The point of a 'Pointless' festival

Here's my May article:

You may know the TV quiz 'Pointless' in which contestants try to find answers that no-one else can think of. If the question asked people what the major festivals of Christianity are, I would suspect that most people would be able to name Christmas and Easter. A smaller number might name Pentecost or Whit Sunday, but I would be surprised if many said Ascension Day. However Ascension Day commemorates one of the greatest days in Jesus' story, and one which is great news for us.

In Acts 1:3 Luke tells us that after his resurrection Jesus gave many convincing proofs that he was alive and appeared to his disciples over a period of forty days and spoke about the kingdom of God. Then he commissioned them to be be his witnesses to all the world and “he was taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from their sight.” (Acts 1:9). The actual ascension event, though mysterious, is not what is significant about Ascension Day rather it is the implications of Jesus' ascension that give Ascension Day its importance.

But before we can see the significance of Jesus' ascension we need to remind ourselves of his resurrection. Luke tells us that when Jesus appeared to his disciples the evening of the first Easter Day he took great care to prove that he was not a ghost by eating (Luke 24:36-43), and John records Jesus showing Thomas his wounds and inviting him to touch them (John 20:26-27). Jesus was raised physically and had a tangible body – in other words Jesus retained his humanity after his death and resurrection.

Therefore Ascension Day is essentially the opposite of Christmas Day (or more properly nine months before Christmas Day!): on Christmas Day we celebrate the Incarnation, i.e. God coming to earth as a human; and on Ascension Day we celebrate the God-Man returning to the heavenly realm and sitting at the right hand of God the Father. And if we put that together with what we know of Jesus' resurrection we discover something amazing – humanity is present at the very closest proximity to God the Father, and more than that, as Jesus is God the Son, the second Person of the Trinity, humanity is now part of the Trinity itself!!

This is amazingly good news! Those who repent and believe in Jesus don't become disembodied spirits (nor angels!) after death and they won't exist separately from God. We will retain our humanity, which will be exalted and united with God. As Graham Kendrick wrote in his worship song 'Meekness and Majesty' “Lord of infinity, stooping so tenderly, lifts our humanity to the heights of his throne.” But it's not just good news for the future: Jesus is at the right hand of his Father, praying for us (Romans 8:34) so we can be bold to approach our Father God with our own prayers (Hebrews 4:16).

Ascension Day may be a 'Pointless' festival but it reminds us of what Jesus has done for us, what he is doing for us, and what awaits us in the future!

Eternity calling

Here is my November magazine article:

Containing both All Saints Day and Remembrance Sunday, and with the signs of winter all around, November is traditionally a month when we remember those who have died. This year we not only have the 'usual' deaths, but we also continue to mourn those lost through the pandemic and there have also been notable 'high profile' deaths, such as Gerry Marsden, Una Stubbs, Prince Philip and Capt. Sir Tom Moore.

There is often a public outpouring of sorrow at these deaths, even though the majority of the people who express their sadness have never actually met the person in question. And along with the commiserations, there are often assertions about where they are now, which, except in a few cases, is usually heaven. When Prince Philip died there were photo-shopped pictures of him being welcomed at the pearly gates by Capt. Tom Moore, and when musicians die there are often suggestions of a super-group in heaven featuring Elvis, Buddy Holly and Jimi Hendrix. Why do we do this?

The primary reason is, as the Bible tells us, that God has “set eternity in the human heart” (Ecclesiastes 3:11). No matter how hard we try, we cannot fully get away from the sense that there is more to life than the material world we see. Even at 'secular' and 'humanist' funerals the celebrant often talks in terms of the deceased person going on the next stage of their journey, or now being with previously deceased loved ones. We have an inbuilt repulsion to the idea that we will just cease to be when we die. And the 'eternity' that is placed in our hearts is that of the 'new heavens and the new earth' where there “will be no more death, or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away” (Revelation 21:4).

However, this sense of eternity should not be taken as all-inclusive promise but as an invitation. It is firstly an invitation to think seriously about this life. The writer of Ecclesiastes reminds us that “All share a common destiny—the righteous and the wicked, the good and the bad, the clean and the unclean, those who offer sacrifices and those who do not” (9:2) meaning everyone dies. And he recognises that “There is something else meaningless that occurs on earth: the righteous who get what the wicked deserve, and the wicked who get what the righteous deserve” (8:14). If there is nothing after death, there is no justice and there is no reason to be good at all. And secondly it is an invitation to do what is necessary to gain that eternity, that is to come to Jesus: “Whoever believes [i.e. trusts] in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life ” (John 3:36).

We should not be so bold as to claim to know eternal destiny of individuals no matter how good or how 'saintly' their lives were. Investigations into child sexual abuse remind us that some people look good but do evil whereas the penitent thief (Luke 23:39-43) reminds us that at the last minute even the vilest offender can receive forgiveness and eternal life. God has placed eternity in your heart and invites you to know that eternity through repentance and faith in Jesus.

Advent Reflections - The Four Last Things: 3. Heaven

 Continuing our meditations on the four traditional themes of Advent

Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell; this week it's Heaven.

Mention the word 'heaven' to people and probably the first image that will spring to their mind is one of cute angels sitting on fluffy clouds playing harps, or a purely spiritual realm inhabited by ghost-like beings. Ask them again what they imagine heaven to be like for them or their loved ones and you'll probably get a description of them doing their favourite activity. Ask them who'll be there and you'll more than likely get the response “everyone” (except of course Hitler / bin Laden / notorious criminals etc.).

But what does the Bible tell us about what heaven will really be like? The most obvious thing to note about the biblical view of heaven is that it is the dwelling-place or the kingdom of God, although it is not a literal place in the universe because God is also said to be everywhere. The Lord's Prayer says that heaven is a place where God's will is done, and in various places the worship of God by angels around his throne in heaven is spoken of. However, it is surprising to also note that, despite the traditional Christian thought and language, the Bible doesn't talk of heaven as being the place we go to (or should aspire to go to) when we die.

Jesus taught us to pray “your kingdom come: your will be done on earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10) and the second phrase should be seen as an explanation of the first. God's kingdom comes when his will is done. And Jesus wants us to pray for that to happen on earth in the same way as it already is in heaven. He doesn't want us to pray that we would go to heaven so we can be in his kingdom, but that his kingdom would come on earth. In Jesus' first coming the kingdom of God started on earth, but we await his kingdom to come in on earth all its fullness. This is made explicit in Revelation 21, where the vision of the future is a new heaven and a new earth, but that these are now joined: “God's dwelling-place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them” (Revelation 21:3). Our ultimate aim therefore is not heaven but 'heaven-on-renewed-earth.'

It still has those characteristics of being God's dwelling-place, where he is worshipped and his will is done, but it is not a 'spiritual' place but a physical, earthly place. And of course this shouldn't be surprising for us who believe in the resurrection, because the accounts of Jesus' resurrection prove that it was a bodily, physical resurrection not a spiritual resurrection. So we are not resurrected as ghosts or spirits but with physical bodies, and physical bodies need a physical environment. Also, Paul reminds us in Romans that sin doesn't just affect humanity, but it has also affected the created world. Therefore Jesus' death, which won humanity's salvation also won salvation for creation: “the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God” (Romans 8:21).

So if 'heaven-on-renewed-earth” is what we should aspire to, who goes there? As we saw last week, Jesus invites us to “repent and believe the good news” and the future judgement, and therefore the decision about whether we will go there, will be on the basis of whether we've accepted Jesus' invitation or not.

The good news of Christianity about heaven is that it is more wonderful than we commonly think, as it involves the renewal and re-creation of the whole of creation, including our bodies, and the joining of heaven with this renewed earth. The relationship we can have with God now is infinitely enhanced and there will be an intimacy that is beyond our wildest dreams. By accepting Jesus' invitation we become part of God's kingdom here and now, and God promises us that we will be part of his future kingdom-on-renewed-earth.