Welcome to 2014 at St Luke’s! This last week has provided us with a very hot reminder that summer is here. Heat and tennis seem to be the mark of a Melbourne January! It is part of our shared city ritual!
Here at St Luke’s I am looking forward to the year ahead and what it will bring, the seasons that lie before us. As a church we are entrusted with ‘good news’. When Mark commences his gospel he writes, “The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah”.
Mark was writing to people who had some understanding as to the concept of the ‘Messiah’. For today’s Australians the concept of a messiah, outside of an outstanding sporting hero or fictional James Bond type character, is foreign and suspicious.
Australians are right to be suspicious of ‘religious messiahs’. Jesus himself says that many false prophets will arise, and people claiming to be Him, but not to listen to them (eg Mark 13:22).
Yet Jesus Himself is in a different category and people are invited to test for themselves whether He truly is the fulfilment of expectation and hope for the future. His claims are open to all to examine.
Here at St Luke’s we are committed to being Christ-centred and outward-focused. We exist not for ourselves and our comfort, but for the mission of God in the world today.
Over this past couple of weeks I have been reading a stimulating book called ‘Grounded in the Gospel – Building Believers the Old-fashioned Way’. It’s theme is that people coming into Christian faith without any background or concept of God, unlike Jewish readers of Mark, require substantial teaching and instruction (Greek word- catechesis) to fully imbibe, understand and live out this Gospel. The writers argue that in ancient times (pre Roman Christendom) and Reformation times, there was an emphasis on this which we need to recapture.
I largely agree with their diagnosis. It is also true for those of us who have been following Christ for a time, but who can still drift away (as the letter to the Hebrews tackles). The world teaches and trains us constantly to desire more earthly goods or more intense experiences of life or enjoyment. Our earthly nature is easily attracted to such ways, so the work of instruction and Christian formation must be deep, positive, strong and enduring.
I see this as a major challenge before us in 2014. We love to reach more people, but it is also a matter of leading those people deeply into Christ. In a few weeks we will begin together, from Ash Wednesday to Easter, 40 days Desert to Destiny, a pilgrimage, which is designed to help us go further with Christ and His work in us, individually and together. That will be one corporate response we make. Others will follow.
So, welcome to the year! Let’s buckle up for the ride ahead. Let’s expect the unexpected, and look for God’s hand to do mighty things. We do have ‘good news’, and I fully anticipate it will be just as urgently needed in 2014 as in any previous year. Let’s live it out and proclaim it together!