Lamentations: a study in sorrow.

During the season of lent I have been reading and journaling in the book of Lamentations, not a book I had ever read before nor have I ever heard it preached on. The only verse from the book which is ever quoted is from chapter 3, v 22-23 “for his compassions never fail, they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.” And I had never known the context for this quote so my study has been quite a voyage of discovery.

Lamentations is a poem written shortly after the destruction of Jerusalem and the exile of the people of Judah and the writer, generally credited as Jeremiah, pulls no punches when he describes the devastation of the city and the degradation of her people. Judah has been overthrown by her enemies because of her sins against God, she has been faithless and has become unclean and so she has been completely destroyed, all the treasures of the temple have been looted and the people have been taken into slavery. The poet weeps over the fate of Daughter Judah and describes the torment he feels at witnessing the terrible fate of the city.

Worse than the military defeat, the Lord has “abandoned his sanctuary” and “rejected his altar”, his presence has been withdrawn from the holy place and he no longer speaks through the prophets there. Judah and Israel have been utterly abandoned by the living God, they proved themselves unworthy of him and he has given them over to their enemies to be punished.

In the ruins of the city the poet describes the starvation of the children and the desperation of their mothers. The “hearts of the people cry out to the Lord”, the city repents in ashes and calls to God for help. The poet begs God to hear and answer the cries of the people, he cannot understand how God could allow the suffering he sees before him, women even eating their own children, priests being killed in the sanctuary, terrors and horror all around.

In chapter three the poet describes his feelings, he walks in darkness and dwells with the dead, he cannot escape the horror he has witnessed and his prayers are blocked from reaching the ears of God. “Yet this I call to mind and therefore I have hope: because of the Lord’s great love we are not consumed.” The poet recalls that God has been merciful in the past and that his love and mercy are new every morning, he clings therefore to the hope that, if he bears his suffering and holds onto his faith in the Lord, he will be shown compassion. The people cannot complain about their punishment for they have deserved it, but if they hold on to their faith and confess their sins, they can hope for compassion and forgiveness.

Chapter 4 returns to the themes of destruction and famine, terrible images of cannibalism and degradation, the humiliation of their sins being revealed, the shame of the slavery now imposed on them. Finally, though, the poet again sounds a note of hope, “your punishment will end Daughter Zion”, he pleads in chapter 5 for the Lord to remember his people, to accept their repentance for the sins committed against him, he proclaims the greatness of the Lord and asks for his people to be restored to their relationship with him.

This has been a very hard book to read, the idea of a loving God who will allow a whole nation to be destroyed and taken into slavery, the images of mothers eating their children, are really difficult to square with the image of Jesus on the cross. Why is God so harsh with Judah? How can a good God allow such dreadful things, not only allow but actually decree them? These are questions we ask every day, not because we are faced with starving or cooking our children, but because there are always things in our lives, on the news, in our relationships with others, which make us question – where is God in this? How is this allowed to happen to me?

The degree of severity does not diminish the feeling of injustice when we feel we have been unfairly treated or when we see the dreadful things which happen every day, wars, famines, natural disasters etc.. We want a simplistic faith where good people get good things and where we can see the wicked are the ones who suffer, we want to be safe from harm, protected against anything that can hurt us, we feel entitled to have a good life. But where does that come from? Not the bible, nowhere in the bible are we promised a life free from difficulty, in fact Jesus promises us the opposite “take up your cross” does not mean come and have a nice time! Paul talks about being pressed but not crushed, persecuted not abandoned, he describes himself as being poured out like water; Stephen preaches the gospel while he is being stoned to death and throughout history we see many saints follow his example. So where did we get the idea that bad things should not happen to good people?

Who said we were good people, come to that, for we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God, none of us can stand on our own righteousness and claim that we do not deserve to suffer!

Reading Lamentations I am reminded that everything I have that is good in my life is a blessing from God, that I did not earn or deserve. I know that my sins are as filthy in His eyes as those of Judah and that my need for repentance is as great. I also know, as did the poet, that the Lord I serve is a loving God, full of compassion, and that he will hear my cries and lift me up. I have the advantage of being under the new covenant, where my sins are covered by the blood of Jesus and I have the Holy Spirit to help and guide me, to convict me when I need to repent and to strengthen me against temptation.

Lamentations has also reminded me that the enemy is the father of lies and that his greatest lie is that I am a good person who does not deserve to have troubles in my life. Believing that lie leads to pride, judgement and bitterness against God and too many times that lie is spoken over Christians so that we come to feel entitled to something Jesus never promised us and we resent him for not giving it to us. That lie is at the heart of so many broken relationships and the root of such bitterness, we want to believe the lie because it is easier than the truth, we want the simple solutions but the truth is life does not work like that. Hard truths contained in Lamentations are so much more valuable than all the easy lies in the world, because the truth is what will set us free.

Palm Sunday

Matthew chapter 21, Mark 11, Luke 19 and John 12.

I am reading mostly from the account of Matthew in Ch 21, but with reference to the other three gospels as well.

The triumphal entry of Jesus into Jerusalem is celebrated on what we now call Palm Sunday, this commemorates an incident recorded in all four gospels as happening towards the end of Jesus’ ministry and it now marks the beginning of Holy Week.

Jesus was approaching Jerusalem with his disciples, John tells us that he was coming from Bethany where he had just raised Lazarus from the dead, it was nearing the time of the Passover feast when Jews from all over the world gathered in Jerusalem for the festival. As part of the celebrations of the Passover lambs were brought to the temple where they could be approved by the priests as being without blemish and then sold to pilgrims for their Passover meal. The day Jesus entered Jerusalem, five days before the Holy day, was the day when the lambs for the sacrifice were selected.

As Jesus came near to Jerusalem he sent two disciples to find a young donkey colt, he gave them specific instructions about where they would find this colt, later on he gives equally precise instructions about finding a suitable room for their Passover meal. Jesus mounts the colt and rides into the city in fulfilment of Zechariah’s prophecy “see you king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey”; the people of Jerusalem recognise Jesus, they acclaim him as the son of David, the one who comes in the name of the Lord, they cry out praise and strew his path with cloaks and palm branches. This tells me that Jesus was well known and recognised by enough people for their cheering to start others joining in, he has been preaching and teaching for three years by now and has performed signs and wonders in front of crowds of thousands during his ministry. The atmosphere of the city would have been highly charged, Passover commemorates the miraculous freeing of the nation of Israel from the yoke of slavery in Egypt, the parallels with the yoke of Roman occupation cannot have been unnoticed. The nation has been waiting for a Messiah, reading the prophets eagerly and searching for the signs that God will act to fulfil them. John’s gospel puts Palm Sunday right after the raising of Lazarus and says that the crowd includes people who had just witnessed that miracle.

The priests and Pharisees were unsurprisingly disturbed by the procession of Jesus and his followers, they were only permitted to keep their positions under Rome as long as they also kept the peace, they were also not great fans of Jesus’ teaching which often contained criticisms of their legalism and social control. The next thing Jesus did hardly made things any better; according to Matthew and Luke he went straight to the temple, Mark has him going the next morning, and cleared out the money changers and sellers of animals for sacrifice, calling them a den of thieves. Having led what would have looked like a mob through the streets, Jesus now comes into the temple and starts a riot! The Pharisees are agreed that something must be done and so their plot to rid Israel of this troublesome preacher begins to take shape.

What can we learn from this story? It is another occasion when Jesus fulfils a prophecy, adding weight to his claim to be the Messiah, it shows that he accepts the praise and worship of the crowd which would be an act of blasphemy unless he is actually God. From the point of view of the crowd it is also a warning, though; as easy as it is to get swept up in the emotion of the day, calling out hosannas and waving palm branches, how many of those worshippers were also in the crowd who shouted for Jesus to be crucified only five days later? How many of us would also have changed our cry so easily? Following Jesus is not just about the triumphs, the public worship when the band is playing a great tune and everyone is rocking out, the big meetings where emotions are high and it is easy to be part of a wonderful experience; there are also the times when everyone around us will shout “crucify”, when it will seem that victory may not come, when the darkness will surround us. For me, this story is a warning to be sure that my walk with Jesus is strong enough for me to cry hosanna when mine is the only voice raised in praise, to check that my faith is built on a strong foundation, not on the fleeting emotions of the moment. As Holy Week begins my prayer is that I will go ever deeper in my relationship with Jesus no matter what is happening around me.

Genesis chapter 3: the Fall.

This month we followed our study of God’s perfect creation with the story of how it all went wrong! The story of the Fall is a familiar one but, once again we found new insights and much to think on.

The serpent is introduced as a crafty or devious creature, it approaches the woman in the garden and uses the three basic methods of temptation;

1. Questioning what we know to be true, “did God really say…?”. Just as the devil asks Jesus in Matthew 4 “if you are really the son of God…”, the enemy likes to make us question the truth.
2. Denying the consequence of sin, “you will not certainly die”, the fruit doesn’t kill them immediately but it does condemn them to death. Jesus is tempted to test God’s promise to protect his chosen one, the devil denies the testing itself is wrong.
3. Appeal to pride, “you will be like God”, compare to the devil offering Jesus all the kingdoms of the world.

The serpent twists the truth and then draws the woman’s attention to the fruit, he does not tell her to eat it, she makes that choice, but now she is looking at the fruit she notices how good it seems. Sin is always dressed up to look good, no one advertises alcohol with pictures of street drinkers clutching a bottle of White Lightning! Now she is looking at the tree she is halfway to falling, where you are looking is the direction you will travel. Fix your eyes on Jesus and you will be travelling in the right direction, start focusing on sin and that is where you are headed.

The immediate result of the sin is fear and shame, the man and the woman eat the fruit together and realise that they are naked, they make themselves covering and hide; sin and shame separate us from God, we feel uncomfortable in his presence, our relationship breaks down. God comes to walk in the garden in the cool of the evening; we had quite a discussion over whether this is a physical manifestation of God, a pre incarnate Jesus, or a turn of phrase signifying a time of day when the man felt close to God. We all shared how good it is for us to walk with God in the cool of the evening, to find the quiet time to hear his whisper or to spend time in companionable silence with him, that we all try to find that time at the end of our day to share with God. How much better if we can also manage to start the day in that quiet place as well!

Adam and Eve are soon called to account by God, they play the blame game, as do we all when we are caught out! Then the consequences become clear; the snake is cursed first of all and so is the ground. No longer will the earth provide food easily for mankind, weeds and thistles will grow, pests and parasites will bother us, disease and death have entered the world. For the woman childbearing will be a source of pain and difficulty, not just the actual bearing of children but the pain of miscarriage, still birth, infertility as well as all the problems our reproductive system causes us throughout our lives. The man and the woman, however are not cursed themselves.

God shows grace and mercy, even as he banishes them from the garden, he makes them clothes and he stays interested in them, he does not abandon them, but they do have to live with the result of their sin. They are banished from the garden so that they cannot reach for the tree of life and try to usurp further the place of God, a flaming sword is placed at the gate to ensure that there is no way back into the garden.

So, through one man, Adam, sin and death reign in the world but God already has a plan, that through one man, Jesus, grace will abound to all who believe in him. We have to accept that we share Adam’s guilt and deserve the penalty so that we can also accept the gift of life through Jesus. When we re enter the garden it will be via the Cross and we will then be permitted to taste the fruit of the tree of life at God’s invitation, not as thieves but as children and co heirs with Jesus.

Genesis Chapter 1

 

 

 

We decided to start the New Year at the start of everything. with Genesis Chapter 1.

 

There is no historical context for this story as it is the first story in the history of God’s relationship with mankind. There has been some debate over the years among bible scholars as to when the story was written and by whom; some proposing dates as late as the Babylonian exile, others favouring the time of the Temple under Solomon, and various dates in between. All this seems very late in the history of the Hebrews for the Law to have been in written form, it makes sense from a historical point of view to believe that the five books of Moses were indeed written by Moses during the time when the Hebrews were in the wilderness. Moses was an educated man, he was given an Egyptians prince’s education at the court of Pharaoh, the Ark of the Covenant and the Tent of Meeting were constructed during this time so the Hebrews had sacred objects and a place to keep written documents as they traveled. Having come out of Egypt and been freed from slavery, the story of who they were and why God had saved them was an important part of their identity and it makes sense that the oral traditions of the early patriarchs and the story of their deliverance from slavery would be drawn together and recorded at this time in their history. The rhythm of the first chapters of Genesis and the repeated refrain are indicative that these stories were passed down orally from one generation to the next before being written down; oral story telling and record keeping having been a part of early human civilisation for millennia, pre literate people were very good at remembering stories, they would sit around the fire at night and pass on their wisdom and history through the generations. Judaism today uses story telling in the Seder meal and Jesus understood the power of a well told story to help people to remember his teaching. We imagined that God himself told this first story to Adam as they walked in the garden together in the cool of the evening and that Adam passed it on to his own children.

The creation itself is told in six sections, each bracketed by the refrain  “And there was evening, and there was morning” followed by the number of the day.

Light is created on day 1, the Spirit of God hovers over the formless Earth and speaks a word of power and creates Light, although the sun, moon and stars do not appear until day four, so the source of light in the universe is not the sun or stars but God himself. Cross reference to John chapter 1 to see that the word and the light are Jesus, present and active in the Trinity from the beginning.

On day 2 the water is separated into two areas, above and below the sky.

On day three water and land are separated and the land is covered with plants, we imagined an explosion of colour and scent as the bare ground burst forth with all the growing things, trees and flowers, mosses and fungi, grasses and bushes.

On day four the lights are arranged in the sky, sun and moon and stars to act as signs so that time and seasons can be measured.

On day five the waters are filled with fish and all other swimming creatures and the sky is populated with birds. again we imagined a great explosion of life and movement and noise as the sea boiled and swirled with living things and clouds of birds appeared in the sky, all singing and flying around, trying out their wings.

Day 6 sees the land filled with living things, wild animals and livestock, and then God decides to create mankind in his own image. Out of all the amazing things God has called into being he singles out human beings as a special creation, to be made in his image. We are like God in our very being, we are creative and we love to create, because God is infinite we are all different, an infinite variety of expressions of the image of God, an infinite variety of skills and talents and personalities and gifts. God then gives all the rest of creation into our stewardship, he ordains a special place for us among the other living things he has created.

We reflected that God remarks after each creation that “it is good”, and when the whole is finished he sees that it is “very good”. God is pleased with what he has made, he calls it good, we need to remind ourselves when we are self critical or judging others that God made us and we are “good”, God was pleased when he made us and we are the work of his hands.

We ended our study by reflecting on the goodness of God and the aptness of responding to this passage in a creative way.

Micah and the Magi: Matthew 2 and Micah 5

This month in our bible journaling group, we studied the prophecy which told the Magi where to find the baby Jesus after they went to Herod by mistake. Matthew 2 tells the story of the Magi, or wise men, who see a new star in the sky and follow it to find and worship the king whose birth it announces. They travel from the East and arrive in Jerusalem, where they visit the palace of Herod the Great. When they tell him they have come to worship the new born King of the Jews Herod is troubled and “all Jerusalem with him”. Summoning his priests and scholars, Herod asks where the Messiah will be born and the priests quote this prophecy from Micah “you Bethlehem Ephrathah, although you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come a ruler to rule my people Israel.” Herod pretends to be very interested and asks the Magi to report back to him once they find the prince so that he, too can worship him. The wise men are warned by an angel not to return to Herod and they go home another way while Joseph takes Mary and Jesus into Egypt and Herod, in frustration, kills all the young boys in Bethlehem.

Herod is the pantomime baddie in nativity plays, he has the babies of Bethlehem slaughtered in order to protect his throne and may have been planning to kill the Magi as well. History shows that he was indeed an unstable and brutal man, he had wives and children murdered when he felt that they were a threat to him so it is entirely in character for him to kill 50 to 100 children in a small hill town if he felt that would benefit him. Herod styled himself “King of the Jews” and had spent a fortune rebuilding the temple and marrying into the Jewish royal family in order to legitimise his rule, in reality he was little more than a Roman puppet but he had a lot of autonomy as long as his kingdom remained peaceful and a good source of revenue for the Roman Empire.Having married a Hasmonean princess he murdered her and most of her family when they outlived their usefulness, as well several of his own sons. The Jews did not love him despite his sponsorship of the temple, he was seen as a foreigner and a usurper. The arrival of a deputation from the East looking for a new king of the Jews would have been a direct challenge to his claim and came at a politically sensitive time when the tax burden for the Roman Empire was increasing under Augustus and the people of Judea were restlessly looking for deliverance from occupation. God had been silent for 400 years, no prophets had spoken in Israel and the priests eagerly looked for the arrival of the promised Messiah, the anointed leader who would free them from bondage to foreign masters and establish a kingdom of Israel like the golden age of King David. When the strangers came looking the scholars knew straight away where to find the prophecy for they would have studied it carefully many times before. Jesus fulfils the prophecy, being born in Bethlehem, and undermines the authority of false kings such as Herod, he also attracts worship from non Jews in the form of the Magi, showing right from the start of his life on earth that he is for everyone.

We wondered about the star leading the Magi, as Christians we are to have nothing to do with astrology or using the stars for divination, why is a star used to bring the wise men? Many ancient civilisations studied the stars, Stonehenge and other Neolithic sites and archeological findings in temples show that the ancients were very interested in the sky and used the stars and planets to construct calendars and make quite complicated calculations. In the East Zoroastrianism was one religion which focussed heavily on knowledge of the stars, there were men who devoted themselves to the study of the heavens so it is possible that God used the language they already knew in order to communicate with them and bring them to witness the birth of the Saviour.

In the prophecy itself, Micah foretells that a foreign nation will subdue Israel, he predicts the fall of Israel and Judah because of the corruption of Canaanite practices, King Ahaz gives his own sons to the fire, he also predicts the silencing of prophecy for a time before the restoration begins. 

” but you, Bethlehem Ephrathah, though you are small among the clans of Judah, out of you will come for me one who will be ruler over Israel, whose origins are of old, from ancient times.

Therefore Israel will be abandoned until the time when she who is in labour gives birth and the rest of his brothers return to join the Israelites.

He will stand and shepherd his flock in the strength of the Lord, in the majesty of the name of the Lord his God, and they will live securely for then his greatness will reach to the ends of the earth.” Micah 5, 2-5.

We noted several common threads in this prophecy, God uses the small to achieve greatness, Judah is the brother who offered his life for Benjamin in Genesis, shepherding as a model for the care and concern God shows to his people. Jesus is the ruler whose origins are of old, he predates David and Moses and Abraham, he is the ancient of days who was with God in the beginning. The reference to Israel’s brothers returning reminds us that Jesus was for Jews and non Jews alike.

We noted that the first half of the prophecy has been fulfilled and that the second part is being fulfilled as we live securely under Christ’s ruling, and also as his glory and greatness are preached unto the ends of the earth there is still some way to go. We marvelled that this message feels so personal to each of us, as his flock, and yet was written 3,000 years ago by a rural prophet in a tiny kingdom. As Micah heard the words from God and proclaimed them, God already knew the day and the hour when we would read those same words because all the days are in his book. We felt inspired that God is so great and wise and that he speaks to us so clearly and personally through his living word. We were reminded of Peter telling his readers to study the prophets in 1 Peter 1 and Jesus praying for us even in Gethsemane in John’s gospel and we stand again in awe of the great and loving Father whose name we lift up in praise.

Matthew 4,18-22

Jesus calls his disciples

Matthew tells the story of Jesus calling Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John in quite bald fashion. There is no conversation recorded; Jesus just rocks up on the shore of the Sea of Galilee and says to them “come with me” and they come. Men whose families depend on them for food and money, sons who are working in their father’s business, ordinary, everyday men just drop everything ad go to follow Jesus, an unknown teacher whose only associate so far has been the man who lives in the desert and baptises people in the river Jordan.

What did Jesus do or say to make the men follow him? There must have been more to the encounter then Matthew records; the only inducement Jesus offers is that they will become fishers of men if they come with him. Jesus himself has just come from his time in the wilderness, he has been baptised by John the Baptist and tested by the devil, he is filled with the Holy Spirit and ready to begin his ministry, the end game of his time on earth has begun and he needs to choose companions who will bear witness to all he says and does for the next three years. He needs someone to whom he can explain his mission, someone who will pass the story on, someone who will explain how the Old Testament prophecies are being fulfilled in him, so he is looking for the right person .

The men are busy, they are fishing and working to feed their families and yet, when he calls they answer. If it is not what he says that convinces them, is it the way he says it? There is undeniably something about Jesus that draws people, he is followed by great crowds of people during his ministry and he inspires acts of adoration from his followers, such as the woman with the perfume and the boy with the loaves and fishes. The word “charismatic” in its purest sense – full of the Spirit – applies to Jesus as to no other man, he is full of truth and Grace, he brings the light of salvation in his train and he manifests the love of God in his every word and action. The mystery then is perhaps why didn’t all the fishermen by Galilee that day follow him? Because he only called the four that day, he chose them specifically for qualities which would become clearer as time went on.

Simon Peter, the brave and impulsive, acting from the heart, rushing in and blurting out whatever he was thinking; Andrew the calmer brother who maybe acts as a brake on Simon’s energy, the man who will have stood back and taken in the situation, a reliable witness; James and John, the sons of thunder, big and strong enough to deal with life on the road, bold and brash enough to preach without fear when the time comes.

All these men had a purpose in God’s big plan, and so do we. We all have qualities which god put into us and which he is calling out of us for use in his service. We are all part of the big plan and we can all be fishers of men, we need to make sure we are listening for the call and be ready to drop whatever seems most important in our lives in order to answer it.

Jonah