Betrayal and how to deal with it

Here's my article for February (and my second inspired by The Traitors!!):

Photo by Lance Reis on Unsplash

Again this year we seem to be in the grip of 'Traitors-mania': Celebrity Traitors before Christmas was widely praised and the latest series of the normal format started last month.  As the title suggests, it is all about trust and treachery and although “it's only a gameshow” it involves real people trusting other people and often being really betrayed.

Betrayal is doubly cruel because it not only means that someone has harmed you in some way, but that the person was someone you trusted.  We hear this double pain in the words Shakespeare gives Julius Caesar as he is being assassinated: “Et tu, Brute?”  Caesar would have expected his enemies to want to kill him but not his friend Brutus.  If we love and trust people we risk not only being let down by them, but also being betrayed by them.  Therefore Tennessee Williams said that “We have to distrust each other. It is our only defense against betrayal.”  This is a potential solution, but it's not a world I would like to live in!  So, how can we cope with betrayal, whether that's in a small matter or in a significant matter?

In this season of Lent, our attention is turned towards the events of Jesus' final week before his crucifixion and betrayal is a common theme.  We might initially think of Judas' actions, but Peter also denied knowing Jesus (Matthew 26:69-75) and the rest of the disciples abandoned Jesus when he was arrested (Matthew 26:47-56).  Even the actions of Jesus' opponents in accomplishing his death are also cast as betrayal (Acts 7:52). 

The opposition to Jesus can be quite puzzling if we just see him as being a kind and gentle person who tried to encourage people to love each other.  But when we see Jesus' mission as bringing in the Kingdom of God, a Kingdom that challenges all earthly power and rule, the opposition of those holding earthly power becomes more understandable.  This shouldn't be a surprise if we pay attention to what we heard as we celebrated his birth at Christmas.  Simeon prophesied that “This child is destined to cause the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be spoken against” (Luke 2:34). John tells us why this opposition was also a betrayal, using perhaps the most tragic words ever written: “though the world was made through [Jesus], the world did not recognise him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him” (John 1:10-11).

Jesus responded to this betrayal on the cross, saying “‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).  He forgave them not just with words but by dying so they could be forgiven.

Jesus' words of forgiveness apply not only to those who crucified him and to those who deserted him; they apply to each of us too, because we also do not receive him when we sin.  The good news is that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). It's only by accepting the forgiveness Jesus offers for our betrayal of him that we can have the strength to forgive those who betray us.

On the displaying of flags

 Here's my sermon from this year's Remembrance Service at Broughton:

First Reading (Ephesians 6:10-17)

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power.  Put on the full armour of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes.  For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled round your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

Second Reading (John 15:9-17)

Jesus said “As the Father has loved me, so have I loved you. Now remain in my love.  If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love, just as I have kept my Father’s commands and remain in his love.    I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete.  My command is this: love each other as I have loved you.  Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.  You are my friends if you do what I command.  I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.  You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you so that you might go and bear fruit – fruit that will last – and so that whatever you ask in my name the Father will give you.  This is my command: love each other.”

Sermon

This year we've celebrated the 80th anniversary of VE and VJ Day – commemorating the end of the Second World War.  A common feature of these celebrations is the use of flags, often as bunting and also in parades and on promotional literature.  And today, as every year, we've paraded the Union Jack, and the flags of the Ex-Service Association and the Guiding and Scouting groups.

In recent years, flags have become more common on lamposts and cars and houses; and this use of flags has become the subject of much debate and heat in both the traditional media and on social media.  Much of the discussion being around what it means to fly these flags and if, where and when it is appropriate to do so. 

Flags and banners have always been used to communicate: we think of semaphore and naval flags being directly used to communicate messages.  Flags also signify belonging to a particular group, for example to indicate where a group is on a battlefield or to whom a property belongs.  Sometimes the group is one whose purpose is clear: think for example of the Nazi flag or a pirate flag.  People who display those flags are very clear in what they are communicating about themselves.  

Part of the problem with the contemporary flying of flags, particularly national flags, is that they are flown for many reasons, and the flag itself doesn't convey the motivation.  Therefore people make assumptions about the motive behind the display of the flag, and will often angrily defend or condemn it based on their assumption.  That is not to say that there aren't good and bad reasons to fly a flag, but merely to say that without other evidence it is impossible to know the reasons behind flying a flag.  

So let's think about what might be good and bad motives for flying a flag, without judging which of these motives lie behind any particular flag that's displayed.

Someone might fly a flag to show that they are proud to belong to that group or nation or region, and this is generally a good reason for displaying a flag, assuming, of course, that that the group is not an evil one!  For us, to be proud of being part of our nation is a good thing.  We are a nation grounded in Christian values, and although we are not perfect we are not irredeemably immoral.

Linked to this, the national flag is sometimes a desperate cry from those who are proud of their nation for their nation to take better care of them, and who fear that the values of the nation they love are being eroded.

However, when this spills into an attitude that their nation is far superior to others, the flag becomes a symbol of xenophobia and hatred of people of other nationalities.  Racism is, of course, a bad motivation.

So how should we respond?  Firstly, we need to remember that the motivation behind displaying flags is often unclear.  We need to go beyond what we perceive the message of the flags to be and to give a space to actively listen to the those who put them up.

But secondly, and more importantly, we need to look more closely at the flags themselves.  The Cubs and the Scouts came into church last Thursday and we were thinking about flags and we noted that the Union Jack is made up of three national flags that all have crosses on them: the cross of St George for England; St Andrew for Scotland and St Patrick for Ireland.  We also thought about why the cross is important; because it reminds us of the cross Jesus died on.

There are two aspects of the meaning of Jesus' death that are particularly relevant to the issues we're considering.  Firstly, the issues of national identity; interaction with other nationalities; and class division were all around in Jesus' day, but he didn't take sides on these issues because he knew the problem wasn't really a political one.  He knew, as the Apostle Paul wrote to the Ephesian church:

our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.

The real battle is a spiritual battle: there are malevolent spiritual forces that love to stir up division, fear, anger, hatred and pride.  But, as Paul wrote to the Colossian church, Jesus disarmed those forces, triumphing over them on the cross (Colossians 2:15).  However, though Jesus has won the war, there are still battles for us to fight, so we need to stand firm with the armour of God.

On Thursday we also listened to a song we're going to be singing in a few minutes: “When a knight won his spurs”.  This song reminds us that we battle against the dragons of anger and the ogres of greed, which lie behind so much conflict, from personal to international.  But the song also reminds us of the characteristics we need in these spiritual battles: the shield of faith in the victory of Jesus to protect us, but we also need to be gentle and brave, and gallant and bold, with joy and setting free truth.  So to remind us of that the Cubs and Scouts made an English flag and chose four of those words to put one in each quarter of the flag (see the picture above for the results!).

But the second aspect of the cross is that it was the way Jesus showed his love for us (John 3:14-18).  He laid down his life, so our sins, which separate us from God, could be punished and therefore forgiven (Colossians 1:13-23).  If we want to accept his forgiveness we also need to accept his commands ("If you keep my commands, you will remain in my love") and the chief among them is this: “love each other as I have loved you.”  Jesus died for us while we were still sinners, while we were his enemies (Romans 5:6-10) and, in the same way, he calls us to love others, even our enemies – even those who fly flags for a reason we don't agree with.

So as we see those flags flying, let's not rush to a conclusion about why they are there.  Instead let's look at the cross on them, as the Bishop of Blackburn, Philip North, has written:

...each one pointing us to the saving work of Jesus Christ through which we are reconciled to the Father and so to each other.  We listen, we understand, but above all we hold the cross high, for in that symbol is the only true and lasting source of unity.

 

Attention, desire and character

Here is my article for October:

 Image by kp yamu Jayanath from Pixabay

There are many sayings that connect our choices with the consequences of those choices: how many of us were told as children when pulling a funny face, “if the wind changes your face will stay like that!”; or the slightly more logical “you are what you eat”?  I heard another recently that is much more profound: “what you give attention to, your heart will desire.” It is both a warning and encouragement: the things we fill our minds with will become the things we crave.

There are many benefits to modern media but one of the draw-backs is the constant stream of 'content.' No sooner have you finished one show or video or reel or article than the next one pops up. This means that sometimes we are exposed to a wide variety of materials (although the algorithms eventually narrow that down!) but it also means that we skip past 'uninteresting' content (i.e. normal life!!) trying to find something that gives us a dopamine hit. Thus the ordinary becomes boring and real life becomes drab.

The truth that what we focus on eventually shapes our character is one of the reasons that I maintain that Halloween is never 'harmless fun' but is always dangerous. To surround ourselves with decorations that celebrate and trivialise the forces of evil is to allow them to become influences on our lives. The mixed message of wicked, nasty or violent things being praised and rewarded with sweets is particularly dangerous for the impressionable young minds of children – ordinary life becomes boring compared with the exciting thrill of the darker side of the supernatural. But even for adults giving attention to the sinister forces will lead to an openness to further interaction with them and then a desire for continuing interaction. Hence the interest in witchcraft, Wicca, mediums, psychics, spiritism, ouija boards, tarot cards, horoscopes and other occult practices. All these expose us to forces that want to control our lives, but not for our benefit.

Knowing that what we give attention to our heart will desire, the Apostle Paul encourages us, saying “whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable - if anything is excellent or praiseworthy - think about such things” (Philippians 4:8). However, before we can do that we need “to be made new in the attitude of [y]our minds” (Ephesians 4:23), so we cry out with the Psalmist “Create in me a pure heart, O God, and renew a steadfast spirit within me” (Psalm 51:10). Jesus, who defeated the power of the forces of evil on the cross (Colossians 2:15) and who promises life in all its fullness to those who follow him (John 10:10), offers each of us that fresh start, and as we pay more attention to him and his word, we'll find that he is the one we were desiring all along.

Faithful or Traitor?

Here's my article for March:

Photo by Lance Reis on Unsplash

“Are you a Faithful or are you a Traitor?” This question reverberated around the heads of many people who watched the latest series of 'The Traitors' which bills itself as being “the ultimate reality game of trust and treachery.” IMDB summarises the show as “Twenty-two strangers compete in a series of missions for a chance to win £120k. However, amongst the players lie the 'Traitors', who meet in secret and decide who to eliminate from their fellow players known as 'Faithfuls'.” The Faithfuls have to try to guess who amongst them is a Traitor and vote them to be banished. It's basically an elaborate game of wink murder!

I only started watching it halfway through the previous series, but it has an addictive quality akin to morbid curiosity, and I'm not quite sure what to make of my interest in it. There is something about the premise of the show which revolves around lies and deception that makes me uncomfortable, and although “it's only a gameshow” it involves real people trusting other people and often being really betrayed. And I'm not sure whether it makes it worse that these are 'good' people pretending to be bad, but doing actual bad things in order to win a game. In some ways I'd rather it were 'bad' people doing bad things because ironically at least they would be being 'faithful' to their nature.

But perhaps what really makes me uncomfortable about the programme is the mirror it holds up to me. In reality I am like the 'Traitors' – projecting a 'good' persona to hide my inner self-interest. Jesus was the first to use the word 'hypocrite' in the way we use it today (before that it simply meant an actor), and he once said to the religious leaders of his day “You are like whitewashed tombs, which look beautiful on the outside but on the inside are full of the bones of the dead and everything unclean. In the same way, on the outside you appear to people as righteous but on the inside you are full of hypocrisy and wickedness” (Matthew 23:27-28.)

The temptation is to blame our surroundings for the way we behave; just as the contestants justify their behaviour because 'it's the game', so we say we have to be self-centred because the world and everyone else is fallen. However, the Christian doctrine of Original Sin exposes that as simply an excuse. There are many jobs that we say we will do 'when we get around to it', but the COVID lockdown proved that many of those jobs don't get done not because of lack of time and opportunity (there was plenty of that in lockdown!) but instead because of a lack of will and motivation. According to Douglas Murray, Original Sin teaches us that “we are this very, very contorted being which is capable of incredible greatness and beauty and kindness and forgiveness and also capable of their opposites and that it's not that you are one and other people are the other but all of us all of us are both all the time.” In the perfection of the Garden of Eden, Adam and Eve chose disobedience and self-centredness, and demonstrated that the problem is not our environment, but ourselves. As is often said “the heart of the human problem is the problem of the human heart.”

Jesus likened himself to a doctor (Luke 5:31) who both diagnoses the problem but also offers the remedy. In Lent we are encouraged to face squarely our hypocrisy, not to crush us with guilt but to direct us to Jesus who took on that guilt, our guilt, on the cross. We are all 'Traitors' but the one we betrayed died taking our punishment – that is a priceless prize!

Why?

Here's my article for the April magazines:

Once when I was talking about the crucifixion to some Key Stage 1 children one child asked “Did that really happen?” I said yes and then the child looked at a picture of Jesus on the cross with blood all over his body, and said “It must have really hurt.”

That child suddenly understood the reality of what happened to Jesus on the cross: a real human, with flesh and blood like us suffered an agonising death. We tend to sanitise the events of Good Friday; even though our churches are full of crosses most of them are smooth, and a lot of them are shiny – and few of them show the dying Jesus hanging on them. This latter point reminds us, of course, that Jesus didn't stay dead but rose from the dead on Easter Sunday, however it seems to me that all too often we rush past Jesus' death to get to his resurrection.

And even when Jesus is depicted on the cross we don't see the suffering: he is often already dead and looking peaceful; the blood is minimal and his nakedness is covered. But does all this matter? Crucifixion is a cruel and, literally, excruciating death but that doesn't mean we need to show it in all its harrowing reality. But what we do need to do is to remember that it was an horrific event, not just to witness but for Jesus himself. Because if we don't comprehend the appalling nature of Jesus' death, if we think of it as just something Jesus did as easily as eating and sleeping, then we might never ask the question 'why?'

“Why did Jesus willingly and intentionally go through such an agonising death?” is perhaps one of the most important questions we can ever ask. In the face of it a lot of our misconceptions about Jesus are shattered. If he was just a wise teacher, his death stopped him being able to teach more people in more places. If he was a revolutionary, he gave up without a fight. He didn't die to take someone's place in a hostage type situation, nor as a martyr for a philosophical, moral or religious principle. Humanly-speaking Jesus' death was pointless and unnecessary.

So why did Jesus willingly and intentionally go through such an agonising death? It can only be because it achieved his mission. Jesus said that he came “to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10 - 'the lost' being sinners [Luke 15]), and that he would “give his life as a ransom for many” (Mark 10:45). 700 years beforehand, Isaiah had written about Jesus' death: “he was wounded and bruised for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed—and we were healed! We—every one of us—have strayed away like sheep! We, who left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on him the guilt and sins of every one of us!” (Isaiah 53:4-6 The Living Bible). No wonder we want to ignore the reality of the crucifixion – the agony Jesus suffered is a result of our sin, but amazingly it is also our salvation.

Image: Theyre Lee-Elliott "Crucified tree form - the agony".

 Image Copyright © Trustees for Methodist Church Purposes. https://www.methodist.org.uk/our-faith/reflecting-on-faith/the-methodist-modern-art-collection/

Let nothing you affright: Angels and demons

Our Advent Evening Prayers will be looking at different features in the Christmas story, and our news sheets will have a more in-depth look at another feature: angels. This week we're looking at angels and demons.

It is hard to think of angels without also thinking of their counterparts: demons. Demons have been depicted in many ways in popular culture throughout the ages but what does the Bible tell us about demons? 

Demons, like angels, are spiritual beings and, again like angels, will probably have different roles and jobs. The likelihood is that they were all originally good, but at some point rebelled against God.  Lucifer was a high-ranking angel, referred to as 'princes' in the Old Testament (Daniel 10:13, possibly what later came to be called Archangels) but he too rebelled (Ezekiel 28:11-19) and became known as Satan. He was then cast out of the heavenly realms with other fallen spiritual beings (Revelation 12:8-9). He may have instigated the rebellion or became the leader later but since then he has had spiritual beings under his control, which are referred to in the Bible as his angels (Matthew 25:41); or as demons; or sometimes 'authorities', 'powers', 'dominions' or 'rulers' (Ephesians 6:11-12). These different names may refer to their function or their place in the hierarchy, but that Bible doesn't elaborate on this any further.

We see demons acting in different ways in the Bible, such as demonic possession (Mark 5:1-6), initiating false worship (1 Corinthians 10:20-21), promoting false doctrine (1 Timothy 4:1) and performing false signs and wonders (2 Thessalonians 2:9).  In short, they try to stop humans from worshipping and following God, in order to prevent them being saved. Another way they do this is to make humans disbelieve in the existence of anything supernatural at all, or at least in the existence of supernatural evil.

Our rationalist mind can often dismiss talk of demons (and angels for that matter) as being religious ideas that belong to a primitive mindset, and stories of demon possession are explained as epileptic fits that the ancients ascribed to supernatural causes. But the Bible is quite clear that demons exist, and Jesus himself believed in them, and spoke to them. The Bible is also clear that attempts to harness the power of evil forces, e.g. by witchcraft or occult practices, are detestable to God (Deuteronomy 18:9-13) because Satan is trying to lead the world astray from God (Revelation 12:9). C. S. Lewis wrote in 'The Screwtape Letters': “There are two equal and opposite errors into which our race can fall about the devils. One is to disbelieve in their existence. The other is to believe, and to feel an excessive and unhealthy interest in them. They themselves are equally pleased by both errors and hail a materialist or a magician with the same delight.”

However, powerful as demons certainly are, it would also be wrong to think of them as being undefeatable. Jesus showed us many times his power over them, and he gave that power to us his followers (Luke 10:17-20). The Bible assures us that if we submit to God and resist evil, the devil and his demons will flee from us (James 4:7), and we can do so by putting on the 'the armour of God' (Ephesians 6:11-18). But ultimately Satan and his demons were defeated by Jesus' death on the cross (Colossians 2:15) and will finally be judged and punished at Jesus' second coming (Matthew 25:41, Revelation 20:10).

God rest ye merry, gentlemen,

let nothing you dismay,

for Jesus Christ our Saviour

was born on Christmas Day;

to save us all from Satan’s power

when we were gone astray.

O tidings of comfort and joy.

O tidings of comfort and joy,

comfort and joy;

“Fear not,” then, said the angel,

“Let nothing you affright

this day is born a Saviour

of virtue, pow'r and might,

to free all those who trust in him

from Satan’s power and might.”

Both angels and demons remind us that there is a supernatural realm that we can often forget, and also that there is a spiritual war between good and evil that involves us too (Ephesians 6:12). As angels encourage us to listen, obey and worship God, so demons try to get us to do the opposite. Who are you making happy: angels or demons?

The Cross: stupid or stupendous?

Here's my article for the April magazines:

The Stations of the Cross is an meditation on Jesus' journey from his trial to his burial, and some of the events involve him meeting various people including the women of Jerusalem, Simon of Cyrene and his mother, Mary. A production of Jesus Christ Superstar at the Liverpool Empire that I saw many years ago, started with that journey and on the way Jesus met Judas, with a television news crew. Judas sang to Jesus “Why d'you choose such a backward time in such a strange land? / If you'd come today you could have reached a whole nation. / Israel in 4 BC had no mass communication.” The irony, intentional or not, being that even though he chose “such a backward time” he's still being worshipped and followed today.

Judas also expresses some common questions about Jesus' death: “Every time I look at you I don't understand / Why you let the things you did get so out of hand. / … Did you mean to die like that? Was that a mistake?” The answer to that question is found in Matthew 16:21, which records that “Jesus began to explain to his disciples that he must go to Jerusalem and suffer many things at the hands of the elders, the chief priests and the teachers of the law, and that he must be killed and on the third day be raised to life.”

But knowing that Jesus willingly went to his death without a fight and without going down in a 'blaze of glory' just raises more questions – it seems to be a foolish and weak way to die. Paul tells us “This so-called “foolish” plan of God is far wiser than the wisest plan of the wisest man, and God in his weakness—Christ dying on the cross—is far stronger than any man” (1 Corinthians 1:25 The Living Bible). However, this can only be seen if you understand why Jesus died.

The wisdom of the world is that if you're good enough you will go to heaven, and that Jesus came to teach us to be better. If this is true, then his death was foolish and weak as it achieved nothing except depriving the world of more years of his teaching and example. However the problem is not that we're not good enough for heaven but that we can never be good enough for heaven. Isaiah spoke about Jesus, about 700 years before he was born saying “We—every one of us—have strayed away like sheep! We, who left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on him the guilt and sins of every one of us!” (Isaiah 53:6 The Living Bible). Jesus took the punishment that we deserve for our sins and in doing so defeated death itself. His death may look foolish and weak, but he knew it was the only solution to our estrangement from God.

The cross silences all of our human pretensions. If we think we are clever enough or good enough for God the cross will seem to be weak and foolish. However when we recognise we can never save ourselves by our own efforts, the cross becomes powerful and wise, for through it God rescues the people he loves.

P.S. Details of this year's Stations of the Cross service can be found here: https://en-gb.facebook.com/events/407736576626486/

Picture credits:
Top image by congerdesign from pixabay.com
Explanation of pictures: “We all saw what Jesus did both in Israel and in the city of Jerusalem.  Jesus was put to death on a cross. But three days later, God raised him to life and let him be seen. Not everyone saw him. He was seen only by us, who ate and drank with him after he was raised from death.” (Acts 10:39-41)
Bottom image by Ben Steed from heartlight.org

How much are you worth?

Here's my February article:

How much are you worth? According to the fount of academic excellence known as Google (although other founts are available and may differ!), the human body is worth anything from just under $1 to just over £1,000,000 for all the body parts (or more on the black market) via $160 for the chemical elements. This month around Valentine's Day many people will be using cards and gifts to express to their loved ones how much they value them, though I doubt that many will express that in monetary terms! A human being is perhaps the greatest example of something being worth more than the sum of its parts.

I hope that you think that you are worth more than £1,000,000, but there are many ways that we can be made to feel worthless. Adverts, even ones that proclaim that “you're worth it!”, are designed to make us feel inadequate or incomplete without whatever product they're selling. Society too gives out the message that you're only worth something if you're popular; or have the right sort of education or job; or have a good background; or live in the nice places; or own certain things; or contribute a certain amount to society; or believe whatever that month's socially acceptable views are. Valentine's Day too plays into this conditional valuing of human life suggesting that you are only worth something if you have a partner, and have had many partners.

So how can we assess how much we are worth? Well, one way we can do think is to think about it in economic terms: something is worth whatever someone will pay for it. For example, if I owned the Mona Lisa and put it on an online auction site, if the highest bid for it is £1 then that is how much the Mona Lisa is worth. But what about us humans? Paul tells us that we have been bought at a price (1 Corinthians 6:20), we have been redeemed or bought back by God. And what did he buy us back with? His own blood (Acts 20:28)! God, in Jesus, bought each of us with his blood. You are worth the life of the eternal God!!

But that then begs the question of what God bought us back from. The Bible reminds us that we have all sinned (Romans 3:23) and Jesus says that those who sin are slaves to sin (John 8:34). As the wages of sin is death (Romans 6:23), in order to redeem us from slavery to sin Jesus paid the price necessary, which was his death in our place. Therefore, “In [Jesus] we have redemption through [Jesus'] blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us” (Ephesians 1:8).

But why did God pay such a high price for us? Because our sin separates us from him (Isaiah 59:2) yet because he loves us (1 John 4:9-10), he wants to be reconciled with us (2 Corinthians 5:18-19). To be reconciled with God we need to accept his offer of forgiveness and repent of our sins.

If God sent you a Valentine's Day card its picture would be of Jesus on the cross, and the caption would say “This is how much I love you. This is how much I think you're worth.”

Cross words

Here's my magazine article for March:

Would you wear a piece of jewellery in the shape of an electric chair? Or perhaps a noose and gallows? Unless you have a particularly macabre fashion taste, I suspect the answer would be no. After all why would you wear a symbol of torture and execution? But that is precisely what many people do by wearing a cross. Crucifixion was the cruel Roman method of execution that they reserved for the very worst criminals, yet the cross quickly became the symbol of the underground movement that made up the early church.

We have an unusual situation this year with Good Friday being in a different month to Easter Sunday, so we have the opportunity to focus on Jesus' death this month before thinking about his resurrection next month.

We're so used to seeing crosses around that we've lost the shock of what it represents. The early church chose not to celebrate Jesus' amazing miracles nor even his wise teachings but his death, and it wasn't a heroic or serene death but a shameful, criminal's death. If the early church wanted to commend their new faith to the world dominated by the Romans, emphasising Jesus' crucifixion is not the best way to start. But that is what they did. Why?

Well the simple answer is because the crucifixion is the centre of the Christian faith; it is the literal and metaphorical crux of Christianity.  Paul wrote that he “resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified” (1 Corinthians 2:2).  He knew that this would be a shocking message, writing “Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling-block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles” (1 Corinthians 1:22-23).  The Jews were expecting a Messiah who would kick the Romans out of Israel, not one who was killed by them! And the Gentiles (non-Jews) wanted a highly intellectual philosophy not the story of a man who rejected by his own people!  Those who saw the cross as a stumbling-block and foolishness agreed with the Jewish religious leaders who mocked the dying Jesus: “‘He saved others,’ they said, ‘but he can’t save himself! He’s the king of Israel! Let him come down now from the cross, and we will believe in him’” (Matthew 27:42-43).

But the deeper reason why people then and now reject the message of Christ crucified is because it reminds us of a very uncomfortable truth: that we are sinners who need saving.  Paul reminds us that all of us have sinned and fallen short of God's standard (Romans 3:23) (and if we are honest we fall short of our own standards too) and the punishment for sin is death (Romans 6:23), eternal separation from God.  And because of our sin we are helpless to save ourselves.  But the good news is that “God presented Christ as a sacrifice of atonement, through the shedding of his blood – to be received by faith” (Romans 3:25), that's what it means to say that Christ died for our sins.

Christ crucified means that we cannot be saved by our own moral or religious efforts, but only because Jesus died in our place. The pathetic-looking figure on the cross is the solution to the world's problems, but only when we recognise our own pathetic-ness, let go of our pretensions to goodness and rejoice that “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

Sherlock and the Resurrection

Here's my magazine article for April:

I really enjoyed the latest series of the BBC drama 'Sherlock' and there was one particularly striking scene in the second episode 'The Lying Detective'. In the previous episode [SPOILER ALERT!] Dr Watson's wife, Mary, had thrown herself in front of Sherlock when he was shot at and she died. Watson recognises that Sherlock blames himself and wants to reassure him. He says “Mary died saving your life. It was her choice. No-one made her do it. No-one could ever make her do anything...but the point is: you did not kill her.” Sherlock then replies quietly “In saving my life, she conferred a value on it...It is a currency I do not know how to spend.” (Thanks to http://arianedevere.livejournal.com/90556.html for the transcript of the words!)

The theme of self-sacrifice is a common one in stories, but Easter gives us the opportunity to focus on the true ultimate sacrifice; Jesus' death on the cross. Just like Mary, Jesus' sacrifice was freely chosen; he said “No one takes my life from me. I give it up willingly!” (John 10:18 Contemporary English Version). But more importantly he died to save our lives. The prophet Isaiah foretold the death of Jesus in these words: “it was our grief he bore, our sorrows that weighed him down... But he was wounded and bruised for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace; he was lashed—and we were healed! We—every one of us—have strayed away like sheep! We, who left God’s paths to follow our own. Yet God laid on him the guilt and sins of every one of us!” (Isaiah 53:4-6 The Living Bible).

The wonderful good news of the cross is that Jesus took the punishment that we deserve because of our sins so that we could be forgiven and be reconciled with God. The wonderful good news of Easter is that Jesus rose from the dead so that we too could have a fresh start. This is the central message of Christianity and if it's true it has huge implications for each one of us.

Sherlock realises that Mary thought that his life was valuable enough to be worth saving. Knowing that Jesus died for us should make us realise that he thinks we are valuable, that he loves us so much that he gave his life to take the punishment we deserve. Society often values people based on their job, wealth, beauty, popularity or usefulness. God loves each of us regardless of what society thinks of us and amazingly he loves us even though we rejected him and were his enemies: “God showed his great love for us by sending Christ to die for us while we were still sinners” (Romans 5:8 TLB). We don't have to be good enough for God to love us, he loves us even though we're never good enough.

Which leaves us with Sherlock's problem: this value on his life is a currency he doesn't know how to spend. He doesn't know how to live in response to Mary's act. If we truly understand what Jesus did for us on the cross we too have to decide how to respond. The great hymn “When I survey the wondrous cross” gives us the answer. The only appropriate response to the love that is so amazing, so divine is to give God 'my soul, my life, my all.' What is your response to the good news of Easter?

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.

Halloween: Harmless fun? Trick or treat?

Here's my magazine article from October 2013.

“It's just harmless fun” is a phrase that we'll be hearing a lot over the next few weeks as people defend the activities around Halloween, but is it true?

The origins of Halloween are in the Druid and Celtic feast of Samhain which celebrated the end of harvest and the beginning of the dark period of winter. The boundary between this world and the world of the dead was thought to dissolve and the dead returned to earth and created havoc by playing tricks on people and damaging crops. When Christianity arrived in Britain, it attempted to 'Christianise' these and other similar celebrations around the world by talking instead of the 'hallowed' saints who have died. 1^st November became All Hallows (Saints) Day, and the day before, 31^st October became All Hallows Eve or Hallowe'en. However, despite this the pagan and occult origins of the celebrations never went away.

Today the celebrations of Halloween have little to do with Samhain, for many it's just a laugh, an opportunity to dress up and perhaps to get some free sweets. We might possibly object to Halloween because of its celebration of fear, and of causing fear; the anti-social problems and potential risks for children through 'trick-or-treats'; or the overcommercialisation of it. But there is something a lot more dangerous about Halloween than these.

Christianity teaches that the supernatural exists and that there are evil and malevolent spiritual forces in the world. Halloween celebrations both underestimate and overestimate the power of those forces. By trivialising their power and making it the stuff of funny costumes it may encourage people, especially children, to 'play' with ouija boards, tarot cards, horoscopes and other occult practices. This connects people with sinister forces beyond their control, forces whose only aim is destruction.

On the other hand, Halloween is the celebration of evil over good, of darkness over light. Christianity teaches that through his death on the cross Jesus defeated all evil powers, although they won't be finally destroyed until Jesus comes again. In the meantime, they are active in the world and although they are more powerful than we are, they are nowhere near as powerful as God is. In Jesus, good has triumphed over evil and light has defeated darkness. As we say in the baptism service as we give the person their baptism candle: “God has delivered us from the dominion of darkness and has given us a place with the saints in light. You have received the light of Christ; walk in this light all the days of your life.”

The 'treat' of Halloween is really a 'trick' to make us both forget the power of evil and also to think it more powerful than it is. Fun it may be, but harmless it most definitely is not.

Dabble, dabble, game or trouble?

Here's my article for the October parish magazine:

There's a fine line between vigilance and paranoia and between caution and hysteria and it's a line that I'm going to attempt to tread in this article.

This summer's gaming sensation has been Pokemon Go – a smartphone game where imaginary creatures and accessories are looked for and captured in real life locations.  Some have praised it for getting coach-potato gamers out of their houses and walking around, whilst others have pointed out the dangers of people walking onto roads or into streams; causing accidents or making themselves vulnerable to crime by playing the game.  A few people are warning of the spiritual damage that Pokemon can do.

This latter group look at the 'worldview' of the game. Pokemon is short for 'pocket monsters' and the Pokemon have different abilities, for example reading of minds, use of poison, mimicry, taunting, teleportation and hypnosis. The concept of the original game of Pokemon is that you capture these Pokemon, 'train' them and then 'summon' them to fight against other people's Pokemon.  This, they say, is very similar to the practices of summoning and trying to control spiritual beings and forces that are found in witchcraft, Wicca, shamanism and spiritism, all of which the Bible warns against.  They also point to the testimony of former witchdoctors such as Bautista who, with no prior knowledge of the game, identified some Pokemon with demons they had encountered.

However, whilst some of the underlying themes and concepts of Pokemon are based on unChristian and potentially dangerous worldviews, it is after all just a game.  The same can't be said, on the other hand for those who 'dabble' in witchcraft, Wicca, mediums, psychics, spiritism etc.  These are very real attempts to summon and control very real spiritual beings and forces.  The problem with these practices, apart from the dubious techniques used by some of the practitioners, is that although the spiritual forces are real, only demonic forces would use these means.  This is because God has forbidden these practices so no force for good would use them, despite them seeming to be harmless or even caring.  St Paul warns us the “Satan himself masquerades as an angel of light. It is not surprising, then, if his servants also masquerade as servants of righteousness.” (2 Corinthians 11:14-15).

There is no such thing as good magic, the dead cannot be communicated with and spiritual forces are beyond the command of humans.  What will respond if you call on these things are evil spirits that we are unable to control.  However, the Bible records loads of occasions where Jesus demonstrated his power over evil forces, and ultimately “God defeated the spiritual rulers and powers. With the cross God won the victory and defeated them. He showed the world that they were powerless” (Colossians 2:15). If you have opened the door of your life to evil influences, the good news is that through Jesus that door can be shut and you can be set free from every evil force that wants to control you.