by Rev. Ernest O'NeillDo you remember the scene that took place about 2000 years ago in that park outside the city of Jerusalem? Darkness had fallen and in one corner of the park there were a few peasants lying on the ground, sleeping and then a little way off from them, there was another youngish man on his knees, praying, and then suddenly you heard the trump of soldier's feet and the darkness was shattered by all those flickering torches and a group of soldiers and religious leaders began to move towards the group of fishermen who were lying on the ground sleeping. When these leaders approached, the fishermen suddenly sprang up and ran to their leader and circled him. Then one of the fishermen decided: "Well, I'm not going down without a battle!", and he just drew a sword and slashed out and cut an ear of one of the servants of one of the priests. You remember how the leader remained absolutely calm and he touched the man's ear and healed it and spoke to Peter and said: "Put up your sword!", and then He turned round to the attackers and said: "Are you coming against me as against a thief and a robber?"Do you remember how He accompanied them to a whole night of brainwashing and third degree examination, of beating and pressuring and questioning? Do you remember how that terminated in a stumbling, crawling, bloody journey to a hill outside the city of Jerusalem? Yet, throughout all that charade of the soldiers buffeting, striking Him and through all the insults, whipping, spitting and through even the tearing of the hands by the nails as they put them on to the cross, there rose from that miraculous man no anger and no resentment. He had nothing, but tender love for those people who were torturing Him so that even at the very end, rather than feeling resentment against them, He actually spoke to His Father who is The Creator of the Universe and He said: "Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do!"Now, most of us here have no difficulty imagining how Peter felt and most of us here would have great ease in pulling our swords out and cutting away at anybody who would attack us or would attack our friend. Indeed probably many of us are surprised to find some of that anger and resentment rising within us even over the Iran crisis! Indeed, probably there isn't one of here who would not say that we have felt that retaliatory anger and resentment rising up within us, when people have shown us a far milder form of hatred than they showed to this man, Jesus.Probably most of us would say, when others have whispered about us in the office, said something untrue about us, something that wasn't right. We found that it rises up within us, an anger and a hatred that startles even us! When the boss criticizes us utterly unjustly, or comes to believe that we're lazy or inefficient and we aren't and there rises up within us a spirit akin to hatred at times. This also happens when we think of how unjustly we're being treated. We have incredible problems with imagining how we could possibly be spit upon and have our faces slashed with whips and be shown the contempt that was shown to that Jesus! How could we ever be insulted the way He was, and yet still have a tender love and kindly well wishing for the people who were torturing us?Probably that's true, isn't it? We have no difficulty identifying ourselves with Peter, but even in our day to day lives we have incredible difficulty identifying ourselves with Jesus' attitude. Loved ones, the people in the first century were no different from us! They were the same! They were Jews who knew that they should behave like a lamb or a sheep before his shearer that is dumb and opens not his mouth. They knew should be like that! They knew they should be patient, they knew they should return good for evil, they knew they should love, even when they were cursed. They knew that! They knew what the Law said, but they found that the good that they wanted to do and they should do, they couldn't do. The evil that they hated, the resentment and the anger that they found rising inside their hearts, when anybody criticized them or opposed them, that was the very thing they did.They were exactly like that and yet those men and women of the first century ended up living and behaving exactly like Jesus - thousands of them! Thousands of them began to speak out fearlessly as He did, despite the overwhelming ability of the Romans to utterly crush them! They spoke out courageously what they believed to be true, even though the Roman Emperors covered them with tar and lit them and used them as torches in their garden parties. These ordinary men and women continued to speak what they believed was true and to say what this Jesus has said with the same calmness as He had. They bore the opposition and the persecution and the crucifixions that He bore.They kept doing it, year after year. They and their children made an impression on the pagans and the Jews of that time as a gentle, loving people who treated their Creator and trusted Him as their own dear father and who were absolutely fearless in the face of what men could do to them. Now, why, why were they able to do that? They behaved exactly like this man, Jesus, when they were as puny and weak and fearful as most of us here. Peter explained it when he was speaking in public one day and said: "We are witnesses to these things and so is the Holy Spirit, whom God has given to those who obey Him!" That was the explanation of the miraculous change in their lives. That's the secret, loved ones, to living the way we were made to live.All of us were made by our dear Creator to live the same way as Jesus did. We are fulfilled and complete when we do that. Now the key to living that way, the way we were meant to, is by His Holy Spirit. We are to live by the same Holy Spirit that enabled Jesus to continue to show tender love and kindliness to the Roman soldier who thrust a sword or a spear through his side. It was the Holy Spirit moving inside Jesus, who enabled Him to ask his Father to forgive the very people who were jeering and mocking Him, saying "He saved others, why can't He save himself?" It was the Holy Spirit, who enabled Jesus to have peace and calmness in His heart, as the arresting party moved in upon them. It is the Holy Spirit that brought these things into Jesus. Loved ones, He said it Himself. He said in the temple, "The Spirit of the Lord is upon me and He has anointed me to preach the Gospel to the poor, to free the captives." It was the Holy Spirit that did that. It was God's Spirit!Jesus had to be willing, you see, for Him to do it! Jesus had to be willing. He had to be willing to obey God and He had to be willing to accept anything that God was willing to let Him face. Jesus had to be willing for that! He had to be willing to face whatever opposition God allowed him to face. He had to be willing do die in the garden or on the cross! He had to be willing to obey God. He had to put his life into the hands of The One who had made that life and He had to say: "Lord, I'll do it Your way, whatever You want!" So Jesus had to be willing for whatever God wanted Him to face. Yes, Jesus was willing, but it was the Holy Spirit who created in Him those attitudes of love and patience and courage and endurance. These responses were the result of the Holy Spirit within Him!That may seem wild to you, your know, that Jesus, while living on earth was actually as helpless as you and I are now. The secret of His power was the Holy Spirit! It was the Holy Spirit that enabled Jesus to be like that. He explained to his disciples, "When I go away I'm going to send the Holy Spirit to you and you wait in Jerusalem. Don't leave Jerusalem! Wait there for the promise of the Father, which you have heard from me! I told you He was going to give you another gift and you know that John the Baptist baptized you with water for the remission of sins, but you're going to be baptized with the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes upon you, you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and Judea and Samaria and to the other most parts of the earth." That's the disciples did! They got together and they waited for the Holy Spirit to come upon them. Every time anyone asked Peter or the other Apostles, "How do you receive the Holy Spirit?" Peter would say, "Listen, God gives the Holy Spirit to those who obey Him, to those who are willing to live as God wants them to."God gives His own Spirit and His own Spirit miraculously creates in them the same love that Jesus had. See, loved ones, you can't produce that this kind of love, you can't! It doesn't matter what you or I do. It doesn't matter how many books we read, it doesn't matter how we try all those little tricks! Let's try to think of the good things in our dad, all the good things in our colleague. Let's try to think about the good things in that dear woman that is always gossiping about us! We try all those little tricks and we try to think: "Oh, yeah, think of the good things, yeah, her hair, her hair looks ok, yeah. She has nice hair!" It doesn't matter. All you can produce is what Plato and Socrates produced, a willingness to accept them. Now none of your own thinking will ever produce the love of a father who wants the very best for them and who is willing to die for them. You can't produce that love! That love is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. That's what Paul said. He said, "the Holy Spirit sheds abroad in our heart the love of God" and that love is different. You see, from that old mere acceptance of the old classical philosophers, they had no idea of forgiveness. Their idea of forgiveness was, I blot out from my mind the face of my enemy, so that I do not hate him. Now this love is different! This love is patient and kind. It is not jealous or boastful. It is not arrogant or rude. It is not irritable or resentful. This love does not insist on its own way. It believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things and it never ends and that's the love that the Holy Spirit gave to Jesus through all that ridiculous murderous brutal charade leading up to His death.Jesus said: "This Holy Spirit will do exactly the same in all of you!" He'll create that same love in you so that, just as we're able to say today: "Jesus was not jealous of boastful. He was not arrogant or rude. He was not irritable or resentful. He did not rejoice when others were wrong, but He rejoiced when others were right. He believed all things and hoped all things and endured all things." So, loved ones, it is possible for you and me to be described like that? Now, could you say that? Could you put "I" in the subject position in that sentence and could you say at the moment: "I am not jealous or boastful", "I am not arrogant or rude", "I am not irritable or resentful", "I do not insist on my own way", "I am not glad when others are wrong, I am glad when others are right", "I believe all things, I hope all things, I endure all things"? Now, loved ones, we were made to be like that! That's what God made us to be! Forget the cynicism, forget the mess and monstrosities we've made of ourselves! Forget the ridiculous norm that we've lowered society to! That's what we were made to be like! The tragedy is, most of us only get a glimpse of it! When we fall in love and even that is only momentary! Even that is only a momentary self-forgetfulness, as we fall head over heals in love with somebody. Is that terrible? Is that a tragedy? That we were made to live that way throughout our lives, experience only a moment of it, so that even the phrase is known: "Oh, he's in love, because he is different from all the rest of us, but soon he will get back down to a miserable life like the rest of us!"Isn't that a shame? Isn't there something tragic that we, human beings look at a wedding and we look at the fun and we think of the evening they'll have together and we think back to maybe the evening we had and we so often think: "Oh, that is not real life!" Now, loved ones, real life is full of tenderness and love and kindliness and understanding. It's a monstrosity of life that is filled with bickering, irritability, anger, criticism and conflict. You see, Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would create that love in you and me! If you sit there and say: "Well, I'm not like that at all", that's right! Nor am I like that on my own! The Holy Spirit creates that love in us. All you and I have to do is to be willing, but we do have to be willing, that's true. Now, if you say: "Well, to be willing to depend on God alone, well, I'm not! I like to depend on myself! I like to get some of my kicks from the good things that happen to me. In fact, I am pretty dependent on the things that happen to me for my happiness. I am pretty dependent on the things I own for my feeling of safety and security. I do like to prevent any pain that may be coming my way and I do like to control my life.Well, loved ones, it is true that unless you identify yourself with Jesus and you are willing to trust God the way Jesus did for those things, the Holy Spirit cannot come into you. Here is the miracle, if you are willing to be identified with Jesus, if you're willing to forget all this business of what your possessions do for you, what your stocks and shares do for you, what the approval of your friends do for you, what the acknowledgment of your peers does for you, what the approval of your relatives do for you. If you are prepared to turn your eyes for a minute away from those things and simply deal with Jesus and decide, are you willing to be identified with Him? Are you willing to say to Him: "Lord, You do seem to be the Son of God! You apparently have made all things and without You nothing was made that was made and it's just logical that you made me and your position on the cross does not seem very safe or happy to me but I can see that if You're the origin of the Universe I'm better with you than with anybody else, so Lord, what does it mean for me to be identified with You? What will it mean for me to be crucified with You?" - more
