Sermon for Remembrance Sunday

Readings:

Isaiah 2:3-5

Matthew 5:1-12

Sermon 

Today is a solemn day. Today we remember those who have offered their lives in sacrifice for their country. This year the UK would have been at in some theatre or the other for over 12 years and in all the conflicts the United Kingdom armed forces would have suffered 1300 casualties. Since 1900 the UK armed forces have suffered just under 1.5 million casualties from all sections of the Armed Forces. 

I have a strong link with the military and with war. My Father served in the Royal Navy, my Grandfather in the RAF, my uncle was a military policeman and my mother served as a nurse in the Rhodesian Army during the Rhodesian bush war. My brother served in the infantry. 

We grew up in during the Rhodesian Bush War in a town near the Zambian Border. I remember when I was small being made to sleep in the passage of my house because Zanu PF (the party of Robert Mugabe) insurgents had a nasty habit of dropping mortar rounds into the gardens of homes of civilians. I remember seeing the helicopters bringing the wounded and the dead to my mom’s hospital and the sight of my mom learning to use an automatic weapon and side arm during in her training. I also remember the fear of my class when we were told to climb under our desks as the insurgents had been spotted near the school. 

Seeing the accounts of children in places like Syria or Congo or Chechnya or Myanmar has bought back my own memories of my time in Rhodesia now Zimbabwe. But it has also made it clear to me that war and armed conflict is universal. And it seems eternal. 

War is an ugly thing. It is violent and bloody and full of horror and evil on all sides. Last year a marine was convicted of murdering an injured Taliban insurgent. It brings out the worst in people. Paradoxically it brings out the best in people as well. It brings out courage and valour, selflessness and unity. It can bring people together in way we cannot understand. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not suggesting for a second that war is positive I just cannot say for sure that all war is evil. We have fought wars for good reasons like the prevention of tyranny and the protection of the weak. 

But Isaiah promises us a time when war will cease. The prophet reminds us that there will come a time when the Kingdom of God will prevail and peace will be the norm rather than the dream. 

However Jesus reminds us that we have a role to play until that time comes. These words of Jesus are called the beatitudes but someone has referred to them as the “how to be”-attitudes. These are things we can be while we wait for Christ’s return. We can be peacemakers, we can be merciful. 

We also owe a debt to those who have given their lives to protect others whether it be the fields of the Somme or the beaches of Normandy, or the Falkland Islands. We need to remember them and how we respond to them is as important. 

Archibald MacLeish wrote a poem called “the young dead soldiers”: 

The young dead soldiers do not speak. 

Nevertheless, they are heard in the still houses: who has not heard them? 

They have a silence that speaks for them at night and when the clock counts. 

They say: we were young. We have died. Remember us. 

They say: we have done what we could but until it is finished it is not done. 

They say: we have given our lives but until it is finished no one can know what our lives gave. 

They say: our deaths are not ours; they are yours; they will mean what you make them. 

They say: whether our lives and our deaths were for peace and a new hope or for nothing we cannot say; it is you who must say this. 

They say: we leave you our deaths. Give them their meaning. 

We were young, they say. We have died. Remember us”. 

I am a war child and I have been a soldier. But I also choose to be a peacemaker now. I choose to show mercy. I choose to be salt and light to the world. I also choose to remember those that have made war and I choose to honour these words from the poem: 

They say: We leave you our deaths. Give them meaning. 

I can be a peacemaker and be merciful because someone has laid down their life in an act of sacrifice. I will choose to remember them and honour them with my life. How about you? 

Amen 

Thought for the day for BBC Radio Kent

Thought for the day – Forgiveness

This morning, thousands of people in churches across the county will be saying the prayer that Jesus taught us. And in that prayer are some of the hardest words we could ever hope to pray.

We pray these words every Sunday: Forgive our sins as we forgive those who would sin against us. I’ll be honest and say there are times when I go quiet because I may not have the resources to forgive or simply don’t want to.

God calls us to make difficult choices sometimes and difficult choices require courage. Forgiveness is difficult. Indira Gandhi described it as the virtue of the brave. It takes courage to let go of the hurt we get thrown at us, as we go through life. Being able to forgive those who hurt us shows not only those who have caused us the pain (whatever that pain is) but also those who love and care for us that we have struggled with life and have, through the grace of God, started growing into the person God wants us to be.

Forgiving someone does not mean we forget what has happened. It isn’t a wishy washy desire to see the world made right. Ask anyone who participated in the truth and reconciliation commission in South Africa. Those who came either asking for forgiveness for atrocities they had committed or those forgiving the people who had committed those atrocities. It can be blood, sweat, anguish and tears, but it wipes the slate clean and allows broken people and broken lives to start to heal and be made whole.

The American Poet Maya Angelou described forgiveness as the greatest gift a person can give themselves. I believe that forgiveness is one of the greatest gifts God gives us, The Bible tells us in the book of Psalms that God’s forgiveness is as broad as the East is from the West. If we allow ourselves to forgive each other and probably more importantly, ourselves in the same way God forgives us, just imagine what the world would be like today.

What would your world look like if you forgave someone today?

Welcome to the feast

Sermon

Reading 1: Isaiah 25: 1-9 

Reading 2: Matthew 22: 1-14 

I think we can all think of a feast we have been to. It may have been a wedding or Christmas or a birthday party. There was loads of food and people and laughter and joy. Someone I know was telling me how he had been to a restaurant and the smells of the food coming from the kitchens took him back to South Korea and the welcome feast he attended when he first started working there. If you have ever smelt Kimchi you’ll know what he meant. 

And isn’t it always amazing that food and feasts usually go hand in hand with good emotions. It’s almost as if the food and company rule out negative feelings. The vast majority of get-togethers we go to are happy affairs. 

The bible readings today mention 2 feasts. Jesus feast is a warning that God invites everyone to be part of the kingdom but there will be those who reject the invitation or try to enter on their own terms. Isaiah’s feast is part of God’s promise that he will save the world and that there will be a time when death will be destroyed and there will be no suffering. 

There are common themes to both these feasts we read about in the passages. 

The first theme is that there will be those that reject the offer with all the consequences that the rejection of God brings. Isaiah points out that even the mighty cities will be destroyed. To put this in context the OT often uses the word “City” as something that is organised in opposition to God. Having not heard the Word of God through the prophets those empires working to oppose the will of God will inevitably be destroyed. 

But is that same warning explicit in Jesus’ feast. The answer is yes. Those that rejected the invitation will face destruction. Jesus’ parable about the wedding feast is in the middle of a discourse about who Jesus is and where his authority comes from and as I read 

the account again and again I came to the conclusion that Jesus was using the King’s promise to burn down cities as a prophetic promise about the destruction of Jerusalem as a result of the rejection of him as messiah. 

The second is all about God’s grace. Jesus’ parable is about how God has offered salvation to the Jewish people through Christ but they rejected it so God in his generosity has offered his love and salvation to those who would normally be excluded from the celebrations. Isaiah takes the idea one step further and promises us that God will destroy all that is evil when his Kingdom is established. There will be no more poor or tears promises the prophet. 

But there is a third theme that comes through reading about the feasts. In Jesus parable we see the King approaching a person who is not in wedding clothes. This unfortunate fellow get thrown out into the darkness. This seems really out of character for the parable but I believe Jesus is saying something we really need to pay attention to. 

The immediate question that comes to mind is why the guest wasn’t wearing wedding clothes? Everyone else was even those who were poor. A commentator has suggested that what Jesus was talking about was those who try to enter into salvation by their own means. This ties in with Isaiah’s prophecy about God giving us new clothes and how our own righteousness is like filthy rags. I believe what Jesus is saying is that the gift of salvation is a free gift that we choose to accept and so there is a sense of someone having to take personal responsibility for their own acceptance of the invitation. This is not something we can achieve by ourselves we can only accept it as a free gift from God. 

This poses particular problems for those who assume that simply because they go to Church that they will be able to enter the Kingdom of God. Simply being at the feast does not make one a guest 

any more than hanging around in a field of cows makes me a cow. 

I think what I want to leave with you this week is this. We have been offered the opportunity to be part of the greatest gift we can be given: an opportunity to spend the rest of our lives and the rest of eternity with God. It is a free gift that only requires us to take up the invitation. Imagine the joy when we get to share in person the wedding feast promised in Revelation. When we get to meet Jesus face to face and we get to be in the presence of God! But it is not something we can earn! 

I urge you today if you haven’t yet accepted the invitation: Accept it. The God of grace and love is waiting. He wants to give you hope and peace. He wants you to be guest at the greatest party in creation. You just need to say: “Yes. I’ll come!” 

Amen 

The Long View

Sermon

Isaiah 56: 1-8

Matthew 15: 10-28

The Long View

As many of you know I have been selected by the Methodist Church for ministerial training. My training starts in September not all that far away now. But while I am beginning to panic about the work coming up I have also taken the time to stop and reflect on the journey I have been on.

I was asked during my candidating about my call to ministry. More specifically I was asked why now? My answer went something along the lines of “The timing of my present calling followed a 20 year period of reflection”. I was being facetious of course but there was an element of truth in what I said. I originally felt God calling me to ministry when I was 17 but my minister at the time felt that I would best served if I got some life experience first. So I did. 20 years’ worth!   

As I look back over that time I realize that all the effort and time that I will need to put into becoming a minister is only a fragment of all the energy and effort my life has been so far and there is a certain relief in that while the next 5 years will be an incredibly hard slog, I have been through difficult periods before.

In the book of Isaiah the prophet is saying to the returned nation of Israel that although it looks like they have been cut off and separated from the others being returned to Israel that if they keep to the long view they will be accepted. In the Gospel of Matthew we see the Canaanite woman keeping the prophetic long view about how the Gospel would eventually come to those initially excluded from the promises of God.

So we see the Long View is very important. Oscar Romero was the Catholic Archbishop of El Salvador. He was shot by government troops in a chapel of a hospital will celebrating communion. He has become a hero of mine because of a poem he wrote called:” The long View.” I’m going to share that with you now.

It helps, now and then, to step back and take the long view.

The kingdom is not only beyond our efforts, it is beyond our vision.

We accomplish in our lifetime only a tiny fraction of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work.

Nothing we do is complete, which is another way of saying that the kingdom always lies beyond us.

No statement says all that could be said.

No prayer fully expresses our faith.

No confession brings perfection.

No pastoral visit brings wholeness.

No program accomplishes the church’s mission.

No set of goals and objectives includes everything.

That is what we are about:

We plant seeds that one day will grow.

We water seeds already planted, knowing that they hold future promise.

We lay foundations that will need further development.

We provide yeast that produces effects beyond our capabilities.

We cannot do everything and there is a sense of liberation in realizing that.

This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.

It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning, a step along the way, an opportunity for God’s grace to enter and do the rest.

We may never see the end results, but that is the difference between the master builder and the worker.

We are workers, not master builders, ministers, not messiahs.

We are prophets of a future not our own.

What strikes me most about that piece is that we can never fully know what God is doing. How frustrating is that? We are often like children that want to know everything. Unfortunately only God knows what the future holds and what the ultimate reason for everything is. Paul expressed it well when he wrote “But now I see through a mirror dimly.”  But that is the important thing and as soon as we realize that God is in control we can relax and let the work of God begin because we no longer have to worry about who is managing the project that is our lives, our world our faith.

That doesn't mean we do not have obligations. Both the Isaiah passage and the passage in Matthew remind us that while we are not masters of our destiny we are masters of our behaviors and our lives. Both passages remind us that while we cannot see the entire picture we are called to live lives that bring glory to God. Please note I didn't say righteous lives or perfect lives. I didn't say lives that are holy, I said lives that bring God glory.

We need to live lives that reflect the love and Kingdom of God. When people look at us they need to see a people who are so sure that God is in control that they are free to live just the way God wants them to.

Ask yourself this question: When people look at me, do they see the love of God reflected back to them? It’s a horrible question to ask. It points fingers at us and if we are honest the majority of the time we would have to say a resounding no! But then when we look back over the time that God has been involved in our lives we see times when we have reflected God in the most wonderful of ways. The time you sat with someone who was struggling. The time you gave food to a homeless person. The time you prayed for someone and your prayer was answered.

And that should give us hope! Hope and joy that God is faithful and true and while we cannot see what is really happening we can see glimpses. Small peeks into the realm of a truly wonderful God who truly does care.

Don’t let what is around you affect you. God says to the man that has been castrated just because you cannot have children doesn't mean you cannot worship! Jesus affirmed the Canaanite woman’s faith when she believed even though she wasn't a Jew.

Just because you feel insignificant doesn't mean that God cannot use you. Commit yourself to God. Ask him: “What do You, Lord, want me to do for you?” And when he answers do it. Take a step of faith and do it.

And when you do it take the Long View. Remember that every small contribution we make is building something that is so much bigger and greater than anything we could ever imagine. And when the going gets hard hang onto the words that Jesus will say to us when we see him again: “Well done my good and faithful servant. Enter now into your eternal rest.”

Amen.

Journeying

Ruth 1: 1-22

Hebrews 12: 1-6

Ruth

Any journey is daunting. Every journey involves risk and change. We are all on a journey. My journey as a student presbyter started about 2 weeks ago when the Methodist Conference recommended me for ministerial training. As a Church you have been on a journey as you move from being a LEP to a Church with its own identity. As Christians we are always on the journey towards our sanctification and the Kingdom of God.

As Naomi contemplated what lay ahead for her I have no doubt she wondered about what she was leaving behind and heading off to. She was a Hebrew Widow in a foreign country where a woman’s status was measured by who she was married to and how many children she had. She was not a follower of the Moabite religion and so she really had no choice but to go back to Bethlehem. There was also no guarantee that there would be anyone in Bethlehem who would be able to help her.

But she was not alone in her journey. Her daughter in law Ruth chose to go with her and this was a remarkable thing. She was going to a situation that Naomi was leaving. She was going from a country where she would have been cared for by her family to a place where she was a widow with no children with a faith that was not the faith of the country she was going to. In fact Israel was so xenophobic that unless Ruth converted she would no doubt have been killed. But she willingly chose to convert and become a Jew.

So for both Naomi and Ruth the journey they faced was fraught with danger. Moab lay immediately east of the Dead Sea where the country of Jordan lies now. The journey would have lasted over 4 days and covered nearly 100 miles covering territory that was at best dangerous. It was an epic journey for two women no doubt travelling alone.

The writer of the book of Hebrews in his letter to the Jewish Christians and reminding them that they were in it for the long haul. He encourages us to run the race laid before us. The root word of the word used for race is contest or more literally a trek. Good thing because I don’t run. But it’s a reminder that we are in this for the long haul.

I used to do a lot of hiking. I have had the opportunity to walk through some of the most beautiful places. I have seen the sun rise over the Indian Ocean and I have watched the sunset at some ridiculous altitude. But it doesn’t matter where I have been, there are always some things I know I will inevitably face. Hills, bad weather and a less than comfortable nights’ sleep. When it’s pouring down with rain it’s easy to put the hood on your coat up, put your head down and focus on taking the next step. Mountaineers have something called the rest step. You take a step and rest and then you take another one and rest and so on till you get to the summit.

Every walk has its dangers. We walked a trail that involved crossing a river mouth. We had to cross it at low tide otherwise we would have to wait as the water at high tide was over 20 foot deep. I made sure I was the last to cross as I had the most experience and I almost ended swimming across. As I got to the other side the water was up to my waist.

Our Christian walk is the same. We will see amazing sights. We will experience challenges that will change us forever. Jesus never promised us that the way would be easy. On the contrary he promised it would be difficult. He promised that we would be persecuted and that some of us would die for what we believe. What he did promise us is that he would never leave us. Before he was taken up into heaven he promised his disciples “and remember I am with you till the end of the age” (Matt 28:20). 

Climbers on Everest

But the author of Hebrews gives us even more encouragement. He reminds us that we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses, those who have gone before who are cheering us on. A friend of mine is a professional mountain guide and regularly guides on Mount Everest, the highest mountain in the world. There is modern tradition that when a new expedition arrives at base camp everyone else will gather around and cheer them in. Those coming off the mountain are always given a round of applause as they come back. When it gets hard a number of climbers have said they have clung to the thought of the applause as they come back to base camp.

Those witnesses around us who are watching us from the throne room of God have been there and done it. They have struggled through the difficult times, through the times of doubt and even death. And they know what their reward is. They are living the promises of God. But it takes faith. Naomi had faith in her people. Ruth had faith in Naomi. The same author of Hebrews describes faith as “evidence of things unseen and a hope of things to come” Hebrews 11:1.

When the going is tough and it feels like we can go no further we must hold fast to the promises of God. We must put up our hoods, put our heads down and take a step. Knowing that our end is certain like Naomi and Ruth we take the step and start to walk.

Amen

The promise of Pentecost

Acts 1: 9-26

I have this wonderful image that comes to me whenever I think about the Ascension. I imagine all the disciples standing there looking at the sky as Jesus goes to be with the Father. No one has noticed that they are joined by two extra people. I wonder how long they all stood there before the angels spoke to them. They would have been taken by surprise I’m sure. And then they go back to the upper room and start the process of being a Church. They start the process of becoming something completely new, in the world but not of it. They will become the greatest force for change in the world leaving a legacy that will still be standing the test of time nearly 2000 years after they have all been promoted to glory.

Fast forward to 2014 and we stand on the eve of another Pentecost and I think we are still, like the early disciples, looking at the sky wondering what’s going to happen next. I often wonder where we went from being a world-changing group of people to people keeping the status quo.

We look at the statistics and we see a Church that is keeping afloat. We have had some dramatic drops in numbers coming to Church but recently those numbers have started to rise. Even in my own denomination, the Methodist Church, I see how the drop in numbers is affecting the very structure of the church. A friend of mine is being taken out of full time Chaplaincy development and being put back into Church life because they can no longer afford to keep the staffing levels in the Chaplaincy Development as they are. The euphemism used is restructuring.

But before I drive us all to drink with depression about the eminent demise of the Church we need to look to Pentecost because therein lies the message of hope for us all. You see the one thing that stands out for me in the Pentecost is how the disciples’ perspective was changed from one of being insular and self-protecting to one of taking the message of Christ and of hope to the world who in the words of Jesus “hated them because of the truth within them.”

And because I am a chaplain who has the privilege of supporting 70 chaplains across the county of Kent I see chaplaincy as the ultimate expression of Pentecost. Because the role of the Christian chaplain is to take the love and gospel of Christ to a world that doesn't know or is hostile to the truth in us. We don’t necessarily do it like Peter did, addressing big crowds. We tend to do it like Paul, who had conversations with people, encouraging them to look at the Gospel because we show that there is more to Christianity than words.

But being so outward focussed places the chaplain in a place of tension. One of the questions the chaplains I serve and I get asked regularly is: “If you are doing such a good job of showing the love of God, why aren’t we seeing more people in Church?” The answer lies in the Great Commission. We are called to make disciples not grow churches. We are not called as chaplains, or Christians for that matter, to ensure the survival of a club.  

Archbishop William Temple is reported to have said that the Church is the only organisation that exists for the benefit of its non-members. 

More recently Rob Bell wrote:

The Church does not exist for itself; it exists to serve the world. It’s not ultimately about the church; it’s about all the people God wants to bless through the church. When the church loses sight of this, it loses its heart. (Taken from Velvet Elvis pg 165)

Gerard Hughes wrote this is his book God of surprises:

Christ cannot…really be present in a congregation whose energies and interests are focussed on themselves, and who do not show as a body and as individuals, an interest and compassion for the needs of the immediate neighbourhood, and a consciousness that the congregation exists, as a Christian group, to serve the needs of others. (God of surprises pg. 132)

Our function as other have said more eloquently than me that we are there for the benefit of others. At a meeting recently I had the opportunity to open the meeting with the devotions and my reading was the reading in Matthew in which Jesus calls Matthew and then has dinner with “sinners”. When confronted by the teachers of the law, Jesus’ reply is as always a classic: “it is not the well, who need a doctor but the sick.”

And that is the joy and the promise of Pentecost. We become obsessed with sharing the love and hope of Christ and then it no longer about bums on seats but about the Kingdom of God and we truly all become chaplains in the truest sense of the word.

Amen

Sermon: 06.04.14

We are quickly coming up to Easter and the most important festival in the Christian Church. The four days that make up Easter are the most pivotal in history. And in case you think I can’t count I’ve included Maundy Thursday in that as without the events before Good Friday, Easter wouldn’t exist. And it is because Easter is so important it often is called into question. The last 200 years have seen a huge assault on the authenticity of the Easter accounts with all sorts of alternatives being put forward because the Easter story is about a man who died and then rose from the dead.

I have been asked if Easter really happened the way the Bible tells us it did. Was it not a legend spun out by the followers of Jesus? And so today I want to look at sharing some of the information I have learnt reading up about this very special time in the life of the Church.

Before I start I am indebted to Lee Strobel and his book “The Case for Easter” in providing the starting point for my journey into the authenticity of the Easter Account.

Secular arguments regarding the Easter accounts fall into three main categories:

1) Christ never died
2) There isn’t enough evidence to prove the tomb was actually empty
3) The crucified Christ was never seen by anyone after he was supposedly resurrected.

Before I briefly deal with each one of these objections I must quickly explain by the Easter story is so crucial to the life of the Church. And the answer is this: Without Easter there would be no Church and so if someone could discredit the Easter Story then the very basis of Christianity is discredited. Do away with Easter and suddenly Jesus is no longer the Son of God crucified, buried and resurrected but a pious Rabbi who died for no apparent reason other a misguided belief in …

We have two readings (John 19: 12-19, 28-30, 33-37; 1 Corinthians 15: 3-8). One of the very earliest and one of the last books written in the Bible. 1 Corinthians has been dated as being written between 53 and 57 AD. Most biblical scholars will be more accurate and date it to 56 AD. The earliest fragment of 1 Corinthians has been carbon dated to before 70 AD and so for all sorts of reasons we can day fairly accurately that the copy of 1 Cor. we have today is accurate.

The gospel of John is dated to after 70 AD with some scholars suggesting it could have been written earlier. The earliest fragment we have of John is dated to before 200 AD so again we can assume the account to be accurate.

If both the readings are accurate then it stands to reason that using them to prove the accuracy of the Easter account shouldn’t be too difficult.

So let’s start with the first objection:

1) Jesus never died
As early as the beginning of Islam, theories have abounded about Jesus being crucified but not actually dying. It’s often referred to as the “Swoon Theory”. The idea behind it is that Jesus didn’t actually die on the cross but that he fainted or was drugged and so when he was taken down from the cross he was revived and so was able to appear as if he had risen from the dead.
A scholar by the name of Alexander Metherill is classed as an expert in the fields of Medicine and bio-engineering and has written a lot about the Crucifixion.
Metherill says there are three reasons why he believes that the Gospel accounts for the death of Jesus are accurate:

1.1) The Gospel accounts are medically accurate. The physical symptoms described in the Gospel accounts would actually have happened to Jesus while he was being crucified. The blood and water, John describes for instance, is actually a condition called Cardiac and Pleural Effusion. This occurs when a person died from hypovolemic shock caused by extreme blood loss. There is no way John could have known this had he not been there. The descriptions of Jesus pain, suffering and physical weakness are all indications of someone who is dying.

1.2) The Roman soldiers were very good at their job.  They weren’t very good at compassion but they were very good at killing people and have had plenty of experience of seeing dead people. Besides it was their job to make sure that those on the cross were dead. That was why they broke the legs of those who were dying slowly. To make sure they were going to die. They had no reason to believe that Jesus wasn’t dead. They would have known and so when they saw Jesus was dead didn’t need to go the effort of breaking his legs

1.3) There were too many witnesses alive that could testify to the death of Jesus at the time the Gospels and 1 Corinthians were written for it to be wrong. Paul mentions a great list of people in his account in 1 Corinthians. The majority of people he mentions were alive at this time and no doubt the details would have gotten back to those mentioned. Should the accounts in the Gospels and the Corinthians reading been wrong then I’m sure someone would have mentioned it.

2) Was the tomb really empty?

There are all sorts of objections to the Empty tomb. Sceptics will raise all sorts of objections to the Gospel accounts of the empty tomb. These range from Jesus wasn’t buried in the tomb the gospels describe, to the disciples stealing the body, to the account of the first Easter morning being added to the Gospels as a legend.

If the Gospel accounts are accurate then the question of the Empty Tomb must be accurate as well. There are a number of reasons that all the objections raised above would be wrong.

2.1) Jesus wasn’t buried in the tomb the Gospels describe.
This is probably the easiest to deal with. If Jesus was buried in a different tomb, when the disciples proclaimed the tomb empty, the authorities would have just pointed them to the right tomb. But Luke tells us that the women who followed Jesus, followed Joseph of Arimethea to the tomb to prepare the body. They knew where he was buried and were unlikely to forget where he was buried in two days.

2.2) The Disciples stole the body
The irony of this objection is that this is the story the Jewish Leaders told the soldiers at the tomb to say when the report came back that the tomb was empty. However unlikely this was it still persists but the question has to be asked: “Why would a group of people who abandoned Jesus while he was alive, risk their lives to steal his body back?” It makes no sense but the suggestion still makes its way to the surface today nearly 2000 years after the lie was first reported to have been told.

I think it’s important to point out that the Jewish Leaders weren’t particularly surprised to hear the tomb was empty. In fact the way Matthew records the account it was something they fully expected. Again this is significant because if this wasn’t the case there would have been enough people around to have pointed out the obvious mistake.

2.3) The Empty tomb is simply a legend.

This is a more modern question and is based on the argument that the Gospels were written a long time after the event took place. An American Author William Lane Craig is a renowned expert on the resurrection and has put a lot into countering this argument.

Craig defends the empty tomb from the accusation of the Legend by comparing the Canonical Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John) with gospels written later in the life of the Church (Gospels such as the Gospel of Peter, Judas and Thomas). He shows that the accounts in the Canonical Gospels are very simple with none of the hyperbole and drama found in the later Gospels. In fact many of the apocryphal accounts of the Resurrection of Jesus including Jesus bursting forth from the ground with light and power and angels and things. The Gospels are simple because there were simply too many people around who would be able to stand up for the truth. Legends can only occur when those who have witnessed the event are dead. Not possible when you consider the dates of the Gospels.

3) The third question that needs to be asked is while the tomb may have been empty did Jesus actually rise from the dead

Someone has pointed out that there is no written account of the resurrection. And in fact they are right. When Christ was resurrected there wasn’t anyone sitting there writing down everything that happened. However Science deals with cause and effect. No one was there at the Big Bang but by studying the effects of the Big Bang scientists can be reasonably certain it occurred. The same principles can be applied to the resurrection. There may not have been anyone there at the moment the stone rolled away but everything that has happened as a result is more than enough proof that the resurrection. The fact that Jesus was alive, was something the apostles truly believed because they were witnesses to this very fact. It is highly unlikely that they would have willingly suffered and died for a hallucination or a lie.

However the strongest proof comes from the Gospels and the 1 Corinthians passage. Here is some interesting information about the passage in Corinthians. Biblical scholars have put forward that Paul is actually quoting a common creed that the Church had adopted at the time. He added his bit at the end for emphasis. If that is the case then Paul is quoting a piece of teaching that had been around longer than Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. The fact that Paul quotes this earliest of creeds suggests that this particular creed had been around at least twenty or thirty years after the death and resurrection of Jesus. A liberal Biblical Scholar Joachim Jeremias refers to this particular passage as “the earliest tradition of all.”

There is the possibility that this particular creed could be dated to around the mid 30’s AD. Paul may have been taught this creed by the first apostles when he went to study under them. This is something he talks about in his letter to the Galatians Chapter 1. The word Paul uses if Historeo which translates as being taught.

I must admit that Lee Strobel gives over half of his book to this particular question while I have given less than a third of my time to this. However there is a lot out there should anyone be interested. A good start id Josh McDowells book: “Evidence that demands a verdict.” It may seem like a lot but Peter encourages us to always have a ready defence for the hope in us. Sometimes it is worth getting the answers for the questions we face because they are being asked and we need to answer them.
Amen.

Sermon for Mothering Sunday

Scripture is full of people who have taken a risk for God. In Exodus 1, we read of the Hebrew midwives who spared the lives of male Hebrew baby boys. We read of Hannah in Samuel and Esther in, well, the book of Esther. We read of Deborah, the judge, Mary Magdalene, who was the first to meet the resurrected Jesus. Lydia, the mother of Timothy. But in the 2 biblical passages (Exodus 2, Luke 2:33-35) I believe we have two of the most remarkable women in history. Both these women have helped shape the world as we know it. Both women were mothers to sons who would forever change the world.

Jochebed was the name of the woman who gave birth to Moses and then in a twist of fate became his nanny. Mary was the name of the young Jewish girl who took the risk of believing God and becoming the mother of the saviour of the world: Jesus. I don’t think I need to mention what impact both men had on history.

We know more about Mary than we do about Jochebed. History has been much kinder to mother of Jesus than to the mother of Moses but looking at both women we see two ladies who took amazing risks and whose courage saved the world. Imagine how history would be different should Moses’ mother not taken the risk of putting Moses into the basket or if Mary had not accepted the miracle growing in her. How hard was it for both women knowing they were looking after children that weren’t really their own in a number of ways. For Jochebed, while Moses was hers, she had to raise him as if he was an Egyptian Prince. Mary had a son, whom she conceived but I think she understood that in reality she was raising a son who wasn’t hers. But both loved them as only a mother could.

Traditionally, Christianity has always seen God as a male figure but in the last 30 or so years (with the rise of feminism) the concept of Mother God has gained a certain amount of credence in many circles. I’m not particularly keen on the idea of Mother God for a number of reasons, primarily because it has too much in common with the Mother Earth Religions of Paganism and New Age philosophies. But there is no doubt that God has feminine qualities. The Bible is full of feminine images for God. The term El-Shaddai is possibly derived from the Hebrew word from breast and is translated as the more common "mountain" hence God the Mountain. But the Scriptures talk of God as a mother, as a midwife, as a provider and the list goes on and on.

But before I confuse everyone and make everyone think I’m a crackpot loony I want everyone to understand that my understanding of the love of God is through my Mother. And so seeing God as having feminine qualities sits quite easily with me. My father died just before my fourth birthday. I have the odd memory of a man who was kind and gentle but other than the single photo I have of him and the stories from my mother and family I have no recollection of my biological father. I have had to work hard on the idea of God as Father. Books like “The Father heart of God” may as well be written in a foreign language because I do not have the reference points of a Father. It was my mother who raised me as a single mom and so I relate better to the female of usGod than I do the male.

And so my mother has something in common with both Mary and Jochebed. Church history tells us that Jesus’ earthly father Joseph died fairly early in the life of Jesus. We have Biblical record of Moses father but I have little doubt that he didn’t have a lot to do with Moses and so more than likely Moses didn’t know his father. All these women worked tirelessly against some extremely challenging circumstances. My mom raising two boys on her own, Mary looking after a rather substantial family on her own and Jochebed raising her own son as someone else’s.

My mother would say she was taking a risk moving away from her family to ensure that she could get a job to raise us. I think my mother would be mortified if she heard me put her in the same category as Mary and Jochebed, but I think I see in all these women people who have the characteristic of a God who is willing to risk everything for us. Most women would consider their love for their children as the most natural thing in the world but I think loving children is an extremely risky thing to do because there are no guarantees that they will love us back and so mothers show possibly the greatest characteristic of God: the ability to love so deeply it hurts and to love so freely they would die for their children because mothers like God are willing to risk it all for their children.

Amen