I wonder if you have house rules? And if you do, I wonder how they came to be decided. Let me give you some examples. In our house it's my job to load the dishwasher and put it on before I go to bed. We didn't need this rule before we had a dishwasher, and after we got one it soon became clear that it was going to be my job, because when Liz did it, I get cross about it not being loaded correctly, and I was informed in no uncertain terms that if it mattered that much, then I could do it. So I do.
We also have house rules about bedtime for the kids, and I expect that as they get older, we will have to negotiate curfew times that we expect them to be home by. I guess the first set of house rules we ever had as a family were the ones that Liz and I agreed to when we got married. The love, honour, cherish, be faithful vows that underpin our marriage and which sum up the values that form the basis for our whole family life together.
The thing that all these house rules have in common is that they all, in some way, are in place to enable us to live together happily and in a way which allows our our relationships within the household to flourish. Not all of them were there to start with, and some of the ones that we will need in the future are not yet in place. As family life goes on, the details of our house rules might change, but the underlying principles of love, faithfulness, and integrity will remain.
In our reading from Exodus, God is laying out some house rules for the family of the people of God God has sent Moses to Egypt, to rescue the people of God from captivity, and they are now three months out from Egypt, and they have reached the base of the mountain of God, Mount Sinai. Previously God had spoken to the ancestors of the people of God, people like Abraham, Sarah, Isaac, Rebekah, Jacob and Rachel, and made promises that their children would become a nation.
Now God has bought those children to the place in which God will start to forge them into a nation. That nation needed some house rules to enable the people that were part of it to live together with flourishing relationships, with each other and with God.
Continued here...
Monday 16 March 2009
Tuesday 10 March 2009
The Top of the Hill
During the summer Tabitha and I went on an expedition. We set out at around 9:30 in the morning and caught two buses from the place we were staying to reach the place where we would start walking. The cloud base was quite low and we started walking in the cloud, with grey all around, and droplets of water forming on our clothes. After about half an hour the cloud lifted a bit, and we could see the path, and some of the surrounding scenery, but we still couldn't see where we were going to end up. We continued to climb, back up into the cloud, and the visibility worsened again.
Finally we got onto the home straight, heading to our destination. We still couldn't see where we wanted to get to, but we had met the railway track and knew that that would lead us there. We didn't actually see where we had been heading all that time until we were about 50 yards away, and there it was, the top of .... any guesses.....Snowdon. Even at the top, we couldn't see much, so we sat down and had our lunch and headed home again. Even though we hadn't been able to see it, reaching the peak of Snowdon had been the reason for everything that we had done since we left home, it had overshadowed our climbing, even though it wasn't visible to us.
Jesus and his disciples had been on a three year expedition around Judea. Throughout that expedition, there was also a destination, one thing that overshadowed all that Jesus did, and said. He was also going to the top of a hill, but he was going to the cross on the top of the hill. For most of the journey the disciples didn't know that this was where Jesus was headed, but lately he had begun to tell them, to let them know. Clear glimpses of the destination were breaking through the cloud. In this passage, for the first time, Jesus tells his disciples that he is to be crucified. For the first time on the journey the exact destination is made crystal clear to the disciples. The cross on the top of the hill.
Continued here...
Finally we got onto the home straight, heading to our destination. We still couldn't see where we wanted to get to, but we had met the railway track and knew that that would lead us there. We didn't actually see where we had been heading all that time until we were about 50 yards away, and there it was, the top of .... any guesses.....Snowdon. Even at the top, we couldn't see much, so we sat down and had our lunch and headed home again. Even though we hadn't been able to see it, reaching the peak of Snowdon had been the reason for everything that we had done since we left home, it had overshadowed our climbing, even though it wasn't visible to us.
Jesus and his disciples had been on a three year expedition around Judea. Throughout that expedition, there was also a destination, one thing that overshadowed all that Jesus did, and said. He was also going to the top of a hill, but he was going to the cross on the top of the hill. For most of the journey the disciples didn't know that this was where Jesus was headed, but lately he had begun to tell them, to let them know. Clear glimpses of the destination were breaking through the cloud. In this passage, for the first time, Jesus tells his disciples that he is to be crucified. For the first time on the journey the exact destination is made crystal clear to the disciples. The cross on the top of the hill.
Continued here...
Monday 2 March 2009
Fasting
Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert for forty days.
Jesus is right at the beginning of his public ministry. He had just had one of the most awesome spiritual experiences that anybody could ever have: he had been baptised, the Holy Spirit had descended into him to empower and equip him for the work ahead, and his Father had reaffirmed, in front of everybody, how much he was loved. Surely it's time to crack on, to get out there, he's on a high, time to start flying.
No. Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert for forty days.
There were a few things that happened in the desert. We know that Jesus was tempted, that he experienced attacks by Satan that aimed to stop him starting his ministry. Now I'm not planning to talk about these temptations particularly this morning, but I want to ask where Jesus got his strength from whilst he was going through this difficult time? Now, it's a bit of a puzzle because we're not told by Mark directly, and neither are we told by the other writers of the accounts of Jesus' life.
Well, it might help if we think about the places where we might look for strength. We might look to friends or family. But Jesus was in a desert, so he didn't get his strength from there. We might look for strength in favourite books or pieces of music – like the castaways on Desert Island discs. But Jesus didn't have those things either, so he didn't get his strength from there. On a physical level we might think that the best way to keep our strength up is by eating healthy food. But Jesus didn't eat, he fasted. So he didn't get his strength from food.
In fact, we could go on like this all morning, but we would run out of ideas before we hit the truth if we stick to looking for physical answers. In one of the toughest times of his life, Jesus strength came direct from God by the Holy Spirit. And it seems to me that it is no coincidence that Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert for these forty days. It seems to me that it is when we are in the place where the worldly things we sometimes look to for strength aren't there, that we can experience the strengthening power of the Holy Spirit most.
Continued here...
Jesus is right at the beginning of his public ministry. He had just had one of the most awesome spiritual experiences that anybody could ever have: he had been baptised, the Holy Spirit had descended into him to empower and equip him for the work ahead, and his Father had reaffirmed, in front of everybody, how much he was loved. Surely it's time to crack on, to get out there, he's on a high, time to start flying.
No. Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert for forty days.
There were a few things that happened in the desert. We know that Jesus was tempted, that he experienced attacks by Satan that aimed to stop him starting his ministry. Now I'm not planning to talk about these temptations particularly this morning, but I want to ask where Jesus got his strength from whilst he was going through this difficult time? Now, it's a bit of a puzzle because we're not told by Mark directly, and neither are we told by the other writers of the accounts of Jesus' life.
Well, it might help if we think about the places where we might look for strength. We might look to friends or family. But Jesus was in a desert, so he didn't get his strength from there. We might look for strength in favourite books or pieces of music – like the castaways on Desert Island discs. But Jesus didn't have those things either, so he didn't get his strength from there. On a physical level we might think that the best way to keep our strength up is by eating healthy food. But Jesus didn't eat, he fasted. So he didn't get his strength from food.
In fact, we could go on like this all morning, but we would run out of ideas before we hit the truth if we stick to looking for physical answers. In one of the toughest times of his life, Jesus strength came direct from God by the Holy Spirit. And it seems to me that it is no coincidence that Jesus was sent by the Holy Spirit into the desert for these forty days. It seems to me that it is when we are in the place where the worldly things we sometimes look to for strength aren't there, that we can experience the strengthening power of the Holy Spirit most.
Continued here...
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