Learning how to die #4
Realising that I am wholly inadequate in obeying God is a very important step to being reconciled to him. I think it is wonderful grace that his arms are open for those who would seek him, however incompetent we may prove ourselves to be. The fact that I find it terribly difficult to love others, and so fulfil the law of God, is no barrier between him and me, between him and us.
In fact, on this particular exploration of discipleship I have noticed that failure serves to drive me further toward's God. In failing, I recognise that I am not all powerful and in my mind, at least, Christ is magnified since he was able to do what I cannot do when he lived here in flesh. Perhaps this is evidence that God, by his Spirit, has my conscience captivated to regard him above everything else.
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Learning how to Die #2
Learning how to die is rapidly becoming lessons in love. See, the Law of God can be summarised with 2 main ideas:
Love God
Love others
And the New Testament idea is that the law brings death (2 Corinthians 3:7-8). I perceive this death to be necessary, as there can surly only be new life once the old one is gone.
Jesus followed the law perfectly , and his path took him to the cross. And then he was raised from the dead. He asks me to follow his path. To walk with him, the way of life everlasting.
I think it's amazing that I get to walk with Christ, that the path he takes me down is the one he has been down before. He went ahead to make the path clear. He knows where all the tough bits are. He knows where my feet might stumble, where I might get tired. He knows how much it hurts, and how hard temptation is.
He sits with God in the place of joy everlasting, and some day I will be united to him. Sometimes, the heavenly joy bursts into my life like the sunshine breaks through the cloud. That taste of the things of God is the reward for pursuing. Sometimes, I get the privilege of looking like Christ in suffering, sacrificing for others.
'Greater love has no one than this, that someone lays down his life for his friends.' Jesus said (John 15:13). This costly love is the price to be paid for everlasting life.
Eternal life is a free gift that will cost you everything.
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After Easter
Crying Eggs
Tears and treats
Sorrow and sweets
What a messed up story,
This spring festival
This remembracne of battle fought
And victory won
This Hallmark Holiday,
marketing campaign and sales booster
Lord, Lord,
Awaken our hearts and ignite our spirits
That we would put to death all these
worthless things,
And see your everlasting glory
Displayed on a bloodied cross
You who scorned glitz
And shamed glam
You who embraced sorrow
And saved the human race
Amen
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His Ways are Higher
2000 years ago there lived a man by the name of Saul. Saul came from Tarsus, a town in Turkey. He was a smart man, well educated. He knew the philosophy of the Greeks, politics of the Romans but most of all he knew the law of God.
He knew that there was only one God, who he worshipped with his native people, the Jews. He knew that true worshippers of God did not worship created things. They didnʼt bow down to statues and animals like the Greeks and they didnʼt bow down and worship the emperor like the Romans.
So when his Jewish brothers and sisters start to worship a man, a carpenter from Galilee, he is rightly offended, because God is not a man. Right? God isnʼt created. Saul was a zealous young man. Zealous for his people, zealous for his faith. He begins to stamp out this new cult. He stamps out Stephen, a public stoning, and arrests many of these new followers of Jesus.
Itʼs as heʼs going on another crusade, Damascus this time, when he sees it. Lights, burning bright, and a frightful voice. ʻSaul, why do you persecute meʼ. Saul is blinded. He had been blind all this time, yet with the loss of his sight he finally sees. Jesus, the man crucified and buried has risen and is the Lord of all creation.
“Seek the LORD while he may be found;
call upon him while he is near;
let the wicked forsake his way,
and the unrighteous man his thoughts;
let him return to the LORD, that he may have compassion on him,
and to our God, for he will abundantly pardon.
For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways, declares the LORD.
For as the heavens are higher than the earth,
Isaiah 55:6-9
In the 17th century the UK was in the midst of a massive rise in itʼs power and influence. International trade and the conquest of America, cheaply growing crops which could be sold for a high profit. This trade survived because of the cheap, expendable labour harvested from Africa. Slavery was the fuel of the British Empire.
Now, imagine this scene. Dead and dying men, women and children loaded like sacks of grain onto a ship bound for America. Stench of faeces and blood mixed with rotting bodies and disease. Only the strong survived the journey. This was the progress of the British Empire. Abuse and inhumanity. It was disgraceful.
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What do you mean, ‘saved by grace’?
If you've been around church at all, you might have begun to pick up the language we use there. I like to call it 'Christianese', a strange tongue made of strange words and phrases no one else understands.
"Cleansed by the Blood of the Lamb"
"Washed by the Living Water"
etc
Preachers are the worst for it. Sometimes I think they just make things up. Even things which ought to be the simple, basic truths of our faith can sometimes become completely indecipherable.
Basic truths like 'God loves you', 'Jesus died for you', 'Nothing can make God love you any more, or any less'. These are some of the most basic parts of the faith. Yet these are the hardest truths to grasp.
These simple statements have become irritating clichés, the worst sort of Christianese.
It rings, loudly and unavoidably, like a fire alarm in my ears. The words of the the Apostle Paul:
For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9)
I don't know if you're anything like me. I mean, yes you have skin, a pulse and two eyes but I can't be sure if you're like me. When you read those words, you probably understand them. I, however, don't.
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This Same Jesus
I found this poem in an old book, The kind that feel good to touch, and smell of old.
Today on the road I met Him:
The very same Jesus who trod
The old, old lanes and highways
On His beautiful errands for God
I was troubled and heart-sick and weary
With a load too heavy to bear;
I cried aloud in my weakness
And suddenly He was there,
His gentle hand on my shoulder
Was lifting the burden from me,
And He dried mt tears, and I knew Him,
It was Jesus of Galilee:
No different at all from the Master
On the Jericho road that day;
No different at all from the Saviour
Along the Samaria way,
And I am so glad that I met Him!
I knelt and called out his name,
And I am so grateful I found Him
Unchanged and forever the same
G.N. Crowell, Songs of Hope, 1938
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Urban Evangelism
This week, as you may have noticed, lacked any new writing from myself. This is not due to laziness. No, that's a lie. It is partly due to laziness. Mostly it is due to the fact that I spent a few days in London. 
As a part of my course I had the challenging privilege of spending time in the big city to see how Christians in that place had begun to live out their faith. What I saw was astonishing.
Astonishing to see the lives of young, black lads standing witness against the statistics of failure and crime which mark them. Astonishing to hear the drunks and users share stories of God over a greasy burger in a church hall. Astonishing to be in the presence of a man who would have such love as to start a church in the middle of this great urban collision of people.
Indeed this week has shaped me in many ways.
Of course I cannot make assumptions about the organisations I spent time with beyond what I saw, but for the sake of objective reflection I have to assume the projects I saw run in roughly the same way most of the time.
Yet I write this feeling somewhat... unfulfilled. Now I know the purpose of the course is not for me to feel fulfilled, but to my mind there was something lacking. Something important.
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Valentines Blessing
It hurts me to write this. Really, I'd rather dip my face in burning acid than admit it, but one of the clearest and most blessed ways by which God reveals himself is by the union of man and woman.
Marriage shows the perfect representation of the invisible God, as together man and woman are in his likeness. Similarly, those who are married can testify to the Gospel of Jesus Christ and the mystery of his love for the Church.
So these words I want to bless those who are married and those who are on the way towards it.
May the Spirit of the Divine
Bind you to one another
With the ties of love and service
Obedience and honour
Which are good and right in the sight of God
May you learn together what it means to be human
Formed in the image of the Most Holy
May you bring honour to Jesus through your conduct and conscience
Glorifying our Risen Saviour
And baring witness to the great Lover
The Bridegroom who loves his people
May God be pleased to manifest his presence with you
And may he rejoice over you
His dear children
Amen
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Her Name was Veronica
Today I met an elderly lady at a church I was preaching at.
This is her story.
As a younger woman, she was in hospital, ill, near death. Her husband was in the process of leaving her with three children to take care of. Her illness led to her becoming isolated, alone. After years of poor living, bad choices and hurting this woman, a struggling mother, she was left scared and desperate in the house.
Her husband threatened to take her children from her, as she was emotionally and mentally ruined. Veronica was a wreck of a person, and this is the wreck Jesus met.
One day when out of the house, accompanied by a nurse, a kind lady spoke to her. She asked, would you like for the minister to visit you?
"I'd like that" she replied
"Where is it that you live"
"I... I don't know where I live"
The nurse confirmed this, and proceeded to give this kind lady Veronica's address.
This brief... almost insignificant exchange was revolutionary.
The pastoral visit was straightforward. They came and shared the message of Jesus, that all our sins could be forgiven through him.
'What, even me?"
"Most certainly, you can be accepted by God too, through Jesus"
"Well, it can't mess my life up any more than it is already"
And with that, the Lord took Veronica by the hand, loving, guiding, comforting. She was baptised at a local church, and the Lord worked through her to see 37 more people baptised in the next 2 years.
A little old lady named Veronica spoke to me, a month after her husband had departed this world. Jesus Christ had become her treasure and her great reward. This woman, closer than I to the veil of eternity, knew what it meant to be captivated by Jesus in all things.
She blessed me in more ways than I could ever put into words here.
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Kings, Pagans and the God-baby. Part 3
13Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him." 14And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt 15and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, "Out of Egypt I called my son."
16Then Herod, when he saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, became furious, and he sent and killed all the male children in Bethlehem and in all that region who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had ascertained from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what was spoken by the prophet Jeremiah:
18 "A voice was heard in Ramah,
weeping and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be comforted, because they are no more."
So this psycho king decides to kill children. This is a little bit hard to believe, I know, but bare in mind He killed several of his own children and wives because he was afraid of losing his throne to them!
This is nothing new. The Romans knew all about killing each other to protect their power. The legendary murder of Julius Caesar, wars and sieges were how you ‘made yourself’ in Rome.
Instead of worship, as Herod promised, there is death. Herod will not bow the knee, he will bring the sword. A politician in the Roman empire. He’s nothing new. Herod, the king of the Jews, doesn’t look any different to the roman oppressors.
And this whole drama explodes because of the birth of one baby boy.
All this violence, betrayal, blood and weeping.
But that doesn’t matter to Joseph, asleep.
Peaceful
Normal.
But here, two worlds will collide.
The world of politics and power meets the ordinary lives of an ordinary family.
‘Run, Run to Egypt, run for your life!’
Because the Empire is not how God works. God is not a politician, nor an economist, nor a billionaire, nor a general. The powers and rulers of this world don’t ‘get it’. They don’t get who this Jesus is. Is he a Conservative or a Liberal? Is he for us or for them?
No, he’s a baby boy. A special baby boy, who is the hope of the world.
The Roman Empire knows only violence. The only way it can succeed and maintain peace is with it’s swords, guns, bombs, money and threats.
But the Saviour of the World is a baby who hides in Egypt.
Whilst Herod slaughters the children. The Empire murders the innocent. To protect itself, to maintain peace!
Where were you, God? Where were you when they took my son! Where were you when they killed my family, when I lost everything?!
God was in Egypt. And he is about to make his debut in the world. What’s it gonna look like?
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