“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him 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 acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Christ steps into our world at Christmas not for the first time but in a new way. As I was reading in John 1 this morning I am reminded of the One who was, is and is to come. He made Himself nothing, taking on the nature of a servant. You cannnot make yourself something if you have not been in the first place. Christ already was and now steps into our world and is then exalted to the highest place. He was and is and is to come.
The Advent season does not press pause on the rest of life for us. It happens in the midst of life, of joys and tears. For those in church leadership there is still the walking through of life and death with their congregations. Funerals and nativity services may be taking your time. Prepping for a carol service alongside walking with someone wrestling with life and faith. Christ steps into our life in all that it holds.
Our prayer for those in ministry is that as you hold your hands open to the coming of Christ you can do that in the midst not of a perfect Advent/Christmas set of services but in the midst of life. That this journey of Advent and wonder of Christ who steps into our own lives and the lives of those in the pews and those who only come to church at Christmas or don’t come at all goes hand in hand with all that our lives have playing out day by day. Having everything ‘just so’ for Advent doesn’t stop Christ stepping in and dwelling with us. That is worth lifting our praise and thanks up to God.
So yesterday was the first Sunday in Advent. Maybe though the weather, power cuts, coughs and colds which have kept sleep at arms length mean Advent had a bumpy start. Maybe leading others through Advent when it feels the furthest thing from your own heart right now is a weight you don’t know how to put down and ask others to walk with you. Maybe questions over Christmas plans A, B and C for church services, ones own family Christmas plans all feel rather futile as we wait to see what decisions get made and how much notice is given. Energy spent now on things that may not get to happen. Weariness that you were hoping would be bolstered by the supposed festive joyful start of Advent feels only further dented.
This morning as I read the introduction in the Advent Reader I am using for this year Chris Wright reminds us that ‘advent’ means ‘a coming’ and we celebrate not just the coming of Christ as a baby but as the Holy One who came, is coming daily in our lives and will come. So if you trying to get it right this year and already it feels like the first candle of ‘hope’ has gone out let us hold firm to the truth that God has already come, is coming to us daily and is to come.
As I shared last week in Philippians 2 Jesus has been here since the beginning. Christmas is simply Him stepping into the middle of His coming and being. Don’t let the weight of external expectations diminish for you the truth of the One who holds all time and all coming and being in His hands.
Philippians 2:5-11 (NIV)
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him 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 acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
Praying you can sit with these truths this Advent and let them bring you hope and grace. In Jesus name we ask.
Almost a year ago now I tried to start a series on Lamentations, that has been fairly sporadic. But there is now a post on all of the first four chapters. This post concludes that series and starts an Advent series. In the last chapter of Lamentations the Lamenting poet reaches the end of his Lament.
Unlike each of the other chapters of Lamentations, which are all carefully constructed acrostic poems, with each line/stanza beginning with a different letter of the Hebrew alphabet, this final chapter is simply 22 lines of outpoured grief. This time there is no structure, as if to signal that the grief now is simply too great for such care.
The lament culminates in these words of anguish in 5:16-18:
Joy is gone from our hearts; our dancing has turned to mourning. 16 The crown has fallen from our head. Woe to us, for we have sinned! 17 Because of this our hearts are faint, because of these things our eyes grow dim 18 for Mount Zion, which lies desolate, with jackals prowling over it.
Remember, that as these words are written the Lamenter sits in the ruins of Jerusalem after its destruction by the Babylonians. God’s judgment has come on the people – and they have come crashing down to the ground. Those caught up in this calamity have differing degrees of capability in the tragedy, but all suffer appalling desolation.
I imagine that in one way or another all of us as 2021 draws to a close have a sense of walking in the midst of difficult times. We are heading into nearly 2 years of living in the midst of a deadly global pandemic, and each time we think we may be turning a corner news of a new variant strikes a further blow to our hopes.
In our workplaces, in family life, and in our churches this has brought turmoil and struggle. In our churches it comes on top of all the usual strains of church life, and amplifies every dispute and disagreement. It has made communication harder, and misunderstanding all too easy. We have heard plenty of tales of leaders abusing their power and bullying others. Where once it seemed that leaders fell into temptation and disgraced themselves, now they seem to be embracing power and dragging others along with them into lives and networks marked by fear.
Truly at such times we lament – and perhaps the final prayer marks us too:
You, Lord, reign forever; your throne endures from generation to generation. 20 Why do you always forget us? Why do you forsake us so long? 21 Restore us to yourself, Lord, that we may return; renew our days as of old 22 unless you have utterly rejected us and are angry with us beyond measure.
That final paragraph is the bleak conclusion for the Lament. Maybe God has finally given up. We know that the answer is that he hasn’t. But the Lamenter does not yet know that. Perhaps intellectually he knows that, but in the experience here and now it looks exactly like it would if God had given up. And sometimes that experience is ours too. Sometimes it looks and feels exactly like God has given up.
This book reminds us that such experiences have been a regular part of being God’s people. But, by being part of a larger collection of books, by being part of the Scriptures that bear witness to God’s continued dealings with his people, and his promises and purposes to bless his people and through them all nations, by being a part of those Scriptures this individual book testifies to the reality that those experiences are not the whole story.
It is that bigger story that Advent invites us to remember, and there are few better places to start the memory of that bigger story than Isaiah 40. Isaiah 40 begins a new section of Isaiah. Chapters 1-39 are written about and into events in Hezekiah’s day (and the day of his immediate predecessors and successors), but chapter 40 steps out from that time period and addresses those sitting in the ruins of Jerusalem, or those who have sat in the ruins of Jerusalem but now sit in Babylon, wondering how they can sing the songs of Zion in a foreign land (Psalm 137).
Chapter 40 sounds a note of joyful hope and triumph:
40 Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. 2 Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.
In answer to the anguished cry of Lamentations 5:22 the resounding answer is given – Yahweh will have mercy. There are words of comfort to come.
A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord[a]; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.[b] 4 Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain. 5 And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all people will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”
There is a road about to be created for God to come back to his people, for the people to see Yahweh’s glory for themselves. Chapter 40 of Isaiah, and the chapters that follow are some of my favourite portions of Scripture. They speak so clearly and resoundingly of God’s activity on behalf of his people. They are the resounding answer to the despair of Lamentations 5:22.
I want to dig deeper into some of these chapters this advent, but for now I want us to think of how these chapters don’t answer Lamentations 5:22.
There is no explanation. There is no defence of God’s judgement on the people. There is no detailed argument as to why it is fair to judge a whole city in such a way. There is no addressing directly the despair. Instead the prophet is told to say this:
A voice says, “Cry out.” And I said, “What shall I cry?”
“All people are like grass, and all their faithfulness is like the flowers of the field. 7 The grass withers and the flowers fall, because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass. 8 The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God endures forever.”
9 You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem,[c] lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, “Here is your God!”
People fade and fall. Our glory is fleeting and transient. God’s Word endures forever. And so the message of the prophet is quite simply this: “Here is your God!” – which isn’t quite right as a translation. The Hebrew is hard to translate. Old versions say “Behold your God!” – but “behold” isn’t exactly common English today – the closest we can get is to paraphrase something like: “Pay attention! Look! Here is your God”
The prophet is to show the people their God. Which is exactly what he does in the coming verses. Verse by verse showing the tender care and awesome power of this God. To a group of people sitting in exile in Babylon, wondering if God has finally given up on them after all he gives, not answers, not explanations, but a fresh vision of the God who has not abandoned them and not given up on them.
A fresh vision of the God who is a tender shepherd, and the Almighty Creator of the stars. It is this vision that is taken up and echoed by John the Baptist as he preaches in Judea and baptises in the Jordan river. He is the voice echoing in the wilderness, and he is the voice who cries “Behold the Lamb of God!”
To a people in darkness, who have given up hope, comes John’s announcement that God has acted. John’s message points us to the reality that in Jesus we see this God come to us. A way has been made for God to come to us. The reality that Isaiah 40 speaks into our hearts becomes a reality because of Jesus.
And so in Advent as we come together as church communities to remember the coming of Jesus, and to look forward to his coming again we need to remember that this message is what we need. That the one who speaks God’s word is called above and before everything else to cry “Behold, Your God!” “Behold, the Lamb!”
Those of us sitting in pews and chairs in churches this advent, or watching a screen from our armchairs need most of all this Christmas, in the darkness and despair of 2021, to hear people who will point out God to us. We need our ministers and pastors and preachers to be those who will show us Jesus. We don’t need new strategies and plans – or at least we don’t need those yet. First of all we need Jesus. First of all we need to see our God afresh.
Once we see this God afresh, then we can begin to see the difference that should make in our lives, and the lives of our communities – but first we need to see this God, first we need a fresh vision of who our God is and what it is like when he comes.
And so hopefully during Advent I will do some more digging into these chapters in Isaiah 40-55 and show more of what we see of our God here. But for now, we need simply to stop and listen. Perhaps to these words of the end of Isaiah 40:
27 Why do you complain, Jacob? Why do you say, Israel, “My way is hidden from the Lord; my cause is disregarded by my God”? 28 Do you not know? Have you not heard? The Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. He will not grow tired or weary, and his understanding no one can fathom. 29 He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak. 30 Even youths grow tired and weary, and young men stumble and fall; 31 but those who hope in the Lord will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.
When we see this God afresh we will long to point others to him. And in order to see this God afresh week by week we need teachers, preachers, leaders and friends who will have the passion that the following Charles Wesley hymn shows so clearly:
1 Jesus, the Name high over all, in hell or earth or sky; angels and mortals prostrate fall, and devils fear and fly. Jesus, the Name to sinners dear, the Name to sinners giv’n; it scatters all their guilty fear, it turns their hell to heav’n.
2 O that the world might taste and see the riches of His grace! The arms of love that compass me would all the world embrace. Thee I shall constantly proclaim, though earth and hell oppose; bold to confess Thy glorious Name before a world of foes.
3 His only righteousness I show, His saving truth proclaim; ’tis all my business here below to cry, “Behold the Lamb!” Happy, if with my latest breath I may but gasp His Name, preach Him to all, and cry in death, “Behold, behold the Lamb!”
For many of us in leadership we have a desire to help others, encourage others, to see them grow. The problems comes when they don’t grow the way we envisioned, in other words jumping in our boat and signing on as ‘yes’ folk to our plans. The problems come when the stories are more complex than we had penciled in. The problems come when they seem to still be weeping longer than we feel is right.
I was struck today in an online conversation where I had acknowledged that what I was posting was a gut response to other comments and that I was hurting because of them. One later comment said I was not to be hurt, with the intention for me to be encouraged in the wider context of the reply but I did not hear it that way in the moment. Due to the hurt I was feeling this later comment stood out to me and led me to reflect more on ideas at the back of my head around Romans 12 where we are called to rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep, and a book I read earlier this year, with one of our children, called ‘The Big Wave’ by Pearl Buck.
Romans does not have a time frame from which we move on with those postures. There is not a point at which we must no longer celebrate or stop weeping, we are simply to be there alongside them. In the Big Wave a young boy faces the loss of his family and I was struck by how the father of the boy’s friend gives him the space to mourn, where he is not rushed, he is not asked to process, to talk but to simply be and there is no fear in the presence of this young boy’s grief. There is simply presence and in the presence a recognition of the grief.
In the midst of this upcoming season there may well be folk around us for whom their stories do not fit into the neat tidy tinsel topped plans we have and the services we are sorting. We may even have planned something for those ‘grieving’ to acknowledge its not easy for everyone but what if that planned event is not what they need but presence. The presence of someone else who won’t correct them or point out the places they can be joyful and grateful. They just want us to rejoice or weep or both with them but not tell them how they will do either. Not to be afraid of the mess, the tears, but who will have the quiet confidence of the Spirit of God to sit and be present. To be still and know that God is God, who is at work and will not cease.
Advent and Christmas are fast approaching. We have just had Christ the King Sunday. All too quickly though we forget Christ as King, not just of us but of all peoples and all that was made, as we jump into Advent services, nativity services and encouraging folk to remember the reason for the season. Christ suddenly is reduced in size again to a baby and we oscillate between the wonder of Christ coming to dwell among us at all and a baby who is smaller than us and so is manageable and pliable to our understanding and liking.
I was struck listening to a podcast this week on reading aloud with your children and a line in it was that this season of advent and Christmas is not simply about making great memories for our families but also about being present in the here and now. For us our here and now is that Christ is King, He is risen indeed and at the same time we celebrate His birth in this season. With the gift of knowing the life of Christ, of knowing that He is reigning on high may that stir us up, to use a phrase from last Sunday at church, to look with fresh eyes and heart on all that we are doing during Advent and Christmas as we celebrate the dwelling among us of Christ. May it enlarge our vision of the nativity story beyond something engaging for children and family services and the expected thing to do.
And to complete that enlarging of our vision may we also sit with John 1 and Genesis, ‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.’ (NIV) Jesus’ dwelling among us comes with Him having been with God in the beginning and is followed by His resurrection and ruling as King of all Kings to this day.
What richer words to sit with and steady our hearts and minds for this season, that can seem to take on a life of its own, than to read and pray through each day Philippians 2:5-11 (NIV)
“In your relationships with one another, have the same mindset as Christ Jesus:
Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death— even death on a cross!
Therefore God exalted him to the highest place and gave him 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 acknowledge that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.”
So let us pray that we do not diminish the One whose birth we celebrate by reducing our worship to one who is smaller than us. Let us expand our worship and expectation of God this Christmas to the One who was and is and is to come. Forever and ever. Amen.
The second half of chapter 4 is if anything more overwhelmingly dark than the first half. But once again it is worth moving ourselves mentally to the wreckage of Jerusalem so that we can see the world through the eyes of the Lamenter. He begins with the impossibility of God’s people coming to such a state.
Jerusalem was the place where God placed his presence among his people. The place where he placed his king on the throne. And yet Jerusalem was rubble overrun by enemies:
12 The kings of the earth did not believe, nor did any of the peoples of the world, that enemies and foes could enter the gates of Jerusalem.
Whether the nations literally believed that Jerusalem could not be destroyed is irrelevant – the Lamenter is speaking from the perspective of one who believes in Yahweh, and knows that Psalm 46 is true – that Yahweh himself is Zion’s strength and refuge. So the idea that Jerusalem, Zion’s city, can fall is an impossibility.
And yet. Nebuchadnezzar has marched in, burnt the walls, carried off the gold from the temple and taken the cream of the city into exile. How? How can this be? The answer is in the next verses:
13 But it happened because of the sins of her prophets and the iniquities of her priests, who shed within her the blood of the righteous.
14 Now they grope through the streets as if they were blind. They are so defiled with blood that no one dares to touch their garments.
15 “Go away! You are unclean!” people cry to them. “Away! Away! Don’t touch us!” When they flee and wander about, people among the nations say, “They can stay here no longer.”
16 The Lord himself has scattered them; he no longer watches over them. The priests are shown no honour, the elders no favour.
The answer is a crisis in leadership – and it is not first a crisis of political leadership or policy – although the chapter will move in that direction later. No, first of all it is a crisis of spiritual leadership – prophets and priests together have gone astray – they have shed the blood of the righteous.
Prophets are supposed to speak God’s words – but instead they have declared ‘peace, peace – but there is no peace’. Priests are supposed to stand between God and people – but instead they shed the blood of the innocent.
And so both priest and prophet become unclean. Both are despised by the people. Both perish. This feels strikingly contemporary. In recent years we have had so many exposures of respected Christian leaders. Leaders who were bullies, leaders who lied, leaders who abused, leaders who covered up abuse.
In such times where do we turn, where do we look:
17 Moreover, our eyes failed, looking in vain for help; from our towers we watched for a nation that could not save us.
18 People stalked us at every step, so we could not walk in our streets. Our end was near, our days were numbered, for our end had come.
19 Our pursuers were swifter than eagles in the sky; they chased us over the mountains and lay in wait for us in the desert.
Perhaps like Israel we are tempted to put our trust in princes. With eyes looking in vain for help from the sources of strength in the world around us. But it is all in vain. For Israel and Judah it was the temptation to trust in military resources and political alliances with Egypt and others. For us it might be the temptation to trust in our financial resources, or our knowledge, or our connections. But ultimately all of those things will fail and fall.
20 The Lord’s anointed, our very life breath, was caught in their traps. We thought that under his shadow we would live among the nations.
21 Rejoice and be glad, Daughter Edom, you who live in the land of Uz. But to you also the cup will be passed; you will be drunk and stripped naked.
22 Your punishment will end, Daughter Zion; he will not prolong your exile. But he will punish your sin, Daughter Edom, and expose your wickedness.
And then the hardest section of all – the Lord’s anointed has been caught in the enemy’s snares, when they had thought that he would enable them to live in safety. And so the chapter ends in despair for the present, but in the hope that one day Edom who laughs at Jerusalem’s fall will one day be punished, and Zion’s punishment will on day be ended.
Their hope in the Lord’s anointed was a good one, but the hope was only as strong as the Lord’s anointed was strong. Judah’s kings were all “the Lord’s anointed” – each in the line of David, but each weak and fallible, as was David before them. Each was only a pale shadow of the King to come, who though descended from David, was the perfect King.
The King who would establish his people, and who would punish his enemies. The King who would achieve this by bearing the people’s exile in his own body on the cross. This King is the hope for us as individuals, and for God’s people as a whole, and for all the nations of the earth.
This King is a perfect ruler. The perfect prophet speaking God’s word in truth, to build his people up. He is the perfect priest, entering into the Holy Place and bearing us into the Father’s presence. He is the perfect King, dispensing justice with mercy and grace for weak sinners like us.
He doesn’t use his privilege to lord it over others. He doesn’t abuse his position of power. He doesn’t bully others into submission. Instead he stoops to wash the feet of weary disciples. This Sunday in the churches year was Christ the King Sunday – a Sunday to remember the sort of King Jesus is at the end of the churches year.
In a world where it feels so often that we live in the ruins of Jerusalem trampled on by Babylon let us remember that we have a King who does rule, and whose rule will one day be seen by all. Let us trust him, and let us look to him as the pattern and example for our attempts to follow him and serve others.
There has been plenty of dialogue of varying levels going around on the internet and in-person conversations about leadership, about the dangers of power those in leadership have, the battles those in leaders are up against from the congregations. Having been on the receiving end of misused leadership, having been in leadership and got things wrong, having been part of unhealthy leadership structures, having been a congregant who doesn’t tend to stay quiet when she sees unhealthy leadership patterns, I get it. We are messy complicated broken people who get it wrong. We talk of faith, we talk of the gospel but time and again I have seen leaders not live out a big enough gospel.
As Christians do we not believe in the gospel of forgiveness and redemption? Do we believe that there are certain people, situations outside of that gospel? We act as if the gospel is not enough for certain situations even when we preach something differently on Sunday mornings. It feels that way when the hard conversations are avoided, the difficult conversations are not had. Other conversations may well be had that seem difficult but are not the ones needed, and are a deflection from the ones that need to be had, because the ones needed require us to face up to our own actions in situations. We also need to address the question around the fear of the congregation. That though is a whole other issue to consider but needs to be mentioned here in recognition of the hold it has over leaders and their ability to be open and vulnerable.
Recently I saw on FB a conversation that flowed out of a wider context on leadership and it made me stop. It was talking about the need for leaders to be willing to be vulnerable, to be open. It reminded me of a time when I was part of church staff team and signed off sick. Within the team I clarified that I was signed off not because of my health; though I was dealing with physical health issues at the time as well, and that would have been the convenient easy answer for the leadership to present to the congregation; but because the counselor I was seeing recommended I step back from work. She recommended this because of how unhealthy the dynamics were, though all I shared was that it was the counselor’s advice I take time out. I was taken aside by one person who wanted to protect someone else and was told that by this person saying it was my GP was an act of protecting me as others might not view it well that I was in need of seeing a counselor. I had no shame about seeing a counselor (for any reason) and in fact had sought that out not because of a direct need that I was wanting to address but because I was walking alongside lots of others and so in order to be healthy I went to a counselor so I had a place to lay down and maintain a healthy boundary between the journeys I was walking along and my own and my family’s life.
It is very hard to be open and vulnerable as a church staff member if the leadership is not open to it or is afraid of how the congregation will see it. The double edge of that is that the congregation, whether the leadership like it or not, take their cues from leadership and if we cloak counseling with a sense of shame than that will be the case for the congregation who may miss out on the help they need. Mark and I have for many years had the wonderful support of a couple for marriage, ministry, life for whom no questions, area of conversation are off the table. I am often surprised by the number of people who respond with surprise and say ‘ but you and Mark have a great marriage, so why?’ We started seeing them when life was overwhelming with little ones and direction of work was not clear. We are thankful that they continue to walk with us even through more stable seasons of life because we all need people in our lives for whom nothing is off the table in a world that asks us to have it altogether or no longer be a team player but simply become baggage, labelled ‘fragile’ that needs handling with care.
It also reminded me of how we talk about struggles, battles, issues we are facing. Far too often I have been struck by the language used to talk about a person in the congregation who is dealing with a situation. All too often they no longer are a person, they become the ‘baggage’ they appear to have. When Jesus met with the Samaritan woman at the well with her colourful past He did not talk aside with the disciples about this person and all her past and define her by that. He talked to her, person to person. He didn’t pretend her past hadn’t happened, He didn’t ignore her current situation but He spoke to her. He saw her. She shared the good news with those in the village. Too many times have I heard people being minimised, reduced, not fully included in serving because they have ‘baggage’ by those in leadership. They speak of these ‘problem people’.
As leaders are we not called to serve? We need to be willing to serve the people in front of us. We are called to serve them as Christ does. To see them, to give them life. In that example above I spoke of going to a counselor because of the role I was in. Many of us because of the fractured way society, relationships and family work need to go to a counselor for our own needs too. That though is much harder because I know how others speak of people who dare put their hand up and say they are struggling. We have stopped making hard times part and parcel of life and so when they come they are so much more jarring and isolating. Many of us don’t have day to day community around us to walk through the ups and downs of life. For those in leadership admitting to others in leadership that we are struggling can be next to impossible because not only is asking for help or acknowledging you are getting help is vulnerable, it opens us up to being talked about behind our backs as ‘baggage’ and excluded from the table and we don’t need that on top of everything else we are battling on our own. I know for me there is pride mixed into that but even to address that and admit that can feel far too risky because there is no confidence in the net beneath that opening up and if I cannot open up about the pride I am certainly not going to risk opening up about anything else.
Humans are going to fail each other, I get that, but until I see leadership living out a confidence that the gospel in the scripture is enough. That the gospel is big enough for when we mess up and need to repent and forgive each other, to take ownership of wrong doing. And to offer genuine forgiveness that brings all to the table and enables the other to carry on walking. Without this I fear we are going to lose more leaders from the call to serve others and congregations wondering why the gospel isn’t making a difference in their every day lives in the way they see it as they read the Bible. Leaders are going to remain trapped and burnt out, and when one goes down in those circumstances it is never just them that pays the price, the ripples spread out.
Not every church is in this situation, for that I am thankful but I have wept for many a church I know that is feeling those ripples. And ‘the good guys’ are not immune from this. I am not immune from it. Talking about it, writing about it is a start but we need to be also having those hard conversations, not hiding when it is in within our own circles, but to walking it out. We all need to be given the chance to experience the repentance and forgiveness the gospel allows and we all need both sides of that. I know I do.
The path stretches out, lets walk with each other and have confidence that the gospel is enough.
With chapter 4 of Lamentations we move into a new stage of the poetry – there are still 22 stanzas, but each stanza has only four lines. The poem is shrinking – and as it shrinks the Lamenter reflects on the loss of glory for Jerusalem:
4 [a]How the gold has lost its luster, the fine gold become dull! The sacred gems are scattered at every street corner.
2 How the precious children of Zion, once worth their weight in gold, are now considered as pots of clay, the work of a potter’s hands!
4:1-2
Note in passing the English phrases that have entered our language – ‘worth his weight in gold’ – but this gold has lost its shine. From gold God’s people have sunk to clay. Clay pots – worked by a potter. Sometimes this image is used in a positive way, but here it seems to simply be used to highlight how they have fallen. But there is worse to come. They have fallen further than this.
3 Even jackals offer their breasts to nurse their young, but my people have become heartless like ostriches in the desert.
4 Because of thirst the infant’s tongue sticks to the roof of its mouth; the children beg for bread, but no one gives it to them.
4:3-4
God’s people have not only lost their glory, they have lost their heart. They have become people who do not give water or bread to their children. The only thing left is survival, and in the midst of the need to survive the weakest are trampled underfoot.
It is easy to condemn such behaviour – and yet, in the midst of disaster and trouble all too easy to simply try to look after ourselves. Our energy and time become turned inwards, and we can easily fail to look to the needs of others.
5 Those who once ate delicacies are destitute in the streets. Those brought up in royal purple now lie on ash heaps.
6 The punishment of my people is greater than that of Sodom, which was overthrown in a moment without a hand turned to help her.
7 Their princes were brighter than snow and whiter than milk, their bodies more ruddy than rubies, their appearance like lapis lazuli.
8 But now they are blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets. Their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as a stick.
9 Those killed by the sword are better off than those who die of famine; racked with hunger, they waste away for lack of food from the field.
10 With their own hands compassionate women have cooked their own children, who became their food when my people were destroyed.
4:5-10
The Lamenter revisits the theme of loss of glory, and compares the judgement to that on Sodom – whose end was at least swift. Jerusalem by contrast is suffering a long, slow torment at the hands of Babylon. There is a severe famine – and as in a similar story at the siege of Samaria in 2 Kings, women are even eating their own children.
Israel’s state has become one of utter degradation. They have become de-humanised at the hands of their oppressors – they have stopped trusting Yahweh and instead do whatever it takes to survive.
11 The Lord has given full vent to his wrath; he has poured out his fierce anger. He kindled a fire in Zion that consumed her foundations.
4:11
What is striking here is that this dehumanisation is not so much a description of what is wrong with Jerusalem and with God’s people. It is not a list of sins that bring God’s judgement – but rather it is a description of what it looks like to be a people under God’s judgement.
In that it is like Romans 1:18-32, where the sexual sin described is not so much the sin that brings God’s judgement, but rather the results of standing under God’s judgement. The sin that brings God’s judgement is deeper than the externals. It is the sin of idolatry. It is the sin of swapping the glory of the invisible God for idols made to look like men. It is the sin of swapping the weight and substance of the God who is there for the safety and security we devise for ourselves in material wealth and power.
The external sins of our world should arose our compassion. We will never stop sin by condemning it. Lasting change can only come when we come back to the God who gives us true worth and lasting value. Real change in the world, and in the church, comes when we return to true worship – for it is then that our hearts are changed and moved back to the reality of what matters.
As I’ve pondered these verses, and perhaps especially the way that God’s people in the midst of suffering and setbacks ended up treating each other as less than human I’m struck by how easy it is to do this. Hopefully not by resorting to stealing bread from children and cannibalism – but we can do other types of dehumanising .
I think of my own context in the UK, and I think of how easy it is for churches, and for church leaders under pressure to treat people as tools and objects for our goals and mission. New Christians can be welcomed and encouraged, their enthusiasm used to fuel new projects and ideas. But maybe then they spot somethings that are not quite right, perhaps they highlight the ways we have got to used to people working. And they are disbelieved and denigrated – maybe not in obvious way, but just subtly with a nod and a phrase or two that highlights their naivety and inexperience.
Again, here in the UK we have had a succession of major and less major church crises around the issue of abusive leaders. In each case there is a sinful individual at the heart of the matter who has abused and manipulated others. But in each case there are many, many more individuals who have allowed that abuse to happen, either through the desire to themselves be close to those who have influence, or throught the fear of being left outside or themselves bullied, or some complex mixture of all of those.
We have bought into a model of leadership that values what the world values – connections, power, the ability to ‘get things done’. We have been happy for churches to hand over their thinking to one person, or one group. We have been too scared to challenge unbiblical thinking about how power and leadership work – or should work in God’s kingdom.
People are considered as clay – not to be molded by a loving creator, but to be molded by us. When we realise that this is happening we should realise that it is a sign of something much deeper. It is not merely that we are going wrong – it is that we have gone badly adrift. We need to repent of the underlying attitudes that have got us to this place.
We need to remember the verses I read to one of the children tonight when Matthew applies them to Jesus from Isaiah 42:
“Here is my servant, whom I uphold, my chosen one in whom I delight; I will put my Spirit on him, and he will bring justice to the nations. 2 He will not shout or cry out, or raise his voice in the streets. 3 A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out
Isaiah 42:1-3
This is the complete opposite of dehumanisaton. Jesus does not steal bread from the needy. Jesus does not treat people as tools. Jesus does not bully or abuse. Jesus does not manipulate. Jesus does not surround himself with ‘strategic’ people. Jesus does not make himself look good or draw attention to himself at the expense of others.
Jesus does not treat the ‘little people’ with contempt. Jesus does not despise the broken or the weary. He stoops and treats them with care and with love and with kindness. He does not break the bruised reed – picture a reed swaying in the breeze – so flimsy, so easily broken off – Jesus does not break us when we are at the point of breaking.
He does not snuff out the barely smouldering candle flame of our weary attempts to follow – no, he stoops down, and will gently fan that flame back into life. Because, as the song goes, he is the God of the broken, friend of the weak, the one who washes the feet of the weary and embraces the one in need.
So in a world where we may feel we are in the midst of the ruins of Jerusalem for one reason or another, let us not preserve our life and work by strategies that rely on the wisdom of our world, and let us not attempt to survive by breaking others down. Instead remember the gentle King, and follow his ways and his care for the broken and weary.
Today I had the sad news that Don Lewis, one of my professors at Regent College, where both Roz and I did our Masters, had died. I only had him as my teacher for one course, but it was a wonderful course – the Christian Pastor in Historical Perspective or some similar title.
This wasn’t a course that he was the central teacher on. Instead he invited various Regent faculty and friends for half the 3 hour lecture block to teach on different pastors from Christian history – so Sven Soderlund began the course with a look at Paul, and along the way we had Jim Houston teaching on Teresa of Avila, Jim Packer on Richard Baxter, Bruce Hindmarsh on John Newton and Darrel Johnson on Charles Spurgeon amongst others.
I loved those Monday evening classes, as the autumn skies darkened and the Vancouver rain drew in, and then the Vancouver snow fell, they provided a brightness to the term, which was in many ways a conflicting term for me. It was the term I switched from the MDiv (preparation for pastoral ministry) course to the MCS with a biblical studies focus – partly driven by the difficulties of coping with the practical elements of the course in the midst of miscarriage grief from that summer and partly driven by the realisation that the parts of the course I loved most were the Biblical Studies (and history), and much less the systematic theology and practical elements.
I can remember at some point – I think actually the following term, in the spring, Don Lewis had heard about this decision, and he tapped me on the shoulder at the end of chapel and invited up to his study to have a conversation. Essentially he wanted to encourage me not to rule out pastoral ministry at some point, and to encourage me with stories of his one of his (and many other’s in Vancouver) own introverted and socially awkward minister.
It is a conversation I still reflect on – and where I suspect I still do not know quite how the seeds sown in it will play out, but it is also a conversation I reflect on because it showed that someone cared enough to seek me out. I don’t know exactly what prompted him to do it, but I am deeply grateful for that moment.
The other significant feature for me of those Monday evening classes in that in addition to guest speakers lecturing on their passions we also got to read and discuss for the other half of class George Marsden’s biography of New England philosopher/theologian/pastor Jonathan Edwards.
For me this was a wonderful eyeopener. I had read of Edwards, and even read some Edwards himself, but always through the lens of others like John Piper or Iain Murray (who wrote a biography of Edwards), and often their views of Edwards tend to be rather uncritical.
George Marsden, by contrast is an academic historian, and so is willing to be critical (in the right and positive sense of the word), yet has great sympathy for Edwards. I realised I could learn lots from Edwards, while not having to adopt all of his positions exactly. A while ago I posted some quotes from Marsden’s book which sum up what I loved learning as I read, and I’m deeply grateful to Don Lewis for the introduction to this book and the wonderful context in which to discuss it.
First of all a famous quote from the young Edwards:
And as I was walking there, and looked up on the sky and the clouds; there came into my mind, a sweet sense of the glorious majesty and grace of God, that I knew not how to express… …in a sweet conjunction: majesty and meekness joined together: it was a sweet and gentle, and holy majesty; and also a majestic meekness; an awful sweetness; a high, and great, and holy gentleness.
Marsden comments a little later on
In fact, it was only when Jonathan’s vision expanded to appreciate that the triune God who controlled this vast universe must be ineffably good, beautiful and loving beyond human comprehension that he could lose himself in God.
I’m looking forward to re-reading more. I don’t think it is necessary to agree with every detail of how Edwards understood God’s sovereignty to appreciate his desire to relate everything back to God, and in particular God’s extravagant, overflowing love for his creation that means God is always seeking to share himself with his creatures and draw them into his life.
Edwards has a God-centredness and God-saturatedness that we need in our day. God has joined together majesty and meekness, gentleness and majesty, holiness and love. We must not separate them out to fit our agendas – or anyone else’s.
What struck me particularly forcibly at the time can be summarised in these two extracts:
Edwards believed that he could develop a unified account of all knowledge, but it could not be discovered by experience and reason alone. God might speak in all of nature and in all of life, but the only place where one could find the key to unlock the whole system was in Scripture. All knowledge must begin there. Scripture was not just a source of information, but the necessary guide to a radical life changing perspective. As every New England child was taught: “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). The starting point for unraveling the mysteries of the universe must be the shattering revelation of one’s total inadequacy and a recognition of God’s love in Jesus Christ. One who was so changed could then experience how all creation was one harmonious hymn of praise to the glories of the creator and the mercies of Christ. Without the grace that gave sinful and rebellious people ears to hear, they would never hear the sublime Christ-like choruses or see how the particular notes of reality all fit together.
I love that in the Regent library where I studied for 3 years other similar bible verses were written in beautiful calligraphy so that they could not be missed each day as you walked in – a beautiful reminder that all wisdom comes from God, and begins with humble dependence on Him.
And then this quote, introduced by Marsden:
Edwards was captivated by the idea that God’s purpose in creating the universe is to bring harmonious communications among minds, or spiritual beings, and every detail of physical creation points to that loving reality, epitomized in Christ. In this enthralling framework he continued his meditation:
“When we are delighted with flowery meadows and gentle breezes of wind, we may consider that we only see the emanations of the sweet benevolence of Jesus Christ; when we behold the fragrant rose and lily, we see his love and purity. So the green trees and fields, and singing of birds, are the emanations of his infinite joy and benignity; the easiness and naturalness of trees and vines [are] shadows of his infinite beauty and loveliness; the crystal rivers and mumuring streams have the footsteps of his sweet grace and beauty… That beauteous light with which the world is filled in a clear day is a lively shadow of his spotless holiness and happiness, and delight in communicating himself.”
I love the ideas here, even if it needs reading a few times to catch the thread. Essentially Edwards is celebrating the way in which God delights to share his goodness with us in the natural world. We recently moved to Carlisle, near the English Lakes, and walking in the mountains I echo a hearty amen to Edwards words here.
All the good things we have in this life are because God loves to share his life with us. God is holy and happy – and loves to share his goodness and grace with us. The world was made, according to Edwards, for God to display his glory. The reason that isn’t self centred of God is because the way God’s glory is displayed is by him sharing his life and goodness with us, his creatures. The creation of the world is the overflow of the love that the Triune God has enjoyed for all eternity – Father, Son and Holy Spirit, one God united in love, overflow in love to create a world to share that love with others. God delights to show that love to us, and draw us in to him – and the beauty we see all around us is one great reminder of that reality.
And so I’m grateful to Don Lewis for introducing me to this book which helped me reflect on Edwards, and more importantly on the God who Edwards and Don Lewis both served. I’m grateful for Don Lewis taking the initiative to have a conversation with me, and with so many others, and I’m grateful for his impact on the lives of so many students going through Regent College.
As we come to the end of chapter 3 the tone of the verses changes. There is initially a sense of relief – the chapter begins to read like some of the Psalms where the poet is praising God for rescuing them.
Those who were my enemies without cause hunted me like a bird. 53 They tried to end my life in a pit and threw stones at me; 54 the waters closed over my head, and I thought I was about to perish.
55 I called on your name, Lord, from the depths of the pit. 56 You heard my plea: “Do not close your ears to my cry for relief.” 57 You came near when I called you, and you said, “Do not fear.”
Lamentations 3:52-57
From a poem of unremitting bleakness this comes as a reminder that the expected pattern of life for the believer is that God will, eventually, come through. God will draw near, and his word is always “Do not fear.” This comes a lot in the Bible, and while it does not come 365 times (or even 366 – so please don’t put that statistic in a sermon or talk), it is always a word for today. Always something to breathe into our lives. God is near, and he says “Do not fear.”
So many things cause us to fear. But God is always stronger, always bigger, and always ultimately victorious – even if we are sitting in the ruins of Jerusalem surrounded by enemies with no human cause for hope, and no evidence that God is actually with us.
That is the great reassurance of these verses – but then their note jars.
58 You, Lord, took up my case; you redeemed my life. 59 Lord, you have seen the wrong done to me. Uphold my cause! 60 You have seen the depth of their vengeance, all their plots against me.
61 Lord, you have heard their insults, all their plots against me— 62 what my enemies whisper and mutter against me all day long. 63 Look at them! Sitting or standing, they mock me in their songs.
64 Pay them back what they deserve, Lord, for what their hands have done. 65 Put a veil over their hearts, and may your curse be on them! 66 Pursue them in anger and destroy them from under the heavens of the Lord.
Here this man who has seen sorrow turns to God in anger and calls on him to curse his enemies. We read these words as believers in the Jesus who forgave his crucifiers. And so we wonder what place these words have in our bibles – and what use do we make of them.
It is easy to feel superior to the Lamenter when we are not suffering. Easy to sit in comfortable ease and mentally rebuke them. And yet we know that when we suffer, and especially when we suffer at the hands of abusers we feel anger. That anger is not wholly wrong – we should feel anger at injustice, and that anger is also inevitable. The question becomes what we do that anger?
To follow the anger and take revenge ourselves is forbidden – as believers in the Christ who forgave from a cross we are not to take revenge. Yet if we deny the anger and pretend it is not there, it is likely to erupt at some other time and place, catching us unawares – and probably harming those closest to us.
We need a safe place to go to express that anger, a place where we can say what we feel, perhaps knowing it is not quite right, but knowing that the person will hear us, and take the appropriate action at the appropriate time.
It is the wonder of the believer in the God of Lamentations, and the God of the Psalms that we can come to our God, the one who created the universe, and fling our arms around him so to speak. We can pummel him, shout and rant at him, call on him to take action, call on him to take the revenge we long to take until we finally fall still as he holds us and quiets us with his love.
We have these kinds of prayers in the Bible as an example to us of the kind of thing we can say to God. The alternative is to stand aloof, like a child deeply unhappy with something, but who will not come to his parents to express that unhappiness. We can bury deep within us the trauma, we can pretend we have forgiven and that all is well with the world. But if we do not deal with the anger it will explode somewhere else at some other time, and it will not be pretty.
So right now, if there is anger in us, if we are smarting and hurting, the first place to go is God. We are likely also to need to talk to someone wiser than us, to help us process it all, to make sure that our speech to God is not also pretence. But sooner or later we need to go to God and be willing to pour out our hearts to him – knowing that the Psalms and Lamentations remind us that it is OK (as John Goldingay points out in To The Usual Suspects) to say pretty much anything to God.
Joshua's Tree Rooted 