John 20 & Song of Songs

Interestingly, the Common Worship lectionary for this evening appoints Song of Songs 3:2-5 and John 20:11-18.

In addition, Mary finds Jesus in a spice filled garden.

As a woman searches for the man she loves in a garden perfumed with spices, we might think of the Song of Songs with the beloved seeking her lover, that picture of the relationship between the Lord and his people, Christ and the church.

cf. Song 1:3, 12; 3:6; 4:6, 10; 5:1, 13

The Happy Man

Glen quoted this remarkable passage about Jesus from Lord Hailsham, the former Lord Chancellor, last night in his superb talk on Jesus, the ultimate hero, Commander, Host & Doctor (Luke 5:27-32):

The first thing we should learn about him is that we should be absolutely entranced by his company. Jesus was irresistibly attractive as a man. The one they crucified was a young man, vital, full of life and the joy of it, the Lord of life itself, and even more the Lord of laughter, someone so attractive that people followed him for the sheer fun of it. The twentieth century needs to re-capture the vision of this glorious and happy man whose mere presence filled his companions with delight.

(from The Door Wherein I Went)

Jesus Meets Your Needs

In Conversation with Fiona Castle, Rev'd John Cheeseman argued that it is the Lord Jesus Christ alone who can satisfy our deepest human needs. Jesus provides:

(1) Significance / meaning / purpose

(2) Security / unconditional love

(3) Salvation / forgiveness

Philip Pullman and Jesus

Thanks to Rev'd Richard Perkins for mentioning that Philip Pullman, of His Dark Materials fame, has a new book due out in two days time called The Good Man Jesus and The Scoundrel Christ (Canongate Books).

Here is the Amazon UK blurb:

This is a story. In this ingenious and spell-binding retelling of the life of Jesus, Philip Pullman revisits the most influential story ever told. Charged with mystery, compassion and enormous power, The Good Man Jesus and the Scoundrel Christ throws fresh light on who Jesus was and asks the reader questions that will continue to resonate long after the final page is turned. For, above all, this book is about how stories become stories.

It sounds as if Paul might be cast as the real baddie of the piece. Pullman says:

By the time the gospels were being written, Paul had already begun to transform the story of Jesus into something altogether new and extraordinary, and some of his version influenced what the gospel writers put in theirs...

Paul was a literary and imaginative genius of the first order who has probably had more influence on the history of the world than any other human being, Jesus certainly included. I believe this is a pity

The idea that Paul distorted the message of Jesus is neither original nor sound.

As Perks points out, New Testament scholar, Revd Dr David Wenham, has written a definitive study of the relationship between Jesus and Paul Paul: Follower of Jesus or Founder of Christianity. You can hear Wenham speak in Balham on 9th May.

New Moses, New Solomon

Matthew 2 presents Jesus as the New Moses and the New Solomon.

Wicked kings tried to kill baby Moses and baby Jesus. Both were forced to flee but were able to return when the wicked king had died. Matthew 2vv13-14 allude to Ex 2:15; vv20-21 allude to Ex 4:19-20. Mention of Egypt recalls Moses too. Jesus is the New Moses who rules his people and saves them from their slavery.

As the Queen of Sheba brought gold and spices to the Son of David (1 Kings 10:1-13), King Solomon (cf. Song of Songs 3:6-10), so wise men from the East bring their gifts to the King of the Jews in the city of David. Jesus is someone great even than Solomon (Matthew 12:42), a wiser and more powerful king.

Bread of Life Recap

We saw from (or maybe sometimes "using" John 6) that Jesus is bread from heaven – eternal God made man.

Jesus is bread – the essential, fundamental, staple diet stuff of life.

Jesus is the bread of life – he gives real life, life to the full, eternal life.

Jesus is bread that uniquely does not spoil.

Only Jesus can satisfy.

This bread is always fresh, never runs out and is always freely available.

Jesus will keep us going to the Promised Land.

God the Supreme "Judicial System"

The true and living God is not only the perfect and supreme judge, we may also say he is the supreme judicial system:

(1) politician / legislator - he makes and defines the laws

(2) police - he controls the word, restraining wrong and promoting good

(3) jurry - he gives his true and just verdicts

(4) judge - his sentances are true and just

(5) prison guard / governer / executionor - he exectues the sentance

Of course, Jesus is also the perfect loving and merciful judge who pays for the crimes of others by his atoning death, he takes our sentance on himself, satisfying out debt.

HT: DR on Danehill 1 Camp

Lord of Creation

The details of John 6:16-21 might remind us of Genesis 1:2: darkness, disorderly waters and wind (/Spirit).

Jesus is the Lord of Creation.

Bishop Jesus

1 Peter 2:25 (KJV)

Pictures of Jesus

Professor John Frame defends the legitimacy of pictures of Jesus in The Doctrine of the Christian Life (P&R, 2008) p484ff, which is just as well as it means we wont have to smash our stained glass windows after Sunday morning's sermon on the second commandment.

Of course pictures of Jesus are not to be worshiped, nor indeed somehow used as a means of worshiping Jesus, as some may have claimed the Golden Calf was a means of worshiping Yahweh.

Pictures of Jesus might help us to hold on to his true humanity
-->. At least, if all the other characters are depicted in your Children's Bible and Jesus is not, there is a danger of some kind of wierd docetism. There is little danger that our kids will worship their picture books. Jesus was a genuine, visible, touchable, flesh and blood human being, God come in the flesh, and therefore pictures of him are appropriate.

Of course, pictures of Jesus are necessarily somewhat speculative. We can assume he looked like a semitic man (not blonde-haired and blue-eyed), but we don't know in detail what he looked like. The same is true of all the other characters in your Children's Picture Bible and most of those on our stained glass windows too.

Frame points his readers to: -->Jeffrey J. Meyers, “Vere Homo: The Case for Pictures of the Lord Jesus Christ” (Niceville, FL: Biblical Horizons, 1993). The link he gives seems to be broken. A PDF file can be found at:http://ruberad.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/vere_homo.pdf   (link updated Aug 2014)

Man-sized God

So often we want a manageable man-sized God.

Man-size tissues are pretty big, as far as tissues go, but a man-sized god is a pathetic little god who is too small for us.

Men and women actually need God-sized God.

The amazing thing is that in Jesus, God became man-sized, as it were, while he also continued to fill the universe and uphold creation itself, even as he walked about within it. Jesus is not a god we can put in our pockets, but he is God revealed to men as a man, a God men could touch and handle and known.

The Curious Incident of the Lion in the Night-time

In his sermon on Daniel 6 yesterday the Rev'd Tony Baker suggested we might think of it as the curious incident of the lion in the night-time, alluding to the Sherlock Holmes story 'Silver Blaze', which contains the following exchange:

"Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?"

"To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time."

"The dog did nothing in the night-time."

"That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

I guess we may think of the angel of v22 whom God sent to shut the mouth of the lion as a type of Christ who defends us from our enemy the devil (cf. 1 Peter 5:8). Perhaps some even suggest that the angel was Christ himself?

He Shall Have Dominion

A live blog from camp!

All is going well - through many dangers, toils and snares, and with His strength made perfect in weakness and so on. Thanks if you prayed and to the Lord and to all the team!

We've been having excellent times in Psalms 1 & 8 so far thanks to Mr Ken MacDonald.

I was especially struck by how dominion was seen partly in Adam, lost, exercised fully in Christ, progressively in us and perfectly in the future.

Think of Jesus domion over nature: He calms the storm and walks on water.

And over the beasts of the field: He rides an unbroken donkey no one else has ever ridden and the pigs rush to their death as He allows demons to enter them.

And over the fish of the sea: they climb into nets at His command, they pay His taxes and he serves them up.

And over the birds of the air: the Spirit comes on Him in the form of a dove and not a bird falls from the heavens except at His Father's command.

I just have to go and exercise a bit of dominion over Mr Dan Ritchie who is a very naughty leader. He just said there was some man outside the main building to see me. I took off my Christmas tree hair band, picked up my official looking folder and pen and marched out, where upon a group of boys water bombed me. Vengance may be the Lord's but a bit of corrective "punishment" might be in order...

Chesterton on the Real Jesus

G. K. Chesterton said something like this:

People sometimes have the impression that “Christianity is something weak and diseased”. They think that “Jesus was a gentle creature, sheepish and unworldly, a mere ineffectual appeal to the world.” They imagine that Christianity belongs to the “dark ages of ignorance” and that “superstitious” people who are “still strongly religious… are weak, unpractical, and behind the times”.

“I only mention these ideas to affirm… that when I looked into them independently [for myself] I found, not that the conclusions were unphilosophical, but simply that the [supposed] facts were not facts.”

“Instead of looking at books and pictures about the New Testament I looked at the New Testament. There I found an account, not in the least of a person with his hair parted in the middle or his hands clasped in appeal, but of an extraordinary being with lips of thunder and acts of lurid decision, flinging down tables, casting out devils, passing with the wild secrecy of the wind from mountain isolation to a sort of dreadful demagogy; a being who often acted like a an angry god – and always like a god.”

“Christ had even a literary style of his own, not to be found, I think, elsewhere; it consists of an almost furious use of the a fortiori. His “how much more” is piled one upon another like castle upon castle in the clouds. The diction used about Christ has been, and perhaps wisely, sweet and submissive. But the diction used by Christ is curiously gigantesque; it is full of camels leaping through needles and mountains hurled into the sea.”

“Morally it is equally terrific; he called himself a sword of slaughter, and told men to buy swords if they sold their coats for them. That he used even wilder words of the side of non-resistance greatly increases the mystery; but it also, if anything, rather increases the violence.”

“We cannot even explain it by calling such a being insane; for insanity is usually along one consistent channel. The maniac is generally a monomaniac…. Christianity is a superhuman paradox whereby two opposite passions may blaze beside one another [or so it might seem]. The one explanation of the Gospel language that does explain it, is that it is the survey of one who from his supernatural height beholds some more startling synthesis.”

Ch 9, ‘Authority and the Adventurer’ in Orthodoxy (Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1996, first published 1908) (pp217-218)

New Exodus, New Time

Revd Dr Peter Leithart points out on his blog:

In Exodus 12:2, Yahweh tells Moses that the month of Abib, the month of Exodus, will be the first month in Israel’s calendar. Israel gets a new time with the Exodus. Yahweh informs Moses using the word “head” or “beginning,” which reaches back to Genesis 1:1. The new time of Israel is a new time for the world; of the Exodus, we might say “In the beginning Yahweh made (new) heavens and earth.”

It is appropriate that in the New Exodus that the Lord Jesus brings we recive a new calendar of A.D.

Adam: Prophet, Priest, King

We are familiar with saying that the Lord Jesus Christ, the second Adam, was a prophet, a priest and a king.

It seems to me that it would make sense to say that Adam was a prophet, a priest and a king in an embryonic, immature, weak (and after the fall, sinful)way. Jesus perfectly fulfills these roles and will bring them in to completion in his redeemed people.

As a prophet, Adam was a friend of God who spoke to him. Adam should have spoken the Word of God to Eve and maybe to the rest of creation.

The Garden was a like a temple at the heart of the world and Adam was to guard and serve in it, the Tree of Life being sacramental food.

Adam was clearly a king, he was to rule the world under God as his vice-gerent and have domionion over the creatures.

The Meaning of the Resurrection of the Son of God

In his 800 page The Resurrection of the Son of God (London, SPCK, 2003), N. T. Wright concludes that for the New Testament writers, the resurrection of the Son of God means that he is the Messiah, the Lord of the World and God the Son.

(1) Messiah

“The first level of a ‘son of god’ understanding of Jesus’ resurrection can therefore be summarized as follows. Jesus is Israel’s Messiah. In him, the creator’s covenant plan, to deal with sin and death that has so radically infected his world, has reached its long-awaited and decisive fulfilment.” (p728)

(2) Lord

“This then is the second level of meaning. The resurrection constitutes Jesus as the world’s true sovereign, the ‘son of god’ who claims absolute allegiance from everyone and everything within creation. He is the start of the creator’s new world: its pilot project, indeed its pilot.” (p731)

(3) God

“… the fact that this Jesus had been raised by this god… drew from the early Christians the breathtaking belief that Jesus was the ‘son of god’, the unique ‘Son’ of this God, as opposed to any other… … he was the personal embodiment and revelation of the one true god.” (p731)

“The resurrection … declares that Jesus really is God’s Son… in the sense that he is the one in whom the living God, Israel’s God, has become personally present in the world, has become one of the human creatures that were made from the beginning in the image of the same God.” (p733)

“… this resurrection [of this ‘son of God’] … was the public announcement, by the one true God, that this Jesus really was, and had always been, his son in this full, self-revealing, self-embodying sense.” (p734)

Jesus the Real One

Another good moment from Stott:

... Jesus called Himself the 'true' or 'real' [ale_the_s] Bread and Vine (Jn. vi. 32, xv. 1), as opposed to the baker's bread and the farmer's vine which are shadows of which He is the substance (and not vice versa)...

on 1 John 5:20 in Epistles of John, Tyndale NT Comm., IVP, 1964, p195

When God Pitched Up

Below is the text of my handout for a sermon preached yesterday on John 1:10-14. There are some more jottings (in a Word document) here.

(1) An Amazing Miracle: (v14)

God became a man

The incarnation

Jesus: (i) fully God – the eternal “Word”, The Son

WYSIWYG – (Jn 14:9; Heb 1:3; Col 1:15, 19; I Jn 1)

--> we can know God (v18)

(ii) fully human – “flesh” – (Jn 11:45; 4:6; Mt 4:2)

--> God knows us (Heb 4:15)

astonishing love – we must really matter to Jesus (2 Cor 8:9)

“made his dwelling” (v14) = “tabernacled” – (Ex 33)

Jesus the New Tabernacle / Temple (Jn 2:21)

--> if you want to know God, go to Jesus

(2) A Terrible Tragedy: (vv10-11)

God’s world rejected Him

--> don’t make the same mistake: recognise Jesus

(3) A Wonderful Privilege: (vv12-13)

But all who received Jesus became God’s children

“Dear Lord and Father of Mankind”? – (Jn 8:42, 44)

we are not all / automatically children of God

--> receive Him / believe in his name (v12)

born again Christians (v13; Jn 3:3; Eph 2:1)

“right” (v12) – “power / authority” --> confidence

Things You Must See Before You Die

With a nod to Revd Sam Allberry, here's something from yesterday's sermon (more jottings for which are available here).

Let me tell you a few book-titles I found on Amazon this week - (I've been using my sermon preparation time wisely!):

Unforgettable Places to See Before You Die

1000 Places to See Before You Die

1001 Natural Wonders: You Must See Before You Die 1001 Historic Sites: You Must See Before You Die 101 Things to Do Before You Die

101 Things to Buy Before You Die

300 Beers to Try Before You Die

1001 Golf Holes You Must Play Before You Die

Fifty Places to Sail Before You Die

Fifty Places to Fly Fish Before You Die:

1001 Wines You Must Taste Before You Die

1001 Albums: You Must Hear Before You Die

1001 Classical Recordings You Must Hear Before You Die

1001 Books: You Must Read Before You Die

1001 Paintings You Must See Before You Die

1001 Movies You Must See Before You Die

1001 Gardens You Must See Before You Die

The Five Secrets You Must Discover Before You Die

Ten Fun Things to Do Before You Die

There’s also, by the way,

101 Things Not to Do Before You Die

Its an exhausting list, isn’t it!

After that lot, you might need

Unforgettable Islands to Escape to Before You Die

I'm not knocking those books (necessarily!). I'm interested in some of them myself.

But I think a list of books like that makes you realise, doesn’t it, that many people sense they're missing something in life.

They’re trying to squeeze as much as possible out of the time left to them on this planet.

They’re not satisfied and they don’t know quite where to look for peace and rest.

There would be something a bit desperate if someone had all those books on their shelves, wouldn’t there?

But the Bible’s message is much saner and much simpler.

This passage (Simeon's song in Luke 2) tells us that the one thing we must do before we die is, as it were, see Jesus.

Don’t worry too much about all those books and pictures and places and films.

The only really essential thing is to come to appreciate Jesus – to come to terms with him.

Simeon says, in effect, "now I've seen Jesus, I can die happy".

That's the message of Simeon’s song:

Jesus is at the centre of things.

He alone brings salvation and light for all people.

Jesus is the one who brings peace.

Lasting satisfaction and rest, meaning and purpose are to be found in him.

If we put Jesus at the centre of our lives, we'll be able to look back on them without regrets.