4th Sunday before Lent 2019. St. Paul’s Athens. Is 6, 1-8; 1Cor 15, 1-11; Luke 5, 1-11
Revd. Canon L W Doolan
3 locations; 3 time zones; 1 message.
The three locations are a thriving cosmopolitan city with a commercial port not a million miles away from us here; a lake side in a region called Galilee; and a magnificent temple, indeed the original temple of Solomon in Jerusalem.
The three time zones, working in reverse order, are the early 50’s AD when the Apostle Paul is thought to have written his letters to the Christian church in Corinth; about 20 years prior to that is the second time zone – namely the 3 year ministry of Jesus before his death and resurrection; and the third, a long time before that is about 800BC when the prophet Isaiah was working perhaps as a priest, in the great Temple of Solomon, the Temple that was destroyed in 587BC by Nebuchadnezzar, and which was never surpassed by the 2 temples built subsequently.
The three time zones represent, back in chronological order, the time before Christ, the time of Christ’s ministry, and the time of the church and Christ’s apostolic command to ‘go out’ and baptize, and ‘do this’ in memory of me when you worship together.
That is the historic and topographical backdrop to our three readings this morning. 3 locations; 3 times zones; 1 message.