Sonia

Good morning.  It’s lovely to be back here with you today and for those of you who didn’t catch it earlier on I’m Sonia and along  with Ross and the three girls, we have been your CMS Mission Partners for the last about seven years we’ve been working in Thailand and today is our opportunity to say thank you and to tell you a bit more about what we’ve been doing.  We’ve got a bit of a tag team sermon going on so I will be starting off and then Ross is going to be coming up.

So since we last visited you back in 2006, we’ve been at Christchurch, a city centre church in the middle of Bangkok.  We’ve been working there for the international English speaking congregation there.  It’s a place of great variety.  It has about forty nationalities represented in the congregation; of people who with a wide range of background and experience are seeking to follow Jesus there in Bangkok.  As a couple we’ve been involved in a lot of different things that we could tell you all about but as we’ve been thinking and praying about what to share this morning we felt that passion for Jesus should be our theme.

So this morning we’re going to look together at that Luke 7 passage that Ross just read and we’re going to weave into it some of the stories of people that we knew in Bangkok who impacted us with their passion for Jesus.  If you are a note-taking type, you may be pleased to know that we have three points and they all begin with P.  So see if you can catch them.

Passion for Jesus is where the rubber hits the road in Christianity.  Sometimes our faith can become intellectual assent to Christian beliefs and morals but without our heart really being captivated by Jesus.  And there’s nothing wrong with the former but God wants and has created us for more.  He’s made us for relationship with Him.  So this morning let’s ask ourselves the question “Are we passionate for Jesus?”  Has He really got hold of us and are we allowing Him to take our lives and transform them with His love and life so that we in turn can impact others.  

 Whatever and whoever we set our hearts on that’s where our energies and our time will be focussed.  Is Jesus our passion or have we allowed other things to get hold of our heart?  Have a look with me at that story from Luke 7 and you might want to have it open before you.  In it we have two very contrasting approaches to Jesus.  One is distant and cold and the other is intimate and heart – led.

So let’s first consider Simon the Pharisee’s response to Jesus and what we can learn from him.  Underneath the veneer of respectability Simon is actually proud and self-righteous.  He may have invited Jesus to dinner but he was actually cynical about Jesus and he treats Him with indifference.  We know this from verse 44.  He didn’t even give Jesus water for His feet which was a basic social etiquette for that day.  Someone of Simon’s status in society wouldn’t have just overlooked this.  He was sending a clear message of disapproval, by not giving Jesus water for His feet, by not kissing Him in greeting.  So what about us?  Maybe we’re not as cynical about Jesus or as self- righteous as Simon the Pharisee, but it is easy for us to have some similarities to him.  For those of us who have been Christians or church-goers for a long time, we can keep Jesus at arm’s length and be indifferent or even actually disrespectful to who Jesus really is.  We can concoct a very sterile, safe, head-based faith with Jesus fairly detached from everyday life where he won’t cause us any problems.  Our faith can become about abstract knowledge rather than about a vibrant, living relationship.  If this in any way describes you today, then as we briefly share some stories, I want to encourage you to open your heart to God’s Holy Spirit again.  Ask Him to give you His love and ask Him to draw near and revive that living, vibrant, passionate relationship with Him.  Without this we’re really shells of what we could be.

So let’s turn our attention now to our friends in Bangkok alongside the second character in the story, the so-called sinful woman.  Firstly let me introduce you to Durin.  Durin is a good Thai friend of ours.  She’s in her forties and she’s got a son at university who she’s been bringing up since her husband left her when her son was small.  Durin runs and lives in Shalem House, which is an emergency house for families from the provinces whose children get sent into the Bangkok hospitals because of serious illnesses, heart problems, cancer or serious accidents.  She’s also the main catalyst for all the social work of the Christchurch Thai congregation.  I had the privilege of working with Durin in a number of areas.  She was a great example to us.  She was almost always smiling and gracious and she served other people with real love.  She had a huge job on her shoulders and she often felt unsupported even, it has to be said, by her leaders but she knew that God had called her to serve people in trouble and she persevered at it with a grace and a commitment and a patience that was a real challenge to us.  Because Durin was passionate about Jesus, serving Him was more important than those discouragements that she often faced.  This perseverance is like the sinful woman in the Luke 7 story.  She was determined to worship at the feet of Jesus, even in a very intimidating environment.  There were many reasons why she could have stayed away.  She hadn’t been invited, she wasn’t wanted by most of those present, they would have despised her for such a public display of affection.  At any moment she could have been thrown out or worse.

But in spite of these many obstacles, she did what she desperately wanted to do, which was to worship Jesus.  Hebrews 12:1 says to us “Run with perseverance the race that God has marked out for us.” It doesn’t say to run any old race but to run with perseverance the race that God has given to us.  So the first question that I’d like to ask as we think about our passion for Jesus is “How’s my perseverance?”  Is my heart so gripped with Jesus that I’ll get on with the job that He’s given me to do even when I face discouragements?  Durin persevered.  The sinful woman persevered.  If we are passionate for Jesus, we will persevere.

Ross

Let’s turn our attention now to the second of our stories for our friend Vijay.  Vijay’s an Indian man in his early thirties who’s married with a little kid.  He’s got a job, I don’t understand – some sort of software job and he works very hard to get the job done.  Vijay’s mother is a Christian and had introduced him to some aspects of the Christian faith but whenever Vijay arrived in Bangkok, he wasn’t really sure where he stood with regards to the Christian faith and as he put it, he felt compelled to come to Christchurch to find out more.  He started coming to our small group and we heard a little bit about his story and we invited him to come along to an Alpha Course where Vijay firmed up his faith and grew in it and decided to get baptised.  And that’s when the fun began because Vijay’s wife and his wife’s family, a beautiful family, a Hindu family and they were very against the changes that were happening within Vijay.  The night before Vijay was due to get baptised a lawyer friend of his phoned him and said, “Vijay, do not do this, do not get baptised tomorrow.”  The reason given was that in Indian law if you have got evidence that one of a partnership er converts, then the courts will back the other partner if there is any dissolution of the partnership so he would relinquish his rights to his wealth, his kid, and everything else and this put Vijay in a real dilemma.  He spent a number of hours, in fact the whole of that night praying about what he should do, talking with us on the phone.  In the end at about five in the morning, after a sleepless night, Vijay decided that baptism was a step of obedience, that God was asking him to take and that he needed to trust God over the consequences of that decision so next morning we had a very joyful baptism service at Christchurch.  And it was a really gutsy sacrificial step which Vijay made which was a challenge to me.  Where is God really in my list of priorities? Are we really willing to take up our cross as Christ invites us to and make sacrifices in terms of our career, in terms of our status, our reputation in order to follow Jesus ?  Following Jesus is about giving our whole lives over to Him in response for all that He has done for us and all that He continues to do on our behalf.  Think again about the sinful woman from Luke 7.  She was preoccupied with Jesus and with Christ alone.  The fact that there were those present in the room who were disgusted with her and you know they weren’t hiding their disapproval.  I’m sure their disapproval of her was very evident but the fact that that was going on didn’t deter her because she cared only what Christ thought of her.  Sometimes we are so preoccupied with what others think of us rather than being preoccupied with what Christ thinks of us.  Did you notice how the woman pours her perfume over Christ’s feet.  Commentators suggest that this perfume could well have been a large part if not all of her savings because in a culture where there were no high interest savings accounts and stocks and shares and things like that, it was customary for, for women to make their savings in terms of perfume, storing it up bit by bit for future years.  And yet her priorities meant that she was willing to pour it all out as an act of worship for the person that she was passionate about, this Jesus that she wanted to honour.  In Luke 12 Jesus tells His followers to seek first the kingdom of God and these things would be added to us as well.  So our second question as we think about our passion for Jesus is this: “What are my priorities?”  Is serving and worshipping and living life for Christ our top priority like it was for Vijay, like it was for this sinful woman?  Are we willing to step out like Vijay and trust in the ultimate goodness of God, even if in the short term it looks like it might cause us problems.  Let’s pray that God would give each of us a sacrificial and a gutsy faith that we’ll be prepared to put God first no matter what the consequences may be.

Our final story is of Tommy.  I wish that I could bring Tommy along and introduce you to him, or him to you would be a better way of putting it.  He’s a lad in his early twenties and he’s one of a family of five from Vietnam.  Like many others in Bangkok, Tommy had to flee his home and become refugees because their Christian faith had put their life in danger.  Thailand attracts many many refugees because it’s easy to get into and it’s a really cheap place to live.  But it’s a terrible place to be a refugee because for a number of political reasons the Thai government do not acknowledge UN refugee status so you live in constant fear as a refugee of being herded up and brought to one of the Thai holding centres, which are really not pleasant at all.  Refugees are not supported at all by the state and it’s true to say that they’re often mistreated, resented by the Thai people at large.  They’re also very easily exploited and they don’t have many places where they can turn to for protection.  Being part of the staff team at Christchurch, we met lots of refugees.  We had the privilege of a number of them becoming part of our church family and, Tommy, like many of the refugees that we met at Christchurch had understandable grounds to be fearful, to be anxious, to be angry with God, to turn his back on God.  And yet also like many of the refugees that were in our church, this man had a vibrant faith.  If he was here today, the thing you would notice most about him would be his smile and his laugh.  He has a vibrancy of life about him.  He lived life, with its very restricted options for him, fully.  He had no English yet he taught English to his friends and family.  He worked on the sly in a local hospital so that he could scrape a wee bit of money together to support his family and people back home in Vietnam as well.  He was a man who was marked by joy.  We had just the pleasure and privilege of being with him and of getting to know him through Alpha and baptism preparation.  Tommy, like the Apostle Paul describes in Philippians 4:12, has really learnt to be content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.  I, on the other hand, can get depressed with a football result that comes in.  Tommy’s perspective was not from his day to day difficulties.  His outlook on life was not based there.  His perspective on life was from the goodness of God.  That was the standpoint from which he looked out on life. 

In our passage from Luke 7, the woman who worshipped Jesus is described as sinful, a sinful woman, that’s her descriptor and I’m sure there were many ways in which her life was very difficult but she doesn’t focus on this.  She doesn’t shrink back from fear of what others are thinking about her.  Her perspective is based on her confidence in Jesus.  She knows that she can approach this Christ as she is.  She knows that what He thinks is what matters and as she draws near to Him did you see how Christ accepts her and honours her.  This can be our experience if we approach Christ in humility and faith, whoever we are.  Whatever we’ve done, we’re not discounted from the love of God.  We can find forgiveness and love and life if we approach Christ in humility.  We don’t have to be perfect in order to approach God, which is a good thing.  We just need to ask God for His perspective and trust Him that the other things in life that matter less, that He will sort out in His time.  So our final question to help us consider our passion for Christ is “What is my perspective in life based on?”  Is it on what others think of me?  Is it on my current circumstances?  Or is it on the reality of who I am in Christ and the goodness of a God who loves me?  I wonder what circumstances are in your life at the moment?  You know it’s impossible to tell.  You know, I look down and I’ve no idea what’s going on with you.  God does.  Whatever those circumstances, if we have a living relationship with God, our perspective, our outlook on life can come from a place of real peace, a real shalom, a real sense of being held by this almighty God.  Yes, we can still get angry and cry out to Him but God invites us to know His grace, His faithfulness and underlying security, a rock beneath us, even in the bad times so lets pray to have this perspective, the perspective of our friend Tommy, the perspective of Paul.  God invites each of us to follow the example of the woman in Luke 7 and our friends Durin, Vijay, Tommy by being passionate for Christ.  Remember our faith is primarily about relationship with God, about knowing Him and allowing Him to know us as opposed to just knowing about Him.  When our heart is captivated by Christ, we’ll be able to persevere, we’ll be able to have God at the top of our priorities and He will give us His perspective to live a life of honour to Him. 

Let’s pause and pray.  Father, I thank you that so many of us have examples round us of people who have full lives of relationship with You and I thank You for the examples of our friends in Bangkok.  I thank You for the challenge of those lives for our lives and we pray, Holy Spirit that You would come, that You would enable us to be passionate for Jesus in every aspect of life and then to share that life with others around us.  For Your glory, Amen.

Ross and Sonia Wilson 27-06-2010

(Apologies for any errors in transcription from tape to written text. CMD)

The story of the Tower of Babel is an intriguing one that comes early in the Book of Genesis.  In the preceding chapters of this gripping, fast-moving adventure story full of sex and violence we have heard about Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden and their fall from grace through disobedience of God.  And about Cain and Abel and their descendants and how they formed a society so full of wickedness that God decided to wipe mankind from the face of the earth.  Fortunately though, as usually happens in the early chapters of an adventure story, there was a good kid on the block - a man named Noah - so mankind survived.  Noah and his sons, Shem, Ham and Japheth, and their wives survived the flood and through them the world was re‑populated.  It was their descendents who built the Tower of Babel.

In attempting to build their tower “with its top in the heavens” the descendants of Noah were attempting to put themselves on a level with or above God, just like Adam and Eve did when they ate the forbidden fruit.  What I find most interesting though, is the method God used to deal with their arrogance.  He “confused their language so that they would not understand one another’s speech.”

God knew that the ability to communicate with one another gave Noah’s descendents great power, and like all such gifts, that power could be used both for good and evil.  That is still the case today.  The rapidly-growing power of the Internet and the increasing use of English as an International language is taking us back to the position of Noah’s descendents in the land of Shinar when the whole population of the world were able to communicate with one another.  Will we use that power wisely for the glory of God, or will we use it to attempt to build another Tower of Babel and set ourselves above God?  Intriguing though that question is, I will leave it for you to ponder as I would like to focus our thoughts on some of the problems of understanding even our own language.

What have you been thinking as I have been talking about the stories in Genesis?  It’s all a load of rubbish?  We weren’t created in the Garden of Eden: we evolved from apes.  How could Noah possibly have built an ark big enough for a pair of all the animals on earth?  How did he stop the lions eating the antelope?  What about the dinosaurs?

You will not be surprised to hear that I have spent much of my time during my three-year course to train as a Reader studying the Bible.  One of the most interesting and liberating things I have learnt about is the many different styles and genres found in this best-selling book of all time.  Our Bible contains 39 books in the Old Testament, 27 books in the New Testament and up to 16 or even more books in the Apocrypha depending upon which have been included in the version you buy.  These 80 or more books were written by at least 40 different authors over a period of time spanning at least 1600 years.  Some are History, some are Law.  Some are Prophecy, some are Poetry.  Some are Letters, some are Biography.  Each book was written with a particular audience in mind and, in modern parlance, given a particular ‘spin’ to make the content relevant to them.

The authors of these books used many different literary devices to get their message over including, where appropriate, metaphor and myth.  Today we think of a myth as a legend or fairy-tale, but its proper meaning is to describe the actions of God in terms of this world.  That’s an impossible task, of course, but writers over the ages have felt compelled to try, as have painters, musicians and artists of all kinds.

If we read the Bible, as unfortunately some do, as if it was all written in the style of a 21st century history book we will fail to understand the truth that it contains.  The Book of Genesis is a whole collection of stories, many of which are Myth - an attempt to describe the actions of God in terms of this world.  Once we accept it as such we can dismiss the misguided criticisms of Richard Dawkins and his followers with the sadness they engender and see through to the real truth that it contains and understand its relevance to us today.  That is how the myth of the Tower of Babel can give us an insight into the development of the Internet.

The story of the coming of the Holy Spirit in our Pentecost Reading from the Acts of the Apostles is another Myth.  Not a legend; not a fairy-tale, but an attempt to describe the actions of God in terms of this world.

The use of both wind and fire in the description is an example of writing for a specific audience in a specific time and place.  Wind and fire are both used in the Hebrew Bible, our Old Testament, to describe God’s self-revelation and the words for wind, both in Hebrew and Greek, are closely associated with spirit.

Relieved of the impossible task of trying to understand the story of Pentecost in literal terms we can begin to understand its true meaning:  The Spirit of God is for all people regardless of race, colour or creed.

I find that the concept of the Holy Spirit is actually easier to understand than to describe.  For me, it is strongly linked with the concept of the soul which I visualise as that part of a human being in which the Spirit of God resides if we will but let him in.  When we do allow the spirit in we are inspired, a word that literally means breathed on, by God.  When we are inspired in this way, our actions can be recognised as the work of God by people throughout the world, regardless of their faith or what language they speak.  The word of God needs no translation.

We witnessed a dramatic example of the action of the Holy Spirit on Boxing Day 2004 when we heard the dreadful news of the Asian Tsunami.  People throughout the world were moved to help in whatever way they could.  The voice of the Holy Spirit calling us to help was heard by people throughout the world, each in our own language.  It recognised no boundaries and accepted no limitations. 

Mercifully, events on the scale of the Boxing Day Tsunami are rare, but the power of the Holy Spirit is not just for emergencies: it is for today and every day.  If we will but let him in to our lives he can and will help us in everything that we do.  Look again at the prayer we said together at the beginning of this service:

As we wait in silence,
fill us with your Spirit.

As we listen to your word,
fill us with your Spirit.

and last of all:

As we long for your empowering,
fill us with your Spirit.

Fill us with your spirit.  That is our prayer for today, and every day.

Now have a look forward if you would at the back page of your Order of Service at the section entitled the Commission.  Here, at the end of the service, I shall ask you to go out into the world empowered by the Holy Spirit.  As you speak the words of the Creed in a few moments, and as we offer our prayers to God, open your hearts to him and ask him to fill you with his Holy Spirit so that, during the Commission you can answer boldly: 

By the power of the Spirit, we will.

Amen.

In 63BC a Roman Senator called Rabirius went on trial for his life. He was accused of treason and the prosecution wanted him crucified.

A man called Cicero rose to speak in his defence.‘How’ he asked, ‘could the assembly even think of crucifixion?

To suggest such a cruel and disgusting penalty for a Roman citizen was unthinkable.’

‘The very word cross’ he said “should be far removed not only from the person of a Roman citizen but his thoughts, his eyes and his ears. For it is not only the actual occurrence of these things but the very mention of them, that is unworthy of a Roman citizen and a free man.”

Crucifixion. The execution of a man by first viciously whipping him, then stripping him naked and fixing him to a pole and beam hammering nails through his wrists and feet.

A punishment too shameful, too disgusting, too painful, too vile even to be mentioned back in civilized Rome. A punishment reserved for the worst of rebellious foreigners and slaves.

The crucified victim could take days to die left hanging in public the object of ridicule a warning for conquered peoples. To Jewish people the cross was disgusting a shameful reminder that they were a conquered people.

And for Romans? Well even the word cross was ‘unmentionable.’ Yet in the early 30s AD a movement began rapidly to spread in the Mediterranean world a movement based on the life and teachings of a Jewish rabbi.

Not unusual – except – these people made no effort to hide the fact showed no shame in proclaiming that their leader was a man the Romans had strung up on a cross to die like a common slave.

In fact most shockingly their earliest writings testified to their belief that this man who had suffered the most shameful of deaths was in very nature God.

God? The divine? Mixed up in blood and pain and agony? God? Left hanging for public scorn and ridicule? God on a cross? Were they mad?

 ‘Jesus sent me’ writes one of these first Christians in a letter, ‘to preach the good news not with wisdom and eloquence, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God… We preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called… the power of God and the wisdom of God.’

The cross - says Paul - is good news. The cross - says Paul - is very power of God The cross - says Paul - which looks disgusting, shocking and foolish to so many – is God’s wisdom.

Therefore’ says Saint Paul in his first letter to the Corinthians, ‘I sought to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and Him crucified.’

The Cross. A first century gallows. A vile place of execution. Yet a symbol we boldly place

in the middle of our churches and wear around our necks.

So why the cross? Why this most horrible of deaths for God’s Son? What possible wisdom or power is there that? Two Sundays ago I missed an extremely special event here in St Peter’s.

A friend of mine an agnostic and determined non-Church goer said to be it was one of the most profoundly moving and challenging occasions he’s ever been to.

If only I’d known what I was missing I’d have made every effort to be here. A Vietnamese woman called Kim Phúc  came to speak as part of the Literature Festival and to tell her life story. And hearing about her I looked up her story.

On June 8th 1972 a little 9 year old girl was playing in her village in Vietnam.

“Until that day,” she says, “I had never known fear. I had a happy childhood. The most pain I’d been in was probably from grazing my knee falling off a bike.”

But that day the South Vietnamese airforce allies of the United States in their war against Communist forces dropped bombs on Kim Phúc’s village.

She and her brothers and sisters ran down the dirt road out of the village to escape the bombs.

As they did so more bombs dropped bombs containing napalm.

Kim Phúc's clothing was soaked in napalm an oily gasoline gel.‘Water boils at 100’ says Kim,

‘Napalm burns at between 800 and 1200. It is the most terrible pain you can imagine.’

A photographer – Nick Ut captured her as she ran down the road screaming, having ripped off her clothes. His photograph became one of the most famous pictures of the 20th Century and won a Pullitzer prize.

Published all around the world it became a symbol of civilian suffering in the Vietnam war. Kim fainted with pain and Nick Ut managed to get her to a hospital. Her burns were so severe that hospital staff thought she had died and left her in the mortuary. But Kim lived and spent the next 14 months in hospital in agony from extensive 3rd degree burns bone exposed on her left arm her chin welded to her chest by scar tissue.

She underwent 17 painful operations before she could eventually return home and try to rebuild some kind of life. A little girl – playing in her village suddenly screaming in pain scarred and maimed a child caught up in a war between adults and nations. A story that repeats itself again and again around the world everyday. Where is justice? Surely someone should pay for what they did – dropping napalm on a child?

As a teenager Kim suffered deeply as she tried to come to terms with her injuries. Every where she went there was the famous picture of her running down the street. ‘Every day, every moment’ she says ‘I was miserable. I questioned myself, who caused this? I didn’t know who.

Yes there was a pilot who dropped the bomb, but I didn’t know him. And that killed me everyday. I couldn’t bear to see the picture. My life’ she says, ‘was like a cup of coffee. Very dark, full of bitterness, hatred and anger. I hated my life. I didn’t want to live.’ Where was justice?

There was another person the other side of the world who also couldn’t bear to see the picture of Kim. John Plummer had been in the US military in Vietnam. An operations officer he remembered very clearly relaying the order for the attack on Trang Bang Kim’s village remembered being pleased at the operation’s success. Until next day he picked up a newspaper and saw the picture. And realised the consequences of the order he had passed on.

It triggered in John a descent into guilt and depression. On returning to America he turned to alcohol. Had a string of failed relationships. And wherever he turned he seemed to be faced with that photograph in magazines – on television – in the news.

‘That photograph was burned into my heart. It  haunted me for over 20 years. A constant reminder as if I needed one that I had had a part in the bombing. I was responsible for her injuries. And those of how many others. And there was no way I’d ever be able to put right what I had done.’

On one side of the world Kim wounded and scarred bitter and looking for justice. On the other John depressed and filled with undying guilt.

But when Kim was 19 something changed. ‘I was trying so hard to be a good Buddhist,’ she said, ‘I prayed and prayed that God would take away my sadness but no answer came.’

Then one day she walked into a church. And she heard the message of Jesus who died on the cross.

‘Surely He took up our pain  and carried our sorrows’ wrote Isaiah, ‘He was pierced for our transgressions and the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him; by His wounds we are healed; for the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.’ ‘He carried our sorrows; on Him was the punishment that brought us peace; by His wounds we are healed.’

‘And as I heard about Jesus dying for me on the cross,’ says Kim, ‘I felt Him let me pour away all my darkness and bitterness at His feet and He poured in His peace and joy and compassion.

Jesus died on the cross to pay for all my anger and bitterness, to forgive me; and that made my heart heal. I confessed my sins to God, and He forgave.

That changed my life. He set me free from hatred. He forgave me – and so now I can forgive.’

‘ We preach Christ crucified,’ says Paul; ‘the power of God and the wisdom of God.’

Because on the cross He carries our pain; He bears our sorrows; He dies for our wrongdoing;

He forgives us and gives us the power to forgive.

Kim became a Christian in 1982 aged 19. She later emigrated to Canada and married setting up her Kim foundation working with people throughout the world whose lives had been scarred by conflict.

In 1996 she was invited to speak at a special service in Washington DC for US Vietnam veterans. As she spoke she explained that Jesus had died on the cross bearing all her sorrow and bitterness and anger. He had died to pay for her wrongdoing so she could be forgiven.

And that therefore she had no anger for those who dropped the bombs; She said, ‘if the pilot who dropped the bomb or if the man who gave the order was standing in front of me now I would want him to know that God has healed my heart. And I have already forgiven him.’

And a man in the congregation scribbled a note and asked for it to be taken to the speaker. "Kim, I am that man," wrote John Plummer. After the service John pushed his way through to stand in front of Kim Phúc.

"She saw my grief, my pain, my sorrow," says John "She held her arms to me and embraced me. All I could say was 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry' over and over again. And she said again and again, ‘It's all right. I forgive. I forgive.'"

John Plummer is today a Christian minister who from time to time works with Kim Phúc in her foundation.

So why the cross? What was achieved by Jesus’ death on a cross?

On one side of the world the victim the girl with terrible wounds and scars.

Where is justice? Who will pay?

On the other side of the world the offender who carries a burden of guilt for wrongs he can never put right. Who can ever take his burden away?

And then that day in 1996 when it’s as if together victim and offender stand at the foot of the cross.

And for Kim Phúc where is justice?  Who will pay the price for her terrible wounds? He – the one on the cross He took up our pain and carried our sorrows; by His wounds we are healed.

And for John Plummer: the guilt; the wrongs that can never be put right who will take away the burden?

He – the one on the cross He was pierced for our transgressions; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him;  for the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.’

Why the cross?

Forgive, forgive, forgive we might say to the victim. ‘Yes – but what about my pain, what about my suffering, I can’t just ignore it. What about justice? Where does it all go?’

You’re forgiven, you’re forgiven, you’re forgiven we might say to the offender. ‘Yes – but what about my guilt? This is serious. I can’t just ignore it. The burden is heavy. Where does it all go?’

And victim and offender they look up and see the man upon the cross. Shouldering all the burden of our bitterness and pain, and selfishness, and guilt – bearing all its weight.

And both can say that’s where it went. That’s who paid the price so that we can be free.

"Kim held out her arms. 'I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'm sorry' John said over and over again.  ‘It's all right. I forgive. I forgive.'"

‘Christ is our peace,’ writes Paul in Ephesians. ‘He has reconciled us to Himself in one body by the cross, through which He put to death our hostility.’

So what about you and me today? What burden of sadness, bitterness and sorrow; What burden of guilt, Do we want to lay today at the foot of the cross?

Jesus’ last words – recorded by John as He dies on the cross are, ‘It is finished!’

It is finished. It is enough. Whatever your burden – the cross of Jesus it is enough.

He chose to carry it there for you. He only longs that today you put it down.

Communion (St Peter’s)

7^th February 2010

Revelation 4 and Luke 8:22-25

INTRODUCTION:

This morning I want to ask two questions.

But before that, a look back fifty years to a Guide camp. I was still a student and was invited to assist at the camp and to give medical advice if required. 

The whole week had been extremely hot and the Thursday was a boiling hot day, so we had not done very much except try to keep in the shade. When bed time came, most of the girls were tired and, despite the heat, were soon asleep. All was calm ----then a sudden storm ---- flashes of lightening, claps of thunder and monsoon like rain. Everyone woke and there was a certain amount of fear, especially when the tents began to be flooded.

There was no need to be afraid because Captain had arranged a transfer to the barn, hot cocoa was provided by the farmer’s wife and all our fear subsided.

Imagine the panic if Captain had gone on sleeping and left us all to cope alone ---- but we were reassured because we knew we could trust her.

Luke 8: 22-25 The Disciples in a storm

It had been Jesus’ idea to go across the lake: - “Let’s go over to the other side of the lake”

All seemed calm as they set off--- Jesus even fell asleep, may be lulled by the gentle movement of the boat and the waves lapping against it.

Disciples were quite happy to let him sleep ---- they could manage, they were well used to handling boats (they were fishermen) --- there was no problem.

Suddenly ---- Everything changed!

“A squall came down on the lake, so that the boat was being swamped, and they were in great danger.”

Now they were not so bold --- not so sure that they could manage. They woke Jesus up, saying: -“Master, Master, we’re going to drown” or as Mark records the incident: -“Teacher, don’t you care if we drown”

Fear and panic took over ----- where was Jesus when they needed him?

How could he sleep when they were in such danger --- didn’t he know or worse still, didn’t he care?

Yes he did know and yes he did care. Jesus immediately took command of the situation: - “He got up and rebuked the wind and the raging waters; the storm subsided and all was calm”

All was calm --- you can almost feel the tension going --- the relief as fear subsided as Jesus took control.

But Jesus asked them an important question (the first of two questions in this passage)

“Where is your faith?”

Why the panic? Why could you not trust me? Why be afraid when I am in the boat with you?

??? !!! We can often be like those disciples.

When life is all plain sailing --- everything going well ----- so often we forget about Jesus and manage alone, relying on our own skills and abilities --- making our own plans ---- taking our own decisions..

We can manage ----- we can handle life.

Yes, we believe that Jesus is with us ---- and it’s good to have him on board ----- but ----- let him sleep

All is well until, suddenly, storms come ----- illness, bereavement, marriage breakdown, un-employment, money problems, rebellious teenagers.

Help! We feel swamped ------ going under – unable to cope --- in despair. Panic sets in.

That’s when we call out to Jesus, as the disciples did in the storm.  The wonderful thing is, he hears us.

He knows what we need because he has been with us all the time.

He is able to calm our fears and to bring us peace when we take our needs to him in prayer.

“Where is your faith? “Where is your faith?”

Jesus might ask that question of us today.

Are we in danger of letting our troubles drown us?

Are we afraid or sad, worried or despairing?

Jesus is saying: - I am with you ---- trust me --- I will keep you safe.

Second question.

Storm over, the disciples asked: -“Who is this man”

What kind of man can command the wind to cease and the waves to calm down?

Revelation 4 gives us the answer.

Here we see a glimpse of heaven

John has a wonderful vision of heaven ---- a door standing open to allow him to peep in and see the glory of God.

He saw God enthroned in glory and majesty, splendour and power ---- surrounded by many creatures who worshipped and adored Him.

“Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. You are worthy to receive glory and honour and power; for you created all things and by your will they were created and have their being.”

You created all things: - the whole vast universe was created and is sustained by God ----- and Jesus was with God in that work of creation.

John 1:1-3 “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.

Through him all things were made, without him nothing was made that has been made”

“Who is this man?” the disciples asked.

He is the Word --- he is with God ---- He is God ----and He created everything.

This man Jesus who calmed the storm on the lake is none other than the mighty, powerful God who made the whole of the world and therefore calming the wind and the waves was a small matter for him.

!!! ??? We too might ask: - “Who is Jesus? How can he deal with my problems?

Jesus, to whom we pray, is none other than the great and glorious God who John glimpsed in his vision.

With him all things are possible ---- even dealing with our problems.

At the guide camp we had no fear in the storm because we knew how capable and caring our captain was.

When we realise who Jesus truly is ------- the powerful creator God, who loves us and cares for us ------ then we can, with confidence, safely put our trust in him.

2 QUESTIONS

“Where is your faith?”

• Do we rely upon own ability to see us through life?

 Sadly, there are times when problems arise that are beyond our ability to cope.

• Is our faith in Jesus, who is with us always and promises to help us carry our burdens and to give us peace.

“Who is this man?”

• Just a figure in history, someone we heard of at school
• No, he is none other than Almighty God, the creator of this vast universe

With him nothing is impossible ----- not        even dealing with our problems.

A children’s chorus sums it all up

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty

There’s nothing that he can not do

The mountains are his, the rivers are his

The stars are his handiwork too

My God is so big, so strong and so mighty

There’s nothing that he can not do