Archive for November, 2008

Andrew the Apostle

November 29, 2008 at 11:37 am · Filed under Christian living, New Testament ·Tagged , , ,

John 1:29-41,  Matthew 4:18-22 

Sunday 30th. November 2008

Today, apart from being Advent Sunday,  is also St. Andrew’s day.
I have a little book for children (printed in 1927)  entitled Patron Saints of the British Isles. Looking at this little book it seems that the English come off worst with regard to their Patron Saint! St. George was a Roman citizen, of Greek parents. There is very little historical information available about him. One thing is certain – he never slew a dragon!

The Welsh come off well with St David who was a man of their own nation. And the Irish do well in having a Welshman as their saint! (It is thought that Patrick, a Romanized Briton, may have come from Wales.)

But it’s the Scots who do best of all in having as their Patron Saint a man who was not only an Apostle but also one of the first disciples Jesus called.

How Andrew came to be Patron Saint of Scotland is another matter. Anyway, as Protestants we don’t really believe in the idea of a Patron Saint interceding on our behalf in heaven.

But it’s Andrew the man we’re interested in  – not Andrew the plaster saint. The real Andrew who followed Jesus and became the first missionary of the Gospel.

 

Andrew: his background

Andrew was just an ordinary Jewish peasant of Galilee. He and his brother Simon were fishermen operating out of Capharnaum. We are told (in John 1:35-42) that Andrew was a follower of John the Baptist. He and another disciple  were with John one day when John suddenly pointed to a man and said, “Behold the Lamb of God!” It was Jesus, who had been baptized by John the previous day. Andrew and the other disciple followed Jesus and spent the day talking to Jesus and listening to his words.

 

The first work of evangelism

Andrew went straight to his brother Simon ( later to be known as Peter) and said: we have found the Messiah” – the anointed one. He brought Simon to Jesus and introduced him. Andrew was a man of practical faith. The first thing he did was to tell his brother about Jesus. So this was the first work of evangelism.

Simon Peter is such an important figure in the gospels that we tend to forget about the role of Andrew in bringing him to Jesus in the first place. This was the very first work of home mission – he told his brother about Jesus.

 

The calling of Andrew

Some time later, as he walked on the seashore, Jesus saw Simon and Andrew. “Follow me and I will make you fishers of men,” he said. (Matthew 4:19.) They left their nets immediately and followed Jesus, as did James and John the sons of Zebedee.

So these four fishermen became the first disciples of Jesus – the inner circle of the Apostles to whom Jesus explained many things in private.  (Mark 13:3)

They gave up their fishing and followed Jesus full-time -  becoming fishers of men.

Practical faith

Andrew, as I said, was a man of practical faith. In any situation he saw immediately what had to be done. And he was prepared to do it even if it seemed ridiculous. We see this in the feeding of the five thousand. John tells us it was Andrew who said, “There is a lad here with five barley loaves and two fishes – but what are they among so many?”  ( John 6:9)

It seemed crazy, but Andrew believed Jesus could do something, even with the boy’s pathetic offering. Once again Andrew is seen introducing someone to Jesus – this time it’s the boy with the picnic.

Foreign mission

In John 12:2 we read about some Greeks, who were at the Passover feast, coming to Philip, one of the Apostles, and asking, “Sir, we would like to see Jesus”. Philip told Andrew and together they told Jesus. When Jesus heard that Gentiles were seeking him he knew that the hour of his sacrifice would come soon and that the gospel would be sent out to every land. This was the first time that Gentiles were to hear the teachings of Jesus – and Andrew was instrumental in it!

The last mention of Andrew in the Bible is after the Ascension when he was with the other Apostles waiting for the coming of the Holy Spirit. Everything else that we know about Andrew comes from tradition – it may or may not be true:

Legends of Andrew

According to the story, Matthew was in prison for the faith and he was sick. He sent a message to Andrew for help. Andrew at this time was preaching in Achaea in Southern Greece. He found a boat on the sea shore and a stranger agreed to pilot him and two of his disciples to the place where Matthew was. In the middle of the night a storm brewed up. “Don’t be afraid,” said the stranger, “by morning we shall be on the other side”.

“No. I’m not afraid,”  said Andrew, “I was in a storm once on the Sea of Galilee and my fear was taken away”. Then Andrew and his two disciples fell asleep and the stranger continued to pilot the boat.

When they awoke they found themselves near to the shore – but the stranger was gone. They landed the ship, came to the city and preached the gospel to the people there. At first there was opposition but after a while many repented and were baptized. Then the people released Matthew from prison.  Andrew then made his way by land and sea back to Achaea.

When he returned he found that many of the Christians had fallen away from the Faith and he had to start the work of evangelism over again.

The Proconsul Aegus opposed the faith and put Andrew into prison. Eventually he was executed on a diagonal cross.

 

The Scottish connection

Another legend says that, many centuries later, a monk Regulus was told in a vision to take Andrew’s body from Greece to Scotland. As they neared their destination they were shipwrecked on the Scottish coast. The King of the Picts gave them a tract of land and Andrew’s bones were buried there. So the place became known as St. Andrews.

Later, the Picts and Scots saw a diagonal cross in the sky the night before they went to fight a battle with the Saxons. After their victory over the Saxons they decided that Andrew was their Patron Saint.

So much for the legends – whatever we make of them. At the very least we know that Andrew evangelized in Greece and was martyred there for his faith.

 
Conclusion

What can we learn from the life of Andrew?

Like Andrew may we:

·  trust in Jesus as the Lamb of God who gave his life for us

·  bring others to Jesus. (For example: by praying for them or by sharing our faith with them

·  exercise practical faith like Andrew’s. Some times it needs faith to do something.

·  like Andrew, be faithful unto death. We may not be called to die for our Lord but we should live the whole of our lives for him.

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Sheep and goats

November 24, 2008 at 7:10 pm · Filed under Christian living, Jesus Christ, New Testament ·Tagged , , ,

 

Matthew 25:31-46


Jesus told a parable about sheep and goats. He said that on the Last Day he, the Son of Man, the King, the Messiah, will separate between two classes of people. On the one hand the sheep, who will have a place with him and his Father in heaven for ever. The goats, on the other hand will depart to the place of torment prepared for the devil and his angels – they will go to Hell. (By the way, it is worth noting that Jesus spoke about hell on more occasion than any other person in the Bible. He spoke of God’s judgment of sinners far more than any Old Testament prophet. Jesus spoke about it a great deal because he wanted to save people from hell.)

Those who heard this parable would have been very familiar with the shepherd sorting his sheep and goats. They were kept in large mixed flocks,  but at night time they were separated. The goats were put under cover and the sheep brought into open sheepfolds where they could continue to graze.  At twilight the shepherds would stand at the gate to the sheepfold and tap their rods on the ground. The sheep would go to the right and the goats to the left.

Misunderstood

This is a parable which can be greatly misunderstood. I am sure many people think that getting to heaven is just a matter of doing good deeds and being kind to people. Whereas the New Testament message is that salvation is a matter of repenting of our sins and trusting Jesus for salvation. It’s about what Jesus has done for us on the cross – not what we do for him.

If we wrongly interpret this  parable we might get the idea that we can get to heaven on our own merit. We will pride ourselves on our good deeds. We might think we are storing up merit to get us to heaven. All such ideas go right against evangelical truth. The gospel teaches us that we are sinners who need to repent and believe.

So why then did Jesus tell this parable? It is surely because in every age of church history there is a lot of “easy believism” Do you know what that means? People who think that Christianity is just a matter of what you say, rather than what you really believe and do. And in Jesus’ day there were many of the religious people who thought they were pretty good. The Pharisees kept all the ritual laws but they didn’t really care for their fellow men and women.  Jesus taught that it is not possible to love God if we do not love our neighbour. And this teaching is echoed elsewhere in the New Testament -  most notably in the Epistles of James and John. 

James says:
For as the body apart from the spirit is dead, so also faith apart from works is dead.  (James 2: 26)

And John says
Anyone who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen (1 John 4:19)


Our love for the Lord is demonstrated by our love for other people. So it’s no good talking about our love for God if we do not care for  those people around us God has given us to love.

Jesus challenges us with this parable. He gets right to the heart of whether our religion is real or not. Is it a matter of really loving God an our neigbour or is it just going through the motions -  churchgoing, prayers, meetings, etc.

 
I am sure you have heard this piece:

I was hungry — and you formed a humanitarian club and discussed my hunger.
I was imprisoned and you crept off quietly to your chapel and prayed for my release.
I was naked, and in your mind you debated the morality of my appearance.
I was sick, and you knelt and thanked God for your health.
I was homeless, and you preached to me of the spiritual shelter of the love of God.
I was lonely and you left me alone to pray for me.

You seem so holy; so close to God. But I am still very hungry, and lonely, and cold.  (Anonymous)
Simple, uncalculating help

William Barclay has some good things to say about this parable:
“This is one of the most vivid parables Jesus ever spoke, and the lesson is crystal clear – that God will judge us in accordance with our reaction to human need. His judgement does not depend on the knowledge we have amassed, or the fame that we have acquired, or the fortune that we have gained, but on the help that we have given.” 

Barclay points out three things about this help:

1) It is simple

The help given was in simple things. In this parable the “sheep” are not commended for doing anything that involved a great deal of ability or skill. Nor did it require a lot of money. They didn’t have to be particularly clever either. All they had to do was to give some food to people who were  hungry, some water to the thirsty. Such a simple thing!  Make the stranger feel welcome, visit the sick and those imprisoned. ( In those days you could go to prison for debt,  or you might be in prison because you were persecuted for your faith.)

It’s just about seeing a need and doing what you can to help.

“There never was a parable which so opened the way of glory to the simplest people”, says Barclay. No one can say, “I am not important enough, or rich enough, or clever enough.”

Everyone can do whatever is in their power to help those less fortunate than themselves. And when they do it out of true compassion they are serving the Lord.

 

2) It is uncalculating

The amazing thing about the people in this story is that they didn’t know what they had done! Only when the Lord told them did the sheep realize they had been serving him – and only then did the goats realize that they had been neglecting the Lord in their selfish life-style.

At the time the righteous were doing their helpful deeds they just did them, without thinking about it. It was not a matter of thinking, “I am doing this because I love the Lord”,  or,  “I am doing this because I will be rewarded in heaven”.  Nor was it: “I am doing this because I am a good person -  better than others.”  (That was the way of the Pharisees.)  No, it was simply a matter of seeing a need and reacting to it. Seeing someone in difficulty and reaching out to help them.

“The attitude of those who had failed was: ‘If we had known it was you, we would gladly have helped. But we thought it was only some common man who wasn’t worth helping.’
“It is still true that there are those who will help if they are given praise and thanks and publicity. But to help like that is not to help, it is to pander to self-esteem. Such help is not generosity; it is disguised selfishness. The help which wins the approval of God is that which is given for nothing but the sake of helping.”                     (Barclay)

Personally, I think there is nothing more obnoxious than  self-conscious do-gooding. You get the feeling that some people would, if  they washed you feet look up as if to say “I’m not doing this for you. I’m doing it for the Lord. I’m only doing it because the Lord will reward me for it.” You can see that this is no attitude for a Christian – a follower of Jesus.

No, I think true Christian good deed are done almost by instinct. – call it Christian instinct if you like. They are done at the prompting of the Holy Spirit,  without calculation.

 
3) If you help others you are helping Jesus

And conversely, if you close your heart to others you are closing it to Jesus.

He says, “the least of these my brethren”. Our Lord regards the whole human race as his brothers and sisters, and he wants us to do so too.

We all know that if you are kind to a child you will gain the love of the parent . If you help the child you will delight the heart of the mother or father. And if you are cruel to the child you will face the fury of the parent. If you do harm to any of God’s children then you will face the wrath of God. His justice is never overcome and he will judge the world with equity.

“Then he will say to those on his left, ‘Depart from me, you who are cursed, into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.  For I was hungry and you gave me nothing to eat,…………..   I tell you the truth, whatever you did not do for one of the least of these, you did not do for me.’

These are solemn words. This parable speaks of God’s judgement and it comes on those who are unloving, who do not treat others as their brothers and sisters.

Barclay quotes two great illustrations of this parable:

One is from the life of Francis of Asissi. 
“He was wealthy, and high-born, and high-spirited but he was not happy. He felt his life was incomplete. Then one day he was out riding and met a leper, loathsome and repulsive in the ugliness of his disease. Something moved Francis to dismount and fling his arms around this wretched sufferer; and in his arms the face of the leper changed to the face of Christ.”

At that moment he realized the truth of this parable.

 
The second story is about Martin of Tours.

He was a Roman soldier and a Christian. One cold winter day, as he was entering a city, a beggar stopped him and asked for alms. Martin had no money; but the beggar was blue and shivering with cold, and Martin gave what he had. He took off his soldier’s coat, worn and frayed as it was; he cut it in two and gave half of it to the beggar man. That night he had a dream. In it he saw the heavenly places and all the angels, and Jesus in the midst of them; and Jesus was wearing half of a Roman soldier’s cloak.  One of the angels said to him, “Master why are you wearing that battered old cloak? Who gave it to you”. And Jesus answered softly, “My servant Martin gave it to me”.
It’s a beautiful story, isn’t it. But let’s not fall into the trap of thinking we  shall do good to others in order to receive good from the Lord. Let us just seek to open our hearts to the Lord,  asking him to increase our compassion and to show us ways we can give help to others.

The good deeds we do might not be very spectacular. It might be giving some money to a needy person, or it might be spending time listening to someone else’s tale of woe.  It it might be doing a practical job for someone who is old and infirm, or it might be talking to a lonely person, or welcoming a stranger, or going to see someone in hospital, or putting some money in the Christian Aid envelope.
These are simple things we can all do.

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Talents

November 14, 2008 at 4:56 pm · Filed under Christian living, New Testament ·Tagged , ,

Silver coins in a jar (Not actual coins from this story)

Matthew 25:14-30

Have you watched the X-Factor on TV? It’s very popular. Simon Cowell is the tough one who has to tell some people they just don’t have the talent.

Talent contest have always been popular. In the 60s and 70s it used to be Opportunity Knocks. Now it;s the X-Factor, and Britain’s Got Talent, and a whole host of other programmes.

 

What is a Talent?

We’ve got used to the idea that this word “talent” means “a gift or ability”. This use of the word comes from the Bible – from the Parable of the Talents.  A talent was not originally a gift or ability – it was a measure of weight. In ancient times a talent was a weight equal to about 60 lb. Because it was used to weigh out large quantities of silver or gold it also became a unit of currency. A talent of silver was a large sum - and a talent of gold even larger.  At the time of Jesus a talent of silver was worth more than 15 years’ wages for a labourer.

It’s difficult to put that in modern terms, but if you think £200,000, that would give a rough idea. That’s what the man with one talent had ( assuming they were talents of siver, not gold). The others had £400,000 and £1,000,000 respectively. We’re talking about large sums of money here – these are capital sums to be used for trading and investment.

In this story the three servants were not just household slaves, no they were business managers.

They’ve got to take that money and trade with it. The amounts they are given relate to their abilities. The master gave one million pounds to the man he thought could cope with the responsibility of such a sum. And likewise £400,000 to the second man. And the third man was given £200, 000 because that’s what the master thought he could handle.

 

Parable of the tool boxes

 I read a different version of this story recently -  retelling it in a way that might make it easier for us to understand. Let’s think about it, not as sums of money, but as items of equipment.

Once upon a time there was a man who had a construction business. The man had to go away on a long trip and so he called his three employees together and said, “I have to go on a long trip and so I am leaving you three in charge. I have put together a tool box for each of you to use to keep the business going while I am gone.”

The man then gave each of his employees a tool box. The tool boxes contained all the tools the employees needed to do what the man expected of them, but since the three employees didn’t all have the same abilities, each toolbox was different. To the first employee, he gave a very large tool box filled with every tool that you can imagine. To the second employee, he gave a smaller toolbox, but one that still had a very good assortment of tools. To the third employee, he gave a very small tool box with just a few tools, but enough tools for the employee to do what was expected of him.

The man then left to go on his trip. When he returned, he called his employees together to see what they had done while he was gone.

The first employee said, “I knew that you had a great love for the homeless people of the world, so I used the toolbox that you gave me to build homes for the homeless.

“That is great!” said the employer. “You have done so well that I am going to put you in charge of all new construction for the entire company.”

The second employee said, “I knew that you had a great love for the elderly, so I used the toolbox you gave me to fix up the homes of old people who can no longer do the work themselves.”

“That is wonderful!” said the employer. “You have done such a good job, that I am putting you in charge of all the repair and maintenance work for the entire company.”

Then he turned to the third employee and asked, “What did you do with the tools that I left for you?”

“I knew that you are a very demanding boss and that you expect a lot from your employees. I was afraid that if I used the tools you gave me that one of them might get broken or that I might lose one of them and make you angry. I put the tools in a very safe place. They were there all the time you were gone. Look, here they are, just like new.”

“What a worthless employee you are! I didn’t give you the tools for safekeeping, I gave them to you to use in my business. You are fired!” Since they had proven that they would make good use of them, he took the man’s toolbox and divided the tools between the other two employees.

(story from  www.sermons4kids.com )

 

Use what you have

You see, the one-talent man is not being judged for his lack of ability. It was because he didn’t use what he had. At the very least he could have invested it in a bank and got interest. He didn’t do that – he just buried his crate of silver ingots in the ground. Now this is where we come to the application of this story  - this is how the word “talent” in the English language came to mean an ability or gift.

God has given us all various  abilities and gifts and we can all do different things. I can play the guitar a bit –  but don’t ask me to dance.  I know a bit about science – but don’t ask me about financial matters.  We were in a quiz the other night  and I couldn’t answer any of the questions about sport,  but other people could. Now the Lord has given us all  various talents – small or large. How do we use them?  In the story the one-talent man had even what he had taken away from him because he hadn’t used it. Isn’t life like that? Use your muscles and they grow strong:  fail to exercise and they  waste away. Keep playing tennis and  you’ll get good at it: stop playing and you’ll loose what skill you’ve got.  Practise being loving and kind to others and you will become more loving and kind: don’t do kind acts and you will become hard and unfeeling. Pray and read the Bible  and you will grow in grace and get to know God better: don’t pray  or read the Bible and you will wither up and die spiritually.

We’ve all got talents -  do we use them? And more to the point – how do we use them? Not selfishly, not just for our own pleasure but unselfishly,  to help other people, to give pleasure to them, to serve the Church of Jesus Christ or the Kingdom of God.

Remember, a talent is not just  an ability or gift. That’s just one kind of talent.  This parable is speaking of any opportunity we have. It’s about used and unused opportunities. Here are some of the things God has given us which may qualify as talents.

  • our time – do we make the most of it?
  • our good health and physical fitness
  •  our opportunities to do good and to help people
  • our friendships, our families, the fellowship of the church – do we take the opportunity to build up good relationships with others.
  • our financial resources. Yes our money is also something we can use either selfishly or unselfishly. We are back to the original meaning of the word talent here.

Anything we have as a gift from God can be a talent. It can be used either selfishly or unselfishly, for the glory of God.

 The Presbyterian Church of Wales is facing a crisis of finances, of human resources, and of confidence at this time. But none of these things would be a problem if the members were using their talents  as God intended - giving of their time, energy, money and abilities to serve him.

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Courage

November 13, 2008 at 6:29 pm · Filed under Christian living ·Tagged ,

 Courage

 

(Talk given at a service of all-age worship for Remembrance Sunday, November 9th. 2008)

[From a newspaper cutting]
“Robbers flee 84 year old armed with a poppy”.  William Grove, a retired Civil Servant, grappled with robbers who were attempting to hold up a jewelry shop. He saw them trying to smash their way through the reinforced windows of the shop. A crowd of people was looking on, but all were too afraid to intervene – the robbers were armed with hammers and other tools. Mr. Grove ran forward, grabbed one of the young men and tried to pull his head back to immobilize him – a technique he had learned when he was in the forces. The man’s balaclava came off in Mr. Grove’s hands. Then the stunned robber and his accomplice threw down their weapons in the street and fled empty- handed,  but not before the face of one of them had been caught on a security camera!

Mr. Grove then calmly got on a bus  and departed. He is a man  of courage. And today we think of men and women of courage who died or were injured for their country in time of war.

 In the Bible one man of great courage was Joshua. He led the Israelites into the promised land after the death of Moses. Our reading shows us how apprehensive Joshua was about the task before him. (No doubt president-elect Obama feels like  that now!)  God encouraged Joshua and promised to be with him in all he did.

  1 After the death of Moses the servant of the LORD, the LORD said to Joshua son of Nun, Moses’ aide: 2 “Moses my servant is dead. Now then, you and all these people, get ready to cross the Jordan River into the land I am about to give to them—to the Israelites. 3 I will give you every place where you set your foot, as I promised Moses. 4 Your territory will extend from the desert to Lebanon, and from the great river, the Euphrates—all the Hittite country—to the Great Sea  on the west. 5 No one will be able to stand up against you all the days of your life. As I was with Moses, so I will be with you; I will never leave you nor forsake you.

 6 “Be strong and courageous, because you will lead these people to inherit the land I swore to their forefathers to give them. 7 Be strong and very courageous. Be careful to obey all the law my servant Moses gave you; do not turn from it to the right or to the left, that you may be successful wherever you go. 8 Do not let this Book of the Law depart from your mouth; meditate on it day and night, so that you may be careful to do everything written in it. Then you will be prosperous and successful. 9 Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.”   (Joshua 1:1-9  NIV)

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Courage in war:   Jack Cornwall
Many stories of courage and heroism emerge in times of war. War is one of the most terrible of human activities and yet it can bring out the best in people.

Jack Cornwall was only 16 years old but he served in the Royal Navy. His job was to act as sighter on one of the guns on the HMS Chester in the First World War. During the Battle of Jutland the Chester was hit by the enemy and a fifth of her crew were killed or incapacitated. Jack was one of the injured but he refused to leave his post – even though the other members of his gun crew were either dead or had crawled away to safety. Jack would not abandon his post – he thought he might still be needed there. He remained there for  hours until the battle was over  but he died later of his wounds.
The story of his brave deed was told in the following letter, written to his mother by the Captain of his ship :

“ I know you would wish to hear of the splendid fortitude and courage shown by your son during the action of 31 May. His devotion to duty was an example for all of us. The wounds which resulted in his death within a short time were received in the first few minutes of the action He remained steady at his most exposed post at the gun, waiting for orders. His gun would not bear on the enemy ; all but two of the ten crew were killed or wounded, and he was the only one who was in such an exposed position. But he felt he might be needed, and, indeed, he might have been ; so he stayed there, standing and waiting, under heavy fire, with just his own brave heart and God’s help to support him. I cannot express to you my admiration of the son you have lost from this world.

Later Jack Cornwall was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross.

On this day we remember other people who, like Jack Cornwall, have given their lives for their country. People who made sacrifices and who showed courage.

 

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Courage in everyday life


 Earlier we referred to Mr. Grove, the pensioner who took on the robbers.  But there are many other situations in everyday life where we need courage.
Perhaps you need to be brave in the face of pain or sickness. You might need courage to face disappointments in life. And indeed it takes courage to be a good loser. You have to have courage to stand up to bullies. And another kind of courage  sometimes to walk away from a fight.

At times we have to speak up for the “underdog” in the face of oppression. That requires courage.  You also have to be brave if you are going to stand up for your faith. To be the only committed Christian in a place of work or in a class can be very hard -  it requires real courage.

You also need courage to say “no!” to drugs  and to sexual immorality. I think young people  today need great courage. And we all need courage in different ways as we go through life.

 As it says in the song:
 Give me courage when the world is rough,
Keep me loving though the world is tough.
Leap and sing in all I do
keep me travelling along with you.


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Moral courage

A lot of what we have been talking about comes under the category of moral courage. Sometimes we hear of people showing great moral courage in standing up to unjust governments. The people who have stood up to President Mugabe in Zimbabwe have been very brave.

 In Burma Aung Suu Kyi ( Aung soo chee) has been in prison and under house arrest for years. All she had done was is to ask that her people might have freedom of speech and democracy. These are things we take for granted in this country. But she has been badly mistreated – the only thing that prevents her from being killed by the authorities is that the eyes of the world are on her. Aung San Suu Kyi has been awarded the Nobel Peace prize while still under arrest. She calls on people everywhere to help, saying: “ Please use your liberty to promote ours.” She is a woman of great moral courage.

     Aung Suu Kyi

 

Mahatma Gandhi also was a man of moral courage . Through his non-violent methods of protest he eventually forced the British Government to give independence to India. Ghandhi worked tirelessly to promote harmony between the different religious and ethnic groups in India. He was killed by an assassin’s bullet for his pains.

                                                                                      

                                                                                             Gandhi

Christian courage


Finally we think of Christians who have shown great courage in standing up for their Lord under persecution.

Richard Wurmbrand was a paster of the evangelical church in Rumania. He spent 14 years  in prison because the communist authorities did not want him spreading  the Christian message. He was tortured and beaten mercilessly, yet he says he was never closer to Christ than when he was alone in his cell after having been beaten.

                                                                                                                              

                                                                                                                               Richard Wurmbrand

 

Today many  Christians are suffering beating and imprisonment, torture and even  death in some parts of the world. In some Islamic countries you can go to prison if you are seen carrying a Bible or wearing a cross.

All these Christians who suffer for their faith are following the example of Jesus himself. He suffered torture and death  because he came to show the way back to God. He died on the cross to save us from our sins. He gave his life for us. He showed the greatest moral courage of all as he hung on that cross and said “Father,  forgive them, they do not know what they are doing”.

As we give thanks today for the sacrifice of so many lives in war and for others who have made sacrifices and shown courage we most of all think of Jesus. And we make our response to him: “Lord, take my life and give me the courage to live as a Christian should.”

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Reformation

November 13, 2008 at 5:04 pm · Filed under Christian living, New Testament, worship ·Tagged , ,

 

Romans 3:19-28,  Jeremiah 31:31-34

If I were to ask you what day it was last Friday I don’t think any of you would have difficulty saying Hallowe’en. (Perhaps the more erudite might say “the Eve of All Saints Day”). We always know the 31st. October as Hallowe’en but it was only fairly recently that I realised it is also Reformation Day. How can this be?  We are Protestants, members of the Presbyterian or Reformed churches -  how is it that we don’t know that this day is Reformation Day? Why have we allowed it to be hijacked by trick and treat and all the other dubious hallowe’en activities?

It was on 31st October, the eve of All Saints Day in 1517, that Martin Luther posted his famous 95 Theses to the door of the Castle Church in Wittenberg. In those days the church door functioned as a kind of public notice board ( for those who could read). All kinds of public notices were nailed to the church door. So Martin Luther’s action was not the act of vandalism it might at first seem to be to us!

But why did Luther post this notice on Hallowe’en? Well, on the eve of All Saints Day the Castle Church was open to the public. People came to view the large collection of relics of the saints which were held there. It was believed that if you viewed these relics you could obtain a reduction in the time you would spend in Purgatory. In fact it was considered equivalent to buying an indulgence for your sins. So there was a significance in Luther choosing that day to put up his notice.

Well, I’m not going to go into Luther’s 95 Theses now, but I do want us to think about what the Reformation stands for. What does it mean to be a Protestant? In what ways do we differ from our Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox brothers and sisters? In what I am now going to say I do not want anyone to see it as some kind of attack on non-protestants. It’s just that I believe strongly that we ought not to be ashamed of what we believe as Protestants. In these ecumenical times you quite often hear people expressing regret for the Reformation – as if it was an unnecessary splitting up of Christendom. Well, I don’t regret it. It was a necessary return to Biblical truth at a time when the Church had lost its way.

Discarding the untrue

Reformation is about discarding those things which are not Biblical, and which are untrue, and at the same time holding on to Biblical truths which might have been forgotten over time. That is what Luther and Calvin and all the other Reformers were trying to do. And that is what we should be trying to do also.

So what were the things they discarded?

·   The sale of indulgences – you could pay money so that your sins would be forgiven and you would spend less time in purgatory ( it was thought).

·  The doctrine of Purgatory itself – it’s not taught in the Bible.

·  Praying to the saints.

·  Offering worship to the Virgin Mary

·  Praying for the souls of the dead

·  Bowing down to images of saints and angels

·  Bowing to the altar and worshipping the bread and wine of the Eucharist as the actual body and blood of God: the doctrine of transubstantiation.

·  The power of the priesthood, who were believed to be able to forgive people’s sins.

All these things were thrown out by the Reformers. (Unfortunately many of these practices were brought back into the Church of England with the Anglo-catholic movement of the C19th.) You will notice in Presbyterian churches we don’t offer prayers to the saints, or pray for the souls of the dead. Nor do we believe that the bread and wine of the Lord’s Supper actually turn into the Body and Blood of Jesus Christ.

These are the things which we don’t do, but what are the things we do do ? Let’s not be too negative. We might, as Protestants, have a tendency to stress the things we protest about rather than the things we positively stand for. So I want to rectify that – here are the things the Protestant Reformation stressed,  the Biblical truths they rediscovered and emphasized:

 

The priesthood of all believers

Before the Reformation if you wanted to get close to God you thought you had to go to a priest. You had to confess your sins to him. He alone had power to absolve you. He alone could bring God near to you and he did this by offering you the Host – the sacramental wafer which was the Body of Christ.

When you prayed you didn’t unusually pray directly to God the Father, or to the Son. You prayed to the Virgin Mary, or to one of the other saints, or to your guardian angel. They were closer to God – they would act as intermediaries between you and God.

When the Reformation came people realised the truth of the Apostle Paul’s words to Timothy :
 For there is one God and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus. (1 Timothy 2:5)

So, in the name of Jesus you can pray directly to God. In Old Testament times only the priests could enter the Holy Place in the Temple to draw near to God. But now, under the New Covenant, we all have access to God.
In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence.  ( Ephesians 3:12 )

We are all priests. Hence the expression: “Priesthood of all believers”.

 
Justification by faith

Before the Reformation you struggled hard to find peace with God. Luther himself had been a monk for many years. He had fasted and flagellated himself and prayed, and yet somehow never got right with God. He was aware of his sins and also became aware that none of these disciplines of fasting and penance could wash them away.

Then, one day as he was studying the Letter to the Romans he came upon this verse:
For in the gospel a righteousness from God is revealed, a righteousness that is by faith from first to last, just as it is written: The righteous will live by faith.
( Romans 1:17 )

Luther realised that it was only the grace of God which could save him. He threw himself on the mercy of God and trusted Christ for his forgiveness. Luther realised these great truths :  no need to make pilgrimages to the graves of the saints, no need to fast on Fridays, no need to flagellate himself, no need to pay the church for indulgences. All he had to do was truly repent of his sins and trust in Christ. This is the great liberating truth of our faith -  Jesus saves.

 
Centrality of the Bible

“Scriptura sola” -  the Bible alone -  was the Reformers’ great motto. before the Reformation you could only get the Bible in Latin. Only priests could read it and only they could interpret what it said. Also the tradition of the church was held to be of equal importance to the Bible.

So, if the Church taught about purgatory, and indulgences, and Mary being perpetually a virgin and sinless, and Papal authority,  these things must be true – even though they are not in the Bible!  With the coming of the Reformation people threw out these ideas as erroneous and returned to the pure teaching of the Bible. They also had it translated into the language of the people – German, French, English, Welsh – rather than in Latin.

 

The Lord’s Supper as a memorial

Before the Reformation the Lord’s Supper was seen as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It was believed that the bread and wine actually changed into the Body and Blood of Christ. The priest offered the Body and Blood of Christ as a sacrifice at the altar  – just as the Old Testament priests offered the sacrificial animals. Every time the Mass was celebrated Christ was offered again for the sins of the world. But the Reformers realised the truth of these words from Hebrews:

Unlike the other high priests, he does not need to offer sacrifices day after day, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people. He sacrificed for their sins once for all when he offered himself.  ( Hebrews 7:27)

The Lord’s Supper is a meal we share in memorial of our Lord. We take bread and wine as symbols of his Body and Blood. They remind us of his sacrifice on the cross. We do not sacrifice him again.

You won’t find crucifixes in our churches because Christ is not still on the cross. Instead you will see the plain, empty cross – a sign that Christ has risen and is alive today.

 

Conclusion


No, I can’t agree with those who decry the Reformation and seem to want to apologise for it. We cling to the truths rediscovered by Luther and the other Reformers. And a Reformed church is not just one which was reformed 400 years ago – it’s a church which is continually reforming – always looking for new insights in God’s word, and new ways to reach out with the Good News of Jesus Christ.

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