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Palmerston Place ChurchSermon 7th July 2019Reading: Romans 8: 18-25, 31-39. Slide 1 Title slide: A journey or a pilgrimage?Slide 2 Hills and valleysMost of us here are old enough to have a significant past, and as far as this world is concerned, a limited future. So, my question is: when we view our lives from its beginning and towards its end what is the metaphor that comes to mind. Do you consider that your life has been and is a journey? Does that commonly used theme fit for you? Slide 3 Ed SheeranIf you search for “the journey” on Google you get an amazing array of quotes. Here are some: “The main thing that you have to remember on this journey is: just be nice to everyone and always smile”. Ed Sheeran, singer-song writer. How sugary is that? Slide 4 Other quotesA significant number of people who allegedly have something worth quoting would have us believe – quite explicitly – that life is indeed a journey, but it’s a journey without a destination. “Focus on the journey, not the destination. Joy is found not in finishing an activity but in doing it” Greg Anderson, American author“Always the journey, never the destination”. Simon Rattle, ConductorSlide 5 The end is aheadWhat do you think? That fits in with the spirit of the age - that life is indeed a journey without a destination. Ostrich-like, our present culture tries to blot out the fact that life comes to an end and there is no destination other than extinction.But to be on a journey without a destination is to be a mere tourist. You travel but you always return to your starting point. It implies that life is reduced to being a transient experience without any ultimate goal. Slide 6 Pilgrim’s ProgressYou will by now realise that I do not agree that life is a journey without a destination. We have just sung a hymn that subscribes to quite a different idea. It portrays life not as a journey, but as a pilgrimage. The word pilgrimage implies journey, but it also implies destination: Definition: “A pilgrimage is a journey or search that has moral or spiritual significance.”That is what we sang about. The Christian pilgrim knows that “he at the end, shall life inherit”The hymn was written by John Bunyan, the author of Pilgrim’s Progress, an allegorical story written in 1678 that remains in print to this day.Slide 7 The QueenIn her recent Christmas messages, Her Majesty the Queen has increasingly borne witness to the way in which her life has been a Christian pilgrimage. It is almost incredible to think it now, but in her Christmas broadcast in 1957, 61 years ago, the first that was ever televised, she actually read from John Bunyan’s book. It would be anathema to the atheistic ideologues of today’s secular culture. Here is a short clip: 6:10 to 6:58Slide 8 BLANK after YouTube clip has been shownThe full title of Bunyan’s book is “The Pilgrim’s Progress from This world to That which is to Come”. In the short passage quoted by the Queen, there is not just a reference to a journey, and not just a reference to a destination, but also reference to a reward. As far as Bunyan was concerned, even reaching the destination doesn’t fully describe the Christian life: the destination leads to ultimate fulfilment - which is to be in the presence of God in the Celestial City. Contentedness This brings me to the next question, which is: “Are you – am I - a contented person. Can we ever be fully content in this world?” Occasionally we come across someone who is truly content. If I have done so, it has often been in someone who is in their 90s and who has long since given away any desires for more fulfilment in their present life. People like that are rare. We admire and even envy them.The Scriptures tell us that the inner longing for something more than what we experience in our present lives is actually a God-given thing … woven into the life of faith. It is Divine Discontent and that means longing rather than dissatisfaction. This does not rule out satisfaction and joy and thanksgiving in the present moment – “Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what that Lord has done” - but it explains why these experiences are transient.Have you experienced the thought that if only you could hold on to a particularly rich or beautiful moment? Hasn’t that awareness stirred you to long for more of what is good in this world?Slide 9 King SolomonThese thoughts are not unique to Christians. They are in the thinking of most human beings. It’s one of things that makes us human. We are always anticipating the future and we have a God-created concept about what would make it just perfect. Writing in the book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon put it this way: “God has set?eternity?in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end”.Slide 10 Romans 8We have already read verses from Romans chapter 8 that point to the fact that the whole creation - of which we are a part - is aching for completion, for resolution: “The creation waits in eager expectation … is subject to frustration in the hope of liberation … is groaning as in the pains of childbirth. And we also groan inwardly as we await our adoption, the redemption of our bodies”. Slide 11 Hebrews 11Similarly, in chapter 11 of the book of Hebrews, the writer provides a long list of men and women of faith. Then he says:“These people were living by faith when they died. They did not receive the things promised; they only saw them and welcomed them from a distance, admitting that they were foreigners and strangers on earth.?People who say such things … were longing for a better country?– a heavenly one. Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them” Slide 12 John 14Jesus Himself teaches us to anticipate something of the same (John 14: 1-4)“In my Father’s house are many rooms; if that were not true, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am”Jesus’ words address our disquiet and unease about what might lie ahead. They give us an understanding that life has indeed a God-given, Christ-promised destination. So, both looking forward into the future – to a final and good destination - and at the same time experiencing discontentedness in this life are intrinsic elements in the deep awareness of human beings.Slide 13 BLANK slideThe obstacles along the wayNot long ago in the outpatient clinic at University Hospital Wishaw, I was with a patient with end-stage respiratory disease. His life expectancy could be measured in months. I asked him: “Do you think about what lies ahead?” It was an open-ended question. There was a pause. He thought for a moment and then he said: “I haven’t lived a very good life”. What do you think? Why was it that when he thought about his future – the prognosis concerning his health and the struggles that he might experience – he turned to what he had made of his life? At the moment when the prospect of dying came up over the horizon, his thoughts were about the meaning and significance of his life and how he had got it wrong. Had he been psychologically conditioned to think that way – by his parents, or by a minister or a priest? Or was his awareness that he was accountable for his life an equally natural human instinct, just like the instinct that tells us that there is something that lies beyond the here and now. It is interesting that almost all of the world’s major religions teach that our track record for the years that we have spent in this world have a significant bearing on what lies beyond. Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism, Animism: they all present their followers not just with a picture of life after death, but also that at the point of transition there is accountability for our attitudes and actions during the life that is to end. The common denominator is a view – shared by Christianity and taught by Jesus Himself, that alongside God’s created order, there is a moral order that comprises good and evil. The universe He created is not amoral. God has decreed that the distinction between good and evil is real and not arbitrary: it is defined in terms of His character and nature and values.The problem about being human is that we live out our lives at the messy interface between what is good and what is evil. Deep in the human heart we all encounter both good and evil. Like Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden, we make choices. And just like in the Genesis story, we are held responsible for the choices that we make. Some of us are burdened by that truth. Like the man I was talking to, the weight of mistakes, failures, disappointments, irreversible omissions, cringe-worthy behaviours can be heavy. They appear on the big screen of memory and conscience. They generate remorse and regret and the fear of condemnation. The whole point of John Bunyan’s book is to encourage us to press on towards the destination where we can no longer muck it up, and Satan is banished and no longer has the power to corrupt and soil and condemn us. Slide 14 The three crossesPerhaps the most succinct and poignant picture on this theme is found in what happened concerning the two men who were crucified alongside Jesus. On one side is a man who wants to justify Himself to the bitter end. He is angry that his life ends in brutal condemnation and defeat. Even in his death throes, he sneers at Christ. The other is contrite and asks for mercy. He looks to Christ for His future, a remarkable thing to do given that his plea was directed towards a Man who was Himself dying. “Jesus, remember me when You come to your Kingdom” And Jesus says: “Today you will be with me in paradise” Being with Christ was his destination.Slide 15 Monica RenzThis is a lady called Monica Renz. She is a clinical psychologist who has spent her life working in a hospice in Switzerland. Based on her experiences she has written a book entitled “Dying is a transition”. In her book she describes the ambivalences that are experienced by people who are dying. Slide 16 Dying is a transitionOften a person resists the approach of death driven by the survival instinct that we all share. Death is being imposed on them and they resist. On the other hand, dying is increasingly welcomed as a deliverance, an end to life’s struggle and suffering. And in the midst of these there are surges of primordial fear about death’s inevitability and mystery: of being abandoned, overwhelmed, annihilated.In the last hours of life, a patient often drifts into a coma. Who knows what that is like? During the last 4 years, I have had the job of assessing the quality of care provided to dying patients in NHS Lanarkshire hospitals. One of the striking things is how often word “agitated” is used in the hospital notes to describe a patient’s behaviour in the last 24-48 hours. Agitation is interpreted by staff as having physical causes like a full bladder or pain. They respond to these things, but sometimes their interventions don’t work. So why is a patient agitated?Slide 17 Agitation in the ICUHere is an excerpt from a clinical guideline about how to manage agitation in the ICU. “Several mental disturbances may be observed in the ICU, in particular agitation, anxiety and delirium. It is not known if these mental states express different types of brain dysfunction. Anxiety is a diffuse sensation of fear, which is not related to a real and actual external danger. … ” You will gather from that quote that modern medicine doesn’t allow for the possibility that agitation in the closing hours of someone’s life is maybe due to a spiritual struggle. Monica Renz is clear that primordial fear and spiritual pain need to be considered as the reason for agitation. What is it like to be on the threshold of leaving this world and to be unsure of oneself? What will it be like to be taking the final step of life’s pilgrimage into … well into what? Fear is an understandable experience and agitation is its natural expression.Slide 18 Old man in hospitalThe best solution is not drug therapy. The man at my clinic was not in need of drugs. Do not misunderstand me: I am all for the palliative use of drugs to relieve physical symptoms. But I think we need to be open to more than one approach – and to honour the fact that a human being has a spirit as well as a body.The Christian perspective Slide 19 (1) UniversalismOver the centuries Christians have grappled with these issues very deeply. It is interesting that how some major false doctrines have emerged in an attempt to quell the anxieties.There is universalism, the idea that everyone is loved by God and enters the Kingdom of Heaven in the end. But that would mean sharing God’s kingdom with Adolf Hitler and Pol Pot both of whom committed suicide in a state of unrepentance. Jesus rules it out: there are sheep and goats, wheat and tares.Slide 19 (2) PredestinationPre-destination is a doctrine that many Presbyterians have subscribed to over the years and is akin to the Muslim view – meaning that God has already decided and there’s nothing you can do to alter your fate. Not true. Think of the two thieves at Calvary. Slide 19 (3) PurgatoryAnd thirdly there’s purgatory. According to Roman Catholic Doctrine purgatory is an intermediate place of “purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven”. Believe it or not, but the idea of purgatory was meant to be a source of comfort, a last chance to get things sorted out.Slide 20 Cross and empty tombBrothers and sisters, there are only two doctrines that matter: the Cross … and the Resurrection. In Pilgrim’s Progress, Christian is relieved of His burden when he encounters the Cross and the Empty Tomb together. The Cross is about the moral order. The Resurrection is about the created order. In the Cross, the judgment that is passed on my faults and flaws, self-seeking and disobedience, is visited upon a Saviour and I am delivered from unending remorse and condemnation. In the Resurrection the weakness and temporariness of my present bodily existence is superseded by the promise of life in a new body in which my experience of God will be complete and continuous.The significance of my human life is that I was created in love, rescued by love, and I am sustained by love until the pilgrimage ends and loved with an everlasting love, I am welcomed and received into the presence of the God of love: Father, Son and Holy Spirit. That is God’s intended destination for everyone. Listen, I tell you a mystery: we will not all sleep, but we will all be changed?–?in a flash, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.??Then the saying that is written will come true: ‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’?‘Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting?’The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law.?But thanks be to God! He gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ.Slide 21 BLANK I want to end with a You Tube clip that I have found inspiring, and then we are going to sing a familiar hymn. Guide me O Thou great Redeemer ................
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