Resurrection People: Renewing Joy (Easter 2 2022)
I still haven’t completely got rid of Covid from my system, so again there’s no Bible teaching talk this week. Instead, I’ve compiled material from the resource ‘Resurrection People‘ published by Engage Worship, whose material I often used during the lockdowns of the last two years.
Fifth Sunday in Easter: I Am the Vine
I made one very tired mistake in the video below: I forgot to set my camera to eye autofocus, and so at points I go out of focus during the video. Of course, you may prefer me that way!
Last week we thought about one of the seven ‘I am’ sayings of Jesus in John’s Gospel, namely, ‘I am the Good Shepherd.’ This week we think about another one: ‘I am the Vine.’
We need to carry over two things from last week. The first is to remember that this very emphatic way of saying ‘I am’ indicates a claim by Jesus to divinity, reminiscent of God calling himself ‘I am who I am’ to Moses at the burning bush.
The second thing we need to carry over is to look to the Old Testament for some background to the title. So just as we looked at the title of ‘Shepherd’ last week, we must now look at ‘Vine’, and the obvious place to go is Isaiah 5:1-7, where the prophet describes Israel as like a vineyard. However, it’s a bad vineyard, and is symbolic of God’s people being persistently and seriously disobedient to God through their disregard for justice. God promises to withdraw the vineyard’s protective hedge and leave it to decay and destruction.
A new vineyard is needed. That’s what Jesus claims to be here in today’s passage. This is yet another New Testament passage where Jesus claims to be the True Israel, fulfilling everything that Israel should have done but didn’t.
And with Jesus’ disciples being the branches, Jesus says that the vineyard is now constituted differently, not on the basis of observing Torah, but on the basis of union with him.
Now we often say that all metaphors are limited, and one of the limitations here is that Jesus doesn’t describe how we become branches of the vine. There’s nothing obvious here about salvation by grace through faith, for example. We conclude that’s not the purpose of Jesus choosing this image.
Instead, Jesus seems to talk about what it takes to remain one of the branches. His Father is the gardener (verse 1). In the Apocrypha, the literature between the Old and New Testaments that our Catholic friends recognise as Scripture but we don’t,
The state of a tree’s fruit … was said to attest how well the farmer … had cared for it (Sir 27:6), reinforcing the importance of a gardener’s care for it.[i]
So, if you like, God’s reputation is at stake here! But he trusts that reputation to our behaviour – a very chancy thing, you may well think. It’s something that came home in a distressingly powerful way to me this last week when reports began to appear online that alleged the long-deceased headmaster of my old secondary school was a paedophile. You see, it was a Church of England school, and one of the alleged victims said that this behaviour pushed him towards atheism.
God’s reputation is at stake according to the conduct of his people.
So we need to give careful attention to our relationship with Christ.
A couple of things strike me about that in the reading.
The first is that we have a choice between being pruned and being cut off. Both sound painful. There is no choice that involves the avoidance of pain. It’s rather as I heard Adrian Plass put it some years ago:
Life is a choice between doing what you don’t want to do and doing what you really don’t want to do.
What’s the difference between being pruned and being cut off? Pruning took place in late Spring: the tendrils of the vine were clipped back to allow the fruit to grow. The idea was to get the vine to put all its energy into producing fruit.[ii]
Being cut off was much worse. This was when branches that would no longer produce fruit were removed to leave space for new ones that would.
I’m sure you can see some spiritual parallels here. God the Father is determined that the church of his Son Jesus be spiritually fruitful in what it does. If we share that concern (and if not, why not?) then we shall be wiling to submit to his pruning, removing those things from our lives individually and together that get in the way of fruit growing.
What might God prune from our lives if we are willing to let him work in us so that we are fruitful? I suspect it would include all those frivolous and shallow things on which we spend our time. How many of us are just not getting down to serious prayer and spiritual reading because we are filling our time with trashy magazines, Internet gossip, and maybe worse things? Or maybe he’s calling us to put aside something good in favour of what is better?
Are we aware of God wanting to prune us of the things that stop us going deeper with him?
And then what about the cutting off? How many of us have not only become unfruitful, we have also managed to get ourselves in the way of those promising branches that could become fruitful?
How might that happen? Do we dominate church life at the expense of those who want to move forward spiritually? Have we belittled the passion of those who want to press on with Christ?
Look at how few of us take our devotional life seriously, to the point that some surveys show many Christians only interact with the Bible on a Sunday morning, and when we talk about what we believe, it’s utterly infused with the values of the world rather than the Gospel.
In these cases, God has every right to look at his church and say, the situation is so serious that I shall have to get some people out of the way if the church is to have any hope.
Pray God that we shall not give him reason to consider us. Pray God instead that we accept his pruning.
The second strand of Jesus’ thought I wanted to pick up on is connected with this and is all the language about remaining – us remaining in Christ and Christ remaining in us.
The late Eugene Peterson’s translation of the Bible, The Message, paraphrases this language as a call to make our home in Jesus just as he does in us, or to be joined to him in an intimate and organic relationship.
I wonder what it means to be at home with Jesus? Surely it sounds like the sort of relationship where we are comfortable with him – as a Person, and in what he says and what he does. It’s not just a distant admiration for a great man: it’s such a desire for him that we want to draw close to him and even imitate him.
So yes, this begins with all the sorts of things I regularly bang on about: the importance of personal Bible reading and prayer, and all the other spiritual disciplines.
But that’s only where it begins. If it stops there it won’t be enough for us to remain in Christ. I have known avid Bible readers who have also been avid back stabbers.
It was the twentieth century American saint A W Tozer who captured the spirit of what I’m trying to say here in these words of his:
The driver on the highway is safe not when he reads the signs, but when he obeys them.[iii]
When we not only listen to Jesus but put into practice what he says, then what do we think the result will be? Answer: spiritual fruitfulness.
Alternatively, when we hear the words of Jesus (and most of us have heard them regularly for years) but do nothing about them, what is the logical conclusion? The answer, surely, is the predominantly fruitless church that we have today. God is determined to have a fruitful vine,, not one he has to leave to rack and ruin again. Will we draw close to him in listening and in obedience so that he makes us fruitful for him? Or will we be so casual in our faith that in the end he says, these people are getting in the way, I must remove them so that I can use newer and younger branches?
[i] Craig S Keener, The Gospel of John: A Commentary, Volume 2, p994.
[ii] https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/jesus-the-true-vine-in-john-15/
[iii] https://www.pinterest.com/CandidChristian/aw-tozer-quotes/
Fourth Sunday of Easter: The Good Shepherd
This week we consider the famous ‘Good Shepherd’ passage. Why think about this in the Easter season? Because Jesus references his death and resurrection, and what flows from them.
As many of you know, my plans for university at the normal age of eighteen were interrupted by the sudden onset of serious neck pain. One evening, sitting in a prayer meeting, I gravitated towards the armchair most likely to give me some support and relief – one that elderly people usually sat in.
A lovely member of that group called Peggy saw my pain and quoted the words with which today’s reading began: ‘I am the Good Shepherd,’ and led a prayer for me. So I know first-hand the comfort this passage brings to people.
Yet what I’ve discovered over the years is that these comforting words are also challenging words. So today we’re going to meditate on both the comforting and challenging messages of these verses.
The first thing to observe is how Jesus teaches here about his divinity. Right from the opening words, ‘I am’, we have a claim to divinity. Those two words may be unremarkable in English, but you may recall that God revealed himself to Moses as ‘I am’. There are then seven ‘I am’ sayings in John’s Gospel, and what we don’t see in English is one particular feature of the Greek. If you wanted to say ‘I am’ in the ordinary sense in Greek, you just needed to say ‘Am.’ But adding in ‘I’, the personal pronoun, gives it added emphasis that echo the Old Testament notion of God as ‘I am.’ In the ‘I am’ sayings, the Greek uses that emphatic ‘I am’ rather than simply ‘Am.’
This claim to divinity is bolstered by the title ‘Shepherd’. Of itself it isn’t necessarily a divine title, because the rulers of Israel were commanded by God to shepherd the people[i]. However, the rulers were given the title ‘Shepherd’ as derivative from the Lord, under whom they served. The ultimate ‘Shepherd of Israel’ was God himself[ii]. This was also deeply personal, most famously in Psalm 23, ‘The Lord’s my Shepherd.’
Therefore when Jesus calls himself the Good Shepherd, he is taking on for himself a title that ultimately belongs to God himself. Combined with emphatically saying ‘I am,’ Jesus is making it abundantly clear that he claims divine status for himself.
All very interesting, you may think, but what does it mean for us and what did it mean for the first hearers? Quite simply, if Jesus is divine, then we owe him our allegiance. It’s hinted at later in the passage when Jesus is talking about ‘other sheep that are not of this sheepfold’ (verse 16). He says, ‘They too shall listen to my voice and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.’
So the other sheep are listening, but not them only: Jesus said, ‘They too will listen to my voice.’ His assumption is that not only will the other sheep listen, they will listen, because the original sheep are listening intently in the first place.
And for all who act as under-shepherds in the church among God’s people today, we are therefore not only to listen to the voice of the Good Shepherd for ourselves but also obey that voice and furthermore encourage or urge those in our care to obey his will.
The second observation in Jesus’ teaching here is his love:
The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (Verse 11b)
17 The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life – only to take it up again. 18 No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.’
Note all those references to Jesus laying down his life. Risking one’s life is honourable and to be applauded, but to lay down one’s life demands more. When we risk our lives, we put ourselves in harm’s way and we may be killed or maimed, or we may survive unscathed. But in laying down one’s life, death is certain. He will die, and he will do so voluntarily. He is not a political protestor who happens to get caught and executed, but one who willingly presents himself. He could have prevented it, but he doesn’t.
The word ‘love’ is not explicitly used for these actions, but when the good shepherd is contrasted with the hired hand who will run off with his wages rather than protect the flock from danger it’s clear that Jesus is in this for love, not money.
For reasons that Jesus doesn’t explain here (we must go elsewhere in the New Testament for answers) the protection of the flock from harm can only be achieved by the sacrificial love of the Shepherd.
So the Lord himself is willing to put himself in harm’s way for the sake of those who will be saved.
What sort of response does that call for from us? For one, surely it leads us to a sense of wonder and worship that God in Christ has done this for us. How can we not ‘sing the wondrous story’?
For another, remembering that the life of Jesus is a model for us, we know from this that he calls us to love in sacrificial ways, too. Many of our Christian sisters and brothers around the world still lay down their lives for their faith. While that seems far less likely for us and I pray such trials never come our way, should not each one of us ask what we have sacrificed out of love for Jesus and love for his people?
None of us can give up our lives for the salvation of the world, but we are called to love because Jesus has shown love. Christian disciples respond to God’s love in Christ by showing that we are in this for what we can give, not what we can get. That’s what distinguishes shepherds from hired hands.
What am I giving up out of love for Jesus and his people? Can I answer that question?
My third observation is that Jesus teaches us here about his mission:
16 I have other sheep that are not of this sheepfold. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd.
Here Jesus looks beyond the sheep in the immediate courtyard. These are not secret believers in other religions, as if all religions are valid ways of coming to God, because the second part about ‘one flock and one shepherd’ rules that out. This is about the mission to the Gentiles that will take place after the Ascension and Pentecost.[iii]
The sacrificial love of the divine Shepherd is such that he wants to draw all into his flock. His death is the effective way to bring all who will respond to follow him. Not only does he know those who are already part of his flock, he knows all people, and so he calls them, inviting them to recognise his voice and follow what he says.
And the relevance for us is this. While sometimes Jesus reaches out to people in unusual, direct ways – for instance, I’ve heard accounts of him appearing in dreams to people and calling them to follow him – mostly he works through human intermediaries, who are empowered by his Spirit. And you know who that means. Us.
Therefore, when we accept the call to join the flock of Christ and tune into his voice as the way to know how to live, part of that includes the fact that he speaks to us about sharing the news of his self-giving love with the world.
That doesn’t mean we all go knocking on doors. It doesn’t mean that quiet people have to become loud. Nor does it mean that we all have to know all the answers to all the objections to our faith (although a bit more studying of our faith by many of us would surely do no harm).
But it does mean that we all have a privilege and an obligation to be bearers of Christ’s good news to the world in our words and our deeds. It is a wonderful story we have to tell of a God who was so concerned about the alienation between him and his creation that he took the pain of reconciliation entirely upon himself.
Some of us will find it easier to talk about Jesus than others. But if we are not so fluent with our words and start to get nervous at the thought of talking about our faith, we might want to reflect on Who it is we are talking about and what it is he did for us. Does the cost of our nerves stack up against the price Jesus paid on the Cross?
[i] See, for example, 2 Samuel 7:7, 1 Chronicles 17:6
[ii] See, for example, Genesis 49:24, Psalm 80:1, Jeremiah 31:10, Ezekiel 34:1.
[iii] https://www.psephizo.com/biblical-studies/jesus-the-good-shepherd-leads-his-sheep-in-john-10/
The Resurrection of Jesus and the Healing of Creation: Worship for the Third Sunday of Easter 2021
This week I explore Luke’s account of the risen Jesus appearing to most of the disciples on the evening of Easter Day and ask what it conveys to us.
If you ask several witnesses to give their accounts of the same incident, their stories will have common themes, but the details will differ. Does this matter? Does it show them to be lying?
Not necessarily at all. The different accounts will be because different elements were important to each of them, because they remembered different parts, their concerns and interpretations varied, and so on. Some may summarise part of the event, and others may spell out things in word-for-word detail.
Those who criticise the accounts of the Resurrection in the four Gospels for being so different need to remember basic elements of human nature like this. And our story this week seems to be Luke’s account of at least the first of the two resurrection appearances behind locked doors that we considered in John 20:19-31 last week.
So in Luke’s account, what does Jesus want his disciples to learn about the Resurrection?
Firstly, Jesus wants his disciples to understand that the physical nature of the Resurrection.
Look at the two proofs he gives them. Firstly, Jesus invites the disciples to touch his hands and feet to prove that he has flesh and bones, unlike a ghost (verse 38), which is what in their fear they thought they had seen (verse 37).
In other words, Jesus isn’t an ethereal being. He isn’t a spirit who has found no place to rest in death. He is not ‘a cadaver brought back to life’[i], nor is he a zombie: this is not an episode of ‘The Walking Dead’. This is no horror movie. There is no need to fear. Jesus has been resurrected to material, physical life. Sure, it is different in some ways. But it is still physical.
This is underlined by the second proof Jesus gives, when the disciples are still too emotional to believe. He asks for food and promptly devours some fish (verses 41-43). As the only fish and seafood eater in his family, I approve enthusiastically!
When Jesus eats the fish, he isn’t just showing he has a physical body, he is also emphasising ‘an “immortal soul” free from bodily existence’[ii]. That’s important for us, because too often we default to that view of life after death. We say things like ‘the body isn’t important, it’s just a shell for the real person’, but this is what the Greek philosophers believed, not what the New Testament apostles believed. And it’s a disastrous belief to follow through on.
Why? Because if the body doesn’t matter, then it certainly doesn’t matter if we abuse it. Nor does it matter if we abuse someone else’s body, despite the physical and emotional pain we cause.
And if the body doesn’t matter it’s probably a sign that physical and material things generally don’t matter. Therefore we just believe in a spiritual heaven. We don’t need to worry about damage to the world, because, like the dreadful old hymn said,
This world is not my home,
I’m just passing through.
So we need to turn this round and be positive. Jesus’ physical resurrection is a sign that God cares about the physical and material. Remember that in the creation story of Genesis 1, he looked at each stage of creation and either pronounced it ‘good’ or ‘very good’. God’s attitude to his material creation hasn’t changed. The Resurrection tells us that he intends to redeem it. Remember how Revelation 21 speaks of a new heaven and a new earth, and of God making all things new. Well, the Resurrection is the beginning of that process.
The Resurrection is therefore why we care about healing. The Resurrection is why we care about justice. The Resurrection is why we care about climate change and creation care. Take away the Resurrection and none of those things matters. But they do matter, because God is about making all things new, including the material world, and the physical Resurrection is his supreme sign to the world that these matter.
So think of Jesus eating the fish next time you eat fish and chips. Our Catholic friends eat fish on a Friday to avoid eating meat on Good Friday, when we commemorate the death of Christ. But I suggest to you it’s every bit as valid to eat your fish and chips on a Sunday, when we celebrate the Resurrection, because it reminds us of Jesus’ physical resurrection and all that rides on it.
And therefore, don’t just think about the physical nature of the Resurrection: go into the world to bring healing to people, to relationships, and to the creation itself. Don’t let the truth of Jesus’ physical resurrection stay residing in your brain: let that truth travel to your hands and feet and make a resurrection difference in the world.
Secondly, Jesus wants his disciples to understand the place of the Resurrection in the purposes of God.
Proof and evidence are important, but they only take us so far. They are the preparing of the ground for commitment. We can provide solid evidence for the Christian faith, but on its own it doesn’t bring anybody to Christ. It prepares someone’s heart and mind for the challenge of commitment. That is what has happened so far in this story, and it’s often what happens in discussions with people today.
To make the jump from understanding to commitment, we need Jesus to send the Holy Spirit to interpret the purposes of God to us. We need that spiritual element.
And that’s what Jesus does when he ‘open[s] their minds so they could understand the Scriptures’ (verse 45). It takes a divine unveiling to appreciate the purposes of God and then be ready to throw our lot in with Jesus.
So now that’s what Jesus does. He reveals the place of the Resurrection in the divine purposes. He says it was always God’s plan that the Messiah would suffer, die, and be raised, and that this would lead to the preaching of repentance throughout the world (verses 46-47).
But that’s rather puzzling. Because taken on their own the Scriptures in question (which are basically the Old Testament as we know it) don’t make such claims in any particularly obvious way. You can only start to see it in the light of the Resurrection. Then you begin to understand what God was up to in the prophecies of the Servant in Isaiah, or the Son of Man coming to the Ancient of Days in Daniel, or the Lord inviting another Lord to sit at his right hand in the Psalms. You wouldn’t have guessed without the Resurrection.
But now the penny drops and Jesus tells his disciples, ‘You are witnesses of these things’ (verse 48). This comes back to that favourite Tom Wright quote of mine, ‘Jesus is alive and we’ve got a job to do.’
Why? The Resurrection shows that God has vindicated Jesus. Those who called for his crucifixion are exposed as in the wrong, and we realise we are all in the wrong before him. We all need to hear the call to repentance, because in the Resurrection God says that Jesus is in the right and we are in the wrong.
So the Resurrection is here to bring two changes in our lives. One is repentance, as we renounce our selfish ways of living to follow Jesus. The second is we are moved from inward-looking to outward-looking, because this concurs with the application of the physical nature of the Resurrection. But not only are we sent into the world with the message of the healing of all creation, we now realise that healing message is also about healing the rift between people and God.
Now I’m not suggesting this means that we use every minute of the day to bludgeon people with the Gospel: many of us have been subjected to that and know how bad it feels. But what it does mean is that we have this outward-looking focus where as disciples of the risen Lord our passion is for the healing of creation, the healing of people, the healing of relationships, and the healing of the breach between people and God. We shall show that in our actions and our priorities, and we shall speak when the time is right and when opportunities come.
Remember: God is making all things new, and he began that task when he raised Jesus from death.
[i] Joel Green, The Gospel of Luke, p854.
[ii] Ibid.
Worship for the Second Sunday in Easter (Low SUnday): Resurrection Shalom
This week, we look at the three times Jesus says ‘Peace be with you’ to the disciples after the Resurrection. What does his peace bring on each occasion?
Since Friday, the news has been dominated by the death of the Duke of Edinburgh. However, earlier his week another death saddened our family. The actor Paul Ritter died. Well-known for parts in various TV shows and movies, he was best known in our house as Martin Goodman, the eccentric Jewish father in the Channel 4 comedy Friday Night Dinner.
For those of you who don’t know Friday Night Dinner, it’s a show centred on a not particularly religious Jewish family. Each Friday night, the two twentysomething sons come home for dinner, marking the beginning of the Sabbath. The wife Jackie, played by the wonderful Tamsin Greig, cooks chicken, which Martin habitually refers to ‘as nice bit of squirrel’, followed by apple crumble, which he always calls ‘crimble crumble’.
The two sons fight and bicker, but everything generally descends into chaos when their hapless neighbour Jim calls at the door with his dog Wilson.
Jim is well-meaning but chaotic. In his attempts to be nice to his Jewish neighbours, he tries to copy everything he sees, because he assumes it’s all Jewish tradition. However, this includes the time at a meal when one of the boys puts salt in his brother’s water and Jim assumes that’s how Jews drink water. Most of all, he inserts the word ‘Shalom’ into the conversation at every opportunity.
In our Bible reading today, Jesus inserts plenty of Shalom. Three times, Jesus says ‘Peace be with you’ – twice during his first visit to the disciples, and once on the second appearance. It’s more than a pleasantry, as it can be in ordinary talk today – when I went to Israel in 1989 with some other theological students we flew on El Al, the Israeli airline. Every announcement over the PA from the captain began with the words, ‘Shalom and good evening, ladies and gentlemen.’ It became meaningless after a while.
But when Jesus says, ‘Peace be with you’, it is significant each time for what it introduces. So we’re going to look at that Resurrection Shalom today.
The first time Jesus says ‘Peace be with you’ (verse 19) he shows the assembled disciples ‘his hands and side’ (verse 20). Why would that be related to a greeting of peace?
On the surface of it, and I’ve read the text this way for years, Jesus showing the disciples his wounds seems simply to be a way of him saying, ‘Look, guys, it’s really me,’ and there must be an element of this since they react with joy, because they have seen the Lord (verse 20b).
But there’s more. Jesus’ talk of peace will take them back to some of their conversation at the Last Supper when he twice promised them peace despite the fact that they would have tribulation in the world (John 14:27, 16:33). One of those is a verse we often read at funerals:
Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid. (John 14:27)
It’s the wounds of Jesus that give us peace. It’s his death on the Cross that brings us the peace of God.
In other words, when life is bad, remember Jesus died for you. When the world turns against you, remember Jesus died for you. No matter what life throws at you, nothing can change the fact that Jesus died for our sins, and that stands as greater than any evil that might befall us.
No wonder the Apostle Paul had this to say in Romans chapter 8:
31 What, then, shall we say in response to these things? If God is for us, who can be against us? 32 He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all – how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Where are you being troubled at present? Remember Jesus died for you. That’s bigger.
The second time Jesus says ‘Peace be with you’ he immediately goes on to say, ‘As the Father has sent me, so I am sending you’ (verse 21). What’s the connection here?
The peace God gives through Christ’s death on the Cross is the most wonderful gift. But it’s not private, it’s for all. It’s a gift that needs to be shared. Hence, why Jesus says he is sending his disciples, just as the Father sent him.
However, many of us get nervous about that. The world is, as we’ve just been thinking, a place where it isn’t always easy to be a Christian. Sometimes our witness is appreciated and sometimes it’s derided. For those early Christians, they from time to time had to put their lives on the line, just as millions of our brother and sister disciples have to do today in countries that are hostile to our faith.
I’ve just been reading a book by a Western Muslim who converted to Christianity, and one of the things that is clear towards the end of the book is how painful it was for him to tell his parents of his conversion, and the alienation it caused. There was a severe rift. They did not attend his wedding.[i] There is a price to pay for faithfulness to Jesus Christ.
So what does Jesus do for us? As well as giving us the power of the Holy Spirit (which is also mentioned in this reading but we’ll leave considering the Spirit until Pentecost) he blesses us with his peace. We may be nervous to begin speaking, but when we do so we find the peace of Jesus within.
In other words, when we speak about all that Jesus has done for us, we’re not only doing it for him, we’re doing it with him, because he gives us his peace and his Spirit.
The third time Jesus says ‘Peace be with you’ is when Thomas is present, and what follows is the dialogue between the two of them where Jesus offers Thomas the opportunity to confirm the truth in the way he had said by putting his fingers and hands in the wounds. However, Thomas doesn’t need to after all; instead, he confesses that Jesus is his Lord and his God (verses 26-29).
What do we make of Thomas? Was he really Doubting Thomas? Really he was no different from the other male disciples when they heard from Mary Magdalene that the body of Jesus was missing from the tomb. It’s unfair to suggest he had less faith than the others. They too had needed to be convinced by Jesus appearing to them.
I prefer the approach taken by the scholar and blogger Ian Paul. He tells a story about how he took a primary school assembly one day and asked the children who their heroes were. Then he claimed to have met all these people on his way to the school. Of course they knew he hadn’t, but he asked them how they would have felt if he really had met their heroes like that, and they had missed out. One child put up their hand and said, ‘I would be very angry!’ Ever since then, Ian Paul hasn’t referred to ‘Doubting Thomas’: he has called him ‘Angry Thomas’, because there’s a real sense here that Thomas is miffed because he’s missed out.
An angry person needs the peace of Christ. Jesus makes sure Thomas doesn’t ultimately miss out, and he clearly considers his desire for evidence perfectly reasonable.
It’s worth thinking here about what faith actually is. You’ve heard the child’s definition of faith as ‘Believing in something that you know isn’t true,’ something that some militant atheists have taken up and used to taunt believers. But that just goes to show how childish such people are.
Because faith is quite the opposite. It isn’t proof, but it’s having enough evidence to hand in order to trust. It’s where a healthy couple are on their wedding day. They are saying they know enough about the one they love to trust in their relationship from here until death. They don’t know everything about their new spouse, only a little in fact, but they know enough to take that step of faith.
And Jesus knows we need to know enough to trust him. What that will be will vary from person to person, but he is willing to provide it – sometimes quickly as with Thomas, sometimes in stages over a longer time. He provides what we need to dispel our anxieties or anger that prevent faith, and thus brings his peace to us.
So – do you need the peace of Christ for some reason? Is it the peace that comes from knowing he died for you and which sustains you in the face of adversity? Is it peace so that you may be his witness? Is it the peace that comes from knowing that Christian faith is true and valid and not a figment of your imagination?
Whatever the reason – if you need the peace of Christ, he is risen from the dead and waiting for you to call upon him.
[i] Nabeel Qureshi, Seeking Allah, Finding Jesus (Third Edition).
A Gentle Healing – Worship for Easter Day 2021 With Added Noel Richards!
Happy Easter!
And what better day to sing the praises of God? So the video is a little longer this Sunday, and that’s not because I’ve preached an extra-long message, it’s because I’ve included extra sung worship. Much of it comes courtesy of Noel Richards, who kindly sent videos of him leading some of his own Easter-themed worship songs.
A couple of years ago in the run-up to Christmas, I couldn’t get any inspiration for what to preach about at the Christmas Eve Midnight Communion service. That’s not a good place for a preacher to be in, and certainly not me. I like to have all my thoughts for a sermon or address prepared and organised. Extempore preaching is just not for me.
But on this occasion I strangely didn’t feel stressed about the prospect. I offered some thoughts around John chapter 1 verse 5:
The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.
I linked it to my experiences of bereavement, losing my mother in February 2014 and my father in August 2017. I explained how that Advent hope of the light in the darkness had made sense of my experience. I had just enough light in the darkness. This was my hope: just enough light in the darkness.
Those of you who bought the book ‘Merry Christmas Everyone’ to which I contributed a chapter may recall that this is what I wrote about there. It’s important to me.
So why am I beginning an Easter Day message with a reference to Christmas? Because I think there’s something similar going on here.
Just look at Mark’s account. It only has eight verses, far fewer than the other Gospels. Granted, your Bible may offer you other possible endings to Mark, but these are most likely additions from other writers who couldn’t cope with the short and stark way in which Mark ends his account with the women still afraid, despite being told by the young man robed in white not to be alarmed. It does feel like a strange ending. Some scholars assume that we have lost the original ending to the Gospel, and that it would have all been tidied up much more neatly than this.
But what if this really is the end? I think it surprisingly might be quite fitting. Why do I think that? Let me explain.
Mark’s Gospel makes great play on the suffering of Jesus and teaches that his disciples will also suffer. That’s why the first of three prophecies Jesus makes of his betrayal and death leads to him telling those gathered around him that if anyone wants to be his disciple, he or she must deny themselves, take up their cross, and follow him.
And there are strong reasons for thinking that Mark emphasises these elements of Jesus’ life and message because he is writing to Christians in Rome facing persecution under the Emperor Nero in the AD 60s. They need to hear that suffering for your faith is par for the course according to Jesus himself, but they also need to have a glimpse of hope, and eight verses in Mark 16 give them that.
I don’t know about you, but when I am going through a bad patch in life, the sort of people who come along and give me a hearty slap on the back, explaining all my troubles in ways that God hasn’t, and telling me how great things will be soon, are actually people to whom I want to give a hearty slap on the back, but not in the same way. A dose of triumphalism is not what the doctor orders at those times for me.
However, a gentle pointer towards hope is much more likely to act as medicine to my soul, and I think that’s what the young man robed in white gives the women at the tomb:
6 ‘Don’t be alarmed,’ he said. ‘You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. 7 But go, tell his disciples and Peter, “He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.”’
He just says it the once. He doesn’t labour the point. He doesn’t repeat it. He doesn’t bang a fist. One gentle statement and he leaves it at that, knowing, I think, that the women’s mindset may not change immediately but the miraculous reality will seep in over time.
And what the robed young man – or let’s be straightforward, angel – says in that one gentle statement is something that starts the healing process in every part of the women.
Healing of their emotions begins here:
‘Do not be alarmed.’
What is more natural in the Bible when human beings encounter heavenly beings than a sense of fear? These encounters are often accompanied by human dread of the Almighty.
But the first thing the angel says begins the process of moving the women from fear to peace. We know it isn’t instant, because the last verse of the reading says they were trembling, bewildered, and afraid.
However, the message of the Resurrection is that even in this most powerful and awe-inspiring work of God, there is no need to fear. This is the work of the God who does not want us to be afraid. It is a key way in which he begins to take away fear from us, for this is the conquest of death, that event which provokes a fearfulness of God.
May our terror of God begin to subside this Easter. ‘Do not be alarmed.’
Healing of their minds also begins here.
‘You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene, who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here.’
Were their minds playing tricks on them? Well, it certainly wasn’t a hallucination, as such events are usually solitary experiences (whereas there were three women present here) and involve things that the hallucinating person expects (and the women don’t expect the Resurrection).
So the angel points to where the body of Jesus had been. It isn’t that the empty tomb of itself proves the Resurrection, and opponents of Jesus soon came up with their own theories about why the grave was empty (although their objections were all doomed to failure). But the empty tomb is one part of the jigsaw. Other jigsaw pieces will follow. Before long the women will believe.
This Easter, stop believing the lies that only weak-minded people believe in God and believe the biblical accounts. The evidence shows otherwise. Those who think they are more mature because they don’t believe in God are actually falling for that most basic of human sins, namely pride.
So be reassured in your mind this Easter about the truth of Jesus and the veracity of the Gospel.
Finally, healing of their spirits begins here too.
‘But go, tell his disciples and Peter, “He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’
Why ‘his disciples and Peter’? Wasn’t Peter one of the disciples? Is this a mark of how Peter felt following his three denials that he knew Jesus? Did he perhaps no longer consider himself a disciple? It rather sounds like it.
Here the angel is telling the fearful women to convey a message that human failure doesn’t have the final word: the grace of God does. Jesus has risen for his followers, not to condemn them.
What are those reasons why we think we have put ourselves outside the boundaries of God’s love? Let the Resurrection be the reminder that Jesus is calling us back, not casting us out.
Let Easter Day remind us this year that our shame and sin has got nothing on the grace and mercy of God. Jesus rose to meet and restore his disciples, including us.
Like Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, and Salome, it may also take us time to heal of our brokenness. But today, facing the truth that Jesus is alive, let the healing begin.
Let our fearful emotions give way to joy and peace.
Let our faithless minds give way to confidence in Jesus and his Gospel.
And let our shamed spirits bask in the light of God’s merciful love in Jesus.
Thus may it be a Happy Easter.
Good Friday Worship: The Signs of the Cross
APOLOGIES – the publication of the video is delayed due to a technical problem. It should be available a little later on Good Friday morning.
Everywhere around us we have signs. Among the most common are road signs. A red circle around the number ‘30’ tells us that the maximum speed limit is 30 mph.
It’s far better to have a sign like that than one which writes out the meaning longhand. Imagine if everywhere you drove, you saw signs with the message written in longhand: ‘You may not exceed 30 mph’ or ‘Roundabout ahead with six exits: two are for the A245, two are for the A320, and there are two minor roads as well.’ (Woking residents will know the roundabout to which I am referring!)
The signs work well because they convey the message as we travel along.
There are two signs at the heart of Mark’s account of the crucifixion. However, we might need to think about what they mean so that we can absorb their meaning as we travel through the story of the Passion. As we learn our road signs in the Highway Code, so we also need to learn our spiritual signs.
The first sign is the torn curtain:
38 The curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom.
Ah, but which curtain? You might not guess it from Mark’s language, but there were two curtains in the Jerusalem Temple. One at the innermost part. It separated off the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple. It was entered only once a year by the high priest on the Day of Atonement.
Christians have naturally thought Mark was referring to that curtain. It makes sense of Christian teaching about the atonement Jesus achieved on the Cross. But there is a problem. No-one could have seen that curtain being torn.
It’s more likely, then, that it’s the other curtain which was torn. This one separated the Court of Israel from the Court of Women. According to Josephus it was decorated with ‘a panorama of the heavens.’ And Mark uses the same word here for ‘torn’ that he uses at the baptism of Jesus when the heavens are torn open and God speaks from heaven.
So at the baptism of Christ, the heavenly dwelling of God is opened to humanity, and at his death the earthly dwelling of God is rent open.
This, then, is the sign: heaven is open to humanity, through the death of Jesus. All that stands in our way is torn apart. We no longer need to hide from God like Adam and Even did in the Garden of Eden. We don’t need to stay at a distance. Heaven is open.
Perhaps Good Friday is a day when the natural thing to do is to feel shame for our sins that put Christ on the Cross. But it’s a mistake to park there. The sign of the torn curtain beckons us on, and into the presence of the God of grace and mercy.
So why not come?
The second sign is the centurion’s confession:
39 And when the centurion, who stood there in front of Jesus, saw how he died, he said, ‘Surely this man was the Son of God!’
This sign has been signposted before, at the beginning of the Gospel, like one of those road signs that tells you there are fifty more miles to Portsmouth. For the Gospel according to Mark begins with the words,
The beginning of the good news about Jesus the Messiah, the Son of God (1:1)
The Messiah and the Son of God. In chapter eight, Simon Peter confesses that Jesus is the Messiah. Now in chapter fifteen, the Roman centurion confesses him as Son of God.
At one of his trials, the high priest has asked Jesus if he is ‘the Messiah, the Son of the Blessèd One’, those very titles Mark has set out at the beginning. When Jesus says he is, he is condemned as a blasphemer and the religious court says he is worthy of death (14:60-65).
What an irony. What the religious leadership condemns, a fisherman and a centurion welcome and wonder.
Just ponder that centurion. How many crucifixions had he been in charge of during his career? He knew what a death by crucifixion looked like. But there was something different about this prisoner. And it is seen in the manner of his death.
In fairness, Mark doesn’t tell us exactly what the difference is that the centurion notices, but there is something about Jesus even at the moment he cries out at his death that marks him out to this soldier as more than a mere mortal. He sees it. Simon Peter, for all his blunders and failures, has seen it. The people who should see it have heard it but rejected it, rather than wondered at it.
Today, Good Friday, let the immensity of the fact that the Son of God died in our place fill our hearts with wonder, amazement, and worship. Let it bring us to the foot of the Cross where we kneel in allegiance to him.
And there let us find that heaven is open to us, even us.
Palm Sunday (Sixth Sunday in Lent): Worship In The WIlderness – A surprising Journey
Israel longed for the homecoming of God to Jerusalem. Jesus fulfilled this hope on Palm Sunday, but not in the ways Israel expected. His journey into Jerusalem holds surprises for us, too. That’s what I explore this week.
Have you ever anticipated a homecoming? Perhaps it was your oldest child coming home after their first term at university. Maybe it was a reunion with a long-lost friend.
If you have, then you probably imagined what it would be like. But then the person arrives, and they look different. Your son home from university has grown his hair long. Your daughter has arrived home with a tattoo. The friend you haven’t seen for years has aged badly.
Somehow, homecomings do not always turn out how we imagine they will.
Israel was longing for the homecoming of her God to Jerusalem. We read that in Isaiah 35. But when it happens, as Jesus enters Jerusalem on what we call Palm Sunday, it isn’t entirely in the form they had popularly imagined from their interpretations of the prophetic hope.
It is a surprising homecoming at the end of this wilderness journey we have been exploring through Lent.
Let’s look at the elements of God’s homecoming in Isaiah 35 and see where the surprises lay in the light of Palm Sunday.
The first element is joy:
The desert and the parched land will be glad;
the wilderness will rejoice and blossom.
Like the crocus, 2 it will burst into bloom;
it will rejoice greatly and shout for joy.
The glory of Lebanon will be given to it,
the splendour of Carmel and Sharon;
they will see the glory of the Lord,
the splendour of our God.
The joy is so unconfined that even the inanimate parts of creation seem to shout with gladness. Poetically, creation sings. It is renewed.
The New Testament takes up this theme when it fills out the Old Testament prophecies about a new creation. Before that time, we see creation groaning in expectation, but we look forward to a day when, as Augustine of Hippo put it, every part of creation will mediate the presence of God to us. The homecoming of God is not just about personal salvation, it’s about the renewal of all creation. This is something to shout, sing, and celebrate!
But where is the surprise on Palm Sunday? Isn’t it in the failure of the religious establishment to welcome this and join in? They tell Jesus to silence the children who are singing praises, but Jesus says that if their mouths are shut, then even the stones will cry out.
How easy it is for our meanness and jealousy to close our own mouths to the praise of God and to close our hearts and minds to seeing and rejoicing in the fulfilment of his purposes. For that is what many of the religious leaders of Jesus’s day did.
Has a mean spirit silenced our praise? Has our jealousy of what another Christian can offer stunted our faith? It’s time to repent of these unworthy attitudes. They rip churches apart, and they suffocate our faith.
The second element is hope:
3 Strengthen the feeble hands,
steady the knees that give way;
4 say to those with fearful hearts,
‘Be strong, do not fear;
your God will come,
he will come with vengeance;
with divine retribution
he will come to save you.’
Think how Israel struggled for hope in the face of Roman occupation. To them, it was like being in exile despite being in their own land. So they looked forward to the day when God would come and right these wrongs, and his Messiah would boot the Romans out, leaving Israel to live in peace within her own borders.
Where’s the surprise? Well, the Christian hope does include the righting of all wrongs and the judgment of the wicked and the unrepentant. No-one in the Bible talked more about Hell as a place of punishment than Jesus.
But the difference is this. Jesus postponed the judgment. It wasn’t to be now, but at the end of time. When he preached at Nazareth in Luke chapter 4, he stopped his reading from Isaiah 61 before the verses about judgment.
So when Jesus comes riding into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, he adopts instead the prophecy of Zechariah, by entering on a donkey, not a war horse. His gift of hope comes in a peaceful manner, not a warlike one. When he receives the cries from the crowd of ‘Hosanna’ (which loosely means, ‘O God, save us’) that opportunity for salvation is not just for Israel. When he dies on the Cross, a convicted thief and a Roman centurion will confess faith in him. The hope is offered both to Israel, and to Israel’s enemies.
And that must make us think about how we frame our hope in Christ. Do we see that he also offers hope through his saving love at the Cross to the people we don’t like? Are there people whom we would rather God just zapped with a thunderbolt, but who are also candidates for hope, according to Jesus?
The third element is healing:
5 Then will the eyes of the blind be opened
and the ears of the deaf unstopped.
6 Then will the lame leap like a deer,
and the mute tongue shout for joy.
Water will gush forth in the wilderness
and streams in the desert.
7 The burning sand will become a pool,
the thirsty ground bubbling springs.
In the haunts where jackals once lay,
grass and reeds and papyrus will grow.
In these verses we see both the kinds of personal healings that Jesus himself performed (curing the blind and the lame) and also the healing of creation, where even inhospitable places like the wilderness become beautifully inhabitable, and safe instead of being places of danger.
One thing we might dwell upon is how some Christians favour physical healing and others favour the work of the Church to heal the wider creation. However, neither Isaiah nor Jesus give us a choice in this. We are called to both. The Christian with the healing ministry may need to learn about climate change, and the Christian politician may need to pray for the sick.
But there’s another surprise here. Strictly it doesn’t come on Palm Sunday, but what we’ve said in the point about hope being offered not just to Israel but to her enemies might make us think further on into Holy Week. Remember when Jesus was arrested in Gethsemane after Judas betrayed him. Then remember how Simon Peter lashed out with a sword and cut off the ear of the high priest’s servant. What did Jesus do? He healed the servant, even though that servant was part of the group that was arresting him and about to take him away to certain torture and death.
So the surprise here for God’s people in God’s homecoming is the call to bless all the broken people and all of broken creation, even including the enemies of God. The healing mandate brought by Jesus encompasses a call to love our enemies as well as those for whom we feel an affinity.
Who is God calling me to bless this week?
The fourth and final element is holiness:
8 And a highway will be there;
it will be called the Way of Holiness;
it will be for those who walk on that Way.
The unclean will not journey on it;
wicked fools will not go about on it.
9 No lion will be there,
nor any ravenous beast;
they will not be found there.
But only the redeemed will walk there,
10 and those the Lord has rescued will return.
They will enter Zion with singing;
everlasting joy will crown their heads.
Gladness and joy will overtake them,
and sorrow and sighing will flee away.
God makes his homecoming on a particular road. It is called the Way of Holiness. Israel rejoices that ‘The unclean will not journey on it’: they can’t have any Romans or even native sinners joining in this celebratory march to Jerusalem.
But the surprise here is that God’s people cannot simply look down their self-righteous noses at those they consider unworthy to be on the Highway of the Lord. The call to holiness is a call for all of us to shape up. It’s a call that reminds us that the only way we can march to Zion with Jesus is if we too take the Way of Holiness.
And as Jesus enters Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, the event we often call ‘The Triumphal Entry’, we need to remember that his greatest triumph is to come at the Cross and the tomb. Jesus took that journey, doing what was right. It led him to Calvary, but then to the vacating of his grave.
If we want to walk with Jesus, it is on this road, the Way of Holiness. We shall slip up from time to time, but the basic question is whether this is the direction we are willing to take or whether we have deluded ourselves that we can take a different route to glory. The Cross to which Jesus was headed was not only for our forgiveness, but it was also to make us more like Christ.
Fifth Sunday in Lent: Worship In The WIlderness – A Truth-Speaking Journey
This week’s passage – Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones vision – isn’t a traditional Lent reading, but you could say it is a vision of wilderness conditions. And so I use this week to explore how God brings hope and life in the midst of crisis and death.
The concept of the wilderness is used in more than one way in the Bible. Sometimes it’s literal, sometimes it’s an image. Sometimes it’s negative, sometimes positive. Sometimes it’s about sin, sometimes it’s about drawing near to God with no distractions.
Perhaps in a temperate climate like the one we’re used to in Britain, it’s natural to gravitate to the negative connotations of the wilderness. And that’s what Ezekiel 37 gives us in this vision of a valley filled with dry bones. It’s a place of death – although it’s also a place which God visits with hope.
The kind of death it symbolises is set out for us in verse 11:
11 Then he said to me: ‘Son of man, these bones are the people of Israel. They say, “Our bones are dried up and our hope is gone; we are cut off.”
It’s the death of hope. Israel is in exile in Babylon, far from her homeland. Back in Jerusalem, the city has been sacked and the Temple, their most cherished sign of God’s presence with them, has been destroyed.
Our hope is gone; we are cut off.
I am beginning to sense that the longer the COVID-19 pandemic continues, the more there are Christians and churches feeling something similar to this. The continuing financial losses are heightening the crisis some churches face. The Canadian pastor Carey Nieuwhof, whom I often quote, has said, ‘Crisis is an accelerator,’ and the crisis of coronavirus has certainly accelerated critical questions about some of our churches. Issues we might have expected to face in ten years’ time we are suddenly facing today.
That’s why it doesn’t surprise me if some Christians today say similar words to those of Israel in Ezekiel 37:11: our hope is gone; we are cut off.
So in what ways does God bring hope to this wilderness valley of death? And how do we respond if we are to receive his life?
I thought I was going to share two things with you, but it’s turned into three:
Firstly, notice how Ezekiel addresses God:
‘Sovereign Lord, you alone know.’ (verse 3b)
This is the first thing to remember: that God is sovereign. It may feel like social forces are sweeping away things that we cherish and that everything is out of control, but for all this, Ezekiel still addresses God as ‘Sovereign Lord’.
What does it mean, though? The popular Christian cliché is to say, ‘God is in control,’ but I wouldn’t put it like that. It implies God as a micro-manager who direct every minute action. It may be that that is somewhat along the lines of what some of my Calvinist Christian friends believe, but I don’t believe that is true to the Scriptures or true to life.
No: we have to account for a God who is sovereign and for certain exercise of free will by human beings, subject to our limits. It would be fair to say that God has more free will than us, but we still need an understanding of God’s sovereignty that does not obliterate free will and human responsibility, a conception of divine sovereignty that allows both for the sense of purpose and the sense of randomness in the universe.
I think we are moving in the right direction when, rather than saying ‘God is in control,’ we say, ‘God is in charge.’ In the United Kingdom, the Queen is in charge, but not everybody obeys the laws passed by her Government. Nevertheless, she is still sovereign over this kingdom. You could make similar appropriate analogies for different forms of government in other countries.
What Ezekiel is confessing is that God is still in charge, even though Israel is sinful and Babylon is cruel. He can and will exercise more free will than the apparently powerful Babylonians, and that is grounds for hope. In the long term, that will lead to Israel being set free and returning to her land.
Similarly for us, we recognise that God is still in charge, even though COVID-19 has caused carnage and churches and other institutions are in crisis. Yes, some churches will close. Perhaps we see them as casualties of war in the conflict between good and evil. But Jesus promised that he would build his church, and the gates of Hades would not prevail against it[i]. That may constitute our long term hope.
Secondly, notice the emphasis on the word of God. Three times, Ezekiel is told to prophesy (verse 4, 9, 12). On the first and third occasions the call is to bring God’s word to his desolate people. When they hear from God, hope begins to take shape. The bones start to come together (verse 7) and they hear the promise of new life with a return to their homeland (verses 12-14).
The word of God brings hope. It is not simply a message that disappears into thin air. Instead, it has an effect on the hearers. It leads to hope and life.
This is what we need, too: a word from God that stirs hope and new life in us. The very worst thing is when we do not hear God and when God is not speaking to us, as the prophet Amos said:
‘The days are coming,’ declares the Sovereign Lord,
‘when I will send a famine through the land –
not a famine of food or a thirst for water,
but a famine of hearing the words of the Lord.[ii]
But that is rare. If we are to discover hope in our crisis then we need to hear God for ourselves. How might we do so?
The most important way in which we get used to what the voice of God sounds like is to soak ourselves in the Scriptures. A daily, disciplined engagement with the Bible where we both read the words and listen for God speaking to us through them. There is no more a substitute for this in the Christian life than there is for eating regular meals in ordinary, physical life.
When we get a good sense for what God’s message is like, we can then listen for and test today’s claims to prophecy. Where are the people in the Christian community who manifestly live closely to God, and who when have an atmosphere of heaven around them when they speak? Who are the people who bring a fresh word, full of energy, that is consistent with and grows out of what we know about God’s voice from the Bible?
Of course, their words must be tested. Uncritical acceptance is not on the agenda.
But we need to tune in to God if we are to hear his word of hope and life. I have a particular favourite radio station I like to listen to in the car. However, it’s very easy round here to drive in and out of its signal range. If I want to hear it well, I may need to drive closer to the transmitter.
It’s just as easy to drive away from the presence and the voice of God. Each one of us needs to take those steps to tune into the sound of God’s voice in the Scriptures and draw close to him. Then we may hear the message of hope and life he has for us in our day.
Some are suggesting that what God is saying is that the pandemic is like a Great Pause in the world, and that it is like a racing car’s pit-stop where the tyres are changed so that it can accelerate out of the pit lane back into the race. And therefore we are being called to use this time of pause to get right with God, draw near to him, and be prepared not for a ‘return to normal’ but to an acceleration of God’s purposes.[iii]
Does that chime with you as you soak yourself in the word of God? Is that a word of hope and life? Test it and see.
Thirdly and finally, look at all the stress on the breath of God. The bones come together, but there is no life. They need breath.
9 Then he said to me, ‘Prophesy to the breath; prophesy, son of man, and say to it, “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: come, breath, from the four winds and breathe into these slain, that they may live.”’ 10 So I prophesied as he commanded me, and breath entered them; they came to life and stood up on their feet – a vast army.
Breath – also wind, or spirit. In New Testament terms, this is a prophecy that calls on the Holy Spirit to come and fill the people of God.
Ultimately, to have hope we need the very life of God in us. Just as God breathed life into human beings in the creation story of Genesis 1, so also for the people of God to come alive and be filled with hope we need God to breathe his Holy Spirit into us.
And so Ezekiel prophesies for the breath of God to come from the four winds, just as the ancient prayer commonly used at ordination services says, ‘Veni Sancte Spiritus’ – ‘Come, Holy Spirit’.
Some don’t like that language, because they believe the Spirit of God is everywhere, and there is some truth in that. But at the same time what brings death to us is our living without the Spirit, and we remember how there are biblical stories about the glory of the Lord moving on from the disobedient. So there is justification for us to pray, ‘Come, Holy Spirit.’
Hope comes from the life and presence of God. Lasting, eternal hope is not something human beings can engineer. That’s why we need to pray with fervour, ‘Come, Holy Spirit.’
Everything I’m saying today is about being God-centred. Our hope rests on his sovereignty, his word, and his Spirit. If we want to come out of the dry, hot death of the wilderness into fresh new life and hope then the only way to do is by actively depending on our God in these ways.
[i] Matthew 16:18
[ii] Amos 8:11
[iii] Jarrod Cooper, The Divine Reset. See also this video interview: https://premierchristianmedia.co.uk/16DQ-79OQD-68XW34-4DUIQ7-1/c.aspx
Big Circumstance 