MEANINGFUL FIRST DAYS
Genesis 1:1-5 Acts 2: 1-4 Matthew 28: 1-15
Genesis 1
The History of Creation
1 In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. 2 The earth was without form, and void; and darkness was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.
3 Then God said, "Let there be light"; and there was light. 4 And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. 5 God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.
Matthew 28
The Resurrection
1 After the Sabbath, at dawn on the first day of the week, Mary Magdalene and the other Mary went to look at the tomb.
2 There was a violent earthquake, for an angel of the Lord came down from heaven and, going to the tomb, rolled back the stone and sat on it. 3 His appearance was like lightning, and his clothes were white as snow. 4 The guards were so afraid of him that they shook and became like dead men.
5 The angel said to the women, "Do not be afraid, for I know that you are looking for Jesus, who was crucified. 6 He is not here; he has risen, just as he said. Come and see the place where he lay. 7 Then go quickly and tell his disciples: 'He has risen from the dead and is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him.' Now I have told you."
8 So the women hurried away from the tomb, afraid yet filled with joy, and ran to tell his disciples. 9 Suddenly Jesus met them. "Greetings," he said. They came to him, clasped his feet and worshiped him. 10 Then Jesus said to them, "Do not be afraid. Go and tell my brothers to go to Galilee; there they will see me."
The Guards' Report
11 While the women were on their way, some of the guards went into the city and reported to the chief priests everything that had happened. 12 When the chief priests had met with the elders and devised a plan, they gave the soldiers a large sum of money, 13 telling them, "You are to say, 'His disciples came during the night and stole him away while we were asleep.' 14 If this report gets to the governor, we will satisfy him and keep you out of trouble." 15 So the soldiers took the money and did as they were instructed. And this story has been widely circulated among the Jews to this very day.
Acts 2
The Holy Spirit Comes at Pentecost
1 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. 2 Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. 3 They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.
Most of us seldom recognize meaningful 1st days in our families: each one's birthday (including our own and our children), anniversaries, and the like. This morning I want to mention 3 important 1st days in our religious connections. Wouldn't it be proper for us today to realize on this first day of the week three meaningful days in the past ?
The first day of creation - God's gift of light; and on another first day, many many years later - Jesus' resurrection; and still later on another first day, the fiftieth day after Passover - Pentecost - the gift of the Holy Spirit.
In some other Christian traditions there seems to be one day above all the rest: "remember to keep the Sabbath Day", from the 10 Commanments in the O. T. Recently I came in contact with some 7th Day Aventists. My interest was primed and I wanted to know more about their held traditions - quite different from our own.
Learning that leaders in our denomination over the past 3 years have been meeting with leaders of their denomination to seek ways to resolve some of our differences.
So I asked if I could come to a mid-week Bible Study in one of the two 7th Day Adventists congregation in our city. They seemed to be unaware of the meetings between our 2 denominations, so we had quite a discussion. Their local questions centered around: why don't Presbyterians honor the Sabbath (7th day of the week). For them this was central: the first of the 10 Commandments.
Herein is one of the differences we have between denominations, and there are many distinct differences: we Christians seem divided in so many ways. I began to question myself: What will the afterlife in heaven be like - divisions, differences. Or all togetherness? With the Adventists I stated that we worship on the 1st day of the week - for reasons we feel to be honoring blessings in the early Christian church. Early Protestants honored the Sabbath. However over the years there became attention given to three meaningful first days as they are clocked in the Old and New Testaments:
Light - which reminds us each morning of a newness; our annual observance of Easter - our celebration of death and its stronghold on us overcome with the path of forgiveness Jesus achieved. and Pentecost - which we will be observing in shortly. The gift of the Spirit to be our helper and guide even today.
Each first day - each Lord's day (a little Easter, if you will) should find us gladder,
stronger, in the hands of God, His Son, and our helper, the Spirit.
The Bible portrays God the creator of all things, as restlessly observing and juggling the lives of individuals and peoples to set right the balance of moral living and justice. And today, as throughout all of biblical history we, as all God's people, believe such hinges on past, present, and future events, in which God, and all God's creatures have and are having a part. This includes all of us here this morning. In the dismal outlook throughout our world today, we need reminders of God's promises, accomplishments, and power. Without such we might cave in to the restlessness of nations, the frailty of health, the abandonment of ethics, and all else seemingly beyond our control. In some sense people everywhere are being crucified every day. With God's help we together can meet the challenges of our time. If beyond the suffering of Christ we can remember the mercifully caring life he lived, and bequeathed the continuation of such love to us, his followers.
Each of these three events should correct our feelings that God may have abandoned us. Sometimes we are driven to believe that we have sinned and God's wrath puts a distance between us and God. Isn't it rather, that a sense of shame causes us to put a distance between ourselves and God? It is not a matter of God turning from us in anger, but us turning from God in shame.
One of our Presbyterian ministers has illustrated this divide between us and God from her childhood experiences. She writes: "When I was a small child, whenever I got into serious mischief , I would go and hide in my brother's closet behind the storage boxes. And I could hear my mother calling: 'Anna, Anna where are you?' I would eventually peep out sheepishly to confess my misdeed or more likely tell her whose fault it really was. What I did not know until much later was that very often she had no idea I had done anything at all until she found me hiding. But because I was hiding she knew something was amiss."
One picture of our human predicament is guilty, shame-faced hiding. This same thing happened to Adam and Eve in the garden of Eden. They felt shame and hid from God, and from one another. Whether it's in a garden, a closet, or some contrived personality type, salvation comes when we discover that we are in fact loved and accepted just as we are. We no longer need to hide. The work of Christ as God's Word was to show love, acceptance, and forgiveness. It was and is a revelation of what is already the case. Once w know of this great love, we cannot help but respond and be transformed. We are drawn out of our guilty hiding, and inspired to live by love and acceptance of forgiveness.
A noted student of church architecture has revealed how Medieval church were designed with "Holy Spirit holes" in the ceilings, opening them to the sky, dramatizing architecturally the openness of the church to God. Could it be that we have closed up the Holy Spirit holes in our churches. (And I am not talking about the architecture).
It may be that we in our cultures and confessions have built constraints around our understandings of who God, Jesus, and the Spirit are. Just maybe Jesus has become entombed, constricted by our limited imaginations and our small hopes.
If so we would do well to re-examine our relationships of faith with God and with one another. And what better time to be about this than between the meaningful 1st first days between Easter and Pentecost. And just maybe this very day will become a meaningful first day in someone' s life here this morning.
A meaningful hymn to me when I was young was: "O Day of Rest and Gladness" … I liked the words and the tune. It spoke of the Trinity: Father, Son, & Holy Spirit, and happenings on first days. It is not in our hymnbook today. The words were written by Christopher Lowell in 1862, it was set to a tune written 23 years earlier.
Let me read to you the middle verse of that hymn -
On Thee, at the creation, the light first had its birth;
On Thee, for our salvation, Christ rose from depths of earth;
On Thee, our Lord, victorious, the Spirit sent from heaven,
And thus on Thee, most glorious, a triple light was given.
Wouldn't it be proper for us today to realize on this first day of the week, the wonder of these meaningful three days?
Dr. John C. Livingston was formerly Presbytery Executive and Stated Clerk of the Presbytery of South Carolina. He later held the same position in Trinity Presbytery from which he is Honorably retired. He and his wife, Elsie, have lived in Greenwood for the past 24 years, the last 12 in retirement, serving various congregations' interim needs. He has just joined this church as Interim Minister.
Can Sunday
The third Sunday of each month is "Can Sunday." Bring non-perishable goods which will be given to the Food Bank to help those families which are going through difficult times.
Soup labels are also collected to be given to Thornwell Home. If you wish,please mail soup labels to P.O. Box 99, Hodges, SC 29653.Thornwell School receives educational needs for donated soup labels and all are appreciated.