- Steve Richards
- Apr 13, 2017
Thomas was a brave, cautious and questioning soul. He was amongst Jesus’ close followers. When Jesus announced that he was going to a neighbourhood where, recently, an attempt had been made on his life, Thomas was first to say that he’d go with him.
Days later, Jesus told his followers that he was leaving them, but that they knew the way to the place he was going. Distressed, Thomas pointed out that as he and his fellow disciples didn’t know where Jesus was going, how could they know the way?
The answer he was given was typical of the claims Jesus was making: statements that would be instrumental in his crucifixion which was just hours away. The claim? ‘I am the Way and the Truth and the Life.’
Knowing he was about to die and return to God his father, Jesus said that he himself was the only Way into God’s heaven.
Today, we hear about fake news and alternative truth. Jesus says that he himself is the origin of all Truth.
Jesus was put to death because he made claims about himself which no other man had ever made (or has made since) and performed various miracles to support his words. Who put Jesus to death on that first Good Friday? The connivance of religious, political and military authorities is the historical answer. Yet at a more profound level, it seems to me, that whenever we reject the claims of Jesus we, in effect, join in with the crowd on that Good Friday; the crowd that cried, ‘Away with him; crucify him!’
Jesus had said, ‘I am the Life’ and on the following Sunday, he rose from the dead. Thomas was not present with his friends when they first saw the resurrected Jesus. He was unwilling to take their word on trust. He wanted to see Jesus with his own eyes and touch him with his own hand. Subsequently, Jesus granted this whilst saying, ‘Stop doubting and believe’. The humbled Thomas could do nothing other than confess, ‘My Lord and my God’. Loving words of rebuke followed, ‘Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.’
Doubting Thomas was being taught that, concerning the things of Jesus, the natural inclination is to want to know for sure in order to believe. However, God’s way for us is to believe in order to know. The latter is called Christian faith.
- Steve Richards
- Mar 3, 2017
Shirley’s regeneration continues with the imminent demolishing of the PowerGen buildings.
In defining the actual word ‘regeneration’, we understand that there were two previous stages: firstly there was generation; this was followed by degeneration leading to the need for regeneration. There is a continuity between the thing generated and that which is regenerated. Think of the Castle Vale estate. In the 1960s, much planning and money went into generating a new community village to liberate people living in the inner-city slums. Just 25 years later, the area had degenerated and become a place where many people preferred not to live. Castle Vale was ready for regeneration. This happened, starting with the demolition of tower blocks in 1995 and then later, the building of new, better appointed homes for the residents. This necessitated some temporary disruption for people’s lives, but this was offset by the hope of what lay ahead.
This bit of local history can serve as an illustration of what the Christian message is about. It says God generated the heavens and the earth. He then formed man out of the clay he had made but, like electricity needs a generator, the man lacked life and needed to be generated by God’s own spirit. This is why the Bible says God ‘breathed into the man’s nostrils’.
Things started well, God and man were getting along fine. God showed himself to be generous. Everything in the garden was rosy but for that one fruit tree which God told the man and his wife not to touch. They touched it. As a result, everything, material and spiritual, went into decline. Degeneration was evident everywhere, most notably in the breakdown in relations between God and the man and woman who were God’s special creation and bore his very own image.
From that time on, God has been steadily working on his own major regeneration project. He has appointed a hands-on project manager who shares his vision perfectly. It is his own Son Jesus Christ. We are told that the plan is to give men and women a second birth or rebirth. Now it is by God himself that we need to be reborn or regenerated spiritually, so that we can truly grow into his likeness. We are called to believe that Jesus is indeed God’s right hand man; that in a profound way Jesus’ crucifixion has cleared a way for his regenerating work to happen within us. We are told by Jesus and those he commissioned to be teachers, that this regeneration will, one day, extend to the whole created order.
In the meanwhile, does the idea of God setting to work within you stir your heart? If so, tell him about it.
- Steve Richards
- Jan 2, 2017
For me, one of the more heart-warming news items to hit the headlines during 2016 concerned the Archbishop of Canterbury, Justin Welby. In April he was presented with the fact that the man he had grown up with and known as Dad, and whom he would later care for through testing circumstances, was not his biological father. He had to cope with the news in the full spotlight of the media. How would he respond to this potential identity crisis?
He encouraged many Christians and offered hope to many struggling people from all faiths and none, by declaring ‘I know that I find who I am in Jesus Christ, not in genetics, and my identity in him never changes.’
Personal identity is an issue for many: displaced persons, refugees, victims of broken relationships and those questioning their gender identity and sexual orientation. Questions such as, ‘Who am I?’, ‘Where do I belong?’ or ‘What am I here for?’ may come to the surface more readily for these people than they do for others.
The Christian message addresses this issue of identity. It focuses the matter by asking all of us what is our identity in relation to God? This is important because we don’t want to find ourselves, on the Final Day, as being outside of God’s family, alone and lost.
Many of Jesus’ Jewish contemporaries, especially the self-sufficient and religious, were banking on their ancestry and religiosity. After all, weren’t the Jews God’s chosen people? Jesus had to disabuse them of their confidence. Similarly, today some people are hoping that by being religious, having a decent upbringing and living by a comparatively good moral code, God ought to see them alright at the end.
Jesus is the only man to walk the earth who had his own identity perfectly sorted. He knew where he came from, what he came for and to where he was going. The Christian gospel is about how we can become a brother or sister of Jesus. Whoever is so united to him will, of course, find themselves also being children of Jesus’ Heavenly Father. That’s the identity which matters to Justin Welby and to many others also, me included.
Now maybe no one has ever told you all that before; it is a lot to take on board. As a New Year’s resolution, why not find yourself a Bible-teaching church to go to and learn more?