Bloodshed and desecration in a Holy place, worshippers martyred by a vicious thug whose cruelty masks his weakness as a leader.

Innocent men, women and children killed as a result of the negligence and penny-pinching of builders looking only to maximise profit.

Natural disaster; war; sectarian, domestic and sexual violence; racism; slavery; poverty; lies; and betrayal.

You only have to open a newspaper to read about all of these happening in our ‘modern’ society.

Sadly, you only have to open your Bible and you can read about them there too.

‘If God’s on our side’, sang Bob Dylan in the Sixties ‘He’ll stop the next war’. He didn’t. Does that mean He’s not on our side? It’s a question that we have to be able to answer if our faith is to have any integrity in the face of those who are in pain. I hear it often from people wishing to justify their atheism. ‘If a loving God really exists, He wouldn’t allow suffering’.

To which the only answer I can give is to ask people to describe a world in which there is no pain and nothing bad ever happens because God is in control of our every thought and action, and He fixes everything before it happens. Unfortunately, if that were the case, neither would anything be capable of recognition as good. Think about it. Would you want to live as a puppet without free will? Where there was no opportunity for self-denying kindness or service? Where tomorrow would be just the same as today? Where there was no such thing as illness, and where therefore everyone would live for ever – in a world in which picture-perfection was as soulless as an artificial rose.

OK, says our atheist questioner. “We accept that if God exists, He has to allow pain. But that’s not proof that He does. We wouldn’t notice any difference if He didn’t.”

But I think we would – because Sin certainly does exist, and in a Godless, sinful world, it would be impossible to know love. But we do, and we choose to offer love in turn. God gives us the freedom to make that choice, and will always offer us another chance when we fail, as He did to the barren fig tree. We choose to trust in His grace and to Love in a life that is sometimes hard, sometimes full of joy, often inexplicable, but real

gods and God

You tell me of your god of beauty,
and you ask what are my beautiful names for him?
Your god being in the mind, mine alive,
he may claim silken names; but they are only words.
My own words might not sound as soft,
but often truth is not so pleasing to the ear as lies.
You tell me of your god of calm and peace,
of trees and open hills, of silver rivers,
ice-clear skies and morning rain,
your god of gentle names.
How small you think him; mine
is all of these, but so much more.
My God is a God of man, and He is where His children are.
So a God in pain and tears, He is,
a God in suffering, of crisis and of scars.
All these things He knows.
And though the picture that you paint
might smile with you when things are going well;
when you need him, how the colour fades.
Where is your garden-god when you are lost?
Where is your beauty-god when you are hungry and alone?
Where is your pain in his experience?
What map can guide him to your wounds?
So I’ll keep faith with my God, if you please;
the One who comes to me and stays,
not just in warm and slipper’d ease
but through the hurting days.

The classic definition of Tragedy as a literary device is the telling of a story or drama that presents an admirable or courageous character who confronts powerful forces internally or externally leading to a misjudgement or character deficiency. There is only one possible end, and the main character is inevitably drawn to their tragic conclusion. However she/ he maintains a dignity that reveals the nature of the human spirit in the face of failure, defeat, and even death. Examples throughout various ages would include Oedipus, King Arthur, Joan of Arc, Heathcliff, Anna Karenina and many others. (Space here ………. to insert your own favourite)

It would be superficially tempting to see Jesus as a tragic actor in such a drama. From the beginning of His Ministry to His crucifixion, the outcome is clearly anticipated – His enemies are many and powerful. The Accuser in the wilderness. The Pharisees and Sadducees concerned with their own role and status. Herod, the weak, thuggish puppet of Rome. The baying crowd demanding the release of Bar-Abbas. Despite all their treacheries, Jesus maintains His dignity to the end.

A classical tragedy – were it not for the dramatic twist – that the end isn’t the end, but the beginning. Unlike the other tragic heroes, Jesus has no flaw or blemish other than those inflicted by others: the scars on His back, the thorn-blood on His forehead, the betrayal by His friend.

The Gospel story is not a Tragedy – but a Victory.

This week, for our meditation at the beginning of the time of reflection and cleansing called ‘Lent’, a significant extract from C. S. Lewis ‘Mere Christianity’.

Take the time to read it slowly, and then spend a few moments                            in quiet reflection

Dozens of people go to Him [God] to be cured of some one particular sin which they are ashamed of (like cowardice) or which is obviously spoiling daily life (like bad temper). Well, He will cure it all right: but He will not stop there. That may be all you asked; but if once you call Him in, He will give you the full treatment.

That is why He warned people to “count the cost” before becoming Christians. “Make no mistake,” He says, “if you let me, I will make you perfect. The moment you put yourself in My hands, that is what you are in for. Nothing less, or other, than that. You have free will, and if you choose, you can push Me away. But if you do not push Me away, understand I am going to see this job through. Whatever suffering it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you in your earthly life, whatever inconceivable purification it may cost you after death, whatever it costs Me, I will never rest, nor let you rest, until you are literally perfect — until my Father can say without reservation that He is well pleased with you, as He said He was well pleased with me. This I can do and will do. But I will not do anything less.”

…God’s demand for perfection need not discourage you in the least in your present attempts to be good, or even in your present failures. Each time you fall He will pick you up again. And He knows perfectly well that your own efforts are never going to bring you anywhere near perfection. On the other hand, you must realise from the outset that the goal towards which He is beginning to guide you is absolute perfection, and no power in the universe, except you yourself, can prevent Him from taking you to that goal. That is what you are in for. And it is very important to realise that. If we do not, then we are very likely to start pulling back and resisting Him after a certain point. I think that many of us, when Christ has enabled us to overcome one or two sins that were an obvious nuisance, are inclined to feel that we are now good enough. He has done all we wanted Him to do, and we should be obliged if He would now leave us alone.

…But this is the fatal mistake. Of course we never wanted, and never asked, to be made into the sort of creatures He is going to make us into. But the question is not what we intended ourselves to be, but what He intended us to be when He made us.

The job will not be completed in this life: but He means to get us as far as possible before death. That is why we must not be surprised if we are in for a rough time. When a man turns to Christ and seems to be getting on pretty well, he often feels that it would now be natural if things went fairly smoothly. When troubles come along — illnesses, money troubles, new kinds of temptation — he is disappointed. These things, he feels, might have been necessary to rouse him and make him repent in his bad old days; but why now? Because God is forcing him on, or up, to a higher level: putting him into situations where he will have to be very much braver, more patient, or more loving, than he ever dreamed of being before. It seems to us all unnecessary: but that is because we have not yet had the slightest notion of the tremendous thing He means to make of us.

…Imagine yourself as a living house. God comes in to rebuild that house. At first, perhaps, you can understand what He is doing. He is getting the drains right and stopping the leaks in the roof and so on: you knew that those jobs needed doing and so you are not surprised. But presently he starts knocking the house about in a way that hurts abominably and does not seem to make sense. What on earth is He up to? The explanation is that He is building quite a different house from the one you thought of — throwing out a new wing here, putting on an extra floor there, running up towers, making courtyards. You thought you were going to be made into a decent little cottage: but He is building a palace. He intends to come and live in it Himself.

The command “Be ye perfect” is not idealistic gas. Nor is it a command to do the impossible. He is going to make us into creatures that can obey that command. …If we let Him — for we can prevent Him, if we choose — He will make the feeblest and filthiest of us into a god or goddess, a dazzling, radiant, immortal creature, pulsating all through which such energy and joy and wisdom and love as we cannot now imagine, a bright stainless mirror which reflects back to God perfectly. His own boundless power and delight and goodness. The process will be long and in parts very painful; but that is what we are in for. Nothing less. He meant what He said.

I try very hard to make sure that I don’t bring my personal political views into my spiritual meditations – but I often fail, and anyway, I don’t think that the two can be considered separately. Archbishop Desmond Tutu was challenged about bringing Scripture into politics, and replied ‘When people tell me that politics and religion don’t mix, I ask them which Bible they are reading’. He also quoted his father as telling him ‘Don’t raise your voice. Improve your argument. Good sense does not always lie with the loudest shouters’.

So I make no apology for addressing Yesterday’s utterly shameful exhibition of bullying by the ‘Leader of the Free World’ and his puppet acolyte in the White House on Friday. It is plain that the whole scene was set up, from Mr Trump’s sarcastic initial comment about President Zelensky’s uniform being picked up as the first question from an inane member of the US press corps, to Mr Vance (clearly primed) pointedly trying to generate anger and confrontation. It was a disgusting example of the tactics of humiliating an opponent to weaken them into making a ‘deal’ – except we are talking here not of low negotiating tricks to maximize profit from a sale of real estate, but the lives of the people of a sovereign nation under threat from a predatory neighbour.

And then this compounded by asserting blatant lies over the invasion that started the conflict. As Hitler’s propaganda minister Goebbels said – “Make the lie big, make it simple, keep saying it, and eventually they will believe it.”

A planned humiliation, and the potential result being a continuing war in which countless more – Ukrainian and Russion, Soldiers and Civilians – will be needlessly killed. All to satisfy the needs of a bloated narcissist and leave a clear path to a successful outcome for a victorious land-grabbing Dictator whose track record clearly shows his total lack of trustworthiness.

And what has this to do with our Christian response (and I mean confessing Christians rather than those in name only)? We turn to St Paul’s advice to Timothy, Chapter 3:1-9.

Mark this: There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but denying its power. Have nothing to do with such people.

They are the kind who worm their way into homes and gain control over gullible women, who are loaded down with sins and are swayed by all kinds of evil desires, always learning but never able to come to a knowledge of the truth. Just as Jannes and Jambres opposed Moses, so also these teachers oppose the truth. They are men of depraved minds, who, as far as the faith is concerned, are rejected. But they will not get very far because, as in the case of those men, their folly will be clear to everyone.

I pray fervently that it will, in the name of Jesus, my Christ, my Saviour, my Peace and my Friend.

Sometimes, Scripture records God’s response to specific issues or events; sometimes, it offers a more general lesson. The Revelation of John has both.

It was written during times of the persecution of believers trying to survive in periods of tyranny, living with demands to give in to the idolatrous leadership of Roman Emperors – Nero and Domitian in particular, but many others who followed them

Nero was a populist, constantly trying to win the adulation on the lower classes. Contemporary accounts picture him as cruel, narcissistic, tyrannical, self-indulgent and debauched. 

Domitian was equally cruel, intellectually challenged, mistrustful and vengeful.

Both were arrogant, adulterers, liars and persecutors of Christians, using them as scapegoats and positioning them as an identifiable disloyal group who could be blamed for everything – and people are happy so long as they have someone to blame, even if the accusations are plainly untrue.

From Chapter 4 onwards, Revelation – written at the time of such persecution – could be regarded as some sort of underground newspaper, using symbols, images and metaphors to criticise the Roman Emperors without actually naming names, offering prophecy that evil would be ultimately defeated and God’s Kingdom established for eternity. It shows His power to be immeasurably greater than that of any human dictator, and its message of victory over the Satan has remained relevant throughout the ages and still is in today’s turbulent world.

There is persecution, violence, injustice, bigotry and hatred; there are self-centred and populist leaders whose concern is not for peace but revenge and power, seeing themselves as the ‘Emperors’ of today and caring not one jot for the longer term damage they are doing. Difficult times will come in our Christian lives, when we stand up for His truth and seek justice for the widows, the orphans and mercy for the dispossessed

But our hope is steadfast, and victory is certain through the power of the Cross; the new Jerusalem will be a time of eternal peace and love. When we are downhearted, almost despairing, we read the last page of the Book of Books, and our strength is renewed.

Yes, there will be storms on the way. But in those storms, we will praise Him.