The whisper - GOOD FRIDAY - 18th April 2025

GOOD FRIDAY  18^th April 2025

 

Amazing love!  Oh what sacrifice!  The Son of God given for me!

We know the story because we hear about it all the time, but have we heard it personally?  Have we heard Jesus whispering quietly to us, “I do this for you” ?

 

I dearly want to tell you some of the theology and draw out just some of the meaning in this event, but all the most eloquent words in the world are meaningless, unless we are willing to sit in silence waiting to hear the whisper of God’s love personally.  Today, we are called to listen.

 

Listen to the silence of Jesus as he accepts a punishment he doesn’t deserve.  Listen to feel the beat of God’s heart as he shows the world that they not only have reject him, in rejecting God the son, but they so vehemently reject him, that they cruelly crucified him.

 

This is the story of mankind.  We, like the Pharisees, say if we were there, we would not have done this….. but is that true?   Over and over again, throughout all of history, God sent his messengers and the people rejected them, mocked them and killed them.  They still do.  God sent his son, not only to reveal the truth – that mankind would again reject and kill, but also to save any who turn to him.  He is the pure and holy Lamb of God, whose shed blood saves us…. makes restitution for us, redeems us and brings us back, reconciled us with God and truly bringing peace.

 

We call it Good Friday.  But why is it GOOD?  Jesus suffered, not just the humiliation of the mocking, but severe flogging and the injustice of being punished for being exactly who he was -  God!   and then being crucified.   We can say those words without emotion.  The truth is not easy to convey.  It hurts.

 

The closest friends of Jesus ran away, betrayed him with a kiss and denied him.  These were his supporters!  His own people insisted that he be crucified, and the Romans enjoyed taunting and mocking him.

 

There are three different kinds of whipping that the Romans did when ordered to punish someone.  The most severe form was done to those sentenced to be crucified, using whips with bits of bone attached, which ripped into the recipient’s flesh.  Sometimes the recipient didn’t survive the whipping, saving them from the work of crucifying perhaps.  This is what Jesus received. ……..

 

This is just one aspect of the pain that Jesus went through.  Should we talk about them all?  Isaiah, roughly 700 years before Christ, tells us about him; “See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high. Just as there were many who were astonished at him  —so marred was his appearance, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of mortals”.  This tells me that the pictures we have of Jesus on the cross are the “Nice” versions and not a true depiction.

 

Then there was the emotional pain.  When Jesus was on the cross and cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”  he was experiencing the separation from God, which is a reality of humankind due to sin.  Jesus, on the cross, was baptized into the sin of the world and experienced acutely that separation.  He hadn’t sinned, but he took the punishment that was due to us. 

 

When Jesus cried out that statement, he was also quoting Psalm 22.  It should have been a wake-up call to the people who insisted on his death, namely the religious leaders.  That Psalm describes the scene in front of them, right down to the casting lots for his clothes. 

 

In the Gospel accounts of the crucifixion they tell of spiced wine offered to Jesus.  One he refuses, the other he accepts.  The one he refused was offered in mocking by the Romans, the one he accepted was offered by a bystander… but there is more to it than that.

 

“They put the sponge on the stem of a hyssop plant. Then they lifted it up to Jesus’ lips.  After Jesus drank he said, “It is finished.””  The mentioning of the hyssop plant is significant.

The first sponge is believed by experts to be one of the tools of the Romans.  It was used for hygiene and was most likely full of filth.  The second was different, an act of mercy, given at the end of Jesus’ time on the cross, and the hyssop was yet another important prophetic sign.  When the Israelites were slaves in Egypt, the Israelites were told to dip a hyssop branch into the blood of the sacrificial lamb and paint its blood over the door, thus saving the family from death.   Jesus is our Passover lamb.  As the hyssop was lifted up to him, it was a picture of painting the blood of the lamb over the door, saving the people from death.

Hyssop was a symbol of God’s cleansing.  King David’s Psalm 51, that he wrote after his affair with Bathsheba, says this; “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow.”

 

Isaiah also tells us some more about this Lamb of God who takes away our sin and saves us;  Surely he has borne our infirmities and carried our diseases; yet we accounted him stricken, struck down by God, and afflicted.  But he was wounded for our transgressions, crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed.  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.”

 

Throughout the Gospels we witness the connection between God saving and God healing.  We are saved and we are healed by the blood of Jesus.  I met a lady once, who said she’d had a vision of every disease written in the drops of Jesus blood.  Meaning that Jesus had made a way for the healing of absolutely everything.  There certainly is a lot I don’t know and don’t understand, but I do believe that Jesus loves us, died for us and shed all his blood on the cross…. Blood shed for us… His blood, that saves us.

Today we are called to listen...  to hear that whisper.  Let us pray; “Lord, open our hearts and minds to accept and know the extent of your love for us. Lord, we sit now, in your presence.  We listen to hear that intimate whisper.  We know that you, Jesus, died for the sins of the world, but Lord, let me hear what it means that you died for me.”

To Follow Him HOLY THURSDAY 17th April 2025

 2025  04  17  Maundy/ Holy Thursday

 

Psalm 116 tells us;  “I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD”.   The words in the original language convey a deliberate and zealous taking up of the cup.  This is a psalm of David, and he is talking about a specific cup that is drunk from during the festival of Passover.  When the Jewish people celebrate this feast, they retell the story of God saving them from the Angel of death when they were in the land of Egypt, where they lived as slaves.

 

In that story, a lamb was sacrificed and it’s blood was painted over the doorway.  Those from that house were kept in safety that night, but those who didn’t partake awoke to find the first born male of every house hold was dead.  The Jewish people were quite literally saved by the blood of the lamb.

 

After this event, we know that Pharoah, let the people go into the desert…. Although he changed his mind again after they had set out, and the Egyptian army pursued the Israelites.  God parted the sea so that the Israelites could cross on dry land.  The Egyptians began to follow them, but the sea came back, and they were drowned.

 

This event is remembered by the Israelites and commemorated each year as a feast called Passover.  unleavened bread is used, along with lamb, bitter herbs and salty water.  All are part of the telling of the story.  There are also multiple cups of red wine, consumed at various times in the meal with varying remembrances.  Something that really stood out to me, when I celebrated a Christian version of this, was that during the ceremony the finger is dipped into one of the cups (probably the 2^nd cup) and drops of wine are placed onto the plate.  This is to signify each of the plagues that God sent because Pharoah would not let the people go, but in doing so, from the cup of wine, also symbolically shows that the cups are less full, and the victor’s joy is less because salvation came at a cost of great pain to the Egyptians.

 

Jesus was taking part in this ceremony with his friends on Holy Thursday.  As I mentioned, there are multiple cups of wine that are used.  They are associated with God’s promises from Exodus chapter six, verses six and seven.  Firstly, there is the cup of Sanctification, which is associated with the promise; “I will bring you out from under the burdens of the Egyptians.”  It might help to understand that sanctification means to set apart.  The second cup is the cup of Deliverance, which is associated with the promise; “I will rescue you from their bondage.”  The third is the Cup of Redemption, also known as the cup of Salvation, with the promise; “I will redeem you with an outstretched arm.”  And the fourth cup is the Cup of Praise; also known as the cup of consummation.  Associated with the promise; “I will take you as My people.”

 

In our Psalm, we read about the cup of Salvation.  This is the third cup, and it is this cup that we believe Jesus took up, as he said, "This cup is the new covenant in my blood. Do this, as often as you drink it, in remembrance of me."

 

Jesus had already taken bread, broken it and declared; "This is my body that is for you. Do this in remembrance of me."  The meal and the remembrance served as a prophetic sign declaring the salvation that God would bring.  Every Israelite knew that God had promised a Messiah to come.   John the Baptist declared Jesus to be the Lamb of God that would take away the sins of the world.  You know, in our modern society, and to those not brought up in the church, this must seem very odd indeed. 

 

We have a society that doesn’t like the idea that we have sins to be taken away.  We have a society that declares all our sin to be “not sin”.  More and more, the laws of the land are changed so that no one is really guilty.  And even when people are found guilty, many will declare them a victim of circumstance.   It is true, to some extent – we are victims of circumstance, and there but for the grace of God go I, however, you don’t have to look too hard to know that our society is more messed up than ever.  The more our culture moves away from Christian and Godly values, the more confused and lost people become, and the more depression and mental illness abound.

 

God would not send his only beloved son to die on a cross if it wasn’t the ONLY way that we could be redeemed and brought back into a right relationship with God.

 

We are told how this all began in the garden of Eden; mankind decided they wanted to be their own God.  That was the essence of the fall.  It was a selfishness that put themselves as the “top dog”, and the desire to be “More”, and to be equal with God.  It was our selves becoming our own God.  It was something that impacted not just the physical, but also the spiritual.  Death was the price for sin.  Not just physical death, but eternal and spiritual death.

 

Jesus lived as perfect human was intended, in submission to the God the father and as a servant leader.  Being a servant and giving ourselves for the good of another does not make us less.  Servant leadership is powerful…. How do we know?  Because Jesus, through unselfish giving and pouring himself out for others, brought about the salvation/ redemption of the world.  Jesus was without sin and therefore, the perfect lamb of God, who saves us all from the eternal death.  Yes, will still physically die, but spiritually, we live because we live in, and declare our allegiance with Christ – and we declare that allegiance each time we take communion.  In that allegiance we declare our submission to God the father.

 

Tonight, as we partake in the Easter Triduum, we are reminded how the greatest and most powerful of us all, came to serve.  He took up the cup of salvation and become our hope.  He gives us his life, brings us salvation and calls us to follow him.

That we might give... Lent 5C 6th April 2025

 Fifth Sunday in Lent

Isaiah 43:16-21    Psalm 126    Philippians 3:4b-14    John 12:1-8

 

There are things in this life that are somewhat mind blowing when we have the privilege of hind-sight.  Today we read about the covetousness of Judas, in contrast with what some have called the extravagant adoration of Mary, who anointed Jesus’ feet with the expensive perfume.

 

In today’s economy, the 300 denarii which the perfume was worth the equivalent of about a year’s wage.  Can you imagine yourself doing this?  Imagine that you have a jar of an expensive substance worth a whole year’s wage.  Now imagine that you see Jesus and you pour that whole jar on his feet.  Take a moment to contemplate the enormity of this act…..  It is MIND blowing.   But of course, there is more going on than what meets the eye.

 

The perfume was “Nard”.  It was made by squeezing certain grasses in the Himalayas in India and had calming properties as well as antibacterial properties.  It was an oil perfume used by Kings and also used as a foundation oil for burial, as it helped the myrrh to adhere to the body.  Myrrh, we know was given prophetically by the wise men to Jesus at his birth.  Mary was being a prophetess in that moment.  She was signaling his death.  She was also ministering to Jesus, anointing him with the calming oil perfume to strengthen him for his task, being baptized into the sins of the world and making atonement for them by going to the cross. 

 

 

Are you someone who notices prophetic signs?  If not, and most are in this boat with you, perhaps you can somewhat sympathize with Judas, who missed the prophetic significance and who saw this as an incredible waste…. In fact, it would appear, that for Judas, this incident was the final straw.  Something was going on inside of him and seeing this scene of such lavish waste, set the wheels in motion for his going to seek the authorities, offering to betray Jesus for 30 pieces of silver.

 

According to my quick google search, 30 pieces of silver was the equivalent of 120 denarii in Jesus’ day.  A little less than half what the perfume was worth, but still a sizeable amount of money, the equivalent being about half a year’s wage.

 

We generally look at the character of Judas and designate his place as one of an enemy… an outsider…  a necessary evil.  While this may be true to some extent, was he really?  Judas serves as a vital warning that should not be overlooked.

 

Judas was a follower of Christ.  Judas was one of the chosen few, and had the privilege of contact with Jesus, such as a close friend or family member.  When Jesus sent out the disciples in twos, giving them authority over unclean spirits, Judas was there, and he was also given that authority.  The Gospel of Mark 6:12 tells us; “So they went out and proclaimed that people should repent. 

and they cast out many demons and anointed with oil many who were sick and healed them.”  Now read it again, changing the word “they” for “Judas”.   Judas was an integral part of a powerful ministry!

 

One comment I read describes Judas as having a form of Godliness, that hid his weakness in coveting.  And here is the warning; a person can be Godly, have signs and wonders that affirm their ministry and the authority given them by God, and they can still fall so very significantly.

 

We have seen this often in fact.  Many great and influential ministers in Christian history fell into some kind of scandal.  Our own more orthodox churches have not been untouched either, as our church still struggles and pays the price for the leadership who were involved in paedophilia.  There is a commonality, and it is the image of Godliness, coupled with a hidden covetousness that denies their own sinfulness.

 

We mustn’t make the mistake of thinking that these people are so different from us.  Judas is named as a chosen and precious follower of Christ.  When Christian leaders fall, many are left disillusioned.  A wise world-renowned Bible speaker once warned, “Don’t ever think that you’ve become too holy to sin.  Because while we are in this human flesh, we will always be just as easily able to sin.”

 

In the book of Genesis, God says to Cain when he was jealous of his brother; “If you do the right thing, won’t you be accepted? But if you don’t do the right thing, sin will be waiting at the door ready to strike! It will entice you, but you must rule over it.”

That “right thing”, was to offer a sacrifice.  The offering that Cain gave, was not acceptable because it was the “work of his hands” rather than a sacrifice – prophetically showing that we need to come to God through Christ, rather than coming to God by our own Goodness.  Coming to God by the “work of our hands” is self-righteousness and a form of Godliness which denies our sinful nature, thus making God to be a liar, who said that all have sinned and fall short of His glory.  Saint Paul came to understand this by heart, and he explains it in our letter to the Philippian’s.

 

St. Paul was pretty darn perfect before he became a Christian.  He really was!!  According to the law, St. Paul was faultless.  There was just one fly in the ointment; Just as Mary anointing Jesus’ feet annoyed Judas, the Christians irritated Paul.  They upset his world view, and it messed with his view of how God worked.  Saint Paul was perfect, in regards to God’s law, yet, after meeting Jesus, he regarded all his former life as loss compared with knowing Christ.  He tells us in our reading;  “Yet whatever gains I had, these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ.  More than that, I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things, and I regard them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law but one that comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God based on faith.”

 

This is MOST important for us to understand.  We must regard the value of having Christ as of the utmost importance and the righteousness that come through faith in him.  It is all about Christ and not our own works.

 

Righteousness is a weird word that means being “right”, but in our context, it means being right before God.  None of us can ever be right before God, in and of ourselves.  Yet through the sacrifice of Jesus, and our faith in him, we are counted as being righteous.  This is not dependant on anything we have done. 

 

Last week we had the parable of the Prodigal son.  Being given enough rope, the consequences of his actions showed him the truth of his error.  It was not God punishing him, that all went wrong, but the consequences of his own actions…. It took a while for him to realize this.  The son set out full of self-righteousness.  He came back with understanding the truth about himself – Father I am not worthy to be called your son…..  When we understand that we have no right standing before God in and of ourselves, but we come to God through the grace and mercy of relationship with Christ, we are considered by God to be in a right relationship with him. 

 

This is a way in the desert - the way in the wilderness of our sinful human nature.  There is no need to stay away from the love of the father, because he has already paid the price for our return.  It seems like there are always two messages in the Gospel… one of love and one of warning.  God’s standard and the warning to live God’s way remains and doesn’t diminish, yet God’s grace and Christ’s sacrifice has made a way in the desert.   

 

The Prophet Isaiah tells us to not look back at the former things, because he is doing something new.  That new thing would usher in a time when he would give water in the desert to His chosen people so that they would praise him.  Now I have to tell you, that this image is not a new thing –When the Israelites were in the desert, God made water flow from the rock and he gave water to his thirsty chosen people.  So, Isaiah is using an old story – or picture to proclaim the new thing that God was going to do.  The water is a symbol of the refreshing Good News and of the Holy Spirit.  The new way that God would give water to His chosen people was through the gift of His Holy Spirit.

 

Saint Paul was filled with the Holy Spirit of God, and his extravagant act of worship was not the pouring out of expensive perfume, but he spent the rest of his life advocating for the way of God.  That was his extravagant worship.  The apostles were filled with the Holy Spirit of God and gave their lives to the to God and followed the Spirit’s leading also.  The Holy Spirit would teach and guide them, and the Holy Spirit will teach and guide us! 

 

Every human is fallible.  Even you and me!  We absolutely need each other, and we learn from each other, and we even learn from those who were great in ministry, yet fell.  We do well to learn, while keeping in mind that all are fallible.  Let the Holy Spirit confirm in our hearts what is true in what we are being taught and pray for each other and especially pray for our leaders.  Understand that while none are beyond falling, in Christ, none are beyond redemption.  Remember, the prodigal son, was a son…. Not an outsider who was to come to God never having known the father’s goodness, but a son who knew the father and his ways.  The father welcomed him back.  Judas seemed to miss this message.

 

The apostles and early Christians, were a diverse lot.   Like us, they had strengths and weaknesses and the ability to fall – if we read the New Testament, it becomes obvious that many did, in some form or other, but they knew that they were safe in the father’s love through Christ.  Mary poured out perfume and St. Paul poured out his life.  For both, it was a natural response to knowing Jesus.  May we so encounter Jesus… really and truly, that we too can give, not just perfume, but unreservedly give our hearts to God. 

Bear Fruit Lent 3 C 23rd March 2025

 2025  03  23  Lent 3C  

Isaiah 55:1-9    Psalm 63:1-8      1 Corinthians 10:1-13     Luke 13:1-9

 

Have you ever heard some one say, “God will never give you more than you can handle”?  You might have said it yourself, but if you’ve ever had it said to you, you’ll know that it isn’t always helpful.  It is a bit of a misquote, based on the first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 10, verse 13, where it says; “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tested beyond your strength, but with the testing he will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it.”

 

For a start, it is about being tested, and is in regard to falling into areas of sin.  Secondly, it says that this testing is common to everyone.  Therefore, this is not about those times when life breaks us and when we are bombarded with tragedy.  Most importantly, God does not give us those bad things.  God desires to give us good things and does give us good things.  However, we live on planet earth, in a fallen, human and very fallible world.  Sometimes the tragedy and evil IS more than we can handle.  So, to say that God doesn’t give us more than we can handle, creates the false idea that God has given us the tragedy.  It also implies that there is something wrong with us if we can’t handle it.  This passage, rather than being about our ability or lack thereof, to handle tragedy, is actually about sin.

 

We are the body of Christ and one of the reasons that God created us to be this way, calling us as part of his body, is so that we might understand that we need to work together.  If one part of the body hurts, all parts should acknowledge the pain.  We wouldn’t, after hitting our finger with a hammer, say to it, “Don’t worry, God won’t give you more than you can handle”.   No!  Instead our other body parts would jump into action and the mouth might have something to say about the matter - and it wouldn’t be telling the finger not to worry, but it would be expressing the pain the finger is feeling.  The torso would jump in reaction, and the legs would run to find ice or bandages or professional help, depending on the extent of the pain.

 

Our passage is about the fact that we live in this world, where we are easily inclined to fall into sin.  All face the same temptations, and even the Israelites, though the chosen people of God faced these same temptations.  In the desert they gave in to temptation and became involved in acts that were immoral.  It is presumed that the Corinthian church had a very good understanding of the grace of God and the freedom that they had in Christ.  They were the people of God, the body of Christ.  Earlier in this letter St. Paul explains to the church that although all things are permissible, not all things are beneficial.   These Corinthian people lived in a time and place where eating food sacrificed to idols was normal, and where the society was acceptably immoral.  These newly Christian people were still Corinthians, living in Corinth and joining in with all the social legal, and acceptably immoral events of their town.

 

To us, it seems that St. Paul is being harsh.  He reminds them that although all those Israelites had been baptised in the Red Sea and in the cloud of God’s presence, and although they had experienced the miraculous feeding by God and miracle on miracle, they took the goodness of God for granted and therefore God was not pleased, and most did not make it into the promised land, but died in the desert. 

 

This story of the Israelites is a warning.  The journey of the Israelites from Egypt, out of slavery, is a sign that parallels every faith journey.  They were rescued by God and taken through the Red Sea – their baptism.  Baptism is seen as making an allegiance – They made a commitment to be the people of God and follow him – just as we do in our Baptism.  God was leading them to the promised land, but then the people gave in to their own fleshly desires.

 

We do this too, but we are called, especially in Lent, to examine our ways.  We are the people of God.  We have made our pledge of allegiance to God in our baptism.  We call Jesus our Lord – in other words, our master, but then we just do things our own way instead of deferring to his leading. 

 

It is human nature to keep wanting to take control of our lives.  It is human nature to fall into following our fleshly desires.  In Jesus we have been set free from the ultimate spiritual consequence of sin – that is death, as the price for sin is death.  Jesus paid that price, and we most certainly are saved by the grace of God, however, we are warned that we should not live in the way of the Israelites in the desert, or the way of the early Corinthian church.   It is a testing time…  but the test isn’t set by God.  It is simply the fact of who we are, the world we live in and the desires of our own sinful nature.  In Christ however, we are a new creation – but we need to actively live by the Holy Spirit of God in us, to grow into this reality.

 

St. Paul tells us that God is faithful and will provide a way out so that when we are struggling, we can stand.  The Corinthian church members had been involved in many things that we’d consider scandalous.  Saint Paul doesn’t throw them out of the church, but instead he warns and reminds them about God’s faithfulness and the call of God to live in a manner worthy of that calling.

 

Jesus also shows us the patience and compassion of God when he talks about the fig tree and how the gardener pleads to give it another chance.  This tells us about both about the mercy and patience of God, and the call to be fruitful and effective Christians.  It is an exhortation with a warning.

 

A couple of weeks ago we looked at the importance of confessing – speaking out loud – professing our faith.  If we confess with our mouth and believe in our heart that Jesus is Lord, we will be saved.  And we noted that it was a surety.  It isn’t we might be saved, or could be saved, but that we WILL be saved.  These Corinthians to whom Saint Paul was speaking, were people who had professed their belief and believed in their heart.  They were saved… and so are we, but we miss the blessings that God has for us, and the blessings that God wants to lavish on the world through us, when the attitude of our hearts is not in line with God. 

 

The word repent means to change your mind. It implies turning in our thinking to ensure our beliefs line up with the word of God.  Are there areas of life in our society that are at odds with the word of God?  Where do we personally stand with these?  Have we judged others as bad, much like the people in our Gospel reading, when calamity came to them, thinking that they were sinners and got what they deserved, not realizing our own attitude is one of sin -   Not realizing that there but for the Grace of God go I?

 

Our society is quick to quote do not judge…. But the truth of the matter is that we make and must make judgements all the time.  We decide on what is good, life-giving and love giving.   This is a simple fact, and all do it and MUST do it, so don’t let others intimidate you into thinking that you can’t.  What we need to avoid is thinking that we are better – There, but for the grace of God, go I.  Saint Paul says, “So if you think you are standing, watch out that you do not fall.”  And Jesus says, “No, I tell you, but unless you repent you will all perish just as they did."

 

Turning to God, “repenting”, is an ongoing way of life.  it is about lining up our thoughts with the word of God.  Constantly, and everyday and part of that, is realizing that we are all very fallible – The word of God tells us that all have sinned and fallen short of the Glory of God.  For this reason, Jesus came, and in our confession and belief in him, is our salvation.

 

God’s ways are the ways to life.  The words from Isaiah about food and water, according to a Jewish commentary, is imagery for the word of God.  The food and water that money can not buy, but food and water that brings life, it is the word of God – it is Jesus.  It is the way to life here and now and also the way to life eternal. 

Let us take a moment to examine ourselves with the grace and love of Jesus, and line up our hearts and minds with the word of God.  Let us partake in the food and water that brings life and lets allow God’s blessings to flow to us and through us to others…..  

 

Power in the word... Lent 1C 2025 03 09

 2025  03  09  LENT 1C

Deuteronomy 26.1-11  - Psalm 91.1-2, 9-16  - Romans 10.4-13   - Luke 4.1-15

 

Importance of confessing…

There is something vital about speaking words out loud.  The old story that we often hear is of marriages that break down because, “I love you,” is never said.  It isn’t just marriages that suffer, but also, children who never hear a parent say those words suffer also.  People will often say that they show their love by their actions and shouldn’t have to say, “I love you”. 

 

Some years ago a book gained a huge following.  It was called the 5 love languages, by Gary Chapman.  I confess that I inherited the book and haven’t read it.  So I apologize in advance to those who have read it and like it, but the reason I really don’t want to read it is that I don’t agree with the concept.  That concept is that every one has a primary love language and it is only through that particular language that a person will perceive that they are loved.  The five love languages are; words of affirmation, quality time, physical touch, receiving gifts, and acts of service.  It is true that we use these aspects to communicate love, but I think it is the same argument that the Bible uses about faith…. Some say they have faith and others have works.  But then the scriptures tell us that we show or prove our faith by our works.  I believe the same is true with love.  The five love languages are actually the work of love, but more than anything it is important that we confess with our mouths… out loud, that we love.

 

In our first reading the Israelites are told that they should take the first fruits of their harvest and then declare, in the presence of the priest, the reality of their life.  They were to declare who they were, where they came from, the story of their existence before God rescued them and then how God rescued them.  Why did they have to do this?  Surely it was common knowledge.  They would retell the story every Passover.  They taught it to their children.  It was their reality and the essence of their being, so why the need to confess?  It seems that there is some kind of power in speaking the word out loud.

 

Do you remember Ezekiel and the valley of dry bones?  He could have offered silent prayer for those bones, but God told him to prophesy.  What that means is that Ezekiel was to speak out loud and declare that flesh would cover the bones etc… and speak the life in those bones into existence.  There is power in speaking the word of God out loud.

 

The first words from the Gospel of John tell us, “In the beginning was the WORD”.  In the beginning when God created, he could have just made light… but he didn’t.  Instead, our scriptures tell us that God spoke… He said, “let there be light”.   He spoke and it came to be.  Psalm 33 tells us; “by the word of the Lord the heavens were made…For he spoke, and it came to be; he commanded, and it stood firm.”  There is power in speaking the word of God out loud.

 

In the letter to the Romans we read; “"The word is near you, in your mouth and in your heart" (that is, the word of faith that we proclaim),because if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.”  Now just to be sure, we should turn to the person sitting beside us that say, “Jesus is Lord and I believe that God raised him from the dead.”

 

Now that we’ve all confessed, what is the out come?  We can be sure that we are saved!  Do we realize this Good News?  Every now and then a wonderful church going person will say to me, “I hope that God accepts me when I die”…. And I get a little sad and concerned that we don’t know what God tells us about the subject.  Uhmmm  let’s see, what does the scripture tell us about it?  If we confess that Jesus is Lord and believe in our heart that God raised him from the dead…. We might be saved?  We could be saved?  We hope that we will be saved?  NO, it says we WILL be saved.  We can be assured that we are loved, accepted and treasured by God.   BUT this thing about confessing with our mouth is important and there is power in speaking the word out loud. 

 

Each time we come to church and recite the creed, we have the opportunity to do as the Israelites, declaring their story in the presence of God, confirming and remembering who we were, who we are, and all that God has done for us.  There is power in speaking the word out loud.

 

The first Sunday in Lent we remember that Jesus was tempted in the desert.  The Holy Spirit had led Jesus into the wilderness where he fasted for forty days (Forty being the number that symbolizes preparation).  Understandably Jesus was famished and weak, and the devil comes and tempts him.  Firstly, he tempts him with food – a temptation of the flesh. Then he tempts him with offering him the kingdoms of the world, which is power over others… and then he tempts him with throwing himself down of the high place, because scripture says that God would rescue him – such as we read in our psalm.  This is a temptation of supernatural power that would make him like God.  (kind of crazy in retrospect because his is God the son…. However, while on earth he took on human flesh and operated in those confines).

 

There is nothing new here in these temptations.  Back in the garden of Eden the serpent’s temptation to Adam and Eve, was the same.  Adam and Eve were tempted with fruit.   It was something to eat/ stuff desired to satisfy the flesh.  When Eve explained that they were not to eat of just that one tree, the serpent responded to them that they wouldn’t die – much like the devil tempting Jesus to throw himself down and he wouldn’t be harmed.    Next the serpent explains that Adam and Eve would have the power to know good and evil and be like God.  The temptation is the same… it is just gift wrapped differently.

 

It was important that Jesus prove to the devil and all the spiritual powers, that he, operating as fully human, would continue to be the son of God and not give in to temptation like every other human has done.  In each temptation Jesus rejects the temptation by quoting scripture.  To do this Jesus speaks scripture and he confesses it out loud. 

 

It was important for Jesus, and it is important for each of us to confess… to profess our faith in God and to praise him.   The temptations were three-fold, and we make a threefold confession –  1- We confess that we haven’t obeyed God.  The first area of this is trusting God for our needs.  Have we gone beyond God’s commands not trusting that God gives us what is best and that His boundaries are to give us our best life?

2.  We confess that we have desired control.  When we become a Christian we ask God to be in control of our lives – He is Lord. 

3.  We confess that we desired to be our own God.  We thought we knew better than God.  After all, some would say, all this stuff is a bit out of date isn’t it?  But we know God is the same yesterday, today and forever.

 we confess our sin and our need for God, we profess our belief in God, and we thank and praise God. 

 

Over the years I have witnessed some Christians who have turned away from the faith, which I find difficult to comprehend.  I can only suspect that they forget who they are and the story of their life and God’s part in that story.   They forget to DWELL in the shelter of the Lord, as we hear about in our Psalm.   To dwell in this sense, is to permanently take up residence in in God’s presence.  When the devil quoted part of Psalm 91 to Jesus, he did the same as in the garden of Eden with Adam and Eve; he told them part of the truth.  Jesus knew better than to take the text out of context.

 

The Israelites, as we see in our Old Testament reading, needed to confess their reality every harvest time, when they celebrated the first fruits.  It takes an effort on our part to dwell in the shadow of the Lord.  We need to ensure that we don’t forget God’s word and fall into the same trap where we, like Adam and Eve, doubt the authenticity of God’s promise to us. Therefore, we find scriptures in the New Testament urging the early Christians not to give up meeting together.   We need to be encouraged by each other.  We need each other to keep us in check that we are not believing an error or half truth, such as caused the demise of all mankind… but like Jesus, be able to live in victory, being reminded of the truth.  Which also means we need to continue studying the scriptures.

 

At each service we will stand together and confess our belief in God.  This safeguards us from error.  There is a spiritual power in confessing our belief in God, which we often fail to recognise.  I guarantee, when the devil or his minions are trying to attack the people of God, and we confess not just our belief in God, but our allegiance and trust in him, demons will flee.   To quote the words of a song by the band The Imperials,

“When you're up against a struggle
That shatters all your dreams
And your hopes have been cruelly crushed
By Satan's manifested schemes
And you feel the urge within you
To submit to earthly fears
Don't let the faith you're standing in
Seem to disappear

Praise the Lord
He can work through those
Who praise Him
Praise the Lord
For our God inhabits praise
Praise the Lord
For the chains that seems to bind you
Serve only to remind you
That they drop powerless behind you
When you praise Him

Now Satan is a liar
And he wants to make us think
That we are paupers
When he knows himself
We're children of the King
So lift up the mighty shield of faith
For the battle must be won
We know that Jesus Christ has risen
So the work's already done

 

Why is there power when we confess out loud?  God is the only one who is omnipotent and omnipresent… etc…  Only God can hear our thoughts, but when we confess our faith out loud, we speak a powerful weapon into the spiritual realm.  Let’s not live the rest of our lives being quiet about our faith.  It is important that we confess, profess and praise God out loud…. And pray for each other out loud.  There is power when we speak the word of God out loud.

World Day of Prayer - Standing with the people in the Cook Islands & reflecting on psalm 139

 2025 World Day of Prayer  - Psalm 139

 

During my teaching degree, at university, our lecturer talked about the difference teaching with girls and boys.  To illustrate she told the story of two students who had failed mathematics the previous year.  The new teacher asked the boy why he thought he failed, and he answered that his last teacher wasn’t very good.  The new teacher asked the girl the same question, however she answered, “I’m no good at maths”.   The point the lecturer was making is that girls are harder on themselves, whereas the boys are more resilient and more likely to blame everyone else for their failure. (and we all know that this started way back in the garden of Eden with Adam).

 

As girls, grown up, when our life goes a little pair shaped, we are still more likely to feel that it is us who is not good enough, and we are the reason that our life is crumbling around us.  The men obviously get to this point too and realize their need for God, but for females, we reach this point more readily and more often.  Psalm 139 is for us.   While men will reach out for God and move on, females are more likely to continue feeling less than good enough.

 

There is something about Psalm 139, that hits you in the heart.  Right from the first line; “You have searched me, Lord, and you know me”, it goes right to the heart of the matter.  We long to be known.  Not just, “Hello my friend…”  but, we long to be truly known.  Our family knows us pretty well, but even they, don’t understand our hidden pain, our hidden hopes and dreams… and especially they don’t know our hidden shame, and that thing we keep well hidden – the sense of not being good enough.

 

When the psalmist says, “Lord, you have searched me, and you know me”, we straight away sense that this searching means we have found a place where we can rest… we have found a place where we are truly known.   But there is more, and it is so important.  God knew us before we were born.  God knew all that we would be and all that we would do and all that we would desire.  He knew the temptations we’d resist and the temptations to which we’d succumb.  And regardless of anything we would do in our futures, He loves us and willingly died to show us this and to ensure that there would be nothing separating us from his love.  

 

Vainiu, tells us that during her formative years she was shamed and devalued in the education system, yet she knew that she was valued by God.  She echoes the psalmist when she says;  “when we are cast out and treated with disrespect, God is still with us. God goes with us to the darkness at the bottom of the ocean, where there is no light. And God helps lead us out of that darkness into a wonderful light.”   She has learnt a lesson that we all need to learn by heart; that God is on our side, loves us and is always with us.

 

We are of such infinite value.  Each of us is a master creation of God.   The psalm tells us that God created my inmost being;  He knit me together in my mother’s womb.  God designed us.  He gave us our personality and made each of us unique and he made us this way for a purpose, but to each of us He has given free will.  We can freely choose to go our own way and rebel against all that God calls us to be, or we can rejoice in the calling of God and grow more and more into his purpose and the person that he calls us to be.

 

Psalm 139 lifts us up.  Think of all the amazing creatures of the earth and the intricacies of creation.  Of all these God said it was good and he was pleased, but when God created us, he said it was very good.  We are the pinnacle of God’s creation.

 

Psalm 139 is also the great equalizer, because this is God’s word to us all.  He knows us all, and loves us all.  He loves us from the time we were conceived – when our life began.  He loves us when we are frail and aging.  At any stage, we are no less precious to him.  This has implications for where we need to stand on areas of social justice, because we know that God values those who are fragile – all are precious to Him.

 

It is my belief that the most effective treatment for the most common of mental health issues, is to learn and understand who we are in God’s heart.  Following on from this has to be the cultivation of a society that treats all as those precious to God.

 

God’s call to us always, is back from the rebellion.  Rebellion is where mankind chose to be something different to God’s design.  God calls us to open our eyes and see ourselves as the person who he created, and to continue growing into the person he calls us to become.  In this there is true freedom.  We can stop trying to be something that we are not and rejoice that we are the workmanship of God.

Ephesians 2:10 “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.”

As a female we need to be sure that we don’t let the lie that we are not good enough stop us from being the person God created us to be.  Saint Paul in the letter to the Philippians declares, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.”

As we give thanks to God for the ladies of the Cook Islands we stand with them in praising God and declaring to God, “I will praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;”  Fearfully and wonderfully made by the God who created all this universe, but who about us said, “It is very Good!”

You and I are very loved.