Great minds think (April 2016)

So, as the month that began with All Fool's Day comes to a close we recall that it also contained this announcement - the grand plan to send tiny spaceships propelled by laser beams to explore our galactic neighbourhood.

Nobody would deride the great achievements of Professor Hawking, made more memorable by the physical limitations from which his great mind operates.  And does anyone doubt the elevation of the human spirit that is attained by the longing to boldly go where no silicon chip has gone before?

On the other hand there is nothing like one of these kind of grand projects to cast doubt on the sanity of the rich and clever and perhaps of us all.

Anyway, here's two ideas to choose from:

'Earth is a wonderful place, but it might not last forever. Sooner or later we must look to the stars. Breakthrough Starshot is a very exciting first step on that journey.'  Professor Hawking 

That day will bring about the destruction of the heavens by fire, and the elements will melt in the heat.  But in keeping with his promise we are looking forward to a new heaven and a new earth, where righteousness dwells. The Bible

It's a tragedy

People have been dying a lot recently.

Only in the past week we have seen the funeral of Ronnie Corbett, the death of Victoria Wood and the suitably mysterious decease of Prince.

Today, St George's Day, we remember the mysterious George (about whom we know little more than we know about the Dragon) and the more-mysterious-than-we-often-think William Shakespeare, star of stage and screen (though the screen was a time coming of course).

Four hundred years is a while and thus nobody is saying how much they miss William or that their 'thoughts are with his family' (whatever that phrase means when uttered by a politician).  Simply put we first encountered old William as dead.  We've never thought of him otherwise.  I think he would approve.

A few weeks ago we went to watch Hamlet and although we have seen many Shakespeare plays we had, surprisingly, never seen this famous one.  The subtleties of Shakespeare are legendary, but the one very unsubtle thing about Hamlet is that it is a tragedy.  At the end the major players are all lying dead on the stage (or off stage).  It is not subtle. "When sorrows come, they come not single spies, but in battalions".How true it is and how untrue.As we move through Easter toward Ascension Day the Greatest Drama of All is revealed to be death's crushing defeat as every one of its supposed clients is raised up to stand before the throne of the Man who left death dead.When resurrections come they come not single lives but all as Christ commands.

Great minds think (A previous experience)

Some years ago I attended a public lecture in the packed historic, Sheldonian Theatre in Oxford.  I do not doubt that the string of degrees, academic awards and degrees-to-be present would have put my meagre attainments to apparent shame.  Starting from that deserved humility I became increasingly incredulous as the evening wore on (wore having a special reference given the uncomfortable seating).  For this was a lecture postulating the Multiverse.

It is always good to reduce complex ideas to simpler ones and if I have a gift to offer the Great Minds of Oxford it is perhaps this as I seek each Sunday to convey deep truths to people coming off a week at the shop, office or rest home.  So the summary goes something like this.

1. The Universe exists, so it must be explicable.  
2. The existence of the Universe is proving inexplicable to natural science (too much complexity, not enough billions of years etc.).
3. There must therefore be ever so many other 'Universes' and we've happened in the one that works.  [As Uni = one we have to change it to Multi = many]

The minor hole in this wild speculation would be the existence of a Creator which easily explains the complexity.  What a laughable idea . . .

Or to put it another way: although this blog post appears to contain thoughts and words in the English language it has not been written by a Writer and is simply one of an infinite number of blog posts and you have simply happened upon the one that randomly looks as though it was written.

Great minds think, but thinking is never enough.

A Fool's Guide to Resurrection

Easter!  New Life! Spring!  But on April Fool's Day I contend that resurrection is overrated.

At first thought it seems impossible to overrate it. Doesn’t it deal with the one thing that China’s manufacturing, the US military, Microsoft, the United Nations Security Council, Apple or the International Monetary Fund cannot?  Doesn’t it deal with death? When we lay our dear ones in the dust nothing seems more important.  If only mortuaries could be replaced by Resurrection Units!

But what if. 

What if the first human being to conquer death had been Adolf Hitler, emerging victorious from the rubble of his bunker never to die again?  Or you or me?  What would we do with our newly-evident resurrection power?  Do we seriously trust our untrustworthy selves to make resurrection life a virtue?

That’s not all. What is resurrection for?  

Resurrection is not attractive if it reintroduces the resurrectee to illness or further serious injury, to more wars and violence, to other years of heartbreak and despair, to new enemies and more pollution.  A thousand years of hospital appointments has its limitations.  Globally over 100 million people seriously contemplate ending their own lives each year - the very opposite of resurrection. Life is the problem sometimes.

The resonance of Easter with returning spring is both obvious and meaningless.  Yes, the bunnies jump, the daffodils bloom, the birds sing and daylight dissolves the darkness.  But this is life again, not life transformed.

Simply put, resurrection is useless without Jesus.  It had to be him.  It had to be the rebirth of humanity, the new creation beginning on the First Day of a new week.  It had to be life with a Leader, resurrection with a Redeemer, it had to be the Way and the Truth as well as the Life. It had to be the One who could credibly promise a life that would always be worth living!

On a previous day when, one might think, Lazarus became the resurrection and the life as he meets us from his tomb Jesus said it - I AM the resurrection and the life.  And Jesus hadn’t even died yet.