Friday, January 19, 2018

Epiphany 3 Jesus Calls Us

 Now when John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”  Three points: “The time is fulfilled. The kingdom of God has come near. Repent, and believe in the good news.”

The time is fulfilled. All of human history prepared for a day on a lake shore, the shore of a fresh water lake between Egypt and Syria, near the main road between Africa and Asia, a lake big enough to support commercial fishing, 64 square miles, 13 by 8 miles, the lowest freshwater lake on earth.  God is not only God the creator of all that is; God is creator of particular things and particular people.  

Human history began in in east Africa about 200,000 years ago. People moved to Egypt and Mesopotamia to about 50,000 years ago. We began to farm about 10,000 years ago, began to use metal tools and write things down about 5,000 years ago. Abraham lived about 1500 years before Christ, the Exodus was about 1250 years before Christ, David about 1000, the Assyrian conquest of the northern kingdom 722. The Babylonian exile began in 586 and formally ended in 538 when Cyrus the Persia set the exiles free to return. Alexander the Great conquered from Greece to India to Egypt around 333.  In 165 the Maccabean revolt brought the rededication of the Jerusalem Temple - celebrated at Hanukkah. Jesus knew Roman military occupation. all of human history prepared for a day on a lake shore.

The time is fulfilled. Every day God’s time is fulfilled. Every day someone is born and someone dies. Under the Deerfield main staircase sits a green marble topped French Provincial chest of drawers. On it are placed framed pictures of residents when they die. Living residents irreverently call it the check-out counter. For each of us every day our time to come to love and serve our Lord Jesus Christ is fulfilled.

The kingdom of God has come near. The kingdom has come near. The kingdom is not here. In every age we face the temptation to over-identify our wills with the will of God. The kingdom of God includes all God’s children who love and serve him, all of us who claim our place in God’s kingdom by conversion and baptism. In the life and teachings of Jesus, in his death and resurrection, God’s kingdom draws near. As we come to the communion rail we claim again the place in God’s kingdom Jesus has secured for us by his death on the cross and his resurrection from the empty tomb.

We claim that place as we obey Jesus’ command to repent and believe the good news. As Martin Luther reminded us we are justified and forgiven sinners – simul justus et peccator. We rejoice in the good news that in Jesus Christ God forgives our sins and sets us right with him. We are assured by St. John 3:16 “For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” That is the proclamation of the good news.

Christians are often right in what we affirm, but we get into trouble when we try to deny. Preachers who affirm salvation by grace received through faith are frequently tempted also to a false negative. If all who believe are saved, then what about those who do not believe? The natural human response is to say that those who do not believe are damned. But the natural human response is wrong. The Bible does not condemn. In St. Matthew 5:11-12 , Jesus says “Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely, for my sake.  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.  The most we can say about those who do not believe is that they do not believe. We have to leave the state of their souls to the mercy and love of God.

Jesus went on to call his first four apostles: Peter and Andrew, James and John. As we will sing in the Hymn of the Day, “Jesus calls us.” 

“The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.”  

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