Thursday 13 September 2018

Sermon 16th September 2018: Year B: 17th Sunday after Pentecost:Text: Mark 8:27-38 – Spring has sprung


Sermon 16th September 2018
Text: Mark 8:27-38 – Spring has sprung.

(Please note: This Sermon was written for our annual Creation Sunday with the theme "Spring". It is still appropriate for the Gospel of the day).

Spring is a lovely time of year when we start to see a turn from the cold freezing weather to see the temperature start to edge up again.
You sort of think during the midst of winter that it’s never going to get warm again but you start to watch the 7 day forecast on the news and there’s suddenly a day or 2 where a rogue 20 degrees is there in the midst of the low to mid-teens.
Spring is a time of new growth when we start to get the lawn mower out more often after a season of hibernation.
And then the weeding starts again.
The final leaves from autumn are raked away.
Spring is an important reminder and very symbolic of hope as a season of life follows a season of death as we see trees that drop their leaves in Autumn now starting to shoot new life.
Jesus often spoke of death being the beginning of new life:
Jesus once said, unless a kernel of wheat is planted in the soil and dies, it remains alone. But its death will produce many new kernels--a plentiful harvest of new lives.
Or have you ever been through an area that has been ravaged by bushfire and seen the new life being produced on trees that have more greenery than before the fire.
It’s hard to comprehend death being anything but death;
It’s hard to comprehend that death can produce life.
But that’s what spring is evidence of in God’s mighty creation.
Today the Apostle Peter is finding it very difficult to understand death in a positive light.
Jesus tells his disciples that he must undergo great suffering, and be rejected by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes, and be killed.
Peter rejects such a notion;
Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him.
In Matthew’s gospel he says – never Lord, this will never happen to you!
And that’s because for Peter death is the final stage in life.
Jesus is the one that they had put their hope in but now he is talking about this death.
For Peter and many others there is nothing after death.
But Jesus didn’t leave it there;
He said, he would be killed, and after three days rise again.
Peter missed that final part – but after three days he would rise again.
And sadly at funerals many miss that promise of Jesus too.
The promise that Jesus made to us in our baptism:
All of us who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death. We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life. For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we will certainly also be united with him in a resurrection like his.
And so for Jesus, death was not the end season in a person’s life.
And just as Spring follows Autumn and Winter, so too life follows death in Jesus Christ.
God created the seasons to provide a cycle of life;
A cycle of life and death
Summer and Spring to regenerate life
Autumn and Winter to allow new life to regenerate through dying.
As the book of Ecclesiastes says:
For everything there is a season, and a time for every matter under heaven: a time to be born, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to reap what is planted; a time to kill, and a time to heal;
Life too is a cycle of seasons.
From life – to death – to new life.
Death is difficult to understand outside of the Christian faith.
No matter how much technology has increased it cannot provide an answer to or avoid death.
In fact technology is one of the quickest things to die.
No matter how much we have discovered about health and wellbeing we have not been able to do more than increase the average age of humanity.
No matter how much plastic surgery, makeup and creams we use to make ourselves look younger – we cannot avoid death.
So death in an inevitable part of life.
But death is not the end of the life cycle because Jesus was able to create for us a new season of life by this life, death and resurrection.
Likewise, just as Autumn will follow Spring, so too Spring will again follow Autumn.
And so too, through Jesus, death which follows life now has eternal life following death.
We know that God created the seasons on the fourth day of creation when he created the sun, moon and stars to govern the nights and days and seasons.
And so as we orbit the sun annually seasons are created to continue the cycle of life on earth.
But in heaven there will be no more seasons as the Book of Revelations says:
The city does not need the sun or the moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and the Lamb is its lamp.
Likewise in heaven there will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.
So as we begin to enjoy this season of Spring as we feel the warmth – as we see the colours return to our trees and flowers and lawns, let it remind us and give us hope that as we journey through life we are not journeying towards the end of life in death but to the new beginning of eternal life after death.
As we grieve when we lose a loved one may the warmth of Spring and the new life it brings remind us of the warmth of God’s love radiating in our lives and the new life that Christ brings.
As St James says to us: Be patient my brothers and sisters, until the Lord's coming. See how the farmer waits for the land to yield its valuable crop, patiently waiting for the autumn and spring rains.
Let us also patiently wait for our Lord’s return and until then may the peace of God that surpasses our understanding keep our hearts and minds forever in Christ Jesus. Amen.


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