The world's sap has sunk...

Tomorrow is the longest night of the year…correspondingly we have to endure its shortest day. And as if to rub our noses in it, the weather has turned decidedly grim. It’s one thing to be cold, but at least crispiness and sub-zero mornings make us dream of a white Christmas. Dark mornings, gloominess, wet and windy weather all induce a deep reluctance to get up: duvet weather.

Like the animals, it’s an attractive option to hibernate through the dark of winter.

And the darkness is spiritual.

 

 

The beginning of Advent is marked by the excitement and unquenchable optimism that Christ is coming to reign…we sing ‘Lo! He comes…’

However, this year I’ve found myself (not unlike the passage of Lent) becoming steadily more gloomy spiritually as the season has progressed. Instead of the dimmer effect – steady growth from dark to light – it’s been a gradual darkening: from dark to darker! And I think it’s John Donne’s fault:

Tis the year’s midnight, and it is the day’s,

Lucy’s, who scarce seven hours herself unmasks;

The sun is spent, and now his flasks

Send forth light squibs, no constant rays;

The world’s whole sap is sunk

 

These are his opening words from ‘A nocturnal upon St Lucy’s Day’

Traditionally, St Lucy’s Day, 13 December, was regarded as the shortest day of the year – hence the idea of the “year’s midnight”…and the evocative assessment that “the world’s whole sap is sunk”.

St Lucy is a 4^th century martyr. Around Lucy certain legends have developed, not least the persistent idea that her eyes were removed before her death. However, this idea is unfounded, and absent in the many narratives and traditions, at least until the 15th century. But it’s rather poetic isn’t it. This beautiful young maiden, whose name, Lucy, is derived from the Latin for light (lux), has the one thing removed that casts light within – her eyes. She is, before death, consigned to darkness.

Liturgically, St Lucy’s day is followed by St John of the Cross Day who famously penned the poem, ‘The Dark Night of the Soul’. Happy.

Indeed, not only does St John’s poetry witness to the darkness that so often engulfs the human spirit, thrusting us into realms and periods of detachment and difficulty, seasons of isolation, even from God, when all is dark about us. But St John’s life itself witnesses to the darkness that accompanies walking with Christ. He was jailed in a monastery, where he was kept under a brutal regimen that included public lashing before the community at least weekly, and severe isolation in a tiny stifling cell measuring ten feet by six feet; not what you’d call palatial. Rarely, he was permitted an oil lamp, and he had to stand on a bench to read his prayer book by the light through a hole in the wall. He had no change of clothing and a meagre diet of water, bread and scraps of salt fish. A very real and no doubt soul-searchingly depressing period of darkness.

 

And then as if these two saints of the church were not enough, we were all confronted with the darkness of human nature in the massacre at Sandy Nook Elementary School. Sadly, the murder of 20 children only made me weep, and remember the Holy Innocents…Why, Lord? Why such darkness? How do we as Christians sing “my heart is full of admiration…” and so on, when we are confronted with evil?

On the same day I had a few hours to myself in the evening and possessed by a curious mood I decided to watch ‘Schindler’s List’ and so was plunged into more soul searching as I pondered afresh the torment and horror of the Final Solution and the death camps.

Whatever hopefulness that greets Advent, it has given way to a despair that accompanies the frank realisation of the state of the world. A spirit of evil and darkness seems to brood over the lives of man.

But in fact, maybe this is precisely the correct trajectory we take in Advent.

As I’ve remarked before, Advent is NOT about imagining we live in the Before Christ times; make-believing that we are shepherds and wise men waiting for the Messiah. No.

But something has to happen to our Advent cry. To sanctify and purify it. 

At the end of the liturgical year we reflect on the lives of the saints and the promise of eternal life in God’s presence in heaven: the last and eternal things. This naturally gives way to Advent where we begin the year eagerly expecting Christ’s coming. We are often expressly admonished to be joyful in this season. We are told – this is not a second Lent. We are reminded that the season is not penitential in nature.

Really?

I would contend that any serious engagement with the Advent readings, and much of this is in Isaiah, makes us reflect on the nature of our fallenness:

“The earth lies polluted under its inhabitants” (Isa. 24:5)

“He [man] cannot save himself” (Isa. 44:20)

The prophet points at the sins of indolence and laziness (47:8), of sorcery and astrology (47:12f.), of idolatry and pride (44:9-23; 47:7). The prophet says sin is rebelliousness “from birth” (48:8b).

In essence, we frequently and persistently turn away from God: we forget him (Isaiah 51:13).

Perhaps it is entirely fitting that this period from 13^th to 21^st December represents the dark heart of winter (and why the counterpoint of Gaudete Sunday is so refreshing. My friend Bryony preached on this on 16^th December). This week is the grim core of Advent, when we are finally worn down by the weather, the world, sin and our adversary, the Devil, who features in our readings from Thessalonians. We are afflicted on every side. Like the Psalmist, David, we might well say, “I am in the midst of lions; I am forced to dwell among ravenous beasts…”(Psa 57:4)

And then when I look inside…I realise I am one of those lions, I am one of the beasts. I am my own darkness.

 

So what do we do?

We cry that great Advent exclamation: WAKE UP, DO SOMETHING, LORD! SAVE US (Isa. 51:9)

And the beautiful truth of this season is this: the hope of a world redeemed can only be sustained when we have in our heart the truth of a promise fulfilled: a baby born. We can only trust God to be faithful, because he was faithful to his promises of old to come into the world to comfort and console us. And it gets better!

“We know that the one who raised the Lord Jesus from the dead will also raise us with Jesus” (2 Corinthians 4:14).

Advent is viewed through the lense of Christmas. Advent Hope is assured because of the Christmas Incarnation, and the Christmas Incarnation set into motion the life that leads to real life. Christmas is seen through the lens of Easter. Easter is the feast of feasts.

I am consoled and comforted this Advent because I am reminded once again that Jesus is coming back to judge and redeem the world. I can trust this will happen because God is faithful. His faithfulness is proven in the nativity – he fulfilled his promise – that God would come to save us. And this is THE great promise – that God would defeat the evil that came into the world – a defeat seen in the EASTER triumph.

 

So, John Donne, you may well be right. The world’s sap has sunk – and sadly we see signs of this decay day by day. But hope…hope is what drives us on. The hope of a Son: a son to save, to redeem, to judge, to comfort and console. A son who came, who died, who rose, who ascended, and who will come again.

A light. A light that has come into the darkness. And will never go out.

 

 

Grief or Gladness: the dilemma of Easter Saturday

I’m always confused about how to behave on the big feast/holy days through the year.

I am unhappy to ‘pretend’ to be an Israelite waiting for their Messiah, or a Shepherd hearing the angel’s good news (Advent and Christmas). We live in the aftermath of Jesus’ incarnation and we are in fact waiting for his return.

But I also appreciate the power of re-enactment. The nativity play somehow keeps the story alive, it reminds us of the cost. Buy also, Nativity plays are quite cute.

So imagine how I feel about Holy Week?!

In an even more profound sense, the faux-mourning and pretend grief get up my nose a bit. Why do we play-act at sadness? We live in the aftermath of Easter…that joyous defeat of death.

Furthermore, the reading from John 2 on Easter Saturday (I do prefer the moniker ‘Holy Saturday’ or ‘Silent Saturday’) drives this point home:

“18 The Jews then responded to him, “What sign can you show us to prove your
authority to do all this?” 19 Jesus answered them, “Destroy this temple, and I
will raise it again in three days.” 20 They replied, “It has taken forty-six
years to build this temple, and you are going to raise it in three days?” 21 But
the temple he had spoken of was his body. 22 After he was raised from the dead,
his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the scripture and
the words that Jesus had spoken.” (John 2:18-22, NIV)

The disciples had been told there would be a middle day. They just hadn’t remembered. But we do??! We know what follows Saturday.

So shouldn’t we actually be rather more upbeat about all this? Why mope about as though we had been abandoned by Jesus – let down, etc. Once we pass Good Friday shouldn't we get rather more excited - like the anticipation of a long-awaited film, or the return of a long-travelling loved one?

Perhaps; perhaps not.

But in truth I’m rather glad we re-live the grief. For, for in truth, as many commentators suggest, we find solace in Easter Saturday because our own lives are marked by great sorrow and sadness, abandonment and confusion. There is comfort in knowing God is comfortable with silent tears.

I think, however, we must remember Paul’s injunction in 1 Thessalonians to “not grieve as others who have no hope” (1 Thes. 4:13). We grieve with hope.

And this is perhaps why Easter Saturday is the great climax of Lent. The last day we use the Lenten liturgy.

After spending time during Lent meditating on our sin, we find ourselves in Holy Week reading from Lamentations which suggests we should respond in silence (Lam 2:10), penitence (2:10), weeping (v. 11, 18), crying out to God (v.18 – much like the Psalmist in Psalm 142, the morning prayer psalm for Easter Saturday), a sense in which we come and pour our heart out before God (v.19). This is no play acting. And yet is precisely the range of activites we imagine the disciples engaging in. We come on Easter Saturday and sit in our own place. We now know Jesus is resurrected, but this understanding also makes us realise our part in his death – it was not a failed political venture, but a great act of mercy.

I am constantly, throughout Lent, repeating in worship and in private prayer the great cry from Hosea: “Come, let us return to the LORD.”

There is great promise in Hosea – that God will heal, bind up, revive, raise up, but also that he’ll appear and come. (Hosea 6:1-6)

This Easter Saturday – knowing the full extent of God’s mercy – Christ has died, Christ is risen, Christ will come again – we may be moved to tears – that he did all this for me. In my sin, my own most grievous sin – he did all this for me. So perhaps my tears aren’t just from grief, but gratitude too.

The importance of Ascension Day

Booyah! We’ve done it…40 days for Lent, followed by 40 days for Eastertide…and so we arrive at the much neglected feast of the Ascension.

It’s fair to say that Christians who aren’t affiliated to liturgical/lectionary-following churches may not even consider this a ‘valid’ Christian celebration (they may not even know it exists!). Many Christians are more than happy to have a non-seasonal approach and content themselves with Easter and Christmas, others will be mindful of Palm Sunday, a smaller number will commemorate Good Friday, although, a number of churches do mark Pentecost.

But Ascension Day?....eh? What’s that? And more importantly, why is Ascension Day important to Christians?

Ascension Day remembers Jesus’ departure from earth, his ascension into heaven, recorded at length at the beginning of Acts (Acts 1:1-11). Jesus spends 40 days after his resurrection with the disciples, but finally he must leave, which he does in front of the disciples themselves. He is “taken up before their very eyes, and a cloud hid him from sight”. After this two angels appear to inform the eleven that Jesus would “come back in the same way you have seen him go”. While teaching prior to his ascension, Jesus has reminded the disciples of three things: firstly, the disciples were to wait for the anointing of the Holy Spirit; secondly, his return was not a matter to speculate on (see my blog on Jesus return); and thirdly, they were to witness, which the anointing was to equip them for.

So on one level, Ascension Day is about remembering these instructions.

However, there is a deeper, more complex theological significance to the feast.

Fulfilment of prophecy. Psalm 110 is quoted liberally throughout the New Testament. In it, King David prophetically sees “The LORD says to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand.’” Jesus himself spoke about what would happen to him. John 14:12 he refers to his “going to the Father” (cf. John 14:2-3, 28; 16:5), even after his resurrection he is mindful that his ‘journey’ is not yet complete (John 20:17). This is a point much overlooked by protestant churches; there is a completeness in the cross and resurrection, but part of its application is the saving of humanity and its flesh.

Taking up of authority. God has given Jesus authority to reign now, as He is now in heaven. Remarkably, during his Pentecost sermon, Peter speaks of the Ascension as an ‘exaltation’ of Jesus (Acts 2:33). Peter has no sense that Jesus is merely out of sight, but very much exalted and reigning as he spoke – and this just ten days after seeing him ‘disappear’! Peter returns to this theme in his first letter stating that Jesus is “at God’s right hand” (1 Peter 3:22). Psalm 110 is referred to by Paul in 1 Corinthians 15 where he refers to Jesus presently reigning, he does not consider Jesus reign as lying sometime in the future, he is seated “far above all rule and authority, power and dominion… not only in the present age but also in the one to come” (Ephesians 1:20f. emphasis mine – showing that Paul sees both a present and future rule; see also Romans 10:6)

Honouring of humanity. Jesus’ exaltation fulfils prophecy, endows Him with authority, but by virtue of the fact Jesus ascends in a temporal body, it redeems our very flesh. Jesus does not ascend only as the Son of God, but also as the Son of Man:

"Jesus glorified our fallen and sinful humanity when He returned to the Father"

Jesus is welcomed into heaven, and in so doing God says ‘mankind can once more be in my presence’. During the season of Easter we read the story of Stephen’s martyrdom. As he prepares to die he says: “I see heaven open and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God”. Several points here: 1. Jesus is in heaven already; 2. He is seen as the Son of Man (the only time anyone other than Jesus uses the term); and 3. He is standing, which is seen as representing great authority (standing in His Father’s presence!). Stephen’s vision is one we are party to, and as a result we can confidently state the same of Jesus today. He is in heaven, right now as our ambassador. Jesus goes to prepare our way. This is a wondrous idea – that Jesus in his human body is now in heaven. This further paves the way for the glorification of our own bodies; Peter refers to the fact that we even now can participate in the divine nature (2 Peter 1:4). We do not have space here to consider the offices in which Jesus, as our representative, is now our mediator and priest in heaven.

Preparation for Pentecost. After the ascension we have a further ten days before we reach Pentecost. Therefore, in a liturgical sense, there is an element of preparation as we consider the part the Holy Spirit plays in our lives. Ascension Day can start this preparation.

[An important caveat: the lectionary returns to what is known as ‘Ordinary Time’ the very first day after Pentecost. This is because we don’t have a Pentecost-tide, or “season” to focus on the Spirit, for we are always, all-year-round blessed with the Spirit. We are never apart from His presence and activity. Indeed, it is possibly unhelpful to have a Christian calendar precisely for this reason. Just as at Christmas where we must always be careful not to pretend we are waiting for Jesus’ first coming, so with Pentecost we must not think we are to imitate the disciples in the Upper room waiting for his outpouring – the Spirit is with us right now! This should also restrain the temptation to marginalise Ascension themes in Ascensiontide in favour of Pentecost prep…]

There is, nevertheless, the need to consider afresh the degree to which we permit the Spirit to have influence and authority in our life. Do we, for instance, resist the gifts of the Spirit? Are we prone to sins that flatly contradict the fruit of the Spirit? Do I ignore the work of the Spirit as He pricks my conscience about sins in my life? Not only personally, but corporately, are our churches marked by a keen sense that the Spirit guides, leads and directs? Are our services marked by human effort or the Spirit’s enabling? Do we preach about the Spirit, indeed? Fundamentally, do we recognise that on Ascension Day we can celebrate that as a result of Jesus going to heaven he was able to send the Spirit—no Ascension, no Pentecost.

All this is well and good, but what practical response might Ascensiontide prompt? A few questions and ides:

1. Do I submit to Jesus authority in my life? Or am constantly battling to be the ‘boss of me’? Do I see Jesus as merely my Lord, or Lord of all?



2. When did I last speak to someone about what Jesus has done in my life? Do I chat with my wife and family about my relationship with God?



3. Do we have a present trust that Jesus will return? Does this provoke a holiness of life, or am I ‘asleep on the job’?



4. What experiences of the Spirit have I had recently? Am I exercising my gifts? In what ways am I being more loving, joyful, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle and self-controlled?
   Perhaps we should use the nine days after Ascension, and before Pentecost, to meditate each day on each of the fruits?
   Friday 3rd June Love 1 John 4:16
   Saturday 4th June Joy Philippians 4:4
   Sunday 5th June Peace Philippians 4:7
   Monday 6th June Patience Romans 5:4
   Tuesday 7th June Kindness Ephesians 4:32
   Wednesday 8th June Goodness Ephesians 5:9
   Thursday 9th June Faithfulness Revelation 2:10
   Friday 10th June Gentleness Philippians 4:5
   Saturday 11th June Self-control Titus 1:8
   [I am particularly grateful to John Methuen for this idea]



5. Knowing that Jesus’ ascension fulfils prophecy does this give me more confidence when asked about Jesus?



6. Do I have a negative view of humanity? Do I treat my body with disrespect?
   

Ascension Day is a great time in the year to celebrate Jesus Lordship, he was prophesied to come, to die, to raise to life, and then to ascend on high. In heaven he now mediates on our behalf, seeks to be our Lord and sends the Spirit to aid us. Meanwhile, we cling with hope and fervent trust that just as Jesus left we can know he will, one day, return!

REFERENCES
Orthodox Family Life (1999)'The Meaning and Importance of Ascension' [Online]
Available: http://www.theologic.com/oflweb/feasts/ascen.htm [2 June 2011]

Weeping

Despite the season (Eastertide is upon us) I am continuing to make my way (once again) through the powerful book 'Why revival tarries' by Leonard Ravenhill. For the record, this is not a book to recommend for casual Christian-lite reading. This book was recommended to me by a great pastor and friend, with the intention, no doubt, of causing me to shake.

It is available from amazon, but I advise with caution.

Today I've read chapter seven and once again Ravenhill refers to the importance of tears:

"I am increasingly convinced that tears are an integral part of revival preaching. Preacher brethren, this is the time to blush that we have no shame, the time to weep for our lack of tears, the time to bend low that we have lost the humble touch of servants, the time to groan that we have no burden, the time to be angry with ourselves that we have no anger over the devil's monopoly in this 'end time' hour, the time to chastise ourselves that the world can so easily get along with us and not attempt to chastise us" (Ravenhill 1979, p.65)

It may seem strange to focus on tears at the beginning of our Easter season. But when I've considered the shift from the darkness and self-examination of Lent with the joyful 'alleluia's' of Easter I am convinced that all Christians must see the light of Christ bursting from the tomb, and ask whether that same light is bursting forth from our lives. Are we so innured to the world that we do not have hearts aching to share the Love of God. Do we chastise the world? Do we speak out about the love God has for the loveless?

I must confess that I am merrily carrying this good news around with me, and remain remarkably unmoved that so many people I know are in darkness. Why is this?

It's Ravenhill's final rebuke in the paragraph that stings: "This is the time... to chastise ourselves that the world can so easily get along with us and not attempt to chastise us"

Amidst the joy of Easter can we seek to translate our joy into prayerful tears?


REFERENCES
Ravenhill, L. (1979) Why revival tarries. Minneapolis: Bethany House Publishers