Many Christians are uncomfortable with the secret seed. They seek worldly power for Christ’s church. Churches may merge with political parties, trading their integrity for access to power. The lesson of history is clear – God’s kingdom grows at its fastest when it is powerless. The secret seed of God’s kingdom takes root and flourishes when the church performs its work on the margins, almost invisible, refusing to trade the gospel for a seat at the tables of the powerful.

It makes me wonder – if I’ve never been thought of as mad, am I really following Christ? If people don’t think I’m a bit unhinged, is it because I am actually just going with the flow, copying the values of the society around me, aping the patterns of our wayward culture? If people don’t see how I respond to aggravation, or the way I talk to people when I’m having a bad day, or when I give or speak, or when I post on social media and think, “There’s something not quite right about him. He’s different; he’s not right in the head”, then why are they not thinking that?

There are tongues of fire, but for us the bigger miracle is enduring suffering and not becoming bitter;

There are strange winds that blow through buildings, but for us bigger miracle is being the target of unjust attacks and not responding with violence or spite;

There are speaking in unlearned languages, but the bigger miracle is waking up to another day of pain, or conflict, or despair but choosing to get out of bed anyway, with the courage to persevere and the glimmer of hope that God is with you despite all appearances.

What a privilege it is to be called by God to be his ambassadors. And not just ambassadors, wonderful and awesome though that is, but co-workers with God. Here, in this picture of an olive, there is our purpose for being alive – our joyful duty, our high privilege as co-workers with God. If you are breathing this morning – this is why – to be the healing, peace-making, teller of good news to those in your world.

If you want to be a resentful Christian, a covetous Christian, a restless, peaceless, joyless Christian, then I recommend that you obey God out of duty, guilt, self-loathing, fear, or because you want to manipulate God. Try them and let me know how they work for you. But if you want the life of Christian freedom and joy then, yes, we need to obey God’s commands, but do so with the greatest motive – love.

It’s possible to suffer from runaway growth. Our lives can become unruly. We can grow a mess of shoots and leaves sprawling all over the place. Easy on the eye, pretty even, but not what we were made for. Our calling is to be simpler than that, to have the life-giving sap flow into the fruit and not the leaves. Cutting back the greenery will produce a healthier plant and a better crop. In God’s vineyard, leafy, showy branches are not the point. It is not about our possessions, our careers, our hobbies, even our relationships. Those things are usually beautiful, but sometimes they get in the way of what is truly important and rob the fruit of growth. What God is interested in is fruit

If you wanted to compare today’s Western world with a character in a fairy tale, you could probably not pick a better one than this narcissistic emperor. It took the pandemic to reveal the dark horror that we’re not in control. But if we could receive this revelation as a gift, if we would embrace it as a liberating grace, then we would be profoundly changed. Our self-image, our pride, our false sense of security would all be exposed – they are the emperor’s new clothes.

Thomas is our teacher because he tells us we must not settle for a secondhand experience of Christ. He reminds us that we cannot live on someone else’s faith, he calls us to encounter God for ourselves. So, are you ready to rehabilitate Thomas’s reputation yet? If not, let me ask you one final question that will surely persuade you. Who says doubt is a bad thing, anyway?

Mark ends his Gospel prematurely because he’s thinking of you and me. Mark begins a relay race. He has run his lap with brilliance. He has done his job perfectly. He has told the story of Jesus up to his resurrection, and now he is finished. There is more to be written, but not by him. Instead, he has passed the baton to us and said, “You finish it.” The tomb is empty, Jesus is alive, now what? How are you going to finish the story?

Wherever you go this Holy Week may you be aware that you carry Christ. You take him to the market, to the office, to the park. If you are not going out just yet because of the pandemic, you are taking him online – to your social media pages, you’re taking him on your phone when you talk to friends or family or businesspeople. So, may we bear Christ in the same way as Ned - with thoughtfulness, mindfulness, with co-operation and friendship, and with the nobility that comes through lowliness.