16th Feb sermon from 1 Cor 15.12-2- & Luke 6.17-26
This is a sermon about Hope. About getting hope, making sure you’re topped up with hope, being aware of when you’re struggling and could do with some more hope.
Last week I bumped into someone in the street who doesn’t like our church, doesn’t like the CofE, and wanted to tell me about it loudly in the street. I had a go at apologising and offering a bit of an explanation which was not remotely wanted or received. After a while he ran out of air so I quickly said, ‘Thank you for that, lovely to see’, and walked off.
Woe to you, says Jesus when everyone speaks well of you. So there’s some comfort – not everyone speaks well of me.
I kid you not, within a hundred yards a woman crossed the street to say Hello and just to say how very lovely the church was the other Sunday and kind and welcoming when she came and it was all so wonderful and thank you and then off she went. Fantastic!
I spent the rest of the day trying hard to focus on what she had said, and not to be too weighed down by what he had said.
Today is a sermon about hope.
St Paul in his letter is clearly worried that some people in Corinth are Not thinking things through.
Some had reached the conclusion that maybe Jesus had risen from the dead – but whilst that was nice for Jesus it didn’t really change anything for us – there’s no resurrection for us. One rule for Him but not sure about the rest of us.
St Paul counters this thought saying that Jesus is just as human as the rest of us, so if it cannot happen for us, then it did not happen for Jesus and that topples a whole load of dominos over so that we’re not forgiven and still lost in our sins, those who have died are lost to death, and so on. Its quite the litany of negativity.
But Jesus did rise from the dead.
A couple of weeks ago I preached on some of those consequences. The resurrection shows that Jesus has broken death, the fear of death, broken the devil, our slavery to sin, and given us atonement so that we can be reconciled to God, children born of God.
And then last week St Paul gave us a proof of the resurrection based on a list of witnesses that his readers would have known. Jesus appeared to Simon Peter, the Apostles, over 500 people, to James and lastly to me Paul.
And I pointed out that Paul had left out the women folk from his list. Peter was perhaps the 4th person to meet with the risen Lord, three women had already seen him, spoken with him, and been given the task of proclaiming the resurrection to the others.
So now in today’s passage Paul spells out the consequences of the resurrection for us – it means that we are forgiven, that our sins are no more, it means that we are not lost without meaning and purpose, it means that those who had already died with their faith in Christ – they are not lost but they have hope as do we – because we see in the Risen Christ as a first fruit of resurrection.
I like this phrase First Fruit because it’s a reminder that there’s more to come.
Lucy came back from work the other evening and said ‘Look its light, I’ve come home in the light!’ It’s a wonderful reminder that the days are getting brighter and warmer.
And there are signs of flowers, crocuses, trying to come through the grass, not yet ready to open, but they are there as a reminder of New Life beginning, and continuing.
So for us, as we put our faith in Christ, we too will be part of His resurrection. Christ a first fruit. And this gives us Hope.
So now turn to the gospel and we find three sorts of hope applied.
The first hope is that of the many people coming from far and wide to receive healing from diseases and impure spirits, and the power of Jesus is emanating from Him so all were healed.
They’ve got downwind of some miracle worker and they have walked a long way to come and risk seeing what He might have in store for them. With each story they hear, a little more hope is kindled. They whisper to themselves Maybe my prayer will be heard as they come closer to Jesus.
We have an email prayer chain. prayerpastor@seafordparish.org.uk Diana Woodcock looks after it as our Prayer Co–ordinator – so email her and say ‘Could you ask the others to pray for me – I’m going into hospital, I have this trouble’, and so on. Every now and then we get an email saying ‘You cant stop praying for me I’ve been healed!’ Wonderful and encouraging.
I was speaking to someone a couple of weeks ago and I said ‘SO why did you become a Christian, what tipped it for you?’ And he said that he’d been going along with it for a while because you know its nice, but then something bad and troubling had happened and he asked some churches on Facebook to pray for him and over night the situation changed. Fantastic.
What I’m trying to convey in this sermon is the upward spiral effect that hope has. In looking for it, seeing more of it, and that lifting you up and finding more joy and hope in life, and that helping you then to be a blessing to others.
This crowd gather around Jesus and they are there to see what healing and hope they can get out of Jesus.
It’s important for us to remember that we will pray for you, hold you in our prayers.
Come up to the side chapel and ask for prayer up here. As you hold your hands out to receive Holy Communion remind yourself that you are eating and sipping these wonderful reminders of God’s love for you. You are imbibing hope.
As you bow your head for a prayer you are receiving the blessing of the Holy Spirit upon you.
And as you sing – as St Augustine said – you are praying twice -with your words and in your mind, and with your lungs and your heart.
So don’t forget to come to Jesus for healing.
Don’t play the One Rule for Jesus, another rule for the rest of us –Don’t go there. Not true, not helpful. But instead receive the hope of the resurrection and let that lead you into more prayer for more healing.
Jesus then goes on to preach what we call the Sermon on the Plain, so as to separate it out from the Sermon on the Mount.
Jesus has just done lots of healing. But that’s not enough for Him. Its not enough for you to just receive healing in your body.
Jesus wants to bring healing to your soul.
So Jesus now preaches healing to the hurting, to the poor, to those who weep, to the hungry, to the hated and insulted
He preaches healing in the form of hope. In reminding them that they are not forgotten, that God remembers them, and will bring them consolation, healing, and hope. And there is hope to be found in knowing you are remembered before God.
So we have Hope for physical healing, then we are given hope for those who are hurting inside. And thirdly we have hope for the Rich.
Jesus said: Woe to you who are rich, woe to you who are well fed now, woe to you who laugh now.
The answer to this is not to stop laughing, nor to skip a few meals. Here is the uncomfortable challenge to ask yourself what you are doing with the blessings that God has given you.
The Unamed Richman calls out from hades to Lazarus in heaven pleading for a warning to be sent to his brothers, a prophet, perhaps someone who might rise from the dead – oh to be visited by the Ghost of Christmas-Yet-To-Come! This is uncomfortable reading.
So we who have come to believe in the Resurrection, in the Risen Jesus, who know the comfort of sins forgiven, of death defeated, of the devil and fear and slavery vanquished – we to whom much has been given – it behoves us to use the blessings we have – the joy, the wealth, the food, to be a blessing to others.
I point again to the Parish Giving Scheme forms over there! And I thank you for all you do do and do give.
But the bible, and particularly Luke’s Gospel, pushes hard on those of us who have been blessed to find a way of using that to be a blessing to others.
Perhaps you have been given money, or time, or talent, then we must find a way in which that can be offered to God to bring hope to those who are hurting.
We, unlike that crowd around Jesus,
we have a solid and sure hope in the Resurrection, because we do believe in the Resurrection of Jesus, and that gives us Hope to persist in prayer for healing, and this gives Hope to the Hurting that they are not forgotten, and we find here Hope to the rich and blessed, for we are called to be a blessing.
Amen. //