Be far more retro!

Here's my article for December:

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Christmas is often a time when we indulge in nostalgia, recalling happy memories of past Christmases with family, friends and loved ones.    And perhaps trying to re-create those memories by carrying on family traditions, listening to the classic Christmas songs, and putting up the same decorations in the same place.  A visit to church for a carol service might also be part of an attempt to re-live those treasured times.  Because nostalgia plays such a big rôle in our experience of Christmas, it is a common theme in Christmas advertising, where companies try to persuade us that buying their products will help us replicate the feelings we cherish.

Fr. Philip Hall, the parish priest of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Church of All Saints of Lincolnshire, Lincoln, wrote in his November newsletter of a current advert trying to persuade us that the “magic of Christmas” is to be found in retro-style decorations. However, he says, “we need to be far more retro”!  If we want the 'magic' of Christmas we need to go back not to our childhood, or even to the idealised Victorian Christmas, but we need to go back 2,000 years to remember the spiritual roots of our celebrations.

One reason we often look back to a 'golden time' of Christmases past is that those celebrations, especially when we were children, were responsibility-free – all we had to do was enjoy the presents, the food, the parties, the people.  We didn't have to worry about arranging them or paying for them; they just magically appeared!  As adults, the necessary but mundane, behind-the-scenes preparations often take the lustre off our enjoyment of the very experiences we work so hard to create.  No wonder we want to feel Christmas like a child again!

What we long for is a re-enchantment of Christmas, and not just of Christmas but of the whole of our lives: we wish it could be Christmas everyday, as long as it's the 'magical' Christmas we remember, not the pressurised adult version!  Fr Philip is right that if we want to re-enchant Christmas and our lives we need to be far more retro and go back to the source: Christmas is 'magical', not in the sense of wizards but in that it reveals to us another realm of reality beyond the mundane, natural universe; it reveals the super-natural to us.

Religions might affirm that the supernatural exists, or even that we might enter the supernatural realm after death, but Christmas tells us something far more wonderful; that the supernatural realm entered our natural realm as the baby Jesus, so that the supernatural could dwell amongst us, and our mundane world could be re-enchanted.  A re-enchanted world is one that has a meaning and a purpose; a naturalistic world, one that exists through blind chance and the laws of physics, has no ultimate meaning or purpose and is dis-enchanted.   Jesus comes to offer us life in all its re-enchanted fullness (John 10:10) that as we live in relationship with him, he lives in us. So if you feel discontented with the mundane, why not come to church and be far more retro?

The night before Christmas

Here's my article for the December and January magazines:

Our Christmas traditions and celebrations come from many different places and cultures, but perhaps one of the greatest influences on our perception of Christmas is the 1823 poem “A Visit from St. Nicholas” by Clement Clarke Moore, more commonly known by its first line: “ 'Twas the night before Christmas”. In this poem Moore describes St Nicholas, names his reindeer, and has him coming down the chimney to deliver presents. This eventually became the standard legend of Santa Claus, replacing many of the local variations on the theme of Christmas visitors. However, we should probably have also noted Moore's warnings in his follow-up poem “The Night after Christmas” which describes the children being visited by their doctor after having too many of the treats delivered by Santa!!

The phrase “The night before Christmas” evokes all those feelings of anticipation for the joy of Christmas, but in his book “The Air We Breathe”, Glen Scrivener uses it in a different way. His book describes how the Christian message underpins the way we view life and the values we hold, noting particularly the contrast with the values of the society into which the Christian message was first preached. He describes that culture as the night before Christmas.

The metaphor of night is very apt as it reminds us that the values that we think of as obvious, natural and universal (Glen highlights the values of equality, compassion, consent, enlightenment, science, freedom and progress) are “profoundly alien” to the culture, assumptions, beliefs, intuitions and ideals of the pre-Christian and non-Christian world. It's not that the ancient world was a little bit worse than our Western world, rather it is as different to us as night is to day. But we've spent so long in the light that we can't imagine what night would look like and therefore can't believe it ever existed.

Glen reminds us that Christmas, Jesus' birth, marked the end of that night. Some claim that the celebration of Christmas is pagan in origin, pointing to similarities in celebrations and even the concept of a god coming to earth. However,even before he could walk or talk, Jesus' birth is in stark contrast to the myths around at the time. In those myths, humans are created to be slaves or entertainment for the gods, and when a god comes to earth it is usually to kill, rape and destroy – and all should fear. But when Jesus is born the Almighty God becomes human (John 1:1-14) and the world is told to rejoice (Luke 2:8-20). Humans have dignity because they are made in the image of God and because God chose to become human. And from that good news flows all the values that form the 'day' we live in.

Jesus' birth has influenced and shaped our world more than Moore's poem has influenced our celebration of Christmas. This Christmas why not find out more about the Jesus who brings the morning which shatters the night that we had before Christmas?

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!

Advent Reflections 2020: Isaiah's Titles for Jesus - 1: Wonderful Counsellor

 

For our Advent reflections this year we're going to look at the titles Jesus is given in Isaiah's prophecy in Isaiah 9:6 “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given, and the government will be on his shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.”

The first title that Isaiah foretells for Jesus is 'Wonderful Counsellor'. Jesus is wonderful in the sense that he arouses in us a sense of wonder and awe and marvel. Unfortunately, we are so familiar with the events of Jesus' life that they lose something of that sense of wonder, but as we read the gospels we are constantly told how the reaction of the crowds to Jesus was one of amazement, not just at his miracles, but also at his teaching (e.g. Mark 1:27). It is the same as we approach Christmas; familiarity blind us to the amazing events surrounding Jesus' birth, like the angels, the star and the virgin birth itself. Similarly, we need to recover our wonder at the very coming of Jesus, how “...within a manger lies / he who built the starry skies” “And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death – even death on a cross!” (Philippians 2:8). The most wonderful thing about Jesus is that he came to earth from his glory in heaven so that he could die to redeem us from our sins.

The title 'Counsellor' helps us to see in greater detail what Jesus does. It firstly reminds us of Jesus' place in the Trinity: the Father, Son and Holy Spirit are a communion of Persons in perfect unity. The idea of them taking counsel together is a really difficult one to comprehend because we humans take counsel in order to fill in gaps in our knowledge, but God has no such lack of knowledge. The Divine 'consultation' (which we see for example in Genesis 1:26) is more a reminder that each Person of the Trinity acts freely to fulfil the Divine will. So in the Philippians quote we saw that Jesus was obedient to the Father, and in John 16:13 Jesus tells us that the Holy Spirit “will not speak on his own; he will speak only what he hears [from the Father and the Son]” - in both cases there is the inference that the Son and the Spirit choose to act in that way. This contradicts the argument of atheists like Richard Dawkins who say that the Father commits child-abuse by sending Jesus to die for our sins. The crucifixion was the eternal plan of the Trinity for the atonement of human sin – Jesus went to his death willingly because it was his plan from before Creation! This is reflected in another way the phrase 'Wonderful Counsellor' can be translated: “Wonder-working Planner”.

Jesus' rôle as Counsellor also tells us about his relationship to us – he imparts wisdom and truth to us. But he is not just one more voice among many, he is not someone whose teachings have the same value as any other speaker – only he has the words of eternal life (John 6:68), because only he is Wisdom (1 Corinthians 1:24) and Truth (John 14:6). Despite this, Jesus' words do not come to us as a divine diktat, but as an invitation to life in all its fullness and a sign that he is concerned with our welfare – whoever obeys his words will never see death (John 8:51). In these uncertain and frightening times, who better to turn to than our Wonderful Counsellor?

Carrying on camping

Here's my magazine article for September:

Like many people, this summer my family and I had a holiday which involved camping.  One of the joys of camping is sitting outside with a drink watching the world go by, and over the week we saw the campsite constantly changing as people came and went.  Some people were staying for two or three weeks, others for a few days and some just for one night.  But no matter how long we were staying for, for all of us this was a temporary home.  It is possibly this knowledge that made the short trek to the toilet block in the driving rain bearable!

By camping we were all experiencing a little of what a nomadic lifestyle is like, and more so for those who just stopped for the night, a resting place on their journey to somewhere else.  For those who choose this way of living it can be a joy, even a release from the materialism and consumerism of society.  But for those, such as refugees or the homeless, who have this life forced upon them it can be demoralising and dehumanising.

For the Israelites in the Old Testament the experience of being a nomadic people was deeply ingrained in their identity.  They descended from Abraham who left his home in Ur in what is now south eastern Iraq, travelled to Harran, on what is now the southern border of Turkey, and was called by God to leave there to go to 'The Promised Land' of Canaan, now Israel.  Abraham's grandson, Jacob, then took his family to Egypt to join his son Joseph, who was by then the Prime Minister of Egypt.  The family stayed there and grew in number, were enslaved by the Pharaoh and eventually left Egypt led by Moses.  Their re-entry to the Promised Land was delayed because they didn't trust God (Numbers 14) and so their punishment was to wander in the desert for forty years.  And even when they were to re-enter the Promised Land, God commanded them “The land must not be sold permanently, because the land is mine and you reside in my land as foreigners and strangers” (Leviticus 25:23).

The wanderings in the wilderness meant that the Israelites got used to living in tents, but the remarkable thing about this is that God chose to join them in their camp.  He told Moses “let them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8), and then gave instructions on how to build the tent.  When it was finished, the glory of the Lord filled it and “In all the travels of the Israelites, whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, they would set out; but if the cloud did not lift, they did not set out – until the day it lifted” (Exodus 40:36-37).  God dwelt with his people to guide them and so they could meet with him.

In describing the coming of Jesus, the gospel writer John says that the “Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us” (John 1:14).  The Greek word translated 'made his dwelling' literally means 'encamped' or 'pitched his tent'.  In Jesus we see the fulfilment of God's promise to live with and amongst his people and to guide us as we travel through life.

What does it mean to be human?

Here's my article for the August magazine:

A lot of magazines at the moment will be giving advice on how to get the perfect beach-body, although it might be a bit late for this year! We often have a love-hate relationship with our bodies and both those attitudes have their down-sides.

On the one hand our society tends to idolise the body. Body-worshippers, both male and female, can be found at the gym, in the beauty salons, and strutting the streets in their designer clothes. Beauty and physical fitness are seen to be the ideal; we are judged on both and if we fall short of the standard we are deemed less worthy, less love-able than others. At its extreme this leads to designer babies and aborting children with disabilities, but it also shows itself in the social media pre-occupation with selfies, 'likes' 'ops' and 'rates'. Idolising the body leads not only to vanity but also to body shaming and self-esteem issues.

On the other hand there can be a despising of the body where the 'spirit' of a person is seen to be the only authentic 'person' and the body is merely a vehicle for the spirit. In Christian Theology this is known as the heresy of 'Gnosticism' but it is a common belief of Eastern religions such as Hinduism and Buddhism, and the New Age beliefs inspired by them. This separation of body and spiritual means that the body can be used and abused in any way particularly if it will 'enhance' the spirit's well-being.

Christianity, however, gets a different perspective on the body from the Bible, and in particular from its key doctrines of creation, incarnation and resurrection. The Creation story in Genesis teaches that God made humans, male and female, as 'ensouled flesh' i.e. as physical bodies infused with his living spirit. Our bodies are essential to our being, so much so that God says that he forms us in the womb (Jeremiah 1:5) and the Psalmist speaks of God knitting and weaving us in our mothers' wombs so we are wonderfully made (Psalm 139:13-16). There is no separation between our bodies and our spirits: we are our bodies as much as we are our spirits.

The incarnation reminds us that not only did God make us to be flesh and blood, but that in Jesus he became human, complete with flesh and blood. Another heresy in the early church said that only Jesus' body was human, while his mind was divine. However, Jesus was like us in every way, flesh and blood (Hebrews 2:14,17) and mind too (Hebrews 4:15). Body and spirit together make up a human being and God affirmed the value of human beings by becoming one!

The resurrection accounts of Jesus make it very clear that he was raised physically and spiritually. Jesus even says to his disciples “Touch me and see; a ghost does not have flesh and bones, as you see I have” (Luke 24:39). This tells us that we're not waiting for death to release our spirits from our bodies but that we're waiting for our bodies to be renewed to be imperishable, glorious and powerful (1Corinthians 15:42-44). So, whether you're beach-ready or not: love your body, care for your body and worship the God who created your body.

Advent Reflections: Love

A couple of years ago we looked at the four traditional themes of Advent  Death, Judgement, Heaven and Hell ('The Four Last Things'). This year we're going to look at another set of Advent themes: Hope, Peace, Joy and Love. As the theme of this year's Advent course is Hope (and it was the theme of my November magazine article!), we'll look at the other three. This week it's Love.

To say that Christmas is a time for love seems unnecessary as it's very hard to avoid sentiments of love at Christmas. Love for our nearest and dearest shown by cards and presents, love for our fellow humans shown by charitable giving, Christmas adverts speaking of 'real love'. This is unsurprising as, in the words of Christina Rossetti: “Love came down at Christmas...Love Incarnate, Love Divine.”

This is the acceptably religious side of Christmas: celebrating the birth of someone who had a God-given mission to teach the world that we should love one another; someone who could be said to have been the most loving person that ever lived; who embodied love and practised divine love. But if this is all that we believe about Jesus, we've only grasped a tiny part of the significance of his birth. Yes, he was a loving person, and yes he was the most perfectly loving person there has ever been, but he is so much more than that.

The Bible tells us that God is Love (1 John 4:8), and that in Jesus God became human, he was literally (Divine) Love Incarnate. That's what's so amazing about Christmas! As Paul writes: Jesus although “being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness” (Philippians 2:6-7). The worship song writer Matt Redman put it this way, “The voice that said 'Let there be light' is heard within a newborn cry” ('The Name of Emmanuel').  Another worship song writer, Stuart Townend wrote this: “the mighty Prince of Life shelters in a stable. Hands that set each star in place, shaped the earth in darkness, cling now to a mother's breast, vulnerable and helpless” ('Joy has Dawned').  Read those words again to yourself slowly and let the mind-blowing truth sink in!

The miracle of Christmas is the miracle of God becoming human. But he didn't become human just to give us a good example to follow, he came to express his love for us. In his earthly ministry Jesus healed the sick and lifted up the weak and vulnerable, but these demonstrations of his love were limited to that one area of the world at that one time in history. God had bigger plans than that! He wanted to do something that would demonstrate his love for all people, from all times and all places, and what he would do would be achieve the restoration of our relationship with him that has been broken through our sin.

That restoration required reparation for the punishment that we owe because of that sin. We can't pay that price because we are not perfect, but God could because he is perfect. So “God expressed His love for the world in this way: He gave His only Son so that whoever believes in Him will not face everlasting destruction, but will have everlasting life” (John 3:16 The Voice Translation). And “[t]his is how God showed his love among us: he sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins” (1 John 4:9-10). And “God demonstrates his own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8).

So our Advent theme of Love prepares us for the Love that came at Christmas; the Divine Love Incarnate in Jesus, which also reminds us to “Celebrate the cradle to the cross, celebrate the gift, celebrate the cost. For one without the other, the significance is lost. Celebrate the cradle to the cross” (Karl Berg - 'The Cradle to the Cross').  And our response? “Love so amazing, so Divine, demands my soul, my life, my all.”

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”?