Pastoral Letter 206
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Grace and peace to you all.
We are one more week closer to the crucifixion event of Jesus and celebrating His triumphant resurrection on Easter morning. This is the fifth week of Lent, and we are reflecting on what we really need in life cannot be earned and fashioned by our own efforts, rather it can only be received as a gift of God. A gift that comes to all those who give up trying to grasp it, trying to fashion it, trying to take it; a gift that comes to all who follow Jesus, and with Him – who walked among us as one who cared for the living and sought to restore them to the ocean of God’s love.
As we get closer to the Holy Week and retell the story of His suffering and death, let us remember that all those things happened by His grace and because of His unconditional love. Jesus gave His life as a ransom for our sins, misbehaviour, guilt and faults. He paid our penalty willingly giving His life to save us from condemnation and gave us a chance to be the children of God and the people of God. What an amazing grace demonstrated in the ultimate sacrifice. We are going to reflect on this on Good Friday, as we come together for Worship Service at the usual time 9:30 am.
Tomorrow, I will be at the Willoughby Armenian Evangelical Church for the Armenian Missionary Association of Australia’s (AMAA) Sunday Worship and to preach. Our friend, Bob Minton, will cover for me, leading the Service and preaching. Please make a note that there will be no Morning Tea, because the hall will be set for the AMAA’s Annual Fundraising Luncheon, and the kitchen will be busy as the caterers will do their preparations. If you wish to join the Luncheon tomorrow, please talk to Penny.
Our Bus trip to Wentworth Falls Lake is on next Wednesday 20 March at 9:00 am. Please put your name down on the sheet if you plan to join us on the trip and make sure that you are here before 9:00 am.
Please continue to pray for those who are going through difficult and tough time, seeking God’s presence, help and healing.
If you are not able to join us tomorrow, please light a candle and join us following the attached Order of Service.
Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.
Here are some prayer points for this week:
- Pray for this Lent season, as we ponder and reflect examining our faith in Christ.
- Pray for the Middle East, and the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
- Pray for the people Artsakh who are refugees in different parts of Armenia facing many challenges.
- Pray for the AMAA as they plan their annual Fundraising Function to support the Artsakh refugees.
- Pray for the poor, the sick, the struggling and the stressed.
- Pray for those who are going through a difficult time with health and financial issues.
- Pray for Virginia as she undergoes chemotherapy treatment.
- Pray for our church and our future plans as we seek God’s guidance.
Best Regards
In Christ
Krikor
MESSAGE
“The Star Thrower”
John 12:24
Let us pray!
O Lord, we pray, speak in the calming of our minds and in the longings of our heart. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen!
There is a story in a book called the UNEXPECTED UNIVERSE about a man called the Star Thrower. The story is by the late Loren Eiseley and it goes like this:
On a beautiful tropical beach occasionally the tide and the surf would be just right, and they would combine, and cause a lot of shellfish to be cast far up onto the beach. Some of these shellfish were very beautiful, and so after they were cast up on the beach professional collectors and sellers would descend on the beach and swoop up all the shells to take them home where they would boil them and clean out all the flesh of the animals inside them and then sell the shells to tourists. Some of the shells were very valuable for they were very rare, and a lot of money could be made by a diligent collector.
One morning, after the moon and the wind had been just right, and many shellfish had been tossed up on the beach, a man was seen at the far end of the beach all by himself, picking up starfish one by one and throwing them back into the sea. Curious about what he was doing with the starfish while so many other people were busy collecting the shellfish, someone went over to him and asked him if he too collected things on the beach.
“Only like this“, he replied, “I collect only for the living“. And throwing another starfish back into the sea he said – “See, one can help them…”
He was asked how what he was doing could make a difference in the face of all the collecting going on. As he threw another starfish back into the sea he turned and said, “It made a difference to that one.”
I think that this story has a lot to say to us about Jesus and about ourselves. You see, in the midst of this world most people exploit things for their own personal benefit, they take every advantage to get ahead, to gain more than they already have, and even the things of exceptional beauty are not exempt.
Given the right circumstances – people rush to pick up that which is suddenly and unexpectedly made available, ignoring, meanwhile, the suffering that is all around them in their hurry to look after themselves.
Jesus was a star thrower. He moved among us – who are like the dying starfish, longing for the ocean from which they have been tossed – and instead of taking what He could from that ocean, instead of seeking to enhance and enrich His own life, He paid attention to those who were in need, He collected for the living, He helped them instead of Himself.
In obedience to a higher law Jesus came among us to rescue and reclaim lost souls, to set them free from the power of sin and death by returning them to the ocean of God’s love, God’s law, God’s power. He came to restore wholeness to those who lay helpless and stranded upon the shore of life because either the tide and wind had cast them there, or – as is so often the case with us, but not so often in the case of starfish, because they had thoughtlessly and foolishly stranded themselves on the shore.
And Jesus did this, at cost to Himself. As he said to a man who thought to follow Him: “Foxes have holes, and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head“.
Jesus renounced everything for the sake of bringing life to those around Him: His family, His home, and finally, His very life he lay down so that others might live, so that others might know the blessings of God, so that others might be returned to the ocean of God’s love.
Some might say – the cost of this is too high to expect of us, we are not Jesus, we do not have the special breaks that He had. And it is true that we are not Jesus, but we are called to follow him, and to have His mind within us.
And it is true too – that Jesus had some special breaks, but God has promised these very same breaks to us, if we but would walk with Jesus as He walked with us. The power of Jesus, the love of Jesus, the compassion of Jesus, the joy and the sorrow of Jesus, and the life everlasting of Jesus, are all available to us – for the asking and the wanting, if we but follow Him, if we are but willing to walk as He walked, and die as he died, in obedience to the Father.
Jesus said – “Unless a kernel of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains but a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds. The man who loves his life in this world will lose it, but the man who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life”.
This is part of the law of God – given in the new covenant; the law that is written upon our hearts, and which is fruitful in us, but if we allow ourselves to hear it and to heed it. But too often we are like those spoken of in the book of Hebrews, “while we ought to be teachers of spiritual truth, we end up needing someone to teach us the elementary truth of God’s word all over again; we need someone to draw our attention to that which is written within us, and is very so apparent in the structure of our world – if we only have the eyes to see”.
Jesus knew this inner law of God, this law that states that the more we seek for ourselves, the more attached we become to the life we have, the more we seek to avoid pain and suffering, the more we ignore the needs of others and seek instead to meet our own, the more wretched we become and the closer to death we are.
Jesus did not want the pain of the cross – He did not want death, He prayed to God that the cup would pass him by — as do we. Nor can we imagine that Jesus felt good about how His family doubted Him, and His friends betrayed Him, but even so Jesus was faithful to law of life. He knew that by caring for others, by putting the love of God and neighbour ahead of his own desires that God would be glorified, that many who were lost would be found, and that he would be raised up – not just on a cross of suffering, but on a cross of glory as well.
What profits it a man to gain the whole world, but loose his soul.
There are so many around us today with lost souls, they cling desperately to their families, they crave acceptance and love and hope to find it by gaining power and influence, or by simply doing whatever anyone else asks, no matter how good or bad it may be for them, or for the one that has asked it of them. Others drug themselves into a stupor to avoid the pain they feel – they use the wonderful things God has given us to conquer physical pain with, or the things that God provides for simple enjoyment, to deaden in themselves all feeling, for they do not like themselves, nor do they find joy in the world.
There are so many who hold so tightly onto their lives in fear, that they refuse to experience their lives in all the fullness that is available to them – in both the good times and the bad times. They are turned in on themselves and their own needs, rather than turned outward to the world.
Think, my friends, of the people we have the most difficulty with, – of those whom we do not like, and find it hard to love…think of those whom we pity and – when we have the strength and grace to love them, find it so hard to in fact do so.
Do not many of them share this in common? Are they not wrapped up in themselves, clinging to things that others have put aside whether it be resentments and hates and fears, or more simply and just as difficult to deal with, an inflated estimate of themselves? And who do we admire? Who do we glorify in our heart of hearts? Is it those who win the lottery, or those who are famous for building some great company or winning some great war? Or do we glorify and admire deep within us those who show true love for others? Those who have accepted us and others in their weaknesses as well as in their strengths.
Do we not admire those, and sometimes even gently chide those, who give of themselves and ignore what we think their own needs are or should be? Don’t we want to hug and encourage them and thank them for what they do? Don’t we want to give them a bit of what they give others?
Jesus put the truth very strongly at times, those who love their lives will lose them, but those who hate their lives in this world will save them and keep them unto eternal life. But that truth is meant to grab your attention, and to remind you that you yourself often stand in the way of what God has in mind for you to see and experience.
So often when walking in the forest – all the lumberjack sees are trees that are ripe for harvesting, all the carpenter sees are the different kinds of wood for different kinds of furniture and buildings, all the hunter sees is the places in which animals might hide when the season is open, and all the farmer sees is fertile land that could benefit from clearing.
But the forest is a wondrous place: full of magic, full of beauty, full of life, full of God’s presence for those who walk in it with eyes free to see it; with hearts free of the desire to make it into something that meets their own needs – though well it may meet those needs.
What I am saying to you here today is simply this, what we really need in life cannot be grasped by us, it cannot be fashioned by our own desperate efforts, it cannot be taken by us from the shelf in the store, rather it can only be received as a gift of God. A gift that comes to all those who give up trying to grasp it, trying to fashion it, trying to take it; a gift that comes to all who follow Jesus, and with Him – love God and those around them that God has entrusted to their care. Jesus was a star thrower, He walked among us as one who cared for the living and sought to restore them to the ocean of God’s love.
Because He was faithful in this, God was glorified by those around Jesus – those who felt his care and His compassion. They praised God for what Jesus said and did and for the love that he poured out on them, and they in turn gave back to Him.
Love given is love multiplied, love only taken is love lost.
God himself glorified Christ upon the cross, He multiplied the work that Jesus did on earth, rewarding Him for His faithfulness by granting to all who call upon His name, and who walk in His way, forgiveness for their sins and life everlasting.
Jesus was a seed — like you and me. He was a seed which did not stay lifeless in the bag, but which instead fell to the ground and gave up all that made Him a single seed, thereby giving life to others.
Like the star thrower, He could have enriched Himself in this world, but He chose instead to follow the law of love. In doing so Jesus conquered evil and destroyed the power of sin and death.
Empty yourselves of your desire to save your life as it is, – turn to Jesus and call upon His name and His strength, that you might become a seed that instead of remaining lifeless in the bag, falls to the ground and receives new life, and gives new life to the world.
AMEN!
Bob Minton