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Deliverance, hope and salvation in small, unnoticed corners and unlikely places.

You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world. (1 John 4:4)

From Tolkien’s fellowship, if you had the choice, whom would you have chosen to bear the ring? That a child- like Hobbit is the hero in this story is perhaps the most fantastical facet of the novel. Knowing that another Child would be born for our salvation, Tolkien may have drawn his confidence from this scripture, among so many others: “You, dear children, are from God and have overcome them, because the one who is in you is greater than the one who is in the world.” (1 John 4:4)

Jim Ware writes, “This idea—that God uses small hands to accomplish great deeds—could almost be called the heart and soul of Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings. It’s Moses and Pharaoh, David and Goliath, Gideon and the Midianites all over again. But the mission of Frodo and Sam isn’t just your typical ‘underdog’ story. It’s something much more. In a way, it’s a desperately needed reminder that God’s ways are not our ways—that when the power of evil confronts us with overwhelming odds on its side, the answer is not to fight fire with fire, but to look for deliverance in unexpected places.”

In the outlying villages and small towns of Vermont, (perhaps not unlike the shires for their idyllic beauty), Reverend Christian Huebner has faithfully pastored for many years. In this season of virus, fear and quarantine, the modest local store is the only place in town to buy food and necessities without traveling a distance and risking exposure to infection in a more densely populated town. Christian, therefore, formed a discreet alliance, a fellowship if you like, with the local district nurse, his congregation and the owners of the food store. This fellowship is working together to quietly come alongside families and folks in the town who need assistance with groceries. Someone living in the community, who is unconnected to the church, commented that they were now beginning to realize that the little white church in the center of town actually does things in the community. Deliverance in unexpected places

In the same small, quiet way, Christian has been engaging the community through live-stream services. He reports, “People in our local community who would not come through the doors of the church because “if they did the roof might fall in,” are connecting online and reaching out with questions about God and for prayer.  The Sunday after Easter (which has the dubious reputation of the lowest attendance of the year), ironically during this time when we are not meeting in person, had the highest number of views of all our services at around 3000.”  

This is encouraging, but this particular Sunday after Easter, held an even more powerful witness to Jesus’ victory over darkness. Christian made space for a young man who had recently came to faith in Jesus Christ to share his testimony in word and song.  He was a local boy by the name of Ben Fuller. Ben grew up on a dairy farm in town and had been on a fast track to success in the music industry in Nashville. While in Nashville, trying to make the right connections and build his career, he was connected to Jesus Christ. Ben gave testimony that he had been saved, delivered from suicide, and from addictions to cocaine, alcohol, and pornography. Christian described him as, “Beautifully on fire in his new faith in Jesus.” Following the on-line sharing of Ben’s testimony, Christian was made aware of two people in the community who were planning to take their own lives that very morning. By the grace of God, they had tuned in to the live-stream and the strength and hope set out in Ben’s testimony became their strength and hope. Two lives were saved. God’s ways are not our ways. When the power of evil confronts us with overwhelming odds on its side, we so often find the deliverance of Jesus in unexpected places. Hope and salvation very often arise in small, unnoticed corners – like a hobbit-hole in the Shire or a manger in a Palestinian stable.

In contrast to the Narnia Chronicles and other writings of C.S Lewis, Tolkien does not point us to a clear Christ figure; but Lewis himself understood that Tolkien was working at a level beyond the simply allegorical. Of Tolkien’s work, Lewis wrote, “Here are beauties which pierce like swords or burn like cold iron. Here is a book which will break your heart.”

In the depths of Middle Earth, we are invited to have our hearts broken, to recognize ourselves, the battles we face, the weaknesses that besiege us and the frailty of isolation—even as we are empowered to rejoice in the sure and certain hope of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and a foretaste of His Heavenly Kingdom. For it is in the fellowship of the Spirit that we find the strength, security and courage to both make our way home, and to play our full part in the transformation of this world through the power of His love and mercy.  

In His great love,

Bishop Andrew

Lessons in walking with God

The uncertainty of the current pandemic can make it feel like we have nothing to distinguish the end or the near end of this difficult time. So, what do we do? In another season of interminable misery, we read, “And after [Enoch] became the Father of Methuselah, Enoch walked with God.” Genesis 5: 21. It was a walk that lasted 300 years in which Enoch refused to let God’s character and promises be defined by his current circumstances. And it was a walk that was distinguished by hope and it pleased God.

In the 300^th year of this long walk, however, everything is changed in an instant. Hebrews 11: 5 picks up the story, ‘By faith, Enoch was taken from this life so that he did not experience death; he could not be found, because God had taken him away. God translated him.” This is an old Latin word, an irregular verb, it simply means to be carried over or carried across. God carried Enoch across. God transferred him. God picked him up and carried him over and put him on the other shore. One moment, by faith, Enoch is walking with God amidst unceasing, opposing traffic. Enoch was trusting that in His goodness, God surely knows where Enoch is, hears his prayers, and has a plan. And then, in an instant, Enoch is communing with God by sight with a whole new degree of intimacy and in a whole new world. Jesus tells us, “And they shall walk with me in white.” (Revelation 3:4)

Although Enoch was not around to see it, his grandson Noah built the Ark that saved the family line that would ultimately be the family lineage to Jesus Christ – who saved us all. For Enoch, after 300 years of following and hoping and trusting, faith had turned to sight. Hope had turned to fruition all in a single moment. The life of faith was crowned. The walk of faith was gloriously and spectacularly rewarded. Enoch was right after all – God is good, He can be trusted, there was a plan. His hope was real. God did not disappoint the hope He placed in Enoch. Indeed, God exceeded it.

Did you imagine that this was one of those worthy devotionals that says, despite what you see and despite what you don’t see, just soldier on! Grit your teeth, think of England (well maybe not England!) and do your best to summons some hope from within yourself. Do we imagine that in the face of so much opposing traffic this is what God is asking of us? This is not the lesson of Enoch.

Enoch’s name can also mean, “teacher” and what the Father is teaching us through Enoch is that to walk with God is always to walk with hope. Through Enoch, God is showing us how He is faithful to supply the gift of His hope that brings us through the day and burns in us for a better tomorrow.

Jesus’ living hope has the power to flood our lives with peace, strength and joy. Indeed, the absence of hope can make the heart sick. The hope of Jesus is a gift in the Holy Spirit. It is not of our own manufacture, it is a living hope that, through the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the power of His Resurrection, we receive as sons and daughters of the living God, sons and daughters who shall be raised into life eternal. Certainly, hope is both a gift and a commandment. As with all commandments, we do have the responsibility to surrender to it, make space for it, to ask for it and receive it. We are invited to follow and submit to His leading in Him making His hope an active part of our lives.  

Let’s be honest, Enoch does not stand out in a crowd of heroes. And I believe that is the very point. Enoch is a sort of everyman or everywoman. So read that great list of heroic names in the book of Hebrews and when you get to Enoch insert your own name – Samson, David, Abraham, [your name goes right here!]…We are, after all, each of us God’s heroes. Especially you.

In His great love,

+ Andrew

“…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before Him He endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2)

We have been considering the place in repentance where the Lord would have us forgive ourselves. C.S Lewis wrote, “I think that if God forgives us, we must forgive ourselves. Otherwise, it is almost like setting up ourselves as a higher tribunal than Him.” We have mapped out three practical ways to apply the Lord’s forgiveness, with the caveat that these three principles work when it comes to guilt and remorse, except when they don’t. There is something the three magnificent points cannot touch and that is “shame” of the toxic variety. This is the kind of shame that moves us further away from God rather than closer to Him to receive His forgiveness. And toxic shame needs to be healed.

How does the Lord heal our shame?

a) With Mercy: Shame is mercy-less. The enemy takes the worst images, cherry picks the moments that degrade and defile us, and then repeatedly thrashes us with them. Even if we sense that somehow the Lord may have forgiven us for a particular act or omission, shame leaves us with the sense that we are just the sort of person who would do this sort of thing. “Shame on you!”, we hear in our thoughts. And so we imagine that the Lord feels the same way about us that we do. We imagine that if all this really came into the light, He would throw up His arms in disgust and reject us. The truth is that He does throw open His arms – not to reject us, but to embrace us. He sees our shame and He has mercy for us.

The Cross was for our forgiveness, but, in His mercy, the cross was also to cover our shame. Jesus went to the place of shame – outside of the city, crucified naked as an outcast. This was the ultimate public shaming. “…fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” (Hebrews 12:2) On the cross, Paul reminds us, “How much more, then, will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself unblemished to God, cleanse our consciences from acts that lead to death, so that we may serve the living God!” (Hebrews 9:14). The Lord’s desire is to embrace, cover and cleanse us from our shame.

b) With Compassion: And as He embraces us and covers our shame, we apprehend His compassion. We suddenly understand that He knows the pain of our fear. We all have skeletons in the cupboard (or closet) – every one of us. We think, “The truth is worse than what they know…” But God has no joy in exposing our past secrets. He has no desire to embarrass you. In His embrace, we recognize that we are living under His smile. This is the Father who truly sees us. “She [Hagar] gave this name to the Lord who spoke to her: ‘You are the God who sees me,’ for she said, ‘I have now seen the One who sees me.’” (Genesis 16:13) And more than this, He allows us to see ourselves as He sees us. Our Heavenly Father says, “My child, look at yourself through My eyes. You have nothing to be ashamed of because My Son has taken all your shame upon Himself – so that you will never have to.”

As the Lord heals our shame with mercy and compassion, and as His light dawns in the darkest recesses of our hearts, we catch sight of ourselves through His eyes. Max Lucado wrote, “Your eyes look in the mirror and see a sinner, a failure, a promise-breaker. But by faith you look in the mirror and see a robed prodigal bearing the ring of grace on your fingers, the kiss of your Father on your face.”

And when toxic shame is healed and we are released from its clutches, it is so much easier to apply those three magnificent principles of His forgiveness:

1) Don’t accept guilt over what you have sincerely and unreservedly confessed to God.

2) Having sincerely and unreservedly confessed, hold your head up high as if you never sinned in the first place and therefore have nothing to be ashamed of.

3) Boldly and unashamedly, ask God to bless you even though you know you don’t deserve it.

The current befuddlement you may be experiencing, with a renewed sense of the operation of sin in your lives is, in reality, an answer to your prayer for more grace. Only by the light of His grace can we recognize the power of sin lodged within us. This is about our shame leading us to expect rejection but instead being met by God’s embrace. When allowed to penetrate fully, God’s loving embrace speaks to the deepest strata of our souls and displaces our self-hatred, shame and fear of rejection and takes us through the night into the daylight of His truth.

“Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by your name, you are mine. You are precious in my eyes because you are honored and I love you…the mountains may depart, the hills will be shaken, but my love for you will never leave you and my covenant of peace will never be shaken.” (Isaiah 43:1, 4; 54:10).

In His great love,

+ Andrew

Shortly before I was ordained, I recall being secretly overtaken with titanic feelings of unworthiness and inadequacy.  It seemed to me that most of my seminary friends had fathers and grandfathers who had been missionaries to China or who had pastored during the blitz or the Crimean war. I had no such noble pastoral lineage.

By contrast, I was, theologically speaking, first-generation, “new money”. And what’s more, as I stood at the precipice of full-time ordained ministry, I was convinced that I should have attained some far greater degree of holiness. I wasn’t sure exactly what that was supposed to look like, but it certainly did not look like what I knew to be the murky and stained interior of my own heart.

So, one night, I brought all of this to the Lord in prayer. As I poured out the depths of my unworthiness, I was struck with a new thought. Perhaps, after all, the Lord has seen in me some truly grand, noble quality that I had overlooked. Perhaps there was some hidden attribute that made me worthy of His calling on my life? So I asked Him: “Lord, when you look deep inside of me, when you push past all the tainted and tawdry nature of my heart, when you cut through all my imperfection and brokenness, what do you see?” With tenderness and, I thought, even a degree of humor, He answered very simply, “A sinner.” 

The point was not lost on me.  “A sinner of thine own redeeming,” as it says in the Book of Common Prayer.  Paul puts it this way: “For all have sinned; all fall short of God’s glorious standard.”  But He goes on to say, “Yet now God in his gracious kindness declares us not guilty. He has done this through Christ Jesus, who has freed us by taking away our sins.’  (Romans 3:23-24)

I would like to say that this was the last time I forgot this most basic truth, but that would not be true. As we go on in the Christian life, despite overcoming numerous spiritual obstacles, it is curious how quickly we can fall back into the same trap. We are in good company. Lloyd Ogilvie notes that before the resurrection Peter built his whole relationship with Jesus on a deep desire to show himself to be up to the job of following Him. Peter’s strength, loyalty and courage were, in his mind, the self-generated assets of his discipleship. Peter’s mistake is too often my own: to fall into the belief that my relationship with Jesus is dependent upon my consistency in producing the qualities that I imagine will earn me His approval. Ogilvie concludes that on this basis, “…our whole understanding of Jesus is quickly reduced to a ‘quid pro quo’ of bartered love.”

In contrast, Francis Schaeffer wrote, “True spirituality consists in living every moment by the grace of Jesus Christ.” Of course, we could take this love as a license to go out and live as recklessly as we like with the “free pass” of continual eternal forgiveness. But if we think this way, we can never really know what it cost the Father to forgive us.   In truth, to miss the cost is to miss the measure of His love.

In Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son (Luke 15:11-32), the father so loved the son that he was willing to take his son’s guilt and shame upon himself and completely cover his debt. Jesus was teaching that through His coming sacrifice, He would take our guilt and shame upon Himself.  Even more than the father in the parable, who lost at least one quarter of his fortune, Jesus’ sacrifice cost the Father everything.

So, what keeps us striving to find our worthiness in our own deeds and efforts? What stops us from just accepting His sacrifice for our sins?  Perhaps we feel that there will be no mercy left for us?  That we have burned all our bridges? That we are habitual returning prodigals?

At one level, if we really understood God’s grace, we would know that this is exactly who we are. And yet in all our unworthiness, His grace runs to us, embraces us, kisses us and celebrates our return! As we come to realize that Jesus has paid the eternal price for every time we run away, it is His grace that calls us to retrace our steps and recover mercy.  Henri Nouwen observed, “God alone can make forgiveness something glorious to remember.”

Did you notice that the prodigal son never got a chance to finish his prepared speech? Is it remotely possible he just couldn’t get the words out?  That faced with this outpouring of undeserved love and forgiveness, he was finally flooded with the reality and enormity of his sin? That overwhelmed by His Father’s love, he could only say, “I am no longer worthy to be called your son”?

We will never know, but that is not the point. This parable invites us to face the true state of our own fallen nature and letting go of our self-righteousness—as well as the bright lights of cheap grace and the despair of unworthiness—to humbly accept the enormity of God’s grace and mercy, the scale of which we can scarcely imagine and simply don’t deserve. The mercy of God is more than simply the action of God’s forgiveness. To quote Brennan Manning, to accept God’s mercy is to find “…God in our souls and Christ in our flesh.”

There are parts of the Christmas story that are really very earthy: the embarrassment of an unmarried pregnant girl; the harsh Roman world that would make that same woman take a long journey to register for a census; the nativity of hills and caves, Caesar Augustus, kings, and shepherds that watched their flocks by night. And then there are parts of the story that are just bizarre and wildly supernatural. It was to Zechariah, Mary, Joseph and even shepherds on a lonely hillside that the angels attended and gave great news. When I was first a follower of Jesus there was for me this extraordinary revelation that Jesus was real. And then it followed that in this new reality, angels were somehow part of the package! I remember saying once in a prayer, “Angels? You have got to be kidding me!”

There is a huge amount of interest around angels. Even the former Archbishop of Canterbury’s wife has written a book on angels. The Bible is surprisingly forthright on the subject. Unlike the Trinity, angels have not always existed; they are part of the universe that God created. Ezra wrote, “You are the Lord, you alone have made the heaven of heavens with all their angels.” The Apostle Paul tells us that God created all things visible and invisible. And there are lots of angels. Ten thousand are said to have accompanied God at Mount Sinai. The Bible speaks of “the chariots of God” as “tens of thousands and thousands of thousands.” John talks about myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands of angels (which is a number so large you can’t even count them!).

What do angels do all day? The short answer is, as God’s servants, whatever God asks them to do. It would seem that in a standard day’s work they are sent by God to guard and protect and to bring God’s word to people. From time to time, angels take on a bodily form to appear to various people (we see this in the Bible).

The Bible also gives us some angelic health warnings. We are not to worship or pray to angels. An angel speaking to the Apostle John warned John not to worship him, “You must not do that! I am a fellow servant with you and your brethren who hold the testimony of Jesus. Worship God.” (Revelation 19:10).

Two parallel but unequal kingdoms simultaneously occur: the Kingdom of God and the kingdom that is this broken world. One night, in the cold, in the dark, among the wrinkled hills of Bethlehem, these two worlds came together at a dramatic point of intersection. Jesus’ birth is really a story of invasion—the Kingdom of God breaking into the kingdom of the world.

When the Kingdom of God breaks in it is the most wonderful thing. His Kingdom of hope breaks into the kingdom of despair. His Kingdom of light breaks into the kingdom of darkness. His eternal Kingdom breaks into our finite kingdom and the miraculous breaks into the mundane.

I have a very good friend in the UK (with a Ph.D.) who became the principal of my former seminary. As a student, she worked at a summer camp that was beautifully situated on the dramatic coastline of North Devon. She vividly recalls a runaway tractor careening across the camp field and headed over the cliffs, where a group of young people were enjoying themselves on the beach below. She and many others standing with her watched a man run across the field and jump into the moving vehicle. With the tractor brakes broken, he managed to pull the tractor around and make a dramatic stop at the very edge of the clifftop. She and the others who witnessed this rescue, ran toward the tractor to help and thank the hero of the hour, only to find no one inside the cab of the tractor.

Another good friend was a missionary in a downtown part of Sydney, Australia. Returning home late one night and all alone, she made the mistake of taking a shortcut through a dark underpass. In the middle of the tunnel, out of the shadows, she was threatened by a gang who demanded her money or her life. The gang suddenly fled when a large man appeared behind her. Shaken, she turned to thank the stranger but found herself completely alone. 

You might ask, why does this stuff not happen to me? If we are committed to the idea that all of this angel stuff is nonsense, then I suspect we won’t see it, even if it is right in front of us. Faith is a gift. “For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith—and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God.” (Ephesians 2:8) But faith is, at the same time, a choice. Your part is to choose to accept the gift. Faith is, therefore, trust. Of that night in Sydney, my friend wrote, “As I look back to my time in Australia, I know that during that year of my life, I had to choose to rely upon God in a whole new way. I remember that this increased my prayer life dramatically. This, in turn, increased my expectancy that God would act. I became more aware of the in-breaking of God’s Kingdom compared to any other time in my life.”

In the Garden of Gethsemane, knowing the Cross was before Him, Jesus was confronted by “a great crowd with swords and clubs” who had come to seize him on behalf of the chief priests and elders. A disciple with Jesus drew a sword, prepared to defend Him, but Jesus rebuked him. Jesus said, “Put your sword back into its place … Do you think I cannot call on my Father, and he will at once put at my disposal more than twelve legions of angels?” Why didn’t Jesus call on the angelic guard? He made this choice because our eternal destiny was at stake. All of us who were “careening toward the cliff,” separated from God, were about to be rescued. The company of angels serve God in the continued in-breaking of His Kingdom, in the continuing story of our rescue.

There is a world out there that is seen and unseen—visible and invisible—and God sees it all. So if in God’s estimation, I am in need of rescue, then I humbly accept His lifeline. If in God’s estimation, I need some angelic backup, then bring it on. Personally, I would not be without Jesus and I am very grateful to be living in the knowledge of the company of angels.