Radical Lifestyle part 2 (Matthew 8.14-22)

Introduction

Have you noticed that whatever church you go to, it’s usually the ladies that look after the catering? There’s no law against men making cakes and serving coffee (and indeed you do find notable exceptions to the rule) but hospitality is a ministry that seems to particularly charm the fairer sex to its often impressive ranks.

Even in the gospels there are ominous signs of a pattern emerging. Jesus’ first miracle at the wedding feast in Cana sets the tone. Mary, the mother of Jesus, seems to have been the first person to notice that the wine was running a bit low. She is the one who leaves the dance floor to see if anyone knows where there might be a few spare bottles in a cupboard somewhere and, when it becomes clear that that’s it, she tells her boy to sort something out in that way that only Jewish mothers can!

Straight into Service

Our Gospel reading today finds Jesus halfway through a typically busy day that has seen him descend a mountain, get mobbed by a crowd, cleanse a leper, give a couple of impromptu sermons while travelling from A to B and heal a paralysed man from a distance.

That’s a decent morning’s shift isn’t it? You can appreciate why even God Incarnate might be ready for a nice cup of tea and a custard cream after that. So he turns up at Peter’s house to put his feet up for a few minutes.

But when he gets there, the only woman mentioned is in bed with a fever (the commentators think it was probably malaria). So who’s going to make a brew? Did the disciples think to do it? Well, no. (They were men after all so they had probably never even seen a kitchen). How telling is it, how inevitable is it, that the minute Peter’s poor mother-in-law is back in the land of the living, she is up putting the kettle on and going round with the fig rolls?

I want to commend this woman. I believe she’s the only mother-in-law mentioned by that title in the Bible. It’s strange that these sometimes formidable women are the butt of so many jokes. Do you know what I mean?

Ken Dodd: “I haven’t spoken to my mother-in-law for eighteen months. I don’t like to interrupt her.”

Bernard Manning: “My mother-in-law has come round to our house at Christmas seven years running. This year we’re having a change. We’re going to let her in.”

Les Dawson: “My mother-in-law fell down a wishing well. Amazing - I never knew they worked.”

But the Bible’s one mother-in-law is an absolute legend.

This woman’s response to Jesus’ touch upon her life was to get out of bed, put her apron on and begin to serve. Her response to a work of grace in her life was to immediately offer her life in giving to others. I like her style!

Has the Lord blessed you? Has your life been touched by God’s love? Have you known the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ in your heart? If so, let me ask you - are you asking “How can I best express my gratitude back to him?”

Christ Only and Christ First

Notice how she contrasts sharply with the two men in the second half of our short passage. One is told that following Jesus means a future with no fixed abode. The other learns that following Jesus means scrapping his plans for his father’s funeral.

Neither in Matthew’s Gospel, nor in Luke’s, is the response of these men recorded. Was it muted? Was it marked by indecision and wavering? Did they protest? Or did they drop everything and follow Jesus? I think it’s left open as if to invite our own response. Would my response be “Thou and thou only the first in my heart”?

Let’s look more carefully at the passage. In v18, Jesus decides to leave Capernaum because the crowds are getting impossible to manage - he’s had large numbers of people tugging his cloak all day - and it is time to move on.

So we read “When Jesus saw the crowd around him, he gave orders to cross to the other side of the lake.”

Inevitably, crossing the Sea of Galilee is going to mean a parting of the ways. There’ll be those who are absolutely committed to sticking with Jesus who will get in the boat and those who just make the most of him when he’s around. Those ones will stay.

There wasn’t a ferry with posh cabins waiting to head over to the other side. There will have been several rough fishing boats pulled up to shore and that’s it. Space was limited for those who were ready – right now – to get on board and set sail.

The first man is a teacher of the law. These men were consistently opposed to Jesus according to the Gospels. But this one seems to be something of an exception because he comes to Jesus just as he’s about to get into a boat and says, “Teacher, I will follow you wherever you go” (or literally “wherever you may be going.”)

Jesus says, “Foxes have holes and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head.”

There is no guarantee that following Jesus is going to be easy or comfortable. In fact it usually calls for great cost and sacrifice.

The 100th Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey once said: “Do not worry about status... There is only one status that our Lord bids us to be concerned with, and that is the status of proximity to himself.”

You may find that following Christ the Radical costs you popularity, friendships, family favour, leisure time or even your job. You may have heard this week that our Government will support a case at the European Court of Human Rights that will, if passed, remove the right of Christians to wear a cross at work.

Is wearing a cross a required article of faith? No. But is meek, obliging compliance with any such new law, without a whimper of protest, tantamount to being ashamed of Christ? It seems to me that it comes perilously close.

The cost of following Christ has always been high. The reward of being his disciple is higher.

My perception is that the pressure in this country to compromise our faith and deny Christ is now greater than it has been before in my lifetime. And I can feel which way the wind is blowing. I suspect that it is going to get worse, not better. It is very tempting to swim with the tide, but Jesus usually swam against the tide of popularity, status and public acceptability.

A team of doctors decided to conduct an experiment to study the ways in which group pressure influences people. Ten people were invited into a room apparently to assess their eyesight.

Three cards were to be held up, each with a line on it. Each person was told to raise their hand when the longest line was shown. When nine of them (who had been primed) voted incorrectly, despite their obvious mistake, the other one voted with the group even though he could see they were wrong.

They repeated the test with dozens of other test groups. 75% voted similarly. They sat there time after time saying a short line is longer than a long line. They simply didn’t have the courage to say “I think the group is wrong” even though they believed otherwise.

As Christians, will we follow Jesus whatever the cost?

The first half of our passage looks exciting. Big crowds, amazing healings, extraordinary deliverance, fulfilled prophecy and even a nice cup of tea and a ginger nut! I’ll follow Jesus if it’s like that! But the second half promises sharing a crowded boat with sweaty men, seasickness and sleeping rough. That’s not quite so charming is it?

And then this - v21: “Another disciple said to him, ‘Lord, first let me go and bury my father.’ But Jesus told him, ‘Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.’”

One of Jesus’ toughest words. It smashes every taboo. It breaks every respectable social convention. It takes the breath away. Can Jesus be serious? How many marks out of 10 would he get in Vicar School for pastoral sensitivity here?

There are in fact several possibilities here that we might miss because our family structures and burial customs are different to those of Jesus’ day.

Firstly, as seems to be the case, it is possible that the man was simply asking permission to attend his father’s funeral which seems a reasonable request for an essential obligation. In the Middle East, even today, bodies must be buried quickly and in Jesus’ culture they had to be interred within 24 hours, meaning the man’s father must have died that day. To be honest that seems unlikely – though it is possible. The thing is, Jesus was getting in the boat now and he could not wait another hour, let alone 24.

Secondly, it is possible that the man’s father was not yet dead. KE Bailey and Michael Green both point out that “to bury one’s father” was in fact an idiomatic expression meaning “to wait until he was dead and buried.” In other words, the man was asking for an indefinite postponement of commitment. He was spiritually dead which makes better sense of Jesus’ otherwise brutal reply.

Thirdly, adding a bit of colour to the second point, if the father was still alive, had the man been the firstborn son he would be jeopardising his chances of claiming his inheritance if he left his family to head off all over the Middle-East with a radical preacher. Or perhaps he didn’t want to face his father’s wrath by deserting the family business? Reading through the lines a little, maybe his main concern was really financial gain or family approval.

Whatever the exact facts the point is clear; (and this is where we need to take heed) he didn’t want to commit himself to Jesus just yet. And Jesus discerned that he was not willing to put him first.

Ending

How familiar does this sound to you? All through life people find ways of saying “No, Lord.”

“I’ll follow Jesus when I’m a bit older, or when I’ve done my exams, or when I’ve got a job, or when I’m less busy at work, or when the kids have grown up, or when I’ve paid off the mortgage or when I’ve seen the world a bit or when I’m not so tied up with the grandchildren or when…”

Life’s too short to not follow Jesus now. 


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 18th March 2012

Radical Lifestyle part 1 (Matthew 16.21-28)

Introduction

As we move through Lent, we’re going to be coming face to face with Jesus the radical. This is important for us because no popular representation of Jesus in our media comes anywhere near the real Jesus we meet in the Gospels.

Question: How radical was Jesus of Nazareth for his day? Answer: very. He was so radical that every conservative group at the time, without exception, conspired to do away with him. He was provocative. He was confrontational. His words were routinely inflammatory. His actions were, at times, deeply incendiary. I sometimes worry that if Jesus if he was walking around Britain today I would take offence at him.

Six bastions of the establishment of Jesus day, namely the Pharisees, the Elders, the Teachers of the Law, the Sadducees, the Scribes and the monarchy of King Herod were often hostile towards each other but they saw in Jesus a common threat because he challenged the status quo and defied every vested interest of his day.

You can see why he was so controversial just by reading the Gospels at face value. We tend to read them in a sanitised way that takes the militant edge off.

Consider the Gospel of Mark, as it’s the shortest of the four. In every chapter of Mark’s Gospel Jesus shows just why he was so deeply unpopular with the powers that be and why he would certainly be widely disliked by many decent people today.

The Seattle-based church leader Mark Driscoll, himself a bit of a rabble-rouser, summarises this quite starkly (and I’m going to use his material now, but adapt it slightly for our context).

In the first chapter of Mark’s gospel, Jesus starts off by yelling at complete strangers to repent of their sin, tells four strangers to leave their jobs and orders a demon to shut up.

In chapter 2, he picks an argument with some well-mannered religious leaders and does the first century equivalent of breaking into a church to make a sandwich with the communion bread because he was hungry.

In chapter 3, Jesus’ family try and take hold of him saying he is out of his mind. He responds by ignoring his own mother and people conclude he must be possessed.

In chapter 4, Jesus is so alarmingly lax on health and safety; that his disciples ask him in exasperation if he even cares if they drown or not.

In chapter 5, Jesus kills two thousand pigs.

In chapter 6, Jesus offends yet more people and sends his disciples out on an exorcism mission with no qualifications and no equipment.

In chapter 7, Jesus launches into a lengthy tirade labelling the local hardworking clergy as ‘hypocrites’ and compares a woman with a sick child to a dog.

In chapter 8, Jesus spits on a handicapped man, and scolds his most trusted follower, addressing him as ‘Satan’.

In chapter 9, Jesus asks his disciples, ‘How long do I have to put up with you?’ That’s just before telling some other people to cut off their hands and feet and to gouge out their eyes.

In chapter 10, Jesus says remarriage after divorce is adultery. He then tells a rich man to sell all his stuff and give the proceeds to people on benefits.

In chapter 11, he tells one of his men to take someone else’s donkey without asking, proceeds to curse and kill a fig tree then goes on to vandalise some small businesses.

In chapter 12, Jesus tells the highest theological authority in the land that they don’t know their Bibles. He also tells some Sunday school teachers they are going to hell.

In chapter 13, Jesus sets off alarm bells when he threatens to completely flatten the most iconic religious building in the Middle-East.

In chapter 14, Jesus castigates his friends for having the temerity to take a nap at night having run them all over the Middle-East for about three years.

In chapter 15, the religious elite kill him for all of the above, which seems perfectly fine to everyone - except a few women.

The story ends in chapter 16 with Jesus alive again and the trembling, astonished, and frightened disciples being told to speak in tongues, handle snakes and offend the whole world with the gospel.

Now, by any standards, that’s hardcore isn’t it?

Today’s short passage in Matthew 16 focuses in on the standard Jesus set to qualify as one who follows him – the word is disciple. It basically means “apprentice” or “learner”. Are you a disciple? Well, what have you learned from Jesus over the last month?

The word “disciple” is connected to words like discipline. That sort of tells you that it’s not for the faint hearted.

The word ‘discipline’ usually has negative connotations in our culture. It’s not a word we get enthusiastic about on the whole. People tend to link it to the notions of hardship and punishment. But discipline is really about fitness.

Discipline may not be pleasant, in fact the Bible says it isn’t, but would you like to be defended in a war zone by an undisciplined army? Do you want to share a train carriage with undisciplined children? Children without loving discipline never learn healthy, safe boundaries and become spoilt and insecure. You dieters, what would you give for a shot of self-discipline when on your own in a room with a box of chocolates? Dieters without self-discipline stay overweight.

I was watching a training DVD with the staff team the other month. The speaker was a Clinical Psychologist called Henry Cloud. He was explaining that he had decided to get back in shape after putting on a few kilos so he hired a personal trainer in a gym. And he said “She was beating the hell out of me, putting me through these punishing work outs; press ups, pull ups, treadmills, rowing machines, weights, stretching, cross trainers. It was hard.”

And then a few weeks into this gruelling programme he suddenly stopped right in the middle of an exercise and said, “Oh no! We didn’t take any ‘before’ pictures. You know, to compare the physique before and after.” She looked at him and said “Oh, we can still take them!”

If I can be politically incorrect for just a moment, the point is that following Jesus is not a cushy hobby for wimps and tree-huggers. Jesus was never interested in attracting admirers or hangers-on. He calls disciples. On his terms.

John Wimber used to talk about the shock some Christians get when they wake up and realise that Jesus is not joking here. Wimber said that it’s a bit like a guy who thinks he’s going on a luxury cruise around the Mediterranean. He packs his suntan lotion, shorts and sunglasses and heads down to the docks. But when he gets there, instead of seeing a nice, smart cruise liner there’s just an enormous grey ship with gun turrets and numbers painted on the side!

So meet the authentic Jesus; Jesus the radical.

Following Jesus Means Operating in God’s Wisdom, Not Man’s

Matthew 16 and verse 21 says this:

From that time on Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.

Note the imperatives. “He must go.” “He must be killed.”

Peter took him aside and began to rebuke him. “Never, Lord!” he said. “This shall never happen to you!”

Peter is in Neverland here. Always be cautious of advice from a friend who says to you, “Surely God doesn’t want you to face this.” Beware of a solution to a problem that looks suspiciously like an escape or an opt-out for a comfortable, unchallenged life. That’s not the real world; that’s Neverland.

Verse 23: Jesus turns and says to Peter, “Get behind me, Satan! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the concerns of God, but merely human concerns.”

It must have stung Peter to hear those words. Let us not try and sanitise them or brush them under the carpet. They are severe aren’t they? I can just see everyone cringing as he said it. Couldn’t Jesus have been a little more diplomatic? A little less abrasive? Why did Jesus give Peter such a humiliating rebuke?

He was right to. The reason goes back to the beginning of Jesus’ ministry. If you’re familiar with the Gospels, you’ll recall his 40 days in the desert when Satan comes to test him. Three times, the devil tries to divert Jesus from his mission.

The second temptation is about achieving greatness – only without the cross. “If you’re really the Son of God, throw yourself off the temple roof” says Satan “you know, the Bible says that angels will catch you.” In other words, “You don’t need to go to the cross to be revered by the people. That’s the last thing you want to do Jesus. They’ll love you if you just put on a great show. You could be a celebrity, a national treasure! You could win Israel’s Got Talent!”

Peter is saying the same thing here as the devil did then. “You don’t need to go to the cross. You mustn’t let that happen! You crucified? Over my dead body! Never, Lord!” That’s why Jesus says “Get behind me Satan.”

If Peter had got his way then there would be no cross, no resurrection, no salvation for the world and you and I would be lost forever.

Following Jesus Means the Way of the Cross

So Jesus says to his disciples (v24), “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.”

This is a phrase that has come into our English language hasn’t it? If someone has a nagging wife or a flatulent husband or a dodgy hip or a boring job - or all four… “Oh, it’s a cross I have to bear.”

When Jesus said these words, everyone knew what he was talking about because the sight of convicted criminals carrying their crosses was commonplace in Roman occupied Judea in the first Century. Once a condemned man had been flogged, he had to lug his cross through the streets to his execution site. It is an image of utter shame and rejection.

From the very beginning to the present day, Christians have always been targets of ridicule and derision. They always will be. People will rarely admire you for being a full-on follower of Jesus.

The series of court cases Christians have lost in this country for standing up for their faith may dismay us but it is actually consistent with most of history.

Last year former BBC news anchor Peter Sissons said Christians are “fair game” for insults at the corporation, whilst Muslims must not be offended. The head of the BBC, Mark Thompson, in an interview for a research project at the University of Oxford, admitted recently that the broadcaster would never mock Mohammed like it mocks Jesus.

Bottom line: Jesus himself said it would be like this. He said that those who follow him can expect to be discriminated against and worse. “Everyone will hate you because of me”, he said.

But carrying the cross is not just a picture of rejection and ridicule; it’s also an image of true and total commitment. Once a criminal picked up his cross, there was only going to be one outcome. “I have decided to follow Jesus. No turning back.”

This is why Dietrich Bonhoeffer famously said: “When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.” For him, it was a literal death at the hands of the Nazis for speaking out in the name of Christ against the idolatry and wickedness of the Third Reich. For most of us, we will be asked no more than to die to ourselves; our ambitions and our vanities.

“For whoever wants to save their life” says Jesus in v25, “will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it. What good will it be for you to gain the whole world, yet forfeit your soul?”

Jesus makes it very clear here: The choices you make here and now directly determine how you will spend eternity.

Nothing we accumulate here on earth; our wealth, our pension, any honours or tributes from our glittering careers, our possessions, our reputation and our privileges … none of that has any value in securing eternal life.

C.S. Lewis put it this way: “Aim at heaven and you will get earth thrown in. Aim at earth and you get neither.” Where do you think you’re aiming?

Before coming to faith in Christ I made choices about what I was going to do as if this life was all I had. Once anyone becomes a follower of Jesus, that thinking has to go.

Ending

Last year I read a book by Francis Chan called Crazy Love. It’s good stuff. He writes in that book about full-blooded Christianity, that is to say what we’ve been looking at this morning, and anaemic Christianity, the very opposite of it. Jesus called half-hearted, indifferent people “lukewarm.” He said it makes him sick. Don’t be lukewarm!

Anyway, Chan made a list of a dozen things that mark Christians out as lukewarm.

Allow the Holy Spirit speak to you as we go through them. And, please, this is not about condemnation. We have prayer ministry this morning precisely so we can receive grace from God.

The Jesus who says “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me” also says “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

So here we go:

Number 1; lukewarm people… attend church fairly regularly. (Isaiah 29.13)

2) Lukewarm people choose what is popular over what is right when forced to decide between them. (Luke 6.26)

3) Lukewarm people don’t really want to be saved from their sin; they only want to be saved from the penalty of sin. (Romans 6.1-2)

4) Lukewarm people are moved by stories of people who do radical things for Christ, but they do not act. (James 1.22)

5) Lukewarm people rarely share their faith with their neighbours, colleagues and family. (Matthew 10.32-33)

6) Lukewarm people gauge their morality or “goodness” by comparing themselves to the secular world, not by comparing themselves to Jesus. (Luke 18.11-12)

7) Lukewarm people say they love Jesus and he is indeed part of their lives – but only a part. (Luke 9.57-62)

8) Lukewarm people will serve God and others but there are limits to how far they will go. (Luke 18.21-25)

9) Lukewarm people think much more about life on earth than about eternity in heaven. (Philippians 3.18-20)

10) Lukewarm people are thankful for their luxuries and comforts but rarely think about giving as much as possible to the poor. (Matthew 25.34-40)

11) Lukewarm people never live by faith. They structure their lives so that they never have to (Luke 12.16-21)

And finally number 12) Lukewarm people probably smoke and swear less than average but apart from that are not that different to your typical unbeliever. (Matthew 23.25-28)  

“For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me will find it.”


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 4th March 2012

Blessed Sleep (Psalm 121)

A funeral sermon for a lovely Christian woman. Names have been changed as an expression of care to the family.

James, Lydia, Anita, Mary, Amelia, and all the family, may I express my deepest condolences to you today. Yours was a wife, a mother, a grandmother and a sister who was truly special. You have borne your grief with outstanding courage, dignity and above all devotion. It is a beautiful thing. All you friends who loved Polly, your support and kindness throughout her illness and at the time of death have been deeply appreciated by the family, I know. Thank you.

On Tuesday, I read through all the e-mails Polly had sent me over the last year. Some were updates to her support team; others were more personal notes to me. It struck me again just how frank and candid Polly was. She spoke the truth in love, as the Bible says Christians should do.

I was told by a former youth leader here that Polly’s unflinchingly straightforward style was once unleashed on an unsuspecting church youth group when she was invited to speak to them on the birds and the bees. She was of course an authority on the subject, not just as a mother of four daughters, all of whom had gone through their teenage years, but also through her professional life.

I think the expectation was that this kindly churchgoer, then in her late 50s or early 60s, would be a safe bet to give a decorous context for all those hormones coursing around the room. But no. Polly Lamont didn’t shilly-shally and she didn’t do British reserve. She proceeded at length to talk about sex, unblushing, in the most uninhibited fashion imaginable, and sparing no detail. Those 15 year olds didn’t know what had hit them!

I loved many things about Polly, but that was possibly what I loved most. She was earthy. I don’t mean crude and I don’t mean worldly. A worldly person is overly attracted to the superficial and temporary diversions of life without God. No, Polly was a very spiritual woman and I’ll touch on that later. By “earthy”, I mean she was real. She had a hearty and down-to-earth approach to life.

Perhaps that’s the main reason why I often found myself opening my soul to her when I visited her. She had a quite natural way of instilling confidence and trust. I found again and again that I let my guard down. I found myself sharing with her not just my thoughts but my heart. She was more than a parishioner; she was a neighbour too but, most of all, she was a trusted friend who gave me a safe place to be myself.

When, in early December, the decision was taken to stop fighting the cancer and concentrate on controlling the pain we knew that Polly would not live for very long. She did too. From that time, every time I saw her she looked a little frailer.

We prayed she would live to see Christmas because she so wanted to spend it with the extended family, knowing, I’m sure, that it would be her last. We are so grateful to God that she did; it was very, very special to her.

Polly had already said to me long before then in her startling, matter-of-fact way that she knew her cancer would kill her in the end; she just didn’t care for it to be too soon or to be a disagreeable journey.

But she did not fear death. I watched her carefully as she said so, to try and spot anything in her body language that might suggest she was just putting on a brave face.

She didn’t flinch or hesitate. “I know I’m going to a wonderful place” she said. Polly was composed, confident and at ease about the prospect of dying.

Polly could sing “Amazing grace… that saved a wretch like me” and mean every word. She knew that she would - and could - never get to heaven on the basis of her own moral goodness, admirable though it was. She knew she was - like everyone here - loved by God but a sinner, in need of his grace. And she knew she had received it freely through faith in Jesus Christ.

*

One of the more remarkable things about God, and there are many, is that he reveals himself as an insomniac. Today’s Psalm reads:

He will not let your foot slip –
he who watches over you will not fall asleep;
indeed, he who watches over Israel
will neither slumber nor sleep.

Actually, it’s not that God can’t sleep because he is worried; it’s that he doesn’t sleep because he is watchful.

I was reflecting about Polly’s ebbing life and God’s sleeplessness and it struck me that the New Testament, when talking about Christians dying, often uses the expression “to fall asleep.” I wonder why…

I think there are several reasons why sleep is such a brilliant metaphor for death. No one can stay awake forever. Everybody dies. Sleep is refreshing. Death, for Polly, was a release from indignity and constant pain control. But most significantly of all, after sleep, you wake up feeling alive again the next morning. The birds are singing, the sun is up, there’s dew on the grass, and there’s a new day opening up before you.

That’s how Christians feel about death. Polly is sleeping and one day, at the last judgement, she will wake up – with a new body.

Judgement holds no fear for Christians. The Bible says that God loved the world so much that he sent his only Son, so that whoever believes in him, will not perish, but have eternal life.

Interestingly, the poem Polly chose to have read by Leo Marks, though not a Christian as far as I know, also talks about death as sleep.

A sleep I shall have
A rest I shall have
Yet death will be but a pause.

The morning Polly died, I felt a strong urge to call James, ask him how the night had been and go over there to pray with them both again, as I so loved to do. I could see that it would not be long before she “fell asleep.” So I thought I’d sing her a lullaby and John joined in with me.

It’s a verse from an old hymn that Christians sing on All Saints’ Day. And since All Saints’ church is the community of believers Polly loved, it seemed appropriate.

The verse I chose is about how the glorious sunset at the end of a day signals that night time, the time for sleep and rest, is approaching. Sunset takes the sleep metaphor further. As death draws near, you can just begin to see the first glimmers of the bright glory of heaven. Here are the words:

The golden evening brightens in the west;
Soon, soon to faithful warriors comes their rest;
Sweet is the calm of paradise the blessed.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Just a few hours after singing that little lullaby, Polly fell fast asleep in Christ.

And now that she is sleeping, I want to close by reading the next verse which looks ahead to the new dawn that always follows the night. When Christ comes again to judge the living and the dead, those who have fallen asleep will awake to meet him. I’ll spare you the public nuisance of attempting to sing it, but here are the words:

But look! there breaks a yet more glorious day;
The saints triumphant rise in bright array;
The King of glory passes on His way.
Alleluia, Alleluia!

Sleep well, Polly. Until we, and all who are in Christ, awake together on another shore, and in a greater light.


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 1st March 2012