Christmas Eve: The Estuary of Christmas

24/12/21

Christmas Eve – Set 3 (Year C)
Isaiah 52:7-10
Psalm 98
John 1:1-14

God our Father,
whose Word has come among us
in the Holy Child of Bethlehem:
may the light of faith illumine our hearts
and shine in our words and deeds;
through him who is Christ the Lord. Amen.


The Estuary of Christmas


One of the best Christmas records ever recorded was released in 1979. It has been the soundtrack of many a Christmas in the Lepp household. I have been listening to it again over the last few days as I searched for some additional inspiration for tonight.

We have sung and will sing some beautiful pieces of music tonight. However, nothing (at least to me) compares with this album. It is silly, it is sublime, and I will go so far as to say it is also profound.

That record: ‘A Christmas Together’ by John Denver and the Muppets! I kid you not. It is a glorious mix of auditory fun. Miss Piggy’s 5 Gold Rings in the Twelve Days of Christmas is not to be missed. Ralph the Dog’s soulful rendition of Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas is divine. Silent Night sung in German by all the Muppets will bring you to tears. In between the silly songs there are some profound lyrical gems that reflect the Christmas season. One of these is ‘When the River Meets the Sea’; the inspiration for the title and contents of tonight’s sermon.

The official term for a river meeting the sea is an estuary. In an estuary, the freshwater of the river meets the saltwater of the ocean. The combining of the waters makes a difference as the salt content is changed. When we discover the kingdom of God; we are changed.

I think that we see something of an estuary in our readings and songs tonight. The essence of Christmas is the greatness of God coming down to meet us and sweep us into the bigger picture of his love and His kingdom.

The people of Israel who Isaiah was prophesying to were in slavery in Babylon. They had been taken away from their homes, families had been separated and some would never be reunited. Most of the Israelites were desperate to go back home, back to what they knew and how it was. The Israelites needed to be reminded that better times were ahead. God had not forgotten them; He was making a way for them to be rescued. Isaiah is alluding to the beautiful feet of the messenger who announces peace, who brings good news, who announces salvation to the Israelites in captivity. This is not only physical captivity, but spiritual, emotional and social. This messenger is Jesus.

St John begins his Gospel in darkness and mystery, casting us back to the opening of Genesis when in the beginning there was nothing, but God created order out of chaos. Like a human author who creates a new world with words on a page, God speaks a word and things come to be. A burst of light and a new life coming through Jesus.

John proclaims that the light in the midst of darkness is Jesus and this needs to be worked out. These big readings hold grand visions and promises that break into the lives of people who are struggling and in need of some good news.

In an estuary, water is continually being circulated as the ocean tides and the mouth of the river combine their waters. In the estuary of these readings we see the coming of the promises of God meeting the reality of the people waiting for the Good News. When we meet God we should be continually stirred up and have our contents changed. This is the Good News of Jesus.

We sing it in our songs too:

Yea, Lord we greet thee, born this happy morning, Jesu, to thee be glory given; Word of the Father, Now in flesh appearing.

It came true!

‘The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee (Jesus) tonight.


Who’s got some hopes and fears here tonight?

Where meek souls will receive him, still the dear Christ enters in.

Anyone meek of soul?

Good – the dear Christ wants to enter!

O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing.

Anyone else weary on the road tonight? Take a rest and listen for the angels.

Shortly we will sing probably the most poignant lines of all:

Light and life to all he brings,
Risen with healing in his wings;
Born that man no more may die.


More light and better life in 2022 to all? Healing?

Tonight we go back to the beginning, to when the Word became flesh and all things came into being through him and lived among us. We see his glory, the Son full of grace and truth. Just as true now as it was then.

The final thing about estuaries is that they are, according to National Geographic, excellent for community living. They provide fresh water and hygiene. The earliest civilizations in the world developed around estuaries around 4000 thousand years ago. Where the river meets the sea is good for life and living. Not just for us but for everyone. Jesus came for everyone, every single person. No one is excluded – however much we may wish to exclude ourselves.

The Word made flesh and dwells among us full of grace and truth. This is no man-made solution; this is all God. Jesus came from the will of God.

Like the river meeting sea, we can flow into the life and love of God and become part of his most glorious story. I will end with the words from this beautiful song.


When the River meets the Sea

When the mountain touches the valley
All the clouds are taught to fly
As our souls will leave this land most peacefully
Though our minds be filled with questions
In our hearts we’ll understand
When the river meets the sea

Like a flower that has blossomed
In the dry & barren sand
We are born & born again most gracefully
Thus the winds of time will take us
With a sure and steady hand
When the river meets the sea

Patience, my brother and patience, my son
In that sweet and final hour
Truth and justice will be done
Like a baby when it is sleeping
In its loving mother’s arms
What a newborn baby dreams is a mystery

But his life will find a purpose
And in time he’ll understand
When the river meets the sea
When the river meets the almighty sea!

Trinity 12: Summer Eating: Jesus, The Bread of Life

This morning’s offering on 1 Kings, Ephesians 5 and John 6. Jesus is still banging on about being the bread of life!

19/8/18
Trinity 12

1 Kings 2:10-12; 3:3-14
Psalm 111
Ephesians 5:15-20
John 6:51-58

This is Sunday four of five in John 6! I re-read the whole thing this morning just to remind myself of the wider significance of this rather long and dense chapter. It seems to repeat on itself with all the talk of bread and wine – eating and drinking the living body and blood of Jesus.

The golden thread that runs through this chapter are the words very truly and believe. They are used a lot! Jesus is telling us – very truly to trust in Him.
How many of you this morning – before you sat down in a pew or chair asked, ‘can I trust this pew or chair not to collapse under my body weight?’ Or when you went to turn on the bathroom tap this morning – wondered if you could trust the water that was coming out of it?

I am not sure how you go come to trust in people or things – let alone God. What is your process? I am naturally and rather naively a trusting person. I tend to trust people from the start – it doesn’t take much to win my trust – I will take what I see at face value.

I trust the water that comes out of the tap will be perfectly fine to drink; I did think about the engineering and craftsmanship of the pews and chairs and trusted in them – but only asked myself this because I knew that I would be asking you!

However – you break my trust, let me down, mess around with my trusting nature and it’s gone and good luck trying to get it back. I will forgive you – but it is unlikely I will trust you again.

Some of you might be more suspicious of others – a bit slower to trust. You need some proof before you will trust someone or something. Your trust needs to be earned and once it is – it is to be valued and hung on to.

We all have our own ways for coming to trust things and people. Maybe some of us trust the wrong things or don’t consider the things we trust until they prove themselves to be untrustworthy. Maybe some of us set the bar so high that we trust almost nothing and no one.

The theme for this morning is to look at the implications of putting our trust in Jesus, the bread of life. I have just had us think about how we trust in people and things. It is likely that these processes can and will influence how we trust Jesus.

If you are a trust-first-ask-questions-type like me – you might find it easy to trust Jesus. But what about when it looks like that trust has been broken – something that we were trusting him for doesn’t come through the way we thought it would or wanted it to?

If you are a slow-truster – what proof do you need to be satisfied that Jesus is trustworthy?

Jesus wants us to trust him – for anything and everything, all the time and forever and He is willing to do anything for us to do that.

There could be a lot of ways to get us to do that – but Jesus announces that people need to eat his flesh and drink his blood! Probably not the tactic I would have used!

Jesus intended to shock his audience – this reference to flesh and blood as food would have been particularly startling to the Jewish culture Jesus was speaking into. Jesus’ eating habits were causing some comment at the time as well – he was seen as a glutton and drunkard who dined in bad company.

The Jewish people were particularly sensitive to food issues – a glance in the OT shows us the vast number of rituals and taboos surrounding food preparation and what could and couldn’t be eaten.

God has always used food – the apple in the story of creation, manna and quail in desert, the Passover meal of lamb and unleavened bread. In the NT – the stories of Jesus multiplying the loaves and fish is told 6 times in the 4 Gospels. Jesus eating the grain on the Sabbath. The Last Supper is well – about supper. All these stories have food at the heart of them.

‘You are what you eat,’ so the saying goes. Our modern, Western culture also has some issues with food. We know that not all food is good for us, we are anxious about additives, allergies, is it organic? Genetically modified? Were the chickens that laid the eggs clucking merrily in a free-range field? Is it Gluten free? Dairy free? Vegetarian? Vegan? Did it start life too near a motorway or was it flown in from half-way around the world? We spend a lot of time worrying where our next meal is coming from!

What we eat is important – no doubt about it. What we eat also shows – don’t go staring at each other or make judgments – but what we eat or don’t eat shows up in our physical appearance.
If we are feeding on the body and blood of Jesus there should be some evidence for it in our lives – how we behave in certain situations, our moral code should be aligned with his, how we treat people.

What then are the implications for feeding on the body and blood of Jesus? The Ephesians reading gives us 3 ways that trusting in and feeding on Jesus will benefit our lives.

Firstly: Wisdom – this is a whole other sermon on its own. How do you think about wisdom? It is different from knowledge – which is facts and figures – the things we get from education. Wisdom is deeper than that – it is a knowing that comes from the whole of an experience, wisdom is common sense that isn’t so common; the ability to make smart decisions.

Ephesians tells us that we are to live not as unwise but as wise people (v15) and this means being careful in how we live. I don’t know about you – but I have never prayed a pray to the effect ‘Dear Lord, I would like to do more stupid things – please help me do this. Amen.’

Nor have I ever been in a church service with an altar call or words of knowledge like ‘I just get a sense that someone here has been foolish this week – you might have said or thought or done something dumb. Would you come to the front please so we can lay hands on and pray for you so we can release you from your stupidity?’

It’s embarrassing – especially when it seems to come so naturally! We don’t like to admit to the dumb things we do or say. I need forgiveness from God and from the victims of my stupidity.

In the 2 Kings reading we have the famous story of Solomon who has been newly installed as king after the death of his father David. Solomon is standing before the Lord and all the assembly of Israel and could have asked for anything – more riches, power, long-life, land, possession – whatever he wanted. But Solomon asked for wisdom – the one thing he knew he needed to do the job he had been called to do.

You don’t need to be smart to ask for wisdom. We all face situations where we need more wisdom than what we currently have to make the right or best decision. Pray for it! It greatly pleased God that Solomon prayed – so much so that He granted him the wisdom and much more.

Secondly – by trusting Jesus we can better understanding God’s will for our lives (Eph v. 17). I don’t think that we will fully every understand what we are doing on earth apart from God’s plans and purposes.

If we want to know what we are supposed to do – then we need to be close to Jesus, feeding and following him. Notice that again there is a second plea avoid foolishness. ‘So do not be foolish, v 17 starts, but understand what the will of the Lord is. To avoid foolishness and understand God’s will for our lives – we need wisdom. Wisdom comes from trust. Trust comes from feeding on the body and blood of Jesus.

How are you doing on working out God’s will? Not always easy but try to see it as a journey. Maybe a slow one at times – but it is not a race. But know that God loves you and has a will for your life. He is not hiding it or keeping it from you – but it is something that needs to be worked out.

Thirdly – trusting in Jesus helps us in being thankful and filled with the Spirit. Ephesians v 20 ‘always giving thanks to God the Father for everything, in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.’ Always and everything.

I lead a Bible study last summer that included a ‘thankfulness exercise’ where we divided our current age by 4. Then in each quarter of our lives, we had to write down the things/events/people that we were thankful for. It was quite an enlightening exercise. I had much more to be thankful for as I thought through each of my quarters. This might be helpful if you find yourself struggling to be thankful to God.

Sometimes it is hard to be thankful when we are facing difficulties and there doesn’t seem to be much to say thanks for. But don’t forget the small things! Being thankful for the small things can only help us to be thankful for the big things. It is also creates consistency in us.

Don’t let the troubles in the present wipe your memory of the good things in the past. God is faithful and has done things we should all be thankful for – regardless of our current situation. He can be trusted.

If we live in the Spirit, we will never be over or under fed. The body and blood of Jesus will always satisfy, every need we can ever have. Feeding on Jesus is our only hope. What the world offers us is not real food as it will not satisfy – however much we eat.

We need wisdom to understand that. There is no life in us otherwise – back to John 6:51: I am the living bread that came down from heaven and for this we can be thankful.

In a nutshell – Jesus is asking us this morning if we trust Him. Very truly he is telling us over and over again in John 6 that He is the bread of life, we are to believe in the one sent from God who gives us the bread of heaven. Himself.

What does trusting in Jesus mean for us? It effects the way we live in three ways: wisdom – by living wisely and asking for God’s wisdom in all our circumstances we can work out His purposes for our lives. We all need wisdom and the truest wisdom we can ever get comes from God.
So do not be foolish! Understanding God’s will for our lives helps us to live better and on purpose. What are we doing here? Again – without understanding God’s purpose we can fall into all sorts of folly and foolishness.

Finally, being thankful and giving thanks. When we give thanks to God we are building trust in Him that he will provide all that we need. In the big and the small stuff. We generally thank people if we have enjoyed a meal together – Jesus has given us the ultimate meal – one that we will all share in very shortly. We come together as His family to share in the meal so let us be trusting, wise, understanding and thankful.
Amen.

All Saints Sunday – Why We Need to Remember

This is my Sermon for All Saints Sunday and was preached this morning at St Peter’s Lutheran Church in Cochrane. My home church in my home town! This was a great privilege but also a bit of a risk with not knowing many of the new people (lovely to see this amazing church growing). There are also a number of people with cancer diagnosis and other health issues as well as some newly bereaved people. Could only pray that it would land in the right place!

St Peter’s Lutheran – All Saints                                                                         November 5, 2017 

Revelation 7:2-17                                                                                                 1 John 3:1-3                                                                                                         Matthew 5:1-12

God of holiness, your glory is proclaimed in every age: as we rejoice in the faith of your saints, inspire us to follow their example with boldness and joy; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

Today we are celebrating the festival of All Saints; and I am delighted that Pastor Bart invited me to deliver the sermon this morning. I was supposed to give the All Saints’ sermon at my church in England this evening. The Church of England – by my observation makes a bigger event of All Saints than the Lutherans do.

My church is holding a special service tonight where we invite church members and the friends and families of the people whose funerals we have officiated in the last 2-3 years to come to church. There is special music, readings, a sermon, we leave time for silent reflection, the names of those who have died are read, prayers of thanksgiving are offered and candles are lit.

This might seem weird or unnatural – or even un-Lutheran! Pastor Bart & Pastor Paul have been educating us these last few weeks about the Reformation and Luther’s issues with the Catholic church of his day. Praying to the Saints is definitely out! However, the festival of All Saints was retained by Luther after the Reformation and assumed the role of general commemoration to the dead in the Lutheran church. This has been extended to include living saints as well.

I want to be clear from the outset – we are not praying to the dead. To pray to the dead goes along the lines of ‘Dear Aunt Betty – thank you for this snowy day. Please do x, y or z. Could you ask Jesus to do… Amen.

Praying for the dead – again – might be troublesome for some. I like how Methodist theology puts it ‘All Saints Day resolves around giving God solemn thanks for the lives and deaths of his saints, including those who are famous or obscure.’

A Saint is a person of great holiness, or likeness or closeness to God who remains this way through life and into death. The lives of the Saints are set to be examples to the rest of us on the graciousness of God and what virtuous living can look like. Not all saints are famous. Most are everyday people.

My attempt this morning is to talk about why it is important to mark All Saints Day.

Firstly – The dead sit at the dinner table long after their gone.

All Saints stems from a belief that there is a powerful spiritual bond between those in heaven (the Church triumphant) and the living (the Church militant).

We don’t tend to forget people once they have died – whether we loved or liked them – or not. The impact of our relationship with them, their life, the love, the moments that were shared do not cease to be important once they have bodily departed. This is true regardless if the relationship was positive or negative.

Does God shut his ears to prayers for them? If I am concerned about the soul of a person who has died – will God not hear that prayer? He knows far more than I do about them and their situation. Can I not seek his peace and reassurance? We have biblical evidence that indicates God cares about the dead. He created them, he loves them more than we do.

1 Thessalonians tells us that the dead in Christ will rise first and we will all meet together. The Apostles’ Creed – which we will say in a few minutes – ‘he will come again to judge the living and the dead.’

The Revelation reading tells us of the great gathering. This is a tricky chapter for some – the numbers of who is in or out can be a real hang-up. A total of 144,000 is for the 12 tribes of Israel (the Jewish people). This doesn’t have anything to do with us non-Jewish people. It makes the point that a faithful remnant of Israel will be saved; the number 144,000 should be regarded as symbolic.

Alongside the faithful remnant is the countless multitude from every nation, tribe, people and language – these are the Christians – whose sins have been purged by the saving death of Christ. This countless multitude will be taken care of – no more hunger, thirst, scorching heat – the Lamb (that being Jesus) will be their shepherd who guides them to the springs of the water of life, tears will be wiped away. Jesus will do for them in death what he did for them and does for us in life now.

Saints are with us and around us. We don’t forget the ones who have died, neither does God.

Secondly – we have limited experience of death in contemporary society.

It has been said that a 100 years ago people talked about death and avoided talking about sex. But today we talk way more about sex than death.

There are many reasons why we don’t talk about death. In the 20th & 21st centuries the advancement of medicine and hospitals took sickness and death out of the home. People now live much longer than they use to which means that some people don’t experience the death of a loved one until much later in life. Infant mortality and childhood deaths in the western world are lower too.

I would also argue that the rise of the professionalized funeral industry has taken death out of the church and community. Gone are the days of dying at home where the minister was more likely to be called than a doctor, being laid out in the parlour, taken to the church for a funeral and then buried in the cemetery. Usually in a very short period of time.

Today death is handled by paid professional (usually very nice) strangers (for the most part) to take us from the institution where death occurred to the funeral home for preparation. It is clean, no muss, no fuss. The advent of embalming and refrigeration has meant that body disposal isn’t as urgent as it once was.

Death still comes to us all but largely out of sight. As a result, we have lost some of the vocabulary to talk or write about death. Think of the language we use – we don’t even like to say that someone has died. They passed away. Hmmm– no I think they stopped. You pass an exam or a driving test. You prove your competency and carry on at a higher level.

Or how about ‘they slipped away’ – you slip out of a meeting or maybe out of this sermon – in a way that does not interrupt or interfere.

But the nature of death is just that – it interferes, it upsets, it destroys. Death is not subtle or considerate! Our person may have been unconscious or unaware when they died. But we weren’t. Many of the deaths I’ve experienced have struck like lightening. Even the ones that ‘were expected’ still have an element of shock to them.

Consider to how we write about death – a person ‘succumbed to…’ or ‘lost the battle’. This phrasing implies that maybe if they had just put a bit more effort in they wouldn’t have died. Battle is the language of war – battles are lost because of bad strategy, lack of preparedness, an enemy that overpowers. If someone ‘loses their battle to cancer’ – was it down to bad planning? What do we do with those who are diagnosed late and never get a chance to fight? Or those who choose not to?

Earlier this year I had the opportunity to attend the National Funeral Directors Exhibition for England as part of a conference I attended. What a fascinating event that was! It had everything you would expect – hearses and body removal vans with all the latest in comfort & technology, urns and caskets, headstones, embalming fluids, make-up, flowers and lots of digital options too – all on show.

What surprised me most was the company who – for a fee (of course) – would text your family and friends to notify them of your death! Yup – you provided the phone numbers, then your next of kin would contact them when you died and then they sent the mass group text! This company would also text the obituary and details of your service. And they would text reminders!

Really?! Have we become so removed from death that our thumbs now do the talking for us? What a shocking thought that I could become so busy that a death of someone I loved would require text reminders!

Have we lost that much vocabulary?

Jesus talked about death a lot. He spoke openly about his own death and what was to come for the disciples. John 14 – ‘In my Father’s House there are many dwelling-places’. God’s House has places prepared for us – this is clearly a God who loves his people! He was waiting for them. For us. We are not to be afraid.

Jesus also responds to the death. Jesus wept at the mouth of Lazarus’ tomb. Jesus was not afraid to confront death. In Jewish culture touching a dead body made one ritually unclean and it was quite a process to made clean again. But time and again we see Jesus cut through the rules to reach out to people.

Jesus cares for the dying, the dead and their families – Lazarus, the Widow of Nain, the daughter of Jairus. Jesus was firmly in control in these situations – he was the only one that did.

As we have been distanced from death and have lost some of the vocabulary and experience – we have also lost control (if we ever really had any) over death. Western culture would like to tell us we can control our lives and do what we like, when we want to. All we have to do is figure out how to get what we want. Death is the most uncomfortable reminder that we have so little control over what happens.

Back to the Funeral Exhibition – I reflected after that a lot of the products and services went some way to trying to restore some form of control – but not to the dead – this control is for the living. The distance that death brings could be reduced through the distraction of arranging the personalization of stuff.

Caskets could be personalised – Harley-Davidson logos, majestic mountain scapes, clouds, kittens, The Last Supper, wood, stainless steel, willow baskets – whatever you want! For a few thousand dollars you can be buried or burned in a customized box – made just for you.

Urns came in every shape and size to ‘reflect ones’ personality and design taste. I particularly liked the 6 or 8 pack mini urns that could be purchased! No kidding – handy if you hadn’t quite decided or told anyone where you would like you final resting place to be. Or maybe you have a family prone to fighting – now everyone can have a piece!

What is a Christian response to this? The Beatitudes are a good place to start as we are reminded that the world is not always going to be as it is. They speak of the past, the present and the future all at once.

The Beatitudes are the opening lines of Jesus’ The Sermon on the Mount – probably the most famous words that Jesus ever spoke. Jesus is setting out the main themes of his Good News.

Jesus is not simply telling people to behave properly and then all will be right with the world. This isn’t about trying harder to be better. Neither is Jesus suggesting the Beatitudes are some kind of timeless truths – because they are not. Mourners often go uncomforted, the meek don’t inherit the earth, and those who long for justice don’t often see it in their lifetimes.

In our world, most people think that wonderful news consists of success, wealth, long life and victory in battle. Jesus is offering wonderful news for the humble, poor in spirit and the peacemakers.

The world the Jesus is offering is upside down! Jesus is saying that with his work it’s starting to come true. Those who mourn will be comforted, the meek will inherit and the persecuted will get the kingdom.

So when do these promises come true? The great Christian temptation is to say in heaven, after death. And it can seem like that with the references to the ‘kingdom of heaven.’

Heaven is God’s space – where full reality exists, close by our ordinary ‘earthly’ reality and interlocking with it. It is not a place of fat babies playing harps on clouds. One-day heaven and earth will be unified forever and the true state of affairs, which are at present out of sight, will be unveiled. The life of heaven, the life of the realm where God is already king – is to become the life of the world. And those who follow Jesus are to begin to live by this rule here and now.

It may seem upside down, but we are called to believe, with great daring and imagination, that it is in fact the right way up.

Thirdly – All Saints is ultimately a celebration of Christ’s victory over death.

I used the words festival and celebration at the beginning – the festival of All Saints. We do well to remember that the Christian faith is built on the death and resurrection of Jesus. Let’s not forget that death came first – Good Friday before Easter Sunday. For those who die in Christ their physical death is not the end of the story. This is Good News!

I also appreciate that this can be cold comfort to those who live with grief. Christian or not. Grief can overwhelm and when allowed to can rob life from the living. The only solace I can offer is that those who mourn will be comforted. Jesus is the great comforter and friend to those who mourn. Go to Him with it. People, friends, family can be helpful but they can’t fix it.

One of my favourite saints is John. He lived a life and death closer to Jesus than anyone. John stood at the foot of the cross and watched Jesus die; his brother James and most of his closest friends were crucified. He was an old man when he wrote Revelation and the letters of John.

John – I believe – has distilled down a lifetime of experience to ‘See what love the Father has given us, that we should be called children of God; and that is what we are.’ As he is coming to the end of his life, John writes about the love of God – because that is all there is at the end of the day. It is the only thing that will sustain us. The love of God is the only thing that stands up to the heart-breaking, interrupting, destruction of death.

God’s love will carry through the experience of death and give us our vocabulary back. It is through God’s love that we are even able to love and be loved. He first loved us!

I would encourage you this morning and in the coming days or weeks to remember and give thanks for the Saints in your life – both the living and the dead. They are around. Have a conversation about them. See what comes up – compare memories. They still sit at the dinner table!  If it’s hard or brings up any feelings of grief or love or guilt or joy – pray about them. Ask God for his peace and input. He is in this with you. He loves and cares for all his Saints. That means you to.

Amen.