May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer
 
We might well ask how one brief passage of Scripture consisting entirely of the words of Jesus can seem at once clear and yet mysterious, at once inclusive and yet exclusive, at once to be loved and yet, by some, to be loathed. I rather doubt that Jesus thought He was being obscure in any way. He was using an agricultural analogy that was completely familiar to His hearers, one to which He could have pointed on almost any day of His wanderings throughout Galilee and Judea with His disciples. Apart from the totally desolate desert areas, grape vines were plentiful at the time.

We can start out with the parts that are clear, inclusive and beloved: the warm-fuzzy aspects of this teaching that, in many moments of our lives, are reassuring and comforting. Jesus is emphasizing our connection with Him as our Savior, Redeemer and Friend, as the One Who sustains us in our walk with Him as His disciples, His life-long learners, as those who have a special and direct connection with Him. Last week we saw Him as our Good Shepherd. Today we see Him as the True Vine. These are two of the most precious self-identifications of Jesus in John’s Gospel, two of the seven times He says “I AM” and adds vividly picturesque predicate nouns. The other statements include “I am” the Bread of Life; the Light of the World; the Door of the Sheepfold; the Resurrection and the Life; and the Way, the Truth and the Life. Each in its own way addresses a special connection between us and our Savior.

“Bread of Life” of course has its Eucharistic context, reminding us of our daily request in the prayer that our Savior Christ has taught us: “Give us this day our daily Bread,” or, better, “Give us this day the miraculous Bread that nourishes and sustains us,” the Bread that is the True Body of our Lord, the imperishable bread of heaven. But “True Vine” is a close second to “Bread of Life” in terms of our direct connection to Jesus, a connection that He emphasizes in these words when He connects the image of our life as branches of the “True Vine” to the concept of “abiding” in Him.

Perhaps I should take a step back and remind you of the context in which Jesus is speaking these words. It’s Holy Week, as we now call it, and Jesus already has been in the Upper Room alone with His disciples. He has shared the Passover Supper with them, giving to it the heightened meaning that it has as our Eucharistic meal. He has informed them of His impending betrayal by Judas and of Peter’s denial; and in the clearest possible language He has told them of His imminent departure from them. In fact, His words that immediately precede today’s Gospel are these: “Let not your heart be troubled nor let it be afraid. You heard that I said to you, ‘I go away, and I will come to you.’ If you loved Me, you would have rejoiced because I go to the Father, for the Father is greater than I. Now I have told you before it happens, so that when it happens, you may believe” (John 14:27-29).

With that backdrop, one that certainly threw the disciples into a serious emotional tailspin, Jesus begins to speak these warmly assuring words about abiding in Him. Now we, who never had the incomparable privilege of being with Jesus during His earthly ministry, hear these words with a similar sense of being warmed and reassured. As He will do again soon in the Intercessory or High Priestly Prayer, here Jesus connects our abiding in Him as branches of the True Vine with our relationship to the Father, something that was altogether new for His Jewish disciples who would never have dreamed of addressing God as “Father” other than through an extended corporate formula. Now Jesus can add to these words about “abiding” by saying, “Just as the Father has loved Me, I have also loved you; abide in My love” (vs. 9).

Those are the parts of these words of Jesus that we love most. Despite an element of mystery in this intertwined love relationship between Jesus as the True Vine and God the Father as the vinedresser and ourselves as the branches, we can sense the special closeness that these images imply. But then come the tough things that are inextricably included in the “abiding” concept. We may be able to access this a bit better if we bring it down to purely human terms. We all know how challenging interpersonal relationships can be. Sometimes the least little issue seems to threaten, disrupt or even destroy an otherwise healthy relationship. We find it difficult to be corrected by others, especially those who are best at holding up mirrors to our faces, thereby laying bare our deepest and best-hidden flaws. 

If that’s the way we react when someone close to us has the temerity to do this, even with the best of intentions, how will we react when God the Father does His pruning of us as unhealthy branches that are not bearing fruit? What about the many times when we think we’re doing just fine at fruit-bearing and God still comes to do His pruning? Isn’t it a bit harsh when Jesus says, “Apart from Me you can do nothing?” Aren’t we inclined much of the time to think that we’re doing perfectly acceptably on our own?

But then the mirror pops up and we discover that God is quite right: we’re sailing along very well until what we’re doing is measured against the standard of bearing fruit. Even then we spring into our accustomed posture of self-defense and say, “Look at all the good I’m doing!” Then we step back and take another look at verse 4: “As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself unless it abides in the vine, so neither can you unless you abide in Me.” And we also look ahead at verse 8: “My Father is glorified by this, that you bear much fruit, and so prove to be My disciples.” I suspect this may be a higher standard than the one to which we hold ourselves, and we may think that God has progressed too quickly from prodding to pruning to meddling.

According to the words of Jesus in verse 6, God clearly is in the business of holding our feet to the fire, quite literally: “If anyone does not abide in Me, he is thrown away as a branch and dries up; and they gather them, and cast them into the fire and they are burned.” That’s a frightening prospect, an extreme one that apparently was meant to provide a bit of negative motivation for us to work harder at abiding in Jesus. In our feel-good society we often are told that negative motivation is a bad thing. Perhaps that’s true in some contexts, but Jesus certainly did not shrink from negative motivation when He felt it was for our instruction and remediation.

Before we decide to abandon this teaching as divine overreaching, let’s look at a few more things Jesus is saying in this passage. First of all, the context is not primarily about fire and judgment but about love and joy. Look again at verses 10 and 11: “If you keep My commandments, you will abide in My love; just as I have kept My Father’s commandments and abide in His love. These things I have spoken to you so that My joy may be in you, and your joy may be made full.”

What’s Jesus saying here? He’s affirming that abiding in Him, keeping His commandments and bearing much fruit is not intended to be some onerous process from which any reasonable person would shrink. Rather He’s saying that our end goal is to experience the love of Jesus in the same way that Jesus experiences the Father’s love; and whenever that happens, the product will be inexpressible joy, a joy that Jesus describes as “full,” “complete,” “overflowing.”

Is this what we used to hear about at Christian summer camp, what we called the “mountain-top experience?” Probably not. Think about Who’s speaking here and what was about to happen to Him that very evening and the next day: arrest, trial and crucifixion. At the end of the next chapter in John, Jesus tells the disciples, “Behold, an hour is coming, and has already come, for you to be scattered, each to his own home, and to leave Me alone; and yet I am not alone, because the Father is with Me” (16:32).

This may give us a deeper understanding of what Jesus really meant when, from the Cross, He quoted the first verse of Psalm 22: “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” What we’re to learn from this is that even in the very darkest hour of His life, Jesus was completely assured of the Father’s presence that brought both love and fullness of joy. And He promises us that when we abide in Him and obey His commandments, we, too, will experience the incomparable love of God and the fullest possible joy, even on those occasions when the mountain-top experience is short-lived.

One more thing Jesus promises in these verses: “If you abide in Me, and My words abide in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you” (verse 7). Later in the same conversation He says, “You did not choose Me but I chose you, and appointed you that you would go and bear fruit, and that your fruit would remain, so that whatever you ask of the Father in My name He may give to you” (verse 16).

Does that sound preposterously naïve and contrary to our experience? Perhaps sometimes it is, but only from our greatly limited human perspective. And yes, there are contingencies to be met: in verse 7, it’s a matter of whether we actually are “abiding in Him.” How do we know? Because He says that when we are, we will be bearing much fruit. Grab that mirror! How are we really doing at fruit-bearing? Jesus says that fruit-bearing is the measuring stick for abiding in Him.

The second contingency is in verse 10. It’s obedience, because Jesus follows up His words about the Father giving us whatever we ask with these words: “This is My commandment, that you love one another just as I have loved you” (verse 12). He repeats these same words in verse 17 immediately after His second promise that the Father will gave us whatever we ask of Him.

Jesus makes no effort to hide this second contingency or to make it ambiguous. It’s all about proving our love for Him by following His commandment to love others. We know from our weekly repetitions that this is the second commandment in Jesus’ summary of the law. And we also know from our daily experiences that this commandment is more easily recited than performed.

John himself, living another 60 years after hearing these words from Jesus, must have learned their meaning rather well in his own personal experiences. In today’s epistle reading, John writes, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casts out fear, because fear involves punishment, and the one who fears is not perfected in love. We love, because He first loved us. If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God Whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from Him, that the one who loves God should love his brother also” (I John 4:18-21).

What are the most important words here? They are simply, “We love, because He first loved us.” Among the several reasons why the sacrifice of Christ on the Cross was necessary for us and for our salvation is the simple fact that never in human history has there been such a demonstration of love for others as in the death of the Son of God for each one of us. There’s no other system of religion that has a parallel. Mohammed did not die to save Muslims. Buddha did not die to save Buddhists. No Hindu god died to save Hindus.

Every religion teaches self-sacrifice. But only in Christianity does God show us what sacrifice means and why it’s necessary for our salvation. Jesus paid the ultimate price to do something for our sin. And He asks so little of us in response. He asks us to repent of our sin, to have faith in Him and to love others as He loves us. Can we do that? If we cannot, then John suggests we should do a spiritual check-up to see whether we are actually children of God.  

John’s criteria, while not easy, are the ones he learned directly from Jesus. Here’s a snapshot of what John writes in his first letter:
 
“Abide in (Jesus) so that when He appears we may have confidence and not shrink from Him in shame” (2:28). “See how great a love the Father has bestowed on us, that we would be called ‘children of God;’ and so we are” (3:1). “By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother. For this is the message which you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another” (3:10, 11). “We know that we have passed out of death into life, because we love the brethren” (3:14). “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. But whoever has the world’s goods, and sees his brother in need and closes his heart against him, how does the love of God abide in him? Little children, let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth” (3:16 18).
 
“And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do the things that are pleasing in His sight. This is His commandment, that we believe in the name of His Son Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us. The one who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him” (3:22-24). “By this the love of God was manifested among us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. (And) if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another” (4:9, 11). “We love, because He first loved us” (4:19).
 
Clearly John learned well from his Master, as these words from his letter say exactly the same things that Jesus said in today’s Gospel. The message is simple. Practicing it is not. And that’s the point both Jesus and John are making: it’s much easier, much more “natural,” for us to practice sin than to practice love and thereby to live out our faith in the imitation of God’s love for us in His Son Jesus Christ.

That’s our challenge today and every day. When we meet that challenge, John says that we “will assure our heart before God” (3:19). And, as Jesus Himself said, “By this will all men know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another" (John 13:35). May that very love become and remain our defining characteristic, to the honor and glory of God the Father and of His Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord my Rock and my Redeemer

“Know that the Lord He is God; it is He that has made us and not we ourselves; we are His flock and the sheep of His pasture” (Psalm 100:3).

Ever since we moved into this building last June, I’ve been looking forward to our first Good Shepherd Sunday here. You can guess the reason: it’s that incredibly beautiful window that depicts our loving, living Savior as the Good Shepherd, as our Good Shepherd, as the one Who knows His sheep and can call them by name.

Those of us who were blessed with the privilege of growing up in Christian homes learned the 23rd Psalm by heart from childhood, and many of us had some picture of Jesus as the Good Shepherd on our walls. Even though there were absolutely no sheep or shepherds in Buffalo, New York when I was growing up, I had a very clear picture of what shepherding looks like. Further, I even imagined that I knew what it felt like, especially as a child.

When we get older, the image begins to shift, due in no small measure to the fact that we’ve heard the 23rd Psalm at nearly every funeral we’ve ever attended until it begins to speak more resonantly about walking the valley of the shadow of death and fearing no evil, because God our Shepherd is with us. In the process many of us may lose that warm-fuzzy childhood sense of Who the Good Shepherd really is and what His care for us truly means on a day-to-day basis. It’s not reserved for the last days of our lives.

The story of Jesus’ birth starts out with a scene full of sheep and shepherds. You can imagine what a powerful experience it was to stand on the edge of the hill in Bethlehem at the traditional birthplace of Jesus, peering down many feet below and seeing a large flock of sheep being led around by their shepherd, right where “there were shepherds abiding in the fields, watching over their flocks by night” (Luke 2:8). And virtually everywhere our motorcoach went through Israel we would see similar scenes. Many of the shepherds caring for these flocks were just young boys, children who should have been in school at the time. But they knew how to care for their flocks.

No one needs to go to the Holy Land to know what it means to have a Shepherd Who is also the Guardian of our souls. The Apostle Peter, who knew more about fishing than shepherding, penned this comfort-filled verse: “You were straying like sheep, but now you have returned to the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls” (I Peter 2:25).

Do you know what the original Greek word was that Peter used for “Guardian?” It’s the word “episcopos,” which is the NT word for “bishop.” Jesus is our Bishop as well as our Shepherd. Yes, we have a wonderful and godly Bishop in our diocese who leads us with a heart that seeks God’s perfect will for us. We’re in his care as priests and we in turn are his representatives in our parishes. But Jesus Himself is our true Bishop, our Archbishop, Who cares not only for our general well-being: He is the Shepherd and Guardian of our souls! If there’s a more beautiful and comforting thought than that in all of Scripture, I may have missed it.

Every Bishop and every priest is said to be responsible for the care of souls. But only Jesus our Great High Priest knows every soul well enough to give the sort of care for which every soul yearns. And that care is what Jesus was talking about in today’s Gospel reading. He says, 11 “I am the Good Shepherd; the Good Shepherd lays down His life for the sheep. 14 I know My own and My own know Me, 15 even as the Father knows Me and I know the Father; and I lay down My life for the sheep.” 

Here Jesus was speaking of His special relationship to the Jewish people of His day. But this is among the very first times that Jesus clearly states the extension of His care, His shepherding, beyond the house of Israel. He adds, 16“I have other sheep, which are not of this fold; I must bring them also, and they will hear My voice; and they will become one flock with one shepherd.” 

This is yet another of the most beautiful expressions in the entire Bible. Yes, it contains two iterations of one of my favorite Biblical words: one. It was the heart’s desire of Jesus that all believers, whether Jewish or Gentile, would be one. In Ephesians, Paul states that there is but “one God and Father of us all, Who is over all and through all and in all” (Ephesians 4:6). Here in John 10 Jesus adds that He is the Source of our unity, the unity we have with “one Lord, one faith and one baptism” (Ephesians 4:5). Then, in His High Priestly intercessory prayer in John 17, Jesus asks the Father “that they may all be one; even as You, Father, are in Me and I in You, that they also may be in Us” (John 17:21).

There are two other things Jesus adds in these verses that form the foundation of all that He is saying. I want us to look at these in reverse order. The second thing Jesus says is this:
“I lay down My life for the sheep. For this reason the Father loves Me, because I lay down My life so that I may take it again. No one has taken it away from Me, but I lay it down on My own initiative. I have authority to lay it down, and I have authority to take it up again.”

These words remind me immediately of Paul’s statement in Romans 5 (6-8):  
“For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die— but God demonstrates His love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”

I’m also reminded of the words of a great gospel hymn: “The love of God is greater far than tongue or pen can ever tell.” There are many things in our lives of faith that cannot be put into words. And that’s precisely the point that Jesus is making: where words leave off, actions begin. It’s not enough for us to read and hear that God loves us and has a wonderful plan for our lives. What should stir us to the depths of our souls is the fact that Jesus loved us so much as to lay down His life willingly, of His own volition, for us and for our salvation. When we embrace that incomparable demonstration of divine love by faith, we are made His own forever. What Jesus has done for us should call us to a committed response, a deeper, more intense life of faith, obedience and discipleship. It’s not our response to what some preacher or a Sunday School teacher or a parent, friend or spouse has told us. It’s our response to the greatest demonstration of love in all eternity.

That brings us to the other incomparable thing that Jesus says in today’s Gospel: “I know My own and My own know Me” (v. 14). Those words should come to us as the source of our assurance that we are His. As we say in another gospel hymn (with which we’ll close this morning’s service), “In a love that cannot cease, I am His and He is mine.”

Do you have that rock-solid assurance? This is not just Jesus-rhetoric: this is His Word, the truth of Him Who is the Word. He knows His own and we know Him. He holds out to each of us the offer of that assurance, our salvation. If you lack it, now is the time to search deeply within - while the opportunity is still present to you. There is no greater consolation than this in a world filled with uncertainty, change, darkness and hostility. Over and above all that, Jesus the Good Shepherd wants us to be assured that He knows us and that we know Him. This is personal, intimate and eternal. This is the key for us to experience what God promises in the 23rd Psalm: “I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”

Earlier in this same chapter, Jesus says that He knows us by name (vs. 3). Here Jesus is taking on Himself God’s promise in Isaiah 43: “For I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name, you are Mine.” Then, in words that remind us yet again of the 23rd Psalm, God adds, “When you walk through the waters, I’ll be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. For I am the Lord your God, the Holy One of Israel, your Savior. You are precious in My eyes, and honored, and I love you.” That promise of God through Isaiah is fulfilled for us in His Son, our Good Shepherd, our Redeemer, who loved us so much that He gave His own life for us.

What’s required of us in return? Two things, two steps, a first step and a follow-up step. The first step is a eucharistic one: it amounts to saying “thank you,” and saying by a simple act of faith, “I will accept and receive what Jesus has done for me as my Good Shepherd and my Redeemer.” You need to allow that acceptance to inform you and change you every time you come to this table to receive His Body and Blood.
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The second step is to recognize that a further response is demanded to a love as great as His, an incomparable love, a love that embraces each one of us individually, that knows us and calls us by name. Christian faith is not a half-way thing. There was nothing half-way about Jesus laying down His life for His sheep. In today’s epistle, John writes, “We know love by this, that He laid down His life for us; and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren. Let us not love with word or with tongue, but in deed and truth.” As Peter wrote, the love of Jesus continues to make itself known to those who know Him through His ongoing work as the Shepherd and Guardian, the care-giver, of our souls. “Love so amazing, so divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer

This morning I’m going to talk about something that appears in all 4 of our readings for today. It’s something that always has been a universally popular pastime: everyone does it. But it has become a decreasingly popular topic for polite conversation or preaching. It’s something we used to call by its Biblical name: “sin.” In the U.S. it was a common sermon topic from the time of Jonathan Edwards in the colonial period until Billy Graham in our day. I heard Billy Graham preach many times from my childhood on, and I recall only one time when he did not begin with sin, and that was when he was addressing an assembly of the faculty and students of Moody Bible Institute. Perhaps he missed an opportunity there. Typically he would begin his sermons with quotations from Romans, such as: “For all have sinned and come short of the glory of God” (3:23), or “There is none righteous, no not one” (3:10) or “The wages of sin is death, but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord” (6:23).

In today’s lectionary we find Peter preaching, “Therefore repent and return, so that your sins may be wiped away” (Acts 3:19). The psalmist writes, “Tremble and do not sin” (Psalm 4:4). The apostle John writes, “Everyone who practices sin practices lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness” (I John 3:4). And, after His Resurrection, Jesus tells His disciples that Moses, the Prophets and the Psalms all declare “that repentance for forgiveness of sins would be proclaimed in Messiah’s Name to all the nations” (Luke 24:47). Each Sunday before the Confession we hear John’s words, “If we say we have no sin, the truth is not in us” (I John 1:8). Sin is undeniably a universal condition.

So far we’re dealing only with the fact of sin, not the remedy. Nor have we considered the much more challenging words from John that seem to place all of us in a very precarious circumstance. He writes, “You know that (Jesus Christ) appeared in order to take away sins; no one who sins has seen Him or knows Him” (I John 3:6). But our lectionary reading stops a bit too soon. In the very next verses, John adds that “the one who practices sin is of the devil” and that “no one who is born of God practices sin… because he is born of God” (I John 3:8, 9). Peter wrote, “(Jesus) Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness” (I Peter 2:24). That sounds categorical and, on the surface, suggests some of us are in a lot of trouble.

We’re reminded of what Paul wrote in Romans: “The death that Jesus died, He died to sin once for all. So consider yourselves dead to sin… for sin shall not be master over you… and you, having been freed from sin, became slaves of righteousness” (Romans 6:10, 11, 14, 18). Does this sound like a description of us? “Dead to sin” and “slaves of righteousness?” How do we reconcile this absolute language with our own experiences?

If we dig a bit deeper, both John and Paul give us answers as to how we’re to deal with the whole sin issue. First and foremost there’s the work of Jesus on our behalf, what we call the atonement. He did what no other person could do: He lived a perfect life, then died as a perfect sacrifice for our sins, then rose triumphantly from the grave to put an end to sin, death and Satan’s power. Paul writes in Romans 5, “Just as through one man sin entered into the world, and so death spread to all men because all sinned… so through one act of righteousness, through the obedience of the One, the many will be made righteous” (5:12, 18, 19).

What does this require of us? We like to say, “Faith plus nothing.” But that’s not actually what the Scriptures teach. Both Jesus and Peter in our lectionary readings urge us first to repentance. That was the entire message of John the Baptist as he prepared the way for the Messiah, and it was the message of Peter at Pentecost in his first sermon after the Ascension of Jesus: “Repent and be baptized every one of you in the Name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins” (Acts 2:38). Repentance requires the acknowledgement of our sinful condition and our need for something to be done that’s beyond ourselves.

Repentance logically precedes our ability to accept the work of Christ by faith. It’s an indispensable if uncomfortable prerequisite. Repentance is nothing less than a statement of our inadequacy, of our insufficiency, of our need for God’s grace. Spiritually speaking, repentance is a falling on our faces before God, confessing that we have fallen short of His glory and pleading for His mercy on the basis of His grace and lovingkindness. When we do that, the righteousness of the One, the Second Adam, Jesus Christ, is imputed to us so that the sin nature into which we’re born can be redeemed and remedied. Even more, we ourselves die to sin. Paul adds that “having been freed from sin and enslaved to God, you derive your benefit, resulting in sanctification and the outcome, eternal life” (Romans 6:22).

Those thoughts, while in a somewhat different theological construct from that of John, explain clearly what John means when he writes that “no one who abides in Him sins” and “no one who is born of God practices sin… because he is born of God” (I John 3:6, 8, 9). For both John and Paul, our self-identification with the finished work of Christ, the sinless, righteous, obedient One, renders us guiltless before a holy and righteous God. But that newfound freedom from sin transfers us from bondage to sin into slavery to God and righteousness. Even if our salvation depends on nothing more than repentance and faith, our sanctification requires that we eagerly pursue all that slavery to God implies. This is the proof of the pudding. There’s nothing half-hearted about this. Salvation is not achieved by our works, but it comes with the requirement that our lives be devoted to doing the work and will of God all the remaining days of our lives.

How can we do this? How can we ever be expected to do it? Paul gives us the answer in Philippians 2 when he writes, “Work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God Who is at work in you both to will and to work for His good pleasure” (12, 13). Repentance and faith are the essential first steps, but they’re not the last ones. They’re only the beginning of what Paul calls a “new creation” for those who are “in Christ” (II Corinthians 5:17). We’ve stepped out of our old lives into a new life in the Light of Christ. And yes, as Jesus said, “of those to whom much is given, much is also required” (Luke 12:48). The ability to do the work of God is a gift that God continually offers to us. We need only to listen to His voice and be obedient to it.

So now we understand the requirement and the mechanism. They’re straightforward. But how well are we doing at it? Do we really consider ourselves to be God’s slaves? That’s precisely the question John is addressing in today’s epistle. Are we living as God’s slaves, or are we still slaves to ourselves and our inherent sin nature? What are we doing about it?

When John writes that “no one who abides in (Jesus) sins,” and, conversely, that “no one who sins has seen Him or known Him,” John is saying that any habitual sin that we do not address, acknowledge and conquer through the One Who has defeated the power of sin by His death and Resurrection, separates us from Christ. Habitual sin separates us from Christ. It calls into question the sincerity of our identification with Him. Further, John writes, “Make sure no one deceives you: the one who practices righteousness is righteous, just as He is righteous.” That’s a tough measuring stick for us: not our own righteousness, but His!

There’s definitely a sense in which I have the right to claim that I’m an expert at practicing. I’ve spent an incredibly large percentage of my life practicing. I discovered at a very early age that no progress is made without practicing. Later I discovered that no achievement is maintained without continued practicing. Whenever practicing is neglected, there’s serious diminishment. All my successes have been the product of practicing.

Of course I’m talking about my life as a professional musician. But the principles are identical when applied to our spiritual lives. If we fail to practice our faith, to practice righteousness, we make no progress in sanctification. And that’s not all. Just as there is diminishment when the professional musician neglects practicing, so there is diminishment when the Christian neglects practicing righteousness. We cannot hope to be “righteous just as He is righteous” unless we practice it, intentionally and faithfully.

Over time we may find that our negligence in practicing righteousness results in our reverting to the practice of sin, something John defines as “lawlessness.” That may sound extreme to us on first hearing. But the more we learn the demands of a righteous life through our study of Scripture, the more we stand convicted for our spiritual shortcomings. Then we discover how easy it is to slip back into lawlessness.

A few days ago I listened to my grandson reading a children’s book about the 10 Commandments to my great-granddaughter. The language was intentionally modified to be at a level little children could access, so even I could understand what was being read. When he got to the last commandment, instead of its saying, “Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's house, thou shalt not covet thy neighbor's wife, nor his manservant, nor his maidservant, nor his ox, nor his donkey, nor any thing that is thy neighbor's,” it just said, “You must not want the things that other people have.” Since that was the end of the book, I asked my grandson if he was guilty of that; and he immediately responded, “Yes, and I’m a bad person.”

Now I definitely was not trying to lay a guilt trip on him, but I did find his absolute candor to be disarmingly genuine. Most of us would do well to do have a periodic reality check with equal candor. When we do that, whether or not we conclude that we are bad persons, we are likely to discover that we’re shamefully inconsistent at practicing righteousness. And whenever I’m asked how that reality check is done, I invariably start with asking whether a person is being faithful in daily reading of Scripture and in prayer. That’s where spiritual practicing begins. And when its done faithfully and consistently, your life is changed in ways you never imagined possible. In time you will begin to discover what “sanctification” means and how it’s possible.

In this exercise, you will find that while practice does not always make “perfect,” it certainly propels you forward towards that time of which John was speaking when he wrote, “We know that when (Jesus) appears, we will be like Him, because we will see Him just as He is. And everyone who has this hope fixed on Him purifies himself, just as He is pure” (I John 3:2b, 3). Practice makes pure, but neglect negates progress. We need to aim higher in our daily practice of righteousness. We need to strive to be more like Jesus now. We need to purify ourselves as He is pure. We need to see this life as a time of preparation. And if we live every day in the recognition that He is coming again, then we’ll want to get started in that process of becoming like Him. Let’s covenant to do that together. The rewards are not only eternal, but they begin right now as we are re-shaped into the very image of Christ.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen
 

Rev. Father Alan Heatherington, Grace Anglican Fellowship homily 4-8-18

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer, Amen
 
A dear friend in our diocese posted this story a few days ago:

Many priests were gathered for Vespers during an ecumenical council at the Vatican.
Right in the middle, the power went out, and the priests were cast into darkness.
Without missing a beat, the Benedictines continued on in prayer with the liturgy of the hours from memory.
The Franciscans immediately broke into spontaneous praise for the gift of darkness and light, marveling at god's creation.  The dominicans broke into a debate about the significance of darkness and light. The jesuits broke into a debate about whether or not this excursed them from their obligation to pray Vespers that night. Meanwhile, the diocesan priest excused himself, went to the cellar, and changed the fuse.

Light. It’s one of our greatest gifts. John begins both his Gospel and his first letter with discourses on the significance of light. It’s in his Gospel alone that we have the story of Jesus giving sight to the man who was born blind. Jesus immediately prefaced that healing by declaring, “While I am in the world, I am the Light of the world” (John 9:5). John wrote of Jesus, “In Him was life, and the life was the Light of men. And the Light shines in the darkness, and the darkness could not extinguish it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through Him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of the Light. That was the true Light Who, coming into the world, gives light to every man” (John 1:4-9).

Then in our reading from First John, you heard, “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth; but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin” (I John 1:5-7). 

Saint Bede, best known by his moniker, The Venerable Bede, was the first historian to record the early spread of Christianity in the British Isles. Around 710 ad he wrote these well-known words in his commentary on the Book of Revelation: “Christ is the Morning Star Who, when the night of this world is past, brings to His saints the promise of the Light of life and opens everlasting day.”

These words were drawn from Revelation 2 in the letter to the church at Thyatira, where the Spirit tells John to write, “To the one who overcomes, I will also give the Morning Star. Let him who has an ear, listen to what the Spirit is saying to the Churches” (2:26, 28, 29). Undoubtedly Bede was also influenced by this reference at the very end of Revelation, “It is I, Jesus, Who sent my angel to you with this testimony for the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, the bright Morning Star” (22:16).

In powerful words that mark the climax of the book of Job, God asks, “Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone when the morning stars sang together, and all the sons of God shouted for joy?” (Job 38:4, 6, 7). Here it is: that just as the morning stars heralded the first creation, the first coming of the light, which caused such joy among the heavenly beings, so Christ, the Morning Star, the pre-eminent One, the first-born of all creation, reveals the new creation. He is the Light that shines in the darkness, a Light that the darkness cannot extinguish. As the morning star is the harbinger of dawn, so Christ in His coming reveals God's eternal purposes: “Christ is the Morning Star Who, when the night of this world is past, brings to His saints the promise of the Light of life and opens everlasting day.”

Charles Wesley wrote our Sequence hymn, one of the greatest hymns of all time:
 
            Christ, Whose glory fills the skies,
            Christ, the true, the only Light,
            Sun of Righteousness, arise,
            Triumph o'er the shades of night.
            Dayspring from on high be near;
            Daystar in my heart appear.
  
            Visit then this soul of mine,
            Pierce the gloom of sin and grief;
            Fill me, radiancy divine,
            Scatter all my unbelief;
            More and more Thyself display,
            Shining to the perfect day.
 
Wesley draws magnificently on Biblical imagery, the promise of the Sun of Righteousness from Malachi 4:2, and the words of Zacharias in the Benedictus from Luke 1: “In the tender mercy of our God, the Dayspring from on high has visited us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, and to guide our feet into the way of peace” (1:78, 79); and this text from II Peter: “You will do well to be attentive to this as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the Morning Star rises in your hearts” (1:19).
 
So Bede and Wesley speak as one. “Christ is the Morning Star;” “Christ is the Sun of Righteousness.” Wesley relates this to our personal piety: Christ the light dissipates sin, grief, and unbelief; the light of Christ reveals mercy, and brings inward illumination. Bede, too, points to salvation: “Christ brings to His saints the light of life and opens everlasting day.”

The earliest Christian tradition took over something special from its Jewish roots: to look towards the east towards Jerusalem, where Jews believe that Messiah will come and where Christians believe that Jesus will come again. Hence, the eastward orientation of this and many other churches. We call this by its Latin name, oriens, a word that means “easterly,” from which we have our English cognate, the Orient. Even the very word “orientation” comes from this Latin word, though obviously it has lost any specific directionality. 
There’s something glorious about standing in this church on a sunlit morning with the eastern sun shining through the Resurrection window.  It reminds us that we rise to meet Christ, the Dayspring, the Daystar, that creation itself witnesses to redemption; and that as Christ casts His light on us, we are called to spread that light, wherever the night denies it, wherever darkness tries to suppress it, to carry Christ's light into all dark places. It reminds us that the Light of Christ banishes darkness and that one day God will abolish it forever.
But behind this there’s also a moral question: how do we live as those who grasp that the “everlasting day” (to quote Bede) or the “perfect day” (to quote Wesley) is before us? How might this change the way we walk in a world beset with darkness? How will we respond in faith to the challenge of Jesus that now we are to be His lights in the world, lights set on a hill, beaming forth the word of truth? God said, “Let there be light, and there was light.” Jesus said, “I am the Light of the world.” But now it’s up to us to beam forth that light, that others, seeing our light, will turn their eyes on Jesus until the things of this dark world will grow strangely dim in the light of His glory and grace.

Some of you may know a contemporary hymn with both words and music by an English church musician, Graham Kendrick: Shine, Jesus, Shine. Since its composition in 1987 it’s been sung around the world at everything from Billy Graham Crusades to gatherings with the Pope. Kendrick wrote this about its composition:

I had been thinking for some time about the holiness of God and His desire for us to live continually in His presence. My longing for revival in the churches and spiritual awakening in the nation was growing, but also a recognition that we cannot stand in God's presence without “clean hands and a pure heart.” I remember standing in my music room trying different approaches. The line “Shine, Jesus, Shine” came to me, and within half an hour I had finished the chorus, all but some “polishing.”

It’s a song about light, about Jesus as the Light of the World, about love and truth, about God’s grace and mercy. Its message is timeless, but it’s changed many lives in the last 30 years:

Lord, the light of Your love is shining,
In the midst of the darkness, shining.
Jesus, Light of the world, shine upon us;
Set us free by the truth You now bring us.
Shine on me, shine on me.
As we gaze on Your Kingly brightness
So our faces display Your likeness
Ever changing from glory to glory
Mirrored here may our lives tell Your story
Shine on me, shine on me.
Shine, Jesus, shine: fill this land with the Father's glory.
Blaze, Spirit, blaze: set our hearts on fire.
Flow, river, flow: flood the nations with grace and mercy.
Send forth your word, Lord, and let there be light.
Light. It’s ours to treasure, but it’s ours to share.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen

May the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my Rock and my Redeemer, Amen
 
“This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” We read or quote that verse from Psalm 118 with regularity, as well we should. At various points in life it becomes something we feel inclined to say on a daily basis, again as well we should. But today is the day we should never fail to say it. That’s why it’s the Psalm for Easter Sunday in all three years of the lectionary cycle, guaranteeing that there never will be any Easter when we do not say it together. “This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” It’s an “Alleluia”-filled day, and we’re delighted to be able to say “Alleluia” today for the first time since Lent began. Of course “Alleluia” simply means “God be praised,” something we should be saying daily whether we’re in or out of Lent.

Today is the day of the victory lap. We’ve walked the Via Crucis, the Way of the Cross, and the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows. We have done our best to confront the unimaginable cost of our redemption, the pain our Savior suffered for each one of us. But no matter how well we do at walking that path with our Lord, its horrors are always ameliorated by our knowing the ending from the beginning. It’s not that we cheated by reading the back of the book first. It’s just that our faith rests in its entirety on the certainty of the Resurrection, the best attested event in all of antiquity.

And that’s what today’s Scriptures are about: the end of the book. And again, in all three years of the cycle, we read the 3 passages that attest most clearly to the Resurrection. We have the Apostle John’s eyewitness report of Easter morning when he went to the empty tomb with Peter. Then, in his preaching in Acts, we have Peter’s own eyewitness affirmation of the Resurrection. Finally we have Paul’s account of more than 500 persons who personally saw the risen Christ, including himself who, because his encounter on the Damascus Road was later on, refers to himself as “one untimely born.” Unlike the other Apostles, Paul had missed out on the blessing of experiencing Jesus during His earthly ministry; yet “by the grace of God” he was privileged to be included among those “witnesses who were chosen beforehand by God,” to use Peter’s words.

The cumulative impact of these three juxtaposed passages is undeniably powerful. Those of you who shared our recent Alpha classes and viewed with us the movie, “The Case for Christ,” have heard how irrefutable the evidence is for the Resurrection, both historically and medically. Our faith does not rest on human invention, but on divine intervention. The Resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead is a singular event without parallel in the whole of human history. It’s so astonishingly contrary to nature that unbelievers find it easy to scoff at those who not only accept its truth but who dedicate their entire lives of faith to living out all that it means, even to the point of martyrdom. As the foundation of Christian faith, it provides the greatest possible promise of what remains ahead for each of us.
 
But importantly, those Scriptures are NOT the end of the book. The end is contained most clearly and poignantly in the reading from Isaiah, written over 700 years before the birth of Christ and 800 years before John penned the Book of Revelation. Yet Isaiah presents a clear-eyed picture of the end times, in some ways a picture that’s even clearer than that of John. Isaiah affirms the words of the author of Hebrews, who wrote, “Long ago, at many times and in many ways, God spoke to our fathers by the prophets, but in these last days He has spoken to us by His Son, Whom He appointed the heir of all things, through Whom also He created the world” (Hebrews 1:1, 2).

Listen again to Isaiah 25 in the New International Version:

6 On this mountain the Lord Almighty will prepare a feast of rich food for all peoples, a banquet of aged wine— the best of meats and the finest of wines. 7 On this mountain He will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations; 8 He will swallow up death forever. The Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces; He will remove his people’s disgrace from all the earth. The Lord has spoken. 9 In that day they will say, “Surely this is our God; we trusted in Him, and He saved us. This is the Lord, we trusted in Him; let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.”

Can you hear these words in terms of what God has accomplished for us in His Son and what He yet has in store for us in the age to come? This is among the finest examples of a prophecy that has multiple levels of fulfilment, both nearer and future. God has indeed saved us and has shredded in two the veil that had kept us outside the Holy of Holies. God sent His only Son to dwell among us, literally to make His tabernacle among us, and, being full of grace and truth, He reveals to us the shekinah glory of the Father.

Easter day is the victory lap that ensures us that God will “swallow up death forever.” The Resurrection of Jesus Christ is the guarantee, what Paul calls the firstfruits, of that promise. That’s what we celebrate today. Now we not only say with the Psalmist that we will rejoice and be glad in the day that the Lord has given us, but we add with Isaiah, “Let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation.” “This is the Lord, we trusted in Him.”
But not even all of that is the end of the story for Isaiah. Isaiah writes three more amazing things, three incomparable promises, from God Himself: first is that we will be seated at a great table for the Marriage Feast of the Lamb, a feast that will have more stars than Michelin can offer and will present rich food that outclasses Les Grandes Table du Monde. Isaiah says that we will have “the best of meats and the finest of wines.”

The second promise is that God “will destroy the shroud that enfolds all peoples, the sheet that covers all nations.” This is what Paul meant when he wrote to the Corinthians, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” (I Corinthians 13:12). In the great Day of the Lord there will be no veils, no shrouds, no sheets, no opaque glasses or cloudy mirrors. God will be fully revealed to us in all His great glory, and we will not die at the sight of Him.

And the third thing is this: as Isaiah foretold, “the Sovereign Lord will wipe away the tears from all faces.”
I think it’s really hard to rank in importance the promises in these verses: a great banquet feast, the revealing of all mysteries, the swallowing up of death and the wiping away of all tears. But for those who in this life suffer from pain, illness, weakness, loss, hardship, failure and disappointment, the very thought that the Sovereign Lord Himself will wipe away tears from all faces well may be the promise that stands at the head of the list. And if God has promised it, we know it will be true, because God always keeps His promises. His Word is unfailing. Isaiah wrote simply, “The Lord has spoken,” and “we trusted in Him.” That was good enough for Isaiah.

How could Isaiah have known all these things? Truthfully, it’s not humanly possible. But the Apostle Peter gives us the answer: “No prophecy was ever made by an act of human will; but men, moved by the Holy Spirit, spoke from God” (II Peter 1:21). Isaiah was called of God and had his lips anointed with fire so that he could speak the words of God, the prophetic truths that were rejected in his time but that help to sustain us nearly 3,000 years later. That’s the Holy Spirit of God at work. No book other than the Holy Scriptures brings to us the vision of God in all His eternal glory. No other book brings us the assurances of God’s salvation through His Son. No other book brings us consolation, comfort, faith, hope and full assurance that God is in control, that His plan for us is good, that His will is pleasing and perfect and that His lovingkindness is from everlasting to everlasting on all who fear Him.

Today we remember what Isaiah wrote and we reflect on what John, Peter and Paul said about our risen Savior. Perhaps the most powerful statement in our readings for today is Peter’s conclusion about Jesus in his sermon to the Gentiles: “Of Him all the prophets bear witness that through His Name everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins” (Acts 10:43). Believing in His name is the key. Earlier, when Peter had been brought before the Jewish council in Jerusalem, Luke tells us that he was filled with the Holy Spirit and said, “There is salvation in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:8, 12). John wrote, “As many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become the children of God, even to those who believe in His Name” (John 1:12). Paul wrote, “God highly exalted Him and gave Him the Name that is above every name, that at the Name of Jesus every knee should bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father” (Philippians 2:9, 10). And Isaiah, seeing His day, wrote “This is our God for whom we have waited that He might save us. This is the Lord for whom we have waited; let us rejoice and be glad in His salvation” (Isaiah 25:9).

It’s in His Holy Name that we’re gathered here this morning. He’s waiting patiently with outstretched arms to see whether you will come to Him. In the giving of His Body and the shedding of His Blood He has redeemed you, He has bought you back from the power of death and hell. He desires to meet you at this His Holy Table to commune with you in the sacred mystery of the Word made flesh. And He wishes to receive you at His heavenly banquet feast of rich food and finest wine in that place where death is vanquished and all tears are wiped away. He is waiting. Come to Him. Come now while it is still day and while the tree is green.

In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen