Immanuel: God with us

Loves furnace in a little room.

Forget not Trinity holy and glorious

That heaven’s bright prince came down to bestow on us

His love, as babe, into Mary’s fair womb

For nine months, he who is angels lord

Was hidden, love’s furnace, in a little room

Humbler than all, who all adored.

A pure lamb, he stole down to earth

To free us from our sin so blind .

No city home will shield his birth

His mother a stable for bed must find;

There poorest of the poor she lay

Nor wine nor meat for hungers sting

In the rude confines of the cattle bay

Where God was born apostle’s king.

Cold and exile He did not scorn

In the donkey’s manger that holy morn.

Tadg Gaelach O Suilleabhain.

When we contemplate that the fiery furnace of love, who created  the worlds, confined himself to a growing embryo in a poor  young girl we are overcome by wonder and awe.

He identified himself with the poor, the homeless and the refugee. He entered the world that He had created in all its grime, confusion and suffering. The God we worship and adore did not hold himself apart but entered into the very depths of all its sorrows and suffering.

This is who we worship this Christmas, Immanuel, meaning God with us, He enters into every joy and sorrow which we experience.   He is especially with the poor the homeless and the refugee, so we this Christmas each one of us to do what we are able to bring peace and equality into a world which so desperately needs it at present .  So let each of us in the coming year do our little bit to bring about a better world, as we submit to and obey a better king, King Jesus. 

The suffering Trinity

The Son’s obedience and the Father’s suffering would be meaningless without the third person of the trinity, the Spirit. The Spirit, even now, connects us to this moment in history that, defined God’s relationship with us. At the moment of Jesus’ crucifixion, the vision of the Trinity is most available on earth for “the Son suffers death in our God-forsakenness, the Father suffers the death of his beloved Son and the Spirit binds the other two together through unspoken sighs.” The encircling motion, and the divine connection between the three persons, who all feel the anguish of the cross event, binds humanity to the will of God. Sara Loperana

Some moments in our lives we are blessed by a revelation of divine wonder. I remember one such event when I was in a work camp in Italy and had gone down to the beach for a star-lit swim. I dived into the sea and floated on my back to be suddenly struck by the amazing beauty of the awful immensity of the universe shining down compared with my tiny insignificance floating in a dark sea, and amazed that God should be interested and even love me.

Recently Steve has been talking a lot about the love of Jesus for us and our desire and duty to reciprocate that love. Also, recently we had a Trinity connect event explaining a little about the Trinity of the Godhead.

 I think the idea of God as a loving community of three persons bound together in a loving servanthood of love is a life changing concept. God has always existed as a unity of three persons bound together in an inseparable bond of intimate love, pleasure and adoration. 

This continued when Jesus came to earth, we see the three persons of the Godhead in an intimate moment of love when the Father says of Jesus, “This is my beloved Son, and I am wonderfully pleased with him.”  (Mat 3:17) and in John 17 we see Jesus’ intimate relationship with his Father, as he prays for his disciples.

However, we have to ask ourselves what happened to the unity of the Trinity as Jesus was crucified and He cried out,” My God why have you forsaken me?” As Jesus bore the full weight of the sins of the whole world he felt the pain of the whole wayward world lying heavily on His shoulders, the pain of separation by sin, (our rebellion and disobedience), from intimate communion with God. What was experienced at the heart of the Trinity at that moment was something we mere humans cannot fully understand. Somehow the unity of pleasure in community and adoration was fractured; to be replaced by a unity in pain and suffering still bound together by that pain and agape love which is prepared to die for the life of another.

As limited mortals, we cannot fully comprehend the depths of what happened when Jesus died, however we can fall down and worship the pure love of the Godhead as we kneel at the foot of the cross and are overwhelmed by all that Jesus did for us on behalf of the Father and the Spirit; knowing that any form of suffering, bereavement or separation has already been experienced by the loving Trinity. We are comforted in the knowledge that as we pray the Spirit helps us with groans too deep for words. The same prayers of compassion with which the Spirit encircled the cross of Jesus.  

Create in me a pure heart

In our advent home groups this week we have been looking at John the Baptist and his call for repentance. The study chimed a note with me concerning a book I have just read as part of our Antioch group discussions called The Prodigal God by Tim Keller. In it he explores the parable of The father and the two sons in Luke 15 . In the parable we usually focus on the rebellious younger son, who takes his share of the family fortune and goes off to spend it on the good life. However, he eventually runs out of money and is forced into the most disgusting of jobs for a Jew feeding pigs. Eventually he comes to his senses and goes back to the loving forgiving father, who welcomes him with open arms. This is a most wonderful picture of the free grace given by a loving God to a repentant sinner.

However that is only part of the story , if we look at the whole of the chapter we see that there are three stories about things that are lost and were found and  it is directed against the scribes and pharisees who were criticising Jesus for welcoming sinners. In the third parable we see a disconnect with the other two; in the first two we see someone going out to search and find the one which was lost. In the third we might ask, "where is the seeker"? We have to look at the elder brother in the story, he was being a good Jewish boy staying at home and working on the farm, but what were his heart motives? We see from his reaction to the lavish feast given for the repentant younger brother that he is more in love with his inheritance than with love for his father.
The story posed a massive question for me; where was my first love? Was it actually for my loving heavenly Father or had the practice of religion become a substitute for the overwhelming love of our heavenly Father who sent his Son Jesus to rescue us by his death on the cross and Resurrection to life in which we can all share? The older son in the story did not share His Father's heart of love, to seek out the one who was lost.
Our stated aim as a community at Trinity is: to see lives transformed by the love of Christ.

Only as individuals opening our hard hearts to be melted and enraptured by a loving Saviour can we pour out his welcoming, transforming love on a needy world. The arms of Jesus are always open wide for us to run in and to be welcomed back by a loving Saviour.

Batter my heart three personed God

Why do we remember on the Fifth of November?

It was a cool autumn evening, a group of people had gathered in the home of Deryk Carver, a brewer, in Black Lion Street in Brighthelmstone a fishing hamlet connected to the county town of Lewes by the Jugg's way. 

 They had gathered as a small house group to study the Bible and read the English prayer book. This would seem to our eyes an innocuous gathering of citizens.
However the year was 1554 Mary Tudor was on the throne and married Phillip of Spain in that year. 
She had restored the Catholic church and forbidden the reading of the bible in English in fact even owning a bible was punishable by burning. So when the Sheriff of Sussex's men broke in they were caught red handed . Bound and taken to Newgate prison in London, he was interrogated many times by Edmund Bonner, bishop of London and eventually condemned to death. He was brought back to Lewes and a stake with a barrel attached was prepared outside the Starr inn. His bible was thrown in followed by Carver himself and faggots where piled around, before the fire was lit he addressed the crowd.
“Dear brethren and sisters, witness to you all that I am come to seal with my blood Christ’s Gospel, because I know that it is true. It hath been truly preached here in Lewes and in all parts of England but now it is not. Because I will not deny God’s Gospel and be obedient to man’s laws I am condemned to die!” 

His dying prayer as the flames were upon him was, “O Lord my God, Thou hast written, he that will not forsake wife, children house, and all that ever he hath, and take up his cross and follow Thee, is not worthy of Thee. But Thou Lord knowest that I have forsaken all to come unto Thee! Lord, have mercy upon me, for unto Thee I commend my spirit and my soul doth rejoice in Thee”. 

 Carver threw his bible out into the crowd and it was not returned. There was a very old bible stained with  blood said to be his, however this was a  so called "breeches" bible.  So called because of the verse in Genesis where it says that they sewed leaves to form breeches to cover their nakedness. It was first printed in Geneva  in 1560 several years after Carver's death.

Carvers bible would have been the work of William Tyndale and fellow translators Miles Coverdale and John Rogers who edited the texts after Tyndale was himself martyred by burning in 1536 .
Tyndale used the Greek version of the texts which had been compiled by Erasmus of Rotterdam who had edited a parallel compilation of the best Latin and Greek manuscripts which was far superior to the rather corrupted Latin Vulgate which was used at the time. He used the Hebrew bible and lexicon to translate portions of the Old Testament.  Tyndale was concerned that there was a lack of biblical knowledge among both clergy and laity and swore to a fellow cleric, "if God spared him life, ere many years he would cause a boy that driveth the plough to know more of Scripture than he did"
We owe Tyndale an enormous debt for his scholarship, determination, and sheer bravery which saw the bible translated into  English.
In Lewes we commemorate the  brave men and women who read and were transformed by his work. They came to a living faith in Jesus having read His words and story in their native English and were willing to follow Him even into the flames, remembering like Carver the words from Wycliffe's bible :

Matthew 16:24-26Wycliffe Bible (WYC)

24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, If any man will come after me, deny he himself, and take his cross, and follow me;

25 for he that will make his life safe, shall lose it; and he that shall lose his life for me, shall find it.

26 For what profiteth it to a man [Soothly what profiteth to a man], if he win all the world, and suffer impairing of his soul? or what (ex)changing shall a man give for his soul?

Image of God

Genesis 1:27

So God created human beings in his own image.

In the image of God he created them;

male and female he created them.

The first chapter of Genesis is a beautiful reminder of who God is,  who we are, in relation to God and the creation He spoke into existence. However there have probably been more arguments over  how it is to be understood than any other chapter, however I think that all Christians would agree with the statement in Hebrews 11:3:   By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. God made the universe for His own pleasure and enjoyment it reflected his majesty and creativity coming to a climax in the creation of humankind in His image.

So what does the image of God mean?  Looking at the verse, the first thing we see is the joint creation of man and woman as one. Separate persons, but the image in unity, a reflection of God as three persons in one. In the garden of Eden, we see Adam and Eve walking and talking with God; the perfect trio enjoying conversation in the cool of the evening. 

We reflect the image as we abide in loving relationship with other people in a mutuality of love, whether that is as family, church or just a group of friends in some sort of bond of love with each other, a love empowered by the Spirit living within us. 

Every human soul living is made in the image of God, so we have a special duty to love care and respect every human being, regardless of race class or creed. 

It is often helpful to understand a passage to ask, how the writer and the first hearers of the passage would have understood it. The people of the ancient world would have understood an image of God as an idol in a temple. However, the ancient Hebrews understood from very early on that God, a pure spirit, could not be represented by anything made by human hands and the first clauses of the Ten Commandments forbid the worship of any man-made image.Exodus 20 
So, we become the image as the breath of God is breathed into us. Genesis 2:7  As Christians, we are filled with the Spirit who makes us alive in Christ. Our job as image bearers is to reflect the loving character of God to the rest of creation with our own Christ inspired love to a world that has lost sight of God’s presence and character. We are to be the image of Christ to everyone who we meet.

In the next verse in Genesis we are commanded to rule over the rest of creation. This does not mean using creation to our own, ends wrecking it as we do so. It is a command to care for it and look after it just as God himself would, in a sacrificial manner.

However, I think it means much more than this.  At the fall Satan took that authority away from humankind, and Jesus had to come as the second Adam, the perfect image of God, to win back all that was lost. In Christ, we now have the power and authority to change the fallen creation bringing it back into the state God meant it to be through prayer and our own loving and prayerful actions.  

Every soul living is made in the image of God so we have a special duty to love care and respect every human being regardless of race class or creed. 

I close this blog with a fragment from a Celtic liturgy:

Leader: I open my heart to Christ in the stranger,

People: To Christ in the face of colleague and friend,

Leader: I open my heart to the one who is wounded

People: To Christ in the hungry, the lonely, the homeless

Leader: I open my heart to the one who has hurt me

People: To Christ in the faces of sinner and foe

Leader: I open my heart to those who are outcast

People: To Christ in the broken, the prisoner, the poor

Leader: I open my heart to all who are searching

People: To Christ in the world God’s generous gift

In the beginning God created

This first verse of Genesis rings out with the founding principle of Hebrew and Christian religion. In the beginning God.

God is first cause, always has been, always will be. The existence of God as sole creator of the universe has been an idea from the beginning of time. One of the oldest books in existence is probably the book of Job.

Job 38 provides a lovely poetic description of God at work as creator.

Modern science agrees with the bible in that there was a beginning to the universe the so called Big Bang which according to Professor Stephen Hawking occurred about 15 billion years ago. 

 However because it is impossible to observe anything from before the big bang (all matter and radiation came from a single point) science has nothing provable to say about what happened before that event. So, although science can say a lot about the mechanics of creation it has nothing to say with certainty about how or by who the universe was made from nothing.

Christians believe that the universe was created by the uncreated trinity of Father, Son and Spirit who have been in an eternal state of loving relationship. By faith we understand that the entire universe was formed at God’s command, that what we now see did not come from anything that can be seen. Hebrews 11:3

However, we see God as much more than the blind watchmaker who threw the world into being and then withdrew. Creation is an active and ongoing process in which God is intimately involved. God is the Sustainer as well as the creator, sustaining all things by the power of His word Hebrews 1:3.  God is intimately involved not just in the creation of humankind but in the creation of you and me. This is beautifully expounded in Psalm 139

Going back to Genesis 1 we see the Hebrew word “bara” used multiple times it means created out of nothing and is only used with God as the subject.  A word study of the word Bara is worthwhile and reveals just how beautiful is the creator’s relationship with His creation

In relation to man, Christ makes him a new creation, the psalmist knew about this desperate need of the human heart when he cried out "Create in me a new heart” Psalm 51:10. 

Jesus explained this to Nicodemus in John 3 when he talked about the need to be born again. Christ begins a new creative work in every human heart surrendered to Him, a work brought to final perfection when we meet Christ face to face on that final day of judgement and renewal.  The final creative act will be as prophesied by Isaiah in Ch 65:17 I will create a new   heaven and a new earth and the old will be remembered no more. The recreated family of Adam and Eve, which includes every newly recreated Christian, will live in a new heavenly city with Christ enthroned in the middle of His people.   

Christ in all the scriptures.

Somebody asked me this week, "as Christians we don't have to study the Old Testament do we?"
In the same week we had a wonderful talk from Nick McQuaker from the Sussex Gospel partnership on the revelation of Christ in the Old Testament. In John 5:38-40 Jesus himself says the scriptures, (that is the Jewish books of the Law Prophets and writings what we call the Old Testament,) point to Him.
In Matthew 5:17-18 Jesus says the He comes to fulfil everything in the Law and The Prophets, and that He will accomplish all that is set out in the unchangeable scriptures .  So Jesus endorsed the Old Testament, as did God the Father when He raised Christ from the dead, endorsing not just Jesus' sacrifice but all of His teaching .
One of the key themes of the Old testament is outlined for us in the Eden story in Genesis.
God places Adam in the Garden of promise, he sins and is expelled but there is a promise of a seed of Eve who will crush the serpents head as the serpent strikes his heel. Finally accomplished in the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.

So we have this idea of the seed of promise, the liberator who will overcome the serpent and bring the children of God back to the garden of promise. Hence we have the seeming endless genealogies
which trace the descent of the seed as well as the numerous blind alleys. These are summarised in Matthew and Luke as the line of Jesus running from Adam through   Noah and Abraham and the patriarchs  onward through David and the kingly line to eventually arrive at Jesus.

So we have this theme of sin, exile from the Land, appearance of a redeemer and return to the Land of Promise. So we have these key figures called to rescue the people of God but all with feet of clay such as Noah, Joseph, Moses, Joshua, culminating in the enigmatic figure of the Servant of the Lord in Isaiah and quoted by Jesus about Himself in Matthew 12:15-21.

 Which brings us to the theme of covenant. This is basically a solemn promise between parties especially between the creator God and His created beings typified in the agreements with Noah Abraham and the patriarchs and  with David. In the first chapter of Genesis God creates and blesses humankind and in Chapter 2 has a practical relationship with them as he walks and talks with them in the cool of the evening. However Adam and Eve rebel against this overwhelming generosity by seeking self determination and independence and cause a separation between themselves and God which forces them out of the garden.The covenants renewed that relationship, with people who God chose, to be his special blessing to the rest of mankind, by means of his protection, guarantee of a place to live, and guarantee of an eternal inheritance. Thus the need for a barren Sarai to become Sarah and produce a son or seed of promise  .   

One elaboration of this is the theme of a search for a King who will rescue the people and establish the Kingdom of God;  with God dwelling in the centre of the the King's Holy city in the Temple.
This was achieved by David and his son Solomon who established the kingdom and built the Temple where the  Shekinah glory resided. However the dynasty was still fatally flawed and sank from bad to worse until the exile. However God was faithful to His promise to David which was finally fulfilled as Jesus entered Jerusalem as the servant king.  Matthew 21:5

Going back again to Genesis 3  we see that the result of a broken relationship with God is separation and death. This is the righteous judgement of a Holy God who remains in loving harmony with His creation and wants to embrace them into the loving community of the Triune God. So there is a tension in the Godhead between the love that wants to unite and the Holiness which demands separation and death.

The problem is solved by the idea of a substitute who takes the place of the one under judgement.
In the old testament the life is always represented by the life giving blood., by which Gods covenants are sealed. We see the idea in the story of Abraham and Isaac in Genesis 22 with a ram  provided by God as a substitute for his son.
This is greatly elaborated in the covenant given to Moses with the whole system of sacrifices and the picture of the scapegoat when the high priest places his hand on the goat's head transferring the sins of the people onto the goat which is driven into the wilderness. The high priest was like the king an inherited position. The high priest was the specially representative between God and man and Jesus was the Final Great High priest as explained in Hebrews 4ff
All this points to Jesus'  death on the cross and all that it achieved.

So my post has become overlong but I hope it at least whets your appetite to go and delve into the wonders to be found in the old testament itself.