Category: God
Why God, and not simply humanity alone?
Why God, and not simply humanity alone?
Because it would seem that humanity is not alone.
But why would I say such a thing?
Need? Upbringing? …
Dependence?
Not really.
In my own independent thought, I perceive truth:
there is a microscopic world inside my own body, with billions of cells doing their own coded co-ordinated thing, keeping me alive largely through no doing of my own;
there is a mysterious Universe out there, vast, and ordered, and beautiful, and mostly utterly beyond our reach.
Is humanity alone? No: I don’t think so.
There is a reality greater than us: yet, from time to time, we are given a glimpse into that greater reality, like a glimpse into another dimension.
Jesus gave us a massive glimpse.
Power, beyond us. Knowledge, beyond us.
Character, beyond us.
Leadership.
Humanity is capable of great good and profound evil,
but there is a kind of leadership beyond humanity:
a kind of authority that transcends our kinds of authority.
Why not simply humanity alone?
Because we are not alone, and neither should we be.
We can reduce things to dust, but we can’t form ourselves from it.
We can save life, but we can’t create life from no life.
We can run away from death for a time, but we can’t resurrect ourselves into new life.
We are humanity.
Let God be God.
Grace
What do we do when we fail?
We’re only human, after all: and failure seems to be an inevitable part who we are.
Jesus’s approach was something like this: go for gold, and at the same time trust in grace.
But what does it mean to go for gold?…
To aspire to be as good as we can be: to seek to be like God.
Faithful. Pure. Wanting justice. Pursuing what is right, and true.
Fixing things, when they go wrong.
And what does it mean to trust in grace?
Grace is a child reaching up to his mother’s trustworthy hand, when he’s accidentally wet his pants.
Grace is a father holding his daughter’s scared eyes without reproach, when she comes home late after a date.
God calls us into perfection, and simultaneously reaches a hand out to us when we fall, to lift us back up again.
Wow.
What can we do when we fail?
Get back up. Trust in the outstretched hand. Keep aspiring to walk, and then to run.
Failure is only the beginning, not the end.
Good Friday is coming…
Good Friday is coming.
Time for a rest! Easter! A long weekend, and into the school holidays.
But after catching my breath, what does Good Friday really mean to me, when all is uncovered? Everything. Why? Because this person, Jesus of Nazareth, Jesus Christ, actually saved my life.
He reached into my darkness, into my death, into my grave, and pulled me out.
How? Because he went before me: into death. And then he came out again, with me following close behind.
But what does ‘salvation’ even mean?
Is it a high flying theological concept, only grasped by those vigorously and academically trained?
No. That’s why Mary was so delighted, when she praised God for revealing himself to the poor.
Salvation is close at hand: God, and Jesus, are right here, right now.
What does salvation mean: a life after death?
Heaven, forever?
Yes, but much more: life, here.
A deeper life; a richer life.
A lost soul found again.
But lost how? In drugs? In alcohol? In depression? In despair?
Yes, all of these, and more.
There can be binding power in our own failings, as well: with family, or friends, or colleagues…
And there can be binding power in the wrong that was done to us, from family, or friends, or colleagues…
There is a Way when we have lost our way.
There is a shining Light for those of us who are lost in darkness – whatever form that darkness may take.
On Good Friday, that Light is taking the form of a man on a cross.
Jesus hung there, beaten and dying, 2000 years ago.
He was executed, but why?
Because the religious leaders of the day couldn’t tolerate him.
Because the state was afraid of him.
What power did this man carry, to become such a threat without committing a single crime?
He Loved: with all of the power and audacity of God.
Love is compelling: love can change the world.
Divine Love can transform a nation – but at no little cost!
Such a Love demands our all, that we might gain much more:
A greater Way, a better Way; a Way of radical goodness and love.
The Way of God.
What does Good Friday mean? The cost to Jesus of saving us.
He is the Light in the Darkness – the light at the end of the tunnel.
Hope, stronger than despair.
Life, overcoming death.
Beauty and purity overcoming our corruption.
The cross is an invitation to come.
Come, and look at this man:
he’s hanging there for us, for me and for you.
His sacrifice is an offer; he is beckoning:
‘Come, and I will give you rest.’
‘Come, and I will give you new life.’
‘Come, and I will change you.’
Come, and leave the past behind.
There is a new day: a resurrection from death.
There is a new kind of life.
Look, and see that God is both powerful and good.
Beauty
Beauty…
What is beauty? A stunning landscape, sparkling light off the sea, rich green grass; a face that draws the eye: fine lines, intriguing gaze…
But what then is spiritual beauty?
A sense of what is beyond: light, purity, of what it greater, and better, than we are…
Water, for the desert. Inspiration, for the artist and activist.…
Purpose, in simply being alive.
A fuller discovery of our being.
An actualization of our design.
For life, real life, true and testing, in all of its abundance, is worthy of the search, worthy of the struggle, worthy of sacrifice.
True life demands our all, and in return offers us the most stunning encounter with beauty.
For what else is worth living and dying for?
God is Light and Love
God is Light and Love.
Why is God Light? Because Light illuminates, in the darkness. Light beckons. Light evokes a brighter more vibrant way of Life.
And why is God Love? Because Love unleashes Life. Love provides a Way for a better Life. Love sacrifices to ensure the greater Life of His or Her children.
But if this is so, if God is Light, why is there Darkness?
The Darkness gives greater brilliance to the Light.
The Darkness can enhance our choice between Darkness and Light.
And if God is Love, why is there Hatred?
Love allows for Hatred, in His midst.
Love calls Hatred into Her own arms.
God is Light and Love, and so we have been given the choice.
Light, or Darkness?
Love, or Hatred?
And if we should choose Light, Love has provided the Way.
A greater Way; a better Way.
The Way of Christ, with all of its cost.
For the best kind of Life rightly demands our all.
Vulnerability and Profundity
An Ocean of potential…
Christmas: It’s about Family.
What does Christmas mean? Why do we go to all this trouble, every year: piling up the roads with traffic, putting up the decorations, stressing at midnight to make sure we’ve bought all the last gifts…
Family? Is Christmas about family? For many of us, that’s a double-edged sword. For many of us, meeting with family is the deepest challenge of all. There are 365 days to meet with family: but on Christmas day, everyone comes together to feast, and to gift, as if everything is okay – as if the tensions of the rest of the year don’t exist at all.
Yet, the tensions do still exist: we are but human. Strained relationships, unresolved conflicts, losses from the past…for some of us, these realities abound and intensify in pain at Christmas time. Family isn’t picture perfect, for these! Family isn’t joy and peace: family is pain.
Yet there is another dimension to Christmas.
Two thousand years ago, a child was born in Israel. The circumstances of his birth were unusual: there was talk of angels, and of God. A teenaged mother, at risk of being ostracised even to death by her own people. An engagement to a man not the father. Who was the father? To answer this also was to risk death.
The Father was God.
Her pregnancy grew. Her husband had to travel, for a census: so they travelled together. There were no cars or buses: there was only their own two feet, and maybe a donkey. They walked: a long way. A bit like walking, or riding a donkey, from up north to Auckland. Pregnant. That’s pretty uncomfortable!
They went through the big city, Jerusalem, and on to the town Bethlehem. She went into labour, but there was no accommodation available, so where did she deliver? Maybe in a stable, or shed. She wrapped the baby boy up in strips of cloth, as was the thing to do back then, and laid him in an animal feeding trough. Better than the floor!
This baby boy was born in animal accommodation.
Who was this child, proclaimed by angels, born amongst animals: considered of such little worth by some to have to be laid in a manger, a feeding trough, and yet later to be visited by wise men from distant lands? Who was this one, who was later to transform the very foundation of the Roman Empire that had ordered his father to travel to Bethlehem in the first place?
This is Jesus Christ. Jesus, Yeshua, in Hebrew: the son of Joseph/Yosef, the son of David, of Nazareth. Christ, ‘the anointed one,’ the Hebrew Messiah, king and priest, awaited, but also rejected.
So what’s all this mean for us?
A light came into the world, 2000 years ago: a light that has been strong enough to remain, to this day. Light is for darkness: his light is to illuminate our darkness. This child grew into a man. He shared about God, and about humanity: he challenged the religious leaders of the day, and was killed for it.
Yet death could not keep him down.
What does Christmas mean? A mass of people gathered around Christ. Why are people gathering around him? Because of his words, because of his actions: because of his power, greater than our weaknesses – even greater than death itself.
Why not find out about this man, who dared to speak out, who dared to die, in order to shine Light: in order to overcome the darkness with his Light?
Christ is born, and is still being born, in the hearts and minds of people today. Turns out Christmas is about family, after all: Christ’s family.
Whether you know Christ, or do not, whether you wish to, or do not, I wish you a happy Christmas. And to those of us who want to know more, then, come. Feast on the spiritual food! Join us! Join the mass around Christ.
Come, let us adore him.
Love Never Fails
Love is powerful.
It raises the dead to life.
It pushes through pain to delivery.
It laughs in the face of adversity.
Love never fails.
Frailty shakes, but Love holds out its hand.
Fear corrupts, but Love calls those full of fear to greater courage.
Self-defence sacrifices others in its own Dark Shrine, but Love sacrifices itself for its enemies, to show them the way into its Light.
Love never fails.
Frailty fails: Love rebuilds.
Fear shakes: Love girds.
Self-defence runs: Love remains.
Love never fails.
Though the mountains may shake, and the valleys flood, Love will remain.
Though fear may decimate, Love will prevail.
Though war may come, Love will prevail.
Love never fails.
Death may take us all: but, even at the last hour, Love smiles in transcendence over Death.
Love never fails.