my three year old son, Josh this is worse than I thought so mum will be really upset and maybe even hurt, so both of us are going to have to be strong for mum.  He looked at me and said, “But dad, I’m just a boy”.

After my dad died a few years ago, I was looking through some old stuff and there before in an old black and white photo was my dad with his two boys at the beach. He was fit and young but what stunned me was the look of joy in his eyes. The joy in his eyes that I never really remembered a great deal off.  I loved my dad but pain of others ultimately plays out in those closet to them and after having just started my pastoral studies, I went from full time in my bank job to part time as allowed for in the first years of your study to help pay the bills. Two weeks later my brother tragically died and fearing for how my mum and dad would deal with it and having accumulated over twelve months sick leave went to see a doctor to state the situation at hand and get a sick certificate for a few weeks so that I could look after them.

What I didn’t reckon on was that it would play out a little like the scene from the movie Tin Cup, where Kevin Costner having fell for the charms of the new physiatrist in town, decides to try and get to know her under the guise of needing her services. Unfortunately for him, she does her job and he departs saying I didn’t come here to be told stuff about me I didn’t want to hear.

As to me with my doctor, a “normal” doctor but who I was to find out had an interest in the health of the mind and after she had written out my sick certificate started meddling in not just how I was dealing with life at that time, but also how I had dealt with life in general and that she seemed to suggest that from want of a better word “I was somewhat a tortured soul” was not what I went there for and like Kevin Costner in Tin Cup went in feeling fine only to walk out knowing I was as nutty as a fruit cake. Thanks for that.

In 1985 the Aussie band “The Divinyls” released a song “(It’s a fine line between) Pleasure and pain”  and in our day to day worldly moments it most certainly can be. The fine line between rain and drought, the Jockey checked in the home turn to lose by a nostril, a millisecond in the Olympic 100 metres final and in the 2005 AFL grand final where the Sydney Swans defeated the West Coast Eagles by only a few points, I remember that within minutes the commentator asked “so where did it all go wrong for the Eagles”.

When he was Prime Minister, Malcolm Fraser once famously said to those angry at his political party’s decisions that were affecting their lifestyles “that life wasn’t meant to be easy”. So too, although Jesus talked of hope, joy and peace never actually said that life would be easy. In fact far from it as he talked of how we too like himself, will bear our crosses of pain, hurt, trials and tribulations in our own lives.

Jesus did not say life would be easy, but he did say he will get us through it and that is the difference and that we be still waiting to meet him, walking with him in our lives now or still trying to work it all out can change yearly, daily, hourly or in every given minute of our lives as we enjoy the best of times or endure the worst of what life can throw at us.

Our lives and times, how we are treated and how we treat others and how we act can change due to circumstances.  That’s just how it is. But I do know of one who doesn’t change towards us, and be we a little boy told to be a man before his time or a strong man in his twilight years still carrying the same fear from the hurts of life, before Jesus Christ we are as one. And as one, in happiness or sadness he comes to us with outstretched arms, not to push down but to lift up, not to add to the weight of our lives but to lift it off. Not to bring judgement on our sins and wayward lives, but to take our sins and judgement on himself as he did on the cross.

Today in our small church, through the joyous gift of baptism our numbers have swollen and truly we are blessed by your company today and that some of you I have not met before, and that some I will not see again is of no consequence to you because I am anything but a role model to be drawn to and most definitely, sooner or later would disappoint you. But should now in your life you stand still waiting to meet Christ, still asking questions of him or walking with him, Jesus Christ will not disappoint you because like in the promise he has given today in Baptism to Sophie, Luke and Tyler he offers to us all.

Not the promise that in ourselves  we will always know hope, joy and peace, but the promise that in him, regardless of what we have done or where we are at, that He came to be given as a lamb to the slaughter and die on the cross that whether it be Sophie, Luke, Tyler starting their journey with Christ or a long time person of faith at the end of their journey or you and me, Jesus Christ the messiah offers His hope, His joy and His peace to you and me today and should we accept it or not, he does not and will not change as He continues to do as he has done in the past. To walk with us, carrying us in need that we come to ask for what he begs to give. To receive what He offers, that as we are, turn to Him and ask His forgiveness that He can without jury, judge or evidence to the contrary take our hand in His and say welcome home my dear child, your sins are forgiven and as I will most certainly carry your heavy load as I walk with you in this life, so too most certainly will you walk with me in the life to come which has no hurt, no pain, no tears and no end. Amen.

“What was I thinking?”

Matthew 24:36-44

When I was sixteen years old my dad said to me, enjoy your life because it goes quickly and in what will seem like no time, you’ll be my age and I remember my assessment at the time. Your age, goodness that’s so far away it will take me two life times to reach it, and that he was at the grand old age of forty years old at the time, I wonder now-just “what was I thinking?”

Time fly’s and in March 2012, shortly after arriving in Dubbo and some fifteen plus years after having played my last game of Aussie Rules Football I returned to the training track for the Dubbo Demons Aussie Rules Football Club ready to burn up the track and as we set off in the warm up laps I saw possibly the slowest runner I’ve ever seen and that I couldn’t keep up with him was somewhat a significant dent to the ego.

Funnily enough, that very night the president of the Lutheran Church at the time rang me up to see how I was settling in and after I had said that I had been to footy training but had to leave early because I had to attend a church meeting that night, laughed and made a suggestion that it might be wise to have a church meeting to attend every footy training night.

John Lennon once said that “Life is what happens while you are busy making other plans” and indeed It would seem that while I was distracted on other things during those fifteen or so years, something had happened to me that I didn’t realise until that fateful night and to say I was caught unawares is somewhat an understatement.

Distracted and caught unawares like to which Christ talks of in today’s Gospel reading where he warns of the dangers of getting so caught up in life’s daily activities like those of Noah’s time, that though Noah preached to them the coming flood and offered them a way out with free tickets aboard the Ark, they did not heed his warnings until it was too late. So too Jesus says will it be with His return. And that it will be at a time that we do not expect, whether in earthly death or still standing as we see Him coming in the clouds we must be always ready.

So how do we get ready?

What is interesting is that in our epistle reading two weeks ago, St. Paul after having through the Holy Spirit brought the Thessalonians to understand and believe in what awaits them in the return of Christ, has a crack at them because they’ve decided that’s all that matters and have decided to just kick back and smell the roses until that day.

Contrastingly, those of Noah’s time after seeing him build a boat for about seventy years in a place where it didn’t much rain and was nowhere near the sea seemingly get it in the neck for eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage and getting on with life.

That the Thessalonians certainly seemed ready but get hauled over the coals for being idle and Noahs mob miss the boat because they are not being idle begs the question of us and how we are too be ready to board the Ark to safety of our times in that of Jesus Christ.

But Jesus does not say to get ready, but to be ready and at this given point in time we either are ready or we are not ready to meet him because we either are already on the His ark or we are not.

Similar the question is not do you want to leave this earth yet or not because that is subjective as there have been times when I most certainly have and times like now when I wouldn’t mind sticking around for quite a while yet.

Thankfully knowing if you are ready or not is neither subjective nor undecided because Christ does not sit on the fence in such matters and to be ready is to believe in what he has told us in His Words of the Gospel. Being that it’s not what we think or do, but what He has done and knows.

I mentioned one other time that a noted theologian asked our class how do we grow as Christians and after we offered all these pious replies, simply told us that to grow as a Christian is too come to know daily of what it means to kneel before the cross and understand our cry of “Lord have mercy”.

To kneel at the cross, whether it be days where we are clinging to life with our fingernails or flying like an eagle we come before Christ not saved through good works and pious living nor discarded because of our ills and wayward ways. But kneel at the cross of Christ be it as Mother Theresa or the thief on the cross and are given mercy and eternal life in faith in what Christ has done alone.

In today’s Gospel Jesus tells us that “two men will be in the field; one will be taken and one left. Two women will be grinding at the mill; one will be taken and the other one left” just as with the two thieves of the cross next to Jesus, one taken and one left. Sets of twos not separated by what they were doing or what they had done, but separated by knowing Him and trusting in what he had done for them.

For one man from the field, one women grinding at the mill, a thief and I assume Mother Theresa, they no longer need to be concerned with any subjectivity of if they either are or are not good enough to reside with their Lord in paradise for they have now realised the promise given to them by Christ, that in Him and trusting in Him alone never again will they suffer hunger, tears or death.

So what of us? Should we knowing the truth of what awaits us sit around like the Thessalonians and unconcerned of life around us? Or get busy with life like those of Noah’s time and risk missing the boat?

Neither and both because kneeling at the cross of Christ you have been forgiven and like the Thessalonians most certainly that is all you need to do and know. Neither and both because like those of Noah’s time we are to be part of the community, but not through being separated from the Ark of Christ but because we know we are already on it.

We don’t get ready to meet Jesus as we either are or we are not and which of the two comes back to not focussing on ourselves but on Him. And in focussing on Christ alone and kneeling before Him and asking for His mercy and forgiveness you have been saved and most certainly will dwell with Him in paradise.

Kneeling at the cross of Christ is to know what awaits us when we meet him without any subjectivity or doubt. Yet as the day of that promise is still yet to come, for now we live our today’s in the here and know and though some days will bring storms and some fine weather, knowing in the truth we live opening our lives to those around us that they too will see the still open door to Christ that they too be taken. To open our lives not to only one man in the field, one lady grinding in the mill or one thief bearing his sin, but to the others as well that they come two by two as they hear Jesus Words beckoning they join Him on His Ark of Mercy to safety and life.

In faith in Jesus alone you are ready to meet Him today; pray that through us others may too become ready. Amen.

Luke 1:46-56

“Mary’s song is our song”

In today’s Gospel we hear in wonderment of the lengths that Our Father in heaven was prepared to go to save the lost and if we ever ponder that a certain task may “be beneath us”, let us remember our God the maker of heaven and earth. Our God who made us from dust and breathed life into us. Our God of unfathomable power, might and wisdom, and our God who comes from on high and relocates from the Holy temple to the womb of a young virgin girl named Mary.

If ever you are led to believe that you are beyond the mercy of a powerful and judging God, look again to see him come to us in a small and fragile child. Our God the maker of the universe, the creator comes to His creation as creature. Our Father, who abhors sin and unjustness, yet comes to us so that he can suffer the wrath of our sin and its unjustness.

As our Advent preparations draw to a close, Mary the mother of our Lord provides us with a magnificent hymn that summarise what mighty acts of salvation our Father has done, and is doing for us. It is a fitting conclusion to this season because it not only recalls for us who he is, but what we have become in him. Mary’s song is our song as it describes our Christian life in Christ, in all its humility and all its splendour.

God the almighty came not through the religious prestigious of the day, but through a humble girl, who said of herself in Chapter 1, verse 25 “The Lord has shown his favour and taken away my disgrace”.

Mary’s song is our song because as with Mary, we too have been given His favour and had our honour restored by Jesus the Son of God.

Like Mary, we are blessed as we receive personally Gods mighty act of mercy and Salvation in Jesus.

May’s song is our song when we come to know our Saviour.

Our Saviour whose ministry was a ministry of mercy. Jesus who came not as a God of vengeance but as merciful and compassionate. Jesus who does not punish his enemies for their sins and those against him, but places himself under the Father’s wrath and is punished as our substitute.

Our Saviour who showed his cards early by being born not of the high and mighty but of the humble. Not born in the temple but in a lowly barn.

Our Saviour that though we fail, go off track and continually fall to sin still shows himself through us as he did when he walked this earth: setting captives fee, healing the sick and raising the dead.

He still shows the same cards, he does not punish us for our sins but asks we give them to him. He does not come to destroy but to re-create by bringing us forgiveness not in ourselves, but in him.

Mary’s song is our song that we sing in our daily lives. A song that allows us to see Christ in those around us. A song that sees Christ with us among our hurt and a song that replaces the failings we see in ourselves with his overflowing grace, love and mercy.

In Christ our lives are a magnificent song like that of Mary’s when we accept our Saviour Jesus’ humility as ours, and his glory as ours.

Daily we come before God with mercy needed and mercy and forgiveness found. Hope needed and hope given, and life renewed.

We thank our Lord for his Immeasurable love and lifesaving action, given to us as to those of Mary’s time. Mary’s song is the Lord’s song and the Lord’s song is ours as we are restored in Christ.

Christ, the visible expression of God the Father eternal-who gave himself for our eternity as said eloquently by a poet, named Richard Crayshaw:

“That the great angel-blinding light should shrink

His blaze, to shine in a poor shepherd’s eye;

That the unmeasured God so low should sink

As prisoner in a few poor rags to lie; milk should drink,

Who feeds with nectar Heaven’s fair family;

That a vile manger his low bed should prove

Who in a throne of stars thunders above.

 

That He whom the sun serves, should faintly peep

Through clouds of infant flesh: that He the old

Eternal Word would be a child, and weep;

That He who made the fire should feel the cold;

That Heaven’s high Majesty his court should keep

In a clay-cottage, by each blast controlled:

That Glory’s self should serve our grief’s and fears:

And free Eternity submit to years”.

You are blessed because the Lord knows your name, has given you faith, and you are one of his. Let his song sing in your lives. Amen.