As the world fixates on US elections and the Presidential race, I thought this reflection on Psalm 90 by Tim and Julie Tennant, was a fitting read. We can become overwhelmed with the news cycle, and anxious about events taking place, but Psalms like this one remind us to fix our eyes on God. We are not in control, and the world is not out of control. The following is from Timothy and Julie Tennent. A Meditative Journey through the Psalms (Kindle Locations 2105-2128). Seedbed Publishing.

BOOK FOUR OF THE PSALMS OPENS WITH PSALM 90, The psalm of Moses. This makes this psalm very ancient, since it precedes the life of David and the exile out of which most of the other psalms arise. This psalm is a wonderful way to begin this book because it is both a historical and spiritual “stepping back” to capture a renewed perspective on life apart from the day-to-day challenges we face. Thus, this psalm serves as a kind of reset button after all the anguish and trials of Book Three.

The grandeur and majesty of this psalm is powerful and inspiring. The opening line, “Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations” (v. 1), sets the tone for Psalm 90. This psalm reasserts the eternality and majesty of God: “Before the mountains were born or you brought forth the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God” (v. 2).

The psalm then begins to offer a contrast between God’s grandeur, eternality, and majesty and our own fleeting existence. In contrast to his lofty grandeur, verse 3 reminds us that we are but dust, an obvious reminder of the creation account in Genesis, in which we are made from the dust of the earth (Gen. 2: 7).

The eternality of God is then contrasted with our temporality. About God, Moses declares, “For a thousand years in your sight are like a day that has just gone by, or like a watch in the night” (Ps. 90: 4). In contrast, “the length of our days is seventy years— or eighty, if we have the strength” (v. 10). Even those days are full of “trouble and sorrow” and “quickly pass” away (v. 10).

This psalm is an important reality check, much like Job 38– 41. It reminds us of who God is, and who we are. We are not God; he is. It teaches us humility. It grants us much-needed perspective. It enables us, to use the words of this psalm, “to number our days aright, that we may gain a heart of wisdom” (v. 12). In the hymn tradition, Isaac Watts set this psalm into hymn form with the beautiful text, “O God, Our Help in Ages Past.” In several of the monastic traditions, this psalm, quite appropriately, is sung or recited at the dawn of each day. The intention, in whatever way we encounter Psalm 90, is to enable the worshipper to gain a proper perspective at the start of the day, before all the distorted adorations and skewed perspectives of this world begin to bombard us.

With this renewed perspective, our daily frailty is met with his enduring strength; our life in the press and rush of time is tempered by the sure knowledge that God is eternal and outside of time. He meets us “in the morning” with his “unfailing love” (v. 14) and enables us to be his regents and ambassadors in the world. Knowing who God is and who we are enables “the favor of the Lord our God [to] rest upon us” and assures us that he will “establish the work of our hands” (v. 17). 

Another post to keep us engaged and thinking about the 5 marks of mission. This one regarding mark 4: transforming unjust systems.

Christians know little about biblical justice, despite its prominence in the Scriptures. This ignorance is having two effects. First, large swaths of the church still do not see ‘doing justice’ as part of their calling as individual believers. Second, many younger Christians, recognizing this failure of the church and wanting to rectify things, are taking up one or another of the secular approaches to justice, which introduces distortions into their practice and lives."

- Tim Keller, Pastor/Professor 

In a recent article, theologian, pastor, and author Tim Keller, gives a biblical critique of secular justice. (Heads-up, It is long and thorough, but given the relevance to our current social and political climate, certainly worth a read). Here's the link

Our recent sermon series looked at the 5 marks of mission: Tell, Teach, Tend, Transform and Treasure. To keep these marks before us as a parish, I hope to keep the conversation going through this blog site, drawing on a range of interesting articles and podcasts. Here is one to get us going:

I used to think that the top environmental problems were biodiversity loss, ecosystem collapse, and climate change. I thought that thirty years of good science could address these problems. I was wrong. The top environmental problems are selfishness, greed, and apathy, and to deal with these we need a cultural and spiritual transformation. And we scientists don’t know how to do that” 

- Gus Speth, Environmental lawyer.

Have a listen to this fantastic podcast featuring Sandra Richter, author of the book Stewards of Eden. She gives a great summary of what scripture has to say about this mark of mission, and why the Church has the tools to be part of the transformation.

Have you ever noticed that all four gospels make a point of saying that the resurrection happened on the first day of the week, not the third day after his death? Given how clear Jesus’ teaching had been that he must die and on the third day be raised again, why the emphasis on the first day? 
The point the evangelists are at pains for us to see is that this is the beginning of something new. The day of Jesus’ resurrection, and his victory over the powers of darkness, is the first day of the new creation. Matthew and John’s gospels begin with explicit references to Genesis, highlighting this theme of new creation, and its culmination is here.

Today I want to focus our attention on Mary and her experience of this new day and her encounter with the risen Jesus. What might we learn from it? How might it encourage us in our bubbles, and as we consider the possibility of reduced restrictions under level 2?

Mary’s day begins while it is still dark. She awakes, and before the light of the day has pierced through the darkness, she goes to the tomb. It doesn’t take too much imagination to consider what sort of emotions might have been present. To go to the tomb was to go to the place of death, of loss, and grief. To go to the tomb was to remember the life of Jesus, his teaching, and his way, and to remember the rejection of these things by the powers of the world. To go to the grave was to face the reality that the way of Jesus came up against the way of the sword, the established order, and led ultimately to the cross. 

What was Mary’s response? She wept. John can’t emphasise this point enough. In verse 11 he writes, Mary was weeping. In verse 13 the two angels ask, “why are you weeping?”, and then in verse 15, Jesus asks her, “Why are you weeping?” Jesus is the master of the question isn’t he. Never a simple answer, usually a question that reveals the heart of the matter. “Why are you weeping?”. We might initially think, well duh, someone I deeply and truly loved just got murdered. What do you expect me to do? Dance? But a closer look sees that the question actually invites us into deeper reflection on the nature of our loss and grief. The question invites us to name our sorrow, to name our fear, to name the horror of the evil and power of darkness we’ve witnessed. It invites us to name our lost hope, and to name the uncertainty of the future we now face. I don’t think the question is accusative, I think it’s invitational. Why are you weeping?

Have you taken time in this pandemic lockdown to process your experience? Have you stood in the darkness beside the graveside? What has been lost? What is the source of your grief or fear, sorrow or anxiety? What informs your sense of loss?

Jesus then asks Mary a second question. “Whom are you seeking?” It’s interesting that as in the Emmaus road account in Luke’s gospel, where the two disciples are kept from recognising Jesus, Mary also doesn’t recognise him, mistaking him for a gardener. I’ve never noticed this before, but the questions Jesus asks Mary aren’t so different to the ones he asks the Emmaus disciples. There the disciples are desolate and when Jesus asks what they were talking about, they begin with, “we had hoped”. At the heart of both of these encounters is the fact that Mary and the disciples had put their faith in Jesus being God’s promised Messiah who would bring about the reign of God on earth as it was in heaven. This hope had seemingly died on the cross with him as the kingdoms of the world crushed him. People were not expecting a suffering saviour. Their imaginations couldn’t conceive of victory through death, or God’s ultimate power being revealed through weakness, and self-sacrificing, redemptive love. In the world of darkness where money, sex, power, and the dividing walls of race, gender, class and status ruled supreme, it was impossible to imagine another way. When Mary sees a gardener, he’s not the image of the victorious saviour she had in mind. 

If the first question invites us to consider the nature of our loss, then the second question invites us to consider the type of salvation and saviour we are looking for. “Whom are you looking for?” As wonderful as Mary’s prior devotion to Jesus had been, her estimation of him was still far too small. 
The depiction of the risen Jesus presented to us in this gospel is Jesus, the gardener in the new creation garden - the true image of God, tending the garden, bringing about flourishing and peace. To all who receive him he is giving the right to be children of God. Notice how different Jesus looks in this picture to the violent zealot Barabbas (meaning “son of the father”) that the people had demanded over Jesus three days earlier. Barabbas was the picture of the saviour people expected, and the one whom they thought they were looking for.

What we grieve reveals what our hearts are truly longing for. 

Alluded to in this text is the image from Song of Songs, a love poem of one who longs to be with the lover of her soul. The setting is a garden filled with spices (John 19:39), alluding to the imagery of Song of Songs 1:3, 12; 3:6; 4:6, 10;5:1, 13. Mary (and all of us) long to be with the one she loves, and to embrace him. It’s a picture of longing, intimacy, union and renewal. Her previous blindness to Jesus’ identity is removed at the sound of her name, and her despair is swallowed up by astonishment and delight. The shepherd calls his sheep by name, and his sheep know his voice. 

Augustine of Hippo once wrote, “You have created us for yourself O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.” He is right. The deepest cause of human grief and sorrow is the absence of God’s presence and reign. The pain and suffering we experience in life is the consequence of that absence. Our deepest need therefore, is the restoration of this presence and the coming of God’s Kingdom to heal what was fractured. 

In recognising Jesus as he speaks her name, Mary immediately seeks to embrace him. Jesus tells Mary not to cling to him, but instead to go and tell the others. It’s here that we return to the theme of the new day. The nature of God’s presence, and the outworking of his salvation, will now be through the Holy Spirit. As Jesus had promised earlier in the gospel, he must return to the Father, but he would send the counsellor, the Holy Spirit, to be with them. It would be through the presence and power of the Holy Spirit, the same power that raised Jesus from the grave, that his people would experience communion with God, be renewed, and restored, and participate in the work of new creation. The temptation is to look backwards, and to long for the old thing, but God is doing a new thing. Stunningly, God’s presence isn’t located in a temple of stones, but in his people, a temple made of living stones who will take God’s presence with them to the ends of the earth.

Upon our encounter with the risen Christ, we are not to stay where we were, but to go and tell. What begins in the darkness, at the graveside, and with weeping, turns to new possibilities. Our eyes are to be opened to the new thing, to imagine a new way of ordering creation according to God’s priorities. The way of Jesus creates a movement not a monument to be clung to. 

I realise this is now a long post, but I think it’s important to share this encouragement and exhortation to our church family in this time and season. Our country is experiencing a time of grief and loss, and the end of a way of doing things. As Christians we know about this - it’s our story. We are therefore a people called to stand by the grave at dawn pointing others to the light breaking through the darkness, and declaring the day of the Lord. We are a people guided by the Spirit who can already imagine a new world that is different from the old order, and priorities, a world under the reign of the Servant King. As followers of Jesus, we are a people who can imagine an economy where the worker receives a fair share of the labour, where the poor are lifted up, the lonely are placed in homes, the widows and orphans are cared for, the swords are turned into ploughshares, and the peacemakers, the meek, the poor in spirit, and the merciful are declared blessed. 

We are seeing signs of this new potential order already as the “lowly” supermarket workers, and cleaners and bus drivers are recognised as essential, where those who work for minimum wage as home helpers for the sick and elderly are applauded and celebrated, not left unnoticed, and our nurses, teachers and farmers are appreciated for their labour. We are seeing a world where the homeless are gathered up and placed into accommodation, where neighbours say hello and deliver food and medication to those who can’t do it for themselves. Now more than ever is the time for the Church to keep speaking into this vision, and to proclaim God’s Kingdom.

As tempting as it may be, now is not the time for us as a parish to simply turn our thoughts to how we can get back to life as it was, or to seek to cling to Jesus in our old ways. It is time to pray fervently, to have our eyes opened to the possibilities of God’s reign breaking in on earth as it is in heaven, and to consider again how, like Mary, we too can go, tell, and be people of God’s new day.
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What needs to be left behind?

What are we being invited into?

One of my favourite movies is The Bourne Identity. In the opening scene a man is found floating out at sea, unconscious, and is rescued onto a passing ship. When he eventually wakes he has no idea who he is, where he’s come from, or where he was going. A microchip inside him leads him to a safe deposit box in a bank, and inside he discovers a whole stack of different passports and identities. Who is Jason Bourne?! What story is he a part of?

We aren’t so different. Post-modernism and the dismantling of social structures and coherent narratives, leaves those raised amidst it, swimming at sea, constantly searching for true identity. Do we find it? or are we meant to create it? (Both are seemingly beyond challenge in our culture, even though they are completely contradictory truths - eg “born this way”, “find yourself”, and self-help culture that promises “a new you”, or the possibility of “re-inventing ourselves”). You’ll have heard me preach this on numerous occasions, but most of us attempt to find our identity in one of three ways: What we do, what we have, or what is said about us. As we start to experience more of the impact of COVID-19 on our economy, we are going to see more and more struggles with our sense of identity and self worth. Many of us, our families and our neighbours may lose their jobs in the months ahead. Research shows what a massive effect this has on a person’s mental health and sense of well being. 

With this in mind, there is more great news in the passage we have been reflecting on since Easter. Read verse 2.

“So she ran to get Simon Peter, and the other disciple, the one Jesus loved.”

It’s possible to rush on past it, but do you notice how John, the writer of the gospel, refers to himself in this passage, and throughout the gospel? "The one Jesus loved."

​You might be tempted to think, what arrogance! Imagine giving yourself that moniker, as though he was more loved than the other 11 disciples. But John’s not saying that. He is describing only himself. What is the identity that he knows and shares when he talks about himself?

It’s not what he does.
Not what he has.
Not what is said about him by others.

John's identity rests entirely on his relationship with Jesus, and that relationship, founded on the love of God declares that Jesus, God incarnate, loves him! The truest thing that John can declare about himself is that he is beloved by God!

Do you know that is true of you too?

In the beginning of John’s gospel he tells us that Jesus came, and “that all who receive him, he gave the right to be children of God” (1:12). 

Can you imagine what it would be like to wake up each morning to know that who you are, before you ever get out of bed and do anything, have anything, or hear anything, is based on the love of God towards you. Can you imagine waking up to know your most central identity is based on the sure and certain truth that God loves you? In receiving Jesus, this is the promise, and the reality. We are given the right to be children of God. 

In this season of Easter, where the old way must die, and the new must be born, what old identifiers need to be consigned to the grave in order for us to cling to our identity as a beloved child of God?

Are there misspoken words spoken by a parent, a teacher, or peer, that have seared deep in your heart, and that bring pain and challenge your sense of self-worth and identity?  Perhaps this is something God wants to free you from this Easter? 

Has your work become a part of your identity, rather than an act of worship to God? 

Does what you have define you in such a way that you aren’t free to be generous and give freely to others from what God has entrusted you with?

​The good news of the gospel is that the work of remembering our true identity, and being freed from the old, isn’t just another endeavour of self-help, or another thing to strive for, but is a work of the Holy Spirit. As Paul writes in Romans 8:15-16:

The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship/daughtership. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.” The Spirit testifies with our spirit that we are God’s children.

In this season where many of us have more time in solitude or silence, or where more than ever, our sense of identity is being challenged by the impacts of the COVID virus, let us all spend specific time in prayer at the beginning and the end of each day, reflecting on who we are. A friend I served with back in Boston, when asked when he knew it was time to stop praying, gave this simple answer. "I don’t get off my knees until I know I am loved."

What difference might it make for each of us to commit to that each morning and night this week, to commit to the practice of allowing God's Spirit to strip away our false identities and to strengthen us in the truth of God's love?

Perhaps after the 50 days of Easter, having started and ended the day this way, when someone asks us who we are, we’ll be able to answer the same way John does - “I’m a disciple whom Jesus loves.”

Dear friends, may the love of God toward you be the thing that most defines you, this day, and always. You are God's beloved child.
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Rev Chris.

“Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:21)

This is how John the baptist introduces Jesus to the people at the beginning of John’s gospel, and it’s also how John, the writer of the gospel, wants us to see Jesus on the day of his resurrection.

As we take a second look at John 20 this week, I invite you to consider the description of the angels that Mary sees in the tomb. In chapter 20, verses 11-12 we read, “Now Mary stood outside the tomb crying. As she wept, she bent over to look into the tomb and saw two angels in white, seated where Jesus’ body had been, one at the head and the other at the foot.” 

For Mary, who would have been steeped in knowledge of the Hebrew scriptures, and for the original hearers of the gospel, they would have immediately recognised this as a picture of the mercy seat that sat above the ark of the covenant (read Exodus 25:17-22). Each year, on the Day of Atonement, the High Priest would enter the Holy of Holies and sprinkle the Mercy Seat seven times with the blood of an innocent animal. John is declaring to us that Jesus is the innocent and spotless lamb who takes away the sin of the world. Jesus is the one who sits enthroned on the mercy seat (see also Revelation 5).

John continues revealing this theme in the rest of the chapter. “Peace be with you” is not just a feeling of non-anxious presence in our souls, it is also a declaration that those who had declared themselves God’s enemies in their rebellion to his ways, have now been offered peace. 

Do you remember the day you heard the good news that Jesus had atoned for your sin and that God was offering you forgiveness through Him? I do. The news brought me to tears. It still does.

Somehow in my understanding of Jesus up until that point, I’d reduced Jesus to a moral teacher that showed us what God wanted of us, and how to live his way. The problem was, I already knew just how far short of that calling I’d fallen. I knew I didn’t live that way. I knew I wasn’t worthy of a relationship with God, and certainly knew I had no business being part of a Christian community. I could never measure up. What if they found out who I really was? Jesus as a merely moral exemplar or good teacher among many wasn’t good news at all. I knew I’d have still fallen short of an exemplar or teacher half as moral as Jesus! I knew the weight of my own sin and lived under the burden of my shame every day. No amount of trying to “be a good person” could atone for that. 

The good news proclaimed to me in the church building that day was that in Jesus, God was offering forgiveness for my sin. I didn’t have to earn it, I didn’t have to even understand in full the hows and the whys and the whats of it all. It was a proclamation that through Jesus’ death and resurrection my sins had been forgiven. 

Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,
that saved a wretch like me.
I once was lost, but now I’m found,
was blind but now I see!
Perhaps you needed to hear that again today?

Perhaps you want to respond to that news for the first time? 
Now’s a good time! 
There’s no magic prayer or words for this. It may simply mean saying, “thank you God. I believe.” Got questions? Call me!

(There'e a beautiful scene in the movie Two Popes where Pope Francis talks about the character of God to have mercy, but his own inability to forgive himself. Perhaps you can relate to that? He confesses his sin to Pope Benedict and receives the assurance of forgiveness. We have the joy of doing this each time with gather for the Eucharist, and confession and recalling our forgiveness is a part of morning and evening prayer.)

There is a sense of course in which my earlier understanding of Jesus as someone who calls us to follow him, and to walk the narrow path that brings true life, and bear witness to him in the way I live, is very true. Repentance is to reorient my life in a way that recognises God’s priorities over my own. It’s a right response. There is an unhelpful tendency in the church to divide aspects of the gospel into two camps - the forgiveness of sins gospel (often preached in more evangelical congregations), and the Kingdom of God gospel (often preached in more liberal congregations). It’s a false dichotomy, for they are two sides of the same coin. Central to God’s Kingdom, was always the promise that when the true King came to establish it, he would bring about the forgiveness of sin. What was so staggering is that he would bring it about through his own suffering and death.

Yes, we can mature in our faith and see greater depths and breadths of the gospel, but Lord forbid we ever move on from the declaration of the forgiveness of our sins, or our need for it. I wonder how different our worship would be each Sunday if we slowed down during the confession of sin, and assurance of forgiveness, to truly plum the depths of our great need and God’s great provision?

My chains are gone
I've been set free (even in a bubble of physical distancing!)
My God, my Savior has ransomed me
And like a flood His mercy rains
Unending love, Amazing grace

Lastly, as ArchBishop Richardson shared on Sunday, in John 20:23 Jesus then gives the disciples the power and authority to offer this forgiveness of sins to others. The same is for us today. Upon receiving forgiveness, we ourselves become agents of this forgiveness in the world - even toward those who declare themselves enemies. 

Take a listen to an extraordinary story of this forgiveness from a friend of mine from seminary, Marcus Doe. For 18 years, as a Liberian refugee, Marcus had one single goal: find the man who'd killed his father and murder him. No one in his life knew, but this secret ruled his life. It was his North Star. In this TED talk, Marcus explains how he eventually found forgiveness and how it changed his life.
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Who might God be calling you to forgive today?

There aren’t many images more powerful symbolically than that of a locked room. Think of those movie moments when the door is closed and the bolt locked shut. Think of its distinctive sound. Can you hear it?
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Our passage begins in the dark beside a tomb. This is symbolically where the disciples find themselves as well, in a locked room (vv19, 26). As I write this, most of us can relate to this passage in a way we never have before - contained in our bubbles. We’re told Mary was weeping, the disciples were afraid, Thomas doubted, and though it’s not specifically said, Peter likely felt ashamed. We might be experiencing similar emotions - grief at our loss, fear in the unknown (and the known) and perhaps disbelief to some degree of the reality and significance of the resurrection those near us proclaim?

The great news in this passage is that God is at work even in death, and has the power over it. Amidst the darkness of Holy Saturday, and under the lockdown of the tomb, God was bringing into being resurrection and new creation! The stone is rolled away, and the new day is breaking into the darkness.

What do we see the resurrected Jesus do? 

In the morning and in the evening of the first day, he goes to the weeping, the fearful, the ashamed and the doubting. 

He seeks them out, 
calls them by name, 
and speaks peace to them. 

As in Genesis, where in the evening of the first day the man and woman were hiding in fear and shame, Jesus came to them, this time saying peace be with you, for it is finished, the lamb of God has taken away the sins of the world. The grave stone has been rolled away, the curtain torn in two, and the presence of God dwells with humankind. 

There are a number of aspects of the good news of Jesus we’ll look at in this passage in the coming weeks, but for now it’s the presence of God I want us to focus on. 

The presence of God is good news. 

Remember back to Genesis, that it was the absence of God’s presence that sin brought about in the beginning. Heaven and earth were to come together, and we were to experience the reality of the love of God, the love between the Father and the Son, through the Spirit, and were to bear this image through our own love. But humans rejected God, loving other things instead. This sin brought separation from God - the greatest effect of which is death. The humans in Genesis are exiled from the garden. The big thread running throughout scripture therefore isn’t the question of “how do we get to heaven when we die”, it is “How can a holy God dwell with a sinful people?” How can we be restored to the source of all life, and to the love of God? To once again be made in God’s image? The salvation, or “saving” humanity needs is from sin, and therefore its consequences, which includes death. 

Jesus, is God’s provision, and the answer to this greatest need. As Paul writes in Ephesians 2:13, “but now in Christ, those who were once far off, have been brought near through the blood of Christ.” Matthew’s gospel ends with these words of good news - “Behold, I am with you till the end of the age.” Perhaps this is best summed up in Romans 8:38-39: “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”

John in his gospel doesn’t tell us these things, he shows us. Jesus, in his resurrection, comes to the weeping, the frightened, and those who doubt. Jesus, the presence of God incarnate, having defeated death, enters into their places of darkness, shame, guilt and fear, and speaks three times, “peace be with you”. 

Take some time to be silent and reflect.

• What are you experiencing emotionally right now? What is your grief, fear, or locked room?
• How is the promise of God’s presence good news to you today? 

Hear again the words of Jesus to you: 

In your grief and mourning - “Peace be with you”
In your fear - “Peace be with you”
In your doubts - “Peace be with you”
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Today we remember and offer praise, for the risen Christ comes to the mourning, fearful, shameful and doubting, and his presence brings us peace. We pray with all the Church - come Lord Jesus.