'Listening to the call of Jesus' - transcript of sermon at St John's celebrating 30 years ministry

St John the Baptist Littleworth 

Patronal Festival 2016

John 11.1-44

 The next day again John was standing with two of his disciples and he looked at Jesus as he walked by and said, “Behold, the Lamb of God!”

We are told that one of these disciples is Andrew, Simon Peter’s brother. Most scholars agree that the unnamed disciple was John, who throughout the Gospel bearing his name demurs to mention his own name.

John the Baptizer came as a voice crying in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.’

He was not the Messiah but the forerunner, the one who points people to Jesus, the perfect Passover Lamb of God.  Therefore, it was understandable that John the Baptizer accepted his disciples switching their allegiance to Jesus.

And it is a story from John’s Gospel that I would like us to consider this morning. 

In my early ministry, I served as a Community Evangelist in Luton and as a Parish Evangelist in Prudhoe, Northumberland.

During this 10-year period, I conducted hundreds of funerals.

This passage from John chapter 11 was often used.

It speaks eloquently of the human condition around the death of a loved one. We have that universal phrase that it seems everyone utters at some time, ‘if only.’  If only I had told them how much I love them, if only he had not taken that route, if only…

Even as we gather here this morning, there will be millions of people making this journey. Perhaps some of you have recently made this journey or, are currently travelling through this pathway, or will shortly make this journey.  

There is a huge amount of material in this passage to be unearthed and explored.  All that talk of resurrection and the ‘last day’ and Jesus being the resurrection and life – wonderful, wonderful stuff to explore.  However, let us move on because I would like us to move to the tomb and observe what Jesus does. (Worth remembering, we read the story in hindsight)

Quickly though let me mention the burial custom of the time. A body would be laid in the tomb and allowed to decompose. When that process had taken place the bones would be gathered, and put in a bone box – an ossuary. The ‘shelf’ would then be ready for another body.

By the way, you may wish to take something for the smell – ‘there is a stench because he has been dead four days.’

As we stand at the entrance to the tomb and watch, I would invite us to consider Christ’s compassion, his communication, his call and his commission. 

We first consider Christ’s compassion. 

You will probably know that the Bible was divided up into Chapters early in the 13^th century and by the mid-16^th century was further divided up into verses.

Whoever decided that just two words should form a verse was truly inspired. Chapter 11 verse 35 – ‘Jesus wept.’

It is more than just a verse, more than a chapter, more even than a whole book. It is like a tiny pebble thrown into a pond with ripples cascading outwards. This is Jesus deeply moved at the human condition, troubled in his spirit - and he weeps.

I tried to capture something of this in a short poem I wrote, called 

‘The Tears of God.’

Tears of God

In Nottingham

A young girl is shot

Where her body lies

Her blood spilt

God appoints and angel

To wash away the blood

With tears.

Myriads of angels

Do not sing

“Glory to God”

But stand

And weep

For this broken world.

By the gas ovens

Of Auswitch

The starving child in Africa

Where each person dies

God appoints an angel

To watch and weep

Thus the blood of the innocents

Are mingled with the tears of God

“…and he shall wipe away their tears”      (c) Gordon Banks 

Let me ask this question, when was the last time we wept for our broken world, for the broken people we encounter. For the broken bodies, broken marriages, broken relationships, broken spirits and broken minds.

Maybe heeding the words of that lovely Noel Richards song…

Filled with compassion for all creation,
Jesus came into a world that was lost.
There was but one way that He could save us,
Only through suffering death on a cross.

God, You are waiting. Your heart is breaking
For all the people who live on the earth.
Stir us to action, Filled with Your passion
For all the people who live on the earth.  

Next, let us turn to consider Christ’s Communication… 

So they took away the stone. Then Jesus looked up and said, “Father, I thank you that you have heard me.  I knew that you always hear me, but I said this for the benefit of the people standing here, that they may believe that you sent me.”

Jesus was so steeped and soaked in prayer that Jesus could say that He and the Father were one – what Jesus thought and said and did, so the Father thought and said and did.

How do we stand on that one this morning? Are we seeped and soaked in prayer, both individually and corporately. 

“When I pray, coincidences happen; when I don’t, they don’t,” said William Wilberforce.

Is that your experience – is that our experience.

There was a time when it was very popular to have a wristband with WWJD on them.

For some people they continue to be a good way of helping them to think through the situations they find themselves facing, asking the question, what would Jesus do.

However, I would like to suggest that we should strive to go beyond that. To seek to be so attuned and in communication with God, that we instinctively do the right thing in God’s eyes.

I am certainly not there yet – however I do give you full permission to challenge me about my prayer life. That said; don’t be surprised if I also ask you the same question. Indeed let us call one another to account and stir each other up that we may say along with Paul…

I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Philippians 3.12

Now we consider Christ’s call.  

It is interesting to speculate that if Jesus had not called out Lazarus’ name would more people have come out of their graves.

However, such is the nature of God that he knows each one of us and calls us by name out of sin, death, darkness and the grave.

"Look! I stand at the door and knock. If you hear my voice and open the door, I will come in, and we will share a meal together as friends. Revelation 3.20

I first became conscious of that knocking and calling of my name around the age of fourteen. At the time, I was attending a Church of England Senior School that taught a great deal about religion (of the C of E variety) but little about Faith. This was in the mid-sixties, a time of Cultural Revolution. A time of protest songs by Dylan and Donovan and many others. I was deeply fascinated and attracted to Jesus as a social rebel, standing against the establishment.

At the time I thought the Church had got him all wrong, he wasn’t divine or the Son of God, he was a great moral teacher and champion of the poor and neglected. I decided I was going to travel the world with this message, and practiced giving talks to my dog on the open moorland behind our house. At the age of fifteen and leaving school in 1966 and making a vow never to go back into school or a church ever again, I parked God and Jesus. I was off to Newmarket in the hope of becoming a famous jockey.  However, like The Hound of Heaven in Francis Thompson’s poem, God was on my case…

From those strong Feet that followed, followed after.

                  But with unhurrying chase,

                  And unperturbèd pace,

                Deliberate speed, majestic instancy,

                  They beat--and a Voice beat

                  More instant than the Feet--

                "All things betray thee, who betrayest Me."

That call and knocking came again when I got married for the first time in 1972 and a couple of years later when we had our first child Christened. However, I didn’t respond then as both those occasions appeared more tied up in a religious ceremony that was part of a package than anything to do with a living faith in Jesus.

Come 1973 and watching a Zeffirelli film about St Francis, ‘Brother Son, Sister Moon,’ I was deeply moved. I thought if I could find the Jesus of St Francis that would be someone worth following. On March 4^th 1974 and the calling is getting louder and the knocking more persistent and the feet behind getting closer as I found myself working alongside David in a new job.

David was not religious, David was a Christian, and he had a faith in Jesus. I resisted and argued at first, but God was most definitely on my case now.

In November 1974, David gave me a Bible. I started to attend meetings, and reading others books about the Christian faith. The knocking and the calling continued until on the 1^st January 1975 I wrote in my diary ‘this year I resolve to become a Christian.’  I opened the door and invited Jesus into my heart and my life. Then all hell broke loose, but that’s another story for another time.

Let me ask you this morning, what is your story. Have you heeded that call, responded to that knocking? Have you invited Jesus into your heart and into your life? If you have, then I would love to hear your story, something I would encourage us all to do, to exchange our journey to faith stories and to share what God continues to do in our lives today. If you have yet to do that, I implore you with every fibre of my being, please do not leave this place today with asking someone to help you take that step. It will be the most important decision of your life.

Finally, let us consider Christ’s commission. 

The dead man came out, his hands and feet wrapped with strips of linen, and a cloth around his face. Jesus said to them, "Take off the grave clothes and let him go."

Called out of sin and death into new life we emerge still wearing grave clothes – but that needs to change.

…put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires. Romans 13.14

…. and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness. Ephesians 4.24

As God’s people, this is our task and this is our commission. Because God calls us as we are, and loves as we are, but does not want to leave us as we are.  

We are to help people who take that step of faith to strip away all the former habits that lead them away from God.

‘…let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles.’ Hebrews 12.1

 That can take some time and needs to be done with gentleness and sensitivity.

However, here is the thing that I find as I have walked with Jesus for the last 40 years. I still find myself on occasions putting back on grave clothes and slowly walking back towards the tomb. Is that true of you as well?

However, however, however, thanks be to God that…

…Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers,  to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up  until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.  Ephesians 4.11-13

Brothers and sisters we are called no less than to become as Christ in the world wherever we may find ourselves and whatever we find ourselves doing – we are Christ’s ambassadors 24/7.  

Full of Christ’s compassion

Frequent in communication with Christ

Responsive to Christ’s call

Accepting of Christ’s commission

Let me close with some words from His Holiness Pope Benedict XV1

And only where God is seen does life truly begin.

Only when we meet the living God in Christ do we know what life is.

We are not some casual and meaningless product of evolution.

Each of us is the result of a thought of God.

Each of us is willed,

Each of us is loved,

Each of us is necessary.

There is nothing more beautiful than to be surprised by the Gospel,

By the encounter with Christ.

There is nothing more beautiful than to know him and to speak to others of our friendship with Him.

Amen