Phill Sacre

Tag: jesus

  • Water into wine: what’s going on?!

    Water into wine: what’s going on?!

    Marriage at CanaYesterday at church the theme was ‘Jesus turns water into wine’, from John 2:1-11. It’s a well-known story – if you’ve ever been to a wedding in an Anglican church, for example, you will have heard it mentioned in the introduction – but the story is nonetheless quite puzzling. To be honest with you, I’ve never really understood it properly: does Mary force Jesus into doing something he didn’t want to do? Did Jesus basically provide people with a load of decent plonk for free, for no reason other than the fact that he was asked to by his Mum? What was the point? Does that really sound like something Jesus would do?

    I don’t know about you, but these kind of questions have always plagued my mind – even when I was studying John at college a couple of years ago, it was still difficult. However, as I was listening to the passage and sermon I had a few thoughts, and I thought I’d write them up in case they’re useful for anyone else. Obviously there are many things you could say about this passage, and I will only be able to pick up a few of them, but hopefully this will help to shed some light.

    Jesus’ mother and the disciples

    Notice in the first couple of verses, John writes “Jesus’ mother” – twice – as if he wants to stress the fact that Mary is here acting as Jesus’ mother. In contrast, Jesus “and his disciples” were invited to the wedding – note that Mary is specified separately to the disciples. Mary is not included as a disciple here.

    And I think this leads on to Jesus’ reply to Mary: “Woman, why do you involve me?” Why doesn’t Jesus call Mary his mother? Even if, as the NIV footnote points out, ‘woman’ was not a disrespectful term – in the normal way, wouldn’t Jesus have said ‘Mother’? I think this is significant: Jesus is highlighting the fact that Mary does not have maternal authority over him. In a sense, Mary is not Jesus’ mother in the same way that the Father is Jesus’ father. In John 19:25-27, Jesus essentially hands over the mother/son relationship to the beloved disciple – I wonder if that is him providing for his mother in the way he was unable to as an ordinary son would. (In this place, too, Jesus calls Mary ‘Woman’).

    Either way, it seems that the point of this is that if Mary is to have a relationship with Jesus, it should be the relationship of a disciple. At this point in Jesus’ life, the need for Mary was to believe in Jesus along with the rest of his disciples – not to be a mother to him. Throughout the whole gospel John gives us little pictures of what it looks like to be a follower of Jesus, and here – as in many other places – he is showing us that what we all need to do is put our faith in Jesus.

    My hour has not yet come

    Another puzzling aspect of this story: does Mary force Jesus into doing something which he didn’t want to do? When Jesus says, “my hour has not yet come” – why does he then go ahead and perform the miracle? If you read through John, Jesus talks a lot about his ‘hour’ of glorification coming. This culminates in 12:23, where Jesus says “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified” – referring to his own death. In other words, the hour of Jesus’ glorification is the cross: for John, the cross is the place where Jesus’ glory is revealed.

    In 2:11, we see that “What Jesus did here in Cana of Galilee was the first of the signs through which he revealed his glory”. So this sign, the turning of the water into wine, should say something about Jesus’ glory – it should say something about the cross. It’s not just a simple miracle, it is a sign. But what sign is it?

    The miracle

    I think here, as with what we have already seen, the clue is in the details: Jesus doesn’t just turn water into wine in an unspecified container. He turns water into wine, John tells us, in “six stone water jars, the kind used by the Jews for ceremonial washing”. The kind used for ceremonial washing, i.e. the kind of jars that were used in the context of ritual purification and worship. And Jesus doesn’t just turn the water into any old cheap plonk – he turns it into the finest wine, wine which causes the master of the banquet to exclaim “you have saved the best till now”.

    What’s the significance of wine? We know from Matthew 26:28 and elsewhere that wine is used in communion as a representative of Jesus’ blood. Although John in his gospel doesn’t include the last supper per se, Jesus does say in John 6, “Very truly I tell you, unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.” So I think it’s quite likely that the wine in this story here is symbolic of Jesus’ blood – the blood which will bring ultimate purification, the blood of the new covenant which cleanses from sin once for all.

    Hebrews talks about Jesus’ blood:

    But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, so obtaining eternal redemption. The blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkled on those who are ceremonially unclean sanctify them so that they are outwardly clean. How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God! (Hebrews 9:11-14)

    Summary

    So what can we say about this passage? As with many things in John, I think there is an element of misunderstanding and irony going on: Mary thinks that she is doing one thing – compelling Jesus to provide wine for a wedding feast – whereas Jesus is actually showing a sign which illustrates what he has come to do. We see that Mary attempts to assert her authority as Jesus’ mother, but in actuality what she needs to do – as we all do – is turn to Jesus as a disciple. And we see that Jesus came to turn the imperfect nature of purifying with water into the blood that cleanses from every stain of sin.

    This is my fourth post on John’s gospel – if you enjoyed it, you might like previous thoughts I’ve had on John: the woman at the well, the raising of Lazarus, and Jesus’ trial and crucifixion.

  • Jesus vs the Bible

    “You are in error because you do not know the Scriptures or the power of God” – Matthew 22:29

    I’ve come across a lot of people recently who seem to pit Jesus against the Bible. It seems like this is a growing trend. People say things like, “Jesus is the only Word of God. The Bible was written by human authors and it might be wrong” – that kind of thing. The point is: we can trust in Jesus, because he was God and is therefore infallible. We can’t trust completely in the Bible, because it was written by humans and therefore fallible.

    I don’t see how this works logically: how do we know what Jesus said and did? Well, it’s written down here in… oh.

    OK, that was a cheap shot. But I think there are nonetheless good reasons for not pitting the Bible against Jesus:

    • Jesus himself doesn’t. He constantly says “It is written”. For example, when he was tempted by Satan in the wilderness in Matthew 4 he responds by saying “It is written…” and quoting from the Old Testament.
    • Jesus sees himself as the fulfilment of Old Testament prophecy, e.g. Mark 14:49 “The Scriptures must be fulfilled”. Jesus begins his ministry in Luke 4:21, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” Luke 18:31, “everything that is written by the prophets about the Son of Man will be fulfilled.” Why do I say this? Jesus assumes that what is written about him in the Old Testament is actually accurate.
    • Jesus says things like “Scripture cannot be set aside” (John 10:35).
    • Jesus uses the Old Testament to teach people about himself – Luke 24:27 “beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he [Jesus] explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.”
    • Finally, as I quoted at the beginning of this post, Jesus claims that a cause of error is not knowing the Scriptures. Jesus responds to the Sadducees by making an argument which is based on a particular verse in the Old Testament. The problem is often not which bits of Scripture to believe or not – the problem is usually that we don’t understand Scripture well enough.

    It seems to me that Jesus himself was comfortable using Scripture and relying on it as the Word of God – and I think this is an attitude which is supported by the rest of the New Testament, e.g. 2 Timothy 3:16 “All scripture is God-breathed”, or 2 Peter 1:21 “prophecy never had its origin in the human will, but prophets, though human, spoke from God as they were carried along by the Holy Spirit.” Or look at the book of Hebrews, as I have blogged about before.

    There is another more subtle way in which people like to pit Jesus against the Bible: reading all Scripture through the “Jesus Lens”. Andrew Wilson nails it in his blog “The Jesus Lens, or the Jesus Tea-Strainer?“:

    In his [Steve Chalke’s] view, the Bible should be read through “the Jesus lens”, that is to say, in the light of God’s self-revelation in Jesus. I agree. But he then goes on to argue that this enables us, and in fact requires us, to correct all sorts of things that the texts actually say, particularly those which involve wrath, death and sexual ethics

    Now this is in some respects a difficult area because we do need to read the Bible ‘Christologically’, i.e. read the whole Bible as pointing to Christ. But, as Andrew Wilson points out, that doesn’t mean using Jesus as a kind of ‘tea strainer’ where we block out all the bits we don’t like because Jesus “obviously wouldn’t have done that”. I’m sure this is a caricature, but nonetheless I think this kind of attitude is very popular: “Jesus showed us the way of love and inclusiveness; therefore we need to be loving and inclusive”.

    As you might imagine, this is applied a lot to the current debates about sexuality within the church: “What would Jesus have done with a same-sex couple?” The implication being that Jesus was loving and inclusive and would have accepted people as they were.

    The problem is – I don’t think this is the Jesus I see in the gospels. Of course he was loving and inclusive – but not to the exclusion of caring about sin. Jesus’ love is not ‘fluffy kittens and rainbows’ kind of love. Jesus did not come to abolish the Scriptures, but fulfil them. How is it that God can be merciful and wrathful at the same time? Look to Jesus’ death on the cross, where he bore the punishment for our sins. How is it that a holy God can be inclusive of sinners? Look to Jesus’ death on the cross.

    Jesus never excuses sin. He never says “Forget about it” when it comes to sin. If anything, he takes the Law and sets the standards even higher (I was struck by this when reading through Matthew recently – especially the Sermon on the Mount).

    Of course Jesus is inclusive and accepting, but he is inclusive and accepting of those who come to him knowing that they need to be healed, knowing that they are sinners who are worthy of God’s judgement but instead will receive mercy, knowing that they need to turn to him in repentance and faith and intend to lead a new life in his power.

    I’d like to finish by quoting Revelation 19, where we see this magnificent description of Jesus as the all-conquering Word of God. I think this is something we would all do well to reflect on – Jesus is not all inclusive and love, he is the just judge who will return to judge the living and the dead, whose kingdom will have no end:

    I saw heaven standing open and there before me was a white horse, whose rider is called Faithful and True. With justice he judges and wages war. His eyes are like blazing fire, and on his head are many crowns. He has a name written on him that no one knows but he himself. He is dressed in a robe dipped in blood, and his name is the Word of God. The armies of heaven were following him, riding on white horses and dressed in fine linen, white and clean. Coming out of his mouth is a sharp sword with which to strike down the nations. ‘He will rule them with an iron sceptre.’ He treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has this name written:

    King of Kings and Lord of Lords.

  • The Story of the Jews

    One of the things which interests me about modern-day Judaism is how different it is from my understanding of the Hebrew Scriptures (i.e. the Jewish Bible or the Christian Old Testament). Given that Christians and Jews have so much shared Scripture (most of the Bible – 75% or thereabouts – is the Hebrew Scriptures) – how have they ended up in such different places? In particular, modern-day Jews do not offer sacrifices and there seems to be no atonement for sin – the focus seems to be rather on the observance of the law. So I was interested to see that Simon Schama has created a new documentary called “The Story of the Jews” recently (Sunday evenings on BBC2 – at the time of writing there are another couple of episodes remaining in the series). Mrs Phil and I have been watching it, and it’s fascinating. What’s particularly interesting to me is how Judaism has changed and adapted over the years.

    It’s fascinating to see how Simon Schama – and others – interpret the parts of the Scriptures which I am familiar with, and yet put a slant on them which I would be quite unfamiliar with. Present-day Jews have much more history to look back on, and have much more to explain. In a particularly poignant moment at the end of the last programme, for example, Simon Schama talked about the building anti-Semitism in Europe at the end of the 19th century before finishing up at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin. (more…)

  • Sermon: Resurrection [1 Corinthians 15:12-28]

    As I mentioned a while back, I was preaching a few weeks ago at Christ Church Cockfosters. We were going through a series on the Nicene Creed, and my particular line was “On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures”, i.e. Jesus’ resurrection. I didn’t really cover the ‘in accordance with the Scriptures’ bit, but I did look at 1 Corinthians 15 to try to understand why the resurrection is vital for Christians today.

    The choice is yours: you can either read the PDF version here (apologies for reference to slides and asking questions; you’ll have to imagine the slides but they’re not necessary for understanding the sermon), or you can listen to the sermon in this handy player right here:

    [soundcloud url=”http://api.soundcloud.com/tracks/101878371″ params=”” width=” 100%” height=”166″ iframe=”true” /]

    Well, you don’t *have* to do one of those two things. I mean, you could ignore this, but give me a break – I’m trying to promote myself here 😉

  • John 19: Jesus’ Trial and Crucifixion

    crossAs alert readers will no doubt be aware, I have been studying John recently (you can read my previous blog posts on the subject here and here). I promised in my last post that I would blog about John 19, and I thought this would be as good a time as any – particularly while it’s still relatively fresh in my memory. I’m not going to spend much time on context here, because frankly – we’d be here all day. So I’m just going to say this post would be most profitable if you’ve read John 19 before we begin (and preferably have it open in front of you, or in another tab, or whatever it is you kids do these days.)

    Note that in this post I’ll only be able to touch on a fraction of what’s there, it truly is an amazingly rich gospel. I’ll just pull out some of the things which really struck me this time.

    (more…)

  • Love Lustres at Calvary

    Easter Saturday is a slightly odd day, I find. It falls in between Good Friday, which is a very sombre day looking at the cross, and Easter Sunday which is joyfully looking at the resurrection. I find it’s not really a special day but it’s not a normal day either.

    Given that I didn’t post anything up on Good Friday, and given that I won’t be around to post something up tomorrow, I thought I might post up a prayer from “The Valley of Vision”, a collection of puritan prayers. This is one which was given to us as part of a chapel communion service last term, and I find it very helpful.

    My Father,

    Enlarge my heart, warm my affections, open my lips, supply words that proclaim ‘Love lustres at Calvary.’

    There grace removes my burdens and heaps them on thy Son, made a transgressor, a curse, and sin for me;
    There the sword of thy justice smote the man, thy fellow;
    There thy infinite attributes were magnified, and infinite atonement was made;
    There infinite punishment was due, and infinite punishment was endured.

    Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy,
    cast off that I might be brought in,
    trodden down as an enemy that I might be welcomed as a friend,
    surrendered to hell’s worst that I might attain heaven’s best,
    stripped that I might be clothed,
    wounded that I might be healed,
    athirst that I might drink,
    tormented that I might be comforted,
    made a shame that I might inherit glory,
    entered darkness that I might have eternal light.

    My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,
    groaned that I might have endless song,
    endured all pain that I might have unfading health,
    bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem,
    bowed his head that I might uplift mine,
    experienced reproach that I might receive welcome,
    closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness,
    expired that I might for ever live.

    O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou mightest spare me,
    All this transfer thy love designed and accomplished;
    Help me to adore thee by lips and life.
    O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise,
    my every step buoyant with delight,
    as I see my enemies crushed,
    Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,
    sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,
    hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open.
    Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross,
    mighty to subdue, comfort and save.”

  • What it means to follow Jesus: Sermon on Mark 8:31-38

    This is the text of a sermon I preached yesterday morning at at the 9:00 communion service at St Thomas’ Kidsgrove. It was the last day of their ‘week of events’ or mission which I mentioned in my post last week. (The week went well, by the way, thanks for asking.)

    The passage is Mark 8:31-38, which it would be helpful to read before reading the sermon! And so, without further ado…

    In the news, we’re often hearing of the results of this survey or that survey that’s been conducted, particularly with regards to the issue of faith. A few weeks ago, the well-known atheist Richard Dawkins announced the results of a survey he had commissioned on attitudes to Christianity in the UK. When he announced the results, he said – and I quote: “it is clear that faith is a spent force in the UK.”

    That was his interpretation of the data. But not everyone sees it like that. One thing, for example, which he seems to miss, was that it seems to indicate at least a quarter of the population agree with the statement, “Jesus is the Son of God, the Saviour of mankind.”

    I wonder what kind of answers I would get if I went round Kidsgrove today and asked people who they think Jesus was. I wonder what they would say to the question, what does that mean? What does it mean for Jesus to be the Son of God? Well, the passage we’re looking at today deals with the issue of what it means. Just before our section, in verse 30, Peter says to Jesus “You are the Christ.” Peter recognised that Jesus was the King the Israelites had been expecting, whose coming had been prophesied in the Old Testament. From this point onwards in Mark’s gospel, the question becomes: “What does it mean for Jesus to be King?”

    Why did Jesus need to die?

    Notice that the very first thing Jesus teaches them, in verse 31, is that “the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected … and that he must be killed.” This is Jesus teaching them about what it means for him to be King: Not that he will suffer, but that he must. It’s part of his mission.

    People sometimes have this view of Jesus of a weak character, someone who is blown around by the winds of chance, and someone who ends up being killed because he manages to annoy the wrong people. But that’s not at all how the Bible sees it. Jesus says that his death is part and parcel of his mission.

    In fact, when Peter takes Jesus aside to take him to task, in verse 33 Jesus rebukes him because he does not “have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Jesus says that it is the plan of God himself that Peter is opposing.

    But all this raises a question: why was it so necessary for Jesus to die? One of the clearest answers to that question comes in the Old Testament, from Isaiah 53. This is a prophecy, written 500 years before Jesus came, about what he would come to do. Verses 5-6 say,

    But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
    the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.

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

    The Bible says we have all gone astray like sheep. We have all rejected the God who made us, and done wrong against him. But, in His mercy, God provided a sacrifice of himself: Jesus, the Son of God, took all the punishment and the penalty of our sin for us on the cross, so that through his death all who believe in Him may obtain forgiveness and salvation.

    1 Corinthians 5:21 says, “God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.” The problem is that none of us are righteous in God’s eyes. But, because of Jesus becoming sin for us, anyone who repents and believes in him can be considered righteous in God’s eyes.

    Peter

    So this necessity for Jesus’ death puts Peter’s rebuke into sharp relief. And this provokes a question in my mind: Why does Peter, who knew Jesus well, who only a few verses before had declared him to be the Christ, reject what Jesus says about having to die?

    I think the answer is, at the time the Jewish people were living under Roman authority. They had been conquered by the Roman Empire, and they absolutely hated it. They had read the prophecies of the Old Testament, and they were expecting a Messiah figure like David to arise, a warrior king who would lead them in fighting against the Romans and throw off the shackles of oppression.

    When Peter declared that Jesus was the Christ, what he had in mind was someone who was going to fulfil this image he had of the warrior king. But Jesus says, no – that’s not right. As we’ve already seen, his mission was to die. Peter’s expectation of what it meant to be the Messiah was wrong, it needed to be fixed.

    Peter is an example for us: he is someone who spent a lot of time with Jesus. He was one of the disciples; he knew Jesus personally. And yet, he still got it wrong when it came to Jesus telling them that he needed to die. He didn’t realise what Jesus’ mission was all about. He didn’t realise what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. This is our challenge: Peter called himself a follower of Jesus, and yet he still managed to get things wrong. It’s like that with us.

    Although we no longer have an expectation of Jesus as a warrior king, a lot of people today seem to think of Jesus as a great moral teacher – which he certainly was! But if that’s where our understanding of Jesus begins and ends, following him will basically mean trying to be a good person and do good things. But that’s not what Jesus says it means to be his follower.

    Following Jesus

    After Jesus rebukes Peter, he calls everybody around him and teaches them what it actually means to follow him. Jesus says, v34, “If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.” Now at this point I think our culture gets in the way of understanding this fully. I’m sure most if not all of us are familiar with the expression “having a cross to bear”, or something similar, meaning “a heavy burden of responsibility or a problem that they alone must cope with.”

    That’s not the cross that Jesus was talking about here. If you saw someone carrying a cross in first-century Jerusalem, you knew that they were heading out to die. Jesus already knew what kind of a death He was going to face. What Jesus is saying is that to be a follower of Him means taking up your cross and following him out to die.

    But what does that mean? Jesus didn’t intend for all his disciples to go out and be crucified with Him! What does it mean to follow Him to His death?

    The apostle Paul says in Galatians 2:20, “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.”

    Notice that expression ‘crucified with Christ’. Paul knew what it meant to take up his cross and follow Jesus. It didn’t mean a physical death, it meant a spiritual death: it meant dying to the part of him which was in opposition to Christ, and instead living “by faith in the Son of God”. Did you notice Jesus says in our passage, “deny yourself, take up your cross…” We need to deny ourselves because our nature is to go against what God wants!

    But if we are crucified with Christ, it’s a complete change of direction: we acknowledge that Jesus is Lord of our lives, and by faith we live a new life to please Him in the knowledge that we have been forgiven.

    I don’t know if you’ve ever seen anyone baptised as an adult, but baptism itself presents a graphical picture of this. When the person is baptised, they go down under the water. This symbolises death to the old life, the life lived against Christ. When they come back up out of the water, this symbolises the birth of the new life, the life which is lived with Christ as Lord in order to please Him.

    Now, you might be sitting there thinking, “that’s all very well, but how can a follower of Jesus completely share in Christ’s death? Surely no-one can be totally transformed like that?”

    This is true. That is exactly the point: no-one can live a life which is completely transformed. But that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. Just because we aren’t yet totally transformed, just because we don’t 100% love God and don’t love our neighbour as ourselves, doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try to do those things with God’s help.

    And Jesus acknowledges this. If you look at the parallel passage in Luke’s gospel, Luke 9:23, Jesus actually says that taking up our cross is something that his followers need to do daily. It’s not something which we do once and then never have to do again. He is saying, if you are his follower you will make mistakes, you will fall down. But keep persevering and He will help you. This is why Christians take communion together regularly: it’s to remind each other that we need to keep coming back to the cross, keep reminding each other of the forgiveness that we find there, and keep promising to deny ourselves and take up our cross. This is the way of salvation.

    The Way of Life

    So we have heard something of what it means to be a follower of Jesus. But the key question now becomes: why should we be followers of Jesus? Why is it so necessary, given that following Him seems to be so hard?

    Well, in Mark 8:35-39 Jesus gives the reason why it’s so important for us to follow him. In verse 35 he says, “For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.” It is true that sharing in Christ’s death is like losing your life: we have to deny ourselves, deny (some of) the things that we want to do, and live life to please God, not ourselves.

    I don’t know whether this is still the case, but a few years ago in school, if someone was working very hard and being a bit of a swot, we might say to them “get a life!” The implication being that they weren’t really living life if they were reading books and doing homework all the time. And I think sometimes that is how we perceive the Christian life to be: not sleeping with lots of people? Get a life! Not going out getting drunk at the weekends? Get a life! Life is out there to be lived – get out there and please yourself!

    But what Jesus says here is that people who lose life for him and for the gospel will actually find it. Living a life with Jesus as Lord is the most amount of life that it is possible to have. Jesus says in John 10:10, “I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.”

    But there’s more! Notice back in verse 31 how Jesus says that after three days he will rise again. Those who would follow Jesus, who deny themselves, who take up their cross, will ultimately join in his resurrection. The apostle Paul says, in Romans 6:5, “If we have been united with [Jesus] like this in his death, we will certainly also be united with him in his resurrection.” A life lived for Jesus and the gospel is the most amount of life you can have, not only in this life, but in the life to come.

    In the long run, anything we have needed to give up in this life to follow Jesus will be nothing compared to the gain we will receive by being with him forever.

    But there is another side to this. Notice what Jesus says in verse 36: “What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?” If you decide not to follow Jesus, then nothing will be able to save you. Jesus says it doesn’t matter if you gain everything in the whole world! If you have ten private helicopters, if you have more money than Bill Gates, if you give millions to charity, if you have a perfect family – all of this you could have, but lose the most important thing: your soul.

    In verse 38, Jesus says: “All who are ashamed of me and my words in this adulterous and sinful generation the Son of Man will be ashamed of when he comes in His Father’s glory with the holy angels.” If Jesus is ashamed of us on that day, he will say: “away from me, I never knew you”. That leads to everlasting death and judgement. But if we have taken up our cross and followed him to the end, he will say “Well done, good and faithful servant.”

    Following Jesus means denying ourselves and acknowledging Christ as Lord over our lives. But it means being on the way of life. No other way that we can take will lead us to life, either in this life or in the one to come.

  • The Bible, Healing, and the ASA

    Last week, the ASA seemed to end up ruling that you can’t claim that God heals people. This is in response to a flyer on the HOTS Bath area website (HOTS = Healing On The Streets). For the whole story of why the complaint was made, check out this blog post (written by the person who originally made the complaint).

    Now, I’m not really going to go into the details of the ASA ruling. I think it’s a bit heavy-handed, to be honest. My main reason for thinking that is they’ve basically outlawed claiming that God can heal – not that he will heal. This seems a bit bizarre to me: clearly a God who is incapable of healing anyone is not a God who is worth believing in. I think the question of ‘evidence’ is just a red herring, given that these claims are not on the same level as someone who (for example) claims that homeopathy can prevent malaria. They’re not trying to usurp medical authority, or stop people using the ordinary methods of healing. If the ASA make no provision for religious claims at all, then ‘the law is an ass’.

    Still, that’s all I want to say about that topic, though – I want to deal more with the issue of healing from a theological perspective. I just wanted to pose the question: “What does God say about healing?” And, more specifically in this case, what does God say about the kind of healing which HOTS speak about?

    I think the Bible is clear that healing can and does happen. There are many miracles of Jesus’ healing recorded, and the book of James doesn’t mince its words: “Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will make the sick person well; the Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven.” (James 5:14-15, NIV translation).

    It seems pretty unequivocal, doesn’t it? Although this may not be a helpful translated of the original – the Greek verb used is sōzō, which means to save or heal (In the more literal ESV translation, it is rendered as ‘saved’). In this case, it could refer to physical healing or it could refer to spiritual salvation. Perhaps both.

    There’s an intriguing story in Matthew 13:53-58 about Jesus going back to his home town. Matthew adds a little comment: “he did not do many miracles there because of their lack of faith.” What’s going on here? Is Jesus unable to heal them because he’s run out of power? Not quite. I think what’s happening is not that Jesus couldn’t heal people – but that healing them would have been pointless: John’s gospel consistently uses the word ‘signs’ of Jesus’ miracles. Miracles aren’t just there in a vacuum, they point to something: they point to Jesus being the Christ, the redeemer, the saviour. The people of Nazareth were hardened against Jesus, unable to accept that he was the Christ – and as such, healing them would have produced no fruit in that regard.

    Jesus performing miracles without people believing in him would have been inconsistent with his mission. This is an extract of the New Bible Dictionary article on ‘Signs’, which puts it far more eloquently than I could:

    The real significance of the miracles of Jesus is that they point forward to Jesus’ death, resurrection and ascension, to the transformation brought by the new age of the Spirit, and thus lead to a faith in Jesus the (crucified) Christ, the (risen) Son of God. … Consequently a faith based or nurtured exclusively on signs, rather than on the reality to which they point, is immature and at grave risk. Mature faith rejoices in what signs it perceives, but does not depend on them.

    The significance of that, with respect to HOTS, is that it seems to me HOTS are offering ‘healing’ on its own, without any other stuff about believing in Jesus. And I’m just not sure that’s a Biblical model of healing.

    God can, and does, heal. But I think any healing promised apart from faith in the risen Christ is on shaky ground. I’m sure God does use it nonetheless – perhaps some people are healed and then convicted that it was God who healed them and then go on to believe.

    But I think it’s important to remember that there is a kind of healing which is more important than physical healing: the healing of a broken relationship with God. Physical healing is good, but only inasmuch as it points us to the risen Saviour.

  • Sermon: Matthew 3:13-4:11 – “A New Israel and a New Adam”

    Tonight I preached a sermon at my placement church on Matthew 3:13-4:11. I don’t know whether it was recorded, I don’t know whether they have the facility to record there, so I’ve decided to upload the sermon as a PDF: you can download it below. That’s an approximation of what I said, by the way – I decided to preach from notes rather than a full script this time. (It seems to be working as well, my memory seems to be improving in that respect. It seems that you actually have to practice to improve your communication skills, who’d have thought it…)

    Matt 3v13-4v11 SermonDownload

    I had some positive comments on it after the service, so that was positive. I felt a bit more nervous about preaching there than I have done previously, probably because I didn’t really know people so well. When I was preaching at Fordham I did at least know most of the people in the congregation. Still, preaching to a group of people who I don’t know is something I will need to get used to, so it’s not bad to have some experience in that respect.

    Next week I’m preaching in chapel – it’s only a “Monday Meditation” (where basically the goal is to do as little talking as possible and get everyone to meditate while saying ‘Ommmm…’) but it’s still a pretty daunting prospect preaching to a bunch of people who are all studying theology and  training to work in Christian ministry. People who have, for the most part, probably got more experience and learning under their belt than I have. Still, hey ho, experience is experience.

    Hope you enjoy the sermon, if you read it. Let me know what you think.