Tag Archives: Lent

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Being God’s Beloved: Day 7: The God who Draws Near

Being God’s Beloved: Reflections on God’s Love.

Moses has fled for his life into the desert after killing an Egyptian guard. One day, while tending the sheep, he sees a burning bush. Oddly, although it was on fire, it doesn’t burn up, so he goes closer to get a better look. Then God speaks to him from within the bush, “Moses! Moses!” Moses says, “Here I am.” (I don’t know about you, but this sort of things doesn’t happen to me much. Actually, if I think hard, I can’t ever recall God speaking to me out of a burning bush! It’s enough to blow your mind.)

Then God says, “Do not come any closer. Take off your sandals for the place where you are standing is holy ground.”

Generally, when the Bible speaks about God as holy or the things of God as holy, it means two related things. First, it is about purity and second, it is about being separate. God is God, holy, exulted, powerful, tremendous, pure, untouchable, unseeable, unspeakable. God is so high and lifted up that we cannot even look upon God’s face. The theological word for this is ‘transcendence’. It means that God is enormously different from us, to such an extent that we cannot really connect with God. It includes all the omni’s – omniscience, omnipresence, omnipotence and so on. It is why some people kneel or bow or genuflect – a sign of our smallness in comparison with God’s greatness, our unworthiness in comparison with God’s sublime splendour.

Here God says to Moses that even the ground around the bush through which God’s voice is projected is so holy that Moses must remove his shoes. It is, in a way, the holy of holies before the temple was built, before even the tabernacle. This is a great example of transcendence.

Transcendent is often how we perceive God to be in the Old Testament. God seems massive and fearsome, austere and remote, more likely to smite you than bless you. The Old Testament God is not the Jesus who draws alongside people, who shares a meal of bread and fish, who touches the leper, who weeps at a graveside, who calls God ‘Abba, Dad’. The New Testament God seems to us to be much warmer and a lot more approachable. The Old Testament God has to be appeased with offerings before being willing to forgive, setting out strict rules and striking down those who accidentally look into the Ark. And because of this, many of us spend a lot more time reading the New Testament than the Old Testament – it helps us feel closer to God, because God seems more accessible to us.

But here in Exodus chapter 3, we now read a most remarkable passage:

The Lord said, “I have indeed seen the misery of my people in Egypt. I have heard them crying out because of their slave drivers. And I am concerned about their suffering. So I have come down to rescue them from the hand of the Egyptians and to bring them up out of that land into a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.”

This is absolutely one of my all-time favourite passages in the Bible! It is hard to write when you’re jumping up and down with excitement.

Notice how God describes his actions:

  • I have seen…
  • I have heard…
  • I am concerned…
  • I have come down…

Do these sound like burning-bush, holy-ground words? Are these the words of a transcendent and remote God? Is this an austere and slow-to-warm deity? No! Not at all!

These are the words of a God who is intimately connected with human experience, particularly human suffering. These are the words of a God who empathises – who shares our feelings and suffers along with us. These are the words of a God who does not observe passively from afar, but who engages and intervenes. These are the words of a God who moves into human experience rather than remaining aloof. These are the words of love.

God says, “I have seen the misery of my people… I have heard them crying out.”

As a counsellor and as a person who has been in counselling, I have come to learn that being present with someone in their suffering is very often all that is needed. Not everyone is willing to see and hear another person’s suffering. Truly, it is painful to see and hear suffering. Sometimes when someone starts talking about their not-so-happy life, we’d prefer to change the topic, or cut them off because we have an appointment, or do the empty-hearted uh-huh’s that mimic real listening while our thoughts wander. It hurts to really listen and truly witness another person’s suffering. This is exactly what God does here: I have seen… I have heard. God is willing to be emotionally present with us in our pain.

Many years ago, I suffered from a major depressive episode and wound up in a psychiatric ward. I spent my first week there trying to make myself feel better – pulling myself up by my bootstraps, putting on a brave face, hoping that I could trick myself out of depression. Of course, that did not work. One day, in the second week, I surrendered to the depression, and spent an hour long therapy session weeping. I could not speak – only tears – I had dropped to the depths of my despair and pain. My therapist spent the hour sitting beside me, saying nothing, passing me tissues. She saw me. She heard me. She did not flinch away or try to patch me up. She did not offer comfort or advice. She did not give me medication to dull the pain. She simply sat with me in the darkness, like Job’s friends (initially) sat with him in his despair. This was the first day of my recovery.

God’s willingness to see and hear the misery of his people reveals God’s love. God is willing to sit with us in the worst of our experiences, in the darkest or most savage feelings, in the worst thoughts. God does not close his eyes or block his ears. God opens Godself to hear and see our lives, just as they are.

God says, “I am concerned about their suffering.”

It is possible to see and hear someone’s suffering without being moved by it. Sometimes caregivers become so burned out that they witness suffering without feeling it – they are emotionally disconnected and shut down. But God is emotionally engaged and present. God feels! God is not unmoved. God suffers with us.

There is a difference between physical presence and emotional presence. Physical presence involves being present with someone without emotional connection. You are there, listening, using all the right counselling skills, doing your job well, but not allowing yourself to be impacted by the person’s experience. On the other hand, emotional presence involves also allowing oneself to be touched by and even hurt by the other person’s experience. It involves emotional risk, because sometimes another person’s pain can be overwhelming and frightening. It hurts to engage with another person’s hurt.

The Hebrew word translated ‘concerned’ is yada.[1] It has a range of meanings, including to recognise, perceive and care about. It is also the word used for ‘know’ – to really know someone, to understand, to have insight. And it’s the word used in Genesis 4:1 for ‘know’, as in Adam knew (had intercourse with) Eve. It is used some 20 times in Hosea to speak about our knowing and loving God. The word conveys an intimate and deep knowing of another person. It is about being in continuous and open-hearted relationship with someone. So, when God says, “I ‘know’ their suffering”, God is speaking of an intimate knowledge of human experience rooted in God’s relationship with us. It is a knowing that is so intimate it is as if God is the one who is suffering.

Today, we’d call that empathy. God empathises with us. Think on this. God is perfect wholeness and balance. There is no want, distress, need or lack in the experience of God. God is like custard with no lumps – smooth and satin. But when God chooses to be ‘concerned’, God allows the crunchiness of human experience and the sharpness of human suffering to disturb that perfection. No-one likes lumpy custard! But God chooses the lumps; God chooses to be immersed in these aspects of our life. Because God loves the whole of us – the joys and triumphs, and the darkness and sorrow. God is whole-hearted towards humanity, towards you, embracing every aspect of your life, not only certain parts of it.

God says, “So I have come down.”

The transcendent God becomes immanent – God draws near, coming right into the human sphere. God is not watching from a distance. God is present and active. ‘Coming down’ might not seem like a big deal, but consider that God is beyond time and space. God created space and time, thus lives outside it. So ‘coming down’, entering our world, is a very big deal. It is a foretaste of the incarnation of the second person of the Trinity into the individual named Jesus of Nazareth – that great emptying out of God’s divinity to be immersed into a single human life. ‘Coming down’ is, perhaps, the most remarkable aspect of God’s engagement with humanity.

The presence of God makes all the difference. God’s presence in human suffering gives suffering perspective. God’s presence in suffering gives us hope. God’s presence in suffering gives us comfort. God’s presence gives us the assurance that God knows what it is like to be us.

We cannot adequately explain suffering. But there is comfort in the testimony that God sees, hears, knows and comes. All of these are real demonstrations of God’s love for humanity. God did it for the people of Israel, which lead up to the Exodus. God did it for me when I was depressed in hospital. God does it for you in whatever situation you find yourself facing today.

Meditation for the Day

God is nearby, seeing and hearing you, knowing and feeling concerned about you, desiring to come down to be with you. Reflect on the nearness of the God who loves you and open yourself to experience God’s presence with you. 

Prayer for the Day

Oh God, my parent. Be present with me today. Help me to recognise your heart, turned towards me, with empathy and compassion. Let me lean on you.

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[1] VanGemeren, W. (Ed.). (1997). New international dictionary of Old Testament theology and exegesis. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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Being God’s Beloved: Day 6: Abraham’s Commission

Being God’s Beloved: Reflections on God’s Love.

Abraham is an important figure in history. He is the father of three faith traditions – Judaism, Christianity and Islam. He is held up, in both Old and New Testaments, as a great example of faith. The New Testament letter to the Hebrews, in particular, encourages us to follow Abraham’s example of faithfulness.

We first meet Abraham in Genesis 12, where he encounters God for the first time. This is the calling of Abraham (still, at that stage, named ‘Abram’), when god calls Abraham to leave his home country, indeed to leave his life, and set out to a land that God had chosen for him. God says to him:

“I will make you into a great nation,
and I will bless you;

I will make your name great,
and you will be a blessing.

I will bless those who bless you,
and whoever curses you I will curse;

and all peoples on earth
will be blessed through you.”

(Genesis 12: 2-3)

See how the word ‘blessing’ is used five times in these two verses. Once it is about God blessing Abraham, once it is about God blessing other people, once it is about others blessing Abraham and twice it is about Abraham blessings others. This is a real sharing of blessing! ‘Bless’ is, in Hebrew, barak .[1]

In the Ancient Near East (the cultures and groups surrounding the Jewish people during Old Testament times) the concept of ‘blessing’ was almost always from Divine to human – God blessed us, we did not bless God. And for these people and the Jewish people, securing God’s blessing for oneself personally or for one’s nation was paramount. God’s blessing would bring about everything one hoped for: abundant crops, success in battle, fertility, longevity, wealth, power and happiness. The more powerful the god, of course, the more potent the blessing. And a blessing could be passed on to one’s progeny.

We remember, in Genesis 1:22, how God blessed the living creatures. And then in verse 28, he blessed the first humans, saying “Be fruitful and increase in number; fill the earth and subdue it. Rule over the fish of the sea and the birds of the air and over every living creature that moves on the ground”. God’s blessing transfers authority and right, status and role. It is almost as if God imparts something of Godself to humanity when blessing us.

It is thus surely clear from this passage in Genesis 12, that God is making a great promise to Abraham. We can see this with the five uses of “I will”. God asserts that God will bless Abraham, by making him into a great nation, by blessing him, by making his name great, by blessing those who bless him and by cursing those who curse him. “If God be for us, who can be against us?” (Romans 8:31). If we had to set this to music, we’d use the tune “I’ll stand by you”.

Such promises convey a central message: God loves Abraham. If we had to condense this passage into just a short phrase, wouldn’t that be appropriate? A little while ago my father wrote to me, “I kill da bull for you!” I interpreted that not as a threat against bulls or an expression of pent up aggression. No! It was an expression of love for me – how far he would go to protect and champion me as his son. Similarly, here in Genesis, God perceives what Abraham really longs for (a people, descendants, respect, land) and says, “I love you so much, I will give you these things that your heart desires.” This is, first and foremost, a love poem.

Can you imagine encountering God and hearing God say these things to you? God says, “I love you so much, I will give you these things that your heart desires”. Perhaps these are promises that we can and should claim for ourselves, as children of Abraham. It is God’s promise not only to Abraham as an individual, but also to his children and his children’s children, the ages, down to we who follow in his faithful footsteps.

But lest we get stuck in the wonderfulness of God loving us, let us remember that three of the five uses of blessing are targeted at the nations, not at Abraham – one of these by God and two by Abraham. The blessing that God gives to Abraham is not intended to stop with Abraham. Abraham is not supposed to get fat on God’s blessing. Rather Abraham will be a conduit or a channel of God’s blessing, passing it on to the nations, to “all peoples on earth”.

Some years ago, Scott Wesley Brown wrote a great Gospel song called “Blessed to be a blessing”, which I love to sing. But I think the theology of the title might be a bit problematic. Genesis 12 does not convey the conditional sense that the song title does. God does not say “I will bless you so that you will be a blessing”. Rather, God says “I will bless you and you will be a blessing”. The blessing that Abraham receives is given whole-heartedly and fully to Abraham himself, because God loves him. Period. And in addition, inevitably, people will be blessed because of Abraham.

This is important! God’s blessing of us, God’s love for us, is not conditional. It is given without strings attached, out of God’s overabundance of love. God loves because God loves. And we can receive it without terms and conditions – no small print.

But in addition to this, God’s love is for everyone, not only for us. The well of love from which God draws has no limit, no bottom, no end. God is able to draw infinitely to bless us for eternity with unimaginable love. And God desires that love to reach everyone. And Abraham was that channel of love. After he died, he passed that blessing on to his children, and to their children, and eventually to greatest of the Sons of David, Jesus Christ, who truly became a blessing for all peoples. And Christ commissions us to continue to be a blessing to all nations, passing on the love of God to everyone we encounter.

It is a sad truth, I think, that the Old Testament has more stories about the nations being attacked by the people of God or excluded from the blessing of God than being blessed with the blessing of God. It seems that Israel never quite grasped that they had a commission to bless all people. The notion of being ‘chosen’ and ‘set apart’ went to their heads. The blessing was kept and protected. Like Gollum’s “my precious.”

But repeatedly throughout the pages of the Old Testament, the idea of a blessing to be passed on comes up. We hear is in a different form in Exodus 19:4-6, where God says through Moses, “You yourselves have seen what I did to Egypt, and how I carried you on eagles’ wings and brought you to myself. Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.” The first sentence speaks of God’s blessing – God’s liberation of Israel from bondage in Egypt. This great and national blessing is the cornerstone of Jewish theology and spirituality – it is the event in Jewish history that most powerfully demonstrates God’s tremendous love for the nation of Israel. The second sentence stresses their chosen-ness, though here we hear a condition – if you obey me fully and keep my covenant.

But it is the last verse that is most important for us now. God emphasises first that the whole earth belongs to God. The earth is God’s beloved creation, a most cherished object. Nevertheless, God chooses to appoint Israel as “a kingdom of priests and a holy nation”. This echoes yesterday’s reflection on Adam being commissioned to tend and care for God’s beloved garden. It’s the same pattern, but on a larger scale. Just as Adam was hired to love the garden, Israel was hired to love the nations.

Israel is to be a “kingdom of priests”. The term ‘priest’ is not used in many churches these days, but in the Anglican Church we continue to use this term to refer to our minister or pastor. It conveys a sense that this is a person who mediates God to us. This is not to imply that we cannot or do not encounter God directly through Christ Jesus! We each have full access to the presence of God. But it does imply, particularly for those who have not yet encountered God, that the priest’s role is to reveal God to them, to be the embodiment of God for them. So a kingdom of priests would mean that anyone could look at the nation of Israel and see God, experience God’s blessing, know God’s love.

Israel is also to be a “holy nation”. On the one hand, holy here means set apart for God so that the nation is separate and pure, not tainted by the pollution of the world. And it also means set apart for God to do God’s specific work. So, a holy nation will be one that is not so much aloof and standoffish, but one that that is invested in doing God’s work in God’s world. And what is that work? Is the priestly work of revealing, mediating, channelling God’s love, God’s blessing to all people.

Peter picks up this language in 1 Peter 2:9, “But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light.”

There is a long history in the Bible of royal priests and holy nations whose job it was to bless the world by revealing God’s love to the world. It starts with Adam, becomes well-defined in Abraham, struggles for centuries with Israel, and climaxes in Jesus Christ.

After Jesus’ ascension, this job is handed to all those who are known and loved and blessed by God. If you have accepted Jesus into your life, then you are known, loved and blessed. And you have a commission, a job. To bless the world, to love those around you, to be the presence of God in a hungry neighbourhood. God says, “I will bless you, and you will be a blessing”.

Meditation for the Day

God loves you, blesses you. Reflect on that today. And reflect also that you will be a blessing to others, will reveal God’s love to others. Today.

Prayer for the Day

Loving God who calls the faithful, bless me in my endeavours today, and inspire me to pass on that blessing to those I encounter, through a generous heart, warm words and helpful hands.

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[1] VanGemeren, W. (Ed.). (1997). New international dictionary of Old Testament theology and exegesis. Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan.

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Being God’s Beloved: Day 5: The Call to Work

Being God’s Beloved: Reflections on God’s Love.

Most everyone works. Many people work in the open labour market, earning a salary to provide for themselves and their families. Many work at home, without earning a salary, to raise children, care for a house and take care of our families. Many do volunteer work in the community, without remuneration, adding value to the lives of those who could not otherwise afford it. Many others are looking for work, doing piecework to make ends meet. And some have given up looking for work, perhaps living on welfare or relying on others who do work. Whether or not one works, the notion of work is central to our society.

The theme of work is central also to the creation story in Genesis. The writer of Genesis 2: 1-3 tells us that God had laboured – worked – in creating the heavens and the earth, and that by the end of the sixth day God needed a rest. God had invested time and energy and self in creation, and was – may we say it? – ‘tired’.

Yesterday we emphasised God’s activity as creative. But it is appropriate also to think of God’s activity not as a hobby, but as work. God had a ‘career’ for those first six days, as a creator, a kind of celestial construction worker. As with much of the early chapters in Genesis, this gives us a glimpse into God’s intentions for us, a model of human society – we are intended to work, in the same way that God worked. If God worked six out of seven days, should we not also work six out of seven days?

Working, in its various forms, is an essential aspect of society and of the individual human experience.

God’s working emanates from the overflowing of love. We saw that yesterday. The fullness of joy and love between Father, Son and Spirit cannot be contained and bursts forth in the tremendous work of creation. God does not work to earn a living – as it is, God works as an unpaid volunteer – rather, God works to express love.

There is something important in this for us, though many of us are not privileged to experience it. Work, intrinsically, is intended to be an expression of love. It is not just a means to an end, namely to earn money. It is supposed to have value and meaning in and of itself. In creating, God was productive. God expressed what was in the Godhead. God enacted love. God was creative. And in similar ways, our own work should be productive, self-expressive, loving and creative.

There is a saying – do you live to work or work to live?

Many people work to live. Work has no intrinsic meaning for them – it is a treadmill that we trundle just to earn a salary to survive. Sometimes this is because the job is so routine that there is no room for creativity or self-expression – one thinks of domestic work, cleaning someone’s home, doing the same thing, day in and day out. Sometimes the job involves doing a small fraction of a larger job, so that you’re focused on your small and seemingly trivial function, unable to see how your efforts contribute to a larger creation – one thinks of the factory line, where each person does just one activity, over and over. Sometimes the job is creative and diverse, but we define for ourselves our work as a means to an end – we choose to work only to earn a salary, to not regard the work as inherently meaningful.

But God lives to work. Indeed, God’s work is life, and God’s life is work. There is really no split between work and life, as there is for many of us. God’s creative efforts in the first chapters of Genesis have inherent meaning, are self-expressive and are filled with love. This kind of work is both means and end. There is joy and pleasure in the doing of the work itself; and it is purposeful and productive, making a difference after the work has been done.

This is the kind of work that God desires for us – work that gives life. We know this because just a few verses later, God hires Adam as the first (unpaid) employee in the first career. Genesis 2:15 says, “The Lord God took the man and put him in the Garden of Eden to work it and take care of it.” The NASB says, “to cultivate it and keep it”. The AV says, “to dress it and keep it”. The NLT says, “to tend and watch over it”.

Adam was a gardener. The first career was gardening. Noble, but humble beginnings.

It is clear from this verse, that God did expect Adam to work. Working – being productive, contributing to society, developing the world – is a part of God’s plan for us. God worked; God wants us to work. Working is a central activity of the divine and has intrinsic value. In other words, the act of working is good for the soul. That does not necessarily mean you have to earn a salary – there were no salaries in Genesis 1 and 2 – you could work as an unsalaried volunteer or a home maker. But whatever it looks like, working is something we should all be doing.

Adam’s work in the garden is described with various verbs: work, care, cultivate, keep, dress, tend and watch over. Such a variety of English words to translate those original two Hebrew words! The first word is abad, which ordinarily means “to serve”, and the second word, samar, means “‘to exercise great care over’, to the point, if necessary, of guarding… to protect”.[1] What do they have in common? What is the central element of God’s job description for Adam?

Adam was hired to love the garden.

The Garden of Eden was part of God’s creation – a special and central part of it. God called Adam to take special care of it, to show love to it, to protect it, grow it, nurture it, sustain it. Adam was to be the garden’s caretaker, investing in it the same love and devotion that God had when God created it.

It is somewhat like being hired to look after someone’s infant child. The mother bears that child for nine months, goes into labour to give birth to that child (labour is such an appropriate word to describe childbirth!), loves and cherishes that child as she raises the child to adulthood. When she hires someone to assist with the child’s care, she entrusts to that person a most precious responsibility – to care for her child with the same love and devotion that she herself does. Caring for that child cannot involve going through the motions, cannot be routine and pedestrian, cannot be something done just to earn a salary. It has to involve an investment of love – a wholehearted activity of caring, tending and watching over. This is what Adam was tasked to do with God’s garden.

This ought to be true for all jobs. Because it is intended by God to be true for all work. All work is an instance – a particular example of – Adam’s caring for the Garden of Eden. Whatever work it is that we do – packing shelves, teaching school children, working on the stock exchange, picking fruit – we should recognise that this is an opportunity for us to love the world, to honour God’s creation. In working, we walk in Adam’s footsteps, tending and caring for the garden.

Consider the idea that we need to redeem work – all of us as a society, but also each one of us as individuals – you and me. As much as human beings need salvation, so too does work need to be saved. It is needs to be rescued from sin and death, and brought back under the headship of Christ. Work has, for many people, become soulless, even soul destroying.

This is not God’s vision for us! Work is intended to be spiritual, edifying, sanctifying and nourishing.

Some Christians put this into practice by using the workplace as a vehicle to evangelise or by holding prayer meetings at work. This is a good thing – it is about giving witness to our faith in the workplace. But I think this misses the important point that we find in Genesis 1 and 2, which is that the work itself should be a faith-filled activity. It is not what we add to the work that will redeem it – holding prayer meetings at work or having your Bible on your desk is not what will redeem work.

Rather, it is how we do the work that redeems it. When we regard our work as a spiritual activity, not just a chore to be done; when we ask the Spirit to breathe into our work the love and power of God; when we express the best of what God has created us to be in our work ethic; when we express our deepest love, the love we feel for our spouse or our children; when we remember that our working is a shadow of God’s working in creation – then our work will be redeemed. It will become an expression of faith, it will be sanctified, it will bring joy to God and to the world. And through that, we too will find our faith growing.

In a word, we should learn to love working.

Meditation for the Day

Consider your own work, if you have one, and how you can learn to love doing it. Reflect on how your work will change if you accepted that God had tasked you, created you, for now, to do this work.

Prayer for the Day

Creator God, you have shown us the way of work – to work with joy and love. You have mandated humans to work in your commissioning of Adam and Eve. Nurture in me a greater love for my work. Help me to express joy and love in my work today.

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[1] Hamilton, V. P. (1990). The book of Genesis: Chapters 1-17. Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans, p. 171.

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Being God’s Beloved: Day 4: In the Beginning

Being God’s Beloved: Reflections on God’s Love.

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

The opening words of a novel are regarded as the most important words of a book. The American Book Review lists the top 100 opening lines. Number one: “Call me Ishmael” from Melville’s Moby Dick. Opening lines serve to grab your attention, to focus your energy, to pique your interest and to reveal something key about the text to follow. Writers spend hours finding the perfect opening line.

The opening words of the first book of the Bible are no exception. In these few Hebrew words we are presented with the start of the story of God in relationship with humanity. They provide us with four key elements that set the stage for this great story.

First, we are oriented to the time in which the story starts: “In the beginning”. This is in contrast to what we looked at yesterday, which was before time and space. There we looked at a ‘time’ before the creation of time – a time most of us cannot imagine. The author of Genesis 1 cues us to recognise that there must have been a before in the beginning, prompting us to think about God before creation. But Genesis 1:1 also locates us at the start of time as we now know it. This point in eternity marks a fundamental and supercosmic change from time-less to time-bound.

Second, we are introduced to the central character: “God”. I love those opening two words in the Hebrew: “In the beginning God.” The writer tells us that when everything that we know began, God was already present. God is the originator, the source, the wellspring of everything that exists. Whether you accept a seven-day creation or not, Genesis 1 asserts the reality of the God who is. We could say that this is the fundamental tenet of faith – we believe that at the beginning of everything, God was.

This assertion of God’s presence at the beginning is also important, because it sets God as THE central character of the book. You don’t open a book like this and then have Athaliah (a name I randomly picked out of the Bible) as the central character. That doesn’t make sense. The author here asserts not only God’s existence, but also God’s centrality. This is a book about God. It is, of course, a book about people also. But specifically it is about people in relationship with God, or rather (and please forgive my dreadful use of hyphens) God-in-relationship-with-humanity.

We do not learn a great deal about God as God alone in the Bible. Nor do we learn a great deal about people as people alone in this book. What we do learn a lot about is how God and people interact. About their reciprocal relationship. About how God sees and feels about us, how we respond to God, how we are changed through this relationship with God. In all of this, God is central.

Third, we are introduced to God’s central work, God’s main activity: “created”. This is the first and most fundamental thing that God does – God creates. We are not introduced to a God who speaks, judges, pronounces, descends, incarnates or saves. Though these are all important activities of God, and we shall discover all of them as we continue to read, they are not central to the story. What is central is the God who creates. God makes, shapes, forms, calls into being, moulds, invents.

Fourth, we are introduced to a creative and artistic God, who makes things: “the heavens and the earth.” God does not make a Red Velvet Cake or compose a piano sonata. No. God makes everything that we know – the earth, on which we live, and the heavens, which includes everything around us. And on the sixth day, God created us. The whole of the first chapter of Genesis unpacks in some detail what the author means by the ‘heavens and the earth’ so that we are in no doubt that everything that we know comes from the mouth of God.

Great opening words to a great story!

“In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.”

What we don’t get so clearly, is God’s motivation for creating. Why did God make the heavens and the earth in the beginning? What prompted such a remarkable decision in the eternal life of the triune, perfectly complete God? Surely God was not lonely or bored? Surely God was not pressured in some way to create? Surely God knew that the creation would not go according to plan? Surely God knew that God’s existence would change after the creation?

The author of Genesis does not give us a full disclosure about God’s motivation, but we are given hints. Here are the three main hints:

  1. “Let us make mankind in our image, in our likeness…  So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them” (Genesis 1: 26-27). Here we learn something about the people that God created. This was not like the previous days of creation, where God spoke and described and they came into being. There the creation is described in a somewhat impersonal way – God creates things that are unlike God. But on day six, God creates something that is similar to God in some way: people in God’s image, God’s likeness. Here God chooses to make beings that are in some way like God. Let me suggest that God chooses to make beings to whom God can relate – beings with whom God can be in relationship. God cannot relate to the sun and moon and plants of the earth. But God can relate to people. This decision to create us in God’s image speaks to us about God’s desire to be in relationship with humanity.
  2. “The Lord God formed a man from the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and the man became a living being” (Genesis 2: 7). What is striking about this more detailed description of the sixth day’s creation activity, is that God is no longer just speaking creation into being, as was the case in Genesis 1. Here in Genesis 2 we have a much more tactile, hands-on, earthy description of the creation. God forms the human from the humus,[1] much as a potter might shape a piece of clay into a vessel. The writer does not spell it out, but we are surely invited to imagine God’s hands getting dirtied with the mud, actively and intimately working to shape the earth into an earthling.[2] And if that is not intimate enough, God then breathes into the nostrils of the human to give Adam life. God here imparts something extremely personal and precious to the human. Imagine, if you will, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation – up close and personal. Not only are the first humans shaped to be like God in some way; they are also shaped in a highly tactile, personal and engaged way by God. God desires to invest God’s self in our creation.
  3. “It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him” (Genesis 2:18). In this last stage of the opening creation story, God looks at the human that has been made, and recognises something lacking in him – he is alone. The creation is perfect, though. God steps back repeatedly and says, “It was very good” (Genesis 1:31). Adam is not flawed in any way. But he is incomplete – he needs a companion, a helper. And so after looking to all the rest of creation, and finding none that is suitable, God creates a partner, taken from Adam’s rib so that they can stand alongside each other – Eve. God recognises that humanity ought not be alone, because God is not alone. God desires that humans should not be alone, that humans should be in relationship not only with God but also with other humans.

What do we learn when we put these three hints together? We learn that God creates, out of God’s own heart, beings who are in various ways like God and who are endowed with God’s special attention and presence. God creates not just an individual, but a partnership between two people. In the Hebrew of Genesis 1: 26-27, there is a definite shift from singular in the first phrases to plural in the last, suggesting that what may have begun as a creation of one quickly turns into a creation of more than one. The narrative from Genesis 2:18, confirms this – Adam created as one, quickly completed with the creation of a second, moving immediately into marriage – a joining of the two into one, reminiscent of the three-in-oneness of God.

All of this leads to the conclusion that God’s intention was to create a community or people-in-relationship that reflected something of the community or relationship within the triune God. God did not create just one human, because God is not just one person. God created people-in-relationship, because God is three-in-one. We are then, most like God, most conforming to the image of God, when we live in relationship with those around us. Because loving relationship is at the heart of God.

Finally, let me briefly come back to God’s motivation for this creation. Although we are not told this, imagine with me that God created people-in-relationship because God wanted to share God’s own satisfying and completing experience of being in relationship. God was not lonely, because God had eternal relationship already. But out of the fullness and joy of that relationship, and the overflowing love experienced within the Godhead, God created people, in relationship like God, to experience and share some of that love. God created out of love, to share God’s love with you.

Meditation for the Day

Imagine all the fullness of relationship and love within the Triune God – so full that it bursts forth in a great creative activity of God’s desire to share this relational love with others. With you.

Prayer for the Day

God of infinite love and generosity, thank you for creating me and for creating my relationships with my family, my friends and my community. Help me to accept that my existence is a result of your overflowing love.

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[1] Alter, R. (2004). The five books of Moses: A translation with commentary. New York: W. W. Norton, p. 21. This is based on Alter’s evocative translation of the Hebrew poetry in Genesis 2:7, ‘adam (human) from the ‘adamah (soil):  “The Lord God fashioned the human, humus from the soil”.

[2] Trible, P. (1978). God and the rhetoric of sexuality. Philadelphia, PA: Fortress, p. 78. This is based on Trible’s translation, “Yahweh God formed the earth creature of dust from the earth”. A third translation is from Korsak, M. P. (1998). ‘Et genetrix’. In B. Brenner (Ed.), Genesis: The feminist companion to the Bible (second series, pp. 22-31). Sheffield, UK: Sheffield Academic Press, p. 27, “YHWH Elohim formed the groundling, soil of the ground”.

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Being God’s Beloved: Day 3: The Heart of God

Being God’s Beloved: Reflections on God’s Love.

What do you think is the central characteristic of God? What is that quality that is at the heart of God? What is it that makes God God?

There are many different answers to this question. And perhaps, in truth, it is not an answerable question. It is even harder than answering the question, “What is the central characteristic of your most loved family member?” Or even “What is the central characteristic of me?” People are complex, with many characteristics – reducing that complexity to just one characteristic is not only impossible, but also silly. How much more so with God, who is infinite – infinitely complex.

Nevertheless, it is an important question to attempt to answer. We should treat any answer we get cautiously, tentatively, and humbly. But endeavouring to understand the heart of God is a worthwhile and credible undertaking.

Let us think back to before the beginning of time, before creation, before God was interacting with creation. What do we know of God then? What can we imagine of God then?

Before the beginning, before God created time and space, there was God. Just God. We believe that everything that is was created by God. That there is nothing that is that was not created by God. That everything that is not God was created by God. That’s pretty inclusive! One of the implications of this belief (this doctrine) is that before creation, God is all that was.

What do we know of God before creation? Truly, we know very, very little. This suggests a very short chapter for today!

But what we do know about God is that God existed as three-in-one. The triune God. Three persons with one nature (or substance or being) is how the church finally agreed to define the Trinity in the Nicean Creed that we recite today. A theology of the Trinity is not provided in the Bible. But Christians throughout the centuries, reviewing and  weighing up all of the evidence provided in the Bible and in our experience of Christ’s journey on earth, have repeatedly concluded that Father, Son and Holy Spirit all are God, distinct from each other in some way, yet one God, not three.

It gives me a headache! Like trying to imagine infinity. My brain is too small to adequately grasp it.

Happily, this is a devotional, not a systematic theology, so I am freed from the burden of having to define or explain it rationally. Instead, if you accept the doctrine of the Trinity, I invite you to work from that as a point of departure and see the implications of it. If you have difficulty accepting it, just suspend those for a few minutes and follow the path with me, and see if it speaks meaningfully to you.

Imagine this:

Timeless fellowship between Father, Son and Spirit. Perpetual, complete, whole, seamless, perfect, fulfilled, intimate, satisfying fellowship.  Intuitive mutual understanding. Never hurting – always cherishing. Always working together toward common goals. Never competing – always cooperating.

What word can we us to describe this kind of relationship?

Love

When we imagine God before creation, we come to one basic conclusion. That God is characterised by love. Eternal, complete and perfect love. A love so strong, so intimate, that the three-ness of God draws so closely together to become one. Three in one.

There is a Greek term for this: ‘perichoresis’. It has various English translations, the most common of which is ‘interpenetration’. The idea is that Father, Son and Spirit penetrate into or merge with one another so closely, so intimately, that they become one. It is a mutual indwelling – a reciprocal choosing to immerse one’s self into the other – Father into Son, Son into Spirit, Spirit into Father. Three distinct persons. But so mutually and lovingly woven together that they are, in fact, one.

The heart of God, then, is love, for this is the quality of relationship inherent in the triune God from before the beginning of time. The most prominent characteristic of God is love.

But, many of us have been raised to believe that the most common characteristic of God is holiness or righteousness. This theology emphasises the purity and perfection of God, a purity that is repulsed by sin and brokenness, a perfection that can associate only with perfection.

Of course, the gap between God and us is immense. God is infinitely more pure, holy, righteous and perfect than we are. The apostle Paul is right to associate us with filthy rags. We are very much not up to God’s standard.

Placing God’s holiness as central to the character of God, which many of the Christian traditions do, means that we are always confronted with God’s frown. God looks at us and frowns, because we don’t look right – we smell off. We are sin-tainted, fallen, and imperfect. What follows is wrath – God’s wrath is poured out against humanity because we are, fundamentally, repugnant to God.

There is much in the Bible to support this view. Much of the Old Testament emphasises God’s purity and our impurity. We think of the Ark of Covenant – so holy and untouchable that one, well-meant touch by Uzzah lead to his annihilation (2 Samuel 6:6-11). We think of the temple and its many courts, each drawing closer to the Holy of Holies. And that inner place was so holy and so filled with God’s presence that no-one could enter, save one person (the High Priest), only once a year (Yom Kippur), and with much ritual and prayer (Leviticus 2). There is certainly a strong narrative thread throughout the scriptures emphasising God’s transcendent purity and evidence of God’s wrath in response to our lack of purity.

The problem with this view of God’s essential character is that it is anthropocentric – it centres on humanity. This only makes sense in God’s relationship to humanity. Indeed, only to humanity after the Fall. In effect, this theology rests on ourselves, rather than on God.

But a true theology of God must rest on God and God alone, distinct from God’s relationship with creation. And the only meaningful way to do that is to imagine God before creation, so as to get to the God who was independent of humanity.

When we do that, the concepts of holiness and perfection lose their meaning. Holiness makes sense only in relation to that which is not holy. Similarly, perfection makes sense only in comparison with that which is less than perfect. Set alongside imperfect and sinful humanity, God is indeed perfect and holy. But when we reflect on God as God, God without comparison, God in God-self, these concepts are as dry as the dust that blows away in the slightest breeze.

Instead, what does remain, when we think of God as God, God alone, God before creation, is God in love. God’s love is inherent within the triune relationship between and within the three persons of the Trinity. It is not a characteristic that requires comparison with anyone or anything else. It is a characteristic that is fulfilled within the nature of God.

And thus, we can and should regard love as a far more fundamental characteristic of God than holiness or perfection. God is indeed holy and perfect and surely does not like sin. But these characteristics come after creation, perhaps even after the fall, and are thus secondary to God. They speak, at most, to God’s response to our brokenness. They do not point to the heart of God.

When we look into God’s heart, we will not find wrath. Judgement, rage, shunning and impossibly high standards are not to be found in the heart of God.

Instead, when we look into God’s heart, we find love. Complete, whole, seamless, all-embracing love. A love that is strong enough to satisfy God for eternity. A love that is powerful enough to bind three into one. A love that could have continued to exist forever without any creation.

This love remains at the heart of God. It was not somehow watered down in creation. It was not lost in the Fall. God does not set aside love in God’s relationship with you. God’s first thought when glancing your direction is not anger or revulsion. It is love. Surely, God gets angry! What parent does not get angry at their children? But this anger is on the surface. It is a momentary and situational response. It is not the bedrock of God’s character. Nor is it the predominant feeling of God towards the world. Nor is it God’s predominant feeling towards you.

When God digs down into the depths of the heart of God, God finds love. God’s most basic impulse is to love. God’s greatest joy is to love. God’s most authentic self-expression is love. As John writes in his first letter, “God is love” (1 John 4).

We have to look more closely at God’s heart – particularly those of us who have been well schooled to think of God as wrathful. We have to peer back through time, back through creation, to perceive what is truly God as God, what is essential to God, what was present in God before everything else. When we do so, we will find Love.

Meditation for the Day

Imagine God as God, before creation. Imagine the relationship that existed between Father, Son and Spirit, Imagine the love that they shared, that made them complete and one.

Prayer for the Day

Loving God, help me to unlearn what I have learned about who you are. Instil in me a deeper appreciation for the love that is in the heart of you. Help to me share in that love.

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Being God’s Beloved: Day 2: Who is your God?

Being God’s Beloved: Reflections on God’s Love.

Where do we start with a journey like this? Since our goal is to be God’s beloved, we should start with God, shouldn’t we? This is one of the important things that I realised when I started imagining this book. Initially I thought this would be a book about love – meditations on love. But as I went along, I began to realise that a book about being loved by God is not so much about love, as it is about God. God is the one who does the loving – it is God who loves us, not some abstract notion of love.

So this book is actually about God – our topic is God – the God who loves us. And that, of course, raises the fundamental question of who is God. If God is a God of love, then the idea of God loving us ought not be that difficult. But if God is a God of something else, then the idea of God loving us can be quite a challenge.

So, here’s the question for you as you read and reflect today. Who is your God?

Some will object to this question. “God is God,” they will say. “There is no ‘your God’. There is only ‘God’.” They may fear that we are creating God in our own image. They are right, in one sense. God is who God is – “I am who I am” (Ex 3:14). How we see God, who God is to us, does not change God. God is God’s own person. We do not get to dictate or even shape God’s character. And creating a personal image of God for ourselves that bears no relationship to the God who is, is not a smart thing to do.

But, we know God primarily in the context of our personal relationship with God. Yes, we can and do learn about God through God’s working in history, particularly through what is revealed in the Bible. And yes, God is who God is, independent of God’s relationship with me or you. But primarily, we know God as God relates to us. This is not so peculiar. It is true for all our relationships. We see people through our own eyes – we see them in the context of our relationship with them. All true knowing of people is relational – we know in relationship.

I am a university professor. If you asked my students who I am, they’d probably say I am a strict and demanding person. I have high expectations of them, I’m not easily satisfied, I’m pedantic about spelling and referencing, I demand punctuality and professionalism. (I see myself as also warm, supportive, responsive and helpful, but I’m not sure these are the qualities most of them would tell you about if you asked, “Who is your lecturer?”) I’m also a lay preacher at my church. If you asked my parishioners who I am, they’d probably say I am a warm, engaging, patient, listening and thoughtful person. (At least, that’s what I think they’d say if you asked, “Who is your lay preacher?”) These sound like two different people, don’t they? Truly, though, I am the same person – lecturer, lay preacher, father, husband, friend, employee, son, writer – Adrian is who Adrian is. But Adrian is experienced as a different person by different people.

People know us, and form a picture of who we are, in the context of their relationship with us. In the same way, we get to know people and form a picture of who they are, in the context of our relationship with them. That is how we know people.

In exactly the same way, we get to know God and form a picture of who God is in the context of our relationship with God. Our experience of God is who God is to us. And our experience of God, if authentic, points to something in heart of God. God may be different things to different people, because God meets us where we are, with our hopes and fears, with our experiences and scars. But we should recognise that there may be more to God than our own experience of God – God is multifaceted and we may have seen only a few of those facets.

So, as we engage with the question of who is our God, we look to our experience of and relationship with God, because this provides us with the most immediate insights into God. But we should also leave space to learn that God may be more, indeed, that God is more than what we have experienced. There is an ongoing journey of discovery open to us.

But there is more. It takes two to tango. It is not just that God meets each of us uniquely in the context of a unique relationship. It is also that we, ourselves, are unique, bringing ourselves into the relationship with God. Who we are, what we have experienced in life, what we have learned over the years, influences how we see God. For better or for worse, we do not see God as God truly is. We see God through the eyes of experience.

Our backgrounds shape, and sometimes distort, how we see God. Some of us, for example, were molested or hurt in various ways as children by our fathers or by father figures. This can influence how we see God, particularly when God is presented to us as Father. For some of us, God becomes the good parent who shows us what we ought to have experienced from our fathers. This can be healing and restoring – God saves us from bad fathering. For others, God is tainted by our painful experiences and it is hard to pray, “Our Father in heaven”. Every mention of God as father can evoke trauma and fear, ultimately destroying our relationship with God.

So, this question, “Who is your God?” speaks not only to God, but also ourselves. It requires us to look in the mirror and ask, “Who am I?” We need to open ourselves to the possibility that we may be distorting God because of our experiences or learning. Perhaps our picture of God is not authentic.

But there is still more! How we see God, who God is to us, changes us! We become who we are, in part, by how we see God. Our image of God is very important to our own development as human beings, as social beings and as beings in relation to God. So this question, “Who is your God?”, is important for yourself.

Let us then come back to this question. Who is your God? Or if you prefer, Who is God to you?

We need to find a place where we can experience God authentically, where we have a relationship with God that is true and genuine, so that who God is to us becomes more closely aligned with who God really is. A good place to do that is in the pages of the Bible. One can also do this in nature, in conditions of poverty, in a community of faith, through adversity – we can and do encounter God authentically in many contexts. But an important place is in the pages of scripture. This is because in the Scripture, we encounter God in relation to other people. And we begin to see God’s self-revelation over many years. As we see God in action, in fellowship with people, we begin to see God.

The problem with the Bible, however, is that God is multifaceted and varied. We can easily pull out passages where God is vengeful, wrathful, violent, dismissive, and hypersensitive. And we could build a picture of God on those texts. Many have done so, and many of us struggle with the remnants of these images as we relate to God today.

So, I suggest that instead of looking at small individual passages, we need to look at the broad sweep of history, of extended passages and recurring themes in the Bible, of the entire Bible story. It is as we step back from the details and look at the whole, that we begin to get a clearer sense of who God is. And as we do that, we begin to develop our experience of who our God is, of who God is to us.

As I have done this, I have increasingly been struck by God’s love. While there are many examples of God not behaving lovingly, the broad biblical narrative – the Bible story – is a great love story. God repeatedly shows God’s love for individuals and nations and the whole world. God’s love is the dominant theme of the Bible.

It is my hope that as we continue on this journey together, as you reflect on the God who is revealed to us in our lives and in the Bible, that you will find an answer to this question, “Who is your God?” And that, perhaps, you will discover that your God is the one who loves you.

Meditation for the Day

Try to put into words (or if you prefer, into a picture or music or dance) who God is to you.

Prayer for the Day

Lord God, I ask that you reveal yourself to me in new and authentic ways today. Help me to discover more of who you. Open my heart, open my eyes, to perceive you, to move into a deeper relationship with you.

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Being God’s Beloved: Day 1: Preface

Being God’s Beloved: Reflections on God’s Love

I am delighted that you have decided to start this 40-day devotional with me during Lent. It will be a journey that we take together as we immerse ourselves in the truth that we are much loved by God.

We all surely know that God loves us. But over the years, as I’ve listened to many people, and also as I have listened to myself, I have come to believe that while we ‘know’ that God’s loves us, many of us don’t really know God’s love. There is an intellectual or cognitive knowing that we have, because we read it in the Bible and we celebrate it particularly at Christmas and Easter. But that truth has often not sunk below our brain into our mouth, our heart, our gut, our hands and our feet.

My training is in clinical social work, and so I tend to interpret this quite psychologically. Many of us have been well schooled, from childhood, to doubt ourselves. Those messages we have learned as children are deeply engrained in our bones: You never do things properly; you always mess up; why can’t you be more like so and so; if only you…; I’m disappointed in you. Probably in most instances, these kinds of messages were not intended to break down, yet they remain in the underlying fabric of our psyche, of our spirit, and interfere with our openness to receiving, knowing and accepting God’s love.

Many of us have had these messages reinforced in our childhood faith in the church. We have been taught that we are terrible sinners, that God cannot stand to be in the presence of sin, that even the very best that we do is like filthy rags, that we always fall short, that God’s wrath is upon us, that we deserve eternal flames, and so on. There is biblical and theological truth in these messages. But they are lopsided, overemphasising our inadequacy and reinforcing our psychological vulnerability.

Ultimately, for many of us, we come into adulthood with a nagging feeling that God cannot love us. That we are unlovable. That we are damaged goods. And when we do mess up in our faith, which we all do, at least on occasion, this nagging feeling crows in triumph. And sometimes that makes it hard to return to God – we are such failures and so useless, God would be better off without us.

And so, I have been wondering for some time what our lives would be like if we really, really, really believed, deep in the core of our being, that we were much loved by God. How would we be different if this truth was not just a loosely held cognitive belief, but also a deeply held certainty?

I suspect we’d have a much more intimate and consistent relationship with God, because we’d experience and trust in God’s abiding love. We’d be less likely to sin, because we’d be more cautious about grieving God. We’d experience less anxiety, because even (or especially) when times are hard we’d be certain that God is present and concerned. We’d be more generous, because of an abundance of love that enables us to share more love with others. We’d be better witnesses to those around us, because there would be less toxin and more joy in our faith.

Being God’s Beloved is intended to lead you through a series of reflections on how much you are loved by God. It has a clear agenda – to convince you of this fact! It will speak to less happy topics, such as sin and wrath, but the centre and focus is always on God’s love. This is because I believe, deeply and surely, that love is the centre of God’s heart. And if love is at the centre of God, then everything else that we talk about in our faith should be in relation to love.

I hope that by the end of this journey, you will feel immersed in God’s love, that God has filled you up, inside and out, with God’s extravagant, generous, warm, embracing love. That this will not be something you merely know, but something you are, in your inner being. And that you will already have begun to see how naturally that transforms your Christian living, in your daily devotions, your struggle with sin, your participation in God’s mission in the world and your witness. Because when we truly know that God love us and when our lives begin to reflect that knowing, then we will Be God’s Beloved.

To structure this devotional, I am following in the footsteps of those who have seen the value of a 40 day period of spiritual reflection. Rick Warren has nicely shown how 40 days is a meaningful spiritual period in the Bible:[1]

  • “Noah’s life was transformed by 40 days of rain.
  • Moses was transformed by 40 days on Mount Sinai.
  • The spies were transformed by 40 days in the Promised Land.
  • David was transformed by Goliath’s 40-day challenge.
  • Elijah was transformed when God gave him 40 days of strength from a single meal.
  • The entire city of Nineveh was transformed when God gave the people 40 days to change.
  • Jesus was empowered by 40 days in the wilderness.
  • The disciples were transformed by 40 days with Jesus after his resurrection.”

And so my prayer is that you and I too will be transformed by these 40 days of reflection on Being God’s Beloved.

The 40 days of Lent start on Ash Wednesday, which is 5 March 2014, and continue until Holy Saturday on 19 April. The 40 days of Lent exclude Sundays, thus we are looking at 6 days of reflection per week. Because these reflections are integrated with the Lent course at St Martin-in-the-Fields, Irene, South Africa, on Wednesday evenings, we will treat Wednesday as the ‘day off’ for reading. So, the reflections will start on the day after Ash Wednesday, and continue every day, except Wednesdays, until Holy Saturday. You are, of course, free to structure your reflections as you like, but I encourage you to do one per day, so that you have time to meditate and pray on the reflection, and so that you engage in a prolonged and rhythmic reflection on Being God’s Beloved.

The weekly talks will be held at St Martin’s Church, in Irene, South Africa on Wednesday evenings from 19:00 to 20:00, and a week later on Wednesday mornings from 10:30 to 11:30. The talks will pull together the week’s readings and allow time for worship, discussion and fellowship. You can attend these in person, or participate live through Skype, or watch a video of the talk a couple of days later on the blog. The daily reflections will be posted on my blog,[2] which links to my own Facebook page[3] and the parish Facebook page.[4] You can also access them through a link on the parish website.[5] On my blog you can sign up to receive the daily reflections by email. For those at St Martins who do not have access to the Internet, printed copies of the reflections will be made available. Or you can request the parish office to email them to you. So, although this reflection will be hosted and run from St Martins, we hope to have a wider community of the faithful journeying together from all over the world.

The devotions are grouped according to themes for each six-day collection of reflections, interspersed with Wednesday evening Lent Course talks and other services:

    • Ash Wednesday service (5 March).
  • Week 1 – The character of God and God’s initial engagement with humanity.
    • Talk 1 – The Character of God (12 March).
  • Week 2 – God’s love as revealed across the Old Testament.
    • Talk 2 – The God of the Old Testament (19 March).
  • Week 3 – Theological reflections on God’s love in relation to other themes, such as sin and wrath.
    • Talk 3 –Justice, Wrath and Love (26 March).
  • Week 4 – The incarnation and message of Jesus of Nazareth.
    • Talk 4 – Christ as the embodiment of Divine Love (2 April).
  • Week 5 – The ministry and work of Jesus the Messiah.
    • Talk 5 – The cross (9 April).
  • Week 6 – Jesus’ death and resurrection.
    • Holy Week services (14-19 April).
  • Week 7 – The implications of Jesus for life and love.
    • Easter Sunday services (20 April).

I wish you God’s richest blessings as you journey through Lent and as you reflect on what it means to Be God’s Beloved. I will be praying for you over this time.

Blessings and joy
Adrian

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[1] Warren, R. (2002). The purpose driven life: What on earth am I here for? Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, p. 10.