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As with the majority of my fellow Christian bloggers, I am going to write something about Good Friday. There are many things I could (and may) write about, however there is one thing that has bugged me about the Crucifixion story. Steve Bates pointed it out in his last post:

“He became the embodiment of sin; God himself turned away, leading to those impassioned words, eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani. I think this must have been far more painful than any beating he took that day.”

I added the emphasis on the “eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani” part myself because this is what I have a problem understanding for years. Now, disclaimers. This is not a silly attack on what Steve Bates has said. I have a lot of respect for Steve and I only use his quote because it captures everything I wanted to talk about really well. I could also get into the sticky area of doctrine here but I don’t want to. I don’t have a problem with Jesus dieing on the cross. There had to be a sacrifice and sin had to be dealt with. I’m not wanting to go down that road.

The road I want to go down is this odd Hebrew phrase “eloi, eloi, lama sabachthani” which, when translated, means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” For a while I didn’t understand this and it seemed very odd that God would turn away from something that he set up. A lack of commitment because it got to hard, like he couldn’t see it through. Also, if God turned away because there was ‘too much sin’ on Jesus, how much sin would it take for God to turn away from us? Is this right? I always saw it as God giving Jesus a raw deal. We could get into the nature of the Trinity hear and maybe that may help this understanding. But I don’t think God did ‘forsake’ Jesus. Let me try and explain why I think this.

God loves us and is love. He has said that “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you.” I may be taking this way out of context and please say if I am. But doesn’t seem there is a bit of a contradiction here? God promises that he will leave forsake us, and yet not only does he forsake someone, he forsakes his own son! There has been a lot of talk over the past couple years of Cosmic Child Abuse, and I am not claiming that. I’m just pointing out that this idea that God turned his back on Jesus at the cross doesn’t add up.

Maybe I don’t fully understand what is going on here but someone explained something to me which helped a lot when wrestling with this. Our troubling phrase “eloi, eloi…” is only found in Matthew and Marks gospel. This is not surprising that its in both, as Matthew uses a lot of Marks gospel as its base. Matthew, however, was written primarily for the Jewish community. The Jews at the time would of recorgnised our phrase. They don’t have the nice Chapter and Verses and paragraph headings in their scriptures as we commonly do. So instead, particularly with Psalms, they would use the first line to identify parts of the scriptures. This may or may not be a coincidence, but “Eloi, eloi…” is actually the first line of Psalm 22. Give Psalm 22 a quick read and you may also find some interesting things in there. Here are a few:

Dogs have surrounded me; a band of evil men has encircled me, they have pierced my hands and my feet. I can count all my bones; people stare and gloat over me. They divide my garments among them and cast lots for my clothing. But you, O LORD, be not far off; O my Strength, come quickly to help me.

Psalm 22:16-19

Now this sheds a very different light on the situation. Is Jesus reminding us what is actually going on rather than a cry of anguish? Is it actually a victory cry of what is being fulfilled? Is it a cry for help and has God, instead of turning his back on Jesus, answering Jesus’ cry and got his arms wrapped tight around him whispering “I’m not far off, my strength is here, come on Son.”?

I pray you have a good Good Friday as we remember what Jesus did on the cross. Remember though… its not over yet…

I am coming to the end of my ‘time’ in the CU exec as Evangelism Secretary. Its been a good time. Sometimes frustrating, sometimes a real joy. Last week was our AGM and for it we had to write a report for how the year had gone, so instead of re writing that for a reflection on this blog I’m just going to copy and past it! So here it is:

I’m sitting in Dolche Vita after just finishing off a cup of Spicy Parsnip soup staring at a blank document thinking “How do I start this summary?” I’ve set myself a slot to write this (which I will blatantly not stick to) and it’s not happening! Even after some encouraging words from Jeremy, who popped in to grab a sandwich, I am still drawing blanks.

As with most stories, I guess its good to start at the beginning. While I was praying about what to do for my time on the exec I really felt God showing me how everything fits together. That evangelism, discipleship, social action, prayer, etc are not separate boxes on a tick list of things to do to be a follow of Jesus. Nor are they unattached entities with which you do evangelism one day and discipleship in a bi-weekly two hour meeting.

After many God inspired conversations with Joel and Martin, we drew up a new way of doing CU that incorporated this idea. This model, while not the be all and end all, was not really anything different to what had been done before. The biggest, and exciting change about it was how everything linked together. We felt that while all the various parts of the CU where good, everything seemed a little disjointed and the only thing connecting it all together was that most of it happened on a Wednesday!

The biggest change with the evangelism side is that it teamed up with the small groups, renamed CORE groups. These CORE groups became the main focus of the CUs mission. Through these groups there would be (roughly) an hours worth of evangelism training encouraging people to live as Jesus would in whatever situation that came their way.

Over the two terms that we have been running training through CORE group we have looked at various aspects of evangelism. We started with talking with our friends about what think about Jesus. After that we looked at the Holy Spirits role in the process and how we are collaborators with him, working on what God is already doing in people’s lives. We looked at how prayer plays a part, and how our stories can engage with people on a different level. We investigate what makes up the gospel and how the Kingdom of God fits into that.

There are many models, tracks and material for evangelism, These are great, and we had a look at a few over the year, but they are only tools. Tools to enable people to start to explain God’s love to people. Jo Blower said to me once “the best way to get people to evangelise is for them to fall more in love with God.” This is why it was so great to have the training linked with the bible study, that after we have learnt more about God and his plan of restoration for us and this world that we would learn of ways to get this across to our friends.

It has been a great couple of terms. While there are many things I would of liked to of done, such as more Big Issues and Acoustic nights, I’ve been really happy with the way things have gone. God has been good and with all new things, there is that element of apprehension but it has been a really blessing to see people who have and haven’t got experience in evangelism really blossom and just be Jesus to their friends.

I really want to thank all the Agape and UCCF staff, Martin and Joel have been amazing in supporting me and preparing material for us. I also want to thank the rest of the Exec, particularly Rach as I did make her job twice as big concerning the CORE groups! And also, without wanting to sound cheesy, I want to thank everyone in the CU. Ultimately, it was you guys who have been bringing the Kingdom of God to where you are. My job was to encourage and facilitate the CU in evangelism and, quite frankly, you made my job a heck of a lot easier!

God has been brilliant this year. I have certainly fallen more in love with Him. He has been at the centre of this whole CU since the beginning and has continued to express his love to more and more people. He has continued to use us to bring his restoration and will continue to be the primary witness in whatever Pete does next year and onwards.

And I didn’t stick to my time slot. Not at all. Failed by 5 days.

Something that keeps rearing its head over and over again in various conversations is this idea of how to seek God it times of decision and direction. After conversations with Joel, we narrowed it down to two trains of thought.

The first thought is to pray to God and wait for an answer. This may be in a sign, an audible voice, a Bible verse, an angel or some other supernatural way. Jesus used to go and spent time praying to God about things to come.

On the other hand, there is the philosophy of trying the doors and see what happens. Take the initiative and  take action. Make your actions your prayers as you investigate what Gods plan for you is. God told Moses to do this when the Exodus took place.

So both ideas are biblical. I guess my question is simple: How does this work in practice? How long to wait for God to speak before we start to take action? Do just skip that part because it doesn’t usually happen?

I would appreciate your thoughts on this.

I went to ‘The Sunday Thing’ this evening. It is basically a bible study that was set up due to a lack of knowledge of the Jewish history, mainly in the Old Testament. So a few friends got together and started looking. Once they finished that, they did Church History and know they are looking at are, and if so why, the Jews are so important.

This evenings particular study was led by Dave Blower on the split between The Jews and the Jews who followed Jesus. It was really interesting. Splitting it into 3 sections Dave looked at the Jews view of the new Gentile converts (context), the history of what happened next and some ideas and thoughts.

The Jews view of Gentile was an embracing one. If you read Acts 15 and Romans 9 - 11 you see that, after a bit of discussion, they excepted Gentiles without having to circumcise them (I am so glad for this) and that they share the same roots. An olive branch been grafted onto an olive tree is the example given by Paul.

Interestingly, when you graft a green apple tree branch onto a red apple tree the ‘green branch’ still produces green apples while the rest of the tree produces red. How much can this be said for the Jews and Gentiles?

It then goes all a bit pair shaped. After 2 wars that the Jews who followed Jesus didn’t get involved with their fellow Jews in uprising against the oppressors (ie Rome) they was a bit of tension. Then the biggest blow was when Emperor of the Roman Empire Constantine became a Christian. I’ve heard this described as “the worst thing to happen to the Church.” The reason for this is that he made it the state religion. This meant than many people stopped doing the pagan stuff and did the Christian stuff.

The main issue was that the Jews were seen as trouble makers and it was bad for the Emperor to be seen in league with them. So he cut all ties with the Jewish roots. All the festivals where moved to inline with common pagan ones. Christmas moved to the festival celebrating Mithras. Easter moved in line with the festival celebrating the goddess of fertility (hence the eggs and stuff). Sunday ‘Sabbath’ moved in line with the celebration on the Sun God.

Basically, all ties with the Jews were severed. Its as though the Gentile believers cut of their Jewish roots, and grafted on Pagan ones (i know this doesn’t actually work, but run with the metaphor) This is a shame really, as we have lost our heritage. I’m not saying we all turn Jewish but I think we should at least learn, understand and appreciate the traditions of our Church fathers.

One other thing that came up was that Jews think that Christians hate them. How lame, and untrue is this. One of the main reasons was in a our rhetoric. When we say ‘The Jews plotted to kill Jesus’ the Jews as a whole didn’t, just the leaders did. It is an inaccurate description of what happened. One that can be easily avoided and rectified.

In conclusion, it was really interesting. I have wanted to know more about Jewish tradition and such but, after Dave’s talk, I now have more motivation to do so.

What will it change in us as a Church if we reconnect with our Jewish roots?

…just gotta keep hoping and praying.

Some body said this to me the other day about my exams. As you may have picked up, I did not do very well on my exams. Hopefully, my coursework will be able to pull me out of the rut I have dug myself!

I don’t get prayer. Not at all. I know its a ‘conversation’ with God, but its a pretty boring one. It seems one way. Maybe its more of a metaphor; saying prayer is like a conversation. A conversation suggests dialogue. Person A says one thing in which Person B replies. This doesn’t seem to happen much with God. I pray, he answers, but not in a conversational way, but an active way. Thats why I don’t like to think of it as a ‘conversation’.

So what is prayer? How should we pray? I’ve been told its important, even preached on it, but I don’t get the logistics of it. For example when we pray “that Person C will become a Christian” is that a valid prayer? We are asking that God intervenes so that they become a Christian, is this infringing on their free will? “I pray that Person C follows you” Is that not saying, I hope they change their minds and follow you. Should we pray these prayers?

And how about with exams? Should we pray that we get good marks? That the examiner will go easy with the marking? Is there any point praying for something after it has happened or is it too late? Why does praying more (in time and number of people) make a difference?

I haven’t really read up on prayer in the Bible so I probably should go to do so, however I still want to ask you “What is prayer?” I’d like to hear your views.