Fish tanks and freedom

This is my magazine article for March:

The Christian season of Lent starts on Ash Wednesday which this year falls on 1^st March (for Welsh readers, St David's day is transferred this year to 28^th February - see http://hybaldsrector.blogspot.co.uk/2017/02/where-has-st-david-gone.html). Lent is a time of self-examination and repentance and is often associated with the practice of giving things up. This has recently been joined by, and increasingly replaced by, a call to take up spiritual or charitable practices. Now of course these are worthy and admirable things to do, but I suspect that our preference for 'taking up' rather than 'giving up' has less to do with our spiritual and moral health and more to do with our contemporary dislike of self-denial.

For over half a century now our culture has shifted away from attitudes of respect for and obedience to authority, and has moved towards an attitude of self-assertion and self-centredness. This shift is not totally a bad thing, but it is reaching its logical conclusion in the present attitude that I should be able to have what I want and it is wrong to deny me it. This is usually dressed up in the language of being 'free' or having a 'right' to have or do something. The progression has been from “I do what I am told” to “I do what I like as long as it doesn't hurt anyone else” to “I can do what I like whatever effect it has on others (or myself)”.

Jesus, by his death, has set us free the guilt of our sins. But as Paul reminds us “My friends, you were chosen to be free. So don’t use your freedom as an excuse to do anything you want. Use it as an opportunity to serve each other with love” (Galatians 5:13 Contemporary English Version) and Peter says “You are free, but still you are God’s servants, and you must not use your freedom as an excuse for doing wrong” (1 Peter 2:16 CEV). But in a world where 'freedom' is the battle-cry, the suggestion that we should try to live according to God's laws is not popular.

So how can we be free if we still have to live as God wants us to live? Well, we do not free a fish by taking it out of a fish tank, we only kill it. Similarly, we are only truly free if we live in the way we are intended to live, and the one who tells us what that way is is the one who created us, God. Freedom from God's rules is not freedom to live, it is only freedom to die.

The odd thing is that we know that freedom from constraint is not really freedom because we see it all around us. Unrestrained eating is unhealthy, excessive consumption of alcohol has a detrimental effect on health and society. However, the most shocking example is the 'freedom' of the sexual revolution that has led to increases in STIs, abortions, broken relationships, pornography, sexualisation of children and psychological trauma.

The promises to bring freedom and happiness cannot be fulfilled by a culture that puts personal interests above everything else. Jesus said, “I came so that everyone would have life, and have it in its fullest” (John 10:10 CEV). This Lent why not test whether Jesus' promise is true?

Where has St David gone?

The Church calendar is often  a strange thing.  Take tomorrow for instance: millions of proud Welsh people will be celebrating St David's day; millions of people a lot of whom would describe themselves as agnostics or atheists honouring a Christian hero.  But look at the Church calendar and you will not find St David's day marked, at least not this year.

That's because of a technicality.  This year tomorrow (1st March) is Ash Wednesday - a 'Principal Holy Day' which marks the beginning of the church season of Lent, the 40 days (not including Sundays) before Easter.  The technicality is that Ash Wednesday is a day of fasting whereas St David's day is a feast, and you can't feast on a fast day nor fast on a feast day (incidently, this also explains why Sundays aren't included in the 40 days of Lent - Sundays are commemorations of Jesus' resurrection and so are always feast days therefore the Lenten fast doesn't apply on Sundays).  And in the battle of the fast and the feast, the fast of Ash Wednesday trumps all other days, including patron saints.

When special days clash in this way it is usual to transfer the 'losing' day to the nearest available day (i.e. one that doesn't have a more important designation already).  However, this only happens if the day is important enough - if it is not important it just gets dropped, and this is the case with St David's day this year, at least in the Church of England.  Obviously in Wales St David is much more important so the Church in Wales has transferred his feast to today, though this won't stop most Welsh people (or males called David!) celebrating it tomorrow as usual.

Part of the purpose of all this complexity is to ensure that days are given their proper focus and respect (that is, as long as they are important enough). But what would happen if instead we held both of these days in tension, or perhaps bashed them together to see what the effect is? What might it mean to view St David through the prism of Ash Wednesday fasting and to view Ash Wednesday through the prism of celebrating St David?

The first one is quite easy as by all accounts St David was quite into fasting. 'Exciting Holiness' (a book about some of the saints that have special days in the Church of England calendar) describes St David as an “exemplar of the ascetic, spiritual life...He is said to have based his Rule [code] for his monasteries on that of the Egyptian desert monks, with a strong emphasis on hard work, abstinence from alcohol and a refraining from unnecessary speech.” It sounds as if St David spent most days in the same way the most devout Christians spend Ash Wednesday! Indeed Exciting Holiness glosses over some of the details: St David and his fellow monks only drank water and only ate bread and herbs; they had to pull their ploughs themselves and couldn't use animals; they had no personal possessions and were forbidden to describe things as 'my …'! So in some ways Ash Wednesday as a day of fasting is the perfect way of commemorating St David in a way in which he would have approved!

But what about thinking of Ash Wednesday as a day of celebration? St David's final words were a sermon he preached a couple of days before his death. In this sermon he said “Lords, brothers and sisters, Be joyful, and keep your faith and your creed, and do the little things that you have seen me do and heard about. And as for me, I will walk the path that our fathers have trod before us." St David's life may seem very drab and difficult to us but he obviously considered it to be joyful. The simplicity of his life enabled him to concentrate on what was truly important: his faith and caring for others and this is the way to a joyful life. Christians often only eat one small simple meal (if any) on Ash Wednesday and may also 'fast' from luxuries such as sweets or even T.V. and the internet! This discipline can be quite hard as self-denial is not a natural urge, but the time can be devoted instead to prayer, Bible reading or looking out for others and this can be celebrated. Ash Wednesday gives us the opportunity to concentrate on what is really important in life, the two great commands as Jesus taught us: love God and love your neighbour as yourself (Matthew 22:36-40). And in doing so we will discover what Jesus describes as life in all it's fullness (John 10:10).

So whether you keep St David's day today, tomorrow or not at all; whether you fast or feast or neither; may God in his mercy grant that, following St David's purity of life and zeal for the gospel of Christ, we may with him receive the crown of everlasting life. 

Turning from the crib to the cross

Here's my article for the February magazine:

For many people the Christmas celebrations last until you have to go back to work or school. For some Twelfth Night (6th January), which marks the end of the twelve days of Christmas, is the end of Christmas and the time to put the Christmas decorations away for another year. I always find this a bit sad as in the church calendar the wise men don't arrive until 6th January, which is also called Epiphany, so the crib scene is put away before they've had a chance to get there! In the church year however the season of Christmas lasts until 2nd February (so if you've still got decorations up don't worry!)

This feast is variously known as 'The Purification of the Virgin Mary', 'The Presentation of Christ in the Temple' or 'Candlemas' and comes forty days after Christmas. According to the Jewish law, forty days after the birth of a male child the mother was to come to the Temple in Jerusalem to be ritually 'purified' by offering a sacrifice. This event in Mary's life is recorded in Luke 2:22-40 and we know from this that Mary was poor as she was unable to afford a lamb but instead brought two pigeons for the sacrifice. At the same time the baby Jesus, as Mary's first-born son, was 'presented' at the Temple.

So far, so normal. But while they were there two extraordinary events occurred. Firstly, an old man named Simeon came up to the family, took Jesus in his arms and praised God for him (his song is now known as the 'Nunc Dimittis'). And secondly an elderly prophetess named Anna also gave thanks for Jesus. The reason they reacted as they did was because they recognised that Jesus was no ordinary baby. We are told that the Holy Spirit had revealed to Simeon that “he would not die before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah” (verse 26) and that Anna “spoke about the child to all who were looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem” (v38), in other words they recognised that Jesus was the Messiah prophesied in the Old Testament.

Simeon also recognised that Jesus wasn't just good news for the Jewish people, but that he was a light that would reveal God's message to the other nations too. As a reminder of the proclamation of Jesus as the Light of the World, this day also became a day when, in pre-electricity days, the candles for use in the church that year were blessed and people would also bring their domestic candles to be blessed. So it became the festival day (or 'mass') of the candles – Candlemas.

The Presentation also marks the shift in our focus from the crib to the cross. The Messiah whose birth we celebrate will be a Light to the World revealing God's message not just by his teaching and his miracles, but chiefly by his death and resurrection. The Presentation reminds us that you can't truly celebrate Christmas without believing in Easter.

Christmas Playlist. 4: Simeon's song – How did God do it?

Four songs that bring you to the heart of Christmas

4: Simeon's song – How did God do it?

This Advent in our weekly sheets we're going to be looking at the four songs of the first Christmas, which were heard before, during and after the birth of the baby who lies at the heart of the real Christmas. The reflection will be adapted from Alistair Begg's book, 'Christmas Playlist' (buy it here). This week we're looking at the final song, Simeon's song – How did God do it?

Sometimes we're not sure what to say when we hold a little baby, but our fourth and final 'singer' was in no doubt about what he would say when he held the infant Jesus when he was brought to the Temple in Jerusalem for the first time. His name was Simeon and his song is known as the 'Nunc Dimittis' (Luke 2:27-32). He was a devout believer in God. He was patiently waiting for the promises God had made to be fulfilled. Not only that but God's Holy Spirit had told him that he wouldn't die until he saw these promises begin to unfold on the pages of history.

The angels had brought the news that a Saviour had been born. Likewise, Simeon announces the truth that he is looking at God's salvation, lying in his arms. And Simeon understands that this Saviour has come to save not only “your people Israel” - the ancient people of God, the descendants of Abraham – but he has also come “to the Gentile” - everyone else. If you carry on reading Luke's Gospel, you find the adult Jesus living this out. As the angels promised this child would be good news of great joy for all people. There is no-one who does not need Jesus to offer them salvation, and no one to whom Jesus does not offer that salvation.

So this old man is now content to die. He has been waiting his whole life for this one sight, and now he has seen it – the Sovereign Lord's salvation, in the shape of a human, lying in his arms.

But Simeon did not only speak of salvation. He spoke of suffering too (Luke 2:34-35), not just announcing that this child would bring salvation, but hinting at what it would cost him to bring it. He was the child who would cause many to fall, and others to rise. He would reveal the deep secrets, and the true attitude towards God, that lies in every human heart. He would be opposed verbally; and one day, his mother's soul would be torn apart emotionally.

My guess is that Mary never forgot Simeon's words, nor that she really understood them, until the other end of her child's life. Because unless you understand the events of Easter, you'll never grasp the heart of Christmas. Simeon understood that – which is why he pointed forwards to Good Friday even as he welcomed the baby at the centre of Christmas.

In describing the events of Good Friday (Luke 23:32-47), Luke doesn't want you to feel only sympathy for Jesus as a sufferer – because he wants you to put your faith in Jesus as your Saviour. He wants you and me to grasp not only what Jesus suffered but how he saves.

At the crucifixion, Luke describes darkness during the day, which in the Bible is a signal of God's displeasure and God's judgement. Here we see God's Son, punished as a sinner by his Father, even though he had never, ever sinned – never failed to love his Father and his neighbour. Why? Because Jesus was bearing the the burden of the world's sin. He was paying the price to redeem people. He was going through hell so that he could save people from hell. It is what some people call the great exchange. God the Son took on the penalty due to sinful people and so God the Father declares guilty sinners who trust in Jesus as forgiven, guilt-free. I deserve to be on the cross; Jesus hung on it. My sin deserved punishment; Jesus took it.

Luke also describes the 80 foot high curtain in the Temple being torn by God from top to bottom. This curtain was a huge visible reminder of the truth that there is a separation between sinful man and the perfect God. But God tore it to show that Jesus' death opened the way to him so that we need not be stuck with our sin and separated from him.

And this is why the wooden food trough led to the wooden cross, and why you will never get to the heart of Christmas if you don't grasp the meaning of Easter. Christianity is not good advice about what we should do. It is the good news of what Christ has done. Christianity does not proclaim that you are worth saving or able to save yourself. It announces that God is mighty to save.

Luke's Gospel finishes in a very similar place to where it began. We began with angels appearing and we finish in the same way. We began with an angel announcing the presence of life where it is, humanly-speaking, impossible – in the wombs of a woman who was infertile and a woman who was a virgin. We finish with the angels announcing the presence of life in a tomb (Luke 24:1-7)- the resurrection of a crucified criminal to eternal glory.

And between the events of the first Christmas Eve and the first Easter Sunday, simeon's words had come true. Jesus had reached out to those who were outsiders, excluded. He had been opposed. He had revealed what people really believed. Physical nails had pierced his hands as an emotional sword pierced the soul of his watching mother. And, as he hung on the cross, he had redeemed his people – he died the death that tore the curtain and he paid the price that brought the salvation that Simeon had spoken of all those years before.

He died on the cross because Simeon, Mary, Zechariah, the shepherds, you and I are sinners – and because he loves them, and us, anyway.

Christmas Playlist. 3: The angels' song – How did God come?

Four songs that bring you to the heart of Christmas

3: The angels' song – How did God come?

This Advent in our weekly sheets we're going to be looking at the four songs of the first Christmas, which were heard before, during and after the birth of the baby who lies at the heart of the real Christmas. The reflection will be adapted from Alistair Begg's book, 'Christmas Playlist' (buy it here). This week we're looking at the angels' song – How did God come?

There are many ways to announce the birth of a child and these days social media seems to be the most popular. The birth of Mary's baby, however, was announced by an angel to shepherds (Luke 2:8-14)! The angel described the baby's job - “Saviour”: Redeemer. He announced the baby's title - “Messiah”: God's King promised for centuries to his people, promises recorded for us in the Old Testament. And he revealed the baby's identity - “the Lord”.

And that word, “Lord,” is making a staggering claim, because it is the word that was used by Greek-speaking Jews to translate the Hebrew word “Yahweh” - the personal name of God. God's name is Yahweh, and it's what he told his friends, his people, to call him. In other words, here's the deal: good news, great joy for all the people, has come because a Redeemer, the Ultimate Ruler, has been born. And he is God Almighty.

On the first Christmas night – and this is the heart of the Christmas story, and the heart of the Christian faith – God took on flesh. The voice that made the cosmos could be heard crying in the cradle. The hands that placed each star in its place grabbed hold of Mary's fingers. Her son was fully human, and fully God. In this man, divinity met humanity.

Perhaps this is where you struggle with the Christian faith. You are prepared to accept Jesus as a great teacher, a religious leader, or a brilliant philosopher. You are prepared to accept that he spoke for God, perhaps. But you struggle to accept that he is God – that as Mary and Joseph peered into the manger, they were looking at the eternal Son of God. You struggle with the idea of a virgin birth and a miraculous incarnation.

God the Son taking flesh is a mystery we will never understand. But not being able to understand how God became one of us is not proof that he did not become one of us. Here is the answer to the human predicament, the solution to our slavery to sin and our separation from God. God bridged the gap by coming from heaven to earth. This is how much the mighty God cares about us.

Then a choir of angels declares what this baby will achieve: “on earth peace”. The peace of God that invades a life is based on the discovery of peace with God. No matter how well we do at trying to establish peace with each other, until we discover what it is to have peace with God, we're not going to discover the peace of God. And since we are separated from God – since we have declared our independence and rebelled against our rightful Ruler – this is a peace that can only be brought about by the intervention of God himself. We may try to find peace without God in our own way – peace through power, possessions or popularity. We may try to find peace with God through our own strength – peace through obeying religious rules or through being “good people”. But the truth is that only God can give us peace with himself.

But it's a peace that so many miss out on because they fail to make room for the one who brings it. Remember why the God of heaven was in a feeding trough? Because there was no room for him anywhere else. He made the entire universe. He came into his universe. And there wasn't a place for him.

Let's be honest; in the lives of many of us, it's no different. We have no room for him either – not if it makes life uncomfortable for us, not if his presence brings any inconvenience to us, not when his actions and words surprise us. But our response does not change the truth. God has visited this world. He has come as one of us, to bring peace to us by redeeming us from our sins. Will you say to him, “No room”?

Christmas Playlist. 2: Zechariah's Song - Why do you need God?

Four songs that bring you to the heart of Christmas

2: Zechariah's Song – Why do you need God?

This Advent in our weekly sheets we're going to be looking at the four songs of the first Christmas, which were heard before, during and after the birth of the baby who lies at the heart of the real Christmas. The reflection will be adapted from Alistair Begg's book, 'Christmas Playlist' (buy it here). This week we're looking at Zechariah's song - Why do you need God?

While Mary's is the first song recorded in Luke's gospel, hers was not the first miraculous pregnancy to be described by Luke. That belonged to her elderly relative Elizabeth, whose husband, Zechariah, sang abut his son, John, as he held him in his arms (Luke 1:68-79). The song has come to be known as the Benedictus. The first line of the song (“Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them”) contains two words that lie at the heart of the Christmas message - “come” and “redeemed”. God has come to visit. If you want to understand the first Christmas – if you want to grasp the purpose of God's visit – you need to understand redemption.

Redemption is the act of providing a payment to free someone. And Zechariah is explaining God's work in his present situation by referencing God's work in the past – in the time of the Exodus a millenium and a half before. This was when God rescued the Israelites who had been enslaved in Egypt by Pharaoh. Now, God is redeeming his people all over again. Not form enslavement to an Egyptian king, but from enslavement to their sin – to our own sin. We need, he says “forgiveness of [our] sins.”

Sin is an unpopular word, but it is a word the Bible unashamedly uses, and it is a word which explains both what we see within us and what we see around us. Sin is essentially me putting myself where God deserves to be – in the place of authority and majesty, running my own life, charting my own course. It is saying to God, whether very politely or extremely angrily, I don't want you, I won't obey your commands, I will not listen to your word. I will call the shots.

Sin is our greatest problem because it separates us from the God whom we are made to know and designed to enjoy. But in another sense the truth about sin is also our greatest insight because it explains life as we experience it. There is a mighty, loving God who made us – and so we are capable of acts of greatness and kindness. But we reject that God's authority – and so we are capable of selfishness and evil. We were made to enjoy life with God eternally but we all choose to live in defiance of him. Hence the flatness, the 'blues' that come after Christmas as once again we get beyond the busyness and distraction of the festivities and think deep down, I don't have the answer. None of the gifts, books, music, family or friends can fill the hole in our lives. So, we're really asking God to redeem us from the sin we have chosen – from the slavery we cannot escape and the debt we cannot repay.

At the heart of understanding the first Christmas and why it is such good news is an understanding of the nature of your predicament. And that involves accepting the nature and seriousness of sinfulness – your sinfulness. God did not come down to provide a little religious Energizer battery that would make us nicer people. He came because you were drowning, pulled down by the weight of your sin and miles from the shore. If you're drowning it doesn't help for someone to come along in a boat and say Come on now, thrash a little bit more. Try a little harder. Swim a bit better. You'll be able to get yourself out of that mess. No, you need someone to reach down their hand, grasp yours, and pull you up to safety and take you to shore. And if you know you are drowning, you don't refuse the person whose hand is offered to you. You grab it, and you splutter your gratitude.

And that is what Zechariah is doing. He knows that John will spend his life saying, Hold on. God is coming. And God will rescue you. And so Zechariah sings, just as everyone who grasps what God was doing at the first Christmas sings: “Praise be to the Lord, the God of Israel, because he has come to his people and redeemed them.”

I'm dreaming of a hygge Christmas

Here's my article for the December magazine:

Each year the Collins dictionary announces its top ten 'words of the year'. Unsurprisingly this year's Word of the Year is 'Brexit' but also in the top ten was the Scandinavian word 'hygge' (pronounced hue-gah), which they define as “a concept, originating in Denmark, of creating cosy and convivial atmospheres that promote well-being.” Hygge is particularly felt around Christmas when we have images of candles, roaring fires, meals shared with loved ones. Christmas music also, perhaps unconsciously, taps into this concept of hygge: think about chestnuts roasting on an open fire; corn for popping and lights turned way down low; faithful friends who are dear to us gathering near to us once more.

Other cultures have similar concepts to hygge and in Hebrew the word 'shalom' captures some of the essence of hygge. Shalom is usually translated as 'peace' and is commonly used when greeting or saying goodbye to someone, however it also describes a feeling of contentment, completeness, wholeness, well being and harmony. It is this word, shalom, that is meant when Jesus is described as the Prince of Peace and when the angels sang ‘Glory to God in the highest heaven, and on earth peace to those on whom his favour rests’ (Luke 2:14).

To say that Jesus is the Prince of Peace is to say that Jesus is the ultimate, and ultimately the only source of contentment and wholeness. We get a glimpse of this through a concept like hygge – well-being is found not through power, status, money, beauty, productivity or other things we often spend our life trying to achieve, but through relationship. Ultimate well-being is found in a relationship with the Ultimate Being, God himself. As St Augustine famously said, our hearts are restless until the find their rest in God.

However, this relationship with God has been broken by our sin, by our turning away from God to follow our own desires. That's why the birth of Jesus is truly worth celebrating because he came to die to take the punishment for our sins, so now we can repent and turn away from our sins and have peace with God. We can be reconciled to him and our relationship with him is restored. To be reconciled with God is to know deep in our hearts his boundless love for us, to feel his favour resting on us, so we don't need to strive for acceptance through material possessions and status, in short we are content and made whole.

“Love and laughter and joy ever after, ours for the taking, just follow the master”

So this Christmas whether you're having a hygge Christmas or not, in the name of Jesus the Prince of Peace, “The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face towards you and give you peace.”