+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.
Text: John 14:2
Theme: Prepared By The Saviour
Dear family, friends and loved ones of Pam, and especially you, Leanne, Ken, Grant, Craig, and Tony, her children:
God doesn’t have contingency plans. He doesn’t need them. He knows what will come to pass. So, when the Lord Jesus, the conqueror of death, says today, “In My Father’s house are many rooms… I am going there to prepare a place for you,”1 He was not speaking of possibilities, probabilities, or contingencies. God’s preparations are only made in anticipation of a future event that will be fulfilled with certainty. Today we celebrate that no more preparations need to be made for Pam Fielke’s reception into heaven. It has come to pass. Pam has been released from the burden of this mortal existence. She is at peace. Thanks be to God!
So, how is it possible? Really? This radical transition. In the record of Jesus’ life, we come across various descriptions of His interactions with people such as this one, “They were astonished at His teaching, for He taught them as one who had authority, and not as the scribes.”2 The words of Christ were gripping and incisive. The utterances of Jesus had clout. You see, the people of Jesus’ day, like us, understandably expected claims of extraordinary magnitude to be verified by independent authorities. But who would Christ turn to to sanction or validate His assertions? Even the greatest human authorities are fallible. Experts in every field have their failings and limitations. Exceptional claims must be substantiated again and again and again before they gain widespread credibility. What did Jesus do to validate His claims? Well, there was this little matter of rising from the dead. Of course, countless other miracles had already demonstrated His divinity.
Dear friends, ours is an age of skepticism about the need for God’s assistance. Do you think that any person who dies today is in any less need of divine clemency than the great figures of ancient times, the princes or the paupers of the Middle Ages, the popes or the peasants, the victims of wars past or benefactors of peaceful eras? Are we any closer to God’s mercy? Are we any further from His grace? No. The condemnation of sin is no less real than if God had rebuked Adam and Eve two days ago. The call to repentance is never obsolete. It is never inapplicable.
I first met Pam and Ray in 2006 when Pam was a still a member of the Bookpurnong Ladies’ Guild. At some point they welcomed me into their home for a guild meeting and this green horn from across the ocean learned a little bit more about farming in the Mallee and the resilience of those who do it. Pam had a spirited sense of humor. Her wit served her well both in the daily routine of life and through the more difficult challenges. She was a devoted wife and mother and competent in everything required of her. She endured the loss of a child.
Still, all humans have significant limitations. Some require resolution. How can the gates of heaven be unbolted? Could Pam do it with her wit, her generosity, or her resilience? Can I do it with seminary training or biblical knowledge? Can you succeed with your sincerity, your philanthropy, or your kindheartedness? No, dear friends the threshold of heaven cannot be crossed, it cannot be breached, it cannot be accessed by the strivings, heroic or otherwise, of any individual. The combined ingenuity, piety, and tenacity of all humanity is not able push open the gates of heaven or overcome the finality of death.
But what does the Scripture say? “Jesus, who went before us, has entered [heaven] on our behalf.”3 “It is by grace you have been saved, through faith- and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.”4 Christ said, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in Me will live, even though he dies.”5 And, “Everyone who believes in Him receives forgiveness of sins through His name.”6
Pam Fielke was a forgiven sinner. Immersed in Christ’s forgiveness from the time of her baptism she was made a child of God and promised an everlasting inheritance. The wedding text her and Ray shared proved to be a steadfast support for her, “Surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.”7 At her confirmation Pam was assigned this verse from Matthew 24, “The one who endures to the end will be saved.”8 And that’s exactly what Pam did. Through Christ’s grace, and His strength she endured until He called her home. “In My Father’s house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”9
It can be reasonably argued that Pam had suffered from her vascular dementia long enough. It was time for her to be relieved. Only God can really say. He chose to summon her and for that we’re thankful even while we grieve. We might say that from a purely human perspective there is never a good time for death. After all, death is final. There are no second chances. There’s no going back. But, dear friends, if we could truly comprehend what those who are in the presence of the triune God, saints and angels now enjoy, there’s little question anyone would want to come back!
Leanne, Ken, Grant, Craig, Tony, grief doesn’t schedule appointments. It doesn’t ask permission to intrude upon your life. It is not polite. It doesn’t negotiate. You might try to postpone its beginning, suspend its progress, or hasten its conclusion but you won’t find any of these efforts to be very helpful. Instead, the Scriptures empower you to face grief head on. Every person that is lost from our lives is unique and that makes them irreplaceable. But don’t think for even a moment that God is too feeble or apathetic to sustain you even in times of darkest doubt?
Does God care about our personal worries? Of course He does. God cares about everything, but He is indebted to no one. Christ is the exalted One, but He’s also the Suffering Servant. The victim of Calvary was not an unwilling pawn. He was not naïve or clueless. He was not ill-informed about the task. He knew He was facing death. He knew He was going to be sacrificed. He went to the cross anyway.
Jesus Christ is immortal, and He has overturned the power of death. And He can, and He will, reassemble our disintegrated bodies and resurrect them in like manner to His glorious body. It will not be slight-of-hand or a magician’s deception. The resurrected will not be in a mystifying trance or feel like they are in some kind of suspended out-of-body experience. Our perception will be as natural and familiar as what we enjoy right now. Therefore, Job says, “I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end He will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see Him with my own eyes.”10 Pam has been crowned with life. Thanks be to God! Amen.
+ In nomine Jesu +
Christian Burial of Pamela Helen Fielke
8 February 2019
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt
1 John 14:2 2 Mark 1:22
3 Hebrews 6:20 4 Ephesians 2:8
5 John 11:25 6 Acts 10:43
7 Matthew 28:20 8 Matthew 24:13
9 John 14:2 10 Job 19:26-27
Monday, February 11, 2019
Harvest Thanksgiving (3rd & 10th February 2019)
+ In nomine Patris et Filii et Spiritus Sancti + Amen.
Text: Deuteronomy 26:11
Theme: Rejoice In His Goodness
Dear friends in Christ Jesus,
The godly farmer who prepares the soil, sows the seed, and tends the growing crop hopes for a good harvest believing that God is able to provide it. If that hope is only the prospect of benefitting from the changes and chances of the season than it is nothing more than a worldly wish. The unbelieving farmer farms to take advantage of God’s benevolence and thus elevate himself in the world’s eyes. The godly farmer gratefully receives God’s blessings and uses the benefits to the advantage of his neighbour. Faith, and the motivations it produces are the determining factors as to whether one is seeking to exploit God’s generosity or allocate it. Harvest Thanksgiving can only be meaningful to those who recognize the source. Everyone benefits from God’s generosity. For the believer God’s generosity in this life is a small foretaste of grander blessings to come; for the ungodly it is a small consolation in view of a future destitute of His favour.
The Israelites were instructed to celebrate God’s blessing on their agricultural season during the Feast of Booths1, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles. This festival marked the end of the harvest. It lasted a week and was also the conclusion to the half of their liturgical year that began with Passover. The eighth and final day was designated as a high and holy day. One of the unique features of the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles is that the Israelites we to set up temporary shelters around the sanctuary to reside in during the week-long feast. These tents, or booths, would provide temporary protection and surely would have reminded the Israelites of their transitory time in the desert. During the Feast of Booths, the Israelites spent the week in temporary dwellings around the sanctuary, but the permanence of God’s presence was what was really being celebrated.
God’s people were commanded to give of their firstfruits to indicate their thankfulness and show their lives were orientated towards Him. But outward actions still meant nothing without the integrity of the heart. Just going through the motions amounts to empty ritual. Nothing has changed today. The hollowness of much of organized Christianity is now echoing all around us. What is the answer, for example, to apathy about the mission of the church? Surely this involves serious soul-searching! If we lack interest in the spiritual welfare of others, either as individuals or as communities of believers, the deeper issue is our own relationship with Christ. It’s a confronting truth.
Why did the crowds come searching for Jesus today? Well, they were part of the 5000 that had had their bellies filled. What a great way to celebrate Harvest Thanksgiving! These people didn’t want to lose touch with the source of their welfare. Jesus immediately addresses their misguided intentions. “I tell you the truth, you are looking for Me, not because you saw the miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.”2 They witnessed the miracle, they benefitted from, it but they didn’t make the much more important connection. They filled their stomachs, but their souls were still starving. So, Jesus says to them, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”3
You see, the most serious consequence of original sin is unbelief. At every turn we are prone to mistrust or misrepresent God’s promises. The Scriptures call it a curse. It’s the curse of looking inward, the curse of desperately searching for security and meaning in the wrong places. Christ came to lift that curse. After the judgment on man’s wickedness, rendered at the time of Noah’s flood, God made a covenant that previewed the end of the curse. The Bible says, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”4 So, God guarantees His providence. His judgment will be restrained.
But how? And why? Just because the flood appeased His wrath? No, there’s more. The fulfillment is summarized in these words, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’”5 The curse was broken when Jesus offered His own body as a sacrifice of atonement and rose as the firstborn from the dead. The curse of sin is broken. We are freed from death’s power. We feast on the banquet of the ‘firstfruits’ of Christ’s grace when we dine on His body and blood in the heavenly meal. It is manna from above. Because you are what you eat, we are never the same. The Lord’s Supper is the food of immortality.
The Israelites were instructed to bring the firstfruits of their harvest. The language of firstfruits is retained in the New Testament, as when Paul says, “We have the firstfruits of the Spirit”6. He also says, “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices.”7 God looks at us as if we were each a firstborn son. But not just any firstborn, one that has been redeemed and consecrated to God. Jesus is the living bread that came down from heaven, the true spiritual manna. He alone gives life to the soul. Yes, we must still toil to grow food from the soil. That was part of the curse on Adam. But no labor is needed to provide for the soul. Jesus is the grain of wheat that fell in the soil and died so that He could bear much fruit8.
Dear friends, some harvests are better than others. Farming is still an occupation of faith, though with food security, insurance and contingencies, probably not as much as it once was. Yet, believers should not obsess about whether the next harvest will be good or not. Just as Christians don’t speculate on whether God will presently relieve them of a certain struggle or grant a fervent wish. We commend these things to God and proceed daily to bear the cross. Each day the Holy Spirit must teach us the meaning of “Your will be done.”9 Then we learn to live in hope.
If the resolution of the matter is within your grasp or if your heart has judged the matter closed, then you are no longer living in hope. Your heart and mind have moved on and your prayers will express only anger, or joy, frustration or gratitude. Hope endures only through faith and all else is darkness and confusion. You may even be preparing yourself that your hopes may be dashed. But where the believer’s hope is pressed to its limits is precisely where Christ intervenes for His saints. He does this no sooner than necessary because we “live by faith, not by sight.”10 Why did Thomas believe: Because Thomas saw the dead Jesus alive, or because Jesus made the dead (spiritually) Thomas live? God blesses us abundantly in our physical and spiritual needs, our vocations and our harvests of grain and those of His kingdom. Today we give thanks. Amen.
+ In nomine Jesu +
Harvest Thanksgiving
Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
3 February 2019
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt
1 See Leviticus 23:33-43
2 John 6:26
3 John 6:27
4 Genesis 8:22
5 Galatians 2:13
6 Romans 8:23
7 Romans 12:12
8 John12:24
9 Matthew 6:10
10 2 Corinthians 5:7
Text: Deuteronomy 26:11
Theme: Rejoice In His Goodness
Dear friends in Christ Jesus,
The godly farmer who prepares the soil, sows the seed, and tends the growing crop hopes for a good harvest believing that God is able to provide it. If that hope is only the prospect of benefitting from the changes and chances of the season than it is nothing more than a worldly wish. The unbelieving farmer farms to take advantage of God’s benevolence and thus elevate himself in the world’s eyes. The godly farmer gratefully receives God’s blessings and uses the benefits to the advantage of his neighbour. Faith, and the motivations it produces are the determining factors as to whether one is seeking to exploit God’s generosity or allocate it. Harvest Thanksgiving can only be meaningful to those who recognize the source. Everyone benefits from God’s generosity. For the believer God’s generosity in this life is a small foretaste of grander blessings to come; for the ungodly it is a small consolation in view of a future destitute of His favour.
The Israelites were instructed to celebrate God’s blessing on their agricultural season during the Feast of Booths1, also known as the Feast of Tabernacles. This festival marked the end of the harvest. It lasted a week and was also the conclusion to the half of their liturgical year that began with Passover. The eighth and final day was designated as a high and holy day. One of the unique features of the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles is that the Israelites we to set up temporary shelters around the sanctuary to reside in during the week-long feast. These tents, or booths, would provide temporary protection and surely would have reminded the Israelites of their transitory time in the desert. During the Feast of Booths, the Israelites spent the week in temporary dwellings around the sanctuary, but the permanence of God’s presence was what was really being celebrated.
God’s people were commanded to give of their firstfruits to indicate their thankfulness and show their lives were orientated towards Him. But outward actions still meant nothing without the integrity of the heart. Just going through the motions amounts to empty ritual. Nothing has changed today. The hollowness of much of organized Christianity is now echoing all around us. What is the answer, for example, to apathy about the mission of the church? Surely this involves serious soul-searching! If we lack interest in the spiritual welfare of others, either as individuals or as communities of believers, the deeper issue is our own relationship with Christ. It’s a confronting truth.
Why did the crowds come searching for Jesus today? Well, they were part of the 5000 that had had their bellies filled. What a great way to celebrate Harvest Thanksgiving! These people didn’t want to lose touch with the source of their welfare. Jesus immediately addresses their misguided intentions. “I tell you the truth, you are looking for Me, not because you saw the miraculous signs but because you ate the loaves and had your fill.”2 They witnessed the miracle, they benefitted from, it but they didn’t make the much more important connection. They filled their stomachs, but their souls were still starving. So, Jesus says to them, “Do not work for food that spoils, but for food that endures to eternal life, which the Son of Man will give you.”3
You see, the most serious consequence of original sin is unbelief. At every turn we are prone to mistrust or misrepresent God’s promises. The Scriptures call it a curse. It’s the curse of looking inward, the curse of desperately searching for security and meaning in the wrong places. Christ came to lift that curse. After the judgment on man’s wickedness, rendered at the time of Noah’s flood, God made a covenant that previewed the end of the curse. The Bible says, “As long as the earth endures, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night will never cease.”4 So, God guarantees His providence. His judgment will be restrained.
But how? And why? Just because the flood appeased His wrath? No, there’s more. The fulfillment is summarized in these words, “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us, for it is written: ‘Cursed is everyone who is hung on a tree.’”5 The curse was broken when Jesus offered His own body as a sacrifice of atonement and rose as the firstborn from the dead. The curse of sin is broken. We are freed from death’s power. We feast on the banquet of the ‘firstfruits’ of Christ’s grace when we dine on His body and blood in the heavenly meal. It is manna from above. Because you are what you eat, we are never the same. The Lord’s Supper is the food of immortality.
The Israelites were instructed to bring the firstfruits of their harvest. The language of firstfruits is retained in the New Testament, as when Paul says, “We have the firstfruits of the Spirit”6. He also says, “Offer your bodies as living sacrifices.”7 God looks at us as if we were each a firstborn son. But not just any firstborn, one that has been redeemed and consecrated to God. Jesus is the living bread that came down from heaven, the true spiritual manna. He alone gives life to the soul. Yes, we must still toil to grow food from the soil. That was part of the curse on Adam. But no labor is needed to provide for the soul. Jesus is the grain of wheat that fell in the soil and died so that He could bear much fruit8.
Dear friends, some harvests are better than others. Farming is still an occupation of faith, though with food security, insurance and contingencies, probably not as much as it once was. Yet, believers should not obsess about whether the next harvest will be good or not. Just as Christians don’t speculate on whether God will presently relieve them of a certain struggle or grant a fervent wish. We commend these things to God and proceed daily to bear the cross. Each day the Holy Spirit must teach us the meaning of “Your will be done.”9 Then we learn to live in hope.
If the resolution of the matter is within your grasp or if your heart has judged the matter closed, then you are no longer living in hope. Your heart and mind have moved on and your prayers will express only anger, or joy, frustration or gratitude. Hope endures only through faith and all else is darkness and confusion. You may even be preparing yourself that your hopes may be dashed. But where the believer’s hope is pressed to its limits is precisely where Christ intervenes for His saints. He does this no sooner than necessary because we “live by faith, not by sight.”10 Why did Thomas believe: Because Thomas saw the dead Jesus alive, or because Jesus made the dead (spiritually) Thomas live? God blesses us abundantly in our physical and spiritual needs, our vocations and our harvests of grain and those of His kingdom. Today we give thanks. Amen.
+ In nomine Jesu +
Harvest Thanksgiving
Fourth Sunday After Epiphany
3 February 2019
Reverend Darrin L. Kohrt
1 See Leviticus 23:33-43
2 John 6:26
3 John 6:27
4 Genesis 8:22
5 Galatians 2:13
6 Romans 8:23
7 Romans 12:12
8 John12:24
9 Matthew 6:10
10 2 Corinthians 5:7
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