Book Review: The Blue Castle

I know, I know – I am incredibly late to the game in discovering this delightful story. Written by L. M. Montgomery (think Anne of Green Gables), set in the wild beauty of Canada and the odd societies people create, it’s possibly my new favourite. At the very least, I can envision it being one of stories you return to again and again.

All you need to know in terms of the ‘plot’ of this book, is that Valancy is 29, unmarried and unhappy. Events prompt her to drastically change her life, and this story is the result. Valancy grows in character and heart page by page, to the shock, amazement and slight dismay of her various family and friends.

Like with most of Montgomery’s work, there are detailed and captivating descriptions of the landscape and natural locations of the story. Even more captivating is her ability to describe people – physically and psychologically – in such a way that you immediately can picture them, mannerisms and all, in your mind.

If you haven’t read any of her work before, I’d highly recommend it. While the Anne sagas are understandably my favourites, I know they can be a bit overwhelming. Perhaps starting with The Blue Castle, this short, stand alone novel, is more manageable. If you are an Anne fan, but haven’t read any of Montgomery’s other work, I again highly recommend it. I especially enjoyed The Story Girl, but I think The Blue Castle has now overtaken it in my affections.

Do you have a favourite Montgomery book I haven’t mentioned here? Let me know. If you read The Blue Castle and enjoy, also let me know!

I Went To A New Church

Over the last few months I’ve started going to a new church. I’ll be honest and say this process hasn’t been easy, but it also hasn’t been as hard as it might have been. I’ve learnt a lot about churches, people and myself, and I thought it was time to reflect on that a bit.

Myself 

I don’t like large crowds of people. I already knew this, but I’ve realized more than ever than a growth group or bible study with a few people is much easier for me than a church service with 60 people.

It’s okay to low expectations of myself in terms of social interaction at church, as long as I get to church. Even if I need to leave five minutes after the service ends or arrive five minutes after it starts, that’s okay – meeting with God’s people is still good and valuable.

Church

My favourite part of church is singing songs about Jesus – for similar reasons to why I like prayerbook services. I think the first function of a church service should be the family of God telling each other the truth we believe about Jesus – through song, through prayer, through reading the Bible.

I’m not sold by the concept of a traditional ‘sermon.’ I don’t think it’s the best way to hear the truth about Jesus, encourage each other and grow in him. It would be different if it wasn’t so hard to preach a good sermon – but it is.

People 

The first conversation isn’t hard. It’s the second, third, fourth conversations that transition into building a relationship that is hard.

People are generally friendly and kind. People are also busy and already in relationships. That’s okay. There will be people with space in their lives for you. Keep meeting people and you’ll find them.

If you’re going to a new church…

Taking it slowly is okay. You won’t feel connected and at home straight away – commit to a certain number of weeks before giving up. Inconsistent attendance is better than nothing.

Small steps all add up. Be friendly and open to possibilities. Keep persisting.

If you’re welcoming new people…

Be willing to not just have that first conversation with someone, but the third and fourth as well.

If you don’t have the energy or room in your life for a new relationship, connecting them with someone who does is a good idea.

Women and The Reformation Part 2 – Women In Action

This is part two in my series on the Reformation and it’s impact on women. You can read part one here. 

What The Reformers Thought About Women

Before continuing to examine how the Reformation changed things for women, I want to pause and take a look at what the Reformers themselves thought and said on this issue. As always, there is a mixed bag of opinions, with contradictory opinions sometimes expressed by the same Reformer. This is a very quick overview, not a detailed analysis, but is neccessary to show the framework the Reformers, including female Reformers, were often dealing with.

John Calvin saw the commands given by Paul about women remaining silent in the church as coming under adiaphora or ‘things indifferent’ – things that could be changed as circumstances also changed. While he did not have women taking on roles of leadership, he was opened to the possibility that churches in a different culture might permit it, or that it would be necessary in times of crisis.

Luther held seemingly contradictory views on women – naming them flighty, vain and weak, yet loving and valuing not only his wife and daughter but many women he worked closely with, as well as defending women publicly, advocating marriage to take more of a shape of a partnership and working to increase educational opportunities for women. For example, he once proclaimed “would that every town had also a girls’ school, in which girls might be taught the gospel.” He established a school in Wittenberg to train young girls in reading, writing, mathematics and music. But Luther viewed education not as a pathway to other vocational opportunities, but as a way to train girls to be good mothers and wives.

Writing

The translation of the Bible into ‘common’ languages (not Greek and Latin) meant that theologians and preachers began preaching and writing in the vernacular as well. This made thoughts on theology available to women for the first time, as previously not even wealthy women were educated in classical languages. This also enabled women to become more involved in writing and publishing because of the Reformation. The Reformation allowed women to write about a ‘masculine’ subject: theology.

Katherine Zell wrote at length about clerical marriage, having married a priest herself, she corresponded with leaders of the Reformation throughout Europe and she wrote a book of meditations on selected Psalms and the Lord’s Prayer. Marie Dentiere is another example of a woman who was writing at this time – she published the first Protestant history of the Genevan Reformation. More importantly, she wrote to Marguerite of Navarre, asking her to protect the persecuted Calvin and Farel, and included a detailed explanation of the woman’s right to read and interpret the Scriptures, which will be looked at in detail in the next section of this series. These women are examples of what was happening all over Europe – women were reading the Bible for themselves, and were able to write and speak on theological subjects, expressing their thoughts and opinions on important matters in a way that had not been available to them previously.

High Profile Protestant Women 

High-profile women were also becoming more involved in writing and reformist thinking. Marguerite of Navarre, the sister of Francis I of France, wrote the Mirror of a Sinful Soul. Similarly, Katherine Parr, the last queen of Henry VIII, wrote a book called the Lamentations of a Sinner which was the first devotional text written in English by a woman.

Marguerite of Navarre had reformist leanings but saw herself as orthodox – Katherine Parr, on the other hand, maintained that people needed live their lives according to the doctrine of the Gospel. She wrote on the evils of the Papacy, and promoted the reading of Scripture and the marriage of priests. She was also around at the same time as several key Protestant woman in England, such as Anne Seymour, the Countess of Hertford, Katherine Brandon, the Duchess of Suffolk and even the Protestant martyr Anne Askew.

Anne Askew was a female preacher, who explained the word of God in English to any who would listen. She was arrested and tortured. Despite this, she refused to recant or name others, and eventually was burnt as a heretic.

Katherine Parr went on to help pave the way to a Protestant regency for her stepson, Edward the Sixth. She also had a key role in guiding Elizabeth of England’s education, teaching her to value the Scriptures. Elizabeth translated Marguerite of Navarre’s Mirror Of The Sinful Soul into English as a present for Katherine, and then the following year translated the first chapter of John Calvin’s Institutes into English. Clearly both women had a shared interest in reformed theology.

Katherine Parr also influenced Jane Grey, who was her ward for a time after the death of Henry VIII and Katherine’s remarriage. I’m going to finish this section of my series on Women and the Reformation with Jane’s story.

She was intended as a Protestant bride for the new boy king, Edward, but when the Edward’s health failed, the succession was rewritten to place Jane next in line – as a great niece of Henry VIII and a great granddaughter of Henry VII and Elizabeth of York.

The events of Jane’s short-lived reign generally show a young girl placed in an impossible situation by adults who should have known better. But her faith in the period after this was truly remarkable for a girl only sixteen years old. Mary, the new Queen, daughter of Henry VIII, promised to pardon Jane from the sentence of treason and the punishment of death if she converted to the Catholic faith. But she was staunch in what she believed, knowing that faith and Scripture alone were enough to save her from a fate worse than death. She is a true example of the kind of education the Reformation opened up to women – if Jane had lived a hundred years earlier, she never would have had access to the tutors, books and learning she did. These things gave her confidence in Christ and certainty in what she believed about his death and resurrection to face turmoil and death without fear.

References

Assess the Effects of the Reformation on the Lives of Women in Sixteenth-Century Europe: https://tudorblogger.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/assess-the-effects-of-the-reformation-on-the-lives-of-women-in-sixteenth-century-europe/

Feminine Threads: Women in the Tapestry of Christian History – Diana Lynn Severance

Reform and Conflict: From the Medieval World to the Wars of Religion – Rudolph W. Heinze

The European Reformations – Carter Lindberg

The Education of Women in the Reformation (History of Education Quarterly) by Lowell Green

The Protestant Education in the 16th Century: https://www.museeprotestant.org/en/notice/the-protestant-education-in-the-xvith-century/

The Influence of the Protestant Reformation on Education (Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences) by Mihai Androne

Women and The Reformation Part 1 – The Ordinary Life

The Reformation changed the landscape of faith in Europe and worldwide. Plenty has been written on the history and stages of the Reformation, and I will not try to rehash what has been said already by those with a better understanding of the topic. But for the context of this post, I will summarize the Reformation briefly.

The Reformation was a movement in the 15^th Century, in Europe, where preachers and thinkers began to move away from the traditional structures of the Catholic Church, towards an idea of the priesthood of all believers, with a focus on the Bible being available to everyone in their own language, and of salvation coming through faith in Jesus rather than the offices of the church.

How did this massive shift affect the lives of women? The question of whether it was good or bad for women is too simplistic. I want to explore how it changed things – then we have a starting point to evaluate the merits and drawbacks of this new way of Christian life.

This is not an academic essay, but I will list at the end of this piece the main books and websites that helped my thinking. These would also be good starting points if you wanted to explore this subject further.

Identity

The introduction of the concept of a ‘priesthood of all believers’ was a huge one. This was the idea that all believers had direct access to God through Jesus Christ. All people could have direct access to God through prayer and reading his Word (the Bible). While previously people’s relationship with God was mediated through a male priest, now all were equal before God through grace. Women were being encouraged, for the first time, to read the Bible for themselves. With this came an increased level of education and general literacy for women.

In terms of identity, the Catholic Church had previously portrayed women as saints such as the Virgin Mary, or as temptresses and the root of sin, like Eve. Now, women were grasping a new identity for themselves – redeemed children of God, part of his church family and valued as believers.

In addition, the Reformation placed a stronger emphasis on the whole church body being the ‘bride of Christ’ – a female role, in relationship to Christ Jesus as the bridegroom. This raises other ideas about the different roles in marriage – the bride as subordinate to the husband, the head of the wife.

 

Education

The Reformation changed the nature of Education drastically, especially for girls. Previously, the school system of the Middle Ages relied on parishes or convents running schools. But the Reformers put forth the notion of unrestricted education that was open to all young people, regardless of gender or social class. This transferred the responsibility of education to the political authorities. There was also a new focus on the importance of family education, which gave women a new role as they began to take responsibility for educating their children in Scripture and doctrine. Luther in particular believed it was the parents’ responsibility to bring up their children to become well-read Christians, and that domestic education and schooling went hand in hand for the process of raising educated believers.

This approach to education meant many girls were attending school for the first time, and the question of how to approach the teaching of girls was being asked by more and more people. One interesting sign of the new interest in female education was that people were writing and publishing books on the subject.

Luther and other Reformers felt that girls as well as boys should learn not only religion but also history, classical and modern languages, literature, music, and mathematics. Programs that balanced work and study were proposed for students without academic ambitions. Students were encouraged to spend part of the day studying the rest of their time learning a trade or skills to help them in keeping a home and raising children.

Some Reformers and schools also encouraged intellectually-qualified girls to study the liberal arts, like their brothers; at this time there was also a need for female teachers. However, Luther’s focus on education for girls was primarily to train them to be well rounded mothers and wives. We will look more at the Reformers’ attitudes towards women in the next section of this series.

Home Life

The Reformation placed an emphasis on the family unit as a household of faith. Marriage was viewed as a tool designed by God for the sanctification of Christians. In some ways, this elevated the traditional roles of wife and mother as supremely valuable and integral to the life of the home. Virginity and chastity, while still valued, were no longer idealized and glorified. The role of women in the family was acknowledged and praised in new ways, which some have interpreted as being liberating for women.

The flipside, however, is that choosing a celibate life dedicated to God became much harder to pursue, and was much less valued. No longer was the convent and veil a choice for women who did not wish to marry. In some ways, the changes made life more restrictive for women, in that there was less choice available.

Marriage and motherhood carried intrinsic risks for women; death in childbirth was a reality, as well as the heartbreak of infant mortality. Nuns had traditionally lived longer, not only by avoiding childbirth, but by avoiding the diseases of the masses.

For the ordinary women, the Reformation brought about many changes to their lives, from their identity as children of God, to their increased access to education and the new value placed on their roles in the home. However, things were still a long way from being ‘equal,’ and there were certain disadvantages and restriction of choices that came with these social changes. I’m going to keep exploring wider aspects of how the Reformation changed things for women in the next few parts of this series.

 

 

References

Assess the Effects of the Reformation on the Lives of Women in Sixteenth-Century Europe: https://tudorblogger.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/assess-the-effects-of-the-reformation-on-the-lives-of-women-in-sixteenth-century-europe/

Feminine Threads: Women in the Tapestry of Christian History – Diana Lynn Severance

Reform and Conflict: From the Medieval World to the Wars of Religion – Rudolph W. Heinze

The European Reformations – Carter Lindberg

The Education of Women in the Reformation (History of Education Quarterly) by Lowell Green

The Protestant Education in the 16th Century: https://www.museeprotestant.org/en/notice/the-protestant-education-in-the-xvith-century/

The Influence of the Protestant Reformation on Education (Procedia – Social and Behavioral Sciences) by Mihai Androne

Liturgy for the Broken Hearted

On Wednesday, I was struggling. I didn’t have the words to cry out to God. I didn’t have the emotional capacity to say the things I needed to express. I know God understands what I am feeling. But not being able to articulate it to him left me trapped in a un-communicative spiritual vacuum. My brain was broken. My heart was hurting. My emotions were on edge and my soul was sore.

Wednesday was also Ash Wednesday, the beginning of Lent. You may have read about my exploration of Advent, and how it has helped me to slow down in a season where we are tempted to be busy and frantic. So now I’m also exploring Lent, and what this spiritual season could look like for me, a mixed-up Protestant with uncertain opinions and a theology based on clinging to Jesus.

Lent takes place in the 40 days leading up to Easter (the time we celebrate Jesus’ death and resurrection). It’s a period of reflection and sacrifice, in the light of the sacrifice Jesus made at the cross. It mimics the 40 days Jesus spent in the desert, praying and fasting.

In my new tradition of vaguely following the church calendar, I went to an Ash Wednesday prayer book church service with some friends. I had almost no emotional energy and still no words to speak to God with. But that was okay. The beautiful thing about liturgy is that you don’t need to find your own words. You only need to repeat the good, faithful truth words of the service along with the congregation.

As we spoke and prayed our way through the liturgy, I was reminded again and again of truths I know, even though I didn’t have the capacity to express them myself. I spoke of the truth that God is sovereign, I acknowledged him as my Lord, I thanked him for the cross. I repeated the glorious truth that I am forgiven, I am accepted, I am loved, despite my brokenness.

In those 45 minutes, we prayed, we thanked God, we took the Lord’s Supper and we were marked with ashes. The physical  mark of the ashes helped me to recentred myself to the reality I live in. I was told to remember that I am dust, and to dust I shall return. The way the Lord’s Supper interacts with taste and smell and the feel of the wood under my hands were tangible things that pulled me out of myself and pointed me to Jesus and the reality of his love.

Liturgy helped me. I didn’t need a chaotic rush of noise and complex ideas. I didn’t have the energy or strength of mind to follow a complicated 30 minute sermon. I didn’t even have the words to express to a small group of people what I was feeling and thinking. I just needed Jesus. I just needed to hear and say the words of Gospel over again. I needed to be reminded that I am part of a larger whole in the church of God.

These are the words that reminded that I am sinner, loved and redeemed by God:

Almighty and merciful God,
you hate nothing that you have made
and forgive the sins of all who are penitent;
create in us new and contrite hearts,
so that when we turn to you and confess our sins
we may receive your full and perfect forgiveness;
through Jesus Christ our Redeemer
who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit,
one God now and for ever. Amen.   

My Trip To Austria Taught Me…

I’m back from Austria, and slowly settling back into normal life (whatever normal life is). I learnt a lot while I was away, about travel, about education, about history, and about myself. I learnt a lot of skills, not just while I was away, but in the process of applying and preparing for my trip. Here’s four things that my trip to Austria taught me how to do.

My trip to Austria taught me to make decisions

Decision making is hard for me, especially when under pressure. If you’ve ever asked me what movie I want to watch or what food I want to eat you probably know this. So, all the decisions involved in a trip like this seemed intimidating. If I thought picking travel insurance and choosing between flight options was bad enough, wait until I landed in Vienna with a budget and a whole week to myself.

I will admit I got off to a shaky start. Choosing which museums to spend money on, where to eat lunch, whether to invest in another pair of boots (always invest in another pair of boots) was overwhelming. There were phone calls home, where I just needed to verbalize and bounce my options and thoughts off someone else.

As my time in Austria went on though, I got better at making decisions for myself – even without having someone to run it past first. I decided which meals I wanted to spend money on and which I was happy to have instant mashed potato in a cup for (what a great food invention by the way). I could decide that yes, this museum experience or going to the top of this tower was worth the money to me, and no, I didn’t want to do this particular experience, even if it was something other people might enjoy.

My trip to Austria taught me to save and budget

It wasn’t until I was preparing for this trip that I truly learnt how to properly save and budget. To save, I needed more money coming into my bank account than was going out of it – significantly more. To know if that was happening, I not only had to keep track of what I was earning, but also what I was spending, and what I was spending it on.

I also learnt to value things – not just their monetary value, but their value to me. Was continuing to spend money once a week on a coffee at my writing group a worthwhile investment? To me it was, even if to others it might have looked like a waste when I was trying to save.

But I also learnt how little I needed to spend to survive – and how much I had been spending that I didn’t need to. I learnt to say no to things I didn’t actually want to do, because I needed to save the money for other things, like food in Austria. I learnt self control, to avoid impulse spending and to make decisions wisely about where I wanted my money to go.

While I was overseas, I learnt to keep track of each euro, and to stick to my weekly budget. I learnt that if I went over budget now, it would mean missing out on something else later. Practice in managing a tight budget has been a really useful exercise for me. I am really glad I have learnt how to do this now, as I’m hoping I can apply the same skills here at home to save and budget more wisely than I did pre-Austria.

My trip to Austria taught me to do the things I want to do

This part might seem in contrast with what I just said about self control and spending wisely, but another key thing I learnt was to do the things I wanted to do – even if they cost money. Even if they were unconventional to what others might have wanted to do. I learnt to make the most of my opportunity (who knows when I’ll get to be back in a European country on my own with money and time?) and to see things and do things and have fun.

My favourite museum was also the most expensive one I visited, and I almost didn’t go because of the cost. Was it a lot of euros? Yes. Was it worth it? Most definitely. I hate to think I would have missed on the Art History Museum because of the price. It was a magical experience and worth far more to me than the sum of money I paid to go in. That day I had a cheap lunch to balance it out – and I didn’t regret for a moment, not even as I ate my bread roll and cheese on a park bench in the cold winds of Vienna.

I had good experiences in Austria, and most of them cost money from my limited budget – but that’s okay. I didn’t want to let that hold me back, which is why I had spent so long saving and budgeting beforehand. I can honestly say I don’t regret any of the things I spent money on in Austria, because I focused on experiences I wanted to do and things I wanted to see. Is everyone going to be as excited as I was about going to an underground chapel from the 12th Century? No, but that was no reason to not pay the entry fee and go enjoy that medieval masterpiece.

My trip to Austria taught me to balance priorities

I wasn’t just being a tourist the whole time in Austria – I did have classes to go to and reflections to write and assignments to complete and an exam to study for. Balancing these commitments with the fact that I was in a foreign country for a limited time and wanted to see things was difficult at times. Do I go out and eat (more) goulash with bread dumplings, or do I stay in and write another few hundred words of my essay?

Often it meant being prepared and deliberate. We had a weekend trip to Vienna, which I knew was going to be jam packed and would leave me very tired. I didn’t want to a) be trying to get uni work done in Vienna or b) trying to get uni work done the night we got back. So I was prepared, and did work in advance. Then I got to enjoy Vienna without stressing about the work to do.

(Did I do this right all the time? No. But I learnt eventually).

 

This trip has taught me a lot, from basic adulting skills to the ways I need to grow as a person. There are other ways to learn all these things, it’s true, and for many of them I am behind the curve, but this trip is what did it for me. For that I am grateful.

 

Just Because It’s Christmas

At Christmas, things are meant to mean more. Just because it’s Christmas.

Simple, ordinary things become filled with significance. We look for the joy and the wonder in everything. We look for special moments in every moment.

That’s a lot of pressure for one day of the year to carry.

It’s a time of year with a lot of pressure for a lot of people to carry.

At Christmas we can feel the most broken. Just because it’s Christmas.

The pressure for it to be joyous and wonderful can stop us from experiencing any joy or wonder.

Christmas can mean spending hours alone, without even work or other regular routines to pass the time.

Christmas can mean spending hours in the company of people that push you right out of your comfort zone.

Christmas can mean being reminded of things and people lost, opportunities missed and relationships broken.

But Christmas can be more.

Even if your family doesn’t have Christmas traditions, even if your family is far from you this year, even if you are dreading the thought of everything to do with this season of joy, Christmas can be more.

Christmas can be a reminder, not of our hurt and brokenness, but of the one who heals.

It can be a reminder of the day when God himself stepped into the world. When the Creator of the world became a small baby, born as a person. Fully God and fully human.

Christmas is the day when God acted on his promise to send a Saviour. This is the moment when God said ‘enough!’ It is the moment he intervened, and set in motion his plan of salvation, to bring everything that is wrong with the world right again.

So it’s okay that there’s mess and pain at Christmas. When we are broken and hurting, it should remind us why we needed Jesus, the one who fixes us and puts things right. The one who mends relationships. The one who gives us meaning and purpose, and who is never far from our side.

So this Christmas, I am trying to remember the one who came into the world, as a vulnerable child. Who lived a life filled with joys and pains as you and I do, and follow the will of his Heavenly Father, all the way to a hill, to a cross, to a shameful death.

I am going to remember Jesus, amidst the craziness and the hype. I am going to remember that Jesus didn’t come for any of this, but he came for you and me.

 

Advent

Last year I celebrated Advent for the first time. I did it in my own nontraditional way, just reading and praying through the bible passages each day. I wrote this post, which was a lament on behalf of the world after a hard year, and which is still just as relevant for me and the world this year. I didn’t grow up following the traditions of Advent, which means I now get to discover it for myself now as an adult, and make my own traditions.

This year I have a set of Advent cards given to me by a friend. Each day I will turn over the card, read the bible passage, and then write and pray in response. I will actively practice living with patience, waiting for God to act.

There’s something sacred about waiting patiently for God, which is why I have come to love Advent so much. Advent is when we re-enact the waiting and praying for Jesus to come into the world that Israel experienced all those years ago. Advent is also when we live with a heightened awareness that we too are waiting and praying for Jesus to come, to return to this world. Advent reminds us that we live in the Now-But-Not-Yet Kingdom of God.

There’s something special for me as well, in joining in a worldwide community of Christians reading the same passages and praying together as we await the day where we celebrate that God stepped into the world and became human for our sake. It is about slowing down and waiting, acknowledging the patience that is often required in following Jesus. In many ways it is about lamenting the heartbreak we experience here on earth while we wait for Jesus. These are not easy things, but they are also things that I think would make us stronger as a Church if we gave more thought to them – at least once a year anyway.

As the world seems more unpredictable, grounding myself in the routines of following Jesus keeps my feet steady and my heart unafraid. If you are seeking some peace and calm in a turbulent world and a hectic season, I’d encourage you to give Advent a go. You might find that a few minutes of peace and prayer each day, to remind yourself what we are waiting for and WHO we are waiting for will make all the difference.

If you want to know more about Advent, here is a guide to the history, meanings and traditions associated with it. Even if you’re not that curious, I’ve put my favourite part here for you to read anyway:

Advent symbolizes the present situation of the church in these ‘last days,’ as God’s people wait for the return of Christ in glory to consummate his eternal kingdom. The church is in a similar situation to Israel at the end of the Old Testament: in exile, waiting and hoping in prayerful expectation for the coming of the Messiah. Israel looked back to God’s past gracious actions on their behalf in leading them out of Egypt in the Exodus, and on this basis they called for God once again to act for them. In the same way, the church, during Advent, looks back upon Christ’s coming in celebration while at the same time looking forward in eager anticipation to the coming of Christ’s kingdom when he returns for his people. In this light, the Advent hymn “O Come, O Come, Emmanuel” perfectly represents the church’s cry during the Advent season:

O come, O come, Emmanuel,

And ransom captive Israel,

That mourns in lonely exile here

Until the Son of God appears.

Rejoice! Rejoice!

Emmanuel shall come to thee, O Israel.

While Israel would have sung the song in expectation of Christ’s first coming, the church now sings the song in commemoration of that first coming and in expectation of the second coming in the future.

(‘O Come, O Come, Emmanuel’ has always been my favourite Christmas Carol, which probably explains a lot about me). (Link to my favourite version here).

I’ll also leave the links to Sarah Bessey’s Advent series from last year – each post explores the theme associated with each Sunday in the Advent calendar. It’s a helpful place to start thinking about Advent and it’s broader themes.

The First Sunday: Hope

The Second Sunday: Peace

The Third Sunday: Joy

The Fourth Sunday: Love 

Christmas Eve: The Christ Candle

I’m looking forward to Advent – my heart is yearning for the peace and reflection of this season. I hope in the lead up to the joyful season of Christmas you find some space for patient reflection and acknowledgement of the longing and waiting we experience in this world as well.

God’s Goodness and Our Mess: A Beautiful Paradox

The more I think and write and read about God, the more I discover beautiful paradoxes. But I think I have found my favourite paradox. Here it is:

When we look at God we can see his goodness and holiness. This makes our sin and mess look worse and worse. This helps us realise how offensive and wrong it is to treat God as anything less than God. God has shown us nothing but love and mercy and we treated him as nothing. But now we can look at our own sin and mess in the knowledge that God has loved and forgiven us. This shows us more and more the holy and good nature of God. This in turn makes us realize that though our continued mess is bad, we are no longer stuck in it. Which again helps us realize how good and holy God is…

It’s not so much a paradox as a tension between our nature and God’s nature. Or maybe it’s a tension between the two parts of our nature: made in God’s image but fallen and broken. Or maybe it’s a tension between the two parts of God’s nature: perfect and just, but gracious and merciful.

Often we embrace one part of this paradox without seeing the full picture. For example, we become increasingly aware of our own mess and sinfulness, and fixate and dwell on it until it consumes us. But when we do this, we have forgotten the other half of the equation: that while our mess goes deep, God’s goodness and mercy go deeper still. God’s goodness knows no bounds. Our capacity for sin cannot beat God’s capacity for forgiveness. His capacity for love cannot be beaten by our capacity for mess.

Or we know and delight in God’s goodness, celebrate and luxuriate in his mercy, but forget that goodness and light always show up the darkness and sin in our lives. We eagerly follow God’s promise of forgive without examining what we need to be forgiven of, and so continue in the sin and mess. Acknowledging God’s goodness in its full extent can only come when we acknowledge our sin and mess in its full extent.

This isn’t easy or straightforward at all (paradoxes usually aren’t). Finding the balance of viewing our own sin and God’s goodness with total honesty might be the work of a lifetime. More and more I’m realizing that though yes, we are here on earth to share God’s forgiveness with those who don’t know it, there’s also an element of growing and wrestling with God’s nature and the complexity of the Gospel that takes a lifetime. But the more we understand and know God, the more we can show him to others clearly and honestly.

But there are days when I feel defeated by my mess. Though I know I am not stuck in it any longer, it is also very real and very present with me day to day. Sometimes it seems all consuming. These are the days when I need to look to God and look to his goodness and holiness and perfection. I don’t want to be caught in introspection and self examination. I want to look to God more and more, and focus on him in all his goodness and know there’s nothing I can do to lessen his love and forgiveness for me.

Image Bearers and the Trinity

This is a topic I wrote about in relation to gender and my thoughts while reading ‘Half the Church,’ by Carolyn Custis James in Part 2 (Image Bearing) and Part 3 (the Trinity). But it’s such an interesting topic that I felt I could write a whole other post on it.

The Trinity. If you’re vague on theological terminology or need a reminder, the Trinity is the concept that God as God exists in three separate parts (Father, Son and Holy Spirit) that are also one being and inseparable from each other. It’s a paradox, it’s complicated and people far smarter than me struggle to explain it so I won’t try. For now, let’s accept the paradox and embrace the unique nature of our God and explore what is means for us in our ‘image bearing’ in his world.

Then God said, “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness, so that they may rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky, over the livestock and all the wild animals, and over all the creatures that move along the ground.” 

So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. – Genesis 1:26-7 (NIV).

We were created in God’s image, to reflect his nature, his likeness, his qualities: his essence. We were to be all that God is and nothing that he isn’t: we were to rule his world, the world he created for us, in his place, as his representatives. We were to be blessed caretakers who would never lack for anything.

Well that didn’t quite work out. If you’re familiar with the bible story you will know that when humanity was tempted by the false promise of more, it didn’t resist for long. When it turned out the promise was false (of course it was false – who can offer anything but God? What more could humanity be given when God had given them everything?) we hid from God in shame. We had forfeited the right to represent him.

Let’s skip ahead through the story to the cross. The cross is where everything that went wrong in the beginning was made right. God, three in one, used his nature to save us. The Son, Jesus came to earth as fully God and fully man (another paradox – for another day). He submitted to the Father’s will and at the cross he took the price for our shame and he restored us as image bearers and children of God. Then the Father stepped in and raised Jesus to life – proving not even death is too much for God to handle. Jesus left the earth and his friends with the promise of the Spirit – the presence of God with us here on earth and in our hearts. Then he gave God’s representatives a new command.

“Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age.” – Matthew 28:19-20 (NIV)

We are called to make image bearers, representatives of God. We are called to show God’s likeness in the world, to show people from all nations and all places who God is and what he is life.

On our own though, we can’t. How can we reflect a threefold God individually? How can we show the constant self-sacrificing and relationships dynamics of the Trinity on our own? We can’t.

When we live out God’s image in relationships and community with each other though, we can. When we constantly self sacrifice and give up and put ourselves last for the people in our church and our lives, we can. When we practice mutual submission – giving up our rights because we know each person in our community will also give up their rights for us – we can.

The Trinity is a mutual, giving, sacrificial force. When we love and serve each other we can fully reflect the nature of God. When we try to live life on our own or maintain our faith on our own, we can’t reflect God truly or do his amazingly complex nature justice.