Heaven and earth connect

Introduction

About six years ago I was regularly going to a small non denominate church in a village called Great Cornard.

I wanted to tell you about an evening when we had a prayer meeting. I was there, with Rachel and a few other people from the church in what was a regular evening of open prayer.

Now I am not one to experience amazing supernatural experiences. Some of my Christian friends had amazing conversion experiences, with visions/dreams and experiences that change their life forever. Not so for me, by comparison my conversion at 15 years old, although changed my life, can hardly be compared to a Damascus road experience.

I was sitting in that room whilst people were praying and all of a sudden I got a picture in my mind. Now, I know all of our minds wander during prayer sometimes - and that is true particularly during lengthy prayer meetings! You start to think of your dinner, walking the dog etc etc !!

But on this occasion the picture was clear, vivid and totally unexpected. The picture that I got was a church down the road that I had never ever been to. It was a church of England church and I could see the spire. I had never been to that church because it was, well, to be honest pretty dead. There was not much happening there. A few people went, but I didn't know them. And the picture began to change and a light began to shine from the spire and flood the neighbourhood in this golden light. And somehow I knew that light was the light of Christ shining out into the neighbourhood, flooding it with his love.

My instinctive reaction was 'How can Gods love come from that church?' Can anything good come out of it? !

Now I didn't mention it to my curret church at the time because I did not think it would have been very motivational for them at that moment. 'Guess what. I have had a vision that the church down the road is going to impact the community with Gods love!'. They should have been pleased I guess, but not in the place to hear it at that time.

When I told Rach afterwards she stunned me by saying that she had exactly the same picture in her mind during the meeting. Then I knew it was from God.

Happy New Year and Happy Epiphany !

I hope you had a good Christmas period and managed to get some rest and catch up perhaps with family.

We , like many of you, got the dreaded ‘aussie flu’ from boxing day onwards that has still left us with symtoms now. And of course, as you know us men get it worse than anyone else!

But mercifully I was well enough for the Christmas services and really enjoyed this year the journey through advent. It began with the children of the Christmas Experience and their wonder, as schools came in their bus loads onto Wookey farm.

It continued to our Christingle services and then our carol services.

We had a lovely series of Sacred space evenings, culminating in the barn of the Christmas Experience where some of us gathered for meditations. It was cold but really brought it to life!

And by the time I got to midnight I was really up for it - it is one of my favourite services of the year.

Then something happened that I really shouldn't be surprised about - God showed up!

More precisely, God revealed himself to me in a new way. It may be because I was tired and didn't have the energy to put a ‘front’ up, this lovely British veneer that we have all perfected!

But as I administered communion that night there seemed to be a large amount of people at the end who just wanted a prayer of blessing. And as I went down the praying for people I suddenly felt completely overcome with the love of God.

As I carried on praying for people I was moved so much that I found myself weeping a bit , not really sure what I prayed but then tried to pull myself together again for the rest of the service.

It was although for a brief moment, a connection had been made between heaven and earth in praying for these people, and once that has been made - you don’t want to break it.

Whats that got to do with our gospel reading this morning? Well lets look at it in greater detail.

Well, when I read Jesus' call to Philip and Nathaniel this week in preparation for this service it reminded me a lot of that night in the way it explains this connection between heaven and earth that exists.

Let me try and explain, whilst we look at our Gospel passage this morning.

It could be argued that Philip is one of the least known disciples, Johns gospel is the source of almost all we know about him.

The first two followers of Jesus came to him because of John’s witness, and Peter was encouraged to follow Jesus by his brother Andrew. But here for the first time we see Jesus taking the initiative directly. Jesus found Philip and invited him personally. And Philip in turn invites Nathaniel, telling him that this is the one the prophets have told about - the messiah. Jesus of Nazareth.

The subsequent dialogue is one of my favourite comedy moments in the bible - and I think it is supposed to be a comedy moment as well! Nathaniel replies 'Nazareth ! , can anything good come out of Nazareth?! Then one cryptic sentence from Jesus back about seeing him under the tree and suddenly he is a believer, proclaiming him son of God ! But what Jesus says afterwards is very serious..

“You believe because I told you I saw you under the fig tree. You will see greater things than that.” 51He then added, “Very truly I tell you, you will see ‘heaven open, and the angels of God ascending and descending on’ the Son of Man.”

Here Jesus is alluding to a story in Genesis... of Jacobs ladder. Remember that one?

It goes like this… Jacob , Tries to trick his brother Esau out of his birthright and his fathers blessing . Esau in return tries to kill him and Jacob leaves in a hurry

Jacob is penniless and poor and now homeless, and has a dream. he see’s a ladder with its foot on the ground and the top reaching heaven. God's angels were going up and down it. Lord stood beside him, and promised him he would bring him back to his land in peace.

Ladder showed Jacob God was with him, he even called the place 'Bethel' (Gods house).

Became established as a sanctuary of Israel. early worship was carried on . And it was seen after that where God is worshipped, then God becomes really present - this image of Angels coming and going making a link between heaven and earth.

A lot of Johns gospel is concerned with telling us how Jesus fulfils promises made about the temple. How God will go on to be present with his people.

So Jesus here is saying if you follow me 'you are going to see what Jacobs ladder and temple are pointing to, when heaven comes to earth' and even more than that, Jesus describes the Angels ascending and descending on him. Jesus himself is the connection, the ladder between heaven and earth.

Phew ! What an answer to Nathaniel.

When he hung out with Jesus, he was in the house of God itself.

To follow Jesus around meant that he saw that connection between heaven and earth every single day. Following Jesus was the same as dwelling in the temple.

And its the same for us today. When we worship God in this wonderful building that has been prayed in for generations then we make a connection between heaven and earth itself. God makes that connection.

If we decide to follow Jesus, to base our life on his teachings, to pray to have a relationship with him. We get to glimpse the house of God.

And occasionally, it will overspill into a most unexpected area of your life, at a time when you least expect it! , a connection that is overwhelming. It might happen in a quiet way that you could easily miss, or you might just feel overwhelmingly the love of God as I did during midnight mass.

And its so easy to rationalise it out. Just as Nathaniel tried to 'can anything good come our of Nazareth?' Just as I did that evening 'perhaps I was tired?!' Just as we all do when we are presented with something, an experience, a feeling that is not of ourselves.

So we must look for those moments, those connections, in our prayers, bible study, in the sermon, in bed. Because the more we follow Jesus, the more we live this life of faith, the more likely it is to happen. sometimes it could just be an overwhelming sense of Gods love - I say just because that can reduce a grown man to tears! It might even be a vision like what Jacob had that God is with us. Sometimes it might be a calling, something that will change your life.

And that prayer evening was one such moment for me and Rachel. We started to notice that church a bit more. A new vicar came shortly after and things started to happen. Attendance quadrupled in the first year. I began to feel a calling to do something else… cynical old me asked 'can anything good come out of the church of england?!' and well that is another story but six years later, three house moves on I am standing here now in front of you with a dog collar on! And just as God began to call me by that picture he also did through other people , so also be alert to what your friends are telling you !

I sometimes wish that God spoke to us all like he did Samuel in our old testament reading this morning. But you know what? I don't think I would have believed it if he had of done to me. The calling of Philip and Nathaniel tells us that he calls us in different ways, at different times and for different things. that we may find it difficult to accept. But ultimately if we follow Jesus things begin to get a little clearer if we wait and watch for him. We get a glimpse of the house of God, a taster of what is to come!