I can’t find it!

Text: John 9:24-25
A second time Jewish authorities called back the man who had been born blind, and said to him, “Promise before God that you will tell the truth! We know that this man who cured you is a sinner.”
“I do not know if he is a sinner or not,” the man replied. “One thing I do know: I was blind, and now I see.


Missing the Point
  It’s both annoying and funny when we miss the obvious. How many times do you look for something and you search high and low and the longer you search the more annoyed you get? You know it’s here somewhere but be blowed if you can find it. Then suddenly you see it – right in front of you. You have looked everywhere else and missed the most obvious place. We may not see the funny side straight away, but certainly other people do.

 Some authors and movie makes produce stories that deliberately lead us to miss the point. The movie The Sixth Sense is a case in point. A boy keeps saying through the film that he can see dead people and we are led to a surprising ending. The author has deliberately led us down a path that we hadn’t expected to go. The story is cleverly done so that we deliberately miss the point.

How many men here have missed the point? You are asked the question, “How do you like it?” This is a trick question of course. You haven’t noticed anything different and so in a panic you say, “That dress is beautiful; suits you so well”, and immediately you realise that was not the right answer.
“I’ve had this dress for years. Shows how much you noticed my new hair style.” Oh yes, it is red, short and straight whereas not long ago it was blond, curly and long. Of course, it would be foolish to now say that you don’t like it.

Today’s Gospel reading is about a whole lot of people who miss the point. Jesus mixed some dirt with spit, smeared it on to the eyes of a blind and told him to go and wash in the Pool of Siloam. The man went off and he came back seeing. Others can’t believe that this was the same man. The man they knew was blind. In fact, he had been born blind and had never seen the light and colour. There was no doubt that this man was as blind as anyone could be but now this man can see! The once-blind-man explains what happened in the simplest way, “I was blind. Jesus made some mud and put it on my eyes. When I washed it off I could see. That’s the plain and simple truth. What’s so difficult about that – Jesus has made me see?”

Even when the blind man, now healed, says, “Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing”, the authorities are not convinced. They are blind to the man’s clear witness to Jesus. The Pharisees only see the blind man as a sinner, that’s why he was blind in the first place they said. They through him out of the temple and see Jesus as an even bigger sinner.

As always in the Gospel of John there is something deeper in the miracle stories for us to delve into. The healed man is not only given physical eyesight but also spiritual eyesight.
Not only had his eyes seen light for the first time, but he could also see the Light of the Word.
Not only had his eyed been opened so that he could see colour, and people, and trees and flowers, but his eyes had been opened to see Jesus as his Lord. For the once blind man everything was crystal clear. There was no missing the point. Jesus had truly opened his eyes.
When Jesus asked him, “Do you believe in the Son of Man”, he fell at Jesus’ feet and confessed, “I believe, Lord!”

But the Jewish authorities just didn’t get it. They missed the point completely. They didn’t believe that this man had been given sight. This was impossible. It was some kind of a trick. And besides, how can someone like Jesus, who had such little regard for the Sabbath, perform a miracle such as this. These learned and pious people claimed to know all there is about God; they believed that they were enlightened but in actual fact they were blind. They did not see the light – the Light of the world, Jesus God’s own Son.

I wonder how often we miss the point and in some sense share the same kind of blindness that the Jewish authorities did. Let me suggest some ways we can miss the point. All of us have our individual blind spots so this is just a beginning.

  • We know the Bible and especially the story of Jesus’ death and resurrection and we know very well the parables, miracles and sayings of Jesus as well as the letters of the New Testament. But it is still possible to be blind to what that all means. We remain blind so long as we fail realise the personal nature of what Jesus has done. Jesus did all of that for me as an individual and as part of the community of believers.
    We can feel comfortable in our Bible knowledge, our worship, our hymns and prayers but unless we can say that Jesus has done all this for me;
    that he died for my sin,
    that his resurrection means that he is my living Lord today right now and through life,
    we remain blind to what the gospel is really saying to us.
    When we trust and rely on Jesus as our friend and Saviour to help us in time of sin, to support us in times of trouble and give us hope when everything seems hopeless, then our eyes are really open to Jesus who is my Light on my journey through life.
  • It’s not too hard to miss the point of what it means to be “born from above” or “born again” in an every day sense. This involves getting rid of sinful and selfish desire, repenting of those things that stand between us and God, so that the new nature that God has given us is renewed every day.
    The trouble is we enjoy some of our personal sins too much and honestly believe that these little sins won’t do much harm – a little gossip and back stabbing, a little selfishness and greed, a little pornography or sexual freedom, a bit of rudeness and impatience – none of these will set the earth off course in the big scheme of things. But that’s not the point. These things belong to our old nature that we are called upon to put off everyday and then put on the things that come from God – love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and self-control.
    It’s very easy to miss the point of what it means to belong to Christ, to be joined together in Christ.
  • It’s not too hard to be blinded by the dazzling ways of the world and Satan. It’s easy to forget who were are;
    that we have been created by God and bought with the blood of Jesus;
    that we have been adopted as God’s chosen children;
    and so forget the role that we are God’s representatives in our community and our world.
    We are called to stand out by the way we show love and concern for others.
    We are called to promote justice and peace; to set an example of what it mans to live according to God’s way.
    We are called to discipleship – that means a disciplined life of prayer and the study of God’s Word, worship with our fellow Christians and standing out in the crowd even though that ay be difficult to do when it means sticking up for those who are being wronged and confessing that Christ in our lives does make a difference.
    It’s so easy to miss the point of what it means to be a Christian and we end up blending in and fail to be a positive and powerful influence to bring about change in people’s lives and our world.

Paintings on the walls of the catacombs of Rome portray Jesus healing the man born blind as a symbol of Holy Baptism. One of the writings from that time says: “Happy is the sacrament of our water, in that, by washing away the sins of our earthly blindness, we are set free unto eternal life.”

The early Christians looked at their baptism as leaving behind blindness and darkness and stepping into the glorious light of God. In other words, they realised that their becoming Christians and then continuing as followers of Christ, was indeed a miracle – as great, if not greater than the healing of the physical blindness of the man in the Gospel today.

So the miracle of the man born blind presents us with a very real dilemma.
In what ways and how often have we missed the point of what Christ means to us?
How far are we prepared to let our faith take us?
How blinded have we been to the grace God has shown us and failed to be gracious to those around?

Lent is a good time to take stock of how we are affected by this blindness, to see just how blind we have been to Jesus and his call to discipleship, and to realise how often we have preferred to stay blind.
Lent is a good time to renew our vision and fix our eyes again on the Saviour who came so that we can be assured of forgiveness for such blindness, for the times when Jesus has come to us through his Word and we have been too blind to see him calling us to action.
May we who have been healed of our blindness join with the man who was healed, and confess:
“I was blind but now I see!”

Amen

Come meet Jesus.


Come, Meet Jesus

John 4:5-26 (049)
27 March 2011

Can you remember where you were when you heard about the floods in Toowoomba this year?  Where were you when you first learnt of the earthquake in Japan or Christchurch?

      What about the September 11, 2001?  Can you remember what you were doing when you first heard about that?

      The car crash that claimed Princess Dianna’ life – can you recall where you were then?

      Those are more recent events – but for those of you who go back a few years, those older and wiser and more mature people here today – can you remember when the news broke about Prime Minister Harold Holt going missing from Portsea Beach, or when Pearl harbour was attacked?

      Why do we remember events like that?  Why do they have such an impact on our lives?

      Because we’re stopped in our tracks.  They come unexpected, out of the blue, they’re sudden and they bring an amount of shock and horror.  And as a result we can often remember where we were, who we were with, and what we may have been doing at the time.

      Now as shocking as some of those events were, my life wasn’t severely changed by any one of them.  No one I knew was killed or injured.  No tragedy had a significant detrimental effect on any of my family or friends.  And that may have been the case for most of you here today.

   Yes, we were saddened and shocked and moved by those events – but life has gone on for us, and probably not a lot has changed in our day to day living.

   But what if you did have a friend or family member die in an earthquake or flood or cyclone?  What if you yourself were seriously and permanently injured?  What if you lost your home or livelihood or any future security?  You may have been physically, emotionally, and maybe even spiritually stopped in your tracks and life would never be the same again.

     Having our lives turned around like that may not be something that we would ever wish for.  And we may pray that it would never happen to us.

   But today I want you to think about that possibility – you being stopped in your tracks – not because of a tragedy, but rather because of Jesus coming to you to get your attention, uncovering some things in your life that need changing, challenging you to think about what’s going on in your life, and then refreshing you, and drenching you with his Spirit, so that you are renewed and inspired and encouraged to be a more effective living witness in his kingdom.

      Jesus stopped a Samaritan woman in her tracks one day.  “Give me a drink” he said.  She was shocked, because Jews didn’t speak to Samaritans, didn’t associate with each other, and especially male Jews to female Samaritans.  It just wasn’t done.  It came as a bit of a surprise to her.

   And so did Jesus statement about him offering her water.  He didn’t have a bucket.  How on earth was he supposed to get water without a bucket?  And what did he mean by living water?

   Well, he explained but she didn’t quite catch on.  So Jesus asked her to do something to help her understand.  And that stopped her in her tracks too.  He asked her to call her husband, knowing full well that she was living with someone who wasn’t her husband.  When she acknowledged that, Jesus made it clear that he also knew that she’d had five husbands.

      Maybe things were getting a bit too personal, a bit too close for her at that point, because she tried to change the subject.  She was a clever woman – she asked a theological question.

      Nothing new about that.  If you want to keep Jesus at a distance, just debate some particular teaching or doctrine, talk about what’s happened in the church in the past, or make some suggestions about talk about how the church should be run.  By doing that all the time you can very easily avoid Jesus and his claim on your life.

      But Jesus answered her question without blinking an eyelid.

      Maybe the woman was getting out of her depth at this point, because she changed tack again.  Rather than taking Jesus at his word, she said that when the Messiah came, he would explain everything.

      Jesus surprised, shocked her, stopped her in her tracks again by saying “That’s me!”  Then this same woman who didn’t recognise her sin, closed to any offer of help, and hesitant to admit that God was a living, present reality – she raced back into the town, told people what had happened, and taking a step of faith, dared to ask the question: “Can this be the Christ?”

      Jesus saw that her life was like a dry place that needed watering.  He saw someone who was spiritually dead who needed the water of life.  He helped her to see the needs she had in her life.  He helped her to be able to say, to confess, that she wasn’t living a God pleasing life.  He helped her to acknowledge that the bucket of her life was empty, and that he was willing and able to fill it with “living water”.

      Instead of putting her down and just making her just feel guilty about her situation, Jesus showed that he cared about her.  He knew about her sins, but helped her to understand that he hadn’t come to condemn her, but to forgive her.  And so by the time she left the well, she was prepared to tell others about what Jesus had said to her and done for her.

      Jesus stopped her in her tracks – because he wanted to ease the burden of life that she carried, heal the hurts that she experienced, mend the bruises that she’d received, and bring grace into her life.

      Jesus stops us in our tracks too – for those same reasons.

      He comes to us in our worship.  You know at times when we come to worship we might expect that we’ll draw a little water from the well – you know hear a few words, sing a few songs, say a few prayers, and then go home again – without expecting to have anything really to change in our lives.

      Jesus isn’t satisfied with that.  He wants us to have more.  He doesn’t want us to have a sip of water when we really need a long refreshing drink.  He doesn’t want us to have a few drops of water when we’re covered with grit and grime.  It’s not enough.

      So Jesus comes, and instead of careful rationing a limited amount of living water on us – he pours it all out, soaking us, drenching us with his love and forgiveness so that we can’t help but be renewed and refreshed.

      He intends that that water of life splash into every area of our lives – especially the most parched, the most empty, the most hidden, the most dead areas of our lives that we can try to keep God out of – as if it was none of his business.

      Jesus invites us to splash in the water of his grace.  When we acknowledge where there are hurts, and struggles, and mistakes in our lives – and admit we need help from outside of ourselves, he comes to cover us with the refreshing water of his grace.

      That’s what we need – being freed from the burden of guilt, being made new again, ready for a new start in life, and to be able to live this new life by the power of God’s Spirit within us.

      This is the new life we’ve been created for.  This is the reason for our existence.  For as we live as God’s forgiven people, the peace and the comfort and the joy that we have overflows into the lives of the people around us.

      That’s why Jesus came into the world; that’s why Jesus sat and talked with the Samaritan woman – so that she could receive his grace.  And that’s why we need to sit and talk, and listen and act, and share, and serve, and love the people around us – so that they too can experience his grace.

      We have the living water of Jesus’ presence flowing and bubbling in and through us, so that the people who are dying of thirst around us, can have a share of this water too.

 God wants to stop you in your tracks again today to remind you that you have some things in your life that need changing and some dry places in your life that need renewing.  He wants to stop you in your tracks so that you can receive again the living, refreshing water of his grace to ease your burdens, heal your hurts, and bring peace and hope and a desire to share what you have with others.  Amen.

Pastor Mark Leischke

Feeling used?

Jesus loves the used and abused

Text: John 4:7,9
A Samaritan woman came to draw some water, and Jesus said to her, “Give me a drink of water”. The woman answered, “You are a Jew, and I am a Samaritan—so how can you ask me for a drink?”


Some of you may be familiar with George Orwell’s book ‘Animal Farm’. It’s a bit like a fairy tale but it’s really a comment about a certain political regime. It contains a story of how the animals on a farm oust Farmer Jones and his family and take over the farm. They want a better life and start off with the grand vision that all animals are equal and that all property is shared. Soon the pigs take control and one of them, Napoleon, becomes the leader of all the animals. He is tyrant. Equality amongst the animals is out, and the pigs use and abuse the rest of the animals on the farm. The pigs use the other animals for their own purposes and discard them if they are no longer useful.

Most of us know what it’s like to feel used and abused by others. We have the best intentions and try our best to be helpful but it is taken for granted and we are discarded like a used Kleenex.

It is a well known fact that when people feel they have been used and abused and their good nature exploited they become suspicious, bitter and cautious for fear of being hurt again. Barriers are erected, relationships shunned, because they never want to be used and abused again.

Today’s Gospel reading is the well known story of the meeting of Jesus with the Samaritan woman at the well. Today I want to take a slightly different look at this story, especially the woman who comes to the well and Jesus’ reaction to her.

Usually we view this woman as a hardened sinner; a shameless marriage wrecker; a woman who goes from one marriage to the next; one man to another; the man she is with at the moment is not even her husband.

Sometimes it’s assumed that she is not even divorced from her last husband and has moved in with another man. A great deal has been made of her moral weakness and the lust and promiscuity in her life. I’m not going to make her out to be an angel but I believe there is another side to this woman.

I believe this woman has been mistreated and demeaned. She had been divorced at least five times, and was living with a sixth man. Remember that in Jesus’ day, it was the husband who divorced his wife and not the other way around. 

A man could divorce his wife on the smallest pretext. All he had to do was show that there was something “unseemly” about her. Maybe the husband didn’t like the way his wife looked first thing in the morning, or the fact that she burnt his toast, or she answered back when he criticised her. To make a divorce effective, all the husband had to do was to call in a male witness, and write out the dismissal notice. There was no advantage in a woman divorcing her husband in those times because where else would she go and how could she support herself. If she had children she would have to leave them with her husband.

A divorced woman lost all status and value in the community. She was seen as a rejected woman. She was a disgrace.  Her own family would not welcome her back. No one would employ a divorced woman. Women were wary of a divorced woman regarding her as a person of low moral values. And often the only way a divorced woman could escape starving to death was to become a prostitute and another man’s mistress.

The woman who came to the well that day was a shadow of what God created her to be. She had been used by men, abused by the women in the town. She wanted nothing to do with the righteous woman of the village who delighted in bruising her self esteem. That’s the reason she came to the well during the hottest part of the day when everyone else was sitting in the shade. She came alone to the well to avoid the scornful glances and the sharp words. She has had enough of that kind of pain being inflicted on her. Lugging a huge water jar to the well and then carrying it home full of water was hard work for the middle of the day, but that was preferred to the abuse she would receive from the villagers.

Little did she know that the visit to the well would change her life. There she met a man – a man who was different to everyone else – someone who didn’t avoid her, ignore her or speak cruel words to her. He doesn’t treat her as someone who had some kind of disease. He is not a user and abuser.

He does something totally unexpected though.
He speaks to her even though it wasn’t culturally acceptable for a strange man to talk to a woman like this, let alone this was a Samaritan woman.
He asks her for a drink of water – a Jew would never accept a drink from a Samaritan. Samaritans were considered unclean and unholy and anything that they touched or even worse ate or drank from was considered a strict no-no.

But Jesus honours this used and abused woman by striking up a conversation with her rather than doing what other Jews would have done – pretended that she wasn’t even there. Jesus has a habit of giving dignity to those whom others have used and abused. At the dinner party of Simon the Pharisee a prostitute gate-crashed the meal, knelt at his feet, wash them with tears, and wipe them with her hair. People looked on aghast that Jesus would have anything to do with this kind of person.

She may be a nobody to everyone else but to Jesus she was a person loved by God but so badly abused by others.

The Samaritan woman feels the warmth in this man’s voice and this encourages her to respond by asking,
“I’m sorry did I hear right? You are a Jew and you are asking me to pour you a drink. Since you don’t have your own cup do you want to drink from a cup that has been used by a Samaritan? I don’t understand.”
Here is a person who wants to have an actual conversation with her and not shun her as the rest of the village has done.

Last week we heard about Nicodemus. He was a Pharisee, a good man, an upright and holy man, a man honoured in the community. So opposite to this woman. Nicodemus seeks out Jesus at night and in the end we aren’t too sure how he responded to what Jesus had to say about being “born again”. He finds it hard to understand Jesus and what he is offering. But here at the well is a person who is the subject of abuse because no one can see any good in her. Her goodness or lack of it doesn’t phase Jesus one bit. He initiates a conversation with her and her life will never be the same again.

He goes on to talk about “life-giving water”. “Everyone who drinks this water will get thirsty again.  But no one who drinks the water I give will ever be thirsty again. The water I give is like a flowing fountain that gives eternal life” (John 4:13,14).What a moment! She doesn’t fully understand his words but she understands the heart of the man who is speaking to her. This abused and rejected woman feels the respect and love of the person speaking to her and offering her what no one else can give – eternal life. Everyone else had her damned to the fires of hell.

Even when he asks her to go and get her husband she feels comfortable enough to be able to say without any hedging and stumbling over her words that she doesn’t have a husband. She had come to the well looking only for water. She encountered the love of God that gives her – someone with low self-esteem and low standing in the community – “the living water of eternal life”

Jesus is providing a valuable lesson through this encounter at the well. He is teaching his disciples that even Samaritans can be saved and if Samaritans can be saved so can Romans, Greeks, tax collectors, prostitutes, thieves and all those they would normally avoid. No one is outside of the reach of God’s love. Jesus came for all people regardless of their standing in society or how bad other people think they are or how low their self esteem might be. Jesus came for all people even those who are confused and muddled about faith and God and his love for them.

Can you see what is happening here in this Gospel story? Jesus knew her all right – her religious attitudes, her nationality, the history of her marriages, her living with a man, her low self esteem, her feelings of being used and abused – he knew all this and yet he treats her as an equal, as if she was a person worthy of respect, worthy of affection, worthy of God’s highest gift – eternal life.

  • When guilt plagues us and we upset for falling for the same temptations again and again,
  • when we make choices that turn out to be all wrong,
  • when our relationships with others fall in a heap,
  • when we feel lonely, sick and tired of the way people are treating us,
  • when we are depressed and upset and can’t see anything good in ourselves,
  • when our faith is at rock bottom and we feel as if the church and religion aren’t doing anything for us,
  • when we beat ourselves up for lack of enthusiasm to be true disciples of Jesus ready to do anything for him, and for days that go by without a word of prayer
  • when all we feel is failure and defeat isn’t it great to read a story like this one about Jesus and his love and acceptance of the woman at the well.

We may not think much of ourselves, but Jesus thinks all the world of us.
We may not have anyone to turn to in this world, but rest assured that Jesus is there to warmly accept us and help us to see that he will give us the strength and the power we need to overcome whatever it is that is grieving us.
The good news is that he takes the first step, initiates conversation. He comes to us so that we might come to him.

This can be taken another step further as we look at the people in our community. The church exists here at this place for them. You might say they are the Samaritans in our story – Christ has died for them and he is offering them the living water of eternal life. They may not know much about this but that’s why the church exists. Sometimes we are too quick to judge rather than let the grace of God work through us to be accepting and caring.

It’s true – Jesus comes to us so that we might come to him.
But that’s not the end of it. Jesus comes to us so that we might go to others.

Amen

Looking for answers?

Text: John 3:5
Jesus answered (Nicodemus), “I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.”  
 

There are some very confusing things in our world. For example,
Why is it that people say they “slept like a baby” when a baby wakes up every three or four hours?
If olive oil is made from olives, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, what is baby oil made from?
Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face, he gets mad at you, but when you take him for a car ride; he sticks his head out the window and enjoys the breeze?
 Nicodemus was a man looking for answers. He was a good man. He was an extremely good man. He was a Pharisee and Pharisees were very enthusiastic about being good. Nicodemus was a very religious man and spent a great deal of time trying to do the right thing.

Nicodemus was not only a good man but was also a confused man. He was confused about Jesus, who he was, how he could do miracles and why people like John the Baptist called him “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world”.So one night Nicodemus went to visit Jesus.
Why did he go to see Jesus at night? Remember there was no street lighting or bright lights shining from house windows. So when night fell it could be very, very dark and all kinds of things could happen to an elderly man in the dark.
Did he go at night because he couldn’t sleep? The questions he had about Jesus kept rolling around in his head and he couldn’t settle until he did something about them.
Was he afraid that his fellow Pharisees would not think highly of him for meeting with such a troublemaker as Jesus of Nazareth?
To be honest, we don’t know why he went at night?

Maybe there is some symbolism in the fact that he came in the dark. We could say that here is man who is caught up in the darkness and he comes to the one who is light in the darkness of this world. John the Baptist said this of Jesus just a couple of chapters before, “This was the real light – the light that comes into the world and shines on all people” (John 1:9) and the Gospel writer adds, “The Word was the source of life, and this life brought light to people” (John 1:4). The darkness of night might be seen as a symbol of the darkness that was in the heart of Nicodemus.

Nicodemus is fascinated in Jesus and begins his conversation with Jesus in this way, “Rabbi, we know that you are a teacher sent by God” and we know that “no one could perform the miracles you are doing unless God were with him.” You might not think much of us Pharisees but we aren’t stupid. “We know…” There is a smugness here. He and his Pharisee colleagues know all there is to know about God and how to live a godly life.
They go to Bible study everyday and worship every week.
They fast,
they give more than a tenth of their income to the church,
they spend hour after hour in prayer.

Before Nicodemus is able to say anything else, Jesus says, “I am telling you the truth: no one can see the Kingdom of God without being born again.”No mention of being good or religious. No one gets into the Kingdom of God by being a “good person”! Nicodemus had devoted his life to being good, committed to being faithful to God, devout in his worship and prayer. The Pharisees had something like 10,633 rules they had to keep to live a truly godly life. No doubt Nicodemus was a good Pharisee and a good man but Jesus blows a hole in this idea of goodness. No amount of goodness is good enough to establish a relationship with God or to get us into the kingdom of heaven!

Let’s look at it this way. Eight year old Peter went to Dreamworld with his two older brothers and mum and dad. He wanted to be able to ride all the rides that his older brothers could ride. But there’s only one problem: he’s too short. He is about 5 cm too short, only a mere 5 cm. At the entrance to the rides there is a sign with a line drawn across at a certain height from the ground indicating that only those so high or above could get on the ride.

Now Peter was tall for an 8-year-old, he was taller than 95% of all eight years olds, but he was still 5 cm too short to ride those rides. And no matter how he strained and tried to “act taller” he just couldn’t measure up!

He tried begging the ride operator. But he would not let Peter get on to that ride.
The operator didn’t say, “Well, because you are taller than 95% of all the other 8 year olds in your class at school, you can ride”.
He didn’t say, “You are almost tall enough, I’ll let you on to the ride.” The plain and simple truth is that if you don’t measure up, you don’t get on to the ride.

No matter how hard we stretch and act “good”, our goodness is never good enough to get into the Kingdom of God. That’s quite a blow. Like Nicodemus we’re good people!
We think of ourselves as upright, moral, decent kind of people.
We worship on Sundays, we pray, we give generously to the offering, we support the church’s programs.
We aren’t unfaithful to our spouse.
We treat our kids well.
We pay our taxes.
We don’t lie… very often.
We don’t steal from our employers… much.
We try to be kind, gentle and caring people … most of the time.
We try not to hurt people … as best as we can.

And all of that may be true – up to a point. But no matter how much we strain and try to “act taller” we just can’t measure up! As I said before – no amount of goodness is good enough to establish a relationship with God or to get us into the kingdom of heaven! The goodness that God is looking for is not just our best efforts, but perfection. When measured against God’s absolute perfect standard, not one of us measures up. We all fall short. And not just by a few centimetres, we fall short by miles and miles. And deep down we all know it. Paul gives this diagnosis of our human condition from God’s perspective:

“There is no one who is righteous. … No one does what is right, not even one” (Romans 3:10-12).   

Like the operator of the rides at Dreamworld there can be no compromising of the rules. No one can get to heaven by being good because no one can ever be good enough! You are going to have to go about it another way! And there is another way!

Jesus says that it’s not a matter of being “good”, it’s a matter of “being born anew”, or perhaps better “being born from above” (both meanings are possible). Jesus said that means “being born of water and the Spirit.” Just as Nicodemus contributed nothing to his own birth into the world, likewise he contributes nothing to his birth into the Kingdom of God. Life is a pure gift in each case! But the new birth into the kingdom of God is a gift by God’s power.

In other words, Jesus is saying, “You can’t do it, Nicodemus, but God can! He can transform you from the inside out and make you good enough!”

It’s as though you are lying on a hospital bed in the final stages of a terminal disease and Jesus walks into the room.
You look at him and say, “Jesus, am I good enough to make it out of here?”
And Jesus says, “No, you’re not good enough! But I will do something for you. I will take out of your body the disease that is killing you, and I will put it into my own body. I will make the swap at no cost to you but at great cost to me. The result will be: I will die… you will live!”

What a gift! Jesus, God of the universe, says to us, “I will give you my goodness as a gift and take your badness into myself. I’ll take your sin and in its place I’ll give you my righteousness. I’ll die on the cross and you will live forever.” At the end of today’s reading from John’s Gospel we heard, “For God loved the world so much that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not die but have eternal life” (John 3:16). Out of love for us, God gave us his Son. He is God’s gift to each of us. Forgiveness and eternal life are ours through his Son’s death and resurrection.

When a person is baptised we hear what is about to happen through those drops of water, and the Spirit working through that water,

“God washes us clean in the waters of baptism, and we are born again as his children. Through baptism our heavenly forgives us our sins and unites us with our Lord Jesus Christ, so that we share in his resurrection”
(From the baptismal service of the LCA). Or to use the words of Jesus, we have been “born again through the water and the Spirit”, “born from above” and made holy, fresh and clean.
Forgiveness for all sin,
promised a place in heaven,
made members of his church, given a fresh start.
He has promised to be our refuge and strength, our comforter and helper, our friend and saviour even when we are led astray into a far country (as in the Lost Son parable) fall into all kinds of evil and trouble, even when we feel as if life has taken us down a rough road, the covenant that God established with us at baptism assures us that Jesus’ love and forgiveness is certain and sure. We have been new and holy with another person’s holiness.
  

Born again – born from above – new life in Christ – a new relationship with God and the people in our lives – this is the way the New Testament talks about what Christ has achieved for us through his death and resurrection. But the New Testament doesn’t stop there. We hear the apostle Paul say, “Get rid of your old self. … Your hearts and minds must be made completely new, and you must put on the new self, which is created in God’s likeness and reveals itself in the true life that is upright and holy” (Ephesians 4:22-24).

We have been given a new life; making this new life a reality in our everyday interaction with other people is the challenge that is ahead of us. The New Testament often says, “You have been made new through Christ so then every day you must put off the old self and put on the new life in Christ”. This newness that you have received from God should impact on everything we do and say –
the way we love and serve others,
the way we put God and his will first in our lives.

This is not just about being religious – this is about a new life that arises out of our relationship with God – this is about reconciliation, in fact, daily reconciliation with God as we repent of the wrong we have done and ask God to forgive us, and then strive to live as God’s holy people who with the help of the Holy Spirit, want to be the light of Christ in the lives of the people around them..

Nicodemus was confused and asked, “How can this be?” Simply, this is God at his most mysterious and amazing best. This is grace! This is God’s gift to you through Jesus. Celebrate it and live it!
Amen.

Are youTempted?

Text: Matthew 4:1
Then the Spirit led Jesus into the desert to be tempted by the Devil.
A young man, who worked for a travel agent, was sent to a Pacific island. Even though it meant being separated from his girl friend, he accepted the job because it would enable him to earn enough to marry her.

As the lonely weeks went by, she began to have doubts that he was being true to her. After all, the holiday resort where he was working attracted beautiful women from all over the world. The young man declared that he was paying absolutely no attention to them. But he did write this in one of his letters, “I admit that sometimes I’m tempted. But I fight it. I am waiting for the day when I can be with you again.”

Not long after he had sent that letter, the young man received a parcel. Inside there was a note and a harmonica. The note said, “I’m sending this to you so you can have something to take your mind off those girls.” Dutifully the young man wrote back to his girl friend and told her that he was practising the harmonica every night and thinking only of her.

Eventually the young man’s work on the island finished and he flew home. His girl friend was waiting at the airport. As he rushed to embrace her, she held up her hand to stop him and said sternly, “Just hold on there a minute. First I want to hear you play that harmonica!”

Every year at the beginning of the Lenten season we hear the account of Jesus temptation in the wilderness. And again this year we are faced with the subject of temptation, Satan’s power and cunning lies and our response to temptation.

When we pause and look into our hearts, we are alarmed that we give in to temptation so often and so easily. We are disturbed by these temptations because we think of ourselves as good people, honest, hardworking, caring people with high morals – yet there – lurking inside some of us is anger, jealousy, envy, worry, pride, bitterness, sexual weakness or an addiction of some kind. There are desires of every sort within us that Satan will use against us and cause all kinds of havoc in our relationship with God and other people.

When this happens the Bible uses the word ‘sin’. It lives in us and is very much a part of us. It is Satan’s delight to awaken the evil that lies beneath the surface of our lives with temptation. He knows our weak spots and manipulates our sense of what is right and wrong. He uses those weaknesses to ignore God’s way and follow the path that leads to pain and broken relationships.

The Bible says he is prowling around seeking someone to devour. In our case, he doesn’t have to do too much prowling. We leave ourselves wide open to following his temptations again and again when we are led to believe that wrong is right.  Sometimes we don’t even realise what we have done until we see the devastation our wrong has caused in someone else’s life or someone points out to us how we have been led astray.

Today’s text tells us that even Jesus wasn’t exempt from temptation. He has just been baptised in the Jordan River by John the Baptist. The voice of God spoke from heaven, “This is my own dear Son, with whom I am pleased.” And wham! The next thing you know, not only is the Son of God tempted, he is tempted three times. And when the Devil finally leaves he does so “for a while” or more accurately, “he departed from him until an opportune time” (Luke 4:13). In other words, this wasn’t the end of Jesus’ temptations.

The point I’m making is this. Jesus is the most spiritually and morally perfect person that ever walked this earth, yet he experienced the power of the devil. Temptation will come to anyone regardless of how close they believe they are to God or how focussed they are on being God’s people in everything they do. We are powerless to stop temptation but it’s what we do when temptation comes that really matters.

But let’s be clear. Satan is very sneaky. He doesn’t tempt you with anything that is so way out that you can quite easily see that it’s wrong. Temptation often is very logical and appears to be good. It seems to be the most natural thing to do.

In the Garden of Eden Eve wasn’t tempted with something that was seemingly sinister and evil. She saw some fruit and it looked very inviting. Surely eating a piece of fruit can’t be all that bad. And besides that serpent had some pretty convincing arguments why satisfying her hunger was all right and how good it would be to have that special kind of wisdom that came with eating the fruit from the tree in the middle of the garden.

Satan is so sneaky that we don’t even recognise them as temptations because they seem the most normal and natural things to do.
His temptations are so appealing. It might even be argued that he really does seem to have our best interests at heart. That is a lie! He didn’t really care about making life better for Adam or Eve or even Jesus. He just wanted them to abandon God.

He does that to us. Satan sidles up to someone whose marriage is floundering and he says, “You deserve more! You ought to be getting more attention, more affection, more spark in your life. And if your spouse isn’t going to give it to you, well, you’ll just have to find it elsewhere. So go for it!” It’s all so logical and attractive. But remember Satan is a deceiver. He is not interested in your happiness.

The temptations that Jesus experienced in the wilderness were quite logical. He had been without food and or drink for 40 days. Turning stones to bread was the most natural thing to do. Who would be hurt by this? After all, it would be ridiculous for God’s Son to starve when he could have food with a simple command. He had the power to do it, so why not?

Jesus is taken to the roof of the temple. Satan tempts Jesus to throw himself down onto the courtyard below. Things would be a lot easier if he dramatically landed in the courtyard below to the wonder of everyone crowded below. With such a spectacular display the crowd would flock to him. What better way to promote the kingdom of God? He could even avoid the whole Good Friday ordeal.

Then Jesus is shown all the kingdoms and countries of the world. He could have them all if he would bow down and worship Satan. Look at all the good he could do. There are so many who are sick and dying and with all wealth of the kingdoms set before him, this is his chance to do some good.
Think of the hospitals that could be built,
the research that could be funded to find a cure for cancer;
the starving that could be fed;
and the wars that could be halted.
Jesus was always compassionate and loving and Satan knew just how to use those good qualities to his advantage.

There is good logic behind each of these temptations. In themselves there is nothing sinister about them. There are some very good ideas here. They offer an easy way out for Jesus to calm his grumbling stomach, to win instant acclaim, and to do so much good and gain the whole world for his kingdom without any suffering and dying.

Temptation appeals to our natural instincts. Temptation is often not simply choosing between good and evil, but choosing what is easy and what is hard. And it is Satan who provides the simple and easy answers.

That’s why we find ourselves disheartened so often. We are tempted and we fall for it hook, line and sinker. And often it is only after when we are experiencing the consequences of our choice that we realise that once again we have obeyed Satan rather than God.

Satan doesn’t give up. We know all too well how we fall for the same temptation again and again.
What hope have we got? We know God doesn’t take sin lightly. Our failure to resist can bring severe consequences.

It is Satan’s joy and delight to see us turn against God’s ways, to fill us with guilt and step on our self esteem and in the end draws us away from God into damnation. When we become disheartened and upset because we fail, remember the cross of Jesus. It was there on the cross of Calvary that Satan’s power over us was defeated. His power to condemn us has been broken forever. Jesus died for us. He has won for us forgiveness for all of our failure to live as God’s children, for all the times when we have chosen one of Satan’s easy solutions. With Christ’s forgiveness and the Holy Spirit to point us back to God and his love, Satan has no power over us.

Finally, it’s worth noting how Jesus confronted the temptations that were put in front of him. Temptation involves making choices – following the ways of the world, Satan and our own desires or following the ways of God. It always seems that one choice is easier to follow than the other and inevitably it is Satan who presents the most attractive choices. How are we going to know what the right choices are?

If we want to make good choices – ones that are in keeping with our status as children of God – then we have to know what God wants us to do. The Bible is God’s Word for us to help us make the right choices. It’s true not every modern temptation and problem is mentioned specifically in the Bible, but you can bet the Bible has something to say about every choice that confronts us. For instance, the Bible may not mention drugs specifically but it does have a lot to say about the Creator who made us, gave us our bodies, saved us body and soul, and how he expects us to take good care of this special gift from God.

Too often we flounder when faced with choices because we don’t know our Bibles well enough. When we are at a crossroad and have to make a choice we are confused and easily led astray because we don’t know the directions that God gives us through the scriptures.

The Bible also tells us that when we do make bad choices our heavenly Father reaches out to us, he calls to us, he seeks to guide and help us and above all he is ready to forgives us and assure is that his love for us is as strong as ever.

Jesus knows what it’s like to be confronted with temptation. He knows that we give in too easily and make choices that are comfortable rather than make right choices. Even more importantly we know that Christ has already triumphed over Satan. He’s got no way to hurt us eternally. Thanks to Jesus, we’re forgiven, restored, and bound for heaven. Jesus has won the victory for us.
Amen

Where is your confidence

Where is your confidence John 12_1-8

Put your hand up if you love going to the dentist!  Tell me why no one or very few people like to go to the dentist?  Well if you don’t like going why do you go?

Of course we go to the dentist because we need to look after our teeth, and we know that sometimes the best treatment may mean we will suffer pain; the pain of pulling a tooth, or scrapping of our gums, the agony of orthodontic work.  Just the sound of the dentist’s drill puts shivers up our spine.  We endure suffering and pain because we place our trust in the dentist and the outcome he is promising.  We may be a quivering mess, we may look like and feel like a wimp, we may even feel like crying, but the expertise of the dentist gives us the courage to trust in him; to trust that the procedure will heal us.  Fear yet hope.  Worry yet faith; weakness yet strength to endure; yet not faith in my strength, but faith in the professionalism of the dentist.

We say that we have faith in God.  We say that faith justifies, faith makes us right with God, Luther reformed the church proclaiming ‘it is by faith alone that we are saved.’  St Paul in Ephesians 2:8 says ‘For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith.’  Yet have you ever questioned yourself about what this ‘faith’ is; what it looks like, and how do I know I have the ‘faith’ that saves and endures suffering and temptation?  And is it after all ‘my faith’ that saves?

St John records a woman of great faith who is acting in a way that looks as if she has no faith.  Mary, the sister of Lazarus, who pleaded with Jesus to help her dying brother, who witnessed Jesus raise her brother from the dead, pours expensive perfume on Jesus feet and then wipes them with her hair. Luke records that she was a quivering mess, crying aloud in front of religious guests; with her tears she soaked Jesus’ garments.  Certainly not what we would expect of a woman of faith and neither did Judas.

He, on the other hand, looks, speaks and acts like a man of great faith.  He is offended by this flirty show of emotion, unbecoming of a strong woman of faith, and instantly points out her wrongdoing in poring out expensive oil on Jesus; such a waste of money!  Not good discipleship!  This same scenario could be played out in any church today.  One member may be shaking and balling, unable to compose themselves and they seem to always make ‘unchristian decisions’ in their life.  While another member is quite calm, always in the right, always doing what appears good, the idealistic disciple of Jesus.  As observers in the pews, we would tend to judge by outward actions that the calm member has the ‘faith’, while the other distraught person is a lost cause…but is that so?

Perhaps we judge ourselves or another person to have strong saving faith because, like Judas, we look for actions;  that we or they have a life of committed discipleship; can point out another person’s failures and weaknesses; can easily give advice on a how a person of faith should live and use money and are a wealth of on knowledge on religion.  Is this the ‘faith alone’ Luther speaks of, or the ‘saving faith’ Paul talks about in Ephesians? Or the discipleship Jesus was seeking?  Judas thought so and it showed by his very words and actions, ‘Why wasn’t this perfume sold and the money given to the poor? It was worth a year’s wages.’  Sadly however, placing our faith in our good works is not saving faith.  The object of Judas’ faith was in himself and his plans and not in Jesus.

Faith always has an object it believes in; someone it trusts in for good and wellbeing.  Our visit to the dentist is an example of faith.  It is not ‘trust and faith’ in our calm composure or personal strength that brings about healing to our teeth, its our faith in the dentist, knowing that the pain and suffering he inflicts upon us will actually heal us.  This is why I can look a quivering mess, doing crazing things out of fear, yet still have strong faith…in fact my faith can even be greater than someone who appears to have it all together, because my faith is in the dentist and not in my personal courage.

Judas looked the ideal disciple, appeared to love God’s word, he followed Jesus and seemed to have his life together, but the object of his faith was money and glory, as John hints: ‘He did not say this because he cared about the poor but because he was a thief; as keeper of the money bag, he used to help himself to what was put into it.’   When the hour of severe trial and suffering came, when he was confronted with the full wrath of God for what he had done; when the word of God accused his conscience for betraying Jesus, his confidence vanished, his works vanished, and so did his faith in himself; he could not stand alone before God and could not find comfort because the object of his faith was not in Jesus but in money and himself and so he tragically committed suicide.

When the object of our faith is in our self, even though we speak about Jesus and act confident and seem sure of our salvation, it is not saving faith, it is idolatry.  God’s word of law, that convicts us of this, is far stronger and will destroy us.   Only faith that has its object as Jesus can endure such suffering and work of God’s word. We should not be surprised when we suffer doubt and the pain that we are not a good enough Christian, as we fail in attempting to be our own saviour, it is God operating on us.  Like when a dentist pulls a decaying tooth to stop an infection that will kill us, God’s word of law works like a dentist’s instrument, pulling out any faith that is not in Christ; killing off any obsession we may have with self-reliance.

Mary, who looked weak and doomed, who was crying and seemingly wasting money had in fact, saving faith.  While everyone else in the room came to see Lazarus, who had been raised from the dead, Mary came to see Jesus, the object of her faith.  Once, she was proud, demanding Jesus act the way she thought, ‘Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.’  But after seeing Jesus raise her brother from the grave, she was humble.  The suffering and anguish Jesus allowed her to go through, broke her pride and at the raising of Lazarus, she was able to see that salvation only comes through faith in Jesus.  God’s word of law killed, but his greater and final word, the gospel brought life and produced saving faith in Mary.

In a way, the perfume she poured over Jesus feet was a visible resemblance of her faith; a faith that was once bottled up in self-reliance; bottled as ‘precious’ by the world,  but was now broken free and poured out upon Jesus as a sign that Jesus was now her object of faith.  Even using her hair to wipe the perfume, which was a sign of humiliation, resembled the fact that she had nothing of worth to offer Jesus; she was willing to suffer humiliation and be nothing in the eyes of the world because her faith was now in Jesus.

Saving faith has as its object Jesus.  It trusts outside of itself.  It is a faith that justifies because it places its trust in Jesus who went to the cross for us and died on our behalf, ‘who was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification.’  Your faith is saving faith when it takes hold and believes these words of Jesus ‘I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies.’  Saved by faith alone means nothing else than hearing this gospel and receiving the sacraments, trusting that Jesus alone saves through these means.

The law says ‘Do this to be saved,’ and it is never done.  ‘Grace says, ‘believe this,’ and everything is already done’!  Fear yet hope.  Worry yet faith; weakness yet strength to endure; yet not faith in my strength, but faith in Christ alone.  Amen

The cross – road

Luke 13_31-35 the cross-road
.

I have a weed here which is growing throughout the lawn.  I like the yellow flowers, so I suppose I could leave them out there.  Perhaps we could cover the whole backyard with this plant…a beautiful yellow field for the kids to run and roll around on.  Kids, would you like a backyard covered in these?  The down side are these ‘horrible’ spiny thorns!  (actually do this) Perhaps if I fertilize the plant and tenderly care for it by watering it, digging around the roots and pruning it, then it will stop growing the thorns.

Why won’t this work?  The problem is that this weed.  So the more I tenderly care for it, instead of reducing its thorns, the weed will actually increase its yield.   The more good I do for it, the more it shows its thorns!

What is the only solution left, if I don’t want to have thorns?  Yes, Round up!  The weed needs to be killed off to allow the grass to grow, to make way form the intended growth of lawn.  We know that in nature, dying brings new life.

We know this is true in farming and gardening, but we cannot see how this is true also in our own life.  We cannot see that we, since the fall of Adam and Eve into sin, are produces of sin and are cursed to continually sin, as Isaiah said ‘All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.’  No matter how much we try and cultivate our good intentions, fertilize ourselves by trying to please God in what we say and do, following his commands to the last dot and iota, there is no way we can change who we are.  We cannot change any more that I can change this weed into anything but a thorn bush.  We need to die to self and let God make us a new creation.

Yet, we are constantly tricked into thinking we can re-create ourselves the more we are involved in Christian programs.  We somehow think we are better Christians before God if we don’t feel sinful; that God is more pleased, will warmly welcome us, is obliged to owe us, the more we tenderly care for ourselves and don’t produce the ‘thorns of sin.’  We read the bible as if its entire message is an instruction booklet to life, a guide to better living and growing; a self-help book on how to become good, like we would read a ‘Better homes and Gardens’ magazine to improve our backyard.  Believing we are better people before God by doing good things, is like believing I can get rid of thorns by caring and improving the weed…we can’t.

Sadly, that is how the Pharisees, the scribes and many of the people of Israel understood the scriptures.  They all had good intentions and strived to be with God, but could not comprehend all humanity’s complete and total sinfulness and separation from God.  They did not want to hear and refused to listen, even to Moses and all the prophets, that something far more radical than a good life was required to enter heaven – we need to die to self-righteousness and live by faith in God alone who makes all things new; who says in 1 Samuel 2: ‘The LORD brings death and makes alive; he brings down to the grave and raises up.’

Rather, they wanted to walk the glory road to God and be self-appointed judges over who is good enough for God.  They stoned and killed the prophets in Jerusalem, which ironically means ‘place of peace’, hoping their message of repentance and grace would die with them.  The ‘place of peace’ became a killing field for God’s prophets, as Jesus laments ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you.’

Like the people of Israel, you and I also have good intentions.  We all long for and strive to share in the glory of God.  We came from glory, created by God to be with him and are therefore most at peace when in his presence, as one church father wrote ‘our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.’  Sadly, our country, like Jerusalem was, is also a ‘killing field’ for God’s word.  Many would rather stay on the glory road of good intentions, the wide road; the road most travelled and be self-appointed judges’.  It is a glory road that leads to idolatry or self-trust, instead of trust in God.  It is a road that convinces us that we must at least try to do something on our part to get to heaven, and then, it is assumed, Christ will make up for our short comings.

The weed can only be a thorn bush, no matter how good it looks or how well I care for it.  As a sinner by nature, when it comes to the righteousness God seeks, I can do nothing but be judged a sinner, no matter how good I may look; we can sorrow over this, we can rebel against this, we can pretend its not true or we can take our chances, but God’s judgment remains, ‘all have sinned and fall short of God’s glory.’

Jesus is saddened by so many choosing the glory road and laments over them for rejecting God’s word; a word which promised salvation will come through God’s own Son, and that salvation is given freely by grace to all who believe this promise, as we heard in Genesis” Abram believed the LORD, and he credited it to him as righteousness.’  Again and again God promises salvation freely to all who believe, but sadly, many rejected his grace, as Jesus laments, ‘O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!’

For anyone to be saved there is only one road that must be travelled and Jesus knows the road, the one that leads to the cross, as he says ‘I must keep going today and tomorrow and the next day– for surely no prophet can die outside Jerusalem!’  Jesus, as true man, must die in our place and for our sin.  The judgment of God upon humanity, ‘you will surely die’, must be fulfilled.  By journeying to the cross to die for our sin, Jesus is enacting the gift of free salvation promised in that same Garden of Eden, ‘I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and hers; he will crush your head, and you will strike his heel.’

The cross exposes the absolute depth and hopelessness of our sinful condition.  Only Jesus’ road to the cross, for us, can change our state of being, from sinner to saint.  Luther, commenting on what the cross means for us, wrote, ‘The love of God does not find, but creates, that which is pleasing to it.’ (Heidelberg Disputation 28)  That means, Jesus is not out and about in the world looking for good people to bring into heaven; rather, through the cross he puts to death the old and creates a new and pleasing people.  St Paul says the same ‘our citizenship is in heaven. And we eagerly await a Savior from there, the Lord Jesus Christ, who, by the power that enables him to bring everything under his control, will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like his glorious body.’

With his arms out-stretched on the cross, Jesus gathered his children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings.  Jesus continues today to gather all people who believe, and he gathers and creates you and me to be his holy ones, as he stretches-out his arms beyond the cross, into the water’s of baptism.  It is ONLY here in baptism, where the cross is our ‘roundup’ that our old sinful nature is killed.  Yet it is also the water that brings new life,  as St Paul says in Romans 6 We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.’

Jesus also continues to gather you and me to himself as his holy people, as he stretches-out his arms through the bread and wine in Holy Communion.  He is truly present for us, to re-create us, and we acknowledge this to be true in the liturgy of the church when we sing the ‘sanctus, or ‘Holy, holy, holy’, around the Lord’s Supper.  We repeat Jesus promise ‘I tell you, you will not see me again until you say, ‘Blessed is he who comes in the name of the Lord.’

This is the gospel, the good news!  You are already a Christian, a child of God through baptism.  Your old self has been killed and continues to be killed by the water, Spirit and blood of Jesus and your new self in Christ now lives by the same water, Spirit and blood.  Go in peace and live each day under the protective wing of Jesus.

To tempt or be tempted

Luke 4:1-13 to Tempt or be tempted

I have some chocolates here!  Let me come and give you one. (pass around)  Now you are probably thinking ‘that was a nice and kind thing to do.’  But was it?  What if I gave you the chocolates because I wanted to get something from you?  What if I gave you the chocolates just to make myself look good before everyone?  Or what if I gave you the chocolates to gain control over you?  Perhaps it was just a kind gesture…perhaps there is something more sinister

Now before I create an air of suspicion, I just want to make the point that things are not always as they appear.  The good we do for someone, even with the best intentions, can be tainted by alternative motives.  The good that we do for others, may be in fact be benefiting us more that the receiver; it is me who actually ends up better off; you get fat and high sugar levels…and I get the thanks and the glory!

In today’s gospel, Luke records the temptation of Jesus.  On the surface, what the devil asks of Jesus is not really a temptation, it is more an offering of help; a seemingly good deed by the devil to assist Jesus to get on with his earthly mission.  Jesus had just spent 40 days alone in the desert without food and now he was hungry.  The devil appears to simply want to help ‘If you are the Son of God, tell this stone to become bread.’  If we were there at the time, we may have said ‘what a nice and kind person to suggest that’, yet Jesus flatly refuses.

Appearing as a good friend, who never takes ‘no’ for an answer when help is need, the devil offers another good suggestion, he offers the world and all authority to Jesus.  How good’s that!  Jesus could short-cut his ministry without the cross.  What a good offer, yet once again Jesus rejects the good offer as totally out of hand.  Finally, what better kindness can the devil offer Jesus?  Well, as caring and kind as the devil can get, he takes Jesus home to his Father’s house, to the Temple in Jerusalem.

Perhaps the devils senses that Jesus is feeling so alone after being in the desert for 40 days, that a visit to his Father’s house ort to cheer him up.  To demonstrate to Jesus just how much he is loved by his Father and how important he is in the heavenly kingdom, the devil said to Jesus ‘If you are the Son of God,”…”throw yourself down from here. For it is written: “‘He will command his angels concerning you to guard you carefully; they will lift you up in their hands, so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.’

Once again and for the final time Jesus assertively says ‘no’, to something we would think was a good offer.  Things are not always as they appear.  The good that is offered, can be tainted by alternative motives.  The good that is intended for others, may be in fact be benefiting the giver more that the receiver.  Jesus knew this was the case here.  The devil’s offers were not good at all; it was a temptation into sin.  But how does he know to reject this offer?  Was it because he was God and man?  Had he read up on ‘manipulative techniques used by suspicious people’ in the latest psychological journals?  Perhaps you, as a Christian, are wondering how we can recognise when we are being tempted or worse, when we are tempting someone else, even when offering what appears to be good works.

Jesus had only one criterion through which he filtered every good or bad deed; the one criterion he measured everything by: Does what is being offered give all glory to God.  Let me repeat that: does the good offered give all glory to God the Father, or to the one offering it, or to the receiver?  That’s it!  That’s how Jesus judged the devil’s offers and how he judged the offers of all people, even us and found that we all glorified ourselves, as Psalm14 and 53 declare ‘ There is no one righteous, not even one; there is no one who understands, no one who seeks God. All have turned away, … there is no one who does good, not even one.’

The devil tempted Jesus with something good…scripture, but used it for evil.  He used it for his glory and to tempt Jesus to do the same.  The devil used God’s word to entice Jesus and to gain for him self wealth, power and glory!  The great temptation trilogy, that first caused Adam and Eve to sin in the garden of Eden, and the same temptation trilogy that still causes us to fall into sin…wealth, power and glory.  Wealth, by telling Jesus he could make stones into bread, power, by offering him authority over the world, and glory, by putting the Lord to the test.  Jesus instantly knew the devil’s offer was a ‘wolf wrapped in sheep’s clothing’ by using the only criterion he knew…’does what is offered give all glory to God?’

No, it didn’t!  That is why he was able to reply with scripture against scripture.  Jesus rightly interpreted God’s word, for he is the word of God in flesh and knew that scripture only gave glory to God alone, as he said ‘If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing. My Father, whom you claim as your God, is the one who glorifies me.’  The devil was using God’s word to bring glory upon him self, Jesus rightly brings glory to the Father answering ‘It is written: ‘Man does not live on bread alone.‘ And ‘It is written: ‘Worship the Lord your God and serve him only.’ And finally, when tempted to take the glory for himself, Jesus responds ‘It says: ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.

Jesus’ criterion, ‘does it give all glory to God,’ is how we are to judge everything we do and every temptation we face and is also the best way to understand God’s word.  We are to ask ourselves the question ‘is what I am offering or saying giving all glory to God’, or am I getting the glory.  Am I tempting someone, even with God’s word, with wealth, power, or glory, so they receive glory instead of God?  Am I being tempted, even with God’s word, with wealth, or power, or glory that is not mine to have?  If Christ was tempted in every way, we, who are sinful by nature, will certainly be tempted or be the ones who are doing the tempting.

That is why we can praise God and give him the glory because he has given us his Son, Jesus Christ, ‘Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself and became obedient to death– even death on a cross!’  He overcame the trilogy of temptation because we did not; he over came sin, death and the devil because we could not.

We may have the criterion ‘to give all glory to God’, which helps in times of temptation, but the truth be known, we will constantly fall and grasp for our own glory.  But praise be to God, for he has given us Jesus, who overcame all temptation and made us sons and daughters of God.  It is the blood of Jesus that overcame sin and death on the cross.  Jesus blood now covers us and protects us from the punishment we deserve, as St Paul in Roman’s 10 says ‘Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”

By faith in Jesus, trusting that he now lives for us and in us, through his word and sacraments, we have already overcome sin and temptation.  Even though we continue to temp others, or be tempted ourselves; even though we still give glory to ourselves, by repentance and faith in Jesus atoning sacrifice, the blood of Jesus forgives and covers us…in Christ we have overcome.  Hear and believe what Jesus says to us in the book of Revelation: ‘He who overcomes will be dressed in white. I will never blot out their name from the book of life, but will acknowledge their name before my Father and his angels.’

In temptation, in times of trial, and in giving service to others, remember Jesus criteria for judging, perhaps this could best be done by memorizing these words from hymn number 793 in our Lutheran hymnal

‘To God be the glory, great things he has done!

So loved the world that he gave us his Son,

Who yielded his life an atonement for sin,

And open the life-gate that all may go in.

Amen

The thirst of Loneliness

The thirst of loneliness John 19 28-30


On the cross, Jesus plunges headlong into the abyss of loneliness.  The darkness which covered the land; the hiding of the sun, of light and warmth was nature’s way of representing the utter helplessness felt by Jesus in the ‘darkness’ of being all alone on the cross.   The dark feelings of loneliness did not happen in an instant.  It was a progression; a succession of events which lead Jesus into the depths of loneliness. 

We can follow this succession in Jesus passion.  We can follow the events which led to the point of Jesus’ crucifixion and feelings of utter loneliness and darkness on the cross for our sin, when he cried out ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’  We can see that one by one, people leave Jesus to die alone; only the nails that pierced his hands and feet are supporting him…every other support has gone; even his Father in heaven leaves because of his wrath against sin.

The progression into utter loneliness, known as the darkness of the soul, began with the kiss of a friend, a betrayal.  Then, from that moment on, one friend after another, in turn, walked away from him, a succession of hurts, rejection, accusations, lies and murderous intentions lead Jesus further into the abyss of loneliness, even depression.  In his neediest hour, when he is hurting most, suffering for the sins of the world, for you and I, his own mother had to leave him; given over to another son.  Jesus said to his mother, “Dear woman, here is your son,” and to the disciple, “Here is your mother.”

Finally, the sun itself removed its light and warmth from Jesus, leaving the world in darkness, a darkness to match the darkness of his soul; the utter loneliness, to die for our sin.  The horror of this moment is foretold in Isaiah ‘he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.’  Jesus thirsted for compassion, yet received only sour wine…the results of our sin.

Many of us, while never knowing the true anguish of Jesus, can certainly relate to the darkness of soul; utter loneliness; ‘depression.’   For some of us, our lives have been a succession of betrayals, of friends leaving us, of hurts or even sickness, which have led us to a point of despair.   And this despair or depression is the ‘the darkness of the soul’ and is as real for us as it was for Jesus. 

Kind David experienced it, saying in Psalm 88 ‘You have taken my companions and loved ones from me; the darkness is my closest friend.’  It is part of our human condition.  It is the hallmark of sin and evil.  You and I are born sinful and therefore born into a daily reminder, that in our suffering, in our sinning, we are in the grip of ceaseless futility and crushing, mindless darkness. 

Yet a profound realization comes to us through despair.  It is the realization that there is no meaning, no value, no worthwhile activity, nothing of any value within us or the material universe, no beauty, no love…none of these contain value in themselves.  Meaning and value is above and beyond; it is in God alone.  Meaning and value lay in the suffering servant Jesus. 

 

While many of the believers had left Jesus at the cross because they could not see any sense in his suffering; while Mary his mother wept because of the hopelessness of it all; while Peter hid his face at the obscenity of knowing a man being crucified; there was one man who could see Christ as his saviour.   He could see and receive Jesus because he himself was suffering.  The thief of the cross. 

 

He said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” His suffering taught him that everything, even life itself is futile.  His pain, his darkness, his anguish, his recognition of sin led him to trust in Jesus, who was suffering in his place, who was his saviour, and Jesus never disappoints faith ‘”I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.

 

To redeem us from our darkness, Jesus had to first conquer it for us.  He had to be sacrificed to it and then in death strike a fatal blow to its heart.  The cross is now a light that shines in the darkness.  St Paul says ‘the cross is the power unto salvation.’ 

 

You may have previously suffered in the darkness of loneliness and despair, or you may be currently living in the midst of darkness of the soul, or it may come to you one day.  At this very time, when we can’t see a way out, a purpose or meaning in our suffering, is when Christ comes to us and preaches a word of good news to us ‘In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”  By faith we look past our suffering and darkness into the light of the cross.  By faith, together with the thief we trust that when Jesus said ‘It is finished’, our darkness is only temporary, and that by his death he has won for us the victory of eternal life.  Amen

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Kadaysh

Maundy Thursday Luke 22 7_16

 

The Kadaysh

light candles – fill wine glasses and explanation


All.     Why is this night different from all other nights?

 

Explanation

Luke records ‘Then came the day of unleavened bread, on which the Passover lamb had to be sacrificed’.  On this night, outside among men, and inside among God’s people, together with this meal, Jesus is being prepared as the new Passover lamb.  To replace the temporary and continuing sacrifice of the original Passover lamb in the Temple.  He is replacing the old Passover with a new purpose. Jesus took this meal and made it his meal; this is Jesus’ Passover, because on this night, he is the one who must be sacrificed and it is he who stands on the threshold of a new era of salvation.

 

Tonight we have before us Traditional Passover food, the same food Jesus and the disciples would have ate.  Except we as Christians have a different emphasis, a deeper purpose, yet in a way, we have the same meaning to the meal as the Jews. 

 

All:      What is the meaning of the  herbs dipped in salt?

 

Explanation

 

• Maror: bitter herbs, usually horseradish or romaine lettuce, is used to symbolize the bitterness of slavery in Egypt.  The Charoses: a mixture of apples, nuts, wine, and cinnamon, is a reminder of the mortar used by the Jews in the construction of the buildings in Egypt as slaves.  The people of Israel were horribly treated as slaves.  The harder they worked the more the Egyptian king forced them to work.  Many could not keep up and were flogged and even killed.  There was no way out.

 

We too are in slavery.  St Paul writes ‘When you were slaves to sin, what benefit did you reap at that time from the things you are now ashamed of? Those things result in death!’  We are born into bondage of sin which holds us as slaves; it is our master.  No matter how hard we try, we cannot fully and completely fulfil what God demands of us; Sin has us in bondage and it is killing us, as Paul writes ‘the wages of sin is death’.  Just as the Jews where in bondage in Egypt and needed rescuing by God, we also need to be rescued

 

All      What’s the meaning of the beitzah?

 

Explanation

The Beitzah: a roasted egg, is a symbol of life and the perpetuation of existence.  And the Karpas: a vegetable, preferably parsley or celery, represents hope and redemption from God; served with a bowl of salted water to represent the tears shed in slavery and calling out to God.

Our hope of salvation is Jesus Christ As Paul writes ‘God has chosen to make known among us the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory.  While we still have tears, we live in the hope of Jesus Christ, for he is our redemption from our bondage to sin.

 

All      What is the meaning of the unleavened bread?

 

Explanation

• Matzoh: Three unleavened matzohs are placed within the folds of a napkin as a reminder of the haste with which the Israelites fled Egypt, leaving no time for dough to rise.  Deuteronomy records ‘You shall eat no leaven bread with the Passover meal; seven days your shall eat it with hurried flight- that all the days of your life you may remember the day when you come out of the land of Egypt.’

 

This is the bread which fed the Israelites as they were freed from slavery.  It is also the manna sent by God to feed the Israelites while in the desert.  The Matzah is both a bread of freedom from slavery and a bread of life which will feed them in the desert until they reach the promise land; a bread of salvation and of life.  In the Last Supper, Jesus takes this bread and says ‘take and eat this is my body which is given for you.  Do this in remembrance of me.’  With these words, Jesus is the bread which will now be eaten as the true bread of salvation and life.  His body, in which we feed is the bread which will bring us out of slavery, from our bondage of sin, and his body is the bread which also feeds us until we reach the promised land; the New Jerusalem.  He is the bread of salvation and life.   

 

All      What is the meaning of the Roast Lamb?

 

Explanation

Zeroah: traditionally a piece of roasted lamb shankbone, symbolizing the paschal sacrificial offering.  Passover lamb was to be without blemish and with no broken bones.  It was to be slain and its blood was sprinkled on the door posts, so that the destroyer of the firstborn would not touch the firstborn of Israel.  In the meal Jesus is holding, the paschal lamb, or Passover Lamb was sacrificed in preparation for the meal at 3pm in the temple.  The blood of the lamb was then sprinkled on the altar and on other holy parts of the inner sanctuary to pay for sins, and is also a reminder of the blood which saved Israel when the angel of death passed over the people; the sacrifice of the lamb saved them from death.

 

Jesus is the new Pascal Lamb; without blemish and with no broken bones.  In this meal Jesus is preparing himself for His death on the cross; to be the new sacrifice for our salvation.  His blood is poured out for us so that the angel of death will pass over us. Jesus blood is now the blood which is sprinkled on all of us to pay for our sins; Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world.   

 

All      What is the meaning of the wine.

 

Explanation

 

The cup of Wine: four glasses of wine are consumed during the meal to represent the four-fold promise of redemption.

 

This is the cup Jesus took and said ‘Take and drink of it all of you for this is my blood of the covenant which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins’.  The wine in the cup which was the promise of redemption, is now fulfilled in the blood of Jesus.  The blood of the Passover lamb that was sprinkled on the altar for the forgiveness of sin, is now Jesus’ blood, in, with and under the wine.  The promise of redemption is Jesus and he gives us his blood to sprinkle on our hearts to purify us and cleanse us of all our sins.

 

 

Yes, this is a special meal of utter importance for us who believe in Jesus; a meal which gives us salvation from sin and death and a meal that gives us life eternal.  So let us now join with Jesus and share in the meal he is hosting, and eat and drink the body and blood of the sacrificial lamb who takes away the sins of the world.