Shekhinah

Scripture: The Fourth Sunday of Easter, A.D. 2014 A

Sermon:

Grace, mercy and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.  AMEN.

Christ is always with us. That seems the basic message of the Scriptures for us this morning.

The Acts of the Apostles talks about the early Church in Jerusalem in the days after the risen Christ ascended into Heaven. Jesus’ disciples devote themselves to teaching and to fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to the prayers of their community. Some of this they do openly, at the great Temple. Some of this they do in the homes of believers, such as the sharing of the Lord’s Supper.

They also hold all things in common, selling their possessions and giving to all those in need. The Church in Jerusalem started out as a sort of commune or monastic experiment, like the Jewish Essene communities in the desert. This actually didn’t work out very well; their intentions were wonderful, but the economics fell flat. Before long St. Paul would find himself touring throughout the wide world, gathering offerings for Jerusalem’s bankrupt Christians. They had given all that they’d had, and now were themselves in need.

How interesting—indeed, how comforting—that we can recognize this ancient and distant community, 2,000 years and half a world away, as our own. They do what we do: they gather together to share Communion, to pray, to hear teachings on the Scriptures, to enjoy fellowship with one another, and to offer up their resources—their time, their talents, and their treasures—for the needs of the Church. Everything in your bulletin you can find in this morning’s readings. The Church of Scripture is the same Church in which we gather today.

But perhaps the most remarkable line that we read together is that last bit: “And day by day the Lord added to their number those who were being saved.” Notice that. Day by day the Lord added to their number. It wasn’t Peter or James or John who grew the Church. It wasn’t the brilliance of preaching or the innovative programming available. It wasn’t the music or the bulletin design or the use of PowerPoint projectors that grew the Church. It was Jesus. It was the Lord Who grew His Church. He had claimed this community as His Body; He had given to us the Holy Spirit Himself. And so it has ever been Christ’s work, and not our own, that grows this community of faith—not simply in numbers but in service, in depth, in imagination. God is not concerned with size. God is concerned with people, no matter how small.

1,000 years before the Apostles, King David sang much the same song in his twenty-third psalm. “The Lord is my Shepherd,” prophesied David. “I shall not want. He makes me lie down. He leads me. He restores me. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I fear no evil, for You are with me. You prepare me a table. You anoint my head. My cup overflows. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.” Christ is with us always, even in the shadow of death, even when we are beset on all sides by our enemies. No one knew this better than David, who suffered great evils in his life, and sadly committed quite a few great evils of his own.

And then we have the Epistle of St. Peter. “Yes,” Peter writes, “Christ is with you. He is the Shepherd and Guardian of your souls.” But like David, Peter is not naïve. He in no way suggests that the presence of God means that we will avoid hardship. Quite the contrary! Our God suffered for others, died for others, and we are called upon to do the same. “It is a credit for you if, being aware of God, you endure pain while suffering unjustly,” counsels Peter. “If you endure when you do right and suffer for it, you have God’s approval.”

Now I’ll be the first to admit that we’re treading on some thin ice when we start talking about suffering here. Suffering is often the greatest obstacle to faith, and with good reason. I can’t tell you how many people have lost faith in God, or simply scoffed at faith from the get-go, due to the reality of human suffering. If God is so good, why is the world so full of pain? Why do the just suffer along with the unjust? I tell you, my greatest fear is the same as any parent’s: losing a child. I often wonder, if I lost a child, would I lose faith in God? Could I ever stand that much suffering? Would I hate Him, would I curse Him? I pray that my faith is never so tested. Christ have mercy.

So when Peter writes, “It is a credit if you endure pain while suffering unjustly; when you do right and suffer you have God’s approval,” we have to tread carefully. There are people in this congregation and community who are suffering right now, today. Their children are suffering. Is Peter saying that their pain is a good thing? Is Peter claiming that God causes them to suffer, wants them to suffer? Good God, no!

There is suffering and brokenness and pain in this world. We all experience it! Here in the more-or-less civilized West we need not fear raiders or terrorists or the horrors of war. But we do suffer in more spiritual ways. We suffer from lack of meaning, lack of purpose, lack of rest or of love or of peace. We also suffer diseases, disappointment, and disasters. We suffer from the ravages of time. And none of this is God’s doing. None of this is God’s will. God came that we may have life and have it abundantly!

So then, what is God’s response? How does God react to a broken soul, a broken people, a broken world? We want Him to bring the hammer down, I know. We want Him to snap His almighty fingers and force the world back to its original blessed state, force people to love God and to love one another and to steward Creation back to wholeness. We want God to wage open war against suffering, to miracle it all away, because we would prefer a benevolent dictator to the horrifying results of our own choices and actions. But that’s not how God works. That’s not how love works.

Love cannot force. Love cannot tyrannize. Love cannot override free will. If it did it would cease to be love, and our God is love. At the same time, love cannot give up. Love never tires of loving, never tires of forgiving, never tires of offering new life. Love gives of love’s self, love dies for the other, for the chance of new life. When God sees us suffering, He doesn’t snap His fingers and miracle it all away. Sometimes, I know, we wish that He would. But God doesn’t sit around and do nothing either. He responds to our suffering by joining us in it. God plunges down from Heaven into the guts of a girl, into a manger in a cave, into a desert land at the crossroads of empire—and from there He continues to love us all the way to the Cross, all the way to the grave, all the way to Hell and back.

God shares our suffering, joins us in our suffering, and thereby transforms it into something meaningful, something purposeful. When we suffer we know that Christ is with us—with us in the darkest valley, with us in the shadow of death. He draws closest to us when we are most like Him: broken and bowed and in need. And this bizarre suffering God, Who abides with us through thick and thin—whether we have brought this suffering upon ourselves or shoulder it unjustly—He gives to our lives a dignity and a meaning and a purpose that otherwise we could neither hope for nor begin to comprehend.

To know that Christ is with you changes everything. The everyday things of life become holy, because Jesus is with you in them. Your everyday trials become heroic, for you endure them alongside the King of Kings. Your house is now His palace; your body is now His temple. That changes who you are. And when you realize that not only does God notice your life, but actually cares about it, even joins you in it—my God, how can we react? How can we even begin to deal with such a miracle? If we only glimpse the least glimmer of this glory it transforms us, resurrects our lives. We are overcome with humility. We are overcome with gratitude. And we can only deal with such grace by letting it overflow out from us and unto others in acts of loving-kindness. How glorious the world would be if we but lived every day knowing the truth that we are all sons and daughters of the one true King! And our destiny is life eternal.

God does not will our suffering. God wills that we respond to suffering with love and kindness and gratitude. He does not expect us to shoulder this great burden alone, but He Himself joins us in our lives, in our suffering, in our homes and our communities. He makes them holy. He makes us holy. Not because we’re so strong or so great or so kind—we’re not—but simply because He loves us and forgives us and will never let us go. That’s how we know that He is with us always, even unto the end of the age. And that changes everything for the lives of those who trust in His promise of love.

Thanks be to Christ, that He calls our names, and we hear His voice. In Jesus. AMEN.