Lent Meditation on:

Speaker: The Revd Luke Ooi

St. Paul’s Church, Petaling Jaya

Friday, 12^th March 1999

I was asked to think with you on What has Jesus Christ done with special emphasis on what our response should be today? Instead of asking a question we should be looking at the fact of what has been done, is being done and will be done. What He has done, He has done all things well, always. The keynote is on the note forever.

In our NT Lesson for the evening, the 2^nd pt of Hebrews 7.3 reads: "…he has neither beginning of days nor end of life, but resembling the Son of God he continues a priest for ever." Also in Hebrews 13.8 we read: "Jesus Christ is the same yesterday and today and for ever."

What Christ has done - His loving care for the little children; His sympathy extended to the outcast and the excommunicated, the publican, the prostitute, the demon possessed and the dead; His ministry of teaching and healing, His special agony with the widow of Nain and the family at Bethany; His saving and forgiving words for the rulers and priests, for Pilate and Caiaphas, for His executioners and for the repenting thief on the cross. In all these He was sent to redeem the fallen humanity - those who suffer disappointment, displacement, dejection, disease or even death. His Mission to the changing world then may be expressed by three great words – Revelation, Remission, and Restoration.

Revelation: Christ came to declare the love of the Father’s heart. God has entrusted to Him the manifestation of His love. "Hereby we perceive the love of God, because he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brethren." His Words (Parables) and His Works (Miracles) both proclaim God’s Love.. "God so loved the world" is His message and every Christian knows it and able to recite this phrase and is duty bound to profess it.

Remission: Christ came to the world to express God’s redeeming love in the remission of sins, past, present and to come, and to prove that when men and women repent they will be fully reconciled to God. His priestly charge to the apostles is: "whose sins you remit they are remitted". Daily we are online, connected to God Himself in this Ministry: "forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us". So Christians are sent to take a share in this Ministry of Forgiveness. This is part and parcel of the work of Redemption through Christ. We are actually brought into partnership with Him who came "to minister, and to give his life a ransom for many".

Restoration: Recall Levi, Mary Magdalene, Zacchaeus; remember John and Peter and Thomas in their doubt, desertion and disbelief and then reflect on the millions of souls who have been fully restored throughout world history. (His Story). When we assist any friend or anyone to return to God, the Father, we are doing what Christ has done. Our service represents and continues His service.

In John 15.9 He tells us Himself: "As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you; abide in my love." He stands midway between God and Man (He is True God and True Man). The lines of communication between heaven and earth pass through Him.(NB: Prayers are offered through Jesus Christ) All that the Father has to communicate is first received by Him and then transmitted to us, while on the other hand He receives the love and trust and obedience of all Christians and passes them all on in turn to the Father. We thus enter into communion with the life of God Himself. (NB: Holy Communion means so much to the discerning Christian).

When one thinks of life in man as one thing and life in God as another, one has lost the key to the science of life. Spiritual life is not a series of springs but an ocean washing every shore. Life is the same in us as in God and this wonderful discovery is available to all who believe in Christ. The Life of the Divine Redeemer who is "alive forevermore" the same in love and power as once He was. The sinful today find Him the same Forgiver as of old; the ignorant find Him the same Teacher, the sorrowful the same Comforter, the despairing the same Deliverer, as He ever was. And what He is today the same He will be found in Heaven. Every faithful Christian, seeing Him as He really IS, will recognize at once the same Jesus Christ who has loved him or her.

In John 15.9, we have the fact of the passing on from the Father to the Son and from the Son to the disciple. What is passed on is the same life, the same love, the same mission, the same thing. We note this in His Priestly Prayer (John 17.18) "As Thou didst send me into the world so have I sent them into the world." Christ thus links the mission of His disciples to that which He received from the Father. The work of every congregation or the duty of every Christian is the outcome and continuation of what Christ has done, such as to reveal God, to remit sins and to restore the fallen.

John 20.21 reads: "As the Father has sent me" - the tense shows that the commission is still in force - "even so I send you" Notice the tenses of the verbs in this wonderful verse - they indicate the blessed identity between His mission in the world and ours in a very generative manner. Our work is the continuation of what Christ has done. The same meaning is found in the words He used on another occasion, when He said: "My father works hitherto, and I work" and later "we must work the works of Him who sent me, while it is day."

What then is our mission and commission? The Same. Nothing less than the same ministry. The emphasis is on the word "same", unchanging, forever, eternal.