Follow Jesus by imitating Him

 

January 31^st – The presentation of Christ (Candlemas).

This festival, (transferred from the 2^nd February) marks the end of the whole Christmas and Epiphany season. After this Sunday it is “Sundays before Lent” until Ash Wednesday on the 17^th February.

Malachi 3: 1-5. Messenger and Angel are the same word in Hebrew and the message is that divine judgement will be painful for those who experience it. The judgement starts in the temple and its worship (v3) and then will pass into the social sphere. To all the Hebrew prophets a worthy temple cult went hand in hand with social justice. Chosen today to accompany the “presentation of Christ in the temple” gospel story, arguably it might be better suited to the cleansing of the temple story?  

Hebrews 2: 14-18. Jesus was like his brothers and sisters “in every respect” (v17) the writer of Hebrews attests. It is this total identification with humanity in our temptation and suffering that qualifies Jesus to act as the great high priest acting on behalf of all humanity.

Luke 2: 22-40.   The presentation of the first-born male carries no such sacrifice as described by Luke so what Luke is really describing here is the purification of Mary. But liturgical accuracy is not Luke’s aim here. This “new thing” is rooted in the story of old Israel and the scriptural allusions are rooted in very old Israel indeed. Simeon for example reminds us of Eli in relation to Samuel. As with the annunciation story and the shepherd’s vision, Jesus here is the object of faith and hope, yet the child’s purpose will only be carried out through suffering which Simeon also foresees.

 

There is intense debate over what Luke was actually describing here – as he appears to have confused two events – the presentation of the first-born male, which doesn’t require any sacrifice with the purification of Mary, which does.

But as I wrote in the pew sheet Liturgical accuracy is not Luke’s focus here, so we mustn’t be side-tracked down that blind alley.

Jesus is being presented as an object of faith and hope. He is recognised as such in the Temple – the very focus of Jewish religious life – by two people who represent the traditions and history of the Jewish people.

Simeon and Anna are pious, old and wise and represent all the traditions and beliefs of old Israel recognising that in this small child, all those traditions will find fulfilment in Him.

In this baby Simeon saw “the light for revelation to the gentiles” meaning that Israel’s divine mission to be a light to all the peoples of the world would be fulfilled in him, but he also saw that this new thing would cause some to fall and some to rise as they perceived and acted upon his message and in a prediction of that child’s grisly end he tells Mary “And a sword will pierce your own soul too”

Light of course illuminates all the dark corners of life, bringing to light all those things one tries to keep hidden. In his battles with the scribes, the pharisees, the Herodians, the Romans and in his healings of the souls that came to him looking for salvation, light, truth, and clarity was what he brought into every encounter.

And that same light is what illuminates the way we follow Jesus. We follow him by imitating him – choosing to see, think and act as He did.

Our character should bear the all the hallmarks that made Christ a light in the darkness like humility, truth, honesty and righteousness tempered by mercy. We like Him should treat everyone as a human being first before we label them anything else – rich, poor, black white or Asian, educated or not, Good or not, Christian or not.

We should try to bring healing and justice and wholeness to the people we have contact with and into the situations we find ourselves in.

This is how we follow Jesus. We follow him by imitating him and his way of being a human being.

And we mustn’t let ourselves be drawn into the argument that we can’t do any of that because Jesus was divine and we are not.

As the writer of Hebrews makes abundantly clear, Jesus was a human being in every fibre of his being just like us.

Indeed, if Jesus wasn’t a human being just like us he could not offer us salvation or it would be rendered meaningless because He was above us – not one of us.

Jesus was born, lived, suffered and died just like us. As a human being

But that divine light within Him shone so white hot it infused every atom of his humanity making him truly the light of the world.

In choosing to follow Jesus we fan the flames of that divine spark within us so we too shine with that same light – God’s light.

To try and illustrate what I mean by that I’ll use this encounter Jesus had with his opponents recounted in John 10: 30-39

Jesus was due to be stoned for the blasphemy of saying “The Father and I are one” (John 10:30) and he countered that charge by saying that their own law says that all people can “be as gods”.

Jesus was quoting a psalm – psalm 82 to be precise, which as Jesus said himself cannot be revoked so I’ll end this reflection with the quote from psalms which describes what we all become when we shine with the light of Christ and follow him in his way by righting wrongs and bring justice and healing to those who are weak and despondent. We become children of God. Psalm 82: 6 quoted by Jesus himself.

“I say, you are gods,

Children of the most high, all of you;

 

Water turned into wine - a description of Life in Christ

 

Sunday 24^th January – Epiphany 3

Genesis 14: 17-20. We have two of my favourite, most enigmatic Bible readings today. The first one centres on Melchizedek the priest-king of Salem (Jerusalem) the “priest of God most high” who brought Abram bread and wine and Abram pays him homage by tithing his possessions. Melchizedek has always been seen as a pre-figuring of Jesus Christ and the next time his name appears in in the new testament book of Hebrews where Jesus Christ’s priesthood is likened to that of Melchizedek

Revelation 19: 6-10. The church is the “bride of Christ” at the final consummation when all will be revealed. Another notable tenet here is the injunction to worship God alone which reinforces the original impulse of the first two of the ten commandments.

John 2: 1-11. My other favourite story today is the wedding feast at Cana. This acted parable is the entire gospel encapsulated into one beautiful story. It is the first and key-note sign to which all other signs in John’s gospel refer back to. Note that John never uses the term miracle but always calls them signs. John does that because they are signs that point to a greater truth rather than just a collection of spectacular happenings.

 

Turning water into wine is the first and key-note sign in John’s gospel and the sign that every other sign refers back to because it encapsulates everything that the gospel brings to a human life.

The water of your very existence will be transformed into rich intoxicating wine when Christ is fully engaged with your life.

And that this is a new thing – a fresh revelation – that builds on the legacy of Israel – Christ doesn’t ditch it but fulfils it.

When it happened. This wedding feast happens on the third day. Those are the opening words of this story. What else can you think of in Christianity that happened on the third day? The wedding feast at Cana is a picture of the new reality revealed by the resurrection of Jesus Christ

All the symbolism is there for those with eyes to see and perceive;

The wedding scene itself is a time-honoured way of symbolising the marriage of earth and heaven which is where this story points towards.

The six water jars for ritual washing share a two-fold symbolic function. They represent the imperfection of the old covenant and the Temple cult – the ritual washing – and the fact there were six of them is also symbolic because the number in Hebrew numerology that represents perfection is seven and the fact that there are six ritual washing jars tells us that the old covenant was imperfect.

Even the sharp way Jesus talks to his mother casts Mary in the role of representing old Israel and Jesus ushering in new perspective and appreciation of God life and the world.  “Woman, what concern is that to you and to me?” is a device meant to draw a distinction between what went before and the new thing that is going to happen when Jesus transforms Judaism by fulfilling its promises – setting some distance in the story between the old and the new.

The message is clear.

On the third day, rejoicing in the resurrection of Christ, the Spirit of resurrection life fills every aspect of our seeing and doing thus transforming every aspect of our lives.

On the third day the ritualism of the Temple – represented by the six water jars – is transformed into the Christ filled Eucharist. The imperfect Jewish temple cult is being fulfilled in Christ.

We need to inhabit that same spirit of Christ that transforms water into wine to help us to see this story in a fresh and life giving way.

It raises the story from being a prosaic neat trick at a family celebration to being a much larger symbol of the life transforming nature of the gospel itself.

That‘s the reason John’s gospel never calls any of these events miracles but signs. A miracle can be just a flashy surprising event that makes a big splash but has little lasting effect but a sign is a signpost pointing the way to something much more profound and life-changing.  

One of the things revealed is that Christ can be apprehended and experienced through and in the ordinary stuff of life, through beauty and art, through life and love, through pain and suffering, through water and oil through bread and wine.

This is a new way of perceiving everything in Christ that enigmatically and beautifully described here in this key-note sign of John’s gospel is the gospel in miniature. It holds the power of life for those with eyes to see and ears to hear.  

In John’s famous words in chapter one of his gospel he explains the universal and eternal nature of God made manifest in Jesus of Nazareth and that believing in him makes us “children of God”.

Chapter two seeks to tell us what that means – what effect that information has on our lives and outlook.

The Spirit of Christ transforms our lives which is exactly the point of the mission, ministry and teaching of Jesus of Nazareth. Jesus preached “Repent – change your whole being – because the kingdom of God is at hand.”

 

 

Revelations of Divine Love

 Sunday 17^th January – 2^nd Sunday of Epiphany

1 Samuel 3: 1-10. Samuel did not yet “know” the Lord and mistook the voice of God to be that of his mentor Eli. It was Eli who perceived that it was the voice of God and instructed Samuel to listen. The voice of wisdom from an elder to a younger person is a valuable resource. There is much wisdom both in experienced Christians and in the traditions of the church that we overturn at our peril.

Revelation 5: 1-10. Apocalyptic imagery abounds here but what can we distil from this piece? That whatever is decreed by the Father, his will and purposes can be made fully known and accurately represented only by the Christ represented by the image of a slain lamb. for Christ is the only one worthy to take and open the scroll. The Church - through the Spirit of Christ – is the faithful extension of that will and purpose on earth.  No pressure there then!

John 1: 43- 51.  Although initially sceptical, Nathaniel is soon convinced that Jesus is the expected Messiah (or Christ in Greek). Messiah literally means “anointed” that is, appointed and empowered to inaugurate a new era in world history. Using the imagery of Revelation, he is the one “worthy to open and read the scroll”. John uses the image of “Jacob’s ladder” to describe the closeness of the relationship between the Father and Jesus – “angels ascending and descending upon the Son of man”

 

Preaching on the book of revelation can be fraught with problems because the imagery can be interpreted in so many different ways.

Those of us of a certain age may remember David Koresh and the Branch Davidians at their compound in Waco Texas who all died when the Federal government invaded their compound. David told his followers that he had unlocked the secrets of the book of revelation.

That is an extreme example but it still tells us that you tread carefully when trying to be too precise or too literal in your interpretation.

Revelation or Apocalypse in Greek means an unveiling of truths hidden or obscured by world events and was popular in times of persecution and suffering.

Apocalyptic writing says, no matter how bad things are now or how bleak the future may seem, despite all evidence to the contrary, God is in control and the future is secure – good will prevail and evil will be defeated.

The book of revelation was written during a period of intense persecution of Christians and there are obvious parallels with our own situation now.

Not with regard to persecution but to the dire predicament with  regards to the pandemic and the economic, social, and mental carnage that has been wrought upon the world.

It has induced an atmosphere of fear, discouragement, not understanding, confusion and loss of hope have stunted our experience of the world and life itself. It could lead to despair.

It is into just a situation that Apocalyptic literature speaks.

It says, don’t lose hope – keep your faith alive – however bad things seem at the moment – this will pass and goodness and truth, life and love will triumph.  

This truth is hidden from your perception at the moment but I am lifting the veil to reveal that truth.

Revelation fulfils the same function as a mother comforting her child who has had an accident and says “there there, don’t be sad, everything is going to be all right”

Is the mother lying when she says that? No, every instinct, every bit of prior knowledge and experience she has told her that she knows this is true but the child doesn’t have that perspective, knowledge or experience to see that. All the child knows is that their knee is bleeding now, and it hurts.

We are bleeding and hurting as a society now.

Seeing God as our Mother or indeed Father putting their arms around us and reassuring us that everything will be all right in the end is the comfort we need.

God isn’t lying to us any more than the mother is lying to the child. We can’t immediately see that because all we know is that we are wounded and it hurts.

We have been given the intelligence and scientific knowledge to combat the disease – and we must have nothing but gratitude to those who worked so tirelessly to develop the vaccines.

A Christian perspective also remembers the ultimate source of that knowledge and expertise which is God himself.

God revealing his presence and ultimate will for all creation revealed himself to Julian of Norwich around 800 years ago. Her book “Revelations of Divine Love” is part of the continuing revelation of God to humankind, no less important because it was written 1,300 years after the Bible was compiled. It was the first book that we know of which was written by a woman.

The book was written against the background of the Black death and her own personal ill health and was the result of a series of divine encounters through 15 visions after a curate was called to give her the last rites she was so ill.

What was revealed to her was what has consistently been revealed to mystics and visionaries, from the “book of revelation” to the “Revelations of divine love” was that God is love    

“From the time these things were first revealed I had often wanted to know what was our Lord's meaning. It was more than fifteen years after that I was answered in my spirit's understanding. 'You would know our Lord's meaning in this thing? Know it well. Love was His meaning. Who showed it to you? Love. What did He show you? Love. Why did He show it? For love. Hold on to this and you will know and understand love more and more. But you will not know or learn anything else — ever.'

“In the end, all shall be well and all manner of things shall be well”

You are my Son the Beloved, with you I am well pleased

 

Sunday 10^th January – The Baptism of Christ

Genesis 1: 1-5. This creation story was obviously chosen because it refers to the spirit of God sweeping over the waters – except that in the NRSV translation it says “wind” instead of Spirit. This is because wind and spirit are the same word in Hebrew – Ruach - (like the spirit at Pentecost came as the “blowing of a violent wind”). A good comparison because like the wind, you cannot see the Spirit but you can clearly see its effect.

Acts 19: 1-7. John’s “baptism of repentance” lacked the fullness of the revelation of the baptism of Christ so these early followers of Jesus needed to receive the “full revelation”. The fullness of Christian baptism is an immersion into the ubiquitous Spirit of God who is “all in all”. The evidence that the Spirit has been appropriated can be seen in the effects which are manifested. “Speaking in tongues and prophesying” became a shorthand way of describing the moment when the penny dropped, and the full import of Christ became a living reality for a person.

Mark 1: 4-11. Jesus was about 30 years old when he submitted to baptism by John in the river Jordan – the event that ignited his active 3-year ministry on earth. What happened then was a “theophany” - a God event full of symbolism. The heavens were torn apart, the same Spirit that had hovered over the waters in the creation story alighted upon Jesus in the form of a dove and the voice from heaven proclaiming Jesus as God’s son - meaning his exact image and likeness on earth. Interestingly the voice is addressed directly to Jesus -You are my son – so is more like an internal validation. This is changed in Matthew’s gospel to a public pronouncement “This is my son” that could be heard by others.

 

While the visit by the Magi is the main Epiphany story in the Western world the main story in the East is the Baptism of Christ in the river Jordan.

At his baptism Christ had his identity confirmed by the voice of God “You are my Son the beloved, with you I am well pleased” and God’s spirit in the form of a dove alighted on the person of Jesus and permanently dwelt within Him.

What had been intuited by the Magi thirty years earlier was fully revealed at the river Jordan that day.

Jesus had been living a normal undocumented life up until that point until this earth-shattering personal experience of God propelled him into his active ministry – a journey which ended on the cross barely three years later.

The eternal Spirit of God found full expression in the life of Jesus of Nazareth that day for which the Biblical record uses the term the “son of God” for Jesus.

However aware, humanly speaking, Jesus was or wasn’t about his relationship with the Father before this point, you might say that at his baptism Jesus became fully cognisant of being “the Christ”. He heard the words “You are my Son, the beloved, with you I am well pleased”

That this event is paired today with the creation story at the beginning of time is a masterstroke. The eternal will and purposes of God finds full expression within a human life and becomes a template for all life.

That God was intimately involved and connected with all created things “in the beginning” is given prominence at the same time as that same God is shown manifesting within a human life in Jesus.

That God can be found by looking within as well as looking outside to the heavens is a point that has only ever been fully realised by Mystics and contemplatives. Indeed, that God can be found within the created order is I think a major insight of Epiphany.

God is not separate from us and never has been. He has always been intimately involved and apprehensible if we know how and where to look.

The “Where” is within. “How” is through contemplation, communion and stillness and what has been called mindfulness – Living in, accepting, and appreciating the present moment which produces a feeling of gratitude and unity with all life that leads us to see ourselves as St. John calls us “Children of God” fellow heirs with Christ.

Some might call that a life of prayer.

Saint Paul called it living in Christ and Christ living in me.

That is the difference between the baptism of John and being baptised into Christ that Luke talks about in the third reading from Acts.

It goes far deeper than a simple intellectual assent to a theological notion.

The disciples in the story in Acts had never heard of a baptism into Christ where the Spirit of God suffused every facet of their lives. They were stuck at the level of knowing that they were sinful and needed to change.

A necessary stage but there was much more to be revealed.

Living in Christ, seeing the world through Christ’s eyes, and when you look at the world seeing Christ looking back at you is the goal of every life who finds they are growing in discipleship in the Christian way.

Seeing and perceiving in that way is when we consciously become a child of God.

One of the best ways to make sure we grow as a church is to nurture at every opportunity the fact that we really are all children of God and can live in that freedom. The church has a 2000 year old treasure trove crammed full of resources to encourage and nurture our spiritual development.

I would want to prepare the ground and see these grow organically within the RMC to make us a spiritual powerhouse for the Kingdom of God in East Devon. Drawing on time honoured methods that engage all the senses with art, music, meditation, contemplation, incense and icons we can start to show people how to grow in Christ.

The church has traditionally concentrated far too much on “what“ to believe but devoted much less time or energy on “How” to believe and how to grow in Christ. I intend to try and start changing that in the RMC this year and carry it on through to the end of my time here.

That process will be a natural extension and corollary to us being a truly Eucharistic and truly sacramental church which is the very essence of true Christianity.

 

Epiphany. What does it mean to proclaim that "God is with us?"

 

Epiphany

Isaiah 60: 1-6.The light of God shall illuminate the people and in turn our light will draw the whole world to our light.

Ephesians 3: 1-12. This light is Christ who was revealed to the apostles and prophets by the Spirit and that through the church, we are to make known the plan that God held from the beginning to the world in confidence and boldness.

Matthew 2: 1-12. The visit of the Magi.

 

Christmas and Epiphany are joined at the hip which is why we use the same liturgy for both until Candlemas.

Christmas is the incarnation from which everything else flows then Epiphany is the celebration and exploration of what the incarnation of Christ means.

What does it mean to proclaim “God is with us” – Emmanuel in Hebrew.

There are several stories that fit the bill – and we’ll hear them throughout January but the main one traditionally used in the West is the visit of the Magi.

This is a sumptuous story of exotic foreigners coming to pay homage to a Jewish Messiah which means that the significance of Jesus is universal – of importance to every human being - not just those who happened to be Jewish.

So the first revelation is universal relevance and importance of this event, just because of who they were.

(Incidentally, this event took place up to two years after the birth in the Manger. By now the family were living in a house (v.11) but commercial interests have successfully transferred the image of the Magi to the crib scene almost universally.)

So there is significance in just who they were – foreigners from a strange land – the other significant revelation lies in the gifts they brought for Jesus.

Gold for a King – we sing at Christmas – and spiritually that means that Jesus is Lord of our lives. This has always proved to be the most subversive gift of all, because people who give their lives to Christ are saying that we owe our ultimate allegiance to Christ and not to any worldly power.

Christ ultimately rules our lives – NOT Caesar, NOT the Emperor, NOT the king or Queen, NOT any political leader or philosophy there has ever been.

This is why human powers and anyone who exercises and expects complete obedience have always tried to domesticate and control Christianity by pretending that their goals and the goals of Christ are the same – to rein in a potential adversary to their own aims. “For God and country” conflates and confuses the aims of God with the aims of human beings.

So the second great revelation is that Christ is Lord of our lives.

Frankincense is the next gift. A gift always associated with priesthood. What is a priest? A priest is the intermediary between people and what Jesus referred to as the Father (God himself). Who Jesus calls the Father, the Eastern church has traditionally called the “Sourceless source of all things” the creator God. The ultimate reality revealed in Exodus 3:14 simply as “I AM” pure transcendent being

Jesus reveals that he has an intimate relationship with this sourceless source – so close in fact that you could say that the words and actions of Jesus Christ are the words and actions of this sourceless source. God has actually and certainly revealed himself within a human life. Should you want to contact or commune with God you need only look at Christ and draw on his Spirit – to follow Him – to know that you are drawing near to God. There is no gap between people and God in Christ.

So the third great revelation is that Christ is our high priest.

The last gift is Myrrh, significant because it is associated with death in that it was used to anoint dead bodies in ancient times.

This is a profound gift and touches on the twin poles of suffering and death that afflict all living things.

This gift says that Jesus’ death will say something profound about all life, all suffering and all deaths. It says that suffering and death are real and must be borne by everyone and every thing. Our central act of communion Jesus tells us to drink of his blood shed on the cross. Jesus Christ enters into profound solidarity with all created things when He submits to the cross, but the even more profound thing that is being said is that Suffering and death - yes, they are significant – but they are not the end – because of the resurrection.

Death and resurrection are not just what happens when you physically die they are templates for living life. True resurrection is when light or love overcomes or grows out of a hopeless situation in any stage of life.

Light over darkness – Life out of death. This is the central gift of Christianity that lends a healing balm of hope to the human soul.

These are the revelations of Epiphany.

God is universal – there is no-where where he is absent.

Christ is Lord of our lives. We are called to follow Him.

Christ is our gateway to real communion with God. We plug ourselves into the source of all things.

Christ through his death and resurrection speaks into the universal problem of suffering and death and proclaims that light and life, healing and wholeness are the true will and end of God.

Amen