Jesus is past, present, future: April 17th Sermon

May the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts be acceptable in your sight O God our rock and our redeemer.  Amen.

Yesterday as I was talking with four of our young people at our Confirmation gathering, we discussed a part of Daniel Erlander’s book, Baptized we Live, that spoke to the presence of Jesus in Holy Communion.  The point was that Jesus is present in the past, present, and future of the event.  We are called to do this in remembrance of Him who gave his life for us.  We are called to know that Jesus is present with us at God’s Table of Grace, that even as we receive the body and blood we also become part of the body of Christ in the world, right now, today.  Finally, at this table we receive a foretaste of the feast that is to come when all of God’s children gather together at the great reunion and union banquet.

Jesus is past, present, future.

I also realized as we read the words of God speaking to Job from the whirlwind that what God is saying to Job in so many words is, “I, God, was there at the beginning, I am here right now.  I will be there to the very last.”

God and Jesus most certainly are the Alpha and the Omega but they are also every letter in between.

Jo spoke up and reminded us all how it can be very strange to hear so many faithful believers focused on eternal life, the life of the world to come, that they seem somewhat absent to the world of right now.

Right now.  Right where you are.  Who you are in this moment.  It matters. 

I saw a quote this week and I couldn’t find it again and don’t know for certain who may have said it, but it was this, “There are two days when you cannot do anything: yesterday and tomorrow.  Today is the only day you can do something.”  Present tense living.

In this week’s commentary from workingpreacher.org by Kelly Murphy, she pointed out how frequently Psalm 23 is used at funerals.  We have taken to using it for what it has to say about the afterlife.  We have perhaps failed to recognize all it speaks to in the now of life.  Present tense living.  The Lord IS my shepherd. You lead me.  You restore me.  You are with me.  This isn’t about some future time.  This is urgent and immediate.  This is NOW.  Only in verse 6 does the psalmist turn to future orientation.  Goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the lord forever. 

Sometimes we get so bound up in past and future thinking we neglect the moment we are in right now.

A woman I speak to from time to time told me when she goes to bed at night she prays to get up in the morning.  When she wakes in the morning she prays to thank God for another day.  I’ll be honest, there have been times I have had the cynicism of a reasonably healthy and moderately young person and thought to myself, really, is that all it takes to bring this woman joy…waking up in the morning…that’s it?!

And then I think of all a single day can hold.  All the people I might encounter.  All the places God will find me.  All the discoveries yet to be made.  All the unlimited potential of a single day.  And I realize none of it can happen if you don’t start the day by waking up.

Tabitha was dead.  Peter said, “Get up.”  She got up.

We are not yet dead but only sleeping and we are being called, “Wake up.”

And every day we wake up we have this promise from a past/present/future God: We will have eternal life, we will NOT perish, and no one ever, nothing ever can snatch us from the hand of God.

The promise is for the future, but it is also for here and now, every day, every new day, every day we dare to “Wake up…”

“Good morning…”