South Downs awakening, the heart of pilgrimage

Pilgrimage is becoming more and more part of my Spiritual life. The act of pilgrimage involves walking usually in or to a special place mostly with fellow pilgrims.
This year we are planning to do a pilgrimage along the South Downs  with two groups one starting at Winchester and the other at Eastbourne meeting for a final celebration at Chanctonbury ring.
The pilgrimage is focusing on prayer for our county and diocese inspired by the natural beauty of the South Downs national park.
Awakening is really a cry for "New Life" in the Church. a bringing heaven down to earth in the lives and loves of ordinary Christians in their normal work-a-day lives.
so as we prepare to go on pilgrimage here is a liturgy for every day pilgrims at the start of a day's
 walk.

“Awake, sleeper, and arise from the dead, And Christ will shine on you.”

Jesus says to each one of us: “If any of you want to be my followers, you must forget about yourself. You must take up your cross each day and follow me.”

Lord Jesus we walk this day, repentant of our shortcomings, seeking by the power of your Holy Spirit within us to walk in your footsteps of sacrificial love 

Pilgrims, the Father has shown us what is good, this is what the Father wants you to do, to act justly to love mercy and to walk humble with your God.

Lord Jesus, we walk this day in humble obedience to you.

Be imitators of God, as beloved children; and walk in love, just as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us.

We will walk in light, just as Jesus is the light.

Be filled with the Spirit, speaking to one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, singing and making melody with your heart to the Lord.

Come Holy Spirit, fill us, renew us, refresh us, let us walk this day in the power of your Spirit.

Walk softly upon God’s earth

May its wisdom delight you,

Its music invite you

May you love and be loved

May you know peace and practice compassion.

Rejoice in the earth and in all of creation. Rejoice in life.

Maranatha

Come Lord Jesus Come

(Leader: Light type.

Pilgrims bold type)

Sunday in Byumba

It is wonderful to wake up to the sound of birdsong and African voices chatting and singing.
Particularly striking are the African sun-birds emerald jewels glistening in the morning sunlight drinking nectar from the flowers outside our door.

Breakfast is African porridge sweet and satisfying, boiled eggs, papaya and passion fruit.

Then to the English service African style singing to a choir and drum accompaniment such wonderful rhythms singing using all of there bodies they enter into joyful praise and worship.
Today is a quieter day now after the excitement of arrival having finally recovered from a very tiring journey to be flung quickly into long trips along bumpy roads to see various parishes and projects which have been started on earlier trips now completed and new projects to be considered and planned for; as we travel we see many very poor dwellings made of mud brick in various states of repair and decay, depending on individual luck and circumstances. Life in rural Rwanda is very hard. One of the biggest challenges is the daily carrying of water. People of all ages from tiny tots to youths and mothers can be seen toiling up long steep hills with yellow Jerry cans full of water. The water sources are often polluted streams in the bottom of boggy valleys every drop has to be carried up steep tracks in hot sun or pouring rain. Then the search for firewood to boil the water to make it drinkable or toiling in the fields to  pay for charcoal.
Our projects initiated by Rob and Jan Hoy is to collect water from the roofs of churches and schools to supply water for the community and to provide them with the Griffaid acquafilter   which is a small devise to purify water to drinking standards. 

    One of the most striking things is the genuine warmth with which we are greeted on these trips: together with the joy of meeting old acquaintances again. There is an exuberance about the whole country with many smiling faces even though so many have to endure real hardship and poverty with many daily struggles to just make ends meet. As I write this there is wonderful worship coming from the cathedral next door as they dance and sing their hearts out.

Mary went with a group to visit the Mother's Union, they organise most of the social work and care in the Parishes. They help people to save and make small loans through micro-finance schemes so that people can start small businesses like this basket weaving for example.

Jesus the Suffering Servant

Sermon the suffering servant Isaiah 53

Has anyone believed us or seen the mighty power, of the Lord in action?

2 Like a young plant or a root that sprouts in dry ground, the servant grew up obeying the Lord.

He wasn’t some handsome king. Nothing about the way he looked made him attractive to us.

3 He was hated and rejected; his life was filled with sorrow and terrible suffering.

No one wanted to look at him. We despised him and said, “He is a nobody!”

4 He suffered and endured great pain for us, but we thought his suffering was punishment from God.

5 He was wounded and crushed because of our sins; by taking our punishment, he healed us and made us completely well.

6 All of us were like sheep  that had wandered off. We had each gone our own way, but the Lord gave him the punishment we deserved.

7 He was painfully abused, but he did not complain.

He was silent like a lamb being led to the butcher, as quiet as a sheep having its wool cut off.

8 He was condemned to death without a fair trial. Who could have imagined what would happen to him? His life was taken away because of the sinful things my people had done.

9 He wasn’t dishonest or violent, but he was buried in a tomb of cruel and rich people.

10 The Lord decided his servant would suffer as a sacrifice to take away the sin and guilt of others. Now the servant will live to see his own descendants. He did everything the Lord had planned.

11 By suffering, the servant will learn the true meaning of obeying the Lord. Although he is innocent, he will take the punishment for the sins of others, so that many of them will no longer be guilty.

12 The Lord will reward him with honour and power for sacrificing his life.

Others thought he was a sinner, but he suffered for our sins and asked God to forgive us.

John 13

12 When he had washed their feet and put on his outer garments and resumed his place, he said to them, “Do you understand what I have done to you? 13 You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. 14 If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet. 15 For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. 16 Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant[c] is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. 17 If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.

Philippians 2

4 Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. 5 Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,[a] 6 who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, 7 but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant,[b] being born in the likeness of men. 8 And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. 9 Therefore God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, 10 so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, 11 and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Muraho

It is wonderful to be with you today and be given the opportunity to share something about the cross of Jesus Christ. As Paul said, I only want to preach Jesus Christ and Him crucified.

In Lewes our home town in England every 5 years we perform a passion play in the busy streets and market place for everyone to see.  It is a wonderful life changing experience for all who take part but many in our town will still mock us; for them the story of Jesus is still a fable and an offence. However, we believe that it is the story which will save us from all our pride and wickedness and give us access to all the wonders of a life lived with Jesus Christ in this world and the next.

So is the story of Jesus just a cleverly made up fable or is it the wonderful truth that shows us how to receive eternal life in Christ Jesus?

Just consider the passage we have just read; Isaiah was a prophet who lived 700 years before Jesus yet he accurately wrote about His death. Who was the suffering Messiah who Jesus described? it was not the people of Israel or the prophet himself it could only be the one also described in Psalm 22 where it also accurately writes the story of the cross.

As the passage describes Jesus was born not in a king’s palace but in a humble stable to a poor couple soon to be exiled from their native land.

Jesus was nothing special to look at in fact when the guards came to arrest Jesus in the garden Judas had to point Him out with a kiss.

This was no warlike Messiah, He entered Jerusalem not on a war horse but on a humble donkey, again all predicted in the Old Testament.

The King of the universe had to suffer a mock trial he was stripped and totally humiliated in front of the whole crowd in Jerusalem then He was flogged having the skin stripped from His back in the most painful fashion, this was all part of God’s plan as Isaiah writes by His stripes we are healed.

Crucifixion was devised by the Romans  to be the most humiliating and painful death every devised by man but Jesus was quite willing to go through all this suffering and death the innocent dying for the guilty. Jesus hung on that cross not for His own sins, he was the pure Pascal Lamb. He died for my sins and for everyone of your sins. He

paid the price that we should not have to die for our sins but could receive eternal life if we believe and trust in His saving work.

He died between two criminals one cursed Him but one cried out for mercy, he was the first one to freely receive entry into paradise to be with Jesus for ever.  

God did not leave Him on the cross Judas of Arimathea, went to Pilate to ask for his body. He was tenderly taken down and wrapped and place in the grave of this rich man.

The good news is that when the women and the disciples came to the grave, they did not find a dead body there but the great stone rolled away and an empty tomb. Mary was the first to see the risen Lord Jesus then the disciples then hundreds of others.

So what does this story mean for us? It means that if we come to Jesus there is no more condemnation for our sins for, He himself has taken our sins and all our burdens on the cross. This is the story of the great transfer. He has given us new life by His death because Jesus rose from the dead everyone who believes in Jesus will be raised from the dead. We can bring all our sicknesses all our burdens and sorrows to Jesu for He has already carried each on the cross, by his wounds we have been healed.

When our thoughts or Satan accuses  us of sins we can point to the risen Jesus in Heaven, still with the nail marks in His hands and the spear slash in His side and say, "The Lord gave Him the punishment I deserve."

So how do we live our lives in view of all this. We too have to take up our cross daily and follow Jesus, it means the end of our pride and a joyful willingness to be a servant to all; willing to suffer many things in quiet servanthood for the sake of Christ.

So let each of us look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others.  Have this mind among ourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant.

  

Christ Comes

The fast of Advent is nearly over as we come to celebrate the feast of Christmas, in our land this is the time of  winter gloom when the sun does not get very high above the horizon and brings little warmth or light; then comes the explosion of angels in dazzling light who herald in Christmas morning.

Here are some of my favorite Advent poems which speak of the wonder and mystery of Christmas that can so easily be lost  in our over commercialised world. 

He is here!

Christ comes, not in sleigh bells or quaint Christmas choirs, nor the tinkle of cash tills.

Christ comes with contracting uterine muscles and a spurt of water and blood.

Christ comes with increasing labour pains,

Christ comes to a young woman in a mixture of ecstasy, pain and joy.

Christ comes in the entire muddle and ordinariness of our everyday lives.

Christ comes unexpected into His created world,

Christ is here to be found and worshipped.

Come with the sheep farmers

Come with the star gazers.

Come with the single mothers and confused fathers,

Come He is here now.        Come

This is the time of the almost unnoticed birth, the creator God slips almost un-announced into His created world to save and redeem it. The miracle of all miracles announced only to the poorest of the poor. Loves furnace hidden in a little room, is one of my favorite Advent poems. 

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.

Another favorite comes from the Celtic prayer book  as we pass the shortest day and the two longest nights, Christmas is almost upon us 

This night is the long night

When those who listen await His cry

This night is the eve of the great nativity

When those who are longing await His appearing

Wait with watchful heart.

Listen carefully through the stillness;

Listen; hear the telling of the waves upon the shore.

Listen hear the song of angels glorious-

Ere long it will be heard

That His foot has reached the earth;

News- that the glory has come!

Truly his salvation is near

For those who fear Him,

And His glory shall dwell in our land.

Watch and pray that the Lord shall come.

Those who are longing await His appearing.

Those who listen await His cry.

Watch….

Wait …..

Listen….

This night is the long night.

So as the first chapter of John's gospel reminds us the king comes into His world largely unseen and rejected.

The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world. 10 He was in the world, and the world was made through him, yet the world did not know him. 11 He came to his own,[b] and his own people[c] did not receive him. 12 But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God, 13 who were born, not of blood nor of the will of the flesh nor of the will of man, but of God.

14 And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.

Malcolm Guite's lovely Advent poem reminds us of the crazy irony of this:

O Rex Gentium

O King of our desire whom we despise,

King of the nations never on the throne,

Unfound foundation, cast-off cornerstone,

Rejected joiner, making many one,

You have no form or beauty for our eyes,

A King who comes to give away his crown,

A King within our rags of flesh and bone.

We pierce the flesh that pierces our disguise,

For we ourselves are found in you alone.

Come to us now and find in us your throne,

O King within the child within the clay,

O hidden King who shapes us in the play

Of all creation. Shape us for the day

Your coming Kingdom comes into its own.

So as we approach Christmas let us come to the stable with the shepherds and kneel before  Christ our Saviour and King.

Maranatha

Maranatha is such a portmanteau word, it comes from the Aramaic and is found only once in the bible at the end of Paul's first letter to the  Corinthians when he grabs the stylus from the scribe and writes the word with a flourish. O Lord Come.

It can be a deep cry from the heart in times of weariness and trouble, Come Lord Jesus come into my situation now, I cannot survive without you.

It can be a loud affirmation. Christ has come into history, Christ is here in my heart and Christ will come in His glory at the end of this present creation.

The voice of my beloved!

    Behold, he comes,

leaping over the mountains,

    bounding over the hills.

9 

My beloved is like a gazelle

    or a young stag.

Behold, there he stands

    behind our wall,

gazing through the windows,

    looking through the lattice.

10 

My beloved speaks and says to me:

“Arise, my love, my beautiful one,

    and come away, 

Song of Solomon 2

Or it could be a cry of anguish as illness turns slowly into death and all hope ceases, until, He does come and with one voice of command brings life forth out of the cold tomb.

If only he had come....

If only he had come, she knew he could heal him, but now it was hopeless. With a heavy heart she cut up strips linen which would bind his dead body, ready for the cold stone tomb. They had no ointment to embalm the body, in a fit of extravagance she had broken and poured the contents over the feet of their friend the teacher. People said it was a wicked waste but he had blessed her for it, said her deed would be written down and remembered for centuries to come; but now she was confused, a terrible fit of dereliction was descending upon her. She knew they had to get the body bound and in the tomb quickly, already the flies were buzzing round the body and the smell of putrefaction was beginning to fill the house, already friends and relatives were gathering around the house preparing for the long drawn out funeral ceremony, weeping and wailing filled the air, but her tears did not flow, instead they burned inwardly like acid poison, burning into her heart and stomach. She knew she must rise and join the other mourners but a heavy weariness filled her legs, she dragged herself up and out to greet them, and still he had not come.

Four long days dragged by, Mary wished she was lying on that cold slab instead of her brother, Martha had kept herself busy feeding and organising the mourning party, but she was descending into a leaden trance, doing and feeling nothing.

Then the call came up, “the teacher is coming”, Martha ran off to meet him, but she remained, all energy and will drained from her body. In a while her sister returned, and dragged her out, and she followed reluctantly, to see the teacher.

When she saw his warm, but sad compassionate face, the dam that had held her tears broke, and the tears and heavy sobs flowed, like streams from her eyes. She flung herself at him, her face buried in his chest and Jesus’ tears mingled with her own.


The story finishes with a wonderful note of triumph as Jesus He pre-enacts His own resurrection story with a loud shout; "Lazarus come out."

 “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live,

  

  

Emptied Himself of all but love

Kenosis by Lucy Shaw

In sleep his infant mouth works in and out.

He is so new, his silk skin has not yet

been roughed by plane and wooden beam

nor, so far, has he had to deal with human doubt.

He is in a dream of nipple found,

of blue-white milk, of curving skin

and, pulsing in his ear, the inner throb

of a warm heart’s repeated sound.

His only memories float from fluid space.

So new he has not pounded nails, hung a door

broken bread, felt rebuff, bent to the lash,

wept for the sad heart of the human race.

Kenosis refers to the deepest mystery in the universe when the infinite God of the universe became a tiny foetus in Mary's womb.

The God who is larger than the universe contained in a little cluster of cells. The baby so lovingly described in Lucy Shaws beautiful poem as yet untouched by all the world will heap upon Him, is truly a tiny baby and truly omnipotent creator and sustainer God.
Jesus himself affirms that if you have seen Him you have also seen the Father.

Kenosis comes from the Greek word ekenōsen meaning emptied and is found in Philippians 2:5-8  

Jesus who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.  And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of 

death, even death on a cross.

My title comes from the much loved hymn by Charles Wesley: And can it be:

He left His Father’s throne above,

So free, so infinite His grace;

Emptied Himself of all but love,

And bled for Adam’s helpless race:

’Tis mercy all, immense and free;

For, O my God, it found out me.

’Tis mercy all, immense and free;

For, O my God, it found out me.

Many people have criticised Wesley's theology, in that  by emptying Himself to become human he became less than God. However Wesley qualifies this by saying, "emptied Himself of all but love" .

Surely love is par excellence the very being of Godhead. John says in his epistle that God is love

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 1 John 4:7

In fact kenosis is at the very basis of the Godhead as each person of the Trinity pours out their being into the the other persons of the Trinity in a perpetual triangle of self giving love.

By His act of pouring Himself out to death even death on a cross, as Hebrews says:

For it was fitting that he, for whom and by whom all things exist, in bringing many sons to glory, should make the founder of their salvation perfect through suffering. Hebrews 2:10 

Just as Jesus poured Himself out taking all the burden and guilt of sin and death on the cross.

So the Father pours back into Him,the mighty life of the Trinity. The mighty power of the resurrection, so that we can be made alive in Him.

So as Jesus demonstrates before the last supper, by washing the disciples feet, just as he came to serve and give His life as a ransom for many; so we as His followers are called to love and serve our fellow men in the same way.  

He has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted the humble and meek.

The angel Gabriel had astonished Mary by not merely announcing that she was pregnant but her son would:
 be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end.” Luke 1

Mary's understanding was that her son would re-establish the true Kingdom and would
"bring down the mighty from their thrones and exalt those of humble estate;"

Her son would be no ordinary king and His kingdom would be more than a worldly dominion but would be the Kingdom of heaven.

Her son was to be the child born to a virgin as Isaiah predicted:

For to us a child is born,
to us a son is given;
and the government shall be upon his shoulder,
and his name shall be called
Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the increase of his government and of peace
there will be no end,
on the throne of David and over his kingdom,
to establish it and to uphold its
with justice and with righteousness
from this time forth and forevermore.
The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this. isaiah 9

He was to be a warrior king like David but not against the Romans or the puppet King Herod from whom, very soon, Mary and Joseph would flee in terror as refugees into Egypt.

His fight was against the spiritual prince who had wrested sovereignty from his ancient ancestor Adam, in far off Eden, a fight which would initially take place in the desert as He was tempted by worldly might and glory and reach a conclusion in another garden, where He triumphed over everything the temptor could throw at Him. He set his face resolutely to die on a Roman cross, and be completed by His Father as He raised him triumphantly from the grave, overcoming death, sin  and the grave for ever.

The territory which He had to offer was not just ancient Israel it would be both New Heavens and New Earth. 

The new promised land, the Kingdom of heaven, which He would start His ministry proclaiming; would be present in the hearts and minds of all who believed in Him as he made His home in their inmost beings as a foretaste of all that will come when He returns in His final triumphant parade bringing to completion all that He has already accomplished.

Each day His true followers bring forward that Kingdom as they bring Heaven down to Earth in the familiar words of the Lord's prayer. Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.  

     
Let each of us today do what we can to bring forward His coming again, with kind words and deeds, so that we too will soon be looking into His adorable face, just as Mary did with her baby, those many years ago.