v. I am the Resurrection and the Life

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: John 11:25

The raising of Lazarus from the dead is the climactic miracle of John’s gospel, the last of seven miracles inserted just before the beginning of the final week of Christ’s earthly ministry.  Moreover, it contains the fifth of seven ‘I am’ saying of Jesus viz. “I am the resurrection and the life.  The one who believes in me will live, even though they die and whoever lives by believing in me will never die” (John 11:26).  It also contains the shortest verse in Scripture: “Jesus wept” (v35).  As such it highlights both the divinity of Jesus, his power over life and death, as well as his humanity, his ability to grieve in the face of loss.

 Jesus was “deeply moved in spirit and troubled” (v34) in the face of death and loss.  The word in the original depicts the snorting of a horse at the prospect of battle or staggering under a heavy load.  Jesus was familiar with grief as we are, “A man of sorrow and acquainted with grief” (Isa 53:3).  As one commentator put it, “He gathered up into his personality, all the misery resulting from sin, represented in a dead man and broken-hearted people round him”.

iv. I am the Door

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: John 10:7

The children’s chorus I sang so many years ago is so appropriate when we consider Jesus’ statement “I am the door of the sheep” (v7)

                         There’s a way back to God

                        from the dark paths of sin

                        There’s a door that is open

                        And you may come in

                        At Calvary’s cross is where you begin

                        When you come as a sinner to Jesus.

 Jesus’ great statement is made in the midst of opposition from the pharisees after the Feast of Tabernacles.  They took exception to Jesus healing a man born blind.  Some scholars argue it was made during the Feast of Dedication (Hanukkah) some three months later, celebrating the re-dedication of the temple by Judas Maccabeus after its desecration by the Greeks.  This context suggests that Jesus’ admonition about false shepherds is not directed to the pharisees alone but all false leaders who lead people astray.

iii. I am the Good Shepherd

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: John 10:11

Of all the ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus, ‘I Am the Good Shepherd’ is perhaps the most loved of all.  More often than not we use the word good in an offhand manner – ‘he is a good person’, ‘we had good time’.  I’m reminded of the film ‘As Good As It Gets’ when a far from good cranky script writer played by Jack Nicholson pays a long suffering waitress the ultimate compliment, “You make me want to be a better man”. 

Unlike English, Greek has two words for good.  The first speaks of moral goodness.  But as someone has observed, it is possible to be ‘morally repulsive’.  Some people are so upright and uptight that others are repelled rather than attracted by their ‘goodness’.  The second refers to authenticity – beautiful, winsome, lovely, attractive.  Jesus is the Good Shepherd in both senses of the word, not simply a good shepherd, one of many in a similar class, but the good shepherd unique, one and only.  Compared to Jesus we who are shepherds in a lesser sense, under shepherds if you will, scarcely seem to be that at all.  Who of us could call ourselves a good shepherd, let alone the good shepherd?  Yet intuitively we know Jesus to be both and we love him for it.

ii. I am the Light of the World

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: John 8:12

Late September 1991 the fishing boat Andrea Gail sailed from Gloucester, Massachusetts some 600kms into the Atlantic Ocean.  A cold front moving down from Canada combined with a large pressure system from the west together with the aftermath of hurricane Grace in the south east created the perfect storm.  Ferocious winds and huge waves reduced the boat to matchwood and the six crew members were lost at sea.  No doubt there had been prior perfect storms, but this was made famous by the book and film of the same title. 

Two thousand years ago Jesus faced his own perfect storm as various pressures from a human perspective converged on Jerusalem of his day.  The westerly gale was the new superpower Rome.  Julius Caesar had centralized power.  After his assassination he was divinised and his successors declared son of God and assumed the role of pontifex maximus (high priest).  Augustus Caesar ruled from 31BC to AD14.  After his death he too was declared divine and his successor Tiberius took the same titles.  The job of the Roman governor in Palestine was to keep the peace, administer justice, collect taxes and supress unrest.  This was the westerly gale, the first element in the perfect storm confronting Jesus.

i. I am the Bread of Life

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: John 6:35

Jesus never wrote a book.  Yet no other person in history has had more books written about them.  The closest we come to biography are the Gospel accounts.  Perhaps the closest we come to auto-biography are the seven “I am” statements of Jesus in John’s gospel which raised the ire of the religious leaders.  They regarded Jesus committing blasphemy, laying claim to the revelation of God’s great name “I am who I am” given to Moses at the burning bush (Exodus 3:14,15). 

Scholars have spent the last five thousand years trying to understand the meaning of “I am who I am” and there is still no consensus.  No doubt Moses spent the rest of his life trying to figure out exactly what it meant.  By asking God to reveal his name, Moses was seeking to understand the essence of God’s character, his quintessential being.  God’s name was more than a name.  It represented his very being, his entire character and attributes.  The mystery of an eternal, unchangeable God who does not owe his existence to anyone else, eternally present embracing the past and the future is beyond human comprehension.

Month of Mission iii. The Purpose of the Church

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Ephesians 4:1-16

Paul Minear’s classic work “Images of the Church in the New Testament” refers to no less than ninety-six word pictures of the church.  We have already focused on Paul’s image of the church as a healthy body (Eph 4:7-16).  We will now highlight John’s emphasis on the church as loving community (1 John 4:7-9).  Paul spent three years at Ephesus grounding believers in the gospel.  Thereafter he wrote them a letter from prison in Rome in the early 60’s AD, prior to his martyrdom.  The apostle John remained in Jerusalem, moving to Ephesus shortly before the fall of Jerusalem and the desecration of the Temple.  The church at Ephesus under John served as a hub to reach the Roman province of Asia and he wrote his 3 letters there in the late 80’s.  They afford a fascinating insight to the situation which prevailed in Ephesus a generation after Paul’s ministry there in the early 50’s.

Month of Mission ii. God's Indescribable Gift(s)

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: 1 Cor 12:4-11, Phil 2:5-11 & 2 Cor 9:12-15

Grace by its very nature is a gift which we don’t deserve.  We are saved to serve.  We are saved by grace and we serve by grace.  God is both Creator and Saviour.  Common grace gives us natural gifts.  Saving grace gives us supernatural gifts, albeit with an overlap between the two.  By its very nature a gift is a spontaneous act of generosity and the gifts of the Spirit are no different. 

Some have argued that some of the gifts of the Spirit, especially the more spectacular ones, were confined to the age of the apostles.  One would have to argue along theological and historical grounds to sustain this point of view.  However, we must allow Scripture to speak with its own voice.  When we impose even a well-meaning grid causing the text to conform and confine to our particular perspective, we do a dis-service both to the Scriptures and the people of God.  But there is an equal and opposition reaction whereby the gifts of the Spirit become the central focus of the church and we become preoccupied with them rather than the giver.

Month of Mission i. The Ascended Christ Gifting His Church

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Ephesians 4:7-16

Letters written from prison are particularly poignant be they Dietrich Bonhoeffer writing to his fiancé shortly before his hanging at the hands of the Nazi’s, Alexander Solzhenitsyn imprisoned writing from the Gulag in Siberia or Bram Fischer, Afrikaner revolutionary serving a life sentence in Pretoria writing to his family not long after the tragic death of his wife Molly.  Perhaps the most moving from a Christian perspective are the prison letters of Paul not least Ephesians written in the early to mid-sixties AD from Rome whilst awaiting death at the hands of Nero. 

Ephesus was the centre of worship of the goddess Artemis (Diana) whose massive temple, one of the seven wonders of the ancient world, four times the size of the Parthenon in Athens, straddled the city.  Paul’s three-year ministry at Ephesus in AD 52-55 had impacted the sale of artefacts associated with the worship of Artemis resulting in a riot which caused Paul to leave for Macedonia.

The Parables of Jesus - iv. A Father and Two Sons

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Luke 15:11-32

Everyone loves a story and Jesus is a master storyteller.  Indeed, the parable of the Prodigal Son is perhaps the greatest story ever told, without parallel in its dramatic effect.  Its vivid storyline and riveting intrigue make it hard to forget as the listener is disarmed and persuaded, caught unawares as the habits of one’s heart are exposed and challenged. 

Jesus captured the imagination in an oral culture where many of his listeners could not read and had to rely on memorization in order to learn, hence the brief storyline: home, sick of home, homesick, home! with dramatic twists and turns in-between.

The Parables of Jesus - iii. The Kingdom of Heaven: Priceless

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Matthew 13:44-52

The parables of Jesus have rightly been described as Pictures of Revolution.  The message of the Kingdom of God is indeed revolutionary, unlike any human revolution promising Utopia and freedom, only to oppress those who stand in the way.  Jesus was a revolutionary far more radical than those who endeavoured to change society through force.  His method was one of persuasion through parables ticking away like a time bomb with explosive results.  His ‘stories of intent’ were designed to disarm his opponents on the one hand, and reveal the true nature of discipleship and radical repentance on the other.  The parables simultaneously conceal and reveal, exposing the habits of his hearers’ and readers’ hearts.

The Parables of Jesus - ii. Seeds, Weeds and Explosive Growth

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Matthew 13:24-43

Jesus continues to tell three parables about the Kingdom of God: the wheat and the weeds with an explanation to follow, the mustard seed and yeast.  Whether Jesus told these parables in this precise order is a moot point.  Matthew writes to a predominantly Jewish order and he collates his material accordingly to stress the primacy of the Kingdom in Jesus’ teaching. 

The Kingdom cannot be equated with the church, a mistake Augustine made in his interpretation which led to very grave consequences.  The church in the Middle Ages became a coercive agency, relying on power and control.  Constantine, the first ‘Christian’ emperor of the Roman Empire established a state church.  He is reputed to have offered defeated opponents in war a choice, be baptised or be drowned!  Little wonder that the church became a compromised body with nominal allegiance by many.  The Crusades in attempting to impose Christianity by force on Islam had disastrous consequences, compounded by Islam’s equating the gospel with western culture.

The Parables of Jesus - i. How do we hear?

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Matthew 13:1-23

Jesus was a masterful teacher who captured the imagination of his hearers through the use of parables, described as stories with a sting in the tale, striking home unawares.  Filled with everyday illustrations, the surface meaning hides a sucker punch.  Whilst not unique to Jesus, parables in his hands have coined universal phrases like ‘turning the other cheek’, ‘going the extra mile’ and ‘being a Good Samaritan’ to name but a few.

 Context is vital to the right understanding of a story, not least a parable.  It may well have a disturbing, cutting edge especially if conflict and confrontation is in the air.  In this context Jesus’ enemies accuse him of being in league with Satan, and his immediate family are concerned about his mental state.  So faced with direct opposition on the one hand and familiarity bordering on contempt on the other, Jesus tells the Parable of the Sower.

Malachi Then and Now - God's Unchanging Love vi. Grace, Gratitude and Generosity

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Malachi 3:6-12

Malachi Then and Now - God's Unchanging Love v. Preparing for the Great Day

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Malachi 2:17-3:5

Malachi doesn’t pull his punches.  He tells the people of his day, “You have wearied the Lord with your words”.  Their warped concept of justice sees them accuse God of inconsistency at best, deceit at worst.  Because they doubt the love of God, the Israelites resort to keeping up religious appearances, devoid of reality, simply going through the motions.  They place God in the dock and ironically blame him for their present state of despair and futility.  They refuse to accept responsibility and simply desire to save face, not unlike the role players involved in the explosion at Chernobyl nuclear power station in northern Ukraine in April 1986.  It was the height of the cold war and the Soviets were determined to preserve their perceived scientific superiority over the West.  However, cutting costs and high-handed authority led to the disaster that affected multiple thousands of innocent people.  The recent docu-drama ‘Chernobyl’ depicts a brave Russian nuclear scientist hold the state accountable with his chilling words “Every lie we tell incurs a debt to the truth.  Sooner or later that debt is paid”. 

Pentecost Sunday - The Holy Spirit for Today

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Acts 2:1-13

“Wherever one looks in the church today, there is an evident need for a deeper work of the Holy Spirit.”  Those prophetic words written some forty years ago by John Stott are even more pressing today.  The church in the West is tolerated but hardly embraced by a society which is pluralist and permissive.  The church in the majority world is growing rapidly but, more often than not, it is marred by shallow teaching and factions not to mention the cult of personality and the so-called ‘health and wealth’ gospel which by-passes the cross and flatters only to deceive.

Malachi Then and Now - God's Unchanging Love iii. Mouthpiece for God

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Malachi 2:1-9

“The eye is the window of the soul” is a familiar saying.  However, Malachi addressing the priests of his day argues that the mouth is the window of the soul.  Jesus echoes this sentiment, “For the mouth speaks what the heart is full of” (Matt 12:34).  Malachi took the priests to task for failing to fulfil their primary calling, viz. faithful teaching of God’s Word. 

 The novelist John Updike, no friend of the gospel, in his novel Run Rabbit describes a young minister Rev Eccles, “With his white collar he forges God’s name in every sentence he speaks...  He steals belief from the children he is supposed to be teaching.  He commits fraud with every schooled cadence of the liturgy.”  John Updike may well have taken his words straight from Malachi 2400 years ago.  Malachi sounds strident and harsh to our modern ears.  We prefer a kinder, gentler faith.  But extreme times require extreme measures.  The priests looked the part.  They wore the right vestments.  They recited prayers.  But they were lifeless.  Platitudes devoid of passion.  They bent the truth and corrupted their ministry.

Malachi Then and Now - God's Unchanging Love ii. A Call to be Real

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Malachi 1:6-14

Malachi holds the priests responsible for the spiritual malaise of Israel.  Well might he add, in a contemporary context ‘as the pulpit, so the pew’.  Three means of revelation saw the priests responsible for Worship, the prophet for the Word from God, and the sage for Wisdom.  Worship, Word and Wisdom maintained the religious ethos of Israel, and all three areas, particularly worship were in a parlous state with devastating consequences for the nation as a whole.

 Integral to Israel’s worship was the sacrificial system both mandatory (the sin and trespass offering) and voluntary (the grain, drink and peace offering).  The sacrifices in the Old Testament pointed forward to the perfect and final sacrifice of Christ.  As such they had to be unblemished and perfect.  However, the priests colluded with the people in presenting second-rate sacrifices, an insult to God which defiled worship.

Malachi Then and Now - God's Unchanging Love i. A Call to Respond to God's Love

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Malachi 1:1-5

Cynicism is devastating.  The default mode of despair and disillusioned people, it robs one of enthusiasm, commitment and energy.  This was the situation confronting Malachi.  Circumstances, opposition and adversity had all but destroyed Israel’s assurance of God’s presence and provision.  Their homeland had been devastated by the Babylonian invasion, the temple destroyed and most of the population had been exiled.  And now through Persian intervention, the people were beginning to return.  The temple had been rebuilt under Haggai but the city walls remained a ruin.  Even more galling, their neighbour Edom, descendants of Esau, had escaped unscathed.  They had prospered whilst Israel suffered.  The fact that Esau had cheated Jacob of their father Isaac’s blessing added insult to injury.

Risen Indeed!

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Luke 24:1-12

In the days before television, a radio programme ‘Consider Your Verdict’ fascinated me.  The listener was required to evaluate evidence presented and whether one’s verdict coincided with that of the court.  It made for entertaining ‘theatre of the mind’.  The evidence for the resurrection transcends the realm of entertainment.  It demands a verdict.  “The message of Easter is either the supreme fact in history or else a gigantic hoax” argues Prof J.N.D Anderson.  It is literally a matter of life and death not just a comforting story.  The Apostle Paul put it this way: “If Christ has not been raised, our preaching is useless and so is your faith.  More than that, we are then found to be false witnesses about God.” (1 Cor 15:14,15)

Hebrews for Today: The Majestic Jesus - xi. Christ our Sanctuary

Preacher: Alan Cameron

Verses: Hebrews 9:1-28

The writer of the Hebrews depicts Jesus resplendent in majestic glory.  He attempts to describe the indescribable.  No visual image will suffice.  This presents a creative challenge for us today.  One social critic has described our contemporary world as having shifted from the Age of Exposition in which the written world prevailed to the Age of Entertainment in which image trumps words.  Lines have been blurred.  Confusion parades as creativity.  Comprehensive descriptions of reality are regarded as suspect.  Our postmodern world has come of age in which a multiplicity of ‘truths’ (small t) have replaced ‘Truth’ (capital T) reminiscent of Pontius Pilate who asked ‘What is truth’ and did not wait for an answer.

 That notwithstanding, Hebrews is quite content to describe Jesus as God’s final word. (Heb 1:1,2).  Various metaphors are used – Jesus as high priest, an anchor for the soul, the guarantor of a new covenant, culminating in Jesus as our Sanctuary, the one who offers forgiveness and a clear conscience.  “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death so that we may serve the living God” (v14).