The beach…2 “Paddle Faster”

Closing my eyes I lift the paddle high
Above my head
A push sends me scuttling
Down the steep pebble incline
The sound like a waterfall
Hard round pebbles scraping the keel
Five seconds of acceleration and…
Into the wash
Into the lapping waves
Orange nose cutting through the surf
I paddle faster

Eyes open, blinking away the salt and Sun
Looking back at the hundred or so
Souls, large, small,
Young, old
Spiritual and secular
Clothed and almost unclothed
The distinct sound of a summer’s day
The beach, a playground for all…
Moments pass…then, turning
Away from the shore
I paddle faster

My fibre-glass capsule,
Skeg rope pulled tight
Water falling along the paddle
The only sound now, thumps
Of sides on wave, wave on sides
An exchange just beyond me
Not known
Until you permit yourself to be
Baptized in the ocean.
Paddling faster, deep and strong

Out here, away from voices,
One hears a Voice
Calling you onward, not back
Calling you home perhaps
‘Slip between the harbour arms’
The urgent voice, strong now,
‘Paddle faster!’
Has time come to lift my paddle
High above my head
To the light?

No. Not yet. It’s not time.
I’m headed East
With the tide and current
The wind making the sea alive
A fearsome fight
Five miles or so
Until, surfing, I ram into
Shingle, sand, and slopes
My interim home
Of a friend calling to me
‘Paddle faster!’

The Beach…i

Turquoise and white the waves roll in
crashing at shallow angles
along the shoreline.

Wandering among the shingle,
the seaweeds and beached wood,
a man, absent-mindedly,

smooth pebble in hand, is at home.
Quiet, lost in thought,
surrounded by the wet roar

Raiders of the Lost Ark…and the Three-in-One

The names we associate with the film, Raiders of the Lost Ark, are Harrison Ford, playing the archaeologist Indiana Jones, and Steven Spielberg the director, but it was Lawrence Kasdan who wrote Raiders (and co-wrote the Star Wars films The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, The Force Awakens and others).

 Spielberg and Kasdan, it may not be surprising to know, are Jewish.

 Grappling as they did with the deeply Jewish angst over the lost Ark of the Covenant, Spielberg and Kasdan introduced to the world the biblical account that the ark of the covenant contained a power greater than any earthly power. One that, in the film, our hero, Indiana Jones, managed to prevent the Nazis from acquiring.

 The Ark, in fact, was a fairly small acacia wooden box laid in the Holy of Holies in the Temple overlaid with gold, containing the stone tablets engraved with the Ten Commandments, a pot of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded. It was lost when the First Temple was destroyed in 586 BC…although Ethiopian Orthodox Christians claim the Ark is located in the Church of St Mary of Zion, in Askum, several hundred miles north of Addis Abiba.

The action is in the Holy of Holies…the Spirit of God witnessing with our spirit that we are children of God.

 From the perspective of the New Covenant, the physical temple, important though it had been, was merely an earthly copy of the heavenly original. Each part of the temple, therefore, has a present-day eternal counterpart including the three courts: the outer court, the Holy Place, and the Holy of Holies, and, specifically, the ark and its contents held within the Holy of Holies, in the presence of the glory of God.

 If the acacia box represents the new spirit God has put in those whose faith is in Christ, the contents of the ark represent God Himself dwelling in each believer. In the New Covenant, the physical temple in Jerusalem has been replaced by believers: ‘temples of the Holy Spirit’ 1 Cor 6v19.

 If you had looked inside the box at the three objects, physically distinct and seemingly unrelated from each other, would have stared back, inert and unremarkable, however, the three objects represent three facets of God, a three-in-one reality.

1.      The tablets of the commandments – but in the New Covenant the engraves the law on our hearts (Jer 31 v31f). Paul wrote about the ‘law of the Spirit of life’. This is what is set loose in us, nothing short of God’s own life. And He doesn’t need an external written law (the tablets of stone) to know how to act!

2.      The pot of manna – representing the miraculous ‘daily bread’ or ‘bread of heaven’ given to the Jews as they made their way to the Promised Land from Egypt. Rather than praying for God’s word to come to us from outside, externally, God has Himself in our spirits and His word(s) shape our lives. It isn’t that we need His word for ‘our lives’; it is more that His word is our life. Jesus said ‘the words I speak to you are spirit and life’

3.      Aaron’s rod that budded – if the rod represents us in our humanity, like the acacia box made from dead wood, the miraculous life that comes from it is His life. True Christianity, true spirituality, starts when His life appears in us.

Attempting to live the Christian life – either as a believer or, maybe as a non-believer who admires the teachings or person of Christ – through your physical abilities (the outer court) or your soulish strengths (intellect, emotional passion, or sheer will-power), is missing the point.

The action is in the Holy of Holies…the Spirit of God witnessing with our spirit that we are children of God.

The Lord’s Prayer – with new eyes

I can’t shake off the version I was taught as a child:

Our Father, who art in heaven,
Hallowed be thy name.
Thy kingdom come,
Thy will be done,
On earth, as it is in heaven.
Give us this day our daily bread.
And forgive us our trespasses,
as we forgive those who trespass against us.
And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from evil:
For thine is the kingdom,
and the power, and the glory,
forever and ever. Amen.

I can’t, for example, say ‘forgive us our debts’ as some versions put it. Or replace ‘thine’ with ‘yours’ easily, it’s so ingrained. Not that the newer versions are inaccurate. There’s an interesting debate to be had over ‘trespasses’ or ‘debts’ in translating Greek and Aramaic…but that’s for others to argue over.

This post is about looking at the very familiar Lord’s Prayer but with new eyes…

We tend to think that this prayer is answered if we have faith when we pray, rather than know in ourselves that this prayer has already been answered and we are now to live it out in our lives.

This post is about looking at the very familiar Lord’s Prayer but with new eyes…

For example ‘give us this day our daily bread’. We might pray this as if it is our prayer that extracts from God our daily bread, whereas it has already been given. The challenge is for us to believe it has been given not that it lies in the present or near future…if we ask.

Jesus’ mission was to bring the Old Testament or Old Covenant to a close and inaugurate the New Testament or New Covenant as prophesied principally by Jeremiah and Ezekiel.

In the Old Covenant , the temple consisted of three parts. First the outer court for the people, then the Holy Place where the priests ministered, and then the Holy of Holies where the High Priest was permitted to go once a year, with the blood of a lamb, to make Atonement for Israel.

In the Holy of Holies, apart from God’s presence, there was the ‘ark of the covenant’, a wooden box overlaid with gold, with three items inside.

1. The tablets of stone on which the ten commandments had been carved

2. A pot of manna – the bread miraculously provided each day during the Exodus

3. Aaron’s rod – a dead piece of wood, a rod, which miraculously budded

In the New Covenant, each believer is a temple within which God abides by His Spirit. Jeremiah and Ezekiel gave us the details of the New Covenant:

The days are coming when I will make a new covenant
with the people of Israel and with the people of Judah.
This is the covenant I will make with the people of Israel
I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.
(Jeremiah 31 v 31f)

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. I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes
(Ezekiel 36 v 36,37)

If our physical bodies relate to the outer court in the Old Testament temple, and the Holy Place relates to our souls (that precious part of us that gives us individuality, our minds, emotions, and will), our spirit is represented by the acacia box in the Holy of Holies.

When we believe and are born again, our old heart of stone is removed and we are given a new heart, a new spirit. Our ‘new’ spirit is joined with His Holy Spirit so that, just as in the Holy of Holies in the physical temple where God’s presence dwelt, so, now, the Holy Spirit dwells in us. Genuine Christianity turns out to be a spirit/Spirit operation.

‘Do you not know your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit?’ 1 Cor 6 v19

Jeremiah and Ezekiel as prophets, both saw that the tablets of stone laid in the acacia box were really just figurative copies of the heavenly original, the Old Covenant foreshadowing the New Covenant in which we live. Now, in the New Covenant, the law of God is no longer external carved out in stone, it’s internalised; the Holy Spirit writes the law on our hearts and we learn a whole new way of living…just like Jesus. As C. S. Lewis said we have become like ‘mini-Christs’.

Equally, God has placed in us the heavenly reality of the pot of manna, the miraculous provision of ‘daily bread’, manna from heaven. The Lord’s Prayer has been answered in the New Covenant. Now, wherever we are, whatever our circumstances, we have the pot of manna in our spirit, and it pours out eternally the living word by the Holy Spirit. It is not something we need to pull down from heaven it has been given.

This post is not really about Aaron’s rod but when Jesus instructed his disciples to pray ‘deliver us from evil’ the bible tells us the last enemy is death. But now we have ‘rod that budded’ in us. Resurrection is our new normal.

Jesus was the first prototype of this new humanity of ‘living temples’, now in Christ, we have become like Him…not because of our goodness, holiness, or our religious performance, membership, or attendance of any church…but simply having faith that this is what God has made possible through Christ.

We are not a huge stone-built temple stuck in one location, in Jerusalem, but mobile temples, through whom God pours out His life.

Paris ‘24 - 19th March 2023

Once again it’s a Sunday. March 19th 2023. And once again I have returned to Bristol Harbourside for a chilly start to the morning.

Walking. Not running.

My hope in December to return to running a 10K by the end of January was put back in its box and the lid closed quite firmly. The right knee decided to be the next part of my Olympic Physique to complain at the rigorous pre-Olympics training schedule and went on strike.

One X-Ray later – no obvious signs of wear and tear – I decided to start walking instead of running and adopted the 10K a Day in March challenge minus one day off per week. I’ve skived two or three other days but will hope to make up the difference in kilometres by the close of March.

Routes thus far include:

1. Blaise – on my doorstep
2. Black Mountains above Crickhowell
3. Dorset – from Fontmell Magna
4. Henbury to Bristol Central Library

Snowdon, the Matterhorn, and the Pyrenees to come…?

So, progress towards Paris ’24 must be faced with a dollop of Gallic Shrug, a smidgen of hope, and a full tank of thankfulness for all the previous running injuries and recoveries, a miracle of healing thrown in, and a generous ladle of faith in God.

We press on.

Knocked down but not knocked out.

That is, of course, if Paris ’24 goes ahead. It seems the IOC is acting as an entity as powerful as a nation-state stating, quite firmly, that it will give its ruling on Russia’s participation independent from all other bodies. One wonders, if they rule that Russian athletes are to compete under their national flag, whether France will arouse herself from a Gallic shrug, and say ‘Non!’ and leave the IOC out in the cold.

A real-time blog: The Letter to the Hebrews – final post, VII, Aaron’s Rod

To summarise, the writer is addressing a problem that has occurred with the recipients of the letter, a group of Jewish believers who seem to have stopped growing. He reminds them of God’s dual purpose for them. Firstly that God is ‘bringing many sons to glory’ and, secondly, that they need to move on from milk to meat - to ‘move on to maturity’.

In the Old Testament the ‘glory’ was contained in the ark of the covenant held inside the Holy of Holies, the innermost room in the temple, this being an earthly copy of the heavenly original. The ‘ark’ was a wooden box (acacia wood) covered in gold. Inside the box were the Tablets of the Law, a pot of manna, and Aaron’s budding rod.

It is a picture of Christ and therefore of us, in Him.

Our bodies, souls, and our new human spirit given via the New Covenant, combine to make merely a container for His glory. We are overlaid not with gold – but the glory of God. And on our insides, in our spirit, are the Law, written not on stone but by the Spirit in our hearts, not a pot of mann but the bread of heaven, the word of God, and, like Aaron’s dead stick that budded, resurrection life.

We, who have become sons of God through Christ, are glory pots.

‘…we have this treasure in earthen vessels…’ 2 Cor 4 v 7

The glory residing in the most unlikely of containers. We have become mini temples with God dwelling inside:

‘Your body is the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in you’ 1 Cor 3 v 17

There was only one occasion where He permitted a few of his disciples to see His normally invisible glory – the Transfiguration.

‘His clothes became shining, exceedingly white, like snow, such as no launderer on earth can whiten them’ Mark 9 v3

But the truth is, most of the time the glory of God resided in Christ unnoticed: lying as a baby in a stable, or as a refugee fleeing from Herod, or facing hostility from the synagogue in Nazareth, or the Pharisees as they opposed Him, or being whipped and crucified, and later lying dead in the tomb.

But death could not hold Him. Aaron’s rod budded.

It will be similar for us. We suffer, and as we operate as sons of God in this world in Christ, we move on to maturity through obedience to the leading of the Spirit. We may or may not have occasional glimpses of the glory, but finally, like Jesus, we enter into the glory that has been ours all along.

‘I consider the present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us’ Rom 8v18

Aaron’s Rod

Winter’s lost its hold:
Yielding, exhausted,
Blackened branches held up
In wordless surrender.
Even death must sleep
Naked trees, stripped annually
Of leaves and blossom and fruit
Unable to hide far-off horizons
From prying eyes

The birds, though, know
A different story
Twigs, flying mission on mission,
Clamped and carried in beaks
Of hope
Nests appear before
The camouflage of Spring
Spares them, covers them
They know, the birds

Eruption from death
The first buds, a day away.
Like Aaron’s rod,
As unstoppable as unlikely,
Dead as we are Eden’s nightmare,
I am the Life, like a heavenly parasite,
Displaces our winters
With His orchards;
Trees of life once more.

A real-time blog: The Letter to the Hebrews - 6

Premiership football teams in trouble look for a new manager. Each one, José Mourinho, Ferguson, and now Pep Guardiola, Arteta and others transform their team…often backed up with a few dollars!

The writer to the Hebrews, searching a round for a suitable new manager for his flat-lining believers – ‘by this time you should be teachers, but I can only give you milk not solid food’ – lands on Melchizedek.

Melchizedek? Who? Chapter 7 explains all, I’ll summarise key points below:

‘Jesus has become High Priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek’ Heb 6 v 20

Melchizedek (King of Righteousness) was King of Salem (Salem means ‘peace’) without genealogy, having neither beginning nor end, like the Son of God, he remains as a priest forever.

So, Jesus, King of Righteousness and King of Peace, the Alpha and Omega, Beginning and End, is the true High Priest.

In the Old Testament, the High Priest entered the Most Holy Place, known as the Holy of Holies, in the temple once a year, which was only an earthly copy of the heavenly original (Heb 8 v5)

But Jesus, the true High Priest, carried his own blood as the Lamb of God into the true holiest place in Heaven to secure our salvation:

‘By one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified’ 10 v 12

Being ‘in Christ’ we have become like Him, united with Christ and we have become, as Peter wrote, ‘partakers of the divine nature’ or, as my friend Chris Welch puts it, ‘Melchizedek particles’, caught up as we are in the High Priest according to the eternal order of Melchizedek.

‘…having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus…having a High Priest over the house of God let us draw near with faith’ Heb 10 v19f

Unlike the previous ‘orders’, the Aaronic and Levitical priests, who only visited the Holiest, it has become where we abide. It is here that we ‘move on to maturity’ dependent entirely, as was our initial salvation, on Jesus’ High Priestly ministry, and not our effort or ‘dead works’.

The rest of Hebrews is written assuming that the recipients of the letter have woken up and realised that falling back under the old Levitical priesthood, temple worship, the Law of Moses will not make us like Christ.

The illustrations the writer employs from this point on in the letter all describe forward motion and the future:

Faith to run the race

Brotherly love to continue

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever

For here we have no enduring city but we seek the one to come

As ‘Melchizedek particles’ we are moving on. Like Jesus said, ‘The wind blows where it wishes…you cannot tell where it comes from or where it goes…so it is with those who are born of the Spirit’.

Next and final Hebrews blog: Glory is spelt strangely, not as we might imagine

Father Across the River

It is not for me to question
Your soul, encased in history
Put to the sword, not once,
Barely to survive.
Deep-set priestly eyes
And heavy Orthodox voices
Filling Cathedrals
With more than sound
Grieving over your sons
And daughters drift away,
Enticed like the Prodigal

It is not for me to question
Your soul; sad anger
Consuming many
But hear this song
Deep calling to deep:
Your son will return
If you let him go
If you let him inherit
If you let your enemy
Feed him scraps
Only to discard him

It is not for me to question
Your soul; precious to me
But turned inward
It rots.
Unburden yourself
Of all I have given you
Let the chanted Psalms
Run backwards through you
Or your sorrowful tears
Will drown many
In the Dnipro

A real-time blog: The Letter to the Hebrews - 5

The gospel writers provide us with a pitch-side view of individuals and their encounters with Jesus of Nazareth.

Jews at the time were deeply divided over Jesus. Some came to him humbly for teaching, or healing, or deliverance, or simply to follow him. Others were opposed. None of those who came humbly remained the same.

Once we encounter Christ, all is left behind, like the fishermen’s nets, and we start growing spiritually; like newborn babies, we need milk, then solid food.

‘Let us go on to maturity not laying again the foundation of repentance from dead works and faith toward God, the doctrine of baptisms, of resurrection of the dead, and of eternal judgement. And this we will do if God permits.’

Repentance from dead works and faith toward God

This is not referring to the crisis at the time of conversion to Christ, it is addressed to believers. This is the John 15 father with the knife again, coming to us as a vinedresser, ready to cut out any dead branches. Dead works are not necessarily ‘sinful’ at all, they can appear to be very good…but they are not what the Spirit is witnessing in your spirit…and they must go. From now on it is faith toward God. It’s learning to respond to the voice of the Spirit in your spirit.

Baptisms

There are three main baptisms. The Father baptizes us into Christ. Jesus baptizes us in the Spirit, and the Spirit baptizes us into the church as the body of Christ. Our water baptism is a burial of a dead body. We have died to our former life and are open to the above three baptisms. Resisting any one of them is a contradiction of our water baptism.

Resurrection of the dead

There is a future and a present dimension to this. In the parable of the Prodigal son, the son was ‘dead but is alive again’. As far as God is concerned, we were dead but we were brought back to life when we are born again by the Spirit. God’s life is now in us; Christianity is a Spirit/spirit operation. And, of course, there is a future greater fulfilment of resurrection, the day of resurrection. ‘I tell you a mystery…in a moment, at the last trumpet…the dead will be raised incorruptible and this mortal will put on immortality’ 1 Cor 15 v51-54. But our resurrected life, fused with Christ, has begun.

Eternal judgement

This is a living word, alive 24/7 in us; it is not reserved exclusively for the future. God accurately discerns between good and evil and therefore makes sound judgements. If we are being ‘transformed’ or ‘growing up into all things into Christ’ we must learn to operate with the same ‘eternal judgement’. The writer of Hebrews expresses his frustration over the recipients’ lack of progress: ‘…but solid food belongs to those who are mature, those who by practice have their senses exercised to discern good from evil’. Just like Jesus who ‘knew what was in the heart of men’. We begin to discern what lies at the heart of an issue or a person as the Spirit witnesses with our spirit. It is not a ‘natural’ ability.

Next blog: Melchizedek…progress

A real-time blog: The Letter to the Hebrews - part 4

In the previous blog, we looked at the starting point on our journey to ‘glory’ and ‘spiritual maturity’ ‘ceasing from our own work’ and entering God’s rest or, Sabbath, as a continual place – called ‘Today’ if you look closely at Hebrews.

The Letter to the Hebrews challenges us to realise that we are caught up in the Father’s purpose ‘bringing many sons to glory’ and the need to ‘go on to maturity’.

The key verse:

‘By this time you should be teachers, but you need to be taught the first principles again…you need milk not solid food…let us go on to maturity not laying again the foundation of repentance of dead works and of faith toward God, of the doctrines of baptisms, of the laying on of hands, of resurrection of the dead and of eternal judgement’ Heb 5v12-14; 6 v 1,2

The writer of Hebrews has reminded us that our Father in heaven wants to lead us to glory and spiritual maturity as sons.

The evangelical gospel will lead someone to Christ as Saviour and give them confidence in the Bible as the word of God, but so easily stop at the point of salvation, waiting for glory in heaven after you die. The Pentecostal/charismatic gospel rediscovered the Holy Spirit; many have received gifts of the Spirit evangelicals taught had died out with the apostles. But even the best charismatic churches often do not teach about glory or spiritual maturity.

Paul, when writing to the Corinthians made three important distinctions:

‘I could not speak to you as ‘spiritual’ but as ‘carnal’ as ‘babes in Christ’. I feed you with milk and not solid food; for until now you were not able to receive it, and even now you are not able, you are still ‘carnal’ – for where there is envy and strife and division, are you not ‘carnal’ and behaving like ‘mere men’?’ 1 Cor 3 v 1-3

We have three stages of growth: ‘mere men’, then ‘carnal’, then ‘spiritual’.

‘Mere men’ looks back to where we are before coming to Christ. ‘Carnal’ means ‘fleshly’. Carnal Christians are born again, and may well be baptised in the Spirit, but are still operating from their own resources, their souls: minds and thinking, or the emotions, or will, trying to live the Christian life, not operating from the Spirit witnessing with their spirit. ‘Spiritual’ Christians are those who have abandoned any thought of operating from their abilities and strengths. Like Jesus, they only do what they see the Father doing.

We need, as John has taught, to move on from being ‘little children’ to ‘young men’, and then ‘young men to fathers’ 1 John 2 v 12-14

Next blog: ‘moving on’ from the foundations, not abandoning them

A real-time blog on the Letter to the Hebrews - part III

A spiritual MOT. How’s your Sabbath observance? And I’m not talking about Sundays.

Here’s the key verse:

‘There remains, therefore, a Sabbath rest for the people of God, for he who has entered His rest has himself also ceased from his works as God from His’ 4v9,10

It may seem strange that the writer is making so much of the Sabbath…but it turns out to be vital if God is going to ‘bring many sons to glory’ or for us to push on to ‘maturity’ as chapter 6 urges.

One of the legacies of the disaster of Eden is the persistent belief that we are independent of God, expected to make our own decisions good or bad, wise or unwise. Like the prodigal son, cut off from his father who, when the son returns said to his elder son ‘Your brother was dead and is alive again, was lost and is found’. As far as God is concerned our attempts at living an independent life are considered as ‘death’ just as He said ‘in the day you eat it you shall die’, clearly not referring to biological but spiritual death.

But the truth is that:

‘it is not by might nor by power but by My Spirit’ (Zech 4 v6)

How easy it is to initially believe that salvation is a gift. And that we are ‘under grace’ only to drift away and yield to that insatiable appetite to ‘do something’. As the scripture says to enter God’s rest we ‘cease from our works’.

How easy it is to celebrate the Sabbath externally only (Seventh Day Adventists and many Messianic believers celebrate the Sabbath on Saturdays, most other denominations on Sundays) and miss the essential point, we cannot grow in the life God has given us in Christ if we insist on trying to live the Christian life from our own resources, our minds, or emotions, or will. It’s Spirit/spirit operation.

‘As many as are led by the Spirit, these are sons of God’

So, here’s the MOT. Or, to switch metaphors, consider the vinedresser, knife in hand, in John chapter 15. He’s advancing on the vine ready to lop off any branch that’s not bearing fruit AND to prune even those branches bearing fruit…for the sake of greater fruit.

Then, like Jesus, we are living the Sabbath life. ‘I only do what I see the Father doing’.

Next: On to maturity…I’m looking at a pruned apple tree, ready to grow some ripe fruit.

A real-time blog on the Letter to the Hebrews - 2

In present-day Israel, as in the whole of Israel’s history, there are opposing spiritual forces. On the one hand, Orthodox Jews call for the restoration of the Temple, the Priesthood, and the sacrificial system à la Law of Moses. On the other hand, in Israel, there are more churches full of Jewish believers in the Messiah Jesus than at any time. Many include Gentile as well as Jewish believers but there are some that are like the Jerusalem church in Acts – Jews only.

It was such a church that the Letter to the Hebrews was written.

The tug of war is understandable. To drift back to the Old Testament, to Moses, to Aaron, to the Levitical priesthood, to the temple, to the sacrifices and feasts is supremely relevant today, especially for Jews who believe in Jesus, wanting to retain connections with the past whilst pushing on to…on to what exactly?

And this is true for all believers. For all of us. On to what exactly? What is the purpose of God in Christianity?

‘It was fitting for Him…in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings’ Heb 2v10

This is the vision of true Christianity. First to make many sons from sinners and then for God to bring His sons to glory. I don’t know what that means. Not really. I know that John wrote ‘the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory’ looking back to the Transfiguration. I know that the other witness to the Transfiguration, Peter, wrote ‘Jesus, Messiah, who having not seen you love. Though now you do not see Him, yet believing, you rejoice with joy inexpressible and full of glory’.

The New Testament teaches that God, through faith in His only begotten Son, Jesus, has made ‘many sons’ and we are ‘heirs of God, joint heirs with Christ’ Rom 8v17 and that ‘the whole of creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God’.

Poets, songwriters, and prophets have looked for words adequate enough to describe the indescribable…the best we can do is…glory.

Christianity is not about ‘going to church’ or ‘reading the Bible’ or ‘worship’ or ‘good works’ or ‘baptism’, or ‘communion’; all these things you may well do as a Christian but, firstly, it’s about God making you one of His sons inheriting everything with Christ. This is big. Poets, songwriters, and prophets have looked for words adequate enough to describe the indescribable…the best we can do is…glory.

Why abandon this to retreat back to Law, to regulations, to human effort, to self-improvement? Why drift?

And yet, many are drifting, neglecting their salvation. And not just individuals but whole churches and denominations and streams are departing from Christ, replacing Him with their human efforts to produce the kingdom on earth, or simply a good life, or a Christ-like life, and, in doing so, losing sight of the glory.

Blog 3 No more drift…let’s push on…oddly, to ‘rest’, to the true Sabbath

A real-time blog on the Letter to the Hebrews…part 1

Hebrews, I feel, suffers a little from being left out. If Romans is fighting for the Premiership title with Ephesians maybe, Hebrews is in a relegation battle, in need of a miracle manager to climb up the table. And they’ve just hired Melchizedek.

More of Melchizedek later. Romans and Ephesians have had a good run…

But if the Holy Spirit has given us this letter and we ignore its contents, we are denying the children their bread.

In fact, ‘neglect’ was a chief concern of the author.

‘lest we drift away…how shall we escape if we neglect so great a salvation…’ 2 v 3

The gospel had been preached to them and they had believed. The concern was that they, a group of Jewish believers, would ‘drift away’, not that they had disbelieved the gospel when they heard it.

‘At first (the gospel) was spoken to us by the Lord and was confirmed to us by those who heard Him, God also bearing witness with signs and wonders, with various miracles, and gifts of the Holy Spirit’ 2 v 3,4

Countless ‘charismatic churches’ are attended by thousands who, when they heard the gospel, believed and then have seen the power of God at work in miracles and signs and wonders and yet are in danger of drifting away. And I’m not particularly writing about individual believers, but whole denominations and streams are in danger of drifting away. This Letter to the Hebrews is more relevant than we might think. When was the last time you read the letter? Or heard it taught carefully, chapter by chapter?

If we drift, we reduce Jesus

I can’t offer that. This is written more or less in real-time highlighting verses and themes that seem to stand out as I am writing, downloads from the past as well as the present.

The first three chapters remind the church of the pre-eminence of Jesus, the Messiah (Christ), who ‘tasted death now crowned with honour and glory’ 2v9; God’s Son 1v2, seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high; 1v3, higher than angels 1v4-14; and superior to Moses, chapter 3. Jesus is the Son in the house, the heir, and Moses is a servant in the house…a particularly dramatic and important distinction for the Jewish recipients of this letter.

If we drift, we reduce Jesus. He becomes a wonderful teacher, or a Jewish prophet, or Rabbi, he becomes a guru from Nazareth, a spiritual teacher, a Christ to be understood only in the historical or sociological context of the first century, rather than the ‘heir of all things’ and ‘the express image of His glory’ at whose name we bow and worship in all generations.

Blog 2 will deal with the purpose of the gospel: ‘bringing many sons to glory’ 2v10

Tides

Those watch-free zones
The coastal towns
Collections of people:
All ages who,
Glancing at the sea,
Or the cool inland breeze, or
The shadow on a summer’s day
Unerringly
Know the time

It’s early morning
Long shadows retreating
And wide busy crab-lands
The mud-flat home where
Lugworms, destined for
An angler’s hook, abide.
Seagulls black, and dawn pink,
Patrol like constables on a beat
Jabbing at the weaker shells

Or the evening low-tide
And children and trouser-rolled
Fathers and mothers
Grandparents, aunts,
The well and the unwell
Melded into one lump of joy:
Soft cool mud
Squelching between
Willing toes

And in the storms
The lashings at hightide
Seaweed cast up to the wind
And the same seagulls
Driven to a standstill
Eye-watering thundering
Gales ripping
At the tops of the waves
White horses galloping

And, all the while
The locals know the time
The harbour disgorging its hunters
On the tide
And gathering its children
Weighed down with catch
Escorted by
Inexhaustible seagulls and
Lamps swinging in the dusk

It’s a watch-free zone
The sloshing of an
Untethered will
Eruptions of romance
The collapse of wealth
Erosion of a coastline
And baptisms of
Overwhelming joy
The divine order of things

You and I

We’re all coastland people
You and I
We know the signs, the time
Sudden tide-turning breezes
Heralding a peristalsis
Of irreversible change
Storm time has caught us
Once again, we are unmoored
Blown by a fierce wild wind

Flamenco

Three wooden chairs
Backs to the rough-painted wall
Taut, like guitar strings
Ready to exhale their staccato notes
Far into the crossbeams
Frames now creaking with
Slow muscular sorrow
Resonating with each eruption
Shaken with each clap clap
The fiery vibrations coursing
Through the lignin; knots
Moved as they have never moved

Four legs thrown into confusion
By the stamping snorting bull
Boiling in terror at the whirling
Red dress and piercing stare
Forcing the wailing and weeping
Into the grain, along the grain
And across the entranced grain
The back of the chairs now
Pressed hard against the world

Three chairs made animate
With Promethean fire
The dancer, every pore of her
Exporting life, a reverse baptism
Deluging the transfixed onlookers
With the man’s plaintive tones
And the woman’s sinuous dance
Her black shoes invisible
In speed and the hot dust

There is no escape
We are all buried
The flamenco has ended
All individuality
And pooled the life of us all
Into its font
It is our complete selves
That was sung into one flame
Until that defiant shout of silence
Cools the three chairs
And we are returned to this world:

Where we were taken
No one will ever know.

Verses from the Psalms

The aim was to read four Psalms a day. It should have taken 38 days, maybe 40 if the very long Ps119 is given three days ; it has taken 62 days. Indolence and forgetfulness played a part.

‘How long shall I take counsel in my soul Ps 13 v 2
‘I will bless the Lord, who has given me counsel, my heart also instructs me in the night seasons’ Ps 16v7

Straight away we plunge into the dynamic between God and man. In the New Covenant, God has taken out our heart of stone and replaced it with a heart of flesh and put a new spirit in us AND His Holy Spirit. So when we go ‘inside’ to take counsel with our own soul, we find the God, the Holy Spirit, witnessing with our spirit. Really the distance between us is not even paper thin.

‘I shall be satisfied when I awake in Your likeness’ Ps 17v15

If you’re thinking death and resurrection, then this verse lines up nicely enough. But if you’re thinking literally, it’s more of a puzzle. ‘Behold,’ says St Paul, speaking about the resurrection, ‘I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep but we shall be changed; in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet…the dead will be raised incorruptible.’ But there’s a lead-up to this crescendo: ‘And we all, who with unveiled faces contemplate the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit’. Take a look in the mirror in the morning. Takes some faith…O yeah, faith.

‘Incline Your ear to me, hear my speech’ Ps 17 v6 (v Is 55v3)

Here we go again, the dynamic. ‘Listen to me’ we say but somewhere along the line we hear an echo ‘Listen to Me’. It really is a two-way street this true Christianity.

‘You are my hiding place, You shall preserve me from trouble You shall surround me with songs of deliverance’ Ps 32 v 7

Evangelicals will say (correctly in my opinion) that the whole Bible is the word of God. But if heaven is like a warehouse of the bible books and verses, the personal delivery system from heaven is more impressive. The Spirit may pick up a verse and deliver it to your heart faster than Amazon or Deliveroo. The Bible is like a restaurant where all the food is on the menu but along comes the Holy Spirit in disguise, as the waiter with some recommendations. ‘That one tonight, Sir’ or ‘With the lamb, this wine, Madam’. Or it might be, from this Psalm: ‘Hide in me today, John, let Me sing you some songs of deliverance.’

‘The earth is full of the goodness of the Lord’ Ps 32 v5

Faith, fact, and feeling. I remember being unduly irritated by the silly diagram of Faith as a train engine, pulling two carriages, fact and feeling, in that order. It still irritates me. But darn it, here’s one of those verses where your feelings may well let you down, and facts (I write this in the wake of the Syrian and Turkish earthquake) will divert you. The best thing is to keep munching on this verse, then we might be of some use in every circumstance, like Jesus, who had every reason to doubt the accuracy of this verse, harassed as he was all the way from his home church, where they were about to murder him, to Jerusalem, where the plotters finally got their act together and crucified Him. But even on the cross He was talking of Paradise. Faith trumps facts and feelings.

‘O Lord make haste to save me’ Ps 38v22,40v13 memories of All Saints

Only a quick note: the church I was taken to as a child (which successfully inoculated me against Christianity, or so I thought) had a really good choir. You know, frilly collars, unemotional faces, and angelic sound. I can still hear the bass soloist pouring out the words of the liturgical responses ‘O Lord make haste to save us’ with his rich voice, and the accompanying pipe-organ making the whole building reverberate with its deep thundernotes.

The place of jackals

‘You have severely broken us in the place of the jackals’ Ps44v19

Tempting to write more than I should. If you’ve been there with the jackals and been broken, you know two things. You may be functioning externally quite well, but inside you’re like a dying star collapsing into a black hole. You have no strength to climb back out. But the Lord comes, recovery comes. The Jews suffered annihilation at the hand of Hitler’s Nazis but, unbelievably, just three years later, in May 1948, the newly formed Israel celebrated its restoration to the world map ending 2000 years of exile. It is a profound mystery. If you’re being broken, take some strength from this.

‘All your garments are scented with myrrh and cassia’ Ps 44 v 8

On more than one occasion, women felt impelled to soak Jesus’ head or feet or body with scents, spices, or perfumes. It’s an interesting phenomenon. Even the three Magi from the east brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. The word Messiah literally means ‘anointed one’ and the earthly oils used to anoint kings were pictures of the true anointing oil of heaven the Holy Spirit. Now we are ‘entwined with Christ’, ‘in the Messiah’ the ‘Anointed one’, guess what, we share in His anointing. We’re used to the doublet ‘he who has ears to hear’ or ‘eyes to see’, maybe we should add ‘noses to smell’. No, we should.

‘Make me hear joy and gladness; that the bones You have broken may rejoice’ Ps51v8

We’re back to recovery from brokenness. The Bible is full of this. ‘The Spirit of the Lord is upon me to …heal the broken hearted’. It’s a common human cycle. Falling over, getting back up. On an individual level but it can be scaled up to whole nations. God does it. He loves us.

‘You number my wanderings; put my tears in a bottle’ Ps56 v 8

Such a poetic phrase. It has inspired me to attempt to write a children’s book.

‘Through our God we shall do valiantly; It is He who treads down our enemies’ Ps 60 v12

That partnership repeating. We’re not expected to overcome difficulties or battle away on our own. He treads down our enemies. First base is handing over the conflict to God. Second base is letting God direct us. First base is all-important. Why is it that it still takes me a while to remember to run to first base?

Early will I seek You

‘O God, You are my God; early will I seek You’ Ps63 v 1

Best time of the day. Don’t be surprised if God plays hide & seek. Some days it’s as if you’re surrounded by divine love and presence, other days you’re walking through a fog with no indication of where to go or anything to see. Sensory deprivation. In the hills, in the fog, you get your compass out and walk according to a bearing. Spiritually? There’s a great passage in 1 Samuel when David is having an acutely bad day, it simply says ‘he strengthened himself in God’. No details. Do you know how to strengthen yourself in God? I preach the gospel to myself.

‘Let the peoples praise You O God
Let all the peoples praise You
Then the Earth shall yield her increase
God, our own God, shall bless us
And all the ends of the earth shall fear Him’ Ps67 v 5-7

No point in being grumpy or wallowing in self-pity. Better to praise God. It might just unlock whatever is overwhelming you, fear, helplessness, anger, frustration, defeat, rejection…and so on. I like Watchman Nee’s statement: ‘The Christian life is like wiping your tears whilst holding onto the plough’. The tears are real, but so is the plough.

‘O God, who is like You?
Who has shown me great and severe troubles
Shall revive me again
And bring me up again
From the depths of the earth’ Ps 71 v 19,20

Again. And again.

‘Thus my heart was grieved
And I was vexed in my mind
I was so foolish and ignorant
I was like a beast before You
Nevertheless, I am continually with You
You hold me by my right hand
You will guide me with your counsel’ Ps 73 v 21-24

Coming to terms with our own wilfulness is painful. It leads us off course, grieves our hearts and vexes our minds. Sins of commission or omission. But this verse holds out hope that once we have admitted our state of mind, God will guide us once more. He’s always the father of the Prodigal, waiting for us to come to our senses and return.

You number my wanderings; put my tears in a bottle

‘Men ate angels’ food
He sent them food to the full’ Ps 78 v 25

Quoting Deuteronomy Jesus said ‘Man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God’. Bread sustains our physical/biological life but it’s the word of God that sustains our spiritual life…which is life in fact! The phrase in this verse that struck me was ‘to the full’. Sometimes all we need is a quick snack. But there are times for banquets, when God opens up new vistas, or fresh revelations.

‘For the Lord God is a sun and a shieldThe Lord will give grace and glory’ Ps 84 v 11

Psalm 84. One of my favourite Psalms. I can’t remember why this verse stood out. Read the whole Psalm, it’s good ‘un. Maybe ‘grace AND glory’. Some of us content ourselves on grace OR glory. Nope. It’s both.

‘Preserve my life, for I am holy
Save your servant who trusts in You’ Ps 86 v 2

O dear. I am holy. That’s like a left hook to the polite, reserved, and modest British jaw. We spend far too much time in mock humility. The fact is that in Christ we have been made holy, all of us are ‘saints’ not just the special few, like the Catholics suggest when canonising their best. We align holiness and sainthood (both the same word in Greek) too much with ‘goodness’. That’s the fruit not the root. The idea of holiness is rooted in the concept of being set aside for a particular purpose. God has placed us in Christ. By that fact alone we are holy, set aside. St Paul says we are ‘His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them’. True humility is receiving, welcoming, and believing the word of God, then there’s a chance we might actually display the fruit of holiness.

‘Those that are planted in the house of the Lord
Shall flourish in the courts of our Gid
They shall bear fruit in old age
They shall be full of oil and green’ Ps 92 v 13,14

I read this verse on or about my 65th birthday. Am I still middle-aged? That feels like disappearing youth! But the prospect of being full of oil and green, like an old tree, still pushing out bright green leaves and good quality fruit – I’ll take that.

Psalm 100 the whole Psalm

Enough said.

‘The trees of the Lord are full of sap’ Ps 104 v16

As Psalm 92 above.

‘He satisfied them with the bread of heaven

He opened the rock and water gushed out’ Ps 105 v40,41

Anyone interested in rugby during the 1970s will have been in awe of the Welsh rugby side. And Cardiff Arms Park ringing out with Bread of Heaven (Cwm Rhondda) sung in parts, at top volume, all the verses memorised putting Swing Low and Delilah to shame. It was also our school hymn when schools had school hymns. Before I overindulge in nostalgia I should remember the drudgery of school assemblies and how I eventually refused to sing, defiantly staring at our Buddhist headmaster beating out Christian bible readings and hymns that he didn’t believe in. I wasn’t a Christian, but the hypocrisy was too much. Later, in the 6th Form, I joined the rugby team and, as most of us were also in the school choir, we English rugby boys learnt the parts to Cwm Rhonda. When I capitulated to Christ in the January of my Upper 6th year (Year 13 to more recent ears) the school hymn took on a new significance. Tears fall from my eyes when I think of the spiritual decline in Wales since the Welsh revival in 1904. A revival, that amongst other long-lasting effects, taught the hardened rugby players, miners, and hill farmers of Wales the words of Bread of Heaven. When God opens the hard rock of our hearts fresh water gushes out. The miracle of encountering Christ and how he transforms us from the inside out is poured out in hymns and songs. I can still hear Cardiff Arms Park singing ‘Bread of heaven, bread of heaven, feed me ‘til I want no more, feed me ‘til I want no more’.

‘Tremble O Earth at the presence of the God of Jacob
Who turned the rock into a pool of water
The flint into a fountain of waters’ Ps 114 v 7,8

It’s the same transformation. ‘So and so is such a kind person’ we might hear someone say. But the kindest person may be like ‘flint’ to God. Impervious, tough, self-reliant, and rebellious, refusing to acknowledge that even their kindness has been created by God. When I heard the gospel for the first time (not in the church I had been brought up in) I sat at the back of the church trembling, physically trembling, as it dawned on me that the resurrection and much else besides, might, after all, be true. That left me with an awesome decision, but also a sense of excitement at the implications of taking that step of believing…which I did, ironically, whilst repeating the Creed in the church that had inoculated me against Christianity. I had long since abandoned repeating the Creed as I didn’t believe it, but as I opened my mouth that morning, to say ‘I believe in God…’ I believed.

‘The Lord is on my side
I will not fear
What can man do to me’ Ps 118 v 6

A good verse to repeat over and over. Eat it. Chew on it. Come back to it. Man put Jesus on the cross but man could not raise Him from the grave. Man can do a lot to make us suffer but God is also at work. The Bible is a curious combination of acknowledging fear and yet saying ‘do not fear’. Fear is real but it needn’t dominate. I’ve known fear crystallising into panic attacks, uncontrollable anxiety and fear, but deeper down, deeper than ‘panic headquarters’ is the Lord. It’s true. He has the last word.

‘Though I walk in the midst of trouble
You will revive me’ Ps 138 v 7

That’s what life is like sometimes. It sometimes feels as if we’re surrounded by troubles we cannot ignore or escape from. That’s the hope, not that the troubles will subside, although that is included, but the greater hope, that the Lord will revive us. It’s not just the absence of trouble we need, but a revival of life. The kiss of life, an inner renewal. New batteries for the remote!

‘You have covered my head in the day of battle’ Ps 140 v 7

This spoke to me powerfully. Here, we’re on the offensive. We’re taking the battle to the opposition, to external enemies, the circumstance, or the obdurate internal self. I’m not quite sure what ‘covered my head’ means but when I read it, all I can say is that it re-configured my attitude from the passive ‘He will restore me after trouble’ to a more active participatory stance in whatever battle is on.

‘Teach me to do Your will
For You are my God
Your Spirit is good
Lead me in the land of uprightness’ Ps 143 v10

That could be the prayer of one’s whole life. Especially, perhaps, for a teacher! How much have Iearnt? I loved the poetic ‘lead me in the land of uprightness’ that invisible kingdom, the land of uprightness, that pervades every evil war-torn, disease-racked, poverty-induced, slave-ridden sub-section of our world that attempts to set up an alternative power structure to heaven, to the kingdom of God, and may appear to succeed for a while. But it is those who are, despite all that, led in the land of uprightness that win the day. We press on.

‘The Lord lifts up the humble;
He casts the wicked to the ground
The Lord takes pleasure on those who fear Him
In those who hope in His mercy’ Ps 147 v 6,11

If you’re like me you’ve discovered the truth of both sides of that same coin.

‘Let the saints be joyful in glory’ Ps 149 v 5

Fittingly, we end with (i) saints (ii) being joyful (iii) and submerged in and caught up in glory. No more need be said.

One Raised Eyebrow

‘Brian and I have made a List’
‘You have? And Brian the rabbit?’
‘Yes’
And mother, one eyebrow raised,
Said:
‘Really? It’s not your birthday
Or Brian’s?’
‘You know Brian’s birthday?’
‘Of course’

At that revelation, George was further
Puzzled at the cunning of adults
And almost forgot the List
Screwed up in his right hand, and
The pencil balanced behind his ear,
But it fell to the floor.
Then he remembered
‘Well…you make lists’
‘Yes’
‘And so does Daddy’

‘He does?’
Up went the eyebrow once more.
Ignoring that question,
Which somehow
Didn’t feel like a question,
He handed over the List.
Glasses on for close inspection,
His mother read it out loud.
Some of the letters were
The wrong way round…

‘A list of body noises?’
She said, removing her glasses.
‘Anthony can roll his Rs, but he can’t do the woodpigeon
Murray makes fart noises with his armpit - like this…’
But it didn’t work.
But when his mother did it, it did!
George’s mouth failed to close
For at least a week
But open as it was, he practiced
Popping with his forefinger

The week passed with
Failure upon failure upon failure
But at tea on Thursday
His mother had invited Murray
And Anthony.
It was an unusual evening
And not all noises had been
Mastered
But when his father,
The one with the secret lists,

Arrived sounding like
A horse, his shaking cheeks
Flapping in an invisible wind,
Pudding was postponed.
Priorities are priorities,
After all
And a List has to be
Recognised for what it is
A heart written in words
With unstoppable fire

The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head

What did Jesus mean?

Whatever He meant, if we think we can escape Scot free from having nowhere to lay our heads…we’d better think again. I hope I can explain.

Probably since reading the New Testament seriously in my mid-teens (often when I should have been attending to my homework I should add!), I’ve thought of this statement by Jesus as describing his lifestyle whilst ‘on the road’, preaching.

Jesus may have had a house in Capernaum ‘he came and dwelt in Capernaum’ Matthew 4 v 13 having been rejected in his hometown, Nazareth.

He grew up in Nazareth attending the local synagogue on the Sabbath from childhood for religious services, weddings, funerals, bar-Mitzvahs, and so on. But once He stood up and said ‘The Spirit is upon Me…’ (Luke 4) he was bustled out of the synagogue, the congregation wild with anger, took his to the top of the hill above the town ready to hurl Him to his death on the rocks below…probably with His horrified mother, brothers, and sisters watching on…astonished! Extraordinary behaviour from their neighbours and friends.

So he moved to Capernaum, ‘And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum’ Mt 4 v 13. How long He was welcome in Capernaum is uncertain. All went well until, in the synagogue, he healed a man with a withered arm on the Sabbath. The scribes and the Pharisees that were present were ‘filled with rage’ and began to plot against him.

In one town, Nazareth, all was well until He spoke. In the next, Capernaum, all was well until He healed on the Sabbath.

And leaving Nazareth, He came and dwelt in Capernaum

Switching from Jesus to Abraham for a few paragraphs:

If we are true believers, we are ‘of the faith of Abraham’.

Maybe in his childhood, the scripture doesn’t make this explicit, but at some point, God spoke to Abram (later Abraham) ‘Get out of your country, from your family, and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you’ Gen 12 v1.

His father seemed to have the same vision, to leave Ur and travel to Canaan, but he settled in Haran a few hundred miles short of Canaan.

We are not to settle just short. Just as Abram had to leave his father’s house. His family. From whom he had received everything. It is the same for us. Sometimes we have to, whether we are rejected, like Jesus at Nazareth and Capernaum, or whether we set out alone, like Abram at Haran.

In Israel, there were three feasts that the men, if possible, had to attend in Jerusalem each year: Passover, Pentecost, and Tabernacles.

In English evangelical or ‘charismatic churches’ whether found in ‘streams’ or historic denominations, like the CofE or Baptists, or independent churches, see the first two feasts, Passover and Pentecost as part of the New Testament, but not Tabernacles. Not yet, that is.

In simple terms, evangelical and charismatic churches would see Passover fulfilled in Christ; the original Passover, enabling the Jews to escape from Egypt under Moses in the exodus, acting as a ‘model’ of the true ‘Passover Lamb’ – Jesus. As John the Baptist cried out, ‘Look! It’s the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world’ pointing at Jesus. Through the true Lamb of God being sacrificed and His blood being shed, we too make our exodus from the slavery of sin into redemption and freedom through Christ.

The Day of Pentecost has two New Testament passages that explain how the New Testament (or New Covenant – the terms are synonymous) only functions when the gift and baptism in the Holy Spirit is received. In John 7 Jesus cried out ‘If anyone is thirsty, come to Me and drink…out of His heart shall flow rivers of living water’ This He said concerning the Spirit whom those believing in Him would receive’ and then in Acts 2 ‘When the Day of Pentecost had fully come…they were all filled with the Holy Spirit and speak with other languages as the Spirit enabled them’. True Christianity is infused and propelled by the Holy Spirit. Many evangelical and denominational churches rejected and still reject this forcing those who receive the Spirit, as Jesus promised, to experience for themselves the truth of the verse ‘the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head’, His experience has become theirs.

But what about Tabernacles? Tabernacles is fulfilled in Christ s much as Passover and Pentecost, and therefore it should be as integrated into our faith and church experience as much as Passover and Pentecost. When the Jews celebrate Tabernacles there are some features that survive to this day.

1. They meet under a roof with overlapping branches with gaps that lets the light in

2. Food and drink, and, ceremonially bread and wine, is passed round

3. They remember the time in the desert, when they lived in tents, temporary dwellings.

They were together. In our very individual-based culture, ‘freedom’ is a treasured value, including freedom of speech, the freedom of assembly, and freedom of worship – freedoms that were hard won. But the New Testament speaks of three baptisms: 1. Baptism into Christ – God taking us out of Adam and planting us in Christ (e.g. Romans 6 v 3) 2. Baptism in the Spirit – Jesus is the Baptiser in the Spirit. We are plunged into the Spirit (Acts 2) 3. The Spirit baptises us into one body. This is a Holy Spirit operation (1 Cor 12 v13)

It is the last of the three that we resist; the flesh demanding its illusory rights of independence when our life is the life of Christ. But if we yield and have faith in this truth, we will find ourselves closely knit, grace flowing from one to the other, together under a roof with holes letting the light in i.e. the presence of God. We become a replica of Jesus, ‘the word became flesh and tabernacled among us’ John 1 v 14 but not as single operatives.

Does this mean endless ‘fellowship meetings’ with coffee and donuts or church picnics?? No. Heaven forbid. Was Jesus like this? No. He was among the people, tax collectors, fishermen, radicals, the rich and the poor, men and women, children, believers and unbelievers, lawyers and politicians, lepers and the demon-possessed, the sick and the well, Jews and Gentiles. Our fellowship is in spirit…and sometimes we’ll meet. One moment he was a baby in a feeding trough, and on another occasion feeding 5000. In public view one minute and insignificant, or hidden, the next.

We cannot settle a few hundred miles short of the Promised Land, in our own Harans

But when we meet, as Paul said to the Corinthian church, ‘whenever you come together, each of you has a song, a teaching, a tongue, a revelation…’ in other words it’s a meeting with God who, as Paul had previously taught, has poured out His Spirit and distributed His diverse gifts: words of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healings, miracles, prophecy, discerning spirits, tongues, and interpretation, therefore ‘whenever you come together’ these things are the norm. God the Father, the Son, the Holy Spirit are at work…we are not in charge. Leaders facilitate Tabernacle-style meetings and living. Leaders in plural. Elders. The New Testament knows nothing of one-man (or one-woman) leaders. Or a pope. Or anyone rising up to ‘run’ the meeting, or the church. It’s only a spiritual oxymoron that thinks they are better at running meetings than the Spirit of the Living God.

The Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.

We cannot, must not, settle for either for a ‘Passover-only’ Christianity, or a ‘Passover + Pentecost only’ Christianity. We cannot settle a few hundred miles short of the Promised Land, in our own Harans. We must press on.

Lastly, we press on for what?

‘To Him be glory in the church in all generations’ Ep 3 v21.

“If I keep digging…”

Owen and his rituals.
Shoelaces may be undone
Hair unbrushed
And shirt buttons rarely level
But it was at breakfast
He would strike
Like a coiled adder

Owen the philosopher,
Amidst the clinking of spoons
The careful scraping of butter
On hot toast
The smell of marmalade
And the ruffle of a newspaper
The busyness of a mother

Sat readying himself to ask
Awkward Questions
With his errant shoes banging
Against the crossbeam
Of his chair, it started:
‘Da’ad?’ and the initial reply
A barely audible grunted ‘Yes?’

‘If I keep digging…’
‘Australia.’
A one-word-answer.
As if, like a suitcase,
It contained all the images,
Scents, music, art,
And accents of a far-off land

For six-year-old Owen,
A four-syllable answer
At seven a.m. the pips telling him
What he already knew,
Was a triumph. ‘Australia’
Wriggled down his ear canal
Into his imagination…

Father, discarded and transported
To ‘work’, whatever that meant,
And mother distracted with
Hair and dressing for coffee,
Or, when granny came,
With trainers, bibs, knee supports,
Bending and stretching

The time had come
For today’s importance -
He would not appreciate the
Free rein until old enough
To rebel against any benevolence
Or love’s demands -
Owen found his red boots

And, jacket thrown on,
Like his considered frown,
He sauntered old Labrador style
To the shed to retrieve
A spade, trowel,
And Dad’s oversized gloves.
Selecting his spot, he looked round…

…Mother, from the kitchen window
Returning his frown
Blew a kiss;
The starting pistol:
Drawing himself up
To full height and strength,
Boot on spade; it begun.

Visitors arrived. Someone
Left bread pudding
Parcelled in greaseproof paper
And a tall glass of lemonade
On the rocks.
Speaking of rocks, a
Semi-circle of soil and stone

Like a clockface
Told the time
Until his full bladder
Drove him from the task.
Noon: shadows and
Owen disappeared
Towards Ngunnawal County

The Visitor found him at four
Lying on the burnt orange
Soil of his quest
Looking up with closed eyes
At where the Sun had been.
Dreamtime achieving what
Spade and trowel had not

Or maybe they had…
…over half a milky tea
And buttered scones
Owen introduced his mother
To Kuparr with whom
He had found a worm
As long as his arm

Two breakfasts later
His face emerged
Finally washed and tanned
And, on the table, tea,
Beetroot and tumeric
Stained, lay a freshly carved
Boomerang. ‘Da’ad?’