Bible Text: Mark 15:33-41, Psalm 30, Mark 16:1-7 | Preacher: Rev. Monika Bereczki-Farkas | Series: Canada Day Out of the depths – July 2, 2017 Mark 15:33-41, Psalm 30, Mark 16:1-7   When was the last time you were thankful to God because He saved you, because He brought you out of chaos? Can we be thankful today when we have Canada Day celebrations all over the country?   Psalm 30 is a thankful psalm. The writer, David, was thankful to God because God lifted him up from the depths; he called God and God healed him. Today during this time of worship we can take a look back at Canadian history, our personal lives, and also the life of Jesus Christ and see what it means to be thankful for God’s help.   Let’s see why we as modern-day Canadians or immigrants should be thankful to God. What was the depth from which God lifted up our nation? We all know that this 150th Celebration would not be possible if we didn’t take the time to recognize that the history of this land didn’t start 150 ago. This land and its people were here before that too. We have to acknowledge what happened to the Indigenous people in the past and how the Christian church was involved. I want to share a story with you. All of you know about Nazi Germany and their leader Adolf Hitler. Germany gave many great theologians to the world. When I was a university student, most of my classmates learned German because Germany has amazing theological literature. And although they had many great theologians, during the time of Hitler the Deutche Christen movement developed and they wanted to accommodate Christianity within National Socialism. It was not new, from the beginning there was an intention for church and state to go hand in hand, but in the 1930s some of the theologians recognized the danger and the Protestant leaders organized resistance against Nazism. A beautiful declaration, The Barmen Declaration was born in 1934 when they wanted to confess their sin against Jesus Christ, when the Christian church supported Hitler. I remembered this story when I first heard what happened to the Indigenous people in residential schools and what the Church’s role was in this process. Now we are living in a time similar time to when those German theologians recognized what had happened and wanted to do their best to avoid the same mistake and also take responsibility for their actions as a Church. I think we can be thankful to God that although residential schools caused pain and suffering for many Indigenous people now is the time we can be the people who can raise their voices for justice and peace. We are also the ones who should show the world why Jesus Christ asked us to love God and our neighbours like we love ourselves.   Are we done yet? Can we do this as a Christian Church? Can we do this here in Kirkwall? Friends, I think it’s not a secret what’s going on in this congregation. Today we want to celebrate, we want to celebrate Canada, and yes we can recognize the need for healing and reconciliation in the relationship with Indigenous people. But I know that we also recognize the need for healing and reconciliation here in our Kirkwall church. Maybe this is the time when we should stand up and make a similar confession as the Barmen Declaration, because we should recognize what we missed here in Kirkwall. Do you have any idea what we missed here? Did we miss the chance to deal with those who left the church because of hurt and pain? Did we miss the chance to follow what Jesus asked to do, to love each other? Did we miss having Christ as the Lord of our church? Did we miss making disciples of Christ? Friends do you know why we are here? We are here because of Jesus Christ. He is the reason, if we have another reason to be here, then we are missing our chance to follow Him. This church is not our church, it is not my church, this church belongs to Him. He is the owner and we are invited by Him to be part of it. It’s a privilege to be here and to hear Jesus. If we miss something or fail to follow Him we can cry out to God like David did and God will be able to lift us up from the depths. Not because we are so nice and kind but because of Jesus Christ. He is our role model. From the Bible we know what happened to Him on Good Friday when he who did nothing wrong had to feel the deepest depths. And He cried out to God: Eli, Eli, lamma sabactani. My God, my God why have you forsaken me? God heard that cry, when the Son of God cried out to Him on the cross, but Jesus had to die and had to win everlasting life for us. The morning of the resurrection came and Jesus Christ won over death. What a victory. We are saved because of Him. We can sing a new song, we can sing Psalm 30:   This Psalm, the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, the whole Bible wants us to follow new directions, directions out of the depths. And the first step is to cry out to God, when you feel your life is in the pit, or our congregational life is in the depths. Think of the life of Jesus: Resurrection came after death, Easter morning after the darkness of Good Friday, happiness and joy after pain and suffering. God never turns his face away from us. Sometimes we don’t know the solution, we cannot find way out of the depths but we can always ask for help from God and one day we can sing a song like Psalm 30. We will sing a new song when we realize that God saved and healed us. I think this is a nice day to celebrate Canada Day, what a beautiful thing it is to live in a country where people recognize the need to confess their sins against Indigenous people. We should follow this in our congregational life, we should make a public confession saying we are sorry for not taking it seriously when Jesus asked us to love each other. This love means action against suffering, pain, hurt, humiliation etc. This love should shine through our lives and bring more disciples to Christ. We have to confess if we didn’t follow Jesus Christ as our Lord and didn’t make any disciples for him. Or if we are still in the depths let us ask God to help us to find the way toward Him. Maybe you don’t know why you need Him but I can tell you there is a big difference between Good Friday and Easter Sunday. The difference   is life. With God you can live an Easter life, without him, you are still in the depths, in the darkness, which means Good Friday is every day for you. Do you want change? Ask Him. Ask Him today. And Jesus, who told us: “I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.” John 24:6 will show us the way out of the depths toward his Father. Thanks be to God. Amen