ALL IS OF GRACE

Brother,

For the second Sunday of Lent mother Church points us to Paul's letter to the Romans. I remember one of our mentors long ago saying that if the New Testament is like a jewel, Romans is like the sparkling point of the jewel. Here is the first part of the reading,

"13It was not through law that Abraham and his offspring received the promise that he would be heir of the world, but through the righteousness that comes by faith. 14For if those who live by law are heirs, faith has no value and the promise is worthless, 15because law brings wrath. And where there is no law there is no transgression.
16Therefore, the promise comes by faith, so that it may be by grace and may be guaranteed to all Abraham's offspring—not only to those who are of the law but also to those who are of the faith of Abraham. He is the father of us all. 17As it is written: "I have made you a father of many nations."[c] He is our father in the sight of God, in whom he believed—the God who gives life to the dead and calls things that are not as though they were. "

God makes a wonderful promise to Abraham. A promise that he will become a great nation and that all the families on earth will be blessed in him. That promise comes completely free and undeserved and not because Abraham has earned it by obedience to God or anything else. The Jews at the time of Paul (and Jesus) were teaching that to win God's favour and receive God's blessings people had to put in a super human effort to do what the law required. One hundred percent perspiration was the only way to heaven.

Paul saw clearly what this attitude had done. As William Barclay puts it, 'It had completely destroyed the promise' God had made to Abraham. Why? Because no-one is able to fully and perfectly keep the Law. No-one has ever lived a perfect life from beginning to end. No-one, in imperfection can satisfy the perfection which is God. Therefore, if the promise depends on keeping the law, the promise can never take effect or be fulfilled and therefore has been destroyed.

Dear old Paul saw things in very stark terms, either we depend on human effort or we depend on God's grace. Either the constant losing battle to obey an impossible law or faith which simply takes God at his word. Barclay points out that on each side there are three things.

1. On the one side there is God's promise. There are two words which mean 'promise' in Greek. There is huposchesis which means a promise which has conditions. "I promise to do this if you promise to do that". Then there is epaggelia which means a promise made out of the goodness of one's heart - quite unconditionally. It is epaggelia that Paul uses of the promise of God.

2. Then there is faith. Faith is the certainty that God is indeed like that - a God of unconditional love. It is a willingness to stake everything on the Love of God. It is to rest back in this love from which fear is banished for ever.

3. There is grace. We used to say to our youth groups long ago G-R-A-C-E God's Riches At Christ's Expense.

1. On the other side there is law. Now the trouble with law is that it's very good at showing you where you have gone wrong but terrible at helping you avoid going wrong. It's good at diagnosis but rubbish at cure. In fact (as Paul later stresses) there is a terrible paradox about law. It is human nature that when a thing is forbidden it has a tendency to become desirable.

2. There is transgression. No-one can break a law which does not exist or be condemned if s/he does not know that the law exists. So what happens? Life becomes a long series of transgressions waiting to be punished.

3. Then there is wrath. Think of law. Think of transgression. Inevitably the next thought is wrath. Think of God in terms of law and before long you're thinking of him in terms of outraged justice.

Two ways! Hobson's choice if you ask me!

Mark

THREE LEVELS OF TEMPTATION

Brother,

Thank you for your profound reference to Wordsworth this week. I have sent it to all my students and staff as an idea for Lent. Three years ago I said in my blog for this Sunday that "perhaps our reflections need to be more 'reflective' like yours was and less academic.....".  Still makes me think...three years later

The first Sunday in Lent always takes us to Jesus in the desert. The evil one always has one purpose in the bible - to lead us off the path that leads to God and make the primary desire of our lives something other than God. I know this only too well in my life and I'm sure you do too.

So, in the desert Jesus is tempted in three ways by the devil. The first is a low level, basic temptation. That's why it occurs on the desert floor. "Turn these stones into bread." A temptation to make sensual pleasure the centre of his life. We are not 'puritans' in the stereotypical meaning of that word. We enjoy the physical pleasures of this life we think they are good and given by God but when they become the lord of our lives then our deep desire for God is not realised. These sensual desires are like little children. They are always saying "I want it now! I want it NOW!" and if we allow them to dominate they will take over our lives. So Jesus says that we cannot live my bread alone but by every word that comes from the mouth of God. In other words we cannot reduce our lives to this very restricted compass.

The devil then takes Jesus to a high position. To the parapet of the temple. The temple at the time of Jesus would have been the very centre of society, the economic, political and cultural and religious centre. To be on the parapet would be to be at the top of society where everyone can see you and admire you. This is the temptation to glory and honour. Sometimes we can leave behind the sensual and physical temptations but we crave glory.

The devil then takes Jesus to the highest level, a high mountain, and in one glance he shows Jesus all the kingdoms of the world and their glory. "These I will give you if you but bow down and worship me" . This is the temptation to power. Sometimes we can resist the low level stuff and even glory we can resist but we want power - to be able to manipulate others. Once we have power most people do not want to let go of it. Jesus resists that temptation also. He is now ready to make the Father the centre of his life.

In Lent that is what we are all doing. We all go into the desert and we all confront the devil. All those levels of temptation - the sensual, the glory and the power. When we can rise above those temptations we are ready to do God's work in the world.

May the Spirit strengthen you brother.

Mark

Mark 1.9-15 (NRSV)

The Baptism of Jesus

⁹ In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. ¹⁰And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. ¹¹And a voice came from heaven, ‘You are my Son, the Beloved;^*with you I am well pleased.’

The Temptation of Jesus

¹² And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. ¹³He was in the wilderness for forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

The Beginning of the Galilean Ministry

¹⁴ Now after John was arrested, Jesus came to Galilee, proclaiming the good news^* of God,^* 15and saying, ‘The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God has come near;^* repent, and believe in the good news.’^* 

One of my favourite quotations does not come from the Bible but rather from William Wordsworth, who wrote:

… the best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love …

I want to issue a challenge: Lent is a time of new beginnings, and so let us be people who pay attention to the ‘... little, nameless unremembered acts of kindness and of love...’ If we do this – and I defy anyone to claim that it is not a good idea – then much goodness in our lives will fall into place. If all people did this whole communities will be transformed. Our society will be a place where we all want to be.

But this does not happen easily; it certainly is no something that we can ever take for granted – in fact I contend that it is one of the most difficult things for a community to achieve. But it is possible; and the recipe is provided for us in our Gospel reading. Jesus was about to begin his ministry to the people. We were reminded during Lent – that John the Baptist had a vital role to play and it is this: the way people grow and develop is through facing up to the reality of who they are and what needs to be changed in their lives. As most people would agree that they are not perfect, there must be some challenge facing everyone at times like this when we take stock of our lives. This is John the Baptist’s recipe:

Firstly, Mark states that John proclaimed a baptism of repentance for the forgiving of sins. These words are so seldom used these days that they can come across as harsh and strange. When people use them, there is a real danger of being labelled a “Bible basher” or fanatic. And I agree that they have been misused and even abused by some fanatics, but it does not alter the truth that is to be found in this message; a truth that can be life-transforming.

Some people have given up making Lent resolutions because they claim that they never work. Others say that – “… this is who I am, I cannot change and so people must just accept me for who I am …” I want to suggest that this is sad, because none of it is true. It is only true if the person has never discovered what it means to repent. The Greek word is metanoia. The Greek word used is metanoein which literally means ‘to change one’s mind’. Valid though this is when one looks into the message of the whole of the New Testament, it means ‘… to turn back’ implying a ‘coming to one’s senses’, a deliberate turning away from one’s sinful past towards God …’ a complete change of conduct.

Rowan Williams provides some further insight. The reason why people sometimes do not change is because they do not really want to; they do not want to repent. This happens when a person only focuses on consequences. They do not really dislike what can be changed, they just dislike the consequences when they are found out! We have all said “Sorry!” when we have been in trouble, and we have really felt sorry because we are in trouble but would not have been sorry at all if we were not in trouble. Rowan Williams explains this in stark, clear language. He writes:

Repentance means that the person who was in love with sin comes to hate sin because of its exceeding sinfulness.

Life transforming change comes when true repentance is part of the equation, without it, we all too easily fall back into our old ways.

Secondly, it involves making a decision. Making a decision to live a better life is one of the secrets of a truly happy and fulfilled life. Professor William Barclay, the late Professor of Theology at Glasgow University writes:

In every life there come moments of decision which can be accepted or rejected. To accept them is to succeed in life; to reject them, or to shirk them, is to fail. … The wasted life, the frustrated life, the discontented life, and often the tragic life is the undecided life. … The drifting life is the undecided life …

Today is a good time to make decisions about our lives and how we are going to live them.

Today is a good time to made decisions about our relationships particularly those with the members of our family. Perhaps there might be bridges that need to be built or maybe there is a need to state clearly what we have assumed to be known: When last did you say to the members of your family that you love them.

Today is a good time to make decisions about our relationships with our friends. Here too there might be a need for bridge building, apologies, commitments … This leads to my last point

Lastly, it involves identification. Jesus, by his baptism, identified with what John the Baptist was doing and what he stood for. Professor Barclay states:

The really great identification is when a person identifies themselves with a movement, not for their own sake, but for the sake of others.

I want us to be involved in the good things, I want us all to take every opportunity that comes our way with both hands and enjoy them and get the most out of them, but at the same time I want us to repent when we go wrong, not just because we have been found out and the consequences are horrible, but especially because you have got away with it, simply because you know it is wrong. I want us to make decisions that are for the good of ourselves and especially for others, especially our school community but also wider afield as well – not just the big things, because they are not the most important – as Wordsworth has reminded us:

… the best portion of a good man’s life is his little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love …

Amen.

Deconstructionism

Brother,

A few years ago we had a staff inset talk by an expert on IT and the internet in schools. He had some very interesting things to say about Google and the two young billionaires who started it. Most of us with computers will know about Google first hand. It is a simple piece of software that guides us quickly and easily to the web pages we need. Those who don’t waste half their lives sitting in front of a monitor will probably have heard of it as well. Google are big players in the computer scene. The company was recently valued at 100 billion dollars. These two guys started it up and have enjoyed meteoric success. They are perhaps the big winners of the early part of the 21st century.

One of the guys, Larry Page, is quite the inventor. They are both self-proclaimed geeks, but Larry has a remarkable talent for making things. Whilst he was at university, he made a functioning ink jet printer from lego. I remember my one of my brothers, at the age of 3, making a typewriter-like paper feeder using 3 empty toilet rolls but to think that I could add an ink cartridge to a lego holder that is attached to a lego mechanical device controlled by computer instructions that could deliver a piece of A4 accurately enough to print off an image is pure fantasy. I wouldn’t know where to start. But Larry Page is a genius. He can design things in ways beyond mere mortals.

Having said that, I wouldn’t mind speculating that there is one thing I could do. I have enough experience with lego to know that I could probably dismantle Larry’s printer. Bit by bit, I am sure I could take it apart without recourse to a sledge hammer. Well if you could take it apart, surely you could rebuild it. Even with the instructions laid out before me, I have my doubts that I could reconstruct a working lego printer.

The Transfiguration readings for tomorrow have, over the years, been the subject of what has become known as “Deconstructionism”. Taking things apart – or Deconstruction - is the characteristic action of our era. It is the heart of post-modern philosophy. In order to analyse something, you take it apart bit by bit, and in so doing you trace how it was put together. Radical French thinkers like Michel Foucault have made the art of deconstruction their hallmark. They expose the processes by which we express something we believe to be true. These processes are pulled apart, analysed and explained. The truth claim is laid bare. It can no longer claim to be uncontested and absolute. It was constructed around a certain set of circumstances. Post-modern thinkers plot the story and explain why we now believe what we believe.

The same thing happens in society at large, particularly in the media. We have an array of personalities – A list, B list and so on. Some are politicians, some business leaders, some cultural icons. Some celebrity gets married today. When she became famous we began to deconstruct her life. We examine all the evidence we can find to see how she got where she is, why she makes the decisions she does, and what is her driving motivation. We lay them bare in news sheet and TV gossip and inspect the parts of their sum. Whoever we choose, it is not usually a pretty sight. They are fallible human beings who forsake dignity for power and fame – their fallibility laid out for all to see. We no longer see the sum of their parts; they are no longer the heroes we want to look up to.

Christian theologians have spent the past 200 years deconstructing our belief in Jesus. They are still at it. It is not an easy task. There is a lot of uncertainty picking over the life of a relatively obscure figure from 2000 years ago. We could both point to a raft of material which asks why we believe what we believe about Jesus. Theologians try to tell the story; the history of the man from Nazareth, the son of Joseph, the friend of fishermen and farmers transfigured on a mountain top. They go on to look at how the apostles shaped their faith in the wake of their resurrection experiences, how the apostle Paul developed that further into a wide ranging theology. As Churches sprang up throughout the Roman Empire there is much to say about the competing interests between different groups, the rise of the great Church fathers who weighed their Jesus tradition against Greek philosophy. The politics of power had a hand, until finally after almost 400 years, the bishops agreed together a formula describing the divine nature of Jesus. They defined the incarnation, the concept of the embodiment of God in human form. We are going to recite these conclusions tomorrow in a rather detailed form of the creed.

You and I could deconstruct this story. It would take a long time and it would be complex. We may ask difficult questions of the gospel accounts, of the influence of Paul, of the impact of philosophy. We may try to distinguish a Jesus of history from a Christ of faith. God forbid, we may even allow open interpretations of the birth of Jesus or an array of explanations for the resurrection of Jesus!

But how does this process may us feel? We find we have many pieces laid bare before us. Do we feel confident in reconstructing the Jesus who inspires us, guides us and saves us? Could we reassemble the Messiah, the Son of God?

This is a source of real anxiety for the church. Many people who engage in theological study come out of it unable to make sense of their faith. They deconstruct it, and it then lies before them in bits. They seem unable to put it back together.

There was a period in the 1960s and 1970s when this spilled over into society at large. We read the books at university. We called them filthy stinking Liberals. Do you remember? Amusing when I think about it now. Do you remember how many people didn’t like it. At one stage people began to leave the church in droves and some people assumed it was because of this so-called liberalism. Those that remained had to be protected from this process. This time saw the rise of the evangelical wing of the church with its confidence in plain biblical truth and then the great sweep of renewal in the Charismatic Movement. People warmed to the idea of clarity and chose to accept the simplicity of the evangelical approach to the bible, Holy Spirit etc. Perhaps deconstruction is actually a negative process they thought. If you can’t be confident of reconstruction, then you had better avoid the whole exercise.

We have therefore a real dilemma. Like the lego printer, Christianity does actually work. Here we are. We pray together, we support each other, we serve others in need, and fundamentally we do all this because the person of Jesus inspires us to do so. We are strengthened by God’s presence, and are encouraged that God is with us. It works. It is real. But the moment you engage in a process of analysis; the moment you deconstruct the story of our faith - you face this challenging dilemma. You may struggle to regain what you started with.

I don’t know about you but I don’t think deconstructionism is always a bad thing. I have spoken of it in a rather negative way, but fundamentally I believe it opens for us a dynamic conversation. We look into our tradition and it comes alive. It allows us to reappraise our Christian tradition in the light of our present circumstances. If we look back and see how that tradition was formed in the face of its various past challenges, it helps us to see how we can face with confidence our own present challenges.

Take for example the way we have dealt with the empowerment of women in the church and in society. If we relied on a fixed interpretation of the Christian tradition, then we would not have taken steps forward to recognise the contributions women make to every aspect of life. In deconstructing that tradition – how it evolved in its particular circumstances - we have realised that in many senses women were from the time of Jesus empowered from their traditional roles.

I think we are taking the process further in a way that is consistent with Jesus’ groundbreaking steps forward. We are not stuck at the point at which the apostle Paul wrote, or at which the Roman Church formed, or at which the Reformation brought fresh insight. We have continued the journey in confidence that we are consistent with the early trajectory. Deconstruction gives us insight into the formation of truth, and allows us to see how we might interpret that truth in contemporary life.

The real dilemma with post-modernism is that whilst it provides the tools to deconstruct truth, it provides nothing to reconstruct a sense of meaning and purpose. It is this dilemma that can also afflict our analysis of the Christian tradition. We have to be secure in our faith to allow ourselves to ask deep and complex questions.

I don’t know what gives you confidence in God; what makes you feel secure in your Christian faith. For me it is the person of Jesus. He was no ordinary person, but one who mysteriously reflected the divine light that we all seek within ourselves. In Jesus we see something of God, as the disciples did on the mount of transfiguration.

I will almost certainly flirt with some occasional bits of deconstruction here and there – maybe the less controversial bits. But otherwise you will see me playing rather safe – as the wider church does so often these days.

Suffice to say that in Jesus we see the grace and love of God. That is the rock of our faith; Jesus the son of God. It is our statement of faith which no amount of logical analysis could prove objectively true. The church further expresses what it means by this statement of faith in the words contained in our creed. It may have taken a long time getting there, but the truth it contains will endure.

Construct a wonderful Sunday tomorrow

Mark

Mark 9.2-9 (NRSV)

The Transfiguration

² Six days later, Jesus took with him Peter and James and John, and led them up a high mountain apart, by themselves. And he was transfigured before them, ³and his clothes became dazzling white, such as no one on earth could bleach them. ⁴And there appeared to them Elijah with Moses, who were talking with Jesus. ⁵Then Peter said to Jesus, ‘Rabbi, it is good for us to be here; let us make three dwellings, one for you, one for Moses, and one for Elijah.’ ⁶He did not know what to say, for they were terrified. ⁷Then a cloud overshadowed them, and from the cloud there came a voice, ‘This is my Son, the Beloved; listen to him!’⁸Suddenly when they looked around, they saw no one with them anymore, but only Jesus.

The Coming of Elijah

9 As they were coming down the mountain, he ordered them to tell no one about what they had seen, until after the Son of Man had risen from the dead.

Brother,

Some thoughts on the Transfiguration.

In this study we see Jesus, Peter, James and John on the top of a mountain where Jesus confirmed to them what they had come to understand as Jesus' true identity - that Jesus was the Messiah. Appearing with Moses can be seen as symbolising Jesus as the total fulfilment of the Law; appearing with Elijah can be seen as symbolising Jesus as the fulfilment of everything the prophets had foretold about the Messiah. This great event therefore confirms the truth of what the disciples had confessed about Jesus - that he was in fact the Messiah, the Christ, the Saviour of the world. This reaches a climax in verse 7 when the Father spoke: 'This is my Son, my Chosen; listen to him'.

The Father told the disciples to listen to Jesus. Remember what Jesus had been telling them - that he was on his way to Jerusalem where he would suffer. The disciples needed some encouragement after hearing the hard words about bearing a cross, they also needed some graphic confirmation that Jesus was who he claimed to be.

It must have been an amazing experience. It was so wonderful that Peter never wanted it to end. Peter's desire to remain and revel in this ecstasy is indicative of what many of us feel in our moments of glory. The commentator in the Life Application Bible writes:

Sometimes we too have such an inspiring experience that we want to stay where we are - away from the reality and problems of our daily lives. Knowing that struggles await us in the valley encourages us to linger on the mountaintop. Yet staying on top of a mountain prohibits us from ministering to others.

Peter's response also reveals another danger - the problem of people running after wonderful experiences. There is no doubting that it is important to have encouraging and uplifting experiences - but we must never fall into the trap of trying to rekindle them to the exclusion of everything else. So many people fall into this trap. Some have become spiritual grasshoppers - jumping from church to church in search of experiences. Many churches go through times of incredible growth when they introduce something new and exciting. People flock from all other churches and join - but they only remain until some other group creates something fresh and new or the experience has worn off.

This is a truth in all areas of life. We only really enjoy and appreciate the times of delight and happiness when the times of sadness remind us of our great blessings. We take many things for granted until something happens to make us to cherish our blessings. People who are told that they have a limited time left to live start taking notice of their loved ones and their environment in a special way - sometimes for the first time in years. I am sure you can think of many other examples.

To base one's life and faith on experiences is a terrible mistake because our experiences are so fickle. What we need to base of lives on is the Word of God. Wiersbe writes:

As wonderful as these experiences are, they are not the basis for a consistent Christian life. That can come only through the Word of God. Experiences come and go, but the Word remains. Our recollection of past experiences will fade, but God's Word never changes. ... That was why the Father said "Hear Him!" and why Peter made this same emphasis on the Word in his report [in] 2 Peter 1:12-21.

Listen to excerpts from Peter's message in that passage:

... with our own eyes we saw his true greatness ... We were there with Jesus on the Holy mountain and heard this voice speak from heaven. All of this makes us even more certain that what the prophets said is true. So you should pay close attention to their message, as you would to a lamp shining in some dark place.

When we base our lives on the Word of God, we begin to experience the process whereby we experience our own personal, spiritual transfiguration. Luke does not actually use the Greek work that is translated as transfiguration. Matthew and Mark do. The word is metamorphose which means to experience a change in our nature and character. This is what salvation is all about, the transform­ing of people from sin to holiness. This is God's will for us. Paul explains in Romans 12:1-2:

Therefore, my friends, I implore you by God's mercy to offer your very selves to him: a living sacrifice, dedicated and fit for his accept­ance, the worship offered by mind and heart. Conform no longer to the pattern of this present world, but be transformed by the renewal of your minds. Then you will be able to discern the will of God, and to know what is good, acceptable, and perfect.

In Christ's transfiguration on the mountain the Father also emphasised this very point - He told the disciples to listen. In the context of the passage the Father was saying to the disciples - as paraphrased by Donald Miller:

Unreasonable as his account of his suffering may seem, and incongruous though it may be with your idea of messiahship, nevertheless listen to what he is saying, and believe it! You are the ones who do not know what you are saying ... Jesus does. Listen to him!

It is only in Luke's account that we are told of the conversation that took place at the transfiguration. In verse 31 we read: 'They ... talked about all that Jesus' death in Jerusalem would mean'.

Because this was the topic of conversation at such a time 'shows how central the death of Jesus is'. The word Luke uses to describe 'death' here is exodos. Because this is an unusual word to use in this context we should take note of some special significance. Morris explains that we are intended to see Jesus' death as it is related to Israel's exodus out of slavery in Egypt. He elaborates:

The Exodus had delivered Israel from bondage. Jesus by His 'exodus' would deliver His people from far worse bondage.

Ellis links the significance of this to what Jesus had taught the people beforehand:

The 'exodus' typology is clearly in view. Jesus is the new Moses who establishes a new Israel, gives a new covenant, and through his death and resurrection delivers God's people from the 'Egypt' of sin and death.

The death of Jesus is the central teaching of the Scriptures. The entire Old Testament looks forward to it and the entire New Testament elaborates on it - taking us into the depths of what it means. As J C Ryle states:

Let us take heed that this death of Christ is the ground of all our confidence. Nothing else will give us comfort in the hour of death and the day of judgement. ... Christ dying for our sins and rising again for our justification, must be our only plea, if we wish to be saved.

Ryle concludes: 'If saints in glory see in Christ's death so much beauty, that they must needs talk of it, how much more ought sinners on earth!'

The Cross of Christ is central to our faith. If Jesus had never gone to the Cross, if he had never suffered and died, if he had not risen - we would all be lost and would face eternity in hell. But more than that, because of the Cross of Christ we not only have a wonderful eternity waiting for us after death, we have the opportunity to know heaven on earth as we fight and conquer sin in our lives in the power if the Holy Spirit. We are offered forgiveness and transfiguration - the metamorphosis of our lives as God renews our minds and thereby our lives. Let us not be like Peter and seek only the joy of the mountain top experiences. But let us listen to God's word and allow it to transform us into the likeness of Jesus Christ.

 Blessings,

David

2 Kings 5.1-14

The Healing of Naaman

Naaman, commander of the army of the king of Aram, was a great man and in high favour with his master, because by him the Lord had given victory to Aram. The man, though a mighty warrior, suffered from leprosy. ²Now the Arameans on one of their raids had taken a young girl captive from the land of Israel, and she served Naaman’s wife. ³She said to her mistress, ‘If only my lord were with the prophet who is in Samaria! He would cure him of his leprosy.’ ⁴So Naaman went in and told his lord just what the girl from the land of Israel had said. ⁵And the king of Aram said, ‘Go then, and I will send along a letter to the king of Israel.’

He went, taking with him ten talents of silver, six thousand shekels of gold, and ten sets of garments. ⁶He brought the letter to the king of Israel, which read, ‘When this letter reaches you, know that I have sent to you my servant Naaman, that you may cure him of his leprosy.’⁷When the king of Israel read the letter, he tore his clothes and said, ‘Am I God, to give death or life, that this man sends word to me to cure a man of his leprosy? Just look and see how he is trying to pick a quarrel with me.’ ⁸ But when Elisha the man of God heard that the king of Israel had torn his clothes, he sent a message to the king, ‘Why have you torn your clothes? Let him come to me, that he may learn that there is a prophet in Israel.’ ⁹So Naaman came with his horses and chariots, and halted at the entrance of Elisha’s house. ¹⁰Elisha sent a messenger to him, saying, ‘Go, wash in the Jordan seven times, and your flesh shall be restored and you shall be clean.’ ¹¹But Naaman became angry and went away, saying, ‘I thought that for me he would surely come out, and stand and call on the name of the Lord his God, and would wave his hand over the spot, and cure the leprosy! ¹²Are not Abana and Pharpar, the rivers of Damascus, better than all the waters of Israel? Could I not wash in them, and be clean?’ He turned and went away in a rage. ¹³But his servants approached and said to him, ‘Father, if the prophet had commanded you to do something difficult, would you not have done it? How much more, when all he said to you was, “Wash, and be clean”?’So he went down and immersed himself seven times in the Jordan, according to the word of the man of God; his flesh was restored like the flesh of a young boy, and he was clean.

1 Corinthians 9.24-27

24 Do you not know that in a race the runners all compete, but only one receives the prize? Run in such a way that you may win it. ²⁵Athletes exercise self-control in all things; they do it to receive a perishable garland, but we an imperishable one. ²⁶So I do not run aimlessly, nor do I box as though beating the air; ²⁷but I punish my body and enslave it, so that after proclaiming to others I myself should not be disqualified. 

Mark 1.40-45

Jesus Cleanses a Leper

⁴⁰ A leper came to him begging him, and kneeling he said to him, ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’ ⁴¹Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ ⁴²Immediately the leprosy left him, and he was made clean.⁴³After sternly warning him he sent him away at once, ⁴⁴saying to him, ‘See that you say nothing to anyone; but go, show yourself to the priest, and offer for your cleansing what Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’ ⁴⁵But he went out and began to proclaim it freely, and to spread the word, so that Jesus could no longer go into a town openly, but stayed out in the country; and people came to him from every quarter.

My text this morning is written in Mark 1.41:

⁴¹Moved with pity, Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, and said to him, ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’ 

In Jesus's day, leprosy was a dreaded disease because there was no known cure for it. Some strains were highly contagious. This had been the case for hundreds of years as we were reminded in our Old Testament reading this morning. The best way for us to understand what leprosy meant for the people of that day is to compare it with AIDS in our time. Drastic measures were required to monitor leprosy because every precaution was needed to ensure that the disease never spread. The priests banished the infectious cases to beyond the city boundaries, in order to avoid its spread. They also remitted lepers whose disease was in remission. So great was the dread of this disease that Jewish law required all sufferers to call out 'unclean' so that passers-by could give them a wide berth. Lepers had no way of earning a living and so were totally dependent upon charity. The psychological effects of this disease were as serious as the physical. The people felt defiled, dirty and constantly ashamed, even though it was not their fault.

People can feel excluded for many reasons. In our Old Testament reading we come across a young servant girl who had been captured in wartime and taken captive into Syria. Naaman, her master alienated himself from others by considering himself to be better than others. He was so filled with pride, that he almost robbed himself of God’s blessings as a result. The Assyrian king too completely misunderstood the way to find God’s blessing; he thought that he could order things and they would just happen as he wanted them to happen – thinking that the things of God could be bought. But notice the example of a young, in the eyes of the world at the time, seemingly unimportant, yet remaining faithful to God in the ordinariness of the daily life. And she was the source of great blessing to the people at the time, and still us today, as we are reminded of her example.

In our Gospel reading, the man who approached Jesus was suffering from an advanced case of leprosy. In Luke’s account the man is described as being 'covered with leprosy'. He had more than likely lost a great deal of bodily tissue. Leprosy destroyed nerve endings and so people unknowingly damaged fingers, toes and noses. But still, he believed that Jesus could heal every trace of the disease. Morris writes: ‘He had no doubt about Jesus' ability to heal, but he was not sure whether He was willing.’ And so the man said to Jesus: ‘If you choose, you can make me clean.’

Notice what Jesus did for this most despised and rejected of people. Verse 41 records: ‘Jesus touched him ...’ Jesus must have been the first normal non-diseased person to have touched the man in years. Barclay writes:

That is what Jesus did and does ... it is the very essence of Christianity to touch the untouchable, to love the unloveable, to forgive the unforgivable. Jesus did and so must we.

Quite often we consider people who are diseased or handicapped to be repulsive and untouchable. We need to touch them with the love of Christ. Often we also feel repulsive about ourselves. We too need to know the comfort of the touch of Christ's love.

Verse 41 continues: ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’

Notice how the leper did something in order to receive Christ's touch. He took himself to Jesus, probably ringing a bell and shouting "unclean, unclean" and facing the revile of the people. He did what he needed to do to come to the Lord, receive his touch and be made whole once more. How often do we deny ourselves God's blessing because we do not take the opportunities available to us to come to Christ with our needs. How often do we find excuses for not coming to church, for not attending bible studies, prayer meetings and other channels whereby God administers his love and grace to people. If we too want to be cleansed and made whole we need to take every opportunity to come to our Lord to receive his grace.

Jesus was not yet ready to have his true identity revealed because he knew the people would not understand and so, like the demons and others earlier in his ministry, he told the healed man not to tell anybody about what had happened. Jesus also told the man to go through the prescribed procedure of being declared healthy by the priest. Here too, we learn and important truth. Jesus still heals people today. But he also uses others to assist in the healing process, people like doctors, nurses and other medical professionals. We need to trust God to use whatever means He chooses to make us well. We also need to go through the correct procedures to get confirmation that we are well. You might remember the case in America. It was televised in dramatised form. A diabetic child's parents believed that he had been miraculously healed. They stopped his insulin doses and the child died. The Christian who believes that God has healed them needs to get a doctor to confirm that this has happened before doing anything irresponsible - or else only they can be blamed for further suffering - not the doctors, and especially not God.

But who could remain silent? How many of us are able to contain good news? When something like this happens we want to tell the whole world about it. And now we should - because our Lord has been revealed and is risen and we take every opportunity to give all the glory to Him.

The following are a few closing thoughts to meditate on from this passage:

Notice the man's request - it was not to be healed - it was to be made clean. It is important to note that leprosy also symbolised sinfulness in Jewish culture because Isaiah the prophet had made the link in 1:4-6:

Ah, sinful nation, people laden with iniquity, offspring who do evil, children who deal corruptly, who have forsaken the Lord, who have despised the holy one of Israel, who are utterly estranged! Why do you seek further beatings? Why do you continue to rebel? The whole head is sick, and the whole heart faint. From the soul of the foot even to the head, there is no soundness in it, but bruises and sores and bleeding wounds; they have not been drained or bound up, or softened with oil.

Leprosy made a person isolated, not only from other people, but also from worship. Some even went so far as to suggest that leprosy was a sign of divine judgement for the person's disobedience[1] and so they were outlawed from worship because they were believed to be cut off from fellowship with God.[2] Yet Jesus was prepared to touch him - an action that automatically meant that Jesus made himself unclean.[3] Over Easter we remember yet another time when Jesus was willing to become unclean for the sake of those whom he loved - when he took upon himself the sin of the world and was cast from the Father's presence. The leper had his priorities right - he wanted to be restored to God, he wanted to be cleansed so that he could enter God's presence in the temple and synagogue. Do we always have our priorities right or do we come to our Lord with selfish motives? Is our relationship with God and our growth in that relationship the most important thing in our lives - or do we worship other Gods because other things are often more important to us.

We often rob ourselves of blessing upon blessing because we do not come to our Lord; we do not avail ourselves of his grace, especially as we neglect our quiet time with him in silent, private prayer. We need to follow the example of the young servant girl and the man with leprosy and take every opportunity we can find to come to meet with our Lord and when we do we know that he will be ...

⁴¹... moved with pity, Jesus will stretch our his hand and touch us and say to us too: ‘I do choose. Be made clean!’

Amen.

MY THOUGHTS ON THE GOSPEL PASSAGE

John begins his Gospel in a completely different way to any of the other Evangelists. It would appear that he was encouraged to write this toward the end of his life and he did so in order to meet the needs of Greek intellectuals who wanted to know more. As we already know, he also wanted to challenge the heresy of Gnosticism that prevailed in this community, and which appealed to intellectuals who wanted to have worked things out. The bottom line is that God cannot be worked out – and so he begins with the mystery of the incarnation. Barclay begins by suggesting that John had three things to say about Jesus – the Word.

Firstly, the word was already there at the beginning of things: Before creation – when there was nothing other than God – Jesus (the Word) was there and the point that John is making is that God is like Jesus. Before Jesus came to earth, people had to try to figure out what God is like, and this explains the strange conceptions we often come across in the Old Testament. As Barclay explains: “It was only when Jesus came that [people] saw fully and completely what God has always been like … [John]is telling us that God was and is and ever shall be like Jesus; but men could never know and realise that until Jesus came.”

Secondly, John explains that Jesus – the Word – was with God. This means that Jesus is so intimate with God that God has no secrets from him. This adds to the earlier point because this makes clear the idea that Jesus is the one person who can reveal what God is really like and also know God’s feelings towards us.

Thirdly, John makes the point most strongly by claiming that the Word WAS God. Barclay suggests that this does not mean that the Word was identical with God, rather that (as Barclay writes) ‘… Jesus was so perfectly the same as God in mind, in heart, in being that in him we perfectly see what God is like.’

In this lovely passage, we are introduced to the two great themes on John’s Gospel: life and light. The Gospel begins and ends with life; at the beginning Jesus is life and at the very end we are told that the whole purpose of the Gospel is so that we may believe and have life in his name (John 20:31). Life is always on our Lord’s lips; and his regret when people reject him is because they reject life as well (5:40) and he claimed that he came to earth with this purpose, so that we might have life and that in all its fullness. Barclay continues with the following observations:

Life is the opposite of death. Those who believe in Jesus, receive the gift of eternal life but also life in the here and now that is full and wonderful, even in the midst of travail and trouble. Jesus is the bringer of life, but the giver of life is God. It is the will of the Father, who sent the Jesus that everyone who sees him and believes on him should have life – eternal life. But what is eternal life? It cannot mean life that lasts forever, because this can be a terrible curse. When I was still in pastoral ministry, I prayed more for people’s lives to end and that their suffering would cease than for people to live. Eternal life is more than duration it must refer to quality as well. Barclay writes: “Eternal life is life which knows something of the serenity and power of the life which knows something of the serenity and power of the life of God himself. When Jesus came offering men eternal life, he was inviting them to enter the very life of God.”

How do we enter this life?

We enter it by believing, being convinced that Jesus really is the Son of God, more than just an ordinary man, for if he is, then there is no need to follow in obedience. Barclay writes:

“We have to look at him, learn about him, study him, think about him until we are driven to the conclusion that this is none other than the Son of God.”

This is more than intellectual assent, it is commitment and action, living a life of discipleship. When we do this we stop existing and start living.

The second major theme is light. Jesus is the light of life and the light of the world; this light can be in people which makes them children of light. Jesus is the light that shines in the darkness and this is why so many people reject him.

The light of Christ is a revealing light and when people sin, they love darkness rather than light because the light exposes their deeds. As Barclay writes: “It strips away the disguises and the concealments; it shows things in all their nakedness; it shows them in their true character and their true values.” The cynics used to say that people hate the truth, because the truth is like light to sore eyes. Churches are emptying in Europe, because people prefer darkness to light!

We never see ourselves as we truly are until we see ourselves as Jesus sees us.

The prophet Habbakuk adds the idea that God’s eyes are so holy that he cannot even look upon that which is evil. There seems to be a sense that when sin is not dealt with, the divorce from God is great and can even mean that prayers are not even heard; and so those that say that they have prayed – and it did not work – is because they do not come with the attitude of repentance which is the only way.

The light of Christ is also the guiding light: if we do not have this light we walk in darkness and we do not know where we are going, but when we receive this light and believe in this light to follow it we live and travel in the light. Barclay concludes:

“Without Jesus we are like men groping on an unknown road in a black-out. With him the way is clear.”

I focus finally on a third of John’s themes, darkness. For John, darkness is a real as light, but however hard the darkness tries, it cannot extinguish the light. As I referred to yesterday, when people sin, they love the darkness and hate the light because the light shows up too many things.

The nights are incredibly dark at the moment. Last night, when I got up in the early hours, I noticed a quite bright light shining in the kitchen, so I went through to explore what it was. Trish had forgotten to switch off her iPod and the tiny blue light radiated throughout the kitchen. John makes the point that even the tiniest little flame defeats darkness. In the end, Jesus, the light of the world, will prevail and so he exhorts us to make a choice to choose to live in the light.

There are some places where John’s reference to darkness seems to refer to ignorance. Jesus said: “I am the light of the world; he who follows me will not walk in darkness.” (John 8.12) Nobody wants to walk in darkness but so often we stumble through life because we are not following the way of the light. One of the greatest problems in the world today is that people have rejected Jesus and so, Europe particularly, is stumbling around, but in its arrogance refuses to accept the light that Jesus offers. We continue to witness the decline in attendance at worship and this is a symptom of the problem. Jesus is the light that shows people clearly the road ahead.

There are also times when John uses the word darkness symbolically. This is particularly true on the morning of the Resurrection when Mary went to the tomb when it was still dark. She thought that Jesus had been eliminated. To John, if Jesus is not present, life is like living in the darkness.

The trouble is that if people are in darkness, they will never understand the light. As Paul explains, the Gospel – for those who do not have the Holy Spirit – is simply foolishness. Barclay writes: “A man cannot understand Christ until he first submits to him.”

It is all by God’s grace – a mystery that I believe, we will never understand. Why is it that God has enabled us to live in the light? I certainly do not deserve to! But we do, and I am grateful and feel privileged to be able to share the way of the light with others.

Blessings,

David

REFLECTIONS ON READINGS FOR SECOND SUNDAY BEFORE LENT

Here are the readings for next Sunday 12 February 2012, the Second Sunday before Lent followed by my reflections

Proverbs 8

Wisdom’s Call

 ¹ Does not wisdom call out?
   Does not understanding raise her voice? New International Version (NIV)

 ²² “The LORD brought me forth as the first of his works,^[a][b]
   before his deeds of old;
²³ I was formed long ages ago,
   at the very beginning, when the world came to be.
²⁴ When there were no watery depths, I was given birth,
   when there were no springs overflowing with water;
²⁵ before the mountains were settled in place,
   before the hills, I was given birth,
²⁶ before he made the world or its fields
   or any of the dust of the earth.
²⁷ I was there when he set the heavens in place,
   when he marked out the horizon on the face of the deep,
²⁸ when he established the clouds above
   and fixed securely the fountains of the deep,
²⁹ when he gave the sea its boundary
   so the waters would not overstep his command,
and when he marked out the foundations of the earth.
 ³⁰ Then I was constantly^[c] at his side.
I was filled with delight day after day,
   rejoicing always in his presence,
³¹ rejoicing in his whole world
   and delighting in mankind.

Colossians 1:15-20

New International Version (NIV)

The Supremacy of the Son of God

 ¹⁵ The Son is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. ¹⁶ For in him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things have been created through him and for him. ¹⁷ He is before all things, and in him all things hold together. ¹⁸ And he is the head of the body, the church; he is the beginning and the firstborn from among the dead, so that in everything he might have the supremacy. ¹⁹ For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him, ²⁰ and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross.

John 1:1-14

New International Version (NIV)

John 1

The Word Became Flesh

 ¹ In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. ² He was with God in the beginning. ³ Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made. ⁴ In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. ⁵ The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome^[a] it.  ⁶ There was a man sent from God whose name was John. ⁷ He came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. ⁸ He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
 ⁹ The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. ¹⁰ He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. ¹¹ He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. ¹² Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God— ¹³ children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God.
 ¹⁴ The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.

In verse 3 of Sunday's reading John writes,

"He was the agent through whome all things were made;and there is not a single thing which exists in this world which came into being without him"

(By the way, here is an idea for a Valentines Day Card in case you need one)


At the time of John there was a kind of heresy called Gnosticism. It was a kind of intellectual and philosophical approach to Christianity. To the Gnostics the simple beliefs of the early Christians were not enough. The Gnostics tried to construct a philosophical system out of Christianity. Like people today, the Gnostics were worried about the problem of evil and suffering and sorrow in the world. So they worked out a theory. This is the way Barclay explains it. In the beginning two things existed - the one was God and the other was matter. The Gnostics believed that matter was always there. Matter was the raw material out of which the world was made and formed and moulded. They believed that the original matter was flawed and imperfect. In other words, from the beginning the material out of which the world was made was imperfect.
To put it another way, the world got off to a bad start. It was made out of material which had the seeds and germs of evil and corruption in it. But then the Gnostics went further than that. They said that God is pure spirit and pure spirit is so pure that it can never touch matter at all. Therefore it was not possible for God to create the universe himself.

So what God did was this. God sent out a series of emanations. Each emanation was further and further away from God and knew less and less about God until the emanations actually became hostile to God. Finally there was an emanation which was so totally hostile to God and so totally ignorant of God that it was possible for it to touch this flawed and evil matter. They thought that this creator God was actually the God of the Old Testament and was an enemy of the God and Father of Jesus Christ.

At the time of John this believe was very popular. People believed that the world was evil and that an evil God had created it. And so to combat this heresy John begins his gospel in this way. He is stressing two great truths of the Christian faith. First, behind everything there is God and God alone. No evil matter at the beginning, no essential flaw at the start. Second, Christianity has always believed that this is God's world. So far from being detached from the world that he could have had nothing to do with it, God is intimately involved in the world. The evil in the world is as a result of our sinful nature.

There is, of course a new Gnosticism around today? Without revisiting the bizarre gnostic theories explained above, Gnostics also claimed to know more than average Christians. They were "in the know," so to speak! They thought of themselves as "super Christians," looking down their noses at those poor unfortunates who just didn't know as much as they knew. We have both come across them at times Brother and, possibly, we even strayed into Gnostic territory at little when we were students!

Mark