Jukka Paarma "ABIDE IN ME, AND I WILL ABIDE IN YOU"
Sermon at the festal mass to celebrate the Millennium Year 2000 and the 700th anniversary of Turku Cathedral, on Trinity Sunday, 18th June, 2000
John 15:1-10
Turku Cathedral, our national shrine, is 700 years old today. On June 17th and 18th, 1300 the dedication of the shrine was celebrated here. Now as we celebrate the new millennium, the jubilee year, the year of hope, we give thanks for the work of our forefathers as we look forward into the future, and this we are emboldened to do with hope in our hearts.
Turku Cathedral is familiar to several Finnish generations for at least one thing. For 56 years at midday every weekday the sound of the church bells has been broadcast around the country, and further afield, too. The sound of bell-ringing broadcast on the radio began during the last war. It was the summer of 1944, and the situation was extremely dangerous and difficult. The future of the whole country was at stake. Many felt that it was doubtful whether this nation would continue to have a future and a hope.
In such a situation the sound of the bells of this church began to ring out so that every Finnish man and woman could hear it. The president's wife, Gerda Ryti, gave a talk on the radio, in which she urged people to pray to God, because the country was in a situation of great need. She continued with these words: "Throughout the centuries God has revealed Himself to us as One who is powerful to help. The history of our people is living proof of this miracle. We are reminded of this every day when on our radios we hear the clock of Turku Cathedral, our national shrine, striking twelve. It is a symbol of God¹s guidance and grace throughout the centuries. Therefore these moments when the bell strikes twelve are a fitting time for prayer for our country. Let then every one of our people at that moment keep silence in prayer before the Almighty. And in these moments we will grow into a united praying people who may believe that they will find God's help."
When now we hear these words of the president's wife, we notice that the same Bible passage was quoted as now, but in quite different circumstances. The motto of our jubilee year - God's word - is "I will give you a future and a hope". People trusted in this in moments of distress and danger. We remember this now as we enter a new century and a new millennium.
That radio talk combined three important things which belong together - prayer, trust in God's help, and hope. The bells of this church have been a reminder of this, but so has the whole Church throughout its centuries' long history. How many generations have climbed the steps of the cathedral into the house of the Lord? Sometimes they have come with heavy steps and heavy hearts to seek comfort, forgiveness, peace of heart or hope. Sometimes their steps have been light and their minds full of thanksgiving - God has helped. The Lord has been good.
Under these ancient arches have risen innumerable prayers, requests and thanks - or merely sighs. It is impossible for us to know how many have found help, how many have left the communion table with relieved minds or how many have heard the Word of God and received new faith, strength and hope for everyday life. But that is why our forefathers built this church, that is why it has been maintained and extended and beautifed, so that the congregated people might find what they need to endure the trials of life - so that they might have the courage to look ahead, so that they might have hope.
This, the church's festive day thus reminds us of the centuries when in this cathedral and in this country generations have placed their hope in the living God. The many memories and memorials here bring to mind the history of the church - the Middle Ages when this church was built, the Lutheran Reformation and life's work of its messenger, Mikael Agricola, who served as bishop in this church, and many later periods in history. Of course, the history of the Christian Church in our country goes back further than to the building of this church, to the time of the first bishop, St. Henry, and further back still.
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Really this celebration takes our thoughts to wider contexts still. The visitors from different parts of the world and from different churches gathered here provide us with an illustration that the Church of Finland and the Lutheran Church is not a little island in the sea of world religions, but that we belong to one family of Christian churches. Our common roots are also indicated by the pictures and frescoes in this Cathedral.
As we approach the altar in the main chancel, we must go through a gateway, on both walls of which there is a large painting. On the right-hand side is a picture of a bishop - Ansgar, bishop of Hamburg in the 9th century, who was the first to preach Christianity in the North. He is a representative of the mediaeval, Western tradition, the Apostle of the North. He depicts the
early arrival of Christianity here in the northernmost parts of Europe.On the left-hand side, opposite Ansgar, is Martin Luther, whose disciples reformed our church in the 16th century. In between them both - Ansgar and Luther - we approach the altar, the place of blessing, prayer and the Lord's Supper.
Really the same symbolism is to be found in the main chancel, too. On one side is a picture of Bishop Henry, who in the dawn of the Middle Ages in Finland is baptizing the first Finnish Christians. Opposite him, the representative of the mediaeval Church, the most prominent Finnish representative of the Lutheran Reformation, Mikael Agricola, hands the king of Sweden a copy of the first New Testament printed in the Finnish language.
These pictures symbolically depict the roots of our Church -the common tradition of the early Church, which goes back to the Lord's apostles - and the Lutheran tradition, which in so many ways has nourished our spiritual life since Agricola preached justification by faith and translated the Bible into the Finnish vernacular.
One of the great signs of hope this jubilee year is the fellowship which has grown among the different churches, both throughout the world and in Finland. The Christian churches in Finland are celebrating the jubilee year together. None of them wished to appropriate the anniversary year of Christ¹s birth for themselves alone. We wish to look towards the future with hope. When Christian witness in this world is our common witness, it is genuine and convincing.
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During our historic jubilee year, however, we cannot direct our thoughts too much to the past, as important and valuable as its memories are. We measure the vitality and importance of the Christian Church by how it responds to the issues of human life today and by how much it gives people strength and courage in life.
When the Christian churches in Finland together considered what would be an appropriate theme for celebrating the jubilee year, one that would be the heart of Christ's message in the world today, the obvious theme was hope. Hope, courage and strength to live is what so many people need.
Great courage and fearlessness to look towards the future is needed by the young person who is seeking his or her place in the world, so that he or she can say "yes" when life calls, and can say "no" when life's destructive forces entice. The best means of defence of young people threatened by the increasing drugs problem may be that they have received such experiences of caring, security and hope for the future that they have the courage to say "no" when necessary.
Hope and confidence in life is needed by the one who has been made unemployed and who is oppressed by worry about making ends meet, about accommodation or debts, or who is depressed by the feeling that he or she is not needed, let alone valued, in this society.
Courage and belief in a just society are needed by all who take decisions in the affairs of others or in matters of common concern. In a world where looking after one's own interests is often raised to the level of a virtue, decision-makers need dreams and hope of a society where justice, mercy and a decent income for the weakest and slowest live in perfect harmony.
Faith in life is needed by those whose minds have been overcome by depression, whose horizons are darkened by illness, by imminent death, by divorce or by fear of remaining alone.
Hope is needed by those who are this world's most hopeless, the population of the very poorest countries - those for whom the possibility of rising above the poverty line, to obtain decent health care or educational opportunities for their children, is not even in sight.
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Hope for all these people who need hope can best be brought by other people who come alongside with a word of encouragement or an act of justice, mercy or love to bring. Where can we find such bringers of hope?
Everyone surely knows that it is easier to forgive another person if one has experienced forgiveness oneself. The person who can love best is the one who has himself received love. Hope can be passed on only by one who himself has hope and confidence in the future.
Therefore the Church points to the source of love, mercy and hope. But it does not only point. When listening to the Word of God, when keeping silence together, in prayer and at the communion table we come to meet with him who brings and gives the experience of mercy and hope. The Word of God tells how we should live, and what principles or rules we should observe, so that we might live a good communal life. But the person who is concerned about how
bad he or she is and about the mistakes he or she has made, is offered forgiveness in Christ and the chance of a new beginning. Here is the Church¹s message for those who need hope - fellowship, encountering the God who says, "I have redeemed you" and the same Christ who in the Gospel passage we have just heard says, "I am the vine, you are the branches. Abide in me, and I will abide in you. Without me you can do nothing."Therefore even after the seven-hundred-year history of this church, and at the beginning of the new millennium, we may hold fast to what Martin Luther said about the task of the Church: "the Church's true treasure is the grace of God and the most holy Gospel of glory."