St George's Cathedral, Cape Town

A sermon preached by The Revd Bruce W. B. Jenneker in St George's Cathedral, Cape Town, on the Fourth Sunday in Lent 2 March 2008.

Come, Jesus says, all you who are weighed down with trials and troubles, come, to me, Jesus says, and I will give you rest.

Come, all you who are thirsty, Jesus says, and here with me there is living water, gushing up to eternal life. Come to me, Jesus says, and you will never thirst again.

Come, to me all you who are hungry, come to me Jesus says, and here with me there is abundant food, without price, yours for the taking, never failing, ever free. Come, Jesus says, come to me, and have fullness of life, full to the brim, pressed down, running over.

How are we responding to this astonishing invitation, we who are stressed and harassed, overburdened with problems and full of anxiety? Are we running to embrace Jesus and the fullness of the promises he holds before us? Or are we tarrying on the outskirts of his offer, testing the waters. Are we hangers on, hedging our bets, keeping just close enough in case there is something in his offer? Or have we jumped in at the deep end, boots and all, unreserved and unrestrained, unable to hold back when he offers so much.

What are we doing, you and I, with the offer of amazing grace that is ours today and every day, offered by Jesus, to lift us up, to renew our strength, to make us soar like eagles when we grow weary, to run and not grow faint.

We know the heavy weight of life too well, it lies like millstones around our necks, weighing us down, sometimes crushing us. Like blind folks we stumble and fall in the dark, and cannot find our way. There is no light, no glimmer or twinkle. Pitch dark, all around. Perhaps it is money and our needs, or sickness and our fears, or our relationships – with parents, lovers, children, friends. Maybe it is loneliness and isolation, failure and rejection, depression and despair that has us in its grip. No matter what it is that has drawn the blinds, closed the shutters and switched off the light, we stagger like drunken sailors, blind as bats, in the encircling gloom. We know the heavy weight of life too well, it lies like millstones around our necks, weighing us down, sometimes crushing us.

What do we in the dark do about Jesus' offer of life-giving and life-sustaining light? Do we welcome its offer and embrace its power? Do we say, 'Yes, yes, yes! ' to the amazing grace that he offers? That is the question on this Fourth Sunday in Lent, what are you doing with Christ's stupendous offer of abundant new life?

O, that we could accept Christ's offer, understand it and surrender to it. But obstinately choosing the darkness and taking up residence in the gloom, we deny it, we challenge it and we reject it.

Denial comes easy to us. Dark, of course it's not dark, we say. It may be dark for other people, but it is not dark for me. I can manage, I can cope, I can handle this. There's nothing wrong with me. It is acceptance that is hard for us: accepting that we have led ourselves into the darkest corners of the earth, accepting that we don't know what to do or how to cope. It is accepting the offer of help that is hard. No matter how graciously the offer is made, or how much we need the help it offers, 'No thank you,' we say. 'I'm doing fine. I'm all right.' Denial comes easy to us in our blindness, it is acceptance that is hard. Lord, that we may receive our sight.

If it is true that we lack trust to accept the amazing grace that is offered to us, then it is also true that we are plagued by an arrogance that refuses to be subject to the truth of our situation. We refuse to understand the situation in which we find ourselves, we arrogantly challenge its reality, question its parameters and dispute its claims upon us. Not for us the honesty of understanding, not for us the candour of grasping who we are, where we are and what is actually happening to us. No for us it is the scepticism of probing questions, the hauteur of knowing better and having all the answers. We challenge, we don't seek to understand. We contest and argue, we don't seek for connections and give the benefit of the doubt. Trumpeting arrogance comes easy to us in our blindness, it is gentle understanding that is hard. Lord, that we may receive our sight.

If we are past-masters at denial and experts in the business of scepticism and challenge, then it comes as no surprise that surrender is very hard for us. To submit to Christ's offer with self-emptying faithfulness is very hard indeed, for we begin in denial and continue in arrogance. Our loyalty is to ourselves and our allegiance is to our own self-sufficiency. Even though we are stumbling about and falling down in the pitch-black darkness of our own making, we deny the truth, we challenge reality and we reject Christ's offer of amazing grace. Rejection comes easy to us, revelling in negativity and saying 'No,' – in our blindness we do these very well indeed. It is surrender that is almost impossible for us. Lord, that we may receive our sight.

There's a light upon the mountains,
and the day is at the spring,
when our eyes shall see the beauty
and the glory of the King.
In the fading of the starlight
we shall see the coming morn;
when darkness fades and we are bathed
in the splendours of Christ's dawn.

Lord, open our eyes that we may see you when your come to break into our darkness with the light of your love. Lord, open our eyes that we may recognise the gift of new life you bring. Lord, open our hearts that we may embrace with trust and joy the amazing grace you offer. Lord, that we may receive our sight.

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