postID: 6965; title: The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
groupKey: secondary
groupKey: other
The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
Almighty and everlasting God, give unto us the increase of faith, hope, and charity; and, that we may obtain that which thou dost promise, make us to love that which thou dost command; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Proper 25)
Array
(
[date] => 2016-10-23 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 1336
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => formatted
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2016-10-23 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2016-10-23postID: 60386 (Saint James of Jerusalem)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 60386; date_type: fixed; year: 2016
fixed_date_str: October 23
fixed_date_str (mod): October 23 2016
formattedFixedDateStr: 2016-10-23
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 60386
displayDates for postID: 60386/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-10-23
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6965; date_type: variable; year: 2016
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6965
displayDates for postID: 6965/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-10-23
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2016-10-23 with ID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost
Array
(
[date] => 2016-10-23 16:00:00
[scope] =>
[year] =>
[month] =>
[post_id] => 1336
[series_id] =>
[day_titles_only] =>
[exclusive] => 1
[return] => simple
[formatted] =>
[show_date] =>
[show_meta] =>
[show_content] => 1
[admin] =>
[debug] => 1
[filter_types] => Array
(
[0] => primary
[1] => secondary
)
[type_labels] => Array
(
[primary] => Primary
[secondary] => Secondary
[other] => Other
)
[the_date] => 2016-10-23 16:00:00
)
2 post(s) found for dateStr : 2016-10-23postID: 60386 (Saint James of Jerusalem)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 60386; date_type: fixed; year: 2016
fixed_date_str: October 23
fixed_date_str (mod): October 23 2016
formattedFixedDateStr: 2016-10-23
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 60386
displayDates for postID: 60386/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-10-23
)
postPriority: 999postID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
--- getDisplayDates ---
litdate post_id: 6965; date_type: variable; year: 2016
Variable date => check date_calculations.
=> check date_assignments.
=> NO date_assignments found for postID: 6965
displayDates for postID: 6965/year: 2016
Array
(
[0] => 2016-10-23
)
postPriority: 3primaryPost found for date: 2016-10-23 with ID: 6965 (The Twenty-Third Sunday After Pentecost)
The reading_id [310123] is already in the array.
No update needed.
Scripture citation(s): Hebrews 12:12-24
A Sermon by
Fr. Spurlock
on
Hebrews 12:12-24
✛
The blood of sprinkling that speaketh better things.
Array
(
[0] => 60773
)
book: [60773] (reading_id: 310123)bbook_id: 60773
The bbook_id [60773] is already in the array.
No update needed for sermon_bbooks.
The passage that was read to us from the Epistle to the Hebrews mentions five figures from the Old Testament, three of them are people Abel, Esau and Moses, and two of them are Mountains, Sinai and Zion.
Cain murdered his brother Abel. When God confronted Cain with his crime, the Lord said that Abel’s blood was crying out from the ground for vengeance.
Esau was the firstborn son of Isaac, but in a moment of epic shortsightedness, Esau traded all his inheritance, and advantages as a firstborn son to his younger brother Jacob, later to be renamed Israel.
Moses was called to lead the descendants of Israel out of bondage in Egypt, and to mediate a covenant between God and the people.
Mount Sinai is where that covenant was mediated. And it was an awesome and terrifying experience. The mountain was dark and burning, there was the terrible blast of trumpet, and they heard God speak for the first time in their lives. It was an experience they did not want to repeat. Please, they begged Moses, we’ll let you speak to us, but don’t let God speak to us anymore! But as he would later confess, Moses was just as terrified as the people. Deut 9.19a
Hebrews explains that the reason the people did not want God to speak to them was not because of the fire, thunder, trumpet, or even the sound of his voice—it was because “they could not endure that which was commanded.” What God was speaking were the terms of the covenant. And these were the terms: God and the people would enter into a special relationship governed by God’s law given to them on two tablets of stone. The Lord said, I will be your God, and you will be my people, if you do what I command you to do. And what he commanded them to do was to love one another and to love God. Practically, that meant not to lie, murder or steal, not to worship false gods, respect God’s name, and set aside a day of worship and rest, just to name a few of the laws.
But as awesome as Sinai proved to be, it was never intended to be Israel’s final destination, nor was it to be their definitive experience of God. Their destination was a forty years journey towards a city at the foot of another mountain. Moses and the people stopped at Sinai to receive what they needed in order on toward Mount Zion.
Unlike Sinai, smoldering and thundering, Zion was “the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem… to the general assembly and church of the firstborn… and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel.”
But of course they had not come to that city at all. Yes, they had come to the geographic destination of Zion, but the people had not come to the spiritual destination of Zion that God desired for them. Jerusalem was an earthly city, rarely at peace, not even at unity with itself. They had come to the earthly Jerusalem, temporal, finite, and fraught with all the frailties of the cities of men.
So, this is what the writer to the Hebrews has set before us:
Abel was an innocent victim whose blood cried out for vengeance.
Esau was a firstborn son denied the blessing and inheritance that was his by right.
Moses was the terrified mediator of a covenant that he could neither make nor keep.
Sinai was an awesome experience of God, but terrifying.
Zion was the Promised Land, but the people did not/could not live up to their end of the promise.
This experience of law, land, and God held true until such a time that God divined to establish yet another covenant with his people. He would do so by sending his first and only son, Jesus, into the world.
God’s son was the inheritor of all the advantages and promises that a firstborn son is entitled to. He received the Father’s blessing as was his right. Jesus spoke to his father, and he heard his father speak back to him. Some who heard these words thought it thundered, but to others, and to the son they heard words of kinship and blessing.
And though he was an innocent victim, nailed upon a cross, Jesus was content that his blood be shed by his own kin. But when his blood was sprinkled on the ground, it did not cry out for vengeance, but covered the sins of his killers, and his kin, and of anyone else who sought to live in relationship with him by faith.
And in doing so, do you see how Jesus transforms, and perfects the experience of God under the old dispensation? He is a new and perfect Abel, murdered by his own people, yet not vengeful, but merciful and forgiving.
He is the perfect son in relationship to the father, and through faith in him countless others, though at one time separated by race, creed, geography, and even death, are adopted, united and constituted into one spiritual family under the sovereignty of Christ. Jesus, unlike the terrified Moses, is at once the courageous author, mediator and finisher of this new covenant.
In light of this, why do we allow ourselves, who are so often divided and enslaved by sin to dwell at the foot of our own spiritual Sinais. We tremble before God, fearing his words, imagining all sorts of condemnation and horrible punishments for our pitiful and unimaginative sins. Or we ignore our misdeeds altogether, bravely asserting that there is no sin, there is no God, there is no hell, there is no heaven; all, equal and heinous lies we tell ourselves. Why do we do that, when what is set before us is a perfect and final destination already brought within reach?
Just a little bit of faith, the kind of faith that cries out, I believe, Lord help my unbelief, brings you unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn, which are written in heaven, and to God the Judge of all, and to the spirits of just men made perfect, and to Jesus the mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling, that speaketh better things than that of Abel. By faith, we have already come there, where Jesus bids you peace, and boldly to ascend.
