Welcome to our Service for Sunday the 28th of April - What are you waiting for?

Welcome to our 10am service at Clevedon. Please join us in person, or watch the live stream on our YouTube channel. (You can watch the service anytime afterwards as well)  https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxBzxjBb3xU8ra2NHwvD_9A

You can find the reading and reflection below:

Acts 17:1-9; 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10

1 After Paul and Silas had passed through Amphipolis and Apollonia, they came to Thessalonica, where there was a synagogue of the Jews. 2 And Paul went in, as was his custom, and on three sabbath days argued with them from the scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, "This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you." 4 Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. 5 But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar. While they were searching for Paul and Silas to bring them out to the assembly, they attacked Jason's house.

6 When they could not find them, they dragged Jason and some believers before the city authorities, shouting, "These people who have been turning the world upside down have come here also, 7 and Jason has entertained them as guests. They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus." 8 The people and the city officials were disturbed when they heard this, 9 and after they had taken bail from Jason and the others, they let them go.

1 Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy, To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ: Grace to you and peace. 2 We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly 3 remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labor of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. 4 For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, 5 because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of persons we proved to be among you for your sake. 6 And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, 7 so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia.

8 For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. 9 For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, 10 and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead -- Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

This morning we have two stories all about the news of Jesus Christ being brought to the people of Thessalonica.

Thessalonica is now the second largest city in Greece.  And if you look at a map it is on the top right hand side of Greece -  and you can easily imagine its importance on the road between Athens and Istanbul.  Then known as Byzantium.

So two biblical accounts today. The first is from the Book of Acts.

And here we have Luke telling us of the establishment of the earliest church in Thessalonica in the middle of the first century.

And then Paul’s first letter to the early Christian community in Thessalonica, sometime after he and Silas had first visited.

It is difficult for us, I think, to imagine the challenges that Paul and Silas were facing when they visited a city like Thessalonica.

Imagine going into a city where perhaps every building was dedicated to one sort of god or another.

Imagine idols and little religious statues scattered right through the city.

If we visited Auckland city and saw the buildings as idols, representing various gods, what would these structures be saying to us about the things what we viewed as being most important?  The gods that demanded most of our time and effort and dedication?

Banks, Insurance Companies, Property Companies. Wealth and power embodied in structures.

We have Paul coming to this ancient city and we are told: 

“he argued with them from the scriptures, 3 explaining and proving that it was necessary for the Messiah to suffer and to rise from the dead, and saying, "This is the Messiah, Jesus whom I am proclaiming to you."

He must have been a really courageous argue-er because this is such an unlikely picture.

When we stand back from this story, when we think about this context, this situation, the very fact that it is so unlikely, to me, means that it is so encouraging.

Despite the size and numbers of churches and cathedrals around the world, our Christian story is based on an account of a flourishing of faith when there were no church buildings, and in the midst of extraordinarily difficult and unlikely circumstances.

Paul is telling the story of this Jesus, born to a teenage girl called Mary, in a town so small that no one hearing the message would no where it was, on the edge of the Roman empire.  

When he got to about 30, this Jesus went around teaching, preaching, healing, casting out unclean spirits, upset the religious and state authorises, who ended up crucifying him as a heretic and political troublemaker.  

Crucified along with literally thousands of others who were executed over this time of Roman occupation.

But now, this Jesus,  proclaimed by Paul, as the risen saviour of the world.

What do you think?

And we are told:

4 Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women. 5 But the Jews became jealous, and with the help of some ruffians in the marketplaces they formed a mob and set the city in an uproar.

No one can comprehend how the one who was crucified in weakness and humiliation by the Roman state, can possibly be the King who brings deliverance to humanity.

Luke tell us that  “Some of them were persuaded and joined Paul and Silas, as did a great many of the devout Greeks and not a few of the leading women” (17:4).

But then there is the counter-response: a mob is formed and the city is set in uproar (17:5).

The claim of the opponents of Paul and Silas is:

“They are all acting contrary to the decrees of the emperor, saying that there is another king named Jesus” (17:7).

 And Paul tells us later that the Thessalonians had “turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead.”

It might sound like an obscure point, but there is a word in Greek that reinforces the new decision that these Thessalonians were making.

That having turned to God, the Thessalonians were waiting for “his Son from heaven.”

The word “to wait for” “anamenein” is a very uncommon word in the original Greek.

Paul could have used a more common expression, but he did not. He knew that the same word was used almost uniquely , to express how people would wait eagerly for the arrival of the Roman Emperor, Vespasian.

Paul is suggesting that Jesus has become, for the Thessalonians, an alternative emperor, a true and living King. The one that they really should be waiting for.

Who are we waiting for?

I guess we spend a fair amount of our lives waiting. Waiting for someone we love to get ready. Waiting for results. Waiting for something to arrive. Waiting in a line perhaps.

But this word for waiting, is more the waiting we do when something life changing is going to happen. The birth of a child, perhaps. Or the waiting for a loved one to return.

All waiting implies some sense of completion, fulfilment, ending. But this waiting is filled with excitement, hope, and imagination.

You wait, but also you act, picturing yourself living in this world where the waiting has been transformed to completion.

So, Paul is asking, are we waiting for Vespasian the emperor, or are we waiting for Christ, to provide that fulfilment and completion and purpose for our lives?

And we’ve got to imagine and wonder that all those earliest believers, looked past the idols and the structures and the enormous power of Vespasian, and, as he says, "turned to God from idols to serve a living and true God and to wait, (that word, anamenein,) for his Son from heaven."

It is pretty easy to be overwhelmed by the news. Overseas, here in New Zealand. A lot of that news expresses the kind of power associated with military power and fear - the kind of power wielded by the Emperor Vespasians of this world. 

I think much of our waiting too, centres upon the things we imagine might go wrong. Our waiting, full of a kind of worry, that can diminish our lives.

But with those first Christians at Thessalonica, we are being encouraged and invited to wait in a different kind of way. A waiting that even puts our greatest fears into a different perspective.

We wait with this active, courageous, hope. A hope based on the promises Jesus gave us.

Expecting the day of God’s Kingdom, a day when the promise of justice and peace are fulfilled.

Expecting and waiting on that day when, we are promised in the Book of Revelation:

“he will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death' or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”

The Gospel message was grounded and planted in the most unlikely of environments.

Paul and Silas's message about Jesus. That in the midst of all this, all that we see and hear, there is another story happening, going on - upon which you can base your life.

Today we have a wonderful account of how people, hearing the message of the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, discover that everything changes.

There is a power at work in the resurrection that is more powerful than any earthly ruler. Any force, no matter what we see about us. Greater, even than the power of our own anxieties.

Today we can join with those Thessalonians who first heard the Good News.  And say yes to the  invitation to live within Jesus’ story.

So let us pray a prayer, asking God for help in living within the story of the Good News.

AMEN

Lord God, we remember today long ago and far away two people called Paul and Silas brought your message of grave and love and hope to the people of Thessalonica.

In our homes today, as we hear this story, we invite you Lord, through the power of the Holy Spirit, to hear again or for the first time the story of God’s love for us. To make that story our story, and to commit to following you in life death and in life beyond death, in the name of our risen Lord Jesus. AMEN