psalm 126

Just shortly before my friends father died,
We decided
That together we would walk the streets
We knew as children
To recover the ghosts of short sleeved summers,
And vapour breathed Novembers
With their curling mist and star spangled skies,
We would return to times and places and people
Only available through the power of shared memory.

A pilgrimage
To the shrines of our youth
A walk of a few short miles
Where memory shines like a torch
Onto windows, over streets, along schools buildings
To show up the yesterdays that are hidden there.

And not for from our lips the words: Do you remember?

For friends, “Do you remember?”
Is seldom a question
Seeking a yes or no answer from us;

For friends
To ask
Do you remember?
Is more like an invitation
To allow memory
to take us back
To something, somewhere, someone
That once touched our lives so deeply.

Do you remember?
Yes, we smile, Laugh, pause silently over.
And in remembering
Something of the goodness, value, delight
That It has been to have lived the one life
That is uniquely
Our little life –
Is recovered and recognised again.

(The moment when we savour –yes it’s been good to be me).

Today
An old friend asks us
Do you remember…

That old friend
Is Israel:
Those who have known what it is
To love, wrestle, doubt, rejoice, run a way from and return to
God
As being at the centre of their living.
From Abraham to David
Elijah to Ruth
Old Israel shares with us the friendship of faith.
And in the bible we see how God’s actions
In time and history, judgement and redemption
Sets them free.
And recalled in this psalm
Is how against all the odds
God released them from exile in Babylon
To return home to Jerusalem again.

The streets they were led out of in chains
Never thinking to see again
Found their childrens feet wandering upon them again
As they were brought back to Jerusalem
By the power of God.

It was like a dream
They said
We laughed and sang
For the Lord had done great things for us.

Israel
Is our friend in the faith
Who worshipped and served the same God we do today,
And in this mornings psalm
Israel asks us
Do you remember
What its like
When God ambushes our expectations
When the inevitable, expected end
Is turned around by God’s power
Bringing us back home:
To the certainty
Yes, there is a God -
Bringing us home to the place of gratitude
Where we rejoice that
Any goodness we have known
Has not been an accident
But has come to us by his hand
Bringing us home to the peace
That trusts how much our little lives
Matter to the living God.

Israel is saying to us this morning
Do you remember
When Gods power in your life
Recovered your lost faith
Restored your broken Hope
Empowered you sad resignation
To go out and attempt to love again.

Our friend Israel asks us: Do you remember?
Not as a yes or no question
But as an invitation
To allow memory to return us
To where God has touched our lives deeply.

So that in our remembering
Something of the goodness, value, delight
That It has been to have lived the life of faith
Is recovered and recognised again.

The place from which Israel asks us to remember
Is not the laid back space of nostalgia.
In the psalm
Israel is doing her remembering
From the place where the soil of her living
Is cracked and dry, hard and disappointed
Like a river bed without any water.

And we see how for Israel
Remembering is the precursor to something else:

Israel moves from memory
To prayer
From remembering God
To requesting from God:
Lord takes us back to our land,
Just as the rain brings water back
To dry river beds.
Let those who wept as they sowed their seed
Gather the harvest with joy.

Even for me
Who is a quintessential city boy
The imagery of Israel’s prayer
Is striking when it says:
Let those who wept
As they sowed their seed
Gather the harvest with joy.

Recently
I planted beneath my study window
Lots of tiny little seeds:
Night scented stock
Which
As the packet informs me
Perfume the night
As the sun is setting.

And I can’t wait until the summer evening arrives
When I can open the window
On a warm summers night
And be greeted
With the scent of these little flowers
releasing their perfume into the evening air.

I can’t wait
But I know I have to…
For it’s in the darkness
Underneath the soil
With the sunlight, rainfall
And the feeding of the soil
That their growth will be invisibly done
And done slowly.

And every day or so I go out
And inspect the dirt for signs of life
Of which right now
There is precious little.
Sometimes
The seed we have to sow
Don’t seem capable of growing much
And we wonder if anything worthwhile
Could ever grow.

What I mean is
The experiences we have
Made up of working, sleeping, looking after children
The sore things and disappointments
The anger and failure,
Loneliness and fears
Seems like fallow ground
To plant anything in.

Yet, when we take our ordinary lives
That promise so little
And offer them to God
In prayer
Plant the daily routines of our living
Around trust
Devotion
Confession
Thanksgiving
Then the psalmist says
Expect a remarkable return
From the little we have planted.

For all the while
Mostly unseen by us
God is working with our soil and seed
And will grow it into something
Far beyond what we can imagine or yet recognise:
What we have planted with tears of sadness
Will in the presence of God
By the power of God
Become a harvest of joy.

The planting of our little lives
In trust around God
Is never a pointless exercise
For the power of God is at work in us
In the way Freddy Buechner describes:

“There has never been a time past
When God wasn’t with us
As the strength beyond our strength,
The wisdom beyond our wisdom,
As whatever it is in our hearts
That keeps us human enough at least
To get by
Despite everything in our lives
That tends to wither the heart and make us less human.”

Just as the soil
The sunshine
And the rain
Work together
To grow from the dirt a small insignificant seed

So the father
The son
And the Holy Spirit
Work with the soreness and the spareness
Doubt and dream
Of our living soil
Until from it something beautiful is grown.

The psalmist is adamant
That the seeds life has given you to plant
Might not seem much
And often will have to be sown with tears
But In the end
God will bring forth from them
A life you will know
Has been worth living
That for those
Who plant their living
In the soil of faith in Jesus Christ
There is for every tear of sadness
A corresponding tear of joy.

psalm 131

Often
On a Saturday evening
I will make my way over here to church.

I unlock the front door
Switch off the alarm
And walk through to the sanctuary.
I’m on my own
But I’m not alone.

I’ve come over to pray:
That the Spirit of God
Will pass among us while we worship
Walking pew by pew
I ask God to bless you
To do all he wants to do
In and for you
I ask that we might see God’s glory shine
Like sunlight dancing on the water.

I ask that come the morning
He will forgive my inadequacy
And make me able
To so bear his presence
That I am hidden and only he is seen.

I don’t do this because I‘m particularly holy
I do it because I’m particularly sinful
And know
That if anything real is going to happen
While I lead worship
Then it will have to come from the miracle of God
Acting in our midst.

I walk along the centre aisle
Climbing up the steps to the balcony
Where I sit
And for a few moments at least
I do nothing
But watch and listen:

Because although I’m on my own - I am not alone.

Sometimes the sunlight
Pours through the stained glass onto the walls
The colours jostling
As though a fire had been lit on the stone.

Always I stare at the figure of Christ
Patterned on the glass
Showing the wounds inflicted by a cross.
And I wonder
Where have I added to those wounds?
In the days before
By some wrong done
Or some good left unfulfilled.

But mostly
I listen to the silence.
Because silence has its own sound.

When we listen to the silence
I think we must come closest
To hearing what heaven is like.

Sitting on the balcony I am on my own
But I’m not alone
For In the silence I hear
The hush of holiness
The unheard echo of hymns sang
Of prayers said
Of worship offered
The silence is full and brimming over
With the sound of sanctity
As the music of holiness is released.

Its not that silence itself is holy
It’s more what the silence does for us:
It makes us pause
Invites us to notice more
It slows us down and Raises our awareness
Of the deep longing buried within us
That can only be satisfied
With the company of God.

The music of silence
Invites us to be still
And know the company of God.

I sit in the silence of St Nininas
On a Saturday evening
Until I am aware
Of my hunger for God
Until like a weaned child
That hunger is satisfied
By the presence of God.

In those moments
I’m not asking questions
Or thinking impressive thoughts
I am, simply looking at God
And God is looking at me.
In that moment I recognise
I am a created creature
In the presence of my creator
I receive the banquet of his love
And offer my crumbs in return

And as I do this
My soul
That deepest part of me
That yearns and fears and strives
Settles down
Until I feel
Refreshed
Renewed
At peace

Simply by allowing the silence
To make me still enough
To know I am in God’s beautiful presence.

Maybe the hymn writer puts it best:
When he writes the words
We have already sung:

Drop thy still dews of quietness,
Till all our strivings cease
Take from our souls the strain and stress
And let our ordered lives confess
The beauty of thy peace.

In the hush
Where we become still
The presence of God
Bursts in on our senses
And we experience his beauty
As peace.
in the stillness we know God
and taste and see he is good.

Don’t let the fact that I do this in an empty church
Mislead you,
This experience of quiet and stillness
Only needs the corner of a room
A familiar chair
A walk outside

From the place of quiet
From the place of peace
From the still encounter with the living God
The psalmist urges:

O Israel
Hope in the Lord
From this time
And forever more.

When we have met with God
In the stillness that comes with quiet
We are enabled
To return to the world we have come from
With the power to imagine
The good God wishes for us
As being more real
Than the circumstances we are in.

Isn’t that what hope is for a Christian
The ability to imagine
and live with confidence
That God’s good intentions for our lives
Will win
over the present struggles, and troubles.

When I leave the sanctuary
I know God is real
I know the little life I have
In its shortness and fragility
Is kept and provided for
By a good God
And I am empowered
To live by the goodness I can see.

Hope in the Lord...
That the wrongs weve done
Cannot cancel out God’s love for us

Hope in the Lord...
That the death Christ died
Wipes out the sin that separates us from God

Hope in the Lord...
That the resurrection of Jesus
Means his living presence
Is here with us even now

Hope in the Lord...
That illness and death
Won’t have the final say over who we are

Hope in the Lord...
That what eye has not seen
Nor ear heard
Nor mind conceived
God has prepared for those who love him.

People of st Nininas...
Hope in the Lord
Who is here to meet you
Not least
Through the sacrament
awaiting us on the table.

We feed our hope
On the real presence of Christ
Coming to us
In bread and in wine.

Jesus said
I am the bread of life
whoever comes to me will never be hungry.

psalm 123

Almost alone
In the sunshine
Of a Latvian summer,
We sat in the open air courtyard
Of Riga cathedral
Enjoying the oasis
That was held in there
The thick walls guarding the silence
From the bustle,
Of The town squares shoppers, and tourists and market stalls.

Behind where we were sitting
A young woman passed us.
She was with a wee boy
Who held her hand as they walked.

We watched them pause
At the entrance
Back into the cathedral
When
The wee boy did something
That spoke
Without breaking the silence,
Needing no translation,
In a simple gesture
A language spoken not from lips
But Known to Christians
Though hardly heard at all these days.
And as he spoke it
It drew tears from Ali’s eyes.

They paused together
And as the woman opened the door
That Led back into the cathedral
The boy lifted his other hand to his head
And removed his cap.
It was the language
Of reverence
We heard him speak.

And as it was spoken
So the gentle, powerful, hidden presence of God
Was made audible to us
Through a boys simple respect.

All conversation stopped
As he held his hat and his mother’s hand
And together they stepped into a world
Where for 800 years
God has been sung to in song
Spoken with in prayer
Heard in scripture,
Touched
And tasted in the crumbs of a loaf
The dregs from a silver cup.

A cap taken off by a little boy
In respect for this sacred space
A gesture in awe of who it belonged to,
Wordless commentary,
The language of reverence.

It’s the language you will find in the psalms
Spoken in the psalm we heard this morning:

“To you, I lift up my eyes
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!”

It’s the language
We shouldn’t need to be taught:
the sun warms the morning
And the stars map the night sky
speak there own reverence;
Every shower of rain,
Bird song,
Breath taken
Life ending or begun
allows the language of reverence
Speaks through the world.

And you and I
And the whole human race
Are invited
To listen
and consciously make that language our own
By learning to remove our caps
In the presence of the Holy.

For only then
Do we begin to recognize
The God who is not like you and me
Who can’t be compared
With anything we think about
Or imagine.
As Isaiah memorably describes:

“My thoughts are not your thoughts
Neither are your ways my ways,
Declares the Lord,
As the heavens are higher than the earth,
So are my ways higher than your ways
And my thoughts from your thoughts”

A human mind is no more capable
Of holding the full mystery of God
Than a cup could carry the ocean
Human thoughts ca no more capture the fullness of God
Than a butterfly net
Could catch the air.

Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens
And the militant atheists they represent
May huff and puff all they like
But they will never enter into the house
Of understanding God,
never mind blow it down,
For we must stoop down reach understanding
And enter by the door
marked Reverence.
Reverence
Is the door
That opens into Gods presence.

Notice the posture of the psalmist:
He doesn’t look down
Or look beside
He looks up:

“To you I lift my eyes,
O you who are enthroned in the heavens!”

The psalmist’s words
Are not I think
An attempt at locating the position of God
As if to answer the question “where is God”
The answer would be “up there, somewhere.”

To say that God is enthroned in the heavens
Is a way of celebrating
That all life,
All death,
All sorrow
All joy
All hope and fear
All that is ultimately real
Is lived in the presence
And under the authority of God.

Reverence
Introduces us to God in the world
And according the psalmist
Reverence
Allows us to partner that God.

The psalmist’s song
Makes an important
If easily forgotten point,
That Christians ignore at their peril:

“As the eyes of servants
Look to the hand of their master,
As the eyes of a maid to the hand of their mistress,
So our eyes look to the Lord our God,
Until he has mercy on us.”

Whatever we seek to do for God
In what we call service
Isn’t something that starts with us.

But whatever we seek to do
Must take its lead from God’s authority:
God decides and employs
According to his will and purpose.

And that’s exactly what we find in Jesus
Someone who seeks
Not to do what he thinks might be helpful
Or a good idea
But someone
Whose reverence for God
is such
That by prayer and worship,
He allows his service and sacrifice
To be guided
By God’s hand.

And from that point
Everything and anything
In a human life
Is capable of being used by God
Even a death
That comes by crucifixion.

Reverence
Puts us in the place
Where we can be used by God.

There’s a famous sketch
That’s sometimes repeated
From the early days of comedy
in, "that was the week that was".

In it John cleese’s 6 foot five
Towers over Ronnie Barker
And the tiny Ronnie corbet.

It’s taking the rise out the class system of the time
And about “knowing our place”.

From a Christian perspective
What is knowing our place
In the world
Made by a God
So utterly unlike us?

It is to be open
To holding the mercy of God
In the life we know as our own
With all its rough edges
Selfishness
Creativity
Care and cruelty.

But what is mercy?
And how does God’s mercy
Work in our lives?

Well some Christian commentators put it like this:
God’s will and purpose for your life and mine
Is always done for our good,
So to ask for mercy from God
Is asking God to give us
The good he wants to give us.

"Have mercy on us O Lord,
Have mercy on us"
Sings the psalmist
And what that means
Eugene Peterson helps desribe when he says:
To ask God to have mercy on us:
“Is not an attempt to get God to do something he is unwilling to do,
(It’s) an expressed longing to receive what God is doing in us and for us in Jesus”

In other words
To ask God for mercy
Is to ask him
To give us all that the good has done for us
In Jesus death and resurrection.

For Christians, Jesus is the mercy of God.
To ask for mercy is to ask for Christ.

As the mercy of God
Written into a human life,
Jesus is the bridge
Between who God is
And who we are
In Jesus
The God
Who is so unlike us
Stoops down
To make himself one with us.

And if that story is true
And it doesn’t induce awe in us
Then something’s gone badly awry.

To ask God for mercy then
Is to allow Jesus to be for and in us
All that God intends him to be.

As Karl Barth says:
“this is faith: that I let Jesus Christ be for me what I cannot be for myself:
My truth, my goodness, my righteousness, my salvation”

I wonder
Is it time this morning
For some of us
For all of us
To remove our cap
To meet God through the door of reverence
That we might open our hands
And receive the mercy
That comes to us in Christ.

For by reverence
And the mercy of Jesu
God wants to make a home for himself
In the frail, heart that is yours
In the stained heart that is mine

and through our reverence
he will come in.

psalm 120

We don’t get to see the face

of the old woman
Headscarfed
And sat on a bed.
She faces the closed net curtains
And ponders what, I wonder?
What goes on

in the mind of an old woman
Whose years carry memories
Like water in a jar.

If we could see her face
Would the lines, the lips, the eyes
Speak of the daughter
She hasn’t seen in 20 odd years
And the grandchild she was carrying
Whom she never saw born or grow up
But whom she never gave up looking for
And whom despite the lies and deception of the authorities
She finally found.

She looks worn out
By a world
That could make
So many Young woman and men
In the Argentina of 1978
Just Disappear
Under a cloud of political deceit.

Her experience alone
Should be enough to make us understand,
If we didn’t already know it
That there is something deeply wrong
With the world of human beings.

Something politics can’t fix,
Something advertisers can’t camouflage
Something money can’t buy off
Something entertainment can’t block out
Something travel can’t escape.

From Beijing to Khandahar,
From mortgage boom to credit crunch,
Be it on the plastic swamped beaches of Bali
Or the bullets fired in the backstreets of Basra -
There’s something deeply wrong with our world.

From the madness of medical doctors
Who want to destroy democracy
By driving 4 by 4’s into Glasgow airports terminals
To the insanity of an American president
Who wants to defend democracy
By torturing information out of people -
The world we live in is far from right.

From the struggle the western world has
With obesity
To the struggle most of the world has with poverty
From the squabbles we have in our families
To the selfishness we struggle to stop
Eclipsing our own heart
Something in the way of being human
Is badly broken.

For those of us
Tired of the cynical rhetoric employed by politicians
For the person who knows
That however beautifully they say it
The Billboards only lie,
Psalm 120
Offers itself like a protest song
Sung by a people moving in another direction
Taking an opposite way.

We sing it when we can no longer stomach the deceit
At the heart of the world we live in;
The sham that we can make our own peace
As though God does not exist,
As though God has not come into the world
In the life of Jesus Christ
To offer us the only peace worth making.

The peace that’s formed on a cross
The peace that escapes from a tomb
The peace that makes
Forgiveness,
Friendship,
Truth,
Grace,
Blessing,
Welcome
Acceptance,
Courage,
Hope
More than just words on our lips
But realities growing out of our living.
The peace of Jesus Christ.

Psalm 120
Is a song for those
Ready to begin a new journey,
Away from the pretence
That with a little more education,
With a higher standard of living,
With greater honesty among politicians
With more time to travel
Or indulge our pet hobbies
It can all be fixed.

“Woe is me that I am an alien in Meshech
That I live among the tents of Kedar,”
Says the psalmist.

Whenever we are fed up with the life
We see on TV
Whenever
We read the paper
And say to someone can you believe that,
Whenever the truth dawns on us
That the world we have pitched our tent in
Seems like a world full of strangers
Intent on biting and scratching until they get what they want.
Then we are ready
To make psalm 120 our own.

It has been said
And it’s usually the case
(It certainly was for me)
That until we get fed up with the world as it is
We won’t develop an appetite
For the world of God’s grace.

Until we realise
The world as it is
Just isn’t right
That no amount of human ingenuity
Will make it better in the future,
We are reluctant
To give up the falsehood
Of trying to make our own peace.

The psalmist says:
“Too long have I lived among those
Who hate peace.”

But who in their right mind
Hates peace?
Well that depends
On how peace comes.

In our house, among the children
The price of peace depends
On who says sorry first.
And even then, sorry's are only grudgingly given,
They would rather hold onto their little resentment
Than make the effort to be at peace.
A sorry is not the road either willingly wishes to take.

True peace
The bible claims,
Is only made in relationship
With the God who made and loved me,
And for some
That’s not a truth they are willing to hear.

And so a world is often made
Where God is kept outside
From work desk and playground
Holidays planned, homes bought, meals eaten.
And any peace to be made
Will be sought without the help of God

I once got tired of that world.
And left it.
Have you?

Maybe
If we are to find God’s peace
We each of us
At some time
Need to reach the point of the psalmist
Whose experience in this world leaves him feeling
Like a stranger
In a hostile crowd.

“Lord”
The psalmist says
“Lord”

God is addressed here
Not as an idea,
Or a vague possibility
But is spoken to
As a person who is there.

The psalmist speaks the name he’s always known
As if he is also known to that name
He says it
With a deep, intense, sore, sustained longing
In the way a child shouts out
For her mother in the next room
Knowing she will be heard by the one she calls.

And under the burden
Of what life has become
The psalmist cries calls out:

“Deliver me, o Lord
From lying lips
From a deceitful tongue.”

Christians have a name for that deliverance.
A name
For the specific journey
Of leaving behind the life
That tries to make its own peace
Swapped For the life
That receives God’s peace instead.

We call that journey repentance.
Repentance
Is the way we leave the fantasy
Of the life we are fed up with
For the peace and truth
We find in God.

If you want to get to the Allen’s farm
Then you have to go along manse road
There’s no other way to drive there.
No other road that will take you there.

If we want to embrace
The truth of God
That brings us to peace
We must go by the way of repentance
No other road
Will take us there.

But what is repentance?
Well Eugene Peterson puts it best for me
And I’ll quote it at length:

“Repentance is not an emotion. It is not feeling sorry for your sins. It is a decision. It is deciding that you have been wrong in supposing that you could manage your own life and be your own god; it is deciding you were wrong in thinking that you had or could get the strength, education, training to make it on your own; its deciding you have been told a pack of lies about yourself, your neighbours and the world.

And it is deciding that God in Jesus Christ is telling you the truth.
Repentance is the realisation that what God wants from you and what you want from God are not going to be achieved by doing the same old things, thinking the same old thoughts. Repentance is a decision to follow Jesus Christ and become his pilgrim in the path of peace. It puts a person in touch with the reality God creates.”

If we want to say with the psalmist
I am for peace
That is the peace of God
Then we are invited
To walk along the only road
That leads to that peace
By the way of repentance.

Repentance invites us
On the kind of Journey Kallistos Ware describes
When he writes:

“To repent is to look, not downward at my own shortcomings, but upward at God’s love; not backward with self reproach, but forward with trustfulness. It is to see, not what I have failed to be, but what by the grace of Christ I can yet become.”

John 20: 19-23

Our reading begins
Inside a house
In Jerusalem.
Maybe it was the one
Where they shared a last meal with Jesus
We’re not told
It doesn’t matter.

We are told
What the temperature is:
Frozen
With fright;
Fear sets them on edge
Like a draught escaping from their cold hearts
Chills the room.

Whenever footsteps tap the cobbles outside
Voices they don’t recognise
Call out
Laugh
Converse or argue.
They hold their breath

Its the terrible modesty of terror, they feel,
Where you don’t want anyone to notice anything about you
You want to be invisible
Like a dog trying to keep out of everyone’s way.
They are hiding.

Because the Judeans could come at any minute.
The soldiers fresh from crucifying Jesus
Boots bursting open the door
And dragging them out
To their own shameful end.
No one in the room
Suspected it would come to this
3 years of following
To end in arrest and crucifixion.

We are not told by John,
What conversation there was,
Maybe they had no words left to speak
And only by glances and stares
Was anything left to be said.

Anxious hands maybe checking the doors again
The irrational reassurance
When they already know they are locked.

And then
Without the bolt being drawn
Or a window opened.
He’s is there.
With them
Alive again.

Peace to you:
Are the first words Jesus says.
A greeting?
A blessing?
Or maybe this
A promise being made to them
Through his return.
I‘ve come back, his presence says
So Peace is now yours.

The first words
From the only human being
To come out at the other end
Of his own dying
Are shalom.

Whenever Jesus appears
In the places we have bolted up
For fear of what’s happening to us
For fear of what we’ve become
His words are the same:
Peace be with you.

Words on their own
Don’t have any authority.
Their power comes
From who says them to us.

If the lolly pop lady
Inspects the lump I have on my arm
And says
You’re going to be alright.
Then, her words
However well meaning
Don’t carry much weight.

But if a consultant examines me
And says
It’s only a bit of gristle
You’re going to be alright
I feel I can relax
He knows.

When the crucified
Risen Jesus,
The one who faced death down
Says:
Peace is yours
His words have the authority
Of someone
Who has the power to make that peace real.

Peace Jesus says
Between who you are
In the dullness of your falling short
And the bright perfection of God;
Peace in your lives
Despite the things happening to us or around us.

The risen Jesus
Carries with him
The peace he speaks.
To be in his presence
Is to be invited
To be at peace.

But as we will see
Receiving the peace of Christ
Is never a private affair.
We receive
To give it away.

So Along with these words of peace
Jesus stretches out his hands
To show where the nails had held him
He touches the place
Where a spear once checked
Whether he was dead or alive.

Hands and side
Marks of recognition
Jesus’ Passport from a terrible journey;
Scars that speak to his friends:
It’s me.
It’s really me.
Not that they seem to doubt it.

For in hearing his words
And seeing his wounds
In finding him alive, and among them
all fear is gone –evicted from the room.

The mood inside has totally changed
Like blinds have opened to let the light in;
Like lilies in a vase
have brought the smell of the garden
Into the stuffy room.

And it was as if the words of psalm 16
Were being acted out in front of them:

“Therefore my heart is glad, and my soul rejoices;
My body also rests secure.
For you do not give me up to shoel
Or let your faithful one see the pit.
You show me the path of life.
In your presence is the fullness of joy
In your hand are pleasures forevermore.”

Jesus,
Risen from the dead
Is at the very least
God’s verdict
On the destiny of those
Who take Jesus seriously enough
To follow him.

Jesus resurrection states
In it’s own poetic way
That who we are
In whatever number of years we are allotted
Through whatever wounding
Life scourges us,
will not end
With our last breath;
God will not leave us
In the dark pit of death;
in the solitary confinement of Hell.

In the risen Jesus
God has shown us the path of life,
In his presence
We find our greatest pleasure
Holding hands
With our deepest joy:
That God has judged death
And found it wanting
And that my death and your death
Has been drawn into that Judgement.

Death has been defeated
By Christ’s rising again.

No wonder the verses from psalm 16
Are the very words Peter uses
To address the first crowd
Who gather around him at Pentecost
When 3 thousand folks
Respond to his witness
About who Jesus is
And what he has done.

But how was Peter able
To make the leap
From frightened deserter
To confident preacher
In the city that had crucified Jesus?

If we go back to the room
Where the risen Jesus appeared
We will find all the reason we need.

Standing among them
Passing his peace
Showing his wounds
The risen Jesus speaks to them these words:

“As the father sent me,
So I send you.”

Jesus life
Wasn’t lived on a whim,
The things he said and did
Were not his own good idea.
The healings
Weren’t his own well meaning attempt
To sort out the world.
His teaching about God
Wasn’t the best efforts of a human mind.

Jesus life
Was lived out seeking the will of God
Like a dancers feet keeps time to music;
Jesus was saying and doing
What he had been given
By God to say and do.
Like a musician plays from a musical score.

God intended to make peace with the world
Through Jesus
Despite the worlds best efforts
To throw him off track.

That was the musical score God had written
And Jesus played it out
in his living, and dying and rising
And now
His followers
Were being given the vocation
Of making that song their own.

The peace the risen Jesus had brought into the world
They were to hold
To Make known
Pass on.

And Just
As the Spirit
Descended on Jesus
And equipped him at his baptism
For the task which lay ahead,
So too
Would the Spirit
Enliven Jesus followers
To be and do the peace of God
Back in the world outside.

Jesus
Took a long breath
Drew it into his lungs
And the oxygen of the room
Filled his chest
And mingled
With his own risen life,
And from his breath
All of who he was,
In his risen-ess
In his deathlessness
In his obedience to God
Jesus breathed into them.

Receive the Holy Spirit
He said.

And so the cowering Peter
Finds his feet
And a voice
And a courage
by the power of the Sprit living in him.

When someone breathes on us
They have to come close
You can’t breath on someone
From the other end of the room

Probably the most intimate place
We exchange breath
Is in a kiss.

And maybe that’s something we need to remember today
That Jesus presence
Doesn’t empower us from afar
He comes close to us:
In worship, word and sacrament
He Invades our personal space
Kisses us
With the breath of heaven.

Why?
So we can be and do for the world
What he would have us be and do
In our time and place.
Just as peter did in his.

It’s out of an intimacy with Jesus
The intimacy of worship
We are called
To go back into the world
And carry the peace Of God
To an indifferent,
Ungrateful,
Reluctant
Disbelieving world.

If the church needs anything today
It needs to get close enough to Jesus
To receive the Holy Spirit
So we can face up to that forgotten task.

Only the Holy Spirit
Can enable us
To leave behind our fears
To out grow our misconceptions
About what it is to be this thing
Called a Christian.

In the end
Being a Christian
Is not about believing in God
If what’s meant by that
Is that we think there is this being called God.

Being a Christian
Is about making contact with that God
By committing ourselves
To Jesus Christ
And seeking to be and do in our time
Who he would have us be
And what he would have us do.

Years later
What is it Peter writes
To the Christian churches growing up in Turkey?
It’s words he could be speaking to us today:

“You never saw him, yet you love him.
You still don’t see him, yet you trust him –with laughter and singing.
For you re receiving the outcome of your faith,
The salvation of your souls.”

Jesus never looked for people to agree with him
He asked people to cleave to him
Trust him
Love him enough
To go and say and do
In likeness to him.

That was true then
It’s no different today.
Jesus isn’t looking for your money, or high regard
He wants to come close enough
To breath his risen life into you.
And in that there’s a timely reminder
That whatever Church is about
It is firstly and fore mostly
About being empowered
To receive the peace of Christ
And together
Together
Together
To hold, carry and make known that peace
Outside of our worship places.