Choose Faith

Down in the hollow beside the path nestle the pale yellow primula. We look for them every year, and they don’t disappoint. Nobody tends them, but they appear annually. Their delicate design brings a smile to our faces as we greet old friends with delight, friends not seen since last year.

Distanced from our friends and family, we wonder when we will greet them again with delight, apart from in a virtual fashion. We don’t know, but we do know that ‘this too shall pass’ and we will, indeed, hug and greet loved ones once more.

Corona virus is an invisible enemy, striking indiscriminately. There is horror arising from the fear of not being able to see it.

We have a choice. We can live in fear of an invisible enemy, or we can live in faith in the God who gave his life to set us free from fear. He, too, is invisible, and yet his presence can be felt through the Holy Spirit he entrusts us to.

Again I make the choice, to live in faith. It is a choice that needs to be made moment-by-moment. It is a choice made easier if I use some of the ‘down time’ we have been given, by drawing nearer to God, and getting to know him better.

There is no fear in love. Perfect love casts out fear.

May you choose faith today. May I choose it too.

Hero of Heroes

I stood on the porch and clapped. Our nearest neighbour is a quarter mile away. My clapping was hollow and unheard. Or was it?

The Butterfly Effect says that when a butterfly flaps her wings in New Mexico, a hurricane happens in China. Or in this case, a miniscule virus infecting someone in China causes a global pandemic.

I clapped to show my gratitude for the thousands of frontline workers who are risking everything moment by moment. I clapped to join the chorus of clapping, bagpiping, bell-ringing, and shouting rising right across the nation as a thank-you to these heroes.  

Then I came in to pray. Whatever this night holds, Jesus is in it with us.

Today we remembered the night when he was betrayed by his friend, and then abandoned by the rest of his friends as the ruling powers took him into custody. Tomorrow we will remember his lonely walk to Calvary, the agony of his crucifixion and the depth of his separation from the Father. True isolation.

He hung there alone. He might have been tempted to think that his sacrifice was a fruitless gesture which wouldn’t make any difference. But if he was tempted, he didn’t yield to it. He hung there hour after hour, and then he died.

With his death, and even more so with his resurrection, he changed the world. I am so grateful that he didn’t think one man dying on a cross wouldn’t make any difference. He knew the truth.

The truth that he is the way, the truth, and the life. He made a way for us because he is the way.

I’ll maybe go back out on the porch, and clap again. For the hero of heroes. The king of kings. Jesus.

New Nest

A pale blue sky is scattered with individual white clouds, like a Monet painting. The flowering cherry tree is full and heavy with blossom. There is no wind this morning, just the lightest of breezes.

We watch a robin fold himself into the birdhouse opposite the kitchen window. The birdhouse nestles amongst a holly bush, planted there by a bird or the wind. He’s out again. Then she emerges and darts off. They are busy arranging their nest for the new life they expect any day.

Walking through this week with Jesus. Walking towards the cross. Death, not life. But Jesus didn’t hesitate to embrace the cross, because of the ‘joy set before him’. His focus was not on the death and struggle but on the life and glory beyond.

He had been busy for three years, preparing the nest for those who would believe and love him.

In these dark days of lock-down and endless news coverage of pestilence and death, when fear of becoming one of the statistics sits heavy on our minds, may we focus instead on the joy set before us. Because Jesus endured the cross, and entered glory after he was powerfully raised from death to life, so we, having endured whatever we are called to bear, can be assured that eternity in his glory awaits.

Jesus has gone ahead to prepare a place for us. His was an eternal perspective. As we share in that perspective, joy overwhelms and peace fills us. There is no room for fear. Only love, deep love and gratitude.

Angel with a Trolley

I emerged from the grocery store unscathed (I think), but couldn’t open the boot of the car. Don, waiting in the car for me, got out. We’re not going anywhere, he said.

The battery had died. On a hybrid car, it’s not quite straightforward, and we stood considering our options. Call the neighbour to come and take us home where we could get our other car and the jump leads, and Don could consult YouTube to locate the hybrid’s battery.

Ah. We hesitated. The neighbour is nearly 80, taking isolation very seriously. He is so helpful; it would not be fair to put him in such a predicament. Who else could we ask for help? Who else could we even approach to speak with, as everyone is keeping their social distance and approaching a stranger in a car park seems akin to an assault?

I had seen Fiona from church inside the store. Just then she emerged, smiling. What can I do to help? she asked, unhesitating. She made room in her boot for our purchases; we got into the back seat and she drove us the three miles home. Then messaged later to see how we got on.

The angel with the shopping trolley, Don called her.

Where do we draw the line in social distancing?

The familiar story told by Jesus, of the man robbed, beaten up and left for dead, comes to mind. Two religious folk kept their distance. They had their reasons, no doubt. There were dangers inherent in helping someone – the muggers might still be around, the religious leaders would need to purify themselves – self-isolate – before carrying on with their agendas. An innkeeper would need money to look after the injured victim. They averted their eyes and kept on the path.

The Samaritan didn’t hesitate. He went to the aid of the injured man, using what he had to dress the wounds, lifting him onto his donkey and paying for his care at a nearby inn.

In the beginning, the word was with God and the word was God. Through him – through Jesus – everything was created. He looked at it and pronounced it good. But then evil muscled in, insinuating himself into humanity, and Jesus saw his creation mugged and robbed and left for dead. And he didn’t hesitate. He stepped in as a vulnerable human being, carrying our load of sins to the cross and thereby paying for our return to spiritual health and everlasting life. His intervention cost him dear. Physical agony. Humiliation. Profound isolation.

Yesterday we marked his triumphant entry into Jerusalem, at the beginning of this short week ending in him hanging on a cross. My Jesus, my saviour. Our Jesus, our saviour. Thank you.

Skips

Our neighbour has just rented a skip. A dumpster in American. He’s using his self-isolation, his wife tells us, to clear the attic. When he asked her if she wanted to keep anything from the attic, she shook her head. ‘If I’ve not missed it for the twenty or thirty years it’s been there, I don’t need it.’

The ramifications of enforced home time are wide. De-cluttering is a good thing. Throwing it all into a skip? I don’t know what he has in his attic, but I hope that if it still has a life in it that would benefit someone else, he will save it for the charity shops when they open again.

It would be nice, I was thinking, if we could rent a skip in which we could throw all our sins, all our memories of things done by or to us which crowd and shadow our thinking and stunt our spiritual growth.

But of course, we don’t need to rent one. Jesus has provided that skip. He invites us to confess our sins – which he forgives and forgets. He invites us to forgive those who have sinned against us. Gone. He hung on the cross to win us the freedom to hang out with him forever.

It’s so hard to really take this in. It’s easy to confess a sin, receive his forgiveness, and then stew in a guilt he doesn’t want us to have. It’s easy to forgive someone else and yet still rehearse the hurt in my head. As I prepare to walk through Holy Week with Jesus in a different way this year, one of my prayers will be to really accept his forgiveness, so that spiritually, I can stretch out into an airy, open space and grow, no longer shaded and cramped by what God has forgiven and forgotten.

Perfect Peace

On my daily walk, I noticed telephone wires swinging alarmingly in the wild winds. I hope they don’t break, or communication through the telephone and internet will be abruptly stopped and isolation will take on a new depth.

Storms in life can put tremendous strains on communications. A pandemic is such a storm for us all. Praying for those in difficult relationships during these times of lock-down.

I turned down the lane where the pine trees moaned and swayed. I watched as the red kite flapped his wings, which looked heavy and cumbersome. He struggled to lift off in the heavy gales, rising and dropping, rising and dropping, flapping harder, flapping harder. Eventually he achieved height.

Up there, high above the earth, he cruised on the currents. He wheeled and spun, turned and rose higher. His wings only twitched occasionally; movement seemed effortless.

Sometimes I come to a time of prayer and it is just hard work. I lift off and then drop away, distracted, anxious maybe, even bored. If I persevere, lifting off, dropping, lifting again, faltering, lifting again, then eventually I find myself in the presence of peace himself. Flapping – blurting out words of petition – has gone and I am left soaring in silence, enveloped in His love.

May we all persevere until we reach that place of perfect peace, resting in Jesus’ love.

United

Having been away so much last year, I’m still trying to clear up the autumn leaves, stacked in the flower beds, as well as twigs and branches and pine cones thrown down by wild winter winds. The twigs come from the larch, the Norwegian elm, the damson, the cherry trees … a rich mixture.

The night before he died, Jesus asked his Father to keep his disciples safe. He had protected them while he was in the world, but as he prepared to leave the world, he wanted the Father’s protection to continue to cover them. Not just for their own sakes, but for the sake of the church, ‘so that they may be one as we are one.’ (John 17:11)

As the winter winds of pandemic rage round the world, I’m praying that all of our roots of faith in Jesus – whatever our tradition, be it larch, elm, damson or cherry – go deep. Deep so that they join in Jesus and we are one, as Jesus and the Father are one. Praying that unity in the church would be a beacon of light in this dark world, that as we work together as we have never worked before (largely digitally!) the world will see Jesus in us.

I know for myself, I don’t want to let go of Jesus like an autumn leaf, nor be swept away from Jesus as the winter’s broken twigs and branches.

Jesus self-isolated on the Cross. He suffered a loneliness we can’t even imagine. But it led to resurrection, new life. As we self-isolate, may we not lose heart but see the joy set before us, the new life as church emerges, perhaps looking different, but united as never before.

May we bring glory to Jesus. Amen.