You will have heard the dramatic news last night, that a moon rocket has been launched by Russia, and is speeding on its way past the moon, to be somewhere into outer space.
The question must arise to every mind: what does this year hold for us?
For we are aware of the overtones in the significant statement issued by the Russian news agency, that this satellite is forty times greater than any of those launched by the U.S.A.
And because we all know the heart of man — and our own hearts — how we wish for peace and yet find those tensions between ourselves and others, and a lack of peace in ourselves, we wonder: what will come of it.
Surely there is today not more excitement, but more apprehension than excitement. More dread for what immature mankind may unleash upon the world with the tremendous scientific knowledge which he has amassed, than joy for the positive achievements that physical science has brought to the aid of medical research and technical knowledge.
What are we to think as we face this year?
From the human side it is a pessimistic outlook, with nations facing each other with nuclear weapons and men vying among themselves, restless until their ideologies master civilisation.
But down the halls of time resounds this prayer for blessing upon a troubled community from the pen of the Apostle Paul, bringing with it again a new breath of optimism and positive note of joy:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
and the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit,
be with you all.
We use this only as a benediction — as a blessing at the end — and yet there is no greater word to start something with. Paul meant it as a start for the Corinthian Church.
Let us take it up then, and see what a start it can give us as we face this unique New Year.
To try to define grace is a most difficult job.
In English: favour, goodwill, mercy, pardon, the free gift of God, salvation, the state of reconciliation with God. All of these show part of the wonder which the word contains, but not all, because the grace of God is a matter of experience; and as we live with God we come to know what it is.
Listen to Paul’s words in 1 Timothy 1:12–17:
“And I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who hath enabled me, for that he counted me faithful, putting me into the ministry;
Who was before a blasphemer, and a persecutor, and injurious: but I obtained mercy, because I did it ignorantly in unbelief.
And the grace of our Lord was exceeding abundant with faith and love which is in Christ Jesus.
This is a faithful saying, and worthy of all acceptation, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners; of whom I am chief.
Howbeit for this cause I obtained mercy, that in me first Jesus Christ might shew forth all longsuffering, for a pattern to them which should hereafter believe on him to life everlasting.
Now unto the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only wise God, be honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.”
Look at the references in other places: grace means, among other things, forgiveness, salvation, gifts, strength, hope, faith and love, stability, promise, and glory.
We all need God’s grace. Why? Look about you. Look within.
Lady Macbeth had a drop of blood spilt on her lily-white hand, and not all the perfume of Arabia could take away the taint of it.
We all have the spot of blood on our hands. I do not mean we are murderers, but Jesus reminds us that there are stains in the human heart which place a person outside the pure fellowship of God:
“Out of the heart of man come evil thoughts, fornication, theft, murder, adultery, coveting, wickedness, deceit, licentiousness, envy, slander, pride, foolishness — and they defile a man.”
We all are conscious of weakness, failure, imperfection, in whatever forms they happen to show themselves in us. We may regard them lightly, but they remain, and effect us. And we all know the outreaching of our human nature for its perfection.
How can we expect peace when we are so inwardly war-torn?
We all have God’s grace. It is there for the asking and taking: forgiveness and salvation, faith and love, stability, strength, and hope.
Then there is the love of God.
Can our minds ever grasp what this means? We receive it, and are sometimes dumb with wonder, realizing its immense value to us.
Every now and again my own mind reels under the impact of the thought that the almighty God loves me. I say every now and again, because it is only occasionally that I am aware — confronted with the tremendous infinite power which lies behind the material and spiritual world in which we live.
I had one such experience last week, as I read the first of the series of this year’s Rieth Lectures being delivered by one of the foremost astronomers in the world — A. C. B. Lovell, who is director of Jodrell Bank Experimental Station.
Listen to what he says. This is mind at the end of its reach. These stars that hang in the heavens — they look so small.
And yet incredibly, this God, who created the elements of the atom by which the whole of our material universe is formed, and who incomprehensibly created this infinite universe, loves us — tiny specks on a small planet of a minute solar system, which is on the obscure edge of a comparatively insignificant nebulae, in a vast awesome space which, as far as we grasp, is without limit.
Can we take any greater thought out into the New Year with us?
In the tensions and stresses of a nuclear age, we know that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son. Does not the thought and the assurance of it put the cross-currents and winds of our earthly, temporal lives in a new light? Do we not thrill with gratitude and peace to realise that nothing can separate us from the love of God, which is in Jesus Christ?
And now, the last point in this blessing which catches us up into the life of order and eternity: the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
Fellowship, communion, participation in. Koinonia.
It is a fellowship which is transforming because it is rooted in God.
The fellowship which Paul prays for them is not a collection of people brought together because they have a common interest in religion. In fact, man has had nothing to do with the creation of this fellowship which Paul uses. It was formed by the living God who descended to man. God and Christ and man — and yet one by the Holy Spirit.
The relationship between Them is the basis for this fellowship, because Jesus is man. When we identify ourselves with Him through faith, our manhood is taken up into the Godhead, so that we may become partakers in the divine nature.
Jesus holds in Himself the fellowship of God, and when man meets Jesus in faith and acceptance, so God shares life with man. God is the source, and He imparts it to us in and through His Son.
We may see all this as we look at the meaning of this word. Koinonia is derived from an adjective, koinos. Now koinos in the Old Testament describes that which is not holy, but which is common or unclean. The courts of the Temple isolated the Holy of Holies, and they were intended to preserve that inner apartment which could hold God’s presence from contamination with what was koinos.
But Jesus came, and in Him God entered into koinonia with man, and all that was koinos was hallowed.
We can appreciate it more if we think of the word common. There are two meanings for the word common: a common thing, and a thing held in common.
Everything that was not of the sacred orders was common — unclean. But Jesus came and brought into the common the divine, and brought about the commonwealth of God; or, in the familiar words, the fellowship of the Holy Spirit, or the participation in the Holy Spirit, which is participation in the Body of Christ.
That is, men united to Jesus and to one another, experiencing in fact the first instalment of the life of the age to come, and endowed with gifts of the Spirit, by which they may further the growth and health of the Body.
This may sound confusing and like a juggling with words, but it is not. It is a glorious fact of experience: the experience of a countless multitude who can say, “We lie hidden with Christ in God.”
It is a humbling, as well as an exalting thought, that in the world of the atom and the universe of infinity, we have a place because we are united in a fellowship of reality with the Almighty, eternal, and Infinite Author of it all, and our Creator. There is no doubt that in one sense we are masters of the Universe, because we are partakers of the Divine nature.
It is suggestive that this prayer came at the conclusion of the stormiest of all Paul’s writings. He faced all sorts of errors and excess in the Church at Corinth. From immorality to disobedience. “I wrote to you out of much affliction and anguish of heart and with many tears.”
And against this sorrow and trouble, he sets this prayer which brings him back to hope and joy, laying bare the blessing that lies beneath the surface of the life of every man and woman of God. And a great starting place for us as we go out into this year.
Paul prays for it. God has planned it for us and waits to give it to us. It is for us to accept it and move out confidently with it:
The grace of the Lord Jesus Christ,
the love of God,
and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit.
We come to praise Thee, and worship Thee, O God, as we gather in Thy house, before Thy great throne of grace.
We give thanks to Thee, for Thou art good, and Thy steadfast love endures forever.
Thou alone doest great wonders, and by Thy understanding hast made the heavens. Thou hast spread out the earth upon the waters and made the great lights: the sun to rule over the day, and the moon and stars to rule over the night.
With Thy strong arm and outstretched hand Thou hast led us through the years.
In love and mercy Thou didst remember us in our low estate, and rescued us from our sin and from death, and hast given us life and joy through forgiveness and salvation.
Accept, we pray Thee, the praise of lips and the worship of our hearts, as we offer to Thee this hour before us.
Through Jesus Christ our Lord.
It is written:
The Lord is gracious and merciful,
slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love.
The Lord is good to all,
and His compassion is over all that He has made.
All Thy works shall give thanks to Thee, O Lord,
and all Thy saints shall bless Thee!
They shall speak of the glory of Thy kingdom,
and tell of Thy power,
to make known to the sons of men Thy mighty deeds,
and the glorious splendour of Thy kingdom.
So, in the spirit of gratitude, and with the desire to extend His Kingdom, let us bring our gifts to Him.
O God, stretch out Thy hand to save those who need Thee; and show us Thy love and mercy, that our hands too may be outstretched. For the sake of our Lord Jesus.
As this New Year dawns upon us, never let us forget that Thou art the Ancient of Days, and that Thy Kingdom is eternal.
We thank Thee for the memories of the year past: for material provision; for spiritual nourishment; for preserving us in peace. Thou hast been our refuge and our strength, a very present help in trouble, and we sing praises to Thee, our King.
We ask Thee to cause Thy light to dawn upon the dark places of this earth, where the light of Thy Gospel has not yet shone: among the depressed peoples, and those who have not — through ungovernable circumstances, or their station in life — had the opportunity to hear and respond to Thy love. Tribal peoples. Aborigines. Overpopulated lands. Those who are subject to racial prejudice.
May Thy light shine into hearts which are darkened in the midst of the light of Thy Gospel, where prejudice, greed, ambition, pride, blight lives and bring suffering to the innocent.
Lay Thy hand of power and courage upon those whom Thou hast appointed as Thy instruments: missionaries, ministers, school teachers, Christian politicians, administrators and governors, the Queen and Prince Philip, church workers.
Search our hearts, that we too may be compelled to search, and renew our vows before Thee, and in a new spirit of love and unselfish devotion, move in Thy world to do Thy will and hasten the coming of Thy Kingdom.
And if it please Thee to come in this year, may we be ready in every way to meet Thee.
For Christ’s sake we ask these prayers of Thee.
“Holy Father, keep through thine own name those whom thou hast given me, that they may be one, as we are…”
***
The Lord’s Supper is a fellowship of the Body and Blood. In it we enter into fellowship between God and man, and therefore into fellowship with one another.
The very point made in the sermon exists as a most important fact in the fellowship meal of our Lord.
The fellowship established here must not cease to be fellowship when we leave the Church building.
It must make us members one of another in all our daily life and in all our social relationships.
For us, there is no difference between worship and daily life.
The holy and the ordinary have become one through Christ.
He has sanctified the everyday walk by His own entrance into it. That is one purpose of this meal. It is to renew the fellowship, to strengthen it, to accept again the infusion of the Holy Spirit into our lives, and carry the salvation and redemption of Christ out into our lives.
There is a thought in verse that we might carry with us:
The trivial round, the common task,
Will furnish all we ought to ask;
Room to deny ourselves, a road
To bring us daily nearer God.
