Mike's musings

One hour

(backposting) I went down to the bar for a drink before going out with some folks from the meeting tonight, and sat next to a guy who was reading through some record cards. They were clearly short texts from the Bible, and I asked him about them. He works for IBM, but also has a lay ministry working, mainly with homeless people, on helping people beyond just "accepting Christ" and further into trying to the lift the veil that is made up of our past experience and clinging to idols, and moving to a closer experience of God. He attends a Methodist church, but isn't strongly demonminational.

An interesting chat, and one of the things that he sometimes says to people is "imagine that Jesus is sitting in the next room, and you have just one hour to spend with him. What would you do?" He says that many people shy away. I don't think I would, but I became sad thinking about how what I suspect I'd find most difficult: I think Jesus might want to wash my feet, and I'm not sure how well I'd cope.

Labels: Christ, humility, theology

Good Friday

(backposting) For me, this is the most theologically charged day of the Christian calendar. For reasons not worth enumerating, I knew from early in the day that I wasn't going to get a chance to go to a church service, which was difficult. I managed, however, to find 20 minutes or so to sit down with my laptop and listen to Tallis' "Lamentations of Jeremiah", streamed from home. We need to take the spiritual comfort we can, when we can, and this saw me through.

We had a good day, and the evening's meal ended up with my trying to explain the intricacies of the Anglican hierarchy to the assembled throng -

• Mac: I don't see why we don't just call all priests "vicars"
• Me: For the same reason that we don't call all doctors "GPs"

- and then talking about vocation - mine, and others. It was interesting, and an important part of my ministry, I think: to be open to the questions and probings of those around with little faith or none, but at least showing an interest.

Managed to make the end of a party in SecondLife to mark the opening of a new area for faith groups called Koinonia. Only stayed for a while, but caught up with a few friends, listened to the live music, etc., so at least I made an appearance.

Good Friday - some theology

Looking back on this post, I thought that I ought to spend a little time talking about why Good Friday is so theologically charged for me. There are other candidates, of course: Christmas, when the Word was made Flesh and dwelt among us; Easter, when Christ rose again from the dead in glory; Pentecost, when the disciples, remaining behind, unsure and leaderless, were gifted with the Holy Spirit and given a reality to their commission. These are the most obvious, but for me, it has to be Good Friday. Without the death of Christ on the cross, none of the rest of it would make sense, or have any substance. It is the rending of the curtain of the temple, the destruction of the split between heaven and earth, the kenosis, the moment when, in death, Jesus, a man, suffered and became Christ, our God. I should qualify that last statement: I don't mean that Jesus was not God before his death on the cross - that way lies heresy! - but that this moment is where the reality is revealed, the single moment of history on which the rest of the created order turns.

Easter is now possible: Christ, the propitiation for our sins, can rise in glory (but what a tear-obscured rising in the garden!). Christmas suddenly makes sense: there is a reason why God has made an appearance. And Pentecost is where we, God's church, need to take over the witness.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem: convertere ad Dominum Deum tuum.

Jerusalem, Jerusalem: turn to the Lord your God.

Labels: Christ, death, music, party, secondlife, theology

Ipswich

Christ is the prostitute, the working girl, the hooker, the drug addict.

Christ is the john, the trick, the punter.

Christ is the policeman, the detective, the filth.

Christ is the journalist, the cameraman, the presenter.

Christ is the viewer, the reader, the listener.

Christ is the father, the mother, the sister, the brother.

God the Father, the Son, and the Holy Ghost, dies every time we sin. Every time we fail to live up to the promise that is in us, every time we reject Him/Her, every time we look the other way, every time we watch without seeing, every time we read without understanding, every time we hear without listening. God is always already there, in the sin, in the pain, in the dying.

But Jesus rises in every kind word, in every attempt to help, in every moment of empathy, in every tear, in every penny freely given, in every smile loosed.

Labels: Christ, death, Ipswich, murder, prostitute, rape, resurrection