A Second Eden

  Advent Blog; Day 5
                                    
A while back, whilst on a retreat in the Isle of wight, I was trying to start practising biblical meditation. I was reading, at the time, Andrew Murray's (No, not the tennis player) excellent book on the subject of humility. A book the modern publishers had somewhat ironically put on the back of, "The greatest book on humility ever written". Mr Murray has long been dead and had no hand in this so we may excuse him! Each chapter started with a portion of scripture and on this occasion it was the passage from the second chapter of Paul's letter to the Philippians. Remembering my schooling in biblical meditation from an amazingly Godly man called Campbell McAlpine from my days with YWAM, I decided to 'take it for a walk'.

have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:

 Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage;
 rather, he made himself nothing
by taking the very nature of a servant,
being made in human likeness.

(Philippians 2:6-7)

 

As I walked the steep paths of St Boniface downs I stayed very much "in" that phrase "who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped." Yesterday we looked at Jesus becoming a man, out of love and out of a divine desire to rescue us.  Love, of course is just part of the motivation. The thing I discovered on that walk is not so much hidden. I had known it before. It was just a deeper understanding of it. We often think of Jesus' humility as an act of love. It was and it wasn't. We see Jesus as the humble wing of the God team. There is almost a condescension in Jesus deigning to walk with us humans. To think this way is a grave, grave error.

 Here is the secret I discovered. If Jesus is "in very nature God" (IE God through and through) and he did not consider equality with God something to be grasped (there is no competition between the members of the trinity, only love and esteem) then what he did, any of them would have done. The result of his like-godness is his "making himself nothing". I therefore conclude; God is humble. That is a staggering thought. You may all be saying, at this point, well yeah, of course he is! To me this thought had never quite occurred in this way before. Almighty God, in whom pride would be a virtue, has no pride.

 You see, we think of God as requiring worship from all he has made, of being jealous for our love and attention. All these attributes isolated make for a pretty insecure omnipotent, insisting that he is all important and gets his dues. But we forget that Love is at the heart of God. The Father loves the Son and the Spirit. The Son loves the Spirit and the Father, The Spirit loves the Father and the Son. Each of them would do anything for the others. God is the only being in who this kind of self love would be appropriate. Out of love he created us and he sustains us. The best thing for us is to worship him, it is for our highest good. God is humble, truly, because he is the only entirely self aware being. He does not have too high a view of himself, he has a correct view. I said earlier Jesus' humility both  was and was not an act of love. It was not an act of love in the sense that it was not humility for loves sake, out of necessity. It was humility for humility's sake. It was an extension of the humility that already existed within the Godhead. It was God, simply being God. It was in his nature to walk with us, talk with us, to cry with us, to suffer with us, to bleed with us. In the beginning God did not stand at a distance. He walked in the Garden with Adam and Eve. In this second genesis we see Jesus, the second Adam, turning 1st century Palestine into a second Eden. God walked with mankind. In Micha we are told that one of the three things that are required of us is to "Walk humbly with our God". At Christmas our God came to walk humbly with mankind.

A Second Genesis

In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.  In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.~ Johns Gospel, the opening from the first chapter


Advent Blog; Day 4

The Four Gospel writers have very different purposes from each other. Johns Gospel does not deal directly with the nativity. He starts a little further back than that. Johns stylistic opening is more than a nod to Genesis chapter 1, which starts, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth". The refererence is deliberate. He is making it clear who Jesus is and the significance of his coming. In the same step he is declaring a new era, a new genesis.

This is such a rich subject and one I cant hope to do real justice to in  such a small space. I don't want to delve too deeply here into the divinity of Jesus, more to recognise the origins of the phenomenal rescue plan that is being hatched, here at Christmas. This is no Plan B. This plan has its origins in the beginning of time itself.

For us the journey seems to start with the annunciation to Mary of her impending miraculous pregnancy and even more miraculous baby. This is seen from the human side of a two way mirror. On the other side of the glass is the picture in John.

It does not start at Christmas for Jesus. This was always the purpose of the Godhead (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). The mysterious nature of the incarnation is never explained (hence it's a mystery) but the "Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us". The eternal God inhabited a temporal human body. The Father required a champion to rescue and redeem his beloved creation. The Son loved mankind and he loved the Father. He left his home in heaven, at the Fathers right hand, where he had need of nothing and, as the song puts it "all for loves sake became poor". He did it out of love. There was no other way to save humanity from its sin, from the consequence of Sin. God the Son stepped up to the mark.
        
"The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it". One version says the light shines in the darkness and the darkness has not understood it. John also says, he came to his own and his own did not receive him....

"Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God- children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God."
 

This is about new beginnings. It's a new creation story to provide a narrative for the new creation, the creation of the new birth.  You see it is in Jesus that we were made, both in a natural sense and a super-natural sense. In him is the light of life. He is the source. As Colossians put it, in him all things hold together. We simply can not have too high an impression of Jesus. Truly God and truly man.

And so Jesus, 'being in very nature God humbled himself'. He stepped off of the throne, took off his kingly robes and woke up in a virgins womb. A new beginning for the Saviour meant a new beginning for those he would save. A second Adam in a second genesis means a second chance. A second chance for humanity and for you and I.

                                                                

 

The Foretelling, part two

 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and call him Immanuel. ~Isaiah 7:14

                                                                  



Advent Blog; Day 3

I suppose I want to deal with the notion of prophecy in one fell swoop. I cant (and, in all likelihood, wont) get through a whole series on Christmas without referring to it again but I do want to side step having to deal with as many prophecies as I can.
 I find it simply stunning the way that the life of Jesus ties together so many prophesies from the Old Testament. The ones that he doesn't fulfil, the new testament indicates clearly that he will yet do so.

In doing some researching of this subject I came across a skeptics forum where much was suggested to the effect of accusing the disciples, writers of the gospels and even Jesus himself of contriving to fulfil as many as possible, to do a patch up job of asserting his messiahship.

I maintain that anyone able to conceive of such a story that would take in all these prophecies, and would contrive to fulfil them by getting crucified (in the case of Christ) when there was no profit in it for them (forgive the pun) other than to live austere lives, getting persecuted and ultimately, for many of them, being martyred for a faith that they knew to be a fabrication, borders on a place beyond insanity. When I review the character of Jesus throughout, when I hear his wisdom and compassion and when I hear Isaiah 53

 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.
We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

 

I quite simply wonder at it. These words, written down, hundreds of years before Jesus was born, make sense of it all. It would be a work of mad genius simply to decipher all these prophecies in a way that works, let alone to fulfil them. I once heard a speaker say that the chances of Jesus fulfilling all the prophecies he did is the equivalent, in chance terms, of a man walking blindfolded  into a Texas that is filled almost knee deep with coins throughout and picking, out of all those coins, on the first try, a pre-marked coin. It sounds fanciful doesn't it? I cant back up the statistics, I have no wish to. What if it were not a billion to one? What if it were out of a million coins, would that not be impressive? What if it were ten thousand?, what if it were one thousand, (I think we are on fairly safe ground now). If it were 500/1 you would still be pretty well impressed. These things were given as signs. Jesus made it clear that to hardened unbelievers even resurrection from the dead would not be enough. The secret is they don't WANT to believe. But to those of us who have ears to hear, Jesus was born to a virgin, in the time and place decided before hand and predicted in the scriptures. For...

 to us a child is born,
to us a son is given,
and the government will be on his shoulders.
And he will be called
Wonderful Counsellor, Mighty God,
Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.
Of the greatness of his government and peace
there will be no end.

Isaiah 9:6-7

Do you have any idea what it means for a Jew to say a son will be called "Mighty God" and "Everlasting Father"?  Yet hundreds of years before anyone was called "Christian", in Jewish scriptures, it's there.



The Foretelling, part one

                                                

 

 

Advent Blog; Day 2

 

 

 

Bob Dylan uses a rather unusual image in his song "Ain't Talkin". He sings the line "I'm walking with a toothache in my heel" its a very odd line, not to mention a surreal image. I will explain.

 

It seems in the story of creation and the fall of mankind that there is a shred of hope for the messiah right from the outset. A pip from the apple, a seed of prophecy from that awful event. We see that when God is cursing the snake (widely seen as Satan) he says that he will put enmity between the offspring of the woman and the snake. He says

 

"He will crush your head and you will strike his heel"~ Genesis 3:15
 

When I first had the prophetic nature of this explained to me I was quite taken aback. You see the act of enmity is simultaneous. At the same time the snake tries to bite the man, it is crushed. I believe this is What Dylan is referring to  by "toothache in my heel". Its the sting of the snake. He is crushed but he has left a mark. In hindsight we see how this applies to the cross. The very act that Satan uses to attempt to destroy Jesus, actually seals his downfall. This, as C. S. Lewis puts it, is a deeper magic.

So we see that even at the outset, when Sin and the Devil ruined everything there is a hope of redemption for Adams race, a "second Adam", an Adam who would not fail. God always intended us to find a way back to the garden.

 

 



The "First" Noel

Advent Blog; Day 1

So we love or hate Christmas but it comes every year without fail. Over the years my love for christmas has changed and mutated. Perhaps it's because I can no longer feel excited about all the presents I will get. Secretly I still hope that I will be blown away by them, and I do still get some good stuff (sometimes), but most years leave me nursing a healthy sense of disapointment as far as that goes.


I remember the first Christmas after I rediscovered my faith. Someone once said to me that when you get "born again" everything is new. The grass seems greener, the sun brighter, friendships more precious. We look at things, initially with a child-like wonder, seeing the creator everywhere and we see it all through grateful eyes. I cant speak for others but I know this was true for me. The same was true of my "first" Christmas.

We were singing carols around a Christmas tree and it was like I had never really heard those carols before. Some of the most phenomenal words and tunes. I was lost in the  unexpected wonder of it all. I thought I'd finished being surprised by God but I was wrong. The mystery of Almighty God, as helpless as a vulnerable little baby. This is the God we worship. Not the stern God standing over us with a stick, demanding obedience. Here he revealed his heart. Without Christmas there is no cross, and in a way, the Christmas scene is a microcosm of whats to come. Jesus lies helpless, given over to human hands. This time it is hands belonging to those that love him. This time.

And in a sense, I am still unwrapping Christmas. The multi-layered wonder of it never stops growing. Where my presents have lost a lot of their wonder, the present of Christmas thrills me again and again. In these advent blogs I want to unpack  it a little more. Please feel free to join me as we look again at the truth that this verse from one of my favourite carols 'O little Town Of Bethlehem' puts so beautifully.

 

How silently, how silently
The wondrous gift is given!
So God imparts to human hearts
The blessings of His heaven.
No ear may hear His coming,
But in this world of sin,
Where meek souls will receive him still,
The dear Christ enters in.

All Prayer

And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people~ Ephesians 6:18


What do I like about this? Is it that we are to pray in the spirit, led by God himself? Is it that we are to be creative? Finding all kinds of ways, old and new ways to communicate with our Father? Is it the open invitation to lay our requests before him? Is it that our father wants to know what we feel and what we need and what we think we need!? Is it that we are to carry our brothers and sisters in prayer, before our father and to know in turn that they carry me?

yes.

But what I love about prayer is that it is our communication with the side of Heaven.  Prayer is our radio, in military terms. We speak, we relay what we need, supplies and re-enforcements are issued according to the wisdom of command. We listen, we receive instructions, advancements, retreats and strategies that can turn battles if we obey them. We see weakness in our lines, we call in air support. We speak in  code and the enemy is baffled. One code is love and sacrifice, a language he cannot decipher. Another is tongues, heavenly language that nourishes our spirit.

Prayer is our life-line. Without it we lose touch and become like some troops who broke ranks and got stranded behind enemy lines, stumbling lost through the forests.

Prayer is a conversation. There are as many styles of prayer as there are saints. Every one of us has a unique conversation with our heavenly Dad. I love my son Noah and communicate to him in a special way but there are conversations I will have with Ethan that will always remain Ethan/Daddy conversations, Noah could never be part of that intimacy. And, naturally, vice versa applies.

It is a conversation that can take many forms including.

• Meditation (Biblical/visual/silent etc)
• Prayers of request.
• Prophetic prayers
• Battle prayers,
• Praise prayers
• Chatty prayers,
• Silent prayers
• Recited prayers
• Sung prayers
• written prayers
• Prayers of confession
• "Arrow" prayers
• Healing prayers
• group prayer

There are so many forms to experiment with and on each of these we bring our own unique slant and understanding. Prayer is much, much deeper than words, it is so much more than "dear Lord Jesus, please bless.... (add names, add infinitum)."

We are always saying something to God. Right now as you read this, as I write it, we are speaking to the father about how we feel about him, about serving him. God picks up on body language and heart language and thought language. Its just a question of what we are saying. Sometimes, to my shame, I am saying, 'Lord I'm not that bothered right now, can you come back later?'. Our whole life is a prayer, half a conversation between us and God. Paul refers to being poured out like a drink offering. There is a physicality to our prayers, not mere words. When I let that lady across the road it is part of my conversation. When I do not, it is as much part of the conversation. Our words and actions are supposed to be extensions of who and what we are. I like to think of Prayer being our trying to get back to that state of openness before God that we had in the garden of Eden, before we felt shame. To know and to be fully know in return, nothing hidden*, walking humbly before our God.

Prayer does a lot of things but I have loved C.S. Lewis' description of prayer from the moment I heard it in the film Shadowlands, 'Prayer does not change God, it changes me". This is why intimacy and consistency in prayer are so vital to warfare. Yes it makes us co-workers with the holy spirit, but it also turns us into elite special forces warriors, ready to sacrifice (and therefore succeed) all for our cause. It is that daily dying to self, through our prayer and walk, that gives us the edge. You cant kill a dead man & you cant scare a dead man. A dead man has nothing to lose. Prayer is the offering of our lives to God. If we set out on that journey, if we begin that amazing conversation we will see victory upon victory.



*Footnote; when we are intimate with the Father and feel ourselves loved and accepted we have less to hide from our brothers in arms, we fear reprisals less, grace is extended to our church family as well as to us. we receive grace and, in ourselves, become a means of grace. Morale in the camp, and a better fighting unit must be the results of this increased openness before God.

A deadly combination

In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.~ Ephesians 6:16-17

Any good boxing fan will tell you, you need a good combination to produce a knock out. Its all very well having power but you need to position yourself for a good connection. A powerful lunge at your opponent that is mistimed can lead to you being seriously off your guard and (or) off your balance. This could leave you open to a well placed attack from your counterpart, if they are reading you and ready for it.

I once decided that I would avenge my brother against his attacker in the school playground. My brother was in the year below me and his assailant had been in his year, was a little smaller than I was and, I thought, not much of a challenge to me. He did have a reputation as a hard lad but I was sure that when he was faced with a bigger, older and way more aggressive opponent, he wouldn't stand a chance. I was all of those things. I should have been warned when he did not recoil in the least at my challenge to meet him outside the school gates. In fact a cruel and amused smile crept over his rather cocky features.

We met at the allotted place and time and I did not wait for a second. I went wading in with a barrage of punches and banshee like screams, a tactic that had produced mixed results in the past. None of the punches connected. The boy seemed to be like the rubber man swerving around, hardly moving his  feet, as he kept well out of the way of my wild swings. Then BANG, out of nowhere he landed a full on right (or at least I think it was) onto my jaw. I reeled from the blow but managed to stay on my feet, which proved to be a bad move because, now I was stunned, he placed many more punches in the general area of my face. Sensing I was at somewhat of a stalemate, I decided I had to stop those blows. So I clung onto his body, as much for support than for tactical reasons. He then wrestled me into a headlock where he proceeded to near suffocate me. Again, being a determined young blighter, I somehow stayed on my feet, though bent double. When he released me I made another "stand" and pathetically  attempted a few more swings but I was dazed and staggered about sluggishly.

He tired of hitting me after some minutes. It was too easy. Disgusted he walked away from me whilst I shouted after him "So its a draw then!". In my my view at the time I had not given up, and that was not a defeat. Anyhow, I'm not sure he could hear what I was saying through my swollen and bloodied lips.

I found out that day that his dad was a semi professional boxer and the lad had been going to a boxing gym since he was six years old. Talk about picking the wrong fight.

So why am I sharing this rather humiliating story with you? Because we can all learn something from these two approaches.

•  I had aggression but no discipline. 
• He had aggression but controlled it and channelled it through tried and tested methods, combining defencive tactics with offensive technique to maximum effect.
• I had misplaced confidence in my own strength.
• He had well placed confidence in his training and method.
• I used my size and strength to intimidate but was no real threat.
• He used my size and strength against me and was a very real threat.
• I used attack first, lost my advantage and ended up being defeated.
• He used defence first, to asses the risk and position himself well, gained the advantage and ended up victorious.

There is no real comparison. The better approach stands out, doesn't it. And in the same way the disciplined Roman army dominated all their battles against the raw aggression of barbarian hordes.

I bring this up because I want to address the three things mentioned in this verse in one sitting. Why? Precisely because they are to be used in combination. Now we are talking about the most war like elements of our armoury. Now it gets serious. Defence is a form of offence. It is tactical. It gains you an advantage, it buys you time to react and deliver killer blows to the enemy. You might wear a belt or sandals in everyday life but there is only one purpose in wearing a helmet while holding a  sword and a shield. This is the stuff we need for hand to hand combat.

I have to be honest with you all. I have been involved in spiritual warfare a fair bit, and when I say that, I mean prayer warfare, intercession. Rebuking territorial spirits binding strong men and all that kind of thing. I am not saying I have no belief in that. Not at all.  But I am not a gifted prayer warrior. I don't posess gifts and knowledge that lay open to me the workings of the heavenlies. I leave that to the few who can. And to the angels.


But the bloody bits of the battle I am concerned with are those when the enemy gets into our homes, drags our family into bondage, undermines our service of Jesus, questions our standing with God, lays guilt at our feet to prohibit further service (because he's scared). These things make me angry. But I've learnt that anger without discipline can lead you into worse messes than those you are already in. So we must know what these three things are and how they work.

1. The Shield of faith.


So the answer to this is obvious. The shield is our faith. It extinguishes the flaming arrows of the enemy. What is faith? Hmmm. Now this is slightly different. If I want to know what tree I am looking at I look for signs of its fruit. If I see apples its an apple tree. When I see faithfulness I know that the tree it comes from is faith. It is an active belief that rises up in a moment but it sustains you for a life time. The writer to the Hebrews describes faith as being "sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see". Faith is a bold belief but not an unfounded one. Another translation has it as the "substance of things hoped for". Being in faith we are truly (and not yet) in possession of it. Faith is as good as its object. If I have faith in this aeroplane to get me where I want to go but this aeroplane has a fuel leak I could be in big trouble. Our faith, however is in Jesus and in our Father. Is there a better reason for a sure and certain hope? I think not.
So what are the flaming arrows and how does our faith extinguish them? We have established in previous blogs that the weapons the enemy has at his call are mainly accusations and lies. So for example when Jesus is being tempted in the desert he says "It is written", to the lie levelled at him. He does not take on board the lie but hold unswervingly to the promise of God. the lie is extinguished. this is how the shield works. At every turn the devil will seek to undermine Gods promise to you, both personal promises and promises from scripture. Faith holds on to God. Faith is faithful.

2. The helmet of salvation

Again the clue is in the name. The helmet is our salvation. What it does in terms of spiritual warfare is not immediately clear. I guess the most obvious thing our salvation does is IT SAVES US! I like this. I like it an awful lot. You put your helmet on at the start of the battle and, if you are wise, you don't take it off till the end. There is a scene in the film "saving private Ryan" where a young soldier is shot in the head and is protected by his helmet. In amazement he takes the helmet off and looks at the spot, right between his eyes, where the bullet has marked the helmet. Whilst he is looking he is shot a second time in his unprotected head. Horrid I know. The analogy doesn't hold in  my opinion in a sense that we can "take off our salvation". If you are truly in the battle you don't question it, you just get on. Salvation is a constant. It is there. It does not depend on us wielding it to protect us. When you are in hand to hand combat you may not see one of those arrows raining down on you. The helmet is in place to protect you in the most important part of your body.
And of course the helmet speaks of the mind. A redeemed mind is a protection in itself. It does its own work in fending off attacks. It is its own  defence system. That is why we seek to transform it all the more into Gods way of thinking.

3. The sword of the spirit

I don't have to define it to you, it is in the text. "Which is the word of God". If you've sat in a decent church for very long you will be aware that there are two Greek words for word.  "Logos" is the first, "the written word" and also the eternal "word" (this is used in John 1, In the beginning was the word). "Rhema" is the second, the spoken word and the "now" word. The rhema word is used to describe prophecy, it has that immediate effect, to cut into a situation and transform it. The word Rhema is the one at use here, to describe the word of God. This is fascinating as one of the few examples we have of Jesus duelling Satan is of him using Scripture to refute Satan's claims and temptations. to hear that it is that charismatic and prophetic "word", the spoken word of God is quite profound.

The term sword of the spirit tells you a little of how the "Word" is to be used. It is that immediate sense of Gods speaking into a situation and of our being attentive to it that seems to be  a sword in our hand against these attacks.

But if we look at Hebrews 4:12, where the word being used is "Logos" it says,

For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
 

Amazing. We find that the sword image holds for both "Logos" and "Rhema". The word of God, the logos of God, the written word of God is ALIVE and ACTIVE. It is not sitting in between dusty book jackets. It has a life of its own. In other words, the Logos becomes Rhema to us. His scripture is a NOW word for us and, by walking in the spirit, it is available to us. He reminds us, he brings fresh relevance to us, he opens our eyes afresh to ancient truths that we are long familiar with. This is the sword of the spirit.,....and Oh boy, is it sharp!?

The sword should be in our hands at all time. We need to become experts at wielding it. Not just on our enemy but, at times, on ourselves.  We need to lay bare the heart and its motives, to have it examine us. We need to meditate on it, to ingest it so we are not easily deceived by the devil or clever people. As Deuteronomy 30:14 says "the word is very near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart".


So we are to learn the craft of our sword and shield. And we should allow Salvation to do its work in us. I believe in a salvation that is not earned by human decision and therefore not lost by human action. It protects me. Peter advised us to make our calling and election sure. For this reason, once we are sure that, yes, Jesus Died and rose for me, for ME and yes I turn from my sins and seek to follow his word, we are free indeed. free to get on with the battle at hand. It makes a mockery of Satan's whispered "you don't really belong to him"s , it renders those attacks ineffective, like arrows bouncing off the helmet. The surety of our salvation frees us to concentrate on protecting ourselves with the sword and shield, it frees us to lunge forward with a scripture, knowing we are protected, knowing that we are safe.

If we were not saved, nor sure that we were saved, we would not have much place handling the word. We would be like those folk in acts who tried to cast out demons by the name of Jesus. They had no authority, no place using that name. If we are not under the authority of Gods word, if we have no respect for it then it has no power in our hands against a spiritual enemy. The relationship between the two is essential.

If we did not know the word and the promises it contains what use is faith? Faith in what?? We need faith for the word to do its work also. We cannot go into a battle with just a sword. If we slashed at the enemy with our weapon he would simply lunge at our unprotected side. They work in combination. We must believe the word we are wielding, have faith in it and the one who spoke it. We hereby protect ourselves as we go forward. Conversely we cannot have only a shield, that would be ludicrous. We have faith in God but have no clue what god says or what he is like or what he promises. We would be mincemeat.

But put the three together....then you are in business. Protected from above, protected on the ground and dangerously armed and poised, ready for anything.