blessed, part 2

 

Matthew constructs his Gospel in five sections, reflecting the first five books of the Bible. The first section, which includes Jesus’ origin stories and concludes with the Sermon on the Mount, reflects Genesis.

Genesis opens with an epic poem universally understood as a creation story. I would suggest that it is, in fact, a song of God’s habitual deliverance, which applies to:

the drawing-out of life on earth after the war in heaven and the throwing down of the archangel Lucifer like a meteor hit, that filled the atmosphere with dust, blocking the light of the sun, causing all plant life to die, resulting in the extinction of the mighty lizards we know as dinosaurs;

the rescuing of Noah and his family and the domesticated animals (not elephants and giraffes) from a flood that covered the basin we today know as Kuwait and Iraq, from horizon to horizon (or, the mountains separating the flooded area from Iran, Turkey, and the eastern edge of the Mediterranean);

the exodus, through the parted waters of the sea, of a people oppressed by the Egyptians;

the return of their descendants from exile in Babylon, and the rebuilding of Jerusalem and the temple;

the raising of Jesus three days after his body had been overwhelmed by the chaos of death;

the re-emerging of faith—both Judaism as we might recognise it today and the sect known as the Way—after the destruction of Jerusalem and Judea in AD70;

to list just a few examples.

The poem describes eight effective words spoken by God, the last of which—the creation of humans—has two parts.

The Sermon on the Mount opens with eight sayings, or effective words, the last of which has two parts.

This is not a coincidence. These blessings, or Beatitudes, are a remaking of the world, a once-again deliverance from chaos.

‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.’ This echoes the separation of light and darkness, the hallowing of day and night. Humility is the posture that hallows both heaven and earth, and unites them in the One who is fully human and fully divine.

‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.’ This echoes the dome in the heavens dividing the waters to create room for the sky. Through our tears, which in due course are tenderly wiped away, space is held for us to experience comfort, and to know hope.

‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.’ This echoes the separation of the waters beneath the sky to draw out dry land. The waters of chaos cannot indefinitely overcome those who are meek, who are willing to heed the word and obey, to learn as Noah learned how to build an ark or as Moses dared to speak to Pharaoh despite his stammer.

‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.’ This echoes the drawing-out of vegetation, the fruit- and seed-bearing plants that feed us. The bread that lies beyond the threshing; the wine that lies beyond the treading underfoot.

‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.’ This echoes the lights in the night sky, the sun, moon, and stars, and the seasons they proclaim and rule over. As the reflected light of the moon and the burning fire of the stars makes the night not only bearable but navigable; not only navigable but beautiful; so mercy makes the dark nights of our lives bearable, navigable, beautiful.

‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.’ This echoes the life that teams in the waters and flies freely across the sky. The pure in heart are free, in the most expansive ways imaginable. All things are theirs, without their needing to possess any of them.

‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.’ This echoes the evolution of living creatures across every ecosystem of the earth. Peace-making is environment making, ecology creating, the enabling of life—in its diverse forms and expressions—to flourish.

‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.

Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.’

This echoes the calling of human-kind, who are created male and female, to share in the sovereignty of God, who is reviled and persecuted for love’s sake; who rejects the rule of violence and imposition, that love alone might establish itself on earth as it is in heaven.

 

blessed, part 1

 

One of the things Matthew wants us to know about Jesus is that he is the new Moses. So, Matthew structures his Gospel in five sections, reflecting the first five books of the Bible—Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy—the Torah, or Law of Moses.

Each section concludes with a collection of Jesus’ teaching.

The first section reflects Genesis, with its origin stories of human beings, made in God’s image, and how they have forgotten themselves, their humanity, but have not been forgotten by God.

The second section reflects Exodus, with stories of Jesus delivering people from the various manifestations of captivity to death.

The third section reflects Leviticus, showing how Jesus is both priest and tabernacle, the presence of God in our midst.

The fourth section reflects Numbers, the ordering of the people, the Church and how we relate to one another.

The fifth section reflects Deuteronomy, the second telling of the Law, with its emphasis on the consequential choice between life or death.

The first section concludes with the largest block of Jesus’ teaching, which came, very early on, to be known as the Sermon on the Mount. And Jesus begins with a series of blessings.

To bless is to recognise, and affirm, the inherent, God-given goodness of a thing. And that goodness is a participation—a part—in the goodness of God. When Jesus, who is who God is as a human being, and who a human being is fully in God, says, ‘Blessed are those who mourn,’ he is not simply saying that God identified with those who mourn. He is saying that to be a person who mourns is to be human as God in Jesus is human. To be a person who mourns is to be like God, for God is a God who mourns, as humans mourn.

The poor in spirit inherit the kingdom of heaven because God is poor in spirit. Jesus is humble, not because he hides God’s arrogance but because he reveals that God is humble, comes to us demanding nothing, offering his life to all who will freely choose him.

Those who mourn know comfort because God mourns. God is not unmoved by death, even though he knows that death does not have the final say. The One who will call Lazarus out from the tomb nonetheless stands at his friend’s tomb and weeps for him, with his sisters.

The meek inherit the earth because God is meek. The One who spoke all creation into being submits himself to learning to speak sitting on his mother’s lap. The One through whom, by the Spirit, the Father spoke to Moses, submits himself to learn the very words he had spoken to Moses, at the school attached to the synagogue where every child in the village would commit the Torah to memory. (At some point, the Word made flesh would come to recognise these words as his own—as himself—given to him, to us, by the Father.)

Those who hunger and thirst for righteousness are filled, because God hungers and thirsts for righteousness. Literally, Jesus—God, the One who made the grain that is threshed and the olives that are pressed and the cattle on a thousand hills and the grapes that are trodden underfoot—experiencing the limitations of being hungry and thirsty, experiencing dependence on his neighbours, on honest exchange for honest labour.

The merciful receive mercy because God is merciful. The One who refuses to add to the burdens that weigh people down, including the unbearable burden of taking up stones as judge, jury and executioner of our fellow humans.

The pure in heart see God, because God is pure in heart. The One who has a human heart, which will be pierced by a lance, releasing the blood of violence spent on the ground—a prayer crying out, like that of his brother Abel, crying out for forgiveness for his murderer, the one guilty of fratricide—and, alongside the blood of violence, the living water of the Holy Spirit.

The peacemakers are called the children of God because God is a peacemaker. The One who delivers people from the demonic howl that afflicts them—and who permits the demons to drown, and so to be joined with him in death, and, freed from the grip of sin, to rise with him to new life, for the Christ comes not only to reconcile the children of Israel, or even the children of Eve, but all creation, seen and unseen, to their Creator.

The kingdom of heaven belongs to those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, because God is persecuted. Brought to false trial; scourged; nailed to a tree—wood, and thorns, twisted, co-opted into violence against their Creator; marred beyond recognisable human form: that we might be rescued from all violence.

Those who are reviled and persecuted and have evil claims made against them are blessed because this is God’s experience in the world.

And so Jesus speaks the Word that is his very self, that we might see God for God’s sake and for ours; and that we might see how to be human as God, in Jesus, is human. To be fully human. To be blessed, a co-incidence of human and divine blessing in the world.

Matthew 5.1-12

5 When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him.
2 Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying:
3 ‘Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
4 ‘Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.
5 ‘Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth.
6 ‘Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.
7 ‘Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy.
8 ‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God.
9 ‘Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God.
10 ‘Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.
11 ‘Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account.
12 Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.

 

Love, part 2

 

Near the beginning of almost every service I preside at, I remind the congregation of this:

Our Lord Jesus Christ said:
The first commandment is this:
‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is the only Lord.
You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart,
with all your soul, with all your mind,
and with all your strength.’
The second is this: ‘Love your neighbour as yourself.’
There is no other commandment greater than these.
On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.

To which the congregation responds:
Amen. Lord, have mercy.

Christianity is not primarily about what we believe (important though that is). It is not primarily about what we do (important though that is, too). Christianity is primarily an invitation to go deeper into a mystery—the mystery of Love.

A mystery is something that is greater, in every dimension, than we can hold or grasp or contain. We are called to love with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind and all our strength in the knowledge that our heart and soul and mind and strength can never fathom Love’s depths.

We will never exhaust Love, though Love will exhaust us, will bring us to the ends of ourselves again and again, and carry us beyond, into the vast unknown.

Yet the world is a scary place. And so our heart may be troubled, our soul confused, our mind restless, our strength spent—not on account of Love but on account of seeking control. And so we harden our heart, sell (seek to exchange, for something else) our soul, close our mind, conserve our strength. These actions lead to death, to one or another dimension of ourselves dying.

The mystery of Love is that death does not have the last word. The mystery of Love is resurrection. That we are given a new heart, a heart of flesh instead of a heart of stone—for, in the human Jesus, God has taken for himself a heart of flesh. That our spiritually dead body is breathed-alive again with the breath of God. That our mind is surrounded, guarded, not by some defensive scaffolding but by Love itself. That our strength is renewed, like an eagle carried on the thermals.

We do not do this for ourselves. We are not even empowered to do these things. They are done for us by the very one who calls us to Hear, who calls us to life, to the life of Love.

We must gaze upon him. Contemplate him deeply. For a lifetime—and then eternity beyond.

As we do, we shall be changed.

 

Love, part 1

 

In writing his Gospel, or presentation of the life of Jesus, Matthew wants us to know three things:

that Jesus is the Son of David, that is, the rightful heir to the kingdom established by God’s;

that Jesus is the new Moses, or law-giver, the one who instructs us in how to live, how to be fully human;

and that Jesus is the Messiah, the one sent by God to deliver his people from evil.

The first of these claims puts Jesus in conflict with the Sadducees, the keepers of the temple, built on the site chosen by David, built by his son Solomon; rebuilt and vastly expanded under the current ruling dynasty, Herod the Great and his heir Herod Antipas.

The second of these claims puts Jesus in conflict with the Pharisees, who considered themselves to be the guardians and interpreters of torah, of divine instruction.

The third of these claims puts Jesus in conflict with pretty much anybody—including his own disciples—whose vision of the Messiah, drawn from certain biblical texts, was of a warrior who would lead a victorious uprising against the Romans; because Jesus’ vision of Messiah, drawn from different biblical texts, was of a servant who would embrace the suffering of God’s people in his own body, and transform it.

Eventually an uneasy coalition will form around Jesus as common threat to various interests.

In Matthew 22.34-46, the Pharisees confront Jesus, and Jesus challenges the Pharisees.

One of them, an expert in torah, asks Jesus which commandment in the law is the greatest? It is a trap, coming from a party who hold the whole of the law as one. It echoes an account much earlier in the Gospel, where satan—the accuser, the legal prosecutor—tests Jesus’ understanding of torah, as proof of his identity as Son of David, who ate the bread that symbolised God’s presence; as new Moses, who confronted Pharaoh with dramatic signs and wonders; and as Messiah, exercising divine judgment over the surrounding nations who have oppressed Israel.

But rather than extract a commandment in such a way as to diminish the rest, Jesus summarises the whole divine instruction—both through torah and through the prophets as those repeatedly sent by God to call the people to return to covenant faithfulness—in one statement of faith:

“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.”

Everything else is commentary on this.

Jesus is citing a statement of faith known as the shema, from ‘hear,’ or take note, be careful to observe. It opens, ‘Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.’ It begins with the singularity of God; from which our life flows and to which our lives are rightly ordered towards, or returned.

It is interesting that Matthew begins with the Pharisees hearing, in relation to what Jesus has done—but not taking note rightly.

The shema itself, found in Deuteronomy (that is, the second telling of the Law, to a subsequent generation) calls the people to love God with all their heart, all their soul, and all their might. Jesus tweaks it, exchanging ‘might’—literally, a statement meaning ‘exceedingly,’ so not so much a third category as an intensification—for ‘mind.’ Why? By Jesus’ time, and in contrast to the time of Moses, Hebrew thought had long been in dialogue with Greek thought, with its particular understanding of the mind as the means by which we make a step-by-step process from the abstract to the concrete.

Jesus goes on to say that the second telling of this command—the ‘another way to put it is this’—is “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” This is actually quite funny, because here he is quoting Leviticus, which is part of the first telling of the Law...so, he summarises the Law from the second telling, and then tells it a second time from the first telling. I will grant you that isn’t laugh-so-hard-you-wet-your-pants funny, but it is the kind of clever funny Jesus employs a lot.

Anyway...

This three-fold love reflects the nature of God revealed in creation (Genesis 1-2)

which comes into being, according to God’s desire, or heart (‘Let there be...And it was so.’);

with God’s Spirit, or life-breath or soul, hovering over the deep, and, later, shared with human beings, transforming a scoop of moist earth rescued from the chaos of waters into a living creature;

and with God’s ongoing assessment (‘And God saw that it was good...And God saw that it was very good.’) and reassessment (‘It is not good for the human to be alone...’).

Matthew presents Jesus as Son of David, the one whom God identified as a man after his own heart (1 Samuel 13);

as the new Moses, to whom God gave divine spirit/breath, and from whom God took part of that spirit and gave it to seventy others to share the load with him (Numbers 11);

and as the Messiah, who lays aside immutability to take on flesh, and accepts the wounding of technology so that love may be revealed in weakness and suffering transformed into glory (Isaiah 53).

The audacious claim is that, as we gaze upon Jesus, as we hear him, we are transformed into the fully-human and one-with-God kind of person who loves God with all our heart and all our soul and all our mind, and loves our neighbour as ourself.

The casual glance or distracted ear will not suffice. We must behold him, who is all in all.

Matthew 22.34-46

‘When the Pharisees heard that he had silenced the Sadducees, they gathered together, and one of them, a lawyer, asked him a question to test him. ‘Teacher, which commandment in the law is the greatest?’ He said to him, ‘“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.” This is the greatest and first commandment. And a second is like it: “You shall love your neighbour as yourself.” On these two commandments hang all the law and the prophets.’

‘Now while the Pharisees were gathered together, Jesus asked them this question: ‘What do you think of the Messiah? Whose son is he?’ They said to him, ‘The son of David.’ He said to them, ‘How is it then that David by the Spirit calls him Lord, saying,

“The Lord said to my Lord, ‘Sit at my right hand, until I put your enemies under your feet’”? If David thus calls him Lord, how can he be his son?’ No one was able to give him an answer, nor from that day did anyone dare to ask him any more questions.

 

coins

 

Lectionary readings for Holy Communion today: 1 Thessalonians 1.1-10 and Matthew 22.15-22.

One time, those who were opposed to Jesus tried to trap him into speaking out against the Roman emperor, over the well-debated topic of taxation. Jesus asked for a coin, and asked, whose head is this, and whose title? The emperor’s, they replied. Then give to the emperor (render unto Caesar) the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s. That snapped the trap shut; but Jesus was not caught in it.

How did we get here? Four centuries earlier, Rome was a fledgling republic, besieged by the Gauls. The Romans had fallen back to the Capitoline hill, the home of their gods, and in particular Juno, the goddess protector of Rome. One night, the Gauls attempted a surprise attack, but, creating the top of the hill the first Gaul came face to face with a goose—geese being the sacred animal of Juno, and thus allowed to roam freely on the hill. The goose said ‘honk,’ which as we all know means, ‘Who the hell are you?’ and then ‘honk! honk!’ which means, ‘We’re being attacked!’ and when one goose says ‘honk!’ all the other geese join in, because geese are nature’s burglar alarm. Thus were the Romans alerted, and, rising, rained javelins down on the Gauls as they climbed. Rome won the day (or, rather, the night) and the rest, as they say, is history.

The Romans built a new temple on the site, dedicated to Juno Moneta—Juno the Warner.

As the sphere of Rome’s control spread everywhere wider, they needed coins, to pay their armies, feed their citizens, oil the wheels of administration. Their coins were minted within the precincts of the temple to Juno Moneta—hence, the coins became known as money. Hundreds of workers made thousands of coins every day, from blank discs of bronze, silver or gold.

The process involved an anvil, into which was inserted a hand-cut obverse die—the head. The blank disc was heated to soften the metal, and placed on the die. Another die—the reverse, or tail—was then held in place by hand, and a hammer brought down on it all, pressing the images into the coin. Bang, bang, bang. All day long. Mind your fingers.

In the days of the Republic, the obverse side of a coin depicted the head of a god or goddess. The reverse could depict anything, usually a figure or scene expressing something significant. Once the Republic gave way to the Empire, the heads on the obverse side became that of the emperor—whose image is this, and whose inscription? Tiberius’.

Coins became a way to disseminate ideas, as well as news. From Spain to Turkey, from North Africa to northern England, coins passed from hand to hand told you who was your new emperor. For over a hundred years, he was clean-shaven; but with Hadrian, who had a wall built across the north of England, just up the road from where I live, came a big change: Hadrian, and successive emperors after him, were bearded. As well as a wall, Hadrian had coins minted in Britain; his own head on the obverse, and Britannia—the personification of the spirit of Britain—on the reverse. Any man who wanted to get ahead knew that now he had to grow a beard. On the other side of the coin, every woman of note demanded her hair and dress be in this new style.

Whose head is this, and whose title? Jesus’ implication is that we are coins pressed with the image of God.

There is something of this imagery picked up in Paul’s letter to the church in Thessalonica (present day Thessaloniki, in northern Greece; at the time, this region was Macedonia, and the central and southern part of Greece known as Achaia). Through their lives, the reputation of God spread out from Thessalonica to Macedonia and beyond that into Achaia, just as coins spread out from Rome through Italy and across the empire.

The obverse of their lives is the human face of God, Jesus. The reverse, inscribed with a design depicting faith and love and hope.

Like coins, their lives—and ours—are minted in the place of worship. Like coins, there is both skill and hard labour involved. The work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

As I have been saying a lot recently, faith and love and hope are not natural; they are supernatural. They are real—but they are evidence of the work of God in our lives. Human beings are faithless, lacking in love, despairing of hope. You only have to turn on the news, or look at the statistics on domestic violence or suicide to know this. Our family members, our friends, our neighbours, are desperate for hope, long to be loved, need someone who will not give up on them. Need to learn how not to give up on others. Especially when they are hard to love; especially when we cannot see a good future beyond a bleak present.

Paul says that Jesus rescues us from the wrath that is coming. From the brutality of the Roman empire that fell upon Jerusalem, burning it to the ground in 70AD, as it fell upon city after city, until Rome herself fell. From whatever wrath approaches our own moment in history, whatever disaster brings life as we have known it to a sudden and violent end. In Jesus, we can know hope that all shall be well, in the end, as all shall be reconciled in relationship to a loving God. That there is life—abundant life—beyond the End, beyond death in all its forms.

As we gather as church; as our lives experience the heat and press and, at times, hammer blow of daily experience; so in God’s mercy we are being transformed into the likeness of Christ—our lives, his face—and bearing his title: Prince of Peace, King of Love, Joy-giver, Hope of the Nations...the reverse of a Roman coin changed annually (sometimes more frequently, up to three times a year) and the design of our lives also changes depending on the particular work God is doing in and through is at any given time.

May our lives be confirmed to his likeness and passed from hand to hand among our neighbours, across our community, bringing faith and love and hope, the currency of the kingdom of heaven.

For more on Roman coins, see ‘Moneta: Ancient Rome in Twelve Coins’ by Gareth Harney (Vintage, 2025)

1 Thessalonians 1.1-10

Paul, Silvanus, and Timothy,

To the church of the Thessalonians in God the Father and the Lord Jesus Christ:

Grace to you and peace.

We always give thanks to God for all of you and mention you in our prayers, constantly remembering before our God and Father your work of faith and labour of love and steadfastness of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ. For we know, brothers and sisters beloved by God, that he has chosen you, because our message of the gospel came to you not in word only, but also in power and in the Holy Spirit and with full conviction; just as you know what kind of people we proved to be among you for your sake. And you became imitators of us and of the Lord, for in spite of persecution you received the word with joy inspired by the Holy Spirit, so that you became an example to all the believers in Macedonia and in Achaia. For the word of the Lord has sounded forth from you not only in Macedonia and Achaia, but in every place where your faith in God has become known, so that we have no need to speak about it. For the people of those regions report about us what kind of welcome we had among you, and how you turned to God from idols, to serve a living and true God, and to wait for his Son from heaven, whom he raised from the dead—Jesus, who rescues us from the wrath that is coming.

Matthew 22.15-22

Then the Pharisees went and plotted to entrap him in what he said. So they sent their disciples to him, along with the Herodians, saying, ‘Teacher, we know that you are sincere, and teach the way of God in accordance with truth, and show deference to no one; for you do not regard people with partiality. Tell us, then, what you think. Is it lawful to pay taxes to the emperor, or not?’ But Jesus, aware of their malice, said, ‘Why are you putting me to the test, you hypocrites? Show me the coin used for the tax.’ And they brought him a denarius. Then he said to them, ‘Whose head is this, and whose title?’ They answered, ‘The emperor’s.’ Then he said to them, ‘Give therefore to the emperor the things that are the emperor’s, and to God the things that are God’s.’ When they heard this, they were amazed; and they left him and went away.

 

rejoice

 

Susie arrives later today; Noah and Elijah tomorrow; and on Friday all five of us head off to my brother’s wedding.

My brother is getting married, for the first time, thirty years after he was my best man.

His wedding was the first thing that crossed my mind—‘No, no, no! ****!’—when I smashed up my shoulder exactly three weeks’ out from the big day.

My goal for Friday is to be able to put my shirt on without assistance. Not that there is anything wrong with needing assistance; but setting goals can be useful for physical rehab, as long as we hold them lightly enough that our spirits aren’t crushed if we don’t meet them. I still don’t have a functioning left arm; and after two less-painful days, it is more painful again today; so, we shall see.

I’m looking forward to seeing everyone. My mother and sister will likely both be in wheelchairs for at least some of the day; my father, walking with the aid of a stick; my arm in a sling. The point is not that my brother should have married sooner—we would all be in these conditions now, regardless of a wedding—but that we are all only ever temporarily not disabled.

The body is miraculously designed to renew itself of many (not all) things. I give thanks for the incredible work of surgeons, doctors, and nurses. And I believe that prayer, and anointing with oil for healing, both play a part too. My shoulder will mend; and, in time, something else will fall apart.

We are not meant to be self-sufficient. We are meant to be interdependent, and to care for one another. To enable one another to participate, as fully as we—together—are able; given actual constraints, and the imagination and will to transform our environment. To experience abundant life, in the fleeting and seasonal nature of our existence.

Which is why the obscenely rich insisting that those who are disabled should carry the burden of the cost of such transformation by themselves, alone, is so comprehensively lacking in humanity.

We are all only ever temporarily not disabled.

 

abundantly

 

I like to sit in the stillness of the gathering dark, and pray. This evening—indeed, all day—I have been thinking about some words of Jesus, ‘The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.’

I am holding those who have suffered loss before the Light that shines in the darkness; before the Life that death can grasp at but not hold; before the Door to healing and wholeness, shelter and sustenance; whose name is Jesus, which means ‘God saves.’

We learn to recognise thieves and bandits; and to recognise God, as revealed in Jesus, as the antithesis of the thief. In Jesus, we are delivered, sometimes from death (who can say how many times?) and ultimately through death to life that death can no longer touch.

May you rest in peace this night; and rise up in the morning.

John 10.7-10

7 So again Jesus said to them, ‘Very truly, I tell you, I am the gate for the sheep. 8 All who came before me are thieves and bandits; but the sheep did not listen to them. 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved, and will come in and go out and find pasture. 10 The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life, and have it abundantly.

 

evidence

 

Love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness (or generosity) and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control are not natural, and we need to stop pretending that they are.

People are brutal, towards other people and towards themselves. The UK statistics on domestic violence, and suicide, and poor mental health reveal this; before ever we get to shootings by quasi- law enforcement officers, or drones and missiles fired, in other parts of the world.

Love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness (or generosity) and gentleness and faithfulness and self-control are supernatural—evidence of God with us; and for us; and, through us, for those around us; which the Church calls the Holy Spirit—and we need to start naming them as such, and inviting people to respond.

If you have ever known any of these, you have experienced the touch of God upon your life.