The Last Supper - Jesus’ Last Will and Testament

‘Likewise, after supper, He took the cup and, when He had given thanks, He gave it to them saying, ‘Drink ye all of this; for this is the blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. Do this as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of Me’

If, like me, you were taken Holy Communion Services as a child, you may recognise these words from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, 1549. The rhythm of the words is forever written into my bones.

Printed at the time of William Shakespeare, the old Elizabethan language is matchless and strangely hypnotic.

That’s a good thing and a bad thing. Good because the words become so attached to your person they can be recalled at any time, with their associated reverence and the mood that falls as they are recalled; a certain peace that seems to be within the words as they are spoken. But a bad thing because hypnosis removes all conscious participation in the drama of the Last Supper. Detached from history it can become almost ‘a nothing’, a pointless ritual of repetition, a sleep-inducing drug.

The Last Supper was many things, one of which was the reading of Jesus’ Last Will and Testament, just hours before His arrest and crucifixion…in a code that the disciples could only break after the Resurrection.

‘This is the blood of the New Testament, in My blood’

The prophets of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel had all prophesied two main events to come to pass sometime in the future:

• One day the Anointed One (translated as ‘Messiah’ in the Hebrew of the Old Testament and ‘Christ’ in the Greek of the New Testament) would be born

• A new covenant or testament – the words are synonymous – would replace the Old Testament

The terms of the Last Will and Testament, the ‘New Testament’ that Jesus announced and would come into effect upon His death just a few hours after the Supper had ended, are not shrouded in mystery:

‘Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah – not according to the covenant I made with their fathers when I…led them out from the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbour saying, ‘Know the Lord’ – they shall all know Me from the least to the greatest.’ Jeremiah 31 v 31 – 34

‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes…’ Ez 36 v 27

The prophets of the Old Testament called the people back to (i) believe the promises in the Old Covenant and to (ii) obey the Law. The Old Covenant promises are written in Genesis 12,15, and 17, given through Abraham, and the Law was added later through Moses. But Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel looked beyond the Old Testament to the inauguration of a New Testament - which Jesus as the Messiah announced at the Last Supper.

It’s a Spirit joined to my spirit operation now

As beneficiaries of that Last Will and Testament, as New Testament believers or ‘Christians’, we should, at least be aware of the terms of the New Testament, or New Covenant. How odd it would be if a rich person was to die, and you were informed that you were a beneficiary, for you not to be keenly interested in the contents of the Will. Not only does self-interest kick in, but it is also your ‘right’ to receive the benefits of the Will as directed by the person who had died. It is, after all, what he or she wanted you to receive.

How odd, then that New Testament believers often have never read the terms of the New Testament inaugurated when the King of Glory died.

Leaving aside for the moment – that the New Testament is made with the House of Israel and Judah…which, at first sight, excludes all Gentiles, let’s look at the promises contained in the New Testament:

1. The Law is written on our hearts not on tablets of stone. It’s internal not an external set of commandments

2. Everyone in the New Testament ‘knows the Lord’ – it is no longer God up there, remote and beyond knowing, in heaven whilst we live our lives on the Earth

The heart operation alluded to in Jeremiah 31 is spelled out in more detail in Ezekiel 36. There’s a heart transplant:

3. Our hearts of stone, which were incapable of living the life of Christ, are replaced by hearts of flesh.

4. We are given a new spirit

5. And the Holy Spirit

6. The result is that we walk in His statutes…like Christ

The challenge of prophets is first to redirect us back to the promises of the New Covenant. To believe and have faith in God that He has done what He promised He would do.

And then to obey. But this obedience is not a dutiful conformation to a set of external commandments – specifically the Ten Commandments inscribed on stone tablets – but to trust that as God is writes His laws on our hearts our lives are transformed from the inside out.

We mustn’t turn back to the Old Testament, where we attempt with everything in us to obey the Law, be determined to be good, pray, go to church, read out bibles, and love our neighbour. A new way has been opened to us. He comes. His Spirit is joined with our deepest part, our new spirit, our new hearts of flesh. It’s a Spirit joined to my spirit operation now. We must have faith that God has done what He has promised.

All because Jesus was willing to go to the cross, for us.

I don’t know How God does what He does but the challenge is to believe that He has. And that this work goes on all day, every day, 24/7. I can’t stop it. I can’t stop God! That’s a ridiculous statement but one I continually need to acknowledge.

We mustn’t turn back to the Old Testament

He has given me a new heart, a new spirit, he has placed His Spirit in Me. He is writing His law in my heart. Against all the odds, His life leaks out of me.

Do we fail? Do we struggle? Do we need to return to the covenant? Of course. That’s why taking Holy Communion regularly isn’t a bad idea…it serves to remind us that the Will, the New Testament, has been read, that we are its recipients, and before long we are on our knees thanking God for His grace and undeserved love poured out, to Christ, for His willingness to suffer on our behalf.

What can we say?

Defeated we find victory in Him.

The Last Supper sustains us for all time.

As New Testament beneficiaries we: ‘take and eat, this is My body, which is given for you, do this in remembrance of Me. ‘Likewise, after supper, He took the cup and, when He had given thanks, He gave it to them saying, ‘Drink ye all of this; for this is the blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. Do this as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of Me’

The Bothy - Grwyne Fawr

Four by eight I suppose
And folded in fraying paper
Lying spread like a body
On the floor
Peered over, not by surgeons
But would be explorers
Unfamiliar with its world
Laid bare

Sinkholes, abandoned quarries
Ridges and sheepfolds
And contours and grid-lines
Point the way…but today
A small black ink square,
Silent, like a mistake,
Pulled and pulled again until
Laces tied, my boots were on

Descending a narrow path
The bothy took shape
A bothy of ones:
One door, one window,
One small log burner
One table, one old chair,
One candle, and one mezzanine
Space for one or for two

Home. A heaven of sorts.
At least for the night
Graffiti illuminated by a candle
Names of lovers, and dates
And a shelf of generosity
A tin of baked beans, firelighters,
Wood left by the burner
A spade, quite clean, and a rusty saw.

And a blessing, in brass, nailed
In honour of a Clive Roberts
Mwynhewch y fangre, hon, fel y Gwnaeth Yntau
‘May you enjoy this place as he did’
With the trickle of Gwyne Fawr,
The unsteady light of the moon,
Flickering flames of a candle and the fire:
The night is yours.

Running Blog - November 29th 2022

Fog

Cumberland Basin, Hotwells 7 am

An aborted early morning training attempt, following the Bristol 10K route.

Perhaps the main story isn’t the 64-year-old, inappropriately dressed all in black running in the dark, early morning, pre-dawn dense fog, but the fog itself.

I do like a good fog. None more so than when the pools of light cascading down from the street lighting catches a sort of avant-garde, jazz-like, Parisienne cum Whitechapel murders feel - difficult, isn’t it to quite put your finger on it.

I do like a good fog

Car headlamps and bike flashing lights loom from a distance like blurred candles and somehow the sound of traffic is dulled and, maybe, moving slower. I certainly was.

Sadly, another part of my athletic frame decided it wanted to get home early for a hot shower. Perhaps in years gone by I would have ploughed on to achieve my aim…to make 10Ks my usual training run and 5Ks more of a speed thing. Ha! One thing after another vies to be the preeminent cause of setbacks. This time it was the right hip that put in its protest in triplicate, and I bowed to its demands.

Cumberland Basin, Hotwells…towards Avonmouth

One day soon though, it’ll be a 10K Champagne Day, and we’ll see, scientifically, statistically, and psychologically just how close I am to ‘the line of improvement’ homing-in, as I am, on the qualifying time for Paris ’24.

In the meantime, is it not time for St George to slay a Dragon in Qatar?

Showdown 7pm.

Reluctant Leaders and Wounded Healers - Part III Name Changing

I’ve known three people who have elected to change their names. Maybe four.

Firstly, a friend who had been away from school for a few weeks, I presumed either on holiday or ill, returned with a new surname. I knew him as Anthony (Tony) Nurse. On return he explained it wasn’t working for his dad, a doctor, to be called ‘Doctor Nurse’. The second was a man who had a sex-change operation. I can’t remember his first name, but maybe Bernard had become Barbara. And, lastly, a lady who needed a fresh start after a troubled past, changed her name, twice.

Biblically, God changes the name of Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Jacob to Israel, and Simon to Peter. Also, in Isaiah 62 God says of Israel ‘You shall be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall give’ and in Revelation ‘To him who overcomes…I will give…a new name’ Rev 2v17

This post is not a study on the meanings of the new names or explore why they were given. We may know for example that ‘Peter’ means ‘a rock’, but the point of the post is to try and imagine the day after Abram was re-named Abraham, or Sarai, or Jacob, or Simon:

‘Abram, would you mind moving your sheep?’
‘It’s Abraham now, not Abram.’
‘Oh? Who says?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘Tell me later. But get those sheep…’

Hard enough for the recipient, Abram in this instance, to tell family, friends, and on. Hard for those around to take it seriously for a while. Over time, of course, everyone adjusts.

Biblically, the name is more than simply a name, and more than a humorous nickname. Names carried meaning and growing into the new meaning was what was at stake.

‘When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations…’ Gen 17 v 1-27

Abram means ‘honoured’ or ‘exalted father’ but Abraham means ‘father of a multitude’ to reflect the covenant promises God made with Abram – see Gen 12/15/17. Abram and his wife, Sarai, were too old to have children, so for Abram and Sarai to use those names for themselves privately, but more so publicly, was to invite derision:

Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her.’ – Genesis 17:15-16

Making that transition requires a deep change of mind, of identity, and of faith for a future that is certain and yet unseen. Abram’s previous history is not obliterated, or untrue, or forgotten, or denied, but the new name represents a new identity. The previous identifiers are no longer at work. The future is defined by the new name. It takes time to fully adjust, and there may be crises that test one’s resolve and faith in the new name, but the new name is a reality that cannot be shaken.

One of Jesus’ disciples was a ‘zealot’, a ‘terrorist’ or a ‘freedom fighter’, depending on your conviction, but he laid this identity at the feet of Jesus who transformed him into an apostle of the gospel of grace

So it is for anyone who places their faith in Christ.

You could explain this bluntly: Jesus is Lord and you have realised this. He is risen from the dead and all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. It follows then that your ‘identity’ is not something that you control anymore, He is Lord, and you are His servant. All our identifiers lie at His feet. We kneel before Him.

The problem with stating Christianity like this is not that it isn’t true, but that it presents ‘Lordship’ in the same vein as the autocratic dictators we roundly condemn in the world.

Following on from Reluctant Leaders and Wounded Healers Part II we see that, in fact, the person who places their faith and trust in Christ, does so because they see God’s love in action, principally in the cross, the crucifixion. That on the cross Jesus took all our sins and us as a substitutionary and inclusive sacrifice, and we have been raised ‘in Christ’.

To extend the picture with one further sentence: we were ‘in Adam’ and inherited our sinful nature from Adam, as if we had eaten the fruit in the garden. But now we are ‘in Christ’ and inherit everything that is in Him. Our previous identity is dead and buried. Our new identity, in Christ, is our true identity.

Our previous identifiers might include our nationality, or sexuality, or political affiliations, our occupations and so on. Just as Abram’s history was not obliterated, untrue, forgotten, or denied, the same is true for us.

But the critical transition is into the new name, the new identity. We leave our previous identifiers behind, Christ defines our life, indeed, He is our life (see Part II). That is partly why to say ‘I am a sinner saved by grace’ is incompatible with the gospel, and a contradiction in terms.

It is, of course, factually correct to say you were ‘in Adam’ and therefore a sinner, but now you are ‘in Christ’ and have become a ‘son of God’ in Him. That identity redefines our – to use the list above – our nationality, our sexuality, our political affiliations, and our occupations.

…we are citizens of heaven…

In very broad terms our nationality is redefined – we are citizens of heaven and our allegiance to the nation in which we have been born, and benefited from, is not forgotten, but is laid at His feet, for Him to use in our lives as He decides. My experience of this is limited. I was born in England, but my father was American, and my mother was English. During my childhood and teenage years, I alternated between wanting to be American or adopt dual citizenship, I spelt certain words like ‘centre’ as ‘center’ and so on. I became a Christian three weeks before my eighteenth birthday. I cannot explain it but receiving Christ changed my heart and my attitude and I have remained British. I love my links to America, but my first allegiance is to the Crown not the Stars and Stripes. Christ redefined my nationality.

Our sexuality is redefined by Christ. As in all other areas of life, He defines our sexuality. Our sexuality is no longer based on our opinions, preferences, or social norms. The Spirit of God ‘writes His laws on our hearts and causes us to walk in His ways’.

Political affiliations also are laid at His feet. He may return you to a life in politics, of course. But He will shape not only our intellectual persuasions but also our attitudes. We may oppose a particular policy but the way we garner support is radically altered. We find the means do not justify the ends, and our revolutionary zeal will not justify oppression as it once might have done. One of Jesus’ disciples was a ‘zealot’, a ‘terrorist’ or a ‘freedom fighter’, depending on your conviction, but he laid this identity at the feet of Jesus who transformed him into an apostle of the gospel of grace.

Lastly, our occupations. You’re introduced to someone you haven’t met, and you start talking. It won’t be long before you are asked ‘And what do you do?’ Of course, you may well answer this as ‘I’m an optician’, ‘actor’, ‘IT consultant, and so on. But inside you know your eternal occupation/identity is as ‘a son of God’. And, like Jesus, you say ‘I only do what my father in heaven is doing’. You are not defined by your 9-5.

It is from this community of redefined disciples, each of whom is adjusting to life ‘in the Name of Jesus’, that some emerge as leaders. Any one of them carries with them a history, their personal history, which is now placed in His hands. Saul/Paul laid down his defining pathway as a militant Pharisee at Jesus’ feet and was redefined as the apostle to the Gentiles, Peter, also, the rough fisherman from Galilee, grew into his new identity in Christ…not without some reversals at times (an encouragement to us all!), Mary Magdalene, who’s life had been devastated with seven demons, now released…the list is long and extends through the centuries to this day. All wounded in some way by sin, failure, weakness…all wounded healers in Christ.

Reluctant? Maybe due to a residual sense of unworthiness, but more likely a knowing that you are inadequate for the task, have no aptitude…and yet, inside, somehow you know that this is the next step and that the key is, like everything else, to trust God for the adequacy and the ability.

Remember Abram and Sarai, all hopes of having children long since evaporated. Physically incapable. And completely inadequate to be a ‘father’ and ‘mother’ of a multitude of nations. Your calling may not be as dramatic, but it will have features that, to you, are of the same order.

That’s it. My thanks to Rob Bell for his podcast that mentioned ‘Reluctant Leaders’ and to N.T. Wright for his phrase ‘Wounded Healers’. It’s entirely your doing that I felt compelled to write these three posts!

And if you are teetering on the edge - whether to take that step towards a leadership role, lay it all at Jesus’ feet. It’s not a bad place to start.

Reluctant Leaders and Wounded Healers - Part II

I should declare my hand. I consider the Bible, New and Old Testaments, to be the word of God.

I used to doubt its historical accuracy, had a problem with the miraculous, and thought, even if the person of Jesus had lived, his disciples had a vested interest in inventing the resurrection. But someone asked me how I came to believe in gravity and other scientific theories and whether I had inspected the evidence for my theories about the bible with as much rigour. One thing led to another, and my previous views were turned upside down.

I believe it’s historically accurate and is more than a collection of outdated ancient literature. But, if it is the word of God, its relevance for any age is beyond doubt. The debate about the bible is for another time! But I thought I ought to come clean before you decide to read on!

________________

The bible is a record of how heaven and earth are not disconnected and how God who created the world is in the world, not a distant irrelevance but very close…and how He will not conform to our image of how God should act. For example, God seems to select the wrong types of individuals for leadership again and again…and yet it works.

Moses, the murderer, hiding in the desert, is chosen to lead the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land – and he succeeds. St Paul, the persecutor of the church, who had ‘made havoc of the church, dragging off men and women, committing them to prison’ Acts 8v3 becomes the apostle appointed by God to bring the gospel to the gentile world.

God, it seems, often chooses the reluctant and the wounded to lead and heal. None of us is excluded or written off by God.

Welcome to Part II: A theological starter & mains before returning to reluctant leaders and wounded healers for pudding.

The Menu:

Starters: The inclusive death of Christ.

Main: Divinisation – the Eastern Orthodox doctrine.

Pud - Name changing (saved for Part III)

Starters:

Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Charismatics have written some stirring and fantastic hymns, over the past 400 years which reflect their faith in what has been known as substitutionary atonement: ‘And Can it be’ being one of my favourite Charles Wesley hymns! Putting it (very) simply, when Jesus died on the cross, He took our sins and died for us, in our place, taking the punishment we deserved so that we could be forgiven and restored to God. Religion, the attempt to please God by obeying commandments, is replaced by a relationship with God, restored through Christ.

But can anyone show me a hymn or a song that celebrates the inclusive death of Christ? That, when Jesus died on the cross, He took ‘us’, not just our sins, with Him on the cross. To quote just one verse: ‘I have been crucified with Christ, it’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me’ Gal 2v20

They’re coming! The hymns and the songs are coming. When the revelation of the substitutionary and inclusive nature of the cross, artists, playwrights, songwriters, poets, authors, preachers, will not be able to keep silent.

Mains: Eastern Orthodox doctrine of ‘divinisation’ or ‘theosis’

Evangelical believers, and Roman Catholics, will quite readily subscribe to the view that Jesus was 100% human and 100% divine.

Christianity is not a religion of self-improvement but the creation of a new race

But the problem with limiting our understanding of the cross to be a substitutionary sacrifice, is that the ‘sinner’ remains a sinner albeit wonderfully forgiven and free from condemnation. A common phrase heard amongst those who believe in substitutionary atonement is ‘I’m a sinner saved by grace’. The future, then, becomes one of ‘sanctification’; a process whereby through the power of the Spirit, the sinner is made progressively more like Christ.

But this is not New Testament teaching. This is polishing a turd.

Christ did not die so that we could be rehabilitated, but so we could be crucified with him.

Christianity is not a religion of self-improvement but the creation of a new race, Jesus being the forerunner, the first.

To quote C. S. Lewis: ‘I have called Christ the ‘first instance’ of the new man. But of course, He is not merely a new man, one specimen of the (new) species, but the new man. He is the origin and centre and life of all the new men…other men become ‘new’ by being ‘in Him’…to become new men means losing what we now call ‘ourselves’. Out of ourselves, into Christ, we must go…millions and millions of ‘little Christs’, all different, will still be too few to express Him fully. He made them all. He invented – as an author invents characters in a novel – all the different men that you and I were intended to be.’ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Collins.

This is consistent with the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of ‘divinisation’ or ‘theosis’ which views a Christian as a man, but a man saturated with the life of God, a union of the human and the divine. Not that the one human person, man or woman, has become God but that he or she is, as C.S. Lewis stated is ‘in Christ’.

As Peter wrote we become ‘partakers of the divine nature’ 2 Peter 1 v 4.

Life, looking forward, is not to be seen in terms of sanctification, as if sanctification means transforming the ‘sinner’ into a ‘saint’, but, L-plates on, learning to live as a person who is now ‘in Christ’ as a ‘mini-Christ’, as a ‘Christ as me’ person in the world. If that seems strange, consider the human body: every cell in my body is alive. But with who’s life? John Stevens is quite unaware (no comments!) of what each cell is doing, acting seemingly independent of me, but this is an illusion. The life of each cell is the life of John Stevens. It doesn’t have any other life.

It is the same for us ‘in Christ’. It’s not that ‘Christ in me’ means that it’s 5% Christ and 95% of Jesus, or some other ratio, somehow ‘inside’ me, as if we are two people vying for one body! The truth is that, as St Paul put it, ‘It’s no longer I who live but Christ’ Gal 2v20 and ‘Christ our life’ Col 3 v 4.

That gives us something to chew on, to digest, to come to terms with. And if you’re anything like me, struggle to believe when the evidence is…rather thin at times!

Time for pudding.

Pud: Part III, Name changing

There’s always room for pudding…first, a short break.

There’s always room for pudding…

Reluctant Leaders and Wounded Healers - Part I

God, Almighty God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, runs an odd recruitment agency:

‘So, Moses, tell me, can you speak Egyptian?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘But?’
‘No confidence…I stammer…’
‘Experience of leadership?’
‘None. I just lead sheep around the desert. I rarely speak to anyone. Like to keep myself to myself, you know…’
‘Leading sheep around the desert? I’m returning you to Egypt to lead My people through the desert to the Promised Land?’
‘Pardon?’ Moses pauses and God remains silent. ‘I can’t go back. I murdered someone…’

I heard the phrase ‘Reluctant Leader’ the other day whilst listening to a Rob Bell podcast and walking around the Downs. It made me think. ‘Wounded Healer’ is a phrase I came across some years ago in N T Wright’s excellent book The Challenge of Jesus. So, I suppose this post is an exploration to see what sort of leaders could emerge in the future in the world of politics, sports, science, education, economics, and, in particular, the church.

At the time of writing this post, I have been watching The Elon Musk Show on BBC iPlayer. What a remarkable, pioneering leader, a visionary in whom the future was conceived years before he became well known. And yet the Reluctant Leaders and the Wounded Healers considered here, are of a completely different order. They are poor in spirit, running low on vision, blind even, and failures, but it is their lack and their suffering that, strangely, turns out to be their route to leadership.

I hope I can convey some of this…

Reluctant Leaders

Rob Bell was arguing that the best leaders are often ‘Reluctant Leaders’: Moses, Gideon, Samuel, and Jonah all argued their case before God and did their level best to avoid leadership. Moses complained that he couldn’t command the attention of a crowd, Gideon was full of fear, Jonah…

You may or may not interpret the thoughts you may have been having about leadership as ‘God tapping on your shoulder’, but you can’t seem to silence the voice inside, and you know a decision is pending. I’m referring to ANY role that requires leadership…it could be a sports team, a building site, responsibility in a science laboratory, a composer, a librarian…a mother, a father.

It’s unlikely to be a role of biblical proportions, but, whatever it is, it feels daunting to you!!

On the other hand, it could be that God is calling you as an apostle at this time for God’s people.

Moses had no vision for the deliverance of the Jews. St Paul, as Saul of Tarsus, had no idea that he had been called as an apostle before the foundation of the world in Christ until God distracted him on the road to Damascus. God, it seems, has His way of getting our attention.

The New Testament is so counter-cultural, marinaded as we are in our meritocracy

But whatever it is, bidding farewell to the relative safety of where we are, and taking a leap of faith, will be required. Moses had carved out a reasonable existence since murdering the Egyptian. He had escaped into the desert, maintaining a safe distance between himself and Pharoah. And he knew his way around the desert.

But God had pinned him down. First by distracting him with the curious sight of a non-burning burning bush and then out-arguing him.

Wounded healers

And I quote from NT Wright’s The Challenge of Jesus:

‘’…read Paul again; read John again; and discover that we are cracked vessels full of glory, wounded healers…we are discovering the true meaning of what the Eastern Orthodox Church refers to as ‘divinization’…true divinity is revealed not in self-aggrandizement…but in self-giving love…’

And this is the trick. Floored as we are at times by our failures, weakness, brokenness, inabilities, restrictions, fears and limitations, and scars from life, we are completely floored…by grace.

I remember my astonishment, at 16 or 17, discovering that the word ‘gospel’ simply means ‘good news’ and not the first four books in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And I argued strongly: ‘the gospel can’t be true – it’s too good to be true’. The concept of a free gift of eternal life, a free gift of righteousness, and the gift of the Spirit was brand new to me. It shocked me and refined ‘religion’ or what I had understood Christianity to be.

But Jesus said, ‘Freely you have received, freely give’.

The New Testament is so counter-cultural, marinaded as we are in our meritocracy.

That’s grace. A gift to be received, not a reward for good work, or being good.

Whatever has been done or suffered in the past; however damaged and cracked the wounded healers may be, and however undeserving they are, they know they have been filled with glory, things from above, which enable them to bring to bear the kingdom of God in any sphere of life, whether secular or spiritual; there are no boundaries.

Either way, irreversible change is inevitable.

The Future?

Such leaders of the future are already here: reluctant, cracked vessels, full of glory.

Meanwhile, some may be engaged in an argument with God, like Moses, or at least with themselves. If that’s you, I pray you’ll lose and quickly!

In Part II of Reluctant Leaders and Wounded Healers we’ll look at the inclusive nature of the death of Christ on the cross and what N T Wright referred to as the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of ‘Divinisation’ and how present-day ‘identifiers’, a hot potato and a chief debating point at the moment, are redefined in the gospel, and redefined in future leaders.

Running Blog - November 11th 2022

Paris ‘24

It’s an odd time to be reporting on one’s own preparations for the Paris Olympics when a certain other sporting event has stolen all the headlines pitching us into a fraught battle of wits between sport, politics, ethics, and entertainment.

I refer, of course to FIFA’s decision to stage the World Cup in Qatar, a nation rather at odds with its guests’ national political climates with respect to human rights in various forms.

I will be watching. If FIFA’s decision-making policies need to be reformed, so be it. In the meantime, let the footballers dance, dribble, and delight us all. Let them have their day under the Qatari sun, win or lose.

When I consulted Strava after the event, it appeared that the Earth had been rotating slower than usual under my feet

And meanwhile, those of us not blessed with the requisite almost telepathic skills required to hypnotise us with the fast-moving beautiful game, will don our running shoes and hit the pavements and footpaths. We have gold medals at the forefront of our minds, not golden boots - even if those gold medals are the ones occasionally awarded via Strava rather than the IOC!

My most recent run, this morning, a 10K more or less following the Bristol 10K route went really well. I was comfortable. Indeed, I have to report a certain unusual feeling: I felt stronger at the end than at the beginning and ran faster towards the end than at the start.

Explanation? When I consulted Strava after the event, it appeared that the Earth had been rotating slower than usual under my feet on the outward half, so, my average pace was, in fact, slower over 10K (60mins) than on my previous attempt on the 1st of the month (58mins). Explanation? I can only blame Gordan Fee who was blasting his way through a lecture on 1 Corinthians in my ear…it was so engaging that I must have slackened my pace? No, I can’t blame Gordan Fee. If he slowed me in the first half, he was also to blame for the rather slicker response during the second half.

No, I shall not over-analyse. Just rest up. And perhaps push a little harder next time.

My intermediate aim is 10K in 55’. By March ’23.

Weather conditions were close to perfect. Cool, 12C (I’m best at 10C or a bit colder really), and the breeze was with and against in equal measure. Beautiful pre-dawn mauve glow in the clouds over the city centre.

Lastly…come on Ingerland. Can you? Can you? Can you avoid Brazil, France, and Argentina, to name but a few long enough and somehow progress further and deeper? I shall seek to meditate on that from my post-run ice-bath sofa

Rearrange

Cats chasing lizards on the sandstone
Politicians after your vote on the megaphone
Heat-seeking girls burnt to the bone
Lying in the sun ‘til the day is done
Our time wasted again on our mobile telephone

It’s what we humans do, nothing can change
We cannot stop, we rearrange
A picture here, a dinner date there
A cherry in my lemonade, lemon in my marinade
But of ourselves we are unaware

 And all the while there is the One
Ignored, unknown, the loving Son
Hands outstretched upon a cross
Bearing our pain, His searing loss
It’s time to kneel and weep some tears

 Hold His hands, let Him rearrange
Our remaining years

Running Blog - October 25th 2022

The ‘Road to Recovery’ and the ‘Road to Paris ’24’ once again stretch ahead into the distance.

The problem is that despite a return to pain-free running (Hoorah!) and visions of L’Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, berets, and cheese and wine, and the melodic wistful sound of accordions over the horizon, there are a mere 62 weeks remaining before the medals are awarded.

My time from this morning’s run, adjusted for 10,000m, is 56.64’ and the qualifying time for Paris ‘24 is 27.28’.

You can appreciate the task lying ahead.

I should say, to retain neutrality in all things, that the qualifying time for women is 31.25. An easier target but the surgery required…

I should say, to retain neutrality in all things, that the qualifying time for women is 31.25. An easier target but the surgery required…

Some maths:

• The gap between 56.64’ and 27.28’ is 29.36’

• Steady improvement over the remaining 62 weeks = a 28 second reduction each week over each week

• My personal best for 10K is 47’ and some seconds…let’s say 48 minutes…achieved maybe 15 years ago when I was a mere youth with salt and pepper hair. Now it’s all salt.

Twenty-eight seconds a week?

Place your bets.

If any of you are as old as I am you may remember David Bedford breaking the 10K world record one summer’s evening in 1973 with a time of 27.30. It’s strange to think he wouldn’t even qualify for Paris ’24.

Nevertheless, David Bedford shall be my inspiration, andI shall wear red socks to honour the great man. The moustache, however, is beyond me, like many things.

The Truth Doctor

It is the uniform that beguiles
A golfer wearing a bowler
A Constable in rugby boots
A violinist breathing through a snorkel
Disturbing the equilibrium

And yet anticipation crackles
Time’s come to disturb
To wreck the rut
And escape across the tracks to
The wrong side

To visit the Truth Doctor
The one unfooled by illusions
Who sees past solidity,
Past interlocking crystals,
Into the space within

We arrive, our five senses
Taking us for a ride to
A world where particles will not
Be confined in solitary places
And Dali clocks drool over the edges…

The Truth Doctor has a friend
The Ghost in the Machine.
Facing one another
They play catch, then wrestle
Ultimate realities, at ease, fighting

In a mist, in the chill of dawn.
We stand by, like umpires
Allowed to judge the Judge
The Ghost is felled and, weeping,
We count …7,8,9, Out!

But the Truth Doctor, laughing and
Folded in pain, erupts and roars,
His words filling the Earth
“Three, Two, One...
We watch as Death loses its sting

McClaren, Rohr, and Bell - a Trinity for our Times?

Brian McClaren, Richard Rohr, and Rob Bell – a trinity for our times?

In terms of personal appeal, sorry Brian, but I struggle more with finding your centre of gravity than with your friends Rohr and Bell. In recent months I have read, and enjoyed, Falling Upwards by Richard Rohr and I have listened to a stack of Rob Bell podcasts called appropriately The Robcast.

Early most mornings I’ve been out walking for a good hour or so and Rob Bell’s energetic verbal delivery has been in my ear.

To some questions:

John, why are you listening to Rob Bell and reading Rohr if you think they are mildly heretical?

We read in Luke’s gospel that Jesus matured through his childhood and early adult years ‘And the child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon Him’ Luke 2 v 40. After Jesus’ baptism and the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, he taught and discipled the twelve apostles and many others.

The descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove was decisive. We read then that the Spirit ‘led Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil and afterwards He ‘returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee and the news of Him went out through all the surrounding region’.

I listen to Bell and Rohr, (not so much McClaren, maybe he’s like a rare cheese I haven’t developed taste buds for yet?) because they seem to have a handle on what it means to ‘become strong in spirit’ and ‘to be filled with wisdom and grace’ – in other words that have much to say about the human condition and the processes involved in progressing towards spiritual maturity, what it looks like, what might hold it up, the signs of progress and so on. And at different stages of life.

I haven’t found such a clarity and grip on spiritual maturity being taught in the Evangelical/Pentecostal/Charismatic churches and literature I have stumbled across.

The problem I have, though, with this McClaren, Rohr and Bell trinity, is that Jesus’ discipleship and training programme was far more radical than a series of seminars on how to mature spiritually; it certainly wasn’t a ‘7 parables to perfection’ ministry. He wasn’t training the disciples (and therefore by extension us) to simply grow in grace and wisdom, like He had before the encounter with the Holy Spirit. The goal of the gospel, its endpoint, in fact, was to produce a new type of man, indivisible from Him – and that required going to the cross.

As Paul put it ‘For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God’ Rom 8v14.

But if you want to explore spiritual maturity, what it is to be truly human, perhaps like the ‘pre-dove Jesus’, Rohr and Bell will feed you well, and give you further insight and instruction.

The goal of the gospel, its endpoint, in fact, was to produce a new type of man, indivisible from Him – and that required going to the cross

All well and good, John, but you’ve ignored the charge of heresy, haven’t you?

Yes. But that doesn’t mean that the Evangelical/Pentecostal world isn’t lacking in some of the things they are saying. That may explain their popularity. Sheep will graze where the grass is good. But I agree, if, in the final analysis, we are eating from the wrong table we should be at least ‘on guard’.

Here are three questions I would ask Rohr and Bell and Maclaren.

Q1. Why do you speak of ‘the divine’ rather than God? Is God, in your understanding, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Is God the trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

Q2. You often refer to ‘spirit’ rather than the Holy Spirit. Why?

Q3. You refer to the scriptures, the Old and New Testaments as ‘ancient tradition’ rather than the word of God, inspired, inerrant, and infallible. The accounts in Genesis as referred to as poems for example. What is your belief about the Old and New Testaments?

You can see the danger.

Sounds a little like, in your view, John, there’s an Elephant in the Evangelical and Pentecostal/Charismatic room?

Dead right. Evangelicals and Charismatics (who may be found in all the traditional, historic denominations or more modern churches) routinely skirt round Romans 6 and 7 and other passages that deal with the cross, as applied to us, our crucifixion with Christ.

Leaving Romans 6 and 7 untaught, unbelieved, and unentered into, is as much a heresy as anything Rohr and Bell are accused of. The Romans 1-5 substitutionary gospel is an incomplete gospel. It’s not wrong. But it is incomplete.

In Romans 1-5 Paul constructs his arguments that show that Christ Jesus died for me, in my place. All my iniquities were placed on Him. The Just for the unjust. It is all wonderfully true: salvation, justification, acquittal, the gift of righteousness, eternal life, grace…it’s all wonderfully true. To truly understand that we are under grace not law will transform your life as it sinks in. That’s all found in Romans 1-5. And you’ll find ‘under grace’ preached faithfully in any number of evangelical churches of all denominations. Pentecostals and Charismatics point out, correctly, that as much as we need to know Jesus as Saviour and Lord, we also need to know Him as the One who baptises us in the Holy Spirit and be baptised in the Spirit. Such is the substitutionary gospel.

The clear teaching, however, of Romans 6 and 7 (and other passages – notably Galatians 2 v20 and Colossians 3 v 3) is that Christ’s death was also inclusive – it included you and me: ‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who love me and gave Himself for me’ Gal 2v20.

Faith - spelt differently

It is not just that our ‘sins’ needed to be placed on Jesus, dealt with, and taken away, so we can be forgiven, but that the ‘sinner’ needed to die, so we can be delivered from Adam and re-potted in Christ. He brought about our end. It was the end of John Stevens. That old, seemingly self-empowered John Stevens, who may have tried to be good at times, attempting to live the Christian life, or at least a good life with some measure of success and failure, to live a life fuelled by his own resources, a life independent of God, an autonomous being, a ‘human’…‘being’. That attempt works to some extent until you hear the gospel, the ‘good news’ that Jesus has appeared, not to improve us at a distance, but to end our exile from God, and our self-driven lives. The trouble is that so many are taught that Jesus took our sins but not us in Him on the cross. The result of this is that now we feel that we should be able to live the Christian life, especially if we have the power of the Spirit to give us the power and strength. Really, we have no excuse! Surely! But this misses the point. But the gospel is far more radical than this.

Left like this we think that sanctification is a process whereby we become progressively more like Jesus. But this is polishing a turd theology. This isn’t much better than self-help, as if it is ‘us’ that needs to improve rather than crucified and buried. The gospel becomes an inversion of its true message, and the centre of its universe becomes ‘me’ and one that could get caught in the Romans 7 trap.

But this is polishing a turd theology

By the time we reach Romans chapter 5, Paul presents us as ‘in Adam’ and the clues and the signposts to a completely new ‘in-Christ life’ are scattered around pointing to chapter 6. For example ‘…if by one man’s trespass death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ’ Rom 5v17

Our problem, then, is that we are rooted in Adam, and therefore the ‘me-in-Adam’ person, cut off from God, is deceived into trying to live a human life on our own inner resources. The ‘evangelical’ gospel attempts to solve this need for transfer from Adam to Christ by using the phrase ‘dying to sin’ (from Rom 6v2). ‘Sin’ in this context is the nature within us inherited from Adam, our tendency to sin. The problem with leaving the argument there is that it suggests that ‘we’ can, by our own decision, by the exercise of our own will, die to sin and live a righteous life. But this is not the solution that chapter 6 teaches.

‘Do you not know that as many of us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death…buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we could walk in newness of life…knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him…’ Rom 6 v 3-6

By this point in Paul’s argument, we see that it is not only our sins that were laid on Christ on the cross but we ourselves. Not just the sins but the sinner.

The phrase ‘die to sin’ is not something we do but something that, historically, has taken place in Christ. God has effected the transfer:

‘Of Him are you in Christ Jesus who has become for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’ 1 Cor 1 v 30

This was always the goal of the gospel, its endpoint, in fact: to produce a new type of man, indivisible from Him – and that required Jesus taking us to the cross, sins included, being buried and rising again in a new form, in Christ.

Now we can be led by the Spirit into the spiritual maturity that Bell and Rohr describe so well. We become Holy Spirit-led sons, ‘mini-Christs’ as C.S. Lewis was wont to say and the true meaning of the term ‘Christians’, the nickname given to the early believers.

Next: Barking up the wrong tree

Helicopter Seeds

My sycamore clock
Is shedding spent leaves and seeds
In time for winter

Folding In

‘Folding in’ apparently is
‘Combining a dry ingredient
With one of more weight,
And wet,
Whilst retaining much air’

If your parable antennae
Are restless and twitching
You’ve tuned in
To our story -
Mine and maybe yours

Like flour in a recipe
I have been taken, by Love,
Dry, and dead with potential
And folded into a Christ
So ready to baptise me…

…in His story
And, like an author
I find myself in print
An autobiography
Another incarnation

Breathing deeply.

The Stones Will Cry Out

Jesus is famous for his numerous parables: ‘the kingdom of heaven is like…’

We are so accustomed to the imagery and symbolism used in the bible that we hardly notice it. And not just in the bible. All good storytelling and literature use images and symbols, parables, and metaphors to paint scenes that are somehow more appealing, are more memorable, and make more sense than a straightforward explanation.

Someone, for example, is a ‘wet blanket’ or there’s an ‘elephant in the room’ or, life is described as ‘an emotional rollercoaster’. Shakespeare employed numerous metaphors: ‘His face is all carbuncles…and his fire is out’ Henry V.

The disciples brought the donkey to Jesus, threw their cloaks on the colt and put Jesus on it. As he went along, people spread their cloaks on the road. When he came down the road from the Mount of Olives, the crowd joyfully praised God in loud voices for all the miracles they had seen:

‘Hosannah in the Highest. The King of Israel! Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord!’ But the Pharisees said to Jesus, ‘Teacher, rebuke your disciples!’ ‘I tell you’, he replied, ‘if they keep quiet, even the stones will cry out.’ Mt 21 and Luke 19.

An absurd picture. The one thing that inanimate objects, especially hard stones, cannot do is cry out. Was this simply poetic exasperation directed at his chief critics, the Pharisees, always there to pour cold water on the joy of the people and his mission?

Before we explore this further, I have three questions, primarily for those of us who live in England:

Q1. Would you say you are a Christian?

Q2. Do you know how to become a Christian?

Q3. Have you ever thought you’d like to be a Christian? If so, would you like to?

In England and the rest of the UK, our history, culture, traditions, holidays, and the laws that govern us are still largely bible based. And yet I can guarantee that Question One would flummox many or elicit a negative answer. In England, despite Christianity pervading our national life, there is widespread ignorance of true Christianity.

Jesus remains box office, but few know the answer to Q2 and therefore Q3 becomes nonsensical.

I know. I was brought up to go to church. I held the reed palm crosses made for Palm Sunday in the local CofE church services as a child. I sang the hymns. I knelt. I tried to pray. I listened to scripture being read at school and in church. I liked Jesus. Admired him, his courage, his inclusion of the outcasts, his denunciation of hypocrisy, his willingness to die, his unstuffy ‘out on the road’ discipleship with the rough fishermen. The miracles. The parables. The way he answered the scribes and the Pharisees. I was familiar with the parables and some other bible stories. Nevertheless, it wasn’t until I abandoned church in my teens and ran into someone who could explain the answer to Q2 that I had even the chance of answering Q3.

At this point, if you’re still reading, you might be thinking what’s this got to do with ‘the rocks/stones will cry out’? The answer is everything.

The stones will cry out is most definitely a poetic image, but it is also prophetic. To be more precise it is a prophecy that can be seen throughout the scriptures. It made sense to Jesus to utter those words.

We should begin with the Old Testament, with Moses in the desert on the way to the Promised Land with the Israelites. Their water had run out and the people were complaining to Moses.

‘The Lord spoke to Moses. ‘Take the rod…speak to the rock…and it will yield its water…Moses lifted his hand and struck the rock twice with his rod and water came out of the rock abundantly’ Numbers 20

When St Paul commented on the journey of the Israelites in 1 Corinthians 10 he wrote:

‘All were baptised into Moses…all drank the same spiritual drink, for they drank of that spiritual rock that followed them, and that rock was Christ’

Without lingering to interpret the spiritual and physical dimensions at play, the picture of life-giving water coming from an inanimate rock is beyond our everyday experience. It, like the whole of the Old Testament, was pointing forward to the New Covenant inaugurated by Jesus.

Moving on from the Law to the Prophets we read in Jeremiah 31 and in Ezekiel :

‘The days are coming…when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah…I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts…no more shall every man teach his neighbour saying ‘Know the Lord’, for they shall all know me from the least to the greatest of them’ Jeremiah 31 v 31f

‘I will give you a new heart and a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes’ Ez 36v26,27

At the Last Supper, after supper, Jesus took the cup and said ‘This cup is the New Covenant in My blood, shed for you’ Luke 22 v 19

The picture of the stones crying out is beginning to become clear. The literal rock in the desert, the stone, pours out water; ‘Crying out’ a metaphor for shouting, the pouring out of speech and singing likened to the pouring out of water or a thunderous waterfall. Then the great Prophets of the Old Testament looking ahead to the New Covenant explain that what was external in the Old will become wonderfully internal in the New.

Despite the Law, despite the miracles in the Old Testament, and the sacrifices, the temple worship and so on, the problem of sin, of our hard hearts inherited from Adam, had not been overcome. But in the New Covenant the picture is of a heat transplant.

The promises in the New Covenant are internal. Our old stony hearts are removed and we receive a new ‘fleshy’ heart and a new spirit. And His Spirit. God Himself taking up residence, permanently, in us. This is the Christianity that is, tragically, unknown by so many. So many who think they have rejected Christianity, but find they have not even known what it is they have apparently rejected.

Imagine a knock on your front door. You open the door to find Jesus standing there. Along with the Father and the Holy Spirit. You invite them in. They explain they love you. You say ‘really, but…’ and list all your shortcomings. And they talk to you about the New Covenant and how they will be in you not just with you.

Jesus remains box office

Jesus said ‘He who believes in Me, as the scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water’ John 7 v 37. That is real Christianity. ‘…the Spirit…who dwells with you, will be in you’ John 14 v 17. And so is this.

When Jesus replied to the Pharisees it was more than a poetic repost. It was ‘look around at these people, it’s happening, the stones are crying out. Listen to what they are saying. Listen to their praise at what God has done in their lives. The stones are crying out.’

Not only that but you can bet that Peter was probably standing close to Jesus with a smile on his rough Galilean face. Jesus, as we know, had said to Peter ‘Simon, son of Jonah, you shall be called Cephas, Peter’ John 1v 42, Cephas being Aramaic and Peter or Petros being Greek for ‘Stone’. On another occasion Jesus repeats this name changing:

‘Blessed are you Simon bar Jonah…and I also say to you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build My church…’ Mt 16 v 17,18

In other words, true Christianity is all about stones, the rocks; individuals like those in the multitude crying out as Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey over the palm branches strewn on the road. They have become like the rock in the desert pouring out life-giving water. He was saying ‘If I stop these from crying out there will be far more – even some of you Pharisees – when you let God take from you your hearts of stone and replace it with a new heart and spirit and My Spirit – you, too will be shouting your praises rather than seeking to arrest and kill me’.

To bring this to a halt we should revisit the three questions:

Q1. Would you say you are a Christian?

Q2. Do you know how to become a Christian?

Q3. Have you ever wanted to be a Christian? Would you like to?

And it’s not even breakfast!

5.25

Turning his head hesitantly
Green glowing digits declare the time.
Malfunctioning lumbar vertebrae
However, cause him to wince with pain, so
Inch by small inch, this great man:
This father, this mechanic, this dentist, this musician
This writer, this soldier, this boxer
Presses his clenched left fist hard down
On the mattress, and, gripping the headboard
Shuffles his bum…
Life, reduced to an hour’s toil

It’s 6.19
Standing now, unable to dress
Surfing waves of pain
A spiritual man, his small prayers leaking
Takes baby steps.
Afraid to lean
He wonders where the rod and the staff are
When you need them most.
This great man
Now weak, decreased, vulnerable
Like the man on Jericho Road
In need of mercy

It’s nearly 7
Sunrise light finds birds flitting about
Fetching twigs and food
But he’s not hungry for anything vast:
His plans; now hidden from view.
Hungry only to put jeans on, a shirt,
Socks; a distant dream.
And yet, with ingenuity and time
On they go, toe by toe.
Life without warm feet
Is barely possible.
Walking pole in his hand and…

7.45
…a hundred tiny steps later
A kettle is filled, a switch thrown
And the noise of turbulence and boiling
Fills the air, strong tea is brewed.
Breakfast has begun.
This great man, toast in hand
Leaning on his elbows
Turns his head lazily and
Through the window
Sees another world;
One he used to know.

Running Blog - October 4th

 Paris ‘24 - and 100 weeks to go…

September has retired, it’s work done. It has tidied up summer and taken autumn to the ball. And Autumn has arrived bedecked in a full array of colours: red and yellow leaves on trees and bushes fluttering to the ground, slower than the falling Ferrari seeds in a hurry to die. And fallen leaves: a joy simply to walk through or to scuff, kick, pick up and throw, or roll around in whether you are an Alsatian or a child in adult skin.

 I digress, intoxicated as ever by October.

 This is ‘comeback month’. Walking and indoor fitness regimes consigned to the past, I press on.

…intoxicated as ever by October

 Pressing on consists of hiding away in Dorset, donning my trainers, and setting off through the gentle fields, dells, and…endless rolling hills. In reality, first one has to risk life and limb crossing the main road that feeds heavy lorries and fast cars around the tight bends of the village. The road, originally designed for one careful horse could curtail my preparation for Paris ’24 permanently. Step two is bliss, running along an unmade road and footpath stretching gently uphill beside a gently flowing stream. On this first run, just for one minute followed by one minute walking.

 Easy does it. Achilles recovery in mind. At this rate, I’ll reach my peak just before Paris ’24 and will be lethal over 20m.

 Run completed and road crossed without incident, I am filling up nicely with bubbles of joy. Walking has been enjoyable in September watching as summer was displaced by autumn, but to return to running feels pretty good - even if the sheep over the fence carried on munching hugely unimpressed and pheasants thought twice about being fearful of the human missile.

 10K Paris ’24 Countdown: 100 weeks and counting.

The Brimming Wasteland

It’s early October, past dawn
And, without us looking,
Someone has cleansed the air.
Fallen leaves, scurry around after her,
Dancing to the unknown
Melody of the morning rays

The trees are showing off:
They fool us as we take in
The chill of winter to come.
Single yellow, brown, green, and red
Leaves fall and, though we don’t loiter
Long enough to see, all turn into soil.

Why is it after all these years
Conkers lying open to the sun, stir me?
Hundreds scattered liberally on the Downs
Unlike then, only a few trees then,
In Kent, when conker collection
Was an annual, serious pursuit

Then, glossy coats, their glory,
Fading to matt, yielded to skewers
And triple-knotted string.
“There’s five in my pocket today
One is a fourteen-er,
Battle-scared and doomed”

The trees watch and are content
Boys mostly, some girls,
Blind to the brimming wasteland,
Laden with odd green spiky capsules,
Thrown annually from a height, with hope:
The discarded life of each tree.

Distracted, fooled, and blind
They walk by these ancient life-spreaders
Who wait, God-like, patient yet hungry,
Like surfers searching for the wave,
For just one conker to die, out of sight,
And turn, not to soil, but leaf.

Then another…

Not Recognising Jesus

The Bible is a surprising book, it will not behave. Apart from presenting a non-Cartesian world where familiar references such as linear time and cause and effect are bypassed, its main character, Jesus, is often not recognised.

 In the Old Testament, there are strange appearances of ‘one like a son of God’ as in the case of a fourth man appearing in the fiery furnace Nebuchadnezzar had thrown Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego. Such appearances are taken to be the pre-existent Jesus, the Son of God.

 But the references in the New Testament, where individuals failed to recognise Jesus, are as curious as they are inescapable. And maybe can speak to us in our struggles to keep hold of genuine Christianity, or grapple with questions often from childhood about…pretty much everything in the Bible.

 Pole position

 Pole position must go to Jesus’ home ‘church’ or synagogue, followed shortly by Jesus’ own family, his brothers and sisters:

 Luke 4: He went to Nazareth, where he had been brought up, and on the Sabbath day he went into the synagogue, as was his custom. He stood up to read and the scroll of the prophet Isaiah was handed to him:

“The Spirit of the Lord is on me because he has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners, and recovery of sight for the blind, to set the oppressed free, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.”

Then he rolled up the scroll, gave it back to the attendant, and sat down. The eyes of everyone in the synagogue were fastened on him. He began by saying to them, “Today this scripture is fulfilled in your hearing.” All the people in the synagogue were furious when they heard this. They got up, drove him out of the town, and took him to the brow of the hill on which the town was built, to throw him off the cliff. But he walked right through the crowd and went on his way.

Extraordinary scenes. Opposition to Jesus comes from places you least expect it.

Mark 3

Jesus told his disciples to have a small boat ready for him, to keep the people from crowding him. For he had healed many, so that those with diseases were pushing forward to touch him. Then Jesus entered a house, and again a crowd gathered, so that he and his disciples were not even able to eat. When his family heard about this, they went to take charge of him, for they said, “He is out of his mind.” Then Jesus’ mother and brothers arrived. Standing outside, they sent someone in to call him.  A crowd was sitting around him, and they told him, “Your mother and brothers are outside looking for you.” “Who are my mother and my brothers?” he asked. Then he looked at those seated in a circle around him and said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.”

It wouldn’t be a bad decision to stop and immerse ourselves in the drama of those moments. The tears, the anxiety, the conversations behind Jesus’ back, and the decision to try and ‘take charge of him’, are tantamount to sectioning in our society. Blind to all the people sat around him, healed and in their right minds listening to his teaching.

He will open the eyes of the blind

The Road to Emmaus

Much excellent work has been written about the two disconsolate disciples walking away from Jerusalem on the day of the resurrection. I’m thinking especially of N T Wright’s chapter ‘Walking to Emmaus in a Postmodern World’, The Challenge of Jesus SPCK. To quote one sentence ‘Into this conversation comes Jesus, incognito.’

The actual text reads:

Now that same day two of them were going to a village called Emmaus, about seven miles from Jerusalem. They were talking with each other about everything that had happened. As they talked and discussed these things with each other, Jesus himself came up and walked along with them; but they were kept from recognizing him. He asked them, “What are you discussing together as you walk along?”  They stood still, their faces downcast. One of them, named Cleopas, asked him, “Are you the only one visiting Jerusalem who does not know the things that have happened there in these days?” “What things?” he asked. “About Jesus of Nazareth,” they replied. “He was a prophet, powerful in word and deed before God and all the people…we had hoped that he was the one who was going to redeem Israel. He said to them, “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself. As they approached the village to which they were going, Jesus continued on as if he were going farther. 

Stay with us

But they urged him strongly, “Stay with us, for it is nearly evening; the day is almost over.” So he went in to stay with them. When he was at the table with them, he took bread, gave thanks, broke it and began to give it to them.  Then their eyes were opened and they recognized him, and he disappeared from their sight. 

Mark adds this: ‘Jesus appeared in a different form to two of them while they were walking in the country.’

I have no answer to the question ‘Why?’. In other words, why would Jesus appear in a different form, incognito to the two men? The bible will not behave. Later that evening Jesus appears to the disbelieving disciples, with the holes in his wrists and feet in his resurrected body, clearly recognisable to the disciples. He eats fish to prove he is as real as he ever was, and not a ghost. But here, on the same day, he appears in a different form.

I wonder then. Has he appeared to you, to me? Incognito. Do we, sometimes, meet someone, who is Jesus in disguise?

Peter

Read one way, this is harrowing. The event itself is like a many-faceted pebble, or jewel, but pebble seems more appropriate as we’re on the shore of Lake Galilee.

Maybe a week after the resurrection and after the disciples had seen the resurrected Jesus perhaps a few times. I wouldn’t like to conjecture that they had become blasé about the resurrection, but we are strange creatures.

Most of the disciples were with Peter in a boat, fishing. Jesus is on the shore cooking some fish for breakfast. Let’s assume it is quite early, just before sunrise will do. From the boat the disciples were watching this man preparing a fire, they can see the flames, and maybe smell the aroma of the burning wood and the fish. When they recognise who it is Peter reacts:

‘Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he jumped into the water. The other disciples followed in the boat, towing the net full of fish, for they were not far from shore, about a hundred yards. When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread. Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” So, Simon Peter climbed back into the boat and dragged the net ashore. None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord.  When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.” Again Jesus said, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” He answered, “Yes, Lord, you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Take care of my sheep.” The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep. 

Again, in a different form. The evidence was there. And the way He dealt with Peter, gently, insistently, three times asking to counter the effect of the three times Peter had denied him and wept before the cock crowed.

And He does this with all of us. Asking us ‘Do you love Me?’ for each time we have denied Him. To show us His limitless love lavished on us who deserve nothing yet are on the receiving end of everything. As the bible says He wipes away all our tears.

Two Summaries

John, the disciple Jesus loved, sat down in his older years and composed what we know as ‘The Gospel According to John’. With the advantage of hindsight, he picks up his quill and ink and writes:

The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world. He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognize him. He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.

I don’t know how hard it must have been for John to pen those words. His love was insufficient to hold him close to Jesus when he was arrested. He like all the others fled and escaped and hid, afraid behind locked doors, had disbelieved the women who had seen Jesus. He was one of those sheep scattered when the Shepherd was struck and he, like the others, had found it difficult to believe and to recognise Him in his resurrected form.

And yet. Now he writes that once he had recognised Him, he was restored, just like Peter, and could say he had been accepted as a child of God.

And, the Apostle who harassed and persecuted the church, the Pharisee Saul, later to be named Apostle Paul put it like this:

‘We declare God’s wisdom, a mystery that has been hidden and that God destined for our glory before time began. None of the rulers of this age understood it, for if they had, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory’

I can only imagine what must have been in Paul’s heart and mind as he wrote the word ‘they’ and ‘rulers of this age’ as he had been one of them entrusted to eradicate the followers of Jesus.

And yet. The first words the Pharisee Saul hears on the road to Damascus is the voice of Jesus who says simply: ‘Saul, Saul why are you persecuting Me?’

Saul could not see the Messiah, the Christ, in the church. The church was as unrecognisable as Jesus had been.

And as we are called forward through Passover to Pentecost to Tabernacles where the reality of God dwelling (tabernacling) in the church is intensified, get ready. Get ready for our true identity to be strangely obscured from the ‘church’ or our ‘family and friends’ who think of us as mad and come to take charge of us, despite our congregations full of healed individuals and many made whole. And ‘rulers of the age’ do with us what they did to Jesus. And yet. These will be the days of ‘glory in the church to all generations’ as Paul wrote in Ephesians. It isn’t for us to make Jesus known. He will open the eyes of the blind.

Running Blog - 23rd September

September is one of those kindly, transitional, months.

From summer to autumn, from scorching hot sun still, to a chill in the air and early morning dew, from green leaves to fewer leaves, from long to short days, from summer holidays to trudging back to school.

 Thursday 8th September: Queen Elizabeth II dies and King Charles III succeeds her with immediate effect. And on Monday 19th the nation stopped to watch the State Funeral.

It is now Thursday 22nd and the deep impression left by the State funeral hasn’t quite repaired itself. It’s not easy to blog away about running/walking, to be intentionally trivial at such a time. Not easy but the show must go on.

‘Oh, before I sign off; the stair-walking. I should explain. Snowdon before Paris’

 Preparation for Paris ’24 apace. Apace meaning at a slow, slow slug-like pace. At walking pace. At least 5K per day has been the September plan, and often 10K. Also arm lifting 5kg weights (surprisingly heavy), walking up and down the stairs for 20 minutes, soon to be 30’, stretching, and some home-made Pilates.

 September acting again as a transition from ‘crippled with Achilles pain’ through walking to October and a gentle ‘Return to The Jog’.

 Much of the above accompanied by podcasts: Rob Bell, More or Less, The Curious Case of Rutherford and Fry, Bryony Gordon’s MadWorld, and others rather than endless music.

 Oh, before I sign off; the stair-walking. I should explain. Snowdon before Paris.

 Snowdon is approximately equivalent to up and down my stairs four hundred times. Everest is…no I haven’t calculated that. But I’m hoping to reach base camp for Snowdon for a winter assault before Christmas. There will be rucksacks, stops for Mars Bars, tea from a flask, scenic photos, and a flag.

The 400

In Praise of the Middle

Draw a square on some paper
Draw another around it
Cut out the inner square
And jump through the hole
Into Middle-Earth

But do it when you’re young
Draw a circle
Double its size
And let the years slip by
Welcome to middle-age

 Got my ticket, flying to Egypt,
Jordan and Beirut
On the way to Qatar to feel
The heat of an oxymoron
The Middle-East

Fly past Stone and Bronze
Flash through the Dark
And land, tumbling, one day
Like a jester in the Middle Ages
Heading down the tube of time

And in your travels up and down time
Will you notice the Messiah
Stuck in the middle, a closed heart
To his left, and one to his right,
Open, en route to Paradise?