Forget Harold...and get busy!

The BBC have reported again on Harold Camping and his failed rapture prediction.

It's a real joke! He now says that there WAS a judgement on 21st May, and that it was actually a SPIRITUAL judgment, which is rather convenient. Furthermore, the 21 October date is related to an earlier prediction about the end of the world. It's actually quite annoying that a) the media give this charlatan such air time, but b) they can't even report it properly! They are giving the impression that he is issuing a new date.

What's galling is that his revision to the nature of the judgment does not deal with the rather embarassing question: why are the Christians still around if God has judged the world, albeit spiritually? The fact Christians still walk the planet totally discredits the idea of a pre-tribulation rapture if he now says we're all under judgment??

I know countless theologians and journalists have made the point, but it is worth restating, "no-one knows about that day [the second coming] or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father" (Matthew 24:36). Jesus' words are unequivocal and any attempt to colour, manipulate, revise, or change these represents gross heresy. Furthermore, the idea that someone might receive a special revelation from the Father is also offensive, for it implies (as the ancient gnostics did) that faith and knowledge of God is about 'secret' knowledge.

But I suppose I should ask myself: what is my personal response to the predictions?

Jesus speaks about His return and the signs that will preceed this in Mark 13, which is largely repeated in Matthew 24. As I read Mark 13 I am struck by the following phrases: "Watch out that noone deceives you" (v.5), "Do not be alarmed" (v.7), "Be on your guard" (v.9, 23, 33), "Do not worry" (v.11 about witnessing), "Be alert!" (v.33), and "Keep watch" (v.35, 37).

Perhaps the key verse is 13: "he who stands firm to the end will be saved"

So what is my personal response?

Firstly, we are to cling to the truth of scripture. We will not be deceived by Satan or fellow man, or by circumstance if we cling to the truth of His word. It is also important that we allow others to correct our understanding, for we can all very easily be drawn to adapt our theology to fit our life. Am I regularly plugging into the Bible to shape my perspective on life. The Bible counsels us to not worry about our future, either from a personal point of view (Matt 6:25,34) or from an apocalyptic point of view. We're to trust Him and cast all our anxiety onto God (1 Peter 5:7). It is the panicked response seen in so many of Camping's followers that upsets me - why are they not dismissing him as contrary to the teaching of the Bible? We are required to expose lies (Ephesians 5:11) so we should, by the same token, be alert and on guard from deceitful ministers (2 John 10; 2 Peter 2:1).

Secondly, we're to take Jesus' return seriously. Accepting that Jesus does give us some indicators of the beginning of the end, which admitedly cannot be scheduled, there are three things I'm to do in connection with His return:

1. Preach the gospel (v.10)
Some believe that until the entire world has heard the gospel in their own language Jesus cannot return. Again, it's important not to put arbitrary conditions on Jesus return, but how am I helping this aim. Do I actively engage in the preaching of the gospel? Does my life speak of the good news? Do I share the good news? Camping does not appear to be using his confidence in a fixed point of judgment to urge greater works of evangelism - or so it seems. I wonder whether this is what Jesus is aiming at when he asks the disciples to not be caught sleeping (Mark 13:36). There is no excuse for inactivity, especially about shining as lights in the world. Indeed, one sign of Jesus return is the increased demand on Christians to witness in front of mankind, which we're not to fear - for the Spirit will lead our words (v.11)

2. Prepare for suffering (v.19)
I think the idea of the rapture is distorted (especially by pre-tribulational dispensationalists) to imply that God doesn't want Christians to suffer. Whether or not we are not to be removed from the world, God has sanctioned that our lives are not free from pain, sadness and suffering. In fact, the Bible counsels that we will suffer for being Christians (see v. 13; 1 Peter 1:6; 2 Timothy 3:12). In my day to day life, do I allow God to use the tough times to teach me, am I able to learn how to trust Him, to pattern my life on Jesus' (1 Peter 2:21)

3. Practice purity (v.34)
We are to continue to live our lives patterned on Jesus and his teaching. I was particularly helped last summer by a talk at the Keswick Convention. Our life of holiness is a response to Jesus first coming and his work on the cross, and the hope Jesus' second coming. 1 John says "everyone who has this hope in him purifies himself" (1 John 3:3). We are called to live in God's will, which also means living free from sin. So perhaps Jesus is saying to his disciples, "Be alert! Be on guard!", not to be only concerned with those around us, the rumours and lies, but we are to look to our own lives - be aware of the deceitfulness of sin. Jesus' reference to sleeping could be a reference to inactivity, but also that state of unrighteousness, a state of spiritual death (Ephesians 5:14).

I can dismiss Harold Camping as a nutter, or a fraud, but I cannot dismiss that to which he refers.

Is my life patterned on the truth of Jesus' return:
- Do I regularly read my Bible to ensure I know truth?
- Am I casting my future worries on God?
- Do I expose and explain the lies in the world to those around me?
- Am I actively sharing the good news of the gospel?
- Do I accept suffering or seek to avoid it?
- Is my life patterned on holiness and a desire to root out sin?

...phew...you know what, I should stop stressing about Harold, and look to my own walk!

Your body needs rebuilding

I failed to get to church yesterday, which has left me feeling decidedly ill at ease. I miss the shared fellowship that comes from being stood with other Christians singing, praying and being challenged by God's word.

As a result, I committed to reading the evening service passages last night and briefly meditating on them, particularly as my close friend had preached at the evening service, so I was curious. I was quite struck how much jumped at me from Haggai 1:13-2:9, John 2:13-22, and 1 Corinthians 3:10-17.

Jesus is our temple (Jn 2:21). We do not, like the Jews, go to a physical temple made by hands. We worship Jesus, our holy place.

Yet, we believe that Jesus is in us (Col. 1:27) and we are in Jesus (Col. 3:3; Eph. 1:7).

Following the logic on, it then stands to reason that we are temples, if Jesus (our temple) is in us.

Now let's pause for a moment. I've heard this dozens of times...we are God's temple...blah blah blah...but what real significance does/should this make?

Firstly, we are made for the worship of God (Eph. 1:12). I consider this to be quite a profound thought, which does stand at odds with the randomness of evolution. I do not believe we are accidentally residents on earth, but made by God, for a reason - worship.

Secondly, in order to worship we are designed, if you will, to act as temples regardless of what we specifically worship. We're made to seek out things to worship, which is why the ten commandments injunctions are relevant for all mankind, we all seek to worship - but do we worship God? Sadly, the Israellite's own history tells us what is to happen when a temple is given over to false worship (1 Cor. 10:7-8). Paul states that idols have no place in our temples (2 Cor. 2:16) but we allow idols to reign - whether money, power, emotions, clothes, our family, our ambitions... Secondly, our temple is made unclean through sexual immorality (1 Cor. 6:19).

And here comes the clever theology...

We are temples, but like the temple in the Old Testament, we are given over to idolatry and all manner of sinful behaviours which make the temple both invalid (as a place of worship to God) and unclean (they could not be used for real worship even if purposed to be such). As a result, the only just thing to do with the temple - destroy it. The Babylonian exile speaks of our exile from God as humanity - both individually and corporately we have polluted our temples and God has declared that we should die (Romans 3:23). We retreat from this truth, but it seems quite stark. We are made to be places of worship, carrying around with us God's holy presence, but through our idolotrous and immoral behaviour we cease to be set apart, we cease to be holy and when this happens God retreats.

However, the return from exile includes important prefiguring: the temple can be rebuilt (and it is promised to be more splendid than the one that preceded it (Hag. 2:9)), and the temple, once rebuilt needs to be cleansed.

This is where Jesus comes in.

Jesus body is a temple, and as an untainted body, when he suffers the punishment (exile) we deserve (death) the temple is rebuilt (resurrection). However, unlike the second temple (which was not actually as grand as the first (Ezra 3:12)) Jesus resurrection body is a rebuild on quite a different scale. Furthermore, God promises that if we believe in Jesus - accept him as Lord and Saviour - God no longer sees us as ourselves alone with our broken temple, but he sees Jesus in us and us in Jesus with a temple that is holy and righteous, both clean and holy.

Which is why Paul is so unraged at the sin which threatens to pollute the new temple in us.

- Do I commit sins of idolatry?
- Do I commit sins of sexual immorality?

In our resurrection bodies we will worship Jesus forever.
In my current fallen body I can taste this in advance as I worship God and live a life of service.
Sin seeks to dominate, indeed Satan longs to cause our current temple to fall into ruin, into disrepair, and in time to be destroyed - he seeks my daily death.

I in turn am forced on God's grace which welcomes me to a daily return from exile, to a daily resurrection of the temple.

How do we live a pure life??

It's post Easter, and I've realised with horror that I've drifted an enormous amount these last few months. There is a lacklustre feel to my walk with Jesus - it's half-baked and most of the time it's simply that I don't prioritise my life to include time in his Word. I realise that many people would consider my expectations to exacting and demanding, but I know that my life craves time in His Word.

Consequently, I'm trying to stick to my plan of completing the five offices each day (but in my own way). The Common Worship lectionary has three sets of readings for each day: Main office (which can be used at communion services midweek), Morning Prayer and Evening Prayer. In addition, I use Prayer During the Day for a midday pause, and Compline (Night Prayer) before bedtime. The psalm reading in the main office is usually quite short. Yesterday's were Psalm 119:9-16. It packed a punch!

It opens with the blog title: How can a young man keep his way pure?

It gives some straightforward advice.

1. Word
It refers to living a life according to the Word, which includes adhering to its commands, hiding the Word in a person's heart. There is also a clear sense of wanting to be taught. I have been acutely challenged this last week that when I sin I become more hostile to God, my fleshly nature deconditions my moral compass. When I am in God's word, the cleansing properties enable me to not stray into sin. Verse 11 suggests that the hidden word "in my heart" is there that "I might not sin against you". Of course, Bible reading is no magical incantation that protects me as a spell would, but proximity to God's thoughts, His morals and desire for me ensures that I see sin more plainly for what it is.
Are we all committed to reading His Word?

2. Seek
The idea of seeking God with my whole heart is a real challenge. I know that I can do a lot of the word stuff from a theological perspective. It's an academic challenge. But do I do it because I want to spend time with Jesus...
This is a real challenge when my life is modelled on a pattern of prayer that is so strict. I can easily become convinced that my failure to meet deadlines or habits will guarantee sinfulness. This is where the guts come in.
I cannot relate to God with my mind alone - I am to long/yearn/desire Him. Does my soul pant for him?
The purpose of coming to God's word is that we might encounter Jesus. We see him, however, not only in the pages of the Bible, but in the world around us - the neighbour, our colleague, the beauty of nature...
Do I purpose each day to encounter Jesus?

3. Praise
The psalmist enjoins us to Praise God. Specifically we're commanded to rejoice in his Word. I think this is really helpful. When my heart grows cold and my desire for God wanes, as sin creeps in the first thing that falls off is my Bible reading. I'm forever asking myself - when did I stop reading my Bible? Was it when I sinned? Or did I sin because I stopped reading God's Word? (Not that I'm seeking a legalistic approach - just that sense of closeness to God). I can see all too often in my journal that when I stop reading my Bible, I slowly grow less enthused to seek God. However, when I return to God in praise, when I recount all he is doing in my life, suddenly I begin to desire His presence more, which in turn leads to a hunger for time in His Word.
Do we make time each day to praise Him?

These three approaches also loosely fit the mind-body(guts)-spirit(heart) motif we see in Scripture. We read God's WORD - MIND; we SEEK Him - BODY(GUTS); we praise his name - SPIRIT(HEART).

I love the way the psalms weave patterns of wholeness into our lives.

Response to THINK

Another interesting question from THINK: what helps you feel close to God?

I guess my immediate response is to suggest that 'feeling' close to God is a misleading pursuit. We are not about feelings, for this implies that happiness is a core element of our faith. The truth should be that our secure and certain standing in Christ, based on his cross, and the promise of eternal life leads to a life of hope and peace, part of the fruit of the spirit. We are marked as deep people able to face the unpleasantness of life.

However, the certainty of life eternal, and the truth of God's love for me does, I think, require an emotional response. Every day I get consumed with the desire to ensure people like me. It deeply affects my ability to make decisions, some which need to be tough. I am so worried about what people think I often pretend to be someone I'm not. So as I reflect on closeness to God, I wonder whether I would feel closer if I spent more time reflecting on the truth of the gospel, particularly reflecting on God's feelings toward me, how he sees me.

I suppose too that closeness is about proximity. When do I draw close to God?

In worship, certainly, I am more aware of his presence. In part as I'm thinking about Him, which makes me remember his presence, which in truth hasn't left me at any point. Sometimes, I hear people disregarding worship as somehow self-serving. I understand the anxiety. Some churches pursue a style of worship which exalts the experience to such a degree as to lose sight of God, and it becomes about the feeling of worship, not the discipline of worshipping God himself. True worship engages with spirit and truth (John 4). It should be enabled by God (Spirit) and focused on God (truth), not our petty emotions.

Worship is vital, it plugs us into God and as such is about drawing close. And this is all the more important when our daily lives are so fractured and disconnected. Worship makes me 'see' God, much like Isaiah did in person (Isa 6). When we see God there is that inevitable sense of unworthiness - leading to the promise of forgiveness.

Closeness to God requires us to know Him and then know ourselves, which I then see as a command to serve others. This service is not about browny-points, but helping those around us also know Him and themselves.

I think I'm incredibly privileged in my role as Chaplain, for I can do precisely these two things. I can help articulate what the God I worship is like, who he is, but I also get to hold up a mirror to the organisation and individuals, and ask the question - who are you? What are you like? What words can we use to articulate what our nature is like? Where there is creativity and beauty, intellect and insight - where are these from? But also, where there is ugliness, racism, hatred and unloveliness - where are these from?

I pray that I spend more time seeking opportunities to remember God's permanent immanence, while also pointing to him more in my life.

The angels went to Shepherds first. Shepherds. We have some rose-tinted concepts of shepherding - images of sweet, clean sheep and luscious grass. However, these guys are likely to have been real down and outs, really disconnected - really socially unacceptable.

Which made me think (as it does) of Shameless. I don't necessarily endorse all the shenanigans of the characters on the Chatsworth estate, but they represent a very real corner of our society, which in the Americanised version are best described as 'trailer-trash'. The middle-class church avoids gazing overlong in their direction...but God does not.

On the flip side, I am mindful that much of my last few months is concerned with meeting important influencers in colleges. And then we have the Queen's New Years honours list published today. With the announcements comes the opportunity to meet the sovereign herself. In the U.S. I'm confident invitations to hang out with the President are few and far between!

And here is the AMAZING truth of this season - despite the glitz and commercialism. God deigned to be born into a scene of poverty, and then reaches out to share this occasion with those regarded as beneath most classes - the Shepherds.

God has absolutely no agenda - he cares not for status or ability or achievements or odour or respectibility. He is foremost a God for all.

As we approach the New Year I wonder whether my human relations have caused me to ignore the enormity of this openness on God's part. Each and every day I am invited, not to the crib, but into the presence of the risen and ascended King - our Lord Jesus. Can you imagine, or even get your head round this?

Furthermore, as I think back over the last 12 months I am filled increasingly (certainly it gets greater each year) with a sense of shame and regret. There are so many times when I did not be all I could be. Why did I not avail myself of God's presence, his time, and his wisdom?

This coming year I want the invitation to the Shepherds to stay with me, to remind me that THIS DAY a Saviour is waiting to be with me, speak with me and dispense his advice, guidance and strength.

Happy New Year!!

Wise and cheerful Hugh

Today is the lesser festival of the intriguing character, Hugh of Lincoln.

There are two excellent (and brief) entries on Hugh on wikipedia and britannia biographies, which shed some light on his story and personality.
One particular excerpt jumped out at me:

"As a bishop he was exemplary, constantly in residence or travelling within his
diocese, generous with his charity, scrupulous in the appointments he made. He raised the quality of education at the cathedral school. Hugh was also prominent in trying to protect the Jews, great numbers of whom lived in Lincoln, in the persecution they suffered at the beginning of Richard I's reign, and he put down popular violence against them in several places."

The articles also alude to his diplomatic tact, allied to his gentle humour, which enabled him to have a close relationship with the English monarch. Indeed, at one point he is recorded to have playfully shook Richard I to thaw a bad temper. With the best will in the world, deference and decorum make me surmise our own archbishop is unlikely to have a similar relationship with our monarch! Hugh is also portrayed as a caring bishop who tended to the young, the sick and the old (and the dead!). He had a fierce sense of justice, which impelled him to risk his own life in the defence of Jews.

Today's readings are supplemented with 1 Timothy 6:11-16, in which Paul adjures Timothy to pursue: righteousness, godliness, faith, love, endurance, and gentleness. Godliness, God-like-ness, might also be rendered Christ-like-ness. In Christ we are made holy and righteous, and we are to daily pursue this, knowing the condition of our hearts. But we move on from this to our lifestyle and our attitudes. Christ came to serve. I too am called to a life of service - to the rich, the poor, the sick, the imprisoned.

In Hugh we see practical examples of what this might still look like for us. Hugh saw himself as a servant of God's people - not as their Lord. There is, indeed, only one Lord. And Hugh's life points to Jesus: his servant heart. Can I claim similar?
- He honoured his appointments. Do I?
- He gave generously. Do I?
- He cared for the sick. Do I?
- He acted justly. Do I?
- He defended the persecuted. Do I?
- He visited his brethren. Do I?
- He chapioned education. Do I?
- He even laboured in the building of Lincoln Cathedral. Do I labour on God's church, seeking to leave a legacy while also offering worship?
- He was tactful and diplomatic. Am I?
- He was good humoured. Am I?

This day I am grateful for the collect for Hugh, which speaks of Hugh's "wise and cheerful boldness".

May we seek and be granted grace to live like this, day by day.

No smoke without fire

"For wickedness burned like a fire,
consuming briers and thorns;
it kindled the thickets of the forest,
and they swirled upward in a column of smoke" (Isaiah 9:18)

Sin is conspicuous. Certainly, we seek to hide it from God, from ourselves, and our loved ones; but sin leaves marks - stains. All too often in my life I have sought to conceal my deepest darkest sins from my wife, but through a combination of her knowing me very well, and changes in me, she knows - and God knows immediately.

This verse has struck me because of the saying, 'there's no smoke without fire', which is all well and good, and often misapplied, but in my life I wonder if people talk about my behaviour, my habits and wonder about what underlies it. I have often been in the habit of running late, but this has lately evolved into a lax attitude to informing people where I am, and what I am doing. I fear that in not working and living transparently, openly and fairly I am opening myself, and therefore, God to criticism.

This is no admission of guilt - but a sense of how my actions might cause people to infer things about my character.

Naturally, we should seek to please God only, but we are God's hands and feet.

This in turn prompts me to consider other points in God's word where reference is made to fire:

"See, the day is coming, burning like an oven, when all the arrogant and
the evildoers will be stubble; the day that comes shall burn them up, says the
LORD of hosts" (Malachi 4:1)

"The work of each builder will become visible, for the Day will disclose
it, because it will be revealed with fire, and the fire will test what sort of
work each has done" (1 Corinthians 3:13)

Both verses speak of a future day of judgement. A day Christians need not fear, for we shall not enter heaven, graciously, on the basis of our works. Instead, God will seek to test our works, our offering to Him. Sins and their record will be burnt away, but works of gold, silver, stone, etc will remain.

As I wander through my days, and as I reflect on the lives of countless Saints before me this All Saintstide, am I seeking to build with gold, or am living a life of conspicuous sin, where folk speak not of my godliness, but rumour on my character?