Few of us in Britain, and probably few in the entire world, can have failed to realise that a significant event happened in London on 29th April – namely the Royal Wedding between Prince William and Catherine Middleton. Following on from this global event, the family service theme was that of ‘a Royal Wedding’, but the wedding in question was not the one celebrated at Westminster Abbey!

Mark preached from Matthew 22:1-14 on the parable of the Wedding Banquet, which talks about the wedding God Himself is planning. Recently, Look North (a local news programme) has featured interviews with relatives of Catherine Middleton who had been invited (unexpectedly, from their point of view, given that they were not close relatives) to the wedding in London. This parable talks about how those invited to the wedding did not want to attend, with the result that the guests who did attend were not necessarily those you would expect.

God has issued an open invitation to the world, not only to attend a wedding, but to be participants in it, for we are waiting for the great wedding feast between Christ and His bride, the Church. Many people don’t want to know about God, shunning this invitation in the way that the guests did in the parable; the Jews, to whom Jesus came initially, did not recognise Him as God’s Messiah. But for all who will accept the invitation, there is a wedding celebration ahead which will make the royal nuptials in London pale into insignificance. All the lavishness and grandeur seen on Friday will be as nothing compared to the celebration that is ahead (Revelation 21). May we accept this invitation and be privileged to share in that wedding.

Stephen preached from John 20:24-31 this morning, asking the question ‘how close are we to Jesus?’

Whilst on earth, the twelve disciples were the people closest to Jesus, but here in this post-resurrection scene, we see how Thomas is struggling to make sense of all that has happened. He did not believe the other disciples’ testimony of having seen the resurrected Lord, but wanted to see for himself the wounds – the hands, feet and side which had been pierced. We can be like Thomas, seeking physical proofs rather than walking by faith.

Jesus tells Thomas, “Blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.” (John 20:29) May we have the faith to hear God, listen to His voice and obey what He commands, even without the reassurance that physical proofs can give us. May we be among those who have not necessarily seen but who still believe.

Dave preached from 1 Corinthians 15 on Sunday evening, an apt text for Easter Sunday, the day when we especially celebrate the Resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ! Nowadays there are so many people who would dispute and denigrate that resurrection, but as Paul says, it is important that we hold firmly to the word preached to us (1 Cor 15:2), to the gospel of salvation.

The gospel tells us that God Himself, because of His great love, sent His Son Jesus Christ to die in the place of each of us, so that the wages of sin (which is death) could be paid on our behalf, and we know that the sacrifice was acceptable to God because Christ was raised again to life on the third day.

Jesus was crucified by the Romans, who were experienced in that form of capital punishment and who would not have been mistaken in allowing a living body down from the cross. The fact that they did not break His legs in the way that they did the other criminals’ is proof that He was already dead. His family would have known the difference between a dead body and a living body. Moreover, He was then placed in a tomb which was sealed with a large stone and guarded by Roman soldiers. When the women went to complete the burial rituals on the third day, however, the stone was rolled away and the tomb was empty.

The burial cloths remained, but the body was gone. Moreover, Paul lists people who actually saw the resurrected Jesus, who were eyewitnesses to the resurrection – over 500 people in total – and who saw Him on a number of different occasions.

Our hope for future resurrection rests on the single fact of Christ’s resurrection. Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 15:17-19, “if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ are lost. If only for this life we have hope in Christ, we are to be pitied more than all men.”

The idea of eternal life is deeply embedded in humanity, in most religions, in our hearts. Ecclesiastes tells us that God has set eternity in our hearts (Eccl 3:11). Paul in this chapter loudly proclaims the truth of Christ’s resurrection and therefore we have hope! Moreover, the fact that Jesus Crhist is alive today has many proofs, not least of which is the testimony of individual Christians today that ‘He lives within my heart’.

Let’s rejoice in the fact that He’s alive and hold fast to the gospel we believe!

Moving on from the inward disciplines of prayer, fasting, meditation and study, this Sunday we looked at the outward disciplines of solitude, simplicity, submission and service, rejoicing at the fact that all our disciplines arise from the relationship we already have with the Lord, made possible for us by the death and resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ which we celebrated this weekend.

Solitude
As always, Jesus is for us the example of the need to make time to be alone with God. He often withdraw by himself to pray and encouraged his disciples to take time out to be alone with Him.(Luke 6:12, John 6:14, Mark 6:31-32) Solitude with God is not about temperament and clearly God has made us to be in fellowship with people as well, but there is a need to carve time to ‘keep watch’ with God if we are to walk closely with Him.

Simplicity
Our lives (and homes!) so easily become cluttered up with things and we are bombarded daily by advertising that attempts to persuade us that happiness is bound up in possessions: the latest phone, car, computer, gadget etc. Jesus taught us the dangers of this way of thinking: “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; life does not consist in an abundance of possessions.” (Luke 12:15) We have to learn the lessons of thankfulness and gratitude (think Madame Blueberry in the Veggie Tales episode on these themes!) so that we know the truth of Paul’s words “godliness with contentment is great gain.” (1 Tim 6:6)

Simplicity, being free from the covetousness of things and people, is linked to contentment: as Paul says, “I have learned to be content whatever the circumstances. I know what it is to be in need, and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want. I can do all this through him who gives me strength.” (Phil 4:11-13) We can know peace and contentment in our lives and a freedom from covetousness because we have a heavenly Father who knows what we need and who has promised to supply all our needs. Our part is to guard our hearts against all kinds of greed and to be prepared and willing to live in simplicity, bucking the trend around us, not always having to keep up appearances.

Submission
Submission is not something we find easy to do! Submission really starts with a heart attitude that is manifested in actions. The heart attitude accepts that God is great and that He is Lord. (Ps 100:3, Deut 32:4) Our view of God will affect how we view submission: we need to have confidence in God’s goodness and plans for our lives, even when circumstances apparently contradict that thing.

Submission to God is the starting point for all victory. Jesus submitted to God’s will in the Garden of Gethsemane and that submission was what gave us Good Friday and Easter Sunday. Without that submission, we wouldn’t have Easter to celebrate! It was only when Jacob wrestled with God and had his hip socket wrenched, so he ever afterwards walked with a limp, that he became Israel (Gen 32). We cannot know victory unless we have first known defeat. We have to learn to ‘live to lose’ (Aaron Shust) if we are to know victory. We cannot know life unless we have tasted death. Easter Sunday proves that.

Again, Jesus is our perfect model for submission (Phil 2:5-11). When we look at Him, we can fulfil Paul’s command “Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others.” (Phil 2:3-4), for submission to God inevitably must lead to submission to other people.

Service
We are saved to serve. “For we are God’s handiwork, created in Christ Jesus to do good works, which God prepared in advance for us to do.” (Eph 2:10) As with everything, though, we need to be clear that we are not serving God to earn His favour. We already have that through the wondrous death and resurrection of the Lord! We are serving God out of thankfulness and gratitude, out of awestruck adoration, because we know that we have so much entirely because of His mercy and grace. We are not serving because we are deserving, or because of our own righteousness; we are serving because we want to. It’s the very least we can do.

Service can take so many different forms. Service is not just about the public ministries in a church; it’s not just about preaching or praying or leading worship or playing an instrument or serving Communion. Service is offering a cup of cold water in Christ’s name (Matt 10:42). It’s giving someone a meal or some item of clothing or visiting someone in prison (Matt 25:31-46). It’s showing hospitality to someone (Rom 12:9 & Heb 13:2) or taking the time to encourage someone (Rom 12:8). It’s giving generously (Rom 12:8). It’s digging the drains!

So often we think that what we do is worthless, insignificant, hardly worth noticing. But God notices everything. He sees all our service and He is no man’s debtor. What is done in secret, He has told us, He will reward openly. We need to remember that our service is an offering to God and we need also to understand that there are times when we must persevere in our service. “Let us not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Therefore, as we have opportunity, let us do good to all people, especially to those who belong to the family of believers.” (Gal 6:9-10)

Pupils at school, when learning about Easter, almost always ask the question, “Why is it called ‘Good Friday’ when it’s the day Jesus died? What’s good about that?”

English is one of the few languages that calls this day ‘Good’ and apparently in Middle English, the word ‘good’ had the sense of ‘holy’, which is what some other languages call the day (for example, in French, it’s ‘Vendredi Saint’ – Holy Friday.) In German, it’s called ‘Karfreitag’, with ‘Kar’ having the meaning of ‘crying out’ or ‘lamenting’ – again, given the circumstances of the agony of the Crucifixion, this seems a reasonable name to give to the day when we remember the death of Jesus.

Yet I’m very glad that the day is called ‘Good Friday’, because it reminds us that victory can come out of tragedy and that what we see isn’t usually the whole story. What’s good about the day is that Jesus died not because of the whims of men or because of injustice or cruelty (though these may well have been factors), but because it was part of God’s great plan of salvation. Because of His death, we can know forgiveness and peace with God. Our sins were taken by Him and He took the punishment that should have been ours. He became sin for us. “Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.” (2 Cor 5:17-19)

Hebrews tells us that for the joy set before Him, Jesus endured the cross. (Heb 12:2) Though the day was one of great pain, sorrow, lament and agony for Jesus, He looked beyond that to know that His sacrifice would bring about redemption. As Isaiah prophesied, “After he has suffered, he will see the light of life and be satisfied; by his knowledge my righteous servant will justify many, and he will bear their iniquities.” (Is 53:11)

Good Friday is remembered by Christians each year as the day when God’s plan of salvation was finally revealed. Though we have to wait until Easter Sunday to understand the full scope of that plan, though the day was one of unimaginable sorrow and grief, we can call it a good day because of the work Christ accomplished on the cross, work that is indeed finished.

Have a good day!

I make no apologies for dwelling on the same Bible verses of late; this is all part of meditation, ‘gnawing’ on God’s word until we have drained every last drop of nutrition from it. All too often I skip over passages merrily, keen to prove what a good speed reader I am. Now I’m slowing down, mulling over, reflecting, chewing…

I have always loved the Message version of Matthew 11:28-30 and today had new insight into the part that says “Learn the unforced rhythms of grace.”

Normally I swim and go to the gym separately, not keen on doing too much exercise at once, not keen on exhausting myself, if I’m honest. But today I had an unexpected lift into town that meant I arrived too early for swimming and wondering how to kill the time. So I decided to go to the gym first and swim after, secretly wondering if by the time I went swimming, I’d have any energy left at all.

It was then that I discovered why I much prefer swimming to anything else I can do exercise-wise. As I got into the water, tired and sweaty from the gym, it felt so easy to be in that atmosphere, where the water buoys you up and you barely feel like you’re moving at all. I understood what this verse talks about with ‘unforced rhythms’. Arms and legs moved in coordinated action and there was rhythm there. Totally unforced, very little conscious thought going on, relaxed movement in this environment of water where I felt rested, weightless and capable of doing far more than I’d ever imagined.

Music is a bit like that too. A good melody is full of different rhythms, blending together to form a tune that is repeatable, singable, fun. It takes very little ‘knowledge’ to learn a song and yet it always amazes me when I see that same song written down in the wonderful language of music notation. The rhythms are so complicated: dotted quavers, semiquavers, crotchets, minims, rests, syncopation, tied notes… how I love the language of music, but how it makes me think so hard when I see it written down compared to when I immerse myself in its unforced rhythms. I’m reminded of Ellis Peters’ wonderful Cadfael chronicles and the precentor Brother Anselm who writes down the tunes the minstrel Liliwen plays, to the young man’s amazement (‘The Sanctuary Sparrow’). The language of music notation enables others to reproduce the same rhythms, the same melodies, and consequently marvellous music lives on.

The ‘unforced rhythms of grace’ are so different to the forced constraints of the law. Legalism ties us up in lists of dos and don’ts: prescribing specific courses of action for any and every situation, adding minutiae to overburdened lives. We feel like we’re drowning in a sea of paperwork, squeezing every talent we have into government tick boxes, reducing life to a series of targets and outcomes and outputs. If we’re not careful, we’re like David forced into Saul’s armour. We can’t function in that way, because we’re not meant to. David had to fight Goliath relying on God’s strength, not relying on Saul’s armour. Similarly, we have to live in the ‘unforced rhythms of grace’, not in the straitjacket of the law.

Paul tells the Galatians, “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.” (Gal 5:1) We need to understand and revel in God’s grace. We are loved, accepted and welcomed into God’s family, not on the basis of what we can do, but on the basis of what He has done for us. We learn from Jesus how to live in a right relationship with the Father and understand that there’s nothing more we can do to earn His favour. Our whole lives can be like unforced rhythms, like swimming in water that buoys you up and keeps you afloat. We don’t have to be squeezed into the world’s mould, trying to be like someone else, always feeling we need to ‘depersonalise everyone into a rival’ (Gal 5, The Message) or to elbow others out of the way in order to ensure our own success. Instead, we can allow God to bring forth fruit in our lives and can rest in the knowledge that He who’s begun this good work in us will carry it on to completion until the day of Christ Jesus (Phil 1:6).