Today was about remembering, but also about lots of fun, we went to Middle Farm and saw lambs, piglets, ducks, calves, cows, chickens, lamas and best of all broody hens with their chickens tucked away under their feathers. Mm. Cute. This was our favourite. The ones we saw weren’t as posh as this one, but still…
Easter Fun
Thursday
Today I sat at a table with my Relay Workers. We chatted, we read this, and we talked about the immensity of the Thursday that Jesus faced 2000 years ago. The Thursday where he took the Passover meal and made it about so much more. The Thursday where he told his disciples of a body broken and blood poured out. The Thursday where he wept, prayed and sweat blood in a garden whilst his friends fell asleep, oblivious to the pain going on near them. We remembered the Lord’s death, until he comes again, and we ate bread and drank wine.
Tonight I sat in the pub with my Drum group talking about a variety of random things, religion included. Sad to hear Christianity associated with just a strict moral code and the restrictions of a patriarchal society. The greatest truth of all is the one we seem to find it so hard to communicate. That we are not about trying to be good, but freely, openly admitting we are broken, alienated from this world, each other and our Maker, and that the way back is through one mans sacrifice. That I am accepted as I am, transformed to be what I was meant to be all along, and that I no longer have to try to be anything anymore. I am my Makers, I am in His family and I am free. That’s what we remember today and all this weekend. The immensity of God stepping in to love and bring his enemies home.
The questions ring around in my ears, do I live this freedom? Do I love this freedom? Do I embrace the freedom on offer and live a dangerous, risky life of love utterly secure in who I really am? And am I joyfully
thanking the one who bought this freedom with his life? Am I displaying this freedom to the world around?
Actual Friendship
One of the things to swirl around my brain at the weekend was the genius nature of actual gospel friendship. That sounds like a very jargonified thing. But, what I mean by that is friendship that is based on the fundamental unvarnished truth about each other. Friendship that allows for each other to mess up in the most unbelieveably stupid and sinful ways and still says, I’m for you, and I believe in the power of God to bring good and redeem even this mess of a situation.
This is friendship that goes beyond our illusions of perfect lives that we like to try and maintain, and even goes beyond our acceptable sins, right down to the core of the stinking mess that we like to hide from everyone, including ourselves. For someone to see this mess, and then to not turn away horrified but to continue to love and hold out the message of hope is what the reality of the gospel brings in our lives. We have a God who called us when we were his enemies, and who knows the real state of our hearts, and yet still lavishes his love on us. Our friendships need to reflect this.
Too often I live to impress and think that if I impress enough people with my growth and improvement I’ll have made it. The truth is that I am still a sinner. I still get it wrong, and I seem to find ever more twisted ways of rejecting my Maker. The way of living that lives to impress only serves to keep me living in illusion, I then must do all I can do maintain that illusion and so my soul shrivels. The kind of friendship that sees the flaws, the pride, the mess within and carries on loving and is committed to real change is so breath takingly freeing. We can then be free to be our messed up selves with no illusions, and free to face the reality of grace committed to us whatever. I count myself honoured to have seen that kind of friendship on display through the Relay programe, in the lives of Andy Shudall, Nigel Pollock, Marcus Honeysett and more. Hearing them talk about times when they’ve rebuked each other, and been rebuked by others and seeing that wasn’t the end of the friendship or their story in life and ministry is brilliantly encouraging.
This kind of friendship involves trust, exposure, reality and awareness that we are works in progress, sadly it’s always more surprising to me than others when I discover my sin, but to have people around who know the truth and still offer grace, mercy and love is the best way to reflect the character of our most loving Father.
Delights
Treats that have made me smile, think, ponder, be delighted and made me cry over the last week:
1.Total Church. If you haven’t read it, read it now. Go on. NOW. Read it? Good, now face the challenge. It says things like this:
“I am not autonomous. I am person-in-community. I cannot be who I am without regard to other people… My being in Christ means being in Christ with those others who are in Christ. This is my identity. This is our identity. To fail to live out our corporate identity in Christ is analogous to the act of adultery: We can be Christians and do it but it is not what Christians should do. The loyalties of the new community supersede even the loyalties of biology.”
How that is worked out in community makes up the rest of the book, it’s the first book in a while that has woken my soul up so vigorously.
2.Josh Rouse- Country Mouse, City House. 
One of those beautiful infectious albums that gets under your skin and manages to soothe the soul at the same time. Also the Amy Macdonald album, the new Jack Johnson album, and the joys of the Wombats and their cheery Joy Division song: “Lets dance to Joy Division, and celebrate the Irony, everything is going wrong, but we’re so happy, we’re so happy.” Indeed.
3.Marcus Honeysett at our new CU leaders training weekend. Quotes like “Comfort is not normal for Christians”, “Pleasure in comfort is the opposite of the gospel”, “Faith involves stepping out without knowing the results”, “What’s the worst that could happen? You’d fall on your face, fail and look stupid- that doesn’t matter”, “Are you worshiping Christ every day?”, “In what areas of your life are you likely to cherish comfort more than Christ this year?”. Also: the late night chats, the conviction of sin, the possibilities offered by redemption and the joy of knowing I am a stupid sinner who remains loved and worked on by the Living and True God of all creation. My soul wanting to taste and live reality.
4. Playing the bongos lots, both in the band on the weekend and the Rooted gig last week, apologies for the bad photo…
Poem.
I discovered this on an old tape the other day. Stewart Henderson is a genius poet, you’ll have discovered his way with words if you’ve listened to any Martyn Joseph stuff. He’s best at stabbing into the heart with truth, here’s such an example:
“The Bible that I read interprets poverty as sin
I’d like to prove this now but I’m not sure what part it’s in.
So if you’re in a death camp finding things a little tough,
The reason that you’re there is cos your faith is not enough.
I don’t use words like failure cos everything’s so super
I know that God can heal, and if he can’t there’s always Bupa.
And here I am so famous with a worldwide ministry,
Having scrapped the bleeding Jesus for a prosperous trinity
Marketable, confidence and public platform charm
A rages to riches testimony, a talent to disarm.
And then the big finale with the tax free loud hard sell
No need to trouble acolytes with rumours of a hell.
Now all you people unemployed, no need to feel condemned,
It’s true that you’re all losers, but here’s how to make amends.
Remove the truth of suffering and other dangerous parts,
Encourage self obsession in the Rolls Royce of your hearts.”
(Stewart Henderson.)
The Long Walk Home 