This is a very lightly revised version of my old sermon Jesus Of The Transfiguration.
Mission in the Bible 12: Listening with Two Ears (Acts 8:26-40)
If Debbie tries to speak to me about something while I am watching the television, there is more than a fair chance that I won’t take in what she’s saying. She will have to tell me to stop listening to the TV in order to listen to her. After all, as a man, I can only ever do one thing at a time. And I certainly can’t listen to more than one source simultaneously.
It makes me think of something I was told in a training session for people who were going to engage in prayer ministry. The instructor said that we had two ears, and that we had to listen to the person in need with one ear and the Holy Spirit with our other ear. That sounded tricky! It was better when they advised a team of two people to pray with whoever came forward, with one team member listening to the person and the other listening to the Spirit.
But part of our task as the church is to engage in multiple listening. The late John Stott called it ‘double listening’, where we listen to the Bible and to the world. Not that we squeeze the Bible into today’s standards and values, which happens far too often, but that we find where the Gospel speaks to today’s world.
And in our strange and wonderful Bible reading today, Philip engages in multiple listening. And it’s this multiple listening that enables him to lead the Ethiopian eunuch to faith in Christ.
Firstly, Philip listens to the Holy Spirit:
An angel (speaking on God’s behalf) directs Philip to go to the desert road (verse 26) and when he is there, the Spirit tells him to go near the eunuch’s chariot and stay near it (verses 27-29).
Well, it’s easy to say ‘listen to the Holy Spirit’, isn’t it, but harder to get to grips with it for ourselves. At one end of the Christian spectrum we have people who say they have never known God speak to them along with others who say that God only speaks to us now through the Bible.
At the other end there are Christians who, in the words of one preacher, claim to have more words from the Lord before breakfast than Billy Graham had in a lifetime. Some of these people are harmless fruitcakes, but others are manipulative and abusive leaders.
I once heard a story about a man who went to his vicar and said, ‘Wonderful news, vicar! You know that gorgeous blonde woman in the choir? The Lord has told me to marry her.’
‘No he hasn’t,’ replied the vicar.
‘Yes, he has!’
‘No, he hasn’t.’
‘Yes he has!’
‘NO HE HASN’T,’ insisted the vicar. ‘You’re already married.’
I think there’s a healthy middle path to be found here. I do believe God still speaks to us, but I also believe we test that against what he has revealed to us in the Bible.
And I would also say that some of us who think God hasn’t spoken to us are mistaken. He has told us things, but perhaps we haven’t always recognised it was him. Take the common example of feeling prompted to phone a friend or a relative, only to do so and discover they are ill or in some other predicament. We can then pray for the person or help meet their needs. Isn’t that something the Holy Spirit would do?
An Anglican priest friend of mine used to lead an organisation in London called the Christian Healing Mission. In teaching Christians about prayer, John would invite people to sit quietly and ask God to speak to them, then keep silence. He would encourage them to write down whatever impressions came into their mind, believing that God did indeed want to speak to his children. He never denied the need to be discerning about what people thought they heard, but he believed we should be optimistic about God’s desire to speak to us.
So why don’t we open ourselves all the more to the possibility of the Holy Spirit speaking to us? What adventures might he take us on for the sake of God’s kingdom advancing?
Secondly, Philip listens to the eunuch:
Here I’m thinking of where Philip enters into a conversation with the eunuch about what he is reading and what it means (verses 30-35).
When I was a child, we had a family GP who seemed to start writing you a prescription before you had finished telling him what was wrong with you. He didn’t really listen to your problems.
And we have seen something similar in the current General Election campaign. How many of our leaders, when a member of the public asks them a question, be it in a TV debate or on a radio phone-in, just launch into their prepared answer on that subject without listening to the nuances of that person’s personal concerns?
It happens in the religious sphere, too, when well-meaning evangelists splurge out the Gospel without listening to the people they are trying to reach. And while they have a point that the Gospel is unchanging, we need to find the point of contact or even perhaps the point of conflict so that we can make the Gospel connect with folk.
So Philip takes the trouble to listen to the man’s concerns. On his way back from Jerusalem to Ethiopia, a journey that would have taken a couple of months by chariot, this man is serious in his enquiring after God. He seems to think there is something in the Jewish faith and is reading the Hebrew Scriptures, but as a eunuch he will not be allowed to convert fully to Judaism. I think there is a desire for God and for belonging here, and Philip picks up on it. Philip knows this man’s deepest longings can be satisfied in Jesus.
W E Sangster, the famous minister at Westminster Central Hall in the mid-twentieth century, said that the Gospel is like a diamond with many facets. We need to discover which facet shines on a particular person in order to make the Gospel connect with them.
And the moment we understand that, we see the need to listen to people, not just regurgitate a pre-packaged version of the Gospel that we have memorised. It’s a good thing sometimes to learn summaries of the Gospel and also to be able to recount our own testimony, but we must be careful first to listen to the people we are aiming to reach for Christ so that we may share the Good News in the most appropriate way.
Thirdly, Philip listens to the Scripture:
I think the fact that the eunuch is reading this powerful passage from Isaiah 53 that we often call ‘The Suffering Servant’ means that the Holy Spirit is already at work in his life, preparing him for the Gospel and pointing him in to where he needs to ask questions. Perhaps he realises that attempts to explain this passage in terms of it merely being about the prophet himself can only go so far and are ultimately doomed to fail. There are parts of it that just don’t fit.
And along comes Philip for a meeting orchestrated by the Spirit. He listens to the Bible passage the eunuch is reading, and he responds.
But notice how he responds:
35 Then Philip began with that very passage of Scripture and told him the good news about Jesus.
Philip does what the early church did. They listen to Scripture and interpret it in the light of Jesus. The Hebrew Scriptures had pointed to a coming Messiah. Now he had come in the Person of Jesus, it made sense not just to read the holy writings to quote proof-texts out of context, but to read and understand them in the light of Jesus.
So that’s what Philip does here. He listens to these verses from Isaiah and says that ultimately they only make sense in the light of the Good News of Jesus. And as a result, this man who could not fully belong in Judaism due to his castration can fully belong to Jesus. His baptism (verses 36-39) is surely a joyful expression of that truth.
What Philip is doing is rather like Jesus on the Emmaus Road. As Jesus came alongside the two travellers, he opened the Scriptures and related them to himself. Philip comes alongside the Ethiopian eunuch and relates the Scriptures to Jesus.
This approach grounds us in the centrality of the Bible as the authoritative account of the Christian faith, but we do not act as Bible-bashers. We are not using isolated Bible texts as weapons to hurt people. There will always be the odd prejudiced person who accuses us of that and we can’t do anything about that, but our main task is to listen to the Scriptures and share how they point to Jesus. The Holy Spirit uses this to make Jesus real to people and lead them to him.
However, most of the people we encounter will not be reading Bible passages and asking us to make sense of them to them – although it might happen occasionally. We instead need to be people who are listening to the Bible ourselves anyway and looking for how it points to Christ. As we feed ourselves in this way on Jesus, the Bread of Life, we shall be more fully equipped for the conversations we have with friends and family members who don’t share our faith. Our own willingness to engage in spiritual discipline with the Bible is not only good for us, it has benefits for our witness.
Conclusion
When we consider mission and especially evangelism, we give a lot of emphasis to speaking. And the speaking is of course necessary.
But we need to appreciate the importance of listening too, as Philip knew. We need to listen to the Holy Spirit, who guides us into divine appointments. We need to listen to those we are aiming to reach, so that we may share our hope in Christ in a way that connects with them and challenges them. And we need to listen to Scripture, particularly to the way it points to Christ, because that is the truth we are seeking to share.
Thank you – for listening.
Last Sunday Before Advent, The Feast of Christ the King (Year B)
I feel sorry for Pontius Pilate. This was the man who should be in charge – well, on behalf of the Roman Emperor, of course. But he doesn’t know what to do with Jesus, this supposed King of the Jews. Pilate should be decisive, he should be acting powerfully, but he isn’t.
Why? He’s a lame duck ruler. We’ve sometimes seen lame duck Prime Ministers in the UK when the ruling party has lost its majority in the House of Commons and no other party will enter into an arrangement or a coalition with them. And we’ve seen lame duck American Presidents when their party has lost its majority in both Houses of their elected representatives.
Pilate is at the mercy of the Jewish leaders. They might be speaking as if they are soliciting a favour or pleading with him, but they have him round their little finger. For a few years previously, Pilate had sent Roman soldiers into the Temple in Jerusalem, where some of their acts had scandalised Jewish religious sensibilities. The Jewish leaders had sent a deputation to Rome to protest, knowing this kind of unnecessarily offensive behaviour was against Imperial policy. As a result, Pilate was on a final warning from Rome. One more mis-step and he would be exiled.
So we have this dreadful, ironic situation before us. Pilate, the man who has all the human power and authority, is weak. The Jewish leaders, who should have been kept in check by a better political operator, can play the system. And the One who looks weakest of all is the One hailed as King.
King of the Jews
33 Pilate then went back inside the palace, summoned Jesus and asked him, ‘Are you the king of the Jews?’
It’s a Jewish title being applied to Jesus. Never in the New Testament is Jesus called ‘Emperor’ in contrast to Caesar. No: when the Gospel gets thoroughly into the Graeco-Roman cultures the title the early church appropriates for him there is not ‘Emperor’ but ‘Lord’, corresponding with the divine claim that Roman Emperors made for themselves. That was used to claim not merely Jesus’ right to reign and rule, but his divine status. He is more than an Emperor.
But ‘King of the Jews’ – now that’s a problem. The Jewish nation had longed to have a king again since losing their monarchy at the Exile in the sixth century BC. And it was a threat to Rome, because of Jewish aspirations to have a leader who would topple the occupying Roman forces. Jesus could be a threat to Pilate, even if previous pretenders had usually been summarily arrested and executed.
Pilate would not be alone in finding the title ‘King of the Jews’ problematic. It was an issue for the Jewish leaders, too. It had become clear that Jesus didn’t conform to their ideals and not only that, he was fiercely critical of them. Whichever group of Jews they belonged to, Jesus had a largely unfavourable critique of them.
So if you were a teacher of the law but taught it rigorously without factoring in love for God and love for neighbour, Jesus had something to say to you. If you were a Pharisee with a passion for faithful, orthodox religion but had held that in such a way that you had become harsh and judgmental, Jesus would point that out. And if you were a Sadducee, believing as little as possible and all the while being in cahoots with the occupying forces who gave you a privileged position in society, then Jesus wasn’t going to be your biggest fan.
And none of this is merely interesting historical detail, because there are similarities and parallels in our lives today. If Jesus is King, then we need to look at our lives and attitudes.
For he threatens to topple our personal authority and autonomy. We think we have the right to run our own lives. In the title of a popular play many years ago, we ask, ‘Whose life is it anyway?’ Or we sing along with Billy Joel, ‘Keep it to yourself, it’s my life.’
But Jesus says no, it’s not your life, you were bought with a price. You belong to me. I am king. We have some re-ordering to do.
Or we apply our faith in Jesus harshly, looking down on others, casting aspersions on them, acting as if only they are the ones who have things to put right in their lives, because we hold to the true and pure faith. But many a passionate Christian has turned into a Pharisee over the centuries, and it’s still happening.
And others of us would rather hob-nob with the powerful of our society, feathering our nests and hoping that some of their glory brushes off on us. But Jesus the King will tell us that this is a highly disordered way to live, and will call us to account, not least when our attraction to power is bad news for the poor.
My kingdom is not of this world
36 Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.’
Well, maybe here is where we’re let off the hook? If Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, if it’s other-worldly and all about heaven, then perhaps we won’t be too challenged by it after all?
And for all their strictness, that’s the sort of line that cults like the Jehovah’s Witnesses take. Because Jesus’ kingdom is not of this world, we should not get involved in the things of this world, such as politics or economics. We can avoid getting messy with them.
And some Christians construe a version of faith that is a little bit like that, where Jesus is interested in their private, personal morality, but not about the rest of life. His kingdom is not of this world.
Except – there’s a problem. It would be better to translate these words ‘My kingdom is not from this world.’ You can see the intent from the rest of the verse, where Jesus says, ‘But now my kingdom is from another place.’
So it’s not about the limitations of the kingdom, it’s about where the kingdom originates from. The kingdom over which Jesus rules originates from heaven. It originates from the One who is the Creator of all things. And therefore, when Jesus says his kingdom is not from this world, he is distinguishing it from earthly kingdoms and empires, but not by limiting it. In fact, he’s expanding its reach.
If Jesus is King, then, he’s going to affect my personal morality, but he’s also going to affect my politics, my economics, my working life, and everything else. Many years ago, the late John Stott said that you can’t have Jesus as Saviour without having him as Lord, and if he isn’t Lord of all then he isn’t Lord at all.
As Christians we are recognising Jesus as King now, before the great day when every knee shall bow at his name and every tongue confess him as Lord[1]. We live in the knowledge that he is reigning now, before the day when all his enemies, death included, will be put under his feet, and there is no longer any rebellion or contesting of his rightful place.
We recognise Jesus as King now, because he is reigning already. That’s what the passage from Daniel 7:9-14 is about. When the one like a son of man (which in New Testament terms we understand to be Jesus) comes on the clouds of heaven it is not him returning to earth in glory in the Second Coming, for we read that at that time he comes to ‘The Ancient of Days’ – that is, Almighty God, and reigns there. This is a passage that foretells the implications of the Ascension.
At present, people ignore, disregard, oppose, or reject the reign of Jesus as King over all. But we know that day is coming, so as Christians we live as subjects of the King now. And in doing so, we witness to the world about what is coming.
The great twentieth century church leader Lesslie Newbigin once said that the local church is what he called ‘The hermeneutic of the Gospel.’ Now that may be high-falutin’ theological jargon to you, but the word ‘hermeneutic’ simply means ‘interpretation’. In other words, then, the way the local church lives interprets the Gospel to the people around it in society. If people want to know what the Christian message is, it’s not simply that we should be able to tell them what it means in our lives, they should be able to see what it’s like to live under the reign of Christ from the way we live.
I wonder how the local community looks at our church. Does it see a colony of Christ’s kingdom, living by what he says? Or does it see something else?
The Feast of Christ the King
And that is really what this Sunday is all about. I am reluctant to call it ‘The Last Sunday Before Advent’, with rather sounds to me like everything is petering out but don’t worry, everything will get going again next week.
I would rather call it by its positive title, ‘The Feast of Christ the King.’ This is where we have been heading for all of the church year since we began last Advent. We anticipated the coming of Christ and celebrated it. We marked his life and ministry, his death, resurrection, and ascension. Then we recalled the gift of the Spirit at Pentecost and the mission of God in which the Spirit-empowered church shares.
All this leads up to today. We are looking to the great day when Jesus reigns without any opposition, unlike now.
Therefore, it’s the climax of the Christian Year. This is where we’re heading. This is where history is heading.
Our calling is to live more faithfully like that future is here already, and to do so as a witness before the watching world.
[1] Philippians 2:10-11
Mark Driscoll And Jeremy Clarkson: A Blog From The Brits
Mark Driscoll. Jeremy Clarkson. Separated at birth? By the evidence of Driscoll’s latest rant, maybe. If they ever make an American religious version of Top Gear, he’s your man. And I mean ‘man’.
His response to the furore is fascinating. You can’t comment on the blog post. What’s the matter, Mark? Are you afraid those cowardly Brits will beat you up online?
He didn’t like the aggressive line of questioning from the journalist. Can I just say the words ‘pot, ‘kettle’ and ‘black’, Mr Driscoll? I thought you liked men to be aggressive.
And he accuses the journalist of being liberal, because – amongst other things – he doesn’t believe in hell as a place of conscious, eternal torment. So, would you have been man enough to call John Stott a liberal to his face in his lifetime for his annihilationist views, pal?
As for bemoaning the lack of famous young British Bible teachers, please don’t get sucked into celebrity culture: a preacher can choose in ambition between making Jesus famous and making themselves famous. You can’t go for both. If God raises you up to prominence, fine. But that’s God’s business, not yours or mine.
Some wonder whether we should take Mark Driscoll seriously. Part of me would like to think of him as Christian comedy, the same way I laugh at Jeremy Clarkson, but not with him. However, ask in any school playground whether you should take bullies seriously. Because this kind of accusation amounts to bullying.
Most of all, what sticks in my throat is the way I see the word ‘Pastor’ in front of his name all the time. It’s Pastor Mark this, it’s pastormark.tv, and so on. What exactly is pastoral about this behaviour? We all slip. I do. But Driscoll has been called out as a bully before, and his elders have taken him to task. I think it’s time for a repeat. And a look at why this kind of behaviour keeps recurring.
My Memory Of John Stott
Yesterday evening, reports appeared on the web that John Stott had passed away yesterday afternoon at the age of 90. (This search will take you to about two hundred stories in Google News at the time of typing.) Obituaries cover his evangelism, his leadership of All Souls, Langham Place, his key place with Billy Graham in the Lausanne Movement, his commitment to social action as core to evangelical understandings of mission, his clear Bible teaching, his concern for the Majority World, his love of birdwatching and much more. I particularly recommend Christianity Today’s obituary.
More concisely, Maggi Dawn has described him this morning on Twitter as
The most compassionate, sane evangelical Christian I ever met.
I have read many of his books. Favourites of mine include his expositions of Acts and Ephesians (the latter is particularly worn and battered). However, I only heard him preach once. I was training for the ministry in Manchester at the time, and he came to preach one evening at the local Anglican church, which had a large student ministry. Dr Stott agreed to stay behind afterwards and field questions.
I attended that meeting. I was engaged in my postgraduate research in Theology, specialising in ecclesiology, the doctrine of the Church. I asked him a question. Why did he think Archbishop Robert Runcie had chided evangelical Anglicans at the third National Evangelical Anglican Congress in 1987 that
‘If the current evangelical renewal in the Church of England is to have a lasting impact, then there must be more explicit attention given to the doctrine of the church’?
Dr Stott gently batted the question back at me, with quiet grace and a faintly sparkling smile. “Why do you think he did?”
I had no sense that he was trying to dodge the question. Rather, like Jesus, he knew that questions could be more deeply explored by asking further questions. He wasn’t short of answers himself, and for those who want to know, it is worth reading his book The Living Church.
Farewell, then, in this life, to one of the most gracious, compassionate and hard-thinking evangelical Christians to have come to prominence in the last century. May more of us in that tradition seek to emulate his example.
Sermon: The Holy Spirit And Mission
You may remember the 1984 film Amadeus, about the life of Mozart and his rival Salieri. There is a famous scene where Mozart receives a backhanded compliment. The Emperor Joseph II says to him,
My dear young man, don’t take it too hard. Your work is ingenious. It’s quality work. And there are simply too many notes, that’s all. Just cut a few and it will be perfect.
To which Mozart replies,
Which few did you have in mind, Majesty?
A sermon topic like today’s runs that risk – too many notes. When we think about the Holy Spirit and mission, there is so much to say. Hence if I don’t cover your favourite theme within this strand today, I’m sorry. But don’t worry, I’m sure it will pop up elsewhere, either in this sermon series or at other times.
So if you wanted to hear about the way the Holy Spirit goes ahead of us and prepares the way in mission – fear not, you’ll hear me talk about that on various occasions. If you wanted me to cover the use of spiritual gifts – well, they get their own billing later in the series.
Excuse me, then, if I limit myself to the big themes here in Peter’s sermon on the Day of Pentecost. They will give us an outline, and on other occasions we can fill in some detail. After all, you wouldn’t want a preacher with ‘too many notes’, would you?
Here’s the first strand. At college, one of my friends had a well-worn T-shirt which reflected another 1980s film with a musical theme: The Blues Brothers. Ian’s T-shirt had the slogan from the film: ‘We’re on a mission from God.’ These days, Ian is respectable in the church, with a PhD and a job as a theological college principal!
But the story of the film is of a man being released from prison, only to find that the Catholic home where he and his brother were raised by nuns is under threat of closure if it cannot pay a tax bill. They reform their old band and seek to raise the funds. Hence, ‘We’re on a mission from God.’
And the first part of Peter’s sermon shows that we all are on a mission from God when the Spirit comes. This is about the universal nature of the Spirit’s work in mission. The Spirit makes mission from all to all – from all in the church, to all in the world.
All that talk about blood and fire, billows of smoke, the sun going dark and the moon like blood (verses 19-20)? It’s not a weather forecast! It’s dramatic language, underpinning the basic point that this work of the Spirit to use all God’s people to reach all people with God’s love in Christ is an earth-shattering, game-changing moment. This is a great ‘day of the Lord’ (verse 20) when ‘everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved’ (verse 21), because God has poured out his Spirit on all people (verse 17), to the extent male and female, young and old, slaves as well as free will dream, have visions and prophesy (verses 17-18).
Yes, all of God’s people are equipped to prophesy, to speak God’s message boldly. Well did one preacher say that the Bible doesn’t just teach the famous Reformation slogan of the priesthood of all believers, it teaches the prophethood of al believers. When you say that only certain ranks of people in the church are ‘good enough’ for certain tasks, you forget that God has poured out the Spirit on all his people for his mission. Granted, we each have distinct gifts, but the Spirit comes on all who profess faith in Christ, and one reason for that is we are all ordained. God ordains all of us into the work of his mission.
Or, put it this way: we are not all evangelists, but we are all witnesses. We may not be able to explain and answer everything, but like a witness in a court case, we can all say what we have seen and what has happened to us. We can all talk about what Jesus has done for us. The Holy Spirit has come into our lives, and equipped us to do that.
This is not a threat or a demand, it is a promise. It fulfils the promise Jesus made about the coming of the Spirit before his Ascension: ‘You will be my witnesses.’ That isn’t an order, it’s a promise. When the Spirit comes, we are all ordained into the universal mission of God’s saving love: from all, to all.
The second strand in the Holy Spirit’s mission work here is this: it’s all about Jesus. For the rest of Peter’s sermon, he goes on and on about Jesus (verses 22-36). This is who he is. This is what he has done. This is how you have reacted to him so far. This is what you need to do about him. Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
This amplifies what I’ve just said about us all being witnesses. Some of you may be familiar with a Christian website called Ship of Fools, a site which includes humorous sections such as Gadgets for God, featuring the latest in tacky Christian memorabilia, a Caption Competition, Signs and Blunders, through Mystery Worshipper reports on church service around the world, to serious discussion of pressing issues.
Ship of Fools started life as a print magazine in the early 1980s. I know, because I was one of the subscribers. In one of those issues, they carried a cartoon strip article called ‘Born Again Testimonies’. ‘You may be – but has your testimony been born again?’ the article asked. It depicted Christians who were discouraged that the story of their spiritual experience was not as dramatic and exciting as that commonly portrayed in Christian testimony books. It offered a rewriting of your story by Hollywood scriptwriters, plastic surgery, dental and gymnastic care, all to make you ready for the platform of an evangelist at a crusade.
I suspect it touched a raw nerve, because it hit on a feeling I’ve noticed among regular churchgoers. “I don’t have a Damascus Road experience to talk about, so my testimony will count for nothing.” If you haven’t been a drug dealer, a bank robber or a celebrity, no-one will be interested in your story.
However, as the great John Stott once put it, ‘Testimony is not autobiography.’ In other words, testimony is not my story, it’s not ‘me, me, me’, it’s the story of what Jesus has done in my life. Now again, you may think that unless what Jesus has done in your life is the religious equivalent of a fireworks spectacular, it may not be worth talking about.
But we would be wrong. All that Peter describes about Jesus in this sermon – his ministry, his death, his resurrection, his Ascension and his sending of the Holy Spirit – all these things impact us. So what if in our lives it doesn’t come all-singing and all-dancing, complete with a laser light show? What matters is that we know Jesus has changed us – and is changing us. The majority of people live ordinary, unflashy lives, and so an ordinary, unflashy story of what Jesus means to us is every bit as likely, if not more so, to have an effect upon them.
So – why not give it some thought? What has Jesus done for you? Reflect on it. There will be material from your life that you can share about the work of Jesus. that’s where the Holy Spirit wants to focus: on Jesus. We can co-operate with the Spirit by being willing to talk about Jesus and his work in our lives.
The third and final strand of the Spirit’s work in mission that I want to draw out here has to do with the effect upon the listeners.
What happens at the end of the sermon?
When the people heard this, they were cut to the heart and said to Peter and the other apostles, “Brothers, what shall we do?” (Verse 37)
What has the Holy Spirit done here? It’s what Jesus (as recorded in John’s Gospel) called ‘conviction of sin’. Conviction of sin is the third element in this passage of the Holy Spirit’s work in mission.
Conviction of sin is when the Holy Spirit shows people how they are in the wrong before God – either generally or specifically – and calls them to change. In that respect, it’s different from that work of the enemy we call ‘condemnation’, which just says, “You’re a terrible person, you’re useless.” Condemnation leaves someone without hope. Conviction of sin is different, because it is specific, and there is a remedy that draws us to God, namely repentance.
So we see in the story today that when the crowd asks Peter and the apostles what they should do, he gives a specific reply:
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. (Verse 38)
We know that coming to faith involves repentance in some form. Faith in Jesus Christ and following him entails changing our way of life. In all sorts of areas, we shall need to perform the spiritual version of a U-turn, to go Christ’s way. The Holy Spirit shows us what we need to change and renounce.
By way of an aside, of course this is not something that happens just once at the beginning of the Christian life: it happens throughout, as the Holy Spirit patiently works to make us more Christlike.
But let us note that it truly is the Holy Spirit who does the convicting. Peter has described the situation, and yes he has told the people that they and others were responsible for the crucifixion of Jesus (verses 23, 36), but it’s still the Spirit who cuts them to the heart. We have to be careful not to do the Holy Spirit’s work ourselves, but faithfully to share God’s love and truth and leave the Spirit to do the convicting.
I once had the privilege of registering a wedding for someone who had begun worshipping at another church in the area, but one which did
not own its own building. She had come to faith through an Alpha Course that church had run, and wanted to be baptised. However, she was living with her partner without being married to him. The church had not harangued her for this, even though they believed (and I do, too) that living together falls short of God’s vision for relationships. However, she felt it was not right for her to be baptised until her relationship was regularised. So I registered the wedding, and her pastor conducted the service. I believe it was the Holy Spirit who convicted her, and who led her to marriage before baptism. In fact, the wedding was at 11 o’clock, and she then went to another church building to be baptised at 12 o’clock!
And we also might remember that the Spirit’s timetable and agenda for sorting out people’s lives might not be quite the same as ours. I once heard the preacher Clive Calver tell a story at Spring Harvest about how he kept praying, “Lord, please take away my pride.”
When it didn’t happen, he continued to pray, asking, “Lord, why aren’t you taking away my pride?”
“Because then there would be nothing left,” was what he believed God replied.
We don’t always know why the Spirit highlights certain issues in a person’s life but delays attending to others. What we do know is that coming to Christ involves the Spirit showing us where we need to change our ways in repentance, and that that begins a process that lasts the whole of our lives.
In conclusion, then, the Holy Spirit enlists us for God’s mission in Jesus. The mission is for all people, and needs all God’s people, empowered by the Spirit, for it to flourish. That mission will focus not on us, but on Jesus. Our rôle is to tell the story of Jesus’ activity in our lives. And the Spirit draws people to follow Jesus through conviction of sin.
All in all, then, the mission of God will not function without the primary work of the Holy Spirit. Never mind our plans, our campaigns, our techniques or what the latest book or conference speaker says. No Holy Spirit, no mission worthy of the name.
Come, Holy Spirit.
Sermon: Jesus Of The Transfiguration
A neighbour of ours three doors down periodically changes her photo on Facebook. For a long time it was a snap of her with the rock singer Jon Bon Jovi. Then it became a picture of her with the Hollywood actor Johnny Depp. Michelle looks very happy and relaxed with them. They look pretty happy with her. It does rather help the matter that Michelle is quite glamorous!
Me, I’m not so sure I’d look as cool and laid back with a famous person as she does. Not that I’m terribly interested in handsome male rock stars or actors; I just have to fend off Debbie’s regular ribbing because I once commented how pretty one of the teachers at our children’s school is!
However, as I said, I don’t think I’d be as relaxed as Michelle. I think if I met a hero, or a famous beautiful woman, I think I would be a blubbering mess. How journalists keep their cool to interview well-known people, I don’t know.
All of which makes me rather like Peter at the Mount of Transfiguration. When he offers to make three dwellings – one each for Jesus, Moses and Elijah – Luke comments that he didn’t know what he was saying (verse 33). He’s overwhelmed, and he says something stupid. He’d like to preserve the moment or turn it into something he knows and can cope with – the three dwelling places he proposes are reminiscent of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles.
But he’s missed the significance of the event as a result of his blubbering, and needs correction. That takes him into the terrifying experience in the cloud, where he hears the frightening, correcting voice of God: ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ (Verse 35) Don’t get blubbery about Moses and Elijah: listen to Jesus!
And I want to take that as an entry point into thinking about the Transfiguration today. It’s a traditional reading for the last Sunday before Lent, and I want us to look at how it shows Jesus as being superior to Moses and Elijah.
Firstly, Jesus’ superiority to Moses. So you book your dream holiday. You pay the deposit. You renew your passports. A couple of months before going, you pay the balance. A week before the off, you return to the travel agent to pick up your tickets and your currency. A day or two beforehand, you pack your luggage. Everything is ready for your departure.
And the Transfiguration is about a departure – especially in the connection with Moses. When Moses and Elijah appear with Jesus, we read
They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. (Verse 31)
His departure. Why the Moses connection? Because there’s an Old Testament book called ‘Departure’. It’s just that we know it by its Greek name: Exodus. The story of Moses leading God’s people to freedom from Egypt. When Luke writes about Jesus’ departure here, it is in the Greek his exodos. Moses’ departure was a liberation, Jesus’ forthcoming ‘departure’ from Jerusalem will be a liberation, too. But because Jesus is superior to Moses, his liberation will be superior, too.
If it’s Jesus’ departure from Jerusalem, then clearly we’re talking about his death, resurrection and ascension. That departure brings liberation. Jesus has been pointing the way to his future suffering and has said that disciples need to take up their crosses and follow him. Now we begin to understand that what is coming is a freedom event. The Cross will bring freedom. Jesus’ departure in his death is not a tragic event, as I once heard a Methodist church steward call it in the vestry before a Good Friday service. It is sacrificial love for the blessing of the world. Yes, it is agony and injustice. But it is also true heroism.
Now if this is the case, then we have to see the Transfiguration as more than we have often interpreted it. We know that the disciples come back down from the mountain to the challenges of everyday life. Hence we say that you can’t live on ‘mountain-top experiences’ all the time, you have to get on with ordinary living again. But if the Transfiguration points to Jesus’ departure at the Cross, it isn’t about coming down from a ‘high’ to face the mundane and the routine again. Rather, it’s about Jesus being strengthened to face his coming trial.
So if Jesus is being strengthened to face the trial of the Cross here, perhaps this event is similar to one or two others in the Gospels. It might be like the powerful spiritual experience he had at his baptism with the Holy Spirit coming down on him like a dove and – again – a voice from heaven affirming him, immediately before the Spirit leads him to the wilderness to fast and conquer temptation. It might be like the way he was mysteriously strengthened in the Garden of Gethsemane as he wrestled with his forthcoming betrayal and suffering. No wonder we read this on the last Sunday before Lent.
Isn’t it wonderful, then, that Jesus needed to be strengthened before he faced trials, including the greatest of all? And if that’s the case, then perhaps we might interpret our own ‘mountain-top experiences’ differently. They may not simply be a boost before we get back to the grind; they may be God’s way of equipping us for whatever difficulties are coming our way, particularly those where we end up in a painful place because of our faith. Perhaps God has a blessing for us in Christ that will give us the fortitude to face our trials, or perhaps we can look back at problematic times in our lives and see that before then God prepared us with a blessing. He may have given us our own mini-transfigurations. Not in the sense of exalting who we are – he only does that for Jesus – but in empowering and encouraging us.
Secondly, Jesus’ superiority to Elijah. How does Elijah connect with Jesus’ departure? The Moses connection is quite easy to see when you think of the word ‘exodus’, but it’s less easy to see why Elijah should be hanging out with Jesus now, and the particular way in which Jesus is superior to him.
However, there is a link between Jesus’ departure at Jerusalem and Elijah, and it goes like this. For Jews, Elijah was the great prophet of the end-time deliverance. He was the one who was expected to appear before God’s Messiah. You may recall there was a hoo-hah in the Gospels as to whether John the Baptist was Elijah come back from the dead to precede the Messiah. All this means that Elijah was the figure of hope. He signified to Jewish minds that God would make all things right, just and whole in his kingdom. Hence the theme of hope.
That may well have been why Peter almost thoughtlessly suggested the building of three booths, like the Feast of Tabernacles, as I said, because that festival was also known as the Feast of Ingathering, and looked forward to the fullness of God’s kingdom on earth. Peter’s mistake was just to see Jesus as an equal with Moses and Elijah.
But the voice from heaven says, ‘This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!’ (verse 35), because Jesus is superior even to Elijah. So we must infer that Jesus brings a superior hope at his departure.
I suggest we find that in his resurrection and ascension. Jesus will be raised physically from the dead. His body will be restored to him in a new way. Jesus’ resurrection body is the beginning of God’s new creation. God will make all things new, and he begins with his own Son. Elijah might be a sign or symbol of hope, but Jesus is more than that: his own resurrection body embodies our hope, even guarantees our hope of a new heaven and a new earth.
So death may and will come, but it doesn’t get the last laugh. God does. We wait in heaven, in what looks from earth like the sleep of death, but one day the Great Surprise will happen when God raises us from the dead and renews his creation. Elijah can teach us much, but only the Son of God can teach us all this. The Christian who dies trusting in Christ does so in peace, because Jesus fills her with hope in ways no-one else can.
And then there’s the ascension, Jesus’ final bodily departure from Jerusalem, reminiscent of the way Elijah left this world yet – again – superior to it. He ascends to the Father’s right hand, where he will reign until everything has been put under his feet. This is the part of hope that sustains us until God makes all things new, when the new Jerusalem descends and all creation is renewed.
It’s easy to lose hope and think that God is not reigning in heaven when we see evil in the world, in the church and in ourselves. No wonder I read yesterday that John Stott apparently once said,
The Christian’s chief occupational hazards are depression and discouragement.
But the Ascension reminds us that Jesus is reigning, even while rebellion takes place against his rule. Battles may be won or lost, but in the final analysis Christ is on the throne. To say that Christ is not reigning because there is still sin in the world would be like saying there cannot be a government in power because crime is still being committed.
In conclusion, then, Jesus at the Transfiguration offers us awesome hope. The liberation of the Cross, the hope in the Resurrection of God’s new creation and the assurance of his reign through the Ascension. Moses and Elijah may have been good, but Jesus outranks them everywhere.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer once said, ‘Any study of Christ must begin in silence.’ No wonder we read that
When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen. (Verse 36)
Sometimes I’m all for the response to a sermon being in words and deeds after the service. Today, maybe like Peter, James and John, our best response might just be awed silence at the majesty of Christ.
Sermon: Christ-Centred Priorities
Do you ever wonder what on earth Jesus is playing at? Because I do when I read this passage. Just before this story, Jesus and his disciples have been inside the Jerusalem Temple. They have witnessed the flamboyant giving of the rich, and the sacrificial giving of the widow with her mite. Jesus, you remember, commends the widow who gives all she has to live on. But now, having praised her contribution to the Temple, he announces its destruction. What exactly is the point?
Jesus is using graphic language about cataclysmic events to make his followers face important issues about faith and discipleship. He poses them some challenging questions. By inference, he challenges us, too, to get our priorities of faith right.
Firstly, he challenges their priorities about the Temple. The disciples sound so much like typical Methodists to me, when they say, ‘Look, Teacher, what large stones and what large buildings!’ (verse 1). They sound exactly like church members welcoming a prospective minister who is considering a possible invitation to their circuit. (I can’t think why that is on my mind … ) They make a show of the building.
But Jesus asks, ‘Do you see these great buildings? Not one stone will be left here upon another; all will be thrown down’ (verse 2). Better not worship the buildings: that’s idolatry. Yet it’s a common temptation for many of us. It’s not that we can do without buildings: any gathering of a certain size will need a building, whether owned or rented. But the problem is one of false worship.
For me, this became clearer this week in my studies for today which made me reflect on the fact that there are two New Testament Greek words used for ‘temple’. One means the buildings and surrounding area of the Temple, the other refers to the inner sanctuary, where God was believed to dwell. In this passage, Jesus uses the first word. He says the buildings will be destroyed, not the presence of God.
What about the second word, the word for the place of God’s presence? Jesus uses that elsewhere, to apply to himself. You may recall the time he said, ‘Destroy this temple, and I will rebuild it in three days’ (see Mark 14:58), meaning his own body in death and resurrection.
So what’s the crux of this point? Jesus tells his disciples – and us – that buildings may come and go (even beautiful religious ones) but the presence of God cannot be destroyed. Jesus, not a church building, is our temple, because the Holy Spirit, the presence of God, dwells in him. Which is also why Paul would refer to groups of disciples as the temple of the Holy Spirit, because God’s Spirit was present in their midst.
And if that’s the case, then it’s the gathering that matters more than the gathering place. The building needs to be suitable, we should take appropriate care of it, and so on, but what drives everything is the core issue of gathering to meet the risen Christ. That is our non-negotiable: meeting Jesus. Everything else may be nice, but is secondary and serves the main purpose of worshipping at the Temple which is the presence of Christ. It means we hold all other accoutrements lightly, including as our buildings.
But this isn’t just some reason to scold people who idolise church buildings. It’s also good news. How many Christian congregations are weighed down with the burden of maintaining a building when it has got beyond their capabilities? How many churches become obsessed with property and finance issues rather than the Gospel? Jesus reorders our priorities. However important it seems to us that we expend all our energies and finances on buildings, there are times when a proper concentration on Jesus relieves us of that pressure. So hear the good news: Jesus, not the fabric, is our Temple.
Secondly, Jesus challenges their priorities about Time. They get obsessed about the future:
When he was sitting on the Mount of Olives opposite the temple, Peter, James, John, and Andrew asked him privately, ‘Tell us, when will this be, and what will be the sign that all these things are about to be accomplished?’ (Verses 3-4)
You might think they are like the kinds of Christians who go on endlessly about the end of the world, predicting the date of the Second Coming and terrifying people with visions of fire and brimstone. It rather sounds like one of those ‘The end is nigh’ routines, complete with statutory sandwich boards and tracts.
And if that’s the case, you might wonder what on earth they have to do with people in churches like ours. When we hear Jesus’ rebuke to them, we might think, “Good on you, Jesus, go for it!”
But maybe we shouldn’t be too hasty to be self-righteous and comfortable. For it might just be that we fall into an opposite temptation. One preacher described the danger we face in these words:
I think that a more common “wrong” view in our day is an understanding that there is no end. Rather than living our lives today guided by the future Jesus has promised, we are guided by today or the past, e.g., “This is the way we’ve always done it.” Congregations (and individuals?) should be pulled ahead by a vision of the future rather than be pushed by the past — or worse, seeking to return to the past that no longer exists.
How easy that would be for us, whether we are worrying about whether our church has a long-term future, or whether we are planning for a centenary in two years’ time. Both could be reasons for looking back and living in the past. We could retreat to the cosy warmth of our memories.
But Jesus won’t let us live like that. He won’t let us slip into the habit of detailed predictions about the end of the world, but he does call us to look forward. As the hymn puts it,
We’ll praise him for all that is past
And trust him for all that’s to come.
Some of us find it easy to praise him for the past, but harder to trust him for what is to come. Our future vision for the church is filled with images of struggle, decline and closure.
What are we to do? Just as our view of the Temple must be Jesus-centred, so our view of Time must be focussed on Christ. For Christians, the ultimate future is filled with one vision: the kingdom of God. It is a conviction that the final victory belongs already to Jesus. He has conquered sin and death. The last enemy will fall.
Every time we take Holy Communion, we allow this vision to fill our sight. For we are not only remembering the past with gratitude, we are enjoying ‘a foretaste of the banquet prepared for all the world’. We celebrate the Last Supper, and we anticipate the Wedding Feast of the Lamb.
Let us allow the Scriptures and the worship of the Church give us a proper perspective on Time in the economy of God. And let that give us a proper, proportionate sense of hope.
All of this implies a third and final challenge. Jesus challenges their priorities about Truth. For his response, which leads to all the talk about ‘wars and rumours of wars’ and ‘the beginning of the birth pangs’ (verses 7-8), starts with the words,
Then Jesus began to say to them, ‘Beware that no one leads you astray. Many will come in my name and say, “I am he!” and they will lead many astray. (Verses 5-6)
What kind of leading astray is going on here? Leading people astray from Jesus himself. This is about a host of temptations to divert from the Truth himself. At a simple level, it’s about those who peddle false Christs, as in cults and heretical sects. So the image of Jesus in the Jehovah’s Witnesses that makes him less than fully divine is a leading astray from the Truth. The image of Jesus who blesses married people more than singles as in Mormonism is another deviation from the Truth. Or the Christian Scientists who say that illness is an illusion cannot match up with the Jesus who healed the sick of very real diseases.
So far, so easy, so smug. But I believe we have to recognise that we have similar problems even within the boundaries of the Christian Church, among those whose basic beliefs about Jesus are thoroughly orthodox, consistent with Scripture and the affirmations of the ancient Creeds. We go in for a ‘leading astray’ from Jesus the Truth, too.
What we do is we conjure a picture of Jesus according to our own preferences. One give-away is when someone says, “I like to think of Jesus as like …”. What follows might be helpful, but more often is simply an image of Jesus conditioned by the preferences of the speaker.
Another example would be something that happened to me after a service once. I had expounded a Gospel passage where Jesus said some difficult, if not tough words. I tried to explain what those words might mean. Afterwards, a man told me Jesus couldn’t possibly have said those words. Why not? Because they didn’t fit his preconceived ideas of what Jesus was about. On that basis, the witness of those who were closer to him was dismissed. If the Jesus presented in the Gospels doesn’t fit what we want, we leave those bits out.
And so we become very selective about Jesus, even in the Church. We take the bits we like and pretend the other parts aren’t there. For some, Jesus is a politician or social worker. For others, he is an evangelist who calls people to a code of personal morality. For others he is a teacher or a healer. Yet in the Scriptures he is an evangelist, a pastor, a healer and a proponent of social justice.
Above all, he is Lord, and he will not submit to the way we miniaturise him in order to fit what we religious consumers will buy. It is not for him to fit into our vision; it is for us to fit into his vision. Anything else is to be led astray, often willingly.
The great Christian leader John Stott used to begin his sermon preparation for Sunday the preceding Monday by reading the Bible passage he was to preach about on his knees. It wasn’t that he worshipped the Bible; rather, he recognised that the text conveyed to him the will of the sovereign Lord to whom he must submit. That is the example we need to cultivate: one that rejects the picking and choosing of what suits us.
In conclusion, then, every single priority of faith and discipleship to which Jesus calls us turns out to be a focussing on him. Our ‘Temple’ priority is to see him as the location of God’s presence, rather than a building. Our ‘Time’ priority is to let his perspective of the future determine our attitudes to the past, present and future. And our ‘Truth’ priority is to stop being selective about Jesus or making him in our own image. Instead, we bow the knee to him as Lord.
After all, wasn’t ‘Jesus is Lord’ the earliest Christian confession?
Big Circumstance 
