NSB News

Of Guinea Pigs and God...

Can guinea pigs teach us anything about the Christian way?

After spending a weekend at the Jonas Centre in Redmire, North Yorkshire, I’m inclined to say, ‘Yes.’ This is a change for me. I’m fond of sheep and often attempt a conversation with any that I pass along the way. (The attempt usually fails but, just occasionally; it has seemed to me that they have appreciated the gesture.) I find that the Bible is full of lessons to be learnt from sheep. I’ve never found any relating to guinea pigs.

However, we went to the Jonas Centre for the church’s weekend away and a guinea pig it was that greeted us as the newest resident there. The story behind this free-range friend was very simple. About 3 months ago, the managers discovered that he was there. They assumed that he had been deliberately dumped. No-one came to claim him. So they adopted him.

It must be an ideal life for a guinea pig. He roams free and can be seen nibbling the grass alongside the wild rabbits and the free range chickens and ducks. He has unrestricted access to a dry barn with plenty of straw. When the vet came to check on the donkeys, they got him to check over the guinea pig too. Some shots were recommended to keep him healthy and so he submitted to their care.

You may still be wondering whether guinea pigs can teach us anything about the Christian way.

I think the care of guinea pigs can. At least, the care this one is given can. He does not produce anything useful and he does not help towards the care of the others at the Centre but he receives the same care and attention as the other residents. It reminds me of the love and care that our Heavenly Father gives us. We don’t have to prove ourselves useful Him, before He will agree to love us. We don’t have to do anything outstanding to merit His attention: He just loves us anyway. In the same way, we are called to love one another, whether that love seems to be deserves or not.

It was our Father’s love and goodness that we experienced through the weekend. We saw His care in the glories of creation all around us, from the small things to the large. We felt His love reflected in the love of all those around us, as we enjoyed being together. We learnt and understood more about His love and His goodness as we read the Bible, discussed it, preached from it (lots of people got the chance to do that!) and absorbed it.

We experienced the depth and beauty of His goodness as we shared together in food and drink and, on the final morning, in bread and ‘wine’. As we shared, all ages and all backgrounds together, we prayed. I opened my ears at that point and heard voices coming from all around the room, both young and old, both experienced and not, and the word I heard over and over again was, ‘Thank You.’

We had much to be thankful for.

If only guinea pigs had a sense of appreciation, this one would be thanking His Heavenly Father also.

Liz

Pentecost

Pentecost – what is it all about?

The other major Christian festivals – Christmas and Easter – centre on Jesus, so it’s easy to see what they’re about. They feature key moments of Jesus’ life and it makes sense that we would want to celebrate at those times. But Pentecost? Where does that fit?

The difficulty is that this festival is centred on the Holy Spirit. That makes it hard for us to fit it into the story. It makes it hard for us to see the relevance. It shouldn’t be hard; after all, we’re spiritual beings as well as physical ones. Maybe we try to deny our spiritual side because it’s complicated.

The gift of the Holy Spirit to all believers is surely one of the most amazing acts of divine kindness in the whole history of humanity. To me, it ranks alongside Christmas in terms of its ‘Wow!’ factor. Jesus is simply God in human form. Jesus Himself said that God loved the world so much that he gave His only Son. In the same way, the Holy Spirit is simply God in spirit form. We could also say that God loved us so much that He gave Himself to us, to be with us forever, wherever we are.

There’s a good reason that we often count Pentecost as the birthday of the church – we can’t do anything without God’s Spirit. Without the Spirit, we are not born again. Without God’s Spirit we are not changed. In fact, without Him (He is God, so please, let’s not refer to Him as ‘It.’), we are not the

church

of

Christ

. That’s why we say the church was born on Pentecost Day, when the Holy Spirit was given.

The old name for Pentecost is ‘Whit Sunday’. It’s a corruption of the original, ‘White Sunday’. It got that name because on the Pentecost Day of the book of Acts, when the Spirit was given to the believers, thousands of people responded to the powerful presence of God by deciding to follow Jesus. They expressed that decision by getting baptised. Therefore, Pentecost has always been a popular time for baptisms to take place. Traditionally, candidates for baptism would often wear white to symbolism the cleansing of their souls… hence ‘Whit,’ or white, Sunday.

I was baptised on Pentecost Sunday 1969. I knew the presence and power of the Holy Spirit with me that day and He has stayed with me, just as Jesus promised He would. What could be better?

Pentecost should be a time to celebrate in a way that is worthy of God’s great gift.

Liz

Acts 1:8: Jesus said, ‘You will receive power when the Holy Spirit comes upon you. And you will be my witnesses, telling people about me everywhere.’

Cleaning out the Cupboards

Cleaning out the Cupboards (a poem for Lent)

‘Clean out the cupboards!’

The Lenten fast is nearly here.

Clear out the meat, the eggs and butter;

Scrub the shelves and make them shine.

Fill up a basin with eggs and milk,

Flour and salt and mix it up well.

Melt the butter and pour in the mix,

Sizzle, flip, sizzle.. it’s done!

Pile up the pancakes,

Cook up the meat and make a feast.

Carnival! Mardi Gras! Fiesta time!

Tomorrow we fast.

Clean out the cupboards:

The Lenten fast is near.

Brush off the habits, the ways and means;

Take off the covers and let the light shine.

The past is forgiven;

The future’s ahead.

There’s no need to carry

The pain and the fear.

There’s no need to carry on

Being the same,

For hearts that are emptied

Are free to receive.

Clean out the cupboards

And make the way clear,

So Jesus can come through

And make our lives new.

Tuesday, February 5^th is ‘Pancake Day’ this year. It used to be traditional that on that day, the kitchen cupboards were cleared of anything that should not be eaten during Lent. Lent is the big annual fast of the Christian calendar, taking in the 40 days and 6 Sundays that run up to Easter Day, which is the highest point in the Christian calendar.

People were taught to eat very simply – without meat, eggs, fat or fancy things – during Lent. This was to help to concentrate the mind on the trials and sufferings that Jesus experienced on our behalf. It would serve also to accentuate the celebrations on Easter Day, when Jesus rose from the dead. So, they developed ways of making the clear-out fun.

All the forbidden food would be gathered together to create a feast and people would enjoy games and really make a day of it before the real austerity of Lent began. British people made eggy, buttery pancakes, accompanied by meaty sauces and interspersed with races (including pancake races, of course) and games. The Spanish called it ‘Mardi Gras’ (meaning ‘Fat Tuesday’) and developed the ‘carnival’ (literally, that means ‘meat feast’) into a high art-form.

Not everyone wanted fun and games though. The solemnly religious people called it ‘Shrove Tuesday’, from the verb, ‘to shrive’ meaning to repent. Clearing out the cupboards reflects the spiritual cupboard-clearing that is repentance. We don’t have to wait until Easter though, to let God fill our spiritual cupboards with celebratory goodies.

Liz

After Christmas

The Christmas decorations have come down. The last of the excess food has been eaten or otherwise disposed of. The house suddenly looks big and empty and all trace of the Christmas guests has disappeared.

It was all over so quickly.

So what was that all about?

Christmas is the big event of the winter. It gets the children excited, it pulls the family together, all the shops get decked out and even the streets are lit up for the occasion. But if it doesn’t make any lasting change, then it’s worthless.

Sometimes, the results of Christmas are good. We need those free days off after the slog through November and December. The rest does us good. The presents and the celebrations make us feel good about people. It enhances our relationships. Lots of children feel the benefit of Christmas generosity and many charities record a peak in giving at that time of year. We all need that sort of break/celebration to keep us going through the rest of the year.

Sometimes the results of Christmas do not feel so good. Divorce lawyers have learnt to expect record numbers of people asking to start divorce proceedings just after Christmas. Being cooped up with relatives for days on end can exacerbate the difficulties in family relationships, rather than help, if we’re not careful. Bank balances suffer as a result of the pressure to give ever bigger and better presents. (How anyone can find either the money or the incentive to visit the January sales is beyond my understanding!)

So was it good or bad for us? Are we any different now, in 2008, because of Christmas 2007? We might all have different answers to that question but we are certainly better off because the real Christmas happened. Jesus came. As we work through the months that follow Christmas, we follow His life. We see how He grew up, just like we do, in a family, in a normal town, with a trade to occupy His waking hours… and a love for us that is greater than we can understand.

It’s Jesus who really changes things. Christmas was worth celebrating for that reason and all the other things that went along with it were mostly good too.

And now?

Now we learn to live with Jesus. Let’s make this a year to grow and to discover more of Him.

Liz

Murder Mystery Evening

We had a wonderful fun-filled evening On Saturday, September 29th. We were presented with  'Murder Mystery' set in Count Gladyurher's castle in Transylvania. As you can imagine, the plot took all sorts of twists and turns and we were introduced to whole bunch of pretty unsavoury characters before the mystery was finally solved.

Here's what the cast looked like:

What Does God Look Like?

‘What does God look like?’

It was a reasonable question. We had asked the children to provide us with questions, questions that they genuinely wanted answered, questions that would tax the creaky adult brains. They rose to the occasion wonderfully and had us scratching our heads, searching for answers that made some sense.

They had us investigating the relationship between God the Father and God the Son. We tried to get our heads around how the world was made, where the dinosaurs fitted in and all that. They wanted to know all about Heaven. All too often, we had to admit that, whilst we might have some inkling of an answer, there was a lot more that we didn’t know than what we did know. They also wanted to know about God Himself.

That was reasonable. It was reasonable to ask and reasonable that they should expect us to know the answer. After all, many of the adults present in the room that day had spent years and years as Christians. Between us, we had notched up several centuries of faithful discipleship and adherence to the Christian faith. So we should know what we’re talking about – right? A reasonable assumption, but we realised that we didn’t know how to express even the most basic things about God.

So, what does He look like?

One person offered a picture of a man with brown skin, brown hair, brown eyes and a beard. (The beard seems to be important. When we were gathering up words to describe God earlier in the summer, one person offered the adjective ‘hairy’.) Another person offered the picture of Jesus: ‘If you want to know what God’s like, look at Jesus,’ was a much-repeated adage when I was young. Someone else remembered that God created people in His own image, so suggested that God was like us. What is the truth?

I guess that none of them was wrong. Jesus said, ‘If you’ve seen Me, you’ve seen the Father.’ (John 14:9) Jesus would have been brown skinned, with brown hair and eyes and a beard. But was He really talking about the colour of His skin? I doubt it. I suspect that the question of what God looks like runs a lot deeper than just physical appearance. He could probably make Himself visible in any form He chose – as yet another person that day suggested – but His nature would remain the same. The important question, the real meaning of what the children wanted to know that Sunday, was ‘What is God like?’

The reality of the only answer that matters struck me later… with a shudder of fear. It’s true – God is like us. At least, God can only be understood by others as far as they see Him in us, which is not quite the same, I know, but the effect is the same. For all our centuries of Christian experience, it is reasonable for them to expect to find God within our lives. Even though the evidence for the nature of God is all around and therefore, as the Bible says, we are ‘without excuse’ (Romans 1:20) for our ignorance in this area, we really only take notice and we really only take it in, when we see the nature of God in other people. We want to see God living and breathing in human skin. We want to see people transformed by His power from confusion to peace, from bitterness to loving generosity. Then we’ll know what God is like.

So why did the children have to ask? Was it because they weren’t seeing God clearly enough in the adults around them that day? Are we failing to communicate the most important truths of life to the people who rely on us the most? My shudder felt reasonable to me that day.

Liz

of High Mountains and Dark Valleys

I can still feel the exhilaration. I felt as if I were standing on top of the world. I could look in all directions and see the world falling away from me until the horizon, so far away that it was faded by the slight mist in the atmosphere, merged gently into the sky.

I may have climbed only to the top of

Snowdon

but, as a child still, I had had to walk hard to get there and the view was worth it all. I have been on other heights since but none of them quite carried the excitement of that first great view of the world beneath my feet – a real mountain-top experience!

I’ve been in dark, dull valleys too, not all of them geographical. Sometimes, it’s hard to remember that the mountain is still there. Such is human nature!

We’ve just celebrated Pentecost. That was definitely a mountain-top experience for all the first disciples who were involved in that wonderful day: the sound of a roaring wind that came, apparently, from nowhere; flaming tongues of what looked like fire, resting on each head; everyone getting excited enough to let God just take control of their tongues…

Then, only a little while later, they were feeling the heat of persecution and they must have been wondering what God was up to.

Why is life so unpredictable? Why can’t we just stay on an ‘even keel’?

I suspect that we would learn very little of God that way. If we always knew what to expect, we would soon get into the habit of leaning on our own understanding, doing what we did before and avoiding putting our trust in the all-powerful God. In fact, we that’s exactly what we try to do most of the time! Then, the unexpected things of life – especially the valleys that have a habit of appearing from behind hidden corners – pop up. They remind us that we are kidding ourselves – even in the good times – when we think that we don’t need God. We are human and that means that we need God: all the time!

A song came to my attention for the first time recently. It’s called ‘God on the Mountain’ and its chorus includes these words:

The God of the mountain

is still God in the valley…

And the God in the good times

is still God in the bad times.

The God of the day

is still God in the night.

We talk of faith when we’re up on the mountain,

but talk comes easy when life’s at its best;

but in the valley of trials and temptations,

that’s when faith is really put to the test.

I would add that the God of Pentecost is still God in the prison cell; and the God of Easter is the God who hung and died on Good Friday; the God who rejoices with us in our great family celebrations is still God at the funerals. He is God and that means that everything is in His hands. We don’t have to understand it to believe it – God’s in control and He’s the only One worth trusting.

Liz

A Weekend Away

I lay on a comfortable bed. The warm sunshine was streaming through the window above me. There was a sense of peace and quiet joy…

..but it was 5 o’clock in the morning and Archibold the head rooster was praising God as only roosters can.

Spending a weekend away with a large part of our church family is always a great privilege; being able to spend it in a beautiful part of God’s creation made it really special.

The Jonas Centre is situated in North Yorkshire, on the edge of a little village called Redmire and just a few miles away from

Aysgarth

Falls

. The hills roll away in all directions and the grass is startlingly green. The area seems to be run by the rabbits – hundreds of them. I even saw the unusual sight of a rabbit chasing off a stoat, so I guess even they have to recognise who is in charge there. The two donkeys are on permanent loan from the local donkey rescue service. They had been maltreated and now they are seeing out their days in peace and comfort. It was a joy to see them rolling in the dust and kicking up their hooves like a couple of exuberant teenagers.

More than that though, was the joy that came from seeing the children play together without squabbling. There was the honour of re-learning the joy of praising God without embarrassment – again, learnt from the children, as they enjoyed the actions to a song so much that we had to sing it all through again. We continued to praise God for the wonder of His creation. We thanked Him for putting us together and letting us get to know each other better.

We investigated the ‘Path to Inner Peace’ and discovered that we are God’s children and just knowing that gives us a security that leads to peace in a way that few other things can. We learnt that we have to be ready to obey our loving Father if we are truly to enjoy all His benefits. We started to understand how wonderful it is to really trust Him and to know His strength, carrying us through all that life tries to throw at us.

Then it was football on the field with rounders and skipping and juggling thrown in for a bonus. There were walks into the village, with the added attraction of afternoon tea and home-made cakes when we got there. There were goats to be fed and ducks to be laughed at. There was lasagne and sticky toffee pudding. And, at the end of the day, when the fresh air had sapped us of all but the barest amount of energy and even Archibold had fallen silent, there was a darkness that fell over the site. A darkness such as you never see in the town. We had to find our way back to our cabins and caravans without being able to see our feet nor the ground upon which they trod.

In that darkness there was a glory, a lesson in trust and a challenge to the spirit: to take hold of what we knew was there but couldn’t be seen. As the next morning dawned, the glory was evident again. It was Sunday and we were conscious that, as we worshipped, so the rest of the family was joining us in worship too, albeit that we were separated by the miles between Redmire and North Shields. Then there was lunch to be shared and goodbyes to be said and we vowed to go back again next year.

Thank you, everyone, for being part of the family –

Liz

Easter

Easter is such a special time!

Hot cross buns, daffodils, egg hunts, warm, sunny days, and lots of chocolate! Can it get any better than that? Well, yes. The best bits for me are always the times when we remember what Easter is really all about. I love the opportunities we have for working through the story. We don’t do this at any other time of the year; not even Christmas provides such a concentrated period of reflection.

From Palm Sunday to Easter Sunday, there are 8 days in which we can concentrate on 8 days of Jesus’ life. Both Sundays give very good reasons for us to join in the celebrations, so the whole period is introduced and concluded in praise – that’s surely how any period of time should be! But the two occasions are very different in character.

On Palm Sunday, Jesus was feted as the great King. We reflect that in our services but I suspect that we never quite get it right. When Jesus entered

Jerusalem

, the city erupted in a frenzy of excitement that we see today only when a pop star or top sports team come to town. Then He caused uproar in the temple courts, which I bet the crowd loved.

On Easter Sunday, the celebrations were much more muted. The news of Jesus’ resurrection leaked out to ones and twos and they found it hard to believe. As each one became convinced that Jesus really was alive, they hurried to tell someone else. Again, I suspect that our celebrations fail to quite catch that mood. We make it a day of the highest praise. The gradual discovery of the truth can’t work, because we already know. That’s not a problem but it’s a pity that we also miss the mark on the other aspect of Easter Sunday – we don’t hurry to tell others.

In between those two Sundays are the most difficult days of Jesus’ life for us to recall and celebrate. There are many Christians who find that they cannot attend Good Friday celebrations because it’s too upsetting. There are many who prefer not to concentrate on the scene in the

Garden

of

Gethsemane

when Jesus struggled with the reality of his death, looming in front of Him. But these are also wonderful days. These are days of victory, when Jesus fought and won. They are difficult times to remember but we know the end of the story and that makes all the difference.

The great American preacher, teacher and theologian, Tony Campolo once preached a sermon in his home church about Good Friday. Every time he described some awful aspect of the day he would say, ‘It’s Friday, but Sunday’s coming!’ By the end of his sermon, whenever he said, ‘It’s Friday..’ the congregation would shout back, ‘But Sunday’s coming!’

That’s why we can call Friday ‘Good’ – we know that Sunday’s coming. Just as all that difficult week was bordered around with praise and celebration, so should our lives be – we are Sunday people, not Friday people, because we know how the story unfolds.

Easter bonnets, daffodils, chocolate eggs…? Bring them on! Let’s celebrate!

Liz

Unexpected Visitors

Imagine a small house – a little starter two-up two-down. Imagine the little family that lives there – Dad, Mum, baby, maybe another one on the way (it’s hard to tell just yet). It’s all very ordinary. The furniture is basic and cheap – a lot of it home-made, which isn’t surprising really because Dad’s pretty clever with his hands.

He’s out – he’s got work with his uncle round the corner, filling in as a general handyman and builder. She’s home, seeing to the baby. It’s late afternoon and the first stars are just beginning to appear. He’ll soon be back.

There’s a knock at the door – an older man, not frail, dressed simply but in a foreign manner, Persian perhaps, not Roman, that’s for sure.

‘Greetings, Lady. My master politely wishes to enquire as to when your child was born.’

A strange request expressed in a strange accent, but nicely said. She put her head around the door and looked for the ‘master’. She saw a small group of men, mostly of middle age, well dressed, foreign, some sitting, some standing, they were beginning to cause a stir in the narrow streets.