life before death

2009-07-15T15:52:00.004+01:00

journey

I've been thinking a lot about how our life is a journey in recent weeks and how that analogy influences how we think about our faith. Forgive me for being oversimplistic but I wonder if there are two ways of seeing faith/life as a journey:

Have we invited Christ into our lives to join us on our journey or has He invited us into His life to be part of His journey? Has God become part of your story or have you become part of His story?

Jesus was pretty clear on where he stood in relation to his heavenly father:

"I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by himself. He does only what he sees the Father doing. Whatever the Father does, the Son also does."John 5:19

and his disciples in relation to him:

"If any of you wants to be my follower, you must turn from your selfish ways, take up your cross daily, and follow me." Luke 9:23

Our orientation matters greatly because the fruit will differ considerably!

Is your life busy with frantic activity which you ask God to bless when you remember to or have you taken the time to see what the Father is already doing and been still long enough to listen to His invitation to join Him in His activity?

Is the way ahead unclear? Have you lost your sense of direction? Could it be that you have stopped following.

We all need at times to get into a still, quiet place with Lord - free from distractions and demands - to find ourselves once again in Him, to feel His life energizing ours once again, to be thrilled once again by His invitation to join Him - to follow Him.

Missing, Presumed...

2009-04-16T14:06:00.002+01:00

Easter Monday, a day off from work and an opportunity to spend it with friends in London. A day full of sights: artefacts from ancient civilisations that have gone before us, a vintage clothing store with genuine items from the previous 10 decades, tea on a floating restaurant overlooking the Thames, the London Eye, and the Houses of Parliament.A day full of sounds: mostly laughter as we enjoyed each others company.

How quickly the relaxed mood changed when amidst the hordes of people enjoying street performers, someone said "Where's Sophie?" In that split second i found myself gripped by a moment of panic as a worse case scenario played out across the internal screen of my mind. "Missing, presumed..." Taking hold of those thoughts, I turned them into a prayer as I scanned the crowd.

They went to the tomb - he was gone.

Now they knew he was dead. They had seen him draw his last breath, washed his body, wrapped it in grave clothes and laid him in the tomb. But now he was missing.

Missing - this is not how things should be.

When things happen to interrupt how we think things should be, what is our presumption? Is our default position one of fear, doubt, insecurity and panic?

"Peace - trust me" I heard the Lord whisper in my heart. Some moments later she was there and my arms were around her.

"Why are you looking among the dead for someone who is alive?" The angels asked matter-of-factly.

The One who goes before us, The One who has been faithful to the generations who have gone before us, spoke into the disciples turmoil - speaks into ours with an unruffled whisper: "Peace be with you...don't be faithless any longer. Believe!"

a life worth living...

2009-01-05T13:19:00.004Z

When I was 8 or 9 my eldest brother asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. Without having to think about it, straight away I said "a philosopher"! I like Douglas Adams' term better: Professional Thinker.

Thirty years later, I find myself doing this for a fair bit of my time.

I have always been fascinated by the big questions about life - what makes people tic being a nice way of summarising my quest.

There are obviously biological / physiological factors that enable to exist: oxygen, water and food. But it's not the workings of our physical heart that grabs my attention, it's the non-physical aspect of our lives - what the Bible also calls our "heart." This is what interests me.

Variously described throughout the scriptures with interchangeable terms such as the soul, the spirit, the mind - it refers to what animates our physical bodies in a way that is unique among all other living things.

This is more to do with the question of "who" we are rather than "what" we are. Though we frequently (and mistakenly) define who we are by what we do - each of us was already "someone" the moment we came into the world - before we had even done anything. "The you that makes you - you," as Douglas Coupland puts it, is fundamentally an issue of personhood.

I am both body and soul - a mysterious interrelationship of two fundamental ingredients that have combined to express "me."

In the same way that I will cease to exist without oxygen, water and food - "I" have no meaningful existence without the "fuel" that energizes my soul: relationship.

The paradox of existence is this: unless I get certain things I will physically die, however, unless I give myself to someone other than myself, I will have no life worth living!

This is the essence of genuine love: it is self-giving, it is self-less, it is is others centred.

When we make life all about getting not giving, when selfcenteredness rather than selflessness is our focus, the life we think we have is no life at all.

Christ is the supreme example of a self-giving, selfless life lived for others and He invites us , and empowers us, to make His "way" our way of life. The same Holy Spirit that animated the life of Christ can animate ours also and transform our hearts to be focused on others rather than ourselves.

Isn't it time we all started really living!

Life is not meant to be a Hell Run but a Heaven Run...

2008-12-03T11:07:00.004Z

Life's journey is often compared to a marathon rather than a sprint. The analogy works up to a point: it's not about coming first (it's an accomplishment just making it through to the end); it's an arduous course that tests our endurance. But marathon's tend to be run on the flat, and let's face it, those moments in life are all too brief!

Our journey is full of ups and downs - more like a Hell Run - think cross country runs from school days but not across flat fields, rather, up and down hills and mountains!

Sometimes life can feel like we're in a valley, in a trough, in a pit - and there seems to be no way out. At other times it can seem like we're facing a mountain and there just seems to be no end in sight. There is comfort in looking around us at such times and remembering that we do not journey through life on our own. But we can find ourselves surrounded by some unwelcome companions: voices of despair to the left, voices of dissapointment to the right.

In his letter to the Christians in Thessalonika, the apostle Paul wrote:

"We continually remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labour prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ."

What we do in life, Paul encourages us to do by trusting in God. Why we do it, is motivated by love. And what keeps us doing it is inspired by Hope.

Far from being something weak and lame like "wishful thinking," Hope can be a source of great inspiration in our lives producing endurance. Rather than unwelcome companions whispering despair and dissapointment - encouraging us to quit, Hope is more like a personal trainer constantly spurring us on.

The question is, who or what do we put our hope in?

If we put our hope in the God revealed in and through Jesus Christ, who was not defeated even by death, Hope becomes the confident expectation that God will fulfill all that He has promised. And no matter how bleak life gets, when we face our darkest hour, when we're in that pit or facing that mountain, Hope comes to remind us of just who it is we have put our hope in and that the grave does not have the final word!

Paul expressed it this way to the Christians in Colosse:

"Christ in you, the hope of glory"

This is not just the promise of future glory, but a declaration of transformation in the present!

Jesus put it this way:

"I tell you the truth, those who listen to my message and believe in God who sent me have eternal life. They will never be condemned for their sins, but they have already passed from death into life."

The life of heaven available here and now - the power to transform our Hell Run into a Heaven Run.

2008-10-29T12:36:00.004Z

Have Faith in...

I've been thinking quite a bit about faith this week. Not only because it was the theme of Sunday's sermon but because of a number of things I have seen over the last couple of days.

Besides the daily news being dominated by falling house prices, the volatility of the stock market and the state of the economy in general, someone came into the office and when asked how they were doing replied "touch wood, everythings going to be ok". In addition to this, a TV drama Julia and I enjoy watching featured a story line in which one of the main characters revealed a serious health condition which rocked the world of the person's friends and colleagues.

When we lack confidence in ourselves, are let down by friends, and our security in the institutions that run the world seem to be unraveling, we need to reach for more than a piece of wood to reassure us!

And that's where faith comes in.

But if your faith is a confidence in the things you believe then it can be as fragile as anything else we think offers security.

We are to place our trust, not in our beliefs about Christ, but in Christ himself.

You may believe the chair will support your weight - but trusting in the chair to support your weight is demonstrated by sitting on it!

So in these uncertain times when people are reaching for something (anything) to give them a hope and a peace, rest in Christ - the one who says to us:

"Every person the Father gives me eventually comes running to me. And once that person is with me, I hold on and don't let go!"
Jn. 6:37 (The Message)

let the heart speak

2008-09-25T22:25:00.007+01:00

For the last 300 years or so - since the dawn of the age of enlightenment, the head has been championed over the heart.

Our ability for rational thought, to reason, to evaluate, to logically deduce and conclude is a wonderful gift - a remarkable ability that sets us apart from other life forms. We not only know that we exist but have the wherewithall to formulate ideas, opinions and theories about how and why.

And so we formulate beliefs about the nature of our existance and the world around us. In today's definition of that term we mean that we affirm a certain set of statements and propositions to be true based on evidence that is verifiable, provable, and repeatable under laboratory conditions.

The latin word for belief is creedo, from which we get the word creed. But the word has not always been understood in this way.

In fact, before the age of enlightenment, creedo used to carry the sense of meaning "I give my heart to."

"What is truth?", Pilate famously asked Jesus during his trial.

Truth is not only what may be believed according to the modern usage of the term, it is also a reality of the heart. It is something which the heart knows even though the mind might not fully understand or comprehend or the mouth is able to articlulate.

I spent 2 hours tonight with a man who had a very real experience of God that he himself would have believed to be impossible until recently. Yet he could not deny the truth and reality of what he was experienceing in the very core of his being - his heart. His mind could not explain it and he struggled to articulate it.

It is because of our supreme arrogance and to our own detriment that we allow our head to define and evaluate our perception of truth alone. When we open our hearts and listen to it's inner voice we will discover vistas to this mystery we call life that have previously escaped us or been silenced - for the heart understands the language of God: love.

what have Rolf Harris and John the Baptist got in common?

2008-08-28T09:07:00.001+01:00

One of the things that never fails to amaze me about the Bible is that, when approached with an open heart, it is always fresh never stale.

I recently read John's Gospel again (in one sitting - which is always an interesting exercise). Right there in chapter one I saw something I must have read a thousand times but hadn't really noticed before. John the Baptist confesses to not having recognised Jesus as 'The One' - the very person he had been talking about as the greater one who would come after him.

Not only that, but John had previously said that 'The One' who was to come had already been among them in the crowd.

So why did John fail to recognise Jesus in the crowd one day and then pick him out and draw the crowds attention to him the very next day?

Something significant happened between John's two attempts at the 'spot the Messiah in the crowd' contest, or a first century version of "Where's Yeshua?": he "saw" the Holy Spirit descend and rest upon Jesus.

John didn't look for the Messiah in the same way my children look for something they have misplaced - more energy spent on bemoaning the loss of the item than actual hunting, he looked and looked again, and kept on looking...

I can imagine God saying to him "Can you see who it is yet?" (Antipodean accent optional).

I wonder how often we fail to "see" and fail to recognise God's activity going on all around us in the crowd.

If we look again - and "see" with our spiritual eyes wide open we will find plenty to draw peoples attention to!

why we shouldn't hold people under when we baptize them

2008-07-27T21:07:00.000+01:00

In my last piece I stated that western cultures are future oriented. No doubt it has something to do with the affluence of our societies (not having to worry about how today's needs are going to be met), that we have the luxury of thinking about tomorrow. And so, we dream and aspire to something we have not yet attained and are driven by it to take the necessary steps to achieve it - whatever 'it' may be.

If we are so concerned about the destination, why don't we save everyone a lot of time and suffering and give people the opportunity of going to heaven straight away by holding them under when they're baptized? "Upon the confession of your faith, we baptise you in the name of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit and dispatch you to heaven right now without delay, Amen."

The reason (apart from the obvious point that it is illegal!), is because this life matters - life here and now matters.

The wise old Jedi master, Yoda, makes this point to a zealous and impetuous young Luke Skywalker in the movie The Empire Strikes Back: "All his life has he looked away... to the future, to the horizon. Never his mind on where he was. What he was doing."

Life is not just about the destination - it's about the journey.

If it were just about the destination why did God call Abram, who initially lived in the south of present day Iraq before migrating to Haran (present day southern Turkey) to leave his homeland and travel to the Land of Promise (today's Jordan, Israel, Lebanon and Syria). Why did God not choose a human agent for His work who was already living in the Promised Land!? Precisely because the journey is important.

The journey is formational in who we can become. If we will only pause long enough and often enough to get our bearings from the One who gives us the reference point we need, we will discover life to have great meaning and purpose.

christ and time

2008-07-22T17:18:00.000+01:00

One of the most fascinating articles I read at university was by Bruce Milne entitled "Christ and Time: Swiss or Medditerranean?" In it he postulates that cultures view time differently.

Roman society was past oriented (evidenced, for example, by ancestor worship). Today's western societies remain predominently future oriented (although the enlightenment utopian dream lies bleeding in the gutter of post-modernity, the myth of progress still clings on for dear life).

In contrast, the 1st century Jewish worldview was decidely present-oriented. Unlike our present, which is here for a fleeting moment before being shoved into the past by the unstoppable juggernaught of the future rushing towards us, Jesus' contemporaries would have viewed "now" as an extended present.

Encompassing events that precede those that are as yet forthcoming, the present reaches into the past and future in a fluid and connected way that can be illustrated by seed-time and harvest or pregnancy. Not only should this influence the way we read and interpret the teaching of Jesus, it should cause us to pause and reflect on our own attitude towards time. Are we so driven by the future that we have no time for the present?

In our consumerist society, now can sometimes feel like an inconvenience on the journey to "whatever's next". Even one of life's fundamental questions, "Is there life after death?" illustrates how our preoccupation with the future increaeses anxiety. Though never too far from the surface of our lives, it is supressed by nihilistic tragi-comic aphorisms such as Douglas Adams': "hang the sense of it and just keep yourself occupied!"

We should not be surprised that Jesus had more to say about life before death than life after death.