Easter 2 28th April 2019 Discernment

SECOND SUNDAY OF EASTER  Year C   April 28, 2019

Acts 5:27-32  •  Psalm 118:14-29 or Psalm 150  •  Revelation 1:4-8  •  John 20:19-31

In Australia we have this thing we call the “Tall Poppy Syndrome”.  I’m sure you know it and may even have experienced it in some form.  We tend to want to cut down those who seem to be doing well.  In some generations it has been seen as a kind of “grounding”… that is, making sure that the one doing well remembers to be humble.  But in actual fact it is sin, and born out of envy and covetousness.

Selfish ambition causes people to speak badly about the one who is seen to be doing well, and usually the general population is happy to believe the gossip because they all share that same sin of envy.

In our first reading we see that the disciples are standing before the high priest being accused of blaming the religious people of Jerusalem for the death of Jesus… and they don’t hold back in telling those making the accusations that they are indeed responsible.

This is really important to understand properly.  Some Christians today, will try to tell you that it was the Romans who were responsible for Jesus’ crucifixion.  These Christians make these statements to stand up for Jews and fight against anti-Jewish prejudice. Rome did give the final OK to the crucifixion, but remember how Pilate tried to release Jesus and then washed his hands, symbolically showing that it was not him but the Jews who had Jesus crucified.

Some anti-Semitics have had this blame of the Jews for Jesus’ death as a justification for their prejudice.  Rest assured that we have no right for any such prejudice, and to do so would show grave ignorance of the word of God, the scriptures, and the promises of God to his people, the Israelite nation. 

It is important that we understand that it was Jesus own people who rejected him and handed him over to be crucified.  This is written in the scriptures both in prophecy before Jesus’ death and in the accounts written by eye witnesses, after the death of Jesus.  His blood was on their hands and it is also on ours – because it is for OUR sins that he died…  and we too are guilty of rejecting Christ.

Jesus was seen by the religious of his day, to be a Tall Poppy.  He had a following of people and a reputation for working miracles.  He claimed to be the Son of God.  As far as they were concerned, this was blasphemy, and he needed to be put to death - especially as he was achieving even more than the average tall poppy - He was doing things that kind of proved himself to be true, as the messiah…. And confirmed, as the son of God!  A false tall poppy can be easily laughed at and dismissed, but the ones who deserve their status are generally the ones we all crucify.  

It was Jesus’ own people who were responsible for his blood.  How easy it was for them to get it wrong.  How easy it was for them to justify their wrong actions and to crucify the innocent.  It is just as easy for us to do the same right here in this year.

They rejected Jesus, but the stone the builders rejected has become the corner stone.

We do well to keep in mind how the very ones that Jesus came to save, did not recognize him and even crucified him.  We should reflect and ponder about those who we reject, and examine our conscience to see if we are honestly discerning or if we are, in fact, only justifying our selfish motives.

Jesus’ hands and feet are now on earth in his people, in you and me.  To answer the question of whether we are guilty of having rejected Christ, we need to look at the people in our church and ask if there are any we have rejected and hurt.  Jesus tells us that what we do to the least of His people is what we have done to him.

We should take a moment to ask the Spirit of God to open our eyes to anywhere in our lives that we have been guilty of this.

Speaking of discernment, where our eyes are opened to the deeper reality… where we see things with the eyes of  God, we come to look at our Gospel reading where we notice the story of the one we’ve come to know as “doubting Thomas”.  

I do feel sorry for Thomas as he has a reputation that I’m sure he does not deserve.  

When we read the account, we see that Jesus appeared to the disciples on the first day of the week and Thomas was absent.  On this first appearance Jesus actually shows his wounds to those in the room.  Why did he do that?  It is my belief that Jesus knew it was necessary to be abundantly clear, in order for the disciples to, not just believe, but absolutely know, with unshakeable assurance, that this was Jesus in risen flesh.   This absolute assurance, that they were not dreaming or imagining, or seeing a ghost, was needed so that they could accurately pass on this testimony of what they witnessed so that others could believe.

Unfortunately there will always be people who will not believe regardless of the testimony of another and regardless of all the evidence.  Jesus had taught his disciples about his death and resurrection, but none of them had properly grasped it.  The disciples had seen Jesus and passed on the story to Thomas, but Thomas remains sceptical.

I’ve seen too many people led astray by popular notions to dismiss Thomas as simply doubting.  Many years ago there was a movement in the Catholic Church called the Magnificat Meal Movement.  There was a lady from Toowoomba who led the movement and many here in Mackay were swept up in it… even stating the signs and wonders… miracles that seemed to happen surrounding this woman, who. on the one hand affirmed the traditional Catholic church (such that she won over many loyal devotees ) and with the other hand completely dismissed and criticised the Catholic Church.  She led many astray.

We are encouraged to test the spirits.  Whether it is from the lips of the person you most trust and admire or the greatest guru, we must train ourselves and our children to think critically.  In fact, we need to teach them to be like Thomas and discern.  The Bible tells us that faith is being Sure of what we hope for and certain of things we can’t see….. but being sure and certain means that even though we can’t see it, it isn’t BLIND faith, but convictions based on reasons.

As a mature-age education student we were encourage to be critical thinkers and told that with the current state of the world and the way that it seems to be headed, the best thing we can pass on to children is how to think critically and discern where there maybe bias or camouflaged lies.  Too often though, what I see is the media and society creating a culture where there is a popular philosophy that all the intelligent people must think in a certain way – The education lecturers were correct… we do need to teach critical thinking skills to our children, but it is so foreign to most people that we don’t know how to pass it on to our children… it doesn’t mean disbelieving everything, but it does mean thinking it through and testing it in the light of different circumstances.

My daughter, Talitha’s first lesson in this was when she was about 4 years old.  She wanted me to buy her roll ups. She’d seen the advertisement on television and when I bought them for her she wanted to know why they wouldn’t stick to her face the way that they did on the advertisement.  I explained that they put things that weren’t true on the ad so that we would want to buy them.  She was more aware of what was going on after that.

I have told children that every television show is trying to teach them something… or convince them of something.. or change their mind.  It is the same with songs.  Everything in entertainment is a voice with a message, urging you to get on board with their way of thinking.  Have you ever recognised them trying to change the way you think about a topic?  My guess is that sometimes you have, but I doubt that any of us are aware of the more subtle ones.  Don’t get me wrong, many of the messages are actually really positive, but we should be aware of the agenda so that we can consciously decide if we want to accept that way of thought….

The educators call it critical thinking, but the Bible calls it discernment.

Jesus didn’t dismiss Thomas for his doubting and disqualify him from apostleship, but instead he gives him the knowledge that Thomas is going to need in order to be one of Jesus’ powerful eye witnesses who was about to shape the history of the earth.

It is believed that Thomas went as missionary to the far East and eventually died in India after baptizing many.  It was Thomas who, when Jesus was determined to go to Jerusalem after Lazarus’ death, said that they should all go with him and die with Jesus -  They knew that the Jews were wanting to put Jesus to death.  Thomas was loyal to Jesus and he was brave, but he wasn’t going to be swayed by the Charisma of Peter or the persuasiveness of John’s clever way with words.

In the readings today we’ve seen that people can easily reject God’s message and Christ in others simply because of sinful envy or ego,…that is, tall poppy syndrome.   And hopefully we’ve also seen how it is good to be discerning and deliberately thoughtful about what we believe.  Jesus said to Thomas, blessed are those who believe even though they have not seen.   This is talking about us, but it doesn’t mean for us to blindly believe…. We believe because we have reasoned with the evidence, heard from the eye witnesses and seen the results from their lives and their impact on our human history. 

In the book of Acts we read about a group of Jews from Berea.  Acts 17:11(NIV)

“Now the Berean Jews were of more noble character than those in Thessalonica, for they received the message with great eagerness and examined the Scriptures every day to see if what Paul said was true.”  These people didn’t dismiss the message according to their own prejudice, but neither did they blindly accept.  They were open to the message but examined the scriptures to discern that the message was correct.

We also believe because we have an advocate… the Holy Spirit, who helps us to discern.  Our faith is not blind, but it is a conviction based on reason and prayerful connection to God who lives in us. It is no coincidence that we read in the Gospel that Jesus breathed on the disciples and said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit."

GOOD FRIDAY - IT IS FINISHED

GOOD FRIDAY 2019 19^th April

Jesus said, “It is finished!” 

Today is a day most holy.  In 1992 I was in hospital on Good Friday after giving birth to daughter number two, Brittany, and I noticed a strange stillness.   This was back in the days when the Mater was in the middle of town where those crazy parrots squawk so loudly, but even they were silent on that day.  I’ve noticed it since then…. It is as if there is a sacred stillness in all creation, remembering and acknowledging the sacrifice and the work that Jesus accomplished on the cross on the day we have come to know as Good Friday.

Even non-Christian historians have written about this person, Jesus, who we know as the son of God.  They wrote that he performed wonders and that he was crucified.  Because of him our system of counting the years came to be marked by the year of his birth…. Any sensible person must ask why the life and death of Jesus was so significant.

While many may tell you that Australia is no longer a Christian nation, and they may even try to say that all this Christianity is a myth, yet today is a holiday – or Holy day…. All over Australia.  Venues are shut.  On Sunday some of them will be open.  Today is the day MOST HOLY.  But why?

Today we celebrate that day when Jesus cried out, “It is finished”.  But what did he mean by that?

It all began back in the book of Genesis at the beginning of time when sin entered the world and mankind were cast out from God’s presence. 

These days it isn’t considered correct to talk about sin.  And people become quite defensive and uncomfortable if we suggest that they might sometimes sin, yet sin is simply anything that falls short of perfection, and in fact the Bible tells us that anything that is not of faith is sin…. Yet we all have times where we lack faith.  In Archery anything other than a bullseye is considered sin.  In fact, we can-not not sin…. It has become part of our DNA.

Unfortunately, sin separates us from God.  Now that is the bad news…. But it is a fact. 

God created us to be in relationship with him and he planned a way to bring us back into relationship with him.  The Bible tells us that justice must be served and there is a price for sin, and the price was death.  And this is not good news!

Way back in ancient times of superstitions and fearful pagan gods, there was a system that seemed to appease the ancient gods… it was a system of sacrifice.  Abraham lived in this ancient context and understood things in this way and so when God tested Abraham and asked him to sacrifice his son, Isaac, the concept was not completely foreign to Abraham, however it was odd in the fact that our God never required such sacrifice.  Yet Abraham obeys.  At this point in the story Abraham knows the promise of God to make him a father of nations, and the miraculous birth of Isaac, born to him in his old age and to his barren 90 year old wife, meant that Abraham figured that somehow God would save this child…. Or raise him from the dead, and by now, Abraham believed that God could certainly do it.

So in obedience, but no doubt with trepidation, Abraham sets out.  Just like Jesus carried his cross, we note that the wood for the sacrifice was laid on Isaac, who carried it to the place of sacrifice.  Scripture is so amazing that there are layers of meaning and prophetic messages about Jesus written hundreds of years before his birth.  Suddenly God calls out to stop Abraham and a lamb appears…. God did provide the lamb.  We know that Jesus is the Lamb of God, who is substituted for our death, (our debt for sin).  Here, before the Israelite nation is even born, is yet another message about Jesus and the purpose he would achieve.

The lamb was sacrificed in place of Isaac and the blessing was given, which proclaimed the people coming from Isaac as God’s chosen people…. Just like Jesus who died in our place enables us to be God’s chosen people.

Later in Egypt, in the history of Isaac’s people, the Israelites, God would command that a lamb be sacrificed and the blood painted on the door ways, while the Angel of death passed through the land of Egypt where the Israelites were living as slaves.  The Angel would pass over the houses with the blood of the lamb, and the firstborn of the family was saved by the blood of the lamb. 

A little latter with the giving of the law, the community would lay hands on a goat and confess the sins of the community…. This is where we get the term, scape goat, as the sins were considered transferred and the community was forgiven.

All through history God showed his loved and forged ways so that his people could be in relationship with him…. And yet they were not to take him for granted.  Make no mistake, God is holy, powerful and awesome.  His temple contained areas that were segregated such that one area was only for the high priest and even that was only under very strict guidelines involving animal sacrifice and with a rope attached in case the power of God overwhelmed them and they died, they could then be pulled out.  Sounds frightening… and though it was a way for the people to be relationship with God, still not the greatest of news.

However, our reading from Hebrews tells us that Christ offered one sacrifice for sins, an offering that is effective forever.  This is what he accomplished on Good Friday.  And he said, ……“It is finished.”

Another scripture written hundreds of years before Christ, from Isaiah chapter 53, tells us that Christ bore our sins.  His punishment made us whole

53:6 All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way, and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. 

It also says… The righteous one, my servant, shall make many righteous, and he shall bear their iniquities….. he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.”  This prophetically tells us about Jesus and what he was accomplishing for us.

This is beyond what we can comprehend, but Jesus actually was baptized into all our sin… past, present and future and paid the price for us all.  Although our physical DNA has a natural inclination to sin, when we are baptized into Christ, it is as though we receive the Spiritual DNA of Christ, who has already paid the price for sin and is perfect.

Hebrews tells us that with one sacrifice, he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.   What this actually means is that we now have the privilege that was once only for select few who’d prepared themselves through sacrifice and rituals.  We can now enter the holy of holies… the place where God is.   In one very natural sense we are still being made holy, but in another, we are already perfect as we only come to God through the sacrifice of Jesus, and when clothed in Christ, we are acceptable to God.

C. S. Lewis wrote the Chronicles of Narnia, fictitious children’s stories, but full of Christian imagery.  In The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe, there is a scene where the Lion lies dead on the stone table, then as the dawn breaks there is a loud crack as the stone table breaks in two and the lion is resurrected.  He explains that there is a deep magic in Narnia that requires a traitor’s life to be forfeited to the white witch.  But then he explains that there is an even deeper magic that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor's stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backwards.

At the beginning of time God had a plan to save us in this way as the letter from 1 Peter 1:18-20 tells us, “For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect.  He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake.”

Finally it was accomplished.  So many of the things that happened in Jesus journey to crucifixion were written about in scripture hundreds of years before hand.  From the accounts in the Gospels we know that Jesus knew the sacrifice he willingly made, but that doesn’t mean it was easy.

Have you ever been accused of things you haven’t done?  It doesn’t feel good.  Do you remember a time when someone sat down with a needle to work a prickle out of your finger?  That wasn’t fun either.  Sometimes the knowledge of the pain to come makes it even harder to bear.  Jesus knew of the physical pain that was ahead and he was scared.  He knew that he was to be mocked for claiming to be God’s son, as if he was a fraud, but he knew that he was truly the son of God. 

All these things are horrible, but we can imagine what it may have felt like.  What we can’t imagine is what it was like to carry the sin of the world to the cross.  We know that Jesus was scared.  Yet willingly, Jesus continued to fulfil his destiny.  Why? Why would he bother?   Has he seen us, for whom he died?  John Newton was a ruthless and cruel slave trader.  When he came to understand the message of the Gospel he wrote;  “Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me.”  For all of us, even that person that you find completely ruthless and horrid, Jesus died.  Jesus paid the debt of sin for all.  And this sacrifice was done once and for all.  It is now finished.

A song that I teach my singing students is called Mercy walked in.  “I stood in the courtroom. The Judge turned my way, “it looks like you’re guilty, now what do you say.” I answered, “your honour, I have no defence” but that’s when mercy walked in.”  Imagine being found guilty of a crime and then discovering that the jail term has already been served by someone else.  The judge bangs the gavel and says, “dismissed… you are free…”

There are times when we think we are not acceptable to God.  There are times when we think we need to work at something to become acceptable to God.  Nothing but the truth is needed…. And that truth is that the debt has been paid. 

Do you recall the words of Isaiah which, when Jesus read them, said “today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing”?  Those words which Jesus prophetically proclaimed were: “The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.  He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

GOOD NEWS !  Finally!  We know the bad news about how we all sin and sin separates us from God, and now we know that the Good News and reason that this is Good Friday is because Jesus paid that debt for us and we are free.

I once heard an international Bible speaker say, “Christ didn’t come to die for your sins”.  And I thought he was speaking heresy.  Surely that is what Good Friday is truly about, Christ achieved his destiny by dying for the sins of the world…. But the speaker went on to explain something which I’ve come to see as vitally important…. Christ’s objective was to bring us LIFE.  However, to bring us life, our debt for sin needed to be paid.  God showers us with love and mercy and grace beyond our comprehension, and we can rejoice in the freedom and live an abundant life that starts now and goes into eternity.  But the Life that God brings us was not possible without the cross.

Good Friday is a MOST holy and important day, but we are NOT meant to stay here focusing on our sin.  As Jesus declared on the cross; “It is finished”.  Even sin in our future, is already paid for… nothing can separate us from the love of God…nothing….

This week I found an old letter from someone who said some very hurtful things to me.  All over again I felt like maybe I’m actually a horrible person and the hurt was as fresh as when I first received the letter.  I believe it was a timely find to show me that this is not how God see me and I need to live life in the reality of God and the life he gives me…  not someone’s hurtful perception. 

This is also an example of how our un-forgiveness of our brothers and sisters in Christ robs us and others of the life that Jesus paid so dearly to give us.

Do we comprehend the grace of God?  Psalm 103:10 “He does not treat us as our sins deserve or repay us according to our iniquities.”  Have you ever felt that things weren’t working out for you and you figured that maybe it was God punishing you… ?    I do this all the time but it is wrong! God does not do this- the cross took that away.  Jesus took that punishment.   

The cross was vital, and the powers and principalities operating meant it to be death and destruction.   But that death was only part one of the story.  Our debts are all paid.  We are loved and we are free.  Resurrection is coming….

 If we do not accept the gift of freedom and actually live the life that Jesus came to bring us, then Jesus’ sacrifice was in vain.  Let us this day, determine to step into that way of abundant God given life.  Let us determine to also set free the captives who have not understood the grace of God…. Let go and forgive them, just as Christ has forgiven us… set them free and live free and rejoicing in the knowledge of the abundant love of God.   He loves you so much and says, YOU are WORTH DYING for!