As God's people, the Church, we too have a destination, a goal. Among the very last words of Jesus to his disciples are these - "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations…" (Matt.28.18ff).
As a church, there are many things we would like to do along the way - of interest, personal advancement, of fun, excitement - but how are we going as a church? are we still on the way? are we still headed towards our great destination? Jesus promised us that, as we are going to fulfil his will, we will find him with us always - but are we still doing his will, still with him?
Jesus had come with good news for the people, but the good news also called them to repentance. So often people want good news, but no challenges, no calls to a change of direction and life-style.
Most of the ministry of Jesus was in Galilee in the northern part of the land, most in fact in Capernaum and the surrounding towns and villages. Yet, "the people in the towns where Jesus had performed most of his miracles did not turn from their sins…" They wanted the excitement of seeing people healed, but refused the gracious and loving invitation to repent of sin and believe the good news.
Jesus rebuked those towns. In an earlier day the Phoenician port cities of Tyre and Sidon had been warned many times of impending devastation and had suffered divine judgment. In Abraham's time, the Dead Sea cities of Sodom and Gomorrah, noted for their evil, had been totally destroyed by fire and brimstone.
Jesus warns the towns of Chorazin, Bethsaida and Capernaum that they will be under heavier judgment than Tyre, Sidon and Sodom. If the Messiah himself had visited these cities, they would have repented of their sins, putting on sack-cloth and sprinkling ashes on their heads to show they had done so.
In Romans 11.22, Paul is writing about how Jew and Gentile fit into God's plan. He writes, "Here you see how kind and how severe God is. He is severs towards those who have fallen, but kind to you - if you continue in his kindness. But if you do not, you too will be broken off."
As a church today, we run the temptation of avoiding the message of divine judgment and speaking only of the kindness of the Lord. As a result we weaken our understanding of repentance as a deep and true sorrow for and turning from sin, and grace becomes the niceness of God rather than the forgiveness and welcome he offers us at the cost of the life of his own Son.
Jesus in his love could see the intolerable burdens that we insist on carrying ourselves. As in the time of Jesus, the world is full of great need. In spite of the great advances in medicine, nutrition, technology, science, there are great uncertainties about the meaning of life, the value of each human person, the problem of guilt, the pressures of failure…
The problem now, as then, is that life has become disconnected from the Creator. But there is good news now, as then. The Creator reaches out to us and to all our fellows in the person of his Son, Jesus, and says to us, "Come to me, all you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." (Mt.11.28-30).
Someone preached on this text and was afterwards approached by a member of his congregation. He said, "I wish I had known what you were going to preach about. I could have told you something."
"Well, my friend," the preacher said, "may I have it still?"
"Do you know why His yoke is light, sir?"
"Well, because the good Lord helps us to carry it, I suppose."
"No, sir," he said, shaking his head, "I think I know better than that. You see, when I was a boy at home, I used to drive the oxen, and the yoke was never made to balance as you said. Father's yokes were always made heavier on one side than the other. Then, you see, we would put a weak bullock in alongside a strong bullock; the light end would come on the weak ox, the heavier end on the stronger one. That's why the yoke is easy and the burden is light, because the Lord's yoke is made after the same pattern, and the heavy end is upon his shoulder."
God knows the particular burdens you have brought with you to church this morning, the burdens you carry with you every day of your life. Jesus invites you to come to him, to walk with him, to take his yoke and learn from him and you will find rest.
That is the truth of God's love and call to you! Have you come to him? Do you know that reality, that rest, that yoke that enables you to live, to cope with your burdens? If you do, then share it with others!
Peter, in his first letter, writes about our high privilege - "you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light" (2.9).
Your deliverance, your privilege, your life in the light of God - it's for you, but not just for you! "Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God: once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy" (v.10).
Is that you? Is it really you? Praise God for that! But it's not just for you! Share it! Declare the wonderful praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light!
This is what we are in process of rediscovering as a church. Thank God for who we are, for our high privilege - but there is something seriously, cruelly wrong if we are just satisfied with that. Christ sets us as lights in this world, not to show up the darkness for what it is, but so that there will be more light, so that more of the people of this world (and therefore more of the life of this world) will be in the light!
On 1st June 1878, the Loch Ard, a sailing ship with cargo and passengers aboard struck a reef off the coast just east of Port Campbell and sank with the loss of 52 lives. Only two eighteen-year olds, Tom Pearce, a ship's apprentice, and Eva Carmichael, an immigrant from Ireland, survived. It was stormy weather and foggy, but Captain Gibbs believed they were many miles off the Victorian coast. Because of the conditions, they could not see the Cape Otway lighthouse.
Flagstaff Hill Maritime Village at Warrnambool is a good recreation of some aspects of a port and maritime life, and also contains artifacts from the various wrecks along the coast. Why the wrecks? One reason is the power of the sea, the other is navigational error. (The third is human greed!) A one-second-a-day error in a ship's chronometer set to Greenwich time would put a ship 42 miles off course on reaching this area with a 50-mile passage between Cape Otway and Cape Wickham on King Island.
The Bible says that all have sinned and come short of the glory of God. That is the truth about all of us, even those of us brought up on the Word of God. We have all had enough sin in us to lead to disaster. But how much greater the disaster when lives and consciences are no longer set by God's unchanging standards? Some deliberately set about to break the written Word. Others, facing the failure of life, grope towards some workable standard of their own! Little wonder that we face pressure, tension, despair! But there IS good news! Though people have forgotten or forsaken God, yet He has neither forgotten nor forsaken them! "Come to me…" He says.
In a shop window at Port Campbell we read this hand-written slip, "Our mission is to analyse the situation and, through foresight and advanced planning, avoid or circumvent problems before they arise. Should the unexpected occur, then our aim is to swiftly and efficiently arrive at a workable solution -
"However, when you are up to your armpits in crocodiles, it's difficult to remember that your initial objective was to drain the swamp."
We rather liked that! And as a church we can ourselves feel the threat of all the crocodiles as our Lord calls us, protected from that threat, to drain the swamp!
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