Time with the Children of God
Did you get your mum a gift for Mothers’ Day today? What did you get her? I bet she thinks that’s really special.
Over the years I bought my mum different presents for Mothers’ Day—soap, perfume, chocolates and handkerchiefs. My dad bought my mum jewellery too—some necklaces and earrings and bracelets. They were all very nice and cost a lot of money. But in my mum’s jewellery box I found these: a pile of ordinary seashells—and I wondered what plain old seashells would be doing in her jewellery box with all her nice, pretty, expensive jewellery.
They were wrapped in this paper, and on the inside she had written this note: “Dear Timothy made me a bracelet at Henley Beach. The brown wool wore away. All the shells are left. God bless you my dear son.”
Then I remembered making the bracelet at the beach. I was only little, maybe 4 or 5. I had tried to string the shells together with some seaweed, and we got home and Mum and I washed the shells and strung them together with a piece of wool.
I’d forgotten that I’d even made this, until I found it again. But my mum had kept it forever. She had kept it with all her expensive jewellery even though it wasn’t worth anything, and didn’t look that good. She had kept it even after the wool that was holding it together had worn away, keeping the shells wrapped up in this piece of paper, with a note to remind her. She had kept it forever because I had made it and it was special to her.
Well, that’s like God and us. We might think that we’re not very special, but we are special to God. Not because of how we look, or what we do, but simply because we are his children, who he has made us and saved us through Jesus to belong to him forever.
This is what Jesus says in today’s Gospel reading. Let’s read it together: “I give them eternal life and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all. No one is able to snatch them out of my Father’s hand” (John 10:28-29).
What a wonderful promise –we are in God’s own safekeeping forever. That’s how much God loves you!
Let’s Pray!
Sermon
Research has shown that one of the most important things that mothers can do for their unborn child is to read to them. At around 18 weeks of pregnancy, a baby is able to start hearing sounds in their mother’s womb like their mother’s heartbeat. At 27-29 weeks, a baby can hear some sounds outside their mother’s body too, like their mother’s voice.
One of the first sounds a child can hear is the sound of their mother’s voice…even before they are able to speak themselves. Then from birth we begin to hear different voices—those of wider family members, friends, teachers, employers, work colleagues, all promising guidance in various areas of life. As we grow into adolescent years the voices of our peers, and of popular culture in the world are a strong voice in our life. They have an emotional pull, tugging on the heartstrings as we look to have our needs for approval, our needs to be loved, our needs for a place to belong to be met, and are a powerful driver behind life choices and behaviours.
The media is one of the most powerful voices, moving beyond informing society to conforming society to align with popular values and morals. Over the last few weeks there were many political voices seeking an audience with us. Irrespective of what our political views are and with which candidates our allegiance might be, all of them wanted our trust, promising to deliver what we need the most. Those weeks of election campaigning was a chaotic time, as so many voices clamoured for our votes, all saying the others would not help us like they would.
In a world where there is so much confusion, fear and lies, so many search for comfort, meaning and purpose in spirituality. Yet the myriad of philosophies and religious systems all claim to impart wisdom and truth. Social commentators today talk of a ‘post-Christian world’ in which people pick and choose their own different religious concepts and spiritual practices, concerned not so much with what is right and true, but what makes one feel good and aligns with one’s own values. The divine is seen by so many not as an overarching supreme God with absolute truth, but as the spark within, the love and goodness in our own heart. Our values and experiences and reasoning becomes the standpoint through which we filter everything to determine what is good and true. Human beings, in a way, become gods, determining right and wrong, good and evil.
From the moment of our first cry, we soon learn that by crying out, our wants are met. As I was doing some shopping last week, I heard a piercing scream, enough to cause me and the other customers nearby to jump out of our skin! It was from the interaction between a mum and her toddler. It had begun calmly enough, with youngster being assertive and mum gently reasoning…and reaffirming her reasoning…and reaffirming her reasoning some more…before the almighty meltdown! What was the problem? The lollies that the supermarket had strategically placed at the checkout! With each passing moment tension was rising until that piercing scream: “But I want it!”
Our reasoning, experiences and wants are the lens through which we evaluate all things. Sometimes that’s appropriate…at other times, it’s not. In the midst of all the competing voices in the world, we have been conditioned by human nature that the only one we should trust is ourselves. As we grow throughout life we tend to listen to the voices that agree with us or promise us what we want…rather than what we need—and ultimately, then, the only voice we should listen to is our own.
But in the Person of Jesus, God has come into our world, to give us clarity and certainty, grace and truth. This is what the religious leaders asked Jesus for in today’s text: “How long will you keep us in suspense? If you are the Christ, then tell us plainly!”
The setting is the Festival of the Dedication—a celebration of the purification and rededication of the Temple to God. Around 168 years before Jesus’ birth, the Greek ruler Antiochus IV had erected an altar to the Greek God Zeus, in Israel’s Temple. Antiochus idolised Zeus, and saw himself as a manifestation of him, taking the name ‘Antiochus Epiphanes’—which means “God manifest”.
But that day, there in Solomon’s Colonnade, the fullness of God stood before them in the person of Jesus: “I and the Father are one” Jesus declared. He didn’t mean they were the same Person, but had the same divine nature; Jesus is equally God in being just as his Father. As he stood right there before them, he is the true ‘Epiphanes”: God manifest; God shown plainly in the flesh and blood of Jesus.
Jesus uses profound imagery from the Old Testament which pictures God as shepherd. Through the prophet Ezekiel God had said:
“‘For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep.
You are my sheep, the sheep of my pasture, and I am your God, declares the Sovereign Lord.’” (Ezekiel 34 vv11-12, 31).
Jesus applies this to himself. In ancient times, shepherds gathered their sheep by calling them. The sheep recognised the voice of their own shepherd. Jesus explained that he is like a shepherd who calls his sheep by name to follow him, so that he can lead us safely through this life and into the life to come.
By speaking God brought all there is, seen and unseen, into existence. Throughout the first chapter of Genesis God said “let there be…and it was so. And God saw that it was good.” What God commands, comes into being, and when his command is obeyed, the result is good. He knit us together in our mother’s womb, and before a word was on our tongue, God knew it completely. Just as our mother spoke to us and we heard her voice before we could even speak, God spoke to us before we were ready to listen, or could speak to him.
He brought you a new birth by water and the Spirit, and spoke into your heart when he said: “I baptise you in the name of the Father, and the Son and the Holy Spirit, that you might know Jesus and listen to his voice. God called you by name and said “You are mine!” and he has you safely in his hands, and holds you safe in his care, close to his heart. Joined to Jesus in baptism, we are joined to his death and resurrection. Our sinful nature has been crucified and our old selves died with him, before we came out of the tomb with him, rising to new life just as a butterfly emerges from a cocoon. So even when we are faced with death, Jesus is our Shepherd who has gone through the valley of the shadow of death before us, shepherds us through the other side into the light of his resurrection.
“The rosebud poem” (Author unknown)
It is only a tiny rosebud,
A flower of God’s design;
But I cannot unfold the petals
With these clumsy hands of mine.
The secret of unfolding flowers
Is not known to such as I.
God opens this flower so easily,
But in my hands they die.
If I cannot unfold a rosebud,
This flower of God’s design,
Then how can I have the wisdom
To unfold this life of mine?
So I’ll trust in God for leading
Each moment of my day.
I will look to God for guidance
In each step of the way.
The path that lies before me,
Only my Lord knows.
I’ll trust God to unfold the moments,
Just as he unfolds the rose.
Although we work to try to keep our life safely in hand, our lives are not in our own hands—but God’s hands; the hands of our Good Shepherd who speaks to us. Easter means that the voice of the Good Shepherd is not a dead word, but it is a living word, a life giving word, as Jesus speaks throughout all the Scriptures from Genesis to Revelation, to put to death what is sinful in our hearts and make them alive with his new life—unfolding our lives that we might really know him as our Good Shepherd and follow his leading. He calls us to come apart from the hustle and bustle of our world that brings all kinds of problems, worries and fears, with all its alluring enticements and trinkets and treasures, to find the fulfilment of our deepest wants by listening to him.
No matter what voices are troubling at present, Jesus has come that we might have peace, certain hope, grace, and truth in him alone. Jesus himself makes three promises to you today: he gives you eternal life, you shall never perish, and no one will be able to snatch you from his hand. Our continuance in the life he unfolds depends not on our feeble hold of Christ, but his firm grip on us.
It is because of his firm grip on us that we can be sure of God’s love for us, even when we have not followed well enough, or long enough. Jesus is the one who holds you in his hand and protects you from being snatched out. He does this with a grip that is stronger than anything else in heaven and earth—not to crush you but to protect you as his own, alone. So, then, let your security, worth and purpose be found not in what you have or who you are but in whose you are. Let your certainty not be found in your own hands, but in the One who holds you in his hand. And by continuing in faith, by listening to the voice of the Good Shepherd, surely goodness and mercy shall follow you all the days of your life, and you shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever. Amen.
