Blog

Monday

Matthew 5.5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

The mental picture of Jesus the passive, untroubled and untroubling Teacher, with a wistful smile and a calm demeanour, pictured like a benign hippie, is a country mile from the reality of Jesus. The well-known words “Gentle Jesus, meek and mild” are so one sided they obscure and distort the Jesus of the New Testament. Yet Jesus says of himself, “For I am gentle and lowly in heart.” Yes, but that just means somewhere along the line what Jesus said is lost in translation! Meekness is not weakness, it is strength harnessed to purpose, the steel that supports each choice a person makes in favour of obedience to God, no matter what.

Tuesday

Matthew 11.29 “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.”

In an abrasive and aggressively self-promoting culture, meekness is unlikely to be the smart way ahead. Or so we’ve been conditioned to think. The word Jesus used for meek has inner resilience within its meaning. Oxen yoked to the plough demonstrate meekness, that is, strength harnessed to purpose, and power under control. We come to Jesus for rest, he gives us a yoke! But that implement guides and controls, enabling the obedience that comes from learning from the One who promises rest instead of weariness, and the yoke of learning in place of crushing burden.

Wednesday

Matthew 21.5 “Say to the daughter of Zion, ‘See, your king comes to you, meek and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’”

The triumphal entry was a different kind of triumph. Not an all-powerful ruler, leading a procession of victorious soldiers followed by long lines of conquered prisoners. He came gentle, meek, humble – three words used to translate the original Greek adjective. The triumph is not in the conquest, but in the purpose of his coming as the one called Jesus, “because he will save his people from their sins.” Jesus’ coming, sets in motion the triumph of God, the victory of the Crucified – “Ride on, ride on, in majesty! In lowly pomp ride on to die…” Meekness and strength harnessed to purpose, redemptive purpose.

Thursday

Ephesians 4.2 “Be completely humble and meek, be patient, bearing with one another in love.”

This is Paul’s definition of what meekness looks and feels like. It means putting up with people, being patient with their problems, and not giving up on them even if they are the problem! This pastoral imperative comes after Paul’s urging them, “to live a life worthy of the calling you have received.” Meekness is Christ-like, and we are called to be those who live in Christ, and in whom Christ lives. Many a church squabble breaks out because there is a deficit of meekness, a refusal to bear with one another in love. In short, our failure to take the meekness of Christ to heart.

Friday

James 3.13 “Who is wise and understanding among you? Let them show it by their good life, by deeds done in the meekness that comes from wisdom.”

We learn from experience. When someone does something stupid, wrong or unworthy of them, we say, “You should have known better.” Actually, we don’t always learn from experience, unless we become reflective practitioners of our own discipleship. Wisdom is accumulated from lessons learned in meekness. You can’t be a know-all and a disciple of Jesus. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me” is the command and demand that follows the invitation, “Come to me all who are burdened.”

Saturday

Colossians 3.12 “Therefore as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience.” 

You can tell a lot about a word’s meaning by the company it keeps. And Paul’s metaphor of being well dressed, clothed with Christ, describes in colourful terms the Christian as a non-fashion-conscious follower of Jesus. The clothes we wear make a statement, a visible message about who we are, the colours we prefer, even the impression we want to make. To be clothed in the meekness of Christ is to have taken his yoke, learned from him, and found rest. That’s identity statement enough.

Sunday

Matthew 5.5 “Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”

The meek are blessed because they have come to Jesus. They have meekly taken his yoke and learned of him as commanded. The result is that they shall inherit the earth. What on earth does that mean though, really? The meek are the powerless, those who don’t make claims of their own self-importance; those who can look on the world without feeling they have to grab and possess as much of it as they can. They shall inherit the earth, not the material stuff of influence, but the reward of God who satisfies the hungry and thirsty soul, comforts the mournful, calls peacemakers his children, and opens a world of blessing to those who seek first God’s Kingdom.

Sometime in the early 1970s garden centres began to grow. They became increasingly common as places to go, first for the obvious reasons of gardening equipment, seeds and plants, but then came the cafe, and the restaurant, and the food hall. The places grew in size, but so did their social importance. The garden centre became the place to meet for coffee, to have a meal, to spend time (and money) with family and friends.

Where I live, there are two signature Garden Centres within 15 minutes by car, with two more less than half an hour away. They are social hubs where folk meet up, bus trips arrive on the holiday trail, elderly parents are taken for lunch and a look around, retired folk build them in as a weekly rendezvous point. They employ significant numbers of casual and permanent workers, they sell everything from garden essentials to cosmetics, from delicatessen foods to scented candles, garden furniture to walking boots. And that's just the two nearest us!

I wrote earlier about Garden Centres as places of social intersection, places where beauty can be looked at whether or not we take home a rose, hibiscus, or tray of pansies.

You can catch up with it here,

Thinking some more about this since then, one other thought seems worth mentioning. The 'Garden Centre' is an important neutral space where conversations can take place, emotional support and encouragement can be spoken, and sometimes needs no words, just the tea or coffee, the 'fine piece', and a wander around a safe place.

The other day while walking around with a friend, in the covered outdoor area, I was aware we were walking in a place of visual therapy. There were the sparrows chirping in their own pub-level of shouted conversation; there was a robin staying near enough to be noticed, and distant enough to prevent those humans taking any liberties. There was bright sunlight highlighting the colours of pot plants, outdoor plants, mature acers in huge pots, roses and fuschia, geranium and hibiscus, summer cyclamen and alpines set in gravel – to mix a metaphor, a symphony of colour. He went his way, I went my way. We met, talked briefly and walked some more. 

I've come to realise that sometimes it's the physical environment that enables those conversations when important words are said; and creates a fertile place for those conversations that require few words, if any. The beauty is what needs to be heard (that misapplied metaphor again), and the peace of a garden (centre) is a different kind of aromatherapy, which lowers those defences we've become used to holding up to obscure what we might be embarrassed for others to see.

Of course much of this happens and we aren't even aware of it. Many come and go, time after time, and may not even wonder why it is they keep coming. And, of course, many will come unreflectively and simply enjoy the meal, browsing the plants, or the in the food-hall, buying whatever meets the current requirements – for the garden or the dinner table. And why not, for many folk, blessings don't have to be spelled out to be enjoyed!

But friendship and conversations, beauty and safe space, coffee and time shared with a trusted other – these some of our inner life's important support systems, and garden centres facilitate these for millions of people living in a culture where such social exchange and mutual recognition are often hard to find. Or so it seems to me.

As a Christian, I'll take whatever comes as blessing at its face value. Not all spiritual practices have to look spiritual, or feel devotional. God has more ways to bless the human heart than we can begin to think of, and much of the time we enjoy them with no thought of how this happiness of the heart happened to to us! And perhaps, as one who is a recipients of a Love Eternal in its scope and reach, I must guard against becoming so used to God's surrounding goodness, that all is taken for granted. A garden centre is no return to Eden, but it is a good reminder of the Creator, and of ourselves as dependent creatures, and of a God-loved world eloquent in beauty, fragile and at times broken.

Which line of thought always brings me back to Julian of Norwich's parable of the hazelnut - 

“And in this [sight], he showed a little thing the quantity of a hazelnut, lying in the palm of my hand as it seemed to me, and it was as round as any ball. I looked therein with the eye of my understanding, and thought: “What may this be?” And it was answered generally thus: “It is all that is made.” I marvelled how it might last, for it seemed to me it might suddenly have fallen into nought for its littleness. And I was answered in my understanding: “It lasteth and ever shall, because God loveth it. And so hath all things being by the love of God.”         

And if a garden centre can evoke that kind of faith and faithfulness, then maybe, just maybe, going to the garden centre is a kind of spiritual discipline!

TEXT FOR THE WEEK.  I Peter 1.3:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Monday

“Praise be to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s where Christian worship, prayer and faithful existence start – with praise. Not our requests and needs, but the heart recognition of who God is and all that God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter will go on to spell that out in the rest of the text. But impulsive, self-asserting and outspoken Peter has learned this late in life to put first things first. Praise is the music of a heart set free to live and love in the grace of God.

Tuesday

“In his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Mercy is love in action and always involves self-giving care for the other. Praise God, says Peter, for the gift of new life in Christ. Every believer lives with a forward look to hope-filled horizons. All of them illumined by the blazing reality of ‘the resurrection of Jesus Christ.’ The resurrection is the ultimate new beginning, the defeat of death by the life of God, the birth of hope from despair. By resurrection and the gift of new birth, God speaks a reverberating “Yes!” of forgiveness, reconciliation and renewal. 

Wednesday

“…and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”

New birth, living hope, and now a God-given inheritance, with a triple lock guarantee! It is imperishable, unspoilable, and unfading. What God has given to us in Christ is index-linked to his resurrection. This new life and living hope, with all its blessings of peace with God, the gift of the Spirit, the renewal of the heart for service, are directly dependent on God’s power and mercy, and demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Christ. Our inheritance in Christ is ring-fenced by grace!

Thursday

“This inheritance is kept in heaven for you…”

  Peter was writing to Christians who were facing persecution, the forfeiture of property, exclusion from society, loss of status and everyday freedoms. If we are faithful to Jesus it may well cost us too. Peter’s point is that our salvation, our security in God, our status as children of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – whatever else we lose, we can never lose our place in God’s love, and our hope in Christ. What we have received in Christ, all the graces and gifts of salvation, are under the lock and key of heaven, guarded by the eternal promises of God.

Friday

“who through faith are shielded by God’s power…”

In case we missed it, God not only guards and keeps all he has promised to those who are in Christ; but because we live in Christ by faith, we also are shielded by the power of God. An older translation says “we are kept by the power of God.” A shield is only effective when it comes between the heart and danger. The Psalmist even calls God a shield, One who protects and defends when the heart is under siege. 

Saturday

“until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Outside the discourse of the Church, the word salvation is hardly ever used these days. But it is a key word of Christian life. “It contains the ideas of rescue from danger, healing from illness, deliverance from the threat of death, and entering into a state of well-being.” We are born anew into a living hope, so that in faith we look forward to the final revelation of all that God plans for the new creation in Christ. So we live in anticipation, but we do so secure and “kept by the power of God.”

Sunday

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Read the whole text again, and allow your mind and heart to follow its rhythms. Another word hardly used outside church is ‘Doxology.’ Literally, it means to speak words of glory, to give God glory. This week we have explored Peter’s passionate description of Christian salvation, and taken some time to think about the experience and realities of God’s grace and power and love in our own lives.

It seems right to finish with perhaps the most frequently sung four-line verse in English hymnody, written in 1674 by Thomas Ken: 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

TEXT FOR THE WEEK.  I Peter 1.3:

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade. This inheritance is kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God’s power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Monday

“Praise be to the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.” That’s where Christian worship, prayer and faithful existence start – with praise. Not our requests and needs, but the heart recognition of who God is and all that God has done through our Lord Jesus Christ. Peter will go on to spell that out in the rest of the text. But impulsive, self-asserting and outspoken Peter has learned this late in life to put first things first. Praise is the music of a heart set free to live and love in the grace of God.

Tuesday

“In his great mercy he has given us a new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.”

Mercy is love in action and always involves self-giving care for the other. Praise God, says Peter, for the gift of new life in Christ. Every believer lives with a forward look to hope-filled horizons. All of them illumined by the blazing reality of ‘the resurrection of Jesus Christ.’ The resurrection is the ultimate new beginning, the defeat of death by the life of God, the birth of hope from despair. By resurrection and the gift of new birth, God speaks a reverberating “Yes!” of forgiveness, reconciliation and renewal. 

Wednesday

“…and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade.”

New birth, living hope, and now a God-given inheritance, with a triple lock guarantee! It is imperishable, unspoilable, and unfading. What God has given to us in Christ is index-linked to his resurrection. This new life and living hope, with all its blessings of peace with God, the gift of the Spirit, the renewal of the heart for service, are directly dependent on God’s power and mercy, and demonstrated in the death and resurrection of Christ. Our inheritance in Christ is ring-fenced by grace!

Thursday

“This inheritance is kept in heaven for you…”

  Peter was writing to Christians who were facing persecution, the forfeiture of property, exclusion from society, loss of status and everyday freedoms. If we are faithful to Jesus it may well cost us too. Peter’s point is that our salvation, our security in God, our status as children of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ – whatever else we lose, we can never lose our place in God’s love, and our hope in Christ. What we have received in Christ, all the graces and gifts of salvation, are under the lock and key of heaven, guarded by the eternal promises of God.

Friday

“who through faith are shielded by God’s power…”

In case we missed it, God not only guards and keeps all he has promised to those who are in Christ; but because we live in Christ by faith, we also are shielded by the power of God. An older translation says “we are kept by the power of God.” A shield is only effective when it comes between the heart and danger. The Psalmist even calls God a shield, One who protects and defends when the heart is under siege. 

Saturday

“until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time.”

Outside the discourse of the Church, the word salvation is hardly ever used these days. But it is a key word of Christian life. “It contains the ideas of rescue from danger, healing from illness, deliverance from the threat of death, and entering into a state of well-being.” We are born anew into a living hope, so that in faith we look forward to the final revelation of all that God plans for the new creation in Christ. So we live in anticipation, but we do so secure and “kept by the power of God.”

Sunday

“Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Read the whole text again, and allow your mind and heart to follow its rhythms. Another word hardly used outside church is ‘Doxology.’ Literally, it means to speak words of glory, to give God glory. This week we have explored Peter’s passionate description of Christian salvation, and taken some time to think about the experience and realities of God’s grace and power and love in our own lives.

It seems right to finish with perhaps the most frequently sung four-line verse in English hymnody, written in 1674 by Thomas Ken: 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow;
Praise him all creatures here below;
Praise him above, ye heav’nly host;
Praise Father, Son, and Holy Ghost.

Monday

Isaiah 40.1-2 “Comfort, comfort my people, says your God. Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for, that she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins.”

To people who had been through long years of exile, the loss of home, the daily friction of living in an alien culture, and unable to change things for the better, the Word of God comes, “Comfort.” There are things we can’t change, times when only God can help. Comfort means consolation and strengthening, an inner change of mind-set, and starting to believe again that newness can happen. Whatever is going on in your life, look at it and say, ignoring the poor grammar, “God has got this.”

Tuesday

Isaiah 40.3 “A voice of one calling: “In the wilderness prepare the way for the Lord; make straight in the desert a highway for our God.”

Isaiah announces the coming of God into lives crying out for hope. In the wilderness, when the way is hard and we thirst for hope, we wander and stumble, unsure where we are going. Then the command goes out – “Straight roads! A new way! God is coming.” At times like these we are living through, when familiar landmarks seem to have disappeared, God comes – and the world will always look different with God on the horizon. Any wilderness is transformed when God is there, when God is here.

Wednesday

Isaiah 40.4 “Every valley shall be raised up, every mountain and hill made low; the rough ground shall become level, the rugged places a plain.”

Civil engineering works are taking place in the wilderness world of broken dreams, failed hopes, and lost purpose in life. Comfort is more than consolation. It is long promised help, when God comes to transform, to make new things happen, to change the landscape and show us a new way forward. Martin Luther King spoke these words in one of the great sermons of the 20^th Century – they are liberation words, hope infused words; they are about God building a highway into human life.

Thursday

Isaiah 40.5 “And the glory of the Lord will be revealed, and all humanity will see it together. For the mouth of the Lord has spoken.”

God’s glory is revealed in His coming, in the blessing of his people, in mercy and judgement, in grace and faithfulness to all God’s promises. As Christians, reading these ancient words to God’s people Israel, we see God’s glory shining in the face of Jesus Christ. We have beheld that glory, full of grace and truth. God’s way of deliverance is the veiled glory of the incarnation, the hidden glory of the cross, and the dazzling glory of the resurrection. Into a wilderness world came Jesus Christ, Son of God, through whom God is revealed in judgement, grace and reconciling love.

Thursday

Isaiah 40.6-7 “A voice says, ‘Cry out.’ And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’ ‘All people are like grass, and all their glory is like the flowers of the field.”

God’s glory is eternal, human life for all its glory, is transient. Again and again the Bible warns and reminds us, human life is time limited. To live wisely and well is to live towards God, to trust in God as Creator and Redeemer. Our glory is a borrowed splendour, it is entire gift. The true glory of our lives shines out of our faith in Christ, our hope in Him, and our love for the Lord of Glory, who died and rose again for us.

Friday

Isaiah 40.7 “The grass withers, and the flowers fall because the breath of the Lord blows on them. Surely the people are grass.”

Isaiah is reminding the people of God that life is God’s gift. For all of us life has its seasons, and there’s no road back to Spring from Autumn. But as Paul said, “If we die, we die to the Lord, and if we live, we live to the Lord. Whether we live or die we are the Lord’s.” All through Isaiah that message reverberates – we live in, and for, and to the Lord, because “Our life is hid with Christ in God.”

Saturday

Isaiah 40.8 “The grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of our God stands for ever.”

So, life is short, transient, time limited. But the Creator who first breathed life into every one of us is eternal, and it is God’s Word that finally matters. That Word is spoken finally and forever in Jesus Christ. These sombre verses about us being like a flower that fades, and grass that withers, are to be read alongside the sure Gospel promises, the Word of our God which stands forever: “But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ…” That’s pure Isaiah!

Sunday

Isaiah 40.9 “You who bring good news to Zion, go up on a high mountain. You who bring good news to Jerusalem, lift up your voice with a shout, lift it up, do not be afraid; say to the towns of Judah, ‘Here is your God!’”

The coming of God is to be shouted, a chain reaction of praise from mountain to Temple. To the desperate question “Where is God in this wilderness?” the answer comes, loud and clear, “Here is your God.” Praise is the music of defiance, when God’s people envision mountains made low, but enough high hills are left for the heralds of God’s coming to use as platforms for God’s praise!