Over the past eighteen months, we have looked at many questions – questions we ask God and questions He asks us – and have seen that asking questions is a normal (even healthy) part of a relationship. However, we have to also face the fact that sometimes God does not seem to answer our questions, and how we respond to the silence of God is very important.

1 Cor 13:8-12 reminds us that we currently live in a season of incompleteness, when we do not know everything. One day, we shall know fully, even as we are fully known, but until that day comes, we must accept that God is not obliged to answer our questions. It’s not that He is mean or secretive, but sometimes He does not answer our questions because He wants us to live by faith and not by sight (2 Cor 5:7) and because some answers are beyond our comprehension (see Deut 29:29).

We mature by learning to trust God even when we do not see or understand what He is doing. It can be hard to trust Him when we do not see how He is working or what He is doing, but we are called to praise Him in everything and to believe that He is working for our good in every situation, even those which are tragic and hard to bear. (Rom 8;28-29) Faith and trust, worship and praise, are our choices. They are markers of living by faith and not by sight. Rend Collective’s song ‘Weep With Me’ has the profound truth in it that ‘what’s true in the light is still true in the dark.’ Often, when darkness calls, when sorrow hits our lives, we find it hard to believe that God is good, that He loves us, that He is able to work for good in our situations, but we grow as we trust God in these situations.

Secondly, sometimes perhaps God does not answer our questions because He knows we would not be able to understand the answers! We live in the now; we live in a world we can see and touch. But the answers God brings belong to the spiritual realm and this realm can’t be seen or touched in the same way as the natural world. God often gives us examples and pictures of spiritual truths through the natural world – the transformation of a butterfly from a caterpillar, for example, pointing to the truth that our mortal and corruptible bodies will one day be transformed into immortal and incorruptible bodies. But spiritual questions have spiritual answers.(1 Cor 2:14) We need to have spiritual understanding if we are to grasp the answers to spiritual questions and must learn to accept that we can’t understand everything now.

Andrew Peterson says, ‘So when the questions dissolve into the silence of God,/The aching may remain, but the breaking does not.’ (‘The SIlence of God’, Andrew Peterson) We don’t have to be broken by unanswered questions but can learn to trust God even when He doesn’t give us all the answers we would like.

Here are some more photos from the Jubilee Fun Day, taken by volunteer Christopher Wright.

A flavour of the day…

What a wonderful afternoon we have had, with 90 people attending our Jubilee Afternoon Tea and celebration service. We had lots of food to eat, a Jubilee quz to complete, a Jubilee song to learn (especially written by Garry to mark this occasion) and crafts to do. We learnt that we can all have 2 birthdays like the Queen – but to be born again and become a follower of Jesus is far more special than having an ‘official’ birthday! We also reflected on the fact that whilst 70 years is a very long time to reign, Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of Lords and His reign will never end!

Becky Murray from the missionary charity One By One spoke at our meeting this morning, telling us about how an encounter with a young girl in Sierre Leone (who thought that her kind gesture in buying flip-flops for the girl was actually a means of buying her sexually) led her to found the charity which now works in Kenya, South Africa, India, Brazil and Pakistan. She spoke from John 20:24-28 about how Thomas often dismissed by us for doubting after the resurrection. So often, we label ourselves (and others) as failures when we make mistakes, but actually, Thomas was transformed by his encounter with Jesus and took the gospel to India. He became, in effect, a ‘twin’ of Jesus, mirroring His love to so many.

Jesus urged Thomas to see His wounds, to perceive, to become acquainted with them through experience. He told him to reach his hands into His wounds. There is no quick fix to many of the problems we face in this world (slavery, human trafficking, brick factories and so on), but like the good Samaritan, we can help people one by one. We must not look the other way as the Levite and the priest did, but must be willing to have God challenge us and stretch our faith so that when we surrender to Him, He can take us all on incredible journeys.

It might surprise some people to know that the idea of ‘jubilee’ is actually a Biblical one. They might be even more surprised to find that this idea is found in the book of Leviticus, which probably doesn’t feature in anyone’s top ten favourite books in the Bible! But there in Leviticus 25, we find out the origins of the idea of a ‘sabbatical’ and the Year of Jubilee (which might put our 4-day celebrations into some kind of context!) These ideas were not people’s, but God’s. Rest, freedom and celebration are very much a part of the heart of God.

The idea of the Year of Jubilee was that every Israelite would return to their own property and debts would be cancelled. Freedom would be proclaimed; those who had been slaves would be set free. In fact, the word itself derives from the trumpet blast of liberty which was a significant part of the celebrations.

We have incorporated this word into our recent celebrations and have even added to it – the Silver Jubilee in 1977, the Golden Jubilee of 2002, the Diamond Jubilee of 2012 and now the Platinum Jubilee of 2022, all commemorating the reign of Queen Elizabeth II (but these ideas are also present for wedding anniversaries and any anniversary worth celebrating!) Jubilees are times of great joy and gladness, celebration and community feasts.

We have been pleased to celebrate this Platinum Jubilee with others around us in different ways over the past week, starting with our celebrations in Phoenix Park on Wednesday and culminating (for us) in our celebration service with Afternoon Tea at 4 p.m. this afternoon. We are grateful for the Queen’s service, faithfulness and faith in the Lord Jesus Christ and recognise her contribution to our history as the longest-reigning UK monarch. We are even more grateful, however, for the God who orginated all celebration and who loves us so lavishly and who, in the person of Jesus Christ (king of Kings and Lord of Lords) is the incarnation of the Year of Jubilee.

‘The Lord provided for a time
For the slaves to be set free
For the debts to all be cancelled
So His chosen ones could see
His deep desire was for forgiveness
He longed to see their liberty
And His yearning was embodied
In the year of Jubilee

Jubilee, Jubilee
Jesus is that Jubilee
Debts forgiven, slaves set free
Jesus is our Jubilee

At the Lord’s appointed time
His deep desire became a man
The heart of all true jubilation
And with joy we understand
In His voice we hear a trumpet sound
That tells us we are free
He is the incarnation
Of the year of Jubilee.’ (‘Jubilee’, Michael Card)

Here are some more photos from this Wednesday’s Jubilee Fun Day which was a wonderful day in Phoenix Park. Hopefully these give you a flavour of some of the things that happened throughout the day.