I just got back from a week away by the sea! It's good to be home and to catch up on all the things I didn't do while on holiday, but I'm also always sad to say goodbye to the sea. And this photo pretty much sums those feelings up for me. I imagine my face with this wistful, longing look on it, gazing out, trying to know every undulation and take in all of this expanse - which I can't possibly do - while I can.
The sea has always made me think of God. How vast it is. How powerful it is. That I could never fully take it all in, but therefore, that I could never tire of endlessly exploring it. I remember a couple of years ago, sitting out on a surfboard in Cornwall waiting for a wave to come, and I kind of feel like that now. I feel like God is allowing me to glimpse something of the wonderful plans God has for me to get involved in - out there on the horizon - and I'm waiting. But it doesn't feel like it has at points in the past: like I'm aimlessly waiting, and praying desperately that God would reveal to me what I'm to do, because without that purpose explained I'm just bobbing around. And my legs are so tired from all the treading water that I know I can't keep it up. In those moments, I've needed God to save me. And God did. But this is different. This is like sitting on that surfboard. I have the feeling in my muscles from the shorter waves I caught closer in, practice spaces, trial and planning phases. I'm grateful for the rest as I sit and feel the undercurrents of God - the motions and movements, the direction they're pulling in. I'm immensely impressed at the beauty and vastness of God as I stare out at the sea all around me. I don't mind that I'm waiting this time - sure, I'm excited and looking forward to when it does come - but I'm not anxious or distressed in this waiting, because I'm spending this time delighting in who God is and all that God has done. And possibly more than anything, I am so hopeful. I'm excited. I feel elevated. There is a sense still, while I'm waiting, that something is about to happen. The waters are starting to stir in the way they do when there's going to be a big wave. And I want it. I don't know if I'll be able to ride it in all the way; there's a real possibility I might fall. But this is the sea we're talking about. This is God we're thinking of. There will be more waves. Grace comes again and again - and the more I ride on these waves, the more exceptional those rides will become. Don't get me wrong - I've experienced both of these kinds of waiting, and I probably will again. Sometimes waiting is just really hard. We all today live in a culture of immediacy, which means that waiting for something jars with us. We start to think that maybe it won't happen at all. I have struggled with this on numerous occasions. But I wanted to share this with you all because there are other kinds of waiting too, and waiting can be a positive experience. If you're in the midst of a waiting struggle - keep praying, be honest to God with your feelings, and allow God to save you from them. And if you're in the midst of a waiting like mine on the surfboard - delight in it, document it so you can remember it in the future, praise God in it. God is a God of all our different experiences and emotions. So keep God involved in them!
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Psalm 139.5 | אָח֣וֹר וָקֶ֣דֶם צַרְתָּ֑נִי וַתָּ֖שֶׁת עָלַ֣י כַּפֶּֽכָה׃
"Behind and in front, you've enclosed me, and put your hand upon me." We can do this. We're moving forwards and I'm not afraid. Sometimes I dig my heels in, but you move me onward anyway. You lead me - you're excited and you know the way through - there's so much you want to show me. You're who I see, and want to see, but sometimes I wish you'd just tell me where we're going too. You've got my back - you're sensible, responsible, secure - it's comforting. You hem me in, I can't escape; there is no escaping life, but at least I can live it with you. I know that whatever happens you're there and your palm on me tells me that you won't abandon me. I won't be alone. I won't be lost. Always seeking you and your presence. At least not lost forever. Behind and in front. You oscillate. I oscillate. Sermon: preached 04/12/2016: on Isaiah 11.1-10 & Matthew 3.1-12Isaiah’s prophecy of a Peaceful Kingdom (Isaiah 11.1-10). I think ‘peace’ is a difficult concept for us to understand – as a child, a jokingly said ‘Oh, what I wouldn’t give for some peace and quiet in this house’ by either my mum or dad, was instantly met with 5 small girls marching around the room singing, ‘I like PEAS, I like CARROTS’ and laughing hysterically at our witty pun. ‘Peace’ becomes synonymous with ‘quiet’ or ‘rest’ but that certainly isn’t what Isaiah meant. Isaiah was boldly proclaiming the impossible possibility. At the time, Jerusalem was destroyed and despairing and under the occupation of the Assyrians – their biggest enemy. As a people they were broken up and disjointed, they’d lost so many and so much, and each day, to live was a struggle. And Isaiah doesn’t sugar-coat that. He doesn’t ignore it and just tell them it will all be fine one day. Isaiah admits that the shoot will have to sprout forth from a stump – at a point where the royal line of David has been cut down, and nothing but a dry and lifeless stump remains. In other words, when there is no hope, because all has been destroyed. And yet, THEN a shoot shall sprout forth. There will be life again. And beauty shall come up and grow out of that new life.
For Isaiah, then, the word ‘peace’ – SHALOM – means more than just quiet, or tranquillity, or contentment, though it can mean those things; it also means wholeness, completeness; it means safety and soundness, it means welfare and unbroken, undamaged relationship, with other people, and with God. ‘Peace’ was a state that the people reading Isaiah’s book for the first time could only dream of – could possibly only even picture through the images he gave them. And if we are honest with ourselves, this completeness and wholeness and unbroken, undamaged relationship is something we but dream of too. None of us have to look too far or wait too long to find either others or ourselves in times of brokenness; moments when, though our lives are full of things to do, they feel empty; instances when we could not say that we have peace. That is why Jesus came into the world. In the midst of all the darkness, born into poverty, in a place he wasn’t welcome and had to flee for fear of his life, so that he could demonstrate to us how God’s light and love breaks in, even to the darkest of situations and times. He came as a shoot, breaking through into the world, with life and beauty, and righteousness and justice. Isaiah goes on; “...but with righteousness he will judge the needy, with justice he will give decisions for the poor”. Wherever the Kingdom of God is being built or proclaimed, it must not forget to also build and proclaim justice for the poor and exploited. For into situations of darkness and despair, there the shoot must grow, that brings light and life and love. An example of this. When I was 17, I went with my sister, and a church group on a trip to Israel and to the Palestinian Occupied Territories in the West Bank. We were there principally to visit and support Christians there, and show them that they were not forgotten. We visited schools and clinics and church groups, hearing their stories, bringing aid where we could and standing in solidarity with them. Being so young at the time, and having never been abroad anywhere before, and certainly having never seen such degrading treatment of an entire group of people; I was utterly overwhelmed by the darkness and – quite often – lack of hope there was there. People worn down by gradual and continuing occupation, just making one aspect of life harder, and then a next, and then another. When we asked one of the head teachers there, who was also a Priest, what we should tell people when we go back home, he said that we should tell them “they have brothers and sisters here who are suffering. Palestine is a land of sorrow; there are no resources, there’s no work and there’s just no money." Everything has been taken; everything simple made difficult. And yet, amid that darkness and despair were people who did – and continue to – break forth with the love of God, becoming a beacon of Christ’s light, in that darkness. One such man was the head teacher, K, in a school in Hebron which is run completely by Christians and attended almost completely by Muslim students. It is a normal school but also has some places for orphans to board there. When K was a young boy, he was an orphan who boarded at this school, and now he has gone through the whole education process and come full circle back to now being the head teacher. And he is an amazing man. He runs his whole school on the principle of treating every one of his students with the love of Christ. And the school becomes a lifeline for these children – it becomes somewhere they get treated like human beings, and more importantly, like human beings who were created and are loved and cherished, as every person should be. But he is up against a lot. He has to teach his children how to love. Because in their homes and in their streets there is a big military presence in Hebron, and there is a large amount of violence from Israeli settlers there. Just walking through the market streets of the town, we saw above the market a big metal grid stretching across the street to protect the Palestinians below from bricks and rubbish that the settlers throw down at them. It is not a nice place to live. And yet he goes into each day hoping that he can show those children what it means to love. What peace is. Something they have never known. When we asked K what he needed most from us; his immediate response was 'prayer'. He wanted us to pray for what he prays for: ‘for the children and for the whole area to have peace and love.’ He says that peace can only come from love. And that if they all have and treat people with the love of Jesus, then that is how they will get peace. A beautiful sentiment that this man is living out. Despite the difficulties presented in doing so. In that darkness – right within it – he has made the decision to “bear fruits worthy of repentance” as the reading about John the Baptist put it (Matthew 3.1-12). In Advent, we are getting ready for Christ to enter the world; remembering him coming down to meet us, demonstrating just how far God’s love goes for us. But he has already come; and there is still darkness, there is still not peace. But a shoot begins small. A shoot grows. And has been growing ever since. Every time someone loves as Christ does, another branch grows out from that tree, and fruit starts to blossom and bloom. And peace grows, until one day, enemies will lie down together, for there will be no fear, or war, or hatred, or destruction. And all will know the love of God. As Isaiah pictures in the vivid metaphors he uses in the second half of that reading. This whole period of Advent is about having an attitude of expectation, hopefulness and prayerful waiting, that all these things will one day come to be, knowing that we have a part to play in that. Advent calls us to be people who already have one foot in God’s new age, and who imagine ourselves as being already the change we want to see in the world. As his followers we are called, within that darkness, to make light – to be that demonstration continually to other people of how far God has already gone for them. To love, love and then still love, no matter how costly that might be, and love can indeed be costly as Jesus showed us on the cross. But ‘peace can only come from love’. That is why, to make ourselves ready for Christ, we must love as he does, breaking in with peace and light, amidst the darkest and most difficult of situations, with the fruits his love bears in us. John the Baptist cried out, “Repent, for the Kingdom of Heaven has come near ... Prepare the way of the Lord!” And many who truly did want to change their lives went down to the river and were baptised by him. In baptism we die – we go down, recognising the hopeless nature of ourselves and our utter powerlessness to love fully and make peace by ourselves. And then we are brought back up, washed clean, made new. As Jesus rose, so we rise, and this time, we have his power, and with his love, we can love powerfully and fully too. And this will grow into peace, and enemies will lie down together, for all will know the love of God. For true peace can only come from love.
One of the themes for the 2nd week of advent is peace. This video came from the re:think worship website where you can also find the song words for this song.
It reminds me that the God who came into the world is the God of peace. Peace in the here and now. Peace in the centre of the storm. Peace that came into the messy, violent, confusing world and will one day rule over all of that. |
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AuthorI'm a recent Cambridge Theology graduate now studying for a Masters in Biblical Studies and blogging about all sorts of things! I'm interested in faith, Church, theology, social action, the great outdoors and being creative, and all of those things - along with many more - come through in my posts!
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