Parish Magazine Item for May - The Ascension

At 7:30pm on Thursday 14^th May we’ll be gathering for Holy Communion at St Giles’, Dallington to celebrate the Ascension of Jesus into heaven, 40 days after his resurrection from the dead on the first Easter Sunday. I do hope you’ll be able to join us, not least because the Ascension is a very significant and sometimes overlooked event. Indeed, sometimes the Ascension is mocked because it seems naive and primitive to think of Jesus going up to heaven, a bit like a human rocket! But even if we don’t imagine heaven “up there”, we shouldn’t miss the meaning of the Ascension. Part of the significance of the resurrection is that although Jesus was physically raised from the dead, he is not physically with us now. Jesus is in heaven. We know his presence by the power of the Holy Spirit, which he poured out on the church on the Day of Pentecost (which we’ll celebrate on Sunday 24^th May).

The Ascension is best thought of as the completion of the incarnation, death and resurrection of Jesus. Jesus journeyed from heaven to earth to save his people and when he had finished his saving work, Jesus returned to the right hand of the Father in heaven. When Jesus arrives back in glory, he sits down on his heavenly throne, rather like we might throw ourselves into our favourite armchair and put our feet up after a long hard day at work. The letter to the Hebrews contrasts Jesus with the Old Testament priests: they used to stand at the altar in the temple day after day offering sacrifices but Jesus offered himself as a perfect once for all sacrifice and then he sat down, his work done. On the cross Jesus had cried out, “It is finished!” not, “I am finished!”, as if it were a cry of defeat, but a shout of victory meaning, “Accomplished! Done!”. That word translated “It is finished!” is the kind of word an old couple might use when they finally pay off their mortgage: “At last, it’s done! We’ve managed it!”. Or it’s what a builder might say when he adds the final piece to a new house he’s made. Jesus’ ascension to his throne in heaven is a vivid demonstration that his saving work is indeed finished perfectly. He is welcomed into God the Father’s presence and honoured because his sacrifice was entirely pleasing to the Father and totally effective. The Ascension assures us that our salvation is utterly secure. The price for sin has been fully paid.

So the Ascension is Jesus’ return to the glory he enjoyed with the Father from all eternity. But there is something new. Now Jesus the God-man, the Incarnate Deity, sits on the throne of the universe as a human being. This fulfils God’s initial intention for the world. Men and women were meant to rule the world under God but our first parents chose to rebel and tried to throw off God’s good lordship. Sin creates havoc, but in the end God’s purposes are not thwarted. The first Adam failed, but Jesus, the Second Adam, triumphed. He is Humanity as it was meant to be.

As a human being, Jesus is able to sympathise with our human weaknesses. The Bible tells us that he was really tempted in every way just as we are, yet without sin. We can pray to Jesus as one who understands what it’s like to be a human being from the inside out. Jesus, then, is our friend in high places – our brother who has become king. He lives to intercede for us. His prays for you and me, and God his Father delights to hear him. Jesus the God-man is the perfect go-between between man and God.

So Jesus remains enthroned in heaven today. The next thing on his “to-do list” is to come again to judge the living and the dead. He reigns until it is time for him finally to put the world to rights. In the meantime, we are invited to make our peace with him, if we have not already done so, by embracing him as our Saviour and our Lord. Those who trust in him will share the blessings of his everlasting risen life.   

Such is part of the meaning of the Ascension. We’ll explore it together further on Thursday 14^th.    

Bread and ?

Am I right in thinking that it is never explicitly stated in the Bible that Jesus used wine at the Last Supper nor that the early church did so for Holy Communion?

An Easter reply to Mr Cameron

with an idea stolen from The Revd Dr Thomas Renz
what I am thinking of preaching at the 8am on Sunday

Acts 10 vv34-43 & John 20 vv1-18 

The Prime Minister recently contributed an article to a Christian magazine in which he tried to tell us about the heart of the Christian message and what Easter is all about.

Let me quote it to you:

He says:

“So I end my argument with this: I hope everyone can share in the belief of trying to lift people up rather than count people out. Those values and principles are not the exclusive preserve of one faith or religion. They are something I hope everyone in our country believes.

That after all is the heart of the Christian message. It’s the principle around which the Easter celebration is built. Easter is all about remembering the importance of change, responsibility, and doing the right thing for the good of our children. And today, that message matters more than ever.”

You may or may not agree with Mr Cameron’s politics, but I have to tell you that is breathtakingly bad theology.

The Prime Minister has forgotten the schoolboy lesson that Christianity is about Christ and that the message of Easter should mention the death and resurrection of Our Lord.

The Archbishop of Canterbury recently said that preachers need to stop preaching the moral clap trap that says “wouldn’t it be nice if we were all a bit nicer” and he warned against reducing Christianity to morality, so let’s see if we can’t do a little better than the Prime Minister.

That first Easter Sunday morning the women might have been thinking about responsibility and doing the right thing as they went to anoint Jesus’ dead body with spices, but God had made all their hard work redundant by raising Jesus from the dead.

God had lifted up Jesus when everyone had counted him out.  

Easter is above all about what God has done before it’s about what we must do.

It’s about the resurrection power of God – not an exhortation to pull our moral socks up and work harder.

Easter is really all about remembering the empty tomb and the risen Lord Jesus.

It’s about the fact that Jesus Christ is alive and by his resurrection he is proved to be Lord.

So you could say Easter is about the importance of change – but not about creating jobs or improving the economy or whatever might be on the politicans’ minds.

Easter is about the most radical transformation possible - a change from death to life.  

It’s about the forgiveness of sins, about the power of death broken.

Easter does bring about a change for the disciples:

Mary’s tears are turned to joy as she meets her risen Lord.

Easter is about a personal life-changing encounter with the risen Jesus.  

Of course the resurrection is a call to change – a summons to the change the Bible calls repentance, which literally means a change of mind.

Because Jesus has been raised from the dead, those who have not yet believed in him need to re-think who he was.

Easter tells us that we haven’t done the right thing.

All of us are in need of a crucified and risen Saviour.

The resurrection tells us that change is possible in the sense that forgiveness is available to all those who put their trust in Christ.

Spiritually we are dead in our sins and if we are to really change we need the supernatural life-changing power of the Holy Spirit.

Nothing less than a resurrection will do.

The Christian manifesto is that Jesus Christ is the one whom God has appointed as judge of the living and the dead, and that he calls on us to make our peace with him.  

I hope that is something we all believe.

It is a message that matters now as much as ever.

An outline for a Maundy Thursday sermon on John 13:34

Christ's love and Christian love

It's undeserved
It's costly
It requires humility
It's self-giving, self-sacrificial

It involves practical service

It's purposeful and looks to the eternal spiritual well-being of others, to their cleansing

Easter preaching advice from the PM & the Archbishop

As the Spectator blog reports, the Prime Minister (or the PM's 3rd assistant researcher intern) has opined about the heart of the Easter message in Premier Christianity Magazine:

So I end my argument with this: I hope everyone can share in the belief of trying to lift people up rather than count people out. Those values and principles are not the exclusive preserve of one faith or religion. They are something I hope everyone in our country believes.

That after all is the heart of the Christian message. It’s the principle around which the Easter celebration is built. Easter is all about remembering the importance of change, responsibility, and doing the right thing for the good of our children. And today, that message matters more than ever.

The PM has forgotten the schoolboy lesson that Christianity is about Christ and that the message of Easter should mention the death and resurrection of Our Lord.

Preachers would do well to remember the advice of the Archbishop of Canterbury that the Christian faith shouldn't be made to sound like a load of "moral claptrap" about everyone being "a bit nicer". Jesus did not "permit us and does he permit us to turn religion into morality." (Full homily here) 

Reflections on The Forgotten Cross for Good Friday

A first draft for our Good Friday services:

 I’ve based today’s service on a new little book by Lee Gatiss called, The Forgotten Cross, which I also wrote about in a recent parish magazine.

The idea is to think about aspects or implications of the cross which perhaps we might be tempted to neglect.

All of these reflections come in the context of Jesus dying on the cross to face the punishment for our sins in our place so that God’s wrath is turned away from us and our sins are forgiven.

That, I think, is the heart of the cross, but it’s not all there is to say.

Above all the cross wins us forgiveness and reconciliation but there are many other ways it affects the way we think and live.

Reading 1: 1 Cor 1:4-31 – The Cross & Success

The cross is apparently so weak and foolish.

It’s a deliberately awful and humiliating death.

There could be little more helpless and pitiable than a crucified man.

But, despite all appearances, the cross is the wisdom and power of God.

Once we’ve come to see the cross as our glorious salvation, we can never look at the world in the same way again.

Real power and greatness might be found in the most pathetic places.

The so called wisdom and strength of human beings are shamed because people chose to crucify their God:

That’s where human intelligence and power gone wrong can lead.

The ground at the foot of the cross is level.

Salvation is sheer grace and all boasting is excluded.

Whether or not we are wise by human standards, influential or of noble birth counts for nothing with the crucified God.

It turns out that in the cross and resurrection, the apparent foolishness of God is wiser than man’s supposed wisdom and the seeming weakness of God is greater than all man’s apparent strength.   

Reading 2: Mark 10:32-45 – The Cross & Service

The mismatch between Jesus’ prediction of his suffering and death, and James and John’s request for the most glorious positions in Christ’s kingdom is staggering.

But perhaps we’re capable of being equally obtuse.

It’s true that there is glory to come in Christ’s kingdom.

There is a kind of greatness.

But in the topsy-turvy kingdom of God, the way up is down.

Whoever wants to be great must become a servant and whoever wants to be first must be the slave of all because Jesus himself, the Master, became our servant.

Though he was in very nature God, Jesus did not think equality with God was something to be held on to but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness he humbled himself and became obedient to death, even death on a cross.

Therefore God has exalted him to the highest place and given him the name above every name.

For Jesus and for his followers, the way to life is death.

The pattern of the Christian life is cross and resurrection – suffering then glory.

Just two chapters earlier, Jesus has already told his disciples:

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.

For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me and for the gospel will save it.

God loves to scatter the proud in the imaginations of their hearts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent empty away.

If we come to Jesus looking for a cushy sinecure so that we might take our ease and lord it over others, we can expect pretty short shrift.

But if we come with empty hands, we can expect him to fill them with good things.

Reading 3: 1 Peter 2:12-25 – The Cross & Suffering

We are sometimes very quick to stand on our rights and to demand justice.

But Jesus didn’t do that.

Although he could have commanded legions of angels, he didn’t get even.

Though his suffering was utterly undeserved, he did not retaliate nor threaten but entrusted himself to him who judges justly.

God is on the throne of his universe and in the end justice will be done.

No crime will go unpunished.

So we need not be shaking our firsts or taking vengeance.

We don’t need to worry about keeping score.

Trust him who judges justly.

It is written, “It is mine to avenge; I will repay”, says the Lord.

Jesus suffered, leaving us an example that we should follow in his steps.

Whatever we face, we can know that Jesus has walked the road of unjust suffering before us.

He knows what it’s like to be alone, ill-treated, misunderstood, and dreadfully wronged.  

Like him we are to be patient in affliction.

We are to bless those who persecute us; to bless and not to curse – as Jesus prayed for those who crucified him, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they’re doing”.

Jesus said: “Blessed are those who are persecuted because of righteousness, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Blessed are you when people insult you, persecute you and falsely say all kinds of evil against you because of me.

Rejoice and be glad, because great is your reward in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.”

Reading 4: Ephesians 2:11-22 – The Cross & Separation

The cross is not just about saving individuals from hell for heaven.

It’s also about God saving a people for himself.

Jesus not only made peace between God and people but also amongst people.

Jesus’ death creates the church.

He makes a new humanity, a new nation, a new family.

So church membership and Christian fellowship aren’t optional extras.

They’re part of the purpose of the cross.

Paul will go on to say that this multi-national church is meant to display the manifold, variegated, multi-coloured wisdom of God.

The church is meant to display a unity in diversity which shows God’s power to break down barriers and bring people together.

In the church there is a unity which transcends background and culture.

Two people might have next to nothing in common, but if they share in Christ, that makes them one.

If we take the cross to heart, our relationships with one another will be transformed.

Paul will go on to urge us to be completely humble and gentle, to be patient, bearing with one another in love.

We are to make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace.

There is one body and one Spirit, one hope, one Lord, one faith, one baptism and one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.  

Reading 5: Titus 2:1-15 - The Cross & Sanctification

The purpose of the cross was to redeem us from all wickedness and to purify us for Jesus Christ as his very own people, eager to do what is good.

Our old way of life is dead and gone with the cross, and we’d be mad to want to go back to it.

We’ve been redeemed, bought back, set free from sin and death and hell.

There’s no future in that way of life.

The Christian hope is for something so much better than ungodliness and worldly passions.

The acts of the sinful nature are futile and fruitless.

The cross has set us free – but for purity, not for self-indulgence.

We belong to Jesus Christ.

We are not our own.

We were bought at a price.

Therefore, set free from the tyranny of sin, we are to eager to please our new master, Jesus Christ.   

For Paul the truth doesn’t merely inform, it does more even than save us: it leads to godliness.

We are to live lives that accord with sound or healthy doctrine.

Whether we’re older men or older women, or younger women or young men, or slaves, whatever our age or condition of life, this grace of God teaches us to live differently so that by our lives we will make the teaching about God our Saviour attractive.

Reading 6: Colossians 2:6-23 – The Cross & Supremacy

We’ve been saying that the cross is not merely theoretical but practical.

We’ve seen that the scope of the cross is not only individual but corporate.

In this reading the vision of the cross is cosmic.

By the cross, Jesus has disarmed all the evil supernatural powers and authorities, and made a public spectacle of them, triumphing over them.

The cross looked like total defeat for Jesus, but in fact he was destroying all his enemies.

Despite appearances, it really is Good Friday.

And as we look back on what the cross achieved, we’re invited to imagine the devil and all his demons as defeated captives led behind the victorious Jesus in a parade to celebrate his triumph.

By Jesus’ death all the powers of darkness have been vanquished.

Their weapons of sin and death have lost their power.  

In fulfilment of the ancient promise, Satan has bruised Jesus’ heel, but Jesus has crushed his head.

When he rises from the dead, Jesus says to his disciples: “All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me.”

He has been given the name that is above every name that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father.