30^th April 2014

Rev Dr Wendy Dabourne at St John's UCA Mt Waverley, Victoria Australia Sunday 30 March 2014
Lessons - Genesis 1:26-31; Colossians 1:15-20; 1 Corinthians 15:1-5; Luke 18:31-34

I believe that Jesus was crucified, dead and buried. So what? I believe that the earth goes round the sun. It does not make the smallest difference to the way I live my life. I believe that in the Roman Empire thousands of people were crucified and died and some of them were allowed the human dignity of being buried, but it does not make any difference to the way I live my life.

So, why do we say all this about Jesus being crucified, dead and buried? Why do we have so much to say about believing it? Why the Church?

We can begin to tackle that by asking who was crucified, dead and buried? The first answer to this question - before we start thinking about anything else - is The Resurrected One.

The disciples did not understand. They did not understand what Jesus was telling them in our Luke reading. Even when they told Jesus who he was they did not really understand what that meant. When Jesus was killed on the cross they buried him and, as we know, this moment of burial has an awful finality. But they met the resurrected Jesus - the resurrected, crucified Jesus - and that was how they understood the whole story. That is why the cross on our wall and the cross on our table is an empty cross. It is a resurrection cross.

It turns out that neither the cross nor the resurrection makes sense by itself - they are part of each other. It is not that the cross is an appalling tragedy and the resurrection is a stupendous miracle and the miracle cancels out the tragedy. It is not like that at all! Together, the two of them are one amazing action of God's love.

That brings us to the second answer to who was crucified, dead and buried. The little creed in our 1 Corinthians reading answers 'Christ'. The Nicene Creed is fuller. It says, 'Jesus Christ, the only Son of God.' the Christ, the one whom God anointed for a special work, the Messiah. The special work was to restore and complete God's purpose in creating the creation, nothing less than this stupendous work. Jesus the Christ offered to God and to us his world, a perfect human life. He lived the life for which we are created, a life lived in love, a life lived in relationship with God, and so with God's world, and with one another. It all starts with God.

Our human world does not operate with that kind of love and so that love is a threat to the way things are. It is very powerful - it can change things completely and radically. Thus it threatens the power structures that keep things going the way they are and, because of that, it arouses fear and anger, and in the end it comes to the cross. The cross is the last weapon to try to extinguish God's dangerous love. But the cross breaks the power of sin and death. Such weakness proves to be God's mighty love in action. The resurrection and the Holy Spirit at work set that love free in the world.

We do not yet see the completion and perfection of what Jesus called the Kingdom of God, the creation as it was meant to be, but the new thing is there already at work. As the seed contains already the flower and the fruit, so we have the assurance that the Kingdom of God will come in its perfection in God's good time.
The Nicene Creed also says 'the only Son of God'. You can turn it around and say 'God the Son'. He, God the Son, was the only one who could live that perfect human life and die that death in a world turned away from God. In turning away, that world has cut itself off from the source and the power of its being. That world, and we, cannot pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps. It needs nothing less than God's own love with us, among us, in us. So we are beginning to see what God was doing in the cross and resurrection, what makes a difference to us and gives us a reason to be here.

We have been talking about God's purpose in creation. Our Genesis and Colossians readings deal particularly with that in its widest sense. 'God saw everything that he had made, and indeed it was very good!' Christ reconciled to himself 'all things both on earth and in heaven', making peace by the blood of his cross - not everybody but all things in every part of God's creation, which of course includes everybody and that includes you and me. The mind boggles!

We think of the Creation, the vast reaches of time and space, the web of life, all the myriad plants and creatures depending on each other, some of them we do not even know exist, the fascinating patterns that repeat from whirling galaxies to the heart of the atom. And then there is humanity in all its variety and complexity. The Bible is clear that the whole Creation is there to reflect, to celebrate, to enjoy God who is love, God who loves it.

Perhaps it is a bit scary to say the Bible is also clear that the fate of the whole Creation is tied up with the choices that humanity makes. In the Bible story this starts with the story of Adam and Eve. They make a choice to turn away from what God has given them. They want to take on God's role for themselves - and guess what? The earth will bring forth thorns and thistles when Adam wants to grow food and Eve will bear children in sorrow. This ancient wisdom speaks to us of a world out of tune with itself because it is out of tune with God. We can recognise that, in the society and the world around us, in grinding poverty and cruel injustice, in fruitful lands turned to salty marshes or dust bowls.

So, the fulfilment of God's purpose is about the whole Creation, and we have the stupendous claim that Christ was reconciling all things to himself. So as the book of Revelation is coming to its climax, we have John's vision of 'a new heaven and a new earth'.

Some time about 30-33 CE by our reckoning Jesus the Christ was crucified, dead and buried and raised from the dead in a remote corner of an insignificant planet, and this is the hinge on which the whole story of Creation turns. Well may we worship in awe and wonder!

Then there is the other side of the story. In our Service of Baptism we say to the baby, 'Little child, for you Jesus Christ has come, has lived, has suffered; for you he has endured the agony of Gethsemane and the darkness of Calvary; for you, he has uttered the cry, "It is accomplished"; for you, he has triumphed over death; for you, he prays at God's right hand; all for you, little child, even though you do not know it.'

This awe-inspiring God loves each of us as if there is only one of us to love, delights in us, yearns over us, cherishes us, poured out all that he is for us. Therefore each of us can look at that cross and say, 'For me....'

Now, what does it mean to come to the Creed and say 'I believe...'? As I said at the beginning, I believe that the earth goes round the sun - but it does not make any difference to me. We can believe the story of Jesus like that. Jesus is just somebody who lived a long time ago and might have useful things to say. Believing is just something that happens in our head. If we believe like that we are simply looking on at all the wonderful things God has done in the world, is doing and will do in human lives, and there is nothing to celebrate.

That is not the kind of believing that made Paul say, 'I have been crucified with Christ and I live no longer, but Christ lives in me.' What kind of believing was that? It was - and it is for us - the kind of believing that is a matter of head, heart and the whole of life. It is the kind of believing that arose and arises from encountering Jesus, crucified and resurrected.

That encounter does not come for us on the road to Emmaus, like the disciples in Luke's story, or even on the road to Damascus like Paul. It comes to us, in one way or another, through the Church, the body of Christ. So it comes from encounter, and Christian faith is a relationship, a relationship with God in Christ through the power of the Holy Spirit. It comes from God reaching out to us and us responding, however hesitantly or uncertainly we respond, however often we stumble and fall. It is God's love that holds us.

This relationship of love - love given, love received and flowing over into every other encounter - is a relationship in which we grow and change as God nurtures our life. This relationship is so radically different from the way our world runs that Jesus in John's Gospel says, 'You must be born again,' and Paul says that we are baptised into Christ's death in order to share in his resurrection and to walk in newness of life.

That means a different purpose, different values, different challenges and responsibilities. It means a new fellowship and above all, new love - God's - working in us, new joy. It sounds a lot, doesn't it? We may look at ourselves, our weakness and failures and inadequacy, but God sees in each of us the person God created us to be and draws us lovingly and gently on the way.

As we say 'We believe ...' in the creed, it is a celebration.

Thanks be to God for the Gospel.
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