Holy Redeemer
 |
| St- Andre-Rublev's Saviour |
In the care of the Ecumenical
Franciscan Order
Homily preached at Winmalee on 2nd
March 2014
by Br Andrew
Gospel
JapaneseTourists Drive Straight into the Pacific Thanks to His GPS
Three Japanese
tourists in Australia found themselves in an embarrassing situation after their
GPS navigation system lured them down the wrong path.
The three, who
are students from Tokyo, set out to drive to North Stradbroke Island on the
Australian coast Thursday morning, and mapped out their path on their GPS
system.
As the three
drove their rented Hyundai Getz into Moreton Bay, they found the GPS device
guiding them from a gravel road into thick mud.
They tried to get back to solid ground, but as the tide rose they were
forced to abandon their car. Passengers
on passing ferries watched in amazement.
“It told us we
could drive down there,” Yuzu Noda, 21, told the local Bayside Bulletin. “It
kept saying it would navigate us to a road. We got stuck . . . there’s lots of
mud.”
Noda and her
friends made it about 50 yards offshore before they realized they were
stranded. A tow truck driver eventually gave them a lift back to the mainland.
The students decided not to have the car repaired because of the damage. The
car was insured, though Noda will still have to pay about $1,500 that was not
covered.
The students
will fly back home to Tokyo this weekend, but they said they plan to try a trip
to the island again sometime in the future.
“We want to
come back to Australia again,” Noda told the Bayside Bulletin. “Everyone is
very nice, even today.”(source)
Faith
These readings
occurring at the beginning of Lent are sent to help us examine the depth of our
Faith in God, in those things beyond our comprehension.
- To understand what this Faith is
- And, a little back to front – our first time response to the gift of Faith in Jesus, the washing away of our sins in Baptism.
Here is one of
St Paul’s definitions of Faith from the Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 7: vs 1,
2;
1 Now faith is
assurance of things hoped for, proof of things not seen. 2 For by this, the
elders obtained testimony.
Abram had the
hope that the Lord would lead him into the Land Promised to him and make his
descendants a great Nation, blessing the entire world through him, sight
unseen, his Faith was proof that these promises would be fulfilled. There was
nothing he needed to do except live his life in the shadow of that belief. We
know that he wasn’t always successful, that Sarai laughed and he wanted Eliezer
of Damascus to be his heir because he could believe the inexplicable things the
Lord had promised but not, what to him was irrationally impossible... do we all
know what this was?
From Abram’s
lapses into doubt emerged his life of great Faith that became a light
illuminating salvation History ahead of him. Abram believed God and his Faith
made him righteous before God.
Faith is a free
gift by Grace
Paul was
speaking to Jewish Christians in Rome, about the difference between a life
enslaved by the Law and one lived in the freedom of faith - hence the
terminology:
Abram achieved
righteousness before he was bound by the circumcision of the flesh, before
Judaism existed, In Deuteronomy 6 Moses said “The LORD your God will circumcise
your hearts and the hearts of your descendants. You will love the LORD your God
with all your heart and with all your soul, and you will live”
By Abram’s
Faith his heart was circumcised and he became the Father of all the Faithful just
as God promised.
Simply – the
Spiritual circumcision of our hearts or instinctively knowing to keep the two
great commandments is the inward reality for which the physical Circumcision
ought to have signified. It is the Faith born of grace
Many times God
offered this inward reality to his chosen ones who continued to prefer to exist
under the Law and the penalty of the Law is death through sin- and only the
spilling of innocent blood of Lambs or Kids temporarily paid the debt owed by
sin.
It was in propitiation once and for all of the
accumulated sins of Israel and the world that Jesus was sent to die on the
cross for us – the Perfect Lamb of God, the final shedding of innocent blood, taking
away the sins of the world and making us At one with God.
No excuses any more, it is either Faith through Grace or pay at the checkout.
Baptism
As children, in
some Denominations, baptism is a Rite carried out in infancy where the Witness
to our turning towards Christ and forsaking all else is a vicarious one made on
our behalf by our Godparents.
Other
Denominations consider this only something the person can in reality do for
themselves – in my particular spiritual journey I have done both.
Our Gospel
Offers us an
insight into Adult Baptism, received after someone has been graced with the
faith to believe in Christ as their Saviour and have accepted the offer to be
born again according to the Spirit and cleansed in the waters of Baptism –
sometimes a river.
Nicodemus came
to Jesus in secret under the cover of darkness, he points out that the
Pharisees, ‘we’ are aware that the Signs Jesus performs make him at least a
teacher sent by God. There isn’t time to explain this fully right now.
According to
the Author, Jesus, wrongly it seems, assumes Nicodemus to be more advanced in
his own understanding of Jesus identity and tells him that he must be ‘born
anew’
Now here we
have the dilemma Nicodemus grasping with a physical and literal re-birthing experience contrasting with Abram grasping the concept of initiating a birthing
for the first time around. Yet that is not what Jesus implied
Jesus ignores
that scenario and continues; one must be ‘born anew’ of water and the Spirit in
order to enter the Kingdom of Heaven.
And as Paul
does in our earlier reading, Jesus speaks of the difference between those born
of flesh and those born of spirit, and to become one of those whose heart is
Circumcised Baptism of water and the Spirit is necessary.
In speaking of
the natural movement of the wind in response to
the change in barometric pressure Jesus makes the analogy between the
fact that in the same way that they could not be sure of where the wind blew
neither can we know upon whom the Spirit chooses to Land – because Faith is
God’s free gift by grace.
Nicodemus says how?
Then Jesus
gives us a very clear picture of who he is and what is his mission:
“13 No one has
ascended into heaven, but he who descended out of heaven, the Son of Man, who
is in heaven. –Though the Son of Man descended
from heaven, was born and lived on earth, ascended into heaven the son of Man
never left heaven at all.
14 As Moses
lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of Man be lifted
up, 15 that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have eternal life. –
Just like the bronze serpent saved the Israelites from the poisonous ones in
the desert so the Son of Man must be crucified to save us from the poison of
sin that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
Likewise, though the Son of Man hung on the cross and was lifted up he remained
in heaven with the Father and the Spirit.
16 For God so loved the world, that he gave
his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish, but have
eternal life. Yet the Son of God never left heaven
Once Jesus has
paid the price for our sins and we by Faith through Grace believe in him and
accept his gift of eternal life then we must be baptised through Water and the
Spirit as the outward sign of our inward disposition toward the good, or our
instinctive knowing to keep the two great commandments-This is in the presence of
him whom we believe: God, who gives life to the dead, and calls the things that
are not, as though they were
( Romans:4:17b adapted)
Br. Andrew
( Romans:4:17b adapted)
Br. Andrew
