Suffering

Some of my Christian friends have recently been suffering because of actions taken by other Christians.  Recently this has got a bit closer to home and this led me to write the following poem.

PAIN

It hurts.

Not physically

But my body feels empty;

Gutted.

Why do people behave like this?

Why do Christians behave like this?

You are a God of love,

And justice.

But they deny justice.

Working behind closed doors

Hearing one side,

Finding guilty without a hearing.

We are meant to show the world your love

Your justice.

But it is denied

In the church that bears your name.

It hurts.

But you share our hurt.

You were denied a fair trial,

You were condemned for no crime,

You, the one without sin, found guilty.

Yet you willingly bore the pain

The rejection

The injustice.

You bore it for us.

Help us to bear our hurt

And not look for revenge.

Help us, like you, to love;

Love even those who hurt us.

Doing God's Work

Yesterday my Bible reading included part of Luke 4.  Nothing odd about that I hear you say except it included these words:

He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read,  and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him. Unrolling it, he found the place where it is written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me,
because he has anointed me
to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners
and recovery of sight for the blind,
to set the oppressed free,
to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.”

Again there is nothing exceptional about that except I was going to spend the evening at church with the local branch of Amnesty doing the IT bit so they could watch the film Burma VJ.  This set me thinking; Jesus clearly says he came to “proclaim freedom for the prisoners” and so is Amnesty, not in itself a Christian organisation, doing Jesus’s work of bringing about the Kingdom of God?  After all Jesus himself said “whoever is not against you is for you.”

New Year Update

For me this year finally got under way on the 28th February.  No, I'm not on some weird calender but that was the first day this year I had enough energy to get on with anything.  Up until then I had been struggling to find enough energy to be retired!  I was sleeping most mornings and cleaning the house on a Friday meant that Saturday was a washout as I had no energy left.  Given that I hadn't felt like this at the end of last year my suspicion is that I picked up some form of viral infection which left me run down but not ill.

My problem now is that I mustn't overdo it but I am back doing a few exercises and I'm trying to make sure I walk at least a mile each day.  Today I went for a 2 mile walk and I feel a bit achy but at least I was able to walk that far again.

Where Did They Come From?

Over the last few weeks my Bible in a Year readings have taken me from Exodus to Leviticus where the people of Israel make and sanctify the Tabernacle - not the most interesting of readings.  Suddenly I got a feeling that something I was reading didn't add up but it has taken me a while to work out what.

In Exodus we have the Israelites complaining that they don't have anything to eat and, when God gives them manna that they don't have any meat.  God does hear their prayer and sends the a flock of quails but, we are told, for the rest of the 40 years they were in the wilderness they only ate manna.  Fast forward to Leviticus and God instructs Moses to build the Tabernacle and to consecrate bot it and Aaron and his sons as priests.  How does he consecrate them? By sacrificing bulls and lambs!  As I said in the Title "Where Did They Come From?"

Collective Sin

In the evangelical church we have placed so much emphasis on individual salvation that we miss the inconvenient truth that there is also collective sin.  The Bible verse that brought this to my attention is Isaiah 6:5 "“Woe to me!” I cried. “I am ruined! For I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, and my eyes have seen the King, the LORD Almighty.” "  Notice Isaiah confesses his own sin, 'I am a man of unclean lips' and then goes on to confess his part in the collective sin of the society in which he lives 'and I live among a people of unclean lips'.

So what does that mean to us today.  Here in the West we, generally, live a very comfortable life without a thought of the cost of our life style to the rest of the world.  Today this is being brought home by the events in Libya.  In order to get hold of the oil we need our governments have been involved in accepting the rule of Gaddafi despite knowing he is an oppressive dictator.  Now his own people are rebelling against him and he is using totally unacceptable force against them.  This is happening because we supported him to get oil.

The next time you here about planes and battle field weapons being used against unarmed civilians in Libya don't just think about how terrible it is but pray to God for forgiveness for our collective involvement.

Les Ambassadors

Yesterday, before meeting my wife, I had a spare half hour while up by Trafalgar Square so I went into the National Gallery to look at some of my favourite paintings.  Among them is this, The Ambassadors by Hans Holbein the Younger:

 

Most people are fascinated by the elongated skull across the front signifying mortality but I want to draw your attention to this detail from top left:

Peering out from behind the drape is a crucifix.  I have heard a modern art expert say this shows that the scientific world represented by the ambassadors with their scientific instruments and books has eclipsed religion but I prefer an earlier interpretation.  Very close examination of the painting reveals one broken lute string:

This, to me, signifies the brokenness of the world and so the crucifix is there to remind us that for all their finery and learning the subjects of the painting are themselves subject to God.

Today science has moved on dramatically from the date of this painting but we do well to remember that behind everything is the love of God as shown by His death on the cross.

Animal Sacrifice?

I just spotted this at the top of the BBC News Sports page:

Newbury set to restage Saturday's ill-fated meeting on Friday after the death of two horses

Do they really mean that? Do 2 horses have to die before they can hold they meeting?