March 27, 2022 (Lent Week 4)

 


Today, our son William was baptised! What a joy! And what a privilege to be able to be back in the pews this morning as his Mum (it is Mothers' Day in the UK after all - I hadn't made this connection until Steve mentioned it at church). The whole service and the whole day had me reflecting on so many things. Thank you to The Ven. Dr. Pilar Gateman for a wonderful sermon - we are a new creation!...  Let's act like it! God's love for us changes everything and his invitation to us, his loving invitation, is to receive that truth and to begin to turn towards it and everything it means for us. And we can't do this without God's help of course. And he doesn't ask us to - he sends his Spirit to show us what our next step is; and he sends us one another to help us see and hear his voice and have the courage to act upon it. We are surrounded by his grace as we learn what it means to be this new creation in the world.

And, you know, I couldn't help but think about how perfectly the gospel reading aligned with Pilar's sermon too. It was the story of the Prodigal Son. Because we ARE a new creation, but the truth is that all of us will fall. We've fallen before and we will fall again. But we are not to be discouraged because God will always, always be that loving Father, running toward us, stretching out his arms in welcome. The revelation of who God truly is - the revelation that we received in Christ's life and death and resurrection - tells us that this will always be the welcome that God has for us. He has put away our sin. Entirely. Completely. And there is nothing we can do that can stop him from running toward us with that exuberant love when we return home to him. Every time.

One of my favourite prayers offered up at the Holy Communion service that is found in the Book of Common Prayer says:

Blessing and glory and thanksgiving be unto thee Almighty God, our heavenly Father, 
who of thy tender mercy didst give thine only Son Jesus Christ to take our nature upon him, 
and to suffer death upon the Cross for our redemption; who made there, 
by his one oblation of himself once offered, a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, 
oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world.

If we're sometimes not totally sure of the love God has for us, if we have any uncertainty or any doubts, this invites us to put them all to one side. Not because of anything we have done but entirely because of what God has done on our behalf in Christ. And if you're still not sure, I invite you to slow down and to meditate on each word here today: "a full, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice, oblation, and satisfaction, for the sins of the whole world." Because I don't see any grey area here. From God's perspective, this has all been taken care of. He is already, and will always be the one who is running toward us, opening up his arms to embrace us. 

We are a new creation.

Thanks be to God!

- Rev. Gillian




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