Nothing To Add

Good Friday.

 

The day we remember that Jesus died for us.  He died to take away our sins.  All of them.

 

Sometimes I think we find it easy to 'sanitise' our sins and to imagine that Jesus only died for the stuff we don't mind other people knowing about.  The I-know-I-really-shouldn'ts of life.  But we think He couldn't really have died for the things that we don't want other people to know.

 

Or we can get to thinking that whilst His death certainly gave us a 'leg up' on our way into God' good books, we still need to add to it, or 'top it up' by our own good deeds.

 

But God has done it all.  We can add nothing to Jesus' crucifixion.

 

Paul writes,

"If a living relationship with God could come by rule-keeping, then Christ died unnecessarily."

[Galatians 5:21 MSG]

and

"The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us and them in this. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners (both us and them) and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ."
 

[Romans 3:21-24 MSG] 

 

Jesus died for our sins once and for all.  There is nothing to add.

 

 

 

 

Loving At All Is A Risk

I had the TV on in the background today whilst I was doing some ironing.  I'm not sure what was on - if it was an advert, a trailer, or part of a programme - but I heard the following line, which has been stuck in my mind ever since:

 

"Loving at all is a risk."

 

Love is a risk.

 

C. S. Lewis famously wrote,

 

"To love at all is to be vulnerable.  Love anything, and your heart will certainly be wrung and possibly broken.  If you want to make sure of keeping it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal.  Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.  But in that casket- safe, dark, motionless, airless - it will change.  It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable."

 

Last week, I watched a bit of the second Pirates of the Caribbean film.  The 'baddie' in the film is Davey Jones: a man who had his heart broken once and, to avoid further pain, removed it and locked it away in a chest.  He carries the key to the chest about his person at all times, to prevent it ever being touched, or hurt, or broken again.

 

I know there have been times when I have felt like doing the same (obviously metaphorically, not literally).  I have been tempted to shut down my heart, to close for business, to put up a 'Trespassers will be prosecuted' sign.  I have been tempted to shut down and shut the world out.

 

But whilst shutting our hearts down like this will certainly minimise pain, it will also numb all emotion.  We will be safe from harm, but we will also be cut off from true love, real friendship, genuine happiness.  We will miss out on all of the good things that life has to offer.

 

Love is a risk.

 

And we see the ultimate risk-taking love when we look to the cross.  There we see a naked, beaten, vulnerable man bearing His soul to show us His love.

 

Even with no guarantee of the return of our love or affection, God loved us.

 

"But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us."

[Romans 5:8 NIV]

 

God showed His love for us.  Powerfully, passionately, personally. 

 

Loving at all is a risk.  But it is worth it.

 

 

Worth Dying For

I read this yesterday and am still reeling;

"Scripture does not call us to change. Scripture calls us to die."

Wow.

On the uncomfortable-scale, this rates pretty highly. You can't really go in for half measures here. You can't be just a little bit dead.

It's all or nothing.

But why?

Why must we die? Why not just alter ourselves little by little? It doesn't need to be that drastic, does it?

Well, yes.

If we want to enter into the fullness of life that God promises us, we need to stop living our own 'full' lives. We need to acknowledge that we cannot be full or complete in our own strength or by our own efforts. We can only find this fullness in God.

And what's more, this 'new' life from God will be beyond anything we can imagine right now.

I'm not sure why, but it's pretty easy to imagine God as some sort of cosmic killjoy and to imagine that His version of a 'new' life would be dull and boring and the exact opposite of what I would hope for.

But I am beginning to believe that maybe, just maybe, God's version of a full life might be better than my own.

"So don't you see that we don't owe this old do-it-yourself life one red cent. There's nothing in it for us, nothing at all. The best thing to do is give it a decent burial and get on with your new life. God's Spirit beckons. There are things to do and places to go! This resurrection life you received from God is not a timid, grave-tending life. It's adventurously expectant, greeting God with a childlike "What's next, Papa?" God's Spirit touches our spirits and confirms who we really are. We know who he is, and we know who we are: Father and children."

[Romans 8:12-16 MSG]

 

Now that's worth dying for.

Thinking About Easter Already?

I've just popped to Sainsbury's and spotted that they already have hot cross buns in the bakery.  It seems that the moment Christmas ends, Easter - at least in the retail world - begins.  I even remember my brother buying a Creme Egg one year on Boxing Day.

 

This rushing to the next big event usually bothers me: why can't we just enjoy the moment?

 

But this evening, it got me thinking.

 

This weekend, we have celebrated Epiphany and have remembered the visit of the wise men to the baby Jesus. 

 

They brought gifts for Jesus which were symbols of great importance: gold, to reflect and acknowledge His Kingship; frankincense to show His purity and holiness and to reflect His role as a Priest, interceding on our behalf; and myrrh, an oil used to anoint dead bodies and a sign of what would happen to Jesus.

 

I always wonder how Mary and Joseph reacted to these gifts, especially to the myrrh.  They must have known what it was usually used for.

 

They knew that their Son was the Son of God and that He had come to fulfil what had been foretold about bringing peace and restoration to mankind.  But did they know that the way that this peace and restoration would be achieved was through the death of their child?

 

And if they did, would they really want to think of it, so soon after His birth?

 

Whether or not they thought about it, it is the reason that Jesus was born: to reconcile man to God, through His own death on the cross. 

 

 

        "Surely he took up our pain

        and bore our suffering,

        [...] he was pierced for our transgressions,

        he was crushed for our iniquities;

        the punishment that brought us peace was on him,

        and by his wounds we are healed."

 

        [Isaiah 53:4-5 NIV]

 

I am fully aware that Easter eggs and hot cross buns are appearing in supermarkets for financial reasons.  But perhaps, rather than complaining about them, we should use them to remind us what Christmas was all about.

 

Perhaps it's not wrong to turn our attention to Easter so soon after Christmas.  After all, there is no Easter without Christmas.

 

 

 

Autumn

I love this time of year.

 

Every year I am surprised by how bright and vibrant the leaves are on the trees.  Some of them are so beautifully rich that they actually seem to be glowing.

 

I love seeing the leaves on the trees and I love watching them drift silently and slowly to the ground, like snow.  I love kicking through them on the floor and scuffing my boots through huge piles of dried, curling leaves.

 

I love how predictable the trees and plants are through the different seasons - even with our awful British weather. 

 

The Bible talks about their being different times and seasons for things in life too:

 

         "There is a time for everything,
         and a season for every activity under heaven:

         a time to be born and a time to die,
         a time to plant and a time to uproot."

 

         [Ecclesiastes 3:1-2 NIV]

 

We don't tend to think of 'death' as having a season or a purpose.  It usually signifies the end of something.  But when we look at the trees in Autumn, we see that death is part of a necessary cycle.

 

In the film 'Calendar Girls' one of the characters describes this cycle:

"Every stage of their growth has its own beauty, but the last phase is always the most glorious."

 

We don't usually think of death as being beautiful or glorious.  It is something to be mourned and grieved.  But there is a real freedom in stripping away the things in our life which are dead.  Things which have no life left in them. 

 

It may make us feel vulnerable and exposed, in the same way that trees are bare through Winter.  But without shedding that which is dead, we cannot expect and eagerly anticipate new life.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life and Death and Words

I am one of those people who is fascinated by words.

I love finding out their origins and finding root words which they have in common.  For example, obvious though it may sound, I realised just the other day that the word 'knee' and 'kneel' are related.  Fascinating!

And words are powerful.

It is with words that we construct our understanding of our world, our beliefs and our selves.

They have a life and a power of their own. 

As Dumbledore says,

“Words are, in my not so humble opinion, our most inexhaustible source of magic.”

In the beginning, in Genesis, God could have created the world and everything in it with His hands.  He could have sculpted and crafted everything physically.  But, instead, He chose to bring things into existence through His words, through His voice.

"And God said, 'Let there be light,' and there was light."

[Genesis 1:2 NIV emphasis mine]

Words are powerful. 

They have the power to bring things into existence, to bring light to dark places, to bring hope to places of despair.  The words that we use to describe ourselves and others either give life or destroy it.  They either create or kill.

"What you say can mean life or death. Those who speak with care will be rewarded."

[Proverbs 18:21 NCV]

"Words kill, words give life; they're either poison or fruit - you choose."

[Proverbs 18:21 MSG]

You choose. 

Sometimes I know that the words I choose to use to talk about myself, to talk about others, to talk about my past or future, are not life-giving.  They limit and restrict and choke things. 

But I want to give life with my words.

What do you create with your words?