Readings: Genesis 3: 17-24 & Revelation 22:1-6
17 To Adam he said, ‘Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, “You must not eat from it,” ‘Cursed is the ground because of you; through painful toil you will eat food from it all the days of your life. 18 It will produce thorns and thistles for you, and you will eat the plants of the field. 19 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.’ 20 Adam named his wife Eve, because she would become the mother of all the living. 21 The Lord God made garments of skin for Adam and his wife and clothed them. 22 And the Lord God said, ‘The man has now become like one of us, knowing good and evil. He must not be allowed to reach out his hand and take also from the tree of life and eat, and live for ever.’ 23 So the Lord God banished him from the Garden of Eden to work the ground from which he had been taken. 24 After he drove the man out, he placed on the east side of the Garden of Eden cherubim and a flaming sword flashing back and forth to guard the way to the tree of life.
22 Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb 2 down the middle of the great street of the city. On each side of the river stood the tree of life, bearing twelve crops of fruit, yielding its fruit every month. And the leaves of the tree are for the healing of the nations. 3 No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. 4 They will see his face, and his name will be on their foreheads. 5 There will be no more night. They will not need the light of a lamp or the light of the sun, for the Lord God will give them light. And they will reign for ever and ever. 6 The angel said to me, ‘These words are trustworthy and true. The Lord, the God who inspires the prophets, sent his angel to show his servants the things that must soon take place.’
Teaching:
Welcome to our service on the 12th day of January. Happy new year to those of you I haven’t spoken to already!
I’m not going to ask for a show of hands, but I wonder how many of us here made new year resolutions? And equally, how many of those resolutions are intact, less than two weeks into 2025? Believe me, I am not here to shame anyone. I have given up on the idea of writing a list of resolutions, mostly because I know that many of them are likely to fall rapidly by the wayside, and be long forgotten until the dark days between Christmas and New Year come around again.
The New Year is, however, a good time to pause and reflect on where we are at, it is a time when many people are trying to turn over a new leaf, where the excesses and mistakes of the past can be reversed, where we hope to have beach perfect bodies in good time for our Summer holidays. This week I was chatting with a colleague, who is a regular gym goer, and she said that she could barely get through the doors of the gym this week. Everyone has signed up, everyone has decided to join spin classes or CrossFit, and the majority of them will be sitting in February trying to get out of their membership contracts.
Online there are so many miracle fixes being advertised – a quick look on Facebook this week had people offering me cures for obesity, fatigue, insomnia, baldness (as if!) with easy ways to drink more water, stretch, run a marathon, monitor blood glucose and two miracle ingredients that drop fat. New hobbies, get aways, holiday destinations, gadgets – you name it, the world is keen to give us all a chance to improve ourselves. At a cost.
In the spiritual realm there is always a benefit in having a health check – not so much for how low our cholesterol is, but more in seeing how closely we are walking with, and becoming like, Jesus. Today is simply an introduction to the series which Jonny has suggested, so it will be broad sweeping by necessity, and even the individual topics are going to be an overview. On the 1st of January many of us may have taken stock of how much damage the mince pies and roast potatoes have done by standing on the scales. In the same way it is beneficial to take a snapshot of where our spiritual lives are, today, and to see where we want to be.
Our readings today weren’t just designed to make (Laura/Jacqui) turn the entirety of the Bible across as part of some strange work out. I have chosen them because they give us a glimpse of where we have come from, and where we will end up. In a sense the readings are the entirety of Scripture, simply with about 31,000 verses skipped for time purposes.
So where are we?
The Genesis passage tells us of how Adam and Eve were removed from the Garden of Eden, and from easy fellowship with God and with each other. They ate forbidden fruit from the tree of knowledge, and that disobedience condemned them and their descendants – us – to painful, back breaking toil and suffering on earth. Angels took up post to prevent them returning to the paradise where they had lived.
We continue in this hard, difficult world today. We here in the West are unbelievably blessed with access to modern medicine, food, accommodation and so forth, but many around the world are living in incredibly hard and difficult environments. All of us remain vulnerable to sickness and will eventually face physical death, unless the Lord returns first. Our world contains sin, injustice, poverty, famine, hatred. Even as Christians we are not immune.
That is a pretty bleak picture I have just painted for you, don’t lose hope!
The New Testament reading is an entirely different story. Much of Revelation is difficult to understand and has many different interpretations, many of which have caused division and strife in the church. This passage, though, is pure joy. We are not in this place yet, but as Christians Jesus has promised us that one day we will be. We are privileged to read the account of St John, who was given a vision of the glory to come.
What do we have? There is a reversal of the exile from Eden. Angels show John our future destination, rather than keeping us from accessing it. There is the tree of life – that tree that God prevented Adam and Eve from eating from – where there is free access to it’s fruits, and whose leaves will heal the nations. We will see God’s face – the exile, God turning away from Adam and Eve will be over, we will live with him and reign with him forever.
Our readings therefore cover where we came from, and where we will, gloriously, end up. Where are we now?
Over the next 10 weeks or so we will be looking at different aspect of our health. This will include spiritual, physical, mental and emotional health. We will also look at healthy relationships, finances and vocations.
That is a broad spread.
In my day job I deal with various aspects of physical health. I am a pharmacist, working in a GP practice, and I spend a lot of time with people ensuring that they are appropriately, safely and adequately treated for medical conditions. While I can, hopefully, ensure that we are managing their care well, there are often occasions where my generalist knowledge is insufficient. I am very happy to manage blood pressure, but obviously if someone needs surgery, I will send them to someone who is trained and able to help them. In the same way it is very important that we realise that sometimes we may not be able to help ourselves. As we look at where we are standing today, it is certainly likely that a good assessment will tell us that we need to get help from elsewhere. That could be speaking to a family member, someone in the church, Jonny, or even a secular health care provider for medication.
With that proviso, that sometimes we need to ask others for health, where are we standing now?
Well, we are in the middle of our two readings. We are living in a fallen world, and we continue to suffer and see the effect of the fall. If we are Christians, we know, however imperfect that vision is compared to the reality, where we will end up. We will have all our hurts healed, all our tears washed away, we will live and reign forever with the Lord.
In summary we haven’t quite shaken off the effects of the fall, and we don’t yet have the joy of physical face to face fellowship with God. We are, however, extremely blessed.
What happened between the Old Testament fall and the New Jerusalem, our destination, is, of course, Jesus.
He is the reason we live in hope.
Adam and Eve broke everything, Jesus, the new Adam, fixed it.
The people offering quick fixes for weight loss and health improvement on Facebook make incredible claims, the vast majority of which are inflated, unlikely, or just plain lies. They also all want to make money, so they have fairly significant costs associated with them.
Restoring fallen humanity to fellowship with God is a mighty big claim, and there was an immense cost associated with it. That cost is far more than any of us can pay, however Jesus paid it all for us, in his sacrifice on the cross. He has paid our dues and if we accept him as our saviour, he guarantees that we will, one day, walk in glory with him under the tree of life. All that mankind lost, and more, will be restored. That, for Christians, is where our journey will end. We have that confident hope and assurance – the angel of God told St John that those words are trustworthy and true.
Why should we make any efforts?
If Jesus was to tell me that I would have a perfect body at the end of the year, no matter what I ate, how much I drank and how lazy I was, then I probably would over eat, over drink, and lie around even more than I already do.
In our Christian life we have responsibilities, though. We are here on Earth, we will not be perfect this side of Glory, but we are part of the body of Christ, his church. We have responsibilities to each other, our brothers and sisters in Christ, and to show people who don’t yet know Him what life in Christ is like.
We need then to take stock and, with the support of God’s Holy Spirit, attempt to become more like Jesus. As we look at each of these topics, then, please approach with an open, honest mind, and prepared to change, to spend more time in his word, in his work and with his people. If you need help – so do we all. There is no shame in reaching out to someone who has walked that path before, who can hold you up and help you grow, even as you do for others. We must, because of Jesus’ sacrifice for us, work hard to emulate him, to build his church and to shine his light in the darkness around us. We can do it with hope. Jesus’ promises are not an expensive, yet futile quick fix. They are life, restoration and hope. We can look to him, secure in the knowledge that one day we will reach the glorious future he has prepared for us.