- Steve Richards
- Mar 6, 2020
A 10-year-old schoolboy named Daragh Curley wrote to the Liverpool football manager asking him to lose a few games so that his own beloved Manchester United might have a chance at winning the Premiership. The request was bold, even cheeky. To Daragh’s amazement, he received a letter from Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp. The response was gracious, kindly, with wise and fatherly counsel.
This is an illustration of gracious condescension, giving, as it does, attention to the concerns of one small voice in the midst of a loud clamour. When I read the accounts of Jesus as told in the Gospels, there are a number of instances where people, who would normally be viewed as of little consequence, refused to ‘know their place’. They recognised the power which Jesus had at his disposal (as with Daragh before Klopp). They were prepared to push the limits to get a hearing from the one who might take up their cause.
I think of the blind beggar named Bartimaeus. He was sitting by the roadside. When he heard that it was Jesus passing by, he began to shout, "Jesus have mercy on me!"
People around told him to keep quiet, but he shouted all the more. Jesus stopped and said, "Call him." So they now encouraged him to come over to Jesus. He jumped to his feet and came. Jesus knew, of course, that Bartimaeus wanted to receive his sight but it was necessary for him to acknowledge his specific need, "What do you want me to do for you?" asked Jesus. The blind man said, "Teacher, I want to see" and see he did. So, unlike Daragh’s request, that of Bartimaeus was granted.
One of Jesus’ first missionaries was named Paul. He wrote down a sizeable portion of Christianity’s (New Testament) teaching. Like Bartimaeus, Paul had a health issue and evidence suggests that this was also a sight problem. Paul himself called it his ‘thorn in my flesh’, even going as far as saying it was a messenger of Satan to torment him. He tells us, "Three times I pleaded with the Lord to take it away from me." God didn’t take it away and so, as with Daragh, the request was denied.
God did, however, reply to Paul’s prayer saying, "My grace is sufficient for you”, meaning Paul’s weakness would cause him to rely all the more on God’s love, provision and power. In this way, needy Paul would know the reality of God in a way that if his life was ‘altogether’ he would have missed.
In closing his letter to Daragh, Jurgen Klopp said, "Luckily for you, we have lost games in the past and we will lose games in the future... The problem is, when you are 10 years old, you think that things will always be as they are now but if there is one thing I can tell you, as 52 years old, it is that this most definitely isn't the case."
Yes, things will change. Whether you are riding high at the moment or suffering a painful thorn in your flesh, Christians believe there is value in being bold before Jesus, bringing to him our requests. The answer may be in the manner hoped for or it may be one with a more long-term perspective. Over the centuries, followers of Jesus have been sustained by the words of that missionary named Paul, “…And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.”
- Steve Richards
- Feb 7, 2020
It’s February, the month of Valentine’s Day, and a leap year as well. Tradition has it that on February 29th the initiative for a proposal of marriage rests just as much with the woman as with the man! There may be a number of eligible men out there who have been resistant to the subtle wooing of a female but could be subject to a much bolder approach on the 29th and this will need a response!
We may seek to be attractive to a mate by way of appearance, how one dresses, conducts one’s self and even how we smell. Beauty is important but it is the beauty of the inner person that will captivate the heart of another - beauty that is more than skin deep.
The idea of marriage between a man and woman, together with love and faithfulness is God’s. In the Bible, God uses marriage as a picture of his own relationship with his people.
Now God displays his own attractiveness to each of us. He shows us the glories of his heavens; the trouble he takes in carefully and attentively dressing the flowers of his fields, giving them each both colour and scent; the coats he uses for his animals, birds, insects and fish. He displays his generosity in making food available for all his living creatures. His keen mind, wisdom and understanding should surely make us want to draw close. But like an indifferent bloke, who has no wish to be shackled to a would-be suitor, we all too often resist the eloquent (though metaphorical) words of God as spoken by his creation.
When one considers marriage, an essential element is what a potential partner’s character is like (I would term it their ‘inner- beauty’). We have an inkling of God’s own character built into us. What I mean is, we possess a conscience: we have a sense of right and wrong, a sense of justice and outrage when that justice isn’t forthcoming. All this points us to a God who differentiates between right and wrong and who will require justice in the end.
Our experience of creation is meant to draw us to the creator. That inner voice of conscience ought to alert us to the one who has put it there. For the most part, it would appear that the wooing of this attractive God is too subtle and is easily dismissed. But God does not give up his pursuit.
As with the woman, emboldened by the leap year, who may take the initiative to win her man, God pursues us with a more direct approach than the voice of creation and the giving of conscience has hitherto done. He comes in amongst us in the person of his Son Jesus. In this way, we can see his own attractiveness close up and begin to perceive his love.
May I paraphrase a famous Bible verse (John 3v16). ‘God loves people even in their ugliness of character, to the extent that he sent his only Son in order that whichever of them places their trust in Him should not be cast off at death but welcomed into his eternal embrace.’
A lover may speak of her/his undying love but the coming of Jesus, in order to win us to God, necessitated his dying. ‘Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.’
The need to respond to a woman’s proposal of marriage on the last day of this month cannot easily be sidestepped! Christians are those who have not sidestepped God’s initiative in his declaring of his love for them.
- Steve Richards
- Jan 3, 2020
‘It restores my faith in human nature’ is something one might say following on from an experience of a kindly, loving or compassionate act. The same expression of feeling may be declared when a restorative act of justice or compensation is duly given.
The underlying thought behind the words ‘restores my faith in human nature’ is that once we held a high view of human nature but then something, or multiple things, dented our confidence in it. Then along comes a noble and praiseworthy act which more than counterbalances our temporary lapse of faith in human nature. There is a widespread belief that people, although not perfect, are fundamentally good at heart.
Later this month (Monday 27th), it will be International Holocaust Remembrance Day. Thoughts will be inevitably challenged as to how could such industrial-scale mass murder be perpetrated by people not so very different to us. Was the whole thing a one-off lapse in humanity’s generally good nature? Hardly, since there had been other genocides in the previous decade (notably in Russia and China). There have been more since. The question that forces itself upon us is, ‘Is our human nature naturally good, or not?’
I believe that there is a danger that the scale of the horrors of the Holocaust can blind us to the fact that the estimated 6 million who died were individual people, as also were the perpetrators of this ‘Final Solution’. So, when I as an individual play the blame game; speak maliciously or cruelly, or think or act with hatred; are racially partisan or simply turn a blind eye to what is obviously wrong, am I any different to those who implemented the horrors of Auschwitz, Belsen, Treblinka etc?
We may think that the trajectory of this line of thought is an unacceptable indictment on the majority of people and that such a critique only should apply to a minority. Jesus, however, and the teaching of his immediate followers would confirm the uncomfortable conclusion that the heart of humanity’s problem is the problem of the human heart.
Thankfully, in the gospel of John we read, ‘For God did not send his Son [Jesus] into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him.’ Once again it is individuals which make up ‘the world’ as referred to here.
Jesus himself, the Jew par excellence, personally experienced hatred, persecution and finally murder. His death, however, was not in vain: it had a central purpose in God’s long-term plan for people.
Jesus could say, ‘Who can accuse me of sin?’ and no one could, because, unlike us, he did not have a flawed human nature. So, when he died at the hands of people who, in essentials, were like us, God raised him to life again.
In a similar way that it may be argued that the rebirth of the nation of Israel was borne out of the awfulness of the Holocaust, so the awfulness of the death of Jesus brings a different sort of rebirth for men and women. In what way? If we own up to our broken human nature; ask Jesus for God’s forgiveness of all the bad things that spill from our hearts; and trust that he is both able and willing to forgive, it will result in a spiritual rebirth and will plant within us a new type of nature.
The 27th January is a call to remembrance, to reflect and learn. A Christian missionary, of around 70 years ago, named Norman Grubb, spoke of those who carried out the Holocaust. He said, ‘These were not primitive savages or so-called heathen but members of a so-called Christian nation. Let us beware, and learn, for all are alike in their basic nature.’