What should we do? Tomorrow – Sunday 29th December 2024
The trouble and the joy of living in England is that the particular tensions that lie bubbling beneath the surface like some almost extinct volcano, provide a constant supply of material for us to moan away to our heart’s content.
Like the miserable Steptoe and his ever frustrated more ambitious son ‘Arold, in Steptoe and Son, we are never quite as happy as when we’re disgruntled. Or the impossible relationship between Basil Fawlty and Sybil, and Manuel; we thrive on dysfunction.
Into such a society riven with division came Jesus.
The issues of rich v poor, toffs v working class, private v state schools, and more distantly, church v chapel, are still as present as they ever were…just scratch a little and they come roaring back.
One of the reactions to all these divisions is to try and ignore them, disengage, pour disdain ‘on the lot of ‘em’, and blame the government for everything from the state of the roads to the length of a Mars Bar. Just so long as we don’t take too close a look under the bonnet, at home, or at ourselves.
Into such a society riven with division came Jesus.
You could join various groups in Jesus’ day:
• the very popular Pharisees were offering a recovery of a very ordered society full of Mosaic law and associated traditions and the promise of resurrection and heaven for the righteous
• or you might be drawn to the highbrow Sadducees who were more concerned with social justice here and now rather than life after the grave
• or you could head for the hills and join the Zealots: ‘terrorists’ to the Romans and ‘freedom fighters’ for Jews who wished to overthrow the Roman oppressors and create an independent state of Israel
• or try the Essenes, looking for a spiritual kingdom of God to arrive
On top of these groups were the hierarchical leaders of the Sanhedrin, Chief Priests, scribes, the Herodian Kings, and the Roman occupiers; Pontius Pilate being the governor.
Or you might opt to stay out of trouble in the North and catch fish.
But Jesus’s message couldn’t have been simpler: ‘Repent and believe, the kingdom of God is at hand’.
We do need to unpack this a little as the words carry all kinds of baggage twenty-odd centuries later. ‘Repent’ means change your mind and your thinking, it’s a complete 180-degree change to face in a different direction - the kingdom of God isn’t confined to the future or the past it is ‘at hand’ – i.e. within reach, it’s now.
Jesus’s message couldn’t have been simpler: ‘Repent and believe, the kingdom of God is at hand’
Jesus went on and demonstrated the reality of the kingdom in his own life, the way he lived and taught and his relationship with God, calling Him, Abba, Father. Actually, Abba is a closer term, almost Daddy. It’s certainly a term of deep respect and affection, of endearment. And from that relationship with his heavenly Father and the Holy Spirit, he taught memorable parables and performed miracles. He also warned the Pharisees that they were ‘blind leaders of the blind and they will end up in the ditch’.
He trained disciples who had repented and believed that the kingdom had arrived in the person of Jesus, and they too were transformed and began to live out the same life, performing miracles, and caring for the least.
After the crucifixion, resurrection, and the baptism of the Spirit at Pentecost, Peter stood up to preach the first sermon of the church. What would he say?
Pretty much what Jesus preached.
This should not surprise us and yet it does…particularly if our church experience has as much in common with Jesus’ message of the ‘kingdom of God now’ as the Pharisees had in common with Jesus, steeped as they were in rules, laws, and tradition.
Peter brought his sermon to a conclusion with a few words in answer to a question ‘What shall we do?’
‘Then Peter said to them, Repent, and let every one of you be baptized in the name of Jesus Christ (Christ means Messiah, it’s not a surname), for the forgiveness of sins, and you shall receive the Holy Spirit, the promise is to you and your children, all however far away, as many as the Lord our God will call’ Acts 2 v 37-39
This is what we should be preaching now: the three keys needed to enter the kingdom of God, now:
1. Repent
2. Be baptised and be forgiven for your sins
3. Receive the gift of the Holy Spirit
The disciples had to leave their nets to follow Christ. If Jesus is calling you, you will know what you have to ‘leave’ in order to ‘repent and believe’ and follow.
Because I grew up in England and had been baptised/christened as a baby, I had a choice after repenting and believing later in life. My choice was to be baptised as a believer, to express my newly found faith, rather than rely on my infant baptism. Others choose differently. Let the Holy Spirit lead you.
From that moment on the Holy Spirit will lead you, teach you, prompt you, guide you, be like a river within you, correct you and convict you if and when you get lost, and call you into whatever the King wants you to do and be to others. He will also join you to others, and minister to you through them, some of whom will be apostles, or prophets, or pastors, or teachers, or evangelists, and administrators.
It won’t always be easy. Look how they treated Jesus; we shouldn’t expect to be treated any differently, so expect opposition, social exclusion, and different forms of persecution. But remember one thing: you’ve been given a gift. You didn’t earn it through trying to live a godly life. The godly life, the life of God, the eternal life, has been given to you as a gift. As Paul wrote in his letter to the Romans, ‘nothing can separate you from the love of God in Christ Jesus’.
That’s enough to get started.