The theme of this final week of Lent readings is ‘Changing’. Change is part of the Christian’s life, for this life is about ongoing transformation into the image of Christ (Rom 8:29, 2 Cor 3:17-18). But change is rarely enthusiastically embraced by us all or even noticed, for the most part, once we reach adulthood.

Today’s reading (Isaiah 42:1-9) is part of the ‘Servant Songs’ in that book, showing us the nature of God’s Messiah. This servant will spurn no one but will ‘faithfully bring forth justice.’ Gentleness and compassion are seen in this servant, a refusal to countenance bullying or manipulative control. We see here that change can only come as we feel loved and secure. Power, status, material objects and worldly success are not the pathways to the kind of change God is looking to bring about in our lives,  but the work of peace and justice which Christ epitomises will effect long-lasting change in our lives and from there in our communities.

Jesus used other parables to describe the kingdom of God. In Matt 13:33, He likened it to yeast working its pervasive way through a batch of dough, causing the bread to rise. Yeast permeates everything and affects everything it comes into contact with.

We may well feel that our lives and our faith have little impact on the world. We are not evangelists preaching to thousands. We are not hugely influential people with millions of followers on social media, with people hanging on to our every word. But the truth is, every Christian is like yeast, and yeast has an impact far beyond its size. The very nature of yeast means that it works all through everything it meets; it infiltrates everything. Every Christian has the Holy Spirit dwelling within them, and therefore we have God’s very nature within us. As we allow His nature to influence us, to shape us, to mould us, to permeate us, we then begin to permeate everything around us. Jesus talked about us being salt and light (Matt 5:13-16), again using imagery to help us understand the pervasive nature of His kingdom.

The three parables about seeds and yeast remind us that:

1. God is working in our world all the time; He has not abandoned or forsaken us. There may well be delays which we don’t appreciate, but the natural world reminds us that there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the sun. (Eccl 3:1) We can’t change that, no matter how much we try, so we may as well learn from it!
2. God’s work may well be unseen much of the time or look different to what we expect. He delights in turning our thinking upside-down and revolutionising our ways of doing things. There is great liberty and fun in ditching the world’s methodology and living in step with the Holy Spirit, because He brings forth great and mighty things from the smallest starts. If a mustard seed can turn into a mighty tree providing shade for the birds, if an acorn can turn into a mighty oak tree that lives for hundreds of years, what can He do with the tiny faith each one of us has?
3. God’s kingdom permeates everything, just as yeast does. Each one of us can be light and salt in our society; we can be yeast, changing the bread from the unleavened, flat consumable to something that is light and tasty and much more appetising!

This evening we looked at another question Jesus asked, this time about the kingdom of God: ‘What shall we say the kingdom of God is like, or what parable shall we use to describe it?’ (Mark 4:30) It’s fitting to think about the topic of the kingdom of God on Palm Sunday, for it was on that day that Jesus rode into Jerusalem on a donkey, fulfilling prophecy (Zech 9:9) and in this manner proclaiming that He was God’s Messiah (see Mark 11:9-10), yet showing us that His kingdom would not be like everyone expected.

To answer this question, Jesus told parables. A parable is ‘a simple story used to illustrate a moral or spiritual lesson.’ It deals with a concrete story: a farmer sowing seed, a woman searching for a coin, a shepherd looking for a sheep, a business man selling a field to go and buy something more valuable. On the surface level, a parable is easy to understand because it’s telling a story about things we easily understand. Because of this, we are drawn into the story, and we become engaged in it. But a parable has a punch line which leaves us understanding that there is much more to the story than seems at first sight.

Jesus tells a number of parables in Mark 4. He starts with the Parable of the Sower, one of the most famous parables, and goes on to talk about the parable of the growing seed and of the mustard seed; in the parallel chapter in Matthew’s Gospel (Matt 13), He also tells parables about a fishing net and hidden treasure. In each of these stories, we hear the phrase ‘this is what the kingdom of God is like’ (Mark 4:26) or ‘the kingdom of heaven is like…’ (Matt 13:31, 33, 44, 45, 47) This figure of speech is known as a simile, where we compare two things and say one is like something else, and this kind of comparison helps us to understand spiritual truth by comparing it to something ordinary.

The Parable of the Growing Seed (Mark 4:26-29) reminds us that God is at work all the time in our world, even if we don’t see this easily or understand how He works. We have a role to play in God’s kingdom; we are co-workers with God, Paul says, but at the end of the day, God is the one who makes things grow. (1 Cor 3:6-7) God is in control. He is building His church and His kingdom. (Matt 16:18)

In the Parable of the Mustard Seed (Mark 4:31-32), Jesus reminds us that the kingdom of God may not look much – a mustard seed is tiny – but will grow and flourish. Growth is hard-wired into our universe by God, and we need to understand the difference between what we plant and what we reap (see 1 Cor 15:36-38). Growth happens in the natural world through apparent death: you plant a seed and see nothing for weeks or months. Yet in due time, God will bring growth out of this planting, and we will see something completely different to what we planted. Similarly, the work God is doing in the world is often invisible to the natural eye and bears little resemblance to what we imagine.

The kingdom of God doesn’t necessarily look very impressive. It’s not full of ‘pomp and circumstance’. It’s not like the royal pageantry we are used to, with golden carriages, crowns, jewels, magnificent clothing.) The kingdom of God is a topsy-turvy kingdom, where values and principles are not necessarily what we would expect, but where God is at work in the humble and servant-like attitudes of the King who rode on a donkey.

We were privileged to welcome Joy Gascoigne from Grimethorpe Pentecostal Church this morning to speak at our Communion service. Joy spoke from Genesis 49 on ‘Keeping A Steady Hand.’ Here, we see Jacob wanting to speak blessing to his family. When it came to Joseph, he said that ‘his bow remained steady‘ (Gen 49:24). Archers attacked him, but his bow remained steady – a reminder to us that life has its ups and downs and often we feel overwhelmed by the tragedies around us, but we are called to stability in God at all times.

If we want a steady hand, we have to remember that God has not changed and is with us still. Joseph suffered much in life; his brothers’ betrayal when he was young radically affected all his life, but he found God was with him in the pit, in the prison and in the palace. The righteous may have many troubles (‘afflictions’, Ps 34:19), but God is still there with us through them all.

If we want a steady hand, we must learn to do what is right, even under pressure. Joseph is an example to us of doing the right thing (‘being made holy’) in potentially difficult situations, such as that with Potiphar’s wife. He retained his integrity at a difficult time. God is more interested in our character than our comfort. The world celebrates talent, but God celebrates character. We have to understand that God is at work in every situation in our lives. Joseph learned to recognise this, saying, ‘But God sent me ahead of you to preserve for you a remnant on earth and to save your lives by a great deliverance.’ (Gen 45:7) He knew that God had been working for good in every terrible situation in his life. 

Joseph’s story reminds us that God is not interested in the ‘quick fix.’ What he has started, he will complete (see Phil 1:6). It took time for Joseph to see and understand God’s purposes for his life, but in the end, he realised that God had been in it all. God is still at work in our lives. He’s not finished with us yet!

Our reading today (John 12:20-26) looks at Greeks who wanted to see Jesus. Jesus took this opportunity to teach about the need for death to precede life; He was not about to be distracted as He prepared to make that final journey into Jerusalem. We might feel that this was not what people wanted to hear, but as always, Jesus focuses on what is truly important rather than on what we consider to be important.

Today is Palm Sunday, when we remember that Jesus chose not to enter Jerusalem in triumph, but chose the path of humility, riding on a donkey, ‘aligning himself with the outcast, those on the edge, sharing every part of our lives – the humdrum as well as the glamorous.’ (‘Sharing The Easter Story’, P 188) Love is not always seen in the spectacular or the remarkable. It is seen more often in meekness and humility, in service and in selflessness, in the ordinary acts of kindness and help which so many people demonstrate daily.

We were pleased to hear the following report from Fredrick and Reeba in India concerning Amshika, the little girl we sponsor.

‘Today we were able to meet Amshika and her mother again, they both looked good. They been to the doctors for more treatments. We are still praying for them. They conveyed a big thanks for all your support regularly. Thank you so much for all your prayers for them and helping them.‘

Here are the latest photos.