What is the meaning of the cross?

Scholars bebate the meaning of the cross of Jesus in great detail. They argue about the nature of it and what was happening. However, as Martin Luther once pointed out, you can’t understand the cross only with your brain. The cross is doing something far more important than providing something to debate.

I think the truth is that many different things were happening during the crucifixion. Some of them obvious and others more hidden but ultimately its not what it does to your head that matters its how it touches your soul and your heart. Scholars who insist on reducing the cross to one meaning are just plain wrong.

But then we should be used to things having multiple meanings. If I can take a trivial personal example first here. I go running every morning. I have lots of reasons for doing it. I want to get fit, I need to lose weight, I want to try and avoid some illnesses, I want to be fit to enjoy my walking hobby and I want to be an example for my children. Now if anyone were to reduce the meaning to just one of these they would be right in saying that this is what was happening but would also be very wrong because it means so much more.

If we reduce the cross to just one meaning then we might be right in what we say about that one meaning but we are so very wrong if we think that is the end of the story.

Was Jesus dying for us? Yes. Was Jesus taking away the sin of the world? Yes. Was it a moral example to inspire us to better things? Yes. Was Jesus the lamb of God? Yes. And so I could continue.

But ultimately you can’t understand the cross without feeling it. It’s only when you can stand at the foot of the cross yourself, and see your Saviour suffering and bleeding, and dying with your name on his lips, and understand that it should be you up there, that you get what it means.

It means so much and yet the message is simple – God loves you.

How willing are you for God to use you?

I’m sure at some point every Christian has told God that they are willing to be used by Him. But do we really mean it when we say it?

It takes a lot to submit to God’s will completely. For instance how happy would you be if to follow His will you had to be poor for the rest of your life? Or how willing if you knew it would cause you conflict with the people you love the most?

Jesus once asked a rich young ruler to give up the thing he loved the most (his money) before he could follow Jesus. All we know is the young man went away feeling sad. He wanted to follow Jesus but the cost was too great.

I don’t believe it is God’s will for everyone to be poor or that the point of this story is that you have to give away all your stuff to the poor before you can follow Jesus. I think the point is that if we are really going to follow Christ we should be willing to go this far.

I want God to use me but I hope he includes a comfortable life for me as well. So far the comfortable life part (that’s the bit I want) has never materialised. Should this mean I stop following Christ? Well ultimately that’s my choice but so far I think not.

What are you willing to give up to follow Christ?

Are you really praying?

If you only pray by sending off little messages to God when you are in the middle of something else then you are missing out. If you really want to pray then you need to be spending some quality time with God. You need to find some time when you can be quiet and spend time just being with God.

I know that for some of us this is very difficult. Those of you with a young family will know that it is incredibly hard to find any time to do anything. Young children are very demanding and you are on the go all the time, babies in particular make finding time along almost impossible.

You know just because something is almost impossible doesn’t mean that it is not worth doing. Most of us, if we are pressed, could find some time if we really wanted to.

If you knew that if you made a 15 minute phone call you would get a million pounds (read dollars or whatever) then you would find the time to even if it was nearly impossible.

So how much is that time with God worth to you? This is where the problems arise.

I often hear people complaining that God doesn’t listen to them or they never hear God speak. This is often down to not listening. You can’t expect, in any relationship, to get a clear message from someone you only ever listen to about once a month. For one thing you have to learn to hear the voice of God which comes in many different forms. You can’t listen just occasionally and expect to understand what God is saying. It’s not that God is trying to hide away its simply that the rest of life gets in the way.

So let me encourage you to find a time (first thing in the morning or last thing at night maybe?). If you go to bed at 11pm then either go at 10:45pm and spend 15 minutes before you go to sleep with God or turn off the TV at 11 and go to bed at 11:15pm. You can work out what to do in the morning for yourself.

If you want to hear God you have to give Him time to speak.

When do you pray?

In an effort to get people praying the church has traditionally encouraged people to pray at certain times. Personally I like to pray in the morning before the work day begins. However it’s also good to pray in the evenings because it gives you a chance to ask for forgiveness and for peace through the night. Even better to do both.

However there are no set rules about when to pray other than that it is a good idea to pray but the rest is left pretty much up to us.

I love the bit in the gospels (see Luke 11) when the disciples ask Jesus to teach them to pray. Jesus then gives them a formulae they can use (e.g. the Lords Prayer). Of course in other places they learn important things about prayer as well but here is an example of Jesus’ teaching. He doesn’t make it complicated, he doesn’t give them set times to do it, he doesn’t even expand on the Lord’s Prayer with a whole lot of commentary.If you sincerely pray the Lords prayer every day it will transform your prayer life. I did this – only praying the Lord’s prayer – for a month and I was amazed at how much deeper my prayer life became. I thought at the time I was doing pretty well anyway.

So when do you pray and how do you do it? Please leave a comment so others can benefit.

Death of my friend

Everyone has to face, at some time or another, the death of someone they once knew and loved. It can be hard to come to terms with, especially for those without any faith in God. However it is especially hard when that person took their own life. There must inevitably be questions about how it might have been prevented, and that perhaps you were the one who could have prevented it.

Of course such thinking helps no one. If we all went through life beating ourselves up because we missed an opportunity to help someone then we would all be pretty depressed. But then again perhaps we should feel bad about such missed opportunities and admit them to God so we can say sorry and find forgiveness.

Recently I learned of a friend from my past who has taken his own life. I don’t know the details, I doubt that I ever will know everything. I feel sad that whilst I had lost touch with him somewhere along the line, in the end I was not there to help.

But you know Jesus faced something similar in his own life. Not a suicide but the death of someone close to him, a death which he could have prevented. A friend of his called Lazarus. Lazarus fell ill and Jesus knew about it. Being Jesus he had the power to stop his friend from dying but instead deliberately didn’t go to help so he could use this situation for something greater.

After his friend died he went to see the family, who are distraught. Why didn’t Jesus save him? Then comes one of the most moving of the verses of the Bible. The two words, “Jesus wept”.

You can find this story in the Gospel of John Chapter 11.

Why did Jesus cry? Was it for his friend? Maybe. Was it for the people who suffered as a result of that death? Quite likely. Whatever the reason it shows us that Jesus, God, is human. Jesus knows about grief firsthand. He is not some spectator sitting on a cloud smiling at us when we get something right or wagging a finger when we get it wrong, he is one of us.

Then Jesus raises Lazarus and in one spectacular event shows us that he can change even death itself.

When someone we love dies, especially when that loved one ends their own life, it is important that we understand our own power to change death. We can’t raise people from the dead (at least this is not an every day experience) but we can change our world so that out of death can come life.

We change what we can, maybe all we can really change is ourselves, so that the world is a better place in memory of those who have passed on.

At the end of Saving Private Ryan there is a moving moment when Private Ryan visits the grave of the man who saved his life. He is trying to say that he hopes what he has done has earned the death that gave him life. He hasn’t cured cancer or ended all wars but he has done his best to live a good life and bring up a good family. Maybe this is all we can do, but at least in this way we can demonstrate that the lives we once loved meant something.

So long Phil, it was a pleasure knowing you, may God take away the pain you have felt, wipe the tears from your eyes, and may you find peace at last in paradise.

Is religion responsible for all the world’s problems?

I don’t usually get involved in arguments of this kind because in my experience there is rarely a happy conclusion (both sides get angry without resolution). I have studied logic and so have some capacity to make an argument but so often I find people are not actually open to a logical argument but instead make up some argument that they claim is logical (90% of the time it isn’t) to prove their own point.

However just for once I’m going to break my silence because I’ve heard this accusation a great deal lately in interviews with Richard Dawkins. Straight away I want to say that I always find Richard to come across as a caring person whose intentions are good. I don’t accept his arguments – for logical reasons as much as anything - and I think he does have an unfortunate tendency to use inflammatory language. He comes across too often as an angry axe grinder. I refer to such words as “idiotic” and his favourite of “the 20th/21st century mind” that I’ve heard in interviews lately.

Anyway he often uses an argument along the line of: “people do all kinds of atrocious things in the name of a god or religion but nothing bad has ever been done in the name of atheism – therefore atheism is a better belief system”.

At face value it looks like he has a point but if you look closer you will see that his claim is in fact logical nonsense. It’s like saying “you can make tomato sauce out of a banana because a banana is a fruit”.

You see the problem is that you compare a religion which includes belief in something with atheism which is a belief in a lack of something. It’s not logically possible to compare the two in this way.

When did anyone ever do anything (good or bad) in the name of atheism (other than attacking people of faith of course)?  Atheists might do something in the name of love or hate or humanity or peace etc but they don’t act in the name of atheism. In fact if they ever did they would be admitting that atheism is a religion – again logical nonsense.

But let’s not sidestep the argument he is trying to make – even if he makes it very badly. Surely the question to answer is: What motivates someone to do terrible things? and Does religion play a unique role in making people do bad things?

What motivates someone to do terrible things?

I would suggest that the list (which is too long to list here) is very long but would include things like: envy, deception, pride, greed, ignorance, anger, abuse of power, lust etc. All the things which in fact the major religions preach against.

Does religion play a unique role in making people do bad things?

Is there something unique about religion that you can’t find in anything else that motivates its followers to do bad things? No. It is a sad truth that people do use religion in this way but they do the same with any ideology. We only have to look at what has happened in the past couple of hundred years (Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot, Mao) to see how ideologies have resulted in major genocides and atrocities. If this is not enough we could go back to ancient times and look at the despots who slaughtered innocent people by the score. Any ideology is capable of being abused in this way. Any individual with enough power is capable of doing the same.

Are we then to abandon any ideology on the basis that it can cause atrocities?

Of course not. If we were to do this we would have to reject the following along with religion: philosophy (which also forms the basis for science of course – it’s not just evidence based it relies on theory and speculation), science, democracy, freedom, charity etc.

Sometimes – I would grant – bad people can use religion as a tool to stir up problems but you can’t blame the tool you must blame the person who used it. In the same way you can’t put a knife used in a murder in prison for killing someone. It’s the person who uses the tool not the tool that is at fault.

As a footnote I would also add that most atheists seem to react to people of faith with a dissproportionate amount of anger. If you read what Richard Dawkins writes for instance you would understand the vitriol that sometimes emerges. I can understand that he may feel (in my opinion wrongly) that religion has a lot to answer for by why all the hatred built into the arguments? Surely this is the very reaction he claims is the domain of the world’s religions.

I always think it sad when bad arguments are waved like triumphant flags as though because they are shouted the loudest in the most aggressive way they somehow win. Some people abuse religion and it is always a source of embarrassment to any people of faith where this happens. Others do the same with science and with atheism (no I’m not comparing science and atheism to a religion they are just items on a list).

When can we get away from the aggressive name calling and start to explore the world in a way that moves us towards a better existence? I have taken on board many arguments from many religions and listened carefully to atheists but in the end it is the Christian faith that makes the most sense to me. I am not an ignorant imbecile because I think that way. I have examined the evidence (the same evidence that others draw different conclusions from) and drawn my own conclusions. Why can’t intelligent people understand this simple concept?

Ultimately though for me it must come down to be a matter of experience. The Christian faith is not just a matter of intellectual assent. I have experienced the presence of God as if another person were with me (on many different occasions both in groups of people and on my own). I can no more deny the existence of someone I have experienced in this way any more than I could deny the existence of my own brother. I can’t offer any more evidence than personal testimony.  Yes there is no conclusive logical argument for the existence of God (although some get pretty close) however there is no conclusive logical argument that God does not exist (these arguments are of course philosophy and not science – let’s not confuse the two as some do). Also if we only ever believed what science had revealed to us we would be pretty confused people (science changes its mind about the conclusions it draws from evidence on a regular basis – quite rightly so). You are free to believe whatever you will about my testimony but your claims will not change my experience.

Is religion responsible for all the world’s problems? No people are.