It is an uncomfortable feeling that comes around every so often and worsens with age. People are watching me take my spectacles off and squint when reading, writing or looking at photos. They think to themselves, even if they make no comments out loud,
"Should've gone to … a certain well-known firm of opticians".
The optician (or optometrist, as we must now call some of them at least) has duly given me a new prescription. It prompts me to look up a passage from 2 Corinthians (4:3-6 ESV):
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled only to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
I ponder afresh the two different types of blindness that Jesus and His followers identified: physical blindness and spiritual blindness.
Jesus saw His work as applying healing on both levels. He would sometimes perform miracles of giving sight to the blind. As He did so, He gave teaching about the need of the people for spiritual sight.
There is a widespread blindness to such things in our country now. We tend to believe only what we can see. Surely we should wake up to the fact that, even in the material realm, over 80% of our universe is said to be unseen (“Dark Matter” and “Dark Energy”).
I often think how spiritual blindness may be at work when people pass churches, some times daily for many years, and simply do not notice that they are there.
At times you might think this is understandable. Some churches simply do not look like churches. They may display no Christian symbol such as a cross. The building style may not make you think of ecclesiastical architecture, especially if the congregation is hiring a school or public building to meet in. If your idea of a church is a Gothic structure with a spire or a clock tower and pointed windows, by no means all churches look like that.
People should realise, of course, that church is not simply a building: it is the people that worship there. It is a pity if their publicly visible activities are permanently linked with the four walls of the building, as though they never related to anything outside.
It is always difficult to discern whether spiritual blindness is the fault of uninformed outside observers or of local Christians not having a high enough profile. In either case, the blindness in this country to the things of the spirit is profound and depressing.
If you talk about "spirituality" to people in the West, they may well think of Eastern meditation techniques or similar. These things may cultivate a more positive attitude to life, but they are certainly not the spirituality which glorifies God as the Lord Jesus intends. In less materially favoured countries the ordinary person is very much aware of the spiritual dimension. Their spirituality is vibrant and keen.
Jesus's plan in encouraging people to have their spiritual eyes open is that they should see God at work and glorify their heavenly Father. Most of all it is only through spiritual alertness that they can find and embrace true life which He offers – eternal life, life in which physical death is just a momentary blip.
May we go through life with our eyes open, seeing beyond the merely material to the place where life is eternal and abundant and where Jesus Christ is enthroned as King and Lord.
Friday, 12 August 2016
Saturday, 23 July 2016
By what authority?
“Who gave you the right to do that?”
It is very human to challenge someone that way, and it goes right back to the Bible. When Jesus had entered Jerusalem in triumph and overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple, the chief priests and elders asked,
“By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?” (Matthew 21:23 NIV).
People today are just as resentful about Jesus having any claim on them. “By what authority? Why should this Jesus have rights as King over my life?”
Jesus is not embarrassed by the question. It is the questioners who have the problem, not He. They are making three tragic and disastrous refusals:
First, the Jewish leaders demonstrate a refusal to believe. “By what authority?” they ask. The only authority they recognise is the qualifications they approve of themselves. It is a bit like our society today with its stress on paper qualifications.
Jesus saw authority in a different way. His mighty works of healing and compassion were evidence in themselves. They demonstrated God’s love and authenticated God’s power. Every one of them made a statement about Jesus’ authority and bracketed Him with God.
As far as we know, nobody in Jesus’ day ever denied that the miracles had happened. Rather than believe in Him, His critics fished around for an alternative explanation - the same as the deniers of miracles are doing to this very day.
The leaders refused to believe and, secondly, they refused to hold up a mirror to themselves. They wanted to ask awkward questions of Jesus. But how embarrassed they were when He turned and asked awkward questions of them!
The Scottish poet Robbie Burns, seeing a flea on a lady’s bonnet at church, wrote these memorable and relevant lines in the poem “To a Louse”:
“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!”
Finally, verses 28-31, the refusal to obey. I love the parable of the two sons. Dad asks each in turn to go and work in his vineyard. The first one barks rudely, “I don’t want to!” But afterwards he changes his mind and does it. The second one couldn’t be more of a daddy’s boy. “I’m your man!” (Literally, “Me, sir!”) But go he did not. For Jesus, truth shows in character. A truthful character does what it says on the tin.
Think about it, comments Jesus. You can be as awkward a cuss as you like, but if you go away and on reflection do the right thing, you get the credit. On the other hand, you can be ever such a little creep, but if you end up not doing the right thing you don’t get the credit. Good intentions don’t count. Obedience does.
“By what authority?” we challenge the Lord Jesus Christ, we who are merely strangers, pilgrims, tenants on this earth. But as we point the finger at Him, 3 fingers point back at us:
When the crowds heard John the Baptist, they asked, “What should we do?”
Years later, when the jailer at Philippi saw God at work in the apostle Paul and Silas, miraculously freed from their chains (Acts 16), he asked, “What must I do?”
Sadly the Jewish leaders were asking a different question: “How can we avoid losing face?”
The right response to Jesus Christ’s works is “What should I do?” And the Lord loves that question and replies,
“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
By what authority? By royal authority. Through the inspired pages of Matthew’s gospel, this first-century Man and His first-century miracles come to your 21st-century door. Will you give the right response?
It is very human to challenge someone that way, and it goes right back to the Bible. When Jesus had entered Jerusalem in triumph and overturned the tables of the moneychangers in the Temple, the chief priests and elders asked,
“By what authority are you doing these things? And who gave you this authority?” (Matthew 21:23 NIV).
People today are just as resentful about Jesus having any claim on them. “By what authority? Why should this Jesus have rights as King over my life?”
Jesus is not embarrassed by the question. It is the questioners who have the problem, not He. They are making three tragic and disastrous refusals:
- a refusal to believe (Matthew 21:23),
- a refusal to hold up a mirror to themselves (verses 24-27) and
- a refusal to obey (verses 28-31).
First, the Jewish leaders demonstrate a refusal to believe. “By what authority?” they ask. The only authority they recognise is the qualifications they approve of themselves. It is a bit like our society today with its stress on paper qualifications.
Jesus saw authority in a different way. His mighty works of healing and compassion were evidence in themselves. They demonstrated God’s love and authenticated God’s power. Every one of them made a statement about Jesus’ authority and bracketed Him with God.
As far as we know, nobody in Jesus’ day ever denied that the miracles had happened. Rather than believe in Him, His critics fished around for an alternative explanation - the same as the deniers of miracles are doing to this very day.
The leaders refused to believe and, secondly, they refused to hold up a mirror to themselves. They wanted to ask awkward questions of Jesus. But how embarrassed they were when He turned and asked awkward questions of them!
The Scottish poet Robbie Burns, seeing a flea on a lady’s bonnet at church, wrote these memorable and relevant lines in the poem “To a Louse”:
“O wad some Pow’r the giftie gie us
To see oursels as ithers see us!”
Finally, verses 28-31, the refusal to obey. I love the parable of the two sons. Dad asks each in turn to go and work in his vineyard. The first one barks rudely, “I don’t want to!” But afterwards he changes his mind and does it. The second one couldn’t be more of a daddy’s boy. “I’m your man!” (Literally, “Me, sir!”) But go he did not. For Jesus, truth shows in character. A truthful character does what it says on the tin.
Think about it, comments Jesus. You can be as awkward a cuss as you like, but if you go away and on reflection do the right thing, you get the credit. On the other hand, you can be ever such a little creep, but if you end up not doing the right thing you don’t get the credit. Good intentions don’t count. Obedience does.
“By what authority?” we challenge the Lord Jesus Christ, we who are merely strangers, pilgrims, tenants on this earth. But as we point the finger at Him, 3 fingers point back at us:
- Why did you not believe the evidence?
- Why did you not take a long, hard look at yourselves?
- Why were you not obedient?
When the crowds heard John the Baptist, they asked, “What should we do?”
Years later, when the jailer at Philippi saw God at work in the apostle Paul and Silas, miraculously freed from their chains (Acts 16), he asked, “What must I do?”
Sadly the Jewish leaders were asking a different question: “How can we avoid losing face?”
The right response to Jesus Christ’s works is “What should I do?” And the Lord loves that question and replies,
“Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved” (Acts 16:31).
By what authority? By royal authority. Through the inspired pages of Matthew’s gospel, this first-century Man and His first-century miracles come to your 21st-century door. Will you give the right response?
Sunday, 10 July 2016
Those Difficult Names
One of the hurdles I have found over the years in persuading people to do Bible readings in church is the unpronounceable names.
Whether these are long like Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz or short like Kios, many potential readers come to the name, spot that there is more than one way it could be rendered and immediately freeze. “I don’t mind reading for you,” they say, “but please make sure there are no difficult names in the passage.”
You can buy English pronouncing dictionaries. Some - dating from a day when the problem exercised many more minds than now - have a wide range of Bible names and advice on how to say them.
I tell people they worry too much, though. The simple truth is that the languages of Bible times were so outlandish to our ears that we can’t possibly pronounce the names authentically. Your guess is as good as mine!
OK, I can tell you with some confidence that the name “Salmon” was never pronounced like the English fish spelt the same way. The “l” is meant to be sounded. Also “Shealtiel” shouldn’t come out like “shield teal”. But surely there are worse crimes than getting those details wrong!
Why, you might ask in exasperation, did God cause His word to be written in a day and a culture so far removed from our own, so that we are left to struggle with names and places that are completely unfamiliar?
I can think of one excellent reason. One day when I was a student an African studying theology approached me and admitted, “I’m not a believer”. “Why?” I asked. “Christianity is western,” he complained. “It’s the culture of colonialists like the British. It has nothing to say to us Africans.”
I thought how false and unfortunate this was. You could equally claim that no culture is at home with the Bible outside a narrow strip of land on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The places and the names belong largely to that restricted area. Even then, 2000 years have passed and many of those features have changed beyond recognition. The concept that “God was man in Palestine”, as Sir John Betjeman put it, is not something that we Brits can wear like a glove.
Thank God every race and culture is in the same boat! Each one must wrestle with the unfamiliar to pledge allegiance to Christ. In particular we must abandon the culture of self-reliance to which we are all wedded. As we do so, our storm-tossed boat becomes the focus of a glorious divine rescue mission.
Day by day His tender mercy,
healing, helping, full and free,
sweet and strong, and ah! so patient,
brought me lower, while I whispered,
‘Less of self, and more of Thee!’
Theodore Monod, 1836-1921
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10 ESV)
Whether these are long like Maher-Shalal-Hash-Baz or short like Kios, many potential readers come to the name, spot that there is more than one way it could be rendered and immediately freeze. “I don’t mind reading for you,” they say, “but please make sure there are no difficult names in the passage.”
You can buy English pronouncing dictionaries. Some - dating from a day when the problem exercised many more minds than now - have a wide range of Bible names and advice on how to say them.
I tell people they worry too much, though. The simple truth is that the languages of Bible times were so outlandish to our ears that we can’t possibly pronounce the names authentically. Your guess is as good as mine!
OK, I can tell you with some confidence that the name “Salmon” was never pronounced like the English fish spelt the same way. The “l” is meant to be sounded. Also “Shealtiel” shouldn’t come out like “shield teal”. But surely there are worse crimes than getting those details wrong!
Why, you might ask in exasperation, did God cause His word to be written in a day and a culture so far removed from our own, so that we are left to struggle with names and places that are completely unfamiliar?
I can think of one excellent reason. One day when I was a student an African studying theology approached me and admitted, “I’m not a believer”. “Why?” I asked. “Christianity is western,” he complained. “It’s the culture of colonialists like the British. It has nothing to say to us Africans.”
I thought how false and unfortunate this was. You could equally claim that no culture is at home with the Bible outside a narrow strip of land on the east coast of the Mediterranean Sea. The places and the names belong largely to that restricted area. Even then, 2000 years have passed and many of those features have changed beyond recognition. The concept that “God was man in Palestine”, as Sir John Betjeman put it, is not something that we Brits can wear like a glove.
Thank God every race and culture is in the same boat! Each one must wrestle with the unfamiliar to pledge allegiance to Christ. In particular we must abandon the culture of self-reliance to which we are all wedded. As we do so, our storm-tossed boat becomes the focus of a glorious divine rescue mission.
Day by day His tender mercy,
healing, helping, full and free,
sweet and strong, and ah! so patient,
brought me lower, while I whispered,
‘Less of self, and more of Thee!’
Theodore Monod, 1836-1921
After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands, and crying out with a loud voice, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb!” (Revelation 7:9-10 ESV)
Friday, 24 June 2016
What God Counts Wise
Seeing the impressive number of floral tributes to the late Jo Cox MP laid at the foot of the Joseph Priestley memorial in Birstall sent me researching into who Priestley was.
He was born in 1733 in the Fieldhead district of Birstall. The Age of Enlightenment was in full swing and Priestley was a true son of that era. He travelled a great deal, sometimes impelled by persecution because of his freethinking views. His most famous discovery was probably that of oxygen, though there are rival claimants to that honour. But there was a string of other surprising discoveries, some of which we take for granted today. One was carbonated water - the original fizzy drink! Priestley demonstrated how it was possible and others, including a certain Mr Schweppe, developed and commercialised it.
Indeed we owe to Priestley much of our understanding of the air we breathe and the environment we live in. Priestley demonstrated photosynthesis, the chemical process by which plants derive sustenance from sunlight and water. But all this hardly scratches the surface of his scientific achievements.
Other than that, we should note his contribution to philosophy. He was politically on the Liberal wing. He did not see eye to eye with the Establishment and in religious terms (a matter still held to be of great importance in that day) he was a firm Dissenter, providing education in the Dissenting academies that were founded as an alternative to the universities.
Less happily for one like myself who believes firmly in the Trinity, he was a founding member of the Unitarian Church. Unitarians refuse to assert that Jesus Christ is one with God the Father and the Holy Spirit: the Three-One God.
Unitarianism appealed to the logical minds of the time. How could God be one God and yet three at the same time? It seemed irrational. You might well argue till the cows came home that water can occur in three different states (ice, water and steam) and yet be one and the same substance. There are indeed many such true to life models that can help us understand Trinity. Unitarians remained firmly unconvinced.
Yet Christianity is full of areas where a thing and its apparent opposite are both true at the same time. God is sovereign and in control of His universe, yet humans are responsible for their actions. How can this be, if they are just tools in the hands of a sovereign God? It would, though, be a wacky world if He did just push us around like pawns on a chessboard.
To my mind, the real breakthrough in human religious thought took place within a few years of Jesus’ death and resurrection. That hard-bitten persecutor of Christians, the apostle Paul, was driven to understand that he must call the risen Jesus Christ “Lord” - the same title that his Jewish religion gave to God Himself. Yes, it defied logic. Yes, it jarred with every fibre of his being as a Hebrew of Hebrews. Yes, it put him in immediate danger of death at the hands of the very nation he was proud to represent. But it was a conclusion his Damascus Road conversion forced him to accept. Neither logic nor his Jewish heritage came into it.
We owe much to Joseph Priestley and his courageous, innovative and fertile mind. We likewise owe much to Jo Cox, who was bold and positive in humanitarian causes and who voiced what she thought without fear or favour. In many ways she was a true spiritual daughter of Joseph Priestley. It is fitting that tributes to her were laid at the foot of his memorial.
We should also pause to thank God for the apostle Paul, the reluctant independent thinker. Under God, he gave us authentic Christianity - a faith not confined to the strait-jacket of mere human thought.
Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe. For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God. For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men (1 Corinthians 1:20-25 ESV).
Saturday, 11 June 2016
The Cost of Fear
As I checked my answering machine for messages some years ago, a great wailing sound issued from the telephone. It was the representative of a well-known fire security company, who had long been fleecing my church by lying that appliances needed to be replaced when they didn't. But I had finally grown wise to this and ended the contract with the company. By the howl of anguish I perceived that the wretched man was on commission. His firm trained him to see customers like our church as his bread and butter. Replacement appliances meant money for the firm – and money for him. Now the company was telling him bluntly that he'd better get my church back on side or else he could wave goodbye to a significant chunk of his income.
Of course I felt desperately sorry for the man and for those who might have depended on him for their welfare. But nonetheless I felt sick and angry that he had to make his living by lying on behalf of this company. They were making the client pay the price of fear – fear that if the client did not have the required appliances the property would burn down. If and when we claimed on the insurance in such an event, the insurance company would ask us pointed questions about why we had no adequate fire precautions in place. Insurance companies trade on our fear too. I have likewise discovered the same appetite for trading on fear in those security companies who provide alarm systems. The fear industry, I reasoned, must be worth quite a lot of money.
It sadly cheapens the great Referendum debate of our day that both sides are trading on the fear of the unknown – whether people vote to remain in the European Union or whether they vote to leave. They both produce experts who maintain that there could be catastrophic consequences to the “wrong” decision: a halt to economic progress, a descent into uncontrolled immigration. They do not point out that nobody can really predict with certainty what will occur in the future. They have simply cottoned onto the fact that there are votes in people’s fears.
Sadly, world faiths have traded on fear too. Primitive religions portrayed angry gods who had to be placated all the time to stop bad things happening like a loss of crops or other catastrophe. Even the Christian religion has been tainted with this attitude in the past. The one abuse above all that made Martin Luther so angry, that caused him to take the first steps towards the Protestant Reformation, was the sale of indulgences. People were persuaded to part with great fortunes in order to buy their way out of torment in purgatory. Many went to their graves never being completely sure whether they were right with God or not – the church had endless ways of leaving them in suspense.
The beauty of the gospel is that it is a free and effective remedy against these terrible, demeaning and crippling fears. The Lord Jesus died on the cross to bring us full forgiveness from our sins and an assurance that we are in the right with God and able to enter His presence without fear.
This is no light matter. The Bible describes God as
“You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (Habakkuk 1:13 ESV).
Perfect in power, perfect in purity, if He did look at us it should guarantee our instant destruction. But He goes to great lengths to give believers freedom in His presence – a freedom we should treasure and not pass up.
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).
Of course I felt desperately sorry for the man and for those who might have depended on him for their welfare. But nonetheless I felt sick and angry that he had to make his living by lying on behalf of this company. They were making the client pay the price of fear – fear that if the client did not have the required appliances the property would burn down. If and when we claimed on the insurance in such an event, the insurance company would ask us pointed questions about why we had no adequate fire precautions in place. Insurance companies trade on our fear too. I have likewise discovered the same appetite for trading on fear in those security companies who provide alarm systems. The fear industry, I reasoned, must be worth quite a lot of money.
It sadly cheapens the great Referendum debate of our day that both sides are trading on the fear of the unknown – whether people vote to remain in the European Union or whether they vote to leave. They both produce experts who maintain that there could be catastrophic consequences to the “wrong” decision: a halt to economic progress, a descent into uncontrolled immigration. They do not point out that nobody can really predict with certainty what will occur in the future. They have simply cottoned onto the fact that there are votes in people’s fears.
Sadly, world faiths have traded on fear too. Primitive religions portrayed angry gods who had to be placated all the time to stop bad things happening like a loss of crops or other catastrophe. Even the Christian religion has been tainted with this attitude in the past. The one abuse above all that made Martin Luther so angry, that caused him to take the first steps towards the Protestant Reformation, was the sale of indulgences. People were persuaded to part with great fortunes in order to buy their way out of torment in purgatory. Many went to their graves never being completely sure whether they were right with God or not – the church had endless ways of leaving them in suspense.
The beauty of the gospel is that it is a free and effective remedy against these terrible, demeaning and crippling fears. The Lord Jesus died on the cross to bring us full forgiveness from our sins and an assurance that we are in the right with God and able to enter His presence without fear.
This is no light matter. The Bible describes God as
“You who are of purer eyes than to see evil and cannot look at wrong” (Habakkuk 1:13 ESV).
Perfect in power, perfect in purity, if He did look at us it should guarantee our instant destruction. But He goes to great lengths to give believers freedom in His presence – a freedom we should treasure and not pass up.
“For freedom Christ has set us free; stand firm therefore, and do not submit again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians 5:1).
Thursday, 26 May 2016
No Frontiers for Nature
I
have been busy in the garden. I would have thought my garden shed was
fairly sacrosanct as far as weeds were
concerned. Oh yes, creatures like spiders
creep in and spin their webs. But the last
thing I expected to see was a large stem of bindweed creeping its way
right across the shed floor. I obviously had to tackle this intruder
fairly quickly, before it smothered everything in the shed.
Pondering
this has helped me to think about an intriguing reference in Psalm
84. The Psalm-writer exclaims:
“Even
the sparrow has found a home, and the swallow a nest for herself,
where she may have her young - a place near your altar, O LORD
Almighty, my King and my God” (Psalm 84:3, NIV 1984).
Even
the likes of sparrows and swallows manage to make a nest at the
altars of God in the Temple.
There were severe restrictions on
human beings gaining access;
it was the preserve of the priests. These alone could approach in
order to perform the ritual sacrifices.
The
Christian who has understanding of the Bible will think straight away
of what happened when Jesus was crucified. I have referred to this a
few times before: the remarkable fact that the curtain of the temple
was torn in two.
The barrier was down and anybody could get in. In fact there are
puzzling references to a new state of affairs where people literally
muscle their way in,
just as desperate migrants force a path
across barriers – obsessively anxious to
get from one country to another and so to their
chosen land, they brush aside all
resistance.
"The
Law and the Prophets were proclaimed until John. Since that time, the
good news of the kingdom of God is being preached, and everyone is
forcing his way into it” (Luke 16:16).
It
is intriguing to think of this happening, and of God allowing it to
happen. Clearly these are new, special
“Kingdom of Heaven” conditions, which
the Lord Jesus looks forward to with a prophetic eye. Of course, this
does not mean that God will, out of some sort of misplaced kindness,
let in any Tom, Dick or Harry simply
because they happen to be desperate not to be kept out. Otherwise
the Lord Jesus would not have told the parable of the five wise and
five foolish girls, where the foolish ones are banished from the
house of celebration because they failed to
buy sufficient oil and were not ready for the hour when the
bridegroom turned up.
“At
midnight the cry rang out: 'Here's the bridegroom! Come out to meet
him!' Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps. The
foolish ones said to the wise, 'Give us some of your oil; our lamps
are going out.' 'No,' they replied, 'there may not be enough for both
us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for
yourselves.'
"But
while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived.
The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet.
And the door was shut.
Later
the others also came. 'Sir! Sir!' they said. 'Open the door for us!'
But he replied, 'I tell you the truth, I don't know you.' Therefore
keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour” (Matthew
25:6-13).
We
cannot simply demand entry. Yet the Lord Jesus is more than willing
to be our entry pass. By trusting in Him we
can gain access. We are privileged like kings and princes where the
great ones of the earth will be turned away. Let us take none of this
for granted, but reverently and humbly accept what God offers.
Saturday, 14 May 2016
Hedges
Hedges
I was staying with my farming friends in Banbury recently. They showed me a fascinating book published by RSPB, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, about farm management. It included a section on hedges.
I dare say hedges are something I've taken for granted over the years. They are just there – you only notice them when they are gone. I had often wondered what the point of them was any way. I think I've learned over the years that without hedges, fields are very exposed, and can be windswept and vulnerable. But apart from that … well, what other purposes do these things serve?
The RSPB book opened my eyes. Hedges perform many useful functions at the service of nature. One of the most important is to provide safe highways along which birds, insects and small animals can travel, protected from the gaze of predators that might otherwise prey upon them. These little creatures can pick their way from one destination to another quite readily by relying on the cover that the branches of the hedges provide.
This reminds me of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. As a contemporary song puts it,
"For He made us a way by which we have been saved, He’s the Saviour of the world".
The Lord Jesus described Himself as the Way as well as the Truth and the Life. He provided a way through to the presence of God, who would otherwise be inaccessible to ordinary people. This is symbolised by an incident during the time He hung on the cross.
Two extraordinary events took place during the last hours. Darkness came over the whole land and the curtain which blocked off the inner sanctum of the Jerusalem Temple was torn in two. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews mentions this incident and comments,
“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:19-23 ESV).
By means of Jesus, we are furnished with a clear and safe way forward in our spiritual lives. Where predators lurk, the Lord Jesus protects. He reminds us of the right path to follow when our spiritual enemy strives to lead us into the superficially attractive route heading the wrong way.
We may be glad that the Lord Jesus set Himself up as the true and living Way. There are many ways to self-fulfilment offered to us nowadays: ways leading to bodily health, ways to well-being, ways to self-gratification. They can’t all be right.
Like a hedge, Jesus appears at times like a narrow corridor between broad and fertile fields. But woe betide the small creature that steps outside the cover of the hedge! Follow the hedge and you make progress towards where you can flourish. Trapped in the talons of a bird of prey, you are heading nowhere but doom.
Jesus, the narrow corridor, leads to life. We should take with both hands the opportunity He offers.
I was staying with my farming friends in Banbury recently. They showed me a fascinating book published by RSPB, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds, about farm management. It included a section on hedges.
I dare say hedges are something I've taken for granted over the years. They are just there – you only notice them when they are gone. I had often wondered what the point of them was any way. I think I've learned over the years that without hedges, fields are very exposed, and can be windswept and vulnerable. But apart from that … well, what other purposes do these things serve?
The RSPB book opened my eyes. Hedges perform many useful functions at the service of nature. One of the most important is to provide safe highways along which birds, insects and small animals can travel, protected from the gaze of predators that might otherwise prey upon them. These little creatures can pick their way from one destination to another quite readily by relying on the cover that the branches of the hedges provide.
This reminds me of the work of the Lord Jesus Christ. As a contemporary song puts it,
"For He made us a way by which we have been saved, He’s the Saviour of the world".
The Lord Jesus described Himself as the Way as well as the Truth and the Life. He provided a way through to the presence of God, who would otherwise be inaccessible to ordinary people. This is symbolised by an incident during the time He hung on the cross.
Two extraordinary events took place during the last hours. Darkness came over the whole land and the curtain which blocked off the inner sanctum of the Jerusalem Temple was torn in two. The writer of the letter to the Hebrews mentions this incident and comments,
“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh, and since we have a great priest over the house of God, let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, with our hearts sprinkled clean from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water. Let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful” (Hebrews 10:19-23 ESV).
By means of Jesus, we are furnished with a clear and safe way forward in our spiritual lives. Where predators lurk, the Lord Jesus protects. He reminds us of the right path to follow when our spiritual enemy strives to lead us into the superficially attractive route heading the wrong way.
We may be glad that the Lord Jesus set Himself up as the true and living Way. There are many ways to self-fulfilment offered to us nowadays: ways leading to bodily health, ways to well-being, ways to self-gratification. They can’t all be right.
Like a hedge, Jesus appears at times like a narrow corridor between broad and fertile fields. But woe betide the small creature that steps outside the cover of the hedge! Follow the hedge and you make progress towards where you can flourish. Trapped in the talons of a bird of prey, you are heading nowhere but doom.
Jesus, the narrow corridor, leads to life. We should take with both hands the opportunity He offers.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)