Nocturnal Hymns

I lay awake last night. It wasn't excess energy keeping me awake though. I was tired, yesterday seemed endless and fairly depressing: I was feeling low because of a headache and facing up to the fact that I'm out of action for another 8 weeks at least; Ines was also struggling with a migrane and our middle son had finally driven his primary school to the point of excluding him for two days, NOT the best day in our history as a family.

I wasn't worried even, in the last hour before bed several friends had texted with encouraging words, some of who knew about the tough day and others who didn't...

"...CF is unbelievable. Ppl asking/wrestling w hard questions n really searching. C___ has gone home 2 korea 2 find a church, J___ (another korean) has decided 2 follow Jesus through his contact wiv us.. The bible is opened week after week and more more Ppl are coming back.It's thrilling. It's to die for..."

As I lay awake the words from a hymn imposed themselves on my thoughts. We don't really sing hymns in the church we attend and it's years since I've sung it. Another case of something helpful 'falling out' of my memory.

O Love that wilt not let me go,

I rest my weary soul in thee;

I give thee back the life I owe,

That in thine ocean depths its flow

May richer, fuller be.

O light that followest all my way,

I yield my flickering torch to thee;

My heart restores its borrowed ray,

That in thy sunshine’s blaze its day

May brighter, fairer be.

O Joy that seekest me through pain,

I cannot close my heart to thee;

I trace the rainbow through the rain,

And feel the promise is not vain,

That morn shall tearless be.

O Cross that liftest up my head,

I dare not ask to fly from thee;

I lay in dust life’s glory dead,

And from the ground there blossoms red

Life that shall endless be.

This hymn was written by the Church of Scotland minister George Matheson in June 1882. He said of it:

"I was alone in the manse at that time. It was the night of my sister’s mar­ri­age, and the rest of the fam­i­ly were stay­ing over­night in Glas­gow. Some­thing hap­pened to me, which was known only to my­self, and which caused me the most se­vere men­tal suf­fer­ing. The hymn was the fruit of that suf­fer­ing."

A hymn which sprang out of Matheson's suffering was a comfort, a challenge and a reminder to me in the middle of a sleepless night. It brough peace enough to remember the grace of God to me, to us as a family and to all who would turn to Jesus.

O Cross that liftest up my head,
I dare not ask to fly from thee;
I lay in dust life’s glory dead,
And from the ground there blossoms red
Life that shall endless be.

Historically Moved

I watched Amazing Grace yesterday, following William Wilberforce's leading part in the movement to abolish the African/trans-atlantic slave trade.

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It is a well made film and the story is told with compelling drive. Wilberforce was a driven man and only a small part of his remarkable acheivements were mentioned in the film. There is little in British society (and therefore on beyond into the world through 'The Empire') that was untouched by his singular vision for social reform.

What the film records well is his love of Jesus and the debt of love he owed to John Newton, his one time pastor. At a crucial point in Wilberforce's life, where he was considering abandoning politics for the sake of pursuing Christ, Newton encouraged him to 'serve God where he was'.

There are many who, today, would want to drive a wedge between a love of Christ and a passion for social reform as though they were strange partners. That, in some way, a passion for Jesus results in a dispassion for 'secular concerns'. Or that a concern for societal change is weakened or sullied by a passion for God.

My heart was stirred last night. I love Jesus - there are not words that give true weight to the love I have for Him, and even then the love I have for Him is but a wisp, a fragment, a trifle in comparison to the weight of Love He has shown for me, and every sinner like me. I am passionate too about injustice; the exploitation of the weak and disadvantaged, the skewed scales of comfort and privilege enjoyed by the wealthy built upon the foundations of misery and enslaved disadvantaged of the poor.

Would Wilberforce be encouraged by the state of the world today? Would he think 'job done'? I don't know, it's impossible to say. he would have to admit though slavery is not at an end: it's foul stench wreaks from sweat shops to sex shops, in large and small ways. We do not have to look very hard or travel very far to see the offence of men and women perched atop a pile of misery and being thankful for their own comfort whilst dismissing the degrading of other human beings as an unfortunate economic reality that does not require any response from them.

“Hear this word, you cows of Bashan,who are on the mountain of Samaria, who oppress the poor, who crush the needy,who say to your husbands, ‘Bring, that we may drink!’ The Lord God has sworn by his holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks,even the last of you with fishhooks. And you shall go out through the breaches, each one straight ahead; and you shall be cast out into Harmon,”declares the Lord." Amos 4.1-3

God's holiness is offended in the comfort of the few built on the discomfort of the many. God has not changed, the death and resurrection of Jesus provides a way for sinners to be reconciled with God and safely delivered from the kingdom of darkness into the Kingdom of Light. But Jesus' death and resurrection has not closed God's eyes to the offence of injustice. Those who have citizenship in the Kingdom of Light are to live as Children of Light. We cannot close our eyes and pretend that we are not part of a world where men, women and children are kept in misery so that we may live in comfort.

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Where were the clothes your wearing made?

Where the workers who harvested the coffee, tea and cocoa beans (which have kept you on the go) paid a fair wage?

Are the magazines you read and the TV programmes you watch respect the humanity of all?

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Do you even care?

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But what can I do? What can you do? Should we retreat from the world, weave our own cloth, decline a coffee, abstain from chocolate? Do we establish a new ascetic monastacism; shunning the world and all it's pleasures? Do we retreat into a world of our own making like the Amish? We would do well to listen to John Newton's advice to a Wilberforce in crisis.

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Serve God where you are.

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The poor of India, Africa, Asia and Latin America won't notice immediately. The underprivileged and disadvantaged in your own nation won't applaud or cry liberty just yet. Your neighbour might notice. Your colleagues might see. The drug addicted, emotionally complex, socially inadequate person you encounter in the street as they beg from you for money might see something of Christ in you.

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Amazing Grace has moved me, provoked me even. Maybe something of youthful passions has been unearthed in the recovery of my brain. I am not sad that this particular aspect of my passions has been uncovered and recovered. Not sure where this thinking is going but I know it is in working it out that the real challenge comes.

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For Wilberforce it was taking a 20 year path that involved ridicule, repeated defeat, alienation from friends and a loss of his physical wealth. I am no Wilberforce but the cause and glory of Christ holds no less a hold over me and my passions that it did over him,

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Amazing grace, how sweet the sound,

that saved a wretch like me,

I once was lost but now am found

Was blind but now I see.

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2 Corinthians 5:14-6.1

For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no-one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come! All this is from God, who reconciled us to himself through Christ and gave us the ministry of reconciliation: that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men's sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation. We are therefore Christ's ambassadors, as though God were making his appeal through us. We implore you on Christ's behalf: Be reconciled to God. God made him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God. As God's fellow-workers we urge you not to receive God's grace in vain.

Jack the Dipper

In my second year at University we had a series of Biblical Studies lectures on the New Testament. I'd recently made a clear and conscious move away from my liberal convictions on the authority of Scripture. The first year lectures had brought me to a crisis and a decision. Would I 'trust myself' and my ideas about what it meant to follow Jesus (which is largely what the liberal position on the authority of Scripture presupposes) or would I 'entrust myself to revelation' (a crude statement of the evangelical position on Scripture's authority). I decided to entrust myself to revelation - I could see little else that had a consistent and reasonably defensible approach to Scripture.

Early on in the my second year a guest lecturer arrived - Bob Webb. He taught us Romans and John's gospel. He was rigorous, humorous and evangelical. His position was confidently and unapologeticly evangelical, tackling liberal scholars front on and cogently argued for the reliability and authority of the Biblical record. I learned a lot from him about the need for intellectual rigour in a confident walk under Scripture's authority.

One of the things that sticks with me still is more from his humour than his exegesis (and Bob, if ever you read this - I'm sorry). Tackling the prologue of John's Gospel he spoke of John the Baptist, but called him "Jack the Dipper" it made me laugh then and makes me smile still today. Bob had done his PhD on "Jack" - "hey," he said, "you don't spend every day of three years with someone and not have a nickname for them."

I started reading Mark's gospel again this week; Jesus' encounter with Jack the Dipper in Mark 1 is intriguing. John is the last of the prophets of the Old Testament - he gets the honour of seeing the beginning of the fulfillment of the ages: Jesus. He meets him, touches him, speaks with him. The prophets of old spoke of Christ, and may even have glimpsed visions of him, but John has the privilege of 'handing over' to him.



John is all Old Testament and yet, he is remarkable in that he is similar to, but not like, the others of Old Testament prophets. Born to a priestly family, he dresses funny, eats weirdly and peaks boldly to religious and political leaders alike. He declares a coming judgement and calls the people to return to the Lord. In these things he fits the bill. But there are no 'signs and wonders' around John's ministry - not like Moses, Elijah or Elisha - the country is troubled but the people are not exiled and have not recently returned, he is not in a privileged position.



He speaks of the Messiah coming soon - he is a herald ahead of The King, calling people to repentance - and letting them know that, as the Herald, he is not the real deal. John's Gospel** captures the brilliance and the tragedy of John the Baptist in John 3.27-30



"John replied, "A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, `I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.' The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom's voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less."



It is brilliance because for all who truly come to Christ we know the joy and the pain of that last sentence: denying self and exalting Christ Jesus. It is tragedy because, unlike us, John did not get to see the end of the story because his own story ends in a prison cell, chained, dragged out at the whim of a weak but curious king and eventually executed because of his faithfulness offending the sensibilities and vanities of those who held power.



We are to be like John the Baptist - just a little bit. Not in fashion sense, nor in dietary practice, but in our concern for presenting Jesus for who he is. I want to be more like John - his greatest concern was to do what God had given him to do, disregarding the patterns and standards of his day, speaking the Word of God so that people might see Jesus clearly. He lived and died faithfully and faith-filled.

I'm glad for those lectures years ago and Bob Webb, if you ever get to read this blog - thank you for unknowingly teaching me about confidence in the Word of God as the authoritative and truthful self-revelation of the One and Only God. In those lectures Bob did more than communicate a nickname for John the Baptist, he helped me to see that living proclaiming Jesus as the fulfillment of all of God's promises is something worth doing. Bob lived a bit like Jack the Dipper - he helped me to see Jesus more clearly.

**John the Baptist didn't write John's Gospel. He died in prison early on in the ministry of Jesus around 30-31AD. John's Gospel was written as late as 60 years later.

where do you go to my lovely?

One of the outcomes of the injury to my brain is that things have been 'falling out' of my memory, the other day a song I've not heard for 20 years was buzzing around my head - clear, vivid and I knew all the words. It was amazing especially as I'm struggling with short term memory stuff - ask me what I did this time last week and I can't tell you, but the words of this song, well (the chorus at least):

"Where do you go to my lovely,
When you're alone in your bed,
Tell me the thoughts that surround you
I want to get inside your head"

Its a song that speaks of identity and truth, questions the acretions of time passing and hints that who 'you' are is who you were - the somebody who was lost in leaving childhood behind, as the cares, priorities and experiences that maturity bring, is the true you.

"look into my face... and remember just who you are"

With the song came a whole heap of memories flooding back, some great times with friends and some less than happy ones. "Remember just who you are".

Since the days that those memories were formed I came to know Jesus Christ in a way that I did not growing up. He moved from a 'religious category' in my life to the relationship category. I moved from being religious - fearful, guilt ridden and aware that I couldn't and wouldn't be good enough for God. Coming to know Jesus changed all of that.

"Then Jesus declared, "I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty... All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never drive away." John's Gospel 6:35,37

"For Christ's love compels us, because we are convinced that one died for all, and therefore all died. And he died for all, that those who live should no longer live for themselves but for him who died for them and was raised again. So from now on we regard no-one from a worldly point of view. Though we once regarded Christ in this way, we do so no longer. Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!"2 Cor 5.14-17

And all of that over 20 years ago. It came afresh to me as I thought about the words of that song and the memories it brough back.

This brain injury malarky has had some rough and low points but it has also lead to a greater and refreshed understanding that I am loved by God in Christ, by grace I'm saved through faith. I have done nothing to deserve it and a lot that should deny it but He who loved me knew my sin in all its fullness as He died for me when I was still far off from Him, and He loves me still.

"Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we rejoice in the hope of the glory of God. Not only so, but we also rejoice in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope. And hope does not disappoint us, because God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit, whom he has given us. You see, at just the right time, when we were still powerless, Christ died for the ungodly. Very rarely will anyone die for a righteous man, though for a good man someone might possibly dare to die. But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Since we have now been justified by his blood, how much more shall we be saved from God's wrath through him! For if, when we were God's enemies, we were reconciled to him through the death of his Son, how much more, having been reconciled, shall we be saved through his life!" Romans 5.1-10

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"Since, then, you have been raised with Christ, set your hearts on things above, where Christ is seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things above, not on earthly things. 3:For you died, and your life is now hidden with Christ in God. When Christ, who is your life, appears, then you also will appear with him in glory." Colossians 3.1-3

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If there were nothing else good from the last 3 months (and there has been!) then this realisation in itself means the time has yielded a greater wealth in my life than can currently be counted. And now an older and better song is buzzing in my head, and that too is newly refreshed...

eye sea watt ewe mien!

Not blogged for a while. No real news other than I'm slowly heading back to health. The slowly being the operative part. Currently seeing a Physio and an Occupational Therapist each week. The physio is helping to deal with persistent dizziness through a series of exercises and 'manipulating my head'. The outcome is that I feel worse after she visits but it will help in the long run... it seems long run is appropriate which is a bit frustrating and the OT is helping me plan toward an eventual return to 'normal' life, but there are things along the way that are encouraging.

Friends here have been really great. The men's bible study group that I'm a part of have been coming here most weeks for 30 minutes on a Monday evening before heading onto meet and study together. They come, share a drink, pray for me and then leave. It is a major inconvenience to them but they are faithful and persistent in prayer and encouragement. I value them a great deal.

The Olympic coverage has been a great distraction and in suitably short bursts of attention. I'm finding myself passionately supporting Kiwi athletes, one of whom I know from church.

Reports of how student ministy is going are encouraging. The latest TSCF annual report makes great reading and I'm really encouraged to hear that here in Auckland there is growing health and strength in the groups around the region.

I've also been thinking about how language can be a slippery thing to grasp. It's very easy to get frustrated when others can't express themselves well. It's frustrating for me as I head back to health to be straining for words, at times not able to say what I mean. But it's good to be able to laugh at myself too and to see that others find it hard to say what they mean.