Tag Archives: God

easter blues

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We have journeyed through and experienced Lent in a different, Celtic, way and come out the other side into a time of rejoicing and celebration. Jesus destroyed evil and defeated Satan so that we, you and me, all of us, could be ‘released’ to become the amazing fantastic incredible people that God originally created us to be.

How exciting!!!

And yet …. in my times as a church leader, and before, after easter I have looked around and it seems as if everyone is totally knackered! So tired and washed out in fact that clergy in the CofE traditionally have a post Easter break to give time to recover. There seems to be a sense of anti climax as we return to normal day to day life with seemingly nothing at all being changed. We have experienced, been challenged, awakened and yet …. it may just be me … but what I see more and more is Easter Blues, fed by an acknowledgment that life just goes on as normal.

Does it have to be like this?
I kind of feel it’s a choice we make; a choice that most of us make subconsciously.
A fire starts with a spark.
A flood with a trickle.
A race with a step.
A thought from a space.
We were reminded during Celtic Lent that everyone is made in the image of God.
If we look for that image in people around us what would happen?
If we allowed our Image of God-ness out when with others, how might they react?
If we gave space for that out could be quite exciting to see what God may do.

Maybe we need to pull ourselves out of the Easter Blues, take on board that we are surrounded and inhabited by the Creator, Warrior God whilst we stand on sacred ground.

Surely, that alone is quite life giving.

lifeless

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Today’s Celtic Lent thought concentrates on the actual crucifixion. I often think we lose a lot of the impact of the crucifixion because we know what comes next. The disciples and Jesus’ followers lived this in the moment. They did not know what was going to happen. They stood, or hid, in shock seeing the very person who they believed was their saviour beaten and murdered on the cross. Today I am trying to forget that I know what happens on Sunday in a hope that this will allow the crucifixion accounts to impact me differently.

The Dream of the Rood reveals that the whole of creation experiences the crucifixion. As we move into a more traditional Good Friday account, the Rood still speaks and tells of its experience which may com as a surprise to many of us. The cross says’they mocked us both together’ and ‘They pierced me through with darksome nails. The Rood even tells how it refused to bow or break at any point during the crucifixion.

And not just the cross …. creation goes into darkness for 3 hours. There are earthquakes. The whole of creation is involved in, and feels, the effects of this victorious battle of Jesus the warrior king. Remember… Celtic Christianity does bot recognise anything other than sacred. The whole of creation is sacred, Christ fought for the whole of creation. The whole of creation is redeemed and the whole of creation will eventually be what the Creator intended it to be.

And all creation wept, wailing the slaughter of its King. Christ was on the cross.

The very one who brought life, hangs still, lifeless on the cross.
The one from whom all life comes, is still, is static, is dead.
The one who gave hope of action, hangs still, frozen in time
The God who promised to never leave. descends to hell for what seem an eternity

There is a lot there for us to contemplate here.

The only prayer I have for this is ‘thank you.’
May you recognise the absence of God today

a new view?

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During today’s Celtic Lent thought draws our attention to the end of The Dream of the Rood, where we hear this request from the dreamer; ‘And now, beloved man, I bid thee reveal this vision unto men, in speech proclaim it …’

The dreamer is asked to pass on the story to those who will listen in a way that they are able relate and hear. The account concludes with their conquering King and hero retuning home to reign for ever.

How do we attempt to share this story today?
Jewish christians talked often lamb of God
Celtic Christians talked of the mighty warrior of Jesus.
Rather than lambs Inuit christians talk about the seal of God.
In 21st century western culture how can we re-tell the story in a way that has meaning and resonance?
How do we tell this story today to make it relevant, so people are drawn to it like it was something new rather than something old from a different time that they cannot relate to?
Maybe we need to ask God to show us fresh ways o tell this epic story.
Where would you start?

warrior ???

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Today’s Celtic Lent thought draws us back to the cross and specifically the removal of Christ’s body from the cross. The account from the gospels that Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea took Jesus’ body off the cross and laid it in a tomb are not realistic. It would have taken more than two people to do this and The Dream of the Rood talks of troops of warriors who came from afar to help their king after the battle.

The Dream of the Rood is, again, looking at the spiritual side of things rather than the physical. I think we might call the warriors spoken of here as angels. Heavily armoured fighting warrior like angels. This reminds me of an incident quite a few years ago when I was director of Gillingham YFC. We ran a drop in coffee shop for young people and many nimby type people were making it difficult for us to exist there. We feared physical aggression rather than just complaints. On a day we expected lots of aggro a couple of the team members, totally independent of each other, came to me to say that that they saw an two angels standing outside the shop. The angels were wearing blue armour and had their swords were drawn in front of their face like the Queens (now KIng’s!) Guards at Buckingham Palace. Both people gave an almost identical account 30 mins apart from each other. Although I went outside and saw nothing I acknowledged we were in a spiritual battle and the expected onslaught never came.

As Christ’s followers says today’s though, we are also called, and become, warriors. I don’t know what you think about that, but I don’t feel very warrior like. For many reasons (which I will go into another time) I feel pretty exhausted, beaten up and thrown aside by individuals and an organisation I loved, and love, very much. To be a warrior is the farthest from my mind at this point in time.

So … what about you?
Where do you see yourself in this epic saga?
Do you see yourself as a spiritual warrior?
If so does this knowledge change your outlook?
If it doesn’t what do you think of the concept?

imagery vs facts

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Today Celtic Lent challenges our modern belief that only the facts of what happened are useful for helping us to understand what happened. The Celtic Christians, however, believed imagery and metaphor were the important things for interpreting what was happening.

In the Dream of the Rood, instead of a weak beaten Jesus stumbling with cross through the streets of Jerusalem, we see a young hero who was eagerly approaching the cross. This image sets our focus on the spiritual realms rather than the physical. So rather than the facts, we are drawn into the imagery of what is really happening behind the scenes, behind the Celtic Christians look at the happenings on the cross and ask ‘what is really happening here?’

That question is answered as we look at the young hero Jesus of the story physically weakened but spiritually strong as he enters the battle to redeem humanity and creation and destroy Satan and evil.

Today I’m going to try and carry that image with me; the image of Christ eagerly approaching the cross to save humanity and restore creation. I am going to try to grapple with that image from the Dream of the Rood of Jesus hugging the cross to begin the battle which he knows he will win.

What are your things on this imagery and theology?
Do you find the image of a brave warrior Christ as liberating or repulsive?
What do you believe happened at the cross?

the dream of the rood

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This morning’s Celtic Lent thought introduces us to the Dream of the Rood, which is the story of Christ’s death set firmly within the hero saga style with the theology of Christus Victor right at its centre.

The poem is a man’s dream of the actual cross (the rood) telling the crucifixion story. What amazes and challenges me again (see my other posts from this week) is that Christ is not portrayed here as he sacrificial lamb that many of us have but instead, he is portrayed as a warrior king that has come to the cross ready for battle. He is a Dryhtnes which is translated as a warlord in charge of a band of warriors

This week we are going to unpack this poem and so many of us will find the warrior language a challenge as we have predominantly come to accept the idea of Christ as the sacrificial lamb. So, this week David Cole asks us to try and come this week with fresh eyes, with Celtic/Anglo Saxon eyes from the 8th century while remembering that scripture tells us there is a battle going on on around us spiritually.

As we prepare for this week it might be helpful to return to Ephesians 6:10-18 to prepare us for spiritual battle imagery.

The Armor of God

10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities,against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord’s people.

Substituion Atonement or Christus Victor …?

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Today’s Celtic thought brings us to the teaching of Christus Victor rather than the teaching of Substitution Atonement (I deserve to die due to my sin, Jesus took my place so that I could be made right with God) that many of us have been brought up with. In the early years of the church the main teaching was that of Christus Victor (Christ died on the cross to defeat all the works of evil and to defeat Satan) rather than substitution atonement which only became ‘popular’ in the last 800 or so years.

As we have already seen earlier in our Lent journey, the Celtic Christians understanding was that we were already ‘made right’ with God because we are all, created in the image of God and so God dwells within each one of us, working with us to become the person we were originally created to be.

Whilst there is truth in both teachings, and the Celts would certainly have had an outlook of both/and rather then either/or, the teaching of Christus Victor resonates more with me at the moment. The fact that I, that all of us, are born in original blessing suggests we are already ‘ok’ with God and don’t deserve to die. If we don’t deserve to die then Jesus must have been doing something other than simply taking my place, our place, on the cross. Defeating evil and Satan so that the whole of creation could be what it was originally created to be jut seems to make a lot more sense. The cross is then no longer seen as a place of sacrifice but more a weapon that can be used to protect and save.

This teaching is quite new to many of us, and it is worth a good consideration and I genuinely wonder what others think about this. I wonder, too, why I feel some ‘concern’ even writing this. Concern that challenges ‘am I really a Christian?’ believing something different to what I have been taught across the nearly 60 years of my life.
So …. Substituion Atonement or Christus Victor …. what do you think?

in our dna

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Today’s thought looks again at the Eucharist an I have pondered upon the thought throughout the day. I have considered the thought and belief that, through Eucharist, God dwells within us but that also we dwell in God.

No matter how we feel, we are part of God.

As we feast on God we grow and become more like the image of God that God created us to be. We start from that premise of being born saturated in God’s blessing, rather than of original sin, and as we journey we grow successfully more into that person we were originally created to be.

The real challenge here, for me, is that if this is true then it is true for everyone. If God is a God of justice and compassion then we are all blessed from the beginning. We are all created in the image of God. We all have God dwelling within us. God, it seems. dwells within us at the deepest level. It’s almost like God is in our DNA.

Does knowing this have an impact on how we live our lives?
Does remembering that all are created in the image of God have an impact on how we live our lives?
Does being endwelled with God and ourselves dwelling in God change how we live our lives?

Taste the Bread

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Today’s thought taught us more about the Eucharist of the Celtic Christians where symbolism and struggle are integral to the act of worship.

From the Stowe Missal we learn that the priest would use a whole large loaf of bread. The effort to break this bread in half (if you’ve ever tried) represents the insults and the beatings that Christ encountered. Once the bread was broken the priest would then break up the bread into smaller pieces and would arrange the pieces on a plate in the shape of a cross. Ongoing we then see the holistic theology of God being in everything put into practice in a practical way. Once the bread was received by the person they are instructed, from the missal, to take the time to savour the bread and to allow themselves to taste the mysteries of God.

No dualism for these Celtic Christians means we can experience God in taste as well as through our other senses.

That’s quite a thought and a challenge.
If God is everywhere are we able to experience God through all our senses?
What does ‘tasting the glory of God’ look like for you?
What reactions do you have to this inclusive theology?
Does this have an impact on you today on your Lenten journey.

what’s in a number?

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Numbers were symbolic and important to the Celtic Christians. Cole shows us that the number 3 appears as a sacred number. Celtic triads from around the time of the Stowe Missal, such as ‘three candles that illumine every darkness: truth, nature and knowledge, were key to living out life as a Christian and journeying with Christ.

The Missal also talks of the priests actions in the liturgy. The priest bows three times for his sins, and for the people he walks 3 steps forwards and 3 steps backwards. These are all to symbolise that we sin in a triad – in thought, word and deed.

I wonder whether adopting some physical exercise, like that above, during confession would help my spiritual practice. I wonder if it would help embed my worship in a challenging and meaningful way? Rather than saying words alone, my body would also be entering into the tri-symbolism. It would help me to understand, or rather remember, that my whole person sins and needs restoration rather than just the cerebal and speaking part of me. After all we all know that ‘actions speak louder than words!