Sermon St E Sunday 9.45 2 May 2021                  5th Sunday of Easter Year B
Psalm 22v25-end            Acts 8v26-end                        John 15v1-8                        1 John 4v7-21
Let us pray:- May I speak in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit. Amen

Have you ever thought that life has been unfair or unkind to you, and then blamed God for it?

In our Gospel reading this morning, Jesus was speaking to the disciples in the upper room on the occasion of the last supper and gave to them, and we should also say to us, a clear indication that we should look positively on the things that happen to us who are Christians.

Jesus, in using the analogy of the vineyard, describes God the Father as ‘the vinegrower’, showing that God looks for, and enhances, what is necessary to produce a vintage crop by tending caringly to his vines. God does that, as the keeper of the vineyard would do, by pruning his vines, by pruning us, you and me, and sometimes that pruning may seem pretty drastic if the crop is to form at its best.

The words used by Jesus can only draw a simple picture of how the owner of the vineyard, the vine grower, deeply cares. Cares to see his pruning of the vines result in an abundance of fruit, and that may mean the drastic snipping off of branches from the vine; but the branches that remain, that have not been pruned away, remain firmly attached to the ‘true vine’ itself, and in our case that is to our Lord Jesus.

And God has to prune our lives. God cares for and loves, each one of us as individuals, so much that He longs to see our lives glorify Him and bring to each one of us an abundance of blessings.

In fact Jesus gave that as one of his prime reasons for coming to tabernacle, to dwell, among us. A little earlier in John’s gospel (10v10), when Jesus was describing how he was the ‘door of the sheep’, how he was the ‘good shepherd’, Jesus tells us that he had come so we his sheep might have life, and have that life in abundance, and have life in all its possible fulness.

Do you, do I, feel that we are experiencing a fulness and abundance of life?

For that to happen, God in His love, mercy and grace, may have to lop off a few of our branches; change a few of our habits, our thoughts, our desires, and also some of our prejudices, just as Rosie drew our attention to last week.

Can you begin to see just why, and just how important it was for Jesus to tell us we have to ‘abide in him’, and to let him abide in us, to guide, direct and change us. And Jesus told the disciples that it was through the words he had spoken to them that made that possible. How important then for us, some 2000 years on, to follow those same words, to get to know and understand the scriptures that have been handed down to us.

So how do we encourage that abundance of fruit that God our Father, the vinegrower, desires to see forming in us? How are we to foster and grow that fruit in our lives for the glory of God? What does ‘abiding in Christ’ mean?

Deep questions that we all have to face up to if we desire to become disciples of our Lord Jesus, and to receive God’s abundance of blessings; it is not possible to explore that in depth in the short time we have. You will all know by now that is why to me time spent together in small groups reading and studying scripture, and in prayer and meditation, are so important. Please talk to me if you would feel this would be of value to you and would like to join us.

The Ethiopian eunuch, reading from the prophet Isaiah, needed Philip to interpret and explain that scripture, and so do we need one another to help us understand and work out God’s intentions for us.

The scriptures are central to our growth as Christians and you and I take our bibles for granted, with many different versions available to us in our mother tongue of English. But according to the Wycliff Bible Translators, there are still 1.5 billion people around the world still waiting for a Bible in a language they understand. There are 7353 known languages in the world today, but of those only 698 have a complete Bible.

There are many devoted believers around the world, often in isolation and in fear of persecution, working to translate scripture into the ‘heart languages’ of those still waiting for a portion of the Bible in their native mother tongue.

But let us have a quick look at what Saint John had to say in our reading from his first letter. John takes up the theme of ‘abiding in him’ (1Jn4v13), that is ‘abiding in Christ’ and gives us some guidance as to how to make that our practice.

John clearly tells us that we do indeed ‘abide in God’, and that God does abide in us, if we are those who believe that God sent his Son as the Saviour of the world. But John says it is more that just a ‘belief’; John tells us that we have to confess that Jesus is the Son of God. I trust that is something we will all openly do from our hearts as we declared in a moment our faith through the words of  the creed; but are we prepared to let that belief be openly known to our family, to our friends and to our neighbours?

If we have then John points to three amazing results in our lives. Have you picked up what they are from our reading? So what are they?

The first is that love should now dominate our lives and our behaviour. As we love one another, not just those we like and agree with, we know that we have been born of God and know God (1Jn4v7). That love in us follows as God first loved us (1Jn4v19), not because we deserved His love, not because we can earn God’s love, but through His grace and mercy, for God created us to be a people in His own image, a people designed to have fellowship with him.

The Apostle John stresses that it was a commandment from God that we love one another (1Jn4v21). We cannot truly love God who we have not seen John tells us, if we do not love our brothers and sisters whom we have seen. Perhaps those are some of the most challenging words we can read in our scriptures. They are words that each one of us must take time to reflect upon, and to ask for God’s help in understanding and then in implementing that command.

The second is that we know we abide in God, and that we have a relationship with Jesus our Lord and Saviour, because God has given to us His life giving Holy Spirit (1Jn4v13).

That Holy Spirit that we can recognise as the fire that burns deeply in our hearts. Can you recognise that burning of the Holy Spirit in your heart just as  the two disciples did on the road to Emmaus as Jesus walked with them?

And the third is that we possess a boldness to face the coming day of judgement (1Jn4v17). No longer are we in fear of that day for we are promised that God’s perfect love in us will cast out any fear.

Have you recognised that we Christians are of all people the most blessed. We have the assurance of the love of God, the assurance that Jesus is with us as we walk our pilgrim path, and that we have the power and presence of God’s life giving Holy Spirit within us. With such in our lives, we are meant to reflect God’s glory to this needy world, and as God has opened to us the gate of everlasting life, they also give to us a hope that transcends all that we could possibly desire as we look for life with our Lord in the coming new creation.

Let us pray: The shorter Collect for this 5^th Sunday of Easter

Risen Christ, your wounds declare your love for the world and the wonder of your risen life: give us compassion and courage to risk ourselves for those we serve, to the glory of God the Father. Amen

Sermon St Paul’s Gulworthy Sunday 18 April 2021 Easter 3 Year B
Acts 3v12-19         Psalm 4         1 John 3v1-7         Luke 24v36b-48
Let us pray:- ………..         Amen

Let us this morning journey back in time and join with those disciples, and I suspect Jesus family, the women and some others, assembled together on the first and second Easter Sunday evenings. As we do so may we now be overjoyed and rejoice, as did those disciples, as we sense the Lord coming into our midst. May we with the psalmist say “Put your trust in the Lord.”

But what questions I wonder arise in your minds when you ponder that  room on the first Easter Sunday evening when the disciples met in secret for fear of the Jewish authorities? Maybe they gathered in the same upper room as for the last supper, but now with its doors securely locked. The disciples present had heard the stories from the women, and from Simon Peter and John, of the empty tomb, and maybe also from Simon, and from James-the brother of our Lord, who told them that Jesus was indeed alive and that he had met with each of them earlier that day. And then appeared the two disciples who had returned hurriedly from their journey to Emmaus, and they shared how Jesus had also met with them, and related how Jesus had revealed himself to them in the breaking of the bread. A prayer that each of us can make, that Jesus will again reveal himself to us, as we gather round our Lord’s table to remember him as we break bread together this morning.

When we put together the accounts of that evening from John and Luke’s gospels, we can get a more complete view of that special time. So let us become a fly on the wall of that upper room as the disciples came together on the first Easter Sunday, to discuss what all this could possibly mean.

What’s this? Here’s Jesus standing before us, and he does look real, not like a ghost, but how did he get in through those locked doors? Are we hallucinating?

But he’s speaking “Peace be with you”. “Why are you frightened and why do doubts arise in your hearts.”

Look, He is showing us his hands and side. Those look like awful wounds Lord, what did they do to you. And now He is inviting us to touch him, so he can’t possibly be a ghost, He has real flesh and bones. If only Thomas were here to see them as well, I wonder what he would make of all this, after all he is a pretty good realist.

If Jesus got in here through those locked doors, then there has to be something very different about his body, I wonder what is it?

But what is Jesus saying now? “Have you anything to eat?” What; are you hungry Lord? Oh I see, you can’t be a ghost as ghost’s don’t eat.

Now what’s He saying. “Peace be with you. As the Father has sent me, so I send you”. Has Jesus then just come from the Father? That means after he was buried he must have gone back into heaven. Well, he used to tell us that he had come from the Father when we were with him on those endless walks through the Galilean countryside; and what did he say to Nathaniel, “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending upon the Son of Man.”.

But what does he mean “so I send you.” Send us to where, and to do what? Did I hear Him right? But what is he doing now?

He’s breathing on us and what’s that he’s saying? “Receive the Holy Spirit”. Ou, that’s a bit tingly; but Oh, its so very warm and comforting.
I rather like that feeling; wonder why he did that? What’s it meant for?

What! Did I just hear you correctly Jesus? Can’t be. You have said some pretty challenging things in the past, but “forgive sins”. I need some time to digest that one.

And now He’s talking about Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms, and saying they all speak of Him, and they show that He is the Messiah, and so he had to suffer and die and rise from the dead. I think I will need to read those scriptures more deeply in the future to grasp all that. What Lord? You are going to help us do that by opening our minds, wonder how that will work?

And what’s Jesus saying now. That we are to be his witnesses to all these things. Well we have certainly spent enough time with him these past three years so I suppose we are witnesses to him. And now, where’s he gone?

Perhaps that is what went through the minds of some of those gathered that evening, and what they then shared during the following week with Thomas. Those disciple told Thomas, “We have seen the Lord.” Thomas’s reply then gave to him his nickname of ‘doubting Thomas’ as he replied, “Unless I see the mark of the nails in his hands, and put my finger in the mark of the nails and my hand in his side, I will not believe.”

I wonder if some of us are like Thomas in that respect? We need to see some sign, some proof that Jesus really did rise from the dead and is alive today.

But what are we told by Saint Paul in Romans? ‘The just shall live by faith’ (Rom1v17). Paul was here repeating a theme, that started with Abraham, and that then runs throughout the Old Testament by quoting from the prophet Habakkuk (2v4), ‘the righteous shall live by faith’. Our hope as Christians is firmly based upon our faith in the risen Christ. The writer of Hebrews (6v12) reminds us that we are to be ‘imitators of those who through faith and patience shall inherit the promises.’

But as we read in last weeks gospel, Thomas was soon to be enlightened when one week later the disciples once again gathered together, but now with Thomas present, and in that same upper room. Once more through locked doors the Lord appeared, and greeted them all with those comforting words, ‘Peace be with you’. Those comforting words are words that we still use some 2000 years on, as we remember that we Christians are called to be a people of peace.

In his grace Jesus then gave Thomas the opportunity to “Put his finger in Jesus hand and to reach out and put his hand in Jesus side, and as Jesus did so Jesus gave to Thomas, and to all of us also, the words, perhaps we should say almost a command, “Do not doubt but believe.”

We do not read that Thomas any longer needed the opportunity to put his finger or hand in the marks of Jesus passion, but instead Thomas replies with words of complete belief, “My Lord and my God.” A reply that I trust, you and I can also make as we gather in the presence of our risen Lord this morning.

John’s gospel records that Jesus then had a word for each one of us, and a word that he has had for all Christians down through the ages, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

It is through our faith in our unseen, but risen Lord, that we are now-in this present time, and continuing on into the future, to accept the promise that we are to receive the manifold blessings of God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit. The Apostle John reminds us in his first epistle that we can look and see what love the Father has given to us, and through that love rejoice in the knowledge that we are truly God’s children. As God’s children we do not yet know what further blessings God has prepared for us who love him, for those blessings have not yet been revealed. But what we do know is that we are promised that we shall be like God, like our Lord Jesus, when we finally see him as he is, in all his glory.
Now that is a good reason in this Easter season to shout ‘Alleluia’.

I guess that when we shall see Jesus in his glory, as we inhabit our new resurrection bodies, we shall then understand more of that resurrection body of our Lord that was able to enter the upper room through those locked doors. As a Physicist that is a burning question I long to have answered.

So with that hope of seeing Jesus as he is, we have a call to purify ourselves, for we serve a pure, righteous and Holy God. Let us now with obedient hearts, look with those early disciples to respond to Jesus words spoken in that upper room, “I send you”. What that means will differ for each one of us, but we know from Jesus teaching that we are all called to be ‘salt and light’, salt and light to all those around us, as we seek to dispense the love of God through the fragrance of our Lord Jesus Christ in us, through his indwelling Holy Spirit.

Let us pray:         The shorter collect for this 3rd Sunday of Easter:

Risen Christ,
you filled your disciples with boldness and fresh hope:
strengthen us to proclaim your risen life
and fill us with your Holy Spirit and with peace,
to the glory of God our Father.
                  Amen