World Cup Blogs 7: Croatia

Every football fan knows one thing about Croatia - the national football team have the most amazing shirt design - a red and white chessboard!

As I work through this year's World Cup nations alphabetically I choose instead to reflect on Croatia being the first country I've come to which is directly mentioned in the Bible.  (By directly I don't mean by name but by the province it was at the time of the New Testament letters).  Here it is, in Romans chapter 15, verse 19 . . .

17 Therefore I glory in Christ Jesus in my service to God. 18 I will not venture to speak of anything except what Christ has accomplished through me in leading the Gentiles to obey God by what I have said and done – 19 by the power of signs and wonders, through the power of the Spirit of God. So from Jerusalem all the way round to Illyricum, I have fully proclaimed the gospel of Christ. 20 It has always been my ambition to preach the gospel where Christ was not known, so that I would not be building on someone else’s foundation. 

Illyricum, which today's coastal Croatia then was, had an early opportunity to hear the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ.  How did that happen?

It happened because it was Paul's ambition (20) to preach the Gospel where Christ was not known.  The good news of Jesus did not spread around the world by default or by means of a virus.  The change that Jesus brings is enough to drive people to the places and to the people that would otherwise be left to live and die in lives that flourish only in the manner of most nations' transient World Cup dreams.

World Cup Blogs 6. Costa Rica

Until the time of the last World Cup in 2014 (Costa Rica were in England's group) my knowledge of Costa Rica was limited, to say the least.  Somewhere on the mainland of Central America, probably quite small and revolutionary and possibly something to do with rice.

Though it was the time of the last World Cup, it wasn't the World Cup that changed my view of Costa Rica.  It was that, having moved to London with its international population, I was in a church where one of the members was Costa Rican.  I found myself asking about the country because I had met the person.  I found out about the country and it mattered to me because it was part of someone I now knew.

This is exactly how it often works in things spiritual.  Here is someone who has nothing but a minimal, distant knowledge of the Lord Jesus and the things of heaven.  They will happily die with no such knowledge - or so they believe.  Then they meet someone who belongs to Jesus, who is spiritual but who is also their friend.  And things that once meant nothing to them come to mean very much more.

World Cup Blogs 5. Colombia

Colombia?  Football?

For those of us old enough to remember, it means one thing - the world's most memorable goalkeeper, Rene Higuita.  Unique in so many ways, he was the main reason some of us wanted to watch Colombian games at previous World Cups - what might he do next?

This video doesn't show it but his style of play resulted in some awful moments too but risk = entertainment!  As he has said himself, no goalkeeper today would be allowed the creative and risk space to do what he did.

Somewhere in the heart of the Christian faith is risk.  In our church we are about to look more closely at one of Paul's missionary journeys and to read them is to feel the distance between the vibrant Christianity of the(often imprisoned and even executed) early believers and the 10:30 Sunday morning way the rich-world church does its faith today. 

May God make us interesting!

World Cup Blogs: 4. Brazil

When I was growing up Brazil was synonymous for me with one thing - brilliant football - and one person - Pele.  As ever, in this 2018 World Cup, Brazil are one of the favourites - though their star tends to shine less brightly than it did those years ago.

Yet today when I think of Brazil I do not only associate it with football.  Instead I associate it with the rainforest, or more specifically, the shrinking of the rainforest.  Below are two satellite images 14 years apart, the first the remaining rainforest, the second that which was there in Mato Grosso in 1992 (courtesy wikipedia).

There are many things that rudely put football in its place and perspective and this is one of them.  Would we rather have a great World Cup or reduce the worldwide losses of rainforest from its current level of - wait for it - over 70 million acres a year?

God has made us stewards of creation first and made us to be footballers as a somewhat lower priority.

World Cup Blogs 3: Belgium

Continuing to blog reflections on the 32 nations represented at this summer's World Cup in Russia I come to the first, alphabetically, that I have set foot in - Belgium.  

We are driving to Belgium this summer and it is very striking that it is less miles away than when we drive to Liverpool.  In this year Belgium figures in the great commemoration of a hundred years since the 1918 Armistice Day. Beneath its soil lie thousands of remains that testify to the madness of the 20th century wars.  It is not surprising that Belgium (which also had post-colonial connections to the Congo Crisis in the 1960s and the troubled lands of Burundi and Rwanda) should have a strong official bent toward peace.

Belgium, moreover, is an amalgam - or rather an accommodation - of two very different cultures (Dutch and French) with even a little of Germany added as a result of the First World war settlement.  This duality (plus the German corner) makes for a strangely divided yet relatively historic country - they have a a fine football team at the moment so they might have plenty of reasons for unity as the World Cup begins.

So the more successful they are, the more often we'll hear the Belgian National Anthem.  In its National Day form it has alternate lines in Dutch, German and French.  The last three lines of the verse usually sung is a repeat (Eng. King, Law and Freedom!).  After a very brief look I think you will guess which of the three languages this line was first written in  . .

Voor Vorst, voor Vrijheid en voor Recht!

Gesetz und König und die Freiheit hoch!

Le Roi, la Loi, la Liberté!

Today, on Pentecost Sunday this perfectly illustrates the difficulties of translation, and this is very relevant to the coming of the Holy Spirit.  Jesus promised Him in John chapter 14.  Jesus spoke Aramaic, a form of Hebrew but the New Testament was penned in Greek and the word used was paracletos.

And in English?

Advocate (New International Version)

Comforter (King James Version)

Helper (English Standard Version)

Companion (Common English Bible)

Counsellor (Revised Standard Version)

Paraclete (Douay-Rheims)  [which of course is not English but a transliteration]

If the Belgian National Anthem is a clue that its nation is very varied, then perhaps the attempts to translate paracletos are a sign that the Holy Spirit is God with us in amazing and varied ways, something to be celebrated on this Pentecost Day by people of every language, tribe and tongue.

World Cup Blogs 2: Australia

Continuing Christian reflection on the 32 nations in the World Cup 2018:

I have as many family members in Australia as in the UK but I have never been there.  Today the evangelical world feeds from the recording label-cum-church network called Hillsongs but for many of us in ministry, a number now growing once more through the internet, the debt we owe Australia lies firstly elsewhere: the writings of Frank W. Boreham.

Boreham grew up in Kent.  He was the last student to be accepted at Spurgeon's College (for training Baptist pastors) by C H Spurgeon himself a couple of days before Spurgeon died.  In ministry he worked in New Zealand, then in Australia (Tasmania and Melbourne) though that doesn't tell the half.

It was as a student at Spurgeon's that, in a plethora of recommendations for reading, a lecturer who I did not overly admire threw in Boreham's name - "you will still find useful things there."  Somewhere or another I picked up an ancient looking book with Boreham's name on as a shelf filler.  And on some other day with little to do I actually opened it and started reading.  And like many before and after me, that was the moment when Hillsongs, for all its future glory, was doomed forever to remain in second place when I thought of Christianity and Australia.

Before the war Boreham was invited to speak back in Britain at the Church of Scotland Assembly and was introduced as “the man whose name is on all our lips, whose books are on all our shelves, and whose illustrations are in all our sermons.”

Billy Graham's wife Ruth was greatly influenced by Boreham as is popular 21st century apologist Ravi Zacharias.  But let Boreham speak, or rather write, for himself:

“God stands in relation to His world as the Author stands in relation to his manuscript. He may need to introduce a villain, but He Himself is not on the side of the villain. The world is not out of control. Everything in it – material and spiritual – is, like the unfinished story on Stevenson’s desk, at the command of its divine Author. And the Author is on the side of the good!”

______________

For the last time I reached for her Bible. I knew what to read. If for her great countryman there was ‘only one Book’ at such a time, for Granny there was only one chapter. ‘In my Father’s house are many mansions.’ Even as I gave utterance to the beautiful and rhythmic cadences, the rain ceased to beat upon the little window-pane, and I read on amidst a silence that was like the threshold of another world. It was like the hush of the Presence-chamber, the anteroom of the Eternal. I could see that Granny drank in every syllable, and it was as the wine of the kingdom of heaven to her taste. And then I prayed—or tried to—for the last time! When I rose from my knees by her bedside, the setting sun had struggled through the rain-clouds. It streamed gloriously through her little western window. It transfigured her wan face and wandering hair as it fell upon her snowy pillow. I quietly rose to leave. I was about to take her hand in mine when a thing happened that I think I shall remember when all things else have been forgotten.

To my amazement, Granny rose, and sat bolt upright! In the glory of the setting sun, she seemed almost more than human. ‘Doon!’ she exclaimed, ‘doon!’ and motioned me to kneel once more by her bedside. I obeyed her. And, as I knelt, I felt her thin, worn hands on my head, and I heard her clear Scotch accent once more. ‘The Lord bless ye,’ she said in slow and solemn tones; ‘the Lord bless ye and keep ye! The Lord bless ye in your youth and in your auld age! The Lord bless ye in your basket and in your store! The Lord bless ye in your kirk and in your hame! The Lord bless ye in your guid wife and in your wee bairns! The Lord bless ye in your gaeings out and in your comings in frae this time forth and even for evermair!’ I have bowed my head to many benedictions, but I have never known another like that. The frail form was completely exhausted, and poor Granny sank back heavily upon her pillow. In a very little while she had passed beyond the reach of my poor ministries. But I often feel her thin fingers in my hair; and that last benediction will abide, like the breath of heaven, upon my spirit till I shall see her radiant face once more.

World Cup Blogs 1. Argentina

We've reached another World Cup.  Thirty two nations are represented at it and endless columns will be written before,during and after the event in Russia.

My contribution will be a spiritual thought about each country - in alphabetical order.

Argentina is an amazing country with a very mixed relationship with England at football and with the UK regarding the Falkland Islands over which, in 1982, a war was fought.  Argentina has a very different relationship, though, with Wales.

Over 150 years ago Welsh settlers made their home in Patagonia and still today thousands of their descendants keep the welsh language and many customs alive.  Here's a Welsh Revival hymn at the Chubut Eisteddfod:

In fact, apart from a certain antipathy to the English for different but not unrelated historical reasons the Welsh and the Argentinians also have in common a history of Revival.  One of the great Argentine revivals began almost immediately after the 1982 war defeat in the Malvinas/Falklands. 

At least some of us in the UK would have chosen a Revival from God over a military victory if that choice had been put to us.

A soul-warming end to the football season

Nathan Jones, manager of Luton, talks about his faith.