Author: theelvesareheadingwest

An Anglican Priest of Northern English extraction Discovering Home Learning to be a Friend, father and husband - but above all, and indeed radically redfining all of this, a Disciple of the Risen One

Through the Bible in a Year – June 12

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 14-15; Rev 15-16; Psalm 53-54

Revelation 15 and 16 juxtapose two themes – both of which have largely been erased from our consciousness. The Glory of God in Chapter 15 as expressed in ‘the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb’, and the Wrath of God.

Of course, sophisticates [or perhaps that should be Sophists??] that we are, we tend to think we have only done away with the latter. The Wrath of God is something which we flee from, either in reality or metaphor. Despite the clear evidence to the contrary in the Gospels and in the person of Jesus of Nazareth there revealed, we tend to think it rather uncivilised to pay much attention to the Dies Irae – the Day of Wrath. Our forebears thought otherwise and of course the Dies Irae played a significant part in funeral liturgies.

We perhaps tend to think that by and large we do a pretty good job with glorifying God – but the reality of it is that it is precisely the desecration of the Image of God that is the root of the Wrath of God, the desecration of the Image in humankind. There is somewhat of an irony in that those who seem to make a lot of noise about justice, underplay the Wrath of God. Whilst those who perhaps fail to apprehend the Glory of God in ‘a human fully alive’, to quote Iranaeus, make most of the Wrath of God.

Orthodox faith holds these in utterly rational agreement.

Why is God angered by sin? Because it defiles his image in which we are created. Sin cannot be understood apart from this – it is no mere adherence to a seemingly arbitrary moral code. It is that which has ‘marred Your image in us’, it is the destruction of that which God has declared Good!

God’s wrath is over what we have made of ourselves – defiled ourselves, and then so often called it Good.

We give Glory to God that we might better see that which we truly are, and be all the more appalled at what we have made of ourselves.

Through the Bible in a Year – June 11

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 12-13; Rev 13-14; Psalm 52

The ‘Number of the Beast’ has of course been a matter for endless speculation over the years. Put simply, we don’t know – we might perhaps surmise that it is Nero, but that is to assume that Rome and not for example faithless Jerusalem is in view in this book.

One lesson perhaps we all need to learn is that there is much in the pages of Scripture which we may never have access to. That there are parts of it which would be obvious to the first hearers of the message, but to us are lost as we know so little of their context. In part this should come as no surprise to those who are aware of cultural diversity and that there is much of the culture of other peoples today which we cannot comprehend.

The danger is that these parts of scripture become a distraction from that, the meaning of which is all too plain.

Perhaps the work of the Beast is to keep us so distracted?

Through the Bible in a Year – June 10

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

1 Ch 10-11; Rev 11-12; Psalm 51

Psalm 51 is the opening prayer of the morning office of the Orthodox Church. It reminds us first thing in the morning that we are sinners in need of Grace. It is as good a way to wake as any, in at least three regards. Firstly it places God at the heart of all things. ‘Against you and you only have I sinned and done what is evil in your sight’.

Remembering that the context of this Psalm is David’s theft of Bathsheba and his murder of Uriah, this might seem a little odd. We are all too focussed on those we can see as opposed to the one we cannot see. We fear the consequences of sin in terms of people being angry with us and more, rather than the devastation it does to our relationship with God.

Secondly it reminds us that God’s grace is always forthcoming to those who repent – literally turn around, and face him. For unlike those who might seek at least a tooth for a tooth, and humans are poor judges of justice, and worse of mercy, he wears a smiling face and loves to see us return.

Before we are half done with this prayer – he is running to meet us.  Perhaps THE reason to pray it . . .

Through the Bible in a Year – June 9

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 23-24; Rev 9-10; Psalm 50

The concluding chapters of the story of David are in some regards quite perplexing. We see the LORD inciting David to count Israel – there is an echo here of his unexplained anger against Moses in Exodus 4. Of course we say it is unexplained, but Moses has doubted God, and David is a man of much blood.

So the text tells us in effect, do not take the name of the LORD your god in vain. Faith is not a game

And then the whole question of numbering? Of course in our age this seems ever so strange? What can be wrong with seeking to know the size of your forces, or the extent of your provisions??? But once more we are undone. Again we turn our back on the Living God, the one who Owns Everything. Why does what we have matter in the least?

Except of course for us, in truth it means all but everything – and it is in that ‘all but’ that our hope lies, the sign that we have not entirely turned away from God

Through the Bible in a Year – June 8

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 21-22; Rev 7-8; Psalm 49

Revelation 7 contains a highly important message for us – that of the Completion of God’s purposes in redeeming mankind. The numbers involved, the 12,000s signify completion – and before the throne a multitude out of every nation. God’s Work Will be Completed

Through the Bible in a Year – June 7

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 19-20; Rev 5-6; Psalm 48

For all our difficulties with reading Revelation – Chapter 5 contains the most exalted hymn of Praise to God in Christ, in all of Scripture. John hears Every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth worshiping Christ – the fulness of the one who fills everything in every way.

As I have written elsewhere – the church in many ways avoids the Cross of Christ. It is in effect reduced to a doctrine about the love of God, we talk about the centrality of ‘the Cross’, and thus the particularity of the Crucified one is hid from our eyes. St Paul as he goes to Corinth he tells us seeks only to know Christ and him crucified.

As we saw in Chapter one, John beholds the Glory. He whom we know stood at the foot of the Roman Cross, who saw his friend and beloved master naked and cruelly nailed to rough timber, wracked, gasping and dying – he it was who truly saw the Lamb that was slain. There is no doctrine here – no message – just the worship of the Crucified one.

As we thought yesterday of the ‘comfortable’ character of the western churches, perhaps it is through the contemplation of the Lamb that was slain, that we might once more recover our true identity as his disciples, rather than lords of our own lives.

Through the Bible in a Year – June 6

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 17-18; Rev 3-4; Psalm 46-47

Of all the letters the risen Christ dictates to the angels of the churches – perhaps none better suits the church of this age [sic], than that to Laodicea. In the West at least the church is decidedly comfortable.

It is interesting that Christ calls this church to account NOT because it is cold, but because it is neither hot nor cold. It is a stark reminnder that there is always more hope for moribund churches than there is for comfortable churches. The dead Can be raised – but the comfortable . . .

Through the Bible in a Year – June 5

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 15-16; Rev 1-2; Psalm 45

From the mystical world of Jude, we are plunged deep into the book of Revelation, The Apocalypse of St John the Divine, to give it the fuller title ascribed to it by many in the church.

For many this is a book which is in some regards off limits. Its imagery is alien to many of us and of course it has always been a happy hunting ground for many who consider they have an inside line on the end of the world. But we should not avoid it.

In large part it is entirely suitable as the final book of the scriptures – for it encapsulates so much of that which has gone before. Indeed one of the reasons we may find it alien is our lack of knowledge of so much of the Old Testament, to which it contains over 600 ascriptions.

But supremely it is worthy of our consideration for its theme of the glorified Christ – the one who makes himself known to John on Patmos. John of all the New Testament writers is the Evangelist of Glory. And herein lies perhaps the key. For it is John who declares that in the crucifixion of Jesus of Nazareth, the Glory of GOd is revealed. In other words in that which repels our eyes, which can only be understood by us as the darkest of scenes, the Light of God blazes forth.

So in the Apocalypse – Unveiling – Revelation – we See this glory which blind eyes cannot comprehend. And it is such that John falls prostrate at the feet of Christ. If there is no other reason for reading Revelation, it is this – that we recapture our sense of Christ as the one at whose feet we too can only fall at, as though dead, that he might speak words of Life to us.

 

Through the Bible in a Year – June 4th

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The scheme for May – June can be found here

2 Sa 13-4; Jude; Psalm 43-44

The letter of Jude, a the letter to the Hebrews may seem a little strange to our ears. [Of course we should never presume a familiarity with the scriptures – always we are learners].

In it like the epistle to the Hebrews, we find fierce warnings as well as references to angels and uniquely in the New Testament, a reference to Enoch.

For those who missed him, Enoch turns up briefly in the canonical scriptures in the book of Genesis. [Chapter 5 vs 21-24]

He is the father of Methuselah – the one credited with living 969 years, and also one of only two figures in the scriptures of whom it is attested, they did not die. The other being the prophet Elijah. Like Elijah great traditions grew up around Enoch and there are three books of Enoch which were a part of the apocalyptic literature of the people of Jesus’ day. Indeed these books were read as scripture until the third century.

HOwever for all its strangeness, Jude covers much that is familiar – echoing Paul’s condemnation of false teachers, and asking that mercy and gentleness be shown to the wayward. But perhaps Jude will be most recognisable for its wonderful Benediction – the blessing pronounced upon God at its close. Still in use in many churches today, it reminds us that our primary calling as Christians is the worship and blessing of God. That to quote the Westminster confession, the reason for our existence is to ‘glorify God’.

Amen