Sermon
delivered at St. John’s Parish Church, West Grimstead – Sunday 12 May 2019 – Morning Worship in
Eastertide
Acts 9:36-end; John 10:22-30
May
I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost. Amen
Good morning. We
are now in that period of the church’s year between the Resurrection on Easter
Day and Ascension leading towards Pentecost and it is a good time for us all to
reflect on all that happened in that period and its significance for us as
believers in the Christian Faith going forward.
Our first reading, from Acts takes us forward from the
Gospel days to a time in the future when we see the power of the Holy Spirit at
work in the hands of Peter – and this should be a great reminder to us all that
the work of Jesus Christ continues in and through the gifts of the Holy Spirit
as evidenced here in the miraculous resurrection of Tabitha through Peter. The context of that reading is that it
appears immediately before the conversion of the Roman centurion, Cornelius,
and his family in which it is made quite plain to Peter that Jesus came for
everybody’s salvation not just the Jews, but the Gentiles as well and that
conversion is through faith and not strict adherence to Jewish customs,
especially food customs.
By regularly reading the gospel we become quite used to
the miraculous healings of Jesus and in particular today’s story of Tabitha
reminds us, I am sure, of the raising of Lazarus – Jesus’s deceased friend -
but we can easily forget that such miracles can and still did and do occur
after Jesus’s Ascension. In today’s
modern age of technical medical assistance and scientific enlightenment it can
be so easy to dismiss the idea of miraculous healings as pure co-incidences but
time and time again we do indeed hear of such miracles occurring today – often
in places of Christian Revival such as Africa and China. We should also remember that in his final
words to the apostles before he ascended back to his Father, Jesus sets out his
great commission for them and, through them, us today:
“Go
therefore and make disciples of all nations baptising them in the name of the
Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit; and teaching them to obey
everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to
the end of the Earth”. (Matthew 28:18-20).
“I
am with you always” – a promise so great that we can only be
humble and obey as he commanded us.
Peter must certainly have had this in mind as he went about doing
Jesus’s work on Tabitha – a clear example of the promised Holy Spirit at work -
and by the fact that two disciples were specially sent from Lydda, where
Tabitha was living, to Joppa where Peter was staying. This indicates the great
reliance and trust these disciples must have had that Peter’s gifts could and
would be used; an example of great Faith in Jesus’s earlier command. Not only
that, this act also, we read, became widely known throughout Joppa such that
there occurred many Christian converts – “many
believed in the Lord”.
So too today, we can read of many people coming to
Faith through the miraculous works of Christians in Africa – through the
ministries of such people as Heidi and Rolland Baker in Mozambique who have
written of their experiences of great healings there – especially sight being
restored to blind people in their book aptly titled “Expecting Miracles”. So too
do we read of miracles occurring in Hong Kong in Jackie Pullinger’s book “Chasing the Dragon” with her ministry
with drug addicts and dealers and also on mainland China in examples given by
Liu Zhenying more commonly known as Brother Yun in his book “The Heavenly Man” in which he describes
many miracles occurring despite the heavy persecution experienced by Christians
in that vast country.
The resurrection of Tabitha is then a clear indication of
the Jesus’s continued presence and power through the Holy Spirit after the
Ascension. Indeed, even during his time
of ministry on Earth Jesus sent out 12 of his disciples to “cure the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers and cast out demons”
(Matthew 10:8) so we really should express no surprise at supernatural healings
when they do genuinely occur in the name of Jesus Christ.
Recently, I attended a Men’s Ministry Meeting in
Salisbury at which one participant told the rest of us present that he was
suffering from a particularly unpleasant illness which the doctors had
expressed as being incurable. He asked
for prayer which he duly received from all those present. One week later he reported that whilst not
cured the doctors had observed a 33% improvement in his condition – something
which they could not explain. Those of
us present that day did think that we did have an explanation
Of course, that is not to say that in every case healing
prayers will work – and we really cannot say why some do and some do not or why
some take much longer than others. That
is part of God’s amazing yet inexplicable mystery but genuine prayer, in
whatever form it takes, is a dialogue we have with God and is as important an
exercise to the Christian believer as is taking a breath.
In our Gospel reading, Jesus explains further. He is a “mystery man” to many who surround
him – what or who is he? A prophet or is
he the Messiah? The Anointed One? The
Jews surrounding him wanted a plain and simple answer to this question, just as
so many do today. The answer which he
gave unnerved them and we read, immediately after the piece of scripture read
out to us today, how the people took up stones to stone him to death.
The scene for this event takes place, we read, at
Hanukkah, the Feast of Dedication commemorating the victory of Judas Maccabeus
over the Syrians, his cleansing and re-dedication of the Temple after it had
been used for unclean purposes such as for keeping pigs in, in fact, in the
“Portico of Solomon” at the Temple in Jerusalem itself – a very holy shrine and
a place where the Jews believed that God, Yahweh or Jehovah to give him the
name by which he was referred, resided – in the Holy of Holies.
With the word “shepherd” being a regular image for a
“king” Jesus’s use of this word to describe himself in this context as the
“true shepherd” would suggest that he is styling himself in the role of God’s
anointed. But what Jesus says is so
different from the warlike Judas Maccabeus as to seem incomprehensible to the
Jewish elders.
The Jews believing that a Messiah, somebody they expected
to be a great warrior who would clear Judea of all Gentiles, just as Josiah had
cleared out the indigenous tribes of the Promised Land, would come soon they
wanted to know whether this great influential man, Jesus, was indeed that
Messiah of their imagination. Jesus does
not give a straight and clear answer but says “I have already told you so yet you do not believe” (John 10:25) –
in other words, can’t you see this for yourself? Can’t you accept what I am saying, can you
not see God’s power at work through my hands?
That I am indeed God’s anointed one!
He then makes a very provocative remark – “You do not believe because you do not
belong to my sheep” (John 10:26).
What Jesus is trying to convey here is that his kingdom
is not like the one which the Jews are looking for. It is the kingdom of heaven not an earthly
kingdom here on Earth. Jesus’s sheep are, therefore, those who do hear and do
understand his message. Jesus was
offering “eternal life”.
Very often that phrase is perhaps, as Tom Wright
suggests, mis-interpreted and we think of it as something less Jewish, more
Platonic – meaning a life of everlasting post mortem bliss. As children we had
images of floating around on clouds playing harp music for all eternity. In first century Jewish culture the word
“eternal life” meant primarily the life of the coming age – a new age when
wrongs would be righted, sins forgiven and God would be all and in all. This is what Jesus was claiming was on
offer. He is saying that despite the
pressure amongst his contemporaries to seek a Maccabean-style solution to the
wrongs which the people saw and felt, i.e. an earthly revolution, God had ensured
that some, at least, would follow him and find the narrow way that would lead
to that life they were seeking. In this,
Jesus and the Father were one working together.
Doesn’t this resonate in our world today? All around us I often feel a pressing desire
for that new age; politics and political solutions throughout the world seem to
fail us again and again. Maybe that is
why there is such a hunger for the Christian Way in places such as the nations
of Africa and Asia where they have had enough of political oppression and
instability. Perhaps that’s why, too, they are persecuted because they appear
as a threat to the political world.
Doesn’t it make sense to seek that eternal life as
promised by Jesus? : Jesus, the
shepherd, who became the lamb and then our eternal shepherd again. An example to us all. “Thou
art the truth the way the life” as the hymn goes.
Let us pray:
Lord
Jesus
You
came into our world, the Son of God, not to condemn the world
But
to bring us eternal life
We
ask that your Spirit comes upon us now so that we may inspire others
With
this message of good news
We
ask that you protect all those who serve you in your ministry in those parts of
the world where Christians and persecuted and ridiculed
And
that they may shine the light of truth and justice to those in power.
We
ask this in your name, now and for ever
Amen
MFB/08032019
