Never
once did Our Lord tell these witnesses of His to write. He Himself only wrote
once in His Life, and that was on sand. But He did tell them to preach
in His Name and to be witnesses to Him to the ends of the earth, until the consummation
of time. Hence those who take this or that text out of the Bible to prove
something are isolating it from the historical atmosphere in which it arose,
and from the word of mouth which passed Christ’s truth.
Fulton Sheen The World’s First Love, 1946: 45
On
this Sunday the Church bids us give thanks for the gift of Holy Scripture: for
the fact that we are able to tell the story of Jesus and the beginnings of the
church through the words of the New Testament, that we can see Christ, the Word
made flesh as the inspiration and fulfilment for all scripture. Prophesy is
fulfilled in and through Him, it points to Him, it finds its true meaning in
Him who is the Way, the Truth and the Life.
In this morning’s first reading, the
Prophet Isaiah is looking forward to a messianic future, where people’s deepest
needs are satisfied. Our most basic needs are for food, water, shelter, warmth,
clothing, and love. Christ fulfils these needs himself; he gives us himself,
under the outward forms of bread and wine, he feeds us with His BODY and BLOOD,
what richer food is there than this for our bodies and our souls, for those who
are thirsting, who long to come to Christ, they come to the waters, the waters
of baptism, through which they enter the Church, through which they die to the
world and live to Christ, they are regenerate, born again, to new life in Him.
‘You that have no money, come, buy and
eat!’ We, all of us are poor spiritually, and we cannot buy our way into
Heaven, such is the cost of human sin and disobedience, that only Christ’s
offering of Himself could pay the debt which we cannot, to we come to God poor
and open-handed, relying upon his love and mercy, his grace, to heal and
restore us. In Christ a New Covenant has been cut in His Blood, upon the Cross,
to save humanity from its sins, and to restore us, to give us the hope of
eternal life in Him, and through Him. Christ is the Son of David, Israel’s true
and eternal king, the King of Heaven, the King of all the Earth, our Ruler, and
our Judge, who has conquered all through his death and resurrection, and who
reigns supreme, Lord of our hearts, the Lord of All, whose word has gone out
into all lands, so that across the world people acclaim Him as their Lord and
King. In Christ we can seek God and find Him, we can call upon Him, and know
that he will listen, that He will hear our prayer, as His Son has taught us how
to pray, and promised that our prayer will be answered.
It is God who calls us to repentance, to
turn away from sin, from all which separates us from God and each other and to
turn to Him, to come in penitence and faith, to say sorry, to seek a fresh
start, and to try not to repeat those sins in the future, it’s a process which
we have to repeat every day, of every week of our lives here on earth, it’s why
we meet together regularly as Christians, to be nourished, healed and restored
by God, nourished with Word and Sacrament, to journey as the pilgrim people of
God, loving Him, and each other, seeking his forgiveness, and that of our
brothers and sisters in Christ, so that we can try to live out our faith, and
journey together towards Heaven and the eternal joy of God’s presence. We don’t
deserve it, but nonetheless God gives it to us in a generosity which we cannot
understand, but only experience.
This is why the church teaches and
preaches rooted in Holy Scripture, so that we can be close to Christ, through
it we proclaim the One who was born for us, who died and rose again for us.
Thus the church has an educative role, to be a school for the saints, who are
saved through faith in Jesus Christ. If we are honest then we recognise that
despite our good intentions that we all fall short of the mark, of what we know
God wants us to do, and quite of often of what we and our own consciences would
have us do, and so we need to come to God, to ask for forgiveness, and to seek
His grace to live out our faith in our lives, turning away from sin, back to
the God who loves us and saves us.
The world around us doesn’t care for such
things: it’s too much like hard work; it’s far too much trouble to get up on a
Sunday morning, and there are far more interesting things to do anyway, the
delights of the world are too tempting, they entice people and while entry to
the church through baptism is free it costs us our lives, in that we live for
Christ, so that we can say with the
Apostle Paul that it is no longer I who live but Christ living in me (Gal.
2:20) It is difficult and costly, and worthwhile. The world around us and a
great part of the church nowadays prefers to go soft on moral matters, and to
preach a gospel of cheap grace, which doesn’t make demands on people, it is the
church of NICE, of fuzzy felt, of fuzzy sentiment, of social convention, it is
not challenging, it doesn’t make people feel awkward, GOD FORBID! we’re Anglicans
after all. That if you don’t turn to God, and seeks his forgiveness that
you are saying yes to a future without God: hellfire and damnation are a reality,
and the way to them is broad and easy. Paul and Timothy faced this same problem
nearly two thousand years ago, and we face it today. It is not easy to stand
here and say such things, I’m a miserable sinner, who will have to answer to
God on the day of judgement for all that I am and do, part of which is the
proclamation of the truth of the Kingdom, and calling the people of God to repentance,
to turn away from sin, from an easy faith which says that sin doesn’t matter,
which downgrades and undervalues who Christ is and what he does. Let us come to
Christ that we may have life, in Him, and through Him, fed by Him, fed with Him,
in Word and Sacrament, to be filled with His love and forgiveness, and to live out
our faith in our lives, so that in word and deed we may proclaim the Good News of
His Kingdom, so that the world may believe and give glory...
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