Is Anyone Listening?

 

My wife has been deaf for a few days. Voices have been raised - an unusual phenomenon in our house! At least, it's usually me that is turning the television volume up and complaining that young people just don't speak clearly anymore! Now, thanks to an infection of the sinuses and ears, the tables are turned. Even my loud invitation 'Would you like a cup of tea my love?' went without her acknowledging me with a brief nod. I was transmitting but she was not receiving! Thankfully, a course of antibiotic pills and a steroid ear-spray seem to be doing the trick, and life may soon return to its previous calm in our home.

But Diane's condition has alerted me to my own spiritual deafness. I serve a God who speaks. But I very rarely hear what he is saying. Only occasionally can I quieten the frantic clamour of smartphone, emails, tv news, social media and messaging to even ask if he has something to say. It seems that I suffer from the equivalent of congestion of the soul, or perhaps blocked spiritual sinuses!

What kind of father would I be if I didn't want to speak to my child, or grandfather that only spoke to their grandchild once a year or so? God is a loving heavenly Father, who delights to communicate with his children. He does so through his words in the Bible, but also by the whisper of his Spirit in our quietened hearts. He is speaking every day - but are we listening?

In George Bernard Shaw's play Saint Joan, the newly crowned King Charles says to Joan of Arc:

'Oh your voices, your voices. Why don't the voices come to me? I am king, not you.' Joan replies; 'They do come to you but you do not hear them. You have not sat in the field in the evening listening for them'.🞼 

Diane's deafness is thankfully short-lived. A course of medication will clear it, but my spiritual deafness may take a little longer to undo. Maybe I should pray the prayer of Samuel, the Old Testament prophet who said to God 'Speak Lord, for your servant is listening'?

🞼 quoted by Peter Lawrence in The Spirit who Speaks (DavidCCookUK, Eastbourne, 2011) 63.

Is there any Hope?

"Hope is vital - it's not a question of what you hope for, but who you hope in." These words on BBC Radio 4 recently challenged me. We all hope for things - whether for relief from pain or distress, a great holiday, or a home that is our own, and these are all legitimate. But hope for life beyond the grave is a huge ask. Nobody knows what waits for us there because no-one has come back to tell us.

But hang on a moment - somebody has! This Easter Day we celebrate the greatest day in history. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins on the first Good Friday and then rose again from the dead on the following Sunday. More than 500 eye witnesses confirmed sightings of him with some them touching his body and others speaking with him. The early Christian church would never have grown to become the world's major religion if the resurrection was a fraud or a lie. The disciples would not have given their lives as martyrs in painful deaths if they knew they had stolen the body. All the Jewish leaders had to do was go to the guarded tomb and produce Christ's remains and the new faith would have been stopped in its tracks. They did not because they could not. Christ is risen!

Through the storms of major illness that have come my way over the last couple of decades I have had several moments very close to death. I even reviewed my own 'final arrangements' again last week as I prepared to undergo potentially dangerous (for me) cardiac procedures in hospital a few days ago. One day I will walk that valley right through, but I have a serious and sustaining hope. Since Jesus rose from the dead I shall also rise, because I believe in and am following Him. Jesus said; 'Because I live, you shall live also' (John 14:19).

In the words of the Old Testament writer of the Psalms "Put your hope in God". The message of this great resurrection day is that hope in Him will see you through this life's struggles and even into eternity. Christ is risen indeed!
 

A Tomb with a View

 

There is a tomb with a view at the centre of the Easter story. A place of cold grief and bitter tears. A real tomb for a really dead man, not just somewhere for a swooned imposter to await rescue by his fellow conspirators. This is God's tomb, where God the Son tasted death for me. This is the devil's best, an attempt to wipe out the catalogue of miracles and mercy that Jesus wrote in Galilee and substitute his own pathetic offering of "always look on the bright side" and "did God really say..?" doubt.

It doesn't really surprise me that Jesus rose from the dead. He is the Lord of life after all, the creator of all that lives. What is amazing is that the broken body of Jesus lay shattered in this grave for as long as it did. There are all kinds of ideas as to what Jesus might have been doing during those days and nights, but for me the great miracle of Easter is that God entered human broken-ness at its lowest and darkest. Smashed by evil men, bloodied, crushed and discarded, - "this is my body, broken for you".

And the view from the tomb of Jesus is magnificent. Its light casts a quick flicker of hope over a place of suffering and pain, Golgotha or Calvary, and slowly expands towards the brilliant dawn that is already starting to change the colours we see only through our tears. Yes, this is God's tomb, but much more than that - it is MY tomb as well. For, in the words of the Apostle Paul, "I have been crucified with Christ" (Galatians 2:20). The old me is dead and buried, and just as Jesus breaks forth from the tomb outside Jerusalem, so I am set free by Christ from self, from having to impress others, even from the fear of death itself.

I am grateful that God knows what it feels like to suffer and die, and be laid in a tomb by weeping loved ones. I am glad that he understands my pain, and yours, and that he comes to us on our 'silent Saturdays' and dark nights of the soul. But I'm also rejoicing that the tomb is no longer in use as a grave. The Lord of life and glory could not be held by those chains of death. 

And here's an offer you won't see in many catalogues - it can be YOUR tomb as well! "Oh thanks Eric" I can hear you say "that's all I need on top of everything else I am suffering". But that's the whole point, this tomb is the place where you can lay your sufferings down, and your achievements, and stop trying to impress God and others. You can be identified with Jesus in His death also, and rise with Him to a completely new life! It may be Easter Saturday, but hey - Sunday's coming!

Have a very happy Easter!