DAILY MEDITATIONS FOR LENT by Iain McKillop
DAILY LENT MEDITATIONS ON WORDS OF LIFE
IN JESUS' TEACHING Iain McKillop
INTRODUCTION - “LET THE WORD OF CHRIST DWELL IN YOU RICHLY” [Col.3:16]
“One does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” [Matt.4:4 quoting Deut.8:3]. “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.” [Lk.21:33].
Over 25 years ago David Winter published a Lent Book: ‘What’s in a Word? - 40 Words of Jesus for 40 Days of Lent.’ [Oxford: The Bible Reading Fellowship 1994]. Rediscovering this volume encouraged me to explore and study for myself a series of key words in Jesus’ teaching as part of my own daily Lenten exercise last year. I found it useful to hold one word in my mind for a day or more, to contemplate its relevance to my faith and to consider its application to contemporary life. The Gospels and other early Christian texts provide us with an abundant heritage of inspiring teachings. It is my hope that these studies might encourage others to similarly reflect on words and ideas in our faith which we use frequently but may not consider or contemplate.
We cannot be certain how precisely the words ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels record his actual phrasing. The earliest substantial records of his teachings are in Greek, and in these studies I will look at the meaning of several of the Greek words used to translate Jesus’ sayings. However Jesus probably taught largely in a vernacular form of Aramaic particular to the area in which he grew up and ministered. Memories of his teaching would then have been recounted orally in whatever dialects or language his witnesses used. The oral recollections, and possibly untraced Aramaic or more formal Hebrew written records, were eventually transcribed into the written Greek in which the Gospels have come to us. Ancient cultures were often far more accurate than today in repeating oral material, as witnessed in the great epic poetry of Homer or Celtic, Nordic, Hindu and Islamic cultures. Yet over time it is inevitable that Jesus’ words must have been filtered and altered slightly through the understanding of the compilers or editors of the Gospels and through different nuances of meaning in various languages. In Matthew’s Gospel for example Jesus used words like ‘Church’ [Matt.16:18; 18:17], which would most probably not have been used by Jesus himself, but later by the community that Christ and the Apostles founded, Similarly John’s Gospel uses some theological terms that may not have actually been in Jesus’ teaching but reflected the Evangelist’s theological understanding. Today we interpret the words of the Gospels through modern connotations of the terms, which may have altered over centuries and through differing interpretations. ‘Grace’ and ‘love’ for example have taken on much more general and less specific meanings than when they were used in the New Testament.
Most of the words on which I meditate and reflect in these studies have a long tradition of association with Jesus and reflect key aspects of Christian faith, whether they are the original terms used by Jesus or not. Jesus was recognised by his contemporaries as speaking with uncommon ‘authority’ and ‘truth’ [Matt.7:28; Jn.6:63, 68]. But his teaching was challenging and aroused consternation as well as opposition [Mk.10:22; Mtt.15:12; Jn.6:66]. For us to find meaning in his words will include being challenged by them in ways that may grasp us and encourage us to follow and change [Jn.14:24; Matt.19:11; Mk.4:11; Lk.9:45].
Jesus laid stress on “hearing”, which involved not just listening to or reading his words, but responding to and acting upon his teaching [Matt.11:15; Jn.10:27; 14:24]. It is my hope that these studies may help believers and enquirers to consider how Jesus taught us to live and relate to God, then to act upon the implications of his words and ideas in a living, active contemporary faith. Exploring these words challenged me to recollect and reconsider my own beliefs and discipleship; I pray that these studies may help others in their own spiritual growth and practice. Too often members of Christian churches are content with a simplistic faith and do not seek to study it. We are used to hearing weekly sermons, but seldom take in for long what has been said. With all the challenges of contemporary life it is so easy to be distracted, to move away from faith or become discouraged, unless we seek to constantly deepen our understanding of those foundations of faith which can strengthen us. Jesus told his hearers to not turn back once they have turned their hand to the plough [Lk.9:62]. Perseverance in learning and applying his teaching should be characteristic of spiritual growth in all of us.
Though these meditations consider one word or phrase at a time, it is dangerous to take biblical passages or words out of context. Unfortunately it is fairly easy to make the Bible seem to say or justify anything, if you use verses selectively. In churches for centuries, expositors and preachers have interpreted scripture to mean different and varied things, according to their particular theological, ethical or personal bias. I have therefore included many biblical references in the text to help readers check and consolidate what is being said.
When the writer of Colossians wrote: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” [Col.3:16], we do not know the amount of Jesus’ actual teaching to which he or his Christian community had access. The Gospels were not yet compiled into the form that we know them. But the exhortation to let Jesus’ teaching permeate our minds and lives is a useful one for strengthening, guiding and applying of the message of truth that he brought.
The individual words that I have chosen to reflect upon open essential aspects of Jesus’ aims, character, teaching, ministry and mission. I could have chosen many others, yet these words are key to understanding Christ’s character, work and aims, and the direction in which he calls us, his followers. I hope that they can be key aids to the development of our relationship with God through him. Many of the terms are essential elements of the Church’s faith and the message we seek to offer with Christ’s salvation and ‘good news’. (If you do not find a word here, which you might have expected, you might like to contemplate and study it for yourself, perhaps using these meditations as examples. Alternately, you may find some of the words explored in my other two more compilations: ‘Words for Advent and Epiphany’ and the coming ‘Words for Easter to Pentecost’).
These studies are conceived to encourage us to become better followers of God’s ways; they are not meant to encourage self-centred intellectualism or to become insular, introverted spiritual exercises. Christ intended his community of followers to grow and expand through active discipleship, introducing others to his message, so that their lives, like ours, may also be transformed by following his Spirit, his teachings and example. The words discussed here were all spoken by him for the encouragement of his disciples to know their faith and apply it in daily living.
JESUS AND THE WORD
- “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly” [Col.3:16]
“One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” [Matt.4:4] ... “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts upon the will be like a wise man who built his house upon a rock...” [Matt.7:24].
Jesus was described as “The Word” in the preface to John’s Gospel [Jn.1:1-5, 10-18]. As theologians and philosophers over centuries have shown, the Greek term ‘Word’/‘Logos’ has multiple potential connotations in various ancient cultures. In brief, it could imply that Christ was the creative original principle behind all that exits; the explanation of all, who accounts for all and shows everything for what it is. Through him God ‘spoke’ creation and shaped everything into being. It could imply that Jesus was eternally part of God and shared God’s ‘wisdom’ from the start. It can mean that Jesus is the ‘law’, ‘reason’, ‘reality’ and ‘logic’ behind all that is, the source of Truth and understanding. We cannot be sure how much of this, or the many other potential meanings that the compiler of John’s Gospel intended; he was certainly well-educated, with knowledge of theology, temple traditions and social diversity. Some commentators suggest that he may have come from a Temple background. He would not have had access to the plethora of philosophical and religious classical texts that many modern theologians have discovered but would have been aware of prevailing ideas and uses of ‘the Word’. Reading the whole of John’s Gospel it seems clear that the compiler believed Jesus to be God’s revelation of himself through a specific human life. But at the time of writing the Gospel, to clearly state that Jesus was God incarnate would probably have brought greater antagonism to the early Christians than the persecution that they were already enduring from strictly monotheist Jews and others. I sometimes wonder if the term ‘Word’ was used deliberately in John to alleviate this, as well as to appeal to other cultures. To open the Gospel with the words “the Logos (Word) was with God and the Logos was God” [Jn.1:1] was very different from writing ‘Jesus was God incarnate’, though for John they probably had very similar implications.
When the writer of Colossians used the phrase ‘let the word of Christ dwell in you richly’ [Col.3:16] he meant something very different from calling Christ the Logos. The ‘word’ to which he was referring probably indicated the teachings of Christ which were circulating in early churches, either in oral or written form. In Col.3:16 he intended his believing readers to focus on following the spirit of the Jesus and the meaning of his message and commands to which they had been introduced. The New Testament had not yet been collected together as we have it today, so the recipients of the letter to the Colossians would not have had the rich resources of teaching about Jesus, which scripture provides to inspire us. They would probably have had a limited selection of the sayings and stories of Jesus that circulated verbally or in written form before the compilation of the Gospels, if they had any such material at all.
Unlike John’s use of the word ‘logos’, the writer of Colossians wanted his readers to concentrate on the actual, practical meaning and intention of Jesus’ teachings and truth, not their classical or philosophical connotations. Jesus dis not teach theoretical philosophy; he taught faith and trust in God, worship and prayer, practical morality, social responsibility, love, the practical route to forgiveness and the way to life and salvation. Christ came to revive, restore and invigorate people’s relationships with the God who he knew personally as ‘Father’. His moral and social teaching grew from faith and trust that God’s way was the right way to live and understand all Creation. He aimed for people to live abundant, righteous, active lives, taking responsibility for others, restoring and advancing the world towards the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Through his ministry and commands to mission, Christ shared that responsibility towards God and the world with us.
So in concentrating upon the implications of certain words used by Jesus we are considering not just their meaning for faith, but also ideas that are key to human life and action. They relate us to God and truth, but they can also contribute to enhancing the way we approach our lives and support others. Jesus did not regard his divine knowledge and equality with God as something to be utilized for his own gain, or personal advance or advantage [Phil.2:20]. He came to lift others to abundant life and demonstrate how to live for the best. Our own meditation on Jesus’ words and our relationship with God should never be self-centred, but should encourage authentic discipleship. We read, digest and pray in order to build a faith and lifestyle that are useful to the world.
WEEK 1: THE EXAMINED LIFE
1/ Ash Wednesday – REPENTANCE
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” [Mtt.4:17].
Lenten discipline encourages Christians not just to recollect aspects of the faith into which we have been baptised, but also to examine our lives, consider where we fail to live up to our promises and commitments and act out of sincere penitence for our failures. The term ‘repent’ is probably one of the most universal calls in church history. Though the Gospels do not record Jesus using the word often, the concept is at the heart of his mission and the forgiveness which he brought. ‘Repent’ was the message of many Hebrew prophets. Christ’s ‘forerunner’ John the Baptist prepared people for the coming of the Messiah and the nearness of the Kingdom of Heaven by calling his contemporaries to spiritually prepare and turn away from sin through repentance [Mk.1:14-15]. They then accepted baptism as the act of commitment which accompanied true regret. After Jesus’ own baptism by John and his return from preparing his own mission in the wilderness; Jesus began by also calling his hearers to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” [Matt.4:17].
The New Testament Greek term for ‘repentance’/ ‘metanoia’, and the verb ‘to repent’/‘metanoeo’ literally mean ‘to perceive afterwards’, ‘ to later know better’, ‘to change one’s mind, feeling or purpose’. We recognise and regret faults and accept our need to make a change, improve and turn our lives around. We ‘convert’ from going one way to following a new direction or way of living.
That call to change direction and focus on righteousness is the basis of the liturgical words used as Christians in several traditions are marked with ashes on the opening Wednesday of Lent: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return: turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.” Several churches call this liturgy ‘imposition of ashes’ but more truly we should ‘request’ or ‘accept’ the call to Lenten penitence, rather than have it ‘imposed’ upon us. It should not be the Church, tradition, convention or social pressure, that force any to take part in the ceremony; it should stem from a personal commitment to become more true disciples of Christ. To accept the mark of an ash cross just because others are doing so, partly negates the intention of the rite, which encourages Christians to commit themselves to a more holy, dedicated life and to grow in Christlikeness. Taking the ashes is only a sign of an inner vow and commitment. A similar Hebrew sign was the tradition of tearing open one’s clothes as part of either repentance or commitment to a vow. This was the High Priest’s action at the trial of Jesus when he believed Jesus had spoken blasphemy [Matt.29:65; Mk.14:63]. The Hebrew prophets encouraged us to an inner, not an outer commitment to holiness as Joel 2:13 said: You people, rend your hearts and not your garments”.
Accepting the Lenten discipline of working with God’s help towards spiritual growth is a sincere ‘covenant’ commitment. Some modern churches go out into the streets on Ash Wednesday, as part of their mission, offering ashes to the public as and evangelistic act. This idea could be as valuable as John the Baptist’s ministry, but it is important to encourage people to mean and commit to any vows they may take. We should always encourage a spirit of truthfulness [Jn.4:24]. As with the vows at baptism, confirmation and ordination, making a vow should never be regarded as a social rite-of-passage or a gimmick or Lent is time to truly examine our lives, to seek to improve ethically, to build up the integrity of our faith and to walk closer with God. The classic phase of Socrates. repeated by many Christian mystics since, remains true: “An unexamined life is not worth living.”
Jesus’ mention of ‘repentance’ in the Gospels [Matt.4:17; 11:20; Mk.6:12; Lk.10:13; 13:3, 5; 15:7, 10; 17:4] is nearly always linked to actively making changes. Just being sorry or feeling guilt or shame for our sins is not repentance. Christ’s teaching doesn’t just call us to admit our guilt and say sorry for it, or even to stop sinning: True repentance encourages us to turn around and go God’s ways. Jesus criticised those who witnessed his miracles and had the evidence that his teaching was right, yet stubbornly refused to repent or change [Matt.11:20]. Repentance included believing in the ‘good news’ that he brought and acting upon it. [Mk.1:15]. Failure to repent was a sign of disregard for the best way for life, which God had revealed [Lk.13:23-5]. In John the Baptist’s ministry and that of the early church, baptism followed repentance as a sign of death to one’s past, being cleansed by God and a sincere act of preparation to be committed to following God’s direction. This intention continues in the vows made in baptism today. Unfortunately when infant baptism has become regarded by some as simply a social ceremony, the emphasis on maintaining religious vows is often neglected and the baptised or those responsible for them too often fail to ‘learn faith’, ‘resist sin’, ‘follow God’s ways’, and ‘shine as a light for Christ in the world’. All these should be part of the mission of every Christian, but how many of us keep our baptism vows assiduously?
The Lenten discipline of following our faith more truly is a challenging one. It would be wonderful if all Christian lives always went directly forward in holiness and effective mission. Some hard-line early-church theologians claimed that if one sinned after repentance and baptism, one could not be a true Christian. But this seems unrealistic; if that were true God’s Kingdom would be pretty empty! Thank goodness that God’s grace and mercy are greater than those early theologians! Scripture acknowledges that all fail and continue to sin many times; “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” [Rom.3:23]. St. Paul reminds us that we are ‘temples of God’s Spirit’ [1Cor.3:16] so should not allow our sin to sully the bodied in which God’s sacred presence has come to dwell. But we are weak and pulled in many directions. When we fail the grace and mercy of God can still work to cleanse us, and allow his Spirit to indwell and guide us. Jesus told his disciples to forgive multiple times when someone repents [Lk.17:4, Matt.18:21-22, 32-33]. God is so much more perfect than us, so God’s grace, forgiveness and love are surely committed to embracing us whenever we return to him, no matter how many times we fail! That is an important message in Jesus’ ‘Parable of the Prodigal Son’ [Lk.15:11-32]. It is our responsibility to allow God’s spiritual influence, and God’s outreaching love, to increasingly cleanse us. Yet, as in Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, we should not be deterred from returning to the upward path when we fail, fall or temporarily slip backwards. Repentance was not just good for cleansing people, restoring, strengthening relationships and building God’s Kingdom. According to Jesus it causes joy in heaven: “there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.” [Lk.15:10].
St. Paul encouraged people to “confess your sins to one another” [Jas.5:16]. Bringing our particular failings into the open, with individuals who we are sure that we can trust with our confidences, can challenge us to make changes in our behaviour far more than a general confession that we are sinners. In church services it is easy to repeat liturgical confessions and receive formal absolutions far too lightly. A more open confession of our sins can be useful in encouraging us to not fail in those ways again. But feeling assured that one will be accepted and not rejected by the one to whom you confess is essential. I belonged to a church once where a favourite chorus to sing included the lines: “Let us open up ourselves to one another, without fear of being hurt or turned away.” But the reality was very different; elders discussed the sins of members of the congregation, and rejected some who had truly confessed their past in a spirit of longing to be a better disciple. Experience led me to adopt the motto: “Be a man of God, not one who pretends to be”. Of course I’ve failed to live up to this ever since I adopted it, but it is a valuable aim to try to live by.
As a youth I remember being told in Confirmation classes that one should rigorously examine oneself and one’s life carefully before coming to church and on the journey to church, in preparation for confession, worship and accepting the sacraments. But how many church-goers do this? We often swan into God’s presence in daily life, in church services or in private prayer, simply expecting acceptance and forgiveness, like spoiled children who constantly expect the support of their parents. Repentance, as already mentioned, entails far more than feeling guilt, regret or remorse for sins, failings or wrong actions, as the Prophet Joel’s encouraged people to “rend your hearts and not your garments” [Joel.2:12-13]. Undertaking a true confession entails making a true change of direction, not just a surface expression or declaration. It is too easy to only feel guilty or repent when we are found-out. In recent situations politicians, celebrities and prominent Christian leaders have made open pronouncements of ‘repentance’ when sins are publicly exposed. Yet they may have been aware of their failings for years, ignored or covered them up, and failed to acknowledge or deal with them until exposed.
Repentance without both change and working to repair damage is not true penitence. Honest repentance entails action, not just bearing guilt or acknowledging sin. As well as turning around, deliberately moving away from sin and aiming towards righteous living, wherever possible one should attempt to make right the wrongs on has done to others. This may not always be possible; sometimes confronting those we have damaged might make a situation worse, but we should consider the best way to make amends. Achieving perfection that emulates God’s perfection, to which Jesus called his followers, will of course be impossible in this life, yet Jesus intended us to still aim towards perfection and to turn again whenever we fail: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” [Matt.5:48].
We excuse our human failings too easily. Historically Christians have tended to blame the devil or antagonistic spiritual forces for their sin. Thankfully today we mostly admit that most of our failings lie within ourselves [James1:14-15]. Yet we still often excuse our behaviour, blaming the fallibility and weakness of our human minds and wills, the bad influence of others, our family and social background or our environment. Admittedly multiple external pressures combine with pressures within us towards sin, self-centredness, abandoning truth, disregarding others, seeking pleasure or advancement in ways that are against God’s ways or against our conscience. Yet ultimately true repentance still accepts blame, own up to failures, works to restore and honestly seeks to improve and cleanse lives and build God’s kingdom.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
2/ Thursday – SIN
“The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” [Mk.2:10].
It is noticeable that ideas of what activities constitute ‘sins’ change over time and differ in various cultures. Many of the prohibitions in the Hebrew books of the Law, especially over unclean foods and practices, are commonly disregarded today, in western society at least. Others are modified, because culture, society, expectations, psychological understanding, food safety and hygiene have changes so drastically over the centuries. The concept of what constitute ‘sins’ is also exacerbated by false ideas of sin which some people develop. Societal, religious, family or personal pressures can cause false senses of guilt, which can mar lives psychologically. A clear example of this is seen in the false guilt that so many feel as teenagers as their sexuality develops. Some people even develop a sense of false guilt about being themselves, rather than the sort of people that they think others expect them to be. So when we talk about sin, we need to be sure that we are considering what is truthfully sinful, not a guilt that is wrongly placed upon us by ourselves or others.
In archery a ‘sin’ denotes ‘falling short of a target’. While the biblical term is stronger than this, if we recognise that we fall short of truth, of God’s aim for us, and often of our own personal standards, we are more likely to be humble in our attitude to God and to others. Scripture reminds us; “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” [Rom.3:23], but none should use this as an excuse for unrighteousness or lack of spiritual or moral discipline. Where we cover up our failings, become hardened in them, or are immune to recognising that we have done anything wrong, great dangers can develop.
Christians can be easily and often understandably accused of hypocrisy. We promote righteous living, yet all fall short of it. Jesus used the word ‘hypocrite’ of religious leaders who preached, condemned, and enforced righteousness on others yet were like ‘whitewashed tombs filled with rotting bones’ [Matt.23:27]. Pope Francis wrote that in his Church experience, ‘those who are most rigid often lead double lives.’ Hypocrites don’t just live duplicitously; they frequently promote themselves as being more righteous than they actually are. In my experience, this is a common danger for church leaders. Jesus is rarely described as ‘angry’ but this strong emotion in him was often reserved for those who tried to enforce double standards: In Mark 3:5, when synagogue leaders refused to accept that he should heal on the Sabbath, we are told: “he looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart.” Lent is a time to humbly recognise our failure and take steps to fail less often. We should try to move closer to the target of righteousness, faith and love in action, as Christ’s teaching encouraged.
Though we are at the beginning of Lent, Christ’s Cross is regularly in focus. We particularly remember, throughout Lent, how Jesus’ self-sacrifice intended to deal with sin and leave us clean, reconciled, and able to enjoy a closer relationship with God. But we are not cleansed from sin in order to just to fall into the same sins over again. We should actively attempt to learn from each failing, to grow a little closer to God, to emulate Christ’s perfect example more and to resist temptation. When we inevitably fall again, we should allow ourselves to be picked up, re-cleansed and continue on the attempted path to righteousness.
In God’s eyes, sins are not just the big names: ‘murder’, ‘theft’, ‘adultery’, ‘destructiveness’. Sin is anything that diverts us from right, truth or following God’s intentions for human life. Many aspects of modern economy, lifestyle and media are rooted in less obviously noticeable sins: ‘greed’, ‘self-centredness’, ‘promoting oneself over others’, ‘unnecessarily competition with others’, ‘neglecting the poor or needy’, ‘usury’, ‘borrowing or spending more than one can afford’, ‘gossip’, ‘encouraging distrust’ or hate. When Jesus and St. Paul condemned sin they pointed out that the ‘smaller’ sins divide us from God and truth as much as larger sins. When examining our lives for sin we should search deeply, recognising that Paul included, as of equal sinfulness to sexual immorality, failings such as ‘gossip’ [Rom.1:29; 2Cor.12:20]. This is not just sanctimonious rhetoric: gossip can divide communities and damage the promotion of love, acceptance and inclusiveness, yet we often accept contemporary tabloid journalism and personal media blogs, which thrive on it. We should not excuse lies as ‘half-truths’ or ‘white lies’. They are still deceit yet, like politicians even Christian leaders and religious institutions sometimes resort to them. This has often damaged the authenticity of the Church’s witness.
A community will never reflect God’s Kingdom if any of God’s standards or truths are neglected. There were social as well as righteous reasons why Hebrew law included years of ‘Jubilee’ [Lev.5:8-55; 27:17; Num.36:4] when debts were written off and people were freed from enslavement to others. Nobody is likely to work their best if they can see no freedom or escape from drudgery. Similarly the promise of forgiveness and freedom gives an incentive to resist sin. Over-assurance that we can be forgiven because of the extent of God’s love can be an incentive to holiness, but it may also encourage lax or even false discipleship.
Setting Jesus as our example is a useful model. However unlikely it seems for a human being, we are told that “he committed no sin” [1Pet.2:22] and he called us “to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” [Matt.5:48]. We cannot emulate him in the miraculous elements of his nature or activities, but he gave us an example by his life and teaching of how human beings should live. It would be naïve to believe that we can exactly imitate his lifestyle or his righteousness in modern society. But true Christianity should try to apply all the principles that he taught and lived out in contemporary living. If sin is falling short of the mark set by God, by Christ’s teaching and by our own consciences, I am sure that we all have much to work at and to struggle with during Lent!
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Reflect on your life and consider whether you have intentional or unintentional, conscious or unconscious sins to bring before God for cleansing. How committed are you to trying to live a righteous life in imitation of Christ’s example?
3/ Friday – SEEK / SEARCH – Jn.1:38; Jer.29:13; Mtt.6:33; Lk.24:5; Col.3:1; Heb.11:6
“Ask and it will be given you, seek (or ‘search’) and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you” [Matt.7:7].
Though Jesus promised “seek and you shall find”, probably every believer’s spiritual experience must acknowledge honestly that seeking and finding are rarely easy or straightforward. Our human discoveries, whether of spiritual, scientific, historic or philosophical truth, often depend on what we are seeking, and how we go about the quest. The Greek word ‘zēteō’ isn’t just about ‘looking’ for something: The same word is used when the magi, then Herod ‘searched’ for the child [Matt.2:8 & 13]; the merchant ‘searched’ for fine pearls [Matt.13:45], the good shepherd ‘searched’ for the lost sheep [Matt.18:12], Jesus’ parents ‘searched’ frantically for him when he was lost [Lk.2:48]; the disciples would ‘search’ for Jesus when he left them [Jn.7:34-36; 8:21]. So seeking or searching implies depth of commitment, hard graft and often patience, not relaxed acceptance of our limitations. Our spiritual search for truth and righteous living requires intense devotion. Too often those who call themselves ‘Christians’ are content with simplicity of understanding and want an easy, comfortable life, rather than being dedicated to achieving righteousness, improving our lives and the world, or finding the rich relationship with God to which Jesus Christ called us and opened for us.
Persistence is an important characteristic to develop as a Christian. Giving up too easily might imply that our goal or aim was not of great importance to us. St. Paul longed for his ‘thorn in the flesh’ to be removed and tells us that he persisted in prayer over it [2Cor.12:7-10]. The “three times” that he mentions probably means not just offering three prayers, but that he spent three extended periods of specifically concentrated dedication to prayer over the issue, rather like committed ‘Lenten fasts’. We do not know the nature of this ‘thorn’; it might have been a physical or psychological impediment to him, either in his personal life or in his mission. He obviously considered that it was damaging or crippling, for he describes it metaphorically as “a messenger from Satan to torment me”. Eventually he became ‘content with weaknesses’ recognising that ‘God’s grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness...’ ‘whenever I am weak, then I am strong’, since it forced him to need to keep trusting Christ [2Cor.12:9-10]. But learning such patience is difficult. Tomas a Kempis wrote that “‘difficulties need not damage or weaken a person; rather they truly reveal who we are.” [The Imitation of Christ 16:4]
Our human minds are created to be curious and to seek answers. That faculty has led to humanity advancing in all fields of study and technology. There is always something further out of reach towards which we yearn, sincerely want to understand or at which we long succeed. A persistent, yearning search can be especially frustrating in spirituality, though again it is an inevitable part of wanting to know Truth. As Ecclesiastes emphasises: “God has set the search for eternity in the heart of human beings, yet they cannot fathom God from beginning to end” [Eccles.3:11]. God, truth, the spiritual world, the past and future are all invisible to us so they will always remain beyond complete comprehension. Yet imagining and longing to understand more drive us forward, longing to perceive and experience more. We will never know everything, for “we walk by faith that is based on trust in God, not sight” [2Cor.5:7]. Yet perhaps we do have enough knowledge, through scripture, reason, tradition and experience to for a practical active faith to flourish.
Searching for spiritual truth, like searching for God, requires a degree of trust. Faith needs to be based on trust in what we cannot see: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things as yet unseen” [Heb.11:1]. The call to ‘trust God’ is not an excuse for believing naïvely. Jesus commended the trust and faith of young children [Matt.18:4; 19:14]. Yet early-church epistles encouraged Christ’s followers to grow in maturity by taking solid spiritual food, not rely on milk [1Cor.3:2; Heb.5:12-14]. A wise, mature, thinking faith is essential for Christian development and effective mission. A trusting faith requires us to use our all faculties wisely and build up as full an understanding of our faith and the spiritual world as we can develop. We live in a world which often doubts the existence of a spiritual dimension. So it is important to think through the evidences for our personal beliefs reasonably, to be able to witness effectively and share what we consider to be spiritual truths. Training ourselves and others in knowledgeable faith can strengthen our personal relationship with God and truth, and develop effective ways to be able to explain faith to others. Though we search scripture, experience, science, religious tradition, the world and the heavens, Christianity will always be unprovable. It remains based upon a certain amount of trust. Nevertheless our personal search to understand and strengthen our personal faith is important for spiritual and psychological growth.
Developing our understanding of faith is not enough for is to be true Christ-followers. We need to seek with equal commitment to live authentically in response to that faith. Most Christians recognise discrepancies between what we believe and how we live; there are failings in our personal discipleship, lack of Christ-likeness and tendencies to sin rather than to do good. These frustrate us, highlighting our spiritual as well as physical or intellectual inadequacies. Paul acknowledged his own struggle in Romans 7:14-25: “For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh... I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Thankfully he recognised that God’s grace, working through Christ was greater than the struggle he recognised between his ‘flesh’ and his ‘spirit’, and concluded: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
We should never give up our search or become disillusioned by our failings in the search for truth. Christ came to overcome these weaknesses and he sent his Spirit to strengthen us in our struggle and guide us towards greater truth [Jn.14:16, 26; 16:8-14]. We do not search on our own; we have God’s Spirit and the experience of others in the church to support us.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
4/ Saturday – FIND
“Search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you.” [Lk.11:9]
John Chrysostom wrote of our understanding of God: “Let us evoke him as the inexpressible God, incomprehensible and unknowable... He surpasses all power of human speech... He eludes the grasp of every mortal intelligence... Angels cannot penetrate ... [or] fully understand him. For he is invisible... Only the Son and the Holy Spirit know him.” Thomas Merton was suspicious of any imagination that we use to understand God: “We should live as if we are seeing God face to face, but we should not conceive an image of God. On the contrary, it is a matter of adoring him as invisible and infinitely beyond our comprehension and realizing him in all.” (Hidden Ground of Love p.63-64).
One characteristic of the teaching of many mystics and found in Dominican spirituality is the concept of ‘the darkness of God’ or the ‘unknowable’ nature of God. This argues that the enormity of what we consider to be ‘divine’ inevitably means that there must be more that we do not know about God than the teachings and ideas that we do know. It can therefore seem ironic to speak of ‘finding’ an invisible, incomprehensible God. Yet much emphasis in Hebrew Scriptures and in Christian scripture and writings is on God wanting to be found in our mutual relationship within creation. Our relationship with God doesn’t wait until beyond death. There must therefore be aspects of human life in which we are intended to find and relate to God and glimpse aspects of divine truth.
Christians have often been guilty of speaking as though their connection with God is more direct than it is authentically: “God told me”; “Scripture spoke to me”; “God’s Spirit revealed to me” have been voiced too often, when in actuality many may have been guided by ‘hunches’, ‘intuition’, ‘making connections’, ‘directly applying Bible verses to contemporary situations’ etc. In most Christians’ experience such direct communication as ‘hearing God’ is unknown. In over 50 years of commitment as a Christian I have only once known, without any doubt, that God’s presence was physically with me, and that was at a time of the most extreme need. Most Christians faithfully follow God without ever having such powerful assurance. God most usually guides us in more indirect ways, giving us the responsibility for our lives and actions through our lives, our measure of understanding and through trust. God respects our individual wills to serve rather than directing us or moving us like programmed automatons, or giving us direct orders beyond some general, universally applicable commandments in scripture.
Believers from some traditions speak of ‘finding God’, while others of God ‘finding them’. Jesus prayed on the night before he died: “…this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” [Jn.17:3] and “may they be one as you and I are one.” [Jn.17:11, 22]. Verse 26 of that prayer: “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” suggests that we know God’s love primarily through feeling it subliminally. This supplements what we come to understand through considering Jesus and his teachings. We many not ever have the incontrovertible, empirical evidence for the divine, for which so many have searched, but we have feelings and pointers towards such evidence in our experiences and in the glories of Creation surrounding us.
As John Chrysostom and Thomas Merton wrote, we can never fully ‘know’ or ‘find’ God. Even the words of Luke 11:9 9 “ask and you shall find...” recommend continual perseverance in prayer, since often we feel that our prayers, as yet, remain unanswered, so we give up. Jesus’ parables about the importunate neighbour and the persistent widow encourage us to keep searching [Lk.11:5-8; 18:1-8]. Most of what we ‘find’ or understand about God comes when our feelings and intuition supplement what we learn from scripture and tradition. Scripture gives us many metaphors by which to comprehend aspects of God’s character: ‘Father’, ‘Lord’, ‘Holy’, ‘One’, Truth, ‘Judge’, ‘Landowner’, ‘Eternal’, ‘ever-watching’, caring, loving, forgiving etc. These all build a concept of the God who we can trust and worship. We need to hold all these together holistically to sense the truth about God, rather than have unbalanced ideas of God’s wrath and judgementalism, or comfort and love. Jesus promised that those who truly seek will ‘find’ [Matt.7:7], and implied that God promises a relationship now, not just the future discovery of God and truth after death. As Jesus had a sense of oneness with God, his prayer in Jn.17:21-23 suggests that we can share a similar sense of unity, and discover tangible aspects of God in this life.
We know that we do not always find answers to our quests, especially metaphysical ones. Yet much scripture, from Abraham to Revelation, suggests that God’s aim is to be found by human beings and to have a living relationship with us. Psalmists regularly celebrated what they had discovered or sensed about God. Several psalms, like Ps.145 & 148, also suggest that the whole of Creation can share in such a relationship. The idea of humans being ‘in the image of God’ [Gen.1:26] implies that we share certain characteristics which link us to our divine Source. Presumably in some of these we might recognise aspects of God. As spiritual quests and religious beliefs are found in most cultures, part of our nature seems designed to seek such a relationship. Scripture and Christian traditions suggest that we will never be fully fulfilled unless that relationship is satisfied. Augustine of Hippo wrote: “You made us for yourself and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.”
The ‘findability’ of a relationship with the invisible God is an important focus of faith. We develop understanding of aspects of God through scripture, reason, religious tradition, the qualities in Creation, human conscience, intuition, and spiritual and physical experiences. Our individual responses to God and the nature of our relationships with God will differ, since we all differ and there are so many variations of spirituality in the world, despite our many shared characteristics. Different characters with varying backgrounds are not designed to relate to God in exactly similar ways, just as we relate to partners, friends and others differently. Some may find God closest to them through a solitary search. Others will find that they learn about God best through others. That is one of the reasons why we were given the Church. The wide variety of people within the Church should be able to demonstrate the availability and truth of God to the wide variety of people in the world. The theologian Helen Oppenheimer has written: “We are not trying to pronounce about what God can or cannot be, but about how God can be found in our world… God’s people have the hopeful responsibility of being the presence, the findability of God upon earth…Our diversity should enable God to be found in all areas of life in the world… The word multi-faceted comes to mind…the church may be a prism breaking up the white light of God’s dazzling majesty.” [Theology 93: 1990 p 133-141]. A major part of the mission of all Christians, which we neglect too often, is to help the wider world recognise the truths of God and how to reach out to God themselves. How committed and effective are you at this?
As well as assuring us that “everyone who searches will find” [Matt.7:7], Jesus also recognised conversely that ‘there are few who find the road that leads to life” [Matt.7:14]. In the previous study on ‘Seek/Search” we recognised that our search needs to be authentic, persistent and diligent: one needs to be willing to lose much of what we believe to be ‘worldly life’ to achieve true ‘spiritual life’ [Matt.10:39; 16:25]. Yet being willing to risk much, or offer up most of what we have for the spiritual treasure of a relationship with God, is the message of several parables: The Treasure Buried in a Field [Matt.13:44], The Pearl of Great Price [Matt.13:45-46], The Lost Sheep [Matt.18:12-14; Lk.15:4] and the Open Door to God’s Kingdom [Lk.11:9]
For Contemplation and Prayer:
WEEK 2: EXPLORING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD THROUGH CHRIST
5/ Sunday – TRUST
“Have faith and do not doubt… Ask in prayer with faith” [Matt.21:21-22]
One may nominally believe that the Christian faith offers truths and that God is real, but to put one’s ‘trust’ in God and believe the promises of scripture requires a far greater commitment than simply a faith that is based on hopeful wishful-thinking. The Greek biblical term ‘pith’/’trust’ suggests that one has ‘confidence ‘, ‘assurance in ‘, and is ‘persuaded about’ the truth in which one places one’s trust. [Matt.27:43; Mk.9:24; Lk.11:22; 18:9.]
Trust is a word that is used more frequently in the Old Testament, particularly in Psalms, where the writers express conviction that they can put their trust in God, even in difficult trials. ‘Trust’ is not so often mentioned in the Gospels, though Christ commends ‘trustworthiness’/‘pistos’ in God’s servants: [Matt.25:21-23; Lk.19:17]. In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus is more often translated as encouraging people to have ‘faith’ (‘pistis’/’pisteuō’) in God and in him: “have faith and do not doubt… Ask in prayer with faith” [Matt.21:21-22]; “According to your faith let it be done to you” [Matt.9:29]; “if you had faith the size of a grain of mustard seed...” [Lk.17:6]; “Your faith has saved you” [Lk.7:50; 18:42]. This word ‘pistis’ again suggests ‘trust’.
‘Pistos’ is the Greek term in scripture most commonly used for trust. 1Pet.1:21 used in expressing trust in God, but it is not a word that is confined to religious beliefs. The Greeks used it of many situations where its primarily meaning was that one is ‘firmly persuaded’, ‘assured’ or ‘convinced’ that something or someone is trustworthy. Surprisingly neither the words for ‘trust’ nor ‘faith’ are used in John’s Gospel, where the divinity of Christ is most strongly represented. Instead the writer emphasises that his testimony is ‘true’ [Jn.19:35; 21:24] and gives many proofs of Christ’s miraculous nature. (Terms for ‘true’/‘truly’ are used 47 times in John’s 21 chapters.) Probably the writer presumed that in response to the testimony of the Gospel, readers should believe that Jesus deserves our faith and trust because he taught and exemplified truth and perfectly reflected God.
In the Synoptic Gospels ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ are used almost synonymously. In the Gospels ‘faith’ has little to do with the abstract set of convictions, beliefs or doctrines, which churches now define as ‘the faith of the Church’. ‘Faith’ is primarily spoken of as the trust that relates us to God. Jesus claimed: ‘Faith can move mountains’ [Matt.17:20; 21:21], presumably speaking metaphorically rather than literally, with the meaning that trust in God helps us to overcome major difficulties, obstacles and needs.
Jesus frequently commended and answered the requests of those in whom he found or sensed faith, particularly in situations of healing [Matt.8:10; 9:2, 22, 29; 15:28; Mk.2:5; 5:34; 10:52; Lk.5:20; 7:9, 50; 8:25; 17:19]. But we should never believe that, just because we have faith, God will heal or answer any prayers as we wish. Nor, despite Jesus’ teaching about the efficacy of ‘faith as small as a grain of mustard seed’ [Matt.17:20] should we think that our prayers aren’t answered because our faith is too small. I believe that God’s loving wisdom will always answer prayer in the ways that are ultimately right and best for all. Despite the Parables of the Importunate Neighbour [Lk.11:5-8] and the Persistent Widow [Lk.18:1-8] we should not seek to alter the direction of truth or ‘change God’s mind’, as if that were possible. The prayer of trust always seeks to be in line with truth and what might be God’s will.
Faith means that we will not always see that in which we trust. When Thomas recognised the risen Christ, his trust in the experience confirmed and expanded his faith. Not only did he believe that Jesus was alive, but John describes him taking the further leap of faith to claim Jesus as “my Lord and my God!” [Jn.20:28]. Commentators differ over whether Thomas would have actually said these words or if the gospel-writer used them to underline the message of Christ’s divine origins. John gives Jesus’ response to Thomas as: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” [Jn.20:29]. This seems to be a major message of the passage: we should be wary of requiring experiences or undeniable evidence before committing ourselves to belief, or we will never find faith. Since the Enlightenment, that requirement of empirical proof has been a major stumbling-block to faith. Yet it is vitalising when we do recognise evidences and answers to prayer that encourage and strengthen our faith. At the heart of Christianity is belief in the existence of a spiritual truth and security which we cannot prove, yet strongly sense that we can trust: ‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the knowledge of things unseen’ [Heb.11:1].
A living church of active, spiritually truthful, trusting and trustworthy members would be a great encouragement to outsiders to recognise and begin to trust that we may have found truths that could be relevant to them. One tends to trust those who clearly seem to live by what they claim to believe. A problem throughout the Church’s history is that its members have not always acted in ways that encourage others to trust the God in whom we claim to believe. Many have found that they cannot trust churches as institutions, or individual Christians who announce that they have the truth but act in unrighteous ways. It is a huge challenge to us to make our lives, our witness, our church community and our liturgy truly reflect the true God. We have a sceptical world to convince, where many have experienced or witnessed years of mistakes and hypocrisy by self-proclaimed ‘Christians’. Out personal truthful and trustworthy witness today needs to overcome and overturn this.
Thankfully, God is far more trustworthy than human beings. Even when we act in ways that sully God’s name, the real God is here for people and has the strength to overcome the barriers any might erect. One aspect of God’s mercy may be that he hides from public recognition some of our many failures in order to help others discover divine truth through us.
Tales of saints include examples of some who ‘trusted God to provide everything they needed.’ Jesus and his disciples gave up much financially and were supported by those around them and to whom they ministered. But in a modern economic world it would not be practical or an effective witness if every Christian decided to live in this way, and expect to be supported by others. The world might become over-full of mendicant worshipping beggars trusting God and expecting the community to support their spirituality. This would not be a good witness to our faith. In s’Hertogenbosch in Flanders, (the hometown of Hieronymus Bosch) in late middle-ages so many communities of Religious Orders were founded, demanding to be supported by the society, that the town-people revolted and refused to offer them financial support! St. Paul trusted God and other believers to help support his mission but he also worked at a profession in order not to be a burden to any [Acts 18:3; 2Cor.12:14; 1Thess.2:9; 2Thes.3:8]. He urged other Christians to act in the same way, so that church might support those with true needs [1Tim.5:16].
Jesus encouraged his followers, when he sent them out on mission, (first the twelve disciples [Matt.10:5-14], then seventy [Lk.10:1-20], then us who believe through their witness [Matt.28:18-20]) to trust that we will find support and be effective. In prayer in Gethsemane he prayed in trust for our protection, yet committed in trust to follow God’s will [Jn.17:11-21]. The disciples trusted God’s Spirit to guide people to listen and respond to their message, to convert and work miracles through them. But they rarely found living by a trusting faith easy. When his disciples struggled to cure a child, Jesus showed them that they did not have the spiritual power in themselves and were always dependant on God’s will and power. The child’s father, when asked whether he believed a cure possible, gave one of the most poignant, meaningful responses about trusting God in all scripture: “I believe, help my unbelief!” [Mk.9:24]. Perhaps that should be our prayer far more often, where we, as modern, thinking believers, feel tempted not to pray for situations which we believe are beyond even God’s intervention.
Jesus emphasised that after he had physically left them, the Holy Spirit would be their ever-present trustworthy guide into all truth and in their mission, convicting others of God’s truth [Jn.14:16-19; 16:7-15]. “When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all the truth...” [Jn.16:12]. They could trust God’s Spirit, as they had learned to trust Jesus, and could trust him to being them to life: “Because I live in you, you will live.” [Jn.14:19]. That is the sort of trusting faith that we need to develop for effective Christian living and witness.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
6/ Monday - HUMILITY
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” [Matt.11:29]
Humility was a characteristic of Christ, which he encouraged his disciples to follow. Yet it is not necessarily a characteristic that we always see in leaders of Christian organisations today or in fellow believers. For too many Christians their sense of position, rights or authority are over-worldly. In contemporary ministerial training ordinands are often encouraged to use business models to find and develop the leadership style that most suits their personality. But as in business that can sometimes encourage over-dominance and bullying. Despite churches’ insistence that they follow safeguarding procedures, there is still too much coercion and intimidation in many institutions. The true Christian, whether leader or follower should take the character of Christ, not businessmen, as their holistic model.
Authentic humility is a virtue; false humility or obsequiousness can be cloyingly irritating. You sometimes find church-members who think that they will appear particularly ‘religious’ if they are over-self-deprecating and servile. That can be a beautiful quality in some; I have recognised it in some members of religious orders. But Uriah Heep in Dickens’ ‘David Copperfield’ is an example of how untrustworthy excessive servility can seem. When someone approaches us fawningly we often wonder “what are they after?” So humility needs to be sincere if we are seeking to witness authentically.
Our ‘humility’ stresses that we recognise that we are ‘of the earth’, in the same boat as everybody else. Christians are servants of God and stewards to look after God’s Creation. We are not ‘gods’ or ‘supermen’, to use Nietzsche imagery of strong leadership. ‘Humus’, the compost we use in planting, is Latin for ‘soil’. It is not clear whether this is, as has sometimes been suggested, the root of the Latin words for ‘humility’/‘humilis’, or ‘human being’/‘humanus’. But the idea remains attractive that, whatever our social position, we should recognise that in being ‘made of the dust of the earth’ we are not superior but ‘one’, sharing a unity with the rest of society and with the world. No Christian should lord it over any. Those Christian groups who have cut themselves off or distanced themselves from the society of other Christians or the community around them, in the belief that this will keep their faith pure, are mistaken and deceive themselves. Jesus mixed with the world in order to influence it for good, being wrongly criticised for eating with sinners and tax-collectors [Mk.2:16].
Scripture translates the Greek term ‘tapeinós’ as ‘humble’. The word implies that we recognise and accept our relative weakness, lowliness, poverty and insignificance. Greek philosophers and the rabbinic tradition regarded this as a great virtue in a leader or any human being. It did not imply that they should be submissive, but that they accepted their responsibilities and obligations before the gods, people and truth, without raising themselves above any, or considering themselves above criticism. Jesus probably meant something similar when he claimed that those who are ‘poor in spirit’ and ‘meek’ are ‘blessed’, acknowledging that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as them [Matt.5:3&5].
Humility, like the willingness to be a ‘servant’ of humanity does not imply that we abase ourselves and do not ‘stand up and be counted’. It is possible to be modest while still recognising our value. God highly values human beings - look at all the qualities and abilities in us, and how we have been entrusted with responsibilities towards the earth and each other! Christians who do not feel it is their place to speak out against wrong and speak up for right are shirking our human and ethical responsibilities. True humility makes us obedient to truth and encourages us to accept and act upon the responsibilities required of us. We should just act with appropriately Christ-like persuasion, not arrogance or dominance. We are all of great value, so while recognising our weakness and sins, we should never believe that we are nothing, or feel deflated by others who might try to debase us. Nor, for the same reason, should we ever act to debase others.
Scripture describes God exalting or raising those who are held down by others or inwardly oppressed [Ps.18:27; 34:18]. God often chooses to work through the lowly rather than the self-important [Judg.6:15; 1Sam.18:23; Lk.1:48; 1Cor.1:28]. This is an incredibly important lesson for all Christian leaders! Humility encourages us to recognise our dependency on God and others: none should ever to get so above themselves that they rely on their superiority and fail to rely on God. Jesus claimed that those who exalt themselves will be abased and those who abase themselves will be exalted [Matt.23:12; Lk.14:11; 18:14]. Paul showed how Jesus himself took the form of a servant yet was exalted: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who did not regard even equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name. SO that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. ...” [Phil.2:5-11]. It is not for us to exalt ourselves!.
In humility we recognise and admit to our failings. Today many leaders refuse to admit their wrongs, this unfortunately includes some church-leaders as well as politicians and those in other walks of life. Refusing to publicly or privately apologise for failures or justifying oneself when one has made mistakes seems to be a feature of modern leadership. We need to be careful in our criticism because most of us will have done this some time in our lives. Children often invent elaborate explanations, but when leaders do similarly their self-protective motives may be equally transparent. Some fear that apologising might make them appear weak, untrustworthy or unworthy of respect. This shouldn’t be true, since acknowledging our failings can often help people to progress, move on, forgive, receive forgiveness and genuinely learn from mistakes. (Sadly some claim that they have learned from their mistakes, then blithely carry on as they did before.) The penitential season of Lent can be an important time for genuine admissions, regaining Christ-like humility and moving forward in discipleship.
Readiness to acknowledge mistakes and apologise is a Christian virtue. True repentance, including changing one’s life and making reparations, is central to the process of forgiveness [cf. Meditation 1]. If any seem arrogant, justify their misdoings or fail to ask for forgiveness, resentment towards them can grow and build greater barriers between individuals or groups. If we recognise someone’s true penitence, we are more likely to forgive and dissolve the obstacles between us before resentment increases. Openly acknowledging our sins and failings is similarly at the heart of keeping our relationship with God free, acknowledging truth and owning up to our weaknesses and errors. It is wrong to believe that God or others should automatically forgive if we are not humble enough to admit our faults. That is one reason why true confession is so important an element of worship.
Humility reflects our love for others: we serve another because we value them. This contrasts greatly with those who believe it their duty to serve or rule because they are so much more important or significant than others. In describing love in 1Cor.13:4-5, Paul reminds us that love does not boast, become puffed-up, vaunt itself, or seek its own good before that of another. Truth eventually often abases those who become ‘too big for their own boots’. God is often described in scripture as raising the lowly and laying low the mighty [1Sam.2:7; Ps.44:25; 51:17; 75:8; Isa.2:11; 3:8; Ezek.21:31; Lk.1:52], or humbling people who have done wrong in order to restore them to a right relationship with him and with the truth [Ps.116:6; 119:71]. It might be encouraging if we saw such humbling happened more often, but unfortunately the finder of accusation might also point at us!
Jesus’ own example is our greatest model for true humility. His lowliness resulted from having his heart fixed on following his Father’s will, not on pleasing or advancing himself. He did not insist on his unique, divine position and privilege. Reflecting God’s lordship, Jesus didn’t lord-over the world. He showed empathy and identified with us, living like us and sacrificing himself for our good. Christ came down to our level to support us and teach us by example. The writer of Philippians reminds all Christians: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who did not regard even equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave...” [Phil.2:5-7]. That example is for both leaders and those who are led.
Jesus explained facets of humility in the Beatitudes: ‘Blessed are the poor in sprit… those who mourn… the meek… those who hunger and thirst for righteousness... the merciful… the pure in heart… the peacemakers… those who are persecuted for righteousness sake… those who are reviled, persecuted and falsely accused, for the sake of Christ.’ [Matt. 5:3-11]. By contrast contemporary emphasis often praises ‘worldly ambition’, ‘self-promotion’, ‘lust for power, fortune fame or vengeance, despite the cost to others’, ‘asserting one’s rights’, ‘justifying lying to get yourself out of trouble’. Sadly even the Church is rarely innocent in such matters, as in the promotion or self-promotion of some who consider themselves a spiritual elite, or the cover-up of situations of abuse.
Christian humility isn’t about self-denigration or self-degradation, certainly not about allowing yourself to be unjustly accused or stepped upon. It recognises our true, high value in God’s perspective and values others as equal to, or even better than, ourselves [Phil.2:3], not insisting on one’s own priority yet standing for justice and Kingdom principles. We aren’t just to regard ourselves as the miserable, sinning worms of Psalm 22:6, Job 25:6 or the ‘Litany’ in the Book of Common Prayer. Human beings may be formed from ‘dust’ or soil, as the metaphor for our nature expresses it, but we are raised above dust, redeemed, formed in God’s image, reformed by God’s Spirit, entrusted by God with changing the world and called ‘children of God’. Christ calls us ‘friends’ not just ‘servants’ [Jn.15:15]. Good stewards recognise the dignity and responsibilities of their calling without tendency to arrogance. Any who push themselves forward or insist on position actually diminish themselves. That is not the way to gain respect from one’s peers, let alone to appear Christ-like in our witness. Self-promotion does not promote ‘Christ’, which is the purpose of all true ‘mission’. The proud should take care lest they fall [Lk.1:51].
The human ego can have positive and negative effects: It can advance human society through our drive to improve understanding, create useful inventions or develop for the good. But it can also over- promote or advance some, perhaps at the expense of undermining others, or judging others more strictly than ourselves. That is not Christ’s example of love and encouragement. At times in history, the Church has attempted to model itself on authoritarian secular worldly models of leadership, promoting power, hierarchy or fame over Jesus’ example. Jesus taught that “Such ambition should not be so with you” [Jn.20:26]. Humility is occasionally ‘imposed’ on church-members by dictatorial leaders insisting on their ‘authority’ or superiority. The mediaeval writer John of Forde wrote: “Let him who would teach me humility ensure that they have learned Christ-like humility themselves”.
Humble ministry seeks to serve and support all. None should ever give the impression that they are above those for whom God has given them pastoral responsibility. Humility in leadership may not massage one’s ego, but it strengthens community. We shouldn’t need to be recognised as important, famous or gifted. The Church is not ‘Britain’s Got Talent’; the Holy Spirit gives us gifts for the benefit and up-building of others more than for ourselves. The value of every individual should be affirmed equally within the Church body or Christian society. Churches appoint people of varying, recognised gifts to different roles to enable ministry. But no role is superior to another; we are a team, one body, intended to work together [1Cor.12]. Perhaps some roles might seem more ‘respectable’ but none deserve greater ‘respect’ than others. The high calling of a ‘deacon’ was in classical times the menial who emptied the latrine buckets. Are we all ready to cheerfully carry the ordure of others in our world so that it can be disposed of? (There are also still many buckets in churches that need to be emptied and scrubbed clean!) That really would be getting down to the level of those we serve, as Christ did on the Cross!
No Christian should regard themselves as above the menial role. We are not here “to be served but to serve” [Matt.20:28]. Christ’s Church, if it is to reflect God’s Kingdom, isn’t about individualism or personal ambition; we are meant to be a community of Christ-like people, serving and worshiping holily together. As many prophets showed, worship or personal attempts at holiness are unworthy if the aims behind them are unworthy.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Take an honest and humble look at your life, and compare your own position with the humility of Christ, as Phil.2:5-8 encourages.
7/ Tuesday – POVERTY
“Blessed are the poor...” [Lk.6:20]... “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” [Matt.5:3]. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” [Lk.4:18].
The Church has often commended poverty and poverty of spirit as virtues, while too frequently not adopting the same attitude to itself. I often feel ashamed of the distance between today’s churches and the communities of disciples that Christ and St Paul intended, which grew into the organisations in which we serve God today. I also recognise it in myself. Even worse is the preaching of a ‘prosperity gospel’ which equates the expansion of riches with God’s blessing on those he loves. Too often those riches have been gained in unrighteous ways. Some of the great religious entrepreneurs of the 19th Century like Cadbury and Titus Salt had laudable and holy aims, but several modern tele-evangelists and promoters of rich churches have been far more self-centred and materially motivated, as were many of the secular and religious sponsors of the great churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The works they commissioned may be wonderful, but too often the motivations behind commissions, or the patron’s methods of acquisition of the wealth and influence were unworthy or ungodly.
A meaningful aspect of biblical law is the responsibility laid upon society to support the poor and needy. According to the laws of the Hebrew covenants, the widow, child, stranger, the poor and the needy were all to be supported by the community [Ex.22:21-27; Deut.10:17-19; 24:17-22; 26:12-13; 27:17-19]. Poverty was also seen as an aspect of humility, it created a state of dependence: the poor recognised their need for protection and provision. Jesus term in the Beatitudes “the poor in spirit” uses the same word for poverty. The “poor in spirit” were “blessed” through recognising and living by their dependence on God. Even those with possessions, who humbly recognise their weakness and emotional and spiritual poverty, and dependency on God can find blessing, if they recognise and respond to their need for a greater relationship of dependence beyond themselves.
Two problems in much of the contemporary world are that the materially or mentally poor are not sufficiently supported, while the richer, yet often equally emotionally and spiritually impoverished rarely accept that they need or lack metaphysical strength. Many in our affluent society have great possessions and much to fill their time, so do not feel spiritually “poor”. They may be frustrated in relationships, promotion, the expectations on their time, family or business pressures, even feel emotionally lonely, but may not accept that they have any need for faith in God or a relationship with a spiritual world beyond their own horizons. Yet when some of their props or means of confidence fall away they may come to recognise their spiritual poverty and seek more permanent spiritual security. We should not allow ourselves to get to the point of desperation before we turn to prayer!
One of the mistakes of the Church over centuries has been to celebrate poverty as a condition of holiness. Religious Orders embraced poverty as though it was a virtue, making the secular rich feel guilty, while some churches encouraged the materially rich to enrich the Church as an institution. That is not the poverty or riches that Jesus was talking about. He wanted the poor to be physically supported and the emotionally and spiritually impoverished to be spiritually fed and enriched in their inner spirits. It is part of our responsibility as Christ’s followers to recognise the areas in which we are spiritually poor and to enrich them by a deeper relationship of dependency on God. At the same time it is our mission to reach out into the lives of those who are themselves spiritually, emotionally, physically or socially impoverished and offer them what will enhance their lives, whether it is material, emotional, practical or spiritual support.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
In what areas of life and faith are you spiritually poor? Bring them humbly before God and consider how you might be strengthened.
8/ Wednesday – THIRST
“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.” [Matt.5:6]...
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The3 water that I give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” [Jn.4:13-14]... “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let anyone who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” [Jn.7:37-38 elaborating on Isa.55:1].
Jesus emphasised to the Samaritan woman at the well that those who spiritually thirst could have their thirst truly quenched by him and will never thirst again [Jn.4:13-14]. His offer of living water from a well of life to her was not just a metaphor invented by Jesus; it was a prophecy in Jewish tradition. God provides the necessities of life [Isa.55:1] and is the source of living water, just as water quenches thirst and nourishes life [Jer.2:13]. Ezekiel prophesied that in the coming time streams would bring life [Ezek.47:16ff; Zech.14:8]. The desire for God was described as thirst [Ps.42:1] and Jesus used drinking as a metaphor for believing [[Jn.7:38]. The gift of the Spirit would eventually be the well of water that would sustain spiritual life [Jn,8:37; 7:39; 6:56] and the river of life in the Book of Revelation would nourish the tree of life that was a sign of God’s Kingdom, producing its fruit each month and offering its leaves and shade for the healing of the world [Rev.22:1-2].
As with Jesus saying that those who drank of his water of life would never be thirsty again [Jn.4:13-14], thirst and its quenching in scripture implies far more than being temporarily satisfied by being offered a drink. People living in a hot climate like the Palestinian desert, or working hard in work in the fields knew the power of thirst. Much of the land in Jesus’ day was poor in water resources. Emphasis is placed on wells, wadies and conduits throughout scripture [Gen.26:18-19; 2 Ki.18:19]. The provision of water in the desert was important [Num.20:24; 27:14] and it was to be a significant blessing in the Promised Land [Deut.8:7]. It was prophesied that in the future Israel would become like a ‘watered garden’ [Isa.58:11] perhaps remembering the cultivated gardens seen during the Assyrian and Babylonian Exiles. This is more a metaphor for overall future blessing than a prophecy about irrigation. The Psalmist saw himself and his people as a flock led to water or a tree flourishing by drawing water from a brook [Ps.32:2; 1:3]. Jesus must have felt thirst particularly in preparation for his ministry in the wilderness, as well as in his peripatetic ministry. John’s Gospel includes ‘I thirst’ among Jesus’ words from the cross [19:28]. The Book of Revelation emphasises that there will be no more thirst in heaven, for the Lamb will lead the redeemed to the water of life which they will receive without cost [Rev.7:16-17; 21:6; 22:17]. The river of the water of life that flows from the Lamb’s throne reflects the rivers with their source in Paradise and the springs which flowed to water the earth in the imagery of creation and the sustenance provided by God [Rev.22:1; Gen 2:10-14].
The imagery of water throughout scripture, is used both physically and as a metaphor: Wells feature significantly in Genesis as God’s people developed [16:14; 21:19-30; 24:11-20; 26:19-32; 29:2-10] and elsewhere in scripture [Ex.2:15; Num.20:17; 21:16-22; 2Sam.3:26; 17:18-21; 23:15-16, 2Ki.10:14; 1Chron.11:17-18; Prov.15:5; 23:27;25:26; Eccles.12:6; S.of Songs 4:15; Jer.6:7; Hos.13:15]. Jacob provided water for the flock of Rachel and Laban [Gen.29:2-14], Naaman was healed by bathing in the Jordan [2Ki.5:8-19]. Streams are equally significant [Gen.2:6; Ex.7:19; 8:5; Deut.8:7; 10-:7; Ps.1:3; 42:1; 65:9; 74:15; 78:16-20; 107:35; 126:4; Isa.30:25; 32:2, 20; 33:21; 43:19-20, 44:3-4; 66:12; Jer.17:8; 31:9; Ezek.47:3-12; Amos5:24]. Hebrew prophecy promised that God would provide ‘streams in the desert’ [Isa.32:2; 35:6; 41:18; 43:20]. This was both to bring growth and to spiritually strengthen the nation, which was a ‘thirsty land’ [Amos 8:11; Ps.42:2]. Water was also a symbol of cleansing, purification, healing repentance (in baptism) and the bringing of salvation [Jn.2:1ff]. So it is not surprising that Jesus used this important source of life as a symbol of himself.
Thirst was seen metaphorically as a passionate longing for spiritual food [Matt.5:6] and yearning for salvation [Isa.42:18; Jn.7:37]. Satisfying this thirst would be the feast of God’s Kingdom [Lk.22:30], whereas thirst would be a feature of divine punishment [Lk.16:24]. To give a cup of water was a blessing that would be rewarded in God’s Kingdom [Matt.10:42; 25:37-40]. Helping the thirsty’ is part of our ministry, as Rom.12:20 emphasises.
Our own spiritual thirst can be a sign that God has more to bring to our lives than we recognise or have presently attained. As Jesus told the woman at the well, the quenching of thirst provided by many activities and relationships may be temporarily satisfying, but can never fulfil the areas of need that spiritual nourishment can provide. That is not to say that our social relationships and other methods of fulfilment are unimportant. To be ‘whole’ and ‘satisfied’ people we need these activities and contacts as well. Christian teaching has sometimes over-emphasised the idea that a relationship with God through Christ is sufficient and can provide everything we need. We must be careful about our interpretation of verses of scripture that imply that we should give up all things for the sake of Christ. Scriptural phrases often exaggerate, as Jesus did himself, in order to make significant points. We cannot do without the living water that a relationship with God through Christ provides. But water is insufficient as a diet; we need to take variety in our nourishment in order to grow strong and abundantly. When scripture talks of ‘Christ alone’ being sufficient for us, it surely means that our faith, following Christ’s teachings, and maintaining a righteous relationship with God through Christ should be our priorities and influence all that we do. But our social and economic lives are also important. Every moment of our lives should be lived authentically, keeping true to God, but that does not mean that at every moment we are maintaining an awareness of God or concentrating on faith. Much of real life is fed and nourished by other things, but we still ‘live in Christ’.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How much do you sincerely ‘thirst’ for a righteous life and an authentic relationship with God? How might your spiritual thirst be further quenched?
9/ Thursday – ASK
“Ask and it will be given to you...” [Matt.7:7]
Are we really meant to believe that whatever we truly ask of God will be given to us? Very inappropriately I remember seeing a Christian poster, designed I think for a young person’s room, which printed the text “Ask and it will be given to you” on a photograph of a shiny red sports-car. I guess or hope that the unthinking graphic designer was just using the car as a pretext for attracting the viewer’s attention to the verse, not thoughtlessly encouraging covetousness or idolatry. Nevertheless, if it true that many Christians find themselves asking for things that are inappropriate.
The word ‘ask’ in English is a fairly general word, which can be meant relaxedly or intensely. There are fifteen words for ‘asking’ used in the Greek New Testament, often denoting what is asked, or the manner or purpose behind what is asked. A few terms of asking predominate:
A common word in the New Testament for ‘ask’ is the word ‘légō’ which is a general term that can mean: to ‘speak’, ‘talk’, ‘tell’, ‘declare’, ‘announce’, ‘give a message or promise’, ‘teach’, ‘repeat’ or even ‘sing’, according to context. Its origin is in the ‘gathering together’ of people to address, to repeat a narrative to be remembered, or to teach.
Another term, ‘aiteō’, is stronger, but again can be translated in different ways according to context: to ‘ask for’, ‘demand’, ‘beg’, ‘request’, ‘call’, ‘make’ or ‘pray’. It is used of the Greeks “demanding signs” to accredit Paul’s teaching [1Cor.1:22], or people calling disciples to account for or explain their beliefs [1Pet.3:15]. It was also used of official or general requests, as well as religious prayers requesting things from God. Interestingly the word is never used by Jesus of his own prayers [Jn.16:26]. He used the more specific and more humble word for requesting: ‘erōtáō’. It has been speculated that this is because ‘aiteō’ contains the sense of a ‘demand’, and our prayers should never be made as ‘demands’ to God. This differs somewhat from the Jewish attitude to prayer, which sometimes could be interpreted as approaching God too demandingly. This is seen in some Psalms, but particularly in the way more recent Jewish spirituality occasionally addresses God.
The more intimate word for ‘enquiring ‘ or ‘requesting’ [erōtáō] is used both when the disciples addressed Jesus and when Jesus addressed God. Christ “asked” the disciples “How many loaves do you have?”[Mk.8:5] and asked, “Who do people say that I am?” [Matt.16:13]. He asked the rich young man “Why do you ask [‘herōtâs’ / ‘question’] me what is good?” [Matt.19:17]. Jesus disciples asked him to explain the meaning of his parables [Mk.4:10] and the centurion asked him to come and heal his servant [Lk.7:3]. The same word is used when Jesus challenged the elders who questioned his authority: “I will ask you one question; if you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I do these things.” [Matt.21:24; Lk.20:3]. In this particular context it possibly shows that he was questioning with a gently worded enquiry, perhaps to prevent further antagonism. John’s Gospel uses the word ‘erōtáō’ most frequently: “They asked him to stay with them” [Jn.4:8], the disciples asked “Rabbi who sinned?” [Jn.9:2]; Jesus told his disciples ‘I will ask the Father” [Jn.14:16; 16:26]. But in John the request is often shown to have more power behind it, as when the priests and Levites questioned John the Baptist: “They asked, “What then, are you Elijah?”... they asked “Why then are you baptising?”. The term is used when Jesus’ opponents interrogated the man whose son had been blind from birth and healed by Jesus on the Sabbath [Jn.9:15-21]. It is also used in the interrogating of Christ at his trial [Jn.18:21]. Most significantly the word is used throughout Jesus’ ‘High-Priestly Prayer’ in John 17, when Jesus was asking sincerely that his Father would protect his disciples and those who would believe in him through them [Jn.17:9, 15, 20]. The meaning of this form of asking can therefore be strong and entreating, expressing a longing for an answer that can imply a sincere prayer or need.
Erōtáō is linked to the word ‘eperōtáō’, which means ‘to question’ or ‘inquire’, a word that Mark used more frequently than the other evangelists. It denoted much of the questioning that was made of Jesus throughout his ministry: “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath?” [Matt.12:10]; ‘show us a sign’ [Matt.16:1]; ‘Why don’t your disciples live by the tradition of the elders?’ [Mk.7:5]; “Teacher when will this be?” [Lk.21:7]; “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?’ [Lk.22:64].
Praying sincerely out of a sense of need [‘dēomai’] is the term used for ‘asking’ when Jesus told his disciples to “ask the Lord of the harvest to provide” [Matt.9:38; Lk.10:2]. Paul also used it when defending his ministry against criticism he “asks” for the community’s understanding [2Cor.10:2]. This type of asking is a form of saying “I beg you...”
Whatever sincere way we ask, Christ’s teaching assures us that our prayers are listened to and answered. His Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax-collector at prayer in the Temple [Lk.18:9-14] implies that our sincerity and earnestness in prayer are most important. The effectiveness of our prayer surely depends not so much on our position, our erudition, how we ask, or even how we approach God, since God already knows our deepest needs. Humility should be part of that approach, yet answers to prayer depend on God’s wisdom not on the way we phrase our requests. Whether we feel that our prayers have been answered may often depend on whether we are asking for the truest things. The prayer of faith [Matt.21:22, Jas.5:15] entails aligning ourselves with the will of God. We should aim to make requests that accord with our understanding about God and our knowledge of the truth and of life. Despite Jesus’ teaching about moving mountains or trees [Matt.17:20; 21:21-2], it would be wrong to pray for what is inappropriate or the impossible.
Jesus often used exaggerated language to make his teachings memorable, like encouraging followers that with even a tiny grain of faith they could pray that a mountain would be moved or a tree uprooted. Taken literally, both prayers would be unreasonable. Jesus’ emphasis in Matt.17:20; 21:21-2 was rather on believing that nothing is impossible for God. He encouraged us to involve God in all our needs, longings, frustrations, painful or seemingly impossible situations and requests. He meant us to trust that God knows our deepest needs and the best ways to respond to our prayers [Matt.6:8, 32; Lk.11:8; 12:30; 18:1].
Jesus also encouraged people to think reasonably about what they were requesting. When the twin disciples asked to reign on either side of him in heaven, he gently disparaged their ambition [Matt.20:21-23; Mk.10:37-40]. He challenged the rich young man over whether he was truly able and willing to give all to his spiritual quest [Lk.18:22-23]. In what might have been a searching question he asked the blind Bartimaeus who had asked for his sight, what he really wanted. Was it truly healing of his sight that he most needed, or was there a greater, deeper and more spiritual need? [Mk.10:51]. That too could be a question for us to consider when we pray.
It is always useful to explore our motives in asking for things. Children often desire everything, and modern life in a commerce-driven society often encourages self-indulgence. But spiritual maturity should lead us to make requests for our truest needs. Jesus taught his disciples to pray in the Lord’s Prayer for ‘the bread we need for today’ [Matt.6:11; Lk.11:3], not to make self-centred or self-indulgent requests.
Yet Jesus still encourages to ‘ask’ and St. Paul to ‘make our requests known to God’ [Phil.4:6]. God may know our needs before we ask (omniscience, we believe is a divine characteristic). Nevertheless our own involvement in prayer develops our relationship with God. Jesus’ parables of people making importunate requests [Lk.11:5-8;18:1-8] emphasise the importance of keeping up our asking. This doesn’t imply that God is slothful or doesn’t answer prayer until enough people or prayers are involved. The emphasis on regularity of asking may suggest that regular prayer encourages us to consider more deeply what we are asking for and become more closely involved in the answers to our own prayers. When we pray for the needs of the world, perhaps we should be asking more specifically in what ways we might be involved in meeting or helping to alleviate those needs.
If we become involved in the answers to our prayers, maybe we are more likely to ask the most significant and appropriate prayers. Interceding for someone or something can deepen our commitment to them and to their situation. There is much that we can do to become involved in healing and meeting the needs of the world, rather than merely expecting God to provide all the solutions.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Consider the things that are most on your mind, for which you pray. Are there areas where you, yourself could do more, or people who you could support more in a wide variety of ways?
10/ Friday – LEARN –
Jesus said “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” [Matt.11:29]
In Matt.11:29 and Jn.13:15 Jesus told Christians to follow his example. Paul also encouraged Christians to follow his example [Phil.3:17]. Would that we all could be as confident that the righteousness of our lives might shine enough as an example! I am ashamed to say that I would personally be very hesitant at asking others to follow my example of faith or Christian practice!
The disciples, Mary Magdalene and others called Jesus ‘Rabbi’, ‘Teacher’ [Matt.26:25, 49; Mk.9:5; 11:21; Jn.1:38, 49; 3:2, 26; 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8]. He was far more than a great educator, philosopher or life-style-coach. Much of Jesus’ significant teaching about prayer and holiness of living was given by example. That can be one of the most memorable and lastingly effective ways of training and learning at every stage of human growth. Living and acting in ways that assure people of the truth in our words is also the most significant way we witness effectively to the truth of what we believe.
Christian learning involves fare more than head-knowledge or understanding doctrine. We need to apply our belief in all aspects of our lives, as Jesus did. Too often the witness to the truth of Christianity has been damaged by failure to mirror Christ in our discipleship, actions or character. Rather more emphasis has often been given in churches to faith-development through preaching and teaching ‘what Christians believe’ than to living the Christ-like life, which was more the emphasis of Jesus’ ministry. As shameful incidents in Christian history attest, espousing the soundest doctrine is worth nothing if our actions do not live up to our claims: “Faith without works is dead” [Jas.2:17].
The Pharisees and other religious teachers who Jesus challenged, knew the scriptural and religious laws thoroughly. Yet so often Jesus pointed out that their apprehension of God’s true intentions behind the rules of life was lacking. They applied laws over-legalistically, without considering God’s grace and love. True Christian faith, as Jesus taught it, has struggled against such legalism throughout Church history, despite St. Paul’s emphasis in the Epistle to the Romans that we should move beyond legalistic approaches. It is right to have rules and doctrines that help to clarify our understanding of faith and intended behaviour. Jesus said that he did not come to alter religious laws but to fulfil them more truly [Matt.5:17-18]. He interpreted them more widely than the narrow teaching of contemporary religious leaders of his time. We should not utterly reject those who interpret spiritual revelation differently from ourselves, or who struggle to believe or live in ways that some Christians might consider unorthodox. Jesus’ main criticism was reserved for those who proclaimed their beliefs and righteousness, yet failed to live accordingly. Thomas à Kempis encouraged Christians to deal with their own sins and weaknesses rather than concentrating on those of others [The Imitation of Christ 14:1; 16:2-4]. This has parallels in Jesus’ Parable of the Unforgiving Servant [Matt.18:23-34] and his image of the Man with a Log in his Eye seeking to correct the neighbour with a speck in his [Matt.7:3].
When Jesus taught “learn from me”, he was holding up his life for scrutiny as an example. How many of us could do that? We can learn from his love, faith, forgiveness, support, reconciliation, and trust in God, as well as his life of righteousness, prayer, friendship, witness and evangelism.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What has Jesus most taught you about yourself and your faith? How could you follow his example more closely?
11/ Saturday – ABIDE
“Abide in me as I abide in you” [Jn.15:4]
In its biblical meaning ‘abide’ is far more than a poetic word for ‘live in’ or ‘live with’. It carries the beautifully connotation of ‘permanent belonging’. The Greek term ‘menō’ means ‘to stay in place’, and with various prefixes carries further meanings: to ‘persevere’ [Acts14:22], ‘remain’, ‘endure’, ‘be patient’, ‘stand firm’, ‘await’, ‘stay on’, ‘stay with’, ‘hold on’, ‘to keep with something’ (a covenant promise [Heb.8:9] or God’s law [Gal.3:10]), ‘a place to stay’, ‘to expectantly wait for someone’ (the promised coming of the Holy Spirit [Acts1:4]). All these apply to our faith in different ways.
There is a sense of immense security within the word ‘abide’. It carries the implication that our relationship ‘in Christ’ and thus with God, is permanent. This is emphasised in the Hebrew Scriptures and reiterated in the New Testament Epistles: Being eternal, God’s council and word ‘abide forever’ [Isa.7:7; 14:24; 40:8; Rom.9:11; 1Pet.1:23, 25]. His eternal heavenly city will remain forever [Zech.14:10; 1sa.66:22]. The righteous will abide with God for ever [Ps.112:3; 9]. God’s new covenant will endure for ever [2Cor.3:11]; faith, hope and love endure [1Cor.13:13]. Believers will persevere in faith, love holiness and belief [1Tim.2:15; 2Tim.2:15]. This security remains because Christ remains forever [Jn.8:35; 12:34] and his Spirit is with him and with us forever [Jn.1:32; 14:15].
Of all the Gospels, John’s Gospel uses the word ‘abide’ exclusively. In it Jesus talks of God’s word abiding in those who believe and respond [5:38]; we know the Spirit “because he abides with you” [14:17]. Christ’s word abides in us [15:7]; we abide in Christ’s love as he abides in his Father’s love [15:10], and generally we abide in Christ and he in us [15:4]. He reassured his followers that those of us who ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them” [6:56]. Jesus’ teaching about abiding reaches its climax in the ‘High Priestly Prayer’ of Jn.17: “[I] give eternal life to all whom you have given [to me]. And this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent... you have given them to me... All mines are yours and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them... Holy Father protects them in your name... so that they may be one, as we are one... I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you,, may they also be in us... I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” Though this consummation does not mention the word ‘abide’ the whole concept emphasises that we belong and remain secure ‘in’ God through and ‘in’ Christ. This sense of abiding, belonging and being part of Christ eternally continues in St Paul’s teaching about being ‘in Christ’ and being ‘part of Christ’s body’[1Cor.12:12-27; 2Cor.5:17].
Jesus’ also emphasised our ‘abiding in him’ in his metaphor of himself as the vine and we as his branches [Jn.15:1-14]. He is our sustenance as well as our security and the source of our abundant life: if we abide in him we will “bear much fruit” [15:5]. His incorporation of his followers is inclusive. Although he mentioned unfruitful branches being cut away [15:2, 6], he seems to have been talking of the rejection of those who stuck to unfruitful religious traditions rather than those who had discovered true faith. He intended all his followers to be fruitful. When some Christian groups, individuals or traditions negatively judge others as ‘unfruitful’ they should be careful not to reject traditions just because they do not understand them, or are unfamiliar with their culture. Only God truly sees the truth within a person’s belief. Our responsibility is to encourage the sort of ‘abiding in Christ’ that gives people permanent security. ‘Abiding’ in Christ is not just something we do individually. Christians are made part of Christ’s body corporately. As 1Cor.12 stresses, we are all needed to be active parts of Christ’s body, if it is to function fully and effectively. “The eye cannot say to the hand “I have no need of you...” etc. [ICor.12:21]
The epistles attributed to John continue the idea of believers abiding ‘in God’s word’ [1Jn.2:15]; ‘in love’ [1Jn.3:17]; ‘in light’ [1Jn.2:10]; ‘in being anointed by God’ [1Jn.2:27]; ‘in truth’ and ‘in doctrine’ [2Jn.2.9]. Whether these letters were penned by the same writer or a school of Johannine tradition is debated by scholars. But like John 15 and 17 they encourage us to remain secure and strengthened by our position in Christ and to grow in the faith which that has taught us. Children develop best in a secure family. But thankfully we are not spoiled by being mollycoddled within Christ’s love. Being part of the body requires us to take an active part; to endure the struggles, sometimes suffering as a result of being active Christians. Christ emphasised that being part of him involves obeying God’s call, being involved in his mission and following his expectations of us: “If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love” [Jn.15:10]. Jesus claimed that in doing so we will not just be fruitful but also sense completeness [Jn.15:11]. A pinnacle of such love could be “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” [v.13] as Christ exemplified.
The struggles of Christianity which prune us like the vine to encourage fruitful growth [Jn.15:2] can range from wrestling to understand difficult elements of belief to persevering in difficult situations. After explaining his metaphor of the vine Christ predicted that following his way would not be easy for his disciples: As he was rejected and persecuted so might we [Jn.15:18-21]. Yet he promised that his Spirit would help us in difficult situations [vs.27-27]. In his prayer on the night before he died, Jesus prayed for God’s protection of his followers, rather than that they would be taken out of the world [Jn.17:11-15]. He reiterated that sense of abiding: “Father... all mine are yours and yours are mine... May they all be one... May they be in us.” [Jn.17:10; 21-21]
‘Abiding in Christ’ and in God’s love [Jn.15:10] can provide us with the security and strong, unmovable foundation to ‘stay with’ and ‘hold on’ to our faith, even to flourish as we ‘patiently’ or ‘expectantly wait’ for Christ’s Spirit to act and for God’s Kingdom to develop. One extension of the word ‘menō’ used in scripture is ‘hypomenō’ / ‘to hold out’, or ‘wait on’, and its noun ‘hypomonḗ’ / ‘patient endurance’. This was used in translating the Hebrew Scriptures for ‘cleaving onto God’ and ‘waiting patiently or steadfastly for God to act’ [Job2:9; 32:4; Ps.37:7]. It carries a sense of confidence in God, despite the length of time one has to wait or even disappointments [Ps.37:9; Mic.7:7]. Faith in our security in God can discourage us from abandoning hope. God was regarded as reliable because of unbreakable covenant promises to his people [Isa.51:5; Zeph.3:8]. Such trust emphasised that those who endure will find the promised salvation because God is faithful and all-powerful [Dan.12:12]. Our security is not based on our own personal patience, endurance, strength or even on the extent of our faith, but in our relationship with God and God’s truth. Jesus encouraged hopeful perseverance [Lk.8:15; 21:19; Mk.13:13], as did St. Paul [Rom.8:25; 12:2; 1Cor.3:7]. Patient endurance in hard times does not need to be negative, cynical or stoical: Paul explains that steadfastness in situations of suffering can encourage the development of a trusting faith and promote good works, especially love towards others [Rom.2:7; 1Tim.6:11; 2Tim.3:10]. It cans also strengthening our character [Rom.5:3-4]. This is perhaps why Paul stresses in one of the most loved passages of scripture that ‘faith, hope and love abide’ [1Cor.13:13].
We may not always be conscious that we abide in Christ; often our security remains invisible or seems distant. Yet the reassurance of scripture is that our belonging to God is permanent and that God is faithful to his promises.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
WEEK 3: QUALITIES OF CHRIST’S MINISTRY
12/ Sunday – LIGHT
“I am the light of the world” – [Jn.8:12; 9:5; 12:46]
‘Light’ in Hebrew [’wr] and Greek [phṓs] can mean ‘daylight’, ‘sunlight’, ‘brightness’, ‘shining’ and a ‘lamp’. Light helps us to see, so it was also used as a metaphor for being able to ‘understand’, ‘master knowledge’ and ‘comprehend the world’. In the Hebrew Scriptures ‘Wisdom’ and ‘the Law’ were also described as light [Eccl.2:13; Ps.19:8; 119:105]. God is described as ‘our light’ [Ps.27:1], the ‘light of life’ [Ps.56:13], the ‘Lord of light and darkness’ [Amos 5:8; Ps.104:2;]. God was described as being resplendent and shining in light [Isa.42:16f], shining the light of his presence on us [Ps.90:8] and being the source of light [Gen.1:3; Job 37:3]. So when John’s Gospel claims that Jesus called himself the “light of the world” and uses the imagery of light about Christ so emphatically, the Evangelist was reinforcing the idea of Christ’s divinity, as he had written in his preface: “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” [Jn.1:3-5].
Light is seen as ‘good’ [Gen.1:4] and was also associated with ‘salvation’ and ‘joy’ [Ps.36:9; Ps.97:11]. Psalms asks for the light of God’s face to shine upon us [Ps.4:6] and for God to give light to our eyes and minds [Ps.13:3; 19:8]. God’s coming and judgement will be a day of light [Amos 5:18] and will bring light to Israel [Isa.30:26; 60:1f; Zech.14:6-7]. In Isaiah, light is a feature of the Messiah’s ministry [Isa. 9:2; 10:17; 42:6; 53:11; 58:8; -10; 60:1, 3, 19-20]. Matthew saw this as fulfilled in Jesus [Matt.4:16]. All of these add potential meaning and breadth to Jesus’ statement about himself being ‘the Light of the World’: He could have been relating himself to divine power, wisdom, fulfilment of God’s true law, bringing light, judgement, salvation and joy. Light is also at the heart of meaning of the term that we use of the revealing of who Jesus was -‘epiphany’/ ‘the revealing’ or ‘shining forth’, which was also opened in the Transfiguration [Matt.17:5].
Jesus’ calling himself ‘the light of the world’ was interpreted by many in the early church to mean that he brought true enlightenment. Amid all the varying philosophies and lifestyles of the ancient world he was considered by believers as the one who showed the true way to fulfilled, holy life. There is much truth in this, even in our multi-cultural world. We recognise that many faiths and lifestyles offer positive ways to fulfilment, yet there remains a wholeness in Jesus’ teaching and way that can lead to balanced, abundant, righteous fulfilment if people truly follow it universally.
The claim to be ‘the light of the world’ has far broader implications in a modern scientifically enlightened world, even though it does not connect so directly to Christ and the meanings given to light in scripture. We recognise the importance of light for the life of our planet. Some life, we know exists in total darkness within the earth, in caves or in the deepest ocean, but most terrestrial life is dependent on light. When people are cooped indoors we recognise how important light is to the formation of Vitamin D and human health. The food we eat relies on photosynthesis for healthy growth. Living in the Northern or Southern Hemispheres we recognise that as days lengthen the season of spring brings a revival of life. Being nearer the Equator the length of days did not vary quite as dramatically in Jesus’ Palestine, as for those further North or South, yet the seasons still varied and rural life depended on the light. The programme of Jewish yearly religious festivals, which partly regulated society, reflected the changing agricultural seasons and often used light within its symbolism. Just as physical light brings life to the earth, Christ’s way can bring life to us, and through us can improve our environment and protect Creation.
A light was kept permanently burning in the Temple, reminding people of the ever-presence of God. Huge lamp-stands also stood above the walls of the Temple, presumably as a beacon to show travellers and people surrounding Jerusalem that God was in the midst of his people. Christ too came to represent the presence of God at the centre of his world. Superstitiously, light was also believed to drive out demons, so Jesus as ‘the Light’ could be interpreted as bringing spiritual cleansing and release. This is reflected in some of the instances of healing in the Gospels, though today we usually recognise problems that were once attributed to demons as mental and physical illnesses. Light as a contrast to darkness was also a feature of several of the Middle-Eastern mystery and magical religions, philosophies, Gnosticism and thought about one’s true knowledge of oneself, so Christ could be interpreted as bringing full and true light into our understanding of ourselves and the spiritual world. Jesus revealed the mystery of God to the world and showed up darkness. Light was also a feature of the ‘lógos’ in philosophy, which is related to the celebration of Christ as ‘The Word’ in the opening of John’s Gospel. There his true light is related to bringing life to the world.
Jesus told his disciples that in following his ways we too should be ‘light to the world... Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.’ [Matt.5:14-16]. Preaching in Antioch of Pisidia, Paul reminded God’s people that they were commanded by God to “be a light to the Gentiles, so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth” [Acts 13:47 quoting Isa.49:6]. Jesus told us to “let your whole body be filled with light” [Matt.6:22; Lk.11:36]. We are told to “walk in the light as he (Christ) is in the light.” [Jn.12:35]. Some are seen as ‘loving darkness instead of light”. Evil was said to hate light, and those who live by the truth were described as coming into the light. [Jn.3:19-21]. We are encouraged to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light” [Rom.13:12]. Jesus told us to keep our eye healthy; to focus on what is positive and helpful and will survive eternally: “If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” [Matt.6:23]. This isn’t just encouraging us to live morally good lives: he intended us to focus our minds on God for that light. We are told to be ‘children of light’ [Lk.16:8; Jn.12:36; 1Thess.5:5; Eph.5:8].
Conversion was regarded as turning from darkness to Christ’s “wonderful light” [1Pet.2:9; Eph.5:8]. Paul wrote that Christ will eventually bring to light what is hidden [1Cor.4:5; 2Cor.5:10] and reveal what is good [1Cor.3:13]. God’s light and truth has partly been revealed already through Christ and in the good we do: 1Jn.2:9-11 emphasises that “darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says “I am in the light” while hating his brother or sister is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling.”
Early Christians called following Christ ‘The Way” [Acts 9:2; 18:25-6; 19:9; 22:4, 14, 22]. The way of life, faith, thought and motivation that Christ opened to us is a ‘way of light’. Christ can shine light into a world that is often darkened in so many situations and open people up to truth. Christ’s teaching and his Spirit can guide us in our lives. ‘Walking in the way of light’ [Jn.1:9-10; 12:35] can make us feel more secure in ourselves and enhance the world. ‘Putting on the armour of light’ [Rom.13:12] can help to strengthen us in the challenge to live righteously amid difficulties and pressures, and to find protection and strength for our involvement in Christ’s mission. Despite all this positive imager of light, we have the warning of John’s Gospel that although Christ’s light cannot be overcome by the darkness [Jn.1:5], ‘some preferred darkness rather than light’ [Jn.3:19]. That challenge to prefer darkness is within the minds of Christians ourselves, as well as in the world beyond. St. Paul recognised it in his own life in the inner conflict between ‘the flesh and the spirit’ [Rom.7:14-25], though he was confident in Christ’s protection [Rom.7:25]. We often need perseverance and determination to continue to ‘walk in the light.’
For Contemplation and Prayer:
13/ Monday – FINDING THE LOST
“The Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.” [Lk.19:10]. “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.” [Lk.15:5].
In the past the Christian church often talked about those who were outside it or beyond Christian culture as ‘lost’. Evangelists and missionaries went out like Jesus, aiming ‘to seek and save the lost’, often without considering what parts of the culture of others might be good and contain truths. In mediaeval times it was believed that the end for the majority of humanity would be eternal destruction or hell. Only a very small remnant were then thought to be destined for heaven, hence the multitudes represented as tormented in pictures of hell, by comparison to limited numbers entering heaven. In our multi-cultural world this belief is more uncomfortable. Today more Christians understand that there are many varied systems of belief and lifestyles in the world. Many believe that there can be truths in alternative faiths, philosophies and lifestyles, while other Christians maintain that Christ’s way exclusively provides protection. Though the ideas of judgement and loss in scripture remain in the background of many Christian minds, most tend to try not to think about them, as they are not comfortable, and perhaps too challenging.
How are we to deal with the idea of people being lost? Firstly, we should not ignore it; Jesus spoke about lostness, so we should consider it seriously. Bishop John Gladwin once preached something to this effect to all the clergy and others in his diocese in a Maundy Thursday sermon: ‘Although we understandably and rightly shy away from preaching about ‘hell’ today, many people recognise that they are already living it in their daily lives, and it is our responsibility to help them out of it.” Many lives are damaged by a sense of emptiness, desolation, lack of direction, abuse, inability to extract themselves from difficult or painful situations and much more. Despair is seen in attempts to escape the pressures of daily lives, homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse and the increase in suicide. We do not need to speak so much about dangers in an afterlife when so many recognise the dangers of lostness in the present.
Jesus used the imagery of those to whom he sought to minster as ‘lost sheep’ [Matt.10:6; 15:24; Lk.15:4-6]. Luke 15 includes several of Jesus parables of lost and sought-for items: a sheep [Lk.15:3-5], coin [Lk.15:8-10] and most personally the lost ‘Prodigal Son’ [Lk.15:11-32], where the father rejoices: “He was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” [Lk.15:24]. Jesus claimed that through him “Those who find their life will lose it and those who lose it for my sake will find it” [Matt.10:39; 16:25; Mk.8:35; Lk.9:24-5; 17:33; Jn.12:25]. He did not will that any should be lost [Matt.18:14; Jn.6:12, 39] and in his prayer on the night before he died, John recounts Jesus claiming that those he had guarded were all safe [Jn.17:12; 18:9]. None had been lost, though he implies that Judas was an exception, having deserted Jesus. Some commentators also suggest that Judas’ repentance at the end of his life could well be regarded as a turning back to realising the truth and being penitent. In the Gospels’ imagery, just as Nicodemus came to Jesus by night [Jn.3:2; 19:39], it seems that for John the symbolism of Judas coming to betray Jesus by night was significant and that John intentionally drew attention to it [Jn.13:30].
The ideas of the tortures of hell which preoccupied the minds of mediaeval artists and even some modern hell-fire preachers are not scriptural. The only references to anything similar in the Bible are to an eternal fire [Mk.9:43; Matt.5:22; 23:33]; worms deconstructing flesh [Mk.9:48]; destruction in the imagery of ‘burning away’ [Matt.3:12; 13:20; Lk.3:17; Jn.15:6] and demonic destruction [Matt.25:41]. These could all be interpreted as metaphors used to warn against unrighteous life. The imagery seems to relate to Gehenna / Wadi er-Rababi, the valley beyond Jerusalem where rubbish was disposed of by decomposition and fire, This had been regarded as a cursed place since the age of Kings, when sacrifices had been offered there to Moloch [2Ki.16:3; Jer.7:32]. By the inter-testamental period Gehenna had become equated with hell, the place of judgement [Eth.Enoch 90:26].
It is more comfortable to believe that all the punishments of judgement described by Jesus are probably metaphors, not descriptions of actual forms of destruction. The vindictive judgements of mediaeval church teaching do not fit well with Jesus’ teaching about the love of God. You only have to look at mediaeval ‘doom’ paintings and Renaissance and Counter-Reformation imagery to see how the imagination of churchmen and hell-fire preachers invented exaggerated punishments which they felt were commensurate to the sins committed. Such cruelty is not part of Jesus’ or New Testament teaching and is incongruous when compared to the character of God as explained by Jesus. The imagery of judgement and the monsters in the Book of Revelation are also most likely to be metaphorical rather than literal. The aims of Jesus’ teaching about punishment [Matt.10:28; 23:33], and the apocalyptic images of Revelation seem to be to use the imagery of popular superstition and the apocalyptic language of Hebrew Prophets to emphasise the seriousness of sin and stress the importance of righteous living. God and God’s revealed ways were intended to be treated with awe and respect. Rather than angering God we are encouraged to find Christ’s way to righteousness and truth.
The meaning of being ‘lost’ in New Testament Greek [apóllymi] is just ‘perishing’, ‘dying’, ‘being killed in battle or in prison’, or ‘being destroyed’, not being eternally tormented. Figuratively the word was also used of losing the righteous quality of our souls in the process of advancing our lives along the wrong principles, as Jesus warned the rich fool in Lk.12:16ff. It is easy, even in the Church to seek advance for the wrong reasons. Jesus claimed of those who proclaimed themselves righteous: “They have already received their reward” [Matt.6:2, 5, 16]. Our aim should be to always live in ways that Christ promoted as life-giving: He did not fully define what he intended us to do specifically when he said that “those who find their life will lose it and those who lose it for my sake will find it “[Matt.10:39; 16:25; Mk.8:35; Lk.9:24-5; 17:33; Jn.12:25]. Rather we each need to find the way to abundant life in him that suits our personalities, gifts, anilities, lives and culture. The implied meaning is that we should not be aiming for self-advance, but for the advance of Christ-like living and the expansion of the Kingdom of God among others as well as ourselves. God’s reward is a gift, not something we automatically deserve: reward itself should not be our ambition. But we long to find the abundant life that Jesus promised though finding the ways of following him that are appropriate to us and those around us [Jn.10:10].
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What do you consider that you have found spiritually, which could be worth sharing with others in need. Who do you know who is suffering ‘lostness’, who you might support?
14/ Tuesday – LOVE
“If you love me you will keep my commandments” [Jn.14:15]... “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you: Greater love has no-one that this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” [Jn.15:13]... “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” [Matt.22:37; Mk.12:31].
The nature of God’s love for the whole of Creation, and especially for people, was a major theme of Jesus’ teaching. There are, of course, many different forms of love: love of partners, family, friends, pets, food, beauty all differ in nature and quality. The Bible uses various words to distinguish some of these variants of love: philadelphia -‘brotherly or sisterly love and friendship’; stergo - ‘affection as between parents and children’; agapé - ‘self-giving even sacrificial love’; eros - ‘passionate, sensual love’. Recognising their distinctions can be important when interpreting biblical texts. The Greeks also used other individual terms including ‘love of nation’ and ‘generosity of giving’. Despite this variety, all share a basic feeling of wellbeing towards that which we love: all the terms for love involve care and self-giving for another.
Paul’s statement that: “Faith, Hope and Love endure... and the greatest of these is Love” [1Cor.13:13] is more than a beautiful, well known, poetic passage, often read at weddings. The primacy of love over even faith and hope may perhaps not just stem from the beauty with which it cements our relationship to others and to God. Love can encourage and be a source for faith and hope. The spirit of love in us can awaken our better appreciation of life, people and God. I used to find it hard to believe that God could care for me as much as for others, because I was so self-conscious of my personal failings and weaknesses. It was only when I found myself loved by someone who actually valued me despite, or in some cases because of my weaknesses and failings that I began to recognise that God could love me even better than a person. My faith, hope for the future, and my life itself grew stronger as a result. If we have love inside us it can awaken us to values in ourselves and others that we may have previously not recognised, devalued or taken for granted. The sense of loving or having loved expands our spirits. Love enlarges our ability to feel; it can energise us and warm us with good, even if we are temporarily separated or even bereaved and remembering those we have loved.
True outgoing, self-giving love is epitomised and demonstrated in Jesus. ‘Agapé’ is the word used in Jn.15:13 for the form of love that he exemplified and commanded from his followers when he said: ‘Love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The same word ‘agapé’ is used in 1Cor.13. True love is not self-centred or out to primarily satisfy itself; it concentrates on others and longs for their good. Genuine love is outreaching rather than inward-looking or self-satisfying: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, hopes all things, loves all things. Love never ends...” [1Cor.13:4-7]. In expressing and receiving love we do, in fact, partly satisfy ourselves, but that is not the main objective of true love, which seeks and does the best for the other.
Jesus exemplified God’s perfect love, in giving himself. That form of love expects nothing that can repay or balance it. God may desire our love and our obedience but the love poured out on the Cross did not demand our response. Love is part of the nature of God, as Jesus emphasised and exemplified. God’s love perhaps resembles that of a lover longing for the object of their love to recognise and respond with love in return. This is beautifully expressed by the metaphor of God as a lover throughout Hosea, longing for the faithful return of the one he has loved. It is also found in Isaiah 54:5-8 where God promised fruitful abundance to his people, though they are temporarily likened to a loved wife who has forsaken her Maker and husband. Jesus expressed a similar love in his expression of his longing for Jerusalem... “how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing” [Matt.23:37]. Such outreaching love is expressed in Christ’s prayers from the Cross for the forgiveness of those who were persecuting him [Lk.23:34], as well as pouring out his love and protective instinct towards his close friend John and his mother [Jn.26-27].
We live in a society where many see their right as being to ‘take’ and achieve ‘self-satisfaction’, without feeling a commensurate or greater responsibility to ‘give’. The saddest forms of love are those which just want to satisfy themselves or are frustrated by longing for the impossible. These are based on lust or longing, not true love. Too frequently sexual love, love of money, desire for power or position aim to ‘get’ what one can without ‘giving’ sufficiently in return. That is also true of some people’s feelings towards the society in which they live: receiving without offering, demanding for self without sensing responsibility for others. Sometimes this is also reflected in spiritual relationships with God: Many want the emotional satisfaction which comes through attaining personal feelings of warm spirituality or receiving from emotional worship, without feeling reciprocal responsibility to give to God or to encourage and support the spirituality of others. Far too many books on esoteric spirituality just focus on satisfying oneself. Yet in true spirituality, as in true love: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” [Acts 20:35].
Jesus’s challenge to love goes beyond ‘easy love’: He expects us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” [Matt.5:54]; to “lay down one’s life for one’s friends” [Jn.15:13], to “give one’s life for the unrighteous” [Rom.5:8ff], to work hard at our relationship with God and others. Such forms of love can be incredibly difficult and challenging. It is not easy to love those who have damaged us or are antagonistic to us and work against us. Only through struggling with these challenging ways will we ever fully understand the extent of God’s own energetic, self-giving love for all that has been made, including sinners and failures.
As well as indulging in self-love, it is also possible to indulge oneself through lack of self-love. Commercialism encourages many to compare themselves with others. This contrasts with the commandment to not covet what our neighbour has [Ex.20:17; Deut.5:21]. Jesus told us to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ [Matt.19:19; 22:39; Mk.12:31, 33]. This implies a comfort with and care about ourselves, as well as feeling care towards others. Before Jesus’ teaching, the Hebrew concept of ‘neighbour’ mostly implied responsibility towards those who were of the same nation, and who shared the same beliefs, even though God’s laws told them to support the stranger [Ex.22:21-27; Deut.10:17-19; 24:17-22; 26:12-13; 27:17-19]. The Parable of the Good Samaritan [Lk.10:25-37] shows that Christ expanded the concept of love to embrace all, even those who, like the Samaritans, were despised within society. In these times, when many in society are experiencing trials and many are lonely, disenfranchised or isolated, it is increasingly important that we recognise that ALL our neighbours are to be loved and supported.
The most important aspect of any form of love that we aspire to share is that we should be outgoing and put the other before ourselves. That does not come naturally to many in different situations, in a society which encourages self-centredness and self-indulgence. Jesus’ way to love expands our character and our activities to reflect God’s outreaching love. Christ himself demonstrated that expansive form of love through his incarnation, his teaching, his life, death and resurrection and his ministry form beyond. We are assured that after his ascension, from the further dimension of heaven, he still maintains that outgoing love towards us. After giving his followers ‘The Great Commission’ to spread his message through the world [Matt.28:18-20], Jesus assured them and us: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matt.28:20]. Heb.10:11-21 uses the imagery of Christ as a priest on the throne of heaven, ever active for us. The verses that follow this encourage us to provoke one another to similar outgoing love [Heb.10:23-25]. In John’s Gospel Jesus expanded this assurance by his promise that he would send the Holy Spirit “I will not leave you orphaned: I am coming to you” [Jn.14:18]... “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” [Jn.14:26]... “I still have many things to say to you... When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears.” [Jn.16:12-13].
As we seek to expand our discipleship and express God’s love, we draw from the nature and actions of God, the teaching and example of Christ, and the guidance, inspiration and fruit that we should allow the Holy Spirit to develop within us as Christ’s followers [Gal.5:22]. The deepening of our own ‘agapé’- selfless, out-giving love is an essential element of true discipleship,
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Do you truly love in the selfless, outgoing way that ‘agapé’ implies, which Jesus exemplified and upon which the Holy Spirit can build? Are there situations where you need to show it more effectively and practically?
15/ Wednesday – PEACE
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” [Jn14:27]
When Jesus talked about ‘peace’ he was intending far more than lack of discord or warfare. The spiritual ‘peace’ that Jesus gives can bring a sense of inner contentment as well as unity with others. It can include satisfaction with the limitations and frustrations in ourselves, our situation, our companions and our ministry. We need a true awareness of being at peace, rather than being blinkered to problems or deliberately avoiding disquieting issues.
The opening and sometimes the ending of most New Testament Epistles nearly always includes the joint blessing of ‘grace and peace be with you” [Rom1:7; 1Cor.1:3 etc.]. Sometimes the term ‘mercy’ is added [1&2Tim.; 2Jn.; Jude]. In Greek ‘peace’/‘eirene’ carries the idea of ‘a treaty of unity’, ‘the absence of hostile feelings’, ‘security’, even ‘redemption’, all of which relate to God’s covenant with his people. The coming Messiah would be the ‘Prince/King of Peace’ [Isa.9:5; Zech.9:9-10] establishing an eternal, paradise -like ‘shalom’ (the Hebrew term for peace’). Jesus as ‘Messiah’ was the means by which God established peace: “He is our peace” [Mic.5:5].
The Hebrew concept of ‘shalom’ meant ‘overall wellbeing’, including: ‘health’, ‘good fortune’, ‘stability’, ‘national and personal prosperity’ and much more. It included being in stable relationship with God, who would provide these holistic blessings. Part of the ‘shalom’ that Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries expected was personal and social material prosperity. By contrast Jesus and St. Paul did not regard material prosperity as important or as a sign of blessing. They recognised the difficulties, inequality and inequities in human life and sought to rebalance them: The ‘poor’ and ‘persecuted’ would inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, the ‘meek’ would inherit the earth [Matt.3:3-11]. Paul could write that in the midst of hardship, poverty, or with his ‘thorn in the Flesh’ he had learned to be content and at peace [Phil.4:11-12; 2Cor.12:10]. The Epistle to the Hebrews encourages us to ‘Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have’ [Heb.13:5]. Spiritual contentment can bring an element of peace and comfort, even in situations that too often cause emotional or physical discomfort or pain.
Jesus and St. Paul often encouraged God’s people to find ‘peace’. John the Baptist as Christ’s forerunner would show people towards the way and the light and “guide our feet into the way of peace” [Lk.1:79]. On meeting the Christ-child, Simeon declared that, as God’s servant, he could now be dismissed “in peace” for he had seen the coming of the salvation for which he had been waiting so long [Lk.2:29]. The angelic message at Jesus’ birth included the promise that he would bring “peace on earth among those whom God favours” [Lk.2:14]. Jesus encouraged his disciples to give a blessing of peace to the homes of all who welcomed them hospitably during their mission [Matt.10:12-14, Lk.10:5]. He called his followers to be ‘peacemakers’ [cf. Meditation 25].
Jesus wanted to bring peace with God and peace between people: ‘Be at peace among one another” [Mk.9:50]. Scripture claims that he achieved spiritual peace through the offering of his body on the Cross [Rom.5:11; Eph.2:14]. This does not necessarily mean simplistically, as was once commonly believed, that Jesus’ death was his sacrifice, required by God to bring peace [cf. Meditation 43]. Yet we believe that somehow, though his life, actions, teaching and self-giving, Christ brought about the potential of peace between the human race and God. Similarly Jesus encouraged his followers to be ‘one’ with each other as he and his Father were one [Jn.17:11, 21-23]. Peace was part of that oneness: ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you’ [Jn.14:27]. The peace and unity between believers should witness to the world “As you Father are in me and I in you, may they also be in us so that the world may see that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one as we are one.” [Jn.17:21-22].
Peace and love are characteristics of Jesus’ life, ministry and achievements. In Jesus’ life and ministry we see his involvement in bringing various forms of peace: He demonstrated his power within Creation when he stilled the raging sea that threatened his disciples, in saying “Peace be still!” [Mk.4:39]. This has been interpreted by some commentators as a symbol of the general and specific situations of peace that Christ would achieve. After his healing of people he often encouraged them to “go in peace” [Mk.5:34; lk.7:50; 8:48]. When he surprised his disciples after the resurrection he reassured them: “Peace be with you!” [Lk.24:36; Jn.20:19, 21, 26].
When Jesus sent out his disciples in mission, they were to greet those who accepted him with the blessing of peace upon their homes [Matt.10:13; Lk.10:5]. The present witness of many churches and Christians often falls far short of the glory and complete unity for which Jesus and St. Paul aimed among God’s people. Even when religious communities are nominally at peace with one another, tensions often develop. What might we do personally to develop greater personal peace within ourselves and to create spiritual peace within churches and in our communities?
Despite his will for peace, Jesus also recognised that his way and his message would separate some and cause hostility and division rather than unity and universal peace. “I have come not to bring peace but a sword” [Matt.10:24] is a difficult and uncomfortable passage. His mission intended peace not division, but he recognised that others, both individuals and powers, had different priorities and varied interpretations of truth. The present divisions between different Christian denominations and within groups in individual churches are caused by several different reasons like obstinacy, interpretations of doctrine, preferential practices, self-centredness, power-struggles etc. As Jesus worked for peace, the ideal of Christ’s body the Church is that, despite their variety and differences of character, spirituality and interpretations of faith, all believers and followers should be able to work effectively together in peace to continue Jesus’ mission.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
16/ Thursday – TRUTH
“You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” [Jn.8:32]
“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” [Jn.4:24].
“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” [14:6]. “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” [Jn.17:17].
“For this I was born, for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” [Jn.18:38].
The more that I have come to consider what truth is, the more certain I am that all that pertains for God must relate to truth. When I pray I imagine myself in the presence of ‘Truth’. God is in whatever is the truth of the force that formed and sustains the cosmos and encourages true, abundant life. When we authentically follow God and God’s ways we are following the truth. Christians are called to be examples of Christ’s truth in all that we do, so that we are true witnesses to the founder of our faith. It was said of Archbishop Romero “There goes the truth.” That should be able to be said of all Christians, but is sadly not always true. If we are not living truthfully we are not building God’s Kingdom.
The human mind seems to be designed to reach towards finding truth, just as it seems designed to reach towards an intangible spiritual reality that we believe to be God. We are frustrated if we sense that things or claims are false. Christians believe that Jesus revealed what God is most truly like, through his teaching, love, attitudes, values, character, actions, miracles and priorities. His contemporaries recognised truth in his words and actions [Matt.7:29; 28:18; Mk.1:22, 27; 2:10; Lk.4:32, 36; 5:24; Jn.5:27]. But even Jesus - divine, incarnate, miraculous - was more limited than the omnipresent, invisible Truth of the God he represented in his human form. He told his followers that there were limitations to his knowledge of future events. He told Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane not to hold on to him alone; something more permanent than his mortal presence would come. God’s Spirit would reveal more and advance his disciples’ relationship with God and truth, after his return to God’s Kingdom beyond his death.
Sensing that there is truth in our relationship with God can be life-giving, just as discovering new aspects of intellectual truth can feel life-enhancing as well as enhancing knowledge. I feel closest to God when I sense that I am in the presence of something that is ‘True’. I may feel less close to truth, if listening to an over-simplistic, patronising sermon or where worship seems by rote rather than ‘in spirit and in truth’ [Jn.4:24]. Christians have not always acted as good, honest stewards of truth. To maintain an institution or the status quo churches have sometimes ignored malpractice by leaders or denied or covered-up discoveries of truth. Christians can sometimes be far too narrow: religious authorities denied Galileo and Darwin’s observations, persecuted theologians who opened up theology to new understandings in science, psychology, sociology and psychology. Rather than accepting such advances, Christians sometimes don’t accept those whose lifestyles diverge from their narrow conception of the ‘norm.’ We should have learned centuries ago, from the ways that Jesus was opposed by the authorities of his time, that religious people do not always want or welcome advance. Jesus’ own reinterpretation of scriptural laws helps us to recognise that understandings of truth advance and change over time. The sagacious compiler of truths in Ecclesiastes accepted that life is not as simple as theologians of his day considered and that the human mind is destined to continually change as we reach towards advances in knowledge. He also recognised that we will always need to make further advance because ultimate truth will always be frustratingly just beyond our grasp: “I have seen the responsibilities that God has set upon humankind with which to busy themselves. He has made everything suitable for use in its time. He has also put a sense of eternity into the human mind, yet one cannot comprehend God from beginning to end.” [Eccl.3:10-11]. Spiritual truth and scientific truth need to keep constantly advancing as our minds explore new questions; we are designed to advance by never resting on our laurels or being content with our temporary understanding.
Exploring truth can bring one’s ideas, life, love and imaginations to life more fully than if we just accept the status quo or are content with our present limited understanding. Though Jesus revealed much, we cannot know what the mind of God is like. Our human creativity may possibly reflect the creative passion that motivates God in creating, maintaining and advancing. I recognise that my own spiritual understanding, prayer and worship are totally inadequate in the presence of God’s Truth, Love and Wisdom. God and Truth are far higher and more perfect than any limited human minds can conceive. Meanwhile I glimpse facets of God’s invisible nature within Creation’s variety and vitality, especially when I sense that I am on the path to Truth. When I find myself loving and delighting in the world around, I sense God’s care, love and understanding of us all.
We are all different. Some will find God’s truth through scripture and theology; some sense God’s presence in the natural world; some find truths about God through relationships, the arts, cultural activities, philosophy or social activities. To create wholeness, health and orthodoxy in our faith we need a combination of many of these. The idea that ‘one is closer to God in the garden (or theological library, or Church, or family or gallery etc.) than anywhere else on earth’ can misguide or mislead us. We need to search for and live by truth to find God in many situations. The world is made in complex variety to stimulate and enhance us in various ways.
When Jesus called himself ‘The Way, the Truth and the Life” [Jn.14:6], he linked himself with the advance of truth and understanding, as well as showing that the sources of truth and abundant life could be found through following his way. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the closest that we can come to seeing and comprehending the truth about God. His example and teachings reveal how human life should be lived to find the fullest and deepest satisfaction. Jesus opened his followers’ minds to realise that there were greater truths to be explored and found than were at present recognised. The same remains true for us two thousand years later: We recognised that Christ has revealed significant aspects of spiritual and ethical truth. These, I believe, are sufficient for finding the path to fulfilled lives salvation. Yet, as the writer of Ecclesiastes 3:11 recognised, there is so much more to explore and find. St. Augustine wrote: “Our hearts are restless until we find their rest in you”. Yet our hearts will still remain restless to a certain extent, because, even when we find security in our relationship with God, there still remains so much more truth to find.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What convinces you that you have found truth in your faith? How has your understanding grown through following the ways taught by Jesus?
17/ Friday - FREEDOM
Jesus read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor... to proclaim release to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free” [Lk.4:18 quoting Isa 61:1-2]... “... You will know the truth and the Truth will make you free” [Jn.8:32].
Christian freedom can be a misleading concept. A great mystic and theologian may have said “Love God and do what you like”, but I’m sure that rather than giving full license he meant something closer to ... “Love God and do what loving God inspires you to do righteously.” New Testament epistles emphasised that though we are free we curtail our freedom for the sake of good [1Cor. 9:19; Gal.5:13; 1Pet.2:16].
St Paul, particularly in his Epistle to Roman Christians, interpreted Christ’s teaching on freedom to mean that he had releasing human beings from the rigid religious laws, superstitions and culturally limitations which had developed around beliefs over centuries. Jesus was particularly critical of the rigid system maintained by the religious rules which the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees had compiled over centuries, and the restrictive practices of Temple worship, particularly the limitations of the sacrificial system. By the time of Jesus these had expanded way further than even the laws in the canonical scriptures. People were not free to live fully abundant lives: they lived under a continuous sense of failure and condemnation, because it was almost impossible to obey and keep to the complete rules and regulations. The religious authorities must have relished this because it gave them dominant power and authority in society. If you didn’t adhere to their laws or keep to their interpretation of sacrifice, you could not obtain salvation. Sadly some churches through history continued to dominate the laity by assuming similar authoritarian rule. They made similar demands upon Christians and adopted, invented and promoted rigid rules for Christians to obey. Today many religious institutions have as many, if not more, regulations than the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. This legalism, if adhered to strictly, can deny or work against the freedom which Jesus and early-church understanding of God were intent on promoting [2Pet.2:19].
Just as a family does not thrive under a bullying, punitive parent, if believers are constrained by fear of religious punishment we are less likely to follow God out of love. Love is a greater motivator of righteous living than fear, and ‘perfect love drives out fear” [1Jn.4:18]. 1Peter 2:16 encouraged Christians to ‘Live as free people yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil.” The next verse gives the context for this: “Honour everyone; love the family of believers, live in awe of God.” Living and acting in freedom should be motivated by our love, our sense of responsibility for all, and our recognition of the expectations which the God of truth has for our behaviour. Interestingly the very next phrase of 1Pet.2:17 is ‘Honour the emperor’. This may have been a political inclusion to show that the Christian church was not a rebellious danger to secular authorities. But it also implies that we should respect power even though those in power often fail to “honour everyone; love the family of believers” or “live in awe of God.” The church has sometimes suffered in history where religious leaders have failed to honour everyone, believers and God, as well as through secular opposition. Power and position can go to the heads of even people with ostensibly holy intentions. The church can be as oppressed by holy laws and self-righteous people as by pagan leaders. Jesus led in such a way as to give his followers freedom: that is the true model of leadership.
In the modern society ‘freedom’ has often come to mean the right to independently do what we want, as long as it does not damage others. But that is not the biblical concept. Scriptural freedom is a contrast to slavery where one belongs to others not oneself. But whether people were physical slaves or free the early church emphasised that they were still spiritually free through Christ [Gal.3:28; Eph.6:8; Col.3:11]. It is partly the message of the Epistle to Philemon. St. Paul however emphasised that Christians should not consider themselves totally free: “we are not our own; we were bought with a price” [1Cor.6:20; 7:23]. The salvation brought by Christ enables us to now belong to God, to whom we originally belonged before sin damaged the relationship. Ownership by God can be freeing rather than oppressive; it enables us to become truly ourselves, not to be enslaved to evil, fleshly desires or physical oppression by others. St. Paul delighted in proclaiming that Christ’s followers are freed from sin [Rom 6:18f], religious law [Rom.7:3-4; Gal.2:4] and death [Rom.6:21-22]; 8:21].
Nevertheless Paul recognised that personally exercising freedom from sin and temptation does not come easily. He, like us, wrestled with temptations and found that the things he did, and the drives within his body and mind (‘sarx’/’the flesh’) were not always what his Christian spirit willed him to do [Rom.7:14-25]. But he was thankful that Christ has ‘rescued us from this body of death” [v.25]. Paul talks of “crucifying” the enticements and desires of the flesh [Gal.5:23]. Spiritual freedom includes being rescued from the tyranny of ourselves, our wills and destructive passions as much as from external powers. But we cannot do this on our own; ‘self-discipline’ or ‘self-control’ is a fruit that we need to allow God’s Spirit to build inside us [Gal.5:23], by focusing our wills and actions to conform to God’s ways. Living in Christian freedom, with all the responsibilities that entails, is a reciprocal part of our covenantal vows.
Modern concepts of freedom, like to ‘be ourselves as we really are’, to self-assert or ‘make the most of ourselves’ do not necessarily bring true freedom. It can help if we seek to live in ways that release and bring freedom to others as well as to ourselves. The best way to freedom is to aim to live as perfectly as Christ. I have heard Christians proudly say “what you see is what you get” in justifying their less-than perfect character, rather that aiming to emulate Christ. Even to seek spiritual inwardness or spiritual self-awareness can become self-absorption rather than orientating ourselves towards God, others, and Christ-like behaviour. God’s Spirit works to create freedom in us, but also gives us the responsibility to spread his freedom to others in his world and attain the “glorious liberty of God’s children” and his creation [Rom.8:21]. St. Paul encourages us to achieve freedom because thereby we help liberate the whole of the cosmos from its tendency towards decay [Rom.8:19-23]. This is an important message in the world’s present ecological, political and social crises. In the past many Christians believed we were given the world’s resources to exploit as we willed. Now most recognise that we have responsibilities towards the whole universe, though we do not yet do enough to protect and liberate our own environment.
How Christ achieved our freedom remains a ‘mystery’. Somehow the power exercised through his self-giving released us from the slaveries which St. Paul described so fully. But it cannot be as simple as Jesus’ death just satisfying for all time the Jewish rite of sacrifice. Jesus’ whole earthly life and teachings, together with his death, resurrection, ascension and heavenly power have brought us our freedom. Our baptism into Christ is a sign of this liberation and cleansing from sin and death, and a pledge of our freedom in Christ [Rom.6:17-18]. Baptism is a sign that we should regard ourselves as having been released to enjoy abundant spiritual lives unencumbered by guilt or obligation to any but God’s will for us. God’s aim is for us to be ultimately fulfilled through the ways that we exercise our freedom and live abundant lives. Freedom opens our lives, and is helped by the guidance of God’s Spirit: “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” [2Cor.7:21]. Exercising freedom correctly will eventually lead us to increasing glory [2Cor.3:17-18]; Paul celebrates the freedom of the glory of the children of God [Rom.8:21]. But that glory is largely to the benefit of God, not to ourselves.
If freedom is so difficult to achieve that we need to wrestle with using it rightly, as Paul implied in Rom.7:14-24, how do we achieve it? Self-discipline is a spiritual gift, but even a spiritually disciplined man like Paul recognised that he was unable to achieve the freedom of action that he desired. A primary force to achieve freedom is the ‘agapé’ form of outgoing love: love of God, love towards others and love towards ourselves, even as we struggle inwardly with our own sins and failings. “Perfect love drives out fear” [1Jn.4:18] and love can motivate us far more positively than legalistic commands to act in certain ways. Love can encourage us to renounce personal rights and wishes, for the advancement of the good of others [1Cor.9:1 & 19].
I know very few Christians who truly feel free. Most of us are burdened by feelings of guilt or inadequacy, weighed down by responsibilities, feeling the pressure of what might be expected of us, as well as personal frustrations or difficulties. That is where the previous meditation on finding ‘Peace’ amid the pressures of life [Meditation 15] is important. Despite St. Paul’s internal wrestling with the struggle between the flesh and the spirit [Rom.7:14-25], situations of hardship or poverty, and his ‘thorn in the Flesh’ he had learned to be content and at peace [Phil.4:11-12; 2Cor.12:10]. This contentment and peace gave him the freedom to continue with his trust in a loving God. It freed and motivated him for his mission to bring similar freedom to others. .
For Contemplation and Prayer:
18/ Saturday – Monday – BLESSED
“Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it” [Lk.11:28]... “Blessed are those who have not seen yet believe” [Jn.20:29].
In the Gospels the word ‘blessed’ is a translation of two different words: ‘Makarios’, denotes the quality or grace discovered by being blessed (e.g. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”) ‘Eulogeō’is the act of invoking blessing on someone or on God. It includes ‘to speak well of”, ‘to praise’, ‘to celebrate’, ‘to acknowledge goodness’, ‘to cause to prosper’, as well as ‘to consecrate with solemn prayers’, hence its connection to our English word ‘eulogy’. God blesses in both ways, and so do we. We bless ‘eulogeō’ God and we bless others, asking God to bless them, and we benefit from being ‘blessed’ (‘makarios’). Blessing and being blessed should be a characteristic of Christians’ lives, recognising that we are blessed by God and others while bringing blessing to God and others by our witness, our praise and our presence with them.
Jesus used this word in several ways. Translations of the ‘Beatitudes’ [Matt.5:3-12; Lk.6:20-23] sometimes interpret the word as ‘happy’ or ‘fortunate’ but the term ‘makarios’ implies a far deeper emotion and a more intense divine blessing. In poetic Greek ‘makarios’ was the quality of blessedness shared by the gods. It extolled their good fortune and the good fortune of those who were blessed by the gods. The word was often written on epitaphs, variously implying that people had enjoyed such blessings as wealth, marriage partnership, children, wisdom, fame, righteous living, release from death or initiation into the mysteries of faith.
In the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures it was used to translate the Hebrew word ‘aštrē’ which similarly implied a wide variety of blessings with which people could be endowed: ‘a faithful partner’, ‘beauty’, ‘honour’, ‘wisdom’, ‘piety’, ‘faith and trust in God’, ‘forgiveness’, ‘righteousness’, ‘deliverance’, ‘future salvation’ and much else that could lead to fullness of life. That fullness of life, in whatever field, which is offered to us, is part of God’s blessing on us through Christ.
Jesus sometimes contrasted true spiritual blessing with the material blessings which were expected by his contemporaries. This is at the heart of the Beatitudes, where Jesus pronounced that there are blessings for those who might normally be considered disadvantaged or unfortunate in society: ‘the poor in spirit’, ‘those who mourn’, ‘the meek’, ‘those who hunger and thirst for righteousness’, ‘the persecuted and reviled’ [Matt.5:2-12]. Luke adds to this list ‘the poor’, ‘the hungry’, ‘those who weep’, ‘those who are hated or defamed, especially for their faith’ [Lk.6:20-23]. Normally these could not be considered to be content; some might even have thought that they were cursed by God with their situation. Yet Jesus proclaimed them particularly cared for by God’s blessing. By contrast Jesus gave warnings to those who falsely believed that they were blessed by God because of their material contentment: ‘the rich’, ‘those who have full bellies’, ‘those who laugh and enjoy life shallowly’ or ‘those who are well-though-of and lauded by others’ [Lk.6:24-26]. He implies that their sights should be set on more permanent things which offer eternal blessing.
It is valuable to contrast the blessings in the Beatitudes that are promised to those who are now disadvantaged, with the woes upon those who have material gain now: Blessings include: ‘yours is the kingdom of heaven’, ‘you will be comforted’, ‘you will inherit the earth’, ‘you will be filled’, ‘you will receive mercy’, ‘you will see God’, ‘you will be called children of God’, your reward will be great in heaven’ [Matt.5:2-12]. To these blessings Luke adds that ‘those who mourn... will laugh’ [Lk.6:20-23]. The message of the Beatitudes is strongly that God’s priorities and rewards are very different to the material priorities and rewards of much of human society.
We cannot know what blessings await us tomorrow, let alone after our human lives are over. Such knowledge remains in the mystery we call God, but we are promised that all will be well. Thankfully, unlike the Beatitudes, rewards of heaven are not necessarily described as commensurate with what we are or have achieved in our live now. Jesus’ Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard suggests that those who have belonged to God for a short time will receive equal reward to those who have laboured for years. However the Parable of the Talents [Matt.25:24-30], the Parable of the Unjust Steward [Matt.18:23-34] and the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus [Lk.16:19-31] teach that we are considered responsible for how we use the blessings that God has given to us on earth.
‘Eulogéō’ originally meant ‘to speak well of’. It was often used when an advocate defended someone’s actions or character legally. It developed to mean ‘to extol’ when humans were praised by the gods and more often when the gods were praised by human beings. Hence it came to be used to mean ‘to bless’. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Septuagint or ‘LXX’) eulogéō was used to translate the group of Hebrew words based on the root ‘brk’, and could be used to mean either the action of blessing or being blessed. It was used with various depths of meaning: People could bless others, and God blessed, blessing could be used of a general greeting or a specific spiritual benediction.
By the time of Jesus the term ‘eulogéō’ was often associated with rewards. The term was often used more formally to denote the blessing that only a priest was allowed to pronounce in the Temple or synagogue. Some churches rule that only an ordained priest can pronounce a blessing. This implies that the priest is the direct vehicle through whom God transmits blessing. But orthodox theology also recognises that all who follow God are a ‘kingdom of priests to our God”, which has led to the concept of ‘the priesthood of all believers’ [1Pet.2:5; Rev.1:6; Ex.19:6]. All prayers that begin with praise of God could be considered to be ‘blessings’. And when we pray for someone or any situation, surely it is the responsibility of anyone to pray for God’s blessing on them. Such prayers are efficacious because God is acting, and is not dependent on the person who is raying. Before meals the head of a household was required to give a blessing, extoling God for all that God had provided. This often consisted of the opening verse of Psalm 24: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it: the world and those who live in it.” It was the tradition that in giving blessing for a meal the prayer was made with a head bowed. By contrast we are told that Jesus looked upward to heaven when he blessed and broke bread [Mk.6:41]. It has been suggested by one commentator that this action might have contributed to the post-resurrection recognition of him at the Supper at Emmaus [Lk.24:30].
Having shared in God’s blessing, Jesus asserted that his followers should not repay evil with evil, but bless even those who cursed them, and pray for those who abused them [Lk.6:28; Rom. 12:14]. This is not just about turning the other cheek [Matt.5:39; Lk.6:29] but demonstrates, in the context of Lk.6:27-36, that the love of God is reaching out through us to the enemy or abuser, in ways that might change their attitude and help to bring the Kingdom of Heaven a little closer.
The Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament assert that it is the duty of God’s people to bless God [Lk.1:64; 2:28]. But this is not conditional. We don’t bless so that we can be blessed in return; we bless because we live in the presence of truth and want to work towards the truth. We should not be naïve or simplistic in our attitude to faith: God does not make everything go right for us just because we believe in or follow the way of Christ. Very many events in human life do not feel as though they are blessings, and the lives of believers do not always seem blessed, because we face the same problems as so many in the world. Our blessing and praise of God will inevitably not always be ecstatic: We cannot expect to always be happy or feel grateful for what has come to us. Neither does our limited understanding and vision always see life in its widest or eternal context. But there are many aspects of life and the world around us for which to be grateful, as so many of the Psalms recognise.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
WEEK 4: QUALITIES OF THE LIFE BROUGHT BY CHRIST
19/ Sunday – ABUNDANT LIFE
“I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.” [Jn.10:10]
“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” [Jn.1:2
What do we understand as ‘abundant’ Christian life? The ‘prosperity gospel’, advocated in the teaching of some churches and cultures, is based on the dubious claim that people who follow God will be automatically blessed by success and riches. This is a self-centred, misinterpretation of God’s promise in the old covenants to give his people good things. Jesus did not promise riches to his followers; on the contrary, he recognised that many would face difficulties and opposition. He claimed that the ‘poor’ and ‘poor in spirit’ would inherit and receive the kingdom of heaven [Matt.2:3; 11:5] and that the rich and comfortable would find the way to God’s Kingdom more difficult [Matt.19:23; Lk.1:53; 16:22]. He foretold dangers, challenges, hardships, persecution and division for many who would follow his way. That has proved true throughout Christian history, though some sincere, dedicated Christians have managed to find prosperity through good, honest, caring-business practice and social conscience. The ‘abundance’ of life that Jesus promised is more internal - a sense of fulfilment, inner joy, fullness through having experienced truth and being one with God through Christ. Among the Christians who I know, a few of the poorest have a sense of contentment that is lacking in many who have far more materially or intellectually.
a/ ABUNDANCE
The Bible uses several words for ‘abundance’, rooted in a common idea of ‘more and more’, ‘overflowing’ and the sense that ‘the source from which we draw is enormous’. Christian abundance derives from knowing that our eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-encompassing God, to whom all things belong, is the one who is able care for, fill us and fulfil us. Some mystics and Psalm 23:5 use a metaphor for the fulfilled life as a cup into which good is constantly pouring and overflowing [Mal.3:10; Zech.1:17]. In the story of Elijah, God supplied needs through a cruse of oil and tiny store of grain that remained full [1Ki.17:14]. The wise steward, like God, would not waste resources [1Pet.4:10]. We are not given gifts and energies that we do not need. The Manna in the wilderness [Ex.16; Num.11:7] was enough for the day of its use; it rotted if it remained unused [Ex.16:19-21]. Jesus warned people not to store up unnecessary riches as they deteriorate: what we are given is to be used [Matt.6:19-20; ]. That is not to say that we should not retain enough to supply emergencies or plan for the future; that is wise stewardship in today’s world. But we should remember that God gives us gifts to use, not to hoard. If one has the gift of teaching, hospitality, healing, persuasion, love, peace-making, caring, etc.; one should use it for the benefit of others, not keep it to oneself. The same is true of our physical resources and money.
Abundance does not necessarily mean that one always has a sense of satisfaction. St. Paul had stronger spiritual gifts and experiences and credentials than most, yet he was aware of his failings and weaknesses. He wrote of ‘pressing on towards a goal’ [Phil.3:12-14] which was not yet fulfilled, either in holiness of life or achieving the mission to which he felt called. Yet he also wrote of the need to find contentment in whatever situation he found himself, whether temporarily rich or poor, struggling or in easier circumstances, persecuted or valued, alone or in company [Phil.4:11]. Hebrews encourages us to be ‘content with what you have’ [Heb13:5]. The sense of knowing God’s presence and care for us can make us feel abundantly content despite circumstances.
Discontent can be draining. Optimists often seem to get more out of life than pessimists. A positive outlook can motivate us to action far more than negativity. We cannot choose the characters we develop; they are conditioned by so many internal and external factors. But we can help to modify them by personal discipline and the power of the Holy Spirit. I am by nature an introvert; life-experiences have made me suspicious. I don’t often expect things to go well and often mistrust myself and, from experience, have learned to distrust others, including some in Church-ministry and Church institutions. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot find abundant life, spiritually, physically or corporately. I recognise my limitations and those of others, but feel trust in the God I have come to know, because the God I seek to follow is concerned with ‘truth’ in every area of life. God can pour truth into each situation and bring a peace into it. I think that may be what Paul discovered, which helped him find contentment in a life of struggles and frustrated ambitions [Phil.4:11; 2Cor.12:10].
‘Overflowing’ is a common metaphor for abundance in the Hebrew Scriptures [Ps.23:5; 65:11-12; Prov.3:10; Isa.8:7; 66:11; Zech.1:17]. God’s provision is described as ‘pressed down and overflowing’ [Lk.6:38]. This suggests that God, like a generous and honest trader, does not give in short measures. What is put into us can be filled to the brim, with no space wasted and with the best possible contents. But this requires our cooperation. When I allow sin, idleness or self-induced fatigue to take up space in my life I won’t make the best use of God’s gifts, my time, or my life. The image of overflowing recurs in the New Testament [Rom.5:15; 15:13; 2Cor.4:15; 8:2; Phil.1:26; Col.2:7; 1Thes.3:12].
Abundant life is NOT an over-full life. A true Christian work ethic makes time for self, family, other people, rest, relaxation and enjoyment as well as being involved in Christ’s mission. Too many ministers or business-people over-work or may not be wise stewards of their time, lives and families. Tensions and break-downs of relationships occur too often among those who over-stress one aspect of their work and life; fatigue, ineffectiveness and mental problems are common. As abundant Christian life is not one that is focused abnormally on work; we should not neglect the other pleasures that fulfil life. Jesus made time for social relationships: the marriage at Cana [Jn.2:1], close friendship with the family of Lazarus [Jn.11; 12:1-2], feasting with a leader of the Pharisees [Lk.7:36-37; 11:37]; he was criticised for being a friend of tax-collectors and sinners and feasting with them [Matt.11:19; Mk.2:16; Lk.7:34].
Jesus must have used much energy in healing, preaching, thinking through his teaching, training his disciples, travelling in his mendicant ministry. His source of energy and abundance was surely not just in his divinity. If he was ‘fully human’ as orthodox doctrine maintains, he must have drawn energy from sleep, rest, relaxation time with friends, enjoying social situations. His disciplined prayer-life was essential to his abundance too. It cemented his relationship with his father; guided his mission, thoughts and teaching, was the source of his miracles; above all his time in prayer to his Father helped to focus Jesus. It helped him to recognise his direction and priorities, and connected him intimately to his source. Our personal spiritual abundance similarly needs to balance prayer with energetic, committed work with fulfilled social, private and spiritual lives. The energy and direction for all of these need to come through being connected effectively to our spiritual source, actively connected to our place in God, as an electrical device needs to be connected to energy.
FOR CONTEMPLATION & PRAYER
In what ways does your physical and spiritual life feel abundant? What could you do to attain a greater abundance in your life, emotions, spiritual relationship with God and ministry?
b/ LIFE
“I am the bread of life” [Jn.6:35, 48]... “I am the resurrection and the life” [Jn.11:25]... “I am the way, the truth and the life” [Jn.14:6]... “[The Son has] authority to give eternal life to all... And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” [Jn.17:2-3].
Considering Christ’s promise to his followers of “life in all abundance”, it is surprising how little ‘abundance’ of life many Christians enjoy. Some church traditions have promoted guilt over enjoyment of life and encourage asceticism and mundane lives. Music and innocent entertainment, even looking after one’s health were sometimes discouraged in a false belief that martyrdom, simplicity, deprivation, self-neglect and self-abnegation would lead to godliness. Those who loved life were discouraged from becoming part of the church. Even today some churches bemoan the lack of people coming to their services, yet may not recognise or accept that there are far more apparently life-offering attractions in the world outside the church door. Sometimes we offer mundane liturgy, mediocre Christian entertainment, repetitious choruses and boring or irrelevant teaching. We will not inject attractive, abundant life into our services through mediocrity, naivety or simplistic explanations of faith. No church will ever manage to compete with the professional entertainment world, nor should that be our aim. Life in liturgy comes through having something that is spiritually life-giving and offers valuable, meaningful faith that meets inner needs of congregations and others who have not found faith. If people see this in us they are more likely to be attracted to join us. Abundant Christian life comes through being fully human in righteous ways, using all the gifts and resources enjoyed by human beings. Meaningful truth is to be found in a variety of ways: in profound silence, meaningful words, affirming worship, engagement with the world’s needs in prayer, as well as in thoroughly supportive relationships within the community.
Jesus claimed that ‘the road is hard that leads to life” [Matt.7:14]. He did not promise that life for his followers would be easy. Too often as Christians we sense that our lives should be continually blessed. Jesus claimed that “If any want to become my followers they should deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For those who find their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life...” [Jn.16:24-26]. Following Christ authentically is always going to be challenging and a struggle, if we attempt to live righteously, follow his example, relate to God in the way that he opened for us, become engaged in his mission and aim to change the world for good.
The Hebrew Scriptures regarded YHWH as the source and author of life [Jer.17:13; Ps.36:9; 139:13ff.]. The Psalms speak of God as the one who gives life [Ps.16:11; 27:1; 31:4f.]. So when Jesus claimed to be ‘the way, the truth and the life’ [Jn.14:6], the statement seems to indicate his closeness to his Father God. The Covenant made between the Jews and God was regarded as making the important choice between the way to life or death [Deut.30:1-20]. Jesus’ statement that one “does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds from the mouth of God” was a direct quotation from Deut.8:3. Making the covenant choice to follow Christ, obey his teachings, live by his words and relate to God through him brought people that same promise of life. Early Christians described this as ‘being alive in him’ [Rom.6:11; 1Cor.1:30; 2Cor.6:9; Gal.2:20; Col.3:3-4; 2Tim.1:1; 1Jn.5:11-20].
Life in Christ has a present and future dimension: Jesus’ miracles of healing were regarded as bringing new life to those who he healed, almost as significantly as to those who were raised from death: [Matt.9:4; 10:8; 11:5; Mk.5:35-39; (9:26); Lk.7:15; 8:49f.; 15:24; Jn.11:44; 12:7]. To believe in and follow Jesus came to be regarded as having life now [Jn.3:15-16]. As well as finding life in the present through Christ, he offered future life beyond death. Jesus emphasised that raising from death to a life beyond was a gift from God, not something he was giving just from himself [Matt.22:31f.; Mk.12:26f.; Lk.20:36f.]. God’s gift of authentic renewed life and salvation was regarded as the gift of God’s grace [Rom.5:15; 1Pet.3:7]. Though true eternal life was to be found through Christ and enjoyed in the present life, it would be more fully consummated in future eternal blessing. The eternal nature of life found in and through Christ is emphasised in Jn.5:26; Rev.4:9-10; 1Tim.6:16.
John’s Gospel regarded Jesus as having life and light in himself because of his divine nature and origins. As the ‘Word’ he represented God’s creative power [Jn.1:4] and had come to give life to the world [Jn.6:33; Phil.2:16]. He was the light of life [Jn.8:12]; he could give the eternally nourishing water of life [Jn.4:10-11] and give eternal life to those who God gave to him [Jn.17:2]. As the source of truth he had the words of life for people to receive and follow [Jn.6:68]. John claimed that believers in Jesus had already found life through faith in him [Jn.3:25]. In the future, as ‘the resurrection and the life’ he would give eternal life beyond death [Jn.11:25].
Traditions and teachings about heaven abound in Christian writings, sermons and dogmas, but the reality is that we can only speculate about what ‘eternal life’ will be like. There is plenty of imagery in scripture concerning ‘eternal life, and pointers to ideas of heavenly life, but much of the physical imagery in scripture may well be metaphorical, as it is in the Book of Revelation. 1Jn.3:2 emphasises: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, what we will be has not yet been revealed...”. Yet we believe that all will be well, because we trust by faith that there is truth within Jesus’ promises.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How much do you feel that Christ has brought you ‘alive’ in your present life? Are there areas in your life where you wish that he could revive and enhance you, preparing you for eternal life? Hold them in prayer before God, alongside others who you know who would benefit from finding the sort of true life offered in the Christian faith.
20/ Monday – TREASURE
“Do not store up for yourself treasure on earth... but store up your treasure in heaven... where your treasure is there will your heart be also...” [Matt.6:21]. “The Kingdom of God is like treasure in a field, which someone found...” [Matt.13:44]. “Give to the poor and you will find treasure in heaven” [Mk.10:21]. “...but we have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” [2Cor.4:7].
Times of insecurity often challenge us to reconsider what we most treasure, whether our priorities are correct, what we most value, and on what we place our trust. Health and an inner sense of peace and wellbeing prove to be far more important than wealth or possessions. When Jesus told parables like ‘The Treasure Hidden in a Field’ [Matt.13:44] and ‘The Pearl of Great Price’ [Matt.13:46] he was emphasising the essential importance of developing true spiritual priorities and finding security in our relationship with God.
In the contemporary commercial and materialistic world huge emphasis is placed on achieving financial and physical security. Churches and many charities insist on having financial security and maintaining assets in the bank before they consider giving sacrificially to support the needy. Self-protection and maintenance of our institutions are often regarded as greater priorities than being involved in Christ’s mission. Most people don’t like to feel financially or personally precarious, as Jesus disciples must have felt when he sent them out on mission without money in a purse, reliant for provision on the generosity of others [Lk.10:4; 22:35].
Jesus did not condemn the wealthy but he recognised the dangers within their priorities. In Mark 10, talking to the rich man who came seeking assurance of eternal life, we are told that ‘Jesus looking at him loved him,” for he had been keeping God’s commandments and was earnest. Yet Jesus claimed: “You lack one thing: go, see what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven: then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.’ [Mk.10:21]. I am not sure that Jesus was telling him or us to deliberately seek poverty or to give away all our possessions. If that was the case Christianity would be unattractive to the majority of the modern population. It could be interpreted as telling us to be prepared to do so if necessary, to give what is needed and to regard following God’s calling as more important than material security.
The word translated ‘treasure’ in the New Testament is the same word ‘thēsaurós’ as we use for a collection or ‘treasury’ of words. It means far more than money, gold or physical wealth and is rooted in the verb ‘to store or lay-up’. Matt.12:35 writes of ‘the heart of a good man bringing forth good treasure and good actions.’ ‘Treasure’ is whatever we store up and where we store it. So Jesus was not specifically condemning physical wealth in telling people: “Do not store up for yourself treasure on earth... but store up your treasure in heaven... where your treasure is there will your heart be also” ... “no one can serve two masters... you cannot serve God and wealth.” [Matt.6:21]. He pointed out that is it was ‘harder’ for the rich to prioritise spiritual things and find the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ [Matt.19:23-24;Mk.10:23-25]. But the stress in Matt.6:21 was primarily encouraging the building up of ‘treasure in heaven’. Jesus’ ministry was stressing the importance of spiritual integrity, prioritising the development of people’s secure relationship with God. His teaching on giving away wealth is just part of getting our priorities right. Our character and our spiritual ‘eternal treasure-house’ are ultimately more essential to develop than our material wealth. More correct priorities include becoming righteous and holy, enriching our relationship with of God, doing good, developing outreaching love, and other active forms of discipleship. When Jesus “commended” his life into God’s hands in dying on the Cross, he was demonstrating where his own trust was stored up. [Lk.23:46]. This spiritual treasure is not just awaited as a reward in heaven; it includes feeling a sense of treasure living inside us now.
Jesus did encourage us not to be materialistic hoarders or heapers-up of earthly goods, as taught in the Parable of the Rich Man Enlarging his Barns [Lk.12:13-21] Such self-centred activity was against his ideal of prioritising the spiritual. Col.2:3 speaks of us finding the treasure of wisdom and knowledge in Christ. In 2Cor.4:7 Paul wrote of the new form of life and light that we find in Christ as a treasure contained within the ‘earthly vessels’ of our bodies and minds. This brings out the meaning of spiritual treasure as ‘a place of safe-keeping’.
In considering Jesus’ Parable of the Treasure in the Field and the Pearl of Great Price, Jesus encouraged his hearers to give all that they could for the sake of a secure and living relationship with God. This is quite a contrast to the somewhat half-hearted commitment to following our faith and obeying Christ’s ways, which characterises the lives and faith of many of us as church-goers. To follow Christ sincerely requires our total dedication and sustained effort. That is not just in the area of using our possessions and skills to work towards influencing the building of God’s Kingdom; it involves the commitment of all that we have and are to following and obeying God’s ways as revealed through scripture and the Holy Spirit. It is no wonder that the rich young man who wanted to follow Christ was afraid, and found that he could not follow [Matt.19:16-22; Mk.10:17-22].
This may be true, but it all seems very idealistic in a modern world, where it would seem impossible and certainly impractical to live without money and a certain amount of security in a home and possession. It was probably also hard for the more wealthy followers of Jesus in his own time. However, several people with wealth were among his followers and supporters: Lazarus and his family Mary and Martha, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and several women married to Jewish and Roman officials. In eastern cultures we read of more contemporary people giving up everything to go on a spiritual quest than in modern western society. However, with growing wealth in formerly poor areas of the world, it is becoming equally difficult for people to give up security in order to follow the path of renunciation that is meant to lead to enlightenment.
Rather than taking Christ’s instruction to the rich young man literally and abandoning all that provides us with security in the modern world, perhaps we should interpret it in the light of contemporary society and culture. Jesus could be calling us to consider what gives us our security and not rest too heavily upon it. Most of us certainly need to regard the spiritual life in active relationship with God and righteous discipleship as treasure to be pursued with greater commitment. In baptism, confirmation and ordination service Christians have made really significant vows, which we do not always live up to. How many of us ‘shine as a light in the world’, assiduously ‘resist sin’, ‘fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ’ or ‘remain faithful to Christ to the end of our lives’? Those were among our baptism vows, and the confirmation and ordination vows are even more demanding. It may be useful to look back and consider the vows of faith that we have made and determine to follow those with the intensity of commitment which Jesus asked of the contemporaries who he called to follow him. The treasure of faith, and living in a closer relationship with God, may be found in putting energy into following the vows which we have already made.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Consider your present priorities and compare them with the vows of faith that you have made. Are they true to the ideals of Christ and the true ‘treasures of heaven’? In what ways might you modify your life and priorities in order to be more true to God’s expectations of you and the vows that you have made to follow Christ’s way ?
21/ Tuesday – RIGHTEOUSNESS – Mtt.5:6; 6:33; 13:43; Rom.3:21; 2Cor.5:21; 1Pet.2:24
“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven” [Matt.5:20]
We sometimes use the word ‘righteous’ today disparagingly, as though someone is ‘holier than thou’, ‘self-righteous’ or ‘arrogant’ but that is far from its Biblical meaning. Righteousness is seen as a primary characteristic of the perfection of God; those who are righteous will reflect God in their character and actions. Jesus told us to “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness” [Matt.6:33], so righteousness is meant to be a primary aspect of all Christian lives. It is a characteristic of how all must live in God’s Kingdom.
The Hebrew word ‘ṣeḏeq’ and the Greek words [‘dikaios’, ‘diakaiosynē’] in the Bible, translated as ‘righteous’ and ‘righteousness’ are related to keeping to the correct regulations for life. The words have their roots in judicial and legal language, keeping the laws and rules by which all are meant to live. Righteousness is concerned not just with doing what is ‘right’ but being deemed to be ‘just’ according to the all-seeing ‘justice’ of God. Throughout scripture God is described as ‘righteous’, so the ways taught by God, by which we should live are naturally regarded as ‘righteous’ [Ezra 9:5; Neh.9:8; Ps.4:1; Isa.45:21; Rom.3:26; 1Jn.2:1; Rev.15:4]. Those who adhere to this way of life are called ‘the righteous’ because they are proclaimed just and justified by God. The words translated ‘just’, ‘justified’ and ‘justification’ in the New Testament are the same Greek words as ‘righteous’, ‘judged righteous’ and ‘righteousness’: translators vary the interpretation according to context.
The New Testament stresses that we are not ‘justified’ simply by obeying scriptures laws, as many of the religious leaders of Jesus’ time appear to have believed [Rom.2:13]. No one is able to achieve righteousness by their own strength because we all fail and sin [Rom.3:10, 20]. It is God who declares us righteous through grace and through the cleansing that Christ achieved for us: “Because of the one man, many will be made righteous” [Rom.5:19]. The Messiah was prophesied to be ‘The Lord our righteousness’ [Isa. 53:11b; Jer.23:5-6; 33:15-16]. We trust that the work of Christ for us and the work of his Spirit within us, will bring us righteousness, declare us righteous and bring us salvation: “the righteous will live by faith” [Gal.3:11]. Jesus obtained righteousness for us, fulfilled God’s will, and exemplified righteous human living for us to follow.
Though righteousness and salvation rely on God, not on ourselves, we should still aim to adhere to the way of life that God intended in the rules given in scripture. “Faith without works is dead” [James 2:28; 1:22-27]. Those who follow the righteous one must themselves do right [1Jn.2:1]. But it is the spirit of God’s regulations, not their literal letter which are righteous. God did not just give rigid, eternally static laws; God’s truth aims to promote the advance of humanity. So though God’s ways and commands remain valid for ever [Matt.5:18; 24:35], their application and detail may modify as life changes. We see the truth of this in current interpretations of the biblical regulations about the food we eat, how we dress, social relations, the ways we worship, the sacrificial system, punishment of offenders etc. We recognise that the world and our understanding of life and human psychology have changed, so the ways in which we apply scripture to different situations have similarly developed and changed. Yet many Christians still insist on interpreting biblical teaching literally. This is particularly true in issues of sexuality, where much Church-teaching differs from the way that the world has come to think. Jesus criticised the religious lawyers of his day for rigidly applying the letter of the law without considering the love of God and the dynamic changes that God has made in his relationship with human beings. Jesus forgave the woman taken in adultery, yet told her to amend her life: “Go and sin no more” [Jn.8:11]. He shed light on the unorthodox marital lifestyle of the Samaritan woman at the well [Jn.4:16-18]. He did not insist on the letter of religious law, but still wanted both women to live righteously in the situation in which they found themselves.
In the Epistle to the Romans St. Paul emphasised that we are now free from the strict laws that governed the Jewish society of his day. He wanted Christ’s followers to develop a ‘righteousness apart from the law’ [Rom.3:21, 28], where God’s Spirit directed them towards right living. Might this apply today in lifestyles and relationships which were once condemned by literal application of biblical regulations? Because we understand human psychology, health and cultural diversity more thoroughly, many previously rejected activities have become widely socially acceptable even among many sincere, holy Christians in the 21st Century? God still expects us to live righteous lives, but the way we live righteously may change as God’s world develops dynamically and ethical and cultural values alter and modify. Mercy and grace, in balance with the regulations by which God desires human society to live, are part of God’s justice and signs of God’s righteousness. Those Christians who remain insistent on literal interpretation of all biblical laws may be in danger of emulating the legalism of the scribes and Pharisees rather than Jesus.
Though we are now given freedom, the extremely practical Epistle of James stresses that Christian faith needs to be accompanied by righteous living and actions, or it is fruitless [Jas.2:14-20]. We are not intended to live isolated holy lives, but to become involved in God’s activity, to contribute to the world and support others. Righteousness involves mission, helping to build the principles of God’s Kingdom in daily life. In both Matthew 5:20 and 6:33 (quoted at the opening of this section) God’s Kingdom is related to righteousness. Many rabbinical texts regarded alms-giving and benevolent support of the needy as signs of righteousness. We are not just meant to wait to be made perfect saints in heaven; Christians are intended to prepare for this by our activity and discipline now. We have no idea what the life promised in heaven will be, yet we ought to make the most of life by practising living now as though we were perfect in God’s presence. We pray this when we say “Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” [Matt.6:10]. It is challenging to live now as we would in the visible presence of God when the Kingdom of Heaven is fulfilled, but that should be our intention. This includes virtuous ethical living, fulfilling our obligations to God, God’s people and this world. We are intended to use God’s Spirit’s gifts to us effectively by living fruitfully and abundantly. We should develop the fruit of the Spirit and reflect God’s nature within us, as Christ did. These, and many more qualities, are all far more fulfilling that merely following a dead, rigid system of regulations and laws.
Christ’s activity and cleansing has brought the gift of righteousness to us. It is often hard to believe this when we truly know ourselves and recognise our failings, but scripture encourages us to believe that we are now regarded as righteous in God’s sight, even though we may still be very aware of our sins. It is important to try to live free of the guilt that so often burdens Christians over past sins for which we have been forgiven. We should learn from our failings, but we should not let them cripple our future advance. Awareness that God regards us as righteous should not make anyone arrogant; that was the problem of the scribes and Pharisees criticised by Jesus, and shown up in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector [Lk.18:11-14]. The humility of the tax-collector should be our response. Our righteousness does not depend upon ourselves and our actions, which will always be insufficient and imperfect. It is only the action of God’s love, mercy and grace that make us worthy, clean and guiltless, as St. Paul stressed: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ...” [Rom.3:23]. This undeserved gift of righteousness to us should lead us to respond with gratitude and righteous living.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
22/ Wednesday – GRACE
“From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace... grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” [Jn.1:16-17]
Many Christians use religious words rather imprecisely. Sometimes, in fact, we use words without thinking about their meaning. This is often the case in people’s use of the term ‘grace’. I remember from confirmation classes being taught that the definition of ‘grace’ was ‘God’s unmerited favour’, which is partially true, but is only one aspect of grace in the context of faith. Christians often speak of God’s ‘grace’ and ‘mercy’ almost as though they are synonymous. If we were Greek-speakers, reading the blessings that open most New Testament Epistles, we would recognise greater distinctions between the words. ‘Grace’ / ‘cháris’ originally meant one’s attitude towards that which gives ‘pleasure’ or which makes one ‘rejoice’. We use it with that meaning today when we admire ‘gracefulness’ in a person, a gesture, or gracious words. Some Greek writers used the term ‘cháris’ of the gods’ ‘favour’ but more often it referred to human ‘goodwill’, what gives aesthetic or emotional joy, or caused favourable regard. The Hellenistic world also used the term to mean the generous disposition of ‘favour’ or ‘bounty’, which a ruler displayed towards subjects. The leader’s gift of grace was regarded as a divine power that came from above, which is possibly the source of its use by Christians for God’s disposition towards us. It translated the Hebrew term ‘ḥēn’, an ancient middle-eastern term for a gracious attitude and actions of goodwill towards others [Gen.33:5; Ps.119:29]. It could also mean showing pity for the poor and defenceless [Prov.14:31; Deut.7:2] and speaking friendlily towards any [Prov.26:25]. Most frequently the Psalms used ‘ḥēn’ when calling on God to respond to prayer, to heal, redeem, raise up, pardon and strengthen [Ps.4:1; 6:2, 26:11; 41:10; 51:1; 81:16]. The psalmists beseech God to freely bless and show kindness through his will of care towards his people, as God pledged in the Covenant.
It is sobering to think that human beings, with all our failings, might be regarded as giving ‘delight’ to God, or that God ‘rejoices’ over us. ‘Despair’ might more often seem an appropriate response of God towards the limitations of our human condition, malign activities and our disloyalty to the requirements and covenantal promises of faith! However the term ‘grace’ can also suggest a mood of ‘sympathy’ or ‘kindness’ towards us, which links to the term ‘mercy’ (discussed in Meditation 23). A reciprocal response to giving delight to God should also be true in a covenant relationship: God’s people should be able to take joy or pleasure in our relationship with God and enjoy the benefits of God’s grace towards us. Grace and delight are hard to define in the abstract. We can enjoy all the natural gifts in creation, but how can we have ‘grace’ towards God? ‘Gratefulness’, ‘thanks’ and appreciation are our responses of grace towards God. It seems to be an inevitable aspect of the human condition that we spend time questioning whether God cares, since we experience situations of such suffering. These are more rarely a result of sin than suffering because we love, lose and are physically fragile and prone to illness. It often seems hard to express gratitude or recognise God’s grace in difficult situations. But seeking to express love for, and delight in God despite our situation can expand our sensitivities.
We should also be able to express our appreciation of the grace of God in worship, and express our grace towards God as we worship. The Psalms are full of such responses, often expressing delight in all that God is, all God has given, and appreciating security in God’s presence and care. Today some Psalms feel uncomfortable because we have become used to expect that Christian responses to suffering should be mild and perhaps resigned to pain. The psalmists were not afraid to complain when they sensed God’s distance, silence, disregard or abandonment in situations of need, despite their pleas. However, within such the psalms often balance their complaints with signs of hope and belief that God really does care, despite the difficulties of situations (as in Ps.22). Belief that grace is a constant quality in God, suggests that God’s truth reaches out to us in all situations, the good and the bad. We may not recognise this in the heart of suffering, thought recognition of God’s grace can bring light into the darkest situations in which we may find ourselves. Jesus’ own mission helped to reassure people of this.
Calvin talked about ‘common grace’. This term described the recognition that all creatures on earth share in some aspects of God’s grace. God has given bountiful gifts within creation which all can enjoy, irrespective of belief or lifestyle; such blessings are not just restricted to God’s people. Common grace includes the ability to respond to beauty, to value all the nature around us, to appreciate and be able to use all that is provided for our wellbeing. There are multiple common gifts in which we take pleasure; creativity, health, human ability to advance, the bounty of the earth, and so much more. Belief in ‘The Fall’ of human beings, and Calvin’s doctrine of ‘total depravity’ have often been interpreted to mean that everything in the world is evil or tainted by evil. That was not Calvin’s meaning; he meant it to mean that everything has aspects of contamination and has the potential to be used for evil. Whether this is true or not, I am not sure, but the concept of ‘Common Grace’ recognises the goodness and potential in all things in Creation: there is much that is good in most people and things, even those who might be involved in evil. (The concept that everything material is evil was one of the heresies which the early Church challenged). Recognising that God’s common grace extends towards all might help us to feel a greater empathy with the situation of some who we might otherwise distrust or with whom we might not share a sense of unity or oneness. Accepting that God shows common grace towards them might help us to be more gracious ourselves, and ‘love our neighbours as ourselves’ [Matt.19:19], ‘love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us” [Matt.5:44], or as Luke records “Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.” [Lk6:27]. This is not easy, but if we are to reflect the nature and perfection of God we should try to develop a grace towards others that reflects the grace of God towards all. Jesus’ call to love our enemies gives us the perfect example of reflecting God’s ‘common grace’: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you ... so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” [Matt.5:45-47]. Our outward-reaching love can emulate God’s grace and reflect God’s nature in us.
It is not for us to despise others. If we, with all our failings and sins, “have all received grace upon grace” [Jn.1:16], it is not for us to deny grace to others, for we do not know how God’s grace regards them. Christ is our model and our judge. If “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” [Jn.1:17] it is the responsibility of his all-seeing and all-knowing truth to reveal the truth in his understanding. Our limited understanding does not allow us to see others in the way that God’s truth knows them thoroughly [Ps.139]. Our responsibility is rather to enjoy and live up to the grace that we have received from God and to emulate that grace towards others, as we reciprocate God’s grace in our delight of God.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Are there any towards you do not show sufficient grace?
In what ways might you show more grace in delighting in God?
23/ Thursday – MERCY
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” [Matt.5:7]... “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” [Lk.6:38]
God’s ‘mercy’ was an essential element of Christ’s coming and his mission. Luke includes mercy at the heart of Mary’s annunciation hymn, the ‘Magnificat’ and Zacharias prophecy, the ‘Nunc Dimitis’: “His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation... he remembered mercy to his servant Israel.” [Lk.1:50,54,]. “He has shown the mercy promised to our forefathers and has remembered his holy covenant... Through the tender mercy of our God the dawn from on high will break upon us...” [Lk.1:72,78]
The term ‘mercy’/’eleos’ appears more frequently in the New Testament Epistles than in the Gospels. In the Gospels Jesus is shown to be God’s merciful gift to humankind, while the mentions of mercy in the Epistles often explain how this mercy works in practical and theological terms. Mercy denotes God’s response towards those he loves and the attitude Christ commanded us to show towards others. It is therefore the active response to God’s feeling of ‘grace’ towards us. While ‘grace’ delights in the value of others despite their weaknesses, sins, or evil actions, ‘mercy’ goes further: It recognises sins and problems and feels and acts in sympathy with our predicament. ‘Eleos’ for the ancient Greeks was the emotion felt towards the afflicted: sympathy, pity and empathy, reaching out through understanding and feeling for the pathos of their condition, especially if their problems were undeserved. It was used in the judicial system of judges’ protective response towards people when treating them with greater leniency than they deserved, because the judges felt care for them.
In translating the Jewish scriptures ‘eleos’ was used to translate the Hebrew word ‘hesed’/ ‘lovingkindness’, which was used of God’s covenant love towards humankind that is unmerited by us. Such ‘hesed’ loving-mercy arises from the committed, faithful, relationship of mutual loyalty and trust, in which God bound himself to his people. Despite human unfaithfulness, God responds with pardoning mercy and the gift of salvation. In both its legal meaning and in relationship with God, ‘mercy’ implies that those receiving it should feel an element of awe, fear and gratitude towards the power of the one who is demonstrating mercy. Jesus drew attention to this in his ‘Parable of the Pharisee’ and the Tax Collector’ where the latter, ‘standing far off... beat his breast’, confessing: “God be merciful to me a sinner!” The Tax Collector left the Temple justified rather that the Pharisee who took God’s mercy for granted [Lk.18:9-14]. This is relevant to many Christians who respond to the forgiveness of God too easily. Jesus endured the agony of his Passion as part of securing God’s mercy. We should not stroll into God’s presence, expecting forgiveness and redemption too lightly. Nor should we underestimate the extent of the pain and loss that God underwent in obtaining salvation for us.
Jesus commanded his followers to follow God’s example in prioritising mercy in our response to others: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” [Lk.6:38]. He emphasised the importance of extending mercy beyond the normal barriers in society in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. When asked “who was neighbour to the wounded traveller?” Jesus’ questioner acknowledged that the true neighbour was “the one who showed mercy” [Lk.10:37]. Showing mercy, like extending grace, is not always easy when we have been damaged by others, especially if they have never confessed or asked for forgiveness.
As well as using the term ‘mercy’ to describe God’s response to us, Matthew’s Gospel uses the term of showing kindness in human relationships [Matt.9:13]. In Matt.23:23 Jesus condemned the scribes and Pharisees for insisting on trivial rules while failing in God’s weightier laws of mercy, judgement and faith. Jude 22 implies that ‘mercy’ includes care for a person’s temporal and eternal welfare. St. Paul used ‘mercy’ far more expansively to show the motivation behind God the gift of salvation [Rom.9:22-23; ; Tit.3:5].
When it comes to the call for us to ‘be merciful’ two terms are used in the New Testament. Matthew uses the word based on ‘mercy’/’eleēmōn’. Luke uses the term ‘oiktirmōn’, a word more related to the emotion of ‘sympathy’ or ‘pity’ towards those who lament in grief. It was used regularly in the Greek translation of the Psalms [Ps.103:8; 111:4] and can also denote divine mercy and empathy towards humankind [Lk.6:36]. In Rom.12:1 & 1Cor.1:3 the plural form ‘oiktirmós’ is used of God’s compassion. The plural ‘mercies’ suggests the great breadth and inclusiveness of God’s ‘compassions’ on humankind. Elsewhere it is used of the compassion that is part of judgement and the nature of God’s Law [Heb.10:28; Jas.5:11].
When we show mercy towards others we are practising an uncommon emotion in much of modern society, which reflects the nature of God. Some still regard ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ [Matt.5:38] as logical natural justice. Jesus contradicted this as being contrary to God’s mercy: Mercy does not insist on reciprocal damages for a hurt or offence. It recognises that the one who is in a position to enact mercy is in a more powerful position than the one who has failed (even if the malefactor has misused extreme power). Active mercy is often costly to the one who shows mercy. When we call for God’s mercy on people we remember Jesus’ struggle to secure mercy for us: Jesus gave the disciples the right and power to forgive or retain a person’s sins [Jn.20:23], but he also commended mercy [Lk.6:38]. I do not believe that he was giving his people the right to anathematise or reject others, though some church leaders interpreted Jesus words in that way, and assumed power and authority over people’s spiritual future. Perhaps Jesus was leaving it to our consciences to make the decision to forgive, in the spirit of his own example of mercy. As the Lord’s Prayer reminds us, we have a responsibility to ‘forgive others’ sins as we have been forgiven’ [Matt.6:12; Lk.11:4]. This is often not a simple exercise, especially when we have been badly damaged by another, but we should always remember that we have ourselves been shown enormous mercy. Showing mercy and grace are not as automatic to us as they probably are to a perfect God. But in attempting to reflect the nature and example of Christ we should work at offering mercy as committedly as we should be committed to personal righteousness and Christ-like action.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
24/ Thursday – FAITH –
‘The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith”. [Lk.17:5]
Faith has partly been considered under the word ‘Trust’ [Meditation 5]. The God about whom Jesus witnessed and who Jesus exemplified was a force who could be trusted: God was powerful enough for anything and could be trusted as a caring, loving Father. Scripture emphasises God’s personal care about Creation, especially human beings and particularly those with whom covenant promises had been made. Jesus expanded that covenant promise to all, as in his response to the non-Jews who came to him for healing or to discuss faith [Jn.12:20]. Christ commended the faith of the Roman centurion [Matt.8:10; Lk.7:9]. Though God had made covenant promises to the Jewish people, a close relationship with God was not exclusive to the Jews. Most of the worldwide Church now consists of gentile Christians who have been brought into God’s covenant relationship. [Heb.8 & 9; Eph.2:12 and Gal.3:17 particularly emphasise this. The relationship of trust in God that Christ introduced is available for all. Jesus’ ‘Great Commission’ to his followers before his ascension was for his followers to teach that faith to all nations and baptise believers into faith [Matt.28:19].
Jesus talked about ‘the prayer of faith’ to which he assured people God would respond [Matt.21:22]. The Greek word ‘peithō’, which means ‘to convince’ or ‘to persuade’ is at the root of the term ‘peithomai’, which like ‘pistis’ [discussed in Meditation 5] can also be translated as ‘faith’. This implies that faith includes being assured that the God and the promises in which we put our trust are true. Jesus responded to people’s trust in him in the miracles he performed, and commended their faith [Matt.9:2; 15:28; Mk.5:34; 10:52; Lk.18:42]. We know from experience that prayers, especially those for healing, are not always answered in the ways that we would most like. Family and friends die; the disabled remain incapacitated; believers are not always protected from mishap or disease. Yet the covenant relationship which we have with God encourages us to still pray and trust We live in a world where there is increasing, and in many cases understandable scepticism about faith, so it is inevitable that as believers ourselves we may not always be ‘convinced’ or ‘persuaded’ that what we ask for in faith will come about. Yet often when we struggle to believe despite our doubts, our faith can grow stronger. The faith that Jesus encouraged extends our belief and trust beyond the barriers formed by any difficulties and doubts and still trusts God. We see this displayed in several Psalms especially Ps.22 , which we believe Jesus was reciting to himself on the Cross. Though it begins: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and expresses the feeling that God is far away and not answering [v.1-2], from verse 21 the words of the psalmist increasingly move towards conviction that God is within the pain and struggle, ending by proclaiming trust in God’s promise: “For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. To him indeed shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall serve him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.” [Ps.22:28-31].
The opposite of faith [‘peithomai’] in Greek is not ‘doubt’ but ‘disobedience’: the Greek word for disobedience is ‘apeitheō’, which literally means ‘no conviction’ or ‘without persuasion’. ‘Doubt’ is a far less negative feeling, it is used in scripture to translate several Greek words with subtly different meanings: ‘Dialogismos’ [Jn.20:27] translated literally means that one is having a discussion within oneself about the truth of what one is considering. In the New Testament this is elsewhere translated to mean ‘struggling with evil thoughts’ [Lk.2:35; Mk.7:21; Lk.9:47; Rom.1:47], having anxious thoughts [Lk.24:8; Rom.14:1], or arguing within oneself [Lk.9:46]. Though Jesus and James encouraged us to believe and not doubt, doubt is not regarded as sinful. When Jesus told his disciples “do not doubt but believe” [Jn.20:27] the word translated ‘doubt’ [apistos] actually mans ‘don’t fall away’ or ‘don’t remove or be seduced away from trusting faith’. When Jesus and James told people to believe and not doubt [Matt.22:21, Mk.11:23; Jas.1:6] again the Greek word used is not exactly ‘doubt’ as we use the term today, but ‘diakrínō’ which literally means ‘do not judge wrongly’.
‘Peithomai’ / ‘faith’ can also be translated as ‘obedience’. In this context it means ‘be obedient to the faith that you hold’. ‘Faith’, claims St. Paul, is a gift of God’s Spirit and a fruit which the work of the Spirit develops within us [Gal.5:22]. When the disciples asked Jesus: “increase our faith” they were perhaps expecting him to perfume a miracle within their minds to expand their belief. Instead, Jesus seems to tell them to ‘reach for the impossible’... ‘exert the type of faith that can move trees or mountains’ [Lk.7:5; Matt.17:20; 21:21; Mk.11:23]. I don’t think that Jesus was here telling us to go out and try to perform impossible miracles (though some try). Rather, I believe his words encourage us to practically ‘get on with the life of faith’, trusting God and involving him in all our needs, even the hard ones, which we too often try to face in our own strength.
Jesus’ response to the disciples’ request for him to teach them to pray was to give them the Lord’s Prayer as a model [Lk.11:1-4; Matt.6:7-13]. The sort of faith expressed in this prayer recognises the priority and holiness of God (”hallowed be your name”). It asks for God to bring about his rule of righteousness, not just in believers’ lives but “on earth as in heaven”. It asks no more than what we need for today “our daily bread”. Faith recognises our sin and debt to God and others; it forgives others as we have been forgiven by God and as we wish others to forgive us. Trusting faith asks to be protected from anything we cannot bear “deliver us from the time of trial... temptation... and from evil.”
Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would teach the disciples (and us through them) what to say when they were called upon to witness. [Lk.12:12]. The Lord would help them remember what Christ had taught them [Jn.14:25]. Faith trusts that God is with us, knows what is best and works to bring it about. But faith also requires our own determination to work at belief, even when it is a struggle, and to act in response. Faith is not just a passive set of beliefs that we hold in our minds; it calls us to step out in faith to live and witness for God, undergirded by Christ’s teachings and example and guided and strengthened by God’s Spirit.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How practical and active is your faith? Are there areas where doubts or lack of trust hold you back from being active as a follower of Christ? How might you overcome these?
25/ Friday - PEACEMAKING – Mtt.5:9
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” [Matt.5:9].
So many people today long for peace, yet there are many places of conflict in the world and in society, even in the Church. The contemporary political, social and economic ethos often encourages the promotion of power at the expense of others. Many more political leaders want to assert themselves or attain dominance by their use of power than to be peacemakers who attempt to create an equitable situation of peace and unity. It is easy for many to talk ‘Peace’, just as it is easy to pretend to the Christianity faith; but fewer people truly want to work at the way of peace, just as a limited number allow God and God’s way to be the motivation for their lives.
Jesus’ concept of peace and peace-making was not a quiet, inactive pacifism. In one of the most difficult passages of his teaching, he recognised that his message of bringing truth, righteousness and justice would divide people who had different priorities: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother... and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household...” [Mtt.10:34-39]. Even families would find themselves divided by his message, as has proved true throughout Christian history. The militaristic imagery of some aspects of scripture is also uncomfortable, as when, for example Jesus is pictured as a warrior in Revelation [Rev.19:11-21]. How literally we are meant to take such imagery is difficult to interpret. At different times in history it has led to militarism encouraged by the Church, which has not always been characterised by righteousness, particularly at the times of the crusades, papal armies being sent out against those considered to be heretics, Reformation and Counter-Reformation battles and tortures, and Christian justifications for wars throughout the centuries. Peace and peaceful reconciliations are ideals for which we should always aim, strive and work, since ALL human life is precious. But the Church should also always be working to promote truth, justice and equity. When St. Paul used the imagery of ‘fighting the good fight [1Tim1:18; 6:12; 2tim4:7], ‘putting on the armour of light’ [Rom.13:12] and the writer of Ephesians encouraged Christians to ‘put on the whole armour of God...’ [Eph.6:11f.], the writers were not encouraging militaristic fighting but engaging in a spiritual struggle for truth and the peaceful Kingdom of God. God’s Kingdom will never be attained through murderous crusades.
The ‘Pax Romana’ was maintained largely by threat. The power the Roman Empire deterred rebellion. For centuries the Church similarly maintained social stability by threats of persecution or physical or legal battles against any who disagreed with it or had different practices, ideas or doctrines. Peace-making in contemporary Christian communities should be attained by more loving means than antagonism. New Testament church leaders called for disputing parties to be reconciled in love [Rom.5:10; 1Cor.7:11; Eph.2:16]. We also have a ministry of bringing about reconciliation between others and God. [2Cor.5:18-19]
Too many times, in world history and the contemporary world, working for truth is based on ‘standing for one’s rights’, ‘extracting compensation for injustices’ and ‘revenge’. The Bible does not say much about human rights; it recognises the value of all in God’s eyes and calls for the weak, disadvantaged and unrepresented in society to be supported, but it does not emphasise that any of us have ‘rights’. Rights are a more humanistic concept. The Hebrew Scriptures assert that God has certain rights: to recognition of divine supremacy, to obedience, worship and praise. But in our lives God rarely asserts those rights; God’s dealing with humankind is more often a request for recognition and involvement. God calls on the better sides of our nature rather than asserting obligations. That is how peacemakers often work best, not by asserting military or judicial rights but by working on the consciences of disputing parties, asking people to recognise the truth of situations, and moving them to reconciliation.
Are there areas of your own life and relationships, or relationships within your community or church, which would benefit from you stepping in as a peacemaker? Peace-making is rarely a speedy process, even if all parties involved want peace. Past resentments can run deep and have complex, inter-tangled roots. Long-lasting peace-making requires grace, mercy, a forgiveness of the past and a recognition and acceptance of sometimes terrible sins. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa is a positive example of where this worked. Too often disputing parties, even among churches, do not model such patience. Divisions between different churches, theological positions, liturgical practices, even tastes for styles of worship can cause rifts which damage terribly the witness of Christian churches. Similarly failure to admit where we have gone wrong can cause long-lasting spiritual damage and destruction of our reputation and witness, as in the failure of churches to deal with situations of abuse by clergy or other prominent leaders.
Christ’s own example of peace-making is characterised and most clearly exemplified at the time of his Passion: He protected the disciples at his arrest, refused to be drawn into arguments during his trials, called from the Cross for the forgiveness of his persecutors, and ultimately achieved reconciliation between humankind and God. In bringing peace and unity to our world there is the possibility that many peacemakers may suffer, be misunderstood, or feel that they have failed, but this is a ministry to which all Christians and Christian churches are called. Blessing is to be found through such involvement in God’s mission of reconciling and uniting. We aim to can overcome the difficulties, make people’s frustrations lighter and hopefully restore fellowship, oneness and the uniting of people within Christ’s body and the Kingdom of God: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” [Matt.5:9].
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What situations surround you, in which you might most effectively work as a peacemaker, and how might you most effectively help in reconciliation?
26/ Saturday – WISDOM
“Everyone who hears my words and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house upon a rock....” [Matt.7:24]
Wisdom is a key quality for us to develop as Christians. Jesus’ parable of the Wise Man Building his House upon the Rock emphasises our need for wisdom and founding our lives upon truth, which can assure us of lasting stability [Matt.7:24-27]. For Israel, Solomon was the type of perfect wisdom, choosing wisdom above all other qualities for his leadership [1Ki.3:3-14]. That is why the wisdom books in the Bible were attributed to or ascribed as being by him, though probably compiled far later. Jesus used Solomon as a symbol of himself and the importance of his own teaching and leadership: “The queen of the south... came from the extremities of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here”. [Matt.12:42; Lk.11:31]. With these two great examples, all Jesus’ followers are recommended to seeking wisdom through Christ.
God’s Spirit was regarded as the source of wisdom: he inspired and gifted Solomon and filled and led the prophets. That may be one reason why from the beginning of his ministry all the gospels emphasise that the Holy Spirit rested on Jesus [Matt.3:6; Mk.1:10, Lk.3:22; Jn.1:32]; his source of wisdom was being emphasised to come from God. Luke records that as a child Jesus “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom” [Lk.2:40; 52]. When Matthew and Mark speak of the crowd saying of Jesus “Were did this man get his wisdom?” [Matt.13:54; Mk.6:2], they intend their readers to recognise that the origin of his teaching was in God. The Gospel of John does not use the word ‘wisdom’ but it is clear from the emphasis throughout on Jesus as ‘The Word’ is that he was being equated with the wisdom of God. Throughout his ministry, Christ is shown to have been exercising divinely inspired wisdom, discernment and rightness of action.
In Luke 11:49, Jesus used the phrase ‘the Wisdom of God’ in declaring ‘woes’ to the religious leaders of his time. Their ancestors, he claimed, had persecuted and killed the prophets who God had sent to them. Now “the wisdom of God” would send the world “prophets and apostles” who they would also slay and persecute. He seems to have been indicating that this related to himself and his followers. This could contain a warning and an encouragement to the Christ’s Church. We must be careful to discern and emulate those who follow the wisdom of God, not become equated with those who persecute people who are genuinely inspired by God. Sadly church history shows that this has not always been the case. Too often Spirit-inspired innovators and reformers, following Christ’s lead in the search for wisdom, have been rejected even killed by religious institutions. Some religious people today are intent like the scribes and Pharisees on maintaining their dominance or believe themselves to be sole arbiters of truth. Christians of different persuasions still sometimes act with hostility towards sincere believers who have varied views or practices to their own. Wisdom should encourage us to learn from the insights and spiritual experience of others, not unthinkingly reject difference.
Jesus promised that he would send his followers the Holy Spirit, who would lead them to wisdom and discernment: “For I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” [Lk.21:15]. John’s Gospel reiterated that Christ’s Spirit-filled followers would “know the Spirit of truth” [Jn.14:17], “remember Christ’s teaching” and teach them further [Jn14:26]. They would also be given the wisdom and knowledge to communicate Christ’s message effectively [16:13]. Often today the Church encourages members to learn to communicate using business and educational practices. But, while our understanding can learn from these, we, like the disciples sent by Christ must “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” [Matt.10:16]. Sadly some business practices and church practices are ‘wise as serpents’ yet lack the ‘innocence’! Jesus’ reference to serpents did not encourage cunning or dissembling - the trick of the serpent in the Eden legend. Unfortunately some religious as well as political and business leaders, in our past history and even today, have demonstrated too much cunning, dissembling and duplicity. This damages the work and witness of the truth, as untruth cannot build the Kingdom of God. Jesus intended us, as his followers, to gain wise, righteous and spiritual discernment, to know how to act, speak and witness effectively in persuasive ways. His disciples were to become and remain as pure, peace-making, lovingly committed and perfect in spirit as the dove. Wisdom is a quality that should lead to purity not corruption [Ps.37:30; Prov.2:10, 12; 8:12; 10:31; 14:6].
Not everything is found through intellectual wisdom. Much about faith does not stand up to reason. Jesus recognised this when he prayed: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things form the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants”[Matt.11:25]. St. Paul recognised this too, when he wrote: “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom... not many of you were wise by human standards... But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the strong...” [1Cor.26-27]. Paul characterised this in his own ministry, claiming not to speak arrogantly in his mission and not to rely on God’s Spirit, not on his human wisdom and intellectual background in persuading people to accept faith [1Cor.1:17]. He prayed for the riches of wisdom and spiritual knowledge to be given to those to whom he ministered [Rom.11:33; 5:14; 1Cor.13:2; 2Cor.4:6; 6:6; Phil.1:9; Col.1:9-10; 1Tim.2:4; Tit.1:1]. Paul also warned Christians not to claim to be wiser than they are [Rom.11:25; 12:6]. Wisdom, he claimed, was to be found in Christ, “who became for us the wisdom of God... Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” [1Cor.1:30-31].
Wisdom is more practical than intellectual head knowledge or even mental understanding; it is the discernment to do what is right and act upon our knowledge. We sometimes talk of ‘praxis’ - putting into practice our beliefs. Wisdom is even more than practising what we preach; it involves applying the depth of our spirit-guided understanding and insight to work effectively for the good of the majority. Most of us judge by appearances, which can easily deceive, but scripture uses the imagery of God looking right into the human heart. The emphasis of the biblical Wisdom Books is that God implants wisdom in the human heart and true wisdom is only possible if we are acting upon that wisdom in following righteous ways [Ps.51:6; 90:12; Prov.2:10; 14:33; 24:14].
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How wise do you feel when you consider how your faith works out practically in your life? Perhaps pray like Solomon for wisdom that will be of practical use in all areas of your life and ministry.
WEEK 5: OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST
27/ Sunday – SON
“No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son.” [Matt.11:27]
Millions of words have been written on this term ‘son’, which Jesus used of himself. He was condemned partly for claiming sonship with God. People have been branded heretics according to how they interpret Jesus’ relationship with God. Others have been martyred or gone to war over it; doctrines are based on it. Yet Jesus didn’t explain it. We must recognise that the Gospels were written with the Evangelists’ intention of making certain claims about Jesus. So they may have been interpolating their own ideas or putting words into his mouth or into and those of his followers to emphasise their own interpretation of who he was. The Gospels record that Jesus used the term “Son of Man” of himself [Matt.8:20; 9:6; 10:23]. Some others called him the “Son of David” [Matt.1:1; 9:27; 12:23]; this term was partly associated with the expected Messiah [Matt.12:21; 21:9; 22:42]. Nathaniel concluded that he was the “Son of God” [Jn.1:49]. Peter proclaimed that he was “the Messiah, the Son of living God” [Matt.16:16] and “the Holy One of God” [Jn.6:69]. Martha came to the same conclusion: “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world”. [Jn.11:27].
The title ‘Son of Man’ does not necessarily mean that Jesus was the divine Son of God; it is sometimes used in scripture to speak of a representative of humankind. It is an address that recurs throughout Ezekiel when God addressed the prophet as ‘Son of Man: [Ezek.2:1-3, 6, 8: 3:1-4, 10, 17, 25 etc.]. But Jesus seems to have used the term far more specifically, implying that he was more than a representative of humankind. In many places in the Gospels the term ‘Son of Man’ is directly related to the role of the Messiah [Matt.1:1; 16:16; 26:63; Jn.11:27]. Matthew’s Gospel frequently says that Jesus used the term in its messianic sense: [Matt. 10:23; 11:19; 12:8, 32, 40; 13:41; 16:13, 17:9, 22; 19:28; 20:18, 28: 24:30, 39-39; 40; 25:31; 26:2, 24, 45]. Mark and Luke use the term with the same messianic implication. He is seen as far more than just a human redeemer; he is regarded as having divine origins: “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” [Lk.6:5]... “From now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of God”... “Are you then the Son of God?” [Lk.22:69-70]. In John’s Gospel the terms ‘Son of Man’ and ‘Son of God’ are used almost synonymously: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the king of Israel” is followed almost immediately by: “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” [Jn.1:49-51].
In the wilderness Jesus was tempted to test his position: “if you are the Son of God command these stones to become bread...” [Matt.4:3], and demons supposedly witnessed to it: “You are the Son of God...” [Mk.3:11]; “Jesus, Son of the Most High God...” [Lk.8:28]. At his baptism and Transfiguration a voice from heaven is recorded to have attested: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased, listen to him!” [Matt.3:17; 17:5].
How we interpret Jesus’ call for us to be ‘one with him as he is one with the Father’ [Jn.17:11, 22-23] might depend on our own interpretation of how he regarded his relationship with God. Jesus talked of himself doing his Father’s business [Lk.20:49; ]; doing “only what he sees the Father doing... whatever the Father does the son does” [Jn.5:19; 10:32, 37; 15:10; ]. He claimed to speak and pass on to his disciples what he heard from the Father [Matt.10:20; Jn.5:36; 8:28, 38; Jn.12:50; 15:15]. Only in Mk.14:36 is Jesus recorded as using the term “Abba”/ ‘Daddy’ in his prayers, but this call, expressing the intimacy and dependence of a child, was taken up by St. Paul to describe our own relationship with God through Christ in Rom.8:15 and Gal.4:6: “you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry ‘Abba!’ ‘Father!’ it is that spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” and “because you are children, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying ‘Abba!’ ‘Father!’”
John’s Gospel sought to identify more clearly the relationship of Jesus with the God he called his ‘Father’: Jesus is spoken of as: being ‘close to the Father’s heart’ [Jn.1:18]; he ‘came from the Father’ [Jn.16:28] and was one with the Father [Jn.17:21; he had life because “the Father has life in himself.”[Jn.26:36] He ‘lives because of the Father’ [Jn.6:57]; the Father would ‘do what I ask’ [Jn.14:16; 15:16]. But he recognised “the Father is greater than I” [Jn.14:28]. He came ‘in his Father’s name’ [Jn.5:43] and God ‘set his seal on him’ [Jn.6:27]. He would send the Spirit from the Father [Jn.15:26]. He loved people as the Father loved [Jn.15:9]. He would return to the Father to prepare a place for his followers [Jn.13:1; 14:2-6]. He claimed a special, perhaps exclusive way of bringing people to the Father [Jn.14:6]. He was in the Father and the Father was in him [Jn14:10-11] and the Father was glorified through him [Jn.14:13].Those who had seen him had seen the Father [14:9]. His biggest claim was “The Father and I are one... The Father is in me and I am in the Father” [Jn.10:10. 38], which is the furthest Jesus went in declaring his divinity.
Even accepting that there may have been exaggerated interpretations or interpolations by the Gospel writers, Jesus had a very distinctive relationship with God. For many believers it is enough to accept the orthodox conclusion, wrestled with through years of debate since the early Church that defines Jesus as “fully Man and fully God”. Yet how Jesus relates to God remains hotly debated and mysterious. It is perhaps for the individual believer to conceive how they understand Jesus to have represented God in human form. Traditionally we confess what the early Church creeds say. These were written to consolidate belief when other interpretations of faith were deemed as heretical. The rather elaborate formula: “God from God, light from light, true God from true God...” in the Nicene Creed, for example, was composed to affirm and protect understanding of the nature of Christ against various interpretations that were circulating at the time. (‘Adoptionism’ for example, was the idea that Jesus did not originate in God, but had a human birth and was then ‘adopted’ into God.) . “Proceeding from the Father and the Son...” was similarly formulated to confirm the origin of the Holy Spirit.
As belief in the Trinity and the doctrines associated with it developed the Church throughout time has been committed to maintaining the orthodox concept that Christ shares his nature and essence with the Father and the Spirit. But scripture never defines this. The Creedal formulation: “Three persons in one God” used the Greek term ‘persona’, which was the mask used to designate a character in Greek theatre. It is not a term found in the New Testament. By this term, the one God is suggested to be self-revealing through three distinct ‘persona’ / ‘persons’: Creator /Father; Redeemer / Son, and Spiritual Power / Holy Spirit. But even this imagery seems like a metaphor – using the limited nature of human words to attempt to scratch the surface of understanding a mystery.
While protecting against the possibility of heresy, Christians have to admit that we do not understand exactly in what way Jesus was ‘Son of God’. What matters most is that we believe that Jesus spoke the truth and acted as God’s representative. Those Christians who find it difficult to believe, or get their minds around the idea that Jesus was actually ‘God incarnate’, sometimes find it more comfortable to accept that Jesus was ‘God’s revelation of himself through a human life’. They will often recognise that he gave teaching which can lead us to authentic value, encourage righteous activity and awaken our spirituality in ways that are far more life-giving than most other philosophies and lifestyles. As Simon Peter said, when asked whether he too would abandon following Jesus: “Where else should we go? You have the words of eternal life!” [Jn.6:68]. Though that is a reasoned and reasonable conclusion, it doesn’t go quite as far in explaining Jesus’ relationship to the Father as the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.
When we develop a relationship with God through Christ, we come to share, ‘in him’, as part of ‘his body’, some of the relationship with God that he enjoyed and encouraged us to live by. St. Paul attests to this and encourages us to live in such ways that we act and relate to God in the ways that Christ opened up for us. Through living by the Spirit we should recognise our present and future inheritance and live free from sin and fear: “ All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry ‘Abba!’ ‘Father!’ it is that spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” [Rom.8:14-15].... “Because you are children, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying ‘Abba!’ ‘Father!’ o you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child the also an heir, through God.” [Gal.4:6].
It is wonderful to think that we share the close relationship with God that Jesus brought about for us. In salvation God, through Christ, has united us with him in a spirit of 'adoption' and 'sonship' as St. Paul describes it, or to be less gender-specific - 'kinship'. Yet our relationship with God remains very different from Christ's relationship with his Father. Thomas Aquinas pointed out that "God is more distant from any creature than any two creatures are from each other" [Summa Theologiae 1a.13, 5 & 65]. We are saved and promised God's Kingdom, but we are 'creatures', not divine. So as 'children of God' our relationship of oneness with Jesus and with our Father - our divine source - reflects that special relationship between Christ and his Father, but is more an analogy to Jesus' sonship than identical to it. To me this explanation seems to make sense. All the imagery we use for God like Father, Judge, Love, Shepherd etc. is an analogy, using human metaphors and images to help us begin to understand whatever the truth of God actually is, in the spiritual dimension which must be so different from ours. Aquinas tried to explain analogies between us and God in this way: ‘Any creature, in so far as it possesses any perfection, represents God and is like to him, for he is simply and universally perfect’ and is the source of perfection in all God’s creatures [Summa Theologiae 1a.13, 2]. So we, as followers of Christ’s way are ‘children of God ‘, even though we do not act perfectly, and are in a rather different relationship of unity with God than Christ. Still, our relationship with God is precious and infinitely valuable; it is to be followed, enjoyed and an lead to abundant life. This relationship was brought about somehow by all that Jesus did with his life.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How sincerely do you live up to your relationship as a ‘child of God’? How might Christ’s teaching and his Spirit’s leading help you to fulfil that sense of ‘adoption’ and ‘freedom’ which could help you be a more sincere disciple and feel the ‘Abba’-like intimacy towards God that Jesus opened up for us?
28/ Monday – TEACHER – Jn.13:13
“If I, your Teacher and Lord have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. [Jn.13:14].
While the former meditation considered the close relationship with God into which we have been adopted through Christ, we should not regard Jesus or the Father in an intimate ‘buddyish’ way. God is still our LORD and Jesus acknowledged himself as our ‘teacher and Lord”. [Jn.13:14]. I have already written about some aspects of Jesus as ‘teacher’ or ‘Rabbi’ in considering the word ‘learn’ [Meditation 10]. But here I will consider aspects of how Jesus taught, which might help us in our own discipleship and our ability to share and grow in faith.
Jesus was often recorded as ‘teaching with authority’ [Matt.7:29; 9:8; Mk.1:22, 27; Lk.4:32, 36]. This is not about being an authoritarian or didactic leader: he was recognised as having the truth. This was partly because people recognised there was truth in his words, but also, in a large part, because he was seen to live in a way that authenticated what he said. Jesus also regularly made claims to have God-given authority [Matt.9:6; Mk.2:10; 3:15; Lk.5:24; Jn.17:2], but he taught with a humility that did not used his relationship with God for self- aggrandisement [Phil.2:5-7]. Nor did he use his authority in a negative authoritarian fashion. Rather he taught by giving the example of servanthood, as in washing the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper [Jn.13:5-7]. He explained that this action was a model for all Christians to follow: “You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Teacher and Lord have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things you are blessed if you do them.” [Jn.13:13-16]. His example encouraged us to be willing to service in whatever way is necessary, even if just required in menial tasks. We do not always need to be involved in important things which might falsely boost our ego.
If Christ is our teacher and example, true discipleship should respond by being ‘teachable’. As a former teacher in schools and colleges, I can clearly remember those of my students who were keen to be taught and those who did not want to exert themselves. Churches are not unlike schools in this respect. Some Christians are keen to advance themselves as disciples, some do not want to make any effort whatsoever to be better people or disciples. Some even live as though God is not their Lord in any way that made a difference to their lives. The great majority of people in many church congregations are in between: neither enthusiastic nor neglectful of their faith. We do have to be careful of being too bland in our faith as warned by Christ’s message to the members of the Church of Laodicea in the Book of Revelation: “I know your works, they are neither cold not hot... So because you are lukewarm I am going to spit you out of my mouth. For you say I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing... I counsel you to buy form me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich... I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking: if you hear my voice and open the door I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me...” [Rev.3:15-22].
Jesus acknowledged in his parables that not everyone would respond to his teaching as seriously or rigorously as he intended. “Those who have ears let them hear” was his regular call [Matt.11:15; 13:9, 15, 43; Mk.4:9. 23; 8:18; Lk.8:8; 9:44; 14:23]. He acknowledged that he spoke in parables partly to hide his meaning from those who did not want to hear [] but he also used his parables to make his teaching memorable. In John’s Gospel particularly people regularly ask Jesus “What do you mean?” [Jn.7:36; 8:22, 33; 16:17-19]. The more we meditate on the meanings of Jesus’ parables, the more meaning we can find in them, despite the apparent simplicity of some of the stories. Would you be able to explain your faith as memorably as Jesus did?
Jesus appeared to teach from deep and direct knowledge about that which he taught. Being in his early 30s he was very young to have been so wise as a Rabbi. In his culture, age was considered to be the source of wisdom. But Jesus’ background and experience gave him spiritual wisdom deeper than that of his elders.
His teaching also derived from his inner knowledge into people. How much this was divine insight and how much was due to psychological understanding we cannot be sure. When he met strangers for the first time, he certainly seems to have had insight into their lives that went far beyond what could be gleaned from first acquaintance. We see this in his comments to Nathaniel and to the Samaritan woman at the well and her fellow citizens, to whom he revealed details that might not have been easily discernible: [Jn.1:47-51; 4:16-19, 29, 39-42].
Part of Jesus’ authority’ may also have bees sensed from how he taught in ways that many people understood and remembered. Among the qualities of some of the greatest scientists are their abilities to communicate and explain complex ideas in ways that many can understand. A theoretical boffin might not be able to do this. Jesus’ parables used images from the everyday life of his hearers as metaphors to explain theological truths clearly - sowing seed, harvest and labouring, landowners, tenants and servants etc. He also used exaggeration to make his teaching memorable - the camel through the eye of a needle, the murder of the landowner’s son, the desolation of the Prodigal Son feeding among swine (unthinkable for a Jew). Probably his teaching about hell and demons, which built on popular contemporary superstition was also part of this over-emphasis to make his spiritual point and warnings clear, vivid and easy to recall and for his disciples to repeat. Though his imagery, metaphors and stories were intentionally memorable, there was also something cryptic within them. We are frequently told that his hearers, even the disciples did not always discern the meaning and implications behind his message.
It appears to have been only later, after his death and perhaps with the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, that the disciples gained insight into some of the parables. The Spirit is an essential part of Jesus’ teaching. Whilst Jesus had insight into people’s lives, the Spirit would take his teaching, help his hearers remember, and guide them to be able to interpret and learn. Jesus promised this in the discourses before his death: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you” [Jn.14:26]... “I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the word wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement... I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come...” [Jn.16:7-13]. The Holy Spirit within us continues to be an essential part of our growth in knowledge, understanding and practical discipleship, just as he was for the early Church.
Good teachers need an up-to date, ever-expanding knowledge of their subject, in order to advance their students and start their charges on the path to maturity and depth of understanding. Unfortunately many ministers in the Church throughout history have been content to leave their congregations with relatively infantile faiths, in order to seem superior to those to whom they minister. Rather than encouraging ignorance and dependency, those of us in ministry should surely always be trying to form our fellow Christians into better disciples than ourselves and advance their knowledge of faith as far as they are able to comprehend. It is only personal insecurity that makes a teacher wish to be regarded as superior to their students or congregation. As an art teacher and lecturer my ambition was to form and inspire students who could become better artists than myself. As a church minister I want my congregations to become more sincere Christ-followers than myself. To neglect bringing them to maturity of faith would be a neglect of our calling and responsibility. The same is true of the responsibility of any of us as Christians. We are all responsible for bringing some to a greater faith.
The best teachers need an ability to communicate in memorable ways, and to be able to explain in ways that help their followers to learn, to want to learn, and to expand knowledge and righteousness. Jesus seems to have attracted even those who were slow in understanding and challenge those who did not want to be challenged. He created a thirst for spiritual truth in many people. He also persisted with his disciples despite the rashness and brash mistakes of Peter, the misdirected ambition of James and John, the questioning of Thomas etc. Nicodemus had difficulty in coming to believe, but by the end of Jesus ministry he too was a disciple. Despite his frustration with his band of disciples, he formed them into a body that could teach his message to the world beyond.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Would you be able to explain your faith as memorably as Jesus did?
In what ways do you thirst to further learn your faith and be able to build in others an even greater faith than your own?
29/ Tuesday – BROTHERS/SISTERS/SIBLINGS & FRIENDS
“Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, is my brother and sister and mother” [Matt.12:50] ... “I do not call you servants any longer... .I have called you friends” [Jn.15:15]
cf. Mk.3:35; 1Tim.5:1
The human nature of Jesus is one of the major links to him, which we share. New Testament theology emphasises that we are connected through God’s decision to share our humanity. Jesus was able to deal with sin on our behalf because he shared our nature, was able to show us how to live righteously by doing so himself, and, in some way that we don’t fully understand, was able to give his life instead of us. He was able to make us able to be viewed by God as cleansed and perfect because he was ‘perfected through suffering’ [Heb.2:10]. No other substitute could achieve that.
We are told that Jesus had brothers and perhaps sisters [Matt.12:46-50; Mk.3:31-3:35; Lk.8:20-21; Jn.7:3-5]. I have discussed the potential meaning of these in my Advent Meditations . Jesus’ ‘brothers’ mentioned in Mk.6:3; Matt.13:55-56 and Jn.7:5 use the term ‘adelphoì’ for ‘brothers’. I personally have come to the conclusion that they were direct siblings, but the Greek word could also mean ‘cousins’, ‘close relatives’ or even ‘close friends’. In the context of Chris’s family, it would seem to be intended to indicate that they were direct, close siblings. In Christian tradition the author of Jude was traditionally said to be Jesus’ brother Judas (not Iscariot), and his brother James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. The emphasis of Christ’s teaching, however, is not on the importance of family ties, but the oneness with Christ shared by all who truly follow him: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” [Mk.3:35; Matt.12:50].
Jesus’ teaching on true fellowship and discipleship, and the Parable of the Good Samaritan clarify that our ‘brothers, sisters, mothers’ and ‘neighbours’ include the whole world. We are each meant to feel a sense of responsibility for all, and be “our brother’s keeper” in the universal sense [Gen.4:9].
A closer and rather different kinship and fellowship, however, is the bond which is meant to exist between those who share faith and who work together as part of the ‘body of Christ’ [1Cor.12:12-27]. There is equality in this relationship, as St Paul emphasised. The metaphorical ‘foot’, ‘hand’, ‘ear’, ‘eye’ and more ‘modest members’ are all of equal value in the body and mission of Christ. Even then, Jesus’ words that ‘those who obey his commands are his brothers and sisters’ [Mk.3:35; Matt.12:50] emphasise that fellowship with Christ by faith and true discipleship are far more significant than either blood ties or shared fellowship in a congregation.
True Christian fellowship is dependent on our authenticity and integrity. We are told to ‘walk in the light while we have the light’ [Jn.12:35; 1Jn.1:7]. 1Jn.2:9-11 emphasises that “darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says “I am in the light” while hating his brother or sister is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling.” ‘Agape’-love, like the self-giving of Christ is what should identify us in our relationship with God through Christ and with our fellow Christians. This relationship is even more personally committed than the Greek concept of ‘philadelphia’ / ‘brotherly love’. In few, if any, world religions are saviours or God also regarded as in intimate friendship or kinship with believers, as in the relationship possible between Christians and Christ.
When Jesus said that those who obey his commands are his brothers and sisters [Matt.12:50; Mk.3:35], he promised a link with us that also links us to God, as he was linked to God. His prayer in Jn.17 asks for us to be one with him as he is one with the Father: “May they all be one. As you, Father are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us...” [Jn.17:21]. We are not ‘children of God’ in the same way as Christ was, of course. But the fellowship with spiritual truth, which Jesus promised to us, is an assurance that is even stronger than the covenant commitments of Hebrew history.
While fellowship with Christ should be accompanied by our covenant commitment of authentic discipleship, it does not depend on our social position, individual gifts, skills, background or intellect. In Jesus’ teaching, those with wealth, social standing, success or even intellectual or theological knowledge are in fact more likely to find discipleship difficult and challenging [Matt.19:23]. Our only qualifications are those which God accredits to us. As St. Paul wrote: “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters; not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us the wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” [1Cor.1:26-30].
The term ‘friend’ [Jn.15:15] is also a great award and privilege, which leaves us with a similar responsibility to that of a sibling. Friendship with God is a rare thing in religion. As divine powers are so much above and beyond us, awe, reverence and a sense of being separate from God’s ‘otherness’ would seem more appropriate. Yet a relationship with a loving God is closer than feeling distant. As ‘Lord’, Christ, like God, could demand our service rather than friendship.
In the Bible very few people are considered to be ‘friends of God’. The term is accredited to Moses who is described as talking with God “as a man speaks to a friend.” [Ex.33:11]. Abraham was described as God’s friend [2Chron.20:7]. But elsewhere in Jewish literature the attitude to God, even when regarding God as a Father and loving carer, the attitude is usually one of awe and service, not intimate friendship. The friendship between Jesus and his disciples, and the relationship which Jesus had with his Father God, are far more intimate than anything in the Hebrew Scriptures. When Jesus claimed “I am the vine and you are the branches” [Jn.15:5] he implied a far greater link between God and us than was previously felt. He made us ‘part of his body’; we live ‘in him’. Do you feel that closeness of connection both with him and with other Christians? Do we live it out as animatedly as the New Testament encourages us to do? I once worked in a church with a Christian colleague who claimed: “I don’t work through friendship; you work for me.” That was a completely wrong attitude to working together in the body of Christ; it probably grew out of personal insecurity, and the need to be regarded as ‘boss’. If working with Christ for a common goal of the Kingdom of God is regarded as a relationship of friendship, so should be our common work together as equal members of the body of Christ.
For Christ to call us ‘friends’, is a huge privilege. His statement: “I have called you friends” [Jn.15:15] comes from the final discourses when Jesus was preparing his disciples for his death and their subsequent continuation of his ministry. He explained that such friendship is based on a reciprocal covenant commitment: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. I am giving you these commandments so that you may love one another” [Jn.15:12-17]. Some scholars believe that the editor of John’s Gospel added the central part of this teaching, “so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name” but it is certainly in line with Jesus’ confident message in the Gospels.
Friendship, like kinship with Christ makes requirements of us to become involved in his mission, in whatever way we are called. It is not a feeling of being relaxed and matey in our attitude towards God; it is a sense of accepting the responsibility in our covenant relationship. We are meant to bear spiritual and practical fruit, as well as to obey the teaching which Christ has given to us. Although “a servant does not know what the master is doing” Jesus had trusted his disciples, despite their limitations, emphasising that he had: ‘made known to them everything that he heard from his father’ [Jn.15:15].
True friendship is demanding. Jesus expected his true friends to follow his commands and expectations of them: “You are my friends if you do what I command you” [Jn.15:14]. True friendship is self-sacrificial for the good of others: “Greater love has no one than this; that they lay down their life for their friends.” [Jn.15:13]. Jesus’ own life was the perfect example of this. He does not always expect us to make ourselves martyrs, though some do suffer in following their faith, and the early church began to believe that martyrdom was to be sought to ensure salvation and enjoy rewards beyond death. Thankfully we now recognise that deliberate self-sacrifice is not necessarily a Christian virtue. In some cases seeking martyrdom became a self-centred attitude. But self-sacrificial ‘agape’-love should be willing to do whatever is necessary for the support of others.
Human friends cannot always be relied upon. The Wisdom Books in scripture bemoaned deceitfulness or abandonment by friends [Ps.41:9; 55:13; Prov.19:4; 27:6]. Jesus encountered this himself, when many followers began to abandon him as his teaching became more challenging and particularly after his arrest when his disciples scattered and Peter denied his friendship out of fear. Yet Christ understood the limitation of our human character thoroughly; he forgave Peter and used Peter’s recognition of his failure as a foundation on which to build and strengthen his later leadership of the Church [Jn.21:15-19]. It would be wonderful if after recognising and repenting of our own failures in discipleship we too might become as strong as Peter in following God and in mission. If we felt a stronger sense that Christ trusts us as his friends, this might encourage more committed discipleship.
Holy Week is an important model of committed love, and the supreme display of how Jesus regarded those whom he loved. He taught and prepared his disciples for his leaving them, even though he must have had such intense struggle his own mind over the fate that by now he knew was coming to him. Instead of turning in on himself in self-pity, raging against all that he sensed was coming and against the divisiveness and abandonment of people, he maintained his outgoing sense of love. As he approached the Last Supper he assured his friends that he had “earnestly desired to celebrate this feast with them” [Lk.22:15]. He showed them how to live by friendship in giving them the example of servanthood by washing their feet [Jn.13:1-10]. He protected his disciples in the scuffle that accompanied his arrest [Jn.18:9-11]. He expressed loving care for the weeping women of Jerusalem on the route to Calvary [Lk.23:28], forgave his persecutors from the Cross [Lk.23:34] and lovingly gave his mother and his beloved disciple John into each other’s care [Jn.19:26].
Friendship is a reciprocal relationship. Jesus emphasised to his followers that not all who called him “Lord” were his true followers [Matt.7:21-22]: his “friends” are those who obey his word. Having given us his example of friendship, we too should follow his model.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Do you regard your relationship with Christ as ‘friendship’? If so, do you obey his commands and how might you better reciprocate his friendship towards you?
30/ Wednesday – FATHER
“My Father is still working and I am working” [Jn.5:17]... “I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father...” [Jn.14:31]... “as the Father sent me , so I send you” [Jn.20:21]
In praying for his disciples’ future in Jn.17, Jesus prayed that they might have a similar relationship with his Father as he had himself [Jn.17:20-23].
In western Christianity we have become so familiar with calling God ‘Father’ and its use in the opening of the Lord’s Prayer that we may forget how revolutionary it was when Jesus introduced the practice. God had always been distant, approached with fear, awe and respect. Even the Hebrew names for God, especially YHWH / Yahweh / Jehovah, but also Elohim / Lord were treated with particular respect. Occasionally God was mentioned as the parent of his people in the Hebrew Scriptures, but this imagery primarily regarded God’s parenthood as a position demanding respect, far more than a relationship of intimacy [Deut.32:6; Ps.2:7; 89:26; Isa.63:16; 64:8; Jer.3:4, 19].
Jesus’ address to God as ‘Father’ or more intimately using the Aramaic word ‘Abba’ / ‘Daddy’, implied a greater closeness of relationship [Mk.14:36]. This would have been shocking to many of the most devout Hebrew believers and worshippers in many other ancient cultures. God had been revealed as the ‘Father’ of the Jewish nation through the above scriptures. The difference that Jesus made was to help believers to come closer in relationship to the God he knew as ‘Father’. By encouraging his followers to pray using the name ‘Father’ he was drawing others into a more intimate relationship with God. It was not meant to develop over-familiarity however. Jesus’ teaching also encouraged disciples to be in awe of God. He often spoke of God as judge, landowner, and punisher of wickedness in ways that demanded respect.
Relationships with fathers in the ancient Near-East were not as intimate and relaxed as the term ‘Abba’ implies, or modern concepts of a close relationship with ‘Daddy’. As the head of a household, provider for the family, maker of decisions, leader of the family’s worship and corporate life the father was the lead figure, demanding respect and obedience. When Jesus told the Parable of the Prodigal Son his listeners would have been far more shocked than we are today that a son might go against his father and demand his inheritance early. Lack of respect of age, wisdom, authority and tradition would have been disturbing; the son would probably have been regarded as a disgrace, unworthy of being welcomed back.
In Jesus’ time, human fathers also had the right of decision in the household. The idea that a father might even consider sacrificing his child, as in the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac [Gen.22] shocks us today. It would have done so in Jesus’ time too, although it was seen as a significantly faithful act in Jewish history, culture and faith as Heb.11:17-19. Some modern theologians are uncomfortable with the gender-specific emphasis of the idea of the God to whom Jesus introduced us as ‘Father’. God is of course not ‘male’. The idea of God as a masculine Father-figure would have been significant in the patriarchal background of Ancient Israel. Others find it difficult because they compare God to difficult situations in their own parental backgrounds and uncomfortable aspects of their upbringing. Creator gods were also imagined as female in several ancient cultures, and female or ‘mother’ imagery was used of God in several Hebrew Scriptures. However, despite the value of women in Jewish culture, the masculine imagery used of God would have been accepted as far more appropriate in the Israel for centuries around Jesus’ day.
Abraham’s acceptance of the command to sacrifice Isaac is the most challenging aspect of Abraham’s fatherhood. It is similarly concerning to many that God should be willing to sacrifice Jesus, which is why some try to explain the Cross in different, non-sacrificial terms [cf. Meditation 43]. But in many ancient cultures fathers had the right of disposal of their children - the right to marry them to whom they chose, dispossess or advance them within the hierarchy of the family, even sacrifice them. In legend, despite their paternal feelings the king’s daughter was sacrificed before the Trojan War and Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to fulfil a religious vow [Judg.11-12]. It shocks most today to recognise that in ancient times maintaining responsibilities to God were considered more important than those to family.
When Jesus introduced his followers to the idea of calling God ‘Father’ he was still emphasising that we have a duty of obedience, awe and respect to the source of our identity. Jesus demonstrated this obedience ultimately as he wrestled with his future in prayer in Gethsemane. “Not my will, Father, but yours” was his decision despite his knowledge of his Father’s love for him. We do not know how much of the eternal plan of salvation Jesus understood at each state of his life: If he was ‘fully human’ as well as ‘fully God’ as orthodox doctrine states, his human mind may have had human limitations. His gift of his life would not have been such a self-sacrificial act if he knew for sure that he would soon be raised to life again. But he trusted his Father that what the Father of the world was asking of him was right. He obeyed in filial respect, though the agony of the decision was so great that he sweated blood. (This rare sign of emotional tension known medically as Haematidrosis or haematohidrosis occurs in cases of extreme mental or physical stress or pressure.)
It is important to include in our thoughts the respect and obedience owed to ancient fathers, when we use the terms ‘Father’ or ‘Abba’ in prayer or when we contemplate God. We are not in a chatty relationship of equals, just as the Jewish covenant with God was not an agreement among equals. We are weak, fallible and often fail while God and the eternal truth for which God stands is perfect, infallible and trustworthy if we interpret and follow the truth rightly. (Church- history shows that Christians have too often interpreted and followed what they believe to be God’s will in wrong ways, so we need to apply our faith with extreme care.) The idea of God as trustworthy head of our household, with priority in our decision-making should apply to all areas of our human lives, not just the compartment we call ‘religion’.
Despite its limitations, the ‘Fatherhood of God’ is an important image which Jesus deliberately left for us. Jesus represented God to us as a power for us to relate to intimately. God was also emphasised to be a trustworthy, wise leader, who made decisions on behalf of the human family. As ‘Father’, God was thought of as having powerful parental love for his children, provided for them and was also protective of them. The ‘Father’ also shared aspects of his nature with human beings as his children. So the understanding of God as Father, which Jesus expanded by his own practice and teaching, has drawn us into the possibility of a closer relationship with God. It also helps us to relate to Christ more closely in kinship.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How do you personally relate to the image of God as ‘Father’.
31/ Thursday – KING / KINGDOM – Mtt.6:10;; Mk.1:15; 12:34;
“Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. [Matt.6:10; Lk.11:2].
“The Kingdom of God has come among you” [Matt.12:28; Lk.10:9; 17:21].
I once led a series of weekly studies throughout Lent on the teaching about the Kingdom in scripture, so there is so much more that I am exploring here. Yet, if the balance in the Gospels is true to the emphasis in Christ’s actual mission, he seems to have taught more about God’s Kingdom than he even spoke about love. Matthew’s Gospel primarily uses the phrase ‘Kingdom of Heaven’; Mark, Luke and John use the term ‘Kingdom of God’, but in all Gospels the intended meaning is mostly the same.
Jesus taught is to pray “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. [Matt.6:10; Lk.11:2]. This in essence defines Jesus’ meaning when he taught about God’s Kingdom of heaven. He aimed for humans to live righteously, according to God’s will, in relationship with God and each other as if we are directly in God’s presence in heaven. Scripture suggests several things about God’s Kingdom, but in practice the concept is about living in all ways according to the guidance and will of God. We live in the presence of God’s truth already, yet practically, very few people live as righteously as the image of heaven expects.
Jesus’ response at his trial, when asked whether he regarded himself as a ‘king’ was to emphasise that temporal power was not his ambition: “My Kingdom is not of this world.” [Jn.18:36]. He was not a rival to earthly powers. God’s kingship isn’t about sitting on a throne, ordering around the peoples of the world, expecting adulation and tribute like a despot. The Church should never aim to exercise power in such an autocratic way, though there have been many times in history when clerics have tried to do so. God’s kingship in our lives is meant to be more internal, challenging us to live righteously with God-like, out-going, agape-love. By emulating the humility of Christ we should develop a righteous, humble use of any power, authority, gifts and skills or possessions with which we have been entrusted by God. This in many ways is why the Beatitudes promise the Kingdom of Heaven to those of humble position in society [Matt.5:3-12; Lk.6:20-23].
Dictatorship and ordering all that we do, are not the sort of kingship and lordship that Jesus exemplified, taught or how he intended us to understand God and have a relationship with the Divine. We talk of God ruling the cosmos but God’s rule and Christ’s kingship do not direct the detail of the world in dictatorial ways. The kingship that Jesus exemplified leads the way for us to live as God intended for the best development of the world. God’s Holy Spirit and scripture guide and inspire us to follow Christ’s ways. We are intended to rule our minds and direct our actions to live, think and act, so that the best possible Kingdom-life will result.
Those who authentically follow Christ the King’s ways are worthy of a place in his Kingdom. Jesus described how we do this in practical ways: supporting the needy, feeding the physically and spiritually hungry, welcoming the stranger welcome, caring for the ill oppressed and vulnerable, alleviating the needs of the physically and spiritually poor, exemplifying Christ’s humility, witnessing to the truth effectively. Those who truly live in these ways show that the true nature of Christ is enthroned in their lives. This should be at the heart of what being Christians and being Christ’s body and subjects should be. If we are true subjects of Christ the King, we should imitate him in everything useful, until it becomes second nature to live like the loving, self-giving, holy, just and righteous King of Heaven, who has given us the lead, example and spiritual resources to succeed.
We call God ‘Lord’, and Christ ‘King’; we pray for God’s Spirit to ‘direct, guide and rule’ our life. But actually, don’t most of us, if we’re truly honest, want God to be a ‘constitutional monarch’? Most of us as Christians actually want God to allow us to do what we want? We often make our decisions independently before seeking God’s truth to affirm and bless our ways and planswe might recognise that following Christ’s teaching more closely would be a far better way. Jesus promised: “Those who truly love me will keep my teachings, and my Father will love them, and we will come into their life and dwell with them.” [Jn.14:23].
Although we are very aware of the distance of our world and even the Church from being truly like God’s Kingdom, Jesus teaches that there is more than the promise of the future. He claimed that there are many present aspects of the Kingdom. These include the assurance of salvation through what Christ has already achieved, the recognition that we are constantly in the presence of God and cared for by God, the unity expected between those who follow God’s ways, the importance of maintaining truth and righteousness and following the will of God in our lives.
If we truly want Christ to be king of our lives, for God to truly be Lord, and for God’s Kingdom to be built in the Church and in the world, our resolution for us and for the whole Church should be to follow God’s ways in every aspect of our lives. If God’s ways direct what we do, following his teaching, submitting all the strong drives we have to his will, getting to know what Christ wants us to do with our lives, our time, our resources, our gifts and skills, and using them to serve God and help establish his Kingdom on earth.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Can you truly say in your life: “Lord, Your Kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as in heaven”?
32/ Friday – JUDGE/ JUDGEMENT
“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear I judge, and my judgement is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” [Jn.5:30]. “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement.” [Jn.7:24]... “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees the one who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in darkness. I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge. For I have not spoken on my own but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life.” [Jn.12:44-48].
The ideas of ruling and judging go together in scripture. The Judges and Kings were both rulers and decision-makers in legal matters [1Sam.8:20; 2Sam.15:4]. Solomon’s greatness was proclaimed through his wise judgements [1Ki.3:16-28], despite significant mistakes that led to the division of his kingdom after his death. Failed leaders in the two nations were often chronicled as making unwise decision or going their own way rather than following the ways of the Lord. Christ’s claim as teacher was that he was giving the words that would bring people eternal life, and avoid negative judgement. Yet the New Testament also emphasised that he would be the ultimate judge responsible for assessment of all.
God was regarded as judge from early times in Jewish theology; he made rules and was the leaders’ partner in decision-making. The covenant meant that the people were responsible to follow the laws that God revealed. The Law, even on rulership and society not regarded as ‘secular’: Israel was originally founded as a theocracy, where following God’s ruling meant that they should live justly. Sadly history shows that the world and God’s people developed far different ways of living and ruling from those stipulated in scripture. Jesus maintained that God’s ways are right and holistically just, because the nature of God is righteous, omniscient, omnipotent and faithful. Following God’s directions would lead to salvation: the Hebrew word mišpāṭ [‘to rule’ ‘judge’ and ‘give justice’] also came to be used for God’s ‘grace’, ‘mercy’ and ‘salvation’. Divine mišpāṭ would cover or cancel the effect of sin and renew God’s covenant with the righteous [Jer.30-31; Hos.20ff; Isa.28:17]. When the Messiah came he would establish God’s Kingdom with justice and righteousness [Isa.9:6ff]. God’s Spirit would help his people to observe his judgements [Ezek.36:27].
So judgement was something of which God’s people were to live in awe, but it was not to be feared if you kept to God’s ways. That is one of the problems with the over-emphasis on judgement in some churches through history. Some have put so much emphasis on fear that God is made to look like a petulant depot, over-sensitive to our failings. Such teaching overbalances the emphasis by Jesus on the qualities of love, mercy and grace. Jesus said that he had come to convict and reveal to the world God’s Judgement, and after he had left earth the Holy Spirit would continue the same revelation of sin, righteousness and judgement [Jn.16:8-11]. But Jesus’ whole nature and actions, it they reflected those of his Father, show that the concept of divine judgement is merciful and righteous. Although, in the Jn.12:44-48, Jesus said that his words, not himself, would judge people according to the ways that they responded, he also claimed that God had appointed him to execute judgement [Jn.5:22; 27; 9:36]. As his word and commandments were eternal and came from God, so his judgement would be just and right [Jn.5:30; 7:24; 8:16].
Judgement is not a threat to hold over people. The emphasis on sin and sacrifice in the temple and some sides of church preaching in the past tried to frighten people into obedience in following the ways of the Kingdom of God. Jesus words, rather encouraged people towards righteous living. His right judgement views God’s justice with awe rather than utter fear. “Perfect love drives out fear” [1Jn.4:18]. This has strong implications for our preaching and witnessing. As part of our mission we are intended to warn people and shed light on their dark ways, and guide and encourage them towards right living [Lk.16:28; Acts 20:31; Col.1:28;; 2Thess.3:15; 2Tim.2:14]. But the most effective way of encouraging people into the Kingdom of God and strong discipleship is to emphasise the benefits of living by the truth, and to encourage people to follow the true, just and caring and loving ways of God, rather than holding threats over them.
The idea of God’s judgement is partly uncomfortable for any of us, since we recognise that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” [Rom.3:23]. It calls us to live rightly. But Jesus’ teaching about God’s ‘grace’, ‘mercy’ and ‘love’ balances the discomfort. God’s justice is surely intended to be a positive characteristic, working towards the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. All the good and perfect qualities of God are part of the character of God’s judgement. Although we often consider judgement as a negative quality, scripture treats of it and regards the idea of God as judge as positive and affirming. This should certainly be the case if all of us were trying to live in right ways. It is an encouragement to love God for the perfection of God’s good qualities, and an incentive to live well, not live in terror.
Jesus’ statement in Jn.12 that he would not judge immediately, but that people’s reaction to his words of truth judge them would seem inconsistent with some of scripture’s teaching about Christ as Judge on the throne of heaven. The seeming contradiction might be explained by the fact that in the passage, prior to Jesus’ passion, he was explaining the need for people to follow his teachings. His emphasis is on the promise that he came primarily “to save the world”: "I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge.” [Jn.12:47-48].
This should be a similar emphasis in our own ministry. Jesus is recorded as commanding the followers not to judge: [Matt.7:1-2; 12:27; Lk.6:37; 11:19; 12:57-8; 19:22; Jn.7:24; 8:15]. Judgement is the responsibility of the perfect nature of God. Most memorable is Jesus’ command: “Do not judge, so that you will not be judged” [Matt.7:1-2; Lk.6:37]. Jesus lived in a religious system where the leaders regularly judged others. He recognised the regular hypocrisy in this. His followers were to live with greater integrity. While we are intended to warn and encourage people to righteous living, we ourselves have no right to judge by rejecting others. The Epistle of James also encourages us not to judge our neighbour [Jas.4:12]. Our responsibility is to love our neighbours with outreaching ‘agape-love’, no to labour on criticism.
There’s another apparent contradiction in the Gospels’ teaching on Judgement. Jesus told people to “judge with right judgement” [Jn.7:24] and St. Paul’s regularly made criticisms of others in his epistles. The Greek word used in scripture [‘krinō' / ‘to judge’] can be translated in many ways, according to context: It can have the strong meaning of ‘to pass judgement’, ‘to condemn’, ‘to put on trial’, ‘to sue’ used legally. But ‘krinō’ can also have far gentler interpretations, that reflect the more caring discernment in the attitudes of God and people: ‘to reach a decision’, ‘to convince’, ‘to separate’, ‘to select’, ‘to govern’, ‘to determine’, ‘to resolve’, ‘to think’, or ‘to choose’. The words ‘judge’ and ‘judgment’ have regularly been regarded in the Christian Church to imply that human judgements and God’s judgement should be like bringing something to trial before a dominant judge on a judgement-seat. But the wide variants of meaning in the word ‘krinō’ demonstrate how human judgement and that of God’s could be regarded as making far gentler and more loving choices according to what is right. Merciful and gracious discernment is far more in-keeping with the image of God that Jesus portrayed, and the discernment that he himself showed towards people in various situations. We may be encouraged to make our own righteous choices and to judge situations with just judgement, but our spiritual discernment needs to be far gentler and Christ-like, rather than the censorious judgement that has often been a feature of Church history.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How do you respond to the idea of the justice of God and judgement? Are you afraid of God or confident that you are regarded with love, grace and mercy?
33/ Saturday – LORD
“Not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven’ [Matt.7:21]... Martha said: “Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” [Jn.11:27]
‘Lord’ seems a simple word; Christians often use it very easily as a title for Jesus, almost lie calling someone ‘sir’. But it carries many implications when we relate it to Christ, as scripture and Church doctrine attest. In the Bible it is used with various connotations. It is used to designate human lords, rulers and to translate the Hebrew names for God. The most special title YHWH / Yahweh ‘ Jehovah, ‘the one who is’ – ‘I am who I am’, [Ex.3:14] was treated with particular respect and reverence by Jews, and is capitalised ‘LORD’ in some modern translations. The more general names for God ‘Adonai’ and ‘Elohim’, also translated ‘Lord’, were also equally respected but could be named. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures the word ‘Kýrios’ was chosen to translate all names for God, possibly because it represented one who is absolutely superior rather than just for its connotations of power and control.
The title ‘Lord’ combines the ideas of holding power, authority, control, being the principal one or being strong and large. (The root of its Greek term ‘kýrios’ means ‘to swell’.) God in this context was believed be the principal one: God holds absolute power, control and authority over all as ‘Lord of lords’ [1Tim.6:15]. Everything in Creation was regarded as subject to God. God’s laws regulated all; rejection of one’s responsibility of subordination to God or God’s rules was sin.
‘Lord’ is also used in the New Testament in its secular sense. Kýrios’ can parallel the title ‘Sir’, or mean the owner of land, flocks or herds of animals and servants. To call someone ‘Lord’ recognised their superiority over you, as the jailer acknowledged Paul and Silas in Acts 16:30. So when Jesus was called ‘Lord’ by his followers in the Gospels, it did not necessarily recognise his nature as being divine, as was later inferred in passages like Col.2:6; Rom.10:9; 12:11, 14:4ff; 1Cor.15:28. The Resurrection was to Paul a distinctive sign of Christ’s lordship [1Cor.15]. Paul concluded that “as there is one God, the Father, so there is one Lord, Jesus Christ” [1Cor.8:6]. Belong in to him as ‘Lord’ gives members of the Church, his body, a personal relationship with our Lord [Rom.15:30; 1Cor.1:2], which is meant to distinguish us in some ways from the world [Rom.16:18]. This distinction is nullified if we fail to live in obedience to Christ’s lordship and make ourselves lords of our own lives.
Jesus accepted the title ‘Lord’ of himself, and even assumed it himself: [Matt.7:21-22; 9:38; 22:41-45; MK.5:19; Lk.19:31; Jn.13:13.] It seems to have been intended in John’s Gospel especially to mean far more than ‘Master’, but to have a higher meaning, just as ‘Adonai’ had for God’s lordship in the Hebrew Scriptures.
But how much is this true of the contemporary Church worldwide and of our individual lives? Jesus himself recognised that not everyone who called him “Lord, Lord’ was truly part of his Kingdom [Matt.7:21]. Jesus’ double emphasis on the word ‘Lord’ seems to contain a sense of the irony that those who feel the need to repeatedly proclaim their faith or promote themselves as sanctified, righteous and committed, are not always the truest disciples. Their actions or mental attitude towards God may not be as humble and committed as those who are quieter about their faith. This is pictured in the Parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee [Lk.18:9-14], Jesus claimed that the distinction of being part of the Lord’s Kingdom was reserved for those who obeyed his word, followed his ways and were dedicated to him in their inner selves – body, soul and spirit. How far is this true of our lives? I must admit that examining my own life in writing this leaves me ashamed, with the knowledge that I have far to go! Thankfully our salvation is not dependent on our actions but on God’s grace, as Ephesians stresses, especially Eph.2:8-10. But our obedience to God’s commands should reflect our recognition of God’s lordship.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Do you truly allow God to be Lord of your life and activities? Are Christ’s teachings at the heart of your thinking and actions?
In what areas of your life is it most difficult to offer Lordship to God? Are there reasons for this?
WEEK 6: BLESSINGS BROUGHT THROUGH CHRIST
34/ Sunday - BELIEF
‘Jesus said [to the man born blind, who he had healed] “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him “You have seen him. The one who is speaking to you is he.” He said: “Lord. I believe”. [Jn.9:35-38]
Friends have sometimes said to me that it must be comforting to be able to believe in Christianity and affirm that they would like to believe but can’t. Being a natural sceptic myself, and so often wanting to understand things that I recognise are beyond comprehension, I know their difficulties. The words that most speak to me today in the passage above are when Jesus says: “You have seen him. The one who is speaking to you is he (the Son of Man).” As the healed man was born blind, Jesus would literally have been the first person he would have seen! Even though I try to give people reasons and evidence for belief, we can never prove to another that our faith is true, not having seen or experienced what the disciples witnessed.
Several psychologists and therapists have acknowledged that having a belief in a benevolent helping power beyond us to which we pray can have a beneficial effect on one’s mind, whether such belief is true or not. This may be the case, but as St Paul said, if our trust is not in the truth, we are to be pitied for we are laying our hope, often struggling with challenges and occasionally laying down our lives based on false assumptions and futile trust [1Cor.15:19]. The Christian faith is not always as comforting as it seems; living a truly Christian life is hard for most of us. But I firmly believe that what I have found in faith is based in truth.
In the New Testament, ‘believe’, ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ are often translations of the same Greek words, ‘peithō’ and ‘pistis’ [cf. Meditation 5]. This link emphasises, as I have written elsewhere, that belief is not primarily the list of doctrines to which church-members ascribe. Belief needs to include how truly we act upon it; how we are committed to, live by, act and trust in the truths in which we believe. Faith is not just something to hold onto in hard times, or to affirm at baptism, confirmation or in the creeds and vows made during a service. It should be the foundation on which the whole of our lives, plans and decisions are structured, and by which our actions are governed.
At baptism we made certain pledges to God and affirmed the principles of Christian belief, or had them affirmed on our behalf by parents, godparents or sponsors. That affirmation of belief should have been just an early stage in the process of development of belief, which should continue and deepen throughout our Christian lives. Even my ordination vows and affirmations of belief were just a beginning of exploring my beliefs further. Despite over forty years of exploring and studying faith and theology up to that point, I did not have sufficient comprehension of my faith and have needed to keep deepening and reconsidering what belief really means, as we all should. The words of the Creeds or a baptismal confession are very basic foundations. They affirm belief in God the Father and Creator, Jesus Christ the incarnate Son, Lord and Redeemer, and God’s Holy Spirit as present ‘giver of life’ and guide, and belief in whatever life beyond death Christ ensured for us. Certain creeds add further details, some of which were designed to clarify doctrinal debates at the time of their composition. But the creeds are only foundational statements. They do not define the whole of Christian life. One of their major values is their concision and general nature: they provide a sound basis from which all Christians can build their belief. Their generalised statements leave room for wide interpretation, which should be useful in helping to create unity among a variety of people. Different Christians can share belief the same basic doctrines, yet vary in their understanding of the meaning of those doctrines. Sharing the same basic creeds should help to clarify that we are ‘one’ with these other Christian groups, but too often Christians judge others by how they interpret fine aspects of faith, like those scribes and Pharisees who Jesus criticised as ‘blind guides... who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel’ [Matt.23:24
But the creeds answer very few of the theological problems and challenges which modern, thinking Christians discover, when we truly explore our faith and the different interpretations considered by varying groups of Christians over the centuries. As we develop our Christian minds we start to wonder: ‘what is this power we call God’?; ‘how did God create?’, ‘in what way was Jesus God’s ‘son’?’; ‘what does it mean that Christ is ‘Lord’?; ‘how did his incarnation, death and resurrection benefit and affect us?’; ‘in what way is the Holy Spirit involved in my life now?’ and many other questions. The Roman Catholic Church has a voluminous manual or ‘Catechism’ listing their beliefs more specifically. Other churches use statements or articles of doctrine, ‘systematic theologies’ or shorter catechisms to clarify their beliefs. These are really useful but none of these are actually our ‘personal beliefs’. Those depend on how we relate such doctrines within our own lives and the ways we trust the God which the words of the creeds describe.
When Jesus told the leader of the synagogue, whose daughter he was about to heal: “Do not fear, only believe” [Mk.5:36], he was not expecting his hearers to understand everything, just to trust. This was also the case in the situation of healing where the boy’s father declared "I believe, help my unbelief” [Mk.9:24]. Much of the time our faith is based on trust rather than comprehension. If we waited to understand everything about faith before we committed ourselves to it, there would be no one in the Christian Church (or maybe a few arrogant, self-congratulatory, deluded members who do not recognise or acknowledge the limitations of their comprehension.) Perhaps Heb.11:1 describes the closest point to which we can come in understanding belief: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the knowledge of things unseen.” Thomas met the risen Jesus and believed, but Jesus responded that “Blessed are those who have not seen, yet have come to believe” [Jn.20:29]. Similarly St. Paul emphasises that Christians “walk by faith and not by sight” [2Cor.5:7].
The limitations in our knowledge should not be allowed to limit our activities as Christians. Trusting belief encourages and empowers us to act and to pray, even when we cannot know the outcome. One reason why it is important for Christians to try to continually strengthen their foundational knowledge of the Christian faith is to be able to act with a degree of assurance. Although Jesus commended the faith of little children and recommended that his followers emulated the child’s trust in God [Matt.18:2-5; 19:13-15; Mk.10:13-16; Lk.18:15-17], he aimed for us to deepen our faith. That is one of the reasons why in Jn.14 and 16 he promised that the Holy Spirit would come to help them remember his teaching and guide them into deeper understanding. We rely on the Holy Spirit’s guidance and teaching, but we can also help to strengthen our faith by considering and working out what we believe and why. St. Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews were critical of those Christians who always needed “milk not solid food” [1Cor.3:2; Heb.5:12-14]. To be effective disciples of Christ we need to allow his Spirit to be constantly challenging us and strengthening our understanding, in order to be able to witness effectively and be able to explain belief to others.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
35/ Monday – WAY
“I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me” [Jn.14:6].
Jesus guided humanity towards the best way of life, expressed truth in his teaching, and exemplified the essence of what life should be by his own life and actions. ‘Way’, ‘Truth’ and ‘Life’ are part of the same one gift of wholeness that God offers us and directs us towards.
The phrase that follows Jesus’ claim to be the way, truth and life: “no one comes through the Father except through me”, is uncomfortable to interpret in our multi-cultural world. Surely the holy, righteous and loving God who Jesus described and exemplified is inclusive in showing love and would not reject all the good people in the world who are not Christians? Many of them often seem far better people than some who claim to be Christians! For centuries Christianity promoted the exclusiveness of Jesus’ statement. But perhaps that is not what Jesus was conveying. Perhaps his saving act worked in such a way that it opened the possibility of salvation for all those beyond his temporal reach and the Church’s ministry, who live by the level of truth that has been revealed to them, or which their minds and consciences teach them.
Like many, I was brought up in a Church tradition which interpreted Jesus’ phrase to mean that Christianity has exclusive access to the true God. Other religions were regarded as, at best, mistaken, though some believers narrowly regard other religions as evil and misdirected. My understanding widened about 30 years ago through reading Arthur Holmes book “All Truth is God’s Truth”. Although an Evangelical, writing for an Evangelical publishing house, he concluded that ‘all that is of truth in the cosmos is of God’. Holmes used the imagery of God’s truth as an enormous planet. Religions, philosophies, reason, scientific research, creative thought etc. are like mines tunnelling into it for understanding. Each way may discover precious stones, nuggets and layers of truth that are useful for nourishment, healing and help in understand aspects of God and life. With our limited perspectives no one and no religion can ever understand the WHOLE of God or the whole of truth. Instead we all look for, and find in the faith we follow, those truths that enable us to relate most meaningfully to God, help us to live with integrity and to help the human race to flourish.
Christians believe that in Jesus God directly revealed himself, living and teaching truths that show the true character of God. Jesus claimed: “Seek and you will find, ask and it will be given to you” (Matt. 7:7). I believe this to promise that God will reveal to any who truly want to know God and honestly seek truth and a right way of life with integrity, something of divine and eternal truth , whatever their culture or background. One of the responsibilities of the mission of Christians is to help to reveal God to others as truthfully and clearly as Jesus revealed him. Christ opens our access to God in a relationship based on love and awe, not fear and terror. Human attempts at personal righteousness or intellectual endeavour will always be insufficient to access God, since we all fail. Christ overcame our inability through the saving action of God himself.
Other religions too believe that their understandings and practices bring true access to God. Our role is not to try to combat these in the hostile ways that so damaged the reputations of Christians through the Crusades, Reformation and Counter-Reformation and religious bigotry in some contemporary church cultures. Rather, our aims should be to develop our own faith and nourish that of others in ways that draw all closer in relationship with God and enable us to flourish holily in our lives, society and culture. That will be a positive witness to those outside the Christian faith. Only God knows what is true and what is mistaken in our interpretation of what Christianity has revealed and in other religions. I am sure that there are areas where we still misunderstand biblical teaching.
Jesus said “By your fruits you shall know them” [Matt.7:16 & 20]. True religion should unveil some of the mystery we call God, as well as bring peace, life, love, wholeness, harmony between peoples, mental wellbeing, security and growth in true human understanding. False religion brings narrow, dead enslavement, division, negativity and persecution rather than freedom, love and truth. Militant extremists in all religions (even the Church) often aim to dominate politically or socially rather than extend human knowledge and expand our comprehension of the breadth of God’s truth. Our common ground with various faiths and ways of living should be the aim for truth. Many nuggets mined by Christians are similar to truths discovered by believers following other paths. Of course I feel that the truths I have found as a Christian are more full and closer to truth than other philosophies and religious interpretations: I would not be a Christian if I did not: But I recognise that my beliefs only scratch the surface of spiritual understanding.
By saying that he is ‘the Way’, I do not believe that Jesus was saying “There is only one way to follow and understand God.” God made us all different. Even Christians of the same congregation relate to God differently because our personalities, minds, spirituality and experiences are so varied. Anyone who attempts to make a congregation homogenous or to unify understanding, will inevitably water-down true Christianity to something that is over-simplistic and does not relate realistically to the varied lives and ways of understanding of other people in the community, let along the world. God made us so different from one another that it is no wonder that peoples divided by culture and continents developed different understandings of God and varied ways of interpreting, worshipping and relating to God over centuries of human development. Of course I wish that everyone could accept Christianity as I do, because, to me, my faith makes the most sense of life, revelation, history and experience. But life isn’t that simplistic or comfortable! There will be millions of people in the world who believe that their personal interpretation of faith is right, but theirs may not suit the understanding of many others.
If Jesus meant his words “I am the way... no one comes to the Father except through me” to apply universally, perhaps they refer to the access to God that he has created, particularly through achieving ‘salvation’. He claimed that if any want to understand God they can look at every aspect of Jesus: “If you know me you know the Father” [Jn.14:9]. St. Paul claimed that part of the nature of God can be comprehended through the world [Rom.1:20], through human reason, through religious tradition and teaching, through our experiences, or through mystically reaching for truth. But more directly we believe that we see so much of the character and teaching of God revealed in Jesus. Christians believe that Jesus taught truths which truly invigorate life. But for those who are reaching for God outside Jesus’ revelation and who live by the righteous ways taught by their alternative culture, it may be that Christ’s saving action can still be effective for them. In achieving salvation ‘once for all’ [1 Pet.3:18], Christ brought all human beings the possibility of a close relationship with God. All are welcome to come to God because Jesus has created access for us. The Christian mission is to relate to God as Jesus revealed truth, and to show people how they can know God through him, not to disparage the beliefs of others.
Jesus also emphasised that the way to God does not come easily. The idea that God loves all and will work to save all may contain numerous truths, yet is most probably far too simplistic. He reminded us that “... The gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it” [Matt.7:13-14]. We need to aim to follow ways of righteous, ethical, loving, harmonious, whole and holy living, as Jesus revealed it. Aiming to discover the truth and authentically follow the ways that you know to be right in all areas including faith is not an easy path. Yet Jesus gives us that call, with many challenges and incentives to advance us towards a life-giving and true relationship with God, which we can share with others.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What ways has Christ revealed to you, which you do not yet follow sufficiently?
36/ Tuesday - FOLLOW – Mk.4:14,19; 8:19; 10:3,8;
“Follow me and I will make you fish for people” [Matt.4:19]... “Teacher I will follow you wherever you go...” [Matt.8:19]... “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.” [Matt.16:24].
When Jesus called people to follow him and to follow God’s ways, he did not expect blind obedience. He taught people and reasoned with them, as we know from his discussions with Nathaniel, Nicodemus, the rich young ruler and in Mary and Martha’s home in Bethany. He was called ‘rabbi’/ ‘teacher’. Rabbis taught by discussion, challenging and reasoning; they encouraged their followers to debate in order to reason through the truth. But most importantly the religious teacher was meant to set an example of spirituality, wisdom and knowledge, which their disciples were meant to follow.
When Jesus left he promised that he would send ‘another ‘paraklete’ which means: ‘encourager’, ‘advocate’, ‘one who comes alongside to help’ or ‘comforter’. The translation ‘comforter’ is based on the Latin ‘confortare’ / ‘to strengthen’. In this context the Holy Spirit is meant to be interpreted as ‘one who gives strength, courage and fortitude’, rather than just one who sympathises). God does not do the work or the thinking for us; we are expected to use our minds, wisdom, intuition and skills to develop understanding of what we should do in life, based on God’s guiding precepts, and God’s Spirit is with us to bring to mind and help us apply what we have already been taught [Jn.14:26; 16:12-13]. Thus following Christ entails obeying his teaching, mirroring his character and example, following God’s rules and aims and listening for and being open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
In following Christ, the biblical imagery of sheep following a shepherd can be both useful and dangerous. Cynics sometimes claim that Christians follow belief ‘like sheep’. There may be some believers who follow over-simplistically, but blind following of faith is not the intention of the imagery. Sheep as Jesus talked about them “know their masters voice” and “listen” to it [Jn.10:3-4, 16]: They trust that Christ cares for them [Jn.10:27], leads them to the best pasture and watering places [Jn.10:4; Ps.23], looks after them in danger [Matt.10:16], searches for them when lost [Lk.15:4-6], even lays down his life for them [Jn.10:11,15]. “Not one of them is lost” because of the extent of his care [Jn.17:12]. Jesus claimed to have come for his people out of God’s mercy because they were “like sheep without a shepherd” [Matt.9:36; Mk.6:34]. The former ‘shepherds’ (kings, priests, rulers, false prophets and leaders) had too often deserted their care and not worthily led the flock [Jn.10:12-13], so they were not worthy of being followed [Jn.10:5]. When a Palestinian shepherd moved his flock along safe ways he did not drive them from behind, as many western shepherds do; he walked ahead of the sheep and the flock followed him because the sheep regard him as their trusted leader rather than as their drover. Unlike the tyranny which some leaders may have shown in the past, we are not driven by God against our will, we are given free-will and reasoning minds to work out, with Christ’s Spirit’s aid and inspiration, the right paths for us.
In the Hebrew Scriptures people were commended for ‘walking in God’s ways’ [Deut.5:30]. The disciples of prophets and rabbis followed them, as Elisha followed Elijah [1Kgs.19:20-21], learning from them, watching their example, becoming inspired by the same spirit, developing similar understandings of God and proclaiming a similar message. That is basically how we should follow Christ, as his disciples did. We are not mere cyphers; we retain our individuality, personality, independent thinking and action. Yet true disciples develop a relationship and total commitment to the work of their leader. In the disciples’ case they became participants in the bringing of salvation to the world, following Christ’s example and commands [Mk.10:17; Lk.9:61-2; Jn.8:12; Rev.14:14].
‘Following’ is not always easy; Jesus’ disciples shared his suffering [Matt.8:19-20; Mk.8:34; Jn.12:25-26]. They reckoned this as worthwhile because their mission was to share truth, to advance the world and the lives of its people. In an age where the Christian commitment of some church-goers is often weak or half-hearted, it is uncomfortable to read the words attributed by Matthew to Jesus: “whoever does not take up the Cross and follow me is not worthy of me” [Matt.10:38]. Matthew may have been writing his Gospel for communities of persecuted Jewish Christians exiled from Jerusalem, possibly in Syria, so these words would have been an encouragement to persevere for those who were already outcast or suffering. Perhaps in a contemporary world where the attitude towards Christianity may be far more bland, patronising or sceptical, the command to follow can act as an encouragement to practice our faith and mission more radically. The Church as a whole does not yet follow Christ as effectively as it should, or its message might have a stronger effect. Yet those who follow authentically could make the Church stronger and more abundant.
Following Christ today involves not merely acting according to the letter of the Bible and thinking that we are thereby doing God’s will. We live in very different cultures, which are far removed from biblical times. Truly following Christ today requires working out wisely what the spirit of Christ’s teaching is in any particular case, and applying it to our varying situations and activities. This again is a challenging activity, not always easy to distinguish, but we are given minds to use and God’s Spirit to aid us. As the ‘paraklete’ God’s Spirit does not ‘lead’ or ‘direct’ us. ‘Para’ in this context means that the Spirit comes ‘from’ the Father and Son [Jn.6:46; 15:26] to work ‘alongside’, ‘beside’ ‘accompanying’ us. Christ has given us the lead and example; God’s Spirit can now inspire and guide us as we work out how we are to follow faithfully in our particular situations and experiences.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Do you ‘follow’ Christ as closely and committedly as a true disciple is meant to do?
In what areas of life do you need to interpret Jesus’ teaching and follow the lead of God’s Spirit’s more wisely.
37/ Wednesday– OBEY – Jn.3:36; Mtt.8:17; 28:20; Mk.1:27;
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jn.14:15]... “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them... and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” [Matt.28:19-20].
There is a distinction between ‘believing’, ‘following’ and ‘obeying’. ‘Believing’ is primarily mental assent – a certain level of acceptance that there is truth within faith. ‘Following’ is a stronger level of trust that recognises that it is worth practically aligning ourselves what we believe, and committing ourselves to do so. ‘Obeying’ is even more active: those who are obedient step out to do those things that faith requires of us. Following and believing do not necessarily imply obedience, though they should. Jesus emphasised that in the faith which he was encouraging it was not enough just to believe in God or in the way of life that he was advocating. One needed to commit oneself to one’s beliefs through action. Nor was it sufficient to just follow him like a hero, regard him as one’s heroic model, recognise the truths in his philosophy or to claim to love him. Those who truly love and recognise the truth in him will demonstrate their trust in the way that they obediently follow his teachings [Jn14:15].
It is relatively easy to say that we believe our faith to be true, to make vows to follow God’s ways, even to say or sing that we worship God or love Jesus’ for what has been done for us. It is much harder to live according to one’s beliefs and obey the leading and prompting of God. Jesus did not just want ciphers or automata who could recite doctrines and teach beliefs; he aimed to build followers who would put his teachings and commands into practice, spread his ways across the earth and learn to apply his teaching in different situations and cultures. The way to change the world for good is just not to believe or say he right things but to do right and promote God’s ways to others with a sensitivity that communicates and makes our mission effective.
The corollary to Jesus’ words is uncomfortable: if we don’t obey him perhaps we don’t really love him. That may seem hard, but Christ’s intention was to leave a group of active followers who would build what we now call the Church. Through their lives, and witness they would continue Christ’s work throughout time and help to bring the Kingdom of God. If we are not doing that we are not following him, and therefore, according to Jesus’ words, we can’t really love him sufficiently or claim that we are truly committed to his teaching.
One of the great problems of the worldwide Church is that not enough members truly follow in the way that Christ intended. Churches, institutions and individuals are often over-involved in self-maintenance, ministering to their own limited congregations, promoting their importance or claiming their distinctiveness from other believers. We don’t sufficiently reach out beyond our personal comfort zones to support the needy, advance truth, and advance God’s Kingdom throughout the world. It is too easy to be insular, or to give sporadically from our surplus. Similarly, the search to enhance our individual spirituality can become self-centred or self-indulgent if it is not outward-looking. There are thousands of books on different forms of spirituality and prayer. It is possible to use them self-centredly to build up our sense of our own interior selves or indulge in contemplation, without recognising that obedience to Christ calls us to share what we are learning about God and truth with others. Spiritual advance should be encouraging us to be more active, outgoing disciples. In his times of interior prayer away from his disciples, Jesus was seeking direction from his Father to guide, strengthen and prepare him for active ministry. He did not regard his close relationship with God as something to be held onto, but as the foundation on which he built his active mission.
Obedience requires us to be open to hear instructions, to take heed of them, being persuaded that what we hear is right, to consent to obey then to actively follow. To obey in Greek ‘peitharchéō’ carries all these meanings. It comes from a root word ‘peithō’/meaning ‘to convince’, ‘persuade’, ‘and cause to trust’. If we are convinced and trust that God’s ways are the best directions for abundant human life, we are more likely to obey and follow diligently. Disobedience is likely to occur when we either distrust the efficacy of God’s instructions or have such strong wills that we do what we want even if we know it is not the best way. Paul’s inner struggle with the ‘flesh and the spirit’ [Rom.7:14-24] shows that even the most committed saints find themselves drawn to disobey and indulge their own wills.
The Letter of James emphasises that true Christians should “be doers of the word and not just hearers who deceive themselves.” [Jas.1:22]. This implies that we should not just be following a normal, good lifestyle, or acting according to conscience, but should be actively listening and seeking God’s instructions. How many of us read scripture or look at the world around us openly, in a positive search for what we should be doing? In the instances where we are told that Jesus left his followers to pray, he appears to have been actively seeking strength, guidance and direction from his Father. This active listening was the source and power behind his ministry. Perhaps the Church worldwide lacks Christ-like strength and persuasion in its ministry and mission because it relies too much on its traditions or ‘does what it has always done’. Instead we should also be open to new ways, as well as following what has already proved effective, meaningful and fruitful, listen for guidance from God’s Spirit and the spiritually wise. If we all more diligently searched scripture and tried to discern the Spirit more, we might find in what ways God is working fruitfully in the world and align ourselves with God’s ways more effectively. It is comfortable to follow our traditional ways, but when Christians have been challenged to go beyond our comfort zones, the church has often advanced more dynamically. A static Church is a disobedient Church and will eventually die spiritually and numerically.
Part of being obedient to God and following Christ’s example requires committed prayer. Over-active Christians sometimes neglect the more meditative and contemplative sides of prayer and just ask God to bless their self-guided efforts. We should make ourselves more reliant on God’s Spirit for guidance, as true ‘meditation’, in the Christian meaning of the practice, can help us towards . The life of prayer is not a passive one. Lectio Divina encourages us to think-through the true meanings, implications and instructions of scripture and put them into practice in our daily life. Learning to meditate on scripture, life and aspects of our faith and practice can deepen our understanding of what we should be doing in response. Contemplation consolidates that into our minds and enables us to work out how to put faith into practice most effectively and wisely. Intercessory prayer can then strengthen our reliance upon God and help to direct us. Vigorous intercessory prayer commits us to actively helping those for whom we pray. These all help to guide us and prompt us to active obedience and discipleship.
Though Jesus’ teaching about how to obey God was probably in Aramaic, when we try to be obedient to Christ, it is useful to remember the implications of the various meanings within the Greek term for ‘obedience’: Obedience included being convinced, persuaded and trusting that what we hear that we should do is right, because we trust its source. We remain open to hear instructions and take heed of them. We consent to follow and obey because we trust in the truth of what we are being asked to do. Then we act obediently by acting positively in the ways that we have been shown. Obedience to God is not a slavish or automaton-like response to a command; it can be a reasoned recognition that what we are asked to do is the right way for all. Jesus no longer called his disciples slaves or servants; he called them ‘friends’, because they knowingly were involved in the mission that he explained to them [Jn.15:15]. Unlike military soldiers who are sometimes trained to obey orders automatically, without hesitating to think, the active Christian is encouraged to puts conscious thought into their obedience, and consider their involvement in the mission of God..
We obey God because we are part of a valued team working for a common and glorious aim. Christians are not cyphers, automata or brain-washed slaves, following a will that we do not understand. The ultimate example of this is Jesus’ wrestling in prayer in Gethsemane on the night before he sensed that he was to be executed. He was struggling with the will to survive and not face the agonies ahead. Yet he had come to know God’s plans and aims; he was united with his Father in understanding those aims, and how salvation was to be achieved. As a result he willingly and lovingly committed himself to his part in the mission, despite the agony ahead. Hopefully most of us will not be required to go to such extremes in our own discipleship, though some in the early church and in other cultures and times have faced very similar challenges. What is important in obedience is that we try to recognise the place that we are intended to play in expanding and bringing God’s Kingdom, and accept and act upon the responsibilities with which we are entrusted.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How do you listen to God’s instructions? Is your spirituality based on active listening and openness to receive from God? Have you an idea of what place you are able and asked to fulfil in God’s plan for the world, however small?
38/ Thursday– RECEIVE
“Everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and to everyone who knocks the door will be opened...” [Lk.11:10]... “He breathed on them and said to them “Receive the Holy Spirit” [Jn,20:22]...”Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith you will receive” [Matt.21:22]
From our experience of the difficulties of life, we should not interpret Jesus’ words above too simplistically. Life is hard, and our requests from God in prayer or in our wills and longings are not always so obviously seen to be responded to as a simple reading of Jesus’ promises might apply. Nevertheless, in most aspects of our relationship with God we are the ‘receivers’ and God the ‘giver’. Jesus emphasised that ‘all good things come from the Father above’ []. The Psalms are full of this recognition [Ps.13:6; 16:2; 34:8, 10; 65:4; 73:1; 84:11116:7 etc.]. As we are receivers of the bounty of God it is a reasonable response to acknowledge this with appreciation of what we have, in offering thanksgiving and gratitude. We all know how much closer we feel to someone when we acknowledge our true appreciation of a generous gift that they have given to us. A reciprocal feeling comes when we have given out of love and we receive authentic thanks, rather than being ignored or receiving a grudging acknowledgement out of politeness. Sincere thanksgiving for what we have received surely must draw us closer in our relationship with God.
Thanksgiving is a key attitude within prayer. Too often we resort to prayer as a form of asking and continuing to keep asking. Intercession in this way is an important aspect of prayer. Jesus commended it in his Parables of the Friend at Night, and the Persistent Widow [Lk.11:5-8; 18:1-8]. But thanking is a useful start to prayer, because it focuses us towards appreciation of the one to whom we are praying.
Because we are so used to thinking of God as ‘omnipotent’ ; the owner of the cattle on a thousand hills’ [Ps.50:10], we often approach God as though everything for which we ask can be given or achieved easily. But Jesus’ wrestling with the idea of self-giving in Gethsemane implies that there is a sacrificial element in God’s giving. We cannot, of course, know the mind and limits of God’s giving; the sacrificial element in God’s giving is just a supposition, though it has its roots in scripture and tradition. As we fail so often, I wonder how much the sacrifice of forgiving us pains God. Does God truth weep and wrestle over us as Jesus wept over the state of Jerusalem? [Matt.23:37; Lk.23:28]. “...how often have I longed to gather you into my arms, but you would not!” [Matt.23:37]. The imagery of the Psalms and prophets suggests God’s regular sorrow over his people. But this of course may be all metaphorical, for if God exists, God is a personal force, not a figure who could weep physically as God’s representation in Jesus wept over the sins, pains and fate of others.
In receiving we should recognise and acknowledge that things do not always come easily. We appreciate it particularly when the receiver recognises in their thanks that we have carefully selected or self-sacrificially procured the gift that we have given. I often take enormous time and thought over the choice of gifts: I collect them throughout the year, when I see exactly the right gift for someone. Sometimes I have appropriate gifts in store for several years ahead, which I recognised would be appreciated. God’s knowledge of us and the wisdom in God’s truth are so much greater than ours. Surely this means that those things that we receive are carefully selected with the knowledge of how we could use them and appreciate them. It is for us to work out how to use effectively what we have received. I cannot believe that God moves people like pawns with no choice, or that God governs the events of our lives like a puppet-master. That is not the Christian God, as it is not the sort of God that Jesus taught about and represented.
Receiving from God requires us to wisely choose what to do with what we have received, then use it. If you are given a beautifully wrapped present, you do not just say ‘thanks’ and leave the gift aside unwrapped. You open the present and use it. If you really appreciate it and it is of real use to you, you use it often. However, in the Christian life many just accept gifts from God like ‘salvation’, ‘forgiveness’, ‘scripture’, ‘the Holy Spirit’s guidance, even ‘life’ itself and do not make the most of them.
What we receive we should also pass on. God doesn’t give us all that we have just for ourselves. Our material wealth is to be shared as much as our spiritual wealth. God’s Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts and spiritual fruit are not developed in us for our own advance alone, but for the expanse of God’s Kingdom. The Spirit works in many of us in different ways. It is wrong, as some with Pentecostal experiences sometimes suggest, to consider that all should have similar spiritual experiences or gifts to their own. Paul himself wrote that “not all speak in tongues... prophesy... or have gifts of healing” [1Cor.12:30]. God gives to us according to his wisdom, to fulfil our needs and those of others, and primarily to aid the holistic mission of building the Kingdom of God. We receive in order to be able to use what we receive for the good of all, not principally for ourselves.
Christians have God’s Spirit in our lives to empower, teach, guide, inspire, motivate and encourage us to the mission of spreading God’s teachings and way of life to others. The Kingdom of God is not built just in individuals; it needs to be spread and shared by all believers and expanded to others within the world. Blessing is to be enjoyed though this corporate giving of what we have received from God and from others. St. Paul in speaking to the Ephesian elders reminded them of words of Jesus that are not recorded in the canonical Gospels: “It is better to give than to receive.” [Acts 20:35]. In our self-centred world, selfless giving is rarely people’s motivation, but it should be our aim, if we are to fulfil Christ’s mission.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How grateful are you for what you have received? Do you just take what you have for granted, or do you value it, give thanks and use it for the development of others?
39/ Friday– SERVE – Mtt.20:28
“The Son of man came not to be served but to serve” [Matt.20:28; Mk.10:45]... “I am among you as one who serves” [Lk.22:27].
After ‘love’, Jesus’ teaching about ‘service’ was perhaps the most important of his commands. Love and service go together; if we love others and love God, we are far more likely to serve them willingly and effectively. Similarly, love of God and love of God’s world go together. Jesus said that if someone claims to love him they will do as he commands [Jn.15:14]. The opposite is probably true, if we disobey or disregard Christ’s command to serve we do not truly love.
In the Israel that Jesus was addressing, a servant had very few rights other than to be offered freedom in the year of Jubilee, and even then, many did not accept that privilege and find freedom. Servants regularly returned to the condition of slavery from which they had been temporarily freed. In our contemporary world many despise the idea of servanthood to people or institutions, and claim their freedoms. Yet just as many are slaves to their own wills, passions, greed, self-assertiveness etc. Today many people insist on their rights – human rights, women’s rights, worker’s rights, children’s rights, racial rights, consumer-rights, the right to self-determine etc. Such rights are personally important and help towards a more just society.
However self-centredness, selfishness or self-promotion or the defence of one’s position do not often lead to the equitable society that is intended in the Kingdom of God. We should always remember that we have a greater responsibility serve and help others with love than just to advance ourselves. Christianity is not based on ‘self-before others’ or ‘survival of the fittest’, which are commonly promoted in social behaviour and modern commerce. Jesus is our example of using his life for the good and advance of others: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down their life for their friends” [Jn.15:13]. When Jesus stripped off his outer garments and washed his disciples’ feet, he was physically demonstrating that he was withdrawing his rights as their master and showing them the example of servanthood [Jn.13:1-17]. ‘He did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself taking the form of a servant’ [Phil.2:6].
In Christianity the practice of serving is not a miserable one, unlike the idea that being a servant or slave in the Greek world was undignified, menial and devaluing. In Jewish culture service was not necessarily considered ‘unworthy’; it was a trusted position, which is possibly why Jesus used so many examples of servants in his parables. In religious service too much emphasis has often been placed on abasing oneself, even acting obsequiously. This may be a feature of some religions, but it should not be the case in Christianity. Though we should follow Christ’s example of humility and obediently, service is a noble calling. . Jesus did not just encourage us to be servants; he raised us by calling those who are doing what he commands ‘friends’ [Jn.15:15]. While we are all to take the role of servants of God and of society, we are valued. Jesus’ parables about servants regard good servants as ‘stewards’ - people trusted with responsibilities to care for the master’s world and all that the Father treasures. Some in Christian leadership and leadership in society may over-raise themselves or use influence, contacts, dishonesty or arrogance to gain promotion, even to be over-promoted, in order to advance their position and sense of authority. Yet true Christian authority in leadership is about accepting and taking steward-like responsibility, not having personal power or position.
‘Service ‘and ‘love’ are not just words to proclaim that we live by (hypocritically in some cases); they are actions and ways of thinking that we should be at the heart of our Christian practice. It is much easier to claim to love God and people, or to say that we are servants of God and others, than to actually practise love and service in all situations. In two instances, Jesus’ statements about servants are repeated within the same gospel: “A servant is not greater than their master” [Jn.13:16; 15:20] and “Whoever wishes to be greatest must be your servant.” [Matt.20:26; 23:11]. This repetition in Jesus’ teaching would seem to be intended to reiterate and emphasise the importance of recognising one’s position and responsibility of service. As with his emphasis on ‘humility’, Jesus’ focus on the concept of regarding ourselves as servants and serving God and others was at the heart of his own life. He set it as an ambition for his followers and showed by example how to live by service.
It is very easy for a Christians to claim to be a ‘servant of God’ or a ‘servant of Christ’, without really wanting to follow the will of the master. Many people in positions within the Church may claim to be God’s servants or ‘servants of the Church’ yet insist on their own way. Jesus spoke several parables about dishonest stewards, wicked servants and dishonest tenants [Matt.18:23-34; 21:33-41; 25:14-30; Lk.7:36-50; 16:1-13; ]. With his ‘woes’ against the scribes and Pharisees [Matt.23:13ff.] these all demonstrate the distinction which he drew between those who obeyed God’s leadership and those who were self-orientated. We often see similar weaknesses in people who claim to be ‘servants of the people’ in politics or various social roles, yet are manifestly ‘in it for their own good’.
There are many varied words for ‘serve’ and ‘servant’ in scripture, about twelve in all, depending on the form of service, but all include listening to the master’s word and doing his will. ‘Douleúō was to serve as a slave. A ‘diákonos’ served at table, cared for the master and was willing to undertake any command. ‘Therapeúō’ was to serve willingly; ‘latreúō’ to serve for wages; ‘leitourgéō’ to do public service. Jesus most often used the terms ‘diakoneín’ and ‘douleúō’, demonstrating that we are responsible for doing God’s will, yet are trusted with the care of God’s world. Servanthood is a high calling. If Jesus called us to be both ‘servants’ and ‘friends’, we should never be ashamed to follow in any way, no matter how menial. As I mentioned in Meditation 6 one of the roles of the ‘deacon’ in classical times the menial who emptied the latrine buckets. If the world is to be thoroughly cleansed by Christ, we should be ready to carry and dispose of the ordure in our world, in on our communities and in our churches. Christ on the Cross gave the ultimate image of willingness to serve for others’ good and because such service was the right thing to do.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
40/ Saturday – WITNESS / SHARE – Mtt.25:21
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” [Acts 1:8].
This command comes from Luke’s record of Jesus’ teaching immediately before his ascension. It was the source and explanation of most of the activities recounted in his book of the Acts of the Apostles. The instruction is similar to the record of Jesus’ command at the end Matthew’s of Gospel, though Matthew expands it: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matt.28:19-20]. The clear belief was that Jesus’ message is not just for a select few (Jews or a small group of Christians) but is relevant to the whole earth, even those with who’s lifestyles or beliefs some might be suspicious, as the Jews despised the Samaritans. Jesus’ disciples were to continue his mission and expand it throughout the known world.
When Jesus told his followers to “be my witnesses” he intended Christians to represent him authentically and responsibly to the whole world. This means that the Church and all who truly want to call themselves followers of Christ, need to be recognisable as Christ-like in all that we do and say. Individual Christians and particularly the institution of the Church often cause problems for the expansion of Christ’s mission when we indulge in practices in which we can often appear more intent on ourselves than on promoting Christ. This may include obsession with promoting our own spirituality and righteousness, wrangling in internal church politics, arguing over varying doctrinal interpretations, self-promotion by individuals, factions claiming superiority over others or vying for power, apparent obsession with finance and buildings, adopting uncaring business practices, attempting by stealth to increase the numbers in our pews primarily for financial rather than spiritual reasons, and other self-centred principles. Several of these may be important in securing the effective running of a church, but none should dominate over the development of our relationship with God through Christ.
Only a Church based on God’s truth will truly represent Christ. Honesty and humility in our witness are essential if we are to build a Church and a faith based on truth. If any believe that they can promote Jesus’ teaching by any form of dishonesty or self-promotion, they deceive themselves and others. This includes not pretending to the extent of our spiritual experiences and spiritual understandings. There have been multiple examples of such dishonesty throughout the history of the Church. Since the beginning of the church, some Christians have exaggerated their faith, invented legends of saints, expanded upon stories of miraculous experiences and visions, faked relics, anathematised those who do not agree with their interpretations of scripture or tradition, invented lies to promote themselves or relegate even destroy others. All untruths, even those developed for ostensibly good reasons, damage the honest witness to the truths of God and the example and teaching of Christ. Even if exaggerations or falsehoods might intend to, or temporarily seem to advance the promotion of Christianity, they are not in fact doing so; rather they get in the way of the advance of truth. There are no short-cuts to true witness. A church or a faith that is not founded on truth is not founded on Christ and is an aberration of what Jesus taught.
We often witness far more effectively by the integrity of our lives than by our words. People often judge our authenticity by how they see us living. Yet we should not allow that argument to be an excuse for not witnessing verbally and explaining the meaning of our faith. If a stranger watches one’s life, that will not explain the meaning and promises of salvation, atonement, cleansing or the hope of life beyond death. I may paint about my faith in my career as an artist, but painting alone is not a sufficient witness. Communicating and explaining Christ’s message requires words and actions. The first Epistle of Peter encouraged all Christians to “always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you” [1Pet.3:15]. Of course most of us are insecure about how we will be able to explain our beliefs. There is so much mystery behind the Christian faith that it is truthful to accept that we do not understand everything. None know for certain in what ways Jesus was God’s representative, what ‘Son of God’ and ‘incarnation’ truly mean, and so much more. We do not know what aspects of the Gospels, let alone the rest of the Bible are described ‘as they happened’ and what have been invented or exaggerated in the telling, often for good reasons. We do not know how Jesus achieved salvation through the Cross, what exactly happened at the Resurrection, Ascension or Pentecost, what will happen beyond death etc.. So it is right to accept the gaps in our understanding when we witness. That honesty over admitting what we do not know can itself act as a truthful witness in the world, which is so often full of dishonesty, false claims and people pretending to greater knowledge than they really have.
Our understanding of Christ’s teaching is only partial, but I believe it is sufficient to have confidence that we are safe in accepting God’s promises recounted in scripture. If you, like me, are afraid of making a fool of yourself by the insufficiency of your witness, remember that Jesus promised that we are not alone in our witness. In the commands to witness at the ends of Matthew and Luke and Acts 1:8, Christ reminded us that he and God’s Spirit are with us. He further promised that the Holy Spirit will help us in what we say [Jn.14:26; 16:13]. We cannot ever convince or convict anyone of the truth of faith by our own arguments, however erudite and convincing our proofs. Conviction of faith and conversion happen through the inner work of the Holy Spirt. Nevertheless, this is not an excuse for not knowing our faith or developing convincing ways of explaining it to others. 1 Peter 3:15 remains important; we should all aim to be able to defend our reasons for the hope and faith in which we trust.
The Greek word which we translate as witness: ‘mártys’ is that from which the word ‘martyr’ derives. Fairly early in the history of the Church it became considered that martyrs who gave their lives in the cause of faith were those who had truly borne witness [‘martyréō’] to the greatest extent by remaining faithful even under threat of death. This interpretation of ‘witnessing’ to one’s faith by the sacrifice of one’s life had developed particularly through considering the Jewish heroes who suffered during the time of the Maccabees. The later persecution of Christians adopted the idea that they were ‘martyrs’. Unfortunately an unhealthy practice developed early in Church history of some believers deliberately seeking martyrdom because they felt that it would ensure one’s place in heaven. This partly derived from what I believe is a misinterpretation of St. Paul’s teaching that he ‘counted everything in life as loss for the sake of gaining Christ’ [Phil.3:7-8] and longing to be away from the torments of his bodily life and alongside Jesus Christ [2Cor.5:8-9; cf. Rom.7:23; 1Cor.9:27; Phil.1:22-24]. Many believers came to consider that the present life is worth little or nothing compared to the future life of heaven. Some came to despise human life on earth and long for a heavenly future. It is still seen in the ideas of some ascetics and religious foundations today, but seems more allied to eastern ideas of the lack of significance of material life than Christ’s teaching about the value of human lives. It can lead to unhealthy self-denials, almost a form of spiritual anorexia. Some reject aspects of living that are given to us by God and are intended for our enjoyment and use. God created life to be lived and enjoyed abundantly and responsibly, both now and in the future. Christians who despise contemporary life or are regarded as killjoys who do not live life to the full can damage our witness to others. Their attitude to life provides little incentive for those outside the church to believe that we have found a faith and lifestyle that are worth pursuing.
The true original meanings of the terms ‘mártys’/‘martyréō’ have little to do with ‘martyrdom’, though the word was sometimes used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible for a sacrifice. In those cases, the sacrificed creature acted as a ‘witness’ or ‘assurance’ that the person offering a life was being true in their affirmation of allegiance to God. The terms ‘mártys’/‘martyréō’ derive from Greek legal words used in trials for those who come forward as accurate witnesses to confirm truth. That is where the term should most clearly apply to us: Christians should give accurate witness. A witness in Greek law was one who had personal knowledge through experience, not just head knowledge of the accuracy and truth of that which they affirmed. Greek philosophers used the term to distinguish between general or objective statements, and empirical truths of which we are convinced by personal experience. This is why it is so important to make sure that our own faith is real, not just ‘head knowledge’. People will be far more convinced of the authenticity of our beliefs if we show that we have lived by it, and found it true to our experience.
None of us today have lived alongside Jesus in the time of the Gospels, so cannot necessarily affirm the accuracy of the Evangelists’ accounts. But we can be sure that our faith is based on truth if we have lived it and experienced a living daily relationship with the ascended Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. However, we must be careful to bear witness truthfully, without exaggerating our experience or dissembling. Different believers will have faced different experiences and problems or difficulties in believing and understanding. Honesty about our difficulties as well as our experiences may help others who are struggling with their own beliefs. None of us should pretend that faith is easy, if it has not been the case for us; it is rarely easy for others. Jesus himself said that if he himself suffered, as we remember so poignantly in Holy Week, his disciples could also expect to suffer similarly. He also admitted that he did not know everything, so there is no reason why we should have an answer to all the mysteries and problems in believing.
FOR CONTEMPLATION AND PRAYER:
How assured are you of the truth and authenticity of your faith? How might you be more authentic in the truth and reality of your witness?
WEEK 7: HOLY WEEK: RESPONDING TO CHRIST’S PASSION
41/ Palm Sunday – JOY
“.(I pray).. that my joy may be complete in them.” [Jn.17:13]
It probably seems strange to think about ‘joy’ at the beginning of the most solemn week of the Christian year. Yet we know that joy should develop from considering the achievements of Christ’s life, Passion and Resurrection. The angel’s message to the shepherds at Jesus’ birth was that he brought “good news of great Joy to all people” [Lk.2:10]. The assurance of security and salvation offered to us through the Passion should bring a sense of personal joy. Joy certainly seems to have been in the hearts of Jesus’ followers as they paraded him through the streets in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, though Jesus’ own emotions on that day must have been extremely mixed. He was approaching the climax of his mission, which would bring both salvation and horrific pain.
‘Joyful’, in our modern, common, light usage of the word, is not an emotion one might immediately consider applying to Jesus. I can imagine him enjoying the Cana wedding [Jn.2:1-11] and fellowship during the meal in the house of the Pharisee [Lk.14:1], celebrating religious festivals (despite recognising some hypocrisy there), valuing the company of close friends and disciples, celebrating after a miracle of healing, feeling joy in personal times of worship and prayer with his Father, delighting in the natural or rural world he described in his parables. But our image of Jesus includes his seriousness, determination, frustrations in mission, and teaching those who were deaf to his message. Amid times of joy he was ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’[Isa.53:3]. So whatever ‘joy’ he felt must have been deeper than a bubbly surface emotion.
Jesus, as described in the Gospels, was content not morose, though even depressive people (which Jesus certainly wasn’t), are able to delight in beauty, love, acts of humanity and times of refreshment. His love for people and his relationship with his Father seem to have given him special delight. Christ ‘delighted to do God’s will’ [Jn.4:34; 6:38; Ps.119; Isa.11:3].
The main word for ‘Joy’, found repeatedly in Matthew, Luke and especially John’s Gospel is ‘chará’, which denotes delighting and rejoicing. There is a possible root link to the word ‘cháris’ which meant ‘practical, outreaching love and grace’. The ‘joy’ which Jesus knew is certainly part of God’s divine, outgoing loving nature towards all things. He had the assurance of God’s love of him. In difficult circumstances this can speak to us: we may not be in an obviously happy state or situation, yet we can still feel and experience deep inner joy. We can still sense our relationship with God to be real, and still feel linked to the value and quality of God’s Creation.
Joy is something that can grow as we share it. At one time I used to pray for about half an hour or more daily with the person who, at the time, I grew closest to, and cared for most. In prayer we held up to God the people, events and thoughts that were most on our minds. We shared good, bad and painful issues and memories. I don’t want to sound sanctimonious, but those times are among the most joyful memories of my life, even when we were sharing difficult things. Joy isn’t focused on ‘us’ or on what selfishly makes one happy and satisfies the self; it comes most in reaching out and feeling unity with others: We are not designed to be solitary. That is one reason why Jesus’ times of loneliness during the week before his death must have been heart-rending, and why he wanted his closet friends praying with him on his last night in Gethsemane. Unfortunately they failed to support him at the time he needed them most. I’m sure that we may all have similarly failed others who needed us.
Jesus prayed that his joy in his relationship with God might be in his disciples [Jn.17:13]. There was joy in knowing he was doing the right things in life and that he was a key part of the one who brought life. Jesus knew the joy of being secure in his loving relationship with God. He must also have felt a similar, though perhaps less assured joy in his relationship with companions, despite the frustrations which the disciples caused so many times in his ministry. Such contentment reaches far deeper into our consciousness than surface enjoyment. The ‘contentment’ aspect of joy can develop in our own lives, even in hard circumstances, as St. Paul recognised [Phil.4:11; 2Cor.12:10]. Joy is among the fruit that the Holy Spirit develops within us [Gal.5:22]. (I have discussed this in my Meditations on the Fruit of the Spirit, which can be found on my website.)
Within Holy Week it is possible to develop a deep and contented inner joy, confident that we are in touch with the truth that though Christ faced an horrific end, though his Passion he achieved so much for us. Holy Week is a time of sorrow and recognition that even believers, like those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem as Messiah, are very limited in the extent of their commitment. We can be fickle: those who praised him on his triumphal entry into the city quickly turned away after his arrest. Some may have been among those who called for the death-penalty before Pilate.. But Holy Week is also a time to recognise the depth of commitment which God has for human beings, and demonstrated through Christ. God gave so much, willingly and lovingly, to bring about salvation. If we approach Holy Week with the intention of discovering the potential joy that is to be found in God’s commitment to us, it can deepen our appreciation of Christ’s Passion. Our liturgies and meditative thoughts about Jesus facing and enduring persecution and suffering can become less maudlin when we contemplate his trials through the lens of the joy that his commitment to salvation achieved.
Many people are very active in our over-busy world, yet feel no joy in their work, their relationships or the rat-race of life, even when they consider they ‘have everything they could want’. One may have everything you ever thought you wanted but still not find deep inner satisfaction. Inner joy can only be ‘whole’ when our lives are whole and balanced, physically, spiritually and socially. The poor and single can find joy, as well as those who are financially stable or in committed relationships, as long as they do not cut themselves off from the spiritual aspects of life that truly satisfy and build joy. The tragic film character Citizen Kane built around him everything that money could buy, but achieved no joy. similar frustration and lack of satisfaction with what one has is also recognised in Jesus’ Parable of the Rich Man who demolished his barns to build them larger [Lk.12:18]. By contrast the Parables of the Treasure Buried in a Field [Matt.13:44] and the Pearl of Great Price [Matt.13:45-46] encourage us to be ambitious to find the truths and ways of life that will give the most satisfying joy.
Jesus talked about great “joy in heaven over one sinner who repents” [Lk.15:7-10]. His was surely not just referring to those who turn away from evil lives. His intention probably also includes those who alter their priorities to find the richest treasure or pearl of spiritual truth, and alter their priorities accordingly. In a scientific age, it seems strange to think that our lives and activities could create joy or sorrow in heaven, or please God, yet somehow Christianity teaches that we are linked to cosmic forces. Science and philosophy recognise that everything may be somehow interlinked. Just as we can damage or enhance the environment, we can damage or enhance the wellbeing of the whole inanimate and animate cosmos. I doubt if this is the simplistic idea, which Sunday School once taught, that God, the saints in heaven and our deceased loved-ones watch us, weep over us when we sin, or rejoice when we are holy. (Sensing that may be driven by guilt or the call of our conscience.) The joy of creation, sung about in some Psalms, and the joy of heavenly powers, is perhaps more to do with our intuitive sense that we are fulfilling our individual key roles in the correct running of the universe.
There are important differences between joy and the more surface emotion of ‘happiness’. According to Jn.17:13, Jesus found joy in his own role in salvation, even though he would not be particularly ‘happy’ in the process of achieving it. Hymn lines like “Yet cheerful he to suffering goes...” or “gladly the Cross I bear” can make the Passion seem far too easy for Jesus. They can also make the Christian attitude to suffering appear false and rather naïve, even if the hymns from which the lines come are deeply meaningful. Jesus was a real man, who felt real emotions and pain, even if he had support and assurance from his Father. Salvation was achieved through struggle, commitment and agony, even though the outcome of Christ’s Passion came to a glorious climax in Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension.
Towards the end of his life Jesus promised his followers that their joy would be complete [Jn.15:11; 16:20-24]. Thar joy would stem from the assurance of being ‘in him’ and among his Spirit still among them. Holy Week can be far more positive if we remember the imagery of labour-pains and birth that Jesus gave as a promise to his disciples shortly before his death: “A little while and you will no longer see me and again a little while and you will see me. Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn to joy. When a woman is in labour she has labour because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you will have pain now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will be able to take that joy from you.” [Jn.16:20-22].
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What personal ‘joy’ can you find in contemplating the events and message of Holy Week?
42/ Monday – FEAR
“Perfect love drives out fear” 1Jn.4:18
Jesus’ commitment to achieving salvation for others intentionally aimed to remove the fear of death, God or the future for those who followed him. Fear of God or the gods, spirits and what lies beyond death has been a feature of a majority of world religions and cultures including the ancient Jews. Spiritual powers and death were regarded as enemies, perhaps largely because they were unknown. One had to obey the gods out of fear of punishment. For centuries the Christian Church also promoted following God’s ways through emphasis on fear. Threats varied from being consigned to Hell, excommunication and anathematisation, being shunned by the community and having fellowship with the congregation withdrawal. Being cut off from the Church was claimed to lead to damnation. If you Google “fear of God” you’ll find much writing and preaching on the topic from Christian writers who nearly always emphasise the teaching about fear from the old Covenant in the Hebrew Scriptures. One 8,000 word contemporary Reformed sermon on the subject (nearly an hour and a half long!) mentions no New Testament references whatsoever and offers very little hope for any but the exclusive group who are of the preacher’s persuasion!
Christ, by contrast, who spoke as though his knowledge of God was from direct experience, taught his hearers to understand God more intimately as a loving ‘Father’. His use of the very intimate term ‘Abba’/’Daddy’ hardly imagines God as a frightening despot. The imagery of a Father, as Jesus represented him, was not intended to terrify but to be deserving of honour and obedience. Jesus warned of consequences of not following the Father’s way for human life. He told people: “Do not to fear those who kill the body, rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body.” [Matt.10:28; Lk.12:4]. But he also balanced such statements with other teaching about God’s love and persistence in caring for his wayward children. To Jairus, when he believed his daughter was dead, Jesus said: “Do not fear, only believe” [Mk.5:36;] Later 1Jn. 4:18 encouraged the followers of God that “perfect love casts out fear”.
The term ‘fear’ appears a huge number of times in the Bible, most often in the context of fear of God. We are recommended to ‘fear the Lord’ but this is often intended as an encouragement to respond with ‘awe’, ‘respect’ and ‘reverential trust’ and follow this through with ‘obedience’. As Christian believers we are not intended to feel ‘terror’ but neither should the concept of ‘fear of God’ be watered down. There is a powerful sense throughout scripture that despite God’s grace and mercy, none should regard God as ‘an easy touch’ or neglect the truth for which God stands. We are mean to follow the true requirements revealed in scripture and by God’s Spirit out of respect, love, and recognition that in following such ways true life is to be found. In moving away from them, life can become a spiritual desert. We should fear a dearth of spiritual truth because it cannot lead to the ‘abundant life’ by which Christ intended his followers to flourish.
To ‘fear God’ in the sense of feeling awe towards, and respect for, God’s nature, power and truth, was seen as the way to true life. Prov.14:27 calls ‘fear of God’ a ‘fountain of life’; Prov.19:23 claims that ‘it leads to life’; Prov.10:27 claims that it will “prolong our days”. Jesus may have taught a lot about the love of God and our need for love. That sort of love certainly does ‘drive out fear” [1Jn.4:18]. But Jesus also said much about the consequences of not following God’s way. Perhaps love and fear always need to go together and be balanced in out conception of God.
Fear is usually a translation of ‘phóbos’, from which we derive the word ‘phobia’. Phóbos was actually the name of a terrifying Greek god, son of Ares the god of war and Aphrodite He was a personification of fear and panic, alongside his twin brother ‘Deimos’ [Terror], who spread chaos among armies. When the pagan gods revealed themselves they were said to inspire fear. Some Greek philosophers encouraged people to resist the emotion of fear as it was irrational in a world where fate was inevitable, though Plutarch considered fear of pain, death and the powers of the gods to be reasonable. In the Hebrew Scriptures yr’, which is regularly translated as ‘phóbos’ in the Greek LXX translation of the Hebrew, originally meant ‘to tremble’ [Gen.26:7; 1Sam.21:13]. It was used in the context of war, loss, exile or disaster. Those who were afraid were excluded from the army to prevent their fear discouraging fellow comrades [Deut.20:8]. Another Hebrew word: ‘pḥd’ meant ‘to quake’. Moses, Joshua and Samuel all felt ‘fear’ / ‘quaking’ when they stood in the presence of God, despite their special relationship with God [Ex.34:30; Josh.4:14; 2Sam.12:18]. Such fear was sensed especially when the priest entered the sanctuary on the Day of Atonement [Lev.16]. Gradually yr’ came to be used for fear in the sense of ‘holding in honour’. This says much to us about the appropriateness of feeling greater awe and honour in God’s presence. In personal prayer, worship, and indeed at all times, as we are constantly in God’s presence, so honour and awe should be a constant aspect of our response to faith. Trust in God was thought to free one from fear [Isa.54:14], but one still needed to regard God and God’s truth with awe.
Many Christians, to a certain extent, tend to take our relationship with God for granted. We have learned this partly from Christ’s closeness of relationship with his Father, but we are far from being as like Christ as we should. So we need a greater humility and recognition of our sins. Prov.1:7, 8:10; 15:33 and Ps.111:10 claim that fear is at the heart of knowledge, wisdom and truly understanding God. This would seem to mean that we should regarding God and our lives and responsibilities in wise, correctly balanced perspective. Prov.15:33 links ‘fear’ with having a right ‘honour’ and ‘humility’ in our relationship with God. Too often Christians mostly concentrate on the more loving, benign imagery of God that dominates what Jesus taught; we tend to miss out or side-line some of Christ’s more sober and more uncomfortable warnings. ‘Honour’, ‘love’, ‘faithful trust’ and ‘humility’ should be held in balance with awe at God’s power. Godly awe stems from having a wise sense of honour and humility towards the Divine. We need to rightly apply the instructions to follow truth that are revealed by scripture and God’s Spirit. Prov.2:5 states that fear is a key to knowledge of God, making us aware of essential aspects of God, including holiness, creativity, the truth of God’s words and our responsibilities in life. “Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him” [Ps.33:9].
Fear of God and doing what is right in response are signs of wisdom: Prov.8:13 claims that ‘the fear of God is to hate evil... pride... arrogance... evil ways... and lies’. It gives ‘hope in the Lord’ [Prov.23:17-18] and can help to develop ‘strong confidence’ in God as a protective “place of refuge” [Prov.14:26].
Several Psalms encourage right fear, in the belief that God would benefit those who felt awe towards him. Ps.33:18-19 says, that “the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him.” Ps.34:8-10 claims that ‘There is no want to those who fear him’. Ps. 25:12-14 promises prosperity, and ongoing inheritance and covenant promises to those who fear God. But this would seem to imply that God always does good for all who follow God sincerely. Experience suggests that this does not always seem to be apparent, for good and bad happen to both the righteous and unrighteous. We should not be trusting God as some form of eternal money-bank or provision-provider to supply our every need. Nor should we be quaking at the idea that God will take things away from us if we aren’t good, as much in the Hebrew Scriptures implies. Both are aspects of the superstitious belief that Christ sought to dispel.
Trust and awe of God were considered to lead us to salvation: Ps. 85:9 claims: “Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.” Ps.147:11 says: “The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his mercy.” Those who fear God are promised God’s blessing [Ps.115:13 & 13 and Ps.128:1 & 4]. But that blessing is not necessarily the fulfilling of our material or physical desires, despite what Ps. 37:4 and 145:19 claim: it seems much more related to God being close to us and giving us salvation. Mal.4:2 claims that for those who live with such awe and honour the Messiah will be revealed: “But to you who fear my Name, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings…”
Fear’ is seen as a means of coming to understanding an important aspect of the true nature of God Mal.3:16 parallels fear of the LORD with ‘meditating on his name’. Ultimately ‘fearing’ God is about trusting God for all the qualities that God is: awe-inspiring, strong in power, loving, wonderful, protective, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and so much more: ‘Fear’ of the Lord therefore meant developing strong confidence in God for the whole that God is. In practice ‘meditating on God’s name’ means considering all that God represents and following the wisdom of living, thinking and acting in response to revealed truth. Such understanding includes a response of keeping all God’s statutes and commandments, [Deut.6:2; 8:6], obeying God’s voice, serving God and holding fast to God [Deut.13:4], with all of our heart, mind and soul. Practically, this concerns not just observing the letter of scripture’s laws and statutes and Jesus’ teaching. Jesus showed that to follow God’s ways with awe includes learning to apply and be able to adapt such rules appropriately and wisely according to circumstances. It entails living by what we believe to be God’s regulations truthfully, continuously and humbly. We should not ‘lift ourselves above our fellows’ [Deut.17:19]. This latter condition is particularly significant for church-members who sometimes act as though they are superior to those around them.
Jesus did not take away from any of these regulations in his teaching about God; in effect he made adherence to them even more exacting by his emphasis that we should keep to the spirit, not the letter of the law. But he was discouraging superstition and terror about a dangerous God, which created barriers between people and God. He gave his followers us a more confident perspective. Jesus intended people to recognise that if we go God’s ways and understand the nature of God as revealed by him, we can be secure that we are following truth. In God we recognise love, truth, the nature of the life-force that created us and the nature of the abundant life. Christians were to learn to follow the God about whom Jesus taught, not out of threat, terror of punishment, danger, or anything negative, nor even primarily out of a sense of obligation and awe. Rather we obey out of love and respect because we recognise that this way of life is right and the best way for the advance of life. Out of this can develop a more loving sense of gratitude and awe towards God’s truth, which encourages obedience and adds abundance to life.
Jesus’ relationship with his Father was one of awed friendship and trust. This led to his response of obedience to the mission that he recognised he much follow. He is not recorded as showing fear when standing up to authorities and opposition. Rather he was confident in facing inevitable opposition. However as he approached his death the fear that Jesus experienced in Gethsemane is totally understandable. Whether he had divine insight into the fact that he was going to be crucified, and was facing an horrific death, we cannot be certain. Theologians have debated by for centuries how much Jesus’ mind was limited by normal human understanding or whether he had full divine insight. He did not claim omniscience, and admitted that certain things were known to the Father, not himself. But from the events in Jerusalem in the last week of his mission he must have come to the conclusion that he was facing imminent trial and death. For any of us that would cause fear. Execution in the Ancient Jewish world, whether stoning for heresy or Roman crucifixion was a barbaric and agonising punishment for anyone to face. It is no wonder that he went through such pressure that he sweated blood.
In his passion in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wrestled internally with the decision to endure a greater suffering than he had ever known. He assented because he believed this was the way to bring spiritual relief and a better life to the world. His entire mission had been committed towards others; he was doing what he believed was right. In the prayers ascribed to him in Gethsemane we see Jesus expressing awe in response to what he believed was God’s truth. Something had to be done to achieve eternal salvation. Far more must have gone through his mind than we are given in his late prayers in the Gospels. Yet through that night, and probably in his thoughts for weeks before when he was giving his final teachings to the disciples, Jesus had come to believe that his self-giving was needed to bring about salvation. It must have taken extreme trust to have faced such an agonising death with such resolve, after such mental struggle. Christ’s self-giving was not the result of a negative attitude of fear of God, but of recognition that he was uniting himself with the will of his loving God and Father.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How the nature of Christ’s teaching about God alter your reaction with the God with whom you have a relationship? Does it take away any negative senses of fear?
43/ Tuesday – LAMB
“Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” [Jn.1:29, 36]... “your lamb shall be without blemish...” [Ex.12:5]... “He was oppressed and afflicted yet he did not open his mouth: like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearer is silent, he did not open his mouth.” [Isa.53:7]
The term ‘Lamb’ used of Christ expresses more than his sacrificial act, though this of course has been a major emphasis in scripture, and has been the interpretation of Jesus’ death in Christian teaching for centuries. It is insufficient to regard “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” [Jn.1:29, 36] as just indicating that Christ’s sacrificial death will bring redemption and salvation. That intention and meaning is definitely contained in the imagery, but Jesus Christ was far more than God’s ultimate sacrifice for sin, as represented in Zurbaran’s moving painting of a bound lamb, or more terrifyingly in Holman Hunt’s haunted image of ‘The Scapegoat’. One idea of ‘the lamb of God’ which is rarely considered, could equally be that Jesus followed God his Father trustingly and faithfully, as a sheep or lamb followed the shepherd. (In Middle Eastern culture the shepherd walked ahead, leading the flock of sheep rather than driving them from behind.)
Unfortunately the sentimental connotations of the term ‘lamb’ can sometimes conjure up an image of Jesus, ‘the spotless Lamb of God’ as representing a soft, woolly, innocent, mild and non-dangerous aspect of God. It is equally unsound to imagine Jesus as a small child-like lamb who never grew up to be a strong man and a combative teacher when he needed to be . Jesus was of course gentle, gracious, merciful and caring in his response to many people, but, like the Pre-Raphaelite painting ‘The Pretty Baa-Lambs’, a ‘soft and gentle’ idea of Christ is a far too simplistic concept. When one considers how strongly Jesus challenged, taught and lived, sentimental ideas of him are definitely unrealistic, perhaps even heretical.
There are three Greek words translated as ‘lamb’ in the New Testament, though it is unclear whether they are deliberately intended to carry different connotations. It may just be that different writers used different Greek words to convey similar ideas. The word ‘arēn’ from which we derive the zodiac term ‘Aries’ occurs only once, where in Lk.10:3 Jesus sent the apostles out “like lambs in the midst of wolves”. The word ‘amnós’ was used of ‘the Lamb of God’ [Jn.1:29, 36] and Acts.8:32 translating Isaiah’s ‘the lamb before it shearer is dumb’. When talking about the sacrificial lamb the New Testament uses the term ‘arníon’. It is also used when Jesus’ command to Peter to ‘feed my lambs’ [Jn.21:15]. Arnion is the word used 29 times throughout Revelation to describe Christ as the lamb on the throne still carrying the wounds of his sacrifice “looking as though it had been slaughtered” [Rev.5:12; 13:8]. Here Jesus’ wounds are definitely imagined as showing that his life has been given in the process of securing salvation for humanity.
The imagery of the ‘lamb’ was as relevant to Israel’s culture as the pastoral imagery that Jesus used in many of his parables. Sheep were a major part of the economy of the lamb: ownership of large flocks indicated the status of their owner. They were valued for wool, meat, financial value and, as well as sacrifice. Tending them was a common occupation, though the role of the shepherd was lowly, despised. Shepherds were often regarded as not trustworthy, since some sold milk or lambs that did not belong to them. ‘Good shepherds’, by contrast, were trusted by both the owners and the sheep, which is why Jesus used the imagery of himself: He was lowly but entirely trustworthy and reliable, protected, valued and led his charges to nourishing, safe pasture.
In the Hebrew Scriptures God’s people were described as sheep [2Sam.24:17; Isa.63:11; Num.27:17]; they often strayed [Ps.119:176; Isa.53:6]. God was described as the people’s Shepherd [Ps.23:1; 100:3; 77:20; 78:52]. Similarly the leaders of God’s people were also intended to be good shepherds. Kings, priests, officials and heads of households were intended to reflect God’s leadership of the people and were described as shepherds. Those who too often failed were described as faithless shepherds [Ezek.34:23ff.]. Some were even described as ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing [Matt7:15]. Jesus described God’s people facing judgement as sheep: many were lost and in need of a good shepherd to lead them [Mk.6:34ff.]. As well as being the good shepherd himself, the Apostles, under his rule, were commissioned to care for the flock [Jn.21:16-17].
The innocent Suffering Servant, who became associated with both the Messiah and Israel as a nation would be dumb “like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearer is silent.” [Isa.53:7; Acts 8:32]. This may be why Matt.26:63 and Matt.14:61 emphasise Jesus’ silence at his trial. If a sacrificial victim displayed fear, its sacrifice was considered in many cultures to be less efficacious. An animal that resisted being taken up the slope or steps to the sacrificial altar was described as ‘backsliding’, hence the use of the term in the Church for those who resist or turn away from faith. It is the case that sheep are often struck dumb when they are turned over for shearing, but that is probably largely through fear. Nevertheless, Christ’s willing submission to his death by his silence during his trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate was regarded by some early theologians as recognition of the efficacy of his self-giving. In Acts 8:34 Philip explained the meaning of the Christian faith to the Ethiopian eunuch by demonstrating the links between the Isaiah passage about the ‘lamb before its slaughterer being dumb’ and Christ.
There is considerable contemporary theological debate over whether Jesus’ death should any longer be considered as ‘sacrifice’. The Temple laws required the offering of an animal sacrifice in payment for sins, as well as for rites of purification, thanksgiving, etc. The past traditions of Christian theology of the Atonement always linked Jesus’ death on the Cross to the biblical teaching about sacrifice for sin. Rom 3:25 and Heb.10:10-14 definitely explain salvation as being attained by Jesus’ atoning sacrifice. Some theologians him with the sacrifice that God provided for Abraham as a substitute for Isaac [Gen.22:8, 13]: God gave his Son as a substitute for us. More often Jesus was identified with the Paschal lamb appointed by God [Ex.12:5, 14, 27; 1Cor.5:7]. The New Testament particularly seems to equate Jesus with the Paschal lamb being sacrificed for sins [1Cor.5:7; 1Pet.1:19; Jn.1:29; Heb.7:27; 10:10]. 1Pet.1:13ff. describes us as people redeemed by the spotless lamb. The common belief was that Jesus’ life was given as a once-for all sacrifice, to replace the Jewish legal religious requirement of ‘a life for a life’ [Rom.6:10; Heb.7:27; 10:10; 1Pet.3:18]. John’s Gospel’s identification of Jesus as the ‘Lamb of God’ develops further than John the Baptist’s claim at Jesus’ baptism [Jn.1:29]. At his crucifixion no bones of his were broken [Jn.19:31-33, 36], as was the regulation with the lamb sacrificed at the Passover [Ex.12:46].
Those theologians who question or even oppose the emphasis on Jesus’ death as a sacrifice, point out that the idea that God would sacrifice his loved Son for the good of the world, makes God seem to be cruel. Even the idea of the sacrifice of a perfect divine life for the life of the entire cosmos seems rooted in older mythologies and distant ancient Hebrew or Canaanite theology and the sacrificial practices of polytheistic middle-eastern faiths and the mystery religions in the Roman Empire, which Jesus and Christian believers would not follow. Faith, reason and experience convince me that salvation is true and that Jesus opened it up for us. But I also sense that there is a far more complicated process at work in bringing salvation than is explained in much evangelism that simply claims that Jesus’ death on the cross was God’s perfect sacrifice to atone for sin and redeem believers who follow him. It is inevitable that St. Paul and other New Testament writers explained Jesus’ death in terms of the Paschal sacrifice and a sacrifice of Atonement. That was the way that people considered that salvation or divine forgiveness could be brought about in Jewish and Roman culture. If you sinned you sacrificed the life of a perfect creature, like ‘a spotless lamb’, to atone for your sins. But the God of Love and Truth who Jesus revealed is far more complex, merciful and gracious than just demanding a ‘life for a life’.
Human sacrifice was not a feature of established Hebrew religion in scripture. Other cultures that sacrificed human beings were specifically condemned [Lev.18:21; 20:2-5; Isa.57:5; Jer.32:35; Ezek.20:31; Hos.13:2]. Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter after a vow, in the time of the Judges was a tragedy for both the unnamed daughter and Jephthah, but it also suggests that there may have been human sacrifices in thanksgiving for victory in his time [Judg.11:29-40]. The angel of the Lord preventing Abraham sacrificing his son and only heir, Isaac [Gen.22:7-14], has been suggested by some scholars to be a possible record of the end of human sacrifice in Hebrew tribal religious practices. The human sacrifices to Molech that had taken place in Gehenna made the place unclean [1Ki.11:5f.; 2Ki.23:10f.; Jer.32:35; 49:1-3]. For people to consider that God would revert to the practice in order to bring about redemption, seems to many believers today to go against the ideas about sacrifice that progressed through biblical history. Several prophets were adamant that God preferred the offering of our truly committed hearts and minds to any form of dead sacrifice [Joel 2:12-13; Hos.6:6; Matt.9:13, Heb.10:59 quoting Ps.40:6-8)]. So it is possible that the sacrificial imagery used of Christ’s death should be taken as a metaphor for him dedicating his whole life to bring about the process of salvation, rather than that his crucifixion was literally a place of sacrifice.
Jesus spoke of his Father, God, as far more loving, caring and valuing of lives than as a power who would unfeelingly offer Christ’s perfect life, even for the good of the whole of the cosmos. There must be a far more complex plan within the process of salvation than the simplistic idea that God’s perfect Son was slaughtered on the cross to open up the possibility of cleansing for all. What we know of Jesus from the Gospels demonstrates that his whole life, teaching and actions were motivated by total self-offering ‘agape’-love. But self-giving sacrificial love is very different from the concept of God deliberately offering the bodily sacrifice of his Son. The way that Jesus brought about redemption, the cleansing from sin and the promise of salvation, will probably always be a mystery, but it is far too simplistic just to claim that God was using his body as the once-for all sacrifice for universal redemption of his people. The process by which Jesus Christ brought about salvation is surely a far more intricate, holistic and spiritually involved.
The imagery of Jesus as the ‘Lamb of God’ remains a valuable one for showing us that he came from God, followed God faithfully and showed us the way to follow him trustingly as ‘Good Shepherd’. He was humble yet valued, and gave his entire life to the process of salvation, which God inspired. He can lead us to nourishing pastures, protects and guides us. One aspect of sheep which does not relate to Christ or to Christians is that sheep are often pretty stupid. Christ was far from that; he is wide. Like sheep the rest of us frequently do stupid things, stray and get lost. But unlike sheep we have been entrusted with very powerful, thinking brains. We do not follow the Good Shepherd without thought. We are able to rationalise faith and recognise that faith is reasonable and shows the right ways.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Ponder for yourself what Christ offered for you by his self-giving, and what his salvation has achieved for you. Find personal ways of giving thanks.
44/ Wednesday – PASSOVER
“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you.” [Lk.22:15]
There has been much debate over whether the Last Supper was actually the Passover meal. This is due to questions over whether Jesus died at the exact time that the Passover lambs were sacrificed [John’s Gospel], or the day before. The chronology of Jesus’ passion in John’s Gospel seems to be a day different from that of the Synoptic Gospels, probably for theologically symbolic reasons. Mk.14:12ff. claims that the meal that Jesus ate with his disciples in the upper room was on the evening of “the first day of the Unleavened Bread when the Paschal lamb is sacrificed” but Jn.18:28 claims that Jesus’ arrest and trial were on the evening before “so as to avoid ritual defilement and be able to eat the Passover.” In Jn.19:14 the people’s call to Pilate to crucify Jesus is about noon on “the Day of Preparation for the Passover”. John seems to have deliberately placed Jesus’ death at time when the Passover lambs were sacrificed, to draw parallels between Jesus’ death and the Paschal sacrifice for sin. But this would mean that for John, Jesus last meal with the disciples would not have been the actual Passover meal, but something similar. It is unlikely that they would have celebrated the Passover on the evening before, as this would go against all Jewish tradition.
This discrepancy in time is in many ways relatively unimportant. Although the idea of Jesus’s death being a sacrifice is debated theologically, the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament definitely imply that it is significant that Jesus died around the Passover festival. Whether the Last Supper meal was the Passover feast or not, Jesus brought new significance to it by introducing words that expanded its meaning beyond the liturgy of the Passover tradition and led to the words still used by Christians for the institution of the Eucharist [1Cor.11:23-26]. Jesus certainly compared himself to the Paschal lamb in sharing with the disciples the bread that symbolised his body and the wine that represented his blood [Mk.14:22-24; Lk.22:19f]. In saying the words of institution and interpreting the meaning of the bread and wine that he was offering to his disciples, he was taking the role of the head of the household, who would give the blessings and explain the meanings of the elements of the Passover meal.
The Passover feast, [‘páscha’ in Greek / ‘pesach’ or ‘pesach-maṣṣôṯ’ in Hebrew] was, with the Day of Atonement, the most important feast of the Jewish year, commemorating the release of Israel from Egypt and the Exodus to the Holy Land [Ex.12:11-14; Deut.16:1]. The background to its commemoration is described in Ex.12:21-23 and Num.9:2. In the nation of Israel’s early days it had been celebrated in different tribes and clans, but after Josiah’s reforms [c621 B.C.E.] it became a compulsory pilgrimage to Jerusalem for all, as did the Feast of Tabernacles. The feast appears to have had ancient origins in earlier nomadic times, as a time of sacrifice, to protect flocks from demons. The Jews may have developed upon this for their own commemorations. Much of the liturgy was being formulated around the time of Jesus and afterwards, including the Psalms and prayers which were included.
The preparation of the Passover meal took place on the 14th day of the month of Nissan. The sacrificial lambs which were to be eaten were killed in the inner forecourt of the Temple, not by the priests, but by a representative of the individual groups who would eat the commemorative meal together. The priests were present to receive the sacrificial blood in bowls and sprinkle it on the altar of burnt offering.
As the Jewish day began at sunset, the Passover meal began after sunset on the 15th Nisan. It was eaten reclining at table, and was celebrated in groups of at least 10 in individual households. The liturgy of the meal has been modified over time by different Jewish groups but basically the celebration that Jesus would have shared, (if it was the Paschal meal) would have followed the pattern below. All the contents of the meal had symbolic meanings, which were explained as the liturgy developed:
a/ The meal began with the head of the household speaking words of dedication over the first cup of wine, which was then shared between all those at the meal.
b/ A preliminary dish of herbs in a fruit purée was eaten.
c/ The main meal was brought in, consisting of the Passover lamb, unleavened bread, butter herbs and purée, but was not eaten yet.
d/ A second cup of wine was poured but not yet drunk.
e/ The Passover Liturgy was recited by the head of the family. It consisted of:
i/ the haggaḏâh, retelling the story of the Exodus [Deut.26:5-11].
ii/ an explanation of the symbolic meaning of the items of the meal (lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs etc.).
iii/ communal singing of the first Hallēl Psalms [Ps.113 and 114]
f/ The meal was eaten. It began with a prayer over the unleavened bread an ended with a prayer over a third cup of wine.
g/ The singing of the second set of Hallēl Psalms [Ps.114-117 or 115-118].
h/ The feast had to end before midnight and concluded with the head of the family pronouncing a blessing over a fourth cup of wine.
It seems that this was probably the point when Jesus stepped away from tradition and took the bread and wine which he described as representing himself. He shared this with his disciples and asked them to continue to share the elements in commemoration of him.
Though commentators disagree over whether the Last Supper was the actual Passover meal, Jesus’ words make connections with the Passover [Mk.14:22ff.] and many of the details of the story imply that this was the Paschal meal. The Messianic banquet was also regarded as the fulfilment of the Passover [1Cor.5:7-8]. As part of the liturgy of Passover week, the Song of Songs was read in services. Some commentators suggest that the themes of Jesus’ passion discourses from Jn.12 to 16 reflect these liturgical readings, especially on the themes of unity in love [Jn.13:31ff; 14:15ff; 15:9ff.] and seeking and finding the way [Jn.16:5]. Jesus’ trial has also been associated with Passover themes in the Pharisaic tradition. [For an explanation of these issues cf. C. Brown ed. 1976. New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology Vol.1:630]
Passover in Israel was a time when the Roman and priestly authorities were understandably alert for insurgency. Jerusalem swelled with multiple thousands of Jews, arriving from throughout the nation and beyond. It has been estimated that, in Jesus’ time, more than 100,000 people attended. As there was so much dissent among different sects, both religious and secular authorities were concern about the insurgent ideas that developed among various groups. As Passover was a period when traditions emphasised the Messianic hope and the unique history of the Jews as God’s chosen people, it was a period of Messianic expectation. Over the ears the festival had witnessed several messianic pretenders and encouraged much prophetic or apocalyptic teaching about salvation and the future freedom of Israel.
In John’s Gospel the Passover festival seems most significant as sign that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, and God’s offering for the nation: The Gospel mentions Jesus’ mission at the time of three Passover feasts, though doesn’t mention Jesus’ attendance as a child [Lk.2:41]. John’s first account was the Passover when Jesus cleansed the Temple [Jn.2:12-22], an event that the other Gospels place during his last visit to Jerusalem [Matt.21:12-15; Mk.11:15-18; Lk.19:45-48]. Then around another Passover-time Jesus’s nature was described as further revealed in the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus walking on the water, and his teaching about the ‘bread of life’ [Jn.6:4]. These events in Jn. 6 are recorded as occurring in Capernaum and around Galilee, so perhaps he did not travel to Jerusalem that year. The feast in Jerusalem was, however, a tradition which Jesus seems to have kept, so perhaps John’s indication of ‘the time of Passover’ meant shortly before or after the pilgrimage. In the third mention, in Jn.12, the messianic emphasis is strong. Whereas previously Jesus had been reticent about others’ messianic claims about him [Jn.6:15], at this final Passover Jesus accepted peoples’ acclamation of him [Jn.12:12-15]. Lazarus and Martha’s sister Mary anointed Jesus’ feet at Bethany “six days before the Passover” [Jn.12:1]. The chief priests considered having Lazarus killed, as well as Jesus, due to the crowds who were attracted [Jn.12:10]. John suggests that Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem was the day after his meal at the House of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. Some commentators suggest that it his re-entry into the city was on the day when Passover lambs were selected for slaughter; the day before the evening of the Passover festival. However the Gospels imply that several events in Jerusalem and times of teaching in the Temple precincts took place during the week before Passover. As described earlier, John implies that Jesus died on the day and the hour when the lambs were killed. This dating seems to deliberately identify Jesus with the Lamb of God, sacrificed for God’s people.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
The Jews used Passover to remember and celebrate the freedom that God had brought to them. What do you do to particularly celebrate and commemorate what Jesus’ self-giving means to you?
45/ Maundy Thursday – REMEMBER / REMEMBRANCE
“This is my body which is given for you... do this in remembrance of me” [Lk.22:19; 1Cor.11:24-25]
Memory is an important faculty in human life and is significant in many cultures. Memorialising was especially strong in Judaism, and continues to be strong today in the emphasis on remembering family members and the holocaust. Jewish holidays memorialised many aspects of their secular and religious history; memorial stones were erected in significant places and tombs of significant figures became important places of pilgrimage. The Bible is full of memorable stories, which is one reason why it is so effective for teaching belief. Jesus taught in easily-memorable parables to help their meanings to be retained in the minds of believers. Much Christian faith in God is based on memories of the ways in which we have interacted with God through our lives.
We often use the word ‘remember’ quite lightly: ‘remember a birthday, telephone number, address etc.’ but scripture often uses the term as a solemn command: ‘Remember to keep the Sabbath Day holy’ [Ex.20:8]; ‘Remember your creator in the days of your youth.’ [Eccles.12:1]. In a concordance you will see how full the Torah and the Prophets are with commands to ‘Remember!’ The people of Israel were commanded to ‘remember’ significant events which shaped the history of the nation of Israel and commemorate them with festivals, which reinforced for centuries the importance of what God had done for them. But people were also called to individually remember what God had done for them.
Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples is a gentler form of such a command. He shared bread and wine with them, as all Jews did at the Pesach Feast and indicated their symbolism. In the liturgy of the Passover feast they would have toasted several great memories of God’s goodness throughout the meal. Perhaps the group might have been slightly intoxicated after the celebration, though the wine would probably have been watered down. Towards the end of the meal (described in the previous section) Jesus expanded their commemoration by taking further bread and wine and using them as symbols by which his followers could remember him. This change in the normal procedure of the Paschal meal would have been enough to make it memorable, but his words would have made it even more memorable. To call the symbols of his body and his blood could have shocked his followers. For any Jew the emphasis on drinking even a substitute for blood and sharing even a substitute for human meat would have been anathema. We aren’t told their reaction, but it is probable that they did not recognise the significance of what he was saying this until well after his death.
After centuries of theology and debate we are still discovering potential aspects of meaning in this simple act. Various churches have different interpretations of the meaning of Communion, which have sadly divided some for centuries (even disagreeing about what it is to be called – Lord’s Supper, The Lord’s Table, Mass, Communion, Eucharist or other titles). Sharing the elements of bread and wine were meant to unite Jesus’ followers and remind all that we are ‘one’ ‘in him’. Our varieties of understanding can demonstrate the potential breadth of what Christ means to us. We should learn from each other’s traditions to move towards a greater recognition of the expansive truths behind our faith. The ways that we interpret the unifying meal should not be allowed by any to become a cause of division or lack of unity. We are called to ‘remember’ that Jesus gave himself and his entire life and mission for all of us. This should be a cause of unified praise and that thankfulness should expand in love for all, deepen and enlarge our interpretation of faith and inspire mission.
Remembrance can be very important. It helps us to grow in valuing both the memory of something or someone and to recognise our own value. When we write lovingly to friends or relatives we demonstrate that we remember and value them. A gesture of valuing someone can also enhance our sense of our own value and remind us that we are not alone; we are part of a family or community. The Paschal meal was meant to unite Jewish peoples by commemorating the escape of their common ancestors from Egyptian slavery. This was a shared commemoration to encourage all Jews to recognise God’s blessings upon them corporately as well as individually. The Communion meal, remembering Jesus and what he achieved is intended to unite us by expanding our appreciation of being cherished by God and cared for so much that he was willing to offer himself to us in the form of God’s Son.
When we consider the struggle that Jesus went through in his mind on the night before he died, it might be valuable to speculate on what memories might have helped him through his Passion. We have no idea what memories he had of existence before his incarnation. Luke records that Jesus mentioned witnessing the fall of Satan [Lk.10:18] but in the context of the seventy returning to him rejoicing after their mission, this may have been a figurative way of saying that in praying for them during their mission he recognised that evil was being defeated. In a number of Gospel passages Jesus spoke as though he remembered a closer life with his Father. But during his Passion he also had many more recent memories to strengthen him: He had his memories of his disciples and successful times with them. He wanted those who were close to him to pray with him and support him in Gethsemane, even though they failed to stay awake. He had the memories the many who had turned to faith through him and memories of the miracles that assured others, and no-doubt himself, that his mission was being guided and empowered by God. He had his memories of his times with his Father in prayer and contemplation, as well as the sense that God had been working with and alongside him. He had memorised scriptures, which strengthened his resolve, directed his path, enabled him to combat temptation and comforted him when he repeated them to himself, even reciting Ps.22 on the cross. He had the memories of the Jewish traditions within his life, the feasts they celebrated together that consolidated their covenant relationship with God. Even if he had gone through doubts about his identity and ability to face the trials ahead, he had the memories of God keeping covenant promises towards his people. We might speculate whether the miracles of the raising of a few from death, especially Lazarus, would have given him confidence that his own death would not be the end, and that his promises of life beyond death to others, would be true for him as well as them. He certainly seems to have had that assurance when he promised salvation to the penitent thief beside him on the cross. [Lk.23:43].
Memories for us can be equally reassuring. It is important to try to recollect times when our faith has been confirmed, as such memories can strengthen us in times of difficulty and doubt. Remembering scripture’s promises can be similarly helpful. Jesus had so many scriptures in his mind. He was able to use his knowledge of scripture to resist temptation, to challenge those who were opposing him, to reassure people of God’s promises towards his people. Most powerfully, he was most probably assuring himself on the cross by reciting Psalm 22: The words “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’ {Matt. 27:46; Mk.15:34] open a psalm which expresses extreme distress, yet from verse 22 turns to a sense of assurance and trust in God:
I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.
From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the LORD.
May your hearts live forever!
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD;
and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.
For dominion belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.
To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord,
and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that he has done it.
As well as our memories of good times, our personal memories may be full of pain or mistakes that we or others have made. But the faculty of memory is really important. Remembering positive things from the past can give us stability in present or future times of struggle or lack of confidence. Believers who have memories of faithful times and who have a good recollection of scripture often have secure foundations which can support them in time of need. I have found memories of faith to strengthen me particularly at depressing times in my life, or times of loss. If we learn to trust God and that Christ’s teachings are true, memories of Jesus’ promises can particularly provide confidence for the future and challenges to live-up to in the present. Above all, we have the memories of all that Jesus promised through his Passion. Though we remember these in part each time we share the Eucharist together, Holy Week is a particular tome to deepen our connection with God by remembering the extent of what Christ was willing to do in order to secure our future and give us the supreme example of a good life lived for others.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What memories encourage you in your faith? These may be significant memories from scripture or events in your own life where you felt particularly close to or protected by God.
46/ Good Friday – FORGIVENESS – Mtt.6:12; 18:35; Lk.17:3
“Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” [Lk.23:34]
As I discussed in Meditation 43, the idea of Christ’s death as ‘sacrifice’ has permeated Christianity since early days, though some modern theologians are understandably uncomfortable with the interpretation that a loving God could deliberately sacrifice his perfect Son, even for the great good of cleansing humanity and reuniting us with God. Yet somehow, through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, forgiveness was achieved for human beings, which made possible the promise of a new and better life in response to God. The father of the Prodigal Son forgave without the need for sacrifice; he forgave because he loved. ‘Hesed’, the Hebrew word for God’s ‘covenant love’, ‘loving-kindness’ and ‘mercy’ recognises that God’s nature is love, and the will for forgiveness is part of the loving character of the divine.
Forgiveness ‘áphesis’ in Greek can means ‘freedom’ / ‘letting someone out of prison’ / ‘setting free’ / ‘releasing from a debt, taxation or an office’ / ‘hurling away’ / ‘pardoning’ / ‘leaving behind the past’. Another linked term ‘páresis’ is used more exclusively of the forgiveness given by God or Christ. This form of forgiveness is of course more perfect than the forgiveness that human beings are able to give.
Some people talk of perfect love, like that of God, being ‘unconditional’ but that is not exactly what scripture implies. It sometimes seems that Christians use the term as a form of protection from feeling guilt at letting God down. ‘God loves me/you unconditionally’ can sometimes be used to excuse sin, rather than recognising our need to sincerely repent. There is no excuse for not repenting, or for making reparation for our sins. We understand that a parent has an element of unconditional love for their children, but that does not stop parents recognising their wrongs, wishing that their family would behave better, and doing all they can to bring about the refreshment that can come from true penitence. Love is part of God’s nature and character but God’s s love is described as having certain expectations, as does the love of any parent or between partners. The covenants were based on parties making and keeping promises to one another. God provides covenant love and care, but his people are expected to keep to our covenant promises to follow God’s ways, strive for righteousness and relate to God in spirit and in truth. I am not sure if there truly is anything totally ‘unconditional’ in God’s love and forgiveness. ‘Unconditional love’ is not a phrase to be found anywhere in scripture. But God’s love for everything is so perfect that it surely could never allow any imperfect aspect in his forgiveness.
Jesus’ gift of his life was the perfect offering of ‘hesed’ or ‘agapé’-love. “Greater love has no-one than this, to give up one’s life for one’s friends” [Jn.15:13]. Jesus’ self-offering, in some complex way through his death, was the ultimate offering of love and the assurance of forgiveness. We should not take forgiveness for granted. It may be a characteristic of God’s love but the message of Good Friday is that our way to forgiveness was painfully and self-sacrificially achieved somehow through Jesus’ self-giving.
Forgiveness can do many things. The root meaning of the verb ‘aphiēmi’ / ‘to forgive’ is to ‘send out’ or ‘send away’. This led to the meaning: ‘to remit, forgive and completely cancel debts’ [Matt.6:12; 18:27, 32]. It also meant removal of sins [Matt.9:2, 5, 6, 12:31-2] and remission of any punishment or penalty due to sinful behaviour. Forgiveness releases people, brings about cleansing and gives freedom. There is little that feels as clean and freeing as being forgiven something important. It restores a relationship between people, and can turn enmity towards love.
God’s love and purity of justice encourages us not to seek revenge [Lev.19:18; Prov.24:29; Rom.12:14, 17-21; 1Thes.5:15; 1Pett.2:23]. Jesus was forgiving. Religious and secular powers were not so forgiving of the truths he was telling; they were intent on self-preservation rather than truth and religious integrity. The Sadducees, Pharisees, Scribes and Roman rulers were afraid of Jesus’ preaching spiritual truth to the people. The priest Nicodemus appears to have converted to Jesus’ way. But following Jesus would have meant amending many of the authorities’ practices, which gave them, power, position, finance, dominance and control in society. As far as Caiaphas was concerned, it was “better that ne man should die for the good of the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” [Jn.11:50; 18:14]. Probably he was even more intent that their institution should not be disrupted. Similarly, those who cover over abuse today pretend that the cover-up “is for the good of the Church / institution” etc. But a nation, a church, a political party or any institution that is built on lies, false prophecies or unwillingness to ask for forgiveness of sins can never flourish as God intended true Kingdom. Christ came ‘for the good of God’s people’: his birth was “good news of great joy for all people” [Lk.2:10]. Yet he brought about the joy of true and eternal life through intense personal suffering.
Jesus’ forgiveness at the point of death is the great example to us to try to emulate the love and forgiveness of God. Jesus taught us to ‘forgive as you have been forgiven’ [Matt.6:12-15; Lk.6:37]. He taught his disciples that if they forgave the sins of any they would be forgiven [Jn.20:23]. In the ‘Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, the steward, having been personally forgiven by the master, failed to forgive those who had debts towards him. Jesus said that when we come to worship or pray, we must first make sure that we have forgiven our neighbour [Mk.11:25]. “If you forgive others your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you” [Matt.6:14-15]. However, the act of forgiving is often terribly difficult, often appearing impossible.
I am not sure that it is possible for human beings to forgive in the same ways that God forgives, certainly not as completely as God can do. Nevertheless Jesus encouraged us to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” [Matt.5:48]. I must admit that there have been five people in my personal history that I have found myself unable to forgive. Each of these was a leading member of their church, each was deliberately duplicitous and knew what they were doing, each badly damaged my health, my future and my psychology. I was far from being the only one who suffered through their abuse of their ministries. The ability to forgive in many such situations feels inconceivable. So Jesus’ forgiveness of his persecutors from the Cross: “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing” [Jn.23:34] went way beyond natural human feelings. I wonder if we will ever be able to forgive as God can do. Psychological damage creates mental or situational prisons which grown around people. But that does not mean that we should not try to learn to forgive in the best ways we can, because forgiveness is able to free the one who has been damaged, as well as freeing the abuser.
Our forgiveness should not necessarily be like that of God. We believe that when God forgives our sins are forgotten. But for us remembering people’s duplicity can be a protection mechanism. We recognise that the people who have damaged us should not necessarily be trusted. Remembering can strengthen us not to be so easily taken in in the future. While the act of forgiving is important in reuniting and repairing relationships, remembering the sin can strengthen us and make us wiser for the future. It helps us to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” [Matt.10:16]
Although we believe Jesus to have been the perfect man, I feel certain that even the loving Jesus did not simply easily forgive. If he was like us in most ways, forgiveness may have been an inner struggle. It must have taken strength of will to forgive those who were persecuting and crucifying him. His prayer in Gethsemane was certainly a struggle, which caused Haematidrosis or haematohidrosis, the sweating of blood. While he asked “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”, they did know in part what they were doing, despite not necessarily knowing the eternal implications of their actions. If someone has knowingly done damage yet refuses to admit or acknowledge their guilt, and continues in their duplicity or abusive behaviour they are culpable. It would be valuable to know how Jesus or St. Paul would guide us to deal with such abuse. Today psychologists might advise the abused to try to ‘park’ the situation, leave it for time to heal, in order to be able to move on to other and positive aspects of our lives to try to alleviate the damage. As Christ’s teaching is so much based on truth, I presume that he would give similar advice. It is difficult to love and forgive another when they so obviously do not love us. ‘Parking’ the situation may help give time and space in which we might develop some understanding of the abuser and help us to develop general love towards flawed human beings. This might be the closest we can get to being able to emulate the love and forgiveness of Christ in such a situation. We are encouraged to ‘love our neighbour’, but perhaps loving someone who has behaved in evil ways is as hard for God as it is for us.
Nevertheless, somehow, amid the horrors of his Passion, Jesus was able to forgive in ways that are so much deeper and more all-encompassing than our abilities to emulate him. God’s forgiveness is a key to all that occurred on the Cross. We do not know how the death of Jesus Christ achieved salvation; it is a mystery hidden in the eternity and truth of God. But somehow we believe that the process of forgiving, cleansing, saving and renewing came about through Jesus. It seems impossible for us to be able to forgive those who do not deserve forgiveness. That is why it is completely wrong for any of us to regard the process of salvation simplistically. But somehow through the Cross we believe that God forgave and saved us for all time.
Good Friday is a day to ‘park’ our desire to understand what was happening spiritually upon the Cross to atone for sin, forgive and release us. Meditation may seek to unravel our thoughts and attempts to reach towards aspects of comprehension of such a mystery. Contemplation by contrast ‘parks’ any frustrations and struggles in understanding and rests in the belief that truth exists somewhere in these mysterious unfathomable actions. Believing that there is truth within the process of salvation leads us to feel free, released, forgiven, clean and able to face life in ways that lead to abundance. We call this Friday ‘good’ because amid the impossibilities of understanding what was happening spiritually through the Cross and Christ’s self-giving, we are assured that salvation has come to us.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How easy do you find it to forgive? How does Jesus’ example of forgiveness speak into your life and situation?
47/ Saturday – REST
“Come to me all you that are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” [Matt.11:28]
After the emotional rigours of Holy Week, Easter Saturday can seem a sort of ‘limbo’ time. It does not seem like a day to rejoice, so soon after commemorating Christ’s death, even though we know that Christ rose two thousand years ago and the story that we have been commemorating all week has already achieved salvation over multiple centuries. It is a busy day for some in churches who are not resting and contemplating the benefits of salvation, to be celebrated next day, but preparing churches for the Easter Celebrations: building Easter Gardens, filling vases with flowers, preparing liturgies, changing vestments and redecorating churches after the stripping during lent and Passiontide.
The Christian life can be over-busy for some, not just with church business, but more importantly through coping with the ‘travails of life’, which is where the above quote from Matt.11:28 can be important - to rest in Christ and find relief from heavy burdens. Many in life, Christians, non-believers and those of other faiths carry heavy burdens which are incredibly hard to bear, sometimes seemingly impossible. It is simplistic to claim that Christ takes these away; they are often part of life’s inevitable problems and responsibilities. But faith is given to us to help to share those burdens. I have often said that I am not ashamed to have faith in God as a ‘prop’ (the criticism of some who disparage faith). Holding on to God for strength is not a sign of weakness; it is an important feature that helps us to maintain abundant lives, as flying buttresses are essential to rising vaults of many great cathedrals. Without faith in God life can sometimes just seem like an inescapable rat-race. The verse “God is my refuge and strength” [Ps.46:1], a sentiment repeated throughout the Psalms, admits that God is a bolt-hole, but is also a fortress, a force that can strengthen us and can be relied upon.
An important part of our relationship with God is being able to ‘rest’ securely, and not feel the need to constantly keep up with a frenetic 24/7 lifestyle expected by some today, which adds to people’s exhaustion. Jesus was very active in his mission, but made time for rest, as was the idea of the Sabbath in Jewish culture. We see the lack of recognition of the importance of rest in companies which claim that their employees should be available for them at any time; people who believe that day and night are wasted unless they are constantly active; those who take pills to give them the energy to keep going through the night; those who stress their bodies by over-exercise; those who spend precious rest-time constantly on social media. Just as worrying are those who under-exercise or become couch-potatoes, not resting after exerting useful physical or mental energies, but becoming bored by life, watching T.V. or other social media day and night, wasting or enjoying the precious gifts they could be enjoying. That is not the sort of rest that we were offered to refresh and energise us.
The concept of rest is important in scripture. The bible used the imagery of God resting on the seventh day after Creation [Gen.2:2] as a model for people to take a similar Sabbath rest [Ex.31:12-17]. Even the working donkey, like the slave was to be given a time of rest [Ex.23:12]. The Sabbatical Year was a time of rest for the land. Vines were to be left untrimmed, fields were to be left fallow to let the earth regain fertility and plants gain strength [Ex.34:21; Lev.25:2-7]. This is definitely a message for the conservation for our over-harvested and over-exploited earth! Furthermore, the year of Jubilee every 7x7 = 49 years, was to be a more extensive Sabbatical rest to restore each generation. Goods could be redeemed, land, and property were to be returned to former owners, and slaves not only rested, but were given reprieve from their servitude [Lev.25:8-55; 27:17; Num.36:4]. Deut.12:10 promised his people that in their new land God intended them to have ‘rest from all our labours”. (Presumably this meant at the time, the labours of their past slavery in Egypt and the laborious journeying of the Exodus; it would not be an encouragement to not work in the land of Canaan, but to find security and abundance there.) God warned those who went against the right ways and hardened their hearts: “You shall never enter my rest” [Heb.3:10], which also referred back to the Exodus.
Death was also sometimes describes as ‘finding rest’ or ‘resting with our ancestors’ [Gen.47:30]. Rest also came to be related to receiving ‘salvation’. Heb.4:9-11 claims “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God: for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labours as God did from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest...” We believe that the salvation achieved through Christ’s passion gives us access to that rest. So perhaps Easter Saturday could be used by is as a sabbatical rest in order to help us put extra energies into our life with Christ through the season after Easter Day.
Just as the Genesis legend talks of God ‘resting’ after the process of Creation, Jesus’ period in the tomb is sometimes regarded as a time of rest after the exhausting process of achieving salvation. However in the concept of the “Harrowing of Hell”, not accepted by all churches, he is imagined as not at rest, but proclaiming and freeing the souls in the region of the dead. This is most probably only intended as metaphorical language, but some imagine it literally. What happened during that time that Jesus remained in the tomb remains a mystery. Only one canonical passage of scripture suggests that Christ was active in some supernatural way. 1Pet.3:19-20 speaks of Jesus “quickened by the Spirit”... “going and proclaiming to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which few, that is eight persons were saved through water”. Around this single difficult-to-interpret passage a whole dogma of ‘The Harrowing of Hell’ was built. It is only corroborated by a similar verse in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, probably written in the C2nd: after Christ was helped from the tomb by two large angelic beings and was reaching the heavens “they heard a voice out of the heavens crying “Have you preached to them that sleep?” and from the cross there was heard the answer “Yes”. [Gosp. of Pet.10:42].
Jesus is described in the imagery as going down to the place of the dead and releasing the souls of the righteous redeemed who had followed God before the advent of Christ’s redeeming action. It is possible that the concept of in 1Pet.3:19-20 is intended as a metaphor for salvation reaching backwards as well as forward in time. rather than being a physical going down to the place of the dead. Orthodox icons of the ‘Anastasis’ or Resurrection represent the scene literally, showing the risen Christ reaching into the cave or valley of death and lifting Adam and Eve from the grave, surrounded by figures like Moses, David, John the Baptist and prophets. The grave or tomb below them is often filled with broken locks, open padlocks and keys, representing the freedom of salvation to which Christ has now raised us. It also sometimes contains the skeleton of Adam, who has now been re-clothed from death. Occasionally the space contains a bound demonic figure representing powers that once dominated, enslaved and imprisoned the dead, but now has been overcome by Christ’s triumph. Fra Angelico’s powerful fresco of the Harrowing of Hell in the friar’s cells of San Marco, Florence, shows these demons fleeing to hide in the cracks of the disintegrating cavern of Hell. Jesus is shown as having kicked down the securely locked and bolted door, trapping another demon beneath it. Meanwhile crowded queues of the redeemed reach out to his hands as he proclaims release.
Wonderful and vivid as the imagery is, it is only a visual metaphor for the glories of salvation. Just as no one knows how God was involved in the process of forming the Cosmos and each detail within it, no-one knows how Jesus’ death and reappearance achieved salvation. But it is believed that his salvation embraces, not just those who came after him, but also reaches backwards in time to release God’s followers from the past. The explanation of the faith of heroic characters in Jewish history in Heb.11:4-40 does not claim that they received ultimate rewards for their faith, but Heb.11:39-40 implies that they can now be made perfect since salvation has come to us all through Christ.
After the spiritual exercises and exertions of Lent, especially the emotional rigour of Good Friday, Easter Saturday can seem a time of limbo. But it is a useful time to rest our minds in the trust that somehow, through Christ’s actions and his death on the Cross, salvation has been achieved and we are safe with God. Theologians have speculated for centuries on how salvation was achieved and what it means. Millions of words have been expended on attempting to expound it. But, though the human mind has a drive to understand, we should be content to accept that some things are ultimately mysteries. This can be a day to simply learn to trust that there is truth within the mystery. In whatever way it was brought about, Christians believe that Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection were part of the process of bringing freedom, release, cleansing from sin, forgiveness and renewal. He has laid the foundation for a path that will lead us to the Kingdom of God. We can rest spiritually when we learn to trust, and believe that there is a future ‘rest’ in the presence of God, whatever that will turn out to be.
Discipleship is hard; Jesus never promised an easy path. If his mission was hard for him, how could we expect it to be any easier for his followers? He said “the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life” [Matt.7:14], yet he taught his followers to “strive to enter by the narrow door” [Lk.13:24]. Christ warned his disciples to expect opposition, and found his mission a struggle himself. Yet he also encouraged us to accept his ‘yoke’, learn from and follow him, since “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” [Matt.11:29-30]. Despite my constant failure as a disciple to keep to Christ’s way, regular frustrations with myself, and regular questions about why I bothered to accept that yoke, I personally always find it more satisfying to live as a Christ-follower than when I try to follow my own way. Jesus promised rest for our souls in himself [Matt.11:28], especially rest for those who are ‘heavily laden’. Somehow his gift of salvation seems to be part of that promised rest.
In his lifetime Jesus rarely had anywhere “to rest his head” [Matt.8:20], he was so active in mission and ministry. He would not rest until he had brought salvation. Paul recommends that we too should keep similarly active in mission. He often wrote as if he was working and praying ceaselessly, though he too must have had times for recharging his energies, as Christ did. (This may have come partly during their miles of travel as well as in times of prayer). We also need to learn to rest in God’s love and let that affirmation re-energise us for further mission and ministry. Too many Christians rest over-much and neglect mission and true worship. But there are also many in ministries who neglect their times of rest and become worn out or spiritually dry through over-work. If the land needed to be given a sabbatical rest, and the donkey was to be given a rest from its labours, we equally need to take that time of rest to regain our energies and spiritual inspiration. Rest can be a time to contemplate good things and appreciate the blessings we have been given. This was part of the aim of the Sabbath for human beings and why the Sabbath became a time for worship. We rarely give ourselves sufficient time to ‘recollect’, so rest, like contemplation, can deepen our recognition of spiritual truth and draw us nearer to God. Rev.14:11 regards lack of rest as torment, but the enjoyment of rest is promised to those who are ‘in the Lord’ [Rev.14:13].
The promise of Holy Week assures us that the labours of Christ achieved that situation of rest for us. Just as with Jesus’ promises about God’s Kingdom, there is a present and future aspect to the promise of God’s rest. We are assured that there is a future rest for the people of God. But we can also find an element of spiritual rest now in the assurance of our present relationship with God, which Christ’s Passion was involved in achieving.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How secure and able to rest do you feel as a result of all that Christ achieved for you? Does the promise of present and future rest ‘in him’ encourage you in your personal Christian mission?
48/ EASTER SUNDAY - SALVATION
“...we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.” [Jn.4:42]. – Phil.3:10.
Jesus’ claim: “I am the resurrection and the life” [Jn.11:25; Rom.6:5] was probably not just talking about his own resurrection. We’ve no idea how broadly the power of his resurrection extends; that is another of the expansive mysteries of faith. I will write about how theologians interpret ‘Resurrection’ in the series of meditations that I am preparing for the period from Easter to Pentecost. But from earliest times in the Church, Jesus’ return to life on Easter morning was regarded as evidence that in ‘salvation’ he was offering an enormous gift to those who believed in and followed him. This would be something to be enjoyed both in the present and the future. The earliest Christians also regarded the Resurrection as evidence that vindicated all the truths of Jesus teaching and identified him as ‘Christ’, the ‘Messiah’, the anointed one who had come from God to achieve ‘salvation’.
‘Salvation is therefore at the heart of our belief about what Jesus Christ achieved. In the Church we so often call him ‘Saviour’ and use the word ‘salvation’, but it is another word that we do not often use with a full recognition of its meaning.
In English ‘save’ can have many connotations, and similarly there are two main words for ‘to save’ in the New Testament and three in the Hebrew Scriptures. Rrhýomai is mostly used to translate the Hebrew term nṣl, meaning ‘to protect’, ‘to guard’, ‘to deliver’, ‘to ward off’, and to preserve’. It is less commonly used in the New Testament than sṓzó, which more often translates the Hebrew words: yš‘ meaning ‘to save’, to ‘help’, to ‘free’ It also used to translate g’l meaning ‘to release’, ‘to buy back’, ‘to free’, ‘to redeem’, ‘to keep’ and mlṭ - ‘to save’, ‘to escape’, ‘to achieve safety’. In Classic Greek rhýomai was used of ‘protection by the gods, leaders, guards, priests or others’. Sṓzó was used with a huge variety of meanings ‘rescue or preservation from death, destruction, battle, and the perils of life or evil’, ‘keeping alive’, ‘being pardoned’, ‘protected’, ‘kept from want’, ‘safe return’, ‘keeping a flame alive’, ‘preserving a memory’ or ‘something that is treasured’. It was also used of ‘wellbeing’, ‘benefitting’, ‘keeping good health’, ‘preserving ones inner being or nature’, ‘the preservation of the inner health of humanity’. So when the Hebrew Scriptures speak of God ‘saving’ and the New Testament speaks of being ‘saved by Christ’, salvation is a far more expansive term than just protection by God in this life and being offered life beyond death.
Both the Greek words rhýomai and sṓzó are used with broad intentions throughout scripture. The blessing of ‘salvation’, as described in the Bible, is a hugely expansive gift. Sṓzó has a connotation of ‘to be roomy’, implying the spaciousness of God’s care, deliverance, grace and mercy towards us. It includes God’s care for the entire cosmos and the spaciousness of what God is leading followers towards. In the Hebrew Scriptures God promised to lead his people into a ‘spacious place’ [Ex.3:8; Judg.18:10; 2 Sam.22:20; I Chron.4:40; Ps.18:19; 31:8]. The ‘spacious place’ is interpreted in the New Testament as the enormity of God’s truth. Jesus promised his followers ‘in my Father’s house there are many rooms / mansions’ [Jn.14:2]. In the Hebrew Scriptures salvation is a result of God’s broad-spreading mercy [Neh.9:8]; it is part of his nature, not a magical gift. ‘Deliverer’ [Isa.63:16] is a name of God, as ‘Saviour’ was used of Jesus [Jn.4:42]. So ‘salvation’ and ‘deliverance’ are linked and are also broad and inclusive states to enjoy as gifts.
How we interpret ‘being saved’ and ‘salvation’ in scripture often depends on context. Sometimes it means human deliverance [1Sam.11:3] or bringing justice. It is often used to indicate divine help in precarious situations or victory in battle [Zeph.3:17]. In similar variations of meaning, the way that God ‘saves us’ depends on the context in which we find ourselves.
As the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish religion developed, ideas about what happens to people after death adapted and changed. In early Hebrew theology there seems to have been little concept of life beyond death. The grave and the disintegration of the body were believed to be our end. At that time God’s salvation was interpreted to mean protection in personal and national life and preservation from death in battle, accidents and disease. Gradually as belief in an afterlife expanded, first ideas of ‘sheol’ as a place of rest for the dead developed. Then belief expanded further to consider that that there could be rewards for righteous life beyond death. This expansion and the emphasis on rewards for the dead became stronger in the inter-testamental period, particularly after the death of heroes in the Maccabean Revolt. The changing and varied understandings of the meaning of ‘salvation’ expanded to include rescue from death and the promise of gifts in a life beyond. How could life just stop for people who had defended God’s ways; surely there must be rewards for righteousness in life beyond death? Several Hebrew Apocryphal books reflect these changes. In 4 Esdras those who are saved are judged by their works and evil is eliminated. In the Ethiopian Enoch God fulfils all the prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures and frees people and the world from sin. Arguments about existence and rewards beyond death divided the Sadducees and Pharisees: the former did not accept the idea of life beyond death, since they could not find it in their canonical scriptures. The Pharisees accepted that there would be some form of existence and rewards after people die. (Jesus was able to wisely goad the two factions in his disputes over the issue, when they tried to trick him with questions [Matt.22:23-45; Mk.12:18-28; Lk.20:27].
In the New Testament salvation includes rescue from extreme danger [Matt.8:25; Mk.15:30; Jn.12:27]. Faith is described as saving people in terms of saving the whole person, not just healing physical symptoms [Lk.7:50]. John the Baptist proclaimed ‘the remission of sins’ as part of the ‘knowledge of salvation’ [Lk.1:77], which was in line with the concept of salvation in Hebrew Scriptures. But he also pointed forward to the coming of a Saviour who would redeem in a more eternal way [Matt.1:21]. Mk.8:35 talks of the saving and losing of life in terms both of the present and of eternity. Lk.13:23 links salvation with entering God’s Kingdom. Lk.19:10 makes it clear that salvation is not just looking forward to a future beyond death but finding salvation and being part of the Kingdom in our present lives.
St. Paul took this expansion of the meaning of salvation still further. With his pharisaic training and knowledge of Jewish scripture and tradition he expanded the concept of salvation to include ‘being proclaimed just and reconciliation with God’ [1Cor.2:15; 5:5; Rom.13:11], ‘rescue from judgement’ [Rom.5:9; 1Cor.3:15], ‘the gift of eternal life’, ‘redemption and glorification of our bodies’ [Rom.8:24; Phil.3:20-21]; ‘spiritual gifts in our present life to make us effective parts of Christ’s body’, and ‘our gradual transformation in righteousness into the image of God’s Son. [Rom.8:20; Gal.5:5]. In Rom.8:24 Paul assured his readers that when we received Christ’s gospel we have already received salvation. This is echoed by the writer of Ephesians who speaks of us being saved by the message of salvation [Eph.1:13], but though we have been saved, the consummation of salvation is still to come in the future [Eph.2:5-7]. Salvation, therefore, like Christ’s Kingdom, has past, present and future dimensions. Salvation may also not just relate to human beings; some scriptures imply that the created ‘cosmos’ or ‘world’ will be transformed as part of Christ’s saving act [Rom. 8:21; Jn.3:17; 12:47; Rev.21:1].
As the one who brings this about at his Father’s will, Christ is called ‘Saviour’ /. In the ancient world this had the connotation of a ‘rescuer’, ‘deliverer from perils’, ‘protector’, ‘preserver of life’, ‘physician’, ‘helper’. In the Hellenistic world and among Egyptian and Seleucid rulers who ruled Palestine prior to the Romans, as well as later Roman Emperors, sótḗr was also used as a royal title, and implied that the ruler was the son of the deity. We have no proof that this divine meaning was understood or implied when the term was used of Jesus, but it is interesting in relation to later development of understanding of his divine nature. ‘Sótḗr’ was used in the Greek translation of Hebrew Scriptures to describe God as Israel’s Saviour and ‘helper’ as well being a title given to God’s human helpers - heroes, kings, occasionally used of judges. In Isa.49:6 and Zech.9:9 the Messiah was called sótḗr. God is called Saviour in Lk.1:47, and his coming Son, the Messiah, is given the title ‘Saviour’ in Lk.2:11, a position Jesus acknowledged in Jn.4:24. In taking his message to the Samaritans and others who were not Jews, Jesus was demonstrating that he was Saviour for Gentiles as well as the Jews: The Samaritan town of the Woman at the well acknowledged: “...we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.” [Jn.4:42].
In offering and achieving salvation for us Jesus, was expanding the understanding of the meaning of ‘salvation’ still further. He was not just offering forgiveness of sins and eternal life: He would bring those who he had redeemed and saved into ‘a spacious place’ – the Kingdom of God both in the present and future. This includes the expansive meaning of what Jesus was doing in saving, as discussed in paragraphs 3 and 4 above. Cynics sometimes accuse Christians of narrowness of belief, or of placing trust in ‘pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die. But with Christ’s message of ‘salvation’ we are offering to the world a huge gift from God to expand and consummate life now and in the future. How Jesus’ death and resurrection actually achieved this remains ‘mystery’ within the process of God’s activity. But the inner spiritual life of the believer is lit by a spark that recognises it to be true.
We believe that we have salvation, though the grace, mercy and love of God. Jesus’ resurrection has been thought to be evidence that life exists beyond death, and through Christ we are being called to share this spiritual dimension. We don’t need to wait until we die to discover the benefits of salvation. In living abundant Christian lives, we are able, in the present, to begin to enjoy the benefits of salvation which Christ achieved. Easter is a day to really celebrate and freely enjoy this release to freedom:
Christian art sometimes uses the soaring eagle as a symbol of resurrection. Mediaeval Christian bestiary legends symbolised Christ as the eagle flying high (Christ’s place in heaven). Being so close to the sun (God) he would scorch his wings and plummet to earth (the Incarnation). He would land in the ocean and drown (Jesus’ death). Sometimes he is imagined as a sea-eagle, plummeting to catch a fish (the destruction of sin in the Harrowing of Hell). Then being divine he would rise again and soar higher and higher to regain his position as king of the heavens. That of course is all legendary, but the imagery vividly captures our belief that Christ returned to his Father’s place in heaven and achieved the salvation by which we too can live abundantly in him:
“Even youths shall faint and grow weary,
and the young shall fall exhausted,
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up on wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.” [Isa.40:30-31]
For Contemplation and Prayer:
At this Eastertime consider the expansiveness of what Jesus has achieved for you. What does the Easter promise of ‘salvation’ mean in terms of your life?
IN JESUS' TEACHING Iain McKillop
INTRODUCTION - “LET THE WORD OF CHRIST DWELL IN YOU RICHLY” [Col.3:16]
“One does not live by bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” [Matt.4:4 quoting Deut.8:3]. “Heaven and earth will pass away but my words will not pass away.” [Lk.21:33].
Over 25 years ago David Winter published a Lent Book: ‘What’s in a Word? - 40 Words of Jesus for 40 Days of Lent.’ [Oxford: The Bible Reading Fellowship 1994]. Rediscovering this volume encouraged me to explore and study for myself a series of key words in Jesus’ teaching as part of my own daily Lenten exercise last year. I found it useful to hold one word in my mind for a day or more, to contemplate its relevance to my faith and to consider its application to contemporary life. The Gospels and other early Christian texts provide us with an abundant heritage of inspiring teachings. It is my hope that these studies might encourage others to similarly reflect on words and ideas in our faith which we use frequently but may not consider or contemplate.
We cannot be certain how precisely the words ascribed to Jesus of Nazareth in the Gospels record his actual phrasing. The earliest substantial records of his teachings are in Greek, and in these studies I will look at the meaning of several of the Greek words used to translate Jesus’ sayings. However Jesus probably taught largely in a vernacular form of Aramaic particular to the area in which he grew up and ministered. Memories of his teaching would then have been recounted orally in whatever dialects or language his witnesses used. The oral recollections, and possibly untraced Aramaic or more formal Hebrew written records, were eventually transcribed into the written Greek in which the Gospels have come to us. Ancient cultures were often far more accurate than today in repeating oral material, as witnessed in the great epic poetry of Homer or Celtic, Nordic, Hindu and Islamic cultures. Yet over time it is inevitable that Jesus’ words must have been filtered and altered slightly through the understanding of the compilers or editors of the Gospels and through different nuances of meaning in various languages. In Matthew’s Gospel for example Jesus used words like ‘Church’ [Matt.16:18; 18:17], which would most probably not have been used by Jesus himself, but later by the community that Christ and the Apostles founded, Similarly John’s Gospel uses some theological terms that may not have actually been in Jesus’ teaching but reflected the Evangelist’s theological understanding. Today we interpret the words of the Gospels through modern connotations of the terms, which may have altered over centuries and through differing interpretations. ‘Grace’ and ‘love’ for example have taken on much more general and less specific meanings than when they were used in the New Testament.
Most of the words on which I meditate and reflect in these studies have a long tradition of association with Jesus and reflect key aspects of Christian faith, whether they are the original terms used by Jesus or not. Jesus was recognised by his contemporaries as speaking with uncommon ‘authority’ and ‘truth’ [Matt.7:28; Jn.6:63, 68]. But his teaching was challenging and aroused consternation as well as opposition [Mk.10:22; Mtt.15:12; Jn.6:66]. For us to find meaning in his words will include being challenged by them in ways that may grasp us and encourage us to follow and change [Jn.14:24; Matt.19:11; Mk.4:11; Lk.9:45].
Jesus laid stress on “hearing”, which involved not just listening to or reading his words, but responding to and acting upon his teaching [Matt.11:15; Jn.10:27; 14:24]. It is my hope that these studies may help believers and enquirers to consider how Jesus taught us to live and relate to God, then to act upon the implications of his words and ideas in a living, active contemporary faith. Exploring these words challenged me to recollect and reconsider my own beliefs and discipleship; I pray that these studies may help others in their own spiritual growth and practice. Too often members of Christian churches are content with a simplistic faith and do not seek to study it. We are used to hearing weekly sermons, but seldom take in for long what has been said. With all the challenges of contemporary life it is so easy to be distracted, to move away from faith or become discouraged, unless we seek to constantly deepen our understanding of those foundations of faith which can strengthen us. Jesus told his hearers to not turn back once they have turned their hand to the plough [Lk.9:62]. Perseverance in learning and applying his teaching should be characteristic of spiritual growth in all of us.
Though these meditations consider one word or phrase at a time, it is dangerous to take biblical passages or words out of context. Unfortunately it is fairly easy to make the Bible seem to say or justify anything, if you use verses selectively. In churches for centuries, expositors and preachers have interpreted scripture to mean different and varied things, according to their particular theological, ethical or personal bias. I have therefore included many biblical references in the text to help readers check and consolidate what is being said.
When the writer of Colossians wrote: “Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly” [Col.3:16], we do not know the amount of Jesus’ actual teaching to which he or his Christian community had access. The Gospels were not yet compiled into the form that we know them. But the exhortation to let Jesus’ teaching permeate our minds and lives is a useful one for strengthening, guiding and applying of the message of truth that he brought.
The individual words that I have chosen to reflect upon open essential aspects of Jesus’ aims, character, teaching, ministry and mission. I could have chosen many others, yet these words are key to understanding Christ’s character, work and aims, and the direction in which he calls us, his followers. I hope that they can be key aids to the development of our relationship with God through him. Many of the terms are essential elements of the Church’s faith and the message we seek to offer with Christ’s salvation and ‘good news’. (If you do not find a word here, which you might have expected, you might like to contemplate and study it for yourself, perhaps using these meditations as examples. Alternately, you may find some of the words explored in my other two more compilations: ‘Words for Advent and Epiphany’ and the coming ‘Words for Easter to Pentecost’).
These studies are conceived to encourage us to become better followers of God’s ways; they are not meant to encourage self-centred intellectualism or to become insular, introverted spiritual exercises. Christ intended his community of followers to grow and expand through active discipleship, introducing others to his message, so that their lives, like ours, may also be transformed by following his Spirit, his teachings and example. The words discussed here were all spoken by him for the encouragement of his disciples to know their faith and apply it in daily living.
JESUS AND THE WORD
- “Let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly” [Col.3:16]
“One does not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” [Matt.4:4] ... “Everyone who hears these words of mine and acts upon the will be like a wise man who built his house upon a rock...” [Matt.7:24].
Jesus was described as “The Word” in the preface to John’s Gospel [Jn.1:1-5, 10-18]. As theologians and philosophers over centuries have shown, the Greek term ‘Word’/‘Logos’ has multiple potential connotations in various ancient cultures. In brief, it could imply that Christ was the creative original principle behind all that exits; the explanation of all, who accounts for all and shows everything for what it is. Through him God ‘spoke’ creation and shaped everything into being. It could imply that Jesus was eternally part of God and shared God’s ‘wisdom’ from the start. It can mean that Jesus is the ‘law’, ‘reason’, ‘reality’ and ‘logic’ behind all that is, the source of Truth and understanding. We cannot be sure how much of this, or the many other potential meanings that the compiler of John’s Gospel intended; he was certainly well-educated, with knowledge of theology, temple traditions and social diversity. Some commentators suggest that he may have come from a Temple background. He would not have had access to the plethora of philosophical and religious classical texts that many modern theologians have discovered but would have been aware of prevailing ideas and uses of ‘the Word’. Reading the whole of John’s Gospel it seems clear that the compiler believed Jesus to be God’s revelation of himself through a specific human life. But at the time of writing the Gospel, to clearly state that Jesus was God incarnate would probably have brought greater antagonism to the early Christians than the persecution that they were already enduring from strictly monotheist Jews and others. I sometimes wonder if the term ‘Word’ was used deliberately in John to alleviate this, as well as to appeal to other cultures. To open the Gospel with the words “the Logos (Word) was with God and the Logos was God” [Jn.1:1] was very different from writing ‘Jesus was God incarnate’, though for John they probably had very similar implications.
When the writer of Colossians used the phrase ‘let the word of Christ dwell in you richly’ [Col.3:16] he meant something very different from calling Christ the Logos. The ‘word’ to which he was referring probably indicated the teachings of Christ which were circulating in early churches, either in oral or written form. In Col.3:16 he intended his believing readers to focus on following the spirit of the Jesus and the meaning of his message and commands to which they had been introduced. The New Testament had not yet been collected together as we have it today, so the recipients of the letter to the Colossians would not have had the rich resources of teaching about Jesus, which scripture provides to inspire us. They would probably have had a limited selection of the sayings and stories of Jesus that circulated verbally or in written form before the compilation of the Gospels, if they had any such material at all.
Unlike John’s use of the word ‘logos’, the writer of Colossians wanted his readers to concentrate on the actual, practical meaning and intention of Jesus’ teachings and truth, not their classical or philosophical connotations. Jesus dis not teach theoretical philosophy; he taught faith and trust in God, worship and prayer, practical morality, social responsibility, love, the practical route to forgiveness and the way to life and salvation. Christ came to revive, restore and invigorate people’s relationships with the God who he knew personally as ‘Father’. His moral and social teaching grew from faith and trust that God’s way was the right way to live and understand all Creation. He aimed for people to live abundant, righteous, active lives, taking responsibility for others, restoring and advancing the world towards the establishment of the Kingdom of God. Through his ministry and commands to mission, Christ shared that responsibility towards God and the world with us.
So in concentrating upon the implications of certain words used by Jesus we are considering not just their meaning for faith, but also ideas that are key to human life and action. They relate us to God and truth, but they can also contribute to enhancing the way we approach our lives and support others. Jesus did not regard his divine knowledge and equality with God as something to be utilized for his own gain, or personal advance or advantage [Phil.2:20]. He came to lift others to abundant life and demonstrate how to live for the best. Our own meditation on Jesus’ words and our relationship with God should never be self-centred, but should encourage authentic discipleship. We read, digest and pray in order to build a faith and lifestyle that are useful to the world.
WEEK 1: THE EXAMINED LIFE
1/ Ash Wednesday – REPENTANCE
“Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” [Mtt.4:17].
Lenten discipline encourages Christians not just to recollect aspects of the faith into which we have been baptised, but also to examine our lives, consider where we fail to live up to our promises and commitments and act out of sincere penitence for our failures. The term ‘repent’ is probably one of the most universal calls in church history. Though the Gospels do not record Jesus using the word often, the concept is at the heart of his mission and the forgiveness which he brought. ‘Repent’ was the message of many Hebrew prophets. Christ’s ‘forerunner’ John the Baptist prepared people for the coming of the Messiah and the nearness of the Kingdom of Heaven by calling his contemporaries to spiritually prepare and turn away from sin through repentance [Mk.1:14-15]. They then accepted baptism as the act of commitment which accompanied true regret. After Jesus’ own baptism by John and his return from preparing his own mission in the wilderness; Jesus began by also calling his hearers to “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven has come near.” [Matt.4:17].
The New Testament Greek term for ‘repentance’/ ‘metanoia’, and the verb ‘to repent’/‘metanoeo’ literally mean ‘to perceive afterwards’, ‘ to later know better’, ‘to change one’s mind, feeling or purpose’. We recognise and regret faults and accept our need to make a change, improve and turn our lives around. We ‘convert’ from going one way to following a new direction or way of living.
That call to change direction and focus on righteousness is the basis of the liturgical words used as Christians in several traditions are marked with ashes on the opening Wednesday of Lent: “Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return: turn away from sin and be faithful to Christ.” Several churches call this liturgy ‘imposition of ashes’ but more truly we should ‘request’ or ‘accept’ the call to Lenten penitence, rather than have it ‘imposed’ upon us. It should not be the Church, tradition, convention or social pressure, that force any to take part in the ceremony; it should stem from a personal commitment to become more true disciples of Christ. To accept the mark of an ash cross just because others are doing so, partly negates the intention of the rite, which encourages Christians to commit themselves to a more holy, dedicated life and to grow in Christlikeness. Taking the ashes is only a sign of an inner vow and commitment. A similar Hebrew sign was the tradition of tearing open one’s clothes as part of either repentance or commitment to a vow. This was the High Priest’s action at the trial of Jesus when he believed Jesus had spoken blasphemy [Matt.29:65; Mk.14:63]. The Hebrew prophets encouraged us to an inner, not an outer commitment to holiness as Joel 2:13 said: You people, rend your hearts and not your garments”.
Accepting the Lenten discipline of working with God’s help towards spiritual growth is a sincere ‘covenant’ commitment. Some modern churches go out into the streets on Ash Wednesday, as part of their mission, offering ashes to the public as and evangelistic act. This idea could be as valuable as John the Baptist’s ministry, but it is important to encourage people to mean and commit to any vows they may take. We should always encourage a spirit of truthfulness [Jn.4:24]. As with the vows at baptism, confirmation and ordination, making a vow should never be regarded as a social rite-of-passage or a gimmick or Lent is time to truly examine our lives, to seek to improve ethically, to build up the integrity of our faith and to walk closer with God. The classic phase of Socrates. repeated by many Christian mystics since, remains true: “An unexamined life is not worth living.”
Jesus’ mention of ‘repentance’ in the Gospels [Matt.4:17; 11:20; Mk.6:12; Lk.10:13; 13:3, 5; 15:7, 10; 17:4] is nearly always linked to actively making changes. Just being sorry or feeling guilt or shame for our sins is not repentance. Christ’s teaching doesn’t just call us to admit our guilt and say sorry for it, or even to stop sinning: True repentance encourages us to turn around and go God’s ways. Jesus criticised those who witnessed his miracles and had the evidence that his teaching was right, yet stubbornly refused to repent or change [Matt.11:20]. Repentance included believing in the ‘good news’ that he brought and acting upon it. [Mk.1:15]. Failure to repent was a sign of disregard for the best way for life, which God had revealed [Lk.13:23-5]. In John the Baptist’s ministry and that of the early church, baptism followed repentance as a sign of death to one’s past, being cleansed by God and a sincere act of preparation to be committed to following God’s direction. This intention continues in the vows made in baptism today. Unfortunately when infant baptism has become regarded by some as simply a social ceremony, the emphasis on maintaining religious vows is often neglected and the baptised or those responsible for them too often fail to ‘learn faith’, ‘resist sin’, ‘follow God’s ways’, and ‘shine as a light for Christ in the world’. All these should be part of the mission of every Christian, but how many of us keep our baptism vows assiduously?
The Lenten discipline of following our faith more truly is a challenging one. It would be wonderful if all Christian lives always went directly forward in holiness and effective mission. Some hard-line early-church theologians claimed that if one sinned after repentance and baptism, one could not be a true Christian. But this seems unrealistic; if that were true God’s Kingdom would be pretty empty! Thank goodness that God’s grace and mercy are greater than those early theologians! Scripture acknowledges that all fail and continue to sin many times; “all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God” [Rom.3:23]. St. Paul reminds us that we are ‘temples of God’s Spirit’ [1Cor.3:16] so should not allow our sin to sully the bodied in which God’s sacred presence has come to dwell. But we are weak and pulled in many directions. When we fail the grace and mercy of God can still work to cleanse us, and allow his Spirit to indwell and guide us. Jesus told his disciples to forgive multiple times when someone repents [Lk.17:4, Matt.18:21-22, 32-33]. God is so much more perfect than us, so God’s grace, forgiveness and love are surely committed to embracing us whenever we return to him, no matter how many times we fail! That is an important message in Jesus’ ‘Parable of the Prodigal Son’ [Lk.15:11-32]. It is our responsibility to allow God’s spiritual influence, and God’s outreaching love, to increasingly cleanse us. Yet, as in Bunyan’s ‘Pilgrim’s Progress’, we should not be deterred from returning to the upward path when we fail, fall or temporarily slip backwards. Repentance was not just good for cleansing people, restoring, strengthening relationships and building God’s Kingdom. According to Jesus it causes joy in heaven: “there is more joy in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous people who need no repentance.” [Lk.15:10].
St. Paul encouraged people to “confess your sins to one another” [Jas.5:16]. Bringing our particular failings into the open, with individuals who we are sure that we can trust with our confidences, can challenge us to make changes in our behaviour far more than a general confession that we are sinners. In church services it is easy to repeat liturgical confessions and receive formal absolutions far too lightly. A more open confession of our sins can be useful in encouraging us to not fail in those ways again. But feeling assured that one will be accepted and not rejected by the one to whom you confess is essential. I belonged to a church once where a favourite chorus to sing included the lines: “Let us open up ourselves to one another, without fear of being hurt or turned away.” But the reality was very different; elders discussed the sins of members of the congregation, and rejected some who had truly confessed their past in a spirit of longing to be a better disciple. Experience led me to adopt the motto: “Be a man of God, not one who pretends to be”. Of course I’ve failed to live up to this ever since I adopted it, but it is a valuable aim to try to live by.
As a youth I remember being told in Confirmation classes that one should rigorously examine oneself and one’s life carefully before coming to church and on the journey to church, in preparation for confession, worship and accepting the sacraments. But how many church-goers do this? We often swan into God’s presence in daily life, in church services or in private prayer, simply expecting acceptance and forgiveness, like spoiled children who constantly expect the support of their parents. Repentance, as already mentioned, entails far more than feeling guilt, regret or remorse for sins, failings or wrong actions, as the Prophet Joel’s encouraged people to “rend your hearts and not your garments” [Joel.2:12-13]. Undertaking a true confession entails making a true change of direction, not just a surface expression or declaration. It is too easy to only feel guilty or repent when we are found-out. In recent situations politicians, celebrities and prominent Christian leaders have made open pronouncements of ‘repentance’ when sins are publicly exposed. Yet they may have been aware of their failings for years, ignored or covered them up, and failed to acknowledge or deal with them until exposed.
Repentance without both change and working to repair damage is not true penitence. Honest repentance entails action, not just bearing guilt or acknowledging sin. As well as turning around, deliberately moving away from sin and aiming towards righteous living, wherever possible one should attempt to make right the wrongs on has done to others. This may not always be possible; sometimes confronting those we have damaged might make a situation worse, but we should consider the best way to make amends. Achieving perfection that emulates God’s perfection, to which Jesus called his followers, will of course be impossible in this life, yet Jesus intended us to still aim towards perfection and to turn again whenever we fail: “Be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect.” [Matt.5:48].
We excuse our human failings too easily. Historically Christians have tended to blame the devil or antagonistic spiritual forces for their sin. Thankfully today we mostly admit that most of our failings lie within ourselves [James1:14-15]. Yet we still often excuse our behaviour, blaming the fallibility and weakness of our human minds and wills, the bad influence of others, our family and social background or our environment. Admittedly multiple external pressures combine with pressures within us towards sin, self-centredness, abandoning truth, disregarding others, seeking pleasure or advancement in ways that are against God’s ways or against our conscience. Yet ultimately true repentance still accepts blame, own up to failures, works to restore and honestly seeks to improve and cleanse lives and build God’s kingdom.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- As you try to improve your life, examine it thoughtfully. What do you need to improve? What most holds you back from growth in your Christian life?
- Is there something important that you need to accept the blame for, in order to move on? Bring it to God in prayer, accept his forgiveness and cleansing. This is not always easy, if we carry a sense of blame or guilt. Remember that God is faithful: The promise to forgive is part of God’s nature of love, like the father of the Prodigal Son.
- Are there any who need your apologise or recompense before you are able to move on? Consider wisely how you might approach them, as sometimes our belated apologies can deepen hurt and damage the possibility of reconciliation.
2/ Thursday – SIN
“The Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins” [Mk.2:10].
It is noticeable that ideas of what activities constitute ‘sins’ change over time and differ in various cultures. Many of the prohibitions in the Hebrew books of the Law, especially over unclean foods and practices, are commonly disregarded today, in western society at least. Others are modified, because culture, society, expectations, psychological understanding, food safety and hygiene have changes so drastically over the centuries. The concept of what constitute ‘sins’ is also exacerbated by false ideas of sin which some people develop. Societal, religious, family or personal pressures can cause false senses of guilt, which can mar lives psychologically. A clear example of this is seen in the false guilt that so many feel as teenagers as their sexuality develops. Some people even develop a sense of false guilt about being themselves, rather than the sort of people that they think others expect them to be. So when we talk about sin, we need to be sure that we are considering what is truthfully sinful, not a guilt that is wrongly placed upon us by ourselves or others.
In archery a ‘sin’ denotes ‘falling short of a target’. While the biblical term is stronger than this, if we recognise that we fall short of truth, of God’s aim for us, and often of our own personal standards, we are more likely to be humble in our attitude to God and to others. Scripture reminds us; “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” [Rom.3:23], but none should use this as an excuse for unrighteousness or lack of spiritual or moral discipline. Where we cover up our failings, become hardened in them, or are immune to recognising that we have done anything wrong, great dangers can develop.
Christians can be easily and often understandably accused of hypocrisy. We promote righteous living, yet all fall short of it. Jesus used the word ‘hypocrite’ of religious leaders who preached, condemned, and enforced righteousness on others yet were like ‘whitewashed tombs filled with rotting bones’ [Matt.23:27]. Pope Francis wrote that in his Church experience, ‘those who are most rigid often lead double lives.’ Hypocrites don’t just live duplicitously; they frequently promote themselves as being more righteous than they actually are. In my experience, this is a common danger for church leaders. Jesus is rarely described as ‘angry’ but this strong emotion in him was often reserved for those who tried to enforce double standards: In Mark 3:5, when synagogue leaders refused to accept that he should heal on the Sabbath, we are told: “he looked around at them with anger; he was grieved at their hardness of heart.” Lent is a time to humbly recognise our failure and take steps to fail less often. We should try to move closer to the target of righteousness, faith and love in action, as Christ’s teaching encouraged.
Though we are at the beginning of Lent, Christ’s Cross is regularly in focus. We particularly remember, throughout Lent, how Jesus’ self-sacrifice intended to deal with sin and leave us clean, reconciled, and able to enjoy a closer relationship with God. But we are not cleansed from sin in order to just to fall into the same sins over again. We should actively attempt to learn from each failing, to grow a little closer to God, to emulate Christ’s perfect example more and to resist temptation. When we inevitably fall again, we should allow ourselves to be picked up, re-cleansed and continue on the attempted path to righteousness.
In God’s eyes, sins are not just the big names: ‘murder’, ‘theft’, ‘adultery’, ‘destructiveness’. Sin is anything that diverts us from right, truth or following God’s intentions for human life. Many aspects of modern economy, lifestyle and media are rooted in less obviously noticeable sins: ‘greed’, ‘self-centredness’, ‘promoting oneself over others’, ‘unnecessarily competition with others’, ‘neglecting the poor or needy’, ‘usury’, ‘borrowing or spending more than one can afford’, ‘gossip’, ‘encouraging distrust’ or hate. When Jesus and St. Paul condemned sin they pointed out that the ‘smaller’ sins divide us from God and truth as much as larger sins. When examining our lives for sin we should search deeply, recognising that Paul included, as of equal sinfulness to sexual immorality, failings such as ‘gossip’ [Rom.1:29; 2Cor.12:20]. This is not just sanctimonious rhetoric: gossip can divide communities and damage the promotion of love, acceptance and inclusiveness, yet we often accept contemporary tabloid journalism and personal media blogs, which thrive on it. We should not excuse lies as ‘half-truths’ or ‘white lies’. They are still deceit yet, like politicians even Christian leaders and religious institutions sometimes resort to them. This has often damaged the authenticity of the Church’s witness.
A community will never reflect God’s Kingdom if any of God’s standards or truths are neglected. There were social as well as righteous reasons why Hebrew law included years of ‘Jubilee’ [Lev.5:8-55; 27:17; Num.36:4] when debts were written off and people were freed from enslavement to others. Nobody is likely to work their best if they can see no freedom or escape from drudgery. Similarly the promise of forgiveness and freedom gives an incentive to resist sin. Over-assurance that we can be forgiven because of the extent of God’s love can be an incentive to holiness, but it may also encourage lax or even false discipleship.
Setting Jesus as our example is a useful model. However unlikely it seems for a human being, we are told that “he committed no sin” [1Pet.2:22] and he called us “to be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” [Matt.5:48]. We cannot emulate him in the miraculous elements of his nature or activities, but he gave us an example by his life and teaching of how human beings should live. It would be naïve to believe that we can exactly imitate his lifestyle or his righteousness in modern society. But true Christianity should try to apply all the principles that he taught and lived out in contemporary living. If sin is falling short of the mark set by God, by Christ’s teaching and by our own consciences, I am sure that we all have much to work at and to struggle with during Lent!
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Reflect on your life and consider whether you have intentional or unintentional, conscious or unconscious sins to bring before God for cleansing. How committed are you to trying to live a righteous life in imitation of Christ’s example?
3/ Friday – SEEK / SEARCH – Jn.1:38; Jer.29:13; Mtt.6:33; Lk.24:5; Col.3:1; Heb.11:6
“Ask and it will be given you, seek (or ‘search’) and you will find, knock and the door will be opened to you” [Matt.7:7].
Though Jesus promised “seek and you shall find”, probably every believer’s spiritual experience must acknowledge honestly that seeking and finding are rarely easy or straightforward. Our human discoveries, whether of spiritual, scientific, historic or philosophical truth, often depend on what we are seeking, and how we go about the quest. The Greek word ‘zēteō’ isn’t just about ‘looking’ for something: The same word is used when the magi, then Herod ‘searched’ for the child [Matt.2:8 & 13]; the merchant ‘searched’ for fine pearls [Matt.13:45], the good shepherd ‘searched’ for the lost sheep [Matt.18:12], Jesus’ parents ‘searched’ frantically for him when he was lost [Lk.2:48]; the disciples would ‘search’ for Jesus when he left them [Jn.7:34-36; 8:21]. So seeking or searching implies depth of commitment, hard graft and often patience, not relaxed acceptance of our limitations. Our spiritual search for truth and righteous living requires intense devotion. Too often those who call themselves ‘Christians’ are content with simplicity of understanding and want an easy, comfortable life, rather than being dedicated to achieving righteousness, improving our lives and the world, or finding the rich relationship with God to which Jesus Christ called us and opened for us.
Persistence is an important characteristic to develop as a Christian. Giving up too easily might imply that our goal or aim was not of great importance to us. St. Paul longed for his ‘thorn in the flesh’ to be removed and tells us that he persisted in prayer over it [2Cor.12:7-10]. The “three times” that he mentions probably means not just offering three prayers, but that he spent three extended periods of specifically concentrated dedication to prayer over the issue, rather like committed ‘Lenten fasts’. We do not know the nature of this ‘thorn’; it might have been a physical or psychological impediment to him, either in his personal life or in his mission. He obviously considered that it was damaging or crippling, for he describes it metaphorically as “a messenger from Satan to torment me”. Eventually he became ‘content with weaknesses’ recognising that ‘God’s grace is sufficient for you, for power is made perfect in weakness...’ ‘whenever I am weak, then I am strong’, since it forced him to need to keep trusting Christ [2Cor.12:9-10]. But learning such patience is difficult. Tomas a Kempis wrote that “‘difficulties need not damage or weaken a person; rather they truly reveal who we are.” [The Imitation of Christ 16:4]
Our human minds are created to be curious and to seek answers. That faculty has led to humanity advancing in all fields of study and technology. There is always something further out of reach towards which we yearn, sincerely want to understand or at which we long succeed. A persistent, yearning search can be especially frustrating in spirituality, though again it is an inevitable part of wanting to know Truth. As Ecclesiastes emphasises: “God has set the search for eternity in the heart of human beings, yet they cannot fathom God from beginning to end” [Eccles.3:11]. God, truth, the spiritual world, the past and future are all invisible to us so they will always remain beyond complete comprehension. Yet imagining and longing to understand more drive us forward, longing to perceive and experience more. We will never know everything, for “we walk by faith that is based on trust in God, not sight” [2Cor.5:7]. Yet perhaps we do have enough knowledge, through scripture, reason, tradition and experience to for a practical active faith to flourish.
Searching for spiritual truth, like searching for God, requires a degree of trust. Faith needs to be based on trust in what we cannot see: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things as yet unseen” [Heb.11:1]. The call to ‘trust God’ is not an excuse for believing naïvely. Jesus commended the trust and faith of young children [Matt.18:4; 19:14]. Yet early-church epistles encouraged Christ’s followers to grow in maturity by taking solid spiritual food, not rely on milk [1Cor.3:2; Heb.5:12-14]. A wise, mature, thinking faith is essential for Christian development and effective mission. A trusting faith requires us to use our all faculties wisely and build up as full an understanding of our faith and the spiritual world as we can develop. We live in a world which often doubts the existence of a spiritual dimension. So it is important to think through the evidences for our personal beliefs reasonably, to be able to witness effectively and share what we consider to be spiritual truths. Training ourselves and others in knowledgeable faith can strengthen our personal relationship with God and truth, and develop effective ways to be able to explain faith to others. Though we search scripture, experience, science, religious tradition, the world and the heavens, Christianity will always be unprovable. It remains based upon a certain amount of trust. Nevertheless our personal search to understand and strengthen our personal faith is important for spiritual and psychological growth.
Developing our understanding of faith is not enough for is to be true Christ-followers. We need to seek with equal commitment to live authentically in response to that faith. Most Christians recognise discrepancies between what we believe and how we live; there are failings in our personal discipleship, lack of Christ-likeness and tendencies to sin rather than to do good. These frustrate us, highlighting our spiritual as well as physical or intellectual inadequacies. Paul acknowledged his own struggle in Romans 7:14-25: “For we know that the law is spiritual; but I am of the flesh... I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate... when I want to do what is good, evil lies close at hand. For I delight in the law of God in my inmost self, but I see in my members another law at war with the law of my mind, making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?” Thankfully he recognised that God’s grace, working through Christ was greater than the struggle he recognised between his ‘flesh’ and his ‘spirit’, and concluded: “Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!”
We should never give up our search or become disillusioned by our failings in the search for truth. Christ came to overcome these weaknesses and he sent his Spirit to strengthen us in our struggle and guide us towards greater truth [Jn.14:16, 26; 16:8-14]. We do not search on our own; we have God’s Spirit and the experience of others in the church to support us.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- What have you been searching for or longing for which seems to be beyond reach? Is there anything which might account for this (from lack of self-discipline or resources, to the grace of God)?
- Is there something which you could study or explore that might bring you closer to understanding your faith or your God?
4/ Saturday – FIND
“Search and you will find, knock and the door will be opened for you.” [Lk.11:9]
John Chrysostom wrote of our understanding of God: “Let us evoke him as the inexpressible God, incomprehensible and unknowable... He surpasses all power of human speech... He eludes the grasp of every mortal intelligence... Angels cannot penetrate ... [or] fully understand him. For he is invisible... Only the Son and the Holy Spirit know him.” Thomas Merton was suspicious of any imagination that we use to understand God: “We should live as if we are seeing God face to face, but we should not conceive an image of God. On the contrary, it is a matter of adoring him as invisible and infinitely beyond our comprehension and realizing him in all.” (Hidden Ground of Love p.63-64).
One characteristic of the teaching of many mystics and found in Dominican spirituality is the concept of ‘the darkness of God’ or the ‘unknowable’ nature of God. This argues that the enormity of what we consider to be ‘divine’ inevitably means that there must be more that we do not know about God than the teachings and ideas that we do know. It can therefore seem ironic to speak of ‘finding’ an invisible, incomprehensible God. Yet much emphasis in Hebrew Scriptures and in Christian scripture and writings is on God wanting to be found in our mutual relationship within creation. Our relationship with God doesn’t wait until beyond death. There must therefore be aspects of human life in which we are intended to find and relate to God and glimpse aspects of divine truth.
Christians have often been guilty of speaking as though their connection with God is more direct than it is authentically: “God told me”; “Scripture spoke to me”; “God’s Spirit revealed to me” have been voiced too often, when in actuality many may have been guided by ‘hunches’, ‘intuition’, ‘making connections’, ‘directly applying Bible verses to contemporary situations’ etc. In most Christians’ experience such direct communication as ‘hearing God’ is unknown. In over 50 years of commitment as a Christian I have only once known, without any doubt, that God’s presence was physically with me, and that was at a time of the most extreme need. Most Christians faithfully follow God without ever having such powerful assurance. God most usually guides us in more indirect ways, giving us the responsibility for our lives and actions through our lives, our measure of understanding and through trust. God respects our individual wills to serve rather than directing us or moving us like programmed automatons, or giving us direct orders beyond some general, universally applicable commandments in scripture.
Believers from some traditions speak of ‘finding God’, while others of God ‘finding them’. Jesus prayed on the night before he died: “…this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” [Jn.17:3] and “may they be one as you and I are one.” [Jn.17:11, 22]. Verse 26 of that prayer: “I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them” suggests that we know God’s love primarily through feeling it subliminally. This supplements what we come to understand through considering Jesus and his teachings. We many not ever have the incontrovertible, empirical evidence for the divine, for which so many have searched, but we have feelings and pointers towards such evidence in our experiences and in the glories of Creation surrounding us.
As John Chrysostom and Thomas Merton wrote, we can never fully ‘know’ or ‘find’ God. Even the words of Luke 11:9 9 “ask and you shall find...” recommend continual perseverance in prayer, since often we feel that our prayers, as yet, remain unanswered, so we give up. Jesus’ parables about the importunate neighbour and the persistent widow encourage us to keep searching [Lk.11:5-8; 18:1-8]. Most of what we ‘find’ or understand about God comes when our feelings and intuition supplement what we learn from scripture and tradition. Scripture gives us many metaphors by which to comprehend aspects of God’s character: ‘Father’, ‘Lord’, ‘Holy’, ‘One’, Truth, ‘Judge’, ‘Landowner’, ‘Eternal’, ‘ever-watching’, caring, loving, forgiving etc. These all build a concept of the God who we can trust and worship. We need to hold all these together holistically to sense the truth about God, rather than have unbalanced ideas of God’s wrath and judgementalism, or comfort and love. Jesus promised that those who truly seek will ‘find’ [Matt.7:7], and implied that God promises a relationship now, not just the future discovery of God and truth after death. As Jesus had a sense of oneness with God, his prayer in Jn.17:21-23 suggests that we can share a similar sense of unity, and discover tangible aspects of God in this life.
We know that we do not always find answers to our quests, especially metaphysical ones. Yet much scripture, from Abraham to Revelation, suggests that God’s aim is to be found by human beings and to have a living relationship with us. Psalmists regularly celebrated what they had discovered or sensed about God. Several psalms, like Ps.145 & 148, also suggest that the whole of Creation can share in such a relationship. The idea of humans being ‘in the image of God’ [Gen.1:26] implies that we share certain characteristics which link us to our divine Source. Presumably in some of these we might recognise aspects of God. As spiritual quests and religious beliefs are found in most cultures, part of our nature seems designed to seek such a relationship. Scripture and Christian traditions suggest that we will never be fully fulfilled unless that relationship is satisfied. Augustine of Hippo wrote: “You made us for yourself and our hearts are restless till they find their rest in you.”
The ‘findability’ of a relationship with the invisible God is an important focus of faith. We develop understanding of aspects of God through scripture, reason, religious tradition, the qualities in Creation, human conscience, intuition, and spiritual and physical experiences. Our individual responses to God and the nature of our relationships with God will differ, since we all differ and there are so many variations of spirituality in the world, despite our many shared characteristics. Different characters with varying backgrounds are not designed to relate to God in exactly similar ways, just as we relate to partners, friends and others differently. Some may find God closest to them through a solitary search. Others will find that they learn about God best through others. That is one of the reasons why we were given the Church. The wide variety of people within the Church should be able to demonstrate the availability and truth of God to the wide variety of people in the world. The theologian Helen Oppenheimer has written: “We are not trying to pronounce about what God can or cannot be, but about how God can be found in our world… God’s people have the hopeful responsibility of being the presence, the findability of God upon earth…Our diversity should enable God to be found in all areas of life in the world… The word multi-faceted comes to mind…the church may be a prism breaking up the white light of God’s dazzling majesty.” [Theology 93: 1990 p 133-141]. A major part of the mission of all Christians, which we neglect too often, is to help the wider world recognise the truths of God and how to reach out to God themselves. How committed and effective are you at this?
As well as assuring us that “everyone who searches will find” [Matt.7:7], Jesus also recognised conversely that ‘there are few who find the road that leads to life” [Matt.7:14]. In the previous study on ‘Seek/Search” we recognised that our search needs to be authentic, persistent and diligent: one needs to be willing to lose much of what we believe to be ‘worldly life’ to achieve true ‘spiritual life’ [Matt.10:39; 16:25]. Yet being willing to risk much, or offer up most of what we have for the spiritual treasure of a relationship with God, is the message of several parables: The Treasure Buried in a Field [Matt.13:44], The Pearl of Great Price [Matt.13:45-46], The Lost Sheep [Matt.18:12-14; Lk.15:4] and the Open Door to God’s Kingdom [Lk.11:9]
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- In what ways have you come to find God? What particular things have helped you in your path, which might help others?
- Have you particular friends and acquaintances who are searching to find something of Truth in which you can help them? Pray for them.
- What have you learned about God through other people? Give thanks for the amount you have learned, and consider how you might grow further in faith and understanding of God.
WEEK 2: EXPLORING OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH GOD THROUGH CHRIST
5/ Sunday – TRUST
“Have faith and do not doubt… Ask in prayer with faith” [Matt.21:21-22]
One may nominally believe that the Christian faith offers truths and that God is real, but to put one’s ‘trust’ in God and believe the promises of scripture requires a far greater commitment than simply a faith that is based on hopeful wishful-thinking. The Greek biblical term ‘pith’/’trust’ suggests that one has ‘confidence ‘, ‘assurance in ‘, and is ‘persuaded about’ the truth in which one places one’s trust. [Matt.27:43; Mk.9:24; Lk.11:22; 18:9.]
Trust is a word that is used more frequently in the Old Testament, particularly in Psalms, where the writers express conviction that they can put their trust in God, even in difficult trials. ‘Trust’ is not so often mentioned in the Gospels, though Christ commends ‘trustworthiness’/‘pistos’ in God’s servants: [Matt.25:21-23; Lk.19:17]. In the Synoptic Gospels Jesus is more often translated as encouraging people to have ‘faith’ (‘pistis’/’pisteuō’) in God and in him: “have faith and do not doubt… Ask in prayer with faith” [Matt.21:21-22]; “According to your faith let it be done to you” [Matt.9:29]; “if you had faith the size of a grain of mustard seed...” [Lk.17:6]; “Your faith has saved you” [Lk.7:50; 18:42]. This word ‘pistis’ again suggests ‘trust’.
‘Pistos’ is the Greek term in scripture most commonly used for trust. 1Pet.1:21 used in expressing trust in God, but it is not a word that is confined to religious beliefs. The Greeks used it of many situations where its primarily meaning was that one is ‘firmly persuaded’, ‘assured’ or ‘convinced’ that something or someone is trustworthy. Surprisingly neither the words for ‘trust’ nor ‘faith’ are used in John’s Gospel, where the divinity of Christ is most strongly represented. Instead the writer emphasises that his testimony is ‘true’ [Jn.19:35; 21:24] and gives many proofs of Christ’s miraculous nature. (Terms for ‘true’/‘truly’ are used 47 times in John’s 21 chapters.) Probably the writer presumed that in response to the testimony of the Gospel, readers should believe that Jesus deserves our faith and trust because he taught and exemplified truth and perfectly reflected God.
In the Synoptic Gospels ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ are used almost synonymously. In the Gospels ‘faith’ has little to do with the abstract set of convictions, beliefs or doctrines, which churches now define as ‘the faith of the Church’. ‘Faith’ is primarily spoken of as the trust that relates us to God. Jesus claimed: ‘Faith can move mountains’ [Matt.17:20; 21:21], presumably speaking metaphorically rather than literally, with the meaning that trust in God helps us to overcome major difficulties, obstacles and needs.
Jesus frequently commended and answered the requests of those in whom he found or sensed faith, particularly in situations of healing [Matt.8:10; 9:2, 22, 29; 15:28; Mk.2:5; 5:34; 10:52; Lk.5:20; 7:9, 50; 8:25; 17:19]. But we should never believe that, just because we have faith, God will heal or answer any prayers as we wish. Nor, despite Jesus’ teaching about the efficacy of ‘faith as small as a grain of mustard seed’ [Matt.17:20] should we think that our prayers aren’t answered because our faith is too small. I believe that God’s loving wisdom will always answer prayer in the ways that are ultimately right and best for all. Despite the Parables of the Importunate Neighbour [Lk.11:5-8] and the Persistent Widow [Lk.18:1-8] we should not seek to alter the direction of truth or ‘change God’s mind’, as if that were possible. The prayer of trust always seeks to be in line with truth and what might be God’s will.
Faith means that we will not always see that in which we trust. When Thomas recognised the risen Christ, his trust in the experience confirmed and expanded his faith. Not only did he believe that Jesus was alive, but John describes him taking the further leap of faith to claim Jesus as “my Lord and my God!” [Jn.20:28]. Commentators differ over whether Thomas would have actually said these words or if the gospel-writer used them to underline the message of Christ’s divine origins. John gives Jesus’ response to Thomas as: “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have come to believe” [Jn.20:29]. This seems to be a major message of the passage: we should be wary of requiring experiences or undeniable evidence before committing ourselves to belief, or we will never find faith. Since the Enlightenment, that requirement of empirical proof has been a major stumbling-block to faith. Yet it is vitalising when we do recognise evidences and answers to prayer that encourage and strengthen our faith. At the heart of Christianity is belief in the existence of a spiritual truth and security which we cannot prove, yet strongly sense that we can trust: ‘Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the knowledge of things unseen’ [Heb.11:1].
A living church of active, spiritually truthful, trusting and trustworthy members would be a great encouragement to outsiders to recognise and begin to trust that we may have found truths that could be relevant to them. One tends to trust those who clearly seem to live by what they claim to believe. A problem throughout the Church’s history is that its members have not always acted in ways that encourage others to trust the God in whom we claim to believe. Many have found that they cannot trust churches as institutions, or individual Christians who announce that they have the truth but act in unrighteous ways. It is a huge challenge to us to make our lives, our witness, our church community and our liturgy truly reflect the true God. We have a sceptical world to convince, where many have experienced or witnessed years of mistakes and hypocrisy by self-proclaimed ‘Christians’. Out personal truthful and trustworthy witness today needs to overcome and overturn this.
Thankfully, God is far more trustworthy than human beings. Even when we act in ways that sully God’s name, the real God is here for people and has the strength to overcome the barriers any might erect. One aspect of God’s mercy may be that he hides from public recognition some of our many failures in order to help others discover divine truth through us.
Tales of saints include examples of some who ‘trusted God to provide everything they needed.’ Jesus and his disciples gave up much financially and were supported by those around them and to whom they ministered. But in a modern economic world it would not be practical or an effective witness if every Christian decided to live in this way, and expect to be supported by others. The world might become over-full of mendicant worshipping beggars trusting God and expecting the community to support their spirituality. This would not be a good witness to our faith. In s’Hertogenbosch in Flanders, (the hometown of Hieronymus Bosch) in late middle-ages so many communities of Religious Orders were founded, demanding to be supported by the society, that the town-people revolted and refused to offer them financial support! St. Paul trusted God and other believers to help support his mission but he also worked at a profession in order not to be a burden to any [Acts 18:3; 2Cor.12:14; 1Thess.2:9; 2Thes.3:8]. He urged other Christians to act in the same way, so that church might support those with true needs [1Tim.5:16].
Jesus encouraged his followers, when he sent them out on mission, (first the twelve disciples [Matt.10:5-14], then seventy [Lk.10:1-20], then us who believe through their witness [Matt.28:18-20]) to trust that we will find support and be effective. In prayer in Gethsemane he prayed in trust for our protection, yet committed in trust to follow God’s will [Jn.17:11-21]. The disciples trusted God’s Spirit to guide people to listen and respond to their message, to convert and work miracles through them. But they rarely found living by a trusting faith easy. When his disciples struggled to cure a child, Jesus showed them that they did not have the spiritual power in themselves and were always dependant on God’s will and power. The child’s father, when asked whether he believed a cure possible, gave one of the most poignant, meaningful responses about trusting God in all scripture: “I believe, help my unbelief!” [Mk.9:24]. Perhaps that should be our prayer far more often, where we, as modern, thinking believers, feel tempted not to pray for situations which we believe are beyond even God’s intervention.
Jesus emphasised that after he had physically left them, the Holy Spirit would be their ever-present trustworthy guide into all truth and in their mission, convicting others of God’s truth [Jn.14:16-19; 16:7-15]. “When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all the truth...” [Jn.16:12]. They could trust God’s Spirit, as they had learned to trust Jesus, and could trust him to being them to life: “Because I live in you, you will live.” [Jn.14:19]. That is the sort of trusting faith that we need to develop for effective Christian living and witness.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- How fully do you feel that you can trust God? Try to pray “I believe, help my unbelief!” over situations or issues which you recognise to be difficult or desperate.
- How much do you rely on God’s Spirit in guiding you daily, in your decisions and those of your church?
- How could you make your own life and your church appear more truly ‘trustworthy’, to attract others to trust your message enough to be attracted to following God?
6/ Monday - HUMILITY
“Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls” [Matt.11:29]
Humility was a characteristic of Christ, which he encouraged his disciples to follow. Yet it is not necessarily a characteristic that we always see in leaders of Christian organisations today or in fellow believers. For too many Christians their sense of position, rights or authority are over-worldly. In contemporary ministerial training ordinands are often encouraged to use business models to find and develop the leadership style that most suits their personality. But as in business that can sometimes encourage over-dominance and bullying. Despite churches’ insistence that they follow safeguarding procedures, there is still too much coercion and intimidation in many institutions. The true Christian, whether leader or follower should take the character of Christ, not businessmen, as their holistic model.
Authentic humility is a virtue; false humility or obsequiousness can be cloyingly irritating. You sometimes find church-members who think that they will appear particularly ‘religious’ if they are over-self-deprecating and servile. That can be a beautiful quality in some; I have recognised it in some members of religious orders. But Uriah Heep in Dickens’ ‘David Copperfield’ is an example of how untrustworthy excessive servility can seem. When someone approaches us fawningly we often wonder “what are they after?” So humility needs to be sincere if we are seeking to witness authentically.
Our ‘humility’ stresses that we recognise that we are ‘of the earth’, in the same boat as everybody else. Christians are servants of God and stewards to look after God’s Creation. We are not ‘gods’ or ‘supermen’, to use Nietzsche imagery of strong leadership. ‘Humus’, the compost we use in planting, is Latin for ‘soil’. It is not clear whether this is, as has sometimes been suggested, the root of the Latin words for ‘humility’/‘humilis’, or ‘human being’/‘humanus’. But the idea remains attractive that, whatever our social position, we should recognise that in being ‘made of the dust of the earth’ we are not superior but ‘one’, sharing a unity with the rest of society and with the world. No Christian should lord it over any. Those Christian groups who have cut themselves off or distanced themselves from the society of other Christians or the community around them, in the belief that this will keep their faith pure, are mistaken and deceive themselves. Jesus mixed with the world in order to influence it for good, being wrongly criticised for eating with sinners and tax-collectors [Mk.2:16].
Scripture translates the Greek term ‘tapeinós’ as ‘humble’. The word implies that we recognise and accept our relative weakness, lowliness, poverty and insignificance. Greek philosophers and the rabbinic tradition regarded this as a great virtue in a leader or any human being. It did not imply that they should be submissive, but that they accepted their responsibilities and obligations before the gods, people and truth, without raising themselves above any, or considering themselves above criticism. Jesus probably meant something similar when he claimed that those who are ‘poor in spirit’ and ‘meek’ are ‘blessed’, acknowledging that the kingdom of heaven belongs to such as them [Matt.5:3&5].
Humility, like the willingness to be a ‘servant’ of humanity does not imply that we abase ourselves and do not ‘stand up and be counted’. It is possible to be modest while still recognising our value. God highly values human beings - look at all the qualities and abilities in us, and how we have been entrusted with responsibilities towards the earth and each other! Christians who do not feel it is their place to speak out against wrong and speak up for right are shirking our human and ethical responsibilities. True humility makes us obedient to truth and encourages us to accept and act upon the responsibilities required of us. We should just act with appropriately Christ-like persuasion, not arrogance or dominance. We are all of great value, so while recognising our weakness and sins, we should never believe that we are nothing, or feel deflated by others who might try to debase us. Nor, for the same reason, should we ever act to debase others.
Scripture describes God exalting or raising those who are held down by others or inwardly oppressed [Ps.18:27; 34:18]. God often chooses to work through the lowly rather than the self-important [Judg.6:15; 1Sam.18:23; Lk.1:48; 1Cor.1:28]. This is an incredibly important lesson for all Christian leaders! Humility encourages us to recognise our dependency on God and others: none should ever to get so above themselves that they rely on their superiority and fail to rely on God. Jesus claimed that those who exalt themselves will be abased and those who abase themselves will be exalted [Matt.23:12; Lk.14:11; 18:14]. Paul showed how Jesus himself took the form of a servant yet was exalted: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who did not regard even equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. And being found in human form, he humbled himself and became obedient to the point of death – even death on a cross. Therefore God also highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name. SO that at the name of Jesus every knee should bend, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. ...” [Phil.2:5-11]. It is not for us to exalt ourselves!.
In humility we recognise and admit to our failings. Today many leaders refuse to admit their wrongs, this unfortunately includes some church-leaders as well as politicians and those in other walks of life. Refusing to publicly or privately apologise for failures or justifying oneself when one has made mistakes seems to be a feature of modern leadership. We need to be careful in our criticism because most of us will have done this some time in our lives. Children often invent elaborate explanations, but when leaders do similarly their self-protective motives may be equally transparent. Some fear that apologising might make them appear weak, untrustworthy or unworthy of respect. This shouldn’t be true, since acknowledging our failings can often help people to progress, move on, forgive, receive forgiveness and genuinely learn from mistakes. (Sadly some claim that they have learned from their mistakes, then blithely carry on as they did before.) The penitential season of Lent can be an important time for genuine admissions, regaining Christ-like humility and moving forward in discipleship.
Readiness to acknowledge mistakes and apologise is a Christian virtue. True repentance, including changing one’s life and making reparations, is central to the process of forgiveness [cf. Meditation 1]. If any seem arrogant, justify their misdoings or fail to ask for forgiveness, resentment towards them can grow and build greater barriers between individuals or groups. If we recognise someone’s true penitence, we are more likely to forgive and dissolve the obstacles between us before resentment increases. Openly acknowledging our sins and failings is similarly at the heart of keeping our relationship with God free, acknowledging truth and owning up to our weaknesses and errors. It is wrong to believe that God or others should automatically forgive if we are not humble enough to admit our faults. That is one reason why true confession is so important an element of worship.
Humility reflects our love for others: we serve another because we value them. This contrasts greatly with those who believe it their duty to serve or rule because they are so much more important or significant than others. In describing love in 1Cor.13:4-5, Paul reminds us that love does not boast, become puffed-up, vaunt itself, or seek its own good before that of another. Truth eventually often abases those who become ‘too big for their own boots’. God is often described in scripture as raising the lowly and laying low the mighty [1Sam.2:7; Ps.44:25; 51:17; 75:8; Isa.2:11; 3:8; Ezek.21:31; Lk.1:52], or humbling people who have done wrong in order to restore them to a right relationship with him and with the truth [Ps.116:6; 119:71]. It might be encouraging if we saw such humbling happened more often, but unfortunately the finder of accusation might also point at us!
Jesus’ own example is our greatest model for true humility. His lowliness resulted from having his heart fixed on following his Father’s will, not on pleasing or advancing himself. He did not insist on his unique, divine position and privilege. Reflecting God’s lordship, Jesus didn’t lord-over the world. He showed empathy and identified with us, living like us and sacrificing himself for our good. Christ came down to our level to support us and teach us by example. The writer of Philippians reminds all Christians: “Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who did not regard even equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave...” [Phil.2:5-7]. That example is for both leaders and those who are led.
Jesus explained facets of humility in the Beatitudes: ‘Blessed are the poor in sprit… those who mourn… the meek… those who hunger and thirst for righteousness... the merciful… the pure in heart… the peacemakers… those who are persecuted for righteousness sake… those who are reviled, persecuted and falsely accused, for the sake of Christ.’ [Matt. 5:3-11]. By contrast contemporary emphasis often praises ‘worldly ambition’, ‘self-promotion’, ‘lust for power, fortune fame or vengeance, despite the cost to others’, ‘asserting one’s rights’, ‘justifying lying to get yourself out of trouble’. Sadly even the Church is rarely innocent in such matters, as in the promotion or self-promotion of some who consider themselves a spiritual elite, or the cover-up of situations of abuse.
Christian humility isn’t about self-denigration or self-degradation, certainly not about allowing yourself to be unjustly accused or stepped upon. It recognises our true, high value in God’s perspective and values others as equal to, or even better than, ourselves [Phil.2:3], not insisting on one’s own priority yet standing for justice and Kingdom principles. We aren’t just to regard ourselves as the miserable, sinning worms of Psalm 22:6, Job 25:6 or the ‘Litany’ in the Book of Common Prayer. Human beings may be formed from ‘dust’ or soil, as the metaphor for our nature expresses it, but we are raised above dust, redeemed, formed in God’s image, reformed by God’s Spirit, entrusted by God with changing the world and called ‘children of God’. Christ calls us ‘friends’ not just ‘servants’ [Jn.15:15]. Good stewards recognise the dignity and responsibilities of their calling without tendency to arrogance. Any who push themselves forward or insist on position actually diminish themselves. That is not the way to gain respect from one’s peers, let alone to appear Christ-like in our witness. Self-promotion does not promote ‘Christ’, which is the purpose of all true ‘mission’. The proud should take care lest they fall [Lk.1:51].
The human ego can have positive and negative effects: It can advance human society through our drive to improve understanding, create useful inventions or develop for the good. But it can also over- promote or advance some, perhaps at the expense of undermining others, or judging others more strictly than ourselves. That is not Christ’s example of love and encouragement. At times in history, the Church has attempted to model itself on authoritarian secular worldly models of leadership, promoting power, hierarchy or fame over Jesus’ example. Jesus taught that “Such ambition should not be so with you” [Jn.20:26]. Humility is occasionally ‘imposed’ on church-members by dictatorial leaders insisting on their ‘authority’ or superiority. The mediaeval writer John of Forde wrote: “Let him who would teach me humility ensure that they have learned Christ-like humility themselves”.
Humble ministry seeks to serve and support all. None should ever give the impression that they are above those for whom God has given them pastoral responsibility. Humility in leadership may not massage one’s ego, but it strengthens community. We shouldn’t need to be recognised as important, famous or gifted. The Church is not ‘Britain’s Got Talent’; the Holy Spirit gives us gifts for the benefit and up-building of others more than for ourselves. The value of every individual should be affirmed equally within the Church body or Christian society. Churches appoint people of varying, recognised gifts to different roles to enable ministry. But no role is superior to another; we are a team, one body, intended to work together [1Cor.12]. Perhaps some roles might seem more ‘respectable’ but none deserve greater ‘respect’ than others. The high calling of a ‘deacon’ was in classical times the menial who emptied the latrine buckets. Are we all ready to cheerfully carry the ordure of others in our world so that it can be disposed of? (There are also still many buckets in churches that need to be emptied and scrubbed clean!) That really would be getting down to the level of those we serve, as Christ did on the Cross!
No Christian should regard themselves as above the menial role. We are not here “to be served but to serve” [Matt.20:28]. Christ’s Church, if it is to reflect God’s Kingdom, isn’t about individualism or personal ambition; we are meant to be a community of Christ-like people, serving and worshiping holily together. As many prophets showed, worship or personal attempts at holiness are unworthy if the aims behind them are unworthy.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Take an honest and humble look at your life, and compare your own position with the humility of Christ, as Phil.2:5-8 encourages.
7/ Tuesday – POVERTY
“Blessed are the poor...” [Lk.6:20]... “Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” [Matt.5:3]. “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor” [Lk.4:18].
The Church has often commended poverty and poverty of spirit as virtues, while too frequently not adopting the same attitude to itself. I often feel ashamed of the distance between today’s churches and the communities of disciples that Christ and St Paul intended, which grew into the organisations in which we serve God today. I also recognise it in myself. Even worse is the preaching of a ‘prosperity gospel’ which equates the expansion of riches with God’s blessing on those he loves. Too often those riches have been gained in unrighteous ways. Some of the great religious entrepreneurs of the 19th Century like Cadbury and Titus Salt had laudable and holy aims, but several modern tele-evangelists and promoters of rich churches have been far more self-centred and materially motivated, as were many of the secular and religious sponsors of the great churches and cathedrals of the Middle Ages and Renaissance. The works they commissioned may be wonderful, but too often the motivations behind commissions, or the patron’s methods of acquisition of the wealth and influence were unworthy or ungodly.
A meaningful aspect of biblical law is the responsibility laid upon society to support the poor and needy. According to the laws of the Hebrew covenants, the widow, child, stranger, the poor and the needy were all to be supported by the community [Ex.22:21-27; Deut.10:17-19; 24:17-22; 26:12-13; 27:17-19]. Poverty was also seen as an aspect of humility, it created a state of dependence: the poor recognised their need for protection and provision. Jesus term in the Beatitudes “the poor in spirit” uses the same word for poverty. The “poor in spirit” were “blessed” through recognising and living by their dependence on God. Even those with possessions, who humbly recognise their weakness and emotional and spiritual poverty, and dependency on God can find blessing, if they recognise and respond to their need for a greater relationship of dependence beyond themselves.
Two problems in much of the contemporary world are that the materially or mentally poor are not sufficiently supported, while the richer, yet often equally emotionally and spiritually impoverished rarely accept that they need or lack metaphysical strength. Many in our affluent society have great possessions and much to fill their time, so do not feel spiritually “poor”. They may be frustrated in relationships, promotion, the expectations on their time, family or business pressures, even feel emotionally lonely, but may not accept that they have any need for faith in God or a relationship with a spiritual world beyond their own horizons. Yet when some of their props or means of confidence fall away they may come to recognise their spiritual poverty and seek more permanent spiritual security. We should not allow ourselves to get to the point of desperation before we turn to prayer!
One of the mistakes of the Church over centuries has been to celebrate poverty as a condition of holiness. Religious Orders embraced poverty as though it was a virtue, making the secular rich feel guilty, while some churches encouraged the materially rich to enrich the Church as an institution. That is not the poverty or riches that Jesus was talking about. He wanted the poor to be physically supported and the emotionally and spiritually impoverished to be spiritually fed and enriched in their inner spirits. It is part of our responsibility as Christ’s followers to recognise the areas in which we are spiritually poor and to enrich them by a deeper relationship of dependency on God. At the same time it is our mission to reach out into the lives of those who are themselves spiritually, emotionally, physically or socially impoverished and offer them what will enhance their lives, whether it is material, emotional, practical or spiritual support.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
In what areas of life and faith are you spiritually poor? Bring them humbly before God and consider how you might be strengthened.
8/ Wednesday – THIRST
“Blessed are they that hunger and thirst for righteousness for they will be filled.” [Matt.5:6]...
“Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The3 water that I give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life” [Jn.4:13-14]... “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let anyone who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.” [Jn.7:37-38 elaborating on Isa.55:1].
Jesus emphasised to the Samaritan woman at the well that those who spiritually thirst could have their thirst truly quenched by him and will never thirst again [Jn.4:13-14]. His offer of living water from a well of life to her was not just a metaphor invented by Jesus; it was a prophecy in Jewish tradition. God provides the necessities of life [Isa.55:1] and is the source of living water, just as water quenches thirst and nourishes life [Jer.2:13]. Ezekiel prophesied that in the coming time streams would bring life [Ezek.47:16ff; Zech.14:8]. The desire for God was described as thirst [Ps.42:1] and Jesus used drinking as a metaphor for believing [[Jn.7:38]. The gift of the Spirit would eventually be the well of water that would sustain spiritual life [Jn,8:37; 7:39; 6:56] and the river of life in the Book of Revelation would nourish the tree of life that was a sign of God’s Kingdom, producing its fruit each month and offering its leaves and shade for the healing of the world [Rev.22:1-2].
As with Jesus saying that those who drank of his water of life would never be thirsty again [Jn.4:13-14], thirst and its quenching in scripture implies far more than being temporarily satisfied by being offered a drink. People living in a hot climate like the Palestinian desert, or working hard in work in the fields knew the power of thirst. Much of the land in Jesus’ day was poor in water resources. Emphasis is placed on wells, wadies and conduits throughout scripture [Gen.26:18-19; 2 Ki.18:19]. The provision of water in the desert was important [Num.20:24; 27:14] and it was to be a significant blessing in the Promised Land [Deut.8:7]. It was prophesied that in the future Israel would become like a ‘watered garden’ [Isa.58:11] perhaps remembering the cultivated gardens seen during the Assyrian and Babylonian Exiles. This is more a metaphor for overall future blessing than a prophecy about irrigation. The Psalmist saw himself and his people as a flock led to water or a tree flourishing by drawing water from a brook [Ps.32:2; 1:3]. Jesus must have felt thirst particularly in preparation for his ministry in the wilderness, as well as in his peripatetic ministry. John’s Gospel includes ‘I thirst’ among Jesus’ words from the cross [19:28]. The Book of Revelation emphasises that there will be no more thirst in heaven, for the Lamb will lead the redeemed to the water of life which they will receive without cost [Rev.7:16-17; 21:6; 22:17]. The river of the water of life that flows from the Lamb’s throne reflects the rivers with their source in Paradise and the springs which flowed to water the earth in the imagery of creation and the sustenance provided by God [Rev.22:1; Gen 2:10-14].
The imagery of water throughout scripture, is used both physically and as a metaphor: Wells feature significantly in Genesis as God’s people developed [16:14; 21:19-30; 24:11-20; 26:19-32; 29:2-10] and elsewhere in scripture [Ex.2:15; Num.20:17; 21:16-22; 2Sam.3:26; 17:18-21; 23:15-16, 2Ki.10:14; 1Chron.11:17-18; Prov.15:5; 23:27;25:26; Eccles.12:6; S.of Songs 4:15; Jer.6:7; Hos.13:15]. Jacob provided water for the flock of Rachel and Laban [Gen.29:2-14], Naaman was healed by bathing in the Jordan [2Ki.5:8-19]. Streams are equally significant [Gen.2:6; Ex.7:19; 8:5; Deut.8:7; 10-:7; Ps.1:3; 42:1; 65:9; 74:15; 78:16-20; 107:35; 126:4; Isa.30:25; 32:2, 20; 33:21; 43:19-20, 44:3-4; 66:12; Jer.17:8; 31:9; Ezek.47:3-12; Amos5:24]. Hebrew prophecy promised that God would provide ‘streams in the desert’ [Isa.32:2; 35:6; 41:18; 43:20]. This was both to bring growth and to spiritually strengthen the nation, which was a ‘thirsty land’ [Amos 8:11; Ps.42:2]. Water was also a symbol of cleansing, purification, healing repentance (in baptism) and the bringing of salvation [Jn.2:1ff]. So it is not surprising that Jesus used this important source of life as a symbol of himself.
Thirst was seen metaphorically as a passionate longing for spiritual food [Matt.5:6] and yearning for salvation [Isa.42:18; Jn.7:37]. Satisfying this thirst would be the feast of God’s Kingdom [Lk.22:30], whereas thirst would be a feature of divine punishment [Lk.16:24]. To give a cup of water was a blessing that would be rewarded in God’s Kingdom [Matt.10:42; 25:37-40]. Helping the thirsty’ is part of our ministry, as Rom.12:20 emphasises.
Our own spiritual thirst can be a sign that God has more to bring to our lives than we recognise or have presently attained. As Jesus told the woman at the well, the quenching of thirst provided by many activities and relationships may be temporarily satisfying, but can never fulfil the areas of need that spiritual nourishment can provide. That is not to say that our social relationships and other methods of fulfilment are unimportant. To be ‘whole’ and ‘satisfied’ people we need these activities and contacts as well. Christian teaching has sometimes over-emphasised the idea that a relationship with God through Christ is sufficient and can provide everything we need. We must be careful about our interpretation of verses of scripture that imply that we should give up all things for the sake of Christ. Scriptural phrases often exaggerate, as Jesus did himself, in order to make significant points. We cannot do without the living water that a relationship with God through Christ provides. But water is insufficient as a diet; we need to take variety in our nourishment in order to grow strong and abundantly. When scripture talks of ‘Christ alone’ being sufficient for us, it surely means that our faith, following Christ’s teachings, and maintaining a righteous relationship with God through Christ should be our priorities and influence all that we do. But our social and economic lives are also important. Every moment of our lives should be lived authentically, keeping true to God, but that does not mean that at every moment we are maintaining an awareness of God or concentrating on faith. Much of real life is fed and nourished by other things, but we still ‘live in Christ’.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How much do you sincerely ‘thirst’ for a righteous life and an authentic relationship with God? How might your spiritual thirst be further quenched?
9/ Thursday – ASK
“Ask and it will be given to you...” [Matt.7:7]
Are we really meant to believe that whatever we truly ask of God will be given to us? Very inappropriately I remember seeing a Christian poster, designed I think for a young person’s room, which printed the text “Ask and it will be given to you” on a photograph of a shiny red sports-car. I guess or hope that the unthinking graphic designer was just using the car as a pretext for attracting the viewer’s attention to the verse, not thoughtlessly encouraging covetousness or idolatry. Nevertheless, if it true that many Christians find themselves asking for things that are inappropriate.
The word ‘ask’ in English is a fairly general word, which can be meant relaxedly or intensely. There are fifteen words for ‘asking’ used in the Greek New Testament, often denoting what is asked, or the manner or purpose behind what is asked. A few terms of asking predominate:
A common word in the New Testament for ‘ask’ is the word ‘légō’ which is a general term that can mean: to ‘speak’, ‘talk’, ‘tell’, ‘declare’, ‘announce’, ‘give a message or promise’, ‘teach’, ‘repeat’ or even ‘sing’, according to context. Its origin is in the ‘gathering together’ of people to address, to repeat a narrative to be remembered, or to teach.
Another term, ‘aiteō’, is stronger, but again can be translated in different ways according to context: to ‘ask for’, ‘demand’, ‘beg’, ‘request’, ‘call’, ‘make’ or ‘pray’. It is used of the Greeks “demanding signs” to accredit Paul’s teaching [1Cor.1:22], or people calling disciples to account for or explain their beliefs [1Pet.3:15]. It was also used of official or general requests, as well as religious prayers requesting things from God. Interestingly the word is never used by Jesus of his own prayers [Jn.16:26]. He used the more specific and more humble word for requesting: ‘erōtáō’. It has been speculated that this is because ‘aiteō’ contains the sense of a ‘demand’, and our prayers should never be made as ‘demands’ to God. This differs somewhat from the Jewish attitude to prayer, which sometimes could be interpreted as approaching God too demandingly. This is seen in some Psalms, but particularly in the way more recent Jewish spirituality occasionally addresses God.
The more intimate word for ‘enquiring ‘ or ‘requesting’ [erōtáō] is used both when the disciples addressed Jesus and when Jesus addressed God. Christ “asked” the disciples “How many loaves do you have?”[Mk.8:5] and asked, “Who do people say that I am?” [Matt.16:13]. He asked the rich young man “Why do you ask [‘herōtâs’ / ‘question’] me what is good?” [Matt.19:17]. Jesus disciples asked him to explain the meaning of his parables [Mk.4:10] and the centurion asked him to come and heal his servant [Lk.7:3]. The same word is used when Jesus challenged the elders who questioned his authority: “I will ask you one question; if you answer me, I will tell you by what authority I do these things.” [Matt.21:24; Lk.20:3]. In this particular context it possibly shows that he was questioning with a gently worded enquiry, perhaps to prevent further antagonism. John’s Gospel uses the word ‘erōtáō’ most frequently: “They asked him to stay with them” [Jn.4:8], the disciples asked “Rabbi who sinned?” [Jn.9:2]; Jesus told his disciples ‘I will ask the Father” [Jn.14:16; 16:26]. But in John the request is often shown to have more power behind it, as when the priests and Levites questioned John the Baptist: “They asked, “What then, are you Elijah?”... they asked “Why then are you baptising?”. The term is used when Jesus’ opponents interrogated the man whose son had been blind from birth and healed by Jesus on the Sabbath [Jn.9:15-21]. It is also used in the interrogating of Christ at his trial [Jn.18:21]. Most significantly the word is used throughout Jesus’ ‘High-Priestly Prayer’ in John 17, when Jesus was asking sincerely that his Father would protect his disciples and those who would believe in him through them [Jn.17:9, 15, 20]. The meaning of this form of asking can therefore be strong and entreating, expressing a longing for an answer that can imply a sincere prayer or need.
Erōtáō is linked to the word ‘eperōtáō’, which means ‘to question’ or ‘inquire’, a word that Mark used more frequently than the other evangelists. It denoted much of the questioning that was made of Jesus throughout his ministry: “Is it lawful to cure on the Sabbath?” [Matt.12:10]; ‘show us a sign’ [Matt.16:1]; ‘Why don’t your disciples live by the tradition of the elders?’ [Mk.7:5]; “Teacher when will this be?” [Lk.21:7]; “Prophesy! Who is it that struck you?’ [Lk.22:64].
Praying sincerely out of a sense of need [‘dēomai’] is the term used for ‘asking’ when Jesus told his disciples to “ask the Lord of the harvest to provide” [Matt.9:38; Lk.10:2]. Paul also used it when defending his ministry against criticism he “asks” for the community’s understanding [2Cor.10:2]. This type of asking is a form of saying “I beg you...”
Whatever sincere way we ask, Christ’s teaching assures us that our prayers are listened to and answered. His Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax-collector at prayer in the Temple [Lk.18:9-14] implies that our sincerity and earnestness in prayer are most important. The effectiveness of our prayer surely depends not so much on our position, our erudition, how we ask, or even how we approach God, since God already knows our deepest needs. Humility should be part of that approach, yet answers to prayer depend on God’s wisdom not on the way we phrase our requests. Whether we feel that our prayers have been answered may often depend on whether we are asking for the truest things. The prayer of faith [Matt.21:22, Jas.5:15] entails aligning ourselves with the will of God. We should aim to make requests that accord with our understanding about God and our knowledge of the truth and of life. Despite Jesus’ teaching about moving mountains or trees [Matt.17:20; 21:21-2], it would be wrong to pray for what is inappropriate or the impossible.
Jesus often used exaggerated language to make his teachings memorable, like encouraging followers that with even a tiny grain of faith they could pray that a mountain would be moved or a tree uprooted. Taken literally, both prayers would be unreasonable. Jesus’ emphasis in Matt.17:20; 21:21-2 was rather on believing that nothing is impossible for God. He encouraged us to involve God in all our needs, longings, frustrations, painful or seemingly impossible situations and requests. He meant us to trust that God knows our deepest needs and the best ways to respond to our prayers [Matt.6:8, 32; Lk.11:8; 12:30; 18:1].
Jesus also encouraged people to think reasonably about what they were requesting. When the twin disciples asked to reign on either side of him in heaven, he gently disparaged their ambition [Matt.20:21-23; Mk.10:37-40]. He challenged the rich young man over whether he was truly able and willing to give all to his spiritual quest [Lk.18:22-23]. In what might have been a searching question he asked the blind Bartimaeus who had asked for his sight, what he really wanted. Was it truly healing of his sight that he most needed, or was there a greater, deeper and more spiritual need? [Mk.10:51]. That too could be a question for us to consider when we pray.
It is always useful to explore our motives in asking for things. Children often desire everything, and modern life in a commerce-driven society often encourages self-indulgence. But spiritual maturity should lead us to make requests for our truest needs. Jesus taught his disciples to pray in the Lord’s Prayer for ‘the bread we need for today’ [Matt.6:11; Lk.11:3], not to make self-centred or self-indulgent requests.
Yet Jesus still encourages to ‘ask’ and St. Paul to ‘make our requests known to God’ [Phil.4:6]. God may know our needs before we ask (omniscience, we believe is a divine characteristic). Nevertheless our own involvement in prayer develops our relationship with God. Jesus’ parables of people making importunate requests [Lk.11:5-8;18:1-8] emphasise the importance of keeping up our asking. This doesn’t imply that God is slothful or doesn’t answer prayer until enough people or prayers are involved. The emphasis on regularity of asking may suggest that regular prayer encourages us to consider more deeply what we are asking for and become more closely involved in the answers to our own prayers. When we pray for the needs of the world, perhaps we should be asking more specifically in what ways we might be involved in meeting or helping to alleviate those needs.
If we become involved in the answers to our prayers, maybe we are more likely to ask the most significant and appropriate prayers. Interceding for someone or something can deepen our commitment to them and to their situation. There is much that we can do to become involved in healing and meeting the needs of the world, rather than merely expecting God to provide all the solutions.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Consider the things that are most on your mind, for which you pray. Are there areas where you, yourself could do more, or people who you could support more in a wide variety of ways?
10/ Friday – LEARN –
Jesus said “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.” [Matt.11:29]
In Matt.11:29 and Jn.13:15 Jesus told Christians to follow his example. Paul also encouraged Christians to follow his example [Phil.3:17]. Would that we all could be as confident that the righteousness of our lives might shine enough as an example! I am ashamed to say that I would personally be very hesitant at asking others to follow my example of faith or Christian practice!
The disciples, Mary Magdalene and others called Jesus ‘Rabbi’, ‘Teacher’ [Matt.26:25, 49; Mk.9:5; 11:21; Jn.1:38, 49; 3:2, 26; 4:31; 6:25; 9:2; 11:8]. He was far more than a great educator, philosopher or life-style-coach. Much of Jesus’ significant teaching about prayer and holiness of living was given by example. That can be one of the most memorable and lastingly effective ways of training and learning at every stage of human growth. Living and acting in ways that assure people of the truth in our words is also the most significant way we witness effectively to the truth of what we believe.
Christian learning involves fare more than head-knowledge or understanding doctrine. We need to apply our belief in all aspects of our lives, as Jesus did. Too often the witness to the truth of Christianity has been damaged by failure to mirror Christ in our discipleship, actions or character. Rather more emphasis has often been given in churches to faith-development through preaching and teaching ‘what Christians believe’ than to living the Christ-like life, which was more the emphasis of Jesus’ ministry. As shameful incidents in Christian history attest, espousing the soundest doctrine is worth nothing if our actions do not live up to our claims: “Faith without works is dead” [Jas.2:17].
The Pharisees and other religious teachers who Jesus challenged, knew the scriptural and religious laws thoroughly. Yet so often Jesus pointed out that their apprehension of God’s true intentions behind the rules of life was lacking. They applied laws over-legalistically, without considering God’s grace and love. True Christian faith, as Jesus taught it, has struggled against such legalism throughout Church history, despite St. Paul’s emphasis in the Epistle to the Romans that we should move beyond legalistic approaches. It is right to have rules and doctrines that help to clarify our understanding of faith and intended behaviour. Jesus said that he did not come to alter religious laws but to fulfil them more truly [Matt.5:17-18]. He interpreted them more widely than the narrow teaching of contemporary religious leaders of his time. We should not utterly reject those who interpret spiritual revelation differently from ourselves, or who struggle to believe or live in ways that some Christians might consider unorthodox. Jesus’ main criticism was reserved for those who proclaimed their beliefs and righteousness, yet failed to live accordingly. Thomas à Kempis encouraged Christians to deal with their own sins and weaknesses rather than concentrating on those of others [The Imitation of Christ 14:1; 16:2-4]. This has parallels in Jesus’ Parable of the Unforgiving Servant [Matt.18:23-34] and his image of the Man with a Log in his Eye seeking to correct the neighbour with a speck in his [Matt.7:3].
When Jesus taught “learn from me”, he was holding up his life for scrutiny as an example. How many of us could do that? We can learn from his love, faith, forgiveness, support, reconciliation, and trust in God, as well as his life of righteousness, prayer, friendship, witness and evangelism.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What has Jesus most taught you about yourself and your faith? How could you follow his example more closely?
11/ Saturday – ABIDE
“Abide in me as I abide in you” [Jn.15:4]
In its biblical meaning ‘abide’ is far more than a poetic word for ‘live in’ or ‘live with’. It carries the beautifully connotation of ‘permanent belonging’. The Greek term ‘menō’ means ‘to stay in place’, and with various prefixes carries further meanings: to ‘persevere’ [Acts14:22], ‘remain’, ‘endure’, ‘be patient’, ‘stand firm’, ‘await’, ‘stay on’, ‘stay with’, ‘hold on’, ‘to keep with something’ (a covenant promise [Heb.8:9] or God’s law [Gal.3:10]), ‘a place to stay’, ‘to expectantly wait for someone’ (the promised coming of the Holy Spirit [Acts1:4]). All these apply to our faith in different ways.
There is a sense of immense security within the word ‘abide’. It carries the implication that our relationship ‘in Christ’ and thus with God, is permanent. This is emphasised in the Hebrew Scriptures and reiterated in the New Testament Epistles: Being eternal, God’s council and word ‘abide forever’ [Isa.7:7; 14:24; 40:8; Rom.9:11; 1Pet.1:23, 25]. His eternal heavenly city will remain forever [Zech.14:10; 1sa.66:22]. The righteous will abide with God for ever [Ps.112:3; 9]. God’s new covenant will endure for ever [2Cor.3:11]; faith, hope and love endure [1Cor.13:13]. Believers will persevere in faith, love holiness and belief [1Tim.2:15; 2Tim.2:15]. This security remains because Christ remains forever [Jn.8:35; 12:34] and his Spirit is with him and with us forever [Jn.1:32; 14:15].
Of all the Gospels, John’s Gospel uses the word ‘abide’ exclusively. In it Jesus talks of God’s word abiding in those who believe and respond [5:38]; we know the Spirit “because he abides with you” [14:17]. Christ’s word abides in us [15:7]; we abide in Christ’s love as he abides in his Father’s love [15:10], and generally we abide in Christ and he in us [15:4]. He reassured his followers that those of us who ‘eat my flesh and drink my blood abide in me and I in them” [6:56]. Jesus’ teaching about abiding reaches its climax in the ‘High Priestly Prayer’ of Jn.17: “[I] give eternal life to all whom you have given [to me]. And this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent... you have given them to me... All mines are yours and yours are mine, and I have been glorified in them... Holy Father protects them in your name... so that they may be one, as we are one... I ask not only on behalf of these, but also on behalf of those who will believe in me through their word, that they may all be one. As you, Father, are in me and I am in you,, may they also be in us... I made your name known to them, and I will make it known, so that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them.” Though this consummation does not mention the word ‘abide’ the whole concept emphasises that we belong and remain secure ‘in’ God through and ‘in’ Christ. This sense of abiding, belonging and being part of Christ eternally continues in St Paul’s teaching about being ‘in Christ’ and being ‘part of Christ’s body’[1Cor.12:12-27; 2Cor.5:17].
Jesus’ also emphasised our ‘abiding in him’ in his metaphor of himself as the vine and we as his branches [Jn.15:1-14]. He is our sustenance as well as our security and the source of our abundant life: if we abide in him we will “bear much fruit” [15:5]. His incorporation of his followers is inclusive. Although he mentioned unfruitful branches being cut away [15:2, 6], he seems to have been talking of the rejection of those who stuck to unfruitful religious traditions rather than those who had discovered true faith. He intended all his followers to be fruitful. When some Christian groups, individuals or traditions negatively judge others as ‘unfruitful’ they should be careful not to reject traditions just because they do not understand them, or are unfamiliar with their culture. Only God truly sees the truth within a person’s belief. Our responsibility is to encourage the sort of ‘abiding in Christ’ that gives people permanent security. ‘Abiding’ in Christ is not just something we do individually. Christians are made part of Christ’s body corporately. As 1Cor.12 stresses, we are all needed to be active parts of Christ’s body, if it is to function fully and effectively. “The eye cannot say to the hand “I have no need of you...” etc. [ICor.12:21]
The epistles attributed to John continue the idea of believers abiding ‘in God’s word’ [1Jn.2:15]; ‘in love’ [1Jn.3:17]; ‘in light’ [1Jn.2:10]; ‘in being anointed by God’ [1Jn.2:27]; ‘in truth’ and ‘in doctrine’ [2Jn.2.9]. Whether these letters were penned by the same writer or a school of Johannine tradition is debated by scholars. But like John 15 and 17 they encourage us to remain secure and strengthened by our position in Christ and to grow in the faith which that has taught us. Children develop best in a secure family. But thankfully we are not spoiled by being mollycoddled within Christ’s love. Being part of the body requires us to take an active part; to endure the struggles, sometimes suffering as a result of being active Christians. Christ emphasised that being part of him involves obeying God’s call, being involved in his mission and following his expectations of us: “If you keep my commandments you will abide in my love” [Jn.15:10]. Jesus claimed that in doing so we will not just be fruitful but also sense completeness [Jn.15:11]. A pinnacle of such love could be “to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” [v.13] as Christ exemplified.
The struggles of Christianity which prune us like the vine to encourage fruitful growth [Jn.15:2] can range from wrestling to understand difficult elements of belief to persevering in difficult situations. After explaining his metaphor of the vine Christ predicted that following his way would not be easy for his disciples: As he was rejected and persecuted so might we [Jn.15:18-21]. Yet he promised that his Spirit would help us in difficult situations [vs.27-27]. In his prayer on the night before he died, Jesus prayed for God’s protection of his followers, rather than that they would be taken out of the world [Jn.17:11-15]. He reiterated that sense of abiding: “Father... all mine are yours and yours are mine... May they all be one... May they be in us.” [Jn.17:10; 21-21]
‘Abiding in Christ’ and in God’s love [Jn.15:10] can provide us with the security and strong, unmovable foundation to ‘stay with’ and ‘hold on’ to our faith, even to flourish as we ‘patiently’ or ‘expectantly wait’ for Christ’s Spirit to act and for God’s Kingdom to develop. One extension of the word ‘menō’ used in scripture is ‘hypomenō’ / ‘to hold out’, or ‘wait on’, and its noun ‘hypomonḗ’ / ‘patient endurance’. This was used in translating the Hebrew Scriptures for ‘cleaving onto God’ and ‘waiting patiently or steadfastly for God to act’ [Job2:9; 32:4; Ps.37:7]. It carries a sense of confidence in God, despite the length of time one has to wait or even disappointments [Ps.37:9; Mic.7:7]. Faith in our security in God can discourage us from abandoning hope. God was regarded as reliable because of unbreakable covenant promises to his people [Isa.51:5; Zeph.3:8]. Such trust emphasised that those who endure will find the promised salvation because God is faithful and all-powerful [Dan.12:12]. Our security is not based on our own personal patience, endurance, strength or even on the extent of our faith, but in our relationship with God and God’s truth. Jesus encouraged hopeful perseverance [Lk.8:15; 21:19; Mk.13:13], as did St. Paul [Rom.8:25; 12:2; 1Cor.3:7]. Patient endurance in hard times does not need to be negative, cynical or stoical: Paul explains that steadfastness in situations of suffering can encourage the development of a trusting faith and promote good works, especially love towards others [Rom.2:7; 1Tim.6:11; 2Tim.3:10]. It cans also strengthening our character [Rom.5:3-4]. This is perhaps why Paul stresses in one of the most loved passages of scripture that ‘faith, hope and love abide’ [1Cor.13:13].
We may not always be conscious that we abide in Christ; often our security remains invisible or seems distant. Yet the reassurance of scripture is that our belonging to God is permanent and that God is faithful to his promises.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- Do you feel secure in abiding in Christ? If you feel insecure sit in silence contemplating the meaning of the term ‘abide’ like a warm blanket around you.
- Are there any who you can help feel more secure by reaching out to them as part of Christ’s body and including them more in the church community that is his body?
- Looking at your life can you recognise where times of endurance or even suffering have strengthened your character? Be thankful and consider what you might learn from this for times when you need a further sense of security.
WEEK 3: QUALITIES OF CHRIST’S MINISTRY
12/ Sunday – LIGHT
“I am the light of the world” – [Jn.8:12; 9:5; 12:46]
‘Light’ in Hebrew [’wr] and Greek [phṓs] can mean ‘daylight’, ‘sunlight’, ‘brightness’, ‘shining’ and a ‘lamp’. Light helps us to see, so it was also used as a metaphor for being able to ‘understand’, ‘master knowledge’ and ‘comprehend the world’. In the Hebrew Scriptures ‘Wisdom’ and ‘the Law’ were also described as light [Eccl.2:13; Ps.19:8; 119:105]. God is described as ‘our light’ [Ps.27:1], the ‘light of life’ [Ps.56:13], the ‘Lord of light and darkness’ [Amos 5:8; Ps.104:2;]. God was described as being resplendent and shining in light [Isa.42:16f], shining the light of his presence on us [Ps.90:8] and being the source of light [Gen.1:3; Job 37:3]. So when John’s Gospel claims that Jesus called himself the “light of the world” and uses the imagery of light about Christ so emphatically, the Evangelist was reinforcing the idea of Christ’s divinity, as he had written in his preface: “What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. The light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not overcome it.” [Jn.1:3-5].
Light is seen as ‘good’ [Gen.1:4] and was also associated with ‘salvation’ and ‘joy’ [Ps.36:9; Ps.97:11]. Psalms asks for the light of God’s face to shine upon us [Ps.4:6] and for God to give light to our eyes and minds [Ps.13:3; 19:8]. God’s coming and judgement will be a day of light [Amos 5:18] and will bring light to Israel [Isa.30:26; 60:1f; Zech.14:6-7]. In Isaiah, light is a feature of the Messiah’s ministry [Isa. 9:2; 10:17; 42:6; 53:11; 58:8; -10; 60:1, 3, 19-20]. Matthew saw this as fulfilled in Jesus [Matt.4:16]. All of these add potential meaning and breadth to Jesus’ statement about himself being ‘the Light of the World’: He could have been relating himself to divine power, wisdom, fulfilment of God’s true law, bringing light, judgement, salvation and joy. Light is also at the heart of meaning of the term that we use of the revealing of who Jesus was -‘epiphany’/ ‘the revealing’ or ‘shining forth’, which was also opened in the Transfiguration [Matt.17:5].
Jesus’ calling himself ‘the light of the world’ was interpreted by many in the early church to mean that he brought true enlightenment. Amid all the varying philosophies and lifestyles of the ancient world he was considered by believers as the one who showed the true way to fulfilled, holy life. There is much truth in this, even in our multi-cultural world. We recognise that many faiths and lifestyles offer positive ways to fulfilment, yet there remains a wholeness in Jesus’ teaching and way that can lead to balanced, abundant, righteous fulfilment if people truly follow it universally.
The claim to be ‘the light of the world’ has far broader implications in a modern scientifically enlightened world, even though it does not connect so directly to Christ and the meanings given to light in scripture. We recognise the importance of light for the life of our planet. Some life, we know exists in total darkness within the earth, in caves or in the deepest ocean, but most terrestrial life is dependent on light. When people are cooped indoors we recognise how important light is to the formation of Vitamin D and human health. The food we eat relies on photosynthesis for healthy growth. Living in the Northern or Southern Hemispheres we recognise that as days lengthen the season of spring brings a revival of life. Being nearer the Equator the length of days did not vary quite as dramatically in Jesus’ Palestine, as for those further North or South, yet the seasons still varied and rural life depended on the light. The programme of Jewish yearly religious festivals, which partly regulated society, reflected the changing agricultural seasons and often used light within its symbolism. Just as physical light brings life to the earth, Christ’s way can bring life to us, and through us can improve our environment and protect Creation.
A light was kept permanently burning in the Temple, reminding people of the ever-presence of God. Huge lamp-stands also stood above the walls of the Temple, presumably as a beacon to show travellers and people surrounding Jerusalem that God was in the midst of his people. Christ too came to represent the presence of God at the centre of his world. Superstitiously, light was also believed to drive out demons, so Jesus as ‘the Light’ could be interpreted as bringing spiritual cleansing and release. This is reflected in some of the instances of healing in the Gospels, though today we usually recognise problems that were once attributed to demons as mental and physical illnesses. Light as a contrast to darkness was also a feature of several of the Middle-Eastern mystery and magical religions, philosophies, Gnosticism and thought about one’s true knowledge of oneself, so Christ could be interpreted as bringing full and true light into our understanding of ourselves and the spiritual world. Jesus revealed the mystery of God to the world and showed up darkness. Light was also a feature of the ‘lógos’ in philosophy, which is related to the celebration of Christ as ‘The Word’ in the opening of John’s Gospel. There his true light is related to bringing life to the world.
Jesus told his disciples that in following his ways we too should be ‘light to the world... Let your light shine before others so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father in heaven.’ [Matt.5:14-16]. Preaching in Antioch of Pisidia, Paul reminded God’s people that they were commanded by God to “be a light to the Gentiles, so that you may bring salvation to the ends of the earth” [Acts 13:47 quoting Isa.49:6]. Jesus told us to “let your whole body be filled with light” [Matt.6:22; Lk.11:36]. We are told to “walk in the light as he (Christ) is in the light.” [Jn.12:35]. Some are seen as ‘loving darkness instead of light”. Evil was said to hate light, and those who live by the truth were described as coming into the light. [Jn.3:19-21]. We are encouraged to “lay aside the works of darkness and put on the armour of light” [Rom.13:12]. Jesus told us to keep our eye healthy; to focus on what is positive and helpful and will survive eternally: “If the light in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!” [Matt.6:23]. This isn’t just encouraging us to live morally good lives: he intended us to focus our minds on God for that light. We are told to be ‘children of light’ [Lk.16:8; Jn.12:36; 1Thess.5:5; Eph.5:8].
Conversion was regarded as turning from darkness to Christ’s “wonderful light” [1Pet.2:9; Eph.5:8]. Paul wrote that Christ will eventually bring to light what is hidden [1Cor.4:5; 2Cor.5:10] and reveal what is good [1Cor.3:13]. God’s light and truth has partly been revealed already through Christ and in the good we do: 1Jn.2:9-11 emphasises that “darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says “I am in the light” while hating his brother or sister is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling.”
Early Christians called following Christ ‘The Way” [Acts 9:2; 18:25-6; 19:9; 22:4, 14, 22]. The way of life, faith, thought and motivation that Christ opened to us is a ‘way of light’. Christ can shine light into a world that is often darkened in so many situations and open people up to truth. Christ’s teaching and his Spirit can guide us in our lives. ‘Walking in the way of light’ [Jn.1:9-10; 12:35] can make us feel more secure in ourselves and enhance the world. ‘Putting on the armour of light’ [Rom.13:12] can help to strengthen us in the challenge to live righteously amid difficulties and pressures, and to find protection and strength for our involvement in Christ’s mission. Despite all this positive imager of light, we have the warning of John’s Gospel that although Christ’s light cannot be overcome by the darkness [Jn.1:5], ‘some preferred darkness rather than light’ [Jn.3:19]. That challenge to prefer darkness is within the minds of Christians ourselves, as well as in the world beyond. St. Paul recognised it in his own life in the inner conflict between ‘the flesh and the spirit’ [Rom.7:14-25], though he was confident in Christ’s protection [Rom.7:25]. We often need perseverance and determination to continue to ‘walk in the light.’
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- In what ways has Christ brought light into your life? Think this through and give thanks for it.
- Light shines into darkness and reveals what may have been hidden. Allow God’s light to look into you and show up the areas that need to be cleansed and renewed. As light brings things to life, consider what areas of your life you would like Christ’s power and light to shine into and transform.
13/ Monday – FINDING THE LOST
“The Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost.” [Lk.19:10]. “Rejoice with me, for I have found my sheep which was lost.” [Lk.15:5].
In the past the Christian church often talked about those who were outside it or beyond Christian culture as ‘lost’. Evangelists and missionaries went out like Jesus, aiming ‘to seek and save the lost’, often without considering what parts of the culture of others might be good and contain truths. In mediaeval times it was believed that the end for the majority of humanity would be eternal destruction or hell. Only a very small remnant were then thought to be destined for heaven, hence the multitudes represented as tormented in pictures of hell, by comparison to limited numbers entering heaven. In our multi-cultural world this belief is more uncomfortable. Today more Christians understand that there are many varied systems of belief and lifestyles in the world. Many believe that there can be truths in alternative faiths, philosophies and lifestyles, while other Christians maintain that Christ’s way exclusively provides protection. Though the ideas of judgement and loss in scripture remain in the background of many Christian minds, most tend to try not to think about them, as they are not comfortable, and perhaps too challenging.
How are we to deal with the idea of people being lost? Firstly, we should not ignore it; Jesus spoke about lostness, so we should consider it seriously. Bishop John Gladwin once preached something to this effect to all the clergy and others in his diocese in a Maundy Thursday sermon: ‘Although we understandably and rightly shy away from preaching about ‘hell’ today, many people recognise that they are already living it in their daily lives, and it is our responsibility to help them out of it.” Many lives are damaged by a sense of emptiness, desolation, lack of direction, abuse, inability to extract themselves from difficult or painful situations and much more. Despair is seen in attempts to escape the pressures of daily lives, homelessness, drug and alcohol abuse and the increase in suicide. We do not need to speak so much about dangers in an afterlife when so many recognise the dangers of lostness in the present.
Jesus used the imagery of those to whom he sought to minster as ‘lost sheep’ [Matt.10:6; 15:24; Lk.15:4-6]. Luke 15 includes several of Jesus parables of lost and sought-for items: a sheep [Lk.15:3-5], coin [Lk.15:8-10] and most personally the lost ‘Prodigal Son’ [Lk.15:11-32], where the father rejoices: “He was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found!” [Lk.15:24]. Jesus claimed that through him “Those who find their life will lose it and those who lose it for my sake will find it” [Matt.10:39; 16:25; Mk.8:35; Lk.9:24-5; 17:33; Jn.12:25]. He did not will that any should be lost [Matt.18:14; Jn.6:12, 39] and in his prayer on the night before he died, John recounts Jesus claiming that those he had guarded were all safe [Jn.17:12; 18:9]. None had been lost, though he implies that Judas was an exception, having deserted Jesus. Some commentators also suggest that Judas’ repentance at the end of his life could well be regarded as a turning back to realising the truth and being penitent. In the Gospels’ imagery, just as Nicodemus came to Jesus by night [Jn.3:2; 19:39], it seems that for John the symbolism of Judas coming to betray Jesus by night was significant and that John intentionally drew attention to it [Jn.13:30].
The ideas of the tortures of hell which preoccupied the minds of mediaeval artists and even some modern hell-fire preachers are not scriptural. The only references to anything similar in the Bible are to an eternal fire [Mk.9:43; Matt.5:22; 23:33]; worms deconstructing flesh [Mk.9:48]; destruction in the imagery of ‘burning away’ [Matt.3:12; 13:20; Lk.3:17; Jn.15:6] and demonic destruction [Matt.25:41]. These could all be interpreted as metaphors used to warn against unrighteous life. The imagery seems to relate to Gehenna / Wadi er-Rababi, the valley beyond Jerusalem where rubbish was disposed of by decomposition and fire, This had been regarded as a cursed place since the age of Kings, when sacrifices had been offered there to Moloch [2Ki.16:3; Jer.7:32]. By the inter-testamental period Gehenna had become equated with hell, the place of judgement [Eth.Enoch 90:26].
It is more comfortable to believe that all the punishments of judgement described by Jesus are probably metaphors, not descriptions of actual forms of destruction. The vindictive judgements of mediaeval church teaching do not fit well with Jesus’ teaching about the love of God. You only have to look at mediaeval ‘doom’ paintings and Renaissance and Counter-Reformation imagery to see how the imagination of churchmen and hell-fire preachers invented exaggerated punishments which they felt were commensurate to the sins committed. Such cruelty is not part of Jesus’ or New Testament teaching and is incongruous when compared to the character of God as explained by Jesus. The imagery of judgement and the monsters in the Book of Revelation are also most likely to be metaphorical rather than literal. The aims of Jesus’ teaching about punishment [Matt.10:28; 23:33], and the apocalyptic images of Revelation seem to be to use the imagery of popular superstition and the apocalyptic language of Hebrew Prophets to emphasise the seriousness of sin and stress the importance of righteous living. God and God’s revealed ways were intended to be treated with awe and respect. Rather than angering God we are encouraged to find Christ’s way to righteousness and truth.
The meaning of being ‘lost’ in New Testament Greek [apóllymi] is just ‘perishing’, ‘dying’, ‘being killed in battle or in prison’, or ‘being destroyed’, not being eternally tormented. Figuratively the word was also used of losing the righteous quality of our souls in the process of advancing our lives along the wrong principles, as Jesus warned the rich fool in Lk.12:16ff. It is easy, even in the Church to seek advance for the wrong reasons. Jesus claimed of those who proclaimed themselves righteous: “They have already received their reward” [Matt.6:2, 5, 16]. Our aim should be to always live in ways that Christ promoted as life-giving: He did not fully define what he intended us to do specifically when he said that “those who find their life will lose it and those who lose it for my sake will find it “[Matt.10:39; 16:25; Mk.8:35; Lk.9:24-5; 17:33; Jn.12:25]. Rather we each need to find the way to abundant life in him that suits our personalities, gifts, anilities, lives and culture. The implied meaning is that we should not be aiming for self-advance, but for the advance of Christ-like living and the expansion of the Kingdom of God among others as well as ourselves. God’s reward is a gift, not something we automatically deserve: reward itself should not be our ambition. But we long to find the abundant life that Jesus promised though finding the ways of following him that are appropriate to us and those around us [Jn.10:10].
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What do you consider that you have found spiritually, which could be worth sharing with others in need. Who do you know who is suffering ‘lostness’, who you might support?
14/ Tuesday – LOVE
“If you love me you will keep my commandments” [Jn.14:15]... “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you: Greater love has no-one that this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” [Jn.15:13]... “You shall love your neighbour as yourself” [Matt.22:37; Mk.12:31].
The nature of God’s love for the whole of Creation, and especially for people, was a major theme of Jesus’ teaching. There are, of course, many different forms of love: love of partners, family, friends, pets, food, beauty all differ in nature and quality. The Bible uses various words to distinguish some of these variants of love: philadelphia -‘brotherly or sisterly love and friendship’; stergo - ‘affection as between parents and children’; agapé - ‘self-giving even sacrificial love’; eros - ‘passionate, sensual love’. Recognising their distinctions can be important when interpreting biblical texts. The Greeks also used other individual terms including ‘love of nation’ and ‘generosity of giving’. Despite this variety, all share a basic feeling of wellbeing towards that which we love: all the terms for love involve care and self-giving for another.
Paul’s statement that: “Faith, Hope and Love endure... and the greatest of these is Love” [1Cor.13:13] is more than a beautiful, well known, poetic passage, often read at weddings. The primacy of love over even faith and hope may perhaps not just stem from the beauty with which it cements our relationship to others and to God. Love can encourage and be a source for faith and hope. The spirit of love in us can awaken our better appreciation of life, people and God. I used to find it hard to believe that God could care for me as much as for others, because I was so self-conscious of my personal failings and weaknesses. It was only when I found myself loved by someone who actually valued me despite, or in some cases because of my weaknesses and failings that I began to recognise that God could love me even better than a person. My faith, hope for the future, and my life itself grew stronger as a result. If we have love inside us it can awaken us to values in ourselves and others that we may have previously not recognised, devalued or taken for granted. The sense of loving or having loved expands our spirits. Love enlarges our ability to feel; it can energise us and warm us with good, even if we are temporarily separated or even bereaved and remembering those we have loved.
True outgoing, self-giving love is epitomised and demonstrated in Jesus. ‘Agapé’ is the word used in Jn.15:13 for the form of love that he exemplified and commanded from his followers when he said: ‘Love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.” The same word ‘agapé’ is used in 1Cor.13. True love is not self-centred or out to primarily satisfy itself; it concentrates on others and longs for their good. Genuine love is outreaching rather than inward-looking or self-satisfying: “Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, hopes all things, loves all things. Love never ends...” [1Cor.13:4-7]. In expressing and receiving love we do, in fact, partly satisfy ourselves, but that is not the main objective of true love, which seeks and does the best for the other.
Jesus exemplified God’s perfect love, in giving himself. That form of love expects nothing that can repay or balance it. God may desire our love and our obedience but the love poured out on the Cross did not demand our response. Love is part of the nature of God, as Jesus emphasised and exemplified. God’s love perhaps resembles that of a lover longing for the object of their love to recognise and respond with love in return. This is beautifully expressed by the metaphor of God as a lover throughout Hosea, longing for the faithful return of the one he has loved. It is also found in Isaiah 54:5-8 where God promised fruitful abundance to his people, though they are temporarily likened to a loved wife who has forsaken her Maker and husband. Jesus expressed a similar love in his expression of his longing for Jerusalem... “how often have I desired to gather your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings, and you were not willing” [Matt.23:37]. Such outreaching love is expressed in Christ’s prayers from the Cross for the forgiveness of those who were persecuting him [Lk.23:34], as well as pouring out his love and protective instinct towards his close friend John and his mother [Jn.26-27].
We live in a society where many see their right as being to ‘take’ and achieve ‘self-satisfaction’, without feeling a commensurate or greater responsibility to ‘give’. The saddest forms of love are those which just want to satisfy themselves or are frustrated by longing for the impossible. These are based on lust or longing, not true love. Too frequently sexual love, love of money, desire for power or position aim to ‘get’ what one can without ‘giving’ sufficiently in return. That is also true of some people’s feelings towards the society in which they live: receiving without offering, demanding for self without sensing responsibility for others. Sometimes this is also reflected in spiritual relationships with God: Many want the emotional satisfaction which comes through attaining personal feelings of warm spirituality or receiving from emotional worship, without feeling reciprocal responsibility to give to God or to encourage and support the spirituality of others. Far too many books on esoteric spirituality just focus on satisfying oneself. Yet in true spirituality, as in true love: “It is more blessed to give than to receive.” [Acts 20:35].
Jesus’s challenge to love goes beyond ‘easy love’: He expects us to “love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” [Matt.5:54]; to “lay down one’s life for one’s friends” [Jn.15:13], to “give one’s life for the unrighteous” [Rom.5:8ff], to work hard at our relationship with God and others. Such forms of love can be incredibly difficult and challenging. It is not easy to love those who have damaged us or are antagonistic to us and work against us. Only through struggling with these challenging ways will we ever fully understand the extent of God’s own energetic, self-giving love for all that has been made, including sinners and failures.
As well as indulging in self-love, it is also possible to indulge oneself through lack of self-love. Commercialism encourages many to compare themselves with others. This contrasts with the commandment to not covet what our neighbour has [Ex.20:17; Deut.5:21]. Jesus told us to ‘love your neighbour as yourself’ [Matt.19:19; 22:39; Mk.12:31, 33]. This implies a comfort with and care about ourselves, as well as feeling care towards others. Before Jesus’ teaching, the Hebrew concept of ‘neighbour’ mostly implied responsibility towards those who were of the same nation, and who shared the same beliefs, even though God’s laws told them to support the stranger [Ex.22:21-27; Deut.10:17-19; 24:17-22; 26:12-13; 27:17-19]. The Parable of the Good Samaritan [Lk.10:25-37] shows that Christ expanded the concept of love to embrace all, even those who, like the Samaritans, were despised within society. In these times, when many in society are experiencing trials and many are lonely, disenfranchised or isolated, it is increasingly important that we recognise that ALL our neighbours are to be loved and supported.
The most important aspect of any form of love that we aspire to share is that we should be outgoing and put the other before ourselves. That does not come naturally to many in different situations, in a society which encourages self-centredness and self-indulgence. Jesus’ way to love expands our character and our activities to reflect God’s outreaching love. Christ himself demonstrated that expansive form of love through his incarnation, his teaching, his life, death and resurrection and his ministry form beyond. We are assured that after his ascension, from the further dimension of heaven, he still maintains that outgoing love towards us. After giving his followers ‘The Great Commission’ to spread his message through the world [Matt.28:18-20], Jesus assured them and us: “Remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matt.28:20]. Heb.10:11-21 uses the imagery of Christ as a priest on the throne of heaven, ever active for us. The verses that follow this encourage us to provoke one another to similar outgoing love [Heb.10:23-25]. In John’s Gospel Jesus expanded this assurance by his promise that he would send the Holy Spirit “I will not leave you orphaned: I am coming to you” [Jn.14:18]... “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have said to you” [Jn.14:26]... “I still have many things to say to you... When the Spirit of truth comes he will guide you into all truth; for he will not speak on his own, but will speak whatever he hears.” [Jn.16:12-13].
As we seek to expand our discipleship and express God’s love, we draw from the nature and actions of God, the teaching and example of Christ, and the guidance, inspiration and fruit that we should allow the Holy Spirit to develop within us as Christ’s followers [Gal.5:22]. The deepening of our own ‘agapé’- selfless, out-giving love is an essential element of true discipleship,
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Do you truly love in the selfless, outgoing way that ‘agapé’ implies, which Jesus exemplified and upon which the Holy Spirit can build? Are there situations where you need to show it more effectively and practically?
15/ Wednesday – PEACE
“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you” [Jn14:27]
When Jesus talked about ‘peace’ he was intending far more than lack of discord or warfare. The spiritual ‘peace’ that Jesus gives can bring a sense of inner contentment as well as unity with others. It can include satisfaction with the limitations and frustrations in ourselves, our situation, our companions and our ministry. We need a true awareness of being at peace, rather than being blinkered to problems or deliberately avoiding disquieting issues.
The opening and sometimes the ending of most New Testament Epistles nearly always includes the joint blessing of ‘grace and peace be with you” [Rom1:7; 1Cor.1:3 etc.]. Sometimes the term ‘mercy’ is added [1&2Tim.; 2Jn.; Jude]. In Greek ‘peace’/‘eirene’ carries the idea of ‘a treaty of unity’, ‘the absence of hostile feelings’, ‘security’, even ‘redemption’, all of which relate to God’s covenant with his people. The coming Messiah would be the ‘Prince/King of Peace’ [Isa.9:5; Zech.9:9-10] establishing an eternal, paradise -like ‘shalom’ (the Hebrew term for peace’). Jesus as ‘Messiah’ was the means by which God established peace: “He is our peace” [Mic.5:5].
The Hebrew concept of ‘shalom’ meant ‘overall wellbeing’, including: ‘health’, ‘good fortune’, ‘stability’, ‘national and personal prosperity’ and much more. It included being in stable relationship with God, who would provide these holistic blessings. Part of the ‘shalom’ that Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries expected was personal and social material prosperity. By contrast Jesus and St. Paul did not regard material prosperity as important or as a sign of blessing. They recognised the difficulties, inequality and inequities in human life and sought to rebalance them: The ‘poor’ and ‘persecuted’ would inherit the Kingdom of Heaven, the ‘meek’ would inherit the earth [Matt.3:3-11]. Paul could write that in the midst of hardship, poverty, or with his ‘thorn in the Flesh’ he had learned to be content and at peace [Phil.4:11-12; 2Cor.12:10]. The Epistle to the Hebrews encourages us to ‘Keep your lives free from the love of money and be content with what you have’ [Heb.13:5]. Spiritual contentment can bring an element of peace and comfort, even in situations that too often cause emotional or physical discomfort or pain.
Jesus and St. Paul often encouraged God’s people to find ‘peace’. John the Baptist as Christ’s forerunner would show people towards the way and the light and “guide our feet into the way of peace” [Lk.1:79]. On meeting the Christ-child, Simeon declared that, as God’s servant, he could now be dismissed “in peace” for he had seen the coming of the salvation for which he had been waiting so long [Lk.2:29]. The angelic message at Jesus’ birth included the promise that he would bring “peace on earth among those whom God favours” [Lk.2:14]. Jesus encouraged his disciples to give a blessing of peace to the homes of all who welcomed them hospitably during their mission [Matt.10:12-14, Lk.10:5]. He called his followers to be ‘peacemakers’ [cf. Meditation 25].
Jesus wanted to bring peace with God and peace between people: ‘Be at peace among one another” [Mk.9:50]. Scripture claims that he achieved spiritual peace through the offering of his body on the Cross [Rom.5:11; Eph.2:14]. This does not necessarily mean simplistically, as was once commonly believed, that Jesus’ death was his sacrifice, required by God to bring peace [cf. Meditation 43]. Yet we believe that somehow, though his life, actions, teaching and self-giving, Christ brought about the potential of peace between the human race and God. Similarly Jesus encouraged his followers to be ‘one’ with each other as he and his Father were one [Jn.17:11, 21-23]. Peace was part of that oneness: ‘Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you’ [Jn.14:27]. The peace and unity between believers should witness to the world “As you Father are in me and I in you, may they also be in us so that the world may see that you have sent me. The glory that you have given me I have given them, so that they may be one as we are one.” [Jn.17:21-22].
Peace and love are characteristics of Jesus’ life, ministry and achievements. In Jesus’ life and ministry we see his involvement in bringing various forms of peace: He demonstrated his power within Creation when he stilled the raging sea that threatened his disciples, in saying “Peace be still!” [Mk.4:39]. This has been interpreted by some commentators as a symbol of the general and specific situations of peace that Christ would achieve. After his healing of people he often encouraged them to “go in peace” [Mk.5:34; lk.7:50; 8:48]. When he surprised his disciples after the resurrection he reassured them: “Peace be with you!” [Lk.24:36; Jn.20:19, 21, 26].
When Jesus sent out his disciples in mission, they were to greet those who accepted him with the blessing of peace upon their homes [Matt.10:13; Lk.10:5]. The present witness of many churches and Christians often falls far short of the glory and complete unity for which Jesus and St. Paul aimed among God’s people. Even when religious communities are nominally at peace with one another, tensions often develop. What might we do personally to develop greater personal peace within ourselves and to create spiritual peace within churches and in our communities?
Despite his will for peace, Jesus also recognised that his way and his message would separate some and cause hostility and division rather than unity and universal peace. “I have come not to bring peace but a sword” [Matt.10:24] is a difficult and uncomfortable passage. His mission intended peace not division, but he recognised that others, both individuals and powers, had different priorities and varied interpretations of truth. The present divisions between different Christian denominations and within groups in individual churches are caused by several different reasons like obstinacy, interpretations of doctrine, preferential practices, self-centredness, power-struggles etc. As Jesus worked for peace, the ideal of Christ’s body the Church is that, despite their variety and differences of character, spirituality and interpretations of faith, all believers and followers should be able to work effectively together in peace to continue Jesus’ mission.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- Do you feel a sense of God’s peace within yourself?
- Is there peace and unity within the people of your church or Christian community? How might you best promote this or deal with divisions?
16/ Thursday – TRUTH
“You will know the truth and the truth will make you free.” [Jn.8:32]
“God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth” [Jn.4:24].
“I am the Way, the Truth and the Life” [14:6]. “Sanctify them in the truth; your word is truth” [Jn.17:17].
“For this I was born, for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who belongs to the truth listens to my voice.” [Jn.18:38].
The more that I have come to consider what truth is, the more certain I am that all that pertains for God must relate to truth. When I pray I imagine myself in the presence of ‘Truth’. God is in whatever is the truth of the force that formed and sustains the cosmos and encourages true, abundant life. When we authentically follow God and God’s ways we are following the truth. Christians are called to be examples of Christ’s truth in all that we do, so that we are true witnesses to the founder of our faith. It was said of Archbishop Romero “There goes the truth.” That should be able to be said of all Christians, but is sadly not always true. If we are not living truthfully we are not building God’s Kingdom.
The human mind seems to be designed to reach towards finding truth, just as it seems designed to reach towards an intangible spiritual reality that we believe to be God. We are frustrated if we sense that things or claims are false. Christians believe that Jesus revealed what God is most truly like, through his teaching, love, attitudes, values, character, actions, miracles and priorities. His contemporaries recognised truth in his words and actions [Matt.7:29; 28:18; Mk.1:22, 27; 2:10; Lk.4:32, 36; 5:24; Jn.5:27]. But even Jesus - divine, incarnate, miraculous - was more limited than the omnipresent, invisible Truth of the God he represented in his human form. He told his followers that there were limitations to his knowledge of future events. He told Mary Magdalene in Gethsemane not to hold on to him alone; something more permanent than his mortal presence would come. God’s Spirit would reveal more and advance his disciples’ relationship with God and truth, after his return to God’s Kingdom beyond his death.
Sensing that there is truth in our relationship with God can be life-giving, just as discovering new aspects of intellectual truth can feel life-enhancing as well as enhancing knowledge. I feel closest to God when I sense that I am in the presence of something that is ‘True’. I may feel less close to truth, if listening to an over-simplistic, patronising sermon or where worship seems by rote rather than ‘in spirit and in truth’ [Jn.4:24]. Christians have not always acted as good, honest stewards of truth. To maintain an institution or the status quo churches have sometimes ignored malpractice by leaders or denied or covered-up discoveries of truth. Christians can sometimes be far too narrow: religious authorities denied Galileo and Darwin’s observations, persecuted theologians who opened up theology to new understandings in science, psychology, sociology and psychology. Rather than accepting such advances, Christians sometimes don’t accept those whose lifestyles diverge from their narrow conception of the ‘norm.’ We should have learned centuries ago, from the ways that Jesus was opposed by the authorities of his time, that religious people do not always want or welcome advance. Jesus’ own reinterpretation of scriptural laws helps us to recognise that understandings of truth advance and change over time. The sagacious compiler of truths in Ecclesiastes accepted that life is not as simple as theologians of his day considered and that the human mind is destined to continually change as we reach towards advances in knowledge. He also recognised that we will always need to make further advance because ultimate truth will always be frustratingly just beyond our grasp: “I have seen the responsibilities that God has set upon humankind with which to busy themselves. He has made everything suitable for use in its time. He has also put a sense of eternity into the human mind, yet one cannot comprehend God from beginning to end.” [Eccl.3:10-11]. Spiritual truth and scientific truth need to keep constantly advancing as our minds explore new questions; we are designed to advance by never resting on our laurels or being content with our temporary understanding.
Exploring truth can bring one’s ideas, life, love and imaginations to life more fully than if we just accept the status quo or are content with our present limited understanding. Though Jesus revealed much, we cannot know what the mind of God is like. Our human creativity may possibly reflect the creative passion that motivates God in creating, maintaining and advancing. I recognise that my own spiritual understanding, prayer and worship are totally inadequate in the presence of God’s Truth, Love and Wisdom. God and Truth are far higher and more perfect than any limited human minds can conceive. Meanwhile I glimpse facets of God’s invisible nature within Creation’s variety and vitality, especially when I sense that I am on the path to Truth. When I find myself loving and delighting in the world around, I sense God’s care, love and understanding of us all.
We are all different. Some will find God’s truth through scripture and theology; some sense God’s presence in the natural world; some find truths about God through relationships, the arts, cultural activities, philosophy or social activities. To create wholeness, health and orthodoxy in our faith we need a combination of many of these. The idea that ‘one is closer to God in the garden (or theological library, or Church, or family or gallery etc.) than anywhere else on earth’ can misguide or mislead us. We need to search for and live by truth to find God in many situations. The world is made in complex variety to stimulate and enhance us in various ways.
When Jesus called himself ‘The Way, the Truth and the Life” [Jn.14:6], he linked himself with the advance of truth and understanding, as well as showing that the sources of truth and abundant life could be found through following his way. Christians believe that Jesus of Nazareth was the closest that we can come to seeing and comprehending the truth about God. His example and teachings reveal how human life should be lived to find the fullest and deepest satisfaction. Jesus opened his followers’ minds to realise that there were greater truths to be explored and found than were at present recognised. The same remains true for us two thousand years later: We recognised that Christ has revealed significant aspects of spiritual and ethical truth. These, I believe, are sufficient for finding the path to fulfilled lives salvation. Yet, as the writer of Ecclesiastes 3:11 recognised, there is so much more to explore and find. St. Augustine wrote: “Our hearts are restless until we find their rest in you”. Yet our hearts will still remain restless to a certain extent, because, even when we find security in our relationship with God, there still remains so much more truth to find.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What convinces you that you have found truth in your faith? How has your understanding grown through following the ways taught by Jesus?
17/ Friday - FREEDOM
Jesus read: “The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor... to proclaim release to the captives, the recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free” [Lk.4:18 quoting Isa 61:1-2]... “... You will know the truth and the Truth will make you free” [Jn.8:32].
Christian freedom can be a misleading concept. A great mystic and theologian may have said “Love God and do what you like”, but I’m sure that rather than giving full license he meant something closer to ... “Love God and do what loving God inspires you to do righteously.” New Testament epistles emphasised that though we are free we curtail our freedom for the sake of good [1Cor. 9:19; Gal.5:13; 1Pet.2:16].
St Paul, particularly in his Epistle to Roman Christians, interpreted Christ’s teaching on freedom to mean that he had releasing human beings from the rigid religious laws, superstitions and culturally limitations which had developed around beliefs over centuries. Jesus was particularly critical of the rigid system maintained by the religious rules which the Scribes, Pharisees and Sadducees had compiled over centuries, and the restrictive practices of Temple worship, particularly the limitations of the sacrificial system. By the time of Jesus these had expanded way further than even the laws in the canonical scriptures. People were not free to live fully abundant lives: they lived under a continuous sense of failure and condemnation, because it was almost impossible to obey and keep to the complete rules and regulations. The religious authorities must have relished this because it gave them dominant power and authority in society. If you didn’t adhere to their laws or keep to their interpretation of sacrifice, you could not obtain salvation. Sadly some churches through history continued to dominate the laity by assuming similar authoritarian rule. They made similar demands upon Christians and adopted, invented and promoted rigid rules for Christians to obey. Today many religious institutions have as many, if not more, regulations than the Pharisees of Jesus’ day. This legalism, if adhered to strictly, can deny or work against the freedom which Jesus and early-church understanding of God were intent on promoting [2Pet.2:19].
Just as a family does not thrive under a bullying, punitive parent, if believers are constrained by fear of religious punishment we are less likely to follow God out of love. Love is a greater motivator of righteous living than fear, and ‘perfect love drives out fear” [1Jn.4:18]. 1Peter 2:16 encouraged Christians to ‘Live as free people yet do not use your freedom as a pretext for evil.” The next verse gives the context for this: “Honour everyone; love the family of believers, live in awe of God.” Living and acting in freedom should be motivated by our love, our sense of responsibility for all, and our recognition of the expectations which the God of truth has for our behaviour. Interestingly the very next phrase of 1Pet.2:17 is ‘Honour the emperor’. This may have been a political inclusion to show that the Christian church was not a rebellious danger to secular authorities. But it also implies that we should respect power even though those in power often fail to “honour everyone; love the family of believers” or “live in awe of God.” The church has sometimes suffered in history where religious leaders have failed to honour everyone, believers and God, as well as through secular opposition. Power and position can go to the heads of even people with ostensibly holy intentions. The church can be as oppressed by holy laws and self-righteous people as by pagan leaders. Jesus led in such a way as to give his followers freedom: that is the true model of leadership.
In the modern society ‘freedom’ has often come to mean the right to independently do what we want, as long as it does not damage others. But that is not the biblical concept. Scriptural freedom is a contrast to slavery where one belongs to others not oneself. But whether people were physical slaves or free the early church emphasised that they were still spiritually free through Christ [Gal.3:28; Eph.6:8; Col.3:11]. It is partly the message of the Epistle to Philemon. St. Paul however emphasised that Christians should not consider themselves totally free: “we are not our own; we were bought with a price” [1Cor.6:20; 7:23]. The salvation brought by Christ enables us to now belong to God, to whom we originally belonged before sin damaged the relationship. Ownership by God can be freeing rather than oppressive; it enables us to become truly ourselves, not to be enslaved to evil, fleshly desires or physical oppression by others. St. Paul delighted in proclaiming that Christ’s followers are freed from sin [Rom 6:18f], religious law [Rom.7:3-4; Gal.2:4] and death [Rom.6:21-22]; 8:21].
Nevertheless Paul recognised that personally exercising freedom from sin and temptation does not come easily. He, like us, wrestled with temptations and found that the things he did, and the drives within his body and mind (‘sarx’/’the flesh’) were not always what his Christian spirit willed him to do [Rom.7:14-25]. But he was thankful that Christ has ‘rescued us from this body of death” [v.25]. Paul talks of “crucifying” the enticements and desires of the flesh [Gal.5:23]. Spiritual freedom includes being rescued from the tyranny of ourselves, our wills and destructive passions as much as from external powers. But we cannot do this on our own; ‘self-discipline’ or ‘self-control’ is a fruit that we need to allow God’s Spirit to build inside us [Gal.5:23], by focusing our wills and actions to conform to God’s ways. Living in Christian freedom, with all the responsibilities that entails, is a reciprocal part of our covenantal vows.
Modern concepts of freedom, like to ‘be ourselves as we really are’, to self-assert or ‘make the most of ourselves’ do not necessarily bring true freedom. It can help if we seek to live in ways that release and bring freedom to others as well as to ourselves. The best way to freedom is to aim to live as perfectly as Christ. I have heard Christians proudly say “what you see is what you get” in justifying their less-than perfect character, rather that aiming to emulate Christ. Even to seek spiritual inwardness or spiritual self-awareness can become self-absorption rather than orientating ourselves towards God, others, and Christ-like behaviour. God’s Spirit works to create freedom in us, but also gives us the responsibility to spread his freedom to others in his world and attain the “glorious liberty of God’s children” and his creation [Rom.8:21]. St. Paul encourages us to achieve freedom because thereby we help liberate the whole of the cosmos from its tendency towards decay [Rom.8:19-23]. This is an important message in the world’s present ecological, political and social crises. In the past many Christians believed we were given the world’s resources to exploit as we willed. Now most recognise that we have responsibilities towards the whole universe, though we do not yet do enough to protect and liberate our own environment.
How Christ achieved our freedom remains a ‘mystery’. Somehow the power exercised through his self-giving released us from the slaveries which St. Paul described so fully. But it cannot be as simple as Jesus’ death just satisfying for all time the Jewish rite of sacrifice. Jesus’ whole earthly life and teachings, together with his death, resurrection, ascension and heavenly power have brought us our freedom. Our baptism into Christ is a sign of this liberation and cleansing from sin and death, and a pledge of our freedom in Christ [Rom.6:17-18]. Baptism is a sign that we should regard ourselves as having been released to enjoy abundant spiritual lives unencumbered by guilt or obligation to any but God’s will for us. God’s aim is for us to be ultimately fulfilled through the ways that we exercise our freedom and live abundant lives. Freedom opens our lives, and is helped by the guidance of God’s Spirit: “where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is freedom” [2Cor.7:21]. Exercising freedom correctly will eventually lead us to increasing glory [2Cor.3:17-18]; Paul celebrates the freedom of the glory of the children of God [Rom.8:21]. But that glory is largely to the benefit of God, not to ourselves.
If freedom is so difficult to achieve that we need to wrestle with using it rightly, as Paul implied in Rom.7:14-24, how do we achieve it? Self-discipline is a spiritual gift, but even a spiritually disciplined man like Paul recognised that he was unable to achieve the freedom of action that he desired. A primary force to achieve freedom is the ‘agapé’ form of outgoing love: love of God, love towards others and love towards ourselves, even as we struggle inwardly with our own sins and failings. “Perfect love drives out fear” [1Jn.4:18] and love can motivate us far more positively than legalistic commands to act in certain ways. Love can encourage us to renounce personal rights and wishes, for the advancement of the good of others [1Cor.9:1 & 19].
I know very few Christians who truly feel free. Most of us are burdened by feelings of guilt or inadequacy, weighed down by responsibilities, feeling the pressure of what might be expected of us, as well as personal frustrations or difficulties. That is where the previous meditation on finding ‘Peace’ amid the pressures of life [Meditation 15] is important. Despite St. Paul’s internal wrestling with the struggle between the flesh and the spirit [Rom.7:14-25], situations of hardship or poverty, and his ‘thorn in the Flesh’ he had learned to be content and at peace [Phil.4:11-12; 2Cor.12:10]. This contentment and peace gave him the freedom to continue with his trust in a loving God. It freed and motivated him for his mission to bring similar freedom to others. .
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- How free do you truly feel? Pray for God’s Spirit to help you feel and achieve the freedom that we are told Christ has achieved for you.
- What might help you to wrestle with the personal things that still enslave you?
- In exercising your Christian freedom how closely do you follow God’s requirements of you as one who has made baptismal covenant vows?
- Who do you know who needs to be brought the freedom that Christ offers to you? Are there ways in which you could help them to find it?
18/ Saturday – Monday – BLESSED
“Blessed are those who hear the word of God and obey it” [Lk.11:28]... “Blessed are those who have not seen yet believe” [Jn.20:29].
In the Gospels the word ‘blessed’ is a translation of two different words: ‘Makarios’, denotes the quality or grace discovered by being blessed (e.g. “Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.”) ‘Eulogeō’is the act of invoking blessing on someone or on God. It includes ‘to speak well of”, ‘to praise’, ‘to celebrate’, ‘to acknowledge goodness’, ‘to cause to prosper’, as well as ‘to consecrate with solemn prayers’, hence its connection to our English word ‘eulogy’. God blesses in both ways, and so do we. We bless ‘eulogeō’ God and we bless others, asking God to bless them, and we benefit from being ‘blessed’ (‘makarios’). Blessing and being blessed should be a characteristic of Christians’ lives, recognising that we are blessed by God and others while bringing blessing to God and others by our witness, our praise and our presence with them.
Jesus used this word in several ways. Translations of the ‘Beatitudes’ [Matt.5:3-12; Lk.6:20-23] sometimes interpret the word as ‘happy’ or ‘fortunate’ but the term ‘makarios’ implies a far deeper emotion and a more intense divine blessing. In poetic Greek ‘makarios’ was the quality of blessedness shared by the gods. It extolled their good fortune and the good fortune of those who were blessed by the gods. The word was often written on epitaphs, variously implying that people had enjoyed such blessings as wealth, marriage partnership, children, wisdom, fame, righteous living, release from death or initiation into the mysteries of faith.
In the Greek version of the Hebrew Scriptures it was used to translate the Hebrew word ‘aštrē’ which similarly implied a wide variety of blessings with which people could be endowed: ‘a faithful partner’, ‘beauty’, ‘honour’, ‘wisdom’, ‘piety’, ‘faith and trust in God’, ‘forgiveness’, ‘righteousness’, ‘deliverance’, ‘future salvation’ and much else that could lead to fullness of life. That fullness of life, in whatever field, which is offered to us, is part of God’s blessing on us through Christ.
Jesus sometimes contrasted true spiritual blessing with the material blessings which were expected by his contemporaries. This is at the heart of the Beatitudes, where Jesus pronounced that there are blessings for those who might normally be considered disadvantaged or unfortunate in society: ‘the poor in spirit’, ‘those who mourn’, ‘the meek’, ‘those who hunger and thirst for righteousness’, ‘the persecuted and reviled’ [Matt.5:2-12]. Luke adds to this list ‘the poor’, ‘the hungry’, ‘those who weep’, ‘those who are hated or defamed, especially for their faith’ [Lk.6:20-23]. Normally these could not be considered to be content; some might even have thought that they were cursed by God with their situation. Yet Jesus proclaimed them particularly cared for by God’s blessing. By contrast Jesus gave warnings to those who falsely believed that they were blessed by God because of their material contentment: ‘the rich’, ‘those who have full bellies’, ‘those who laugh and enjoy life shallowly’ or ‘those who are well-though-of and lauded by others’ [Lk.6:24-26]. He implies that their sights should be set on more permanent things which offer eternal blessing.
It is valuable to contrast the blessings in the Beatitudes that are promised to those who are now disadvantaged, with the woes upon those who have material gain now: Blessings include: ‘yours is the kingdom of heaven’, ‘you will be comforted’, ‘you will inherit the earth’, ‘you will be filled’, ‘you will receive mercy’, ‘you will see God’, ‘you will be called children of God’, your reward will be great in heaven’ [Matt.5:2-12]. To these blessings Luke adds that ‘those who mourn... will laugh’ [Lk.6:20-23]. The message of the Beatitudes is strongly that God’s priorities and rewards are very different to the material priorities and rewards of much of human society.
We cannot know what blessings await us tomorrow, let alone after our human lives are over. Such knowledge remains in the mystery we call God, but we are promised that all will be well. Thankfully, unlike the Beatitudes, rewards of heaven are not necessarily described as commensurate with what we are or have achieved in our live now. Jesus’ Parable of the Labourers in the Vineyard suggests that those who have belonged to God for a short time will receive equal reward to those who have laboured for years. However the Parable of the Talents [Matt.25:24-30], the Parable of the Unjust Steward [Matt.18:23-34] and the Parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus [Lk.16:19-31] teach that we are considered responsible for how we use the blessings that God has given to us on earth.
‘Eulogéō’ originally meant ‘to speak well of’. It was often used when an advocate defended someone’s actions or character legally. It developed to mean ‘to extol’ when humans were praised by the gods and more often when the gods were praised by human beings. Hence it came to be used to mean ‘to bless’. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures (the Septuagint or ‘LXX’) eulogéō was used to translate the group of Hebrew words based on the root ‘brk’, and could be used to mean either the action of blessing or being blessed. It was used with various depths of meaning: People could bless others, and God blessed, blessing could be used of a general greeting or a specific spiritual benediction.
By the time of Jesus the term ‘eulogéō’ was often associated with rewards. The term was often used more formally to denote the blessing that only a priest was allowed to pronounce in the Temple or synagogue. Some churches rule that only an ordained priest can pronounce a blessing. This implies that the priest is the direct vehicle through whom God transmits blessing. But orthodox theology also recognises that all who follow God are a ‘kingdom of priests to our God”, which has led to the concept of ‘the priesthood of all believers’ [1Pet.2:5; Rev.1:6; Ex.19:6]. All prayers that begin with praise of God could be considered to be ‘blessings’. And when we pray for someone or any situation, surely it is the responsibility of anyone to pray for God’s blessing on them. Such prayers are efficacious because God is acting, and is not dependent on the person who is raying. Before meals the head of a household was required to give a blessing, extoling God for all that God had provided. This often consisted of the opening verse of Psalm 24: “The earth is the Lord’s and all that is in it: the world and those who live in it.” It was the tradition that in giving blessing for a meal the prayer was made with a head bowed. By contrast we are told that Jesus looked upward to heaven when he blessed and broke bread [Mk.6:41]. It has been suggested by one commentator that this action might have contributed to the post-resurrection recognition of him at the Supper at Emmaus [Lk.24:30].
Having shared in God’s blessing, Jesus asserted that his followers should not repay evil with evil, but bless even those who cursed them, and pray for those who abused them [Lk.6:28; Rom. 12:14]. This is not just about turning the other cheek [Matt.5:39; Lk.6:29] but demonstrates, in the context of Lk.6:27-36, that the love of God is reaching out through us to the enemy or abuser, in ways that might change their attitude and help to bring the Kingdom of Heaven a little closer.
The Hebrew Scriptures and the New Testament assert that it is the duty of God’s people to bless God [Lk.1:64; 2:28]. But this is not conditional. We don’t bless so that we can be blessed in return; we bless because we live in the presence of truth and want to work towards the truth. We should not be naïve or simplistic in our attitude to faith: God does not make everything go right for us just because we believe in or follow the way of Christ. Very many events in human life do not feel as though they are blessings, and the lives of believers do not always seem blessed, because we face the same problems as so many in the world. Our blessing and praise of God will inevitably not always be ecstatic: We cannot expect to always be happy or feel grateful for what has come to us. Neither does our limited understanding and vision always see life in its widest or eternal context. But there are many aspects of life and the world around us for which to be grateful, as so many of the Psalms recognise.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- In what areas of your lives do you feel blessed? How do you thank and bless God for them?
- On whom should you be praying for God’s blessing.
WEEK 4: QUALITIES OF THE LIFE BROUGHT BY CHRIST
19/ Sunday – ABUNDANT LIFE
“I have come that they might have life and have it abundantly.” [Jn.10:10]
“What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” [Jn.1:2
What do we understand as ‘abundant’ Christian life? The ‘prosperity gospel’, advocated in the teaching of some churches and cultures, is based on the dubious claim that people who follow God will be automatically blessed by success and riches. This is a self-centred, misinterpretation of God’s promise in the old covenants to give his people good things. Jesus did not promise riches to his followers; on the contrary, he recognised that many would face difficulties and opposition. He claimed that the ‘poor’ and ‘poor in spirit’ would inherit and receive the kingdom of heaven [Matt.2:3; 11:5] and that the rich and comfortable would find the way to God’s Kingdom more difficult [Matt.19:23; Lk.1:53; 16:22]. He foretold dangers, challenges, hardships, persecution and division for many who would follow his way. That has proved true throughout Christian history, though some sincere, dedicated Christians have managed to find prosperity through good, honest, caring-business practice and social conscience. The ‘abundance’ of life that Jesus promised is more internal - a sense of fulfilment, inner joy, fullness through having experienced truth and being one with God through Christ. Among the Christians who I know, a few of the poorest have a sense of contentment that is lacking in many who have far more materially or intellectually.
a/ ABUNDANCE
The Bible uses several words for ‘abundance’, rooted in a common idea of ‘more and more’, ‘overflowing’ and the sense that ‘the source from which we draw is enormous’. Christian abundance derives from knowing that our eternal, all-powerful, all-knowing, all-encompassing God, to whom all things belong, is the one who is able care for, fill us and fulfil us. Some mystics and Psalm 23:5 use a metaphor for the fulfilled life as a cup into which good is constantly pouring and overflowing [Mal.3:10; Zech.1:17]. In the story of Elijah, God supplied needs through a cruse of oil and tiny store of grain that remained full [1Ki.17:14]. The wise steward, like God, would not waste resources [1Pet.4:10]. We are not given gifts and energies that we do not need. The Manna in the wilderness [Ex.16; Num.11:7] was enough for the day of its use; it rotted if it remained unused [Ex.16:19-21]. Jesus warned people not to store up unnecessary riches as they deteriorate: what we are given is to be used [Matt.6:19-20; ]. That is not to say that we should not retain enough to supply emergencies or plan for the future; that is wise stewardship in today’s world. But we should remember that God gives us gifts to use, not to hoard. If one has the gift of teaching, hospitality, healing, persuasion, love, peace-making, caring, etc.; one should use it for the benefit of others, not keep it to oneself. The same is true of our physical resources and money.
Abundance does not necessarily mean that one always has a sense of satisfaction. St. Paul had stronger spiritual gifts and experiences and credentials than most, yet he was aware of his failings and weaknesses. He wrote of ‘pressing on towards a goal’ [Phil.3:12-14] which was not yet fulfilled, either in holiness of life or achieving the mission to which he felt called. Yet he also wrote of the need to find contentment in whatever situation he found himself, whether temporarily rich or poor, struggling or in easier circumstances, persecuted or valued, alone or in company [Phil.4:11]. Hebrews encourages us to be ‘content with what you have’ [Heb13:5]. The sense of knowing God’s presence and care for us can make us feel abundantly content despite circumstances.
Discontent can be draining. Optimists often seem to get more out of life than pessimists. A positive outlook can motivate us to action far more than negativity. We cannot choose the characters we develop; they are conditioned by so many internal and external factors. But we can help to modify them by personal discipline and the power of the Holy Spirit. I am by nature an introvert; life-experiences have made me suspicious. I don’t often expect things to go well and often mistrust myself and, from experience, have learned to distrust others, including some in Church-ministry and Church institutions. But that doesn’t mean that I cannot find abundant life, spiritually, physically or corporately. I recognise my limitations and those of others, but feel trust in the God I have come to know, because the God I seek to follow is concerned with ‘truth’ in every area of life. God can pour truth into each situation and bring a peace into it. I think that may be what Paul discovered, which helped him find contentment in a life of struggles and frustrated ambitions [Phil.4:11; 2Cor.12:10].
‘Overflowing’ is a common metaphor for abundance in the Hebrew Scriptures [Ps.23:5; 65:11-12; Prov.3:10; Isa.8:7; 66:11; Zech.1:17]. God’s provision is described as ‘pressed down and overflowing’ [Lk.6:38]. This suggests that God, like a generous and honest trader, does not give in short measures. What is put into us can be filled to the brim, with no space wasted and with the best possible contents. But this requires our cooperation. When I allow sin, idleness or self-induced fatigue to take up space in my life I won’t make the best use of God’s gifts, my time, or my life. The image of overflowing recurs in the New Testament [Rom.5:15; 15:13; 2Cor.4:15; 8:2; Phil.1:26; Col.2:7; 1Thes.3:12].
Abundant life is NOT an over-full life. A true Christian work ethic makes time for self, family, other people, rest, relaxation and enjoyment as well as being involved in Christ’s mission. Too many ministers or business-people over-work or may not be wise stewards of their time, lives and families. Tensions and break-downs of relationships occur too often among those who over-stress one aspect of their work and life; fatigue, ineffectiveness and mental problems are common. As abundant Christian life is not one that is focused abnormally on work; we should not neglect the other pleasures that fulfil life. Jesus made time for social relationships: the marriage at Cana [Jn.2:1], close friendship with the family of Lazarus [Jn.11; 12:1-2], feasting with a leader of the Pharisees [Lk.7:36-37; 11:37]; he was criticised for being a friend of tax-collectors and sinners and feasting with them [Matt.11:19; Mk.2:16; Lk.7:34].
Jesus must have used much energy in healing, preaching, thinking through his teaching, training his disciples, travelling in his mendicant ministry. His source of energy and abundance was surely not just in his divinity. If he was ‘fully human’ as orthodox doctrine maintains, he must have drawn energy from sleep, rest, relaxation time with friends, enjoying social situations. His disciplined prayer-life was essential to his abundance too. It cemented his relationship with his father; guided his mission, thoughts and teaching, was the source of his miracles; above all his time in prayer to his Father helped to focus Jesus. It helped him to recognise his direction and priorities, and connected him intimately to his source. Our personal spiritual abundance similarly needs to balance prayer with energetic, committed work with fulfilled social, private and spiritual lives. The energy and direction for all of these need to come through being connected effectively to our spiritual source, actively connected to our place in God, as an electrical device needs to be connected to energy.
FOR CONTEMPLATION & PRAYER
In what ways does your physical and spiritual life feel abundant? What could you do to attain a greater abundance in your life, emotions, spiritual relationship with God and ministry?
b/ LIFE
“I am the bread of life” [Jn.6:35, 48]... “I am the resurrection and the life” [Jn.11:25]... “I am the way, the truth and the life” [Jn.14:6]... “[The Son has] authority to give eternal life to all... And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” [Jn.17:2-3].
Considering Christ’s promise to his followers of “life in all abundance”, it is surprising how little ‘abundance’ of life many Christians enjoy. Some church traditions have promoted guilt over enjoyment of life and encourage asceticism and mundane lives. Music and innocent entertainment, even looking after one’s health were sometimes discouraged in a false belief that martyrdom, simplicity, deprivation, self-neglect and self-abnegation would lead to godliness. Those who loved life were discouraged from becoming part of the church. Even today some churches bemoan the lack of people coming to their services, yet may not recognise or accept that there are far more apparently life-offering attractions in the world outside the church door. Sometimes we offer mundane liturgy, mediocre Christian entertainment, repetitious choruses and boring or irrelevant teaching. We will not inject attractive, abundant life into our services through mediocrity, naivety or simplistic explanations of faith. No church will ever manage to compete with the professional entertainment world, nor should that be our aim. Life in liturgy comes through having something that is spiritually life-giving and offers valuable, meaningful faith that meets inner needs of congregations and others who have not found faith. If people see this in us they are more likely to be attracted to join us. Abundant Christian life comes through being fully human in righteous ways, using all the gifts and resources enjoyed by human beings. Meaningful truth is to be found in a variety of ways: in profound silence, meaningful words, affirming worship, engagement with the world’s needs in prayer, as well as in thoroughly supportive relationships within the community.
Jesus claimed that ‘the road is hard that leads to life” [Matt.7:14]. He did not promise that life for his followers would be easy. Too often as Christians we sense that our lives should be continually blessed. Jesus claimed that “If any want to become my followers they should deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me. For those who find their life will lose it and those who lose their life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit them if they gain the whole world but forfeit their life? Or what will they give in return for their life...” [Jn.16:24-26]. Following Christ authentically is always going to be challenging and a struggle, if we attempt to live righteously, follow his example, relate to God in the way that he opened for us, become engaged in his mission and aim to change the world for good.
The Hebrew Scriptures regarded YHWH as the source and author of life [Jer.17:13; Ps.36:9; 139:13ff.]. The Psalms speak of God as the one who gives life [Ps.16:11; 27:1; 31:4f.]. So when Jesus claimed to be ‘the way, the truth and the life’ [Jn.14:6], the statement seems to indicate his closeness to his Father God. The Covenant made between the Jews and God was regarded as making the important choice between the way to life or death [Deut.30:1-20]. Jesus’ statement that one “does not live by bread alone, but by everything that proceeds from the mouth of God” was a direct quotation from Deut.8:3. Making the covenant choice to follow Christ, obey his teachings, live by his words and relate to God through him brought people that same promise of life. Early Christians described this as ‘being alive in him’ [Rom.6:11; 1Cor.1:30; 2Cor.6:9; Gal.2:20; Col.3:3-4; 2Tim.1:1; 1Jn.5:11-20].
Life in Christ has a present and future dimension: Jesus’ miracles of healing were regarded as bringing new life to those who he healed, almost as significantly as to those who were raised from death: [Matt.9:4; 10:8; 11:5; Mk.5:35-39; (9:26); Lk.7:15; 8:49f.; 15:24; Jn.11:44; 12:7]. To believe in and follow Jesus came to be regarded as having life now [Jn.3:15-16]. As well as finding life in the present through Christ, he offered future life beyond death. Jesus emphasised that raising from death to a life beyond was a gift from God, not something he was giving just from himself [Matt.22:31f.; Mk.12:26f.; Lk.20:36f.]. God’s gift of authentic renewed life and salvation was regarded as the gift of God’s grace [Rom.5:15; 1Pet.3:7]. Though true eternal life was to be found through Christ and enjoyed in the present life, it would be more fully consummated in future eternal blessing. The eternal nature of life found in and through Christ is emphasised in Jn.5:26; Rev.4:9-10; 1Tim.6:16.
John’s Gospel regarded Jesus as having life and light in himself because of his divine nature and origins. As the ‘Word’ he represented God’s creative power [Jn.1:4] and had come to give life to the world [Jn.6:33; Phil.2:16]. He was the light of life [Jn.8:12]; he could give the eternally nourishing water of life [Jn.4:10-11] and give eternal life to those who God gave to him [Jn.17:2]. As the source of truth he had the words of life for people to receive and follow [Jn.6:68]. John claimed that believers in Jesus had already found life through faith in him [Jn.3:25]. In the future, as ‘the resurrection and the life’ he would give eternal life beyond death [Jn.11:25].
Traditions and teachings about heaven abound in Christian writings, sermons and dogmas, but the reality is that we can only speculate about what ‘eternal life’ will be like. There is plenty of imagery in scripture concerning ‘eternal life, and pointers to ideas of heavenly life, but much of the physical imagery in scripture may well be metaphorical, as it is in the Book of Revelation. 1Jn.3:2 emphasises: “Beloved, we are God’s children now, what we will be has not yet been revealed...”. Yet we believe that all will be well, because we trust by faith that there is truth within Jesus’ promises.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How much do you feel that Christ has brought you ‘alive’ in your present life? Are there areas in your life where you wish that he could revive and enhance you, preparing you for eternal life? Hold them in prayer before God, alongside others who you know who would benefit from finding the sort of true life offered in the Christian faith.
20/ Monday – TREASURE
“Do not store up for yourself treasure on earth... but store up your treasure in heaven... where your treasure is there will your heart be also...” [Matt.6:21]. “The Kingdom of God is like treasure in a field, which someone found...” [Matt.13:44]. “Give to the poor and you will find treasure in heaven” [Mk.10:21]. “...but we have this treasure in clay jars so that it may be made clear that this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us.” [2Cor.4:7].
Times of insecurity often challenge us to reconsider what we most treasure, whether our priorities are correct, what we most value, and on what we place our trust. Health and an inner sense of peace and wellbeing prove to be far more important than wealth or possessions. When Jesus told parables like ‘The Treasure Hidden in a Field’ [Matt.13:44] and ‘The Pearl of Great Price’ [Matt.13:46] he was emphasising the essential importance of developing true spiritual priorities and finding security in our relationship with God.
In the contemporary commercial and materialistic world huge emphasis is placed on achieving financial and physical security. Churches and many charities insist on having financial security and maintaining assets in the bank before they consider giving sacrificially to support the needy. Self-protection and maintenance of our institutions are often regarded as greater priorities than being involved in Christ’s mission. Most people don’t like to feel financially or personally precarious, as Jesus disciples must have felt when he sent them out on mission without money in a purse, reliant for provision on the generosity of others [Lk.10:4; 22:35].
Jesus did not condemn the wealthy but he recognised the dangers within their priorities. In Mark 10, talking to the rich man who came seeking assurance of eternal life, we are told that ‘Jesus looking at him loved him,” for he had been keeping God’s commandments and was earnest. Yet Jesus claimed: “You lack one thing: go, see what you own, and give the money to the poor, and you will have treasure in heaven: then come, follow me.” When he heard this, he was shocked and went away grieving, for he had many possessions.’ [Mk.10:21]. I am not sure that Jesus was telling him or us to deliberately seek poverty or to give away all our possessions. If that was the case Christianity would be unattractive to the majority of the modern population. It could be interpreted as telling us to be prepared to do so if necessary, to give what is needed and to regard following God’s calling as more important than material security.
The word translated ‘treasure’ in the New Testament is the same word ‘thēsaurós’ as we use for a collection or ‘treasury’ of words. It means far more than money, gold or physical wealth and is rooted in the verb ‘to store or lay-up’. Matt.12:35 writes of ‘the heart of a good man bringing forth good treasure and good actions.’ ‘Treasure’ is whatever we store up and where we store it. So Jesus was not specifically condemning physical wealth in telling people: “Do not store up for yourself treasure on earth... but store up your treasure in heaven... where your treasure is there will your heart be also” ... “no one can serve two masters... you cannot serve God and wealth.” [Matt.6:21]. He pointed out that is it was ‘harder’ for the rich to prioritise spiritual things and find the ‘Kingdom of Heaven’ [Matt.19:23-24;Mk.10:23-25]. But the stress in Matt.6:21 was primarily encouraging the building up of ‘treasure in heaven’. Jesus’ ministry was stressing the importance of spiritual integrity, prioritising the development of people’s secure relationship with God. His teaching on giving away wealth is just part of getting our priorities right. Our character and our spiritual ‘eternal treasure-house’ are ultimately more essential to develop than our material wealth. More correct priorities include becoming righteous and holy, enriching our relationship with of God, doing good, developing outreaching love, and other active forms of discipleship. When Jesus “commended” his life into God’s hands in dying on the Cross, he was demonstrating where his own trust was stored up. [Lk.23:46]. This spiritual treasure is not just awaited as a reward in heaven; it includes feeling a sense of treasure living inside us now.
Jesus did encourage us not to be materialistic hoarders or heapers-up of earthly goods, as taught in the Parable of the Rich Man Enlarging his Barns [Lk.12:13-21] Such self-centred activity was against his ideal of prioritising the spiritual. Col.2:3 speaks of us finding the treasure of wisdom and knowledge in Christ. In 2Cor.4:7 Paul wrote of the new form of life and light that we find in Christ as a treasure contained within the ‘earthly vessels’ of our bodies and minds. This brings out the meaning of spiritual treasure as ‘a place of safe-keeping’.
In considering Jesus’ Parable of the Treasure in the Field and the Pearl of Great Price, Jesus encouraged his hearers to give all that they could for the sake of a secure and living relationship with God. This is quite a contrast to the somewhat half-hearted commitment to following our faith and obeying Christ’s ways, which characterises the lives and faith of many of us as church-goers. To follow Christ sincerely requires our total dedication and sustained effort. That is not just in the area of using our possessions and skills to work towards influencing the building of God’s Kingdom; it involves the commitment of all that we have and are to following and obeying God’s ways as revealed through scripture and the Holy Spirit. It is no wonder that the rich young man who wanted to follow Christ was afraid, and found that he could not follow [Matt.19:16-22; Mk.10:17-22].
This may be true, but it all seems very idealistic in a modern world, where it would seem impossible and certainly impractical to live without money and a certain amount of security in a home and possession. It was probably also hard for the more wealthy followers of Jesus in his own time. However, several people with wealth were among his followers and supporters: Lazarus and his family Mary and Martha, Nicodemus, Joseph of Arimathea, and several women married to Jewish and Roman officials. In eastern cultures we read of more contemporary people giving up everything to go on a spiritual quest than in modern western society. However, with growing wealth in formerly poor areas of the world, it is becoming equally difficult for people to give up security in order to follow the path of renunciation that is meant to lead to enlightenment.
Rather than taking Christ’s instruction to the rich young man literally and abandoning all that provides us with security in the modern world, perhaps we should interpret it in the light of contemporary society and culture. Jesus could be calling us to consider what gives us our security and not rest too heavily upon it. Most of us certainly need to regard the spiritual life in active relationship with God and righteous discipleship as treasure to be pursued with greater commitment. In baptism, confirmation and ordination service Christians have made really significant vows, which we do not always live up to. How many of us ‘shine as a light in the world’, assiduously ‘resist sin’, ‘fight valiantly as a disciple of Christ’ or ‘remain faithful to Christ to the end of our lives’? Those were among our baptism vows, and the confirmation and ordination vows are even more demanding. It may be useful to look back and consider the vows of faith that we have made and determine to follow those with the intensity of commitment which Jesus asked of the contemporaries who he called to follow him. The treasure of faith, and living in a closer relationship with God, may be found in putting energy into following the vows which we have already made.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Consider your present priorities and compare them with the vows of faith that you have made. Are they true to the ideals of Christ and the true ‘treasures of heaven’? In what ways might you modify your life and priorities in order to be more true to God’s expectations of you and the vows that you have made to follow Christ’s way ?
21/ Tuesday – RIGHTEOUSNESS – Mtt.5:6; 6:33; 13:43; Rom.3:21; 2Cor.5:21; 1Pet.2:24
“Unless your righteousness exceeds that of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven” [Matt.5:20]
We sometimes use the word ‘righteous’ today disparagingly, as though someone is ‘holier than thou’, ‘self-righteous’ or ‘arrogant’ but that is far from its Biblical meaning. Righteousness is seen as a primary characteristic of the perfection of God; those who are righteous will reflect God in their character and actions. Jesus told us to “seek first the Kingdom of God and his righteousness” [Matt.6:33], so righteousness is meant to be a primary aspect of all Christian lives. It is a characteristic of how all must live in God’s Kingdom.
The Hebrew word ‘ṣeḏeq’ and the Greek words [‘dikaios’, ‘diakaiosynē’] in the Bible, translated as ‘righteous’ and ‘righteousness’ are related to keeping to the correct regulations for life. The words have their roots in judicial and legal language, keeping the laws and rules by which all are meant to live. Righteousness is concerned not just with doing what is ‘right’ but being deemed to be ‘just’ according to the all-seeing ‘justice’ of God. Throughout scripture God is described as ‘righteous’, so the ways taught by God, by which we should live are naturally regarded as ‘righteous’ [Ezra 9:5; Neh.9:8; Ps.4:1; Isa.45:21; Rom.3:26; 1Jn.2:1; Rev.15:4]. Those who adhere to this way of life are called ‘the righteous’ because they are proclaimed just and justified by God. The words translated ‘just’, ‘justified’ and ‘justification’ in the New Testament are the same Greek words as ‘righteous’, ‘judged righteous’ and ‘righteousness’: translators vary the interpretation according to context.
The New Testament stresses that we are not ‘justified’ simply by obeying scriptures laws, as many of the religious leaders of Jesus’ time appear to have believed [Rom.2:13]. No one is able to achieve righteousness by their own strength because we all fail and sin [Rom.3:10, 20]. It is God who declares us righteous through grace and through the cleansing that Christ achieved for us: “Because of the one man, many will be made righteous” [Rom.5:19]. The Messiah was prophesied to be ‘The Lord our righteousness’ [Isa. 53:11b; Jer.23:5-6; 33:15-16]. We trust that the work of Christ for us and the work of his Spirit within us, will bring us righteousness, declare us righteous and bring us salvation: “the righteous will live by faith” [Gal.3:11]. Jesus obtained righteousness for us, fulfilled God’s will, and exemplified righteous human living for us to follow.
Though righteousness and salvation rely on God, not on ourselves, we should still aim to adhere to the way of life that God intended in the rules given in scripture. “Faith without works is dead” [James 2:28; 1:22-27]. Those who follow the righteous one must themselves do right [1Jn.2:1]. But it is the spirit of God’s regulations, not their literal letter which are righteous. God did not just give rigid, eternally static laws; God’s truth aims to promote the advance of humanity. So though God’s ways and commands remain valid for ever [Matt.5:18; 24:35], their application and detail may modify as life changes. We see the truth of this in current interpretations of the biblical regulations about the food we eat, how we dress, social relations, the ways we worship, the sacrificial system, punishment of offenders etc. We recognise that the world and our understanding of life and human psychology have changed, so the ways in which we apply scripture to different situations have similarly developed and changed. Yet many Christians still insist on interpreting biblical teaching literally. This is particularly true in issues of sexuality, where much Church-teaching differs from the way that the world has come to think. Jesus criticised the religious lawyers of his day for rigidly applying the letter of the law without considering the love of God and the dynamic changes that God has made in his relationship with human beings. Jesus forgave the woman taken in adultery, yet told her to amend her life: “Go and sin no more” [Jn.8:11]. He shed light on the unorthodox marital lifestyle of the Samaritan woman at the well [Jn.4:16-18]. He did not insist on the letter of religious law, but still wanted both women to live righteously in the situation in which they found themselves.
In the Epistle to the Romans St. Paul emphasised that we are now free from the strict laws that governed the Jewish society of his day. He wanted Christ’s followers to develop a ‘righteousness apart from the law’ [Rom.3:21, 28], where God’s Spirit directed them towards right living. Might this apply today in lifestyles and relationships which were once condemned by literal application of biblical regulations? Because we understand human psychology, health and cultural diversity more thoroughly, many previously rejected activities have become widely socially acceptable even among many sincere, holy Christians in the 21st Century? God still expects us to live righteous lives, but the way we live righteously may change as God’s world develops dynamically and ethical and cultural values alter and modify. Mercy and grace, in balance with the regulations by which God desires human society to live, are part of God’s justice and signs of God’s righteousness. Those Christians who remain insistent on literal interpretation of all biblical laws may be in danger of emulating the legalism of the scribes and Pharisees rather than Jesus.
Though we are now given freedom, the extremely practical Epistle of James stresses that Christian faith needs to be accompanied by righteous living and actions, or it is fruitless [Jas.2:14-20]. We are not intended to live isolated holy lives, but to become involved in God’s activity, to contribute to the world and support others. Righteousness involves mission, helping to build the principles of God’s Kingdom in daily life. In both Matthew 5:20 and 6:33 (quoted at the opening of this section) God’s Kingdom is related to righteousness. Many rabbinical texts regarded alms-giving and benevolent support of the needy as signs of righteousness. We are not just meant to wait to be made perfect saints in heaven; Christians are intended to prepare for this by our activity and discipline now. We have no idea what the life promised in heaven will be, yet we ought to make the most of life by practising living now as though we were perfect in God’s presence. We pray this when we say “Your Kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven.” [Matt.6:10]. It is challenging to live now as we would in the visible presence of God when the Kingdom of Heaven is fulfilled, but that should be our intention. This includes virtuous ethical living, fulfilling our obligations to God, God’s people and this world. We are intended to use God’s Spirit’s gifts to us effectively by living fruitfully and abundantly. We should develop the fruit of the Spirit and reflect God’s nature within us, as Christ did. These, and many more qualities, are all far more fulfilling that merely following a dead, rigid system of regulations and laws.
Christ’s activity and cleansing has brought the gift of righteousness to us. It is often hard to believe this when we truly know ourselves and recognise our failings, but scripture encourages us to believe that we are now regarded as righteous in God’s sight, even though we may still be very aware of our sins. It is important to try to live free of the guilt that so often burdens Christians over past sins for which we have been forgiven. We should learn from our failings, but we should not let them cripple our future advance. Awareness that God regards us as righteous should not make anyone arrogant; that was the problem of the scribes and Pharisees criticised by Jesus, and shown up in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector [Lk.18:11-14]. The humility of the tax-collector should be our response. Our righteousness does not depend upon ourselves and our actions, which will always be insufficient and imperfect. It is only the action of God’s love, mercy and grace that make us worthy, clean and guiltless, as St. Paul stressed: “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God; they are now justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Jesus Christ...” [Rom.3:23]. This undeserved gift of righteousness to us should lead us to respond with gratitude and righteous living.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- We are told in scripture that God now regards us as ‘righteous’ because of the actions of Christ. Does your life reflect this gift, living as if you were in the visible presence of God in his Kingdom??
- Which regulations that applied in Biblical times do you modify as you apply them today?
22/ Wednesday – GRACE
“From his fullness we have all received grace upon grace... grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” [Jn.1:16-17]
Many Christians use religious words rather imprecisely. Sometimes, in fact, we use words without thinking about their meaning. This is often the case in people’s use of the term ‘grace’. I remember from confirmation classes being taught that the definition of ‘grace’ was ‘God’s unmerited favour’, which is partially true, but is only one aspect of grace in the context of faith. Christians often speak of God’s ‘grace’ and ‘mercy’ almost as though they are synonymous. If we were Greek-speakers, reading the blessings that open most New Testament Epistles, we would recognise greater distinctions between the words. ‘Grace’ / ‘cháris’ originally meant one’s attitude towards that which gives ‘pleasure’ or which makes one ‘rejoice’. We use it with that meaning today when we admire ‘gracefulness’ in a person, a gesture, or gracious words. Some Greek writers used the term ‘cháris’ of the gods’ ‘favour’ but more often it referred to human ‘goodwill’, what gives aesthetic or emotional joy, or caused favourable regard. The Hellenistic world also used the term to mean the generous disposition of ‘favour’ or ‘bounty’, which a ruler displayed towards subjects. The leader’s gift of grace was regarded as a divine power that came from above, which is possibly the source of its use by Christians for God’s disposition towards us. It translated the Hebrew term ‘ḥēn’, an ancient middle-eastern term for a gracious attitude and actions of goodwill towards others [Gen.33:5; Ps.119:29]. It could also mean showing pity for the poor and defenceless [Prov.14:31; Deut.7:2] and speaking friendlily towards any [Prov.26:25]. Most frequently the Psalms used ‘ḥēn’ when calling on God to respond to prayer, to heal, redeem, raise up, pardon and strengthen [Ps.4:1; 6:2, 26:11; 41:10; 51:1; 81:16]. The psalmists beseech God to freely bless and show kindness through his will of care towards his people, as God pledged in the Covenant.
It is sobering to think that human beings, with all our failings, might be regarded as giving ‘delight’ to God, or that God ‘rejoices’ over us. ‘Despair’ might more often seem an appropriate response of God towards the limitations of our human condition, malign activities and our disloyalty to the requirements and covenantal promises of faith! However the term ‘grace’ can also suggest a mood of ‘sympathy’ or ‘kindness’ towards us, which links to the term ‘mercy’ (discussed in Meditation 23). A reciprocal response to giving delight to God should also be true in a covenant relationship: God’s people should be able to take joy or pleasure in our relationship with God and enjoy the benefits of God’s grace towards us. Grace and delight are hard to define in the abstract. We can enjoy all the natural gifts in creation, but how can we have ‘grace’ towards God? ‘Gratefulness’, ‘thanks’ and appreciation are our responses of grace towards God. It seems to be an inevitable aspect of the human condition that we spend time questioning whether God cares, since we experience situations of such suffering. These are more rarely a result of sin than suffering because we love, lose and are physically fragile and prone to illness. It often seems hard to express gratitude or recognise God’s grace in difficult situations. But seeking to express love for, and delight in God despite our situation can expand our sensitivities.
We should also be able to express our appreciation of the grace of God in worship, and express our grace towards God as we worship. The Psalms are full of such responses, often expressing delight in all that God is, all God has given, and appreciating security in God’s presence and care. Today some Psalms feel uncomfortable because we have become used to expect that Christian responses to suffering should be mild and perhaps resigned to pain. The psalmists were not afraid to complain when they sensed God’s distance, silence, disregard or abandonment in situations of need, despite their pleas. However, within such the psalms often balance their complaints with signs of hope and belief that God really does care, despite the difficulties of situations (as in Ps.22). Belief that grace is a constant quality in God, suggests that God’s truth reaches out to us in all situations, the good and the bad. We may not recognise this in the heart of suffering, thought recognition of God’s grace can bring light into the darkest situations in which we may find ourselves. Jesus’ own mission helped to reassure people of this.
Calvin talked about ‘common grace’. This term described the recognition that all creatures on earth share in some aspects of God’s grace. God has given bountiful gifts within creation which all can enjoy, irrespective of belief or lifestyle; such blessings are not just restricted to God’s people. Common grace includes the ability to respond to beauty, to value all the nature around us, to appreciate and be able to use all that is provided for our wellbeing. There are multiple common gifts in which we take pleasure; creativity, health, human ability to advance, the bounty of the earth, and so much more. Belief in ‘The Fall’ of human beings, and Calvin’s doctrine of ‘total depravity’ have often been interpreted to mean that everything in the world is evil or tainted by evil. That was not Calvin’s meaning; he meant it to mean that everything has aspects of contamination and has the potential to be used for evil. Whether this is true or not, I am not sure, but the concept of ‘Common Grace’ recognises the goodness and potential in all things in Creation: there is much that is good in most people and things, even those who might be involved in evil. (The concept that everything material is evil was one of the heresies which the early Church challenged). Recognising that God’s common grace extends towards all might help us to feel a greater empathy with the situation of some who we might otherwise distrust or with whom we might not share a sense of unity or oneness. Accepting that God shows common grace towards them might help us to be more gracious ourselves, and ‘love our neighbours as ourselves’ [Matt.19:19], ‘love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us” [Matt.5:44], or as Luke records “Love your enemies and do good to those who hate you.” [Lk6:27]. This is not easy, but if we are to reflect the nature and perfection of God we should try to develop a grace towards others that reflects the grace of God towards all. Jesus’ call to love our enemies gives us the perfect example of reflecting God’s ‘common grace’: “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you ... so that you may be children of your Father in heaven, for he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. For if you love only those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet only your brothers and sisters, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” [Matt.5:45-47]. Our outward-reaching love can emulate God’s grace and reflect God’s nature in us.
It is not for us to despise others. If we, with all our failings and sins, “have all received grace upon grace” [Jn.1:16], it is not for us to deny grace to others, for we do not know how God’s grace regards them. Christ is our model and our judge. If “grace and truth came through Jesus Christ” [Jn.1:17] it is the responsibility of his all-seeing and all-knowing truth to reveal the truth in his understanding. Our limited understanding does not allow us to see others in the way that God’s truth knows them thoroughly [Ps.139]. Our responsibility is rather to enjoy and live up to the grace that we have received from God and to emulate that grace towards others, as we reciprocate God’s grace in our delight of God.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Are there any towards you do not show sufficient grace?
In what ways might you show more grace in delighting in God?
23/ Thursday – MERCY
“Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy” [Matt.5:7]... “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” [Lk.6:38]
God’s ‘mercy’ was an essential element of Christ’s coming and his mission. Luke includes mercy at the heart of Mary’s annunciation hymn, the ‘Magnificat’ and Zacharias prophecy, the ‘Nunc Dimitis’: “His mercy is on those who fear him from generation to generation... he remembered mercy to his servant Israel.” [Lk.1:50,54,]. “He has shown the mercy promised to our forefathers and has remembered his holy covenant... Through the tender mercy of our God the dawn from on high will break upon us...” [Lk.1:72,78]
The term ‘mercy’/’eleos’ appears more frequently in the New Testament Epistles than in the Gospels. In the Gospels Jesus is shown to be God’s merciful gift to humankind, while the mentions of mercy in the Epistles often explain how this mercy works in practical and theological terms. Mercy denotes God’s response towards those he loves and the attitude Christ commanded us to show towards others. It is therefore the active response to God’s feeling of ‘grace’ towards us. While ‘grace’ delights in the value of others despite their weaknesses, sins, or evil actions, ‘mercy’ goes further: It recognises sins and problems and feels and acts in sympathy with our predicament. ‘Eleos’ for the ancient Greeks was the emotion felt towards the afflicted: sympathy, pity and empathy, reaching out through understanding and feeling for the pathos of their condition, especially if their problems were undeserved. It was used in the judicial system of judges’ protective response towards people when treating them with greater leniency than they deserved, because the judges felt care for them.
In translating the Jewish scriptures ‘eleos’ was used to translate the Hebrew word ‘hesed’/ ‘lovingkindness’, which was used of God’s covenant love towards humankind that is unmerited by us. Such ‘hesed’ loving-mercy arises from the committed, faithful, relationship of mutual loyalty and trust, in which God bound himself to his people. Despite human unfaithfulness, God responds with pardoning mercy and the gift of salvation. In both its legal meaning and in relationship with God, ‘mercy’ implies that those receiving it should feel an element of awe, fear and gratitude towards the power of the one who is demonstrating mercy. Jesus drew attention to this in his ‘Parable of the Pharisee’ and the Tax Collector’ where the latter, ‘standing far off... beat his breast’, confessing: “God be merciful to me a sinner!” The Tax Collector left the Temple justified rather that the Pharisee who took God’s mercy for granted [Lk.18:9-14]. This is relevant to many Christians who respond to the forgiveness of God too easily. Jesus endured the agony of his Passion as part of securing God’s mercy. We should not stroll into God’s presence, expecting forgiveness and redemption too lightly. Nor should we underestimate the extent of the pain and loss that God underwent in obtaining salvation for us.
Jesus commanded his followers to follow God’s example in prioritising mercy in our response to others: “Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful.” [Lk.6:38]. He emphasised the importance of extending mercy beyond the normal barriers in society in the Parable of the Good Samaritan. When asked “who was neighbour to the wounded traveller?” Jesus’ questioner acknowledged that the true neighbour was “the one who showed mercy” [Lk.10:37]. Showing mercy, like extending grace, is not always easy when we have been damaged by others, especially if they have never confessed or asked for forgiveness.
As well as using the term ‘mercy’ to describe God’s response to us, Matthew’s Gospel uses the term of showing kindness in human relationships [Matt.9:13]. In Matt.23:23 Jesus condemned the scribes and Pharisees for insisting on trivial rules while failing in God’s weightier laws of mercy, judgement and faith. Jude 22 implies that ‘mercy’ includes care for a person’s temporal and eternal welfare. St. Paul used ‘mercy’ far more expansively to show the motivation behind God the gift of salvation [Rom.9:22-23; ; Tit.3:5].
When it comes to the call for us to ‘be merciful’ two terms are used in the New Testament. Matthew uses the word based on ‘mercy’/’eleēmōn’. Luke uses the term ‘oiktirmōn’, a word more related to the emotion of ‘sympathy’ or ‘pity’ towards those who lament in grief. It was used regularly in the Greek translation of the Psalms [Ps.103:8; 111:4] and can also denote divine mercy and empathy towards humankind [Lk.6:36]. In Rom.12:1 & 1Cor.1:3 the plural form ‘oiktirmós’ is used of God’s compassion. The plural ‘mercies’ suggests the great breadth and inclusiveness of God’s ‘compassions’ on humankind. Elsewhere it is used of the compassion that is part of judgement and the nature of God’s Law [Heb.10:28; Jas.5:11].
When we show mercy towards others we are practising an uncommon emotion in much of modern society, which reflects the nature of God. Some still regard ‘an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth’ [Matt.5:38] as logical natural justice. Jesus contradicted this as being contrary to God’s mercy: Mercy does not insist on reciprocal damages for a hurt or offence. It recognises that the one who is in a position to enact mercy is in a more powerful position than the one who has failed (even if the malefactor has misused extreme power). Active mercy is often costly to the one who shows mercy. When we call for God’s mercy on people we remember Jesus’ struggle to secure mercy for us: Jesus gave the disciples the right and power to forgive or retain a person’s sins [Jn.20:23], but he also commended mercy [Lk.6:38]. I do not believe that he was giving his people the right to anathematise or reject others, though some church leaders interpreted Jesus words in that way, and assumed power and authority over people’s spiritual future. Perhaps Jesus was leaving it to our consciences to make the decision to forgive, in the spirit of his own example of mercy. As the Lord’s Prayer reminds us, we have a responsibility to ‘forgive others’ sins as we have been forgiven’ [Matt.6:12; Lk.11:4]. This is often not a simple exercise, especially when we have been badly damaged by another, but we should always remember that we have ourselves been shown enormous mercy. Showing mercy and grace are not as automatic to us as they probably are to a perfect God. But in attempting to reflect the nature and example of Christ we should work at offering mercy as committedly as we should be committed to personal righteousness and Christ-like action.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- Do you sometimes take God’s mercy towards you too much for granted, like the Pharisee in the Parable of the Pharisee and the Tax Collector?
- Recollect the situations in which God has shown ‘hesed’ / ‘merciful loving-kindness’ towards you and express gratitude.
- Are there any towards whom you need to be more merciful than you have been? Pray for them.
24/ Thursday – FAITH –
‘The apostles said to the Lord, “Increase our faith”. [Lk.17:5]
Faith has partly been considered under the word ‘Trust’ [Meditation 5]. The God about whom Jesus witnessed and who Jesus exemplified was a force who could be trusted: God was powerful enough for anything and could be trusted as a caring, loving Father. Scripture emphasises God’s personal care about Creation, especially human beings and particularly those with whom covenant promises had been made. Jesus expanded that covenant promise to all, as in his response to the non-Jews who came to him for healing or to discuss faith [Jn.12:20]. Christ commended the faith of the Roman centurion [Matt.8:10; Lk.7:9]. Though God had made covenant promises to the Jewish people, a close relationship with God was not exclusive to the Jews. Most of the worldwide Church now consists of gentile Christians who have been brought into God’s covenant relationship. [Heb.8 & 9; Eph.2:12 and Gal.3:17 particularly emphasise this. The relationship of trust in God that Christ introduced is available for all. Jesus’ ‘Great Commission’ to his followers before his ascension was for his followers to teach that faith to all nations and baptise believers into faith [Matt.28:19].
Jesus talked about ‘the prayer of faith’ to which he assured people God would respond [Matt.21:22]. The Greek word ‘peithō’, which means ‘to convince’ or ‘to persuade’ is at the root of the term ‘peithomai’, which like ‘pistis’ [discussed in Meditation 5] can also be translated as ‘faith’. This implies that faith includes being assured that the God and the promises in which we put our trust are true. Jesus responded to people’s trust in him in the miracles he performed, and commended their faith [Matt.9:2; 15:28; Mk.5:34; 10:52; Lk.18:42]. We know from experience that prayers, especially those for healing, are not always answered in the ways that we would most like. Family and friends die; the disabled remain incapacitated; believers are not always protected from mishap or disease. Yet the covenant relationship which we have with God encourages us to still pray and trust We live in a world where there is increasing, and in many cases understandable scepticism about faith, so it is inevitable that as believers ourselves we may not always be ‘convinced’ or ‘persuaded’ that what we ask for in faith will come about. Yet often when we struggle to believe despite our doubts, our faith can grow stronger. The faith that Jesus encouraged extends our belief and trust beyond the barriers formed by any difficulties and doubts and still trusts God. We see this displayed in several Psalms especially Ps.22 , which we believe Jesus was reciting to himself on the Cross. Though it begins: “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” and expresses the feeling that God is far away and not answering [v.1-2], from verse 21 the words of the psalmist increasingly move towards conviction that God is within the pain and struggle, ending by proclaiming trust in God’s promise: “For dominion belongs to the Lord, and he rules over the nations. To him indeed shall all who sleep in the earth bow down; before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall serve him. Posterity will serve him; future generations will be told about the Lord, and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn, saying that he has done it.” [Ps.22:28-31].
The opposite of faith [‘peithomai’] in Greek is not ‘doubt’ but ‘disobedience’: the Greek word for disobedience is ‘apeitheō’, which literally means ‘no conviction’ or ‘without persuasion’. ‘Doubt’ is a far less negative feeling, it is used in scripture to translate several Greek words with subtly different meanings: ‘Dialogismos’ [Jn.20:27] translated literally means that one is having a discussion within oneself about the truth of what one is considering. In the New Testament this is elsewhere translated to mean ‘struggling with evil thoughts’ [Lk.2:35; Mk.7:21; Lk.9:47; Rom.1:47], having anxious thoughts [Lk.24:8; Rom.14:1], or arguing within oneself [Lk.9:46]. Though Jesus and James encouraged us to believe and not doubt, doubt is not regarded as sinful. When Jesus told his disciples “do not doubt but believe” [Jn.20:27] the word translated ‘doubt’ [apistos] actually mans ‘don’t fall away’ or ‘don’t remove or be seduced away from trusting faith’. When Jesus and James told people to believe and not doubt [Matt.22:21, Mk.11:23; Jas.1:6] again the Greek word used is not exactly ‘doubt’ as we use the term today, but ‘diakrínō’ which literally means ‘do not judge wrongly’.
‘Peithomai’ / ‘faith’ can also be translated as ‘obedience’. In this context it means ‘be obedient to the faith that you hold’. ‘Faith’, claims St. Paul, is a gift of God’s Spirit and a fruit which the work of the Spirit develops within us [Gal.5:22]. When the disciples asked Jesus: “increase our faith” they were perhaps expecting him to perfume a miracle within their minds to expand their belief. Instead, Jesus seems to tell them to ‘reach for the impossible’... ‘exert the type of faith that can move trees or mountains’ [Lk.7:5; Matt.17:20; 21:21; Mk.11:23]. I don’t think that Jesus was here telling us to go out and try to perform impossible miracles (though some try). Rather, I believe his words encourage us to practically ‘get on with the life of faith’, trusting God and involving him in all our needs, even the hard ones, which we too often try to face in our own strength.
Jesus’ response to the disciples’ request for him to teach them to pray was to give them the Lord’s Prayer as a model [Lk.11:1-4; Matt.6:7-13]. The sort of faith expressed in this prayer recognises the priority and holiness of God (”hallowed be your name”). It asks for God to bring about his rule of righteousness, not just in believers’ lives but “on earth as in heaven”. It asks no more than what we need for today “our daily bread”. Faith recognises our sin and debt to God and others; it forgives others as we have been forgiven by God and as we wish others to forgive us. Trusting faith asks to be protected from anything we cannot bear “deliver us from the time of trial... temptation... and from evil.”
Jesus promised that the Holy Spirit would teach the disciples (and us through them) what to say when they were called upon to witness. [Lk.12:12]. The Lord would help them remember what Christ had taught them [Jn.14:25]. Faith trusts that God is with us, knows what is best and works to bring it about. But faith also requires our own determination to work at belief, even when it is a struggle, and to act in response. Faith is not just a passive set of beliefs that we hold in our minds; it calls us to step out in faith to live and witness for God, undergirded by Christ’s teachings and example and guided and strengthened by God’s Spirit.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How practical and active is your faith? Are there areas where doubts or lack of trust hold you back from being active as a follower of Christ? How might you overcome these?
25/ Friday - PEACEMAKING – Mtt.5:9
“Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” [Matt.5:9].
So many people today long for peace, yet there are many places of conflict in the world and in society, even in the Church. The contemporary political, social and economic ethos often encourages the promotion of power at the expense of others. Many more political leaders want to assert themselves or attain dominance by their use of power than to be peacemakers who attempt to create an equitable situation of peace and unity. It is easy for many to talk ‘Peace’, just as it is easy to pretend to the Christianity faith; but fewer people truly want to work at the way of peace, just as a limited number allow God and God’s way to be the motivation for their lives.
Jesus’ concept of peace and peace-making was not a quiet, inactive pacifism. In one of the most difficult passages of his teaching, he recognised that his message of bringing truth, righteousness and justice would divide people who had different priorities: “Do not think that I have come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother... and one’s foes will be members of one’s own household...” [Mtt.10:34-39]. Even families would find themselves divided by his message, as has proved true throughout Christian history. The militaristic imagery of some aspects of scripture is also uncomfortable, as when, for example Jesus is pictured as a warrior in Revelation [Rev.19:11-21]. How literally we are meant to take such imagery is difficult to interpret. At different times in history it has led to militarism encouraged by the Church, which has not always been characterised by righteousness, particularly at the times of the crusades, papal armies being sent out against those considered to be heretics, Reformation and Counter-Reformation battles and tortures, and Christian justifications for wars throughout the centuries. Peace and peaceful reconciliations are ideals for which we should always aim, strive and work, since ALL human life is precious. But the Church should also always be working to promote truth, justice and equity. When St. Paul used the imagery of ‘fighting the good fight [1Tim1:18; 6:12; 2tim4:7], ‘putting on the armour of light’ [Rom.13:12] and the writer of Ephesians encouraged Christians to ‘put on the whole armour of God...’ [Eph.6:11f.], the writers were not encouraging militaristic fighting but engaging in a spiritual struggle for truth and the peaceful Kingdom of God. God’s Kingdom will never be attained through murderous crusades.
The ‘Pax Romana’ was maintained largely by threat. The power the Roman Empire deterred rebellion. For centuries the Church similarly maintained social stability by threats of persecution or physical or legal battles against any who disagreed with it or had different practices, ideas or doctrines. Peace-making in contemporary Christian communities should be attained by more loving means than antagonism. New Testament church leaders called for disputing parties to be reconciled in love [Rom.5:10; 1Cor.7:11; Eph.2:16]. We also have a ministry of bringing about reconciliation between others and God. [2Cor.5:18-19]
Too many times, in world history and the contemporary world, working for truth is based on ‘standing for one’s rights’, ‘extracting compensation for injustices’ and ‘revenge’. The Bible does not say much about human rights; it recognises the value of all in God’s eyes and calls for the weak, disadvantaged and unrepresented in society to be supported, but it does not emphasise that any of us have ‘rights’. Rights are a more humanistic concept. The Hebrew Scriptures assert that God has certain rights: to recognition of divine supremacy, to obedience, worship and praise. But in our lives God rarely asserts those rights; God’s dealing with humankind is more often a request for recognition and involvement. God calls on the better sides of our nature rather than asserting obligations. That is how peacemakers often work best, not by asserting military or judicial rights but by working on the consciences of disputing parties, asking people to recognise the truth of situations, and moving them to reconciliation.
Are there areas of your own life and relationships, or relationships within your community or church, which would benefit from you stepping in as a peacemaker? Peace-making is rarely a speedy process, even if all parties involved want peace. Past resentments can run deep and have complex, inter-tangled roots. Long-lasting peace-making requires grace, mercy, a forgiveness of the past and a recognition and acceptance of sometimes terrible sins. The Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa is a positive example of where this worked. Too often disputing parties, even among churches, do not model such patience. Divisions between different churches, theological positions, liturgical practices, even tastes for styles of worship can cause rifts which damage terribly the witness of Christian churches. Similarly failure to admit where we have gone wrong can cause long-lasting spiritual damage and destruction of our reputation and witness, as in the failure of churches to deal with situations of abuse by clergy or other prominent leaders.
Christ’s own example of peace-making is characterised and most clearly exemplified at the time of his Passion: He protected the disciples at his arrest, refused to be drawn into arguments during his trials, called from the Cross for the forgiveness of his persecutors, and ultimately achieved reconciliation between humankind and God. In bringing peace and unity to our world there is the possibility that many peacemakers may suffer, be misunderstood, or feel that they have failed, but this is a ministry to which all Christians and Christian churches are called. Blessing is to be found through such involvement in God’s mission of reconciling and uniting. We aim to can overcome the difficulties, make people’s frustrations lighter and hopefully restore fellowship, oneness and the uniting of people within Christ’s body and the Kingdom of God: “Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God” [Matt.5:9].
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What situations surround you, in which you might most effectively work as a peacemaker, and how might you most effectively help in reconciliation?
26/ Saturday – WISDOM
“Everyone who hears my words and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house upon a rock....” [Matt.7:24]
Wisdom is a key quality for us to develop as Christians. Jesus’ parable of the Wise Man Building his House upon the Rock emphasises our need for wisdom and founding our lives upon truth, which can assure us of lasting stability [Matt.7:24-27]. For Israel, Solomon was the type of perfect wisdom, choosing wisdom above all other qualities for his leadership [1Ki.3:3-14]. That is why the wisdom books in the Bible were attributed to or ascribed as being by him, though probably compiled far later. Jesus used Solomon as a symbol of himself and the importance of his own teaching and leadership: “The queen of the south... came from the extremities of the earth to listen to the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here”. [Matt.12:42; Lk.11:31]. With these two great examples, all Jesus’ followers are recommended to seeking wisdom through Christ.
God’s Spirit was regarded as the source of wisdom: he inspired and gifted Solomon and filled and led the prophets. That may be one reason why from the beginning of his ministry all the gospels emphasise that the Holy Spirit rested on Jesus [Matt.3:6; Mk.1:10, Lk.3:22; Jn.1:32]; his source of wisdom was being emphasised to come from God. Luke records that as a child Jesus “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom” [Lk.2:40; 52]. When Matthew and Mark speak of the crowd saying of Jesus “Were did this man get his wisdom?” [Matt.13:54; Mk.6:2], they intend their readers to recognise that the origin of his teaching was in God. The Gospel of John does not use the word ‘wisdom’ but it is clear from the emphasis throughout on Jesus as ‘The Word’ is that he was being equated with the wisdom of God. Throughout his ministry, Christ is shown to have been exercising divinely inspired wisdom, discernment and rightness of action.
In Luke 11:49, Jesus used the phrase ‘the Wisdom of God’ in declaring ‘woes’ to the religious leaders of his time. Their ancestors, he claimed, had persecuted and killed the prophets who God had sent to them. Now “the wisdom of God” would send the world “prophets and apostles” who they would also slay and persecute. He seems to have been indicating that this related to himself and his followers. This could contain a warning and an encouragement to the Christ’s Church. We must be careful to discern and emulate those who follow the wisdom of God, not become equated with those who persecute people who are genuinely inspired by God. Sadly church history shows that this has not always been the case. Too often Spirit-inspired innovators and reformers, following Christ’s lead in the search for wisdom, have been rejected even killed by religious institutions. Some religious people today are intent like the scribes and Pharisees on maintaining their dominance or believe themselves to be sole arbiters of truth. Christians of different persuasions still sometimes act with hostility towards sincere believers who have varied views or practices to their own. Wisdom should encourage us to learn from the insights and spiritual experience of others, not unthinkingly reject difference.
Jesus promised that he would send his followers the Holy Spirit, who would lead them to wisdom and discernment: “For I will give you words and a wisdom that none of your opponents will be able to withstand or contradict.” [Lk.21:15]. John’s Gospel reiterated that Christ’s Spirit-filled followers would “know the Spirit of truth” [Jn.14:17], “remember Christ’s teaching” and teach them further [Jn14:26]. They would also be given the wisdom and knowledge to communicate Christ’s message effectively [16:13]. Often today the Church encourages members to learn to communicate using business and educational practices. But, while our understanding can learn from these, we, like the disciples sent by Christ must “be wise as serpents and innocent as doves” [Matt.10:16]. Sadly some business practices and church practices are ‘wise as serpents’ yet lack the ‘innocence’! Jesus’ reference to serpents did not encourage cunning or dissembling - the trick of the serpent in the Eden legend. Unfortunately some religious as well as political and business leaders, in our past history and even today, have demonstrated too much cunning, dissembling and duplicity. This damages the work and witness of the truth, as untruth cannot build the Kingdom of God. Jesus intended us, as his followers, to gain wise, righteous and spiritual discernment, to know how to act, speak and witness effectively in persuasive ways. His disciples were to become and remain as pure, peace-making, lovingly committed and perfect in spirit as the dove. Wisdom is a quality that should lead to purity not corruption [Ps.37:30; Prov.2:10, 12; 8:12; 10:31; 14:6].
Not everything is found through intellectual wisdom. Much about faith does not stand up to reason. Jesus recognised this when he prayed: “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things form the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants”[Matt.11:25]. St. Paul recognised this too, when he wrote: “For God’s foolishness is wiser than human wisdom... not many of you were wise by human standards... But God chose what is foolish in the world to shame the strong...” [1Cor.26-27]. Paul characterised this in his own ministry, claiming not to speak arrogantly in his mission and not to rely on God’s Spirit, not on his human wisdom and intellectual background in persuading people to accept faith [1Cor.1:17]. He prayed for the riches of wisdom and spiritual knowledge to be given to those to whom he ministered [Rom.11:33; 5:14; 1Cor.13:2; 2Cor.4:6; 6:6; Phil.1:9; Col.1:9-10; 1Tim.2:4; Tit.1:1]. Paul also warned Christians not to claim to be wiser than they are [Rom.11:25; 12:6]. Wisdom, he claimed, was to be found in Christ, “who became for us the wisdom of God... Let the one who boasts, boast in the Lord.” [1Cor.1:30-31].
Wisdom is more practical than intellectual head knowledge or even mental understanding; it is the discernment to do what is right and act upon our knowledge. We sometimes talk of ‘praxis’ - putting into practice our beliefs. Wisdom is even more than practising what we preach; it involves applying the depth of our spirit-guided understanding and insight to work effectively for the good of the majority. Most of us judge by appearances, which can easily deceive, but scripture uses the imagery of God looking right into the human heart. The emphasis of the biblical Wisdom Books is that God implants wisdom in the human heart and true wisdom is only possible if we are acting upon that wisdom in following righteous ways [Ps.51:6; 90:12; Prov.2:10; 14:33; 24:14].
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How wise do you feel when you consider how your faith works out practically in your life? Perhaps pray like Solomon for wisdom that will be of practical use in all areas of your life and ministry.
WEEK 5: OUR RELATIONSHIP WITH THE CHARACTER OF CHRIST
27/ Sunday – SON
“No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son.” [Matt.11:27]
Millions of words have been written on this term ‘son’, which Jesus used of himself. He was condemned partly for claiming sonship with God. People have been branded heretics according to how they interpret Jesus’ relationship with God. Others have been martyred or gone to war over it; doctrines are based on it. Yet Jesus didn’t explain it. We must recognise that the Gospels were written with the Evangelists’ intention of making certain claims about Jesus. So they may have been interpolating their own ideas or putting words into his mouth or into and those of his followers to emphasise their own interpretation of who he was. The Gospels record that Jesus used the term “Son of Man” of himself [Matt.8:20; 9:6; 10:23]. Some others called him the “Son of David” [Matt.1:1; 9:27; 12:23]; this term was partly associated with the expected Messiah [Matt.12:21; 21:9; 22:42]. Nathaniel concluded that he was the “Son of God” [Jn.1:49]. Peter proclaimed that he was “the Messiah, the Son of living God” [Matt.16:16] and “the Holy One of God” [Jn.6:69]. Martha came to the same conclusion: “I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world”. [Jn.11:27].
The title ‘Son of Man’ does not necessarily mean that Jesus was the divine Son of God; it is sometimes used in scripture to speak of a representative of humankind. It is an address that recurs throughout Ezekiel when God addressed the prophet as ‘Son of Man: [Ezek.2:1-3, 6, 8: 3:1-4, 10, 17, 25 etc.]. But Jesus seems to have used the term far more specifically, implying that he was more than a representative of humankind. In many places in the Gospels the term ‘Son of Man’ is directly related to the role of the Messiah [Matt.1:1; 16:16; 26:63; Jn.11:27]. Matthew’s Gospel frequently says that Jesus used the term in its messianic sense: [Matt. 10:23; 11:19; 12:8, 32, 40; 13:41; 16:13, 17:9, 22; 19:28; 20:18, 28: 24:30, 39-39; 40; 25:31; 26:2, 24, 45]. Mark and Luke use the term with the same messianic implication. He is seen as far more than just a human redeemer; he is regarded as having divine origins: “the Son of Man is Lord of the Sabbath” [Lk.6:5]... “From now on the Son of Man will be seated at the right hand of God”... “Are you then the Son of God?” [Lk.22:69-70]. In John’s Gospel the terms ‘Son of Man’ and ‘Son of God’ are used almost synonymously: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God! You are the king of Israel” is followed almost immediately by: “You will see heaven opened and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man” [Jn.1:49-51].
In the wilderness Jesus was tempted to test his position: “if you are the Son of God command these stones to become bread...” [Matt.4:3], and demons supposedly witnessed to it: “You are the Son of God...” [Mk.3:11]; “Jesus, Son of the Most High God...” [Lk.8:28]. At his baptism and Transfiguration a voice from heaven is recorded to have attested: “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased, listen to him!” [Matt.3:17; 17:5].
How we interpret Jesus’ call for us to be ‘one with him as he is one with the Father’ [Jn.17:11, 22-23] might depend on our own interpretation of how he regarded his relationship with God. Jesus talked of himself doing his Father’s business [Lk.20:49; ]; doing “only what he sees the Father doing... whatever the Father does the son does” [Jn.5:19; 10:32, 37; 15:10; ]. He claimed to speak and pass on to his disciples what he heard from the Father [Matt.10:20; Jn.5:36; 8:28, 38; Jn.12:50; 15:15]. Only in Mk.14:36 is Jesus recorded as using the term “Abba”/ ‘Daddy’ in his prayers, but this call, expressing the intimacy and dependence of a child, was taken up by St. Paul to describe our own relationship with God through Christ in Rom.8:15 and Gal.4:6: “you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry ‘Abba!’ ‘Father!’ it is that spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” and “because you are children, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying ‘Abba!’ ‘Father!’”
John’s Gospel sought to identify more clearly the relationship of Jesus with the God he called his ‘Father’: Jesus is spoken of as: being ‘close to the Father’s heart’ [Jn.1:18]; he ‘came from the Father’ [Jn.16:28] and was one with the Father [Jn.17:21; he had life because “the Father has life in himself.”[Jn.26:36] He ‘lives because of the Father’ [Jn.6:57]; the Father would ‘do what I ask’ [Jn.14:16; 15:16]. But he recognised “the Father is greater than I” [Jn.14:28]. He came ‘in his Father’s name’ [Jn.5:43] and God ‘set his seal on him’ [Jn.6:27]. He would send the Spirit from the Father [Jn.15:26]. He loved people as the Father loved [Jn.15:9]. He would return to the Father to prepare a place for his followers [Jn.13:1; 14:2-6]. He claimed a special, perhaps exclusive way of bringing people to the Father [Jn.14:6]. He was in the Father and the Father was in him [Jn14:10-11] and the Father was glorified through him [Jn.14:13].Those who had seen him had seen the Father [14:9]. His biggest claim was “The Father and I are one... The Father is in me and I am in the Father” [Jn.10:10. 38], which is the furthest Jesus went in declaring his divinity.
Even accepting that there may have been exaggerated interpretations or interpolations by the Gospel writers, Jesus had a very distinctive relationship with God. For many believers it is enough to accept the orthodox conclusion, wrestled with through years of debate since the early Church that defines Jesus as “fully Man and fully God”. Yet how Jesus relates to God remains hotly debated and mysterious. It is perhaps for the individual believer to conceive how they understand Jesus to have represented God in human form. Traditionally we confess what the early Church creeds say. These were written to consolidate belief when other interpretations of faith were deemed as heretical. The rather elaborate formula: “God from God, light from light, true God from true God...” in the Nicene Creed, for example, was composed to affirm and protect understanding of the nature of Christ against various interpretations that were circulating at the time. (‘Adoptionism’ for example, was the idea that Jesus did not originate in God, but had a human birth and was then ‘adopted’ into God.) . “Proceeding from the Father and the Son...” was similarly formulated to confirm the origin of the Holy Spirit.
As belief in the Trinity and the doctrines associated with it developed the Church throughout time has been committed to maintaining the orthodox concept that Christ shares his nature and essence with the Father and the Spirit. But scripture never defines this. The Creedal formulation: “Three persons in one God” used the Greek term ‘persona’, which was the mask used to designate a character in Greek theatre. It is not a term found in the New Testament. By this term, the one God is suggested to be self-revealing through three distinct ‘persona’ / ‘persons’: Creator /Father; Redeemer / Son, and Spiritual Power / Holy Spirit. But even this imagery seems like a metaphor – using the limited nature of human words to attempt to scratch the surface of understanding a mystery.
While protecting against the possibility of heresy, Christians have to admit that we do not understand exactly in what way Jesus was ‘Son of God’. What matters most is that we believe that Jesus spoke the truth and acted as God’s representative. Those Christians who find it difficult to believe, or get their minds around the idea that Jesus was actually ‘God incarnate’, sometimes find it more comfortable to accept that Jesus was ‘God’s revelation of himself through a human life’. They will often recognise that he gave teaching which can lead us to authentic value, encourage righteous activity and awaken our spirituality in ways that are far more life-giving than most other philosophies and lifestyles. As Simon Peter said, when asked whether he too would abandon following Jesus: “Where else should we go? You have the words of eternal life!” [Jn.6:68]. Though that is a reasoned and reasonable conclusion, it doesn’t go quite as far in explaining Jesus’ relationship to the Father as the orthodox doctrine of the Trinity.
When we develop a relationship with God through Christ, we come to share, ‘in him’, as part of ‘his body’, some of the relationship with God that he enjoyed and encouraged us to live by. St. Paul attests to this and encourages us to live in such ways that we act and relate to God in the ways that Christ opened up for us. Through living by the Spirit we should recognise our present and future inheritance and live free from sin and fear: “ All who are led by the Spirit of God are children of God. For you did not receive a spirit of slavery to fall back into fear, but you have received a spirit of adoption. When we cry ‘Abba!’ ‘Father!’ it is that spirit bearing witness with our spirit that we are children of God” [Rom.8:14-15].... “Because you are children, God has sent the spirit of his Son into our hearts crying ‘Abba!’ ‘Father!’ o you are no longer a slave but a child, and if a child the also an heir, through God.” [Gal.4:6].
It is wonderful to think that we share the close relationship with God that Jesus brought about for us. In salvation God, through Christ, has united us with him in a spirit of 'adoption' and 'sonship' as St. Paul describes it, or to be less gender-specific - 'kinship'. Yet our relationship with God remains very different from Christ's relationship with his Father. Thomas Aquinas pointed out that "God is more distant from any creature than any two creatures are from each other" [Summa Theologiae 1a.13, 5 & 65]. We are saved and promised God's Kingdom, but we are 'creatures', not divine. So as 'children of God' our relationship of oneness with Jesus and with our Father - our divine source - reflects that special relationship between Christ and his Father, but is more an analogy to Jesus' sonship than identical to it. To me this explanation seems to make sense. All the imagery we use for God like Father, Judge, Love, Shepherd etc. is an analogy, using human metaphors and images to help us begin to understand whatever the truth of God actually is, in the spiritual dimension which must be so different from ours. Aquinas tried to explain analogies between us and God in this way: ‘Any creature, in so far as it possesses any perfection, represents God and is like to him, for he is simply and universally perfect’ and is the source of perfection in all God’s creatures [Summa Theologiae 1a.13, 2]. So we, as followers of Christ’s way are ‘children of God ‘, even though we do not act perfectly, and are in a rather different relationship of unity with God than Christ. Still, our relationship with God is precious and infinitely valuable; it is to be followed, enjoyed and an lead to abundant life. This relationship was brought about somehow by all that Jesus did with his life.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How sincerely do you live up to your relationship as a ‘child of God’? How might Christ’s teaching and his Spirit’s leading help you to fulfil that sense of ‘adoption’ and ‘freedom’ which could help you be a more sincere disciple and feel the ‘Abba’-like intimacy towards God that Jesus opened up for us?
28/ Monday – TEACHER – Jn.13:13
“If I, your Teacher and Lord have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. [Jn.13:14].
While the former meditation considered the close relationship with God into which we have been adopted through Christ, we should not regard Jesus or the Father in an intimate ‘buddyish’ way. God is still our LORD and Jesus acknowledged himself as our ‘teacher and Lord”. [Jn.13:14]. I have already written about some aspects of Jesus as ‘teacher’ or ‘Rabbi’ in considering the word ‘learn’ [Meditation 10]. But here I will consider aspects of how Jesus taught, which might help us in our own discipleship and our ability to share and grow in faith.
Jesus was often recorded as ‘teaching with authority’ [Matt.7:29; 9:8; Mk.1:22, 27; Lk.4:32, 36]. This is not about being an authoritarian or didactic leader: he was recognised as having the truth. This was partly because people recognised there was truth in his words, but also, in a large part, because he was seen to live in a way that authenticated what he said. Jesus also regularly made claims to have God-given authority [Matt.9:6; Mk.2:10; 3:15; Lk.5:24; Jn.17:2], but he taught with a humility that did not used his relationship with God for self- aggrandisement [Phil.2:5-7]. Nor did he use his authority in a negative authoritarian fashion. Rather he taught by giving the example of servanthood, as in washing the disciples’ feet at the Last Supper [Jn.13:5-7]. He explained that this action was a model for all Christians to follow: “You call me Teacher and Lord – and you are right, for that is what I am. So if I, your Teacher and Lord have washed your feet, you also should wash one another’s feet. For I have set you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you. Very truly, I tell you, servants are not greater than their master, nor are messengers greater than the one who sent them. If you know these things you are blessed if you do them.” [Jn.13:13-16]. His example encouraged us to be willing to service in whatever way is necessary, even if just required in menial tasks. We do not always need to be involved in important things which might falsely boost our ego.
If Christ is our teacher and example, true discipleship should respond by being ‘teachable’. As a former teacher in schools and colleges, I can clearly remember those of my students who were keen to be taught and those who did not want to exert themselves. Churches are not unlike schools in this respect. Some Christians are keen to advance themselves as disciples, some do not want to make any effort whatsoever to be better people or disciples. Some even live as though God is not their Lord in any way that made a difference to their lives. The great majority of people in many church congregations are in between: neither enthusiastic nor neglectful of their faith. We do have to be careful of being too bland in our faith as warned by Christ’s message to the members of the Church of Laodicea in the Book of Revelation: “I know your works, they are neither cold not hot... So because you are lukewarm I am going to spit you out of my mouth. For you say I am rich, I have prospered and I need nothing... I counsel you to buy form me gold refined by fire, so that you may be rich... I reprove and discipline those whom I love. Be earnest, therefore and repent. Listen! I am standing at the door and knocking: if you hear my voice and open the door I will come in to you and eat with you, and you with me...” [Rev.3:15-22].
Jesus acknowledged in his parables that not everyone would respond to his teaching as seriously or rigorously as he intended. “Those who have ears let them hear” was his regular call [Matt.11:15; 13:9, 15, 43; Mk.4:9. 23; 8:18; Lk.8:8; 9:44; 14:23]. He acknowledged that he spoke in parables partly to hide his meaning from those who did not want to hear [] but he also used his parables to make his teaching memorable. In John’s Gospel particularly people regularly ask Jesus “What do you mean?” [Jn.7:36; 8:22, 33; 16:17-19]. The more we meditate on the meanings of Jesus’ parables, the more meaning we can find in them, despite the apparent simplicity of some of the stories. Would you be able to explain your faith as memorably as Jesus did?
Jesus appeared to teach from deep and direct knowledge about that which he taught. Being in his early 30s he was very young to have been so wise as a Rabbi. In his culture, age was considered to be the source of wisdom. But Jesus’ background and experience gave him spiritual wisdom deeper than that of his elders.
His teaching also derived from his inner knowledge into people. How much this was divine insight and how much was due to psychological understanding we cannot be sure. When he met strangers for the first time, he certainly seems to have had insight into their lives that went far beyond what could be gleaned from first acquaintance. We see this in his comments to Nathaniel and to the Samaritan woman at the well and her fellow citizens, to whom he revealed details that might not have been easily discernible: [Jn.1:47-51; 4:16-19, 29, 39-42].
Part of Jesus’ authority’ may also have bees sensed from how he taught in ways that many people understood and remembered. Among the qualities of some of the greatest scientists are their abilities to communicate and explain complex ideas in ways that many can understand. A theoretical boffin might not be able to do this. Jesus’ parables used images from the everyday life of his hearers as metaphors to explain theological truths clearly - sowing seed, harvest and labouring, landowners, tenants and servants etc. He also used exaggeration to make his teaching memorable - the camel through the eye of a needle, the murder of the landowner’s son, the desolation of the Prodigal Son feeding among swine (unthinkable for a Jew). Probably his teaching about hell and demons, which built on popular contemporary superstition was also part of this over-emphasis to make his spiritual point and warnings clear, vivid and easy to recall and for his disciples to repeat. Though his imagery, metaphors and stories were intentionally memorable, there was also something cryptic within them. We are frequently told that his hearers, even the disciples did not always discern the meaning and implications behind his message.
It appears to have been only later, after his death and perhaps with the enlightenment of the Holy Spirit, that the disciples gained insight into some of the parables. The Spirit is an essential part of Jesus’ teaching. Whilst Jesus had insight into people’s lives, the Spirit would take his teaching, help his hearers remember, and guide them to be able to interpret and learn. Jesus promised this in the discourses before his death: “The Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you everything and remind you of all that I have said to you” [Jn.14:26]... “I will send him to you. And when he comes, he will prove the word wrong about sin and righteousness and judgement... I have many things to say to you, but you cannot bear them now. When the Spirit of Truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth; for he will not speak on his own, but whatever he hears, and he will declare to you the things that are to come...” [Jn.16:7-13]. The Holy Spirit within us continues to be an essential part of our growth in knowledge, understanding and practical discipleship, just as he was for the early Church.
Good teachers need an up-to date, ever-expanding knowledge of their subject, in order to advance their students and start their charges on the path to maturity and depth of understanding. Unfortunately many ministers in the Church throughout history have been content to leave their congregations with relatively infantile faiths, in order to seem superior to those to whom they minister. Rather than encouraging ignorance and dependency, those of us in ministry should surely always be trying to form our fellow Christians into better disciples than ourselves and advance their knowledge of faith as far as they are able to comprehend. It is only personal insecurity that makes a teacher wish to be regarded as superior to their students or congregation. As an art teacher and lecturer my ambition was to form and inspire students who could become better artists than myself. As a church minister I want my congregations to become more sincere Christ-followers than myself. To neglect bringing them to maturity of faith would be a neglect of our calling and responsibility. The same is true of the responsibility of any of us as Christians. We are all responsible for bringing some to a greater faith.
The best teachers need an ability to communicate in memorable ways, and to be able to explain in ways that help their followers to learn, to want to learn, and to expand knowledge and righteousness. Jesus seems to have attracted even those who were slow in understanding and challenge those who did not want to be challenged. He created a thirst for spiritual truth in many people. He also persisted with his disciples despite the rashness and brash mistakes of Peter, the misdirected ambition of James and John, the questioning of Thomas etc. Nicodemus had difficulty in coming to believe, but by the end of Jesus ministry he too was a disciple. Despite his frustration with his band of disciples, he formed them into a body that could teach his message to the world beyond.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Would you be able to explain your faith as memorably as Jesus did?
In what ways do you thirst to further learn your faith and be able to build in others an even greater faith than your own?
29/ Tuesday – BROTHERS/SISTERS/SIBLINGS & FRIENDS
“Whoever does the will of my Father in heaven, is my brother and sister and mother” [Matt.12:50] ... “I do not call you servants any longer... .I have called you friends” [Jn.15:15]
cf. Mk.3:35; 1Tim.5:1
The human nature of Jesus is one of the major links to him, which we share. New Testament theology emphasises that we are connected through God’s decision to share our humanity. Jesus was able to deal with sin on our behalf because he shared our nature, was able to show us how to live righteously by doing so himself, and, in some way that we don’t fully understand, was able to give his life instead of us. He was able to make us able to be viewed by God as cleansed and perfect because he was ‘perfected through suffering’ [Heb.2:10]. No other substitute could achieve that.
We are told that Jesus had brothers and perhaps sisters [Matt.12:46-50; Mk.3:31-3:35; Lk.8:20-21; Jn.7:3-5]. I have discussed the potential meaning of these in my Advent Meditations . Jesus’ ‘brothers’ mentioned in Mk.6:3; Matt.13:55-56 and Jn.7:5 use the term ‘adelphoì’ for ‘brothers’. I personally have come to the conclusion that they were direct siblings, but the Greek word could also mean ‘cousins’, ‘close relatives’ or even ‘close friends’. In the context of Chris’s family, it would seem to be intended to indicate that they were direct, close siblings. In Christian tradition the author of Jude was traditionally said to be Jesus’ brother Judas (not Iscariot), and his brother James became the leader of the church in Jerusalem. The emphasis of Christ’s teaching, however, is not on the importance of family ties, but the oneness with Christ shared by all who truly follow him: “Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother.” [Mk.3:35; Matt.12:50].
Jesus’ teaching on true fellowship and discipleship, and the Parable of the Good Samaritan clarify that our ‘brothers, sisters, mothers’ and ‘neighbours’ include the whole world. We are each meant to feel a sense of responsibility for all, and be “our brother’s keeper” in the universal sense [Gen.4:9].
A closer and rather different kinship and fellowship, however, is the bond which is meant to exist between those who share faith and who work together as part of the ‘body of Christ’ [1Cor.12:12-27]. There is equality in this relationship, as St Paul emphasised. The metaphorical ‘foot’, ‘hand’, ‘ear’, ‘eye’ and more ‘modest members’ are all of equal value in the body and mission of Christ. Even then, Jesus’ words that ‘those who obey his commands are his brothers and sisters’ [Mk.3:35; Matt.12:50] emphasise that fellowship with Christ by faith and true discipleship are far more significant than either blood ties or shared fellowship in a congregation.
True Christian fellowship is dependent on our authenticity and integrity. We are told to ‘walk in the light while we have the light’ [Jn.12:35; 1Jn.1:7]. 1Jn.2:9-11 emphasises that “darkness is passing away and the true light is already shining. Whoever says “I am in the light” while hating his brother or sister is still in darkness. Whoever loves his brother or sister lives in the light, and in such a person there is no cause for stumbling.” ‘Agape’-love, like the self-giving of Christ is what should identify us in our relationship with God through Christ and with our fellow Christians. This relationship is even more personally committed than the Greek concept of ‘philadelphia’ / ‘brotherly love’. In few, if any, world religions are saviours or God also regarded as in intimate friendship or kinship with believers, as in the relationship possible between Christians and Christ.
When Jesus said that those who obey his commands are his brothers and sisters [Matt.12:50; Mk.3:35], he promised a link with us that also links us to God, as he was linked to God. His prayer in Jn.17 asks for us to be one with him as he is one with the Father: “May they all be one. As you, Father are in me and I am in you, may they also be in us...” [Jn.17:21]. We are not ‘children of God’ in the same way as Christ was, of course. But the fellowship with spiritual truth, which Jesus promised to us, is an assurance that is even stronger than the covenant commitments of Hebrew history.
While fellowship with Christ should be accompanied by our covenant commitment of authentic discipleship, it does not depend on our social position, individual gifts, skills, background or intellect. In Jesus’ teaching, those with wealth, social standing, success or even intellectual or theological knowledge are in fact more likely to find discipleship difficult and challenging [Matt.19:23]. Our only qualifications are those which God accredits to us. As St. Paul wrote: “Consider your own call, brothers and sisters; not many of you were wise by human standards, not many were powerful, not many were of noble birth. But God chose what is foolish to shame the wise; God chose what is weak in the world to shame the strong; God chose what is low and despised in the world, things that are not, to reduce to nothing things that are, so that no one might boast in the presence of God. He is the source of your life in Christ Jesus, who became for us the wisdom from God, and righteousness and sanctification and redemption.” [1Cor.1:26-30].
The term ‘friend’ [Jn.15:15] is also a great award and privilege, which leaves us with a similar responsibility to that of a sibling. Friendship with God is a rare thing in religion. As divine powers are so much above and beyond us, awe, reverence and a sense of being separate from God’s ‘otherness’ would seem more appropriate. Yet a relationship with a loving God is closer than feeling distant. As ‘Lord’, Christ, like God, could demand our service rather than friendship.
In the Bible very few people are considered to be ‘friends of God’. The term is accredited to Moses who is described as talking with God “as a man speaks to a friend.” [Ex.33:11]. Abraham was described as God’s friend [2Chron.20:7]. But elsewhere in Jewish literature the attitude to God, even when regarding God as a Father and loving carer, the attitude is usually one of awe and service, not intimate friendship. The friendship between Jesus and his disciples, and the relationship which Jesus had with his Father God, are far more intimate than anything in the Hebrew Scriptures. When Jesus claimed “I am the vine and you are the branches” [Jn.15:5] he implied a far greater link between God and us than was previously felt. He made us ‘part of his body’; we live ‘in him’. Do you feel that closeness of connection both with him and with other Christians? Do we live it out as animatedly as the New Testament encourages us to do? I once worked in a church with a Christian colleague who claimed: “I don’t work through friendship; you work for me.” That was a completely wrong attitude to working together in the body of Christ; it probably grew out of personal insecurity, and the need to be regarded as ‘boss’. If working with Christ for a common goal of the Kingdom of God is regarded as a relationship of friendship, so should be our common work together as equal members of the body of Christ.
For Christ to call us ‘friends’, is a huge privilege. His statement: “I have called you friends” [Jn.15:15] comes from the final discourses when Jesus was preparing his disciples for his death and their subsequent continuation of his ministry. He explained that such friendship is based on a reciprocal covenant commitment: “This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. No one has greater love than this, to lay down one’s life for one’s friends. You are my friends if you do what I command you. I do not call you servants any longer, because the servant does not know what the master is doing, but I have called you friends because I have made known to you everything that I have heard from my Father. You did not choose me, but I chose you. And I appointed you to go and bear fruit, fruit that will last, so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name. I am giving you these commandments so that you may love one another” [Jn.15:12-17]. Some scholars believe that the editor of John’s Gospel added the central part of this teaching, “so that the Father will give you whatever you ask in my name” but it is certainly in line with Jesus’ confident message in the Gospels.
Friendship, like kinship with Christ makes requirements of us to become involved in his mission, in whatever way we are called. It is not a feeling of being relaxed and matey in our attitude towards God; it is a sense of accepting the responsibility in our covenant relationship. We are meant to bear spiritual and practical fruit, as well as to obey the teaching which Christ has given to us. Although “a servant does not know what the master is doing” Jesus had trusted his disciples, despite their limitations, emphasising that he had: ‘made known to them everything that he heard from his father’ [Jn.15:15].
True friendship is demanding. Jesus expected his true friends to follow his commands and expectations of them: “You are my friends if you do what I command you” [Jn.15:14]. True friendship is self-sacrificial for the good of others: “Greater love has no one than this; that they lay down their life for their friends.” [Jn.15:13]. Jesus’ own life was the perfect example of this. He does not always expect us to make ourselves martyrs, though some do suffer in following their faith, and the early church began to believe that martyrdom was to be sought to ensure salvation and enjoy rewards beyond death. Thankfully we now recognise that deliberate self-sacrifice is not necessarily a Christian virtue. In some cases seeking martyrdom became a self-centred attitude. But self-sacrificial ‘agape’-love should be willing to do whatever is necessary for the support of others.
Human friends cannot always be relied upon. The Wisdom Books in scripture bemoaned deceitfulness or abandonment by friends [Ps.41:9; 55:13; Prov.19:4; 27:6]. Jesus encountered this himself, when many followers began to abandon him as his teaching became more challenging and particularly after his arrest when his disciples scattered and Peter denied his friendship out of fear. Yet Christ understood the limitation of our human character thoroughly; he forgave Peter and used Peter’s recognition of his failure as a foundation on which to build and strengthen his later leadership of the Church [Jn.21:15-19]. It would be wonderful if after recognising and repenting of our own failures in discipleship we too might become as strong as Peter in following God and in mission. If we felt a stronger sense that Christ trusts us as his friends, this might encourage more committed discipleship.
Holy Week is an important model of committed love, and the supreme display of how Jesus regarded those whom he loved. He taught and prepared his disciples for his leaving them, even though he must have had such intense struggle his own mind over the fate that by now he knew was coming to him. Instead of turning in on himself in self-pity, raging against all that he sensed was coming and against the divisiveness and abandonment of people, he maintained his outgoing sense of love. As he approached the Last Supper he assured his friends that he had “earnestly desired to celebrate this feast with them” [Lk.22:15]. He showed them how to live by friendship in giving them the example of servanthood by washing their feet [Jn.13:1-10]. He protected his disciples in the scuffle that accompanied his arrest [Jn.18:9-11]. He expressed loving care for the weeping women of Jerusalem on the route to Calvary [Lk.23:28], forgave his persecutors from the Cross [Lk.23:34] and lovingly gave his mother and his beloved disciple John into each other’s care [Jn.19:26].
Friendship is a reciprocal relationship. Jesus emphasised to his followers that not all who called him “Lord” were his true followers [Matt.7:21-22]: his “friends” are those who obey his word. Having given us his example of friendship, we too should follow his model.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Do you regard your relationship with Christ as ‘friendship’? If so, do you obey his commands and how might you better reciprocate his friendship towards you?
30/ Wednesday – FATHER
“My Father is still working and I am working” [Jn.5:17]... “I do as the Father has commanded me, so that the world may know that I love the Father...” [Jn.14:31]... “as the Father sent me , so I send you” [Jn.20:21]
In praying for his disciples’ future in Jn.17, Jesus prayed that they might have a similar relationship with his Father as he had himself [Jn.17:20-23].
In western Christianity we have become so familiar with calling God ‘Father’ and its use in the opening of the Lord’s Prayer that we may forget how revolutionary it was when Jesus introduced the practice. God had always been distant, approached with fear, awe and respect. Even the Hebrew names for God, especially YHWH / Yahweh / Jehovah, but also Elohim / Lord were treated with particular respect. Occasionally God was mentioned as the parent of his people in the Hebrew Scriptures, but this imagery primarily regarded God’s parenthood as a position demanding respect, far more than a relationship of intimacy [Deut.32:6; Ps.2:7; 89:26; Isa.63:16; 64:8; Jer.3:4, 19].
Jesus’ address to God as ‘Father’ or more intimately using the Aramaic word ‘Abba’ / ‘Daddy’, implied a greater closeness of relationship [Mk.14:36]. This would have been shocking to many of the most devout Hebrew believers and worshippers in many other ancient cultures. God had been revealed as the ‘Father’ of the Jewish nation through the above scriptures. The difference that Jesus made was to help believers to come closer in relationship to the God he knew as ‘Father’. By encouraging his followers to pray using the name ‘Father’ he was drawing others into a more intimate relationship with God. It was not meant to develop over-familiarity however. Jesus’ teaching also encouraged disciples to be in awe of God. He often spoke of God as judge, landowner, and punisher of wickedness in ways that demanded respect.
Relationships with fathers in the ancient Near-East were not as intimate and relaxed as the term ‘Abba’ implies, or modern concepts of a close relationship with ‘Daddy’. As the head of a household, provider for the family, maker of decisions, leader of the family’s worship and corporate life the father was the lead figure, demanding respect and obedience. When Jesus told the Parable of the Prodigal Son his listeners would have been far more shocked than we are today that a son might go against his father and demand his inheritance early. Lack of respect of age, wisdom, authority and tradition would have been disturbing; the son would probably have been regarded as a disgrace, unworthy of being welcomed back.
In Jesus’ time, human fathers also had the right of decision in the household. The idea that a father might even consider sacrificing his child, as in the story of Abraham’s near sacrifice of Isaac [Gen.22] shocks us today. It would have done so in Jesus’ time too, although it was seen as a significantly faithful act in Jewish history, culture and faith as Heb.11:17-19. Some modern theologians are uncomfortable with the gender-specific emphasis of the idea of the God to whom Jesus introduced us as ‘Father’. God is of course not ‘male’. The idea of God as a masculine Father-figure would have been significant in the patriarchal background of Ancient Israel. Others find it difficult because they compare God to difficult situations in their own parental backgrounds and uncomfortable aspects of their upbringing. Creator gods were also imagined as female in several ancient cultures, and female or ‘mother’ imagery was used of God in several Hebrew Scriptures. However, despite the value of women in Jewish culture, the masculine imagery used of God would have been accepted as far more appropriate in the Israel for centuries around Jesus’ day.
Abraham’s acceptance of the command to sacrifice Isaac is the most challenging aspect of Abraham’s fatherhood. It is similarly concerning to many that God should be willing to sacrifice Jesus, which is why some try to explain the Cross in different, non-sacrificial terms [cf. Meditation 43]. But in many ancient cultures fathers had the right of disposal of their children - the right to marry them to whom they chose, dispossess or advance them within the hierarchy of the family, even sacrifice them. In legend, despite their paternal feelings the king’s daughter was sacrificed before the Trojan War and Jephthah sacrificed his daughter to fulfil a religious vow [Judg.11-12]. It shocks most today to recognise that in ancient times maintaining responsibilities to God were considered more important than those to family.
When Jesus introduced his followers to the idea of calling God ‘Father’ he was still emphasising that we have a duty of obedience, awe and respect to the source of our identity. Jesus demonstrated this obedience ultimately as he wrestled with his future in prayer in Gethsemane. “Not my will, Father, but yours” was his decision despite his knowledge of his Father’s love for him. We do not know how much of the eternal plan of salvation Jesus understood at each state of his life: If he was ‘fully human’ as well as ‘fully God’ as orthodox doctrine states, his human mind may have had human limitations. His gift of his life would not have been such a self-sacrificial act if he knew for sure that he would soon be raised to life again. But he trusted his Father that what the Father of the world was asking of him was right. He obeyed in filial respect, though the agony of the decision was so great that he sweated blood. (This rare sign of emotional tension known medically as Haematidrosis or haematohidrosis occurs in cases of extreme mental or physical stress or pressure.)
It is important to include in our thoughts the respect and obedience owed to ancient fathers, when we use the terms ‘Father’ or ‘Abba’ in prayer or when we contemplate God. We are not in a chatty relationship of equals, just as the Jewish covenant with God was not an agreement among equals. We are weak, fallible and often fail while God and the eternal truth for which God stands is perfect, infallible and trustworthy if we interpret and follow the truth rightly. (Church- history shows that Christians have too often interpreted and followed what they believe to be God’s will in wrong ways, so we need to apply our faith with extreme care.) The idea of God as trustworthy head of our household, with priority in our decision-making should apply to all areas of our human lives, not just the compartment we call ‘religion’.
Despite its limitations, the ‘Fatherhood of God’ is an important image which Jesus deliberately left for us. Jesus represented God to us as a power for us to relate to intimately. God was also emphasised to be a trustworthy, wise leader, who made decisions on behalf of the human family. As ‘Father’, God was thought of as having powerful parental love for his children, provided for them and was also protective of them. The ‘Father’ also shared aspects of his nature with human beings as his children. So the understanding of God as Father, which Jesus expanded by his own practice and teaching, has drawn us into the possibility of a closer relationship with God. It also helps us to relate to Christ more closely in kinship.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How do you personally relate to the image of God as ‘Father’.
31/ Thursday – KING / KINGDOM – Mtt.6:10;; Mk.1:15; 12:34;
“Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. [Matt.6:10; Lk.11:2].
“The Kingdom of God has come among you” [Matt.12:28; Lk.10:9; 17:21].
I once led a series of weekly studies throughout Lent on the teaching about the Kingdom in scripture, so there is so much more that I am exploring here. Yet, if the balance in the Gospels is true to the emphasis in Christ’s actual mission, he seems to have taught more about God’s Kingdom than he even spoke about love. Matthew’s Gospel primarily uses the phrase ‘Kingdom of Heaven’; Mark, Luke and John use the term ‘Kingdom of God’, but in all Gospels the intended meaning is mostly the same.
Jesus taught is to pray “Your Kingdom come, your will be done on earth as it is in heaven”. [Matt.6:10; Lk.11:2]. This in essence defines Jesus’ meaning when he taught about God’s Kingdom of heaven. He aimed for humans to live righteously, according to God’s will, in relationship with God and each other as if we are directly in God’s presence in heaven. Scripture suggests several things about God’s Kingdom, but in practice the concept is about living in all ways according to the guidance and will of God. We live in the presence of God’s truth already, yet practically, very few people live as righteously as the image of heaven expects.
Jesus’ response at his trial, when asked whether he regarded himself as a ‘king’ was to emphasise that temporal power was not his ambition: “My Kingdom is not of this world.” [Jn.18:36]. He was not a rival to earthly powers. God’s kingship isn’t about sitting on a throne, ordering around the peoples of the world, expecting adulation and tribute like a despot. The Church should never aim to exercise power in such an autocratic way, though there have been many times in history when clerics have tried to do so. God’s kingship in our lives is meant to be more internal, challenging us to live righteously with God-like, out-going, agape-love. By emulating the humility of Christ we should develop a righteous, humble use of any power, authority, gifts and skills or possessions with which we have been entrusted by God. This in many ways is why the Beatitudes promise the Kingdom of Heaven to those of humble position in society [Matt.5:3-12; Lk.6:20-23].
Dictatorship and ordering all that we do, are not the sort of kingship and lordship that Jesus exemplified, taught or how he intended us to understand God and have a relationship with the Divine. We talk of God ruling the cosmos but God’s rule and Christ’s kingship do not direct the detail of the world in dictatorial ways. The kingship that Jesus exemplified leads the way for us to live as God intended for the best development of the world. God’s Holy Spirit and scripture guide and inspire us to follow Christ’s ways. We are intended to rule our minds and direct our actions to live, think and act, so that the best possible Kingdom-life will result.
Those who authentically follow Christ the King’s ways are worthy of a place in his Kingdom. Jesus described how we do this in practical ways: supporting the needy, feeding the physically and spiritually hungry, welcoming the stranger welcome, caring for the ill oppressed and vulnerable, alleviating the needs of the physically and spiritually poor, exemplifying Christ’s humility, witnessing to the truth effectively. Those who truly live in these ways show that the true nature of Christ is enthroned in their lives. This should be at the heart of what being Christians and being Christ’s body and subjects should be. If we are true subjects of Christ the King, we should imitate him in everything useful, until it becomes second nature to live like the loving, self-giving, holy, just and righteous King of Heaven, who has given us the lead, example and spiritual resources to succeed.
We call God ‘Lord’, and Christ ‘King’; we pray for God’s Spirit to ‘direct, guide and rule’ our life. But actually, don’t most of us, if we’re truly honest, want God to be a ‘constitutional monarch’? Most of us as Christians actually want God to allow us to do what we want? We often make our decisions independently before seeking God’s truth to affirm and bless our ways and planswe might recognise that following Christ’s teaching more closely would be a far better way. Jesus promised: “Those who truly love me will keep my teachings, and my Father will love them, and we will come into their life and dwell with them.” [Jn.14:23].
Although we are very aware of the distance of our world and even the Church from being truly like God’s Kingdom, Jesus teaches that there is more than the promise of the future. He claimed that there are many present aspects of the Kingdom. These include the assurance of salvation through what Christ has already achieved, the recognition that we are constantly in the presence of God and cared for by God, the unity expected between those who follow God’s ways, the importance of maintaining truth and righteousness and following the will of God in our lives.
If we truly want Christ to be king of our lives, for God to truly be Lord, and for God’s Kingdom to be built in the Church and in the world, our resolution for us and for the whole Church should be to follow God’s ways in every aspect of our lives. If God’s ways direct what we do, following his teaching, submitting all the strong drives we have to his will, getting to know what Christ wants us to do with our lives, our time, our resources, our gifts and skills, and using them to serve God and help establish his Kingdom on earth.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Can you truly say in your life: “Lord, Your Kingdom come; Your will be done on earth as in heaven”?
32/ Friday – JUDGE/ JUDGEMENT
“I can do nothing on my own. As I hear I judge, and my judgement is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me.” [Jn.5:30]. “Do not judge by appearances, but judge with right judgement.” [Jn.7:24]... “Whoever believes in me believes not in me but in him who sent me. And whoever sees me sees the one who sent me. I have come as light into the world, so that everyone who believes in me should not remain in darkness. I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge. For I have not spoken on my own but the Father who sent me has himself given me a commandment about what to say and what to speak. And I know that his commandment is eternal life.” [Jn.12:44-48].
The ideas of ruling and judging go together in scripture. The Judges and Kings were both rulers and decision-makers in legal matters [1Sam.8:20; 2Sam.15:4]. Solomon’s greatness was proclaimed through his wise judgements [1Ki.3:16-28], despite significant mistakes that led to the division of his kingdom after his death. Failed leaders in the two nations were often chronicled as making unwise decision or going their own way rather than following the ways of the Lord. Christ’s claim as teacher was that he was giving the words that would bring people eternal life, and avoid negative judgement. Yet the New Testament also emphasised that he would be the ultimate judge responsible for assessment of all.
God was regarded as judge from early times in Jewish theology; he made rules and was the leaders’ partner in decision-making. The covenant meant that the people were responsible to follow the laws that God revealed. The Law, even on rulership and society not regarded as ‘secular’: Israel was originally founded as a theocracy, where following God’s ruling meant that they should live justly. Sadly history shows that the world and God’s people developed far different ways of living and ruling from those stipulated in scripture. Jesus maintained that God’s ways are right and holistically just, because the nature of God is righteous, omniscient, omnipotent and faithful. Following God’s directions would lead to salvation: the Hebrew word mišpāṭ [‘to rule’ ‘judge’ and ‘give justice’] also came to be used for God’s ‘grace’, ‘mercy’ and ‘salvation’. Divine mišpāṭ would cover or cancel the effect of sin and renew God’s covenant with the righteous [Jer.30-31; Hos.20ff; Isa.28:17]. When the Messiah came he would establish God’s Kingdom with justice and righteousness [Isa.9:6ff]. God’s Spirit would help his people to observe his judgements [Ezek.36:27].
So judgement was something of which God’s people were to live in awe, but it was not to be feared if you kept to God’s ways. That is one of the problems with the over-emphasis on judgement in some churches through history. Some have put so much emphasis on fear that God is made to look like a petulant depot, over-sensitive to our failings. Such teaching overbalances the emphasis by Jesus on the qualities of love, mercy and grace. Jesus said that he had come to convict and reveal to the world God’s Judgement, and after he had left earth the Holy Spirit would continue the same revelation of sin, righteousness and judgement [Jn.16:8-11]. But Jesus’ whole nature and actions, it they reflected those of his Father, show that the concept of divine judgement is merciful and righteous. Although, in the Jn.12:44-48, Jesus said that his words, not himself, would judge people according to the ways that they responded, he also claimed that God had appointed him to execute judgement [Jn.5:22; 27; 9:36]. As his word and commandments were eternal and came from God, so his judgement would be just and right [Jn.5:30; 7:24; 8:16].
Judgement is not a threat to hold over people. The emphasis on sin and sacrifice in the temple and some sides of church preaching in the past tried to frighten people into obedience in following the ways of the Kingdom of God. Jesus words, rather encouraged people towards righteous living. His right judgement views God’s justice with awe rather than utter fear. “Perfect love drives out fear” [1Jn.4:18]. This has strong implications for our preaching and witnessing. As part of our mission we are intended to warn people and shed light on their dark ways, and guide and encourage them towards right living [Lk.16:28; Acts 20:31; Col.1:28;; 2Thess.3:15; 2Tim.2:14]. But the most effective way of encouraging people into the Kingdom of God and strong discipleship is to emphasise the benefits of living by the truth, and to encourage people to follow the true, just and caring and loving ways of God, rather than holding threats over them.
The idea of God’s judgement is partly uncomfortable for any of us, since we recognise that “all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” [Rom.3:23]. It calls us to live rightly. But Jesus’ teaching about God’s ‘grace’, ‘mercy’ and ‘love’ balances the discomfort. God’s justice is surely intended to be a positive characteristic, working towards the establishment of the Kingdom of Heaven. All the good and perfect qualities of God are part of the character of God’s judgement. Although we often consider judgement as a negative quality, scripture treats of it and regards the idea of God as judge as positive and affirming. This should certainly be the case if all of us were trying to live in right ways. It is an encouragement to love God for the perfection of God’s good qualities, and an incentive to live well, not live in terror.
Jesus’ statement in Jn.12 that he would not judge immediately, but that people’s reaction to his words of truth judge them would seem inconsistent with some of scripture’s teaching about Christ as Judge on the throne of heaven. The seeming contradiction might be explained by the fact that in the passage, prior to Jesus’ passion, he was explaining the need for people to follow his teachings. His emphasis is on the promise that he came primarily “to save the world”: "I do not judge anyone who hears my words and does not keep them, for I came not to judge the world but to save the world. The one who rejects me and does not receive my word has a judge; on the last day the word that I have spoken will serve as judge.” [Jn.12:47-48].
This should be a similar emphasis in our own ministry. Jesus is recorded as commanding the followers not to judge: [Matt.7:1-2; 12:27; Lk.6:37; 11:19; 12:57-8; 19:22; Jn.7:24; 8:15]. Judgement is the responsibility of the perfect nature of God. Most memorable is Jesus’ command: “Do not judge, so that you will not be judged” [Matt.7:1-2; Lk.6:37]. Jesus lived in a religious system where the leaders regularly judged others. He recognised the regular hypocrisy in this. His followers were to live with greater integrity. While we are intended to warn and encourage people to righteous living, we ourselves have no right to judge by rejecting others. The Epistle of James also encourages us not to judge our neighbour [Jas.4:12]. Our responsibility is to love our neighbours with outreaching ‘agape-love’, no to labour on criticism.
There’s another apparent contradiction in the Gospels’ teaching on Judgement. Jesus told people to “judge with right judgement” [Jn.7:24] and St. Paul’s regularly made criticisms of others in his epistles. The Greek word used in scripture [‘krinō' / ‘to judge’] can be translated in many ways, according to context: It can have the strong meaning of ‘to pass judgement’, ‘to condemn’, ‘to put on trial’, ‘to sue’ used legally. But ‘krinō’ can also have far gentler interpretations, that reflect the more caring discernment in the attitudes of God and people: ‘to reach a decision’, ‘to convince’, ‘to separate’, ‘to select’, ‘to govern’, ‘to determine’, ‘to resolve’, ‘to think’, or ‘to choose’. The words ‘judge’ and ‘judgment’ have regularly been regarded in the Christian Church to imply that human judgements and God’s judgement should be like bringing something to trial before a dominant judge on a judgement-seat. But the wide variants of meaning in the word ‘krinō’ demonstrate how human judgement and that of God’s could be regarded as making far gentler and more loving choices according to what is right. Merciful and gracious discernment is far more in-keeping with the image of God that Jesus portrayed, and the discernment that he himself showed towards people in various situations. We may be encouraged to make our own righteous choices and to judge situations with just judgement, but our spiritual discernment needs to be far gentler and Christ-like, rather than the censorious judgement that has often been a feature of Church history.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How do you respond to the idea of the justice of God and judgement? Are you afraid of God or confident that you are regarded with love, grace and mercy?
33/ Saturday – LORD
“Not everyone who calls me Lord, Lord will enter the Kingdom of heaven, but those who do the will of my Father in heaven’ [Matt.7:21]... Martha said: “Lord, I believe that you are the Messiah, the Son of God, the one coming into the world.” [Jn.11:27]
‘Lord’ seems a simple word; Christians often use it very easily as a title for Jesus, almost lie calling someone ‘sir’. But it carries many implications when we relate it to Christ, as scripture and Church doctrine attest. In the Bible it is used with various connotations. It is used to designate human lords, rulers and to translate the Hebrew names for God. The most special title YHWH / Yahweh ‘ Jehovah, ‘the one who is’ – ‘I am who I am’, [Ex.3:14] was treated with particular respect and reverence by Jews, and is capitalised ‘LORD’ in some modern translations. The more general names for God ‘Adonai’ and ‘Elohim’, also translated ‘Lord’, were also equally respected but could be named. In the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures the word ‘Kýrios’ was chosen to translate all names for God, possibly because it represented one who is absolutely superior rather than just for its connotations of power and control.
The title ‘Lord’ combines the ideas of holding power, authority, control, being the principal one or being strong and large. (The root of its Greek term ‘kýrios’ means ‘to swell’.) God in this context was believed be the principal one: God holds absolute power, control and authority over all as ‘Lord of lords’ [1Tim.6:15]. Everything in Creation was regarded as subject to God. God’s laws regulated all; rejection of one’s responsibility of subordination to God or God’s rules was sin.
‘Lord’ is also used in the New Testament in its secular sense. Kýrios’ can parallel the title ‘Sir’, or mean the owner of land, flocks or herds of animals and servants. To call someone ‘Lord’ recognised their superiority over you, as the jailer acknowledged Paul and Silas in Acts 16:30. So when Jesus was called ‘Lord’ by his followers in the Gospels, it did not necessarily recognise his nature as being divine, as was later inferred in passages like Col.2:6; Rom.10:9; 12:11, 14:4ff; 1Cor.15:28. The Resurrection was to Paul a distinctive sign of Christ’s lordship [1Cor.15]. Paul concluded that “as there is one God, the Father, so there is one Lord, Jesus Christ” [1Cor.8:6]. Belong in to him as ‘Lord’ gives members of the Church, his body, a personal relationship with our Lord [Rom.15:30; 1Cor.1:2], which is meant to distinguish us in some ways from the world [Rom.16:18]. This distinction is nullified if we fail to live in obedience to Christ’s lordship and make ourselves lords of our own lives.
Jesus accepted the title ‘Lord’ of himself, and even assumed it himself: [Matt.7:21-22; 9:38; 22:41-45; MK.5:19; Lk.19:31; Jn.13:13.] It seems to have been intended in John’s Gospel especially to mean far more than ‘Master’, but to have a higher meaning, just as ‘Adonai’ had for God’s lordship in the Hebrew Scriptures.
But how much is this true of the contemporary Church worldwide and of our individual lives? Jesus himself recognised that not everyone who called him “Lord, Lord’ was truly part of his Kingdom [Matt.7:21]. Jesus’ double emphasis on the word ‘Lord’ seems to contain a sense of the irony that those who feel the need to repeatedly proclaim their faith or promote themselves as sanctified, righteous and committed, are not always the truest disciples. Their actions or mental attitude towards God may not be as humble and committed as those who are quieter about their faith. This is pictured in the Parable of the Tax Collector and the Pharisee [Lk.18:9-14], Jesus claimed that the distinction of being part of the Lord’s Kingdom was reserved for those who obeyed his word, followed his ways and were dedicated to him in their inner selves – body, soul and spirit. How far is this true of our lives? I must admit that examining my own life in writing this leaves me ashamed, with the knowledge that I have far to go! Thankfully our salvation is not dependent on our actions but on God’s grace, as Ephesians stresses, especially Eph.2:8-10. But our obedience to God’s commands should reflect our recognition of God’s lordship.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Do you truly allow God to be Lord of your life and activities? Are Christ’s teachings at the heart of your thinking and actions?
In what areas of your life is it most difficult to offer Lordship to God? Are there reasons for this?
WEEK 6: BLESSINGS BROUGHT THROUGH CHRIST
34/ Sunday - BELIEF
‘Jesus said [to the man born blind, who he had healed] “Do you believe in the Son of Man?” He answered “And who is he, sir? Tell me, so that I may believe in him.” Jesus said to him “You have seen him. The one who is speaking to you is he.” He said: “Lord. I believe”. [Jn.9:35-38]
Friends have sometimes said to me that it must be comforting to be able to believe in Christianity and affirm that they would like to believe but can’t. Being a natural sceptic myself, and so often wanting to understand things that I recognise are beyond comprehension, I know their difficulties. The words that most speak to me today in the passage above are when Jesus says: “You have seen him. The one who is speaking to you is he (the Son of Man).” As the healed man was born blind, Jesus would literally have been the first person he would have seen! Even though I try to give people reasons and evidence for belief, we can never prove to another that our faith is true, not having seen or experienced what the disciples witnessed.
Several psychologists and therapists have acknowledged that having a belief in a benevolent helping power beyond us to which we pray can have a beneficial effect on one’s mind, whether such belief is true or not. This may be the case, but as St Paul said, if our trust is not in the truth, we are to be pitied for we are laying our hope, often struggling with challenges and occasionally laying down our lives based on false assumptions and futile trust [1Cor.15:19]. The Christian faith is not always as comforting as it seems; living a truly Christian life is hard for most of us. But I firmly believe that what I have found in faith is based in truth.
In the New Testament, ‘believe’, ‘faith’ and ‘trust’ are often translations of the same Greek words, ‘peithō’ and ‘pistis’ [cf. Meditation 5]. This link emphasises, as I have written elsewhere, that belief is not primarily the list of doctrines to which church-members ascribe. Belief needs to include how truly we act upon it; how we are committed to, live by, act and trust in the truths in which we believe. Faith is not just something to hold onto in hard times, or to affirm at baptism, confirmation or in the creeds and vows made during a service. It should be the foundation on which the whole of our lives, plans and decisions are structured, and by which our actions are governed.
At baptism we made certain pledges to God and affirmed the principles of Christian belief, or had them affirmed on our behalf by parents, godparents or sponsors. That affirmation of belief should have been just an early stage in the process of development of belief, which should continue and deepen throughout our Christian lives. Even my ordination vows and affirmations of belief were just a beginning of exploring my beliefs further. Despite over forty years of exploring and studying faith and theology up to that point, I did not have sufficient comprehension of my faith and have needed to keep deepening and reconsidering what belief really means, as we all should. The words of the Creeds or a baptismal confession are very basic foundations. They affirm belief in God the Father and Creator, Jesus Christ the incarnate Son, Lord and Redeemer, and God’s Holy Spirit as present ‘giver of life’ and guide, and belief in whatever life beyond death Christ ensured for us. Certain creeds add further details, some of which were designed to clarify doctrinal debates at the time of their composition. But the creeds are only foundational statements. They do not define the whole of Christian life. One of their major values is their concision and general nature: they provide a sound basis from which all Christians can build their belief. Their generalised statements leave room for wide interpretation, which should be useful in helping to create unity among a variety of people. Different Christians can share belief the same basic doctrines, yet vary in their understanding of the meaning of those doctrines. Sharing the same basic creeds should help to clarify that we are ‘one’ with these other Christian groups, but too often Christians judge others by how they interpret fine aspects of faith, like those scribes and Pharisees who Jesus criticised as ‘blind guides... who strain out a gnat and swallow a camel’ [Matt.23:24
But the creeds answer very few of the theological problems and challenges which modern, thinking Christians discover, when we truly explore our faith and the different interpretations considered by varying groups of Christians over the centuries. As we develop our Christian minds we start to wonder: ‘what is this power we call God’?; ‘how did God create?’, ‘in what way was Jesus God’s ‘son’?’; ‘what does it mean that Christ is ‘Lord’?; ‘how did his incarnation, death and resurrection benefit and affect us?’; ‘in what way is the Holy Spirit involved in my life now?’ and many other questions. The Roman Catholic Church has a voluminous manual or ‘Catechism’ listing their beliefs more specifically. Other churches use statements or articles of doctrine, ‘systematic theologies’ or shorter catechisms to clarify their beliefs. These are really useful but none of these are actually our ‘personal beliefs’. Those depend on how we relate such doctrines within our own lives and the ways we trust the God which the words of the creeds describe.
When Jesus told the leader of the synagogue, whose daughter he was about to heal: “Do not fear, only believe” [Mk.5:36], he was not expecting his hearers to understand everything, just to trust. This was also the case in the situation of healing where the boy’s father declared "I believe, help my unbelief” [Mk.9:24]. Much of the time our faith is based on trust rather than comprehension. If we waited to understand everything about faith before we committed ourselves to it, there would be no one in the Christian Church (or maybe a few arrogant, self-congratulatory, deluded members who do not recognise or acknowledge the limitations of their comprehension.) Perhaps Heb.11:1 describes the closest point to which we can come in understanding belief: “Faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the knowledge of things unseen.” Thomas met the risen Jesus and believed, but Jesus responded that “Blessed are those who have not seen, yet have come to believe” [Jn.20:29]. Similarly St. Paul emphasises that Christians “walk by faith and not by sight” [2Cor.5:7].
The limitations in our knowledge should not be allowed to limit our activities as Christians. Trusting belief encourages and empowers us to act and to pray, even when we cannot know the outcome. One reason why it is important for Christians to try to continually strengthen their foundational knowledge of the Christian faith is to be able to act with a degree of assurance. Although Jesus commended the faith of little children and recommended that his followers emulated the child’s trust in God [Matt.18:2-5; 19:13-15; Mk.10:13-16; Lk.18:15-17], he aimed for us to deepen our faith. That is one of the reasons why in Jn.14 and 16 he promised that the Holy Spirit would come to help them remember his teaching and guide them into deeper understanding. We rely on the Holy Spirit’s guidance and teaching, but we can also help to strengthen our faith by considering and working out what we believe and why. St. Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews were critical of those Christians who always needed “milk not solid food” [1Cor.3:2; Heb.5:12-14]. To be effective disciples of Christ we need to allow his Spirit to be constantly challenging us and strengthening our understanding, in order to be able to witness effectively and be able to explain belief to others.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- Meditate on the creed which you most frequently say in church and beliefs affirmed at your baptism. What parts do you find most easy and most difficult to understand or believe? Contemplate these.
- In what ways does your life not live up to the beliefs which you profess?
35/ Monday – WAY
“I am the way, the truth and the life, no one comes to the Father except through me” [Jn.14:6].
Jesus guided humanity towards the best way of life, expressed truth in his teaching, and exemplified the essence of what life should be by his own life and actions. ‘Way’, ‘Truth’ and ‘Life’ are part of the same one gift of wholeness that God offers us and directs us towards.
The phrase that follows Jesus’ claim to be the way, truth and life: “no one comes through the Father except through me”, is uncomfortable to interpret in our multi-cultural world. Surely the holy, righteous and loving God who Jesus described and exemplified is inclusive in showing love and would not reject all the good people in the world who are not Christians? Many of them often seem far better people than some who claim to be Christians! For centuries Christianity promoted the exclusiveness of Jesus’ statement. But perhaps that is not what Jesus was conveying. Perhaps his saving act worked in such a way that it opened the possibility of salvation for all those beyond his temporal reach and the Church’s ministry, who live by the level of truth that has been revealed to them, or which their minds and consciences teach them.
Like many, I was brought up in a Church tradition which interpreted Jesus’ phrase to mean that Christianity has exclusive access to the true God. Other religions were regarded as, at best, mistaken, though some believers narrowly regard other religions as evil and misdirected. My understanding widened about 30 years ago through reading Arthur Holmes book “All Truth is God’s Truth”. Although an Evangelical, writing for an Evangelical publishing house, he concluded that ‘all that is of truth in the cosmos is of God’. Holmes used the imagery of God’s truth as an enormous planet. Religions, philosophies, reason, scientific research, creative thought etc. are like mines tunnelling into it for understanding. Each way may discover precious stones, nuggets and layers of truth that are useful for nourishment, healing and help in understand aspects of God and life. With our limited perspectives no one and no religion can ever understand the WHOLE of God or the whole of truth. Instead we all look for, and find in the faith we follow, those truths that enable us to relate most meaningfully to God, help us to live with integrity and to help the human race to flourish.
Christians believe that in Jesus God directly revealed himself, living and teaching truths that show the true character of God. Jesus claimed: “Seek and you will find, ask and it will be given to you” (Matt. 7:7). I believe this to promise that God will reveal to any who truly want to know God and honestly seek truth and a right way of life with integrity, something of divine and eternal truth , whatever their culture or background. One of the responsibilities of the mission of Christians is to help to reveal God to others as truthfully and clearly as Jesus revealed him. Christ opens our access to God in a relationship based on love and awe, not fear and terror. Human attempts at personal righteousness or intellectual endeavour will always be insufficient to access God, since we all fail. Christ overcame our inability through the saving action of God himself.
Other religions too believe that their understandings and practices bring true access to God. Our role is not to try to combat these in the hostile ways that so damaged the reputations of Christians through the Crusades, Reformation and Counter-Reformation and religious bigotry in some contemporary church cultures. Rather, our aims should be to develop our own faith and nourish that of others in ways that draw all closer in relationship with God and enable us to flourish holily in our lives, society and culture. That will be a positive witness to those outside the Christian faith. Only God knows what is true and what is mistaken in our interpretation of what Christianity has revealed and in other religions. I am sure that there are areas where we still misunderstand biblical teaching.
Jesus said “By your fruits you shall know them” [Matt.7:16 & 20]. True religion should unveil some of the mystery we call God, as well as bring peace, life, love, wholeness, harmony between peoples, mental wellbeing, security and growth in true human understanding. False religion brings narrow, dead enslavement, division, negativity and persecution rather than freedom, love and truth. Militant extremists in all religions (even the Church) often aim to dominate politically or socially rather than extend human knowledge and expand our comprehension of the breadth of God’s truth. Our common ground with various faiths and ways of living should be the aim for truth. Many nuggets mined by Christians are similar to truths discovered by believers following other paths. Of course I feel that the truths I have found as a Christian are more full and closer to truth than other philosophies and religious interpretations: I would not be a Christian if I did not: But I recognise that my beliefs only scratch the surface of spiritual understanding.
By saying that he is ‘the Way’, I do not believe that Jesus was saying “There is only one way to follow and understand God.” God made us all different. Even Christians of the same congregation relate to God differently because our personalities, minds, spirituality and experiences are so varied. Anyone who attempts to make a congregation homogenous or to unify understanding, will inevitably water-down true Christianity to something that is over-simplistic and does not relate realistically to the varied lives and ways of understanding of other people in the community, let along the world. God made us so different from one another that it is no wonder that peoples divided by culture and continents developed different understandings of God and varied ways of interpreting, worshipping and relating to God over centuries of human development. Of course I wish that everyone could accept Christianity as I do, because, to me, my faith makes the most sense of life, revelation, history and experience. But life isn’t that simplistic or comfortable! There will be millions of people in the world who believe that their personal interpretation of faith is right, but theirs may not suit the understanding of many others.
If Jesus meant his words “I am the way... no one comes to the Father except through me” to apply universally, perhaps they refer to the access to God that he has created, particularly through achieving ‘salvation’. He claimed that if any want to understand God they can look at every aspect of Jesus: “If you know me you know the Father” [Jn.14:9]. St. Paul claimed that part of the nature of God can be comprehended through the world [Rom.1:20], through human reason, through religious tradition and teaching, through our experiences, or through mystically reaching for truth. But more directly we believe that we see so much of the character and teaching of God revealed in Jesus. Christians believe that Jesus taught truths which truly invigorate life. But for those who are reaching for God outside Jesus’ revelation and who live by the righteous ways taught by their alternative culture, it may be that Christ’s saving action can still be effective for them. In achieving salvation ‘once for all’ [1 Pet.3:18], Christ brought all human beings the possibility of a close relationship with God. All are welcome to come to God because Jesus has created access for us. The Christian mission is to relate to God as Jesus revealed truth, and to show people how they can know God through him, not to disparage the beliefs of others.
Jesus also emphasised that the way to God does not come easily. The idea that God loves all and will work to save all may contain numerous truths, yet is most probably far too simplistic. He reminded us that “... The gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it” [Matt.7:13-14]. We need to aim to follow ways of righteous, ethical, loving, harmonious, whole and holy living, as Jesus revealed it. Aiming to discover the truth and authentically follow the ways that you know to be right in all areas including faith is not an easy path. Yet Jesus gives us that call, with many challenges and incentives to advance us towards a life-giving and true relationship with God, which we can share with others.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What ways has Christ revealed to you, which you do not yet follow sufficiently?
36/ Tuesday - FOLLOW – Mk.4:14,19; 8:19; 10:3,8;
“Follow me and I will make you fish for people” [Matt.4:19]... “Teacher I will follow you wherever you go...” [Matt.8:19]... “If any want to be my followers, let them deny themselves, take up their cross and follow me.” [Matt.16:24].
When Jesus called people to follow him and to follow God’s ways, he did not expect blind obedience. He taught people and reasoned with them, as we know from his discussions with Nathaniel, Nicodemus, the rich young ruler and in Mary and Martha’s home in Bethany. He was called ‘rabbi’/ ‘teacher’. Rabbis taught by discussion, challenging and reasoning; they encouraged their followers to debate in order to reason through the truth. But most importantly the religious teacher was meant to set an example of spirituality, wisdom and knowledge, which their disciples were meant to follow.
When Jesus left he promised that he would send ‘another ‘paraklete’ which means: ‘encourager’, ‘advocate’, ‘one who comes alongside to help’ or ‘comforter’. The translation ‘comforter’ is based on the Latin ‘confortare’ / ‘to strengthen’. In this context the Holy Spirit is meant to be interpreted as ‘one who gives strength, courage and fortitude’, rather than just one who sympathises). God does not do the work or the thinking for us; we are expected to use our minds, wisdom, intuition and skills to develop understanding of what we should do in life, based on God’s guiding precepts, and God’s Spirit is with us to bring to mind and help us apply what we have already been taught [Jn.14:26; 16:12-13]. Thus following Christ entails obeying his teaching, mirroring his character and example, following God’s rules and aims and listening for and being open to the guidance of the Holy Spirit.
In following Christ, the biblical imagery of sheep following a shepherd can be both useful and dangerous. Cynics sometimes claim that Christians follow belief ‘like sheep’. There may be some believers who follow over-simplistically, but blind following of faith is not the intention of the imagery. Sheep as Jesus talked about them “know their masters voice” and “listen” to it [Jn.10:3-4, 16]: They trust that Christ cares for them [Jn.10:27], leads them to the best pasture and watering places [Jn.10:4; Ps.23], looks after them in danger [Matt.10:16], searches for them when lost [Lk.15:4-6], even lays down his life for them [Jn.10:11,15]. “Not one of them is lost” because of the extent of his care [Jn.17:12]. Jesus claimed to have come for his people out of God’s mercy because they were “like sheep without a shepherd” [Matt.9:36; Mk.6:34]. The former ‘shepherds’ (kings, priests, rulers, false prophets and leaders) had too often deserted their care and not worthily led the flock [Jn.10:12-13], so they were not worthy of being followed [Jn.10:5]. When a Palestinian shepherd moved his flock along safe ways he did not drive them from behind, as many western shepherds do; he walked ahead of the sheep and the flock followed him because the sheep regard him as their trusted leader rather than as their drover. Unlike the tyranny which some leaders may have shown in the past, we are not driven by God against our will, we are given free-will and reasoning minds to work out, with Christ’s Spirit’s aid and inspiration, the right paths for us.
In the Hebrew Scriptures people were commended for ‘walking in God’s ways’ [Deut.5:30]. The disciples of prophets and rabbis followed them, as Elisha followed Elijah [1Kgs.19:20-21], learning from them, watching their example, becoming inspired by the same spirit, developing similar understandings of God and proclaiming a similar message. That is basically how we should follow Christ, as his disciples did. We are not mere cyphers; we retain our individuality, personality, independent thinking and action. Yet true disciples develop a relationship and total commitment to the work of their leader. In the disciples’ case they became participants in the bringing of salvation to the world, following Christ’s example and commands [Mk.10:17; Lk.9:61-2; Jn.8:12; Rev.14:14].
‘Following’ is not always easy; Jesus’ disciples shared his suffering [Matt.8:19-20; Mk.8:34; Jn.12:25-26]. They reckoned this as worthwhile because their mission was to share truth, to advance the world and the lives of its people. In an age where the Christian commitment of some church-goers is often weak or half-hearted, it is uncomfortable to read the words attributed by Matthew to Jesus: “whoever does not take up the Cross and follow me is not worthy of me” [Matt.10:38]. Matthew may have been writing his Gospel for communities of persecuted Jewish Christians exiled from Jerusalem, possibly in Syria, so these words would have been an encouragement to persevere for those who were already outcast or suffering. Perhaps in a contemporary world where the attitude towards Christianity may be far more bland, patronising or sceptical, the command to follow can act as an encouragement to practice our faith and mission more radically. The Church as a whole does not yet follow Christ as effectively as it should, or its message might have a stronger effect. Yet those who follow authentically could make the Church stronger and more abundant.
Following Christ today involves not merely acting according to the letter of the Bible and thinking that we are thereby doing God’s will. We live in very different cultures, which are far removed from biblical times. Truly following Christ today requires working out wisely what the spirit of Christ’s teaching is in any particular case, and applying it to our varying situations and activities. This again is a challenging activity, not always easy to distinguish, but we are given minds to use and God’s Spirit to aid us. As the ‘paraklete’ God’s Spirit does not ‘lead’ or ‘direct’ us. ‘Para’ in this context means that the Spirit comes ‘from’ the Father and Son [Jn.6:46; 15:26] to work ‘alongside’, ‘beside’ ‘accompanying’ us. Christ has given us the lead and example; God’s Spirit can now inspire and guide us as we work out how we are to follow faithfully in our particular situations and experiences.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Do you ‘follow’ Christ as closely and committedly as a true disciple is meant to do?
In what areas of life do you need to interpret Jesus’ teaching and follow the lead of God’s Spirit’s more wisely.
37/ Wednesday– OBEY – Jn.3:36; Mtt.8:17; 28:20; Mk.1:27;
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments.” Jn.14:15]... “Go and make disciples of all the nations, baptising them... and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you.” [Matt.28:19-20].
There is a distinction between ‘believing’, ‘following’ and ‘obeying’. ‘Believing’ is primarily mental assent – a certain level of acceptance that there is truth within faith. ‘Following’ is a stronger level of trust that recognises that it is worth practically aligning ourselves what we believe, and committing ourselves to do so. ‘Obeying’ is even more active: those who are obedient step out to do those things that faith requires of us. Following and believing do not necessarily imply obedience, though they should. Jesus emphasised that in the faith which he was encouraging it was not enough just to believe in God or in the way of life that he was advocating. One needed to commit oneself to one’s beliefs through action. Nor was it sufficient to just follow him like a hero, regard him as one’s heroic model, recognise the truths in his philosophy or to claim to love him. Those who truly love and recognise the truth in him will demonstrate their trust in the way that they obediently follow his teachings [Jn14:15].
It is relatively easy to say that we believe our faith to be true, to make vows to follow God’s ways, even to say or sing that we worship God or love Jesus’ for what has been done for us. It is much harder to live according to one’s beliefs and obey the leading and prompting of God. Jesus did not just want ciphers or automata who could recite doctrines and teach beliefs; he aimed to build followers who would put his teachings and commands into practice, spread his ways across the earth and learn to apply his teaching in different situations and cultures. The way to change the world for good is just not to believe or say he right things but to do right and promote God’s ways to others with a sensitivity that communicates and makes our mission effective.
The corollary to Jesus’ words is uncomfortable: if we don’t obey him perhaps we don’t really love him. That may seem hard, but Christ’s intention was to leave a group of active followers who would build what we now call the Church. Through their lives, and witness they would continue Christ’s work throughout time and help to bring the Kingdom of God. If we are not doing that we are not following him, and therefore, according to Jesus’ words, we can’t really love him sufficiently or claim that we are truly committed to his teaching.
One of the great problems of the worldwide Church is that not enough members truly follow in the way that Christ intended. Churches, institutions and individuals are often over-involved in self-maintenance, ministering to their own limited congregations, promoting their importance or claiming their distinctiveness from other believers. We don’t sufficiently reach out beyond our personal comfort zones to support the needy, advance truth, and advance God’s Kingdom throughout the world. It is too easy to be insular, or to give sporadically from our surplus. Similarly, the search to enhance our individual spirituality can become self-centred or self-indulgent if it is not outward-looking. There are thousands of books on different forms of spirituality and prayer. It is possible to use them self-centredly to build up our sense of our own interior selves or indulge in contemplation, without recognising that obedience to Christ calls us to share what we are learning about God and truth with others. Spiritual advance should be encouraging us to be more active, outgoing disciples. In his times of interior prayer away from his disciples, Jesus was seeking direction from his Father to guide, strengthen and prepare him for active ministry. He did not regard his close relationship with God as something to be held onto, but as the foundation on which he built his active mission.
Obedience requires us to be open to hear instructions, to take heed of them, being persuaded that what we hear is right, to consent to obey then to actively follow. To obey in Greek ‘peitharchéō’ carries all these meanings. It comes from a root word ‘peithō’/meaning ‘to convince’, ‘persuade’, ‘and cause to trust’. If we are convinced and trust that God’s ways are the best directions for abundant human life, we are more likely to obey and follow diligently. Disobedience is likely to occur when we either distrust the efficacy of God’s instructions or have such strong wills that we do what we want even if we know it is not the best way. Paul’s inner struggle with the ‘flesh and the spirit’ [Rom.7:14-24] shows that even the most committed saints find themselves drawn to disobey and indulge their own wills.
The Letter of James emphasises that true Christians should “be doers of the word and not just hearers who deceive themselves.” [Jas.1:22]. This implies that we should not just be following a normal, good lifestyle, or acting according to conscience, but should be actively listening and seeking God’s instructions. How many of us read scripture or look at the world around us openly, in a positive search for what we should be doing? In the instances where we are told that Jesus left his followers to pray, he appears to have been actively seeking strength, guidance and direction from his Father. This active listening was the source and power behind his ministry. Perhaps the Church worldwide lacks Christ-like strength and persuasion in its ministry and mission because it relies too much on its traditions or ‘does what it has always done’. Instead we should also be open to new ways, as well as following what has already proved effective, meaningful and fruitful, listen for guidance from God’s Spirit and the spiritually wise. If we all more diligently searched scripture and tried to discern the Spirit more, we might find in what ways God is working fruitfully in the world and align ourselves with God’s ways more effectively. It is comfortable to follow our traditional ways, but when Christians have been challenged to go beyond our comfort zones, the church has often advanced more dynamically. A static Church is a disobedient Church and will eventually die spiritually and numerically.
Part of being obedient to God and following Christ’s example requires committed prayer. Over-active Christians sometimes neglect the more meditative and contemplative sides of prayer and just ask God to bless their self-guided efforts. We should make ourselves more reliant on God’s Spirit for guidance, as true ‘meditation’, in the Christian meaning of the practice, can help us towards . The life of prayer is not a passive one. Lectio Divina encourages us to think-through the true meanings, implications and instructions of scripture and put them into practice in our daily life. Learning to meditate on scripture, life and aspects of our faith and practice can deepen our understanding of what we should be doing in response. Contemplation consolidates that into our minds and enables us to work out how to put faith into practice most effectively and wisely. Intercessory prayer can then strengthen our reliance upon God and help to direct us. Vigorous intercessory prayer commits us to actively helping those for whom we pray. These all help to guide us and prompt us to active obedience and discipleship.
Though Jesus’ teaching about how to obey God was probably in Aramaic, when we try to be obedient to Christ, it is useful to remember the implications of the various meanings within the Greek term for ‘obedience’: Obedience included being convinced, persuaded and trusting that what we hear that we should do is right, because we trust its source. We remain open to hear instructions and take heed of them. We consent to follow and obey because we trust in the truth of what we are being asked to do. Then we act obediently by acting positively in the ways that we have been shown. Obedience to God is not a slavish or automaton-like response to a command; it can be a reasoned recognition that what we are asked to do is the right way for all. Jesus no longer called his disciples slaves or servants; he called them ‘friends’, because they knowingly were involved in the mission that he explained to them [Jn.15:15]. Unlike military soldiers who are sometimes trained to obey orders automatically, without hesitating to think, the active Christian is encouraged to puts conscious thought into their obedience, and consider their involvement in the mission of God..
We obey God because we are part of a valued team working for a common and glorious aim. Christians are not cyphers, automata or brain-washed slaves, following a will that we do not understand. The ultimate example of this is Jesus’ wrestling in prayer in Gethsemane on the night before he sensed that he was to be executed. He was struggling with the will to survive and not face the agonies ahead. Yet he had come to know God’s plans and aims; he was united with his Father in understanding those aims, and how salvation was to be achieved. As a result he willingly and lovingly committed himself to his part in the mission, despite the agony ahead. Hopefully most of us will not be required to go to such extremes in our own discipleship, though some in the early church and in other cultures and times have faced very similar challenges. What is important in obedience is that we try to recognise the place that we are intended to play in expanding and bringing God’s Kingdom, and accept and act upon the responsibilities with which we are entrusted.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How do you listen to God’s instructions? Is your spirituality based on active listening and openness to receive from God? Have you an idea of what place you are able and asked to fulfil in God’s plan for the world, however small?
38/ Thursday– RECEIVE
“Everyone who asks receives, and everyone who searches finds, and to everyone who knocks the door will be opened...” [Lk.11:10]... “He breathed on them and said to them “Receive the Holy Spirit” [Jn,20:22]...”Whatever you ask for in prayer with faith you will receive” [Matt.21:22]
From our experience of the difficulties of life, we should not interpret Jesus’ words above too simplistically. Life is hard, and our requests from God in prayer or in our wills and longings are not always so obviously seen to be responded to as a simple reading of Jesus’ promises might apply. Nevertheless, in most aspects of our relationship with God we are the ‘receivers’ and God the ‘giver’. Jesus emphasised that ‘all good things come from the Father above’ []. The Psalms are full of this recognition [Ps.13:6; 16:2; 34:8, 10; 65:4; 73:1; 84:11116:7 etc.]. As we are receivers of the bounty of God it is a reasonable response to acknowledge this with appreciation of what we have, in offering thanksgiving and gratitude. We all know how much closer we feel to someone when we acknowledge our true appreciation of a generous gift that they have given to us. A reciprocal feeling comes when we have given out of love and we receive authentic thanks, rather than being ignored or receiving a grudging acknowledgement out of politeness. Sincere thanksgiving for what we have received surely must draw us closer in our relationship with God.
Thanksgiving is a key attitude within prayer. Too often we resort to prayer as a form of asking and continuing to keep asking. Intercession in this way is an important aspect of prayer. Jesus commended it in his Parables of the Friend at Night, and the Persistent Widow [Lk.11:5-8; 18:1-8]. But thanking is a useful start to prayer, because it focuses us towards appreciation of the one to whom we are praying.
Because we are so used to thinking of God as ‘omnipotent’ ; the owner of the cattle on a thousand hills’ [Ps.50:10], we often approach God as though everything for which we ask can be given or achieved easily. But Jesus’ wrestling with the idea of self-giving in Gethsemane implies that there is a sacrificial element in God’s giving. We cannot, of course, know the mind and limits of God’s giving; the sacrificial element in God’s giving is just a supposition, though it has its roots in scripture and tradition. As we fail so often, I wonder how much the sacrifice of forgiving us pains God. Does God truth weep and wrestle over us as Jesus wept over the state of Jerusalem? [Matt.23:37; Lk.23:28]. “...how often have I longed to gather you into my arms, but you would not!” [Matt.23:37]. The imagery of the Psalms and prophets suggests God’s regular sorrow over his people. But this of course may be all metaphorical, for if God exists, God is a personal force, not a figure who could weep physically as God’s representation in Jesus wept over the sins, pains and fate of others.
In receiving we should recognise and acknowledge that things do not always come easily. We appreciate it particularly when the receiver recognises in their thanks that we have carefully selected or self-sacrificially procured the gift that we have given. I often take enormous time and thought over the choice of gifts: I collect them throughout the year, when I see exactly the right gift for someone. Sometimes I have appropriate gifts in store for several years ahead, which I recognised would be appreciated. God’s knowledge of us and the wisdom in God’s truth are so much greater than ours. Surely this means that those things that we receive are carefully selected with the knowledge of how we could use them and appreciate them. It is for us to work out how to use effectively what we have received. I cannot believe that God moves people like pawns with no choice, or that God governs the events of our lives like a puppet-master. That is not the Christian God, as it is not the sort of God that Jesus taught about and represented.
Receiving from God requires us to wisely choose what to do with what we have received, then use it. If you are given a beautifully wrapped present, you do not just say ‘thanks’ and leave the gift aside unwrapped. You open the present and use it. If you really appreciate it and it is of real use to you, you use it often. However, in the Christian life many just accept gifts from God like ‘salvation’, ‘forgiveness’, ‘scripture’, ‘the Holy Spirit’s guidance, even ‘life’ itself and do not make the most of them.
What we receive we should also pass on. God doesn’t give us all that we have just for ourselves. Our material wealth is to be shared as much as our spiritual wealth. God’s Holy Spirit and the spiritual gifts and spiritual fruit are not developed in us for our own advance alone, but for the expanse of God’s Kingdom. The Spirit works in many of us in different ways. It is wrong, as some with Pentecostal experiences sometimes suggest, to consider that all should have similar spiritual experiences or gifts to their own. Paul himself wrote that “not all speak in tongues... prophesy... or have gifts of healing” [1Cor.12:30]. God gives to us according to his wisdom, to fulfil our needs and those of others, and primarily to aid the holistic mission of building the Kingdom of God. We receive in order to be able to use what we receive for the good of all, not principally for ourselves.
Christians have God’s Spirit in our lives to empower, teach, guide, inspire, motivate and encourage us to the mission of spreading God’s teachings and way of life to others. The Kingdom of God is not built just in individuals; it needs to be spread and shared by all believers and expanded to others within the world. Blessing is to be enjoyed though this corporate giving of what we have received from God and from others. St. Paul in speaking to the Ephesian elders reminded them of words of Jesus that are not recorded in the canonical Gospels: “It is better to give than to receive.” [Acts 20:35]. In our self-centred world, selfless giving is rarely people’s motivation, but it should be our aim, if we are to fulfil Christ’s mission.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How grateful are you for what you have received? Do you just take what you have for granted, or do you value it, give thanks and use it for the development of others?
39/ Friday– SERVE – Mtt.20:28
“The Son of man came not to be served but to serve” [Matt.20:28; Mk.10:45]... “I am among you as one who serves” [Lk.22:27].
After ‘love’, Jesus’ teaching about ‘service’ was perhaps the most important of his commands. Love and service go together; if we love others and love God, we are far more likely to serve them willingly and effectively. Similarly, love of God and love of God’s world go together. Jesus said that if someone claims to love him they will do as he commands [Jn.15:14]. The opposite is probably true, if we disobey or disregard Christ’s command to serve we do not truly love.
In the Israel that Jesus was addressing, a servant had very few rights other than to be offered freedom in the year of Jubilee, and even then, many did not accept that privilege and find freedom. Servants regularly returned to the condition of slavery from which they had been temporarily freed. In our contemporary world many despise the idea of servanthood to people or institutions, and claim their freedoms. Yet just as many are slaves to their own wills, passions, greed, self-assertiveness etc. Today many people insist on their rights – human rights, women’s rights, worker’s rights, children’s rights, racial rights, consumer-rights, the right to self-determine etc. Such rights are personally important and help towards a more just society.
However self-centredness, selfishness or self-promotion or the defence of one’s position do not often lead to the equitable society that is intended in the Kingdom of God. We should always remember that we have a greater responsibility serve and help others with love than just to advance ourselves. Christianity is not based on ‘self-before others’ or ‘survival of the fittest’, which are commonly promoted in social behaviour and modern commerce. Jesus is our example of using his life for the good and advance of others: “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down their life for their friends” [Jn.15:13]. When Jesus stripped off his outer garments and washed his disciples’ feet, he was physically demonstrating that he was withdrawing his rights as their master and showing them the example of servanthood [Jn.13:1-17]. ‘He did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited but emptied himself taking the form of a servant’ [Phil.2:6].
In Christianity the practice of serving is not a miserable one, unlike the idea that being a servant or slave in the Greek world was undignified, menial and devaluing. In Jewish culture service was not necessarily considered ‘unworthy’; it was a trusted position, which is possibly why Jesus used so many examples of servants in his parables. In religious service too much emphasis has often been placed on abasing oneself, even acting obsequiously. This may be a feature of some religions, but it should not be the case in Christianity. Though we should follow Christ’s example of humility and obediently, service is a noble calling. . Jesus did not just encourage us to be servants; he raised us by calling those who are doing what he commands ‘friends’ [Jn.15:15]. While we are all to take the role of servants of God and of society, we are valued. Jesus’ parables about servants regard good servants as ‘stewards’ - people trusted with responsibilities to care for the master’s world and all that the Father treasures. Some in Christian leadership and leadership in society may over-raise themselves or use influence, contacts, dishonesty or arrogance to gain promotion, even to be over-promoted, in order to advance their position and sense of authority. Yet true Christian authority in leadership is about accepting and taking steward-like responsibility, not having personal power or position.
‘Service ‘and ‘love’ are not just words to proclaim that we live by (hypocritically in some cases); they are actions and ways of thinking that we should be at the heart of our Christian practice. It is much easier to claim to love God and people, or to say that we are servants of God and others, than to actually practise love and service in all situations. In two instances, Jesus’ statements about servants are repeated within the same gospel: “A servant is not greater than their master” [Jn.13:16; 15:20] and “Whoever wishes to be greatest must be your servant.” [Matt.20:26; 23:11]. This repetition in Jesus’ teaching would seem to be intended to reiterate and emphasise the importance of recognising one’s position and responsibility of service. As with his emphasis on ‘humility’, Jesus’ focus on the concept of regarding ourselves as servants and serving God and others was at the heart of his own life. He set it as an ambition for his followers and showed by example how to live by service.
It is very easy for a Christians to claim to be a ‘servant of God’ or a ‘servant of Christ’, without really wanting to follow the will of the master. Many people in positions within the Church may claim to be God’s servants or ‘servants of the Church’ yet insist on their own way. Jesus spoke several parables about dishonest stewards, wicked servants and dishonest tenants [Matt.18:23-34; 21:33-41; 25:14-30; Lk.7:36-50; 16:1-13; ]. With his ‘woes’ against the scribes and Pharisees [Matt.23:13ff.] these all demonstrate the distinction which he drew between those who obeyed God’s leadership and those who were self-orientated. We often see similar weaknesses in people who claim to be ‘servants of the people’ in politics or various social roles, yet are manifestly ‘in it for their own good’.
There are many varied words for ‘serve’ and ‘servant’ in scripture, about twelve in all, depending on the form of service, but all include listening to the master’s word and doing his will. ‘Douleúō was to serve as a slave. A ‘diákonos’ served at table, cared for the master and was willing to undertake any command. ‘Therapeúō’ was to serve willingly; ‘latreúō’ to serve for wages; ‘leitourgéō’ to do public service. Jesus most often used the terms ‘diakoneín’ and ‘douleúō’, demonstrating that we are responsible for doing God’s will, yet are trusted with the care of God’s world. Servanthood is a high calling. If Jesus called us to be both ‘servants’ and ‘friends’, we should never be ashamed to follow in any way, no matter how menial. As I mentioned in Meditation 6 one of the roles of the ‘deacon’ in classical times the menial who emptied the latrine buckets. If the world is to be thoroughly cleansed by Christ, we should be ready to carry and dispose of the ordure in our world, in on our communities and in our churches. Christ on the Cross gave the ultimate image of willingness to serve for others’ good and because such service was the right thing to do.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
- Is service of God and others truly at the heart of your life and ministry?
- How is your church serving God and the world?
40/ Saturday – WITNESS / SHARE – Mtt.25:21
“You will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, in all Judea and Samaria and to the ends of the earth.” [Acts 1:8].
This command comes from Luke’s record of Jesus’ teaching immediately before his ascension. It was the source and explanation of most of the activities recounted in his book of the Acts of the Apostles. The instruction is similar to the record of Jesus’ command at the end Matthew’s of Gospel, though Matthew expands it: “Go therefore and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit and teaching them to obey everything that I have commanded you. And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.” [Matt.28:19-20]. The clear belief was that Jesus’ message is not just for a select few (Jews or a small group of Christians) but is relevant to the whole earth, even those with who’s lifestyles or beliefs some might be suspicious, as the Jews despised the Samaritans. Jesus’ disciples were to continue his mission and expand it throughout the known world.
When Jesus told his followers to “be my witnesses” he intended Christians to represent him authentically and responsibly to the whole world. This means that the Church and all who truly want to call themselves followers of Christ, need to be recognisable as Christ-like in all that we do and say. Individual Christians and particularly the institution of the Church often cause problems for the expansion of Christ’s mission when we indulge in practices in which we can often appear more intent on ourselves than on promoting Christ. This may include obsession with promoting our own spirituality and righteousness, wrangling in internal church politics, arguing over varying doctrinal interpretations, self-promotion by individuals, factions claiming superiority over others or vying for power, apparent obsession with finance and buildings, adopting uncaring business practices, attempting by stealth to increase the numbers in our pews primarily for financial rather than spiritual reasons, and other self-centred principles. Several of these may be important in securing the effective running of a church, but none should dominate over the development of our relationship with God through Christ.
Only a Church based on God’s truth will truly represent Christ. Honesty and humility in our witness are essential if we are to build a Church and a faith based on truth. If any believe that they can promote Jesus’ teaching by any form of dishonesty or self-promotion, they deceive themselves and others. This includes not pretending to the extent of our spiritual experiences and spiritual understandings. There have been multiple examples of such dishonesty throughout the history of the Church. Since the beginning of the church, some Christians have exaggerated their faith, invented legends of saints, expanded upon stories of miraculous experiences and visions, faked relics, anathematised those who do not agree with their interpretations of scripture or tradition, invented lies to promote themselves or relegate even destroy others. All untruths, even those developed for ostensibly good reasons, damage the honest witness to the truths of God and the example and teaching of Christ. Even if exaggerations or falsehoods might intend to, or temporarily seem to advance the promotion of Christianity, they are not in fact doing so; rather they get in the way of the advance of truth. There are no short-cuts to true witness. A church or a faith that is not founded on truth is not founded on Christ and is an aberration of what Jesus taught.
We often witness far more effectively by the integrity of our lives than by our words. People often judge our authenticity by how they see us living. Yet we should not allow that argument to be an excuse for not witnessing verbally and explaining the meaning of our faith. If a stranger watches one’s life, that will not explain the meaning and promises of salvation, atonement, cleansing or the hope of life beyond death. I may paint about my faith in my career as an artist, but painting alone is not a sufficient witness. Communicating and explaining Christ’s message requires words and actions. The first Epistle of Peter encouraged all Christians to “always be ready to make your defence to anyone who demands from you an account of the hope that is in you” [1Pet.3:15]. Of course most of us are insecure about how we will be able to explain our beliefs. There is so much mystery behind the Christian faith that it is truthful to accept that we do not understand everything. None know for certain in what ways Jesus was God’s representative, what ‘Son of God’ and ‘incarnation’ truly mean, and so much more. We do not know what aspects of the Gospels, let alone the rest of the Bible are described ‘as they happened’ and what have been invented or exaggerated in the telling, often for good reasons. We do not know how Jesus achieved salvation through the Cross, what exactly happened at the Resurrection, Ascension or Pentecost, what will happen beyond death etc.. So it is right to accept the gaps in our understanding when we witness. That honesty over admitting what we do not know can itself act as a truthful witness in the world, which is so often full of dishonesty, false claims and people pretending to greater knowledge than they really have.
Our understanding of Christ’s teaching is only partial, but I believe it is sufficient to have confidence that we are safe in accepting God’s promises recounted in scripture. If you, like me, are afraid of making a fool of yourself by the insufficiency of your witness, remember that Jesus promised that we are not alone in our witness. In the commands to witness at the ends of Matthew and Luke and Acts 1:8, Christ reminded us that he and God’s Spirit are with us. He further promised that the Holy Spirit will help us in what we say [Jn.14:26; 16:13]. We cannot ever convince or convict anyone of the truth of faith by our own arguments, however erudite and convincing our proofs. Conviction of faith and conversion happen through the inner work of the Holy Spirt. Nevertheless, this is not an excuse for not knowing our faith or developing convincing ways of explaining it to others. 1 Peter 3:15 remains important; we should all aim to be able to defend our reasons for the hope and faith in which we trust.
The Greek word which we translate as witness: ‘mártys’ is that from which the word ‘martyr’ derives. Fairly early in the history of the Church it became considered that martyrs who gave their lives in the cause of faith were those who had truly borne witness [‘martyréō’] to the greatest extent by remaining faithful even under threat of death. This interpretation of ‘witnessing’ to one’s faith by the sacrifice of one’s life had developed particularly through considering the Jewish heroes who suffered during the time of the Maccabees. The later persecution of Christians adopted the idea that they were ‘martyrs’. Unfortunately an unhealthy practice developed early in Church history of some believers deliberately seeking martyrdom because they felt that it would ensure one’s place in heaven. This partly derived from what I believe is a misinterpretation of St. Paul’s teaching that he ‘counted everything in life as loss for the sake of gaining Christ’ [Phil.3:7-8] and longing to be away from the torments of his bodily life and alongside Jesus Christ [2Cor.5:8-9; cf. Rom.7:23; 1Cor.9:27; Phil.1:22-24]. Many believers came to consider that the present life is worth little or nothing compared to the future life of heaven. Some came to despise human life on earth and long for a heavenly future. It is still seen in the ideas of some ascetics and religious foundations today, but seems more allied to eastern ideas of the lack of significance of material life than Christ’s teaching about the value of human lives. It can lead to unhealthy self-denials, almost a form of spiritual anorexia. Some reject aspects of living that are given to us by God and are intended for our enjoyment and use. God created life to be lived and enjoyed abundantly and responsibly, both now and in the future. Christians who despise contemporary life or are regarded as killjoys who do not live life to the full can damage our witness to others. Their attitude to life provides little incentive for those outside the church to believe that we have found a faith and lifestyle that are worth pursuing.
The true original meanings of the terms ‘mártys’/‘martyréō’ have little to do with ‘martyrdom’, though the word was sometimes used in the Greek translation of the Hebrew Bible for a sacrifice. In those cases, the sacrificed creature acted as a ‘witness’ or ‘assurance’ that the person offering a life was being true in their affirmation of allegiance to God. The terms ‘mártys’/‘martyréō’ derive from Greek legal words used in trials for those who come forward as accurate witnesses to confirm truth. That is where the term should most clearly apply to us: Christians should give accurate witness. A witness in Greek law was one who had personal knowledge through experience, not just head knowledge of the accuracy and truth of that which they affirmed. Greek philosophers used the term to distinguish between general or objective statements, and empirical truths of which we are convinced by personal experience. This is why it is so important to make sure that our own faith is real, not just ‘head knowledge’. People will be far more convinced of the authenticity of our beliefs if we show that we have lived by it, and found it true to our experience.
None of us today have lived alongside Jesus in the time of the Gospels, so cannot necessarily affirm the accuracy of the Evangelists’ accounts. But we can be sure that our faith is based on truth if we have lived it and experienced a living daily relationship with the ascended Christ and the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives. However, we must be careful to bear witness truthfully, without exaggerating our experience or dissembling. Different believers will have faced different experiences and problems or difficulties in believing and understanding. Honesty about our difficulties as well as our experiences may help others who are struggling with their own beliefs. None of us should pretend that faith is easy, if it has not been the case for us; it is rarely easy for others. Jesus himself said that if he himself suffered, as we remember so poignantly in Holy Week, his disciples could also expect to suffer similarly. He also admitted that he did not know everything, so there is no reason why we should have an answer to all the mysteries and problems in believing.
FOR CONTEMPLATION AND PRAYER:
How assured are you of the truth and authenticity of your faith? How might you be more authentic in the truth and reality of your witness?
WEEK 7: HOLY WEEK: RESPONDING TO CHRIST’S PASSION
41/ Palm Sunday – JOY
“.(I pray).. that my joy may be complete in them.” [Jn.17:13]
It probably seems strange to think about ‘joy’ at the beginning of the most solemn week of the Christian year. Yet we know that joy should develop from considering the achievements of Christ’s life, Passion and Resurrection. The angel’s message to the shepherds at Jesus’ birth was that he brought “good news of great Joy to all people” [Lk.2:10]. The assurance of security and salvation offered to us through the Passion should bring a sense of personal joy. Joy certainly seems to have been in the hearts of Jesus’ followers as they paraded him through the streets in his triumphal entry into Jerusalem, though Jesus’ own emotions on that day must have been extremely mixed. He was approaching the climax of his mission, which would bring both salvation and horrific pain.
‘Joyful’, in our modern, common, light usage of the word, is not an emotion one might immediately consider applying to Jesus. I can imagine him enjoying the Cana wedding [Jn.2:1-11] and fellowship during the meal in the house of the Pharisee [Lk.14:1], celebrating religious festivals (despite recognising some hypocrisy there), valuing the company of close friends and disciples, celebrating after a miracle of healing, feeling joy in personal times of worship and prayer with his Father, delighting in the natural or rural world he described in his parables. But our image of Jesus includes his seriousness, determination, frustrations in mission, and teaching those who were deaf to his message. Amid times of joy he was ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’[Isa.53:3]. So whatever ‘joy’ he felt must have been deeper than a bubbly surface emotion.
Jesus, as described in the Gospels, was content not morose, though even depressive people (which Jesus certainly wasn’t), are able to delight in beauty, love, acts of humanity and times of refreshment. His love for people and his relationship with his Father seem to have given him special delight. Christ ‘delighted to do God’s will’ [Jn.4:34; 6:38; Ps.119; Isa.11:3].
The main word for ‘Joy’, found repeatedly in Matthew, Luke and especially John’s Gospel is ‘chará’, which denotes delighting and rejoicing. There is a possible root link to the word ‘cháris’ which meant ‘practical, outreaching love and grace’. The ‘joy’ which Jesus knew is certainly part of God’s divine, outgoing loving nature towards all things. He had the assurance of God’s love of him. In difficult circumstances this can speak to us: we may not be in an obviously happy state or situation, yet we can still feel and experience deep inner joy. We can still sense our relationship with God to be real, and still feel linked to the value and quality of God’s Creation.
Joy is something that can grow as we share it. At one time I used to pray for about half an hour or more daily with the person who, at the time, I grew closest to, and cared for most. In prayer we held up to God the people, events and thoughts that were most on our minds. We shared good, bad and painful issues and memories. I don’t want to sound sanctimonious, but those times are among the most joyful memories of my life, even when we were sharing difficult things. Joy isn’t focused on ‘us’ or on what selfishly makes one happy and satisfies the self; it comes most in reaching out and feeling unity with others: We are not designed to be solitary. That is one reason why Jesus’ times of loneliness during the week before his death must have been heart-rending, and why he wanted his closet friends praying with him on his last night in Gethsemane. Unfortunately they failed to support him at the time he needed them most. I’m sure that we may all have similarly failed others who needed us.
Jesus prayed that his joy in his relationship with God might be in his disciples [Jn.17:13]. There was joy in knowing he was doing the right things in life and that he was a key part of the one who brought life. Jesus knew the joy of being secure in his loving relationship with God. He must also have felt a similar, though perhaps less assured joy in his relationship with companions, despite the frustrations which the disciples caused so many times in his ministry. Such contentment reaches far deeper into our consciousness than surface enjoyment. The ‘contentment’ aspect of joy can develop in our own lives, even in hard circumstances, as St. Paul recognised [Phil.4:11; 2Cor.12:10]. Joy is among the fruit that the Holy Spirit develops within us [Gal.5:22]. (I have discussed this in my Meditations on the Fruit of the Spirit, which can be found on my website.)
Within Holy Week it is possible to develop a deep and contented inner joy, confident that we are in touch with the truth that though Christ faced an horrific end, though his Passion he achieved so much for us. Holy Week is a time of sorrow and recognition that even believers, like those who welcomed Jesus into Jerusalem as Messiah, are very limited in the extent of their commitment. We can be fickle: those who praised him on his triumphal entry into the city quickly turned away after his arrest. Some may have been among those who called for the death-penalty before Pilate.. But Holy Week is also a time to recognise the depth of commitment which God has for human beings, and demonstrated through Christ. God gave so much, willingly and lovingly, to bring about salvation. If we approach Holy Week with the intention of discovering the potential joy that is to be found in God’s commitment to us, it can deepen our appreciation of Christ’s Passion. Our liturgies and meditative thoughts about Jesus facing and enduring persecution and suffering can become less maudlin when we contemplate his trials through the lens of the joy that his commitment to salvation achieved.
Many people are very active in our over-busy world, yet feel no joy in their work, their relationships or the rat-race of life, even when they consider they ‘have everything they could want’. One may have everything you ever thought you wanted but still not find deep inner satisfaction. Inner joy can only be ‘whole’ when our lives are whole and balanced, physically, spiritually and socially. The poor and single can find joy, as well as those who are financially stable or in committed relationships, as long as they do not cut themselves off from the spiritual aspects of life that truly satisfy and build joy. The tragic film character Citizen Kane built around him everything that money could buy, but achieved no joy. similar frustration and lack of satisfaction with what one has is also recognised in Jesus’ Parable of the Rich Man who demolished his barns to build them larger [Lk.12:18]. By contrast the Parables of the Treasure Buried in a Field [Matt.13:44] and the Pearl of Great Price [Matt.13:45-46] encourage us to be ambitious to find the truths and ways of life that will give the most satisfying joy.
Jesus talked about great “joy in heaven over one sinner who repents” [Lk.15:7-10]. His was surely not just referring to those who turn away from evil lives. His intention probably also includes those who alter their priorities to find the richest treasure or pearl of spiritual truth, and alter their priorities accordingly. In a scientific age, it seems strange to think that our lives and activities could create joy or sorrow in heaven, or please God, yet somehow Christianity teaches that we are linked to cosmic forces. Science and philosophy recognise that everything may be somehow interlinked. Just as we can damage or enhance the environment, we can damage or enhance the wellbeing of the whole inanimate and animate cosmos. I doubt if this is the simplistic idea, which Sunday School once taught, that God, the saints in heaven and our deceased loved-ones watch us, weep over us when we sin, or rejoice when we are holy. (Sensing that may be driven by guilt or the call of our conscience.) The joy of creation, sung about in some Psalms, and the joy of heavenly powers, is perhaps more to do with our intuitive sense that we are fulfilling our individual key roles in the correct running of the universe.
There are important differences between joy and the more surface emotion of ‘happiness’. According to Jn.17:13, Jesus found joy in his own role in salvation, even though he would not be particularly ‘happy’ in the process of achieving it. Hymn lines like “Yet cheerful he to suffering goes...” or “gladly the Cross I bear” can make the Passion seem far too easy for Jesus. They can also make the Christian attitude to suffering appear false and rather naïve, even if the hymns from which the lines come are deeply meaningful. Jesus was a real man, who felt real emotions and pain, even if he had support and assurance from his Father. Salvation was achieved through struggle, commitment and agony, even though the outcome of Christ’s Passion came to a glorious climax in Christ’s Resurrection and Ascension.
Towards the end of his life Jesus promised his followers that their joy would be complete [Jn.15:11; 16:20-24]. Thar joy would stem from the assurance of being ‘in him’ and among his Spirit still among them. Holy Week can be far more positive if we remember the imagery of labour-pains and birth that Jesus gave as a promise to his disciples shortly before his death: “A little while and you will no longer see me and again a little while and you will see me. Very truly I tell you, you will weep and mourn, but the world will rejoice; you will have pain, but your pain will turn to joy. When a woman is in labour she has labour because her hour has come. But when her child is born, she no longer remembers the anguish because of the joy of having brought a human being into the world. So you will have pain now, but I will see you again and your hearts will rejoice, and no one will be able to take that joy from you.” [Jn.16:20-22].
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What personal ‘joy’ can you find in contemplating the events and message of Holy Week?
42/ Monday – FEAR
“Perfect love drives out fear” 1Jn.4:18
Jesus’ commitment to achieving salvation for others intentionally aimed to remove the fear of death, God or the future for those who followed him. Fear of God or the gods, spirits and what lies beyond death has been a feature of a majority of world religions and cultures including the ancient Jews. Spiritual powers and death were regarded as enemies, perhaps largely because they were unknown. One had to obey the gods out of fear of punishment. For centuries the Christian Church also promoted following God’s ways through emphasis on fear. Threats varied from being consigned to Hell, excommunication and anathematisation, being shunned by the community and having fellowship with the congregation withdrawal. Being cut off from the Church was claimed to lead to damnation. If you Google “fear of God” you’ll find much writing and preaching on the topic from Christian writers who nearly always emphasise the teaching about fear from the old Covenant in the Hebrew Scriptures. One 8,000 word contemporary Reformed sermon on the subject (nearly an hour and a half long!) mentions no New Testament references whatsoever and offers very little hope for any but the exclusive group who are of the preacher’s persuasion!
Christ, by contrast, who spoke as though his knowledge of God was from direct experience, taught his hearers to understand God more intimately as a loving ‘Father’. His use of the very intimate term ‘Abba’/’Daddy’ hardly imagines God as a frightening despot. The imagery of a Father, as Jesus represented him, was not intended to terrify but to be deserving of honour and obedience. Jesus warned of consequences of not following the Father’s way for human life. He told people: “Do not to fear those who kill the body, rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body.” [Matt.10:28; Lk.12:4]. But he also balanced such statements with other teaching about God’s love and persistence in caring for his wayward children. To Jairus, when he believed his daughter was dead, Jesus said: “Do not fear, only believe” [Mk.5:36;] Later 1Jn. 4:18 encouraged the followers of God that “perfect love casts out fear”.
The term ‘fear’ appears a huge number of times in the Bible, most often in the context of fear of God. We are recommended to ‘fear the Lord’ but this is often intended as an encouragement to respond with ‘awe’, ‘respect’ and ‘reverential trust’ and follow this through with ‘obedience’. As Christian believers we are not intended to feel ‘terror’ but neither should the concept of ‘fear of God’ be watered down. There is a powerful sense throughout scripture that despite God’s grace and mercy, none should regard God as ‘an easy touch’ or neglect the truth for which God stands. We are mean to follow the true requirements revealed in scripture and by God’s Spirit out of respect, love, and recognition that in following such ways true life is to be found. In moving away from them, life can become a spiritual desert. We should fear a dearth of spiritual truth because it cannot lead to the ‘abundant life’ by which Christ intended his followers to flourish.
To ‘fear God’ in the sense of feeling awe towards, and respect for, God’s nature, power and truth, was seen as the way to true life. Prov.14:27 calls ‘fear of God’ a ‘fountain of life’; Prov.19:23 claims that ‘it leads to life’; Prov.10:27 claims that it will “prolong our days”. Jesus may have taught a lot about the love of God and our need for love. That sort of love certainly does ‘drive out fear” [1Jn.4:18]. But Jesus also said much about the consequences of not following God’s way. Perhaps love and fear always need to go together and be balanced in out conception of God.
Fear is usually a translation of ‘phóbos’, from which we derive the word ‘phobia’. Phóbos was actually the name of a terrifying Greek god, son of Ares the god of war and Aphrodite He was a personification of fear and panic, alongside his twin brother ‘Deimos’ [Terror], who spread chaos among armies. When the pagan gods revealed themselves they were said to inspire fear. Some Greek philosophers encouraged people to resist the emotion of fear as it was irrational in a world where fate was inevitable, though Plutarch considered fear of pain, death and the powers of the gods to be reasonable. In the Hebrew Scriptures yr’, which is regularly translated as ‘phóbos’ in the Greek LXX translation of the Hebrew, originally meant ‘to tremble’ [Gen.26:7; 1Sam.21:13]. It was used in the context of war, loss, exile or disaster. Those who were afraid were excluded from the army to prevent their fear discouraging fellow comrades [Deut.20:8]. Another Hebrew word: ‘pḥd’ meant ‘to quake’. Moses, Joshua and Samuel all felt ‘fear’ / ‘quaking’ when they stood in the presence of God, despite their special relationship with God [Ex.34:30; Josh.4:14; 2Sam.12:18]. Such fear was sensed especially when the priest entered the sanctuary on the Day of Atonement [Lev.16]. Gradually yr’ came to be used for fear in the sense of ‘holding in honour’. This says much to us about the appropriateness of feeling greater awe and honour in God’s presence. In personal prayer, worship, and indeed at all times, as we are constantly in God’s presence, so honour and awe should be a constant aspect of our response to faith. Trust in God was thought to free one from fear [Isa.54:14], but one still needed to regard God and God’s truth with awe.
Many Christians, to a certain extent, tend to take our relationship with God for granted. We have learned this partly from Christ’s closeness of relationship with his Father, but we are far from being as like Christ as we should. So we need a greater humility and recognition of our sins. Prov.1:7, 8:10; 15:33 and Ps.111:10 claim that fear is at the heart of knowledge, wisdom and truly understanding God. This would seem to mean that we should regarding God and our lives and responsibilities in wise, correctly balanced perspective. Prov.15:33 links ‘fear’ with having a right ‘honour’ and ‘humility’ in our relationship with God. Too often Christians mostly concentrate on the more loving, benign imagery of God that dominates what Jesus taught; we tend to miss out or side-line some of Christ’s more sober and more uncomfortable warnings. ‘Honour’, ‘love’, ‘faithful trust’ and ‘humility’ should be held in balance with awe at God’s power. Godly awe stems from having a wise sense of honour and humility towards the Divine. We need to rightly apply the instructions to follow truth that are revealed by scripture and God’s Spirit. Prov.2:5 states that fear is a key to knowledge of God, making us aware of essential aspects of God, including holiness, creativity, the truth of God’s words and our responsibilities in life. “Let all the inhabitants of the world stand in awe of Him” [Ps.33:9].
Fear of God and doing what is right in response are signs of wisdom: Prov.8:13 claims that ‘the fear of God is to hate evil... pride... arrogance... evil ways... and lies’. It gives ‘hope in the Lord’ [Prov.23:17-18] and can help to develop ‘strong confidence’ in God as a protective “place of refuge” [Prov.14:26].
Several Psalms encourage right fear, in the belief that God would benefit those who felt awe towards him. Ps.33:18-19 says, that “the eye of the LORD is on those who fear him.” Ps.34:8-10 claims that ‘There is no want to those who fear him’. Ps. 25:12-14 promises prosperity, and ongoing inheritance and covenant promises to those who fear God. But this would seem to imply that God always does good for all who follow God sincerely. Experience suggests that this does not always seem to be apparent, for good and bad happen to both the righteous and unrighteous. We should not be trusting God as some form of eternal money-bank or provision-provider to supply our every need. Nor should we be quaking at the idea that God will take things away from us if we aren’t good, as much in the Hebrew Scriptures implies. Both are aspects of the superstitious belief that Christ sought to dispel.
Trust and awe of God were considered to lead us to salvation: Ps. 85:9 claims: “Surely his salvation is near to those who fear him, that glory may dwell in our land.” Ps.147:11 says: “The LORD takes pleasure in those who fear him, in those who hope in his mercy.” Those who fear God are promised God’s blessing [Ps.115:13 & 13 and Ps.128:1 & 4]. But that blessing is not necessarily the fulfilling of our material or physical desires, despite what Ps. 37:4 and 145:19 claim: it seems much more related to God being close to us and giving us salvation. Mal.4:2 claims that for those who live with such awe and honour the Messiah will be revealed: “But to you who fear my Name, the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings…”
Fear’ is seen as a means of coming to understanding an important aspect of the true nature of God Mal.3:16 parallels fear of the LORD with ‘meditating on his name’. Ultimately ‘fearing’ God is about trusting God for all the qualities that God is: awe-inspiring, strong in power, loving, wonderful, protective, omniscient, omnipotent, omnipresent, and so much more: ‘Fear’ of the Lord therefore meant developing strong confidence in God for the whole that God is. In practice ‘meditating on God’s name’ means considering all that God represents and following the wisdom of living, thinking and acting in response to revealed truth. Such understanding includes a response of keeping all God’s statutes and commandments, [Deut.6:2; 8:6], obeying God’s voice, serving God and holding fast to God [Deut.13:4], with all of our heart, mind and soul. Practically, this concerns not just observing the letter of scripture’s laws and statutes and Jesus’ teaching. Jesus showed that to follow God’s ways with awe includes learning to apply and be able to adapt such rules appropriately and wisely according to circumstances. It entails living by what we believe to be God’s regulations truthfully, continuously and humbly. We should not ‘lift ourselves above our fellows’ [Deut.17:19]. This latter condition is particularly significant for church-members who sometimes act as though they are superior to those around them.
Jesus did not take away from any of these regulations in his teaching about God; in effect he made adherence to them even more exacting by his emphasis that we should keep to the spirit, not the letter of the law. But he was discouraging superstition and terror about a dangerous God, which created barriers between people and God. He gave his followers us a more confident perspective. Jesus intended people to recognise that if we go God’s ways and understand the nature of God as revealed by him, we can be secure that we are following truth. In God we recognise love, truth, the nature of the life-force that created us and the nature of the abundant life. Christians were to learn to follow the God about whom Jesus taught, not out of threat, terror of punishment, danger, or anything negative, nor even primarily out of a sense of obligation and awe. Rather we obey out of love and respect because we recognise that this way of life is right and the best way for the advance of life. Out of this can develop a more loving sense of gratitude and awe towards God’s truth, which encourages obedience and adds abundance to life.
Jesus’ relationship with his Father was one of awed friendship and trust. This led to his response of obedience to the mission that he recognised he much follow. He is not recorded as showing fear when standing up to authorities and opposition. Rather he was confident in facing inevitable opposition. However as he approached his death the fear that Jesus experienced in Gethsemane is totally understandable. Whether he had divine insight into the fact that he was going to be crucified, and was facing an horrific death, we cannot be certain. Theologians have debated by for centuries how much Jesus’ mind was limited by normal human understanding or whether he had full divine insight. He did not claim omniscience, and admitted that certain things were known to the Father, not himself. But from the events in Jerusalem in the last week of his mission he must have come to the conclusion that he was facing imminent trial and death. For any of us that would cause fear. Execution in the Ancient Jewish world, whether stoning for heresy or Roman crucifixion was a barbaric and agonising punishment for anyone to face. It is no wonder that he went through such pressure that he sweated blood.
In his passion in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus wrestled internally with the decision to endure a greater suffering than he had ever known. He assented because he believed this was the way to bring spiritual relief and a better life to the world. His entire mission had been committed towards others; he was doing what he believed was right. In the prayers ascribed to him in Gethsemane we see Jesus expressing awe in response to what he believed was God’s truth. Something had to be done to achieve eternal salvation. Far more must have gone through his mind than we are given in his late prayers in the Gospels. Yet through that night, and probably in his thoughts for weeks before when he was giving his final teachings to the disciples, Jesus had come to believe that his self-giving was needed to bring about salvation. It must have taken extreme trust to have faced such an agonising death with such resolve, after such mental struggle. Christ’s self-giving was not the result of a negative attitude of fear of God, but of recognition that he was uniting himself with the will of his loving God and Father.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How the nature of Christ’s teaching about God alter your reaction with the God with whom you have a relationship? Does it take away any negative senses of fear?
43/ Tuesday – LAMB
“Behold the lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world” [Jn.1:29, 36]... “your lamb shall be without blemish...” [Ex.12:5]... “He was oppressed and afflicted yet he did not open his mouth: like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearer is silent, he did not open his mouth.” [Isa.53:7]
The term ‘Lamb’ used of Christ expresses more than his sacrificial act, though this of course has been a major emphasis in scripture, and has been the interpretation of Jesus’ death in Christian teaching for centuries. It is insufficient to regard “the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world” [Jn.1:29, 36] as just indicating that Christ’s sacrificial death will bring redemption and salvation. That intention and meaning is definitely contained in the imagery, but Jesus Christ was far more than God’s ultimate sacrifice for sin, as represented in Zurbaran’s moving painting of a bound lamb, or more terrifyingly in Holman Hunt’s haunted image of ‘The Scapegoat’. One idea of ‘the lamb of God’ which is rarely considered, could equally be that Jesus followed God his Father trustingly and faithfully, as a sheep or lamb followed the shepherd. (In Middle Eastern culture the shepherd walked ahead, leading the flock of sheep rather than driving them from behind.)
Unfortunately the sentimental connotations of the term ‘lamb’ can sometimes conjure up an image of Jesus, ‘the spotless Lamb of God’ as representing a soft, woolly, innocent, mild and non-dangerous aspect of God. It is equally unsound to imagine Jesus as a small child-like lamb who never grew up to be a strong man and a combative teacher when he needed to be . Jesus was of course gentle, gracious, merciful and caring in his response to many people, but, like the Pre-Raphaelite painting ‘The Pretty Baa-Lambs’, a ‘soft and gentle’ idea of Christ is a far too simplistic concept. When one considers how strongly Jesus challenged, taught and lived, sentimental ideas of him are definitely unrealistic, perhaps even heretical.
There are three Greek words translated as ‘lamb’ in the New Testament, though it is unclear whether they are deliberately intended to carry different connotations. It may just be that different writers used different Greek words to convey similar ideas. The word ‘arēn’ from which we derive the zodiac term ‘Aries’ occurs only once, where in Lk.10:3 Jesus sent the apostles out “like lambs in the midst of wolves”. The word ‘amnós’ was used of ‘the Lamb of God’ [Jn.1:29, 36] and Acts.8:32 translating Isaiah’s ‘the lamb before it shearer is dumb’. When talking about the sacrificial lamb the New Testament uses the term ‘arníon’. It is also used when Jesus’ command to Peter to ‘feed my lambs’ [Jn.21:15]. Arnion is the word used 29 times throughout Revelation to describe Christ as the lamb on the throne still carrying the wounds of his sacrifice “looking as though it had been slaughtered” [Rev.5:12; 13:8]. Here Jesus’ wounds are definitely imagined as showing that his life has been given in the process of securing salvation for humanity.
The imagery of the ‘lamb’ was as relevant to Israel’s culture as the pastoral imagery that Jesus used in many of his parables. Sheep were a major part of the economy of the lamb: ownership of large flocks indicated the status of their owner. They were valued for wool, meat, financial value and, as well as sacrifice. Tending them was a common occupation, though the role of the shepherd was lowly, despised. Shepherds were often regarded as not trustworthy, since some sold milk or lambs that did not belong to them. ‘Good shepherds’, by contrast, were trusted by both the owners and the sheep, which is why Jesus used the imagery of himself: He was lowly but entirely trustworthy and reliable, protected, valued and led his charges to nourishing, safe pasture.
In the Hebrew Scriptures God’s people were described as sheep [2Sam.24:17; Isa.63:11; Num.27:17]; they often strayed [Ps.119:176; Isa.53:6]. God was described as the people’s Shepherd [Ps.23:1; 100:3; 77:20; 78:52]. Similarly the leaders of God’s people were also intended to be good shepherds. Kings, priests, officials and heads of households were intended to reflect God’s leadership of the people and were described as shepherds. Those who too often failed were described as faithless shepherds [Ezek.34:23ff.]. Some were even described as ‘wolves in sheep’s clothing [Matt7:15]. Jesus described God’s people facing judgement as sheep: many were lost and in need of a good shepherd to lead them [Mk.6:34ff.]. As well as being the good shepherd himself, the Apostles, under his rule, were commissioned to care for the flock [Jn.21:16-17].
The innocent Suffering Servant, who became associated with both the Messiah and Israel as a nation would be dumb “like a lamb led to the slaughter and like a sheep that before its shearer is silent.” [Isa.53:7; Acts 8:32]. This may be why Matt.26:63 and Matt.14:61 emphasise Jesus’ silence at his trial. If a sacrificial victim displayed fear, its sacrifice was considered in many cultures to be less efficacious. An animal that resisted being taken up the slope or steps to the sacrificial altar was described as ‘backsliding’, hence the use of the term in the Church for those who resist or turn away from faith. It is the case that sheep are often struck dumb when they are turned over for shearing, but that is probably largely through fear. Nevertheless, Christ’s willing submission to his death by his silence during his trials before the Sanhedrin and Pilate was regarded by some early theologians as recognition of the efficacy of his self-giving. In Acts 8:34 Philip explained the meaning of the Christian faith to the Ethiopian eunuch by demonstrating the links between the Isaiah passage about the ‘lamb before its slaughterer being dumb’ and Christ.
There is considerable contemporary theological debate over whether Jesus’ death should any longer be considered as ‘sacrifice’. The Temple laws required the offering of an animal sacrifice in payment for sins, as well as for rites of purification, thanksgiving, etc. The past traditions of Christian theology of the Atonement always linked Jesus’ death on the Cross to the biblical teaching about sacrifice for sin. Rom 3:25 and Heb.10:10-14 definitely explain salvation as being attained by Jesus’ atoning sacrifice. Some theologians him with the sacrifice that God provided for Abraham as a substitute for Isaac [Gen.22:8, 13]: God gave his Son as a substitute for us. More often Jesus was identified with the Paschal lamb appointed by God [Ex.12:5, 14, 27; 1Cor.5:7]. The New Testament particularly seems to equate Jesus with the Paschal lamb being sacrificed for sins [1Cor.5:7; 1Pet.1:19; Jn.1:29; Heb.7:27; 10:10]. 1Pet.1:13ff. describes us as people redeemed by the spotless lamb. The common belief was that Jesus’ life was given as a once-for all sacrifice, to replace the Jewish legal religious requirement of ‘a life for a life’ [Rom.6:10; Heb.7:27; 10:10; 1Pet.3:18]. John’s Gospel’s identification of Jesus as the ‘Lamb of God’ develops further than John the Baptist’s claim at Jesus’ baptism [Jn.1:29]. At his crucifixion no bones of his were broken [Jn.19:31-33, 36], as was the regulation with the lamb sacrificed at the Passover [Ex.12:46].
Those theologians who question or even oppose the emphasis on Jesus’ death as a sacrifice, point out that the idea that God would sacrifice his loved Son for the good of the world, makes God seem to be cruel. Even the idea of the sacrifice of a perfect divine life for the life of the entire cosmos seems rooted in older mythologies and distant ancient Hebrew or Canaanite theology and the sacrificial practices of polytheistic middle-eastern faiths and the mystery religions in the Roman Empire, which Jesus and Christian believers would not follow. Faith, reason and experience convince me that salvation is true and that Jesus opened it up for us. But I also sense that there is a far more complicated process at work in bringing salvation than is explained in much evangelism that simply claims that Jesus’ death on the cross was God’s perfect sacrifice to atone for sin and redeem believers who follow him. It is inevitable that St. Paul and other New Testament writers explained Jesus’ death in terms of the Paschal sacrifice and a sacrifice of Atonement. That was the way that people considered that salvation or divine forgiveness could be brought about in Jewish and Roman culture. If you sinned you sacrificed the life of a perfect creature, like ‘a spotless lamb’, to atone for your sins. But the God of Love and Truth who Jesus revealed is far more complex, merciful and gracious than just demanding a ‘life for a life’.
Human sacrifice was not a feature of established Hebrew religion in scripture. Other cultures that sacrificed human beings were specifically condemned [Lev.18:21; 20:2-5; Isa.57:5; Jer.32:35; Ezek.20:31; Hos.13:2]. Jephthah’s sacrifice of his daughter after a vow, in the time of the Judges was a tragedy for both the unnamed daughter and Jephthah, but it also suggests that there may have been human sacrifices in thanksgiving for victory in his time [Judg.11:29-40]. The angel of the Lord preventing Abraham sacrificing his son and only heir, Isaac [Gen.22:7-14], has been suggested by some scholars to be a possible record of the end of human sacrifice in Hebrew tribal religious practices. The human sacrifices to Molech that had taken place in Gehenna made the place unclean [1Ki.11:5f.; 2Ki.23:10f.; Jer.32:35; 49:1-3]. For people to consider that God would revert to the practice in order to bring about redemption, seems to many believers today to go against the ideas about sacrifice that progressed through biblical history. Several prophets were adamant that God preferred the offering of our truly committed hearts and minds to any form of dead sacrifice [Joel 2:12-13; Hos.6:6; Matt.9:13, Heb.10:59 quoting Ps.40:6-8)]. So it is possible that the sacrificial imagery used of Christ’s death should be taken as a metaphor for him dedicating his whole life to bring about the process of salvation, rather than that his crucifixion was literally a place of sacrifice.
Jesus spoke of his Father, God, as far more loving, caring and valuing of lives than as a power who would unfeelingly offer Christ’s perfect life, even for the good of the whole of the cosmos. There must be a far more complex plan within the process of salvation than the simplistic idea that God’s perfect Son was slaughtered on the cross to open up the possibility of cleansing for all. What we know of Jesus from the Gospels demonstrates that his whole life, teaching and actions were motivated by total self-offering ‘agape’-love. But self-giving sacrificial love is very different from the concept of God deliberately offering the bodily sacrifice of his Son. The way that Jesus brought about redemption, the cleansing from sin and the promise of salvation, will probably always be a mystery, but it is far too simplistic just to claim that God was using his body as the once-for all sacrifice for universal redemption of his people. The process by which Jesus Christ brought about salvation is surely a far more intricate, holistic and spiritually involved.
The imagery of Jesus as the ‘Lamb of God’ remains a valuable one for showing us that he came from God, followed God faithfully and showed us the way to follow him trustingly as ‘Good Shepherd’. He was humble yet valued, and gave his entire life to the process of salvation, which God inspired. He can lead us to nourishing pastures, protects and guides us. One aspect of sheep which does not relate to Christ or to Christians is that sheep are often pretty stupid. Christ was far from that; he is wide. Like sheep the rest of us frequently do stupid things, stray and get lost. But unlike sheep we have been entrusted with very powerful, thinking brains. We do not follow the Good Shepherd without thought. We are able to rationalise faith and recognise that faith is reasonable and shows the right ways.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
Ponder for yourself what Christ offered for you by his self-giving, and what his salvation has achieved for you. Find personal ways of giving thanks.
44/ Wednesday – PASSOVER
“I have eagerly desired to eat this Passover with you.” [Lk.22:15]
There has been much debate over whether the Last Supper was actually the Passover meal. This is due to questions over whether Jesus died at the exact time that the Passover lambs were sacrificed [John’s Gospel], or the day before. The chronology of Jesus’ passion in John’s Gospel seems to be a day different from that of the Synoptic Gospels, probably for theologically symbolic reasons. Mk.14:12ff. claims that the meal that Jesus ate with his disciples in the upper room was on the evening of “the first day of the Unleavened Bread when the Paschal lamb is sacrificed” but Jn.18:28 claims that Jesus’ arrest and trial were on the evening before “so as to avoid ritual defilement and be able to eat the Passover.” In Jn.19:14 the people’s call to Pilate to crucify Jesus is about noon on “the Day of Preparation for the Passover”. John seems to have deliberately placed Jesus’ death at time when the Passover lambs were sacrificed, to draw parallels between Jesus’ death and the Paschal sacrifice for sin. But this would mean that for John, Jesus last meal with the disciples would not have been the actual Passover meal, but something similar. It is unlikely that they would have celebrated the Passover on the evening before, as this would go against all Jewish tradition.
This discrepancy in time is in many ways relatively unimportant. Although the idea of Jesus’s death being a sacrifice is debated theologically, the Gospels and the rest of the New Testament definitely imply that it is significant that Jesus died around the Passover festival. Whether the Last Supper meal was the Passover feast or not, Jesus brought new significance to it by introducing words that expanded its meaning beyond the liturgy of the Passover tradition and led to the words still used by Christians for the institution of the Eucharist [1Cor.11:23-26]. Jesus certainly compared himself to the Paschal lamb in sharing with the disciples the bread that symbolised his body and the wine that represented his blood [Mk.14:22-24; Lk.22:19f]. In saying the words of institution and interpreting the meaning of the bread and wine that he was offering to his disciples, he was taking the role of the head of the household, who would give the blessings and explain the meanings of the elements of the Passover meal.
The Passover feast, [‘páscha’ in Greek / ‘pesach’ or ‘pesach-maṣṣôṯ’ in Hebrew] was, with the Day of Atonement, the most important feast of the Jewish year, commemorating the release of Israel from Egypt and the Exodus to the Holy Land [Ex.12:11-14; Deut.16:1]. The background to its commemoration is described in Ex.12:21-23 and Num.9:2. In the nation of Israel’s early days it had been celebrated in different tribes and clans, but after Josiah’s reforms [c621 B.C.E.] it became a compulsory pilgrimage to Jerusalem for all, as did the Feast of Tabernacles. The feast appears to have had ancient origins in earlier nomadic times, as a time of sacrifice, to protect flocks from demons. The Jews may have developed upon this for their own commemorations. Much of the liturgy was being formulated around the time of Jesus and afterwards, including the Psalms and prayers which were included.
The preparation of the Passover meal took place on the 14th day of the month of Nissan. The sacrificial lambs which were to be eaten were killed in the inner forecourt of the Temple, not by the priests, but by a representative of the individual groups who would eat the commemorative meal together. The priests were present to receive the sacrificial blood in bowls and sprinkle it on the altar of burnt offering.
As the Jewish day began at sunset, the Passover meal began after sunset on the 15th Nisan. It was eaten reclining at table, and was celebrated in groups of at least 10 in individual households. The liturgy of the meal has been modified over time by different Jewish groups but basically the celebration that Jesus would have shared, (if it was the Paschal meal) would have followed the pattern below. All the contents of the meal had symbolic meanings, which were explained as the liturgy developed:
a/ The meal began with the head of the household speaking words of dedication over the first cup of wine, which was then shared between all those at the meal.
b/ A preliminary dish of herbs in a fruit purée was eaten.
c/ The main meal was brought in, consisting of the Passover lamb, unleavened bread, butter herbs and purée, but was not eaten yet.
d/ A second cup of wine was poured but not yet drunk.
e/ The Passover Liturgy was recited by the head of the family. It consisted of:
i/ the haggaḏâh, retelling the story of the Exodus [Deut.26:5-11].
ii/ an explanation of the symbolic meaning of the items of the meal (lamb, unleavened bread, bitter herbs etc.).
iii/ communal singing of the first Hallēl Psalms [Ps.113 and 114]
f/ The meal was eaten. It began with a prayer over the unleavened bread an ended with a prayer over a third cup of wine.
g/ The singing of the second set of Hallēl Psalms [Ps.114-117 or 115-118].
h/ The feast had to end before midnight and concluded with the head of the family pronouncing a blessing over a fourth cup of wine.
It seems that this was probably the point when Jesus stepped away from tradition and took the bread and wine which he described as representing himself. He shared this with his disciples and asked them to continue to share the elements in commemoration of him.
Though commentators disagree over whether the Last Supper was the actual Passover meal, Jesus’ words make connections with the Passover [Mk.14:22ff.] and many of the details of the story imply that this was the Paschal meal. The Messianic banquet was also regarded as the fulfilment of the Passover [1Cor.5:7-8]. As part of the liturgy of Passover week, the Song of Songs was read in services. Some commentators suggest that the themes of Jesus’ passion discourses from Jn.12 to 16 reflect these liturgical readings, especially on the themes of unity in love [Jn.13:31ff; 14:15ff; 15:9ff.] and seeking and finding the way [Jn.16:5]. Jesus’ trial has also been associated with Passover themes in the Pharisaic tradition. [For an explanation of these issues cf. C. Brown ed. 1976. New International Dictionary of New Testament Theology Vol.1:630]
Passover in Israel was a time when the Roman and priestly authorities were understandably alert for insurgency. Jerusalem swelled with multiple thousands of Jews, arriving from throughout the nation and beyond. It has been estimated that, in Jesus’ time, more than 100,000 people attended. As there was so much dissent among different sects, both religious and secular authorities were concern about the insurgent ideas that developed among various groups. As Passover was a period when traditions emphasised the Messianic hope and the unique history of the Jews as God’s chosen people, it was a period of Messianic expectation. Over the ears the festival had witnessed several messianic pretenders and encouraged much prophetic or apocalyptic teaching about salvation and the future freedom of Israel.
In John’s Gospel the Passover festival seems most significant as sign that Jesus was the awaited Messiah, and God’s offering for the nation: The Gospel mentions Jesus’ mission at the time of three Passover feasts, though doesn’t mention Jesus’ attendance as a child [Lk.2:41]. John’s first account was the Passover when Jesus cleansed the Temple [Jn.2:12-22], an event that the other Gospels place during his last visit to Jerusalem [Matt.21:12-15; Mk.11:15-18; Lk.19:45-48]. Then around another Passover-time Jesus’s nature was described as further revealed in the feeding of the five thousand, Jesus walking on the water, and his teaching about the ‘bread of life’ [Jn.6:4]. These events in Jn. 6 are recorded as occurring in Capernaum and around Galilee, so perhaps he did not travel to Jerusalem that year. The feast in Jerusalem was, however, a tradition which Jesus seems to have kept, so perhaps John’s indication of ‘the time of Passover’ meant shortly before or after the pilgrimage. In the third mention, in Jn.12, the messianic emphasis is strong. Whereas previously Jesus had been reticent about others’ messianic claims about him [Jn.6:15], at this final Passover Jesus accepted peoples’ acclamation of him [Jn.12:12-15]. Lazarus and Martha’s sister Mary anointed Jesus’ feet at Bethany “six days before the Passover” [Jn.12:1]. The chief priests considered having Lazarus killed, as well as Jesus, due to the crowds who were attracted [Jn.12:10]. John suggests that Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem was the day after his meal at the House of Lazarus, Mary and Martha. Some commentators suggest that it his re-entry into the city was on the day when Passover lambs were selected for slaughter; the day before the evening of the Passover festival. However the Gospels imply that several events in Jerusalem and times of teaching in the Temple precincts took place during the week before Passover. As described earlier, John implies that Jesus died on the day and the hour when the lambs were killed. This dating seems to deliberately identify Jesus with the Lamb of God, sacrificed for God’s people.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
The Jews used Passover to remember and celebrate the freedom that God had brought to them. What do you do to particularly celebrate and commemorate what Jesus’ self-giving means to you?
45/ Maundy Thursday – REMEMBER / REMEMBRANCE
“This is my body which is given for you... do this in remembrance of me” [Lk.22:19; 1Cor.11:24-25]
Memory is an important faculty in human life and is significant in many cultures. Memorialising was especially strong in Judaism, and continues to be strong today in the emphasis on remembering family members and the holocaust. Jewish holidays memorialised many aspects of their secular and religious history; memorial stones were erected in significant places and tombs of significant figures became important places of pilgrimage. The Bible is full of memorable stories, which is one reason why it is so effective for teaching belief. Jesus taught in easily-memorable parables to help their meanings to be retained in the minds of believers. Much Christian faith in God is based on memories of the ways in which we have interacted with God through our lives.
We often use the word ‘remember’ quite lightly: ‘remember a birthday, telephone number, address etc.’ but scripture often uses the term as a solemn command: ‘Remember to keep the Sabbath Day holy’ [Ex.20:8]; ‘Remember your creator in the days of your youth.’ [Eccles.12:1]. In a concordance you will see how full the Torah and the Prophets are with commands to ‘Remember!’ The people of Israel were commanded to ‘remember’ significant events which shaped the history of the nation of Israel and commemorate them with festivals, which reinforced for centuries the importance of what God had done for them. But people were also called to individually remember what God had done for them.
Jesus’ Last Supper with his disciples is a gentler form of such a command. He shared bread and wine with them, as all Jews did at the Pesach Feast and indicated their symbolism. In the liturgy of the Passover feast they would have toasted several great memories of God’s goodness throughout the meal. Perhaps the group might have been slightly intoxicated after the celebration, though the wine would probably have been watered down. Towards the end of the meal (described in the previous section) Jesus expanded their commemoration by taking further bread and wine and using them as symbols by which his followers could remember him. This change in the normal procedure of the Paschal meal would have been enough to make it memorable, but his words would have made it even more memorable. To call the symbols of his body and his blood could have shocked his followers. For any Jew the emphasis on drinking even a substitute for blood and sharing even a substitute for human meat would have been anathema. We aren’t told their reaction, but it is probable that they did not recognise the significance of what he was saying this until well after his death.
After centuries of theology and debate we are still discovering potential aspects of meaning in this simple act. Various churches have different interpretations of the meaning of Communion, which have sadly divided some for centuries (even disagreeing about what it is to be called – Lord’s Supper, The Lord’s Table, Mass, Communion, Eucharist or other titles). Sharing the elements of bread and wine were meant to unite Jesus’ followers and remind all that we are ‘one’ ‘in him’. Our varieties of understanding can demonstrate the potential breadth of what Christ means to us. We should learn from each other’s traditions to move towards a greater recognition of the expansive truths behind our faith. The ways that we interpret the unifying meal should not be allowed by any to become a cause of division or lack of unity. We are called to ‘remember’ that Jesus gave himself and his entire life and mission for all of us. This should be a cause of unified praise and that thankfulness should expand in love for all, deepen and enlarge our interpretation of faith and inspire mission.
Remembrance can be very important. It helps us to grow in valuing both the memory of something or someone and to recognise our own value. When we write lovingly to friends or relatives we demonstrate that we remember and value them. A gesture of valuing someone can also enhance our sense of our own value and remind us that we are not alone; we are part of a family or community. The Paschal meal was meant to unite Jewish peoples by commemorating the escape of their common ancestors from Egyptian slavery. This was a shared commemoration to encourage all Jews to recognise God’s blessings upon them corporately as well as individually. The Communion meal, remembering Jesus and what he achieved is intended to unite us by expanding our appreciation of being cherished by God and cared for so much that he was willing to offer himself to us in the form of God’s Son.
When we consider the struggle that Jesus went through in his mind on the night before he died, it might be valuable to speculate on what memories might have helped him through his Passion. We have no idea what memories he had of existence before his incarnation. Luke records that Jesus mentioned witnessing the fall of Satan [Lk.10:18] but in the context of the seventy returning to him rejoicing after their mission, this may have been a figurative way of saying that in praying for them during their mission he recognised that evil was being defeated. In a number of Gospel passages Jesus spoke as though he remembered a closer life with his Father. But during his Passion he also had many more recent memories to strengthen him: He had his memories of his disciples and successful times with them. He wanted those who were close to him to pray with him and support him in Gethsemane, even though they failed to stay awake. He had the memories the many who had turned to faith through him and memories of the miracles that assured others, and no-doubt himself, that his mission was being guided and empowered by God. He had his memories of his times with his Father in prayer and contemplation, as well as the sense that God had been working with and alongside him. He had memorised scriptures, which strengthened his resolve, directed his path, enabled him to combat temptation and comforted him when he repeated them to himself, even reciting Ps.22 on the cross. He had the memories of the Jewish traditions within his life, the feasts they celebrated together that consolidated their covenant relationship with God. Even if he had gone through doubts about his identity and ability to face the trials ahead, he had the memories of God keeping covenant promises towards his people. We might speculate whether the miracles of the raising of a few from death, especially Lazarus, would have given him confidence that his own death would not be the end, and that his promises of life beyond death to others, would be true for him as well as them. He certainly seems to have had that assurance when he promised salvation to the penitent thief beside him on the cross. [Lk.23:43].
Memories for us can be equally reassuring. It is important to try to recollect times when our faith has been confirmed, as such memories can strengthen us in times of difficulty and doubt. Remembering scripture’s promises can be similarly helpful. Jesus had so many scriptures in his mind. He was able to use his knowledge of scripture to resist temptation, to challenge those who were opposing him, to reassure people of God’s promises towards his people. Most powerfully, he was most probably assuring himself on the cross by reciting Psalm 22: The words “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?’ {Matt. 27:46; Mk.15:34] open a psalm which expresses extreme distress, yet from verse 22 turns to a sense of assurance and trust in God:
I will tell of your name to my brothers and sisters;
in the midst of the congregation I will praise you:
You who fear the LORD, praise him!
All you offspring of Jacob, glorify him;
stand in awe of him, all you offspring of Israel!
For he did not despise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted;
he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him.
From you comes my praise in the great congregation;
my vows I will pay before those who fear him.
The poor shall eat and be satisfied;
those who seek him shall praise the LORD.
May your hearts live forever!
All the ends of the earth shall remember and turn to the LORD;
and all the families of the nations shall worship before him.
For dominion belongs to the LORD,
and he rules over the nations.
To him, indeed, shall all who sleep in the earth bow down;
before him shall bow all who go down to the dust, and I shall live for him.
Posterity will serve him;
future generations will be told about the Lord,
and proclaim his deliverance to a people yet unborn,
saying that he has done it.
As well as our memories of good times, our personal memories may be full of pain or mistakes that we or others have made. But the faculty of memory is really important. Remembering positive things from the past can give us stability in present or future times of struggle or lack of confidence. Believers who have memories of faithful times and who have a good recollection of scripture often have secure foundations which can support them in time of need. I have found memories of faith to strengthen me particularly at depressing times in my life, or times of loss. If we learn to trust God and that Christ’s teachings are true, memories of Jesus’ promises can particularly provide confidence for the future and challenges to live-up to in the present. Above all, we have the memories of all that Jesus promised through his Passion. Though we remember these in part each time we share the Eucharist together, Holy Week is a particular tome to deepen our connection with God by remembering the extent of what Christ was willing to do in order to secure our future and give us the supreme example of a good life lived for others.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
What memories encourage you in your faith? These may be significant memories from scripture or events in your own life where you felt particularly close to or protected by God.
46/ Good Friday – FORGIVENESS – Mtt.6:12; 18:35; Lk.17:3
“Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” [Lk.23:34]
As I discussed in Meditation 43, the idea of Christ’s death as ‘sacrifice’ has permeated Christianity since early days, though some modern theologians are understandably uncomfortable with the interpretation that a loving God could deliberately sacrifice his perfect Son, even for the great good of cleansing humanity and reuniting us with God. Yet somehow, through the life, death and resurrection of Christ, forgiveness was achieved for human beings, which made possible the promise of a new and better life in response to God. The father of the Prodigal Son forgave without the need for sacrifice; he forgave because he loved. ‘Hesed’, the Hebrew word for God’s ‘covenant love’, ‘loving-kindness’ and ‘mercy’ recognises that God’s nature is love, and the will for forgiveness is part of the loving character of the divine.
Forgiveness ‘áphesis’ in Greek can means ‘freedom’ / ‘letting someone out of prison’ / ‘setting free’ / ‘releasing from a debt, taxation or an office’ / ‘hurling away’ / ‘pardoning’ / ‘leaving behind the past’. Another linked term ‘páresis’ is used more exclusively of the forgiveness given by God or Christ. This form of forgiveness is of course more perfect than the forgiveness that human beings are able to give.
Some people talk of perfect love, like that of God, being ‘unconditional’ but that is not exactly what scripture implies. It sometimes seems that Christians use the term as a form of protection from feeling guilt at letting God down. ‘God loves me/you unconditionally’ can sometimes be used to excuse sin, rather than recognising our need to sincerely repent. There is no excuse for not repenting, or for making reparation for our sins. We understand that a parent has an element of unconditional love for their children, but that does not stop parents recognising their wrongs, wishing that their family would behave better, and doing all they can to bring about the refreshment that can come from true penitence. Love is part of God’s nature and character but God’s s love is described as having certain expectations, as does the love of any parent or between partners. The covenants were based on parties making and keeping promises to one another. God provides covenant love and care, but his people are expected to keep to our covenant promises to follow God’s ways, strive for righteousness and relate to God in spirit and in truth. I am not sure if there truly is anything totally ‘unconditional’ in God’s love and forgiveness. ‘Unconditional love’ is not a phrase to be found anywhere in scripture. But God’s love for everything is so perfect that it surely could never allow any imperfect aspect in his forgiveness.
Jesus’ gift of his life was the perfect offering of ‘hesed’ or ‘agapé’-love. “Greater love has no-one than this, to give up one’s life for one’s friends” [Jn.15:13]. Jesus’ self-offering, in some complex way through his death, was the ultimate offering of love and the assurance of forgiveness. We should not take forgiveness for granted. It may be a characteristic of God’s love but the message of Good Friday is that our way to forgiveness was painfully and self-sacrificially achieved somehow through Jesus’ self-giving.
Forgiveness can do many things. The root meaning of the verb ‘aphiēmi’ / ‘to forgive’ is to ‘send out’ or ‘send away’. This led to the meaning: ‘to remit, forgive and completely cancel debts’ [Matt.6:12; 18:27, 32]. It also meant removal of sins [Matt.9:2, 5, 6, 12:31-2] and remission of any punishment or penalty due to sinful behaviour. Forgiveness releases people, brings about cleansing and gives freedom. There is little that feels as clean and freeing as being forgiven something important. It restores a relationship between people, and can turn enmity towards love.
God’s love and purity of justice encourages us not to seek revenge [Lev.19:18; Prov.24:29; Rom.12:14, 17-21; 1Thes.5:15; 1Pett.2:23]. Jesus was forgiving. Religious and secular powers were not so forgiving of the truths he was telling; they were intent on self-preservation rather than truth and religious integrity. The Sadducees, Pharisees, Scribes and Roman rulers were afraid of Jesus’ preaching spiritual truth to the people. The priest Nicodemus appears to have converted to Jesus’ way. But following Jesus would have meant amending many of the authorities’ practices, which gave them, power, position, finance, dominance and control in society. As far as Caiaphas was concerned, it was “better that ne man should die for the good of the people than to have the whole nation destroyed” [Jn.11:50; 18:14]. Probably he was even more intent that their institution should not be disrupted. Similarly, those who cover over abuse today pretend that the cover-up “is for the good of the Church / institution” etc. But a nation, a church, a political party or any institution that is built on lies, false prophecies or unwillingness to ask for forgiveness of sins can never flourish as God intended true Kingdom. Christ came ‘for the good of God’s people’: his birth was “good news of great joy for all people” [Lk.2:10]. Yet he brought about the joy of true and eternal life through intense personal suffering.
Jesus’ forgiveness at the point of death is the great example to us to try to emulate the love and forgiveness of God. Jesus taught us to ‘forgive as you have been forgiven’ [Matt.6:12-15; Lk.6:37]. He taught his disciples that if they forgave the sins of any they would be forgiven [Jn.20:23]. In the ‘Parable of the Unforgiving Servant, the steward, having been personally forgiven by the master, failed to forgive those who had debts towards him. Jesus said that when we come to worship or pray, we must first make sure that we have forgiven our neighbour [Mk.11:25]. “If you forgive others your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive you” [Matt.6:14-15]. However, the act of forgiving is often terribly difficult, often appearing impossible.
I am not sure that it is possible for human beings to forgive in the same ways that God forgives, certainly not as completely as God can do. Nevertheless Jesus encouraged us to “be perfect as your heavenly Father is perfect” [Matt.5:48]. I must admit that there have been five people in my personal history that I have found myself unable to forgive. Each of these was a leading member of their church, each was deliberately duplicitous and knew what they were doing, each badly damaged my health, my future and my psychology. I was far from being the only one who suffered through their abuse of their ministries. The ability to forgive in many such situations feels inconceivable. So Jesus’ forgiveness of his persecutors from the Cross: “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing” [Jn.23:34] went way beyond natural human feelings. I wonder if we will ever be able to forgive as God can do. Psychological damage creates mental or situational prisons which grown around people. But that does not mean that we should not try to learn to forgive in the best ways we can, because forgiveness is able to free the one who has been damaged, as well as freeing the abuser.
Our forgiveness should not necessarily be like that of God. We believe that when God forgives our sins are forgotten. But for us remembering people’s duplicity can be a protection mechanism. We recognise that the people who have damaged us should not necessarily be trusted. Remembering can strengthen us not to be so easily taken in in the future. While the act of forgiving is important in reuniting and repairing relationships, remembering the sin can strengthen us and make us wiser for the future. It helps us to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves” [Matt.10:16]
Although we believe Jesus to have been the perfect man, I feel certain that even the loving Jesus did not simply easily forgive. If he was like us in most ways, forgiveness may have been an inner struggle. It must have taken strength of will to forgive those who were persecuting and crucifying him. His prayer in Gethsemane was certainly a struggle, which caused Haematidrosis or haematohidrosis, the sweating of blood. While he asked “Father forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”, they did know in part what they were doing, despite not necessarily knowing the eternal implications of their actions. If someone has knowingly done damage yet refuses to admit or acknowledge their guilt, and continues in their duplicity or abusive behaviour they are culpable. It would be valuable to know how Jesus or St. Paul would guide us to deal with such abuse. Today psychologists might advise the abused to try to ‘park’ the situation, leave it for time to heal, in order to be able to move on to other and positive aspects of our lives to try to alleviate the damage. As Christ’s teaching is so much based on truth, I presume that he would give similar advice. It is difficult to love and forgive another when they so obviously do not love us. ‘Parking’ the situation may help give time and space in which we might develop some understanding of the abuser and help us to develop general love towards flawed human beings. This might be the closest we can get to being able to emulate the love and forgiveness of Christ in such a situation. We are encouraged to ‘love our neighbour’, but perhaps loving someone who has behaved in evil ways is as hard for God as it is for us.
Nevertheless, somehow, amid the horrors of his Passion, Jesus was able to forgive in ways that are so much deeper and more all-encompassing than our abilities to emulate him. God’s forgiveness is a key to all that occurred on the Cross. We do not know how the death of Jesus Christ achieved salvation; it is a mystery hidden in the eternity and truth of God. But somehow we believe that the process of forgiving, cleansing, saving and renewing came about through Jesus. It seems impossible for us to be able to forgive those who do not deserve forgiveness. That is why it is completely wrong for any of us to regard the process of salvation simplistically. But somehow through the Cross we believe that God forgave and saved us for all time.
Good Friday is a day to ‘park’ our desire to understand what was happening spiritually upon the Cross to atone for sin, forgive and release us. Meditation may seek to unravel our thoughts and attempts to reach towards aspects of comprehension of such a mystery. Contemplation by contrast ‘parks’ any frustrations and struggles in understanding and rests in the belief that truth exists somewhere in these mysterious unfathomable actions. Believing that there is truth within the process of salvation leads us to feel free, released, forgiven, clean and able to face life in ways that lead to abundance. We call this Friday ‘good’ because amid the impossibilities of understanding what was happening spiritually through the Cross and Christ’s self-giving, we are assured that salvation has come to us.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How easy do you find it to forgive? How does Jesus’ example of forgiveness speak into your life and situation?
47/ Saturday – REST
“Come to me all you that are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest” [Matt.11:28]
After the emotional rigours of Holy Week, Easter Saturday can seem a sort of ‘limbo’ time. It does not seem like a day to rejoice, so soon after commemorating Christ’s death, even though we know that Christ rose two thousand years ago and the story that we have been commemorating all week has already achieved salvation over multiple centuries. It is a busy day for some in churches who are not resting and contemplating the benefits of salvation, to be celebrated next day, but preparing churches for the Easter Celebrations: building Easter Gardens, filling vases with flowers, preparing liturgies, changing vestments and redecorating churches after the stripping during lent and Passiontide.
The Christian life can be over-busy for some, not just with church business, but more importantly through coping with the ‘travails of life’, which is where the above quote from Matt.11:28 can be important - to rest in Christ and find relief from heavy burdens. Many in life, Christians, non-believers and those of other faiths carry heavy burdens which are incredibly hard to bear, sometimes seemingly impossible. It is simplistic to claim that Christ takes these away; they are often part of life’s inevitable problems and responsibilities. But faith is given to us to help to share those burdens. I have often said that I am not ashamed to have faith in God as a ‘prop’ (the criticism of some who disparage faith). Holding on to God for strength is not a sign of weakness; it is an important feature that helps us to maintain abundant lives, as flying buttresses are essential to rising vaults of many great cathedrals. Without faith in God life can sometimes just seem like an inescapable rat-race. The verse “God is my refuge and strength” [Ps.46:1], a sentiment repeated throughout the Psalms, admits that God is a bolt-hole, but is also a fortress, a force that can strengthen us and can be relied upon.
An important part of our relationship with God is being able to ‘rest’ securely, and not feel the need to constantly keep up with a frenetic 24/7 lifestyle expected by some today, which adds to people’s exhaustion. Jesus was very active in his mission, but made time for rest, as was the idea of the Sabbath in Jewish culture. We see the lack of recognition of the importance of rest in companies which claim that their employees should be available for them at any time; people who believe that day and night are wasted unless they are constantly active; those who take pills to give them the energy to keep going through the night; those who stress their bodies by over-exercise; those who spend precious rest-time constantly on social media. Just as worrying are those who under-exercise or become couch-potatoes, not resting after exerting useful physical or mental energies, but becoming bored by life, watching T.V. or other social media day and night, wasting or enjoying the precious gifts they could be enjoying. That is not the sort of rest that we were offered to refresh and energise us.
The concept of rest is important in scripture. The bible used the imagery of God resting on the seventh day after Creation [Gen.2:2] as a model for people to take a similar Sabbath rest [Ex.31:12-17]. Even the working donkey, like the slave was to be given a time of rest [Ex.23:12]. The Sabbatical Year was a time of rest for the land. Vines were to be left untrimmed, fields were to be left fallow to let the earth regain fertility and plants gain strength [Ex.34:21; Lev.25:2-7]. This is definitely a message for the conservation for our over-harvested and over-exploited earth! Furthermore, the year of Jubilee every 7x7 = 49 years, was to be a more extensive Sabbatical rest to restore each generation. Goods could be redeemed, land, and property were to be returned to former owners, and slaves not only rested, but were given reprieve from their servitude [Lev.25:8-55; 27:17; Num.36:4]. Deut.12:10 promised his people that in their new land God intended them to have ‘rest from all our labours”. (Presumably this meant at the time, the labours of their past slavery in Egypt and the laborious journeying of the Exodus; it would not be an encouragement to not work in the land of Canaan, but to find security and abundance there.) God warned those who went against the right ways and hardened their hearts: “You shall never enter my rest” [Heb.3:10], which also referred back to the Exodus.
Death was also sometimes describes as ‘finding rest’ or ‘resting with our ancestors’ [Gen.47:30]. Rest also came to be related to receiving ‘salvation’. Heb.4:9-11 claims “there remains a Sabbath rest for the people of God: for those who enter God’s rest also cease from their labours as God did from his. Let us therefore make every effort to enter that rest...” We believe that the salvation achieved through Christ’s passion gives us access to that rest. So perhaps Easter Saturday could be used by is as a sabbatical rest in order to help us put extra energies into our life with Christ through the season after Easter Day.
Just as the Genesis legend talks of God ‘resting’ after the process of Creation, Jesus’ period in the tomb is sometimes regarded as a time of rest after the exhausting process of achieving salvation. However in the concept of the “Harrowing of Hell”, not accepted by all churches, he is imagined as not at rest, but proclaiming and freeing the souls in the region of the dead. This is most probably only intended as metaphorical language, but some imagine it literally. What happened during that time that Jesus remained in the tomb remains a mystery. Only one canonical passage of scripture suggests that Christ was active in some supernatural way. 1Pet.3:19-20 speaks of Jesus “quickened by the Spirit”... “going and proclaiming to the spirits in prison, who in former times did not obey, when God waited patiently in the days of Noah, during the building of the ark, in which few, that is eight persons were saved through water”. Around this single difficult-to-interpret passage a whole dogma of ‘The Harrowing of Hell’ was built. It is only corroborated by a similar verse in the apocryphal Gospel of Peter, probably written in the C2nd: after Christ was helped from the tomb by two large angelic beings and was reaching the heavens “they heard a voice out of the heavens crying “Have you preached to them that sleep?” and from the cross there was heard the answer “Yes”. [Gosp. of Pet.10:42].
Jesus is described in the imagery as going down to the place of the dead and releasing the souls of the righteous redeemed who had followed God before the advent of Christ’s redeeming action. It is possible that the concept of in 1Pet.3:19-20 is intended as a metaphor for salvation reaching backwards as well as forward in time. rather than being a physical going down to the place of the dead. Orthodox icons of the ‘Anastasis’ or Resurrection represent the scene literally, showing the risen Christ reaching into the cave or valley of death and lifting Adam and Eve from the grave, surrounded by figures like Moses, David, John the Baptist and prophets. The grave or tomb below them is often filled with broken locks, open padlocks and keys, representing the freedom of salvation to which Christ has now raised us. It also sometimes contains the skeleton of Adam, who has now been re-clothed from death. Occasionally the space contains a bound demonic figure representing powers that once dominated, enslaved and imprisoned the dead, but now has been overcome by Christ’s triumph. Fra Angelico’s powerful fresco of the Harrowing of Hell in the friar’s cells of San Marco, Florence, shows these demons fleeing to hide in the cracks of the disintegrating cavern of Hell. Jesus is shown as having kicked down the securely locked and bolted door, trapping another demon beneath it. Meanwhile crowded queues of the redeemed reach out to his hands as he proclaims release.
Wonderful and vivid as the imagery is, it is only a visual metaphor for the glories of salvation. Just as no one knows how God was involved in the process of forming the Cosmos and each detail within it, no-one knows how Jesus’ death and reappearance achieved salvation. But it is believed that his salvation embraces, not just those who came after him, but also reaches backwards in time to release God’s followers from the past. The explanation of the faith of heroic characters in Jewish history in Heb.11:4-40 does not claim that they received ultimate rewards for their faith, but Heb.11:39-40 implies that they can now be made perfect since salvation has come to us all through Christ.
After the spiritual exercises and exertions of Lent, especially the emotional rigour of Good Friday, Easter Saturday can seem a time of limbo. But it is a useful time to rest our minds in the trust that somehow, through Christ’s actions and his death on the Cross, salvation has been achieved and we are safe with God. Theologians have speculated for centuries on how salvation was achieved and what it means. Millions of words have been expended on attempting to expound it. But, though the human mind has a drive to understand, we should be content to accept that some things are ultimately mysteries. This can be a day to simply learn to trust that there is truth within the mystery. In whatever way it was brought about, Christians believe that Jesus’ death on the cross and resurrection were part of the process of bringing freedom, release, cleansing from sin, forgiveness and renewal. He has laid the foundation for a path that will lead us to the Kingdom of God. We can rest spiritually when we learn to trust, and believe that there is a future ‘rest’ in the presence of God, whatever that will turn out to be.
Discipleship is hard; Jesus never promised an easy path. If his mission was hard for him, how could we expect it to be any easier for his followers? He said “the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life” [Matt.7:14], yet he taught his followers to “strive to enter by the narrow door” [Lk.13:24]. Christ warned his disciples to expect opposition, and found his mission a struggle himself. Yet he also encouraged us to accept his ‘yoke’, learn from and follow him, since “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” [Matt.11:29-30]. Despite my constant failure as a disciple to keep to Christ’s way, regular frustrations with myself, and regular questions about why I bothered to accept that yoke, I personally always find it more satisfying to live as a Christ-follower than when I try to follow my own way. Jesus promised rest for our souls in himself [Matt.11:28], especially rest for those who are ‘heavily laden’. Somehow his gift of salvation seems to be part of that promised rest.
In his lifetime Jesus rarely had anywhere “to rest his head” [Matt.8:20], he was so active in mission and ministry. He would not rest until he had brought salvation. Paul recommends that we too should keep similarly active in mission. He often wrote as if he was working and praying ceaselessly, though he too must have had times for recharging his energies, as Christ did. (This may have come partly during their miles of travel as well as in times of prayer). We also need to learn to rest in God’s love and let that affirmation re-energise us for further mission and ministry. Too many Christians rest over-much and neglect mission and true worship. But there are also many in ministries who neglect their times of rest and become worn out or spiritually dry through over-work. If the land needed to be given a sabbatical rest, and the donkey was to be given a rest from its labours, we equally need to take that time of rest to regain our energies and spiritual inspiration. Rest can be a time to contemplate good things and appreciate the blessings we have been given. This was part of the aim of the Sabbath for human beings and why the Sabbath became a time for worship. We rarely give ourselves sufficient time to ‘recollect’, so rest, like contemplation, can deepen our recognition of spiritual truth and draw us nearer to God. Rev.14:11 regards lack of rest as torment, but the enjoyment of rest is promised to those who are ‘in the Lord’ [Rev.14:13].
The promise of Holy Week assures us that the labours of Christ achieved that situation of rest for us. Just as with Jesus’ promises about God’s Kingdom, there is a present and future aspect to the promise of God’s rest. We are assured that there is a future rest for the people of God. But we can also find an element of spiritual rest now in the assurance of our present relationship with God, which Christ’s Passion was involved in achieving.
For Contemplation and Prayer:
How secure and able to rest do you feel as a result of all that Christ achieved for you? Does the promise of present and future rest ‘in him’ encourage you in your personal Christian mission?
48/ EASTER SUNDAY - SALVATION
“...we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.” [Jn.4:42]. – Phil.3:10.
Jesus’ claim: “I am the resurrection and the life” [Jn.11:25; Rom.6:5] was probably not just talking about his own resurrection. We’ve no idea how broadly the power of his resurrection extends; that is another of the expansive mysteries of faith. I will write about how theologians interpret ‘Resurrection’ in the series of meditations that I am preparing for the period from Easter to Pentecost. But from earliest times in the Church, Jesus’ return to life on Easter morning was regarded as evidence that in ‘salvation’ he was offering an enormous gift to those who believed in and followed him. This would be something to be enjoyed both in the present and the future. The earliest Christians also regarded the Resurrection as evidence that vindicated all the truths of Jesus teaching and identified him as ‘Christ’, the ‘Messiah’, the anointed one who had come from God to achieve ‘salvation’.
‘Salvation is therefore at the heart of our belief about what Jesus Christ achieved. In the Church we so often call him ‘Saviour’ and use the word ‘salvation’, but it is another word that we do not often use with a full recognition of its meaning.
In English ‘save’ can have many connotations, and similarly there are two main words for ‘to save’ in the New Testament and three in the Hebrew Scriptures. Rrhýomai is mostly used to translate the Hebrew term nṣl, meaning ‘to protect’, ‘to guard’, ‘to deliver’, ‘to ward off’, and to preserve’. It is less commonly used in the New Testament than sṓzó, which more often translates the Hebrew words: yš‘ meaning ‘to save’, to ‘help’, to ‘free’ It also used to translate g’l meaning ‘to release’, ‘to buy back’, ‘to free’, ‘to redeem’, ‘to keep’ and mlṭ - ‘to save’, ‘to escape’, ‘to achieve safety’. In Classic Greek rhýomai was used of ‘protection by the gods, leaders, guards, priests or others’. Sṓzó was used with a huge variety of meanings ‘rescue or preservation from death, destruction, battle, and the perils of life or evil’, ‘keeping alive’, ‘being pardoned’, ‘protected’, ‘kept from want’, ‘safe return’, ‘keeping a flame alive’, ‘preserving a memory’ or ‘something that is treasured’. It was also used of ‘wellbeing’, ‘benefitting’, ‘keeping good health’, ‘preserving ones inner being or nature’, ‘the preservation of the inner health of humanity’. So when the Hebrew Scriptures speak of God ‘saving’ and the New Testament speaks of being ‘saved by Christ’, salvation is a far more expansive term than just protection by God in this life and being offered life beyond death.
Both the Greek words rhýomai and sṓzó are used with broad intentions throughout scripture. The blessing of ‘salvation’, as described in the Bible, is a hugely expansive gift. Sṓzó has a connotation of ‘to be roomy’, implying the spaciousness of God’s care, deliverance, grace and mercy towards us. It includes God’s care for the entire cosmos and the spaciousness of what God is leading followers towards. In the Hebrew Scriptures God promised to lead his people into a ‘spacious place’ [Ex.3:8; Judg.18:10; 2 Sam.22:20; I Chron.4:40; Ps.18:19; 31:8]. The ‘spacious place’ is interpreted in the New Testament as the enormity of God’s truth. Jesus promised his followers ‘in my Father’s house there are many rooms / mansions’ [Jn.14:2]. In the Hebrew Scriptures salvation is a result of God’s broad-spreading mercy [Neh.9:8]; it is part of his nature, not a magical gift. ‘Deliverer’ [Isa.63:16] is a name of God, as ‘Saviour’ was used of Jesus [Jn.4:42]. So ‘salvation’ and ‘deliverance’ are linked and are also broad and inclusive states to enjoy as gifts.
How we interpret ‘being saved’ and ‘salvation’ in scripture often depends on context. Sometimes it means human deliverance [1Sam.11:3] or bringing justice. It is often used to indicate divine help in precarious situations or victory in battle [Zeph.3:17]. In similar variations of meaning, the way that God ‘saves us’ depends on the context in which we find ourselves.
As the Hebrew Scriptures and Jewish religion developed, ideas about what happens to people after death adapted and changed. In early Hebrew theology there seems to have been little concept of life beyond death. The grave and the disintegration of the body were believed to be our end. At that time God’s salvation was interpreted to mean protection in personal and national life and preservation from death in battle, accidents and disease. Gradually as belief in an afterlife expanded, first ideas of ‘sheol’ as a place of rest for the dead developed. Then belief expanded further to consider that that there could be rewards for righteous life beyond death. This expansion and the emphasis on rewards for the dead became stronger in the inter-testamental period, particularly after the death of heroes in the Maccabean Revolt. The changing and varied understandings of the meaning of ‘salvation’ expanded to include rescue from death and the promise of gifts in a life beyond. How could life just stop for people who had defended God’s ways; surely there must be rewards for righteousness in life beyond death? Several Hebrew Apocryphal books reflect these changes. In 4 Esdras those who are saved are judged by their works and evil is eliminated. In the Ethiopian Enoch God fulfils all the prophecies in the Hebrew Scriptures and frees people and the world from sin. Arguments about existence and rewards beyond death divided the Sadducees and Pharisees: the former did not accept the idea of life beyond death, since they could not find it in their canonical scriptures. The Pharisees accepted that there would be some form of existence and rewards after people die. (Jesus was able to wisely goad the two factions in his disputes over the issue, when they tried to trick him with questions [Matt.22:23-45; Mk.12:18-28; Lk.20:27].
In the New Testament salvation includes rescue from extreme danger [Matt.8:25; Mk.15:30; Jn.12:27]. Faith is described as saving people in terms of saving the whole person, not just healing physical symptoms [Lk.7:50]. John the Baptist proclaimed ‘the remission of sins’ as part of the ‘knowledge of salvation’ [Lk.1:77], which was in line with the concept of salvation in Hebrew Scriptures. But he also pointed forward to the coming of a Saviour who would redeem in a more eternal way [Matt.1:21]. Mk.8:35 talks of the saving and losing of life in terms both of the present and of eternity. Lk.13:23 links salvation with entering God’s Kingdom. Lk.19:10 makes it clear that salvation is not just looking forward to a future beyond death but finding salvation and being part of the Kingdom in our present lives.
St. Paul took this expansion of the meaning of salvation still further. With his pharisaic training and knowledge of Jewish scripture and tradition he expanded the concept of salvation to include ‘being proclaimed just and reconciliation with God’ [1Cor.2:15; 5:5; Rom.13:11], ‘rescue from judgement’ [Rom.5:9; 1Cor.3:15], ‘the gift of eternal life’, ‘redemption and glorification of our bodies’ [Rom.8:24; Phil.3:20-21]; ‘spiritual gifts in our present life to make us effective parts of Christ’s body’, and ‘our gradual transformation in righteousness into the image of God’s Son. [Rom.8:20; Gal.5:5]. In Rom.8:24 Paul assured his readers that when we received Christ’s gospel we have already received salvation. This is echoed by the writer of Ephesians who speaks of us being saved by the message of salvation [Eph.1:13], but though we have been saved, the consummation of salvation is still to come in the future [Eph.2:5-7]. Salvation, therefore, like Christ’s Kingdom, has past, present and future dimensions. Salvation may also not just relate to human beings; some scriptures imply that the created ‘cosmos’ or ‘world’ will be transformed as part of Christ’s saving act [Rom. 8:21; Jn.3:17; 12:47; Rev.21:1].
As the one who brings this about at his Father’s will, Christ is called ‘Saviour’ /. In the ancient world this had the connotation of a ‘rescuer’, ‘deliverer from perils’, ‘protector’, ‘preserver of life’, ‘physician’, ‘helper’. In the Hellenistic world and among Egyptian and Seleucid rulers who ruled Palestine prior to the Romans, as well as later Roman Emperors, sótḗr was also used as a royal title, and implied that the ruler was the son of the deity. We have no proof that this divine meaning was understood or implied when the term was used of Jesus, but it is interesting in relation to later development of understanding of his divine nature. ‘Sótḗr’ was used in the Greek translation of Hebrew Scriptures to describe God as Israel’s Saviour and ‘helper’ as well being a title given to God’s human helpers - heroes, kings, occasionally used of judges. In Isa.49:6 and Zech.9:9 the Messiah was called sótḗr. God is called Saviour in Lk.1:47, and his coming Son, the Messiah, is given the title ‘Saviour’ in Lk.2:11, a position Jesus acknowledged in Jn.4:24. In taking his message to the Samaritans and others who were not Jews, Jesus was demonstrating that he was Saviour for Gentiles as well as the Jews: The Samaritan town of the Woman at the well acknowledged: “...we have heard for ourselves and we know that this is truly the Saviour of the world.” [Jn.4:42].
In offering and achieving salvation for us Jesus, was expanding the understanding of the meaning of ‘salvation’ still further. He was not just offering forgiveness of sins and eternal life: He would bring those who he had redeemed and saved into ‘a spacious place’ – the Kingdom of God both in the present and future. This includes the expansive meaning of what Jesus was doing in saving, as discussed in paragraphs 3 and 4 above. Cynics sometimes accuse Christians of narrowness of belief, or of placing trust in ‘pie-in-the-sky-when-you-die. But with Christ’s message of ‘salvation’ we are offering to the world a huge gift from God to expand and consummate life now and in the future. How Jesus’ death and resurrection actually achieved this remains ‘mystery’ within the process of God’s activity. But the inner spiritual life of the believer is lit by a spark that recognises it to be true.
We believe that we have salvation, though the grace, mercy and love of God. Jesus’ resurrection has been thought to be evidence that life exists beyond death, and through Christ we are being called to share this spiritual dimension. We don’t need to wait until we die to discover the benefits of salvation. In living abundant Christian lives, we are able, in the present, to begin to enjoy the benefits of salvation which Christ achieved. Easter is a day to really celebrate and freely enjoy this release to freedom:
Christian art sometimes uses the soaring eagle as a symbol of resurrection. Mediaeval Christian bestiary legends symbolised Christ as the eagle flying high (Christ’s place in heaven). Being so close to the sun (God) he would scorch his wings and plummet to earth (the Incarnation). He would land in the ocean and drown (Jesus’ death). Sometimes he is imagined as a sea-eagle, plummeting to catch a fish (the destruction of sin in the Harrowing of Hell). Then being divine he would rise again and soar higher and higher to regain his position as king of the heavens. That of course is all legendary, but the imagery vividly captures our belief that Christ returned to his Father’s place in heaven and achieved the salvation by which we too can live abundantly in him:
“Even youths shall faint and grow weary,
and the young shall fall exhausted,
but those who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength,
they shall mount up on wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary,
they shall walk and not faint.” [Isa.40:30-31]
For Contemplation and Prayer:
At this Eastertime consider the expansiveness of what Jesus has achieved for you. What does the Easter promise of ‘salvation’ mean in terms of your life?