Christ in a time of lock-down

Jesus Appears to His Disciples

19 On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jewish leaders, Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you!” 20 After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord.

21 Again Jesus said, “Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.” 22 And with that he breathed on them and said, “Receive the Holy Spirit. 23 If you forgive anyone’s sins, their sins are forgiven; if you do not forgive them, they are not forgiven.”  John 20 NIV

This was our reading set for Easter Tuesday, and it seemed more than usually appropriate in a time of lock-down. The disciples were fearful for their lives, they had all deserted Jesus in His hour of need, all the teaching that Jesus had given them about His resurrection had been forgotten, and their faith had evaporated. However, Jesus' love for them was the same as ever, death could not hold Him, and the most amazing event in history had happened. All the mighty power of the Godhead flowed back into the dead body of Jesus, and He was wonderfully brought back to life. The disciples' fear was turned into joy as they saw their beloved friend alive again. 

  

I wonder what the conversation was in that upper room before Jesus appeared. There would have been fear, anguish, recrimination,regrets, circular arguments of what could have been done, self-guilt and doubt; or perhaps just a gloomy silence as minutes and hours passed. I wonder how that compares with how you are feeling during lock-down.

Everything was changed in that room with the appearance of Jesus. Fear and gloom were dispelled by the return of their friend, and lives were instantly transformed as Jesus breathed back into them the breath of His spirit. 

Slowly, Jesus restored the little band of disciples, with Peter now as their spokesperson after his recommissioning by Jesus, after that miraculous catch of fish by the lake. Finally, when all had been achieved, Jesus ascended into heaven, watched by His friends. However, yet more patience was required, as they again waited in that upper room. Not now in fear but in obedient expectation, awaiting the promised power that was going to fall upon them. Constantly in patient prayer. Then a whole forty days later, during the feast of Pentecost, harvest came with a rushing mighty wind and tongues of fire. The gospel of Jesus broke out of lock-down in a mighty tidal wave of love, healing and evangelism which within a few years engulfed the whole known world, and a flame was lit which will never be extinguished. 

So let us wait patiently in our little rooms and houses, expectant that the risen Jesus will appear to us; let us pray for the Holy Spirit to fill us anew so that once this period of exclusion has finished, we can go out into a new wave of revival that will flow throughout the whole world.

Resurrection joy

Christ is risen

This has been a strange Easter for all of us usually a joyful family time, but now celebrated by many on there own, my prayer goes out to everyone that this Easter will be special in that they have a close encounter with the risen Lord Jesus and celebrate, why not join with me in an Easter song of praise.  

Sing loud songs of exaltation, Christ is risen from the grave.

Gladly bring your adoration, Jesus Christ has power to save.

Satan’s power has been defeated,

Death and hell have lost their sting

Christ’s redeemed rise up together

Joyful alleluias bring.

Now there is no condemnation, Christ has taken all my sin

Gladly on the cross he bore it, fallen humankind to win

Now we have the living Spirit

Giving life to mortal flesh

Filling us with full assurance,

Clothed with Jesu’s righteousness

We are filled with Christ’s own Spirit, clothing us with risen power.

We shall walk the road with Jesus, day by day and hour by hour

We proclaim the gospel message:

“We are saved by Jesus’ love”

Bringing many souls to Jesus,

Linking earth with heaven above.

 Tune: Ode to Joy, Beethoven "Sing to God New Songs of Worship”

1 Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb 12 and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.

13 They asked her, “Woman, why are you crying?”

“They have taken my Lord away,” she said, “and I don’t know where they have put him.” 14 At this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, but she did not realize that it was Jesus.

15 He asked her, “Woman, why are you crying? Who is it you are looking for?”

Thinking he was the gardener, she said, “Sir, if you have carried him away, tell me where you have put him, and I will get him.”

16 Jesus said to her, “Mary.”

She turned toward him and cried out in Aramaic, “Rabboni!” (which means “Teacher”).

17 Jesus said, “Do not hold on to me, for I have not yet ascended to the Father. Go instead to my brothers and tell them, ‘I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God.’”

18 Mary Magdalene went to the disciples with the news: “I have seen the Lord!” And she told them that he had said these things to her.      John 20 NIV

Here is a youtube video with with some cute kids talking about Jesus

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus, sacrifice courage and kindness.

Hopeful by Howard Zinn

To be hopeful in bad times is not just foolishly romantic. It is based on the fact that human history is a history not only of cruelty, but also of compassion, sacrifice, courage, kindness. What we choose to emphasise in this complex history will determine our lives.

If we see only the worst, it destroys our capacity to do something.

If we remember those times and places — and there are so many — where people have behaved magnificently, this gives us the energy to act, and at least the possibility of sending this spinning top of a world in a different direction.

And if we do act, in however small a way, we don’t have to wait for some grand utopian future. The future is an infinite succession of presents, and to live now as we think human beings should live, in defiance of all that is bad around us, is itself a marvellous victory.

Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus

It was already late on Friday afternoon, and the body had to be taken down from the cross, before the start of Passover. All the fear that had haunted them before about supporting Jesus had gone. They were disgusted at the illegal secret trial held on Thursday night, which they knew nothing about, and so they arrived too late on Friday morning, when Jesus had already been delivered over to Pilate with a cruel howling mob baying for His death. There was nothing that they could have done in that horrible moment when Jesus, already bloody from a beating, was led out to be crucified, but there was still one thing they could do now. That was to stop His body being thrown into some anonymous pit with the other criminals who had been executed. 

Joseph was no youngster, and in fact he had only recently thought about preparing a tomb for his own burial, it had been newly completed, and was there, empty and available to be used, it would be an honour to share his own tomb with such a wise rabbi, or was Jesus more than that? Joseph had thought that He could have been the Messiah long expected but the body hanging on Roman cross looked nothing like an all-conquering king.

Being a member of the council, it was not a problem for Joseph to get an audience with Pilate, who gave the necessary permission after sending a centurion to make  doubly sure that Jesus was really dead.

Getting the body down from the cross was quite a  struggle for two elderly and usually  very dignified men who were not used to physical work. 

Handling a body the night before Passover was going to make them ritually unclean, something any self respecting religious man would never do. However, they were driven by compassion and a strange inner compulsion that this was their destiny: to fulfill that one line in the prophecy of Isaiah:

And they made his grave with the wicked
    and with a rich man in his death,
although he had done no violence,
    and there was no deceit in his mouth.

So, as gently as they could, they bandaged the body, interspersed with the few spices they could find; Mary and the other women would have to come and do the job more thoroughly in the morning, so  as night fell they left with a strange new  confidence that they had not just buried a body, but planted a seed.

τετέλεσται Tetelestai: It is finished

Oh that my head were waters,
    and my eyes a fountain of tears,
that I might weep day and night
    for the slain of the daughter of my people!

Jeremiah9:1

Today, Good Friday, Mary and I tuned in to our church's (Trinity)  Good Friday service. By the middle of the first hymn we were both in tears. The first hymn, " There is a green hill far away" a simple children's hymn that we had both sung from children, held many emotions for both of us. This time of lockdown and uncertainty for many of us has left many raw emotions. We have seen the death toll rise steadily, and we hear of friends infected and some killed by the virus.   

So why is today so important for us? How is a would-be Messiah dying on a cross, relevant to the situation we find ourselves in? As we look at a bloodied and half dead man on a cross, this looks like a total failure. His cry of "It is finished!" sounds like  the cry of a vanquished man admitting defeat. However, it is not a cry of despair but a victory shout. Jesus had achieved all that He had set out to do, triumphing over sin and the devil, and bringing all who believe in Him out of the deadness of their sinful disobedience into New Life with Him.
However I will leave Steve our vicar to explain as he can do it much better than I can.

Trinity live Good Friday Sermon

The sermon starts 27 minutes into the service.

      

                                                                                           

Gethsemane

4Surely, he has borne our griefs
and carried our sorrows;
yet we esteemed him stricken,
smitten by God, and afflicted.
5But he was pierced for our transgressions;
he was crushed for our iniquities;
upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace,
and with his wounds we are healed.
6All we like sheep have gone astray;
we have turned—every one—to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all. Isaiah 53.ESV

Several years ago we visited Jerusalem and the Garden of Gethsemane with  Amos trust . In the garden there are ancient olive trees, they say they may well have been the same trees that were there in Jesus's day, at least they were very old, the trunks were  very gnarled and distorted. with the eye of imagination you could almost make out a figure in the trunks convulsed in terrible agony.

39 And he came out and went, as was his custom, to the Mount of Olives, and the disciples followed him. 40 And when he came to the place, he said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” 41 And he withdrew from them about a stone's throw, and knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if you are willing, remove this cup from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but yours, be done.” 43 And there appeared to him an angel from heaven, strengthening him. 44 And being in agony he prayed more earnestly; and his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.[g] 45 And when he rose from prayer, he came to the disciples and found them sleeping for sorrow

 Luke 22 ESV

Of course especially today, Maundy Thursday, we remember Christ's agony in the garden. In fact, the origin of the word Gethsemane means an olive press and we can link that with the passage in 

Isaiah 53, "He was crushed for our iniquities." 

Just as the olives have to be crushed to produce healing oil so Jesus had to be crushed for healing the sins of the world as his life drained away on the cross so we can receive all the benefits of what Christ had to go through on the cross.

 Jesus could have chosen not to die, in fact that is what every thought was telling Him as he sweated drops of blood in the garden, but He resolved, "not my will but your will be done", So we can remember all that Christ went through for us and our salvation, as we approach Good Friday. Of course it does not end there; tomorrow may be Friday but His Father did not leave Him in the grave. Easter Sunday is coming when we joyfully celebrate that Jesus rose from the dead.

    

An ambassador in chains

Pray also for me, that words may be given to me in opening my mouth boldly to proclaim the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains, that I may declare it boldly, as I ought to speak. Ephesians 6 ESV

A few years ago Mary and I visited Jerusalem with a group from Amos trust. Out of the many churches and sites we visited one that made a lasting impression on me was the House of the High priest and in particular the dungeon underneath. This was a tiny cell with an adjoining guard room, only accessed in Jesus' day by a hole through the roof. 

Here we heard some of the psalms of lament read to us in English and Aramaic, which would have been the language similar to what Jesus would have spoken. These psalms are real cries of woe, such as Psalm 130 " Out of the depths have I cried unto thee, O Lord." , but end we real expressions of confidence in God as Saviour and redeemer: "Let Israel hope in the Lord: for with the Lord there is mercy, and with him is plenteous redemption.

8 And he shall redeem Israel from all his iniquities."

Of course for Jesus this Psalm was really prophetic He really was the one who would redeem Israel and not just Israel but every one on earth who believed in Him.

Prison has in fact been a fertile place to spread the Gospel, a place of enforced quiet where freed from distractions creative forces can flow.

One example is John Bunyan, tinker and itinerant preacher who was repeatedly imprisoned for preaching the Gospel without a license. He wrote one of the most famous and influential books in the English language, Pilgrims Progress while in Bedford jail.

The most famous author who wrote some of his most amazing work in prison, was St Paul who was imprisoned on several occasions throughout his ministry but most famously in Rome imprisoned under house arrest chained to a Roman soldier all the time.

He wrote his famous prison letters: Ephesians, Philippians,Colossians and Philemon. Each letter is full of the deepest wisdom of God, particularly highlighting the love and grace of Jesus and Philippians especially brimming over with an amazing Gospel joy.   

So at the moment most of us are in self isolation and the challenge is how can we be ambassadors in chains? Everyone will have a different answer to this question as each of us have different skills and talents. We are so lucky in theses days to be connected to the internet so there  are still many ways to communicate, indeed local communities are interacting in more ways than ever before sharing shopping trips and little moments of fun and amusement.
it may be however that we are called on to just be alone spending time on communion with God.
Saint Paul like many great saints in the bible spent time in the desert after he was called getting to know the saviour who had appeared so miraculously to him on the Damascus road.
So let us all strive to come out of this lock-down period as better people with more love and concern for neighbours and friends and a deeper relationship with Jesus.

   

On butterflies wings

On our visit to Nicaragua with CEPAD we visited a butterfly sanctuary.
Butterflies are the most beautiful and fragile of creatures. Each a precious jewel, but most transient of nature's treasures. Each one perfectly honed to fit into its own microcosm, with bright wings designed to startle and confuse. Jagged stripes breaking up outlines; but folded wings perfect camouflage on one species of tree.

Butterflies are the most significant of creatures. Each tied to its own habitat. So once that habitat has gone so has the species. They say that one flap of a butterflies wings in the Amazon can kindle a hurricane on the other side of the world.
Each one of us are interconnected by threads more delicate than a spider's web and we should not forget that.
In February  we visited projects in Nicaragua run by a local organisation called CEPAD, it works with a community with local committees over 5 years. They help to build sustainability and self reliance so that they are reshaping their own future through training in agriculture and other skills.
After 5 years when CEPAD leaves there is a vibrant local community which pass on all the skills they have learnt to friends and neighbours.

Digging small basins to collect rainwater

 Planting seeds on ridges with plenty of home made compost incorporated

Rosa an amazing lady demonstrating how she collects and stores seeds to prevent insects and deterioration

This amazing fruit orchard was made possible by digging a well to harvest water deep 

underground to water the fruit trees which is needed regularly during the long dry season

Visiting the various communities we have all been significantly struck by how climate change is deeply affecting their lives. The rains are unpredictable, sometimes not coming at all. Then in torrents so that seeds are washed away and some communities are totally cut off from the outside world with no access to the outside world for example medical emergencies. Homes need to be rebuilt away from the river if funds were available, of course the river really needs to be near to give access to irrigation in an ever drying land.
Which takes me back to the spiders web and the butterflies wings. It is our actions on the other side of the world which are causing these problems and we have a responsibility to solve them. Life is becoming increasingly difficult for these people and our inaction in the richer countries is really deplorable. We all need to change and change rapidly before this most beautiful and intricate planet becomes uninhabitable. To make a donation from the UK visit the Amos Trust website, Or you can make a donation in dollars, visit CEPAD