Please join us to find a place of prayer and rest in a busy week. From intimacy in prayer God is able to do many things.
Let the message about Christ, in all its richness, fill your lives May you never give up praying. When you pray, may you keep alert and be thankful. Pray that together we may make the message of the mystery of Christ as clear as possible. Amen (Based on Colossians 3 and 4)
Today we are able to declare with the psalmist, “The counsel of the Lord stands forever. The thoughts of his heart to all generations.” And why? Because we are followers of Jesus, Jesus people, a community of Jesus formed for his glory. Together let us build one another up, encourage one another and admonish one another. In the Church, the body of Christ, local and catholic, the poor are fed, the naked clothed, prisoners are visited, and all have a job of work to do. Are we doing enough for the persecuted?
The Genesis story reassures us that the thoughts of God’s heart are to bless all the families of the world. Abraham is immersed in the practice of his world, visiting oak groves and setting up altars. But his passion is the promise that he has received. He has heard God say, his family is to grow. He has no children and he is old. His wife is barren. Still he trusts. This trust is what he puts weight on and binds him to the Lord.
The Psalmist teaches us “…the word of the Lord is upright and all his works done in faithfulness.”
Whatever we hear from God, do we trust in his faithfulness to fulfil it? Sometimes in the depth of our despair, experiences of injustice and ill health, often all we can do is trust God’s promise. And all that can be done for us is that in the company of others, in the care of others, God is made present, by a silent sitting together.
The cry of our hearts is why? Why must you suffer? Why is there so much pain? The comfort of God, our God who by his spirit dwells in us and stands with us, can only be, and is, sensed as hope. Hope based on a trust in God’s word spoken to us. As a follower of Jesus, Jesus is the answer, the way, the truth and the life. It may be a while before we come to know this.
In Romans 4, Paul seeks to answer the question, can we trust that we are redeemed? He asks in the face of division, in the face of pain, in the midst of persecution and suffering? Can we trust that we are set free from the slavery of oppression, entering into the glory of God as promised. In the face of the works of principalities and powers can we trust? Can we trust that we are cleansed of all guilt and shame? The psalmist says, the Lord brings the counsel of the nations to nothing. He frustrates the plans of the people. Is this true?
All miss the mark? The world is organised around this certainty and the certainty of evil.
The nations work by creating laws. Religion works through laws. Communities work with laws. The law is a fetor, a binding of peoples, to make things work. The law opens our eyes to transgressions and there are consequences. The law brings wrath. This is not the way of Jesus.
We can’t put our trust in a nation, a priesthood, a system. Abraham received his promise for the world through faith, trusting in God’s grace. The people of Abraham were given the Law in Scripture, but Paul tells that this was not what made them a nation, or Abraham the father of many nations. It was faith reckoned as righteousness. If we think by rules and regulations, God’s purposes will be fulfilled, history testifies against us.
Abraham hoped against hope he would have a family with Sarah. No distrust made him waver, being fully convinced that God was able to do what he had promised, Paul tells us.
And so Paul says, if we have heard the word that Jesus was raised for our justification, we can stand on this word fully convinced. Jesus our Lord is raised from the dead. He was handed over for our trespasses and was raised for our justification. We are redeemed by the righteousness of faith not law. This is the way of Jesus.
We are called to trust in the Jesus we hear about in the good news of Matthew, Jesus who dies, who defies convention, who saves with his body and the word that we are to love, God, our neighbour, even our enemy. Love ourselves!
Jesus sat with Matthew the tax collector and many others, transgressors of the law. He, in the face of scandal, stood with those who hoped against hope they were forgiven and restored in following Jesus. He was their physician. And then the need of a religious leader caused a commotion. He joined the unholy throng, centred around Jesus. The person he most treasured, his little daughter was dead and his trust was, Jesus could restore her to him. Lord have mercy. What he trusted was not the work of a physician. He had a hope against hope that Jesus would restore his daughter. As they walked through the throng to his home, one who had been failed by the physicians, trusted that Jesus was Messiah, the anointed one in whom was healing in his wings. She and grasped the wings of Jesus’ prayer shawl. Her faith drew the power of healing from Jesus. Jesus acknowledged her as a daughter, and drew near to the commotion around the house of the leader. Jesus took authority and in the quiet of the girl’s room, he reached down to one who was asleep in death and restored life. Jesus met her in her need. And this is the promise we are offered as followers of Jesus. One day we may sleep in death but one day we will rise with Christ to new life.
I believe we need to know we are restored today with the first fruits of this new life. I believe the need to know we are restored stirs each of our hearts. And as we trust in the face of all discouragements, that we are forgiven, our failings and falling short are healed and we grow. As we reach out to God who seemingly passes us by but notices us and names us; Jesus, who acknowledges us, respects our dignity, who takes our hand and raises us to new life, we can hope against hope that everything in our lives brings glory to God in the end.
“Happy is the nation whose God is the Lord. The people he has chosen as his heritage.” This includes the church; it includes us! Jesus forgives us. Jesus heals us. Jesus, our Lord raised from the dead, handed over to the authorities for our trespasses is raised for our justification that we might be born again and grow up. Hallelujah!
Grace and peace.
Art Work:
Wesley was born in Azamgarh, Uttar Pradesh into a fifth generation Christian family of Hindu and Muslim descent. He belongs to the Lucknow school of painting. His paintings reflect this influence and that of the Chughtai school of painting that flourished in India at the turn of the century. Wesley made art based on both biblical and secular themes. He used water colours, oil paintings, miniatures and wooden carvings.
Wesley’s painting “Blue Madonna” was used for the first UNICEF Christmas card, while five of his paintings were exhibited at the 1950 Holy Year Exhibition in the Vatican. He is also known for designing the funeral urn for Mahatma Gandhi’s ashes.
“The bright glow of light on the back of his shoulders directs us to the radiant countenance of Jesus. He is moving away from us but over his left shoulder he is listening to those walking at his side. In this painting the artist’s fingers took over to define his own face more closely than anywhere else in his work. This is virtually a self-portrait. The woman suffering from haemorrhage is cloaked in black. Her hand reaches tentatively towards Jesus’ shoulder and is backlighted by the brightest spot in the painting. Again, we trace the convention of light from the body of Jesus providing both the physical and the spiritual illumination and power for the scene. This time, it is the figure of the woman who absorbs the light which blocks it from the viewer. Others who are with Jesus are illumined by his light. Only the woman, who takes so much of his power into herself, is shown in dark silhouette. Jesus is surrounded by many kinds of people, all with different needs. We see a lame man with a crutch, a man wearing the brass armband of a slave and an older woman holding a sick child on her shoulder. Children of all ages edge the path and reach out to Jesus. Jesus seems to be walking into darkness but behind him the sky is gold. The canvas is incandescent with joy and life and hope.” From Frank Wesley: Exploring Faith with a Brush by Naomi Wray
We are here to listen, to discern the truth, to find a truth to live by. We stand, we listen.
In Adam I believe humanity is fallen. Each of us succumbs to sin- we fall, we get up, we learn, we grow. In life we are born into the innocence of Adam and grow up into Christ, each without exception. We miss the mark our hearts long for each day; the Light shines in the hearts of every person. There is guilt, there is shame. When we allow space for despair, it is filled by darkness, but the darkness cannot overcome the light. Every sin is an invitation to the evil one, sin sits at the door of our hearts. We pray lead us not into temptation but deliver us from the evil one.
In Christ is life and breath. In him our being finds its Alpha and its Omega, its beginning and its end. In Christ death is no more, there is no longer guilt, no longer shame as we stumble, and surely, we stumble, Jesus holds us. Jesus is Lord.
Stir in me, stir in me, Holy Spirit arise in me, new my soul rise-up in me, clean and pure and Holy, I was taught to sing.
The breath of God creates and forms. From dust we were formed and in common with all to dust we will return. This is sure.
Christ is our daily bread, given to all, broken for all, a life poured out for all. Without the drawing of God, we are lost, our humanity is dead. The Spirit needs-must invade our reasoning, invade our imagination; we dream and have visions; a vision of one body; one body birthed on a cross; one body begotten in the beginning, revealed as we listen and hear of Christ’s death resurrection and ascension into heaven. All are called into this body seated at the right hand of God.
All that has happened is that you have gathered to hear; to listen, to sense together with others a longing, a thirst. A thirst quenched in Christ. Jesus is alive, here now ascended to the Father in-the-midst of his people. You can’t follow him on your own, but he meets you as a friend. There is a hunger to gather; to be together, to know one another. Maybe we have nothing more in common.
This truth is a powerful truth revealed as we listen. No one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit. To proclaim Jesus is Lord brings ruin in the ways of the world; you become a target. To stand with Christ, to align with him, to make his truth our measure. How can we doubt those who declare Jesus to be Lord; numbered, marked out by their declaration; standing together in an absurd truth; an absurd utterance.
Space is created so that mighty deeds of God are proclaimed and enacted, acted upon. From the heart of God we prophecy. We know his voice and we no longer call any man our teacher. We prophecy against injustice and lies. There are all manner of manifestations of God but declaring Jesus to be Lord brings peace and love and not violence; a narrow road. God’s Spirit is given for the common good as we step out into worldly obscurity ad trash our reputations. There is one body. There is one spirit. A body breathed into life by the spirit.
The spirit rests; rests on each one of us.
The portion of Christ exceeds that of Moses; not to seventy is it given, but seventy times seventy and more, numbered in Christ, forgiven, restored, poured out.
From his people, from the Church many thirsts are quenched. The church gathers in many camps, but you can’t be the church alone; there is only one church, and we are in it together.
The church is recognised when hearts are gathered, in a death to self, a blessed poverty; a hunger and thirst for righteousness, a heart for peace: two or three who love. The church brings life and water flows for all the world’s redemption. Humbly we come and draw water from the wells of salvation, we sang, a little flock. But in Christ we are many- a host and one heart, one mind are we, revealed and scorned
Maybe in this and in our reading our hearts burned as they did for the disciples on the road to Emmaus. Maybe as you have listened to friends and engaged ideas and experiences something stirred. There are reasons and reasonings, explanations. We can analyse and form rules. But when we encounter God in bread and wine, water and breath, then we know intimately. Then we are transformed; 200 years of modern Christianity dissolve and we become church
A young man once asked me to come and speak with him. He wanted to save me from God; he wanted to confound me with his truth, show how I was deceived. I read him a poem I had written for him. It began, The god you don’t believe in, I don’t believe in either.
Master Eckhart a German mystic of the 13th Century prayed, God rid me of God. This is a stage in the journey all of us must go through, maybe several times as we peel away our certainty. God finds a way, through tongues of fire, through babbling tongues. Pentecost heralds dreams and visions, sighs deeper than words that birth love, that flows out for all. As we journey from Adam to Christ all becomes poetry, we appear drunk, in the breaking of bread, in the drinking of wine.
As the poet George Herbert says in his poem Agonie, Love in that liquor sweet and most divine which my God feels as blood but I as wine. Truth is revealed.
It was impossible for Jesus to be held in death’s power.
Peter stands with the eleven. The Spirit has fallen on the church and Peter with renewed insight, having spent time with the risen Lord and witnessing the ascension of Christ into heaven, declares the truth he now knows and understands.
He now knows that all they have experienced, the life of Jesus their teacher and healer, his coming back to life and ascension to the Right Hand of God the Father are part of God’s definite plan and foreknowledge. He is speaking to the people of Jerusalem, the people of God’s promise, called to bless the nations.
…listen to what I have to say: Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with deeds of power, wonders, and signs that God did through him among you, as you yourselves know— this man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of those outside the law. But God raised him up, having released him from the agony of death, because it was impossible for him to be held in its power.
This man suffered the agonies of death. Why is death an agony and why is it impossible for Jesus to be held in its power?
According to the scriptures, given for the blessing of the nations, David wrote in Psalm 16 of a promise. Peter reframes and interprets the Psalm to tell us who Jesus is.
Jesus is the Messiah:
Since [David] was a prophet, he knew that God had sworn with an oath to him that he would put one of his descendants on his throne. Foreseeing this, David spoke of the resurrection of the Messiah, saying, ‘He was not abandoned to Hades, nor did his flesh experience corruption.’ “This Jesus God raised up, and of that all of us are witnesses.
Jesus the Messiah, Christ, was released from the agonies of death.
Later Peter writes in his letter of each of us receive new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus. In life we suffer now but the faithfulness of God is that in uniting to and loving Jesus as the Messiah, the Christ, we have an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled and unfading, which gives us indescribable joy in the face of our trials. And the joy comes because we are receiving the salvation of our souls.
David sang
You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy;
Peter says David saw it as a prophecy; a mystery to be revealed. We see it through the revelation of witnesses to the mystery Peter trusted had been fulfilled.
We are called to go beyond the faith of Thomas. Thomas was right to doubt. And so are we. Thomas waited 8 days to encounter the risen Jesus and we too must wait to encounter Christ in our hearts; ascent to the message is not enough.
We can’t go on the words and experience of others. We have the testimonies of scripture and the breath of God, the Holy Spirit. United in love to the word planted in our hearts we encounter Christ and we have life in his name. When doubts assail us, we cry, My Lord and my God! And we know it’s true because it sets us free and gives us peace. We are immersed in the birth of resurrection life, washed by the word made alive.
Each one of us needs a personal revelation of this truth, to have our eyes open to the presence of Jesus, abiding in him as he abides in us. Each of us knows God, each of us is met by God as we seek refuge in God. No one is left out. Whenever we find peace, whenever stillness invades our being, God opens up a way for us to be transformed into his likeness. In hearing the scriptures a mystery is opened to us, becoming the word of God in us, that washes away our sin and defeats death.
The agony of death is choosing to turn our back on God. All humanity has succumbed to this, rejecting the life that is in God. This is the sin that brings death. Death is turning away from God and we are corrupted by it and the pangs of loss cause us to weep and grind our teeth. This is the meaning of being in Adam.
The futility is overwhelming, we rail against sin, the sin that separates us from life. This is experienced by Jesus and made present in the agonies of his crucifixion where he bears the sin that brings death; his death. Fully human he dies, but fully God, death could not hold him and on the third day he rose from death and death is dissolved as he bears its pangs for three days, untouched by it, death is defeated. Jesus is the new Adam.
The mission of the people of Israel was to bless the nations and David as a prophet king, declares truth in the Psalm. The scriptures are a universal mediated through the people of God. The declaration of the Psalm is for everyone. For all whose hearts are turned to God they can cry with the psalm:
Bless the Lord, Creator, the great I am. He is the light that guides me in goodness, truth and life. Even as I sleep my heart forms and transforms me to be like him. As I am able, in the opening up of my humanity, I know his constant presence guiding me and keeping me in the ways that bring life, setting my hand to do good. In this I am secure. It’s in this generous gift of grace, a seed that falls in good soil, I grow. In this I find that death is not the end.
The good news is that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus to the Right Hand of God the Father, is the table at which we feast. This is the revelation that brings joy, that heals us for evermore; Jesus Christ is the Lord.
For you do not give me up to Sheol or let your faithful one see the Pit.
You show me the path of life. In your presence there is fullness of joy; in your right hand are pleasures forevermore.
Today’s message invites us to recognize Jesus as King over our lives. And to do that, we must confront a difficult question:
Can we trust ourselves in all the works of human hands?
In Jeremiah 31, the Lord speaks tenderly to Israel:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love; therefore I have continued my faithfulness to you. I will rebuild you…”
Israel needed salvation, not because God abandoned them, nor because their enemies were too strong, but because they placed their trust in human strength, human systems, and human solutions. They were Lord over their people or other empires Lord over them.
This is not just Israel’s story. It is the story of the whole world, even today.
Why does this matter so much?
Because the human heart is easily captivated by what we can build, control, or secure for ourselves. Yet Scripture calls us to a different pursuit:
Colossians 3:1–4 urges us to seek the things above, where Christ is seated, not the things of earth. Even if we will lose everything we have, or some people will mock us or call us crazy.
Israel longed for a Messiah but what kind of Messiah did they expect?
A political liberator
A military leader
Someone to overthrow Rome
Someone to restore Israel’s earthly power
But they didn’t want to be different from Rome. They just wanted to become Rome just with themselves on top.
This is what it means to seek earthly things.
And we often do the same. We come to God, but only to ask Him to help us chase the same goals the world chases. We envy the world, imitate the world, and trust the world’s systems for safety and identity.
All the while, we forget Jesus who is our King.
Peter’s Revelation
In Acts 10:34–43, Peter finally understands:
“God shows no favoritism… but welcomes anyone who fears Him and does what is right.”
36 You know the message he sent to the people of Israel, proclaiming the good news of peace through Jesus Christ (he is Lord of all)
37 you know what happened throughout Judea, beginning from Galilee after the baptism that John announced:
38 with respect to Jesus from Nazareth, that God anointed him with the Holy Spirit and with power. He went around doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, because God was with him.
(Jesus didn’t seek earthly wealth, or find security with having connections with strong people or political power. He just simply follow the will of His Father in heaven regardless of any circumstances they went through.)
39 we are witnesses of all the things he did both in Judea and in Jerusalem. They killed him by hanging him on a tree,
40 but God raised him up on the third day and caused him to be seen, 41 not by all the people, but by us, the witnesses God had already chosen, who ate and drank with him after he rose from the dead.
42 He commanded us to preach to the people and to warn them that he is the one appointed by God as judge of the living and the dead.
43 About him all the prophets testify, that everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins through his name.”
Jesus was God’s message:
To Israel
To Rome
To the entire world
A message that says:
“I have loved you with an everlasting love.”
Jesus came doing good, healing the oppressed, revealing the Father’s heart. He was killed—but God raised Him up. And the apostles became witnesses of His resurrection.
Why? Because the world was blinded by its own ways—its own power, its own security, its own achievements.
Rome offered safety. Rome offered order. Rome offered prosperity. They became Lord over their people even to Israel They didn’t recognize their King, instead crucify him just to protect Rome, Ceasar, Pilate, the powerful Lords of Rome who are Lords over them
I think I gave the message clearly. The world still offers the same things today.
None of these can replace the true King.
I believe the gospel calls us to become witnesses of the Lord’s glorious Kingdom a Kingdom not built by human hands, not defined by earthly power, and not sustained by human strength.
It is a Kingdom revealed in Christ where we live, we stand and we surrender our lives into, no matter if it separates is from security, peace or identity that the world gives. He is our King and He our Lord He is our comfort and He is our strength
“[The Narrow and Wide Gates] “Enter through the narrow gate. For wide is the gate and broad is the road that leads to destruction, and many enter through it. But small is the gate and narrow the road that leads to life, and only a few find it.”
Daily Readings from Lectionary
