13th December 2012

From where we are on mother earth, we look up, and we look out, beyond ourselves and our survival needs. The heavens, represent for us the beyond, all that is above knowledge and imagination, and it's a natural desire to reduce the boundaries of our ignorance. Only in the last few minutes of the day in the comparative timescale of human evolution has our species been able to stand completely outside this planet and start exploring the solar system.

As tiny witnesses to the overwhelming vastness of the universe, we are conscious that nothing we know exists without birth and death. The second law of thermodynamics concerning entropy postulates the death of the universe is inevitable, its finite quota of energy will eventually be exhausted long after our solar system and planets have been devoured by stellar and cosmic processes. 

Such a vast timescale is impossible to grasp, as is the moment of our own demise, yet as Christians we live knowing the  inevitable. We strive to make the most of whatever time we receive gratefully, conscious of life as a gift from our Creator. God originates entropy and isn't subject to it.

Christians hope in God's work of redemption: healing transforming and setting all things free, making a disordered world as it was intended to be at the outset of creation. This isn't shallow optimism persisting in the face of daunting facts. It's rooted in a higher vision of life, a sense of meaning which emerges as we tread the path of faith.

The heavens above are a universal symbol of where God the Creator dwells. Christians believe God's presence is made known through divine activity in the universe, but believe there is more to God's being than this. The cosmos itself is not divine. The cosmos, alive with divine energy, is contained within God's being. The more value we place on the gift of life, the less we can be indifferent to its Author. In trust we look beyond everything known or knowable, longing to relate to God, longing to understand the meaning and purpose of this gift of existence.

From the 'beyond out there', we keep being drawn back to the 'beyond within ourselves', equally unknown. Here we learn relatedness to others. Here love becomes the crowning reality of inner experience that dispels fear, hatred and despair, develops compassion, trust and confidence. Love is a gift we receive at the heart of life itself, a gift we learn to understand and use well. It's a gift that grows as we give it to others.

When we reach out with longing to the 'beyond out there', doing so with love makes for a unique kind of growth in the spiritual dimension of ourselves. It percolates into every aspect of relationships. We look to heaven, to the One from whom redemption comes - we know not how, but we trust in love that it does.

12th December 2012

Wherever Jesus travelled teaching about the coming of God's reign, suffering people came seeking his help. Whether afflicted with sickness, infirmity, mental torment or social rejection, they came with their needs and those of others, having exhausted the possibility of help from others. He asks them personally about their need and acts both to make them well, to restore them to their proper place in the community.

In one case he challenges the view that sickness and affliction are caused by sin. He's asked about the cause of affliction to someone blind from birth: "Who sinned, this man or his parents?" Jesus replies "He was born blind so that God's power might be displayed in curing him." Blaming anyone for birth blindness has no place alongside this. Whether giving sight to the blind is achieved miraculously, or the latest eye surgery, it's still a revelation of divine creative power at work through compassionate action. Jesus speaks of God's reign coming in terms of outcomes with an impact on human lives.

"Are you the one to come or are we to look for another?" ask John's disciples. "Go and tell John what you hear and see - the blind recover their sight, the lame walk, lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life, the poor are brought the Good News ..." is Jesus' response. Look what's going on, he says. He doesn't invite them to look at himself. He points to God at work. In a real sense it doesn't matter whether good things happen through his agency or that of others. His ministry has a catalytic effect, stimulating countless people down the centuries to find practical healing solutions in meeting the need of others, carrying on what Jesus reveals possible by his actions.

Jesus' ministry comes to its climax as he willingly endures rejection and suffers death on the cross revealing loving compassion and forgiveness as the ultimate healing power, confirming God's victory over evil, over Hell and Satan/the Devil. This is a definitive moment in human history. Jesus reveals what is possible, what needs to be done in practice to overcome evil with good. This continues with many others throughout history being willing to suffer and give their lives defending justice and truth, unmasking and overcoming the destructive power of evil, and in compassionate service to others. The way of Jesus is not to destroy but to redeem and transform what sin distorts and impairs, to make something creative happen in place of what is destructive.

The work he did, he commissioned his disciples to continue, to enable God's will to be done 'on earth as in heaven'. When Christians look for Jesus' coming, they will recognise Him in any actions and outcomes which overcome evil with good, which heal and transform, which bring freedom justice and peace to the suffering - wherever this world is made a better place.