Happy Valentine’s Day!

admin 14/02/2020

First published in the Bridge Magazine March 2019

How did your Valentine’s Day go? Chances are your February 14^th went a lot better than it did for the two men for whom the day is named.

Today’s consumer-driven Valentine’s Day festival traces its roots back to the 14^th century English poet Chaucer, whose poem the Parliament of Foules pictured all the birds meeting to choose their mates on St Valentine’s Day. But the day’s origins are older than Chaucer. It was the 5^th century Pope Gelesius I who made February 14^th St Valentine’s Day. He wanted to help people forget a banned Roman pagan festival called Lupercalia which was traditionally celebrated in mid-February. During Lupercalia, youths raced naked through the streets of Rome, striking women with bloody strips of flesh taken from the remains of goats and dogs sacrificed on the Lupercal Altar. This practice was thought to increase women’s fertility.

Instead Pope Gelesius introduced something altogether more wholesome: a day to honour two early Christian leaders, both called Valentine, who were martyred by Emperor Claudius II around 270AD.

One Valentine was a priest executed on February 14^th for defying an imperial order. In those days only single men could serve in the army, and facing a shortage of recruits, the emperor decided that banning marriage would increase the number of potential soldiers. When Valentine was caught secretly marrying couples, he was arrested, and Claudius had him clubbed to death in the street. You won’t find that image on the Valentine’s cards in Tesco.

The second Valentine was a Christian bishop from Terni. Arrested for preaching in the streets of Rome, he was placed in the custody of a judge called Asterius who decided to put Valentine’s God to the test. Bringing in his blind daughter, Asterius told Valentine he would convert to Christianity if God could heal the girl’s eyes. Valentine prayed and the daughter could see again, and three days later the judge and all his household were baptised. Asterius then released Valentine who returned to street preaching and was again arrested. From prison, Valentine wrote a letter to Asterius’s daughter signed, “From your Valentine”, so he’s the one to blame for all those pink cards!

Valentine was eventually brought before Emperor Claudius with whom he tried to engage in debate about Christianity. Claudius found the debate interesting but when it started going badly for him, he resolved things by executing Valentine. The date? February 14^th. Another Happy Valentine’s Day.

So, two Valentines, one who risked his life to defy an emperor, the other a missionary and champion of free religious speech. And both were killed on February 14^th, to give birth to our modern festival. Given a choice between “I love you” cards and striking ladies with strips of goat flesh, I think the Pope Gelesius got this one right!

Was there really a Star of Bethlehem?

admin 20/12/2019

Adapted from an article first published in the Bridge Magazine, December 2019

Was there really a Star of Bethlehem?

No Christmas nativity scene is complete without a glowing star in the night sky, leading the wise men to Jesus’ birth. But what was the “Star of Bethlehem”? What have scientists and theologians suggested down the ages? To answer that, let’s start by looking at what the Bible says about it.

Matthew chapter 2 tells us that after Jesus was born in Bethlehem, wise men came from the east to King Herod’s palace in Jerusalem asking,

Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” (Matthew 2:2)

Herod asks them

the exact time the star appeared” (Matthew 2:7)

and then sends the wise men on their way,

and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed.” (Matthew 2:9-10)

So what was the star? What did those wise men see? Well had you asked a first-century astronomer, probably the first thing they’d tell is that the Greek word the Bible uses for “star” (astera) was used to describe pretty much any glowing object in the sky.

So the “star” could be a conjunction of planets. Sometimes the planets in our solar system, when viewed from earth, appear to overlap – creating a temporary larger “star”. This solution was first suggested by German astronomer Johannes Kepler (1571-1630), discoverer of the three laws of planetary motion. Jupiter and Saturn, the two largest planets in our solar system, were in conjunction during 7 and 6BC, which is close to the period when a lot of historians think Jesus was born.

Others have suggested the “star” was a supernova, an exploding star. Archaeologists have discovered writings by Chinese and Korean astronomers noting the appearance of a supernova in 5BC.

The problem with both the supernova and conjunction theories is that they don’t do justice to Matthew’s description of the star leading the wise men west to Jerusalem then south to Bethlehem, before stopping over the place where Jesus was. For an object in the sky to do that, it needs to be able to move, and conjunctions and supernovas don’t.

So perhaps it was an alien spaceship! On Christmas Eve a few years ago, the Daily Express published an article suggesting Jesus was an alien shapeshifter, and that the Star of Bethlehem was a UFO! Thankfully, even the article’s author seemed sceptical, saying,

As ludicrous as this idea is, it’s the only [way to explain] how the object could have suddenly appeared, moved and stopped for the apparent purpose of pinpointing Jesus’ birthplace.”

But it isn’t the only way to explain star’s movement. In 2015 a biblical scholar called Colin Nicholl wrote a book suggesting the star of Bethlehem was a comet. Nichol worked with a team of astronomers and mathematicians to build a computer model showing how his “Great Christ Comet” could have travelled through the inner solar system and been visible in the parts of the sky it needed to be visible in to fit the descriptions the Bible gives us. Praised by biblical scholars, mathematicians and astronomers alike, the book offers a plausible and mathematically sound theory. But it is just a theory, and until an archaeologist unearths an early edition of the Sky at Night we have no way of proving whether it is correct.

And what that means is that the star will probably remain forever shrouded in mystery. Its main witnesses, a bunch of learned pagan astronomers knew enough of science and the night sky to know that star was extraordinary. That’s why they travelled to Bethlehem (probably from Babylon, so about 550 miles) to find out more. And what they found there caused them to kneel in wonder before the child who is God, our creator, and the creator of all the stars in all the heavens.

May you share in their awe and wonder as you celebrate the birth of Christ, this Christmas time.

From the Manifesto to the Manger

admin 18/12/2019

From the Manifesto to the Manger

Have the children in your life compiled their Christmas lists yet? One child I know has asked for a “reel (sic) gun to shoot my brother with.” Another wants a trip to Disneyland. I suspect both will be disappointed.

When I was a child, no one got to read my Christmas lists. My parents craftily convinced my sister and I that because Santa enters the home through the chimney, the fireplace was surely the way to get a message back to him. So, every year our lists went into an envelope addressed to Santa, which was then thrown into the fireplace.

But of course, children aren’t the only ones with fantasy wish lists this Christmas: Boris, Jeremy and Jo all have them too! Want more spending on the NHS, whilst paying less tax? Want better buses for rural areas (how else can we get to Birmingham to catch HS2 to London?) Or perhaps you’d prefer an end to homelessness, a pay rise for the public sector and an end to university tuition fees? Dear Santa…

It seems strange to have an election so close to Christmas. I haven’t heard how Brenda from Bristol has reacted this time round, but I suspect she’ll be loving a Christmas election. She might even suggest doing with the politicians’ Christmas manifesto lists, what my parents did with my Christmas lists all those years ago, assuming you’re still allowed a fireplace in eco-friendly Bristol!

Underlying all of our Christmas and manifesto wish lists is a hope that by changing something outside ourselves, life might become better. And whilst there’s certainly a lot of things that need fixing in our country, at Christmas time it’s important for each of us to remember that the change we need to see most of all, isn’t “out there” but “in here”, in our own hearts and minds.

One of the most beautiful expressions of the difference a changed heart and mind can make is found in a short New Testament letter written by St Paul from his Roman jail cell to the church in the Greek city of Philippi. Despite facing martyrdom and the grim daily joys of Roman prison, he tells his Philippian friends not to worry about him, because he’s

learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.”

You might wonder what that secret is, and here’s a clue, you’ll find in any of the party manifestoes or in any child’s Christmas list!

Here’s what the secret is. Paul says,

I can do all this through [Christ] who gives me strength” (Philippians 4:13).

It turns out that the child whose birth we celebrate at Christmas is the only one who can transform our hearts and minds to such an extent, that we can face any circumstance with contentment.

So as you cast your vote on December 12^th, remember what deep down in our hearts we all know – that no matter what they promise, politicians never bring contentment! For true hope we have to look beyond the manifesto to the manger!

To find out more about God’s manifesto for contentment, why don’t you join us at your local church’s carol service this Christmas? Visit www.hopechurchfamily.org/christmas for details. And whichever way you vote, may you have a very happy Christmas and a prosperous new year!

First published in the Bridge Magazine, December 2019

We will remember them

admin 07/11/2019

Until I moved here in 2016, I didn’t know that Upton was the home of a Dunkirk hero: Captain William Tennant, of the destroyer HMS Wolfhound.

Nicknamed “Dunkirk Joe” by the men under his command, Tennant was the cool-headed “Beachmaster” who co-ordinated the evacuation. Arriving off Dunkirk on 26^th May, Tennant stayed until June 2^nd, by which time some 378,829 allied troops had been evacuated. Tennant’s final act before departing was to sail up and down the beaches with a megaphone, calling out for any remaining British troops to come forward and be rescued.

Sadly, Tennant didn’t feature in Christopher Nolan’s recent Dunkirk film, but it’s pretty obvious that Nolan’s fictional character Commander Bolton (played by Kenneth Branagh) was largely inspired by Tennant role in the evacuation.

Tennant’s affinity for beach-operations also saw him play a key role in the D-Day landings in 1944. Now a Rear-Admiral, he was placed in charge of the floating Mulberry Harbours that were towed across the English Channel to Normandy. Within 12 days of D-Day, the Mulberry Harbours at Omaha and Arromanches were fully operational, and over the next ten months, two and a half million men, a half million vehicles, and four million tons of supplies passed through them.

Tennant was knighted n 1945, and after retiring, he returned to Upton, where he died in 1963. A statue of him stands near the Pepperpot in Upton, where we gather on Remembrance Sunday every year to remember all those who gave so much in the service of our freedom.

Remembrance does of course take many forms: both personal and civic.

If your family had a funeral with our churches over the last twelve months, you should already have been invited to come to our Service for the Faithful Departed (Sunday 17 November, 4pm). But if not, or if you have someone else you’d like to remember, even if we didn’t take the funeral, then you are welcome to join in! During the service, we read out the names of the people being remembered, so please pass their names to the church office (01684 591241 or admin@hopechurchfamily.org) as soon as possible.

You’re also invited to our civic Remembrance Service (10:45am, Sunday 10 November). Upton’s British Legion recently closed, and as part of this year’s Remembrance service we’ll be laying up their standard, and Upton’s new Baptist Minister, Amy Wearing, will be speaking. After the service, we’ll march down to the war memorial at the Pepperpot, for the laying of wreaths. You can find details of the Remembrance services in our other communities on page __.

Jesus taught that the sacrifices people make reveal the love they have for us. When he said,

Greater love has no one than this, to lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13)

he was pointing us forward to his own self-sacrificial death on the cross, helping us see it as a proof of God’s love for us.

And as we look back on those who we have personally loved and lost, it’s possible to apply Jesus words to them also, which is why it is so important that every year we gather to remember those who gave their lives for our freedom.

What does the Bible say about the environment?

admin 15/10/2019

Adapted from an article first published in the Bridge Magazine, October 2019

What does the Bible say about the environment?

Burning Amazonian rainforest has been one of the year’s saddest environmental stories. In the first eight months of 2019, an area 25 times the size of Worcestershire was burned! What’s even sadder is that the Amazon isn’t even the world’s biggest deforestation programme. For that we need to look north and east, to Russia’s far east and Siberia, where over 50 Worcestershire’s of forest have been cleared by fire so far in 2019.[i]

Many years ago I attended a lecture in which all the harm we do to the planet was blamed on one cause: Christianity, an idea popularised by a historian called Lynn White Jr, who wrote in Science Magazine in 1967, before Christianity, “man had been part of nature”, but under Christianity’s influence (particularly in Northern Europe), humanity became the ruthless “exploiter of nature”[ii]

White points the finger at the creation story in Genesis 1 as the cause of the problem. God blesses the first people and says to them:

‘Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish in the sea and the birds in the sky and over every living creature that moves on the ground.” (Genesis 1:28)

And it’s that language of filling, subduing and ruling over, which White blames our current environmental crisis on. In other words, it’s all God and his stupid follower’s fault. But I’m not convinced.

You see if White had read beyond the very first page of the Bible, he’d find a very different picture of our relationship with creation. Yes, we’re to rule over it, but not as exploiters. Instead, we’re to be stewards and explorers, holding creation in trust for God.

And over the centuries, many Christians have seen creation in this light. The theologian John Calvin, arguably the intellectual and theological force behind the Protestant Work Ethic, and therefore Northern-European prosperity, explained our rule over creation to mean

a responsible care and keeping that does not neglect, injure, abuse, degrade, dissipate, corrupt, mar, or ruin the earth.”[iii]

And many early Christians lived out that responsible care in very practical ways, perhaps best exemplified by the catholic saint Francis of Assisi, the patron saint of animals.

And whilst there have undoubtedly also been Christians who have exploited the environment, they’ve been joined by enough atheists, scientists, and people of other faiths to make it hard to blame God for everything. Does it really seem plausible to blame God alone for the Chinese business interests stripping far eastern Russian of its timber? Or is it more likely, that our rejection of God and our God-given calling to be stewards of creation has caused the damage we see around us?

So, what should Christians do to make a difference? The one-line answer is start acting like stewards! We all have a tendency to treat other people’s stuff better than our own, and stewardship means learning to see the whole world that way: cared for by us, but belonging to God, who will one day ask us to give an account of our actions. If you’re anything like me, that’s quite a worrying prospect!

So here are four simple steps we can all explore to be better stewards. They won’t solve all the world’s problems, but they’re a step in the right direction.

Let’s use what we already have, better. Rather than treating our possessions as disposable, good stewards repair, reuse and recycle! One of my secret joys about our Breakfast Church, is that all our video games are recycled! Everything was bought second hand, or donated by people. If our games aren’t quite carbon-neutral, we are at least not strip-mining Greenland and the Congo for new rare-earth minerals!
Let’s be responsible about new purchases. Do we really need that new car when the old still works? Do we really need that outfit that we’ll probably only wear once? How can we get better at borrowing or sharing things?
Next, think about our travel and utility use. Our rural bus service doesn’t make using public transport easy, but we can all choose to reduce the flights we take. If Prince Harry annoyed you with his private jet holiday plans, why not sign a no-fly commitment like Flight-Free 2020? Switching to a green gas and electric supplier is another easy way to be a good steward. Through a combination of carbon offsetting and renewable power sources, our home gas and electric has been carbon neutral for a year now – and for only marginally more than the current cheapest non-eco supplier, we could find.
Finally, we can look at ways of restoring the damage we’ve inflicted upon creation. One of the most inspiring habitat restoration stories I’ve come across in recent years is the Knepp [v], in West Sussex. Formerly intensively farmed, since 2001 this 3500 acre estate has been “rewilded”, with quite remarkable results: it’s now the home of the first pair of wild white storks to breed in the UK for 600 years. The Christian charity Arocha [vi] runs similar projects on a smaller scale, working with local churches and community groups to enhance and rewild parts of our communities.

You might not have the land to do something like that, but we can all look at ways to offset our carbon footprint by participating in tree-planting schemes. Apparently it takes 8 trees to produce enough oxygen for one person to breath for a year[vii]. What if we could all find a way to plant that many trees a year, for the rest of our lives? That would surely be good stewardship!

______________________

[i] www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-49433767 and www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-49515462?fbclid=IwAR0vvB0gWjjG_kqcRkPY8hrpxmWfqlOFsvhmwbMQXyK9Ar5FSqCWc8AlAeo

[ii] Cited from Andrew Cameron, The Environment – a Christian Response – https://sydneyanglicans.net/blogs/indepth/the_environment_a_christian_response

[iii] John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses Called Genesis (Chapter 2, on Genesis 2:15)

[v] Visit Knepp.co.uk or read the book, Wilding, by Isabella Tree.

[vii] www.sciencefocus.com/planet-earth/how-many-trees-does-it-take-to-produce-oxygen-for-one-person/

Why doesn’t the church do more to help the poor?

admin 11/10/2019

Worldwide, the UK Church already does an enormous amount to help the poor: everything from famine relief in Africa, to foodbanks here in the UK. In recent years I’ve come across churches running community nursing projects in UK urban areas, building homes for the homeless in Mexico, funding orphanages for children living on rubbish tips in Kenya, and feeding the hungry everywhere from Zimbabwe to Southern Sudan. I’d be surprised if there was a non-government organisation in our nation that does more to help the poor.

However there is still a perception that the church is wealthy, sitting on huge assets, and that maybe it could do more with them to help the poor. How true is that perception?

Well let’s consider how it from the perspective of the nation’s largest denomination, the Church of England. Broadly speaking, you can divide the assets of the Church of England into three chunks.

First, it’s fixed assets, ie buildings. In its efforts to maintain a presence in every community, the Church of England has over 16,000 church buildings in its 13000 plus parishes all across the nation. And at a time when government services such as hospitals are being pulled out of communities into larger regional centres, we’re all very aware of the value of the “local”. Imagine having to travel to Worcester for a regular Sunday service, or a wedding, baptism or funeral? Just as with hospitals, there is benefit in the local!

So if we’re committed to maintaining a presence in every community then radically reducing the number of church buildings to raise capital to give to the poor isn’t an option. It’s also unlikely to produce much hard cash – over 75% of church buildings are grade 1 or grade 2 listed, meaning the government recognises them as being of exceptional history or architectural importance. So they can’t easily have their use changed, and are therefore hardly an attractive option to a property developer (and let’s face it, who would want to live in a graveyard?)

Even if buildings were saleable, the church’s complex ownership arrangements make them very difficult to sell because no one owns them! The Church Council (PCC) is responsible for repairs and maintenance. The Churchwardens technically own the building’s contents (but can’t sell it), and legally no one owns the building. If that sounds absurd, I couldn’t agree more! But then the whole legal structure of the Church of England looks like something that has been designed by Yes Minister’s Sir Humphrey to ensure paralysis and indecision at all levels.

The second chunk of assets the Church of England has is the £7.9bn investment fund held by the Church Commissioners. The principal purpose of this fund is to fund clergy pensions, with any surplus going to fund the church’s work across the nation – so the Church Commissioners are already one of the UK’s largest charitable givers. Short of “pulling a Maxwell” and robbing the pension fund, it’s hard to see a way to use this money except for clergy pensions!

The third chunk of assets the Church of England has is its “day-to-day” working capital. The money that pays clergy salaries, keeps the lighting and heating on in church buildings, and funds thousands of projects across the country. However this chunk of assets isn’t a single chunk, instead, it’s 13000 small chunks – each Church of England parish is a separate charity in its own right. Whilst clergy salaries are paid centrally, individual parishes receive no money from the centre. In fact, the reverse is true, each parish contributes a portion of their income to the centre (known as ‘the parish share’) to pay clergy salaries.

So to take a local example, Upton Parochial Church Council (PCC), has the financial responsibility for maintaining Upton Parish Church, and the work we do here. In 2016, Upton Parish Church had an income of just over £20,000. 75% of that came from weekly giving by the 25 mainly retired regular attenders. The remainder came from events and fees for funerals and weddings.

Expenditure in 2016 was £28,000. 31% on clergy costs (parish share & expenses), 25% on building and churchyard maintenance, 20% on insurance, and 10% on heating and lighting. The £8000 deficit was met from our not very substantial reserves. (Please note, this isn’t a plea for money – though if anyone wants to help our work, whether on a one-off basis, or regularly, or even by leaving a gift in your will, do get it touch with our treasurer, in confidence).

You can multiply that story of Christian witness and buildings maintained on a shoestring budget all across the country. But despite the stretched nature of the finances, the church still does a remarkable amount of good: nationally over 80,000 volunteers and around 2,700 church staff (plus 20000 clergy) provide support and activities for children, young people and families, and over 100,000 children and young people participate in activities connected to the church each year.

Arguably that statistic highlight’s the church’s fourth and main asset, which isn’t buildings or investment funds or working capital, but it’s volunteer workforce. The Bible is always very clear – the church is not a building – it’s a gathering of people. And our people give sacrificially of their time and money to maintain the organisation and its mission. Every year they also pour millions of pounds into charities worldwide in their own names. Could they give more? That’s up to their consciences. Could you?

To sum up – could the institution of the church give more to the poor? Probably. But the cost in terms of cuts to staffing (and therefore the work we do in our communities) or to our buildings (and therefore our presence across the nation) make it difficult. To do more, the Church of England would need a thorough overhaul of its structures – change on a par with Henry VIII’s dissolution of the monasteries combined with Isis’s desecration of historical sites in Syria. And in a heritage-mad nation like the UK, that seems very unlikely to happen!

First published in the Bridge Magazine, 2017

Changing your mind

admin 05/10/2019

The man who never alters his opinions is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind” (William Blake)

So have you had enough of Brexit? What I find most frustrating about it is that irrespective of whether parliament should have been prorogued or not, you only have to watch a few minutes of our MPs squabbling to see that the battle lines are so drawn-up that no matter how good the argument either for or against Brexit, no one is going to change their minds.

Now the print deadline for the Bridge means that I wrote those rather cynical words about no one changing their minds back on 13 September. So if by some miracle, something remarkable has happened since that date, and our MPs are now united in their approach to Brexit, then let me say how delighted I am to be wrong! But given how rare it is for people to change their minds, I bet I’m not!

The economist JK Galbraith said,

Faced with the choice between changing one’s mind and proving that there’s no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.”

Which seems to me exactly what our MPs are doing. But before we condemn the lot of them for their stubbornness, let’s admit we’ve got a dog in this fight too. For all we claim that we’re open to changing our minds, we rarely do. Despite all the arguments and statistics, we encounter day by day, and all the opportunities we have to scrutinise those facts, are we really open to changing our minds?

And what’s true of Brexit, is also true of life’s even more important issues! We all have our answers to life’s big questions, and we’re sticking to them, even if we’ve never tested them, to see if they work. And whilst I’d probably not go quite so far as Greek philosopher Socrates did, when he said that,

The unexamined life is not worth living,”

I do think he has a point. There is something unhealthy about being totally closed to change.

That’s why I love to run our annual Alpha Course. Every year people come with their questions and doubts and concerns, not just about the Christian faith, but about life, the universe and everything. At every session, we watch a short presentation about a different aspect of the Christian life, and then we discuss it, and as the weeks go by, friendships form, questions are answered, fears alleviated, and just occasionally lives are transformed.

So, if you’re open to changing your mind about anything at all, why not give Alpha a try? It starts on Wednesday, Oct 2nd at 1:15pm in Upton Parish Church (St Peter and St Paul’s Church, Old Street, Upton). For more information, visit www.hopechurchfamily.org/alpha or just turn up at one of the sessions (though it does help us plan catering and resources if we know you’re coming).

First published in the Bridge Magazine, October 2019

Latest Vicar’s email

admin 23/09/2019

I recently circulated an email updating everyone about this Sunday’s benefice service at Hanley Swan. To read it, click here

If you’d like to subscribe to our mailing list, use this form. It may also help if you add barry@hopechurchfamily.org to your safe sender list.

Don’t go out, there’s a lion in the streets!

admin 22/09/2019

Vicar’s article from the Bridge Magazine, September 2019

If you’ll forgive a small holiday boast, I was enjoying a cold drink in the poolside bar on our campsite in France, when I heard the news that Boris Johnson was to be our new Prime Minister.

I don’t know how you feel about his appointment, and this article certainly won’t tell you how to feel about it. I won’t be mentioning the Br**it word either, so please don’t accuse me of mixing religion and politics!

I’m also conscious that there’s a possibility that by the time you read this, Boris may be an ex-Prime Minister. But assuming he is still PM, one thing I have appreciated about Boris as PM is his optimism. Whether it was the pun in his first speech as Tory leader: turning the acronym DUD (Deliver, Unite, Defeat) into DUDE (by adding ENERGISE) or his first speech as PM when he rejected the “doubters, doomsters and gloomsters”, I’ve appreciated the government’s shift in tone from fear and “unfounded doubt” to hope and possibility.

The Bible has a great Proverb about fear and unfounded doubt,

The slothful man saith, ‘There is a lion in the way; a lion is in the streets’” (Proverbs 26:13)

It’s a proverb about how fear, worry and pessimism about the future, can paralyse us: there wasn’t really a lion in the street, the man was just worried there might be. Fear and unfounded doubt mean he stays in bed.

Sometimes these fears and unfounded doubts come from painful memories. One day on holiday, three of my older kids and I decided our beach-trip experience would be vastly enhanced by climbing the not-steep 40-foot cliff at the back of the beach, and like the fit young mountain goats they are, the kids were soon at the top. But I hung back a little, “to make sure that if any of them got into difficulty I could catch them.” Honest!

The real reason I hung back was that about a quarter of the way up, I had to stand on a small flat rock, get my balance, and then stretch out across a gap to the next bit of the cliff. As I stood there contemplating the stretch, I had a brief flashback to July 2003, when I lost my balance and fell off a similar rock.

Which brings me to a second Bible proverb,

Worry is a heavy burden…” (Proverbs 12:25)

My worries certainly were a heavy burden as I stood on that rock. The memory of falling made me so doubt my ability to stand upright, that I began to wobble, and nearly fell again.

Worry and unfounded fear weigh us down and paralyse us: in politics and economics; in business and the workplace; in our schools, churches and social clubs; and of course in our relationships. If we spend all our time worrying about what might go wrong, we’ll never get anything done. Indeed, worrying about things going wrong is probably the best way of making sure that they do.

Thankfully the proverb continues,

Worry is a heavy burden, but a kind word always brings cheer.”

A kind word is exactly what one of my kids offered: “Come on Dad, you can do it!” I laughed off the fear, made the step, and lived to tell the tale.

That’s why I’m enjoying Boris’ cheery optimism so far. It doesn’t mean everything he tries to do will be right, but his optimism and a can-do spirit mean he’s more likely to succeed than the doubters, doomsters and gloomsters. Please pray for him, and all our politicians, in the tricky months ahead.

Rev’d Barry Unwin

What does the Bible say about Heaven?

admin 15/09/2019

Adapted from an article first published in the Bridge Magazine, September 2019

What does the Bible say about Heaven?

For a lot of people, the word “Heaven” conjures up images of white-clad angels sitting around on clouds playing harps: an old-style Philadelphia cheese advert on steroids. But is that really what the Bible tells us awaits us beyond the grave? What does the Bible really say about life after death?

Let’s start with angels and clouds, an idea that owes less to Christianity than it does to a 2nd-century religious movement called Gnosticism. The Gnostics hated the body with all its longings and urges. For them, death was a beautiful release: freed from its body the soul could soar heavenward and float uncorrupted forever among the clouds with the angels, and presumably the Philadelphia…

So what does the Bible tell us about what happens when we die? Well, perhaps the most important thing it says, is that heaven is not the final destination for Christians after death! And here’s something else that might surprise you: the Bible doesn’t really talk very much about “going to Heaven when we die” at all.

Instead of “how to get to Heaven when we die” and that Gnostic ‘cloudy floaty’ idea of disembodied souls, Jesus and the early Christians taught that after death, we could look forward to full bodily resurrection. That’s why they called Jesus “the firstfruits” of the resurrection (1Cor.15:23) and “firstborn of the dead” (Revelation 1:4). They saw Jesus rise from the grave, and because they were “in him”, they too would rise from the grave. Just not immediately. That wouldn’t happen until Jesus returns in all his glory at the second coming.

So what happens to us if we die in the meantime? Where do we go if we die between death and the Jesus return? The best answer Jesus gives is in John 14:2, where he tells his disciples not to worry because he was going to prepare one of the many rooms in his Father’s house for them. And what’s really striking about that statement is that the Greek word he used for room (mone) is the word you’d use for a room in a Travelodge, a temporary stopping-off point on the journey to the final destination!

So what’s the ‘final destination’ for the Christian? The final three chapters of the Bible (Revelation 20-22) tells us three things will happen.

First, the resurrection. Jesus returns in his glory and everyone who has ever died is raised to life.

Second, Judgment. The resurrected come before God’s throne for judgement, a judgement we’ll all fail because of our deeds (our failure to love God and our neighbour).

Third, our final destination: either eternal separation from God (Hell), which is our destiny if we’ve rejected God’s offer of mercy made available through Jesus’ death on the cross, or, “the new earth.”

And this idea of a “new earth” is the focus of the end of the Bible’s story of what happens when we die. The new earth is where Christians spend their forever, and here’s how St John describes it:

Then I saw ‘a new heaven and a new earth,’ for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away…I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God.” (Revelation 21:1)

The “first heaven and earth” he refers to is the world we know today, with all its brokenness, pain and suffering. And God promises that one day, all of that sadness and brokenness will be gone forever. And then something hard to comprehend happens: God will bring Heaven down to the new earth, and make his home among us.

Many years ago, St Augustine wrote of God,

You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they can find rest in you.”

Well when God makes his home among us, we’ll finally be truly satisfied in him, and as we experience him fully for the first time, he’ll wipe away every tear from our eyes, and

there will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” (Revelation 21:4).

Then there’s a banquet – a royal wedding feast with the finest food and wine ever. And we’ll live in a beautiful city, with extensive parklands, rivers and trees, and God at the centre. The Prophet Isaiah (Is.65:21-25) speaks of us building homes for ourselves, planting vineyards and enjoying good food. There will be animals, and they’ll live in harmony with each other, and with people. If this is sounding a bit like the Garden of Eden, that’s the point: it’s God’s original creation but made new. And this time it will never break, but go on getting better and better, forever.

So that’s the Christian hope in the face of death: a real resurrected body, living forever on a renewed earth, a place of eternal peace and joy and life, that will remind us very much of this world, but without all the bad bits, because God will be at the very centre of everything. I wonder if you would like to be part of it?

If you’d like to talk more about any of the issues raised in this article (or any of my other big questions), please get in touch: barry@hopechurchfamily.org.

Further reading: Tom Wright, Surprised by Hope, SPCK, 2007