If Only …

Cindy Hess Kasper’s recent article in Our Daily Bread certainly rang bells for me. She was thinking about the incident where Jesus raised Lazarus from the tomb. At first, Jesus had delayed coming when called. Mary rushed out to meet Him.

“Lord,” she moaned, “if you had been here, my brother would not have died” (John 11:32 ESV).

“If only ...”

It is the most natural reaction in the world. From a very young age we think of what might have been. I remember slipping in the bath as a child. My parents came in to rescue me. I kept crying, “I could have drowned.” The simple fact was, I didn’t, and I am still here to tell the tale.

Cindy had a memory of her own. “As we exited the parking lot, my husband slowed the car to wait for a young woman riding her bike. When Tom nodded to indicate she could go first, she smiled, waved, and rode on. Moments later, the driver from a parked SUV threw his door open, knocking the young bicyclist to the pavement. Her legs bleeding, she cried as she examined her bent-up bike.
Later, we reflected on the accident:

“’If only we had made her wait … If only the driver had looked before opening his door. If only …’ Difficulties catch us up in a cycle of second-guessing ourselves.

“’If only I had known my child was with teens who were drinking … If only we had found the cancer earlier …’

“When unexpected trouble comes,” she comments, “we sometimes question the goodness of God. We may even feel the despair that Martha and Mary experienced when their brother died. Oh, if Jesus had only come when He first found out that Lazarus was sick!

“Like Martha and Mary, we don’t always understand why hard things happen to us. But we can rest in the knowledge that God is working out His purposes for a greater good. In every circumstance, we can trust the wisdom of our faithful and loving God.”

I feel grateful to Cindy for drawing our attention to this topic. The “if only” questions display both a lack of reasoning (it is illogical to distress yourself about something that never happened) and a lack of faith. In a sense, Mary’s sister Martha belatedly showed more faith than her sibling. She too lamented,

“Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died,”

but she then added,

“But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you” (John 11:21-22).

There is one “if only” that we seldom if ever give voice to, and it is the only one that should really be important to us. If we fail to put our trust in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour, we face an eternity cut off from God. That surely is the greatest disaster of all, and one which Jesus gladly prays His heavenly Father to deliver His trusting followers from.

Be Salty

Recently my table salt ran out so I had to buy a new salt mill. It was strange how the salt seemed to have a fresh, tangy taste. They say salt shouldn’t go off, but it does seem to lose something of its edge over time.

This reminds me of two passages in the Bible in particular.

You are the salt of the earth, but if salt has lost its taste, how shall its saltiness be restored? It is no longer good for anything except to be thrown out and trampled under people's feet.
You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do people light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a stand, and it gives light to all in the house. In the same way, let your light shine before others, so that they may see your good works and give glory to your Father who is in heaven. Matthew 5:13-16 ESV

Walk in wisdom toward outsiders, making the best use of the time. Let your speech always be gracious, seasoned with salt, so that you may know how you ought to answer each person. Colossians 4:5-6

Jesus tells His disciples, “You are the salt of the earth.” This is often used of people who have lived long in their communities and are looked up to as productive, reliable and worthy. I often think that about older folk I look back on in our churches. Often they came to know Jesus as their Saviour when young, and had a lot of experience of Christian living. Yet too often you just got the feeling that something had come adrift somewhere. It wasn’t that they had turned their backs on Jesus or were becoming gross sinners. It might show in one of two opposite ways. Either the older person would speak his or her mind, regardless of who was going to be hurt, or else everything seemed to wash over them. They weren’t prepared to be critical about things that were wrong in their community or in the church.

You feel that older, experienced Christians should be the first to notice when a church or a leader was slipping into apostasy - being a bully, perhaps, or neglecting truth. Sadly, when you hoped they would be the first to voice concern, they would frequently wave the issue away with “Oh, well, that’s the way things are nowadays; you’ve got to make allowances”. No, we shouldn’t, if something is against God’s word in the Bible.

“To grow old is to change often, because we live in a changing world,” one very elderly preacher commented as he gave his “swan song” at the local preachers’ meeting. His younger colleagues drank in his every word. It sounded like wisdom based on maturity, and perhaps it was, up to a point. But we are not to change with every fashion. That way we become insipid and lose our tang.

I am a Christian now because a perceptive minister did not go with the flow. Most people around me were thinking to themselves, “We must humour Timothy; he is a promising young leader.” The older man challenged me straight out. “Your thinking is just like that of a run-of-the-mill Western philosopher. You do not think the way the Bible does.” That night I knew I was in the wrong and gave my life over to Christ.

If Jesus is more important to you than the world is, be salty. Be prepared, humbly and prayerfully, to speak out when appropriate. Above all, make sure to keep your keen edge. Jesus did. It may just help somebody.

Fake News

Hospital staff, simply trying to do their job, have enough to contend with without receiving death threats.

I was shocked – though perhaps not overly surprised – to hear of such a campaign against staff at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London. The hospital was then involved in a legal battle to allow the tragic little youngster Charlie Gard to die with dignity. At the time, Charlie’s distraught parents contested the move. They had hopes of productive treatment, even though this was very much of a long shot. The march of time seems to have resolved the situation but, at that point, it was causing an enormous media stir.

Anyone can sympathise with Charlie’s parents. It is impossible to imagine what they have been going through. The passions raised in the white heat of the arguments back and forth are equally understandable. Yet I shake my head in wonder as to how we have reached a point where hospital staff can be threatened with death over the issue. For all I know, those who were put to such distress had no connection with the proceedings.

The words “Fake News” came to mind. The internet, along with other media, allows contentious, inflammatory material to circulate with great ease. This is a day when all sorts of people with warped values can have a platform to reach and influence thousands of the gullible. They guide them to put totally uncalled-for constructions on emotive events.

It was less possible in the past. If you wanted to write a book or article to go out to the masses, you normally had to find someone to publish it, someone with a good name to maintain. There was thus at least an element of cross-checking or “moderating”. This restraint has long gone. Anyone can air his or her views to their heart’s content. Those views have to be very extreme and dangerous for a moderator to intervene and take them down.

They are therefore much read and, for the undiscerning, become the authoritative truth. This is a most dangerous state of affairs. For perhaps millions of people, the boundary between truth and lies has become so blurred as to be non-existent.

I am impressed by the number of references in the Bible to the truth. The Lord Jesus embodies the truth: He is the way and the truth and the life, John 14:6. He is, after all, sent by God the Father who “cannot lie”, Titus 1:2 KJV.

The Spirit of Jesus is the Spirit of Truth:

When the Spirit of truth comes, he will guide you into all the truth, for he will not speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak, and he will declare to you the things that are to come. He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you. All that the Father has is mine; therefore I said that he will take what is mine and declare it to you (John 16:13-15 ESV).

I find that particularly impressive because it is all so easy for a preacher to rant away, claiming the inspiration of the Holy Spirit while in fact spouting a string of prejudices that are the product of his own imagination – or worse, his desire to manipulate others. The Lord Jesus promised His followers that His Spirit would come. Like Jesus Himself, the Spirit would not “speak on his own authority, but whatever he hears he will speak” – whatever He hears, that is, from God the Father.

This is a day and age when lies threaten to rule the world. Decent, innocent people may well be ruined, and even die, as a result. You and I need to be warriors for truth.

Ancient Lessons from the Garden

An Our Daily Bread article by Sheridan Voysey immediately made me think back to a recent visit to the famous Kew Gardens in London. For me, that trip was the fulfilment of a long-standing ambition ... but I little thought I would learn a Bible lesson in the process!

Voysey writes:

"Last spring I decided to cut down the rose bush by our back door. In the three years we’d lived in our home, it hadn’t produced many flowers, and its ugly, fruitless branches were now creeping in all directions.

"But life got busy, and my gardening plan got delayed. It was just as well—only a few weeks later that rose bush burst into bloom like I’d never seen before. Hundreds of big white flowers, rich in perfume, hung over the back door, flowed into our yard, and showered the ground with beautiful petals.

"My rose bush’s revival reminded me of Jesus’s parable of the fig tree in Luke 13:6–9.”

This passage goes,

“A man had a fig tree planted in his vineyard, and he came seeking fruit on it and found none. And he said to the vinedresser, ‘Look, for three years now I have come seeking fruit on this fig tree, and I find none. Cut it down. Why should it use up the ground?’ And he answered him, ‘Sir, let it alone this year also, until I dig around it and put on manure. Then if it should bear fruit next year, well and good; but if not, you can cut it down’” (Luke 13:6-9 ESV).

“In Israel,” Voysey continues, “it was customary to give fig trees three years to produce fruit. If they didn’t, they were cut down so the soil could be better used. In Jesus’s story, a gardener asks his boss to give one particular tree a fourth year to produce. In context (vv. 1–5), the parable implies this: The Israelites hadn’t lived as they should, and God could justly judge them. But God is patient and had given extra time for them to turn to Him, be forgiven, and bloom.

"God wants all people to flourish and has given extra time so that they can. Whether we are still journeying toward faith or are praying for unbelieving family and friends, His patience is good news for all of us."

An incident on my Kew Gardens trip brought Jesus’ parable vividly home to me. We were given a walking tour during which we were shown an old tree, a cross between an English and a European oak. The walk leader explained to us that the tree had not grown particularly well over 200 years but had been uprooted in the violent storm of 1987. 

To the astonishment of the gardeners, the stricken tree seemed to be doing rather well. After some head-scratching, they worked out that the roots were gaining precious nitrogen from the air, a nutrient they had long been denied in the impacted soil that surrounded the tree.

Once the tree had been righted and re-planted, the gardeners made a point of loosening the soil around its base every year. This worked wonders for the health of the plant. They decided it was a policy they should follow with their other trees.

It struck me that familiarity with the Bible story would have taught the staff that lesson already. Nonetheless, we must not overlook the main lesson for the tender plants which are our spiritual lives. God is patient with us, 

“not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance” (2 Peter 3:9).

That patience is not endless. We should be real about the danger of complete shipwreck that we are in, and about the greatness of the gift God offers us in the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Far be it from us to try His patience.

Wisdom

Another stint of guest house ministry in North Wales draws near. I’ve been working on that most intriguing of Bible books, Ecclesiastes, as the subject.

To understand Ecclesiastes you need to know what the Bible thinks about wisdom. Although King Solomon is not named as the author of the book, he is usually linked with it. He is also connected with Proverbs and the Song of Solomon (Song of Songs). These, plus a few psalms and some books which never made it into the Hebrew Bible, constitute the Wisdom Literature. Yet the wisdom in them does not always chime in with what we today usually think of as “wise”. This word nowadays makes us think of the times when Sergeant Wilson in Dad’s Army discreetly advises Captain Mainwaring, who is about to embark on some madcap scheme, “Do you think that wise, sir?”

Solomon had a reputation for being “wise” that spread throughout the Middle East. The Queen of Sheba arrived at his sumptuous royal court, curious to find out what this reputation was based on, and was not disappointed. The story goes that two loose women turned up one day to ask Solomon for judgment regarding a baby. One came with a tale about them both having a baby within three days of each other. The second woman accidentally overlaid her baby one night and it suffocated to death. She surreptitiously swapped this baby for the other woman’s living one. The first woman saw the dead baby in the morning and knew that it was not hers. The other woman, of course, said this was a lie.

Solomon calmly ordered that the living child should be carved in two and shared out between the women. The true mother of the living child exclaimed,

“Oh, my lord, give her the living child, and by no means put him to death” (1 Kings 3:26 ESV)

The other, though, was content for the gruesome solution to be put into effect. Solomon recognised that the genuine mother would yearn for her child come what may. He gave his judgment:

“Give the living child to the first woman, and by no means put him to death; she is his mother.”

However clever the story, we would normally think of Solomon’s strategy as hugely irresponsible and therefore unwise in our terms.

My researches turned up some other surprising facts about wisdom in the Bible.

• It is not always moral. It seems that a special class of wise men or women developed during the period of the kings. See Jeremiah 18:18. This verse seems to reveal that the “wisdom of the wise” can be manipulated and used against God’s true servants.
• It is sometimes shown in skills and gifts that we would normally think of simply as natural abilities. It is manifested in the skill of those who performed the art and craft work involved in the making of the priests’ robes and the construction of the Tabernacle (Exodus 31:1-11). Professions as diverse as mourning at funerals (Jeremiah 9:17) and work with ships (Ezekiel 27:8-9) required wisdom.
• Though an abstract quality, it takes on personality, Proverbs 8. This description could be pointing forward to Jesus or it may simply be the Hebrew trait of visualizing abstract ideas in a very physical way. Certainly wisdom’s pre-Creation existence makes us think of God’s infinitely wise plan, made before we ever came on the scene, to redeem us and give us eternal life in His Son.

At root, wisdom is down-to-earth. Somebody attempted a working definition of wisdom like this:

“Wisdom is intensely practical, not theoretical. Basically, wisdom is the art of being successful, of forming the correct plan to gain the desired results. Its seat is the heart, the centre of moral and intellectual decision.”

The NIV Thematic Study Bible defines human wisdom thus:

“The human quality which enables the planning and successful achievement of a desired goal. It may be expressed as technical skill, practical instruction and astuteness in political affairs. True wisdom includes spiritual discernment and, above all, the reverence and knowledge of God.”

The death of Jesus on the cross to save sinners is described as wisdom. Blasphemy as far as the Jews are concerned, sheer folly to the Greeks, to those who believe it is the power and wisdom of God (1 Corinthians 1:24). In the 18^th century, Charles Wesley wrote a beautiful hymn about wisdom. The last verse goes like this:

Happy the man who wisdom gains,

Thrice happy who his guest retains;

He owns, and shall forever own,

Wisdom, and Christ, and heaven are one.

We Belong to the World

So the UK General Election is over, the result is what it is – a hung Parliament – and there are many people around feeling very jaded. “Why did we have to have this unnecessary and damaging election?” they demand to know. “Does Brexit now have to change, or even be abandoned altogether?”

My hope for the future has only limited connection with the arguments about whether Britain stays in the single market or in the customs union. Whatever we do about such things, I feel we need to move on and be open to the world.

Some 40% of the UK’s trade is currently done with the European Union. Yet, historically, we belong to the world. For four centuries our country had a truly global reach. Our ships sailed far and wide, opening up new trade routes and markets, putting us in touch with a huge variety of peoples and their cultures. Our missionaries, too, took the message of Jesus to the remote corners of the earth.

Our relations with Europe have, of course, been intense over many centuries. We have repeatedly been involved in European strifes and struggles. On the plus side, have benefited hugely and in many ways from contact with the Continent. It continues to be seen as a place of opportunity for many of our young people.

It is also true that we can’t be said to have turned our backs on the wider world since joining the EU. But the time comes when a certain amount of re-balancing is needed.

I feel that time is now. The world is stirring. In countries long neglected and under-developed, the peoples begin to lift up their heads. Enterprise and initiative at last come to the fore. It is an exciting time. True, many of these states are unstable and unpredictable trading partners. Their democratic status is often weak and tenuous. But trade and enterprise have always thrived on adventure and risk.

Have I forgotten that I am blogging as a Christian? Have I begun to write purely political entries? No, because this world we belong to is God’s world. King David declares in Psalm 24,

“The earth is the LORD'S and the fulness thereof,
the world and those who dwell therein,
for he has founded it ...”

And He hasn’t just made the earth and walked away. He remains actively involved. In Genesis 18:25 the patriarch Abraham pleads with God,

“Shall not the Judge of all the earth do what is just?”

Many pagan nations thought that their gods specialised in one stretch of land (usually their own country). But the God of the Bible keeps breaking out of these barriers and showing His power throughout all the earth. In the Old Testament of our Bibles there are persistent indications that non-Jews, belonging to the nations outside the chosen people, would come to know this God and acknowledge His lordship. Jesus accepted this and prepared His followers to reach out beyond the boundaries of Israel. That is why, in His resurrected form, He announced to the disciples at the very beginning of the Book of Acts:

“But you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you, and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.”

In the 18th century, an age when no clergyman was normally expected to function outside his own parish, John Wesley famously announced,

“I look on all the world as my parish; thus far I mean, that, in whatever part of it I am, I judge it meet, right, and my bounden duty, to declare unto all that are willing to hear, the glad tidings of salvation.”

EU or no EU, may we in Britain once again become God’s people reaching out to God’s earth with the message of the Saviour whom He sent.

The minute’s silence

As we prepared for our Challenge Walk at Pusey in Wiltshire, we were asked to stand for a minute of silence to remember the victims of the Manchester bombing of 22 May. The talking stopped. The drinking of coffee stopped. People stood with heads bowed, almost motionless. Only after a word from the organiser of the walk did the hall, which was our venue and starting point for the walk, come to life again.

It was a significant moment for me because it brought home what a crime victim had said in an interview some weeks before. I can remember nothing about the interview other than the person’s description of how they felt afterwards. It gave me a very clear impression of what such an experience must be like. “It’s as though you are frozen in time. Life stops from that moment on” (or words to that effect).

Frozen in time. Life stops. It is not so much as though you were caught in a photographic freeze frame. You still go through the routine of the day, each and every day. But that part of your life which was invested in the person that died has come to a halt. You will not wave them off to school or to their place of work the next working day. You will not watch them develop as people and personalities. You will not see how they are shaped by the various landmarks that occur in life. All that is placed on hold, never to resume – not in this life, at any rate.

Those involved in bereavement counselling will tell you that mourning, even though it goes on long after a person’s friends think they should have “got over it by now”, is in fact quite reasonable and natural. It only becomes toxic when the person, as one of my tutors put it, “gets stuck somewhere”. Somehow the person fails to move through the recognised stages of mourning to a point of acceptance. Queen Victoria never stopped being dressed in mourning after the death of Prince Albert. She never allowed any change in the rooms they had shared together – they stayed as monuments to the past. She, and in some ways her family and court and the whole nation and empire, suffered as a result.

But, certainly in the case of a bombing, who can you blame for grieving victims being frozen in time? Surely not them. It is, purely and simply, the bombers and their accomplices.

What can free us from being frozen in time, functioning like that word from the walk organiser which ended the minute’s silence? The Lord of time and eternity – Christ Himself. He came announcing that the Kingdom of Heaven is at hand. Before then, when the angel announced to His mother Mary that she would give birth to Him, these were the angel’s words:

“… you will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you shall call his name Jesus. He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High. And the Lord God will give to him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:31-33 ESV).

Time may or may not have stopped for you. But you can come over to One in whose presence time will no longer matter.

Crown Him the Lord of years,

the potentate of time,

creator of the rolling spheres,

ineffably sublime!

All hail, Redeemer, hail!

For Thou hast died for me:

Thy praise shall never, never fail

throughout eternity.

Matthew Bridges, 1800-94 and Godfrey Thring, 1823-1903