4th Sunday of Easter Service

Kongsvinger Lutheran Church

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5th Sunday of Easter Service

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Recording in progress. It is,

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Mr. Tye. Good morning,

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Conswinger. Got a little bit of an echo. I'll take my headphones off. It's a blessing to be with you this morning.

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It's just clicked 12 midnight here. So it's Monday morning for me, Sunday morning for you. Those who

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I have not had the privilege of meeting yet. My name is Pastor Klein. I serve with Pastor Rosebrook in Aletheia.

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Those who I have met before, it's my great privilege. It's my great privilege to serve you this morning with God's word and his word of mercy and absolution.

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As well as a sermon. Yes, we do have something of an echo. Please bear with us this morning.

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Joshua and I are going to work through whatever problems we have as best we can.

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But either way, we pray that you'll be blessed by God's word as you hear it this morning.

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Our opening hymn this morning is 809809.

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Please rise. In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the

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Holy Spirit. If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves and the truth is not in us.

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Let us then confess our sins to God our Father. We confess we have sinned against you and thought we were indeed.

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We have not loved you with our whole heart. We have not loved our neighbors as ourselves.

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We justly deserve your present and eternal punishment. For the sake of your Son, Jesus Christ, have mercy on us.

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Forgive us, redeem us, and lead us. So that we may abide in your will and walk in your ways to the glory of your only begotten

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Son. Almighty God in his mercy has given his Son to die for you, and for his sake forgives you all your sins.

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As a called and ordained servant of Christ and by his authority, I therefore forgive you all your sins in the name of the

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Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen. Our intro at this morning is various verses of Psalm 66, and I invite you to join with me in the indented parts.

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Shout for joy to God all the earth. Hallelujah. Say to God, how awesome are your deeds.

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Come and see what God has done. He is awesome in his deeds towards his children.

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Who has kept our soul among the living.

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Shout for joy to God all the earth.

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Hallelujah. Sing to the glory of his name. To mitigate technical difficulties as best we can, this will be a spoken liturgy.

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Please rise. Sorry, please be seated. I haven't preached in an actual church for a few years.

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In peace, let us pray to the Lord. For the peace from above and for our salvation, let us pray to the

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Lord. For the peace of the whole world, for the well -being of the church of God, and for the unity of all, let us pray to the

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Lord. For this holy house and for all who offer here their worship and praise, let us pray to the

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Lord. Help, save, comfort, and defend us, gracious Lord.

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The Lord be with you. Let us pray.

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Almighty God, since you have brought back from the dead the great shepherd of the sheep, to call us into his flock through his word, grant us your

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Holy Spirit, so that we may hear the voice of the good shepherd and faithfully follow him who lives and reigns with you and the

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Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever. Amen. Can I share the readings?

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Let me bring them up. Hear the word of the Lord recorded for us in Isaiah chapter 40, verses 25 to 31.

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To whom then will you compare me, that I should be like him, says the Holy One? Lift up your eyes on high and see who created these.

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He brings out their host by number, calling them all by name, by the greatness of his might, and because he is strong in power, not one is missing.

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Why do you say, O Jacob, and speak, O Israel, my way is hidden from the

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Lord, and my right is disregarded by my God? Have you not known?

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Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the creator of the ends of the earth.

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He does not faint or grow weary. His understanding is unsearchable. He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might, he increases strength.

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Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted.

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But they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles.

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They shall run and not be weary. They shall walk and not faint. This is the word of the

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Lord. Thanks be to God. Hear the word of the

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Lord recorded for us in 1 Peter 2 verses 11 -20 Beloved, I urge you, as sojourners and exiles, to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.

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Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honourable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify

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God on the day of visitation. Be subject, for the Lord's sake, to every human institution, whether it be to the emperor as supreme, or to governors as sent by him to punish those who do evil and to praise those who do good.

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For this is the will of God, that by doing good you should put to silence the ignorance of foolish people.

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Live as people who are free, not using your freedom as a cover -up for evil, but living as servants of God.

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Honour everyone. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honour the emperor.

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Servants, be subject to your masters with all respect, not only to the good and gentle, but also to the unjust.

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For this is a gracious thing, when, mindful of God, one endures sorrows while suffering unjustly.

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For what credit is it if, when you sin and are beaten for it, you endure? But if when you do good and suffer for it, you endure, this is a gracious thing in the sight of God.

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This is the word of the Lord. Thanks be to God. The Holy Gospel according to St.

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John, the 16th chapter. Glory to you, O Lord.

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Jesus said, A little while and you will see me no longer, and again a little while and you will see me.

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So some of his disciples said to one another, What is this that he says to us? A little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me, and because I am going to the

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Father. So they were saying, What does he mean by a little while? We do not know what he is talking about.

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Jesus knew that they wanted to ask him, so he said to them, Is this what you are asking yourselves, what

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I meant by saying, a little while and you will not see me, and again a little while and you will see me?

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Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament, but the world will rejoice.

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You will be sorrowful, but your sorrow will turn to joy. When a woman is giving birth, she has sorrow because her hour has come, but when she has delivered the baby, she no longer remembers the anguish for joy that a human being has been born into the world.

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So also you have sorrow now, but I will see you again, and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will take your joy from you.

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This is the gospel of the Lord. We sing our sermon hymn.

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483, 483. Just reconfiguring quickly before the sermon.

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Grace and peace to you from God our Father and our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. From the gospel according to St.

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John, chapter 16, verse 16. Jesus said, a little while and you will see me no longer, and again a little while and you will see me.

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Let's pray. God our Father, we long to see our Lord face to face, even as Job of the

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Old Testament longed and hoped to see him and knew that that truth would yet come.

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Yet in this life, so often our eyes are clouded by the things of this world, and so we pray to the end that we might endure to see our

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Lord face to face. You would sanctify us as we hear your word. Your word is truth. Amen.

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I remember the night very well. It was a transition in my life.

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My mother and father were going out for the evening and we were left with my aunt and uncle. This was not an uncomfortable place for me.

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In fact, I was raised in a way with my cousins on that side of the family that we used to come and go from my auntie's house as if it was my own.

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We in fact lived over the road for over a year and our phone number was shared between two households.

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I then had both of my cousins from that side as my groomsmen and count them still to this day as my best friends.

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It was not unusual to be in that home and it wasn't a place of fear. And yet something very strange took place that night.

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You see, I was blessed to have a very safe and very secure childhood. When my mum would say to me as a child,

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I'll be gone for a little while, I could bank on the fact that she was going to be back very, very soon and there was great security in that.

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And if I'd mucked up and my dad said, I'm going to come back and if you haven't fixed that, I was very much certain that he was going to come back and things ought to be in line.

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And there was also a certain security in that discipline also. But that night, that wasn't the reality.

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I remember it so very starkly. I remember where I was sleeping in Uncle Terry's office in their house.

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I remember fiddling with the bottom drawer of his roll -top desk and looking between the lace curtains of the window waiting for mum and dad to come back and I was filled with a certain dread.

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For the first time in my life, I realised that that security wasn't a given.

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That when mum said she was coming back in a little while, there was a distinct possibility that they would not.

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I became aware that night that there was a reality that one day

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I would be without my parents. To this day, I'm blessed to still be near them and for the first time only three weeks ago, my mother had all her grandchildren in her own kitchen now that we've all moved nearby.

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What joy that night was and this week we'll celebrate her 70th birthday. So that day has not yet come to pass.

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But as little children, it is very easy to trust. In fact, we are so helpless that we must trust and we must be dependent.

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But as we grow older, the reality of this life tends to set in and those things that we believed were absolutely sure, well, they start to teeter a little bit in our minds and so very often like that night, we can be filled with dread.

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And that's no different to what we see in our gospel reading tonight, well, this morning, pardon me.

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Jesus calls us to be like little children and yet the disciples elevate their own understanding above Jesus' words and rather than resting in the promise that he will be seen again, they question wonder and already teeter on the edge of hopelessness instead of helplessness.

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Whereas Jesus by his words calls us to find in ourselves a certain helplessness that finds us in complete dependence upon him.

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To set the scene for this reading, this is the very night that Jesus was betrayed. This in fact takes place probably before they go to the garden of Gethsemane.

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John's gospel doesn't delineate as clearly as the others do, but it is in that same environment in which he had given to them the promise that as they ate bread and drank blood, as he instituted the supper of his own body given for them and his own blood shed for them for the forgiveness of sins, so he speaks these words and these are no less confounding and for those disciples no less bewildering.

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Consider it, of course, these men had walked with our Lord. We might poo -poo them and think, well, how could they have any doubt?

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How could they have any wonder that Jesus' words would come to pass? They had seen the miracles.

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They had seen 5 ,000 men, not counting women and children, fed with humble loaves and humble fish with 12 baskets left over.

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They had seen the blind sea, the lepers healed. They had seen the invalid made to walk again.

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How could these men possibly doubt? Yet these men also witnessed Peter sinking beneath the waves as his faith failed him.

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They had been given to doubt constantly throughout and this very night, the night that our

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Lord was betrayed, they would turn to their own reason and find themselves helpless and not only helpless, but utterly hopeless.

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It would be this very night that Peter would swear he'd never forsake Jesus despite Jesus' words that, well, he would.

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Jesus proves himself faithful and Peter proves himself weak as we are weak, faithless of himself as we are faithless in ourselves.

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Peter even goes so far as to think that he would protect Jesus somehow, that he would be the arbiter of power and, by cutting off the high servant's ear, prove himself to be the protector of God.

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Quite the opposite of who God is for us. God, who is the fullness of all goodness towards us, not only represented, but physically given in the person of his

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Son. Yet our lives are entirely bound up in the same motions, in the same attitudes, in the same emotions that the disciples went through that night.

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We ought not be too quick to poo -poo these disciples because we, too, live in this very same cycle.

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We hear the word of Jesus, we say, absolutely, we'll stick to it, absolutely, I trust it completely, and then it's not two steps out the door of the church or two steps past our baptism as we grow a little older, not two steps past our confirmation and we begin to wonder perhaps the world is valid.

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Perhaps these points of doctrine that the liberals raise or the

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Pentecostals raise or other groups raise have some validity leading us away from God's word.

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We look towards the shiny baubles of this world that, well, like so many

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Christmas baubles in the bottom of the bucket that you always find a few broken ones, they never last all that very long.

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Our whole lives are like this. We begin in absolute helplessness as God comes to us entirely of his own volition to make us his own.

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In fact, he comes to us to bury us with Jesus into his death and raise us anew to newness of life.

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That is how it starts for the most of us, completely helpless babes where God is for us and God comes to us through his word and through his water bound to that word.

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And so we see him with our ears and we receive him as helpless babes dependent that we will indeed see him as he is promised that his word then proves itself sufficient throughout our childhoods.

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So very often, though for some, of course it goes awry early on. Though it is inevitable that we find ourselves changing.

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We find ourselves growing older. As we hit our teenage years, the natural rebellion tends to take over and the lights of this world become a blaring thing of so many moths attracted to it do teenagers run that not one of us could say that we had not been at least a little attracted to them and others more so than those fortunate to have walked the straight path, the narrow path.

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There's no doubt as we grow older, our bodies change and we grapple with a sense of authority and the changing of our hormones as we reach a certain maturity where God intends us to transform into those who would then be heads of homes or mothers to teach children and so on and so forth, servants of the church, both men and women together as we grow into these new roles so often that changes bound up with the world's gaudy spectacles that would draw us away from God's word even as we come into conflict with our own parents as a symbol of God's authority within the family.

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Our lives are indeed bound up with this cycle of doubt as we grow older.

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And yet this full cycle comes around again. And I've just moved a thousand kilometers with my whole family.

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We packed up an entire household, five people, all into trailers. We've driven, I've now done 15 ,000 kilometers, what would that be in miles?

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11 ,000 miles, 10 ,000 miles, something like that. We've driven from Victoria to South Australia and back again with trailer loads of things and lifting heavy loads.

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Now even as a young man of 42, I kind of wish that I had my 30 -year -old back and my 30 -year -old legs because they would have done it quite easily.

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As we age past, as we take on the responsibilities of family, as we raise our own children and if we are not blessed to have children, as we take our roles in society, as we become, as we heard in our gospel reading today, servants, whether it be of a boss or whether it be of the church or whether it be literally indentured servants in other nations.

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Fortunately in the West we don't have this kind of servitude anymore. But even as these roles come upon us, we become very aware of our weakness.

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We become very aware of our helplessness. As our bodies grow tired quicker, as we find ourselves being slower to sleep and earlier to rise, as our bladders will not let us sleep until 11 o 'clock on Saturday morning like so many 16 -year -old boys.

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This reality is not ours as we grow older. So our helplessness becomes more and more clear.

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And there is a danger in that, that our helplessness turns to hopelessness. That we place our hope in the things of this flesh.

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That we think that our bodies ought to endure perfectly as if we were 18 -year -olds with the scraps that would heal by morning.

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We hope, we believe and we desire that we ought to live eternally on this mortal sphere.

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That is indeed what the promise of creation was in the first instance. Now since the fall, like the disciples, we lose sight.

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We lose sight and we fall into hopelessness as we look to the things of this earth as they fade from us.

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Whether it be our own bones, our own muscles, our own backs. Whether it be in the defiance of our own children.

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Difficult bosses as we heard in our epistle reading this morning. Whether it be difficult relationships.

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More starkly, as we then age even further, our hopelessness is borne out as we bury our loved ones, our friends and our family.

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With mum turning 70, it won't be that long until we say goodbye to my own mother and you've all been through this.

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We become increasingly aware about helplessness as the day comes when we will ourselves pass from this mortal coil into glory.

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The danger is hopelessness. The hopelessness that we face often binds us to the efforts of our own bodies.

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As Peter's hopelessness in the face of the crowd gathered to take Jesus away led him to strike out with the sword.

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So often we are led into the sin of anger and violence as we fight against the fall that we have before us.

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Our helplessness too often leads to a hopelessness that leads to all manner of sin.

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Whether it be greed, whether it be hatred of a neighbour, whether it be hatred of our brother, whether it be hatred of God in so many cases when a beloved is taken too early from this world.

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But this is not what we are given to be as Christians. Our helplessness is not to be one of hopelessness.

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Our helplessness is to be one of dependence as a little child. This is what

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Jesus is calling us to in our text tonight. It's what he called his disciples to and addressing them in this way.

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A little while and you'll see me no longer and again a little while and you will see me. Bewildering words bound up in mystery.

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As Job pronounced I will see my Messiah with my own eyes so we know this to be true by faith and so we are called to depend on the means by which that faith is conferred to us.

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Romans 10 says faith comes by hearing and hearing by the word of Christ and so we should embrace the helplessness that is before us and use it to be dependent on God's word to be dependent on the word of Christ and find in him the richness and the fullness of the hope that is before us.

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This is so very thoroughly important for the words that Jesus says how this is to take place.

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He says you will be sorrowful you will weep and you will lament but your joy will be complete when you see him again.

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Your sorrow will turn to joy he says. Joy and happiness are not the same thing and this life is constantly a life where we are surrounded by sorrow.

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We are constantly surrounded by weeping and lament. Lament is not always a bad thing either.

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We have a whole section of psalms in the Bible that are psalms of lament where we are guided to cry out to God where are you come and save me

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Lord be my guide Lord be my saviour Lord be my help.

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These psalms are so very prevalent and here we find joy in Jesus words not separate to find ourselves in some kind of euphoric happiness but right in the very midst of weeping and lamenting and in sorrow we find ourselves in joy where we find ourselves dependent on the word of Christ and his promise.

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Well that's easy you might say it's easy for you pastor you've been trained in this word you've memorized the good whack of it that's all very well and good for you but how might the average

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Christian hold on to this hope? How might the average Christian be led away from despair in helplessness towards joy and hope in this helplessness as we wait to see

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Jesus with our own eyes? Well this is again bound up in Jesus actions for us.

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This is why the Easter season is so long and so joyous even though we might sorrow in the midst of it.

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We know that we will see him again we know that his word will come to pass because it has never failed before and even while the disciples were bewildered that very night and acted according to their own desires and their own reason

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Peter even going so far as to reject his Lord with reasoned fear for the crowd that would crucify him coming for his own skin well our reason would fail and our faith must endure and it will endure because it is not only grounded in God's word but it is carried in it and his word has never returned empty and it has never failed.

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Jesus' promises have come surely true and they will forever and they have come true for us already as his words came true for the disciples from Maundy Thursday to his resurrection again that very

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Sunday just three days later what joy they must have felt how great that would have been we might say and yet that word that came true that they would in a little while see

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Jesus again is our very hope even now that little while might have been three days for his disciples it may well be 60, 70, 80 years for us in this mortal coil or it may be 2000 to the coming again of our

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Lord but the little while is not the problem the promise is the problem if we get caught up on the little while we run into trouble but if we get caught up in Jesus saying you will see me we find ourselves at rest in this life we find ourselves with hope in this life because the disciples indeed did see him

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Job indeed did indeed see his Lord we will indeed see him and for a while we see him as through a mirror dimly we will yet see him in coming weeks we will see him in word through our ears we will see him literally in bread and wine we will not only see it as it comes to us this gracious gift but we will touch it and taste it and we will see that the

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Lord is good and his promises endure to eternity and so we are stayed in this faith when in helplessness we cleave ourselves to the promises of God and there is no greater promise than this that your

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Lord did die for you and he did rise again and he was seen by the brothers and he was seen by 500 witnesses and he is seen by my grandmother and he is seen by your loved ones who have gone on before you and he will be seen by you with your very own eyes and there is no greater hope than that so don't give yourself over to reason when you face this conundrum of a little while or give yourself over to reason even when

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Jesus says this is my body and this is my blood but give yourself over to helplessness and find in your weakness in your helplessness the full help that comes from the word of God that endures for you and in you until you see

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Christ with your own eyes thanks be to God Amen we confess our faith together in the words of the

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Nicene Creed ah yes, the

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Apostles Creed pardon me I believe in God the Father and in Jesus Christ he ascended into hell the third day he rose again from the dead he ascended into heaven and it says that the right men shall come to judge the believer in the

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Holy Spirit, the Holy Christian Church the communion of saints the forgiveness of sins the resurrection of the body and the life everlasting

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Amen please be seated let us pray for the whole church of God in Christ Jesus and for all people according to their needs shepherd of Israel in your son

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Jesus Christ you have sought out your sheep and gathered us into your flock keep us always in your fold and guard us from every wolf and snare

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Lord in your mercy hear our prayer heavenly father you alone gather us as your sheep and send faithful shepherds to us call all who have wandered from your flock and bless the faithful shepherds who gather them through the voice of your word,

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Lord in your mercy heavenly father your son has called us to love our brothers turn us in love toward the neighbors closest to us especially within our own homes that we may daily show our confidence in God by deed and truth laying down our lives as Christ first did for us

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Lord in your mercy eternal

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Lord through the paschal lamb you have wrought peace between man and God by your gift of good government grant peace and good days also to our citizens and between the nations of the world that we and all our neighbors may lead quiet lives in godly contentment

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Lord in your mercy heavenly father by the first fruits of Christ's life from the dead you secured forgiveness for our troubled consciences bless also with temporal health and well being those who suffer among us especially

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Linda, Megan Kevin, Nina Jordan, Donna Louisa, Sylvain Joanne and Nathan grant them aid in this moment and even more so true immortal health in the world to come

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Lord in your mercy Lord our shepherd you calm all fears in this valley of the shadow of death and you prepare the holy table of your son's testament for us in the presence of our enemies grant us repentant and faithful hearts in every tribulation or besetting sin lead us to find comfort and strength in your overflowing mercy given to us here in your word and in your sacraments in coming weeks

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Lord in your mercy Lord God out of your fatherly goodness you have remembered us poor miserable sinners and given your beloved son to be our shepherd not only to nourish us by his word but also to defend us from sin, death and the devil, grant us your holy spirit that even as this shepherd knows us and helps us in every affliction we also may know him trust him, seek help and comfort in him heartily obey his voice and obtain eternal salvation through the same

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Jesus Christ your son our Lord who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit one

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God now and forever Amen We continue with the

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Offertory Now may the

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Lord bless you and keep you the Lord make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you the