What is worship

Last week we used this video on Sunday morning, click on the link to watch it again. Click here.

Engaging at Easter

We always seem to take Christmas as being the time to share the gospel with our friends and it feels a little like Easter is the poor relative in that regard. But isn't Easter in many ways the better opportunity.

Why do I say that? Because actually it confronts us with our sin and forces us to work out exactly who the baby in the manger claims to be. The baby is quite safe and cuddle, but the battered, bloodied, and beaten man on the cross confronts us with rebellion against God.

Christmas is a manically busy time of year, but Easter seems to be a little calmer with more time for reflection. Ask people what Christmas is about and they can usually tell you, ask them about Easter and actually I think there is more that they are unaware of.

I'm not saying don't make much of Christmas, but make more of Easter. Easter confronts people with the man on a cross and the question who is he, and if he is the Messiah why is he hanging there? It confronts us with the awful bill for our rebellion and gives us stark choices to make about what we will do with such a sacrifice.

Will you use Easter this year? Will you have tracts ready to give out? Are you ready to engage with friends, family and work colleagues?

Forgiveness for missed opportunities

Don't you hate it when it happens? You pray for opportunities to share the gospel with someone and then one comes along and you miss it. I was having a minor op yesterday and just as I was having the local anaesthetic injected into my head before the biopsy the nurse said "That looks like a heavy book you are reading?"

The book concerned is Jeffery, Ovey and Sachs 'Pierced for our transgressions'. She then went on to ask what it was about and was it blood thirsty? Probably not the question you want as the doctor is poised with the scalpel. I was not alert enough and just said that it was a theology book. What a missed opportunity - the book is all about hoe God in love sent his Son to die in our place for our sin so that we could again be in relationship with God.

What an opportunity and I missed it. It was a bit of a wake up call to:
1. keep reading books like that in public places - you never know when they will present an opportunity,
2. to always be ready - you never know when an opportunity will come, I should have thought more about the questions the book might pose,
3. to ask God's forgiveness (1 John 1:9) and be ready for the next opportunity to tell people the great news about God's grace.

Aren't Christians just doormats who use Christianity as a crutch?

Is a question often posed by people who are skeptical about the Christian faith. It is seen as something that is needed by those who can't really cope with what the world throws at them.

However, the Bible sees Christianity as anything but a crutch. Instead of making your life easier it actually makes it more difficult. Here's Jesus is Luke as he explains what discipleship means: "Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross daily and follow me." Jesus certainly didn't see Christianity as a crutch, he saw following him as a challenge.

The cross today has become a bit sanitised, it is viewed as a nice clean religious symbol. But in Jesus day it was the ultimate sign of suffering, carrying your cross was not and is not easy, it is not a crutch under your arm it is a burden on your back.

Jesus then goes to on to teach his disciples some of the practical outworking of this, it means going out with the message that the kingdom is come in Jesus and facing rejection, it means being the neighbour to those in need, even those you wouldn't naturally help, and bearing the cost yourself. It means your priorities, aspirations and desires are to be being increasingly conformed not to what I want but to what gives God the glory for his grace.

Its worth reading Acts posing the question - is Christianity a crutch for the early church? Acts 4 Peter and John are hauled before the Sanhedrin and threatened, Acts 5 the Apostles are flogged for preaching. Acts 7 Stephen is stoned, Acts 8 persecution breaks out against the church, and from Acts 13 onwards as the gospel is proclaimed you see persecution, riots, threats, arrests, and trials. In the rest of the New Testament much of the teaching is encouragment live out the scandal of the cross in light of the rejection and persecution it brings. A crutch? I don't think so, a cross? Most definitely.

In many places today (China, Philippians, Saudi Arabia, Iraq to name but a few) Christians are persecuted for their faith yet still they stand and proclaim Jesus Christ is Lord. The history of England shows that for all our freedoms we enjoy now hundreds, if not thousands, before us died for their faith. Even in what seems to be a multicultural Britain persecution exists, Christians are derided for their beliefs.

Christianity is not a crutch it is a cross, not just a cause of persecution but a life of self denial to glorify God who has worked in us so great a salvation.

The Easter Bunny

I wonder if you remember ghostbusters? You will if you are of a certain generation. It ended with the team battling the giant Marshmallow man - Ray's first thought and a humorous way of meeting out destruction to the world.

I have my very own marshmallow man fear at the moment, but it isn't a giant sugar confectionery foe fit for roasting over a roaring fire, it is the ever growing Easter Bunny. In our commercially aware culture retailers are seizing upon Easter as another way to increase sales - in between Valentines Day and our Summer holidays - and put pressure on us to spend, spend, spend. Easter cards are now in the shops and we are encouraged to remind someone that you are thinking of them, oceans of chocolate is setting as I speak and being ferried up and down the country, Easter presents are beginning to appear complete with Easter chick, rabbit and lamb wrapping paper.

And in all the commercialism where is the actual symbol of Easter? The rabbit has, or is beginning to, dwarfed the cross.

No, I'm not turning into scrooge (well not over Easter anyway), sat chuntering humbug over my keyboard as I type, but just as the commercialisation of Christmas has divorced it from its true meaning so I fear the Easter bunny is set to displace the cross and the empty tomb at Easter.

Easter is the most amazing opportunity to share the gospel with those around us. It is a time to remember the great news. "that Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the scriptures, and after that he appeared to Cephas, and then to the Twelve..." (1 Corinthian 15:3-5).

That is what Easter is all about, remove the cross and resurrection from Easter and there is no reason to celebrate. God in his love sent his only Son to pay the penalty for our sin and to enable us to enter into relationship with God, to look forward to life without the wages of our rebellion - death - dominating our landscape, and all because God sent his Son who willingly goes to the cross in my place. And 3 days later the tomb was empty, Christ was alive again and was seen by many witnesses, as he rose again death and sin were defeated for those who trust in him, because his resurrection declares it is paid for, it is accomplished, it is finished. God now views me as his perfect Son in Christ and I can live now in light of that reality.

How should Christians respond to the rampant commercialisation of Easter - oppose the bunny! Declare the cross. The challenge is to convey the true message to our children, our neighbours, our family, our friends. It may not be popular but surely at Easter more than at any other time the love of Christ must compel us to witness to him. To give a gospel rather than an Easter card, to give a tract rather than chocolate, to speak of Jesus Christ rather than the Easter Bunny!