Tag Archives: church

Jesus, beyond gender.

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Humanity is created male and female, the Image of God. Jesus is found in the beginning, the beginning where Wisdom is present, divine companion and creator.

Wisdom is one in the same as Christ, the Creator of all things. Jesus the Christ and Jesus our Wisdom are one: Jesus Christ is Jesus Sophia. Jesus is the incarnation of the Word, there from the beginning, the incarnation of Wisdom.

The incarnation of God is the incarnation of Wisdom that forms, fills and holds the world. This is Jesus, enfleshed in us; like us, the image of God but unlike us being God; calling us to become like God in the humanity we share.

The full counsel of God is found in Jesus dwelling in us, fully God, revealing beauty, justice and mercy. We know joy in one another and weep with the oppressed, called to loving action in the world, in acts of kindness and solidarity.

In all circumstances Jesus’s gift is Peace.

Wisdom is personified as a woman. Jesus is beyond gender yet he is woman incarnate and man, the Father, One in God. Jesus, the Son, is Jesus as Wisdom from the beginning. In his humanity he is a male and in his divinity, beyond male and female: fully woman and fully man yet more.

Just as Love is his essential being so is Wisdom, One with the Father. In Jesus we are formed and sustained. We feed on his milk comforted like new born babes, born into a world of light with strength for the day.

The Son and the Father dwell within us. In him and through him we have our being. As we turn our gaze to beyond the horizon of knowing, we glimpse the fullness of both male and female in him.

In him, we find the beginning of all things. Jesus reveals to us God and in him is both male and female held as one. Jesus is as much woman as man and more.

So how are we to name this? As much as we call Jesus our Christ and Jesus our Saviour, we could know Jesus better as we call on him as Jesus our Wisdom from the beginning, Word made flesh: Jesus Sophia. Peace be with you, go without fear, to love and serve in wisdom.

Down by the river

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The story of Jesus’ visit to the temple as a 12 year old, staying back with the elders and causing his parents to search for him for three days says this

Luke 2:49-50 NRSV
He said to them, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he said to them.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/luk.2.49-50.NRSV

If we allow ourselves to see this as a metaphor for today, where is the Father’s house where we must go to to find Jesus?

John 14:23 NRSV
Jesus answered him, “Those who love me will keep my word, and my Father will love them, and we will come to them and make our home with them. https://bible.com/bible/2016/jhn.14.23.NRSV

So, as we learn obedience to Jesus, firstly, by loving him, there we will find Jesus in the midst. We search for goodness, beauty, and justice and wherever it may be found, find Jesus. Jesus commands us to love God, our neighbour; our enemy, and ourselves. Jesus commands us not to be anxious and draws us to wisdom. He gives us each other to work this out.

All of this formation is experienced face to face with real people: it is found in community. In Paul’s time it was clear where he might find this community.

Acts 16:13 NRSV
On the sabbath day we went outside the gate by the river, where we supposed there was a place of prayer; and we sat down and spoke to the women who had gathered there.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/act.16.13.NRSV

Where might we find such people in our search? Where is the river for our times? We are if nothing highly connected, but the wise say lack real connection.

Takeley chapel might be a place with religious services. But, as a group of people, we meet for coffee each Sunday morning and soup on Wednesday. And yes, these come first. At about 10am on Sunday, we will read scripture and sing, but the coffee is brewed by 930am. At about 7pm on Wednesday the soup is on the go, all varieties, and at 8pm we will sit in silence and pray. We would be delighted to see you there. What I am saying is, here is a river, here is a place of connection.

So put your phones away and find some real connection with us.

Episode 284: Jennifer G. Bird – The Myth of Biblical Marriage – The Bible For Normal People

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https://thebiblefornormalpeople.com/episode-284-jennifer-g-bird-the-myth-of-biblical-marriage/

Jennifer G. Bird joins Jared and Angela Parker to bust the myth of “biblical” marriage. She dives into the ways scripture has been used to enforce traditional gender roles, the cultural assumptions embedded in biblical texts about marriage, sex, and property rights, and how these interpretations have influenced Christian thought.

Us and theming

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Recently, I have been contemplating Matthew 7 with the guidance of Bonhoeffer’s Cost of Discipleship. To start at the end, we get the parable of the person building their house on the sand and the one building their house on the rock.

‭Matthew 7:24-27 NRSV‬
“Everyone then who hears these words of mine and acts on them will be like a wise man who built his house on rock. The rain fell, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not act on them will be like a foolish man who built his house on sand. The rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell—and great was its fall!”

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.24-27.NRSV

In a way, it rounds off this whole section of teachings, but for me, it refers quite closely to the way through Chaperer 7.

The chapter begins by warning us not to judge others.

‭Matthew 7:1-2 NRSV‬
“Do not judge, so that you may not be judged. For with the judgment you make you will be judged, and the measure you give will be the measure you get.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.1-2.NRSV

Bonhoeffer reminds us that the story of original sin was to pick fruit from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. To believe ourselves to be the judge is not right as the place of judgement is the cross, and judgment is rightfully the Lord’s. We are to look on Jesus and see all else in relation to his love for all. We are not to judge but to love.

And then this peculiare saying;

‭Matthew 7:6 NRSV‬
“Do not give what is holy to dogs; and do not throw your pearls before swine, or they will trample them under foot and turn and maul you.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.6.NRSV

Apt, in that through judging, we profane the holy; we despoil the revelation of truth that opens our eyes to the right way by misapplication of the truth spoken to us to others. In order to speak, we need to be humbled by the realisation of our own needs, else the measure we get hurts.

Jesus says;

‭Matthew 7:7 NRSV‬
“Ask, and it will be given you; search, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened for you. https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.7.NRSV

We move from judgement to trust. It is in our hearts to be right. In speaking our own righteousness, we get hurt. The true path is prayer, and with our creator, we can intercede creatively and be transformed and sustained and see things change.

The movement continues laying aside our desire to judge, to love prayerfully and compassionately with kindness.

‭Matthew 7:12 NRSV‬
“In everything do to others as you would have them do to you; for this is the law and the prophets.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.12.NRSV

It’s how we are that leads others to a better way, not our judgement. That way leads only to violence, which is a wide path.

‭Matthew 7:13-14 NRSV‬
“Enter through the narrow gate; for the gate is wide and the road is easy that leads to destruction, and there are many who take it. For the gate is narrow and the road is hard that leads to life, and there are few who find it.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.13-14.NRSV

And here Jesus makes it plain. Only the few will be able to hear this. We are called to be of the few. It is in the twos and threes that Jesus is present. The body of Christ is made up of the few, a community of small communities gathered around Christ. Jesus knows what is in people’s hearts, and Bonhoeffer refers us back to the temptation Jesus experienced in the dessert, to be popular, one leading many.

‭Matthew 7:15-16 NRSV‬
“Beware of false prophets, who come to you in sheep’s clothing but inwardly are ravenous wolves. You will know them by their fruits. Are grapes gathered from thorns, or figs from thistles?

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.15-16.NRSV

The temptations of being popular, gathered around strong leadership, have left thousands on the wrong side of the truth. It’s not the Law and the Prophets that lead us to God. This is death. Encountering Christ leads us to the Law and the Prophets, schooling us in love and opening our eyes to our own pride and arrogance, bringing life. We preach to those we love.

‭Matthew 7:21 NRSV‬
“Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only the one who does the will of my Father in heaven.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.7.21.NRSV

Our distinctive, Jesus teaches, is to love as Jesus loves, self sacrificially and without coercion. If we find ourselves distinct because of our judgement of others then however successful we may appear, we are wrong.

It’s a hard saying, and we are back to where we started; all these sayings are the foundation we build on for the day of trouble. To end at the start, Jesus, before he embarked on this section of teaching, said,

‭Matthew 6:34 NRSV‬
[34] “So do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will bring worries of its own. Today’s trouble is enough for today.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.6.34.NRSV

Healing

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God heals. We pray, your will be done on Earth as it is in Heaven. Surely, in the healing of minds and bodies and deliverance from oppression, God is healing. In the mystery of God in all things, upholding all things, God is present in a way that wills only good, that brings light and life.
This is the aroma of God, and we see it in the healing ministry of Jesus who says, if you don’t believe in me, believe in the works that I do. Through community, care, and prayer, followers of Jesus embody this. Followers of Jesus are distinctive only because of love, love of God, and love of those around them.
And so in history we see collections for the poor to feed and clothe them, rescuing of the destitute especially children caringbforbthe sick and teaching, and, as medicine develops, hospitals, and in recent times schools for children.
Visiting the sick and clothing the naked is a work of humanity, as is caring for the indigent and those in prison. Jesus calls us to his perfect humanity, accountable to the light he has placed in everyone. He is light, and we are called to be light. God is not divine deodorant. We are his holy aroma recreated and formed by the renewal of our minds. We are called to be holy as he is holy; to be fully human. Kindness and compassion make us truly human.
The place of gathering for those on this journey, the holy place, is a meal, a table where life is shared in its fullness in all circumstances. A meal that encompasses Jesus in his life, death, and resurrection. The mystery of faith is, being in Christ, being fully human as Jesus was and is, resurrected, making all things new. All creation is in Christ from the beginning, and Jesus reveals this truth, as he is so are we redeeming, redreaming, all things.
This is our religion, our worship, that causes us to sing and praise and to enter the quiet place of intimacy with God. In him, we look with the eyes of Christ and in all see Christ.



God is ever healing, drawing all creation to the good. Miracles happen, but the miracle of the human endeavour is to be celebrated. What we see in medicine today should bring us to our knees in praise and thanksgiving. Medicine in all its forms expresses the miracle of the light within. Humanity expresses itself in healing and curing. Jesus is revealed in our care for the sick and oppressed and in the advances of science. This is the life we are called to. He is not revealed in turning away from the goodness of science to a spiritual desert of disappointment. Does God heal in miraculous ways? Yes, look around you.
People experience the extremes of genetic collateral, physical attrition, and just plain bad luck. All is in God’s hands but is not God’s will. Jesus’s answer is to put in our mouths a prayer that asks for God’s will to be done and in our minds a will to cure.
Does God intervene? Only in love. We are to pray constantly, expressing compassion and kindness for those afflicted and in need of saving. Open your eyes, love wins. Do not be put off by the charlatans who profit from your disappointment. It’s not your fault.

Before Moses died on the borders of the promised land, he said,

‭Deuteronomy 31:26 NRSV‬
“Take this book of the law and put it beside the ark of the covenant of the Lord your God; let it remain there as a witness against you.

He then wrote down a song, and in it, he sung,

Deuteronomy 32:3-6 NRSV‬
For I will proclaim the name of the Lord; ascribe greatness to our God! The Rock, his work is perfect, and all his ways are just. A faithful God, without deceit, just and upright is he; yet his degenerate children have dealt falsely with him, a perverse and crooked generation. Do you thus repay the Lord, O foolish and senseless people? Is not he your father, who created you, who made you and established you?

https://bible.com/bible/2016/deu.32.3-6.NRSV

To Christians, this sounds familiar. Jesus had come down from a mountain where his true glory had been revealed, but in the meantime, his disciples had not been able to cure a fitting boy, and the disciples wanted to know why.

‭Matthew 17:17-18 NRSV‬
Jesus answered, “You faithless and perverse generation, how much longer must I be with you? How much longer must I put up with you? Bring him here to me.” And Jesus rebuked the demon, and it came out of him, and the boy was cured instantly.

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.17.17-18.NRSV

https://bible.com/bible/2016/deu.31.26.NRSV

Jesus words seem to say we are at fault when there is no healing, How much longer must I put up with you? I’m not sure this was directed at the hapless disciples.
Jesus has just communed with Moses, who saw how the people had failed and how they would fail despite the law. He had also communed with Elijah, who in the time of Israel’s deep apostasy did many miracles. I feel that Jesus was constantly bringing the people back to Moses; the heritage they were so proud of, what they felt defined them. We see the practices of the way of the law angering Jesus, and here, he reminds them of the prophecy of Moses.
Jesus heals the lad and then teaches the disciples about faith. I believe he was drawing a contrast, reframing the song of Moses, anticipating an end to the curse of the law and healing the lad. I think Jesus words and healing were a parable; the disciples would see Jesus recalling the song of Moses and speaking out frustration at the way of the Law, then there was healing, then joy, a new way that always was the way, a revelation of the true way..
Afterwards, the disciples wanted to know why they were not able to deliver the boy; their expectation must have been that they could, but nothing happened. Had they not healed people and raised people from the dead?

‭Matthew 17:20 NRSV‬
He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

https://bible.com/bible/2016/mat.17.20.NRSV

Does this mean their lack of effectiveness was their own fault? What was the lesson? Your faith is less than tiny, but tiny faith can alter stuff. You can read this all as a rebuke or as playful teaching. It was the demon that was rebuked, not the disciples.
The whole incident is redolent with hyperbole. otherwise, he would be denying his own faith. We learn there were occasions Jesus himself was unable to heal.
We have been taught to feel bad about our lack of faith, but Jesus is telling us we don’t need much and encouraging us, not telling us off. Read it again, seeing Jesus after coming down from the mountain, and overjoyed that life was coming, acting out the song of Moses, then healing with a huge smile on his face. Keep coming to Jesus and asking.



Does suffering cease? Only through love, and if our tiny faith does not prevail, we can trust in that love and draw on it, as Jesus stands with us in our anguish. We bear in plastic shopping bags a fullness beyond measure, and yet death and destruction stalk our daily lives and evil picks off the innocent. I hope Jesus is frustrated with that, and we see that he is. I am.

We are to seek the good of all in our actions and in our prayers. This is our work. A prayer for healing is an act of love. We can not be other than fully human in our spirituality. Sometimes, our prayer is a groan, and in this groan, the Spirit knows deeper than we can know what to pray. Every prayer drives the cosmos forward in Christ. We need to realise the power of Christ in us, the light we bear and shine out.
Our hope is that all is in God’s hands. We are taught that hope is not what is seen. Hope, faith and love are our virtues; a growing faith that breaks through the wall of transactional childish ways into a deep trust; a real hope which prays with all our humanity, sure that God is love.
Do not become slaves to events, people, and places but worship in spirit and truth. Do not be those who naval gaze, but become those who act to bring unrelenting good into this held but broken creation.
My dream is that we will break through to a place where we don’t hold God to account for not healing: a place where we can integrate all creaturly experience as being held in Christ.
It is good to ask the question and wrestle with it, but don’t give up praying and meeting together, losing hope. God is healing, and our prayers are effective: God is sovereign in and through love and only in and through love. Love is difficult. All creation, the good and the bad, is perfected in love. Wrestle. Imagine. Dream. We should see more healing, and it is frustrating, but don’t give up or concede a vision of a good and powerful God.

My hope is that we will share spiritual practices that deepen the life of service and maybe take a few up. But I think they are best done together and voluntarily. I think they then feed the multiple personalities and dispositions of the gathered who can choose what to do in their daily life. Only do not then leave the table.
To be authentic, the body of believers minister Christ to those around them in eating together, walking together, and listening. We model a non transactional way where people come and do life together because they are being met by Christ. We resist framing people’s experience of God and killing it with practices.
It is enough that they want to be there. Church is voluntary, and leadership in the body is in teaching, facilitating and guiding; providing the fuel. There is also judgement, routing out hypocrisy and exposing harm, which Jesus shows is directed towards the powerful and is uncontroling.


There is a life worth living, and it first draws us inward to the secret place, and we are cleansed. We become in our lives faithful to Jesus, the one who lived died and rose again, revealing God as Father, Son, and Spirit: Christ for all. In this life God is healing.

Luther

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I have been listening to The Rest Is History

| 433. Luther: The Man Who Changed the World (Part 1) on

Podbean,

https://www.podbean.com/ea/dir-5kfqx-1de25232

Spotify,

https://open.spotify.com/episode/10iZL7NCRAC4rB1EwSYsGE?si=qTv3u2ZDRtqqzqurafoxuw

To say that culture forgives a lot would be to concede too much. Scripture tells us that a bad tree can’t produce good fruit. Jesus was meek and also said it as he saw it, not sparing the blushes of the rulers of his age.

This bears contemplation as we listen. Beautiful hymnody, liberating theology; is it nothing in view of the man and his gutter language and hateful ideas that fuelled genocide. And yet from this root came Bonhoeffer.

How much are you prepared to forgive?

Wholeness

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Catholic means whole; the entirety. To be catholic is to be part of the ever flowing fulness of creation and to embody all in one reality.

My friend Peter being confirmed in the catholic church.

The word catholic attached to the church seeks to express its fulness, its finality, the embodiment of Christ in creation being all that there is. A catholic church is a church that encompasses mind, body and spirit and brings meaning to everything.

In history this wholeness became centred around the bishop, the embodiment of apostolic succession around whom the people gathered. Soon the heavenly hierarchy of angels and archangels achieved its earthly equivalent in the order of bishops, priests, monks and the layity, each afforded its place, each expressing a misunderstood truth, once again obscuring the mystery of the incarnation.

Sadly this system became sanctified and an unholy order was established. The gifts given for the upbuilding of the church became a structure upholding the state and the status quo, so that slaves remained slaves and tribes were separated, patriarchy established. Culture took over and the message of catholicity was lost, a shadow of its original meaning becoming simply another word for universal; permission for men to engage in power struggles; an excuse for men to engage in conquest and colonisation.

Catholic goes beyond the universal and expresses the all that is in all, the fulness of God present in space and time, the body of Christ.

We are so wedded to the visible church, its hierarchy and forms, we miss the coming of Jesus. He is to come and he is here.

Would that we would open our eyes and see Christ not in the picture and the frame but in the reality, the truth and the life, the way we are being invited to live. God is love and in the catholic church heaven is found on earth.

Let us Pray

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Through our faith in the redeeming work of the cross; the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, do we have authority in creation, together with the Father, Son and Spirit? Is this the mystery of prayer: from the beginning, not only did we have dominion through technology and culture, we had dominion in the spiritual realm? Is our prayer of faith an exercise of the original authority given to us at creation? Is our prayer preparation for heavenly authority in the age to come? Is the outworking of God’s loving kindness that he only works through prayer? Are all prayers answered by God through the glorification of love and the defeat of principalities and powers through the way of love?

Foundations

Love is defined by scripture as sacrificial, non-coercive and enemy loving. Love doesn’t hold a record of wrongs and does not insist on its way.

Matthew 5:43-46 English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK)

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. For he makes his sun rise on the evil and on the good, and sends rain on the just and on the unjust. For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have?

Matthew 22:37-40 English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK)

And he said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbour as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.”

1 Corinthians 13:4-8 English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK)

Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Love never ends.

God is beyond anything we might understand. God’s love extends beyond what is revealed in these scriptures; beyond our conception. God is good, he is loving, and he is steadfast, in ways we cannot limit by what we may comprehend. God is faithful and has made a space for creation in which he may be glorified and pour out love. God cannot become more loving, he is complete love and in creation love is perfected. Love is freely given and freely received. This is what is essential, God has formed creation so that love is perfected. Love can be no less than what God says it is in the scriptures.

God is One, Father, Son and Spirit and is love. All creation is in God. God creates a space for love to be poured out and to draw in humanity. Humanity is made in the image of God, but we are not gods. God prepares humanity to love and be loved, to hear his voice and to choose to follow the narrow way of love. Christ, the eternal Son, is made flesh, in the form of the man Jesus. Through Jesus’ life and death and resurrection humanity is perfected in love. Christ came fully human so that we may be restored to our full humanity and original blessing. This event in time is for all time true, the eternal sacrifice revealed to us.

Mystery

We are privileged to see and know this mystery. God shows us in Christ the dominion we have through faith and teaches us to ask. Christ forms our hearts so that he is in us, lives within us, and the words we hear are the words we speak. Our hearts are sanctified, trained in holiness, as we confess with our lips that Jesus is LORD.

The mystery of prayer is that God promises to work as we pray. Where people pray, the rule of God formed in people’s hearts, releases God’s blessing power in love. God does not force himself on creation but gifts humanity with dominion in the heavenly realm and on the Earth. This authority is the authority Jesus, who is fully human, exercises. We are called to exercise authority through prayer. God is alive and active and willing to exercise power, through the prayers of the faithful. This is the mystery of prayer, that we are to subdue creation through prayer.

The way the world is, is because of prayer and the neglect of prayer. We are called to labour in prayer as much as we are called to rule the creation and subdue it. Prayer is the power of the work of our hands and prayer defeats the work of the evil one, putting him to flight. Deliver us from evil, Jesus teaches us to pray.

Blessing

Prayer begins with praise and worship; Our Father in heaven, hallowed be your name! Your kingdom come your will be done on Earth as it is in heaven! Prayer continues, formed in the knowledge of the Holy.

In naming the One who brings blessing and the blessings he brings, our prayer gains content. We need to rest in the still small voice that speaks; in the thunder that proclaims. Each moment has purpose, and, in each moment, we are invited to choose life. Our purpose is to be gathered to God in the fulness of time. Where there is opposition we go deeper; where there is pain we experience pain and pray the more. This is the battle.

Sacrifice

The battle is won on the cross. From the beginning, the Word, the lamb who is slain is slaughtered. In creation, there is forgiveness. From the beginning, this forgiveness is found in sacrifice, the victim is the life of the one seeking atonement; more than a substitute.

Genesis 22:11-13 English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK)

But the angel of the Lord called to him from heaven and said, “Abraham, Abraham!” And he said, “Here am I.”  He said, “Do not lay your hand on the boy or do anything to him, for now I know that you fear God, seeing you have not withheld your son, your only son, from me.”  And Abraham lifted up his eyes and looked, and behold, behind him was a ram, caught in a thicket by his horns. And Abraham went and took the ram and offered it up as a burnt offering instead of his son.

Hebrews 11:17-20 English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK)

By faith Abraham, when he was tested, offered up Isaac, and he who had received the promises was in the act of offering up his only son, of whom it was said, “Through Isaac shall your offspring be named.” He considered that God was able even to raise him from the dead, from which, figuratively speaking, he did receive him back.

Notice how Abraham chooses to sacrifice the ram to fulfil the command of God. It was not a command of God to sacrifice the ram. The sacrifice of the ram fulfilled the command of God to sacrifice Isaac. The ram was more than a substitute it was the life of Isaac. Figuratively, Isaac experienced resurrection.

The ritual of the sacrifice of an innocent victim in the place of the sinner covered sin through perfect love and the sabbath sacrifice brought peace. This ritual expressed the revelation of the Word, made sin for our healing. Satan perverts this ritual to include human sacrifice to include child sacrifice which is the work of the destroyer. Satan contorts the image away from the forgiveness at its centre, the reality in the heavenlies.

God says from the beginning,

Genesis 9:4-5 English Standard Version Anglicised (ESVUK)

But you shall not eat flesh with its life, that is, its blood. And for your lifeblood I will require a reckoning…

From the beginning, humanity is without sin, flesh is not eaten and able to choose life or choose death. Humanity chooses death and surrenders dominion to Satan. This is our story; we fall short of the glory prepared for us and we sin, becoming slaves to Satan.

Forgiveness

In the fulness of time, forgiveness is revealed in Jesus. Jesus is fully human and Christ. Jesus is fully God. Only God is good and in Jesus’ life this goodness was perfected. Humanity through sin gives up its dominion but, in Jesus, humanity is redeemed and exerts its dominion. All hell breaks out to bring Jesus down. His life is a battle, as he draws all sin to himself, but he is without sin. He resists temptation. The fury of hell brings Jesus to the cross. The penalty of sin is death. Jesus has not sinned. All sin is put upon him and the wrath of God, his incandescent anger for the victims of sin and the perpetrators of evil and iniquity; those who sully the glory that is humanity. Wrath is poured out on Jesus by the Father as in Jesus God bears the sin of the world. Jesus the innocent victim is more than a substitute for all humanity and he becomes sin. God suffers the anguish of sin, the separation of sin and the wrath of the Father, as Satan seeks the downfall of Jesus and Jesus is slaughtered. Jesus is innocent of sin to the last and Satan who holds the keys of death and hell, slaughters the innocent lamb of God.

In this one act Satan is vanquished- death is the penalty of sin. Jesus did not sin.

Victory

In taking the life blood of Jesus, death is sanctified, and death no longer has dominion; the penalty is annulled. The keys of death and hell are relinquished and revealed to be in the hands of Christ from the beginning. All forgiveness is found in him. The truth is revealed that God takes upon himself our sin so that we might walk free. Love is perfected in Christ, in whom all sacrifice ends. Christ, the fulness of God, in whom we live and breathe and have our being, frees us from sin by grace through faith. The ground of humanity’s faith is the goodness of God revealed in the victory of the cross.

In death, Jesus regains dominion for all humanity in all time.  The resurrection restores humanity and is the first fruits of what is to come. In Jesus’ sacrifice we gain our life, a life without end. We are new creations in Christ, a bride being prepared for the Son, filled with the Spirit. Let us pray in the knowledge of the victory of Christ our Saviour who restores all authority in Heaven and on Earth to humanity for the praise of his glorious name.

Inspiration

https://prayercourse.org/session/why-pray/

Did a prayer meeting really bring down the Berlin Wall and end the Cold War? http://www.bbc.co.uk/religion/0/24661333

World Prayer News https://www.globalconnections.org.uk/prayer

Psalm 45:10-11

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10 Hear, O daughter, and consider, and incline your ear: forget your people and your father’s house,
11 and the king will desire your beauty. Since he is your lord, bow to him. http://esv.to/Ps45.10-11

If indeed we can accommodate this psalm to be a song to Christ and us his bride, the church at the marriage feast, then apart from the imagery here is the wisdom we need.

We are made beautiful as we hear and listen to the voice of Jesus. This is what Jesus delights in from the beginning- our personal and intimate hearing of his voice. Jesus calls us away to be with him and turn from all other loves, family and position, standing and tradition; to embrace him fully, new creations held in his all consuming love. And held so, we can love as he loves.