Word of Salvation – Vol. 36 No. 23 – June 1991

 

The Lord Of The Land Of The Long Weekend

 

Sermon by Rev. A. I. De Graaf on 1Cor.15:58

Reading: Col.3:1-17; Isaiah 65:17-25; Romans 8:18-25

Singing: 313, 440, 337, 324, 526.

 

Beloved congregation,

New Zealand is known as ‘The land of the long white cloud’ but Australia could be called ‘The land of the long week-end’.  Apart from some oil-rich Arab nations, where all citizens are on a pension from birth to the day they die and strangers do the work for them paid by endless petrodollars, there are few countries in the world where workers enjoy so many days off as in Australia.

The land of the long week-end.  That not only points at the sweet conditions won for our nation’s workers by militant labour unions.  I am afraid it also points at the way your average Joe Blogsmith looks at ‘work’ done for a boss.  According to him ‘work’ is a particularly dirty four-letter word.  But really, is that so strange?  Ever since man fell away from God and reckoned he could manage without Him, man’s work is under a curse.  Genesis 3 says:

‘To Adam God said:
because you… ate from the tree
about which I commanded you:
‘You must not eat of it’,
Cursed is the ground because of you!
through painful toil you will eat of it,
all the days of your life.
It will produce thorns and thistles
for you…
By the sweat of your brow
you will eat your food,
until you return to the ground
since from it you were taken,
for dust you are,
and to dust you will return…!’

From this curse comes industrial unrest and work for nothing, a whole life’s savings eaten up by inflation, distrust and grumbling in the work place, and at the end of it all, that inevitable and inescapable grave that threatens to swallow us and all we stood and toiled for.

As Ecclesiastes writes: `What’s the use of all the toil we ploughed through under the sun?’  Especially when a culture seem to have had its hey-day, and forces of destruction seem to eat it all up from within, as bombs rip through buildings and youngsters burn the very schools built to give them a future.

When war is talked about everywhere, and populations no longer believe in the things that once made their nations great, there comes that query: Why work hard?  Why study?  Why save?  Just to make some money?  Today or tomorrow it will all be destroyed.  Why go to all that trouble?  You hear the stamping and the snorting of the red, the black and the ghost-grey horses of judgement.  And one wonders: why bother?  Yes… why?  To that question there comes an answer in that first little word of our text: ‘Therefore!’  That’s a famous little word in the letters of Paul: ‘Therefore…” You see, he has given a message here in 1Cor.15.

He has told an incredibly beautiful and at the same time shocking story: He has told the gospel of God’s great doings here.  But then he goes on and gives feet to that story.  The message of God never just hangs in the air.  You are supposed to do something with it.

Or: It does something to you and to your world.  You see, the message of this chapter of the Bible is that of Jesus’ resurrection!  His rising from the dead.  That unique and revolutionary happening there in that Jerusalem garden in which God once and for all crossed out the curse.  Also the curse of Genesis 3!  He who rose up from death rose up from our death; yours and mine.  And he didn’t do that somewhere up in heaven or in some faraway fairy-tale island.  He did that on this earth, where the congealed drops of His blood still spotted the stones of that grave dark red.  He started living again, and because He did so after having paid the full bill of our sins.  Death from that moment had to start rolling back, because our rebellion against God is the cause and only reason for our death.  Since Jesus did that, God His Father has become our friend and ally again.  And because of that I may have another look at all creation.  A bird of hope and expectation has begun whistling in our ears, and the tree of our future that had been ring-barked by our silly sin is now once more getting buds!

The door to our bad past is thrown shut with a bang, and the door to a new future opens wide.

We shall rise up like Jesus: the trumpet shall sound!  We shall all be changed!  And then Paul does not say: Okay because of that forget the show today, run away from it all and wait for paradise…!

Many mystics and well-meaning Christians have said such a thing.  But Paul says exactly the opposite.

He says:
Therefore, my dear brothers: it makes sense to go to work here!  Now it makes sense to give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord.  Because of what Jesus did there in that garden, it makes sense not to let yourself be discouraged easily, but to stick to it, to keep going doggedly; to stand firm.  Ah, you might say, I see what you mean: the work of the Lord… of course!  That’s church work: becoming Cadet counsellor or catechism teacher; sitting in a youth club committee or taking on work for the Christian school board.  And then you keep going even when the kids switch off and the oldies go all silly, and because of that you may go to heaven later on.

No, that’s not how Paul talks.  Even if the work of the Lord would be mostly work for the church even then the motivation that keeps you going is not that you want to earn heaven.  Not the holiday to come but the motivation is pure joy because of what has happened!  Therefore!!!’

The church belongs to Jesus, who overcame death itself.  Is He not able to help you lick the problem of misunderstandings about the Bible, or kids that switch off, or committee members that are cantankerous?  Surely, that too is the work of the Lord, that work you do there against all kinds of odds.  The church is there because of the message of the living Christ.  That is what the church may tell the world around it.  And to be part of that is exciting for everyone who has come to see what a fantastic message this really is.  That message of Him who was too strong for death.  Who by doing the whole job of reconciliation, pushed open, forever, the door to our future.

But again: that is not all that we should understand by `the work of the Lord’.  In Ephesians chapter six verse 5-9 we read of people in that large city: the slaves…

‘Slaves – he says – `obey your earthly masters
 with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart,
 just as you would obey Christ!
 Obey them not only to win their favour
 when they’re looking at you,
 but like slaves of Christ doing the will of
 God from your heart.’

Hear that?  So the work, like cleaning out stables or scrubbing the walls and windows and pots and pans there in the homes of those owners, with never a hope of promotion till they died, that was the work of the Lord.

Paul goes on:

`Serve wholeheartedly,
 as if you were serving the Lord, not men.’

Many centuries later Christians would abolish slavery but long before that slaves discovered that they were free inside.  The work they did made sense even in that corrupt system, because Jesus had overcome death.  And once that is done other things must follow.  So what does that mean today for you and for me?  Well, never mind what it means for me.  You see, to be in the work of the Lord does not mean that you must become a minister, even though that’s a fine and lovely thing when God has given you the gifts for it.  To be in the work of the Lord does not mean: nice for missionaries but too bad for fitters and turners.

To become a missionary is wonderful if that’s what God calls you to do, but for you the work of the Lord can be in that bank, under that cantankerous boss, or in that factory, at that lathe or with that soldering iron.  Climbing hot roofs in summer or digging a drain for a telecom cable.  The work of the Lord for you can be at that visual display terminal that glares at you with its never- ending messages on that green screen, or that hospital ward where somehow the work seems always more than one can cope with.

The work of the Lord… in finding those elusive dollars to make that nagging account balance, and wiping wet bottoms and snotty noses.  Work… maybe unpaid work you go looking for when you are on the dole.  In a world full of needs and miseries, a world in which your Saviour whom you know has come to plant the flag of hope.

Maybe that work of the Lord must be to help organise a strike when that is the last resort in a hard battle against injustice.  But it could also mean, all on your own, to stick your neck out and vote against that strike if that strike is not to serve justice but only greed.

‘Aw come on man!’ you may say, ‘what’s the good of it?  What can you do on your own?  The whole system stinks anyway!’  Yes, and there we have the difference that Paul puts in that one little word ‘therefore’.  For what did Jesus really do when He overcame death and destroyed the power of sin and the power of the evil one?

He became Lord of all of life, also of Australia.  He became the rightful Lord of the land of the long week-end and He will end up having it, whether you decide to be on His side or not.  That is the reason why a child of God never gives up.

Therefore, Christian parents dare to have kids and young people dare to have expectations and plans for Australia, to help make it a place where God’s justice is done.  This land does not belong to the Aborigines and not to the whites, it does not belong to the big companies or to the labour unions.  It does not belong to the politicians, not even to Bob Hawke however high his popularity rating may be.  It belongs to King Jesus; and one day every eye shall see that,

And therefore it is worth working under Him and for Him.  And says Paul in his parting shot here: that work then will not be in vain, that work will not be for nothing either.

That means that Jesus has done something about that curse of Ecclesiastes, that curse of Genesis three.  If you know that the future is yours, you will want to work, you will want to save, you can afford to wait.  For instance, for the day you can have your girl – i.e. when you are married in the Lord.  You can afford to wait for a good thing instead of grabbing it and making it go bad.  Jesus has the future: there always will be a tomorrow.  We build for eternity… but we do that here because eternity will be here.

It started in that garden near Jerusalem, where God produced the evidence that he hangs on to His earth.  You see, it is that way of being a Christian, which makes your faith exactly the opposite of ‘opiate for the people’.  It is no drug.  It does not put you to sleep, but wakes you up!  Keep going, mate, says your God: I have work for you to do.

Not that this Lord then begrudges you a long week-end.  When you know Jesus is in control you also know better how to relax.  You don’t have to sweat yourself into a heart attack thinking that if you don’t carry the can nobody will.

But you won’t live for your long week-end any more.  And going to work is also a joy, for you never go it alone any more.  Prophet, priest and king in the shop, that’s what you are!

You no longer live for your holidays, neither do you live for your work.  But you live for the Lord who loves you and whom you love.  And then you are really and truly alive.

AMEN