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