7th Sunday of Eastertide ( C ) 2022
When I looked at the readings for today’s mass and thought what will I preach. I just sat there. Nothing would come to mind. I don’t really know why; usually ideas come quickly to me. But not now. So I sat and prayed and re-read the three readings, but still nothing would come. I waited a long time for a light-bulb moment but it never came. So, I decided to share this with you, but also to think about why this should be.
Part of the reason is I find the readings too spiritual, if I may say that. Often the bible speaks of sin and failure and weakness. I find these so much easier to talk about. But Christ is talking about Himself and His Father; and how he has glorified the Father here on earth, and finished the work the Father gave Him to do. No sin there. Nothing that most of us can identify with. Christ goes on to say: “I pray for them (that’s us)… and in them I am glorified.” At last, this was something that jumped out at me: “in them I am glorified.” What a wonderful statement for Christ to make: that Christ finds his glory in us. Can you believe that? It’s not something I suspect we think about much. When we think of ourselves, as we surely do sometimes over the day, usually last thing at night, when all is quiet, do we realize that we are glorifying Christ? Probably not. And yet we are, because Christ has said so.
So this was my light bulb moment. This marvellous statement: “…in them I am glorified.” I believe that many of us spend our lives without ever realizing our dignity as baptised Christians. And that is understandable. We live in a fast world, a world that hasn’t time to stop and think, never mind pray. Our world is secular: in other words, God is on the periphery; His gospel message is not heard by many people. Our world is also materialistic: in such a world what matters is what you have, not who you are. Is it any wonder we don’t reflect on our dignity as baptised Christians; there is little or no encouragement from the culture we live in.
This is why it is so important to come to church on Sunday, so that we may enter a different culture, where peace and love are heard from the altar; where forgiveness for our many sins is preached; where we are lifted up and made to feel good about ourselves, in spite of our fault and failings. It is only in church that you will hear Christ saying: “…in them I am glorified.”
When we enter into Church we are entering a very different world; there is a thin ceiling between earth and heaven. God speaks to us in Church; He actually speaks to us through the readings we hear each week. He wants to tell us truths that we won’t here anywhere else. Even in church it is not always easy to hear things when God is speaking so well of us. But the way we see ourselves and the way God does can be so different. We may feel we let God down by the way we live, the things we do, the kind of people we are. And no one is saying that you are perfect, but, no matter who you are God is saying to you in Christ: “…in you I am glorified.”
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