Excellent attendances at both Masses today for the start of Lent. Over the next 6 weeks the Homilies will be focused on the Scriptures. So here is the first one:
Lenten Homilies AD 2009 - The Scriptures
Ash Wednesday – Revelation
On Sunday’s of Lent this year the aim of the Homilies will be to help us all understand more about the Scriptures; to learn about why they are important in the life of the Church and in the lives of individual Christians. In setting about achieving that aim it will be necessary to look at some significant factors as to how the Scriptures came to be compiled and as to how we use them. A full list of the Titles of the Homilies for each week can be found in the Lenten Leaflet at the back of Church.
On this Ash Wednesday evening, as we begin our Lenten Pilgrimage the title of the Homily is “Revelation.” Perhaps, this is the most important thing we have to come to understand for it is on this point more than any other that Christians have been divided over the Scriptures.
I want to start with a true story. At a Ministers’ Fraternal Meeting where all the local denominations were represented one of the free-church ministers was forever quoting chapter and verse of Scripture to illustrate every point he was trying to make and as he did so he kept laying his hand on his bible which was on the dining room table in front of him. In the end the local Roman Catholic Priest said, in a very gentle voice, “My friend, Our Lord came to found a Church, not write a book.” Very simple words, but very profound and they go to the heart of this matter of “Revelation”.
So what does the Church understand by “Revelation?” How does the Church define “Revelation?”
What she understands by this term is “God’s self-disclosure of himself to mankind” and the Church defines “Revelation” in a number of ways which fall into three basic types.
The first is revelation that is public. By this we mean a revelation that is evident to all, and this has two strands. The first is the Natural World around us, the beauty of creation that speaks of God’s creativity and power. Now, of course, in our present time there are a few notable biologists who would want to challenge this, but we should bear in mind two important points when people try to challenge us on this. Firstly, there are many, many scientists who do believe in God and, secondly, Darwin himself was far less reluctant to dismiss any concept of creation that certain current eminent biologists would claim for him. So we can still say that many people do indeed see God revealing himself through his creation as St Paul writes in his opening Chapter of the letter to the Romans. The second strand of this public revelation is what the Church deems “Supernatural” and that is divine speech.” God speaks to his people and he does this in two ways: indirectly through the prophets and the Old Testament, and directly through his Son, Jesus Christ and the New Testament. This way of understanding the Old and the New Testament we shall consider further later in this series of Homiles. For now though try to remember this difference between the Old and the New Testament: in the Old Testament we have the record of God speaking (revealing himself) indirectly; but in the New Testament we have the record of Jesus, God incarnate, speaking to us directly – which is why we stand to hear the Gospel, as we being addressed by Jesus.
Now having briefly considered revelations that are public we turn to revelations that are private. The Scriptures are full of examples of this type of revelation. In essence they are all supernatural, and by and large they are made to individuals. In some cases they are sensory such as Moses seeing the burning bush, or the various incidents where angels appear in the Old Testament, or as in Balaam’s experience of God speaking to him through his mule. Sometimes they are what might be deemed “intellectual” in that they come directly into the persons mind usually through a dream. The Scriptures give us lots of examples of God revealing himself, his purpose or his message through a dream. Jacob’s vision of a ladder at Bethel; Joseph of the sheaves bowing down to him; Pharaoh and the lean and fat cows; Nebuchadnezzar and of the statue made of gold, silver, bronze, iron and clay; Joseph dreams three times: a) told to marry Mary, b) told to flee to Egypt, and c) told to return to Israel; the Magi are told in a dream not to return to Herod; and Pilate’s wife had a dream about Jesus and warned Pilate not to have anything to do with him.
Many people claim to have had private revelations and on a few occasions the Church has approved them; for example St Bernadette of Lourdes.
These “private” revelations do not add to what the Church calls “the deposit of faith” – that is what Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church teach us.
There is another form of Revelation and that is through Visions and Apparitions. These are supernatural experiences where individuals or groups may see objects, but not necessarily understand them. Sometimes they may be bodily visions and if they are of God they are called “theophanies.” Examples would be the “Burning Bush itself, the Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night that the Hebrews saw at the Exodus from Egypt, and Gideon seeing the angel of the Lord himself place the tip of his staff on the cakes Gideon had made and the meat he had prepared and fire spring up and consume them.
So all these are ways in which God reveals himself and the Scriptures are the record of that revelation. Some Christians tend to put the Bible on the same level as revelation so you may hear talk of “the revealed word of God.”Well, “The Word of God” is Jesus himself – he is God speaking directly to us. The Scriptures are the record of that revelation, not the revelation themselves. This why the Roman Catholic priest reminded the free-church minister of a very important point of Jesus coming to found a Church and not write a book. The Bible contains the Scriptures we value them extremely highly, but they were deemed to be Scripture by the Church itself as she was guided by the Holy Spirit.
Now some, more liberal types, take this to mean that we can ignore what Scripture records, but the Church has never taught that and this is not what that priest meant. For the Church asks her children to understand the Scriptures in two ways:
a) The literal sense – that is the meaning, rightly interpreted
b) The spiritual sense – that is the deeper significance of the text, for example what the Old Testament records show us allegorically about Christ, and what the texts are saying to us about morals and how we should act justly, and also how we should understand the eternal significance of what is recorded.
The Scriptures are the record of God’s revelation of himself over a period of thousands of years until he fully reveals himself and speaks directly to us in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, power, dominion and all authority for all time and eternity. Amen.
Ash Wednesday – Revelation
On Sunday’s of Lent this year the aim of the Homilies will be to help us all understand more about the Scriptures; to learn about why they are important in the life of the Church and in the lives of individual Christians. In setting about achieving that aim it will be necessary to look at some significant factors as to how the Scriptures came to be compiled and as to how we use them. A full list of the Titles of the Homilies for each week can be found in the Lenten Leaflet at the back of Church.
On this Ash Wednesday evening, as we begin our Lenten Pilgrimage the title of the Homily is “Revelation.” Perhaps, this is the most important thing we have to come to understand for it is on this point more than any other that Christians have been divided over the Scriptures.
I want to start with a true story. At a Ministers’ Fraternal Meeting where all the local denominations were represented one of the free-church ministers was forever quoting chapter and verse of Scripture to illustrate every point he was trying to make and as he did so he kept laying his hand on his bible which was on the dining room table in front of him. In the end the local Roman Catholic Priest said, in a very gentle voice, “My friend, Our Lord came to found a Church, not write a book.” Very simple words, but very profound and they go to the heart of this matter of “Revelation”.
So what does the Church understand by “Revelation?” How does the Church define “Revelation?”
What she understands by this term is “God’s self-disclosure of himself to mankind” and the Church defines “Revelation” in a number of ways which fall into three basic types.
The first is revelation that is public. By this we mean a revelation that is evident to all, and this has two strands. The first is the Natural World around us, the beauty of creation that speaks of God’s creativity and power. Now, of course, in our present time there are a few notable biologists who would want to challenge this, but we should bear in mind two important points when people try to challenge us on this. Firstly, there are many, many scientists who do believe in God and, secondly, Darwin himself was far less reluctant to dismiss any concept of creation that certain current eminent biologists would claim for him. So we can still say that many people do indeed see God revealing himself through his creation as St Paul writes in his opening Chapter of the letter to the Romans. The second strand of this public revelation is what the Church deems “Supernatural” and that is divine speech.” God speaks to his people and he does this in two ways: indirectly through the prophets and the Old Testament, and directly through his Son, Jesus Christ and the New Testament. This way of understanding the Old and the New Testament we shall consider further later in this series of Homiles. For now though try to remember this difference between the Old and the New Testament: in the Old Testament we have the record of God speaking (revealing himself) indirectly; but in the New Testament we have the record of Jesus, God incarnate, speaking to us directly – which is why we stand to hear the Gospel, as we being addressed by Jesus.
Now having briefly considered revelations that are public we turn to revelations that are private. The Scriptures are full of examples of this type of revelation. In essence they are all supernatural, and by and large they are made to individuals. In some cases they are sensory such as Moses seeing the burning bush, or the various incidents where angels appear in the Old Testament, or as in Balaam’s experience of God speaking to him through his mule. Sometimes they are what might be deemed “intellectual” in that they come directly into the persons mind usually through a dream. The Scriptures give us lots of examples of God revealing himself, his purpose or his message through a dream. Jacob’s vision of a ladder at Bethel; Joseph of the sheaves bowing down to him; Pharaoh and the lean and fat cows; Nebuchadnezzar and of the statue made of gold, silver, bronze, iron and clay; Joseph dreams three times: a) told to marry Mary, b) told to flee to Egypt, and c) told to return to Israel; the Magi are told in a dream not to return to Herod; and Pilate’s wife had a dream about Jesus and warned Pilate not to have anything to do with him.
Many people claim to have had private revelations and on a few occasions the Church has approved them; for example St Bernadette of Lourdes.
These “private” revelations do not add to what the Church calls “the deposit of faith” – that is what Sacred Scripture and the Tradition of the Church teach us.
There is another form of Revelation and that is through Visions and Apparitions. These are supernatural experiences where individuals or groups may see objects, but not necessarily understand them. Sometimes they may be bodily visions and if they are of God they are called “theophanies.” Examples would be the “Burning Bush itself, the Pillar of Cloud by day and the Pillar of Fire by night that the Hebrews saw at the Exodus from Egypt, and Gideon seeing the angel of the Lord himself place the tip of his staff on the cakes Gideon had made and the meat he had prepared and fire spring up and consume them.
So all these are ways in which God reveals himself and the Scriptures are the record of that revelation. Some Christians tend to put the Bible on the same level as revelation so you may hear talk of “the revealed word of God.”Well, “The Word of God” is Jesus himself – he is God speaking directly to us. The Scriptures are the record of that revelation, not the revelation themselves. This why the Roman Catholic priest reminded the free-church minister of a very important point of Jesus coming to found a Church and not write a book. The Bible contains the Scriptures we value them extremely highly, but they were deemed to be Scripture by the Church itself as she was guided by the Holy Spirit.
Now some, more liberal types, take this to mean that we can ignore what Scripture records, but the Church has never taught that and this is not what that priest meant. For the Church asks her children to understand the Scriptures in two ways:
a) The literal sense – that is the meaning, rightly interpreted
b) The spiritual sense – that is the deeper significance of the text, for example what the Old Testament records show us allegorically about Christ, and what the texts are saying to us about morals and how we should act justly, and also how we should understand the eternal significance of what is recorded.
The Scriptures are the record of God’s revelation of himself over a period of thousands of years until he fully reveals himself and speaks directly to us in the person of his Son, Jesus Christ, to whom be glory, power, dominion and all authority for all time and eternity. Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment