Sermon of the Month

November 2007

This sermon was preached at Bridlington Priory Church by Rev Roy Shaw, Curate, Hunmanby w Muston parishes, on 18th November 2007, the 2nd Sunday before Advent.

Two lovely and familiar stories are interwoven in our gospel reading today; accounts that I am sure you will have heard many times. We are faced with a man with a burden of care, a woman in weakness and fear, and a child held captive by death. Things, situations, which we read about in our newspapers, see on our tv screens, meet on our street and among our neighbours. Awful things, situations which move our hearts to pity, but commonplace.

And Jesus makes time for them all; we see here one of the great truths which we can hold onto in our faith- that there is none for whom Jesus will not make room, that there is none for whom he will not be the Saviour and friend. In the passage we see young and old, parent and child, man and woman, rich and poor- all human life is there!- and Jesus is the one who has time and space and healing for them all, in all the grim realities of life which we encounter in this passage; - the burden of sorrow and anxiety, a woman in a state of sickness and fear and despair, a child held captive by the last great enemy of death.

So we read that Jesus rose and followed the synagogue ruler- the man, (and we may surmise that it was Jairus, from St. Mark’s parallel account of this story) who now has someone by his side with whom he can share his sorrow and anxiety. St. Mark has Jesus say to the man ‘Be not afraid, only believe’. That word is a word to us; the phrase ‘be not afraid’, or ‘fear not’ occurs 365 times in the Bible, as if we need to hear it at least daily in our Christian pilgrimage;- as we walk with Jesus, he says to us on a daily basis ‘Be not afraid’.

We are all fearful of one sort of thing and another, and especially as the world changes so fast around us. Perhaps we forget in this that we are called to change as well- that our calling is to be ‘changed from glory into glory, till in heaven we take our place’, as the hymn has it. And that is the direction of change signalled to us in the epistle this morning.

Paul starts all his letters with thankfulness; there has been change for the better among those whom he has worked- in this case this morning among the believers in Colossae- and it has brought a change for the better in their behaviour, so that those who have now embraced the faith in Colossae are more loving to one another, more fruitful in the work of Christ, than they were before. All this is to the good, and marks a real change- so St. Paul gives thanks for that which God has wrought among them in and through Christ.

But more change is called for, as indeed it is for us today. We cannot be content what we have already learned of Christ;- there is much still to explore on the road ahead, which is why we need to hear the Saviour’s exhortation ‘Be not afraid’. St. Paul bids us, whatever our circumstances, and whatever life shall throw at us- sorrow, anxiety, sickness, fear, despair, death- that we might have wise minds and spirits attuned to God’s will, and so acquire a thorough understanding of the way God works. He prays that we will live well for the Master, making him proud of us as we work in His fields. He prays that we’ll have the strength to stick it out for the long haul, strength which spills over into joy, and thanksgiving for all the good things God has for us along the way. As I look at those hopes and prayers of St. Paul, I know I have a long way to go to attain anything like that hope and serenity; it will be a lifetime’s work for me, and I guess that you see it as a lifetimes work for you also. But, to come back to the gospel, that exuberant hope and prayer of St. Paul is just the difference between the ‘sleep’ which Jesus diagnoses in the ruler’s daughter, and the life to which he calls her. We are called to a fuller experience of the knowledge of God. Jesus called the young girl to a new and full experience of life. It is the same call Jesus makes on us; that we come out from the death of our former lives- their dead-end ways, their complacency, their meaninglessness, their self-absorption, into the full stature, the full light of Christ, as Paul has been also exhorting us in the epistle.

As Advent approaches, attentive ears and hearts will be listening out for all those whispers from God to be fully alive to all that Christ calls us to, fully aware of all that God would teach us in those important days that often get squeezed of meaning and content as the commercialism of Christmas pervades all. We hear Jesus words to us- sorrowful, anxious, sick, fearful, despairing, possibly hovering near something akin to a death, ‘Be not afraid’, as He journeys with us through to that place of healing and resurrection, whatever the scorn, whatever the derision, whatever the disbelief of those around us who do not see the possibility, the reality of something greater in the fullness of resurrection life with God. Something greater lies ahead.

Amen