Pastoral Letter 210
Dear Members of St. Andrew’s Uniting Church, Friends and Adherents,
Grace and peace to you all in the name of our Resurrected Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ.
Last Sunday, we gathered to celebrate the glorious resurrection of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ from the tomb and reminded ourselves, that being risen from dead, He has given us the possibility of eternal life. Without the resurrection and the empty tomb, there is no salvation and eternal life. Because Jesus died on the cross, was buried in the tomb, but has risen from the dead, we have been reconciled with God and the broken relationship has been reestablished.
This Sunday, we will reflect on Jesus appearing to His disciples a week later, when they were gathered in the house filled with fear and bewildered. Jesus appeared to them and to the doubting Thomas, to make sure that they understand what had happened and their responsibility to go out and proclaim the good news of salvation, which was sealed on the cross with the blood of Jesus and affirmed by His glorious resurrection.
Please join us tomorrow to worship with us and give thanks to God for His sacrificial love demonstrated through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. If you are not able to join us, please light a candle, have a small roll of bread and a small cup of wine for communion and join us from home following the attached Order of Service.
The April – May Newsletter and the Roster is ready. You will find hard copies on the table in the hall foyer, as well as you can access it from our website.
Mark, our organist, is on leave until 28 May and will be back on duty at the organ on 9 June. We wish Mark and Barbara a safe and wonderful trip across Canada. Pray for their safe trip.
Sadly, we heard that Molly McConville passed away peacefully in Bowral on Friday 5 April aged 87. The funeral service will be held here, in our church. I will let you know the details as soon as I finalise the arrangements with her nieces, Robyn and Alison Montgomery. Pray for Molly’s loved ones, who are mourning her loss and arranging her funeral according to her wishes.
Continue to pray for Virginia and remember in your prayers Max Thorpe, who is in Longueville Hospital.
Please continue to pray for those who are going through difficult and tough times, seeking God’s presence, help and healing and the victims of the recent Taiwan earthquake.
Please let me know if you or anyone else has prayer points.
TOMORROW DAYLIGHT SAVING ENDS! Please turn your clocks one hour backwards.
Here are some prayer points for this week:
- Pray for peace, harmony and good to prevail the earth.
- Pray for the Middle East, and the conflict between Israel and Palestine.
- Pray for the victims of the Taiwan earthquake.
- Pray for the people Artsakh who are refugees in different parts of Armenia facing many challenges.
- Pray for the poor, the sick, the struggling and the stressed.
- Pray especially for Virginia as she undergoes her treatment seeking God’s help and healing.
- Pray for Molly’s loved ones as they mourn her loss.
Best Regards
In Christ
Krikor
MESSAGE
The Week After
John 20:26
One Easter Sunday morning, a minister looked out on his congregation and noticed many people who had not been there for a very long time. Before he began his sermon he said: “Since this will probably be the last time I see many of you for a while, let me be the first to wish you ‘Merry Christmas‘ “.
Today, is sometimes called Low Sunday. This term has a perfectly respectable origin. We can think of Easter Day as the start of a high note of the eight days that runs through today and thus contains two Sundays. The first of these Sundays is Easter Day, the greatest of all Christian feasts.
Today, the other Sunday in the Easter or Easter 2, is by comparison Low Sunday and usually, attendance on this Sunday is not as high as on Easter Day.
Also, this Second Sunday of Easter is known as Thomas Sunday. The Gospel reading for today is always the story of how Thomas became to believe in the risen Christ. This Sunday features Thomas as a doubter, hence the origin of the term “Doubting Thomas“.
We are “A Week Later”.
We celebrated the glorious resurrection of Christ, we rejoiced for the promise of salvation and eternal life.
A week ago, we said, “It is finished”, “He is not here” and yet “He is here with and within us”.
The questions we should ask today is:
“Is it the end or a new beginning?”
“Where do we stand and what we want to do?”
“Are we supposed to leave and go with no hope?”
A week later, Jesus is still well and alive and He is here to greet us and say that He will always be with us.
Jesus’ appearance to the disciples in today’s Gospel reading is actually the second time He appeared to them after His resurrection. He made three promises to them this time:
• “Peace be with you.“
• “Receive the Holy Spirit.“
• “Do not doubt but believe.“
The last promise was a response to Thomas’ doubt. Faith comes in different ways and different intensities to different people. People have different needs and find various routes into faith.
The “locked door” referred to in the Gospel represents the fear the disciples had, but it also represents Christ’s power, because nothing can stop Him. The disciples have Christ’s peace in spite of persecution by a world that hated them. Those who have faith in Christ today and show it publicly also have Christ’s peace in a modern world that more often hates them. One only has to look at how Christians are treated in some Middle Eastern and Asian countries to see concrete examples of this hatred as expressed by persecution.
When Jesus said to the disciples, “Peace be with you“, the kind of peace He gave them was the one set in motion by forgiveness. The disciples’ future, along with Christ’s forgiveness, was their main qualification for being chosen to continue Christ’s work. Their fear showed their human weakness. Forgiveness was the core of the message Jesus gave to His disciples as He sent them out into the world.
He gives us the same message today. We must all be ready to mediate God’s grace to all those who are ready to receive it. Christ stands as our representative, pleading our case before God. He re-establishes our broken relationship with God.
Christ’s promise to “receive the Holy Spirit” is an affirmation of the Great Commission. The authority of one who is sent is the same as the authority of the one who sent Him. God is present in Christ’s work, and Christ will be present in the work of the disciples-just as He is present in our work. When He breathed the Holy Spirit on the disciples, He transferred His mission to them and gave new life to them.
“Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe“. These words encouraged early Christians who have not seen but who believe. They believe to the message given to them.
Thomas didn’t believe what the disciples told him. He had to see before he could believe. We believe even though we haven’t seen.
We must move beyond doubt to faith. Doubt can lead to solutions and a better understanding. It doesn’t matter what the cause of our doubt is. Living beyond a doubt means living as encouragers through prayer concerns for others, preparing meals for those who are sick or mourning the loss of a loved one who has just passed away, or sending notes and cards. Belief includes some sense of experience.
Jesus’ breathing of the Holy Spirit on the disciples is a metaphor for God breathing life into us. The disciples were made into new beings for the work for which Christ called them. Every word of Christ received in faith comes with this divine breathing of the Holy Spirit. Without it, there is neither life nor light. Christ doesn’t require perfect faith from the start. What He asks for is an open heart, one not closed to belief or by belief. He asks for the open heart so He can lead us, and keep leading us, from honest doubt to honest faith.
When we assemble in Christ’s name, especially on His holy day, He will meet with us and speak peace to us. If we are faithless, we are Christless, graceless, hopeless and joyless.
Christ appears most often within the community of believers that we call the church. When we gather with fellow believers, when we meet with those who feel as we do and have touched the hands and side of the Lord in faith, when we break bread and have fellowship together, it becomes more than words. Blessed were the disciples in the Upper Room on the night of the resurrection to comfort one another and have Jesus appear to them. We too are blessed when we gather as a community in His name and share His love with one another. When people separate themselves from the church by not attending services regularly, they take a chance on missing His unique presence.
This peace is always in conflict with the fears and violence of this world. Christ sent His disciples upon the most appropriate mission the world has ever encountered.
Christ’s resurrection was a both new creation and a parallel of springtime. It represented a rebirth. Christ’s appearance in the Upper Room was intended to overcome the disciples’ doubts. Jesus comments about the power of the resurrection to create faith in Luke 16:31: “If they do not listen to Moses and the prophets, neither will they be convinced even if someone rises from the dead“.
The resurrection is a new way of looking at ourselves and at life. The story of Thomas’s honesty and forthrightness gives us hope and empowers us in moments of doubt. It is OK to be confused, bewildered, afraid and doubtful. We do well by facing the truth of these feelings. It is harder for us to take things in faith because we are so good at finding scientific proof for so many things today.
Many people today think that seeing is believing, but the opposite is true believing, is seeing. Believing something opens to us the possibility of experiencing it, of seeing it come to pass, and of having that which we believe produce in us many kids of blessings.
What will it take for us to believe?
What proof are we looking for?
When we are ready to believe, Jesus is ready with tasks for us and to give us the Holy Spirit. Jesus’ abundant grace, as shown by his acceptance of Thomas’ doubt, wants nothing more than to move every person and all of society toward faith.
The week after was the time to reassure the frightened disciples that He is well and alive, and He will go back to the Father to continue His work by becoming our advocate and intercede on our behalf.
After appearing to His disciples, He stayed with them for another forty days, to encourage and prepare them for the next phase of their ministry, when they will be on their own. But He promised that the Holy Spirit will lead and guide them as they spread the good news of salvation by simply believing in Him.
The week after Jesus appeared to His disciples when they had gathered together and promised to be with them to end of time.
As He promised, He was with them always and He is with us and will be with us until the end of times.
Amen!