"The tragedy of the streets means few can delude themselves into thinking they have it under control. You cannot ignore death there, and you cannot ignore human fallibility. It is easier to see that everyone is a sinner, everyone is fallible, and everyone is mortal. It is easier to see that there are things just too deep, too important, or too great for us to know. It is far easier to recognize that one must come to peace with the idea that ‘we don’t and never will have this under control.’ It is far easier to see religion not just as useful, but as true.” Chris Arnade. Dignity.
It's not comfortable, or comforting.
Death chills us to the bone, and suffering tares like a wild beast, because we know where it's pointing - towards us coming to an end.
That's no doubt why we back away from thinking about God being the author and authority of life and death. It's the moments we have no control over, and when we suffer, we're bluntly reminded that destiny isn't ours and everything we do here is equally as fleeting.
That's why we need heros, no doubt; characters that transcend the norms even if they do die because they do so in a way that revels in their worthiness, making the universe better because they were here.
Our real heroics, of course, take on a much different guise.
Years of physical, emotional and psychological pain are carried by those of us who have been irreparably scarred by the cauldron that proves to be reality - a living hell for some, a terrible burden for others.
It's weird, then, that so many try to find answers in the temporary, when we need a far stronger medicine. A remedy as deep as the pain itself. As far reaching as lasting beyond our own small time and the dread of death.
That's where God comes in.
In one place He says:
"Can a woman forget the child she has nursed at her breast, that she would not have compassion on the offspring of her womb?
They may forget, but I never will.
See, how I have engraved you on the very palms of my hands".
Isaiah 49:15 &16.
Watching a scene from a recent TV soap last night on You Tube, which was speaking of how a woman's life is one of pain, pretty much from puberty to menopause, I found myself thinking just how little we can inhabit the skin of another, but how amidst all our different woes, we all know that life is totally astonishing and meant to be for something meaningful. We can play at saying we're just a bunch of atoms if we like, but deep down we know, like with our heros, that the pain has to count - it has to go 'into' something worthwhile to not be pointless and destructive.
Many who suffer do so for the sake of others, or because, in their lonely hardship, they hope someone will notice and value what they're doing.
Suffering can be worthwhile, when it leads to healing, not just in alleviation (what we deeply need) but in knowing that it is meaningful.
In our own sphere, suffering brings nothing but questions (even some answers merely amplify these), but God wants to look deeper - to see the marks on His hands that tell us life is like this for a far greater purpose.
When we step into a sphere of thinking where we can look beyond the moment and the transitory values of today, we find a much, much larger truth about reality.
In the opening scene in heaven of the last book of the Bible, all of history is focused on the appearance of one person. He doesn't come forward as some Caesar arrayed in triumph, but as one marked as a slain Lamb from the very foundation of the world. This is God's beloved Son, Jesus Christ.
The scene staggers John, the writer.
How can this be?
All of time and space, of what will unfold as history, will do so because of the centrality and significance of such a one.
The one who truly defines what counts is marked, bathed, in suffering and death, that from those ruinous depths, from those dreadful horrors, life might be made something precious and free in the totality of its goodness forever.
We look at ourselves, and we don't understand.
Why this trial, this loss, this suffering.
It doesn't add up - it just makes us think we're nothing but creatures made for the worst. Death rightly scares us rigid, and there seems no way out of our nightmare.
Christ identifies wholly with us in our need.
He is the one hanging in the agony of crucifixion, carrying our burden - our sickness and our sin - that He might deliver us from this on the day when our bodies are clothed with life without any more trouble.
The purpose so often is to bring something better, but the present is blighted only by the pain.
He comes to us, for us, that we can become whole again.
Amidst the trails, ask that Jesus to walk with you.
The pain will remain, but reality will become sharpened by a clearer, worthwhile truth.
Suffering won't last forever.
Saturday, 25 May 2019
Sunday, 12 May 2019
Troubling developments
A merchant, in whose hands are false balances... loves to oppress. Hosea 12:7.
One of the privileges I've enjoyed living where I do, at least for the better part of my life, has been the opportunity to express myself and speak about truth.
In my youth, this was often in the form of getting out in the streets to talk to people, pretty much every weekend, and in later years, this has become possible in respects to writing, first in publishing a book, and over the past decade, by creating posts for this site, as well as teaching theology in my local church.
I've been monitoring the changes that have been taking place in respect to social media over the past eighteen months as new rules have appeared on the sites, and new laws have begun to be introduced through various bodies.
Whilst the 'voices' speaking out against the curtailing of free speech have been various and numerous, the intention to cull and corral what is allowed in many public forums continues, so unless there is a radical reversal of what is underway in the near future, it may prove increasingly difficult for people to speak out against some very troublesome trends currently growing in the world.
A recent article on the Christian Post site by Michael Brown sought to examine some of the ways that this trend has directly impacted upon Christian media over recent times.
Most of us currently use social media in a variety of ways, including to speak about our faith, so I'd encourage you to be aware of what's happening in this area, both in respects to the culture at large and in respect to Christian truth.
One of the privileges I've enjoyed living where I do, at least for the better part of my life, has been the opportunity to express myself and speak about truth.
In my youth, this was often in the form of getting out in the streets to talk to people, pretty much every weekend, and in later years, this has become possible in respects to writing, first in publishing a book, and over the past decade, by creating posts for this site, as well as teaching theology in my local church.
I've been monitoring the changes that have been taking place in respect to social media over the past eighteen months as new rules have appeared on the sites, and new laws have begun to be introduced through various bodies.
Whilst the 'voices' speaking out against the curtailing of free speech have been various and numerous, the intention to cull and corral what is allowed in many public forums continues, so unless there is a radical reversal of what is underway in the near future, it may prove increasingly difficult for people to speak out against some very troublesome trends currently growing in the world.
A recent article on the Christian Post site by Michael Brown sought to examine some of the ways that this trend has directly impacted upon Christian media over recent times.
Most of us currently use social media in a variety of ways, including to speak about our faith, so I'd encourage you to be aware of what's happening in this area, both in respects to the culture at large and in respect to Christian truth.
Saturday, 11 May 2019
Saturday, 4 May 2019
Piercing the Void
"When we say that a friend 'helped' us, two meanings are possible. In the case where our need was for something practical, we have in mind material assistance, but when nothing can be done along those lines - when the beloved are lost to death - we mean something different. The friend has 'done' nothing to prevent the unwanted outcome, or to change it, yet we value them and are glad of them, because we know perfectly well we would not have gotten through the ordeal without them. It was their presence which made the difference". Based on Robert Farrar Capon's insight in his book, the Third Peacock.
Ours is an age of pretense.
We have made huge strides in what might be termed the 'mechanics' of things - technology at every corner, 24/7 global coverage of all that's new - and yet, with all our verbose success and secular swagger, we have lost ourselves when it comes to becoming whole in respects to identity and value.
Ours is the day of loneliness, of alienation, of lack of genuine worth and purpose, because if you tell people long enough and hard enough that there isn't anything but the 'mechanics' - the random knocking together of stuff that just happens to express itself in, oh, forming a universe - then everything is, in truth, pretty pointless.
We all know that life isn't really about that.
The Biblical record is astonishingly short on the details of the 'how'; it seeks to underline the point that the real causes for what binds the elements and produces the miracle of life are deeply mysterious. It's interesting that no matter how hard we try to explore those depths, what we so often find is not a solution, but further questions.
The meaning we actually gain about existence begins and ends elsewhere.
When I lost my wife to cancer some years ago, what made it bearable was the care and comfort of friends, both kin and those who decided to draw close and be there, whatever it cost. The value of such warmth amidst darkness cannot be measured, and I know that I was able to not just survive but engage with life again because that love was there.
It's by love that we become people fully alive, because truly giving yourself to another, however deep the cost that may be involved, brings out the true value of our time here - in giving, we so often discover something deeper about the wonder and the marvel of this gift of life.
Our capacity to share in this way expresses something vital about what we're meant to be - cherished people who truly belong to each other through a bond that no hardship, not even death, can end, because we truly value each other deeply - beyond our own desires or needs.
That's the centre point of Christianity, diametrically opposed to the folly of selfishness. It informs us that the real treasures of this world revolve around a love that gives itself fully and wholly to the rescue and redemption of what had been swallowed in the darkness of pride and vanity, what had become so lost that it could not see how empty its existence was.
The world we inhabit will no doubt keep on getting 'smarter' in its manipulation of things, but it will also continue to become more evil as people themselves progressively become just another 'thing' to manipulate.
The answer was given to us 2,000 years ago on a hill outside an ancient city wall, and at the empty grave a few days later.
Make time, dear friend, to consider these things, that genuine love may make you whole.
Ours is an age of pretense.
We have made huge strides in what might be termed the 'mechanics' of things - technology at every corner, 24/7 global coverage of all that's new - and yet, with all our verbose success and secular swagger, we have lost ourselves when it comes to becoming whole in respects to identity and value.
Ours is the day of loneliness, of alienation, of lack of genuine worth and purpose, because if you tell people long enough and hard enough that there isn't anything but the 'mechanics' - the random knocking together of stuff that just happens to express itself in, oh, forming a universe - then everything is, in truth, pretty pointless.
We all know that life isn't really about that.
The Biblical record is astonishingly short on the details of the 'how'; it seeks to underline the point that the real causes for what binds the elements and produces the miracle of life are deeply mysterious. It's interesting that no matter how hard we try to explore those depths, what we so often find is not a solution, but further questions.
The meaning we actually gain about existence begins and ends elsewhere.
When I lost my wife to cancer some years ago, what made it bearable was the care and comfort of friends, both kin and those who decided to draw close and be there, whatever it cost. The value of such warmth amidst darkness cannot be measured, and I know that I was able to not just survive but engage with life again because that love was there.
It's by love that we become people fully alive, because truly giving yourself to another, however deep the cost that may be involved, brings out the true value of our time here - in giving, we so often discover something deeper about the wonder and the marvel of this gift of life.
Our capacity to share in this way expresses something vital about what we're meant to be - cherished people who truly belong to each other through a bond that no hardship, not even death, can end, because we truly value each other deeply - beyond our own desires or needs.
That's the centre point of Christianity, diametrically opposed to the folly of selfishness. It informs us that the real treasures of this world revolve around a love that gives itself fully and wholly to the rescue and redemption of what had been swallowed in the darkness of pride and vanity, what had become so lost that it could not see how empty its existence was.
The world we inhabit will no doubt keep on getting 'smarter' in its manipulation of things, but it will also continue to become more evil as people themselves progressively become just another 'thing' to manipulate.
The answer was given to us 2,000 years ago on a hill outside an ancient city wall, and at the empty grave a few days later.
Make time, dear friend, to consider these things, that genuine love may make you whole.
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