Tag Archives: Gospel

Making a connection

In the light of positive recommendations from local people, I decided a couple of years ago that I would entrust Orange with the task of providing me with a mobile phone service.  At the time it was a good choice; certainly it was an improvement on my previous provider.  But since just before Christmas, I’ve been having some difficulty.  In fact, it’s now more usual for me when I check my phone to see the messages “SOS” or “Searching for Network” than to see the little graphic with “bars” of signal strength showing.  Indeed, I’ve been starting to feel that the nickname “No Range” that I have heard used occasionally of Orange evidently has some foundation in reality.

And I’ve noticed another thing, too.  The battery on my phone is running down really quickly. Currently (no pun intended!), I’m charging it about three times every two days.  It normally lasts at least four times as long.  I think this problem is occurring because when the phone tries to connect to the mobile phone network, it uses some power.  Obviously, if it is always trying, it is always draining power from the battery!

According to the Geordie on the call-centre help-desk, there’s a problem with the Widford transmitter (the fake tree near Widford Rise).  Apparently, the storm of 19th December damaged “a chip”, and the company is looking into fixing the fault, but this requires “planning permission.”  I’m a bit vague on the details because I wasn’t able to ask clarifying questions – my phone lost signal during the call, so he just left me a message to let me know the basic details!

It strikes me that there’s a parallel here to prayer (albeit an inexact parallel – don’t stretch it too far!).  The important thing for a mobile phone is to gain a connection to the network.  When the connection is made, communication can happen freely. In my situation, there’s a problem; my phone is having trouble connecting, and is wearing itself out trying.  In the realm of communicating with God, we also need a connection with God to be established.  But there’s no automatic connection in place.  In fact, our default position is disconnection.  In the Bible we read these words; “Surely the arm of the Lord is not too short to save, nor his ear too dull to hear.  But your iniquities have separated you from your God; your sins have hidden his face from you, so that he will not hear.” (Isaiah 59:1-2)  Here, the prophet Isaiah records his message to the people of Israel that, though they were trying to pray (and even wearing themselves out trying), their prayers would not be heard.  They had no connection – indeed, their channel of communication was blocked; their sin was in the way.  And we’re no different.  However good we think we are, we all have the same sin problem.

Thankfully, there’s a solution to this problem.  Obviously, we can’t change our past record of sin – what’s done is done.  But, as the angel told Joseph, God has sent Jesus to “save his people from their sins.” (Matthew 1:21)  When we put our trust in Jesus, we are made clean, our sin is removed from us as far as the east is from the west, and we are reconnected to God – and this means we can be confident our prayers will be heard.  #goodnews

Peace for Christmas

So this is Christmas, and what have you done?
Another year over…

John Lennon’s song, like all the other seasonal tunes, is regularly played on the radio.  But Lennon’s lyric has a little more about it than many of the other offerings (e.g. Roy Wood’s “When the snowman brings the snow…” or the children’s favourite “Rudolph the red-nosed reindeer”).  It actually challenges us directly to take stock of our lives at Christmas time.  You won’t be surprised to know I think it’s a good challenge for us to consider.

But Christmas is too busy for us to think about the events of the year and the emotional impact they’ve had on us, isn’t it?  First of all there’s all the shopping to do, all the organising, wrapping, cooking, decorating and hosting.  Then, there’s all the clearing up, the falling out, the not-speaking and the thank-God-that’s-all-over-for-another-year-ing.  Finally, of course, there’s all the paying back the credit cards… which, depending on how extravagant we’ve been, may well bring us right back to where we are now!

The question, “How are you?” often elicits the response, “Fine, thanks … busy, but fine.”  Busy.  And the activity of the Christmas season only makes us busier, so stopping to reflect on the emotional journey of the last year is, quite frankly, just one more thing to do for which we do not have the time.  And here’s another one…

What have you done this year by way of pursuing a closer relationship with God?  (I put that in bold type to make sure you didn’t skip over it in your busy rush!)

The message of Christmas is clear: God chose to come close to us in Jesus.  It’s evidence that he is pursuing a closer relationship with all of us.  The Bible tells us, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14), and, “Jesus Christ … in very nature God … made himself nothing, being made in human likeness, … humbled himself…” (Philippians 2:6ff).  It is these verses (and others like them) which inspired one of the most famous and popular carols; “Hark! the Herald Angels Sing”:

Veiled in flesh the Godhead see!
Hail the incarnate Deity!
Pleased as man with man to dwell,
Jesus, our Immanuel.

My point is that if we stop even for a moment to consider just how far he has gone to reach out to us (Immanuel means “God with us”), it should surely cause us to respond with love and worship.  So how do our efforts to reach out to him measure up?

So this is Christmas, and what have you done…?  Praise God he still reaches out to us despite our laziness and reluctance to honour him!

The Joy of Christmas

“Christmas-time is here, by golly,
disapproval would be folly,
deck the halls with hunks of holly…
Brother, here we go again!”

So sang the comic songwriter, Tom Lehrer, and I wonder how many of us feel the same way, at least sometimes.  Our nation seems to have a love-hate relationship with Christmas, and this, I am sure, is because of what it has become; an excuse to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need.

The pressures applied upon us by society are subtle: “it’s for the kids”, or “our family have always done this.”  We must join in or people will assume we are grumpy old Scrooges.  Because marketing departments promote Christmas as a time of goodwill and happiness, to opt out of their glitzy celebration is to be a miserable killjoy.  Because they assert it is a time of peace, any attempt to expose the shallowness of that peace is fraught with danger.  Disapproval would be folly – indeed!  Our national Christmas celebrations are precious, and to question their validity or helpfulness is to walk a minefield of sensitivities.

And yet I would rather walk that path than by driven by malignant forces of consumerism, materialism and pride.  I too want to assert that Christmas is precious, but for strikingly different reasons.  Despite what the adverts tell us, and what we may have come to believe, Christmas is not primarily a time for families, or for making extravagant gestures highlighting the love we have for one another.  It is first and foremost one celebration amongst many which tell of God’s amazing love for us.

From eternity, God saw how enslaved we were to the whims of the rich and powerful and to our own foolish pride.  He saw we were living only half a life, encumbered by worries, facing an uncertain future and frightened of death.  And he stepped in to rescue us from that oppression in the person of Jesus of Nazareth.  Christmas is a powerful celebration of God’s first-hand understanding of what it means to be human; in Christ Jesus, God became flesh and made his dwelling among us (John 1:14).

By giving us his Son, God has given us the opportunity of real peace; not the “grit-your-teeth-Aunt-Gertrude-will-be-gone-by-Boxing-Day” kind of peace.  In Jesus, he has given us real joy; not the plastic-grins of sound-activated dancing flowers or the short-lived, hangover-followed merriness of alcohol.  In Jesus he has set us free to be who he created us to be; free from dancing to another’s tune, free to live life in all its fullness with him as our loving Father.

Now that is some Christmas present.  And worth celebrating.  As we make our plans for this Christmas, amidst the noise of the advertisers who would use us to make money for them, so God is calling us to enjoy his freedom.  Will we listen?

Christmas Peace

Christmastime means different things to different people.  To some, it’s precious because the family will all gather together.  To others, it’s a fearful prospect because the family will all gather together!  Some people rejoice in the nostalgia that surrounds Christmas, and remember especially their own happy childhood times.  There’s wonder and joy, feasting and gladness and the giving and receiving of gifts; it is a good season to celebrate with friends and family.  Other people’s experience is tinged with sadness as they remember people with whom they no longer share Christmas because of distance, family rift or death.

Often people see Christmas as “the season of goodwill” where past hurts are laid aside and estranged people are brought together, hopefully not in a “grin-and-bear-it” way, but with real forgiveness which buries the past and looks forward to the future.  The reason for this is rooted in the story of Jesus, the Christ of Christ-mas.  At the most traditional “Carols by Candlelight” services, the Bible readings tell the Bible’s story briefly but well.  It begins with the fall of Adam, the rebellious decision of mankind to disobey God and to attempt to manage God’s world with no reference to its maker.  The healthy relationship between God and people is destroyed; there is no way that imperfect and finite human beings can ever repair their relationship with God who is infinite and perfect.  This is a massive problem.

Centuries later, the prophet Isaiah picks up the story; he says in 9:2, “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.”  The people’s sin has led them further and further away from God, and they are in exile, experiencing His judgment, not His favour.  There is no way out.  Suddenly, a great light appears.  And what is that light?  Isaiah tells us in 9:6; “To us a child is born, to us a Son is given … He will be called … Prince of Peace.”

The birth of Jesus that we celebrate at Christmas is the moment when God came to dwell amongst us to bring light into the darkness and to reconcile us to Himself.  God, who we have wronged by our pride, has offered to forgive us and make us His beloved children.  Some people jump at this chance; they recognise their lives are not perfect, they know they need forgiveness and they embrace Jesus with glad hearts like a shipwrecked sailor grasping at a life-ring.  Others are not convinced; the way they see things, they are perfectly good enough for God (if he even exists), so they pay little attention to Jesus, like a shipwrecked sailor hiding from the lifeboat crew as they survey the wreckage of his boat.

We tend to think Christmas is about presents and time with those we love, but it’s actually about reconciliation and forgiveness.  First, it is about God’s reconciliation with and forgiveness of those who have failed to love him.  Following on from and flowing out of that, it becomes a season in which people can be reconciled to one another.  How does our celebration of Christmas bear witness to either of these things?

God Willing

In an earlier entry I wrote about the song “Have yourself a merry little Christmas,” and its underlying assumption that the world is governed by “The Fates.”  (“Through the years we all will be together, if the Fates allow.”)  In writing it I discovered that the words “if the Fates allow” were actually a replacement for “if the Lord allows.”  This brings a whole new angle to the debate, especially in the light of the change that we are seeing from Christendom’s BC and AD to the post-Christendom BCE and CE.  Originally, the song emanated from a Christian worldview, but the lyrics were changed to eliminate the Christian dimension because some people felt it was offensive.  And maybe it is offensive to some; the idea that “the Lord” might not allow something we hold dear.  Let us see…

Christians understand “the Lord” is the God of the Bible, variously described, including Jonah’s phrase, “The God of heaven who made the sea and the dry land” (Jonah 1:9) and God’s own words recorded by the prophet Isaiah (46:9), “I am God and there is no other.”  Being humble before such authority is surely entirely appropriate.  In the Bible book which bears his name, James (who describes himself as “a servant of God and of the Lord Jesus Christ”) encourages his readers to be humble before God and chastises them for being arrogant in their boastful planning.  He writes, “What is your life?  For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes.  Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.’” (Jas 4:14-15).  It is from him that we get the phrase, “God-willing,” and it is this idea which is being expressed in the original lyrics of the song.

Of course, we don’t hear people say, “God-willing” as much today as was once the case.  This almost certainly says something about our society and is entirely in keeping with the change from AD to CE.  Like the people to whom James was writing, we have grown proud, believing ourselves to be masters of our own destiny; we rely not on God, but on our money, our talents, our connections or our reputation to open doors for us and provide us with our every need.  In our so-called enlightened society, The-God-of-heaven-who-made-the-sea-and-the-dry-land has become at best an after-thought, and at worst, a swear-word.  We behave, not as servants of God like James, but as if we were gods ourselves – with the right to do just as we please.  No wonder we find offensive the idea that “the Lord” might stand in our way and confound our plans.  How dare he?  Just who does he think he is?

At Christmas we celebrate the birth of Jesus to Mary; a child born of a virgin, exiled to Egypt and raised by his adoptive father in the line of King David.  He made the blind see, the deaf hear and the lame leap.  Powerful men plotted against him, a friend betrayed him and false witnesses accused him.  Soldiers gambled for his clothes, he was mocked, beaten and crucified, though not one of his bones was broken.  Buried, he was raised to life on the third day.  All of this was prophesied in advance through the word of God.  Who then is the Lord?  He is the one who knows the end from the beginning, so we should approach him in great humility.  Yet Christmas also shows that He loves us deeply: “Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners” (1 Timothy 1:15) – good news indeed, even for arrogant hearts!

Freedom from the Christmas Beast

Has your credit been crunched?  This period of financial instability and austerity continues to have mixed effects.  And Christmas just messes with people’s heads.

I recall watching a news report on the way the crisis is affecting people in our region.  In this report a young woman was being interviewed about the very real prospect of having her home repossessed by the bank.  Her anxiety was tangible, but never more so than when she raised the immanence of Christmas; “I’m managing to keep up mortgage repayments now,” she said, “but I don’t know what’ll happen when Christmas and all its extra expense comes round.”  My heart ached for her, but I must confess my sympathy was directed not at her financial need, but rather her enslavement.

She was on the brink of homelessness, facing the prospect of her family having to move out of the home she loved if she were to default on her mortgage payments.  Yet her comments seemed to suggest that extra expense brought about by the Christmas season was inescapable.  In her head was what seemed to her to be a genuine dilemma; “Which ‘bill’ shall I pay – the bill for the house or the bill for the Christmas celebrations?”

Clear thinking about her situation shows there is no contest; the mortgage must be paid, and Christmas luxuries can wait – forever if necessary.  It would be wrong-headed to put them in the same category as essential household bills.  If the young woman truly loves her family, she will surely hold back from spending on turkey and trimmings until she has guaranteed they’ll be able to stay in the house into the New Year; far better to be housed than to have a new flat-screen TV and nowhere to plug it in!  Her problem is the strong message being transmitted by the commercial world; “If you love your family you will buy them ….”  It’s a lie, but it’s on every street-corner, and it has been carefully set up to resonate with our heartbeat until we begin to believe it and it enslaves us.

It saddens me to see the impact of this lie upon peoples’ lives.  The consumerist culture we inhabit is so inhospitable and short of compassion.  Market forces feel no sympathy towards the people they lead on, and ultimately their promises of deep satisfaction prove shallow and empty.  Christmas comes at a dark time of the year, and commerce, whilst promising light, often ends up adding an extra layer to the darkness we experience.

In light of the current on-going difficulties in the world economy, perhaps now is a good time to re-evaluate the way we celebrate Christmas and give a mind to what is truly important.  If we are in any measure simply slaves to the system, it is my prayer that we would be like those mentioned in Isaiah 9:2; “The people walking in darkness have seen a great light.”  The good news of Christmas is that in Jesus Christ, his only Son, God has sent us a Saviour to free us from all that entangles and liberate us to be what he always intended us to be.  This is something in which we can, surely, confidently invest.

Moving the goalposts

As a parent and a parish priest I have been involved in a number of schools up and down the country.  As a school governor I’ve even been involved in a couple of Ofsted inspections.  One thing I have noticed is that, in the quest to raise standards, judgement criteria change fairly frequently, and this is quite challenging for schools.  The phrase, “moving the goalposts” springs to mind.

Praise God, then, that when it comes to our relationship with God, the Bible makes it crystal clear where the goalposts are; about what God expects of us.  Jesus said, “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” (Matt 5:48).  With the target set as high as this, we can be confident that the goalposts won’t move – there’s nowhere higher than perfection!  But it does then beg the question, how will we ever reach our target?

The answer is that on our own we won’t.  None of us will ever be perfect (and even if we think we’re good people, deep down we know we still have dark thoughts and ugly attitudes).  So are we lost, consigned forever to miss the mark?  No, praise God!  The Bible also brings us the good news of hope in Jesus Christ.  Because of his perfection, and by faith in him, we can be counted as children of God.

The Bible is clear about this, but sadly, our hearts find this difficult to take.  We find the idea of coming to Jesus for help somehow offensive; it runs completely against our pride.  And what we end up doing is trying to move the goalposts to suit us.  Each of us imagines they are somewhere slightly different.  For one, it is sufficient that they were baptised as a baby.  For another, the goal is reached by their charitable good deeds.  Others choose to remember that God is love and anticipate, therefore, that he will ultimately turn a blind eye to their sin.  Tragically, they forget he is also just (promising never to acquit the guilty) and holy (unable to look upon sin).  Our attempts to move the goalposts are completely futile.  We can pretend all we like, but they will actually remain where God set them.

We’re fast approaching the season of Advent when the church looks forward to Christ’s return as the judge of all.  But whilst the return of Christ is good news for his friends, it is not good news for those who reject him, and I am anxious for everyone who diminishes his importance.  This month, may I urge you all as a matter of some priority to consider how you relate to him?  Do you trust Jesus to carry you to the goal, or are you trying to move the goalposts?

Words of Jesus

Jesus is widely regarded as a good teacher.  Other religions recognise him as a wise man or a prophet.  He is so influential we even set the calendar by his span of years – he quite literally lies at the centre of history on the BC/AD divide.  Yet loads of people don’t really know much about what he taught or said.  In fact, a lot of those who profess to be Christians are not aware of his teaching – either his public teaching or the instruction he gave to his disciples.

This term’s sermon series focusses upon the Words of Jesus as recorded in John’s Gospel; words of prayer, comfort, truth, restoration, assurance and many more.  There’s something for everyone here; why not join us on a Sunday or listen online from our main website and comment about what you hear.