Merredin Uniting Church

Good Day. We had a really great service last week in Merredin with the folk from Sing Australia. Its good to have additional voices and a good crowd but all that really matters is that the Lord is with us, and I am sure that will be the case again today.

Today we will welcome Gerhard Seymour into membership at Merredin during the course of our service. Gerhard is from South Africa where he lived in a town called Nelspruit, a thriving town on the edge of the Kruger National Park – the largest game reserve in the world. He is in Australia on contract as a train driver but is planning to settle. Gerhard was an elder in his congregation back home but admits that it was here in the church in Merredin that he came into a life giving relationship with the Lord. Now he is one of the early ones at church on a Sunday along with Harry and Betty Townrow. He has taken responsibility for the sound system and sees that as his present ministry. His wife, Yolanda, and children Belinda (18yrs), Mariska (14yrs) and Mauritz (11yrs) are still back in South Africa but it is Gerhard’s fervent prayer that they will join him in the new life which he has found in Christ and in Australia.

The new life which we have in Christ constantly puts challenges before us. In Christ we are no longer of this world, and yet we are still in it. We are caught in all kinds of tensions between the world and God, between the Word and the Spirit, between the head and the heart, between law and grace. So today I want to speak about finding ourselves in the radical middle of our faith, in that place between law and grace, where we can keep the radical tension in perfect equilibrium by being fully connected to Jesus. It is when our eyes are off the Lord, trying to balance the demands of the world with our intellectual understanding of God’s word, that we find ourselves confused. Jesus is right there in the Radical Middle. And that is in itself an anomaly: how can you be “radical” and also in the middle of the road? Does “middle” mean compromise? And if we compromise, how can we be radical? I looked up the word “radical” in a dictionary. It can mean “going back to the root” and it can mean “extreme”. It can also mean “of strong convictions”. In choosing to use that word as an adjective to “Middle”, I want it to mean all these things because my life in Jesus must be all these things and He must be the middle of my life. He is my source, my beginning, the root of my existence; He also calls me to extreme living in a mediocre world and He calls me to strong convictions, or certain faith.

Today is the last Sunday of the Christian Year. It is called “The Feast (or Festival, or Celebration) of Christ the King.” It is the apex of the Christian Year, it is what every celebration through the year has been leading us towards. And the message today calls us to the place where the object of our faith is also the reality of our life. Where we live in this world, and yet born again into the Kingdom of God; where the Promise is already revealed and faith is a certainty. The Celebration of Christ the King is a celebration of the Radical Middle.

The Christian Calendar begins afresh next week with Advent. As Christians we don’t have to wait for New Year’s Day – we’re already a month ahead of the rest of the world. Advent is a celebration of the coming Messiah. In the four weeks before Christmas we look at the prophecies of Christ’s coming, both in the flesh as a celebration of history, and His second coming as a celebration of ultimate glory. At Christmas we celebrate the Word made flesh, Immanuel, God with us. And we share gifts to bless each other in this incredible celebration. From Christmas onwards we focus on Christ’s life on earth – we remind ourselves of the events which marked His journey to the Cross, we build faith as we share His journey of incarnation. Onwards, onwards we go to Calvary and stand in stunned silence before the Cross on Good Friday and wonder what is good about it. Then comes Easter – the tomb is empty, He is risen. Amazed at our encounters with Him on the road to Emmaus, at Galilee, we stand watching Him ascend to heaven to take His place on the glorious throne and patiently wait instructions. Then the Spirit comes at Pentecost. Everything in the world is suddenly upside down; the words Jesus spoke become clear, and in a weird and crazy way we suddenly understand what life is all about. We know our purpose, we are content, we trust God in every situation, we have no fear, we are loved. And in the long season of Pentecost (which is a Harvest Celebration) we become harvesters. It is the Season of Mission. It is a celebration of Good News, it is a reaping of the harvest sown by the Word. All the way from Festival of Pentecost to Celebration of Christ the King (today’s celebration) we have (or should have been) at work reaping the fields which Jesus said were “ripe for harvest” (John 4:35). And then on the Celebration of Christ the King we celebrate that Christ is indeed the King and that His Kingdom has come, that He reigns in glory over all things, and that He calls us His own. That is why our evening readings for the past few weeks have been focused on the Book of Revelation – unseen and yet revealed the Kingdom has crept upon us and overwhelmed us. Like John’s vision we were caught up in the midst of the tragedies and tortures of this world and the impact of its sin and then, suddenly, we looked and there was there a new heaven and a new earth and the Holy City, the New Jerusalem came down from heaven. And there was peace on earth and goodwill towards men. Hallelujah!

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