Scripture Passage

Colossians 1:1-20

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A Nation of Divisions

Good afternoon. It’s good to be with you in worship and I want to thank Rev. Kim

and the rest of the ministry staff here at St. Timothy’s for the invitation to speak this Sunday. I am blessed to have some long-time friends in this congregation, back from the time when I was a student at Knox College, over 30 years ago. I am also grateful to have known In Kee for many years and I have looked to him as a mentor and model for ministry. I bring you greetings from the General Assembly Office of the PCC where I started my new position as the Principal Clerk in July of last year. Before coming to Toronto, I was a minister in Vancouver for 6 ½ years

and before that, in Calgary for 22 ½ years.

How many of you watched the hockey game last night? The Leafs won… I guess that’s something of a rarity in the playoffs for the Maple Leafs, but hey, hope springs eternal, right? Maybe this is the year!!! It’s a funny thing about hockey. It used to be the quintessential Canadian thing. If you didn’t know anything about Canada, you still knew that it was cold here and that Canadians were good at hockey. Hockey is what makes us Canadian, eh? But when’s the last time a Canadian team won the Stanley Cup? Don’t worry, it wasn’t Toronto! It was Montreal in 1993, 30 years ago! But Toronto doesn’t have to go all the way back to 1967 to remember a championship. The Raptors won the NBA title only a few years ago in 2019. These days, especially in places like Toronto, there are probably just as many basketball courts as there are hockey rinks, maybe more, especially given the cost of playing hockey compared to basketball or soccer. “We the North,” isn’t a hockey slogan, it’s a basketball one!

But like the playoffs, there are still times when hockey unites us like no other sport. Every 4 years at the Winter Olympics the entire country goes nuts for hockey. Except for the last two winter Olympics when NHL players didn’t play for Canada. Do you even know who won the men’s hockey gold in Beijing and Pyeong Chang? Finland and Russia – who cares! But no Canadian will ever forget 2010 in Vancouver when Sydney Crosby scored the overtime winner against the US for the gold medal!

So, there are times when we as a country can get united behind something, but those moments seem increasingly fleeting.

In terms of our nationality, more often we seem these days to be a nation of divisions. English-French, East-West, liberal-conservative, and the Covid pandemic, which initially brought out the best in most Canadians ended up far too often only exacerbating our differences. Our assumptions about our culture, about what core convictions unite us, are fading. Things fall apart, the center cannot hold. Maybe you might know that that last sentence is from a poem called “The Second Coming” by William Butler Yeats. Yeats wrote that poem at the end of the First World War, the Great War as they called it. It was a war that tore apart the assumptions of modernity, that human progress would continue to evolve, ever upward, ever better. But instead, millions of people ended up dying horrible deaths on the battlefields of Europe. Yeats captured that sense of despair and despondency so poignantly in that phrase, things fall apart, the center cannot hold.

The center cannot hold

The center cannot hold. I think that this captures what seems to be so hard about a lot of things these days. There doesn’t seem to be a center that holds things together. The values we once took for granted, those things that used to define our identity as a nation, as a people, as a culture, they no longer do. Think about some of those things, family, marriage, gender issues, the roles that people inhabited, there no longer seems to be a center, a core. People used to be united in the sense that the idea of Canada was a good thing. But these days not everyone’s so sure.

Ask an indigenous person, those who are survivors of residential schools, whether they think Canada is such a good thing. The nuclear family used to be something that people agreed was a good and desirable thing. But we are learning that for a lot of people, single people, divorced people, single parent families, same sex people, the nuclear family was never what everyone made it out to be. And now it’s just one way of being a family of many ways.

All these things that used to unite people, that used to form our core, our center, now just form more things for people to argue about, to be polarized around. They now exist at our margins, and I wonder what now exists at our center, at the core, what is there that unites us? Things fall apart, the center cannot hold.

This is the anxiety that underlies much of our public discussion, whether it be about issues like Covid, immigration, economics, colonialism, sexuality, liberals vs. conservatives, republicans vs. democrats, there is such polarization that the center just can’t seem to hold. Yeats ends the first stanza of his poem with these words, the best lack all conviction, while the worst are full of passionate intensity. Doesn’t that sound a lot like today? John Toews, a Mennonite Brethren professor in a sermon he wrote over 25 years ago, spoke of the difference between two types of worlds, centripetal and centrifugal. A centripetal world is one that has a dominant center, the core is strong and defined. The center keeps things in place, keeps things from flying apart, like the sun’s gravity which keeps the orbit of the earth constant and stable. A centrifugal world is one in which there is no center and forces push everything toward the edges. Toews argued that in the late 60’s the center began to give way, and then collapsed. While he wrote of the culture of the U.S., this analysis would apply to our context as well. We moved away from a centripetal world to a centrifugal world, a world that has no center.[1]

And this is true of religion as well. Most of you might be too young to remember, but there was a time, not too long ago, when faith played a central role in shaping our cultural context.  Some of you might be old enough to remember when the Lord’s Prayer was recited to begin each school day. But in 1988 the Lord’s Prayer was removed from all Ontario public schools.  Some of you and your children will have no memory of prayer ever being part of your public school experience. You may also remember when stores were closed on Sundays, except Kim’s Convenience, and most people, whether they really believed it or not, still held an affiliation with a particular religious tradition, mostly Christian. But today, not only does the Christian faith play less and less a public role, the faith itself seems conflicted about what the center should be. The polarization we see in the broader culture is reflected as well in the church.

In Him All Things Hold Together

The passage we read from the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossian church needs to be required reading for our centrifugal world today. In a culture and in a church that seems to be living in a time when things fall apart and where the center cannot hold, the words of scripture point us to a different truth.

Paul points us to Jesus,

who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation,

in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 

In him all things in heaven and on earth were created, things visible and invisible,

whether thrones or dominions or rulers or powers,

all things have been created through him and for him. 

He himself is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

Did you hear that?  In him, in Jesus, all things hold together. In a world where things fall apart and the center cannot hold, in Jesus, all things hold together. The center, for the Christian, and for the world in which we live, isn’t a set of values, it isn’t reciting a prayer or sharing a cultural background, the center is a person, it is the person of Jesus Christ, the beloved Son of God,

in whom all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell.

As I said earlier, Yeats wrote his poem at the end of the World War I, but the anxiety and fear embodied in the idea of things falling apart and the center not holding isn’t only tied to one time and place. The phrase, things fall apart, the center cannot hold, was used more by commentators following the election of Donald Trump back in 2016 than it had been in the 30 years prior. Can you image what they’ll say if he wins again in 2024? And when Paul was writing to the Christians in Colossae, in what is today modern Turkey, the same fears and anxieties were present. Confused and afraid of the pressures they faced from those who insisted on human tradition and philosophy and the primacy of the elemental spirits of the universe,

they turned to things like angel worship and dwelling on visions. Whatever the source of our lack of center might be, the answer throughout the centuries has been the same, Jesus Christ.

So what is it about Jesus that makes him the center, what is it about Jesus that in him all things hold together?  What is it about Jesus that isn’t just what the world can say with better music and richer coffee?

Paul lays it out pretty clearly.

God has rescued us from the power of darkness

and transferred us into the kingdom of his beloved Son,

in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins…

and through him God was pleased to reconcile to himself all things,

whether on earth or in heaven, by making peace through the blood of his cross.

You see, things fall apart because we can’t hold it together, no matter how hard we try. Sooner or later the center will not hold because what we base it on isn’t lasting. The central problem of the human condition, the reason why there are and will always be things like wars and corruption and megalomaniacs is that we are a sinful people, we live in darkness, we are faced with a problem that no matter how hard we try, we are powerless to solve. And the central hope of the human condition is the fact that in Jesus Christ, God has made our redemption possible, God has moved us from darkness into the light, God has made possible for all the forgiveness of sins. In Jesus Christ, God was pleased to reconcile himself to all things and God has made peace with us through the blood of his cross.

Our Center

This is not stuff you will find on a Starbucks cup. Human philosophy will tell us that we can work out our own salvation but if the problem in inherent in us, if we ourselves are the problem,

then we can’t be the solution, it has to come from somewhere else, it has to come from God.  If we as the church and if we as the people of God, as disciples of Jesus, if we are seeking a center in life, if we are wanting something that will hold us together, we will only find it in Jesus Christ. The words of C.S. Lewis ring so true. Christianity, if true, is infinitely important. If false is of no importance. What it cannot be is moderately important. There is only one center and it’s not a legalism, not a doctrine or a dogma, it’s a person, it’s the Son of the Living God, in whom all things hold together.

To hold Christ at our center means that we will live in ways and embody things that the world will not understand or even accept. If our center, if our core is deeply rooted in Jesus Christ, if our center is held together in the knowledge that in Jesus we have redemption and forgiveness, in him we have been rescued from the power of darkness and been transferred to the light of his kingdom, if in Jesus we know that God has reconciled us to himself and that we are made to be at peace with God, if our center, if our core is strong and certain, we can be so much more gracious and generous at our edges. When we lack a strong center,

when we don’t have a core that’s rooted in anything lasting, we try to protect the margins. We feel that we can’t afford to lose the margins because if we do, then we risk losing everything. That’s what leads to the polarization of our culture today. If you lack a center, you fight like mad to preserve the margins. You defend the peripherals because you are afraid of what might happen if you get exposed. There’s no room for grace when there’s nothing at the center.

At the Margins

How many of you have watched the Netflix series, “Beef?” At first I thought it was a cooking show about Korean chefs, but it’s actually a dark comedy about two main characters, a Korean man named Danny and a Vietnamese woman named Amy, whose initial road rage incident turns into a series long beef with each other that leads to tragic consequences. I won’t tell you much more in case you haven’t seen it and want to, but I warn you, don’t watch it with your parents or if you have sensitive ears. What I can say is that I think one of the central issues in the show is the lack of a defined, healthy center for both main characters. Both Amy and Danny have huge unresolved issues in their lives that leave them undefined, unhealthy, even empty, at their core, at their center. That emptiness manifests itself in their refusal to let go of their beef against the each other, even when it turns nasty, crazy and violent. They won’t let go, they can’t lose, because they know that if they lose out there, out at their margins, there’s nothing left to fall back on, nothing at their center, no room for grace.

Some of us might be feeling the same way. We’re rigid at our edges, at the margins, where most of our daily interactions with others take place. And when there’s conflict, disagreement, polarization, we won’t back down, we don’t think we can afford to. Maybe it’s because we don’t know what would be left if we did. Maybe it’s because we’re not so sure what’s at our center, at our core.

But if we will be deeply rooted in Jesus our Lord and Saviour at our center, our interactions with others at the margins might be very different. We could be a people of forgiveness and mercy, a people of compassion and grace, we could be a people who love our enemies, turn the other cheek, we will do unto others as we would have them do unto us, and even if they don’t do unto us what we would want, we will still do to them what we know we should. We won’t need to seek only to win, no matter what the cost, because we know that there is a greater prize which has already been won for us.

People with a strong center have lots of room for grace.

Deeply Rooted

The center will hold because it is rooted in someone other than ourselves. The center will hold because our own vulnerabilities and weaknesses will not leave us afraid to risk. For the church, for Christians, to impact and shape our culture, our society, our nation, we need to be a people whose center is deeply rooted in Christ our Lord.

The church continues to have difficult conversations around challenging issues, as we should, but we can only have these conversations if we are first certain of our core, of our center. If we are not united at our core in preaching Jesus, if we are not united in proclaiming his Lordship in the life of the church, if we aren’t united in knowing that the primary message of the gospel is about redemption, forgiveness, reconciliation and peace with God through Jesus Christ, then all the conversations we need to have at our margins will be misguided and characterized by fear and divisiveness. If we don’t preach Jesus and his gospel as a church, if Jesus isn’t at our core, there’s nothing we can say to our culture that it can’t get elsewhere. If you can get the same truth from the Globe and Mail or the New York Times as you can get in scripture, then what’s the point of it all? This centrifugal world of ours needs communities for whom Jesus is the center, who will be deeply rooted in Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour. In a world and in a country and culture that too often feels like its unmoored, uncentered, the world needs churches and Christians for whom Jesus is our center, people who are strong at our core so that we can be generous and gracious at our margins, who will proclaim reconciliation and love, forgiveness of sin, in the name and by the person of Jesus Christ, who will redeem us from the power of darkness and bring us into his beloved kingdom.

May this congregation, St. Timothy PC, continue to be a blessing to so many people. And may you be willing to journey with others, even and especially with those with whom you don’t always agree. Thanks be to God for you, this faithful congregation of God’s people. And may you be a people for whom Jesus is your center, the one in whom all things hold together.

And to God be all the glory, now and forevermore, Amen!

 

 

Citations

[1] John E. Toews, Moving from Centrifugal to Centripetal.  directionjournal.org

Scripture Passage

Matthew 4:1-11

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Sermon Script

Temptation

We are in the middle of Lent. Lent is a period of 40 days, commemorating the 40 days Jesus spent fasting in the desert before his ministry. Even though we may reflect on Jesus’ suffering, it doesn’t have to be always dark and gloomy. In Eastern Orthodox, it is known as the season of “Bright Sadness.” Bright Sadness. I like that. It is sad but it is not hopeless sadness.

At the end of DARKNESS, there is a light waiting for us. At the end of TEMPTATION, there is a victory. At the end of DEATH, there is resurrection.

Life is not always good but life is not always bad either. Life is not always bright. There are times when life can be gloomy. But there are times when things are good too. The secret is how we deal with each situation with graciousness, graciousness to yourself and to others. There are valleys and hills in life.

Count Basie, American Jazz pianist said.

Learn to deal with the valleys and the hills will take care of themselves.

So you have to deal with your time of temptation well and that will help you find happiness in life.

Even Jesus was tempted. He was tired, hungry, and weak after 40 days of fasting. Satan knows when we are vulnerable. That is when Satan attacks us. That’s why he came to Jesus when he was at his weakest.

Temptation was a reality even for Jesus. Jesus had to overcome the hard time. Jesus did not have an easy life. He had to overcome life’s challenges.

So, when you go through your own trials, don’t get discouraged. Jesus had the same trials as you do. Living a good life doesn’t mean to have a problem free life. Temptations are always around us. They always find our most vulnerable time and attack us.

Three Faces

I am gonna talk about three faces of temptation today. These three things affect our lives deeply. You see these three in the story of Jesus’ temptation.

These three things are:

Worry, Doubt, and Greed.

Temptation has these three faces. Nobody is immune from these temptations. They take away joy from us. They cause problems in our lives and can even ruin us.

Worry

First Worry.

We worry about many things. Worrying has become our habit or lifestyle. It almost became a part of our lives. We worry about our health. We worry about our future. We worry about our children. We worry about problems. We worry about everything. Worries are endless.

More than anything else, we worry about our SURVIVAL. When Jesus was very hungry and vulnerable after 40 days’ fasting. He was not just hungry. 40 days’ fasting? His survival was at risk. Satan knows when to attack. Satan told him to change stone into bread. In other words, stop your fasting and eat. You need to survive to do God’s work, don’t you? A very tempting suggestion. Satan was tempting Jesus to worry about his survival.

Jesus said,

One does not live by bread alone,

but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. (Matthew 4:4)

What Jesus is saying is:

Satan, don’t worry about my survival. God will take care of my needs.

That is the best way to defeat our worries. Have a confidence that God will take care of your basic needs. There is nothing for you to worry about.

This is what Jesus said.

Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, or about your body, what you will wear. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air; they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? (Matthew 6:25-26)

And Jesus told us to do this.

But strive first for the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. (Matthew 6:33)

That was exactly what Jesus did in the wilderness.

Many times, our worries are not real. Researchers at Penn State University had an experiment on worry. The participants were asked to write whenever the worries came up to them. They studied this for 30 days.

The result? A whopping 91 percent of worries were false alarms. And of the remaining 9 percent of worries that did come true, the outcome was better than expected.

Worrying is a habit. A very bad habit. We develop this habit and it will make us live constantly with fear all the time.

Worrying doesn’t do any good. It only makes you feel fearful. It makes you shrink. It makes you feel small. And it makes you feel gloomy.

Since it is a habit, you can deal with it with a new habit. Whenever you worry, leave those worries in God’s hands. Make them as your prayer topics. As God takes care of birds in the air, God will take care of you. Focus on God, not on your worries. Learn to focus on God. Hear God’s word who tells you not to worry about your survival. We do not live by bread alone. We need God’s word.

Doubt

The second temptation is DOUBT. Doubt is another huge problem for many people. We doubt about God. We doubt about ourselves. Doubt makes us become cynical.

Doubting is like closing doors for yourself. Trusting is opening doors that take you into deeper mystery. But doubt is closing that door. Even Jesus could not do wonderful things in his home town because people didn’t believe him.

Jesus said to Satan,

Do not put the Lord your God to the test. (Matthew 4:7)

Don’t tempt me to doubt about God. Faith is a wonderful gift God gave to us. Through faith, we can see wonderful things in life. With the eyes of faith, what you see is very different. With faith, we can even do what is impossible.

Once a father came to Jesus because of his ill son. He asked Jesus in this way.

If you are able to do anything, have pity on us and help us…(Mark 9:22)

This is how Jesus responded.

If you are able!—All things can be done for the one who believes. (Mark 9:23)

During this Lent, try to build your faith. See what you can see. With faith, we see LIGHT behind the darkness. We see HOPE behind the despair. We see PEACE behind the war. We see REDEMPTION behind the judgment. We see RESURRECTION behind death.

Greed

The third one is the greed. It is the worst temptation. It causes the greatest damage on you. The other two mostly affect you only. But this one affects others too. Greed is desire for power and fame. This world is very much a victim of greed. There are so many fights, corruption, and violence because of greed.

Whatever greed touches, it turns into an ugly thing. As long as greed takes hold of you, you can never be a happy person. Greed is insatiable. It always makes you desire more. Once you become a slave to your greed, you will never be satisfied and you will never be happy.

Jesus told Satan,

Worship the Lord your God,

and serve only him. (Matthew 4:10)

The reason Jesus is talking about worship in the last temptation is because greed is very much connected with the worship of yourself. Greed is to make you worship yourself. Greed makes you want to be god. Behind greed, there is insecurity. Wanting to prove yourself to the world. As Quincy Jones said ego is an overdressed insecurity.

Worshipping God is not just what we do on Sunday It is not activities we do. Worshipping God means to let down our greed, deny ourselves and give ourselves to God. It is to stop being God. And be thankful. Ask yourself. Who do you worship? Yourself or God? Money or God?

Disciples followed Jesus at first because of the power they saw in Jesus. They saw Jesus’ miracles. They saw Jesus’ authority. So they followed Jesus. In other words, they followed their greed.

We studied in Mark. While following Jesus, they were debating with each other about who is greater. They all wanted to sit on Jesus’ right hand his left hand. They followed Jesus, following their own greed.

But at the end, they changed. They gave up their greed. They knew that it was like chasing emptiness, chasing a rainbow.

They found the beauty of serving. True happiness is not in having more power and fame but in serving others and serving God.

Let Us Overcome

This was what Jesus said,

For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. (Mark 10:45)

Pursuing power or showing power or proving himself was not Jesus’ way of living. Serving and giving himself away were Jesus’ way of living.

During this Lent, let us overcome these three temptations: Worry, Doubt, and Greed. Hopefully, we can all come out of this Lent stronger, being able to deal with three areas better.

Scripture Passage

Psalm 46

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Sitting Still

Be still and know that I am God.

How comforting this is! However, it is hard to be still. There is a war going on in Europe right now. It affects every body. It affects our life. But there is also a war within us. The world is in turmoil. And we are in turmoil. The storms are out there and the storms are within us. Even if we are SITTING STILL, we are not still. We are struggling with internal turmoil, uneasiness, worries and anxiety.

I realized people don’t want to sit still. When they sit still, all the negative thoughts come up from within and we don’t like it. We don’t want to face the turmoil within us. So we distract ourselves, doing all kinds of things. We make ourselves busy.

It’s not that you don’t have time to be still. You don’t want to do that because it is not a pleasant experience. And now you DON’T EVEN KNOW how to be still. We are scared of facing our own insecurities, our own darkness, and our own inadequateness. It is better to feel good than facing these unpleasant realities.

What Kind of Faith

So, being still is hard to do, I realized. To be still, you need faith. What kind of faith? The faith the psalmist expressed in the beginning.

God is our refuge and strength,

a very present help in trouble.

Therefore we will not fear, though the earth should change,

though the mountains shake in the heart of the sea;

though its waters roar and foam,

though the mountains tremble with its tumult. (Psalm 46:1-3)

We heard this passage a lot right after 911 in 2001 The whole world was shocked. US experienced tremendous turmoil and chaos. We saw the power of evil and darkness invading our personal life.

Martin Luther, the reformer, also saw the power of evil and darkness oppressing people. So he wrote a hymn inspired by this Psalm around 1527 and 1529.

A Mighty Fortress.

A mighty fortress is our God,

a bulwark (a Defensive Wall) never failing;

our helper he, amid the flood

of mortal ills prevailing.

And though this world, with devils filled,

should threaten to undo us,

we will not fear, for God has willed

his truth to triumph through us.

In the midst of turmoil, overwhelming power of evil, THEY BELIEVED THE POWER OF GOD. They saw the very present help in trouble.

We see wars around us but we believe in the power of God.

He makes wars cease to the end of the earth;

he breaks the bow, and shatters the spear;

he burns the shields with fire. (Psalm 46:9)

To be still, we need to have this faith. We need to trust God even though mountains shake and waters roar. God is our help in our trouble.

Rest

The world does not teach you how to be still. The world teaches you to be productive. We are moulded and shaped to be PRODUCTIVE but we are not nurtured to be still. The world teaches you how to be effective, productive, and capable. But the world does not teach you how to be still.

The world wants us to become like machines. But we are not a machine. We are not a robot. These days, the world also recognizes the importance of being still, so they emphasize on training your mind, mindfulness exercise, and how to focus. But the ultimate goal is to make you more productive and efficient.

Byung Chul Han, who is a Korean-born professor of philosophy and Cultural studies in Germany said this.

Sabbath rest does not follow creation; it brings creation to completion.

He says that God made Sabbath, the day of rest, not because he had nothing to do. He created Sabbath to COMPLETE the work of creation.

It is a similar idea of Abraham Heschel, a Jewish scholar, who wrote the book Sabbath. He said, Sabbath does not exist for 6 days but 6 days for Sabbath. We need to restore the importance of Sabbath in our lives. We need to establish the theology and the lifestyle of Sabbath.

Rest is the completion of our life.

Another Korean scholar at Standford University, Alex Soojung Kim Pang said this.

We think of rest as simply the absence of work, not as something that stands on its own or has its own qualities.

He is saying that rest is not merely a negative space in a life defined by toil and ambition and accomplishment.

If your work is your self, when you cease to work, you cease to exist.

Rest is not work’s adversary. Rest is work’s partner.

They all emphasize the importance of rest. Rest is completion of everything we do.

The Eternal Rest

That is how we Christians see death. Hearing the death of his friend, Lazarus, Jesus said this.

Our friend Lazarus has fallen asleep, but I am going there to awaken him. (John 11:11)

Sleep is a short death and death is a longer sleep.

When we finish our life here on earth, what completes our life is the rest, the eternal rest.

Linda, Ken, and Wain’s mother passed away last Tuesday. I went there on Monday to have the final worship with her. She passed away the next day. She lived a good life and went into the eternal rest. Her life has achieved completion.

Calm Water

Rest is not just being mindless, numb, and switching yourself off. Rest is not just physically taking a break. Rest is being still. Rest is to give your whole self in God’s hands. To be still, you need faith. How important it is and how much people struggle because they cannot really be still and have a true rest. They can’t sleep. They are struggling because of worries and anxiety. There is no peace in their minds. No matter how much they play, they don’t have this wonderful peace.

Jesus said this.

Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. (Matthew 11:28)

Coming to Jesus is the act of faith. You cannot just come to Jesus. You need faith to come to Jesus.

That is how John saw.

Everything that the Father gives me will COME TO ME, and anyone who comes to me I will never drive away (John 6:37)

No one can COME TO ME unless drawn by the Father who sent me; and I will raise that person up on the last day (John 6:44)

When you come to Jesus, Jesus will give you rest. Then you can be still. You will know that God is there to help you. You will know that God is your refuge and strength, and a very present help in trouble.

The mountains may shake and tremble and the waters may roar and foam, but you will be able to be still. These angry waters will become calm and become a river whose streams make glad the city of God.

Verse 4 is a very interesting verse.

There is a river whose streams make glad the city of God,

the holy habitation of the Most High. (Psalm 46:4)

There is no river in Jerusalem. And yet the Psalmist said that there is a river. It is a spiritual imagination.

In your life, there may be angry waters that roar and foam, but they will become calm and become a river whose streams make you glad.

Be still and know that I am God.

Scripture Passage

Luke 20:27-38

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Eternally Alive

Last week, I encountered many news of death. In Seoul, 이태원, so many young people lost their lives. Senseless death. Also in India, too many people were on the bridge which was not ready to take people. And it collapsed. In Seoul, at least 150 people died. In India, at least 135 people died. While listening to these sad stories of death, I read today’s passage. I saw a video of people in 이태원 before the accident. They had no idea of death coming to them. They were smiling and walking as though it was another normal day in that crowd. They were walking like sardines. There was only one policeman who was shouting to people not to go into the narrow alley. His face was filled with concern for the safety of people. He was the only one who was shouting and warning people.

In today’s passage, we hear a lot about being alive. It says we are alive. We are not dead, but alive.

Indeed they cannot die any more… (Luke 20:36)

Being children of the resurrection… (Luke 20:36)

Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive. (Luke 20:38)

Being Alive! How wonderful it is. We have the resurrection and we are eternally alive.

Sadducees

Sadducees did not believe this wonderful truth. In today’s story, we hear the debate between Jesus and the Sadducees. Because they didn’t believe in the resurrection, they attacked Jesus with a ridiculous story they made up. They tried to prove how senseless it was to believe in the resurrection. I understand that they could not accept the resurrection. It is hard to believe it. Still, many people don’t believe in the resurrection.

Sadducees misunderstood about the resurrection. To them, the resurrection was simply the continuation of the life they had. It was just the lengthening of the life they had. So they thought that they would get married and have kids and live in the same way.

But Jesus said this to them.

Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. (Luke 20:34, 35)

To Jesus, the resurrection was not just the repetition or the lengthening of the life they had. To Jesus, the resurrection was the transformation. To Jesus, the resurrection, was the change. You were dead but now you are alive.

The Power of Resurrection

Yes we experience death every day. We all become older, weaker, and in the end, we will perish. That is the life we know and that is the life we see. We see a lot of deaths around us. Many people become weaker, getting sick and die. That is what we see in our daily life.

But when St. Paul met Christ, he saw something different. He experienced the power of resurrection. Not only was the resurrection happened to Jesus, the power of his resurrection was working within Paul. It was not just the miracle he experienced on the road to Damascus that changed him. It was the power of the resurrection he experienced that changed him. Now he saw something different in his life.

So we do not lose heart. Even though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. (2 Corinthians 4:16)

So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new! (2 Corinthians 5:17)

For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. (2 Corinthians 5:1)

This was what St. Paul experienced. He experienced something wonderfully different about his life. You don’t just get older and weaker. You don’t just perish. He realized that the life within him regenerated itself continuously. He realized that this was what it meant to be alive.

Being Alive

That was what Jesus said in today’s passage.

Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive. (Luke 20:38)

God makes us alive. That is God we believe. In God, all of us are alive. Our souls will come alive. Our life will be awakened. Those who believe in God will not die.

This is what our Lord, Jesus said.

I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die. Do you believe this? (John 11:25, 26)

If there is no resurrection, we have no hope. Everything becomes meaningless and useless.

That was what St. Paul said.

If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied. (1 Corinthians 15:19)

If Christ has not been raised, then our proclamation has been in vain and your faith has been in vain. (1 Corinthians 15:14)

If Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile (1 Corinthians 15:17)

To St. Paul, the resurrection was the sure thing and everything. It was the very foundation of what he believed. Without the resurrection, everything would have fallen apart. His thoughts, his actions, his sacrifices, and his life. Because he believed in the resurrection, death could not overpower him any more.

That’s why he was able to boldly proclaim to the death.

Death has been swallowed up in victory.

Where, O death, is your victory?

Where, O death, is your sting?

The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. (1 Corinthians 15:54-57)

In Christ, no more death! That was what Christ came to show us.

…in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. (John 1:4)

Nothing could take away life that was in Christ. Nothing could destroy life that was in Christ. Even death could not defeat life that was in Christ. That is being alive.

The Living Power

When you are connected with Christ, you are connected with the life force. The life force will move within you powerfully. The eternal life does not become a theory. The power of the eternal life will work within you.

Fear of death will slowly lose its grip on you. Victory of life will take over your life. You will see hope in the hopeless situation. You will see the light in the darkness. You will see power in desperate situation.

When you fall into the unbreakable chain of depression, slumps, and lack of confidence, let the power of resurrection work in your life. Be connected with Christ and taste the power of life hidden within him. That is what it means to be alive. You will come out of your personal slump.

We live in a difficult time. Economically it is not so good. Everything is so expensive but our economy is not any better. My brother told me that is called stagflation.

Personally you may face challenging times. But we can all come out of these slumps when we experience the power of resurrection. That is being alive. Sadducees never experienced the power of being alive. To them, the resurrection was just a ridiculous theory. For us, the resurrection is the living power. Be alive in Christ!