Living is Christ.

This Sunday, Aaron Manning gave the homily. Here are his words.

• Acts 7:55-60

• 1 Peter 2:2-10

• John 14:1-14

• Psalm 31:1-5, 15-16

  
  

The 5th Sunday of Easter is a significant day in the Christian liturgical calendar, focusing on the themes of faith, service, and the role of Jesus in our lives. It also emphasizes the Church's call to spread the Good News.

In today's reading John 14, Jesus is with the disciples in the upper room where they have the last supper before Jesus goes on to be betrayed, handed over to the authorities and subsequently crucified. In John's gospel there are 5 chapters, (13-17), where Jesus, in the upper room with His disciples, teaches His disciples, and also tells them what is about to take place. In chapter 13 Jesus told the disciples that one of them would betray Him and that Peter would deny Him. Understandably, the disciples were probably worried, but Jesus says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, so that where I am, there you may be also. And you know the way to the place where I am going.”

How often do our hearts become troubled? Every day at some point? Whether it's a lot or not , Jesus says, that we are not to let our hearts be troubled but to believe in God and also in Him. They are one, along with the Holy Spirit. Jesus promises us a place in His Fathers house at the end of this life. Eternal life appears so much in John's Gospel and it is so important because it is incredibly reassuring to know that there is a place for us in Heaven, with Jesus, forever. This is a great reason to not let our hearts be troubled. Thomas goes on to say “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

 Jesus says, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.”

Wow! What a claim. What an answer to some of the biggest questions we have. Let's look at those three points individually.

 Jesus is the way. Through His death and resurrection He made a way for us to enter eternal life. The way is Jesus, believing in Him and confessing Him as your saviour means you are forgiven and Jesus will bring you to Himself to experience eternal life. When you go out somewhere, someone may ask you, “How are you getting home?” You may say something like, “My dad is coming to get me, my dad is my way home” If someone asks “How are you getting to eternal life” the answer is Jesus, Jesus is coming to get me, Jesus is my way home.

Jesus is the truth. We all want the truth, don’t we? The truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. We’ve all been told by our parents, “Tell the truth.” In some situations it’s hard to discern what the truth is. Everyone has their say and shares their theories and looks for evidence to support their case. Not everyone accepts that something is true, people are often divided on the truth. Jesus says He is the truth and we know that some accept it and some don’t. That’s not a new thing. It happened when  Jesus was on earth and it hasn't stopped. We hear people say that they want to be true to themselves. However, if you accept that Jesus is the truth, then everything He says in His word must be true therefore you can no longer be true to yourself, instead you have to be true to Him. Being true to yourself is about living according to your own desires and values. But if you believe that Jesus is the truth then it is His values and desires that you are to live according to. That sounds a bit intense but when we accept Christ as our saviour, He aligns our values with His. His values remain the same but ours are realigned to match His through the work of the Holy Spirit in us. The Holy Spirit will also help us to live according to these values and desires.

Finally Jesus is the life. He saved our lives and has become our lives. Lives in which we give Him the glory, lives in which we long to worship Him, lives in which we long to serve Him and do what He calls us to do. Paul sums it up in Philippians 1:21  “For to me, living is Christ and dying is gain.”

Living is Christ. Our lives are Christ's. He is the way to eternal life, He is the truth, that we hold on to and aim to stay true to through the power of the Holy Spirit working in us, and He is the life that we live. Jesus being the way the truth and the life means that we are totally reliant on Him, which is scary because we like to be in control of things. So the idea of surrendering everything to Him is quite uncomfortable. 

With this complete reliance on God, we are like babies. Babies have total reliance on their parents, they can do nothing for themselves. We are totally reliant on our Heavenly Father, He is the reason we are alive, He is the reason we woke up this morning and made our way to church. He is the reason I am standing here speaking to you. You have probably been told at some point in your life “Don’t be a baby.” Usually because you’re complaining about something. But if we look at 1 Peter “Like newborn infants, long for the pure, spiritual milk, so that by it you may grow into salvation— if indeed you have tasted that the Lord is good.”

We are to be like newborn babies longing for more of God after we have tasted that He is good, after we have accepted that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. This is not the only image of child likeness that we have. Matthew 18:3-4 says, “Truly I tell you, unless you change and become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven. Whoever becomes humble like this child is the greatest in the kingdom of heaven.”

Children are very humble and innocent and stick close to their parents and they want to be like their parents. That is what we have to be- Humble and stick close to Jesus and long to be like Him and long for Him to fill us with the Spirit, that will nourish us and help us grow spiritually. So yes, you’re a baby and that is good. 

Peter goes on to say “But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people, in order that you may proclaim the mighty acts of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.

Once you were not a people,but now you are God’s people;

once you had not received mercy,but now you have received mercy.”

We are chosen, not because we deserved it or earned it, but because of God and His great mercy. It is nothing for us to boast about because it is all God. It is an opportunity for us to say, “Wow how good is our God”, and to give thanks. And God wants us to proclaim the incredible things He has done. Jesus says in today's Gospel passage “Very truly, I tell you, the one who believes in me will also do the works that I do and, in fact, will do greater works than these, because I am going to the Father.”

The, “greater works”, doesn’t mean we will do more sensational things than Jesus, so don’t expect to be doing handstands on water anytime soon. What it really means is 2 things, the magnitude of the spread of the Gospel will be greater. Today the gospel has reached approximately 4.57 billion people. The growth from the start of the early church is huge and that is all down to the work of God through His followers. Also the greatest work was still to be done, the work of Jesus on the cross, dying for our sins and rising again to conquer death. He worked salvation for us on the cross and through His resurrection. And after He ascended the disciples received the Holy Spirit and started to preach the Gospel and when people believed they were saved, they received the Holy Spirit and received salvation. This is a greater work than healing a blind man, because this brings eternal life with Christ and it is all done through the work of the Holy Spirit through the disciples. Jesus goes on to say “I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If in my name you ask me for anything, I will do it.”

This doesn’t mean if we ask for 1 billion pounds that we will get it because that is for us and our own personal gain, not for the glory of God. When we ask for something in Jesus' name our minds need to be in unity with His mind, our desires need to be in unity with His desires. Jesus means if we ask for something in accordance with His character that will bring glory to Him, He will do it. For example, strength to sing praise in a time of struggle, ideas for activities and events to bring young people to the church and ideas for ways to get the people who are already at church more involved. Whatever can be used to bring glory to Him is something worth praying for. 

Jesus is the way, the truth and the life. We are called to surrender everything to Him, we are called to surrender our lives to Him, we are called to humble ourselves and be totally reliant on Him. He has chosen us to serve Him and He has prepared a place for us in His fathers house where He will take us and where we can dwell with Him forever. So do not let your hearts be troubled but instead believe in Him, depend on Him and let Him work in you and through you so that you may do His works, through which people will receive salvation. And what a blessed privilege that is. Amen