Dunston

How was your Easter? I’m writing only just after a lovely weekend in our churches, and having spent good time with family, and hope that you might have enjoyed some of the same. Maybe you had roast lamb; perhaps there were Easter eggs, or even the odd hot cross bun?

Speaking of odd hot cross buns, I noticed this year that Marks and Spencer have pushed even the chocolate flavour ones to a whole new level. This one contains a dippy egg filling (it is apparently sweet and gooey chocolate rather than the sugary stuff inside those more famous eggs, presumably for legal reasons). It has a very yellow cross on the top, which looks a bit like it is made of marzipan, but probably isn’t. The bun itself is “luxuriously soft and rich”, partly thanks to the cocoa in it. Being M&S, we are assured that it is “not just a hot cross bun”. I can’t confirm this myself, because when I went in the Norwich shop on Easter Saturday looking for them, purely for article research purposes, I couldn’t find any.

My attention was grabbed by a few different phrases in the advert. First, without denying anyone their right to a little treat at Easter, I got to wondering about how much you can associate the words luxurious, soft, rich, sweet or gooey with the cross. You don’t have to know much about the crucifixion story to recognise it is much more the opposite: suffering rather than luxury; endurance rather than softness; poverty rather than riches; bitterness rather than sweetness; gore rather than goo. Now I don’t pretend those would be easy buns to sell, but I think they are words worth you just pausing over for a moment, and reflecting again on what Jesus did for you.

Second, I noticed not just the famous “not just a hot cross bun” phrase in the text, but also in the big slogan at the bottom: “this is not just food.” Putting aside the fact that it is obviously just food, I did end up reflecting on Jesus’s words about himself, and especially that he was “the bread of life.” Jesus said this as he was speaking about the miracle of the 5000, where he had provided bread enough for 5000 people (and fish besides). This bread, of course, was daily bread, to meet human needs after a long day following Jesus, but Jesus is explaining that he is the bread of life – eternal bread. He is not just food the way we think about it, whether that is something simple to keep us going, or a special treat which will end up digested the same way as everything else!

And finally, perhaps in a bid to inspire controversy as there somehow always seems to be with hot cross buns, there is the slogan: “Cross on top, magic in the middle.” You’ll know where I’m going by now (and thanks very much for still being with me) when I point out that the extraordinary thing about the cross, is that it is a victory. Everyone intended it to be a defeat, but on the cross Jesus won. And at the heart of the Easter story isn’t magic, but a miracle, and the amazing truth that Jesus was raised from the dead because it was impossible for the grave to keep hold of him.

Please don’t mistake me. Please eat whatever hot cross buns you like whenever you’d like to, and I hope you really enjoy them. But perhaps as you do, you will stop to think about the cross, and all that it means, and stop to thank Jesus, who really is so much more than just food.

Let it not be said that life is not full of surprises, and that we can’t learn things in unexpected places.

On Shrove Tuesday I was helping at our Sparklers toddler group, and we were in full pancake mode. Pancakes were coming out of the kitchen; there were pancake crafts for the children to make; pancake games to play; pancake songs to sing; and to finish it all off, a story about Mr Wolf making everyone pancakes.

Mr Wolf decides to make pancakes, but he has a problem. He doesn’t know what to do, and he doesn’t have what he needs. Worse than that, no-one will help him. (Maybe they are just too busy, and not being very kind to him, or perhaps we are supposed to sympathise with all the other characters, who might just be finding excuses not to be in the same place as a wolf with a sizzling frying pan.)

Anyway, he presses on alone, and in the end he produces some absolutely delicious pancakes. At that point it begins to look like party time, and suddenly all the others come creeping back. Could they possibly have some of his delicious pancakes? Might they be able to be friends after all?

The stage is set for a heartwarming moment as the reconciled friends gather together to enjoy the delicious pancakes together. But no: Mr Wolf eats everyone instead.

This amazing twist at the end (which was edited out of story time at Sparklers) made me laugh a lot, but it also made me reflect. We might not be wolves, but we also have ways of reacting when we feel let down.

This month we are heading towards Easter, remembering the last week of Jesus’s life. Though it seems a bit odd to look at everything that has happened so far and notice all the people who let Jesus down, they are there if you look. Did all the 5000+ people Jesus fed stick with him? The ones he healed? What about the many religious leaders who rejected him? The times his best friends got it plain wrong? Heading towards Easter, it only gets more obvious. Some of the same crowd who were welcoming his as King on Sunday were baying for his blood on Friday. His disciples have been with him for three years, and in the space of a week different ones of them argue about which of them is his favourite; show little sign of understanding who he is at all; betray him for money; deny they even know him; and fall asleep when he most needs them.

How will Jesus respond? Will anger and resentment build in him so that he (metaphorically!) eats them all alive? Will he do what we all might if we feel disappointed enough, and take it out on them in some slightly more subtle way?

In a moment that the whole of eternity hinges on, Jesus chooses “No”. On the cross, faced with the rejection of so many, Jesus chooses to pray “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Of course he has in mind the people who put him on the cross; who found him guilty of a crime he didn’t commit; but we can also extend that to include everyone who let him down then, and everyone (including me, first of all) who has let him down since. The wolf’s anger turns on others and devours them, but Jesus carries all of that in himself, on the cross, and offers all of us an extraordinary promise as we come to him: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

It's understandable to wonder what might happen if we come to Jesus, especially if we feel we aren’t sure about him, or we’ve let him down, or whatever it might be. But there is nothing to be afraid of. It is finished, we are forgiven, and we can be with him in paradise.

Happy Easter, everyone.

For reasons that will become clear, I’ve been trying to remember where I heard the phrase, “If this is the answer, what is the question?” When I looked it up, I discovered that it comes from Mock the Week.

It is amazing what questions people came up with on that programme. A lot of the comic effect was that they obviously had nothing to do with the right answer, and in the end, after a number of occasionally highly inappropriate questions, someone would come out with the correct one, related to something that was in the news that week.

I say this because recently we have been reading some stories from John’s gospel, both on Sunday mornings and at All Invited on Sunday afternoons (you’re all invited, by the way, to both of them) and one of them was about the time Jesus met a man who was unable to walk, by a pool in Jerusalem. This pool was said to have healing properties, so that each time the water stirred up, the first person to get into it would be made well. I’ve read this story lots of times, but Cathryn pointed something out that I hadn’t noticed before.*

Jesus asks him a question, and the man answers like this: “Sir, I have no one to help me into the pool when the water is stirred. While I am trying to get in, someone else goes down ahead of me.”

So let’s play the game for a minute: If this is the answer, what is the question? I asked some people in my house and they both suggested it would be something like “Why aren’t you in the pool?” You might suggest “Why haven’t you been healed all this time?”

But that isn’t anything like the question Jesus asks him. He asks, “Do you want to get well?” Given that he is at a pool which is famous for its healing powers, and he is frustrated that he can’t get in, you would have thought that the only logical answer would be an exasperated “YES!”

The fact that the man doesn’t give that answer ends up showing us a lot more about where his heart is than we might have expected. A whole lot of disappointment, and reasons why things aren’t going to work out for him, come pouring out in response to a very different question.

It makes me wonder how often I don’t listen to the question Jesus is asking me. Where do I jump in, and give him a whole lot of reasons why something won’t work? What if I am introducing all sorts of complications, when all Jesus is doing is asking me “Do you want to get well?” Why don’t I just give in and say, “Yes?”

It's a good question, isn’t it? And like the comedy show, we already know the right answer. Whether it’s physically well, or emotionally well, or spiritually well – at peace with God through knowing the forgiveness and love and grace that come through faith in Jesus – isn’t your answer the same? Shouldn’t you really just give in and say, “Yes?”

*Much of this article was inspired by a brilliant scene about this story from the fantastic TV series The Chosen. You can watch it by clicking here. It’s definitely worth 5 minutes of your time.

Have you moved around a lot? One of the things that you quickly notice when you move to Norfolk is that quite a lot of people haven’t. If you’re someone who’s not moved around a lot, then I expect that this place feels very like home.

I am by nature a bit restless. In my office I have on the wall a wooden tent peg which reminds me that although I might stay in one place, in a way as I follow Jesus I am always on the move. I wonder if you feel anything like the same restlessness sometimes. Are you looking for home?

Perhaps like you, as a family we went and watched Paddington in Peru during the holidays. Like the other Paddington films, it explores very important questions about home. It continues the adventures of our friend from Darkest Peru, who has been sent to London by his Aunt Lucy, armed only with the clothes he is inexplicably wearing, a suitcase full of marmalade, and a label reading, “Please look after this bear.” And the Brown family adopt him, name him after the station where they find him, and give him a home.

As this third film begins, Paddington finds himself heading back to Peru, and by the time that it ends, he is back where it all started. He’s in the perfect orange garden that he fell from as a cub; he’s surrounded by all the bears and all the perfect fruit he could ever want. And the decision he has to make is about what he does next; does he stay there in the garden, or return to London with the Browns?

That one was for the writers of Paddington to decide, and for you to find out when you see it, but when God inspired the authors of the bible story, he made the garden the final destination. The last chapters of the bible picture a tree full of life, constantly bearing fruit for the healing of the nations. It’s a place where God’s people will dwell with him, in his presence, always, and there will only be good.

If we believe in Jesus, we can lose sight of this amazing promise. Sometimes this world with all of its marmalade sandwiches and other attractions can be quite a distraction. But whether or not we believe in Jesus, surely the picture is so inviting?

Think how now, you and I can feel so dry and thirsty, when one day God’s Spirit will run through the land like a river.

Think how now, we long for the world to be sorted out, and for people we know and love to be healed, and one day the healing will just be hanging on the trees, and we will be free just to reach out and take hold of it.

Think how now, God can feel far away, and one day he will be there in the city and we will see his face.

Think how now, even with Jesus, it can feel like it is dark, and one day we will not even need the light of the sun, because the light of God will be so much greater even than the sun.

Jesus has brought us so far, though we are not there yet. But one day we will be. Whatever you think happens at the end of Paddington in Peru, that’s how our story is going to end.

I get a bit confused at this time of year. I am writing this before Christmas, but you are reading it after Christmas, so I have to remember to talk about Christmas as if it has already happened. Also, you are probably reading it in January, so I have to remember to say Happy New Year and not Happy Christmas, even though most of our Christmas things in the churches, let alone Christmas Day, haven’t even happened yet. It’s probably a bit easier from your perspective, a few weeks down the line, when Christmas has definitely been and the New Year is just beginning.

All this trying to remember whether it has been Christmas or not has got me thinking about the fact that, of course, Christmas has come. It doesn’t change from one year to the next, whether it is December, or January, or even June. As I was saying to a friend recently, we can’t be sure when Jesus was born – Christmas is more like his “official birthday” but we do know that he was. It happened, once and for all, and whatever we say every year about waiting for Christmas, or even looking forward to Jesus’s birth, actually we are talking about something that has happened already. I’m writing this in the middle of December, but that’s still after Christmas.

When I was preaching a couple of weeks ago, I was thinking out loud about all the build-up to Christmas – which makes it difficult for different people for various reasons – can also cause us to lose sight of how suddenly Christmas appeared. Lots of people had expected it for a long time, but it was still such a surprise. You spot it in the appearance of the angels to the shepherds: “Suddenly” they are there. God had done this extraordinary thing, and it was up to everyone who saw and heard it to decide what to do about it.

And that’s still where you and I all are today. We are suddenly confronted with the truth of what God has done, and we have to decide what to do about it. Often what happens is that God is already at work in people’s lives, perhaps almost without being noticed, and then a moment comes where everything happens very suddenly. Like the new birth of Jesus to Mary and Joseph, people experience new birth into faith in Jesus by the Holy Spirit. A story that was once just for Christmastime becomes the thing that we live for, and by, every single day. The same Jesus who was born into the chaos of a busy Middle Eastern home comes to live in our hearts.

It's a moment in someone’s life which changes everything, forever, and replaces any confusion about whether or not Christmas has happened yet with the glorious certainty that God has come near, and that everything has changed. It’s an invitation which God makes constantly, from Christmas to New Year and at every time in between, as he shows us what Jesus has done for us, and invites us to believe.

Happy New Year, everyone.

Good tidings we bring!

As the least musical person in my family, I do enjoy this time of year especially, because people are busy preparing to play and sing at different concerts and carol services, and the sound of Christmas music begins to fill the house. Last year one of us was learning to play We wish you a Merry Christmas, which contains the famous line that you’ll have seen on the front of the magazine, and which has given us inspiration for all our church posters and cards this year. We also have a brass player in the family, which gives a very nice festive feel to things, despite this person enjoying wearing a T-shirt which has a picture of their instrument and the words “I Destroy Silence.”

The line from the song has its roots in the Christmas story, of course, with the angels’ word to the shepherds not to be afraid because “We bring good news of a Saviour, who is Christ the Lord.” In a world where so much of what fills our screens or newspapers is so often such bad news, here is something which is entirely good.

In a world where we can feel that everything depends on us, that we pay for our mistakes, and that we have to make our own way, the angels bring good news of a Saviour – a rescuer.

If we feel let down, or anxious about the future, or struggling with doubt or uncertainty, the angels bring good news of Christ, God’s chosen one, promised from the beginning.

If we feel the world is spinning out of control, whether it is war, or politics, or climate change, or all three and more, the angels bring good news of a Lord, one who holds everything in his hands, and will do forever.

And the one who doesn’t just bring good news, but is good news, is Jesus: he is the Saviour who is Christ the Lord. No wonder the angels tell the shepherds that this is “good news that will cause great joy for all the people.”

The Christmas story seems at once so long ago, and at the same time a bit too familiar, so it is hard to imagine now what it was like the first time. But at the time of Jesus’s birth, for centuries people felt that they had not heard from God. Had he forgotten them? And into this void comes an amazingly noisy story: heavens opening, angels singing, joy echoing, and babies crying. God speaks: his Word, Jesus comes into the world, and destroys silence in the very best way.

It hasn’t changed, really. People still think God has forgotten them, for all sorts of reasons – maybe you do – but he still comes to destroy the silence of our fears, speaking instead good news, bringing great joy, telling of a Saviour who is Christ the Lord.

Happy Christmas, everyone

Even though there is a lot still to organise for December, we are getting ahead of ourselves a bit in the churches this year when it comes to Christmas. Not that all the events are organised by any means; cards have to be designed, and posters printed, and slots on rotas filled, and buildings decorated, and all the usual things that need doing at that time of year. Where we have been getting ahead of ourselves is that a month or so ago we felt we should start reading through one of the gospels again on Sunday mornings, and we settled on John. The opening includes some words which you might have heard at carol services before: “The Word became flesh and dwelt among us.”

There are some complicated ideas here, but if you basically assume that “Word” means Jesus here, you’re on the right track. A very popular modern version of the bible – a less literal translation – uses the phrase “The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood.”

The world has changed a lot in 2000 years, but one thing there still is are neighbourhoods. You might feel really rooted in our village communities here, like lots of people do, or you might find your neighbourhood somewhere else. Maybe it is the school your children go to, or the place you work, or a big friendship group, or something else, but most of us have some kind of neighbourhood.

I wonder what it means to you that Jesus has moved into it? I’m always eager for everyone who belongs to our churches to be active in our community in all sorts of ways, because when we do that, we bring Jesus with us, and he is good news for everyone. But this is another place I am aware of not getting ahead of myself, and how I need to remember that Jesus so often goes before us too: the job of his followers is to follow him, to see what he is doing, and join in.

I am sitting in the house at the moment, and feeling that I am in the wrong place to be writing this; as I type I am picturing the streets and the houses in the villages and asking Jesus where in the neighbourhood he is at work. Where are people catching glimpses of him? Where are his grace and truth being revealed? Where amongst us is there a real sense of Jesus coming close to us, like a neighbour? Could that be what you have been noticing recently: the Word who became flesh and blood moving into the neighbourhood?