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Have you ever heard young children arguing about their fathers & who has the best Dad? It can get a bit competitive, starting simply with ‘My Dad’s better than your Dad!’, but going on to pick out personal details. ‘My Dad’s bigger than you Dad!’ My Dad’s stronger than your Dad! My Dad’s got more money than your Dad! My Dad can do this … or that … or the other … better ! There may be a degree of truth in these claims, but often, if the argument goes on long enough, there is likely to be more than a little exaggeration as each child tries to justify how good their parent is and builds into their description something of the ‘ideal’ father of their imagination. In many ways, our father is better than any other father simply because he is our father and we know that he loves and cares for us. It is interesting that, in comparing fathers, children rarely say ‘My Dad’s better than your Dad because he loves me more, cares for me more, teaches me right from wrong’. After all, these are the things which count more in bringing up a child well. The best Father, without exaggeration, is our heavenly Father. Jesus, the Son of God, taught that we could call Him our ‘Father’. He will be our Father if we join His family, Through faith in Jesus as the Son of God and following Him, we can become children of God, brothers and sisters of the Lord Jesus. God is an Eternal Father an Almighty Father a Loving & Compassionate Father No exaggeration! He will not always give us what we want, as He wants the best for us, but He will be always there for us & we are always in His love and care.
There are two great occasions in the Bible when fifty days elapse between very special and significant events. In each case, the fifty days separates a sacrifice from the appearance of fire with the Word of God and the Power of God. The first occurred when the Israelites, in slavery in Egypt, followed God’s command to sacrifice a lamb and mark the doorposts of their houses with its blood (Exod.12.1-3,5-7). As a result, the angel of the Lord would pass over and only the first-born of the Egyptians would be slain (Exod.12.12-13). Because of this, Pharaoh allowed the Children of Israel to leave Egypt. Following this Passover and their exodus from Egypt, the Israelites journeyed to Mount Sinai and, on the fiftieth day, God descended in fire upon the mountain and met with Moses, giving him the Ten Commandments (Exod.20.1-17). To commemorate this event, an annual celebration of the giving of the Law was instituted. It was called the Feast of Weeks (for it was seven full weeks after Passover) or the Feast of the Fiftieth Day (Pentecost). It was also called by other names, including the Feast of Harvest or of First-Fruits, as it became a celebration of the wheat harvest as well. It was one of these celebrations, more than 1,000 years later, which became the second great occasion. Fifty days after the Resurrection, the Holy Spirit descended, in the outward appearance of fire and the sound of wind, on the disciples assembled in the upper room. The promise made by Jesus that He would send a Helper who would stay with them and reveal the truth about God (John 14.15-17) had been fulfilled. The original Passover, signified by the sacrifice of a lamb in each household, freed the Jews physically from the bondage of slavery in Egypt. In the same way, the crucifixion of Jesus, the sacrifice of the Lamb of God at Passover time, ‘sacrificed for the people’ according to Caiaphas the High Priest (John 11.49-50), has redeemed us from the slavery to sin. As the giving of the Law on Mount Sinai directed the Israelites to the way by which they could live which was pleasing to God, so the coming of the Holy Spirit in the upper room (Acts 2.1-4) has provided the power by which Christians can live the Christian life. The redemption of Israel was transformed, through the Cross and the Resurrection, into the redemption for all mankind. The Law given to the Israelites as an external pointer to the right way of living became, in the Holy Spirit at Pentecost, the inner means for truly living the redeemed life in Jesus Christ. This is now celebrated by the Christian Church, We could do with another of those fifty day occasions today.
It may have been better for the modern mind if Jesus had ridden off into the sunset, as cowboy heroes sometimes do in Westerns, rather than to have ‘ascended’. We have difficulty with the concept of ascension but ‘Up, Up and Away’, taken up and obscured by a cloud, might have been the only way that God could have enabled those followers of Jesus assembled on the Mount of Olives to understand that Jesus had returned to His Father’s presence (Acts 1.6-11). Being lifted up into this cloud signifies the exaltation of Jesus to the highest place as the eternal, transcendent God, one with the Trinity. He who ‘humbled Himself and became obedient unto death’ has returned to take again the divine prerogatives He gave up for a time when He became a man, and is now the exalted Lord of all (Phil. 2.5-11). But ‘Up, Up and Away’ does not mean that the Ascension is Jesus’ ‘escape’ from the world. Far from it, for it tells us that Jesus is no longer subject to the physical limitations that we experience. He is present with His people in the whole of the world because He is no longer confined by our dimensions of time and space. Neither does ‘Up, Up and Away’ mean that our eyes should only be fixed on the skies for His promised return. The angelic messengers asked the disciples, ‘Men of Israel, why do you stand looking up toward heaven?’ - a reminder that Jesus had called them to an on-going work (Acts 1.8). With Christ’s Ascension, we do look up in thankfulness and praise, because His return to the unity of the Godhead confirms that everything has been done to ensure our salvation. He is not only our Crucified and Risen Saviour, He is also our Mediator and Advocate in the presence of the Father, the guarantee of all the divine promises of the Gospel. But we also keep our feet on the ground for Jesus has left us with - an Unfinished Task Matthew 28.19 an Unchanging Message John 3.16 an Unfailing Promise Matthew 28.20b The disciples returned to Jerusalem to continue, in witness and through prayer, the work given to them, knowing that they could both engage with the world and look to Christ’s coming again because of their Living and Ascended Lord. He calls us to do the same.
At this time when we are celebrating the 80th anniversary of VE- Victory in Europe) Day, many situations around the world remind us that, if ever there was a need for peacemakers, at every level, it is now : but then, that could probably be said in every age. VE-Day has given us relative peace but there are still major conflicts which hit the news headlines regularly, in Ukraine, Gaza, Sudan. There are also minor wars, if any war can be considered ‘minor’, & civil wars in many places, as well as violent conflict between groups and individuals everywhere. Micah’s prophesy (Micah.4.2-5) about swords being turned into ploughs - items of destruction becoming means of production of basic necessities - again seems to be taking a back place as European nations commit to greater spending on armaments as Russia issues ever more aggressive threats. There are various ways of seeking peace. At one extreme is the active extermination of enemies, which seems to be the choice of the present Israeli government in Gaza. At the other extreme is the passive acceptance of things and surrender to a much more powerful aggressor, which is perhaps what Putin hoped for when he ordered the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Neither are satisfactory as they leave feelings of anger & resentment in those communities subjugated. Even ‘peace treaties’, especially when imposed by one side on the other, often contain the seeds of future conflict, leading to resentment and further clouding of relationships by suspicion & mistrust. Conditions included in the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the First World War, ‘the war to end all wars’, directly led to the return of conflict in Europe only a few years later. Peace is much more than the cessation of hostilities, good as that is. The Biblical idea of peace is summed up in the Hebrew greeting ‘Shalom’ - ‘Peace be with you’ - the greeting Jesus gave His disciples when He came to them after the Resurrection (John 20.19). Shalom is never seen simply as a negative state, that freedom from all trouble which many assume is peace. Rather, it is something totally positive, for it means having everything which makes for a person's highest good - not just for yourself and your family, but also for those to whom you give, and should give, the greeting ‘Shalom!’ True peacemaking is not easy at any level, whether it is between nations or groups or individuals. It requires understanding and compassion, time and effort, to bring the opposing sides together to reconcile their differences. It has been said that the peacemaker ‘does not just pull up the weeds of hatred, discord and submission but sows seeds of love, understanding and brotherliness’. There is much peacemaking needed between neighbours, individuals and within families to reconcile the hurts, resentments and other ‘barriers’ which divide people into ‘them and us’. We are all involved, for the Lord's people are called to the work of spreading the gospel of peace by word and of promoting reconciliation by action and example. As St Paul wrote, God ‘reconciled us to Himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation … and has committed to us the message of reconciliation’ (2 Cor.5.18, 19b). Peacemaking is not just the preserve of international diplomats who are called on to try to resolve the major issues between combative nations. It is also for those whom St Paul defines as ‘Christ‘s ambassadors’ (2 Cor.5.20) - you and I. ‘Blessed are the peacemakers’ (Matt.5.9).
The Blog is an 'occasional column' in that the writing is triggered by 'occasions' in the Christian calendar, in British life and in the world, so, though these events are 'occasional' and not regular, the blog is refreshed at frequent intervals.
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We publish them frequently and they are a lively look at current events with a christian twist.