Hear the words of the Collect for the Third Sunday after Easter:

Almighty God, who showest to them that are in error the light of Thy truth, to the intent that they may return into the way of righteousness; grant unto all those who are admitted into the fellowship of Christ’s Religion, that they may avoid those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same.

May the words of my mouth, and the meditation of my heart, be alway acceptable in Thy sight, O Lord, my strength and my redeemer. We pray in the name of The Father, and of The Son, and of The Holy Ghost. Amen.

Does anyone like everything that God has to tell us all the time? I know I do not for the simple reason that I am a sinner and I do not like it when I am corrected for my errors. However, having said this, is there any other way that we can be removed from the sins of our daily lives without first being told that our actions are wrong? The answer to that is of course no.

The mantra of the world today is that there is no ultimate truth. Well if this is so then there cannot be an ultimate good either, which means that there is no God at all. The world we live in today that tells us that all truth is relative and that compromise is what we should strive for in any conflict resolution or difference of opinion, which is a political resolution not a truth resolution.

However there is a very key word here that needs to be pointed out. That word is opinion, and in fact every opinion is a personal one. Personal opinions are not questions of truth, they are questions of a persons understanding of a truth, or better yet of The Truth.

Our opinion of this question concerning truth is one of the reasons we are in this Church instead of one of the myriad of others. We, as Anglicans, recognize that the Church has provided us with the accumulated knowledge of five thousand years of thought, discussion, and synthesis concerning the revelation of God to man. This includes the initial revelation of God to man in the Old Testament, the life, death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ in the Gospels, the writings of the Apostles in the epistles, both making up the New Testament, the Reformation and Counter-Reformation, as well as the Churches meditations on all these factors and how they interact with each other.

There is no possible way that a single human being in their lifetime could amass this much understanding of God and His revelation to man as is currently available. We all build on the knowledge we have received from our predecessors. Some of this knowledge we understand, some we think we understand, some we do not understand, and some we will never understand, even when we are in Heaven with God Himself.

It is when we think that we understand that we are in the greatest danger of being in error. Truth does not depend on our understanding. Truth does not change if we disagree with it. Truth does not change period, and the ultimate truth of God can never change, for this is one of the attributes of God – unchangeableness. To paraphrase Ephesians 4:14, God is not, “Carried about with every wind of doctrine.” He does not change because we want Him to. Or to put it another way, “What part of thou shalt not do we not understand?”

The Collect for today is a prayer for God to show us where we are wrong so that WE MAY, and again I say MAY, my emphasis added, make the changes in our life to avoid and refrain from sin and return to righteousness. God will not force us to change our ways. We are the ones who must change our minds so that we may change our lives. We are to, as the Collect says, “avoid those things that are contrary to their profession, and follow all such things as are agreeable to the same.”

This leads us directly to the next question we must ask ourselves, “What is it that we should avoid in our lives?” Here Saint Peter gives us a short list of actions that we are to avoid as contrary to our profession of Christianity. The first is ‘fleshly lusts.’ Now this does not just mean sex, it means anything that is a normal need of the body blown out of all proportion, just like “normal is to excess,” so “like is to lust.” It is like the necessity for food becoming gluttony, or rest becoming slothfulness.

Secondly we are to speak honestly with everyone. We are to be especially careful in our speech when people are attacking our way of life. Peter tells us that we are to make sure our lives answer any accusation. If someone calls us a liar, how do we respond? Answering questions like this are like trying to answer the veiled accusation, “Do you still beat your partner?” No matter how we answer it we lose. However if our lives are open to scrutiny the question will need no answer for anyone hearing the accusation will answer it for us with a loud NO! This is what the apostle means when he writes in 1^st Peter 2:15:

That with well doing ye may put to silence the ignorance of foolish men.

Following God’s Truth checks our lusts, has us do good works, and answers any accusation. It all works together for our own good.

This is just the point that Jesus is making to the Disciples in the Gospel lesson for today. Here our Lord is warning them that there is pain and loss coming in the future. Yet they are not to be sad about it for in the end their joy will be of such a magnitude, and confidence, that no one will ever be able to take it from them. They will live for the rest of their lives with it, and they will even carry it into the world to come.

Jesus uses the example of a woman giving birth to a child. There will be labor and discomfort for a time. There will be intense pain for a time. Yet the result is the birth of a child into the world, and while the process is not pleasant, the result certainly is. If this were not so then none of us would be here today.

Let us ever remember the words of our Lord Jesus Christ recorded in the last verse of the Gospel for today. John 16:22 tells us:

And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.

Let us ever strive to correct those areas of our lives that are not in accordance with our profession. Let us seek the correction of The Holy Ghost to show us those areas of our lives that need it and let us then bear the short pain of correcting ourselves that we may forever bear the joy of being with Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

Amen,

The Rev. Canon John Jacobs