This sermon was delivered Gordon McCulloch to the congregation at Holy Trinity in Ayr, Ayrshire, Scotland on the 28th April 2019; Holy Trinity is a Scottish Episcopal Church in the Dioceses of Glasgow and Dumfries.
Acts 5:27-32 Revelation 1:4-8 John 20:19-31 Psalm 118:14-29
“Please join me in a short prayer.” Let the words of my mouth, and the meditation of our hearts, be acceptable in your sight, O Lord, our strength, and our redeemer. Amen. (Ps. 19:14)
Introduction
For most teachers in school today, they are now entering the final the term, the spring term … in what many see as the wind down before the summer holidays. … I can assure you, it is not a wind down, I dislike this term with a passion as there is so much to be done, and the catching up on the things that should have been done. … You see, we have just completed the busy school year for our certification classes; we have just prepared them for their final exams, exams that will play a major part in their future … and as you can imagine, it’s a task that is made difficult by the increasing red tape, (the paper work) … and the appalling attitude of our kids today, as they just seem so ungrateful.
Today is known as low Sunday, it’s the week after Easter, and for me, the start of this dreadful term, and it really gets to me … and it is made worse by many of my friends who are retired, and who have been cooped up all winter, all excited about spring time … whereas I feel like I have just done a long nightshift, and I just want to go to my bed.
Now many of you will be all excited by this spring season, which is good, but what I am trying to explain is the feeling we all get when we are just so drained of energy, and still have a busy time ahead of us. … I know that I am not the only one moaning these days, ask anyone who is working, because they will all tell you that they are struggling too … more now than ever, in fact most people working today will tell you, that they have never worked so hard, for so little, and be so unappreciated at the same time. … That is the truth of our modern society, with all our modern technology, with all our labour saving devices.
And if you are not working, you must be feeling the effects on you, of those around you who are working. They just never seem to have that time for anything anymore, and it may come across as selfishness, whereas it is really, over-work and stress. … I have never seen anything like it, and to what end.
And it’s a horrible feeling when we are forced to say, or hear someone saying “I just don’t know how I can get through another week, or another day, or another … whatever”.
How were the disciples feeling?
That then takes into today’s Gospel story … and we wonder, what were the disciples like after Jesus was crucified, I mean they must have been feeling far worse … how were they going to get through the next few days, let alone months or even years … because they had completely given up, and lost everything by following Jesus, the new messiah.
I mean , their world as they knew it, was being radically changed by Jesus … their belief system was completely turned upside down, being in direct opposition to their Jewish roots, and whose leaders were now out to destroy them. … They also led a life of not knowing what to expect next … they also had to deal and support Jesus with the difficult crowds who were also being introduced to this new Christian religion …. and their many questions that must have been asked … and then, to top it all … their master, Jesus, is suddenly and shamefully crucified on a cross for a crime that he did not commit. … That is worse than anything we are going through … those disciples were devastated … they were scared out their wits, and that is why we find them in that locked room, not knowing what to do next.
When Jesus was crucified, everything fell apart, and to the disciples, it wasn’t supposed to be that way, because they had given up everything to follow him, follow him to the new Promised Land … not to watch him being crucified for something that he did not do. … They were drained to say the least, they were gutted, and now they were lost.
And it was just when it felt like that it could not get any worse, that Jesus miraculously appeared to them in that room, and forever changed their lives … all hope had been restored, because Jesus had conquered death. … Can you imagine the joy they must have felt? … They were suddenly empowered, all hope had been restored and more, and the future became so appealing … there were now ready to take on the might of the Jewish leaders, the Roman Empire and even entire world, and … they just could not wait to get started.
What happened? What changed them? How did Jesus restore their faith, when only a moment ago, all was lost? … To me the answer is simple, Jesus proved to them that there is life after death, that he was living proof coming back from the dead in that way … and that all his teaching was sound … everything that he had taught them was true, and he was now beside them to continuing that journey.
1. We are humbled.
In our reading this morning, it details that moment where everything seemed to make sense … and it all started by Jesus getting their attention, in the same way he gets our attention, by humbling us, making us feel inadequate … in a way that we are not relying on our own resources, but relying on him; fully appreciating the grace that he is about to pour out on us. …
Now in some-ways, that may seem unfair and unchristian like but if you think about it, if we are not feeling low, and powerless, we are not going to appreciate anything that is going to be done for us. I mentioned earlier that our kids at school are so ungrateful, given that we do everything for them … but they are so ungrateful because they have no idea what we are doing for them, and they will never know until they meet the big bad world for themselves.
Likewise with Jesus, he wants us to know, what he is doing for us … that way we are following him, and not our own selfish desires regardless of how noble we think we are. He knows what is best for both him and us, and we will never grow in him unless we are sensitive to him working in our lives. … The lord is constantly seeking our attention, so that we can be disciplined … disciplined not to be punished, but disciplined to learn, discipline as in disciples, disciplined unto glory. …
2. Jesus met them in the place where they were at.
Anyway, the next thing that Jesus does when He gets our attention, is to meet us in exactly where we are. The disciples were scared to death, hiding in a room with the doors locked, doubting everything they had been taught, when suddenly Jesus appears to them and greets them … probably with a smile.
Jesus met them in the place where they were at … but notice they didn’t recognise him at first, possibly because they were not looking for him, so it is important then that when we are in those dark places, we need to start looking for him to guide us free.
3. There is no condemnation for us.
Next, and if the Lord is to meet us where we are at, what would be his first response? … Well I think he would say, what he said to the disciplines that day, “Peace be with you” … and I love this … in other words … “Calm down … it all right, it’s going to be ok”. … Yes? … Well notice what He didn’t say or didn’t do … Jesus could have walked into the room and said … “Why did you leave me? … When I needed you, you bolted … and you two, you fell asleep when I asked you to pray … and you, you denied me three times. … And here you all are, hiding like the cowards that you are”. … No, Jesus didn’t find fault, he didn’t tear them of a strip, instead he says, “Peace be unto you”. … Why … because he understood their confusion, he understood their situation.
Nobody understands how we feel, only him … in fact he understands how we feel, more than we understand how we feel. He knows exactly what we are going through so He can relate to us at that very moment.
There’s nothing we can’t talk to God about. … There is nothing too big or too small, too insignificant to talk to him about, because He understands everything we are feeling at every moment of our lives, and that is quite scary. … But we need not fear holding anything back from him, because he is not going to condemn us … we might condemn ourselves, and we do … but we will not be condemned by him. That is Christianity!
One of my favourite verses in the New Testament is Romans Chapter 8 verse 1 which says, and we should all know this verse … “there is therefore no condemnation for us who are in Christ Jesus”, and if you don’t know that verse, learn it. … We can totally unload ourselves to the Lord, expecting encouragement in return … whether we deserve it or not. No matter what we are facing, we must hand it over to the Lord.
4. The sacrifice made by Jesus.
Next, when Jesus showed the disciples the holes in his hand and feet … he was not only identifying Himself as Jesus … he was showing them how much he loved them, he was showing them the pain he endured, not just for them, not just for the whole world back then, but whole world in perpetuity; for us in this present day and age … and for those in the future still to come. What a sacrifice … but a sacrifice that allowed our sins to be forgiven, and set us on a path to meet with him after death in heaven.
And when we know that love of God, it doesn’t matter what is going on in our lives, what we are going through … our peace and our joy come not from the circumstances of our lives, but from our relationship with him … and if he is showing us the holes in his hands, he wants us to show him the holes in our hands, so that he can enable us to rise above them.
5. Forgiveness
Next, Jesus also offers us forgiveness … and people in general, just don’t understand nor appreciate the effectiveness of forgiveness … forgiveness allows us to drop those things that are praying on our minds, (whether on a conscious or a sub conscious level). … You know, we cannot be guilty and happy at the same time, can we? ... We cannot be resentful at someone or something in their presence, and be filled with joy at the same time, it is impossible.
We all live in an imperfect world like I said the last time ... a world full of sin … and sometimes we are the ones hurting others, (probably not intentionally), but we all do it. Ask our spouses, they will tell you. … We don’t always do the right thing … we try … but we fail so many times and in doing so, we hurt others … and if and when we realise that … we feel guilty, and guilt leads to condemnation, condemnation of ourselves, and sometimes of those around us.
It’s human nature, but the guilt we show over the things we have done wrong, or the resentment over the things that have been done wrong to us … are the things that keep us stuck emotionally … draining our energies and confusing our thoughts … and so we have to let them go somehow … and that is best done by leaving it at the altar, and start to life our lives free from that condemnation we put ourselves under.
Are you hearing me, they is a lot in there … and we all know that this is the answer, but we also need to be remind of this. … If we are ever going to be happy in our lives, we must learn to drop things, to learn to let things go, (not everything though), but those things that are holding us back, and that is normally the resentment we know in its various forms.
How do we let go, well that is the great secret … and it takes a lot of courage at first, but that secret lies in … forgiveness and nothing else … forgiving others whether they deserve it or not, and most of all, forgiving ourselves for letting those hurts eat away at us from the inside. … I am not saying we let others walk over us, no no no, quite the opposite … we should never put up with any nonsense, but we are not to let anything get to us in return, to grind us down by feeling any kind of hurt … and then letting that hurt eat away at us from the inside. … What I am trying to say here this morning is that the root of all freedom lies in our ability to forgive … and then move on.
Forgiveness is the key to happiness. … Psalm 32 and you will like this, “Blessed (or happy), is the person whose sins are forgiven and whose wrongs are pardoned. Happy is the person whom the Lord does not consider guilty any more”. … Because of the cross and the resurrection, we have been completely forgiven, and if we are forgiven by God, he then wants us to be so empowered, that we can share and extend that forgiveness to others.
6. Peace within us.
Next, Jesus said I don’t want to just be with you, I want to be in you; verse 22, “Then Jesus breathed on them and He said to them, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit”. This simply means that the Holy Spirit, God’s power and presence, is deep within us, deep within our lives if only we knew.
When the Spirit came, the disciples realized they were no longer alone in this world … that God was with them, and in them, so that when they were troubled they could look deep within themselves for that comfort from the lord, that He is with them, and he is with us, because that is what keeps us going. … And we all know that it in our darkest hours, that he is really with us all the time; that is why we are here this morning to worship him, because he is alive within … regardless of what we are going through.
And this sense of peace cannot be explained in any other way, it takes away the loneliness, the doubt, the hurt, and restores hope for the futures knowing that “we are in him, and that he is in us”, 1 John 14:13.
7. Hope for the future.
And finally, if we have that peace within our hearts, this then will give us hope, hope for the future … because all of us need something greater than ourselves to push us beyond ourselves, lives hindered by our own thoughts and limitations, lives that will be enhanced by discovering that peace and that understanding of what he wants us to do.
God’s plan for our lives is far greater than any plan that we could ever think of for ourselves … and the great proof of this is in thinking of all the things in our lives that did not go according to our plans. What those plans are for our lives, are rarely understand by us, but they are understood by him … as he is the one leading us on to his purposes, and his glory … and I suppose ultimately it is to our glory as well.
Conclusion.
That is what Jesus did with those disciples that day. … They started off being devastated, guilt-ridden, fearful and lost … they were defeated before they even started … then Jesus appeared to them and said, “as the Father sent Me, I now send you.” In that moment, he recharged their batteries, lifted their spirits and empowered their very existence.
They were now equipped to take on the world … and transform it … and this they did. This little group of uneducated simple men, went out and spread the Gospel all over the Middle East and within 300 years it overtaken the mighty Roman Empire … and today, Christianity, in its various forms, has a following of 2.5 billion people. … And I think this is quite poignant, because looking back, we see a world transformed by those fearful disciples.
It therefore it does not matter how bad things have become for us, because of Jesus, because of the cross, there is always hope, hope to change circumstances, hope to change our lives, and hope to change the world … if only we knew.
Amen
