Gagetown Anglican

05/12/2026

ALL THINGS IN COMMON

“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold their property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”
These two verses from the beginning of the Book of Acts have inspired and haunted the church for 2000 years. They speak an ideal of human harmony and solidarity that we know, in our bones, should be true: that there should be no divisions of power or wealth among us. We belong to God and to each other, and that’s an end of it. This ideal survives to this day, precariously, in a thousand monasteries and convents. And if, beyond its cloisters, the Church has never been equal to this ideal, neither have we forgotten it. It haunts us still.

“All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold their property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”
So the early disciples lived, and the only way to account for it is the fact that Jesus had recently risen from the dead, ascended into heaven, and sent his Holy Spirit upon the people. This, they felt, changed everything. The disciples held the audacious idea that, if we have God, we have everything we need. If we have God, then everything else just gets in the way. So, they thought, we might as well share. The disciples trusted that when Christ rose from the dead, all creation was made new, and that their relationships should share in that newness. If they were united in Christ, why should they be divided by mere possessions?
Let us admit that the idea makes us nervous. We think of all we own, and can’t imagine giving it all away. We sympathise with the young man in Matthew’s gospel. Jesus tells him “’If you wish to be perfect, go, sell your possessions and give to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come, follow me.’ When the young man heard this, he went away sad, because he had great wealth.” Perhaps we, like this young man, do not wish to be perfect.
It has been argued that the idea of sharing all we have with others was easier 2000 years ago because the disciples believed that Jesus would soon return to Earth, and history would come to an end. Saint Paul, in his earliest letters, clearly believed that the second Coming of Christ would be a matter of weeks or months - a year at most. All earthly things, he believed, were soon to pass away. So why save for the future when the future might be only a few more days?
Well, we know better now, and I’m sure that if we could tell young Saint Paul that the Church would still be here 2000 years later, and that we are still reading his letters, he would be astonished. It is only in his last letters that Paul accepts that the Church must settle in for the long haul. As the years passed and the church grew in numbers, it had to start planning for the future. The church, when it was not suffering persecution, began to invest in real estate and property, and to ordain deacons and priests - people like me - and pay them a living wage. It was understood that the church, though its purpose is heavenly, must also learn how to live sensibly upon the earth.
The church therefore is a human institution, bound by history and time and circumstance. But we are also called to live in the light of eternity, as citizens of heaven. We insist that Jesus, through his Holy Spirit, has already returned to us, and that our eternal lives have already begun, on this side of heaven. So it is that the promise of heaven and the demands of earth continually come into conflict.
Consider the issue addressed by our Diocesan Synod last week. We have a Cathedral in Fredericton, very beautiful, very precious, that will cost us 20 million dollars to maintain. This we do not have, and the question, obviously, is should we keep it? Do we own the Cathedral, or does the Cathedral own us? Maybe we should just give the building away, to a secular foundation. Like the early disciples, maybe we should share it with everyone?
Or is it possible that we can be loyal to both a building made of stone, and a Kingdom made of human souls? Perhaps. Such was the uneasy decision we reached at our meeting. But it is a difficult question: how do we balance our earthly needs and our divine purpose? It is a perennial question, one that has shaped Christian history for the last 2000 years. It is also a deeply personal question, one that you and I will wrestle with for the rest of our lives. As Jesus said, “Where your treasure is, there your heart is also.”

”All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold their property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”
These verses have rarely been lived out by a community over a long time. But they have been lived by a few extraordinary individuals. So far as we know, Jesus in his adult life had no earthly home. He did not own land. He had no bank account, no Visa card. Instead, he lived on charity, which is another word for “love.” He gave away all he had, trusting his Heavenly Father to provide everything he would need, and this allowed him an extraordinary freedom.
“Let tomorrow’s problems wait for tomorrow” he counsels us. “Why do you worry about clothes? Look at the flowers of the field. They do not labour or spin. Yet not even Solomon in all his glory was dressed like one of these. If this is how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and tomorrow is thrown into the fire, will he not much more clothe you?” If today we celebrate Jesus as our Good Shepherd, it is because he promises to care for us in the same way.
Beyond Jesus, I suppose Saint Francis comes to mind. One day, in central Italy, back in the 13th century, wealthy young Francesco Bernadone went for a ride in the countryside on his horse. When it began to rain, horse and rider turned and headed for home, a warm fireplace, and a hot meal. But on his way, Frances met a poor man on the side of the road. He was cold and wet, and at the sight of him Francis felt his heart divide. Why should this man have nothing when he, Francis, had everything? So he climbed off his horse, gave the man his cloak, and rode away, shivering cold but happy. And why? Because the giving gave him joy.

”All the believers were together and had everything in common. They sold their property and possessions to give to anyone who had need.”
It should be joy, not guilt, and not the heavy burden of obligation, that we hear in these astonishing verses. Why should we love our neighbours? Well, maybe because it will make us happy. Francis later gave away his property so freely that his father, a wealthy cloth merchant, confronted him in the village square and threatened to disown him. Whereupon Francis took off all his clothes and said that from that moment on he would possess nothing, absolutely nothing. “Give them to the poor,” he said about the clothing at his feet. The Bishop of Assisi, witnessing the argument, hurried over, took off his cloak and covered Francis with it - whereupon Francis, famously, walked off into the woods, singing a French folk song.
And there I think we’ll leave them, Jesus and Francis, you and I, and the Christian church throughout the world and throughout the ages, with the generosity that brings joy, and the faith that brings freedom. Amen

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05/09/2026

It's today! We hope to see you all at St. John's Church, Gagetown at 3pm!

04/25/2026

An afternoon of song with the ladies of "Riversong". They have prepared a program with lots of variety from madrigals to the Beatles, old classics and contemporary numbers. Why not make it a Mother's Day activity on May 9th at 3 pm. Freewill offering at the door.

04/25/2026

Just two weeks from today, Saturday May 9th. The ladies of Riversong have prepared a wide variety of music for you from madrigals to the Beatles, and contemporary to an old classic. There should be something for everyone. Why not make it a Mother's Day activity and enjoy an afternoon of song. Freewill offering at the door

The day before Mother's Day. Why not bring your Mom for a spring outing and hear some lovely music from these ladies!

04/21/2026

Luke 24, the Road to Emmaus

Now that same day two of the disciples were walking to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them, but they were kept from recognizing him.
He asked them, “What are you talking about as you walk along?”
They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?”
“What things?” he asked.
“About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people. The chief priests and our rulers handed him over to be sentenced to death, and they crucified him. We had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. And what is more, it is the third day since all this took place. And some of our women amazed us. They went to the tomb early this morning, but didn’t find his body. They came and told us that they had seen a vision of angels, who said he was alive. Then some of our companions went to the tomb and found it just as the women had said, but they did not see Jesus.”
He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken. Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in the Scriptures concerning himself.
As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus prepared to go on farther. But they urged him, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening. The day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them.
When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. They asked each other, “Were not our hearts burning within us while he talked with us on the road and opened the Scriptures to us?”
They got up and returned at once to Jerusalem. There they found the Eleven and those with them, assembled together and saying, “It is true! The Lord has risen and has appeared to Simon.” Then the two told what had happened on the way, and how they recognised Jesus when he broke the bread.

Jesus the Stranger

There is no problem in life that can’t be helped, at least a little, by going for a long walk. We try to put a little distance between our problems and our selves. We walk, we breathe, we “look at the birds of the air” and “consider the lilies,” as Jesus said we should. We recover our sense of life’s possibilities. And if we can do so in the company of a friend who won’t talk too much, so much the better.
So the two disciples in our gospel lesson, after a tumultuous week, decide to get out of town for a while. Jesus of Nazareth, their teacher and master, has been arrested, convicted, and killed. They watched it happen. There is no doubt that it happened. But now, just this morning, they hear reports that Jesus is not dead, but is alive again. There are stories of a stone rolled away, of an empty tomb, and of angels. They are told that Jesus has appeared to some of their friends. The two disciples don’t know what to think. Even their right to grieve, the one thing they might have clung to, now seems uncertain. “Let’s just get out of town,” one says. “Absolutely,” says the other.
We don’t know who the two disciples are, except that one of them is named Cleopas. We don’t know why they choose to walk to Emmaus. We don’t even know where Emmaus is, for the town is mentioned only this once in scripture, and it no longer exists. We know so little about these two, yet everyone identifies with them. Is this not true? They are us, and we are them. We too are walking along in the middle of the road of our life, and we sometimes feel confused and overwhelmed, uncertain what to do, or what to believe.
Yet, if we are sometimes like the disciples in their confusion, we are also like them in their blessedness – though we, like them, may not know it. Jesus, the answer to our troubles and the resolution of our fears, walks up, says Hello and asks what we’re talking about, and why we seem so unhappy. But we do not recognize him: Jesus the stranger. Scripture says that the disciples were “kept from recognizing him.” This is a strange little verse, with a passive verb, that tells us nothing about who or what causes their blindness. Perhaps Jesus himself clouds their understanding, sensing that they are not ready to encounter him. Or perhaps something in the disciples themselves - their confusion or their grief - makes them unable to recognize the stranger walking beside them.
Again, is this not your life? It is certainly mine, at least sometimes. We know that God is our Father, and that we are his children. We trust that Jesus walks with us, and that his Holy Spirit dwells within us as deeply as the air we breathe. We know all this, but we don’t always feel it. Perhaps the knowledge hasn’t yet sunk in very far. Still, the two disciples do one thing right: when the stranger asks why they are troubled, they spill. They tell him all about it: the life and death and reported resurrection of their friend Jesus. They admit that they don’t know what to believe.
Then, very gently, Jesus rebukes them. And since they are us and we are them, we may say that Jesus rebukes us. “How foolish you are,” he says, “and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken.” Jesus then offers what must have been the greatest Bible study of all time. “Beginning with Moses and the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in scripture concerning himself.” In this way, as they walk along the road, they also walk through salvation history. As they approach the village of Emmaus and the moment of revelation, the stranger acts “as if he were going farther. But they urged him strongly, saying “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening. The day is almost over.”
If we ask how we might recognize Jesus in our midst, here is one answer. Revelation comes with community and generosity. I don’t doubt that Jesus would have kept going if he hadn’t been invited to stay. And as he left, the two disciples might have called after him, “Good luck brother. And if you happen to meet our friend Jesus, tell him we said Hello.” But the disciples do the right thing: they insist that the stranger share their food and lodging. “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening. The day is almost over.”
At this point in the story wonder overtakes me, even as it overtakes them. We will all remember the passage in Matthew’s gospel, chapter 25, when Jesus tells us how we are to recognize him: “I was hungry,” he says, “and you gave me something to eat. I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink. I was a stranger and you invited me in.” Jesus says that he is revealed whenever we care for someone who needs our care. This teaching is fulfilled when the two disciples ask the stranger to share their hospitality. “And when he was at table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him. And he disappeared from their sight.”
As he breaks the bread, the disciples recognize Jesus, their host at that Last Supper on Maundy Thursday. And when Jesus disappears from them, they will also recognize him in what he leaves behind, the bread he has broken, the wine he has poured, the Last Supper that has never ended, and that never will.
In the stranger who walks and talks with them, and shares their meal, they recognize Jesus their familiar human friend. And in his sudden disappearance they recognize him as their unfamiliar, divine friend, the Son of God, who has come from beyond our earth, and who cannot be held by it.

There are so many things one could say about this gospel lesson, but the heart of it must be this: God is near. Jesus, though he reigns in heaven, is as close as the person in the pew next to you.
The Book of Hebrews counsels us “to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it. “ The writer is thinking, no doubt, of that fabulous story way back in Genesis when Abraham and Sarah are visited by three men, three strangers. And though they are three, Abraham speaks to them as if they were one. And though they are men, he calls them “Lord,” and invites them to share a meal. This they do, and afterwards reveal themselves as angels with a message from God: Abraham and Sarah will be given a son. So it is that God comes to us: the stranger.
The writer of Hebrews is also, no doubt, thinking of the two disciples from today’s gospel lesson. And, no doubt, he is thinking of us also, for Jesus the stranger comes to us as well. He is the hungry one whom we can feed, the thirsty one to whom we can give water, they lonely one whom we can visit. And, no doubt, we are sometimes called to be that stranger for others. We shall be the angels through whom God is pleased to reveal himself. For ever since Jesus ascended into Heaven and bequeathed to us his Holy Spirit, we are, all of us, called to become the body of Christ here on earth.
So take a good look at the person, perhaps a stranger, seated beside you. Attend to the stranger who sits in the car next to you at the traffic light, singing along to the radio. Be kind to the stranger who stands in line with you at the grocery store. Who do you see? O, look carefully. And look again. Amen

04/10/2026

The day before Mother's Day. Why not bring your Mom for a spring outing and hear some lovely music from these ladies!

04/06/2026

An Easter Sermon
“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus. John 20: 13-14

If you ask someone “What is the first thing Jesus says after he is raised from the dead?” they will either have no idea, or they will say “Mary.” I myself believed this answer for many years, and said so in more than one sermon, for it is the pivotal moment of Easter morning, the moment when the light of resurrection finally penetrates the darkness in which Mary has been suffering for the last three days. Still, it is not true. Jesus’ first words after his resurrection come several verses before. “Why are you weeping?” he asks her.
It is strange that we do not notice this question. Perhaps we don’t notice because the two angels in the empty tomb have already asked Mary this question, and in response she simply repeats the lament that she has cried all morning: “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.”
Mary is grieving, and the angels want to know why. Mary is grieving and Jesus wants to know why. More to the point, you and I and all of us, spend far too much of our lives in grief, and God would like to know why. I don’t think the question, “Why are you weeping?” carries even a hint of accusation or condescension, but it remains a real question. Why do we not trust that God is God, and that all shall be well? Why should our moments of grief, however valid, obscure our confidence in the power and the love of God? Why do we so easily drift away from the gospel?
The angels ask, and Jesus asks, and God asks, “Why are you weeping?” But they ask only so that they can reassure us that there is no good reason for such continuous tears. I am not, of course, denying the many valid causes of grief in our world, or our need to weep over many things. I have shed my share of tears, and make no apology. I am only insisting, because Jesus insists, that your life, and my life, and the life of the entire universe, is held in God’s love, and God’s love is such a vast ocean that all the human tears ever wept must themselves be drowned within it. In our Easter gospel, even death is but a preamble to our further delight in God’s glory.

“Early on the first day of the week, while it was still dark, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb and saw that the stone had been removed from the entrance.”
Mary has risen early, or perhaps she has not slept. She has come to the tomb to anoint Jesus’ body if she can get to it, or to grieve quietly outside if she cannot. But now Mary can do neither. His tomb, it seems, has been desecrated. She runs back to tell the other disciples: "They have taken the Lord out of the tomb, and we do not know where they have laid him." Mary thinks she’s in a tragedy, a story that ends in death. We must wait for Mary to discover that she has a part in the most wonderful comedy there is.
We are told that “Peter and the other disciple started for the tomb. Both were running, but the other disciple outran Peter and reached the tomb first.” This is surely an odd and unnecessary detail to include in such an important story. It would seem that John, the writer of the gospel, wants us to know that he can run faster than Peter. This is more like the chatter of young boys than the shared memories of grown men. But perhaps everything about Easter morning, every remembered detail, will assume in retrospect an almost prophetic importance.
John gets to the tomb first, but Peter is the first to step inside. John follows, and there they find nothing, just the grave clothes folded neatly where the body should be. In confusion, Peter and John head back home. Mary, meanwhile, has followed them back to the tomb, perhaps walking while they ran, and she remains there. Gathering her courage, she looks inside and sees “two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.”
“Woman,” they ask. “Why are you weeping?” - which we may translate as “Why do you imagine you are in the midst of a tragedy?”
It is odd that Mary is not surprised at being questioned by angels, but perhaps her grief is so great that curiosity has no place. She sees only two others with whom she can share her sorrow. Once more, like an inconsolable child, she cries, “They have taken my Lord away, and I don’t know where they have put him.”
Mary, at this moment, is all of us. All of us will feel, at some point in our lives, overwhelmed and oppressed. Like Mary, we will feel the absence of God, the loss of all hope. It is possible to give this experience much more exalted names, such as “the Dark Night of the Soul” or “the Desolation of the Spirit”, and mystics tell us that such an experience is actually a great blessing if we can endure it faithfully. But this is a blessing we would rather not have. The One, the Beloved, the lord of our lives has gone missing. And without Him, we are lost. We are like a plant, uprooted from the soil, and now beginning to wither and die. We are like a planet, separated from our star, drifting out of orbit, headed into a vast emptiness. We are a young child lost in an enormous shopping mall, filled with strangers, separated from our mom. We are scared, and will not be consoled.
Such is Mary at this moment. And such are we, the Christian Church, every year, on Good Friday, that difficult day when we choose to endure such grief quite intentionally. We will try to endure the cross, which, on Good Friday, means only the death of God. We will open our eyes wide to stare into the darkness, for which the only hope is the light of Christ. We will hold, prayerfully, the empty space within us, for which the only satisfaction is the presence of God. It is good for us, however briefly, to contemplate what life is like when God is not.
Of course Mary’s situation is not as desperate as she thinks. She’s just a bit muddled, as we all are from time to time. She suffers from sorrow and a lack of sleep. For, after crying out to the angels in the tomb, Mary turns and sees Jesus himself standing in front of her. He asks, “Woman, why are you weeping?”
But Mary does not recognize him. Thinking he is the gardener, she cries out a third time, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.” Almost funny this: Mary asks Jesus if he has stolen his own body.
Then of course the moment arrives. Jesus will speak the one, the only necessary word: “Mary.” He must have said it with a smile – not a smile to deny her grief, but a smile to redeem her grief, even as His risen life redeems all human life. And with this one word, “Mary,” suddenly the plant that had been uprooted, finds itself firmly bedded once more in its proper soil. The roots begin to feed. The drooping branches stir into life. The planet that had been drifting, without destination, in a vast and empty darkness, now feels the gravity of its star gathering it in once more. The young child, wandering scared and lost in the huge shopping mall, sees his mom running to him. Joy and relief gather them in a strong embrace.
This is Mary. This is you. This is me. This is Easter Sunday as we are reunited with our Lord. This is the tragedy of our mortal human lives lifted up into the divine comedy of God’s immortal life. So Jesus stands before each of us, and calls us by name. “Hey," he says, "it's me. Jesus. I'm right here." I sometimes wonder if the whole Christian life isn’t simply this: a continuous, joyful reunion with the God who has never left us, and who promises he never will. Happy Easter. Amen.

04/05/2026

Good Friday

Surely he took up our pain
and bore our suffering.
We considered him punished by God,
stricken by him, and afflicted.
But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities.
The punishment that brought us peace was on him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

With these words, written by the prophet Isaiah and fulfilled by Jesus upon the cross, we enter into the heart of a great mystery: the Atonement. Christ, through his death, restores us to a proper relationship with God, our Creator. This is a truth we will never fully understand, precisely because it is a divine accomplishment, not a human one. The Atonement is not a victory that we have won, but a sacrifice God makes for us, “for our sake and for our salvation.”
It is significant that scripture does not give us one way to speak of the cross of Christ and the Atonement, but many. This morning we will consider four of them: Substitution, Redemption, Reconciliation and Victory. Each of these reveals one aspect of a truth, the whole of which we may never see in its entirety, at least not this side of Heaven.
Each of these four theories or descriptions of the Atonement, shares a few assumptions: First, that we human beings are alienated from God, separated from Him. Second, that our alienation from God is a problem that we cannot solve by ourselves. Simply trying to be good will not avail. We need to be rescued. And third, that God has come among us, as one of us, in the person of Jesus, to solve this problem.

We speak of Christ’s death on the cross as Substitution: Jesus dies in our place. In Genesis we see that God intended his Creation to be without sin. Adam and Eve were created us to be immortal, filled with God’s Holy Spirit - death-proof, if you like. But we have chosen to sin, and, as scripture tells us, “the wages of sin is death.” But God, in Jesus Christ, comes among us, as one of us, and dies in our place. Jesus trades places with us. He takes our death upon himself, and in exchange offers us his life.
We speak of Christ’s death on the cross as Redemption. The word means “to buy back.” When I first lived in Fredericton, I was confused by a warehouse down the street with a sign on the front saying “Redemption Centre.” It wasn’t a church. It was a bottle depot. You could bring in your empty pop cans, and they would buy them back from you. 5 cents each. And so they were “redeemed.”
In the ancient world, it wasn’t pop cans that were redeemed, but slaves. The redemption price was what you paid for a slave if you wanted to set him free. As for us, in the natural order of things you and I are slaves, enslaved by greed, pride, and all our physical and emotional appetites. We are slaves to sin. But Jesus on the cross pays the price, to buy us out of slavery, and set us free.
We are like pop cans, you and I. We aren’t worth much, emptied out as we are. But Jesus buys us, re-cycles us, makes us new. Jesus will fill us once more with Himself, with his Holy Spirit - as it was in the beginning.

We speak of Christ’s death as Reconciliation. I think of my brother Bill and I when we were kids. We used to fight. It would begin quietly enough, with words, but then escalate into wrestling, and eventually real violence. When our mom was unable to stand it any longer, she would step in and pull us apart. Inevitably, she would take a few blows in the process. She would listen to Bill complain about me, the younger brother, the brat. She would listen to me complain about Bill, the older brother, the bully. Then she would try to explain us to each other. She was the third person who could understand both sides of the argument, and negotiate between us.
In the argument between God and human beings, this third party is Jesus, being both divine and human. Like my mother stepping in between my brother and I, Jesus suffered violence on our behalf. He was not part of the disagreement, but, by being both fully God and fully human, he could reconcile the disagreement between God and human beings in Himself.

We speak of Christ’s death upon the cross as Victory. The universe is at war: God vs. Satan, Life vs. Death, Good vs. Evil, and we human beings are collateral damage in this cosmic war. There was an early skirmish in the Garden of Eden where Satan gained a victory against us. But this was only a battle, not the war. God was going to send in His champion, even His own Son, to take on Satan, and bring the war to its proper conclusion.
There was a later skirmish in the wilderness: Jesus versus Satan. For 40 days they battled it out, Satan tempting Jesus to switch sides. But Jesus, at the end of 40 days, Jesus remained triumphant. And Satan, we are told, “left Jesus until an opportune time.”
The “opportune time” came 3 years later at the Festival of Passover in Jerusalem. This same Jesus was delivered into the hands of His enemies. He was tried, convicted, tortured and put to death. It was a real death, death on a cross. But Jesus, through the power of God, was strong enough to overcome death. Jesus suffered Death to come upon Him, to do its worst, but Death was not strong enough. And so, in Jesus, Death dies, and Jesus rises again on Easter morning, victorious. And we share in his victory.

Substitution, Redemption, Reconciliation, Victory: here are four ways to describe what God accomplishes in Jesus’ death on the cross. Each of the four is supported by scripture, and if any of them helps you understand the death of Jesus, then you should hang on to it. But equally, if any of them troubles you, you may set it aside. But don’t reject it. It may yet become meaningful for you.
If there can be four descriptions of the Atonement, each of them true yet all slightly different, then it must be that the whole truth of the Atonement is greater than any one of them. It is important, I think, to accept this. In the cross of Christ we have a truth not inexpressible, but infinitely expressible. It was Saint Anselm who, in the 11th century, described the Christian life as “faith seeking understanding.” He wrote, "I do not seek to understand in order that I may believe, but rather, I believe in order that I may understand".
Thus, we may never fully comprehend the atoning work of Jesus during our earthly lives. But we must rejoice that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus perfectly comprehend us. Amen.