We move this morning to the third of our four part sermon
series on the letter to the Romans we’ve called Good news from a good God explaining the Christian good news repent, believe, ask receive so today’s
sub heading is ask. It’s Maia Jeffers
baptism, a young lady her parents asked
for over 9 years which makes today a very special day.
The good news of Christianity thrills through Paul’s greatest
letter, his credo, the letter to the Romans. I called it earlier
in the series dynamite with two blasts concerning law and history. Reading
Romans challenges both that part of us that seeks to earn good will legalistically
through good actions and that other part of us that’s deep down lost hope for
the future of the world. Such is its power, the power of the Word of God no
less, to reset our life and our hope.
The letter to the Romans says first
of all that to reach into a right relationship with God is impossible from our side
but that God has reached down to us
in Jesus to lift us to his heights. As we heard this morning If you live according to the flesh, you will
die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will
live. It’s God alone by his Spirit who puts us
right with him, with one another and with ourselves, helping us to do the good
we want to do. For all who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. We’re saved ultimately not by following
laws but by welcoming grace so we need to repent, to turn to God and believe in
him, the very things we’re expressing for Maia this morning at her baptism.
The second blast of Romans is that the death and resurrection
of Jesus Christ has rewritten the history of the cosmos bringing us all a
purpose for living and a reason for dying as we read later on in today’s
passage. Romans 8:21 the creation itself will
be set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory
of the children of God. Maia is being
joined to a body and a cause this morning that will outlive her
and all of us, God’s forever family, the holy, catholic church which is God’s
chosen instrument for bringing the cosmos out of its bondage to decay and into
an incorruptible and glorious fulfilment.
Hope is faith for the future. Its saying ‘tomorrow also is
God’s’ and tomorrow and tomorrow. When we
eat this bread Paul says elsewhere and
drink this cup we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes. The good news
send us in Jesus from a good God is of a good purpose for you and me and Maia.
Human life isn’t just there – it’s a reflection of its Maker and its destined
for its Maker since we come from God, we belong to God and we go to God.
This
claim of God in Christ upon our lives is clear to one with faith, for how can
what’s made not owe itself to its maker? Those seats have the mark of Maurice
Emmans about them because he made them, the big one in Fr David Stonebanks day
and the stools in my day. So with Maia, and you and I, we have the mark or, rather more than the mark, of our Maker about
us – we have his very image.
Faith
is an intuition, a special gift by which you know you bear that image. The
image of Someone dependable beyond our sight, who’s been here before,
and to whom there’s no unknown human
contingency, however harsh it might be. Hope is simply faith as it looks to the
future and both asking God to build his kingdom and seeking to cooperate with
that work of building of justice, love and peace.
Our subtitle today is ‘God calls us to ask’. Just as Fiona
and Anthony asked for and received Maia so they with us are called to pray day
by day the Lord’s Prayer ‘hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be
done’. It’s all in that prayer!
To be a Christian is to repent of your sins, believe in God
who sent Jesus, ask for his possibilities to emerge – as Maia did for
Fiona and Ant – and lastly to receive hope and assurance.
You know we don’t fully realise the significance attending worship has in forming up the
virtue of hope. As Fiona and Ant gather with God’s people Sunday by Sunday,
following in the footsteps of Ron and Joyce especially here at St Giles they
will instill hope in their daughter, hope that’s uncharacteristic of an age
that lives just for the sensations of the moment.
Rabbi Hugo Gryn was a child in Auschwitz when his father
melted the precious margarine ration to light a Hanukkah candle. Hugo
protested. His father said, ‘My child, we know you can live three days without
water. You can live three weeks without food. But you cannot live for three
minutes without hope.’
As Paul puts it at the end of today’s passage from
Romans Chapter 8: In hope we were saved. Now hope that is seen is not hope. For who
hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we wait for
it with patience.
Live in hope. That is, live with an eye to
what God is building through even the worst agonies of the world - and we think this morning of Ukrainian air disaster. This building of good from evil is expressed
in Romans 8.22-23 which says,
as we heard earlier, that we know the whole creation has been groaning in
labour pains until now; and not only the creation, but we ourselves, who
have the first fruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly while we wait for adoption,
the redemption of our bodies. For in hope we were saved.
Tomorrow also is God’s. This we pray will be
true for all the tomorrows of Anthony, Fiona and Maia. Fiona’s yesterdays are
so linked with St Giles both through her parents and through her time at our
School. At 18 she left the village for Southampton University where she did her
nurse’s training. Ant’s work is as an IT infrastructure manager and it’s
through his sister Sue, one of Fiona’s best friends from nursing, that the
couple came together. They plan to seal their union in marriage. Meanwhile they
gather with to celebrate the Christian hope for their daughter who’s full name
is Maia Edie Tamar Alwyne Jeffers. The family live close to Fiona’s dad, Ron,
one of our home Communicants, in a house they’ve called Joylands after Ron’s
late wife, Fiona’s mother Joyce who was
a pillar of St Giles.
Maia’s baptism gains her entry to a second
Joylands for that name sums up what I’ve been sharing. To live in hope is to
live as you were made to live in God’s image with God’s presence beside you
and, as we read in Psalm 16 verse 11 in God’s presence is the fullness of joy.
The Christian good news is that God has made us
for that joy but sin has come into our lives as a spoiler. As we repent of our
sin and put faith in Jesus the spoiler goes and we ask for and receive joyful
unextinguishable hope.
Tomorrow also is God’s – for Maia, Ant, Fiona
and all of us. If you live according to
the flesh, you will die; but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the
body, you will live. The friendship we have with God through Jesus is
sealed in baptism and it sets us on the path of being agents with him of world
transformation since through our action and prayer the creation itself will be
set free from its bondage to decay and will obtain the freedom of the glory of
the children of God.
So be it – live in hope!
Now we reflect for a minute or so on what God’s
been saying to us through his word this morning before moving into the baptism
service.
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