Advent:waiting to welcome the King

We believe in the "blasphemous" glory of Immanuel; ‘infinity dwindled to infancy’, as the poet once said. We believe in omnipotence surrendering to incontinence, the name above every other name rumoured to be illegitimate. We believe that God’s eternal Word once squealed like a baby and, when eventually he learned to speak, it was with a regional accent. The Creator of the cosmos made tables and presumably he made them badly at first. The Holy One of Israel got dirt in the creases of his hands. Here is our God – the Sovereign who ‘emptied himself out into the nature of a man’,

Greig, Pete. Dirty Glory: Go Where Your Best Prayers Take You (Red Moon Chronicles #2) (p. 3). Hodder & Stoughton. Kindle Edition.

Today we changed the drapes at Southover Trinity. For a month they will be purple, the same colour as for Lent. Advent is a wonderful time when we celebrate the coming of Christ. Not just as a baby in a manger, but as the glorious coming king when he will fully come into His kingdom; to reign over a renewed  heaven and earth, with all His gathered people .  It is the time for waiting with expectancy for the coming of the Lord Jesus into our hearts as Lord and King. Not a time for making dizzy preparations for the commercial orgy of spending and overconsumption which it has become in our land.

As the message version of John 1:14 says," the word became flesh and moved into our neighbourhood". So, the same God who got His hands dirty tenderly kneading clay and forming humankind, played in the mud around the well, making mud-pies with His little friends. The same hands that were ingrained with the toil of the carpenter’s shop, made soil into mud to open the eyes of a blind man.  The same hands which broke bread and blessed wine, were blooded and marred by cruel nails which tore into them.   

As we contemplate the two advents of Jesus we see a person who is fully human as well as fully God. Someone who gets His hands dirty in the messiness of our lives and problems. Someone who is always present, always loving, always ready to accept us as we are, always ready to come into the middle of our lives, to save and heal us. He doesn’t just want to come and live in our neighbourhood, He wants to come as our intimate friend.

We do not just celebrate Jesus as a little baby who came in some distant past or a coming glorious king who comes in some undisclosed future; but a king who is here now, wanting to bring his loving burning presence into the very centre of our hearts and lives as our Saviour and King.    

My personal prayer is for more of Jesus in my own life. Without Christ I am powerless to be loving and kind. Powerless to make a difference in the lives of those I meet,

So let us each spend time this Advent in penitence for the times when we have pushed Christ to the edge of our lives and pursued our own desires, wanting to walk our own path rather than walking in Christ’s footsteps.

This Christmas may we know the true meaning of Emmanuel, Christ with us and Christ in us. 

Refugees: Exclusion or embrace?

At the heart of the cross is Christ's stance of not letting the other remain an enemy and of creating space in himself for the offender to come in......“While we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son,”  (Romans 5: 10). The cross is the giving up of God's self in order not to give up on humanity; it is the consequence of God's desire to break the power of human enmity without violence and receive human beings into divine communion. The goal of the cross is the dwelling of human beings “in the Spirit,” “in Christ,” and “in God.” Forgiveness is therefore not the culmination of Christ's relation to the offending other; it is a passage leading to embrace. The arms of the crucified are open— a sign of a space in God's self and an invitation for the enemy to come in. As an expression of the will to embrace the enemy.

Volf, Miroslav. Exclusion & Embrace: A Theological Exploration of Identity, Otherness, and Reconciliation (p. 126). Abingdon Press. Kindle Edition

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This autumn we spent two weeks walking along the route of the via Ignatia from Thessaloniki to Alexandropolis. It is an ancient route built by the Romans linking Rome with Constantinople.
The superb roads built by the Romans where the means by which the Romans conquered and kept subdued the majority of the known world. Over the years the route has seen armies march , St Paul took the Christian message from Neapolis ( modern Kavalla ) to Thessalonica passing through Phillipi   and Amphipolis on the way. Along it armies of the crusaders going East and the Ottoman Turks going west as they invaded Europe. It has been an important trade route and of late has seen rag tag groups of refugees going west hoping to find safety, homes and employment in Europe.
We met various groups of refugees along the way. It was very heart rending listening to some of the stories these people had gone through. We hear the stories of refugees being cast out to sea in open boats in the media , however they take another dimension when told by a young teenager who has lost family and friends and is alone cast up upon a foreign shore, totally unsupported and alone.

  

We were particularly impressed by a group in Kilkis a little town north of Thessalonica near the Macedonian border which was suddenly closed producing a sudden "pile up" of refugees in camps with appalling conditions near the border. The citizens went in to help even inviting them into their own homes. They soon formed a charity Omes.gr which housed them in empty flats in the town providing education, social and legal support. they were even given the contract to carry on this work by the UNHCR .

On another occasion we met some refugees on a beach near Kavala again we heard many sad stories, one of our group played the oud a instrument of the middle east and sang some of the songs they knew from home, which they loved as they joined in to these songs from home.

We were able to deliver a van load of nappies and sanitary requisites which our group were able to purchase.   

So how should we respond to the stranger and refugee the bible is very clear: Isaiah 58:7-7 “Is not this the fast that I choose: to loose the bonds of wickedness, to undo the straps of the yoke,to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke?  Is it not to share your bread with the hungry and bring the homeless poor into your house;when you see the naked, to cover him, and not to hide yourself from your own flesh?

In this country we see strangers foreigners and refugees as a threat.

We see them as the enemy, the "other", rather than potential friends.

As Christians we remember that: while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son Romans 5.  Therefore we are given a message of reconciliation, 2 Corinthians 5.

As Christians we must speak out against xenophobia and look for ways to love and practically help all those of whom we become aware who are marginalised and suffering.

One of the charities we saw working on the ground was Help Refugees. Get involved choose love.       

Worship: The adoration of the crucified risen and ascended Lord Jesus

Imagine a dark church at 3 o'clock in the morning, you have been woken from sleep by the church clock. You struggle into wakefulness and strike a match which shines out into the church and you light a candle that is placed before a simple wooden cross. 

As the stark image of the cross seems to flow and grow filling your field of vision, the words of Isaiah 6  " I saw the Lord high and lifted up" come into your mind as the image of the cross sparks the imagination. 

However, the image of the  cross does not support a vision of God clothed in fiery royal finery, seated on a majestic throne, but of a king stripped naked and bloody with skin stripped off by flogging and hands pierced by cruel nails.   
Isaiah's vision produces holy fear and underlines our need for repentance in the face of a thrice Holy God.
 However the vision of Jesus lifted high on the cross fills our hearts with love for a God who left his throne in the heavenly places to suffer and die the most horrible and degrading death for everyone who puts their trust in Him. The glory of the cross is a very strange sort of glory. Jesus knew that he had to be lifted up, like the serpent in the wilderness, then He would draw all people to Himself.

Philippians2:6-11  is a wonderful picture of Jesus as the obedient son of God leaving the majesty of heaven and the perpetual love of the trinity of  persons of which he was fully part. He laid aside all the joys and majesty of that union to become fully human, suffering everything that we suffer, including death, even death on a cross.

However the death or Jesus was followed by His glorious resurrection and ascension. On the cross our broken nature and our lives which end in death were totally transformed, by the power of what Jesus did on the cross. We have been transferred from the kingdom of this world of sin and death to the Kingdom of Christ and to life in a new world  were Jesus reigns as God and King. The dividing wall that separated us from God has been broken down and we have free access into the throne room of grace.     
Once we give our lives to Christ we are given everything that Jesus achieved, by His death on the cross.

Our lives which were once full of pride and totally obsessed with self, have become the place where love flows out to all around, helping to bring in the kingdom of Christ, until our physical death calls us to life with Him.  
We can then continue in adoration, love and worship of our wonderful crucified raised and glorified Jesus Christ in His new restored creation; a unified heaven and earth. 
  

  

The Miracle of Dunkirk and the power of intercession.

Earlier this month we went to the new Lewes cinema,The Depot, which is a fine new building in which to see Dunkirk the movie. It is a dramatized chronicle of the battle, and it was very well portrayed.

May 1940 was a very dark day for the allies as they had been encircled by the German armies and were in danger of total destruction. In fact, there would have been a terrible defeat, apart from 3 incidents which allowed the army to be evacuated by a fleet of naval and little ships which managed to ferry over 338,000 men over the channel in a few days. The three miracles which occurred were Hitler’s order to halt the advance of the German army, a terrible storm over Flanders which prevented the bulk of the German air force taking off, and a flat, calm Channel. So, what caused The Miracle of Dunkirk ? Certainly, the whole population of England was motivated to pray, from the King, downwards. However, the story goes deeper, and it started back in 1879, when a young boy was born in a Welsh mining village. The name of the boy was Rees Howells.

Rees was born into the time and place of the Welsh revival, and he had two deep spiritual experiences. One was when he was dying of cholera and he made a total commitment of his life to Jesus. The other was when he experienced the Holy Spirit, not just as an influence which came over the revival meetings, but as a real person, who with the Father and Son shared a deep emotional commitment to their created world. Rees began to actually feel the deep anguish and love which the Godhead felt for their deeply broken creation.

He lived out a life that was really in touch with God, and he slowly learnt the discipline of obedience to what God was saying to Him through the inner promptings of the Holy Spirit. His power grew as an intercessor, first within his local community, then in a wider context in Christian ministry and healing. He went to South Africa, where, under his influence, there was a major spiritual revival.

On his return to this country he founded a Bible school in Wales. He initiated many projects, never asking for any money. He simply prayed to God who always provided the exact amount without any external requests. Very early in the rise of Hitler and his party in Germany, Rees saw him for what he was, an agent of evil and the enemy of the work of Christ all over the world.

Rees saw it as his job to pray and intercede, first of all for peace and, when war was declared, for a quick and peaceful conclusion. However, as events progressed, he saw he must uphold the Christian west and pray for the defeat of Hitler. So, he created a band of like-minded people in his Welsh bible school where they interceded right through the war for many hours of every day, including asking for God’s intervention at Dunkirk.

You can learn much more about his story by reading his biography by Norman Grubb. However, it comes with a warning: you might find it a very deep challenge to your own level of commitment to Christ. I certainly did.

What is Intercession?

Intercession is a form of intensified prayer, which is characterised by three things.

Firstly, an intercessor is deeply identified with the one who is prayed for; they have submerged all their own interests for the needs and suffering of the other.

Secondly, there are tears. Just as Christ wept over Jerusalem, so the intercessor shares the “groanings too deep for words” of the Spirit (Romans 8:26).

Thirdly, there is the gained place of intercession, an inner peace that God has heard and answered the desires of our hearts for that person or situation, and we can turn from intercession to praise and worship of our generous God.

Are you willing to spend time praying for our Church, town and country?

If you feel called to be an intercessor, do read the book. You can contact Letchmi Wall who organises Trinity’s monthly prayer gathering for people who intercede for the church, or Serena Smith who organises the monthly town wide Saturday prayer time.

God is not dead

It’s related that once in the life of Martin Luther, his wife Katie came down in the morning and greeted him and she was attired in mourning, she was in black, and Luther said to her, “Why are you wearing mourning?”
     She said, “Because God is dead.”
     He said, “Nonsense, woman, God isn’t dead.”
     She said to him, “Well, if God isn’t dead, why do you act as if He were?” And that was a real rebuke to Martin Luther, the great reformer, the great interpreter of Scripture. (quoted from DPM weekly E-devotional)

Jesus Christ is very much alive living and living in this world in His church and in individuals who have been born from above, so why do we sometimes act as though he has no hold or influence on us?

Paradoxically, we can only be alive in Christ if we die to self and allow the living Jesus to take control of our minds and bodies. Jesus said, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. ²⁵ For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. “Matt 16 v24b-25.

St Paul lived this out and he could say, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.” Galatians 2:20.

As baptised followers of Jesus we carry with us the wonderful illustration of baptism, where we are taken down into the water, symbolising death and burial of the old selfish nature and we rise up to new life, joining with Jesus in His resurrection.

So in practice how do we live our lives, fully empowered by the living Christ. It is not an easy road, because it is one which involves the suffering of taking up our cross daily. “that I may know Christ and the power of his resurrection, and may share his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead.” Philippians 3:10-11.

It is a radical decision that involves giving up all our pride, ambition and self-will. It involves giving up control of our lives to the Holy Spirit, to become clean empty vessels through whom the Holy Spirit may flow to a world which is so in need of the love and compassion which the Holy Spirit of Jesus can give working through us.

As we have been learning in our recent sermons it is about being filled daily with the fullness of the Holy Spirit to have the power to live our lives overflowing with the sacrificial love and life-giving power of the living Lord Jesus. This week in the Antioch club we had Neill Stannard, who is starting his training for ordination this autumn, giving his testimony. It was amazing how God had been working in him throughout his life, often through very difficult times, and times of rebellion; God was always there, supplying just the right people and circumstances to lead him on his chosen path, and making a life changing impression on so many people he was in contact with both in his work as a school teacher and in other areas of life like the rugby field.

So, we have a choice, we can live as nominal Christians attending church on Sunday, but living the rest of the week as if God is dead in our lives: or we can live amazing Spirit filled lives with the life of Jesus flowing out to our communities and everyone we meet. Start each day by asking Jesus afresh int o your life through the power of His Spirit.

No one can enter a strong man's house and plunder his goods, unless he first binds the strong man

“in Gashonga archdeaconry. The missionaries are doing well and the church is growing. I have baptised over 100 new members”, our friend Pastor Ephraim 18/5/17

By 6 pm on the first Good Friday something had changed, in fact the world had changed. Jesus’s death on the cross had caused the defeat of the Kingdom of this world and the Kingdom of Jesus Christ had begun (from NT Wright’s book, “The day the revolution began”). 

 This powerful and self-giving event is the powerhouse from which we can work out our mission to “see lives transformed by the love of Christ”, first in ourselves, then in our Church community, then outwards into our neighbours in Lewes and on into the wider world.

 On the cross, Jesus’s blood was poured out for many, for the forgiveness of sins; it was the place where the power of all the evil forces in the world were destroyed, and it was the place where heaven and earth were reunited and the rule of the Kingdom of God came with power. He took on Himself all the power that death could throw at Him: humiliation, rejection, scorn, pain and the deepest sorrow. Having all this laid upon Him, he demonstrated His victory as the love and dynamic power of the Father raised Him to new life, showing that the final enemy, death, had been decisively defeated. 

It was the place where the self-giving love of the Triune God was powerfully demonstrated by the suffering servant who poured out His blood to purify us from our sins, re-creating us as His witnesses on earth to proclaim that love, as we allow God’s Holy Spirit to work in our lives, to remake us in His divine self-sacrificing image.     

Binding the strong man

Come to this table, not because you must but because you may, not because you are strong, but because you are weak. Come, not because any goodness of your own gives you a right to come, but because you need mercy and help. Come, because you love the Lord a little and would like to love him more. Come, because he loved you and gave himself for you

‘On the last Sunday that we were in Rwanda we were sat in a Pastor’s house after a wonderful service followed by a wonderful traditional African meal. When the Pastor, Charles, who most will know who have visited Rwanda, spoke about a new threat which he felt was threatening the country and the church. After many years of reconciliation and mutual forgiveness the country had worked through the worst of the problems created by the genocide but he saw a new evil which was not so easily dealt with. That was a growing materialism and lack of Love for Christ, which was manifesting in a falling away of Sunday observance and the disintegration of marriages and unfaithfulness particularly on the part of the husband even in Christian circles.  This was especially true in the capitol with its increasing wealth and materialism. Sadly this is being imported from the wealthy countries such as our own where materialism is so widely entrenched that we hardly notice it as a problem.

In the Sermon on the mount Jesus presented us with a stark choice we either love God or money he used the term the god Mammon. 

Recently Steve preached   on the fruit of the Spirit and how we overcome our evil desires. Our problem is that we tend to love ourselves There are many things in our lives which are not ultimately bad but the problem is that we love them too much.

Ultimately the issue is who do we love and who or what do we worship.

While we are alive we have a mighty battle on our hands, but we can choose our battle ground. Jesus does not want us to feel guilty and defeated by our lack of love for Him. If we stop trying to pull ourselves up by our own bootstrings and focus on worship and adoration of Jesus, inspired and assisted by the Holy Spirit we find ourselves drawn more and more into His love. 

If we meditate on the love and self-sacrifice that Jesus showered onto us by His loving self-giving of His own life on the cross for each of us as individuals, we will be drawn into the circle of perpetual mutual self-sacrificial love, which the three persons of the Godhead have for each other.

As the old hymn has it :

Turn your eyes upon Jesus,
Look full in His wonderful face,
And the things of earth will grow strangely dim,
  In the light of His glory and grace.