Acts 11:1-18; Psalm 148; John 13:31-35

Loving God, as you opened the tomb and raised Jesus to new life, so open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit that as your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today, and in confidence go forth to live what you show us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

Today we speak in the name of Christ Jesus about love - about Christ-like love - about the kind of love mothers - and fathers - and indeed each one of us - are called to have - and by the grace of God - do have - should we in fact be following in his steps through faith.

We know the commandments concerning love - about who we should love and how we should love them.

What is the greatest commandment Jesus is asked. And he replies: Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, strength and mind, and the second is like it - love your neighbour as yourself.

A certain rabbi writing about the second of these laws, as it is found in Leviticus 19:18, tells a story that goes likes this:

A Russian peasant farmer who never left the small and parochial surroundings of his town had occasion to come the big city of Moscow. He arrived at the elegant hotel with mud on his boots and overalls looking completely inappropriate. The man at the desk assigned him to a room on the top floor and treated him as any other paying customer.

With key in hand and a few possessions he started the long climb to the hotel room. On the first landing there was a full-length mirror. The man who had never seen himself before was suddenly startled and frightened by the imposing image before him. He growled and barked to scare the him away - only to find that the image in the mirror was willing to threaten and shout the same.

He ran to the next floor and confronted the fearsome giant again exchanging harsh looks and almost coming to blows. On the third floor they stood nose to nose and exchanged simultaneous insults as a deepening war-like attitude was taking root in both of the them.

Realizing that there was no where to escape this ugly beast-like fellow who was aggressively stalking him in the hotel he ran quickly back to the lobby and to the front desk to file a complaint. After having given a detailed description of the perpetrator the man at the desk understood that the he had met the enemy and it was the man in the mirror. So as to save the face of his guest and to disengage the hostility he offered simple advice.

He said, "The fellow who you confronted is here to protect people. He is really quite harmless. Trust me. If you will show him a harsh and angry countenance he will do the same. However if when you see him you just smile pleasantly and continue on your way he will nod and smile at you as well. Enjoy the rest of your stay."

That's what he did and remarkably that's what happened...

King Solomon is reported to have once said: "Like the reflection of a face in water so is the heart of one person to another."

To love another is a difficult thing - especially when our experience of love is flawed, especially when we are unaware of how much we are loved, and most especially when the reflection in the water is full of anger or bitterness or resentment - as so many are.

To really love another we often need a standard or guide to follow and within that standard or guide - we need help - help to not only know what love is - but to know that the love we need is within us; that it is embracing us and has the power to embrace others through us, especially to embrace those others towards who we do not feel love.

Love the Lord your God with all your heart and soul and strength and mind, and love your neighbour as yourself.

These commands, Jesus said - and all the Rabbi's agreed - summarize the Law and The Prophets, that law which Jesus says will not pass away until all is accomplished.

To that law - that law which can be most difficult for us to keep - Jesus added one commandment, and one commandment only, during the three years of his ministry - the commandment heard in our Gospel reading this morning - the one given by Jesus as Judas departs from the Last Supper to betray him to his death.

"A new command I give you: Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

As I have loved you, so you must love another.

And how is it that Jesus loves us? Is it not by giving himself away for us? By blessing us even when he knows that we are not following - and perhaps will not follow him? By being pro-active in love - rather than simply reactive?

Look at the cross. Look at this table where the Lord's body and blood are lifted up so that we might remember.

This is the love that seeks to embrace us.

This is the love that is more than simply our guide and our model.

It is the love that when received - is more than able to pour itself out upon others, no matter how we might "feel" about them.

It is the love of the one who gave himself for us while we were yet enemies of God; the freely given love of the one whose faithfulness destroys our death and whose resurrection restores our life.

A story is told about a teacher who was helping one of her kindergarten students put his boots on.

He asked for help and she could see why. With her pulling and him pushing, the boots still didn't want to go on. When the second boot was on, she had worked up a sweat. She almost whimpered when the little boy said, "Teacher, they're on the wrong feet." She looked and sure enough, they were.

It wasn't any easier pulling the boots off then it was putting them on. She managed to keep her cool as together they worked to get the boots back on - this time on the right feet. He then announced, "These aren't my boots." She bit her tongue rather than get right in his face and scream, "Why didn't you say so?" like she wanted to.

Once again she struggled to help him pull the ill-fitting boots off. He then said,"They're my brother's boots. My Mom made me wear them."

She didn't know if she should laugh or cry. She mustered up the grace to wrestle the boots on his feet again. She said, "Now, where are your mittens?" He said, "I stuffed them in the toes of my boots..."

Ever have one of those days???

I think all of us do. The question is - will we bite our tongues - and do that good thing we desire to do? Will we face the countless little crosses that appear before us each day? Will we willingly taking on the burdens that should not be ours to take - despite a lack of appreciation and understanding among those whom we are helping?

This is what love does - it accepts the little crosses, knowing that the large cross has already been taken for us, knowing that because Jesus has accepted us, so we can accept others in his love - that we can trust them into his care, his judgement, his mercy, and his righteousness.

And never more so than with those towards whom love is hardest to show, the self that fears the evil within - that stranger that we see in the mirror - and the other strangers, those who are not in the mirror, but who stand before us in person screaming words like "crucify him" and holding in their hands the nails of execution.

Love one another as I have loved you.

This means be open to the new and to that which was previously impossible for us to be open to, to be open - as Peter, in today's reading from the Book of The Acts of The Apostles, was open - open in his imperfect - human - but inspired way - to those he considered unacceptable, to those that all the apostles had previously thought to be outside of the loving embrace of God, open to the gentiles - the foreigners - to those viewed by all as unclean - as unholy - as undesirable.

For us that may mean be to be open to those that our wisdom and our feelings tell us to be unclean, unholy, unacceptable, and undesirable.

For some that may be someone in their own family who has hurt them beyond words. For others it may be the nameless beggers from Mainland China who beg in our streets. Or the sinners who enter into our homes to steal not only physical treasures, but to rob the entire human family of its joy and hope. For still others it may be an employer, a debtor, or some group of persons that have done us or our world an injury.

God will judge all people. Not us. Blessed be God for that!

Blessed be the one whose love does not fail - and who wills to give us that love, and who vows to take care of all who follow him, to nurture them and help them to grow and to usher them into the blessedness of his eternal kingdom.

God will judge all people. Not us. Love one another as I have loved you!

God asks a question of his people through the prophet Isaiah, in the 49th Chapter of the Book of that Prophet. He asks of his people who are in exile for their sins: Can a woman forget her nursing child, or show no compassion for the child of her womb?

And he answers: Even these may forget. Yet I will not forget you. See, I have inscribed you on the palms of my hands; your walls are continually before me.

Christ has inscribed us on the palm of our hands. He does not forgot us.

And so the answer to question of the love of God for us is also answered with a promise - a promise that came to pass for Israel, and even now is coming to pass among those of us who are willing to see: Your builders outdo your destroyers, and those who laid you waste go away from you. Lift up your eyes all around and see; they all gather, they come to you. As I live, says the Lord, you shall put all of them on like an ornament, and like a bride you shall bind them on. Surely your waste and your desolate places and your devastated land - surely now you will be too crowded for your inhabitants, and those who swallowed you up will be far away.

Love one another as I have loved you.

God loves us most powerfully. And gives us the power to love others.

Would you love someone today that you find it hard to love? Then know that God loves you - that God loves you without condition and will make your life full and abundant as you turn to love others with his love.

Another story for today: An elderly woman and her little grandson, whose face was sprinkled with bright freckles, spent the day at the zoo. Lots of children were waiting in line to get their cheeks painted by a local artist who was decorating them with tiger paws.

"You've got so many freckles, there's no place to paint!" a girl in the line said to the little fella. Embarrassed, the little boy dropped his head.

His grandmother knelt down next to him. "I love your freckles. When I was a little girl I always wanted freckles," she said, while tracing her finger across the child's cheek. "Freckles are beautiful!"

The boy looked up, "Really?"

"Of course," said the grandmother. "Why just name me one thing that's more beautiful than freckles." The little boy thought for a moment, peered intensely into his grandma's face, and softly whispered, "Wrinkles."

May all our friends - and all those who would be our enemies if we let them be, have beautiful freckles and gorgeous wrinkles. Let go and let God, and love one another as Christ loves you - with a love that saves and redeems his people - both Jew and Gentile alike. Blessed be God's name, day by day. Amen.

Revelation 7:9-17; Psalm 23; John 10:22-30

Loving God, as you opened the tomb and raised Jesus to new life, so open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit that as your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us, and in confidence go forth to live what you show us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

The 23rd Psalm is probably the best known, most loved, most quoted portion of Scripture. It is so familiar that people who seldom if ever read a Bible or go to church can often still quote a portion of this Psalm.

The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures.
He leads me beside still waters.
He restores my soul.
He leads me in paths of righteousness for his name's sake.
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I fear no evil, for you are with me.
Your rod and thy staff they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies,
You anoint my head with oil,
My cup overflows.
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

One problem, though, is since this Psalm is so often requested at death-beds and funerals, we too often associate the 23rd Psalm with death and dying. But the Psalm is really for the living. It speaks to the living - those who are fully alive in the true sense of the word.

Roy Campanella, a baseball player, was in an bad accident many years ago that left him as a semi-invalid. In his autobiography he talks about the many nights he cried himself to sleep, about the pain that racked his body and his sinking into deep depression.

He writes:

All my life whenever I was in trouble, I had turned to God for help. I remembered my Bible and asked the nurse to the get the one from the drawer in the night table. I opened it to the 23rd Psalm: `Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil; for thou art with me.'

"From that moment on", he wrote, "I was on my way back. I knew I was going to make it!"

There are hundreds and thousands of testimonies like this - of how persons have found in this simple Psalm the comfort, strength, and the assurance that they are going to make it!

I'm sure many of you can tell your own stories about what this psalm has meant to you.

Psalm 23 not only gives comfort to the dying, it also gives courage, strength, and hope to those who are alive.

One of the things we realize, though, is that the 23rd Psalm is steeped in the language and customs of shepherding and sheep in Palestine back in Biblical times. If we don't know anything about the customs of shepherds and the unique relationship between the good shepherd and the sheep, then much of what this Psalm has to say simply passes us by.

What I am going to do this morning is focus on just one small part of the Psalm - verse 4:

Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you are with me. Your rod and thy staff they comfort me.

Tradition tells us that the Valley of the Shadow of Death is a real place in Israel.

It is a valley, or a mountain pass, that got its name from shepherds because of it's steep sides and sheer rock walls. But is was a pass that enabled the shepherds to lead their sheep from one mountain pasture to another. However it was a terrifying place for skittish, defenceless, fearful sheep: for in the steep cliffs on both sides of the valley there were numerous caves and rocks and crevices that were perfect hiding place for animals of prey - and for people who meant harm to passing travellers. Sounds would echo and amplify in the valley, making it a terrifying place for sheep.

We look at the Psalm and hear:

The Lord is my shepherd.... He makes me lie down in green pastures.... He leads me by still water.... He leads me in paths of righteousness.

But now the sheep are in the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

Question: How did they get there? We have to assume that the Good Shepherd has led the sheep into the valley.

Now, the images in this Psalm are clear. The shepherd is the Lord. Indeed, from our Gospel reading, we hear that Jesus identifies himself as the Good Shepherd. The shepherd is the Lord. And, of course, we are the sheep.

And what is the Valley of the Shadow of Death?

It is those terrifying, dark, lonely, frightening times in life - times of sickness, tragedy, emotional stress, tension, economic disaster, loneliness, when God may seem far away.

But we see here that it is the Good Shepherd who leads the sheep into the Valley of the Shadow of Death.

But we must remember that the shepherd has a purpose: The shepherd takes the sheep from pastures that are now eaten up and barren, where food is scarce and the land is parched, to new lush, green meadows. But to get there, the shepherd and the sheep have to pass through the valley.

The sheep don't understand this. The sheep cannot comprehend the purposes of the shepherd. All that the sheep experience are the frightening, terrifying surroundings.

But the shepherd knows. The shepherd has a reason, a purpose. And the sheep have learned to trust the shepherd.

As Jesus said, "My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish. No one will snatch them out of my hand."

Yes, the sheep have grown to trust the shepherd. The shepherd has proven trustworthy and so the sheep follow the shepherd even through the Valley of the Shadow of Death, "fearing no evil."

And so it is the Good Shepherd, the Lord Jesus Christ, who leads us through troubled and difficult times of life. But he has a reason, a purpose - to lead us to greener pastures, to deeper faith. He calls us to trust in him, to put our faith in him, even when we cannot always see his plan or purpose.

But we trust the Good Shepherd, because we know the shepherd is trustworthy.

Another thing we need to realize is that there is a world of difference between death and the shadow of death. The shadow may be frightening, dark, and cold, but they are just shadows, not the real thing.

What is death?

Death - real death - is separation from the awareness of God's love and grace. Death is being afraid of God.

It doesn't matter how strong or healthy and safe or secure you may think you are, if you live outside of the love of God, if God is someone you do not know or have come to fear, then you are among the living dead. You are living in death.

But St. Paul tells us that Christ has taken up our death into life! Into the resurrection life prepared for all who trust in him.

Do you remember when Jesus came to the tomb of his good friend, Lazarus, and he met his sisters, Mary and Martha, how Jesus said, "I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, yet shall they live, and everyone who lives and believes in me will never die."

The promise that we Christians have every day of our lives is that we will never die. We will never be separated from the love of God that we have through Jesus Christ.

But there will be those times when we experience the valley of the shadow of death. There will be those times when we might feel forsaken, abandoned, alone, rejected, those troubled times when we may wonder where God is.

The valley of the shadow of death are those times when we feel forsaken, but by faith we know that we are not, because we have both God's promise, and the experience of God's grace and love for us throughout the past.

When we are in the Valley of the Shadow of Death, we may feel as if God is far away, but deep down inside we can know that God is very near. God promises us life - life in this world, and life in the world to come. Christians don't die. God simply calls us from one life to another.

But as long as we live in this world of sin and suffering, we will experience the shadow of death.

And that can be a terrifying experience for us. At that time it is good to recall how the Good Shepherd is leading us to green pastures where he will restore our souls. To remember that he is preparing a table for me - a table that contains the bread of heaven and the wine of everlasting and abundant joy..

Listen to the voice of the shepherd when you are in the valley of the shadow of death. Listen and know that he is leading to a better place.

Yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for you, O Lord, are with me. Your rod and your staff comfort me.

Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life. And I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

Blessed be the name of our God - now and forevermore. Amen

Acts 9:1-20; Psalm 30; John 21:1-19

Loving God, as you opened the tomb and raised Jesus to new life, so open our hearts and minds by the power of your Holy Spirit that as your Word is proclaimed, we may hear with joy what you say to us today, and in confidence go forth to live what you show us. We ask it in Jesus' name. Amen.

As a teenager I engaged in what most teenagers engage in. I tried to figure out whether or not what I was thinking and feeling was normal or if in fact I was as different from everybody else as I suspected I might be.

You ever done that?

And again, when I became a Christian - I tried to figure out what was a normal way to experience the faith. I only did that however - after I noticed that my pattern of belief - my pattern of conversion - was not shared as widely as I had first thought.

What I went through was nothing quite as dramatic as what Paul experienced; but it did share some elements of what countless numbers of people have undergone.

I began with nothing but a wish - a dream - a hope - that maybe there was something more to life than what I could see, touch, and taste. Something more than "might makes right". Something more than "survival of the fittest".

I grew up in a home where God was almost never talked about, and where the holy things of our faith were unknown.

So for me there was a time of longing - of seeking - of struggling - for what I did not know;a time which finally cumulated in encountering a group of Christians who engaged me in a conversation: a conversation over several months, about God and about Jesus, and about how in Jesus God shows his unconditional love and his redeeming purpose for all people - even for one such as I.

And the love that this group of Christians showed me, and the willingness they had to examine their own faith and their own assumptions about what it taught, touched me - and permitted me as I was reading the Gospel According to Luke one night in my little room, to move from unbelief to faith; from a life where the Tarot Cards and Astrology were being used to give direction, to a life where the law and the prophets provided guidance and the inner voice of the Spirit was at last heard.

In short there was a day and a time when I gave my life over to God - a day and a time when I prayed what is known in some places as the sinner's prayer, the prayer that goes something like this:

Lord Jesus Christ, I repent of my sins. I believe in you. I want you to be Lord of my life, to cleanse my soul and open the gates of heaven to me. Come into my heart. Help me to follow you each day. Rule in my life. Amen

And so it was. And so it continues - day by day.

But - in my innocence - in my lack of knowledge - and in face of the number of people throughout history who have gone through something like what I went through - I made an assumption back then, a common assumption: the assumption that all "true believers" (you notice how I said that don't you?) that all "true believers" must go through a time when they repent of their past and consciously invite Jesus to be Lord of their lives.

And indeed there are many who tell us that this pattern of experience is the normal pattern, indeed the only pattern, that ensures one's salvation; that the pattern seen in St. Paul - who - though a believer in God - persecuted the church - and then - hrough an encounter with the Risen Christ and through the testimony of others - turns his life around and is made into a disciple and apostle of the good news. Is the pattern that should be seen in us all.

John Newton - the composer of the hymn "Amazing Grace" which is so well loved by the church around the world had the same kind of saving experience as Paul.

Brought up in a rough circumstances, Newton became the captain of slave trading ship. He drank hard, he worked hard, and he hated with a passion all things Christian, all things he saw as weak, all things that would bridle his behaviour...and then - after years of self-loathing and of hating others, he heard the gospel with fresh ears - the Spirit worked in his heart - and he gave control of his life over to Christ Jesus, ending his days as a beloved Pastor in a church in London, ending his days as the author of the words we love so well:

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me!
I once was lost, but now am found, was blind, but now I see.

Such profound and beautiful words.

But what about those who have never been lost?
What about those who have never been blind?

What about those who have believed from their mothers knee and heard the gospel from the lips of their fathers or their grandfathers?

What about those who have ever worshipped God as revealed through Christ Jesus those baptised as a child and confirmed as a young teen?

What about their experience?
What about their faith?

You know - we can so easily - even with the best and most loving motives - make other people feel unimportant, unvalued, somehow second class.

We - with our seeking to define for ourselves what is normal so that we can assure ourselves that we are normal end up imposing upon others our definitions; we end up judging others by the "one right way" we ourselves have subscribed to.

And yet there are many ways that lead us into a whole relationship with God and many people who have a whole relationship with God from their infancy: a relationship that may have it moments of confession and profession - it's times of wandering and returning - but whose essential strands are never broken and whose certainties are never in doubt.

After all my years as a follower of Christ, I remain convinced of the truth of what Kathryn Kulman, a great evangelists said when she wrote these words:

"God has no grandchildren"

I understood some years ago that to mean that no one can inherit their faith, that each person must confess and profess for themselves.

That is most surely true.

But that does not mean that those whose confession and profession has happened countless times since they were but babes coming to worship and repeating the creeds as we repeat them during this Easter Season are not as equally loved by God and saved by God as those who have at one great moment of their lives done it for the very first time in their basement bedroom - or on a highway - or beside the seashore.

Nor does it mean that those who have said the Lord's Prayer and who have called upon God over their meals and gone to Sunday School with their parents or grandparents are any less devoted followers of Christ than those who like Paul did not turn to Christ until later in their lives.

What it does mean is that everyone is called to have a personal relationship with God through Christ Jesus - and that relationship is one in which God accepts us as one of his much loved children - and we accept God as a much loved - and supremely good - parent: a parent who calls us to a holy obedience and an everlasting joy, an obedience and a joy that are based not on compulsion, but upon love.

What it also means is that each of us, from the youngest to the oldest, is loved intensely and personally - as only a mother or father can love their first born child.

What's normal?

In today's world as in the world of the past there are many people - perhaps more than anytime since the Emperor Constantine made the faith legal who will go through the pattern of call and conversion that Paul went through, that John Newton went through: - an experience that leads them from being lost to being found, and from being blind to seeing - from believing in nothing to believing in the God who does everything good.

And there are many who have always had the freedom, the sense of belonging, the vision, that people like these have only come to latter in life, people like many of you here have had since your grandmothers sang hymns over your cradle or your father took you to be baptised and your brothers and sisters accompanied you to Sunday School.

What unites us is not how we arrive at faith, nor is it even how we worship or where we worship or when we worship.

What unites us is the God who calls us all together, and who names us as Christ's brother and sister and who calls us to continue in faith - to love one another - to watch over one another to know Christ as both crucified and risen and to trust in him.

There is one right way - but there are many roads that lead us to it, there is one God - one Christ - one Spirit - but many believers, many experiences of coming to faith and staying in faith.

St. Paul - whose conversion - or call - name it what you will - is featured in today's readings once said this:

If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified and with your mouth that you confess and are saved.

As the scripture says, 'anyone who trusts in him will never be put to shame', for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him."

I no longer know what is normal.
And I no longer care.

It is enough for me that God has called me to give my life over to him, and that God will never let me be put to shame as long as I trust in him and follow him.

And it is great joy when others - the cradle born believers or the newly re-born - sing God's praise and give testimony to God's goodness and strive to do what Peter - the rock upon which our church is built - was called to do: when they feed Christ's sheep and tend to the Lord's lambs.

I love the Lord and I love how in the way that is appropriate to each of us individually he calls us, how he knows our names and remembers who we are and makes us his own.

Peter or Paul, Mary or Martha, Richard or Robert, Denise or Shelley each of us are called in a different way.

We are called and equipped by God, we are named and blessed by Christ - so that we might not only be blessed, but bless others.

Let no-one, not even your own selves, say your faith is less important or meaningful than someone else's, rather give thanks and glory to God for the faith you have received and love Christ and feed his sheep, his lambs, even as he has called you to do through Peter the Rock upon which the church of God is built in this world. Amen

Acts 5:17-32, Psalm 150; John 20:19-31

O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.

Today's gospel lesson from John tells us about the first appearances of Jesus to his disciples after his death and resurrection, about how Jesus appeared in their midst on the first evening of that first Sunday when they were huddled together in fear and greeted them with words of peace - and then showed to them the wounds in his hands and his side so that they might believe what their eyes and their ears were telling them.

At that time, that first resurrection night, Jesus gave his disciples his Spirit and the authority to go and forgive the sins of people around them, the authority to remove from them the weights that prevent them from living a whole and fruitful life.

The disciple Thomas was not there that first night, but the Scripture records that the other 10 told him about how Jesus had come to them and how they had seen him and heard him.

The scriptures too record his reaction to this news:

"Unless I see the scars of the nails in his hands and put my finger on those scars and my hand in his side, I will not believe."

A normal reaction for a normal kind of person. Give me proof - give me something I can touch and see - and I will believe.

And the Scripture goes on to record that Thomas' demand for proof was satisfied - that Jesus appeared again, a week later, to the disciples in the upper room - and Thomas was there, and Jesus after greeting them all with words of peace called to Thomas and told him to look at him and touch him and to believe - and Thomas did so - he believed what he saw and said to Jesus when he believed - "My Lord and my God"

Sometimes I think that the disciples had it easier than we did. How easy it is to believe when you can see and touch - as did they all in one way or the other.

What an advantage that is!

But then I think - about Jesus's words to those disciples and to Thomas in particular:

"Do you believe because you see me? Blessed are those who believe without seeing me."

Blessed are those who believe without seeing me....Why is that?

Why is it blessed to believe without seeing? Without touching? Without hearing first, from the Messiah's mouth as it were, for ourselves?

I think that the answer lies in the nature of seeing and in the nature of faith.

Many people say that seeing is believing, but that is far from true, in fact the opposite is more often the case - believing is seeing - believing something opens up to us the possibility of experiencing it - of seeing it come to pass in our lives - and of having that which we believe produce in us many kinds of blessings.

If you wait to see something before you will believe in it - then you may never see what you want to see come to pass.

I remember some years ago reading about a most interesting person who had an interview on TV - the PBS network carried an interview with H. Ross Perot.

Mr. Perot, for those who may not remember, was a wealthy Texan who has emerged out of nowhere to become a candidate for the Presidency of the United States of America.

He was a candidate without a party and without any party support, and if he was to be elected, people in every state of the Union would literally have to write his name in on the ballot sheet.

That, I read, hasn't happened in over 100 years in the United States - but what was so fascinating about Mr. Perot was that he believed that it could be done, that he, with the support of the American people could not only get elected without any support whatsoever from any political party machine, but that he could successfully pull the United States back from the brink of ruin, by stressing personal responsibility, ethical behaviour, kindness to one's fellow man, and love for those whom you work with and whom you serve.

Apparently his belief in these things turned the American election into something worth watching that year - I understand that every day, as Mr. Perot talked, he gained more and more support for what - if it was not for his belief - would be a totally impossible dream.

His belief brought into being something that no one alive had ever seen before - and, for quite the longest time, it seemed that it might lead to a new kind of presidency and a new kind of America.

Mr Perot's belief, his conviction about things neither he or anyone else had seen, produced a new political situation in the United States at that time, it made it possible for him, and for many others, to see as possible, what was before thought to be impossible, namely a truly independent Presidential candidate whose only debt would be to the American people rather than to special interest groups, lobbies, and back room boys.

I do envy the disciples their experience of being able to see Jesus after the resurrection, of being able to touch his wounds and put their hands in his side, and hear him say "Peace be with you".

What an incredible experience to have.

But while I envy them that particular experience, I do not require that experience, and neither do any of you require that experience, to have faith in Christ and his resurrection, and to receive from him the blessings of the power that God has given him.

All we require is a decision to believe the reports that we have heard, and to commit our lives to Jesus as our Lord and our God, and all the rest will come out of that..

Paul writes: "If you confess with your lips that Jesus is Lord, and believe in your hearts that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved.".

He also writes: "Whoever believe in Him will not be disappointed"

Think of all the people who have believed in Jesus, without ever having seen him as the disciples saw him, and who, after a number of years of believing have claimed that many have been the times since they first believed that they have - felt Christ's presence in their lives - seen their prayers and the prayers of others answered - and been helped through hard times because of their faith in God's promises.

It was once said - and not so long ago- that no one could build a ship out of iron and have it float, because iron is heavier than water - but someone believed that it could work, without ever having seen it work, and now iron and steel ships abound.

What is true for ships is doubly true for aeroplanes, and even more true for those, who without having seen, have had faith in the risen Lord.

Happy are those who believe without seeing. Happy are those who have made a decision to assert that life is stronger than death, that goodness is stronger than evil, and that love is stronger than hate, despite all that they have seen that might suggest the opposite.

They are happy because when they have come to believe in the Lord of life, the Lord of goodness, and the Lord of love - they see and experience all that they believe in and they are saved - they experience goodness from God, a goodness that always conquers the evils that they may face in their daily lives.

Paul says that: "Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen."

And faith my friends has moved many a mountain, healed many a sick person and overcome many an obstacle.

As the book of the Acts of The Apostles shows, when the disciples finally believed in Jesus, when they were convinced that he truly rose from the dead, they went from being people who hid in fear, fear of the authorities who had crucified their teacher, to being people who like that teacher not only healed the sick and did many mighty works, but who actually, despite being imprisoned by the authorities, were able to stand up before them and proclaim the name of Jesus.

Their faith gave them courage and peace - the peace that Jesus kept praying upon them. It gave them power to help people who were lost in their own sin and despair. And it gave them invulnerability to the criticism and negativity of the world around them.

As Peter says to the authorities in today's reading from Acts, it gave them the Spirit of God - the Spirit which is given to all who believe in and do God's word.

I have sat down with many a sceptic and have then got up and gone away feeling that I have been drained of life of hope, and of joy. But I have never sat down with a person who truly believes in God and then got up with any other feeling than one of hope, and renewed courage and faith.

The gospel message is very simple - Belief comes first and sight then follows - that when you believe - you become, and you live.

This is how it works in the world of science and invention, and this is how it works in the realm of the Spirit and the law, the realm of Christ and of God our Father and our Creator. AMEN

Psalm 118:14-24; Acts 10:34-43; John 20:1-18

O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.

No one expected it - not one single person.

What we celebrate here today was totally outside of the frame of reference of every single disciple, and this even though Jesus had told them over and over again that it would happen, that he would be killed, and that on the third day he would be raised from the dead.

Yet not one of them believed it would happen. Not one of them took Jesus at his word.

On the day after the Sabbath - on Sunday morning - while it was still dark Mary Magdalene and some other woman went to the tomb of Jesus with special spices to finish the process of preparing his body for burial. Mary went out first - by herself - ahead of all of the others.

She went ahead of them - not because she was expecting a surprise, but because she wanted to be alone for a while in the graveyard. She went out alone because her best friend had been tortured and killed and because she wanted to grieve awhile before undergoing the ordeal of doing what needed to be done, before she touched the wounded lifeless body of Jesus and honoured him by treating his broken body with the dignity that the dead should receive.

When she got to the tomb, something was different than it had been when she had been late Friday afternoon. The huge boulder in front of the tomb had been rolled aside - exposing the entrance to the place where Jesus' body had been laid.

Mary is stunned by this, she was shocked - not because she suddenly figures out that it was true after all - not because she remembers that Jesus said that he would rise from the dead and at last believes it. No, she is shocked and stunned because she believes that someone has stolen the body.

And Mary turns and she runs and she tells Simon Peter and John the Son of Zebedee exactly that:

"They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we don't know where they have put him!" she tells them.

And they return to the tomb with her and they look in the empty tomb and then they go away - back to their own homes.

And when they go back, with the exception of John, none of them comprehend what they had seen - the strips of linen laying on the rock bench - and the burial cloth for his head, folded neatly and set apart from the rest of the linen, much in the fashion that a carpenter in those days communicated that a work was finished by placing a folded work cloth neatly on the piece.

The return home - still in mourning, for as John puts it in today's Gospel:

"as yet they did not understand the scripture, that he must rise from the dead."

When they leave, Mary is again alone by the tomb - and she is weeping.

The body of the one she loved is gone. She cannot even do the little that she had come to do.

She stands there weeping - and, after a while she musters up her courage and she looks into the tomb. And when she does she sees two angels - two persons - dressed in white - seated on the ledge of the tomb where the body of Jesus was supposed to be.

And does she, who has heard the promises Jesus then believe those promises? Does she believe that Jesus has been raised from the dead?

She does not.

Rather, when they ask her why she is crying - she says to them: because "Someone has taken the body of my Lord and I don't know where they have put it!"

Then - still weeping - still in shock - still unbelieving - still not expecting or hoping for a single thing Mary turns around, and she sees Jesus standing there and she supposes he is the gardener.

Mary doesn't expect to see Jesus walking about - fully alive - and so she doesn't.

She doesn't see Jesus even when he talks to her, even when he says to her - as did the angels - "Woman - why are you weeping? Who are you looking for?"

Still thinking he is the gardener she asks him if he has moved the body. "Tell me," she says, "where you have laid him, and I will take him away."

It then that Jesus calls her by name, "Mary" - and it is then - suddenly - that her eyes clear - that her heart clears - and she realizes that Jesus is alive - and standing in front of her.

And she grabs hold of him and embraces him - and clings to him - until finally - Jesus tells her to let him go - and to go tell the others what she has seen - to tell them that he has risen just as he said he would.

And she does as Jesus has asked.

The scriptures record that they do not believe her - nor do they believe the other women who encounter the angels at first.

Indeed each of the first disciples has to go through a process of being convinced - of being convinced either by Jesus himself or by the overwhelming testimony of others who have seen him.

The reason I have laid so much stress upon Mary's disbelief this morning, and upon the disbelief of the other disciples - is because we are like them.

We hear the message that Jesus proclaimed. We witness the miracles that he performs in other people's lives. But when it comes to the hard times - the times of trial - the times of loss - the time of mourning, it can be oh so very hard to believe in what Jesus has said about being raised on the third day, so very hard to believe that not only was he raised - but that we too will be raised, that death does not in fact have the last word.

Why do you weep?

There are many ways to answer that question. Indeed there are many good reasons to weep.

But today - Easter Sunday - the empty tomb, the angels, the lilies, Mary's encounter with Jesus - the testimony of Peter - and indeed the existence of the church itself is a reminder to us that while there are many reasons to weep, there is also a great reason to rejoice.

Jesus was crucified - he died - and he was laid in the tomb, but that tomb could not hold him.

And because of him - it cannot hold any of those whom God loves.

Death is not the end of the story of Jesus. Nor is it the end of our stories.

Why do you weep?

Look around you - the signs of God's love are all about us in the midst of our world's troubles and turmoil.

Listen - listen for the voice of the one who called Mary by name in the garden is here to speak to us.

It is not over.

If were over - if Christ was not raised - the church would never have come into existence for the disciples would never have gone on in the face of the opposition they encountered to proclaim that God raised him from the dead on the third day and that he is the one whom God appointed as judge of the living and the dead.

They would never have passed to us their testimony, for they would have had nothing to testify about, for on that first day they did not believe despite all that Jesus had said and done before he died.

I thank for God today.

I thank God for Mary - and for Peter and for all the other disciples who did not believe.

I thank God for them because their faith tell me that there is hope for me when I weep; hope for me when I do not believe; hope for me when I face the cross and the tomb and feel despair rising up within me.

But most of all I thank God today for the living Christ - for Jesus of Nazareth - God's anointed one - for the one who was raised up on the third day and who - for me - and for you - has broken the power of sin and death.

Let us Pray...

Great God in heaven, hear our prayers of gratitude today! Hear our songs of joyful thanksgiving and praise! Despite our mortality, despite our disobedience, despite our lack of faith, you sent Jesus to die on a cross and be born to a new life. And because of that, everyday is a hope filled day, filled with that which makes for wonder, joy, and peace. Touch us now with your Easter love... Lord, hear our prayer....

O God of love and life eternal, as Jesus appeared and spoke to Mary and to the disciples - calling them by name, restoring their faith and giving them the reason that is above all other reasons to proclaim your saving power, so come unto us and make us witnesses to the resurrection. Indeed we pray that you might enliven your whole church and cause your light to shine through us upon the whole world. Lord, hear our prayer....

Eternal and everlasting Counsellor, Prince of Peace, Shepherd and Saviour of your people, we acclaim you and we praise you and we render you all honour and majesty. Pour out now, we pray, on us and upon all those we hold before you at this time, your healing and redeeming love..... Lord, hear our prayer...

We come before you O God with our praise, our thanksgiving, our prayers and our petition through Christ Jesus, our risen Lord, he who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, both now and forevermore. Amen!

Matthew 21:1-11; Isaiah 50:4-8; Psalm 31; Philippians 2:5-11; Luke 23:1-49

O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.

When you look at the events from Palm Sunday to Good Friday it's almost like one of those "Good news and Bad news" jokes.

The good news is that Jesus Christ reached the peak of his popularity this week, riding in a triumphal procession into the holy city of Jerusalem.

There was a big parade with lots of pomp and circumstance, everybody turned out, the disciples were very impressed, and the Pharisees and the Sadducees realized that they had underestimated this simple Galilean teacher.

Riding this crest of public approval Jesus went to the temple, the very centre of the Jewish faith, and began to teach and preach.

From Sunday to Thursday Jesus was unstoppable.

His enemies tried to trick him several times - but to no avail; each time he turned the tables on them and exposed their treachery.

No one even seriously complained when he overturned the tables of the moneychangers and let the sacrificial birds loose.

And of course, in this same period Jesus established the greatest new commandment, the one that says:

"Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another"

and He began a new ceremony with bread and wine which would later on, become the sacrament of Holy Communion.

So, what's the bad news?

On Thursday he was betrayed and arrested and on Friday he was hung him on a cross and killed.

Today the palms - tomorrow the passion - good news and bad news - but not a joke at all.

The grim truth is that the same people who shouted "Hosanna" on Sunday shouted "Crucify him," just five days later.

Everybody's hero became a bloody sacrifice, an object of scorn and hatred.

Is there anything we can learn from this?

Of course there is - and it has been customary in looking for that lesson to focus on the experience of the people around Jesus and from what they say and do come up with a message that goes like this:

"Don't be like those who cheered one day and jeered the next. Be faithful and see yourself as Jesus' loyal follower every day, every moment, of your life."

That is a good message - and that message lies underneath our prayers and our litanies today.

But, I would like to suggest, very briefly, that perhaps there is something we may learn from putting ourselves in Jesus' place rather than in the shoes of someone around him.

What was Christ's experience in the midst of all this up and down? This swirling whirlpool of events that progresses from Palm Sunday to Good Friday?

Perhaps it is easiest to get at this by asking the question: "What if Jesus had stayed in Galilee and retired an old rabbi full of wisdom and compassion?"

What indeed? The question helps reminds us of something we find easy to forget - namely it reminds us that Jesus CHOSE his path, that he CHOSE to leave the relative safety of Galilee and his rural ministry, and CHOSE to confront the powers of both politics and religion in their very centre; in Jerusalem.

The reminder is that all the uphill - downhill, good news - bad news, palms one day - passion the next, had nothing REALLY to do with what Jesus was about.

Jesus saw the purpose of his life in terms of proclaiming a new relationship with God, a relationship of intimate familial love, and no issue of popularity or acceptance could truly intervene in it.

Jesus came to Jerusalem neither excited or deceived by the applause of the crowds, nor downcast by the treachery, the desertion, the seemingly complete reversal of fortune he would endure.

As we have heard during the last few weeks of Lent - Jesus knew what would happen to him - he even knew, as we heard today in the story of Peter's denial, that his closest disciple and friend would claim to not know him when put to the test.

In both popular acclaim - and in denial and rejection - Jesus made it plain to everyone that he was not ruled by the feelings or events of the minute, but rather was walking step by step along a path which would lead him to the only source of true and lasting meaning for him and ultimately for us, that he was moving towards the fulfilment of God's will, for him and through him for the world.

It didn't matter if the path seemed to reach a peak from which there was no way to go but down. Jesus knew that his goal was not the top of the mountain, not popularity or power or applause.

Equally it did not matter that the path seemed to lead into, and end, in the valley of the shadow of death, although he would have willed for himself some other course if that course could still be true to the will of the Father, the will that he accepted as perfect.

No, regardless of appearances, regardless of the popularity that Jesus found, and regardless of the suffering that he knew he would undergo, Jesus chose to be true to his mission, he chose to be obedient; knowing, hoping, praying that in that, regardless of what might happen, he would be undergirded, surrounded, and encompassed by the presence, the mercy, and the love of God.

It is a lesson for all of us to remember.

If we depend upon the events of life to give us reward and satisfaction then we may never achieve them or we may have them snatched away in the very moment of tasting victory.

We may be at the peak of our lives, with money, health, security, friends, but - in those terms - there is nowhere to go but downhill in the weeks, months, and years ahead.

On the other hand, we - like Christ - have the opportunity to walk our own unique path of obedience toward God.

It is a path which may see us surrounded by enjoyment, possessions, and popularity, or it may lead us into loneliness, misunderstanding, and poverty.

But none of these things will finally give life its meaning.

Up hill or down, it is the destination which counts and no one's life can be more well spent than in seeking to find and do God's will.

Because, after all, the journey from Palm Sunday to Good Friday wasn't just a good news - bad news joke.

There was the final good news which redeemed it all and which reminds us that God can take any situation - no matter how bad it seems, and make it into good news for all of us.

Practically everyone has known the taste of Palm Sunday, the sweetness of success and popularity, and nearly all of us have tasted the bitterness of Good Friday, of failure and rejection.

What saves us from an endless round of ups and downs, what frees us from the tyranny of events over which we have no control is our commitment to press forward in obedience to God - it is trust in God's love to bring about Easter morning - knowing that the meaning of life is to be found in the knowledge and love of God - and in sharing that knowledge and love with those who accompany us on the way.

Praise be to God's name - and to the name of his Son, Christ Jesus, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Amen.

John 12:1-8

O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.

A few years ago a Sunday School class in the church that a friend of mine was minister at decided to present to the congregation a banner for use in the sanctuary. It was to be an Easter banner - and therefore he expected it's predominate colour would be white.

For two reasons he expected that - the first reason was that white is the colour of Easter - and it has been the colour of Easter almost since the day that the Church began - and the second reason was that he had just prior to the decision of the class to make up a banner put on a workshop for the Sunday School teachers and Bible Study class on the church year - and carefully explained out the colours and major symbols of each season of the church year.

You know how it goes - Green for Epiphany and the Season of Pentecost with symbols of growth and transformation - Red for Pentecost Day and celebrations of ministry with symbols of fire and of doves descending - Purple for Advent and Lent with symbols of crowns and trumpets for the first, and of crosses and thorns and nails for the other - and of course for Easter - white with symbols like butterflies and empty crosses and sunrises.

That is the way the tradition has come down to us, and that is the way that he expected the Sunday School class to work - the right way - the traditional way - the way taught to each and every one of us by our ancestors.

Anyway - to make a long story short, he found out a couple of weeks before the presentation was scheduled that the new Easter banner was going to be purple, and he was very upset by it.

How, he fumed, will the people ever come to understand the symbolism of the church, how will they ever celebrate the richness of church traditions and learn from them what it is important to know, if we don't present them in the correct way?

He really fretted about it until he remembered another banner from another church - it was a baptismal and confirmation hanging presented by the ladies one sunny Pentecost Sunday.

On it there was a purple dove flying over a light blue background, that dove was so purple it could have been easily mistaken for a crow and from that dove there dripped several drops of blood.

It too was something that didn't seem right to my friend - like the purple Easter banner, but do you know something? Out of all the banners that were hung in that church, and there were twelve in all in the sanctuary the one with the purple dove was the one that people looked at the most.

I could not stop myself from wondering about the love of God when I looked at how Jesus bled for us, about how, when we are baptized, we are baptized into his death, as well as into his resurrection, about how the Spirit lets us fly like a bird, and how that lifting up for us, that soaring, came at a price to our Lord; a price that he willing paid because of the incredible love that he had for us.

My friend was ever so grateful to the children and their teachers for that banner just as he ended up being grateful for the purple Easter Banner, both of them were impressive, and both of them represented the labour, the love, and the devotion of some very special people.

I tell this story today for a simple reason.

I tell it to remind each of you how easy it is to allow our sense of what is right and what is wrong to get in the way of our seeing and doing what is good and beautiful and loving.

Like Judas in the gospel reading today. It is so easy for us to criticize an act of love and of dedication, because it doesn't fit with what we think is the proper thing to do.

Leave aside for a minute the part of the gospel reading that suggests that Judas criticized Mary's act of love in anointing Jesus' feet with an expensive ointment because he was a thief - and instead think of his criticism of Mary's act for its own value.

"Why", he states, "Wasn't this perfume sold for three hundred silver coins and the money given to the poor?"

Why indeed?

When you look at the story of Mary anointing the feet of Jesus with an enormously expensive perfume and then wiping his feet with her hair from the perspective of the needs of others it seems incredibly wasteful, almost sinful.

Surely the best thing Mary could have done, if she was a true follower of the man who claimed he came to give sight to the blind, to heal the lame, and to set at liberty the oppressed, would have been to honour Jesus by giving what she had to the poor in the very way Judas suggests.

So it might seem - yet Jesus does not see it this way - instead Jesus approves of her actions, telling Judas that he should leave Mary alone, and let her keep what she has done as a precious memory, a memory of how she has in fact prepared him for his day of burial.

"The poor, Jesus says, "You will always have with you; but you will not always have me."

My brothers and sisters-Christ how often do we miss the opportunity to show love to someone, how often do we pass up the chance to care for someone because we are either too busy doing, or insisting that others do the right thing, the proper thing, first - OR - because we are thinking instead, like Judas was, of our own desires?

Love that is measured out, whether it be in time, or in our own internal sense of our available energy, is not really love at all.

Love always gives its best - and it does so at the moment of opportunity,it does so now, today, with the people immediately around us, and not at some future date, when the people we do care for may, in fact be dead and gone.

Love is an immediate thing, an extravagant thing, like that love showed by Mary, it is not dealt out a bit at a time and only to those who seem to us to qualify for it.

How often do we stop ourselves or someone else, from showing love to another person because we believe that someone else, or some other cause, deserves our attention more?

How many families have difficulties simply because everyone is so busy trying to be fair and share everything equally that absolutely no one ever has the feeling that they are loved fully - that they are special and unique and truly cared for?

We as the church are called to love God, and to love each other, we are called in that love, to serve God, and to serve the world.

We cannot do this if we are so intent on helping everyone that we forget to love the person next to us fully and deeply with all that we have.

We cannot love God and our neighbour as we are meant to if we end up cheating those closest to us of the love that they need in the name of trying to be sure that someone else gets what they need as well, even if the person said do not help, and just pray.

In Deuteronomy 15:, verses 10 and 11, it is written: "Give generously to your brother, and do so without a grudging heart, then because of this the Lord your God will bless you in all your work and in everything you put your hand to. The poor you will always have among you, therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and sisters and towards the poor and needy in your land."

Marvellous words with a marvellous promise, the promise that when we are not grudging, that when we are in fact open handed, or extravagant towards our brothers and sisters that God will in turn bless us - and not just in some things, but in everything.

This is the passage of scripture and the promise that Jesus alludes to when he says to Judas: "The poor you will always have with you, but you will not always have me."

My dear brothers and sisters-in Christ everyone needs to be loved. Everyone needs to be treated as special.

This cannot happen if we are glued to our measuring sticks of who should be cared for and of who deserves just how much of our giving; nor can it happen, if we feel that we personally, are called to take care of everyone equally - because this too involves measuring and judging.

We can only love in the way we are called to love, in the way that Mary loved, if we throw away our rule books and our measuring sticks, and love each person as fully as we possibly can, trusting, as we do so, in the righteousness of Christ, the saving grace of Jesus, to make it all come out right at end.

As long as we cling to the idea that saving the world is all up to us, that salvation comes because of what we do or what others do, we will be worried about our actions and our resources and our abilities, and we will end up failing to do as much as we are in fact able to do.

But when we begin to forget these things, when we stop counting the costs and considering the consequences, and look only to the love that God has for us, and to the incredible record of his faithfulness, then we will be free to love as extravagantly, as completely, and as humbly as did Mary on that day.

Extravagant love like that of Mary, is the kind of love to which we are called to. Indeed it is the kind of love that Jesus himself showed us, when he, on the day after Mary anointed his feet and dried them with her hair, he rode into Jerusalem and gave himself up to death on a cross so that we, utterly undeserving that we are, might live forever with him and with the Father above. AMEN

Joshua 5:9-12; II Corinthians 5:16-21, Psalm 32; Luke 15:1-3,11-32

O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.

The Scribe and Pharisees criticized Jesus, because he ate with sinners. And so Jesus told them a story. The story of what a friend of mine calls the story of "the prodigal family".

That story is very familiar to those of us who have been attending church for a few years. Many of us have it heard it several times, read it several times, perhaps even taught it several times.

It is a very rich story - a story that can be told or examined from a great variety of views. A story that can be identified with from a variety of vantage points.

MANY LOOK AT IT FROM THE POINT OF VIEW OF THE YOUNGEST SON - the prodigal - the one who wasted his living in a foreign land and ended up going from bad to worse till - at last - he comes to his senses and flees homeward hoping against hope that there he can put his life together again - even if must be as a servant - for he knows that in his father's house even servants live better than does he.

John Newton - the writer of one of the Church's favourite hymns identified with the youngest son.

In the year 1779, after a tumultuous life as a sailor, a dissolute life, a bitter and angry life in which he mocked those who believed in God and tore down the faith of those who lived decently, he came to his senses and he gave his life to Christ, and he found in Him a welcome - a love - that till that time he had only dreamed of.

Amazing Grace, how sweet the sound that saved a wretch like me. I once was lost, but now am found, was blind but now I see. T'was grace that taught my heart to fear, and grace my fears relieved, how precious did that grace appear the hour I first believed.

OTHERS OF US IDENTIFY WITH THE FATHER IN THE STORY - especially those of us who happen to be parents of children who have gone, or are going wrong.

Think of the father in today's gospel for a minute. Think of his pain. His youngest child - his youngest son has turned out badly.

He loves the child dearly - and what happens? The lad demands his inheritance, what he claims will be his when his father dies,and upon receiving it leaves home and is not heard from again.

We don't know why the father gave in to the demands of his youngest son for the money. Loving parents know that children are different. It is impossible to treat children exactly the same, because each child is unique. That makes child-rearing the most complex of all human tasks. Experts said that no man knows his true character until he has run out of gas, declared bankruptcy, and raised a teenager.

Perhaps the father gave in because he figured if he did not his son would only become more rebellious. Perhaps he gave in because he did not what else to do.

Whatever the reason - I think many of us here today can identify with the pain that the father must have felt; the pain - the second guessing - the constant worry - and the constant wondering...

- Will my boy make it?
- Will he survive?
- Will he become a decent man?
- Will he ever come home?

And so there are people who understand what happens at the end of story of the prodigal son. They understand why the father upon seeing in the distance his son returning home lifts his robes up around his thighs and runs down the road to meet him.

They understand - and they pray that such a seen might be enacted in their own lives. That they might be able to embrace their own child and say to him or her - welcome home.

BUT WHAT ABOUT THE OTHER SON IN THE STORY? What about the oldest brother? How many of us, I wonder, identify with him?

Let me do something for a second - let me take a poll - How many of you are the oldest child in your family? How many first-born do we have? Would you raise up your hands?

O.K., thank you. You may lower your hands.

Now, how many of you were the baby in your family? Would you raise your hand, please? Thank you.

Now, for those in the first group - the oldest children. How many of you felt like the baby of the family got away with things you never could have gotten away with? Would you raise your hand please?

I am a youngest child - the baby of a family - and for a long time when I read the story of the prodigal son I didn't really think about the oldest brother. However my mother died, and my father gone crazy and was even lock up in a mental home. My eldest sister also passed away.

I do think now about the older brother in the story of the prodigal family.

The older brother is like a lot of us. He gets up and goes to work every day and tries to be responsible. Indeed he feels he must be. It is expected of him. So you can understand why he would be upset with his baby brother.

First of all, that brat asked for his inheritance early, while father was still alive. That was selfish and an insult. It was exactly the same thing as wishing father was dead.

And then, it was just like that baby brother to squander it all. He never was a responsible person. He took it and went away and just wasted it. All that money that it had taken our family generations to accumulate. He just spent it all on sports cars and women and high living. It served him right that he wound up feeding somebody's pigs. He deserved it.

But now he comes home. And wouldn't you know it, Dad throws a party for him. He always could get away with murder around here. Nobody ever threw a party for me. Nobody ever appreciated that I stuck around and did what I was supposed to do. I didn't waste Dad's money. I worked hard in the fields every day. And do you think anybody ever butchered anything for me so I could have a party with my friends? No!

And who do you think will be the one to be responsible enough to take care of Dad when he grows old and feeble? Do you think it will be that brother of mine? No. It will be me. Because I am the responsible one around here.

Yes, Dad, little brother can come home - but don't throw a party! Make him grovel a little. He asked to be a servant. Let him do that for a while. He doesn't deserve to wear your fine suits.

Sound familiar?

It should - because that older brother is that responsible part in all of us who doesn't like it when somebody else gets something for nothing.

The older brother is that part of us that measures and weighs every deed for its value - every person for what they have earned or deserve - and has decided that by comparison we aren't getting the deal we deserve to get - or that someone else is getting more than the deserve.

It's important today that we understand whom Jesus told the story to that day long ago in Israel and why he told it.

The tax collectors and sinners with whom Jesus ate are not simply friendly people who have been misunderstood. Publicans were making a good living taking money from their own people for the sake of the occupying forces. Sinners were so designated because their behaviour had gotten them kicked out from the synagogue.

The Pharisees and other guardians of law and order could see the corrosive effect of not distinguishing between good and evil people.

Do the sayings: "birds of a feather flock together" or "evil companions make evil morals" sound at all familiar?

Think about it - doesn't forgiving look a lot like condoning?

To Jesus' listeners 2000 years ago, and perhaps to us today, the party is what is really offensive in the story.

Let the penitent return, there's nothing wrong with that. Both Judaism and Christianity allow for that. But let him return to bread and water, not fatted calf and fruit of the vineyard; to sackcloth and ashes, not to expensive suits and rings and merriment....

Those who to whom Jesus told the story of the prodigal family were responsible people. They followed the letter of the law. They did what they were supposed to do. And what did they see when they saw Jesus?

They saw a man whom they recognized as a holy man - a man whom many said was the Messiah, one whom some said was the Son of God, welcoming sinners and eating with them. Showing them the honour of his presence. Telling them that God loved them.

The Pharisees didn't like that one bit. Because those sinners hadn't toed the line. Yes, let them come in. But make them grovel a little.

The Pharisees, in all their super-responsibility were missing the party. They were not getting the message. They couldn't hear that God had enough love for them too.

Who are you in this story?

Are you the older son, jealous that somebody else is receiving God's love?

Are you the younger son, afraid to come home and ask for God's love?

Are you the Pharisee, so aware of what you have done and what others have failed to do that you can't enjoy the party? That you resent your God for being loving and forgiving?

The youngest Son learned an important lesson while starving in a foreign land. He learned about priorities. He learned that his father was a life giver.

That is something that we all need to learn. What our real priorities are in life. Where life is to be found - and how good that life really is.

In our lives here sometimes it seems that love is limited. That our parents, our wives or husbands, or our children, simply don't have enough love to go around. But that my friends is not so in the family of God.

In the story that Jesus tells to the scribes and pharisees who resented his eating with sinners, in the story he told to the oldest brother or daughter that lives inside our hearts he says:

"My child, you are always with me. You are very special to me. Indeed all that I have is yours - understand that - and rejoice with me that your younger brother - he who was as good as dead, is alive - he was lost - but now is found."

Hear the Good News. God's love is for you. Let your heart soften a little. Throw away the things that are blocking you from receiving the fullness of the love that God is aching to give you - and party a little.

Embrace your brother or your sister. Welcome them. Pray for them. Give thanks for them. The world will not end if you do. In fact it will become a better place for everyone. Amen.

I Corinthians 10:1-13 and Luke 13:1-9

O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.

It seems from today's Gospel reading that people haven't changed all that much over the two thousand years since the death and resurrection of Jesus.

People, then, as now, avidly discussed the latest news of death and destruction and tried to understand its significance.

We do not know precisely what tragedy some people told Jesus about on the day that our reading originally took place, all we know for sure is that several Galileans were killed in or near the temple by Pilate's soldiers as they prepared to offer their sacrifices to God.

Nor do we have a record of the tragedy involving the collapse of the tower in Siloam that killed eighteen people.

All we know for sure is that then, as now, tragedy struck and people died and still other people talked about it, and tried to make sense of it.

Whenever bad things happen, whenever senseless things happen, the human instinct is to try to make sense of it.

Why did my mother died?
Why was our son taken from us?
Why did God allow that mother of three children die of cancer?
Why did God allow the balloon in Egypt to blow up?

We all want to make sense of the senseless, we want to know why certain things occur, and that is often a good thing.

For example - when buildings collapse, like the tower in Siloam collapsed, investigations are done to find out why so that, just perhaps, such a tragedy will not occur again.

Generally speaking wanting to know why is not a bad thing, but sometimes the urge to figure out why leads us astray, it leads us into assigning blame and guilt to people that do not deserve it, or who at least do not deserve it any more or less than do we...

I recall a young man who was killed outside a pub some years ago. Samuel was the brother of a friend of mine. He was out with his girl friend for a quiet evening. He was minding his own business when he got assaulted by some sailors.

People, talking about the incident, were heard to say things like: "Well, if he hadn't gone to the bar district in Wanchai he wouldn't have been killed." and "People who drink deserve everything that happens to them."

Some people, in their quest to understand, reveal that they have all the compassion and sensitivity of a dead toad.

The implication was that Samuel somehow deserved what had happened to him - just as in today's reading, the implication is made by the people talking about the Galileans killed by Pilate that they somehow they deserved to die.

Why else would Jesus have replied, "Because those Galileans were killed in that way, do you think it proves that they were worse sinners than all other Galileans? And What about the eighteen people killed when the tower fell on them in Siloam? Do you suppose this proves that they were worse than all the other people living in Jerusalem. No indeed, and I tell you that if you do not turn from your sins, you will all die as they did."

There is a way to make sense of the senseless, but that way my friends is not to blame the victims by suggesting that somehow God brought about their death, or whatever other mishap has occurred to them as some kind of punishment.

By that standard no one should be alive today, for all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

Jesus suggests that we make sense of the senseless, not by condemning the victims of tragedy for their complicity in their own deaths - but by considering our own mortality, and our own sinfulness, and working to produce fruit befitting our salvation before we are called to account for our lives before his eternal throne.

The message of Jesus, like the prophets before him, is that all of us deserve to experience the wrath of God, but that God does not seek our deaths, or does he delight in our suffering, rather he calls us to live by his gracious law, and by the power of his Spirit and the wisdom of his living word, so that we might be able to stand before him at the end as one whose work in this life has been well and truly done.

As the parable of the unfruitful fig tree in verses 6-10 of today's reading tells us - God expects us to be fruitful for him, He expects us to produce that which is pleasing to him, lest we be cut down and perish like those we think have somehow deserved their deaths.

That same parable, my friends, tells us that God is in the business of giving us second, third, and indeed even fourth chances, chances to get it straight, and do that which is pleasing to him, but that, when all is said and done, there is a time of reckoning that we must all face.

That same parable also tells us that God actively labours over us to make us fruitful before making his final judgement.

We are not only given time to get things straight, we are also given the care and attention that a good gardener gives to his plants - the raking and the fertilizer and the nourishment that anything requires if it is to be fruitful.

I can not tell you why some people die at certain times and others do not. I can not make sense of the senseless in this fashion. But I can and do tell you what Jesus had to say about our making judgements about those who have died, and judgements about God's intention in allowing those deaths to occur as they did.

I can tell you that all of us are in need of the gracious forgiveness of God, that all of us deserve to die as much as anyone else deserves to die, to die without hope of redemption, without hope of seeing the face of God smiling at us, and the hand of God giving us the eternal crown of victory and life evermore in his kingdom.

And I can tell you that it is not God's purpose or intention that this should happen to us - but rather, through the labour of his Son - Jesus - he works to make us all that we should be in this life, and that he gives us every chance we need.

God gives us time to repent on one hand, and what we need to become productive for him on the other.

Jesus calls us to make sense of the senseless by giving our own lives meaning before we are called home to God.

Do our lives count for anything?
Are we fruitful for God?
Do we make a difference?
Or are our branches bare,
and our limbs naked?

There is an old story told about little Johnny:

Johnny was going home one day past his grandfather's house with a couple of his friends. As they passed the house they spied the old gentleman out on his sun porch in his rocking chair with a big black book on his lap reading rather intently.

"What's your grandfather doing", asked one of Johnny's friends.

"Oh - grandpa - he's getting ready for the finals", Johnny replied.

Our Lord and Saviour is patient with us my friends. He cultivates us and tends to us, even when we ignore him, even when we fail to trust him, even when we produce nothing for him.

But not forever can we put off the day when we are called home for the final exams - home to account for what we have done and what we have not done.

The question is not whether or not other people's death make sense, whether or not they have deserved their deaths at the time and in the manner that they came to them, but whether or not our lives make sense, whether or not they are fruitful for God and we are ready to meet our maker. May His name be praise day by day. Amen!

Genesis 15:1-12,17-18; Psalm 27; Philippians 3:17-4:1; Luke 13:20-35

O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the thoughts we form. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.

Years ago a researcher for a publishing company was interviewing a number of people to determine what kind of books they liked to read. The Bible, Shakespeare, and the classics were high on nearly everyone's list.

In return for their cooperation, the researcher offered each person a choice of a free book from a list of titles published by the company. The most popular choice of this high-minded group was "Murder of a Burlesque Queen."

As I look at the culture of the Western world today it seems clear that we prize comfort more than commitment, self-indulgence more than self-sacrifice, possessions more than people.

And the sad thing is that many of us do not even realize that our values are askew. And this includes - though it ought not - people within the church of Christ Jesus.

In today's epistle reading St. Paul says there are two kinds of people: those who have their eyes set on worldly pleasures, whose God is their belly - and those who citizenship is in heaven and who await a Saviour from there - our Lord Jesus Christ.

And he calls us - as we wait - to stand firm in the Lord.

So where are you at?

Are you a person whose life is oriented toward this world, or is your life oriented beyond this world to eternity?

What is that you actually focus on?
What do you seek out for yourself and your family?
What do you value?

I've said before that people don't talk much about heaven anymore, even people who claim to be followers of Christ.

C.S. Lewis in his book, THE PROBLEM OF PAIN, written years ago - puts it this way:

"We are very shy nowadays, of even mentioning heaven. We are afraid of the jeer about pie in the sky' and of being told that we are trying to escape from the duty of making a happy world here-and-now into dreams of a happy world elsewhere."

"But", Lewis continues, "either there is 'pie in the sky' or there is not. If there is not, then Christianity is false, for this doctrine is woven into its whole fabric. If there is, then this truth, like any other, must be faced... whether it makes us popular or not"

Lewis is right.

Either our primary focus is on this world and its pleasures or it is on heaven and the Saviour that we await - the one who does not simply labour to make earth more like heaven, but whose mission is, instead, to have us become citizens of heaven - a people who are ready for the new heaven and the new earth that will come when the old heaven and earth pass away - a people who live - and live forever - because they depend more upon the bread of heaven than they do upon that bread made from grain and other things of this earth.

As I said before in speaking about the temptations that we experience, there is a choice that must be made and that choice primarily consists of what we focus upon.

Are we concerned to discover what it is God wants us to do with our lives?

- Who it is that God wants us to touch with his love?
- What it is that God wants us to say to our friends when they are in distress?
- Where it is that God wants us to go so that we might be a blessing to others - and perhaps receive a blessing ourselves?

Or do we seek instead to determine how we will get a bigger home or a newer car or take that vacation we have long wanted.

Do our values reflect a higher order of things - a divine order - a heavenly order? Or do they focus more on what Paul calls the things of the belly?

Are you able to enjoy the simple pleasures of life, those things that God has made and placed in your path, or must you surround yourself with the things that humankind make and then sell at price that only the wealthy can afford?

I remember reading a story:

Two of the characters were brothers - David and Michael. They were complete opposites. Michael was a successful businessman, while David took seasonal jobs at ranches, parks and resorts.

Concerned for David's welfare, businessman Michael tried to entice David with the so-called "good life." He would send David photos labelled "My new sound system" or "My new car." The campaign ended, though, when Michael received a poster from David showing a breathtaking view of Wyoming's Grand Teton National Park.

On the back David had written: "My back yard."

Whether it is the latest stereo equipment, a new car, the latest computer system, a massage at the neighbourhood spa, or a membership in the local health club, there are some people who are desperately seeking happiness and length of life through those things that money can buy.

It's sad, but our world is wrapped up in the pursuit of power, pleasure and possessions.

Some can only enjoy a sunset if it is in Thailand. Exercise has no lure for others unless they are in the right club or at least have on the right attire. Even the food we eat must be served with the proper ambience.

I'm not saying that all the things of this earth are sinful in and of themselves.

I am saying if you have to have these things to be happy, you are in trouble - and you are most especially in trouble when you consider that well over ninety percent of this world's population do not and cannot experience even ten percent of the physical abundance that is ours... and yet seem fully able to live and to love and to know joy and peace.

Dr. Eugene Brice once read an account written by a woman born near the turn of the 20th century. She wrote of raising a family on a farm during hard, hard times. She told about one terrible winter when their 18-month-old daughter came down with a cold, then flu, then pneumonia, then diphtheria. Living 18 miles from town, they resorted to home remedies and the help of neighbours. The baby's condition, though, went downhill rapidly and they grew more desperate. The worst night, the woman wrote, was when snow fell, making any more travel to town extremely difficult. That night the baby lay virtually lifeless. The baby's father wrote in his journal, "Heavy snow. How can we bury our baby in this? The blackest day of my life thus far."

The next day the doctor came out from town, making the last 8 miles of the trip on horseback over terrible roads. He said that the infection seemed to be lessened, but that the child was still very near death. If they could just get some nourishment of some kind down her, with a bit of strength and a lot of luck, she might make it. Maybe, he said, an egg would help.

An egg! Simple suggestion, but it was the dead of winter and the hens were not laying and there was no way to get to town. Someone went to the recently installed rural party line and rang the neighbours. The word went out quickly. Did anyone have an egg? The baby's life depended on it. Fortunately, one distant neighbour did! One egg was found, and the neighbour rode over with it. Into the house he came as they rejoiced. The baby was given an eggnog of sorts, and continued her improvement. The crisis was over, and the baby was soon well again.

The woman who wrote that was Eugene Brice's mother; the baby was his twin sister. Brice says he thinks of this occasionally when he opens the refrigerator door and sees eggs stacked there in every season of the year. He often compares his life, all that he has, with theirs in those far more difficult days when, in comparison to us, they had so little. And yet, he occasionally wonders if in his entire life he has ever felt the depth of joy they felt when that one egg was brought carefully into the house on that snowy December day of 1932.

"A person's life," Jesus said, "does not consist of the abundance of his possessions."

Indeed not. Our possessions are but a temporary illusion, a package of materials that can not and will not accompany us to heaven, and whose weight, in fact, might help hold us back from taking that trip.

It is all a question of focus - a question of faith, of what we seek.

Are you seeking, by the grace of God, to live a Christ-like life?

There's no use, you see, of talking about the eternal joy of life on the other side of the tomb if we don't really enjoy living for Christ on this side of the tomb.

Are you and I seek to live as followers of Jesus here and now?

You might quickly say - YES - OF COURSE - Why else would I be here today? But think about it for a minute.

Think of the parable found in today's gospel - the parable of the narrow door.

Think of how Jesus says to those who are locked outside the door, how he says those who are knocking on it - "I do not know where you come from."

And think too of how they reply to him - "but we ate and drank with you and you taught in our streets". And of how Jesus again replies: "I do not know where you come from."

A religious pedigree means nothing - Knowing Jesus' name - and saying the odd prayer - especially when you are in trouble - means even less.

Even doing things in the name of Christ - good things - is no guarantee of heaven - no guarantee that your values are right - that your focus is correct - that you really trying to live as Christ calls you to live.

Hear these word's of Jesus. Word's found in the gospel according to Matthew.

"Not everyone who says to me, 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in Heaven. On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many deeds of power in your name?'. And I will declare to them: 'I never knew you; go away from me, you evil-doers."

And hear these words again from today's Gospel reading - hear them as if you were there with Jesus as he laments what might have been:

"O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it! How often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing."

Are you willing to do the work of God as Christ did it

- even when it will lead you to some loss in this world
- even when it might mean that there are some pleasures you may have to avoid, or some people whom you will never be popular with?

Are you willing to follow Christ even though it may mean that you may have to give up certain business practices - or confront your boss or your neighbour or even your husband about their unacceptable behaviour? Are you willing to imitate the example of our Lord - even though it may demand of you that you forgive those who have hurt you badly and give all of yourself for those who don't even care for you?

Are you willing to follow Jesus - even when it might lead you to a cross???
Are you ready to stand firm in the Lord?? Or is there another God to whom you sacrifice?

These are the questions of our Lenten Season as we watch Christ himself struggle to focus on what God has called him to and to resist doing what his mortal flesh suggests to him he should be about.

it is all a matter of basic orientation. A matter of focus.

Stand firm by looking at Jesus and trusting in Him rather than pursuing the things of this world.

Remember that God promises that he will not turn away those who turn to him in faith and trust and obedience. And that He promises eternal life to those who seek day by day to walk in the way that leads to eternity.

"Jerusalem, Jerusalem, How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings... but you would not"

This morning, once again, Jesus Christ calls you and me. He calls us to the shelter of God's protecting wings. He calls you and me to the loving embrace of his arms - the arms that he stretched out on the cross - for you - and for me. May His Name be praised day by day. Amen!

Deuteronomy 26:1-11; Luke 4:1-13

O Lord, we pray, speak in this place, in the calming of our minds and the longing of our hearts, by the words of my lips and in the meditations of our hearts. Speak, O Lord, for your servants listen. Amen.

A young man was sent to Spain by his company to work in a new office. He accepted because it would enable him to earn enough to marry his long-time girlfriend. Their plan was to pool their resources and put a down payment on a house when he returned.

As the lonely weeks went by, she began expressing doubts that he was being true to her. After all, Spain is populated by beautiful women. The young man declared that he was paying absolutely no attention to the local girls. "I admit," he wrote, "that sometimes I'm tempted. But I fight it. I'm keeping myself for you."

Soon afterwards, the young man received a package. It contained a note and a harmonica. "I'm sending this to you," his girlfriend wrote, "so you can have something to take your mind off those girls." The young man sent her a email telling her that he was practising on the harmonica every night and thinking only of her.

When the young man returned home his girl was waiting at the airport. As he rushed forward to embrace her, she held up a restraining hand and said sternly, "Hold on there. First I want to hear you play that harmonica!"

Every year the season of Lent starts with the story of how Jesus was tempted in the wilderness by the devil.

I think that many of us are alarmed by the fact of temptation, by the fact that when we pause and look into our hearts we notice that there within them are desires that we know are wrong, wants that we know if indulged will lead to evil.

We are alarmed because we think of ourselves as good people - basically honest, hardworking, upright people - yet there - lurking inside some of us is anger, jealousy, envy, racism, hatred, lust or bitterness...inside still others of us, there are cravings of every sort - from the desire to own ever more material things than we now own, to the desire to possess other people - to control other people - to be able to use their bodies for our own pleasure - their time to meet our own needs - their talent to earn praise and profit for our own selves.

The fact of temptation, the fact of evil desire, insofar as it exists in us, as it exists in me, is distressing.

For some people, the more vivid the sense of temptation - the more disturbed they become. They begin to question their spirituality, their faithfulness, their ability to do good, they begin to feel inferior - weak - uncertain - and insecure.

I think that at the heart of this uneasiness, at the heart of this distress, lies the thought that if we are really doing what we should be doing then we would not experience the temptations that we do experience, that our impulses would all be for the good, that our habits would keep us from even considering doing something we ought not to do.

To this feeling the Gospel today replies - No! That is not how it works.

Temptation is a part of the human condition - indeed it is so much a part of our humanity - that when we are most connected to God then we are most tempted.

Look at Jesus for a minute - He is raised in righteousness by Mary and Joseph, he studies, he works, he observes the Sabbath, and sits with the teachers of the law, and finally - when the time is right he is baptised by John in the Jordan and the voice of God approves him and the spirit of God settles upon him and then wham - he is tempted in the wilderness...not once - not twice - but three times and we are told that when the devil finally leaves Jesus - he does so only to wait for another time - for an opportune time says my translation...

The good news of today's gospel reading lies in the fact that Jesus himself was tempted.

You are not spiritually or morally inferior because there lies within you desires that are unworthy, you are not less than faithful simply because you consider cutting a corner or two here or there. In fact the opposite might well be the case - you might be experiencing temptation because you are worthy of being tempted.

My friends - if you are already travelling toward's a particular destination as fast as your feet can take you - and that destination happens to be the one that the devil wants you to arrive at - he is hardly going to stick out his leg and try to trip you - he's not going to suggest that you turn around and go the other way is he?

You are not spiritually or morally inferior simply because you experience temptation. Nor are you a sinner because you feel sinful desires. Sin only comes in when you succumb to temptation, when you indulge the impulses that you should not indulge.

Some people break down temptation into three categories - categories that roughly match the experience that Jesus went through while wandering in the wilderness in the days immediately after his baptism.

First there are physical temptations - the urges we have to satisfy our physical wants regardless of how we go about it.

Then there are emotional temptations - temptations to indulge one's feelings - one's ego - to make oneself the centre of all things - to receive all glory and all praise and all power - all the attention that you want - that you should have...

And then their are spiritual temptations - the temptation to test God - to dare God to prove his love - to manipulate God - to get God to use his magic powers on your behalf that you may impress others with them - that you may show to others your favoured status in the eyes of the Lord.

Personally I am not convinced by this threefold division of the nature of temptation - though we are tempted in all three ways.

I not convinced - because when all is said and done temptation is always a spiritual matter and because temptation rarely comes to us as a clear cut decision between good and evil.

Temptation always comes to us shrouded in goodness - in plausibility - in attractiveness. It comes as an outgrowth of the circumstances that we are in - circumstances that have their own logic and their own appeal.

Do we put on our sweats and walk or run this morning? No. It's raining and we don't want to get sick.

Should we talk about the issue that we have been avoiding with our spouse?
No - the kids will be home soon and we'll be interrupted.
No - she is not in a good mood.
No - it won't do any good anyway...

Should I go to the doctor about the pain in my chest?
No - it's probably just gas.
No - if it is serious then it won't make any difference anyway.
No - other people are sicker than I am and I don't want to abuse the health system like others do.

We face situation after situation everyday, some of them relatively trivial, and some of major consequence, in which the choice is not between good and evil, but between what is hard and what is easy.

To be tempted is to accept what comes naturally - food when hungry - water when thirsty - sex when lonely - power when an authority - condescension when working with inferiors - impatience when dealing with the slow, the old or the feeble - rudeness when dealing with those who are paid to serve - intolerance when dealing with those who don't fish or cut bait - hatefulness when dealing with those who contradict you - smugness when considering one's own performance... pride when thinking of ones' own humility, one's own generosity, one's own political astuteness, social grace, tolerance, or faithfulness.

All these things are natural - all these things are easy - and - as you know - all these things are common. They are the fruit of temptations that are hard to refuse.

You're hungry Jesus - if you are the Son of God - do what comes naturally to you - turn these rocks into bread. Use your advantage to your advantage - it won't hurt anyone.

You want to change the world - to make a difference - to see justice done - to help the poor - to set your people free - all you have to do is simply bow down right now and worship me...

Jesus - you know God loves you. Your plan will sell a lot easier if people see that you are special to Him. Let God save you from certain disaster - let his angels carry you up from the ground in the presence of the priests and the teachers and everyone in Jerusalem. You won't have to go around from home to home then - preaching and healing people. You won't have to work to convince people to follow your way - they'll line up for miles and miles just for a chance to see you...

Temptation is a natural thing. It appeals to our natural impulses - both for good and for bad. Temptation is also an easy thing - that is a major part of it's attraction.

And there is only one cure for it - That cure is focus - or faith.

Christ showed us the way - by rebuffing the things that tempted him with his focus on what God revealed to Israel through Moses and the prophets.

When tempted with the easy way - he drew from his heart to his mind the word of God that he had been taught: One does not live by bread alone - Worship the Lord your God and serve only him. Do not put the Lord your God to the test..

Christ resisted the easy way, the natural way - by recalling God's way - by speaking it out in the midst of his vision, his dream, his temptation.

And so can we - and even more so. More so - because Christ is in us, he who won the victory over the evil one, he who resisted successfully - dwells within us.

He knows how hard it is to walk the walk and talk the talk - he knows how easy it is to close your eyes to the troubles around you, your ears to the cries of need and despair and your hearts to the hearts of those who live with you or near to you. He knows the attraction of the quick fix and the struggle to keep on the difficult road. And he stands ready to help when we call upon him.

When we touch the Christ who is in us. When we reach inside ourselves and ask of ourselves - What would Jesus do here and now -then we are on the road we should be on.

At the end of our days God will not ask us if we did wrong - nor will he ask us if we have been tempted - but he will ask us if we have learned to play the tunes of love on the spiritual harmonica he has given us. He will ask if we have walked the road that Christ was on in the direction that Christ walked it.

And if we have - and in doing so we happened to stumble and fall once in a while - God will bandage the wounds and wipe the tears from our eyes - and give us a hug - for we will have done all that he expects of us.

Praise be to his name. Amen.