A Cycle – Feast of Holy Trinity 26

Jn.3:16-18

Living in this twenty first century it is easy for us to live our spiritual lives without ever experiencing intimacy with God. Spirituality is defined by what we do rather than what God id so that we may have eternal life.  God’s love is not felt because we seek to please God rather than seek God’s will for us. We admit Jesus died to set us free while at the same time we hope God is merciful.  We have been taught to focus our lives by adhering to rituals we believe are pleasing to God.  But since daily life is unpredictable, we live with a certain amount of uncertainty and doubt in God’s goodness.  

During difficult moments we turn to prayer hoping God will intervene instead of believing God always answers our prayers. We can learn a lot about God’s faithfulness from Moses.  After encountering God in a burning bush, Moses considered himself as incapable of becoming an instrument of God’s grace.  Moses’ view of himself is a fundamental part of our own humanity.  We are aware of all our deficiencies, and those human flaws are a barrier to us experiencing intimacy with God.  Moses called the Israelites “a stiff necked people.”  Paul echoes that sentiment by saying “..we hold to a form of religion but deny the power of it.” Harsh words from the inspired word of God, reminding us we need to constantly acknowledging “…what God has done.”

Yes, we need to remember who we are and who we were created to become.  That is what we do each time we gather to celebrate these sacred mysteries. We are celebrating and remembering what Christ has done for us. We start by acknowledging our sinfulness and our need for a savior.  What we do is to give thanks to God the father, Jesus the son and the Holy Spirit who makes Jesus present to us.  We do this in remembrance of Jesus and to the Spirit who makes Jesus’ presence to us.  

We are here to celebrate and remember that God so love the world that He sent His only Son to pay the penalty for our sins.  But God intended the death of Jesus and the outpouring of the Holy Spirit to accomplish more than to cleanse us of our sins.  His plan was to transform us and have us live by the law of the Spirit written on our hearts. The law given to Moses would be our disciplinarian until the law of the Sprit came.  For any of that to happen we need to do more than just show up on Sunday. We need to embrace the plan of God for our holiness has been accomplished by the resurrection of Jesus and transforming power of the Holy Spirit. That is what we celebrate, and it should cause us to worship from the opening song to the final hymn.

   God’s desire for us to share intimacy with Him has not changed.  He still desires our hearts not our sacrifices.  God desires we act on what we profess to believe NS to trust in His goodness despite the tragedies we face in this life.  Like the Israelites we need to heed Moses instructions to “remember.”  God has given us all we need to be a holy people, a royal priesthood.  Our problem is we believe the lies the world has told us about what makes us happy.  Because of our failures, we believe we need to do something to make ourselves worthy to be loved by God.  We ignore the gift of Jesus and in doing so we create a barrier between ourselves and God. A barrier Satan uses to keep from experiencing God’s grace and the depth of His desire for intimacy.   

Our relationship with God has been by adhering to a mindset that is based on what we do rather than what God has done. Moses knew how our belief in God is impacted by the circumstances of the moment. That is why the scriptures are critical to our trust and faith in God. The scriptures unfold a story of God’s desire and his unrelenting desire for intimacy with us.  They tell us what God has done and they detail God’s faithfulness.  The words and actions of Jesus show us the Father. The Holy Spirit will give us insight, wisdom and understanding.  They reveal God will overcome all barriers to change our hearts so we long for God. 

In the things Jesus did and said, He shows us what God views sin. He wants to show us how everything sin has done in us is something to be touched and healed.  God sees what He created not wat we have done to tarnish that part of us made in the image and likeness of God.  God ignores our sin and He responds to our self-loathing and our willingness to settle for less than what God offers us.  God does not want us to be satisfied with less than becoming what we were created to become.  Sons and daughters, heirs to the kingdom, capable of tapping into the power of God. Capable of holiness beyond our comprehension and worth the death of Jesus. 

All we need to do is desire that life giving water Jesus promised us.  That outpouring of the Holy Spirit will satisfy our thirst and change our hearts.  God is inviting you to return to Him by embracing the salvation won for us by Jesus and the transforming power of the Spirit to make us new creation in Christ Jesus.