Sermon: Views of God’s purposes Sunday 30th. October, 2005

Reading: “He is before all things” Col.1.17

If, all of a sudden, you fancied a skiing holiday in the Alps, its simple enough to pick up a travel brochure – and look at some of the Alpine skiing resorts. Take Chamonix for instance, here you have a beautiful, modern town, with exclusive shops, 5 star hotels, top restaurants, and chalets or skiing lodges for rent. And all of this, of course, with stunning views of the mountains – Mont Blanc, high above.

It was not always thus. In the 1850s John Ruskin, the writer, went on an Alpine tour, writing down, for his readers, his impressions of the villages and mountains round the little town of Martigny.

He writes of standing in an Alpine village and looking up at the mountains, standing silent in beauty and majesty, high above the village streets. This is how he describes the village:

“on a sloping bank of golden meadow, with clear streams flowing beside it, surrounded by wild flowers and noble trees….. there stand clusters of nut brown cottages. They are built in among the sloping orchards, beneath the pines”

However, picturesque as the village might be, John Ruskin tells us that life for these villagers, is a life of hard labour, back-breaking work carrying hay and water up and down the mountain paths, tending the flocks of goats and sheep in the harsh winters, a life with very little rest in it at all. But high above the daily life of the muddy streets of the village - the summit of the snow capped mountain across the valley stands in the silence of the sunshine, awe inspiring and majestic.

The village, with all its daily toil and labours, and cares,

and beyond and above

a glimpse, every now and then, over the wooden roofs, of the high mountain, silent in beauty and majesty.

You know, that is very like the view, the perspective we have in the Gospels of Matthew Mark and Luke. When we read the Gospels, we read above all – of Jesus. But we are also reading much of the time about village life, of the daily toils and labours and cares of villagers in Galilee, or Judah. We have in the Gospels a picture of daily life. On the shore of the lake of Galilee Jesus calls some fisherman from their nets, Peter, James, John, on a misty sunlit morning. The people we meet in the Gospels are mostly ordinary villagers who come in crowds, hungry, thirsty, longing for a Word from the Lord that will give them peace, make sense of life, bring them hope. For the most part the gospels show us Jesus, of course…………. but also daily life, the life of Galilee, with its poor, with its Roman soldiers, tax collectors, with its street life and market places. But just like that Alpine village with its daily toil and labours, and cares, the Gospels show us Jesus and give us a glimpse, of an above and beyond of heights of great beauty and majesty, a glimpse of the majesty, and power of God.

Is this not what we see in John’s Gospel, the day that Jesus healed Lazarus ? Ordinary daily life with its toils and troubles and cares – and suddenly a glimpse of great heights beyond ?

We read in John 11 that the Lord had come to the village of Bethany, near Jerusalem, where His friend Lazarus had just died. At the house in Bethany, where Lazarus had lived with his sisters Martha and Mary, we see what we would expect – grief, numbness, a sense of inexpressible loss. From there, however, Jesus goes to the tomb where Lazarus is laid, and ordering the stone door to be rolled back - Calls Lazarus come out !

And, though dead, Lazarus comes to the door of the tomb.............

Through the living Word of Christ, Lazarus, who cannot hear, not because he is deaf, but because he is dead........ this Lazarus steps into life. The Word of Jesus Christ, the call of Jesus Christ has pierced through the silence and darkness of that tomb bringing life to the once dead Lazarus.

From that Alpine village, with all its daily toil and labours, and cares, there were glimpses away from the ordinariness, the hardness of life to the high mountain beyond.

Isn’t that what we have here in John’s Gospel ? Ordinary life in Bethany, with its toils and troubles and cares, and unutterable griefs, and then suddenly in a glimpse, we see great heights beyond, a glimpse, a moment of the inexpressible glory of the living God and life-giving power and love revealed in Jesus, we see for a moment Christ who is the very source of life, for Lazarus ……and for you ………and for me.

We started by thinking about an Alpine village, with all its daily toil and labours, and cares, and above and beyond that village a glimpse, every now and then over the wooden roofs, of the high mountain, silent in beauty and majesty.

But you know, there’s another view. And that’s the view,

not from the village up to the summit,

but from the summit down to the village far below.

The view from above, the view from the summit.

John Ruskin described it like this:

the path, rises at first among the walnut trees, like winding stairs. Then the path takes you over the shoulder of a hill into a high valley. You climb through irregular meadows which run in and out among the rocks… the streams scatter their handfuls of crystal this way and that…….. the green fields and glowing rock, the glancing streams, all slope together in the sunshine towards the heights, where in clear consuming white space, the summit of the snow capped mountain high above waits…….. in the silence of the sunshine.

From here , the view, is not just of one village, but of the whole valley, the whole landscape of fields, meadows, pastures, rivers and roads.

This is the view from above, the view from the summit.

You know, the New Testament the Word of the living God, also opens to us a view from above, a view from the summit. We remember the stories of Jesus in the gospels, of His lowliness, and love – we have His very words, the words that He spoke to people, we have a record of what He did. This is what we are perhaps most familiar with.

Yet there is another perspective in the New Testament, one we are not so familiar with perhaps. From this view the New Testament allows us to look at Jesus, at the events in Galilee, from the summits, from high above, far above. The New Testament lays out for us a view over the whole great landscape, and speaks to us of God’s great purposes in Jesus Christ before time itself began.

In some wonderful places, the first chapter of John’s gospel, and the first chapter of Colossians, the second chapter of Philippians, the Word of God declares to us

that from the beginning – God’s purposes were these, that He should send His Son into the world, and through Him to bring back to Himself all things.

In the first chapter of John’s gospel, the first chapter of Colossians, the second chapter of Philippians, the Word of God declares to us, that the Father has sent His Son, Jesus Christ among us as a human being. And that means that when we look at Jesus of Nazareth, we see the very image and life of the living God (Col.1.15, Phil.2.6), living among us in the lowliness of a Servant. Living a perfect life in fellowship with God, in perfect and unbroken love.

In the 2nd chapter of the letter to the Philippians, there are words often difficult for us to grasp, but that’s because we have here the view from the summit, from high above, a view of the loving purposes of God. Here the New Testament lays out for us a view over the whole great landscape of what God is doing, has done and will do in Jesus Christ.

Here they are:

Christ Jesus always had the nature of God, but by his own free will, he gave up all that he had, and took the nature of a servant, he became like man, and appeared in human likeness, He was humble and walked the path of obedience all the way to death, his death on the cross. For this reason God has raised him to the highest place above.

Here the New Testament lays out for us a view over the whole great landscape of what God has done for us in Jesus Christ.

So, as we begin to look forward to the season of Advent which begins in a matter of only a few weeks, we are not simply reading through the readings, singing the hymns and carols, as we always do. We are celebrating the awe inspiring, great and loving purposes of the living God who has sent His own Son to us, in Jesus Christ our Lord.

AMEN.