So when I was preaching every Sunday I worked hard to try and let the Scriptures assigned for the week dictate and fill what I was being called to say so it wasn’t so much my own clever ideas and opinions supported and enhanced by the readings of the week as it was God’s Word written speaking and drawing attention to itself through me. Although I didn’t go looking for them, I tried not to avoid the hard teachings about things like sex, marriage and money when they came up. I enjoyed the process of living with the text for the week while looking for path it always presented by which to speak The LORD’s word written and incarnate, Jesus, to his people at that time. In later years, I also decided it was important to begin and end each homily with the name of Jesus—a sort of Alpha and Omega spiritual exercise for me and a reminder of who holds all things together for the souls for whom I was responsible.
Sometimes it was a bit of a weight, especially when the path was not obvious at first or when I thought it was getting a bit late in the week for comfort. But I enjoyed the sense of anticipation and discovery as I waited for the way to be revealed. For me, God’s Word was, and is, living and active, indeed!
For the last few weeks, even though I don’t have to preach, I’ve enjoyed pondering over each Sunday’s readings and writing down what I might have said if I’d had to preach. I read it to Judy, my wife, and we talk about it.
Here are this week’s musings:
Jesus both promised and breathed the Holy Spirit on his disciples. St Paul also wrote in this morning’s Romans passage that the Holy Spirit has been given to us. Has been given. Note the tense. And note, too, that that is how God gets his love to us. It has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit (Ro5.4).
When did that happen? At conversion says the ESV Study Bible, in other words, at the moment when we knowingly confessed with our mouths that Jesus is LORD and believed in our heart that God, the Father, raised him from the dead (Ro10.9). We Anglicans then promised to trust in that love when we were baptized, if we were making our own vows, and/or when we were confirmed. There was also a prayer asking that we would be witnesses to that love for the rest of our lives (BAS, 154, 155, 623, 629).
Romans 5, this morning’s epistle, is a bit like a commentary on the last verse of 1 Cor 13—the Love Chapter—and the core chapter of Saint Paul’s great presentation of the Gifts of the Holy Spirit and how they are to be used in 1 Cor 12, 13 and 14.
And so faith, hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love(1Cor13.13).
Faith, hope and love.
Look at Romans 5 again:
Therefore, since we have have been justified by faith, we have peace through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand (Ro5.1-2).
And
Character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us (Ro5.4-5).
Faith, hope, love.
Faith and hope are good, but love is greater and is what gets poured into our hearts by the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. Love. Not just warm fuzzies, mind. There’s warmth in it, but so much more. The strength and breadth of God’s John 3.16 love for all the world. A love that needs no love in return, but appreciates it and revels in it, that is intelligent and purposeful, always directed at the need of the other. Not a love into which you fall. A love by which you rise. A love to do, by choice of will, no matter what. That’s the greater and amazing love that has been poured into our hearts.
It’s the love which caused that compassion to well up in Jesus when he saw the crowds in our gospel, because they were so harassed and helpless, like sheep with a shepherd (Mt9.36). And it’s the love which sent the disciples out and has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us so we, too, will venture out among the lost sheep around us—and they are everywhere, no less harassed, helpless and shepherdless than the crowds in Jesus’ day—neighbours, family members, friends, workmates, strangers—having no hope and without God in the world (Eph2.12). People to whom we are called and empowered to witness to the love of God by proclaiming that the kingdom of heaven is at hand in our day.
Jesus sent the original twelve out to do this by healing the sick, raising the dead, cleansing the lepers and casting our demons—for free! (Mt9.8). Should it be any different for us disciples since the Holy Spirit has been given to us, too? Or was that just for then? Are we are just left to do what we can do as people who can no longer heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse our equivalent of lepers and cast out demons? Not to mention the speaking in tongues, prophesying and extolling God with new fervour and abandon we heard about at Pentecost a couple of weeks ago.
Is this the way it’s supposed to be? Has God put a stop to such signs and wonders for some good reason? Have we put a stop to it in some way?
I can’t shake the feeling—hunch, bee in my bonnet, something—that there is more, perhaps there should be more. So with the compassionate Jesus and those first disciples in mind, lets believe in the possibility. Faith it, rejoice in God’s promises, hope for it, and LOVE. Love God and love the people around us by praying earnestly for sick ones to be healed; for the dead, even if just the spiritually dead, to be raised; for the cleansing of whoever are the lepers today; and that the demons which oppress, entangle and steal our joy be cast out.
Let faith, hope and love prevail—for Jesus.
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