"Peace amidst change" - Sermon for 6th Sunday of Easter

Sermon:

Text: John 14:23-29, Revelation 21:10, 22-22:5

Grace and Peace to you from God our Father and our Lord Jesus Christ who gives us peace.

A couple of years ago, my friends Trish and Kyle Boese, Trish was the former pastor over at Trinity in Vermillion, were moving to Harrisburg up by Sioux Falls, and they decided they should get a couple books for their daughter Amelia, who was 3 at the time, to help her deal with the move and the change of Daycare and town and house. Everything in her little life was being uprooted and changed, all of her friends would be different, the people she saw at church were different, her room she played and slept in would be different. One of the books is, A House for Hermit Crab. Here’s a little description of it. Poor Hermit Crab! He's outgrown his snug little shell, so he finds himself a larger one -- and many new friends to decorate and protect his new house. But what will happen when he outgrows this shell and has to say good-bye to all the sea creatures who have made Hermit Crab's house a home?

All of these books are to help her cope with the change that occurs when you move to new situation and a new place. Teaching that change is going to be ok, and things will work out when things do change.

We’re two weeks out from Pentecost this week, and this Thursday is Ascension day, we’ll celebrate it next week. But, Jesus is already now, starting to prepare the disciples for what will eventually come, his death, his resurrection, and then his ascension. 

He’s told them many times before about all that is to come, but do they get it, do they understand what’s actually going to occur. He’s leaving, and they’ll be the ones that have to figure out what to do. 

Like parents reading to their children, Jesus talks to them and assures them that everything is going to be all right. “Peace 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.”

How often do we need that assurance, that whatever is going on around us, all the stresses and busyness and feelings of fear and trouble?  We always need Christ gives us peace.

How often do we need to hear, as all the busyness of the world surrounds, that the still small voice calls to us?

And I love that Jesus refers to fear and the fears of the heart. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not let them be afraid. Because, so often our fears are indeed fears of the heart, they are things that are beyond our ability to comprehend, that we have no control over that fear. 

Times where we simply are anxious and tense for reasons we can’t fathom. Jesus gives us peace for that, if we would but pause, rest and listen.

A favorite quote of mine is from a Jewish Rabbi, Breathe, and remember God.

God knows when we are going to be afraid, God knows the times where worry will overwhelm us, when changes scare us, cause us to seek to escape from the future. So, God sends the Spirit to intercede for us, to give us words when we can’t breathe, to remind us of the promise that we need not fear, for nothing in the future will take God’s love from us.

Our second reading this morning is from the book of Revelation, which gets a lot of misconstrued information presented about it. In many large evangelical circles it has become the handbook of the future, a seemingly blueprint for what will come, but that’s not it’s purpose, it was written not for a future audience, but a people who needed it right then. 

It’s a form of literature called Apocalyptic literature, not because it describes a future apocalypse, but because it was written by and for people who at that time thought their world may be ending, to give them hope in the midst of what they were going through, using cryptic terminology to avoid being discovered.

There are two such books in the bible, the Book of Daniel in the Old Testament, which was written by people in exile in Babylon as they feared that their people and means of life and religion and faith will be destroyed by the Babylonians. The second is the book of Revelation. It is written to the new Christian movement as they undergo suffering and persecution from pretty much every side, Roman, Jewish, Greek. They are being blamed for the burning of Rome in 64 AD, they are at a lost at what to do when dealing with the destruction of the Temple in 70 AD. Every other group that they encounter in that first century seems to be working to destroy them.

They are at utmost fear, greatest concern, and God tells them, I will give to you a new Jerusalem, where there is no Temple, for God is now your temple, there is no night full of things to fear, you are all promised a place there for you are written in the book, and nothing else can enter there. And greatest of all the river of life flows in it, the tree of life, the renewed Garden of Eden is in the middle, there will be fruit for all seasons, all months there, and the leaves aren’t just there, but the leaves themselves are for the healing of the nations. Nothing accursed will be there, just the throne of God, and the lamb, and all will worship. They will see his face, his name will be on their foreheads, no more night, no need of lamp to light the dark places, for God will be their light, and they will reign forever and ever.

That’s peace. To hear that in the midst of life’s turmoils is beyond understanding.

And that’s what Christ offers to us.

When we feel turmoil and fear in our hearts, God offers peace.

Take the time to feel that peace this week. Take a moment, put on some music, or turn it off, find a place that’s your own, if even for a moment and take a breath, remember God, and feel peace.

Change will come, but God will be there. Amen.