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The Commission of The Risen Jesus
John 20:21
Introduction
We gather in this Cathedral today to ordain five persons as priests in the church of God. In due course they will be reminded in the liturgy of their weighty responsibilities and duties in the household of faith and we will hear their solemn vows and undertakings to fulfil the same. We will join in prayer that God will make them equal to their task. But first we must all listen again to the words of the risen Christ. On the first Easter Day the risen Lord Jesus returned to his frightened friends to surprise them with two marvellous gifts and issue one irrevocable commission -
21Jesus said to them again, "Peace be with you. As the Father has sent
me, so I send you." 22When he had said this, he breathed on them and
said to them, "Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive the sins of any,
they are forgiven them; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained."
The risen Jesus reassures them that they are at peace with God because of his work on the cross. The risen Jesus evocatively breathes on them to bestow his Spirit to renew them and fulfil his promise to be with them and in them forever. The risen Jesus also commissions and equips them to replicate his mission. It is this part of the text I want to focus on this morning. This is your ordination text: as the Father has sent me, so I send you. The mission of Jesus is to be the model or pattern of your ministry. His purpose must be your purpose. His manner must be your manner.
The Purpose of the Sending
Methodologically whenever we meditate on one text like this we need to ask what John’s Gospel says about the purpose of Jesus being sent. Jesus constantly refers to the Father as “he who sent me” and to himself as “he whom the Father has sent”. The reason is stated by John explicitly in a verse such as John 3:17 -
For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn
the world, but to save the world through him”
All of Jesus’ work was directed to this end. In John’s Gospel both his signs and words combine to proclaim him as God’s unique and perfect Saviour. He not only came to reveal God to people, but to bring us back into a right relationship with Him. He came as the unique Lamb of God to take away our sins. He died on the cross to rescue us. Moreover as he died he cried it is finished (19:30). indicating the work the Father had given him was accomplished and complete. In short, he died to atone for our sins and in particular to provide forgiveness. The very context of these words of commission with the emphasis on either forgiving or retaining sins indicates that the main focus of his mission remains forgiveness and its consequences (John 20:23). Through faith in him, John makes it plain we are not only forgiven but are adopted into God’s family (1:12), we are set free from our slavery to self (8:34-36), we receive the gift of God’s Spirit (14:23) and we have eternal life, which is his way of saying we become kingdom of God or resurrection people (20:31).
His purpose must be our purpose. We are of course not saviours but we function as signposts to the Saviour. Through the work of the Spirit in us we will increasingly embody the image of Jesus as we obey him, but his priority should remain ours, namely to spread the good news of God’s forgiveness of sins wherever we are. This is absolutely fundamental to the order of priest The Ordinal puts it this way -
As the Lord’s messenger, proclaim the gospel of Jesus Christ.
Seek the lost, announce God’s justice, warn and correct those in error.
You are to encourage and build up the body of Christ,
preaching the word of God,
leading God’s people in prayer,
declaring God’s forgiveness and blessing,
and faithfully ministering the sacraments of God’s grace
with reverence and care.
In John’s Gospel the purpose of the Father sending the Son is crystal clear. We are to imitate him. His mission is to be continued in our mission. So preaching, proclaiming, witnessing, sharing the good news of Jesus, (call it whatever you will!) and presiding over the gospel sacraments which visibly proclaim the forgiveness of sins remain the essence of the task. Central to the mission of Jesus was that he came so that those who believe in him might not perish but experience eternal life as the forgiven children of God. You are sent with the same message – as the Father has sent me so I send you.
The Manner of the Sending
If his purpose should be ours, then his manner should be ours as well. We are called to involvement not withdrawal. One Simeon Stylites (390-459AD) desired solitude so in 412AD he abandoned his monastery to live in the mountains. He spent some five years on a rock a metre high. The top allowed him two square metres of movement. However for almost 30 years he spent most of his time on a 20 metre high pillar with a platform of some 3.5 square metres. He sought to live in continuous prayer, accompanied by rhythmical falling on his knees and bowing his forehead to the platform. Naturally it was quite a sight and attracted crowds to whom he preached from his extraordinary stone pulpit. Now in case you were wondering the history books do not postulate about some of the practical circumstances of his living arrangements. Moreover I want to assure you that I am not urging you to emulate his example in order to maximise your preaching ministry! This is simply an extreme and bizarre example of how Christians can sometimes withdraw from the world and shout the gospel message at others from a distance.
Jesus chose to act differently. As the Apostle John wrote in the prologue of this gospel: the Word became flesh and lived among us (John 1:14).There of course was only one unrepeatable incarnation, but Jesus’ mission functions as our pattern for costly and radical identification with people. This was seen in his birth. He left behind the glory of heaven to enter our world completely as a human being. It was no “space suit touchdown” as someone has put it. He was not insulated or protected from exposure to the things we endure – pain, weakness, suffering, sorrow, temptation and death. This was also seen in his life. He did not remain aloof, keeping his distance from sinners. Unlike so many of his contemporaries he did not fear contamination. Remember he was consistently criticised for being a friend of tax collectors and sinners. He shrank from nobody. He touched lepers and allowed prostitutes to touch him. He offered friendship, understanding, compassion, acceptance and love. This was seen supremely in his death when he was actually “made sin” for us, dying our death. Yet importantly, even though he completely identified with us, he never lost his unique identity. He was in the world, but not of it or like it. The risen Jesus says as the Father has sent me, so I send you. If Jesus was the friend of sinners so should we be, yet without compromising our Christian convictions, values or standards. While there is of course a role for preaching in the marketplace, I remind you that Jesus chose not to shout the gospel at us from heaven, but instead became one of us. He both proclaimed God’s message and became the message. He entered our world and our experience to bring us home, and we need to imitate him in our day as we continue his mission in the world.
In the history of Christian missions there have been many dramatic examples of Christians trying to imitate Jesus. In 1732 Count Zinzendorf, the Moravian leader, sent two of his missionaries to the West Indian sugar plantations. They found the only way to reach the African slaves was to join their chain gangs and share their huts. Hudson Taylor who founded the China Inland Mission in 1865 sought to conform as much as possible to Chinese habits of life in order to reach Chinese people for Christ. In 1882 Major Frederick Tucker launched the Salvation Army in India. General Booth’s last words to him were, “Get into their skins, Tucker.” He did. Deeply concerned for the outcasts, he decided his soldiers must live their life. So they donned saffron robes, adopted Indian names, walked barefoot, cleaned their teeth with charcoal, and ate their curry and water sitting cross-legged on the floor.
As those who are ordained to lead and mobilise the people of God in mission in the communities and networks where you are called to serve may I urge you to become deeply incarnational. This means genuinely entering the thought and heart worlds of your people to understand their questions and problems, their hurts and disappointments, to grasp their hang-ups and fears. To coin Booth’s evocative phrase we need to “get into their skins” to apply the medicine of the gospel appropriately to their wounds.. Such compassionate loving service of others will inevitably be costly in time, energy and even resources, but then again Jesus’ identification was costly to him. It involved leaving the glory of heaven and years of blood, sweat and tears to save us. Remember servants are not above their master.
Conclusion
The risen Jesus continues to say as the Father has sent me, so I send you. The purpose of our mission is that men and women be forgiven and enter God’s family through faith in Jesus our sin-bearing Saviour. The manner of our mission will be walking in his steps in costly identification with broken people. There is no way the church can wiggle out of this responsibility for this is a commission of the risen Jesus. Nor can we say we are unable to do it. When he commissioned that original group of disciples, he breathed on them and gave them the Holy Spirit. It was a prophetic pledge, an acted parable, a foretaste of the Day of Pentecost. When we put our faith in Christ, God put that same Spirit in us. He is the one who strengthens us, encourages us and works in and through our very human attempts to work out God’s purposes in His world (cf. John 15:26-27). However to reinforce this general truth it will be our prayer today in the laying on of hands that God will grant you a fresh endowment of this same Spirit for the office and work of a priest in the church of God.
Prayer
Grant to these your servants, merciful God,
grace and power to fulfil their ministry:
to proclaim the gospel of salvation through word and sacrament,
to declare the forgiveness of sins,
and to watch over and care for the people committed to their charge.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen
+Trevor Edwards
28th August 2010
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