We sat down to table and the officer began his story: “I have served in the army ever since I was quite young. I knew my duties and was a favorite of my superiors as a conscientious officer. But I was young, as were also my friends, and unhappily I started drinking. It went from bad to worse until drinking became an illness. When I did not drink, I was a good officer, but when I would start drinking, then I would have to go to bed for six weeks. My superiors were patient with me for a long time, but finally, for rudeness to the commanding officer while I was drunk, they reduced my rank to private and transferred me to a garrison for three years. They threatened me with more severe punishment if I would not improve and give up drinking. In this unfortunate condition all my efforts at self-control were of no avail and I could not stay sober for any length of time. Then I heard that I was to be sent to the guardhouse and I was beside myself with anguish.
“One day I was sitting in the barracks deep in thought. A monk came in to beg alms for the church. Those who had money gave what they could. When he approached me he asked, ‘Why are you so downcast?’ We started talking and I told him the cause of my grief. The monk sympathized with my situation and said, ‘My brother was once in a similar position, and I will tell you how he was cured. His spiritual father gave him a copy of the Gospels and strongly urged him to read a chapter whenever he wanted to take a drink. If the desire for a drink did not leave him after he read one chapter he was encouraged to read another and if necessary still another. My brother followed this advice, and after some time he lost all desire for alcoholic beverages. It is now fifteen years since he has touched a drop of alcohol. Why don’t you do the same, and you will discover how beneficial the reading of the Gospels can be. I have a copy at home and will gladly bring it to you.’
“I wasn’t very open to this idea so I objected, ‘How can your Gospels help when neither my efforts at self-control nor medical aid could keep me sober?’ I spoke in this way because I never read the Gospels.
“‘Give it a chance,’ continued the monk reassuringly, ‘and you will find it very helpful.’
“The next day he brought me this copy of the Gospels. I opened it, browsed through it, and said, ‘I will not take it, for I cannot understand it; I am not accustomed to reading Church Slavonic.’
“The monk did not give up but continued to encourage me and explained that God’s special power is present in the Gospel through his words. He went on, ‘At the beginning be concerned only with reading it diligently; understanding will come later. One holy man says that “even when you don’t understand the word of God, the demons do, and they tremble”; and the passion for drink is without a doubt their work. And St. John Chrysostom in speaking about the power of the word of God says that the very room where the Gospel is kept has the power to ward off the spirits of darkness and thwart their intrigues.’
“I do not recall what I gave the monk when I took the copy of the Gospels from him, but I placed the book in my trunk with my other belongings and forgot about it. Some time later a strong desire to have a drink took hold of me and I opened the trunk to get some money and run to the tavern. But I saw the copy of the Gospels before I got to the money and I remembered clearly what the monk had told me. I opened the book and read the first chapter of Matthew without understanding anything. Again I remembered the monk’s words, ‘At the beginning be concerned only with reading it diligently; understanding will come later.’ So I read another chapter and found it a bit more comprehensible. Shortly after I began reading the third chapter, the curfew bell rang and it was no longer possible for me to leave the barracks.
“In the morning my first thought was to get a drink, but then I decided to read another chapter to see what would happen. I read it and did not go. Again I wanted a drink, but I started reading and I felt better. This gave me courage, and with every temptation for a drink I began reading a chapter from the Gospels. The more I read, the easier it became, and when I finally finished reading all four Gospels the compulsion for drink had disappeared completely; I was repelled by the very thought of it. It is now twenty years since I stopped drinking alcoholic beverages.
“Everyone was surprised at the change that took place in me, and after three years I was reinstated as an officer and then climbed up the ranks until I was made a commanding officer. Later I married a fine woman; we have saved some money, which we now share with the poor. Now I have a grown son who is a fine lad and he also is an officer in the army.”
—The Way of a Pilgrim
What a wonderful story of the multifaceted ways in which Christ works in our lives! The issue here is alcoholism, but don’t restrict the lesson to that. Christ can heal any affliction if we let him. Notice first how Christ uses human agency (the monk) to introduce the young soldier to his Gospel. Notice how the monk abandoned his agenda (begging alms for the church), at least temporarily, to address a person’s needs that he perceived. We have to be ready to see others in pain if we ever hope to help them address it. Notice too the monk’s gentle persistence and the faith he has in the transformative power of the Gospel in people’s lives, a faith based, in part, on past experience.
Next, pay attention to how Christ used circumstance instead of understanding to stay the young soldier’s hand from drinking. He read the Gospel without understanding it, but was prevented from going on a drinking binge because he had lingered too long in his quarters to read it. Was it really coincidence that the soldier found the gospels before he got to his drinking money? This is how God typically works to control the circumstances of our lives in a wise and loving way, but we have to pay attention to realize it!
Finally, mark how understanding occurs—through persistent reading. Ask anyone who reads the Bible regularly and systematically and you will hear this same answer. God grants understanding to humble minds willing to submit to his word (as opposed to trying to make his word submit to their agendas, which sadly many try to do, especially today) through our persistent reading of his word. God doesn’t beat us over the head to make us learn (usually). Instead he uses ordinary people and circumstances along with our own efforts to speak to and transform us. Under normal circumstances it would have been best if the soldier had read the gospels with others and learned how to interpret them from the tradition we have, but that didn’t happen in this case. No problem, though. God can use even less than ideal circumstances to break through to us, as the young solder discovered. That may not be sexy enough for some of us but it is much more effective over the long haul.
If you are struggling with your faith, read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest this story and its lessons. Maybe you should even pick up the gospels and start to read them yourself. Here is indeed balm for your soul! For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.
But on the fiftieth day, that is, the Lord’s Day, when the people have a very great deal to go through, everything that is customary is done from the first cockcrow onwards; vigil is kept in the Anastasis, and the bishop reads the passage from the Gospel that is always read on the Lord’s Day, namely, the account of the Lord’s Resurrection, and afterwards everything customary is done in the Anastasis [the cross], just as throughout the whole year. But when morning is come, all the people proceed to the great church, that is, to the martyrium [the church], and all things usual are done there; the priests preach and then the bishop, and all things that are prescribed are done, the oblation being made, as is customary on the Lord’s Day, only the same dismissal in the martyrium is hastened, in order that it may be made before the third hour [9am].
And when the dismissal has been made at the martyrium, all the people, to a man, escort the bishop with hymns to Sion, [so that] they are in Sion when the third hour is fully come. And on their arrival there the passage from the Acts of the Apostles is read where the Spirit came down so that all tongues [were heard and all men] understood the things that were being spoken, and the dismissal takes place afterwards in due course For the priests read there from the Acts of the Apostles concerning the selfsame thing, because that is the place in Sion—there is another church there now—where once, after the Lord’s Passion, the multitude was gathered together with the Apostles, and where this was done, as we have said above. Afterwards the dismissal takes place in due course, and the oblation is made there. Then, that the people may be dismissed, the archdeacon raises his voice, and says: “Let us all be ready to day in Eleona, in the Imbomon [place of the Ascension], directly after the sixth hour [noon].”
So all the people return, each to his house, to rest themselves, and immediately after breakfast they ascend the Mount of Olives, that is, to Eleona, each as he can, so that there is no Christian left in the city who does not go. When, therefore, they have gone up the Mount of Olives, that is, to Eleona, they first enter the Imbomon, that is, the place whence the Lord ascended into heaven, and the bishops and the priests take their seat there, and likewise all the people. Lessons are read there with hymns interspersed, antiphons too are said suitable to the day and the place, also the prayers which are interspersed have likewise similar references. The passage from the Gospel is also read where it speaks of the Lord’s Ascension, also that from the Acts of the Apostles which tells of the Ascension of the Lord into heaven after His Resurrection. And when this is over, the catechumens and then the faithful are blessed, and they come down thence, it being already the ninth hour [3pm], and go with hymns to that church which is in Eleona, wherein is the cave where the Lord was wont to sit and teach His Apostles. And as it is already past the tenth hour [4pm] when they arrive, lucernare takes place there; prayer is made, and the catechumens and likewise the faithful are blessed.
And then all the people to a man descend thence with the bishop, saying hymns and antiphons suitable to that day, and so come very slowly to the martyrium. It is already night when they reach the gate of the city, and about two hundred church candles are provided for the use of the people. And as it is agood distance from the gate to the great church, that is, the martyrium, they arrive about the second hour of the night, for they go the whole way very slowly lest the people should be weary from being afoot. And when the great gates are opened, which face towards the market-place, all the people enter the martyrium with hymns and with the bishop. And when they have entered the church, hymns are said, prayer is made, the catechumens and also the faithful are blessed; after which they go again with hymns to the Anastasis, where on their arrival hymns and antiphons are said, prayer is made, the catechumens and also the faithful are blessed; this is likewise done at the Cross. Lastly, all the Christian people to a man escort the bishop with hymns to Sion, and when they are come there, suitable lessons are read, psalrns and antiphons are said, prayer is made, the catechumens and the faithful are blessed, and the dismissal takes place. And after the dismissal all approach the bishop’s hand, and then every one returns to his house about midnight. Thus very great fatigue is endured on that day, for vigil is kept at the Anastasis from the first cockcrow, and there is no pause from that time onward throughout the whole day, but the whole celebration (of the Feast) lasts so long that it is midnight when every one returns home after the dismissal has taken place at Sion.
—Egeria, Abbess (late 4th century), The Pilgrimageof Egeria, 85-90
The idea of the human Jesus now being in heaven, in his thoroughly embodied risen state, comes as a shock to many people, including many Christians. Sometimes this is because many people think that Jesus, having been divine, stopped being divine and became human, and then, having been human for a while, stopped being human and went back to being divine (at least, that’s what many people think Christians are supposed to believe). More often it’s because our culture is so used to the Platonic idea that heaven is, by definition, a place of “spiritual,” nonmaterial reality so that the idea of a solid body being not only present but also thoroughly at home there seems like a category mistake. The ascension invites us to rethink all this; and, after all, why did we suppose we knew what heaven was? Only because our culture has suggested things to us. Part of Christian belief is to find out what’s true about Jesus and let that challenge our culture.
This applies in particular to the idea of Jesus being in charge not only in heaven but also on earth, not only in some ultimate future but also in the present. Many will snort the obvious objection: it certainly doesn’t look as though he’s in charge, or if he is, he’s making a proper mess of it. But that misses the point. The early Christians knew the world was still a mess. But they announced, like messengers going off on behalf of a global company, that a new CEO had taken charge.
What happens when you downplay or ignore the ascension? The answer is that the church expands to fill the vacuum. If Jesus is more or less identical with the church—if, that is, talk about Jesus can be reduced to talk about his presence within his people rather than his standing over against them and addressing them from elsewhere as their Lord, then we have created a high road to the worst kind of triumphalism.
Only when we grasp firmly that the church is not Jesus and Jesus is not the church—when we grasp, in other words, the truth of the ascension, that the one who is indeed present with us by the Spirit is also the Lord who is strangely absent, strangely other, strangely different from us and over against us, the one who tells Mary Magdalene not to cling to him—only then are we rescued from both hollow triumphalism and shallow despair.
Conversely, only when we grasp and celebrate the fact that Jesus has gone on ahead of us into God’s space, God’s new world, and is both already ruling the rebellious present world as its rightful Lord and also interceding for us at the Father’s right hand—when we grasp and celebrate, in other words, what the ascension tells us about Jesus’s continuing human work in the present—are we rescued from a wrong view of world history and equipped for the task of justice in the present. Get the ascension right, and your view of the church, of the sacraments, and of the mother of Jesus can get back into focus.
There is no need to doubt the literal nature of Christ’s ascension, so long as we realize its purpose. It was not necessary as a mode of departure, for ‘going to the Father’ did not involve a journey in space and presumably he could simply have vanished as on previous occasions. The reason he ascended before their eyes was rather to show them that this departure was final. He had now gone for good, or at least until his coming in glory. So they returned to Jerusalem with great joy and waited – not for Jesus to make another resurrection appearance, but for the Holy Spirit to come in power, as had been promised.
It is a pity that we call it ‘Ascension Day’, for the Bible speaks more of Christ’s exaltation than of his ascension. This is an interesting avenue to explore. The four great events in the saving career of Jesus are described in the Bible both actively and passively, as deeds done both by Jesus and to Jesus. Thus, we are told with reference to his birth both that he came and that he was sent; with reference to his death both that he gave himself and that he was offered; with reference to his resurrection both that he rose and that he was raised; with reference to his ascension both that he ascended and that he was exalted. If we look more closely, we shall find that in the first two cases, the active phrase is commoner: he came and died, as a deliberate, self-determined choice. But in the last two cases, the passive phrase is more common: he was raised from the tomb and he was exalted to the throne. It was the Father’s act. —The Exaltation of Jesus (sermon on Phil. 2:9-11)
With all due solemnity we are commemorating that day on which our poor human nature was carried up, in Christ, above all the hosts of heaven, above all the ranks of angels, beyond the highest heavenly powers to the very throne of God the Father. And so our Redeemer’s visible presence has passed into the sacraments. Our faith is nobler and stronger because sight has been replaced by a doctrine whose authority is accepted by believing hearts, enlightened from on high. This faith was increased by the Lord’s ascension and strengthened by the gift of the Spirit.
Sermon originally preached on Easter 4C, Sunday May 12, 2019. As always it will be helpful for you to read the assigned texts below by clicking on or tapping their links before you read the sermon. This sermon essentially challenges you to decide whether you are ashamed of the gospel, a critical question that all Christians must answer honestly. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.
Lectionary texts: Acts 9.36-43; Psalm 23; Revelation 7.9-17; John 10.22-30.
In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today is Good Shepherd Sunday, which always falls on the fourth Sunday of Easter. Accordingly, this is what I want us to look at this morning. Is your notion of Jesus as the Good Shepherd big enough to truly honor him and get you through the dark valleys of life?
What do you conjure up when you think of the term shepherd? For most of us living in a post-agricultural society, I suspect when we think of shepherds we think of some quaint fellow leading his sheep to pasture. In other words, if we think about it at all, we think of shepherds as being pretty irrelevant to our lives. But shepherds meant something very different to the Old and NT writers. When they spoke of shepherds they had in mind a king who would not only lead his people but also protect them. And the best way for a king to lead and protect God’s people Israel was to encourage them to be faithful to their covenant with the Lord. Doing so would ensure that they would receive his blessing and protection as Moses made clear to God’s people Israel as they prepared to enter the Promised Land. When the Bible speaks of shepherds, it has something quite different in mind than we do. Life, happiness, blessing, and safety are not possible without a Good Shepherd.
And this ought to make sense to us because we live in a world that has been invaded by evil and hostile powers, powers that were unleashed on God’s good world by human sin and folly. These dark powers are death-dealing. They hate us and want to destroy us. Combined with our proclivity to elevate and worship self over God, the dark powers often have an easy time finding human agents to assist in dealing out death to us. Think of the rash of bombings and mass murders that have occurred over the past month. Hundreds of Christians were blown up in Sri Lanka as they celebrated Easter. Another synagogue was attacked in CA. Then of course we have yet another school shooting. We see the devastating results of those who allow themselves to be used by the dark powers to bring death and sorrow and anger whenever they can. Christians seem to be especially targeted by the dark powers and their agents. While not prevalent in this country—at least not yet—did you know that in 2017 there were some 215,000,000 Christians who reported being persecuted for their faith, and that today 4 out of 5 people being persecuted for their faith are Christian? Never have Christians been more widely persecuted. Just this past week, Asia Bibi, a Christian Pakistani woman who had been sentenced to death for preaching blasphemy and who was finally exonerated, was allowed to leave for asylum in Canada. Yet even there she is not safe as Islamic extremists have vowed to hunt her down and kill her. She has become one of their favorite targets to hate. Our Lord surely knew what he was talking about when he warned his disciples that they would be hated because the world hated him first (John 15.18-23).
As we think about these things, we dare not develop an “us vs. them” mentality. Without the help from an outside power stronger than the powers of Evil and Sin (God), we are all capable of collaborating with the forces of Death. As our culture becomes increasing less Christian, our innate desire to elevate ourselves over God will only increase and so will the darkness that ensues. The Vatican apparently recognizes this trend as well as it recently opened up its exorcism summit for the first time to those outside the Catholic Church because of the unsettling rise of satanic worship and demonic incidents throughout the world. It seems that ever since Eden, we humans seek to worship and follow anything but God, the only Source of Life.
Given this reality, we instinctively know that we need a shepherd in the true biblical sense who can guide and protect us from the forces of Evil and Death that hate us and want to destroy us. We wall ourselves up in gated communities, we refuse to get involved with issues of justice or deal with people who are “not like us,” we seek all kinds of power to insulate us from the darkness of this world, we stockpile our wealth and other material goods, hoping that they will protect us from all the darkness that life can bring. But this is just delusional thinking. All the money in the world, all the fame, all the power, all the gated communities cannot protect us from sickness or madness or growing old or loneliness or alienation or death. Nothing in this world is capable of doing that. Nothing. Even if we are faithful Christians, if we do not have a grown up conception of who our Good Shepherd is and a resurrection hope that is lively and robust, we are most to be pitied because we are play acting and whistling through the graveyard, hoping all our futile self-help efforts will suddenly and magically work. They won’t. As we have just observed, self-help is of this world and nothing of this world in its current configuration has the power to give life. Nothing.
Even if we have a healthy understanding of the nature of Christ as our Good Shepherd and an accompanying resurrection hope that is lively and relevant to us, it doesn’t make us immune from the dark valleys of life. But God never promised us this. We note that the beloved 23rd psalm doesn’t tell us that the Good Shepherd keeps us out of the dark valley. No, the Good Shepherd promises to be with us to strengthen and comfort us when we are confronted by the darkness of this world and our sins and ultimately the darkness of death. We aren’t told why a good and loving God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, allows Evil to operate in his good world to corrupt it. No one has that answer, not even our Lord Jesus when he walked this earth. What Christ gave us was much better. He gave us himself. He gave his life to free us from the power of Sin so that our destiny is life, not death—after all, only Christ is the resurrection and the life—and here is where we have to be crystal clear in our thinking about our resurrection hope because it is the key to us living life with a tenacious and dogged hope, even when confronted with the reality of death.
As St. Paul reminds us in his first letter to the Corinthians, Christ died for our sins, just as the Scriptures said, and that he was raised from the dead on the third day, just as the Scriptures said. This is how the powers of Evil, Sin, and Death are defeated. Christ died for our sins so that we can be spared God’s good and right judgment on our sins. And in raising Christ from the dead, God showed us that even the universal power of death is destroyed. Not completely yet, of course, but it’s coming and Christ’s resurrection is historical proof that God’s promise to destroy death one day is true (apparently God’s word isn’t good enough for us; we need historical proof as well, another reminder of why the cross is so necessary for us to be reconciled to God, but I digress). The dark powers did their worst to Christ. They had him arrested, tortured, humiliated, reviled, and killed in the worst and most degrading manner ever devised by human depravity. The result? Christ is risen! Death is overcome by life! God showed us decisively his intentions for us: life, not death, thanks be to God! Amen?
And when the New Creation is ushered in fully, we see two things happen. First, we see the abolition of death on a universal basis, at least for the followers of Christ. Death is destroyed forever. Second, we see the implementation of God’s perfect justice. Human justice, no matter how just and right it can be, is never complete. Murder victims, for example, are still dead. Lives are destroyed, the loss is still real. Not so in God’s new world. Evildoers are vanquished forever, the dead are restored to life, all brokenness and imperfection is healed, along with our memories, and we shall live directly in God’s presence with his attendant protection and healing forever. Let me give you a personal example. In 2008 my mother had a massive stroke and lingered for three days. She died a hard death and it was painful to watch. She died when my wife and I were out for supper, after all the time we spent keeping a vigil over her. When I returned to her room I saw her corpse lying there. It was ugly and unnatural. It showed the recent signs of her physical suffering. My mother was a good woman and a faithful Christian. You’ll find no better mother around. She didn’t deserve to die in this way, a death that was made more painful by our decision, made out of ignorance, not to hydrate her. This awful vignette encapsulates the entire history of human sin and folly. Sin results in death, in this case my beloved mother’s. Human folly was involved, in this case my ignorance of the importance of keeping her hydrated which only increased her suffering and my guilt when I found out what I had inadvertently done to her. There was grief over the loss of a dearly loved one and its permanent alteration of my life. She was my last surviving parent and even at aged 55, I felt like an orphan for the first time in my life. Nothing in this world can change any of that. I could run after false gods, choose to dampen my pain in a variety of ways, tell everyone what a great person my mom was, seek to increase my bank accounts, or try to increase my status, but none of it will bring her back to life. That’s not how this world works.
But now let’s shift our attention to our epistle lesson to see what I am talking about in terms of having a resurrection hope. In it, St. John shares his glimpse of the heavenly throne room. It isn’t a vision of the future; it is a vision of the present heavenly reality. And what did he see? A huge and countless throng of people from every tribe, language, and nation. They are wearing white robes and waving palm branches. They are in the direct presence of God and his Lamb, Jesus Christ our crucified and risen Savior. St. John is asked the question we want to ask. Who are these people? An elder tells him that they have come out of the great ordeal (they have survived being persecuted and suffering, even unto death). They lack nothing because they are living in God’s direct presence and are now under his eternal protection, and God himself has wiped the tears of sorrow and suffering from their very eyes. Think about that! Think about God wiping your tears from your eyes and how wonderful and restorative that must feel! The Good News is that you’ll get to find out one day.
We notice several things from this poignant vision. First, we note that the palm branches the throng waves are symbols of their victory over the dark powers and Death. The Christian dead have this victory because the blood of the Lamb has taken away their sins and made them pure and able to stand in God’s holy and life-giving presence, without which we are all walking dead. Their white robes symbolize their Christ-endowed and life-giving purity. Notice carefully that St. John doesn’t tell us that the people standing in God’s heavenly throne room are the ones who did the most good or went most regularly to church or are a superior race or ethnic group. No, everyone is there because of the love of Christ for them, not because of who they are or what they’ve done. Likewise with us.
We notice too that we see the risen Christ with his transformed body in heaven. Does it surprise you that human bodies can exist in heaven? I know it surprised me when I first was taught it. The vast throng are not yet risen. They are not yet fully alive as Jesus is, but they are alive because they are with the Source of Life and their destiny will be like their risen Savior’s because they belong to him, just like we do. Even in their pre-resurrected state, the Christian dead find life and they suffer no more. Whatever injustices they had to endure are made right and their memories are healed. We know this because they are worshiping God and the Lamb for redeeming them from the darkness of Evil and Death, just like we do when we give thanks for the Resurrection in our Eastertide liturgy. Did you notice that? And because they are in the presence of God and his Lamb, they are protected from evil of any kind because no evil can survive in God’s holy presence. Returning to the story of my mother’s death, this is the only satisfactory hope I could have to sustain me in my grief and loss. I know when I see her next, the memories of that hospital room and her dead body will be erased forever, in part, because when I see her next she will be alive! And when the new creation comes in full, she will have an indescribably beautiful body that will also be indestructible. The injustice of her death will be made right. Her death will have been swallowed up in life. Works for me. Worked for Dorcas in our NT lesson, short-term and for eternity. How about you?
Clearly, St. John intends this vision to encourage us in our suffering as well as give us an indomitable hope because we realize our present and future are secure if we are the Lamb’s, and we can be sure we are his because we hear his voice and obey, not perfectly, but we hear his voice nevertheless and seek to obey him. And he assures us that we will remain his. Nothing can snatch us away from him because nothing is stronger than the love and power of God. He tells us this in our gospel lesson. But what if the worst you have suffered for your faith is having to endure long sermons by your preachers, especially when Fathers Sang, Bowser, and Madanu preach? Then what? How can this lesson encourage you? My only response is that suffering of one sort or another will come before your mortal life ends and you had better be ready with the power of the risen Christ when it does or you will be left without hope. The encouragement found in this story will help you develop that needed power. But what if you have suffered for reasons other than your faith that are beyond your control? Then what? Well, consider this. What if our present suffering is a result of those dark powers working against us and not God punishing us, especially if we cannot directly attribute our suffering to the consequences of our sin, stupidity, or folly? What if God uses our afflictions as opportunities to test us and to draw us closer in our suffering to our Lord Jesus who suffered and died for us? St. John’s vision testifies that Christ will use our suffering to draw us closer to him if we have a resurrection hope that allows us to see that nothing is beyond the redemptive power of God, not even death itself. So be ready. Your hour will come. Draw then on Christ’s power.
Of course, our hope must remain just that until it is realized in the new creation. We will still grieve our dead and have to deal with all the hurt and sorrow and brokenness in this sin-corrupted and God-cursed world. But there is no one or nowhere else to which we can turn. Only in Christ is there hope and life because only Christ has been raised from the dead to break the power of Sin and Death. Only the resurrection offers a real future with full justice and restoration and healing. It is too breathtaking for us to fully contemplate because it comes from God, but contemplate it we must; otherwise we die of hopelessness, wallowing in our sin. And if you are not a fan of delayed gratification, think of the alternative: Hopelessness and no future at all in the face of darkness and the finality of death. So let us persevere and rejoice in Christ, our living hope. Let us resolve to stop seeking life in the world of the dead. Instead, let us embrace fully our Good Shepherd who takes away the sin of the world. Let us live joyfully in the power of the Holy Spirit who makes our risen Savior available to us, even in the face of suffering and death, so that by God’s grace we can show the world and each other what a true and lively Easter hope looks like, and thus encourage each other. To him be honor, praise, and glory forever and ever. Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sermon originally preached on Easter 4A, Sunday, May 3, 2020. As always, it will be helpful for you to read the assigned texts below by clicking on or tapping their links before you read the sermon. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.
Lectionary texts: Acts 2.42-47; Psalm 23; 1 Peter 2.19-25; St. John 10.1-10.
In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today is the 4th Sunday of Easter, the Sunday traditionally celebrated as Good Shepherd Sunday. In these dark days of virus, social isolation, death, and fear it seems especially appropriate to talk about why we need Christ as our Shepherd and this is what I want us to do this morning.
In our gospel lesson, our Lord tells us that he is our Good Shepherd, who both leads and guides his followers, and it is critical for us to remember in these dark times, especially you self-loathers, that it is the shepherd who seeks his flock, not the other way around. As our psalm lesson reminds us, Jesus, and only Jesus, is the Shepherd who can and will lead us to peace, the kind of peace our first human ancestors enjoyed with God before their rebellion in paradise. Ps 23 is a beloved psalm, especially the KJV, and it is traditionally used at funerals. But if nothing else, this cursed pandemic has shown us in no uncertain terms that all of mortal life is lived in the valley of the shadow of death, not just when we die. I suspect prior to the onset of the pandemic many of us would have said, “Medical science and technology are my shepherds, I shall not want” instead of saying, “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want” because we can cure (or slow down) all kinds of diseases, and this has made us very adept at putting off and denying death in our culture. With our facelifts and tummy tucks, we deny the aging process that is part and parcel of this mortal life. We send off our old folks to “retire” and die in nursing homes and hospitals. Doing so helps us manage our fear of death and keeps us from having to deal with the reality of living in the dark valley of death, a reality caused by human sin and God’s just judgment on it. Don’t misunderstand. There are times when hospitalization and nursing homes are critically necessary and I would not want to live in a society where pre-modern medicine is practiced. God be praised that his image-bearers have used their minds and imagination to help increase our quality of life. My point is that our faith in medical miracles and technology can prevent us from seeing that all mortal life is lived in the valley of the shadow of death, which in turn helps us keep Christ and his demands on us at arm’s length.
But our delusions have been thoroughly exposed by this virus that is both insidious and evil. If we are honest with ourselves, many, if not most, of us are stunned that we even have to deal with a pandemic like our ancestors did and many other parts of the world still do. We are stunned because we foolishly believed our medical and scientific communities could protect us from evils like this. We were wrong. We now find ourselves living in social isolation and fear, terrified that we will be stricken with the virus and die. We have clearly forgotten that we have a Good Shepherd who leads us and guides us, even during our transition from this mortal life to the eternal life of new creation. But rather than wring our hands in fear and despair over the current state of things, I want us to remember we are people of real power, God’s power. We are resurrection and new creation people by virtue of God’s grace and great love for us made known fully in Jesus Christ, and we are promised that as Christians we are united to our crucified and risen Lord in and through our baptism and faith that he is who he claims he is and has done for us what the NT claims he has done for us.
So what does it mean for us to have Christ, the Great Shepherd, walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death? It means first and foremost that we are not to be afraid of the precariousness or fickleness of life. While none of us is guaranteed immunity from being afflicted by the virus (or a thousand other diseases)—nor are we immune to the heartaches, disappointments, failures, or hurts that come with living in a sin-sick and evil-corrupted world—we nevertheless live in the presence and power of the One who loved us and gave himself for us so that we might live. When we follow Jesus Christ, we live out our belief that condemnation and death is not our final destiny and that means we have the power to overcome our natural tendency to be afraid because we know that on the cross, God has dealt with all that could cause him to condemn us and lead to our permanent death. And when God raised Jesus from the dead, he gave us a preview of the day when our greatest enemy, Death itself, would be destroyed. Medical advancements and technology, wonderful as they are, cannot keep us from dying. When a vaccine is developed to help us overcome the virus, we will be protected but we will still die. Only the power of God who creates things out of nothing and raises the dead can give us eternal life and that is exactly what the resurrection of our Lord Jesus proclaims God intends to do! St. Paul put our situation in stark terms when he wrote to the Ephesians that, “You lived in this world without God and without hope. But now you have been united with Christ Jesus. Once you were far away from God, but now you have been brought near to him through the blood of Christ” (Eph 2.12-13). Living in a world without God and hope is an awful thing. It makes us afraid and it slowly kills us. All of us instinctively know that living without hope is not sustainable. Imagine, e.g., what would happen if we found out that a cure or prevention of this virus was never going to come; it would be catastrophic to us and our society. Sadly, however, many choose to find hope in things that do not and cannot give hope and life; it is a symptom of our deep-seated hostility toward God that causes us to rebel against him. Nothing in this life, not power, money, fame, political identity, medicine, or science, to name just a few, can overcome the valley of the shadow of death and putting our ultimate hope in these things is idolatry at its finest, which will result in God’s condemnation and our death. Only our crucified and risen Shepherd can help us overcome our fear of death because only in him are our sins forgiven and we are reconciled to God. Only Christ is the resurrection and the life who promises that those who follow him will live forever, even though our mortal bodies must die (Jn 11.25-26). So let us resolve in this time of pandemic to put our whole hope and trust in the only One who can and will walk with us through the valley of the shadow of death. When we do, we have nothing to fear because we know our greatest enemy, Death, has been defeated and will one day be destroyed forever when God’s new creation comes in full with Christ’s return. Living without fear of death is partly what it means to live as resurrection people. In Christ our ultimate death is abolished. Why should we be afraid?
Second and related to the first point, when we are convinced our Great Shepherd walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, we are able to die well. Hear me carefully here. Nobody should want to die. Death is our greatest enemy. But we are mortal and despite our denial about this fact, we will all die. Dying without fear, dying a peaceful death when our time comes, are marks of a vibrant and lively resurrection faith rooted in our Great Shepherd. One of the most wicked things about this virus is that it has forced many to die alone without human presence and touch. That in itself should be enough to convince us that it comes from the devil himself. But when our Great Shepherd walks with us through the valley of the shadow of death, we can go without that human touch because he is there with us and we know we are not dying alone. Human senses may not perceive his presence any more than we know when our Lord speaks to babies in the womb at their conception, but that does not make his presence and peace any less real. Again, please do not misunderstand. I deeply lament the fact that some have to die alone. This is not how God intends it. But those who have a lively resurrection faith in Christ have his assurance that they are never alone, not even in death, and that he will welcome them into his loving presence, so that they no longer have to be afraid. How well we die is as important as how well we live, and without a real and lively relationship with Christ, it is impossible to die well, human denial and fantasies about death notwithstanding. Are you prepared to die well in the faith and peace and love of Christ who gave himself for you because he loves you, even in all your unloveliness, so that you can live forever? During this time of pandemic, we as God’s people in Christ have the holy opportunity to proclaim our faith in our Savior by knowing how to die a good death whenever it comes. Christ is key.
But as we have seen, the whole of mortal life is lived in the valley of the shadow of death. So how do we cultivate our Lord’s risen presence in the living of our days? To that we turn to our NT lesson for some helpful insights because as all our readings make clear, being people of our Great Shepherd is a collective, not individual, thing. As St. Luke makes abundantly clear in Acts, our life in Christ is to be lived out together as a family. If we ever hope to develop the deep and abiding faith in Christ needed to allow us to live as people without fear who are prepared to live and die well in his risen presence, people who know his great love for them and who stake their very lives on this knowledge, we have to participate in the four marks of the Church: We have to appropriate the apostolic teaching contained in the NT, enjoy a common life together (fellowship), break bread together, and pray together. The history of the Church is littered with various examples of the wreckage of those who failed to participate in these four marks of the Church and if we at St. Augustine’s fail to participate in them fully, we can expect to be part of that wreckage. I appeal to you, my beloved, let us not do that to ourselves!
First, we are to learn the apostolic teaching in the NT because we believe that they were eyewitnesses of our Lord’s life and death who received Christ’s teachings and example directly, and are therefore in a position to pass on to us what we must do/think/say to be his followers. For example, last week we learned how the first Christians became resurrection peeps who believed in the power of Christ’s bodily resurrection that announced the new creation and the resurrection of the dead, filling them with joy and new hope. In our epistle lesson today, we learn from St. Peter that followers of Christ are not to retaliate against their enemies and those who afflict them with suffering. We are to do this because this is what Christ did for us. He did not condemn us for our sins but took them on himself so that we would not suffer God’s just condemnation. As we study the Scriptures together, we learn how to live out hard teachings like this and to identify markers of what real love looks like, the love of God that heals and sustains, not human love that often seeks its own distorted pleasures and goals. As fallen human beings, we are prone to misinterpreting the word of God, so we need the family corrective to help us get it right and keep it right. And as our NT lesson also attests, we can learn from apostolic teaching how we can know Christ’s presence in and among us in the power of the Spirit. St. Luke tells us the Church did the four things at which we are looking and God blessed and grew their numbers because they did, filling them with joy and power.
Second, we are to enjoy sweet fellowship together because as we have already seen, we all need the human touch. We also need sweet fellowship to help us not be afraid. Think about it. When are we most vulnerable to fear and despair? When we are isolated and feel all alone. We need each other to weep with and celebrate with. When we enjoy the kind of intimate family relationships St. Luke reports in our NT lesson today, we can be real with each other. We will be there for each other and we can be charitable in our agreements and disagreements. We may not always see eye to eye on lesser things in life, but that will not prevent us from being part of the same flock our Great Shepherd leads, and together he helps us help each other in our weaknesses to grow in our relationship with him as well as with each other. As St. Paul reminds us, the Holy Spirit lives in us individually and collectively (1 Cor 6.19), and Christ is made known to us in and through the Spirit’s presence. Families are the glue of a coherent society and God’s family in Christ is no exception!
When we break bread together, especially at the eucharist, we remind each other that we have died and been raised with Christ to new life. We feast on our Lord’s body and blood, literally consuming him, and we are sustained and nurtured by him in the power of the Spirit. If you have ever wondered where Christ is in the midst of darkness, look no further than his Word contained in Scripture and in the sacrament of Holy Communion. There you will find a healed and redeemed people, people who are far from perfect but who have caught a glimpse of what risen life in Christ is like and are refreshed and made whole over time. We will have to wait for God’s new creation to come in full to enjoy perfect healing and health, but we still enjoy the imperfect healing and wholeness made known to us in Christ’s death and resurrection. This is why in the midst of a plague-ravaged world, Christ’s resurrection with its announcement of new creation can be such a healing and stabilizing factor to help us navigate during these desperate times. When we do not participate in the eucharist on a regular basis, we are in clear danger of failing to make Christ’s death and resurrection the center of everything we say and do and believe, and we will suffer badly as a result.
And finally, of course, we are to pray together because we are heaven and earth people. We pray for ourselves and for others who are in desperate need because we desire to bring God’s power to bear in our lives and the lives of others so that his kingdom will come on earth as in heaven. It is what loving people do. In prayer we can draw close to Christ himself, who sits at God’s right hand (rules) and intercedes for us out of his great love for us. We can pour out our hopes and fears in prayer, asking for Christ’s guidance, confident that he will guide us—often through his people—because he has promised to be our Great Shepherd. Prayer helps keep us rooted in the reality of God’s Kingdom and reminds us we do not worship an absent or uncaring God.
This is what St. Luke is describing for us. It is the family of God at work (and play) together. It isn’t a version of primitive communism as some have argued. It is a winsome and wholesome description of the first followers of Christ living together as a true family and it is a far more compelling notion of church than those who see doing church as coming to worship once a week and then going their own way to do their own thing. And I am here to tell you, St. Augustine’s, that we fit this description of church pretty well. Not perfectly, of course, because we are a bunch of ragamuffins. But we have the marks of a vibrant family and so there is no reason for any of us to be afraid or not have a lively resurrection faith. And if you are still skeptical, I would invite you to read or reread Bethany’s testimony of how she came to believe in the resurrection of the body. It wasn’t just apostolic teaching. It was fellowship and breaking bread and prayer as well. She realized you aren’t the total losers she originally thought you were and God used you to help bring her to a healthy faith, thanks be to God! This is how Christ nurtures us and helps us not to be afraid. This is worth celebrating, my beloved, even in the midst of pandemic. I pray we will all do what is necessary to become people of power, resurrection people who know they have the Great Shepherd to walk with them wherever they go, even in the valley of the shadow of death. To him be honor, praise, and glory forever and ever. Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sermon originally preached on Easter 4A, Sunday, April 25, 2021. As always, it will be helpful for you to read the assigned texts below by clicking on or tapping their links before you read the sermon. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.
Lectionary texts: Acts 4.1-12; Psalm 23; 1 John 3.16-24; St. John 10.11-18.
In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today is the fourth Sunday of Eastertide and we are at day 22, almost midway through the 50 days of Easter (how are your new creation celebrations going, BTW? Are you causing anyone to wonder why you are partying so much?). In the Anglican Tradition, we celebrate the fourth Sunday of Easter as Good Shepherd Sunday, where our readings point to Christ as our Good Shepherd. But what does that mean for us as Christians living in an increasingly chaotic 21st century world? This is what I want us to look at this morning.
So who needs Christ as their Good Shepherd? Well, all of us, frankly, because we live in a world of instant communication that allows us to see with increasing intensity the dark and chaotic world in which we live. My wife and I can barely watch the news anymore and we increasingly stay away from social media because of the ever-growing toxic strand of stories that stream from these various sources. In short, we avoid the news for the sake of our mental health, and we’re not alone. As the Christian faith and those who profess and live it come under increasing attack, not to mention the very foundations and traditions of our nation, if we are not careful we can quickly and easily fall into despair. Then of course there are the personal failures, setbacks, losses, anxieties, and other difficulties we all face. Many of us who try to live up to the high calling of the Christian life are all too painfully aware that we miss the mark, sometimes as much as we hit it. Like David in Psalm 51, we know our transgressions and our sin is ever before us. Perhaps a better question might be, where is our Good Shepherd, rather than do we need one! Then there’s the quaint and seemingly outdated term, shepherd, itself. Most of us don’t come from a rural background and even if we do, shepherding seems to be a thing of the past. Why would we need a good shepherd when we live in the 21st century?
But we mustn’t let the historical context of Scripture lull us into false and misleading conclusions. We must remember that it is to the glory of God that he indeed works and is active in the context of human history, meaning that Jesus lived at a particular time and in a particular culture where his listeners would have quickly related to his use of the term shepherd. No, as Scripture consistently proclaims, our God is not some absentee god who is disinterested in this world and our lives. Nor is he a god who focuses exclusively on things “spiritual” as any self-respecting gnostic, past and present, would have us believe. Instead, Scripture proclaims consistently that God our Father is the God of history and our Creator. And as the resurrection of Christ proclaims boldly to us and to the world, creation matters to God and God intends to make all things right again. The risen Christ is our living preview of coming attractions so to speak, testifying to this truth, thanks be to God!
If we keep all this in mind, we are ready to answer the question as to why we need Christ the Good Shepherd. A shepherd is one who looks after those who follow him, in this case human image-bearers, not mindless sheep. This image therefore reminds us that the notion of shepherding by definition applies not to individuals, but to groups (think Christ’s body, the Church). Of course, Jesus leads us and is available to us as individuals. Anybody who knows the risen Lord knows that. But Christ does not call us to live our lives in isolation. He calls us to live together as a family of believers. We are all in this together because we are all subject to the same dark powers and forces of chaos, which at its root is the very nature of sin. Show me sin of any kind and I will show you chaos. Given that we are subject to powers and forces far stronger than we are, forces that have enslaved us and stripped and robbed us of our original human dignity as God’s image-bearing creatures whom God created to rule his good creation on his behalf, we are in constant danger of being undone. Simply put, we are not able on our own to free ourselves from our slavery to that alien and hostile power we call Sin, and if we are unable to free ourselves from its slavery, we all face Death, not only our mortal death, but also the Death that results from being disconnected from God, our very Source of life. This means that we are already dead people walking without God’s help. Take the patient off his life-support systems without a cure and the patient dies. Try to live life in the face of the dark powers and the chaos they impose on our lives and world without the help of someone or something stronger, and we become people who live without hope. And without hope, we all die.
But thanks be to God that we do have someone who is stronger than the forces who hate us and want to destroy us. We have Jesus Christ, crucified, died, and raised from the dead, available to us. Christ is our Beautiful Shepherd (a more accurate description for the Greek word, kalos, than the term “good”), who loves us enough to give up his equality with God to become human and to die for us to break Sin’s power over us, and to bear God’s righteous and just punishment for our sins. This self-giving love for us reflects the heart and glory of God the Father who does not give up on us, irrespective of how badly we manage to screw things up. None of us know all that transpired on Calvary that Good Friday because none of us has the mind of God. Yet we believe that our sins are forgiven and that we have new life starting right now because Christ’s death reconnected us to God our lifeline and promises one day to raise our mortal bodies from the dead to live with him forever. How do I know this? How can I be sure, especially with so many unanswered questions and in the face of so much dysfunction and suffering and alienation and chaos (sin)? Because Jesus Christ is raised from the dead as he tells us he would be in our gospel lesson today. As St. Paul proclaimed in his letter to the Romans, at just the right time, Christ died for us, even while we were still God’s enemies (Romans 5.6-20) so that we could have life once again and be the image-bearing creatures God created us to be as human beings. This is what real shepherding looks like, the only kind that matters, and this is why we have only one real Shepherd because only in Christ do we find forgiveness of sins and salvation. And here we need to spend some time unpacking this extraordinary statement found in our NT lesson. Isn’t it incredibly exclusionary? Well, no it isn’t.
Why? Because what Ss. Peter and John were proclaiming, along with the early Church, is that only Jesus is God become human and only his saving death can break our slavery to Sin and restore us to our rightful place as God’s image-bearers. In other words, Christianity has a truth that other religions simply do not because only Jesus Christ is raised from the dead. Neither is God’s love closed to anyone. All are invited to put their faith in Jesus Christ and no one is shut out expect through their own stubborn refusal to see and believe the truth that is in Christ. Now of course the history of Christianity is littered with all kinds of folly that has accompanied our proclaimed faith in Christ and all kinds of wickedness that has sadly accompanied real Christian wisdom. But human wickedness and folly do not negate the truth of the claim itself! Jesus Christ is raised from the dead, proving he is who he claimed to be, not to mention the testimony of hundreds of millions of people over time and culture, our little parish being a blessed microcosm of that collective witness! Christ himself tells us this today in rather stark terms: you’ll never know me or that my claims are true if you don’t know the One who sent me, i.e., God. Why? Because the Father and I are one and that kind of deep intimate relationship characterizes the relationship my followers have with me. Confess me as your Lord and live like you believe it, and you will know that my claim to be the only way to the Father is true (John 14.6). As both the psalmist and St. John in his epistle remind us, Christ our Beautiful Shepherd is the basis for our reconciliation with God and our confident trust that he is with us, even at the moment of our mortal death. What more protection and promise do we need, my beloved? That is why only Christ can be our Good Shepherd, because only in Christ do we find forgiveness of sins and the promise of resurrection. No other shepherds will do because no one but Christ can give us life. Pinheads like me who claim the title of pastor (shepherd) by virtue of our office cannot give you life; we can only point you to the One who can and does, and encourage and exhort you to believe the power and the promise, especially in today’s world where it is increasingly viewed with disdain and hostility. Even so, we do not fear nor will we let ourselves be kowtowed into silence if we really do believe that there is no other Name than Christ’s by which we are saved! That is why Christians, and by that I mean those who have a real and lively faith with Christ, have never feared persecution and have actually rejoiced when suffering for Christ’s sake. As Jesus himself reminded us, we shouldn’t fear those who can kill our body but are then powerless to do anything else to us. We should instead fear God who has the power to end our life forever (Matthew 10.28).
I can hear some of you grumbling right now. You have questions. Father Maney, why do you sweat so much when you preach and lead worship (A: I am a born sweat hog)? If Christ really is the Good Shepherd, why is my life so blown up right now? C’mon dude. Get real. Well, my skeptical interlocutory friend, here’s the deal. I don’t know why God allows what God allows to go on in his world. Nobody does and if you hear someone claim otherwise, run like crazy from that person! What I can tell you is this. Life is not a grand experimental design. It does not consist of experimental and control groups where we can manipulate variables to determine causation and/or correlation. It just doesn’t work that way. We aren’t God and we aren’t omniscient. We aren’t privy to all to which God is privy. That’s why, for example, I can’t prove in any kind of strict empirical sense that God answers prayer or that God is moving mightily within our parish family by bringing new families in and opening up your generous hearts to enable us to occupy our new premises. I can’t “prove” any of this, but I know it’s true because I know the power of God in Jesus Christ raised from the dead, in my life, in the lives of many of you, and in the life of the one holy, catholic, and apostolic church, broken and dysfunctional as she is. It’s called FAITH. And because I know the power of the risen Lord and his presence in and among his people, I don’t feel the need to try to “prove” anything to skeptics with their sneering questions. I’m not copping an attitude here. I simply don’t feel compelled to play by the enemy’s rules or by the rules of scoffers. I know the reality and so, I pray, do you.
None of this means that we are immune to hurts, heartaches, failures, and brokenness as a parish. We know this all too well. Wendy just lost her dad to congestive heart failure. Chris recently lost his brother to the wicked disease of cancer. Doug is still not fully healed, to name just three examples. You all can add your own heartbreaking stories. But mysterious as this all is, it does not negate the reality of Christ’s promise to be our Beautiful Shepherd in life and in death because he is risen from the dead and because we don’t live a life that is built like a cosmic experimental design. There’s much more than meets our senses and Scripture affirms that there is an unseen reality out there of which we are unaware. Think, for example, of Elisha and his young assistant who found themselves seemingly trapped by the Aramean army. The young man fell into despair as a result, thinking that they were about to be utterly undone. But then Elisha prayed for God to open the young man’s eyes and he beheld the unseen forces of God ready to intervene on their behalf to rescue them (2 Ki 6.8-23)! St. John essentially tells us the same thing in our epistle lesson when he reminds us that when we are Christ’s we have the invisible Presence of the Holy Spirit working in us to remind us of God’s great love for us despite the fact that we were at one time God’s enemies. God’s love reminds us that we no longer need to languish over a guilty conscience. Rather we are to repent of that which caused that guilty conscience and ask God’s forgiveness. And because we know the crucified and risen Lord, we know that God gladly answers our prayers. Do you believe this? If you do, let Christ’s shepherding strengthen and encourage you in the dark valleys of your life. And by all means, let us encourage and strengthen each other with this reality when we become aware of of those dark valleys.
All this reminds us why we need Christ our Beautiful Shepherd and what it leads to: changed lives and the power to be living a embodiment of Christ’s love for us and for his world. If we really believe that there is no salvation other than in the Name of Christ, and if we really believe God does truly love us despite our warts, sometimes quite sizable, then we must live and proclaim our faith to others because having Christ as our Good Shepherd really is a matter of life and death. It means, in other words, we put our faith into action, starting with our families and our extended parish family. When we see others in need we act on their behalf, having generous hearts that imitate our Savior. It means we give our time, talents, and money to help our families and those around us who desperately need to both survive and to hear and see the gospel of Jesus Christ proclaimed and lived out faithfully. It means we are to embody the self-giving love Christ has for us to others in the context of our daily lives and communities. And here I want to offer counsel to you because many, if not most, Christians misunderstand what self-giving love looks like. To embody the self-giving love of Christ doesn’t mean we become punching bags of all sorts to others. Jesus Christ did not love us and die for us to enable us to continue in our (self-)destructive behavior. He died for us so that we might learn to live and love like he loves us and the Father loves him. He died for us so that we might be truly healed and find wholeness and peace. Remember this as you attempt to love others. Becoming their verbal, emotional, or physical punching bag or enabling their destructive behaviors is not loving them. It is actually participating in their sin and this is never the loving thing to do. We sometimes are confronted with difficult choices when dealing with others. That is when we go to Scripture and pray to the Lord for guidance and wisdom. And we learn to trust each other enough to seek and receive their godly guidance. We can do so with confidence, a confidence not rooted in ourselves or others, but because we know the One who is our Beautiful Shepherd and who promises to be with us, individually and together, in any and every circumstance because of his great love for us. This is Jesus Christ, crucified, raised from the dead, and ascended into heaven to rule until he returns again to finish his saving work on our behalf. This is the Shepherd we desperately need and the One on whom we can count and to whom we can give our wholehearted love, loyalty, trust, and obedience because only in him is forgiveness and life. To him be honor, praise, and glory forever and ever. Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Sermon originally preached on Easter 3C, Sunday, May 5, 2019. As always it will be helpful for you to read the assigned texts below by clicking on or tapping their links before reading the sermon. I focus on forgiveness, something that is difficult for everybody, Christians included, to give or receive. But forgiveness is vital to our emotional, physical, and spiritual welfare. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.
Lectionary texts: Acts 9.1-20; Psalm 30; Revelation 5.11-15; John 21.1-19.
In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Did you catch the sense of transformation, hope, and power in our readings today? It’s all there. But what is the basis for the transformative hope and power of Christ’s resurrection? This is what I want us to look at this morning.
We start with our gospel lesson. Despite the fact that Jesus had previously appeared twice to his frightened and hiding disciples and commissioned them to proclaim the Good News, they are now in Galilee and have returned to fishing. We aren’t told why they chose to do this, only that they did. It’s easy for us to understand this, especially since we have not witnessed the risen Lord in the manner they did. We look around and see evil running rampant despite the NT’s proclamation that the powers behind it have been defeated on the cross of Christ. The old corrupted order seems to be thriving despite the fact that Christ’s resurrection proclaimed the beginning of God’s new world with its ultimate defeat of death. Like St. Thomas, we sometimes become skeptical about the reality of our crucified and risen Lord and get discouraged. Whatever the reason, the disciples returned to their old order of business just as we often do.
But then they encounter a stranger on the shore after a futile night of fishing. He tells them to throw out their net and they suddenly have a huge catch of fish. The beloved disciple recognizes the stranger on the beach as the risen Lord and soon they are eating the breakfast he has prepared for them. More about that in a moment. St. John then says something quite peculiar. He tells us that none of the disciples dared to ask Jesus who he was because they knew he was Jesus. We want to ask St. John why the disciples felt the need to ask Jesus this if they knew who he was? Here we get a glimpse into the nature of Christ’s risen body. Whatever it was composed of, it was different from Jesus’ mortal body. One commentator wryly notes that none of the disciples came up to Jesus, slapped him on the back, and very casually said to him, “Welcome back, Jesus!” New creation doesn’t work that way. There is continuity (they recognized the Lord and he had a body), but there was also discontinuity (he appeared different to them so that there was an element of newness).
And why wouldn’t we expect this? If Christ’s resurrection really did launch God’s new heavens and earth, and if in his resurrection Christ has gone through the dark valley of death and emerged on the other side, we would expect things to be different, even if we can’t imagine a world without suffering and death, without sickness and sorrow, without alienation and conflict, without brokenness and deformity. But that’s exactly the world Christ’s resurrection announced! As St. Paul wrote in 1 Cor 15, when the dead are raised, death will be vanquished forever! And because God’s new world is almost impossible for us to imagine because it transcends human power and imagination, we are tempted to discount it like the disciples apparently did because we are so regularly pummeled by the chaos and evil in God’s current world. But we dare not let our resurrection hope fade away because if we do, we give up our inheritance and will lose hope—defined as the sure and certain expectation of things to come. We have been given a glimpse of our future in Christ’s resurrection in the testimony of his first followers so let us embrace God’s gracious gift! Not only do we see Christ transformed in St. John’s story, our perception of God is also changed in light of Easter. In the vivid imagery of our epistle lesson, the countless multitude of heaven proclaim the crucified and risen Christ as deserving of the honor and praise and glory of God. Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world and only God can take away sin. Listen if you have ears.
Here we see the power of God defined. In Christ’s death, the dark powers are defeated and our slavery to the power of Sin is destroyed, not perfectly in this mortal life, but destroyed nevertheless. God’s power, we are told, is made known in suffering love for his wayward and rebellious creatures, you and me, and none of us deserve a lick of it. But by his wounds we are healed and find the only kind of freedom that really counts: freedom from the powers of Evil, Sin, and Death. We know this is true because we know that God raised Jesus from the dead; and because we are baptized, we too share in his death and life. Our mortal bodies will one day moulder in the grave but that is not our destiny, new creation is: Endless and perfect life without a trace of evil, corruption, sin, or brokenness of any kind. If this does not give you hope in the midst of darkness and joy in the midst of sorrow, nothing can, my beloved. Only the power of God can accomplish this.
And in their encounter with their risen Master on the seashore, St. John is inviting us to see another transition. No longer is the focus on Christ’s death and resurrection. It is on commissioning his followers to take up his love and work and proclaim it to the world. In the poignant story of breakfast for his disciples who may have doubted and wanted to cling to the old order of things, an order than can never end up right, and in the restoration of Peter, St. John is reminding us of two things we all desperately want to hear. First, he reminds us that in Christ we find God’s forgiveness that changes our status with God so that we have the awesome privilege to do his work, and second we are given God’s power to do the work he calls us to do.
Notice that despite a huge catch of fish, our Lord didn’t need the disciples’ fish to cook them breakfast. He already had what he needed. There were fish already cooking. Yes, Jesus invited them to bring some of their fish, but he didn’t need them. Sometimes we Christians think that Christ calls us to be his disciples because he is totally dependent on us and our efforts. We think we have to organize or proclaim the gospel, that we have to be his hands, eyes, mouth, and heart, because without us Jesus can’t get anything done. What a bunch of caca. Christ has the power and he gives us a share of his power by giving us his Holy Spirit. That was the whole point of last week’s gospel lesson. Receive the Holy Spirit, he told the disciples. Only then did Christ send them into the world to do his work. When we free ourselves from the delusion that Christ needs us instead of us needing him, it frees us to work tirelessly and joyfully for our risen Lord because we are relying on his power and his strength, not our own. We see the logic of this in St. Paul’s conclusion of his massive treatise on the Resurrection found in 1 Corinthians 15. After proclaiming the abolition of death and all evil when the dead are raised at our Lord’s return, St. Paul doesn’t tell us to have a big party (although we should have one in anticipation of our eternal party in God’s new world). No, St. Paul says this: “So, my dear brothers and sisters, be strong and immovable. Always work enthusiastically for the Lord, for you know that nothing you do for the Lord is ever useless” (v.58). Too often we focus on the results of our work on the Lord’s behalf and too often we don’t get the results we hoped for or wanted. We might try to persuade a friend or loved one to believe the Good News and we get rebuffed or reviled. Or we try to do the right thing by someone only to receive evil in return. Because we don’t keep our resurrection hope at the forefront of our lives, we tend to get discouraged because it appears we are not making a difference. Not so, St. Paul admonishes us! Christ is risen and you live and move and have your being in his power even when it is not self-evident to you. Don’t fall for the lie. Don’t believe the enemy or a hostile world. Because the Lamb lives, you operate in his power and he will finish what he started. Yes, we are given the wondrous privilege of doing Kingdom work. But we are not called to bring in the Kingdom. We don’t have it in our power. Only God does and in Christ’s resurrection we have a clear demonstration of that power.
Which brings us to the second basis for our call to follow Christ—forgiveness. In all our lessons, we see the power of God’s forgiveness at work. As we saw in our epistle lesson, the heavenly host proclaim the Lamb’s saving work and worship him as a result. Jesus truly is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Because of Christ’s sacrificial death for us on the cross and because in that death the power of Evil and Sin have been defeated, we are called to have a new and restored relationship with God, a relationship that can only end in life. God has dealt with our sins on the cross and we are forgiven if we have the good sense to accept God’s forgiveness. Our call to be his healed and restored kingdom workers along with the promise that we will one day reign with Christ in God’s new world—something we currently can’t see and do not experience—is intended to give us hope as we labor in darkness and are confronted by the powers of Evil. St. John intends for us to worship the Lamb who was slaughtered for us so that we are strengthened and find encouragement in our struggles in this mortal life. Forgiveness is the basis for this.
But—and this is massively important to anyone who struggles to be forgiven—it isn’t just one size fits all forgiveness. In our gospel lesson, we see Christ deal with a deep hurt and painful memory to restore his beloved disciple, St. Peter, and Christ tailors his forgiveness accordingly. Recall that in a moment of false boldness and bravado with which so many of us are afflicted, Peter arrogantly proclaimed that he would never deny or leave Jesus, no matter what happened. Then reality set in and Peter betrayed his Master three times. Notice carefully that Jesus didn’t come to Peter and name his sin. He didn’t say, e.g., “Simon, you were a cowardly little weasel when I needed you most and you denied me. You boasted you never would do that but you did. What a loser. But I forgive you, dude. Love you, man.” Why didn’t Jesus do that? Because he didn’t have to. We are told elsewhere that St. Peter went out and wept bitterly because of his betrayal and we all know that feeling only too well. Like Peter, we sometimes wonder if Jesus can ever forgive us because we know our transgressions and our sins are ever before us. Stating the obvious to St. Peter would have only rubbed his nose in it and Jesus didn’t do that. Instead, he asked the only question that could lead to St. Peter’s healing and restoration: Do you love me, Simon? Do you love me despite your failures and your fears and your cowardice? The Greek for this interchange is interesting as Jesus uses agapao in asking and Peter uses phileo in response, a lesser form of love than agape love, until finally Christ used phileo in asking Peter if he loved him. Was our Lord meeting his beloved follower where St. Peter was, as do all good pastors? We aren’t told. What the story tells us is that Christ gently got to the heart of Peter’s sin and then forgave it; and in that forgiveness St. Peter found the power of Christ to shepherd his early Church, God be praised!
Likewise with St. Paul. Here we see Christ forgive in a completely different manner because St. Paul’s sin was much different than St. Peter’s. St. Paul was a murderer and vigorously persecuted the early Church. Strong action was needed and strong action was taken. There was blindness followed by fasting and prayer. But there was forgiveness and a great commission that could only be undertaken in the healing power of Christ’s forgiving love. None of us are St. Peter or St. Paul, but all of us desperately need Christ’s healing forgiveness to be his as they did. These stories and images proclaim exactly that. Will we be too stubborn or proud to accept the forgiveness that we need and in the way we need it, whatever that might look like? God forbid that we be so stupid!
When we accept our Lord’s forgiveness and power, we are made ready to do his work and proclaim his story to others, and it all starts with this parish family because charity starts at home and we are called to do this work together. When we accept Christ’s forgiveness, it humbles us because we realize we don’t deserve any of it (and if we think we do deserve Christ’s forgiveness, we’re outside of the Kingdom entirely). This realization creates humility in the power of the Spirit and that humility helps make us patient and allows us to endure all kinds of things, especially from our brothers and sisters, just like healthy families endure all kinds of baloney for the sake of each other. We realize we are in the same boat, but we also realize we share a common destiny—reigning with Christ in God’s new world. None of us are equipped for that call! But we do not answer the call in our own power. We answer in the power of Christ and with the faith-driven knowledge that we are loved and forgiven; and because we are, we are called to the privilege of being part of God’s family. Like the power of the Christ’s cross, this power is not the kind the world recognizes, but it is the power of God nevertheless and it is a sign of God’s new world breaking in on us. Hear the minister of one of the bombed churches in Sri Lanka testify to this power:
We are hurt. We are angry also, stated Zion’s senior pastor, Roshan Mahesen. But still—as the senior pastor…, the whole congregation, and every family affected—we say to the suicide bomber, and also to the group that sent the suicide bomber, We love you and we forgive you. No matter what you have done to us, we love you, because we believe in the Lord Jesus Christ [emphasis added].
Jesus Christ on the cross, [sic] said, Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing, said Mahesen. We also, who follow the footsteps of Jesus Christ, we say, for the Lord, forgive these people.
This is the power of God’s suffering love made known in a hate-filled world. It is new creation power based on Christ’s death and resurrection that announce our forgiveness and freedom from the corrupting powers of Sin, Evil, and Death. The world may scoff, but we dare not because this is our call, my beloved. God willing, we will never be bombed or shot up. But if we ever were, this must be our proclamation as well. Regardless of circumstance, we show the world Christ’s power by our generous love and care of each other, by patiently bearing each other’s foibles that irritate us and with which we disagree. We are gracious and humble with each other because we know we’ve been given the gift of eternal life and are greatly beloved by God despite our unloveliness.
This is the Easter Faith we are called to proclaim and live. This is the God we worship, the God who creates new things out of nothing and who raises the dead, the God who forgives us and heals us and equips us to love others and to embody his love, goodness, and justice to others, even when they don’t want any of it. This God, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, has sent his Son to restore us fully to himself and makes himself known to us in and through the power of the Holy Spirit and in the sacraments of baptism and holy Eucharist. Our worship of this God and his Lamb calls for us to celebrate and feast during this joyous season of Eastertide (are you partying like it’s the eschaton?), even as we love each other and forgive each other as well as a world that is hostile to us and to our crucified Lord. Come what may, let us resist our urge to fall back into our old ways. Instead, let us worship and serve Christ with joy and faithfulness all our mortal days because our present and future are secure in his great and healing love. To him be honor, praise, and glory forever and ever. Alleluia! Christ is risen! The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
If our flesh is not saved, then the Lord has not redeemed us with his blood, the eucharistic chalice does not make us sharers in his blood, and the bread we break does not make us sharers in his body. There can be no blood without veins, flesh and the rest of the human substance, and this the Word of God actually became: it was with his own blood that he redeemed us. As the Apostle says: “In him, through his blood, we have been redeemed, our sins have been forgiven.”
We are his members and we are nourished by creation, which is his gift to us, for it is he who causes the sun to rise and the rain to fall, He declared that the chalice, which comes from his creation, was his blood, and he makes it the nourishment of our blood. He affirmed that the bread, which comes from his creation, was his body, and he makes it the nourishment of our body. When the chalice we mix and the bread we bake receive the word of God, the eucharistic elements become the body and blood of Christ, by which our bodies live and grow. How then can it be said that flesh belonging to the Lord’s own body and nourished by his body and blood is incapable of receiving God’s gift of eternal life? Saint Paul says in his letter to the Ephesians that “we are members of his body,” of his flesh and bones. He is not speaking of some spiritual and incorporeal kind of person, “for spirits do not have flesh and bones.” He is speaking of a real human body composed of flesh, sinews and bones, nourished by the chalice of Christ’s blood and receiving growth from the bread which is his body.
The slip of a vine planted in the ground bears fruit at the proper time. The grain of wheat falls into the ground and decays only to be raised up again and multiplied by the Spirit of God who sustains all things. The Wisdom of God places these things at the service of human beings and when they receive God’s word they become the eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ. In the same way our bodies, which have been nourished by the eucharist, will be buried in the earth and will decay, but they will rise again at the appointed time, for the Word of God will raise them up to the glory of God the Father. Then the Father will clothe our mortal nature in immortality and freely endow our corruptible nature with incorruptibility, for God’s power is shown most perfectly in weakness.
Against Heresies 5, 2, 2-3: SC 153, 30-38
Saint Irenaeus, a late second-century Christian commentator and apologist, was bishop of Lyons and a spiritual grandson of the Apostles, having studied under Polycarp who in turn had studied under the Apostle John, one of the original twelve Apostles of Christ. So we can have great confidence that he received the real teachings of the Lord. Here he speaks of the relationship between Holy Eucharist and the Resurrection of the body that Christ’s Resurrection signals.
Resurrection, as Saint Irenaeus reminds us, is about new bodily existence, not living forever as a spirit without a body. His logic above is straightforward: The Eucharist, which is the body and blood of Christ after it has been consecrated, signals a new created order in which our mortal bodies are raised from the dead and reanimated by the Holy Spirit to live forever in God’s direct presence (1 Corinthians 15.35-50; Revelation 21.1-7). If the Eucharist consists of created elements (bread and wine) that are Christ’s body and blood after they are consecrated, it makes no sense that they would point to a state of existence (eternal life) that is spiritual rather than physical in nature. Just as consecrated bread and wine signal a new creation, Resurrection signals a new created order, one that is entirely consistent with God’s original good intentions for his creation. We get to live in that new order only by having a relationship with the crucified and risen Lord Jesus because only Christ’s Death can cleanse us of the sin and filth that prevent us from living in the Presence of a Holy God. Every time we come to Christ’s Holy Table to feed on his body and blood, we are strengthened in our living relationship with Christ and reminded of our glorious future because of his great love and sacrifice for us. What could possibly be better and more hopeful?
If you are a Christian, the next time you are beaten down by the news and events of today (they are legion) and start to lose hope, do as Saint Irenaeus and countless other Christians have done: Remember what Christ has done for you in his saving Death and the future awaiting you that his Resurrection proclaims. If you are not a Christian, consider how much better this hope and future is than the one of your own making, and choose to follow Christ.
For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.
Sermon originally preached on Easter 3C, Sunday, May 1, 2022. It was the last sermon I ever preached as rector and it remains bittersweet to this day. As usual, it will be helpful for you to read the assigned texts first by clicking on or tapping their links below before reading the sermon. For those with ears to hear, listen and understand.
Lectionary texts: Acts 9.1-20; Psalm 30; Revelation 5.11-15; St. John 21.1-19.
In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Today is my last regular Sunday to preach to you, my beloved (ignoring the fact that many of you consider that my preaching is enough to make any Sunday irregular). Fourteen years ago today I was ordained to the priesthood. Eleven years ago to the day, we started a home Bible study/eucharist that would eventually become St. Augustine’s. I don’t quite know where the last fourteen years have gone, or more precisely, how they have passed so quickly. But here I am on the verge of retirement, feeling very much like a washed-up old man and hot mess, and so I am resolved to pack fourteen years worth of sermons into one today. I’m guessing that will only take a few hours, given my superb skill of summarization. I’m sure you are thrilled at the prospect. I see Father Bowser twitching already in giddy anticipation.
What are we to make of St. John’s strange story of Christ’s appearing to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee? What is St. John trying to tell us? How is this story relevant to us today, both as individuals and the Church? This is what I want us to look at this morning.
Hearing St. John recount Christ’s third resurrection appearance to his disciples, we get the distinct impression that something new has been accomplished, that things have really changed, and for the better. Jesus is the same, yet he is somehow different. Despite appearing to his disciples twice before (Jn 20.19-29), they still don’t recognize him at first. They knew it was him but yet there was something different about him, so no one dared ask him who he was. As one theologian has wryly observed about the nature of these appearances, after the resurrection you don’t find anyone casually slapping Jesus on the back and saying with a grin, “We’re so glad you’re back, Jesus!” No, Christ was alive and had carried his wounds into God’s new world, remaining the same. But he was different and because he was alive and transformed, everything else was new. But were things really new? St. John doesn’t tell us the disciples were busy proclaiming that Christ had risen from the dead and working enthusiastically to build his Church. No, they had apparently returned to their original vocation of fishing, and the story gives us the impression they had done so because they were either depressed and/or bored. Nothing new there. Where was the excitement from the Octave of Easter we read about last week? In our NT lesson, St. Paul was still breathing threats and violence against the fledgling church. Nothing new there. The world still scoffed at the disciples’ proclamation that Christ was risen from the dead. Nothing new there. So what was really new?
Before we answer that question, it is critical to our resurrection faith that we again pay careful attention to the bodily nature of Christ’s appearance in this story. He stands on the shore and has cooked breakfast for his weary and discouraged disciples. He eats with them and talks with them. They can see him, hear him, touch him. Despite his transformed appearance they know it is Jesus because they recognize him primarily in his bodily form, not to mention his gentle kindness, thoughtfulness, and love. And here is the answer to our “what’s new” question. St. John, masterful and brilliant storyteller he is, is telling us in story form what the early Church proclaimed and what Jesus himself had told his disciples at the Last Supper—that in his Death our sins are forgiven, our wounds are healed, and we are made whole again. We are reconciled to God our Father and freed from our slavery to the power of Sin and with it, from Death’s tyranny. Yes, death will come to us all barring Christ’s return in the interim, but we will live and conquer Death because Christ lives and has conquered Death through his own Death and Resurrection, thanks be to God! Easter anyone?
How do you get all that from this story, you ask, and with a bit snark? I’m glad you ask, despite the fact that I just told you. But it wouldn’t be right if you stopped arguing with me during my sermons after all these years. That would mean you have stopped being the quirky people that make up this nuthouse of a parish, the people I love so much. So to repeat, while St. John does not tell us these things in exposition, he tells us in personal stories. In other words, we see Christ’s victory over Sin and Death in the transformative power it has on those who belong to him. Take his encounter with St. Peter, for example. There is much to love about St. Peter because he is us. He had shot his mouth off on the night before Christ died, boasting of his undying loyalty to his Lord, only to deny him three times in a spectacular act of cowardice of which we are all capable, especially in the context Peter’s denials occurred. And afterwards he had rightly wept bitterly over his profound failure. Imagine now for a minute that Christ was not risen from the dead, that there was no possibility for reinstatement, for forgiveness, for personal reaffirmation after catastrophic failure. How would St. Peter have felt? Utterly devastated and remorseful, no doubt, with no chance of his failure being put to rights. We all know this because we’ve all lapsed in our resurrection faith on occasion. There’s no worse feeling in the world than knowing a massive wrong/injustice cannot be made right because of our sins/failures. But this is exactly the situation we would find ourselves in if Christ really is dead. We may love God and others, but we’ve all let God and others down. We’ve betrayed and denied God and others and failed to live as the holy people God created us and calls us to be, and if Christ is not alive we are still dead in our sins with no hope of resolution or forgiveness.
But Christ is not dead. He is alive and now confronting St. Peter about his past sin. “Simon, son of John, do you agapao me more than these?” Agapao is the verb form of agape, the Greek word that means the highest form of love, the kind of love that is self-giving and seeks the absolute best for the beloved, the kind of love with which Christ loved his disciples and loves us. “Yes, Lord, you know I phileo you,” St. Peter replied. Phileo is another Greek word for love, but it can refer to a lesser kind of love, a brotherly, affectionate love that is not always self-giving. Back came the response: Feed my lambs (take care of my followers, the Church, Simon). A second time Christ asked his wounded and hurting disciple: Simon, do you agapao me?, receiving the same answer. Yes Lord, you know I phileo you. Back came the response: Tend my sheep. A third time, matching the number of times St. Peter had denied his Lord on Holy Thursday, Christ asked him, “Simon, son of John, do you phileo me?” St. Peter was hurt by this third question, or perhaps the subtle change in it. We aren’t told why. “Lord, you know all things. You know I phileo you.” Back came the response: Feed my sheep. Now while there is much scholarly debate over the significance of Christ using St. Peter’s word, phileo, to ask a third time if St. Peter loved him, count me among those who believe St. John was too good a storyteller to have this be simply about semantics. Here we see our crucified and risen Lord meet St. Peter where he was emotionally with Christ at that moment. Surely St. Peter had learned from his unfounded bravado that he wasn’t the stud he fancied himself to be, nor did he love his Lord as he thought. He had failed catastrophically the man he loved more than anyone else, the man who had turned his whole life upside down. In telling us this tender and compelling story, St. John is surely telling us that this is how Christ and his resurrection are making all things new. Without forgiveness of sins on the cross, without a newfound freedom to resist Sin’s power, there could have been no real forgiveness. St. Peter, like us, would have remained dead in his sins and alienated from God the Father, doomed to utter destruction. But here was Christ, meeting his wayward and sorrowful disciple where he was, forgiving him and inviting him to take up the victory Christ had accomplished for him in his Death and Resurrection, and Christ does the same for us. St. Peter would accept Christ’s invitation by giving his life for the Son of God and so can we.
In telling us this story, St. John is surely telling us that the power of Jesus is typically not made known in stunning ways, in ways the world recognizes as spectacular, although there are notable and numerous exceptions to this rule. Christ making all things new is not about razzle-dazzle or eye-popping special effects that we love to see at the movies. Instead, it is about the quiet way of Christ with his people, with St. Peter, with you and me, agapaoing us in all our unloveliness, forgiving all our failures and betrayals and denials, recognizing our limitations, but also seeing our potential and putting us to work for him, despite who we can be, out of his sheer grace and love for us. There is nothing we have said or not said, thought or not thought, done or not done that is beyond the healing love and forgiveness of our crucified and risen Savior, nothing that will not eventually be put to rights, even if we must wait for it to be put to rights in God’s new heavens and earth. If you cannot find real hope, real comfort, real healing in this reality and promise, my beloved, surely you are to be pitied most of all. St. Paul found it on the road to Damascus, St. Peter found it in our gospel story today as have countless other Christians across time and cultures. Let us join this happy and forgiven throng so that like the psalmist in today’s lesson, we too can make the bold proclamation of conquering death through Christ our own!
And how does this apply to Christ’s body, the Church, to us together? It is quite appropriate that today’s gospel lesson was the appointed text because it is the promise and power of Christ making all things new, even with all its ambiguity and perplexities, that allows me to leave the people I love so much. Make no mistake. Human leadership, good leadership, is massively important for any family. But human leaders come and go and I am no different than anyone else. We are a healthy, thriving parish with a bright future, and while I have played some small part in that, the fact remains that we are this way because we make Christ our true Head and Leader. We believe in his promise to meet us where we are in all our changes and chances of life, in all our fears and hopes and dreams and failures, and he promises to lead us through even the valley of the shadow of death. This is what allows me to retire with confident hope for you our beloved family, because I know Christ lives and is present here among us, making all things new, transforming the old.
My dearly beloved, don’t ever lose sight of this reality and promise. Christ seeks you out, no matter who or where you are, and promises to bring you home one day to a world where there will be no more sorrow or sighing or sickness or alienation or madness or folly or separation or death. We can stake our individual and collective lives on this promise if we continue to respond faithfully to the means of grace that make Christ available to us in real and living ways: Bible reading and study, prayer, confession, sweet fellowship of all kinds (don’t forget to party and enjoy the blessings Christ showers on you), and regular partaking of holy communion. All these things open us to Christ’s risen reality and Presence in and through the Holy Spirit. We have all died and been raised to new life in Christ in our baptism, and we are yoked to him forever, thank God. In Christ is our hope, our present, and our future. In him we find comfort in our sorrows, God’s tenderness, forgiveness, new life in our failures, and a deep abiding joy in all things because we belong to Christ. Imitate this great love as he commands us. Beloved, make this old man happy and proud by responding to Christ’s love with boldness and courage and hope. Remain faithful to him who delivers you from Sin and Death, and never abandon the faith once delivered to the saints, the true apostolic faith. Don’t be worried about your future as God’s family here at St. Augustine’s without the Maneys because you have Christ and he will never abandon or desert you. He is busy making all things new, yourselves included, both now and in God’s new world to come, a world that Christ’s resurrection announced and inaugurated. God bless you, my beloved. I thank God for blessing me with the massive privilege of being your rector for all these years. Toots and I are thankful to have been part of this holy and very quirky family and I am thankful to be yoked to you in Christ forever. We love you more than you’ll ever know. To him be honor, praise, and glory forever and ever. Alleluia! Christ is risen. The Lord is risen indeed! Alleluia!
In the name of God: the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
