Preserve Unity

Text: 1 Corinthians 1:3-18
         I was fortunate enough to receive my college education at the hands of Mennonites.  The result of this was that I learned a considerable amount about Mennonite history and Mennonite ways.  One such thing was that in the more traditional branches it is of utmost importance to be in agreement.  This insistence on unity goes way back to when the Protestants and Roman Catholics parted ways during the Protestant Reformation.  The Mennonites find their roots within the Reformation among a diverse group of Protestants known as the Anabaptists.  The Anabaptists were thus called because they believed that infant baptism was sacrilege for only adults who can make a decision to follow Jesus Christ should be baptized.  This belief about baptism as well as their pacifism in the days when Islamic Moor's were invading Southeastern Europe led to hundreds of Anabaptists being tortured and put to death by Christians usually on charges of denying the Trinity (No one ever expects the Spanish Inquisition!).  These persecutions are remembered to this day.  In most every Mennonite home today one will find a book entitled The Martyr’s Mirror which records the deaths of all Anabaptist and Mennonite martyrs right up to the present.
         As a result of persecution the early Anabaptists began to live in tight-knit communities based on models of community found in the book of Acts. (If only we Presbyterians could be so courageously faithful.)  These communities were so close-knit that they even began to share their wealth.  One drawback we might presume was that in order to preserve unity in these communities the Anabaptists began to adopt dress codes and rules and regulations which would help to keep them separate from the world.  You see, it was those Christians who lived by the ways of the world whether Protestant, Reformed, or Roman Catholic who were trying to extinguish their communities through torture and death.  So, in the early days and even still today Mennonite’s tried to preserve unity by agreeing to live by rigorous rules and regulations.  

         Interestingly, the Mennonites had and still have a Biblical way to deal with someone who does something to transgress the rules of the community and disrupts unity.  They enforced what they called the Ban.  The Ban was basically excommunication from the community without the transgressor being able to leave the community.  No one, not even family, was allowed to speak to the person until that person repented of the transgression. Transgressors were even forced to eat at separate tables even at home.  Being banned was a very shameful thing to happen for everyone had to know that you were banned.  The Ban was very effective in preventing division within the community for it peaceably kept transgressors and dissenters within the community all the while silencing them to keep division from spreading.  We could critique the Ban on the basis that it withheld from a person the basic right of free speech.  But for the most part, it was a humane institution, one, because the people agreed to live under it and two, because the community rules were well understood.

         I have lectured on the Ban not without a purpose, but because it is not just Old Order Mennonites and other Anabaptist communities who practice it.  Every family, group of friends and organization has some form of the Ban they set in place whenever somebody does something which is different from what is deemed acceptable.  We are all guilty of banning other people for reasons which range from the trivial such as, “I just don’t like the way that person eats their fruit;” to more serious reasons which would include such things as physical or verbal assaults.  Yet, the way we ban people is different from the Mennonite way. First, too often in our communities and groups of friends the rules which would result in a ban are not clearly laid out.  Second, we typically have no formal agreement among everybody to have a ban placed on someone for breaking those nebulous rules.  Third and even worse, the way the rest of the community finds out that we've banned somebody is usually through the channels of gossip.

         The result of our kind of informal, non-biblical, and unChristian ban is widespread division.  Too often we will ban a person or a group of people for no better reason than they are different from us in matters of opinion, belief and personal habit.  And then, when the banned person or group recognizes that they have been banned, they will usually counter by gathering a group by means of gossip and in turn retaliate with a ban of their own.  The end result is that people who were once friends are suddenly bitterly divided.  

         Sadly, too often this informal, non-biblical, and unchristian form of the ban rears its butt-ugly head in the church.  We have all seen and been party to sisters and brothers in Christ who were once friends yet suddenly stop speaking with each other.  Some unspecified rule involving personal enfranchisement, money, opinions, beliefs, traditions, dreams of the future, etc., is transgressed and it is almost unknowingly transgressed.  The other person gets suddenly inexplicably very angry and begins to talk behind that person’s back and successfully gets enough people angry enough to impose an informal ban.  The banned person perceiving that they have been banned then tries to find out why, except nobody is talking.  So the banned person gets angry and starts to form their own little group in order to retaliate with a ban.  Finally, a swat team of outside mediators is called in to try to make peace because it is painfully obvious that everybody wants their seating assignments changed.

         Something similar was happening in Corinth.  To give a little history, Paul planted several small house churches there and they all regularly met together in one of the wealthier patron's houses to celebrate the Lord's Supper.  Paul stayed among them for only a year and a half and when he left he apparently left no one in charge.  I guess that Paul must have presumed that they would be able to discern those called to leadership since the Holy Spirit appeared to be so active in their midst in that they lacked no spiritual gift. In this vacuum of leadership small groups of people began to compete for ultimate power.  (Let us not forget the philosopher Nietzche's maxim that ultimate power corrupts ultimately.)  There were the "name droppers" trying to grasp power by the influence of who baptized them - Apollos, Paul, or Peter (Cephas).  Some of the really clever ones simply claimed, “We follow Jesus.”  There were the wealthy patrons who owned the houses where they met and who were also leaders in the community.  Yet, wealth and power in the world does not entitle one to power in the church.  There were the "philosophers"; wise Gnostic types who thought they had cornered the market on "wisdom" yet they could not see God's wisdom of the cross. There was also a group of "spiritual" types who were mostly women who thought that because they spoke in tongues more than anybody else they had the spiritual power to lead. Paul had to tell them to be quiet, cover their heads, and desire to prophesy for they were looking like the priestesses of Isis in the temple down the road who also spoke in tongues a lot and there was prostitution and men castrated themselves to serve Isis like her brother Osiris.  

         Paul became very angry at the Corinthian church.  So angry that he said he was thankful that he had not baptized more than a handful of them.   His anger most likely arose because the Corinthians were mistaking the Christian church for any other type of societal organization of their day such as a philosophical school, a Pagan temple, a trade guild, even local government.  They did not get it that the church is new humanity in Christ.  That the Church is his body and is indeed the new temple where God resides as the Holy Spirit dwells in it.  Under these conditions baptism was not portrayed as a sign that one had died with Christ to the old life and been raised with Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit to the new.  Baptism to them was nothing more than an initiatory rite into some form of new Pagan religious institution.  As a result of this, the Corinthians were quarrelling among themselves over who was the greatest and it got so bad that they were banning the "least of these" among them from the table at the Lord's Supper while they feasted.  

         Paul responded to them by saying that Jesus did not send him to baptize but rather to gospelize, to preach the gospel of Jesus Christ seeking to know nothing among them but Jesus Christ in his cruciform nature.  The Gospel was the message that because of Jesus' incarnate being, his faithful life, his death, his resurrection and his ascension to the right hand of the Father to reign in power on earth there is no longer Jew or Greek, there is no longer slave or free, there is no longer male and female; for all Christians are one in Christ Jesus (Gal. 3:28) and indeed in him reconciled to God.  We need to place emphasis on the word one, on the unity in all this, our unity with God and with one another.

         Well, these were not wise words by that day’s standards.  Rather, they were foolish words.  How preposterous it was to invite all people regardless of their station in life into a community and a way of life whose founder was crucified as a criminal, and even more so to say he was then raised from the dead.  It was just plain ridiculous to say that all people are equal and at peace in the fellowship of that man, Jesus, who appeared to be nothing more than a charlatan.  The gospel did appear to be foolishness.

          Paul would have us to be gospelors like himself.  People who live in unity in the new humanity that God the Father has created in and through Jesus Christ in the power of the Holy Spirit.  The church is an institution unlike any other and our primary responsibility is to attend to our unity in Christ putting all other things aside.  Rather, we should be inviting those whom we consider to be different from ourselves into a united fellowship where we are all in agreement.  A fellowship in agreement is not a fellowship where we agree on all matters great and small.  Rather, we are to be a fellowship in which we all speak the same word of love, the love of Christ, in the way we love one another.  There is a place for discipline in the church, for banning one could say.  But, our informal, non-biblical, unchristian and indeed evil ways of banning one another has absolutely no place in the church, the body of Christ, the temple of the living God.  Disunity, schism has no place in the body of Christ.  Why should we crucify him again?

         Ignatius of Antioch was one of the first of the second generation early church bishops to be martyred by the Romans.  He was arrested somewhere in Turkey and taken to Rome and all along the way the "circus" stopped in towns where he was made to fight wild beasts as an example of what happens to Christians who proclaim a "Lord and Saviour" other than Caesar.  He eventually died in the Roman coliseum.  On the way he wrote seven letters, one to Polycarp the young Bishop of Smyrna and one of his tutelage in it he writes:

         "Having obtained good proof that thy mind is fixed in God as upon an immoveable rock, I loudly glorify [His name] that I have been thought worthy [to behold] thy blameless face, which may I ever enjoy in God! I entreat thee, by the grace with which thou art clothed, to press forward in thy course, and to exhort all that they may be saved. Maintain thy position with all care, both in the flesh and spirit. Have a regard to preserve unity, than which nothing is better. Bear with all, even as the Lord does with thee. Support all in love, as also thou doest. Give thyself to prayer without ceasing. Implore additional understanding to what thou already hast. Be watchful, possessing a sleepless spirit. Speak to every man separately, as God enables thee. Bear the infirmities of all, as being a perfect athlete [in the Christian life]: where the labour is great, the gain is all the more."

         Unity, there is no work better than our attending to our unity in Christ following his one and only commandment that we love one another so that others will know that we are his disciples.  Amen.

Zion or Bust!

Text: Isaiah 49:8-26

         Being between pastorates one thing I miss  is going to retirement homes to conduct worship.  I take the guitar along and we sing their favourite hymns.  Not wanting to brag, but I noticed that I was the only minister who played the guitar for their worship.  I guess most ministers just cave to the notion that the elderly don't like or want anything to do with guitars in worship because it's too informal as if God only listens to organ music.  Yet, music makes a big difference for elderly folks slowing down.  I've witnessed time and again how a good toe tapping, foot-stomping hymnsing can really make the lame to leap and the deaf to hear.  It brings folks back for awhile.

         I also like to read passages like this one from Isaiah which deals with the LORD God's faithfulness to his people in exile.  This passage was originally proclaimed to the Jewish people while they were in exile in Babylon longing  to go home to Jerusalem.  People in retirement homes are more or less themselves in the same boat as those exiles.  Old age has conquered them and taken away their homes and friends and some of their families and left them physically and emotionally wounded.  So many in retirement communities just seem to simply exist having lost much and waiting to die.  

         Part of the task of ministering to those in exile is helping them to see that there is still life to live, but also it is to speak what they themselves are reluctant to say or in some cases are unable to say.  Some of the most forgotten people on earth are the elderly in retirement homes and they really do feel forgotten and forsaken...indeed, God-forsaken.  Yet, one of the biggest faith concerns on the hearts of these people isn’t their own sense of being forgotten and forsaken.  Rather, it’s that their children have turned away from the faith so that their grandchildren aren’t hearing the old, old story.

         This passage from Isaiah really hits a cord with them.  There is such a contrast within it between what the prophet is proclaiming to be the great things that God has done and will do for his people and the despair of Zion.  Zion in this passage is not a code name for the people in exile, but rather it is the code name for Jerusalem which in these prophecies represents the LORD’s plan to save his creation.  Zion is Jerusalem the home of true faith where the truly faithful worship.  Yet, Zion lay in ruins because its inhabitants had become idolatrous and God had to kick them off the land into exile.  Then (and a big THEN) the LORD abandoned Zion, his home, to go east with the exiles into Babylon.  The LORD God did not kick them off the land telling them they couldn't come back until they cleaned up their act.  He went with them.  But, it had become time for the people to go back home to Zion and the LORD was raising up prophets to tell them to get going.  Yet, Zion wasn’t getting the message because the prophets were with the people in Babylon as was the LORD. This is such great news that all of creation was breaking forth in praise.  Yet, Zion doesn’t hear the message and is simply in despair.  “The LORD has forgotten me, the LORD has forsaken me.”  

         Now, concerning the Jews in Babylon, there were faithful Jews among them and the exile was no cakewalk for them either.  If you were willing to set your faith aside and blend into Babylonian culture, you did well.  Most of the Jews in exile did just that to the extent that the largest concentration of Jews in the days of Jesus 500 years later was not in Israel but still in Babylon.  For the faithful Jews, those who loved Zion, it wasn’t so easy.  They obviously didn’t fit in with Babylonian culture and they found it difficult to be among their own people.  Nevertheless, these faithful Jews struggled to remain faithful to a God whom they felt like and had every reason to believe had forgotten and forsaken them even though God was right there with them. 

         I guess if I had to describe what faith and faithfulness are I would have to throw in there continuing to accept God as God and living accordingly even when your reality is saying, “If your God is real, then your God has certainly forgotten and forsaken you.”  The human side of faith which is better described not as belief but as fidelity, being actively loyal, truly doesn’t begin to kick in until you find yourself at a place in life where people are looking at you and you’re looking at yourself asking “Why do you persist in your Christian devotedness, when your LORD has so obviously forgotten you and left you hanging while the hypocritical seem to be enjoying the fullness of his blessing?”  The God-given seed of real faith begins to grow when we find ourselves sticking it out with God when it seems pretty obvious that God isn’t sticking it out for us.  When reality says "Despair!", faith knows there is reason to hope in the LORD and the LORD alone.

         There are two messages of hope in this passage.  To those in exile Isaiah's word is “You’re going home to Zion, to the city of true faith where the faithful worship.  Get up and go.”  In reality this was apparently a very a hard message for the exiles to hear for only a very small remnant of them actually went back.  The risk and the cost of returning to the worshipful heart of God’s saving plan for his creation was just too costly.  It was safer to remain in Babylon.  This is struggle we each often face, the struggle with getting on with being who we are in Christ when it seems so safe just to continue in the ways of Babylon which surrounds us.  Paul tells us that our lives are hidden in God with Christ.  Therefore, we won't find our lives in Babylon even though it seems safe.  Our lives are found along the way of the cross, in dying to ourselves, not in the ways of our mammon-based culture.

         Secondly, Isaiah's word was to Zion, the home of the true faithfulness and worship through which our LORD God will save his creation.  To Zion God says, “Can a mother forget the baby at her breast and have no compassion on the child she has borne? Though she may forget, I will not forget you!  See, I have engraved you on the palms of my hands; your walls are ever before me.  Your sons hasten back, and those who laid you waste depart from you.  Lift up your eyes and look around; all your sons gather and come to you. As surely as I live," declares the LORD, "you will wear them all as ornaments; you will put them on, like a bride.  "Though you were ruined and made desolate and your land laid waste, now you will be too small for your people, and those who devoured you will be far away.  The children born during your bereavement will yet say in your hearing, 'This place is too small for us; give us more space to live in.' Then you will say in your heart, 'Who bore me these? I was bereaved and barren; I was exiled and rejected. Who brought these up? I was left all alone, but these-- where have they come from?'"  This is what the Sovereign LORD says: "See, I will beckon to the Gentiles, I will lift up my banner to the peoples; they will bring your sons in their arms and carry your daughters on their shoulders.  Kings will be your foster fathers, and their queens your nursing mothers. They will bow down before you with their faces to the ground; they will lick the dust at your feet. Then you will know that I am the LORD; those who hope in me will not be disappointed."

         Since the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus this has been literally true with the nail marks in his hands and with the Gentiles being grafted into God's people but I won’t speak so much to that.  The point to Isaiah's word isn’t that God has a rubber band around his wrist or inked a reminder onto the palm of his hand to remind him to do something at a particular time.  Rather, he’s been to the engraver and had his love for his creation and his people painfully and permanently inscribed so that we are always on his mind.  To the deep despair of Zion the LORD says, “Those who hope in me will not be disappointed.”  Those who hope in the LORD will not be disappointed.  It takes hope not just faith in the LORD to cross through the desert to Zion leaving behind the comfort and security of Babylon.  It takes hope to take the risk and pay the cost of true faith and faithful worship.  Faith is not faith unless it is a real and certain hope.

         This passage has something to say to small churches to churches that are dwindling off in the midst of our cultural reality of the passing of Christendom.  Zion is here in our midst waiting for us to gather around the table of our LORD, but are we as a people willing to leave the comfort of Babylon and walk in hope, in the real hope of what God is really doing in our midst in bringing us to love one another, in bringing us to forgive and work for reconciliation and justice.  Zion is found in our fellowship as we gather here around the Lord ’s Table.  The living testimony of the love we share around this table is what proclaims to the captives “Come out.” And to those who are in darkness, it says “Be free.”  “Come and join us on the way for the One who has true compassion is with us and guiding us.”  We are those who are called to call out to the world inviting it to join us on the journey to Zion where the love of God flows forth like a river, flooding out to heal the nations.  We have a choice.  We can play at being church, a church in the comfort of Babylon that looks faithful in doing the things that we think churches are supposed to do all the while having traded our identity in Christ for worrying about money and resources all the while ignoring God’s unflinching promise that those who hope in him will not be disappointed.  Babylon today is an archaeological ruin while the Jews persist.  That should tell us something.  We can be the church of Babylon or we can be the church that’s walking the desert to Zion embracing the possibility of dying while risking all our resources on the pearl of unconditional love that glimmers when we gather around the Lord's table in worship.  It will cost us everything; our excessive wealth, our grudges.  It will transform who we are as persons.  Are you willing to put aside whatever it is you call church and come to this table where our LORD is and simply love one another as he has loved you each?  It is hard to believe but faith and hope know that here at this table you can see and meet Jesus Christ in Zion and his healing love for you.  He has indeed engraved you on the palms of his hands.  Amen. 

The Gospel of Jesus Christ

Text: Ephesians 3:1-12

A few years back HBO ran a series called Rome. It was a spectacular visual glimpse into ancient Rome from the days of Julius Caesar. It was definitely not fit for Sunday School but oddly, there were many things relevant to the New Testament which it pictured very well such as Jesus returning in clouds of glory. Jesus returning in clouds of glory, have you ever wondered what that was about? Well, in ancient Rome emperors returning victorious from battle would receive an eventful and extravagant parade known as a Triumph. The series Rome portrayed two Triumphs, Julius Caesar returning from Gaul and the series ending Triumph of Caesar Octavian after his defeat of Mark Antony and Cleopatra in Egypt. At a Triumph the crowds would hail the emperor as Caesar Lord and Saviour of the Republic. Yes, Lord and Saviour were two titles given a Roman emperor. Amidst the shouting, the emperor rode into Rome perched high upon an elephant while the crowd threw white, fluffy confetti-like stuff; hence, clouds of glory.

Moreover, if you want to know why the announcement of forgiveness was/is so important in the Christian Gospel just note that while the new emperor was parading towards his throne during his Triumph the captured leaders of his defeated enemies followed as beaten public spectacles. The first thing the emperor did once enthroned was to put all his enemies to death. Forgiveness meant a stay of execution and permission to live on in the new kingdom as a prisoner/slave of the Emperor. When Paul calls himself a prisoner or slave of Jesus Christ he has in mind that he should have been put to death when he met Jesus on the Road to Damascus for his having been a persecutor of the church , but Jesus stayed his execution and Paul lived on in Jesus kingdom as his slave.

Another key historical glimpse from the series that I think shines light on Paul and his work as a church planter was the series character of the Senate Crier. He was a podgy man who went out daily into the forum to inform the public of matters of importance such as the pronouncements of the Senate, current events of the Republic of Rome, public service announcements, and even business advertisements. This character of the Senate Crier and the work he did, for me, shed much light into what Paul must of thought of his role and work in the early church of being a servant or steward or administrator of God’s grace charged with proclaiming or rather pronouncing the gospel and, and probably most important, what the gospel itself is. Let me touch on that for a moment.

In ancient Roman and Greek society the crier or herald performed the crucial function of keeping the people informed of important public matters for the simple fact that most people could not read. When the crier brought news about the emperor or a message straight from the emperor it was called a euangelion which is the Greek word which looks like our word "evangel" and which we translate as gospel. So, the town crier proclaimed the gospel, the news of the emperor, to the people. Therefore, in the Roman world a gospel was not something a person was supposed to believe about the emperor so that they can go to heaven when they died. It was a pronouncement of real, historical facts pertaining to the events of the life of the emperor like his birth, coming of age, and ascension to the throne, or a great war victory.

To push this a bit further, to the Romans a gospel wasn't just news about that life of the emperor. It was news from the gods. You see, Romans believed that the emperor was directly related to the gods as a son. Some emperors even claimed to be gods. So, to the Romans a gospel was an announcement of divine good news about the emperor, a proclamation from heaven of the will of the gods and was to be met with great joy and public celebration.

Therefore, the first thing we should note about the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ is that its correlate in the Roman world was an imperial gospel and anything we say about what the gospel is should firstly be interpreted in that light. Our Christian Gospel is a divine/imperial decree from God concerning Jesus Christ who is Lord and Saviour of the cosmos and he reigns over everything. Thus, the gospel of Jesus Christ is an intensely public and political matter pertaining to every detail of our lives, not a private matter of personal belief.

So, about this Gospel of Jesus Christ, the New Testament contains at least three moments of gospelizing. The first gospeling was the gospel of great joy that the angels proclaimed to the shepherds that the Saviour of Israel and indeed the whole world was born. They proclaimed the gospel that the world now has a new Lord in this baby born in Bethlehem who will deliver it from oppression and reign it justly and equitably with the graciousness of God's own authority. The next gospeling moment was when Jesus himself proclaimed the Gospel that the Kingdom of God is at hand therefore repent and believe the good news. God reigning the world and putting it to rights has with Jesus entered human history and therefore we are to come and live under his reign. Thirdly, following Jesus' enthronement at the right hand of the Father after his death and resurrection, the apostles and prophets and, particularly, the apostle Paul, proclaimed the gospel of the victory and enthronement of Jesous Christos to Kyrios kai Soter hemon, Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Mind you, those were titles used only for Caesar.

The Apostle Paul as an evangelist understood himself to be a servant or slave of Jesus Christ, an enemy of God whose execution had been stayed, and as he says here a prisoner of Jesus Christ, sent to the Gentiles to proclaim the gospel of the victory, enthronement, and lordship of Jesus Christ the Lord and Saviour. He would go into towns and cities first to Jewish synagogues and then to the marketplace and like a Senate Crier he would proclaim the gospel which would have sounded something like this: “Jesus Christ is Lord over all creation and he has saved it from sin and death. Jesus Christ is the only true Son of God. He was born a descendent of the greatest Judean king, David, to whom the one true God promised long ago that one of his descendents would reign Israel forever. On earth Jesus Christ was rejected by his own people and though pronounced innocent by Pontius Pilate they mockingly enthroned him on a Roman cross to be the atoning sacrifice for our sin and yet, by resurrection from the dead he was publicly and powerfully shown to be the one true Son of God. Jesus Christ has won the greatest victory of all. By his death and resurrection he has defeated sin and death. Jesus Christ has ascended into heaven where he is exalted and enthroned at the right hand of God our Father and from there through the power of the Holy Spirit he reigns on earth eternally. All peoples, Jew and Gentile alike, are called to serve him under his glorious reign of love and forgiveness. The eternal inheritance promised to the Jews now belongs to everyone. The mystery of God's plan for the world has been made known. Jesus will return soon for his Triumph and assume his throne here on earth bringing in forever the Reign of God. At that time all of creation will be made new and all peoples will be raised from the dead and judged according to how they have served Jesous Christos to Kyrios tou pantou tou kosmou (Jesus Christ the Lord of all the universe). All is forgiven. Everyone in Christ Jesus receives the free gift of the Holy Spirit and is made New Creation now. Come! Join with us and share in your inheritance now. Live now with us enlivened by his Spirit in the true freedom of salvation. Grace and peace be to you from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.”

This gospel of Jesus Christ announces something new that God has irrevocably done. In, through, and as Jesus Christ our Lord the Trinity has delivered, has saved his creation from sin and death. Jesus is Lord over all things and all peoples and in him by means of union with him in the Holy Spirit this salvation is being enacted right now upon us. Moreover, this gospel is a divine gospel, a word of God inspirited with the Holy Spirit which does not return to him having not accomplished the Trinity's purpose in speaking it, it has the power to save, to deliver persons from the realm of darkness into the Reign of God. At the very proclaiming of this Gospel of Jesus Christ the Son of God people such as yourselves have inexplicably come to have faith in and display faithfulness to the Lord Jesus Christ. People such as yourselves have suddenly found themselves transformed in heart and having personal knowledge of the love of God in Christ Jesus. Wherever we proclaim this gospel people such as yourselves have experienced themselves as being personally summonsed by God to live under Jesus' Reign and in his grace. Through the indwelling and in-working of the Holy Spirit people such as yourselves are being drawn together to form new communities called the church where we live according to the Reign of Christ embodying his love. The Holy Spirit acts in and by means of the proclamation of the gospel to save people now, in the very present, so that by means of this newly created community embodying Christ Jesus all rulers and powers are getting a glimpse of what the wisdom of God looks like.

The gospel is the proclamation of the good news that the Triune God of grace has saved his creation and everything and everyone in it from the futility of sin and death. The declaration was signed in Jesus’ obedient life, his death on the cross, his resurrection, and his ascension to the right hand of God the Father where he now reigns. He is Lord of all creation. Therefore, we in Christ now are presently being saved from sin and death, set free to live under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. For freedom Christ has set us free. The question to us now is not whether or not we rationally believe this Gospel so that we can be entitled to its outcome. Rather, since salvation is the New Creation reality enacted in and by Jesus Christ, the question to us is are we going to live our freedom in Christ. Are we going to live our freedom in Christ as stewards of his grace or are we going to sit back in fear and continue to live like slaves to sin and death? Are we just going to continue to live like everyone else around us or are we going to live in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ proclaiming and administrating his grace?

If living under the reign of Jesus Christ is our aim, then we need the church and to be involved in the church. The church is the place on earth where God’s grace is present and administrated. To participate in the life and mission of a Christ-centered church is participation in the Reign, the Lordship of Jesus Christ. God the Father through Jesus Christ the Son our Lord in the power of the Holy Spirit by means of the proclamation of the Gospel has made us to be like Paul, administrators or stewards of the Trinity's grace which is his presence with us, his favour bestowed upon us, and his acting on our behalf. God’s presence, his favour, and his acting on behalf of people is here in the midst of Christian fellowship and we are entrusted to see to its proper administration. We, the church of Jesus Christ, are the living result of the living word of God which is and undergirds the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Therefore, our task is that of living our lives together in a way that is worthy of the good news that Jesus Christ is Lord, the Lord who truly does save, and the Lord who does not behead his enemies at his Triumph. Rather, he forgives them and makes reconciliation with them. That, my friends, is the way we are to be towards each other and everybody as the community that embodies the gospel of Jesus Christ. And there's more. Since Jesus Christ is Lord and Saviour, he offers healing from addictions of all sorts, from materialism and greed, from hatred and unforgiveness, and from shame and guilt. The old life really is gone, a new has begun. Friends, come to him. Amen.