God in the Garden 2. Hidden Problems

It even surprises me.

When we filmed the Easter Morning pandemic recording in the garden there was the awkwardness of a derelict pond motor cupboard, used by a previous resident to create a flowing water feature.  It is clearly many years into its decay.

'Why,' I wondered, 'have I never fixed it?'   

I ventured my best explanation - that in the summer it was hidden, because in truth I could hardly remember thinking about it in days in the garden over the years.

And so it proved to be.  I simply hadn't realised how totally the greenery in the pond left the old cupboard out of sight and out of mind.  Here it is in the summer:

That is why it is never fixed!

As we thought about at Easter, the reason for the coming and sacrifice of Jesus is because sin is never hidden from Him - it required action.  The reason why humankind can be equivocal about, blase towards or disinterested in the great salvation Jesus achieved is because we simply cover up our sinfulness to ourselves and among ourselves.  It doesn't need fixing, so we don't need Jesus.

This strategy fails to take account of the end of the story - where what God sees is the basis of our eternal accountability.

God in the Garden 1. Life from the Cross

Like Church leaders of all kinds, I spent significant lockdown time broadcasting from the garden.  I'm very blessed, especially in London, to have a garden.

Maundy Thursday - what a long time ago that feels - our family was in lockdown with Covid in the house.  For our online Maundy Communion (watch here) we needed a cross.  As it happened, my wife had made her own from two old garden twigs because she had done her school's online Easter talk.  We used that very stark-looking cross.

When summer came, we sat in the garden in happier circumstances - and one day looked at that cross:

Out of the apparently dead wood was growing a flower.  It is a fantastic picture of the hope that God offers during a dead year, and that he always offers through the cross to the soul who turns his way.

Pandemic Parables 6: Whether or not we're indoors . . .

Jesus also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” 

This is perhaps the most encouraging of parables for the church in a pandemic.  The list of what can be done in building relationships for the Kingdom is very much shorter.  The possibilities for the winter ahead are filled with uncertainties, and even next summer is tough to plan towards.  Whilst some expressions of Christianity are more content with a low-key private or contemplative approach, Baptist and Evangelical Christians have always viewed life as seizing opportunities and working for them when they are missing.  More like Jesus' Galilean ministry than his earlier Nazareth days of carpentry.

Another parable I cited was about the sower sowing the seed.  It reflected different kinds of soil productivity.  This little parable from Mark's Gospel is about providence.  The farmer must do something - sow the seed - but then cannot really do anything.  Whether locked down (asleep) or up and busy, the soil produces the grain.

This does not entirely reflect modern agriculture - but it brilliantly reflects 2020 church work.  Thank you, Jesus!