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Easter – The birth of the good news.

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Easter
From this moment on we know these five things.
Jesus has a past
Jesus Died (past tense)
Jesus Lives (present tense)
and Jesus has a future. (Future tense)
and if we give him his proper place of Lord – so do we.

These Five things should colour every aspect of our lives.
Because on Friday we remembered Jesus’ death and the seeming hopelessness of that moment.
From today we can never be without hope because we share in his future.

We must always remember that Christ always had a future, but he wanted us his creation to also have a future.
So, for us also he did something else even more wonderful, he broke the sin of Adam that was laid on us all.

Our broken nature remains, But it is forgiven. As Paul says “for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.”
We are made alive, given new life, and propelled into the future certainty of a new world free from sin and death and illness and decay through him.

So we live in the now of God’s kingdom, with the assurance and a way to share in the not yet, the future of God’s kingdom to come. When Christ will rise again.

He had every single one of us in his mind on that cross, he has every single one of us in his mind right now. He knew you before you were born, he knows you now and he will know you when you rise again in a new bodily form with him on the blast of the horn.

These facts, for they are facts, in the truest sense of the word mean that we can never be without hope. We live the assurance of a present forgiven from sin, and a future free from its presence.

We live forgiven our compromised present nature, and a know we have a future made whole and perfect without compromise.

But what do we do with those things, these facts have to affect us
Those things have to affect us right now don’t they?

If you knew you had a future free from every worry, concern, disappointment ailment and negative thing this world has to offer. If you spend a moment and think about all the things you have had happen in your life that you wish hadn’t gone All the things you wish weren’t happening right now. Fixed,all the broken or tense family relationships, all the illnesses all the stress, and concern gone.

If you knew all that was to come, it would affect the way you behave now, wouldn’t it? Well, here’s the deal. It is to come, it is happening to you and to me, on the moment he rises again. We are but a short sleep away from such things.
That hope affects and colours everything we do, it’s like the certainty of winning the lottery.
This is why we are people of hope. Hope like that shouldn’t be parked until you are lying on your death bed waiting for your eyes to close. Hope like that should imbue our lives. We know we share in a perfect future, we know our present is embued with the perfect love of God. We have that past present and future love shared, and to share.

When we leave here today we should have a little spring in our step, because we are forgiven. Death is no more than a sleep, and all the worries of the world are transient, and small compared to eternity with our lord.

God has made us his friend today, friends never to be parted, friends love dearly enough to die for. The resurrection of jesus is the start of a new creation, we are part of that new creation free from the wounding, decaying, perverting outcome of sin. Free to be made whole, free to love knowing we are loved. Given value because the creator of all things values us enough to die for, and wants us with him forever.

Nobody ever, no matter who isn’t loved enough by god to die for, loved enough to die for right now, and nobody ever doesn’t have the choice to share in his future. We share God’s future.
Whoever you lay eyes on today and forever is precious enough to die for

That’s special isn’t it, there’s hope in that, that’s good news, isn’t it?

Why?

The world so needs that news, if they knew all the things they were fighting for would be Judged and set right regardless of whatever they do, why would they fight.

If they knew everyone was loved enough to die for, who would they kill, hurt, or call names? Because you are calling God precious things names.

If we all knew nothing can affect our inherent value, because they are gods special thing, how much anger and resentment, and sadness would that resolve, because nothing could ever make us feel worthless, do demean, or devalued. How differently would we behave if we really knew every soul was precious.

How much of the corrosive effects of shame would be lost, If we knew they were forgiven, how much could we forgive. If we knew in fact the object that needs forgiving in our eyes is forgiven. Why not forgive as well. You on your own

These are the changes gods love brings to our past present and future

This is the good news og Gods love for us, our friend,, our father,

This is the good news. It’s happened, happening today, and is yet to happen. We share in it.

So go out there and tell people, they don’t understand, they have forgotten. But they aren’t forgotten, they are loved. Its our job to remind them.

Because Christ is risen
He is risen indeed 😊

Alleluia

John the Baptist, Gods value system and ours

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Sermon on Luke 3 7-18
In a reasonably high church I was dressed very scruffy and unshaven

This sermon has been on my mind since before I knew I had to write it. To the extent poor Sue got her Monday compline session gazumped by me doing John in compline when that was hers.  I was imagining doing this sermon before I had read this week’ readings.  Also originally I wasn’t doing this week for a sermon I was considering before I knew I had to write it.  I don’t believe in coincidences like that.

I think the reason why I am so attracted to it, is that it contains one the most important messages we can ever know about the love of God.

It begins with the reason I am dressed up like this.

John is dressed up in the most un priest like garb of all, unshaven, dressed in camel hair, eating locust and honey.  

This is Jesus cousin, the first person to know Jesus when he leapt inside his mothers womb, foretold by the angel Gabriel, prophesied by Isaiah and the man who baptised Jesus in the Jordan. The man Jesus called the greatest of all. Dressed in the clothes far removed from priestly garb. Baptising the outcasts, dressed in the most irregular garb.

And he’s baptising Tax collectors, and soldiers and they are asking him what should we do.

Meanwhile, those dressed appropriately that are in charge of tradition and the rites of religion are called  “a nest of vipers”.

Take note, no tradition, no rite, no dress, no social position, no respectable look, or dress is valued here.  What is held up as the path to righteousness is baptism, which leads to repentance that leads to change that leads to dealing with people fairly and as valued human beings.  Maling straight paths for Jesus.

Honestly, if you want to know the very kernel of what John is saying doing here, it is just that. Changing direction after coming into contact with the holy spirit and being baptised is what matters.  However, none of these things works on their own.  

The Pharisees who came to be baptised thought a quick dip and they are sorted.  John rather eloquently informed them that the axe was sat at the bottom of the tree for those who were the nest of vipers.

So that’s it, that’s why I am dressed like I am today, because being dressed in priestly garb may serve many purposes in clarity of what role we have, and in the liturgy of the church but it has zero effect on salvation.

Also what society thinks of us, again this is not important, he showed all of us how to be Christian.  John was not dressed in Garb liable to gain him top seats at the table.  What matters to John is being who he wants us to be.  He was helping the occupiers and their agents come before God, he was wiping their sins clean and setting them on the path through asking them to repent which isn’t some punitive thing, it’s simply changing direction. Not through the threat of the axe, but through being willing to do as the other outcasts do and ask what they need to do t follow  and then follow.

I sat in that pew a long time ago and said I’m doing it all wrong, I’m not worthy and I need help.  Throwing yourself at him and saying help me. 

when I did my studies I comforted myself that he called pagans (Abraham), persecutors (paul), Tax collectors, Matthew, and so on and so forth.   I used to use a saying when I felt unworthy of my calling to LLM. “If he can change Saul into Paul then there’s hope for us all. What we are, what we were, how we dress, how we sound like, what we think we could do, how valued we are in society etc etc all those labels we place value on and set store by and give people status.

They matter not one single bit, not one single bit. There cant be any clearer example of that than today’s reading, here’s a bloke dressed like a tramp, baptising people. People are called to his example, and he’s baptising the outcasts and castigating the pillars of society. Not because they are pillars but because of what that’s done to their ability to throw themselves at Jesus’ feet and ask how to change and then change.

That is the value system of God, I want you to think about in the next week, what does this reading where a tramp baptises outcasts and they ask what can I do? Where the pillars of society are as nothing, and those who feel they are nothing important are valued.  Again, not because they are pillars, but because the things they value are not the things God values, the two are not mutually exclusive but if we get them and hold them up internally as proof of being righteous. We missed the point.

That’s why a man dressed like a tramp can preach, a man that isn’t following tradition here today. But the point is as long as we all do what the outcasts in todays story do and ask the question “what do I have to do” and change direction we have got the point of today’s story. 

The great and good of societies and the value system of God is on display here.   We need to aim to be seen as followers of the love that is coming into the world of jesus, as opposed to anything else.


That’s so powerful by the way.  Because from that moment on there is nothing, and no one that can affect your self-worth in this world. Not a person, or an organisation, or a job, or a car or anything or anyone! Ever ever again.

You are precious, and righteous and valued in the eyes of God.  God sets your worth and he came into the world to share our mess and die for us. Not dressed a a lord, but as a child with nowhere to go, like a reviled refugee coming over on a boat, when the inn or the country was full.

what did he do?

He just tipped our world on its head.

So apologies for the garb or lack of it, but you see.

Albeit it serves some purposes, It actually doesn’t matter. None of it. My worth and yours is entirely, defined, owned by and shown by a god who died for me and for you. Nothing that happens in this world or the next can change that fact.

You, all of you, every single person ever born  can never be unworthy or less than loved to the extent you are precious enough to die for.

In advent we await that loves entry into the world, announced by John.

Amen



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Bible Sunday Sermon 2021

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Bible Sunday, the word of the lord is praised today

I laid on the floor a large stack of bibles, and explained their translation and the reasoning, GNB, NRSV, ESV, NKJV, etc explained the misogyny of the KJV (male verbs are used either where no gender was said or even when the female was used) , Each had different roles, different translations. The GNB is easier to read, NRSV is the official translation of the church of England.

Explained my story about when I was lonely in a small flat outside of Bournemouth and asked for help,. I came from an large noisy atheistic family, but this little red bible had followed me around from the day it was given to me at School.. I was from a busy family where everyone did shift work, so the house never slept, to a tiny village in Corfe Mullen. This Beautiful, remote and very very lonely for the first time from him. One day I sat on my bed and was at a very low ebb. Held that little bible and prayed.

I asked him for help , said ,I am really lonely , and I need help, please help me and the room was filled with love.
Unalloyed, perfect, real, almost filling the space of the air, love. Also I have never felt lonely or alone since that day.

He came into my heart that day, and been ever present ever since then.

I have had a relationship with him since that very day and then showed the little red Gideons Bible I held in my hand that day. Explained that my leader was Matthew

What do we have in the Bible, 66 books, of poetry, history, biography, law and prophecy, Apocalyptic, Wisdom and Gospels that were first spoken and then written down?

 Such human books, in the bible we find love. Anger, greed, hatred, sex, and sin etc etc, The list is endless. The entire human condition is discussed, check out Song of Songs if you think anything’s missing.


Its clearly written by people, real people, living lives, and facing the tasks and challenges of the human experience.  Paul prefaces a lot of his letters with things like, I’ve got timothy with me, complains about his eyes, he sends his regards to and from various people,  asks the receiver of to look after onesimus his slave, and asks for a guest room to be prepped as he hopes to see you soon.  Calls something complete scoobilon which is left untranslated from the Latin for dung.

All very human things that show us these are humans just like us writing these things, not aliens that get turned into typewriters by God.

Also, we work with a translated text that was from the very first time Jesus spoke. Jesus words were Spoken in Aramaic, heard remembered and eventually written by Greeks, Hebrews?

So from the moment, Jesus spoke his words were translated from Aramaic into the native language of the apostles many of whose mother tongue was something else.

We worship using a translated book. That was written, Some by authors we know, some lost in the mists of time.  Then some of the words and grammar and meaning of the oldest translations we have left written in Greek say don’t have direct translations to English. Hence that pile over there.

However let me be 100% crystal clear, let me not be misunderstood.

The Bible is undoubtedly the word of God with every word inspired by him and through scripture and prayer, we can peer through a glass darkly at the plan God has for all humanity and for the minutiae of our lives.  If for one second, I doubted that I would never dare to stand in front of you today or any day.

  Some might ask how given all the variables I spoke of before I can have such certainty.  Because how else would a God who made himself human talk to us except through humans in a human way, he so wanted to do that he became human.  Through his creati

 I was called by the God who wrote that book, who works with that book to mould us into all he wants us to be, the book of Common prayer says there’s no health in us, but today we are going to look at how god’s love works through the bible and makes us whole.
Takes us on the journey to being made whole.

So how do we work with God to learn from scripture, how do we learn from our master through this wonderful thing?   Jesus tackles this very thing today.   When he says….

If you believed Moses, (addendum in scripture ) you would believe me, for he wrote about me. 47 But if you do not believe what he wrote, how will you believe what I say


That is it in a nutshell!!, That’s it,, The Bible brings us to him , but we have to let him take over. when I first read the bible, Jesus was alive for me, and remains alive. Jesus came alive through that book (Matthew was the first passage I read in a little Gideons Bible). So for the Jews it would be Moses because that’s what they had, for me it was Matthew but whatever scripture resonates for you, you have to believe him p, you have to let him in.

 That is the secret to the Bible, Once Jesus is alive in your life then all those things that I spoke about earlier become Nuance and the fabric that Jesus can use to work with us.   Jesus speaks through the spirit, through that book, and through us.


The spirit is in us, and as soon as we plug into that and its awoken by the book, the three of us work together, Jesus, the spirit and us, who he made us to be.

However please don’t think I am asking you switch off your intellect

He doesn’t want us to park our brains at the door marked “scripture” he wants us to bring all that we are to the process.  There he meets us, and works with us, as he always did. 

What then the typewriter theory, the idea the apostles were turned into Dictaphones. Lost in the idea these words are divinely inspired, and work for all of us regardless of where our little spark of life happens in the millennia to bring us closer to God.  The church of England has as one of its 39 articles that “HOLY Scripture containeth all things necessary to salvation:”  and it indeed it does, everything you need is here, but you need to bring everything you are to them, let god take them, always always pray before reading , to learn from them, your heart, your prayer, prayer, your thought. Richard Hooker one of the founding fathers of Anglicanism used the idea of the three legged stool, Scripture, tradition and reason.

 I would argue that isn’t enough. The stool needs many legs, it needs prayer, it needs learning, it needs robust and repeated action to bring his words to life.  Most of all it needs the real knowledge of a living god brought alive in our lives.  Then because all scripture is breathed by god. As the hymn goes, we will be filled with life anew.

Then we can bring scripture to life in our lives because it is breathed on by a living God.  What then all those things of a translated faith? The universal truths of the bible, are from God are never ever diluted. The multiplicity of the various methods used in the bible are just the tools God uses to bring his words to life.

This is why a legalistic view of scripture alone is never enough, and what got Jesus so excised today. His living word alive in our lives is greater than Moses,. As Jesus said today

 If you don’t for if you do not believe the one he sent. 39 Even if you study[a] the Scriptures diligently because you think that in them you have eternal life. .  If however after this , 40 yet you refuse to come to me to have life. 

You missed the point, the bible is the word of God. This is the word of the way the truth and the life.  But letting him into the story, letting him into the story of our lives is the only way to God. The bible is a special precious thing and truly the word of God, but its as useless as a hammer lying on the floor when a nail needs used, because without him being alive in our lives, it becomes something  else, a book, a set of laws, an antiquated thing. 

With him in our lives it’s a living word, that doesn’t just overcome its translation, its million authors, its genesis.  It becomes his living word,  and all those things become things he uses to come to life in our lives.  Through poetry, prophecy, biography etc and yes a all the translations. He uses them to find you, and share universal truths

Through scripture.

As Paul told Timothy

16 All scripture is inspired by God and is [9] useful for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,

On bible Sunday that’s what all we need to know,

Amen

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Sabbath, what is it, why, and how?

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I stand here today giving the first sermon on the subject of Sabbath, being as it’s the first I thought I would spend a little time looking  Sabbath, what is it, how can we do it, what is it not and why? And reflect on what Sabbath is and how we might observe Sabbath in our modern context. What does God want?


The first thing many of us learn about the sabbath was, that when  God made everything, he rested, on the seventh day he had a rest.   Did he go have a lie down? Did he sort of let creation do its own thing for a bit? Like when we leave our kids with the iPad for an hour and go put a wet flannel on our head?

Here’s the thing, as much as we try, humanity is not going to stress out God to the point of needing a lie down and neither is making everything. God is omnipotent, all powerful inexhaustible and does not need a rest. God did not need to rest, so why is this in scripture?

This is God setting an example to us, showing us what we should do moving forward.  He’s saying 6 days of toil and then we stop, he loves us and only wants whats best for us, and so he’s setting the cycle by which we should live, for many more reasons than just rest.

There have been many versions of what doing nothing on the Sabbath means in the bible, the Hebrew noun for Sabbath, “Shabat” simply means stop or cease. The first time Sabbath is mentioned by name is in exodus verse 20 chapter 9-11 in the ten commandments, where God makes it a holy day, and says everyone including the foreigner has to stop work.

Making a thing Holy really means setting it apart as special. The dictionary really points us in the right direction when it defines holy as “dedicated or consecrated to God or a religious purpose; sacred.”.  Hence the reason why Ezekiel criticised people for continuing to buy and sell sheep in the sabbath, basically keep the works of industry moving, but Isaiah was more interesting, he wants us to celebrate the sabbath as more than just as an exhibition of piety, but to do so properly meant to ‘learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow’.

That’s not really stopping as such is it, so what is it? Isaiah also foresaw when the Sabbath was for more than just gods chosen people but for all humanity and included us here today. 

But if it isn’t as simple as just stopping and watching Netflix, or a good book whats it  all about?

 Jesus often ran into the Pharisee’s legalistic view of the Sabbath when he healed people and walked through fields of wheat eating corn, this  was seen as breaking the   strict laws of Sabbath, His response was that the sabbath was made for humankind not humankind for the sabbath.  

Essentially God made the sabbath for us to be released from bondage not to be interned by another sort of bondage of legalism. So for Jesus Sabbath had a greater meaning than just doing nothing on a Sunday.

Also it hasn’t always been on a Sunday, for early Christians it followed the Jewish tradition of starting on a Friday to a Saturday evening.  It then moved again to the “lords day” on the first day of the week in acts.

 The Sabbath was a day of rest, but the Lords day was a day to gather in community and worship God and concentrate on his word. As our faith moved to the Gentiles community Paul said that they don’t need to follow this Jewish rite but encouraged them to set aside a special day to worship the lord if they decide to do so, but they are free of the legalistic duty.

Essentially as Christianity separated from Judaism to create its own identity they moved from a legalistic sabbath to a “lords day” where the emphasis was on worship.

So what did our lord want us to do with this day? Old testament law was not abandoned in the new testament but fulfilled, properly fulfilled. Take Jesus pronouncement that where the OT says do not commit adultery, anyone who looks lustfully wishfully at another woman has done so.

The  law is about the betterment of society, Jesus is concerned about whats going on in our heart. So it is with the Sabbath, as we move from the legalistic rite of Sabbath bound up in laws and a burden to all, so as we as modern day Christians work out what to do with old testament ideas of sabbath we must overlay the idea’s that Jesus came to fulfil that law, to bring it to its proper purpose.   This is in part what the Jews listening to Jesus saying in matthew

28 “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”.

would have heard, their yoke was twofold, the burden of an occupied society, but also burdened by a legalistic faith that used the Old Testament law as a tool to keep their culture intact but also to make a straitjacket that all had to be bound by.

So Jesus yoke is easy, and his burden is light. But there is a yoke and a burden, he wants us to follow the law by having a day of rest, but the yoke is he wants us to spend that time concentrating on him, pondering him. Closer to the lords day of the early Christians.

 As the old testament scholar mark scarlata said “Sabbath is God’s way of drawing us into a place of rest where we might begin to tap into the divine imagination and wisdom that brought the entire universe into being.”  Being still and knowing he is God as it says in the psalm, only by being still and turning ourselves to him can we access the true meaning of Sabbath.  I recently gave another sermon about Jesus being the bread of life, and someone asked him how they can access that bread.  Jesus response was  “Then Jesus declared, “I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.”.

By taking ourselves away from the pursuit of the bread that spoils, in our ever more commercialised world we can stop and meet the bread that never spoils in our lord Jesus Christ.  By being in his world for a day or so, we are driven by what Boenhoffer called costly grace, the grace that costs something in our lives and drives us to sacrifice ourselves for others , that drives us as Isaiah said “‘learn to do good; seek justice, rescue the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow’” or whatever our society needs us for, by letting him into our lives we become his body on earth, make a rebellious statement about what we think is of real importance by turning of and tuning into him. We make a statement that we believe life is more than the frenetic gathering of wealth.

This ethic takes us right back to the time of god and his  overthrowing the Pharaoh and exile.


Each time God sent a plague Moses demanded god free his people  Pharaoh had   his people making more  bricks and with every twist he removed the means to make bricks but increased the demand, he wanted Israelites firmly focussed on mammon,

Whereas as soon as God got them, he asked them to stop on the seventh day, eat the bread they had already collected, but focus on him. Focus on him and leave mammon behind

This is what our Sabbath should be, its why I was happy to work on my studies on Sundays as I trained to become an LLM, because that wasn’t about mammon it was about God, its why we should gather here each Sunday and focus on him.  Because ultimately this is fulfilling the law of the sabbath, not meeting it legalistically but truly in our hearts.  Making time, real time each week to focus on him,  our Sabbath.

Which by the way in our busy lives doesn’t have to be on a Sunday because it has moved around,  in the past both through our Jewish heritage and as a means of setting our faith apart from Judaism  and sometimes it has too, wherever it settled it was always encouraged. Because wherever it is ,  the idea is we must set aside time to be with our lord each week. Proper time that we regard as sacrosanct, not of mammon and to state openly to the world this time is his.

What a statement, my life is yours, I think your more important than everything else I might be doing. That’s rest and witness all at once!

So to sort of cover off what is this sabbath and what isn’t it…

Well some of that is informed by the fact

God doesn’t need a Sabbath, but he knows we do, that’s why he models and commands it for us

Also Jesus railed against a legalistic sabbath and

It’s easy to be legalistic about observing the Sabbath, but that doesn’t get to the heart

It’s easy to be blasé about the Sabbath, but then we miss the rest we need that helps us refocus on God

Properly observed, Sabbath is a light yoke and an easy burden


Because ours is the lord of the Sabbath, and we should give our Sabbath time to him.


Because that’s what he wants,  that’s sabbath our time focussed on him and being his body here on earth, acting for him, in ways that please him, and bring his wholeness to the world.

When we reflect on sabbath that is  what we should reflect on both on defining it, and doing it.


Our Lord Jesus Christ 

Because it’s his

Amen

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Anna and Simeon – Sermon for Candlemass

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How did you meet Jesus?
Have a think about that for a mo?
For some its gradual thing, a growing awareness over time, for some he has literally been with them their entire life, for others it is a moment you can remember. For others he is introduced through friends. For me it was clutching my little red Gideons bible while very lonely in a little flat in the wilds of Dorset and asking for his help. Feeling love rush in that room, and then reading sermon on the mount. Knowing I had been shown how to live, and who to live with, I never felt alone again.

if you were here with me today, I would ask you to tell your story. How did it happen for you?
When did you meet him and When did you know Jesus is lord?

maybe if you are on Facebook share it there?

Because theirs power in that story…

Our witness of how we met Jesus, explaining that story is often our most powerful tool for evangelism, it is something we all have, that story. However, it happens it is our truth and people know truth when its spoken.

But somehow, we all met him, know his goodness, the spirit informed us of everything he is. Whether instantly or over time we reacted instinctively to the presence of him.
For Jews at that time, if they wanted to meet God they went to the temple, and he was God only for a chosen people under the law of Abraham. By being circumcised Jesus came under that law as well. Jewish custom said that the first boy child was given to God. Mary and Joseph followed this rite and did so as poor people as shown by their sacrifice.

This makes what Simeon says so radical, He said the temple, this singular place to meet God is about to be opened to the whole world by this child. Also, this God is no longer just for his chosen People but for everyone.

Interestingly our reading said he was moved by the spirit to go that day and say the thing he said.

so that is my other question?

How does the spirit move you? How do you discern what God wants in your life? Whats the feeling you get?

For me the spirit often feels like a sort of nagging feeling, one I cannot ignore. Until I take action, I cannot rest. Sounds like Simeon was like that, moved to get up and dressed and go to the temple. Then when he got there and met this baby, he was moved to Say something that would have been very shocking to all that heard, our God is now everyone’s God. This baby is going to do that.

, he. Knew the prophecy of Malachi some four hundred years before had come true, he had indeed come suddenly to the temple.

“See, I am sending my messenger to prepare the way before me, and the Lord whom you seek will suddenly come to his temple. The messenger of the covenant in whom you delight—indeed, he is coming, says the LORD of hosts”.

He knew something as well radical for his people, this promise was to be fulfilled in a massively unexpected way, as he said when he saw Jesus

For my eyes have seen your salvation,
31 which you have prepared in the sight of all nations:
32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles,
and the glory of your people Israel.”

This was a God for more than just the Jews, this one is for everyone, all humanity, a light for everyone. As he stood in the temple for the God of the Jews, he knew that God had opened himself to the world in the vulnerable shape of a baby born to a poor family. This is the child that will grow and tear a hole in the curtain of the temple. No longer do you have to go to the Temple to meet him, he is now abroad by the spirit. The same one that activated him to move, the same one that revealed who Jesus is to Simeon, the same one that showed who he is to all of us.

That in different ways activates us to pray, to be his disciples, to do his will. Its easy to say “Oh yes but he saw him” he saw a baby, and a poor family. But the knowledge of what he is, comes to us in an identical way. The recognition of who Jesus is, is the same for us, identical.
That is what connects todays story to ours today, we have all ,met him in exactly the same way as simeon,

Interestingly he also recognised the implication of knowing who Jesus is. As soon as he meets him death loses its sting because he knew this child is the way to salvation. He utters the words of the nunc dimitus which is latin for “now dismiss me”. “Master, now you are dismissing your servant[e] in peace” This man knew faith in this child saves you, knew he had been saved and was now unafraid of death.

Anna had a different morning, she ordinarily went to the temple every single day, was probably supported by charitable donations from the temple. When our story calls her an old lady of eighty-four it was not joking. The , the average life expectancy at that time was twenty-nine.
By going backwards from her age to the history of the Jews. We know this lady had seen tragedy in her life on many levels. At the family level, she had only been married seven years and then she had been a widow for the other sixty or more years.
She had seen tragedy at her tribal level. She was of the tribe of Asher which was one of the ten lost tribes taken to Assyria as slaves. Her ancestors had been among the few survivors of that tribe which had been just about obliterated. She had seen true Genocide. Anna had escaped and kept the family tree.

She had seen tragedy at the national level. She had lived in Jerusalem and for the eighty-four years before Jesus’ birth there had been one civil war after another. Jerusalem changed hands from one group of rulers to another – from the Hasmonean kings of Syria to the Roman emperors to the hated Herodians.

So she had led an exceptionally long and tragedy strewn life, and but was at the temple in one of her many days at the temple spent praying and worshipping God. However as soon as she saw the child she knew as well; in the same way we do. Remarkably In among her long and in many ways tragic life she still gave thanks to God. At the heart of our faith is hope, and that hope is brought about by this child. She is speaking of the hope she has found in this child.

After the shepherds and the wise men, Anna and Simeon are the only the third group to know who this child is. The shepherds had the angel, the wise men had the star, I think the holy spirit had a hand there. But these two, knew in the very same way we know.

We here today, and as you listen online have in our own ways had the very same experience. This is NOT a miracle isolated to the Bible, this one happens to every single Christian in the 2.4 billion in the world today, and everyone that ever was and ever will be. What we know is what we are part of love into eternity from the day moment we know him.

Eternity enters into our knowing and we know we are called to it, like that sense of action that drew simeon to the temple, draws us to pray, and worship and act in a way befitting his disciples. And we are called, to eternity in the very same way, we know we are destined and called beyond our horizons, beyond whatever we can imagine.

You, me, Anna, Simeon, and every Christian ever, called and knows him. Anna of course shows us our duty today, and then. “Coming up to them at that very moment, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.” She gave thanks she had met him and told all who were looking for redemption.

We know there is a lot of tragedy in the world at the moment, a lot of pain, and heartache. People made motherless, fatherless, without a husband or a wife. Our death toll of 100’000
is comparable to what Anna saw in her lifetime, but she knew the correct response to meeting this God is gratitude for the hope that extends for eternity. She also knew what comes after the revelation and the gratitude. To go find others who don’t know him. Who have that nagging feeling of Simeon but do not know why.

in anna and simeons day, everyone went to the temple, religious rites were a way of life? Now not so much but the task doesn’t change it is as she did “ to praise God and to speak about the child[h] to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”

There are just as many who are looking for redemption today, but they do not know where to turn

Our job like Anna’s is to show them who he is. Shepherds, Wise men, and worshippers at the temple are the first who he chose to announce him. Outcasts, Highborn and those who have some sort of relationship with God, who seek him in his temple. Like us. The shepherds and the worshipers all reacted in the same way and told others. I like to think the wise men did when they got home.

But overall, the aim of my talk today was to show that albeit a miracle we see in this story , its an everyday miracle it’s not rare. Albeit a wonderful thing, it is something we have all had happen to us, and all the other billions and billions of Christians ever.

The story today is enacted in every Christian ever, we know he will come suddenly and when we least expect him, the first time we meet him and the second time . Simeon knew the baby had opened God up to the entire human race and Anna knew her next task was to tell them.

Now we know that about him its our job to tell others too.