I wonder how many already have put all the decorations away? I wonder how many will rush to put them away on twelfth night? I wonder how many will keep them up until Candlemas when Jesus is presented at the temple? I wonder how many still have turkey and excess food to eat?
I further wonder how many of those who’ve already put their decorations away, excitedly got them out in November, and on putting them away said something along the lines of “thank goodness they’re away for another year”? I also wonder how many of those who have not yet put the decorations away will be saying something similar when they do?
And all this wondering is because I wonder how many put Jesus away with the decorations? How many try to box Him up and leave Him in the loft with a “thank goodness that’s done for another year”?!
We see the slogan, “A dog is for life not just for Christmas”. Something which is very true – they are a life long commitment!
Jesus is a life long commitment. Not only that, He is for life in more ways than one.
Jesus was born as that tiny baby at Christmas for our salvation. He came to save our lives. His sacrifice for the forgiveness of sins for us to have life. Jesus is for life.
When we commit ourselves to Jesus and let Him into our lives; this is a life long commitment. We spend each day trying to follow Jesus’s example.
So this year I pray that, instead of putting Jesus away with the decorations for another year, we open the door to Him – letting Him in for life!
God is Love, let heaven adore him; God is Love, let earth rejoice; Let creation sing before him And exalt him with one voice [.] God is Love, eternal Love.
God is Love; and love enfolds us, All the world in one embrace: With unfailing grasp God hold us, Every child of every race [.]
God is Love; and though with blindness Sin afflicts all human life, God’s eternal loving kindness Guides us through our earthly strife. Sin and death and hell shall never Over us final triumph gain; God is Love, so Love for ever Over the universe must reign.
Taken from God is Love by Timothy Rees
Today is, nowadays, known as Christ the King Sunday. If we looked at Christianity on a timeline, it is a fairly recent feast day. It was introduced by the Pope around 1925 due to the aftermath of the First World War to remind people of their allegiance to God.
So, why did I start by quoting parts of a hymn called “God is Love”?
The other week I was part of an interfaith panel answering questions about faith. One of the questions was about whether we can love certain groups of people and my answer – which is one I firmly believe and say a lot is, “God is Love and we should love others as God does”.
Let us recollect for a moment the events of Jesus’s lifetime and His teachings. He did not come to be served but to serve. He did not come to overthrow the Roman Government or depose Caesar. He became human, to find out what it was like to be human, to experience every range of humanity, to show us the way, the truth and the life and ultimately to sacrifice himself for the sins of all so that we might be forgiven and reconciled with God.
Where in all that does Jesus call Himself a king? Even when He is questioned at His trials before His crucifixion Jesus does not actually call Himself a king – instead His reply when asked if He is King of the Jews was “You say I am”.
Jesus was fully human as well as being fully divine. But we tend to give human imperialistic titles to Jesus’s divinity. Sometimes we forget that He was also a great human.
Remembering that Jesus was also a human does not diminish his power or significance.
Sometimes, however, we fall into the trap of thinking of Jesus as being up there and us as being down here. By doing this we separate us and Jesus; we separate us from God.
Jesus is with us, He walks with us, He carries us – think of those footsteps in the sand. He has not and does not abandon us.
God made us in His own image. That does not mean that we all look the same visually – like a colony of clones in a sci-fi drama. It means that humans are in the image of God in their spiritual nature. We are God’s masterpieces and have the potential to become that again.
We are not worthless! We are loved by God!
God is love and compassion and Jesus showed us this when He came to earth. He showed us our capacities: for God, for compassion, for empathy, for courage, for seeing possibilities even when there seem to be none, for resilience, for imagination, for heroism, tenderness, healing and transformation. He showed us that we do have the capacity to change the world.
Jesus is real – there is historical evidence of His existence. He was and is one of us. He is our hope and hope is that God is with us.
In God’s eyes we are all of equal value and we all matter. To go back to the Gospel, the lesson is simply that God will judge us on our reaction to human need; on the help that we have given. It also teaches us about the type of help we must give.
The type of help we must give is not complicated. It is simply doing what we can for those in need without having to think about it first, without calculating what is in it for us if we help, without helping for recognition or glory.
It is simply giving someone who is hungry something to eat, welcoming a stranger, giving comfort to someone in distress, visiting the sick, visiting prisoners, giving a smile or a wave or a hello or asking how someone is.
It is pure and simple. It is giving simple help to those we meet, pass, see everyday. But it is to give that help without any thought of self. It is to be the natural, instinctive reaction of a loving heart. The help that is given freely for the sake of helping, out of love, with no expectation of reward.
Francis of Assisi found blessings in this parable. He was high-born, high-spirited and wealthy but he was very unhappy. One day he was out riding and saw a very disfigured leper. Something made Francis stop and jump off his horse. He went over to the leper and hugged him. Whilst in his arms, Francis saw the face of the leper change to the face of Christ.
Martin of Tours was a Roman soldier and Christian. One cold day as he was entering a city a beggar asked him for alms. Martin of Tours had no money but the beggar was freezing and shivering. He took off his soldier’s cloak, cut it in two and gave half to the beggar man. That night he had a dream where he saw Jesus surrounded by angels wearing half a Roman soldier’s cloak. One of the angels asked Jesus “Master why are you wearing that old cloak? Who gave it to you?” Jesus answered, “My servant Martin gave it to me”.
The generosity of helping in the simplest of things from the heart without calculated thinking gives us the joy of helping Jesus. It helps us make a difference and it changes the world.
God is love. He loves us. And just as He loves us let us go out into the world loving Him and our fellow humans.
Wednesday was All Saints Day and so we are celebrating all saints today. Hence, we have the reading from John’s Revelation describing the multitude of saints in Heaven and The Beatitudes from Jesus’s Sermon on the Mount.
When reading, some of you may remember seeing a child learning to read and recognise this, sometimes there is a word which is slightly more unusual and which the reader may not have heard pronounced. In this circumstance, the knowledge the reader has accrued from what they do know about letter sounds and similar words to work out a way of pronouncing it. Sometimes the result is correct and sometimes it varies to how others may pronounce the word.
Some of you may have guessed where this is going.
When I was little I pronounced beatitude as “beautytude”. Now the thing is that whilst my church read the Old Testament, the Epistle and the Gospel at all services, the reading would be announced and then read without the title headings that some passages have. So it was a long time before I actually heard anyone else pronounce “beautytude” as “be attitude”.
Beatitude comes from the Latin word for blessedness and The Beatitudes have been interpreted many times by many different scholars. The highlight the human state and God’s righteousness. They depict the ideal heart condition for a disciple of Christ, a member of God’s kingdom.
But they are also much more than that. Remember what I used to call them – “beautytudes”. There is a further reason to that and it is simply that the beatitudes are beautiful. The are beautiful, uplifting, words of encouragement. They show us the truth of God’s kingdom. They help uphold us when times are hard.
Feeling lost? You are blessed – God will show you the way. Carrying sadness, grief, loss, pain? Joy will come. Feeling unheard and not valued? God hears you. You are precious to Him. Hungry? Homeless? In need of respite? God the Comforter is with you. Desperate for peace and righteousness? Trodden down by war and persecutors? God is by your side sharing your pain.
The saints are not those who have it all figured out. They are not perfect, they are not irreproachable, they have not set unattainable examples.
They are sinners! They suffered! They know grief and pain! They love God and their neighbour. They find ways to seek and serve Christ and praise Him!
Charles Wesley, who incidentally loved All Saints Day, wrote many hymns, including O For a Thousand Tongues to sing. The conclusion to which is:
“To God all glory, praise, and love be now and ever given by saints below and saints above, the Church in earth and heaven. ”
Here on earth we are too fond of canonizing to officially grant the title of saint. There are even five stages that have to be followed to enable this to happen and generally this process can’t even start until 5 years after their death.
At the risk of being struck down, I don’t think it is our right to decide who is a saint. In my opinion, that right is God’s. Only God knows what is truly in our hearts. I also think that there is a huge flaw with canonizing. This is that I don’t think someone has to be dead to be a saint. I’m not saying that those who have already passed into light perpetual are not saints – just that there are also some still breathing.
How many times do we say to someone “you’re a saint” when they help us in a time of need?
Look around.
Saints are sinners! Saints love God and their neighbour. They have chequered pasts but have repented, serve Christ and strive to walk in His footsteps. They are filled with the Holy Spirit, and no matter what the circumstances are still able to lift their hearts in prayer and praise to God.
Saints are found in the most unlikely of places, in the street, in the supermarket, everywhere. And today we celebrate them all.
There is an old hymn that used to be sung a lot but which I haven’t heard sung for many years by Lesbia Scott which I feel is very poignant today and so I’m going to finish by reading it to you:
I sing a song of the saints of God, patient and brave and true, who toiled and fought and lived and died for the Lord they loved and knew. And one was a doctor, and one was a queen, and one was a shepherdess on the green: they were all of them saints of God, and I mean, God helping, to be one too.
They loved their Lord so dear, so dear, and God’s love made them strong; and they followed the right, for Jesus’ sake, the whole of their good lives long. And one was a soldier, and one was a priest, and one was slain by a fierce wild beast: and there’s not any reason, no, not the least, why I shouldn’t be one too.
They lived not only in ages past; there are hundreds of thousands still; the world is bright with the joyous saints who love to do Jesus’ will. You can meet them in school, or in lanes, or at sea, in church, or in trains, or in shops, or at tea; for the saints of God are just folk like me, and I mean to be one too.
There is an old, well known saying about not discussing money, religion and politics. Yet, in this passage, we have all three!
On the surface, this passage gives the appearance of being relatively simple to understand, and consequently we can be tempted to fall into the trap of simplifying it.
Do we think we are being kind when we sugar coat things or is it that we are scared of giving hard answers?
It is easy to make the mistake of telling people what we think they want to hear instead of what they need to hear. It is easy to make the mistake of overly simplifying.
Jesus does not sugar coat the truth.
The Pharisees do not like this. The Herodians do not like this.
Two opposing factions, whose only common ground is their dislike of Jesus, joining forces to try and catch Jesus out. They send their disciples to Jesus – after all this way if their plot fails the leaders won’t look as silly.
Hoping to distract Jesus and lower His guard, they start with flattery before asking their question: “is it lawful to pay taxes to the Emperor?” Not is it right but is it lawful!
They were trying to manipulate Jesus. They were expecting the answer to be either yes or no.
The coins the taxes were paid with had the Emperor’s image engraved on them. This was an issue for the Jews who were not allowed graven images.
So, if Jesus answers yes then He offends the Jews and the Pharisees can charge Him with breaching and promoting breaching the commandment regarding graven images.
On the other hand, if Jesus answers no He can be arrested for insurrection and treason.
Ultimately, the question was not really about a concern regarding paying taxes, it’s an agenda. The Pharisees and Herodians are not bothered whether Jesus says yes or no because both these answers will give them what they want.
Despite the teaching as this passage from Matthew plays out, this scenario of trying to manipulate Jesus continues to happen today when we over simplify complex issues, label and categorise people and groups.
Jesus does not allow Himself to be manipulated. Instead of the yes or no answer the question calls for He asks for His questioners to bring Him one of the coins used to pay the taxes with. Once this has been provided to Him, Jesus asks whose image and name are on the coin. This time they cannot get away with their “I don’t know” answers and reply “Caesar’s”.
In the beginning God made us in His own image. He patented us if you like – we are stamped with His mark.
And so, Jesus again transforms the question into one of faith. He answers the question but not how they expected.
Jesus answers that the coin has the mark of Caesar and we have the mark of God. “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s and give to God what is God’s”.
Faithfulness is the work of a lifetime with us continually learning to give ourselves to God and one another.
Love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength and our neighbours as ourselves. Trust God with our whole lives. Walk in the footsteps and image of Jesus.
There will always be issues to deal with but, instead of forgetting whose image is marked upon us we can put these issues into God’s hands.
Jesus is inviting us to be the currency of God’s life in the world.
Talk from Holy Trinity Sheerness 22nd October 2023 (Matthew 22:15-22)
“Do not be afraid; for God has come only to test you and to put the fear of Him upon you so that you do not sin.”
God wanted to help His people – not destroy them. But when they heard the thunder and the trumpet, when they saw the flashing and the smoke on the mountain, they were afraid.
Because of their fear, the people wanted a mediator; yet God had already granted them one in the form of Moses.
We, also, already have a mediator – Jesus.
The word fear has more than one meaning. There is the type of fear the Israelites had – that of being scared, afraid, terrified – but that is the wrong type of fear to have of God.
Then there is the right kind of fear to have of God, and that is one of awe, respect and reverence. It is through this that we are granted the boldness to approach God through Jesus Christ.
God gave Moses the Ten Commandments. The purpose of these is how to have healthy relationships with God and each other.
God invites us to have a personal relationship with Him.
The deep significance of the gift of the Ten Commandments has been obscured by society. As a result we lose the religious awe found in this passage of Exodus and lessen our understanding.
They are not “maxims for a good life”. They ARE the living words of the living God. The God who has redeemed us. It is not the Ten Commandments which save us. Salvation is a gift of God – which He gives us freely through His grace.
There are some who try to use the Ten Commandments to conclude that we have to somehow earn God’s love and care. But actually it is the opposite. They demonstrate God’s continued love and care – giving us the law in the first place proves God’s love for us.
Our obedience is a loving, grateful response to all that God has done and continues to do.
So what is the essence of The Ten Commandments?
Jesus already gave us the answer to this when He told us that the greatest commandment is this, “To love the Lord our God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength and to love everyone else as we love ourselves”.
Baptism is the act of making a God choice. The making of the promises is choosing faith in God above any other life. Living our baptism means living by a single loyalty to God.
Remembering our baptism, who we are and who God is, in the inner recesses of our hearts and in the life we share together makes us grateful that God has given us these commandments, that we might find strength and shelter in our darkest times – helping us to remember that even in our darkest times we are not alone.
Talk from Holy Trinity Sheerness 8th October 2023 (Exodus 20)
… they ask testing questions and … yep – when they are asked to do something they either don’t do it or … if it’s the youngest anyway … they say “No!”; then they go away and think about it and then get on with it.
The chief priests tried to trick Jesus, testing Him, by asking where His authority came from.
Jesus, of course, did not fall into their trap. Instead, He turned it around by asking whether John’s baptism came from heaven or from human origin. They refused to answer Him, out of fear of recrimination from the crowd and damage to their reputation.
So Jesus tells this parable of the first son who refused to do what his father asked but then changed his mind; and of the second son who agreed but then did nothing.
A lesson about obedience and disobedience. The chief priests claimed to accept God’s message and would put on a show for the people – but that’s all it was – just a show. Jesus is saying they are like the second son who said “yes” but then did not obey.
The point is that those who refuse God but who later repent and follow Him, obey Him, can enter the Kingdom of God. Those who say “yes” but do not repent (which includes following through with their actions) can’t.
If the chief priests are the second son, who are the first?
Jesus answered that for us too – He points out to the chief priests that the tax collectors and prostitutes (those who were considered at the time to be the biggest sinners) were the first son and would enter the Kingdom of God first because they believed, repented and returned to God. The chief priests, who only claimed to follow God with their words but not with their hearts or actions, would not get to enter God’s Kingdom unless they truly repented.
Turning to God with repentance is the key to our salvation, no matter what our past sins might be or how many times we’ve disappointed God. He can see what is in our hearts and forgives us when we are truly sorry.
It’s what we do, not just what we say, that counts.
Let’s renew our own commitments to be faithful followers of Jesus.
Let us thank God for sending His Son who truly is who He says He is.
Let us be genuine in our actions and live in love serving others.
Talk from Holy Trinity Sheerness (Matthew 21:23-32)
One of the things that this country is famous for is queuing. We’re all guilty of it – we all end up queuing at some point or other. From what I’ve been told, and seen on the news, some people will queue for hours – many many hours – for something they feel is important to them. For example, paying respects to our late queen.
And we’re not happy when people queue jump, are we? Remember the backlash to those two ITV morning television hosts doing it.
Yet here Jesus says the last shall be first and the first will be last. Not only that but He tells us that the workers all received the same pay. Those who only worked for one hour received that same amount as those who worked for the entire day!
If we take this literally, to us, it seems a bit unfair and contrary to our knowledge of God as a fair and generous God.
But! We are not supposed to take this passage literally. It is important to remember that Jesus taught in metaphors and stories. And, Jesus us telling this parable to explain several things:
Jesus uses this parable to further explain what the Kingdom of God is like and to highlight God’s continuing care for His people. He is also highlighting the importance of choosing eternal life with Him over the temptation of worldly wealth whilst teaching His disciples to serve others. Greatness is not ruling over others but serving others. Jesus came to serve – not to be served.
In the Kingdom of God all are treated the same.
Everyone comes to faith (the vineyard) at different times of life.
Some are “lifelong” followers, or disciples, of Jesus. Some find Jesus much later in life.
It is never too late to find faith, belief in Jesus, and to begin living faithfully.
God wants ALL people to have faith in Him and return to a life with Him. Not all do; but that does not mean we should give up. We should continue to persevere, to spread the word, to live by Jesus’s example and plant those mustard seeds to continue to draw others back to Christ.
ALL believers, who repent, no matter how long or how hard they work during this lifetime, will receive the same reward:
eternal life
God’s grace
God’s forgiveness and reconciliation with Him
However, we must be careful not to compare and become envious of others and what we perceive they have been given (thinking they are being given more that they’ve earned).
It is not really possible for us to see what others have experienced as they serve God. We cannot see their inner conflicts or their background struggles. Neither can they fully see ours.
In the end, all of us truly need to trust God and know that all we have is from His grace, which He has freely given.
So, going back to that queue, it doesn’t matter if we are at the front, the back, or in the middle! It doesn’t matter at what age we found Christ. God freely gave us His grace and what matters is that we did find Him. Regardless of where we are in that “queue”, if we turn to Christ, follow Him, reject evil and repent our sins then God forgives us and we are reconciled with Him.
Talk given at Holy Trinity Sheerness and Minster Abbey 24th September 2023 (Matthew 20:1-16).
Jesus who? This is what Jesus asks His disciples. He starts with an icebreaker – who do the people say I am?
I suspect that, like many of us would do when we are asked a searching question, the disciples may have been analysing the question to try and work out what answer Jesus was looking for.
The Bible references many identities that the people had allocated to Jesus. The disciples had lots to choose from to answer Jesus’s question.
But then Jesus asks the key question (no pun intended).
He says: “But you, who do you say I am?”
And Peter does not disappoint. Peter answers from his heart, sharing the knowledge given to him by God.
“You are the Christ”, Peter says, “the Son of the Living God”.
This is Peter confessing his faith and it is so important that it is on this faith, this statement by Peter that Jesus is the Christ, our Saviour from sin, that Jesus builds the foundation of His church – a church tasked with the mission of sharing the good news that Jesus Christ is our Saviour.
C.S. Lewis wrote:
A man who was merely a man and said the sort of things Jesus said would not be a great moral teacher. He would either be a lunatic – on a level with the man who says he is a poached egg – or else he would be the devil of hell. You must make your choice. Either this man was, and is, the Son of God; or else a madman or something worse. You can shut Him up for a fool, you can spit at Him and kill Him as a demon; or you can fall at His feet and call Him Lord and God. But let us not come with any patronising nonsense about His being a great human teacher. He has not left that open to us. He did not intend to.
Mere Christianity by C.S.Lewis
Jesus is Lord! He is the Son of God!
… So, who is Jesus to you? Don’t answer with your head. The answer is written in your heart.
Who is Jesus to you?
And now, let’s turn that around: Who does Jesus say you are?
When you leave this world, how do you want to be remembered? Will your obituary/eulogy be just a boring list of facts – born on – worked at – died on? Or will it be full of memories from people whose lives you have touched with kindness – whether you remember it or not?
Alfred Nobel was reading the morning paper in 1888. The day before, his brother, Ludvig had died. But the newspaper accidently wrote the obituary about Alfred. He was dismayed that they had called him “the merchant of death” and that it read “Dr Alfred Nobel, who became rich by finding ways to kill more people faster than ever before, died yesterday.”
Nobel was appalled and this inspired him to create the Nobel Peace Prize and to donate his entire fortune to causes of peace.
Who does Jesus say you are?
Will Jesus see us as being faithful to Him? Micah 6:8 says: “This is what the Lord requires of you. Be fair to other people. Love kindness and loyalty, and humbly obey your God.”
Faith means walking with Jesus by treating others right, showing kindness and lifting up those who weary from the journey.
Jesus told us to be ready because He will come again at an hour when we do not expect Him.
“The time has come,” the Walrus said, “to talk of many things:…”
Lewis Carroll
And if we were having a conversation over some coffee and cake (hint hint) that is precisely what would happen. We would have a conversation; maybe about the weather, the coronation, a television drama, … all sorts.
Some of us find it easy to converse, some of us find it more difficult and communicate in other ways. Some of us are good at listening and for some of us it “goes in one ear and out the other”.
But, how do we pray?
There are many different ways we can pray, but ultimately, if we think about it, prayer is just the same as that conversation over coffee … isn’t it?
If not why not?
We have the opportunity to talk to God about anything and everything; and not just when we’re worried or in need or when things aren’t going as we’d like but also when we’re thankful, joyful and when things are going well.
We can do a lot of talking to God but we need to remember to listen as well. If we are honest none of us listen as much as we should.
Prayer is vitally important in our lives. An oft repeated quote “seven days without prayer makes one week (weak!)”.
Today’s Gospel reading is part of one of Jesus’s longest prayers.
In short it summarises Jesus’s relationship with the Father and the relationship He wanted His disciples to have with Himself and the Father.
Like the Holy Trinity (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) this prayer is in three sections.
Jesus prays for Himself
Jesus prays for His disciples
Jesus prays for all believers past, present and future
Despite us having celebrated Jesus’s Ascension on Thursday, this prayer passage takes place before His arrest. But it is significant because it becomes Jesus’s evaluation of the purpose of His life, death, resurrection and ascension.
God’s glory and Jesus’s glory are one and the same. Through the death of Jesus God is glorified and all believers receive eternal life.
Eternal life is knowing the one true God; being in a living fellowship with God. And this life we receive when we accept Jesus into our hearts and lives. Jesus’s purpose, His mission, is salvation.
Jesus prays with great concern for His disciples. He was not concerned about Himself – He knew God’s plan, He knew He had to suffer and die to be victorious. Jesus’s victory was unquestionable. The disciples were just like us. They were not infallible. Jesus had predicted the disciples would desert Him. And so He prayed for them, that they would be kept safe and protected by the Father’s power and that they would fulfil their future ministry. The disciples were about to be tested and Jesus prayed that this would not separate them from Himself or from each other.
Again, like the Three-in-one, Jesus mentions three things about His disciples:
They had accepted His teaching
They had accepted the knowledge that Jesus is the Son of God
They believed
Jesus prayed that the world would stop being opposed to God.
“All I have is Yours and all You have is Mine.” Jesus has equality with the Father.
He prays that, as He and God are one, the disciples and believers will remain as one.
In unity.
Not divided.
Division is the result of the failures of Christians.
God is awe-inspiring and loving. Jesus’s prayer is an outpouring of love and concern.
Jesus was shortly returning to the Father and to the glory He has before the world began. He had completed His mission. The Holy Spirit had been promised. With the help of the Holy Spirit it is now our turn.
Our mission, if we choose to accept it, is to bring glory to God through all we do in His name.
This passage from Luke teaches us a lot about truth and faith. It is, in both a literal and a spiritual sense, about journeys. Literally, it is about two disciples (followers of Jesus) walking from Jerusalem to Emmaus. Spiritually, it is about their and our journey from not knowing Jesus to truly knowing Jesus and sharing our experiences of Jesus. It is about rediscovering Christ’s presence in our lives, gaining a fresher understanding of God’s transforming grace, allowing our hearts to be ignited with the Holy Spirit as we too walk with Christ.
The Bible makes very clear and specific statements about Jesus. As the disciples walked along they were discussing the scriptures and the recent events that had happened. When Jesus appeared to them they were walking the wrong way – away from Jerusalem. They were preoccupied with their own difficulties, overwhelmed with sadness, grief and hopelessness. They were unable to identify God’s purpose in what had happened.
Humans like to know reasons for…well everything. We ask (both aloud and to ourselves) why? We analyse, we interpret, we assume, we conclude. And we use the answers as a Sat Nav! What we decide the answers are determine/direct what and where we do/go next.
The disciples did not fully understand the Scriptures or the meaning of what had happened to Jesus. They had knowledge but it was incomplete and not understood. It was not true knowledge of the right information.
Jesus appeared and started to walk with them. They did not see Jesus. They were kept from recognising him. The Risen Christ walking with them on their journey, but unrecognised, igniting the fire of God’s love in their hearts. Like the Footsteps poem when there is only one set of footprints (because Jesus is carrying us).
But, this enabled Jesus to impart true knowledge. He explains and interprets for them. This teaches us that the key to interpreting the Old Testament is Jesus.
Jesus explained everything from Moses to the prophets, how the Messiah would save God’s people through His death and resurrection, rescuing a sinful, unholy people by reconciling them with The Holy God.
Jesus is the Messiah whose life, death and resurrection grants us salvation. Jesus Himself told us “I am the way, the truth and the life, no man comes to the Father except through me”.
God cannot be near sin. The only way for us sinners to be reconciled to Him was for Jesus to become sin, be punished for our sin, to die and defeat death; so that through His resurrection we could, with faith and repentance, be forgiven and have a relationship with God.
But it is not sufficient to just know the facts. We must also believe in that knowledge, we must truly believe in Jesus and in what He taught. Like the disciples recognising Jesus (when He broke the bread) and rushing back to tell the others, we have to open our eyes in faith. If we believe in Him then we strive to be in His image and this is shown in how we live. We need to believe in God’s word and be motivated by faith. We know God fulfils His promises but we also need to believe this. We know He is always with us, all the time, especially those times when we only see one set of footprints. But, we also need to believe this.
There is a story that gets quoted a lot so apologies if you, like me, have heard it used before:
There was a young boy caught in a house fire and forced to flee to the roof. The father stood on the ground below with outstretched arms, calling to his son, “Jump! I’ll catch you”. He knew the boy had to jump to save his life. All the boy could see was flame, smoke and darkness. The boy was too afraid to leave the roof. His father kept yelling “Jump! I WILL catch you”. The boy protested “Daddy, I can’t see you” The father replied, “But I CAN see you and that’s all that matters”.
Reece Sherman’s Faith Lessons
Do we understand truly? Or do we rely on our assumptions? Do we truly believe and trust in God? I pray that we do.
God is always there for us and will catch us. He can see us even if we cannot see Him. Do we have enough faith to jump into those life saving arms? I pray that we do.
Just because 