Archived Messages

17^th March 2010 (LENT)

 Dear Members and Friends of BRMC,

 Greetings in the precious Name of Jesus Christ!

 Lent culminates in Holy Week where we remember the last 7 days of  the earthly life of Jesus.  Now we will ‘Survey the wondrous Cross.’ ‘No Cross, No Christianity!  To preach is to announce the Cross; to worship is to come to God, at the Cross; to believe is to trust in the One Crucified.  It is impossible to imagine Christianity without the Cross!’ (Thomas Oden) Without Calvary, what purports to be ‘Christian’ preaching can only be rightfully described as ‘sub-standard’ and ‘inauthentic’.

Remember Marlowe’s dramatic story - Dr Faustus? It tells a gripping tale of one who sold his soul to the devil, signing the contract with his own blood, in return for which he was to have everything he wanted in this earthly life.  For the next 24 years, Faustus had a grand time gratifying every personal wish for wealth, power, wisdom and pleasure.  Unfortunately, all ‘good’ things come to an end. Faustus had hoped for an eleventh hour repentance but it was not to be.  As the clock struck twelve, a horde of devils came to drag the screaming victim away.  Thomas a Kempis wisely said: ‘Many worry about living a long life but few are concerned with living a good life!’ Consequently, Calvary challenges our compromising, morally loose lifestyles.  Afterall, the Cross is the visible, tangible resistance of Holiness against Evil to the point of death!  In fact, Jesus crucified is an ‘Act of a Holy God rigorously opposing moral evil around!’ (Oden)

Holy Week, therefore is the time to ask if we are following Jesus or are we more like Dr Faustus in our daily choices.  But living according to the values of the Cross is risky. Yet, the Cross carries it’s own inner logic: ‘He/she is no fool who gives up what he/she cannot keep in order to gain what he/she cannot lose!’ Taken together, the Cross and the Resurrection is a tangible declaration of Jesus’ defeat of all that is Evil. !  He is Alive! Christus Victor! St Thomas Aquinas gave 5 reasons for the Resurrection of Jesus. 1. Because justice required that the humbled be exalted. 2. Because faith in Christ’s divinity is thereby kindled. 3. Because it gives believers hope that they too will rise again. 4. Because by it we too may die to sin and walk in newness of life. 5. Because only by the resurrection is God’s saving work on the Cross confirmed! In fact, in the light of Easter the Cross is no longer, primarily, a gruesome symbol of torture and death.  Rather, it has been redeemed and transformed into a New Creation – a symbol of Harmony.  In the teaching of St Gregory of Nyssa: ‘the four arms of the Cross converging in the middle is a picture of the Christ who binds all things to Himself and makes them all one.  Through Him the things above are united with things below and the things at one extremity with those at the very opposite end!’ Truly, in the heart of Easter the world is reconciled and made new!   

On behalf of all my fellow Pastors, the Rev CS Wee David, the Rev David Wee BH, the Rev Noel Goh, the Rev See Swee Fang, the Rev Terence Yeo and all our loved ones, together with all the Leaders and Staff (Pastoral and Admin) of BRMC, may I wish you one and all – Blessed Good Friday and Happy Easter 2010.  See you in church for Holy Week 2010.  Christ has Died! Christ is Risen! And Christ will surely Come Again!  Hallelujah!

Grace and Peace

 Rev Malcolm Tan O.S.L
Pastor-in-charge
Barker Road Methodist Church