Friday of the Sixth Week of Easter Yrs 1 and 2 2025
Easter • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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· 8 viewsThe world does not want Jesus’ authoritative teaching nor living like Jesus and this can make Christian life painful. But it would be a lack of love not to speak and live Jesus’ teaching. This sets us up for life like a woman in labor, conflict and pain in the present but hope in the coming of Jesus. So pray “in Jesus name,” asking the Father to produce in his time and way the life of Jesus and to give you anticipatory joy in the present time of tension.
Notes
Transcript
Title
Title
Christian Life is like a Woman in Labor
Outline
Outline
The world does not want to hear Jesus’ authoritative teaching
The world does not want to hear Jesus’ authoritative teaching
We see that when the pope or the USCCB or the like tell announce Jesus’ position on a moral issue. It is either spun to support a group’s own agenda or it is rejected as irrelevant, perhaps rejected with hostility. On the personal level the same thing happens: “don’t tell me what to do,” or “who do you think you are, goody two-shoes?”
Yet the Church must speak and work towards God’s type of justice
Yet the Church must speak and work towards God’s type of justice
It demonstrates Jesus’ type of just and righteous society in its own community, or at least should. It speaks to the larger community and uses its influence, money, and knowledge to affect change. It must do this to love the neighbor and it must do this to model Jesus to the world. But the world does not like this and makes it painful.
This means that the Church must live in hope
This means that the Church must live in hope
Hope is the expectation of the future, the inner assurance that Jesus will set things straight. Hope is in Jesus and not in ourselves. We live with frustration in our efforts, but we know that Jesus will come and then all will be well. Life in Christ is, says Jesus, like a woman in labor, for most a difficult time lived in hope of the joy of seeing that little face when their newborn is placed in their arms.
So watch how you pray
So watch how you pray
Ask for what Jesus would ask. If you do not know, ask him to show you. Then you can ask in his name with the hope that the Father will give you strength to endure the “labor” in joy or to bring his resolution to the problem at just the right time. In either case you know it will express his love for you and for others and will be worth waiting in hope for it.
