I noticed a
Facebook entry on my news-feed asking for the contact details for a medium to
which a number of people had responded with telephone numbers and personal
recommendations of the mediums they knew of. Yet if I was to suggest that you
could contact the one who is King over the entire heavenly realm and has
authority over the principalities and powers that exist in our known world,
people tend to turn their nose up at this. In fact, when I look at the number
of people that have directly read my blogs about God being in the rescue
business, it has received the lowest number of views!
Why is it that when we talk about God being the answer to the problems that we face, we see peoples eye’s glaze over and their interest is lost? I have a good friend who often states that he is ‘jealous’ of my faith in Jesus because he doesn't think he could sustain a belief in one God as a core truth, when the world offers so many other distractions. There is a general apathy in our culture of committing to things that may incur a cost. I don’t know how much a medium costs financially but you pay your money, you take your choice.
Faith in Jesus is
characterised by what may appear to those with no faith as ‘giving-up’ our ‘rights’
for those of God, which for some, is too high a price to pay. With God, the
choice is still ours to make, but the commitment that he makes to us is
eternal. God does all the running - he chooses us! When we are ready to commit
to him, we receive the full revelation of God as he fills us with his spirit, and
we get to glimpse the person we will become as we spend more time in his
presence. We have a supernatural encounter far greater than the best
recommendation of any medium or the Derren Browns of this world, whom Wikipedia
describe as a trickster, mentalist, hypnotist, painter, writer and sceptic.
I picked Derren Brown as an example of rational atheism because of
his amazing television shows and the shear disbelief when you witness what he
can get people to do, and to believe. Through the use of his skills, he places suggestion
into the minds of the subject, translating his sociological and psychological
construct over the reasoning of the subjects own moral and ethical code. When
people’s reasoning in suspended in favour of Browns new construct, people
perform things they wouldn't normally comprehend.
It is this apparent skill that leads others to conclude that religion in and of itself, is a human construct that encourages a normal rational person to suspend his or her disbelief in the natural order, in favour of a so-called ‘moral code’ established through some dubious evidence for some ‘higher’ being, deity or creator. So if religious belief is indeed a human construct developed before we were enlightened by scientific discovery, then we would not need to accept an overbearing authority that was designed to control the population.
Derren states on his website that on his investigation into the New
Testament, he couldn't agree on the authorship of the text to substantiate the
claims made within its pages. His assumption being that because he could not
authenticate the writing, he would reject it. In so doing, he also rejects the
claims of Jesus who is a real person who existed in our space and our time. In
rejecting who Jesus was as a figure recorded in the history texts, and through
whom the nature of the Roman Empire was significantly transformed, you are then
left with the cause and effect argument of Darwinism. I always look at these views with sadness
because they become convenient excuses; we excise God from our core being to
absolve any negative emotion we might feel from a life lived indiscriminately.
In cutting God out from the meaning of our existence, we are left
with our own rationalism and the integrity we have gleaned from our own understanding
of what we want to believe is true. If we choose to accept something as absolute
truth, we assimilate that information within our conscious thinking and learn
to live by that belief. However rational or irrational it may seem, we would
live by this code to preserve our existence by creating favourable conditions
in which we could prosper. When our faith in what we believe to be true is
challenged, we can react dismissively or we can react more emotionally with
rage or even with fear.
As soon as we start to quantify behaviour as beneficial, we are
developing a code of conduct that suggests that there are also unhelpful behaviours.
New Atheism and humanism would argue that this is a product of the natural
order rather than any sense of a deity, because one has to learn how to survive.
Sometimes our ‘will-to-succeed’ may encompass behaviours that are not helpful
to all, but further our individual needs. God states throughout the Bible that
this is indeed correct! We pursue our own will in favour of the will of God
because it suits us to.
And yet as people, within our sense of self determination, we still
seem to be drawn to a sense of spirituality. We might not call this feeling we
have as being ‘spiritual’ but it comes from our association with family and
friends and in the sense of belonging that this entails. We also associate
ourselves with inanimate objects or experiences in order to enhance our sense of
‘well-being’ and to substitute our longing for something more than life offers.
We are all searching for something to complete our experiences of life aren't we? Otherwise the drudgery of the 9 to 5 really is our only existence and it is
pretty unsavoury at times…
There are many experiences that we have in life that are life-changing. The day I married, the birth of my children… that holiday vacation, that gadget or piece of technology, that band we listened to and that movie we watched when… These things are the essence of life, but in themselves, they are not life. The case for this is that they are all transient experiences and become only memory and unfortunately memories fade.
The cry for solace from my news-feed on Facebook for a medium was a
desperate attempt to try and reclaim the life of a loved one through a
paranormal experience… we all tend to blame God for that which we believe had
been taken from us. Our rejection of God and therefore his Son Jesus and the
Church he instituted, becomes a symbol for the loss of hope in life. You try to
tell me to live my life in this way when I don’t want to, so I will reject what
you stand for! The way that the Church has dispensed God’s love for his world
has been patchy at best, and in so being, is the reason why some might reject a
life of faith and even campaign against its existence in public life.
Whether it is fun and excitement, danger or peril, good experiences
and good times; we fill our lives ‘stuff’ to medicate us from the
disappointments we all feel when life gets us down. ‘I did well at school but I now have this lousy job with a boss I hate…
I don’t seem to have enough money from one month to the next when all I can
see, is that my peers ‘seemingly’ prosper.’ This may not be you or me, but
we each have our own story to tell of how life didn't quite turn out as we
wanted.
When life is not all that we thought it would be we can slip into
melancholy. Depression comes in many different forms from fear and anxiety to
guilt, helplessness and frustration. Prescriptions for antidepressants are at
an all-time high and are predicted by the World Health Organisation to be
second only to HIV and aids in its effects on society by the end of the decade.
People of faith suffer with depression just as much as those who would profess
to have no faith, so religious experiences or having a spiritual life could be
perceived as having no greater effect in protecting us from these feelings. This
is because faith is more than religious observance; it is a realignment of our
nature to that of our creator, and this is hard.
So how do we make connections between who we are today, and what we
have become? How do we combat the secret thoughts and feelings that we harbour
in the loneliness of our minds? We can seek reassurance from our intellect and from
our wisdom, or in our sense of purpose and the importance we have in the
communities we work in. We may search out an altruistic approach in the welfare
of others or seek to educate or illuminate young people’s minds with the
possibilities that knowledge unlocks endless opportunities. We may pursue a
career in the arts or entertainment so that we can be appreciated for our
insight into a literary work or the level of expression we have attained within
our art form…
When sufficiently
rewarded for our work, we can retire into a sedentary lifestyle, enjoying the
fruits of our labours and the direction that our extended families take,
waiting for the time that death envelopes us where we return from whence we
came, satisfied with a life lived. Unfortunately, life does not take on such an
idyllic form… it has highs and lows that distract us from the tranquillity of
success and drag us into periods of gloom. We can develop coping strategies,
ever the optimist with the glass always half full rather than half empty, but
we cannot distance ourselves from the inevitable questions: Is this all that
there is? Have I become all that I can be? Isn't there more to this existence
than the sum of my experience?
These are the big questions that we push to the back of our minds and try to ignore. These thoughts surface every now and then when there is a conflict between our dreams and our reality; at home or in the workplace; where our character or motive is questioned and our answer to life’s more complicated scenarios unfold like a scene from an Emergency Room.
How we
cope during these times, challenges our understanding of life as we know it, and we
look for scapegoats. Either we question those around us and lash-out at those
trying to help, or we internalise our thoughts and feelings and pretend to
cope.
It all adds up to
that gnawing feeling in the back of our minds that life shouldn't be this hard…
where is God in all of this turmoil and frustration? Why have I had to
experience this pain or suffer this much hurt if God loved me as the church
suggests. Richard Dawkins puts a lot of blame of the way we feel about our
lives on religion. He argues that religious belief divides populations, gender, and race, while it indoctrinates children into believing in irrational concepts
with no basis in truth. So he prefers life as it is then… he would prefer the
status quo?
We reject God and
the Church because at some point in our association with it, we have
experienced condemnation or a sense of disappointment either in ourselves or in
the hope that the church itself has dashed in the hearts of those who want to
believe. Religion is the creation of man’s design as Dawkins argues in his book
‘The God Delusion’ but where I disagree, is that religion is what God intended.
God’s story told in the Old Testament used people who came with all of the
things that human nature endowed them with. What stood out to God was their
faith in choosing to do the right thing in the midst of their dealings with
their culture and not their religious observance.
God uses broken
people of faith to demonstrate to us all throughout our history that he honours
those who choose to believe. Abraham was promised descendants that would be as
many as the stars, yet at his age of over 100, he hadn't a clue how God was
going to manage it! Yet after being caught lying and being deceitful and in trying
to make things happen from within his own resource rather than Gods; God
honours the promise that he made to Abraham, who in turn becomes a Father of a
Nation. King David killed the giant Goliath as a small boy yet as an adult,
committed adultery with a woman he chanced upon, killed her husband and in so
doing, dishonoured the God whom he served. And yet he is described as having a
heart after God!
"The LORD does not look at the things
people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at
the heart." (1 Samuel 16:7)
Time to refresh the coffee...
No matter whom we are, we will have a tendency to doubt the existence of God when in fact he is right in front of our noses; Jesus’ brothers who had grown up with him, doubted Jesus’ authenticity and challenged him to prove himself (John 7:5). Jesus knew that his message of love had caused tensions in the community because he spoke of the inequality that existed and the negligence of those in authority in protecting the weak in society.
No matter whom we are, we will have a tendency to doubt the existence of God when in fact he is right in front of our noses; Jesus’ brothers who had grown up with him, doubted Jesus’ authenticity and challenged him to prove himself (John 7:5). Jesus knew that his message of love had caused tensions in the community because he spoke of the inequality that existed and the negligence of those in authority in protecting the weak in society.
Many people
grumbled against Jesus and his teaching because they assumed he had not been trained;
he came from the wrong location in Galilee if he was to be the Messiah they all
hoped for (although his birth in Bethlehem was hidden), and he was the son of a
carpenter. But as Dawkins, humanists, and many of the new atheist protagonists argue… how can
religion tell me how to behave or act? What right has it got to do that
considering its historical record? Prove that what you are saying is truth!
Jesus’ message to
those with the same thoughts is the same: “Those that speak for themselves want glory
only for themselves, but a person who seeks to honour the one who sent him
speaks truth, not lies.” (John
7:18) Jesus backs up his claim to speak for his father by demonstrating what
his father wanted to see happen in the world… the blind see; the lame walk; the
lepers are cleansed; the deaf hear; and the scriptures are taught (Luke 7:22).
What is amazing in this story is that the Jewish leaders were plotting to kill Jesus because he did all of these things and they were scared of an up-rising! On one occasion he healed a man on the Jewish Sabbath day, so armed with this broken commandment to do no work on the Sabbath, and the fear of Jesus’ rising fame in Jerusalem and Judea, these leaders plotted to kill Jesus so that they could protect their own integrity.
Jesus uses their own arguments against them to show how the leaders had become misguided in their assumptions and in so doing, had missed the true message of God. I've always been uncomfortable with the Old Testament idea of circumcision as a mark of belonging to God as it is not my culture, but Jesus uses this as an example to explain why he healed a man on the Sabbath.
So what can we learn from Jesus when answering modern day criticism, especially when countering the argument between religious observance and faith. In John 7:22 Jesus states that the tradition of circumcision existed long before the covenant was made with Moses, and it was in fact practised by the patriarchs… In fact we first read about it when God makes a covenant with Abraham to be the Father of Nations (Patriarch); that every male, every servant of a Jewish household, every slave, every immigrant living in the land, and every businessman trading with the Hebrews, was to carry a symbol of that agreement in the form of circumcision (Gen 17.1-14).
Jesus was pointing out that it wasn't the act of circumcision that was important, but the heart of faith behind the act. The act symbolised externally, the pledge of commitment to follow the Law of Moses. The Jewish leaders believed that they could ignore the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy when a boy reached 8 days old; as this triggered the earlier commandment given to Abraham, to circumcise each male. The Jewish leaders appeared to Jesus to believe that the rules on circumcision superseded the law to keep the Sabbath. The 10 commandments that told the Jews to keep the Sabbath day holy, but the Jews were also given the law: do not kill. Yet the Jewish leaders were happy to plot to kill Jesus, breaking this law, and happy to circumcise on the Sabbath, breaking that law too. Jesus explains:
“I did one miracle on the Sabbath, and you were amazed. But you work on the Sabbath, too, when you obey Moses’ law of circumcision. (Actually, this tradition of circumcision began with the patriarchs, long before the Law of Moses.) For if the correct times for circumcising your son falls on the Sabbath, you go ahead and do it so as not to break the Law of Moses. So why be angry with me for healing a man on the Sabbath? Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly.” (John 7:21-24)
We must process what we know of God and what we have heard of God with the same logic as displayed in this encounter. Firstly, we should honour God in all circumstances and at all times… that is what the Jews were told to do in the very first part of the 10 commandments: You should have no other God’s before me; do not make any other idols; do not misuse the name of God (Exodus 20: 1-20). As we learn here from Jesus, Moses didn't enshrine circumcision in the Law… Jewish customs had. The Jewish customs or tradition or religious observance, caused them to break one of the laws of Moses, making their arguments against Jesus seem complicit to what Jesus had done, and yet they still plotted to kill him.
Secondly, what Jesus does here is to correct the leaders in their understanding of circumcision; those who were willing to cut away the flesh as a mark of the covenant with God in the name of religion. In the new covenant that Jesus was ushering in, he brings healing by restoring the man back to health. A much deeper meaning is implied in this passage in that man makes judgements on appearance, but yet God looks at the heart.
What is amazing in this story is that the Jewish leaders were plotting to kill Jesus because he did all of these things and they were scared of an up-rising! On one occasion he healed a man on the Jewish Sabbath day, so armed with this broken commandment to do no work on the Sabbath, and the fear of Jesus’ rising fame in Jerusalem and Judea, these leaders plotted to kill Jesus so that they could protect their own integrity.
Jesus uses their own arguments against them to show how the leaders had become misguided in their assumptions and in so doing, had missed the true message of God. I've always been uncomfortable with the Old Testament idea of circumcision as a mark of belonging to God as it is not my culture, but Jesus uses this as an example to explain why he healed a man on the Sabbath.
So what can we learn from Jesus when answering modern day criticism, especially when countering the argument between religious observance and faith. In John 7:22 Jesus states that the tradition of circumcision existed long before the covenant was made with Moses, and it was in fact practised by the patriarchs… In fact we first read about it when God makes a covenant with Abraham to be the Father of Nations (Patriarch); that every male, every servant of a Jewish household, every slave, every immigrant living in the land, and every businessman trading with the Hebrews, was to carry a symbol of that agreement in the form of circumcision (Gen 17.1-14).
Jesus was pointing out that it wasn't the act of circumcision that was important, but the heart of faith behind the act. The act symbolised externally, the pledge of commitment to follow the Law of Moses. The Jewish leaders believed that they could ignore the commandment to keep the Sabbath day holy when a boy reached 8 days old; as this triggered the earlier commandment given to Abraham, to circumcise each male. The Jewish leaders appeared to Jesus to believe that the rules on circumcision superseded the law to keep the Sabbath. The 10 commandments that told the Jews to keep the Sabbath day holy, but the Jews were also given the law: do not kill. Yet the Jewish leaders were happy to plot to kill Jesus, breaking this law, and happy to circumcise on the Sabbath, breaking that law too. Jesus explains:
“I did one miracle on the Sabbath, and you were amazed. But you work on the Sabbath, too, when you obey Moses’ law of circumcision. (Actually, this tradition of circumcision began with the patriarchs, long before the Law of Moses.) For if the correct times for circumcising your son falls on the Sabbath, you go ahead and do it so as not to break the Law of Moses. So why be angry with me for healing a man on the Sabbath? Look beneath the surface so you can judge correctly.” (John 7:21-24)
We must process what we know of God and what we have heard of God with the same logic as displayed in this encounter. Firstly, we should honour God in all circumstances and at all times… that is what the Jews were told to do in the very first part of the 10 commandments: You should have no other God’s before me; do not make any other idols; do not misuse the name of God (Exodus 20: 1-20). As we learn here from Jesus, Moses didn't enshrine circumcision in the Law… Jewish customs had. The Jewish customs or tradition or religious observance, caused them to break one of the laws of Moses, making their arguments against Jesus seem complicit to what Jesus had done, and yet they still plotted to kill him.
Secondly, what Jesus does here is to correct the leaders in their understanding of circumcision; those who were willing to cut away the flesh as a mark of the covenant with God in the name of religion. In the new covenant that Jesus was ushering in, he brings healing by restoring the man back to health. A much deeper meaning is implied in this passage in that man makes judgements on appearance, but yet God looks at the heart.
“Your bodies are circumcised, but your hearts are unchanged” (Jeremiah
9.25-26)
People observing this encounter
between Jesus and the Jewish leaders, sensed the tension which John in this
Gospel describes:
“Isn't this the man they are trying to kill? But here he is, speaking in public, and they say nothing to him. Could our leaders possibly believe that he is the Messiah? But how could he be? For we know where this man comes form. When the Messiah comes, he will simply appear; no one will know where he comes from.” (John 7:26-27)
Even with Jesus standing in front of them as they watched him perform miracles, they did not believe the evidence of what they heard and what they saw. Humanists and atheists today state that none of this Jesus ‘stuff’ can be true; where is the evidence? The people in this situation were also confused between what they saw and the reasoning they used to help them understand what they had witnessed. Jesus’ answer is quite cryptic:
“Yes you know me and you know where I come from. But I'm not here on my
own. The one who sent me is true, and you don’t know him. But I know him
because I come from him, and he sent me to you.” (John 7:28-29)
Jesus was telling the Jewish
leaders as they were the ones with the perception to understand the meaning
behind these events: You do not understand the Law of Moses, nor do you have a
full grasp of the narrative of the scriptures; and you substitute God’s law in
favour of your own perception of the law. In fact Jesus challenges the leaders
by suggesting they were willing to break the law in order to meet their own
objectives rather than God’s, thereby deviating from the truth set out in the
law.
This is how the church has become
corrupted over the centuries from Jesus’ central message of love – when men are
involved, we get things wrong because we make assumptions – we can lose sight
of our moral values in the pursuit of our own goals. In Jerusalem, the people
began to question the Jewish leaders resolve in dealing with Jesus; the Jewish
leaders also began to fear Jesus’ popularity through his ministry and in
particular feared the judgement of the crowd towards their indecision over what
to do with him (John 7:26-27). It doesn't by default make the message wrong. It’s quite the
opposite in fact. Jesus exposes those who have corrupted the truth.
The combination of Jesus’ teaching
and the miracles he performed in full view of the people gathered there, was
enough for some to believe but still others rejected him because they had
preconceived ideas of what the Messiah would look like. Jesus calls out to
those still in doubt:
“Anyone who is thirsty may come to me! Anyone who believes in me may
come and drink! For the scriptures declare, ‘Rivers of living water will flow
from his heart.’” (John 7:38)
This is a scripture that reaches out
from the page to all of us who are dissatisfied with life and are searching for
something more… what is this water of life? It is a continuation of the theme that
Jesus has developed since meeting with the Samaritan woman at the well. She was
overjoyed at the prospect of meeting Jesus and the spring of living water that
would quench her thirst.
“Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)
Jesus was further pressuring the Jewish leadership and the people listening to him that he was the source of the Holy Spirit: You sent your good Spirit to instruct them, and you did not stop giving them manna from heaven or water for their thirst. (Nehemiah 9:20) What Jesus is doing here is absolutely astonishing. To understand how astonishing this is, we need to remember why Jesus is in the temple:
But soon it was time for the Jewish Festival of Shelters (John 17:2)… “I am not going to this festival because my time has not yet come.”(John 17:8)… But after his brothers left for the festival, Jesus also went, though secretly, staying out of public view (John 17:10).
The Festival of Shelters or the Feast of Tabernacles, as it was also known, was a celebration of the wilderness journeys made by the people of Israel. A story of how God provided for their every need with water and food, and through the instructions given to Moses, of how the Hebrew people should worship Yahweh. So here was Jesus standing publicly in the temple stating ‘come to me and I will give you a drink from the living water…’ Jesus is saying to all who could hear him look, what you are celebrating today, you can find in me.
I will stand before you (Moses) on the rock at Mount Sinai. Strike the rock, and water will come gushing out. Then the people will be able to drink.” So Moses struck the rock as he was told, and water gushed out as the elders looked on.’ (Exodus 17:6)
Just as Moses cracked the rock in the wilderness to give the people fresh water to prove that he was God’s servant, Jesus was effectively saying ‘come to me’, ‘I am God’s servant; I will give you the same water that Moses offered, but only mine is without end’.
Moses used the power of the spirit within his staff to break the rock, but Jesus was implying that he was the source of the living water and he too would be broken. On the cross, the Roman soldiers found Jesus to be dead. To make certain he was dead, they pierced Jesus’ heart with a spear, out of which John in his Gospel describes flowed blood and water (pericardial effusion), a further symbol of the living water and a sure sign that Jesus was dead.
So Jesus stands before us to invite us to believe in him because he represents his father. Jesus’ holiness shines brightly into our lives and reveals them to be empty… to be missing a certain something; perhaps not that tangible or rational even, but we know we are unsettled with what this world can offer us:
Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.” (John 8:12)
We are in the spotlight so to speak… I think it’s why so many reject God. We don’t like being the focus of attention but when that attention is from Jesus, we feel undone. Jesus can do that… the Jewish leadership murdered him because of it! We recognise that we have lived such empty lives without his presence dwelling in us that, to use the metaphor Jesus uses, we have walked in darkness. This is a reference to our individualism and our self-centredness; our confidence in what we have become and our deluded rationalism - I have decided that the Bible isn't true; I don’t need no church to tell me how to behave; why should I be made to feel guilty… no - I won’t take that on board, that is religious stuff and it has nothing to do with me! This is the darkness we live in.
Jesus is very clear that if you do not know who he is, or you reject the truth even of his existence in history, then you also do not understand God. There are many who reject Jesus and try to reject God also. Without Jesus, you cannot understand who God is. If you were to read the Bible as a law book, you will find only that which you seek… but the Bible is much more than a law book. If we only read the Bible as a law book as the Jewish leaders had demonstrated in their misunderstanding of scripture, we become a slave to the law and in so doing, recognise that we are unable to meet its standard. This is why we become so disenfranchised and apathetic towards life.
Often we tell ourselves that we do not need religion and we certainly do not need the church to tell us how to live. We have found increasingly sophisticated ways to ignore the truth contained within the pages of the Bible and begin to make up our own rationale for living. This is why life comes up short! We are living by the wrong standards and because of this we will reject the truth of who Jesus is:
“So when I tell you the truth, you just naturally don’t believe me! Which of you can truthfully accuse me of sin? And since I am telling you the truth, why don’t you believe me? Anyone who belongs to God listens to the words of God. But you don’t listen because you don’t belong to God.” (John 7:45-47)
So how can we be content with who we are and what we have become? We learn to trust in the one who gives us a sense of purpose and the one who cares about what we were made to be. If we become a slave to the darkness within our souls or become a slave to what Christians call our sinful nature, we can feel trapped in our actions and the consequences can become destructive. Jesus knows this.
He wants to free you from the slavery of your human nature… you know, when you don’t do the things you ought to do, yet you do the things you shouldn't; when you indulge your sexual fantasies through an LCD screen because you have reduced a fellow human being to one of a sexual object; when you indulge your addictive behaviour causing harm to yourself and sometimes to others; when you lose all sense of being civil, in order to pursue your own agenda… This is a Godless place to be:
They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshipped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. (Romans 1:25)
Many sceptics and atheists will argue that there is no moral law and that it is religion that has created a climate for human beings to make judgements on the conduct of others. They would argue that our moral compass is a transcendent truth that has been passed within a social genome. As we sift through all of the data that has been collected through the decision making processes we display, we adapt a best-fit that allows us to evolve our collective consciousness without the need for religion. However, this is clearly not working: man’s inhumanity to man is a constant refrain heard that is heard through the millennia from Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet in his poem ‘A Dirge’ of 1784, to present day commentators such as President Obama of the United States of America:
"For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system."
“Anyone who drinks this water will soon become thirsty again. But those who drink the water I give will never be thirsty again. It becomes a fresh, bubbling spring within them, giving them eternal life.” (John 4:13-14)
Jesus was further pressuring the Jewish leadership and the people listening to him that he was the source of the Holy Spirit: You sent your good Spirit to instruct them, and you did not stop giving them manna from heaven or water for their thirst. (Nehemiah 9:20) What Jesus is doing here is absolutely astonishing. To understand how astonishing this is, we need to remember why Jesus is in the temple:
But soon it was time for the Jewish Festival of Shelters (John 17:2)… “I am not going to this festival because my time has not yet come.”(John 17:8)… But after his brothers left for the festival, Jesus also went, though secretly, staying out of public view (John 17:10).
The Festival of Shelters or the Feast of Tabernacles, as it was also known, was a celebration of the wilderness journeys made by the people of Israel. A story of how God provided for their every need with water and food, and through the instructions given to Moses, of how the Hebrew people should worship Yahweh. So here was Jesus standing publicly in the temple stating ‘come to me and I will give you a drink from the living water…’ Jesus is saying to all who could hear him look, what you are celebrating today, you can find in me.
I will stand before you (Moses) on the rock at Mount Sinai. Strike the rock, and water will come gushing out. Then the people will be able to drink.” So Moses struck the rock as he was told, and water gushed out as the elders looked on.’ (Exodus 17:6)
Just as Moses cracked the rock in the wilderness to give the people fresh water to prove that he was God’s servant, Jesus was effectively saying ‘come to me’, ‘I am God’s servant; I will give you the same water that Moses offered, but only mine is without end’.
Moses used the power of the spirit within his staff to break the rock, but Jesus was implying that he was the source of the living water and he too would be broken. On the cross, the Roman soldiers found Jesus to be dead. To make certain he was dead, they pierced Jesus’ heart with a spear, out of which John in his Gospel describes flowed blood and water (pericardial effusion), a further symbol of the living water and a sure sign that Jesus was dead.
So Jesus stands before us to invite us to believe in him because he represents his father. Jesus’ holiness shines brightly into our lives and reveals them to be empty… to be missing a certain something; perhaps not that tangible or rational even, but we know we are unsettled with what this world can offer us:
Jesus spoke to the people once more and said, “I am the light of the world. If you follow me, you won’t have to walk in darkness, because you will have the light that leads to life.” (John 8:12)
We are in the spotlight so to speak… I think it’s why so many reject God. We don’t like being the focus of attention but when that attention is from Jesus, we feel undone. Jesus can do that… the Jewish leadership murdered him because of it! We recognise that we have lived such empty lives without his presence dwelling in us that, to use the metaphor Jesus uses, we have walked in darkness. This is a reference to our individualism and our self-centredness; our confidence in what we have become and our deluded rationalism - I have decided that the Bible isn't true; I don’t need no church to tell me how to behave; why should I be made to feel guilty… no - I won’t take that on board, that is religious stuff and it has nothing to do with me! This is the darkness we live in.
Jesus is very clear that if you do not know who he is, or you reject the truth even of his existence in history, then you also do not understand God. There are many who reject Jesus and try to reject God also. Without Jesus, you cannot understand who God is. If you were to read the Bible as a law book, you will find only that which you seek… but the Bible is much more than a law book. If we only read the Bible as a law book as the Jewish leaders had demonstrated in their misunderstanding of scripture, we become a slave to the law and in so doing, recognise that we are unable to meet its standard. This is why we become so disenfranchised and apathetic towards life.
Often we tell ourselves that we do not need religion and we certainly do not need the church to tell us how to live. We have found increasingly sophisticated ways to ignore the truth contained within the pages of the Bible and begin to make up our own rationale for living. This is why life comes up short! We are living by the wrong standards and because of this we will reject the truth of who Jesus is:
“So when I tell you the truth, you just naturally don’t believe me! Which of you can truthfully accuse me of sin? And since I am telling you the truth, why don’t you believe me? Anyone who belongs to God listens to the words of God. But you don’t listen because you don’t belong to God.” (John 7:45-47)
So how can we be content with who we are and what we have become? We learn to trust in the one who gives us a sense of purpose and the one who cares about what we were made to be. If we become a slave to the darkness within our souls or become a slave to what Christians call our sinful nature, we can feel trapped in our actions and the consequences can become destructive. Jesus knows this.
He wants to free you from the slavery of your human nature… you know, when you don’t do the things you ought to do, yet you do the things you shouldn't; when you indulge your sexual fantasies through an LCD screen because you have reduced a fellow human being to one of a sexual object; when you indulge your addictive behaviour causing harm to yourself and sometimes to others; when you lose all sense of being civil, in order to pursue your own agenda… This is a Godless place to be:
They traded the truth about God for a lie. So they worshipped and served the things God created instead of the Creator himself, who is worthy of eternal praise! Amen. (Romans 1:25)
Many sceptics and atheists will argue that there is no moral law and that it is religion that has created a climate for human beings to make judgements on the conduct of others. They would argue that our moral compass is a transcendent truth that has been passed within a social genome. As we sift through all of the data that has been collected through the decision making processes we display, we adapt a best-fit that allows us to evolve our collective consciousness without the need for religion. However, this is clearly not working: man’s inhumanity to man is a constant refrain heard that is heard through the millennia from Robert Burns, the famous Scottish poet in his poem ‘A Dirge’ of 1784, to present day commentators such as President Obama of the United States of America:
"For most of this country’s history, we in the African-American community have been at the receiving end of man’s inhumanity to man. And all of us understand intimately the insidious role that race still sometimes plays – on the job, in the schools, in our health care system, and in our criminal justice system."
(The Great Need of the Hour,
2008)
This is what Jesus says about those who have become slaves to sin:
"I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. A slave is not a permanent member of a family, but a son is part of the family forever. So if the son sets you free, you are truly free.” (John 8:34-36)
It’s time to stop trying to rationalise Jesus out of existence. Many will argue that truth in God is unfounded and that the Bible is an unreliable source on which to base one’s life. However, the world that we live in doesn't exist simply through a pattern of cause and effect; leading to a selection of the most worthy attributes for inclusion into some kind of social meme contained within an act of procreation. If this was so, surely our bodies would have eliminated the faulty genes that cause cancer and heart disease wouldn't be on the increase due to the filtering out of these defective elements within natural selection
God is in fact the source of our self-determination and our free will. In relationship with the one who created us, we have purpose and direction. God isn't a neurotic parent, desperate to gain our attention and wanting to control us from some kind of irrational fear. Neither is God some kind of punitive judge waiting to catch us out. We know this because he sent his son Jesus to reveal Gods true nature. God created us because he wanted to… in fact he loved the idea of creating us and saw us as being very good.
Only when we understand these truths, will we truly understand who we are in God: God loves us even though we continue to do wrong; he hates the wrong in us but has created a way of reconciling us to himself through his son; in Jesus we find that repentance and grace, which leads to faith, are happy bedfellows in the rebirth of a new life in him.
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, Jesus Christ, to be a sacrifice for sin, so that whoever believes on him, will not perish, but gain an eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him. (Amplified Bible; John 3:16-17)
I urge you to suspend your disbelief in the Bible, no matter what form that this may take, and focus on the words that Jesus spoke, contained within the four Gospels. In those words you will find a man who is God; he didn't come to judge the world but to save it… to save you… and to save me. If you have never given your life to Jesus before, or if you once knew him and have drifted away, then I urge you to consider Jesus… You will not regret it.
This is what Jesus says about those who have become slaves to sin:
"I tell you the truth, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. A slave is not a permanent member of a family, but a son is part of the family forever. So if the son sets you free, you are truly free.” (John 8:34-36)
It’s time to stop trying to rationalise Jesus out of existence. Many will argue that truth in God is unfounded and that the Bible is an unreliable source on which to base one’s life. However, the world that we live in doesn't exist simply through a pattern of cause and effect; leading to a selection of the most worthy attributes for inclusion into some kind of social meme contained within an act of procreation. If this was so, surely our bodies would have eliminated the faulty genes that cause cancer and heart disease wouldn't be on the increase due to the filtering out of these defective elements within natural selection
God is in fact the source of our self-determination and our free will. In relationship with the one who created us, we have purpose and direction. God isn't a neurotic parent, desperate to gain our attention and wanting to control us from some kind of irrational fear. Neither is God some kind of punitive judge waiting to catch us out. We know this because he sent his son Jesus to reveal Gods true nature. God created us because he wanted to… in fact he loved the idea of creating us and saw us as being very good.
Only when we understand these truths, will we truly understand who we are in God: God loves us even though we continue to do wrong; he hates the wrong in us but has created a way of reconciling us to himself through his son; in Jesus we find that repentance and grace, which leads to faith, are happy bedfellows in the rebirth of a new life in him.
God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son, Jesus Christ, to be a sacrifice for sin, so that whoever believes on him, will not perish, but gain an eternal life. For God did not send the Son into the world in order to judge (to condemn, to pass sentence on) the world, but that the world might find salvation and be made safe and sound through Him. (Amplified Bible; John 3:16-17)
I urge you to suspend your disbelief in the Bible, no matter what form that this may take, and focus on the words that Jesus spoke, contained within the four Gospels. In those words you will find a man who is God; he didn't come to judge the world but to save it… to save you… and to save me. If you have never given your life to Jesus before, or if you once knew him and have drifted away, then I urge you to consider Jesus… You will not regret it.
No comments:
Post a Comment