John 14.15-21

I wonder what your reaction would be if I stood in the pulpit and declared to you that in the Old Testament, Hezekiah chapter 6 verse 1 says, “God helps those who help themselves.”

Would I get a loud ‘amen’? No? Why not?! Some of you might be rather reluctant to affirm this statement.

And why not?

Well for a start there is no book of Hezekiah (though he was of course a king who reigned over Judah for 29 years) and secondly, nowhere does it say in the whole of scripture that “God helps those who help themselves” – despite what many people (even some Christians) may tell you.

“God helps those who help themselves” has become the most often quoted phrase mentioning God that isn’t in the Bible.

And so I wonder – do you know where it does come from?

We actually find its roots in one of Aesop’s Fables—Hercules and the Carter (written in the 6th century BC).

In the story, a carter’s heavy load becomes bogged down in the mud. In despair, he cries out to Hercules for help. Hercules replies, “Get up and put your shoulder to the wheel. The gods help them that help themselves.” Isn’t it rather ironic that a polytheistic tale appealing to Greek mythology has now made its way into what many believers think is contained within the pages of Scripture.

“God helps those who help themselves” is not merely extra-biblical; it is also unbiblical. It is the polar opposite of the message of Scripture which in fact insists that God helps the helpless.

In our gospel reading this morning we find Jesus addressing His disciples on the eve before his death.

To paraphrase Jesus words, He declares: God helps those who help themselves to Him. For me, this is the message of John 14. In every area of spiritual life, from beginning to end, God helps those who help themselves to Him.

So let me explain.

Previously in John 14, Jesus taught about His relationship to the Father. Now He explains His relationship to the Holy Spirit.

He says, “If you love Me, you will keep My commandments.”

Jesus doesn’t command His disciples to love Him, but to obey Him.

Love and obedience are linked throughout this passage. This is because John’s use of “love” (agape) isn’t an abstract emotion, but something intensely practical that involves obedience.

Whenever I read this verse, I think of the notorious line that many of us use when we are trying to get someone to do something for us “If you love me, you will bring me a chocolate biscuit”, “if you really love me, you’ll bring me two”

Jesus though doesn’t expect that mere raw determination or dogged discipline will be enough for us to be able to obey His commands. Instead, He seems to say: As you attempt to obey Me, I will give you My enablement—the Holy Spirit.

Jesus puts it like this: “I will ask the Father, and He will give you another Helper, that He may be with you forever”. Jesus promises that this “Helper” will be with us forever.

The Greek word translated “Helper” is parakletos, or for smoother English, paraklete. Not to be confused with a colourful little bird that sits in a cage and sings – a parakeet-  we’re talking about the Holy Spirit—the third member of the Trinity – the Paraclete.

The word Paraklete can be difficult for us to translate. Most English versions of the bible use the term “Helper”, “Counselor”, “Comforter” or “Advocate”. Perhaps the ambiguity of the word emphasises that the Holy Spirit is sent to help us in many different ways.

It’s not just that He consoles us in our sorrow, but He also makes us strong in the face of opposition. The term Paraklete is rather like a diamond; it means something slightly different depending on how you hold it toward the light and view it.

“Helper” is probably the most all-encompassing translation. The only real drawback to “Helper” is that the term can suggest a subordinate rank. And On the contrary, the Holy Spirit is not just looking to help us out when we are in a tight spot; rather, He wants to consume us and play a full part in all aspects of our lives. Remember, God doesn’t help those who help themselves; God helps those who help themselves to Him.

I remember, when working in schools I was often involved in teaching some of our children to ride a bike. Quite often many of them had never had their own and the school bicycles were the first ones they’d ever even had the chance to touch, let alone attempt to ride.

For the first timers there were stabilisers and a steadying hand on the handlebars. For those a little more advanced, running alongside the bike, one hand under the seat, giving instructions was enough. And there were crashes and falls and scrapes and tears, but eventually for most, the joyful moment of riding a bike on their own swept all these away.

Similarly, the Holy Spirit comes alongside us, encourages us, holds us, picks us up, dusts us off when we fall, and gets us going again. The Holy Spirit’s eternal patience and encouragement with us ought to give us the same heart for others when we are teaching them how to ride a bike or drive a car or anything else.

As Christians together in this church family we must learn to turn to the Holy Spirit first and to allow that same spirit to work through us to reach out to our wider community. We must build our family here in love and hope and ask the Holy Spirit to encourage us, comfort us, and strengthen us, so that we, with arms opened wide, might welcome all the world into his most glorious truth. God helps those who help themselves to Him.

John 14.1-14

Just over a month ago, many of us watched the enthronement of Dame Sarah Mullally as the 106^th Archbishop of Canterbury. Set against the backdrop of the inspiring stained glass and soaring arches of Canterbury Cathedral – a familiar and glorious building – the historic occasion served to inspire hope and optimism for the future of the worldwide Anglican church.

We have many beautiful religious buildings all across our nation – from the abbey buildings on Iona to the many other cathedrals in our great cities – these buildings can inspire our thoughts and lift our hearts to heaven and are great places to visit and explore.

One of the more unusual religious buildings that I have visited in the past was the Mormon Temple near Chorley in Lancashire – a very American looking building with a tall spire, on top of which stood a magnificent angel blowing a superb golden trumpet, built in the late 1990s. During the short time between the completion of the building and its dedication, the public were invited to have a look around. So, when the new temple in Chorley was finished, Peter and I paid our money and went to see it, to learn more about the Mormon faith.

Inside, the temple was like a deluxe Hilton hotel—room after room of deep blue carpet and hand carved solid oak furniture – gold and white wallpaper and crystal chandeliers. When we asked our guide about this luxury, she quoted the King James’ version of a verse from today’s Gospel – ‘In my father’s house there are many mansions’. Of course, for Mormons, this was the Father’s house. Each room was a mansion. The whole interior design of this building was based on one word from the King James Version of today’s Gospel. Yet, in 1611 the word ‘mansion’ did not mean ‘mansion’, like the luxurious mansions of the rich and famous – a mansion was simply a house, a dwelling place. Many ministers live in a ‘manse’ – and these are often far from luxurious!

We sometimes have to treat words of scripture with great care and there are three words in today’s Gospel which not only need to be treated carefully, but also need to be taken very seriously: KNOW – BELIEVE – DO.

We need to KNOW.

Today’s Gospel has the disciples asking some big questions:

What is heaven like?

What is God like?

What is the way to God?

How can we know the way?

Sunday by Sunday, we are presented with answers to these questions, in the ministry of word and sacrament. These are answers drawn from God’s revelation in Scripture, from the tradition of our Church, from human reason and from human experience.

In our journeys of faith, the more involved we become, the more we know,  but there are always people who demand to know all the answers before they will commit to any path of faith.

In the first centuries after the resurrection, the Roman empire included many communities of Christians called ‘Gnostics’, from the Greek word gnosis, meaning ‘seeking to know’. The Gnostics believed that salvation was the reward of increasing what you knew, of struggling to reach ever-higher levels of knowledge. They rejected the core Christian teaching that salvation comes from faith in Jesus, truly God and truly human. They focused on themselves, not on Jesus; they spent their time speculating about the faith.

The Gnostics produced their own gospels of the life and teaching of Jesus along with many other writings. In the third and fourth century the church suppressed the Gnostics and banned their writings. They disappeared for centuries, until copies of many of them were rediscovered in 1946, buried in the desert at Nag Hammadi in Upper Egypt. The writings tell us what some early Christian communities believed, but they don’t tell us anything more about the life of Jesus, in spite of some sensational claims in academic papers and books, and in popular novels like The Da Vinci Code.

Many of the academics I have encountered and whose works I have read during my journey of faith know far more about the historical Jesus, and about theology and church history and hermeneutics, than I can ever hope to know. But to know about Jesus is not enough. To know everything about Jesus, even if that were possible, is not enough.

We must also BELIEVE – believe in the saving power of Jesus. He said, ‘Believe in God, believe also in me … whoever has seen me has seen the Father. Believe me that I am in the Father, and the Father in me. I am the Way, and the Truth and the Life’.

This was the faith of the Psalmist who knew that God was his refuge, a very present help in trouble This was the faith Stephen was prepared to witness to and to die for. This was the faith Peter calls us to live for and to glorify God by, that Jesus himself bore our sins in his body on the cross.

What exactly does this mean? As difficult for many of us as it is, it means that we are called to live without knowing all the answers. We are called to live in faith and hope and love. To live in the faith that overcomes the world. To live in the hope that, when our time comes, we shall know God fully, just as God fully knows us, and to live in the love which conquers death, in the strength of the love Jesus revealed as he travelled the road before us …to live in love for God and for all humanity. If we truly do this, we won’t have time to keep asking questions, but we will already know the answers to the questions that really matter.

Salvation comes from faith in the resurrected Christ; greater knowledge helps, but it is not enough. But, my friends faith too, is not enough. We need to know, and to believe, but as well, we need to DO.

Jesus’ answer to the disciples’ questions is simple: ‘Believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me. But if you do not, believe me because of the works themselves … The one who believes in me will also do the works that I do, and do greater works’.

The history of the church is filled with stories of individuals who realise that knowledge and faith are just not enough. The Lutheran theologian Albert Schweitzer discovered this truth after his famous work The Quest for the Historical Jesus was published. Schweitzer had strived to pull together all the knowledge about Jesus that he could in order to make the case for salvation. He realised knowledge was not enough. He stopped asking questions—he believed, and he went to the more remote areas of Africa to do the work of God – to live the faith.

Other religious traditions share this same insight. The Buddha, like Jesus, is said to have told many parables. One of them is the parable of the poisoned arrow:

It is as if a man had been wounded by an arrow thickly smeared with poison, and his friends and kinsmen were to fetch a surgeon to heal him, and he were to say, ‘I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know by what man I was wounded, whether he is of the warrior caste, or a brahmin, or of the agricultural caste’. Or if he were to say, ‘I will not have this arrow pulled out until I know of what name of family the man is; or whether he is tall, or short, or of middle height, or whether he is black, or dark, or yellowish; or whether he comes from such and such a village, or town, or city; ‘or until I know whether the bow with which I was wounded was a chapa or a kodanda, or until I know whether the bow-string was of swallow-wort, or bamboo fibre, or sinew, or hemp, or of milk-sap tree, or until I know whether the shaft was from a wild or cultivated plant; or whether it was feathered from a vulture’s wing or a heron’s or a hawk’s, or a peacock’s; or whether it was wrapped round with the sinew of an ox, or of a buffalo, or of a ruru-deer, or of a monkey; ‘or until I know whether it was an ordinary arrow, or a razor-arrow, or an iron arrow, or of a calf-tooth arrow’. Before knowing all this, that man would die.

My friends, knowledge is important, but it is not enough. We are called to believe and do, to act in faith.

Whether we like it or not, or even admit it or not, we Christians have become a small minority in our society, just as Christians were in the first centuries after the first Easter. We are called, as they were called, to be the light of the world. We are called to believe in God, to belong to his community of faith, to behave in accordance with Jesus’ teachings and to become new people, transformed through the power of the Spirit.

There is a time for asking questions, but there is also a day for decision. There is a time to discuss who Jesus is, but there is also a time to take up your cross and follow him. There is a time to weigh the issues carefully, but there are issues which will not wait until tomorrow. If we wait until we understand everything, we will wait for ever.

Know – Believe – Do Act in the faith that Jesus died and was resurrected that we all might be saved through Him.

Sermon John 10.1-10

Today, we reach the fourth Sunday of Easter – often referred to as Good Shepherd Sunday – and if you have read the readings that have been given to us, it’s not hard to see why!

Each year, our gospel gives us verses from John Chapter 10 – different verses, but each have a common theme involving sheep and shepherd.

Preparing for this sermon, I came across many interesting facts and characters all to do with shepherds and their sheep.

For example, there was the famous singer song writer who began his career as a shepherd – Ed Shearin. And of course, the favourite singer loved by all sheep – Britney Shears!

I came across stories about sheep from around the world – an unusual breed in Australia, a cross between a sheep and a kangaroo – known locally as a woolly jumper! There are sheep in Mexico that actually sing at Christmas time – apparently you can hear them clearly bleating ‘Fleece Navidad’

I read about baby sheep that drive around in huge sports cars – lamborghinis I think they were called – and a story about a sheep dog who seemed to produce sheep out of thin air.

His master, the shepherd, told him one day to go out and bring in the sheep. When the sheep dog arrived with the flock, the shepherd was astonished. He owned only 37 sheep, but here in front of him there were definitely 40. Of course, the sheep dog had rounded them up!

Now, I don’t know what you made of Jesus’ sheep and sheepfold figures of speech in our gospel this morning. If you were confused by them – don’t worry – just remember that verse six tells us that no one understood back then either. But we are going to have a go this morning at working out what these images mean.

In the first five verses, Jesus talks about a sheepfold and some sheep. It’s seems that the sheep might be God’s people.  The sheepfold could be Israel. The gatekeeper might be John the Baptist, but we’re not quite sure. The robbers and thieves must surely be the Pharisees. 

This story leaves the crowd confused, and Jesus must have seen that because  he tells them about a different sheepfold.  Again we’ve got some sheep – God’s people  and they are under attack from robbers and thieves – the Pharisees and other religious leaders of the day. To keep the sheep safe, God protects them with a sheepfold and there’s only one way in and out of this safe place  – a gate.

Jesus says,

“I am the gate.”

It’s commonly understood that in those days a shepherd would sleep across the gate of his sheepfold to protect the flock. A familiar image to all of us which we can understand and relate to – we are the sheep, Jesus is the shepherd and if we listen to his voice, he will protect us from the thieves and robbers.

But right at the end of our gospel reading we find a rather extravagant promise –

“I have come that you may have life and have it to the full.”

Life in all its fullness.

What does that mean?

When you consider your own life, I wonder if you regard yourself as living life in all its fullness. To put it another way, what is God’s story for your life? 

Not your past story, you understand, I’m wondering what’s your story for today, and for the future? What’s the role that God has given you today. Who is God calling you to be? Searching for the answers to that questions is beginning to walk into life in all its fullness.

So what do we do, if we are not sure what the answers might be?

Well, to begin with, God calls us to keep Jesus at the very centre of our lives.

When it comes down to it, if you want to boil Christianity down to one thing, then forget the buildings, let’s not got bogged down in doctrine either, let’s park our differences about  which type of church music and service we like because, though they can be really important, none of those is the main thing. The main thing is knowing Jesus. He’s the one at the very centre of our faith. It’s all about him.

I am the gate, whoever enters through me will be saved.

The risen Jesus is central to everything.  If you don’t have him, you don’t have anything. You can have all the treasure in the world – the most beautiful house, the most brilliant singing voice, the finest clothes, the best car, but if you don’t have Jesus, you don’t have anything.

You see Jesus is God giving himself to us, to bring us back to himself. Which is extraordinary when you think about it.  God takes on human flesh, comes and lives among us, faces all the temptations and challenges we face, but does it without messing it all up.

And then the respectable, moral, religious people of his day, kill him for it.  And God treats his death as a ransom payment to buy our freedom. Here’s how the Old Testament prophet Isaiah puts it,

We all like sheep have gone astray, each of us has turned to his own way, and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.” (Isaiah 53:6)

Which given we’re thinking about sheep and sheepfolds today – is rather a handy way of reminding us that Jesus is at the centre of life in all its fullness.

Now of course, you won’t find that sort of thinking in popular psychology. The sort of self-help stuff we get in our magazines and newspapers and on daytime TV tells us that life is all about you, and that you get the best out of life by focusing on the state of your own heart by being mindful and meditating and do breathing exercises, and eating healthily and getting lots of exercise and then sticking it all on Instagram. But whilst some of those things can be helpful, that’s not life to the full.  At best its navel gazing.  At worst its narcissism – self-obsession, the world revolving around you.

Jesus tells us that there are just two things we must do to achieve life in all its fullness. 

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength… and love your neighbour as yourself.” (Mark 12:30-31)

Two commandments, but with three dimensions to them!

Firstly Jesus calls us to focus upwards – towards God.

Then outwards to serving others.

And, as we focus upwards and outwards, God begins to work in the third dimension of our lives. The Inward dimension, our heart. As we focus on him and serve others in community, he works in us by his Holy Spirit. 

Upwards, Outwards, Inwards – a helpful way of think about how our relationship with God works.

So, how’s that upwards dimension of your life?  Do you make time to connect with God in prayer and in the scriptures? 

And how’s the outwards dimension– do you find joy in serving others? 

It’s good to serve others. And as we serve others, it changes us. Rather than diminishing us, it makes us stronger. 

I was going to finish today with a joke about a large group of sheep, but I think you might have herd it before!

And you’ve heard this before too – Life in all its fullness is a life lived for God, serving others. 

Take that seriously because that is what will change you forever.

“I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

Luke 24.13-35

I wonder if, like me, you have ever found yourself coming to a realisation about a situation or problem you cannot understand, but the solution to which, suddenly becomes so obvious? You know, times like when you are shouting at the vacuum cleaner because, despite the fact you’ve taken it apart, cleaned out the filter and emptied the bag, it just won’t work – and then, after half an hour of exasperation, you realise you haven’t turned on the power at the plug socket?

Duh!

Or how about, when you are trying to switch over for the six o’clock news and the TV remote just won’t do what it is supposed to – but then the person you are watching television with points out that you are trying to change the channel using the telephone handset?

Duh!

A great word that has fallen into common usage – Duh! And I am finding that I am saying it to and about myself more and more often!

“Duh” has become a word that indicates that we can’t believe that people (including ourselves) don’t get it!

But isn’t it heartening to find that even Jesus’ closest friends and didn’t always get it. After the Resurrection some of the disciples asked Jesus whether he was now going to revive the political state of Israel and drive the Romans out. Jesus had spent a good deal of time describing the sort of kingdom he wished to establish. He’d told them that the kingdom was not of this world. He’d said that it was “within you.” They didn’t get it! Duh!

We can imagine the disciples’ brows wrinkling as they tried to absorb words that didn’t seem to make an awful lot of sense. Like most of the rest of us, we have enough of a job trying to figure out the things we see, feel, and touch. Things “not of this world,” “kingdoms within us,” are beyond what most of us think we experience. It’s very easy for the “religious” part of religion to become a sort of story like Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings – comforting tales, but not anything we expect to actually experience.

Our readings today focus our attention on how the first Christians thought about and experienced Jesus. Remember, these accounts were written many years after the events described and almost inevitably, when people try to write down details about something that happened in the past, they include a good deal about what has happened since.

In the lesson from Acts, St. Luke, the non-Jewish historian, seeks to translate into the experiences of Gentile Christians things that happened when the infant church was completely Jewish. St. Peter tells the crowd that “this Jesus whom you crucified” is both “Lord and Messiah.” It’s very hard for us to get into our heads what “Lord and Messiah” means. In twenty first century Britain, the phrase Lord is often associated with some rich landowner or someone given a place at Westminster. And as for Messiahs – well, anyone claiming to be that would be gently guided back to their simply furnished room in a suitable institution.

To Gentiles the word “lord” meant the Emperor in Rome who claimed to be a god. By calling Jesus “lord” the church was telling the Emperor that Jesus was their emperor, their supreme ruler. “Jesus is Lord” was both truth telling and a challenge to the ruthlessness of political power.

The word “messiah” was used in a number of ways to describe a unique person who would bring to a head everything God planned for his Chosen People. By calling Jesus “messiah” the church was announcing that God had finally revealed his plan for the human race in and through Jesus.

All this is pretty heady stuff. But, how does it relate to us all today, as we struggle with relationships, work, and a world at war?

In the account of Peter’s great sermon and in the Gospel for today, St. Luke brings things down to earth for us. When Peter stopped preaching, those who believed gathered for the breaking of bread and the prayers. They were unified and energized as they gathered in the “apostles teaching and fellowship.” Somehow all the teaching about who Jesus was and is comes to life when thought about and prayed about together and particularly when we share the bread and the wine. So often we think we have to understand and apply the faith alone, in some personal way. When we think like that, the church becomes something we attend, or leave, or grumble about.

Perhaps we think of the church as a place to entertain us and instruct our children. Sometimes we “church shop” for a place that suits our needs.

In reality, the church is a gathering of “called and chosen” people, who seek to understand the faith together, share the journey together, and obey the commandment to “tell others” their experiences of Jesus as Lord and Messiah.

After the crucifixion some disciples were walking away from Jerusalem. They were shattered. They’d put their hope and trust in the man from Nazareth. After years roaming the country with this man who seemed so good, he’d been arrested and executed. The disciples had now to go back home and face their friends, who might well say “Duh.” Now they’d have to “shop” for another sort of religious experience.

But of course, as we heard, a stranger approached them and asked them why they looked so gloomy and they told him! The stranger began to explain how everything that had happened was meant to happen. He might have begun by saying “Duh!”

Perhaps the disciples were now beyond sermons, beyond “Bible Study” and prayers. Just like Episcopalians, they hadn’t lost their good manners. When the party arrived in the village, they invited the stranger to join them for dinner. And when that stranger broke the bread and gave thanks for the wine, “they knew it was the Lord.”

Ever since that time, we Christians have found that in gathering together around the Lord’s Table we meet the Lord and Messiah. This doesn’t mean that all our questions are answered or our problems solved. Some questions can’t be answered and some problems can’t be solved. That’s hard for us to believe.

Yet in the fellowship of the church what we hear read to us sometimes warms our hearts. In the communion of saints our hearts are often warmed as Bread and Wine become for us the very Presence of the Living Jesus who is the Lord of all and the Saviour of all. Together, in the energy of Jesus’ being, we gain the strength together to tackle the problems of our wider communities.

Coming together to this table revives our church fellowship. In that revival we speak faith to those who have no faith, justice to those who suffer from injustice, healing to those who are no longer whole. We feed, shelter, and love those who can’t manage the complexity of modern life. Then we discover that the Jesus we meet in bread and wine comes to us equally truly in the shape of the poorest outcast, repulsive in shape, wracked with disease. “I was hungry and you fed me,” he whispers.

We know it is the Lord.

John 20.19-31

As faithful Christians, one of our greatest blessings is the freedom to admit that we are sometimes full of doubt.

Now that might sound like rather a strange thing for somebody to say from the pulpit, because some people identify doubt with having a lack of faith. But actually, if you think about it, doubt and faith are two sides of the same coin. They are the Ying and Yang, if you would, of the Christian life.

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is in fact, an element of faith. Rather than suppress our doubts, we should explore them and allow them to set us on a journey of discovery and a deepening of our beliefs and convictions.

In our Gospel reading today, Thomas asked for proof, and don’t we also sometimes want proof as well – proof that our faith is not in vain?

Thomas often gets a bit of a bad rap for doubting the resurrection of Jesus; but actually, he was no more doubtful than the other disciples.

They too didn’t believe that Jesus had risen until he appeared to them, so why should we expect Thomas to be any different?

In fact, we should applaud Thomas for his insistence on wanting tangible proof. After all, Thomas was well aware that Jesus wasn’t the first messianic figure on the scene to be crucified by the Roman occupiers. Thomas showed great religious restraint and demonstrated the proper amount of rational doubt.  But when Jesus appeared to him, Thomas proclaimed without reservation, “My Lord, and my God.”

Doubt can be a wonderful tool that propels us into deeper learning, earnest soul searching, and spiritual revelation. Faith based on absolute certainty leads to fanaticism, but faith tempered with doubt is mature and stable.

Many believers struggle with their own doubts brought about by life’s unpredictability and tempestuous nature. We have very real struggles in our lives that generate an uncertainty about where God is to be found in all the turmoil.

Sometimes we look to spiritual giants, the superstars of Christianity, and feel inferior in our own personal walk in comparison. But you know, the ‘greatest’ in God’s Kingdom sometimes deal with the greatest doubt.

Mother Teresa’s diary reveals a saintly person who struggled with a type of doubt that would crush the faint of heart. She wrote to her spiritual confidant, in 1979, “Jesus has a very special love for you. As for me, the silence and the emptiness is so great that I look and do not see, listen and do not hear.”

For the last nearly half-century of her life Mother Teresa said that she felt no presence of God whatsoever – neither in her heart or in the Eucharist. That absence seems to have started at almost precisely the time she began tending the poor and dying in Calcutta and – except for a five-week break in 1959 – and it appears never to have abated.

Although perpetually cheery in public, Mother Teresa lived in a state of deep and abiding spiritual pain. She bemoans the “dryness,” “darkness,” “loneliness” and “torture” she was undergoing. She compares the experience to hell and at one point says it had driven her to doubt the existence of heaven and even of God.  Nevertheless, she continued to love the least in God’s creation and dedicate her life to Christ to the very end.

Mother Teresa isn’t alone in her struggle with doubt. The Polish-born Jewish-American author Isaac Bashevis Singer states that doubt is part of all religion, that all the religious thinkers were doubters. The art critic Robert Hughes said, “The greater the artist, the greater the doubt. Perfect confidence is granted to the less talented as a consolation prize.”

Catholic priest and theologian Henri Nouwen wrote, “So I am praying while not knowing how to pray. I am resting while feeling restless, at peace while tempted, safe while still anxious, surrounded by a cloud of light while still in darkness, in love while still doubting.”

Despite Fr. Nouwen’s own struggle with doubt, he was able to mentor and encourage countless thousands through his writings, lectures, and sermons. One particular quote from a book of his has been a lifeboat for many who find themselves overcome with the waves of life’s stormy doubts: “Have the courage to trust that you will not fall into an abyss of nothingness, but into the embrace of a God whose love can heal all your wounds.”

Faith is a daily, ongoing exercise. It is a risk. Doubts arise. We struggle with God. And hopefully, faith grounded in the goodness of God triumphs — even when we do not have all the answers and life doesn’t make sense.

Will we believe in a God of love who wants to be near us and has our best interest at heart? Or will we believe in a God who plays games with us, and is ultimately cruel and uncaring? Will we believe in a God who stands beside us in our troubles, or one who is distant and difficult?

The author of Hebrews writes, “Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.” Faith is not void of doubt, but requires a daily commitment to developing our spiritual walk despite life’s uncertainties and sometimes cruelties.

Faith doesn’t take away our doubts but is strengthened by them.  And faith doesn’t deliver us from our problems and heartaches but gives us the strength to persevere through them and lead others as well as they navigate around the abyss of nothingness.

And so, may His resurrection power be at work in our lives as we learn to allow our doubts to strengthen our faith.

Amen.

ALLELUIA! Christ is risen!

He is risen indeed! ALLELUIA!

Easter is one of those occasions on which most of us come to church already knowing the story. Because of our familiarity with the Easter narrative, some of us might be tempted to let our minds wander during the reading of the scriptures. There is certainly no shortage of things in our church competing for our attention on Easter morning: everybody dressed in their Sunday best; the smell of lilies wafting from the arrangement; the Easter banners and perhaps even the polished brass of the candlesticks and cross can distract us. Still, as Christians, we ought not to underestimate the power of scripture, no matter how familiar they are to us.

Each of this morning’s readings declares something of the richness of that eternal life into which we walk with the Risen Christ this day – and every day of our lives.

From the Acts of the Apostles, we hear Peter preaching the message of God’s peace in Jesus Christ. “God raised him on the third day and allowed him to appear . . . to us who were chosen by God as witnesses . . . He commanded us to preach to the people and to testify.” Here, in the full light of the Resurrection, Peter is doing precisely what Jesus told him to do – witnessing to it.

From the Letter to the Colossians, we hear the assurance that we are raised with Christ. There is no more waiting. We are inheritors of resurrection life now. So, when it comes to being compassionate, kind, humble, patient, and loving, there’s no time like the present.

This morning, in our gospel we hear that Mary Magdalene comes to the tomb and sees that the stone has been rolled away from it. With the news that the Lord’s body is gone, she runs to Peter and John (or, as he’s called here, “the disciple whom Jesus loved”). Deciding that they need to see it for themselves, these two disciples run to the tomb and find it empty, just as Mary said they would. The linen wrappings are lying right there inside, but there is no body to be found.

One thing we might miss if we are not careful, is that Mary Magdalene, Peter, and John each have a different reaction to the empty tomb.

John, the text tells us, “saw and believed” as soon as he entered the tomb. Until this point, the disciples had not understood what had been told to them – that Jesus must rise from the dead. Apparently, this is when it clicks for John – right as it’s unfolding before his eyes.

As for Peter, the scripture isn’t as explicit. Maybe he gets it. Maybe he doesn’t. It would seem as though he has some more thinking to do. He and John both return home.

Mary, on the other hand, doesn’t seem to get it at all. At least, not yet. And can she be expected to, amid the shock of these pre-dawn hours? It’s no wonder she remains at the tomb to weep. Thinking his body has been carried away, she is left to lament the fact that she has lost Jesus a second time.

It can be tempting for us to try to identify with the major players in this or any of our more familiar scriptures. In search of a way to connect at a deeper level with prominent biblical figures, we may find ourselves wanting to determine which ones we are most similar to and why. This is the sort of thing we do when we ask ourselves, “Am I a Mary or a Martha?” when we hear the familiar account of Jesus visiting the sisters’ home in Bethany.

There is nothing inherently wrong with the desire to relate to a particular individual in this or any other biblical passage. But by doing so, we can run the risk of limiting our perspective when instead we are called to expand it – perhaps in this case by finding points of connection with several of the people we encounter.

Take for example the three disciples we meet today. Are we not, each of us, a combination of John, Peter, and Mary Magdalene? It might depend on the season of our life, or our time and location along the path of our Christian journey.

We are John when we see something and believe it. We are John when the object of our heart’s desire dawns on us in real-time, when the realisation of it causes all the jigsaw pieces to fall right into place. We are John when we arrive on Easter morning without one shadow of a doubt that Jesus is risen.

We have a dear member in our own congregation who is lying in a hospital bed in Raigmore who is John. She is certain and determined in her belief in the resurrection of Jesus from the dead and in the promise of eternal life.

We are all John when we rest certain and secure in the bonds of our belief.

But we are sometimes Peter when we are not quite as certain. Peter when it takes just a little longer to sort it all out.

There is a story told of a young girl, of about five years old, who went to Sunday School and church with her grandmother one Easter morning. On the way, her grandmother explained to her the story of Jesus’ resurrection, including his death on Good Friday. “Then, early on Sunday morning,” she said, “he came back to life!” The little girl stared up at her grandmother with a look teetering on the soft edge between innocence and confusion and exclaimed “Yeah right Grandma – ‘course he did!”

Apparently, she needed a little bit more time to think things over.

And of course, at other times we are Mary – when our grief overcomes our ability to make sense of the mystery of eternal life. We are Mary when a loved one dies and our grief overwhelms our other senses. From time to time, and for good reason, we all lose the ability to perceive something that is right in front of us, even if that something is the presence of God.

We find ourselves, each of us, in different places on our Christian journey at different times. And that’s absolutely OK – even on Easter Day.

You might well be able to run toward the empty tomb with an undefended heart, predisposed to belief even before you get a look at the evidence. Or perhaps once you arrive, you’ll need to turn away in confusion. You simply might need to take some time to sort out what’s happened and then come back later. And all that’s OK, too.

None of our possible responses changes the truth of the matter – that whoever you are, wherever you are, Jesus is right there by your side. You may not always perceive him. But He is there, nonetheless. He is waiting to say your name, and – even when you least expect it – to remind you of the faith you have deep inside. That faith which can only have been instilled by the one through whom all things were made. That faith which is all that is necessary to go out and proclaim the One who lives.

As Christians all throughout the world gather on this night, there is a shift in time itself. 

When we gather for this holy night, we pray:

This is the night, when you brought our ancestors, the children of Israel, out of bondage in Egypt, and led them through the Red Sea on dry land. This is the night, when all who believe in Christ are delivered from the gloom of sin, and are restored to grace and holiness of life. This is the night, when Christ broke the bonds of death and hell, and rose victorious from the grave.

This is the night. Like at that dawn so many generations ago, heaven and earth meet. We are given eyes to see and ears to hear the wonder of what God has done. We hear the stories of our faith and witness the God who has pursued us throughout history. God has chased us down, through desert and dry valley and flood and fire. This is the night.

But also…

This is a night that is a night like so many others. A night in which the dripping tap still leaks, and the knees ache, and the baby cries. A night when the electricity bill is due, and the car breaks down, and we wished there might be more people in church. A night where there is love and passion, as well as disappointment and grief. 

Time stops—and time goes on. Our lives are wrapped up in eternity and unfold in the very ordinary sequence of seconds, minutes, hours, and days. The night in which heaven and earth touch is unlike any other night, and it is also just like every other night. God comes to us in our lives as we live them. The rules of gravity are not suspended, but also, maybe, we can feel a little lighter. 

There are times when it seems that we are facing the impossible. Maybe “the impossible” is not the place where God has deserted us, but rather is the place where we can know even more surely that God is with us. We are here, gathered at this altar, hearing this good news, because Christ is here. Christ is everywhere.

The resurrection means that God’s presence with humanity cannot be confined by anything. In Jesus, God came to be with us: a first-century, Jewish, male carpenter. But the presence of the holy is not confined to any landscape, to any profession, to any life circumstance, to any gender.

The resurrection happens within and beyond particularity. Jesus Christ, fully human and fully divine, means that God has broken every convention of time and space, in order to be with us. There is nowhere that Christ cannot go, no rupture so deep that God cannot bridge it. 

This is not something we always remember. Sometimes, life is so painful, our suffering so deep, it is hard to believe that anyone has ever experienced anything as devastating. 

That was certainly true for Mary Magdalene and “the other Mary.” The women in our Gospel for today went to the tomb early—to pray, maybe, to try to drill into their minds what had actually happened. Maybe they wanted to be in a place where they didn’t think God could go—maybe they were angry with God. 

The women had been with Jesus from early in his ministry. They were witness to his ministry and teaching, as well as to his suffering. Maybe they just couldn’t believe what had happened, maybe they felt half-dead with loss and grief, and so they went to be in that place of death. They didn’t expect to find anything there—it was a place of nothingness and loss: a location of absence. They went to the place where Jesus was not. 

The angel says, 

“Do not be afraid; I know that you are looking for Jesus who was crucified. He is not here; for he has been raised, as he said. Come, see the place where he lay. Then go quickly and tell his disciples. ‘He has been raised from the dead.’”

The angel brings impossible news.

The women have come looking for Jesus, expecting to have some comfort, however cold, at being by the place where he was laid. They are hoping for a place to remember and grieve for all that their friend gave them. But that is not what happens. 

When the angel appears, the guards faint, but the women are steadfast. They listen and then, with fear and great joy, they go to tell the others. 

And then something curious happens. On their way to Galilee—bursting with this amazing news—Jesus comes to them. It’s almost like he couldn’t wait! He is on his own way to Galilee, but before he leaves, he stops to see them one more time. They worship him, and again he tells them to share the news.

Jesus goes on to Galilee ahead of Mary and Mary Magdalene, just as he goes on ahead of all of us, into the future. Even we face that future with fear or foreboding, we are given this promise: Jesus will be there. 

“Galilee” can stand for so much: Galilee is the place on the other side of the medical test, the other side of the funeral, the bankruptcy, the accident. The graduation, the birth, the wedding. Whether we meet the future with joy or grief, Jesus is there. 

Jesus Christ is the anointed and beloved child of God, with us in suffering, with us in healing, and with us in joy. The one who has faced all things has gone ahead of us. The power of death had no power over him. The angel came in an earthquake to open the tomb, in order to show the women, that it was empty but Jesus was already gone before the stone was rolled away. 

“Galilee” is our own future—unknowable except for one thing: Jesus is there. 

Jesus is ready to welcome us into whatever future awaits us. He welcomes us, in solidarity, to every moment, every circumstance, every question that he has already endured. He welcomes us in every tear, every peal of laughter. He is walking beside us. Alleluia.

On Maundy Thursday the stage is being set for the final drama of Jesus’ mission. Judas has gone to the chief priests to make a deal in which he will hand Jesus over to them. This term, this ‘handing over’ is something of a refrain that appears throughout the Gospel and reaches a climax here. Remember, John the Baptist was ‘handed over’ and now we see Jesus being handed over – the term occurs three times in today’s passage. Later, the followers of Jesus will also be handed over into the hands of those who want to put an end to their mission.

We all know that Judas sells his master, hands him over, for thirty pieces of silver, though only the gospel writer Matthew mentions the actual sum given to Judas.

What people will do for money!

And Judas is not alone. What he did is happening every day. Perhaps in some way we, too, have betrayed and handed over Jesus more than once. Maybe not in such an explicit way as Judas, but perhaps much more subtly. Think about the last time you bought a particular item for example, and you chose a less costly version of the product to save some money. Did you explore how that particular item was made so cheaply? Was everyone involved in the process treated fairly and justly? Not quite like the betrayal of Jesus as Judas did, but it’s still worth thinking about.

On the first day of the Feast of Unleavened Bread, Jesus’ disciples ask him where he wants to celebrate the Passover. Little do they know the significance of this Passover for Jesus – and for them.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Passover are closely linked, but there is a distinction between them. The Passover was the commemoration of the Israelites being liberated from slavery in Egypt, their escape through the Red Sea, and the beginning of their long journey to the Promised Land. The feast began at sunset after the Passover lamb had been sacrificed in the temple on the afternoon of the 14th day of the month Nisan. Associated with this, on the same evening was the eating of unleavened bread – the bread that Jesus would lift up, saying over it “This is my Body”. The eating of this bread continued for a whole week as a reminder of the sufferings the Israelites underwent and the hastiness of their departure. It was a celebration of thanks to God for the past and to bring hope for the future.

And during the meal with his followers, Jesus drops the bombshell: “One of you is about to betray me (in the Greek, ‘hand me over’). It is revealing that none of them points a finger at someone else. “Is it I, Lord?” Each one realises that he is a potential betrayer of Jesus. And, in fact, at some point during this crisis they will all abandon him.

And of course it isn’t one of his many enemies who will hand Jesus over. No, it is one of the Twelve, it is someone who has dipped his hand into the same dish with Jesus, as a sign of friendship and solidarity.

All of this has been foretold in the Scriptures but how sad it is for the person who has to take this role, even though it is a role he has deliberately chosen. There is a certain cynicism when Judas asks with an air of injured innocence, “Not I, Rabbi, surely?” “They are your words,” is Jesus’ brief reply.

The whole approaching drama is now set in motion.

And so, over the coming three days, let us watch carefully not just as spectators but as participants. We too have so often betrayed Jesus, we too have so often broken bread with Jesus and perhaps have sold him for money, out of ambition, out of greed, out of anger, hatred, revenge or even sometimes out of willful ignorance for our own personal gain.

Each day we face a choice. We can, like Judas, either abandon him in despair or, like Peter, come back to him with tears of repentance.