2025 02 09 Epiphany 5C
Isaiah 6:1-8, (9-13)
Psalm 138 1 Corinthians
15:1-11 Luke 5:1-11
This year we
have been asked by the Australian Anglican Church to join in a united effort to
take the message of the Gospel to our community. At Synod, all churches declared their support
for this venture and pledged that they would take part. We aim to declare the message, “There is Hope
in Jesus”. Today we see, in our
scriptures, that this call to step out of our former way of life and into the
exciting plan that God has for us, is affirmed.
Last week we
celebrated the presentation of Jesus in the temple. Mary was told, “and a sword will pierce your
own soul”. The sword that needs to
pierce all our souls is the word of God which is alive and active and judges thoughts
and intentions of the heart. When we are
honest with ourselves and God, we can come to God, ready for our next
step. Jesus was presented in the temple
after his circumcision and after the time of purification. After the presentation, his life journey
continued as he grew into and walked according to God’s perfect plan for his
life. This is also a pattern for the way
that God calls us.
Today we
look at the call of others and learn some important aspects. Firstly, lets talk about purification. Many people shy away from stepping out and
into the plan of God, because they think they are not good enough…. And they
are correct. NONE of us are good
enough. We need to face that fact with
honesty, but then we need to know what God has done for us.
In our first
reading, Isaiah declared that he was unworthy.
He declared the truth. Notice
that God didn’t say… “Oh yes you are worthy, Isaiah.”, but instead he has a
seraph, which is an angelic being, take a coal from a specific fire and touch
his lips with it, thus purifying him. It
all seems very bizarre to us, and I must admit, I have images of Isaiah having
burnt lips after this, however, that is not what is happening here. To understand what is happening we need to
understand some aspects familiar to the Israelites.
This altar
was familiar to Isaiah, as the Israelites had regular sacrifices and rituals
involving an altar. Isaiah knew that the
altar with which he was familiar was a copy of the one in heaven. Here, he was having a vision of the one in
heaven. The reason for the altar was a
means to connect with God - to be
forgiven and to be purified or made holy.
For us, Jesus is the sacrificed lamb, who willingly died to make
atonement for our sins. In doing this He
makes us holy. That altar in heaven is
holy, because God is Holy, Holy, holy….
We say it three times because he is beyond our comprehension of holy,
and also, he is three persons, one God.
There is no way that we can ever be in any way shape of form, worthy
enough to speak for God, but Jesus has touched us and in that touch is healing
and purification, just as that coal, live with the presence of God, purified
Isaiah.
The
fishermen, especially Peter, knew that he was not worthy. Peter suddenly realizes that he is in the
presence of holiness, and he cannot stand.
He is overwhelmed he falls down at Jesus's knees, and cries out,
"Go away from me, Lord, for I am a sinful man!" Jesus doesn’t say, “No, you’re not”. It is the truth. Peter has acknowledged it, and we all need
to have had that kind of moment in our own lives so that we can then move on to
the next step.
Jesus said
to Peter, “Do not be afraid, from now on you will be catching people.” After this, we are told that those men left
everything and followed Jesus.
(somewhere else, we are told that these followers were made “clean” by
the word that Jesus spoke to them).
Isaiah and
the apostles, especially Peter, knew that they were not worthy, but we know
that they were mightily called and used to bring God’s message to the
people. We are asked by God to go out
into all the world, making disciples,
baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit,
and teaching them to obey everything that Jesus commanded us. How are we going with this? We have some baptisms, but that is only one
part of this great commission. Are we
making disciples? Are we going out to
all the world… or even, are we going out into our community? That is what Hope 25 is getting us to do… to
go out into our community, to our neighbours, friends and family, with the
message that there is hope in Jesus.
Our reading
from the letter to the Corinthians tells us about the important points in the
message that we take to the world. Saint
Paul explains point number one - that
Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures. Some
people would say, we are not really sinners… no one is really bad… it is all
just poor circumstances. Absolutely,
this is nearly always the case, but it doesn’t make us any less a sinner. There but for the grace of God go I, and yet
all of us…. Isaiah and Peter included are not worthy of God…. We are not and cannot
ever be worthy in our own strength. We
might be admirable in the eyes of men, but that sword of the spirit that
convicts of truth knows our heart and compared to God our righteous acts are as
filthy rags. That sentiment comes from
the book of Isaiah also; Isaiah 64:6 “All
of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like
filthy rags; we all shrivel up like a leaf, and like the wind our sins sweep us
away.”
God so loved
the world that Jesus came to die for us.
If he didn’t need to do this because of our sin, he would not have said
that he did. We focus on the love of
God, but we need to be careful that we don’t dismiss sin because we are trying
to be loving. Even if there is a good
reason for sin, it is still sin… and sin, according to our scriptures, is
something we all share because all fall short of the glory of God and scripture
also tells us that anything that is not of faith is sin.
Step one is
that we agree with God. We are not
worthy, and we need him, but the good news is that Jesus died to make atonement
for sin, so that we can be redeemed…. In other words, bought back to the family
of God.
The second
part of the message we proclaim is that Jesus was buried (really and truly
dead) and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures.
This was no ordinary man who died for
us, but God incarnate. He rose from the
dead. As man, Jesus could suffer and
die, but as God, Jesus is eternal, and he conquered death and rose on the third
day. He rose… he properly and fully
rose. It wasn’t a figure of speech or
some kind of parable. We know that he
rose because he appeared to Peter and the disciples and then to more than five
hundred people at one time. This is what
we are told in the letter and these people testified to this fact.
God was a
man who lived among us. Because of his great
love for us he paid the spiritual price for our sins – death – the wages of sin
is death. This is more than a nice
philosophical religious idea and Jesus proved the truth by rising from the
dead. This is how we have hope and faith
in God. This is not blind faith, there
were eye witnesses – many of them.
In the year
2025, there are more people with mental health issues than ever before and more
people with depression. Young people
feel that there is no hope. They think
we are destroying the climate and everywhere they turn there is division over
ideology and violent protests. No one
thinks that they are a sinner, but I suspect they can all tell you someone who
is. Deep down we know we are not as good
as the image we try to project, so how might it make a difference if we could
confess, “Lord I am not worthy!”?
Our world
needs desperately to know Jesus. When we
come to him, we find that he makes us whole.
He takes us, as we are and through his blood we are cleansed… we are
healed. This is hope… the only true
hope. There is only hope in Jesus… hope
for now and hope for eternity, but the world will never know the truth unless
we do something about it. The voice of
the Lord is saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?"
Can we all right
now, in prayer… turn to God and like Isaiah say; "Here am I; send
me!"
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