• Acts 2:1–21                         The Spirit Comes on the Disciples

• 1 Corinthians 12:3–13      The Spirit of the Lord on his Servants

• John 7:37–39                      The Promise of the Spirit awaits his Glory

• John 20:19–23                    The Promise of the Spirit for Mission

• Psalm 104:24–35               The Spirit creates anew

Introduction

On the day of Pentecost, they were all together – as they had been since Jesus ascension, devoted to prayer. The Holy Spirit came, as Jesus had foretold in his dramatized prophecy[1], like Jesus breathing on them. The wind was accompanied by fire that rested on each of them, echoing both the fire that accepted Elijah’s sacrifice, and the bush of God’s presence to Moses that burned but was not consumed.

They were all filled with the Holy Spirit (all, not just the Apostles). And the first thing that the Spirit brought was worship. They spoke in tongues; the tongue of all the nations that Jesus had commissioned them to witness to, but what did they say in these tongues? Later the crowds tell us, they were “telling in our own tongues the mighty works of God.” They were worshiping.

Worshipers, before Witnesses

This outpouring of the Holy Spirit would lead to the mass conversion of 3,000 people. Scripture does not say where the disciples were gathered, but they attracted quite a crowd. Just as Jesus had said, the Holy Spirit when he came, convicted them of “sin, righteousness and judgement” because of Jesus (Jn 16:8-11).

But what started it? Crowds probably gathered at that time in Jerusalem when anything new or unusual happened. It was part of their entertainment (much like social media today). When they gathered, they were asking questions. Some would, eventually, ask whether they were drunk. But the first question was how and why these Jews were praising God in every sort of language? Why were they worshiping like this, and in a way that we can understand?

And what were they saying in their worship? They were praising God for his mighty works, but what works? Surely, they were praising God for all that he had done in and through Jesus; they were praising Jesus! And they were doing so in a way that all the people who gathered could hear and, potentially, join in with them in praising Jesus.

Today, the church remembers and celebrates the gift of the Holy Spirit in his first outpouring. Those first disciples were instructed to wait for the one who would equip them to be witnesses. We see the outcome in Peter’s first sermon, and we have one of the scriptural lists of the gifts of the Holy Spirit. But before we focus on those, we need to see something that the Holy Spirit does at a deeper and more foundational way.

The Spirit of Faith and Love

When Jesus first introduces the promise of the Holy Spirit in the upper room (Jn 14:15ff) it is all about seeing and knowing Jesus and his Father. The Holy Spirit is given to those who love and follow Jesus as the presence of God in them – a seal of love on a relationship of faith and love.

• He will be the one who leads us into truth, as faith is filled with understanding.
• He will be the one who brings fruit in lives of increasing Christlike righteousness – as we abide in Christ in the Spirit of Christ.
• He will convict the world, but to the disciples he will be the gift by which they see and know Jesus. And perhaps, he will convict the world as the world sees Jesus in his people.
• And, as they live more and more in Christ, he will be the gift of prayer that is answered, because it is in Jesus’ name.

The Spirit of Life in Christ

Every blessing that we receive from God is in Christ as we are united to Christ in faith. But the reality of that being in Christ is mediated to us through the gift of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Christ, in us. He is the gift of the life of Christ in us, like a well of living waters springing up in our hearts (Jn 7:37-39). Christ in us, the hope of glory (Col 1:27).

No wonder, when the Holy Spirit came upon the disciples at Pentecost, their first response was praise and worship. They were not just praising God for his mighty works; they were praising him for his mighty works in them.[2]

The Spirit of Worship

The true presence of the Holy Spirit in a disciple, as Paul reminds us, is not works of power, but a heart of worship.

“Therefore, I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says “Jesus is accursed!” and no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except in the Holy Spirit.” (1 Cor 12:3)

The evidence is twofold. Anyone who truly has the Holy Spirit cannot curse Jesus; that much is understandable, how can a heart that has been so endowed with love, speak ill of the one it loves. People may be forced to speak against their heart, but words spoken in integrity reveal what is truly there in us.

But, if anything, the second statement is even more forceful. You cannot truly say that Jesus is Lord unless you have the Holy Spirit! Many people may say that Jesus is Lord and believe that it is true. But only those who have received the Holy Spirit in them can truly say it:

• not just as a statement of general truth, but as statement of personal reality – Jesus is my Lord; and
• not just as a statement of reality, but as one of joy-filled love in that reality. It is no great statement of his lordship that speaks of one who has forced us to submit. But when we rejoice to call him Lord, his Lord indeed.

The Holy Spirit is at heart a spirit of worship. Just as Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well; the Father is seeking those who will worship in Spirit and truth. This is his first and greatest gift to us … and everything else flows from it.

I do not think that it is too strong to say that if the Holy Spirit is not dynamically at work in us as a Spirit of worship, and of the transformed lives that grow from worship (2 Cor 3:18), we will never truly be witnesses, nor will any of the other gifts manifest their true purpose.

Witnesses more than Heralds

But you can’t keep this gift to yourself, as the disciples found on that Pentecost day. So, Jesus says “you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses …” (Acts 1:8).

This reinforces the personal heart work of the Holy Spirit I have been emphasizing above; you will receive power, and you will be witnesses. Jesus does not say that you will receive power to witness. You will receive power, for all that he has spoken about above. And, in the outworking of that power you will be (or, perhaps, become) witnesses.

Witness are Evidence Bearers

Witness is a special description. It speaks of one who gives evidence, as in a court. When you stand as a witness, you are not asked your opinion, but to testify to what you saw. It is no good saying I believe that she did it. You must be able to say, I saw him do it.

When the Apostles sought to find a replacement for Judas, they looked only amongst those “who have accompanied us during all the time that Jesus went in and about amongst us” (Acts 1:21). They needed someone who could witness to what they had seen and heard.

Now, as we are called to be witnesses, the same criterion applies. We need to be people in whom Jesus has come ‘in and about’, so that we can witness to what he has said and done in us. Only now it is not the physical Jesus of his ministry amongst those first disciples, but his Holy Spirit ministry in and amongst us.

Heralds are a Particular Appointment

There is a role and gift of being a herald (gk. Kēryx), which is often translated as preacher in the New Testament. Paul says that he was appointed a preacher (1 Tim 2:7), or herald, just as the Spirit gives different gifts to different disciples. Not all of us are appointed heralds, but we are all appointed as witnesses.

This ought to be a liberating truth. We don’t all need to be evangelistic heralds. We are called just to be witnesses. To say what we have seen, what has happened to us – ready to give an answer for the hope that is in us (1 Pet 3:15)

But we can’t do that unless the Holy Spirit is in us and we have truly come to know Jesus as Lord. We are witnesses, more than we are heralds.

That can be hard enough, because even witnesses have to get their thoughts in order. We must learn to speak about things that are often deep and personal. We must put words to things that are sometimes hard to find the right words for. And it must be about us, because we are witnesses, not purveyors of hearsay. Nothing less is truly honouring to Jesus. And nothing else will satisfy the hunger of our friends and neighbours for the reality of Jesus.

Only the Holy Spirit will do

And in all this, only the Holy Spirit will do.

The disciples had been with Jesus all the time that he went in and about amongst them, but even they had to wait for the Holy Spirit before they could truly become witnesses to him. If that was true for them, surely, we must be eager for the Holy Spirit, and once we have received him, eager for more and more of his work in us.

Somehow, in the centuries since that first Pentecost outpouring, much of the church has lost sight of the Holy Spirit. He has been replaced by creed, liturgy, legalism and much more. He has been assumed as a given for all who call themselves Christians, when the clear witness of scripture is that his presence is visible and transforming.

So, much of the church has become a poor shadow of what it was called to be. Its people have been robbed of their power and confidence in Christ. And the world has been robbed of a witness to the only spirituality that is life-giving, true, and eternal. Liturgy has become passionless and a mere shadow of the worship that drew the crowds that day. At best it evokes s spirituality that is natural and human, rather than one that is inexplicable and supernatural. And evangelism; it has been relegated to often to eloquent wisdom, emptying the cross of Christ of its power.

Perhaps that is an exaggeration and simplification, because there has been a revival of the Holy Spirit’s presence and power in recent years. But still there is much ground in the church that needs the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to soak into it with new-wine life and fruit.

That means You and Me

And this is true for you and me, this Pentecost. Only the Holy Spirit of Christ will do. If he is not at the centre of life for you or me, we need to pray and ask and wait – as those first disciples did – until we know his presence and power in us.

And if he has come, we need to be filled more and more. We need to kill those things in us that grieve his presence and stunt our life in Christ. We need to walk with him in more of what we do and say. And, most of all, we need to let him lead us in worship of the one who is all in all. Only the Holy Spirit will do.

If we celebrate Pentecost, however we do so, without the Holy Spirit, we have totally missed the point. Let us seek him and welcome him. Read the bible with him, pray with him, listen to him and follow him. And let him bubble up as a living spring of faith-filled joy in Jesus Christ.

New Wineskins

And, finally, if he is living us like this, let us do all we can to live in him together. If the church has become a shadow of what it is called to be as the Holy Spirit has been neglected, what will his welcome bring to us.

As Jesus said:

“No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” (Matt 9:16-17)

As we seek answers to the challenge of being church, we know that will mean changes. May they be inspired and shaped by the Holy Spirit, as we allow him to make us, together, a dwelling place for Jesus Christ in his Spirit.

What would that look like? That’s for another sermon, but one thing is certain it will be full of the Holy Spirit.

[1] One of the ways that Old Testament prophets used (for example Ezekiel)

[2] This is where the greater part of the Holy Spirit’s work is, in us. Imparting the life of Christ to us and growing that life in us, as Christ is formed in us by his Holy Spirit presence. And not just in us individually, but in us together as his body.

Jesus’ Work of Salvation

I wonder how you would describe Jesus’ work of salvation. Many Christians would focus on his death and resurrection as his saving work for us. But, though this is the critical centre of Jesus work for our salvation, it is only part of a much bigger and more glorious whole.

Jesus work of salvation encompasses at least:

• His Incarnation – taking on our humanity
• His Life of Holiness – perfecting our humanity as an offering and expression of love to the Father
• His Teaching – revealing the Truth of God to awaken faith
• His Miracles – demonstrating the saving power of the kingdom to awaken faith
• His Suffering and Death – to deal with our sin and death
• His Resurrection – to become Life for all who united to him by faith
• His Ascension – to …?
• His Return – to fulfil salvation in a new heavens and earth

It is one work, with a single goal. Its purpose is the whole creation might be filled with the Glory of God, expressed in Jesus Christ, and magnified in millions of human expressions of Christ. Every part is necessary and meaningful.

This Sunday we celebrate part of that work in Christ’s Ascension. So, what does that mean? What is the ascension for? And what does it mean for you and me?

The Meaning of Ascension

I am sure that the Disciples would have preferred Jesus to stay with them, even though he said that it was to their benefit that he was going to the Father. We may feel the same way, but in God’s wisdom and providence it was necessary and right that Jesus ascended to the Father.

There are so many glorious implications of Jesus ascension, it is hard to say what we need to know most. Perhaps four key things would be enough for today.

• It has enabled the outpouring of the Holy Spirit
• It has demonstrated the perfect completion of his work of salvation here on earth
• It signifies Jesus rule and authority over all things
• It empowers and directs the growth of his kingdom in every tribe, tongue, and nation

The Holy Spirit

The Holy Spirit was in all that Jesus did on earth, from his incarnation to his ascension. He was known to the disciples through Jesus – so that Jesus could say that the Holy Spirit had been with them. But, until Jesus was glorified, the Holy Spirit was not poured out into his disciples.

They could know Jesus with them and not with them – so, for example, they had to look for him and find that he had got up before them to pray. They could know Jesus awake, and asleep in the middle of a storm. Even after his resurrection, when locked doors could not keep him out, Jesus was not always with them.

But now, he has given himself to be in us, by his Spirit. We may still acknowledge him or turn from him, but time and space cannot separate us from him. In his Spirit, Jesus is in us as:

• Teacher – to lead us into all truth, reminding us of all that he taught and breaking its truth open to us. So, he is the one who makes the Bible come alive for us.
• Life – imparting a new life to us. So that we may live in a new way, not driven by our own human thoughts, desires and needs, but led by his Spirit.
• Assurance – in his Spirit he has given us a guarantee and foretaste of the life to come. So, we have a new peace and confidence in him.
• Unity – we are not merely followers of the same Lord, but sharers in the same Spirit. Our identity – and our Unity – is not in the quality of our faith, but in our having his Spirit in us.
• Worship – in the Holy Spirit we are introduced to a new reality in worship. It is no longer bound to and particular place or form but is now, in Spirit and Truth.

It is hard to overstate what it means that his Holy Spirit is in us and not just with us. And none of this would be possible unless Jesus had ascended to his glory in heaven.

It is Accomplished

When Jesus rose again it demonstrated that his sacrifice had been acceptable to the Father, it affirmed his dying words “it is accomplished”. Even though there was clearly much left to do with his disciples and with this world.

In his ascension and glorification, Jesus demonstrated the perfect completion of his work of salvation here on earth. Everything else was merely the outworking, or overflow, of that completed work. Nothing now could undo what he had achieved, or impede its fulfilment.

The accuser has been thrown out of heaven. He has no place to bring any accusation against any of God’s people or God’s work in this world. In the past, Satan brought accusations against God’s people and God’s work into the heavenly council. But he no longer can. Jesus stands in the perfection of his humanity as the perfected vindication of all that God does.

It is not that we have been perfected – yet. In us you might think that Satan has plenty of ammunition to bring accusation. Looking at my own life, I am sure he has. But, in Christ, there can be no accusation:

“Who shall bring any charge against God’s elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died—more than that, who was raised—who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.”

Rom 8:33-34

It is because Christ is ascended and glorified, that nothing can separate us from his love.

Jesus is Lord and King

Jesus ascension is not merely his return home after his job has been done. It is his glorification, just as he prays in our Gospel reading. He is glorious from eternity, “before the world existed.” But this is something different and more glorious (if that is possible).

Jesus ascension is an enthronement, the enthronement of a victorious conqueror. He has sat down, just as was prophesied, and as Peter proclaimed to the crowd at Pentecost:

“For David did not ascend into the heavens, but he himself says, “ ‘The Lord said to my Lord, “Sit at my right hand, until I make your enemies your footstool.” ’ Let all the house of Israel therefore know for certain that God has made him both Lord and Christ, this Jesus whom you crucified.”

Acts 2:34-36

Given the way that the world looks, you might think that there is still conquering to be done. But these words reveal an extraordinary passivity in the one who has conquered – it is done, and now it it’s just a matter of time until his enemies become his footstool.

Even the prophecies regarding his return, and what we think of as the end-time battle, do not speak of a real battle. There is no fight, Jesus just turns up and his enemies fall before him.

Jesus ascension demonstrates that his is King, now. He is ruling, with complete authority now. The Book of History has ben handed to him and he has opened its seals. Whatever evil and rebellion he now permits is either a merciful patience by which he calls us to repentance, or a holy demonstration of the hardness of people’s hearts, by which he affirms the justice of his judgement.

Jesus is Lord!

I will Build my Church

And, his ascension empowers and directs the growth of his kingdom in every tribe, tongue and nation.

The ascension raises the locus of the kingdom of God, from any particular place or people in this world to omnipresence of heaven. As Jesus said to Pilate, “my kingdom is not from this world”. No one can say, ‘here it is’. No one can call people to fight for it to defend it. It cannot be encompassed by any human organisation or institution. It is not limited to any culture, or language.

Perhaps, if Jesus had not ascended, if he had continued to gather disciples around him on earth it would have been different. But that was not God’s plan. Jesus’ ascension calls forth and builds a church that is truly international, from every tribe and tongue and nation. There are no Christian nations and never have been. There is no Church of England. We may speak of the Church in England, but we are all strangers and aliens here, citizens from another place.

Because of Christ’s ascension the church is all the more clearly not from this world or of it. We are defined by his Spirit and his Name. So, Jesus prays to the Father for us, “keep them in your name”

It’s Meaning for Us

I feel that I have barely scratched the surface. But before I finish, I must ask one further question. Given all of this, what does Christ’s ascension mean for you, for us, in our here and now?

Can I suggest three final things to ponder on.

His Glory

First, in all of the above, Christ’s glory is no incidental thing. Clearly it was so important to Jesus, that it was the first thing that he prayed for. In us, praying for our glory might seem odd, but not for him. It is only right and proper.

In our current circumstances – both in the state of our world, and in the particular challenges facing us as church in this place – we need a glorious Christ. We need to know that he is great – in his power, his love, his wisdom. Where else but to a glorious saviour, can we take our anxieties, or fears, our confusion, our grief? We need to know how great is our God.

We need to know that whatever happens to us, he will never forsake us, and that nothing can pluck us from his hands. We need to know that whatever happens to us, in the end he “will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish” us. Unless he is big enough for this, life may crush us.

We need to know that when we step out in faith – in our limited faith and understanding – he will catch us. We need to know that he will work all things for good. Unless he is big enough for this, we will never have the courage to do what he calls us to do.

We need to know that, when we forsake the pleasures that this world offers, he will satisfy us with a weight of glory that makes them look like dust on the scales.

We need to know his glory.

His Purpose

Second, when the disciples wanted to know times and seasons (don’t we all), Jesus said that these things were not for us to know. But he gave us a purpose to pursue. As he said to Peter at the lakeside, regarding John – “If it is my will that he remain until I come, what is that to you? You follow me!” (Jn 21:22)

God has called us to follow Jesus. He has given us a purpose, and for each one of us a part in it. It does not matter if we cannot see clearly where this is leading, we are called to follow him.

Those first disciples, after Jesus has ascended, returned to Jerusalem. They did not have a clear plan, just instructions to wait for the Holy Spirit, and the assurance that the Holy Spirit would show them what to do. So, they gathered together and prayed – they devoted themselves to prayer.

In his ascension, the work that Jesus has accomplished has begun to be unfolded and fulfilled. The times and seasons are in his hand. We are merely called to follow him and fulfil our part. Nothing less than a life that is devoted to prayer will accomplish his purpose in us.

His Presence

And finally, though the ascension may seem to be about Jesus leaving us and going to heaven, in reality it is all about his presence. Jesus was leaving us in a physical way – a way in which he could be with us sometimes and not with us at other times. But he was coming to us in a new way, by his Spirit, in us.

In Christ, each one of us now is a bearer of his presence. We are temples of his Spirit presence. What should that mean for our lives, our thoughts, our words?

We have this treasure in earthen vessels (2 Cor 4:7) – and many of us are cracked pots – but what a treasure. Let us not grieve his presence in us, but rather cherish him and pursue knowing more and more of his glory.

In revelation, we see the bridegroom coming to receive a bride who has made herself ready. We so need to take seriously the reality that he is in us and among us together by his Spirit. In our own lives, we need to hunger for the holiness and righteousness that befits his presence. And among us as church, we need to pursue the truth and love that unites us in him and reveals him to the world.

Set your minds on things above

So, let us all, recognising Jesus ascension and glory, set our minds on the things that are from above. He has left us here for a purpose, as ambassadors and representatives of a new kingdom. And he will return, just as he promised.

I believe that we are facing a momentous season of change in church and in the world. Things that we, here on earth, have regarded as precious may fail and go. But we are not from this world, and our Lord is not of this world. He is glorious I heaven, lord over all the heavens and the earth.

Let us devote ourselves to Prayer, to the Word of the Spirit, and pursue the purpose that he has given us. May he return to find us active in his service, passionate in our worship, a bride ready for her husband.

• John 14:15–21 Jesus promises his Spirit, to those who love him
• Acts 17:22–31 Proclaiming the ‘unknown’ God that we seek
• 1 Peter 3:13–22 Christ Suffered to Bring us to God

If You Love Me …

So much depends upon this, “If you love me”. On this depends –

• the gift of the Holy Spirit:
  • receiving the divine help that we desperately need,
• whether we live, or are merely walking towards our death.
• knowing the reality of Jesus and God,
  • seeing what the world can neither see, nor know,
  • knowing the love of God in us, and us in God.

Such is the weight of this test, that it is not left uncertain. Though it seems to be about our feelings, it is not left to our feelings. Jesus says, you will know that you love me, by the way you respond to my commandments.

What Jesus is saying here, is more than a reward for obedience. And it is more than just believing in him (as most people think of it).

It is not about Doing Better

This is so much more than a reward for obedience; salvation by works. Jesus is not saying that you receive these blessings as a result of keeping his commandments. Too many people have a Christianity that is based on the hope that – in the end – they will be good enough to merit God’s forgiveness and life.

When we think like this, we balance our sins against our obedience and hope that our goodness will outweigh our sins. It is a lost cause. Those whose hope is like this, have entirely underestimated the weight of their sin before a holy God. And, as for our goodness, it is always less perfect and more tainted, than we imagine. As scripture says, all our good deeds, are really like filthy rags.

Off course, none of this makes any sense until we have truly encountered, and come to see, God in all his holy goodness. But it is true whether it makes sense to us, or not.

It is not about what you believe in

And it is so much more than believing in Jesus, or God, or anything – in the way that most people think of belief.

As scripture so succinctly puts it, even the devil believes … and trembles. Indeed, anyone who believes in Jesus or God and does not tremble, does not truly believe in God. Perhaps they believe in something that they call God (or Jesus), but it is the palest excuse for God.

Words are so slippery, and our hearts even more so. To believe in Jesus, if it is not truly Jesus that we believe in, or if it does not cause us to tremble with awe and wonder … and ultimately bring captivate us with love; its not the belief that Jesus calls us to.

This ought to make more sense. We know that people can say they believe in all sorts of things, but their lives demonstrate what they really believe in. And, we know that there is a difference between belief (which we may wish otherwise), and belief that loves what it believes in.

Belief, as Jesus looks for it is filled with love and deeply personal. Such loving-belief is not only far more motivating, its belief is deeply woven into the truth of who we are (as the devastating effects of betrayal in a marriage demonstrate).

If you Love Me … it will show

So, Jesus is looking for something more personal than obedience, and something more personal than mere belief. And so much depends upon this that we cannot afford to get it wrong. Nor can we afford to get it wrong for those that we call to Jesus.

It captivates you

What Jesus is looking for is something like the life changing encounter that 2 Corinthians 4:6 speaks of –

The God who said “let light shine out of darkness” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

And it is what John spoke of when he said, “we have seen his glory, full of grace and truth”.

When such an encounter draws out belief and love together from you, the one in whom you believe and what you believe about them becomes the most important thing in your life. Is this true, are they really like that (those who find their ‘soul-mate’, know wat this is like)? And, Jesus promises that in loving and believing in him, we will know.

It is a seeing and knowing that spoils your heart for anything else. And when Jesus becomes like this to you, you will do what he calls you to do out of love – because he has become everything to you.

It shows in your life

So, it shows in your life. It does not mean that our doing is perfect, there is too much of the imperfect in us that needs dealing with. But when doing springs out of such faith-filled love (or love-filled faith), even when imperfect, it is acceptable to God. It is made acceptable by the perfect love and obedience of Christ himself, through his death for us.

It also means that when our doing is imperfect, Jesus call is not for us to try harder, but to love better. I know that when I fail him, it is not just a failure of my will, but – more deeply – a failure of my love … I have loved something else more than Jesus. So, the antidote is repentance that seeks reconciliation and the renewal of love, more than it seeks forgiveness.

God does not respond to repentance that only seeks forgiveness – no more than we would. He responds to repentance that seeks restoration of a relationship.

And its reward will be … the One that is loved

And when we love Jesus like this, the blessing we receive is nothing else than the one that we love. The only appropriate reward for love is the object of that love.

So, Jesus says:

• If you love me … I will come to you
• If you love me … I will show myself to you

And when Jesus is loved like this,

• the Father – who loves Jesus above all – will love you,
• the Holy Spirit, will help you

And Jesus, who is alive in a fullness that we can barely imagine, will give you life, in him.

Our Deepest Longing and Purpose

Our other two readings echo this truth. They show how the need to know and love Jesus like this is our deepest longing. And, for those who come to such faith, it shows that it is our deepest purpose in life.

Our Deepest Longing

Our world is so much like the one that Paul came to in Athens. For all its exaltation of rationality and science, we have populated it with more and more things that we treat as God and worship. Isn’t it one of the most extraordinary things that, the more we try to undermine religion, the more people seek out things to believe in – until people will believe in anything?

And, in all this chaos of belief, there lurks something that is unknown, and unseen, but we can’t deny it a place. Paul noticed a statue ‘To the unknown god’, and though we don’t erect statues, all our longing and seeking points to the fact that we have yet to see and know what we are truly looking for.

The Gospel – the good news of Jesus Christ – is eternal and unchanging. But, just as we need to translate our words into the native language of our hearers, we also need to translate the Gospel into the language of the society that we are speaking to. That is what Paul was doing in Athens.

The Gospel is about God’s forgiveness and his love, but it is about more than that. And it may not be enough to say that God forgives you, or God loves you, without offering what people really need. The heart of the Gospel is the offer to us of God, himself, in Jesus Christ – the unknown god, for whom we are seeking. He is the hole in our reality, that will not be satisfied by any other.

Without him no one is truly satisfied. No matter how complete their lives may seem, there is always something missing – unknown and unseen, but longed for.

As to knowing God’s love – it is not so much that we may feel loved, but that we may be welcomed to love him. If God loves us, anything else that he gives to us, or does for us, that is not freeing us to love the only one who will satisfy our longing souls – it is not love.

And as to forgiveness – If there is any sense of sin and guilt, it is not so much because we have broken God’s rules, but that we have hidden from him and sought out other gods. We have failed to see and love the glory of the one who made all things. And we have loved, instead, the things that he made.

God has withheld judgement so that we may seek him, but when judgement falls it will be in the person of Jesus, and based on how we have responded to him. God has given his greatest treasure, his beloved, to die for us. He has given his love to us, that we might love him. He is our deepest longing.

Our Deepest purpose

In contemplating the mystery of suffering, Peter takes us to the one who suffered for us all. And he shows us Jesus’ purpose in his suffering:

“For Christ also suffered once for sins, the righteous for the unrighteous, that he might bring us to God” (1 Pet 3:18)

Christ’s suffering, and our suffering as we share with him, has purpose to it. Its purpose is to bring us to God.

On the night of his betrayal, Jesus expressed this differently, when he said, “No one comes to the Father except through me”, and then more positively when he said to Philip, “Whoever has seen me, has seen the Father” (Jn 14:6,9).

To this purpose he lived and died and rose again to life.

• He took away the guilt and judgement that keeps us from God.
• He lived a life of perfect human righteousness, to enable us – in him – to come to God.
• And he became the way for us to be changed (in our whole being and living) and made a holy people, fit to live in God’s presence.

And if that was the ultimate purpose of Christ’s incarnation, ministry, suffering, death and resurrection – how can we live as if it is not our greatest purpose too? Consider the testimony of Ephesians 1

• He chose us in eternity “that we should be holy and blameless before him, in love”
• He predestined us for adoption as his own sons and daughters.
• He redeemed us, through Jesus shed blood, from all our sins and guilt that keep us from him.
• He has given us an inheritance in Christ, so that we might be (in all our being and living) to the praise of his glory

We live our lives so aimlessly. We are surprised when suffering comes, as if it makes no sense. But we have been chosen, called, redeemed and lavished with grace. Our lives have a meaning and a purpose that should shape all of our days, motivate all our efforts, fill all our hopes. To be live before God, in his presence, holy and blameless, in love and praise, in the fullness of joy and eternal satisfaction.

Stir Up your Heart, Mind and Strength to this

If you love me, says Jesus … that is our calling; to love God with all our heart and mind and soul and strength.

God is love and he is the greatest thing that we can love. Let us stir ourselves up to respond to his call – stir up our hearts in worship, stir up our minds in understanding and seeing, stir up our souls in dissatisfaction with anything less, and stir up our strength in imitation of him. What a promise we have when we do – even in our imperfect doing.

He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I will love him and manifest myself to him. And in that day, you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I in you.

John 14:1–14                  I am the Way the Truth and the Life

Acts 7:55–60                  The Stoning of Stephen

1 Peter 2:1–10               Grow Up – Living Stones & Holy People

Introduction

There are reasons for fasting and there are reasons for feasting – but the greatest reason for fasting is feasting.

Be Hungry Children

Peter urges us to feed on pure spiritual milk.

He is not, like Paul (1 Cor 3:2), contrasting milk with solid food, but simply using the example of new-borns and their singular focus on feeding to urge us to be like them.

We, like new-borns, have a great deal of growing to do; growing up into Christ, growing up together into s spiritual house, growing up into our calling to be a holy priesthood offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

Issues with Food

But there is an issue revealed in this call. You don’t have to urge babies to feed, it is instinctive. We, however, require encouragement, and Peter identifies two issues that we must deal with if we are to feed and grow.

• The first is that we already have an appetite for the wrong food, unwholesome rather than pure. So, we need to learn how to wean ourselves off the wrong food.
• The second, is that we need to discover a taste for the right food. Unless we find this food good to taste, we will not hunger for it or feed on it as we should.

There is, perhaps, a third issue – that of wanting to grow up into what we were born to be – but I think that the desire for this is bound up with our developing taste for the pure food.

Weaning ourselves off Junk

We know Junk Food. One of the issues in much of western society is the prevalence of junk food and its role in creating obesity and other health issues. There is undoubtedly lots of advertising behind it, but if we are honest, they are pushing against an open door – we have a taste for it.

A Complex Deceptive Relationship

You only have to explore the issue of obesity to realise how complex this relationship with junk food is. It is not simply eating too much, or greed. Our bodies seem to have a natural taste for it. It is deceitful, offering goodness, but ultimately, withholding satisfaction. And it can easily become a self-medication for ills that we are not able or willing to deal with.

These appetites compete with our spiritual food – the food that feeds our inner being. So, when God wants us to hunger for pure (wholesome) spiritual food, he first urges us to put away deceptive and unwholesome food.

“put away all malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander”[ii]

1 Peter 2:1

The call is repeated in the last part of this section of scripture [iii]

¹¹ Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. ¹² Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation.

1 Peter 2:11-12

Fasting from Junk Food

This is not just about abstaining from sin, as an act of will, it is about our appetites, about our hunger. God’s word recognises the way that such things are a deceptive food. They wage war against our souls, but like junk food, they are deceptive – offering something that seems satisfying at first, though its satisfaction fails, leaving a bitter after-taste.

Nobody sins without desiring. As James tells us –

“Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.”

Jas 1:15

Putting away “malice and all deceit and hypocrisy and envy and all slander”, is like fasting. We should recognize this and not be surprised when they surface as desires within us. They can be as tasty as junk food and as hard to put away. Our minds may understand them and reject them, but we still need to retrain our heart’s appetites.

So, treat this like fasting. When you fast it is hard. All you can think about at times is food, and especially junk food. But, as anyone who has persevered will attest, cutting out junk food can allow you to taste real food in a new way.

That is why we fast in order to feast – we fast from the things that wage war against our souls and stunt our Christians growth, so that we can feast on pure spiritual food.

Taste and See that the Lord is Good

But it is not enough to fast from sin. We must also develop a new taste for God. So, it says – put away the junk and long for the good stuff … “if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

Have you tasted that the Lord is Good?

Have you tasted that the Lord is Good?

Faith is at the heart of being a Christian, but it is not just about believing certain things. It is so much more. It is about coming alive to God in Christ –

• like a glorious light shining in your heart, captivating you with his beauty and glory (2 Cor 4:6); or
• like a new taste in your heart, that previously seemed as nothing and now tastes like nothing else.

Is this your experience of God?

God is to be Enjoyed

The deepest call on mankind, the command of God, is to love God with all that you are. Love, in its beginnings, can be an act of the will. But true love, authentic love, is always more than that – it is a joy and delight in the one loved; it is a deep satisfaction that pours itself out in love … and yet is always most fulfilled when it does so. That is the sort of love that God is calling forth from our hearts.

Jesus pursued his mission to rescue us, despising all its costly shame and sorrows, because of the joy that was set before him (Heb 12:2). And it was a joy that he longed, and prayed, to share with us (Jn 17:13,24).

Too many Christians miss out on this vital truth. God is meant to be enjoyed. He is meant to be the ‘light of our eyes that rejoices our heart, and the good news that refreshes our bones’ (Prov 15:30). The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom (Prov 9:10), but it is not its end or goal – that goal is love, when perfected it casts out fear (1 Jn 4:18).

The steward that failed and buried his talent, did so because he thought that his master was unfair and demanding. God is no man’s debtor (Rom 11:35). In the end, we will find that all our suffering and sorrows are dust in the scales compared to the weight of glory that he will share with us – and at the centre of that joy-filled glory will be God himself (Ps 16:11).

Even in the middle of Sorrows

But it is not just in the final consummation that God will be our joy. Something of that joy is meant to be our sustaining experience, even in the midst of sorrows. So, Paul – who experienced more suffering than most of us ever will – said that he was “sorrowful, yet always rejoicing” (2 Cor 6:10). In life we may know days of joy and days of sorrow, but in Christ we can know days of sorrow in which (in our sorrows) we also experience a real and deep joy.

This is meant to be a sustaining experience – the joy of the Lord is your strength (Neh 8:10). The joy of the Lord, is not just God’s joy, but your joy in him. Read Nehemiah, they were meant to party with God and share in his joy.

Learn to Taste and Enjoy

There are plenty of tastes that are ‘acquired’. Children’s palates may not enjoy tastes that later in life are a real joy to them. And we are not born with a taste for God – quite the opposite. In fact, we need to be born again for the taste of God to be a joy to us. And, even then, we need to wean ourselves of the junk that we have enjoyed, to truly savour God.

If you have not yet tasted and discovered the goodness of God, he will answer your prayers: “satisfy me in the morning with your steadfast love, that I may rejoice in you all this day” (Ps 90:14). God wants to give you this joy, for you to taste him as good.

Jesus said, “Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son” (Jn 14:13). And God is never more glorified in us, than when we enjoy him

Fast to Feast

So, let us put away the junk and hunger for the pure spiritual food that God himself gives us. Let us fast, to feast I Him.

[i] All scriptures (unless otherwise specified): 2001. The Holy Bible: English Standard Version, Wheaton: Standard Bible Society.

[ii] Verse 1 is not in the Lectionary reference but is a key part of what God is saying in these verses. So, I have included it in our readings

[iii] Again, not included in the Lectionary, for reasons that are beyond me.

• John 10:1–10 Jesus’ Purpose – Abundant Life
• 1 Peter 2:19–25 Walking with Jesus, in Suffering and Faith
• Acts 2:42–47 United in Gladness & Generosity

The Good Shepherd

I have often found this teaching parable confusing; Jesus enters by the door, but is the door. He leads his sheep out, but emphasises himself as the door by which they must enter. There are layers to what Jesus is teaching us here.

Sheep Penned In

First, there is a picture of sheep who are penned in. They need someone who will lead them out. There is a gate, but none seem willing (or able) to enter by it. Everyone who offers hope of escape, metaphorically goes over the wall. It makes you wonder, what is this gate, guarded by a gatekeeper who only opens to the good shepherd.

The sheep, nevertheless,  cannot truly go out unless a true shepherd enters through the door and leads them out.

Helpfully perhaps, for our understanding, many of us are feeling what it is really like to be penned in right now. It may be for our safety, but it is not the abundance of life for which our hearts long. We know something of the reality of being penned in, but there is a deeper reality here. Beneath all the practical experience of the current lockdown, we are all penned in – away from the fullness of life – by something in us that keeps us from the fullness of life for which God made man in the beginning.

Like our present isolation, this deeper penned-in-ness is not really a good place to be. By God’s grace we are hemmed in by law and conscience. God has kept man from the worst of the consequences of its godlessness, in a place of relative safety. But it is short of the life for which our souls yearn.

In this pen we know life, but it is a life of shortage and constraint. It is a life without abundance, in which everyone competes (some violently), and in which even those who have most still are not satisfied. It is a place of anxiety and sickness in mind and heart as much as in our bodies.

It is a place that Ephesians 2:12 describes as “alienated” and “strangers”, “having no hope and without God”.

Mostly, people are blind to this deeper alienation from life and penned-in-ness. Bot perhaps this current crisis can open our eyes to its reality – if we take time to let our current feelings of restriction and half-life, illuminate the normality of life we knew before, and will know again when it ends.

Many Shepherds

The sheep, as Jesus tells us, are not without potential shepherds to lead them out. It seems that there are always those coming to the sheep with the offer of something better. Jesus describes them by their methods and their motives.

By their methods, he says, they go over the wall. They are not willing, or able, to enter in by the gate. Nor will the gatekeeper open it to them. Their way is wrong.

By their motives, they are wolves in sheep’s clothing. Thieves, they only come to “steal and kill and destroy”. At their best, they are in it for themselves, but at the root of what they do is one who only wants to steal and kill and destroy. Their hearts are wrong also.

The reason why they avoid the gate is because it is a way of suffering and, ultimately, of death. The sheep are held from life by this gate – as those “who through fear of death are subject to lifelong slavery” (Heb 2:15). This is mankind’s predicament, and in this pen (without Christ) we live our lives in futility.

However, it is amazing what you can do in this pen. We can be very good at making the best of a bad job. And just as in our present situation, there are always those offering ways out; voices proclaiming life in this way or that. They are thieves, all of them, but they can sound very persuasive. It is going to take some effort of faith and hearing the true shepherd to protect us from these deceptive sirens.

The Good Shepherd

But there is one who is truly Good. He has come to us to set us free and lead us to life in abundance. And he became the gate for us by his own entering through the gate of suffering and death. Only he could. Only he was willing …. and the gatekeeper opened the gate to him, accepting his suffering and death on our behalf.

So, now, Jesus is the gate. He is able to lead the sheep out, and into life. He calls, and those whom God calls in Jesus, he gives ears to hear and to recognise their true shepherd. He is both the gate through which the sheep go out and enter in, and he is the life that they enter into. The sheep who go out and in with him are no longer strangers and aliens, no longer without hope and without God.

And in him there is real freedom “to go out and in”. Not out and into the old pen again; “out and in” expresses the freedom of those who live in Christ to live unconstrained by the pen and gate that had held them. And Jesus leads them to pasture, the food that they were made for … in God himself.

This parable is about Jesus, the good shepherd, but it is meant to open our eyes first to our own predicament – we are penned in away from the fullness of life for which we know we were made, and for which we yearn. We ought to take time to see this and feel this, or we will not recognise the goodness of the shepherd when he calls.

Learning to Hear, learning to Follow

But, we should be careful to hear all that Jesus teaches us about the way of life. If we heard only this parable, we might think that all the sheep need to do is hear Jesus call and follow him out to life.

More than One Event

In one sense, that is true. Jesus himself describes this experience for the sheep as being born again. He says that those who hear his voice and believe in him have already passed from death to life. There is a real and glorious truth in the gospel that, hearing and believing, something fundamental changes in us; we become his sheep, and no one can snatch us from his hand.

But that is not all the truth. The new flock (church) that comes out to Jesus as Acts starts, has much to learn, challenges to face and – as Paul will later tell them – it is through many troubles that they must enter the kingdom (Acts 14:22). Paul, himself, when he was called was shown how much he must suffer for this new life. And Peter, as he was reinstated as a key under shepherd was shown his own suffering also.

Whilst coming out with Jesus, through the gate that is suffering and death, to life and freedom is, at one level an event (like being born), it is also a process of growing up into a new life and leaving the old life behind. While we do now taste the life of the world to come, we do not now its fullness; we still live in a world that rejects God, awaiting the new world of righteousness that Jesus will bring. And we ourselves are not yet fit for that new world, we have lots of growing and changing to do.

Suffering with the Good Shepherd

So, one of the realities of hearing and following Jesus is that we must go out by the gate that he has opened for us. And that gate is one of suffering and death. Its reality is shown in the initiation of Baptism, which is into his death (Rom 6:4), and in the ongoing sharing in his suffering by which we press on into the hope of eternal life (Phil 3:10).

Paul and Peter (especially in his first letter which we read from today), speak eloquently of this. And yet, too many Christians regard suffering as surprising, as something to be avoided, and as questioning their trust in God. In reality, when we suffer for Jesus sake, it is “a gracious thing” as Peter says. Such suffering is like the pruning of fruitful vines that Jesus speaks of in John 15. It both helps remove dead wood from our lives and deepens our spiritual life and hope in Jesus.

When we chose to follow Jesus, even through sufferings, it deepens our trust and strengthens our hope, because it says that we regard knowing him as more precious than avoiding suffering, which we regards as “light and momentary” compared to the “weight of Glory” promised in Jesus (2 Cor 4:17). It also glorifies God in Jesus as we value him mor highly than any worldly comfort.

So, let us not be surprised by suffering when we are following Jesus. It is a gracious thing and a promise of blessing (Matt 5:11). It is the narrow way that leads to abundant life

Discerning His Voice amongst the Voices

Notice also that the one who leads us out to life does so by his voice. If we hear Jesus and recognise that God is speaking to us, that is already a gift from God to us. Like the Emmaus disciples, are hearts are strangely warmed when he speaks to us.

But we should not take such hearing for granted. There are many voices, loudly clamouring for our attention. Jesus sheep can discern the Good Shepherd’s voice and should indeed flee from any other voice that calls out, but we must not underestimate the deceiver –

“For false christs and false prophets will arise and perform great signs and wonders, so as to lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” (Matt 24:24)

We have a part to play in hearing. To be “all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election” (2 Pet 1:10). It is as we continue to hear, and respond faithfully as we do hear, that we renew our minds (and hearts) and learn how to discern the will of God (Rom 12:2). By testing, that is by hearing and doing, we become better hearers, better at discerning his voice.

Part of this comes from spending time in his word and letting it abide in us; meditating and chewing it over. The more we hear, understand and shape our hearts and minds with his word, the more we are able to reject the false voices. No matter how reasonable, plausible and persuasive they may sound, if they don’t sound like Jesus, we should flee from them

Growing up Into Christ

The Good shepherd enters by the door and becomes the door – the Way – by which his sheep, responding to his call go out from the pen that had held them in half-life. Going out they are also called to go in – to go, more and more into the new life that they have come to in Jesus. As new sheep they are to feed on the pure spiritual milk that Jesus offers and to grow up into him. That is our calling

Look at 2 Peter (as I have already referenced above), it is a picture of this growing up into Christ –

For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue, and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they keep you from being ineffective or unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

For whoever lacks these qualities is so near-sighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleansed from his former sins. Therefore, brothers, be all the more diligent to confirm your calling and election, for if you practice these qualities you will never fall. For in this way there will be richly provided for you an entrance into the eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. (2 Pet 1:5-11)

Faith is the foundation, the root, but true saving faith grows – in virtuous living, increasing knowledge of the truth, self-control with steadfastness (even in suffering).  It grows to look more and more like the God who calls us and shows itself in godly love. And thus, we are richly provided with an entrance into the abundant life of the “eternal kingdom of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.”

Not Going Back

So, finally, we need to remember where we started; the pen in which the sheep lived before the Good Shepherd came. The way to life is hard and there is always the opportunity to turn back. We need to remember what the pen was really like.

When the Israelites faced hunger in the wilderness on the journey to the promised land, they remembered the cucumbers that they had in Egypt – Cucumbers!! It seems ridiculous that life with Jesus, as we journey out to enter into life, could be so hard that we look back wistfully on past cucumbers. But times will come when we may think the way too hard and long for the life we knew in the pen. We need to remember how futile, hopeless and Godless it was.

And we need to remember what we are journeying out towards. Life in all its abundance in Christ. Like Joseph, who “considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward.” (Heb 11:26).

Perhaps, then, our feeling of being penned in right now, is a gift. Let us not miss its precious lessons – or forget them when these restrictions are released.

Jesus has spoken about dying and rising again on many occasions in his last months, but they had been so fixated in his entering into Jerusalem as King and conquering Messiah, that they could not grasp what that might really mean. Now, Jesus was telling them why he had to “suffer these things and enter into his glory”

• Hebrews 11:8–16 He was looking forward to the city, whose designer and builder is God

What does it all mean?

This is not just a speculative historical question; it is real for us too. We must grapple with the reality that Jesus is alive and reject purely spiritual and metaphorical explanations – he is alive. But we must also grapple with what this means for us today.

The disciples had misunderstood what Jesus had been teaching them, because they had made him part of their own imagined story. Theirs was story of a conquering king, enthroned and ruling in Jerusalem with places of honour for his disciples. As they would come to discover, his was a story of conquering through suffering, and they would indeed have places of honour as they suffered with him.

I wonder what story we have put Jesus into in our lives. I suspect the we, too, are missing something of what he is telling us, because it does not fit with our story. Perhaps he is drawing alongside us – even as we wander of in the wrong direction – to say “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe all that the prophets have spoken!”

We had hoped that he was the one to …

And now we have an extraordinary opportunity given to us by God. Like those first disciples our world has fallen apart. A way of life that seems so solid has been brought to nothing. A way of being Christians, of being Church, has been closed down. Who know when normality will return and what it will look like when it does?

We are in Transition

And, in our particular context, this is magnified. It seems likely that church services will not have started before I retire at the end of June. Our churches are facing a period of real transition. I do not expect that I will be replaced by another Rector any time soon. It seems likely to me that, when someone is appointed to replace me, it will not simply be to look after the existing six churches.

Transition does not simply mean drafting a profile and advert for what you all want in terms of church and potential leader. It means grappling with what is possible and what is not. It means grappling with what God is calling you all to be, and become, and with whom. It means facing deep financial challenges, and deep spiritual and life choices.

Are we willing to consider that “what we had hoped” may not be what Jesus is about?

Museum or Mission

After Jesus had died the disciples had not entirely given up. Some were wandering off home (to Emmaus and elsewhere), but others continued to stay together. You can imagine that they might have become a group who gathered from time to time to reminisce and remember.

Even after that realised Jesus was alive and saw him taken into heaven – with a promise to return in glory – they could have continued as a waiting group, keeping alive the memory and the hope. In their communion meals they would remember. And they would keep alive the hope, keep the faith.

But Jesus, being alive, also called them to live and gave them something to live for, a mission and purpose. And it would need Jesus living in them, for them to accomplish this calling, so he told them to wait for the promise of the Holy Spirit. We will get to that in a few weeks, but today we see something of what a difference he would make in our reading from Acts – as Peter stands and proclaims Jesus “Lord and Christ”, and calls the crowds to faith and repentance.

Every generation the church faces the same choice. Are we going to be a museum of faith or a memorial society – reminiscing and keeping the faith and hope alive. Or are we going to live. Are we going to pursue the mission and purpose that Jesus has given us; making every attempt to live as citizens and heralds of the kingdom in this world as we await its coming with Jesus. If we do, we know it will not be easy or comfortable. We still live in a world that is fundamentally opposed to this kingdom. Like Jesus it will welcome us up to a point, but like Jesus we will also suffer when our hope does not fit, or our faith treads on the wrong toes.

Museum or Mission, do we have a choice?

At some stage, the present lockdown is going to begin to be relaxed. I suspect that churches will first be allowed to be opened for private prayer, and eventually for church services. However, we are being told that those over 70 may need to keep self-isolating for some time beyond this. Thinking about our churches, what would they look like if over 70’s were asked to self-isolate; who would lead, who would come?

End of Life Care or Nappies

This reminds us who we are; who we have become. There are churches with younger people and families where there is a real sense of all ages pursuing church together. But we are not there, and it is hard for young people and families to join us in ones or twos, without feeling apart as if they don’t belong. And some of our older member may rightly feel that they don’t want to cope with a more ‘family’ orientated church. That is where we are. We might want to be a more family church, but you might even question whether it is a choice that we can make?

God will always build his church. He will always pursue his mission. But I have wondered whether some parts of his church may be more like end of life care, whilst something different grows elsewhere or alongside it. It’s a serious question, and one that we should be praying about earnestly.

The alternative, if we can achieve it, will radically shape what we know of as Church. When we welcome new life into our families, it is always messy and chaotic. The needs of that new life demand to be met and that we bear the cost – of putting up with nappies, of living tired, and of living in new ways that mean learning on the job.

Not many of us have experience of true multi-generational households. They are possible, but everyone has to give way and give up some comfort, and everyone has to learn to treasure one another young and old, for what they are. Having granny move in with you, or having the children move back home, are both metaphors that demonstrate the costliness of living in a multi-generational church

Nostalgia is not what it was

And part of recognising our reality, must acknowledge that nostalgia is not what it was. Our villages and communities have deep roots. More than many places we have large numbers who have lived here for years – some born and bred. It is natural that many may look back at what church used to be like, when many more of our neighbours regularly gathered with us and wonder whether it could be like that again.

I often speak to people who tell me that they used to be in the choir, or that they used to come when they were younger. And, it is natural for those who do still come to look back at a time when church was a bigger thing. But we should be careful about such nostalgia. However, we remember it, that church was the one that failed to keep all those people who do not come now. However big it was, it was not deep and real enough to sustain real worshiping faith in significant numbers of its congregation.

Nostalgia is not what it was, and we should be wary of trying to build that church again.

Church, but not as we know it

So, where do we go? How do we pursue the meaning of Jesus being alive – and calling us to life – in our context? I am not sure I know. It is easier to see where the answers do not lie – like going back to what church used to be like – than to see where they do.

I do believe that the church that Jesus is building in this generation is going to look messy. And, we need to see what our part is in the church’s transformation: we need to be honest in recognising our situation (who we are, and where we are); and we need to see where God is moving, willing to let go of structures that are getting in the way, and to form new relationships and partnerships.

• At the heart of this church is going to be people who don’t just go to church because its normal, but who have come to know Jesus and love him; whose hearts and minds and whole lives are captured by all that he is and what he is doing. But, together, those people are going to look messy.
• And it needs to be a church that is not defined by the way it worships (high, low, or whatever), but by the one it worships and by the Spirit and Truth in which it worships.
• It needs to be a church in which every human barrier is broken down (race, age, class, ethnicity …), but that is not merely inclusive. It must seek to include all in Christ, to be shaped and defined by his truth and love – open to all but utterly costly to be part of.
• It will need to bear with messiness. When new life comes into our lives it brings sleepless nights, nappies, enormous amounts of bearing-with. It is going to bring tensions, and disagreements that must be overcome. And it must have a place for everybody that God brings to faith and adds to its number; the young treasuring the old, and the old making space for the young to grow.
• And, it will need to really discover how to journey together. In the Exodus, the whole company journeyed together; young and old, those with faith and those struggling with doubts. Some died on the way and others entered in to ‘the promised land’. But they did not split off into different camps, they journeyed together.

Do we have a choice? Can we do this?

That is a hard question to answer. In one sense we always have a choice in Christ – God is the God of the Impossible. And, in a sense we do not have a choice’ God is going to work his purposes out and build his church, whatever we chose. Perhaps out true choice is to hear what he is saying and play our part in what he is doing.

I do wonder, sometimes, whether the Church of England as an institution is capable of responding to what God is doing with his church in our time. But, while it is stiff and over-structured, it also has a spirit of working together built into its DNA. Growth and change has often come best when, at a local level, people are willing to forget some of the structural stiffness and rules, and simply get on working with those around them in who they see God working.

So, I believe that we (or I should say, You) do have a choice. But the one choice we do not have is to do nothing, or to simply try and carry on as we have always done.

Crisis is Opportunity

It may be that the coronavirus is an extraordinary God-given opportunity for us to become more like the Church that God wants us to be. That our churches are facing a period of Transition at the same time is a real challenge, but may also be a blessing.

There is an old Irish tale of a traveller asking directions from a local and being told “you can’t get there from here”. In God, at least this side of Jesus’ return, that is never the case. The way may be hard, but if he has set where we are going to in our heart – if we are not willing to settle for anything less, even if it is hard to describe what we are looking for – God will bring us to journey’s end in Jesus. We are, after all a Pilgrim People. Christians were first called (before they were called Christians) the Followers of the Way.

Let Abraham be our example

• By faith Abraham obeyed when he was called to go out to a place that he was to receive as an inheritance.
• And he went out, not knowing where he was going.
• By faith he went … living in tents … for he was looking forward to the city that has foundations, whose designer and builder is God.
• By faith they died, not having received the things promised, but having seen them and greeted them from afar, and having acknowledged that they were strangers and exiles on the earth.
• they are seeking a homeland.
• They could have gone back or settled down, but as it is, they desire a better country, that is, a heavenly one.
• Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for he has prepared for them a city.

It is now two weeks since Easter Day. Jesus has appeared to the disciples on several occasions and will continue to do so – the lectionary this year does not cover the beach barbecue and Peter’s reconciliation. But it is evident to all the core disciples that Jesus is alive.

• Luke 24:13–35 The Road to Emmaus
• Acts 2:14a, 36–41 Repent and be Baptised
• 1 Peter 1:17–23 Conduct yourselves with fear throughout the time of your exile

He is Alive

The fact of his resurrection is clear. He has been raised to life in a human bodily form. He is not a merely a spirit, or a vision. And there is certainly no sense that the Disciples gradually came to a metaphorical understanding of resurrection – as if life goes on and so must everything that Jesus taught and stood for.

This much is foundational and given; Jesus had truly died and yet now he is alive and real, in a body that could be touched; recognisable, but different. Those who try to make the resurrection something purely spiritual or even metaphorical, misread the witness of these first disciples. These were real encounters with a real embodied person.

Nothing else can explain the effect that Jesus had on his disciples in his resurrection appearances. The witness statements are as chaotic as you would expect, there were doubts and doubts overcome, but the reality of the disciples before and after makes it clear – Jesus had risen from death to life.

But, Why just these Appearances?

But why does Jesus just appear in this way, just to the disciples? Why does he not just walk back into Jerusalem and show himself to everyone?

I am sure that that is what most of us would have done … Tada! You thought you had killed me, but you can’t, I have conquered death, and I am back!

But that is not Jesus’ plan. He is not seeking people who are convinced by their eyes and are forced to recognise that he is alive. He is looking for people for whom something happens at a deeper, more fundamental, level. That is why he told Thomas that those would be more blessed who believe without seeing him.

One day “every eye will see”. One day Jesus will appear, not just alive, but in the full display of his Glory and power. Then, every knee will bow. But not every heart will bow. Some, who have longed for his appearing, will bow in worship and joy. But others, who have hated and rejected Jesus and his teaching, will bow in fear and condemnation.

Now, though, is the year of his good favour. Now is the day of God’s patience, which is meant to give us space for repentance. Now is a precious time when the gift of faith and new life is offered. Now, it has come to pass “that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved.’ (Acts 2:21)

So, oddly, it seems that Jesus’ appearances are not so much about proving that he is alive, but about doing something in the lives of those to whom he appears. So, his appearances are about

• Grace, and
• Purpose

Jesus’ Appearances are about Grace

First, there is Grace. Jesus is Lord, but he appears more as shepherd and healer: whether it is to Mary outside the tomb, to Thomas, the Emmaus disciples, or Peter. Jesus appears not so much to the disciples as a whole, but to each disciple, as they need.

He comes to them to deal with reconciliation and renewal, but also to something more, which I can only describe as living-relationship.

Reconciliation and Renewal

Some of the disciples have had visible failures (e.g. Peter and Thomas). For others (perhaps Mary and the Emmaus disciples), it is more subtle; a failure of hope or faith. To each one Jesus comes with reconciliation and renewal.

When you have let someone down it causes a separation, a distance, which needs reconciliation. But, so can disappointment and not trusting or believing someone. If these things are true in our ordinary lives, they are certainly true in our relationship with Jesus.

The crisis of the crucifixion brought much of this out, but it exists in all of us in the normality of our lives. When we love things that Jesus does not love – think of James & John seeking power and prestige – or when we do not love those whom Jesus loves; all these things, we know, damage our relationship with Jesus.

In such damaged relationships, someone must make the first move. It is always Jesus. As he came to the disciples then, so he comes to us now, in the peculiar circumstances of this lockdown. And, because it is grace, he does not force things. He comes and looks for our response

May each of us recognise him as he comes and respond with repentance and faith. Let us not be afraid to admit our sinful failures and allow him to reshape our understanding in faith and hope.

Living-Relationship

However, there is something more than reconciliation and renewal. As if Jesus merely sought to renew the relationship that he had had with his disciples. This is the risen Lord. He may still hide his glory from the masses, but he reveals himself to his disciples; to us. And he is seeking a relationship that goes beyond what those disciples had known … and possible what we have known.

Jesus had walked with them. Now he is looking to live in them. They had lived with Jesus. Now he is looking for them – and us – to find a life that is in and from him. As he had said:

“So Jesus said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day. For my flesh is true food, and my blood is true drink. Whoever feeds on my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me, and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father, so whoever feeds on me, he also will live because of me. This is the bread that came down from heaven, not like the bread the fathers ate, and died. Whoever feeds on this bread will live forever.” (Jn 6:53-58)

We may often talk about having a personal relationship with Jesus. But is this what it is like for you? Unless he lives in you, unless your life is only through his living in you, he says you have no life. This is the ‘personal relationship’ Jesus is seeking with us. It is not about believing in him, or even knowing him, and it is not about letting him into your life. It is about putting your life (poor as it is) into his hands, letting go of it to die with him, and receiving a new life that only lives in him as he lives in you.

This takes a lifetime to fathom, and our physical death to complete. But Jesus will keep coming to us until he accomplishes his desire to have us completely – or, to put it better, for us to have him completely.

Jesus’ Appearances are about Purpose

If Jesus appears – comes to them, and us – with Grace, he also comes to share a new purpose. Mary was told to share what she had seen with the disciples and tell them to go to galilee, Peter was told to feed and tend Jesus’ sheep. All of them, and us were given a purpose and goal:

• To become a New People of God
• To call others to join them as God’s New People

Becoming a New People

We do not find one single description of this call and purpose in the Gospels, but we see it in action in the book of Acts – and in our reading today. John writes that we may believe and have life in Jesus. In Matthew, the command is to make disciples and build a community of disciples. In Luke it is expressed as being Spirit filled witnesses (surely not just in words, but in our whole lives). In Mark it to go and proclaim the Gospel (again, not just in words).

So, Peter proclaims the name by which all must be saved and calls people to repentance and to be baptised into Jesus. It is not just a call to be saved, but to be joined into Jesus and his people. That day “there were added … about three thousand souls”. What were they added to? They were added to a community of faith and new life together in Jesus.

We need to recognise this in our day, to rediscover again the Body of Christ and our part in it. We may think of mission merely in adding new members to our number, but God is calling us to a mission that is, first, about being and becoming a New People – Christ being formed in us.

So, Peter tells us, our obedience to the Gospel (in repentance, faith and new way of life), is for “a sincere love of the brethren”. It is for building a new community of Love in the Truth of Christ. A Community who will bear witness to Christ in them, in the way they love one another.

Reproducing and Multiplying

And such love cannot but overflow, if it is true love. No true community of Christ can truly love and encourage each other to grow up into the fullness of life that is in Jesus, without overflowing. We are called to be witnesses. We are called to have open doors and hearts to welcome those that God will add to our number.

We are called also to be ‘going’ people. People who will go out to those who are not seeking, or whose hearts are seeking, but feel that they are disqualified from God’s love. Just as in our broken relationship, Jesus always make the first move, so we are called to make the first move with our neighbours.

His Grace and a new Goal (or purpose) in life are what he brings when he comes to us.

He is Alive

Hallelujah, Christ is risen! He is risen indeed, Hallelujah!

Jesus is alive. And he is coming to us, calling to us to be alive in him. It is not enough to believe that Jesus is alive, unless we respond to his coming and call:

• Be Reconciled and Renewed – let him touch hose things in you that keep you at a distance from him, and from his loved ones.
• Feed on His Living – let him become more than a companion and helper. Let him become how and why you live.
• Pursue being his Body – in our isolation it may be a challenge, but let us pursue what makes for building up his body (Rom 14:19, Eph 4:16)
• Put yourself Out for Others – again, in our isolation it may be a challenge, but let us find ways of talking to our neighbours, showing his love and sharing his truth. People are more open to talking now than ever.

Like those first disciples, he comes to open us up to faith, to free us with his peace, and to send us to a fearful world as living testimonies of hope.

Let us welcome him, and worship him, together.

• John 20:19–31 Jesus appears to the Disciples & Thomas
• Acts 2:14a, 22–32 Peter testifies to Jesus Resurrection
• 1 Peter 1:3–9 Born again to a Living Hope

Introduction

Within the general question, in our current crisis, of ‘when will this end?’ are deeper questions: What does it mean for me, for us? How do I live through this, live with this? What will it lead to? Does this change anything, or everything?

The questions are real, and they do not have any easy answers. In part we will have to wait and see. But in part, those answers will depend on how we respond, and what we will make of this in our own lives and communities.

And there is a yearning for change. As, in the restrictions and vulnerabilities that we are going through, we catch a glimpse of what really matters, so many are hoping that things will not just go back to normal. The veil has slipped a bit from our eyes. We have begun to see what was wrong with the old ‘normal’ … and we have begun to hope for something better.

All this all seems so relevant as we think about the meaning of Easter. The same questions and yearning for something better must have been part of the disciples’ response to that awful Friday and the perplexing joy that began to invade their lives that Sunday morning.

Strange Appearances

As witness statements, the Gospel accounts of that first Sunday are a mess – as you would expect from genuine witnesses. The tomb was open and Jesus body was gone – as were the soldiers who were guarding it. The accounts of the first witnesses were unclear, mixed with fear and wonder. Some said that they had seen Jesus alive and some had seen angel messengers.

First Appearance to the Disciples

By the end of the day that were still no clearer, and they were afraid – how would the authorities react to this and what had happened to the guard? So, they were hiding together behind locked doors. And then, Jesus appears, apparently whole and recognisable with words of peace and words of commission.

John does not record what else happened that night, if Jesus said anything else, or how he left. There is just his being with them, physically evidencing his resurrection with two gifts

• Peace – In place of the fear Jesus gives them his peace
• Purpose – In place of their hiding he gives them his purpose

As and aside, we should note that there is no sense of the Holy Spirit actually being given in v.22. The disciples were not immediately changed as they would be when they received the Spirit. Jesus is prophetically enacting what will happen at Pentecost – a dramatic promise

Second Appearance

There were other appearances that day, e.g. on the road to Emmaus, but it was another week before Jesus appears again to the gathered disciples. What happened that week we do not know, except that Thomas (who had not been there that Sunday night) expressed his serious doubts about Jesus resurrection.

So, a week later, Jesus appears to them again. This time Thomas is there, and Jesus calls him to faith in himself and in his resurrection life. Thomas’ response is a dramatic receiving of faith, “my Lord and my God’, which Jesus turns into the promise that many will believe without seeing as Thomas did.

Again, there is a twin gift of Peace and Purpose

Other Appearances

There were other appearances, some of have been recorded for us. So, John records how Jesus deals with Peter’s failure an appearance in Galilee. Central to all of them is this sense of Peace and Purpose.

• Peace that involves forgiveness, renewal and restoration
• Purpose that involves offering that peace to others through the same forgiveness. And such a purpose that involves responsibility; those who they forgive will be forgiven, but those they do not forgive will not be forgiven.

For Faith

But why does Jesus keep appearing and disappearing? Before his death, Jesus had been with his disciples, night and day, for three years. After his resurrection he only appears to them from time to time. I think that John gives us a clue as to why, when he says:

“these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name” (v.31)

Just as Jesus delayed going to Lazarus to deepen the faith of his disciples and reveal more of his glory, now he rations his appearing to deepen their faith in who he is. Faith that is not dependent on his physical presence. When he says, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed”, he means it. Somehow, faith that believes without seeing is greater and its blessing, also, is greater.

Living Hope

Which brings us back to where we are today. I believe that Jesus wants to draw us all – everyone of us – into a deeper faith and blessing in him; to know the Peace that he gives more fully, and to live the Purpose that he calls us to more faithfully.

Looking back, years later, on what living out that Peace and Purpose really means, Peter describes it as a Living Hope. That is a Spirit inspired description of what it is to be a Christian, in the light and power of Easter

Hope that Lives

Through Jesus’ resurrection from the dead – as we believe and trust in him – we are born again to a Living Hope -a hope that is not just future, but changes life now.

Dramatic and radical as the current Coronavirus Crisis is, and much as it has inspired a hope for something better, it has not changed everything. But when we come to Jesus in Faith – when we place our lives in his hands, to die with him and live in him, everything is changed. The world around us may not seem to have changed, but we have. For us, in Christ, everything is made new. Our life is now not as we see it in this world, but hidden with Christ in God, waiting to be revealed.

What that life will be when it appears, no eye has seen of heart imagined. But we have a foretaste of it now in the gift of his Spirit to us. Like Jesus’ appearances, it keeps breaking into our lives and revealing a new peace and purpose.

So, we have a hope for something in Christ – like an inheritance secured by his death for us and kept for us, “imperishable, undefiled, and unfading” – but it is not just a future hope – this hope lives in us now. Somehow it is expressed in our living, now.

For now, life may seem constrained and limited – that is implied in the word ‘guarded’ in 1 Pet 1:5. For now, this new life may seem to be tested (questioned, might be another way of describing this), but this only so that its roots – faith – might be deepened and strengthened. Faith is everything if Hope is to be Living for us.

Following the Disciples in the Way

There seems to be so much that we see the disciples experiencing in the days after Jesus resurrection that echoes with where we are now that I want to frame the questions that I started with in this Easter context:

1. What does it mean for me, for us?
   What does the whole reality of Easter mean for you? Paul expressed it this way –

“For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died, and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised.” (2 Cor 5:14-15).

Does it feel that radical to you, as if you have died and the life you now live is not your own? People with near death experiences speak like this, can we?

• How do I live through this and with this?
  If the current crisis challenges us to live differently, how much more should the reality of Jesus death, resurrection and coming glory challenge us to live differently? It is not without its complications and challenges. Scripture describes it as living as strangers and aliens, citizens of a different country, fitting in where we can, but living by different values and rules. Are we finding it too easy to live in this world, when we are meant to be citizens of another?
• What will it lead to?
  Just as many are looking not just for an end to the current crisis, but for what it may bring about in changing our world, we are called to look forward to an end to the real crisis of this current world – the deadly virus of sin that denies us the goodness and glory of God. Thinking about the reality of the resurrection and what it means to doubt it, Paul said –   

“If in Christ we have hope in this life only, we are of all people most to be pitied.” (1 Cor 15:19)

What are we truly hoping in? The way we live will reveal what it is.

• Does this change everything?
  This is the crucial question. The Coronavirus does not change everything. You only have to look at the way people are responding to it to see this is true. But Jesus death and resurrection does truly change everything; now for those who are his through faith in him, and eventually for the whole world. But, has it changed everything for you?   

I am the way

We are following those first disciples in the way that they lived through the invasion of the resurrected Christ into their lives. Like them, we ill face doubts and difficulties, failures, and faith.

But Jesus is still breaking in to lives, still making appearances by his Spirit. Let us use this time as his gift; a gift of Peace and Purpose. Like them, we may miss the old and comfortable ‘normal’, but in Jesus there is a better way of living, a better way of being church. Let us hope and pray, with one heart and mind in Christ, until we can see it together.

• Acts 10:34–43
• Colossians 3:1–4
• John 20:1–18

It is a hard soul who can contemplate the torture and crucifixion of Jesus without being moved. And who can come to news of his resurrection without being given hope. Just as, In the midst of our current crisis it is not statistics that matter most, but the stories of individuals and families going through such suffering and loss. And those who have recovered from the near death of ICU on a ventilator are celebrated as signs of hope for all of us.

Something more than Empathy

We can all come to Good Friday and to Easter day with the same deep empathetic involvement: moved to tears and sorrow at the Cross and dancing with joy before the empty tomb. But Jesus death and his resurrection life are about so much more than this.

He is risen! Hallelujah, Christ is risen!

But, if you will forgive me putting it like, this … so what? What is the real difference to you, and me?

A Mystery to Unfold

We stand, as Christians now, with the benefit of so much in the New Testament that explains the meaning of this Resurrection. But on that first day it was different. The resurrection is the climax to Jesus’ work in his earthly ministry, but it did not happen with one big bang – with everyone rejoicing together. That day was a chaotic mixture of comings and goings, misunderstanding and faith, fear and joy.

It was going to take many days more of Jesus showing himself to his Disciples for the reality of what had happened to begin to dawn on the Disciples. Many, like Mary Magdalene, Thomas, Peter and more, would have their own meeting with Jesus. Even when a huge crowd saw Jesus taken into heaven, some doubted. And, as Peter discovered weeks alter in our reading from Acts, the true implications would take much longer than one day to be unfolded.

So, as we celebrate today, I could ask what the resurrection is about, and I am sure many of us would give a good answer, but I am wary of thinking that we truly understand its meaning yet. We may be a long way from the simple empathy of spectators, weeping at the sorrow of the cross and rejoicing at the resurrection as a sign that life goes on. But, I am sure, that there is more in the new reality that this day brings – that is certainly what the resurrection brings, a new reality – that we have yet to come to know and live.

WHY?

Why did Jesus die, and why was he resurrected?

All that Jesus did, from his incarnation through to his death and resurrection is for a purpose – actually, for many purposes, though perhaps they have one central purpose.

Certainly, it was to obtain the forgiveness of our sins, as peter says, so “that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.” But that is only the beginning. Without that, nothing else of all God’s glorious purposes for us in Christ are possible, but what are those purposes.

John Piper has written a brief book “The Passion of Jesus Christ” in which he sets out (from scripture) 50 reasons for Jesus’ death and resurrection. And, as I have read it again, I have recognized that these 50 reasons are not exhaustive.

What does it mean for you?

Hidden within this first ‘why’, is a further question. What does it all mean for you? What difference has Jesus death and resurrection made for you, what difference is it now making for you, what difference will it make for you as your life unfolds?

The resurrection is a reality change for the whole of creation. It is a reality that can, for a time, be embraced or rejected. One day its reality – the risen Jesus – will come to this world in glory. He will confront all who have rejected him and hardened their hearts and he will welcome all who have embraced his new reality and been transformed by it.

So, I am eager this morning, that none of us should miss the depths of riches for life that are hidden in the mystery of Jesus resurrection.

A Living Hope

In Colossians, we hear that our life has been changed by this new reality in Jesus. So, the life that you now have in Jesus is hidden with him in God. There is something not yet fully revealed in this hidden life. So, “When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory”. You are new and being made new in Christ, and what your truly are in him is yet to be revealed.

Peter expresses it like this:

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! According to his great mercy, he has caused us to be born again to a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead …” (1 Pet 1:3)

Living Hope

Through his resurrection, Jesus has brought us to life – a radical life-change that is like being born again – and this life is described as Living Hope.

Our hope is truly ours in Christ – perfected and kept for us as an inheritance, imperishable, undefiled and unfading. And we are being kept, through faith in Jesus, until it is revealed to us in his coming. But now, in the meanwhile, it is not just a future hope, but a hope that lives in us now.

Such is the weight of glory in this hope that nothing that happens to us in what we know now – coronavirus or other sickness, loss and grief, fear and weakness, suffering and persecution – none of it compares to the hope that lives in us and for which we long.

Set your Hearts and Minds on it

No wonder God says, set your hearts and minds on the things above; the hope that is kept for us, the life that is hidden waiting to be revealed.

So, as we rejoice this Easter Day don’t settle for a simple joy in the fact that Jesus is alive. Let us pray that God will unfold to us, just as he did for those first disciples, all the height and depth and length and breadth of his purposes towards us in Christ.

We won’t get it all today, just as those disciples didn’t. It is for today and tomorrow and the next day; forgetting what lies behind and pressing on towards the upwards call of God in Christ Jesus. It may take closed church buildings and much more, but set your hearts and minds on Christ and he will bring you to it.

A Hope to Share

And, one final thought; on that day not everyone saw or understood, but people told people what they had seen. This was a living hope that lived and grew as it was shared. Let us share it too today.

Not everyone gets it. Not everyone gets it at once – some, like Thomas longer than others. Perhaps that’s why Jesus did not reveal himself to everyone, but only to a chosen few. So that they would share this living Hope as they received it. It is grace, mercy and extraordinary patience that has called to us and now calls through us.

Then, on the day that our life is revealed in his appearing, our joy will be all the greater, because it is shared

The Unfolding Mystery of life … in Jesus Christ

So, this Easter Day, let us celebrate and rejoice in what we have come to know. And let us press on together to discover the unfolding mystery of the resurrection of Jesus Christ; in us, in our churches and for all our world.

Hallelujah, Christ is Risen! He is risen indeed, hallelujah!

He is our food and drink. He is the sacrifice and covenant. He is the way we love one another. Every part of our liturgy is about him.

• 1 Corinthians 11:23–26 You Proclaim the Lord’s Death
• Matthew 26:26–29 This is My Body … this my Blood of the Covenant

A Reflection

Maundy Thursday, the last supper is a historic event, part of an extraordinary week, the climax to Jesus’ three years of earthly ministry. It is the first communion, and the background to every communion since then. But when we come to this day in 2020 we don’t merely remember that evening with Jesus among his disciples 2,000 years ago. Nor, when we participate in communion do we merely repeat what Jesus did with his disciples that night.

Jesus is amongst us now, and our communion is with him now, in 2020 in the midst of a viral pandemic. We need to know him now, as they did then. We need to hear him say to us,

• I am the way for you in this ‘now’,
• I am the truth that you can stand on now (a solid rock), and
• I am life for you to live in this ‘now’.

I am grateful for the confusion, misunderstanding, and failures that the gospels tell us were part of what those disciples experienced and lived through then. It reminds me that there is a place for us as we come to him now.

When David reflected on this reality, he recognised that the Lord is a shepherd to us through all our life. In him we will never lack as his faithful love pursues us every day. And we know that we can be confident that we will always be with him, not because of anything on our part, but because of him, the shepherd who has bought us with his own blood.

This shepherd will lead us, perhaps for much of our life, to green pastures and clear waters; things that will refresh and restore us. But he will always, at some time, bring us to the valley of shadows. The paths of righteousness lead this way (as scripture affirms, it is through many troubles that we must enter his kingdom). Here, it is not green pastures or clear water he gives us, but his own presence and his table.

In such times we need to know that he is with us, with rod and staff – so, whatever comes our way in this world, we know that he has overcome the world. Nothing can take us from his hands. And if we think we are not worthy, he says you did not choose me, I chose you.

But he gives more than security and confidence. He spreads a table in the midst of our troubles.

He spreads a table, just as he did for his disciples on that dark night of fear and loss. He says, eat and drink; this is my body, this is my blood. And he anoints our head with the oil of his Spirit. It is as if, in the sunlit days he leads us to places and things where we may feed and be refreshed, but in the dark shadow days he draws us to himself.

I know that he feeds us in himself on all days (sunlit or shadowed). But in the way that we experience it, it seems so much more precious in the days of shadow, that he draws us to himself all the more closely. And, there, what we feed on is more clearly his body and his blood – Jesus himself.

So, tonight, what I am seeking myself, and praying for you to know, is not that we somehow recapture what it was like that last night with his disciples, but that we have our own night with him, here and now. That Jesus, himself, might be to you:

• the presence that calms your fears;
• the sweetness that transforms your sorrows;
• the strength that upholds your weakness;
• the love that empowers your love … and so much more.

If this seems strange and fanciful, it is hard to explain or convey what I mean, but it is not fanciful – even if it might seem strange to our human hearts and minds.

• It is the abiding witness of scripture, from beginning to end – that we may know him, whom to know is eternal life (Jn17:13).
• And it is the abiding witness of the Spirit that he has given us, to take what is his and share it with us (Jn16:14).

If you have never taken time to feed on him, on all that he so gloriously IS, do so this night. He has promised that those whose seek him with all their heart, will find him – will find, not his forgivingness and salvation (though we will find those as well), but HIM.

So we may say, with another psalmist: (from Ps 73)

Whom have I in heaven but you? And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you. My flesh and my heart may fail, but God is the strength of my heart and my portion forever.

For behold, those who are far from you shall perish; you put an end to everyone who is unfaithful to you. But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord God my refuge, that I may tell of all your works.