From time to time I put sermons I give up here. Not because I think they are particularly good, even less that they are model sermons. I can't even guarantee that I agree with everything I said then - I am (of course) learning all the time. But someone may be interested.
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With great delight we have just baptised three small children. We have just welcomed three new members into our church. That makes this a good Sunday to think about our relationships with one another. How should we, who are in this church, relate to one another? What should characterise our relationships.
Most of us here this morning would agree that Jesus Christ is good. He’s good for our lives. He’s good for our village. He’s good for our nation. He’s worth doing things for. He’s worth giving things up for. He’s somebody really very precious indeed.
Over the past twenty years, the study of “comparative religion” has become a significant enterprise. As more and more religious faiths are represented in Britain in significant numbers, and as communications around the world have opened up, we feel it is important that people have a basic grasp of the religions of the world and how they differ from one another. Most GCSE RE syllabuses now focus on this, and the emphasis is on the various practices, customs and rituals of each religion. Compare, and contrast.
The question we’re thinking through this morning is this: As a church, as a congregation, what are our priorities? What are we here for? What should we look like, as a church, such that if Jesus were to come in and meet us he would say “Yes, that is what I hoped I’d find”?
This morning we come to one of those passages in the Bible that I find hard to read. I certainly can’t read it without stopping. The events that are recorded here are the most amazing events in the whole of human history. The love we find here is the deepest in the whole of human history; the injustice we see here is the most perverted in the whole of human history; the cruelty we read of here is the most vicious in the whole of human history. This was no ordinary event. This was a one-of-a-kind, breathtaking, awesome, miraculous event. That is why I can’t read it without pausing. I can’t quite believe it really happened. I can’t read it without worshipping the God we meet here.
So who is Jesus then?
Why did he come?
Why did he die?
What is his relevance for today?
Those are questions we’ve got to be clear on. At least, we’ve got to be clear on the last one haven’t we? We’ve got to know what his relevance is for today. If he’s of no relevance, we shouldn’t waste our time on him. If he’s of great relevance, we’ve got to know what relevance so that we relate to Jesus appropriately.
But how relevant or not he is will depend on the other two questions. Who is he? Why did he come?
I was working for some time on what I would say in the final sermon in the series on Luke 21. A change of circumstances in our church family meant that what I originally planned no longer seemed to be the right sermon for the occasion. So here is what was eventually preached…
I was working for some time on what I would say in the final sermon in the series on Luke 21. A change of circumstances in our church family meant it no longer seemed to me that this was the right sermon for the occasion. As the title indicates – this is a draft. A little rough at the edges, no doubt. But nevertheless, what I was planning to say develops further implications of Luke 21 for life today that people may be interested to chase up at a future date. So draft though it is, never delivered though it was,... here it is for what it’s worth.
Note: handout for this sermon is at the bottom of the webpage as an attachment
Do you ever read bits of the Bible and wonder what possible relevance they have for today? Two weeks ago, I suspect I turned Luke 21 into one of those bits of the Bible for quite a few of us. You’ll remember how I told my story, how I used to see this as a chapter all about the second coming of Jesus, and therefore bristling with relevance. But how careful study had changed my mind, such that I now think it is about something far more specific. And in taking this passage away as a passage about the second coming, there’s a danger that we also take it away as a passage that has relevance for today. What I want to do this morning is give the passage back to us. It may not be about the second coming, but it still has so much to say to us.
Note: handout for this sermon is at the bottom of the webpage as an attachment
I don’t know about you but I am really looking forward to the day when Jesus comes back. He has promised that one day he will return to this world in person and every human being will hear his voice. When that happens everyone who has died, whatever point in history they lived, whichever part of the world they occupied, will hear his voice and come out of their graves.