Local churches have a number of special events this week. At Furlong Road Methodist Church, there is a special healing service on Friday 10th October  starting at 6 p.m.  (all are welcome to attend) and on Saturday 11th October from 10 a.m. until 12 noon, the Salvation Army is hosting a giant jumble sale as part of their ongoing fund-raising to help the food bank.

Don’t forget our own midweek meetings, including the Bible study at 7:30 p.m. on Thursday and the Parent & Toddler Group on Friday morning from 9.30 until 11 a.m. We also have our usual coffee morning on Saturday from 10 a.m. until 12 noon.

Part of the family service involved solving riddles. People were very good at these! See how you get on!

Riddle 1

What is greater than God,
more evil than the devil,
the poor have it,
the rich need it,
and if you eat it, you’ll die?

Riddle 2

What has eighty-eight keys but can’t open a single door?

Riddle 3

You draw a line. Without touching it, how do you make the line longer?

Riddle 4

The Smith family is a very wealthy family that lives in a big, circular home. One morning, Mr. Smith woke up and saw a strawberry jam stain on his new carpet. He figured out that everyone who was there that morning had a jam sandwich. By reading the following excuses, figure out who spilled the jam.
Billy Smith: “I was outside playing basketball.”
The Maid: “I was dusting the corners of the house.”
Chef: “I was starting to make lunch for later.”
Who is lying?

The reason we were solving riddles is because the word used in 1 Cor 13:12 to describe our view through a mirror (in the KJV it talks about seeing ‘through a glass darkly‘) is ‘enigma’. Paul says that all we can see and know and experience in this life now is a little bit like looking in a mirror. Just as the image he would have seen in those ancient mirrors would have had a blurred or undefined outline, such is our knowledge here and now. Matthew Henry says in his commentary on these verses ‘All things are dark and confused now, compared with what they will be hereafter. They can only be seen as by the reflection in a mirror, or in the description of a riddle; but hereafter our knowledge will be free from all obscurity and error. It is the light of heaven only that will remove all clouds and darkness that hide the face of God from us.’ Barnes says of the idea of an enigma or riddle: ‘Little is known; much is left to conjecture; a very accurate account of most of that which passes for knowledge. Compared with heaven, our knowledge here much resembles the obscure intimations in an enigma compared with clear statement and manifest truth.’

Life here can be baffling and confusing, but we can take heart from the fact that God is in complete control, knows everything and is working all things together for good. We don’t need to solve all the enigmas of life. Instead, we are called to trust God and to rest in the fact that we are fully known and fully loved by Him.

P. S.

The answers to the riddles:

1. Nothing

2. A piano

3.You draw a shorter line next to the first line, and it then becomes the longer line.

4. The maid. (It was a round house, so there were no corners to dust…)

There are all kinds of mirrors, which are objects used to reflect light in a way that preserves much of its original quality even after its contact with the mirror. Most ordinary mirrors (used for personal grooming or decoration) are plane mirrors, but at fun fairs there are curved, distorting mirrors which can make things look shorter or  taller, fatter or thinner:

The Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles is one of the most famous rooms featuring mirrors. Built for Louis XIV in the 17th century, this room has seventeen mirror-clad arches that reflect the seventeen arcaded windows that overlook the gardens and its dimensions are 73.0 m × 10.5 m × 12.3 m (239.5 ft × 34.4 ft × 40.4 ft).

Magic mirrors feature in fairy tales. The most famous is probably the magic mirror in ‘Snow White‘ where the wicked queen would ask ‘Mirror, mirror, on the wall, who is the fairest of them all?‘, confident that the answer would reflect her own beauty… only to find one day she had been usurped by Snow White and thus plotted to kill her.

Then there is the magical mirror in ‘Alice Through the Looking Glass’ which leads Alice to a fantastical world of adventures.

In Bible days, however, mirrors were not made of glass and obviously were nowhere near as precise or effective as the mirrors we use today. The first mirrors were probably water, since you can see reflections in clear water (think of Narcissus, who was extremely vain and proud, so much so that when he saw his reflection in a pool of water, he fell in love with it, not realising it was merely an image.) Ex 38:8 and Job 37:18 indicate that mirrors were made of bronze and clearly not as effective as glass mirrors today. Perhaps that is why Paul says ‘now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face’ (1 Cor 13:12), for matter how good the mirror is, what we see is only a reflection of the real thing; it is not the real thing itself.

This passage in 1 Cor 13 emphasises the primary importance of love in the life of the Christian (see also John 13:34-35, 1 John 2:10-11), but Paul reflects also (1 Cor 13:8-12)  that our understanding of God is indirect and incomplete in this present life, using the analogies of childhood and mirrors.The analogy of the mirror implies that our visibility of Christ currently is indirect. In other words, Paul is comparing the nature of looking in a mirror to the relationship we will enjoy with Jesus when we see Him “face to face.” What we currently know and experience of God is not the whole story. There is so much more to be revealed (see 1 John 3:1-2) We may not know everything now, but God knows us through and through (see Ps 139:1-6) and there is coming a day when the perishable shall be clothed with the imperishable and the mortal with immortality (1 Cor 15:52-54) and God will dwell with us, removing all pain, tears, suffering and death. (Rev 21:1-5) One day we won’t mirrors to see God; we will be like Moses who spoke with God face to face. (Num 12:8) What a day that will be!

Last night’s family service was on the theme of ‘Mirrors’ and Mark devised a series of challenges for people to do using mirrors. They had to count the number of photographs in the corridor or in the main room, tell the time from the mirror, search for cuddly toys or sweets. It’s not as easy to do these things when you have to do everything backwards and can only use the mirror as your eyes…

Stephen’s last sermon was on prayer as a kit bag, and today he looked at how we must have belief in our kit bag if it is to be practical, visible and available. Without faith, prayer is like a bag full of holes:

John 1:1-14 reminds us that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us. What was invisible (God) became visible to humans through the form of Christ. So often, we struggle with prayer because we are connecting to someone who is invisible and intangible, but Jesus reminds us that in the Incarnation, God has revealed Himself to us and He makes the invisible reality to us. Belief turns the intangible into something tangible and the invisible into something visible.

Our kit bag has to be a reality in our lives. We have to pray effectively and with faith so that the invisible becomes visible. A bag full of holes (a ‘holey bag’) is no use to us, for whatever God puts into such a bag would simply spill out. But a bag full of faith (a ‘holy bag’) is worth something because then we are equipped for every situation. Prayer takes the written word of God and makes it ‘3D’, connecting us through this word to the living God. Then our prayers can make a difference and we can see how our connection to God is able to have a practical impact on our lives, our community and our world.

Apathy is defined as a ‘lack of interest, enthusiasm or concern.’ It’s from the Greek word apatheia, meaning ‘without feeling.’ The word used to signify a state of being where one was not dominated by feelings; it was considered the height of spirituality, but of course, nowadays, our word ‘apathy’ tends to have wholly negative connotations, not signifying that one’s feelings are under control but that one is lacking in feeling altogether.

Feelings can be very difficult to evaluate. Some people place great value on them; others value reason or logic more highly than emotions. Whatever our view on feelings, they are clearly important motivators and sustainers of action; they are not always reliable guides, but they can’t be dismissed as irrelevant or insignificant. God chooses to describe Himself using words associated with feeling and it is clear that He is passionate about mankind, loving us tenderly and fiercely and longing for our ultimate good. Part of growing in grace is aligning our feelings and actions with what we know of God’s heart, so that we care about the things, issues and people that He cares about. This is not easy, for our own hearts are cold and selfish and we need divine love injected into us on a daily basis if we are to reflect God’s concerns and love.

God is a God of justice who rails against privilege being misused and the poor being exploited. There are so many examples of this in the Bible that it is hard to understand how we can fail to see this. 2 Chron 19:7 says ‘with the Lord our God there is no injustice or partiality or bribery.’ The prophets railed against religion without compassion or justice; Isaiah reminded us that the kind of fasting God requires is that which ‘looses the chains of injustice and unties the cord of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke.’ (Is 58:6) Yet our own hearts remain chained at times: chained to familiarity, easy living, selfishness and apathy.

Christian students in Durham have begun a campaign called ‘Just Love, Durham’ which seeks to help the poor and disadvantaged in that city. Josh Smedley has written a series of posts on the topic of apathy (identifying the problem, suggesting ways towards a solution and practical steps to overcoming apathy.) In these, he comments on the problem of wilful ignorance (how we hide our inaction behind a wall of refusing to acknowledge there is a problem), how we need to be free ourselves if we are to loose anyone else’s chains, how we have to be committed to justice in the long haul (rather than expecting ‘quick fix solutions) and how we need to stop believing the enemy’s lies (‘how can I make a difference? What’s the point?) and allow injustice to penetrate our walls, erected to defend ourselves from pain and hurt.

All action for God needs to be rooted in God’s heart and soaked in prayer. Abraham and Moses both wrestled with God in prayer for other people (see Gen 18:16-33, Ex 32:7-14). The prophets (Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel in particular) combined prayer for the people with painful calls to see reality as God sees it, cutting through our hypocrisy, apathy and lethargy. Apathy will never be overcome by inertia. But passionate people, fired by God, make enormous differences to a hurting and despairing world and reflect God’s commitment to that world.