Born to A Living Hope - Easter 2 A 1 Peter 1:3-9 ANZAC Day theme

<p>Focus text: 1 Peter 1:3-9</p> <p>The prosperity, the peace, the security and the wealth that most of us have is a gift that we have done little or anything to deserve. We may build on, or squander that gift, but we have done nothing to deserve it. It is an unfair and wonderful gift to us. We may argue the toss about whether war really brings peace or protects freedoms, but the first ANZACs and those service men and women who have followed believed that this is what their service was for.(Volunteers and conscripts alike.) For this they fought, for this faced terror, for this they were injured and for this they even died. This was an unfair gift for us. On this second Sunday of Easter these unfair gifts can be used to illustrate another and greater unfair gift. We have been given “a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead”. 2, 000 years before we were born we were given the gift of Jesus which is forgiveness, reconciliation and new life. This is also an unfair and even more wonderful gift.</p> <p><strong>Questions for thought and discussion.</strong><br /> What unfair gifts have you received in your lifetime? How should we best honour the gift given to us by our service men and women? How should we respond to the gift of the person, death and resurrection of Jesus?</p> <p>I made a mistake with the timing of ANZAC Day thinking this Saturday was the 25th of April 2020 and not the 19th of April.</p> <p>*****Rough Sermon Text*********</p> <p>The wonderfully unfair gift of God’s love<br /> I have probably told the story before about my year 11 English class in my first year of teaching. The sylabus required that we study so many poems.... Midnight Oil The forgotten years ... I transcribed the lyrics and one of the students told me that I had made a mistake I had transcribed a line “seasons of war and grace...” At 4.28 on the 25th of April 1914.... national identity.... peace.... for over 30 years from Vietnam... This is a gift we have done nothing to deserve. As things in o