Holy Relationships with God and Each Other

Catechetical Sermon Three- Relationship and Incarnation
Preached at St. John’s November 7th, AD MMX

What exactly do you look for in a relationship? I remember a few years back when one of our acolytes, who will remain nameless and is now graduated and off to start her life as an adult, asked one of our older lay readers, who will also remain nameless, a very straightforward question while we were all standing at the altar during the service. She innocently said, “Are you hot?” He replied, “No, but I was thirty years ago.” And the question remains, what do you look for in a relationship? Our answers may differ in a few specifics, and they may mature a bit with time, but I daresay that our hopes and dreams, and our aspirations probably have a lot in common. All of us want to be loved. We want to matter to someone. We want someone who will respect us, and would never knowingly embarrass us or hurt us. We want to be safe and secure, and not have to worry that our special friend will ever leave us for someone who is more interesting or better looking. We want someone who will be interested in what we are interested in, and who will laugh with us and care about what we care about. There are a few other things, but that is the heart of the matter.
Our first catechetical lecture , you may remember, spoke about the authority that love brings to us all. Last week, we talked about how the Holy and Blessed Trinity models for us the nature of true Christian Community. This week, I would like for us to examine how the Incarnation of Jesus the Christ shows us the true nature of two kinds of relationships, the one we can have with God, and the ones we ought to have with each other.
Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth, a life and blood man who was born of Mary of Nazareth, was and is the incarnate Son of the ever-living God, the fulfillment of all the Old Testament prophesies, and the God given sacrifice for the sin of the world. Christians believe that He is fully God, because he was conceived by the Holy Ghost, and fully man, because he was born of the Blessed Virgin Mary, His mother. Christians believe that the Gospels of Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John, and the first few verses of the Acts of the Apostles, give a reliable and historical account of his activities here on earth. Christians also believe that the Old and New Testaments of the Holy Bible give us insights into who He was, and into the nature of His mission. We also believe that these Bible truths are summarized in the Apostle’s, Nicene, and Athanasian Creeds, all of which are found in The Book of Common Prayer. In short, the Incarnation means that Jesus is who the Bible says he is and that He did what the Bible said he did. That is a very clear summary of what Christians believe about the Incarnation. But what does it mean for you and for me? I think it might be helpful today to examine that question under two headings. First, What does the Incarnation say about what kind of relationship God offers each and every one of us? Second, What sort of relationship does Jesus model for us as we attempt to live with each other?
Before we move to the examination of these two lessons offered us by God, we ought to consider a question that may have already arisen in some of your minds. “How can I really believe that all of this is true?” People asked the same question in the first century of the Christian era. Paul was blunt when he said that there were hundreds of eye witnesses to what we might call the “Christ Event.” He went on to say that many of them were still living. And then he said, “If you don’t believe me, go and ask them.” In essence, St. Paul was employing the same criteria in his “Truth Model” that the Bishops and Fathers of the Church employed as they worked to determine the canon of Scripture, that is, as they prayerfully sought to determine which books would be accepted as Scripture and which would not. First, they said, the book must beyond any doubt have been written by an eyewitness or his amanuinsis, or personal secretary. Second, it must be of consistent belief with the books of the Old Testament, for God is one, and unchanging. Third, to be accepted, the Holy Spirit must have borne witness to the truth of the scroll by causing it to be used throughout the churches of the world. I fear this may be a grave disappointment to devotees of the history channel or A&E, but there simply was no conspiracy, and there was no power play. Godly people employed the rules of good scholarship to check and double check the historical truth of the documents involved. They came up with a list of twenty seven books which we call the New Testament.
Now, back to the question at hand. What kind of relationship does God offer each and every one of us? All of us can relate to those stories which abound in the Bible of people who made a hash of their lives. They squandered opportunities and made bad decisions, sometimes out of ignorance, and sometimes out of pure willful cussedness. And they paid dearly for those decisions. We call all of that the sinful nature of mankind. But God made us in His image, with a rational mind, and the capacity to love and be loved, and the ability to sense His presence among us, and to know right from wrong. When He looked at us, He said, “That is good!” And even after we had made such a hash of things, He determined to come up with a way which would preserve our dignity by acknowledging our personal responsibility, and at the same time would shower us with His eternal, completely unmerited, and never-ending love. This plan was put into effect when Jesus came to live and die and be raised again as one of us! “So God loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoso believeth in Him should not perish, but have everlasting life.” Note that He did not say, whoso liveth up to the standard, or whosoever is worthy, or whosoever is without sin. We were dead in trespasses and sin, estranged from God, alone and relying on our own wits and resources, and realizing a bit more every day that our resources were not sufficient to meet our needs. And God said, “I will send my Son, who will serve the sentence for every felony and misdemeanor and selfish word and evil thought any of them have ever had. I know they will struggle, but I love them so much that I will waive all of the qualifications. My son will cover for them all, if only they will keep faith with me by believing that I love them enough to have sent Him to do this thing.” “Such love, such wonderous love, such love, such wonderous love, That God should love a sinner such as I, How wonderful is love like this?” “And can it be, that I should gain, an interest in my Saviour’s love? Died He for me, who caused His pain? For me , who Him, to death pursued? Amazing love, how can it be, that Thou my God, shoulds’t die for me.” Imagine being loved by someone so much that they would put away all of those ugly things that you have said or done or thought throughout the entire course of your life, imagine that they would accept you as you are, and give you the opportunity to live beyond the guilt and shame and to grow into conformity with God’s revealed way of peace and harmony and contentment and joy. It is the relationship God offers to us all if only we will believe in Jesus, that He has come among us and done those things which the Bible records. And so with that man so many centuries ago, we cry out, “Lord, I believe! Help Thou my unbelief.”
And what of our second question. “ What sort of relationship does Jesus model for us as we attempt to live with each other? He loved us so much that he was willing to go up to Jerusalem, even though He knew that He would be denied and rejected by those He came to save, by those He loved so much. Can you continue to love a child who has spurned and embarrassed you? Can you continue to pray faithfully for a friend or a former spouse who has betrayed you and walked away with mean-spirited impunity? Can you love another person so much that you willingly put your own plans and dreams on hold for their well being? Can you do unto others as you would have them do unto you, even when you know that they probably will not? Can you respond to another in kindness and gentleness, and make them feel safe and secure? Can you love another person enough to honestly and openly discuss with them those shortcomings that everyone sees but they themselves, and can you do it with such sensitivity and love that they never doubt how much you care for them? Can you listen and really care, and be as interested in the events and thoughts of another as you are in your own? Are you willing to lay down your life for anyone? And can you give another person a second, or third or seventh, or seventy times seventh chance? This is the way of Jesus, and it is dangerous and counter-intuitive. By our lack of guile and our humility, we are called to overcome all the ways of sin, the flesh, and the devil. We are called to walk in the way of Jesus. It ought to be said of us, as it was of Nathaniel, “Behold, an Israelite in whom there is no guile.”
Today, might we join our hearts in prayer that we might respond to God’s love by believing in our hearts and minds that which He has accomplished in our midst by sending Jesus to live and die among us, and to overcome death and become our Saviour. And might we seek every hour of every day to love one another even as Christ loved us, and gave himself for us. Let us stand as we confess our belief in the words of the Nicene Creed, found on page 327 of the Book of Common Prayer.