In the face of a major disaster, Jesus’ call to not worry is both challenged and illuminated.
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
An Open Table where Love knows no borders
Sermons on Suffering (Page 3)
Though the experience of grief often feels like an absence of God, it is a deep experience of the heart of God, and is symbolised as such in the brokenness of the Eucharist.
The image of Jesus as the good shepherd can speak of tough life-on-the-line love, not just cuddling lambs.
Jesus’s unique priesthood ensures that he is able to help us, and his solidarity with us in suffering ensures that he will help us.
The unfailing love of God is with us, even in the tragedy, confusion, and anguished questions and doubts.
Jesus commits himself to the path of redemptive suffering in preference to either fight or flight, and he calls us to follow him in that commitment.
The impossible love and grace of God invite us to participate in the life of God despite our circumstances, but we often get stuck in trying to find meaning in the circumstances.
In his suffering death, Jesus calls us to solidarity with all who suffer, and in his complete lack of vengefulness, the risen Christ offers the hope of healing from our violence.
God will wound us if necessary to bring us into the full blessing intended for us.
There is no hell where the love of God in Christ cannot reach us.
Our struggles against evil, temptation and suffering are all framed by the security of God’s unshakable love and resolve to bring us safely to fullness of life.
The revelation of what God is on about in Christ will always upend our expectations and disrupt our lives.
In the face of monumental devastation and suffering, God speaks a word, and the word becomes flesh.
Repenting of our past ways and following Jesus does not guarantee us safety from disaster, but it certainly opens the way to an abundance of life that is beyond what any disaster can destroy.
Grace is the opposite of karma, that most ancient and persistent of human laws which proclaims that we get what we deserve. We do not get what we deserve, and thank Christ we don’t!
As the victim of the ultimate in human evil, the risen Christ is the One who can offer the complete forgiveness, to us, and through us to the rest of the world.
God invites us to be immersed in another possible reality, to look at the world with the dark and contrary light that comes from the cross of Jesus.
Christ crucified is both a sign of the ultimate consequence of evil, and of the ultimate victory of Christ over evil through the power of suffering love.
Lent can be a dark night filled with tears and mourning and loss, but it is worth it, for God’s joy comes in the morning.
The hope that empowers us to maintain our counter-cultural obedience to Christ, is that the One who will eventually rule over all is the One who offers himself as a suffering servant of all.