REMEMBRANCE SUNDAY 11TH November 2013
As we gather
here today our thoughts and thanks quite rightly will be foremost for those who
have given their lives in previous conflicts; for today is their day when we
remember the sacrifice of their deaths, sacrifices made in order that you and I
might enjoy the freedom to live and to live in freedom. It is a day which, if
we are truly grateful, ought to prompt us to honest reflection about how we
choose to use that freedom; to repent of misuses of that freedom and actively
to seek out ways in which we might employ our gifts and talents, experience and
expertise, in sacrificial service of our fellow human beings.
But our
thoughts and prayers must also be for the living, for those fighting, even as I
speak, in Afghanistan and elsewhere, facing every day the prospect of sudden death.
I can remember myself, as a young rifle platoon commander in Northern Ireland
some 30 years ago now, what that felt like before each and every patrol or
ambush. Of course, in your early 20s, you think not only that you are
infinitely better than the enemy, you also tend to believe yourself
indestructible. Yet talking with some riflemen, recently returned from
Afghanistan, the nature of the conflict there, together with the sophistication
of the enemy’s devices now, serve to produce a feeling of utter vulnerability:
no matter how well trained, how professionally competent, the spectre of
imminent death or terrible injury looms exceedingly large in their thoughts.
Now I am not
here to speak on the pros and cons of our military presence in Afghanistan; I
am here to invite you to ‘remember’ with real gratefulness the sacrifice of all
those who have given their lives in the fight against evil, and to encourage
you to pray, not only for all those currently fighting against evil but also,
and perhaps especially so, for all those who are doing so but struggling;
struggling, that is, with the moral issues and choices they face each day, or
just with their being there, because the world and the morality of its politics
today make so many of the choices our service personnel have to address far
less black and white and a great deal more complex than in most previous
conflicts. So for them our prayers today and everyday are immensely important.
Our Gospel
passage this morning gives us a real sense of what terrifying uncertainty and
the prospect of imminent death or loss of friends is like. However, at the same
time it also offers to all of us, whatever we are facing in this life in terms
of trials or terrors, loss or loneliness, or just trying to make sense of this
life and our place and part in it, a source of security, comfort, purpose and
hope; something which then enables us to become realists about this life and about what happens thereafter. I say
‘realists’ because the source of this information is Jesus himself, the one
whom Christians believe – on the basis of the evidence of his birth, life,
death, and resurrection – to be exactly whom he claimed to be - our Creator God
come in person as one of us in order to save us. This ‘saving’ is not from
trials or terrors or wars, but rather from sin and from ourselves. He does this
in order that we might become people fit for heaven.
Indeed, as Jesus states
very clearly here, he is the only way to heaven, inviting all who hear this to
put their faith and hope of eternal life in him.
But as we can
see from this passage, still his own disciples did not really or fully understand
who he was and what he was about. It was only after his resurrection that it all fell into place for them and they
understood, at last, just who it was they had been with for those two or three
years. The evidence for the resurrection
is still there for all to see but, sadly, will never be sufficient for those
who are predisposed, for whatever reason, not to see it.
But this
morning just put yourselves in the position of his disciples there. How sad,
how bewildering, how terrifying it must have been for them: things looked very
bleak indeed. Jesus understood this and as a good, strong leader must,
encourages and rallies his disciples for the tough tasks ahead. How are they to
calm their hearts for the future with all its present fears and uncertainties? For
being associated with Jesus would come to mean, as in many countries it still does today, the prospect of torture
and death.
Well, they are to trust; to trust in God and in him.v1 ‘Trust in God; trust also in me.’
Yet it seems
their trust in God is perhaps a little shaky, a little vague, to say the least.
Jesus, in inviting them to put their trust in him, effectively challenges them
to regard him as they would God himself. Now that is some claim!
Jesus then
says that he is going to prepare a place for them and that he will return for
them, comforting them with the information that there is space enough in ‘my
Father’s house’, a reference of course to heaven. But here again we are
challenged with this very exclusive idea that it is Jesus who is able to prepare
us a place in Heaven. Why?
Because it is, v2
‘my Father’s house’.
Then comes
this note of reassurance v4 ‘You
know the way to the place where I am going’, which seems to suggest, does it
not, from Thomas’ reply, that Jesus has misjudged his disciples. At one level
it is obvious that they don’t think they know the way! But again Jesus is
asking them to trust him: it is
precisely, he is saying, because they know him
that they therefore know the way.
Poor Thomas v5 is still mystified. The Gospels
reveal him as a loyal and courageous disciple but one liberally endowed with
misapprehensions and doubts – just another typical middle-of-the-road Anglican churchgoer
really!
And then in v 6 Jesus answers Thomas’ question with
perhaps the most clear and audacious statement in the Gospel records Jesus
makes about himself. ‘I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes
to the Father except through me.’
Jesus is the way to God precisely because he is the truth of God and the life
of God. He may properly be called ‘God’ because he is God’s gracious disclosure
of himself in human form – as v7
makes clear.
To many
people today such an exclusivist claim to being the only way to God is
anathema: and of course if we prefer the secular dogmas of so-called inclusiveness
or our own imaginings on this, then we will find Jesus’ teaching here hard to
swallow. I would just say this: it is so important we look at the life and the
credentials of those who argue against the teaching of Jesus and ask ourselves
who, on the balance of evidence, is more credible? I realise that the ‘all
roads lead to Heaven’ or ‘all religions are fundamentally the same’ assertions
can seem very comforting, and they have some very colourful and attractive
celebrities who advocate them; but study their credentials before you decide,
and compare them with the credentials of Jesus. Our Heavenly Father is loving
and merciful, and will never turn away anyone who genuinely seeks to be with
him: but whoever they are, whatever their religion to date, and whatever their
track record, Jesus says they may only come through him.
Something of
these great truths and hard facts are perhaps illustrated if I briefly recount
a little incident from the jungle. Some of you know that I am a qualified
jungle warfare instructor – a very useful training I have found for surviving
in the Anglican church – and one day on my instructor’s course we were out
doing a map reading exercise. If ever there is a test of faith, it has got to
be map reading and compass work in the jungle. I remember our instructor stressing
that to get from point A to point B that afternoon there was only one way.
‘Gentlemen, you may choose to take a short cut or you may choose to take the
scenic route; neither of these will get you to your objective by the right time
- if at all. There is one way only, and you miss it at your peril.’
Well, if you
sympathised with Thomas, here now is Philip. In spite of everything they have
seen and heard, these disciples are still hanging on to their preconceptions
and their safe assumptions about Jesus, preconceptions and assumptions which
combine, as they still do for people today, to blind them to life’s greatest
spiritual realities. The disciples did not have all the advantages that you and
I have, if only we will take advantage of them – the New Testament and the Holy
Spirit. Of course, the resurrection changed all that for them; but if we are
sincere in our seeking after the truth about this life, its purpose, and our
destiny, then it is surely the utmost folly to subordinate the teaching of
Jesus about these things to our own or others’ limited imaginings.
There’s more
than a hint of sadness, I think, in the words of Jesus in v9 as he realises that
he has more work to do in order to convince them. And I suppose it warns us that
spiritual insight and spiritual maturity are not so much a matter or product of
a length of time as they are of a willingness to set aside one’s prejudices and
to be open to knowing Jesus as Saviour and Lord.
Jesus
continues, asking them to believe what he has said to be true v11 and then, in appealing to them to
have faith in him, turns the focus in these last verses to the fruitfulness
that believers will have when they do seek to serve him. When you and I
unashamedly make known the truth and the love of Jesus to others – that he is
the way, the truth, and the life; when we take on the role of Good Samaritan
and give the glory for our good works to God; when we self-sacrificially
support the poor or our persecuted brothers and sisters in Christ, we
demonstrate something of the truth of v12.
The contrast here is not between the works Jesus did and the works his
disciples will do after his death and resurrection, but between the works Jesus
did and the far greater works he will do in and with his disciples from the Day
of Pentecost onwards.
You and me
he calls to join him in his continuing work of reconciling people to their
Heavenly Father through him. He is the way, the truth, and the life: he longs
for all to know this, and he calls you and me to make him known to them.
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