|
Sermon preached on 31.12.2006 at 6 pm.
The
GOD KEEPS WATCH OVER US
St.Luke 12:22 - 31
Sometimes New Year's Eve services are referred to as "watch
night services" as the faithful gather in the Word of God and prayer
to watch for the coming of the New Year.
The Holy Gospel chosen
for this evening speaks of God’s watchfulness
over us.
New Year's Eve is a time to gather up the past twelve months
both in repentance and thanksgiving and to renew our trust In His goodness
to watch over us in the coming New
Year too.
New Year's Eve reminds us that we are temporary, that we
are creatures of time and space. New Year's Eve reminds us that our years
are not limitless and that we live within the bounds which the Lord God has
appointed for us. We live within time, yet God has planted in our hearts the
knowledge of eternity. We should see our time, our passing years and our fleeting
moments in the light of the Lord whose kingdom has no end.
Just five days back we celebrated Christmas. It was the
first coming of our Lord. We also believe that He will come again.
He came to us in the flesh, born as Mary's Son. He is the
Word made flesh. He is the God who took our humanity upon Himself to tabernacle
in our flesh and blood. He wraps His glory in human skin and on the 8th day,
He is given the name "Jesus for He will save His people from their sin."
He comes in time when Caesar Augustus ruled
Are we in that kingdom? We live in time. We measure minutes,
days, weeks, months, and years.
Our lives are bound by clock time. Now we are simply watching
the clock tick away the final hours of the old year. God in His grace gives
us a new year. But, He gives us more than a new calendar year marked 2007;
He gives us the gift of an eternity to be lived in union with Him and to the
praise of His glory. For Jesus the coming of God’s kingdom was not measurable
in such linear terms as “before” and “after.”
I am now talking about the
Jesus gives us a new understanding of God and His kingdom.
Jesus revolutionized the ideas of God and His kingdom. Gone are the old ideas
of God being a kind of despot ruling over a spiritual welfare state – a heavenly
monarch with His faithful subjects. The
In our long theological tradition we have wrongly attributed
a wrong kind of “omnipotence” to God. God will not join the world’s power
club with its motto “Might is right”. That must also be the reason why Jesus
rejected the kingly power and authority thrust upon him. He opted for a God
not enthroned in the high places of religion and politics but for a God in
the lowly place to which the powerless men and women are consigned.
In Jesus’ view the power of God is deeply, fundamentally,
categorically incompatible with the power of kings, presidents and prime ministers.
In the theology of Jesus there is no place for theocracy. There is no such
thing as a “divine ruler”. God’s reign is not a “kingdom”, a “
We at this point of time, the 31st of December
2006, look with anticipation and great expectations to the New Year 2007.
That’s all right. We cannot ignore time or the events in time. But this should
also open our eyes to a reality that we believe is greater than the reality
of our world of Time and Space. I mean the coming of the
We are at the point of moving from Christmas celebrations
into the celebration of the dawning of a New Year. If we want this coming
New Year to be a blessed one in the real sense, then we should move from the
knowledge of the birth of mind of Christ
into the experience of God – with
– us.
As we enter the New Year let us also enter the
Let God be in us and with us. Let not our God be a heavenly
model of an earthly king. The power of God can no longer be compared to the
power of a king. The image of God as a powerful king is a “totalitarian” image.
It fundamentally misrepresents the nature of God’s power and perpetuates wrong
images of God. Theocratic language was the language of the ancient world.
Christian theology must soon stop using such language. The old Christianity-centered
world-view makes us to set out to conquer the world for God. Jesus asks us
to serve the world not to conquer it.
Let us start using the strikingly simple name with which
Jesus addressed the divine: “Abba,” the Aramaic word for “Appa” (Mark 14:36). For Jesus God was not a harsh judge
but a loving and generous father. In Matthew 6:25 – 30 we read Jesus saying,
“Be not afraid, do not be anxious about your life, do not worry”.
“ Look at the birds of the
air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly
father feeds hem. Are you not of more value than they?”
We don’t have to earn the Father’s love or bargain for his grace
by following or observing a religion. There is no need to believe in any religious
doctrine or obey any religious law. All you have to do is just call on Him.
Ask and it will be
given to you …….What man of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give
him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you ,evil
as you are, know how to give good things to your children, how much more will
your father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him.(Matthew 7:7, 9-11)
When you pray, say “Abba…….” (Luke 11:2)
As we enter the life of being in the
When will all our wants become our needs? The answer is:
When we seek first the
As we enter the New Year may we also resume and renew our
striving to enter the
‘He that watches over