Broken Signposts – Truth - John 18:28-40

          

The word truth in Greek is ἀλήθεια and is used in three senses: of being in agreement with fact or reality, as opposed to being false or in error; this is the main sense of “truth” in the New Testament. It’s also used to mean faithfulness or reliability, and it’s used to describe that which is complete versus incomplete. In John’s telling of the story of Jesus’ trial before Pilate, we see all three of these senses of what truth is come out.

Jesus has been convicted by the Jewish council of elders, the Sanhedrin, for claiming to be the Son of God. Jesus is speaking the truth about who he is to the very people who should have recognized the truth in Jesus’ claim. Unfortunately, they’re too afraid of what might happen with Rome if the regular people accept Jesus as the promised Messiah and follow him. As Caiaphas, father of the high priest Annas says, “It would be good if one man died for the people,” unknowingly speaking a deeper truth, as Jesus’ death leads to the salvation of all God’s people. 

Professor Katherine Grieb talks about this passage and John’s use of the word truth throughout his gospel, “The Gospel of John uses the word “Truth” more than any other book in the Bible and way more than the other Gospels combined. Not only that, but many of the most-quoted verses in John, the ones that have shaped Christian discourse over the centuries, have been concerned with the question of truth. Consider only a few examples: 1:14, describing how "the Word became flesh ... the glory as of a father's only son, full of grace and truth." In 4:23-24 Jesus tells the Samaritan woman that "the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth." In 8:32 Jesus promises, "You will know the truth and the truth will make you free." In the discourse material of 14:6, Jesus describes himself as "the way, the truth, and the life."

Truth is important to John; Jesus speaks to truth, claims to be truth. Truth points us to God, to who God is, and how God’s at work through Jesus and the Holy Spirit for the world. Jesus calls himself “the way, the truth, and the life,” calling us to walk his way, the way revealed in his teaching and life which all point to his Father and the reality of the powers at work in our world. Jesus keeps pointing us to, and calling us to be part of the kingdom of heaven by believing in him; a kingdom where he’s the true king from David’s line. As Jesus tells Pilate, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest by the Jewish leaders. But now my kingdom is from another place.”

Pilate grabs hold of what Jesus says here; this could save Pilate from this dilemma he finds himself where he knows Jesus is innocent, but what Jesus just said gives him the flimsy evidence he needs to hand Jesus over to be crucified. But Jesus goes on, “You say that I am a king. In fact, the reason I was born and came into the world is to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” It’s at this point that the exasperated Pontius Pilate asks, "What is truth?" Pilate is supposed to be on the side of truth and law. 3 times he declares Jesus’ innocence and yet the truth does not save Jesus, it doesn’t keep Pilate from handing Jesus over to be executed.

Pastor Craig Koester’s fascinated by Jesus’ trial, “The trial narrative is a sustained exercise in truth telling. Throughout these chapters everyone’s pretensions are exposed: Peter the Christian proves to be no disciple. The Jewish authorities violate their own principles to achieve their own ends. Pilate the Roman proves powerless to put the truth into practice. As the narrative peels back the facades of strength and propriety for these people, it also asks readers: Are you so different? What would happen if we looked closely? The story of the trial is important, because it shows us the fallen character of the world for which Jesus came to die. It discloses the dynamics of sin at work in human relationships. It prepares us for the final aspect of the story, which concerns God’s relationship with such a world.”

Truth is shown to be unimportant to so many of the characters. Truth is manipulated or ignored in order for different people’s agendas to move forward. As I read this story of how Jesus is railroaded to the cross, even though it’s God’s plan, I look at our society today and how careless so many people are with truth; creating alternate truths, manipulating the truth in order to fit their own agendas and inflate their own egos; or even worse, to deliberately mislead others into believing something false. Jesus is called a threat to God; the reality is he's more of a threat to the Jewish leaders and Rome. It’s ironic that the place where the truth about who Jesus is most clearly proclaimed is on the sign on the cross, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews,” written in Hebrew, Latin, and Greek. Pilate, unintentionally on his part, tells the world who Jesus is. Looking back, we see now that the cross is where Jesus reigns because it's where the love of God reigns. God’s power is revealed as the love of God that moves to reclaim his world, even though it has turned away from him. God sends Jesus as the king of the kingdom of heaven, a kingdom built through God’s self-giving love.

We come back to Jesus’ statement that he’s “the way, the truth, and the life,” N.T Wright, reflecting on Jesus’ claim writes, “This extraordinary claim should not be heard so much within the sounding chamber of our modern world, where “truth” is the arrogant claim of the powerful. Truth here is the strange, gentle yet powerful truth of new creation, the new creation that fulfills the old by taking the shame and death of the old into itself and overcoming it. Truth is the reality of love, divine love, Jesus’ love, the Love made flesh. This is not a claim to be measured alongside others, as though Jesus and half a dozen other teachers or leader were being weighed against some arbitrary modern standard of “religion.” Either Israel is the people of the creator God, or Israel is not; either Jesus is Israel’s Messiah, or he is not. Either the creator God launched his new creation in and through Jesus as Israel’s Messiah, or he did not. John’s gospel is written to affirm all three propositions: Israel is God’s people, Jesus is Israel’s Messiah, and through him God has set in motion his new creation.”

But the truth is even more; Jesus came, not only for the Jewish people, but for the world; to establish a kingdom that crosses all borders and includes all the nations of the world. John reminds us that the truth is that Jesus is the creator and everything was created very good, but that sin entered into the world. Yet God refuses to give up on his people or creation and promises a Messiah who will defeat the serpent and reconcile us with God again and Jesus is this promised Messiah. When the angel comes first to Mary and then to Joseph, they’re told that Jesus will be called Immanuel, God with us, and to name him Jesus, which means, He saves, because he will save his people from their sins. Jesus not only takes our punishment for our sin on the cross, but he calls us to walk in his way; a rabbi’s way of calling his followers to follow his teachings and imitate him. This helps us to see the world for what it is, a world in God’s hands that’s also filled with many who refuse to acknowledge God and try to be like God themselves. But their way leads to brokenness and death, so if we’re looking for a deep life filled with purpose and meaning, Jesus shows us the way, his way. At its heart, this is what the Reformation was all about, a return to trusting Jesus alone for our salvation and to trust in his way and teachings over the church’s rituals and claims on people’s lives and souls, or our own work to save ourselves.

Satan wants us to believe that meaning and purpose come from having power and might, from being able to do whatever we desire. But ultimately listening to him leaves us empty, wondering if there’s more to life than what Satan or our culture promises. When Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the temple to consecrate Jesus to the Lord, they meet Simeon who was waiting for the consolation of Israel. Liz Curtis Higgs writes, “Usually we console people who are sorrowful or have lost someone dear to them. What had the people of God lost? They’d lost their way, just as we have in our generation. We turn to one another for answers, when God alone can provide the wisdom we need. We depend upon possessions or position… as for the Israelites, they’d pursued false gods, worshipped idols, turned their backs on the Almighty, and done what was right in their own eyes. Now they needed to be consoled and long to be redeemed. Just as we do.” The Holy Spirit reveals to Simeon the truth of who Jesus is, our Messiah, the one who comes to take away the sin of the world, and brings in his kingdom where the effects of sin are overturned and we discover new life in Jesus.

What does this mean for us? John reminds us that grace and truth come through Jesus. It’s a call to stay close to Jesus, and learn the truth of who Jesus is, who we are, and the forces that shape our world and culture. Earlier in John’s Gospel, before Pontius Pilate’s haunting question, Jesus gives us a very clear instruction concerning the truth, “If you remain in my word, you will truly be my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free;” free from the lies all around us, free from fear, free from sin, free to serve and be children of God.

 

Broken Signposts – Freedom - John 8:31-41

This encounter between Jesus and these Jews who believe in Jesus comes right after the Pharisees challenge Jesus on his teachings and who Jesus claims to be. John tells us that many people didn’t understand what Jesus is getting at when he talks about who he is and his relationship with God, his Father, so Jesus tells them, “When you have lifted up the Son of Man, then you will know that I am he and that I do nothing on my own but speak just what the Father has taught me. The one who sent me is with me; he has not left me alone, for I always do what pleases him.” Even as he spoke, many believed in him.”

Yet it seems in this conversation that though many put their faith in Jesus, there still seems to be some question on what they’re really believing in about Jesus. Jesus tells them, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” As they respond, we can see that there’s a lot of misunderstanding between Jesus and these Jews, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?” But to be fair to these Jews, would we have understood Jesus any better in that time and place? Yet they also fail to remember their own history and the reality of their present-day situation as they had been slaves to Egypt and Babylon, among other nations at different times, and even now were under the Roman yoke, even if they’re more of an occupied rather than enslaved nation. Yet maybe they’re thinking along the lines of where Jesus is going and thinking of being slaves in their thinking to the leaders of various sects or parties in Israel at that time.

The reality is that many people, even many of us, fail to recognize the chains our sin has on our hearts and souls. We too often fail to acknowledge the different masters we’ve allowed to bind us up in their chains of slavery. Freedom is a huge issue; the reality is that there are many kinds of slavery in the world, some even in Canada and our own province and communities that we seldom think about. The prevalence of human trafficking is an issue we don’t want to talk too much about, even though it happens in our own communities. Then there are those immigrants that come into Canada who are taken advantage of, some of them having arrived only semi-legally, where they’re given work and then treated like slaves and told that if they complain they’ll be deported. Then there’s family violence and dysfunction where some family members are feeling trapped like slaves in their relationships.

God does deal with slavery in the laws he gives Israel, giving the people strict guidelines to masters on how they are to treat their slaves with respect since everyone has value as we’re all created in the image of God. Historically, people of faith have often been in the forefront of the fight to eliminate slavery, such as William Wilberforce in England, while in the USA, William Lloyd Garrison’s profound sense of Christian morality led him to become an advocate for the abolitionist cause, while the daughter of one of the wealthiest slave-owning families in Charleston, South Carolina, Angelina Grimké was deeply religious; believing slavery was a sin, and that God would punish those who owned and enslaved other human beings, joined the fight for freedom for black slaves. There were many others who also fought for freedom for slaves such as Harriet Beecher Stowe, author of Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a story showing people the cruelties of slavery.

The writers of the Bible speak less about physical slavery, though it’s never presented as part of God’s creation plan; Jesus is more concerned about our hearts and souls becoming slaves to the underestimated power of sin and Satan, who chain our hearts so we’re kept from God, Jesus, and the freedom that the Holy Spirit can guide us to; “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin.” Sin’s power is rooted in idolatry. As N.T Wright observes, “Idols, all the more powerful when not recognized as such, are anything at all that humans place above and give their ultimate allegiance to other than the One God himself…. Idols are addictive…. Offer more than it can appropriately deliver…. You have to abandon part of your proper allegiance to God… in order to fresh and inappropriate attention to the new idol, whatever it is…  associated not only with alcohol, cannabis, and other drugs, but with our electronic systems: smartphones, social media, Facebook, and so on.”

For many people, even followers of Jesus, freedom is all about being able to do whatever they want, even if there are rules or laws against it. Most of our ideas about freedom are inherently selfish, it’s all about me and what I want. Doug Bratt writes, “Jesus Christ graciously freed his adopted siblings from having to earn our salvation by obeying God’s law. Yet that leaves the question of how Christians use our freedom in Christ. How, quite simply, do God’s beloved children live in obedient gratitude for God’s gracious gift of salvation? So those who assume 1 Corinthians 6’s proclaimers will just talk about spiritual things may be disappointed. Paul, after all, calls God’s people to also consider physical things. He reminds his letter’s recipients that while God gives God’s adopted children much freedom to responsibly respond to God’s grace, not everything we do is “beneficial.” Some things Christians have the freedom to do aren’t helpful to either the people around us or to us.”

Freedom comes through Jesus who sets us free from sin through his sacrifice on the cross, something we call substitutionary atonement, where Jesus takes the punishment for our sin on himself. This is a gift given to us, a gift we need to accept in order for it to make us free. This is why we’re told numerous times to believe in Jesus, to repent, and turn our lives over to Jesus, and walk his way instead of our own way.

Robert B. Kruschwitz warns us, “In an awkward but memorable phrase, the Apostle Paul declares: “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free.” The story of Jesus Christ, as it comes to life in his followers, is a story of freedom, to be sure, but a freedom constrained by the Cross and deeply at odds with individualistic notions of liberty…. Today many people often think of freedom “as the maximum ability to choose whatever life I want to live with a minimum of external attachments.” Paul’s strange claim that “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free,” in Galatians 5 is explained by this relationship between salvation and ethics. “Christ has set us free” relates to the salvation of Jesus’ followers, while ‘for freedom’ relates to the ethical lifestyle that Jesus’ followers are called to live.

Slavery separates us from a close relationship with God, as Jesus says, “A slave has no permanent place in the family.” Just because they’re Jewish, just because you show up in church most Sundays, this doesn’t save you or set you free. Jesus goes on, “but a son belongs to it forever.” Jesus is the one who brings us into the family of God, freedom comes through Jesus. Being a child of God gives you a solid identity, a strong foundation for life, and hope for right now, a reason for living, and a place to belong. Paul, in his letter to the Galatians writes, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love.” Our freedom is limited by our relationship with Jesus and who he’s calling us to be as his followers.

Freedom is important, yet we seldom stop to think about what our freedom is actually for, why it’s so important, how it points us to God. Paul talks about this in Romans 6, “Don’t you know that when you offer yourselves to someone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one you obey—whether you are slaves to sin, which leads to death, or to obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God that, though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance. You have been set free from sin and have become slaves to righteousness.”

Bruce Hartung encourages us to remember that “Christ has freed us from the burden of our sin, from our earning God’s love, from our pulling ourselves up by our own bootstraps to approach God. With all that energy, no longer needed to earn a new and healthy relationship with God, what do I do with it? What do you do with it?” Freedom looks like following Jesus, looks like serving each other in love as we find in Galatians 5, “You, my brothers and sisters, were called to be free. But do not use your freedom to indulge the flesh; rather, serve one another humbly in love. For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” Paul goes on to call us to use our freedom to grow in the fruit of the Spirit, in “love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control” and to “keep in step with the Spirit.”

What does that look like for us today? Paul in Romans 6 and Peter in 1 Peter 2 call us to be slaves to God, loving God, serving our neighbor. Be generous to the poor. Listen closely to those with whom we disagree, so closely that we can really understand why their position is so important to them. Take some time to find out about the person who sits beside you. Pray for others. Invite your neighbors over for food and talk. Talk with the people you work with and go to school with, about Jesus who sets us free. Isaiah calls us to proclaim freedom and set the oppressed free by calling people to place their trust in Jesus and repent and believe so they too can be set free from their sin. Be free and become a slave to Jesus!

 

 

Broken Signposts- Beauty - John 1:1-18

                

I love how John begins his gospel by taking us all the way back to creation, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning.  Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made.” We remember how God begins with chaos and speaks order, beauty, and wonder into creation and everything was good and very good. John reveals to us that creation happens through Jesus as the Word, fully God and fully human. We’re reminded by John that we’re given a magnificent creation filled with life and beauty and diversity created through Jesus. At the youth retreat last month, I sat with a number of the youth around the campfire at night we marveled at the night sky; the number of stars and satellites and the beauty of the moment. In the dark, away from the city lights, the light of the moon and stars helps us understand the power of John’s description of Jesus, “In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”

John comes as a witness to the light of the world, his own birth a beautiful gift that brought joy and beauty to his parents Zechariah and Elizabeth; an older couple who had lost hope of having children. John comes to help the people see and recognize the light of the world that has come, unfortunately, many people fail to recognize this light, no different than today, and recognize who Jesus is. So many people know the name Jesus, but have no clue who he really is. To see in the darkness of the world, to see light in the dark times of their own lives, many people try to create their own light to try to get through life without getting lost, the saddest thing is that they fail to believe in the one person who can guide them through the darkness into a new life filled with wonder and beauty; instead, they turn away from his light. The wonder and beauty here is that when we believe in Jesus and follow him, we become children of God, brothers and sisters to Jesus, part of God’s family; an amazingly beautiful thing.

Beauty is found all around us; in the physical world because our God is an extraordinary artist who gives some people his artistic gift to create even more beauty in the world that help us see and understand who God is. The writers of the Bible connect beauty with God’s glory multiple times. This is the point of Article 2 in the Belgic Confession where Guido de Bres writes, “We know God by two means: First, by the creation, preservation, and government of the universe, since that universe is before our eyes like a beautiful book in which all creatures, great and small, are as letters to make us ponder the invisible things of God: God’s eternal power and divinity, as the apostle Paul says in Romans 1:20. All these things are enough to convict humans and to leave them without excuse. Second, God makes himself known to us more clearly by his holy and divine Word, as much as we need in this life, for God’s glory and for our salvation.”

Creation tells of God’s glory, pointing us to the outpouring of his own generous love for us in the variety and wonder of everything he created for us. N.T Wright defines beauty as “the haunting sense of loveliness, the transient yet powerful stabs of something like love but something more and different as well—is not after all a mere evolutionary twist…. It is a pointer to the strange, gently demanding presence of the living God in the midst of his world.” 

John now points us to Jesus’ birth, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth.” The Greek verb for dwelling is closely connected to the word tabernacle and is often translated, as “the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us,” bringing us back to the tabernacle and God’s presence among us. Jamieson, Fausset, & Brown note that this verb occurs 4 times and points to a permanent stay; Jesus comes to make our world his permanent home. As Pastor Chelsea Harmon observes, “Jesus didn’t just come as a guest, he came to live—not just to observe, but to work and be part of the very fabric of things. Just as quickly as this idea is planted, John zooms us back out and he says that we (the world) have seen his glory—the kind of glory that only comes from God—full of grace and truth. And when we “see” that glory, we see it in such a way that we can put it to personal use (the verb is in the middle voice). It becomes something that we build our faith upon. Does John have in mind any one specific aspect of that glory, such as Christ’s death on the cross, or does he mean all of the activity of God towards the world, from creation to consummation? My hunch is that it’s all of it—special and general revelation alike—because it all flows from the grace and truth of who God is, captured in the “fullness” of the Mediator, the second person of the Trinity, the Christ.”

When John points to Jesus’ glory he’s pointing us to the rich history God has with his people and those moments when God revealed his glory to his people. Psalm 96 sings that “strength and beauty are in his sanctuary.” The writer uses the same word for the richly designed clothes of the priest Aaron and his sons which were “for glory and beauty.” In other places the word is translated as honour or majesty or pomp, but more often the word beauty is connected with the word glory, God’s glory. God’s glory filled the tabernacle, a place to meet God, a place built by specially gifted artists who created a place of beauty for their God. The same thing later on happens with the temple built by Solomon, based on designs crafted by God, a temple that rivaled any other place of wonder or beauty found in the world. God designed both as places of great beauty that inspired awe, devotion, wonder, and worship in a way that other great buildings never have.

The Word comes to us, becomes one of us, becomes personal to us in a new way, revealing his glory and beauty by entering into a new kind of relationship with his people. Jesus becoming human reminds us that we’re created in the image of God and that’s where our beauty comes from. Beauty is not just physical, beauty’s revealed in relationships, in how God comes to us in glory and beauty, in how Jesus offers forgiveness, and the beauty of new life when we change our paths to travel his and believe in him. Beauty’s found in moments of great forgiveness and grace, in relationships of deep dependence and trust such as between a parent and child, or between two people who have learned to live with and love each other with a sacrificial love. The psalmist writes in the 8^th psalm, “what is mankind that you are mindful of them, human beings that you care for them? You have made them a little lower than the angels and crowned them with glory and honor. You made them rulers over the works of your hands; you put everything under their feet.” We’ve been charged with revealing God’s beauty and glory to all creation by caring for his creation, revealing the beauty and wonder God has placed in it.

Yet many are afraid of beauty and glory and look to destroy instead. Talking with our plumber in Stony Plain, we got to talking about why people destroy rather than create and he talked about how evil is a word we don’t want to talk about, yet there’s evil in the world and it breaks and destroys, impacting peoples’ lives and souls bringing ugliness rather than beauty. As a theological concept, evil refers to the presence of moral or spiritual corruption, wickedness, or plain nastiness. Evil opposes God's will and the principles of goodness, righteousness, and holiness as revealed in who Jesus calls us to be and live as his followers. We talked about how evil’s actually in each of us, the reformed perspective of total depravity. We talked about how situations and addictions can bring this evil out, but this is why a faith community is so important; we walk along with each other with the Holy Spirit to point us back to Jesus’ way and reveal his beauty offered to us.

Jesus can use brokenness to bring new beauty into our lives. Ann Voskamp with friends, while creating a mosaic picture with broken shards and asked, “What part of your story was …. broken…. but if it had never happened … you wouldn’t be who you are today?” “There are deeply painful lines in our stories that we’d do absolutely anything to change – but then how would that change the story in other deeply painful ways? The thing you never wanted, can be the thing that makes you into more than you could have been any other way. The thing you’d do absolutely anything to change, can be what changes you into someone absolutely more like Christ.…  As I slowly line up bits of the pieces of glass across my canvas, to outline the edge of the water meeting the shore, it’s another surprising outline that I see emerging: You outline the hand of God when you line up the worst things that ever happened in your life, and then line up the best things – and then notice how many of the worst things are what begin these connecting lines that lead to the best things.”

Beauty out of brokenness reminds us of how Jesus was broken so we can experience healing and renewal, pointing us to the beauty of the kingdom of heaven as a kingdom of grace, unconditional love, forgiveness, and new life. 

 

Let Us Come Before the Lord with Thanksgiving - Psalm 95

          

Today is Thanksgiving Day here in Canada, a day set aside by the government of Canada to stop and remember to give thanks after harvest time. According to the Canadian Encyclopedia, “The first official, annual Thanksgiving in Canada was celebrated on 6 November 1879, though Indigenous peoples in Canada have a history of celebrating the fall harvest that predates the arrival of European settlers. Sir Martin Frobisher and his crew are credited as the first Europeans to celebrate a Thanksgiving ceremony in North America, in 1578. They were followed by the inhabitants of New France under Samuel de Champlain in 1606. The celebration featuring the uniquely North American turkey, squash and pumpkin was introduced to Nova Scotia in the 1750s and became common across Canada by the 1870s. In 1957, Thanksgiving was proclaimed an annual event to occur on the second Monday of October.”

The Bible is filled with times of celebration of thanksgiving; however, God gave Israel two feasts of celebration related especially to the harvest. There were fifty days between the two feasts that focus on thanks for the harvest: the Feast of First Fruits signaled the beginning of the spring harvest; and Shavu’ot, or Pentecost, celebrated the end of the spring harvest. Crops that produce food are important for our health and strength so God calls us to be thankful for our food and those who work to grow it. For the Israelites, these feasts called for the entire nation coming together to celebrate God’s goodness. Those feasts are the closest celebrations to Thanksgiving we celebrate here in Canada, when we as a nation thank God for our blessings and the harvest.

Psalm 95 calls us to sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation. Let us come before him with thanksgiving.” There are beautiful images of who God is in the first part of this psalm that bring us to praise, as Scott Hoezee points out, “Metaphors for God as a Rock, as a King, as a Shepherd are lyric and lovely.  God’s redemptive desire is played off against his mighty power as the Creator of all the earth and as the One who is so awesome that he holds whole mountain ranges in the palm of his hand.” We’re called to approach God with joy; a spirit of celebration because of who God is. This psalm is all about who God is, not so much about what we get from God. Thanksgiving happens because of who God is, not because of what we get from of him.

The sole exception is that God is the Rock of our salvation, that God, as our God works to save us. The context for Israel is the exodus out of Egypt, out of slavery into freedom so they can come to God and praise him. If you remember the story of the exodus of Israel out of Egypt, the reason for Israel to go into the wilderness was so they could worship their God away from the influence of the temples and idol worship in Egypt, to worship with a spirit of joy and celebration rather than in fear and slavery. In this psalm, our Creator God calls us to come to his place to bow down in worship and kneel before the Lord our Maker. The reason we do this is because we are his people, he has claimed us as his and he cares for, and protects us, as a shepherd cares for, provides for, and protects his flock. We come free from our slavery to sin, filled with joy that once we accept Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, we are freed from our sin into a life of joy dedicated to our Lord. This is why we are here this morning, to worship and praise our Creator, our Good Shepherd, our Saviour and Redeemer.

And yet, even on a day when we come to praise and worship our God, we should be honest enough with ourselves and admit that there is often a tension between our praise and worship of God and wanting to do things our ways, to want more than he has given us in his generosity and grace. The psalmist is honest enough to remember the times of selfishness and grumbling to God, even right after he had brought the people out of slavery and destroyed their enemy before their very eyes. The psalmist reminds the people that instead of worshipping the Rock of their salvation, they complained, “Do not harden your hearts as you did at Meribah, as you did that day at Massah in the wilderness, where your ancestors tested me; they tried me, though they had seen what I did. For forty years I was angry with that generation; I said, ‘They are a people whose hearts go astray, and they have not known my ways.”

The psalm reflects who we really are; we love to praise and worship God, to give thanks to him, and to see God for who he is. This is why we come Sunday mornings to gather together and worship together. It’s easier to do this when we are all together. However, after worship, sometimes even during worship, tension can slip into our hearts and small questions of doubt creep in and we wonder if God can really be trusted, if he will really give us what we’re looking for, and we get tempted to look backwards, and like Israel wonder if it wouldn’t be easier to simply to go back to Egypt where the watermelons tasted so good and where the breezes of the Nile cooled a person down when it was hot and sticky. Like Adam and Eve, we begin to think about what we don’t have, what God hasn’t given us instead of how he has blessed us and is with us. Then the words of Jesus in Matthew 15 begin to sting, “‘These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.  They worship me in vain; their teachings are merely human rules.’”  

This psalm is a call to live fully with and for God in a spirit of thankfulness and gratitude. We worship God, we give thanks to Jesus, we show appreciation for the presence of the Holy Spirit in our hearts and lives, not for what we get from him, but for who God truly is. We move forward in life together in and with grace; God’s grace. The grace of God is found in his presence with us in our sin, failures, and fears; in his grace in choosing us as his children, in the grace found in Jesus and how he reconciled us to God our Creator and Father through his loving sacrifice on the cross, in the grace of the gift of the Holy Spirit living in us and who comforts us and keeps pointing us back to Jesus.

This Thanksgiving Day, we give thanks for who God is; God of gods, creator and artist extraordinaire; a God who protects and cares for his sheep, the children of his flock. May our praise ring in the heavens and throughout our community so that our God is praised in all places and in all ways for his glory.

Broken Signposts – Spirituality - John 2:12-25

 

What does the word “spirituality” mean to you? What comes to mind when someone says that they’re spiritual, but not religious? This morning we’re looking at the signpost of spirituality through this story about Jesus throwing the people who were making the temple a place of business instead of worship. At its most basic meaning, spirituality is about being led by the Spirit of God, the Holy Spirit. We will not be looking at the various types of spirituality rooted in various non-Christian faiths or philosophies. There are many that are very popular; however, these spiritualities lead us mostly into a self-help, self-growth direction with the goal of discovering ourselves; a broken signpost.

Jesus is entering his time of ministry, having just performed his first miracle at a wedding in Cana in Galilee at the request of his mother. Jesus then heads to Capernaum with his family and disciples before heading to Jerusalem for the Passover. The Passover feast is often featured in the Gospel of John. It’s the biggest festival for the Jews, though the Day of Atonement where the sins of the people are forgiven is right behind it. The Passover reminds the Jews of who their God is, a God who saved them out of slavery as their Saviour and Lord, and who claimed them as his people.

In the Old Testament, God came to his people in dreams and visions, but he especially leads his people through his laws where he reveals to the people who he is, what his character is like, and how they can be more like God and live wisely with him, each other, and who he’s calling them to be as his children. God was present in the tabernacle, and then later in the temple in Jerusalem. This is why the stories of God filling the tabernacle, and then the temple, with his Spirit are so important and powerful to the people; this is why, when the Spirit of God left the temple to follow the people into exile in Babylon to be with them rather than remain tied to a destroyed and ruined building, it revealed to the Jews that God will not abandon or forget them, that they’re still his people and he’s their God and goes where his people are. God leads his people through the feasts and festivals he gives them; feasts and festivals that point to God as their Saviour and Lord, festivals that call them to repentance and point them to what forgiveness and the removal of their sin looks like through symbols such as the scapegoat where the priest symbolically places the sins of the people on the goat and then casts it out of the camp into the wilderness; taking their sins far away; pointing ahead to what Jesus does for us on the cross. God gives them festivals to remind them to give thanks to God for what they’ve received from him.

Many Jews travelled each year to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover at the temple with sacrifices and ceremony as the temple was the center of the Jewish faith and the presence of God. Jesus heads into the temple and looses it when he sees what’s happening; he’s furious! “In the temple courts he found people selling cattle, sheep and doves, and others sitting at tables exchanging money. So he made a whip out of cords, and drove all from the temple courts, both sheep and cattle; he scattered the coins of the money changers and overturned their tables. To those who sold doves he said, “Get these out of here! Stop turning my Father’s house into a market!” His disciples remembered that it is written: “Zeal for your house will consume me.” Why is Jesus so furious? The Jesuit John Foly writes, “Vendors were allowed only in the courtyard of the temple, not inside where they now had positioned themselves. And the dishonest practices of outdoor market-places had stolen their way into the temple. The thumb on the scale, the inflated prices, all of that. There is another, internal reason which is much more important. Jesus knew with blessed certainty what human beings were created to be. We are made to be filled with God’s presence, to be beloved by God and to love God in return. We are most ourselves when we are not entrapped by riches honor and pride. We are designed to “let go and let God.” Jesus was overwhelmed when he saw sellers winking at these Godly values, preferring cold cash, and cheating for it—at the dead center of sacred space. Everything had been turned upside down.”

The reaction of the Jews to Jesus’ actions is basically, “Who do you think you are?” Jesus goes deep with his answer, even though they have no clue as to what he’s getting at, “Destroy this temple, and I will raise it again in three days.” This sounds downright crazy to the Jews. Herod build this magnificent temple that rivaled even Solomons amazingly beautiful temple. Herod built it to get the Jewish leaders to support him even though he wasn’t from the line of King David and was appointed to be king of the Jews by their foreign oppressors with the mandate to keep the Jews calm and peaceful. It’s crazy talk to say that someone could tear down a temple that took 46 years to build and then rebuild it again in 3 days. What’s Jesus talking about?

Gilberto Ruiz writes, “He, Jesus, appears in Jerusalem making a bold statement not so much “against” anything as much as “for” his authority to represent and reveal the God of the temple, whom he knows intimately as his Father. Moreover, rather than denigrate the economic activity of the temple, John’s Gospel uses it to develop its Christology of Jesus as God’s authoritative Son.” Sadly, many of the people had forgotten what the temple’s basically about, that it’s the presence of God among his people, the place to come to be guided by God and his priests. Instead, they’ve made an idol of the temple, making it a national identity thing, a brick-and-mortar thing. The people come there to worship God and do the sacrifices, but it’s mixed up with so much more than God now. It’s so easy to make even good things into idols, even blessings given to us by God. Many followers of Jesus, whose deepest desire is to be led by the Spirit of Jesus rather than the spirits of our time, come to places like Bethel searching for the presence of God, seeking the presence of Jesus and his Spirit in their lives. Christian spirituality keeps us focused on who God, who Jesus is, through the presence of the Holy Spirit in us who keeps leading us back to Jesus.

If the temple points to the presence of God among the people, God has now become present in an intensely more personal way now through his son Jesus. John, at Jesus’ baptism, testifies, “I saw the Spirit come down from heaven as a dove and remain on him. And I myself did not know him, but the one who sent me to baptize with water told me, ‘The man on whom you see the Spirit come down and remain is the one who will baptize with the Holy Spirit.’ I have seen and I testify that this is God’s Chosen One.” John recognizes that the presence of God is now found in the person of Jesus. There is nothing mystical or weird about spirituality, even though many Christians today are uncomfortable with the term and some of the spiritual practices found in different Christian traditions.

Jesus is furious about how the temple isn’t pointing the people to God’s presence among them. The leaders of the temple should know better. Later, when Jesus is talking to the Pharisee Nicodemus and telling him that he needs to be born again, Nicodemus is confused, Jesus tells him, “Very truly I tell you, no one can enter the kingdom of God unless they are born of water and the Spirit. Flesh gives birth to flesh, but the Spirit gives birth to spirit. You should not be surprised at my saying, ‘You must be born again.’ The wind blows wherever it pleases. You hear its sound, but you cannot tell where it comes from or where it is going. So, it is with everyone born of the Spirit.”  Jesus tells Nicodemus that he should know this stuff and wonders if Nicodemus can even understand heavenly, or spiritual things, pointing to his coming sacrifice, “Just as Moses lifted up the snake in the wilderness, so the Son of Man must be lifted up, that everyone who believes may have eternal life in him.” Jesus is pointing to himself as the Son of Man, the promised Messiah who has come down from heaven and is among the people, but pointing to his death to save the people.

Spirituality points us straight to God and to Jesus through the Holy Spirit. Jesus tells the Samaritan woman at the well that it’s not so important about where you worship, but that “we will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for that is the kind of worshippers the Father seeks.” If your faith practices are not pointing you to Jesus and God the Father, then it’s not from the Holy Spirit. Spirituality is the practice of being open to the presence and guidance of the Holy in the way of Jesus; guiding us back to Jesus each day away from the paths we want to walk.

John writes in his opening to his gospel, “the law was given through Moses, grace and truth came through Jesus the Messiah.” As N.T Wright encourages us, “That is the recipe for a genuine, transformative, Jesus-focused spirituality, which will upstage the self-serving and often narcissistic parodies on offer in many quarters today.” After Jesus dies on the cross to reconcile us with God the Father, when he’s raised after 3 days as a sign the Father accepts his sacrifice on our behalf, Jesus returns to heaven and sends us his Spirit to live with us and in us; the presence of God. Jesus and the Holy Spirit point us to the wonder that God’s powerful, rescuing, healing and transforming love is renewing the entire world, and ourselves with it. As we read through John’s gospel, this good news points us to the kingdom of heaven and what John’s view of a spirituality centered on Jesus and the Holy Spirit truly is.

Broken Signposts – Love - John 13:1-7

            

Last week we reflected on justice as a signpost that guides us to Jesus and the kingdom of heaven. There was so much more that could have been said and reflected on, including the injustice that Jesus faced for us so that God’s justice could be met and we could be reconciled to God again. This week we’re reflecting on love, also a signpost that guides us to who Jesus is and the kingdom of heaven. These signposts are all connected since they’re all aspects, or attributes of God; justice flows out of God’s love for us and his desire to be in relationship with us. Justice brings healing and hope in a broken world, revealing that God is working towards the new creation that will come at Jesus’ return.

The story John tells us this morning begins by reminding us that it’s getting close to the Passover and how God saved them; guiding them out of slavery into freedom, claiming them as his people. Then comes this powerful statement from John, “Having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.” As we go deeper into John’s story, this statement becomes even more powerful, as it’s set in a story filled with pride and betrayal. There are echoes back to the woman who has just recently washed Jesus’ feet with perfume and her own hair, a sign of her deep love for Jesus and the grace that Jesus has shown her.

The theme of love runs through this part of John’s gospel story, as Pastor Jan Richardson observes, “In John’s Gospel, in what’s known as the Farewell Discourse, John 13:31-17:26, Jesus will speak the word love thirty-one times. In these final hours before his death, the word will ring repeatedly, a potent echo of the moment when Jesus rose from the Jordan River, the waters of baptism dripping from him, and heard himself named Beloved. This night, he will give this word to his friends, passing along to them the love he received at a moment he needed it most.”

Many of us know this story well and often reflect on it on Good Friday. Jesus and his disciples are sharing in Jesus’ last supper before his death and resurrection, a meal connected to the Passover. John tells us that the devil has already worked in Judas Iscariot to get him to betray Jesus. As they get ready to eat, Jesus gets up and grabs a bowl of water and towels to wash his disciples’ feet. Apparently, there are no servants available to do this nasty job of washing everyone’s dirty smelly feet, and none of the disciples have thought of doing such a humiliating, at least to them, task.

It has always fascinated me how Peter reacts. He’s not willing to humble himself to wash his fellow disciples’ feet, but he’s also too ashamed of himself to allow Jesus to wash his feet. I’ve noticed that many people are uncomfortable in receiving the gift of extreme humble service because it reminds us of our own unwillingness to do the same. Being confronted by extreme humility and grace will do that to us. Jesus reacts to Peter’s refusal to let him was wash Peter’s feet by pointing to a deeper truth the disciples won’t understand until after Jesus’ death and resurrection, “Unless I wash you, you have no part with me.”

We understand now, looking back, that without accepting Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross for our sin, we keep ourselves outside the kingdom of heaven, we’re not reconciled with God. Accepting Jesus’ sacrifice for our sin means embracing Jesus as our Lord and Saviour, turning our hearts, souls, minds, and lives over to him for his purposes. Of course, Peter being Peter, then goes to the other extreme, “Then Lord, not just my feet but my hands and my head as well.” Peter’s greatest fear is being separated from Jesus.

Jesus’ love is expressed in this story in humble menial service, shown in washing feet and then serving the meal to all his disciples, including his betrayer, Judas. Jesus shows us that love is not based on how the other person feels about you or treats you. Jesus shows us that love can be hard, especially when the person you’re showing love to is actually working against you. Love’s a decision and choice you make; it’s not something that just happens. This kind of love gets twisted and broken in our world when people who are being abused are called to simply accept the abuse and forgive the abuser and stay in the situation because that’s what love does. Love actually looks like holding people accountable for their actions and ensuring that they learn how to live with, and love, in healthy ways. Love for others does not mean staying in an abusive situation.

Pastor Luke A Powery challenges the church to show Jesus’ deep love to the world around us, “This demonstration of love by Christ as a response to betrayal and resistance calls the Church to open their doors to “whosoever” will come, even deemed enemies, those who might perpetuate racism, sexism, classism, homophobism, or any form of discrimination. Those who might look different, act different, worship different, or dress different must be loved with the type of love that Christ shows towards Judas. It is unconditional, and that is the key to opening the doors of the church. All must be welcomed. Inclusion should be a church’s focus, not exclusion; for all are washed by Christ, not just his friends. His love is without end. No limits. Love to the end, even to the end of the tips of his disciples’ toes…. Jesus loves in the face of betrayal…. Even when Peter resists the washing of his feet Jesus tells him, “If I don’t wash you, you have no share with me.” Jesus is determined to wash Peter's and the rest of his disciples' feet because he wants to be in relationship them. Jesus will do whatever it takes to be with us. Nothing can separate us from the love of Christ, no matter who we are, what we’ve done, or what’s been done to us….” Pastor Powery’s challenge reminds me of the sign outside our own church, “Everyone welcome.” It’s hard and beautiful to live this out!

Love as Jesus practiced it, with humility and grace, points us to what the kingdom of heaven is all about; shaped by love of God, neighbour, and enemies. Love is about how we live with each other, not about how we feel about each other, a lesson I emphasize with every couple who are planning on getting married. It’s about living with others is ways that recognize that they’re created in the image of God, recognizing that Jesus is taking a long time to return because God wants to give us as many opportunities as possible to share the good news of Jesus: his love for us, his forgiveness, and reconciliation with God.

How we live with others who disagree with us, or who we disagree with, gives us a glimpse of how hard it is to really love. It’s much easier to love those who agree with us and are our friends, but how does that point to who Jesus is and what the kingdom of heaven looks like? Jesus challenges his listeners during his sermon in Mathew, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? Are not even the tax collectors doing that? And if you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that? Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect.” It’s fascinating that Jesus ties being perfect with loving enemies, and following right after his saying this, he tells us to do our acts of righteousness quietly with humility.

Melinda Quivik has an important insight into this story of Jesus washing the feet of the disciples, including Judas’, “In a strong sense, foot-washing is a metaphor for Confession of Sin and on this day establishes in personal and unequivocal action the astonishing welcome Jesus offers to we who are, in our failings and deceits, not at all pleasant creatures…. Jesus’ example shows us God’s care for one of the least attractive, most avoided, often misshapen parts of the body — is called upon to lift up the great generosity of God’s compassion, for what is repentance if not the uncovering, the exposure, of our unattractive parts? To be blunt, it is as uncomfortable for most of us to bare our feet and let a stranger wash them as it is to speak the truth about our captivity to sin.” In spite of our rebellion, betrayals and sin, Jesus still washes us clean through his love, and as we are washed in his love, our hearts grow larger and able to love more completely, more deeply, with more patience, and perseverance.

Quivik ties Jesus’ love calls us to confession and repentance; to examining our own hearts, souls, and minds in order to recognize how much we need Jesus’ sacrifice to be made clean again in God’s eyes. When we do this, we begin to recognize how deep Jesus’ love is for us, what sacrificial holy love looks like and the call it has on us to respond to it by allowing Jesus to wash our sin away, to accept his love for us, and be honest with God and ourselves about how much we need Jesus’ forgiveness and grace. We then carry Jesus’ love into the world and lives of people whom the Holy Spirit places into our lives, inviting them to receive Jesus’ willingness to wash away their sin, to forgive their sin and give them a new beginning and life. May the Lord bless you as you live his love out into the world around us.

 

Broken Signposts – Justice - John 3:16–21

                 

This morning we’re beginning a new series inspired by N.T Wright’s book Broken Signposts where he explores seven different topics that point us to Jesus and the kingdom of heaven. Because of the brokenness sin brings, these signposts are also broken and fail to point us in the direction of Jesus and the kingdom of heaven as well as they should. Signposts show us the way to where we want to go; guides set up by someone who knows the way. The seven signposts we’ll be reflecting on through the Gospel of John point us to who God is, and give us a glimpse of the kingdom of heaven. Our first signpost is justice.

What is justice? The dictionary defines justice as “the quality or principle of fairness, righteousness, and impartiality in dealing with individuals and society. In the biblical context, justice is an essential attribute of God, and believers are called to pursue justice in their interactions and societal engagement.” In the Near East justice was directly connected to the word of the king. Whenever the king spoke an official word about anything, the proclamation was considered righteous and good, meaning that the king spoke justly. The Bible comes from the Near East and from God, our king; this is why the followers of Jesus are called to accept and embrace God’s Word and Jesus’ teaching as truth that shows us what justice is; calling us to live justly by shaping our lives and beliefs on God’s word given to us in Jesus. Injustice comes when we allow our own desires and beliefs shape our lives and how we live and interact with others and with God.

In our passage this morning, we normally focus on “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Our hearts quickly hear God’s love because we all have a need to be loved by someone, but that signpost is next week. After reminding us of God’s great love for the world, we often stop reading, but John goes on to talk about condemnation and light and darkness. Jesus comes to save the world, not to condemn. The requirement to be saved is to believe in Jesus; simple and yet so important, so difficult to actually do. Belief in scripture is not just believing in facts or the right things, it’s about allowing what we say we believe, and who we believe in shape our lives, character, and relationships with God, others, ourselves, and creation. Belief is not simply an intellectual exercise; it’s about practicing what we say we believe. Justice looks like Jesus, think of when Jesus tells us that whatever we do to someone else to help them, we do it to Jesus.

Justice for Jesus is always about people, when John asked Jesus if he really is the Messiah, Jesus tells him in Matthew 11, “Go back and report to John what you hear and see: The blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.” Jesus cares about the vulnerable, showing us what the heart of God looks like. In Luke 14, Jesus tells his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind…” Justice is a way of living with people by recognizing their worth to God as people created in his image. Jesus often focused on the poor, sick, and those are the margins because they’re the forgotten or overlooked.

This is at the heart of the criticism Jesus gives to the Pharisee in Luke 11, “Now then, you Pharisees clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside you are full of greed and wickedness. You foolish people! Did not the one who made the outside make the inside also? But now as for what is inside you—be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you. “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God. You should have practiced the latter without leaving the former undone.” It may sound as if Jesus only cares about and focuses on saving the poor, but he came for all people. Jesus is meeting with the Pharisee Nicodemus in our passage, Jesus shows he cares about the rich man who has a hard time putting his love for money second to Jesus, Jesus loves all people, but he recognizes that the more we have, the easier it is to fail to see injustice. The Old Testament prophets had to keep reminding the people to remember God’s call to care for all people, not simply yourself. Doing justice doesn’t get you saved, it’s a sign that you’re saved. The signpost of justice is broken in our world though, we all know of times when people have hurt others and gotten away with it because of their power, position, or connections. Often, we can’t even agree on what justice is. Too often we define justice by what helps us keep our privileges.

John tells us that whoever does not believe in Jesus is condemned because they choose not to believe in him and shape their lives on who Jesus is. They refuse to believe in Jesus, the light of the world, and embrace darkness instead. They choose to believe in other voices instead of Jesus’ and this leads them into darkness rather than light. Darkness in the bible is a symbol of evil, but also of selfishness, and an anti-God focused life. Darkness is often used as a symbol of shame and fear of being seen. Nicodemus comes to see Jesus in the darkness of the night, afraid of being seen with Jesus by his fellow Pharisees, afraid of being rejected. Yet Nicodemus is searching for light, for hope, seeking to discover who Jesus really is. In the end, Nicodemus becomes a follower of Jesus, believing in Jesus, embracing his light. Nicodemus is one of the two men who take Jesus’ body down from the cross after Jesus defeats the Prince of Darkness through his death for our sin.

Jesus doesn’t come to condemn the world; those who refuse Jesus, those who choose darkness condemn themselves. In John 8, right after the story of the woman caught in adultery, Jesus says, “You judge by human standards; I pass judgment on no one. But if I do judge, my decisions are true, because I am not alone. I stand with the Father, who sent me.” When you choose darkness, you experience the judgment of God. The judgment of God is simply God being himself and shining his light into the world through Jesus and causing the darkness to flee and hide. Those who brought the woman before Jesus are confronted with the darkness in their own hearts and they slip away until it’s only Jesus and the woman left. Jesus refuses to judge the woman, but he tells her to “go and sin no more,” to move back into the light. There is so much more that can be said here, but that’s for another time. Those who choose darkness judge themselves by fleeing from Jesus.

In the beginning, God created everything very good. A very good world is created by a very good God, but sin enters into the world through the selfish disobedience of Adam and Eve and injustice enters into the world as humanity moves further and further away from God and who God created them to be. Early on there are those who take advantage of others for their own profit, darkness and corruption creeps into society, and power is used for selfish purposes instead of for the betterment of society.

God gives Israel a way of living through the laws given to them at Mount Sinai. The laws are given to them to shape them into God’s image; living in ways that are just and right. Jesus teaches the same law, calling his followers to be salt in the world and “to let their light shine before men, that they may see your good deeds and praise your Father in heaven.” Jesus shines his light into the world and takes the sin of the world onto himself to the cross to satisfy God’s requirement for justice because of the sin that has brought darkness into the world, and begin the renewal and restoration of creation and humanity. As Micah reminds us, justice is something that’s a part of what God calls us to do, “He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.” This is how we begin to shine Jesus’ light into the world.

So how do we as followers of Jesus work for justice in a society where there’s no agreement on what justice even looks like, there are so many different ideas on what justice looks like? Tim Keller writes in his book Generous Justice, “The Biblical idea of justice is comprehensive and practical, but it is also high and wonderful. It is part and parcel of what God is doing in history. God is reconciling humanity to himself—and as a result of this great transaction, he is reconciling all things to himself. He is bringing all things in heaven and earth together in Christ.”

Keller, as does N.T Wright, points to the return of Jesus when the kingdom of heaven will be fully realised. Justice is a signpost that points to the coming kingdom of heaven; a kingdom built on strong community where human beings can all flourish, being the people who we’re created to be in the image of God. Until Jesus returns, our call is to work to build communities where we work together, believers and unbelievers, to help the weaker members of our community who are falling through the cracks and repair the cracks, ensuring that justice is lived out; building communities where everyone can flourish and become who God has created them to be.