An Easter Reflection

See, my servant shall prosper; he shall be lifted up, and shall be very high.  Isaiah 52:13 NRSV

Good Friday:  The Transformative Love of Jesus

What a holy day this is, Good Friday.  But taken on its own, the events of this day feel anything but good.

Jesus, who rode into Jerusalem on the back of a donkey only five days ago is headed towards the Cross today.  He gave up His life for His friends, most of whom stood aside and silently watched Him go to His death.  The love that Jesus showed inspires me and spurs me to focus on the parts of my life where I live unaffected by God’s love.

On this day, in many churches around the world, coverings are placed over the images of Jesus, including the Crucifix or crosses and any painting of Him.  This is a solemn act that’s intended to direct us towards mourning.   Similarly, there is tradition in many churches to bury the alleluias we sing and say.  Alleluia comes from the Hebrew and means “Praise the Lord.”  Today, think of not saying it as a sort of verbal fast.  When we hear, say and sing it again, two days from now, we will appreciate and mean it all the more.

I have never experienced Christ’s love like a thunderbolt, but I’ve seen and been through a slow process of transfiguration at various times in my life–times when I have been affected by God’s love.  Transformations can come when we live a life with God.  With Him, we “shall be exalted and lifted up, and shall be very high.”

–John Sweeney,  Daily Guideposts

Doug Coupland, who wrote Generation X and popularised the term Gen X, also wrote the book called Life After God. . . .  Let me quote from the dustcover of Life After God:

As suburban children we floated at night in swimming pools the temperature of blood, pools the color of earth as seen from outer space.  You are the first generation raised without religion.  What happens if we are raised without religion or belief?  As we grow older the beauty and enchantment of the world tempers our souls.  We are living creatures with strong religious impulses, yet where do these impulses flow in a world of malls, TV, Kraft dinners and jets.  How do we cope with loneliness?  How do we deal with anxiety, the clash of relationships?  How do we reach the quiet, safe layer of our lives?

Coupland tells many such stories in the Book, but on the next to last page he writes this conclusion:

Now–here is my secret:  I tell it to you with openness of heart that I doubt I shall ever achieve again, so I pray that you are in a quiet room as you hear these words.  My secret is that I need God– that I am sick and can no longer make it alone.  I need God to help me give, because I no longer seem to be capable of giving; to help me be kind, as I no longer seem capable of kindness; to help me love, as I seem beyond being able to love.

–Patrick Morley, A Man’s Guide to Spiritual Disciplines

To all who read these words, I have a secret also.  Thirty-five years ago I sat in a quiet room and struggled to say yes to a man’s invitation to ask Jesus into my life.  Not because I didn’t want to, I just struggled to find the confidence to be sure that I could make this relationship work, though I did not articulate it in my heart the same way at the time.

I harboured a deep, deep secret like Doug Coupland.  My secret was that I needed God, that I was sick and could no longer make it on my own.  I needed Him to help me give, because I no longer seemed able to give.  I needed God to help me be kind as I no longer seemed capable of kindness, to help me love as I seemed beyond being able to love unconditionally.  In that moment back in 1978 in a quiet room I said yes.

Just after I became a Christian, a good friend said to me, “Now that you have been introduced to Jesus, get to know Him by praying to Him and reading His Word.”  I never forgot that advice, yet I find that in today’s world, many Christian men have given up on reading the Bible.  Why is Bible study so important?

Patrick Morley in his book titled, A Man’s Guide to the Spiritual Disciplines, says on this subject that we should remember that Scripture has a purpose.  The gospel of John was written by one of Jesus’ disciples–a close friend who knew our Lord personally.  Toward the end of his book, the apostle John explained why his account was selective:  “Jesus did many other miraculous signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”  (John 20:30-31)  Patrick states that in 1994 a study revealed that 73% of Americans believed all the miracles in the Bible took place exactly as stated.  But looking at the culture, belief hasn’t changed how people think or behave.  John said he recorded those miracles for a purpose.  He intended for his readers to understand and accept that Jesus is the Messiah–the Saviour–and know that He is God’s Son.  Patrick Morley concludes by asking why that is important.  He says it’s important because belief gives birth to life.  Theologians say that Scriptures are given for our justification and sanctification.  That basically means the Bible exists to bring us to faith (justification or salvation) and to help us become more and more like Christ as we grow in our faith (sanctification, or holiness).

I agree.  I am kidding myself if I believe that I can grow to be more like Jesus and not study the Bible on a regular basis.  The following passage carries a promise for any man who makes regular contact with God’s Word.  “Blessed is the man who does not walk in the counsel of the wicked or stand in the way of sinners or sit in the seat of mockers.  But his delight is in the law of the Lord and on his law he meditates day and night.  He is like a tree planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither.  Whatever he does prospers.”  Psalm 1:1-3

If you have not been reading your Bible, why not plug into a Bible study group today?  I hear that there is a good one starting up for men.  Just contact Gateway Baptist Men’s Network for details.

“For to you is born this day in the city of David a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:11 (RSV)

 

The Spirit of the Season.

It is in the old Christian carols, hymns, and traditions–those which date from the Middles Ages–that we find not only what makes Christmas poetic and soothing and stately, but first and foremost what makes Christmas exciting.  The exciting quality of Christmas rests on an ancient and admitted paradox.  It rests upon the paradox that the power and the centre of the whole universe may be found in some seemingly small matter, that the stars in their courses may move like a moving wheel around the neglected outhouse of an inn.

–G.K. Chesterton

 

I wish all my readers a very merry Christmas and a Christ-centred New Year.  A verse for you this Christmas is Micah 6:8, “He has told you men what is good and what it is the Lord requires of you:  Only to act justly, to love faithfulness, and to walk humbly with your God.”

I read this quote some years ago and it caught my attention because it seems that people are always searching for evidence as to God's existence.  I always saw the quote as meaning the Bible is the only evidence one needs.  It sure has never let me down.  Over the years it has continued to draw me close to my Creator.

"Those who are the most inclined to trust God without any evidence except His Word always receive the greatest amount of visible evidence of His love."

- Charles Gallaudet Trumbull

We are interesting folk, those of us who follow Jesus.  If you’re wondering why I say that, read what A .W. Tozer has to say on the subject of why we can afford to wait.

A real Christian is an odd number anyway.   He feels supreme love for One whom he has never seen, talks familiarly every day to Someone he cannot see, expects to go to heaven on the virtue of Another, empties himself in order to be full, admits he is wrong so he can be declared right, goes down in order to get up, is strongest when he is weakest, richest when he is poorest and happiest when he feels worst.  He dies so he can live, forsakes in order to have, gives away so he can keep, sees the invisible, hears the inaudible and knows that which passeth knowledge.  The man who has met God is not looking for something–he has found it; he is not searching for light–upon him the light has already shined.  His certainty may seem bigoted but his is the assurance of one who knows by experience.  His religion is not hearsay; he is not a copy, not a facsimile print; he is an original from the hand of the Holy Spirit.

We have not here described a superior saint–merely a true Christian, far from perfect and with much yet to learn; but his first hand acquaintance with God saves him from the nervous scrabble in which the world is engaged and which is popularly touted as progress.  No doubt we shall yet hear many a tin whistle and see many a parade bravely marching off toward the Universal Brotherhood of Mankind or the Age of Atomic Progress, and we will be expected to fall into step.  Let’s be cautious.  We are waiting for a trumpet note that will call us away from the hurly-burly and set in motion a series of events that will result at last in a new heaven and a new earth.

We can afford to wait.

 

–A. W. Tozer, The Root of the Righteous

Last Sunday, Rhys talked on the subject of disappointment.  After the service, as I made my way out to the car I spoke to several people.  Later I was reflecting on the conversations and how each of the people I spoke to were going through tough times in their lives.  I remember feeling frustrated that I wasn’t able to do anything to ease their pain.  When I started this blog a little over two years ago, I mentioned that one of the first books I ever read was called Where Is God When It Hurts? and some months ago I read an article by that same author titled Those Who Mourn.  I believe it is one of the best accounts of how we handle life when friends and loved ones are going through difficult periods in their lives.

Because I have written books with titles like Where Is God When It Hurts? and Disappointment With God, I have spent time among mourners.  They intimidated me at first.  I had few answers for the questions they were asking, and I felt awkward in the presence of their grief.  I remember especially one year when, at the invitation of a neighbour, I joined a therapy group at a nearby hospital.  This group, called Make Today Count, consisted of people who were dying, and I accompanied my neighbour to their meetings for a year.

Certainly I cannot say that I “enjoyed” the gatherings; that would be the wrong word.  Yet the meetings became for me some of the most meaningful events of each month.  In contrast to a party, where participants try to impress each other with signs of status and power, in this group no one was trying to impress.  Clothes, fashions, apartment furnishings, job titles, new cars–what do these things mean to people who are preparing to die?  More than any other people I had met, the Make Today Count group members concentrated on ultimate issues.  I found myself wishing that some of my shallow, hedonistic friends could attend a meeting.

Later, when I wrote about what I had learned from grieving and suffering people, I began hearing from strangers.  I have three folders, each one several inches thick, filled with these letters.  They are among my most precious possessions.  One letter, twenty-six pages long, was written on blue-lined note paper by a mother sitting in a lounge outside a room where surgeons were operating on her four-year-old daughter’s brain tumor.  Another came for a quadriplegic who “wrote” by making puffs of air into a tube, which a computer translated into letters on a printer.

Many of the people who have written me have no happy endings to their stories.  Some still feel abandoned by God.  Few have found answers to the “Why?” questions.  But I have seen enough grief that I have gained faith in Jesus’ promise that those who mourn will be comforted.

-   Philip Yancey

    The Jesus I Never Knew, pp 123-24