Grief - a personal perspective

I thought I knew what grief was.

My father ‘Daddy’ died when I was just 12 years old. I didn’t have any notion in my mind that he was dying. My mind denying me the thought? Divine protection?

The decline was traceable. He had diabetes and eventually it affected his balance. I remember him sitting behind the wheel of the car before getting out and walking back into the house. Somehow, I knew that was the last time he would drive. Then he slipped into a coma. And, in retrospect, I know the look of death in someone’s eyes, the life disappearing, and the laboured breathing, but at the time it never occurred to me that he was dying.

I remember him being taken out of the house by two burly ambulance men and taken to the hospital from where he would not return.

I remember my sister or my mother telling me he had died. I was fiddling with the coal fire in the lounge. I collapsed into grief as it overwhelmed me engulfing me in its tidal wave power. And yet some part of my mind could not accept the truth…the American Colonel had surely been taken to some intelligence facility and would return. But really I knew. At the funeral, it was the sight of the Stars and Stripes’ draped coffin passing through the curtain that broke me.

I knew grief. It is stronger than us. We are helpless in its grip. It does a thorough work. Later it lifts, even if we struggle with the guilt that it should. At some point the sun shines again, food tastes like food, and maybe you want to listen to music or laugh at a joke or get angry over something trivial. It’s subsided. It’s over.

That’s grief.

But. But it’s only in recent days that I have discovered a different form of grief.

You are living a life ‘without __________ in the world’ and it’s hard.

St Paul paints a stark picture of the position of the Gentiles in Ephesus:

‘…at that time, you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world’

If you can replace ‘God’ with someone else’s name ‘…having no hope and without __________ in the world’ then you know this form of grief: it’s the absence of someone who is still alive.

You are living a life ‘without __________ in the world’ and it’s hard. So hard.

There seems to be no relief. No one can take their place. And, whatever the reason for the absence, the only thing you can do is yield the pain to God who knows all things. Knowing Christ carried this grief in His body on the cross, that He wipes our tears, however many weeks or years we must endure these feelings, as we become, like Him, ‘a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief’.

My heart was grieved
And I was vexed in my mind.
I was so foolish and ignorant
I was like a beast before You
Nevertheless, I am continually with You
You hold me by my right hand
You will guide me with Your counsel

Ps 73 v 21-24

There is an important distinction between the first and second kind of grief. The first is disabling. It leaves you unable to function normally and in its early stages, if you are not weeping uncontrollably, you are silent and stunned. I didn’t experience anger, though I understand that is common, just deep sadness and disorientation. The second kind of grief can be distinguished from the first in that there must have been some function of the will in arriving at the position of absence: my father didn’t choose to make himself absent i.e. die. At times you are fine but simple things crack, a place, a song, a place open your heart and the absence is all there is.

Finally, Jesus said it is ‘blessed are you when your mourn; you shall be comforted’. Whatever else this means, suppressing mourning, trying to ignore it, or avoid it, or worse, looking for some form of comfort to numb the pain may seem to make sense at the time, but all we are achieving is delaying the day when we face the reality that our heart is grieved and our mind vexed. Only then can we move further on through the verses in Psalm 73 and allow ourselves, as much as we did to grieve, to be held by our right hand and guided by His counsel.

The Pilates Instructor

Unclipping vertebrae, one at a time
A slow, continuous curve
A staircase really, not a wave
Bones and shock-absorbers
Worn from life and living
Unclipping, one at a time

To fold like a rag doll
My low red face restraining,
Like a dam, my innermost,
From tumbling to the floor
Ten whole, lovely long seconds.
An interlude. Hanging there.

Winding down, I lie still
Letting a train of ladybirds
Crawl under my taut abs.
Or is it my glutes?
I flap like a fish, a hundred times.
Only wingless ladybirds remain

Unaligned body meets
Unaligned soul
They rarely talk, but today
With deepening breaths
Their awkward exchanges
Match my graceless moves

Sweeping the floor now
With my extended ballet foot
Drawing anything but smooth
Supple or serene circles…
But, to my surprise,
My soul looks on gently amused

Smiling, in fact, eyes laughing,
A random collision
A friend found inside a moment
Someone, it seems
You’ve always known:
Someone, plugged into Peace

And now, a new voice speaks,
Unclipping sore and stiff spines
And your tension-twisted torso
And your long-neglected heart
Enfin, you’ve become your own
Instructor. Peace.

Six Counties Wide

Normally some wretched
Inner engine-room coughs and splutters its
Rhymeless blood, the national pulse,
Evicting its poetic tenants
Long before dawn. Not today.
Amnesia? No. Whispers of anxiety
‘Not qualified’. Humbled by six counties,
Defeat hangs heavy on my Yuletide shoulders

Sore Afraid

the angel of the Lord came upon them, and the glory of the Lord shone round about them: and they were sore afraid

Don’t open your lips, please
Don’t extend your hand
Nor even end my fear
I’m clinging on
Can’t you see?
To my staff, to this world

No, don’t sing
Don’t bring the glory down
Heaven can’t fit inside me
I am lost now
Shorn like my sheep
Naked to your
All baptising love

I cannot fully return
To the world
Of tousled sheep
And scraggy babes
Surrounded as I am
By this thin disguise

My staff a reminder:
Then a conductor’s baton
Of heavenly choirs.
More than wood
Infused as I am with
Joy inexpressible

A Sense of England

I’m unsure I can feel you, England
So many winds have blown
And waters brought us ashore
Do we find ourselves
Still, in Ælfred’s skirts?

What is your scent? Your signal?
A dysentery rotting
Army in Azincourt,
A weak autumnal leaf
Certain to die?

But we are a miracle nation
With two fingers thrust to the sky
And knees bent, battle breath
Exhaling ‘We few, we happy few,
We band of brothers’

What is your sound? Your voice?
It is not the matchless
Hen Wlad Fy Nhadau
Or the fearsome Tartan drone
Of kilts and pipes

No, it is simply the crack
Of a hard-red-ball on willow
Of stumps and white boundaries
The sigh of a pig’s bladder
And the boot of a mob

Foreigner. What do you see?
Is it not a small place
An island
Armed to the teeth
With Trident and tea and scones at four?

It is an uncertain people
Tentatively sharing their King
With the neighbours
Who may soon be blown
And washed away

And yet, there is that
Unmistakable taste of history
The suppurating wounds
Of wars to make peace
And foreign fayre on the menu

Beef Wellington, Sir?
Served with irony:
Pâté de foie gras
As English as Spotted Dick
À l’Alexis Benoît Sayer

Winds will blow
And waters threaten
The house Ælfred
But her rivers may yet
Run deeper than blood

Rogue Heroes

9.8 million of us watch Rogue Heroes.

Until yesterday my reaction to Rogue Heroes was probably typical: so much appealed, the sense of adventure into the unknown, the hostile environment of the desert, the danger of the wilderness quite apart from the Nazis, the escape from ponderous, misguided, and unimaginative authority structure bogged down in Cairo to actually achieve something out of all proportion to their numbers…the stuff of legends and heroes. It has a certain visceral appeal.

And then yesterday happened: it started to speak to me, as if it wanted to teach me something, make me see something. It almost switched from being a TV adaptation of history to being a parable of sorts.

Victory forged in the desert.

The biblical examples poured in, with a twist.

Moses, a murderer had escaped to the wilderness, the desert. Once a prince living in luxury in Pharoah’s palace was exiled to herding a flock of sheep in the desert for forty years. But it was in the desert that he encountered the burning bush. God. The Exodus was forged in the desert long before the Jews caught sight of Moses with his stick, or Pharoah refused to let the Jews depart.

David, again used to a palace existence playing music for Saul the king, was chased out of the palace into the desert, the wilderness, ending up in the cave of Adullam with those in debt and trouble. But in this nomadic stage, a new Israel was born to replace Saul’s kingdom.

Victory forged in the desert

And Jesus. If we charismatic Christians had written the script it would have read something like ‘And Jesus came to John to baptised in the Jordan. As He came up out of the water, the dove fell on Him as the Holy Spirit anointed Him with the power to be the Messiah. The next day he went to preach at Nazareth and a man with a withered hand came in and Jesus healed him. The next day a thousand more came and by the end of the month, he was walking into Jerusalem as King’. But we know that the first work of the Spirit in Jesus was to drive (the Greek word ‘balo’ is the same word used for driving out demons) Jesus into the desert to face the devil. After the wilderness came the ministry AND the discipling of the twelve and the others.

We should not be surprised if we find ourselves in a desert, a dry place, a wilderness. It is here we get our specialist training. That’s the first point.

The second is this. The twist. It’s not a solitary hero that emerges from the desert. The Hollywood Jesus is handsome, taller than the disciples, and dressed in white, while the women and the apostles wear duller clothing. He has a perfectly groomed beard and walks and talks like a refined John Wayne; his six-shooter replaced with resurrection power, and he’s quick on the draw. I love this Jesus, of course!

Man of sorrows acquainted with grief

But the Jesus of the New Testament had nowhere to lay his head. His family thought he was insane. He suffered constant opposition. Many who followed him for the miracles turned away at the cost. He was as Isaiah had prophesied ‘A man of sorrows, acquainted with grief’. And all the time it was with others who shared the same existence and faced the same foes. This ‘band of brothers’ could only function due to the constant giving and support from the women in His travelling band. Christianity was born as a mobile Adullam cave!

If you’re in a desert, maybe you need to ‘see’ Rogue heroes differently. It’s dry and hot, and relentless. It’s a wilderness with little comfort. But there’s a divine purpose hidden from view.

the gospel isn’t just for impressive people, it’s for everyone

I sit on my settee watching. So impressed. Thinking I’d like to be that courageous, that skilled, that resilient, that purposeful…knowing I’m not! I’ll always be impressed by impressive people. But the gospel isn’t just for impressive people, it’s for everyone.

So, watching Rogue Heroes with different eyes, whatever the past may have been to land us in the desert, in the wilderness, I know Someone who seems to meet His people there and join us to others…see this verse from Jeremiah. Note it’s not singular, it’s plural.

‘The people who survived the sword found grace in the wilderness’ Jeremiah 31 v 2

Salmo Salar

The Moon lying large
Its milky disc of light
Drawing down
Into the blush of dawn
Its last beams crossing
Shallow bends of the Tay
Into the shadow of Schiehallion

Somehow a cold sun
Rises without noise,
Pomp or ceremony
Glinting from surface ice
Swelling with the
Hidden waters writhing
Below, unknowing the night

And, caught in an unlit pool
An eye looks up
Salmo Salar,
Lying in wait
Patient to kill, to spawn
Encased in ice
Not yet undone

The journey home
Like the prodigal
Its ungrateful sins washed
In the oceans
And here, bedraggled
Wounded, and glorious
Lies Scotland, unfinished

This is no grave
This spawning ground
So easily misunderstood
This place of death
This tomb, a womb…
My eyes met her eye
I looked away

© John Stevens

The Ceilidh House

The peat fire crackles and burns with stories;
footsteps scurry through mist and mountain
to warm a Hebridean hearth with stories.

A figure crosses turf where St Columba
knelt long ago beside the Snizort;
the crofter’s creel is laden with stories.

He pauses to watch the snow-stars drifting
on the loch, with its kelp and pebbles;
hares in the lazy-bed leap with stories.

The crofter enters his neighbour’s parlour,
rests on the settle while divots smoulder;
a plaintive skirl fills the room with stories.

Shadows dance round the doleful piper,
whose music makes the embers tremble;
the single oil lamp flickers with stories.

A mother stirs her three-legged cauldron;
sisters spin, or weave at the handloom,
infusing a homemade plaid with stories.

Hailstone tears pound the snow-flecked Cuillin,
recalling the Clearances, emigration:
the Ceilidh House overflows with stories.

© Caroline Gill

www.carolinegillpoetry.com

From: Driftwood by Starlight (The Seventh Quarry Press, 2021)

Caroline’s MacDonald grandfather and great-grandfather were born in Sydney. Her 3x great-grandfather had been a shepherd crofter in the Highlands. The poem was written after visits to the Skye Museum of Island Life and the Clan Donald Archives in Armadale. The poem is a Tercet Ghazal, a form developed by Robert Bly (d.2021) from the traditional Persian Ghazal, a complex form written in couplets and involving a pattern of refrain- and rhyme-words

The Last Supper - Jesus’ Last Will and Testament

‘Likewise, after supper, He took the cup and, when He had given thanks, He gave it to them saying, ‘Drink ye all of this; for this is the blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. Do this as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of Me’

If, like me, you were taken Holy Communion Services as a child, you may recognise these words from the Anglican Book of Common Prayer, 1549. The rhythm of the words is forever written into my bones.

Printed at the time of William Shakespeare, the old Elizabethan language is matchless and strangely hypnotic.

That’s a good thing and a bad thing. Good because the words become so attached to your person they can be recalled at any time, with their associated reverence and the mood that falls as they are recalled; a certain peace that seems to be within the words as they are spoken. But a bad thing because hypnosis removes all conscious participation in the drama of the Last Supper. Detached from history it can become almost ‘a nothing’, a pointless ritual of repetition, a sleep-inducing drug.

The Last Supper was many things, one of which was the reading of Jesus’ Last Will and Testament, just hours before His arrest and crucifixion…in a code that the disciples could only break after the Resurrection.

‘This is the blood of the New Testament, in My blood’

The prophets of Isaiah, Jeremiah, and Ezekiel had all prophesied two main events to come to pass sometime in the future:

• One day the Anointed One (translated as ‘Messiah’ in the Hebrew of the Old Testament and ‘Christ’ in the Greek of the New Testament) would be born

• A new covenant or testament – the words are synonymous – would replace the Old Testament

The terms of the Last Will and Testament, the ‘New Testament’ that Jesus announced and would come into effect upon His death just a few hours after the Supper had ended, are not shrouded in mystery:

‘Behold the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah – not according to the covenant I made with their fathers when I…led them out from the land of Egypt, My covenant which they broke, though I was a husband to them. But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days: I will put My law in their minds, and write it on their hearts, and I will be their God and they shall be My people. No more shall every man teach his neighbour saying, ‘Know the Lord’ – they shall all know Me from the least to the greatest.’ Jeremiah 31 v 31 – 34

‘I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh and I will put My Spirit within you and cause you to walk in My statutes…’ Ez 36 v 27

The prophets of the Old Testament called the people back to (i) believe the promises in the Old Covenant and to (ii) obey the Law. The Old Covenant promises are written in Genesis 12,15, and 17, given through Abraham, and the Law was added later through Moses. But Isaiah, Jeremiah and Ezekiel looked beyond the Old Testament to the inauguration of a New Testament - which Jesus as the Messiah announced at the Last Supper.

It’s a Spirit joined to my spirit operation now

As beneficiaries of that Last Will and Testament, as New Testament believers or ‘Christians’, we should, at least be aware of the terms of the New Testament, or New Covenant. How odd it would be if a rich person was to die, and you were informed that you were a beneficiary, for you not to be keenly interested in the contents of the Will. Not only does self-interest kick in, but it is also your ‘right’ to receive the benefits of the Will as directed by the person who had died. It is, after all, what he or she wanted you to receive.

How odd, then that New Testament believers often have never read the terms of the New Testament inaugurated when the King of Glory died.

Leaving aside for the moment – that the New Testament is made with the House of Israel and Judah…which, at first sight, excludes all Gentiles, let’s look at the promises contained in the New Testament:

1. The Law is written on our hearts not on tablets of stone. It’s internal not an external set of commandments

2. Everyone in the New Testament ‘knows the Lord’ – it is no longer God up there, remote and beyond knowing, in heaven whilst we live our lives on the Earth

The heart operation alluded to in Jeremiah 31 is spelled out in more detail in Ezekiel 36. There’s a heart transplant:

3. Our hearts of stone, which were incapable of living the life of Christ, are replaced by hearts of flesh.

4. We are given a new spirit

5. And the Holy Spirit

6. The result is that we walk in His statutes…like Christ

The challenge of prophets is first to redirect us back to the promises of the New Covenant. To believe and have faith in God that He has done what He promised He would do.

And then to obey. But this obedience is not a dutiful conformation to a set of external commandments – specifically the Ten Commandments inscribed on stone tablets – but to trust that as God is writes His laws on our hearts our lives are transformed from the inside out.

We mustn’t turn back to the Old Testament, where we attempt with everything in us to obey the Law, be determined to be good, pray, go to church, read out bibles, and love our neighbour. A new way has been opened to us. He comes. His Spirit is joined with our deepest part, our new spirit, our new hearts of flesh. It’s a Spirit joined to my spirit operation now. We must have faith that God has done what He has promised.

All because Jesus was willing to go to the cross, for us.

I don’t know How God does what He does but the challenge is to believe that He has. And that this work goes on all day, every day, 24/7. I can’t stop it. I can’t stop God! That’s a ridiculous statement but one I continually need to acknowledge.

We mustn’t turn back to the Old Testament

He has given me a new heart, a new spirit, he has placed His Spirit in Me. He is writing His law in my heart. Against all the odds, His life leaks out of me.

Do we fail? Do we struggle? Do we need to return to the covenant? Of course. That’s why taking Holy Communion regularly isn’t a bad idea…it serves to remind us that the Will, the New Testament, has been read, that we are its recipients, and before long we are on our knees thanking God for His grace and undeserved love poured out, to Christ, for His willingness to suffer on our behalf.

What can we say?

Defeated we find victory in Him.

The Last Supper sustains us for all time.

As New Testament beneficiaries we: ‘take and eat, this is My body, which is given for you, do this in remembrance of Me. ‘Likewise, after supper, He took the cup and, when He had given thanks, He gave it to them saying, ‘Drink ye all of this; for this is the blood of the New Testament, which is shed for you and for many for the remission of sins. Do this as oft as ye shall drink it, in remembrance of Me’

The Bothy - Grwyne Fawr

Four by eight I suppose
And folded in fraying paper
Lying spread like a body
On the floor
Peered over, not by surgeons
But would be explorers
Unfamiliar with its world
Laid bare

Sinkholes, abandoned quarries
Ridges and sheepfolds
And contours and grid-lines
Point the way…but today
A small black ink square,
Silent, like a mistake,
Pulled and pulled again until
Laces tied, my boots were on

Descending a narrow path
The bothy took shape
A bothy of ones:
One door, one window,
One small log burner
One table, one old chair,
One candle, and one mezzanine
Space for one or for two

Home. A heaven of sorts.
At least for the night
Graffiti illuminated by a candle
Names of lovers, and dates
And a shelf of generosity
A tin of baked beans, firelighters,
Wood left by the burner
A spade, quite clean, and a rusty saw.

And a blessing, in brass, nailed
In honour of a Clive Roberts
Mwynhewch y fangre, hon, fel y Gwnaeth Yntau
‘May you enjoy this place as he did’
With the trickle of Gwyne Fawr,
The unsteady light of the moon,
Flickering flames of a candle and the fire:
The night is yours.

Running Blog - November 29th 2022

Fog

Cumberland Basin, Hotwells 7 am

An aborted early morning training attempt, following the Bristol 10K route.

Perhaps the main story isn’t the 64-year-old, inappropriately dressed all in black running in the dark, early morning, pre-dawn dense fog, but the fog itself.

I do like a good fog. None more so than when the pools of light cascading down from the street lighting catches a sort of avant-garde, jazz-like, Parisienne cum Whitechapel murders feel - difficult, isn’t it to quite put your finger on it.

I do like a good fog

Car headlamps and bike flashing lights loom from a distance like blurred candles and somehow the sound of traffic is dulled and, maybe, moving slower. I certainly was.

Sadly, another part of my athletic frame decided it wanted to get home early for a hot shower. Perhaps in years gone by I would have ploughed on to achieve my aim…to make 10Ks my usual training run and 5Ks more of a speed thing. Ha! One thing after another vies to be the preeminent cause of setbacks. This time it was the right hip that put in its protest in triplicate, and I bowed to its demands.

Cumberland Basin, Hotwells…towards Avonmouth

One day soon though, it’ll be a 10K Champagne Day, and we’ll see, scientifically, statistically, and psychologically just how close I am to ‘the line of improvement’ homing-in, as I am, on the qualifying time for Paris ’24.

In the meantime, is it not time for St George to slay a Dragon in Qatar?

Showdown 7pm.

Reluctant Leaders and Wounded Healers - Part III Name Changing

I’ve known three people who have elected to change their names. Maybe four.

Firstly, a friend who had been away from school for a few weeks, I presumed either on holiday or ill, returned with a new surname. I knew him as Anthony (Tony) Nurse. On return he explained it wasn’t working for his dad, a doctor, to be called ‘Doctor Nurse’. The second was a man who had a sex-change operation. I can’t remember his first name, but maybe Bernard had become Barbara. And, lastly, a lady who needed a fresh start after a troubled past, changed her name, twice.

Biblically, God changes the name of Abram to Abraham, Sarai to Sarah, Jacob to Israel, and Simon to Peter. Also, in Isaiah 62 God says of Israel ‘You shall be called by a new name which the mouth of the Lord shall give’ and in Revelation ‘To him who overcomes…I will give…a new name’ Rev 2v17

This post is not a study on the meanings of the new names or explore why they were given. We may know for example that ‘Peter’ means ‘a rock’, but the point of the post is to try and imagine the day after Abram was re-named Abraham, or Sarai, or Jacob, or Simon:

‘Abram, would you mind moving your sheep?’
‘It’s Abraham now, not Abram.’
‘Oh? Who says?’
‘You really want to know?’
‘Tell me later. But get those sheep…’

Hard enough for the recipient, Abram in this instance, to tell family, friends, and on. Hard for those around to take it seriously for a while. Over time, of course, everyone adjusts.

Biblically, the name is more than simply a name, and more than a humorous nickname. Names carried meaning and growing into the new meaning was what was at stake.

‘When Abram was ninety-nine years old the LORD appeared to Abram and said to him, “I am God Almighty; walk before me, and be blameless, that I may make my covenant between me and you, and may multiply you greatly.” Then Abram fell on his face. And God said to him, “Behold, my covenant is with you, and you shall be the father of a multitude of nations. No longer shall your name be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham, for I have made you the father of a multitude of nations…’ Gen 17 v 1-27

Abram means ‘honoured’ or ‘exalted father’ but Abraham means ‘father of a multitude’ to reflect the covenant promises God made with Abram – see Gen 12/15/17. Abram and his wife, Sarai, were too old to have children, so for Abram and Sarai to use those names for themselves privately, but more so publicly, was to invite derision:

Then God said to Abraham, ‘As for Sarai your wife, you shall not call her name Sarai, but Sarah shall be her name. And I will bless her and also give you a son by her; then I will bless her, and she shall be a mother of nations; kings of peoples shall be from her.’ – Genesis 17:15-16

Making that transition requires a deep change of mind, of identity, and of faith for a future that is certain and yet unseen. Abram’s previous history is not obliterated, or untrue, or forgotten, or denied, but the new name represents a new identity. The previous identifiers are no longer at work. The future is defined by the new name. It takes time to fully adjust, and there may be crises that test one’s resolve and faith in the new name, but the new name is a reality that cannot be shaken.

One of Jesus’ disciples was a ‘zealot’, a ‘terrorist’ or a ‘freedom fighter’, depending on your conviction, but he laid this identity at the feet of Jesus who transformed him into an apostle of the gospel of grace

So it is for anyone who places their faith in Christ.

You could explain this bluntly: Jesus is Lord and you have realised this. He is risen from the dead and all authority in heaven and earth has been given to him. It follows then that your ‘identity’ is not something that you control anymore, He is Lord, and you are His servant. All our identifiers lie at His feet. We kneel before Him.

The problem with stating Christianity like this is not that it isn’t true, but that it presents ‘Lordship’ in the same vein as the autocratic dictators we roundly condemn in the world.

Following on from Reluctant Leaders and Wounded Healers Part II we see that, in fact, the person who places their faith and trust in Christ, does so because they see God’s love in action, principally in the cross, the crucifixion. That on the cross Jesus took all our sins and us as a substitutionary and inclusive sacrifice, and we have been raised ‘in Christ’.

To extend the picture with one further sentence: we were ‘in Adam’ and inherited our sinful nature from Adam, as if we had eaten the fruit in the garden. But now we are ‘in Christ’ and inherit everything that is in Him. Our previous identity is dead and buried. Our new identity, in Christ, is our true identity.

Our previous identifiers might include our nationality, or sexuality, or political affiliations, our occupations and so on. Just as Abram’s history was not obliterated, untrue, forgotten, or denied, the same is true for us.

But the critical transition is into the new name, the new identity. We leave our previous identifiers behind, Christ defines our life, indeed, He is our life (see Part II). That is partly why to say ‘I am a sinner saved by grace’ is incompatible with the gospel, and a contradiction in terms.

It is, of course, factually correct to say you were ‘in Adam’ and therefore a sinner, but now you are ‘in Christ’ and have become a ‘son of God’ in Him. That identity redefines our – to use the list above – our nationality, our sexuality, our political affiliations, and our occupations.

…we are citizens of heaven…

In very broad terms our nationality is redefined – we are citizens of heaven and our allegiance to the nation in which we have been born, and benefited from, is not forgotten, but is laid at His feet, for Him to use in our lives as He decides. My experience of this is limited. I was born in England, but my father was American, and my mother was English. During my childhood and teenage years, I alternated between wanting to be American or adopt dual citizenship, I spelt certain words like ‘centre’ as ‘center’ and so on. I became a Christian three weeks before my eighteenth birthday. I cannot explain it but receiving Christ changed my heart and my attitude and I have remained British. I love my links to America, but my first allegiance is to the Crown not the Stars and Stripes. Christ redefined my nationality.

Our sexuality is redefined by Christ. As in all other areas of life, He defines our sexuality. Our sexuality is no longer based on our opinions, preferences, or social norms. The Spirit of God ‘writes His laws on our hearts and causes us to walk in His ways’.

Political affiliations also are laid at His feet. He may return you to a life in politics, of course. But He will shape not only our intellectual persuasions but also our attitudes. We may oppose a particular policy but the way we garner support is radically altered. We find the means do not justify the ends, and our revolutionary zeal will not justify oppression as it once might have done. One of Jesus’ disciples was a ‘zealot’, a ‘terrorist’ or a ‘freedom fighter’, depending on your conviction, but he laid this identity at the feet of Jesus who transformed him into an apostle of the gospel of grace.

Lastly, our occupations. You’re introduced to someone you haven’t met, and you start talking. It won’t be long before you are asked ‘And what do you do?’ Of course, you may well answer this as ‘I’m an optician’, ‘actor’, ‘IT consultant, and so on. But inside you know your eternal occupation/identity is as ‘a son of God’. And, like Jesus, you say ‘I only do what my father in heaven is doing’. You are not defined by your 9-5.

It is from this community of redefined disciples, each of whom is adjusting to life ‘in the Name of Jesus’, that some emerge as leaders. Any one of them carries with them a history, their personal history, which is now placed in His hands. Saul/Paul laid down his defining pathway as a militant Pharisee at Jesus’ feet and was redefined as the apostle to the Gentiles, Peter, also, the rough fisherman from Galilee, grew into his new identity in Christ…not without some reversals at times (an encouragement to us all!), Mary Magdalene, who’s life had been devastated with seven demons, now released…the list is long and extends through the centuries to this day. All wounded in some way by sin, failure, weakness…all wounded healers in Christ.

Reluctant? Maybe due to a residual sense of unworthiness, but more likely a knowing that you are inadequate for the task, have no aptitude…and yet, inside, somehow you know that this is the next step and that the key is, like everything else, to trust God for the adequacy and the ability.

Remember Abram and Sarai, all hopes of having children long since evaporated. Physically incapable. And completely inadequate to be a ‘father’ and ‘mother’ of a multitude of nations. Your calling may not be as dramatic, but it will have features that, to you, are of the same order.

That’s it. My thanks to Rob Bell for his podcast that mentioned ‘Reluctant Leaders’ and to N.T. Wright for his phrase ‘Wounded Healers’. It’s entirely your doing that I felt compelled to write these three posts!

And if you are teetering on the edge - whether to take that step towards a leadership role, lay it all at Jesus’ feet. It’s not a bad place to start.

Reluctant Leaders and Wounded Healers - Part II

I should declare my hand. I consider the Bible, New and Old Testaments, to be the word of God.

I used to doubt its historical accuracy, had a problem with the miraculous, and thought, even if the person of Jesus had lived, his disciples had a vested interest in inventing the resurrection. But someone asked me how I came to believe in gravity and other scientific theories and whether I had inspected the evidence for my theories about the bible with as much rigour. One thing led to another, and my previous views were turned upside down.

I believe it’s historically accurate and is more than a collection of outdated ancient literature. But, if it is the word of God, its relevance for any age is beyond doubt. The debate about the bible is for another time! But I thought I ought to come clean before you decide to read on!

________________

The bible is a record of how heaven and earth are not disconnected and how God who created the world is in the world, not a distant irrelevance but very close…and how He will not conform to our image of how God should act. For example, God seems to select the wrong types of individuals for leadership again and again…and yet it works.

Moses, the murderer, hiding in the desert, is chosen to lead the Hebrews from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land – and he succeeds. St Paul, the persecutor of the church, who had ‘made havoc of the church, dragging off men and women, committing them to prison’ Acts 8v3 becomes the apostle appointed by God to bring the gospel to the gentile world.

God, it seems, often chooses the reluctant and the wounded to lead and heal. None of us is excluded or written off by God.

Welcome to Part II: A theological starter & mains before returning to reluctant leaders and wounded healers for pudding.

The Menu:

Starters: The inclusive death of Christ.

Main: Divinisation – the Eastern Orthodox doctrine.

Pud - Name changing (saved for Part III)

Starters:

Evangelicals, Pentecostals, and Charismatics have written some stirring and fantastic hymns, over the past 400 years which reflect their faith in what has been known as substitutionary atonement: ‘And Can it be’ being one of my favourite Charles Wesley hymns! Putting it (very) simply, when Jesus died on the cross, He took our sins and died for us, in our place, taking the punishment we deserved so that we could be forgiven and restored to God. Religion, the attempt to please God by obeying commandments, is replaced by a relationship with God, restored through Christ.

But can anyone show me a hymn or a song that celebrates the inclusive death of Christ? That, when Jesus died on the cross, He took ‘us’, not just our sins, with Him on the cross. To quote just one verse: ‘I have been crucified with Christ, it’s no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me’ Gal 2v20

They’re coming! The hymns and the songs are coming. When the revelation of the substitutionary and inclusive nature of the cross, artists, playwrights, songwriters, poets, authors, preachers, will not be able to keep silent.

Mains: Eastern Orthodox doctrine of ‘divinisation’ or ‘theosis’

Evangelical believers, and Roman Catholics, will quite readily subscribe to the view that Jesus was 100% human and 100% divine.

Christianity is not a religion of self-improvement but the creation of a new race

But the problem with limiting our understanding of the cross to be a substitutionary sacrifice, is that the ‘sinner’ remains a sinner albeit wonderfully forgiven and free from condemnation. A common phrase heard amongst those who believe in substitutionary atonement is ‘I’m a sinner saved by grace’. The future, then, becomes one of ‘sanctification’; a process whereby through the power of the Spirit, the sinner is made progressively more like Christ.

But this is not New Testament teaching. This is polishing a turd.

Christ did not die so that we could be rehabilitated, but so we could be crucified with him.

Christianity is not a religion of self-improvement but the creation of a new race, Jesus being the forerunner, the first.

To quote C. S. Lewis: ‘I have called Christ the ‘first instance’ of the new man. But of course, He is not merely a new man, one specimen of the (new) species, but the new man. He is the origin and centre and life of all the new men…other men become ‘new’ by being ‘in Him’…to become new men means losing what we now call ‘ourselves’. Out of ourselves, into Christ, we must go…millions and millions of ‘little Christs’, all different, will still be too few to express Him fully. He made them all. He invented – as an author invents characters in a novel – all the different men that you and I were intended to be.’ C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity, Collins.

This is consistent with the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of ‘divinisation’ or ‘theosis’ which views a Christian as a man, but a man saturated with the life of God, a union of the human and the divine. Not that the one human person, man or woman, has become God but that he or she is, as C.S. Lewis stated is ‘in Christ’.

As Peter wrote we become ‘partakers of the divine nature’ 2 Peter 1 v 4.

Life, looking forward, is not to be seen in terms of sanctification, as if sanctification means transforming the ‘sinner’ into a ‘saint’, but, L-plates on, learning to live as a person who is now ‘in Christ’ as a ‘mini-Christ’, as a ‘Christ as me’ person in the world. If that seems strange, consider the human body: every cell in my body is alive. But with who’s life? John Stevens is quite unaware (no comments!) of what each cell is doing, acting seemingly independent of me, but this is an illusion. The life of each cell is the life of John Stevens. It doesn’t have any other life.

It is the same for us ‘in Christ’. It’s not that ‘Christ in me’ means that it’s 5% Christ and 95% of Jesus, or some other ratio, somehow ‘inside’ me, as if we are two people vying for one body! The truth is that, as St Paul put it, ‘It’s no longer I who live but Christ’ Gal 2v20 and ‘Christ our life’ Col 3 v 4.

That gives us something to chew on, to digest, to come to terms with. And if you’re anything like me, struggle to believe when the evidence is…rather thin at times!

Time for pudding.

Pud: Part III, Name changing

There’s always room for pudding…first, a short break.

There’s always room for pudding…

Reluctant Leaders and Wounded Healers - Part I

God, Almighty God, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, runs an odd recruitment agency:

‘So, Moses, tell me, can you speak Egyptian?’
‘Yes, but…’
‘But?’
‘No confidence…I stammer…’
‘Experience of leadership?’
‘None. I just lead sheep around the desert. I rarely speak to anyone. Like to keep myself to myself, you know…’
‘Leading sheep around the desert? I’m returning you to Egypt to lead My people through the desert to the Promised Land?’
‘Pardon?’ Moses pauses and God remains silent. ‘I can’t go back. I murdered someone…’

I heard the phrase ‘Reluctant Leader’ the other day whilst listening to a Rob Bell podcast and walking around the Downs. It made me think. ‘Wounded Healer’ is a phrase I came across some years ago in N T Wright’s excellent book The Challenge of Jesus. So, I suppose this post is an exploration to see what sort of leaders could emerge in the future in the world of politics, sports, science, education, economics, and, in particular, the church.

At the time of writing this post, I have been watching The Elon Musk Show on BBC iPlayer. What a remarkable, pioneering leader, a visionary in whom the future was conceived years before he became well known. And yet the Reluctant Leaders and the Wounded Healers considered here, are of a completely different order. They are poor in spirit, running low on vision, blind even, and failures, but it is their lack and their suffering that, strangely, turns out to be their route to leadership.

I hope I can convey some of this…

Reluctant Leaders

Rob Bell was arguing that the best leaders are often ‘Reluctant Leaders’: Moses, Gideon, Samuel, and Jonah all argued their case before God and did their level best to avoid leadership. Moses complained that he couldn’t command the attention of a crowd, Gideon was full of fear, Jonah…

You may or may not interpret the thoughts you may have been having about leadership as ‘God tapping on your shoulder’, but you can’t seem to silence the voice inside, and you know a decision is pending. I’m referring to ANY role that requires leadership…it could be a sports team, a building site, responsibility in a science laboratory, a composer, a librarian…a mother, a father.

It’s unlikely to be a role of biblical proportions, but, whatever it is, it feels daunting to you!!

On the other hand, it could be that God is calling you as an apostle at this time for God’s people.

Moses had no vision for the deliverance of the Jews. St Paul, as Saul of Tarsus, had no idea that he had been called as an apostle before the foundation of the world in Christ until God distracted him on the road to Damascus. God, it seems, has His way of getting our attention.

The New Testament is so counter-cultural, marinaded as we are in our meritocracy

But whatever it is, bidding farewell to the relative safety of where we are, and taking a leap of faith, will be required. Moses had carved out a reasonable existence since murdering the Egyptian. He had escaped into the desert, maintaining a safe distance between himself and Pharoah. And he knew his way around the desert.

But God had pinned him down. First by distracting him with the curious sight of a non-burning burning bush and then out-arguing him.

Wounded healers

And I quote from NT Wright’s The Challenge of Jesus:

‘’…read Paul again; read John again; and discover that we are cracked vessels full of glory, wounded healers…we are discovering the true meaning of what the Eastern Orthodox Church refers to as ‘divinization’…true divinity is revealed not in self-aggrandizement…but in self-giving love…’

And this is the trick. Floored as we are at times by our failures, weakness, brokenness, inabilities, restrictions, fears and limitations, and scars from life, we are completely floored…by grace.

I remember my astonishment, at 16 or 17, discovering that the word ‘gospel’ simply means ‘good news’ and not the first four books in the New Testament, Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John. And I argued strongly: ‘the gospel can’t be true – it’s too good to be true’. The concept of a free gift of eternal life, a free gift of righteousness, and the gift of the Spirit was brand new to me. It shocked me and refined ‘religion’ or what I had understood Christianity to be.

But Jesus said, ‘Freely you have received, freely give’.

The New Testament is so counter-cultural, marinaded as we are in our meritocracy.

That’s grace. A gift to be received, not a reward for good work, or being good.

Whatever has been done or suffered in the past; however damaged and cracked the wounded healers may be, and however undeserving they are, they know they have been filled with glory, things from above, which enable them to bring to bear the kingdom of God in any sphere of life, whether secular or spiritual; there are no boundaries.

Either way, irreversible change is inevitable.

The Future?

Such leaders of the future are already here: reluctant, cracked vessels, full of glory.

Meanwhile, some may be engaged in an argument with God, like Moses, or at least with themselves. If that’s you, I pray you’ll lose and quickly!

In Part II of Reluctant Leaders and Wounded Healers we’ll look at the inclusive nature of the death of Christ on the cross and what N T Wright referred to as the Eastern Orthodox doctrine of ‘Divinisation’ and how present-day ‘identifiers’, a hot potato and a chief debating point at the moment, are redefined in the gospel, and redefined in future leaders.

Running Blog - November 11th 2022

Paris ‘24

It’s an odd time to be reporting on one’s own preparations for the Paris Olympics when a certain other sporting event has stolen all the headlines pitching us into a fraught battle of wits between sport, politics, ethics, and entertainment.

I refer, of course to FIFA’s decision to stage the World Cup in Qatar, a nation rather at odds with its guests’ national political climates with respect to human rights in various forms.

I will be watching. If FIFA’s decision-making policies need to be reformed, so be it. In the meantime, let the footballers dance, dribble, and delight us all. Let them have their day under the Qatari sun, win or lose.

When I consulted Strava after the event, it appeared that the Earth had been rotating slower than usual under my feet

And meanwhile, those of us not blessed with the requisite almost telepathic skills required to hypnotise us with the fast-moving beautiful game, will don our running shoes and hit the pavements and footpaths. We have gold medals at the forefront of our minds, not golden boots - even if those gold medals are the ones occasionally awarded via Strava rather than the IOC!

My most recent run, this morning, a 10K more or less following the Bristol 10K route went really well. I was comfortable. Indeed, I have to report a certain unusual feeling: I felt stronger at the end than at the beginning and ran faster towards the end than at the start.

Explanation? When I consulted Strava after the event, it appeared that the Earth had been rotating slower than usual under my feet on the outward half, so, my average pace was, in fact, slower over 10K (60mins) than on my previous attempt on the 1st of the month (58mins). Explanation? I can only blame Gordan Fee who was blasting his way through a lecture on 1 Corinthians in my ear…it was so engaging that I must have slackened my pace? No, I can’t blame Gordan Fee. If he slowed me in the first half, he was also to blame for the rather slicker response during the second half.

No, I shall not over-analyse. Just rest up. And perhaps push a little harder next time.

My intermediate aim is 10K in 55’. By March ’23.

Weather conditions were close to perfect. Cool, 12C (I’m best at 10C or a bit colder really), and the breeze was with and against in equal measure. Beautiful pre-dawn mauve glow in the clouds over the city centre.

Lastly…come on Ingerland. Can you? Can you? Can you avoid Brazil, France, and Argentina, to name but a few long enough and somehow progress further and deeper? I shall seek to meditate on that from my post-run ice-bath sofa

Rearrange

Cats chasing lizards on the sandstone
Politicians after your vote on the megaphone
Heat-seeking girls burnt to the bone
Lying in the sun ‘til the day is done
Our time wasted again on our mobile telephone

It’s what we humans do, nothing can change
We cannot stop, we rearrange
A picture here, a dinner date there
A cherry in my lemonade, lemon in my marinade
But of ourselves we are unaware

 And all the while there is the One
Ignored, unknown, the loving Son
Hands outstretched upon a cross
Bearing our pain, His searing loss
It’s time to kneel and weep some tears

 Hold His hands, let Him rearrange
Our remaining years

Running Blog - October 25th 2022

The ‘Road to Recovery’ and the ‘Road to Paris ’24’ once again stretch ahead into the distance.

The problem is that despite a return to pain-free running (Hoorah!) and visions of L’Arc de Triomphe, the Eiffel Tower, berets, and cheese and wine, and the melodic wistful sound of accordions over the horizon, there are a mere 62 weeks remaining before the medals are awarded.

My time from this morning’s run, adjusted for 10,000m, is 56.64’ and the qualifying time for Paris ‘24 is 27.28’.

You can appreciate the task lying ahead.

I should say, to retain neutrality in all things, that the qualifying time for women is 31.25. An easier target but the surgery required…

I should say, to retain neutrality in all things, that the qualifying time for women is 31.25. An easier target but the surgery required…

Some maths:

• The gap between 56.64’ and 27.28’ is 29.36’

• Steady improvement over the remaining 62 weeks = a 28 second reduction each week over each week

• My personal best for 10K is 47’ and some seconds…let’s say 48 minutes…achieved maybe 15 years ago when I was a mere youth with salt and pepper hair. Now it’s all salt.

Twenty-eight seconds a week?

Place your bets.

If any of you are as old as I am you may remember David Bedford breaking the 10K world record one summer’s evening in 1973 with a time of 27.30. It’s strange to think he wouldn’t even qualify for Paris ’24.

Nevertheless, David Bedford shall be my inspiration, andI shall wear red socks to honour the great man. The moustache, however, is beyond me, like many things.

The Truth Doctor

It is the uniform that beguiles
A golfer wearing a bowler
A Constable in rugby boots
A violinist breathing through a snorkel
Disturbing the equilibrium

And yet anticipation crackles
Time’s come to disturb
To wreck the rut
And escape across the tracks to
The wrong side

To visit the Truth Doctor
The one unfooled by illusions
Who sees past solidity,
Past interlocking crystals,
Into the space within

We arrive, our five senses
Taking us for a ride to
A world where particles will not
Be confined in solitary places
And Dali clocks drool over the edges…

The Truth Doctor has a friend
The Ghost in the Machine.
Facing one another
They play catch, then wrestle
Ultimate realities, at ease, fighting

In a mist, in the chill of dawn.
We stand by, like umpires
Allowed to judge the Judge
The Ghost is felled and, weeping,
We count …7,8,9, Out!

But the Truth Doctor, laughing and
Folded in pain, erupts and roars,
His words filling the Earth
“Three, Two, One...
We watch as Death loses its sting

McClaren, Rohr, and Bell - a Trinity for our Times?

Brian McClaren, Richard Rohr, and Rob Bell – a trinity for our times?

In terms of personal appeal, sorry Brian, but I struggle more with finding your centre of gravity than with your friends Rohr and Bell. In recent months I have read, and enjoyed, Falling Upwards by Richard Rohr and I have listened to a stack of Rob Bell podcasts called appropriately The Robcast.

Early most mornings I’ve been out walking for a good hour or so and Rob Bell’s energetic verbal delivery has been in my ear.

To some questions:

John, why are you listening to Rob Bell and reading Rohr if you think they are mildly heretical?

We read in Luke’s gospel that Jesus matured through his childhood and early adult years ‘And the child grew and became strong in spirit, filled with wisdom and the grace of God was upon Him’ Luke 2 v 40. After Jesus’ baptism and the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, he taught and discipled the twelve apostles and many others.

The descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove was decisive. We read then that the Spirit ‘led Him into the wilderness to be tempted by the devil and afterwards He ‘returned in the power of the Spirit to Galilee and the news of Him went out through all the surrounding region’.

I listen to Bell and Rohr, (not so much McClaren, maybe he’s like a rare cheese I haven’t developed taste buds for yet?) because they seem to have a handle on what it means to ‘become strong in spirit’ and ‘to be filled with wisdom and grace’ – in other words that have much to say about the human condition and the processes involved in progressing towards spiritual maturity, what it looks like, what might hold it up, the signs of progress and so on. And at different stages of life.

I haven’t found such a clarity and grip on spiritual maturity being taught in the Evangelical/Pentecostal/Charismatic churches and literature I have stumbled across.

The problem I have, though, with this McClaren, Rohr and Bell trinity, is that Jesus’ discipleship and training programme was far more radical than a series of seminars on how to mature spiritually; it certainly wasn’t a ‘7 parables to perfection’ ministry. He wasn’t training the disciples (and therefore by extension us) to simply grow in grace and wisdom, like He had before the encounter with the Holy Spirit. The goal of the gospel, its endpoint, in fact, was to produce a new type of man, indivisible from Him – and that required going to the cross.

As Paul put it ‘For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are the sons of God’ Rom 8v14.

But if you want to explore spiritual maturity, what it is to be truly human, perhaps like the ‘pre-dove Jesus’, Rohr and Bell will feed you well, and give you further insight and instruction.

The goal of the gospel, its endpoint, in fact, was to produce a new type of man, indivisible from Him – and that required going to the cross

All well and good, John, but you’ve ignored the charge of heresy, haven’t you?

Yes. But that doesn’t mean that the Evangelical/Pentecostal world isn’t lacking in some of the things they are saying. That may explain their popularity. Sheep will graze where the grass is good. But I agree, if, in the final analysis, we are eating from the wrong table we should be at least ‘on guard’.

Here are three questions I would ask Rohr and Bell and Maclaren.

Q1. Why do you speak of ‘the divine’ rather than God? Is God, in your understanding, the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ? Is God the trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit?

Q2. You often refer to ‘spirit’ rather than the Holy Spirit. Why?

Q3. You refer to the scriptures, the Old and New Testaments as ‘ancient tradition’ rather than the word of God, inspired, inerrant, and infallible. The accounts in Genesis as referred to as poems for example. What is your belief about the Old and New Testaments?

You can see the danger.

Sounds a little like, in your view, John, there’s an Elephant in the Evangelical and Pentecostal/Charismatic room?

Dead right. Evangelicals and Charismatics (who may be found in all the traditional, historic denominations or more modern churches) routinely skirt round Romans 6 and 7 and other passages that deal with the cross, as applied to us, our crucifixion with Christ.

Leaving Romans 6 and 7 untaught, unbelieved, and unentered into, is as much a heresy as anything Rohr and Bell are accused of. The Romans 1-5 substitutionary gospel is an incomplete gospel. It’s not wrong. But it is incomplete.

In Romans 1-5 Paul constructs his arguments that show that Christ Jesus died for me, in my place. All my iniquities were placed on Him. The Just for the unjust. It is all wonderfully true: salvation, justification, acquittal, the gift of righteousness, eternal life, grace…it’s all wonderfully true. To truly understand that we are under grace not law will transform your life as it sinks in. That’s all found in Romans 1-5. And you’ll find ‘under grace’ preached faithfully in any number of evangelical churches of all denominations. Pentecostals and Charismatics point out, correctly, that as much as we need to know Jesus as Saviour and Lord, we also need to know Him as the One who baptises us in the Holy Spirit and be baptised in the Spirit. Such is the substitutionary gospel.

The clear teaching, however, of Romans 6 and 7 (and other passages – notably Galatians 2 v20 and Colossians 3 v 3) is that Christ’s death was also inclusive – it included you and me: ‘I have been crucified with Christ, it is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. The life I now live I live in the flesh, I live by faith in the Son of God who love me and gave Himself for me’ Gal 2v20.

Faith - spelt differently

It is not just that our ‘sins’ needed to be placed on Jesus, dealt with, and taken away, so we can be forgiven, but that the ‘sinner’ needed to die, so we can be delivered from Adam and re-potted in Christ. He brought about our end. It was the end of John Stevens. That old, seemingly self-empowered John Stevens, who may have tried to be good at times, attempting to live the Christian life, or at least a good life with some measure of success and failure, to live a life fuelled by his own resources, a life independent of God, an autonomous being, a ‘human’…‘being’. That attempt works to some extent until you hear the gospel, the ‘good news’ that Jesus has appeared, not to improve us at a distance, but to end our exile from God, and our self-driven lives. The trouble is that so many are taught that Jesus took our sins but not us in Him on the cross. The result of this is that now we feel that we should be able to live the Christian life, especially if we have the power of the Spirit to give us the power and strength. Really, we have no excuse! Surely! But this misses the point. But the gospel is far more radical than this.

Left like this we think that sanctification is a process whereby we become progressively more like Jesus. But this is polishing a turd theology. This isn’t much better than self-help, as if it is ‘us’ that needs to improve rather than crucified and buried. The gospel becomes an inversion of its true message, and the centre of its universe becomes ‘me’ and one that could get caught in the Romans 7 trap.

But this is polishing a turd theology

By the time we reach Romans chapter 5, Paul presents us as ‘in Adam’ and the clues and the signposts to a completely new ‘in-Christ life’ are scattered around pointing to chapter 6. For example ‘…if by one man’s trespass death reigned through the one, much more those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ’ Rom 5v17

Our problem, then, is that we are rooted in Adam, and therefore the ‘me-in-Adam’ person, cut off from God, is deceived into trying to live a human life on our own inner resources. The ‘evangelical’ gospel attempts to solve this need for transfer from Adam to Christ by using the phrase ‘dying to sin’ (from Rom 6v2). ‘Sin’ in this context is the nature within us inherited from Adam, our tendency to sin. The problem with leaving the argument there is that it suggests that ‘we’ can, by our own decision, by the exercise of our own will, die to sin and live a righteous life. But this is not the solution that chapter 6 teaches.

‘Do you not know that as many of us as were baptised into Christ Jesus were baptised into His death…buried with Him through baptism into death, so that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, so we could walk in newness of life…knowing this that our old man was crucified with Him…’ Rom 6 v 3-6

By this point in Paul’s argument, we see that it is not only our sins that were laid on Christ on the cross but we ourselves. Not just the sins but the sinner.

The phrase ‘die to sin’ is not something we do but something that, historically, has taken place in Christ. God has effected the transfer:

‘Of Him are you in Christ Jesus who has become for us wisdom from God and righteousness and sanctification and redemption’ 1 Cor 1 v 30

This was always the goal of the gospel, its endpoint, in fact: to produce a new type of man, indivisible from Him – and that required Jesus taking us to the cross, sins included, being buried and rising again in a new form, in Christ.

Now we can be led by the Spirit into the spiritual maturity that Bell and Rohr describe so well. We become Holy Spirit-led sons, ‘mini-Christs’ as C.S. Lewis was wont to say and the true meaning of the term ‘Christians’, the nickname given to the early believers.

Next: Barking up the wrong tree

Helicopter Seeds

My sycamore clock
Is shedding spent leaves and seeds
In time for winter

Folding In

‘Folding in’ apparently is
‘Combining a dry ingredient
With one of more weight,
And wet,
Whilst retaining much air’

If your parable antennae
Are restless and twitching
You’ve tuned in
To our story -
Mine and maybe yours

Like flour in a recipe
I have been taken, by Love,
Dry, and dead with potential
And folded into a Christ
So ready to baptise me…

…in His story
And, like an author
I find myself in print
An autobiography
Another incarnation

Breathing deeply.