A Different Life

Have you ever wished that you had done things a little differently? Ever felt that your timing was a bit off? Perhaps when you review past decisions you may think "If only I had -" and then stop yourself because you think, "well, I didn’t and now look!" I have to say, that I have done this often. It can start with something random such as ‘If only I had purchased two pairs of the Gucci midi heel block sandal in the days when I could afford to, as now they’re back, back, back in vogue and I cannot find my original pair.” to “If only I had bought a flat when bank managers didn’t laugh out loud at the prospect of handing over a fat mortgage to freelancers like me, who seemingly want to live the dream in sunny West London.” Perhaps there are other things you might feel you have left it too late to have in your life: children, a spouse, a rewarding career. Or maybe, you feel that yours is a life that is beyond restoration: your health may have deteriorated seriously or you may have lost a loved one. Maybe your own selection of poor choices has landed you at an emotional or financial crisis point. Here is the good news to said scenarios: Christ is risen.  How does that have anything to do with all of the above? Everything.

When the women came on the third day to embalm Jesus body, they found the tomb stone rolled open and an angel of the Lord declaring this:

“Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he has risen!” Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’” Then they remembered his words.” Luke 24:6-8

I love both the beginning of this passage: “Why do you look for the living among the dead? He is not here, he has risen!” and its close: “Then they remembered his words.”  In both of those statements are signposts to that different life, a life resurrected. When we choose to rake over our past misdemeanours and mistakes, we like the women, are looking for life in the dead things. This is not to say that we should brush over our past, it does and continues to inform us, but it is not the whole story. Likewise when the women: ‘remembered his words.’ they realised that Jesus had been promising to do exactly what he did, rise on the third day.  And yet they had gone to the tomb, expecting the exact opposite, to embalm his dead body.

It got me thinking, how so many of us, particularly if we have been believers for some time, forget one of the central promises of our faith: a new life, one that is not only eternal in its nature as it continues forever with God the Father in Heaven, but also new in the here and now. Jesus died on the cross so that nothing could separate us from God but he rose from the dead, so we could live abundantly in that knowledge. Whether you’re reading this and you’re in your teens or in your nineties, today is actually the first day of your life anew. Whatever happened in the past or is currently happening is altered forever in the simple phrase Christ is Risen. Happy Easter – and for those who like me have been fasting, enjoy the Paschal Lamb chow down, you can see what I’m eating a little later on my other blog, www.gastrotastic.com! 

Forsaken For Our Salvation

A friend of mine, not at all religious once said that how could there be anything ‘good’ about celebrating the long and painful death of someone else? She even commented how the wearing of crosses was pretty gruesome too; likening them to wearing an electric chair pendant on a delicate chain to commemorate those who had died by that method. In some ways she is right – if the story ended with Jesus’ death then it would be both morbid to rock a cross and a little deranged to think that the death of an innocent man some two thousand years ago was good. But as believers gather in churches to walk the Stations of the Cross and meditate on Christ’s Passion, we see the central tenet of our faith expressed: God granting us salvation via the incredible route of his son being forsaken:

“My God, My God why have you forsaken me?” Matthew 27:46

Putting aside the theological arguments as to the necessary separation of Father and Son as the Son took on all the sins of humanity on Calvary, there is something very moving about these words of Jesus. He sounds vulnerable, weak and desperate. He sounds human. It is so easy in the midst of all the miracles, healings, insightful teaching and intellectual jousting with Pharisees that preceded Jesus’ crucifixion to forget his humanity. At this point in the story, Good Friday, Jesus is pretty much abandoned. His disciples were the first to ditch him, one of their own, Judas, doing the actual betraying, and Peter, most loyal of all, denying him thrice. The crowd picked Barrabas over him for freedom, conveniently forgetting any of the signs and wonders they may have witnessed or come to hear about and the Roman soldiers had mocked him and made him walk with the very instrument of his death strapped to his back.  And all this he did for us, whether we choose to believe or not.

Of course, the story does not end here, on the third day Jesus rose and it is at this point the cross my friend dismissed as a macabre item becomes one of triumph. The very instrument of death becomes the way to life eternal. Furthermore, it is also an encouragement to us all, as those short words show, even God’s son felt forsaken at one point, only to be resurrected on the third day.

The crosses we bear in our own lives might seem too heavy. We might have journeyed with tragedies, hardship, betrayal and disappointments for more miles than we would care to mention. Maybe like Jesus, all of our loved ones faded to black when the going got tough. Or we find ourselves at odds with the ‘in crowd’ and mocked and jeered or falsely accused. To all of us, I declare this Friday very good indeed. The cross we bear, like the one Jesus did is momentary even when it seems the opposite. Our true state, like his, is in the bosom of God the father and it is one filled with victory, rejoicing and salvation. And to Jesus I say thank you for getting us all a seat at the top table, it cost you much, but you chose to share.

Lenten Flavours

It is fair to say that I am a person of extreme appetites. I am either really into something or not at all. For the things that I love anticipation can be as much of a buzz as the experience itself. The restaurant menu with its promise of delicacies I can’t prepare myself, the runway-show edit in a glossy magazine of clothes that won’t be in store for six months, even the 30 second pre-listen offered on iTunes ahead of purchasing that key track can all send me into a heightened sense of excitement. “Oh, I can’t wait!” I will internally scream as I consider just how pleasurable said experience will be.

This year, I decided to do Lent with a mediaeval flavour and go for a full-on Lenten Fast. Okay, so I haven’t opted for the sackcloth, although there has definitely  been a dearth of colour in my sartorial choices of late, but the whole no chow-down at all until 6pm has tested me in many ways.

My decision this year stemmed from two reasons; the first was that I wanted to do a fast where I had an attitudinal shift in terms of my expectation from God. The Prophet Isaiah puts it better:

“Why have we fasted, they say, “and you have not seen it? Why have we humbled ourselves, and you have not noticed.” Isaiah 58:3

When we do something that outwardly looks terribly pious, it is so easy to expect JC to give us a Gold Star, perhaps even make us Teacher’s (or should that read Rabbi’s?) pet. At the very least answer our pleas that accompany said fast, or make sure that others be they in the church or outside it are suitably impressed by our spiritual sinew. Whilst I do not wish to diminish outward observances or indeed expectation in supplications, there is a danger that one’s focus can get skewed. When we choose to moan when we don’t quite get the answer we expected or the response from an omnipotent God , we defeat the point of a fast or any outward observances of a believer. It turns our relationship with God into one of expediency  - where we’re only in it for what we can guarantee we will get. This year has been tough, as once I took away the expectation that the result of the fast would be either an intense spiritual experience a la my favourite all time mystic Hildegard of Bingen or better yet some BIG  prayers answered, I had to find a different focus to understand why I was choosing to have a month and a half of diminished consumption.

“I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry and whoever believes in me will never go thirsty.” John 6:35

The food we eat can only sustain us in a most basic of ways.  Fasting has shown me how on a normal day I use food both to punctuate the hours (time for a snack, a cup of tea, another snack) and also assuage feelings (Feeling rubbish? Time for a cheese board, washed down by a decent bottle of red). When you fast, you are left with nowhere to turn. Except to the Lord. Without  the distraction of food, you have more time to spend in prayer or contemplation. Lunch hours have become an hour spent in a pretty church in the City rather than in the queue for the latest it-food truck’s offerings. And as for those feelings, the ones we sometimes spend forever and a day running away from, you are forced to bring them to the Lord, feed on His word and seek a satisfaction that goes beyond the body or mind’s concerns and reaches the Spirit.