encounter

A couple of things hit me this morning during the Ascension Day service at St. Andrew’s.  The readings were a reminder of the promises of Jesus.  Last Sunday we had the promise of ‘the counselor’ who would come to the disciples in Jerusalem.  They were commanded to wait for this before leaving the city.  Today, we heard this through words written by Luke in Acts 1:4-5, On one occasion, while he was eating with them, he gave them this command:  “Do not leave Jeruslem, but wait for the gift my Father promised, which you have heard me speak about.  For John Baptized with water, but in a few days you will be baptized with the Holy Spirit.”

Further along in Acts (today’s reading) two men dressed in white stood beside the disciples as they were looking intently up into the sky as Jesus was going.  In Acts 1:11 comes the next powerful promise yet to be fulfilled, “Men of Galilee,” they said, “why do you stand here looking into the sky?  This same Jesus, who has been taken from you into heaven, will come back the same way you have seen him go into heaven.”

Now what I really found amazing about today’s service was the response of the disciples to all of this.  In Luke 24:51-53 we read, While he was blessing them, he left them and was taken up into heaven.  Then they worshiped him and returned to Jerusalem with great joy.  And they stayed continually at the temple, praising God.

This is what really set me thinking.  What would happen here, in this place, if we were to stay continuously in the church praising God until the day of Pentecost?  Would we be expectant like the disciples?  What do we expect when we go to church? At a minimum, we would have to do something in the church.  We would joyfully greet all who visited, we would give rest and solace and nourishment to worn out and tired souls, we would dust and polish the furniture and perhaps even organise some shelves and bookcases.  Then we might wash the beautiful stained glass windows and perhaps see clearly through the sparkling colours the presence of the holy spirit in our midst.

I’ve recently bought a tape console for my computer so that I can play the boxes of cassette tapes I have in my loft. Not only will it play them, but it can also convert them to digital files to store on my computer or copy onto CD’s to play in the car. It’s been quite a trip down memory lane listening to music ranging from Genesis, to Dire Straights, to Queen, to Supertramp. And then some more unusual or less well know musicians like Bob James, Earl Klugh, Michelle Shocked & Basia. Some of them you may know (if you were in your teens and twenties in the 70’s & 80’s), some you won’t! But what you’ll know will bring back quite powerful memories.

It amazes me how evocative music can be. When I listen to a particular track I can often be transported back to a particular event or moment. The memories are usually comforting, though there are some that are painful. But what tends to happen is that I go back into that memory with ‘rose tinted glasses’ on. The past often appears better, but I easily forget the difficulties, trials and tribulations I went through. I forget the times I often said “I can’t wait till …..” Now much of what I couldn’t wait till …?…, has happened.

I guess for me the lesson is two fold.
1) Don’t wish your life away by thinking things are going to be better when…! But make the most of every situation you find yourself in.
2) Don’t look back and wish you could return to when things seemed so much better. They probably weren’t, but rejoice in what you learned from them.

Jesus’ disciples were at a point like this in the time after His death and resurrection. He told them to wait for the promised Holy Spirit who would equip them to carry on the work that He had begun. I imagine it would have been quite tempting for them to look back to their life before Jesus became so influential to them. In fact there was an occasion, recorded in John 21, where they went back to what some of them knew before – fishing – and as they were fishing they had a resurrection encounter with Him. But they were not to go back. They were to keep moving forward, to keep in step with what Jesus wanted to do in and through them. Their wait was rewarded at Pentecost (Whitsun) when the Holy Spirit empowered them to go out and witness to the love and power of Jesus Christ.
We likewise, although we think life is better when we look back, have to have the courage to keep looking forward and welcome the things that God wants to accomplish in and through us. Jesus wants and encounter with all of us – are we willing to look to Him. Put your hand in Jesus’ hand and trust Him for the ‘new thing’ He wants to do in and through you!!
Isaiah 43:18-19
“Forget the former things; do not dwell on the past. See, I am doing a new thing!”
(from The Holy Bible: New International Version. Copyright © 1973, 1978, 1984, by International Bible Society)

The following words are from the pen of Lilias Trotter, whose words and art have been beautifully packaged in the book above available on Amazon.  This particular segment relates to the verse We live by faith, not by sight, from 2 Corinthians 5:7.

 We have to do with One who “inhabiteth eternity” and works in its infinite leisure.

Some years ago, when a new railway cutting was made in East Norfolk, you could trace it through the next summer, winding like a blood-red river through the green fields.  Poppy seeds that must have lain buried for generations had suddenly been upturned and had germinated by the thousand.  The same thing happened a while back in the Canadian woods.  A fir-forest was cut down, and the next spring the ground was covered with seedling oaks, though not an oak tree was in sight.  Unnumbered years before there must have been a struggle between the two trees, in which the firs gained the day, but the acorns had kept safe their latent spark of life underground, and it broke out at the first chance.

And if we refuse to stay our faith upon results that we can see and measure, and fasten it on God, He may be able to keep wonderful surprises wrapt away in what looks now only waste and loss.  What an up-springing there will be when heavenly light and air come to the world at last in the setting up of Christ’s kingdom!

It’s been a wild week on the Jerusalem Exchange and one particular ticker symbol, INRI, Jesus Nazareth King of the Jews stands out.  Traders fell all over themselves trying to get on board after his Triumphal Entry into The City on Palm Sunday.  Traders expected a palace coup after Judas Iscariot advised his rebel band that the new Kingdom was imminent.  The stock was up 130% from Friday’s close by Maundy Thursday night. 

After the markets closed, Jesus was arrested while with his disciples in Gethsemane.  By Friday, traders were heading for the exits and by the time news hit that INRI’s crucifiction was imminent, it was a meltdown with the stock finishing the day on the floor.  

Can INRI be worth more dead than alive?  The stock just opened Monday at Thursday’s close.  There must be some mistake.  We’re getting rumours that INRI has been raised from the dead.  INRI is soaring.  What a week on the street.

 http://www.gieson.com/john316/

This animation is stunning.  I cannot look at it without having my heart ripped out.  Jesus died for you and for me.

http://gregboyd.blogspot.com/2007/11/washing-osamas-feet.html

My nephew sent me this link.  It appears on the site of Greg Boyd, the leader of his church in MN.  As Maundy Thursday approaches, one has to think about what Jesus would do and how he would respond.  Jesus came to save this world, not to condemn.  What a saviour we have in Jesus.  What a humbling thought to ponder.

The blue grey glow on Coniston Water, the twinkling lights on the shoreline and the snowy peaks of the Old Man are a feast for the eyes.  At 17:00 the sky is still softly lit and with days getting longer, relief from the dark days of winter is in sight.  Still we have to pinch ourselves that we are here, alive in God’s kingdom, where his glory shines in the hearts of men even when the sun doesn’t shine.

On an airplane in December I closed my eyes and saw visions of healing (always the colour of lapis lazuli in my head) in souls close to my heart and then I saw a throng of people as a great mass and each one of those persons had a tiny blue dot in their heads.  This lapis lazuli dot was revealed to me as God’s light in each man.  Whether those men choose to acknowledge God’s presence or not, God is there.  So the world is not so black and white.  The God seed is there, it just hasn’t found fertile soil.   

A continuing theme everywhere I went in December is that Christians make a lot of work for themselves and are worn out from trying to do everything.  They are exhausted.  Sometimes the stress is a burden of success like my brother who has pastored a church for so long that the younger ones are growing up, getting married and wanting him to go anywhere to preside.  Sometimes it is where congregations are losing more than they are gaining and the few doing the work are tired of doing it all. 

If you were to start a new church today, where would you start? What exactly do you need to consider yourself as a church?  What is your purpose?  Who is going to help you build your church?

Some of the problems I saw in the U.S exist in this country on a more massive scale.  Here, throughout the country are dotted countless churches in rural communities built during boom times and now the burden of care is falling on a population that doesn’t recognise this blue dot in the centre of everyone and everything.

Today I received a newsletter from my home church in the U.S.  Two souls just died and a family that had been a large part of the church is splitting apart - the children are moving to China and the parents are moving to Chicago.  I felt the pain of these changes through my heart.  I love these people and this church.  They have worked tirelessly through some very big changes.  The previous building was sold and they now have a profit of close to $2 million to rebuild but not enough bodies to carry the load.

Is all this work falling on blind eyes?  Do all our wails fall on deaf ears?  God has a plan and we are part of it.  Every day is a testimony to his great work.  Thankfully, Lent begins this week.  God never intended for man to ignore his natural laws in our daily lives.  In the first chapter of Genesis, at the end of every day, ‘God saw that it was good’.  We can’t live without this knowledge that what we are doing is good.  We need to hear it ourselves and we need God to tell us and sometimes that means that we need to tell others that God tells us.  This praise and thankfulness needs to filter through our very beings in everything we do. 

 I don’t know the answer to the problems of our churches but God does.  This Lent, let’s spend extra time just listening to what God wants.  I know what questions I am going to bring to him.  I also know that God’s plans are better than anything we can conceive.  Let’s turn it over to God and spend time listening. 

So for me, whatever the weather, I am going to find more time to go outside to feel his presence in the world of creation, to study the Bible more thoughtfully, to listen to the CD-rom ‘Relaxing into Prayer’ available on this web site, to be thankful for every blessing.  God speaks and I don’t want to miss a word he has to say.

We’ve been worshipping this morning and reminding ourselves from John 17 that Christ Jesus is on our side; He wants us to know Him (v.3), He reveals Himself (v.6) through His Word (v.17), the Bible; He wants us to know His protection (v.11); and to be in unity with Him (the Godhead) and our fellow believers (vs.22, 23).
Isn’t is good to know He’s there for us. Romans 8:34 says He’s doing even more. ‘Christ Jesus, who died - more than that, who was raised to life - is at the right hand of God and is also interceding for us.’
How can we ever cease to praise our living, loving heavenly Father for His abundant goodness and promises. Don’t ever forget that. He’s always here for us!! That’s a promise!

“Our deepest fear is not that we are inadequate.  Our deepest fear is that we are powerful beyond measure.  It is our light, not our darkness that most frightens us.  We ask ourselves, who am I to be brilliant, gorgeous, talented, and fabulous? Actually, who are we not to be?  You are a child of God. Your playing small doesn’t serve the world. There’s nothing enlightened about shrinking so that other people won’t feel insecure around you. We were born to make manifest the glory of God that is within us: it’s in everyone.  And as we let our own light shine, we unconsciously give other people permission to do the same.  As we are liberated from our own fear our presence automatically liberates others.
Nelson Mandela 1994