The cheering crowd of witnesses

Therefore, since we also have such a large cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us lay aside every hindrance and the sin that so easily ensnares us. Let us run with endurance the race that lies before us, keeping our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of our faith.

The author of the Epistle to the Hebrews has just rattled through a list of the faithful from the Old Testament era, those who pointed the way and passed on into death still holding to their hope in God.  He envisages them, and also I think those faithful Christians who have fallen asleep in the Lord, as the crowd in the stadium, cheering on the believers who are still toiling in the race.  Those runners are not looking at the crowds; they are looking to Jesus, who stands at the finish line and beckons them on, just as he stood at the start line and set them running in the first place.  Nevertheless, the cheering crowds are surely an encouragement to those who are growing weary.

I've been thinking in the last couple of days that sometimes the Christian life feels less like a race on a stadium track and more like a lengthy cross country.  The course is not always as clearly marked as you'd like.  It seems to have been designed to take in as many obstacles as possible.  Sometimes you find yourself running through streams, or dodging through trees, and wondering if you've taken a wrong turn.  Sometimes you can't really imagine that the race will ever be finished - unlike a stadium race, you can't see the finish line clearly and you might not be sure how far through you are.  Has anyone, in fact, ever completed this gruelling course?

And of course the primary encouragement when we feel like this is that the Lord Jesus ran this way.  Even when we struggle to lift our eyes to see him at the finish line, we see marks along the way that remind us of him.  Yes, he also battled through these brambles; we see the signs of his passing this way.  That sharp rock on which you stumbled and cut yourself is already marked with the blood which he shed there.  Christ ran this way, and he reached the finished line.  Lift your eyes to him.

But also - do you hear the crowds?  There are so many.  Some of them have barely had time to change out of their running kit; some have been there in the crowd for millennia.  They cheer us on.  They made it.  They ran the race, they reached the finish.  We are all mud-bespattered, but they are gloriously clean.  Some of them still carry marks from the wounds they picked up in the race, but healed now; mere memories of suffering, emblems now of triumph, in some ways more significant than the crowns they wear.  And they cheer us on.  They made it; we can make it.

Let's keep running.

Going to heaven

One effect of lockdown has been to make me much more acutely aware of location.  I am, as I have mostly been for the last couple of months, at home.  Location has been revealed as one of those things which has much more effect on my life than I had ever realised.  Being perpetually in my house makes work and rest more difficult.  It shrinks the world of my experience.  It restricts my access to others.  (And as I write this I am very aware that this is the reality all the time for many people: those justly or unjustly imprisoned, those who are housebound or hospital-bound through illness and disability...)  I am currently unusually conscious of where I am and what that means for me and my life.

As the pastor of a church I'm also particularly conscious of what is not happening: the church is not gathering together for worship.  Given that corporate worship is what the whole of creation is actually for, this is a big deal.  We are seeing each other, digitally, and hearing the word of God through our screens; but it makes the world of difference that we are located in our lounges (actually I get banished to the kitchen for preaching purposes) and not in the same place.  With the greatest respect to those who would love this digital interaction to be a part of our 'new normal' post-Covid, it is not the same thing as a physical gathering.  It must never become the norm, even if we might consider how greater use of technology might be made to ameliorate the cases of those who simply cannot gather.  Location matters.

But today is Ascension Day, and that also has a great deal to do with location.  Where is Jesus?  He has gone 'to heaven'.  That is to say, he has gone to the place of God's immediate presence and power.  Biblically, heaven is the place from which God hears prayer, sends help and judgement, acts and reveals himself.  Each act and intervention of God is a movement from heaven to earth.  The ascension of Christ is a movement from earth to heaven only because it completes an earlier movement from heaven to earth; in that sense, it is the counterpart to the moment of incarnation.

Jesus is in heaven.  But because Jesus' people are united with him, we can also be said to be in heaven - seated in the heavens, our lives hidden in heaven with Christ.  We are in heaven, in terms of our identity, our status, because Jesus is in heaven and we are in Jesus.  (Worth pondering, in terms of location, the regular address to Christians in the NT as those who are 'in Christ' - because this is often paired with a city, e.g., the saints who are in Christ in Philippi.  Both are location terms.  Of course, for the NT being in Christ is a far more significant location than being in Philippi.)

But this is also described in another way.  In the Letter to the Hebrews, which is all about the priestly movement into God's presence, we are urged to take advantage of the blood of Christ shed for us and to enter the sanctuary - not meaning any earthly sanctuary, but the very heavenly sanctuary which is the original of all earthly sanctity.  (And it is not coincidental but important that this is at once linked to the importance of meeting together, for this entry into the sanctuary - accomplished by Christ and received by faith - is symbolised and therefore to some extent experienced when believers come together in worship).

What do we come to when we draw near?  According to Hebrews 12 it is the heavenly Jerusalem, the city of the living God, the place where Jesus is.  It is heaven.

We are in heaven, because we are in Jesus.  We come to heaven when we pray, when we meditate, particularly when we come together in corporate worship.  We do well to hold on to both perspectives: we are there, static, immovable, because that is the status Jesus has; but in our experience we draw near, we approach, we enter.  Lose sight of the former and anxiety will set in - how can we approach God in his heaven?  Lose sight of the latter and all sense of relationship with God will disappear - just accept salvation and then get on with your life without reference to God.

So this is a striking thing.  Wherever we are located on earth - and as noted above, this is not an entirely insignificant factor; far from it! - we are able to go to heaven.  Going to heaven is not something that happens when you die; it is something that happens when you pray, when you believe, when you worship.  Let's draw near with faith.

Going outside

Reading Hebrews 13 at Morning Prayer, I'm struck by how much I naturally want to be On The Inside.  My guess is that this isn't just me.  My guess is that even people who glory in being On The Outside, out of step with society, secretly or not so secretly cultivate a sense that they are On The Inside of something.  Hence all the close-knit little sub-cultures.

But if Hebrews is to be believed, that desire to be On The Inside could keep me from Christ, who was crucified outside the gate.  I think we read this wrong if we imagine that here in the church is the community where we can be On The Inside.  The church is always going to be wandering back into the camp; institutions and communities as well as individuals feel the strong draw of The Inside.  So we are always called to "go to him outside the camp", a constant movement into The Outside that reflects the fact that our citizenship is not here, but is in another city.

Perhaps not coincidentally I read this editorial this morning on my way into town.  Religion is on the retreat.  But what should be our response?

In the past few decades, some parts of the church that tend to reject the trappings of religion have tried desperately to appear “normal”. But for a generation that prizes authenticity, maybe that’s just a turn-off. Rather than being just a slightly rubbish version of the rest of the world, with slightly rubbish coffee and slightly rubbish music, maybe it needs to embrace its difference, its strangeness, its weirdness, its mystery.

Be more weird.  Go outside the camp.  That's where we meet Jesus.

With us and for us

Today I am pondering the deep significance of the fact that everything Jesus did for us he did as one of us.

I think it would be fair to say that the emphasis of much contemporary evangelical theology and preaching falls on what Christ has done and accomplished.  In essence, that means the cross and resurrection (with a wee bit of teaching and miracle working in the background).  If anything about the person (as opposed to the work) of Christ is stressed, it is his deity - this is God intervening in our history for our good.  This is not in itself a bad thing.  It can't hurt us to talk more and think more about what Jesus has done for us, and without a doubt the Scriptures support the idea that the death and resurrection of Christ on our behalf are the central and most significant things that he has done.  And the emphasis on the deity of Christ makes a certain amount of sense in a culture which takes humanity for granted but denies divinity - not to mention that of course none of the achievements of Christ can have ultimate significance unless they are genuinely the acts of God.

Still, I do think it's important to take on board that in Jesus the eternal Son and Word of God came as one of us.

Of course no orthodox theologian or preacher would deny this.  But some of the staggering implications are not always brought out as clearly as they might be.  If the Son of God has united himself to our nature, then what he does in his death and resurrection is really for us.  It is genuinely humanity that dies on the cross - his death is our death, in so far as we are sinners and rebels against God.  It is genuinely humanity that rises on the third day - his resurrection is our resurrection, in so far as we hope in him.  Because the Son of God came as one of us, uniting us to himself, what he has done genuinely affects us.  The atonement doesn't happen somewhere apart from us - it is not something God accomplishes remotely from us, and then perhaps 'offers' to us.  It is something done in humanity, even as it is something that could only be done by God.

Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, he himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery.

Really dead

The day Christ spent in the tomb is all about this: he was really dead.  It wasn't a trick.  The Romans didn't half-execute anyone.  He was dead.  He had utterly succumbed to the brutality and horror of life in a sinful world.  More: he had experienced in full the curse of God which lies on a rebellious race.  He was dead.

He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, dead and buried.  He descended into hell...

Today is the proof that he tasted death.  And here's the thing with death: you don't get the full flavour unless you drain the cup, right down to the bottom.  There is the bitterness, in the last swallow.  There is the vile taste that catches in the throat.  He tasted death.

For everyone.  He drank it down for everyone,

And he will swallow up on this mountain
the covering that is cast over all peoples,
the veil that is spread over all nations.

Isaiah 25:7

There is another country

I am finding this week rather nerve-wracking.  As someone who has always considered himself British, the prospect of my country being voted out of existence by about 4% of its inhabitants is alarming and depressing.  I still hope it won't happen.  I will be genuinely heartbroken if it does.

But I have been remembering in the last couple of days that this is normal.  It is right that we love the things around us, including the countries into which we find ourselves born; but all such things pass away.  I have been pondering the patriarchs as they are described in Hebrews 11.  They were reminded of the fact that they were strangers and exiles in the earth by their literal wandering; they did not have possession of the homeland they had been promised.  But they could have gone back to the places they had left behind.  They did not do so, because they desired a better country, a heavenly one, a city which God has prepared.  This is what I am preaching to myself, in case things go badly on Thursday: your citizenship never was really here, in this place; your love for this homeland is just an echo of the desire for another, true home; if all this goes, your identity is essentially untouched, because it is in Christ.

After all, if the UK endured to the final day, it would still be shaken and removed in the end, and I look for a Kingdom that cannot be shaken forever.

The Word of his power

He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high...

I have always found these verses from Hebrews 1 to be astonishing, but in recent times the reason for my astonishment has changed somewhat.  I used to be amazed that Christ, even during his incarnation, was upholding the universe by his word.  I am not sure that I had a clear conception of what this 'word' was or meant, but I suppose in a vague sense I detected an echo of Genesis 1 and the creation saga.  That the universe was sustained by a word is not surprising if it was created by a word, but that it should be sustained by the word of a human being - of the man Jesus - even as he lived among us...  Even as he died for us...  That was astonishing to me.

Now I incline to think somewhat differently.  I want to ask, what is this word of his power?  I think that the answer is that the word of Christ's power is the gospel of his resurrection - the story of his making purification for sins and sitting down at God's right hand.  That doesn't make the verses less astonishing.  But the astonishment now is not that the God-man could uphold the universe with a word; it is that the universe depends for its existence on the word of the victory of Christ. It is not astonishing that Jesus could somehow uphold the universe with a word whilst he was incarnate; it is astonishing that the incarnation of the Son of God is precisely the word by which the universe is sustained.  This is just another way of saying that everything exists for him, through him, and in him.  The gospel is the innermost logic of creation; it is the reason anything is.

Which also means that I now tend to detect in Genesis 1 an echo of Hebrews, and of John 1, rather than vice versa.  Jesus is the beginning, the centre, and the end of everything that God has made.

Tempus Fugit

Jesus Christ is the same, yesterday, today, and for ever.

The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases;
his mercies never come to an end;
they are new every morning.

Thoughts on my thirty-second birthday:

Our God is always the same, and always new; always both the Ancient of Days and the Bright Morning Star.  Always the One Who Was - never different from his own past.  Always the One Who Is - absolutely himself in the here and now.  Always the One Who Will Be - the promise that tomorrow and in every tomorrow he will be there, newly himself, newly the Same.

I am chained to time, but God is Free.  Time is his servant.  The God of the Bible - the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ - is not timeless.  But he is the Master of time.  He directs it.  I cannot be everything I am in a moment - so much of me is lost in the past, or unknown in the future.  But God is himself, at all times and in all places.  He bears within himself his own past and future, perfectly.  He is the Same.  The newness that meets us each morning in new mercy is the real newness of God, of the God who is always old in his newness and new from ancient days.  Eternal.

Our hope - the hope of the Christian - is not to be rid of time, but to have all our time and our times gathered up and united in his eternity.  To experience Sabbath - sanctified time, the time which is bound to the Lord of Time, the goal and end of all our time and times.

Worship Old and New

An important distinction that is drawn by most advocates of the Reformed Regulative Principle in one way or another is that between worship under the old covenant and worship under the new.  It is hugely important that this be kept in mind, but equally important that it not be over-emphasised.  For some Reformed theologians, the discontinuity and difference between the two forms of worship is such that musical instruments, which play a large role in the OT, are forbidden in NT worship.  This is, of course, an example of the Biblicism which I have suggested is an illegitimate use of Scripture.  Nevertheless, it reflects an important issue.

Here, as generally when thinking about the continuity and discontinuity between OT and NT, it is important to remember that we are dealing with one covenant under two dispensations, which finds its centre and unity in the person and work of Christ.  When it comes to worship, Hebrews 9 is useful on this.  The validity of the OT ritual was derived from its conformity to the action of Christ in the mode of foretelling.  The tabernacle/temple, all the festivals and fasts, and even the sacrificial system are all based on him, and serve to announce his coming in advance.  The need for foretelling being past, this mode of worship has also passed away.

So NT worship is to form the other half of the diptych, with Christ himself as the hinge.  Where on the left we have Christ foretold, on the right we have Christ remembered.  Both are forms of proclamation and of celebration; they are just in different tenses.  That will alter the form, but not the essential content of Christian worship.

Perhaps the most essential point to be made here is that we judge all these things from the centre; that is to say, we decide what NT worship looks like, and how it relates to the ritual of the OT, with reference to Christ himself, and his gospel.  We don't judge based on our preconceived ideas of what must be enduring (or what must not be enduring) in OT worship itself, or on our preconceived ideas of what the new spiritual, truthful worship ought to look like.  Rather, we seek in everything to look to the hinge which holds old and new together, and in which they both find their goal and meaning.