Church of the Nations

Note from Pastor Rick:

We were blessed to have our friend and brother in Christ Clive Tsuma bring the morning message last Sunday. I thought the sermon was exceptional and asked if we could post it on the church website. Clive graciously agreed and here it is. I have edited it only slightly for appearance/format.

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Clive K. Tsuma
“Never Again!”
Genesis 17
Church of the Nations
March 01, 2009
02nd Sunday of Lent (B)

This is a very important season for us Christians. It is a period of reflection, of re-examination; it is the period before Easter. It is a time of prayer, penance, fasting and self-denial. It is a period that commemorates the 40 days that Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness and the terrible suffering and death that He endured on our behalf.

Incidentally, such a period should make us grieve over the mess we make of our lives, the crazy choices we make. But does it mean the fun is over? The Mardi Gras? Is it now time to get sorrowful and guilt-stricken? No fun, no smile until Easter is over?!?

It is true that through our prayers of self-examination and repentance our faith grows and our walk with God improves. It is also true that such a period gives us a wonderful opportunity to refresh our faith and commitments to God

But how to do this is not very clear to us. How should we do this? Many may choose to take extreme measures of self-deprivation, Many even literally choose to carry the cross, and be beaten, hanged like Jesus did…

Well, Pastor Rick maybe it was not a good idea to arrange for fellowship lunch today. We should have declared a compulsory fast.

I am not so sure it would work great, I am not sure it is a good idea to do a sorrowful prayer season. And today’s sermon is not going to be fire and brimstone – but rather it is going to be about God’s steadfast and gracious love.

(“Left to Tell” – Immaculee Ilibagiza)

Some time in April 1994, in the tiny African country of Rwanda, a young university girl wrote to her father requesting him to allow her spend Easter holidays on Campus so that she can catch up with her studies. Her father wrote back and said:

My darling daughter,

I feel like school has taken you from us, your mom and I wait so impatiently for your vacation to begin because it means we can have you home and live like a family again. We need your presence, we love you and we miss you terribly. Even if it is only for two days, you must come to see us. (39)

Without wasting time, the girl embarked on the journey home to the village. This turned out to be a journey of a lifetime, a journey that would define her life, a journey that would change her life for ever.

Three days after her arrival at the village, the infamous Rwandan genocide began, and so did her journey for survival. She found refuge at the house of a pastor who hid her together with seven other victims in a closet- sized bathroom. For over three months, this became their home. They never saw the light of day. The cries of the dying and the wounded were a constant reminder of what would happen to them if they were discovered. The killers kept coming, ransacking the pastor’s house, calling out her name. They knew she was there but they couldn’t find her.

The genocide lasted 100 days, within which a million people lay dead. When the young girl and her friends finally left their hiding place, they were confronted with the pain of freedom: death and destruction were all around. Her mom and dad were dead, her two brothers also, and many of her friends and relatives.

(Noah and the Ark)

Noah’s episode is yet another story about how the world almost came to an end. It is a story of another calamity and how the floods wiped out a whole generation. God was angry and his first reaction was:

And the LORD was sorry that he had made humankind upon the earth, and it grieved his heart. So he said, “I will blot out from the earth the human beings I have made – people together with animals and creeping things and birds of the air, for I am sorry I have made them. (6:5-7)

All people died, but Noah, his family, and representative animals were spared. We don’t grasp the horror of that story because of the way it is told. We don’t grasp the horror of the Rwandan story because may be we were not there.

I do not want to imagine what was going on in Noah’s heart during the horrifying 40 days of the flood. I do not want to imagine what was going on in the mind of the little Rwandan girl in the midst of mass murder around her either.

But all I know is that when it was all over, when the floods were gone, when the murders had stopped – something had happened to these people, something deep and strong. Although they had stepped into a freedom so painful, they held on to something so powerful: the promise. They walked out with God’s unqualified promise – “Never again!” They were free, free from so many hungers.

Then God said to Noah and to his sons with him, “As for me, I am establishing my covenant with you and your descendants after you, and with every living creature that is with you, the birds, the domestic animals, and every animal of the earth with you, as many as came out of the ark. I establish my covenant with you, that never again shall all flesh be cut off by the waters of a flood, and never again shall there be a flood to destroy the earth.” (9:8-11)

(The Covenant – Jesus Christ)

It does not matter where we are stepping out from, but where we are stepping towards. It is not about what we are turning away from, but where we are turning to. It is also not about what enslaves us, but rather about what sets us free. It is about the covenant.

God said, “This is the sign of the covenant that I make between me and you and every living creature that is with you, for all future generations: I have set my rain bow in the clouds, and it shall be a sign of the covenant between me and the earth. (9:12-16)

As we observe this period of lent, as we commemorate the days that Jesus spent fasting in the wilderness and the suffering and death He endured on our behalf, let this period be neither a time of sorrow and grief, nor a reminder of our dreadful and painful past, but let it all be for and to our freedom. The Bible says “it is for freedom that Christ has set us free”. This is a period of God’s deliverance. It is a story of redemption.

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.” And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him. Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news of God, and saying, “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near; repent, and believe in the good news.” (Mark 1:9-15)

Jesus Christ is the everlasting sign that forever seals God’s promise, the rainbow in the clouds that points to God’s love, grace and patience. Jesus is the rainbow in the clouds that makes a drastic shift of our lives away from God’s judgment toward God’s loving compassion.

The rainbow symbolizes far more than just that the rain has stopped and that the floods are gone. It is in itself a symbol of God’s everlasting grace, the coming of Jesus, the Light of the world; and it means that we are not trying to earn or deserve God’s favor, rather we are just trying to respond to a gift that is already ours. Let this period not be a struggle to earn or justify God’s favor, let it be a period of response to God’s gracious and enduring love.

Let us know that God already loves us, and that He has already blessed us. Let us want to know Him better and want more of Him, let us find out what is holding us from fulfilling God’s purpose and intentions and know if we are living up to the sacrifice already made for us

Let this be our major concerns during this first Sunday of lent, and let Isaiah 58:6-9 be our guide during this fasting period.

6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?
7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter-
when you see the naked, to clothe him,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood?
8 Then your light will break forth like the dawn,
and your healing will quickly appear;
then your righteousness will go before you,
and the glory of the LORD will be your rear guard.
9 Then you will call, and the LORD will answer;
you will cry for help, and he will say: Here am I.

Ref.
Ilibagiza Immaculee, Left To Tell: Discovering God Amidst the Rwanda Holocaust, Hay House, 2006, p.39