Philip Paul Bliss (1838-1876) was a well known teacher, evangelist and soloist. He wrote many hymns, inlcuding ‘I will sing of my Redeemer’ and the melody to ‘It is well with my soul.’ He died at the young age of thirty-eight in a train crash. Of the 160 passengers, only 68 survived the disaster which took the lives of Philip Bliss and his wife, Lucy. The lyrics to the hymn ‘I will sing of my Redeemer’ were found in his belongings after the crash and the song was set to music by James McGranahan and was one of the first songs to be recorded on that new invention, the phonograph.

Aaron Shust has written new music for the hymn. I am always struck by the power of story. We have a story to tell, a wondrous story; a song to sing about a Redeemer’s wondrous love for us. How we do that is our gift to God. But the fact that we have a story to tell and a song to sing is His gift to us.

“I will sing of my Redeemer
And His wondrous love for me
On the cruel cross He suffered
From the curse to set me free.

We will praise the Lamb for sinners slain
For His blood can wash away our stain
Singing glory, glory to His name
For His blood can wash away…” (‘Sing of My Redeemer’, Aaron Shust, words by Philip Bliss)
‘Sing of My Redeemer’, Aaron Shust, words by Philip Bliss

A friend of mine once remarked wryly that I ‘have a song for every occasion.’ I don’t know about that, but as I was listening to the sermon on the atoning cross last night, I couldn’t help thinking about a song (from 1993, as it turns out!) called ‘Cross of Gold’. Thanks to the wonders of Google and the Internet, I listened to it again today, with quite a lot of nostalgia if I am honest (not to mention raised eyebrows at the video, which I’ve never seen before!)

The song looks at this symbol of Christianity and asks why people wear a cross of gold:
“What’s your line?
Tell me why you wear your cross of gold.
State of mind
Or does it find a way into your soul?” (‘Cross of Gold’, Michael W. Smith)

It goes on to ask:
“For some it’s simply something to wear around your neck
Just a chain
Jewellery
Is it decoration?
Is it an icon
Or proclamation?
An icon of what?
What?
For some it’s simply something to wear around your neck
Just a chain
It means a lot more than that to me.”
‘Cross of Gold’, Michael W. Smith

Stephen spoke on brands and logos last night. We live in a visual society dominated by media and advertising. To be a successful company, you have to be well known, and marketing – including having an instantly recognisable logo – is all part of the branding.

Every day we are confronted by various logos:

(I always find it mildly amusing that Apple’s logo reminds me of sin in the Garden of Eden, which I am quite sure was not the advertisers’ real intention!)

(Clearly, I’m not a marketing man’s dream girl, as I had to be told that these were the ‘golden arches’ of McDonald’s, since I had assumed they were just the capital letter M.)

Our church has a logo, a dove (symbolic of the Holy Spirit.) But the real symbol of Christianity is the cross.

The centrality of the cross to Christianity has spilled over into the English language generally (we talk about getting to the crucial point or getting to the crux of a matter, with both words having their roots in the Latin word for cross, crux), but in many ways, this is an odd symbol for Christianity to choose. Why the cross, symbol of suffering and shame?

Paul told the Corinthians that he had come to preach to them not with eloquence or human wisdom, but in fear and trembling, simply to give to them the message of ‘Jesus Christ and Him crucified.’ (1 Cor 2:1-5) Paul was an intelligent man, full of human knowledge, but he understood the need for God’s power to be revealed and that power seems like weakness to human wisdom. The cross is the symbol of Christianity because there, Jesus purchased our salvation. Romans 3:25-26 talks about Christ being our sacrifice of atonement, who died for our sins and to demonstrate His righteousness. Atonement was necessary to bridge the gap between man and God and to put right all that was wrong. 1 John 2:2 tells us that Christ’s atoning sacrifice was for the sins of the whole world and 1 John 4:10 tells us that it is the demonstration of God’s love for us.

The cross is now empty, for Christ has risen, but without the cross, we would still be under law and under condemnation. The atoning sacrifice of Christ means that the cross is a worthy symbol for our whole faith, which rests on this once-and-for-all offering to God. It’s not just something to be worn around our necks as an adornment or decoration, but is a declaration of the crucial event in Christianity’s history.

Some of you may remember the 1979 Number 1 hit by the Boomtown Rats called ‘I Don’t Like Mondays’. According to Bob Geldof, he wrote the song after reading a telex report about the shooting spree of a 16 year old American girl called Brenda Ann Spencer who fired at children in a school playground at Grover Cleveland Elementary School in California, killing two adults and injuring 8 children and 1 police officer. When she asked why she had done this, she simply gave the reason ‘I don’t like Mondays. This livens up the day.’

Bob Geldof said “It was such a senseless act. It was the perfect senseless act and this was the perfect senseless reason for doing it. So perhaps I wrote the perfect senseless song to illustrate it.”

In the song, he writes:
“The silicon chip inside her head
Gets switched to overload
And nobody’s gonna go to school today
She’s gonna make them stay at home
And daddy doesn’t understand it
He always said she was good as gold
And he can see no reasons
‘Cos there are no reasons
What reason do you need to be show-ow-ow-ow-own?” (‘I Don’t Like Mondays’, The Boomtown Rats)
‘I Don’t Like Mondays’, The Boomtown Rats

Many of us don’t like certain days of the week; we may even have the ‘Monday blues’ when we go to work on a normal Monday. But the events celebrated this Easter weekend are more than an annual reminder of Christ’s victory over death; the crucifixion and resurrection form the pivotal point of history and affect our ordinary lives every day of the week.

Are we living in the shadow of the cross, confused and bewildered by what is going on around us? The disciples went through so many emotions from Palm Sunday to Good Friday that they must have felt completely drained by that time. They saw no way out, no way that their hopes could be revived. Jesus was dead. It was the end of the story.

Proverbs 29:18 says “where there is no vision, the people perish.” That word ‘vision’ is often translated as ‘revelation’. The Amplified version says ‘redemptive revelation of God’. The Message version says ‘if people can’t see what God is doing, they stumble all over themselves.’ On Good Friday, the disciples couldn’t see what God was doing. They could only see death and destruction. They were not expecting resurrection. The women were discussing how they were going to get the stone moved from the tomb’s entrance: they were not expecting to find a risen Saviour. But the Easter narratives (see Luke 24:1-8 and John 20:1-10) make it very plain that they did not find a body in the tomb and instead met with the risen Christ. It was this experience of resurrection which transformed the disciples and which can transform us.

Paul underlines the crucial importance of the Resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15, when he explains that without resurrection, our faith is in vain and we are left in our sins. This passage in 1 Corinthians 15 makes explicit what the Gospels and Acts touch on: this fact that the resurrection changes everything. Eugene Peterson says that the fact of the death and resurrection of Christ is “an announcement, a proclamation of something that has happened quite apart from us but that makes present the reality in which we live.” (‘Christ Plays in Ten Thousand Places’, Eugene Peterson, P 230) He goes on to say that we must understand that the resurrection is more than doctrine and apologetics, that ‘resurrection is primarily a matter of living in a wondrous creation, embracing a salvation history and then taking our place in a holy community and receiving the Holy Spirit’ (ibid P 231). Resurrection matters in our everyday, ordinary, Monday to Saturday lives as well as our Sunday lives because Jesus is alive and with us, 24/7, every day of the week, every minute of the day (see Matt 28:20).

Amazingly enough, resurrection is not just a historical fact or interesting end to the Jesus story. The same power that enabled Jesus to rise from the dead is available to us to help us. The resurrection changes everything. No situation is beyond hope or beyond help. Paul tells the Ephesians of the ‘incomparably great power’ which is available to all who believe: “That power is the same as the mighty strength he exerted when he raised Christ from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every name that is invoked, not only in the present age but also in the one to come.” (Eph 1:19-21) He tells the Romans: “if the Spirit of him who raised Jesus from the dead is living in you, he who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to your mortal bodies because of his Spirit who lives in you.” (Rom 8:11) Because of this, we can live in the knowledge of His resurrection, presence and power, knowing – really knowing! – that the same power that raised Christ from the dead really does live in us.

‘Mighty Saviour, lifted high
King for ever, Jesus Christ.
Crowned in glory, raised to life
The same power lives in us.

The grave could not contain
The power of His name.
Death You overcame
Once and for all.’ (‘The Same Power’, Ben Cantelon & Nick Herbert)
‘The Same Power’, Ben Cantelon & Nick Herbert

During Communion this morning we focussed on ‘this man’ and all He has done for us in bearing our sin at Calvary and how
‘the veil was torn so we could have
This open door and all these things have
Finally been complete ‘ (‘This Man’, Jeremy Camp)
‘This Man’, Jeremy Camp

The topic for prayer for April is addictions. Pray for all suffering from addictions of any kind, especially drug and alcohol addictions:

• Pray that God will impact the lives of people with addictions
• Pray they will be delivered from their addictions
• Pray they will come to know God as their Saviour
• Pray that the people who supply them will be caught or stop dealing
• Pray that God will help the families of these people, keep them safe and bless them with food
• Pray that God will protect the children in these families
• Pray that the dealers trying to sell drugs in schools will be caught and stopped
• Pray that God will help the police dealing with drug-related problems and families
• Pray that God will help the police to clean up the drugs and drug-related problems in our villages
• Pray for any other problems with addictions.

Addiction is defined as “the continued use of a mood altering substance or behaviour despite adverse dependency consequences, or a neurological impairment leading to such behaviours.” Addictions can include, but are not limited to, drug abuse, exercise abuse, sexual activity and gambling. Classic hallmarks of addiction include impaired control over substances or behaviour, preoccupation with substance or behaviour, continued use despite consequences, and denial. Habits and patterns associated with addiction are typically characterized by immediate gratification (short-term reward), coupled with delayed deleterious effects (long-term costs).

Jesus died on the cross to set us free from all sins and all addictions. He has the power to deliver us from everything that would lead us into slavery. When we are addicted, something else has mastery over us. We may not even realise this (since denial is so strong within us), but we need Jesus to set us free from every other master. Paul says, ‘ “I have the right to do anything,” you say— but not everything is beneficial. “I have the right to do anything”—but I will not be mastered by anything.’ (1 Cor 6:12) Peter says, “people are slaves to whatever has mastered them.” (2 Peter 2:19), a theme developed by Paul at great length in Romans 6:

“Now if we died with Christ, we believe that we will also live with him. For we know that since Christ was raised from the dead, he cannot die again; death no longer has mastery over him. The death he died, he died to sin once for all; but the life he lives, he lives to God. In the same way, count yourselves dead to sin but alive to God in Christ Jesus. Therefore do not let sin reign in your mortal body so that you obey its evil desires. Do not offer any part of yourself to sin as an instrument of wickedness, but rather offer yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life; and offer every part of yourself to him as an instrument of righteousness. For sin shall no longer be your master, because you are not under the law, but under grace.” (Rom 6:8-14)

Let’s pray for people to come to know the liberating power of Christ and to be set free from addictions in His mighty name!