Dear Readers and Listeners, Friends in Jesus Christ,
Our watchword is taken from Psalm One Hundred and Forty Seven, verse 3, “He heals the broken-hearted and ties up their wounds,” (NRSVB). This praise psalm tells of God who is gathering together the exiles, lifting the humble and down-trodden and giving them reason to sing a thanksgiving song. God is the one who makes peace on the borders and brings forth the harvest of wheat, for he is the God who calls the rain and the snow, and by his word he melts the ice. He is the Lord who calls each star in this mighty universe by name, and they obey him. The offering that we can bring our God, Creator of the Universe, is to reverently and worshipfully fear him, and trust and hope in his loving-kindness and mercy.
When we read the psalms we are drawn into a renewed awe of the work and word of God. We grow so accustomed to the cycles of the days, months and years, the information that we are fed and the routines that mere mortals enforce, that we lose sight of the spiritual perspectives that we have to appropriate in order to stay hopeful and joyous. The Good News, the Gospel, is for everyone, and it teaches that those who worship God will honour their neighbours and think of their welfare before their own. They will consider what Christ did, he emptied himself of his divinity, and took on the flesh of humanity and became weak, and suffered on behalf of us. He did this in order to break the bonds of enmity between humans and humans, and humans and God. The empathy of Jesus with every person who suffered, and his willingness to touch each one who came to him, and heal them, is the pattern of living that has been given to us as example. Through the Spirit of God, he has given us words of healing that we can speak to those who have broken hearts. He has given us his word, let we share the Gospel with those around us. We live in broken times and our acts of speaking hope and calming words have power, for God has equipped us to speak his words, and “His words run very swiftly” to accomplish his promises. His words are not dead letters in a book, but living and active creating hope and peace.
Jesus was constantly drawn into debates by the Pharisees. They sought to trick him into text explications of scripture that would be counter to what they taught and hoped to fault him in the presence of his followers, in order to stop him teaching the people. However, at every debate, Jesus interpreted scripture in such a manner that his followers and listeners understood the works and words of God more clearly, and started to question the Pharisees’ teachings. One of these occasions occurred when Sadducees, who did not believe in the resurrection, came to ask Jesus questions regarding levirate marriages described in the Mosaic Laws. They posed a scenario of a wife who was given in marriage to brothers who passed on, one after the other, and asked Jesus whose wife would this woman be in the life-here-after. Jesus explained that in God’s sight no-one has died, only in the body, but not in spirit, and therefore all are alive. He further told the Sadducees that one cannot comprehend the things of heaven using the analogies and facts of living on earth. Heaven is a domain where things will be utterly different. God is the God of the Living. In our final departure services we celebrate the fact that we shall see our loved ones again, for they live with God. Jesus affirms to us today, “Now God is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive,” Luke Chapter 20 verse 38, (NRSVB).
Who are the “them” to whom Jesus is referring? It is all those who have passed on from this life, to the next. From the beginning of the Ages, until the End of the Ages, God calls his children home, for he has prepared their place in the Heavenly Jerusalem, where there will be no tears, sickness, strife and death. We can rejoice with the psalmist who tells us in Psalm One Hundred and Forty Two verse 5, “O Lord, you are my refuge, my portion in the land of the living,” (NRSVB). God has given us time to live in this world, a portion, and he will sustain us, and give us his guidance and protection so that we will be able to fulfil the work and mission that he has assigned to us to achieve in the land of the living. God has entrusted his mission to his children on earth, “Go then and make disciples of all the nations!”
Father, we thank you that you have made us wonderfully and have given us a your God-ordained mission to tell the world of your loving-kindness and mercy through the work and word of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, who has given us life, life-everlasting with you, Amen.