(Parts of this sermon - probably the best parts - were used with permission from my friend and colleague Paul Grant)
It should have been his moment of glory,
On the top of Mt Carmel, with the people of Israel gathered, Elijah stood alone against the prophets of Baal, a pagan god championed by King Ahab and Queen Jezebel.
Today he would force the nation to decide between Israel’s God, YHWH, and idols.
“If the Lord is God - then worship him" he yelled to the crowds;
"And if Baal is God - Then worship him”
It all came down to a challenge. Two sacrifices were prepared, one by Elijah, and one by the prophets of Baal. They were to call on the name of their God in turn and whichever answered by fire would show himself to be worthy of worship.
For all their hours of blood letting and chanting and rabid dancing, the prophets of Baal couldn’t stir their god to action.
Elijah offered a simple prayer, and fire fell from heaven and consumed his sacrifice.
The prophets of Baal were shown up for the charlatans they were, and Elijah dealt mercilessly with them, putting them to the sword.
It was his ultimate vindication. So why, in his moment of victory, do we find him running away in today’s reading?
Well, he’s trying to put as much room as he can
Between himself and Jezebel’s threat to kill him.
For in her anger she’d spat out these words:
“May the gods strike me dead
If by this time tomorrow
I don’t do the same thing to you
As you did to my prophets.”
And when he heard that, he was afraid, and fled for his life.
But that’s what I don’t get.
How can a man defy a king, his army and his spies
For over 3 years,
Then stand alone against over 800 opponents
And invoke the power of God
Only to suddenly crumple
Before the words of an angry woman?
What’s going on here, Elijah?
I don’t think you are afraid of Jezebel.
I think you are just afraid.
Afraid with the kind of fear that comes when your courage has been
called on so often it’s worn perilously thin.
You’ve had enough, Elijah.
You’re tired. You’re burnt out.
We find you under the branches of a broom tree,
Sodden and cold
Feelings as dark as the rain clouds above you
Unable to hold together a heart that’s close to cracking.
And the only prayer you have left is for release
For escape:
“It’s too much Lord. I might as well be dead.”
But death doesn’t come.
Instead, the steady patter of the rain drops lulls you into the little death that we call sleep.
A blessed oblivion where, for a while, you’re out of reach
Of failure, fear and responsibility.
But sleep can help heal us too.
Can make room for better perspective to grow.
Can sew patches on courage worn thin.
Sleep and a little food, ministered to him by angels,
leaves him rested enough for the long, lonely journey
Up to the holy mountain where Moses once met God,
And the slaves of Egypt became the people of God.
And when he gets there he finds a cave to shelter in.
And in the mix of stillness, space
memory and being alone, God’s voice emerges
In the form of a question:
“What are you doing here Elijah?”
“Lord” he answers. “I’ve always served you. Only you.
But the people have given their hearts away,
Have broken your covenant.
I’m the last one left. And now they’re going to kill me.”
Telling God where we are and what’s happening to us,
Is less passing on news to God and more
about putting into words what lies deep within us.
It’s as much about helping us sound out our depths before God
As it is anything else.
Because what we have suffered, or rejoiced over
Often needs to be given its own words and spoken to another
Before we can move beyond, accept or understand it.
So maybe Elijah’s speaking as much to himself here
As he is to God.
Maybe Elijah hasn’t realised it, but the whole of this journey
From frightened flight to exhausted sleep
to sitting in a cave speaking his experience to God,
has been a journey leading to this point:
The point where Elijah will hear the voice of God
Speaking in such a way that he is able
To move on in faith, hope and service.
And the voice speaks once,
Then after earthquake, wind and fire,
It speaks again in a gentle whisper he could so easily miss
Were he not listening with his whole being.
“What are you doing here, Elijah?”
“What are you doing here?”
Hold those words in your imagination for a moment.
How are they spoken?
None of us can say for sure, but it strikes me that they’re voiced without a hint of accusation or anger.
They sound more like the kind of thing a longstanding friend would say when they need to lovingly but gently confront you about something. They’re full of concern.
And I’d doubt that there’s anyone here who hasn’t heard an echo of those same words in their heart at some point in their lives.
“What are you doing here?” God asks us in a still small voice, or through the words of a friend, or in the eloquent silence of our own conscience. And implicit in the question is a truth we don’t want to hear: “This is not where you should be”.
How we receive those words depends largely on how we got to where we are.
Some find themselves under a broom tree or in a lonely mountain cave because with the slow slippage of time their lives have been moulded into something they would never have chosen.
I see a woman who worries that she’s losing her life in the middle of caring for others; exhausted by the round of responsibilities that fall to her and growing resentful at the cost of it all.
I see another who feels trapped in a loveless relationship. Where the early promise never materialised, and all that’s left now is duty and the daily struggle to maintain civility.
I see a man stuck in a job he doesn’t enjoy, but wedded to it because of the financial commitments he’s taken on.
They put a brave face on, but internally disappointment hangs over them like a pall of bitter smoke rising from the bonfire of their dreams.
For others, it’s not circumstance built up over the years that’s ground them down, it’s a sudden, drastic change. Someone they loved dies; serious illness visits them, or someone in the family. And they find themselves reluctant travellers in the barren landscape of loss where it’s so easy to lose direction and end up wandering round and round in the same circles. Revisiting grief, bitterness, loneliness and resignation. Grief, bitterness, loneliness and resignation.
Still others make bad choices that lead them into desolate places. Prodigals who reach out greedy hands for whatever promises pleasure in the short term, but who end up squandering all they have on things that never last and don’t satisfy. Disgraced – even if it’s just in the courtroom of their own conscience – they sit alone among the pigs with their head in their hands; but even there, God’s voice reaches them.
“What are you doing here?” he asks
When we hear those words, it’s always a sign that we’ve got stuck in a place we’re not meant to be.
But the good news this morning, is that those words also hold out to us the possibility of moving on.
As far as Elijah was concerned, the game was over. Humanly speaking, he could see no way out of his situation, and even if there were a way out he had no energy to go looking for it. But he didn’t reckon with what God had planned.
There were 7000 other faithful people in the land of Israel, men and women about whom Elijah knew nothing. He wasn’t alone at all. There was hope, and a future, for him and for his people.
When God asks “What are you doing here”, he’s not only saying, “This isn’t where you should be”. He’s holding out the promise that there’s somewhere better up ahead.
Maybe that somewhere better is the same place, but with a different mindset. Maybe the journey you need to make is in your imagination – looking at where you are through different eyes. Seeing those circumstances, that task, that relationship in a different light.
Or maybe God’s saying "it’s time. It’s time to get up and go. I know you’re afraid of the uncertainty that’s ahead of you, but you can’t stay here a moment longer. You’ve spent too much of your life in this place. This situation you’re in just now doesn’t have to have the last, or most dominant word on your life, so don’t let it. There’s somewhere better up ahead."
Generations after Elijah’s time, Israel was conquered by Babylon, and those of her people who survived were carried off into captivity thinking they’d never see their homeland again. They felt utterly trapped and powerless. But in the midst of that devastation, the prophet Jeremiah proclaimed these words from God – “For I know the plans I have for you” declares the Lord. “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call upon me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.”.
This isn’t where you should be, God’s saying to Israel, to Elijah, and to you and me. I have somewhere better in mind I want to lead you to, and you’ll get there in the end if you keep listening for my still small voice.
I will not let you stay in captivity for long, Israel. I have 7000 people who have not bowed the knee to Baal, Elijah. I have hope and a future for every man, woman and child who seeks me with all their heart, whatever their present circumstances.
Thanks be to God for the ways in which his word has found us this morning.
Amen
Monday, 7 February 2011
Tuesday, 1 February 2011
God's Questions - "Where Are You"
(Last week I'd invited the congregation to write down the one question they'd ask God if they were given the chance. These were then presented back to them prior to today's sermon in what was a very moving powerpoint presentation)
Like Job in our sermon last Sunday, we stack up our questions – these are the ones we wrote down last week when I asked you what you'd like to ask God if you were given the chance.
If you were here, you’ll remember I argued that contrary to what we might have been brought up to believe, it’s good to ask questions of God, because our questions create a space where our relationship with him can mature and grow.
But I ended with a reminder that in that same space, God has questions he wants to ask of us; and today we begin a series of sermons where we look at some of those questions which we find scattered throughout the Bible. And it’s my hope that by the time we’ve finished, we’ll be able to see some of our own questions in a slightly different light.
We start this morning in Genesis chapter 3 with the story of Adam and Eve. And reading Genesis Chapter 3 always brings a particular story to mind.
It's the story of the minister who tried visiting the house of a parishoner, and though he saw movement behind the frosted glass there was no response when he kept knocking. Finally, he took out a card and wrote "Revelation 3: 20" on it - a verse which says: “Behold! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me”.
That Sunday, an embarrassed looking lady handed him a slip of paper on the way out of church and on it was another Bible reference: "Genesis 3: 10". When the minister looked it up he had a good laugh because the verse says: “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid”!
In a way it’s good that we’re beginning at the beginning this morning, and the question we’re going to look at is one of the ones we asked of God last week; one of the ones that’s just appeared on the screen.
But this morning that very same question is found on the lips of God as he surveys a suspiciously quiet Garden of Eden. “Where are you?” he calls out. And he’s been asking that same question of us ever since. “Where are you?”
Why does he have to ask that question in Genesis 3? Well, up until this point we’ve had nothing but harmony and unity in the story. God, Adam and Eve have lived in complete joy and ease with one another: they’re unselfconscious, mutually loving, and utterly open. The authors of Genesis give us this lovely image of God walking with the man and the woman in the cool of the day.
And then – well, you know the story. Some day it would be worth going in to all the nuances of that first temptation: the serpent’s subtle undermining of God’s command; the way the apple appeals to Eve’s senses – the way she was captivated by the look and the smell and touch of it.
But the real heart of the fall is the sowing of a lie in the human soul. The lie which says. in a thousand different ways. that life will be far better if you go your own way and forget about God.
“Just eat that apple, Eve. Things will be so much better than they are now”. Intoxicated by that marvellous idea, she ate.
Poor Eve – she’s been castigated for that decision ever since, and to the church’s shame this story’s even been used in the past to keep women subordinate – as though Adam wouldn’t have made the same mistake if he’d been the one the serpent had come to first. Adam was made of sterner stuff. Adam wasn’t nearly so gullible; Adam knew how to apply the offside rule – he wouldn’t have made that mistake. Somehow I doubt it!
But anyway - they ate. And their eyes were opened, we’re told. But the brave new world they were promised didn’t materialise.
Instead they lost innocence. They lost bliss. They lost paradise.
From being carefree they became uncomfortably self-aware. They discovered fear and shame and the overwhelming response to all of this was to hide. Hide yourself. Hide from God. It’s the only thing to do. Grab some fig leaves and head for the bushes….. that’s where our story’s going to be played out from now on.
And indeed it has been, right up ‘til the present day. We’re still hiding, in so many ways.
We hide from one another.
“Fit like” – “Chavvin awa”! (How are you? - I'm getting on fine! in the Doric tongue!)
My right leg might be hanging on by a thread, but I’m chavvin awa!
Can’t talk to that stranger. They might think I’m being nosey. Or they might ask me things I don’t want to talk about.
Can’t talk to anybody about what’s really going on just now. I’ll just have to put a smile on and try to keep going.
Can’t let any emotion show – that’d be giving away too much. Have to keep a lid on it.
We hide. The most eloquent visual metaphor I can give you for that is a London Underground Carriage – a hundred people crammed together like sardines, and they’re all trying to hide. Drowning out the world with their iPods. Taking an unnatural interest in the advertising hoardings or their own shoes rather than look anyone in the eye.
Hiding.
But of course, we can’t hide everything. To a degree, we’re always on show. We live surrounded by other people. People whose approval and respect we crave because when we’ve hidden from God we have no-one else to tell us who we are! And so, like our illustrious biblical parents, we gather fig-leaves to preserve our modesty and present an image. Whatever fig leaves our time and our culture tell us are in vogue.
Ideas, possessions, attitudes, experiences, theologies – we’ll try on just about anything to cover-up our basic nakedness and earn the approval of the rest of the herd.
Because if they don’t give us their approval, we’ve nowhere left to turn. We’re hiding from God.
And though my comments so far are about society in general, we in the church can be just as guilty of hiding. Churches can be great places to hide from God. There are plenty of folk who kid themselves that if they keep their noses clean and their theology shiny and they’re seen with a degree of regularity in the place of worship they won’t really have to do business with God. At least, not the kind of business that involves a sacrifice of time, talents or money. Not the kind that means killing off a few sacred cows now and again.
God’s first question comes to all of us: to every bush-rustling semi-hidden native of our fallen world.
“Where are You?” he says.
I wonder if any of you have picked up the irony in those words yet.
Christian theology holds that God is omniscient and omnipresent, which means he knows everything and he is everywhere,
So at the point of asking this question, not only does he know exactly where Adam and Eve are, he’s right there in the bushes with them!
So why does he bother to ask at all?
The answer, I think, is that he’s asking more for their sake than for his own. This question is their way back.
Having three perfect children, you’ll understand that this next illustration doesn’t apply to me, but many of you will be familiar with the scenario where a child stomps off to his or her room in high dudgeon because of some perceived injustice.
An adult will be duly dispatched to said room after what’s deemed to be a reasonable amount of time, and on occasion, depending on the mood and temperament of said child, the adult will enter the room only to find it empty and conclude that the child is attempting to hide.
Now any child’s bedroom has a limited number of hiding places. The prospects of the child rendering him or herself well or permanently hidden are vanishingly small. A brief search should unearth all but the most persistent and imaginative child, and the adult knows this. But the rules of the game do not involve making such a search.
The adult is there to offer an olive branch, and what is customary in those circumstances is that he or she, in a firm but caring tone, should say “Come on out. I know you’re in here”.
With this verbal cue, the child realises two very important things
1) Escape is impossible and
2) Despite what’s happened, the lines of communication are still open.
That’s our story from Genesis in a nutshell.
“Where are you?” says God to his hiding children.
Does he really need that information?
No. He already knows where they are and what they’ve done. What he’s doing here is offering them a way back into his presence. An invitation to stop hiding.
I wish we could hear how he says those three little words.
We’re in the realm of speculation, but given what I’ve said this morning I’m pretty sure they’re not barked out in anger.
I think we’d hear compassion, disappointment, judgment and love in his tone, and read them in his eyes, if we could bear to meet them.
“You’ve set the world on a hard road”, he might say. “You don’t know how much it will cost me to make this right. But I will be with you. No more going your own way, though. No more hiding.”.
“Where are you” says God? What I want you to realise this morning is that he only asks the question because he wants us back. He wants to find our way back.
The verses after this morning’s catalogue the consequences of the fall – strife, struggle, pain and separation from God. But even as he packs them off from Eden, do you know what God does for the folk who’ve messed up the whole enterprise? He makes them some clothes to wear. It’s there in verse 21 of chapter 3 if you don’t believe me.
It’s a lovely wee detail we could easily miss. But it’s exactly the kind of thing your mum would do when you were a kid. She’d lay into you for half an hour about something you’d done and five minutes later she’d be giving you a glass of milk and a biscuit. Why? Because despite what you’ve done, she still loves you.
Why does God send Adam and Eve away with clothes? Because he hasn’t given up on them. And he hasn’t given up on us either. He wants us back too.
“Where are you”? God asks,
And our reflection on those words leaves us with two questions to ponder this morning
Firstly - where are you hiding from God?
In your work? In your pleasures? In your pursuit of the fig-leaves of material prosperity? In your addictions? In the routines of your day, or even the routines of a religion where you readily take God’s name on your lips, but bar him from changing your heart?
Maybe you’ve knocked up a hiding place from bits of past bitterness and disappointment. Maybe you’ve holed up in an igloo, fashioned from your cool reserve.
You alone know. But we all do it. Where do you go when you want to keep God at bay? That’s where you’re hiding.
But secondly, and probably more importantly, why are you hiding?
When you lift your head towards him, do you assume that all you’ll see is judgment and disappointment in his eyes, and forget about his love and compassion?
Do you worry that you might end up giving him everything you are, and end up getting nothing in return?
Are you wedded to the age old lie that Eve fell for? That life will be far far better if you go your own way and forget about God?
Are you afraid that somehow you’re not good enough for God, and you never will be?
Again. You alone know.
But know this also.
The God who brought the universe into being is wandering the world looking for you. He is calling you by name. Calling you out of your hiding places, not so he can condemn, but so he can mend and redeem.
He said he would walk this hard road with us, and he has done – his feet are dirty from the journey, and his hands are scarred. For the path we chose in Eden led all the way to the valley of the shadow of death and to a rough wooden cross. And on that cross, God made good the fall of the first Adam through the death of a second Adam, Jesus Christ.
“For God so loved he world” John tells us, “he sent his only Son”.
Sent him to undo the mess, so that you and I, and every son of Adam and Daughter of Eve, could come blinking out of the bushes and back into the light of God again.
We don’t need to hide any more.
Thanks be to God.
Like Job in our sermon last Sunday, we stack up our questions – these are the ones we wrote down last week when I asked you what you'd like to ask God if you were given the chance.
If you were here, you’ll remember I argued that contrary to what we might have been brought up to believe, it’s good to ask questions of God, because our questions create a space where our relationship with him can mature and grow.
But I ended with a reminder that in that same space, God has questions he wants to ask of us; and today we begin a series of sermons where we look at some of those questions which we find scattered throughout the Bible. And it’s my hope that by the time we’ve finished, we’ll be able to see some of our own questions in a slightly different light.
We start this morning in Genesis chapter 3 with the story of Adam and Eve. And reading Genesis Chapter 3 always brings a particular story to mind.
It's the story of the minister who tried visiting the house of a parishoner, and though he saw movement behind the frosted glass there was no response when he kept knocking. Finally, he took out a card and wrote "Revelation 3: 20" on it - a verse which says: “Behold! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me”.
That Sunday, an embarrassed looking lady handed him a slip of paper on the way out of church and on it was another Bible reference: "Genesis 3: 10". When the minister looked it up he had a good laugh because the verse says: “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid”!
In a way it’s good that we’re beginning at the beginning this morning, and the question we’re going to look at is one of the ones we asked of God last week; one of the ones that’s just appeared on the screen.
But this morning that very same question is found on the lips of God as he surveys a suspiciously quiet Garden of Eden. “Where are you?” he calls out. And he’s been asking that same question of us ever since. “Where are you?”
Why does he have to ask that question in Genesis 3? Well, up until this point we’ve had nothing but harmony and unity in the story. God, Adam and Eve have lived in complete joy and ease with one another: they’re unselfconscious, mutually loving, and utterly open. The authors of Genesis give us this lovely image of God walking with the man and the woman in the cool of the day.
And then – well, you know the story. Some day it would be worth going in to all the nuances of that first temptation: the serpent’s subtle undermining of God’s command; the way the apple appeals to Eve’s senses – the way she was captivated by the look and the smell and touch of it.
But the real heart of the fall is the sowing of a lie in the human soul. The lie which says. in a thousand different ways. that life will be far better if you go your own way and forget about God.
“Just eat that apple, Eve. Things will be so much better than they are now”. Intoxicated by that marvellous idea, she ate.
Poor Eve – she’s been castigated for that decision ever since, and to the church’s shame this story’s even been used in the past to keep women subordinate – as though Adam wouldn’t have made the same mistake if he’d been the one the serpent had come to first. Adam was made of sterner stuff. Adam wasn’t nearly so gullible; Adam knew how to apply the offside rule – he wouldn’t have made that mistake. Somehow I doubt it!
But anyway - they ate. And their eyes were opened, we’re told. But the brave new world they were promised didn’t materialise.
Instead they lost innocence. They lost bliss. They lost paradise.
From being carefree they became uncomfortably self-aware. They discovered fear and shame and the overwhelming response to all of this was to hide. Hide yourself. Hide from God. It’s the only thing to do. Grab some fig leaves and head for the bushes….. that’s where our story’s going to be played out from now on.
And indeed it has been, right up ‘til the present day. We’re still hiding, in so many ways.
We hide from one another.
“Fit like” – “Chavvin awa”! (How are you? - I'm getting on fine! in the Doric tongue!)
My right leg might be hanging on by a thread, but I’m chavvin awa!
Can’t talk to that stranger. They might think I’m being nosey. Or they might ask me things I don’t want to talk about.
Can’t talk to anybody about what’s really going on just now. I’ll just have to put a smile on and try to keep going.
Can’t let any emotion show – that’d be giving away too much. Have to keep a lid on it.
We hide. The most eloquent visual metaphor I can give you for that is a London Underground Carriage – a hundred people crammed together like sardines, and they’re all trying to hide. Drowning out the world with their iPods. Taking an unnatural interest in the advertising hoardings or their own shoes rather than look anyone in the eye.
Hiding.
But of course, we can’t hide everything. To a degree, we’re always on show. We live surrounded by other people. People whose approval and respect we crave because when we’ve hidden from God we have no-one else to tell us who we are! And so, like our illustrious biblical parents, we gather fig-leaves to preserve our modesty and present an image. Whatever fig leaves our time and our culture tell us are in vogue.
Ideas, possessions, attitudes, experiences, theologies – we’ll try on just about anything to cover-up our basic nakedness and earn the approval of the rest of the herd.
Because if they don’t give us their approval, we’ve nowhere left to turn. We’re hiding from God.
And though my comments so far are about society in general, we in the church can be just as guilty of hiding. Churches can be great places to hide from God. There are plenty of folk who kid themselves that if they keep their noses clean and their theology shiny and they’re seen with a degree of regularity in the place of worship they won’t really have to do business with God. At least, not the kind of business that involves a sacrifice of time, talents or money. Not the kind that means killing off a few sacred cows now and again.
God’s first question comes to all of us: to every bush-rustling semi-hidden native of our fallen world.
“Where are You?” he says.
I wonder if any of you have picked up the irony in those words yet.
Christian theology holds that God is omniscient and omnipresent, which means he knows everything and he is everywhere,
So at the point of asking this question, not only does he know exactly where Adam and Eve are, he’s right there in the bushes with them!
So why does he bother to ask at all?
The answer, I think, is that he’s asking more for their sake than for his own. This question is their way back.
Having three perfect children, you’ll understand that this next illustration doesn’t apply to me, but many of you will be familiar with the scenario where a child stomps off to his or her room in high dudgeon because of some perceived injustice.
An adult will be duly dispatched to said room after what’s deemed to be a reasonable amount of time, and on occasion, depending on the mood and temperament of said child, the adult will enter the room only to find it empty and conclude that the child is attempting to hide.
Now any child’s bedroom has a limited number of hiding places. The prospects of the child rendering him or herself well or permanently hidden are vanishingly small. A brief search should unearth all but the most persistent and imaginative child, and the adult knows this. But the rules of the game do not involve making such a search.
The adult is there to offer an olive branch, and what is customary in those circumstances is that he or she, in a firm but caring tone, should say “Come on out. I know you’re in here”.
With this verbal cue, the child realises two very important things
1) Escape is impossible and
2) Despite what’s happened, the lines of communication are still open.
That’s our story from Genesis in a nutshell.
“Where are you?” says God to his hiding children.
Does he really need that information?
No. He already knows where they are and what they’ve done. What he’s doing here is offering them a way back into his presence. An invitation to stop hiding.
I wish we could hear how he says those three little words.
We’re in the realm of speculation, but given what I’ve said this morning I’m pretty sure they’re not barked out in anger.
I think we’d hear compassion, disappointment, judgment and love in his tone, and read them in his eyes, if we could bear to meet them.
“You’ve set the world on a hard road”, he might say. “You don’t know how much it will cost me to make this right. But I will be with you. No more going your own way, though. No more hiding.”.
“Where are you” says God? What I want you to realise this morning is that he only asks the question because he wants us back. He wants to find our way back.
The verses after this morning’s catalogue the consequences of the fall – strife, struggle, pain and separation from God. But even as he packs them off from Eden, do you know what God does for the folk who’ve messed up the whole enterprise? He makes them some clothes to wear. It’s there in verse 21 of chapter 3 if you don’t believe me.
It’s a lovely wee detail we could easily miss. But it’s exactly the kind of thing your mum would do when you were a kid. She’d lay into you for half an hour about something you’d done and five minutes later she’d be giving you a glass of milk and a biscuit. Why? Because despite what you’ve done, she still loves you.
Why does God send Adam and Eve away with clothes? Because he hasn’t given up on them. And he hasn’t given up on us either. He wants us back too.
“Where are you”? God asks,
And our reflection on those words leaves us with two questions to ponder this morning
Firstly - where are you hiding from God?
In your work? In your pleasures? In your pursuit of the fig-leaves of material prosperity? In your addictions? In the routines of your day, or even the routines of a religion where you readily take God’s name on your lips, but bar him from changing your heart?
Maybe you’ve knocked up a hiding place from bits of past bitterness and disappointment. Maybe you’ve holed up in an igloo, fashioned from your cool reserve.
You alone know. But we all do it. Where do you go when you want to keep God at bay? That’s where you’re hiding.
But secondly, and probably more importantly, why are you hiding?
When you lift your head towards him, do you assume that all you’ll see is judgment and disappointment in his eyes, and forget about his love and compassion?
Do you worry that you might end up giving him everything you are, and end up getting nothing in return?
Are you wedded to the age old lie that Eve fell for? That life will be far far better if you go your own way and forget about God?
Are you afraid that somehow you’re not good enough for God, and you never will be?
Again. You alone know.
But know this also.
The God who brought the universe into being is wandering the world looking for you. He is calling you by name. Calling you out of your hiding places, not so he can condemn, but so he can mend and redeem.
He said he would walk this hard road with us, and he has done – his feet are dirty from the journey, and his hands are scarred. For the path we chose in Eden led all the way to the valley of the shadow of death and to a rough wooden cross. And on that cross, God made good the fall of the first Adam through the death of a second Adam, Jesus Christ.
“For God so loved he world” John tells us, “he sent his only Son”.
Sent him to undo the mess, so that you and I, and every son of Adam and Daughter of Eve, could come blinking out of the bushes and back into the light of God again.
We don’t need to hide any more.
Thanks be to God.
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