The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Luke.

At that very time there were some present who told Jesus about the Galileans whose blood Pilate had mingled with their sacrifices. He asked them, “Do you think that because these Galileans suffered in this way they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish as they did. Or those eighteen who were killed when the tower of Siloam fell on them–do you think that they were worse offenders than all the others living in Jerusalem? No, I tell you; but unless you repent, you will all perish just as they did.”

Then he told this parable: “A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard; and he came looking for fruit on it and found none. So he said to the gardener, ‘See here! For three years I have come looking for fruit on this fig tree, and still I find none. Cut it down! Why should it be wasting the soil?’ He replied, ‘Sir, let it alone for one more year, until I dig around it and put manure on it. If it bears fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down.'”(Luke 13:1-9)

                     ———————————————–

In light of what has been happening in the Ukraine, this past three or so years, with bombing of homes, hospitals, schools, and so on and hearing the horrific death toll, we  have to wonder who do people have to die like that? Where is God at a time like this?

Men, women, children. Dying in horrifying bombardments, people who were just sheltering in certain buildings they thought would be safe havens.

 Why?

Why do people have to die like that? 

That same question, was being answered by Jesus in the account we have just heard, from Luke’s gospel, as the disciples wrestled with that ” Why?”

Pilate was always alert to any sign of insurrection arising from the Jews, so on one occasion when protests seemed imminent,  he had his soldiers hide their uniforms under civilian clothing and carry cudgels instead of swords, and they were to mingle among the people protesting.

They were to then throw off their disguises and beat those who were protesting.

Some people died.

Were they killed because they were sinners?

And what about those who were crushed when the  tower at Siloam fell?

Were they sinners too?

If they had been ‘good’ then would they have been spared?

“No,” Jesus says. We are all sinners.

“They didn’t die because of their sins.” But if you don’t repent, then you will surely die like them – not in the same way – but  suddenly, without the opportunity to repent.

Saying that God didn’t punish those people for their sins, is not to say that we don’t eventually have to face some hard questioning,   but that God is patient. He wants his children to come back to Him, to turn their lives around. And He will wait for us.

Jesus uses a story of a fig farmer to explain this. The owner of the vineyard sees the tree which hasn’t borne fruit in three years and orders it cut down. The gardener asks for more time.

“I will fertilize it. I will water it. Give it a chance. If it is still barren next year, then we will cut it down.”

God has always called his children to repentance. “Come back to me,” he calls to us. “Come back.” If you are thirsty, or hungry, and don’t have any money, then come back anyway. I will receive you, and feed and water you.

If you are a sinner, and have nothing to show for your life. And you are in need of love and forgiveness and tenderness, and need to belong once more, then that’s alright.

Come back and be welcomed.

This last sentiment is from the Old Testament book of Isaiah, of course, our first reading today. God, through Isaiah is calling the children of Israel to return to him, and he will take them back to their own land, where they will experience his wonderful generosity again.

William Lamartine Thomson must have had those verses of Isaiah in mind when he wrote that wonderful old hymn, ‘Softly and Tenderly’, over a hundred years ago.  It’s a song we often sing during services in retirement homes. Here is one verse:

Why should we tarry when Jesus is pleading,
Pleading for you and for me?
Why should we linger and heed not His mercies,
Mercies for you and for me?

That is straightforward enough isn’t it?

 Why wait around?

Why put off coming to Jesus?

You know what you have to do.

You know how much you need to turn it around.

So why wait?

The Emperor Constantine didn’t want to be baptised as a Christian until he had had enough of a good time. He didn’t want to respond too soon, when the pleasures of this world were still attractive to him.

He had the idea that to accept Christ you had to obey a set of rules.

He didn’t yet know the joy which comes from just knowing Jesus, and which is a joy  far superior to what the world has to offer.

The next verse of that hymn is a bit more direct, however. I always thought it was too bleak to sing at a retirement home, and I thought we should omit it, but I always remembered too late.  It goes: –

Time is now fleeting, the moments are passing,
Passing from you and from me;
Shadows are gathering, deathbeds are coming,
Coming for you and for me

Deathbeds are coming!!

What a ghoulish thought.

Deathbeds are coming!!!

When I was a new rector, I went to Maplecrest  Lodge in Grimsby, to do a service, and  I was introduced to Owen Patterson, a retired minister of Trinity United Church.

Owen was old, and sitting in a wheelchair.

Now Owen had a wicked sense of humour.

Too wicked if you ask me.

He looked at me with a wicked smile, and said, “You are looking at what you will become.”

Holy Moley!

Just what I didn’t want to hear.

I had already wondered if age is  contagious. Like if you mixed with old people, you caught it, and became old yourself. 

And it’s true!!

I started out young, and after visiting retirement homes where old people hang out, I have gotten older.

But when the retirees sang that verse –  ‘shadows are gathering, deathbeds  are coming,’  it didn’t faze them, they just sang those words as lustily as they did all the words.

Remembering those tragedies, in the Ukraine,  and elsewhere,  and the two tragedies noted in the Gospel story told today, we should be aware that deathbeds can come for us at any age.

Suddenly!

If we don’t know that today, then we will never know it.

But I am not expecting a rush today, or any day this week, of people wanting to talk to me about turning their lives around.  I don’t suppose there will be a rush to lawyers of people suddenly anxious to get their wills done.

And anyway, that’s not what it is about.

We are not talking about taking out insurance against going to the wrong place, here.

We are talking about realising that God loves us, and wants us back with him. Not out of fear. Not out of panic.

I don’t even believe he wants us back out of regret.

You will remember in Jesus’  parable of the prodigal,  how the son, having spent all his money and living in absolute poverty on a pig farm, decides to go home.

He regrets what he has done, and he doesn’t think he can ever be forgiven. He just figures that maybe he can get a better job as a hired hand on his dad’s farm, and be content with that.

What he doesn’t know. And perhaps this is the tragedy of that story – what he doesn’t know – is the sheer depth of his father’s love for him.

There is no talk of him being a hired hand. No recrimination. No judgment. Simply out of his father’s love for him, he is welcomed, and in the joy his father has in just having him home, his wrongs are forgotten. 

I wonder how many of us never realised the extent of our parents’ love for us until we looked back years later and saw as clear as day what we had never seen up close. 

I wonder how many of us haven’t realised how much we have loved someone until we have lost them.

The people of Jesus’ time had  no idea  of the depth or the breadth or height of the love of God. They thought that people were punished for their wrongs by a vengeful God.

A person to whom good things happened was automatically considered to be blessed by God, and a person to whom bad things happened was automatically considered to be punished by God.

Sounds logical doesn’t it?

How often have you heard someone who has problems say, “I don’t know what I did to deserve this? “

And this, even after Jesus has explained about the unconditional love of the Father.

Even when Jesus showed that love in healing the sick.

Even when he hung on that cross .

People still didn’t make the connection.

He wants us to come back out of a realisation of  how much He loves us.

Some people are shocked to hear that.

But maybe we need to be shocked into realising the depth and beauty of God’s love for us.

You know, there are mothers and fathers and brothers and sisters, and sons and daughters who have a depth and a beauty of love for us, but which sometimes, we just don’t see.

How much harder is it for us to recognise such love in a far away God?

But God understands.

He tells us, ‘My thoughts and my ways are not like yours.  Just as the heavens are higher than the earth, my thoughts and my ways are higher than yours.’

And Jesus brings that love right up front and centre for us.  He brings it down here to earth for us all to see and to marvel at.

To marvel at the depth of it.

Because otherwise we would have no idea, would we?

What is so mind boggling, is that  even after his death on that cross, even after that sacrifice, that horrible display of how low we humans can sink, He still wants us to follow him.

How could that possibly be?  Well composer Thomson has no doubts.

O for the wonderful love He has promised,
Promised for you and for me!
Though we have sinned, He has mercy and pardon,
Pardon for you and for me.

Come home. Come home.

Aren’t those words, ‘Come home,’ the most beautiful words in the English language?

I once read the obituary of the man responsible, during World War Two,  for setting up the radio beacon to which weary pilots, some flying alone, would tune their radios, to guide them home..

How good they must have felt to hear that tone, bringing them safely home.

Earnestly Tenderly, Jesus is calling.

          Calling O sinner, come home.

It has to feel good to respond to such an appeal, hasn’t it?

And really, how much more could He do?

Amen.

The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Luke.

Some Pharisees came and said to Jesus, “Get away from here, for Herod wants to kill you.” He said to them, “Go and tell that fox for me, ‘Listen, I am casting out demons and performing cures today and tomorrow, and on the third day I finish my work. Yet today, tomorrow, and the next day I must be on my way, because it is impossible for a prophet to be killed outside of Jerusalem.’ Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing! See, your house is left to you. And I tell you, you will not see me until the time comes when you say, ‘Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord.'” (Luke 13:31-35)

                      ——————————————–

So not all Pharisees were bad!

Some warn Jesus that Herod is on the look out for him.

The king who killed John the Baptist  wants to kill him, but Jesus just continues doing what he is doing.  He is fulfilling what His Father has given him to do.  His  greater concern is that the Jews have rejected his message. 

His own people rejected him and knew him not.

But he persists.

This perseverance that Jesus exhibits isn’t the blind blundering into the future of the stubborn idealist.

It isn’t the ruthless charging ahead that brooks nothing in its path.

I remember reading about a man on a journey in Mexico. He was traveling on his mule and in unfamiliar territory.  As he journeyed on, the road became narrower. It finally was reduced to a simple path that skirted the edge of a mountain.

It became narrower still, but the mule was sure-footed and able to travel the path.  The precipitous drop to one side was frightening, and yet the man and his mount carried on.

Until they came to a break in the path. Now the way was only inches wide. The  mule stopped. There was no way the animal could go forward and no way it could turn around. The rider dismounted carefully, moving to the rear of the animal, and then pushed it off the path and into the void below.

Then continued on.

That wasn’t the way Jesus persevered.  He didn’t foolishly go ahead when there was no way ahead.

He knew where he was going, and how he was going to get there.

He would go about the task that His Father had given Him, knowing that ultimately, it would lead to his death. But he did what he had been called to do, obediently, confidently, quietly, and with love and compassion for those he had been sent to save, even those who refused to listen.

 “Jerusalem, Jerusalem. Killer of the prophets. Stoner of those who were sent to you. How often I wanted to gather together your children as a hen gathers her children under her wings – and you would not. “

As disappointed as he is, and we can hear the disappointment in those words, Jesus will continue reaching out –  healing, casting out demons, preaching, and teaching his apostles. Preparing them to change the world.

Paul writes from prison to the church in Philippi. He reminds the congregation there to keep their eye on the goal. To travel through this world but not to become besotted with the things of the world.

There are some in Philippi who believe that since we are saved by  the freely given grace of God, and since that grace is unlimited, then one can sin and sin, and always be forgiven. That since God loves to forgive a sinner, the more that  one sins, the more God is pleased.

Some said that in Christianity all law is gone, so a Christian can do what she likes. They turned Christian liberty into Christian license.

But Paul says, “ Remember that you are citizens of Heaven.”

Citizens of Heaven!

This was something the people there could understand. Philippi was a Roman colony. These colonies were set down at strategic centers, and settled with retired Roman soldiers who had served their twenty-one years in the army and had been given their full Roman citizenship.

Paul is saying, “Just as the Roman colonists never forget that they belong to Rome, you must never forget that you are citizens of Heaven. Let your conduct match your citizenship.”

I guess when you are younger, life seems to stretch out so far ahead of you. It is easy to be drawn into being a part of the world – wanting what the world has to offer. Wanting what the ads and commercials say you ought to have; turning you into a full-blown citizen of this world, with all its so-called pleasures.

And it’s no use anyone telling you that the world’s pleasures always fall short of what they are touted to be. You have to find out for yourself.

But as we get older we realize how short life is. Your sight may be dim but your perspective is awfully clear.

We may have pushed a few donkeys off the path on our way through life, and now we come face to face with our mortality.

Did we make the right choices along the way?  Did we follow the right example?

Did we follow the example of Jesus?

We heard last week how he resisted the temptation to take the world’s way. How he rejected earthly power, and the worship of Satan – which means worshipping the world’s pleasures – and now he is threatened with death by Herod – and still he continues steadily on the task he has been set.

Paul in his letter to the Philippians (3:17-4:1)   says, “I want you to follow my example.”  That sounds a bit self-righteous, doesn’t it?  Preachers are more likely to say, ‘do as I say, not as I do.’ But Paul can say that because he strives to imitate Christ.

He is really saying,  “Be like me in imitating Jesus, if you want to know how to live.”

Shake free of the world’s grasp, and live as you know you have to live. Working your way through life, with love and compassion. And purpose.

The world tempts us to be greedy doesn’t it?

A few years ago, Martha Stewart risked everything she had worked for  – for what was it – an illegal $50.000?  Over what for her was just peanuts, really. What a pity!

How do you explain managers of companies who are personally worth hundreds of millions of dollars, wanting more, and cheating and lying to get more?

One executive of a corporation that made the news some time ago, was charged with his sons on having looted their company. He was over seventy years old!!!

Was he worried that he wouldn’t  have enough to last him until he died?  Or that somehow the richer he was the longer he would live? 

Really, what’s the point?  

Paul tells us that when we die we will leave this old arthritic, worn out body behind and be given a new spiritual body. 

Surgical scars, wrinkled skin, thin gray hair,  weak wobbly legs, triple chins, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, bad memory, loose dentures, and constipation – the whole sorry lot – will be left behind and replaced by a  lovely new streamlined, healthy, body  – fitted – made  to measure.

A new spiritual body.

Money can’t buy that.  It will be  freely given to those who have followed the Christ.

Jesus rejects money, power, influence, even worry about his own well-being as he goes about healing sick bodies and minds, and telling people how to get in touch with God – how to be one with God again.

He taught that God wasn’t so far away that he couldn’t be reached. He is only a prayer away. You can almost reach out and touch him.

Captain Scott of the Antarctic was a man who loved to journey. He had to go to the most difficult places.  Like the South Pole.  On his last fateful journey, he kept his diary as always. And he wrote letters that he hoped would be delivered sometime.

One such letter reached Dr. J. M. Barrie, of St. Andrews University, who in his rectorial address read those immortal words, written by Scott when the chill of death was already on his expedition, as Dr. Barclay reports:

“We are in a desperate strait – feet frozen etc. no fuel, and a long way from food, but it would do your heart good to be in our tent and to hear our songs and our cheery conversation.”

Barclay says. ‘The secret is this: that happiness depends not on things, or on places, but always on persons. If we are with the right person, nothing else matters; and if we are not with the right person nothing can make up for that absence.

‘The Christian is with the Lord, the greatest of all friends. Nothing can separate the Christian from his presence and so nothing can take away his joy.’

We can be, assured, and comforted, and safe on our journey. For he is traveling with us, all the way. Right to the end!

As threats and troubles beset us, we can press on, refusing to be drawn away from our task – which is to witness to his love – and to live joyously in that love.

Living a life which imitates Christ .

And persevering in it.

 The Gospel of Our Lord Jesus Christ According to Luke.

After his baptism, Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led by the Spirit in the wilderness, where for forty days he was tempted by the devil. He ate nothing at all during those days, and when they were over, he was famished.

The devil said to him, “If you are the Son of God, command this stone to become a loaf of bread.” Jesus answered him, “It is written, ‘One does not live by bread alone.'”

Then the devil led him up and showed him in an instant all the kingdoms of the world. And the devil said to him, “To you I will give their glory and all this authority; for it has been given over to me, and I give it to anyone I please. If you, then, will worship me, it will all be yours.” Jesus answered him, “It is written,

‘Worship the Lord your God,
and serve only him.'”

Then the devil took him to Jerusalem, and placed him on the pinnacle of the temple, saying to him, “If you are the Son of God, throw yourself down from here, for it is written,

‘He will command his angels concerning you,
to protect you,’ and

‘On their hands they will bear you up,
so that you will not dash your foot against a stone.'”

Jesus answered him, “It is said, ‘Do not put the Lord your God to the test.'”

 When the devil had finished every test, he departed from him until an opportune time. ( Luke 4:1-13 )

              ___________________________________

When I was a young man, in olden times, I ran with a gang of guys, and some girls, all of whom were bored with our own town, so we would hire a bus and take off to some other town or city, to a dance hall where there would be new and  we hoped, more exciting people.

Now the guys in this group were in all sorts of jobs. One was an engineering apprentice. Another  a welder. One was a police cadet. Three of us worked for a steel company. One was a bricklayer’s apprentice, and one was a mechanic. Another was a miner, but in name only. He was Arthur Rowe, an Olympic silver medallist in the shot putt. He was on the payroll of the Coal Board, but just spent his time in training.

Some of these young men when they met a girl would spice up their resume, as it were, thinking that a better sounding job would more impress the girl.  The mechanic always said he was a nuclear physicist. I guess he felt that if you are going to lie then you should lie big.

Another fellow told girls he was a company director and was looking for a new executive secretary.  You get the idea.

Of course, the others of us knew this, so when we met on the dance floor – you did that in those days, dancing with your partner in a circling motion around the dance floor – and we saw one of the gang telling his dance partner some wild story, we would glide by and say, “ Hi there, Dave. How’s the job on the dustbins going?”

Or another good one would be, “Hi. How are the wife and kids?”

I suppose it didn’t really matter what they told their dance partner, since as it was in another town, they weren’t likely to see them again. But once, a friend of mine spun a really outrageous tale to a girl, then ended up getting serious, and had to finally admit to his subterfuge.  

The lesson was, “Just be true to yourself. Be who you are.”

Jesus was full of the Spirit. He had been confirmed as the Son of God, in his baptism. He was the Messiah. His job was to reach the hearts of men and women and bring them to a reconciliation with God.

How was he to do this?

He went to the wilderness to be alone, to ponder his future. To plot his strategy. You don’t set out on such a large undertaking without a plan, do you?
He had a lot to think about.

He had been given powers beyond anything a human being would ever have.

He had also been given a task. A task that would see him being idolized by people. A task that would see him touch the lives and hearts of people in a special way.

He would be lauded as a healer, a preacher, a rabbi, a leader.

He would also face persecution. He would face resentment. There were those who would plot to kill him.

Finally, he would have to lay down his life.

But there could be another way.

He could use the gifts he had, to become a ‘real’ ruler. He could gather people around him and conquer  the world. He could draw the attention of people by the miracles he could do. He could turn stones into bread, water into wine, mentally unstable people into people of reason, lepers, paralytics, the blind, the deaf mute, those with complaints that had confounded doctors – into the healed.

In his imagination he saw himself standing on the highest pinnacle of the Temple and jumping off, to land safely.

People would follow him in droves after a trick like that.

He saw himself as the ruler of the world – which lay at his feet.

What a heady, breathtaking, wonderful – temptation –  that  was.

All he had to do was become someone else. Deny his true self. Use his powers for his own good.

Oh as ruler of the world there would be much good that he could do. But he would be doing it for the wrong reason, and therefore would be sure to fail.

And the devil is impatient. He doesn’t like to wait too long for his pay-off.

Power for its own sake is the genesis of evil.

It makes you forget who you are.

Jesus was tempted with these thoughts and turned them down, refusing to be anything other than what, and who, he was.

(When you think about it  I suppose, since Jesus  himself was tempted then maybe being tempted isn’t wrong in itself.)

We are all tempted. Often.

Someone once asked, “Why is it that opportunity only knocks once, but temptation bangs on the door all the time?”

Being tempted isn’t bad. Giving in to temptation is the sin.

Giving in to being someone else than who you really are.

One time in my life, it may surprise you to know, I was a salesman.  I was one of the best in the company. I could shoot a line about the product and bamboozle  the poor customer so much that I nearly always made a sale.

They said I had ‘ the gift of the gab.’ It was a compliment.

Then one day I came to realise that I had become someone else. Instead of the Christian young man I had been brought up to be, I was a con man. I looked at people not as human beings, but as someone to take advantage of.

My boss loved me, and when I become a manager, my own salesmen thought I was the tops.

But I didn’t like me.

I had compromised all my principles. I had  forgotten what I had been taught in church.  And it spilled over into my private life. I wasn’t nearly the husband, or the father that I should have been.

So I got out.

I could have been a rich man today.

But not as rich as I really am – rich in the right way.

But it isn’t only worldly success that can lead you astray;  trials and tribulations can make us forget that we are – children of God.

We can be tempted to turn our backs on a God who seems to have let us down.

Jesus, hanging on that cross, had his doubts:  “My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me” ( Matthew 27:46 )

But be yourself. Stay true to yourself.  Find the godliness within you and hang on to it.

If you are tempted; if you  feel the pull of something that you know is bad for you, don’t feel guilty because of the thought. If you were heading the way that Satan wanted he wouldn’t be trying to trip you up, would he?

It’s a compliment that Satan thinks he needs to tempt you, and it’s a  triumph to reject him.

Refuse to be drawn in.    Reach out to Jesus in prayer.   Pick up that anti-tank  weapon – your Bible – and read it.

Most of all, know that you are one of God’s chosen ones. Chosen to be part of his plan for this world.

You have been given certain gifts to use in your part of His Plan. Isn’t that exciting?

You weren’t given those gifts to take advantage of others, to hurt others, to rob others, to lord it over others.   But to help,  to love, and to serve.

In fact you are  part of His army charged with taking over the world in His Name.

Once a pastor said to a man who hadn’t attended church too often, “You are part of God’s army you know.”  

The man said, “I know.”

The pastor said, “Well I haven’t seen you on parade for a long time.”

The other said, “ That’s because I am in the Secret Service.”

But there is no secret service in God’s army. We don’t have anything to hide. 

We know who we are and what we are supposed to do, and we won’t let anyone or anything take us over.

This Lent, we have forty days, as Jesus did, to search our hearts and minds, and to wrestle with the temptations that might draw us away from our God-given task. 

We are asked to be purposeful about it – to use the resources we have to hand to discern whether or not we are still on plan, be they  – fasting, prayer, reading Holy Scripture,  giving to the poor, and so on.

In short,  being what God  wants us to be. Doing what he wants us to do.

I wish you a holy and happy Lent,  and I pray that God will lead you to wonderful and challenging new discoveries about yourself.

And who you are!  

                           A Reading from The Gospel of Luke.

Jesus took with him Peter and John and James, and went up on the mountain to pray. And while he was praying, the appearance of his face changed, and his clothes became dazzling white. Suddenly they saw two men, Moses and Elijah, talking to him. They appeared in glory and were speaking of his departure, which he was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. Now Peter and his companions were weighed down with sleep; but since they had stayed awake, they saw his glory and the two men who stood with him. Just as they were leaving him, Peter said to Jesus, “Master, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah”–not knowing what he said. While he was saying this, a cloud came and overshadowed them; and they were terrified as they entered the cloud. Then from the cloud came a voice that said, “This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him!” When the voice had spoken, Jesus was found alone. And they kept silent and in those days told no one any of the things they had seen.  (Luke 9:28-36

                                   ———————————————–

                                      –

Epiphany seems to me to have gone too fast. But this is still Epiphany, you know, where we earlier had the story of the Three Wise men. But there has been another slightly different Wise Men Story, in a movie called, The Life of Brian? 

I seem to remember it began with the Wise Men arriving at the stable.  They enter and are greeted by a very rude, coarse, woman.  She tells the visitors that the baby is named Brian, and she takes the gifts, but is not impressed with all of them.

So as they leave, she bellows, ‘Next time, don’t bother with the Myrrh”

As they step into the street, they see another stable, just down the road.

There is a heavenly light around that stable, and there are shepherds looking in at the child. 

They recognise that this is the child they have come to see, go back inside, retrieve the gifts, and head for the real Messiah.

I guess the point of the story is that kings will bow down before Jesus, echoing the prophecy of Isaiah, and Matthew also wants us to know that Jesus came for us Gentiles – the three Wise Men are Gentiles, of course –

And their homage also echoes Isaiah’s words, ‘Nations and kings will come to  the light of your dawning day.”

And the homage paid by the Magi validates the kingship of Jesus the babe.

Over the last few years, Queen Elizabeth was showing her age, after all the stresses that she has had to endure, but I remember watching on a fourteen inch black and white television, a slightly built, beautiful young woman, and the Archbishop of Canterbury placing the crown on her head.

That was at the coronation, the crowning, but she was already queen.

Didn’t they used to shout, when a monarch died,” The king is dead; long live the king.”? Or in Elizabeth’s  case, ‘Long live the Queen.’

The heir automatically becomes the monarch  when the monarch dies.

The wise men weren’t needed to say who Jesus was,  although Matthew

uses the story for that reason: he already was king.

They merely recognised him.

But  the real story of Jesus’ life is about not being recognised isn’t it?    

The disciples couldn’t see the kingship of Jesus, even though they lived with him daily for three years. 

Some people saw him as a troublemaker; others as a potential military  leader; others again, saw Him as a teacher, a holy man, a prophet. 

Perhaps just a couple of the religious leaders  secretly recognised him for who he was.  They knew but condemned him nevertheless. That is the unforgivable sin, isn’t it?  We can be forgiven for not knowing  – for being blind –  but it is  a certain unforgivable kind of evil, which recognises and still tries to destroy pure love.

But most of us, I think, go through life, like Mr. Magoo, bumping into Jesus without knowing him, sadly.

There is the story of the young woman who had the reputation of always depending on the wrong man, and who had never given a thought  to God, and once more deserted, and penniless, and not knowing which way to turn, found herself in a small village church.

Where she found God.

She didn’t know how she got there. She only knew the peace and strength that came when once she recognised Jesus. 

He had always been there, but that day she saw Him for the first time.

And her life was changed.

And now that she had learned to recognise him, she found Christ everywhere. 

There is a story of a strong, abrasive man (argue too strongly with him and he would knock you down) who ridiculed  those men who went to church.

He went through his life meeting every challenge head on and fists up  He thought he could handle anything and anyone. He had no need of God.  But at death’s door, when he was staring into the abyss, he cried out like a child, ” I’m frightened! Jesus save me! ” 

Jesus had always been there. He just hadn’t seen him. Didn’t want to!

Someone came and prayed with him and Jesus took him by the hand and led him home, and he found peace at last. 

There are those who just don’t know about Jesus, and there are those who deny his very existence.

I did a funeral once for a man who had been stricken with a terrible disease, He had cried out, “I don’t believe in God. Look what he has done to me.” and died proclaiming there was no God.

But if he had been able to look, he would have seen Christ in those who had cared for him; in those who had been present with him through his last few weeks of life and in those who promised to care for his orphaned children.

Maybe God didn’t give him what he wanted when he wanted it, but God was there, doing what God does-  working through His people.   

Sometimes we can’t see Him for looking. 

Like the farmer’s son who was sent out to find kindling. He came back empty-handed. “There is no wood, father,” he said.  His father took him outside and pointed at the forest almost on their door-step.

Sometimes the trees get in the way of the wood, don’t they?  

We can find Jesus in the Eucharist. We can find Jesus in our prayers. We can find Jesus in the Holy Gospels. 

Yes.

But look around at each other, and you will also see him.

You will find him in the person who leans over and welcomes you the first time you come to church.  You will find him in the face of a child playing on a pew.

You will find him in the helping hand that comes from that person across the aisle. When you need her.

That’s one good thing to come out of ‘passing the peace.’  Before it was introduced, it was possible to come to church each Sunday and never even know the person in the opposite pew.

Peace is what church is about, isn’t it?

It’s where we can show we have forgotten old arguments; it’s where we can see each other up close; it’s where we can find that as we hope Christ lives in us, he also lives in them. 

The Three Wise Men came, acknowledged the child, and left.   We are invited right in. We don’t have to leave. We belong!

We share in singing His praises, we share in his kingdom, and we share a meal with him,

You know, the Eucharist is a holy and solemn event.  It’s where we touch Christ. It’s very moving.

But on another level, it is simply eating and drinking with Him, and with each other.

We can find Christ there, at the communion rail, but also in each other.

In `each other’ is a bit hard to take sometimes.   We can touch Christ in the Eucharist, but in old Mr. Grumpy?  And that stuck-up looking lady with the hat? And the surly man in the black overalls who comes to check the furnace?  

Come on!

How do I find God in them?

But if He is in imperfect me, then why not in them?

When I kneel at the communion rail and receive the wafer, and ask that God  live in me, I must also expect Him to live in the persons kneeling near me.

And I should look for him in them.

“Dear Jesus, help me find you in them.”

You may know some people in whom it is hard to see Christ.

You might say it’s easier to see the devil in them. Some of them!

But if we keep looking for the  devil in them, that’s who we will find. 

You know, the Nazis made Jews in the prison camps dress in ridiculous -looking clothes, and shaved their heads, to make them look less like a neighbour, less human, so it would be easier to persecute  them.

As Christians, we are asked to do the opposite.  We are asked to look beyond the outer shell, beyond the nose rings, and weird hair, and jeans with the crotch down around the knees, and beyond the short temper, and irritating ways, and to find Jesus.

I am glad to say that in my many years of ministry I have noticed that’s what many Christians  do – look for Christ in the other person.

And may see him there.

But we don’t always recognise Christ in ourselves.

We are not perfect. We don’t always say the right thing or  do the right thing.

Because we are not perfect!.

Right!

Amen.