In his own words

Jesus continued to talk to the leaders who had accused him of working on the day of rest.

"I tell you, anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life."
Very truly, I tell you," said Jesus, "the hour is coming, and is now here, when the dead will hear the voice of the Son of God, and those who hear will live. For just as the Father has life in himself, so he has granted the Son also to have life in himself; and he has given him authority to execute judgment, because he is the Son of Man. Do not be astonished at this; for the hour is coming when all who are in their graves will hear his voice and will come out—those who have done good, to the resurrection of life, and those who have done evil, to the resurrection of condemnation. I can do nothing on my own. As I hear, I judge; and my judgment is just, because I seek to do not my own will but the will of him who sent me."
"The works that the Father has given me to complete, " said Jesus, "the very works that I am doing, testify on my behalf that the Father has sent me. And the Father who sent me has himself testified on my behalf. You have never heard his voice or seen his form, and you do not have his word abiding in you, because you do not believe him whom he has sent.
I have come in my Father’s name, and you do not accept me; if another comes in his own name, you will accept him. How can you believe when you accept glory from one another and do not seek the glory that comes from the one who alone is God?"

The leaders who had accused him of breaking the law and blaspheming were not able to take any action. Large crowds followed Jesus wherever he went. The crowds watched as he healed every kind of sickness, and everyone who asked. Truly no one could do these things unless he was sent from God, surely God had come to them and was saving them from the condition into which they had been born and had lived. Jesus was reversing the effects of sin and restoring to people that sense of union with God which they had thought was lost forever.

John chapter 5: verses 22-45 (parts ommitted)

Is it bad to do good, on certain days?

Triumphantly the angry law-makers confronted Jesus, and hurled their accusation: he had broken the law, the religious law, by healing someone on the day of rest. They expected a defensive statement, but Jesus replied that His Father works (all the time) and he was doing the same. Jesus was making the assertion, that he was the Son of God the Father. Not a son, Jerusalem was full of people saying they were sons of God, but God appearing in human form. Jesus's name for that inexplicable mystery was 'The Son of God.'

The Jewish leaders never for a moment thought of this as meaning that God had married a female god and together they had had a child. They knew that there is only One God. and God is a spirit. They knew that he has no equal, yet Jesus, by this statement was making himself equal to God. When accused of that, he did not deny it. Instead he emphasised his unity with God . "I tell you emphatically" he said, "that the Son can do nothing on his own, but only what he sees the Father doing; for whatever the Father does, the Son does likewise. The Father loves the Son and shows him all that he himself is doing; and he will show him greater works than these, so that you will be astonished. Indeed, just as the Father raises the dead and gives them life, so also the Son gives life to whoever he wishes."

It is likely that the people listening were not personally alarmed, Jesus was committing something that sounded like blasphemy by making himself equal to God, but his audience were not participating in the act. The people listening to Jesus were wonderfully religious people, their whole lives governed by the law and their welfare and destiny guaranteed because they kept the law. The religious law makers especially loved the law, enjoyed setting boundaries and finding way to observe it scrupulously. This keeping of the law was their guarantee of avoiding judgment. What they did not consider was that perhaps the law had become more imprtant to them than God. It was not so much God they worshipped as the law he had given them. By keeping God's law they felt, though they would never have said it, that they had some way of controlling God the judge of all the earth. Now God was bursting out at them in the person of Jesus who claimed that he had been given the right to judge them. Blasphemy they could despise, but judgment was personal. All the structure of their life, all their security was based on keeping the religious law. Now Jesus is undermining that security, with these words, "The Father judges no one but has given all judgment to the Son, so that all may honor the Son just as they honor the Father. Anyone who does not honor the Son does not honor the Father who sent him. Anyone who hears my word and believes him who sent me has eternal life, and does not come under judgment, but has passed from death to life."

It could have been reassuring, Jesus was saying that anyone who believed God, through the words of Jesus, would never be judged at all, and would exchange religious law for spiritual life.

Why wasn't it? Why was it that people whose lives were dedicated to avoiding judgment did not eagerly accept the chance to avoid judgment?

Because (This is my personal opinion) if you can deal with judgment by keeping moral law then the judgment passed upon you by God is under your control. Work harder to keep the law, accumulate more and greater acts of obedience and you will be safe from God and his judgment. Or believe that Jesus is indeed the manifestation of God, put your confidence in his words and you have given control of your judgment to someone else. Which would you choose?

Was the man who had been the cause of this discussion listening to it? The man who had laid beside healing waters for thirty-eight years without anyone to help him get into the water when it bubbled. Did he think to himself that the law had been powerless to make him well, but the command of Jesus had healed him? Perhaps not, perhaps he was already out in the street planning the many ways he would enjoy his new health.

"Narrow," said Jesus on another occasion, "is the way that leads to life, and few people find it."

Conversation is recorded in The gospel of John: chapter five, verses 15 to 24
Narrow way is recorded in gospel of Matthew: chapter seven, verses 13 and 14

I don't have anyone

Sabbath mornings were quiet in that part of the world. No work was allowed on the national day of rest, and even small activities were prohibited. The quiet was deeper still among the people lying beside a certain pool. Here lay a great many blind, lame, and paralyzed people. Waiting, hoping that the water would bubble with some mysterious energy, as it sometimes did, and that they could quickly enter the pool and perhaps be healed.

Jesus walks among the blind, lame and paralyzed people. Here, he is not recognized, he was probably alone. He notices one particularly man, a man who has lain there, beside that water, for thirty-eight years, hoping to be healed. He stoops down, and says to him, "Do you want to be well?" I have no one, says the sick man. He does not says yes he wants to be healed or no he is reconciled to being sick, he simply explains what is perhaps his biggest grief, I have no one to help me get to the pool and by the time I get there it is already too late.

He had laid alone in the crowd of sick people. Surrounded by people but without anyone to help him. Thirty eight years of trying to make it on his own, living with hope, and coping with despair, alone.

"Get up!" Says Jesus, "roll up your sleeping pad, and start walking." Feeling the new health rippling through his body, the man does just that. Jesus slips away. Where does the man go? This man without a relative? Alone, he carries his sleeping pad, but wait; it is illegal to carry a burden on the day of rest, and a sleeping pad is a burden, a biggish roll, as long and as wide as a man. The streets are busy as people walk to the temple to worship. Soon he is met by religious leaders who question him. The man with the bed-roll has no answers. He does not know who it was that knelt beside him as he lay amongst the blind, the lame and the paralyzed. He does not know who it was who said to him, "Get up!"

Jesus knew where to find the man, he would be in the temple. He would have gone there to worship, to make a sacrifice to atone for breaking the day of rest, or perhaps to beg for money. Jesus finds him alone in the crowded enclosure, and there is another quiet conversation. The conversation is surprising because we are expecting encouragement or blessing. But all the recorded words we have of this conversation are these: "Sin no more" says Jesus, "in case something worse happens to you."

Stop, Start a new paragraph here, because a new topic has invaded the story. Jesus makes a connection between sinning and bad things happening. The questions that the religious have wrestled with over the years are many. Do all people who sin suffer misfortune? If something bad happens to a person does it always mean that they have sinned? Can we surmise that any friend of ours who is ill, deserves to be ill, because of some secret sin. This is no place to read the book of Job, but he and his friends argued this very question ferociously.

The consensus of religious opinion today is, no. Being sick does not mean that a person is being punished for sinning. Sickness happens because the world is no longer perfect and the world is no longer perfect because of .... that's right, you've got it.

Now, the man who carried his bed-roll knew who had healed him. There is no mention of gratitude or promises of repentance, maybe they were made and omitted from the story. He goes to the religious leaders and tells them, "The man who healed me is called Jesus." There was probably a gasp of satisfaction because now the religious leaders had something to accuse Jesus of. They can make him stop preaching, or make him go away. They can turn his popularity with the people into disapproval. Ah, good, they make their plans, they will expose Jesus as a law breaker in front of the people in the crowded temple enclosure. The man who had carried his bed-roll on the day of rest goes...where?

Discovering and being discovered by Jesus

It wasn't only the Romans that the Jews hated. They also hated their close neighbors. Jews did no business with the Samaritans, they didn't even speak to them and used their name as a swear word. Both Jews and Samaritans were descendants of Abraham and yet they hated one another. Does that sound familiar? Five hundred years before, the leaders of Samaria had offered to help the Jews rebuild their ruined temple and the Jews had refused the offer. Hatred took root and flourished. It seems to me that people love to hate. If they haven't any real cause for hating, they will find one. In countries with closed borders and tightly restricted lives there are no foreigners to hate, so clan hates clan, and if there is no neighboring clan then men hate women.

Hatred is the fatal sickness of humanity, the contagion people love to catch.

A Samaritan woman met Jewish Jesus in the heat of the day and he told her all about herself, he also told her in clear words something that he left other people to guess: that he was the Messiah - the man who would make everything right.

When she heard this, she rushed back to her city: she told the people that she had met a man who told her all she ever did and could this be the Messiah? Jesus, still waiting by the well-side looked over the fields and saw a long line of people weaving their way through the fields to come to him.

The citizens invited Jesus to stay in their town and he stayed two days, in a place where it wasn't usually safe to stay. I don't know about his disciples, perhaps they slept in the field that night rather than mix with Samaritans.

Many of the Samaritans made the same discovery as the woman. Somewhat unkindly they said to this less than eminent citizen who had introduced them to Jesus, "We believe, but not because of what you say but because we have heard for ourselves." Then they make this statement: "We know that he is truly the Savior of the world."

Now there's a statement. Savior of the world; and they hadn't even heard of the Beatles and Pink Gin. Why did they use this term instead of Messiah? Perhaps because they had just found a cure for hatred, and knew that the world could now be saved.

Faith is a gift. Back in Galilee where Jesus had changed water into wine, the people were wanting more and more miracles. 'Show me a bigger and better miracle and then I will believe.' was their attitude. How was it that hated Samaritans received the gift of faith and Jews in Cana didn't? The Samaritans invited Jesus to stay with them and listened to his message. Faith in an unseen God and his mysterious son is a miracle, and the Samaritans received the bigger and better miracle.

John 4:39 - 42 (NRSV) 39Many Samaritans from that city believed in him because of the woman’s testimony, “He told me everything I have ever done.” So when the Samaritans came to him, they asked him to stay with them; and he stayed there two days. And many more believed because of his word. They said to the woman, “It is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves, and we know that this is truly the Savior of the world.”

Theocracy and the Kingdom of God

He, the man silently making his way through the darkness, was a leader of the people of God, a ruler over the nation where God lived. He visited at night because it wasn't appropriate, for him an expert on religious law, to be speaking to an upstart preacher without a temple education.

Nicodemus was part of the temple organization which imposed religious law on the Jews. The Jews lived under two laws. the laws of the Roman occupiers and the laws of the temple. They considered their nation to be God's nation, because it was God who delivered them from slavery and made them a nation.

That was the first thing Jesus addressed. According to Jesus the true Kingdom of God is so spiritual that it cannot be understood by the political process. It can only be understood by someone who had been born from above. Jesus pointed out to Nicodemus that he had no way of knowing about heaven except to learn from Jesus who had come down from there to be a light to people who were living in darkness. He was God's only begotten son, God had given him to be a gift to the world, because God loved the world enough to give his only begotten son. And the reason he had done this was that the inhabitants of earth should not perish but have everlasting life.

And yet Jesus did not despise that Holy Law which Nicodemus had been trying to enforce on the citizens of the Holy City. He had come to enable all people to keep the same law.

For a man like Nicodemus the contrast was bewildering. Under the system of Holy Law people pleased God by keeping the religious law. What Jesus was saying was that people would please God by believing what Jesus said. The contrast was enormous, and again it didn't make sense politically. It didn't seem demanding enough.

It could not have been easy for this man, a person who had reached high status by diligence, duty and dedication to be told that all these things counted for nothing. What was required was that he be born from above. The speed of his reply that a person can't go through the birth process twice makes me wonder, if he had sometimes wished he could begin life all over again.

But a person can, said Jesus, a person can be born naturally and will remain natural. Also a person can be given birth by the spirit and become a spiritual being. God gave his son, said Jesus so that everyone who believes in him will not die but will have eternal life. All it requires is to believe that Jesus is the Messiah (The man who will put everything right) the son of God come down to give light and life to the people of earth.

If you don't believe, said Jesus, you are perishing already. God sent me because he didn't want you to perish. If you are reading this, don't think of this 'perishing' as some divine punishment worked by God upon people; it is the opposite it is the natural state of humans. Like cut flowers attached to a stalk that is cut off from the root, humans die because they are detached from the source of life. They mistake the stalk for the root, and without real genuine contact with God, are already perishing although they do not know it. God sent Jesus to stop the decay; to be the living connection between people and the source of life, If it were were possible to reconnect the cut stalk to the root in the ground, in the same way Jesus does the impossible and connects people to the source of all being.

I like to make up reasons why people can't believe in Jesus; because it is my life's work to bring people to Jesus and many people refuse my help. I invent reasons like: too great for them to understand, to strange for them to accept. Jesus had only one reason, they don't want to come to the light because they will see that their deeds are not good.

Nicodemus evidently was not afraid of the light. It took him some time to believe, but how would we know this story otherwise? From all we know of the nature of Jesus he would not betray a confidence. Jesus did not tell his secret. So who did? Jesus must have repeated his basic teaching many times, but who told us that Nicodemus heard it in the dark of night, face to face with Jesus, unless it was Nicodemus himself?

At first he remained in the temple as a leader, he tried on one occasion to get a fair trial for Jesus, but failed. On the day Jesus was crucified, all the disciples of Jesus went into hiding for fear of the rulers of the nation. A man called Joseph of Arimathea, who had up to that day been a secret disciple for fear of the rulers of the nation, asked if he could have the the dead body of Jesus. He and another man wrapped the body with strips of linen cloth laced with spices. Then, before evening, they carried the body to the burial cave. The other man was Nicodemus.

The gospel of John, chapter 3: verses 1-21
The gospel of John, chapter 7: verses 45-52
The gospel of John, chapter 19: verses 38-42

Transformation.

This (today's selection) is one of the happiest stories in the life of Jesus. Its something that I enjoy reading and re-reading, especially on days when the wine runs out.

Some people when they first hear this story of Jesus turning water into wine which tasted even better than the original wine, want to know 'If the story is true?' That is really a false trail to follow; it's the meaning of the story that people need to know. Especially you, the reader, because these stories about Jesus 'speak' to you and to your circumstances. The message of this story is that Jesus is the person who changes crisis into celebration. Your own included.

All the details of the story are happy, except the dismay of the wedding host when he discovers he has invited people to a celebration without providing enough wine for them to drink. Jesus has arrived with the four people who are the first of his hand-picked students, that is happy. It is happy because when his mother confides the problem to her, he tells her that he isn't ready to begin doing public preaching yet, but goes ahead and does what she asks anyway. The servants are happy because they had the courage and confidence in Jesus to do just what he asked, take water from the huge water containers and pour it into the guest's wine cups. The guests are happy because the new wine is better than the old wine.
Everyone of those things is a symbol. They point to the fact that Jesus grants petitions, that people who follow his instructions are part of the solution, and to the fact that Jesus is the person who transforms everything.
Transformation is the key-word of this story. Wine is a symbol for life which gets transformed by Jesus, so that the new life is better than the old life. The servants are symbolic of all the people who trust Jesus enough to obey him and by so doing make life better for others.
Did it really happen? The Christian experience is so full of transforming events that it is easy to believe this story just as it is written, but again that isn't the most important thing.
The most important thing is can it happen in your life? Can sorrow turn to joy? Can things which were failing become things which thrive? Can a good life become even better still? The answer is yes. Christian people are constantly exchanging stories about transformations that took place in their lives. Like the servants in the story they had confidence in Jesus and courage to follow his instructions, Transformations followed.
When the Bible talks about the 'end time' it describes a great marriage feast. where Jesus and the people who have trusted him become united in a close union like a marriage. This close union continues into all the ages that follow this present age.

John, the person who is writing this particular account of the life of Jesus, calls this kind of action a 'sign' it was much more than a miracle, it wasn't done to convince you of Jesus' power, it was done to give you a message and the message is that wherever Jesus is trusted and obeyed life is transformed.

Gospel of John chapter two, first few verses.

Finding Jesus

We have found - said Andrew - we have found the promised person who will make all things right: the Messiah.

Who really found who? The question is important because a great many people are searching for a person who will make everything right. A savior figure, a miracle worker, a perfect leader who will transform the earth, and establish the perfect system of world government.

What were Andrew and his brother Peter looking for when they went searching for a messiah? A man sent by God with divine powers. He would be a great leader like Moses who not only freed his people but led, organized and taught them. He would be a great administrator like King David who made Israel rich powerful and beautiful. He would also be a man who could read the mind of God and tell the people the plans of God, like the prophet Elijah. With these qualities the Messiah would subdue all destructive powers and establish the perfect kingdom. His people would participate in his victory and rule the Kingdom of God with him. The rest of the world listened to these Jewish hopes: what the Jews were searching for was what everyone else was hoping for. A man sent from God with the authority to put everything right.

Andrew found Jesus and knew he had found the Messiah. He took his brother to meet Jesus, and Peter met the man: a young man, a carpenter by trade, about 30 years of age. What did Jesus say to these men who had made the great discovery? Jesus told Peter who Peter was, and who he would become. No oratory, no world economy plan, just the knowledge of an individual as he is and as he will become. Peter was sufficiently convinced to become one of the man's students, and be called a disciple of Jesus. This is also the reason many people today are convinced. Because when they met Jesus the Messiah, he spoke to them in their hearts, he knew them, who they were and what they could become. They have found the messiah.

The next day Jesus did some searching, he found Philip and invited him to become his student (disciple)

Who really found who? The question remains important because Jesus came from heaven to look for the people who wanted to find him. When he finds those people he invites them to join him and learn about his Father and our Father.

In one or two days Jesus had found and invited four of the famous twelve men who were his inner circle of disciples. Andrew, Simon, Philip and Nathanael.

Who were these men who found Jesus? They lived fairly close to the town where Jesus lived, they may have met him in the local synagogue, or gone to him for carpentry work, or seen him going into the hills alone to pray. This too is an important question. Because there is a notion that only social rejects, failures and incompetents need Jesus. These first four men were none of those things, they were working men, owning their own trade, skilled in catching fish and selling them to the buyer from the garrison of Roman soldiers. Peter was a married man, perhaps the others were too. It is true that Jesus is sought by people who are desperate and lost but it is also true that Jesus has come searching for decent citizens, people with character, ability and responsibility.

After Jesus found Philip, Philip found his brother, Nathanael. and said the same thing that Andrew had said, only in different words, "We have found the Messiah." Jesus met Nathanael with the statement, "You are a man without deceit." and Nathanael didn't argue, he simply said, "How do you know me?" I saw you said, Jesus, before ever Philip called you. Nathanael was convinced. Jesus was pleased with such quick acceptance and told Nathanael that one day he would see the heavens open and the angels of God going up and coming down to Jesus the Son of Man.

What I am saying here, is that Jesus is looking for the people who are looking for him. He looks for all sorts of people including the solid respectable capable wage earner and citizen. If you are hoping to meet him (and not trying to hide from him) he will meet you. What will convince you will be the knowledge of yourself that happens when he meets you, and the promise that you hear in his invitations. You are, you shall become.

So how do you search for Jesus? I say those words with concern, because I personally know a great many people who would like to meet Jesus but haven't yet found him. I can only give you suggestions: Be in the right places where you are likely to meet him, read the scriptures that tell about him, hang around with people who have already met him. Remain open: never hiding never avoiding, always being ready to be found by Jesus. the man who is God come to earth to look for you.

The Gospel according to John Chapter one versese thirtyfive to fiftyone.

In the beginning

God is everywhere. If you can't see, feel or hear God, does it matter where he is?

At the beginning of the story of Jesus, (the one told by John) God is coming into the world in a way that can be seen, felt and heard. God is coming as a person, born and growing up in an ordinary way, becoming a tradesman, and ultimately travelling from town to town. God does not look like God, he looks like a man, and indeed he is. Quite truly God has become human.

So. if God has become human in order to demonstrate himself to humans, who is doing what God does? God is. That great Spirit who is really three spirits in one has sent Jesus to be with humans, and will later send His Spirit to be in humans. Not three Gods, but one God in three divine persons. The Trinity of Divinity has been revealed by Jesus and by the Holy Spirit.

We saw, says John, a man who embodied both the message and the mind of God. He lived with us and we were able to observe him closely. What we saw was divine kindness and ultimate reality. We saw who he truly was and what we saw was glorious.

God in his human personality came to a nation that was taught by God, and to a nation of people who had spent all their national lives keeping laws made from the original laws of God, and who spent much of their time in prayer and in learning. They could not believe, how could anybody believe? They could not believe that this tradesman, walking through their towns with a band of followers was God in human form. Too hard to believe, especially because at that time people understood God only through laws and ceremonies.

Laws and ceremonies: nice concrete visible, understandable things. You could keep the law and feel in charge of your relationship to God, if you broke the law you made sacrifice and apology to God and were once again in relationship to God. Who needed anything more? Religious rituals were wonderful, the truth about God spelt out in music, poetry, fabrics, incense, burning alters and shining lights. How could a travelling teacher substitute for the glory of temple worship?

Jesus called himself, 'The Son of man', but he always talked about God as 'My Father' so it was natural to call him, 'The Son of God' It didn't mean much though because a lot of people called themselves, sons of God. No one called themselves 'The Son of Man' because that was a very important title that the prophet Daniel had used.

John was one of the people who believed that Jesus was God. God who had brought all things into being, Jesus had been with God before the beginning, all things had been made through him. Jesus was with God, Jesus was God. John called Jesus by a particular name: 'Logos,' the word of God.

People who received Jesus as God became aware that something had happened to them. Jesus, it seemed, had presented them to God and God had put his nature in them. They were children born by God. More than adoption, more than an intention, they were alive to God, in a way they had not been before. Jesus the maker and bringer of life had put them into contact with God the cause of all that is.

The life of Jesus was a light for all people. The light shone in the darkness of the world, and the darkness could not banish the light.

The gospel according to John: chapter one verses one to eighteen
Son of Man: Daniel chapter seven verses thirteen and fourteen

Character assassination

Did anyone ever try to destroy your character? Not steal it as in identity theft but destroy your good reputation by lies. It's pretty commonplace. Take marriage for instance, here is one partner lovingly endeavouring to do right when unexpectedly an angry spouse accuses that he is selfish, uncaring and deliberately annoying. In a bewildered and confused moment he understands that all the right he has been trying to do is gone, lost, and all that is left is a lot of meanness he didn't do.

Children do it to parents, disregarding a life time of care they accuse their parents of being the cause of all the child's problems and responsible for all the bad things that the child has experienced. Its sad when it happens, and some parents have to wait years before a finally mature child vindicates them.

When it happens at work is really feels like murder. Take for instance the ambitious person you've been trying to help who sees an opportunity to get into the favor and confidence of your boss by lying about your performance and reliability. If the boss is gratified by having someone who confides in him and needs to find a scapegoat for his own failures, you see all you've worked to accomplish ruined and lost.

At the first church I pastored a couple of power hungry females circulated the story that I had called them names. They quickly gathered supporters who never asked me if the story was true but threatened to resign in sympathy with these two women. A resignation of leading members is a crisis of care for a pastor. Rather than fight their accusations I announced that I would be the first to resign. That resignation lost me the opportunity to lay a firm basis for a successful church career.

A man praying to God describes the way his character was assassinated. "They beset me with words of hate, and attack me without cause. In return for my love they accuse me, even while I make prayer for them. So they reward me evil for good, and hatred for my love." That sums it up: that's what some people will do to you; they return evil for good and hatred for love.

If you read this same man's prayer which is recorded in Psalm 109 you will be quite shocked. He prays curses on his persecutors! Not just prayers for their defeat but vindictive cruel curses on the people who have betrayed him, on their wives and their children. God must surely have been offended by the cruelty he was asked to perpetrate. On another occasion God does his own cursing, unrequested, upon a queen who made false accusations that resulted in the judicial execution of one of the nation's property owners.

When you are betrayed and slandered, when your opportunities are reduced because of untruths and your reputation ruined by lies how do you respond? Well, you could curse the liars in the name of God. But God is famous for forgiving the wicked and being merciful to the unmerciful. You could tell yourself that because Jesus submitted to an injustice you will allow these evil doers to crucify you and your reputation. Or you could decide that what has happened to you is the will of God and you will willingly submit to his will. Of course you could do what Jesus recommended, bless those who curse us and pray for people who treat us spitefully.

What does a person who cannot believe in God do when evil is stronger than they are? Would they justify responding with hatred and malice? If they did they would be no different to some Christians. It is when evil is stronger than we are that we are tempted to excuse ourselves for responding with more and greater evil. We claim that it was necessary for our survival. But can a person who claims to trust God be excused for confronting evil with more evil?

Jesus did allow his words to be twisted and lied about. He did submit to the unjust condemnation of a judge who acknowledged his innocence and pronouned the death sentence. Therefore should we allow ourselves to be metaphorically crucified whenever someone returns evil for love. I would hesitate to say yes. The reason is that Jesus allowed himself to be crucified only when he had finished teaching and when the crucifixion would be more powerful than his exoneration. Until then I would somewhat hesitantly suggest that there is a difference between being a helpless victim and a triumphant martyr.

Should we call these lies the will of God and submit to this evil that has been unleashed upon us when we were doing good? God is present in all of our lives, his prophets teach that nothing can happen to us except that which he allows. Because God allowed it that does not mean we should accept the injustice and suffer submissively. There is a great value in learning to obstruct all forms of evil. In learning to resist the evil that is done to us we also learn how to defend others from the same evil. I am not sure about the suffering which is called submission to God's will. I think perhaps it is an over-extension of what we know about the will of God. What I am quite sure about is that God loves justice, which means equity of persons, fairness of opportunity and honesty in all we do. If we choose to resist evil and fight against it, it is better that we fight for justice for all people, at all times. In my own experience that first incident of lying accusation resulted in my becoming a strong defender of other pastors in a similar situation. That God loves justice is so often stated by the prophets that there can be no doubt about it.

Another thing I feel quite certain about is that if we resist evil by returning good for evil we will have the support of God, because this is how he himself acts towards humans. 'Overcome evil with good' is the instruction to faithful believers. Some times we will be immediately and obviously successful. Other times we will not see the result of our efforts. God moves slowly, but our good is aided by his good, and after all this life is not all there is.

Loud leaders and huge crowds of believers denounce some of the wrongs that are done by society. Where are the leaders, where is the movement that will unite us in blessing those who curse us? Who will encourage the people of God so that all of us, all of us, become energetic and effective at repaying evil with good?

Psalm 1o9
1st Book of Kings chapter 21. verses 1-27

"I don't believe in God."

My Christmas began on December the 19 and lasted until January 10. One of the happiest I have ever had. (Four and a half years ago I thought I would never be happy again)

This Christmas more than previous ones, I have been confronted by people celebrating Christmas but finding it necessary to explain that they don't believe in God. One was a parent at a children's party who explained the religious meaning of Christmas traditions. When asked which church she belonged to, she casually replied, "Athiest." The other two occasions were two of my own grandchildren, both under ten years old (They have more missionaries, clergy and preachers in their combined family tree than I can count) who stated in a friendly conversational way that they don't believe in God.

After I had learnt to hide the shock and sorrow. I was somewhat amused to hear one their uncles trying to make Christianity more appealing by telling them that there are other ways of being a Christian besides going to Sunday morning worship and being bored. It was certainly a way of lowering tension for the grandchildren, but do you have to insult Sunday worship in order to help people know God? I didn't do as 'well' as he did; my first unguarded unprepared reaction was to turn to the child's father and say, "What are you teaching your children?" Shock and accusation do not lower tension either. Only Old Testament prophets are allowed to be shocked and accusing, modern day prophets must learn to speak nicely, (Like Jesus always did?)

Wondering around the religious section of Borders book shop I noticed that they shelve books about atheism alongside religious books. Perhaps atheism is becoming or, has always been, a religion.

What does it matter? Does God care? Does it really matter to God whether a group of humans living their own lives their own way believe in him? Isn 't it rather conceited to think that what one, or even millions of those humans believe can have any affect on the ultimate reality of the universe?

The book on atheism that I picked up stated why atheism is becoming more popular, "Religion poisons everything." it stated. I read the first chapter and then got bored (A nice way of getting my own revenge on that person who said worship was boring.) I shall go back to the book, I wouldn't mind doing a study group on it. Why? Because it points out the many failures of religion, and alerts the religious to the dangers that are inherent in any man made system of belief.

Believing is hard. Belief is not as easy as climbing a mountain and finding out what is at the top. It is not just a decision; choice alone cannot learn something which is totally 'other' to us. Faith involves choice but it is not solely choice. Faith is a gift, why doesn't God give the gift to everyone who asks? Well, how can they ask except they believe?

I know who I have believed, says the Apostle Paul, and am convinced that he is able to keep what has been committed to him. Perhaps the current surge in atheism is not as deadly and destructive as it seems to be. Maybe it's just the necessary work of separating faith in God from faith in religion. Perhaps the most important thing just now is for the believers in God and the unbelievers in God to work together to find out why it is that faith in God frequently becomes justification for hatred and violence. Perhaps it is time for the people who believe in God to practice blessing more than they inadvertantly practice cursing, but who will teach us?True blessing involves both attitude and action, besides words. How can we learn to bless so that God becomes known? We need a church to help us. If only our churches were not so busy denouncing the acts of unbelievers. If only they could become vulnerable enough to teach the skill of being an act and attitude of blessing.