Dear Friends
Despite advances in medical sciences and other technologies, despite access to a varied diet, despite opportunities for healthy lifestyles, this life ends in dying. For some, they just seem to ignore this problem—“I can worry about that another day,” they say to themselves—for others they choose a hedonistic outlook, “Let us eat and drink,” they say, “for tomorrow we die!” (Isaiah 22:13) This, at least, would be a logically consistent position. Many spend their time trying to amass wealth though they seem to lack a purpose for doing so: gaining wealth so that they can gain wealth and gain more. Others still, seek to control the masses while they eek out their brief existence: “Here’s what you must think, here’s what you must do, here’s what you must say,” they command, not recognising the futility of it all.
Still, all must die. And while their memory might persist for a few years, for the greats of our history maybe even thousands of years, eventually even their memory will fade and die.
“’Vanity of vanities,’ says the Preacher,” cries out King Solomon,
‘Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.’
Ecclesiastes 1:2–4
What profit has a man from all his labour
In which he toils under the sun?
One generation passes away, and another generation comes;
But the earth abides forever.
For indeed, “Man shall go out to his work and to his labour until evening,” (Psalm 103:23 ʟxx) until the next day when it must be repeated.
As for man, his days are like grass,
Psalm 102:15–16 ʟxx
As a flower of the field, so he flourishes;
For the wind passes through it, and it shall not remain;
And it shall no longer know its place.
Ours is a world without purpose, without an aim: to carry on existing, but why? And into this world Christ comes. He comes not with a message on how to live in this world, He comes not with a self-help “How to make money in this Age” nor “Five easy steps to a better you!” He comes, rather, to tell us, “this is not your home, come return to the Kingdom,” and the route we must take is through the Cross.
There is pain in our world, there is suffering in our world, there is injustice in our world: Christ comes and He enters into that pain, suffering and injustice. He does not destroy them but He fills them with His love. And when we join Him by entering into that pain, suffering and injustice freely—through humbling ourselves, through serving others, through accepting insults while forgiving those who insult us—we too can find our abode in Heaven.
Yet through this Cross lies Resurrection, through this Cross lies the Kingdom. Through this Cross we have a message greater than anything on offer in this world: the message of the world is that life ends in death, the Gospel is that death has been defeated, that Christ brings Life into the world.
Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God.
Revelation 21:3–4
And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes; there shall be no more death, nor sorrow, nor crying. There shall be no more pain, for the former things have passed away.
My dear brothers and sisters in Christ, the powers of this Age have been defeated, that even though we shall, each of us, face dying, death no longer has dominion. And this is a message—this is the Gospel—which is needed by our society: our Life is neither futile nor fleeting because the Resurrection has revealed to us the Path to eternity. Let us live this reality, let us be faithful to Christ, let us proclaim His Resurrection, for Christ has shown us the meaning and value each one of us has as members of the Body of Christ, the Kingdom of God.
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Sermon
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God, Amen.
Thus the Lord spoke to Moses and Aaron saying,
“On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household. …
Your lamb shall be without blemish, a male of the first year. You may take it from the sheep or from the goats.
Now you shall keep it until the fourteenth day of the same month. Then the whole assembly of the congregation of Israel shall kill it at twilight. …
Then they shall eat the flesh on that night; roasted in fire, with unleavened bread and with bitter herbs they shall eat it. …
You shall let none of it remain until morning, and what remains of it until morning you shall burn with fire.
And thus you shall eat it: with a belt on your waist, your sandals on your feet, and your staff in your hand. So you shall eat it in haste. It is the Lord’s Pascha.”
— Exodus 12:3, 5–6, 8, 10–11
Christ is without blemish, having no fault found in Him, (see John 19:4, 6) and is our Pascha Lamb, “For indeed Christ, our Pascha, was sacrificed for us.” (First Corinthians 5:7) So when the beloved disciple tells us,
“Now it was the Preparation Day of the Pascha, and about the sixth hour. And [Pilate] said to the Jews, ‘Behold your King!’
But they cried out, ‘Away with Him, away with Him! Crucify Him!’
Pilate said to them, ‘Shall I crucify your King?’
The chief priests answered, ‘We have no king but Caesar!’”
— John 19:14–15
This should point us back to today’s Gospel reading. The blessed Forerunner, “standing with two of his disciples … looked at Jesus as he walked, and said, ‘Behold, the Lamb of God!’” The greatest of all the prophets (Matthew 11:11, Luke 7:28) is telling you and he is telling me, “Behold! Listen to what I tell you.” And in listening, in attending, we hear,
“Here is the One who fulfils the Passover, the Pascha.
Here is the One through Whom we may be freed not solely from the captivity of Pharaoh and Egypt but from the captivity of all spiritual powers.
Here is the One Who offers Himself for us that we may eat and live.
Behold, the Lamb of God!”
And we hear the friend of the Bridegroom, his voice full of joy, (see John 3:29) and what is our response? For the two disciples they went and followed Christ, and perhaps we do the same. We discover something and look to discover more. And He turns back to us and says directly to you and directly to me, “What do you seek?” We have discovered a little, we have found a trace of something—though perhaps we could not describe what—we have been told that this is, perhaps, the way to Truth the and the way to Life, but we must make this our own. While others may have brought us to Christ we must ourselves make this relationship our own; “What do you seek?” says Christ to each of us.
…
Read this Sermon, Behold the Lamb of God.
Archive of Past Sermons.
Services this week
Friday 5th December
Discussion on the Prophecy of Isaiah, 8 pm
Online only
Saturday 6th December
Great Vespers, 6.30 pm
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Sunday 7th December
Matins & Divine Liturgy, 9 am
At 3rd URC Scout Hall, Chandlers Ford
Online session is via Google Meet: please get indd contact for the details.
Please join us: all are welcome, come and see.
Attending Church
We meet at 3rd URC Scout HQ, Kings Rd, Chandlers Ford SO53 2EY. The Scout hall is behind and to the left of the URC Church. Come and See.
Can I help you?
I am here for you, you need only ask. Is there a way I can support your life of faith? Get in touch.
Can you help the parish?
Yes, absolutely. Offer yourselves to the Lord: pray! Make available to him all your talents and ask him how he would like you to use them — listen for his reply.
Your prayers!
With love in Christ
Fr Alexander
webenquiry@orthodoxeastleigh.uk