First Presbyterian Church
October 10, 2021
10:00 AM
Order of Worship
CALL
TO WORSHIP
Jesus does not give to us as the world gives.
Jesus gives to us His
peace which passes all understanding.
Although the world does
not see Him now.
We know that Jesus abides
in us, as He lives, so also shall we live.
Let us worship the Living God.
*Hymn
of Praise: “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms”
1.
What a fellowship, what a joy divine, leaning on the everlasting arms; what a
blessedness, what a peace is mine, leaning on the everlasting arms.
Refrain: Leaning, leaning, safe and secure from all alarms; leaning, leaning,
leaning on the everlasting arms.
2.
O how sweet to walk in this pilgrim way, leaning on the everlasting arms; O how
bright the path grows from day to day, leaning on the everlasting arms.
(Refrain)
3.
What have I to dread, what have I to fear, leaning on the everlasting arms? I
have blessed peace with my Lord so near, leaning on the everlasting arms.
(Refrain)
PRAYER OF CONFESSION (In Unison)
Holy God, sometimes it hurts too much to look honestly at the
world and ourselves. We grow tired of the constant bad news, so we put on a
brave face and gloss over the ache of violence, sickness, disaster, and human
callousness that plagues our globe. With those we are closest to, we sometimes
pretend that we feel okay, that we are not worried, that we have a plan. We
even lie to ourselves, not fully admitting the impact of our actions on one
another or ourselves. Forgive us, O God, when we try to hide our hearts from
you. Fuel our trust that we might approach you with our full selves— authentic
in our gifts, and our fears, and our shortcomings. Give us the courage to walk
together through the trials of life, rather than soldiering on alone. And help
us to sense your faithful presence through the days when there feels like more
shadow than sun. Amen.
*SILENT PRAYERS
OF CONFESSION
ASSURANCE OF
PARDON (From Ps. 103)
The Lord is compassionate and merciful, very patient, and full of faithful
love. As high as heaven is above the earth, that’s how large God’s faithful
love is for God’s children. As far as east is from west— that’s how far God has
removed our sin from us. In Jesus Christ, we are all forgiven.
*THE GLORIA
PATRI
Glory be to the
Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Ghost; As it was in the beginning, is
now, and ever shall be, world without end.
Amen.
INVITATION: “Dear Lord, I
need You, please come into my life today.
Amen”
SCRIPTURAL INTRODUCTION
The
“problem” of John’s gospel, and I put that in quotes, it that it doesn’t fit
with the others. Matthew, Mark, and
Luke, known collectively as the Synoptic gospels, follow a similar
outline. Matthew and Luke each appear to
use Mark as a source for their own writings.
But John is far more focused on Jesus as God, it is far more
‘spiritual’, with more sermons and discussions in it than the other three.
Because
of that, the fourth gospel has been set aside by a school of interpretation attempting
to ‘demythologize’ and seek out the ‘historical’ Jesus. One strand of this thinking is the
presumption that John was the last gospel to be written, the one that is ‘furthest
away’ from Jesus, which seems to imply a logical leap that it is then somehow
the least useful of the gospels.
This
kind of ‘division’ of Scripture is certainly not new. Thomas Jefferson, our third president,
allegedly took a pair of scissors to his bible and created something where all
miracle and myth was removed.
But
the Bible as we have received it is not laid out in rank order of substance and
preferred reading. What we have instead
is the inspired Word of God, brought down to us in a unity. Each gospel that ‘made the cut’ did so
through the work of God in those generations of Christians who brought this
book together to preserve the truth of Christ as we moved further from the
events of Jesus’ life and death and closer to the day (unknown to us) of Jesus’
return.
In
our passage today, Jesus’ focus is on that.
He knows he is ascending into heaven, but that the ministry he has given
to the disciples will continue even after his humanly absence. The Spirit, called the Advocate in this translation,
called the Counselor in other translations, continues to be the guide of our
understanding, relationship, and expression of our lives in Christ.
Jesus
speaks of the truth being carried on by the Spirit in the lives of
believers. The truth is that God is
love. The truth is what Jesus has done
for us to bring about our salvation and restoration of right relationship with
God. The ‘ladder of God’ is expressed
here, as it is throughout John. Jesus
speaks of He and the Father being in one another, and that He is in us and we
are in Him, so that Jesus is our connection-our reconnection-to our God in
Heaven.
While
this truth is expressed extensively through the gospel of John, to hear
interpreters who would try and push it out of the way for the synoptic gospels,
this same truth is found throughout all four gospels. Jesus in not ‘spiritual’ in John and
‘historical’ in the rest. Jesus is the
Messiah in them all.
LESSONS: John 14: 15-31
15 ‘If
you love me, you will keep my commandments. 16And I will
ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to be with you for
ever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot
receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he
abides with you, and he will be in you.
18 ‘I
will not leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little
while the world will no longer see me, but you will see me; because I live, you
also will live. 20On that day you will know that I am in my
Father, and you in me, and I in you. 21They who have my
commandments and keep them are those who love me; and those who love me will be
loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal myself to them.’ 22Judas
(not Iscariot) said to him, ‘Lord, how is it that you will reveal yourself to
us, and not to the world?’ 23Jesus answered him, ‘Those who
love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to
them and make our home with them. 24Whoever does not love me
does not keep my words; and the word that you hear is not mine, but is from the
Father who sent me.
25 ‘I
have said these things to you while I am still with you. 26But
the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will
teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you. 27Peace
I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world
gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. 28You
heard me say to you, “I am going away, and I am coming to you.” If you loved
me, you would rejoice that I am going to the Father, because the Father is
greater than I. 29And now I have told you this before it
occurs, so that when it does occur, you may believe. 30I will
no longer talk much with you, for the ruler of this world is coming. He has no
power over me; 31but I do as the Father has commanded me, so
that the world may know that I love the Father. Rise, let us be on our way.
SERMON: “Even
Ascended, Jesus Never Leaves Us” Rev. Peter Hofstra
“Jesus
ascended into heaven.” So says the
Apostle’s Creed. So is the passage in
Acts. He ascended and will return again
the same way, someday. So here’s a bit
that got me thinking. When Jesus was on
the earth, he was present as a human being.
Fair enough. Born, dedicated in
the temple, grew up in Nazareth, apprenticed as a carpenter, John the Baptist
called him out, he was baptized in the Holy Spirit, and his ministry
began.
We
know the wrap up to his ministry, arrested, condemned, put to death on a cross,
only to be resurrected three days later.
His life, death, and his life.
That is the climax of the story, the moment of grace for all of us. But, like other stories, it does not end at
the climax. There are loose ends to be
wrapped up. For Jesus, that comes in the
story of the Ascension, forty days later.
Ten
days after that, to follow the literature metaphor, the ‘sequel’ begins, with
the coming of the Holy Spirit.
But
to understand the Holy Spirit, to understand Jesus, is to understand that Jesus
does not leave us. During his ministry,
Jesus is fully human here on the earth.
Then his human form, resurrected and perfected, ascends into heaven, but
his godly form does not depart. As it
says in the confessions, “with respect to his divinity, majesty, grace, and
Spirit he is never absent from us.”
If we
use the metaphor of a novel, come Pentecost, it’s like a ‘sequel’, the coming
of the Holy Spirit. Some might call the
Bible a trilogy, to continue the literature metaphor. The Old Testament is the story of God the
Father, the gospels are the story of God the Son, Acts and the rest of the New
Testament contain the story of the Holy Spirit. Kind of like God progresses as
we progress along in the sweep of history.
But this is the stuff where PhD’s come from for budding theology
professors.
I
much prefer a good paradox. Jesus
ascended into heaven but Jesus never left us.
There is a two part picture out there on the internet that I have seen a
few times. In the first part, the
individual raises a hand and opens his mouth as if to say something. In the second part, he closes his mouth
because he realizes he has nothing to object to.
In
our passage today, where Jesus speaks of the Spirit coming to us when he has
bodily ascended into heaven, it is not about ‘part 3’ of the God and Human
trilogy, it is about how Jesus, once he came to us, did not leave. One of the weaknesses of our understanding of
the Holy Spirit is not understanding how the Spirit is Jesus with us. Sure, we celebrate Pentecost, but have we
absorbed what Jesus tells us concerning the Spirit in our passage today? How we generally do not behave as though
Jesus is there with us, now.
I say
generally, because in times of crisis, we are pretty good at returning to the
Lord. As in times of national
disaster. In that moment, all our human
powers pale in comparison to what has come upon us so our failsafe is the power
of the divine. Or it is a time of death
and grief. In that moment, the presence
of the Lord, providing solace, holding us together when we no longer have the
capacity. And don’t get me wrong, those
are not bad times to have the presence of the Lord. But too often, I fear it is the only time we
remember that Jesus is still here with us, in majesty, grace, and Spirit.
But
what about the other moments of life?
How about when we are sinning? I
do not necessarily mean the highest level sins, exploiting the working class,
for example, or contributing to the extinction of a species. But how about the more intimate moments of
sin? Somebody has just ticked you off
and vocabulary more associated with a sailor or a driver on the Jersey Turnpike
during rush hour comes out of you. And
Jesus is there. As surely as he is
present to embrace us during times of trouble.
I do
not see them around much any longer, but are we all familiar with the religious
tract? It can be anything from a glossy
half sheet of paper that is trifolded to a small booklet that, in our faith,
describes in brief why it is necessary to accept Jesus as Lord and Savior. Yes, it will speak of the love of Jesus for
all humanity. But most of the time, the
emphasis is more on the downside of not accepting Jesus as Lord and Savior,
hell and damnation being the order of the day.
And while the artwork in these things was rarely explicit, it could be
very intimidating.
The
reason I bring it up is that there was one that still stands out in my
mind. It is a sinner, headed to the
flames, appearing before the throne of grace and his entire life is being reviewed. The moment captured in the tract is the shame
the sinner feels when they are reviewing the moment when he is telling ‘the
dirtiest joke he knows’ to a friend. The
sinner’s response is “no, not that, not here.”
Not in heaven. What that tract
does not show us is how Jesus was there, in majesty, grace, and the Spirit, in
the moment of the telling of the joke.
In
the present culture, we do not talk about moments like that because we do not
want to shame anybody. But the Christian
response is not about shaming. But it is
about the brutal honesty of who we are as humans, who we are as sinners. The presence of Jesus in the worst, most
sinful moments of our lives, that is NOT Jesus looking down on us sternly and
going “How could you?” or “Shame on you.”
Rather, Jesus will be repeating the words he spoke to his disciples,
“Come to me all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” To be heavily laden with our lives of sin,
that finds respite in the painful, yet liberating confession of our sin to
Jesus so that the healing balm of forgiveness shall be granted us anew. Being truly aware of the presence of Jesus in
our evil moments I bet would go far in our daily work to be more like Christ in
all we do.
Last
week, we spoke of ‘resurrection moments’, moments where God seems to burst into
our everyday existence with a reminder of the beauty and power of the
divine. Such a moment is not a reminder
that God is ‘out there’ somewhere. It is
a reminder that Jesus is right there with us.
So if that flash from heaven happens in the middle of the hardest times,
it’s a reminder that Jesus is there with us.
It’s a reminder that the bible does not say “God will not give us
anything we cannot handle”, but that the truth rests more in the ‘footprints in
the sand’. Jesus walks with us and in
the trials of life, when we see only one set of footprints instead of two,
Jesus has carried us on through.
We
can get caught up in the further words of the Creed, ‘he ascended into heaven,
sitteth at the right hand…from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the
dead…” How many television plots have
something to do with the parents not being home, so the kids have a party? I fear the same mentality applies even to
Christians. We’re good until the
end. The first Roman emperor who
accepted Christianity, Constantine, was not baptized till he was on his death
bed, probably following this same logic.
But
when life is at its best or at its worst, and at every point in between, Jesus
is there with us, in majesty and grace and the Spirit. That’s because our faith is a wholistic, it
demands our all in all. Makes the good
even better, forgives and corrects the evil, carries the burden of everything
in between. It makes Christianity not
just a Sunday thing, but an everyday thing.
And I can pile on the cliches I am sure.
Jesus
ascended into heaven. When he physically
left, one man in one place, having accomplished one mission, he returned in the
Spirit. Jesus returned in God and as
God, Jesus now in every place, with every person, bringing forgiveness in our
sin, comfort in our times of crisis and grief, and multiplying the joy of being
God’s creation. This is truly the new
life in Christ, as the old life has passed away, because our Lord Jesus walks
with us, in majesty, grace, and the Spirit, every day. Amen.
AFFIRMATION OF FAITH (The Apostle’s Creed)
I believe in God, the Father Almighty, maker of heaven and earth;
And in Jesus Christ his only Son, our Lord; who was conceived by
the Holy Ghost, born of the Virgin Mary, suffered under Pontius Pilate, was
crucified, dead, and buried; he descended into hell; the third day he rose from
the dead; he ascended into heaven, and sitteth at the right hand of God the Father
Almighty; from thence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic church, the
communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and
the life everlasting. Amen.
PASSING OF THE PEACE
THE OFFERING OF
OUR TITHES & GIFTS
Even in the midst of our darkest days
and deepest longings, we are assured of the presence of God. In gratitude for
our God who is big enough to hold our loving praise and our cries of woe, let
us offer signs of our thanks with the gifts of our time, talent, and treasure.
*DOXOLOGY
Praise God, from
whom all blessings flow; Praise Him, all creatures here below; Praise Him
above, ye heavenly host; Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Amen.
*PRAYER OF
DEDICATION
Gracious
God, all that we have is yours. Accept these gifts — signs of our gratitude —
as we return them to you. Show us how to use them that they may point to your
abiding love, which is our eternal hope. Amen.
JOYS
AND CONCERNS
PRAYERS OF THE PEOPLE
God of our joyful days and
our aching days, we give thanks that we can trust you with the heaviest parts
of our hearts, and so we bring to you the burdens of our complicated world, and
we ask you to lighten the load. Yet, even in the midst of an avalanche of
challenging news, we spot the sliver of moon in the night, and so our prayer of
longing is punctuated by gratitude. Hear both, our cries for relief and our
warbling song of joy, O God. Sometimes our words of lament get stuck in our
throats, but we yearn for a better world — one that brings to life your plans
for wholeness and well-being to fulfillment for all. Heal our warring madness,
and teach us the ways of peace with our global neighbors, within our polarized
society, and in our local communities. Breathe life into the lungs of those who
are trampled down. Turn the hearts of oppressors. And stir our compassion and
energies when indifference sets in for other people’s struggle. We raise to you
the cries of those who may be feeling forsaken: those longing for relief from
natural disaster, women and girls in societies which limit their opportunity
and access to power, refugees who long for welcome and safety, overburdened
healthcare workers, and all who wonder if someone — anyone — will take notice
of their pain and extend comfort and hope. Thank you for small signs of
kindness and possibility in days that are bleak — the red bird perched on a
bare branch, one hand brushing another in kindness, the familiar tune of “Happy
Birthday,” the smell of baking bread. Sometimes our words of lament get stuck
in our throats, and so, O God, we carve out this silence for our hearts to
speak to yours, to trust you with our wounds, our dreams long buried, our
yearnings for those most dear and the fractures in our relationships, Listen to
our thoughts and our meditations, O God. Thank you for small signs of
possibility and fresh hope that sparkle amidst the fog of ache — laughter that
surprises us, children’s imaginations, a perfect crisp apple, the first
promising notes of a song we know by heart. We are grateful that you hear our
prayers whether we are brimming with joy, seething with anger, crying out for
justice, or sighing with grief. Hear us now, as we turn to the reliable words
of the prayer for all our days, the one that Jesus taught us to pray, saying,,
Our
Father, who art in heaven, Hallowed be Thy name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be
done on earth as it is in heaven. Give
us this day our daily bread and forgive us our debts, as we forgive our
debtors. Lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil; for Thine is the kingdom and the power, and the glory
forever. Amen.
*CLOSING HYMN: “Oh Jesus, I
Have Promised”
1. O
Jesus, I have promised to serve thee to the end; be thou forever near me, my
Master and my friend. I shall not fear the battle if thou art by my side, nor
wander from the pathway if thou wilt be my guide.
2. O let
me feel thee near me! The world is ever near; I see the sights that dazzle, the
tempting sounds I hear; my foes are ever near me, around me and within; but
Jesus, draw thou nearer, and shield my soul from sin.
3. O let
me hear thee speaking in accents clear and still, above the storms of passion,
the murmurs of self-will. O speak to reassure me, to hasten or control; O
speak, and make me listen, thou guardian of my soul.
4. O
Jesus, thou hast promised to all who follow thee that where thou art in glory
there shall thy servant be. And Jesus, I have promised to serve thee to the
end; O give me grace to follow, my Master and my Friend.
*BENEDICTION
*THREE FOLD AMEN
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