O Mum, do I have to go to church!!??

There was a fascinating question raised in discussion this week about whether or not you have to go to church to be a Christian? What do you think?
Of course, right at the heart of the question is what we think being a Christian is. Is being a Christian defined by certain acts or is it believing a particular set of ideas or about living a particular lifestyle? Is it about conformity to some blueprint that is written down somewhere or is it about membership of a particular organisation?
Well, if I get this definition right in a few words I’ll be famous(!) but I would like to offer a few thoughts.
I suggest that being a Christian is a response:
- it’s a response to the gift of love and forgiveness we have been shown by God through his very real Son Jesus - a love that helps it know that whatever happens, however well or badly we do - he is there for us;
- it’s a response to the gift of ourselves, recognising that our very capacity for life and love that we have has been unconditionally given to us;
- it’s a response to the glorious gift of the world around us, realising that we are blessed a thousand times a day in ways that we often simply take for granted.
Being a Christian is a thankful response to the initiative of God to make us his children and a Christian life flows from this thankfulness. So every Christian will find their own way of expressing their thankfulness and using their gifts in ways that honour the Giver. So being a Christian is clearly not about a set of rules, but about a lived relationship rooted in thankfulness to God for all He has done and particularly for coming among us in Jesus to show us the full extent of His love.
At the heart of Christian worship is the Eucharist (literally ‘thanksgiving’). Worship is giving God His worth and at its heart is demonstrating our thankfulness together as His family. Part of being at church is being part of the family way of saying “thank you” together.

So, do you have to go to church to be a Christian? Maybe not - but isn’t He worth it?

With peace and blessings,

Jules.

PS If you ever have any questions that you feel it might be helpful to hear discussed, why not let me know them?

Prayer

Prayer as a space to be yourself so that God cam draw close to fulfil you.

Look at this

Experience counts!

I came across a great saying this week – “a person with an experience has nothing to worry about from a person with an argument”. What does this mean?

We live in an age of conflicting perspectives and arguments – the more we think about something, the more arguments and counter arguments we can think of. But when we have experienced something first hand, we are far more confident to say, “we know”. This is never more true than when we think about faith in Jesus and the experience of living with His Presence as part of our lives.

I’m sure we have all been very struck by the wonderful news of the miners rescued from the mine in Chile (old news, no doubt, by the time this comes to print – but good news none the less, itself a rare thing in the media!!). I watched a wonderful clip of film that edited together the moments when the miners reached the surface (you can see it here if you are computer savvy - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11539086) – it is beautiful to see. Many of the men, fell to their knees in thankful prayer, many spoke about how they felt that God had strengthened and supported them through the ordeal. This is an experience they will never forget – it is an experience of God’s presence that no doubtful arguments will ever shake – it was far too real for them to ever relinquish.

The truth is that each of us will have our own story about the reality of God’s presence with us in a time of difficulty or a sense of thankfulness to God in a time of blessing. Our experiences may be less dramatic (thankfully) but no less real. When I look back over my life, I can see that the times when I have been most aware of God’s presence and the reality of Jesus at work are the times of greatest joy, hope and peace. Likewise, the dark times have been the times when I have doubted or felt my faith undermined.

It is said that the wise learn from their experiences – they don’t make the same mistakes twice! So in moments when we feel doubt and uncertainty eating away at our hope and peace, let’s remember to make the decision to live in the joy of faith – whatever the circumstances – and we can be sure that as our hearts turn to prayer so the “peace of God that passes all understanding will fill our hearts and minds with the love and love of God, of his Son Jesus Christ”. As the psalms and the prophets continually extol…

“remember the former things of old; for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is no one like me”

Why read the Bible...

How to approach the Bible?

For some the Bible is a book where each word has been dictated by God irrespective and independently of the human hand, which acts simply as the means for the divine command to be written. The Bible becomes literally the words uttered by God. 

For others, the Bible is a just book like any other. It may be  a particularly interesting anthology of ancient texts and is of genuine historical interest particularly given the sociological implications of their formative impact on so many societies - that is, they have had a significant impact in the past but the insights are now surpassed by greater learning and understanding. These texts are only enlightening in a retrospective dimension.

Very often these are the only two possibilities put forward and the debate becomes polarised between them. This means that rather than engaging with what the text actually says these two perspectives are forced onto the reading of the Bible and the meaning of the words get lost  in the argument.

I would like to offer a different place to start when approaching the Bible. I suggest that the Bible is best understood as testimony and has been captured by many people in many forms. What do I mean by testimony? A testimony is an account of an experience. If you see a crime, if you're part of the experience of that event you are called to give your testimony in court - to give an account of what you have experienced.

The Bible is a collation of different experiences of God in human history. Some of these experiences are captured in story form, some in legal writings, some in poems, letters, some in visions, prayers and songs.

But what makes these captured experiences so special is that they all point to in a particular direction and that direction comes to a single person - Jesus Christ.

This underlying consistency of direction finds its fulfilment in this particular person at a particular time. And this is truly amazing when you consider that there are dozens of authors, there is a time span of at least 1500 years between when these stories start and when the last words are added to the writings, yet they come together.

The Word of God - the revelation of who God is, is not these words (the Bible) But The Word - the message of the living person - Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ is the Word of God and these written words direct us to Him.

So. these written words are the experiences of people, priests, prophets, poets and kings who experienced God and captured in words what they experienced. These experiences have a commonality - a touch stone of Orthodox spiritual experience and what this book offers is an experience of God that will lead us to Jesus. 

The same Spirit that  gave the writers their experiences works through these words to draw us to be part of the same movement of God.

These experiences - the knowledge and understanding of the nature God, the certainty of His spiritual presence, are offered to you and me. 

When we read these words and we experience the same underlying Spirit, our eyes are opened to who we are in God's sight and where we are heading. 

We see that sin and brokenness are not held against us, but are part of a process of becoming God's own sons and daughters. 

We experience how far we are from what we could be, what we will be and how we often fail to accept life as the gift God intends it to be - just like the people who wrote these words. And we experience the transforming power of the Spirit changing our desires and leading us into a new way of thinking and living that increasingly makes old mean, fearful ways unbearable.

The effect of these written words is to draw us into a relationship with the Living Word and through that relationship into our eternal destiny with God. Even to begin to grasp how wonderful this future will be, our imaginations need to be broadened by the words of vision and poetry in this book.

Blind Bartimeus says to Jesus, "I want so see" - and Jesus says,"your faith (your open trust in me) has made you whole". 

So, experience that wholeness. The real and miraculous opening of his eyes is a living metaphor for the power of God opening our spiritual eyes. And this has to be personal and real to us. Jesus says, "it's the truth you know that sets you free." 

Not someone else’s experience - not a concept or an idea - but your experience of God that releases you into the hope and power of God's vision for your life and beyond.

When that happens – facilitated by these words and God’s Spirit - when our spiritual eyes are open, the experiences of those who wrote these words become our experiences. We know what they mean because we share our experience of the underlying work of God's Spirit in our lives. 

This library of stories becomes our personal history - our story.

So, my advice? Get reading. Treat yourself to a new Bible - a good contemporary translation like the NIV or the NRSV and read it again. 

Click here for a suggested reading plan and here for an on-line Bible and get reading.

Truth and Traditions

Mark 7:1-13 (For reading click here)

I remember a conversation I had once with a quite senior clergyman who was talking about what the Church has to offer. His response was, "We will always have our traditions." Is this really what Jesus came to do? To set up traditions to be followed?

It seems from this passage that Jesus came to do something different. So what is the spiritual danger in placing so much importance in tradition and what is it that Jesus wants us to do?

There are several spiritual dangers in focusing on traditions above all else. Firstly they can become something we hide behind. So long as we are carrying out the right rituals, saying the right words and behaving in public in the way everyone is used to and recognises we can feel confident about ourselves. But we can do these things without God. Jesus calls us to open up our real selves deep down to God's Spirit, to hear Him, feel Him and respond to His word and direction. He calls us to wrestle with ourselves before Him and be changed. He calls us to grow up and on, not to stay where we are. At times, rituals form a very important part of this, but there is a danger that if we put traditions before relationship we create ourselves somewhere to hide. I worked for a man who ran a sales force, many years ago. He refused to give his salesmen desks because he said that if they have them they will sit at them! If they don't have anything to hide behind they will have to go and talk to people and get selling! Traditions can become a safety blanket that we hide behind.

Secondly, rituals and traditions always end up being organised in such a way that there are roles for different people. Some of these roles appear more important than others. The danger with this is that having a public role of apparent importance nurtures pride. Pride is folly and is always followed by a fall! It is easy, too easy to believe our own PR! Humility before God - an awareness of our need for Him is essential to being in a place where we can hear and serve Him.

So Jesus calls us to grow in our relationship with God - to become more in tune with what pleases Him and to be changed by His Love into the likeness of our role-model, Jesus. If tradition, ritual and routine nurture this - great - but we must never confuse the means with the ultimate ends.

The Stairway to Heaven

Proverbs 9 and Mark 5:35-end (click here and here for the readings)

Although am 45 very soon, there is still a part of me that remembers what it is like to be a wild student. I remember the time of being able to make immediate decisions to do daft things - normally involving too much alcohol and staying awake far too late and laughing far too loudly. I remember the kind of abandonment based on the idea that there were no consequences to my decisions. I felt untouchable, totally free from responsibility.

I can remember too the day I gave up my job to travel for a while. Again the sense of freedom was amazing - no ties, just what I owned on my back and the cash in my pocket and lots of empty time to fill.

These times were great in their way. But the truth is that I after a while I got bored. The emptiness of the diary became an emptiness of purpose and I began to hunger for something of worth to do. I can remember seeing people who seemed to have chosen this uncommitted "freedom" as a way of life. I found them frightening. Most often they looked quite haggard - self indulgence had become their means of filling the empty hours. It looked and felt like they had fallen in to a trap. This is the same trap the the writer of Proverbs is warning us against.

The famous Led Zeppelin song "Stairway to Heaven" has the line:

"There are 2 paths you can go down but in the long run

There's still time to change the road you're on"

I think this is a dangerous fallacy. The reality is that the choices we make day by day shape who we are and become. It gets harder and harder to change as we rehearse day in and day out the choices we make. I am thankful for the freedom I enjoyed but I am more thankful that it left with a quest for meaning and purpose - I am thankful that after a while such things became boring because without that experience it would have been harder for me to try to search for the truth. I am thankful that God in His Graciousness did not let go but kept within me a hunger for something more, something that can be only be found in Him.

I still feel that urge for freedom within, but I hope that I have learned that it cannot be satisfied with the next indulgence or new time-filler. I pray that I have learned that true freedom is the freedom to want more of God without fear, because in Him there is always more to grow into.

The ladder into Heaven

Genesis 28:10-19 and John 1:43-51 (Click here and here for readings)

'And all the families of the earth shall be blessed in you and your offspring".

Amazing words! Spoken to a man in a wilderness over 3,000 years ago and still being remembered and understood today. The words are in contrast to the personal blessing promised to Jacob - of a land and a family - and Jacob receives a vision alongside these personal promises to enable the greater promise to be understood.

It is put simply as this - from the line of Jacob (Israel) the way to Heaven will be opened. God reconfirms to Jacob, as he had to Abraham, that it is through his line that humanity will find its way to Heaven opened and the Heavenly accessible here on Earth.

Jesus, in the reading from John, claims this promise as fulfilled in Him. Right here at the beginning of John's Gospel, Jesus explains what He has come to do. He understands the expectations of the Israelite Nathanael (Bartholomew) who Jesus understands to be patriotic and seeking the liberation of his land through a worldly Messianic and military leader. But Jesus points him beyond these immediate earthly concerns to the greater promise that all families will be blessed in Him. Their eternal, heavenly future is being made known and available.

This eternal heavenly future is to be made available through Jesus Himself. The ladder we need to climb to Heaven is Jesus himself. He has opened up the way to Heaven for us and God's promise is fulfilled.

Our God of blessing, who cares for our needs in this world has always the greater eternal blessing in mind as He hears our prayers.

Competition vs co-operation

Proverbs 3:27 - 4:19 and Mark 4:21-34 (For texts click here and here)

We are rapidly getting used to the idea that a market economy underpinned by a capitalist philosophy is the only sensible solution to meeting the needs of the human race. It seems to work well for many people, generating wealth and harnessing the aggressive and competitive side of human nature and steering it into the direction of understanding each others needs through enlightened self-interest. But we have seen that there needs to be significant controls around this market melee if the worst, most selfish instincts of human nature are not to ruin life for everyone. These 'controls' must be rooted in a higher philosophy, a greater ideal of what it is to be human. If these 'controls' stem from this higher ideology what is it? How do we express it?

Our readings today both point towards this greater paradigm of human understanding. Proverbs calls this greater perspective and understanding "wisdom". The wisdom described here is relational, it is all about not acting in isolation for yourself. Help your neighbour when you can - don't withhold help - co-operate! In families, listen to each other and respect the wisdom of those with greater life experience and hear their wisdom.

Jesus teaches about the fulfilment of this human ideal in the Kingdom of God, a way of being that fulfills human potential both in their relationships with each other and their relationship with God. There is a humility before God that accepts and lives in gratitude for the gift of life - not seeking to pin down or control but enjoying and celebrating the blessing of life. He describes this way of living and being as a tiny seed that will grow to be the largest of all trees and calls upon the image of the tree as a self-less life-support system for the creatures that live in it. Again, the picture has the feeling of sharing and generosity of giving and receiving, not competing and beating. It progresses from survival of the fittest to care and love for everyone and everything because of their intrinsic value.

There is a far greater ideal, a richer wisdom underpinning human existence than the buy and sell of a capitalist economy and the sooner we realise that the market is a useful tool and not our master the sooner we can harness the co-operative power of relationships and take another step towards the Kingdom of God.

Living through the tantrums

Mark 3:19 - end (For text click here)

Anyone who has ever raised children will understand that there comes an age when the relationship begins to change. When they are younger, they seek your advice on everything, they want your company and they listen to what you say - sometimes they even try to put the advice into practice. The help and care is offered and received.

Then, most often, the relationship changes. As the child becomes a young adult and the need for independence grows the advice is not sought so keenly - in fact, very often the attention and advice is actively shunned at times. The care and love is still there, still being offered - but for a time the young person cannot receive it like they once did. Hopefully, this is a phase that everyone grows through, learning to listen to each other until we reach a state where openness is restored and love and care, advice and wisdom can again be exchanged.

In this morning's reading, Jesus is saying that this is how it is with God and us - offering and receiving forgiveness. Jesus is in the midst of teaching and healing. People are receiving forgiveness and wholeness through Him. Those who are open to what is happening are being greatly blessed by God and are being freed from their old demons. But the free way in which people are experiencing the love of God offends many of the religious people of the day; that Jesus dares to pronounce this forgiveness and healing shocks them in the insecurity of their own relationship with God; the changed lives that are the result of this ministry has become evidence that needs undermining. Unfortunately for them, this means that they are closed to the new relationship that God is offering - like difficult teenagers, they are closing their spiritual eyes and ears to what is going and refusing to believe that God is so warm and loving. While their minds are closed to what the Holy Spirit is doing, they cannot receive for themselves the gifts that He is offering - they cannot receive the forgiveness and new life they lead. They remain trapped in their unforgiven state without the power to change and without the knowledge of forgiveness. If this blasphemy (this statement of falsehood against the God) continues they will not be able to receive from God what they need. Like parents dealing with teenagers through a difficult phase, God's love, care and offer of forgiveness remain, but cannot be received.

We all have our tantrums still. In the face of so much love we all fail at times to believe that God really forgives, accepts and renews us. But He does.

Wisdom in practice - dealing with success

Proverbs 1 and Mark 3 (For texts click here and here)

In this passage in Mark, Jesus is beginning to become increasingly popular and needs to find ways of dealing with His success. His miraculous works have drawn great crowds to Him and there is so much desperate need around Him that He needs to plan howthe needs are met nd the teaching can happen. In this passage He deals with this "success" in three ways.

Firstly, he takes precautions for Himself, His disciples and those who come to find healing that the ministry can continue in an orderly way. He does not allow the situation to get out of control or degenerate into a scrum. He organises for a boat to be made available. This, of course, also ensures that the message He has to deliver will be heard.

Secondly, He tries to ensure that the expectations of the people, who seek political freedom through conflict, are managed down. As the evils spirits leave those who are being healed, they acclaim Jesus as the Son of God and although this is of course true, I wonder whether or not they are stirring things up to try and distract Jesus and off rail his Kingdom Ministry through earthly expectations. He recognises their game and does not fall for it.

Thirdly, He shares the ministry and the work as soon as He can. He withdraws to a mountain and appoints the twelve with whom He shares His authority for the work He is doing. He multiplies the blessings that God is pouring out by multiplying those who can administer them.

This is wisdom in practice. An understanding of the work that God has called Jesus to do, a wise discernment of the pitfalls and a vision for seeing it grow. Mark captures the simple clarity of the thinking. Wisdom in hindsight always looks so simple; but of course, the trick is to see it in the midst of the potential mayhem!

Love that heals not harms

Proverbs 1 and Mark 2:23 - 3:6 (For texts click here and here)

It takes a lot of wisdom to love well. Loving well is like walking a narrow path. On the one side, there is a desire to give to a person you love anything they desire and want, when they want it without question. On the other side, is the desire to protect someone from all harm and make them perfect in all they do. The first side is the side of false freedom which spoils and prevents someone from growing into wisdom themselves - true wisdom that puts the love of God and others alongside themselves. The second side is restrictive and legal, over-protective and does not allow a person the space to take responsibility for their own actions and to develop deeper motives of love and compassion for others; they only learn fear of doing wrong.

Walking this narrow path of wisdom requires the humility to listen to God. We are called to let go of the pride that leads us to believe that we have all the answers immediately. It requires to us relinquish the sloth that wants quick answers and short cuts to avoid spending time considering difficult situations. It requires a peace and a pace of life built on the solid foundation of a clear decision in ourselves to want to do what is right and not what is easy.

Jesus models this wisdom for us in a life of love and compassion. He sees through the narrowness of controlling religion and challenges the false freedom of lives lived solely to satisfy transient passions and demands. The Word living as a person calls us to have our own hearts and minds transformed in such a way that we live as He does, loving in a way that heals not harms.

The sort of "fear of the Lord" that is the beginning of knowledge, is the concern to walk this narrow path with Him. This fear is not based on punishment but on the understanding that we lose so much when we step off God's path - we lose the wisdom to live and love well.

Running away from being blessed?

Jonah 1 (For the text click here)

One of my earliest memories of a decision taken to obey God or not is unfortunately a decision to disobey God. I would have been about 17 and attending a Christian youth group with a girl friend. At some point she turned to me and said, "We don't need this; you only God when something is going wrong and everything is OK at the moment." I listened to that comment and decided to stop going. I have regretted that decision ever since and the decision to disobey has haunted me and remained with me, particularly when I found out that God wants to bless us all and lead us into a fullness of life that we can not imagine. The idea that He is only there as a last resort is actually really sad because it means that many of us live lives that are disconnected from the wonderful source of all the good things in the universe!

The story of Jonah is a story full of misunderstandings about God and His motives. Jonah doesn't want to bring judgement on a town that is well of the rails, maybe because he imagines that the town will blame him for their punishment. As we know, the story will turn out that the people will change and all will be well, but the expectation that God is bent on punishment and not blessing is part of Jonah's understanding of God.

While Jonah is busy running away from God's call on the boat, Jonah assumes that he is going to be killed for his disobedience and when hiding is no longer an option he does the honourable thing to save the crew and tells them to throw him overboard. In this part of the story, the men on the ship are busy trying to appease their ideas of the gods and their response to the sea calming down when Jonah is thrown over board is again fear. God offers Jonah a surprise and miraculously saves him. The disposition of all the characters is that God is a God of punishment. The disposition is that God is one who condemns. The only time to approach such a God is when things are going badly to try and appease the anger.

But God is not like this. God has shown in Christ that He is working to bless us all. Why do we find it so hard to believe and trust that God is working in our lives to bless us all with what we need.

Yours Lord is the greatness, the power, the glory, the splendour and the majesty;

For everything in Heaven and on Earth is Yours;

All things come from You and of Your own do we give You.

Amen.

Morning Prayer

Luke 11:27,28 (For the Bible verse click here)

Have you ever noticed how we are increasingly living in our heads these days? "Self-image", digital profiles to create an online alter-ego, ideas that "work for me" - all these aspects of modern life are considered by many acceptable, possibly even indispensable. It is very easy to become our own frame of reference and life is so much more simple when we only have ourselves to deal with.

Jesus calls us out of these things back into reality. God calls us to engage for real with who He is.

In these verses, a woman calls out to Jesus from the crowd exclaiming that his mother must be blessed to have borne him. I imagine that she is thinking about how proud she must be seeing her son teaching such wonderful things and being celebrated by so many people. Maybe the woman is thinking about how she would feel to have a famous son, how it would embellish her standing and make her famous by association. Wouldn't it give a whole new dimension to life to have raised someone like Jesus!

But of course, the reality for Jesus and Mary are very different. Mary knows real cost of her calling and the sword that will pierce her heart is always present. She would remember the frightening times of childhood, running away from a mad king who was trying to find her family and kill her son; she would remember the growing self-awareness in Jesus - an understanding of what it was actually going to take for her son, God's Son, to walk the path of obedience, the path to the cross.

Jesus responds to the woman that true blessing only comes from obedience to God and walking in His Way; He is not placing a disciple above Mary, or belittling his mother - exactly the opposite. He is explaining how Mary is truly blessed. Not through the social standing or public pride from the temporary popularity which would pass very soon, but through the deep obedience of walking and living in the path that God has called her to.

The woman in the crowd is called to look deeper to find who she can be in Christ; the same call is made to us today. Only be fully engaging with God and the world around us will find life in its fullness. Only be letting go of the obsession with self-interest and a constructing a make-believe world around ourselves will we be able to embrace and play our part in God's ongoing Creation - so far beyond our own limited imaginings.

Morning Prayer 28th May

1 John 4:1-6 (Click here for text)

There is a great temptation in the name of 'being relevant' to present an acceptable Jesus. Reducing Jesus to a kind of Palestinian Ghandi figure who taught peace and love ("man"!) is a real temptation. Someone once suggested to me that the best thing to do when preaching to a non-committed congregation was to concentrate on behaviour - present some good guidelines for living based on Jesus teaching.

But the problem with this is that it's like buying a computer to use as a simple calculator - there is no power. The Good News about Jesus as John puts it is that Christ has come in the flesh from God. Jesus does not simply provide us with another set of rules or inspirations (although he raises both these things to a new level); Jesus offers the Spirit of God - real power to grow in to God - into holiness. When we reduce Jesus to a comfort blanket we miss the point; Jesus has the power to transform our lives into lives that are holy and good. He has the power to change us but not just through providing a rational, theological framework to work out what is right. The power Jesus has is the creative power to actually change a person.

When I first realised just who Jesus is I remember the amazing sense of joy in singing praises to His Name. It was an incredible force within that simply made me joyful; from the joy came peace and a sense of direction and purpose.

This is not received through knowledge but through connection. John encourages us to open ourselves as little children to this connection and ENJOY!

Morning Prayer 25th May 2009

1 John 2:18-end (click here for passage)

St. John has a very neat way of dividing people, teachings and actions into opposites. Light and Darkness, Good and Evil, Love and Hate, We and You, Us and Them, Christ and Anti-Christ.

Either one is in or not - there is no middle ground. St. John's measures are very clear too. It is quite simply the anointing of the Holy Spirit that both informs what you believe and guides how you live and therefore places you 'in' or 'out'.

His logic is simple and straightforward. The Holy Spirit is the means be which we understand the Gospel, it is the means by which we recognise and accept Jesus as divine and one with the Father and it is the way that we recognise truth and have our lives our shaped by it.

This is of course not a rational argument but it is rooted in orthodox Christian experience. When the Church comes to make decisions and understand the truth, it absolutely must be led by this same Holy Spirit and remain connected with the apostolic experience and message. We are all connected through this Holy Spirit in a way which is real or not - it is not something that comes and goes - it is the source eternal life and the life starts now.

Antichrists are not strange people who have occult powers to corrupt, they are simply ordinary people who deny Jesus - his divinity and his claim on their lives and thereby denying themselves the presence and work of the Holy Spirit in their lives. The eternal life of the Gospel is something that is always there and there are a thousand antichrist arguments that sound so reasonable, but from St. John's perspective - you either know or you don't. Sometimes, the simplest choices are the hardest and the ones we are keenest to avoid.

Morning Prayer - Tuesday after Easter

Luke 24:1-12 (Click here for text)

The confusion continues. Everyone is looking for Jesus in the wrong place! Of course  it makes perfect sense to expect Jesus to conform to normal human standards - i.e. if he's dead to stay dead. The women, desperate to express their love and grief, have continued about their plans - why should they do any different? Peter, doesn't believe their tale and characteristically rushes over to see for himself and sees the grave linen but no body! He is confused - why shouldn't he be?

From the perspective of the angels, their confusion is ungrounded. Why? Because Jesus had told them very clearly what it is that would happen and what they were to expect. Despite the disciples fascination and even service to Jesus they clearly had not believed him. A couple of weeks ago my daughter was to visit us on holiday and needed to travel by train. We told here to book the ticket early because it would be a lot cheaper. She didn't, was charges excessively for her ticket and on arrival claimed that she didn't know. She had been told but had not had that personal experience that cements the expectation as part of her understanding.

This is the process of faith. Once we have come to terms with the fact that the tomb is empty, we then need to start believing what Jesus actually says! Jesus promises to be with us all until the end, he promises the Holy Spirit within us, He promises that we will continues to do the things he has started. When do we start believing in what He says? What does it take? Jesus seems to express his own frustration with this too when he says to Thomas,  “Have you believed because you have seen me? Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe.”

Christian life really starts when we believe what Jesus actually says! It is then that the power of the resurrection becomes real for us.

Morning Prayer - Monday of Easter Week

Mark 16:1-8 (Click here for text)

I always find Easter Eve a strange time. Having immersed myself in the passion on the Friday and been amazed again at what Jesus went through and how He manages to forgive and retain his hope in humanity, I feel a bit lost on the Saturday. Of course preparations for Sunday kick in and occupy time, it is spiritually an in between place.

In Mark's Gospel we have the only hint at what the disciples were up to. The women, here, had clearly observed the Sabbath following the placing of Jesus' body in the tomb and as soon as they were able they had bought some spices on the Saturday evening to honour Jesus in death at first light. Where were the men? The women must have felt unable to ask them for help in moving the stone - maybe the men were avoiding the soldiers and had heard that a guard had been placed on the temporary tomb. So their main focus is honouring Jesus in death as they no doubt have a horrible night wracked with grief and worry.

So it is in a complete state that they arrive at the first Easter morning. Not with anticipation of Easter Eggs and a more upbeat service than usual under girded by the joy of knowing that Jesus succeeds in making all things new, do they arrive, but with trauma and loss.

The angel they find rightly soothes them with the words, stop being afraid,' but it hardly has any effect. They run away and for a time remain too terrified to speak.

What must have been the impact of this early morning event as they went away? The plans and concerns of the last 36 hours have all been wiped away. There is no body to care for. There is no Jesus to prepare for proper entombment. How did it finally dawn that there this might mean resurrection? When did they dare to believe? Was it Mary's experience? Followed by Peter and Cleopas and Luke?

Just imagine the transformation of perspective! Hope beyond hope! It must have been strange - the certainty of the death and mourning rituals replaced with the uncertainty of of hope in the miraculous. How much evidence would it take? How many appearances? How much explanation until it finally sank in.

But with the joy of the resurrection dawns the understanding of the significance - not just for them, the ones who were mourning and are now rejoicing, but for the world! How long until the responsibility for them begins to take hold and they realise that their testimony is needed for the world to understand what God is doing in Jesus.

Isn't this where our journeys become connected. Once the reality of the resurrection sinks in and we become convicted of its truth, so the responsibility of that understanding dawns too. This is not simply a personal event but a transforming event for all people. And we who believe without seeing first hand have no less a share in that responsibility than those first few who experienced Jesus alive directly before them.

Morning Prayer - Easter Eve

1 John 5.5-12 (Click here for text)

We are being offered new life in Christ every day. This new spiritual (spiritually evolved) human being that each of us is called to be us real, every day. Our role is to live it.

How do we do this?

There is no avoiding that the starting point is faith. While we search and argue and debate (and no doubt we will always do this) we are not necessarily embracing this new life offered. We embrace through believing it - accepting that this the reality. God through Jesus really has bought into being a new way of being a human being and the Holy Spirit enables us to become this. The first step to living this is believing it and embracing that like is often linked symbolically with the water of baptism, not simply a washing away of sin but an act of commitment - saying this is my view of the world.

The second thing we do - and this is very difficult -  is that we begin to die with regard to things of the old way of being. Jesus death on the cross - as well as a physical death - is a death to the old order of being. He will not retaliate, He will not use the sword, He will not flee, He will  have faith that God is bringing in to being the new order. So he forgives; he blesses; he offers peace even to those who hate Him. In this day and age, with an aggressive secular, atheistic streak there is a real temptation to respond in kind. Such a response is a lack of faith. The new order forgives, reaches out, blesses, understands their blindness and reaches out. The blood of Jesus is the symbol of an atoning death that fulfils and removes a previous sacrificial system but it is also a symbol of overcoming the brokenness of the old humanity - of dying to the world - so that the new can grow. This is the blood that we must share in - the cross that we must carry.

And finally we must allow the Holy Spirit to do His work in us. To take the points of tension in our lives and resolve, like a spiritual dissonance into the cadence of the Kingdom. We must allow ourselves to be for others even when they are against us - 'for others' meaning that the hope that they too will embrace this new humanity and allow the Spirit to draw them on too.

We live it primarily through 'becoming' - through being changed in our mind and our desires that our actions will flow from the Kingdom that one day will be fulfilled in Jesus.

Morning Prayer - Good Friday

Hebrews 10:1-10 (For text see here)

Here is the heart of the Gospel; that we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus once and for all.

To a post-modern mind this statement can appear shocking.

To start with 'we' are passive in this. However, being made 'holy', taking on the likeness of Christ is a divine act of Creation. We cannot give ourselves life, we cannot choose to be born or be instrumental in our own making. In the same way, we cannot be instrumental in our sanctification - our being 'born again'. This is an act of God - an act that has been completed in the death and resurrection of Christ. The Old Testament tells of man's awareness (his consciousness in this passage) of sin. This awareness invokes fear of judgement and guilt and the systems of sacrifice were there to absolve the conscience on an annual basis - a ritual dealing with the fear and guilt that the consciousness of sin invoked. It did not prevent sin, but enabled the people to continue in some kind of relationship with their Creator despite the awareness of the reality of the grip of sin on their lives.

Jesus Christ is a new act of Creation by God. Fear of judgement and death are removed permanently by the cross where the divine takes the reality of sin and judgement and death visibly and transforms them into the resurrected Christ. The consciousness of sin is the first stage in a process of spiritual creation (spiritual evolution?) in which the direction of humanity (as free from sin - i.e. sanctified and holy) emerges. The Cross is the act of God which offers the way into the completion (next stage?) of humanity. The cross, by the reckoning of it's shadow (the sacrificial system of the OT) deals with punishment - but the event is much more than that. The shadow or type can never hold the reality of the new paradigm, of the new order. Likewise the OT model is broken in God making Himself the offering for sin. But in its place is a new power - a sanctifying power - now at work in the world, the power to take the human being and lift her into God. In this way a whole new consciousness is born - a new mind - the mind of Christ. Not a set of boundaries of behaviour or rules to be followed, but a new way of thinking that shapes us so that we are different and from this change in our being new behaviours flow and new possibilities arise.

So if this is God's work what is our role? Our role is to live it!! To believe in what God is doing and to embrace His vision for us. To connect with the power of the Resurrection for our own lives - to open ourselves to its possibilities. This is not a return to an older, more perfect order of things before 'a fall' but the on-going Creative work of God, leading us on. This we work towards, guided by the same Holy Spirit that raised Christ to new life from death. This is the meaning, purpose and direction of all life. It is not a political vision (but change flows out of it), it is not a cultural vision (but new ways of keeping this vision before our eyes are essential). Embracing this work of God, living in it, is quite simply the answer to life's questions and the basis and direction of all human life.

Morning Prayer - Wednesday of Holy Week

Luke 22:54-71 (Click here for text)

It is very easy to speak of commitment and to make brave statements about what we believe. We will never really know what we are committed to until our backs are against the wall and there is a real cost to pay for what we believe in. It is when the cost comes to bear that we find out what we really believe in. Even then, it is part of a process. How we feel about the decision we have made - will we be able to live with ourselves and the choices we have taken? Working through these choices is the subtext of this reading.

Peter - after all his bravado - finds that he cannot stand. But then when he falls, he finds he cannot do that either. He learns, taught by a short prediction of Jesus followed by a quick glance, what both sides of the decision feel like. The boldness of standing next to Jesus and the cowardice of running away. This lesson is a difficult one for us all to learn and can we ever say we have fully 'chosen' to stand by Jesus until the end.

Jesus, in his responses to the Pharisees, attempts the same kind of dialogue. They are only interested in finding a charge to bring against Jesus before Pilate so that the judicial processes in place swing into place and dispose of this troublesome man! Jesus, in contrast, does not seek to defend Himself but to engage them with their own behaviour and attitudes. He refers to the scriptures in understanding His Messiahship, He points out to them their own accusations and the testimony of the people. In other Gospels, Jesus talks of the openness of His teaching and exposes their underhand tactics in dealing with Him.

Jesus is being denied and set-up. He is being beaten and humiliated. But He never responds in kind or out of fear. He has fought His battle in the Garden and set His face to expect no different.