Peace at Christmas?

Sermon preached in South Wales Baptist College Chapel, 10/12/08.



Dan 7:13-14
As I watched in the night visions, I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. And he came to the Ancient One and was presented before him. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion that shall not pass away, and his kingship is one that shall never be destroyed.

Peace at Christmas! Doesn’t it just make you feel all warm and fuzzy? With images of toasty firesides, chestnuts roasting, and snow a-glistening. Or countless Christmas card scenes, with Mary and Joseph peacefully at ease in their stable and the gentle oxen looking on with large, peaceful doe-eyes… And what could be closer to the true meaning of Christmas than a heartfelt wish for ‘peace on earth and goodwill to all’?

Except, as we all know, there is a dark underbelly to the assertion of peace at Christmas

In the first world war, the initial hope that they boys would be home by Christmas foundered in the killing fields of Flanders and the Somme.

Jona Lewie, in ‘Stop the Cavalry’, one of the few Christmas songs I actually like, sums up the failure of the ‘Peace at Christmas’ hope, as he mumbles:

Hey, Mr. Churchill comes over here
To say we're doing splendidly.
But it's very cold out here in the snow
Marching to and from the enemy.
Oh I say it's tough, I have had enough,
Can you stop the cavalry?
Wish I could be dancing now,
In the arms of the girl I love.
Mary Bradley waits at home,
She's been waiting two years long.
Wish I was at home for Christmas.

And, more recently, the rock group U2 explicitly brought Jesus into the equation of the hope for peace at Christmas, singing:

Jesus can you take the time
To throw a drowning man a line
Peace on Earth
To tell the ones who hear no sound
Whose sons are living in the ground
Peace on Earth
Jesus in this song you wrote
The words are sticking in my throat
Peace on Earth
Hear it every Christmas time
But hope and history won't rhyme
So what's it worth
This peace on Earth?

Peace at Christmas, I want to suggest, is such an evocative symbol to our world because it represents the hope for that which is missing in so much of our normal experience of life. Whether through war, terrorism or assault we are constantly confronted with violence and we are constantly reminded that we live in a violent world. In our relationships with others: our families, friends, acquaintances or strangers, conflict remains an ever-present possibility with too many of us for comfort experiencing violence within the home at some stage in our lives. Our world, it seems, is caught in an endless cycle of violence as violence is met with more violence, aggression with retaliation, and hostility with vengeance. Is it any wonder that the dream of peace at Christmas represents such a compelling and enduring hope?

But what does it actually mean, to speak of peace at Christmas? Does the Christmas hope of peace on earth and goodwill to all actually make any substantive difference to our world? I think that to find an answer, we need to rewind slightly and take a few steps back from Christmas day itself to discover one of the themes of that time in the year known as ‘Advent’. For many of us, Advent is simply the warning that we’d better get on with buying our Christmas presents and writing our cards. But there is actually a deeper wisdom in this season and it revolves around issues of waiting and hoping.

At one level, Advent is the time of waiting for the arrival of Christmas day; a time for considering the implications of Jesus coming into the world as a baby, born into poverty and danger and fleeing his native country as a refugee under threat of death. But at another level, it’s also a time for turning our minds to the second coming of Jesus. It’s a time that invites us to ask the question of how Jesus ‘comes again’ to those of us who live on this violent, un-peaceful earth. And it’s with this in mind that I want to turn to a short reading from the book of Revelation:

Rev 1:5b-7

To him who loves us and freed us from our sins by his blood, and made us to be a kingdom, priests serving his God and Father, to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Look! He is coming with the clouds; every eye will see him, even those who pierced him; and on his account all the tribes of the earth will wail. So it is to be. Amen.

In this passage, John gives us a vision of Jesus, the Prince of Peace, as the one who comes again to the earth, and we see him coming with the clouds, in mystery and majesty, we see him coming as the pierced one, the one who has suffered violence, we see him coming to reveal the kingdom of God on the earth

John’s description of Jesus as ‘coming with the clouds’ is a direct reference to Daniel’s vision with which we started, in which ‘one like a human being’ is seen ‘coming with the clouds of heaven’ to be presented before the Ancient One in order to receive ‘dominion and glory and kingship’ over all peoples nations and languages. And we are told that his ‘dominion’ will be an everlasting kingdom which will never pass away.

It’s this image which John has in mind when he describes Jesus ‘coming with the clouds’… He’s casting Jesus as the ‘one like a human being’ of Daniel’s vision, and is giving us an image of the in-breaking kingdom of God in which Jesus exercises his kingly rule over the earth. This claim that Jesus is the true king of the earth presents a direct challenge to all other earthly claims to power. If we think of the most powerful people or institutions on the planet, we tend to think I am sure of those with the most power to instigate violence. But this image of Jesus coming with the clouds tells us that his dominion and glory and kingship is far superior to those who seek to claim power through violence, intimidation and force.

So when we hear news of the all-powerful multinational corporations controlling the livelihoods and destinies of billions of people living in economic slavery, or when international bankers generate suffering around the globe to ensure their shareholders’ profit margins remain in the black, or when we hear of wars or rumours of wars as nations forge alliances against each other and send in the troops on civilian populations, or when we see tragic pictures of civil wars in Africa, or hear worrying news of those who control weapons of mass destruction, or those who seek to use terror in the name or religion or ideology. When these things and so much more come to our attention, where, in all this, can good news be found?

Well, John says it can be found in the one who comes with the clouds because, against all the evidence to the contrary, Jesus, the one who comes to us in mystery and majesty in some way holds glory and dominion and kingship which is far superior to all other earthly claims to power. Multinational corporations, nation states, international bankers, and political ideologies, all these are powerful and violent, yes, but they also exist within time, and as such are not eternal.

In his song Mighty Trucks of Midnight, Bruce Cockburn sings that: ‘Everything that exists in time runs out of time someday’. And it is in contrast to the powerful, violent and temporal kingdoms of the earth that John presents us with a vision of the kingdom of heaven which comes to the earth with the one who comes on the clouds and we are invited to realise that this is an eternal kingdom, one which will not pass away because it exists beyond time.

The kingdom of God in the here-and-now might be small, insignificant and hard to see! But those who work for its establishment, those who commit themselves to seeing its coming on the earth as it is already in heaven, can be assured that they are devoting themselves to something of eternal value.

The question, though, is what does this eternal kingdom look like? And in what way is it an alternative to the violent and imperial kingdoms of the earth which are so familiar to us as they take up their weapons against each other?

The clue here is found in the way in which Jesus is described… He is not just the one who is seen coming with the clouds he is also seen to come to the earth as the ‘pierced one’ – the one who has suffered violence. We might expect the ultimate king of creation to come in might and power, with an angelic army lined up behind him. We might expect the Lord of the eternal kingdom to come in violent judgment on all those who have challenged his Lordship, leaving a trail of destruction in his wake as those who have opposed him finally get what’s coming to them!

But actually, when he comes to us, he comes not as an avenging monarch but as one who has himself suffered violence. And here we see the genius of the cross: It is the cycle of violence being broken! Instead of meeting violence with more violence, aggression with retaliation, and hostility with vengeance, Jesus meets violence with… nonviolence! He comes not to pierce others for their wrongdoings but as the one who has been pierced by the wrongdoings of others.

The great French philosopher René Girard says that: ‘A nonviolent deity can signal his existence to mankind only by becoming driven out by violence – by demonstrating that he is not able to remain in the kingdom of violence.’ And in this he gives us a profound insight into the way in which Jesus comes again to the earth. By his entering into the cycle of human violence Jesus has acted to break that cycle. His crucifixion at the hands of humanity represents his judgment on the kingdom of violence. And his inauguration of the kingdom of God on the earth represents the nonviolent alternative to retribution and vengeance.

The only solution to the violence of the world is for God to take that violence upon himself… To enter into the depths of violence and so point the way to a peaceful future for humanity. The coming kingdom of God, which arrives with the pierced one who comes on the clouds is the peaceful alternative to the kingdom of violence.

So, where is this peaceful kingdom? What does this mean for those of us who still live in the midst of the kingdom of violence? Well, there’s good news and bad news here for us, I’m afraid! The good news is that this kingdom is already breaking in upon the earth! John speaks of Jesus ‘coming with the clouds’ in the present tense… This is something which is happening in the here-and-now! It’s not something which is reserved solely for some future transformation… There is already an alternative available for humanity to the age-old pattern of continually meeting violence with more violence. There is already available to us all another way of being human where peace rather than violence is the order of the day!

But the bad news, or rather, the difficult news, is that this peaceful kingdom breaks in upon the earth through the faithful witness of those who have already transferred their citizenship from the kingdom of violence to the kingdom of peace. That is – through us, the followers of Jesus… And the difficult part of this is that we who seek to follow Jesus, we who have committed ourselves to his path we who pray ‘your kingdom come... on earth as in heaven’ we are called to follow the example of Jesus through breaking the cycles of violence as we encounter them.

This means that we are called to live our lives very differently from the ideology which surrounds us every minute of every day! We are called to meet violence with Christ-like nonviolence. We are called to resist the temptation to enter the oh-so-tempting, oh-so-compelling cycles of violence, retribution and retaliation. We are called to be those who might have to join with Christ in taking up our own cross and sharing in his supreme rejection of violence.

For some this will mean persecution and martyrdom and for many around the world this Christmastime, that is exactly what they are facing and they, of all people, need our prayers. But for all of us it means a rejection of the ideology of violence, and an embracing of a peaceable alternative. Do we genuinely want peace at Christmas? Well, then it begins with us, the people of Christ… It begins with us, as we learn what it means to live in the Kingdom of God, rather than the kingdom of violence. It begins with us, as we explore creative nonviolence as an alternative to retribution and retaliation.

But the difficulty we face is that this is not our natural state! It certainly isn’t mine! Push me, and I’ll push you back. Bite me and I’ll bite you too. Cut me up and I’ll cut you up as well. Each of us faces daily pressures to enter once again the cycle which leads to violence, and choosing the nonviolent path is never an easy option. Walter Wink has said: ‘I don’t regard myself as a pacifist. I see myself rather as a violent person trying to become nonviolent.’ And in this he strikes at the heart of the challenge before us… Jesus did not say ‘blessed are the peaceful’ but ‘blessed are the peacemakers’!

Peace at Christmas is not about the absence of violence, it’s not about the suppression of violence, it’s not about some pacifist utopian dream where we all love each other. Rather, peace at Christmas is about turning our eyes once again to the one who comes to us with the clouds of heaven, in mystery and majesty, to the one who comes to us as the pierced one, the one who has suffered violence, to the one who comes to us as the prince of peace to reveal the kingdom of God on the earth. It is about turning our eyes once again to the one who comes to deconstruct all human power claims, to the one who comes to transform the human tendency for violence, to the one who offers the nonviolent alternative to the cycles of violence which oppress and distort humanity.

Peace at Christmas is about turning our eyes to the in-breaking kingdom of God as the future hope for humanity becomes realised in the present through the faithful witness of those who pray for the coming kingdom

Highly favoured?

This advent, as our church has been paying particular attention to Luke ch1 I’ve been struck by the Angel’s words of greeting to Mary as one who is ‘highly favoured’.

Yet I bet Mary didn’t feel so highly favoured when people whispered about her pregnancy. I doubt she felt highly favoured when she became the centre of a sex scandal and when everyone felt she had dishonoured her family and religion.
She wouldn’t feel highly favoured at the pain of becoming a refugee and moving in fear of her life. The heartache of losing her husband while the children were still growing up wouldn’t feel like high favour. Her agony, when her first-born son got executed as a criminal by one of the cruellest and most painful forms of death ever invented, wouldn’t feel like divine blessing.

Which just goes to show that being highly favoured by God doesn’t mean it all goes well, being blessed by God doesn’t mean all your problems disappear. Neither does God being gracious to you mean that you enjoy health, wealth and happiness for the rest of your life.
Mary was highly favoured because she was an instrument of God’s salvation; blessed because she had the opportunity to play a part in God’s unfolding plan and purpose in the world. Mary was given the opportunity to be the Mother of the Incarnate Son of God.

The remarkable thing is that this young girl says ‘yes’ to God. Whatever her fears and insecurities, regardless of her uncertainty and perplexity, she willingly plays her part in this history changing moment.

Perhaps this advent as we wait on God we might ponder the implications of divine favour, mull over opportunities to play a part in God’s purpose and prepare to embrace God’s call afresh.

Uncomfortable Love

Even in his birth Jesus was never going to bow to general expectation or “fit in”.

He came bringing not only joy to Mary but presumably a certain amount of fear and trepidation. Her pregnancy could have brought social disapproval, rejection, (as reflected in Joseph’s initial response…)- even the death of an adulteress???

He came bringing a challenge to the insecure Herod, who responded with an excessively violent attempt to sure up his power base. Not unlike some more modern scenarios...

He came bringing a whole new take on “royal birth” to the wise men, who did not find Him in the palace.

It was an aptly uncomfortable start to an uncomfortable incarnation. Jesus was misunderstood and rejected and killed as a social and religious outcast.

This is the Jesus we are waiting for, the Jesus we seek to emulate.
What is the implication to us this advent as we seek to follow Him?

Our family has again this advent been praying for Zimbabwe- thinking of our friends there in such appalling circumstances who understand better than us the meaning of true joy…
Whilst here in the UK we are caught in the trap of feeling we NEED what we really just want whilst lacking the want for what we really need.

Love came down at Christmas- uncompromising and uncomfortable Love reiterating the prophets cries for justice and truth and commitment. Love willing to go against the flow; to surprise and confound whilst fully embracing the humanity He challenged.

Waiting

WAITING

I love Advent – a time of waiting in breathless awe and expectation of what God will do. But God is a God of surprises and nobody expected a small helpless baby, born to ordinary people who would soon become refugees – these were not the expected circumstances surrounding the birth of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

This painting by Fernando Aritzti is always part of my Advent preparation–‘it represents the love of God for our African American people in a voyage of time and space. It shows the history of these people from their beginnings in Africa.
On the lower left side is a Zulu warrior with shield, looking up into the sky; below him stands a princess also looking up; to her left are two slaves, one standing and the other sitting on the ground.
This grouping of figures is the representation of millions of Africans who were brought in shackles from the motherland. They are watching their beloved land disappear over the horizon - a homeland they will never see again.
In the lower center of the painting are plantations of the deep south where slaves laboured in the fields for many years in the most dehumanizing conditions. These figures look steadfastly up into the sky.
On the lower right side of the painting the figures represent their African descendants. Though their lives have changed significantly since the civil rights movement, still today they are victims of prejudice in most levels of society.
Their pain-filled existence has not been overlooked by the loving and compassionate God.
On the center right side are the souls of the deceased ascending to God as the Son descends from God's hand. "Emmanuel" - God among us. My painting endeavours to emphasis the facet of God made human- the great gift of incarnation for all people of the world in time and in space.' Fernando Arizti writing in Christ for All People: WCC publications

Waiting for what?
For all to have clean drinking water.
Waiting for what?
For all to have food.
Waiting for what?
For women to be treated equally to men.
Waiting for what?
For workers to receive a fair wage.
Waiting for what?
For the rich to share their wealth.
Waiting for what?
For the caste system to end.
Waiting for what?
For baby Jesus to be born.
This is some Advent.
Waiting for rather a lot it seems .

Rosie G Motion

More Reflections on Advent as Waiting

Now there was a man in Jerusalem called Simeon, who was righteous and devout. He was waiting for the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit was upon him. (Luke 2:25)

Waiting
Is a species of death
Is the longest side of resurrection’s arc.
Waiting
Is a transparency of soul
An active passivity; a participation.

At Advent we remember that we are waiting with Simeon in the temple for the coming of Jesus. We are not only waiting in the great temple of history, but in the temples and histories of every situation, relationship, and conversation; every work and endeavour; whether these be cruel, joyful or mundane. We wait like Simeon for the ‘consolation of Israel’ in all the myriad little Israels of our day-to-day lives. This is a form of giving up and letting go. It is the act of saying ‘I don’t have the answers’, of ‘ultimately I am powerless and need God here’. It is a ‘by myself I can do nothing’ (John 5:30, 15:5). In this sense,
Waiting is a species of death.

With Jesus, death is never the end; in fact it is the very beginning of something new he is doing. That’s a fact spelled out at the empty tomb, but it is also expressed in the miracle of the incarnation – in the birth itself. The birth pangs are the sign that life is coming; so it was with Mary, so it is with the groaning world, so it is with our broken lives. And if we wait, though we die, we also find ourselves swung up into life and redemption. It is a miracle with G-force. In this sense,
Waiting is the longest side of resurrection’s arc.

Sometimes Jesus’ relationship to the Father is described as one of ‘transparency’; that in his human nature he was utterly transparent to the reality and presence of God, who showed and worked through him perfectly. Our spotless window. Philosophers get a little too excited about this sort of imagery but it’s useful and quite beautiful really. So we should be like Jesus right? Transparent to our Father. To consciously wait is to look for the coming of Jesus, and to become more and more aware that his presence is shining in the room. In this sense,
Waiting is a transparency of soul.

By ‘waiting’ I don’t mean some abstract and philosophical state. I mean – actually waiting. Sitting in a chair and saying in your head: ‘Right, I am going to wait for God’. I suppose it is what mystics might call attentiveness, but it’s not really that complicated. It’s thinking ‘I am waiting for God’ as I brush my teeth, or drive the car, or watch my body fail, or enjoy a conversation with a friend. It is opening these moments up to God. It is dying to them and miraculously receiving them back from the hand of the Father. This goes against our inherent busy-bee instinct: ‘I don’t like waiting’, ‘I could be doing something useful’, ‘this is such a waste’. But as we wrestle these struggling urges in our waiting, we feel something rising – first expectancy, but then something else. We feel God’s boiling, silent power smiling at us. Try it! Hold yourself down long enough! It’s not a case of my will (I am active), or God’s will (I am passive); it is ‘I will God’s will’. It is handing over the reins at Gethsemane; it is lying in a manger. And when we act like Jesus we take part in Jesus, our deaths are held in his death, and our resurrection is assured in his resurrection (Romans 6:5). In this sense,
Waiting is an active passivity; a participation.

And, after all those years, Simeon held the tiny baby in his arms. He looked down and saw the salvation of the world was resting massively in his open palms. And we shall too! Happy Christmas!

expectations

Term ended last week at Regent's Park with a quiet day led by Rev Dr Jo Harding, a Baptist minister in Cheadle Hume. Jo led us through three excellent advent reflections and provided some space for our own reflections. The second of her reflections was on the subject of 'expecting.' The session began with listening to the U2 song ' When I look at the world' (from the album All That You Can't Leave Behind) with some images and then a reading from Isaiah 2.1-5. Here is then something of what she said:

Advent isn't about events. Advent, it seems to me, is more about an experience that is part of our faith, not one that the church gives expression to very much - the experience of the tension that we live with, as people who talk about hope in the promises of God.

Advent is a time when we acknowledge the tension between anticipation and fulfillment. The tension between the light and the darkness that are both present in our life in this world. The tension between certainty and mystery. Between what we long for and believe is possible, and the reality of what life can be like in this world today.

Some of us perhaps prefer to deal in certainties as believers, to know exactly where we stand in relation to the things of our faith and what we should expect of our Christian experience.

But for me, part of the point of Advent season, is that it lays out in front of us a myriad of expectations, hopes and dreams of what is possible ... insists that Emmanuel has come, that God is with us in this world.

... but then it offers us the space, a liturgical season, to explore the questions it makes impossible to avoid, to engage with the uncertainty and the darkness, to explore what we actually expect of God and of ourselves as we live mindfully in the gap between hope and despair, presence and absence, breathing out and breathing in.

The kingdom of God is at hand Jesus said, but when is it coming, and where do we see it? and what does it look like when we refuse violence? and what we do dream of when we refuse to place our hope and expectation in violence or the smiting of a violent God? but rather in the God who kneels and washes feet, and who places a child at the centre of the whole mystery and says 'begin here'.

That evening I ran the first of some advent reflections at John Bunyan Baptist Church and part of that was reflecting on the year just ending through the front pages of the Independent newspaper. It was a reminder of all those now but forgotten events: violence in Kenya, cyclone in Burma, Josef Fritzl who held his family prisoner, the discovery of Radovan Kardadzic, earthquake in China, ongoing political violence in Zimbabwe, conflict between Russia and Georgia, the more recent violence in the Congo and Mumbai, and of course the ongoing violence in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan and global economic troubles. The Advent tension that Jo speaks of between the hope we proclaim and the reality of the world as it is was more than evident. The cry for the coming of God becomes more urgent, more desired as we hold on to and cling to the promises of God in the face of a world that feels so stuck in a spiral of violence.

where are you in advent?

Presents wrapped?

No?

Read Luke 2:8-9.

 

Presents wrapped?

Yes?

Read Matthew 2:1-2.

 

Filled with expectation?

No?

Read Luke 2:13

 

Filled with expectation?

Yes?

Read Luke 2:25-26

 

Prepared for what’ll happen?

No?

Read Luke 1:20

 

Prepared for what’ll happen?

Yes?

Read Luke 1:38

 

Hopeful of a good time?

No?

Read Luke 1:51

 

Hopeful of a good time?

Yes?

Read Luke 1:48

 

Knowing how Christmas will work out?

No?

Read Matthew 2:8

 

Knowing how Christmas will work out?

Yes?

Read Luke 2:38

 

If you have answered ‘yes’ to any of the above, now read Isa. 9:6.

 

However, if you have answered ‘no’ to any of the above, read Isa. 9:6

Prepared ... In The Wilderness

It would be very easy to underestimate the importance of John the Baptist. Our four Gospels all highlight the pre-eminence of Jesus, and as Christians we would agree with that assessment. Yet John’s impact was immense. Josephus expends more column inches on John than he does on Jesus. When news reaches Herod of Jesus’ activities, Herod fears he is John the Baptist resurrected, whilst Peter offers John the Baptist as one possible explanation for who ‘people say the Son of Man is.’ Jesus appears to be understood with reference to John the Baptist and one wonders just how much sense Jesus of Nazareth would have made without the man in the open, uninhabited spaces by the Jordan, with his camel hair robe and his locust and wild honey diet.

Our Gospels don’t underestimate John. Each time the Good News of Jesus Christ is recorded, we find that the pathway to that Good News takes us past the baptizer. Each time he is understood with reference to Isaiah 40 and the message of comfort, tenderness and forgiveness. With the exception of forgiveness, this is at first glance somewhat surprising, for comfort and tenderness aren’t words which automatically spring to mind when I think of John.

Yet it is quite appropriate, for just as Isaiah 40 marks a turning point in the affairs of the people of Israel, in which God will do a new thing, something so surprising that they would never believe it, so John comes to announce a turning point in God’s dealings with a creation exiled from him, which will again be new and startling.

Yet perhaps more disturbing is the direction in which we are pointed in each case. We’re directed towards the wilderness, where the way is being prepared, the valleys are being lifted, the mountain and hills are being made low and the rough, uneven land smoothed out. A new era is breaking in, God’s glory will be revealed, the obstacles are, one by one, being overcome. But if we want to see it, if we want to be prepared, the place to look is in the wilderness.

It’s probably not where we want to be, but the wilderness is the place of preparation, where God can be heard away from the bustle and busyness, where God gets us ready for what is to come. The wilderness experience of the Exodus people who had left Egypt came to be seen as the place where they heard and saw God most clearly and were prepared to be God’s people. After his baptism Jesus is prepared for his ministry by being driven into the wilderness. At various key points in his ministry Jesus withdraws to seek God – and he withdraws into the wilderness.

And the wilderness can be the place where we start to see those promises come true. Just last week the lectionary pointed us towards the desire for God to rip open the heavens and come down. And before the end of Mark 1 we see that prayer answered, as the heavens are opened and the Spirit descends on Jesus. God reveals himself, to Jesus at least, in the wilderness.

How different from the preparations we normally associate with getting ready for Christmas. The shops seem to have been ready for ages. Even as staff started packed away pumpkins and witches outfits, Roy Wood was wishing it could be Christmas every day. Within a couple of weeks the question ‘are you ready for Christmas?’ will divide people into the smug and the panicking. When Christmas day comes we’ll have been celebrating Christmas for weeks. At best Advent has been merged into Christmas. Skip the preparations, let’s cut straight to the main event, to the shepherds, wise men and little Lord Jesus asleep on the hay. Ignore the wilderness.

Yet is we do, do we miss the chance to hear and see the Good news of the newness God can bring? It’s in the wilderness that we, with the people of Judea and Jerusalem get the chance to identify ourselves with the newness God offers. Without that, how do we even know we want what God has prepared for us? It is no foregone conclusion that wanting God to act and wanting what God does, particularly when he acts in new and surprising ways, is the same thing. It was in Judea and Jerusalem, the places where they’d flocked to identify with what God was doing, that God met most resistance when he did finally act in Christ. I wonder if I am any different?

Death's dark shadows put to flight

On Saturday morning the local churches sang some Advent hymns and related songs in Stourbridge town centre. A street-seller engaged me in conversation and spent the next few minutes lamenting about our nation's current financial struggles and economic downturn during these recessional days. "It's going to hit us all very hard this Christmas". But looking around the shops and market stalls, traders were still busily trading and shoppers were still eagerly buying.

Later on, I then read a harrowing story in The Times about the ongoing plight of many folk in Zimbabwe. The article movingly described the Ncube family who live in the bushland of western Zimbabwe. They are just one family that represent many of the five million currently facing food shortages. They live in a thatched mud hut, one hundred miles away from any main population centre. They rely on nuts and berries to survive, for which they spend hours foraging in the bush each day. The father has recently had to bury their eldest daughter who died following severe stomach pains, caused by the berries she had eaten. Their two remaining children suffer from kwashiorkor, a bloating of the stomach, caused by severe malnutrition.

A local priest has offered help from his nearby church-run clinic. He described the growing crisis as "a silent tsunami", later adding: "I've seen too much suffering. We were never trained for this sort of priesthood. This is the priesthood of the concentration camps". The article also included a prayer he has prayed with the family:

"Lord, help us during these terrible times of hunger.
Give us hope and courage.
Heal these children.
Bring food to our fields and homes.
Show us your love!"

During our church services yesterday we will no doubt have used very similar words to the prayer above, despite living in a vastly different environment. Hope, courage, healing, love are familiar words in our intercessory prayer vocabulary, regardless of where in the world we live or who we share our lives with. Preparing intercessory prayers on a weekly basis is not always easy, particularly when we are not directly confronted with praying about where our next meal may come from or for a young child that is on the cusp of starvation. But pray we must. It is an eschatological longing for the coming Kingdom. Sometimes it feels like the actual words I use in intercessions probably sound nothing more than a half-hearted sentiment to send some warm wishes to those who just happen to be less 'lucky' or 'fortunate' than ourselves. Maybe in such cases, getting the right words isn't what matters: the Spirit carries forwards our inner thoughts and prayers, however inarticulate they may be, and offers them to the Father.

As we sang 'O come, O come, Immanuel' last night, the image of the Ncube family and the struggles for freedom and peace in Zimbabwe came into my mind.

"O come, Thou dayspring, come and cheer
Our spirits by thine advent here;
Disperse the gloomy clouds of night,
And death's dark shadows put to flight."

May Immanuel come to them.

(by Andy Scott)

birthday reflections

It's hard to focus on Advent things today, because other pressing concerns have occupied my mind ... namely its my birthday.

I love birthdays ... mostly because like Christmas, I enjoy receiving presents. But unlike the festive season, on my birthday I don't have to sit and wonder:

'Did i get him a card as well?'
Did I buy something for her too
and if so ... did I spend as much on her as she has done on me?'

Of course I realise that this is not a healthy way to view the giving and receiving of gifts ... but few of us seem immune from this. So many of us seem to feel a perpetual need to balance the cosmic scales of our giving.

God has other ideas.
At the birthday of Jesus the world receives the greatest gift of all
God takes on the risk and vulnerability of flesh
And there is no way that we can ever balance the munificence of the giver of the gift.
At Easter time, God does it all over again, with another unrepeatable act of generosity.

It is a great moment of personal awareness when he discover and admit our finitude
when we confess that there is nothing we can give to God to balance up the abundance of heaven's giving. But somewhere in the bleak mid winter of this advent time I can hear the soft refrain of carols ... 'what can I give him ... give him my heart.'

by Craig Gardiner

Lead, Kindly Light – An Advent Reflection

Two themes often seem to be associated with Advent – ‘waiting’ and ‘journeying.’ For me, the last few weeks have seen the two drawn together: intersecting, interpenetrating, paralleling, combining. It has been a time when I spent many hours driving from one hospital to another, visiting people connected in some way with the fellowship I serve as minister. There was Ernest*, quietly waiting to die, who greeted me with a smile and said, ‘will you say a prayer for me?’ – I was glad (in the right way) when I received the news that his wait was over. There is Florrie*, frustrated by a broken hip, waiting for the intensive physiotherapy that will enable her to resume her independence and return home. There is Jim*, medically confused, with his wife Vera* waiting anxiously for the day his mind clears enough for him to resume domestic life. Waiting and travelling - journeys that must be taken but which, mysteriously, depend on being still, on waiting.

My own, physical, journeys around the hospitals have been long, and most have been on dreicht days: mizzle and mist, half-hearted fog, encroaching darkness ahead of dusk - an encircling gloom. One day as the mist closed in, and spray spattered the windscreen, I followed a car whose driver had deemed it unnecessary to turn on the vehicle’s lights. I found the words of the old Henry Newman hymn coming into my mind:

Lead, kindly light, amidst the encircling gloom,

Lead thou me on;

The night is dark, and I am far from home,

Lead thou me on.

Keep thou my feet, I do no ask to see

The distant scene, one step enough for me.

What might a kindly light be like, I wondered? Not the stark brightness of halogen fog lights, that’s for sure, nor yet the shimmering brightness of distant stars on a clear winter’s night. A kindly light seems to me to be an Advent light – perhaps a torch (as in the battery powered things we have nowadays) or a lantern (as in a Davy lamp) – something that gives enough light to take the next step but requires the traveller to be patient, to ‘wait and see’ what will come next. This is the light my hospitalised people need (needed) for their journeys… Ernest, as he made the last journey into the mystery of death; Florrie as she literally travels, step by painful step, the journey to independence; Jim and Vera as they wait for light in the mists of medical confusion. And it is the light I need as I walk with them.

John 1:5 says ‘The light shines in the darkness, but the darkness has not understood it.’ (NIVi) How can darkness understand a kindly light? The brash brightness of a searchlight can be understood, as it endeavours to displace the darkness. But the kindly light is something different; quietly and resolutely it enters the darkness, confusing it with its vulnerability and smallness – how easily a candle could be snuffed out, how feeble its flame. How crazy the God who enters the world as a child, through the waiting of gestation, through the pain and travail of human birth, to share our vulnerability and to walk, a step at a time, a journey that offers hope for our own.

Lead, kindly light,

In the waiting and watching;

In the walking and wondering;

In life, in death;

In joy, in sorrow;

In health and in illness;

In sunshine and shadow;

Lead us on -

Lead us home,

Through Christ, our Lord. Amen

* Names have been changed

That halfway place between prayer and protest

A number of years ago we received a Christmas card from a friend who was a long serving doctor in the Middle East. Card is not quite true – it was on rough cheap tissue paper, the picture stamped by a crude stencil. Paper and “card” were produced by refugees and survivors in one of the world’s suffering places, war-torn Beirut. It lay beside my Advent candle for most of the Advent period. In the clear up after Christmas I lost it.

In the more than ten years since, the story of the new millennium so far has increased the available vocabulary for the litany of suffering places in the world. The Twin Towers. Asian Tsunami. Darfur. Beslan School. New Orleans. Afghanistan. Iraq. Zimbabwe. Congo. Mumbai. In alphabetical order these and other place-names would make up a human lexicon of loss – lost life, lost family, lost homes, lost limbs, lost health, lost direction, lost innocence, lost hope.

The Beirut Christmas card is still important to me because that one picture portrayed the despair and the hopefulness that often co-exist in human suffering, the coincidence in the heart of fear and faith in the future, the desperate dance of darkness and light in our human, and inhuman history. The massacre of the innocents is there, disturbingly embedded in the Nativity story. And perhaps the greatest danger to biblical truth today is not liberal demythologising of stables, donkeys, shepherds, angels and mangers. Much more dangerous in our own all too real world is our editing out of the Christmas narrative the political ruthlessness that sees the collateral damage of a few dozen slaughtered toddlers as no big deal in the world of realpolitik.

As a result of all of this I’ve thought and prayed about the picture on the Beirut Christmas card, which remains a clear image in my mind. I've tried to describe it in this poem – like the Beirut Card, a rough draft, an amateur attempt to say and live the word hope, looking firmly in the face of world realities. Card and poem, offered in the hope that the miracle of mother and child will push us into that highly charged halfway place between prayer and protest that we call the coming of God.

Beirut Christmas Card.

Crude coloured, Beirut Christmas card,

hand-printed tissue roughly made;

pressed shapes, deep dyed against despair,

stencilled hopes of refugees.

The woman holds her crying child,

trapped in a doorway late at night,

silhouette, and threatening dark,

lit from behind by a transient star.

Two arms half open, cradled child,

Cherished and held, a cross beam of love;

body conformed and protectively hunched;

motherhood shaped to a cruciform shield.

Shared shadow falls, reshaping the light,

history told in the shape of a cross.

© Jim Gordon, 2008.

How music instructs Advent

In Maggi Dawn’s Beginnings and Endings, she says, ‘Christmas can sometimes feel less like a feast to be celebrated and more like a deadline to be reached.’ I know what she means. Increasingly the celebration starts earlier, so that when eventually we arrive at Christmas, instead of marking the commencement of the festival, it’s the climax of one that’s been going on for ages. The festival that should start on Christmas Day and continue for twelve days is virtually over by Boxing Day, St Stephen’s Day. And this happens both outside the church and within. 

In my present role as a regional minister, at this time of the year I miss being the minister of a local church. This is because I find Advent deeply enriching.  Advent marks the beginning of a new church calendar. But also it’s a time of waiting, of preparation, of suspense. And I guess that I shouldn’t be surprised that we’re not great at this.

It’s at this point that I find music instructive. Music works on the principle of ETR, that is equilibrium, tension and resolution. It starts from a place of equilibrium from which tension is created, and then the tension is resolved. How composers handle the resolution of tension is what music is all about. Take a nursery rhyme like ‘Humpty Dumpty’ (you need to know the words for the next bit!).  At the end of the first line at the word ‘wall’ you’re still more or less at home. By the end of the second line and the word ‘fall’ you’re at a point of tension and definitely away from home. As you reach ‘men’ the tension is intensified.  ‘Again’ brings the resolution, and you’re back home again.  For a more sophisticated version, try Beethoven’s ‘Fur Elise’, or the slow movement of Brahms Second Symphony, or if you’ve got five hours to spare, Wagner’s Tristan. 

In these examples there are tensions within tensions, and how the tension is held, partly resolved, resolved only to open up another tension, and resolved completely, bringing closure, is the stuff of music, all music, and I could have illustrated with Coldplay, Oasis, Take That, or Girls Aloud. Great composers use tension to generate expectations which are deliberately delayed through the diversions and digressions that the music takes. The ‘not yet’ of resolution through delayed gratification is reckoned to be one of the essential skills to be learned by any composer. And regardless of the musical style, be it rock music, symphony, popular song, or jazz in particular, where music is ‘composed’ in the instant, a huge amount depends upon learning to manage the space between tensions and delayed resolutions in ways that sustain both expectation and interest.

The effect that this has is to give music a forward moving feel. Music is directional. It goes somewhere and drives towards rest and closure. And it does this by drawing the listener in, by pulling you in and pulling you forward. As you listen to music you want the next sound so you are pulled into a dynamic of desire, or put another way, a pattern of hopefulness. Music is therefore inherently hopeful.

And this is where we connect with Advent. Important question - what are we waiting for during Advent? We’re waiting for Christmas, when we look back to the beginning, and to Christ’s first coming.  But Advent is far more than this as we look forward to the ending and his Second Coming.  Advent is when we are particularly conscious of living in hope between the ‘here now’ and the ‘not yet’, between the beginning and the ending, between this present creation and the new creation, which we have begun to experience but not fully. Christ has come, but Christ will come again.  We live in the penultimate and not the ultimate. Our hope isn’t fully realised. We live with the given, but aware that all is not yet given. ‘The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us … we have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only’. But while we have seen, not all have seen, and those who have seen have not fully understood. ‘We know in part and we prophesy in part’. What we see is ‘but a poor reflection in a mirror’ but the day will come when finally ‘we shall see face to face’. 

To return to music, music can’t be rushed through, you can’t just fast forward it. Music takes place in time and music takes time. To rush it is to weaken or ruin it. And again this is played out in the Scriptures. God doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. Which means that waiting is a huge part of what it’s all about.

Jeremy Begbie, from whom much of this thinking originated, brings a Word for Advent when he says, ‘Music is especially qualified to form in us, not just the patience required when something takes time, but the patience needed in the midst of delay.  Delayed gratification is … integral to music, which leads us into a particular kind of beneficial and enriching “meantime” in a manner which can be theologically instructive.’ 

Intervention or Transformation?

The prophet Isaiah, reflecting on the disastrous destruction of the temple in Jerusalem and enslavement of his people in Babylonian exile, flings an accusation at the Lord, "Why did you not tear asunder the heavens and come down?" (64:1) It is a painful question about why the Lord God did not intervene in Israel's hour of need. There are many situations today when we too are tempted to fling similar accusations: 'Lord, why did/do you not intervene: to prevent the massacre in Mumbai; to save the millions suffering in Zimbabwe; to save the Wal-Mart employee being crushed by rampaging shoppers in Long Island; to save 'Baby P' from horrendous abuse and death in Haringey, London?' This is the age-old puzzle of theodicy: how we can justify God's seeming inactivity in the face of undeserved suffering. 

We need to think about the implications of God intervening directly in such situations. Would not this be rather like a god in Greek drama who would fly onto centre stage in a machine and with a few short commands resolve the difficulties that the characters had got themselves into? Just as such artificial resolutions are dramatically unsatisfying; so we need to ask the question: if God were directly to intervene with miraculous resolutions to human crises, would this be ultimately satisfying or good for us? Dietrich Bonhoeffer argued that we need to grow up.

Later, Isaiah comes at the same problem from a different angle. "Yet, Lord, you are our Father; we are the clay, you are the potter, and all of us are your handiwork." (64:8). Isaiah comes to affirm that though God cannot be dragged in at our convenience to provide quick-fix solutions, he is already present sovereignly and is quietly at work. God is present by his constant power sustaining all things. But more than this, God is present as a transforming and shaping force to those open to his help. God, as potter, can do very little with clay that is hard and unyielding; but with clay that trusts the potter and allows the water and pressure of the potter's fingers to shape it, transformation becomes possible.

In Advent we celebrate God's Word becoming one with the clay of humanity. Jesus experienced all the pressures that human living involves yet did not allow the world to misshape who he was. He yielded completely to the potter in his formation. Jesus was not saved by God's intervention on the Cross but through his suffering, death and resurrection Jesus is the pioneer of new life transformed in communion with God; a pioneer who beckons us to follow his way.

Imaginative Hope

We know the end of the first Advent story, a story which leads ultimately to the first Easter. Precisely because we know what happens, I think it can sometimes appear odd to us that we are supposed to spend advent in hopeful anticipation: to anticipate and hope after something that has already happened seems to bend time, requires us to think in ways we do not normally think. It requires a certain amount of imagination to place ourselves outside of time in this way.

The Celtic Christians, I am told, used to have a concept of 'thin places'- such as the seaside, the mountain top, a clearing in a forest- where the boundaries between our world and the heavenly world seemed somehow 'thinner'. In these places, heaven and the divine were almost tangible, and they called immediately for prayer and devotion.

In the same way that certain places can be thin, making us acutely aware of the transcendant, I would like to suggest that times, too, can be thin. I think the rhythm of the Church calendar is woven around these 'thin times', times in the year when we are called upon to remember and take part in the Church's story, to participate in the divine in some way.

As we consciously live out the Advent story, the boundaries between our world and the heavens seem somehow to have thinned. It is a time of hope for all of the world today, just as it was at the first Christmas; the ripples of that great and imaginative hope still echo throughout creation, and in the season of Advent they reach out to us with both a promise and an invitation: the invitation to imagine a different world, and the promise of a hope that endures down the ages.

A child is born

My reflection today is on Isaiah 9:6-7

I am always drawn to these verses at Advent for the reference to a child being given to us.

To us a son is given.

Typical observation from one who works with children, eh?

Today I'm pondering the fact that the government will be on his shoulders. I find I am thinking of a tiny baby's narrow shoulders and the hefty weight of government placed upon them; the juxtaposition of fragility and weight. Isn't that just like our God and Father; to inspire Isaiah to write a tender reference to a little one who will take on governmental weight; referencing the repeated ideas through the Bible of the weak being strong, the lowly being lifted up? The unexpected becomes the possible with God.

I love the amazing names given to Jesus - Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father and Prince of Peace (v6). To lavish such names upon one so small, so fragile, so human.


So my thoughts are brief, but have impacted my day today.

... and that hope will echo prophetically

Advent begins today and so I thought, seeming as no one choose to post today, I'd begin our advent reflections with some thoughts from John Colwell's excellent little book The Rhythm of Doctrine on advent and hope.

The season of Advent has a double reference, looking back to the prophetic anticipations of Christ's coming and looking forward to his final coming, as our judge, at the end of the age. At Advent, then, we begin at the end and end at the beginning, we look forwards by looking backwards and look backwards by looking forwards. We confess the provisionality of our present existence and understanding. We confess that we live in hope.
...

Theology that is formed through the prayers and reflections of Advent will never seek to belittle or to minimise the frustrations and decadence of present existence, but theology shaped by Advent will never be overwhelmed by those marks of frustration and decadence nor will will succumb to unremitting despair; theology formed through Advent will hope and that hope will echo prophetically in a world of futility and violence ... a theology of Advent expresses itself in hope.
...

The hopefulness that is formed through a theology of Advent is not trivial or superficial; it is not forgetful or belittling of the inevitability of demise and death but neither is it wholly overwhelmed by this inevitability ...
...

The hopefulness that is formed through a theology of Advent cannot evade grief and pain but it persists through such; it is a candle that cannot be extinguished ...
...

Simply by its hopefulness, the Christian Church - shaped by the prayers and reflections of Advent, indwelling the expectancy of the Old Testament and the continuing expectancy of the New, awaiting the coming of the one who came, the one who is who he was - will live and speak prophetically within a world otherwise devoid of authentic hope.

John's book can be purchased here.

Advent Blog 2008 Sign-Up

via the comments, let me know which date you'd like


30
1 Lynn
2 Ashley Beck
3 Julian Templeton
4 Geoff Colmer
5 Jim Gordon
6 Catriona Gorton
7 Craig Gardiner
8 Andy Scott
9 Andrew Jackson
10 Nigel Coles
11 Andy Goodliff
12 Phil Durrant
13 Julie Aylward
14 Miriam Pugh
15 Neil Brighton
16 Simon Woodman
17 Lucy Wright
18 Jim Gordon
19 Catriona Gorton
20 Ashley Beck
21 James Grote
22 Rowena Greenwood
23 Andy Goodliff
24

Stood Standing

This is late - apologies, sometimes life gets in the way!

Yesterday my little congregation had 'Vision Day Part Deux' or something to that general effect. It was hard work, but I think it was, overall, quite useful.

In the next couple of days I have to concoct a sermon for Ascension day, and if I'm honest, energy and inspiration are in short supply.

Somehow I can hold these two thoughts together by thinking about resurrection - or anastasis, which can apparently mean 'standing up' or 'getting up' (I think Jesus "anastasis-ed ek necron" in at least one gospel, but I'm too lazy to check right now).

At the beginning of Acts the disciples (and others?) are 'stood standing' (to use a Midlands expression) as Jesus disappears from view. They are, it seems transfixed, mesmerised, paralysed even, stood standing, staring into the sky like some kind of automatons. It takes the mysterious messenger from God to wake them up and move things along.

I think that, maybe, we can be a bit like this in churches - Easter and all it means for us can become where we stop, when things move on we are left 'stood standing' rooted to the spot, anastasis becomes static standing. Too readily we are staring heavenwards waiting for Jesus to return, rather than getting on with what we are commissioned to do here and now.

Nearing the end of 'Eastertide' it is good, for me anyway, to be reminded that resurrection isn't 'just' about Easter and the defeat of death and sin, or even about what will maybe happen at the end of time, rather it is about standing up, rising up and heeding God's call in the here and now. To be stood, standing maybe isn't merely being stuck staring into the blue yonder, but rather to have risen from sleep/death and to be ready for action?

The Scandal of Forgiveness

Yesterday, over at Per Crucem ad Lucem, I posted on forgiveness, noting how all human life is constituted by it, that it is both costly and difficult, that it relates to issues of memory and justice, and that its source is always the crucified God. This morning, I read Rowan Williams’ delightful essay Tokens of Trust: An Introduction to Christian Belief (Norwich: Canterbury Press, 2007) wherein Williams offers some poignant and insightful observations about this same theme. (I did wonder if God is trying to tell me something!)

Williams notes that ‘one of the oddest things in our culture is that we seem to be tolerant of all sorts of behaviour, yet are deeply unforgiving. The popular media mercilessly display the failings of politicians and celebrities; attitudes to prisoners and ex-prisoners are often harsh; people demand legal redress for human errors and oversights. We shouldn't be misled by an easy-going atmosphere in manners and morals; under the surface there is a hardness that ought to worry us. And this means that when the Church in the Creed and (we hope) in its practice points us to the possibility of forgiveness, it is being pretty counter-cultural’ (p. 152).

I still wonder if God is trying to tell me (us) something about the scandal of forgiveness ...

Still Her Little Child

My thoughts at Easter this year have very much turned towards understanding the death of Jesus from Mary's point of view, as Jesus' mother. Can we even begin to imagine what it was like to see the child that you carried and gave birth to, to be scourged and mocked and sentenced to die in the most horrific and demeaning way?

Mary was truly a remarkable woman in that she was prepared for whatever God had for her (it took me long enough to become accustomed to the idea that I was going to become a mum a few years ago!) She praised God, experiencing joy and a deep sense of honour. Yet she also heard words from Simeon which hinted at an ominous future....she no doubt remembered these words and still nurtured and raised her little boy into a man.

Our Lord Jesus Christ, God incarnate, was still her little child.

Still Her Little Child
(Words and music by Ray Boltz and Steve Millikan)

When she laid him in a manger
He was still her little child
In a city filled with strangers
He was still her little child
Though the inn was full
And the night was cold
She held Him close and smiled
When she laid Him in a manger
He was still her little child

When the angels called Him Savior
He was still her little child
When the wise men gave Him treasures
He was still her little child
When the shepherds bowed before Him
A star shone all the while
When the angels called Him Savior
He was still her little child

When He grew in strength and wisdom
He was still her little child
When He spoke the people listened
He was still her little child
When He healed the lame and dying
They would follow Him for miles
And when he grew
In strength and wisdom
He was still her little child

When the people turned against Him
He was still her little child
When they shouted crucify Him
He was still her little child
And when they nailed Him
To a wooden cross
Then we were reconciled
When she held His broken body
He was still her little child
He was still her little child

Easter Us

Easter us

You God who terrified the waters,

who crashed your thunder,

who shook the earth, and

scared the wits out of chaos.

You God who with strong arm saved your people

by miracle and wonder and majestic act.

You are the same God to whom we turn,

we turn in our days of trouble,

and in our weary nights;

we look for steadfast love and are dismayed,

we wait for your promises, but wait in fatigue,

we ponder your forgetfulness and lack of compassion,

and we grow silent.

Our lives, addressed to you,

have this bitter-sweet taste of

loud-clashing miracles and weak-kneed doubt.

So we come in our bewilderment and wonderment,

deeply trusting, almost afraid to trust much,

passionately insisting, too timid to insist much,

fervently hoping, exhausted for hoping too much.

Look upon us in our deep need,

mark the wounds of our brothers and sisters just here,

notice the turmoil in our lives, and the lives of our families,

credit the incongruity of the rich and the poor in our very city,

and the staggering injustices abroad in our land,

tend to the rage out of control, rage justified by displacement,

rage gone crazy by absence, silence, and deprivation,

measure the suffering,

count the sufferers,

number the wounds.

You tamer of chaos and mender of all tears in the canvas of creation,

we ponder your suffering,

your crown of thorns,

your garment taken in lottery,

your mocked life,

and now we throw upon your suffering humiliation,

the suffering of the world.

You defeater of death, whose power could not hold you,

come in your Easter,

come in your sweeping victory,

come in your glorious new life.

Easter us,

salve wounds,

break injustice,

bring peace,

guarantee neighbor,

Easter us in joy and strength.

Be our God, be your true self, lord of life,

massively turn our life toward your life

and away from our anti-neighbor, anti-self deathliness.

Hear our thankful, grateful, unashamed Hallelujah! Amen.

- Walter Brueggemann, ‘Easter Us’, in Awed to Heaven, Rooted in Earth: Prayers of Walter Brueggemann (ed. Edwin Searcy; Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2003), 165–6.

Sanctifying our deepest questions

Doubting Thomas is an epithet too easily thrown about by those who live in the comfortable half light of unexamined certainty. Doubting is too often and too quickly interpreted as disloyalty, a lack of faith which implies lack of love. Following the resurrection, and after some had met and seen the risen Lord, Thomas seems to be the one asking the awkward questions, stubbornly refusing to be taken in by the stories told by others. Doubt is often dismissed as a spiritual fault, something to be guilty about; but some forms of doubt, including Thomas’s questions, are not guilty betrayal but struggling integrity. Perhaps Thomas wasn't playing the hard wired sceptic, nor the melancholic discourager of the others; a more pastoral view (which in the resurrection encounters is jesus consistent approach), might see him as one who needed encouraged but wouldn’t be patronised by platitudes and far-fetched stories. Perhaps his doubt and his earlier absence were not lack of loyalty but hurt love; a man disappointed because he hoped for so much.

Sometimes it’s the person who believes most who hopes most, who takes disappointment hardest, and for whom faith is hard won. None of us would come to faith if we had no personal encounter with the Risen Lord, and were asked simply to rely on the say so of others. The story of Thomas meeting Jesus, the melting of his questions and hesitations before the personal reality and soul shattering truth of God in that invitation - "Touch my hands...put your hand in my side....don't be afraid". It is one of the most moving and pastorally intense encounters we have, and when John said there were plenty more stories he could tell, and even the world as a library couldn't contain them, he still included this one. In doing that he sanctified the deepest questions we can ask about God and ourselves.

Whatever else Christian assurance is, it can never be the kind of certainty that forever disqualifies questions, or looks down on those for whom faith comes hard. Another Thomas, Thomas Merton, pointed out the dangers of superficial answers to those disturbing, persistent questions that are not the enemies of faith, but the living context within which faith affirms our trust in God, even if that means some questions are left unanswered. Indeed faith is nearest to the New Testament, when questions are asked, knowing that for now we see through a glass darkly.

But questions cannot go unanswered unless they first be asked. And there is a far worse anxiety, a far worse insecurity, which comes from being afraid to ask the right questions – because they might turn out to have no answers. One of the moral diseases of the church comes from huddling together in the pale light of an insufficient answer to a question we are afraid to ask.

The story of Thomas, his unsureness and his honest doubt, tells of the difference between a church huddling in the pale light of an insufficient answer, and a church emboldened by the one answer sufficient to all questions - the crucified, risen Lord in the midst.

The Supper at Emmaus

'The Supper at Emmaus' by Caravaggio, had a profound effect upon me when I visited the National Gallery last summer during my sabbatical. It was one of those defining moments. While listening to a piece of music my emotions are quickly engaged, but up to this time, art hadn't effected me in the same way. It was while looking at this painting for a prolonged period that something changed. It was something to do with the centrality of the beardless Christ, the effect of darkness and light, the reaction of the disciples, the contrasting passivity of the servant, the sense that the fruit bowl is about to drop off the side of the table, the chair is being pushed back, the hole is about to develop in the elbow of the sleeve, the hand is coming out of the painting at you, and the way that I was invited into this action on the vacant side of the table. But it was more than all this. I think what did it was hearing a guide explain to a party, with what I conjecture was more than just an enthusiasm for the painting, that this is a freeze-frame, a split second before Jesus disappeared from their sight. I was profoundly moved. I can't explain it, except that the overall drama of the painting, paired with my love of the account of Jesus' appearance/disappearance, together with this interpretation, caused something to shift.

The road to Emmaus is a wondrous part of the Easter story, and captured so effectively in the recent BBC production of 'The Passion'. What strikes me in the accounts of Jesus' resurrection appearances is how Jesus comes and goes at will, almost playfully, mischievously, 'now you see me, now you don't'. His presence can't be demanded, and he's only recognised when he chooses to be. The presence of the risen Jesus is not for us to grasp but for God to reveal. And this sets up a tension - there is a measure of innate insecurity in following Jesus. We rightly believe that God is with us, that God is for us, that God is actively involved in our lives, that God forgives us and hears our prayers. Jesus' last words were 'I am with you always'. We have the assurance of his loving presence. But from our side we have a tendency to treat God as if he has placed himself at our disposal, to do our will rather than the other way round. And maybe that's why there are seasons, when God seems to have disappeared, absented himself, hidden himself. We like to have everything sorted, certain, God-where-we-want-him, safe. But this isn't his way. As Mr Beaver reminds us in 'The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe', 'Aslan is not a tame Lion'.

Two serendipities occurred at a similar time to experiencing the painting. The first was to read Sally Vickers, The Other Side of You. I've read all her novels and so I was really looking forward to reading this one, only to discover to my surprise and delight that Caravaggio's painting is central to the plot.

The second was to come across a poem by a favourite poet, Denise Levertov, inspired by a painting by Valasquez, 'The Servant-Girl at Emmaus. Probably I'd read it before, but again it came as a delightful surprise. While imagined, it is a beautiful, tender reflection on what could have taken place.

She listens, listens, holding
her breath. Surely that voice
is his - the one who had looked at her, once, across the crowd,
as no one ever had looked?
Had seen her? Had spoken as if to her?

Surely those hands were his,
taking the platter of bread from hers just now?
Hands he'd laid on the dying and made them well?

Surely that face - ?

The man they'd crucified for sedition and blasphemy.
The man whose body disappeared from its tomb.
The man it was rumored now some women had seen this morning, alive?

Those who had brought this stranger home to their table
don't recognize yet with whom they sit.
But she in the kitchen, absently touching the winejugshe's to take in,
a young Black servant intently listening,

wings round and sees
the light around him
and is sure.

stations of the resurrection

On easter sunday evening we held a stations of the resurrection service (the idea originating from jonny baker's worship tricks - which if you haven't come across yet is a great place for worship ideas. He's in series three now). The service involved 11 different people or groups of people taking a resurrection scripture and responding to it in some way. It was fantastic for me after a long week of services and running easter icons to just have the responsibility of welcoming and blessing. There were some really powerful stations - Jesus appearing on the shore of Galilee (John 21) was told from the perspective of Peter; Jesus' words to the disciples on the mountain (Matthew 28) centred on the word 'go' and how so often we stay in the empty tomb and don't go out into the world; we had drama, music in the form of elvis ... It was a great way to celebrate easter day. (We're going to have a go at something similar for pentecost)

If it dies, it produces many seeds...

The Johannine account of Palm Sunday includes Jesus speaking these famous words: "Unless an ear of wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains only a single seed. But if it dies, it produces many seeds." (John 12:24 NIVi).



At one level, this is a statement of the obvious, an agrarian image that speaks of the necessity of one part of season's harvest being set aside to ensure another one. And yet it is a powerful reminder of the costly sacrifice that has to be made - season after season - for a new harvest to be possible.



Three years ago, my little congregation was forced to close a much loved chapel building. Since then, alongside a growing commitment to mission, we have worked long and hard to discern how best to handle its disposal. Finally, after two rounds of planning applications and lots of hard work by architects and advisers - to say nothing of the generous support of our Baptist Association who advanced us the cost of the all this work - during Holy Week we finally received the news that planning consent had been granted and we were now clear to sell the site for re-development.



There is still a lot of work ahead of us, and it will be someone else's job to turn the outline plan of seven new houses, suitable for first time buyers or young families, into a reality. Our own future home is less clear, since the site value will not buy us another chapel Despite all this, I have a real sense that this is an Easter story, a resurrection story...



Part of the harvest of a byegone era was the Victorian chapel that has now died, that must be razed to the ground, in order that others may enjoy the land on which it was built, that this place may continue to serve the community ina way appropriate to its needs. The seeds from that season - both the people who have found faith and the money that will be realised from the sale - must now be sown for a new harvest in a new era. Death, yes, but new life, abundant life, also.



The chapel has died!

The Church is risen!

Resurrection is come again!



"... seed fell on good soil. It came up and yielded a crop, a hundred times more than was sown." (Luke 8:8, NIVi) May it be so, Lord, may it be so.

easter group blog

After a fantastic advent group blog, I failed to get around to organising a lent group blog, so I thought we might try an easter group blog. The idea is you sign up for 1 or 2 days from the list of dates below (leave a comment) and commit to blog something on that day that is somehow connected to easter or resurrection - a short reflection, a poem, a picture, a quotation - you know the drill.

March 24
25 - catriona
26 - andy goodliff
27 - geoff colmer
28 - jim gordon
29
30 - no blog
31 - jason goroncy
April 1
2
3
4
5
6 - no blog
7 - jason goroncy
8
9
10
11
12
13 - no blog
14
15
16
17
18
19
20 - no blog
21
22
23 - jim gordon
24
25 - catriona
26
27 - no blog
28
29
30
May 1
2
3
4 - no blog
5
6
7 - jim gordon
8
9
10
11 - pentecost