Bishop McAllister Anglican Seminary

INAUGURATION

OF

BISHOP MCALLISTER ANGLICAN SEMINARY

Those who wait on the Lord will find new strength. They will fly high on wings like eagles. They will run and not grow weary. They will walk and not faint.

We often speak of the impatience of Youth. We mean by impatience an unwillingness to wait and an unwillingness to suffer. So Isaiah tells us that it is only those who wait, who wait, who wait for the Lord, and who wait on the Lord, only those who wait will find this new, supernatural strength. Christians, we need to be reminded that Waiters Wait and Servants Serve. And that is what we are, Waiters and Servants of the Lord, called to Wait and Serve. This School is set aside to teach these young people to wait for the Lord, to listen for his Word, and to wait on the Lord, to obey him in lives of holiness and service.

Only those who wait for and wait on the Lord will find new strength, will find this new perspective, this new vision, a bird's eye view, a view from above, God's view, see things as God sees them, as they really are, and will receive strength and endurance for the race set that is set before us.

Our patron is Saint John the Evangelist, an old man, the only one of the Apostles who lived and died at an old age. His image is the Eagle, for John gives us that aerial view of things, of Jesus' person and ministry, that view from above. John calls himself in the Gospel, the beloved disciple and he uses this nickname for himself three times. He calls himself "the disciple whom Jesus loved". He knew two things about himself,
1. He was a disciple, that means a student. He had become a student of Jesus Christ and he had no desire to graduate from that school, he was committed to being Jesus' student all his life long. And that is what a Christian is, someone committed to learning from and following Jesus all their life.
2. John was loved by Jesus. He knew this one thing for sure, Jesus
loved him.
Now let's notice the three times John uses this phrase, the disciple whom Jesus loved. First of all he uses it in telling the story of Thursday night, the supper, the foot washing, the new commandment. Secondly he uses it in telling the story of the cross, when Jesus gave John and Mary into each other's care. Finally he uses it in telling the story of Christ's resurrection appearances. Here John knows the love of Jesus, at the Supper, at the Cross and in his Resurrection. Here it is too that you my sisters and brothers may know yourselves as disciples whom Jesus loves, at the Supper and in his Cross and Resurrection. Who is Saint John the Evangelist?
He answers what you really need to know about me is that I am a Disciple whom Jesus loves. Who are you, who are you youngest student here, who are you senior student, who are you Bishop Yona, who am I? A disciple whom Jesus loves! My prayer is that every student of Bishop McAllister Seminary might know themselves for ever to be a disciple whom Jesus loves.

In our Epistle reading Saint John tells us what may be ours by faith in Jesus Christ, Eternal Life, Fellowship, and Joy. To sad mortals with broken relationships, the Gospel proclaims, Life and Fellowship and Joy. His Message is one of Eternal Life, of Fellowship and of Joy. Not mere human and earthly life, not just earthly fellowship or joy, that may pass away but of the Life and Fellowship and Joy of God which may be ours in Jesus Christ.

In his Gospel account and in his letters St. John draws out three themes that I want to think about with you today, three key words that John uses, three simple words of great meaning, Light, Love, and Life. Light, Love, and Life.

Ignorance can be deadly. Stupidity can kill you. There is all kinds of darkness out there in the world, people who fail or will not see the truth, the most obvious truths about ourselves, the world and our Maker. We read in Psalm 74, the dark places of the earth are full of cruelty. You have known in your history just such darkness and cruelty. The earth is full of darkness but it goes deeper, for if we acknowledge the darkness, we acknowledge that we are blind, that we cannot see. There is much darkness out there but in here too.
This darkness of ignorance, this blindness of mind is closely related to the coldness of our hearts, the hatred in us. Listen to St. John 1 John 2.11 But whoever hates his brother is in the darkness and walks around in the darkness; he does not know where he is going, because the darkness has blinded him. There is hatred all around us in the world. Think only of the hatred that precipitated last month's tragic attacks in Kampala, what your Archbishop called an act of malice and hatred towards mankind. But the hatred out there is matched by hatred in here, the pettiness, smallness and meanness with which we treat each other. Jesus tells us to love our enemies and we barely love our friends.
Our minds are dark, our hearts are cold, and our bodies are weak. We older folks look out on you students and see such young health and strength but we need to remember, Even youths will become exhausted, and young men will give up. In the end we will all die, our bodies will fail, and at some stage, younger or older, we will die. And our lives are dominated by the reality of death, we are robbed of the enjoyment of life in the present by the fear of our own death in the future and the losses we have suffered in the past.
Death is our final enemy.
We live in a world dominated by darkness, hatred and death, they surround us, but more darkness, hatred and death are found within us, each and every one of us.
But the Gospel of Jesus Christ is about the victory of Jesus, the Victory of Light over darkness, for the light shined in the darkness and the darkness did not overcome it, the Victory of Love over hatred, they hated him without reason but this is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. They nailed him to the cross and he prayed for them. They killed him and he forgave them. Love conquered hatred on the Cross, the Victory of Life over death, he says, I was dead, and behold I am alive for ever and ever!
And this Victory of Jesus Christ for us on the cross and from the grave may be ours and may be in us, by faith in him, by knowing and trusting him in faith.
Saint John tells us God is Light, what we have heard and seen in Jesus, is
that God is Light. We speak of our Lord in the Creed, as Light of Light,
and Jesus claims to be himself the Light of the World. But he is also the Light of our minds. For God, who said, "Let light shine out of darkness,"
made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.
Later in this same first Epistle Saint John tells us God is Love, what we have heard and seen in Jesus, is that God is Love. God is love, and this is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us. 16 And we have known and believed the love that God has for us. God is love; and he that dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him.
And finally near the end of this first Epistle John writes to us, God has given us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. We know also that the Son of God has come and has given us understanding, so that we may know him who is true. And we are in him who is true-- even in his Son Jesus Christ.
He is the true God and eternal life. Our eternal life is found in the knowledge and love of God, in the light and love that God gives us through Jesus Christ and in the Holy Spirit. Our eternal life is in the knowledge and love of God, the holy Trinity, the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit, the God who is himself, knows himself and loves himself. We know him because he first knew us, we love him because he first loved us and we live because he shares his life with us. Saint John puts this so short and sweet, for without Jesus Christ, the Word made flesh, the Incarnation of God, among us, we would not know God or his love for us. Only through Jesus Christ can we sinners be reconciled to God and one another, only through Christ and in Christ can our darkness and hatred and death be conquered and can we receive the Light and Love and Life of God. So St. John writes, He who has the Son has life; he who does not have the Son of God does not have life.

God is Light, God is Love and God is Life, and the light and love and life of God may be yours today by faith in Jesus Christ who was incarnate and born for you, who lived as one of us and died for all of us, that we might be forgiven and might be adopted into the family of God, that his Father might be our Father and that His Spirit might live in us. St. John again is the one who tells us, to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the power to become children of God- that power is the power of the Holy Spirit, in which we are bold to call Jesus Lord and God Our Father. It is for that Holy Spirit to be poured out upon those who come today in this Confirmation that we pray, that they might receive the spirit of adoption, convinced that they are the children of God, redeemed and adopted in and through Jesus Christ and that God would make them strong and holy to live as his children and as brothers and sisters in Christ growing in to his likeness. For now we are the children of God, now we are children of God, and what we will be has not yet been made known. But we know that when he appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

+Michael
 

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