Download Slide 1 - St James, Taunton

Living hope: Seeing, seeing and seeing...
What did Mary Magdalene see?
Simple physical sight
What did John see?
What did Peter see?
Then what did John see?
Three different Greek words
• Seeing – just plain physical sight –
Mary, then John at first
• Observing, taking in the scene – Peter
• Having insight – John saw and
believed
Where are you on your faith journey?
• ‘Seeing’ – head knowledge of God
through Jesus. Believing that he
existed.
• ‘Observing’ – wanting to work it out.
Seeing facts and trying to piece them
together
• ‘Seeing and believing’ – ‘Oh, now I see!
Now it makes sense!’
• Common question from new believers: ‘Why
hasn’t anyone told me this before?
– They probably have, but you couldn’t ‘see’ until
recently!
• Searching bravely – like Peter
– He soon got there
– Very soon, in fact – we’ll be looking at Acts in a
couple of weeks time
– Hang in there!
• Just ‘seeing’ that someone is there, perhaps
looking after you sometimes, but it’s all a
puzzle
– You want to believe
• Something else commonly heard: ‘I
wish I could have your faith’
– You can, and if you take a small step, you will
– Sometimes our minds are over-rational, and
want to work it all out until it is ‘proved’
– Mary and Peter couldn’t make any sense of it...
...at that time
– Perhaps you are like that. Let go a bit. Dare to
say, ‘OK, I don’t fully understand, but I’ll go with
it without full proof’
– God does know that is harder for some than for
others
There are times when even the strongest
Christian cannot feel they have proof...
So take hope in what Peter later wrote:
‘Praise be to God! He has given us new birth
into a living hope through the resurrection
of Jesus Christ.
The trials you may now have come so that
your faith may be proved genuine.
Though you have not seen him, you love
him; you believe in him. You are receiving
the salvation of your souls’
(1 Peter 1)
Seeing?
Observing?
Or... ‘Oh now I see!!’
‘Praise be to the God and Father of our
Lord Jesus Christ!’ (1Peter 1:3)