The Ministering Unknown Christ

Hearing the Emmaus story read again today, I became aware of the graphic picture it presents of the Christ ministering to us in all our troubles, griefs, sicknesses and problems: the Christ we see but do not recognise!!

And the fact that we do not recognise Him does not make his ministry to us any less potent. The Lord seemed content to minister to Cleopas and his companion without their knowing who He was. So often in life, we only realise much later that it was the Lord serving us, upholding us, supporting us and teaching us at a particularly dark time.

Perhaps the Emmaus story, along with many other of its facets, reminds us that our Lord is always with us because He has purposes to perform in our lives that will be achieved despite our spiritual blindness and sometime lack of zeal.

Words on the Wall

Christian groups 'dress to impress' these days with their song words on walls. We usually don't stop to think about this development but go along with it as the latest thing. However, may I just point out some aspects of this development that should give us pause for thought? With every use of newer technologies our lives are being subtly and sometimes not so subtly changed leaving us forgetting that 'the medium is the message'.*

First, the medium of data projection means that words cannot be meditated on or scanned before viewing by a congregation. Nor can an arresting phrase in any already sung verse be looked at again because the congregation is now onto the next verse. The simple use of hymn books allows those activities to be done.

Second, the congregational worship is always controlled by the click of the controller of the data projector. One could say that congregational worship in song moves according to the rhythm of the person with the mouse! I wonder whether we should much rather having that rhythm being established by a musician sensitive to the leading of God's spirit. Projectionists may well have that sensitivity but then we would have the need for three offices to become aligned: projectionist, worship leader, and musician.

Third, despite the usual assumption that newer technologies aid the church in adding to the number of disciples of Christ, no evidence exists that supports any link between changing the content of services and increase in church numbers. On the contrary, in the UK, the two appear to be negatively associated (http://xrl.in/2bg) for the Church of England at least. Astronomical sums in the billions spent in the US on upgrading technologies and using new programs in one year (2006?) in fact resulted in negative growth in US church numbers!! (See also http://xrl.in/2bj)

Last, data projection is a post-modern technology because post-modernism highlights the ephemeral, which precisely fits with data projection. One could say, post-modernism makes an absolute of the passing away of 'reality'. The latter is ephemeral, transient, here this second but gone the next. I don't think the church would want this notion to become embedded in its worship forms but it could be accepting that definition without much awareness that it is happening.

*A helpful article by Mark Federman @ http://xrl.in/2bk helps to explain what Marshall McLuhan meant by his popular but misunderstood phrase, 'the medium is the message', a process that the church would do well to remember.

We who don't see yet

Thomas wanted to see as the fellow disciples of Jesus had seen. I don't think we can blame Thomas for his wish and in so wishing/acting he demonstrated the true bodiliness of the crucified, now risen Jesus. (An important theme for the Spirit speaking through St John.) However, Thomas missed out on something less tangible but most important for all who would come later.

Thomas missed out on being the one of the disciples who would believe without having seen and hence become -even if for the short time - one of the fathers (St John being the other) of all those that have not seen and yet have believed.

This not-seeing state of faith is the one we live within for this time as expressed by J. R. Peacey (1896-1971) in these words:
O Lord, we long to see your face,

to know you risen from the grave;
But we have missed the joy and grace
of seeing you, as others have.
Yet in your company we'll wait,
And we shall see you, soon or late.

This waiting without seeing is also captured in 1 Peter 1: 8

Whom having not seen, you love;
in whom, though now you see him not,
yet believing, you rejoice with joy unspeakable and full of glory:

In any case, seeing can only be true seeing when attended by believing. Seeing is not always believing! Jews watched Jesus raise Lazarus from the dead and immediately thereafter plotted how they might kill Jesus!! Their seeing did not mean believing. Unless our seeing is mixed with believing invariably our seeing is corrupted.

Emmaus

During this Easter week, among other stories of Jesus' post-resurrection appearances, we have heard the account of the two disciples on the road to Emmaus (Lk 24:13-27).

For me, this drama-narrative can be understood in two acts. Act 1, Sorrowfully Not Seeing and Act 11, Ardently Coming To See.

The two disciples are walking along conversing and debating about what had happened to Jesus animated by a spirit of defeat, crushed hopes and puzzlement. "We had thought that our Lord would be the redemption of Israel but he was crucified, dead and buried. Now some who visited his tomb say they found it empty and saw angels declaring that Jesus is alive. But, these women didn't actually see him."

Jesus joins these sorrowing disciples who are mourning the loss of their Lord but their eyes 'are holden [held or restrained] that they should not know him' (KJV). They cannot see what is before their eyes. Their eyes are prevented from seeing and knowing Jesus.

I'm sure this has happened many times in my life. Jesus has been with me walking alongside me but my eyes have been 'restrained' from seeing him. In my case, my sin has had a large part to play in that failure to see. What this restraint was is not altogether clear. Did their sorrow mean they were prevented from seeing the Lord or did God purposely prevent them from seeing for his own purposes?

Could be. God's purposes are often beyond us. "As high as the heaven are above the earth" (Isa 55:8-9) and all that. Just because things appear to us to be without purpose or meaning it does not mean that they are without meaning. Think of young children who have to have some painful procedure carried out. They have no understanding of its purpose and why father and mother allow this to take place. As adults we know why but the immature child can't fathom it. Sometimes this situation may also happen with God and us. The Cross event is perhaps a good example of that same thing.

But, it's exhilarating to hear them say that it is now the third day since the crucifixion because in this day is embedded the hope of Israel, the hope of all creation, Resurrection day. And Jesus has already mysteriously alluded to this day (13:33)!! (The expression is used numbers of times in the Scriptures.)

But, these disciples are not living the the reality of the third day yet. So Jesus expounds the Word 'concerning himself'. What a bible lesson that must have been with the written word being opened up by the Word Himself!! Their hearts begin to burn within them. They urge Him to stay with them and as he takes the bread, blesses and breaks it, their eyes are opened and they recognise him. The burning in their hearts has created such an ardency (derived from Latin meaning burn) that despite the time of the day/night they return to their brethren and tell them what has happened.

The same third day will always suggest the first day of shameful death but 'in the third day' lies the hope of all mankind.

CHRIST IS RISEN! He is Risen Indeed, Alleluia

Charles Wesley, a genius for expressing a heart-deep Anglicanism, wrote over six and a half thousand hymns that cover the Christian year. This verse below is a typical Wesley stanza for Easter, Resurrection Day.


Come, let us with our Lord arise,

our Lord who made both earth and skies,
who died to save the world he made
and rose triumphant from the dead;
he rose, the prince of life and peace,
and stamped the day for ever his.

What struck me on hearing this hymn was the first and last lines. I love the force of the word 'stamped' because it conveys the power of His Resurrection to set aside that first day of the week as a regular Resurrection Day for the church and the world. This day, this time has His seal, his imprimaturial ownership upon it. The stamp upon this day pervades all time, which has become redemptive time, the Day that the Lord has made, the Day of Deliverance, the end of any pretensions of darkness and death to be the final word. God's final life-giving word is now fully revealed in the Risen One, Jesus Christ.

'The Water of Life' is Thirsty for God!

Good Friday service centred around the seven sayings from the Cross. The saying that struck me with great force was Jesus' words, 'I thirst' recorded in St John's account.

Jesus gives his mother into John's care and following this action it is recorded: And Jesus knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), 'I thirst'. The ordeal of crucifixion tries every tortured body to this place of thirst. Painful seconds have turned into minutes into hours and the throats of the hanged are dry and without moisture. And like any man, Jesus is thirsty.

We see now the great humility of our Lord who submits himself to great thirst when he is the giver of the Water of Life, the very Water of Life itself!

However, it has also been suggested that our Lord's cry is a thirst for God Himself as in Psalm 63.

O God, thou art my God, I seek thee,

my soul thirsts for thee;
my flesh faints for thee,
as in a dry and weary land where no water is.

If that be so, and it would fit well with St John's style of always saying much more than appears to be being said at face value, it would also remind us of St John's ongoing theme that Jesus is always in step with his Father, always dependent on the Father and always seeking the will of his Father.