Sermon 17th February 2008
Today one of our Lay Readers, Adrian Parkhouse, preaches based on the reading from Matthew 4: 1 – 11
1. So the second Sunday in Lent and the second in our sermon series looking at “holiness”: the holiness of God the Father, the Son, the Spirit and, then, lastly a look at what it means for us to be holy. All within the context of the invitation extended by Cameron last week – and before that on Ash Wednesday – to “keep a holy Lent” – by practising self-examination, repentance and self-denial, by praying, and by fasting.
Last week Cameron led us to Isaiah’s awe-full vision of God, high and lifted up, His robe filling the temple; and in our next sermon in a fortnight, John will consider the holiness of the Spirit of God. This week we consider the holiness of Jesus, the Son.
It is interesting that if you search the Bible looking for the description “holy” applied to Jesus, you will find only very few instances: in the gospels only one that I found – at the beginning of Mark, the madman in the synagogue: “I know who you are – you’re God’s holy one!”; then in Acts one or two references, such as the post-Pentecost Peter accusing the crowd “you disowned the holy and righteous one and begged to be granted instead a man who was a murderer!” Perhaps the most worked through statement comes in the letter to the Hebrews, where the writer, on his way from a theological frolic into the role of priesthood comes out with a clear and assured statement:
“Here is the High Priest we need. A man who is holy, faultless, unstained, beyond the very reach of sin and lifted above the very Heavens”
And that about sums it up really: Jesus, holy, faultless, unstained, beyond the reach of sin.
2. Did you see Rageh Omaar’s programme last week on the Dead Sea Scrolls? It was an intriguing examination of the background and significance of the scrolls. For today’s purposes, it was helpful in revealing the nature of the wilderness into which Jesus was led by Spirit before the start of his ministry. The Dead Sea scrolls were found by a Bedouin herdsman in Qum-ran to the NW of the Dead Sea: an area of what in the US would be termed “high desert” – rocky, bare, steep, mountainous dry and hot. A place to be alone; to find yourself and God and for Jesus, Matthew tells us, “to be tempted”. And Jesus fasted 40 days – the 40 days which provide the basis of this time of Lent.
Then the temptation began.
Two thoughts impress themselves on me as I read this passage – and they both lead towards the same conclusion: the first thought is that in the manner of his responses to the devil, Jesus made it clear who he was not; and the second thought is that in the terms of his responses, he hints clearly at who he was.
You see if Jesus had turned the stones into bread – he might just have been a magician, a trickster, a dealer in the dark arts, a sorcerer. That he was not. If he had succumbed to the dare to cast himself off the ledge on the Temple – perhaps daring a leap across the ravine that is the Kidron Valley – he might have seemed like any other deluded visionary who tries to back up his grandiose claims by calling on the support of God in some hopeless dare so as to prove the integrity of his theories. Jesus was not a false prophet like these. And if he had given-in to the offer of power over the kingdoms of the world, then he would have been or become what so many of the Jews expected: a man of politics and influence. But Jesus’ kingdom was not of this world.
And in what he says, Jesus points us to who he was: each of the passages of scripture he quotes are taken from the book of Deuteronomy chapters 6 -8 – a re-telling of the giving of the commandments to the nation Israel as it waits in the very borders of the promised Land. And these chapters take the people back to the fundamental formula of the covenant: “You will be my people and I will be your God” and “You are to be holy as I am holy”. Israel was called to be special; it was “the elect” of God; it was to be faithful to God and obedient to His commands. Holy. And Jesus use of these words to rebut the devil remind us that Israel too had been led by God into the wilderness for 40 years – and had failed in meeting His call to be holy: but Jesus does not fail.
Jesus does not sin. He remains holy. But what is that holiness? Is it just withstanding temptation? Is it only the ethical meaning of goodness?
3. If we were to read on in Matthew’s gospel, the next passage has Jesus begin to preach that the Kingdom of God is has arrived. And “while he was walking by the lake….he saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew, casting their large net into the water. They were fishermen so Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will teach you to catch men!” At once the left their nets and followed him.”
Why?
4. It was with mixed emotions that I heard of the death of Jeremy Beadle? Sorry that he had died at a relatively young age but relieved that I no longer have to worry that somewhere, somehow how he is waiting to trick me in some way and show the results on TV. Those of my generation will remember him on “Beadle’s About” filming practical jokes on unsuspecting members of the public. The ones that always stick in my memory involved peoples’ cars: usually involving swapping the victim’s prized Mercedes for a look-alike and then, as he comes back into the car park, letting it topple over the car park wall, or be lifted into a car-crusher, or be buried in an accidental dump of liquid concrete. And at that moment the camera pans to the victim who stands aghast – soon to turn to tears or to anger. That moment used to worry me: those “car-park-moments” seemed to me to involve high risk on the part of the programme makers – the chance of heart attacks must have been high?
I had my own car-park-moment the other week and very impressive it was too. I had stopped at a motorway service station and very consciously parked in a Marks & Spencer customer bay before going in to buy a coffee and a bun. And when I came out, I looked to my bay. Not only was there no longer a shiny black estate sat there; but also, in its place, was a grimy white van. The shock was fast, extreme and confused: had I come out of the wrong door? Would thieves operate in such a place? Could they act so quickly? What should I do? How would I get home? Help! All this and more flooded through my mind in a split second. A car-park-moment. What I expected, what I had anticipated, what I took for granted had gone and was undone. In its place was a dirty white van.
As I read on in Matthew’s gospel this week, it struck me that Simon and Andrew had had a car-park-moment by the lake. Had it been you or I who had made that strange half-jokey invitation – “come and catch men” – what response would we have expected: more important what response would they have expected to make? “Get lost!”
But faced with Jesus: “Follow me” and at once they left their nets. A car-park-moment: what they had expected to see, what they anticipated hearing, how they assumed they would, react undermined by being in the presence of Jesus.
5. And as you read on through the gospel, this “special-ness” - this holiness could we call it, because it seems to me it must be more than only the absence of sin, it must be that something of the holiness of the Father could be seen too – can be seen to lie at the heart of all that he says and does. It is because he is holy like the Father that his teaching can make the demands it does – go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, the hungry will be satisfied, the poor lifted high; it is because he is holy like the Father that he can command the waves to be still, the leper to be clean, the dead man to walk; it is because he is holy like that the Father that he can clean out the Temple, wash his followers’ feet and die.
CS Lewis said in one of his letters written “To an American Lady”: “How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible”. It was for Simon and Andrew. It was for me. For me there had been a previous car-park-moment (not one caused by the failure to apply the hand brake so that the car had evidently sidled slowly and sedately across the car park until it had nuzzled gently against a new BMW in a far row). For me there was a moment when at which I had had to accept that my many theories about Jesus – as magician, thinker, manipulator, good man, victim, whatever – did not stack up next to “the real thing”, the holiness, what Paul in Philippians calls the “nature of God”. Everything I had assumed was undone in that car-park-moment. I had met with the fact that for me Jesus was holy and more important than I my theories would admit.
6. A “Holy Lent”. How is it going for you? Does it feel like 40 days in the high desert? If you are like me, then “not yet” may be an appropriate answer. To catch up, can I recommend seeking out a car-park-moment: finding space when you want to understand how it was that the disciples met the nature of God in the holiness of Jesus.
1. So the second Sunday in Lent and the second in our sermon series looking at “holiness”: the holiness of God the Father, the Son, the Spirit and, then, lastly a look at what it means for us to be holy. All within the context of the invitation extended by Cameron last week – and before that on Ash Wednesday – to “keep a holy Lent” – by practising self-examination, repentance and self-denial, by praying, and by fasting.
Last week Cameron led us to Isaiah’s awe-full vision of God, high and lifted up, His robe filling the temple; and in our next sermon in a fortnight, John will consider the holiness of the Spirit of God. This week we consider the holiness of Jesus, the Son.
It is interesting that if you search the Bible looking for the description “holy” applied to Jesus, you will find only very few instances: in the gospels only one that I found – at the beginning of Mark, the madman in the synagogue: “I know who you are – you’re God’s holy one!”; then in Acts one or two references, such as the post-Pentecost Peter accusing the crowd “you disowned the holy and righteous one and begged to be granted instead a man who was a murderer!” Perhaps the most worked through statement comes in the letter to the Hebrews, where the writer, on his way from a theological frolic into the role of priesthood comes out with a clear and assured statement:
“Here is the High Priest we need. A man who is holy, faultless, unstained, beyond the very reach of sin and lifted above the very Heavens”
And that about sums it up really: Jesus, holy, faultless, unstained, beyond the reach of sin.
2. Did you see Rageh Omaar’s programme last week on the Dead Sea Scrolls? It was an intriguing examination of the background and significance of the scrolls. For today’s purposes, it was helpful in revealing the nature of the wilderness into which Jesus was led by Spirit before the start of his ministry. The Dead Sea scrolls were found by a Bedouin herdsman in Qum-ran to the NW of the Dead Sea: an area of what in the US would be termed “high desert” – rocky, bare, steep, mountainous dry and hot. A place to be alone; to find yourself and God and for Jesus, Matthew tells us, “to be tempted”. And Jesus fasted 40 days – the 40 days which provide the basis of this time of Lent.
Then the temptation began.
Two thoughts impress themselves on me as I read this passage – and they both lead towards the same conclusion: the first thought is that in the manner of his responses to the devil, Jesus made it clear who he was not; and the second thought is that in the terms of his responses, he hints clearly at who he was.
You see if Jesus had turned the stones into bread – he might just have been a magician, a trickster, a dealer in the dark arts, a sorcerer. That he was not. If he had succumbed to the dare to cast himself off the ledge on the Temple – perhaps daring a leap across the ravine that is the Kidron Valley – he might have seemed like any other deluded visionary who tries to back up his grandiose claims by calling on the support of God in some hopeless dare so as to prove the integrity of his theories. Jesus was not a false prophet like these. And if he had given-in to the offer of power over the kingdoms of the world, then he would have been or become what so many of the Jews expected: a man of politics and influence. But Jesus’ kingdom was not of this world.
And in what he says, Jesus points us to who he was: each of the passages of scripture he quotes are taken from the book of Deuteronomy chapters 6 -8 – a re-telling of the giving of the commandments to the nation Israel as it waits in the very borders of the promised Land. And these chapters take the people back to the fundamental formula of the covenant: “You will be my people and I will be your God” and “You are to be holy as I am holy”. Israel was called to be special; it was “the elect” of God; it was to be faithful to God and obedient to His commands. Holy. And Jesus use of these words to rebut the devil remind us that Israel too had been led by God into the wilderness for 40 years – and had failed in meeting His call to be holy: but Jesus does not fail.
Jesus does not sin. He remains holy. But what is that holiness? Is it just withstanding temptation? Is it only the ethical meaning of goodness?
3. If we were to read on in Matthew’s gospel, the next passage has Jesus begin to preach that the Kingdom of God is has arrived. And “while he was walking by the lake….he saw two brothers, Simon and Andrew, casting their large net into the water. They were fishermen so Jesus said to them, “Follow me and I will teach you to catch men!” At once the left their nets and followed him.”
Why?
4. It was with mixed emotions that I heard of the death of Jeremy Beadle? Sorry that he had died at a relatively young age but relieved that I no longer have to worry that somewhere, somehow how he is waiting to trick me in some way and show the results on TV. Those of my generation will remember him on “Beadle’s About” filming practical jokes on unsuspecting members of the public. The ones that always stick in my memory involved peoples’ cars: usually involving swapping the victim’s prized Mercedes for a look-alike and then, as he comes back into the car park, letting it topple over the car park wall, or be lifted into a car-crusher, or be buried in an accidental dump of liquid concrete. And at that moment the camera pans to the victim who stands aghast – soon to turn to tears or to anger. That moment used to worry me: those “car-park-moments” seemed to me to involve high risk on the part of the programme makers – the chance of heart attacks must have been high?
I had my own car-park-moment the other week and very impressive it was too. I had stopped at a motorway service station and very consciously parked in a Marks & Spencer customer bay before going in to buy a coffee and a bun. And when I came out, I looked to my bay. Not only was there no longer a shiny black estate sat there; but also, in its place, was a grimy white van. The shock was fast, extreme and confused: had I come out of the wrong door? Would thieves operate in such a place? Could they act so quickly? What should I do? How would I get home? Help! All this and more flooded through my mind in a split second. A car-park-moment. What I expected, what I had anticipated, what I took for granted had gone and was undone. In its place was a dirty white van.
As I read on in Matthew’s gospel this week, it struck me that Simon and Andrew had had a car-park-moment by the lake. Had it been you or I who had made that strange half-jokey invitation – “come and catch men” – what response would we have expected: more important what response would they have expected to make? “Get lost!”
But faced with Jesus: “Follow me” and at once they left their nets. A car-park-moment: what they had expected to see, what they anticipated hearing, how they assumed they would, react undermined by being in the presence of Jesus.
5. And as you read on through the gospel, this “special-ness” - this holiness could we call it, because it seems to me it must be more than only the absence of sin, it must be that something of the holiness of the Father could be seen too – can be seen to lie at the heart of all that he says and does. It is because he is holy like the Father that his teaching can make the demands it does – go the extra mile, turn the other cheek, the hungry will be satisfied, the poor lifted high; it is because he is holy like the Father that he can command the waves to be still, the leper to be clean, the dead man to walk; it is because he is holy like that the Father that he can clean out the Temple, wash his followers’ feet and die.
CS Lewis said in one of his letters written “To an American Lady”: “How little people know who think that holiness is dull. When one meets the real thing, it is irresistible”. It was for Simon and Andrew. It was for me. For me there had been a previous car-park-moment (not one caused by the failure to apply the hand brake so that the car had evidently sidled slowly and sedately across the car park until it had nuzzled gently against a new BMW in a far row). For me there was a moment when at which I had had to accept that my many theories about Jesus – as magician, thinker, manipulator, good man, victim, whatever – did not stack up next to “the real thing”, the holiness, what Paul in Philippians calls the “nature of God”. Everything I had assumed was undone in that car-park-moment. I had met with the fact that for me Jesus was holy and more important than I my theories would admit.
6. A “Holy Lent”. How is it going for you? Does it feel like 40 days in the high desert? If you are like me, then “not yet” may be an appropriate answer. To catch up, can I recommend seeking out a car-park-moment: finding space when you want to understand how it was that the disciples met the nature of God in the holiness of Jesus.
posted by Parish Administrator at 9:56 am
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