Sermon by Rev Sydney Maitland for Sunday 3 April 2022.
• First Reading: Isaiah 43: 16-21 (See, I am doing a new thing)
• Psalm 126
• Epistle: Philippians 3: 4b-14 (‘I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus’)
• Gospel: John 12: 1-8 (Jesus anointed at Bethany)
A child looks forward to Christmas – the decorations and the Christmas tree, the presents, the food and the family gathering together.
The engaged couple look forward to the wedding day but are busy thinking about what married life will be like – the home that they will establish and their lives within it.
The candidate for an interview is thinking about the coming encounter, the presentation to be made and is wanting to have some intelligent questions to ask the panel.
We have all been in places where we are looking forward – often gladly but maybe with some anxiety. And our lessons are all about anticipating something.
In the Old Testament, the picture is of a people stranded in a desert or wilderness. No refuge, no water, no greenery. A landscape full of nothingness – and they can only see more of the same.
But God is saying something else. Where the people see barrenness God sees a land renewed with living water. Where there are the bones of dead animals God sees the land teeming with life. Where there are dry waterholes, God sees springs bubbling forth.
Where the people see hopelessness and death, God has a vision of life for them – life in its fulness where His people may be refreshed and renewed in faith and hope in His purposes.
This is the anticipation of the prophet who in the midst of despair sees the purposes of God and proclaims them joyfully.
The people do not have to be defined by the wilderness around them because they may also be defined by the hope and the vision that God has for them.
In the Epistle, Paul writes of a paradox – a simple set of life expectations that have now been turned on their heads.
Like anyone, he would have been looking for a comfortable lifestyle and respect in the community. Enough to live on and yet to be able to support good causes without feeling resentful.
His position had been privileged: born a Roman citizen, educated in the rabbinical schools to a high standard and respected among the Jews.
Paul had it all going for him and yet turned his back on it all because he had seen something greater and infinitely more valuable. This was a treasure that would last, not just without the decay of years but beyond death itself.
Whatever Paul had enjoyed before, without his personal knowledge of and commitment to Jesus Christ this was all useless scrap. None if it would or even could last whereas he now saw a prize far greater than all he could get through his social advantages.
By finding himself again in Jesus Christ, Paul had indeed been born again and he had a new life and a new identity. He looked at new horizons and in the landscape before him there were features that he had never noticed before.
Whatever he had enjoyed, it was now sour and tasteless in the face of the new life he had in Jesus Christ. This was the lens through which he saw his life and the society around him.
Whatever held him back from this vision, Paul would lay aside. Whatever helped him to it the more perfectly, Paul would take up and embrace joyfully and with full force.
For Jesus the anticipation was different. He was not relaxing His pursuit of His mission and He was certainly not holding back from His work of atonement.
He saw the cross only too clearly and yet was still advancing towards it when normal people would avoid it at all costs. And yet here was Mary the sister of Lazarus pouring costly oil over Him, scandalizing Judas and others.
No, said Jesus, there is nothing amiss here. The feet that would be nailed to a cross were now being honoured. The feet that had carried the gospel message up and down and across Judea and Galilee, that had known fatigue and cold and blistering heat were now being cared for, tended, respected and even loved. The abuse would come in good time.
Mary was looking at Jesus’ feet and seeing something more than flesh and blood. Here was God made Man, and she was worshipping Him as none other had.
Those scandalized in the name of the poor would have plenty of chances to do something about it but this moment was special.
For all of us there is that sense of anticipation as we look at the state of our land and of the world. It is easy to be taken up with war in Europe, the cost of living at home and the state of the of the world’s environment.
But our lessons are pointing us to something else and something more. It is that wherever we are God is leading us into something more.
God believes in us and trusts us – but is wanting us also to believe and trust in Him. In spite of all the fears of our time, He has not lost sight of us and He also looks to us to receive from Him that sense of a future and a hope.
God’s future for us is that secured in Jesus Christ. God’s hope for us is found as we commit ourselves to Him and look for His purposes among us.
Even as we deal with the tasks of the day and bring order and peace to the fears of the night.
