| May 5, 2002 Acts 8: 5-8,14-17 + l Peter3:15-18 + John 14:15-21 |
| It is about us as much as it is about Jesus, the disciples to whom the words are first addressed, or the church first led and formed by John’s words.What is of concern in these verses is the status of disciples after their experience of Jesus in terms of their relation to Jesus and their relation to those who do not believe, which John calls…The World.” |
| It is our relationship to Jesus that matters now, and with that cleared up,our relation to “The World” awaits definition. |
| A life stuck on a relationship with Jesus of Nazareth that does not or has not moved through death and resurrection to a relationship with the risen, victorious Christ isn’t going to make it.This is the kind of ..faith” that fails or falters when disaster strikes. a sudden, early death, the collapse of a relationship intended for life, broken promises and dreams.This ..faith” if it is such, rests on the Jesus of Nazareth who went around fixing everything:but it hasn’t moved through the Jesus who did not come down from the cross,the Jesus who was abandoned, a victim of injustice, and helpless while those he helped did nothing for him. |
| The heart of John’s Gospel is the Passion, Death, and Resurrection. Everything before those verses are a series of “signs”that prepare us for what John calls: “The Hour.” Faith, formed and nurtured by John’s Gospel,is faith in the Jesus who lives today, not in the past. It is faith in a Jesus who knows by experience everything we have ever experienced.It is faith in a Jesus who has gone before us to prepare a place for us and will come back for us.It is not a Jesus who fixes every little problem, ache and pain. |
| Once we have settled ourselves in a relationship with the Jesus that John gives us,we are ready to figure out our relationship to “The World.” |
| These disciples who have been through it all, through the sadness, disappointment, scandal, guilt, and the disgrace of betrayal, injustice, and death,do not hide or withdraw from the “The World” or the “Unbelievers.”They stick together yes, but they live with a sense of Mission, with a sense that the work of Christ has now become their work. “Command” which Jesus gives,does not necessarily mean a “Rule” or a “Law.It may also mean “to go with a Mission”- “a mandate”They life in the present time to face the present challenge and anything that threatens or diminishes the Kingdom Christ has proclaimed.Whatever slows the coming of that Kingdom and it’s promise of joy and justice, peace and unity has to go,and that is the mandate we are give that shapes our relationship with the World. |
| “The World” is the where the Kingdom of God is established. “The World” is the place where Christ was born, where the Word took flesh, and where the Resurrection happens.. not later, not in some far off, distant, “heaven”, but now and here. |
| “The World” does not see Jesus. It only sees us. The only hope for the world is you and me.The only hope for the Kingdom of God rests upon the Church, you and me.The only way the work of Christ will be completei s for people like us to do justice, walk in peace, and live in love. |