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Message Notes: 21/04/2024
Jesus’ resurrection is central to our faith, and hence to the process of spiritual formation. It provides the reality in which we are transformed to become more like Christ by the person and power of the Holy Spirit. It is how we are made alive! Paul unpacks this ins 1 Cor 15:12-22 (NIV)
…if Christ has not been raised from the dead,
our preaching is useless 2/
your faith is futile;
you are still in your sins. But Christ has indeed been raised from the dead... For as in Adam all die, so in Christ all will be made alive
Luke 24:1-12 (NIV)
1 On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. 2 They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, 3 but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. 4 While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. 5 In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? 6 He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: 7 ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” 8 Then they remembered his words.
9 When they came back from the tomb, they told all these things to the Eleven and to all the others. 10 It was Mary Magdalene, Joanna, Mary the mother of James, and the others with them who told this to the apostles. 11 But they did not believe the women, because their words seemed to them like nonsense. 12 Peter, however, got up and ran to the tomb. Bending over, he saw the strips of linen lying by themselves, and he went away, wondering to himself what had happened.
There is so much wonder, awe and unexpectedness in the accounts of Jesus ressurection!
If Jesus' resurrection is at the center of our spiritual formation, then this this sense of wonder is a big part of what goes on! Eugene H. Peterson
1/ Having it 'all worked out' can be a wonder killer
2/ The workplace can be a wonder killer (and most people spend a lot of time there)
How can we cultivate wonder? Through SABBATH. (שַׁבָּת, 'shabbat') which means to “cease” or “desist” “stop” or “quit”
SECULAR VIEW | BIBLICAL VIEW |
Earned Day Off Utilitarian About US | Given Grace Stop About GOD and how he forms us |
Genesis - God models rest it and in Ex 20, it is given as a FESTIVAL OF FREEDOM
which restores personhood, and counters the Pharoahic culture of production and consumption (where the Israelites had been enslaved for 400 years)
Sabbath cultivates the
Ability to see what God is doing in the ordinary (e.g. workplace)
Be surprised by what is not understood
Creates a capacity to respond in wonder to mysteries
Decluttering and detachment from the world’s way of doing things
The workplace is not the whole of life. But without a Sabbath, in which God goes beyond the workplace (but not away from it), the workplace is soon emptied of any sense of the presence of God. Eugene H. Peterson
Days pass and the years vanish, and we walk sightless among miracles. Lord, fill our eyes with seeing and our minds with knowing; let there be moments when Your Presence, like lightning, illumines the darkness in which we walk.
Help us to see, wherever we gaze, that the bush burns unconsumed.
And we, clay touched by God, will reach out for holiness, and exclaim in wonder:
How filled with awe is this place, and we did not know it!
Blessed is the Eternal One, the holy God!
Gates of Prayer: The New Union Prayer Book (Weekends, Sabbaths, and Festivals)
So, I wonder… what will you do differently?
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