4th Sunday in Lent year B - Br Luke

 

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br. Luke at Maroubra on Sunday 15th March 2015:

Fourth Sunday in Lent year B

Gospel John 3:14-21

I don't think there is any truth to the rumour that the Israelites wandered around the desert for 40 years because Moses wouldn’t ask for directions. I think we all know that isn't true. I think the reason why they wandered around the desert is because they wouldn't do what they were told. And we hear time and time again, and I know this is going to sound horrible, but we hear time and time again how much they whinged and complained, they moan and groan and b* and carry on .

And here they are, complaining – the people spoke against God and against Moses and so God said “Alright! I’ll fix them this time!” I’ll send them dangerous serpents and they’ll get bitten.

Now, living in Australia, as we know, of the 10 most deadly creatures in the world, 8 of them live in this Country, so we are quite used to dangerous animals but wandering around in the desert as they were, it was new to them so they got bitten.

What strikes me as interesting in this passage is that God did not do as they asked – they said to Moses : “ Ask God to take the serpents away” He didn’t, He left them there, what He did was He offered them a method of salvation which was the bronze serpent on the pole. So you looked at the serpent and you were healed – He didn’t do what they asked, He answered their prayer but not in the way they expected. And that is something we know, don’t we, we pray and get answers to prayers but not at all in the way we had expected.

The reason we have this passage today is because Jesus was hung up on the cross up high where everyone could see him. The serpent was up high where everyone could see it; so the serpent was a means of salvation for the Hebrews as they wandered along the desert and got bitten.

Christ is the means of salvation for us. Now, we don’t look at the Cross to be healed but we have to go through a process of seeking forgiveness but the principle is the same, God has provided a means of salvation to us. For the Hebrews from the poison of the snake, for us from our sins through the salvation of Christ.

That brings me to John which is the gospel for today and I have to say that these passages in John are some of my favourites in John, especially John 3 verse 16

      “For God so loved the world that he gave his only son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life,”

You might hear me saying it, and you might get sick of me saying it ‘that the message of the gospel is LOVE.’ And John says it so clearly in this verse in his Gospel – God so loved the world. There are no grey areas in it, He is acting out of love He is acting out of a sense of care for his creation. For Us, People! We forget that, He didn’t send Jesus to condemn the world, which He could have done – that was Noah, remember, He would have obliterated the world because of the evil, the evil deeds they were doing; He could have sent a plague of Serpents as he did to the Hebrews and they were his chosen people. He didn't, what He did do was He send Christ as the means of salvation for us.

”Those who believe in Him are not condemned”,(John 3:18) something again we forget about, Christ is the means of Salvation He is not here to judge us, He is not here to condemn us; now that may sound like heresy but if you think what we have to go through before we get to the final judgement, where we will be judged because Jesus says He will separate the sheep from the goats. We have to go through that process first, He hasn’t arrived and said you’re doomed, today. Finished and out you go! He could do, if we got bitten by a poisonous snake that is pretty much what would happen but the Salvation comes through Christ and we accept and we have to go through that process of belief, of faith – it’s a Faith journey we need to follow – follow the faith journey and we will get there.

We are in the middle of a State Election at the moment aren’t we yet you would almost never know it is a sort of non-event. When people are doing things that are corrupt, when people are doing things that are wrong it is always done in secret, isn’t it? No. If the brown envelope is going to be passed it is going to be passed under the table, or into the back pocket or the little bag is going to be dropped by the chair and you are going to pick it up and carry it. There is never a blaze of publicity when they are doing something like corruption or something they shouldn’t be doing. So they do it in secret, it is done, as John says in that Gospel Passage “it is done in darkness”

People who are doing evil they do it in darkness, they don’t go “ O LOOK WHAT I AM ABOUT TO DO” and put a big flag and sign up and say “ O,LOOK AT THIS I AM CORRUPT” – they do it in darkness! And that is what St. John means when he says ‘and people loved darkness rather than light because their deeds were evil. (John 3:19), they are doing it in the dark because they don't want to be seen, they don't want to be found out.

Christ is the Light of the world, when you follow Christ and when you follow Christ’s commandments, you have no option, really, but to do it in the light because if you are going to do evil then you can’t follow Christ. If you are going to do evil you are not acting in a sense of love because Love and Evil are not the same thing, they are not compatible, they are diametrically opposed to each other – If you love somebody you don’t do them evil.   

“ But those who do what is true come to the light , so that it may be clearly seen that their deeds are done in God” ( John 3:21)

Christ says to us that there are two Commandments: ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” 38 This is the greatest and first commandment. 39 And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” 40 On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’(Matthew 22:27-40 NRSV) That’s what he replied when he was asked what the great commandments were.

We hear that echo in St. John’s passage – “God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world but in order that the world might be saved through Him. It is a repeat of that whole passage thing that says Love, Compassion, and Tolerance.

 Now that doesn't mean that Jesus was meek, mild and gentle, it doesn't mean he was the chocolate box top Jesus, you know the one that always looks so angelic and would never do anything to harm anybody. Well last week he was taking to people with a whip that is not the deed of a meek, mild, type person that is someone who is showing some anger, some fury at how the people were being mistreated by the Temple, that was an angry Jesus dispersing the injustice of the Temple – but His deeds were not done in darkness. His deed was done in the Light because remember what St. John says – their deeds can be clearly seen that their deeds have been done in God. So even when Jesus is acting in righteous anger and is clearing the Temple of the evil being performed there in the fact that they were ripping off the people he is doing it in the light he is not hiding away in the dark.

So when we think about the Serpent on the bronze pole …

Digress for one second.

There are people who think they can find evidence of Biblical things like Noah’s Ark, I think there is a man who says he has found it. There is an American man out there who thinks he has found the Ark of the Covenant buried under Temple mount. The Ethiopians will tell you they have got it in one of their little temples but you can’t go in to it because it is not allowed. People go looking for the archaeology of the Bible but I haven’t heard of anyone going looking for the Bronze Serpent though. But I wonder that if the Drug Companies found it that it wouldn't stay lost forever? I can’t imagine that the Drug Companies would just want people looking at the Bronze Serpent and getting healed. There will be no money for them and I suspect that they will be taking the bronze serpent and putting it in a box somewhere – and what will they be doing?

THEY WILL BE DOING THAT DEED IN THE DARK! They won't be doing that deed in the light because how will they make money out of that?

Remember that we are taking about the Covenants made with Abraham the covenants made with the people on Sinai, about the Covenant that was made with us through Christ.

In the old days the covenants were marked by a blood sacrifice, you sacrifice an animal you set it aside, you chop it in half and you walk up and down the middle of it; you and the people making the Covenant both walk up and down that middle of it and that makes the covenant valid.

Remember when He made a covenant with Abraham God walked up and down the path between the animals twice, the Scriptures says that a smoking fire pot went up and down twice. God was making the covenant with Abraham because what He said to Abraham was “I will make a covenant with you and even if you break the covenant then I will keep the covenant” so he undertook to pay for the Blood Sacrifice because that would happen, if you broke a blood covenant you had to pay for it with blood. That’s how it works, right? So, when the covenant was broken and we broke the covenant and not God, when we broke the covenant by not following God’s Law God said “O.K. so you have broken the covenant but I still will honour the covenant I made with you, Christ will come, I will come as Christ and I will atone through blood.”

That is why Christ dies on the cross because he is atoning for the blood Covenant God made with Abraham, why is He doing that? Because He loved the world, it is not an act of condemnation or punishment it is an act of Love – strange to think which is why you hear me at Easter the Cross in an object of Love not torture and death.

Recorded and transcribed by br. Andrew at Maroubra

2nd Sunday in Lent - Br. Luke

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br. Luke at Blaxland on Sunday 1st March 2015:

Second Sunday of Lent

Readings:

Genesis 17:1-7,15-16 ; psalms 22:24-32; Romans 4;13-25; Mark 8:31-38

There is so much to focus on in today’s readings.  But I’d like to begin in Genesis.  There is Abraham and Sarah in their old age, not having any children and there is God saying to them I will make you fruitful, you will… “I will make you multitudes of people from your descendants”

It’s not a surprise really that later in the scriptures we read that Sarah laughs. God says he will make many Nations from their descendants.  Menopause had well and truly come and gone for Sarah.  But there is God making this promise that from you will come a multitude of nations.  Oh my goodness, the power of God.

I am really partial to that story in Genesis, however I am going to be naughty and go straight to Romans.

Paul’s letter to the Romans is a very good one, it is full of Theology. Paul is writing very early Christian Theology. In all he says it is a Theology of Life, and he is teaching people how to live a Christian life. Remember he was a very very, We have to remember that Paul was a very Orthodox Jew, he was a Pharisee, highly experienced in the Jewish Law. He knew all about the scriptures, which is why we when read the scriptures they say he ‘opened the Scriptures and showed them. He could do that; he had an innate knowledge of the scriptures. So he draws the parallels and talks about Abraham and Sarah.

I want to talk about that passage from Mark because it is one of those passages where we may get a little bit alarmed if I can use that term. Now here is Peter, the premier disciple, the first disciple, the rock on which Jesus said he would build the church.  I have always had a very soft spot for Peter because Peter is always putting his foot in it, he is always doing probably what I would do. So I have a very soft spot for Peter.

But here he is where Jesus is saying the Son of Man is going to be crucified, Peter says ‘No! no; you’re the Messiah, that is not going to happen to you!’ What does Jesus do? He says get behind me Satan. He chastises Peter. He says to the Premier disciple, Get out of here! What you are saying is human. You are thinking as a person. You are not thinking about the Mission that I have been sent to do. The Mission is from God.

I have always loved the line from the film, The Blues Brothers. “I’m on a Mission from God”. And that’s what Jesus is on, a Mission from God. So Peter is distracting from that purpose, but he says no no no no; wait, you’re the Messiah – that can’t happen to you.

And then Jesus goes on and makes that very complicated and confusing statement “Those who want to save their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake and for the sake of the gospel will save it. (Mark 8:35) What, does that mean? And that equally complicated gospel passage “if any want to become my followers let them deny themselves take up their cross and follow me” (Mark 8:34).

The cross is an instrument of torture, that’s how the Romans killed criminals, it wasn’t just Jesus.  Pilate was horrendous in terms of what he did. There were thousands of people of people he crucified. He was a particularly nasty bloke. Romans were a bloodthirsty people.  There was no forgiveness there.

So here is Jesus’s saying if you want to follow me, deny yourself and take up your cross and follow me.  To do what- after all the cross is a nasty way to die. And those who lose their life will save it”.  This is very complicated.  What is he saying to them? What he is saying them to is if you want to be a follower of mine you are going to have to focus now on the things of the world, but on the things that are divine. He is making a distinction between our physical lives and our spiritual lives.  Those who lose their lives will save it you will be saved in the Resurrection, in the life Everlasting. Right!

Remember, Jesus talks about life eternal, so he is taking that passage and saying if you lose your life in this life, you will gain your life in the future.  Does this make sense?  It’s the same words but he’s using a different context.

Take up your Cross. What is a cross? I’ve said before, it is an instrument of torture – but it is also a burden or an affliction of some description and that’s the cross that we carry.  That’s a burden that we carry.

Now we are in Lent, and traditionally Lent is about giving up things.  It’s about penance. Preparing ourselves for Easter.  And what is the major event of Easter?  It’s is not the crucifixion.  The major message of Easter is not his death, it’s his Resurrection. That the message of Easter.  It is the defeat of death.  You lose your life, Jesus dies on the cross, but he rose again and you will save your life. See how the message flows through the Scriptures.

And when we stop and say, well, what is our cross? It can be as simple as having to do something you don’t want to do.  Going to work every day, especially in a job you don’t like doing.  Or for some individuals it’s a disability or an addiction, or their mental health.  It’s a cross they carry.

Our cross is something we carry every day. Jesus tells us what will it profit us if we gain the whole world, but lose our life. That being a Christian is a cross we will carry. He tells us that being Christian will be difficult.  We know that by following him when our physical lives end, we will be with God in eternity. That’s what he means when he says to them you will save your life.

And finally “Those who are ashamed of me and of my words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of them the Son of Man will also be ashamed when he comes in the glory of his Father with the holy angels.” (Mark 8:38). So that’s the sting in tail isn’t it? If you are ashamed of me, if you don’t really want anyone to know that you profess to be Christian, then you’re being ashamed of me.  You know what’s going to happen.  When I come back, then I’m going to be ashamed of you.  Because you’re not being true to the message.  You’re not being true to what you are called to do.

And you hear me say this all the time: what’s the message of the Gospel?  The message of the gospel is love.  John right in the beginning of his gospel.  What did he write? “God so loved the world.”  “God is love.”  Jesus says when asked, “What is the greatest commandment?”  Love the Lord your God will all your heart; with all soul, with all your mind and with all your strength. As a second is like it, love your neighbour and yourself, on this hang all the law and the prophets. The first is very hard. Make no mistake about it.  And loving your neighbour as yourself? That is the biggest cross that Christians have.  If we stop and think about loving our neighbour, because there are times when we say to ourselves: “I really don’t like that person!”  Or we say to ourselves about the other person, “why don’t you just go away?”  The Christian message says no, we have to love the lot.

Amen.

Recorded and transcribed –  at Maroubra by br. Andrew

11th Sunday after Pentecost - Br Andrew

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br Andrew at Winmalee on

Sunday 24th August 2014:  ELEVENTH SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST

 

Gospel: Matthew 16:13-20







Rocks , Pebbles and Talents

Today’s readings might be the inspiration for many a sermon, in fact several took faltering steps in my mind.

What stuck in my mind was the word ‘Rock”. 
Rocks and minerals are essential in our lives. We use halite on our food, drink out of aluminium cans, and brush our teeth with a compound containing clay; dusting our newborns down with fine talc and much much more…

Our first reading has the sub title Salvation for Zion wherein the Lord calls upon the righteous Jews to remember their roots. For they seek the Lord with an intense desire, persistently chasing, the justification of their persons, the sanctification of their nature, and practical obedience to God’s law; desiring above all things to know him, to be reconciled with Him and to be in communication with His Spirit.

These, his true people, he exhorts to look to the rock they were cut from, and to the hold of the pit they were dug from to Look to Abraham their father, the Rock and to Sarah, the hole of the pit, who bore them; for when Abraham was but one God called him, and blessed him, and made him many.
God’s promise fulfilled in Abraham gave him descendants as numerous as the stars in the sky and the grains of sand on the seashore – as if, perhaps that great rock was crushed and the stones therefrom awaited the coming of the Holy One of God.

Jesus is now in Caesarea Philippi, nearby the Southwest base of Mount Hermon, where the Transfiguration may soon have taken place he is taking time out and continuing to give his disciples, their final Spiritual education.

After the discourse in Capernaum many of the disciples had left him due to his revealing the seemingly cannibalistic nature of the Sacrament of his Body and Blood and at that time Peter had made his Profession of faith saying 
     “We have come to believe and know that you are the Christ, the Son of the living God."

So it can be argued that it comes as a surprise when Jesus asks the same question, rather abruptly "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?" Who do people say that I, the son of Adam or a son of Adam am? Jesus accentuates his humanity by equating himself with all who are formed from the clay the adama, with humanity. 

Who is this human? He says, as if to test whether his disciples now had their own purer faith or were yet affected by the beliefs of the times. “Some say John the Baptizer, some, Elijah, and others, Jeremiah, or one of the prophets”; reflecting the contemporary belief in the transmigration of souls – yet again Peter answers
 "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God." Peter is sure in the faith of the Lord that Jesus Christ is THE Son of the living God, THE Son not a Son.

It is the Heavenly Father who has revealed this to Peter and now Jesus reveals who Peter is to be.

The Greek tells us that Peter or (Petros) is a certain rock, while the Hebrew further states that this rock is special, a unique mineral; who is the Rock, Petra, upon which Jesus will build his Assembly and the gates of Hades shall not defeat it. 

He is the one to whom will be given the keys of the kingdom and the  awful responsibility of binding and releasing for whatever he bound on earth will have been bound in heaven; and whatever he released on earth will have been released in heaven." 

According to church tradition; The Apostle Peter founded the ancient Patriarch of Antioch go to for more about Peter http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/11744a.htm#II

Peter was our Spiritual foundation the one Christians look back to the rock from which they were hewn a special pebble chosen by the Lord Jesus Christ as the foundation of the body of Christ which is a living entity. 

Keeping this firmly in mind St Paul urges the Christians in Rome to present their bodies as living sacrifices, holy acceptable to God, not dying for the Lord but becoming living sacrifices putting aside their own desires in favour of God’s will for them.

As Ecumenical Franciscans we understand the difficulty in being in the world but not of it, Paul places this topic at the head of his exhortations and it seems that keeping custody of the self in the following ways are  to be cultivated if we desire to achieve this status with Equanimity.

It applies no less to secular Christians and in proportion to their position of Power and responsibility in the world from which they seek to distance themselves. To transform our hearts and minds, change the current running through our minds and send different messages through the synapses of our brains – through prayer, supplication, and meditation.

Paul says – “, so that you may prove what is the good, well-pleasing, and perfect will of God” prove to ourselves and each other that God’s Purpose will reveal itself if we make room for it.

Paul also speaks of the measure of grace given to him through which he has received insight concerning the vanities of Ego, Pride, Jealousy, Envy, and lack of self-worth and proceeds to instruct the new Christians of the necessity to banish these so that their true nature and position in the Body of Christ, the Church may be seen and realised. 

Our egos prevent us from seeing beyond ourselves and from change; we cannot present ourselves as a living sacrifice when we think too highly of ourselves to become a gift to God rather selfishly hugging everything we think we are close to our chests. 

Or if we are too proud to do so, afraid that others will wonder what has come over us that we have suddenly got God.

Our prayer to God is for a balanced mind that thinks reasonably of ourselves neither that we are too great nor too small and to envy no one for those spiritual and temporal gifts we do not have, for each one is allotted according to the need of the entire Assembly rather than for the individual. We cannot all be hands! Or artists! Or Theologians! Altogether we are one Body in Jesus Christ our Lord and one of the sicknesses of our church today is that we have fractured the Church Universal to so much a degree that we might well ask “Is God broken?”

Having, then, our various unique gifts let us use them to heal the Body to which we belong to bind our wounds, rest our weary, refocus those who have lost their way and constantly search out the perfect Purpose of God.

• If we are teachers teach
• Gardener’s garden
• Accountants Account
• Parents nurture
• Carers care
• Theologians Study the Word of God
• Reporters Do so honestly

In short whatever we are do for the glory of God and for His Assembly and every other living in this world but be not of its un-Godliness.

Sts. Peter and Paul Apostles and Martyrs, 3rd Sunday after Pentecost -Br Andrew

Andre-Rublev's Saviour

Homily preached by Br Andrew, at Winmalee on Sunday 29th June: 

Sts. Peter and Paul Apostles and Martyrs, Third Sunday after Pentecost

Gospel John 21:15-22

Men of Faith,

Abraham, Peter and Paul

Our forefathers and mothers in the faith bear witness to the grace of a Faith filled life, faith  trusts and goes where God leads, unquestioningly despite the idiocy and insanity of the request:- because 11 Faith is being sure of what we hope for. It is being certain of what we do not see. (Hebrews 11:1 NIVR)

In today’s readings we have three men separated by some 3,000 + years who in exercising phenomenal faith made it possible for the world to be blessed through salvation in Jesus Christ our Lord.

You noticed that I said faith is trusting despite the idiocy and insanity of the request. It surely must have appeared insane to Abraham to be told by God to sacrifice Isaac as a burnt offering when he was to be the only ancestor of the Congregation of Judaism; nevertheless he took his son to the foothills of Mount Moriah, piled the wood on the altar and laid his much beloved son upon it. In his faith Abraham reasoned that God could raise Isaac from the dead and with the sacrifice of the substituted Ram, so he did. Unspoken echoes of that perfect Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?

At the other end of the line there are Sts. Peter and Paul who are considered to be the Fathers of the Church, men of great faith, truly human, both sacrificed for their Faith in Christ. 

Peter was born in Bethsaida in Galilee into a family of fishermen, about the same age as Jesus, called by Jesus to the cryptic vocation of fishing for men, Jesus healed Peter’s mother-in-law at Capernaum  and later Ordained him in the rock of the church dialogue in Matt.16:18, he was one of the witnesses to the Transfiguration, denied Christ three times, was forgiven three times, his most famous sermon given at Pentecost, Peter was sacrificed for Christ in the year 67 AD in Rome during the  reign of Nero, he was crucified upside down considering himself not worthy of being crucified in the same manner as Jesus.

As we read in our Gospel today Jesus tells Peter cryptically of the manner of his death saying “when you are old, you will stretch out your hands, and another will dress you, and carry you where you don’t want to go.”[Matt 10:42]

Prior to our Gospel Peter has denied knowing Christ three times and after the third time “when the Lord turned, and looked at him. He remembered his Lord’s word, how he had said to him, “Before the rooster crows twice you will deny me three times.” 62 Peter went out, and wept bitterly. (Luke 22:61, 62).

That was the turning point in his life; much earlier Peter had asked him, “Lord, where are you going?” Jesus had replied, “you cannot follow now, but you will follow later." (John 13:36). Peter had not been in a fit state to follow Christ, because he had not reached the bottom of his barrel. He did not know his own depths, and therefore could not follow Christ. But when he went out and wept bitterly, then came the great change. Christ had already said to him: "When you are converted, strengthen your brothers" (Luke 22:32). 
Here is the point Where Peter was converted from self to Christ – finally he knew himself for what he was, one whose Ego made grandiose claims his unsupported spirit could not achieve. He yet belonged to himself.

Now Christ reigned supreme and he no longer relied upon himself to achieve anything save in Christ alone.

Throughout his ministry Peter stressed the importance of dying to self and living for Christ, he had learned that many of us share the bottom of his barrel and for the same reasons, inordinate love of self.

He always referred to himself as Elder or servant and kept his promise to tend the Lambs and to feed and tend the sheep; he fed them with the Word of God and urged them to seek it out. In the last paragraph of his second Epistle he mentions the letters Paul had written to them saying 15 Bear in mind that our Lord’s patience means salvation, just as our dear brother Paul also wrote you with the wisdom that God gave him;[2 Peter 3:15]

St Paul was a Roman Turk by nationality and a Hellenistic Jew, of the tribe of Benjamin, born in Tarsus in Cilicia, anywhere between 6BC and 10CE, and first known to us as Saul.  He referred to himself as “a Pharisee, and the son of Pharisees” [Acts 23:6], he was brought up in Jerusalem and studied under Gamaliel, [Acts 22:3] – we first come across him at the stoning of Stephen the proto-martyr [Acts 8:1]. 

Saul was a zealot for Judaism and the Torah and confesses to the Galatians“13 you have heard of my previous way of life in Judaism, how forcefully I persecuted the church of God and tried to destroy it. 14 I was progressing in Judaism ahead of many of my own age and was extremely zealous for the traditions of my forefathers. [Gal. 1:13-14 paraphrased] (NIV) 

Paul's conversion can be dated to 31–36 by his reference to it in his letter to the Galatians. Luke provides three versions of this in the Acts of the Apostles: Acts 9:1-31, 22:1-22, and 26:9-24. 

This took place on the road to Damascus, while on his way to arrest more followers of the way and take them captive to Jerusalem. He reported having experienced a vision of the resurrected Jesus which occurred as he neared Damascus when, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him. 4 He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him, “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?”5“Who are you, Lord?” Saul asked. “I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,” he replied. 6“Now get up and go into the city, and you will be told what you must do.”[Acts 9:4-6 paraphrased] In the kJV the end of verse 5 reads “it is hard for thee to kick against the pricks.”

Paul spent three days with Ananias during which he spent time in mystical union with Christ himself. As he later told the Galatians “15[…] God, set me apart from my mother’s womb has called me by his grace, (and) was pleased 16to reveal his Son in me so that I might preach him among the Gentiles, [Galatians 1:15,16 paraphrased]

According to the wording in the kJV it rather seems that Paul’s zeal may partially have stemmed from self-doubt, and notice- to persecute a Christian is to persecute Christ, for whatever  you do to the least of these, my little ones you do unto me [matt.25:40]

When St. Paul became a little one he preferred to be known as the Apostle to the Gentiles and preached to them that Faith is a free gift given by the Grace of God, salvation came through Faith in Christ and his death and resurrection which dispensed with the Torah – (which Christ had fulfilled through his life death and resurrection Matt.5:17) Thinking, perhaps of the manner of his coming to Christ he taught that Faith had primacy over works.

Christian tradition holds that Paul was beheaded in Rome during the reign of Nero around the mid-60s at Tre Fontane Abbey (English: Three Fountains Abbey) In 2009 pope Benedict XVI announced excavation results of the probing of a sarcophagus at the Basilica of Saint Paul Outside the Walls – the remains were carbon dated to the mid first to second century and declared to be those of St Paul.

When we through the Grace of God accept the free gift of Faith in the death and resurrection of Jesus for the remission of our sins we then can die to ourselves and live in Christ. Until we do this we are like Peter full of ourselves and a danger to ourselves in spiritual matters. Like Paul we may knowingly or unknowingly feel the jabs and the pricks of the calling of the risen Christ until the pain brings us to our knees and we are emptied of ourselves and free to believe in him who first loved us.

And never forget that Faith in Christ is illogical and if we expect it to be we are in the wrong religion.

Sermon Extra 4 - Did Christ have to die for our sins?

Sacrifice_of_Isaac-Caravaggio_(Uffizi)

The theology around Christ being sacrificed for our sins, is, I think as old as the faith.

There is another slant on this, which when I first heard it, made a light come on. It’s all about an ancient blood covenant.

You will recall that when God made the blood covenant with Abraham, that the people would inherit the land, God instructed the patriarch to slaughter animals and then divide them so that there was a path between the carcasses.  That night a smoking pot and a torch was seen to pass along the path. (Genesis 15).  As I understand the rules around covenant at that time, each person had to pass between the slain animals. Thereby each person was pledging that they would keep their part of the covenant. And the only way to break the covenant was the death of one of the parties. However in this passage Abraham does not pass between the animals, God does – twice.  Meaning that God was making a covenant with both Abraham and himself.  So if the covenant was broken then God has to honour his pledge, not Abraham.  God eventually did this, when he had Moses bring the people out of Egypt.

 Later on God told Abraham the sign of the covenant was circumcision – which again is a blood covenant.

After Moses read the law to the people in the desert and when they accepted the law, Moses then sprinkled blood from a sacrifice on them. (Exodus 24) – another covenant sealed with blood.

At the last supper Jesus said of the wine: this is my blood which will be poured out for many, so he was again initiating a blood covenant (albeit with a substitute substance) for the disciples and through them, us.  

The physical part of the blood covenant was his death on the cross. So it’s not so much that he dies for our sins, but rather that he was making a blood covenant with God for us.  As he was both human and divine he, like the old covenant with Abraham, was making a pledge, both as God and as man.

  His physical blood sealed the new covenant and thereby opened for us, our part of the covenant, which is salvation, forgiveness of sins and eternal life.  Hence the idea, that he died to save us.