Life meets death - 2nd Sunday after Pentecost
LUKE 7: 11 - 17
What kind of God do you believe in?
I think that question is as important as the question of whether you believe in God at all. For the type of God we believe in, will shape how we live our lives. If we believe in a wrathful dictatorial God, we are likely to mirror that in our living. Equally if we believe in a loving God who gives to us freedom to make choices, then that too will pattern our lives.
In my life I have known people who have believed in and patterned their lives on both these Gods. And to be honest I have little doubt as to which God and which people I am most comfortable with.
But of course, it is not for me to invent God. Having come to accept the reality of God, I have to seek to understand the nature of God and then whether in view of that which I learn, whether I really wish to follow that God.
My understanding of God is based primarily upon a view that God is best made visible to me through Jesus who is God living a human life. And so the example of Jesus is to me absolutely vital in understanding what God is about. I go as far as to say that if our view of God is in conflict with what we see in Jesus, then we are not worshipping the Christian God at all.
So does this episode tell us anything of God. Well, the background to our story is that Jesus has just healed the servant of a Roman centurion. Radical stuff indeed given that the Romans were the enemies of Jesus’ people, the Jews. And now, he is on his travels accompanied by a large crowd. But as he approaches the village of Nain, he and his crowd meet another crowd. But whereas the crowd with Jesus were celebrating a great healing, the crowd that they met had a very different emotion for they were a crowd marking a death. And a particularly sad one at that for they were carrying the body of a young man out of the village to the place of his burial.
Within this crowd was a woman. Already a widow, she had now lost her only son. No wonder she wept. For not only was she suffering great grief at the loss of another loved one but she was also all too aware of her vulnerability. No longer had she anyone to care for her. As a childless widow, she was without means of support, right at the bottom of the pile.
This was an age in which some of the hard hearted religious establishment would have sneeringly seen God’s judgement in the suffering of this woman. Oh yes, even then there were those who thought that good things happen to the good and bad things to the bad. But Jesus shows not time for such Hellish lies. He simply sees a woman whose live has fallen apart and whose future looks to be full of woe.
And Jesus feels compassion for this woman who he had never met before. I like that because it is a reminder that compassion is the way of Jesus. Yes the exalted Jesus feels compassion for the like of me and you when our worlds cave in on us, when our futures look to be full of storm clouds. And to me, that is one of the wonderful things about this story - when all looks lost God is on our side because whatever the circumstances God feels only love for us.
In our story, there is a happy ending. The young man is restored to life and to his mother. And that takes us back to the two crowds. From the crowd celebrating life has come Jesus to transform the crowd who have gathered to mark death. The result of the meeting has been decisive. And therein lies our hope. God who has come to us in Jesus is able to meet the worst that can be offered against him - hatred, violence and death. And as he meets these things he not merely defeats them but he transforms them to the greater realities that are love, peace and life.
So today, this miracle gives us a chance to see how Jesus shows us the true nature of God which is all good and all loving. It also gives us a chance to once more identify ourselves with the crowd that celebrates God’s ways of life - and in them see the clues to our victorious living.
This sermon was preached at Glebe Court sheltered housing complex in Northam on Thursday June 7th 2007
What kind of God do you believe in?
I think that question is as important as the question of whether you believe in God at all. For the type of God we believe in, will shape how we live our lives. If we believe in a wrathful dictatorial God, we are likely to mirror that in our living. Equally if we believe in a loving God who gives to us freedom to make choices, then that too will pattern our lives.
In my life I have known people who have believed in and patterned their lives on both these Gods. And to be honest I have little doubt as to which God and which people I am most comfortable with.
But of course, it is not for me to invent God. Having come to accept the reality of God, I have to seek to understand the nature of God and then whether in view of that which I learn, whether I really wish to follow that God.
My understanding of God is based primarily upon a view that God is best made visible to me through Jesus who is God living a human life. And so the example of Jesus is to me absolutely vital in understanding what God is about. I go as far as to say that if our view of God is in conflict with what we see in Jesus, then we are not worshipping the Christian God at all.
So does this episode tell us anything of God. Well, the background to our story is that Jesus has just healed the servant of a Roman centurion. Radical stuff indeed given that the Romans were the enemies of Jesus’ people, the Jews. And now, he is on his travels accompanied by a large crowd. But as he approaches the village of Nain, he and his crowd meet another crowd. But whereas the crowd with Jesus were celebrating a great healing, the crowd that they met had a very different emotion for they were a crowd marking a death. And a particularly sad one at that for they were carrying the body of a young man out of the village to the place of his burial.
Within this crowd was a woman. Already a widow, she had now lost her only son. No wonder she wept. For not only was she suffering great grief at the loss of another loved one but she was also all too aware of her vulnerability. No longer had she anyone to care for her. As a childless widow, she was without means of support, right at the bottom of the pile.
This was an age in which some of the hard hearted religious establishment would have sneeringly seen God’s judgement in the suffering of this woman. Oh yes, even then there were those who thought that good things happen to the good and bad things to the bad. But Jesus shows not time for such Hellish lies. He simply sees a woman whose live has fallen apart and whose future looks to be full of woe.
And Jesus feels compassion for this woman who he had never met before. I like that because it is a reminder that compassion is the way of Jesus. Yes the exalted Jesus feels compassion for the like of me and you when our worlds cave in on us, when our futures look to be full of storm clouds. And to me, that is one of the wonderful things about this story - when all looks lost God is on our side because whatever the circumstances God feels only love for us.
In our story, there is a happy ending. The young man is restored to life and to his mother. And that takes us back to the two crowds. From the crowd celebrating life has come Jesus to transform the crowd who have gathered to mark death. The result of the meeting has been decisive. And therein lies our hope. God who has come to us in Jesus is able to meet the worst that can be offered against him - hatred, violence and death. And as he meets these things he not merely defeats them but he transforms them to the greater realities that are love, peace and life.
So today, this miracle gives us a chance to see how Jesus shows us the true nature of God which is all good and all loving. It also gives us a chance to once more identify ourselves with the crowd that celebrates God’s ways of life - and in them see the clues to our victorious living.
This sermon was preached at Glebe Court sheltered housing complex in Northam on Thursday June 7th 2007
2 Comments:
"So today, this miracle gives us a chance to see how Jesus shows us the true nature of God which is all good and all loving."
Truth, but not all the truth! Judgement, justice, vengeneance, righteousness, holiness, righteous anger, hatred of sin are also part of Gods nature revealed in Jesus.
As John says, "God is love." Only through that can God be understood.
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