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Friday, April 23, 2010

On not being impotent


The readings for this week are those for 25th April 2010 the 4th Sunday in Easter. Acts 9:36-43 • Psalm 23 • Revelation 7:9-17 • John 10:22—30
Today is also observed as
Commemoration of ANZAC, and it can be St Mark’s Day.

The resurrection stories tease out for Christians what it means to live life in the light of the resurrection.
What does it mean to see life through the lenses of the resurrection?
What they discovered is that things were rather different.


The promises of Jesus seemed to be becoming true.
What are these promises?
Well, there are many. Jesus promised, for example , to be with his disciples always.
What a mind blowing thought!
Jesus is with us all the time. This might mean that any situation we find ourselves in. Jesus is already there.
Whether it be sickness, difficulty, spiritual difficulty.
Or let’s face it when we rejoice at a new birth, walk into a new job, meet an old friend. Walk into Coromandel Primary School to spend an hour mentoring one of our children. Jesus is with us.
We need not fear, nor feel alone. We need not fear as though we do not have capacity to cope.
Because the disciples also discovered that Jesus’s promise to send the Holy Spirit to equip the disciples to do what needed to be done was also true. They could speak the Gospel and people would understand, they could pray and prayers were answered.
What do you believe Jesus has equipped you to do?’
Part of our problem is that we don’t seem to think that we can or need to do anything.
But we see in the lovely story in Acts 9:36-43 where Peter heals through prayer a young girl who is sick, perhaps dead, that the disciples discover another promise of Jesus.
You will do what I have done and greater
Do we have the courage to kneel down and trust that promise as Peter did?
New Learning
Where might Jesus be inviting you to live in the light of the promise?
To put aside the sense of living out of impotence and shallow convention, and rather to live out of the spirit of resurrexion

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