I could have gone to a shelf in the newsagents and brought with me pretty much any half-dozen magazines, and the chances are that on their cover or inside they would have their own version of “Ten ways to be happy”. Whether it be “21 ways to have a celebrity-type romantic relationship”. Or, I think it was Men’s Health on the cover, “30 guaranteed ways to burn fat”. Or whatever it might be. “10 ways to find true and lasting happiness.”
The question we’re thinking through this morning is this: As a church, as a congregation, what are our priorities? What are we here for? What should we look like, as a church, such that if Jesus were to come in and meet us he would say “Yes, that is what I hoped I’d find”?
Over the past few months, we’ve been having a little series of sermons looking at what it is that Christians believe. What’s at the heart of the Christian faith? And we’ve been doing that by looking at, and unpacking, the Nicene Creed, which we read together before that last song. We’ve thought together what it is that we believe about God, the Father, our Lord Jesus Christ his Son, and the Holy Spirit. Last week we thought about our belief in one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. Which brings us this morning to the subject of baptism.
This morning we come to one of those passages in the Bible that I find hard to read. I certainly can’t read it without stopping. The events that are recorded here are the most amazing events in the whole of human history. The love we find here is the deepest in the whole of human history; the injustice we see here is the most perverted in the whole of human history; the cruelty we read of here is the most vicious in the whole of human history. This was no ordinary event. This was a one-of-a-kind, breathtaking, awesome, miraculous event. That is why I can’t read it without pausing. I can’t quite believe it really happened. I can’t read it without worshipping the God we meet here.
So who is Jesus then?
Why did he come?
Why did he die?
What is his relevance for today?
Those are questions we’ve got to be clear on. At least, we’ve got to be clear on the last one haven’t we? We’ve got to know what his relevance is for today. If he’s of no relevance, we shouldn’t waste our time on him. If he’s of great relevance, we’ve got to know what relevance so that we relate to Jesus appropriately.
But how relevant or not he is will depend on the other two questions. Who is he? Why did he come?
I was working for some time on what I would say in the final sermon in the series on Luke 21. A change of circumstances in our church family meant that what I originally planned no longer seemed to be the right sermon for the occasion. So here is what was eventually preached…
Note: handout for this sermon is at the bottom of the webpage as an attachment
Do you ever read bits of the Bible and wonder what possible relevance they have for today? Two weeks ago, I suspect I turned Luke 21 into one of those bits of the Bible for quite a few of us. You’ll remember how I told my story, how I used to see this as a chapter all about the second coming of Jesus, and therefore bristling with relevance. But how careful study had changed my mind, such that I now think it is about something far more specific. And in taking this passage away as a passage about the second coming, there’s a danger that we also take it away as a passage that has relevance for today. What I want to do this morning is give the passage back to us. It may not be about the second coming, but it still has so much to say to us.
Note: handout for this sermon is at the bottom of the webpage as an attachment
I don’t know about you but I am really looking forward to the day when Jesus comes back. He has promised that one day he will return to this world in person and every human being will hear his voice. When that happens everyone who has died, whatever point in history they lived, whichever part of the world they occupied, will hear his voice and come out of their graves.
Luke chapter 20 is an absolutely shocking chapter. I don’t know how much you’ve felt this as we’ve looked at it over the past few weeks – Jesus says some absolutely outrageous things! Have a look at verse 16. “When the people heard this, they said ‘May this never be!’” They couldn’t believe what they had just heard. Outrageous! You can’t say that!
Those of us who were here last week saw how Luke wrote this chapter so that we, his readers, can be really, really wise. Luke doesn’t want us to learn from our mistakes; he wants us to go one better than that – he wants us to learn from the mistakes of others before we even make them ourselves.
Jesus told a parable about a vineyard that had tenants. The tenants thought they owned the place, and so mistreated the servants sent to collect some of the fruit, and finally they killed the owner’s son. The owner kicked them out of his vineyard, and gave the vineyard to a new set of tenants.
