Great (Hymn) One Liners 8. In man for Man

A vast array of memorable lines are on offer for Good Friday.  I am going for a line that, frankly, most people singing it probably do not grasp (here I am judging others by my own weaknesses, it is true).

The double agony in man, for Man. should undergo.

The line comes from 'Praise to the holiest in the height' by the Victorian Anglican-turned-Roman Catholic John Henry Newman.  The line describes the extent of the generous love of God in Jesus who died for us.  

The whole hymn is deep and dense, but here Newman uses the simplest of words - in man for Man - to describe the humiliation of God becoming human (Agony Number One) in order to save humans by his death (Agony Number Two).

Did you see what happened there? I took a long and complex sentence - Newman took four words totaling eleven letters. 

These agonies are the agonies of this day, and our good salvation.

(To see the whole series click on the hymnline tag)

My Covid Walk: 8. Honaz

Where could I have walked to if I had walked through a year of Covid in one direction?  My eighth and final possibility is Honaz.  Honaz is in the middle of Turkey.

Wikipedia:

Honaz is about 12 miles east of Denizli on the slopes of Mount Hinaz, the highest peak in the Aegean Region of Turkey.  It is just to the south of Honaz Cayi, a river known in ancient times as the Lycus.  In antiquity Honaz was known as Colossae.  Like many other cites in the region Colossae was destroyed by earthquakes with few ruins remaining.  Today the economy is centred on growing cherries.  It is also the home area of many oil wrestlers including the three-time national champion.

Is it Covid-safe?

Turkey is currently on the Red List - so no.

On the Plus Side:

Some natural beauty - a bit rugged - and I like cherries.

On the Minus Side:

Too hot for this time of year.  Lots of history but none to see.

Has it got a Football Team?

Denizlispor (from the nearby city) were, until last month, in the Turkish Superleague.  But after finishing 21st out 21 they are there no longer of course.   

Has it got a Baptist Church?

No.  Has it any Christian Church?  Not that I can see.  There are a handful in Denizli - the nearest Baptist Church may be in Izmir, three hours by car.  The incongruity of the lack of Christian witness in this area - as in Benghazi (My Covid Walk 6.) is made more amazing in the light of Paul's words to the Colossians of old: 

The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

But if the pandemic has taught us anything, it has taught us that human influence and trends are not within humans' power: Honaz has yet to encounter anyone else who has divine, creation and resurrection power - and it never will.  It's still Jesus or bust in Colossae.

Prospects out of Ten:

Four.  Sitting in the searing sun, eating a bag of cherries and pondering Colossians.

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.

Pandemic Parables 5. Accountable to myself

Today I availed myself of the Government's 'Eat Out to Help Out' scheme.  Walking around a sparsely populated city block I say a mainly empty cafe and took up the offer of the half priced lunch.  I would have eaten anyway, which seems to me to point up the ludicrous nature of the scheme - but if you're a tax payer - thanks!!  It was nice.  

My table had a QR code.  This was how I was to register for the NHS Test and Trace scheme.  As a diligent enforcer in our church, I felt i ought to co-operate, even though it was hardly prominent.  But I'm not great with QR codes, so after a few complications on my phone I gave up and enjoyed my sandwiches anyway.  As far as I could tell I was the only person in the Cafe even trying to use the code.

That's how we like it.  An important regulation - qualification - that we can choose to ignore.  In the end, it's my decision.

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son . . .

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

My hunch is that, in the minds of very many people Jesus, the Gospel, salvation, being born again,  believing all figure like the Kingdom of Heaven's QR Code.  Maybe we should attend to him/them but in the end, let's wing it - 'after all my great grandad went to Church' (actually mine didn't as far as I know).

The question arises whether God's judgment and final entry into Heaven's Kingdom will operate with the laxity of the cafe I visited - or indeed the Government's own enforcement.  If so, a great deal of sin is going to be part of that kingdom and eternity looks very uninviting for us all.   But as Jesus' parable points out, God's Kingdom will ultimately require the right clothes - it is a Wedding Banquet, not a Cafe.  Being dressed right is the only way in, and the only way to be dressed right is to put on the new clothes the King has provided, Jesus, the Gospel, salvation, being born again,  believing.

Good News in a Pandemic: 5. NHS (etc.)

Someone writing about the National Health Service was wistfully observing that it seems to have become a national religion.

There is no doubt that the NHS is held in high regard by most Britons - even ones who might tolerate the opposite extreme in the USA were they living there.  The pandemic centres everyone on doctors, nurses and paramedics and in the UK they are synonymous with the NHS.

Thus every Thursday we clap our praise to our religion in the form of community thanks for NHS staff (more recently widened to care workers in general). 

Normally applause is reserved for sportspeople, for actors or for speeches.  But when we are sick, or when we fear we might be sick, we suddenly see the value of the doctors and nurses.

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick", said Jesus (Luke 5:31).  "I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

It is the person who needs a Saviour - who knows they need a Saviour - who praises Jesus the Saviour.

Good News in a Pandemic: 3. Prophecy

Jesus said, "There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places and fearful events and great signs from heaven." (Luke 21:11).

While each of the first three Gospels devotes a chapter's length to Jesus' prophecies of things to come, in the good times that are now past there has been a strong preference to avoid them.  Better by far (it has seemed) to speak and think about the Parable of the Lost Sheep, the healing of the lepers or the welcoming of little children.  The good news is not in those scary prophecies.

However, now we see why Jesus told us about such things.  If our faith is in Jesus we are glad to find that the pestilence which has knocked the 21st century world sideways is perfectly in keeping with our Saviour and our Heavenly Father's plans.

Had Jesus only predicted the good times, then we should lose our faith in Him.  Instead we can learn the lesson of the fig tree.  In his words, "When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves you know that the summer is near.  In the same way, when you see these things, know that [the Master] is near, at the gates." (Matthew 24:33)

40 Days: Shattered

Years after the event, Moses tells the Israelites of his agony when he came down Sinai's mountain after receiving the instructions from God - including the Ten Commandments.:

 16 And  I looked, and behold, you had sinned against the Lord your God. You had made yourselves a golden1 calf.  You had turned aside quickly from the way that the Lord had commanded you. 17 So I took hold of the two tablets and threw them out of my two hands and broke them before your eyes. 18 Then I  lay prostrate before the Lord  as before, forty days and forty nights. I neither ate bread nor drank water, because of all the sin that you had committed,  in doing what was evil in the sight of the Lord to provoke him to anger. 

This is a truly astonishing intercession: God tells Moses that He's had enough of the Israelites (and what a grumbling, ungrateful, rebellious bunch they were).  God proposes getting rid of them and starting again, as He had previously done with humanity in the days of Noah and The Flood.

It is relatively difficult to understand 40 days and nights of prayer on any account.  People have done it in a repentant penitence for their poor, cold souls: leaders have done it for spiritual revival in their congregations and communities.  But here Moses does it just to save a people that God indicates he will rightly give up on.

Doing Lent for myself is a big ask; doing Lent for the Israelites would definitely be beyond my spirituality.  Yet there in heaven in a constant intercession, my Saviour makes the case - more eloquently and sacrificially than Moses of old - for those called in his name to be saved.

He deserves better.

And I don't.

The Fine Art of Christmas - The Putti

Here, emerging from the dark stable (on a Christmas Card), is Carlo Maratta's Madonna and Child.  Well, again, it is one of countless versions produced for the Italian devotional market.  Here the virgin might be, as often was in his paintings, his illegitimate daughter.

And then there's the putti.

Peering into my Christmas card are three little chaps.  Possibly chaps.  They cannot be found in the Bible, but they can be found in great numbers on paintings of various kinds.  So, with much academic effort devoted to art the meaning of putti must be over documented?  No.  They have been written about very little apparently, and they are variously little boys, angel thingies, cupid-type thingies or just children.

It's a decent guess that in a Madonna and child scene they are kind of angels, or boys with a heavenly background (if such a thing is possible).

Possible?  The mystical decorations are a waste of Carlo's time.  In the arms of the virgin is a real baby boy.  Yet he is not only a bit heavenly - he is the very centre of heaven's attention.  He is not a half heavenling; he is all human and all divine.

The truth is more wonderful than the putti.

Proxy

The upcoming December 12 election is the first time in my quite long electoral history when I have been out of the country for a General Election, and at relatively short notice.

It has brought me to the Proxy Vote.  This is where you nominate someone to cast your vote on your behalf because you are not able to do so on the day.

The Proxy Vote has also brought me many interesting comparisons with a much bigger representation issue.

First, your proxy must be qualified to vote.  So, for example, you can'task your friendly Member of the House of Lords to do it for you.  Or your cat.  Or President Trump etc.

Secondly, they have to be willing.  They cannot be forced to be your Proxy by you or anyone else.  They do it for you of their own free will.

Thirdly, of course, you have to trust your Proxy.  They could simply use the Proxy vote for their own purposes and ignore your wishes.  Because it is a secret ballot nobody, apart from them, could ever know.

MEANWHILE

the Scriptures teach me that I have a Greater Proxy in a Greater Place.

Jesus is fully qualified to represent me for he, too, is human.

Jesus is willing to represent me, because he loved me and gave himself for me.

Jesus is trustworthy and he who began a good work in us will carry it to completion.

Praise God!

Holiday Pics 2: Poundland

British readers will probably feel a tinge of familiarity in this picture.  'Those are colours that look familiar', we think.  Even in our local High Street there is a store looking almost exactly like this - only with another name.

Yes, Muswell Hill - and many other British shopping streets  - has this colour scheme in the form of Poundland.  This is not a name that translates very easily into a country like Ireland that doesn't use the pound.

There are those who believe that this works for God too.  Jesus here, but something else in another context.

Not so, it turns out. 

8Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11Jesus is

“ ‘the stone you builders rejected,

which has become the cornerstone.’ ^a

12Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

Notre Dame et Notre Seigneur

I am not well travelled, but even with my limitations it was not hard to dig into my pictures and find one of a recent (rainy!) visit to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, one of the most visited tourist sites in the world.

And yesterday France, to its horror, saw a great fire that reduced the great building to what appears little more than a stone shell.  The French President prioritised a site meeting and vowed that it shall be rebuilt.  At first hearing this appears an unlikely ambition for the ultra-secular French Republic - but an icon is an icon.  Hundreds of millions of Euros are already promised for its restoration.

'The World weeps', reads one newspaper headline, thereby conveniently forgetting hundreds of millions of people in the Muslim and the Eastern world who either don't know or certainly don't care that Notre Dame exists.  It is a little hard to imagine the refugee camps along the Turkish border feeling that this morning they have lost something important.

What a contrast there is, this Easter Week, between the way we regard a Christian cultural icon and the way we regard the One that Christianity is all about.

Not for him a nation hanging a tearful head in mourning;

Not for him a National Leader making pledges of restoration;

Not for him a world weeping or a tweet from Rome's Imperial Palace.

Not for him (despite the written appellation the King of the Jews) a declaration that we have all lost a part of us.

A mocking crowd;

A Governor who has washed his hands;

A world that didn't notice;

A man abandoned, betrayed, denied even by his friends - not a part of us, said Peter.

May the flames of the icon, inflame our love for the Saviour to whom, at its best, the icon seeks to point.

Selling Baptist Life: Part 2. Alexander MacLaren

'This Memorial Stone was laid by Alexander Maclaren D.D. LittD., President of the Baptist Union 1875-76 and 1901-2 on Wednesday 24th April 1901.'

Many of us have benefited from the Dr Maclaren's sermons, published with an enthusiasm not so far short of those of C H Spurgeon (though without the same earthy wit).  What would the good doctor make of the disengagement of this building that he witnessed in its proud inauguration?

He might do quite well - here is Maclaren preaching on God's refusal, delivered by the prophet Nathan, to allow King David to build him a house (i.e. a Jerusalem Temple):

Unless we can with our hearts rejoicingly confess, 'Thou art the King of glory, O Christ! Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,' we do not pierce to the full understanding of Nathan's prophecy.
He, that is Christ, has built the true Temple, in that His body is the seat of sacrifice and of revelation, and the meeting-place of God and man, and inasmuch as through Him we are built up into a spiritual house for an habitation of God. In Him is fulfilled the great prophecy of 'My Servant the Branch,' who 'shall build the Temple of the Lord' and 'be a Priest upon His throne.' In Him, too, is fulfilled in highest truth the filial relationship... In that filial relation lies the assurance of Christ's everlasting kingdom, for 'the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.'

God's work is never ultimately about buildings.

George H W Bush

A peculiarity of  being a Pastor is that, although most days reinforce a sense of how inconsequential you are seen to be by the world, you do get to meet a disproportionate number of important, famous people.

One such for me, and whose memorial is happening today, was George H W Bush, the 41st President of the United States of America.  The occasion of meeting him - or more strictly of him meeting me - was when he visited the Church in America where I was on the staff.  He came to speak a greeting at one of the morning worship services and he was brought to meet those of us with whom he would be sharing the platform.

It was naturally a brief encounter, but it was long enough to feel the warmth of personality that has been eulogised today and which contrasts with what is sometimes experienced from lesser women and men.

But back to the meeting.  Did I meet him or did he meet me?

Well, I was at work; I was in a room that I frequented dozens of times in the course of that work and George Bush, I imagine, had never been into that room before.  He may never have been to the church premises before.  It seems to me that he met me.  I was where I would usually be and he wasn't.

Which neatly brings us toward Christmas.  For is it not one of the greatest and most wonderful things about Christmas that we do not go to glory to meet God until, first, he has come to our place - in truth somewhat beneath our place - to meet us?  We meet him because he first meets us.

World Cup Blogs 9: Egypt

Egypt may not be the World Cup's stand out football nation but for a Christian blogger going through the World Cup nations Egypt is unquestioningly the Biblical centrepiece.   After Israel and (arguably) the predecessors of Iraq, Egypt is the next most mentioned nation in the Scriptures.  One of the Bible's greatest stories - the Exodus - began there; another, the story of Joseph, is almost entirely set there.  Abraham visited there, Jacob retired there, Moses was born there, Kings David and Solomon had dealings there (no, they were not Egyptian as some speculators have suggested) and we could go on.

In the New Testament, Egypt is mentioned only a couple of dozen times and nearly always with reference to the Exodus or quoting Psalms about those days.

Except twice.  On the Day of Pentecost people from Egypt were among those present at the outset of the Christian church's missionary story - long before Croatia that we looked at a blog or two ago.  But the other New Testament occurrence of Egypt is what sets it apart from all other the nations at this World Cup - God walked there.

An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. ‘Get up,’ he said, ‘take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.’

So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: ‘Out of Egypt I called my son.’

There are timing issues with this toddlerdom of Jesus.  The truth may be somewhat greater than that God walked in Egypt.  It could be - it is likely to be - that Egypt was where God learned to walk.

Whatever Egypt achieves in this World Cup we may be sure that it is not going to be the most mind-boggling thing to think about when we think about Egypt.

Free News!

There are very many things that you see in London that you are unlikely to see in many, or any, other places in the UK.  

This seems to be such a thing, outside one of our nearby underground stations.  A Jewish Newspaper stand.

The big word FREE also made me think.  The message of Jesus the Messiah is surely the most wonderful free news ever to be disseminated to the world from the Jewish people, and we pray that many of them, as well as others, in London and beyond may learn to embrace it by faith.

Happy St Andrew's Day!

This is my favourite picture from my Sabbatical and on St Andrew's Day it seems appropriate as it comes from Scotland, and the Isle of Harris.

The question is, what is the building in the middle of this picture?

The answer is obvious.  It is a bus shelter.  And it is easy to imagine on this windswept moor that shelter would be very important.  Life-saving might be nearer the truth given the (understandable) infrequency of the W13.  Three hours wait?

Isn't that a sheep waiting for a bus?  But no, of course not.  Sheep, even in Harris, don't wait for buses.  The sheep is in the wrong place.

On reflection, though, I imagine that over a year this construction has many more sheep in it than people.  It may have been put here as a bus stop, and look like a bus stop but it is really mostly about sheep.

And when the lifelong fisherman from Galilee whose name was Andrew (and whose day today is) began to follow Jesus he looked and sounded like a fisherman, and looked like he should have been a fisherman, but the Lord told him 'from now on you will be a fisherman of people'.  Or to put it another way, from now on you are going to be all about sheep.

Sabbatical Pictures No 1 Church of the Dormition, Jerusalem

It's September and I'm back at work so it must be time to start blogging again.  And what better way to reflect on my Sabbatical than with a few pictures?

Here's one:

I was very excited to take this picture because, years ago on my first visit to Jerusalem, it was somewhere that made a big impact on me yet it rarely appears prominently in brochures and books.  It is in a chapel beneath Dormition Abbey on the Hill of Zion.

Amid the typical mosaics of many of the chapels this ivory and ebony chapel stands out.  It was a gift to the Abbey from the Cote d'Ivoire (Ivory Coast) and it shows the wonderful simplicity of the Christian story that can be reduced to 6 pictures!  This is useful in Africa I'm sure, but stunning in the ecclesiastical, political and religious quagmire that is Jerusalem.

The Church, or Abbey, is singular testimony to the complications of Jerusalem.  Whilst (on the day I visited) it is a peaceful hilltop spot with a very nice cafe and bookshop the history is quite different.  Built in the 20th century it became the front-line when in 1948 the State of Israel was formed but not including the walled old city which is next to this church.  Jordanian troops patrolled the old city walls and Israeli troops took potshots at them (and vice versa) from the large tower of this church.  It was basically a frontier command post.

Nor has peace arrived for this church today.  Being adjacent to the Jewish Quarter has made it a target for graffiti and worse by Jewish extremists.  In a fascinating commentary on Jesus himself, although this building is pretty much entirely about Mary (dormition = fell asleep = allegedly where Mary died) the abuse in the graffiti has always been aimed at Jesus.

Not so much has changed in 2000 years.

Stones and stoniness

It's a lump of decorated stone.

It is, though, very old. 

It is on display because it illustrates the way in which synagogues became places of considerable art, the people showing their communal commitment to religion, their culture and possibly their God by expensive and expansive decoration.

It may be a lump of stone, but it says something.

It speaks, but it cannot listen.  That could only be done by the people who attended the ancient gathering place.  Did they listen?  Well, they heard words each week.  Then, beneath these ancient stones came another day.  The voice that spoke was the voice of God himself.  

These are stones from the synagogue at Chorazin in Galilee.  

Jesus commentary:

“Doom, Chorazin! Doom, Bethsaida! If Tyre and Sidon had been given half the chances given you, they’d have been on their knees long ago, repenting and crying for mercy. Tyre and Sidon will have it easy on Judgment Day compared to you" (The Message, Luke 10)

Death, the Olympics and Easter Day

About the time of the Olympics last year (2016) an alarming thought crossed some people's minds.  It was that the previous London 2012 Olympics had been cursed.

The trigger for this alarming thought was the death of Australian rower Sarah Tait from cervical cancer.  On its own Sarah's death was an ordinary (but genuine) sadness - but she was latest in the line of very many others.  British consciousness had been heightened by the deaths of sailor Andrew Simpson in a 2013 sailing accident and our tennis player Elena Baltacha who died of cancer the next year.  A French swimmer, boxer and triathlete had all died, but so had 12 others from around the world.  It seemed crazy that by the next Olympics 18 of the previous Olympians were dead and gone.

There turned out to be good news and bad news when it was researched.

The good news was that, in simple terms, over four years about 32 in a 1000 people die. There were over 10,000 participants at the 2012 Olympics so hundreds, statistically, should have died before the next Olympiad.  Except that Olympians are young and fit.

Some whizzy research yielded the expected death rate for the average age to be 25-30 over four years.  So if the 18 were the full number (though some athletes from obscure regions [e.g. North Korea] might not be known about)  it would a below-average death rate.

And this means what, exactly? Well that is the bad news.

I think it shows how unrealistic the living are about death.  Of course we know that death and taxes are the only certainties - but we live as though we will never die.  One reason why not enough people are excited enough about Easter morning is because they do not acknowledge the scale of the problem, the general curse, from which this day and its Lord potentially sets them free.

It is a mistake of Olympian proportions.

Christmas Card Mysteries: No 7

It is rehearsed almost to the point of irritation that there was 'no room for them in the inn'.  And I write that as the chair of a charity that helps the homeless and lonely.  The near irritation derives from the patently obvious fact that it is far more significant that Jesus died deserted than that he was born 'not in the inn' though the latter is admittedly a portent of his greater rejection.

Unfortunately most Christmases are darkened by world events and it is also a cliched truth that Jesus's family were forced to flee their country.  Again, it was not general world politics but actual human hatred directed at king Jesus that is reason for the story, but it still reminds us that Christ is more easily seen in the tents than in the palaces.

Anyhow, welcome to my latest Christmas Card Mystery.  Mystery No 6 had disappearing shepherds.  This card catapults Christ beyond the experience of a humble birth and a toddler refugee experience: it makes him an orphan.  It's great news for Barnardos fundraising department.  Less good for the Catholic devotion to BVM*  who it seems, with Joseph, has left the kid in the hay in the open air to be rescued by passing shepherds and wise men.

And you thought parenting in 2016 was bad?

*Blessed Virgin Mary for the non-liturgical reader