Falling into the hands of God

Had it been worth it? Those stolen minutes with a man who was not her husband and who also was not here? Were they worth the dreadful fear as the three witnesses dragged her along and threw her before Jesus. It was the time when religious law ruled the land and anyone breaking that law died without mercy. This time the vigilantes would try to score two victories, they would have this woman condemned and stoned to death but they would also put Jesus into such a position that he either participated in the cruelty or repudiated the holy law.

The crowd grows frustrated as it struggles to get an answer from Jesus, but he is silent, bending over to write in the desert sand. At last he lifts his head and says, "Let the person without sin be the first person to throw a stone at her." and then he continues writing in the sand. When the accusers have crept silently away he questions the woman again: "Woman has anyone condemned you?" When she answers, "No one, Sir." He replies, "Neither do I condemn you. Go and sin no more."

The woman pushed before Jesus did not know it, but she was falling into the hands of God. Jesus would find a way to grant her mercy although at that time he had no earthly authority over the religious law enforcers.

It's a good place to fall into: the hands of God. King David, who lived about one thousand years before Jesus, was the first to use this phrase, He had seriously displeased God; he knew it, and asked forgiveness in a short rather flippant way. God's mercy took the form of discipline, David and the nation he led suffered until David seriously attended to the broken relationship between him and God.

People who have declared loyalty to God through Jesus, do sometimes suffer discipline. God disciplines them because he loves them and is training them for a continued and deepening relationship with himself. Sometimes, if a person is a leader of a nation, it is necessary that God show his disapproval of certain actions. The things that offend God include: callousness, hypocrisy, arrogance and deceit. When a person who has declared loyalty to God experiences his discipline they are comforted to realize that although God is displeased with them he has not abandoned them, they are still in his hands. Later they are always grateful for the discipline that prevented them from continuing to sin.

"Sin no more" said Jesus to the woman. Liberating words. Mercy is not given that we may continue to sin and excuse ourselves. Mercy is given so that we may refrain from sinning.

The Gospel of John, chapter 8: verses 2-11
Old Testament: Second book of Samuel, chapter 24:verses 10-25
New Testament: Letter to the Hebrews, chapter 27, verses 26-31

The uncontainable goodness that pours from the person who comes to Jesus

When waters covered the earth and the earth waited in darkness. the Spirit of God swept over the waters like a wind. When wickedness grew great on the earth and every inclination of men’s hearts was only evil continually, the Spirit of God struggled against the imaginations of men’s hearts to restore goodness and it could not be, for mankind did not will it to be so.
When God started over with a rescued remnant of humanity the Spirit of God moved among the people less frequently, coming upon a person for a purpose, filling an artist, strengthening a warrior, instructing a leader. When wickedness again grew great on the earth the Spirit of God came upon the prophets they spoke by that Spirit. Their speech was a recitation of cause and effect; idolatry, injustice, cruelty and violence would produce stronger and more powerful evil until people were destroyed by what they had produced. No one listened, their minds were obsessed by their struggle for power, and their freedom had been curtailed by their possessions. At such a time as this, the prophets begin to declare that God’s good purposes will not be defeated and that God will continue to act in history restraining the wrath of mankind upon mankind, and gaining his own intentions even in the presence of perverted power and blind unreasoning cowardice.

The prophets declared that God was getting ready to do no less than, pour out his Spirit upon humans. He was getting ready to restore the damage that evil had done to people and to enlighten their thinking until justice (equity) poured down like a river upon the earth. Until people became motivated by co-operation rather than pride, and until the union between God and man was restored and the people adventured upon the earth accompanied by God who would lead them to greater good than they had hereto understood.

Jesus, standing up in a country synagogue, declared that the Spirit of God had come upon him for a purpose, that he was sent to release the people held captive and to give sight to the blind and free the oppressed. Three years later, Jesus came to the crowded temple on the last great day of the Feast of Tabernacles. When the water was carried in from the artesian spring and poured over the alter, Jesus suddenly and uninvited announces in a loud voice: “Whoever is thirsty come to me and out of his innermost being will flow rivers of living water.” The people hearing him broke into arguments about who he was and what right he had to speak, eventually they all went home.

Water: cleansing, nourishing, essential fluid: is there a spiritual equivalent? People think so in the first great flush of their own spirituality, when their own creativity breaks loose, and great intentions and wonderful visions spring up in them from some deep and hidden part of their being. They feel that something like a flood has broken loose and although it comes from them it overwhelms them.

But it dries up, it cannot be sustained in times of spiritual dryness, when hopes are dashed and people remain unbelieving and indifferent to the vision and the creativity, then the person's spirit is quenched, then the person falls into inactivity and disillusionment. Inside the broken spirit withers and outside the person grows fat and listless.

But the Spirit of God comes from beyond oneself, inexhaustible and incorruptible. It is given to the soul that seeks harmony with God. God pours out plentifully, his own good spirit upon the dry, parched spirit of the person united to him. Even when and if sorrow, fatigue and discouragement dry up the person’s own spirit. The Spirit of God still pours, stronger in our need, upon those who trust in God through the mercy of the son.

It is strange, but God-like, that when a person is most stressed from the forces around him or her this Spirit flows out from them in a sweetness that is surprising. It is strange but God-like that when everything is exhausted and all seems lost that this Spirit pours into and fills the person who waits on God. What has been poured out flows out, refreshing all around. It is this activity which keeps the person united to God from being overcome by the temptation around them, or beaten down by the strength of the evil that presses on him.

Every form of self-fulfillment or self-rescue, every religion, requires that a person do something to heal themselves, fulfill themselves or learn the mystery. Only Christ says that nothing is required of us. Only ask (since asking implies belief and co-operation) and the Spirit of God himself will come to us, and do for us what we cannot do for ourselves. God’s good Spirit will take up residence in the deepest parts of our being and because the Spirit of God is too great to contain, will gush out in joyful rivers of creative fairness, love and mercy until the earth is restored and the people know their God.

The gospel of John chapter seven: verses 37 to 38
The Promise is given in: The book of Joel chapter two, verses 28 and 29
And in Isaiah chapter thirty-two verse 15
Isaiah chapter forty-four verses 3 – 6
Ezekiel chapter thirty-nine verse 29
Ezekiel chapter thirty-six verse 27
Jesus as the bearer of the Spirit: Isaiah chapter forty-two verses 1- 4

Jesus gives a guarantee

Jesus was buying time. He knew that the leaders of the nation wanted him silenced, it is even possible one of them was sending him secret information about the intentions of the leaders. He wasn't ready; still had important things to teach and it was especially important that he prepare his followers for something they weren't expecting; his death. He was acting circumspectly and avoiding the capital city, however he did decide to go up to Jerusalem for part of the eight day celebration called, Booths. A happy feast, remembering the travells of their founding fathers. In the months that would be our August or September, the people made temporary shelters out of branches and slept in them in places around their homes.

Jesus began to teach the crowds of pilgrims who gathered daily in the temple grounds. The leaders of the temple sent guards to arrest him. The guards came back without him. "Why?" asked the leaders, "Because," said the guards. "no other person speaks like he does." Frustrated the leaders waited and plotted some more. In the meantime they couldn't help but be amazed by the way Jesus knew the scriptures and the way he interpreted them.

People were wondering who was right, Jesus or the revered leaders. Jesus explained the scriptures more fully than the leaders explained them. The leaders had taught Holy Law to the exclusion of almost everything else. Jesus made the law subservient to God. When he did teach the holy law, Jesus said that the purpose of the law is to show people that they need help to keep it. Jesus said that the holy law would not pass into oblivion but that he would fulfill it on behalf of everyone else.

The leaders didn't interpret the scripture this way, who was right? Jesus claimed that when he studied the scriptures God taught him profound truths. The people were cautious, who knew whether God had really explained the Jewish scriptures to Jesus? While they are still puzzling about this, Jesus offers a guarantee. Do what is pleasing to God, as Jesus teaches, and you will know whether Jesus is teaching his own ideas or bringing a message from God.
The guarantee is simpe, conclusive, reassuring. It is still valid today.

There is a problem. If a person has not, in the past, been concerned about doing what pleases God, is this a strong enough reason to start now? If a person has, for a long time, had a conviction that what he is doing is displeasing to God but has carried on doing it anyway, what will make him/her change now? Such a change is called repentance - not necessary involving grief, but consisting of a firm decision to change one's behavior, to go in the opposite direction. For instance if a person who believes in God has been living with his back to God it involves turning round to face God. If a person has been insisting there is no God the change would involve speaking to God and promising to be led by him.

Who can do this? Jesus gave the answer, God draws people to himself through the teaching of Jesus. When God draws and people yield to his attraction then they are changed.
The guarantee still holds. Do what is pleasing to God and you will know whether what Jesus taught is from God. How? God will change you, as you change your orientation towards him. Suddenly or slowly the day comes when you know that Jesus was giving the message God sent him to speak. Two of the many ways this might happen are; 1. doing what pleases God becomes easy and pleasant. 2, The new life-style of doing what pleases God changes you so that you are aware that you have been made new. Your spirit (inner reality) that had felt damaged and disabled before becomes alive and strong, you feel yourself re-charging with the energy that God sends to his people. Let me emphasise it, I and most of the Church understand it this way; first change your orientation towards God, then comes the power to do the things that please God. Without knowing this a person could struggle for a long time.

The guarantee still holds. Turn from the shady side to face God. Turn from expressing doubts to expressing loyalty. You will know that Jesus taught the truth and you will never be the same again.

Are you leaving?

"Are you also going away?" said Jesus to the little group of disciples who were left. People had left him in droves. His teaching was just too hard to understand, and a trifle off-putting.

His disciples were discontented that he had started to talk this way. The people who listened to him preaching in the synagogue could no longer understand him. "How could we do what he says?" they asked, and then they left.

Why didn't Jesus keep it simple? He had been so popular, great crowds following him, most of them believing that he was fit to be their king. If Jesus had to get spiritual, surely he could have done it by degrees, meeting the people's expectations at first and then introducing the more theological things slowly, so as not to loose the people. Instead Jesus introduced the most complicated of concepts, that people should eat his flesh and drink his blood. First they asked how this was possible and then they left. For most of the people in that region Jesus was an episode in their lives that had ended.

Jesus wasn't very persuasive with his disciples, he said if this was too spiritually challenging for them, how would they react when they saw him physically return to where he came from? They were already mystified now he was making it worse.

We don't need to defend Jesus so lets admit that it sounds disgusting to eat his flesh and drink his blood. For three hundred years Christians often had to go into hiding because the Romans were trying to exterminate them, during this time when they celebrated the eucharist in secret, a rumour was spread that Christians were canibals. The people listening to Jesus had never heard of eucharist or mass or holy communion, but they could have made a connection with the ceremonies at their temple. When a lamb was sacrficied as a way of asking for forgiveness, only part of the flesh was burnt on the alter, another part was given to the penitent, he and his family feasted in a joyful celebration of forgiveness. Blood was sprinkled on the priests and on the alter to cleanse the alter from the pollution of anything that was not obedient to God.

As the crowds grew smaller, Jesus looked at the few followers who were left and asked, "Are you also going to go away?" Peter replied, 'Who could we go to? We have come to believe and know that you are the Holy One of God."

There was and is no compulsion to remain a follower of Jesus. The door was as wide open for them to leave as it was for them to come. Leaving Jesus because some of the things he teaches are so hard to understand is risky. It is better to say like Peter, that there is no other person who promises the gift of spiritual and eternal life therefore - stick around, in the words of a popular spiritual, you'll understand it all by and by.

Our churches are full of young people who drifted away when they were young, and who came ack when they got older. When we talked together these returning-people usually told me that they left the church but didn't leave Jesus. They also said that they were waiting for something they called 'a high'. Many of them said, that they were brought up to believe but wanted to make a choice to believe. The people who return are usually the people who always wanted to come back to faith but just couldn't find the way. Faith is a gift and is given to those who listen to the scripture, meet with believers and respond when the Spirit calls them.

Eucharist, mass, holy communion, some of the people participating have only the vaguest idea what Jesus meant when he said that eating his flesh and drinking his blood would give them life that doesn't die. But they eat the bread, (it is often the most prosaic bread, crackers or home made cornbread or wonder bread, and drink the wine which is usually grape juice because the recovered alcoholics among us don't want to be presented with even a small drink of real wine.) The bread and wine are made holy by setting them aside for the purpose of enacting a spiritual truth in a physical way. Many churches stress that this meal is instituted by Jesus and therefore he is the host, most churches do not impose conditions for receiving it.

We eat the bread, which is a sign of the body in which God came to be among us and which was destroyed on the cross, we drink the blood which is a sign that the blood of Jesus has washed away all our sin, we understand that through this act, if it is mixed with faith, we are united with God the giver of eternal life. How much faith does this require? Not a lot, Jesus said that even the disciples didn't have much faith, but that a little faith even if it very small is sufficient for a start.

Some people take this 'meal' (usually a square inch of bread and a tablespoon of grape juice) with only a small understanding of what they are doing, but they do understand that Jesus takes away our sins and give us life. Taking this communion is a public act, (most churches do not have private or personal commune services because common-union with Jesus is also union with other believers) This is a public statement that you want to hang around with Jesus, that you understand he has something you can't get anywhere else. As beginning faith mixes with carrying out the action required by Jesus, something stirs within us, but it is not from us, or of us, it is the life of the Spirit of Jesus living through us.

It took me, personally, years to recognise this stirring. I worked at it, using all my intellect and very little of anything else. I waited for a strong, sweeping wind from God, one day I understood that the Spirit also comes like a gentle summer rain, and that Jesus was quite capable of completing what I had trusted him to do. It's been peaceful since then. If I could have my wish I would be every day in the church, praying over the bread and juice. If I could have my wish I would stand at the corner of two busy streets holding out the plate of bread and the cup of wine offering it to any of the busy people who rush past, with the words, "The body of our Lord." "The blood of Jesus Christ spilt for us." That isn't possible, the church requires more explanation, but I still long, to do it. Because I know that the people hurrying by would really in their heart like to be united with Jesus but have just lost their way in the abundance of different congregations and the strident voices of some of the preachers.

So if your faith is small, so was Peters. If your faith is sufficient to do something because Jesus said to do it, this is the place to start. Hang around, take the bread, drink the wine, offer what little faith you have and wait. The rest is up to Jesus.

The Gospel of John, chapter six, verses 51 to 69

Jesus: The Misunderstood Miracle

"Why is Jesus avoiding us? We tried to proclaim him king yesterday, but he disappeared while we were getting it organized."

It was close to the time of the ceremonial feast in Jerusalem, thousands of people walking to Jerusalem had made a detour when they heard that Jesus was teaching on the east side of the lake, they had listened eagerly all day and at the end of the day Jesus had taken five loaves and two fishes, blessed them, and, as they multiplied in his hands (and perhaps the hand's of his disciples) distributed them to five thousand hungry men, plus women and children. They all had sufficient and there was a lot left over. That's why they wanted to make him king by acclamation, instead Jesus had walked up a mountain path and they had not been able to find him.


They waited for him on the following day, sure that he would be there; because his boat had left without him and only that boat had been seen. He was not there; in the dusk of the evening he had walked across the water to join his disciples in their boat.


Now, after borrowing boats and walking around the edge of the lake they find him, at last, on the west side of the lake and ask 'When did you get here?" Jesus is not very welcoming. He does not praise them for their determind search. In fact you can almost hear him sighing. "You are not here because you understood the miracle-message but because you want free bread."


It was true, the meaning of the miraculous multiplying of the bread had been totally lost to them, but bread they understood. Long ago, way back in the beginning of their national history when a man called Moses was their leader, they had been miraculously supplied with bread from heaven. Here was a man who could repeat that miracle, but he seemed unwilling. Jesus did the very thing that annoyed them most; while they were still seeking an answer to their hunger and poverty he started talking about God! It still annoys people who have their feet firmly planted on the ground. Angrily they asked if he was requiring some act from them before he re-introduced the golden days of bread and birds from heaven. All he asked for was the one thing they neither wanted to do, nor felt capable of doing. "Believe in the person God has sent."

These same people, who had eaten of the miraculously multiplied bread and fishes, these same people who suspected Jesus had crossed the lake by some miraculous way, demanded, "What sign will you do?" They went on to remind Jesus that Moses gave them miracle bread every day, not just one day.

The people complaining to Jesus that day, had little use for God, they scarcely cared. They lived by agriculture and fishing, feared the Romans, and fought poverty daily. What use did they have for God, unless by some ritualistic performance they could manipulate his favor. There, in that setting, Jesus elevates the conversation to spiritual levels, and the people grow more and more impatient with him. It happens today, although God desires to bless every person his way of doing that is to bring them into a close and true relationship with himself. Most people aren't interested in that, they just want a blessing. People will sprinkle holy water, accept the ashes as a mark of death, bow before an alter, even send seven copies of a manipulative e-mail about blessing. But if getting the blessing requires that they stop, and become closely related to God himself. They just aren't interested. People find it comfortable and even think it religious, to believe that God is some vaguely benevolent cloud of goodness who can be induced to rain on them by some magic rain dance.

"Don't labour for the bread that perishes," said Jesus, "labour for the bread that endures for eternal life." The people were mystified, they knew of no such bread.

How hard it is to find your own soul. In the midst of recession, unemployment, mounting debt, conflicting needs and increasing responsibilities, a person's soul gets lost to them. They labor away, paying bills, devising ways to get out of debt, seeking distractions from their worries. Their feet are so firmly on the ground that in fact they feel stuck there. They have lost their souls, but God hasn't, he knows every one. His Spirit hovers over them, the way it did in the day when the sea rolled back from the earth and life sprang into being. Jesus grieves, God plans. Some time, some day, his Spirit will visit someone who is totally occupied by money and bread. There will be an sense of invitation maybe a flash of light. "Join me." an invitation or a command, to live.

Will it be you? When if happens, it may be happening now, will you turn away because you need bread and money or will you trust God enough to believe that he is what you need to find yourself again, to be made over again.

I will give you bread says Jesus, I will give my body (the body which he had entered into in order to bring God's message to us) for the life of the world.

Life of the world. Can this sick world live? Little corners prosper but most places hunger and fight. Even in the corners where people prosper, the managining and spending of money has preoccupied them so that God is no longer believed. Can there be life, not only for the individual but for the world?

I am the living bread that came down from heaven. Whoever eats of this bread will live forever; and the bread that I will give for the life of this world is my flesh.

The Gospel of John chapter six, verses 26-51

To-day is shrove Tuesday. Go get the ashes applied to your forehead to remind you that bodies die, just don't misunderstand the meaning of the sign. The sign is that because we have broken unity with God, who is the source of all life, we will all die. On Easter Sunday celebrate with joy, but understand the sign - the sign is that because Jesus overcame death those who believe in him will live again.