Why Atticus Finch was not the Messiah

I first read Harper Lee's classic novel thirteen years ago, when I was fourteen. It was the summer before I started Year 10 and I was disappointed to find out that, because I had elected to be in the English Literature class rather than the mainstream class, I would not be studying To Kill a Mockingbird like my brother and sister had done before me. To remedy this omission from my readerly development, I went to the Warragul library that summer and borrowed out the only copy they had.

I remember that I had become a little bored with many books that year. I had outgrown most books aimed for kids my age but did not yet have the maturity to match my reading level. Mockingbird must have been the perfect fit. I devoured it. I do not remember often being as engrossed in a novel as I was that summer. When my English Literature class began that February and we were all asked to name our favourite novel, I said To Kill a Mockingbird. It was soon supplanted by The Outsider, then by Nineteen Eighty-Four and then by many other books, but I have never forgotten the intensity of my joy on reading it for the first time and, over the decade-and-a-bit since I read it, it has remained with me more than some of the novels that replaced it in my affections.

Teaching it this year to my own Year 10 class (some things never change in the curriculum), I have been re-reading it these holidays and doing so has reawakened my old love. I have enjoyed rediscovering old favourite moments - Scout's first day of school, for instance, or the visceral tension of the courtroom scene - and encountering scenes of which I have no memory - the scene, for instance, in which Dill and Scout have to leave the courtroom and encounter Mr Dolphus Raymond, the local vagabond who pretends to be an alcoholic to explain why he prefers to live among the "negroes".

And then, of course, there's Atticus. I don't think twentieth-century literature created a greater hero than him. It was, after all, the century of anti-heroes, in which Literature preferred a Jay Gatsby or a Meursault to a genuinely good man. (Popular Fiction, Tim Keller notes, has the right idea about what makes a hero and a powerful story - heroes who actually accomplish something, in the teeth of almost certain defeat.) Atticus has integrity. He is wise and compassionate. He is full of grace and, surprisingly for a popular novel, an earnest Christian. And in the film he's acted by Gregory Peck. What's there not to love about the man?

But he's not Jesus. This might sound a bit obvious, but this is what I mean: there is something in me that is tempted to almost worship "good men" like Atticus, and all too often we do the same thing to Jesus. We want him to be a good moral teacher whom we can admire. We want him to make stirring courtroom speeches and stand up for good. But we don't want him to be God, and we don't want him to supplant our other earthly heroes. Now, I might save for another day the question of why we do this, but here are two brief reasons why Atticus is not the Messiah:

1) He cannot, in the end, change the human heart. There is a false perception among many in our world that with enough good, educated people challenging social perceptions, things will get gradually better and better. Well, no century saw more wide-spread democracy and education than the twentieth, and no century saw bloodier wars, and its successor - which, by the logic outlined before, should be better than the last - began with one of the worst acts of terrorism, followed by a horrible, protracted war designed to fix things. Atticus, and other good men, can inspire us, but they can't change us. History has shown that.

2) He can stand up for the defenceless and the oppressed, but he cannot defend the truly indefensible. Our hearts are stirred greatly by stories of injustice, and when Tom Robinson is found guilty something in us rises in vehement protest - and it should. Tom dies for a crime he very clearly did not commit. There is no justice in this. But we need to remember that, before a righteous God, we are all guilty of sins we would much rather hide from everyone, most of all a righteous God. If Atticus can't acquit the innocent, he most certainly can't acquit the irrefutably guilty. Only Jesus can do that.

And so I suspect that To Kill a Mockingbird will remain on my list of greatest novels for a long, long time. But for my heroes, for someone to lay down my life for, I'm banking on Jesus Christ, not Atticus.

Beatitude #2: Blessed are those who mourn

I remember a minister friend of my parents once shared a story with us from a family devotional book that dealt chiefly in stories of martyrs. This story was about a so-called "eccentric" preacher who seemed to be famous for spontaneously calling out "Glory!" at inappropriate moments. One such moment was when he was told the news that his wife had died and he responded with, "Glory! My wife has gone to be with the glorious ones," or something to that effect. He may not have said "glorious". That might have been overkill. But you get the idea.

Now, being only about fifteen at the time, I wasn't aware of just how unhelpful that story was. It really just sounded quite silly to me, but on reflection I feel that it gave a very false view of how Christians should deal with mourning. While it may be ideal for us to have our hopes fixed so firmly on heaven that we can rejoice to know our loved ones are there, I'm not sure that pure joy is the response that we should expect to feel at such times. That just isn't the reality of life, and one of the most wonderful things that we can discover about the Bible is that it is firmly grounded in the realities of life.

When Jesus first addresses the crowd gathered on the mountain, following up on his promises to the poor in spirit, he declared, as a key feature of his kingdom, that:

Blessed are those who mourn,

for they will be comforted. (Matthew 5:4)

Now, it does not mean that the act of mourning is intrinsically blessed. Far from it. We know from elsewhere in the New Testament that hopeless mourning is not to be a feature of the Christian experience:

Brothers and sisters, we do not want you to be uninformed about those who sleep in death, so that you do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope. For we believe that Jesus died and rose again, and so we believe that God will bring with Jesus those who have fallen asleep in him. (1 Thessalonians 4:12-13)

Note what Paul, the writer of that passage, does not say: he does not say, "do not grieve". But he does say, "do not grieve like the rest of mankind, who have no hope". We know for a fact that Christians can grieve. If Jesus is the model of the Christian life, the shortest verse in the Bible tells us that weeping over the death of a loved one, even one we know will be raised from the dead, is natural. But Jesus would not have wept hopelessly; after all, he knew how the death of his friend Lazarus would end: with life.

So why, then, are those who mourn blessed? Not because mourning itself brings blessing, but because mourning is never the final word. Refusing to mourn may seem noble, but Tim Keller has pointed out in a sermon on joy that refusal to mourn is pagan Stoicism far more than it is Christian. But we know for a fact that Jesus came to put an end to mourning: not by denying his followers the right to grieve when they lost those they loved, but by hoping in the life beyond all this mourning.

Is it any coincidence that, in the passage Mark presents as the beginning of his public ministry, Jesus quotes from a famous passage in Isaiah in which the time of mourning is declared to end with him?

The Spirit of the Sovereign LORD is on me,

because the LORD has anointed me

to preach good news to the poor.

He has sent me to bind up the brokenhearted...

to comfort all who mourn,

and provide for them a crown of beauty

instead of ashes,

the oil of gladness

instead of mourning,

and a garment of praise

instead of a spirit of despair. (Isaiah 61:1-3)

This is why those who mourn are blessed: because Jesus promises them comfort - more than a pat on the back, more than a shoulder to cry on; the greatest hope a mourner could know. The knowledge that, in Jesus, death is never the final answer.

Song: Aaron Strumpel - Sixty One

Beatitude #1: Blessed are the poor in spirit

When Jesus stood up to declare what some commentators have called the "constitution" of his kingdom, he began with these famous words:

Blessed are the poor in spirit,

for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.

Scholars and writers differ on what the word "blessed" here really means. I remember Philip Yancey saying that the word in the Greek is more along the lines of "Oh you happy person!" I'm not sure about how reliable this rendering is, but it certainly draws attention to the fact that Jesus is saying something extremely irregular and counter-intuitive here: those who seem most downcast and weak are in fact the most blessed. How? And why?

A sermon at my church on the Beatitudes on Sunday got me thinking about this passage, and re-watching Lars von Trier's masterful Melancholia got me thinking even more. The film concerns two sisters, Justine (Kirsten Dunst) and Claire (Charlotte Gainsbourg) and their relationship as it plays out during Justine's increasingly problematic wedding celebration (Part 1) and the arrival of a threatening planet, Melancholia, which is moving ever closer to earth (Part 2). For much of the film, Claire fails to understand Justine's evident depression, and Justine is cautioned to "not say a word" to her husband about the ache that fills every moment of her life. Yet as the film unfolds Justine's depression is shown to be a valid response to the world around her, while Claire and her husband (brilliantly portrayed by an understated Kiefer Sutherland) are shown to be much more naive than you would have thought at the start.

So what is the message of all this? The film suggests at one point that the "poor in spirit" may in fact be gifted. Justine is shown to have almost mystical knowledge that others lack. I'm not so convinced. Justine's knowledge is that the universe is empty and meaningless; this is a fairly common thought for someone with depression, but I'm not convinced that it is the truth. Depression can lead us to feel and think things like this - and I've had my fair share of such thoughts - but we need to remember that, in times like those, it is the depression speaking, not some profound revelation.

But the film does offer something quite interesting in terms of how to deal with "Melancholia". The truth of Justine's condition, like the truth of the planet, is something that characters continually avoid. When John (Kiefer Sutherland) declares that "Melancholia [the planet] will just pass us by" and "will be the most beautiful sight" ever, he is shown to be devastatingly, emphatically wrong. Claire, who is always the strong one, is unable to confront heartbreak when it arrives. Neither is John. And Michael, Justine's erstwhile husband, is never seen again. So much for being strong. So much for "not breathing a word".

If the poor in spirit are blessed, it is not because they have a mystical awareness that life means nothing. It is that they are sometimes forced, in their brokenness, to confront the pain of human existence and, by God's grace, to move closer to Him and find their answer there. The truth is that all of us should recognise ourselves to be poor in spirit, because before God we all are. The answer is not to deny this or try to be strong in ourselves. The answer is to bring all our brokenness to Jesus Christ who was broken for us, and let Him heal us and give us hope.

I pray that Lars von Trier can realise this truth. He has come so close to it, but sadly remains so far.

Petalshower and Windfall

An anthology of my poems written from 2006-2012 is now available from the Kindle store at this link:

Petalshower and Windfall: Poems by Matthew Pullar

If you do not have a Kindle reader, the free Kindle app can be downloaded to iPhones, Android devices or iPads to allow you to read it. Hope you enjoy it!

The Kernel: A Poem

John 12:20-33

An insect buzzed around Andrew’s head

And the words of the Master made a similar sound,

Humming round and round in the noonday bustle,

My countrymen still waiting somewhere in the sidelines,

Our question not really answered,

The issue – as always – made a little less than clear.

Had he heard, or taken in, our request?

They had phrased it so simply –

Sir, we would like to see Jesus –

But protocol had somewhat baffled me;

They had come to me for ease of access: the face of a stranger

Somehow familiar, in a sea of unfamiliarity,

But I did not hold the clout, never did,

And so turned to Andrew who, it seemed to me, did,

But together we got nothing clearer.

Only this made sense: The hour has come

For the Son of Man to be glorified.

Yes, that much was clear.

But with budding fans

In the background, he did as he always did:

Taught us that which we could not see,

In words and figures which we could not grasp:

Unless a kernel of wheat falls to soil,

It remains only a single seed.

The image I knew; I had seen kernels

Sown in the soil, and had seen harvests

Burst forth in vast, bright golden splendour.

But harvests of wheat? This wasn’t the time

For a lesson in wheat-growth. There were some men

In the fields, waiting, ripe to be reaped.

He lost me, I think, after the seeds,

The buzzing insect now down Andrew’s arm,

My new friends in the distance, checking their watches,

The Master pausing, once again, to pray.

Now my heart is troubled, he said; but why he did

I was, myself, too troubled to hear or understand,

And only the voice of thunder above could snap me

From my impatience, the anxiety of waiting,

And the buzz of the fly, or whatever it was –

I have glorified my name; I will glorify it again –

The crowd in hysterics, and the Master aglow

With the glory of the moment and the height of his call

And, his eyes lifted up to the heavenly source

Of the voice that had thundered, they seemed then to shine

With the tears that I had hardly noticed him crying,

And in the glow of the teardrop, I fancied I saw,

Two pieces of wood, crossed one on another,

And the glorious Son lifted up on each one.

Why we should be outraged but not surprised

In the past week, there have been many passionate, decent people expressing outrage via social media, online petitions and the blogosphere regarding porn-themed stationery being stocked in stationery store Typo. The most notorious of the products is a notebook with a naked woman on the cover, with the word "Dirty" printed along with her. And it's pretty clear that this hasn't just been a bad week for Typo or its parent company CottonOn. Their website displays a wide range of products featuring women in provocative poses, slogans like "Let's Get It On", "Do Bad Things To Me" (a Valentine's Day card, apparently) or, perhaps most appallingly, "Believe in Pole Dancing", with an accompanying image as subtle as the slogan.

But, lest the sexual side of things become the sole focus, there's enough here apart from that to be concerned about, including a notebook with the slogan "Keep Calm and Drink Tequila". All of this begs the question: just who is Typo's demographic? I'm fairly sure that primary school kids shop there, but even if they were only aiming at teenagers, it isn't ok. I know I wouldn't accept a student handing in work in a notebook with any of these slogans on the cover. At the very least, there'd be a phone call home asking if the parents were aware of what kind of stationery their child was bringing to school.

It's fairly torrid stuff and a good thing, therefore, that there's enough public outrage over it that, at the very least, CottonOn and Typo will be forced to hear criticism even if they don't respond to it. And thank God for people like Melinda Tankard-Reist and her organisation Collective Shout. We need more people willing to stand up against things like this.

But should we be surprised? Granted, the sexualisation of girls is becoming an increasing public issue, in the sense that the bounds of public decency are being blurred more and more, in a way that many find quite shocking. But public decency often has a way of disguising the real issue. We have agreed standards for what we do or proclaim in the public arena, and in the past pornography has been politely pushed into the margins. Now it's bursting out, and that outward burst is what shocks us, not the revelation that it exists or that the age for people to be included or targeted in it is frighteningly flexible.

We should oppose it, with all that we've got, but there's something perhaps more uncomfortable that we need to admit - that in our own way we are as perverse as any product that CottonOn or Typo stock, that we have secrets locked away inside ourselves that we would hate to see paraded in shopfront windows. The fact is, sexism, exploitation and pornography will exist so long as human sin exists. And, if we know anything about the depths of human sin, nothing that big businesses or advertising executives can come up with should shock us. We shouldn't accept it, not for a moment, but we shouldn't be surprised either.

I think of Jesus' words to His disciples when He sent them out into the world to preach the Gospel:

I am sending you out like sheep among wolves. Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves. (Matthew 10:16)

In other words, we should be wise to sin and its impact on the world but refuse to be corrupted by it. We should speak out against it, and never for a moment accept the excuses that people will make to say that it's okay, "just a bit of fun", that we should all "lighten up" and stop being "wowsers". Those kinds of excuses never cut it. But we should, I think, be willing to look just as regularly at our own hearts and at the skeletons that we have trapped in our own closets, because the problem is broader than Typo, and broader than CottonOn and Kmart. The problem is us, and that includes - to borrow the name of a recent film - me, and you, and everyone we know.

The fight against pornography starts with the fight against sin. And that fight should start with each of us on our knees, praying for forgiveness.

Worth and worship

Yesterday I reflected on the complex proposition that the Bible offers, that we are on one hand totally depraved, corrupted by sin in all areas of our lives, yet also made in the image of God and, in God’s eyes, worth being redeemed. I know that this idea is one which may offend a typical Calvinist position, and I am wary myself of how far we push it. But the alternative position is an odd one: we emphasise how unworthy we are of God’s grace (which we are) to the point that we potentially argue it was idiocy for God to redeem us. God has sacrificed everything for our redemption; surely He would consider this to be worthwhile?

But I want to look more today at what our response should be. Self-esteem teaching would say, “Let’s focus on our worth. Let’s tell ourselves how wonderful we are in God’s eyes.” This, I think, is missing the point. It simply makes an idol of self and uses God’s redemption as a means to further worship that idol. In actual fact, it misses the point altogether of redemption.

So what is the purpose, then, of redemption? Is it forgiveness of sins? Is it payment of the price of our sin? Yes, and yes. But more. Redemption salvages us from the scrap heap, not so that we can feel good about ourselves now, but so that we will never stop praising the one who salvaged us. If I view my redemption purely in terms of what it does for me, I will pretend to worship God but will essentially only be worshipping myself. If I view redemption in terms of the way that it brings me into relationship with my creator, then I either need to fall on my knees worshipping Him or I don’t really get what was so wonderful about redemption in the first place.

God did see us as worth redeeming; but this should be a humbling thing to realise, not a boost to our self-esteem. And, in the end, if we truly get what God has done for us, we will be consumed in adoration of Him.

Tim Keller, who is one of the 21st century’s foremost analysts of misplaced worship, has noted that, in Old English, the word “worship” came from “worth-ship”. That is, when we worship something, we acknowledge its worth and act in response to this. In other words, he says that to worship something is to treasure it.

When I treasure something, I longingly look at it, for example, in the store window and think about how great it would be to own it. I ponder its virtues, talk to my friends about how great it is. Then I go out and buy it.

Worship is treasuring God: I ponder his worth and then do something about it—I give him what he's worth. (Tim Keller, 1995, Changing Lives Through Preaching and Worship)

In the end, what we are worth matters far, far less than what God is worth. And realising that, and responding to it – that is worship.

Totally depraved, wonderfully made

For some time now, my mind has been crunching over the idea of total depravity and its implications for self-esteem, which, at the secular end of the scale, is based on the humanistic belief that "people are fundamentally good" or, in its Christian formulation, is based on the belief that "God does not make junk".

Theologians who have articulated what total depravity means in regards to the love of God will formulate the idea through examples of people loving the utterly unlovable. My theology-student housemate describes the typical Calvinist position in terms of God being like the father of an axe-murderer: though the son is utterly unloveable, the father loves him nonetheless, not at all because of anything that he is or does but because he chooses to love him. This isn't to say that the axe-murderer son has no qualities. But, where secular counselling for instance might emphasise appealing to the son's deeper good, a more theologically reformed view might appeal instead to the radical nature of a love which accepts him despite how reprehensible he is and everything he represents.

For those among us, however, who struggle with self-esteem, we are presented perhaps with a problem. Many will try to cheer up someone who is down on themselves with encouraging words about how good that person is - and I am a little dubious about how appropriate this is as a way of encouraging. Isn't it more powerful to say, "God loves you regardless of your flaws?" On the other hand, as a notorious self-condemner, I know that I buy into a lot of lies about myself. When I condemn myself, it isn't necessarily because of a healthy view of my own sinfulness but because I listen to voices that tell me I am worthless - and, whatever the Bible says about our depravity, it never once says that we are worthless.

Take as an example the master craftsmen who goes into an antique store and buys the thing that everyone else rejected in order to restore it. If he denied that it was damaged or totally in need of repair, he would be having himself on. But this is not the same as saying that it is only worthy of the scrap heap. This is not how God sees us; if it were, He would never have gone to Calvary for us. But He does see that, without His intervention, the scrap heap is the only place we will ultimately be going.

There is a subtle distinction within reformed theology between being totally depraved and utterly depraved, and this distinction might be helpful here. R.C. Sproul articulates it like this:

We must be careful to note the difference between total depravity and "utter" depravity. To be utterly depraved is to be as wicked as one could possibly be. Hitler was extremely depraved, but he could have been worse than he was. I am sinner. Yet I could sin more often and more severely than I actually do. I am not utterly depraved, but I am totally depraved. For total depravity means that I and everyone else are depraved or corrupt in the totality of our being. There is no part of us that is left untouched by sin.

(Sproul, 1992, The Essential Truths of the Christian Faith)

So here the line that "God does not make junk" is perhaps worth reiterating, though it might be better reworded as "God does not redeem junk", or "God does not die to save junk". There may be nothing in me that is not corrupted by sin, but that does not mean that I am not still made in God's image. It does not mean that, when He looks at me, He does not see something worth redeeming.

We would do well to remember, I think, that the same book of the Bible which contains the words "Surely I was sinful at birth" (Psalm 51:5) also later declares, "I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made" (Psalm 139:14). Both are true, and, praise God, in the death of Jesus, the tension that exists between the two is overcome. Like the fallen yet beautiful creation which God will restore, we too are fallen, yet beautiful, and by grace are being restored.

The Devil Inside?

A friend of mine belongs to a Christian off-shoot group who are perhaps most famous for not believing in the Trinity or in the divinity of Jesus. But there are other differences. They don’t believe in hell, for instance, and they don’t believe that there is a personification of evil, or Satan. Now, I’m not wanting to scrutinise these beliefs here in much detail, but there was something I heard the other day about his church’s belief regarding Satan that got me thinking.

My understanding is that my friend would say there is not a single devil, rather that the devil is inside. This is a curious concept. There are ways in which I can understand what he means. I have been in churches where people are very ready to blame Satan for things for which they are themselves responsible. The standard “The devil made me do it” defence is an exceptional alibi, and a wonderful way of pretending that it wasn’t the evil impulses in you that made you act that way.

But in terms of there being no objective, external force of evil, and in terms of evil being indwelling, there are some significant issues. Does evil continue to indwell after one becomes a Christian? And what is the source of that evil?

If, in fact, what is happening inside of us is a battle between Satan and God, then that’s a frightening thing to experience and endure – a “Devil and God are raging inside of me” scenario – and, while God is clearly more powerful, it is difficult to know whose side we are on and if we will, therefore, be able to rejoice in God’s victory or be destroyed in the process. Doesn’t it all depend, in such a case, on which side has the more dominant hold upon us?

People who have experienced anxiety, depression or other forms of mental illness will perhaps relate best to the dread that this kind of proposition can hold for believers who still feel ongoing condemnation and spiritual dread – and I imagine there are far more people in churches today fitting into that category than we might be aware. One of the greatest and most comforting preachers for people with bruised spirits was Charles Spurgeon, and 152 years ago yesterday he preached on this very topic:

I remember a certain narrow and crooked lane in a certain country town, along which I was walking one day while I was seeking the Saviour. On a sudden the most fearful oaths that any of you can conceive rushed through my heart. I put my hand to my mouth to prevent the utterance. I had not, that I know of, ever heard those words; and I am certain that I had never used in my life from my youth up so much as one of them, for I had never been profane. But these things sorely beset me; for half an hour together the most fearful imprecations would dash through my brain. Oh, how I groaned and cried before God! That temptation passed away; but before many days it was renewed again; and when I was in prayer, or when I was reading the Bible, these blasphemous thoughts would pour in upon me more than at any other time.

It was only when Spurgeon had the courage to speak to a wise believer about this problem that he received this encouragement: if he hated those thoughts, and did everything he could to fight them, then he could be confident that they were not his, and he could have the courage to keep fighting them, and to send them to where they belonged.

Evil is within all people, and it is certainly true that our lives as Christians will be an ongoing process of defeating that evil. But for the Christian evil no longer has a hold on us; Christ does. This is something I need to remind myself of, and I hope and pray that others who have these same fears can know the same encouragement that John gave 1900 years ago:

He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world. (1 John 4:4b)

Calvin in Elfland

I don't normally write poems inspired by articles posted at DesiringGod.org but this article by John Piper about G.K. Chesterton and Calvinism really tickled my imaginative fancy, specifically this statement:

Here’s the reason Chesterton’s bowshots at Calvinism do not bring me down. The Calvinism I love is far closer to the “Elfland” he loves than the rationalism he hates.

He would no doubt be baffled by my experience. For me the biggest, strongest, most beautiful, and most fruitful tree that grows in the soil of “Elfland” is Calvinism. Here is a tree big enough, and strong enough, and high enough to let all the paradoxical branches of the Bible live — and wave with joy in the sunshine of God’s sovereignty.

And so here is my little offering in response to Piper's intriguing declaration. I like to think that, if John Bunyan had written a poem about a visit to Elfland with Calvin as his guide, it might have gone something like this. It's written 30% with my tongue in my cheek and, I suspect, 70% with my hand firmly placed on my heart.

Calvin in Elfland

…and in the forest I saw two trees

each representing different heresies

which had driven the trees rotten at the roots

and sickened the ground wherein the trees stood.

The first, a wizened, stunted thing, curled around

a sign labelled “Free Will”, stuck in the ground

where the roots most needed life and space.

“This tree,” my guide said, “has taken the place

of the tree of truth which once grew bountifully

and sheltered all in its branches, til foolishly

the gardeners cut it down and put

their shrivelled righteousness where it stood,

leaving only truth’s stump.” Thereat, I wept

at the thought of beauty once strong now kept

locked in this sickened, deadly ground.

The second tree, which I then found

beside the stunted one, was named

“Reason”. The name, though grand,

betrayed the rot that lay below

the seeming beauty. Although

it blossomed and grew pleasing fruit,

my guide drew my eyes to the roots

which were grey and lifeless.

“Why,” asked I, “can this bless-

ed tree of reason be so dead?”

“Ah, because,” my learned guide said,

“reason unsanctified is but wand’ring

proudly in the dark. The rings

of this tree declare its ancient age,

yet years that pass do not make sage

the folly of a mind enclosed within

its own ignorance; therein

lies all the blindness of our race.”

But my eyes drew then apace

to where another, grander tree

stood shining, tow’ring sovereignly

over all else in the deathly wood.

I took my guide to where it stood

and gazed wond’ringly at its leaves

and branches through which the breeze

was wondrous gentle, and I knew,

without my guide’s words, that here You,

the mighty God, had let Your grace grow

splendidly; whereat, my guide show-

ing me the sign there, which proclaimed,

“The Sovereign God Has Made His Fame

Known”, we stood in wonder and both prayed

that all might know this splendid shade…

Rest in the shadow

Anyone who has received an e-mail from me will know what my e-mail signature line is. It comes from Psalm 91:1 -

Whoever dwells in the shelter of the Most High

will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

It is a verse that I found greatly comforting during a difficult time in my life a few years ago. I would not necessarily say that that difficult time is over and I wouldn't say that I always feel Psalm 91:1 to be true. But the thing about dwelling in God's shelter is that it requires trust in Him, not having it all together ourselves. It is fitting that the latest album by Sons of Korah, which concludes with this Psalm, is entitled Wait. The title comes from Psalm 27, which is essentially the centrepiece of the album, occupying four of its thirteen tracks. But the concluding lines of the album also perfectly capture the element of waiting:

With long long long life

I will satisfy him with long life

With long long long life

I will show him my salvation.

While finishing with such a hopeful line, the rest of the album seems to deal with the all-important question: what do we do while we wait for this?

There is such a rich tradition in the Bible, especially in the Old Testament, of voicing pain and suffering, of expressing confusion before God. This used to be a subject that I devoted quite a lot of space on this blog to talking about. The focus has become less, perhaps because once I understood it I needed to talk about it less. But I'm not sure that's the whole picture. I think there's a real temptation in all of us - in me particularly - to seeking out the perfect formula to fix all problems. For some, praying and declaring truths loudly in faith is the "answer". For some, the answer is to deny problems because to acknowledge them is to speak out of fear not love. I think I expected that my problems would dissipate if I acknowledged them. They didn't. But God still calls the broken and the weary to His side. He still calls them to cast their burdens on Him. And He calls them to wait.

Olney Hymns 3 - Send None Unhealed Away

Here is another one of the hymns I'm working on. This was a fairly solid day's work - not sure if the result is worth the effort but I enjoyed working on it. Cowper's lyrics are also incredibly beautiful and moving, so if, at the very least, it gets people reading his words, then it's worth it.

Olney Hymns 2 - The Waiting Soul

Here is the second recording/movie for my ongoing Olney Hymns project. I went to a bit more effort with the filming and recording of this one. The lyrics are available if you watch the video at YouTube. It is one of William Cowper's more mournful offerings but still strangely uplifting. I hope you like it.

New Year's Hymn

I recently set myself the fairly ridiculous task of writing new tunes for the best of John Newton and William Cowper's masterpiece, the "Olney Hymns" - excluding, perhaps, "Amazing Grace", which is so well-known that it would be hard to add to it. Yesterday I encountered this wonderful hymn, written by John Newton, to herald in the new year. It is sadly one of the many of the Olney Hymns which we no longer know or sing, so I've provided a fairly basic recording of my version of it. I am not a great composer and the quality of the recording is not worth commenting on, but I hope that listening to it might help the words resonate more and that, through them, you might be able to focus your minds on God as the new year hurries in.

From this day forward, Or, So this is the new year...

I suppose it is consistent with much of my temperament that I should like what New Year celebrations represent. After all, I use Lent as a time to reflect on Jesus' suffering for us, Advent as a time to prepare for Christmas and for Jesus' return. So what should New Year represent? A new start? A time of renewal? A time of resolution?

It's quite interesting to observe how different people manage the issue of New Year's resolutions. A guy I met on the New Year's Eve just gone told me that he had made a resolution six years ago which he's managed so far to keep. His resolution? To not make any more New Year's resolutions. Others recognise the need for resolve but feel awkward about the tradition - and understandably. For most, this time of year is a reminder of their own failings. With the buzz of the new year all manner of grand promises are made, and then...nothing. No difference.

Ben Gibbard of Death Cab for Cutie wrote a reflection on this some years ago which I now always think of each New Year:

So this is the new year

And I have no resolutions

For self assigned penance

For problems with easy solutions

Gibbard's words are relatively bitter, but they speak out of a recognition that the mere arrival of New Year's Day does not make us "feel any different". We are the same people, with the same failings.

But does it stop there? Interestingly, John Wesley saw New Year's Day as a time rich with symbolism for a renewed and transformed life, and so the old Methodist Prayer Book included a liturgy for the Covenant Renewal Service which was, I believe, to be read on the first Sunday of the new year. My church minister, a former Methodist now Anglican (the Methodists, after all, don't exactly exist in Australia any more), shared some of that service with us yesterday, with New Year's Day happily falling on a Sunday this year. This prayer that he read to us particularly stood out for me and I think it's a wonderful prayer for all believers to say at the beginning of their year. The parts in bold are read by the whole congregation.

Commit yourselves to Christ as his servants.

Give yourselves to him, that you may belong to him...

Let me be your servant, under your command.

I will no longer be my own.

I will give up myself to your will in all things.

Be satisfied that Christ shall give you your place and work.

Lord, make me what you will.

I put myself fully into your hands:

put me to doing, put me to suffering,

let me be employed for you, or laid aside for you,

let me be full, let me be empty,

let me have all things, let me have nothing.

I freely and with a willing heart

give it all to your pleasure and disposal.

If, of course, we know anything about ourselves, we will know how monumentally hard that prayer is to pray. Perhaps, then, we need to start with a prayer of grace, a recognition that we cannot even pray these words without God enabling us: a prayer something like:

"Lord, I believe; help my unbelief." (Mark 9:24)