On
Monday in London on my day off I bumped quite remarkably into Eddie. I say
remarkably since there are 9 million folk in London and its surrounds so it was
extraordinary to meet someone by chance who’d been on my bus on our True Life in God pilgrimage to the Holy
Land in September.
There’s
something about Eddie - a social worker based in Highbury, mid 40s, who has a
wondrous assurance of the love of God. A few years back he’d been persuaded to
go on a pilgrimage to Medugorje, came back and on his birthday treated himself
to a full English in a café. He felt prompted by re-awakened faith to say grace
for his meal. As he did so he was, in his own words, utterly zapped by the love of God. It still shows and it might show
in me because his company is infectious.
During
Lent we’re linking sermons to Tuesday’s and Thursday’s Talking Points for which this week’s two questions, at the end of
your booklet, are ‘how do you see God?’ and ‘what light does Jesus Christ shed
on God?’ The idea is we take away the service booklet, ponder the scripture and
this teaching from the pulpit, maybe come and hear John Hall, Dean of
Westminster Abbey on the Talking Points
programme and one another’s thinking in the Tuesday or Thursday group
discussion on these two questions. We might even like to start talking over
coffee today – nothing stopping us!
How do you see God?
Like Eddie I see him as all powerful-love surrounding me and you and all he’s
made at all times, whether folk know or don’t know what Paul describes today as
the free gift in the grace of the one man
Jesus Christ. In Lent we centre, and the readings centre, on what God’s
done for us in Jesus which is this week’s second question what light does Jesus Christ shed on God?
With
these two questions in mind I want to look with you at the first two readings
this morning from Genesis 3 and Romans 5 which go to the very heart of
Christianity.
Their
truth was summed up in two verses of Newman’s hymn Praise to the holiest we
sang at the entrance procession for this morning’s eucharist:
O
loving wisdom of our God! When all was sin and shame,
A
second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came.
O
wisest love! That flesh and blood, which did in Adam fail,
Should
strive afresh against the foe, should strive and should prevail.
Those
verses sum up the analogy between Adam and Christ presented in the second scripture
reading building on the first which I invite you to look at again with me on p2
and p3 of our booklet.
First
the Genesis 2 and 3 reading. It expresses in magnificent poetry the great
truths of creation and fall. If we find
light on God from Jesus Christ it is, as the Romans passage indicates, in the
saving significance of his death and resurrection we celebrate at Lent and
Easter. Genesis tells us we are God’s creatures yet fallen creatures. Something has gone wrong with us. We’re not what
God intended us to be.
Take
a minute to read through the passage again on your own, Genesis 2.15-17 and
3.1-7.
I
wonder what you felt? Especially the ladies? A few thoughts.
- The Hebrew word for man is “adam” so
even if the author intends it as the name of an individual first man we’re
in order to see it as the personification of Everyman. Adam’s story is our
story, as is Eve’s.
- We should not press her role in the
story as it’s been pressed in the past, when woman was blamed for the Fall
more than man being the one deceived by the serpent. In the Romans passage
Paul says nothing about Eve and actually blames all on Adam.
- Man and woman are jointly responsible
for their fallen condition and can’t blame God or the devil for it – we’ve
made and continue to make wrong choices that head us away from what God
intends us to be.
- Whilst our wrong choices weigh against
us, and our fallen condition makes it harder to choose rightly, scripture
makes clear in this story that we’re still responsible for our actions.
Let’s
go on to the second reading Romans 5 from the bottom of p2 which takes up the account of Adam’s fall we’ve
just looked at and balances it with the restoration God has given us in Jesus
Christ so that, with Eddie, we can experience his redeeming love.
It’s
not an easy passage I’m afraid. Here are some thoughts:
- It starts with a clear truth: Just as sin came into the world
through one man, and death came through sin, [and ]so death spread to all
because all have sinned and then there’s a massive digression
which we could have removed for reading in Church, lines about the period
between Adam and Moses when, since there was no Law people, weren’t technically
accountable.
- Reginald Fuller’s commentary on the
Sunday Lectionary takes up this loss of thread in Paul’s argument in
Romans 5 and suggests this helpful summary of the passage: As Adam began a history of fallen
mankind, characterized by sin and death, so Christ began a new history of
mankind characterized by acquittal, life and righteousness. Yet it is not
an analogy in which both sides are of equal weight… Christ’s achievement
is far greater than Adam’s… death was negative, life is positive. Death’s
dominion enslaved man, Christ’s dominion sets him free.
All
of which brings me back to John Henry Newman’s summary on the fall and
redemption from Dream of Gerontius we
sang earlier:
O
loving wisdom of our God! When all was sin and shame,
A
second Adam to the fight and to the rescue came.
O
wisest love! That flesh and blood, which did in Adam fail,
Should
strive afresh against the foe, should strive and should prevail.
What light does Jesus Christ shed on God? Read Romans or sing Praise to the holiest to
capture the light he sheds, or use this four liner:
God
made us for friendship (hold hand upwards).
Sin
came in as a barrier (place book on hand as symbol of the
barrier),
Christ
died to lift the barrier (lift book off hand)
Making
us friends with God (raise hand up again)
To
know that friendship, to sense the love that lies over us and around us and
beyond us in heaven, we need Jesus!
We need to see how in the words of John 3.16 God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son so that all
who believe in him should not perish but have everlasting life.
The
world around us finds it easier to believe in Genesis 3 than Romans 5.
Reasonable folk admit the effects of our fallen-ness but they miss out on that
which goes beyond reason, which is the very good news that brings us to Church
on a Sunday. Paul describes this news today in Romans as the free gift in the grace of the one man Jesus Christ and
elsewhere in 1 Corinthians 15.22 he uses
these words: as in Adam all die, even so
in Christ shall all be made alive
We’re
given the Lent challenge, forty days of training, to help us come more alive to
Jesus Christ and see the power and direction of God coming more to bear upon
the world through the exercise of our faith in prayer, study and good works.
As
we go to his altar this morning we go mindful of Eddie seeking a fresh
anointing in God’s love which seeks to touch the centre of our being in the
consecrated bread and wine of the eucharist.
I
leave you with this week’s questions How
do you see God? What light does Jesus Christ shed on God?
Take
time to ponder these in the coming minute and the coming week for they touch on
what is transformative for you, the church, the village and the cosmos!
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