Sermon - 2018-05-20
Today is the church’s celebration of the Day of Pentecost. A day in which we recognize that God has blessed us with a Holy Spirit to lead us and guide us through our lives of faith and within this world. A day in which we are reminded that God is still at work and moving within this world. However, with the past week’s events, becoming aware of where God is at work in the world and in our lives can seem like a task of searching for a needle in a haystack. Watching the evening news, we hear of more school shootings, we hear of war, or even the very Earth itself tearing apart, and we hear of people arguing about what should be done instead of actually making a difference for a solution.
Yet even in these dark moments, God’s hope and love shine all the brighter. For when a tragedy does strike a community. We bear witness to the outpour of love for the people. And that love is the foundation of God’s Work in the world. For it is this love that moves within our own hearts. It is this sense of compassion that moves us to feel as they are feeling. For we can relate because a similar experience and the echoes of that experience stir up within us a desire to make a difference in their life.
We begin to pray for the people, we ask them what we can do, how we can share what God has first given to us so that they may know that they are not alone within this tragic moment, so that hope and God may enter into their life. However, then we move back into our own routine, we may forget to mention to the people that we are praying for them or worse, we forget to pray for them at all. Eventually, we are able to place the people within the Hands of God. For we know that God will take care of them.
Now it is this sense that God will take care of them and us that we often realize when darkness when evil, and tragedy enters into our lives. We may even echo similar words that Jesus shares with his own disciples within the Gospel, “12“ I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” We may shorten this too, “I don’t understand what God is up to but I know that God has a plan for us all.”
Yet it is on this day that I hope that you do not fall back into your routine and say God will use someone else to do His Work within the world. I hope and pray, that the Holy Spirit shall move within you, in your heart and live. That you will realize that YOU are the hands and feet of Christ in this world. That when tragedy does occur, we are able to make a difference in someone’s life. Not simply as a reaction to this tragedy but in their whole life. That we would not have a moment of shared love and hope but that we would actually have unity. That we would work towards helping one another.
For when Christ died on the cross, his death should have been the LAST death. We should not have a death of unnatural causes. Yet we are still in this broken world. Yet just as Christ gave us the gift of a resurrection, that death would not be the final answer. We need to share that word, that message with those who are eager to hear it, to experience it.
Yet even in these dark moments, God’s hope and love shine all the brighter. For when a tragedy does strike a community. We bear witness to the outpour of love for the people. And that love is the foundation of God’s Work in the world. For it is this love that moves within our own hearts. It is this sense of compassion that moves us to feel as they are feeling. For we can relate because a similar experience and the echoes of that experience stir up within us a desire to make a difference in their life.
We begin to pray for the people, we ask them what we can do, how we can share what God has first given to us so that they may know that they are not alone within this tragic moment, so that hope and God may enter into their life. However, then we move back into our own routine, we may forget to mention to the people that we are praying for them or worse, we forget to pray for them at all. Eventually, we are able to place the people within the Hands of God. For we know that God will take care of them.
Now it is this sense that God will take care of them and us that we often realize when darkness when evil, and tragedy enters into our lives. We may even echo similar words that Jesus shares with his own disciples within the Gospel, “12“ I still have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. 13When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own but will speak whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come.” We may shorten this too, “I don’t understand what God is up to but I know that God has a plan for us all.”
Yet it is on this day that I hope that you do not fall back into your routine and say God will use someone else to do His Work within the world. I hope and pray, that the Holy Spirit shall move within you, in your heart and live. That you will realize that YOU are the hands and feet of Christ in this world. That when tragedy does occur, we are able to make a difference in someone’s life. Not simply as a reaction to this tragedy but in their whole life. That we would not have a moment of shared love and hope but that we would actually have unity. That we would work towards helping one another.
For when Christ died on the cross, his death should have been the LAST death. We should not have a death of unnatural causes. Yet we are still in this broken world. Yet just as Christ gave us the gift of a resurrection, that death would not be the final answer. We need to share that word, that message with those who are eager to hear it, to experience it.
Comments
Post a Comment