Ocean of Grace (12): SUNDAY – Love Bade Me Welcome (p46ff)

 Lent Book: https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/an-ocean-of-grace

 

My jottings:

 

(Comments welcome)

 

Ocean of Grace (12): SUNDAY – Love Bade Me Welcome (p46ff)

 

You might like to look online for video / audio of these poems.

 

E.g. The Agony: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eFvGG0MkYvk

 

The Love: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gunHbqY4PJw

 

We are invited to come home to God. But in a way it is a home we have never seen – a home from which we have always been alienated. There is in us by nature a hatred of God and also a remnant or shadow of love for God, or at least a space left by its absence (for we were made in his image for friendship with him). Without Christ, although we do not realise it, we are homesick for God even while we run from him.

 

We often say there is no such thing as a free lunch, but the prophet Isaiah offers us a genuinely free meal. It cost Christ everything. It is his gift to us. But it is not cheap grace to us: there is a cost to following Christ, but it is genuinely free.

 

The Agony

 

In many of these readings we have been trying to measure (or at least get some fuller understanding of) sin and love, and we have found that we cannot know them fully. It is striking to compare the study of them with the feats of science. Calculating the height of Everest or the dimensions of China is easy, compared to knowing the human heart or the heart of God.

 

We are more sinful than we often care to admit and more loved than we dare to dream.

 

And we have thought a number of times already about the relationship between sin and love. To know the depths of one helps to illuminate the other. Christ’s love goes deeper than the depths of our sin. We foolishly sin against his fathomless love.

 

To know sin and love, we might try to turn within, to understand our own hearts. Herbert directs our view to Christ, to the Garden of Gethsemane and to the cross. Here we see an objective demonstration of sin and love made visible.  

 

Olivet = The Mount of Olives, connected to the Garden of Gethsemane where Jesus agonised before the cross. (You may wish the re-read the gospel accounts, e.g. Mark 14). The word “Gethsemane” is derived from two Hebrew words: gat, which means "a place for pressing oil (or wine)" and shemanim, which means "oils." Gethsemane is the oil press. Jesus faces the crushing burden of sin there, from which the shinning richness of the anointing Spirit will flow for us. For the biblical associations of a winepress see also Isaiah 63:3. The poem expresses sin and love, the agony and the blessing we get from the blood of Christ signified by the wine of Holy Communion.

 

Remember that water and blood flowed from Jesus side as it was pierced (John 19). Jesus’ body becomes a wine cask opened for us by the death of Christ.

 

(Some of these comments draw on Malcolm Guite, Word in the Wilderness: A Poem a Day for Lent and Easter (Canterbury Press, 2014))

 

Love

 

Think of God wooing and inviting us, taking care to gently encourage us. We must let him be the judge of whom he will draw in, even if we feel (rightly and accurately) unworthy.

 

Jesus does of course call us to his service. But first we must allow him to serve us. Like Mary, we should sit at his feet and hear his word as his disciple rather than being worried and distracted by many duties, like Martha (Luke 10). Like Peter, we must allow the Servant King to wash our feet (John 13).

 

(Analysis and commentary on both Herbert poems is also only a Google away)

 

Hymn: King of God, King of Peace (by George Herbert)

 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tSESknkhPd0

 

Words etc.: http://www.hymntime.com/tch/htm/k/g/l/o/kglokpea.htm

 

(You can find a list of many George Herbert hymns here: https://hymnary.org/person/Herbert_G)

Ocean of Grace (11): SATURDAY – A Candle to a Mighty Flame (p42ff)

 Lent Book: https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/an-ocean-of-grace

 

My jottings:

 

(Comments welcome)

 

Ocean of Grace (11): SATURDAY – A Candle to a Mighty Flame (p42ff)

 

What has struck you about the love of Christ this week?

 

How do you / should you / can you respond to it?

 

Do you talk to yourself / preach to your own soul?

 

Are there aspects of your self-talk / internal monologue which are less than helpful? Are there ways you could challenge yourself? Or perhaps replace some of your negative self-talk with something more positive? (Maybe by focusing on the love of Christ and your response to it, perhaps with the stress on the former rather than the latter. I am loved by Christ though I know my love for him and for others will only ever be a dim reflection of his love for me. In my better moments, I want to try to flan the flame of my love for Christ, with the Spirit’s breath and to draw on the burning passion of Christ’s heart).

 

This meditation is a helpful reminder that we can’t stir up ourselves out of nothing to Christ-like love. We are spiritually dead left to ourselves. We need Jesus to ignite our hearts with love for him. We burn with the fire we get from Jesus!

 

It might also be worth remembering that in a sense God calls us to progress not perfection. I might love Christ very little, but if I perhaps love him a little more than I did yesterday, I rejoice in his grace to me. A little progress repeatedly over time can get us a long way, even if as we grow in love for Christ we also become even more aware of our own sin.

 

We may recall John Newton (the former slaver)’s famous words:

 

I am not what I ought to be —
ah, how imperfect and deficient!

I am not what I wish to be —
I abhor what is evil, and I would cleave to what is good!

I am not what I hope to be —
soon, soon shall I put off mortality, and with mortality all sin and imperfection.

Yet, though I am not what I ought to be,
nor what I wish to be,
nor what I hope to be,
I can truly say, I am not what I once was;
a slave to sin and Satan;
and I can heartily join with the apostle, and acknowledge,
“By the grace of God I am what I am.”

– John Newton, as quoted in The Christian Pioneer

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/trevin-wax/by-the-grace-of-god-i-am-what-i-am/

 

How could I choose to love Christ and not myself? How could I express that love?

 

Are there substitutes / rivals for Christ to which I tend to look for enjoyment or comfort etc.?

What do you have to give up / turn your back / deny yourself on that you might gain Christ? Do you cling on to candles when you could have the sun?

(Or to use C. S. Lewis’ metaphor, do you love to make mud pies in the slum, when you could go to the beach?!)

 

Does your soul feel full or empty or somewhere in between? Why? What might you do about this?

 

Hymn: O For A Closer Walk With God

 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-wWVpafJX8A

 

Text etc: https://hymnary.org/text/o_for_a_closer_walk_with_god

Lacking the faith to believe?

Today there was beautiful spring sunshine and I went for quite a long walk in the parish on my own. 

(Photographs: https://www.facebook.com/malloyd/posts/10157574333281573)

Of course this is a far from original thought. And I realise there are all sorts of arguments. But I was especially acutely aware of the glories of our little slice of the Sussex countryside. 

To me, it seems most fitting to think that all this is the work of a wise, and powerful, and kind Creator. 

I reckon it takes more faith than I can muster to believe that this is all merely the product of time and chance. 

Ocean of Grace (10): FRIDAY – Surpassing Knowledge (p39ff)

 Lent Book: https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/an-ocean-of-grace

 

My jottings:

 

(Comments welcome)

 

Ocean of Grace (10): FRIDAY – Surpassing Knowledge (p39ff)

 

Consider God the eternal Son’s pre-incarnate glory with the Father in the bond of the Spirit. Of course its beyond our imagining, but think of their blessedness, their love for one another.

 

In a sense, the Son might have remained in heaven without blame.

 

And now consider the Son’s glorious humiliation.

 

The Son willingly came to be born in a humble backwater amidst the whiff of scandal. He went into exile, fleeing for his life. He lived in obscurity and embraced poverty and homelessness. He was often misunderstood and scorned. His own family thought he was out of his mind. All his friends deserted him. He was beaten and unjustly convicted.

 

He had the right to the praise of all heaven and earth, and yet he willingly bore so many slights and injuries.

 

His death was shameful. The agony was awful. Here was the worst possible death that the might Roman empire could conceive as a deterrent. It was so horrendous as to be reserved for foreigners and slaves. It was unmentionable. To speak of it would put people off their breakfast.

 

And yet many people endured such a death. Perhaps some of them bravely, even if it was unheard of for a man to pray for the forgiveness of those who crucified him!

 

Well might the experienced Centurion in charge of the crucifixion be amazed at the manner of this man’s death because it was unique.

 

Surely the worst thing for Jesus – the thing which made his death unlike any other - was not the nakedness, or the pain, or the mockery, or the isolation but the spiritual agony of the cross. He was paying in his body the price of sin for the countless multitude he was redeeming. In those hours on the cross, he faced many eternities of hell for his elect. He drank the cup of God’s wrath to its dregs for all who would trust in him, finishing up your portion and mine.

 

A lot of nonsense is spoken about the cross. We need to tread carefully on this holy ground. We should not think that the Trinity was ruptured at the cross. God the Son and God the Father have always and will always love one another in the bond of the Spirit. The Father was always well pleased with his beloved Son. This was the Son’s great moment of faithful obedience to the Father, the hour for which he had come. Of course the Father loved the Son as he died in our place.

 

But Jesus the God-Man faced the frown of his Father for you and me. The Father turns his face away. Jesus is forsaken. He took the pain and bore the wrath so that I might stand forgiven at the cross. We cannot imagine what that most have been like for him.

 

We are so forgetful and indifferent to God that the prospect of his absence doesn’t terrify us as it should. And yet for the first time ever at the cross, Jesus, who revelled above all things in the love of his Father, tasted God’s holy displeasure at sin for you and me.

 

Once again, pause to remember that Jesus did all this willingly for you. This is what the love in action of God our Saviour looks like.

 

Take a moment to pray Spurgeon’s final line again.

 

(If you are interested in more things Spurgeon, you might like to take a look at: https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/)   

 

Hymn: From The Squalor of a Borrowed Stable (Immanuel)

 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YksTeR61O1I

 

Words etc.: https://www.stuarttownend.co.uk/song/immanuel/

Jesus' sacrifice

 Jesus is the great high priest. 

But his sacrifice is a bit different from the temple sacrifices. 

For example, Jesus did not perform his sacrifice vested like the high priest. In fact he was naked. 

Jesus' sacrifice did not take place in the temple or in a secret sacred holy place. Jesus' sacrifice is public and outside the city. 

Jesus did not offer an animal on a golden altar, but himself on a Roman cross. 

Ocean of Grace (9): THURSDAY – Eat and Be Satisfied (p36ff)

 Lent Book: https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/an-ocean-of-grace

 

My jottings:

 

(Comments welcome)

 

Ocean of Grace (9): THURSDAY – Eat and Be Satisfied (p36ff)

 

Jesus is the Bread of Life (John 6:35). And he is daily bread – the essential staple - for our souls. He feeds and sustains us for our earthly pilgrimage as he calls us to walk his way. He is the Manna, the bread of God which has come down from heaven. The Son is the Father’s gracious provision for us.

 

Let us savour Christ and pray for a greater appetite for him.

 

We are to hunger and thirst for Jesus. And to be satisfied in him. Reflect on how we may both be full and long for more.

 

We feed on Jesus in our hearts by faith with thanksgiving (as the Communion service says).

 

Now, in the Lord’s Supper Jesus gives us himself and he gives us bread and wine, a complete meal and a festive one. He sets a table in the midst of our enemies (cf. Psalm 23). He welcomes us as part of his family who belong at his Table. (Think how often Jesus is eating and drinking in the gospels or teaching about meals and parties). We are companions of Jesus – literally, we eat bread with him.

 

But this feast is a foretaste, a down payment, of the greater feast to come when we will share in the Wedding Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19). We will eat and drink with Christ in his kingdom (Mark 14:25; Luke 22:30), in our heavenly home. When the battle is finally over, the victory banquet. The Lord’s Supper of course looks back to the cross (we eat and drink in remembrance of Christ) but it also looks forward as we proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes again (1 Corinthians 11:26).

 

We are incessantly hungry creatures. And we tend to be dissatisfied and restless. In his Confessions, Augustine also famously said that our hearts are restless until they find their rest in God. Let us pray that we would know that rest more and more, perhaps in the midst of busyness and grief and dangers. Let us pray that our work would issue from and result in rest. And that we would know this rest fully and finally when we enter into our Eternal Rest.

 

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/blogs/justin-taylor/an-analysis-of-one-of-the-greatest-sentences-ever-written/

 

Hymn: Guide Me O Thou Great Jehovah

 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l5NOVcefEYU

 

Words: https://hymnary.org/text/guide_me_o_thou_great_jehovah

 

Ocean of Grace (8): WEDNESDAY – The Lord Our Lover (p33ff)

 Lent Book: https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/an-ocean-of-grace

 

My jottings:

 

(Comments welcome)

 

Ocean of Grace (8): WEDNESDAY – The Lord Our Lover (p33ff)

 

What makes you want to sing? Pray for a similar, a greater, delight and joy in Christ. We should be more overflowing with excitement for Jesus even than for Wales beating England in the rugby!

 

Meditate on God’s rapturous and extravagant delight in us. Although he is fully satisfied and blessed in himself and eternally impassable and immutable and so on, our loving heavenly Father really does love us and is pleased with our weak and stammering expressions of faith and love (which are after all his own work in us).

 

Yesterday we mentioned some of the texts which speak of God’s people as his wife / bride or of the Church as the bride of Christ. We should perhaps have mentioned above all the Song of Solomon / The Song of Songs (which by the way, means the best of songs) which speaks of God’s love for his people.

 

For talks and resources on The Song of Songs see: http://rosclarke.co.uk/the-greatest-song/

http://rosclarke.co.uk/publications/

 

Luther also describes the wonderful exchange which takes place when we are joined by faith to Christ our husband. He takes on our debts and disgrace and we get his honour and name and riches.

 

“...Christ and the soul become one flesh [Eph. 5:31-32]. And if they are one flesh, and if between them there is a true marriage... it follows that everything they have they hold in common, the good as well as the evil. Accordingly, the believing soul can boast of and glory in whatever Christ has as though it were its own, and whatever the soul has, Christ claims as his own. ... Let us compare these, and we shall see inestimable benefits. Christ is full of grace, life and salvation. The soul is full of sins, death and damnation. Now let faith come between them, and sins, death and damnation will be Christ's, while grace, life and salvation will be the soul's... By the wedding ring of faith he shares in the sins, death and pains of hell, which are his bride's.... Her sins cannot now destroy her... and she has that righteousness of Christ, her husband, ... and [can] say, "If I have sinned, yet my Christ, in whom I believe, has not sinned, and all his is mine and mine is his..."

 

https://www.reformation21.org/blogs/luthers-royal-marriage.php

 

(The Freedom of a Christian, 1520, if I recall correctly. I went through a phase of sending this extract to Christian friends on their wedding days!)

 

We might pray with the Apostle Paul that we would have power together with all the saints to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ for us and that we might know this love which surpasses knowledge. (Ephesians 3:14-21). What a love! We can know it truly but never completely because it is in exhaustible. It can never be used up or run out. However far along we get in the way of love, it still stretches out to the far horizon. We can soak deep down into it, but we can never plumb its depths.

 

Jesus’ love is of every love the best. It is the love of loves, and worth singing about.

 

Hymn: Jesus Lover of My Soul

 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K7ijNGxMWUI

 

Words etc.: https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/h/1057

We need to talk about circumcision - some points

 

 

As I am due to preach on Genesis 17, I figure, however painful and uncomfortable it might be, we ought to talk about circumcision.

 

Probably there is much more to be said about this and I ought to think about it a lot more. Much of what is good here I have stolen from Alistair Roberts and Tim Keller.

 

(Any other sources to recommend?)

 

() Circumcision seems kind of weird to us. It is a reminder that God is to be known and worshiped in God’s way on the basis of his revelation. Bible religion is not a rational spiritual philosophy that modern people would invent. God means to educate us by these elementary shadows and symbols.

 

() we might think of it as a bit gross / unclean / not very nice. The Bible is more willing to talk about such things than we sometimes are!

 

() But we can see that circumcision is not arbitrary within a Biblical way of thinking

 

() Circumcision was a sign and seal of the Old Covenant, specifically of the promises given to Abraham

 

() It is easy to see that circumcision relates to the covenant promises since procreation and many children are vital to the promises

 

() circumcision is associated with fruitfulness

 

() circumcision is a kind of challenge or rebuke to human potency and power. It reminds and warns us that we cannot achieve our salvation apart from God. It cuts down pretention / pride.

 

() circumcision can thus be seen as a pruning or putting to fruitful service. The wild thing is tamed and made useful

 

() circumcision is (ideally) something done to a helpless infant who can do nothing for himself. It is something done to us and for us and not by us. It is the work of human hands done in the flesh, but nevertheless it speaks of grace and the initiative of God.

 

() circumcision on the eight-day hints at a new creation, a fresh start

 

() biblical circumcision applies only to males. This is presumably connected to the fact that males represent the family / humanity as covenant heads. Adam and Christ are the two great federal representatives. Hebrews 7:9 speaks of Levi as paying tithes to Melchizedek in the loins of Abraham.

 

() circumcision is bodily and physical, as is our salvation, our hope. God cares about and means to redeem bodies but in their sinful state the flesh calls out for the physical judgement of God.

 

() circumcision is about as intimate and personal as could be. It affects us at a very deep level.

 

() circumcision is a permanent mark. One can be a covenant breaker, but one is always a member of this covenant with covenant obligations whether one likes it or not.  

 

() circumcision represents God’s claim on his people. They are marked as belonging to him.

 

() circumcision is part of a whole system. Paul says if we allow ourselves to be circumcised we bind ourselves to keep the whole Law of Moses

 

() circumcision is bloody

 

() circumcision is painful

 

() the cross is the circumcision of Christ, his bloody cutting off

 

() circumcision is a cutting off. It therefore represents the penalty of sin, which is to be cut off. The cutting off of circumcision prevents us being cut off by death which is the judgement of God against sin

 

() When Adam and Eve sin they are cut off from the presence of God. The Angel with the sword who guards the way to Eden perhaps suggests that the way back into relationship with God will be by going under the knife.

 

() circumcision is therefore necessary before the visitation of God in salvation and judgement (or some great event such as the Passover or Conquest) so that his people are saved and his enemies destroyed

 

() circumcision speaks of purification / cleansing / making acceptable / usable

 

() circumcision serves as a mark of separation / distinction between the people of God and the world

 

() circumcision represents the putting off of the flesh / sinful nature

 

() circumcision is symbolic of the circumcision of the whole person and can be applied to various body parts such as the lips or ears

 

() circumcision represents or implies the necessity of circumcision of the heart

 

() circumcision without obedience to the law can be in a way equivalent to uncircumcision. The sign can be empty / void / not accompany the reality it represents. Without faith it is worthless or worse than useless.

 

() baptism is the New Testament equivalent of circumcision and replaces it as the sign of membership of the New Covenant

Ocean of Grace (7): TUESDAY – All Love and Thankfulness (p30ff)

  

Lent Book: https://www.thegoodbook.co.uk/an-ocean-of-grace

 

My jottings:

 

(Comments welcome)

 

Ocean of Grace (7): TUESDAY – All Love and Thankfulness (p30ff)

 

God, of course, comes “first” in every respect. He is eternal and pre-existence. Everything is all his initiative and grace all the way down. He is the unmoved mover. God’s love for us is prior to ours in salvation. But his overflowing love is also the basis of our very creation and being and of our continuation in existence.

Thinking of God’s love for us in all our filth and sin, we might think of the Biblical images of the people of God as his bride / unfaithful wayward wife. (Cf.  Isaiah 62:5; Jeremiah 2:2; Hosea; Ezekiel 16; Ephesians 5; 2 Corinthians 11:2; Revelation 19-22) We have committed spiritual adultery by chasing after other “gods”. We deserve to be divorced, and yet he woos us back. He beautifies us and betrothes us to himself. He will cleanse and purify and adorn us for our wedding day.

Christ is our champion, our prince, who kills the dragon and gets the girl. The Bible is a love story, a romance, a heroic quest. Despite the tragedy of sin, it is a comedy which ends in a marriage.

 

God’s loving choice of us is his eternal purpose of election. Of course, he knows the end from the beginning. All time is “present” to him. But God’s foreknowledge of us is not to do with him anticipating or foreseeing goodness in us. He’s not placing a bet, however certain, on you or I coming up trumps with faith or good works. The word for “knowing” can be used much more relationally as when Adam “knew” his wife Eve. This is not about information! God chose us out of sheer undeserved love (grace), not because he thought Lloyd would be a good addition to his team. Cf. Deuteronomy 7:7.

 

Meditate again on all that Christ did for us: in our place and on our behalf and for our benefit. The pain was his; the reward ours. He did not deserve his sufferings and we do not deserve his glory. This is love, grace!

 

The fruit growing upon the cross is a striking image. The Bible sometimes calls the cross a tree. It is the tree of life to us. Think of the wonderful harvest of the death of Christ. We might relate this to the image of Jesus the vine: we are the branches called to be fruitful too. (John 15)

 

Jesus is also the grain which dies and is buried in the earth but which brings forth new life (John 12), thirty, sixty or a hundred times what was sown. In truth, many millions, billions of times what was sown. Jesus’ resurrection is the first fruits which guarantees the great crop to come. His resurrection is the first bluebell of spring, and soon there will be blooms as far as the eye can see, a great multitude that no one can number, covering the forest floor.

 

If you are tempted to sin today, think on the cross of Christ so that to choose to sin might seem unthinkable to you. If you are to get to sin, you have to trample over the wounds of Christ and despise the blood which he shed for you.

 

Remember that luxury, which seems so attractive and pleasant might actually “harass” and harm your soul.

 

Suggested hymn: My Song is Love Unknown

 

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMart4wXsI0

 

Text etc.: https://www.hymnal.net/en/hymn/nt/96

I am the resurrection and the life (handout / notes)

 God-willing I am speaking on this text from John for CTHD. Here are some notes / a handout which might be helpful. There is intended to be some discussion in break out groups. 

Churches Together in Heathfield and District

Lent 2021 – The I AM Sayings of Jesus - Session 2

Sunday 28^th February 6:30pm via Zoom

https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83914488038 Meeting ID: 839 1448 8038

Or phone 02034815237 and enter the meeting ID number

 

Jesus said: “I AM THE RESURRECTION AND THE LIFE”

(John 11:25)

 

[God] has saved us and called us to a holy life—

not because of anything we have done but because of his own purpose and grace.

This grace was given us in Christ Jesus before the beginning of time,

but it has now been revealed through the appearing of our Saviour, Christ Jesus,

who has destroyed death and has brought life and immortality to light through the gospel.

(1 Timothy 1:9-10)

 

Preparation: Read John 11

 

A text without a context is a pretext / prooftext

 

But focus here on this I AM saying in the context of John’s Gospel rather than on the story of Lazarus etc.

 

A smelly part of John’s Gospel – v39 – AV / KJV – “he stinketh”! – 12:3

 

Life and death in the time of Covid

 

Have you / others been more aware of death / our mortality this last year?

How has this affected you / others?

How have we / others dealt with that?

 

Introduction – Life and Faith in John’s Gospel

 

The purpose of John’s gospel (20:30-31) – reading the last page first!

 

-          Believe / go on believing in / into Jesus – faith / trust

-          Have life in him

 

Life and faith linked in 11:25 – believe in Jesus and live

 

5:39-40 – The purpose of the Scriptures is to come to Jesus (in faith) to have life

 

Last week: “if anyone keeps my words, he will never see death” 8:51

 

Keeping Jesus words // believing in him (which also affects how we live)

 

Abraham is alive! 8:56-59 – cf. I am the God of Abraham etc. (Matthew 22:32)

 

Revision: The I AM Sayings

 

The ordinary way of saying “I am”!

 

Cf. Exodus 3:14 – YHWH - Yahweh (Jehovah) – I AM – I am who I am / I will be who I will be – often LORD in our English Bibles – God’s personal covenant name by which his people are to relate to him

 

God’s nature and character as I AM

 

God’s unique self-existence and life – life from / in himself – Life – Being Himself

 

God’s unchangeable eternity

 

God’s self-consistency, faithfulness, trustworthiness, covenant promise keeping

 

How might any of this help us / others with issues of life and death at this time?

 

(Questions / INTERVAL FOR GROUP DISCUSSION – talk about the questions above in italics or any of this!)

 

I AM THE RESURRECTION

 

The Old Testament hope – sometimes shadowy - a general resurrection at the end of time of the righteous and the wicked – Sadducees joke

 

I am the resurrection??? – not just I will be resurrected / I will guarantee your resurrection

 

Jesus’ resurrection brings this end time event into the middle of history

 

Jesus the first fruits / prototype of the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 15)

 

The resuscitation of Lazarus and the resurrection of Jesus

 

Believing in / into Jesus – faith union with him – “in Christ”, joined by the Spirit – risen with him

 

The resurrection of the cosmos – New Creation = Creation 2.0

 

INTERVAL FOR GROUP DISCUSSION – Consider any of the above and / or:

 

What is the Christian hope of the resurrection?

What difference does that hope make to life before death?

 

I AM THE LIFE

 

Life in John’s gospel

 

Jesus miraculous Signs signify that he gives life to those who believe

 

-          Healings, giving bread, water into wine a transformation resurrection glorification miracle (2:1 - on the third day!), anticipating the Wedding Feast of the Lamb

 

-          I am the bread of life (6:35)

-          I am the way the truth and the life (14:6)

-          I am the light of the world (8:12) – light and life (1:3-5)

 

Life / Eternal life – quality and quantity – the life of the age to come / of the ages

 

Knowing God – 17:3

 

The New Birth – Ch. 3

 

Now and not yet – 5:21, 24-30

 

The Lazarus joke!

 

FINAL OPPORTUNITY FOR DISCUSSION / QUESTIONS:

 

What is life in Jesus like now?

How can we live more fully in the light of the life we have now and the life to come?

 

Comments / questions?

 

These notes: marclloyd.blogspot.com/2021/02/i-am-resurrection-and-life-handout-notes.html

 

See also e.g., marclloyd.blogspot.com/search?q=Lazarus

 

All age sermon: warbletonchurch.org.uk/sermons-talks/?sermon_id=186

 

(I suggest Googling your favourite resurrection / Easter hymns: Up From The Grave He Arose; Christ Triumphant Ever Reigning; Jesus Lives Thy Terrors Now; I Know That My Redeemer Liveth)

 

marc_lloyd@hotmail.com