Category Archives: Salvation

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Jesus, the Second Adam

Click here to listen to this 21 minute audio recording of today’s sermon.

In Romans 5, Paul draws parallels between Adam and Jesus (who he refers to in 1 Corinthians 15 as the first man and second man) showing both similarities and differences between them. This is a profound insight by Paul, who recognises that Adam’s (and Eve’s) actions introduced sin and death into the world for all humans, while Jesus’s actions undid sin and death and brought grace, justification, righteousness and life into the world for all humans. In this sermon, which includes quite a bit of congregation participation, I tease out this parallel. I also apply it to a view of the whole scripture as a love story in which God works to undo the negative effects of Adam and Eve’s Fall.

It will help to have Genesis 3 and Matthew 4 open in front of you before you start to listen.

I wish you God’s blessings as you journey through Lent.
Adrian

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Christ – The Delivered Deliverer

Click here to listen to this 28 minute sermon.

Today we study the passage from Matthew 2: 13-23 which reports on the flight of Joseph and his family from Bethlehem to Egypt and his later return to Nazareth in Galilee. It will be helpful if you have a copy of the passage in front of you before you listen to the recording. If you can’t lay your hands on one quickly, here is a link to an online Bible.

Sometimes, when we read this and similar passages, we get caught up in the events of the narrative and lose sight of the theological meaning that Matthew wove into the text. We read the scripture from our own, Gentile perspective, rather than from the perspective of Matthew’s audience – Jewish Christians, steeped in the Old Testament narrative and theology. In this sermon we peel back the layers to uncover some of the deeper messages that the original readers would have understood.

What we get from this is a deeper insight into Jesus as saviour and redeemer. At one level, the story is about the infant Jesus delivered from a paranoid and violent ruler (Herod). At a deeper level, the story is about Jesus as the deliverer of humanity, the new Moses inaugurating a new Exodus, embodying the new and true Israel.

May Christ rise in your heart as you reflect further on the great miracle of God coming into the world in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, the long awaited Messiah.

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Reflecting on the Incarnation

Click here to listen to a podcast of this 23 minute sermon.

Today is the start of Advent, that season in which we reflect back on Christ’s entry into the world some two thousand years ago and anticipate his coming again, one day, in glory. Western Christians (in contrast to Eastern Orthodox Christians) have tended to reduce Advent to a celebration of Christmas – the birth of Jesus. But the incarnation properly starts at conception. Somehow – who knows how! – God spliced himself into Mary’s egg. The incarnation is a full blending of human and divine in the individual called Jesus. It is a profound mystery that I really cannot explain. But we assert that Jesus is both fully God and fully human. What we learn from the Orthodox tradition is that this is the central event in Christian history – that in the incarnation God changed the course of history forever – changing the genetic makeup of humanity and opening up a spiritual path that had til then been closed.

In this sermon I try to unpack this in terms of two central theologies:

  • The notion of kenosis, that God emptied himself in order to merge with Mary’s egg – emptied of omnipotence, omniscience, omnipresence – to be teeny tiny small; left the eternal and perfect union between Father, Son and Spirit in order to join with humanity; immersed himself into human experience with all its sorrows and joys. Kenosis is a profound and radical expression of God’s love for humanity. What else could prompt such an extravagant and risky venture?
  • The notion of theosis, that the chasm between God the uncreated and humans the created creatures was closed when God became human, thereby opening a path for humans to participate in the divine. That God would have incarnated even if humanity had not fallen. That the purpose for Jesus coming into the world was not merely to die on the cross, but to pioneer a path for humanity to reconcile with God. Theosis points us towards hope – hope for the future, hope for what God is able to achieve in us, hope for the coming transformation and restoration.

This is a rather cerebral sermon – be warned! It invites us to engage with ways of thinking about the incarnation that may be unfamiliar to us. Don’t feel obliged to agree with what I say – I myself am not sure about all of it! But engaging with different Christian perspectives can be deeply enriching. I do, however, assert that Love and Hope are key Advent themes, and hope that these reflections on kenosis and theosis may provide some food for thought to underpin these themes.

Oh, and it is World Aids Day today, so I attempt to make some links from all of this to the ongoing fight against HIV and Aids.

Blessings and joy during this season!

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The Path of Jesus – A Path of Martyrdom & Death?

Click here to listen to the podcast of this 20-minute sermon.

On his way to the cross, Jesus said that we must hate our life in this world, that like a grain of wheat we must die, and that we must follow him on his journey to the cross (John 12:20-26). This seems to set us up for a path of martyrdom and death, a dark and twisted path. This was a path that many Christians in the early church followed – we read, for example, Ignatius of Antioche pleading with the Church of Rome in about AD107 to not save him from being martyred, eulogising and glorifying the path of suffering and death as the path mapped out by Christ and as the only means of his salvation.

If ‘the path of Jesus’ is a path of martyrdom and death, and if we are called to walk in his footsteps, then we too must become martyrs. Over the centuries this path has been used, for example, to exhort women to remain submissive in abusive marriages – they have the opportunity to suffer as Christ did, they have been told by Christians, and to do so without a word as Christ did. Is this really the path of Christ? Is this really what it means to walk in his footsteps?

All this raises fundamental and, to be honest, rather scary questions about God’s salvation plan: Did Jesus come into the world in order to die? Was it God’s intention – God’s desire – that Jesus should die? Was it always God’s plan that Jesus would die? Could salvation be found nowhere but through Christ’s death? If the answer to all these questions is ‘yes’, then we indeed have a dark message of salvation. And Christian discipleship is itself a dark path.

But in this sermon I want to suggest a different way of thinking about God’s intentions and desires. A different way of thinking about the place of Jesus’ death in God’s masterplan for the salvation of the cosmos. You may not agree with my conclusions – feel free to disagree! But perhaps a new look at Christ’s path will be helpful for all of us. Perhaps this will give us new insights into God’s love for us and God’s investment in our salvation. And perhaps this will open up a Path of Jesus that is truer to God’s deepest intentions.

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Which Way are You Going?

Repentance

Click here to listen to or download the audio recording of this message.

Often, in the busyness of life, we just go on. We walk the same way we walked yesterday. We go through the motions. We just do what needs to be done. We are not especially purposeful in how we live. We often don’t really think about the direction we are taking, and whether this path will lead us closer to or further away from God. This can be a dangerous way of living – like a zombie. And so the Apostle Paul says, “If you think you are standing firm, be careful that you don’t fall!” (1 Corinthians 10:12).

So, God calls us to repent. Repentance does not mean to beat yourself up. Rather it is about turning away from sin and death and turning towards God and life. It is about choosing to live in a way that rejects darkness, and embraces the light. It about giving up the negative things in life and taking up the positive. It about turning our back on the devil and walking towards God. It is about salvation!

God stands always with open arms and says “Come! Come, all you who are thirsty; come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Listen! Listen to me, and eat what is good, and your soul will delight in the richest of fare. Turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on you. Turn to God, for he will freely pardon” (from Isaiah 55:1-7). God gives second, third, fourth chances – he is infinitely patient. God does not coerce or force – God invites and waits.

We need to challenge ourselves with this question – which way are we going? Are you walking towards sin and death? Or are you walking towards God and life? Such an important question, particularly during Lent – Which way are you going?

In this audio message (click here) we unpack this idea of turning away from death and turning towards life.