Beginning a new season

I greet again all my readers in name of the Father of all Mercies and pray His grace be with you.

Five years ago, God started me on a training programme in His love through the ministry of John and Carol Arnott and the 'Catch the Fire' network they founded.  He has brought me into a secret and intimate place with Him, where my heart lies open to His loving gaze and healing, and heaven is open all around me for a thousand loving conversations.

This morning, we talked about what is happening now.  Through our intimacy, I know He is my loving Father all the time, and all my value and identity come now from Him.  If anyone speaks a different word about me, I know immediately it is not true, and I run to hide in Him in safety.

This intimate relationship with God protects me so that when I encounter damaged people - including myself - I will not be damaged.  I will not "return evil for evil" (1 Peter 3:9 ) nor become "spotted by the world" (James 1:27).

But I am sensing a change in season, spiritually.  A first stage of my training is over, and I have had a big shock: when training is over and you start doing what you have been trained for, at first you will mostly fail.  The overwhelming feeling is the cry: 'What then was it all for?'

But He comes to comfort and reassure.  My failures and sins are all necessary and good, to complete everything God loves to change about me.

On the third day He rose again from the dead!

Today, no words - just Piero della Francesca's icon of Christ's resurrection which he painted for the town hall of his native town, Borgo San Sepolcro, in around 1458





Christ has died!  Christ is risen!  Christ will come again!

No 49: So that He Would be Crowned with Glory and Honour

All religions worship and glorify their god or gods, and most stress the transcendent and powerful character of their gods and the huge distance there is between them and a human being.   What differentiates the Way of Jesus' followers is scandalous to that kind of religious thinking.  We carry this revelation in our lives: that God's purpose is to welcome us into His intimate presence, no longer as servants but as sons and daughters.  We are to rejoin His family.  Jesus will share everything He is and has with us.  Our relationship to the Father is to be the same as Christ's.  The very Trinity - Father, Son and Spirit - is expanding to include all redeemed humanity.  Isaiah and Matthew named Jesus "Immanuel, which means God with us" (Isaiah 7:14, Matthew 1:23); Jesus completed this revelation by saying: "I will take you to be with me that you also may be where I am" (John 14:3).  Where we are to be is in eternal communion with the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.  St Paul describes this as a mystery, in other words a truth kept hidden: "Christ in you, the hope of glory" (Colossians 1:27).

Jesus taught this mystery over and over again, in parables to crowds and more plainly to His disciples.  The parable of the prodigal son has the wayward son returning with the conventional religious attitude of humility and self-abasement: "Father, I have sinned against heaven and against you.  I am no longer worthy to be called your son; make me like one of your hired men"; which his father cuts short and orders the utmost honour and status to be given him: "Quick!  Bring the best robe and put it on him.  Put a ring on his finger and sandals on his feet.  Bring the fattened calf and kill it.  Let's have a feast and celebrate" (Luke 15:11-32).  On the eve of His passion and death, Jesus spoke at length to His disciples, preparing their hearts and minds for these future spiritual realities:  "Before long, the world will not see me any more, but you will see me.  Because I live, you also will live.  On that day you will realise that I am in the Father, and you are in me, and I am in you" (John 14:19).  Perfect communion.

The Son has His Being in unending glory with the Father and Holy Spirit - forever and ever, world without end, amen.  But He left that behind to become one of us: "He made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness" (Colossians 2:7).  As a son of man, the glory He was crowned with through His passion, was only ever to be a means to this end: to bring us into the selfsame glory. 

In Jesus' great prayer in John 17, He says this to the Father: "I have given them the glory that you gave me, that they may be one as we are one.  I in them and you in me" (John 17:22).  A more fitting title for this chapter, so near the end of Piper's book, might have been: 'So that We Would be Crowned with Glory and Honour'.

No 48: To Gain His Joy and Ours

A few days ago somebody said I was irrepressible.  He spoke it in anger and frustration; but my heart rejoiced at the word and received it as the tenderest encouragement and affirmation from my God, who really knows me.  It is a profound experience to see that sudden conjunction of heaven and earth, where the same words express sanctification from God and condemnation from man.  St John records an extraordinary instance of just this happening to Jesus:  "Caiaphas spoke up. "You know nothing at all!  You do not realise that it is better for you that one man die for the people than that the whole nation perish."  He did not say this on his own, but as high priest that year he prophesied that Jesus would die for the Jewish nation" (John 11:49-51).

In fact, these moments are glimpses of redemption in operation.  Not only spoken words, but events and circumstances may seem at first to be evil, but are then discovered as bringing good.  This is so familiar an experience, that everyone knows sayings like 'Every cloud has a silver lining'.  Usually, it is only with hindsight and subsequent events that we realise God's hidden plan and intent; but sometimes, as I said, we realise simultaneously what is going on in heaven and earth, and that is amazing.  Our relationship and intimacy with God has grown to the point that we are aware of both realms at once. 

This was clearly how Jesus experienced things.  For Him, it seems to have been a state of constant 'twin-awareness', not momentary gifts like it is for most of us.  He testified: "I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me.  The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him" (John 8:28,29).  Even in the confusion and terror of his nightime arrest, He remained totally aware of heaven, saying: "Do you not think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?" (Matthew 26:53).  I believe all of us can aspire to be so changed and renewed in mind and spirit that such awareness and consciousness of God become increasingly normal in daily life.  In fact, I think that this is one way of describing what 'faith' is. 

In the verses from Hebrews which preface Piper's chapter today, it is clear to me that this is how Jesus experienced His crucifixion.  At the same time as his physical and emotional agony on earth, he experienced a heavenly joy.  The words chosen by the writer of this letter try to express this profound experience.  The Greek word which is translated 'set before' in verse 2, is the same word which is translated 'surrounded' in verse 1:  "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses ..." (Hebrews 12:1).  Jesus was surrounded by, caught up in, immersed in, drenched by, the Father's love and joy: at the same time as He was "enduring the cross and disregarding its shame" (Hebrews 12:2).

But not for the entire time.  To complete His identification with us, His beloved Bride, as the moment of death approached He suddenly lost all awareness of heaven and all intimacy with His Father.  This had never happened to Him before, and it wrenches agonising words from Him:  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).  Of course, His loving Father and our loving Father never had, and never does.

No 47: To Rescue Us from Final Judgment

To reflect properly upon this chapter, we would need to dig deeply into the Bible's shifting and evolving concept of the wrath of God.  For the moment, I  have nothing more to add to what I wrote in my very first Lenten post on this theme:  'Whatever His wrath means, we know that love is His abiding and defining attribute - they aren't opposites.  God doesn't stop loving, to be wrathful.  Clearly, like God's love itself, his wrath lies outside all categories of human experience.  The analogy He has taught me comes from His natural order.  If I am walking along a cliff and fall off, I will experience violent consequences because of gravity.  Nature isn't angry with me, gravity isn't vengeful.  But I am being punished for my action.'

Piper quotes a passage from Revelation, describing it as 'the most graphic glimpse of hell'.  As I have begun a little bit to experience visions and prophetic pictures, I have realised how we can seize on an expression of the spiritual realm and apply it grossly to our physical, material world.  It is rather akin to taking a dream literally - very young children do, but soon learn not to. 

There are several occasions recorded in the Gospels where we see Jesus dealing with this wrong way of receiving spiritual truth.  One is related in John 6:32-58.  Towards the end of a long altercation, Jesus says: "I tell you most emphatically, unless you can eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you" (verse 53), and He goes on to emphasise this message using the same words three more times.  Many of His disciples then said: "This is a hard teaching.  Who can accept it?"  No doubt their imaginations were filling with 'graphic' images.  Jesus replies: "Does this offend you?  The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing.  The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life" (John 6:61, 63).

It is interesting that we have no record of Jesus ever mentioning God's wrath in proclaiming His good news.  He even cut short the reading He had been given to recite in the Nazareth synagogue, omitting "... and the day of vengeance of our God" (Isaiah 61:2).  This makes me wonder why we should, either, when telling others our good news.  Isn't He our model? 

No 46: To Gather All His Sheep from Around the World

Reading this chapter, and reflecting upon the scriptural quotations in it about God's scattered children and Jesus' one flock, God reminded me of another scattering:

Come, let us build ourselves a city, with a tower which reaches to the heavens, so that we may make a name for ourselves and not be scattered over the face of the whole earth...  The Lord said, "If as one people speaking the same language they have begun to do this, then nothing they plan to do will be impossible for them.  Come let us go down and confuse their language so they will not understand each other."  So the Lord scattered them from there over all the earth, and they stopped building the city. (Genesis 11:4-7)

We think divisions and misunderstandings between men a great evil, and work hard to overcome them - and so they are, and so we should.  But the truth is that God decided that we should be confused and scattered, to stop us uniting in rebellion and alienation from Him.  This challenges our simple ideas about God.

The Holy Spirit has linked two scatterings in my mind this morning: that first one in Babel and the second one in the Church, which has also produced division and misunderstanding.  Could it be that in the second as well as the first case, "the Lord scattered them" (Genesis 11:7)?  And for similar reasons?

Nevertheless, Jesus firmly prophesied:  "I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold.  I must bring them also.  They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd" (John 10:16).  And He is praying this for us:  "May they be brought to complete unity to let the world know that you sent me and have loved them even as you have loved me" (John 17:23).

One good purpose I discern in the separated denominations, churches, practices, theologies and points of view, is that it forces me to realise that God is greater than the Church, and Jesus stands over and distinct from us all.  Gerard W Hughes in his classic book 'God of Surprises' writes:

'The Church is a sign, and an effective sign, of God's presence among us.  God is not static.  The Church, if it is to be true to its meaning, cannot be static.  We can never adequately describe God: therefore we can never adequately describe the meaning and nature of the Church.  As an organisation of human beings, the Church must have structures, laws, discipline, a body of teaching and ways of communicating, but its structures are provisional and it must be constantly developing.  God is always greater, greater than the Church.  God is at work in all creation and dwells within each one.  God is at work across the Christian denominations, across the religions and in the hearts of those who profess to have no religion.  No religion can monopolise God, although most will try to do so, claiming that unless you follow their particular way, you cannot be saved.'

No 45: To Ransom People from every Tribe and Language and People and Nation

What God has done for us through Jesus' life, death, resurrection and return to the Father, is to ransom us!  To ransom us out of every prison of the mind and spirit so we can all love and serve and call God our Father too!  The new angelic songs St John heard and wrote down for us in Revelation 5:9-13 are some of the most sacred and faith-imparting words in the whole Bible.  That whole chapter brings together earth and heaven, God and man, joy and tears, passion and purpose, victory and poignancy.  Contemplating its visions, all my thinking stops.

This morning I found it next to impossible to still my heart in God in more than a momentary way.  My wife and I had been put through an awful experience four days ago, and despite every tender and affirming word since from my Lord, the memories of the ordeal crowd my mind and my heart speeds up as if for a physical battle.  But do we imagine it was any different for Jesus, through the ordeal of those ghastly inquisitions and show-trial and physical assault?  Do we think He was emotionless and impervious, so no sword could "pierce his soul" (Luke 2:35)?  Jesus bore the limitless love of God for us, and the sufferings of such love spurned were commensurately limitless.

I know my faithful God does not expect me to 'keep it together' under severe trial.  He will carry me, "as a father carries his son" (Deuteronomy 1:31).  He knows how I am formed, and how all my physical systems work - memory, adrenaline, emotion.  No matter what is happening and how I am reacting in the thick of it, no accusation from man or Satan will stick because I have been ransomed.  And this God has said to me this morning: "Your accusers are ransomed too."

We have been ransomed from the power of an enemy, from the forces of evil, from Satan, and from the law of sin and death which he prosecutes.  Never for a moment think of your heavenly Father, the God of all mercies, as your enemy - past, present or future.

No 44: To Destroy the Hostility between Races

Maybe it’s a sign of my age (59 later this year), but I have become much less caught up with the theory and theology of my Christian faith, and far more interested in how to get it to work out in me in practice.  This is probably why Piper’s book has not really been the book for me: it has been 100% theology, all rather abstract.  Such a book could only have been written by a man! 

Take this chapter as an example.  Looking through it, I have found just one indication of a slightly more practical nature, of what we might do about what he says: ‘Ritual and race are not the ground of joyful togetherness.’  Presumably, by race he means here that we should never value our neighbour more or less on grounds of his race.  That’s unquestionably good.  I would hope also that Piper means by ritual that we should never value our neighbour’s spiritual walk more or less on grounds of his rituals.  But I know from his chapter 13 that he really thinks that all rituals must be got rid of. 

In my reflections on that chapter, my main point was that none of us can live without ‘a certain way of doing things’; shared habits and practices and points of view in our particular church – in other words, traditions and rituals.  So abolition is clearly not the answer; and in fact churches which think they have, are the most self-deceived and unable to critique what they do.

In that chapter and this one, St Paul’s letter to the Galatians is most quoted.  What interests me this morning is how much St Paul changed and matured over his lifetime, on this issue.  Galatians is believed to be his earliest letter.  From its polemical tone, the bruising encounter in Jerusalem seems very fresh in his memory, and what is more, he writes unapologetically about the way he handled it.  He is clearly still in the thick of a battle, and we have to forgive him some very unholy words – look at Galatians 5:12.

By the time we get to Romans, which is maybe his last letter, his teaching in chapter 14 is compassionate and inclusive.  He now accepts how precious some traditions and rituals are to their practitioners, and urges Christians not to look down on each other on such grounds.  His decades as a father to many new churches have deepened his understanding of people, and deepened his trust in God’s hand on all of them, in all their diversity.  It’s a wonderful, wise chapter.

“Who are you to judge someone else’s servant?  To his own master he stands or falls.  And he will stand for the Lord is able to make him stand” (Romans 14:4).

“Why do you judge your brother?  Why do you look down on your brother?  For we all stand before God’s judgment seat” (Romans 14:10).

“Whatever you believe about these things keep between yourself and God.  Blessed is the man who does not condemn himself by what he approves” (Romans 14:22).

No 43: To Unleash the Power of the Gospel

The beginnings, the first stirrings, of my faith seem like the first moments of my life: they happened in secret, deep within my mother's body, far from any possibility of recall, for no 'I' had yet been formed to remember.  As I grew inside her, even by the time of my birth when every part of me had been formed, no memories survive.  Were any laid down?  Surely so, but they exist now like deep foundations, invisible, but supporting everything else above ground and familiar.  So with faith: there may be beginnings we remember - key encounters with other believers, or a life crisis in which we cried out for help, or, rarely but wonderfully, an unbidden epiphany like St Paul's on the Damascus road.  But we can all trace a back history to those times, too, which to our new eyes reveal the activity and grace of God long before we realised it.  My spiritual life was gestating in secret before it came to my attention.

It was Bill Johnson, I think, who coined the term 'pre-believers' for those with no confession of faith yet.  I like that.  Not only does it capture a sturdy faith that God will one day reach them, but it also hints at the truth that He has already planted His seeds in them.  It is not really the clear-cut 'them and us', 'saved or not', 'in or out', which typifies attitudes to non-Christians in so many of us.  George Fox, the founder of the Quaker movement, referred to a 'divine light' in every man.

Piper asks: why is the death of Christ not seen as good news by all?  To his two reasons, I would add another.  It may not yet be the right time for them; the seed still has hidden growing to do, or the right season has not yet come round.  This is why Jesus usually framed his teaching to mixed crowds in parables.  Some will understand the parable there and then because they are ready to do so; others will remember it without understanding it, and later understand when they are ready.