Jesus Came... as a Light (John 12.37-46)

Introduction

I was looking at a Calvin and Hobbes cartoon this week in which Calvin’s mum and dad are unable to sleep in the middle of the night. Mum says, “Are you still awake too?”

And dad says, “Mm-hmm. I was thinking. It’s funny… when I was a kid, I thought grown-ups never worried about anything. I trusted my parents to take care of everything, and it never occurred to me that they might not know how. I figured that once you grew up, you automatically knew what to do in any given scenario. I don’t think I’d have been in such a hurry to reach adulthood if I’d known the whole thing was going to be ad-libbed.”

Well, I think that’s brilliant. And I think that’s what many people feel, especially parents of kids like Calvin. If you know the comic strip, you’ll understand.

We’ve been looking at some of different reasons why Jesus came, as we prepare to celebrate his coming to earth at Christmas.

• He came not to judge the world but to save the world. 
• He came not to be served but to serve. 
• He came not to abolish but to fulfil the law.

Last week, Erin was telling us about what Jesus himself said, “I came to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”

Today, we’re going to focus on another reason he gave as to why he came to earth.

And it’s in John 12.46 - “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.”

This is great news for people who lie awake all night worrying that their ad-libbing of life is not going well.

Context of John 12

If you were a preacher, and you knew that your next sermon would be your last, what do you think you might say? … You wouldn’t waste time with frivolities. I think you would choose a theme of fundamental and crucial importance.

Well, our reading from John’s Gospel today is Jesus’ very last public sermon.

Let’s just get our bearings as we focus in on John chapter 12. It’s important to understand when all this takes place. It starts with Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume (v1-11, which we looked at a month ago).

Then it continues with Jesus entering Jerusalem on Palm Sunday (v12-19). So, this chapter is situated in the very last week of Jesus’ earthly life.

The next section (v20-36), is one last and desperate attempt to distract Jesus from what he came to do. It says in v20 that some Greeks arrive in Jerusalem looking for him.

There was a Greek community, south east of Lake Galilee, that settled as a kind of colony after the time of Alexander the Great about 300 years earlier. They built a network of small villages, and they gave them a Greek name; Deca (meaning ten) and Polis (meaning town) - the Decapolis.

Mark’s Gospel tells us that Jesus had been there before, at least twice in fact. The first time he went, he delivered a demon-possessed man, resulting in the eradication of the entire local pig population. Yeah, ministry with Jesus does get a bit messy sometimes...

Being abruptly deprived of their supply of bacon made the locals unhappy, understandably I think, so they asked Jesus to leave. Which he did.

But sometime later, Jesus returned to heal a deaf and mute man, and he more than made up for the bacon incident by feeding 4,000 people with 7 loaves and a few small fish. After that, the locals began to warm to him a bit more.  

Which goes to show, if you’ve got the catering sorted in church, there’s a good chance the church will grow.

Anyway, in John 12.20, a Greek delegation arrives looking for Jesus, presumably so he can accompany them on a comeback tour.

And Jesus, in his full humanity, is torn two ways. If he leaves Jerusalem now, he can be adored by a crowd where he is growing in popularity. And - nice little bonus - it means he avoids the cross, which he is absolutely dreading.

In v27, you see how conflicted he is; “Now my soul is troubled,” he says. “What shall I say? Father, save me from this hour?” “I could walk away from this violence, and public rejection, and anguish, and flogging, and crucifixion, and excruciating death altogether.”

And then he settles the matter. “No,” he says, “it was for this very reason that I came to this hour.”  I didn’t come to be a rock star. I came to lay down my life.

Here’s why Jesus came; to suffer and die in your place and mine. To pay the price for sin, and pay it in full, so we have no debt left towards God. To take the horrific consequences of this broken world on himself. That’s why he came; it wasn’t about the straw in the manger. It was about the thorns on the cross.

Then, from v37, as I said, John tells us about Jesus’ last public sermon.

And here’s how it starts, v37. “Even after Jesus had performed so many signs in their presence, [they were eye witnesses of amazing things] they still would not [note that word, “would not”] believe in him.

Days before, (chapter 11) Jesus had raised from the grave a man called Lazarus; his corpse was well past rigor mortis, it was now beginning to putrefy and decompose. He had been dead four days.

Jesus says, ”No, we’re not having that, I’m going to raise him up. I am the resurrection and the life. Take the seal off the tomb and roll the stone away.”

They say to him, “No Lord, please don’t do that. This is the Middle-East. It’s hot and humid. The smell will be overwhelming.” Jesus says, “Never mind that. Go on, open it.”

So reluctantly, holding their noses, expecting the gagging reflex at any time, they roll the tombstone to one side. Jesus calls, “Lazarus, come out!” with such firmness, with such conviction, with such authority, that Lazarus does not dare stay put.

At the word of Christ, his heart begins to beat again. His feet begin to tingle and he wiggles his toes. He gets up off his stone slab, and out he comes, breathing again, healthy as fresh fruit. And Jesus says, “Right, take all that burial linen off, he won’t be needing that, and let him go.”

Listen, however bound up in worry, and despair, and death, and sin, you are today, Jesus has the authority to say this morning, “Unbind him. Unbind her. Let them go free.”

This is what the people with Jesus in John 12 have just witnessed, only days before. It’s still fresh in the memory. But still, even after that, it’s scarcely believable but the Bible says here that some people didn’t put their faith in him. 

1. Unbelief (v37)

So here’s the first reason Jesus came as a light. It was to cast out the darkness of unbelief.

50 years ago this day, the crew of Apollo 8; Frank Borman, Bill Anders and Jim Lovell were on their way to the moon. They would become the first humans to ever enter the moon’s orbit and swing round the back of it.

They took this iconic earthrise photo as they emerged from the far side of the moon and they quoted from Genesis 1; “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth, and darkness was over the face of the deep.”

It was that darkness; that complete and absolute, jet-black, inky darkness of the heavens, when you look at them in the void of space, without the filter of our atmosphere, that really struck them. They said that, from the moon, the earth seems to be the only colourful thing in the universe.

In the physical world, total darkness, with no light at all, is actually the natural state of the universe. We need the sun and an atmosphere to turn the sky blue. God has to say, “Let there be light” for there to be any colour, and any visibility of anything at all.

Spiritually, Jesus is the light of life. He spoke of hell as a place of perpetual, outer darkness. And the Book of Revelation speaks of heaven as so full of life that you don’t even need the sun because Jesus is all the light you need.

The former Bishop of London Richard Chartres, once said that, when Jesus was born, there was brightness at midnight; and when he died, the sun hid its face and there was darkness at midday.

Spiritual darkness is a closed mind. The biologist and atheist Richard Dawkins says that Christian faith is a delusion. It is us, he says, who are stuck in the dark ages, ignorant and unenlightened. Many agree with him.

But John’s Gospel explains here what’s really going on, quoting Isaiah in v39:

It isn’t just that they would not believe; it says here that they could not believe.

“[God] has blinded their eyes and hardened their hearts,

so they can neither see with their eyes,

nor understand with their hearts,

nor turn—and I would heal them.”

It’s saying what we know to be true. Everybody here knows someone who, the more you talk to them about Jesus, the less they believe, because they have already rejected God.

If you have already decided that the good news about Jesus is not true, your heart grows harder and harder against it. And God actually blinds your eyes and hardens your heart. He helps you along the path you have already chosen and there comes a point when you’re too far gone to come back.

Like Pharaoh in the Book of Exodus. It says that God hardened his heart - and he did - but only after Pharaoh had hardened his own heart seven times. That’s unbelief. It’s darkness, but Jesus came as a light.

John says here that Isaiah saw Jesus’ glory and spoke about him. It was Isaiah, 750 years before it happened, who saw there was going to be a child, born of a virgin, who would be Immanuel, God with us. 

• Isaiah said he would be the Prince of Peace. 
• Isaiah saw a man of sorrows who would suffer and bear the sins of others. 
• Isaiah saw one who would be bruised and broken, and who would bring healing. 
• Isaiah saw one who after his sufferings and death would see the light of life and be satisfied.

If you have already decided that the gospel is not true, your heart grows harder and harder against it. You could watch a paraplegic get dramatically healed right here and walk around holding their wheelchair above their head - and you still would not believe it.

But if you have taken that first step of faith and decided that the gospel is true, your heart softens more and more and you find life in all its fullness.

A former President of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, having studied a wealth of peer-reviewed research on the effects of faith on human wellbeing wrote that, in the majority of studies published, Christian faith is correlated, not with the darkness of ignorance, but with:

• Greater well-being and life-satisfaction
• Increased hope and optimism
• Greater sense of purpose and meaning in life
• Higher self-esteem
• Better adaptation to bereavement
• Greater social support and less loneliness
• Lower rates of depression and faster recovery from depression
• Lower rates of suicide and fewer positive attitudes towards suicide
• Less anxiety
• Less psychosis and fewer psychotic tendencies
• Lower rates of alcohol and drug abuse
• Less delinquency and criminal activity
• Greater marital stability and satisfaction

2. Fear (v42-43)

Secondly, Jesus came as a light because of the darkness of fear.

The author Douglas Connelly tells the story of a limestone cavern tour he took with his parents when he was a boy. You know how kids get restless and curious sometimes? Well, he got bored with the guide's droning on about geology so he decided to walk on ahead and see what was around the next curve.

What he didn't know was that the guide was about to demonstrate how dark the cave is when he turned off his torch. “I can still remember” Douglas Connelly says, “the icy fingers of absolute darkness gripping me in sheer terror.”

Even as adults we get edgy when we hear noises during the night and we are shocked when violent crimes are committed in broad daylight, as if evil belongs to the darkness of night. We associate darkness with our fears.

When people fear not being loved, or illness or death, or being a nobody, or whatever… they often say they’re in a pretty dark place. Jesus came as a light.

But there’s another sort of fear here, and it’s in v42. “Many even among the leaders believed in him. But because of the Pharisees they would not openly acknowledge their faith for fear they would be put out of the synagogue; for they loved human praise more than praise from God.”

They were afraid of people’s opinions. They were frightened of giving offense. They were reluctant to get saddled with the label of Christian – they craved popularity. They were scared of being excluded from the in-crowd. 

Unbelief closes people’s minds. But fear closes people’s mouths. Unbelief is about not letting faith in. But fear is about not letting faith out.

Letting faith in and letting faith out are both really vital if you want to grow as a Christian.

Romans 10.9 says that it’s not just about believing in your heart; as well as that, to be saved, you need to “declare with your mouth, Jesus is Lord.”

Jesus was very clear about this is when he said, “Whoever is ashamed of me and my words, the Son of Man will be ashamed of them.”

Can I just ask you to clench your fist as tightly as you can? Look at your fist now. Inside your closed hand is absolute darkness. No light can possibly get through. It's pitch black in there.

But once your hand is open to the light, (you can open your palm now), where's the darkness gone? That is what happens when whatever you fear is exposed to the presence and power of Jesus Christ.

3. Hopelessness (v46)

Finally, and briefly, Jesus came as a light because of the darkness of hopelessness.

In v46, Jesus says, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.

He talks about staying in darkness. This is not in and out of a dark mood; this a prolonged period in a dark place, when hope begins to run out.

When we see the first traces of hope in difficult times we say, “There’s light at the end of the tunnel.” But with Jesus you can say, “There’s enough light in the tunnel.”

People talk about the dark night of the soul, meaning a season – months, years, of spiritual gloom and depression. “I have come as a light,” says

Jesus. Is today the day you come out of a long season of hopelessness?

Ending

A hundred years ago, an American missionary called William Young took the gospel to East Burma. He learned the generic language of the region and one day he was preaching in a marketplace. And he held aloft his Bible with its white pages gleaming in the morning sunlight he proclaimed the one God.

As he preached, some strangely-dressed men at the edge of the crowd pushed their way to the front. They were all agitated and excited. And, overflowing with emotion, they approached William Young and said, “We’re from the Lahu tribe. We’ve been waiting for you for centuries. We have prophecies that tell us that a white man will come with a book from God, and will set us free. We have even built meeting places ready for you. You must come with us now.”

They showed him their bracelets. They said, “We have worn these rope bracelets since time immemorial. They are placed on us at birth. They symbolise our bondage to evil spirits. And we know that you alone, as the messenger of the one God, can cut these from our wrists, when you have brought us the message from the book of the one creator God.”

That year, William Young baptized 2,200 Lahu tribespeople. In the next few years after that he baptized another 60,000. They had been waiting for God and for his word. 

Jesus said, “I have come into the world as a light, so that no one who believes in me should stay in darkness.”

Let’s stand to pray…


Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 23 December 2018

Jesus Came... to Bring a Sword (Matthew 10.32-39)

Introduction

Years ago, a baby boy was born to a wealthy Italian family. They called him Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone. He grew up surrounded by luxury and privilege and I’m afraid he became terribly spoiled. He spent his money lavishly and he lived for pleasure.

As a youth, he earned a bit of a reputation as a town troublemaker, so his family enlisted him in the army to teach him a thing or two about discipline and responsibility. About that time, he started to read about the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. He was converted, left the military and became a travelling evangelist.

Leaving behind his life of ease and luxury, he sold all his fine clothes and fancy stuff to further the mission of the church and serve the poor. But this new direction in his life was met with utter dismay from his father, who dragged him home, beat him up, bound him with ropes and locked him in a small storeroom. Somehow, eventually, he got away but his father ended up completely disowning him.

You may not recognise the name Giovanni di Pietro di Bernardone, but you all know who I’m talking about, because he is better known as Francis of Assisi. Like many before him, and many since, Francis could testify from personal experience to the painful truth of Jesus’ words from Matthew 10.36:

“A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household. Anyone who loves their father or mother more than me is not worthy of me; anyone who loves their son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me.”

Jesus Was Sent

As we enter Advent and count down to Christmas to mark and celebrate Jesus’ birth, we need to understand that, in one sense, it’s actually no big deal that he was born. Being born is, in itself, unexceptional. Everyone you have ever known, know now, and will ever know was born.

But Jesus is unique in that he was living and conscious before he was conceived; the Bible says he was sent. Jesus himself said, “I came not of my own accord, but [my Father] sent me.” Why? Why was Jesus sent, why did he come?

Over these next few weeks, we are going to look at a number of statements in the New Testament, including 3 from Jesus’ own lips, that answer that question. We only have time to explore a few, but there are about 30 verses in the New Testament that speak about why Jesus came. For example:

·         He came as a light 

·         He came to call sinners to repentance

·         He came to destroy the works of the evil one

And today, one of the strangest: Jesus said that he came, not to bring peace, but to bring a sword. Yes, it’s weird isn’t it? Everything we know about Jesus points to this statement being factually incorrect.

The Prince of Peace

“I did not come to bring peace” he said in Matthew 10.34. But centuries before he was born, Isaiah prophesied about him saying: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given… and he will be called… Prince of Peace.”

In his ministry, he healed the sick saying, “Go in peace and be freed from your suffering.” He told his followers, “be at peace with each other.”

“I did not come to bring peace” he said. But just hours before he died, Jesus specifically said to his disciples, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you.”

Days later, after they had disowned him, deserted him and denied him, three times the risen Christ said to them not “I’ll never trust you losers again” but “Peace be with you.”

Jesus came in peace, he preached peace, he imparted peace, he secured peace with God on the cross and modelled a life of peace. Jesus never avoided conflict but his approach was nonviolent. “Love your enemies, and do good to those to hate you.”

A Sword of Division

Yet Jesus said, “I did not come to bring peace but a sword.” So, what did he mean?

Jesus’ sword is not a literal flashing blade of steel. In fact, when Peter took up a sword to defend Jesus in the Garden of Gethsemane, the Lord rebuked him and said, “Put it away Peter.” That’s not who we are. 

In every single way, looking through the Gospels, it looks very much like Jesus didn’t come to bring a sword, but peace; every single way except one.

Jesus goes on to explain here that he’s not talking about a weapon that kills, but an instrument that causes inevitable division.

The sword that Jesus wields divides light from darkness, truth from lies, those who trust in him and those who trust in themselves.

Some people think that Jesus came to set up a hippy colony where everyone holds hands in a circle, eats organic yoghurt and sings Kumbaya. He didn’t!

He came to earth knowing that his revolution of grace and truth would bring disruption and upheaval to the ways of this world because as John’s Gospel says, “People prefer darkness to light.” 

The English novelist George Orwell once said (prophetically I think and we are living in these times now), “The further a society drifts from the truth, the more it will hate those that speak it.” Even members of our own families sometimes hold some of us in contempt for rejecting the values of a society that has turned its back on God.

When Jesus said, “I came to a sword that will turn family members against each other” I wonder if his voice cracked. Because he himself was opposed by his own family.

In Mark 6.4 Jesus says, “A prophet is not without honour except in his own town, among his relatives and in his own home.” He was despised and rejected, like one from whom people hide their face.

John 7.5 says, “his own brothers did not believe in him. They sided with those who hated who he was, and what he stood for. 

Jesus was seen as a bit of a nuisance. So, in Mark 3.21, his family came to confront him and take charge of him saying, “He is out of his mind.” 

Verse 35 is shocking to read. “I have come to turn a man against his father, a daughter against her mother, a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. A man’s enemies will be the members of his own household.”

At the time Matthew was writing his Gospel in the 60s and 70s of the first century, brother actually did betray brother - to death - and fathers turned against their Christian sons as the net of persecution closed in and the hostility towards the gospel intensified.

In our own day, our country seems polarised and fractured more than ever before; male v female, socially liberal v socially conservative, red v blue, working class v middle class, leave v remain, and now deal v no deal …

But the most fundamental choice facing our nation according to Jesus is whether you accept him as Lord and Saviour or reject him. The sword that really divides is about allegiance to Jesus or enmity to him; there is no third way, there is no alternative option.

And this divides many families right down the middle. I know of a church leader who became a Christian some years ago. He is the son of a very wealthy City of London banker. When he became a Christian, his father was so enraged that he told him he was writing him out of his will. And he did. His siblings will one day be multi-millionaires. But he will inherit nothing. The sword that divides…

The Archbishop of Jos in Nigeria, Benjamin Kwashi, lives in one of the most dangerous areas in the world for Christians. Many Christians in his diocese know what it is to have members of their families killed, and to live with constant death threats. If you are not a Christian, you’re pretty safe. If you publicly follow Jesus you are a target.

Some families in his diocese have split down the middle because of this threat. It has seriously affected his own family too. A few years ago, 30 armed men attacked Archbishop Benjamin’s home, sexually assaulted, and blinded his wife Gloria, breaking her legs.

His youngest child, just six years old at the time, was punched in the face, resulting in a broken jaw and his eldest child was knocked out and left for dead. 

The thugs came back the following year - big guys with a sledgehammer. They removed the back door. They came with a ladder and climbed up the back wall and into the compound. 

When they were breaking down the doors and trying to come in, Archbishop Benjamin was making what he thought were his last phone calls to his friends. “I was afraid” he says, “but after I’d made all the phone calls, I heard the last bang and I knew they were coming in. I was no longer afraid, I was ready to die.”

He was taken outside his house, where a man was standing holding a gun and a knife. The man demanded 3 million naira (about £6,000) and when Benjamin said he needed time, they accused him of delaying tactics so he could call the police.

The gang leader ordered the other men to take him away to his bedroom, where they said they would slaughter him. “They brought me back to my room and I asked their permission to pray” he said. They agreed, so he knelt down, asking God to spare the others in his family and only take his life. The sword that divides…

His wife was with him and she held his hand, encouraging him not to cave in but to continue in prayer to the end, knowing he was probably seconds from death. He kept his eyes closed and continued to pray. The next thing he knew, his son was in the room explaining that the men had gone. “We still don’t know to this day why they left,” he says. But they’ll be back…

It’s shocking. But this has been the stark reality for Christians since the very beginning.

Just a few decades after Jesus rose and ascended, the Roman historian Tacitus wrote about what happened to Christians in Rome after the great fire for which the Emperor Nero made Christians the scapegoats.

“Nero falsely accused and executed with the most exquisite punishments those people called Christians… The originator of the name, Christ, was executed as a criminal by the procurator Pontius Pilate during the reign of Tiberius… Those who admitted their faith were… made the subject of sports: they were killed by dogs by having the hides of beasts attached to them, or they were nailed to crosses, or set aflame [so] when the daylight passed, they were used as lights” [to illuminate the Emperor’s gardens].

Their family members who were not Christians survived. The sword that divides…

Pray for our brothers and sisters in Christ who daily face false accusations, ostracization, humiliation, bullying, shame, the confiscation of property, violence, unjust imprisonment and ultimately death for the sake of Christ. I’ve given you some extreme examples of the sword that divides, because we are one church and this is who we are as the body of Christ worldwide.

But many of you listening to me now carry in your heart a lesser manifestation of this pain. A husband or a wife who does not share your faith and it inevitably introduces an element of tension between you. “Do you have to go to church? Do you have to talk about Jesus to our children?”

Maybe it’s your parents who can’t hide their disappointment in you because you’re a follower of Jesus. They don’t understand your faith, they don’t try to, they aren’t interested. And in light of that, you have a decision to make: Which relationship is most important to me? Is it to follow Jesus or my parents?

There is so much in Bible about investing love into your family; respect your husbands, loving your wives, be careful to not embitter your children and honour your parents, it says. In fact, it even says, “Anyone who does not provide for their relatives, and especially for their own household, has denied the faith and is worse than an unbeliever.” 

But if it your family offers you a straight choice between them or Jesus, Jesus couldn’t be clearer as to what allegiance to him involves.

You’d think families would be pleased that one of their number finds meaning and fulfilment in Christ, but so often it’s not the case.

Some you’re made to feel guilty, like you’ve betrayed the family. Christmas is awkward, because what Christmas is about for you is definitely not what it’s about for them. Everyone’s uncomfortable, and you’re the one who’s created the problem.

In some cultures, it’s much worse than an uncomfortable Christmas. If you decide to be a disciple of Jesus, you are committing social and familial suicide.

In some Muslim families, for example, if someone becomes a fully devoted follower of Jesus, they arrange a funeral and consider them dead. And sometimes, much worse, they will even hunt them down for a so-called honour killing.

I have friends who were missionaries in Pakistan. It’s a dangerous place for Christians, as we’ve seen in the case of Asia Bibi recently. Because of the constant danger of attack, their children went to school in another country and they only saw them a few times a year. For the sake of the gospel, they accepted the pain of separation within their family. The sword that divides…

Sometimes people think, “Well, this is not quite what I thought I signed up for… I did this Alpha Course, bowed head, closed my eyes, said a prayer – and everything was wonderful but then it all kicked off.”

Jesus is always honest and realistic about the potential cost of following him. He never says it will bring harmony to your family. He never says everything will be great. He never says all your problems will be over. He does say your joy will be full, that’s different. But he says, “Prepare yourself for daily self-denial and carrying a cross.”

He says, “Whoever loses their life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.” In other words, it is better to lose your life than to waste it. As John Piper said, “If you live gladly to make others glad in God, your life will be hard, your risks will be high, and your joy will be full.”

I doubt there’s one martyr sitting round the throne in heaven saying, “To be honest, it wasn’t worth it really.”

Ending

Well, I know this hasn’t been an easy message to listen to. It hasn’t been easy to preach either.

Jesus doesn’t bring division into homes and families for the sake of it. In fact, when a whole family comes to faith in Christ together, lives that were broken and fractured get mended and put back together.

But Jesus knows that when people stand up to follow him sometimes, regrettably, division is bound to follow.

Years ago, missionaries heading off to the ends of the earth would pack all of their belongings in a coffin. They would write a final farewell letter to their family and leave it with their mission organization in the event of their death. Here’s a brief extract of the letter that one young woman left: 

“When God calls, there are no regrets. I’ve tried to share my heart with you as much as possible, my heart for the nations… I was not called to comfort or to success, but to obedience. There is no joy outside of knowing Jesus and serving him. I love you. In his care, Karen.”

Let’s pray…

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 2 December 2018

Worship: Intimacy (Song of Songs 2.10-13 and John 12.1-3)

Introduction

I have to admit it, I’m a bit of a nerd. That may not be news to you …no one seems to be aghast and shaking their head in wide-eyed disbelief… but I have only recently realised it’s true.

I began to have suspicions that I might be bit nerdy about two years ago, but I suppose the evidence became overwhelming whilst on holiday last June, when, instead of just enjoying a glass of wine in the sunshine, I decided to go through my entire music collection and select my all-time 100 favourite songs, then arrange them in alphabetical order first by artist, then by song title on my tablet.  

Not content with that, I then couldn’t stop myself making a second playlist of songs 101-200. It’s genuinely sad; I actually agonised for about half an hour over whether Bob Dylan’s “All Along the Watchtower” should make it into the top 100 or be relegated to the b-list.

I would have real difficulty whittling down that list to a top ten, but were I to manage it, I think I would find it actually impossible pick my all-time best song ever. But alas, this the kind of utterly pointless challenge I feel I will inevitably have to rise to on my next holiday.

I mention this because the Bible tells us that King Solomon wrote many, many songs, but he wanted everyone to know which one he thought was indisputably the best.

It is the Song of Songs. This is the Hebrew way of expressing a superlative. If you want to say “the best king of all” in Hebrew you say “king of kings”. If you want to tell people about the most amazing day of your life you call it the “day of days.”

And if you want to describe “the best song ever, the song that is more beautiful, more tuneful, more moving, more enchanting that any other”, you call it the Song of Songs. This one, tucked away in our Bibles between Ecclesiastes and Isaiah, is indisputably, and forever, top of the charts.

Intriguingly, the first book of Kings says that Solomon wrote 3,000 proverbs [that’s a different saying every day for over eight years] and 1,005 songs. That’s a strangely precise number, isn’t it, but it corresponds, as far as we can tell, almost exactly to the number of women Solomon had in his life.

So some people have speculated that, because the number of songs he wrote and the number of women he loved is so similar, he may have written a love song for each of those women.

And if this theory is right (and I think it makes a lot of sense) that’s the reason right there why only one of Solomon’s 1,005 songs made it into the Bible. It’s as if God said, “that’s the only one I’m publishing, because only one woman was ever my choice for you Solomon; she’s the one - and the only one - you should have married.”

We’re going to look at just a few verses of that most excellent of songs this morning, as we draw to a close this series of six talks on worship.

So far, we’ve explored why we worship, and why it matters to do it as well as we can. We’ve seen that the heart of worship is seeking God’s presence. We’ve seen that God is breathtakingly holy and awesome so we should come before him with reverence and fear.

Last week, we saw that worship is not a performance that we passively watch; God wants us to all be involved.

The Heart

Today, we are looking at the idea of intimacy in worship. The Bible calls for a response to God that is with all our heart as well as with all our mind.

Many of you, perhaps most of you, know what heartbreak feels like. Have you ever opened your heart to someone, only to have it torn apart by disappointment and rejection? Forgive me for reminding you of that experience today; it’s one of the most crushing, devastating experiences we ever face as human beings.

I once dated a girl for about three months. I was more smitten with her than she was with me. I remember vividly the day she dumped me 38 years ago!

I remember where I was sitting, the time of day, the colour of the carpet and what I was wearing. I remember sobbing, I remember the snot running down, I remember thinking I was ugly and that I’d never love again. I can laugh at myself now, but at the time it was utterly distressing.

God experiences rejection thousands and thousands of times every day by people who spurn him, deny him, disown him, forget him, use his name as a swear word, ignore him and curse him.

And yet he still calls every person on this earth into relationship with him. Throughout the Bible, God reveals himself as having a heart; he has feelings and passions. He burns. He laughs. He gets upset. He sings for joy. He cries. He loves.

 A couple of weeks ago, Kathie went to look after the Paris grandchildren for a few days while our son and daughter-in-law attended a conference. She was gone a whole week so obviously I lived on cheese and onion crisps and tinned mushroom soup for five days. I missed her. In fact, from the moment she got on the train I couldn’t wait for her to get back home. And not just for her cooking I hasten to add.

What would you say if I went to meet Kathie at Eaglescliffe station, watched her get off the train, kept my hands in my pockets and said, “You alright then?” Or what would you think if I formally offered my hand to shake hers and said, “How do you do, Mrs. Lambert?”

Or supposing I said to her, “I love you with all my mind!” She might say to me, “What about your heart?” or she might say quite a bit more than that actually! It’s appropriate in a relationship of love to express some feelings. In fact, it’s more than just appropriate, it’s essential.

A Song of Love

The Song of Songs is a romantic and quite spicy poetic dialogue between a young bride and her husband, and it confirms - with divine approval - what we already know; that falling in love arouses the strongest and most intense emotions we ever feel. The Song fills the senses. It is sensually intoxicating and overpowering.

Listen to these verses from the different parts of the Song: “I have come into my garden, my bride, I have gathered my myrrh with my spice... Drink your fill of love... All beautiful you are, my darling; there is no flaw in you... You have stolen my heart... I am faint with love.... Your mouth is sweetness itself; you are altogether lovely...

Is it just me, or is it hot in here?

Is it about worship? Or is it just about sexual attraction? Is it sort of both? What do you think?

The 3rd century Church Father Origen said, “I advise and counsel everyone who is not yet rid of vexations of the flesh and blood, and has not ceased to feel the passions of this bodily nature, to refrain from reading the [Song of Songs] and the things that will be said about it.”

Someone in this church told me a couple of years ago that it is their least favourite book in the Bible and they feel quite uncomfortable reading it.

But the Jewish commentator Rabbi Aqiba saw a purity and innocence about this Song that is unparalleled in world literature. He said, “The entire history of the world from its beginning to this very day does not outshine that day on which this book was given to Israel. All the Scriptures, indeed, are holy but the Song of Songs is the holy of holies.”

In the same vein, CH Spurgeon who led a church in London with 12,000 members, preached 59 sermons on the Song of Songs, which were later published in a book called “The Most Holy Place.”

The Song of Songs is given to us by God for two reasons; primarily it means what it looks like it means; two young lovers delighting in each other’s charms - God made us in his image, male and female, and he said it was very good.

Some disagree and say, “Oh no, it can’t be; it’s in the Bible, so it must be all about spiritual things and nothing else.” So, they say, every detail has a deeper and true meaning and what the Song appears to be all about should be ignored.

One commentator for example takes the view that when the bride says in chapter 1.12 “My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts” that this is, in fact, despite all appearances to the contrary, a picture of Christ’s appearing between the Old and New Testaments.

I just don’t think it is. When I read, “My beloved is to me a sachet of myrrh resting between my breasts,” forgive me if you’re shocked at how worldly and unspiritual your vicar is, but I don’t think about the incarnation – at all. And I don’t think Solomon had the first Christmas in mind either when he wrote those words down.

A Place for Intimacy in Worship

And yet… having said that, the Church is the bride of Christ. His beloved, radiant, resplendent bride. And marriage does point to the enduring covenant of love between Christ and his Church. This is the other, and secondary, reason God gave us this book in his Word.

Ephesians 5 in the New Testament says that there’s profound and wondrous mystery in the union of a man and a woman in marriage and that there are striking parallels between that and the relationship between Christ and his whole Church worldwide.

Does that mean we should use the racy language of physical attraction that we read in the Song of Songs in our sung worship? No, it doesn’t.

Our relationship with Jesus as individuals is not a romantic one and I think it’s really unhelpful, especially for men, to be expected to sing words like, “Let my words be few; Jesus, I am so in love with you.”

Or “I look full in your wonderful face.” Or “There’s no place I’d rather be than in your arms of love.” Or this one lifted straight from the Song of Songs addressed to Jesus: “Oh, that you would kiss me with the kisses of your mouth.”

Jesus is not my sweetheart. The Bible never speaks of anyone being in love with Jesus. And that song with a reference to a wet, sloppy kiss is just gross. That is the quickest way I know to empty the church of men – I think this is a tragic misunderstanding of intimacy in worship.

But there’s a passion and a longing, and a delighting and an overflow of admiration, like we find in the Song of Songs, that absolutely should fill our worship. Here are a few examples of what I mean:

In the Song of Songs, you find an overwhelming sense of anticipation; the young lovers long to be up close together.

My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God? (Psalm 42).

One thing I ask from the Lord, this only do I seek: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze on the beauty of the Lord. (Psalm 27).

In the Song of Songs, the lovers express their pleasure and satisfaction resting in each other’s company.

How priceless is your unfailing love, O God! We take refuge in the shadow of your wings. We feast on the abundance of your house; and drink from your river of delights. For with you is the fountain of life; in your light we see light. (Psalm 36).

In the Song of Songs, the lovers continually speak out flowing, superlative words of praise for each other.

I love you, Lord, the strength of my salvation. My rock, in whom I take refuge, my fortress and my deliverer; my shield and my stronghold. (Psalm 18).

When I was a young Christian, the song “I love you Lord, and I lift my voice” was new. There have been times when I have joined with others to sing that song, starting gently but with rising volume and a cascade of harmonies; it’s a simple song of the heart, you don’t need the words as they are few, and it is properly intimate; “Take joy my King in what you hear, let it be a sweet sound in your ear.”

In the Song of Songs chapter 2, the beloved says,

“See, the winter is past; the rains are over and gone. Flowers appear on the earth; the season of singing has come…”

The beloved is first and foremost Solomon’s young bride. But she is also a foreshadowing of the one, holy and apostolic Church loved by Christ.

“The winter is past and the rains are over and gone” she sings. Springtime, when wintry cold and darkness is past, is so like the new reality of fruitfulness and abundance we have tasted and savoured in Christ.

“This is the season of singing” she says. And we are in a season of singing in the Church today, did you know that? We are living in an age where more worship songs are being written than ever before. They’re not all works of art by any means, some are truly awful, but many are inspired, and look; the heart of the Church is in the right place and that is what God sees above all.

Seven times in the Bible it says, “sing a new song to the Lord.” Interestingly, some churches should note this, there is no command anywhere in Scripture to sing an old song - though it is certainly not forbidden of course.

In times of revival and outpouring, in times when heaven touches earth, the Holy Spirit brings forth a blossoming of worship where expressions of intimacy rise to greater prominence.

The great American revivalist Charles Finney once said, looking back over his life, “In times of revival the language of the Song of Songs became as natural as breathing.”

The hymn “Here Is Love, Vast as the Ocean” was written during the Welsh revival and it speaks of that blessed season when heaven’s peace and justice kissed a guilty world in love.

Did you know that the most common New Testament word translated “worship” occurring 59 times (proskuneo) means “to bow down and kiss” and it originally carried with it the idea of subjects falling facedown before a king or kissing his feet.

Ending

Which brings us, as we come towards the end, to Mary of Bethany in John 12.

She takes about a pint of pure nard, a fabulously expensive perfume from a very rare plant that grows only in the foothills of the Himalayas. She pours it all on Jesus’ feet and wipes them dry with her hair. And the whole house fills with the fragrance of this costly aromatic fragrance.

In Jesus’ day, nard had to be transported over several months from northern India, via Persia to Roman occupied Judea. It was vanishingly rare, highly exotic, decidedly luxurious and vastly expensive. It has an incredibly clean, pure, fragrant, intense and aromatic scent. 

Verse 3 says Mary “poured it on Jesus’ feet and wiped his feet with her hair.” There is an unembarrassed intimacy about that act. Mary’s offering is profoundly personal. It is from an overflowing heart, as well as a renewed mind.

This Mary, we know from Luke 10, loved to just sit at Jesus’ feet, and bask in his presence, and allow her mind to be changed and her heart to be stirred by his words of grace, and let everything else in her life just fade into the background as she focused on him. This is the kind of intimacy in worship the Lord seeks.

And as the whole house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume, may this house be filled with the glorious sound of our uninhibited love for the Lord. 

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 25 November 2018

My Soul, Find Rest in God (Remembrance Day Sermon 2018)

Psalm 62.5-12

World War I, as we know, was mostly fought in trenches, sometimes only a few yards apart, cut into the soil along the border of France and Belgium.

I used to travel through the Somme and the Pas de Calais in northern France three or four times a year when I lived in Paris and it is remarkable that the physical impact of that conflict is still visible a century later. You can see traces of old trench networks in the fields, and there are still scars from where explosion blasts crater the land.

Two weeks ago, a pair of scuba divers plunged into the River Meuse to help remove more than 5 tonnes of unexploded shells from World War I. It is estimated that there are at least 250 to 300 tonnes more still buried in the nearby rivers and rolling hills of eastern France.

They think it will take another century at least of dangerous clearance work to finally remove all these munitions and return the landscape to the way it was before the war.

So, even though the last survivor of that war is now dead, even our grandchildren will still live in its shadow. 

As we mark the centenary today of the end of those hostilities, and sure many of you will say likewise, I confess I have been very moved by features about it in the media, especially old recordings of interviews with surviving soldiers describing, or trying to describe, what years of trench warfare were like; the cold, the mud, the rats, the smells, the fear, the becoming accustomed to death, and the sheer relentlessness of it…

And how it felt when the guns fell silent at 11am on 11 November 1918. And the fact that right up until the last minute, though it was known precisely when the end of hostilities was coming, shots were still being fired and men were still getting killed.  

And then… nothing. The first time in months that there was perfect stillness and quiet. Those who were there to experience it struggled to describe even years later how wondrous it was.

Last week, as I was driving with the radio on, some of you might relate to this, I suddenly and unexpectedly welled up as I listened to a piece on the radio about the unknown warrior in Westminster Abbey.

In case you don’t know the background, in 1920 the remains of four soldiers in unmarked graves were exhumed from four different battlefields and placed in plain coffins covered by Union Flags. A senior officer closed his eyes and placed his hand on one of the coffins. The other three were taken away and reburied. The one that was selected was transported to London with great pomp and ceremony, with full honours and military salutes.

One hundred women were invited as special guests at the interment in Westminster Abbey. They were there because they had each lost their husband and all their sons in the war.

And the piece on the radio went on to say that the Ministry of Defence received hundreds of letters in the months following, all from women, all mothers who had lost their sons in the war, saying, “I had a dream, and in my dream, I learned that this unknown soldier, so grandly honoured was my boy.”

It’s this human angle, I’m sure, not so much the grandiose military monuments and mind-boggling statistics, that helps most of us to connect with a conflict none of us were alive to see.  

In order to get a better sense of what we commemorate today, I have been reading letters from the Western Front over the last few weeks. They give such a vivid insight into that appalling conflict that is estimated to have killed almost 7 million civilians and 10 million military personnel. About a third died, not from combat, but from diseases caused by the war.

The British Army Postal Service delivered around 2 billion letters during the war. In 1917 alone, over 19,000 mailbags crossed the English Channel every day, transporting letters to and from British troops on the Western Front.

I want to read some short extracts from just a few:

“Today is my 32nd day on the battlefield. The war has been at a stalemate for a few months now. Our days consist of digging trenches in fear for our lives. We could be shot at any time with a precisely aimed bullet.”

“The smell is unworldly. Illness and disease are common throughout the soldiers. Influenza, diabetes, trench foot, trench fever and malaria. The trenches are infested with rats, frogs and lice which all make the trenches filthily disgusting. The unsanitary conditions may be the reason we lose this war.”

“As write this letter, my free time is soon coming to an end. If I don't make it home just know I died a happy death fighting for my country. I hope everything is wonderful back home and hopefully I'll see you soon. So with all my love my darling Mum I now say goodbye, just in case. Try to forget my faults and to remember me only as your very loving son.”

“Dearest, if the chance should come your way for you are young and good looking and should a good man give you an offer it would please me to think you would take it, not to grieve too much for me… I should not have left you thus bringing suffering and poverty on a loving wife and children for which in time I hope you will forgive me.”

“My darling, if this should ever reach you, it will be a sure sign that I am gone under and what will become of you and the [children] I do not know but there is one above that will see to you and not let you starve. You have been the best of wives and I loved you deeply, how much you will never know.”

“If I fall in battle then I have no regrets save for my loved ones I leave behind. It is a great cause and I came out willingly to serve my King and Country. My greatest concern is that I have the courage and determination necessary to lead my platoon well. I can do no more, I give my love to you all and to Jesus Christ my Maker.”

And then this one, for a bit of light relief. “We were to have had a Brigade Ceremonial Church Parade today but fortunately it rained. I say fortunately because I don’t much care for lengthy ceremonials at Church Parade. It means usually standing about for hours and getting thoroughly bored.” (And that one was written by the son of a vicar).

British society in 1914 was very different from what it is today. About 40 per cent of people attended church at least once a month. Ninety per cent of children went to Sunday School. Just one per cent of the population called themselves atheists.

Today, the numerical strength of the Christian faith, its vibrant youthfulness and explosive growth is in Africa, Asia and South America.

But in 1914 it was in Europe and, as they lay dying, most of those we remember today will have cherished the sentiments of today’s Psalm. 

Yes, my soul, find rest in God;

my hope comes from him.
Truly, he is my rock and my salvation;
he is my fortress, I will not be shaken.

My salvation and my honour depend on God.
Trust in him at all times…
pour out your hearts to him.

And, as I end, the tomb of the unknown warrior in Westminster Abbey is very appropriately engraved with New Testament scriptures including these two:

“The Lord knows those who are his” (2 Timothy 2.19). And, “Unknown and yet well known, dying and yet we live on” (2 Corinthians 6.9).

Sermon preached at All Saints' Preston on Tees, 11 November 2018