Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 14 April 2024.
• First Reading: Acts 3: 12-19 (Repent then and turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord)
• Epistle: 1 John 3: 1-7 (He appeared so that He might take away our sins)
• Gospel: Luke 24: 36-48 (Then He opened their minds so that they could understand the scriptures)
I think that I have always been a sceptic. I have always been rather wary of the crowd, never quite sure where it was going to lead me and certainly not sure whether its aims were the same as mine.
The blind adulation in sport and entertainment, the herd-like mentality of some political movements, the rather simplistic assumptions that underlie some kinds of conversations all leave me a little bewildered: not so much lost as uncertain about the directions of events and current attitudes.
If a change is proposed, then let it be set forth and examined. It does not have to be taken on trust. It can be looked into, and its assumptions and implications can be questioned.
And this is a paradox, certainly for the life of faith in Jesus Christ. But then I am following One whom I know and who knows me, so that there is no place for evasion or pretence. The Lord knows me far too thoroughly for that.
But yes, faith comes out of that relationship with Jesus Christ, and there is none other who can offer what He offers. I have known it in my life and definitely in the number of times I have fallen short and He has picked me up to start again.
But then there are today’s lessons and they all involve starting again in one way or another.
In the gospel, Jesus presents Himself to His disciples, cowering behind a locked door, wondering what was coming next. They had heard rumours of His appearances, but in the absence of anything more substantial were inclined to doubt.
Only as Jesus stood before them and invited them to inspect His wounds, and as He spoke to them, eating a piece of fish, did their fears subside.
But having convinced them that He was real, Jesus then set about teaching them. The scriptures contained more about Him than they had guessed or discerned, and Jesus wanted them to see Him with the eyes but also to know Him in the heart and understand Him with the mind.
Once they had come to that place of loving Him with the mind, could they then speak of Him to others, especially when the others were hostile and possibly threatening. Certainly skeptical.
This was the beginning of a new kind of service to the Lord which the disciples were being prepared for. They would speak of what they had seen and heard, and they would also speak of what they knew and understood.
They would have a message of hope that sins might be acknowledged personally and then set aside by God. The one would follow the other but there must be that initial desire to be reconciled with God in the first place.
Repentance and faith would go together – as would forgiveness and reconciliation.
Peter was definitely explaining this to the crowds of Jerusalem. They had delivered Jesus up to be crucified, asking for a murderer to be released to them instead. They might have been following their leaders blindly, and were ready to be stirred up into riotous frenzy, but they were still blinded and deafened to the truth of who and what Jesus was.
Now they had the opportunity to think again, having seen the evidence of a man healed and restored to normal life. Peter had disowned any personal merit, placing it all before Jesus, now risen and ascended. There was no room – either for doubt or for personal self-glorification.
The people had seen the healing – now was the time for them to turn their lives around and to acknowledge the thing that God had done in their midst.
So: repent, turn to God so that you sins may be wiped out.
Writing to the church as a whole, John also urged them to see again who they had become – the Children of God – and to live within that truth.
They had a new identity and purpose, and a new way of looking at themselves. Many things in their lives were already changed and even those more difficult areas could yet be brought before Jesus in their hearts.
His aim would be to make them all like Him, so that they may reflect His glory. In this He would bring those most difficult memories and relationships, habits and atitudes before His throne.
The bruised He would soothe, the broken He would heal. The dying He would revive, the guilt-ridden He would reconcile.
The dull of heart and of mind He would teach and refresh, and those without aim or purpose, He would redirect.
When Jesus brought His blessing of peace to the fearful disciples, He brought it to all areas of life. The healing and wholeness, the peace and plenty were there for the mind and the heart, the conscience and the intellect.
Jesus is doing the same today, for each of us and for all of us. He meets us in the scriptures, and in the breaking of bread, as we gather together before Him and as we share in that communion in which we relive with Him that atonement He has made for us.
But then He also sends us out into a broken and bleeding world, again with that message of hope and forgiveness. Repent and believe.
