On love and longing

If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. 1 Corinthian 13:1-8

For the last three years around Easter, I have blogged about the profound passion of Christ. Drawn to the cataclysmic complexity of a compelling message behind the Son of Man's mission that weaves to complete God's tapestry of grace with such grief and gravity, it is a time of the year that calls for contemplation to consider our own existence in the speck of human history and divine intervention.

Yet, I have not ruminated on the message of love that Easter resonates, as reflected in the new command that Christ left us. Just before passover, "Jesus knew that the hour had come for him to leave his world...Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end" (John 13:1). He poignantly reminded his disciples of what it means to love, during his final hours leading up to the pivotal point of his mission that would be marked by pain and suffering coupled with humiliation and utter abandonement on earth as it was in heaven during his dying moment alone on the cross. In John's gospel, Jesus said to his disciples "my children, I will be with you only a little longer. You will look for me, and just as I told the Jews, so I tell you now: Where I am going, you cannot come" yet, "a new command I give you: love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this, everyone will know that you are my disciples" (John 13:34). 

We may often forget that in the tragedy and cruelty of the crucification, it is the humility and humanity of Christ that we saw on the cross. When his own people tore him apart both bodily and in spirit, and some casted lots to divide his clothing, Jesus still spoke from the cross with compassion to plead that "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). As Michael Jensen has put it, ultimately, "motivated by love, Jesus accepts the mission of attoning for our sins, accepting in his own body the consequences of sin and evil, the whole volumne of our rage against God for daring to be God". His humble bearing of our sins on the cross is also the humility of God that we see. So as Jesus asked his disciples to take up the cross and follow him, Jesus calls us to follow behind him in a life of sacrificial love for the sake of others. 

To be his disciple, one cannot avoid the cross or fail to accept what Jesus offered us there. Rather, we are called to seek in our heart the strength and steadfast faith to live a life that stands as a visible imprint of his sacrifice. So in following after Jesus, we do so by forgetting oursleves as the centrepiece in our own lives as well as perhaps even those of others in our lives and by truly giving oneself to deeds of sacrifical love.  What sounds harsh to our modern day ears and seems heretic to the utilitarian rationality of our thinking in this day and age, is actually a divine way to live. It is a hard way to live. Yet, the contradictions of the cross which, like many parables of Jesus' ministry, through paradoxes show "what looks like weakness turns out to be the power of God. What looks like foolishness turns out to be wisdom. What looks like loss is actually gain."

Just as the stone that the builders rejected has become the cornerstone through the cross and resurrection of Christ (Psalm 118:22), the cornerstone of the Christian message is also one of love as is the meaning of Easter. God has loved and longed for us since time immemorial when after genesis of the once perfect world, He created man in His image and woman for man as it is not good for man to be alone (Genesis 2:18). Then, throughout the old testament and despite death, sickness and suffering in a world that is not meant to be as it once was, the Lord looks down from heaven on the children of man to see if there are any who understand, who seek after God (Psalm 14:2). "...the Lord longs to be gracious to you; therefore he will rise up to show mercy to you, for the Lord is a God of justice and blessed are all those who wait for him" (Isaiah 30:18). 

So as Christ has risen and is resurrected, God has reached out to us through His only son and revealed the abounding love, grace and mercy that He has for us. 

And this is the love we ought to long for and try to live out in our humble lives.

With tribute to Good Friday Service at St Mark's DP, 27:22 - 41:45 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1cfEH-mai4E&t=1395s and Christ, the Conspiracy Theory at St Mark's DP, 22:47 - 39:05 in https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q82lzwAmPtM&t=2353s

Chaos, Calamity and the Cycle of Human History?

"Human history is one prolonged and painful limping. We invariably step with one foot on the rock of justice, and with the other, we sink into the mire of deceit and self-delusion."   - Daniel Hristov, the End of the Jesus Era (Part One)

About two years ago, I wrote about humanity at its worst and some rare moments of its best in a pandemic crisis that struck us in the wake of our COVID-19 outbreak.

Two years on, some people think that we can't be any worse with war in Ukraine, flood in Australia and a resurgent pandemic that sends large cities like Shanghai into a total lockdown, all of which compound the economic shock waves that will be felt by generations. Yet, it is far worse if we look beyond the recent reality seared into the forefront of our human psyche by mainstream media.

A sweeping scan of the situation elsewhere in 2022 alone shows the world is grim in:

• Sudan, where political tension and unrest drove people away from homes amidst regional drought. If you think an inflation rate of 8.5% in the US is bad, it is skyrocketing here with 388%.
• Syria, where economic crisis compounded a decade of war. If you think the cost of living is steep in developed countries like Australia, COVID-19 and economic coallpse have increased the average price of essential food items by 236% here.
• Myanmar, where violent deadlock left millions in need as they flee conflict ever since the memorable events of February 2021. A cycle of armed clashes and violence caused significant displacement of over 440,000 people since February in addition to an existing 370,000 who fled homes perviously.
• South Sudan, where regional conflict combined with climate crisis. If you think the recent flooding in Australia's east coast led to record high insurance claims, forget about insurance here. In a country infested with conflict, disease, starvation and natural disaster shocks, including floods, over 7.2 million people faced IPC3 level crisis and 100,000 faced IPC5 level catastrophe levels which toppled the existing issues of food security (that's over 60% of the population).

The list goes on and that's in the span of a millisecond in millenniums of human history over millions of years.

A cynic might say all this is part of the chaos, calamity and the cycle of human history. A cynical Christian might say that the world was broken as early as in Genesis after Eden's fall. God's wrath was splashed across multiple books of the Old Testament with repeating disappointment in His chosen people. In the words of Moses in 8th century BC recorded in Deuteronomy, the fifth book of the Torah, plagues, disasters, wasting hunger, burning consumption and bitter pestilence ravaged the earth with death and sickness. At around 30 AD, Jesus sat on the Mount of Olives and said to his disciples that "Nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. There will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places. All these are the beginning of sorrows... you will be hated by all nations because of me...but he who stands in the end will be saved" (Matthew 24:7-13).

A songwriter Brian Morykon once said that "When bad things happen, personally or globally, our ideas about God can be placed into a crucible and put into a furnace. The greater the pain and the more inexplicable the injustice, the hotter the heat... Some ideas get burnt up, some come out more true, few emerge unchanged." But not all are put through trials and tribulation like Job and come out with blessings to treasure from the experience we look back upon with growth. Our world is in constant turns and turmoils in between moments of fleeting goodness. So Brian went on to question when the world is burning, what should we ask for, and does it make any difference. Does the mailbox of heaven have to reach a certain capacity for the ruler of our universe to extend a hand of mercy to those who sufffer?

We often see in people that the sufferings in this world can bring up existential questions of why it is so. Many Christians may turn to prayers to find ways on how we can enter into such suffering that is perhaps redemptive and healing. Whilst all of us are different and each method may have its own merits, I wonder if we may forget what is at the heart of Christianity in times of suffering from time to time? Pain is everywhere but what do we make of it?

Fitting for a day like this on Good Friday (or perhaps more fitting with the name Holy, Great, Long or Black Friday) is our reflection about the Cross and what it embodies at Calvary. Inspired by a great writer and preacher at a special Sydney Anglican church, I think all should think twice about this renowned symbol of Christianity just as he who wrestled with this for the semon today. Even the best of us can't and shouldn't detach ourselves from what was a deeply disgraceful and distatefully ugly scene at the Cross.  All the more ugly that suffering in this world came from what's within us.

As Michael Jensen has eloquently put it, we see in the Christ's crucifixion a deconstruction of humanity, pulling apart not just a body but the quality of being human with an attempt to rob away any and all dignity and honour in so doing. Suffering is far more than the experience of physical pain as the executionists of Christ stripped him of his humanity and slowly tortured him to death at the Cross. As I've written two Easters ago, those who were crucified historically often die by asphyxiation whilst trying to pull onself up in order to breathe against the gravity of one's own bleeding body through punctured wrists and ankles nailed against the cross. It's the worst form of dying. In Christ's case, his crucifixion was crowned with mockery and degradation - "He claims to be a somebody so let's remind him he's a nobody" as Michael has bluntly pointed out. The ugliness and shame of the Cross cannot be downplayed because what happened at the Cross looked a lot like "a deconstruction of a human being by other human beings".  Another of the many examples of "men's inhumanity to a man". Acknowledging these atrocities allows us to address these realities of the human condition.

The Cross was a brutal place and was intended to be so. Yet, how strange is it that this became a symbol of God's love for us. "The crown of thorns made as a bitter and nasty sign of what Jesus wasn't turns out to be the brilliant pointer to who Jesus actually is. The king who rules by dying for the sake of his people... For it was this moment of extreme Godlessness in human history, the most awful desecration, the least holy thing you could image that was also the moment of God's most intense presence to human beings". 

As it was powerfully put by Michael, in this act of utter hatred, God dislays the depth of his love. Though we intended this day for evil, God intended it for good... The worst we can do does not outfrank the good of our holy God - just as we said no to God, God said yes to us. 

So the Cross is a terribly ugly symbol of how hellish we are and can be, as well as how deeply we (can) shame and disgrace one another. Yet through God, who himself was in Christ, our shame and disgrace were borne and atoned by the man who died for us - bearing our shame and disgrace but atoning for our sins. So the Cross extroardinarily became something beautiful when God's divine purpose and miracle transformed it to become a sign not of shame but honour, not of ignominy but of glory, not of hate but of love. And it is here that we found in the Cross God's humble love for us to send the only son into the broken world of humanity. Not that we loved God but that He loved us.

Just as this broken world is littered with dead bodies past, present and future across the vast expanse of time through war, disasters, genocide, and human atrocities and a myriad of other causes, in sickness and in death will the earth endure as God relented from destruction in Genesis but saved us in Christ instead. We see this now and we see this at the time of Roman cross that stood for everything unjust in the world - be it hatred, violence, oppression, murder and genocide - as an instrument of total torture.

Perhaps the prospect of a new heaven and a new earth may fuel the faith of some who look forward to the passing of the first heaven and the first earth - a vision of John's that may appeal to some with its Holy City, the new Jerusalem that will shine with the glory of God with its brilliance like that of a precious jewel like a jasper, clear as crystal with twelve gates upon which will be written the names of the twelve tribes and without a temple as God will reside in it (Revelation 21:10-23). Yet, I wonder in the spirit of God's love as response to human horror that showed what men are and can be, whether that love alone which He has for us would simply suffice?

Ironically, Voltaire once wrote that "this system of All is good represents the author of nature only as a powerful and maleficent king, who does not care, as long as he carries out his plan, that it costs four or five hundred thousand men their lives and that the others drag out their days in want and in tears. So far from the notion of the best possible world being consoling, it drives to despair the philosophers who embrace it. The problem of good and evil remains an inexplicable chaos for those who seek in good faith." Yet it is in the ebbs and flows of the chaos, calamity and the cycle of human history that we see men's magnitude of sinfulness and God's love at the Cross.  

For nothing speaks more of God's way in love when Christ died and atoned for our sins at the Cross.

Attributing this article to an inspirational sermon at St Mark's Darling Point https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Og-cTOgtdes&t=2s

On Regrets

Tears, idle tears, I know not what they mean,
Tears from the depth of some divine despair
Rise in the heart, and gather to the eyes,
In looking on the happy Autumn-fields,
And thinking of the days that are no more.

-                                     - Alfred, Lord Tennyson

We don't say but live sometimes with the weight of our world and loved ones on our own shoulder. 

Behind the trying smile on our faces, we hide the heaviness of our heart and the scars of our regrets. Regrets from relationship we wanted but disappointed by the fear and fact of falling short from what we wish for. And they can hit you by surprise. It can be a lingering lesion that never heals but from time to time, sends a spasm when life decides to surprise you with the simple fact that regret can tear your heart apart and fill it with the heavy brokeness from which we never really recover. 

As the heart weeps and the lips find no expression for its ache, the brain is slow to comprehend this well of emotions within us that we know not of nor expect. That is when tears cry out from a moment of searing sorrow as they scorch down our cheeks in a blazing trail of silent suffering. It is as if we will be forever haunted by memories of the long gone past. Washington Irving once said that "there is a sacredness in tears...they speak more eloquently than ten thousand tongues as the messengers of overwelming grief, of deep contrition and of unspeakable love." 

Blind spots of the heart make me realise for someone who takes pride in the wisdom, empathy and perceptiveness that I have when it comes to others, I might in fact be a total idiot when it comes to my very own feelings. Indeed, it is ironic that the valves of the heart can open faster than the lightening speed at which neurons of our brain travel when they let out tears to make us realise a truth which our mind failed to perceive but can only recognise in a reactive and retrospective strive to see what we ourselves failed to spot or buried in time to ignore. 

Funny how humans work. We are frail and fragile creatues with so much limitation that it is hard to believe we were made in the image of God sometimes. Yet, God blessed us after creation and gave us an order of this world upon which we are bestowed to rule and have as what He intended. Even when we, along with creation, are broken by the unkept promise when man fell from Adam's downfall with Eve in Eden after temptation, God relented from destroying all living creatures as a creator who can start afresh. Instead, God lamented as he saw Noah and entered into a poignant covenant that:

"As long as the earth endures,
seedtime and harvest,
cold and heat,
summer and winter,
day and night,
shall never cease."
(Genesis 8:22)  

Calvin once wrote that "the will of God is the supreme rule of righteousness, so that everything that He wills must be upheld to be righteous by the mere fact of His willing it." The bible has many references to God's plans, including that "the promises of the Lord are promises which are pure, silver refined in a furnace on the ground, purified seven times" (Psalm 12:6). So in trusting that God's ways are higher than our ways and His thoughts are higher than ours just as the heavens are higher than the earth (Isaiah 55:9), we trust in the Lord with all our heart and lean not on our own understanding (Proverbs 3:5-6) and hope that we may flourish in the furnace one day. When we submit to Him and His plans for us, there is an element of trust without any conceit in that, we do so not just because He will make our paths straight (Proverbs 3:6) or that we know for those who love God, all things work together for good or that because we know the plans God has for us are plans to prosper us and not harm us, plans to give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11). We do so because he is Lord. And so we entrust ourselves to God.

When Peter, one of the most devout disciples, disowned Christ three times just as Jesus predicted on his road to the Cross, he broke down and wept (Mark 14:72). When Judas betrayed Christ as part of the plan for the Passion of Christ as Jesus was handed over on his path to crucifixion, he saw that Jesus was condemned and was seized with remorse and threw away the money into the temple, the thirty pieces of silver which were given to him for the act of betrayal. Then Judas went away and hang himself (Matthew 27). When Job was told the horrific news that his sons and daughters died from a mighty wind that swept in from the dessert and struck the four corners of the house which coallapsed on them (in addition of his loss of livestock and the diseased affliction of skin sore), Job fell to the ground in worship and said: "Naked came I out from my mother's womb, and naked shall I depart: the Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away; blessed be the name of the Lord" (Job 1:21). All were perhaps part of God's "perfect plan" in the greater scheme of His infinite wisdom yet we witness the real human affliction and agony behind every moment of emotional suffering?

The scripture often reminds us of the speck of human existence as we are infinitesimal in the vast cosmos of past, present and future that God, the Almighty, sees and weaves through His tapestry of grace as the one God and Father of all who is over all and through all and in all (Ephesians 4:6). The epistle of James pointed out that we are like a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes and James reminded us that instead of saying that "Today or tomorrow, we will go to this or that city, spend a year there, carry on business and make money", we ought to say "if it is the Lord's will, we will live and do this or that". We are reminded by James in a rhetorical question that, "Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life?" because we are a mere mist in the immense span of time whereas the Lord is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth. It should come as no surprise that His understanding is unsearchable (Isaiah 40:28) because so great is our Lord, and abundant in power that His understanding is beyond all measure (Psalm 147:5). Yet, even the hairs of our head are all numbered and we fear not, as we are of more value than many sparrows (Luke 12:7). When King David looked at the heaves, the work of God's fingers, the moon and the stars which God set in place, he himself wondered what is man that God is mindful of him and the son of man that God so cared for him (Psalm 8:3-4)?

Perhaps as Peter wanted to rise to the occasion and be there for Christ in his time of need, it is through human failings and frailty do we really realise that it is us who need God to be there in times of need as we are broken. Perhaps tears can be a gift of grace from God as they remind us of things that are not as they should be so we cry when we feel broken when in fact, we are already broken. Perhaps as we weep over our brokeness, our tears can also be a kaleidoscope that shows a refracted world that is not what it should be since the time immemorial of original sin when we fell short in Eden under temptation. Yet, just as sin entered the world through Adam and Eve, and death through sin, God sent his only son into this world to wipe away our sin as we are washed in the blood of Christ and through the son of God, are justified before God. 

So in God and God alone, can we rest our regrets.

 

In Remberance of You - Lest We Forget

'God of our fathers, known of old,

Lord of our far-flung battle line,

Beneath whose awful hand we hold

Dominion over palm and pine —

Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,

            Lest we forget—lest we forget!'

Someone left some ANZAC biscuits, beautifully wrapped in baking paper with a sprig of rosemary, on our door knob. Many would know the symoblic signifance of red poppy flowers as those who fought for us in the Great War would have died, whose crimson blood would have stained the battlefields with a shade of red in Flanders Field. Rosemary also has a particular significance to Australians and New Zealanders as it's found growing wild on the Gallipoli peninsula where Australians and New Zealanders landed early on the morning of 25 April 1915 with allied forces in Ottoman Turkey that marked the start of the Gallipoli Campaign. Rosemary is for remembrance.

"Remembrance is a personal, therefore a subjective, process. It matters all the more to nuture it collectively" wrote Erik Varden in his book the Shattering of Loneliness. This is in rebembrance of Christ who died for us. The Christian condition unfolds within the certainty that ultimate reality, the source of all that is, is a personal reality of communion, not a metaphysical abstraction. Men and women, made 'in the image and likeness' of God, bear the mark of that original communion stamped on their being. The Scripture repeatedly exhorts us to 'remember'. The remembrance enjoined is partly introspective and existential, partly historical, for the God who took flesh to redeem our sins and shattered our loneliness, leaves traces in history.

At the heart of this is the idea of remembrance whereby we must properly remember that we are created, that we are led and guided by God (since Genesis and Exodus) and that Jesus bids us (through the four gospels' description of the last supper and the passion narrative) to do something in memory of Him. The communion of saints is, importantly, a shared and collective experience in remebrance of Christ. As Varden describes, "My capacity for truth, however blessed it may be by nature, however extendable by grace, is inadequate to fathom truth in its fulness. My remembrance, too, is limited. Even the memory of God, maintained in solitude, can disappoint. Anyone who prays the psalms will have been struck by this honest admission: I remembered my God and I groaned (Psalm 76:4). To be consoling and complete, remembrance in truth has to be shared. The spirit performs his consoling, illuminating work ecclesial. His operation is all of a piece: he consoles by creating concord; he leads us towards truth by drawing us out of our cloistered selves into a shared remembrance that sweetens even bitter memories with gratitude. He enables a gradual passage from what is piecemeal towards what is whole. This process, amazingly, embraces the future as well as the past: [The spirit of truth] will declare to you the things that are to come, says Jesus, before he goes on: 'He will glorify me, for he will take what is mine and declare it to you' (John 16:13-14), even though to pursue truth is to swim upstream from Hades, to choose light over darkness, to refuse disintegration." A constant battle. Yet, only by remembering the past will we move forward in the present and continue in our pursuit of truth into the future. As the old testament reminds us, "Only take heed to thyself, and keep thy soul diligently, lest thou forget the things which thine eyes have seen, and lest they depart from thy heart all the days of thy life" (Deuteronomy 4:7-9), we are reminded that a nation never fogets the true source of its sorrow and success in rembrance of the sacrifice for us to have what we have today on this ANZAC Day.

So we pray on this ANZAC Day that: 

O Lord, our ruler and guide in this life and the life eternal, in whose hands are the destinies of this and every nation, we give you thanks for the freedoms we enjoy in this land and for those who laid down their lives to defend them. We pray that all the people of Australia, who are gratefully remembering the courage and sacrifice of those who died for us, may have the grace to live in a spirit of justice, generosity, and peace through Jesus Christ our Lord. Above all, let us be reminded that Christ has been raised from the dead. In the words of Corinthians, since death came through a human being, the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being - for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ. Let us properly remember that Jesus Christ has bid us in the communion of saints, to do so in remembrance that as often as we eat the bread of your body and drink the cup as the new covenant in your blood, we do so remembering your sacrifice for our sake to proclaim death, redeem us and rise again forevermore. We pray all this in the name of our Lord, Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.

For Want of Justice

My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?
    Why are you so far from saving me,
    so far from my cries of anguish?

...

I am poured out like water,
    and all my bones are out of joint.
My heart has turned to wax;
    it has melted within me.  My mouth is dried up like a potsherd,
    and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;
    you lay me in the dust of death.16 Dogs surround me,
    a pack of villains encircles me;
    they pierce my hands and my feet.17  All my bones are on display;
    people stare and gloat over me.  They divide my clothes among them
    and cast lots for my garment.
(Psalm 22:1-18)

As a lawyer, I have a cynical veiw of what justice means. The hope of what were once young ambitions for social justice erode overtime as we witness the icy reality of this world. People we look up to as role models sometimes manifest morally dubious behaviours and at worse, unsettling judgements of human iniquity, bringing into question basic ethics in those who are purportedly the guardians of the justice system and admitted under oath before the court into the legal profession. 

When 2 Thessalonians looked at the man of lawlessness as an antichrist who will oppose Christ and substitute himself in Christ's place beofre the Second Coming, the man of sin is described as "The coming of the lawless one will be in accordance with how Satan works. He will use all sorts of displays of power through signs and wonders that serve the lie, 10 and all the ways that wickedness deceives those who are perishing. They perish because they refused to love the truth and so be saved." (2 Thessalonians 2:9-10). Perhaps the man of lawlessness embodies the satan within all of us as no one on earth is righteous except for Christ. Yet in the lead up to Christ's passion and crucifixtion on Good Friday, Jesus went through four trials and three declarations of innocence as the man-made system of justice sought to judge a man of God unjustly. In the gospel narratives, Jesus was taken to the private residence of Caiaphas (the sadducee high priest) after his arrest then presented before Pontious Pilot who found no basis for a charge against him and dispensed him to Herod who then sent Christ back to Pilate for an ultimate charge of crucifiction. 

The Sanhedrin is meant to be an established court based in Jerusalem with strict guidelines on how to function, including a prohibition against trials after dark, and a requirement that they occur in a public venue. The gospel accounts paint a picture of the Sanhedrin violating all these and the Torah during the trial of Christ. Matthew 26:57 states that Jesus was taken to the house of Caiaphas the High Priest of Israel, where the scribes and the elders were gathered together. Matthew 27:1 adds that, the next morning, the priests held another meeting. Luke 22:54 states that Jesus was taken to "the high priest's house", where he was mocked and beaten that night. It is added that as soon as it was day, the chief priests and scribes gathered together and led Christ away into their council. John 18:12-14 described that Jesus was first taken to Annas, the father-in-law of Caiaphas, who was the high priest at the time so it appears that Caiaphas sought Annas' confirmation of Caiaphas' actions. So John's gospel has the added scene where Jesus was sent from Annas to Caiaphas the high priest, and Pontius Pilate in the Praetorium.

By the time Jesus was before Pilate, we witnessed a series of weak and cowardly attempt by the Pontious Pilate to be fair but who ultimately succumbed to the damning demand of Jesus' own people. When Pilate said "take him yourselves and judge him by your own law (John 18: 30), he was met by the response of "But we have no right to execute anyone" as the Jews objected and condemned Christ to death. As the religions professed by the Jews and the Romans were different and since at the time Jerusalem was part of Roman Judea, the charges of the Sanhedrin against Jesus held no power before Pilate and only the Roman court had the jurisdiction to crucify a defendant. From the three charges brought by the Jewish leaders (perverting the nation, forbidding the payment of tribute, and sedition against the Roman Empire), Pilate picked up on the third one, asking: "Are you the King of the Jews?" to which Jesus replied with "You have said so" (Matthew 27:11, Mark 15:2, Luke 23:3). Then the hearing continued and Pilate finally asked Jesus "What is truth?". This was said after learning that Jesus did not wish to claim any terrestrial kingdom. He was therefore not a political threat and could be seen as innocent of such a charge. Stepping back outside, Pilate publicly declared that he found no basis to charge Jesus, asking them if the Jews wanted Jesus freed, which they declined, preferring the freedom of Barabbas the criminal. This meant capital punishment for Jesus. The universal rule of the Roman Empire limited capital punishment strictly to the tribunal of the Roman governor and Pilate decided to publicly wash his hands as not being privy to Jesus' death through his declaration of Christ's innocence. Nevertheless, since only the Roman authority could order crucifixion and since the penalty was carried out by Roman soldiers, Pilate (in reflecting the demands of the Jews) was responsible for Jesus' death, a judgment imposed on the innocent lamb through a clear miscarriage of justice.

The trial of Jesus at Pilate's court (according to Luke also briefly at the court of Herod Antipas) showed the wavering of Pilate and his consideration of the crowd's opinion to give Barabbas amnesty and condemn Jesus to death. The abduction of Jesus by Roman soldiers and the mocking mistreatment of Jesus unmistakably point to the sins of Christ's own people who brought about his death as prophesied by Isaiah. Israel's problem was also humanity's problem yet abandoned and alienated by his own people and later by his own Father, “it is he who will redeem Israel from all its iniquities.” (Psalm130).  Despite the farcical trial of injustice, God forgave us as Christ pleaded and made intercessions for us to reconcile with God who judges rightly to "forgive them for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34). As Isaiah 53 accounts:

Surely he took up our pain
    yet we considered him punished by God,
    stricken by him, and afflicted.
⁵ But he was pierced for our transgressions,
    he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was on him,
    and by his wounds we are healed.
⁶ We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
    each of us has turned to our own way;
and the Lord has laid on him
    the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,
    yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
    and as a sheep before its shearers is silent,
    so he did not open his mouth.
⁸ By oppression and judgment he was taken away.
    Yet who of his generation protested?
For he was cut off from the land of the living;
    for the transgression of my people he was punished

So Christ, trialed, humiliated, flogged twice, carried the cross literally and figuratively to his own death for God's atonemnet of humanity's sin. Through the lense of Psalm 69, we are provided with a fleeting glimpse into this moment endured by messianic son of man: "Insults have broken my heart, so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." So Christ, poured out like water,  went to the cross for our sake yet sinners like Barabbas walked free. The resounding constrast highlights a divine injustice and love from the Father for us as he sent Christ who was stripped naked to hang on the Cross in utter humiliation whilst other sinners like us divide Christ's clothes among them to cast lots for his garment in caupable ignorance. Yet, the cry of direliection due to the unfathonable abandment by God to let his Son of Man die physcally and spiritually on the Cross in Psalm 22 is followed by an unwavering faith and prayer: "But you, Lord, do not be far from me. You are my strength; come quickly to help me. Deliver me from the sword, my precious life from the power of the dogs. Rescue me from the mouth of the lions; save me from the horns of the wild oxen...  I will declare your name to my people."

So when there is no faith in any justice of this world, we can have faith in a world that will be and in the righteous judgement of God the Father. For He nailed the only Son of the man on the cross as atonement for our sins so that we can reconcile with God in the Holy Spirit out of an abundance of love we do not deserve. And in this we have faith, Amen. 

With acknowledgement of copyrights subsisting in the St Marks Good Friday service and the sermons by The Rev Dr David Peterson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yM2EbDtkfJ0

Glory to God

Hallelujah (הַלְלוּיָהּ)

For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love, he predestined us for adoption to sonship through Jesus Christ, in accordance with his pleasure and will— to the praise of his glorious grace, which he has freely given us in the One he loves. In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that he lavished on us. With all wisdom and understanding,  he made known to us the mystery of his will according to his good pleasure, which he purposed in Christ, to be put into effect when the times reach their fulfillment—to bring unity to all things in heaven and on earth under Christ. In him we were also chosen, having been predestined according to the plan of him who works out everything in conformity with the purpose of his will, in order that we, who were the first to put our hope in Christ, might be for the praise of his glory. And you also were included in Christ when you heard the message of truth, the gospel of your salvation. When you believed, you were marked in him with a seal, the promised Holy Spirit, who is a deposit guaranteeing our inheritance until the redemption of those who are God’s possession—to the praise of his glory. (Ephesians 1:4-14, NRSV)

Evening Prayers in 2020

Almighty and merciful father,

You have brought us together this evening in remembrance of your glory and your grace. Against the worldly pleasure of our day and age, you have redeemed us by the blood of Christ and made us holy and blameless in your sight. Please use us as instruments of your will and as you see fit, because we exist to glorify your name and not ourselves or this world. Thank you for your unconditional love that you have bestowed upon us who are your children. Please forgive us for our trespasses and turn our disgrace into the grace of your miracle. We pray that you will shape and mould us into the men and women you have created us and called us to be, so that we might be for the praise of your glory and walk with you in this world and the world eternal. Let us delight in you as you delight in us, and weave us into your tapestry of grace and your divine plan for all things that you have created under the heavens and on this earth.

As we gather together at church and at home tonight, we pray for each other and for your Holy Spirit to strength us when the uncertainty of this pandemic lingers on. Have mercy on this world our Lord, on this nation and on us. Please bring help to Victoria that has now recorded 237 new cases as of today, please bring peace to Israel as thousands gather in protest at Tel Aviv over economic hardship and please bring wisdom to world leaders as global cases passed 12.6 million and as the US has seen over 66,000 cases over the past 24 hours again with fatalities. Father, we pray for your miracle, a solution to this and a vaccine for this virus, as we gather in your name and pray for those who have turned away from you. In Christ, we have obtained an inheritance so that we can set our hope in Him and live to be the praise of your glory. We thank you that you have sent your only Son into this world and that in Christ, we have become your children and your treasure.

As we belong to you, our Heavenly Father, please have mercy on us and help us glorify you in all that we do as we enjoy you forever. 

Amen

Sweet Sorrow of Au Revoir?

Never to bid good-bye  

Or lip me the softest call, 

Or utter a wish for a word, while I 

Saw morning harden upon the wall, 

Unmoved, unknowing 

That your great going 

Had place that moment, and altered all.

- Thomas Hardy

Why does goodbye bring its moments of sadness to our hearts? I have always thought that the French has got it right in the words "au revoir" rather than "goodbye" for having hope until we meet again. Until now. Interestingly, the English word "goodbye" has its origin in "Godbwyes" as a contraction of the phrase of "God be with ye" used in as late as the 16th century.   

And we see this in Christ's ascension. Forty days after Easter, Jesus ascended into the heavens after his death and resurrection from the Cross. As Leon Morris has put it, there is an air of finality about Christ's ascension in Luke's portrayal as part of the gospel of Luke and the book of Acts that followed. "It is the decisive close of one chapter and the beginning of another" because it is the consummation of Christ's earthly work, the indication to followers that His mission is accomplished and His work among them has come to a decisive end. Yet, it is not a parting forever but simply that  they can expect to see Him in the old way no more.

Jesus took the initiative and led the disciples as far as Bethany in the lead up to Easter then forty days after the resurrection, the ascension also took place in Bethany on the slopes of the Mount of Olives. Luke described this event rather simply. His gospel speaks only of Jesus as being parted from the disciples during the act of blessing them and 'they worshipped him' (in Greek). Whatever their view of His Person during His ministry, the passion, resurrection and now ascension of Christ had convinced the disciples that He was divine. It is interesting that their feeling at this final parting was not one of grief but of great joy. Worship is their response to His ascension as Christ was worthy to be worshipped and they gave Him His due with more understanding, far more than what they had previously. 

Leon Morris has pointed out that Luke began his gospel in the temple. Now he brings it to an end with the disciples continually in the temple blessing God. It is a fitting acknowledgement of the grace that God has shown so singularly in the events he has narrated. For "it is not for you to know the times or periods that the Father has set by his own authority" (Acts 1:7, NRSV). Yet, all does not end here. Far from it, Jesus continued to say "but you will receive power when the Holy Spirit has come upon you; and you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth" (Acts 1:8, NRSV). So "when the day of Pentecost came", we see the descent of the Holy Spirit upon the apostles and other followers of Christ while they were celebrating the Feast of Weeks (Shavuot, חג השבועות) in Jerusalem. 

Pentecost celebrates the incoming wheat harvest which marks God's provision for new life and renewal every year in the Jewish tradition. So the timing of the Pentecostal narrative symbolises both continuity with the giving of the law in Jewish tradition and the central role of the Holy Spirit in the Christian faith that marks a separation from the traditional Jewish faith grounded in the Torah and Mosaic laws, because the spirit is now understood as an aspect of Christ poured into followers of Christ in fulfilment of the prophecy (Joel 2:28-32). Pope Leo I has drawn an analogy between Jewish practices and the Christian feast day in the 5th century. "As once to the Hebrew people, freed from Egypt, the law was given on Mount Sinai on the 50th day after the sacrifice of the lamb, so after the Passion of the Christ when the true Lamb of God was killed, on the 50th day from His resurrection, the Holy Spirit came down on the apostles and the community of believers" whereby such descent of the Holy Spirit upon disciples on Pentecost was "the fulfilment of a long-awaited promise."

So with the departure of Christ from earth to the heavens and the descent of Holy Spirit to earth from the heavens, a new era of renewal and salvation by God began in Trinity. Even though the Father and the Son are now in the heavens, the Holy Spirit, sent by God and the risen Lord Jesus, is their very presence among his people and the same spirit that had filled and empowered Christ for his ministry. In contrast to the Tower of Babel where different languages were used by God to divide men as his judgement fell upon their prideful efforts of building a tower of advancement in arrogance to live without God, here, different tongues united people in God to mark the beginning of a new community of God's people.

Just as theologians see in the ascension a taking into heaven the humanity of Jesus as he is seated on the right hand of God, the ensuing Pentecost sees the descent of Holy Spirit so that God and Christ can be with us in spirit on earth. The incarnation is not something casual and fleeting but a divine action with permanent consequences. The theologian Moule once argued that if the ascension means the taking of Christ's humanity into heaven, "it means that with it will be taken the humanity which Christ has redeemed - those who are Christ's, at His coming. It is a powerful expression of the redemption of this world, in contrast to mere escape from it". So at Pentecost, God brought to us a new life of renewal through the Holy Spirit so we can rejoice and join in with Christ under trinity in this world after his departure from it.

The hymn "God be with you till we me again" is written by Jeremiah Rankin as a Christian goodbye. The etymology of this now modern English word was the basis for this song as Christ does not desert us. “For the Lord himself, with a cry of command, with the archangel's call and with the sound of God's trumpet, will descend from heaven, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever." (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17, NRSV).

So here's hoping it is au revoir and goodbye, because we will always have hope in Him.

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