John 14: 15-27
15 ‘If you love me,
you will keep my commandments. 16And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Advocate, to
be with you for ever. 17This is the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it
neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, because he abides with you, and
he will be in you.
18 ‘I will not
leave you orphaned; I am coming to you. 19In a little while the world will no longer see me, but you will see
me; because I live, you also will live. 20On that day you will know that I am in my Father, and you in me, and I
in you. 21They who have my commandments and keep them are those who love me; and
those who love me will be loved by my Father, and I will love them and reveal
myself to them.’ 22Judas (not Iscariot) said to him, ‘Lord, how is it that you will
reveal yourself to us, and not to the world?’ 23Jesus answered him, ‘Those who
love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to
them and make our home with them. 24Whoever does not love me does not keep my words; and the word that you
hear is not mine, but is from the Father who sent me.
25 ‘I have said these
things to you while I am still with you. 26But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my
name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you.
27Peace
I leave with you; my peace I give to you. I do not give to you as the world
gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled, and do not let them be afraid. 28You heard me say to you, “I am
going away, and I am coming to you.”
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
This morning is the
first week in a new sermon series. Graham and I are about to preach for four
weeks taking Saint Patrick’s Prayer as our focus. So I started my research. I
asked my friend Peter, who was raised a good Irish Catholic, to tell me everything
a good catholic would know about Saint Patrick. Peter was baptized Peter Paul
Donovan so you would think that he would be a wealth of knowledge. But the only thing he could remember
was that St. Patrick drove the snakes out of Ireland. That was the sum of his knowledge on the subject! Faith and beggorah! Our feeble protestant knowledge is just
such a wee poor thing as well.
So the first thing
is to remedy our ignorance and get a sense of who St Patrick was and why would
this prayer be attributed to him.
St. Patrick was born in the early 5th century and was raised
in Roman England probably in the west near the coast. His father was a deacon; his mother was fairly well
connected, so it sounds like young Patrick was lucky. The early middle ages didn’t
have a middle class but if they did Patrick would have been comfortably in that
class. But a great misfortune befell young Patrick. At the age of about 16,
Irish pirates kidnapped him. The
blackguards scooped him up and sold him into slavery to a druid high priest in
Ireland. And there he stayed as a
slave for six years. His job was
as a shepherd and though Patrick had never been particularly religious before
his enslavement, he experienced God in prayer on those hillsides. One night he
had a dream that he should go home. He feared a beating if he was caught but he
escaped and persuaded a ship to take him away. The ship crashed on the coast and Patrick and his shipmates
walked and starved. But Patrick prayed for God’s help and shortly after they
came upon a herd of wild hogs. So they had dinner and Patrick’s stock when up
in the eyes of his fellow castaways. St. Patrick ended up walking over 200
miles to get home. And he came home a changed young man. Now in his early 20’s he studied to be
a priest. As he grew more mature
he had another dream in which the children of Ireland were calling to him to go
there as a missionary. And Patrick went using the shamrock of Ireland to
illustrate the trinity and converting kings and regular folk. St Patrick never forgot his experience
as a slave and a captive. He was
one of the first church figures to speak out against slavery. That is what we
know of St. Patrick.
Now let’s turn to
the prayer. The St. Patrick prayer is also called St. Patrick’s Breastplate.
This prayer that has Christ before and behind and above and below and within
has made Christians through the ages think of Christ’s protection. The form of
the prayer really is similar to Druid incantations that were known at the time.
How typical of St. Patrick to use a form that would have been so familiar to
his Irish converts to reuse and repurpose that form for Christ. At it’s most basic we can think of this
prayer as calling on Christ to be all around us, as Christ protecting us, hence
the name St. Patrick’s Breastplate. But St. Patrick would have thought of this
prayer as more than protection. He
would have thought of it, as the way God is – not describing what we are asking
God to do, but what God is already doing. And that understanding is quite
different from a simple prayer to God to surround us and keep us safe. Christ is within as near as the words
on our lips and the beat of our heart.
This morning we will be looking at that particular aspect of the prayer,
Christ within.
But this idea of
Christ within is really not as common in Christian thinking as you might
assume. Maybe it is not so foreign
at Calvin as Quakers and mystics have influenced us. But in the larger church, we might think more often in terms
of ‘We are in Christ’ and not so much ‘Christ is in us’. The bible uses both term. Both terms
are true. But so often the church
has just focused on getting all of us to be in Christ. As though Christ is a baptismal pool
and if we can just get everybody to dip in a finger then we are in Christ. The emphasis is on US joining in
Christ. The focus is on US coming into the baptismal pool, the saving light or
even the church. Like we get to join the Jesus Club but then we can just be
lapsed members. Perhaps our
emphasis on our own sin makes the thought of Christ within so unlikely.
In another way we
think of our church, meaning all of us, as ‘the body of Christ’ but that is the
collective whole of us. We often remember ‘that where one or more are gathered
in Christ’s name then Christ is there.’
Does that then mean that if you are by yourself that Christ isn’t there,
that you are just flat out of luck? An understanding of Christ within means
that alone or in a crowd, with believers or without, Christ is there with you.
We often feel ourselves too undeserving for Christ within. So we rely on the church, the gathering
of lots of believers to be the body of Christ. Scripture tells us that we are
the Body of Christ. But that does
not mean that we as private, flawed individuals are not also able to invite a
life with the Christ within.
Another the habit of
protestant faith that sets the idea of Christ Within on the back burner is that
we get very focused on the externals.
We believe that Christ died for our sins. This is focusing on the historical
actions of Jesus to step in on the cross for us. We hear that Christ is a
substitute for us before the father.
This is a very external and even legalistic understanding of Christ. All
that Christ did is important but it is external to us. It sets what Christ did as outside of
us.
Jesus was plainer
and more personal. In John 14:20 Jesus says he will send a comforter and helper
to be with us. In John 17 Jesus
goes on and on about him (Jesus) being in you (the disciples and all who believe)
just as the Father is in Jesus. Jesus turns this ‘I am in you and you are in me
and the father is in me and I am in him’ phrase over and over. The words tumble about and mix I and
you and Jesus and the Father so that WITHIN is the main point Jesus is
making. Paul writes just as
plainly, “Don’t you know that Christ is in you? (2 Cor.13; 5)
This is also the
thoughts and devotional writing of many of the most revered and respected
saints of the church. Here are some examples;
"Our
Lord Jesus Christ...became what we are, so that He might bring us to be even
what He Himself is." - Irenaeus c. 180 AD
"The
man of God is consequently divine and is already holy. He is God-bearing and
God-borne." - Clement of Alexandria c. 195 AD
"God
became man so that man might become God." - Athanasius c. 325 AD
I
guess having Christ within asks a big question. What difference does it make to have Christ within? The reality of Christ Within makes a
tremendous difference at the hardest spots of life. For St. Patrick abducted, lonely and enslaved it made the
most profound difference. Christ
within lit lonely nights on the hills, helped Patrick see the possibility of
escape and ultimately led him back to Ireland, to his abusers, to work for
there own healing, salvation.
Christ within speaks when there are no other voices to be heard in the
darkness.
This
same experience of the presence of Christ within has come to others down
through the ages. It has come to me and Graham and many of you. An example of this is the AP journalist
Terry Anderson. On March 16 1985 the day before St. Patrick’s Day, Terry
Anderson was kidnapped at gunpoint in Lebanon. He would be the longest held hostage by the Hezbollah. He was beaten, threatened daily with
death, kept in isolation much of the time, denied medical care and used as a
pawn in middle-eastern politics for seven years.
The days passed into
months, the months into years, and eventually Anderson felt so low that he had
no choice but to turn everything over to God. During his captivity,
he spent a lot of time assessing his life, and realized that he
was arrogant, abusive, and not the man he should be—the man that God
created him to be. In the midst of a lonely room, isolated from all
others, he repented to God. Let me share with you what he says about his
own repentance. He said, “I can’t do this, God. I’m finished.
I surrender. There's nothing I can do to change anything, nothing
anyone can do. And it’s just going to go on, and I can’t do it. Help
me. There’ no reason why you should. Don’t we always turn to you
when we’re in trouble, and away from you when things are good? I’m
doing the same. But you say you love me. So help me.
So
far down. My mind so tired, my spirit so sore. And more to come,
more and more. I just can’t do it. But at the bottom, in surrender so
complete there is no coherent thought, no real pain, no feeling, just
exhaustion, just waiting, there is something else.
Warmth/light/softness. Acceptance, by me, of me. Rest.
After a while, some strength. Enough for now.”
This
is a Christ Within experience. We are so fortunate probably none of us will be
kidnapped and held hostage. But
for each of us there comes those times of darkness and isolation. It is in those times that Christ within
is the difference between life and death, hope or despair. St. Patrick found
this Christ within, so did Terry Anderson and so have so many other people of
faith.
I
would like to end with a fragment of a poem called Faith that Terry Anderson wrote from his book, Den of Lions.
Sometimes
I feel
all the world’s pain.
I
only say that once
in my own need
I
felt a light and warm
and loving touch
that
eased my soul
and banished doubt
and let me go on to the end.
It
is not proof—there can be none.
Faith’s
is what you find
when
you’re alone and find you’re not.”
Amen
