Tag Archives: Jesus

Thoughts on Julian of Norwich, prayer and sin

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Julian of Norwich, Revelations of Divine Love: You can find the full text of “Revelations of Divine Love” by Julian of Norwich on [Project Gutenberg](https://www.gutenberg.org/files/52958/52958-h/52958-h.htm)

I

Revelations of divine love, Julian of Norwich teaches (37), God keeps his chosen ones very safely, even though they sin, for in them is a godly will that never assented to sin. (translated by Barry Windeat)

Julian of Norwich sees the believer as in their nature, in their heart, living in a higher place where to sin is not possible but often falling to that  lower or fleshly place where we sin. She sees this as being an opportunity for God to bring honour to God’s name through the grace of forgiveness. Sin becomes a place of compassion and healing grace. The contrition felt by the sinner is an acknowledgement by them of God’s healing purpose and honouring to God. I might have embellished this.

Personally, I see people and myself struggle with goodness and have to frequently examine myself. Healing I find is in being present to my failings and my community; a commitment to live with honesty with others whatever. I don’t see that this comes naturally but is a consequence of being present first in God and present with people, the community he gives me. Sometimes this is the church community but often it’s the people we encounter on a daily basis. God is at work when we become a gift to those around us through compassion. I see this as being the healing choice that, in becoming the kindness that is needed for others, we know wholeness in our humanity and find peace. We forgive ourselves as we first forgive others, aware of our own failings.

And being forgiven is a human need. We need to know all’s well if we are not to be haunted by who we are. The Christ like choice is to prefer the other in a trinitarian dance – giving and receiving forgiveness in God and to others  as we move through our day. We may not receive love back from our community, but receiving the love of God is our foundation for giving love. In our giving and forgiving we know love from God. God brings us into Gods own self and our essential being is raised into the glory of deity.

This is good news as life is mostly thankless. Thankfulness is a gift we receive from God despite this and God receives honour even in our failing as we repent and determine to turn into the flow of love. Truly this brings healing in the face of the daily reality, renewing the gift of an ever-new life as it is exposed to the troubled world. For in Christ we are a new creation. Abiding in Christ, God’s own self abides in us. This is a gift of God as we dwell in this renewing redemption, reconciled as we choose good. Truly our hearts are divided but in Christ we naturally live in that higher place. The promise is that on the lower place of our hearts God has written the law and our hard sinful hearts are transformed by God to hearts of compassionate and humble flesh.

All are called to this and in the mystery of its outworking, we have knowledge of the holy. I do believe this work is exclusive to Christ the only way to God the father. The son dwells in the heart of each of us and his goodness is etched on all our hearts and all are called to respond, moment by moment. In the response to the word in each of our hearts we are set free from sin. It’s our trusting in the steadfast love of God that sustains us, is real food for the journey.

II

When we speak of sin, do we speak of the turning away from the face of God? God’s love is overflowing, God is the destination to which we flow and the source of  the outpouring –  a fountain of love. The spirit within us is an overflow of love –  streams of living water.

Maybe sin is a swimming against the current. Maybe it’s a damming up of the flow of the river of love. Many claim to be without sin and unaware of sin – many have no concept of God and have a dodgy idea of how all things come together. There is no meaning outside experience, no reality beyond our senses.

And yet we have a sense within us a guide that alerts us to broken connections. The breaks maybe with ourselves; who we think we are or suppose ourselves to be. They may be breaks with others; a sense of disconnection with our community, our loved ones, our family and friends. The breaks may be a sense of alienation from what sustains us, our choices, our lifestyle, the earth. The flow of life is disturbed and all is not well. The breaks are exposed as ruptures.

What are we to make of this inner revelation? How are we to be content and know joy? I think we need to find a deep forgiveness. Forgiveness that resonates with us and our experience of the world and causes us to do better, the Julian place of compassion and healing.

There is a prayer practise that begins with a bathing in the light of knowing what is right, the law on our hearts –  a stilling of the soul in a moment that names the moments of contentment and joy. Secure in this grace the prayer moves on to naming the breaks, the barriers. This is a work of a moment and may only be a wordless groan. But then comes a resolve to forgive and be forgiven. The practise can be of the hour, the day, the week; just when we notice. On our own we can rest in God’s mercy and extend our prayer into a time of asking and listening. But first we must be able to pray, forgive us our sins as we forgive the sins of others against us.

This may take time but will become real as we come to know Jesus. Else it’s an indulgence, a distraction. If our prayer doesn’t lead us to the source of all forgiveness in God’s person and God self we’re lost in the idolatry of a practise. The healing purpose is found in the person of God.

The good news is God is found with us and in us and God’s light shines in all our hearts. God’s presence sets us free and heals as revealed in the death and resurrection of Jesus, the person in whom is the ever-flowing ground of all truth.

III

Galatians 5: The full text of Galatians 5 can be accessed on [Bible Gateway](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Galatians%205&version=NIV) .

Colossians 3:15: You can read Colossians 3:15 on [Bible Gateway](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Colossians%203:15&version=NIV) .2 Timothy 3: The full text of 2 Timothy 3 is available on [Bible Gateway](https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=2%20timothy%203&version=NIV) .

As we walk into God through our experience of compassion and healing of our sin our being will be clothed with an unnoticed loving restraint in the face of frustrations and disappointments that all too easily take us down and set us facing away from the fount of all blessing. God restores us in our contrition.

We will actively need to put on this clothing. In these times of set spiritual discipline we are invited to notice the times of restraint. Galatians 5 calls these the fruits and Colossians 3  gives us the list; compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and love. The virtues we inhabit are love, hope and faith. Each drawing us towards the goal of goodness; beauty, truth and justice. So, there is the knowing and the unknowing or maybe the unknowing brings us to the knowing of joy and contentment, an exercise of the will and a noticing of habit, founded on an experience of God in Christ.

We find an encouragement to this in 2 Timothy 3. Surely Jesus is the way, the truth and the life and our worship is in the spirit. We should not be ashamed of this and include all in whom the light of truth shines; all are in the flow of divine grace and all are called to be forgiven as they forgive.

IV

Colossians 3:15 says, Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you’re called to peace.

This dwelling in forgiveness is what brings peace. Open our eyes to peace, and what brings peace flows through us. Jesus speaks of a bubbling up and overflowing of living water –  a refreshing flow from the fount of all blessing. Forgiveness we discover is in the person of the overflowing, ever being, creator and sustainer, God the father, son and holy spirit.

In much of our sin, we are our own victims; my anger, frustration and disappointment affects me. With my selfish exercise of power comes the ability to victimise and along with chance and time, my choices hurt others. Evil attacks the innocent and systemic powers rule and justice acts in a way so as to create collateral damage for the greater good.

We are given free will and can bless and curse and our neglect or wilfulness can destroy others. Mistakes in high jeopardy situations might kill and maim. With our free will comes vulnerability and the ability to do great damage.

Love does not insist on its own way and in my view, this is the love that has brought about this creation. The creation as we see it is the most loving, meaningful existence a loving creator God could make. That seems harsh and meaningless unless at his heart is compassion and healing in view of all the suffering. Creation, as Saint Paul says is subject to futility for the sake of the one who subjected it. This is the outworking of love! Is this love?

At the heart of love is forgiveness, a giving way. Before each of us and within us is a glory set before us and the glory is, all is made well in Christ. This is what Julian reveals, this is what brings meaning and purpose – there is justice and there is mercy –  a burning of the fire of love.

In Christ, is the eternal final judgement. We know it now on the cross of Jesus, son of God, and it’s forgiving work is open to all in Christ. As followers of Christ, the faithfulness of Jesus works a spiritual new creation in the reformation of our hearts. We are born again into the final judgement of all things, the redemption of all creation. As a people we rest in the peace that comes from the ever-present work of the cross dwelling in us and are priests of salvation for the world –  a resurrection people –  a company of the redeemed.

All are called to participate in God’s self – hands and feet of the living God. The work of God, in Christ is to bring compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, patience and love. We taste and we see the fruits in ourselves and others.

Yes, God will work this in all through Christ when all is brought to fruition,  but we who know the final judgement now are privileged to be members one of another, participators in the body of Christ. Our work is to glorify the father and our practise is to forgive as we are forgiven.

V

God is love: God is all powerful. Love is love that does not insist on its own way and keeps no record of wrongs. And so God creates. In us God becomes God’s self –  our experience leads us towards the knowledge of the holy. We cannot trust in the faithfulness of another’s experience of God. We can only know the God who has revealed God’s self to us personally. From this experience we draw strength. Each of us grows from the knowledge of the light within to the knowledge of the holy. Jesus is the way and in Jesus the father is revealed.

Forgiveness is at the heart of love. In creation this love is spiritually discerned in our experience of God. God is love before creation came to be and so forgiveness is our experience of love, as before creation there was no falling away from love to be forgiven. We experience darkness as we contemplate ourselves –  neglect, abuse, jealousy and guilt. As we contemplate God we gaze into darkness, a darkness of unknowing, of dim holiness. As we are transformed by our encounter with love ,we are able to enter further into the darkness –  a comfort, a place of grace and security; a place of forgiveness.

We know the intimacy of God’s gaze as we love. From our knowing forgiveness, we look on others and they are touched by our attention.

Jesus death on the cross opens us up to this resurrection love. The sin of humanity, the standing against the flow of God’s love, is the curse of freewill –  perfected free will is a will that flows with God’s will.

God speaks a word to us and out of the sheer silence of God, we choose life or death. Love is perfected in our choice of life. Each moment; each particle of being; each force of creation; is held by God and yet is free. The creating and forming voice of God directs and draws us in love but at every level creation is free to become and in some way is conscious. Every choice is made one in God though it is completely free.

This we see as chance and time and good seems often unseen in this. God is perceived in our spirit as are his ways. Everything I write makes sense without God where it speaks of our well-being through living reflective lives and meditation. Yet families, regions, government and systems, exert power. Freedom includes death and there is a will to have power that can be malevolent. In many ways we’re collateral in this rule of nature, subject to suffering through geography, history, genetics and disease.

My hope is the suffering is defeated by love. Jesus suffered in this life and suffering had its day as powers took him to the cross. There the sin of the world was put on his shoulders. It is the will of God that even death on a cross would not have victory and we see Jesus powerless –  choosing to die rather than overpower. His prayers of anguish are recorded as he stepped into love, becoming what he had been from the beginning a sacrifice for sin.

Sacrifice in our experience is of giving up something for a greater good. When we sacrifice, we give up what is ours that something might flourish. We see sacrificial love in parents for children, friends for friends. The greatest love we see is when one gives their life that another might live and that one is a stranger. That God and Jesus would remain powerless even to death open us up to the possibility that this sacrifice is for our flourishing as it appears so futile. Only Jesus resurrection makes sense of it else it truly is futile. This is where trust that God in Jesus is the evidence of our forgiveness, the person in whom we hope our forgiveness is enfleshed. In Jesus we trust our forgiveness is secure and we become new creations, redeemed from the sin of humanity.

We continue to fall short as Julian says but our hearts are renewed so that we turn acknowledging our sin and grow in glory piercing the darkness.

Crocheted Jesus

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A Poem

From a journal entry of October 2023, written in Wales, I wrote the following deeply thought through statement of where I was at. Two years later I am still moved by the thoughts captured.

Teifi Estuary from road to Poppit

Jesus is more than the figure on the page. Jesus is and was and will be; a flow where the future meets the now and the past is revealed. What’s on the page is a flicker of what was experienced, heard and touched; a taking account of what had been. Jesus on the page reflects the simple men who wrote from their experience of an event that wrenched their hearts. All is love, all is trust in love, love of all and forgiveness. Salvation. A saving from who we are.

Jesus points away from himself. He is the problem. He points to the Father and enjoins us to see only the Father in him. He is but bread, he is simply wine- broken and poured out in a time splitting event. God is revealed in the event of the cross- rent- only a man- rent- son of Mary- rent.

Where does Jesus become real? In the words and recollections, the dogma, the mystical truth that divides? Grace calls us to simplicity. Jesus is the person of God revealed so that we may perfectly know God. Jesus is the incarnate reality that reveals we are all one in God. This union is real, experienced and heals. The attestation is not the person- the stories aren’t the man. The words are not his words. They express an encounter with the divine, an impression of a transfiguring presence. This was the man who revealed deity- not the son of a virgin, not a healer or miracle worker, not a resurrected King but God.

If there is truth in the words, it is because Jesus is already known. He is already there, within, seen and heard.

Beach at Aberaeron

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.

Power from on high BRF notes 6/4/24

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‭Luke 24:36-39, 44-45, 48-49 NRSV‬
[36] While they were talking about this, Jesus himself stood among them and said to them, “Peace be with you.” [37] They were startled and terrified, and thought that they were seeing a ghost. [38] He said to them, “Why are you frightened, and why do doubts arise in your hearts? [39] Look at my hands and my feet; see that it is I myself. Touch me and see; for a ghost does not have flesh and bones as you see that I have.”
[44] Then he said to them, “These are my words that I spoke to you while I was still with you—that everything written about me in the law of Moses, the prophets, and the psalms must be fulfilled.” [45] Then he opened their minds to understand the scriptures,
[48] You are witnesses of these things. [49] And see, I am sending upon you what my Father promised; so stay here in the city until you have been clothed with power from on high.”

https://bible.com/bible/2016/luk.24.36-49.NRSV

Abundance

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For if, because of one man’s trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ. http://esv.to/Rom5.17

Each one of has come into this world through the anxiety of separation, formed by less than perfect contexts. Though each of us is conceived from the beginning as good by a good God and eternally loved by him, we are parented in suffering by fallible parents. In God there is abundant grace and in Jesus God the deliverer is revealed. By his life, death and resurrection we know the perfect revelation of God, Father, Son and Spirit. By turning to him in life we receive healing and forgiveness. The light within us leads us to the light of life, to abundant life in Jesus our anointed savior.

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

John 1:4

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In him was life, and the life was the light of men. http://esv.to/John1.4

This scripture is key to my own faith. It has sustained me in my relationship with God and with others. All life is in the Son’s hands and the Son reveals the Father. Every person has this life and it lights all people. In everyone I find Jesus and in all I find the way to the Father. This is my work to believe in the Father. This is the way of freedom, to love God and to love each and everyone I encounter.

Incarnation?

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The Nicene Creed, a touchstone of Christian orthodoxy states of Jesus,

For us men and for our salvation,

he came down from heaven:

by the power of the Holy Spirit

he was born of the Virgin Mary, and became man.

Having a science background, this has been an article of faith for me and I have written of my position elsewhere[1]. But recently I have become aware that some recite this creed but believe that the Virgin Mary is an historical title, a tradition, not a fact about Mary of Nazareth[2].

This in mind, I decided to buy a book that would let me understand the full argument and was from a perspective I would not hold to be true. The book I chose was a recent publication by Kyle Roberts which he has summarised through the blog post, Virgin Birth or Incarnation? Why You Can’t Have Both (December 23, 2017)[3].

I found the book very informative. I realised that yes, historically we have a problem with philosophy invading our faith, with extra scriptural traditions based on pagan thought, and an inability to accept the humanity of Jesus. I understand the reason for Greg Boyd’s podcast which recommends us to think more of Jesus,

…from the perspective of “God as Human” rather than “God and Human.”[4]Do we struggle with Jesus eating and defecating, vomiting, feeling ill, experiencing sexual attraction and basically being human? Do we hold true to the Gospel of Jesus?

… we have a High Priest who was tempted in every way that we are, but did not sin. Let us have confidence, then, and approach God’s throne, where there is grace. There we will receive mercy and find grace to help us just when we need it. (Hebrews 4, GNB)[5]If we do, then we are at that point where we too join with the Fathers and Mothers of the church who created traditions to cover up the subversive nature of the historical birth of Christ.

We might build ideas that include the perpetual virginity of Mary who was not only a virgin at conception, was also preserved as a virgin through the birth of Christ and remained a virgin after the birth of Christ. The Virgin Mary’s birth canal becomes so important to some, Mary is believed to have been impregnated by the Holy Spirit through her ear[6]. Some have decided it is best to side-line Mary all together and avoid the questions.[7]

I have looked at all of this and, despite all, I still hold that Mary was a virgin when Jesus was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit. Surprisingly what I wrote at Easter 2017, I still hold to.

[1]https://memlynhumphries.me.uk/2017/05/03/easter-2017/

[2]https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/dec/24/story-virgin-birth-christianity-mary-sex-femininity

[3]http://www.patheos.com/blogs/unsystematictheology/2017/12/virgin-birth-incarnation-cant/

[4]http://reknew.org/2017/12/podcast-jesus-god-human/

[5]https://www.biblesociety.org.uk/explore-the-bible/read/eng/GNB/Heb/4/

[6]https://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2017/22-december/comment/columnists/angela-tilby-letting-the-virgin-birth-mystery-be

[7]http://www.patheos.com/blogs/thepangeablog/2017/12/22/protestants-dont-know-mary/

God Said…Part 1

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Genesis 22:1-14

What if it is, as some would say, that the whole of human history is to be viewed through the lens of the cross? If the cross and Christ crucified is what brings meaning to our reading; what do the scriptures become?

The scriptures are God breathed. The scriptures are written by humanity in all its flawed nature, each word inspired by God for a purpose- the revelation of Christ. This is the self-attesting truth of the scriptures. Every word and sentiment is a literal and intentional presentation of Christ and him crucified.

When Jesus was taken up to heaven he opened the scriptures to his disciples. Before that he had opened them to disciples on the road to Emmaus. In the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, for followers of Jesus, the Bible becomes plane.

Here the hard work begins as we embrace the truth. The truth is that the life, death and resurrection of Jesus are what the scriptures reveal and their meaning and the character of God is revealed in the life of Christ. Jesus is the mystery from the beginning, glimpsed in every word; the truth that sets us free. Our experience of Jesus- the relationship we have with him – is our anchor. Our rock is faith in Jesus and obedience to his commands; Jesus, born of a virgin, crucified, victorious over the evil one in life and in death and raised from death to life on the third day.

We are secure in the knowledge of the Holy One, who died in our place, taking upon himself our guilt and the wrath of God at sin, so that by faith we are washed clean and clothed in righteousness and holiness. It is not us in our old natures that live, but Christ lives in us and through us. We become partakers in God’s nature, adopted into his family. In Christ, we are predestined to eternal life.

So, the hard work begins. Our one true source of knowledge of God is Jesus; Christ crucified.

When we gaze into the scriptures, often, what is reflected is ourselves. Jesus warns us of this and says that in our studying, what we should see is him. Paul says that all prophecy is a glimpse of God. Moses encountered God, as did Gideon, David and Solomon but what is it of God we see in their story? Paul himself heard God and persecuted Jesus’ followers. God intervened and he received a new revelation which meant that his zeal became the knowledge of Jesus and his energies were transferred into battling against principalities and powers not flesh and blood. The new revelation took him from a way of violence to a way of peace.

God, in his humility stepped into Paul’s life and spoke. God, in humanity, steps in and speaks in Jesus. This is the mystery. God himself steps in and brings holiness into the mess of who we are. God is pleased to dwell with humanity.

There was dissent in the camp and Moses saw the purposes he had been shown by God, the future that was possible, being denied. He was angry. God was angry that the people failed to see his loving kindness and how they would be blessed; how he would stand in their place and fight in their battles. Moses heard God and demanded that the rebels were flayed alive and set before God to avert God’s anger. This was the demand, Moses heard- God said…

Are we to think God was more immediate in Moses’ times? We know Christ and have the gift of the Holy Spirit. We are more privileged than Moses. Would we expect God to be speaking more then that now? If Jesus is the truth, we can expect to know the truth and to hear his voice. That is what Jesus’ says. Jesus, the Son of God says we will hear and know his voice.

Do we think that God spoke more clearly before the revelation of Christ than after? Do we accept that Moses knew God in a more real way?

I have spent time with those who claim direction from God and call their gift prophecy. I believe they are attentive. If they demanded I went into the streets and slaughtered all those who claimed to be Christians but fell short of the virtue expected, the high calling of Christ, I would listen but I would hear their voice and seek to discern Jesus’ voice. I could not claim they had no example in the scriptures, but the whole Bible and Jesus in the Bible would say they were wrong. But God does inhabit their voice and he is glimpsed in the truth behind what they say. They have heard God but they have not found Jesus in fact they have spoken sin.

I have been around those who profess supernatural and close encounters with God. I have witnessed diverse and incredible physical manifestations. In these they may have heard God’s voice. But if they then called me to rip the children from the wombs of my enemies, rape their young women and not rest in my slaughter, but persevere until all are dead, I would be disgusted. Yet such are the words of the Bible.

Jesus came and taught the way of passive resistance, standing up for the poor and needy, dying for others and bearing persecution. He taught us to love our enemies. And this truth is glimpsed even in these abhorrent scriptures- tenderness and loving kindness are found and we are called by God to allow him to fight our battles. The life of Jesus is the message.

The cross reveals that God himself stands before the community and is flayed alive. God himself stands before God and averts his anger. Moses missed this. We may think we have found God in the raging of the God saids…, but as on the cross, there is Jesus, the Son of God, speaking to us amid the mess.

This is the lens we must use when reading the scriptures. We must gaze into them and see the folly of flawed men and their words, their violence and hypocrisy. Does God demand human sacrifice to avert his anger? Really? But in it God reveals his purpose. God exercises his sovereign power and we gaze and glimpse Christ. On the cross Jesus was sacrificed once, for all and for ever and we live a new reality.

We must stand true to the revelation of scripture as followers of Jesus and do the hard work of finding him. The life of Jesus is the message and we are his followers.

 

Fire and Brimstone

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“It is worth noting that the ‘fire and brimstone’ school of theology who revel in ideas such as that Christ was made a sacrifice to appease an angry God, or that the cross was a legal transaction in which an innocent victim was made to pay the penalty for the crimes of others, a propitiation of a stern God, find no support in Paul. These notions come into Christian theology by way of the legalistic minds of the medieval churchmen; they are not biblical Christianity.”
(William Neil in The Cross of Christ by John Stott, p202)

“The cross was not a commercial bargain with the devil, let alone one which tricked and trapped him; nor an exact equivalent…to satisfy a code of honour or technical point of law; nor a compulsory submission by God to some moral authority above him from which he could not otherwise escape; nor a punishment of a meek Christ by a harsh and punitive Father; nor a procurement of salvation by a loving Christ from a mean and reluctant Father; nor an action of the Father which bypassed Christ as Mediator. Instead, the righteous, loving Father humbled himself to become in and through his only Son flesh, sin and curse for us, in order to redeem us without compromising his own character… The biblical gospel of atonement is God satisfying himself by substituting himself for us.”
(The Cross of Christ by John Stott, p188)

The biblical gospel is one that promises peace with God and a life of holiness. This is a gift of God; faith. Knowing God and his peace is our rock and foundation in good times and in troubled times. The gift is precious and it breaks our hard hearts so that we might receive grace to live in the knowledge of our own forgiveness.

Our lives so often are at odds with this truth, as we live as part of the world. Through the message of the cross we discover God is above all, through all and in all; a redeeming presence in our lives to free us from the bonds of sin. We find a calling to live as the redeemed in the world, as those not of the world.

We are forgiven, is a sweet sustaining truth that anchors us in the storms of the day. God is good. As we feed on this truth it enters us, we digest it and we are formed by it. Yes, God is good. Our hearts are stirred by it but, how often do our stomachs churn as we encounter our own failings, our own culpability in the injustice and cruelty of our times? What was sweet to the taste becomes bitter in our stomachs. Our hearts cry out for justice and mercy. As we dwell in the truth and listen to our hearts, the voice of Christ becomes clearer. Being saved is not being self-satisfied and inward looking.

This is what the life of faith looks like. We are given the truth, it sets us free and then we live the truth and grow in the truth. The truth is at odds with the daily life we live. Outwardly, we live and breathe and have our being in a world in bondage to sin, subject to chance and time, but inwardly we carry the presence of God however fragile. Living out the truth and persevering in it forms us.

This life becomes our blessing; strength for the day and hope for tomorrow. As we draw near to God he draws near to us and we are kindled into a life of blessing. However useless we feel, weak in our humanity, it is enough to live by our revelation in our heart.

This is becomes the power of our testimony. It doesn’t look like much of a victory. Is this how we proclaim that God is alive and active a counter narrative whispers? We can think that in the face of martyrdom we might stand and it would be glorious. But standing in the onslaughts of the day is a testimony?

How many times does the accuser parade our failings before us and the Father? How many times does the accuser, our adversary, parade our failings before God? My pitiful failings paraded before my Father in heaven? Surely they deny the truth of my salvation Satan insinuates.

To be martyred is to be wondered at, but the daily onslaught of stress, emotional vulnerability and the expectations of life- the daily grind of troubles is poisonous. What can we do? What can we say? We proclaim Christ crucified. His death has saved me from sin. The cross is the victory. As we gaze on the cross are we healed?

We live this life of hope in contrition; brokenness in the face of our own fallibility and find victory in the knowledge of the Holy. It is enough. This is God’s grace to us and his peace in us.

Look at Revelation 14: 18 – 20

 …“Swing your sickle now to gather the clusters of grapes from the vines of the earth, for they are ripe for judgement.” 19 So the angel swung his sickle over the earth and loaded the grapes into the great wine-press of God’s wrath. 20 The grapes were trampled in the wine-press outside the city, and blood flowed from the wine-press in a stream about 180 miles[d]long and as high as a horse’s bridle.

Here it is, fire and brimstone to shock you. Not in the Old Testament but at the end of the New. Having taken the message so far set before us, we might have hoped that John’s long journey of faith might have resulted in a gentler gospel. Have we been led astray by our own sentimentalism so far? Am I speaking peace where there is no peace and we should be more fearful that our actual condition is that God is holding on to us as we dangle over the abyss, only to let go of our hands to let us slip at the last in to the pit where we deserve to be as some have suggested?

The grapes are fully ripe and are being piled up into the winepress of God’s wrath where holy feet trample on them, releasing their juice. The blood of the evil ones rises as high as a horse’s bridle for miles. The fruitfulness of the grapes is their evil. The whole event takes place outside the gates of the city. The image is of God treading to a pulp those who have not repented and are evil and their blood is a symbol of death.

God has allowed the fruit to ripen; evil comes to its full fruition by God’s will. God allows it to flourish. This is the reality- the real world. Hope calls in the face of daily evil and together we are taught to pray for deliverance from evil. Hope is that, in the end, God’s wrath wreaks vengeance on evil and treads out the life of all evil. God’s goodness is satisfied as, in wrath he at the last treads out the life of the evil. Vengeance belongs to God but none the less there is vengeance, fulfilling a visceral need in our being.

Maybe we recoil at the monster God portrayed, and wonder how we can trust him when he teaches us to love our enemies then tramples to death his enemies. Where has the message of the gospel gone that enables us to forgive? Are we fearful that we have not forgiven enough to be forgiven and we will find ourselves in the winepress? Or is our comfort, there is no winepress? Silly John!

The story of the cross tells us Jesus was taken outside the city gates and he took the wrath of God in our place. Jesus’ blood flowed outside the city gates. God in Christ gave himself so that we are not crushed. God is satisfied in substituting himself for us so that in Christ he is crushed. The blood of Christ was shed for all men; it was a mighty flow.

The blood that flows, I see as the blood of Christ. Can this gruesome picture awaken in us the scale of what Christ has achieved? Do we come closer to understanding what Christ has achieved by looking at the violent portrayals of God and realise they have achieved their fullness on the cross? In the disgust, can we feel wonder? How is this good is rational question? As it lays bare our doubt, can we find reassurance?

Jesus gave himself for our sins, for now, for today. The evil, present age has an end and God is good. I hold there is a hell for the evil, but that where Jesus finds life, it is his nature to redeem life. What is God like? Look at the cross. As to what hell looks like, look at the cross. And as has been said by another, heaven is not yesterday or tomorrow but here and now, the ever-present age revealed in Christ.

Galatians 1:3-5

May God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ[b] give you grace and peace. 4 Jesus gave his life for our sins, just as God our Father planned, in order to rescue us from this evil world in which we live. 5 All glory to God forever and ever! Amen.