Christ was Anguish

Christ was all anguish that I might be all joy,
cast off that I might be brought in,
trodden down as an enemy
that I might be welcomed as a friend,
surrendered to hell’s worst
that I might attain heaven’s best,
stripped that I might be clothed,
wounded that I might be healed,
athirst that I might drink,
tormented that I might be comforted,
made a shame that I might inherit glory,
entered darkness that I might have eternal light.
My Saviour wept that all tears might be wiped from my eyes,
groaned that I might have endless song,
endured all pain that I might have unfading health,
bore a thorny crown that I might have a glory-diadem,
bowed his head that I might uplift mine,
experienced reproach that I might receive welcome,
closed his eyes in death that I might gaze on unclouded brightness,
expired that I might for ever live.
O Father, who spared not thine only Son that thou mightest spare me,
All this transfer thy love designed and accomplished;
Help me to adore thee by lips and life.
O that my every breath might be ecstatic praise,
my every step buoyant with delight, as I see my enemies crushed,
Satan baffled, defeated, destroyed,
sin buried in the ocean of reconciling blood,
hell’s gates closed, heaven’s portal open.
Go forth, O conquering God, and show me the cross, mighty to subdue, comfort and save.

- Puritan Prayer from The Valley of Vision.

Advice for Rookie Theologians

"The theological beginner should concentrate on his study in its own right during his few years at the seminary or university, for these years will not return. It is no doubt unwise, if not dangerous, when, instead of such concentration, the beginner flings himself beforehand into all sorts of Christian activities and ruminates on them, or even stands with one foot already in an office of the Church, as is customary in certain countries.

Nevertheless, this admonition does not alter the fact that the service of God and the service of man are the meaning, horizon, and goal of theological work." - Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology, pp. 186-87.

The Word of God is not Bound

"The word of God is not bound. God speaks, and the world is made; God speaks and the world is remade by the Word Incarnate. And our human speaking struggles to keep up. We need, not human words that will decisively capture what the Word of God has done and is doing, but words that will show us how much time we have to take in fathoming this reality, helping us turn and move and see, from what may be infinitesimally different perspectives, the patterns of light and shadow in a world where the Word's light has been made manifest. It is no accident that the Gospel which most unequivocally identifies Jesus as the Word made flesh is the Gospel most characterised by this same circling, hovering, recapitulatory style, as if nothing in human language could ever be a 'last' word. 'The world itself could not contain the books that should be written' says the Fourth Evangelist, resigning himself to finishing a Gospel that is in fact never finishable in human terms." - Rowan Williams, The Martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer - Sermon at Service to Commemorate the 450th Anniversary

The Elizabethan Divines

This is just a theory of mine, but it feels like this second Elizabethan reign has been a golden age for British theology. Not that a British Institutes or Church Dogmatics has been written during this time - don't would be totally un-British. But over the past few decades, they has been an amazing group of theologians lecturing, publishing and serving the church in the UK and around the world. They are all theologians born during or in the period immediately after WWII: Rowan Williams, NT Wright, Oliver O'Donovan, Richard Bauckham, Colin Gunton, John Webster, Jeremy Begbie, Alister McGrath and so on. Building on the work of the like of Moule, Caird, Torrance and Chadwick, they've all contributed to the growth of the church in their own unique way.

As they start to retire, it will be interesting to see who replaces them in the church and the academy.

What Heaven Wants

I've been reading an article for college by William H. Willimon (of Resident Aliens fame) on the power of the Spirit of the Risen Jesus to create unity amongst cultural diversity and plurality.

The gospel is deferential and accommodating to no particular culture; rather, it is indoctrination, inculcation into a new and oddly based culture, namely the church. Thus Peter remembers Joel's prophetic vision of the crossing of gender, age, and social barriers (2:17-18). The result of Pentecostal empowerment by the Sprit is baptism (2:38), adoption by and enculturation into a new people, a holy nation, a light to all other nations, cultures, clubs, and means of human gathering. Thus many interpreters have seen Luke's list of hearers as an echo of the list of nations in Genesis 10. Pentecost is a day in which the linguistic divisions of Babel (Gen. 11) are healed. The same God who scattered the nations in order to prevent a united nations against God, now gathers and unites the nations in a new nation convened by God. The church is a sign on earth (2:19) of what heaven wants.

Willimon concludes the article with these heavy hitting words:

Acts says we are right to see the multicultural composition of our congregations as a kind of test of the fidelity of our preaching. I think Acts would also tell us that, whenever by the grace of God our preaching overcomes some cultural boundary, we are right to rejoice that God continues to work wonders through the word. Whenever we hear "multicultural" we are supposed to think "church," that peculiar cross-cultural people gathered by nothing other than the descent of the Holy Spirit.

It makes we wonder if we in increasingly diverse Sydney would meet this standard. "...[T]he multicultural composition of our congregations as a kind of test of the fidelity of our preaching."

Tremble

I've been working on a sermon for church on Jesus crucifixion. On reflection, I can't think of any other event that has been so consistently mediated upon. This one moment in human history has been the subject had been reflected in poetry, in prose and in paintings. I find that quite incredible. I've had the song "Where you there when the crucified my Lord?" rolling around my head this week - I remember singing it at an early morning church service at Easter a few years ago. But when it's in my head, I always imagine Johnny Cash singing it:

Ash Wednesday

Prayers from the Service of Commination (for Ash Wednesday) from the BCP 1662.

"O LORD, we beseech thee, mercifully hear our prayers, and spare all those who confess their sins unto thee; that they, whose consciences by sin are accused, by thy merciful pardon may be absolved; through Christ our Lord. Amen.

O MOST mighty God, and merciful Father, who hast compassion upon all men, and hatest nothing that thou hast made; who wouldest not the death of a sinner, but that he should rather turn from his sin, and be saved: Mercifully forgive us our trespasses; receive and comfort us, who are grieved and wearied with the burden of our sins. Thy property is always to have mercy; to thee only it appertaineth to forgive sins. Spare us therefore, good Lord, spare thy people, whom thou hast redeemed; enter not into judgement with thy servants, who are vile earth, and miserable sinners; but so turn thine anger from us, who meekly acknowledge our vileness, and truly repent us of our faults, and so make haste to help us in this world, that we may ever live with thee in the world to come; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

TURN thou us, O good Lord, and so shall we be turned. Be favourable, O Lord, Be favourable to thy people, Who turn to thee in weeping, fasting, and praying. For thou art a merciful God, Full of compassion. Longsuffering, and of great pity. Thou sparest when we deserve punishment, And in thy wrath thinkest upon mercy. Spare thy people, good Lord, spare them, And let not thine heritage be brought to confusion. Hear us, O Lord, for thy mercy is great, And after the multitude of thy mercies look upon us; Through the merits and mediation of thy blessed Son, Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

THE Lord bless us, and keep us; the Lord lift up the light of his countenance upon us, and give us peace, now and for evermore. Amen."

Guest Post: Ideas About Landscape

A Guest Post by Alison Moffitt. Originally Posted Here.

We're home now. During our long drive we saw lots and lots of beautiful landscapes and I spent a lot of time mulling over the things I saw.

Often I get sad thinking about how the beautiful landscapes I love now might disappear when Jesus comes back. When he makes the new heavens and the new earth, who's to say it will look like the same?

But then maybe when we are completely and finally sanctified and standing with Christ we won't want to look at these landscapes anymore. We turn a blind eye to it now - it's easy to forget that these beautiful landscapes are marred by sin. How many people have been dispossessed for others to take and shape the landscape? How many workers have been oppressed to clear fields and build the dams that divert the water further up the catchment? How many habitats have been ruined and how extensive the environmental degradation for the sake of turning a profit? When you think about it, many of the beautiful landscapes we revel in now are tainted with the greed and opression of past generations.

I'm sure that in the new creation we will have landscapes which are just as beautiful as the ones we love here, but where no one's blood is crying out from the soil.

For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth,
and the former things shall not be remembered or come into mind.
But be glad and rejoice forever in that which I create;
for behold, I create Jerusalem to be a joy, and her people to be a gladness.
Isaiah 65:17-18

20 Centuries in 20 Posts Part V a

The Coming of Christendom

Intro | Part I | Part II | Part III | Part IV | Appendix

It is no exaggeration to say that the fourth century had (and continues to have) an impact on the church. For three hundred years Jesus words “If they me persecuted me, they will persecute you” had been a feature in the life of the church inside and outside Roman Empire. Yet, as we saw in the previous post, the more the church was persecuted, the more it grew. “The blood of the martyrs,” declared Tertullian, “was the seed of the church”.

The imperial campaign against the church continued in the fourth century. However, by the close of the fourth century Christianity had moved from being an illegal, “destabilising” movement within the empire to the imperially endorsed religion of the state. The paradigm of how the church had related to society and the government for three hundred years suddenly changed. The coming of Christendom, as we now know it, turned the old realities on their head and created a moment of confusion for the Church. Many readers will be familiar with the theological reverberations this caused; the fourth and fifth centuries witnessed intense and often violent theological debates about the nature of Christianity. Who is Jesus, and how does he relate to the Father? We’ll explore these debates much more fully in the post five. In this post, I want to focus on the impact the fourth century had how the church conceived of government and itself. Firstly, let me set the scene.

Background
When Diocletian died in 311AD, the outlook for Christians within the Roman Empire looked grim. As Emperor, Diocletian had instigated a wide spread campaign persecution against the Christians in 303AD, which continued unabated after his abdication in 304AD. What we now know as the Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last imperial persecution of Christians. It was also the widest ranging and the most violent.

It is said that Diocletian was inspired to renew the anti-Christian actions of the third century when, on a visit to the prophet in Didyma to obtain a divine oracle, he was told the presence of Christians in the empire had rendered the god silent. Beginning on 23 February 303, the feast of the Terminalia, for Terminus, the god of boundaries, the program to terminate the Christian presence within the empire began. In a series of edicts, Christians gradually lost their rights: churches and Bibles were destroyed, Christian senators and soldiers lost their rank, former slaves were re-enslaved, and Christians lost the right to properly defend themselves before the courts. Christians were also forced to make sacrifices to the Roman gods; those who refused faced imprisonment, torture and even death. The fourth century writer Eusebius records that the Roman prisons could not handle the volume of Christians being arrested and ordinary criminals had to be released from prison.

Diocletian’s successors continued to wage war on the Church after his abdication, even through six years of civil war. The decisive moment came in 312AD when the Emperor Constantine defeated Maxentius in the Battle of Milvian Bridge, leaving Constantine as the sole ruler of the western empire. However, Constantine claimed to have freed Rome from the yoke of tyranny in the name of Christ – his soldiers having fought at Milvian Bridge with standards that displayed the "Chi-Rho" symbol ☧, formed from the first two Greek letters of the word Christ.

Over the next 25 years of his reign, Constantine not only made a large impact on Roman politics, uniting the empire under his rule; he has played an important and increasing role in the life of the church: he officially ended the persecution of Christians (in the western empire through the Edict of Milan in 313, and in 324 in the eastern empire); launched a large scale campaign to build churches throughout the empire (such as the Church of the Holy Sepulchre in Jerusalem and the original St Basilica’s in Rome), moved the capital city to Byzantium (dedicating the city as Constantinople solely to Christ and not the ancient gods of Rome); and organised the first ecumenical council to determine the theology of the church at Nicaea in 325.

With one exception, Constantine’s successors continued these policies; in 380 Christianity was effectively declared the state religion of the empire. In 392, with the structure that had supported it for centuries crumbling around it, pagan worship was banned within the empire. Rome – long the persecutor of the church, was now lead by Emperors who not only endorsed but also sought to actively promote the interests of the church.

How would the Christians respond to these new circumstances?



Images:

Top: Christ Between Peter and Paul, 4th century; Catacomb of Saints Marcellinus and Peter on the Via Labicana. "Christ with the book of the Gospels is seated between Peter and Paul. Below, the Lamb is standing in the centre on a hill, from which flow out the four symbolic rivers of Scripture. To the sides are the most venerated Martyrs, with their names: Gorgonius, Peter, Marcellinus, Tiburtius, all acclaiming the Lamb" (Christian Catacombs of Rome).

Middle: The Battle of Milvian Bridge, by Giulio Romano. From the Vatican City, Apostolic Palace.

Bottom: A coin of Constantine (c.337) showing a depiction, and on the reverse his labarum with the "Chi-Rho" symbol ☧ spearing a serpent.

Church and the Word

"The community is confronted and created by the Word of God. It is the communion of the saints because it is the gathering of the faithful [believing]. As such it is the confederation of witnesses, who may and must speak because they believe.

The community does not speak with words alone. It speaks by the very fact of its existence in the world; by its characteristic attitude to world problems; and moreover and especially, by its silent service to all the handicapped, weak and needy in the world. It speaks, finally, by the simple fact that it prays for the world.

The community does all this because this is the purpose of its summons [into existence] by the Word of God. It cannot avoid doing these things, since it believes." - Karl Barth, Evangelical Theology

Sober Words

"The English evangelicals who arranged for Richard Johnson to be chaplain to the first fleet had envisaged the distant new settlement as a place from which the Christian gospel would emanate. Such a thought was hardly likely to have occupied the attention of the first settlers with the exception, perhaps of Johnson himself. It was no doubt far from the mind of the Christians among the convicts, transported across the world against their will.

Yet, however unwittingly, however imperfectly, however inadequately, they did carry the knowledge of Christ to these shores. But the Christian settlers were few and their light was feeble. It is one of the great tragedies of the recent history if Australia that true Christianity was for so long so very difficult to discern in the life of this outpost of a distant nation which called itself Christan." - John Harris, One Blood.

HGP Relfections II

I recently completed a ministry traineeship at Sydney University with the EU Grads Fund and the Sydney University Evangelical Union. Over the next couple of days I'll be posting some of my reflections on the past two years.

Love the Church

"And he put all things under his feet and gave him as head over all things to the church..."

Over dinner at a conference I recently attended I heard a theological college graduand explain his decision to head into full time student ministry in 2012. He said he wanted to be involved in a ministry where he could pastor people, teach the bible and especially see people transformed by the Spirit of Christ and grow in their faith. And as far as he could see, there was no opportunity at all for this to happen in church-based ministry. Hence his move into student ministry.

It was a conversation that made me quite sad. If Ephesians one is right and the church really is the Jesus' body, than the church is something to be loved, and not despised. Jesus is the head, the church is his body, made up of his people, and so you love his church. And I don't just mean your local congregation you meet with on Sunday. I'm talking about the one true holy catholic and apostolic church, the church that God works through to make his wisdom known to the world (Ephesians 3.1-10), and the church that Jesus died for (Ephesians 5).

One of my peculiarities is that I've spent the past five years working parachurch organizations: three years with CMS and two years with the EU Grads Fund/Sydney University Evangelical Union. During my traineeship I've had time to reflect on both organizations and something that has impressed me about both organizations is that they know who they are. They understand that they are not churches, but as parachurch groups they exist to serve the church. Not every parachurch organization remembers this.

For a long time now I've been impressed by how the SUEU and the EUGF have sought to be a blessing to the church. The students in the EU are exhorted and encouraged to not only belong to, but to also thoughtfully serve their local church. The training they receive as students will hopefully equip them to serve not only during their time at uni, but also for the rest of their lives. And vision of the EUGF is to see hundreds and thousands of Sydney Uni graduates flood the church ready to serve wherever they find themselves. It's all about helping the church be the church.

Love the church, because it's Jesus church.

HGP Reflections

I recently completed a ministry traineeship at Sydney University with the EU Grads Fund and the Sydney University Evangelical Union. Over the next couple of days I'll be posting some of my reflections on the past two years.

Jesus is Building his Church

"...I will build my church, and the gates of hades shall not prevail against it."

Jesus promises to build his church. And he does - in two ways. Sometimes it is like the mustard seed in Mark 4. This tiny, most insignificant of seeds, grows into a tree that is so large that there is room for all the birds of the air to nest in its branches (a reference back to Jeremiah and Ezekiel for the Gentiles coming to nest in Israel). Jesus grows his church as more and more people are brought from death to life. And praise be to God, during my two years we saw over 40 university students put their faith in the risen and reigning Lord Jesus.

Jesus builds his church in both size and breadth. He also grows his church in depth. His church grows as people understand him more and more and live out the implications of knowing him. One of the joys of my two years at Sydney University was being apart if people's lives and helping them in submitting every aspect of their life under the Lordship of Jesus Christ. This may have been in helping students develop a "Biblical worldview" and be shaped by a Christian mind. This sometimes looked like helping students think through how the should think or feel about different things. And sometimes this looked like helping students repent of various deeds and take a different course of action. And though it all people were growing in their faith and conviction.

Jesus is building his church. He's on for church growth; and we should be too. Not even death will overcome his church. Jesus builds his church.

A Sign of God's Purpose

An excerpt from a most excellent sermon Archbishop Rowan Williams gave on Sunday in Harare, Zimbawe. Worth checking out:

"This Eucharist is the sign of God's purpose for all of us; it is a feast in which all are fed with Christ's new life, in which there is no distinction of race, tribe or party. In this community there can be no place for violence or for retaliation: we stand together, sinners in need of grace, proclaiming to the world that there is room at God's table for all people equally. What the Church has to say to the society around it, whether here or in Britain, is not to advance a political programme but to point to the fact of this new creation, this fellowship of justice and joy, this universal feast... The message we want to send from this Eucharistic celebration is that we do not have to live like that – in terror, in bloodshed. God has given us another way. He has opened a door of possibility that no-one can shut. He has announced that he will welcome all to the marriage feast of his Son – and so we see that all, even our bitterest enemies, still have a place in his peace if they will only turn and be saved. Did you hear what St Paul said in today's epistle? 'Fill your minds with those things that are good and that deserve praise: things that are noble, right, pure, lovely and honourable.' We need to feed ourselves and most especially to feed our young people with such things, to hold before us that great new possibility opened up by God for our minds to be transformed, to be excited not by the false thrills of violence and bloody conflict, by the overheated language of party conflict, but by the hope of joy and reconciliation." - Rowan Williams

A Rant: The Homogeneous Unit Principle

A rant placed here mainly for my own benefit:

Like attracts like, right? So if you are wanting to reach Transylvanian lumberjacks with the gospel, the most effective way to do it is to start a church for Transylvanian lumberjacks. After all, there are plenty of parachurch organisations that operate on this principle and they seem to have a fruitful ministry in reaching their particular group. So this ministry tactic is naturally transferable to churches?

No! In this instance we can not allow ourselves to be guided by pragmatism. This is a danger we must be on our guard against because it is a denial of the gospel. The church is the place that welcomes everyone: Jew and Greek, slave and free, male and female, the rich, the socially excluded, even the Transylvanian lumberjack. But the vision of the New Testament is that they are welcomed into God's church together:

"May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. For I tell you that Christ became a servant to the circumcised to show God's truthfulness, in order to confirm the promises given to the patriarchs, and in order that the Gentiles might glorify God for his mercy. As it is written, 'Therefore I will praise you among the Gentiles, and sing to your name.'" Romans 15. 5-9

And again:

"This mystery is that the Gentiles are fellow heirs, members of the same body, and partakers of the promise in Christ Jesus through the gospel." Ephesians 3.6

As the church proclaims Jesus, the Holy Spirit brings different types of people together to form the church, God's new humanity (cf. Ephesians 2.11 ff.). Churches modelled on the homogenous unit principle deny this reality. And yet God uses this reality to declare to the world the wisdom of his plan to unite all things - even Jews and Gentiles - under Christ (Eph.3.10). It is through this that God ends hostility and brings peace to his creation.

Churches modeled on the homogenous unit principle reinforce to the world the exclusions and segmentations the world has created. We are in danger of denying the power of God to bring peace to the world.