Discovering Jesus in unexpected and familiar places

Ascension Sunday 5 June 2011

Luke 24 : 13-36, 45-53

After the trauma of Jesus’ crucifixion two disciples go for a walk from Jerusalem to Emmaus, talking through the events of the previous week, asking questions about what had happened to Jesus and to their dreams of what he was going to do. 

The story is near the end of the first of Luke’s two volume account of Jesus’ life and the beginnings of the Christian church. Luke tells how the two disciples met Jesus, but did not recognize him until he did something familiar – breaking bread as they shared a meal together. Jesus then explained what the old prophecies in their scriptures meant. The familiar words now made sense, but then Jesus left them. Later he appeared for the last time to the disciples together.

The Emmaus Road is one of a number of stories of Jesus’ appearance. It is evidence for Jesus’ resurrection. It also suggests a pattern for how people since may come to discover Jesus and understand the scriptures. 

It was while the disciples were talking and discussing about Jesus that he “walked along with them.” Discussing questions about Jesus takes us on the road to meeting Jesus even if we do not at first recognise him or properly understand the scriptures. The disciples offered hospitality to a stranger who turns out to be Jesus himself. Doing the right thing even if we do not have all the answers puts us in a place where God can speak to us. Hospitality over a meal is also often a place where people discover God. 

When I was at university, discussions with Christian students and the gift of hospitality from church members were important in helping me discover Jesus and work through what it meant to be a Christian. Friends also took me to a church where the scriptures were taught. Like the disciples on the Emmaus road I needed explanations as well as a safe place to ask questions. The acceptance provided by the gift of hospitality helped make it possible to explore what being a Christian meant.

The next part of the story is repeated at the beginning of the book of Acts (1:1-11). Luke explains that the message is to go to all peoples. The disciples are witnesses of Jesus’ teaching and of his death and resurrection, but they also need to wait for God’s power. Then Jesus blesses his disciples and leaves them. 

Even though they are naturally curious about Jesus’ return they are told that that is something which is not for them to know. Some discussions and questions may lead to discoveries about God, but not all our questions will be answered. 

Even if the power from God to tell the story about Jesus may be very real to us, there are mysteries that God does not reveal. Like others, it is a mistake for Christians who discover something important to believe they know everything. There are things God does not reveal. There are puzzles about life for which in this life there is no satisfactory answer even if we are tempted to invent them. We may respect the sincerity of those who believe they have deciphered the mystery of Christ’s return, but Jesus said (Acts1:7) “The times and occasions are set by my Father’s own authority, and it is not for you to know when they will be.” Fascination with these things can be a distraction from the things that we do know about what God wants us to do. 

Recently I came across the story of six-year-old Lulu Renton who comes from Scotland and goes to a church school.[1] Her teacher had for some reason asked the children in her class to write a letter: “To God, How did you get invented?”

Her father was not a Christian, but he decided to email her letter to various church leaders. There were two replies. One was rather complicated, but the other was from the leader of the Church of England, Archbishop Rowan Williams, who wrote:

“Dear Lulu,

Your dad has sent on your letter and asked if I have any answers. It’s a difficult one! But I think God might reply a bit like this –

‘Dear Lulu – Nobody invented me – but lots of people discovered me and were quite surprised.

They discovered me when they looked round at the world and thought it was really beautiful or really mysterious and wondered where it came from.

They discovered me when they were very  very quiet on their own and felt a sort of peace and love they hadn’t expected.

Then they invented ideas about me – some of them sensible and some of them not very sensible. From time to time I sent them some hints – specially in the life of Jesus – to help them get closer to what I’m really like.

But there was nothing and nobody around before me to invent me. Rather like somebody who writes a story in a book, I started making up the story of the world and eventually invented human beings like you who could ask me awkward questions!’

And then he’d send you lots of love and sign off.

I know he doesn’t usually write letters, so I have to do the best I can on his behalf. Lots of love from me too.

+Archbishop Rowan”

I wonder what you think of this letter. It is remarkable that he took the time not only to answer Lulu personally, but also to try to get inside the mind of a child. 

Rowan Williams also makes quite a bit of the distinction between discovery and invention. Discovery is about what is already there. Invention is an act of imagination and creation.

How do these things apply to God?

I think discovery is a good word when applied to God because the emphasis is objective - on what is there – however subjective our experience, that is shaped by our own language, personality, culture and ideas. 

By contrast invention seems to suggest God is just our own idea, a projection of our own selves and needs, and nothing more. 

But, can Invention also be a “good” word like it usually is in science and technology? We are not talking about inventing the existence of God (even though believers are sometimes accused of doing that). Invention can mean creating ideas and pictures which help us make sense of what God is like. There is a sense in which we need to do that to connect our discovery of God to the actual world we live in.

Inventiveness is part of the gift of creativity which is one of the ways in which God has made us a bit like himself. Art, music, and painting for the glory of God can reflect God’s image in us and also be gifts which express things about God that are difficult to capture in words.

Yet all inventions whether of theology, the arts or technology and science, need to be tested and corrected so that they are work properly and more accurately express the truth they were designed for. Discovery and invention need each other, and together they need input from God to be aligned to his will.

Both discovery and invention are part of our journey in faith – finding the God who is there – then choosing words and ideas which help us talk about it and compare our understanding with others. Our story, however it is told, has to be tested by scripture and our understanding has to informed by what God has revealed. The truth about God is at the end of the day not defined by our own feelings or the patterns of other people’s experiences, though they may be part of our discovering God. Just as the disciples not only needed to discover Jesus was there with them on the road, they also needed Jesus to explain to them what the scriptures meant. So do we.

I do wonder also, what was that Scottish teacher trying to do? It seems somewhat odd to be asking a 6 year old to write to God and say “Who invented you?” I am not sure it shows respect either for God or for what a child that age might be expected to understand. Yet perhaps the teacher hoped the children would realise that people do have different ideas about God which we need to be able to talk about. 

What does it feel like to discover Jesus? It may be emotional. It may be quiet. It may be a slow discovery. Like falling in love “you just know.” Some look for such an experience, some try to manipulate people or God. But if we are talking about authentic experiences, nothing you can do or say can make it happen. God is sovereign. It is part of Christian life to experience the absence of God as well as his presence –We learn not to be dependent on these feelings, but we value them if God gives them to us. God is there whether we feel him or not. We learn to trust God whatever our spiritual experiences or the lack of them. This too can be a discovery.

Life itself is a journey “on the road”. Like the disciples walking to Emmaus, with our questions, our conversations, and our encounters with strangers, it is a joy and a gift when we recognise Jesus in the breaking of the bread together, as we will do this morning.

Amen.

John Roxborogh

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[1] You can read the story about her on http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/damianthompson/100084843/a-six-year-old-girl-writes-a-letter-to-god-and-the-archbishop-of-canterbury-answers/

"Let us go and see this thing that has happened"
St Andrews KL Christmas Day 2010

1. Like the shepherds we have heard something has happened and we have decided to go and see and find out what it means.

Like Christians around the world today, like the Shepherds in the Christmas story, we have decided not just to think about Christmas, but to do something about Christmas.

Every Christmas is a little different. We are different ages and stages in life. We are older. Children are older. We may be in different countries. Friends and familiar family may or may not be with us. Each year the gifts we share speak to us of the gift of God in different ways. Each year the familiar songs and readings add different layers to our memories and grow our understanding about what happened and what it all means.

Each year different songs are popular – Don’t they know its Christmas; Last year I gave you my heart – this year there has been a rush of Flash Mob Hallelujah Choruses sung in places like Macy’s Store in Philadelphia, A Christmas Food Court has received over 26 million hits on YouTube. One from Melbourne Central Railway Station 3 days ago has only 14,000 so far. There is something of the joy of the angels and the bewilderment of the shepherds in the onlookers – truly wonderful. Check out YouTube.

Here in Malaysia. Yesterday NST carried letters to drive carefully at Christmas, to remember the reason for the season, and one[1] saying that he would be visiting open house of his Christian friends on Christmas Day to add to their cheer. This morning the PM expressed hope …

“that Malaysians will continue to give the gift of goodwill and acceptance beyond the Christmas holiday season.

Every cultural or religious occasion celebrated in Malaysia serves as a joyous reminder of our nation’s wealth and strength in diversity. "This time of the year is no different," the prime minister said in his Christmas message.

Najib said despite Christians comprising only 9.1 per cent of the population, the widespread adoption of Christmas practices such as exchange of gifts was a testament to the nation’s ability to accept and embrace cultural differences.

Writing in his blog, he reminded Malaysians of their ability to band together to restore peace and harmony in the face of adversity such as the extremist attacks on the Christian community earlier this year.
"Our saving grace is the spirit we possess as a society that believes in respecting and accepting one another for our unique and varied points of view.". . .

Wishing a Merry Christmas to all celebrating, he called on Malaysians to keep the nation’s unity and prosperity in their prayers.[2]

And we ourselves have come once again, or possibly for the first time, here in this place, to share as people celebrate the birth of Jesus. We want to know not only “What happened?” We also want to know “What does it mean?”

What happened is given to us through the memories and stories gathered by two of the Gospel writers, Matthew and Luke: The accounts of Jesus ancestry, of Mary’s unexpected and embarrassing pregnancy, of her espoused husband Joseph’s experience of God’s reassurance, of God’s witness that this would be a special child. Their travelling because of a Roman census and finding themselves stuck for accommodation, and the birth of Jesus in the most unlikely and unhygienic of circumstances. How simple shepherds heard angels praising God and found the baby, as did people from the East who offered extraordinary gifts symbolic of a king, a person of prayer, and someone who would be anointed for burial. And the tragedy of the paranoid king Herod and his killing of innocent children in a vain attempt to be secure on his throne. Joseph, Mary and Jesus escaped to Egypt, but Herod for all his power could not escape his own death and so they were able to return.

“What was going on?” or “What does this mean?” is a much deeper question. When it says that Mary “pondered all these things in her heart”, she was thinking not just what had happened, but what did it mean? It is good to see for ourselves, it is important that we make our own decision to think about what it means.

Let us consider both those questions

2. What have we done this morning? What have we seen? What does it mean?

Many will have already opened gifts and there will have been laughter and surprises. Some will have been given exactly what they hoped for, and others things you may learn to value. Some of us may be extraordinarily self-disciplined and be waiting till after this service before they open their presents. Some will be more lavish in their gifts, some more restrained.

And coming to church is part of the giving and receiving, for worship of God is a service of giving, and a time when we receive gifts from God. The wise men not only gave gifts, setting a pattern for our giving, they also worshipped Jesus. And as the Shepherds told people the story about the child Jesus, so by our worship and our lives, we continue to tell the story of the coming of Jesus and what it means.

Christians worshipping are both more ordinary and more mysterious than we could imagine. We notice that they are made up of people, from different walks of life, from different cultures, languages, economic circumstances and political views.

All of us are growing in our understanding of what the birth of Jesus some 2000 years ago means for us, how it becomes the centre of our understanding of how the Creator God has shared human life.

The explanations often include reference to the time at the end of Jesus’ period of teaching, how he was falsely accused, betrayed, abandoned, and cruelly executed. In many churches as we will this morning, his last meal with his followers will be recalled and his followers invited to share in remembering what he said and what he said it would mean. And they and we will talk of his coming back after death and the promise of his return one day in history.

We have come to see people celebrate this. At one level what we see is other Christians in our diversity and common faith.

There is an ancient letter to Diognetius explaining what Christians were like about a century after the time of Jesus[3]

For Christians are distinguished from other people neither by country, nor language, nor the customs which they observe. For they neither inhabit cities of their own, nor employ a peculiar form of speech, nor lead a life which is marked out by any singularity. …

But, inhabiting … cities, according as the lot of each of them has determined, and following the customs of the natives in respect to clothing, food, and the rest of their ordinary conduct, they display to us their wonderful and confessedly striking method of life. They dwell in their own countries, but simply as sojourners.

As citizens, they share in all things with others, and yet endure all things as if foreigners. Every foreign land is to them as their native country, and every land of their birth as a land of strangers. They marry, as do all; they beget children; but they do not destroy their offspring. They have a common table, but not a common bed. They are in the flesh, but they do not live after the flesh. They pass their days on earth, but they are citizens of heaven.

They obey the prescribed laws and at the same time surpass the laws by their lives. They love all men, and are persecuted by all. They are unknown and condemned; they are put to death, and restored to life. They are poor, yet make many rich; they are in lack of all things, and yet abound in all; they are dishonored, and yet in their very dishonor are glorified.

Of course this is written from a Christian point of view about Christian ideals and we are not always successful at living up to those ideals.

3. Another thing we can do, in order for us “to see this thing that has happened” is to read the Christian scriptures in the New Testament.

We will notice that the New Testament begins with four accounts of “good news” about the life of Jesus. It is obvious they are all telling the same story, yet they are selecting different parts to help explain who Jesus is to different groups. Matthew wants Jewish Christians to remember Jesus came for all races, and Luke that it is often more and marginalized people who see and understand what God is doing.

Both of them borrow from Mark’s action-orientated life of Jesus which starts with the prophetic ministry of John the Baptist. John’s Gospel tells the story to emphasis what Jesus means for thoughtful people a generation later than those the other writers addressed. He uses a series of signs and sayings so we understand that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life.

John goes back to creation to say that in Jesus “the true light which enlightens everyone was coming into the world”.“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it”

There is something very enduring about even small amounts of light

If you fly to Europe overnight, and you look down as you cross over India, and Pakistan and the countries of the Middle East you will see thousands of lights, not only of cities, but also of villages.

If we think of fibre optic cables and the capacity of small amounts of modulated light in glass tubes to carry more channels of digital information than we would dream possible.

If we think of light from stars whose distance is measured in thousands of light years, so that by the time the light reaches us, the star may have ceased to exist.

But we also think of light in dark places, in terms of the light of the Good News of Jesus Christ.

4. The light of Christ has not been put out through the history of the church since Jesus, despite many setbacks and sufferings.

That light was not put out in the early centuries after Christ, despite persecution and despite the challenges of becoming the official religion of the Roman empire.

That light was not put out when monasteries of Ireland preserved precious and beautiful copies of the Christian scriptures when other parts of Europe were in chaos.

That light was not put out when the Gospel which was taken over the silk route to China in 688 AD. Under Mongol rulers Christian wives kept the light of Christ known in Mongolia.

That light was not put out when persecution descended on the Christian community of Japan built up by the work of Francis Xavier in his travels from Melaka, and it appeared to die, to reappear hundreds of years later.

The light of Christ was not crushed by the events in Russia under Communism or the cultural revolution in China though the church was severely hurt and people suffered.

But this is not just about history and other lands, it is also about the light of Christ coming into people’s personal lives. The experience of suffering may make us doubt God, but it is also amazing how for many that it is in darkness they discover the strong light of Christ.

5. Sometimes darkness is not only in our circumstances, it is also in ourselves.

Yet this does not stop God continuing to be at work in us.

What is God saying to you is always an interesting question. But it is also a serious one. Not to be treated superficially or lightly.

There are things we are sensing in us which are signs of God’s Holy Spirit speaking, proding, encouraging, enlightening.

Darkness has not put out the light that Christ is bringing to us.

This Christmas allow that light to grow in you. Do not feel that all your questions need to be resolved at once, but be assured God is with you, and the light of Christ will never be extinguished.

Let me share with you from what Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury has written in his Christmas message:

The clutching hand of the baby is, for most of us, something we can’t resist.

The Christmas story outrageously suggests that putting our hand into the clutch of a baby may be the most important thing we can ever do as human beings – a real letting-go of aggression and fear and wanting to make an impression and whatever else is going on in us that keeps us tied up in our struggle and violence.

Even more outrageously, the story suggests that this particular baby, the one born in the outhouse, the one who is rescued at the last moment from a village massacre like the ones that happen so regularly in forgotten civil wars today in Congo or Sudan – this baby is the place where the power of the creator of the universe is completely present.

The fact that this story of defenceless love . . . – touches something universal should make us think twice about giving up on the human heart’s capacity for goodness and faith, however deeply buried.

That is true for our hearts this Christmas, not just the hearts of others. We have come not only to see others, but to see for ourselves that God is at work in ourselves as well this Christmas.

Amen.

John Roxborogh

St Andrews Presbyterian Church, 19 December 2010


Readings: Isaiah 35:1-10, Luke 1:39-56

Message
This morning we lit the 4th of our advent candles joy – following those of love, hope, peace in the first three Sundays of Advent.  On Christmas Day, next Saturday, we will light the Christ candle.

In the birth of Jesus, love, hope, peace and joy are located in a real person. It is through him that we experience the love of God, we have hope in this life and for the life to come, we have peace with God, and experience joy at the goodness of God.

Isaiah 35 is an extraordinary poetic prophecy of the joy of God’s coming to the rescue of his people.
In Luke’s story of the birth of Jesus different people – with the exception of Herod – all experience joy at the coming of Jesus.

Christmas is for us too, by and large, an experience of anticipation, excitement, celebration and joy in homes, churches and shopping malls, it is a “wow” time of the year.

However in the bible as a whole, joy is not simply a good feeling about good things; it is an appreciation of God’s goodness not only in good times but also in bad.

Mary’s hymn of praise, often known by the Latin word, Magnificat, is not only a celebration of God’s goodness to her, but of God’s goodness to the poor and humble, and his faithfulness in every generation. It is a model of our own prayers of praise can extend from our own experience to what God is like and what God is doing for others.

When we look at it more closely we might notice that joy is not only about thanking God for good things in good times, it is about knowing God is good in times which are terrible. It is a blessing in the midst of conflict – the proud are scattered, the powerful are brought down, the rich are sent away empty. Joy to the world announced by the angels to the terrified shepherds is not good news for everyone.

And for the followers of Jesus, the news is not going to be always good either. There is the saying “God is good – all the time. All the time – God is good.” We do not say these things lightly because God’s goodness is also known in experiences of suffering which he does not always take away from us.

Joy is like Christian marriage – a commitment in good times and bad “for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, till death do us part.” And like marriage it has it times of ecstasy at being in love – and its time when love is deep and rich.

Joy is our subjective response to the objective reality that in Christ God is with us whatever the circumstances. There is nothing in all creation which can separate us from the love of God in Christ.

The most important message we can share with one another at Christmas is that God is with you.
Joy comes from an awareness of this reality. It is not some feeling we need to generate, but it is a feeling which perhaps can give ourselves permission to acknowledge. I am not one for trying to work up a congregation to feel better than they really are, or get in the mood, or praise God with more enthusiasm. But sometimes we could give ourselves permission to be a bit more joyful. Presbyterians had an old saying that the chief purpose of human beings was “to glorify God and enjoy him forever.” But sometimes we can be a bit serious about enjoying God.

Joy can come to us in many things. – marriage, the birth of a child, a successful harvest, the pleasure of a good wine, the deliverance of victory. Some people even experience joy at football and baseball matches.
However joy can also be known in circumstances which are anything but happy. A blind Scottish minister, George Matheson whose fiancé broke off their engagement when he started to lose his sight, wrote the hymn “O love that will not let me go”

O Joy that seekest me through pain,
I cannot close my heart to thee;
I trace the rainbow through the rain,
And feel the promise is not vain,
That morn shall tearless be.

Jesus taught about blessings promised to the poor and those who mourn. Peter told his readers “Happy are you if you are insulted because you are Christ’s followers.” (4:13f) Paul wrote to the Corinthians (2 Cor 7:4) “In all our troubles I am still full of courage; I am running over with joy.”
These are not abstract ideas they are experiences in real life.

In the prophecy of Isaiah deaf people hear, blind people see, water is found in a desert, refugees are able to return home in safety – the pre-natal John the Baptist’s kicks his mother Elizabeth when Mary comes to visit. Mary’s rejoices at what God was doing through her and for hungry and poor people who trusted him.

However when we read of Paul saying “Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4) we may not find this helpful advice. In fact it may make things worse. One person said “I find that being told that I ought to be joyous depresses me” (Berger 2002)

Joy is a feeling of happiness about something good that has happened or about something that God has promised will happen
Joy is also about the spiritual reality that God will have the last word and is ultimately in control.
Joy may or may not be about feeling comfortable or good, it is happiness knowing God’s goodness in all circumstances.

We tend to associate joy only with the positive things in life we attribute to God. They are part of what joy is about, but it goes deeper. The word joy gives us language to talk about what ordinary Christians experience about God in both good times and bad.

This is partly a matter of definition of words in English, but it is going to take more than a better dictionary for us to even think about experiencing joy in anything like the range of circumstances found in the Bible.

Of course the prospects for joy can be improved by attention to our attitudes, and the things we do together as a community. A more positive attitude to life can be enhanced by how we treat one another. Sharing stories. Listening to one another’s pain. Doing practical things to help others can all improve our attitudes and make joy a more realistic possibility. Song and dance lift people’s spirits. Self-discipline, for instance the discipline of fasting, can help us have a sense of being under God’s rule and protection.

The question however is not really first of all what do we feel like, and how that might be made more congenial – though I do think that God cares about our moods and we should take our emotional needs seriously – but a more basic question is what is God like, and what does that change about how we feel.
Somebody has said (Berger 2002) that “A theology of joy requires the ability to see beyond the present moment”

When Moses was arguing with God about what was going on in Egypt, God eventually says to him “I have indeed seen the affliction of my people.” “This sense of being seen by God is the tipping point” for the response of joy.[1]

The first thing we need to know, however terrible or however good the situation we are in, is that God sees it. We look beyond the circumstances we are in, whether they are giving us pleasure or causing us pain, and we say “God sees this”


It is one of the great acts of prayer to acknowledge that there is no place that God does not see what is going on. Of course this may lead to the question if God sees it why does God not do more about it – and there is often no easy answer to that. But saying “God sees this” is still the starting point of being able to receive the message of Christmas “Joy to the world.”

Joy at good things is not difficult. Joy moved Isaiah and Mary to some extraordinary poetry in praise of God. Joy at God seeing things when they are not good may not be our automatic reaction. In fact it may be something we struggle with. Feelings are unreliable. They are difficult to hold on to. We try to capture them but they escape. And they are affected by many things, our medication, our hormones, our health.

The love hope peace and joy we name the Advent candles after can just be a list of nice words and good feelings. It would be perfectly possible to be enthusiastic about these things without any Christian references at all. After all it is nice to be at peace, it is wonderful to be in love, it lifts our hearts to have a sense of hope, it is a gift to be settled in our spirits, to have a sense of peace with ourselves and others.

And even if we bring God into the picture, if we are just looking for these feelings in themselves, they will slip away – falling in love with love is dangerous, hoping for hope’s sake may be no more than wishful thinking. the bible not only talks about the peace of God which is beyond human understanding, it also talks about those who cry "peace, peace, when there is no peace."

Yet God sometimes uses even unreliable feelings to speak to us in ways we would otherwise not understand.
Let’s think about religious experience and our feelings for a while.

• A sense of disquiet in our spirits, and absence of peace, may be a call from God to pray about something, or to seek God’s wisdom about a situation. It may be a reminder to commit situations to God and not necessarily try to fix them ourselves.
• A sense of deep happiness when we have given our life to Christ, or asked forgiveness from God, or from our wife, or parents, or colleagues, can be God’s confirmation that we have done the right thing – a sign of the reality of God’s Holy Spirit. To an unbeliever these may have some natural explanation as learned behaviors or group dynamics (and natural explanations are not necessarily wrong, just incomplete). Conversion experiences, or experiences described as being baptized in God’s Spirit are real, and valid. At the same time they not things that everyone has.
• Christians affirm the gifts that others have, and that includes the sorts of religious feelings some of us have and others do not. We do not try to make everyone the same. We do not boast of our gifts, or do things which might make other people jealous because of what we have.
• Sometimes we puzzle over whether types of spiritual experiences are of God or of Satan. I think this is unhelpful. Many things can be used by God to speak of God or they can be sources of temptation. For instance dreams can be used by God even today, but that does not mean that every dream has that layer of meaning, or has to be categorized as being good or bad spiritually. And dreams can be confusing and unreliable. We know that from the Bible as well. They may be more about questions than answers, but if we sense God is trying to tell us something, then that might be worth checking out.
• There are other emotions too which can be a vehicle for the Holy Spirit if we allow God to work in that sort of way. Our physical yearnings can be sources of spiritual hunger which lead us to know and trust God at a deeper level. Our fears can be warnings we should hear, or anxieties which need love. Our conscience may alert us to our need of forgiveness, or of spiritual danger, or it may lead us to feel more guilty than God actually wants us to be.

What can we rely on? How can we be sure?
We can be sure:

• When our experiences of the work of God’s Spirit in bringing us love, peace, hope and joy are shared by other Christians today, and in similar circumstances by the people we read about in the bible. When thousands of people who have acknowledged to God that they have done wrong things, and they give that burden to Jesus, and ask God to give them new life because of what Jesus did for us on the cross, and they have a great sense of joy and peace, then we have grounds for saying – that is a valid spiritual experience.
• We also need to say that when they are many who make that same prayer who do not feel anything, but yet set their lives to learning about Jesus, reading the bible, becoming part of a community of Christians, then their absence of religious emotional experience is also valid. It does not mean God is absent. This too is a common Christian experience.

Whatever out spiritual experiences, and whatever processes we take to digest and interpret them, Christmas is likely to be for us a season of great joy. May it be a time when we allow those feelings to be a confirmation for us of God’s Spirit at work in our lives.

Like Isaiah may our hopes for a better world turn into prayers of deliverance which bring joy and hope to others.

Like Mary may our experiences of God’s hand in the intimacy and expectation of bringing a child into the world enable us to speak not only of our own joy, but the promises of God to all who seek him, that we and our children will know as she said “That is mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation.”

This is joy to the world

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[1] Berger, Rose Marie. "Pursuing the secret of joy." Sojourners 31, no. 2 (March-April 2002): 27.

Remembering Christmas

Sermon on 12 Dec 2010
Christmas at St Andrews is part of our family memory. When our eldest daughter saw YouTube videos from last Sunday evening she was excited to remember the making of the banners, including the banners of Christmas, which still decorate this church.
I wonder what memories of Christmas you have from other years, perhaps from other lands, from other churches?
My own early memories include being on a ship during a storm in the bay of Biscay in December 1956. I was 11. My mother and I were on our way from New Zealand to England where she was to teach for a year. Furniture was sliding around and had to be tied down, and we were singing “Silent night, holy night” yet the night was anything but silent or still.
This year here in St Andrews and in the other services you may be celebrating we are adding to our memories and understanding of Christmas. Every year we discover something more of the birth of Jesus.
Of course we are concerned about the true meaning of Christmas. We note how Christmas is often soaked with values which make it hard to see that “Jesus is the reason for the season.”
Yet if we allow, perhaps even the gifts can speak – perhaps of the gifts of the wise men. Perhaps in our longing for something real the seeds of prayers for the lasting gifts that Jesus brings. Our looking back can tell us that often the gifts we did not want proved to be the ones we really needed, and the things we coveted often became hollow in their irrelevance.
One of the lasting gifts relating to both our needs and our wants, is the peace which the lighting of the Advent candle this morning reminds us about.
Peace and the absence of peace is one of the themes in the story.
“For a child has been born for us . . . and he shall be called . . . Prince of Peace” Isaiah 9:6
“Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace among those whom he favours!” Luke 2:14
We know that this is both profoundly true and yet not automatic or straightforward. It applies to some experiences in life, but not yet to all.
The lands where these events took place remain profoundly troubled. If Joseph and Mary were trying to get to Bethlehem this Christmas they would have a concrete security fence to negotiate.
We still yearn for peace as an absence of violence and a growth in respect and understanding. We may pray for the peace of Jerusalem – a seemingly hopeless yet vitally necessary prayer that does not take sides but realises that miracles are needed.
Yet in the Christmas story there are examples of peace which we can know: peace with God, peace with ourselves, and peace about others.
Peace with God. Isaiah talked about people walking in darkness seeing a light. Of course it refers to a communal experience, not just an individual personal one, but it is both. Sometimes the phrase “Oh he has seen the light” is used almost sarcastically that someone has come to their senses, yet it is the most wonderful thing that can happen, and it happens still as God works in our hearts and lives.
Coming to Jesus may not solve all our problems or answer all our questions, but it is like turning the lights back on after a power cut. Peace with God is one of the gifts that Jesus brings at Christmas.
Peace with ourselves. Mary, like Joseph, was perplexed by the discovery of her pregnancy and it puzzling circumstances – and Matthew and Luke want us not so much to think about its biology as its meaning – Jesus was born from God, and in time as John would explain in his Gospel, so would his followers be born from above, born again into a new family. Mary has her questions, as we may too, and she goes on thinking about, as we may wish to too, but she also decides that whatever she can or cannot understand about how this came to be, that she would accept the will of God for her life.
In our perplexities as parents, or parents to be, or as those trying to understand ourselves as we grow up or as we grow old, as we experience sickness and not just years of health, there comes the time to say “Let it be Lord, according to your will.”
This is not some magic formula, but the acceptance of our situation and our placing of it in the hands of God. It is a way in which peace about what is going on for us can become as real as the lifting of a headache, the removal of a burden on the spirit. It may not go away immediately, but one day we will awake and it will be gone.
Peace about others. The Shepherds were more than perplexed, they were terrified. What scared them was something so overwhelming in its praise of God that they could not handle it. This may not be the experience of all of us, but sometimes we are as much troubled by the power of something good as we are of something bad.
What others do in the name of God can threaten us. In the shepherds’ case, it was the angels, and they were not wrong to be frightened.
I am struck by how often Christians are worried about what other Christians are doing. Perhaps the situation of the shepherds is as if those who are used to more staid Presbyterian worship were suddenly transported like Harry Potter and landed in a revival meeting. Other people’s exuberant praise can be unsettling. Yet like the Shepherds we may also hear God’s reassurance in sounds we do not understand. I like it that what they did was to get up and go and they went to find out what it was all about. The moved past their own sense of shock or threat to do something practical to find out more.
When we are concerned about praise of God we do not understand, perhaps the simple step to recovering our peace is doing something practical. We may find that though our experiences of God are not the same, there can be a quite unexpected peace in recognising God’s work in others in a way that is different from his work in us. We may also need to cope with those who may have difficulty extending this same understanding to us.
But there are strands in the story which do not have a happy ending. The peace announced to the shepherds was powerful and real, but it is not the only experience of life. Innocents still suffer. We don’t know why God allows some things to happen. It is the Christian story to both experience miracles of deliverance, as did the wise men Mary and Joseph and the child Jesus; and suffering, as the innocents and later Jesus did.
Our own Christmas memories relate to both the gift of peace and to the realities of suffering. It is good that we often pray at Christmas for those for whom this is the first Christmas since someone close has died, and for whom this Christmas will be poignantly different.
What do we do with these memories?
The American poet Robert Pinsky has said that “Deciding to remember, and what to remember, is how we decide who we are.”
We have some choices about remembering and memory which help us cope with the experiences of life and grow our understanding of what Christmas means.
Robert Pinsky’s concern was about America and its need to make decisions about its memory in order to determine its cultural identity, a concern that applies to other countries as well. If a nation loses its memory it also loses its understanding of what it does remember.
He also talks about the hymn, “O Little Town of Bethlehem” by Philip Brooks that we have sung.
O little town of Bethlehem!
How still we see thee lie,
Above thy deep and dreamless sleep,
The silent stars go by;
Yet in thy dark streets shineth
The Everlasting light;
The hopes and fears of all the years
Are met in thee tonight.
Brooks wrote this Christmas carol after the Civil war in the United States when many little towns were silent at Christmas simply because so many of their young men were gone. Their sleep is dreamless because they have died. Something touches people in this carol, perhaps even unsettles them if they think about the words.
We hear this as a peaceful carol, it is actually about trusting God after a national tragedy. It can apply not only in the situation it was written for, but for many others. This too is part of the memory of Christmas.
But there are ways and ways of remembering. A Croatian theologian, Miroslav Volf, now in America, had experience of persecution in his homeland. He has written about what do we do with painful memories like these and he addresses the importance for Christians of “Remembering Rightly.”
We have choices about remembering, about whether it fuels bitterness or forgiveness, about whether it buries problems because they are too painful, and how much it allows healing to happen. These can be difficult choices. Some memories need healing, and some forgiveness, some we do need God’s grace to leave in his hands for now and for eternity.
Peace is about handing to God those things which feed bitterness and eat away at our souls. Recently my niece wrote this:
If someone wrote out all the qualities of Jesus and asked people if they would like to have those qualities then I’m sure many people would like the idea of being like Him. I would be a much happier person if I made the effort to love and forgive people, even my ‘enemies’, than if I had seething grudges against people, which would just eat you inside out and consume your thoughts.
At Christmas we are both reliving and also creating memories which help us to both understand and to “remember rightly”.
Memories of Christmas are important for our children. We have a responsibility to allow them to grow their understanding of God and of the meaning of Christmas as they themselves grow and discover the world. They need to know that the sense of wonder about life which they may experience as they read of Mary’s pregnancy and Jesus’ birth points them to a God who will always be big enough for their deepest questions about life, about the exceptions to its rules as well as about the amazing way God normally works in nature.
They too will face, as we do, the Herods of this world as well as with the things which go wrong in our own lives.
We are concerned for growing a capacity to engage with the questions which arise from their own experiences of peace with God as well as the realisation that others praise God differently. There will be questions about prayers answered and questions from prayers not answered.
There are mysteries here, but there are also truths which God would have us learn. We are not stuck at one point in a journey of faith.
The Christmas story is not something to be grown out of, but to be grown into. Its meaning can never be fully captured in any one attempt to explain the real meaning.
Our context and our times will always both give us fresh insights, and create risk of not remembering rightly. Our choices matter. We need the shared memories of Christmas in our different cultures and across the different ages and stages of our own lives to sense what God is doing in Christ for our salvation.
No matter how long we live, every year something fresh will deepen our sense of what is going on and what the peace of God really means.
The memory of today will go on working in us in all the Christmases to come. Amen.
John Roxborogh

Sermon St Andrews KL on 26-Dec-2010:

“Are you the one or should we look for someone else?”

Let us continue the story of Christmas after Jesus’ birth

Matthew 2:13-15 (Hosea 11:1) Refers to Joseph, Mary and Jesus their escape to Egypt, and the prophecy “Out of Egypt I have called my Son” – a text that is very important for African Christians. Jesus was in Africa for a time.

In Luke2: 21-39 we see Jesus’ naming and circumcision – the naming is reflected in infant baptisms where parents are asked “Would you name your child” – it is an important responsibility for the parents to decide what the name will say to the child and to others about who they are.

And then there is a temple ceremony for purification and dedication. Mary and Joseph offer the sacrifice set for those who were poor – a pair of doves or two young pigeons

While they are there they meet two other people who recognise who Jesus is and who have great joy at his coming.

Just because we say our prayers does not mean we always get it right, but it is often prayerful people like Simeon and Anna who have a sense of what is really going on. Such people are a gift.

In the church where I was converted when I was an engineering student the congregation had prayed for revival, but when God answered their prayers not in the way they wanted with something tidy and Presbyterian, but something untidy, unpredictable and charismatic among the youth. Many older folk were upset at youthful spiritual over-confidence, especially when it did not show proper respect for the elders.

But an elderly Irish Christian, Mr Coulter recognised what was going on. He saw that at one level youth were just being youth, especially as this was New Zealand not Malaysia. At another level what was going was something he recognised from memories of his own country, Ireland, and of stories of revivals there. What he saw was the Holy Spirit bringing young people to faith, discovering God’s Holy Spirit in their lives, and learning to discern God’s gifts and calling. And of course this did not mean they got everything right or that they had the maturity or experience to recognise that the different expressions of faith by older people in the congregation were also valid.

Perhaps Mr Coulter might have shared in the words of Simeon

Now Lord let thou thy servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen thy salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people, Israel.

This may be our response in different situations as well – when we have seen situations long prayed for brought to a resolution. One day we can let go a burden or see that a hope is being realised because we see that God has indeed brought things to a new place.

Simeon and Anna brought other words as well, more things for Mary and Joseph to ponder: about God’s choice of Jesus, about his role in judgment and salvation, in the experience of conflict, and in opening up secret things.

We too may have words that have come to us, through others, or in our own hearts, and convictions about what God is saying to us. They may be things we are not sure about. And we may be wise not to always speak them out. People can do harm bringing words of judgment which are not their gift or place to share.

But there can be words of comfort or reassurance that are quite personal. We cannot demand these things from God, but we should not despise them either. We should I think not be too quick to decide what God is trying to tell us, but such words can be very meaningful.

I myself had the experience of an elderly praying lady reassuring me about the salvation of my father. He had had a difficult life as a child and his own actions brought pain to others. Yet at the end of the day he too was a person of faith.

But there is another story in our readings this morning.

John the Baptist, at a time which proved to be near the end of his life, suddenly had doubts whether he had made a mistake in declaring Jesus to be the promised Messiah.

The story of John the Baptist and the messengers he sent to Jesus is often told a few weeks before Christmas to remind us of those who go ahead to “prepare the way of the Lord.” It is a time when we can also thank God for all those who prepared the way leading to our own welcoming of Jesus into our lives.

But I think it is good to think of John the Baptist not only in that role, but also as an example of one who was at the centre of what Jesus was about and who suddenly found himself having doubts and questions.

It is not uncommon after a big event for there to be a bit of a letdown. The experience of a low after a spiritual or emotional high can be quite real. It famously happened to Elijah after his spectacular defeat of the prophets of Baal.

We can map highs and lows in the disciple’s lives as they followed Jesus. Even the day after Christmas may be a bit of a letdown after the excitement of Christmas Day.

John sent messengers to Jesus to ask a serious question: “Are you the one or should we wait for another?”

In all the Gospels John is an important prophet, calling people to a baptism of repentance. He was astonished to find that Jesus also came to him for baptism. We remember his words about Jesus that “he must increase and I must decrease” and that “I baptize you with water, but someone is coming who is much greater than I. I am not good enough even to untie his sandals” (Luke 3:16) “He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire.”

John had a successful ministry, and some of Jesus’ disciples had first been disciples of John (John 1:35), but he also suffered for the courage of his convictions and the directness of his preaching. When he criticized the governor Herod Antipas for taking his brother’s wife, he was put in prison. Antipas was the son of the King Herod who had met the wise men on their way to visit the baby Jesus and who had children killed in Bethlehem in an effort to get rid of him. In Matthew 14 it explains how his son Herod Antipas wanted to kill John the Baptist but was afraid to do so until he was tricked by his wife and his own foolishness.

Waiting in prison fearing something like this was likely to happen was not a good time for John. He began to have questions and doubts. His diet had never been good, now it was worse. It was not easy to think straight about all that had happened.

However, he did do something about it. He managed to arrange for messengers to go to Jesus and ask the question that was on his heart. In asking “Are you the one?” he was not testing God or looking for a sign. He was not playing games with Jesus saying you had better bless me and if you don’t I will go and try some other God. He was not threatening Jesus with some sort of performance review.

It quite proper for us to take seriously the questions that arise for us out of a search to know and do God’s will. It is important to do so. The New Testament is very understanding about questions like these. Sometimes we may feel Jesus was a bit rough on people asking questions – he does challenge people to work things out – but it all depends on why people are asking. Is it about following Jesus and knowing the truth, or is it about keeping Jesus at a distance and looking for reasons to avoid doing what we know to be right?

We can take courage from John Baptist going to Jesus – and the matter of fact way Jesus put the question back to him to think again about what was going on and what that must mean.

There are OK questions for us to ask on the journey of life of faith. It is important that we do so that we grow our understanding of God with our experience of the complexity of life.

We can reassure our children and ourselves that there is nothing that is too big or too complicated for God. That there is no understanding about the complexity of how the world works, in science, or in philosophy, in economics or politics, where it is not possible to appreciate that God is big enough for these things.

We will have questions. Jesus is likely to ask us to look at the evidence. But in doing us he will indicate that he understands us, he loves us, and he is at work in us too.

AMEN

John Roxborogh

St Andrews KL 2 Jan 2011

Jeremiah 29:1-7; Matthew 2:1-2, 13-23

The story of the wise men following the star is one of our Scripture readings again for two reasons.

This week on 6 January Eastern churches will be celebrating the birth of Jesus and the Epiphany or “manifestation of Christ” to the Gentiles.

Secondly it is of interest, because we also are “in the East.”

How do we see the light of Christ differently and in some ways, more clearly, because of where we live, because at this moment we are “in the East”?

In both readings places make a difference to how people experience God and understand what he is like.

Jeremiah is telling Jewish believers in exile that they can still worship God in a different place from their own country and that God wants them to be committed to the good of that country.

Matthew is reminding Jewish Christians 500 years later that Jesus did not only come for them, but also for people from other lands like the Magi from the East.

Places make a difference. For instance, living in Malaysia may teach us about prayer in a way that living in New Zealand may or may not. Being a migrant or a refugee makes parts of the bible, including perhaps the letter from Jeremiah to exiles, come alive to us.

As a pastor part of my work is helping Christians with different experiences of God understand one another better. People have different gifts, are at different stages of life, and have different personality types. They come from different places which affect their assumptions about how things should be done.

One of our challenges is learning which of these differences matter because they are due to sin, and what differences just have to be managed because they are due to the goodness and diversity of God’s creation, not to failure of some kind.

Church history can also remind us of the importance of different places and how they have affected what Christians think of as normal ways of being church. For Presbyterians – places like Edinburgh in Scotland or Geneva in Switzerland are places where significant things happened. But some of the problems and answers from those places are not the same as what was worked out in Africa or India, or China, or Korea or here in Malaysia.

Christianity in the East has its own history, and unfortunately much of that history has been neglected and forgotten.[1] One person who helped its rediscovery was a Scottish clergyman Claudius Buchanan who was a chaplain to British traders and soldiers in the East India Company. In 1809 preached and published a sermon which he called “A Star in the East” on this same text from Matthew we have read this morning.

At that time missionary work in British India was illegal. While in India he had begun to appreciate some of the ancient stories of Christianity in Asia before European contact, including the stories of St Thomas coming to India in 52 AD and dying there twenty years later.

Buchanan got involved with William Wilberforce and others to open India to Christian mission. He even created an essay competition on the best means of evangelizing India with the enormous prize money of £500.

As well as a presence in India from the first century there had long been Christian churches East of Jerusalem in Syria and Armenia. There were also churches along the Silk Road to China. Medieval visitors like Marco Polo and Catholic diplomats travelled through Southeast Asia. In medieval times there were Christian tribes in what is today Mongolia. Later the Jesuits had missions in India, Melaka, Macao, the Moluccas, Japan and into China. The Spanish brought Catholicism to the Philippines.

The 19^th century saw huge expansion of mission. Penang, Singapore and Melaka attracted missionaries waiting for China. In 1910, there was a World Missionary Conference in Edinburgh to coordinate Protestant missionary efforts. Representatives later visited Asia and came to Singapore in 1912.

In the 20^th century it was realised that there was a problem how to relate together the new churches which were growing in Africa and Asia to the older churches of Europe and North America. Now there were Christians in most parts of the globe it was a general question how much should the churches in Asia and Africa be Asian and African – or did you have to be European to be truly Christian? Even if you answered “Of course not!” the details were not easy. Whose culture has the right to define what is authentic Christian faith?

Of course we share faith in Jesus Christ. We believe that “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself.” We all use baptism as a form of initiation. We all use prayers based on Jesus’ last meal with his disciples. We all read the Bible. We all pray in the name of Jesus Christ. Whatever our differences we all seek to be followers of Jesus.

And yet some things are different. One area is the effect of science on faith.

In Western countries the success of science had affected how people understood the way God worked in the world. People began to assume that God was a scientist and that so his laws must be scientific laws. While some saw science as a just a different overlay map of the same reality, others saw it as a threat because it said the reality was different and it gave alternative explanations for how the world worked and how it had been created. For many people miracles, prayer and the very existence of God now became problems.

For some time protestant missionaries from the West believed their brand of Christianity could cope with science and that science was useful ally in the fight against superstition and irrational religion. It was also believed that because of this English was the only safe religious language and in India missionaries persuaded the British administration to support English language schools more than schools in local languages.

(Others realised that every language present some risk to Christian truth, and that at the same time every language and culture is capable of bearing the good news of the Gospel. Because Jesus was truly human as well as truly God we believe that God’s word in the bible should be translated into the language of every nation.)

In the West in particular popular science, sociology, and psychology started to help erode confidence in the existence of God and reduced the status of the church. I have known Malaysian Christians practically in tears over the state of the churches they saw in Europe and they wondered how it was that these once great missionary countries could have so lost their faith and emptied their churches.

There are different issues here in the East.

Here I have known people who came to Malaysia who changed their understanding of what it is to be Christian. Some made a personal commitment to Christ for the first time. Malaysia has provided a freedom to explore what it means to be a Christian, and that has been a wonderful discovery. And if you are on that journey I encourage you to take another step.

I would like to encourage us all to think what is it about following Jesus that you can discover more clearly here, than you might somewhere else.

1) We may find being here presents the gift of opportunity. Here you may have time to be part of a bible study or fellowship group which at other times and places has not been possible.

2) Here you may discover permission to pray – there is no problem saying grace before a meal in any Malaysian restaurant.

3) Being in a society in which different religions are practiced, helps you understand other faiths the beliefs and customs of real people who are quite different from media stereotypes. It also gives you permission to think about what is God really like. You may read the bible with new eyes. You may find friends willing to discuss questions which were not taken seriously in other places.

4) You may find opportunity for fellowship with Christians different from you own tradition. We may discover that issues which seemed central to Christian faith in other countries, here are not so important.

5) It may be an advantage that here you may be away from places where you had an unhappy experience of the church. Here some of those associations are broken and you can think about God in a fresh way.

6) Here you may hear stories of how God has helped other people in their lives, in their work and business, in their health, in their concern for members of their family. You may discover that God wishes to be much more involved in our personal lives than you realised. You may be struck by how people have made choices to be Christian that are costly, but it has been their decision.

7) You may also discover here that your understanding of God expands. God is not only more personal he is also more concerned with larger issues and problems than those of our own world, however important. So we can discover that God is bigger not smaller. This is a place to grow our understanding of what God is like.

In conclusion I want to pick up the words from Jeremiah 29:1-7. It includes an extract from a letter to people who have been forced into exile. They had known what it was to deal with God in their home land and they wanted to go back. Jeremiah had to tell them that that was not going to happen any time soon and they needed to face being committed to where they now were.

Sometimes we apply to ourselves the promise “I alone know the plans I have for you, plans to bring you blessing.”

It is an important promise, but I think the more important word is verse 7 “Seek the welfare of the city where I have sent you . . . and pray to the Lord on its behalf, for in its welfare, you will find your welfare.”

The “city” here can represent each of the cultural groups we relate to – one’s own family, church, other Christians, one’s own ethnic group, other ethnic groups in the one country. This is not simple. They all matter. Some of their needs conflict, but each one of them is likely to enrich our understanding of what it means to be a Christian.

St Andrew’s seeks to be an international church where we own these multiple cultural dimensions of identity and work out what we have to do to work together as a Christian community which takes seriously biblical teaching on Christian love, being an equipping church, seeking to serve others and one another in the name of Christ so that we grow together in him. Other churches in other lands will have a similar vision, but our being in Malaysia will make this possible in a way that is also unique.

We too, like those wise men of old, will have seen his star in the East.

AMEN.

John Roxborogh

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[1] See Philip Jenkins, The lost history of Christianity, Oxford University Press, 2008.

St Andrews KL on 29-May-2011 at a service of Baptism and Confirmation

John 14:15-21

I Peter 3:8-22

· What is God saying to us?

· What are we are saying to God?

· What are we are saying to each other?

Today is a special day when we rejoice in baptism and in the confirmation of baptism of friends who are marking another milestone in their journey with Christ.

From the time of John the Baptist and before water has been used as a sign of a new commitment to God, a turning from sin, and of the pouring out of God’s Spirit.

Cleansing and pouring are powerful statements of what God is doing. Being prepared to be baptised, or to confirm an earlier baptism, before other people is a courageous statement for anyone to make.

In baptism we are aware that we are saying things to God about commitment and faith. God is also saying things to us about welcoming us into his family. We are also saying things to one another about encouragement to make our own commitment and to renew baptismal vows for those of us already baptised.

A few weeks ago, on 1^st May my wife Jenny and I were at Knox Church Christchurch New Zealand. It was the first Sunday since the February earthquake that they were allowed back to use, not their church, but the hall, for worship. It was also a service of baptism for the third child of a Malaysian couple from Kedah now in New Zealand.

This was certainly a case of baptism being a word of encouragement! If you would like to read more about the service visithttp://preshist.wordpress.com/2011/05/10/knox-church-congregation-return-to-their-church-building-for-worship/

I was surprised when the minister asked me unexpectedly “What does baptism mean?” I was not expecting the question and I was just pleased to be there. Later I thought about what I might have said:

God is saying ‘Welcome to my family’
We are saying ‘Thank you Lord, this is where I belong.’

Of course other things need to be said as well. And in many churches people come from backgrounds where they do baptism differently, and say slightly different things about what it means. But there are things in common.

We would all note how Jesus talked about joy in heaven over one sinner who repents (Luke 15:7).

We are all responding to the example of Jesus in being baptized and see that as the pattern of submission to God’s will, commissioning to God’s service, and openness to the Holy Spirit.

We would all see baptism as part of our mission as a church, since after his resurrection Jesus said to his followers to go and make disciples and "baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit."

Different scriptures have spoken about the meaning of baptism.

The baptism of John the Baptist was sign of repentance, very much like the word in Ezekiel 36:25-27 “I will pour clean water over you and you will be cleansed; I will cleanse you of all your defilement and all your idols. I shall give you a new heart and put a new spirit in you.”

In Acts baptism is like Jesus’ own baptism a sign of God’s Spirit coming into our lives and commissioning for service.

In Romans we see the picture of dying to sin and rising to new life in Christ which connects with baptism by immersion.

In the Gospels we see Jesus welcoming children as a sign of his kingdom and many churches not only want to welcome children, but also offer baptism to the children of believing parents. Other churches dedicate the children of Christian parents like Jesus was dedicated in the temple.

Through the history of the church there have been many changes in practice. Sometimes this was about climate and the availability of water, sometimes it was about whether the emphasis is on what God was saying or whether it was on our turning to Christ.

· Some have used little water,

· Some have used a bit more and pouring like Malaysian mandi bath

· Some have used immersion.

· Some baptise the children of Christian parents

· Some reserve baptism for those who make a decision for Christ for themselves

· Some baptise new believers as soon as possible. Some wait. (In the early church some delayed baptism till they were near death to reduce the risk of sin.)

· Some baptise whole communities; some whole families; many focus on individual decisions

Some churches, including many Presbyterian provide for both those who want to be immersed and those who do not, and also for parents who wish to baptise their children and those who prefer to dedicate them and leave baptism for when they make their own decision for Christ.

Nevertheless as a church Presbyterians believe that infant baptism is consistent with New Testament faith that "the promise is to you and to your children.” We recognise by a form of baptism that the children of believers start life within the covenant community of faith. When they later make a decision to follow Christ for themselves, they should confirm what was done earlier on their behalf. It is also often possible for this confirmation to include immersion so long as they do not call it baptism.

In New Zealand we also allow congregations to call ministers who do not themselves baptise infants provided there is openness that this is the situation and other provision can be made for Christian parents who seek the baptism of their infant children. We also have a number of Baptist ministers who have moved to ministry positions in the PCANZ and some of them, perhaps surprisingly, are comfortable with infant baptism.

Here in St Andrews KL we have for decades had members and leaders who come from a range of traditions about baptism, yet who respect the teaching of the church as a whole.

We realise that taking the Bible seriously does resolve all differences among Christians and that we can learn from what others do even if we see things differently.

Whatever we think is the right time in life and the right amount of water, baptism is something God wants us to do. God has his own timing, and our gifts are not all the same, but the stories of the Spirit being active at baptisms in the New Testament are repeated today.

Baptism is something witnessed, celebrated, written down, confirmed, renewed. It is a sign of God’s love, of a welcome into the family of God. When we confirm our baptism, we are saying not only "I repent of my sin" "I renounce the devil and all his works" we are also saying "I accept God’s gift to me in Jesus Christ" "I welcome the work of God’s Holy Spirit in my life" and "I want to be a disciple, a follower of Jesus". These are very powerful things to say.

When those of us who are already baptised are witnessing a new believer being baptised, or a person brought up as a Christian confirming the faith of the family as their own person faith, we are able to renew our own commitment.

When those of us who are not yet Christians or not yet baptised share in a celebration such as this, we also can say “Lord, I want to find out about this.”

You may also say "Lord I believe, but please help my unbelief". Or "Thank you God that you understand where I am in my life, the things that make it difficult for me. Help me trust you. Help me take the next steps in the journey."

We are not alone. We want to say to you, "Go on, go on, it is great what you are doing." "It is good to be with you." "When you need help I will try to be there for you.”

In John 14 Jesus was preparing the disciples for what was going to happen. He predicts that one of them will betray him and that Peter will deny him.

We know that even though we confess our faith and make promises to follow Jesus, we are going to let Jesus down sometimes. It may catch us by surprise. Someone or something will get under our skin. We may be tricked into going places we should not. Something we like may become something we covet and lead to sin. Jesus died to deal with sins after baptism not just before. The last word will always belong to God and it will always be a word of salvation.

Jesus said he would still be with them through the Holy Spirit. In our Christian life we experience the Holy Spirit in different ways, including at different stages of life. Every age is valid in the sight of God. Whether you are a child or middle-age. Whether you are growing up or growing old. Whether you are bringing up children, or the children are bringing you up!

Sometimes we are afraid about what is going to happen when we face moving to another stage. Or physically to another town, to another church, another country, or another culture. Where will Jesus be?? When Jesus has been familiar to us in certain styles of Christian music, in certain words and ways of praying, in the security of the ministry of a pastor who lead us to Christ; will Jesus be with us when those things are no longer there?

Perhaps the promise of the Holy Spirit being with us, standing beside us, being Christ in us, revealing God’s truth to us, helping us, is one we need to hear too as we let go of one era, and one set of ways in which God has blessed us, and open ourselves to something new.

When a new pastor may be joining the pastoral team at St Andrews, our love and thankfulness for those who have been a blessing to us will not diminish, but we may need reassurance like Jesus gave his disciples.

Baptism and confirmation are times when we lay hold of this promise in a new way. God will be with us not only in this new place of witness and commitment, but also in this new place of taking a new level of responsibility for our own spiritual health and Christian journey.

In all of this Jesus remains the centre of our understanding about what God is like and what God requires. Christian life starts with an attitude of love – God’s and ours – not with successful obedience, that is something love makes possible. “If you love me you will keep my commandments.” Love is the gateway.

Finally the very existence of Peter’s letter is a reminder that mistakes do not have the last word; Peter’s denial did not have the last word, God still had work for him to do.

Bearing witness to Christ is not just a matter of courage to speak out – that is not appropriate in many situations in life and in many cultural contexts. It is also about wisdom when and how to speak. Fundamentally it is about how to live. We seek to earn the right to speak. In our own families who are not yet Christian, and in communities and work places where people know us well and look what difference it makes for someone to be a baptised Christian, we need to say very little. Our lives can say much about our attitudes to others and how God is at work in our lives despite our imperfections.

Today is a day of celebration, encouragement and renewal. A day of hearing God’s renewed invitation to be part of his family. Of saying this is where I want to be.

This is what God is saying to us, what we are saying to God, and what we are also saying to each other.

John Roxborogh