No ordinary hope

10 March 2021

fear not

4 Rejoice in the Lord always. I will say it again: Rejoice! 5 Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near. 6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.(Philippians 4v3-7)

This was the first bit of the Bible I knew off by heart. I found it in my little red new testament and psalms that I was given by the Gideon society when they did a school assembly in my first year at warden park. I still remember sitting in the sports hall. Anyway, I have had this Bible with me ever since I was eleven and I am so thrilled that you now have it because it is my most treasured possession. I initially use the Where to find help when section at the beginning to find my way around and these verses are mentioned in there.

Here are three things that I love about these verses:

rejoicing is the best way to get over anxiety and worry. I have often been able to do this on the outside but often carried too much anxious thought on the inside. as I look back over the years, I see that God has taken care of my fears and I wish I had rejoiced so much more in the midst of them.
I really like the emphasis on gentleness. It was one of the things that I loved about dad and everyone noticed it about him and the only thing that I remember from dad’s funeral service was Roger who began his eulogy with the description of him as a gentle man. Gentleness does not mean that we should be like doormat. Jesus was nothing like that. It means to surrendered life to God and so show compassion to all because life is not a competition.
I love the final verse because it is saying that nothing is too small or too big to ask for help from God with, and if we start with a thankful heart for all the blessings that God gives us each day, we find the simple child like not childish belief and trust in Jesus who showed us what God is like. Peace that transcends understanding means that we do not need to have a clue about how God is going to fix things, or even why God is allowed stuff like motor neurons disease, to experience the peace that the Holy Spirit longs to give us. I know that peace. Not always but most days when I pray with thankfulness to God for all the blessings that I have been given in this time. You are a huge part of that.

Here are three songs that speak to me of these things. The servant king one is about what I was saying about gentleness. The raise a hallelujah one is about rejoicing in the middle of our worries hallelujah means prise the Lord in Hebrew.

6 November 2020

the greatest gift in the world: family and friends who pray

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

I am so so so so so blessed by the prayers of family and friends who pray for me

I have realised in this journey from capacity to total dependency that I treasure the prayers more than anything in this life

Nicky and Imogen pray for me at bedtime and I know that Mum has me and our whole family continueslly in her thoughts and prayers. My Sarah has begun praying too which is so exciting and lovely.

I have a very dear friend who often holds me in prayer on his morning swim and another who I know fervently prays for me every day

21 December 2019

Faith in three dimensions

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

This was my last sermon at St Marks. The gospel reading was Matthew 14:22-33.

We are never out of Jesus sight or reach even when it feels like we are. At the at beginning of this passage Jesus is totally involved in the disciples’ situation even when he seems far off, out of sight, and they feel alone in their situation:

Jesus “went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. Later that night, he was there alone, and the boat was already a considerable distance from land, buffeted by the waves because the wind was against it. Shortly before dawn Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake.” (V.22-25)

Jesus is praying. He sees their situation. He comes to them amid their struggle. Jesús hasn’t changed. We read in Hebrews that the risen and ascended Jesus “lives to intercede for us”. He (the Son of God) is praying for us. That is an amazing truth. He sees our situations even when we cannot see him or feel his presence, and he is right with us by his Holy Spirit. He comes to us in the storm.

As this passage unfolds, we see how faith works. It has three dimensions as we will see. Each dimension of faith is a way that God frees us from that desperate feeling of being trapped by our weakness and fears.

First, faith is simply a decision. A choice that we can make at any time however late in the day or situation it feels.

“When the disciples saw him walking on the lake, they were terrified. “It’s a ghost,” they said, and cried out in fear. immediately said to them: “Take courage! It is I. Do not be afraid.”” (V.26-27)

What Jesus is saying is that the disciple doesn’t have to work up faith, but rather simply take courage. Why? Because of whom Jesus is and that he is with them. It takes courage because it is always a choice. We can always look at circumstances or ourselves instead of Jesus.

Believing in, looking to Jesus, is the essence of the life for which we were made. John concludes his Gospel: “These are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ. the son of God. And that by believing, you may have life in his name”.

Crucially, our choosing faith is not a decision based on our circumstances, but on the nature of God. His love and his sovereignty. When Jesus comes to the disciples on the lake, their circumstances have not changed yet. The storm is still raging they are still stuck in the boat paddling just to stay still. But with Jesus’ presence everything is different. It makes possible the decision of faith. “Take courage, it is I”.

This matters because if we can discover that we can make this decision for faith in Jesus no matter what we are facing, it means that we can know the peace and freedom from fear that God wants for each one of us.

A man called Nick was born without arms or legs. When I first saw him I was so upset for him. I thought he was so brave to keep going and to smile. But as he spoke, I realised that he was the most purpose-filled, joyful, and free person that I had ever seen. He is living proof that we can take Jesus at his word: “Take courage, it is I”. He said something that really stuck with me:

“The devil doesn’t care that he has my arms and legs. He cares if he can have my joy.”

The devil cannot have Nick’s joy because Nick decided as a teenager to trust Jesus that his life was not a tragic one but s gift as much any life. That is why he is so free. He has discovered the reality of choosing life not feeling it is dependent on circumstances. But rather a decision. We may still be on that journey towards this kind of freedom and joy. I know I am. But when I see it so genuinely and authenticate in a man like Nick, I know how real it is. Even though we cannot see him like the disciples could, he is no less with us by his spirit, to help us make that choice to trust him completely. Faith is a decision.

Now, there is a vital distinction that we need to see if we are not to misunderstand. When I say that faith is simply a decision that we can make no matter what our circumstances are, I am not saying this should involve us in some sort of unreal denial of our situations and feelings.

Some of the greatest statements of faith in the Bible come in the context of pain and confusion. In total suffering Job says: “Though he slay me, yet will I hope in him”. In utter confusion Habakkuk says: “Though the fig tree does not bud and there are no grapes on the vine…still I will rejoice in the Lord, I will be joyful in God my Saviour.” These statements of faith are not based on circumstances but a decision, a choice to trust in God no matter what. But this is nothing to do with denial, pushing down emotions, or pretence.

Job and Habakkuk, like David in the Psalms are brutally real with God about their situations. Through this gritty honesty and resolute faith, they discover a freedom to know that God is faithful, and hope is real. Job says amid everything that has gone wrong in his life: “Oh that my words were recorded, that they were written on a scroll, that they were inscribed on lead, engraved in rock forever. I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end he will stand upon the earth … I will see him with my own eyes.”

The second dimension of faith is that it is an action.

“Lord, if it’s you,” Peter replied, “tell me to come to you on the water.” “Come,” Jesus said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on the water, and came toward Jesus. (V.28-29)

John Oakley’s well-known book on this event in the Gospels is entitled “If you want to walk on water you have to get out of the boat.” It is true. We only truly know for ourselves the power of faith in Jesus to change us and change the world when we commit our lives to the truth of Jesus word and presence with us by the Holy Spirit.

We can decide that a chair can take our weight, but until we sit on it, we will never truly know if our faith is true. We might be willing to commit our whole weight to a chair (after all, the worst that can happen is that we get a bruised bottom!) But many of us struggle to commit the weight of our lives totally and utterly – all our unspoken dreams and hidden fears – to God. I do not mean in the passive way that gives ‘living by faith’ a bad name. I am talking about the active belief and trust in God through which others and we are transformed by God.

About twenty years ago I met a woman called Sarah Thaine who was working with AIDS orphans in India. The work she was doing was so hard and she got ill in the process at one point. But she kept ‘getting out of the boat’. She said something in a talk that touched me so deeply and resonated with me:

“The Jesus of my journey will never say to me: ‘you were too reckless, you confided in me too much, you trusted beyond reasonable limits, you hoped too much of me. You should have only played with my word ‘have confidence in me’ rather than foolishly acting it out … No, the Christ of my life would never say that”.

As with faith as a decision, we must not misunderstand faith as an action. Taking a promise of God and acting upon it should not be confused with bravado. Notice how Peter says, ‘Lord if it’s you, tell me to come to you on the water’, and Jesus says ‘come’. Peter’s actions which may have seemed foolish to others in the boat was in fact courageous faith. The defining point was that he was acting with Jesus, faith is about a relationship.

I love how Jesus teaching on faith as an action emphasises that it is not about grand heroics (Sarah did not feel remotely heroic even though she was a hero to me). It is about simply doing what you can, and usually in your neighbourhood, when you see situations and people that touch your heart:

“For I was hungry, and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty, and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick, and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’ “Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when did we see you hungry and feed you, or thirsty and give you something to drink? When did we see you a stranger and invite you in, or needing clothes and clothe you? When did we see you sick or in prison and go to visit you?’ “The King will reply, ‘Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.’

The third dimension of faith is like the anchor to the other two. Faith is a decision. It is an action. But it is both those things because it is ultimately a gift.

Faith is a gift. (It is rather like floating.)

The danger in speaking of faith as a decision and action is that we screw ourselves up trying to think harder, try harder. When the decision and action Jesus is looking for is much more about resting in his presence with us. Discovering that in his presence, faith is his gift to us.
Have you ever tried floating in the water at the swimming pool or in the sea? Floating is not so much about trying harder as letting go. We float by breathing deeply and lying back and resting in the water. If you keep putting your head up to see what is coming it is hard to float. It is a good metaphor for life.

A few weeks ago, I spoke about God’s unconditional love. It matters so much. Not because what we do with our lives does not matter. But because we do not discover the joy and life Jesus brings by thinking harder getting all intense or trying harder as if everything depends on us. Please do not misunderstand me, the life Jesus calls us to is anything but passive. But it is still one where ultimately, we can rest, even in our busiest and most desperate moments like the disciples in the storm, in the presence of God – his sovereignty, love and grace. It is like floating. Our freedom is involved. It is a very intentional thing. But it is as we stop thrashing around that we start to float.

We need faith to have the courage to face our doubts and fears, which are our natural response when we feel overwhelmed.

“But when Peter saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!”. Immediately Jesus reached out his hand and caught him. “You of little faith,” he said, “why did you doubt?” And when they climbed into the boat, the wind died down. Then those who were in the boat worshiped him, saying, “Truly you are the Son of God.” (V.30-33)

‘You of little faith … why did you doubt?’ Those words sound harsh, but they are words of real love and affection for Peter – aimed to point him towards Jesus and away from himself and his fears wrought by his inability to change his situation on his own.

John writes “Perfect love cast out fear”. God’s love – his perfect love – helps us to learn to float. we see this as Peter is overwhelmed by fear. Peter sank the moment he looked away from Jesus and focused on the storm. Peter cannot walk on water without Jesus. No one can. He cannot just decide to jump out of the boat in his own strength. And that is why the point about relationship is so important.

Faith is a simple decision we make, no matter what. But we do not make it alone. Jesus says ‘Take courage. It is I’.

Faith is an action. There is always a risk involved. There will always be someone or a voice in our head saying, ‘stay in the boat’. That voice might be wisdom or fear. The only way we know is by asking Jesus and listening to his stirring in our hearts. We never step out in faith alone. Jesus says ‘come’.

Jesus never abandons us. Ultimately, no matter what Jesus was not going to let Peter sink. This moment was one of many where Jesus upholding Peter. The night before Jesus was executed, he said to Simon Peter that he would be there for him even when Peter would deny he knew him in fear. “Satan has asked to sift you as wheat, but I have prayed for you. Simon that your faith may not fail) and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers”

Floating is not a passive thing. It is very much an intentional action. A commitment to put all our weight our action in God’s arms of love. One of my favourite scriptures, which we often read at funerals, is this one:

“The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms”.

It is as much a verse for life as death. It is about faith as floating. I have been in that place so often in my life, where I have been struggling to make the decision for faith, to step forward in life courageously, and had to fall back on this dimension of faith as a gift – like floating. I am very much in that place again with the mnd taking away my ability to speak and move. Discovering that Jesus reaches out to me when I cry out in fear and doubt.

But I am challenged afresh by those words of Jesus, ‘you of little faith, why did you doubt?’ The third dimension of faith – faith as a gift – is the bottom line, the point of last resort. But it is also the foundation for faith as a simple courageous decision to live our lives actively in faith. Life is really on hold until we choose to believe and not doubt and take courage from Jesus presence. At the end of the day, we discover life in all its fullness as we know the freedom that comes from faith in all three dimensions.

Faith is a decision. One we can make no matter what and know a joy and peace that transcend circumstances.

Faith is an action. Jesus calls us to an adventure You cannot depend, confide, trust in him too much.

Faith is like floating. This decision, this action of faith is not the result of trying harder. It is the simple intentional decision and daily living out of faith. It may seem like a mustard seed to us, but faith has the power to change us and to change the world. I love this Song by Matt Redman which speaks of the reality and if you click on the button below there is a video of Nick showing how real this is

13 December 2019

Where God is…

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

The answer to that title is: everywhere

Psalm 139 is one of my favourite psalms and I remember it being read so profoundly and beautifully by Nicky’s godfather Roger at Nicky and Ed’s wedding. In it we are reassured that there is absolutely nowhere that we could be where God is not.

“Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence?If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea,even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast.If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me and the light become night around me,”even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.” (Psalm 139:7-12).

On my first Christmas as a vicar Christmas Day was on a Saturday so the first Sunday after Christmas was Boxing Day. The gospel reading for St Stephen’s day is the harrowing account of king Herod killing all the baby boys in Judea born around the time of Jesus: aptly called “the slaughter of the innocents”. Jesus family were forced to flee to Egypt to escape the infanticide.

To add to the atmosphere on this Boxing Day, we had no heating in church because ours was being replaced and the hired in industrial blow heaters had run out of gas. So I could see the breath vapour condensing in the cold from the hardy souls that were in the congregation as I got up to speak with my coat off in an attempt at looking warm!

But as I spoke on the gospel for that day, I found myself inspired by the theme “where God is” and by the surprisingly full church given that everyone had been here the day before and that it was about ten degrees colder than then.

My points were as follows, which I find helpful today as I sit in my wheelchair feeling like that day was a lifetime ago.

Where God is:
Where you ARE not where you wish you were

Mary and Joseph wanted to be at home in Nazareth, not hiding out in a foreign country. I’m reminded that we often feel like all immigrants to this country want to be here to take advantage of the benefits of living here in employment education and health, but I wonder how many dream of home and what might have been but for warfare, corruption or slavery trafficking.

God is right there in Egypt with Mary and Joseph. In person. Emmanuel: God with us. Not in theory. In person. Jesus.

Of course, it would not have felt like that at all. Jesus was a vulnerable baby, dependent on his parents for everything. But in this life that Mary and Joseph were bringing up, God was saving the world from everything that they and we fear: hardship, violence and even death itself.
I think we all face the choice, in our different ways, like Mary and Joseph: are we willing to believe that God is with us as we are and where we are: in sickness or in health, in poverty or wealth, with a home or without one, happy and content or sad and fearful. Not only that but God is able to work through the sinful actions of others, and even ourselves, that have brought us to places that we don’t want to be.

Where God is:
In the silence

We hear very little about Jesus’ childhood. But that certainly doesn’t mean God is absent. I am reminded of the account of Elijah when he felt exhausted and quite frankly “at the end of his tether” (something I find myself feeling most days at the moment I’m ashamed to say).

“a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper. When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.” (1 Kings 19:11-13)

If I’m honest, I don’t think that I have ever heard God in any dramatic ways. But in my teens through to my mid thirties, I sensed his presence in ways that left me in no doubt about his favour and good purposes for my life and that of the whole world. I was spurred on to get ordained and to give my life to him in any way I could. Nothing has changed. Except that the last ten years have been marked by personal failure and illness. I don’t experience God in ways that are tangible to me. Does that mean that God has abandoned me? Sometimes I am tempted to think so. But other times, when I let the silence surround me like a cloak (rather than block it out with the tv in my anxiety to feel ‘presence’ however artificial and unsatisfying), I know that God is in the silence. Not in any way that ‘explains’ how he is working his purposes out in my life that feels like a failure to blossom and be what he made me for. But in a way that invites me to come to him just as I am and let that be enough. Because he is enough.

I love how psalm 139 appears to just go full circle.

Beginning:

“You have searched me, Lord, and you know me.You know when I sit and when I rise; you perceive my thoughts from afar.You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways.”

Ending:

“Search me, God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts.See if there is any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.”

And yet there’s a big difference in that at the beginning there’s an acknowledgment that God knows our thoughts, our hearts – he’s familiar with all our ways. But by the end, after the psalmist has reflected on God’s presence, sovereignty, goodness and love, he says to God “search me, know me, lead me”.

At the beginning the psalmist rests in the knowledge that he is secure in God’s hands, but at the end he places his hand in God’s and says “lead me home” (“lead me in the way everlasting”, lead me into eternity). That is my prayer in the silence of this season of my life. I believe God is present, not to explain or empower in ways that I would wish, but to take me by the hand if I will let him and show me a power that is “made perfect in weakness”.

Where God is:
In the ordinary

My final point on that cold Boxing Day morning was that we often look to find God in the extraordinary because of course God transcends everything we know – he created everything we know out of nothing and he holds everything we know in being. So we can look to God for miracles and extraordinary things. My point was that Jesus and his disciples after him did miracles and extraordinary things in very ordinary situations of daily life: sickness, broken relationships, hunger, guilt and shame, as well as celebrations, homes and workplaces.

So we should look for God in the very ordinary bits of our lives like our work, our family like and friendships, our laughter and joy, our tears and sadness, our rest, and even our sleep!

I played the congregation this song that speaks of this reality and is like a prayer.

“God in my living; there in my breathing. God in my waking, God in my sleeping. God in my resting; there in my working. God in my thinking, God in my speaking. …Be my everything. Be my everything… God in my hoping; there in my dreaming. God in my watching, God in my waiting. God in my laughing; there in my weeping. God in my hurting, God in my healing… You are everything…You are everything”

I ended with a saying from Mother Teresa, which sums up this point that God is in the ordinary things of life making them extraordinary:

“We can do no great things,
only small things with great love”

29 November 2019

Hope revisited

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

Advent Sunday sermon 2010

Hope is a great Advent theme – a hope that Paul says in our reading today “does not disappoint us” (Romans 5:5).

I remember when I was about 10 I was really into Lego. Me and my friend Jez used to play Lego every single day. About that time Dad was out of work and we were a bit hard up. Mum went back to work full time. And so as Christmas approached I didn’t expect much in the way of a present. But Mum asked what I was hoping for for Christmas and, I obviously said Lego.

Now, I had happened to see in the Argos catalogue that there was this awesome Lego set that made a car with steering and a moving engine and stuff. (Cutting edge in 1984!) There was no way I would have asked for it. But Mum must have heard me talking to Jez about how cool it was. Because on Christmas Day I couldn’t believe it when I opened my present and it was this car set. I don’t think I will ever receive a present as exciting as that my whole life! My hopes weren’t just met they were exceeded beyond my imagination.

I think we all know how amazing it is when what we are hoping for happens or is even exceeded.

But we also know how hard it is when what we are really hoping for ends in disappointment. That sinking feeling in our stomachs. For me those kind of hopes are often associated with watching England play in World Cups!

A lot of hopes in life are like that – they can go either way: lead to great joy or big disappointment. And we become used to kind of hoping for the best, but guarding our hearts in case we are disappointed.

But Paul says of the hope above all hopes – the Christian Hope. That this hope does not disappoint us. Can never disappoint us. Will never disappoint us.

Its an amazing truth. And he isn’t being in the slightest bit triumphalistic. The Christian life isn’t about triumphalism. We’re not bullet proof. Jesus wasn’t bullet proof. He knows about friends letting him down; he knew pain; he knew about being isolated from those he loved. He knew about dying. And dying will people shouting abuse at him.

But Jesus – in utter humility – knew about a sure and certain hope. Unshakable. Real. Not just a ‘hoping for the best’, but a present hope that transforms life to its core. That kind of hope doesn’t exist by simply looking around at the state of the world or ourselves. It’s the word of hope that only God can bring.

Jesus knew about this hope in a special way because, as the letter to the Hebrews puts it, he is the “author” of it. Because of him, we can have a sure and certain hope too. We can know in our hearts that today ‘hope which does not disappoint us’

Paul gives three reasons for that:

Because of what Jesus has done

Paul says that the ground of our hope is this: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless [while we were without hope], Christ died for the ungodly…while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” In other words, ‘While we had no hope, Jesus became our hope.’

In a public event in history Jesus has made sure that nothing – no sin, no evil, no suffering, not even death itself – can separate us in Him from God’s love. The words Paul uses for this reality are all present tense: “justified”, “we have peace with God”, we “stand” in grace (Romans 5:1-2) Hope is a present reality in help us live with assurance and joy in the midst of a broken and beautiful world.

I had a man in my Alpha group a few years ago who had recently come back from Bosnia, where he had been serving in the army alongside the UN peacekeepers. He saw some of the atrocities that had taken place. And he found what he saw pretty traumatic. What brought him on the course was a sermon he had heard preached on Hebrews 6:19 “We have this hope as an anchor for the soul”. He said to us ‘I want to know what that means in my own life. I want an anchor for my soul’. He found that anchor for his soul through coming to know Jesus.

This present reality of hope is of course vitally linked to the future which brings us to the second heading:

Because of what Jesus will do

Things in this world (although there is much good in it) are not yet as we wish they would be. And how we respond to that is at the heart of our hope. The knowledge that things will not always be this way. That Jesus has not just come; He is coming back. As redeemer and judge of the world.
In the Gospels, whenever Jesus spoke about his return, he did not hide the reality that that Day will involve judgement. A revealing of things as they really are. The Cross not only reveals God’s infinite love; it also reveals his judgement. His holiness that will not let evil remain.

And God’s judgement is a vital part of our hope. What kind of hope can we have as look at the wrong, the injustice and the suffering in our world, if there will not one day be a reckoning? A righting of that wrong and suffering.

Without God’s final judgement it is pointless to talk about right and wrong. They are meaningless terms – just matters of opinion.

And if a nation loses sight of God’s judgement – if truth, and right and wrong, is seen as negotiable – society degenerates very rapidly, and people begin to lose hope. We see a bit of that today in our so-called ‘post-truth’ society.

The church isn’t called to stand in judgement over society but it is called to humbly point to the reality – lest we forget – that when Jesus returns there will not be a debate over what is right and wrong. Jesus will be the standard.

God’s judgement is an uncomfortable truth if we want to try and justify ourselves. And we are not loving our world if we hide that fact. But Jesus’ return is not bad news at all. It is ground of all hope. Because judgment and love are united in the cross.

The church has often followed the world in seeing judgement and love as in tension with one another. They would be if Jesus was not fully human and fully God. St Gregory articulated the bedrock faith of the church when he said “the unassumed is the unhealed”. If God in Jesus had not taken on our sinful humanity in full we would have no hope. His was no deified superhero humanity. Jesus was tempted in every way like we are, he suffered everything we do, yet never sinned never lost trust and faith in his Father. Without this fact, we would either have to believe in a God who wasn’t interested in justice and truth, or in a God who chooses justice over love, which would be terrifying. Because of Jesus, fully God fully human, the last word of the cross is new life. “if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! “ (Romans 5:9-10). We read in the book of revelation what this means for our future. We have that beautiful truth in revelation 21 “and He shall wipe every tear from their [our] eyes”.

There will be so much rejoicing on that day. Not the backslapping kind of rejoicing in our own merits. Anything but. Rather the sheer breathtaking joy at God’s infinite love and mercy in accepting us, and giving us new life in Him. And look how, in one breath Paul switches from the future to the present: “Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (Romans 5:11). Our rejoicing is for now too. We don’t have to wait to know the joy of that.

Jesus’ return one day makes every day here and now meaningful. Martin Luther was asked what he would do if he knew the world was going to end tomorrow. He said, ‘I would plant an apple tree’. What he is saying is that Jesus’ return is the hope for our actions here and now; not the end of them. Jesus return is not the end, it is the beginning.

The vision of this church is to live out this hope in Finsbury Park. What we build now by God’s grace, we are building for eternity. As a PCC we have been working on our plans for next year to continue to grow the work we do here. It is so exciting to see this life of hope being lived out in this church.

That is the Christian hope – assured now because of what Jesus has done; living today in the light of what Jesus will do.

What does this hope feel like? Is it to be just a head knowledge that one day all will be well? No.

Because God has given us his Holy Spirit today

At beginning of Acts, we read how the angels stood beside the disciples after Jesus had ascended to heaven, and they said in effect ‘don’t sit wistfully looking into heaven. You won’t miss it when Jesus comes back.’

The disciples returned to Jerusalem and they received the Holy Spirit. They received the resurrection power and love of Jesus in their hearts and lives. The Church was born.

A Church not sitting around waiting for Jesus to return, bemoaning what a mess the world was in. But a Church alive with the reality that Jesus’ death and resurrection had changed everything for good. A Church with the power of the Holy Spirit to make known that reality, in every heart and on every street, all over the world. Telling people about Jesus, Praying for healing, planting churches, building up communities

Rejoicing in the life he brings now. A life in which we entrust everything to God no matter what. Because that which we don’t yet fully see, we will one day see in full. So, in a way, it’s just a matter of timing. We go on in obedience and leave the timing to God.

That is of course easier to say than to live with sometimes. It is easy to say that our hope has an aspect of both ‘now’ and ‘not yet’. But if we or someone we love is suffering, or lonely, or struggling to cope with life, there is all the difference in the world between ‘now’ and ‘not yet’.

I joked at the beginning about that sinking feeling of dashed hopes when our sports team is left pondering the ‘what might have beens’. But there are many people who live daily with that sinking feeling in their own lives. Wake up with it, go to bed with it. Perhaps there is someone here in that place. In your head you know about hope. But in your heart you feel like you know more about disappointment and ‘if onlys’. “Hope that does not disappoint” feels at best something very much on the horizon. Heaven perhaps, but no sign of it here on earth. For anyone who feels like that Paul’s words are for you today, as much as us anyone.

Let’s look at the verse, that’s the key to the whole passage. Romans 5v5: “And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out – [and the tense there is ‘has poured, is pouring, will pour’] – his love into our hearts – [into your heart, my heart] – by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us”.

You see what Paul is getting at in this passage is that its not just what we hope for that does not disappoint us, although it will certainly not: “no eye has seen no ear has heard what God has prepared for those who love him”.

What he is saying here is that hope itself – the experience of living in hope – does not, will not, disappoint us: Because God is pouring out his Holy Spirit for that very purpose.

This is the key to what Paul is saying about ‘rejoicing in suffering’. He says in verse 2 “and We rejoice in the hope of the glory of God”. And he goes on “Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character hope.”

And actually is it’s that hope specifically – hope born out of keeping trusting in Jesus no matter what – of which Paul says : “And hope does not disappoint us because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us”

Hope is born out of keeping going. I heard about a teacher who was attached to a hospital to teach children who were going to be in hospital for a long time. She was asked to go and teach a boy who turned out to be very very sick. He was so ill and in pain that he barely responded when she came in the room. And as the teacher took him through this little lesson on nouns and adverbs, she just thought ‘why on earth am I putting him through this?’ It seemed so senseless.

She got a call the next day from his nurse, ‘who said what did you do to that boy?’ And the teacher began this apology about how she didn’t know why she’d been asked to go, and how she should have called the lesson off, she didn’t know why she had been asked to go into a boy so ill, But the nurse interrupted and said: “You don’t understand. We’ve been so worried about him, but after yesterday he turned a corner. He’s responding to treatment. It’s as if he has decided to live”. A few days later the teacher went to see him, and as she spoke to the boy she realised how she had made a difference

He said ‘They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a boy whose dying would they.’

A similar thought process is at work whenever you love the unloved this Christmas, or invite them over for a meal or on Alpha, or love your colleague who is not very nice to you or build friendships in the community with those you don’t readily relate to. ‘They wouldn’t do that if the Church was dying would they’

Jesus has given us his Holy Spirit to live hope-filled lives in a world often without hope, because hope is the truth. His Resurrection is the last word. And although we long for the Day of his coming, we can know the transforming power of the Spirit – the spirit of hope- here and now. Not by pretending but by persevering. Keeping going.

We can’t do that on our own. God doesn’t intend us to. He longs to pour out his Spirit – like a cloudburst on a parched land – the moment we believe and trust in Him.

And I believe that today, and this Christmas, God is going to fill us afresh with this hope in our hearts. First and foremost because he loves us. He wants us to share in his joy. And He has a plan for us to be a people “overflowing with hope” (Romans 15). Overflowing means that, secondly, to experience God’s hope is to become hope-givers. God’s Holy Spirit is the gift of God’s love. The one who breathes hope into us each day. And through us, into the world.

Postscript: Advent Sunday 2019

I have posted this sermon I gave nine years ago because I believe every word. Like many of my talks I gave I am learning the reality in new ways – such as the agonising difference in the now and not yet when one is suffering. But the only addition I would make nine years on and now suffering with mnd is something about how we experience the “hope [that] does not disappoint us because God has poured his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit he has given to us”. I would add that the experience is not always an ecstatic one. I knew that nine years ago. But I didn’t have experience of the wonder of God’s presence in that one can feel utterly desolate and bereft of any personal goodness or ability to be a blessing to others, and yet hear that one is still managing to give hope. This is a mystery to me. But it gives me hope that no one is so broken that God cannot reach others through our lives. Perhaps Paul is saying something similar in 2 Corinthians 4 when he writes:

“But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not forsaken; struck down, but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus, so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies…So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen.”

I’m not good at looking to things that are unseen. (I did a Myers Briggs day at college and discovered that I was a ‘classic ESFP’. The teacher said that SF letters basically meant that my feelings and perception was driven by what I could see hear touch taste and smell. She said that this made me simple and childlike in the good senses of those words. But the flip side of my kind of personality is that I would struggle for perspective in times in my life when my senses were picking up negative things. I would struggle to know that my senses were not always an accurate guide to the whole truth. In other words, like Thomas in John 20, I might need to remind myself that “blessed are the eyes that have not seen and yet have believed”.) This increasing disability that I am suffering is the opportunity to discover that when I feel desolate and bereft of capacity, it doesn’t mean God has abandoned me or stopped having a purpose for me. Because at the end of the day it’s all about Jesus, not me (which is very good news indeed!), and my hope is in the truth that my “life is hidden in Christ in God”. And thanks to the kindness and generosity of friends and family I can know God’s presence in my life even when I cannot see it but they can. Little encouragements that one’s life still has meaning and purpose are the way that I experience in this season of life the hope that does not disappoint us. So thank you more than I can ever say for all the big and little acts of kindness and words of encouragement. They are the way that God is pouring his love into my heart through the Holy Spirit he has given us. Amen and Hallelujah!!

This a talk I gave on this theme of experience and truth:

24 November 2019

Beautiful things

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

When I was about four years old, I made my dad a paperweight for his office. It was basically a big pebble that I painted, I’m sure very artistically for a four year old! (Sadly my art skills plateaued at pre-school!) I remember Dad taking me to his office one day, a few years later. And there on his desk on top of some papers was my pre-school paperweight! I’d forgotten about it, but he hadn’t!

Now, I don’t think dad really needed a paperweight! I don’t think force ten gales often blew through his office!

And I don’t think I had much understanding at the age of four how dad’s office worked and how he could use my paperweight. But dad loved it because I made it. And he brought it into his purposes. It didn’t matter that it looked childish. It didn’t matter that I didn’t really understood how he could use it. He made sure it had a place in his day, because of what was behind it. My love for him and, most importantly, his love for me. He saw that paperweight as a beautiful thing.

There’s a lovely event recounted in the gospels of Jesus being anointed by a woman called Mary. Onlookers are embarrassed or indignant. But we read Jesus response in Mark 14:

Jesus said, “Leave her alone. Why do you trouble her? She has done a beautiful thing to me. For you always have the poor with you, and whenever you want, you can do good for them. But you will not always have me. She has done what she could; she has anointed my body beforehand for burial. And truly, I say to you, wherever the gospel is proclaimed in the whole world, what she has done will be told in memory of her.”

One commentator writes that world has never had a problem with religion in moderation Moderate worship never offends anyone. Semi apologetic, on-and-off Christianity, does not unsettle anyone. It just looks like something that some people do in their spare time. ‘Oh you go to church on Sundays. Nice one. Yeah, I play footie on Sundays.’ It appears like a past-time. Something that we fit in as part of our life, like an interest or pastime.

Passionate wholehearted Christianity, radical worship and discipleship like Mary’s, upsets people (especially many people in church!). It ruffles feathers because it speaks of a reality that cannot be compartmentalised under the heading of religion. It speaks of a reality that if true is about our whole lives not just occasional acts of worship.

Just as it ruffles some people, it also touches the hearts of those looking for more than window dressing for their lives. Those who see in Jesus the hope that they are longing for. The hope that life has a meaning and purpose worth giving everything for. Fullness of life.

Those responding indignantly to the woman justified their reaction in seemingly very Christian terms. ‘Why this waste … The perfume could have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the poor.’ Jesus knows that this is not what their reaction is really about. He tells them that a day will never go by without an opportunity to help them. Poverty is not caused by acts of generosity in the wrong direction, but by greed and selfishness.

Rather, what this whole thing is all about how we see Jesus. Do we see Jesus as one worth pouring out our hearts, our lives, our everything, for? A life in Christ that doesn’t transform the world by eking out scarce resources. But a life of God that is about giving in abundance – because God gives more than enough. And total dependence. A freedom to give everything to God.

In this woman’s encounter with Jesus we see the kind of freedom and love, we were created and saved for. A life where every action can be about worship. All about Jesus.

So three points from this passage that I think we can apply to our lives:

1. What we give to God from the heart echoes in eternity.

Jesus says: “I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached through the world what she has done will also be told in, in memory of her.”

What we give to God from the heart has a significance way beyond the time of our earthly life – it lives on. God sees to it, that it lives on.The Indian poet Tagore tells a parable of a beggar who sees the chariot of the King of Kings coming down the road. Tagore wasn’t a Christian but it is interesting that phrase he uses – ‘the King of Kings’. The beggar thinks, “Yes!…”

The King of Kings stops beside the beggar and reaches down from the chariot and holds out his hand. But this is where the parable gets confusing. Because the King says,‘What do you have to give me?’ …

The beggar looks in his pouch at the bits and pieces he’s been collecting that day, and he takes out a single grain of corn, the smallest and the least.He places it in the palm of the king’s hand, and the king goes on his way, leaving the beggar wondering what is going on…

There are times in our life where giving is costly. Confusing even. There are times in our lives when all we want is something from God, and yet God seems to be inviting us to do something for him.- We are out of work, crying out for a job and some money, and God shows us someone who needs our help for free.- We are in hospital desperate for healing and reassurance, and God asks us to be kind and reassure the person in the next door bed. That kind of giving is all about the heart. It’s a sacrifice of praise.

The parable continues. The beggar gets to the end of the day and he pours out his little pouch. And he discovers a shining grain of pure gold – the size of the grain of corn that he had given the king. Tagore says that the beggar wept because he wished that he had poured out everything to hand to the King.

What we give to God from our heart – often when it is most costly – echoes into eternity. God turns it into gold: “I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached through the world what she has done will also be told in, in memory of her.”

We don’t know whether this perfume was the most valuable thing Mary of Bethany had. But we know for sure that this was a costly sacrifice. Worship has always been about a sacrifice of the heart. Giving all that we have and all that we are to God because of who Jesus is. This was between her and Jesus.

From what we know of Mary of Bethany, she was someone who when Jesus came near, poured out everything to him. Not because her life was easy (difficult family… death of her brother…) But all through her life she gave all of her heart to Jesus. Poured out everything she had. That is our intention in worship. Literally so, as in this reading. We can live like that too. And I believe it begins in our times of prayer and worship.Times when we get the chance to pour out everything to God. As we do that in prayer and worship, we will find that our life becomes an acted prayer. A life of worship.

Sometimes all we want is for God to hold out his hand and give things to us that we need. And more often than I think we realise, he does just that. But prayer is about so much more than being like the 10p we put in the slot to make life work. It is about the living presence of God. Givng ourselves to him simply because of who he is and living with and for him.If we long for the presence of God just to give us what we need – we won’t be disappointed. God has promised to give us all we need. But if we long for something more than material – the presence of God for more than that. If we long for the presence of God because we want to know him more – to live for him and with him, for him to live through us. We will certainly not be disappointed. Those who pour out their lives to Jesus, find that he pours out his life through them. And often in the hardest times and places of our lives. Not necessarily spectacularly. But truly. Really.

2. God calls our acts of worship beautiful

Jesus responds to those who criticise Mary and says, ‘Leave her alone … She has done a beautiful thing to me.’

I find those words amazing. Jesus is the one through whom everything was made. Every beautiful thing you can think of in this world and in this life was made through Jesus.And he calls our acts of kindness in his name ‘a beautiful thing’. I love that. And what is more he takes them into his purposes. Jesus says, “She poured perfume on my body beforehand to prepare for my burial.” Mary could not have possibly known the significance of her actions.- That in two days Jesus would be dying on a cross for us.- When Jesus’ body was place in the grave, it would have still had the frangance of that costly perfume.

God takes our actions of love and kindness in his name. And he gives them a significance beyond what we could fully know. He does this because he loves to involve us in his plan for salvation.

I think it’s a bit like my painted pebble in my dad’s office. I didn’t understand how his office worked. Being a great Christian is not about understanding better than anyone else how salvation works. It’s simply about our love for our Father in heaven, and his love for us.What we give to God in the context of that will always make a difference.

What Mary did was a beautiful thing. And became part of the story of the greatest event in history – the death and resurrection of Jesus. The same is true for you and I. God calls our acts of kindness and love beautiful and he makes them part of his purposes – they echo into eternity.

3. Give to God what you have to give him, and what you would love to give him. Not what you feel you ought to give him.

Jesus says something fascinating to me and so comforting. He says, “she did what she could”.

Just a few verses earlier in Mark, he has pointed out to the disciples a woman in a very different situation. A widow in the temple putting in two tiny coins. And he says something very similar.

Jesus sees our different situations and is interested in one thing – our hearts. You see, God never asks as to solve everything. God invites us to do what we can do. And God does what only He can do.

Those around Mary want to make this about simply about poverty. But for Mary everything is first and foremost about Jesus.Our response to poverty should be first and foremost about our response to Jesus.Jesus’ words in this passage that we will always have the poor with us have been used down the years as an excuse for resignation. But Jesus is passionate about the poor. In Matthew’s Gospel, this event comes immediately after Jesus’ teaching on the final judgement. He describes a conversation in heaven. He says, “For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.” And those hearing those words say ‘when was that?’ and the King replies, “I tell you the truth, whatever you did for the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”

Those who criticise Mary for wasting money have missed the point on so many levels.They have missed the point about who Jesus is – one who is worthy of everything we have because he is the source of everything we have.

They have missed the point about why we should care about the poor – because of God’s love and compassion. His total identification with all of us in our poverty.And because they have lost sight of these things, they see the needs of the world and their resources and in completely the wrong way.

Giving to the poor has become an onerous obligation. And that stifles the freedom of giving without counting the cost. Giving from the heart. Jesus says of Mary of Bethany, ‘She did what she could’. That is all he ever asks of us.
There is such freedom in that. We can look at the world around us and be overwhelmed at the needs. God wants our hearts to be broken. But not because we can’t do enough. He wants our hearts to be broken so that we can do what we can.

I believe that if you will ask him, God will put on your heart today something that you can give to him. Something that you would love (not ought) to give him. Christianity, grace, is never about obligation, law, always about freedom, love.

It may be something that is just between you and God, Or it may be something that for someone, in his name. An act of kindness to a neighbour or friend.

It may seem costly, or it may go unnoticed like the widows mite. What matters is that it won’t go unnoticed to God. Because he sees the sacrifice of the heart. He loves it when we give to him in love.

Don’t ask yourself, ‘is it enough?’ Just pour out your heart to Jesus and trust that as we do what we can, he does through us what only he can.
Praying for opportunities like these is a prayer to make our life one long act of worship. And like Mary, God will make sure our actions from the heart echo into eternity. Like my paperweight on my Dad’s desk, but a whole lot more beautiful!.

9 November 2019

Seeing in the dark

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

One night a house caught fire and a young boy was forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, “Jump! I’ll catch you”. He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see however was flame, smoke and blackness. As can be imagined, he was afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling: “Jump! I will catch you”. But the boy protested, “Daddy I can’t see you”.

His father replied, “But I can see you and that is all that matters.”

For that boy, all that actually mattered (but it didn’t feel remotely like this at that moment) was that his dad was:

trustworthy – true to his word that he could see him and was going to catch him.
capable – that he indeed had the ability to see him through the smoke and to catch him when he jumped.

The interesting thing about that story is that the boys sight was not a factor at all in whether he should or should not jump. The fathers trustworthiness and capability didn’t depend on the boy’s sight.

The boy longed for the sight of his dad to give him the assurance and confidence that he needed to jump. But his dad was effectively asking his son to trust him. He was not asking for a blind confidence. Even though his precious boy could not see him, the son knew his dad. When that boy jumped into the darkness, he was trusting in his father who he knew but (in that moment) couldn’t see.

“Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.” Hebrews 11:1

In recent weeks I have lost the ability to speak comprehensibly. That might not sound that traumatic, I love silence as much as anyone. But I didn’t realise how awful it would be in the context of not being able to do anything for myself. I hadn’t realised how dependent I had become on my voice to function with the help of carers. It’s very frightening when your need help because you cannot move and you discover people are looking at you helplessly because they cannot understand what you are saying. This is honestly not a ‘poor me’ blog post. I just wanted to share why I have had a crisis of confidence (con fides, ‘with faith’) in the last few weeks. I have not been able to see a way through. I have felt like that boy on the roof.

So I am posting this blog to remind myself that my way through this situation doesn’t depend upon my sight. And not because my faith is like a blind leap in the dark – even though it feels like that right now at times of fear and despair – but because I know my Father in heaven and I know that He is trustworthy and capable to catch me.

How do I know that? Because when Jesus the Son of God (words spoken by a previously disinterested centurion who saw how he died) jumped into the utter darkness of death and hell on Good Friday, he was caught in the loving and trustworthy arms of the Father who raised him up to life on that first Easter Sunday.

And when I am tempted to wonder if my faith is in vain. That I don’t know for sure what happened 2,000 years ago. I am reminded that my faith is not just in an historical event (although without the resurrection everything would be in vain), it is based on a relationship with God that I cannot see but is no less real for that. The boy on the roof could not see his dad but he heard him calling to him and he knew what his dad was like after years of life with him. That relationship doesn’t depend upon my sight but on God’s presence, and I don’t need the words of faith with which to pray: “the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba,Father.” … We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.”

The relationship is ours in Jesus because he first jumped into his Father’s arms. On the Cross Jesus was like that boy on the roof. For the first time in his life Jesus could not see the Father; the smoke and darkness of our sin which he willingly took upon himself in our place temporarily hid the Father from view. But in his death, Jesus chose to jump in to the arms of the Father. He chose faith (in the trustworthiness and capacity of the God the Father to catch him and raise him up) over fear and doubt. Fear and doubt are very real temptations and Jesus was not immune from the temptation to see the darkness rather than his Father in heaven. But even his cry of dereliction is a cry of faith “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus shows me that I don’t have to understand what is happening or see a way through. I just have to hold on to the knowledge that there is a God and He will catch me in his love and raise me, because Jesus jumped first and made a way through when I cannot see one. “Faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”

I spoke about this situation I find myself in today back in 2011. Maybe God knew that I would need to hear this one day too

29 October 2019

One of us

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

Do you remember that 90’s song ‘what if God was one of us’ by Joan Osborne?

If God had a name what would it be?
And would you call it to his face?
If you were faced with Him in all His glory
What would you ask if you had just one question?

If God had a face what would it look like?
And would you want to see if, seeing meant
That you would have to believe in things like heaven
And in Jesus and the saints, and all the prophets?

I think one of the points of the song is to challenge our preconceptions if we think we would have recognised who Jesus was. It’s so easy to think that if we had seen the miracles he performed, his sheer goodness and the way he loved the unlovely, and sought out the lost and the hurting, showing them what God is like, that we would have seen who he was and is without any difficulty. That It’d be much easier to have faith back then compared to now, 2,000 years later, reading the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life, death and resurrection.

But the thing that perspective misses, as that song (albeit irreverently) points out, is that Jesus was fully human. (And actually, although I would never think of using the word, I don’t think would be offended by being called a ‘slob’ if Joan is simply saying he was just like us. He was fully human. And I don’t get the impression that Jesus was thin skinned about the names people had for him. He was interested in only one thing showing the love of the Father.) The point that I am trying to make is that those who saw Jesus face to face – saw God just like as one of us – didn’t have any advantage over us in terms of faith.

Jesus was fully human. As a man, he did not look any different to anyone else. We read in Scripture that there was nothing about his physical appearance or strength that said, ‘this is God’. Those who believed that he was who he said he was had to be willing to see and believe that this man, just like us, was God. I am tempted to say ‘this man, just like us, was also God’ but it’s very important that we neither confuse nor separate the humanity and divinity of Jesus. Theological problems follow if we do. I’m not wanting to get into any of those issues, but I am just noting that I realise how stark (scandalous even) it sounds to say that a historical man – Jesus – is God. It was the stumbling block / offensive claim when Jesus walked amongst us, and it’s the same today. It’s easy to believe Jesus was a good man or (for those not schooled in western rationalism) that Jesus was a mystical divine figure transcendent of history. But the claim that this utterly normal (in respect of his humanity) historical man was God denies those two options. They reduce the awesome reality of Jesus into religion (ie western mere good works teaching or eastern mystical transcendentalism). That Jesus who was born of Mary in Bethlehem, who grew up in Nazareth, and who lived in every respect a fully human life, is God is essential to all of Christianity. From it flows everything – in relation to who God is (Father, Son and Holy Spirit), and all that is made possible through Jesus’ life death and resurrection.

To see who Jesus is we have to begin with him, not our own expectations of what God is like. In John’s Gospel chapter 8, we read of a confrontation between Jesus and the religious leaders of the day who were starting from their expectations of God rather then with Jesus who is God.

The situation has been building over several chapters. We see the Jews challenging Jesus with the frameworks that they had – Abraham, Moses, the Law, the Prophets. Jesus denies none of these things, but he is trying to help them see that the God of these things is with them now, in person. But the leaders refuse to believe. They find argument after argument.

Jesus asks them a question that should help them. He says, “Can any of you prove me guilty of sin?” (John 8:46) And I imagine there was an uncomfortable silence. So he says, “If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me?” Jesus is saying ‘everything points to me being exactly who I say I am. The reason you don’t believe is not what you see. Rather it is that you can’t see beyond your own expectations of what wGod is like.’ ‘You are unwilling to see and believe.’

Jesus gives them another truth that rocks their world. He says, ‘I tell you the truth, if anyone keeps my word [believes in me, comes to me], he will never see death” (8:51). Jesus is not saying that we will not experience death (as the religious leaders accuse him of by changing the word to “taste”. Jesus is saying that in his death and resurrection, he is going to make a way for us to pass through death to life. This further angers the leaders. The ‘who are you?’ that they begin with becomes the altogether more hostile ‘Who do you think you are?’ (8:53).

As always, Jesus does not seek to justify himself. He says, “If I glorify myself, my glory means nothing.”(8:54) He is content to entrust his glory to the Father. He simply tells the truth in love. He says, “your father Abraham rejoiced at the thought of seeing my day.” (8:56) Abraham’s trust in God was based on what Jesus was going to do on the cross.

But again, the leaders stick to their limited vision of the power and grace of God.

They say, “You are not yet fifty years old…and you have seen Abraham!?” (8;57) And Jesus says, “ I tell you the truth, before Abraham was born, I am!” (8:58) The Jews had no doubt what this meant. God revealed himself to Moses as “I am who I am”. (Exodus 3) Jesus is identifying himself with God. And they pick up stones to stone him for blasphemy. But this is not the moment for Jesus to die. He is going to give his life for us. But, as he says later on, ‘No-one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.’ (John 10:18)
he slips away from them

Now this is what I love about this whole exchange with the religious leaders…

These leaders who took offense at Jesus had a big vision of God. – The God of creation, of Abraham and Moses, of the Temple in Jerusalem. And they thought Jesus was insignificant in comparison – that it was scandalous for him to be one with this God.

But actually, their vision was too small. Too limited. They were so determined to only see with what they thought they knew, that they could not see the reality before them.

Their vision was too small not too big for what God was doing in Jesus. That this same God had become fully human in the person of his only Son and identified with us so completely, and was stooping so low (even to death) in order to lift us so high (even to life from death).

Their vision of God wasn’t too big but too small! They were looking at the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ. But they were unwilling to see. Their hostility was because Jesus was revealing the awesomeness of God in a way too amazing, too gracious, too wonderful for the limited view of God they had settled for.

And, you know, the hostility today towards Christianity is not so different.

If you listen to the vocal atheists in the media today, you will hear them say how God does not fit into all the information we now have through science and technology. That we know too much to believe in God.

We certainly do know so so much more that we ever have about our world. And what we can do technologically is truly amazing. But do you see the parallel? The scope of all that is big. Huge even. But it is still far far too small a vision to accommodate the author of life itself, being willing to stand among us as a human being. And to create a new beginning for us, even out of death.

If we try and limit God to what we can get our head around, we will miss the full wonder of who Jesus is.

JB Phillips, who produced a wonderful translation of the NT in modern English, wrote this: ‘If you can’t believe in God, the chances are that your God is too small’

The task in our generation is not to try and find a place for Jesus in our modern world, as if it is all a bit too big and complex for the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Our task is to show how the Gospel – the good news of Jesus Christ – still is (and will always be) bigger than any vision of reality we could have. It will always leave us lost in wonder.
Speechless at the power and grace of God.

Our task is not to make room for Jesus, to squeeze him into our lives. Its to stop again in wonder, in awe, at the God of all creation, who became a human being for us and was prepared to die in our place.

The truth is that to see who Jesus is, we have to begin with him. You can’t try and fit him into everything you think you already know. Not because God is above all that we know – he chose to become fully part of it in Jesus – But because he is also the Creator of it all.

Science, philosophy, psychology, human understanding is hugely powerful and valid. We can meet Jesus in it. But before everything you know even existed says Jesus, ‘I Am’.

Jesus is God with us, transforming our world from the inside out. Fulfilling his promise and plan that was there from the beginning.

What might all this mean for us? Perhaps we need to ask ourselves this question: Have I put a limit on what I think God can do? God’s whole being and power are present in this man Jesus, who in terms of his humanity was just like you and me. If we think that God’s power is limited by Jesus being a human being just like us, our vision of God is way too small

It’s why St Paul, aware of his limitations, struggling with poor health, hears God say to him: “my grace is sufficient for you [– it’s all you need –] for my power is made perfect in weakness”. He believed that. He was willing to trust that. And so God was able to change the world through him
And the challenge is, are we willing to believe that for our own lives that often feel to us so limited and insignificant?

I love a story that you may have heard about the man who came across a beach with thousands of starfish washed up on it, dying in the heat of the day. And he sees a little boy going to and fro, picking up a starfish one at a time and throwing them back into the sea. And the man says, ‘have you not seen how many of them there are – there are thousands! Do you really think you can make a difference? And the little boy picked up another starfish, threw it back into the sea, and said ‘Well, I bet it made a difference to that one!’ It’s a picture of faith and action. The man was ‘doing the math’ and saying this can’t work. But he was so caught up in trying to get his head around the big picture, that he’d missed the reality the little boy could see.

The great thing about children is that they don’t do the math.They just live in the reality that they see before them. That’s what Jesus calls us to do with him. Simple faith that doesn’t need to know everything but trusts that if the God who made everything that is became just like us to remake creation, no limitations of ours will be a barrier to him.

God willingly takes on our human limitations in Jesus. And through his life and death and resurrection, shows us that these limitations are no obstacle to his life, love and power. In fact, he only wants to work through these so-called ‘weaknesses’. Are we going to build our lives around that reality or limit God to our maths? (There is nothing wrong with maths, by the way . I love maths! It’s just can’t use it to say what God can do).

As we look around our community, our workplace, our families and friends – seeing the huge need for God. Are we going to put God in a box and say – he can’t quite reach that far into my world.
Or are we going to see Jesus? The person and power of God, present in and through a human being who knows what our life is like.

People often ask why the Alpha course begins with the question ‘Who is Jesus?’ rather than “Is there a God?’ The reason is that if we start with the latter question, our preconceptions will necessarily limit all that God is and all that God can do. Forgive me if that sounds presumptuous. I don’t mean it that way. It’s just that I don’t believe that the gospel is credible if it was not true. God comes to us in frailty of a human life like yours and mine. Jesus, the Son of God, needed to accept help in carrying his cross to Calvary upon which he would be nailed. But at the moment of greatest limitation – constrained and dying on the cross – God’s power was at work remaking all things. (I actually love how in the film The Passion of the Christ, the screenwriter takes me words of the risen Jesus in Revelation 21:5 “See, I am making all things new” and applies them to Jesus on his way to Calvary.)

And that’s the message of this blog post
Begin with Jesus. Don’t begin with your own understanding, or you’ll never see things as they really are. For when we start with who Jesus is – how unafraid he wasn’t human limitations because he knew that they were what the Father wanted to work through – we find the strength and the faith to know that no weakness, no limitation, can stop God fulfilling his purpose in us. I’m writing to myself as much as anyone because the MND symptoms feel so life limiting so often. But I believe every word I have written in this post and far more importantly God’s word in Philippians 1 is true for me and for you reading this: “he who began a good work in you will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus.”

29 October 2019

Hope

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

The verse I spoke on more than any other in my short time as a vicar was this one. “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” (Romans 5:5). I wrote this talk about hope earlier this year in the hope I might be well enough to give it somewhere. That wasn’t possible so I have turned it into a blog post instead.

Paul is saying that we will never be embarrassed – today or ever – for hoping in Jesus, “because God’s love has has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” There is a past, present and future reality to hope in Jesus Christ.

Most of us live lives where our minds are constantly flicking back and forth between past and future. There is something fairly rational about this: past experience is often a guide to the future. It is something that we learn very early on: a child touches a hot pan and get a fright (and their parent shouts at them maybe); next time they approach a pan with caution. The past is informing their expectation of the future and they adjust accordingly.

But sometimes we can apply the same approach to stuff that isn’t about the laws of the universe, but about our sin or someone else’s. We can get locked in awful cycles where our minds eye flicks between sadness/regret/pain of the past and fearful thoughts of what the future holds for us as a result. The painful “if onlys” of our past become fearful “what ifs”.

CBT addresses this by trying to rationalise the past and look at how changing our thoughts about ourselves can result in positive actions that will lead to a future different from this cycle.

Mindfulness centres on the fact that we don’t live in the past or the future, and we can find freedom by focusing upon the reality of the present because the rest is just in our minds.

I certainly don’t want to knock the real wisdom and life-skills in these approaches. All I would say humbly is that we desperately need Jesus because our whole lives matter to God and to us: past, present and future. Jesus wants us to know that his death and resurrection deals with our past. “It is finished” not because you say so or a counsellor says so, but because God says so (this is not a mind game – something has been done about it). He wants you to know that in his resurrection there is total assurance about our future. So we can live in the present with a hope that will never put us to shame – never futile, never wishful thinking.

This verse on hope in is in the middle of a passage that flicks our gaze back and forth between past and future too. But instead of regrets in the past and fears about the future, this is all about what Jesus has done for us in the past and what that means for our future.

“Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God’s wrath through him! For if, while we were God’s enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life! Not only is this so, but we also boast in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.” (5:9-11)

What is so horrid about the regret and fear cycle is that we know that there is nothing we can do about the past. It has happened in our history, we cannot go back and change it. And the enemy comes along and says that therefore the future is inevitable – that’s called condemnation. But you know what? The same logic applies to the Gospel. The Cross is an event in history. The moment you believe in Jesus, look to him, that is your past. You have been justified by his blood. You have received reconciliation. It has happened. No one, not the enemy, not even you, can go back and change it. Hallelujah! If you really really know that, it brings hope, because it changes everything about our present and our future. Paul returns to the points begun here in chapter 8 and concludes: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39) What St Paul is saying throughout Romans is if Jesus death and resurrection is now our past as well, that makes our future inevitable too – salvation. Salvation means freedom from guilt, freedom from shame, freedom from fear.

I walked out on my wife seven years ago. I would give anything to go back and rewrite my history. But I can’t. It is done. My ex-wife has a lovely husband and children now. But I cannot undo the pain, the guilt, the shame. The trauma for both of us. And that is just top of the list of things I would love to change in my past. I will not bore you with my catalogue of sin. I have no authority whatsoever to speak or write about truth and love, except that Jesus tells a different story of my life. Because in him, my past is now his past. In him, my future is his future. Just as, very sadly, I cannot change my past, no one can change, praise God, Jesus’ past. It has happened. It is unchangeable history. Yours and mine forever, the moment we say “Jesus, thank you for dying for me, I believe and trust in you. I want your life to be my life”. And so it is not a figure of speech when St Paul says, as we all can say: “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” (Gal 2:20). It is how he can say too: “Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret,…” (2 Cor 7:10a)

It can seem so radical; if you are anything like me, you don’t want to let yourself off your regrets, fearing succumbing to ‘cheap grace’. But it is true. Paul (like David before him) knew the pain of real sin and yet knew the God and ‘gospel of no regrets’. Those, like me, who have spent years too long – any time is too long after we have come to Jesus – weighed down in shame and fear and sadness (what Paul calls in the second half of that verse 2 Cor 7:10 “worldly sorrow”) are struggling to truly take Jesus at his word when he says “God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.” (John 3:17). Worldly sorrow is the feeling that ‘I am not sure I can truly come to God empty handed and not be a disappointment to him’. It seems noble but is actually perfectionism. Fear rather than faith. The confusion between justification (all the statements of God’s unconditional love) and discipleship (Jesus’ teaching on how to make the most of our life, eg the parable of the talents). Perfectionism is built on the illusion (which is actually pride dressed as humility) that we need to earn God’s approval. We never could. NOT because we cannot please God by actions, NOR that it is not lovely and a truly worthy goal to hear from God the affirmation “good and faithful servant”. It is just the utterly profound truth that God loves us because he loves us. Because we are his beloved (Song of Songs 4:7). We know that because of Jesus Christ: “You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous person, though for a good person someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (5:6-8) Jesus died freely for everyone with no obligation on us to accept it. But if we do his salvation comes without condition because his love (“while we were still sinners “) came and remains without condition. If we really know that, it changes everything. The Holy Spirit – God’s personal presence with us – comes that we may no longer fear (because of our sin and death) but call God ‘Abba’. Paul says that in this relationship and because of this relationship we can know a hope that will not (can not) put us to shame. We are God’s beloved son or daughter now and into all eternity.

I want to draw this together by talking about why this is no mind game. This is not a pick me up talk of positive words that is like sand through our fingers when we try to carry it out into all the pressures, uncertainties and problems of our lives. That key phrase “Hope does not put us to shame” is true. It means that if we decide today to receive God’s love, his life, to want nothing else than for his life to be our life:

No hope in our heart will be futile

No hope will embarrass us (put us to shame) by turning out to be wishful thinking

Hope will not disappoint us. Why? “because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” This is a present as well as future reality: God’s love has been poured, will go on being poured, will eventually be all we know when we see him face to face.

I know that there’s a big difference between present and future fulfilment. I was diagnosed with motor neurone disease five years ago. I’m typing this with my thumb which still works. But I cannot speak or move without technology or a carer to help me. There’s a big difference between the healing that I know will come in heaven and the miracle that I long for in the present. What I am saying is that it is one and the same hope because it is one and the same reality. The reality is that Jesus is risen. He is alive. Nothing can separate me from his love. The crucial thing for me to see whenever I am tempted to despair is that it is actually hope, waiting, that God is present in. “And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.” Hoping is not about looking for God is about meeting God. It is where he is. Want to be where God is? Find something to hope for, to long for, to cry out for, to wait for. It is where he is.

There is a verse in Isaiah which says “Those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” The word for “hope in the Lord” used by Isaiah can be translated “wait on the Lord”. Waiting on God is not about absence but presence. Not like waiting on the platform alone for a train that is not there, but more like waiting for a birth: the life is already all there, it is just a matter of timing.

I love that Bethel song ‘Take Courage’. Why can our hearts take courage, why can our souls stay steadfast? Because “He’s in the waiting. He’s in the waiting.” God is in the waiting. He is IN our hoping. That is where he is! The Holy Spirit is poured into our hearts – God’s very presence, his life, his love, poured into our being when we are hoping. The situation may be desperate and appear hope-less. You may have no idea how it could ever work out. That is no barrier to his Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us that Jesus was raised to life in the power of the Holy Spirit. Raised from death, from the depths of conquering hell. That more than encompasses every situation that we can see no answer to. And this is why the verse says that this hope will not put us to shame. It cannot, because it is based on something that has already happened. My motor neurons in my brain are dealing with stuff that I do not understand. No one does, not even experts in the field. But God knows all about every cell in my body.

I’m hoping for a miracle. Nothing can stop that miracle ultimately. “by his wounds we ARE healed.”(Isaiah 53:5). I cannot fully explain how the present and future tense are true at the same time, in hope in Jesus they are. I understand the pragmatic fact that answers to prayer for healing are sometimes ‘now’ and sometimes ‘not yet’. But I do not accept that this means we should ever take the ‘not yet’ to explain anything. Because God is our Father who loves us more than any human father could love their son or daughter. What human father would see his son and daughter in pain or lack or dying and not do everything to relieve that? And God did on the cross. So all we can ever mean by ‘not yet’ is that we are not God (Job 38:1-42:6 & 1 Cor 13:12). We do not have an answer. Ultimately, hope is about relationship that doesn’t require that I pretend me “all is well” (with my body or anything else) when it clearly is not, it is the gift of the reality (Word and Spirit) that by faith assures me that because all WILL be well, all IS well here and now: “and we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.” (Romans 8:28)

20 October 2019

When I survey the wondrous cross

petebellengergmailcom No ordinary hope

I’ve spent a lot of the week thinking about the Cross. Reading Matthew’s gospel account and pondering it. I’ve watched on DVD that film The Passion of Christ. And in all my reflections I’ve been lost for words.

Firstly, lost in the sheer awful reality of it. (I don’t mean lost in the sense of being mystified and how it could have happened. That distancing response we use as we watch the news: as ‘how could something so awful happen?’ We see in the crucifixion of Jesus something here all too familiar about what we are like.) I mean lost in the reality of it and my place within it. The way that all human attempts – all my attempts – to be in control, in charge, all claims to do things my way, end up here. In nailing an utterly and totally righteous man to a cross.

To see what is happening on the Cross is to be rendered utterly silent, lost. All our pretensions to be ‘sorted’, in control – all the ways we try an construct meaningful lives for ourselves in our own strength and power – laid bare. Exposed for what they really are. Isaac Watts begins his great hymn in that place too:

When I survey the wondrous Cross on which the Prince of glory died. My richest gain I count but loss, and pour contempt on all my pride

There is no avoiding this revelation of the utter futility of human claims to do it ‘my way’. The utter lostness of humanity. But to fully see what is happening on the Cross is not to be left there. In fact, to want to stay there – weeping at our iniquity – is to risk a kind of self-indulgence. It is to try and find a way back through our own horror and remorse at what happened. The kind of approach to sin which says: ‘Lord, I hate myself for what I did. And because I am so sorry, it will never happen again’. The Cross is an end to sin. But NOT because the world was shocked at itself, and turned over a new leaf.

Rather, because there isn’t a way back from here. This is the final judgement of sin and of this world. It is the final whistle. On the Cross Jesus shows us where all sin leads. We are rightly totally lost in the face of it. Rendered silent and powerless by the reality of it.

But because it is an end – it is also, by the grace of God, a new beginning. Jesus breaks the silence with his words from the Cross that reveal he is making a way to a new world. In Matthew chapter 27, we see everyone is involved with Jesus’ crucifixion: Judas, the chief priests, Pilate, the crowd baying for blood, the soldiers, the passers by who mock Jesus as he hangs on the cross. We see the range of human failings: pride, fear, selfishness, unbelief. The lostness of our world. The futility of sin.

But then, in verse 45, all of these voices fade into the background. And God is at the centre. He always has been, but now we truly see. The story of the crucifixion which everyone thought they were in control of is revealed to be the story of the Crucified. And what we see now in the Cross leaves us lost… but this time, in wonder.

The universe turns on this moment. Everything else fades into the background. Darkness comes over the land in the middle of the afternoon. And Jesus cries out ‘Eloi Eloi lama sabachthani?’ ‘My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?’

Like all cries of lament, this is a cry of faith: “My God”. This is utterly different from the fear and unbelief that has put Jesus there. Jesus is bearing for us God’s wrath for the entirety of sin – for all the world, for all of history.

‘Come down’, the bystanders say, ‘and we will believe’. But it is precisely because He does not come down that He is Our Saviour. Jesus will not prove to the onlookers who he is by a show of force. He is not interested in self-justification. Self-centred power. He has come, not to prove himself. But to be our Saviour. I find myself lost in wonder that Jesus is there, willingly, lovingly, for my sins. He won’t be moved from that place. Whatever it takes to make a way for me, for you. He remains with me even unto death, that I may have a new beginning.

Lost in wonder at the foot of the Cross is the place where we find bearings for everything else. A whole new way of seeing the world and what life is all about. A new beginning in which we believe not because of might but because of love. A new humanity built upon self-giving love.And what Jesus accomplishes on the Cross is something far beyond anything we could have imagined. He makes a way for us to be one with God for ever.

The atoning power of the Cross of Jesus Christ. At-one-ment. Through Jesus we are one with God. In verse 51 we read that the curtain in the temple separating the people from God’s presence – the Holy of Holies where only the High Priest could go once a year – is torn in two from top to bottom. Heaven to earth.

One sacrifice once and for all. No mediators now. God has become one with us. So that, through his death and resurrection, we might become one with him. (“The unassumed is the unhealed” Gregory Nazianzen c.380AD)

Creation itself – the physical and natural world – is the first to respond (v51b). Then the Centurion speaks the words that Matthew hopes that his readers will echo and know to be true: “Surely he was the Son of God”. Words that are established for all eternity in Jesus’ Resurrection on Easter morning.

And what is our response? As we stand in the place of the centurion at the foot of the Cross. Isaac Watts ends that hymn with his response.

“Love so amazing, so divine,
Demands my soul, my life, my all.”

Archbishop William Temple used to say that we should freely sing that final line with everything we’ve got, or freely stay silent. Because only you can sing them and mean them. No one can (or should even attempt to) compel you to sing those words. The Cross – Jesus’ love for us – does not demand anything in the sense of forcing us to say or do anything. “While we were yet sinners Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8)

That is one of the most breathtaking things as we look at the Cross. Jesus died for me, accepted my sin on his shoulders. Before I had even accepted him. Before I had asked for his help, he loved me unto death anyway. That’s the grace of God. His faithfulness and compassion. His infinite love. Jesus died knowing that some would respond, others wouldn’t. But he died for us all… anyway.

That love, God’s kind of love, is what inspired Mother Teresa to write her famous poem ‘Anyway’:

“People are often unreasonable, illogical, and self-centred;
Forgive them anyway.
If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives;
Be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and some true enemies;
Succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you;
Be honest and frank anyway.
What you spend years building, someone could destroy overnight;
Build anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous;
Be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow;
Do good anyway.
Give the world the best you have, and it may never be enough;
Give the world the best you’ve got anyway.
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God;
It was never between you and them anyway.”

For God, Love is the only way. Love is who He is. And so, as well as seeing in the Cross, how much Jesus loves us. We also see how much he loves the Father. ‘In the final analysis’, to use Mother Theresa’s words, it is between Jesus and his Father. About Who God is. Jesus’ love for us and his love for the Father go hand in hand.

His prayer on the Cross: “Father forgive them, they don’t know what they are doing’. ‘It’s not about me, its all about them’.

His prayer in the Garden: “Yet not my will Father, but Yours be done”. ‘It’s not about me, its all about You.’

This nature of God, his way of love, is at the heart of Paul’s hymn in Philippians chapter 2. He writes: “Your attitude should be the same as that of Christ Jesus:”

“Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant … he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!”

Those verses sum up what Paul calls the ‘mind of Christ Jesus’. And it is one of self-giving love in total freedom. ‘It’s not about me, its all about Him’. Jesus says it of the Father. He is obedient even to death on the Cross. And the Father says it of the Son: “Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him the name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”

The Cross is our way to salvation. But it also a glimpse of God’s glory. It is also about who God is…anyway. Love personified. God became human for us, because he is love. He died for us, because he is love. And He did that for all of us, because He is love. He did it whilst we were sinners. He wanted to do it even if we would not accept it, because he is love. Love is Who he is. His way.

And this is the key to the freedom we find at the foot of the Cross. The choice we face as we stand at the foot of the Cross is one of freedom. We are not coerced into anything. We are not shamed into loving God. He IS love. And because of his love we are free. Paul writes to the Galatians: “It was for freedom that Christ has set us free”.

Stay at the foot of the Cross until you know that. Don’t take up your Cross without first seeing God’s love. His total acceptance of you, as you are, on the Cross. Jesus did not have to die for us. He chose to. The Cross is an expression of who God is. Who you are in Jesus is the beginning and the end of the story. You have to do nothing for God other than receive his grace by faith.

The objections to the language of sacrifice always come from a mistaken belief that sacrifice is necessarily imposed. Something one doesn’t do freely. ‘Who would freely sacrifice themselves for another?’ our modern culture asks. The answer in the Gospel comes back, ‘One who loves unconditionally, whose self is utterly secure in that same love’.

If we follow Jesus in this way of love, we don’t find that our problems disappear, but we find a God “whom to serve is perfect freedom” (Book of Common Prayer). Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will find it”.

To anyone afraid of those words – and I do not want to minimise the cost of discipleship – please see the logic of love in this following of Jesus: Love so amazing so divine, Demands my soul, my life, my all. It is love that compels us (2 Cor 5:14). Nothing else could (or ever should). We do not “take up our cross “, give “my soul, my life, my all”, in order to be loved by God. His love is unconditional. He died for us while we were still sinners. He did it freely because he loves us. He died so that we can be utterly free to accept it or not. Only when one is in a relationship of unconditional love can one make sense of phrases like “love compels” or “love so amazing so divine demands“. Ask any parent who loves their son or daughter if it feels like a choice and they will tell you that it is much deeper – it is part of them. We do not respond to the cross of Jesus in order to win a higher place in God’s eyes. But simply because of who we have found in Jesus. Love personified. Mother Teresa said of her missions: “Our vocation is not the work… [our work is just] our means to put love into action”.

Our vocation is love. To simply share in the life, the way of, God. Love so amazing so divine. Demands my soul, my life, my all. We are “Jolly Beggars” as CS Lewis put it. We stand at the foot of the Cross knowing we can say nothing, other than ‘Thank you. Praise You’. And we discover that in our total dependence upon God in this place, we find the life of Christ. His way of love.