Do You Need a Bath?

Some years ago there was a TV advert – you may recall it – that posed the question, “would you tell your best friend?”  I’m not for one moment suggesting that there are unpleasant odours in our churches, nor am I attempting to promote additional personal hygiene amongst our worshippers, but had you ever considered the many functions of the bathroom?

Naturally, it is a place for cleansing.  Little can be more refreshing than a morning shower, or so relaxing as a foaming bath after a hard day in the garden.  But is there another, less obvious, use for the bathroom?  How many homes these days - at least those below the status of ‘mansion’ - can boast their own private chapel?

Listen, if you will, to the excuses put forward why people find it difficult for what we euphemistically call a ‘quiet time’: a daily opportunity for Bible reading and prayer, a time to draw close to God on a regular basis.  Maybe you use them yourself: “I can’t find the time.”  “My life is so irregular, shifts and so on.”  “There is always someone else around.”  And to those who say these things, each one is true, and each one is apparently insurmountable.  For those who would dearly love to introduce this important habit into their lives, it is an increasing source of frustration, too.

Of course, we’d all like to be able to find time for Bible reading and prayer, and these are very important.  But there is another dimension to our spiritual life, one that even the most devout is liable to overlook: listening to God.  Which of us would face the day without at least a quick splash?  In all but the most overcrowded homes, our time in the bathroom is - and I use the word deliberately - sacrosanct.  We are fairly confident of being alone and, hopefully, unlikely to be disturbed.  So, how about next time you step into the bath or shower (we shouldn’t be embarrassed about standing naked before the Almighty - that’s how he made us, after all!) saying, in full and sincere expectation of an answer, “Hi, God, what have you got to say to me today?”

I love the story of the little girl who, in all innocence, told her teacher that she had found out where God lives.  “And where’s that, dear?” asked the teacher, expecting some deep theological wisdom far beyond the infant’s tender years.  “He lives in our bathroom,” came the reply.  “My daddy was standing outside the bathroom door this morning, shouting ‘God!  Are you still in there?’”

 

So, in all seriousness, do you need a bath?

 

Down Memory Lane

From time to time in my work, I go somewhere completely new, only to arrive at my destination and recognise the building or the location of the loading yard.  I don’t remember the journey, but I now realise that I have been there before, albeit several years ago.  Many more are regular jobs where, if told just the name of our customer and the destination town, I know exactly where I’ll be going, even down to the face or name of the person I’ll see when I get there.

Repetition doesn’t actually add to knowledge but it does embed it firmly in the memory.  This is true of relationships, too.  If you meet someone daily or weekly, you can pick up where you left off; you’re both part of the same ongoing story.  You know what is happening in your friend’s life, and they in yours.  By contrast, consider the experience of a friend who told me a few weeks ago of his visit to a primary school reunion.  He met people there whom he’d not seen for over fifty years.  ‘After a few minutes, learning what trade or profession each other has followed and how many grand-children we have,’ he told me, ‘there’s nothing more to be said, and you move on to the next former fellow-pupil.’

In his ministry, St Paul naturally developed close ties with the churches he established.  But these ties had to be nourished by communication.  When he wasn’t still with a community, he wanted to know how they were getting on; if he heard nothing for a while, he sent one of his colleagues to find out and report back (I Thessalonians 2:17-3:10.)

We can be just as close or distant with our Maker, too.  There is no doubt about His love for each one of us: “I have called you by your name, you are mine” (Isaiah 43:1), and His concern for the minutiae of our existence “Even the very hairs of your head are numbered.” (Matt. 10:30.)  The uncertainty comes in the fickleness of our regard for Him.  Our attentions are often a matter of convenience, but I’d like to suggest two key disciplines that can enrich and boost our devotion.  One of these is a regular pattern of prayer and worship which, once established, can be adapted and strengthened at any time!

The other is to use a prayer remembered from childhood.  One I recall is a bedtime prayer: Lord, keep us safe this night / secure from all our fears / May angels guard us while we sleep / till morning light appears.  Because it’s so deep-rooted, once a key word is said, the remainder flows effortlessly from memory.  So, thinking caps on ... what’s hidden away in the depths of your memory?

Once pronounced, these unforgotten prayers can become living reminders of God’s presence and His love. 

What's on Your Doormat?

Maybe you wait for the postman to call before you venture out in the mornings.  Or maybe you battle against what he has left in order to open your door in the evening.  Whenever you set eyes on your post, there is usually quite a variety to it.  There are brown envelopes and white, rectangular and square ones, poly-bags with labels and occasionally some that are not 'Post Office Preferred'!  There may be bills, business letters, a generous slice of junk mail, and perhaps something you have ordered on line.  On very rare days, there may even be that special envelope with a stamp and handwritten address - a personal letter!

All of these are communications of some sort.  Perhaps the sender is trying to convince us of the worthiness of his particular 'good cause', to sell something to us, or let us know what is on at the theatre.  Other items tell us what we owe on a credit card, or perhaps it's simply a regular newspaper or magazine to read.  Some we have been waiting for, or find useful; others we could cheerfully do without.

Have you ever considered how the daily postal delivery mirrors God's attempts to communicate with us?  There are several differences, though.  From God there is no junk mail, for a start: everything is relevant, if we take the trouble to see how.  There are no bills: God's gift of salvation is absolutely free - all we have to do is accept it.  And there's no agonising wait for a mail-order delivery, either.  God is ever-present with us, and His grace is always on tap.

But the best of it is, it's all personal.  Each of us lives a life that is our own, specially designed with us in mind.  As I thought about this divine mystery, my mind rested on the words of a hymn by Alfred B. Smith and Eugene Clarke (catch it here).  Sometimes our doormat bears surprises.  We don't know what there is ahead of us, what joys or griefs there might be, or how long we have left to enjoy (or suffer) them.  But we can be sure that, whatever betide us, we can rely on a special blend of comfort, guidance, protection and strength that's tailored just for our needs - God's love.

It's a thought worth remembering next time you pick up your post!

The Way Forward

The other day I was refitting my SatNav in the van after a regular update.  It was refusing to stay stuck onto the windscreen, and in my impatience, I asked it, “do I really need you?” 

I’ve long since stopped relying on a box of maps, waiting for the opportunity to stop and have a look at one of them.  Instead I have a calm voice telling me regularly to ‘turn left,’ ‘take the second right,’ or ‘perform a U-turn when possible.’  From time to time I’ve noticed that there are both similarities and vast differences between this inanimate object and the Almighty.  Many preachers seem to realise these twin phenomena as they use two kinds of illustration in their sermons. There are those that say ‘God is like this’, and there are those that say ‘... but God’s not like that!’

Let’s consider first some of its God-like qualities.  SatNav can be trusted to get you there ... eventually.  I find I can’t always fathom out just what route it’s going to take, but it always works.  Meanwhile, I have free will: if I don’t like what’s on offer I can go my own sweet way confident that, if I get lost, there’s always SatNav’s way out of whatever pickle might result.  And whatever I might fear to the contrary, there’s no recrimination for disregarding the advice it gives.  The machine never takes umbrage, or gets angry at being ignored.  There’s just that same calm voice telling me the recommended adjustment to my course.

‘But God’s not like that.’  SatNav is powerless to create anything, or to perform any function at all, unless I first switch it on, and key in the required destination.  I can determine whether I am to be offered the fastest route, or the shortest distance, which can take up to twice the time.  I have no such power over my Lord! When I finally get to the end of my journey, it’s not unknown for SatNav to tell me, ‘destination on the right,’ when, after due investigation by torchlight, or interrogation of the neighbours, I discover that it’s actually on the other side of the road.  By contrast, whether I realize it or not, God is always right.

And another thing ... God’s batteries never run low!

I suppose it all boils down to one fundamental truth.  Nothing can completely, comprehensively, reproduce or replace our Wonderful Creator.  Little surprise, then, that the preacher uses both like and unlike to explain His nature, His power and His love. 

God or SatNav? I know which I’d rather have in a crisis – how about you?

Just what is it about Christmas?

"I don't bother with Christmas these days - it's just for the children, after all, isn't it?" - how often have you heard that?  Countless times, I'll warrant.  And is it true? (I'll come back to that question later.)  What do people mean when they ask it, though?  I suggest that they're really saying that all the razzamataz of the 'High Street Christmas" is what they are rejecting: the special food, that only comes out once a year, like dates, nuts, crystalized fruits, the little bacon/sausage bundles and plum pudding; and the toys that seem to grow more intricate and more expensive with each year that passes, and with an equal and opposite progression in their reliability, too.  And they stop giving Christmas cards, too, because it costs far more now to post them - even second class - than the cost of the card.

So, "I don't bother with Christmas these days."  And what about that other claim, "it's just for the children, isn't it?"  Well, yes, certainly some aspects, the toys, and some of the carols too, are aimed at children.  I for one can't precisely remember when I last unpacked a Christmas present and discovered a toy.  And as one's own children grow up, one's interest in child-focussed celebrations wanes.  Then along come the grandchildren, whose lifestyle is far from one's own.  Now, you might think that they bring with them a replenishment of the 'children' aspect of Christmas, but by the time we are grandparents, time has moved on, and what we enjoyed with our own children is no longer fashionable, or even, perhaps, available.  To a certain extent the grandchildren, dear souls though they are, are a distinct intrusion into the quieter lifestyle that has become our own.

Christmas, then, is better without the children, for whom we once thought it was intended.  What are we to do with it?  Can we ignore it, totally?  No, of course not.  For one thing the culture of the whole nation is geared not only to having Christmas and Boxing Days off work, but also as much of the ensuing fortnight as the chiefs of industry and commerce will allow.  We're not at work, but we're not bothering with Christmas, so shall we go off somewhere for a holiday?  Anywhere close and affordable (if there is anywhere like that in a recession) isn't exactly having holiday weather, so unless we spend an absolute fortune (that we haven't got) that's not on the cards either.

One more thing that we can't do is to roll back the years, to the great times we had in our own childhood - to the times when Christmas really was for the children - or so we thought.  Someone asked me the other day to think back to one of the greatest parties I could remember; after just a little thought, my mind went back to when I was about five, to a Christmas spent around my grandparents' table, in a cottage festooned with paper streamers, and great paper bells hanging from the beams.  The company consisted of my parents and me, my grandparents, and their only other surviving child, along with her husband and daughter: a nice even gathering of eight, who played games in twos or fours, opened presents seemingly without number, and ate the food that the three family units had undoubtedly clubbed together to provide.  The men smoked their pipes without restriction, and the ladies sipped the port or sherry that was reserved for this occasion, and we children were blissfully unaware whether or not we got under everybody's feet, or were a nuisance, because in the spirit of the day we wouldn't have been told off, even if we had been.

Was this what Christmas was all about?  If so, then there's little wonder that we 'don't bother with Christmas these days.'  Times have changed, but our idea of Christmas hasn't.  It's stuck in the past. 

What of the 'real' Christmas, though?  I listened tonight to some carols.  Most of them were old favourites, many dating from the Victorian era, but not all by far.  As the familiar words of each one told its particular aspect of the tale - the couple looking for somewhere to stay because the town was crowded on account of the census; the angels appearing with their good news for the shepherds; the great trek performed by the wise men with their precious gifts; and the great significance of this baby born in the humble surroundings of a stable - the words echoed in my mind and heart, not taking me back to my childhood, or to later times when I might have sung them in a choir, but back centuries beyond any personal recollection to the one time in the history of the world when God Himself appeared on earth in human form, with the express purpose of rescuing mankind from the mess that he had made of his world ... and continues so to do.

In the third line of this article I asked 'and is it true?' and said I'd come back to that question.  As it appeared, it referred to the matter of Christmas being for the children, but that wasn't exactly what I meant, hence coming back to it now.  When I hear that question, 'and is it true?' I'm reminded of a poem I first heard about thirty years ago (although it is at least twice as old) by John Betjeman:

"And is it true? and is it true,
This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window's hue,
A Baby in an ox's stall?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

And is it true? For if it is,
No loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare -
That God was man in Palestine
And lives today in Bread and Wine."

These are the last three, and to my mind the most poignant, of eight. If you have time this Christmas day, read all eight here.  Like my response to 'your greatest party', they take one's mind back to the familiar Christmasses of yesteryear, but also explain, as I've tried to indicate here, that there is a greater significance to Christmas than anything we can buy, send, imagine, conjour up or cobble together.  There is a 'real' meaning to it that will outlast anyone and everyone's memory - the eternal truth of Immanuel - God with us.

I wish a truly Blessed Christmas to all my readers.

Begotten, not Created

I can picture the woman now: I think she was a character in a TV play many years ago. She said, in a cockney accent, "Don't ought to be allowed, all that begettin'; 'tain't natch'ral." She was referring to the opening verses of St. Matthew's gospel. Although, of course, it is natural, the most natural thing in the world, until recent years the whole question of procreation was taboo in polite society. You just didn’t talk about such things, so why should they appear as a long list at the very start of the New Testament?

In common with many others, over the last decade or so I've been tracing my family history. In so doing, I have realised one possible reason for these Biblical genealogies. In the course of my researches I have made contact with a number of cousins, many of whom, in addition to being distantly related to me, are distantly related to each other, and also live thousands of miles apart. What is it that links us all?

All of my findings are faithfully recorded in a computer program, a database which holds the key dates and relationships of almost 3,000 individuals, some stretching back several centuries. Many times I've tried to show on one sheet of paper the linkage, over six or seven generations, between my distant cousins and myself: to see, if you like, how we all hang together. I soon discovered that it needed to be a very large piece of paper if all the names and dates were to be read.

This effort was in response to a desire to bring these names to life. Although in one sense the people named were quite real, having sent me an e-mail or Christmas card, yet in a strange way they were no more than business contacts, or fellow townspeople. Until I had spanned the generations and seen those links, they didn’t have that special feel: that they belonged to me; that they were part of my family.

I suspect that Matthew, as he wrote his Gospel for Jewish readers, felt a similar need to explain that Jesus was not just a character in another historic epic.  He needed to demonstrate Jesus’ roots as one from the family of Israel, part of their own history and tradition, as well as being divinely conceived to be the means of God;s redemptive plan.

Just as my cousins are special to me, so Jesus is special to us all, as individuals, and we to Him.  In his letter to the Galatians, Paul says that we are all children of God; heirs with (and so spiritual brothers of) Christ (Gal. 3:26-29.)  While I have to resort to e-mails and letters to communicate with my faraway cousins, we can all be assured of Jesus’ presence with us – not just at Christmas time, but always – in the form of the Holy Spirit that He has placed in our hearts.

Heaven Alongside

The Girton Interchange at the top of the M11 is a junction the like of which I’ve seen nowhere else in ten years of professional driving.  While two lanes of northbound traffic pass unhindered, scarcely noticing the change from M11 to A14, just feet away on the other side of the barrier an exciting transition is happening, at speeds of up to 60 mph.  Motorway traffic slowing down to turn east changes place with westbound A14 traffic accelerating to follow their route north.  It sounds quite dangerous, but all the drivers seem to realise that in those few hundred yards every vehicle will be swapping sides, and it all seems to work out quite smoothly.

If you are wondering what this has to do with Christmas and the Incarnation, I invite you to check out the relevant verses, which are these:  Luke 2:9, John 1:5, John 3:4 and Acts 1:9-11.

When the A14 route was created, it involved very little new construction, and in large part consisted of re-numbering and upgrading existing roads.  This junction involves negotiating a complex manoeuvre simply to stay on the same route, and drivers using it for the first time are a little cautious, wondering just where all the traffic around them is going. 

So imagine poor country folk, doing what they’ve done every winter night for centuries: looking after their animals on the hillside.  All of a sudden they are surrounded by shining lights, heavenly voices and the sweetest music they’ve heard in their lives.  Little wonder that they were terrified.  At the start of John’s Gospel, the evangelist gives an overview of Jesus’ mission on earth.  It is characteristic of virtually all of the Gospel story that His teaching seemed completely opposite to the accepted ways of the world.  His sayings were often confusing to those who heard them; the comment by Nicodemus is only one example of many.

Some 17 miles after Girton, the A14 road approaches Huntingdon, and by now drivers have got used to the volume of traffic, which includes many heavy lorries and is often as great as on a three-lane motorway.  No one knows which of the adjacent vehicles is heading for the midlands and which for the north, until a junction turns the A14 traffic off to the west again, leaving the remainder to join the A1(M).  It’s something of a surprise if you’re not expecting it.

After three years, and the upheaval that the death - and then the resurrection - of their supernatural friend had inflicted on what had become a new way of life, the disciples must have been absolutely flabberghasted when, in the middle of talking with them about the coming Spirit ... suddenly he was with them no longer, but instead two men in white, explaining that he’d been taken up into heaven!

 

And one day He’ll return – let us renew our resolve this advent to be ready, whenever that may be.