h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This month is going past at an alarming rate. I have found a possible place to go in Diep River once a week I think it is. Eclectic, they say. Don't necessarily have to go to church.

Don't worry,
be happy
cause every little thing
's gonna be all right

szeretlek

The Lord’s Supper, or the Eucharist as it is known in more formal church circles, is symbolic of one of the basic realities of our faith: that our participation in the broken body of Jesus and in his poured out blood, our eating his flesh and drinking his blood, is an effective, living symbol of how we become one with God both in our brokenness with Jesus’ brokenness and also with the wine of the blood of our life, which, like the Lord Christ’s, is given for others. In the Old Testament God says that “the life is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11), so the Blood of Jesus is another way of saying the Life of Jesus. Now, blood can only be poured out through wounds, and just as Jesus spilt his blood through the wounds which were inflicted on him during the Passion, so it is that our blood, which through Christ gives life to our neighbour, can only work as we endure the metaphorical wounds that he inflicts on us.

Christian woundedness has this unique quality, that it does not insist on justice and retribution for the one who wounds us. Instead, when we are wounded, we allow our “blood” or life to spill freely onto our neighbour as he wounds us, who is by our life brought closer to the life of Jesus; because our life and Jesus’ life become one life through our faith. We are made one in the death and the life of Jesus through our discipleship, so that when the situation arises in which we are hurt by a friend or by an enemy, the woundedness which we endure takes on a likeness to the woundedness of Jesus, and the blood that pours through our wound is as the power of Jesus’ life to the one who hurts us.

If we stop the blood from flowing freely by covering up our woundedness, for pride’s sake, or for any other reason grounded in the protection of our self, then we hinder the ministry of Christ through us to a hostile, hurting world. We allow ourselves to be wounded freely by a world which hurts as it hurts us, and hates us as it hated Jesus (John 15:18) as we allow our blood, which is our life, freely to pour out of us to the weal of the one who wounds us.

For this reason we mustn’t seek to avoid the death of loss of face, shame or embarrassment at the hands of a hostile world. For what is death to us, our life flowing freely in the scarlet of our blood, is life to the one who offers us the wounds which we bear in fellowship with Christ. As we drink the blood of Jesus at the Lord’s supper, so our blood takes on some of the life-giving power of Jesus’ blood; so let us not avoid situations of woundings and hurts. Indeed, in the early church, the believers used to show eagerness for a bloody martyrdom, and it is often said that the blood of the martyrs was central to the growth of the Jesus faith.

Wounds will come. Blood will flow. Let us therefore become one with Christ, in the eating of his flesh, both literally as we eat the Bread, and metaphorically as we are broken on the world’s wheel; and in the drinking of his blood, both literally as we drink the Wine, and metaphorically as we lose our ‘lives’, in the stain of some unforeseen shame or social defeat or hardship. And one with Christ, we shall receive the Life of Jesus in death’s stead – that whoever wounds us, finds in our brokenness the brokenness of Christ the Bread of Life, and in our poured out, given-away life, the power of the blood of Christ, which washes away the sin of the world. “By his stripes we were healed”, says the Prophet of Christ (Isaiah 53:5; 1 Peter 2:24); so in our turn, one with Christ, let the one who hurts us, find his healing in our wounds.

So the Lord’s Supper symbolises that about us which made Martin Luther call believers “little Christs” - we are in our own measure, to the few others we are given to die for, as Christ was and is to the whole world. In our Union with Christ, as they break the bread of our bodies of flesh, it is as God’s body is broken: and the wine of God’s life pours out to them that hurt us, through the wounds of the death they inflict.

The little fanless touchscreen Acer is a brilliant little machine! Superfast, it seems... no trouble recording a Cheese video on full resolution, unlike this machine (Ultrabook). Only thing is, it won't shut down properly, and I've got to find a way of making it shut down before handing it on an die ferne Geliebte. Of course you can leave it on a lot of the time. But it is probably a good idea to give it a rest now and then. Mint Qiana runs just fine on it. The shutdown issue is supposed to have been fixed, but it reappeared in later versions of the kernel, which suggests to me that it will reappear each time the kernel is updated.

I just don't know what to do... this morning was a horrible experience for us both.

I don't know about my Lord's Supper tract. I seem to say the same thing over and over in slightly different ways. But it is a really like vital aspect of the Supper and it is the aspect I wanted to really get across. The language might be slightly dense for Sindi's youth. I don't know. It might give them a good challenge. Definitely one for the book. All I've got to do for the next few months is write one of these for each aspect of the Way that occurs to me. And after decades of discipleship and apprenticeship I reckon it should be a pure pleasure to write these and complete "Teaching in the Township".

I want to do one on "do not touch" in Colossians because that was big for me once and so will be for someone now. The thing is to get a really nice meaty context for it.

Frank Retief preaching prophetically about witness in the townships by people living for God's glory. How I love that bloke.

Sindi especially liked "Together In Weakness". Having dismal recollections of times when I've been in company and realising why I spend all my time alone. God, it's awful. This is why Helga was so desperately wrong in sacking me. It was the only time I've ever felt of any value to anyone.

I mean I'm listening to Edith Sher and even she's gone off message now. Has no-one the authentic Biblical Faith these days? Is it all Protestant logic-chopping? Mind you even Athanasius was guilty of that, a bit, in one of his works on Arius. There's a hardness comes through that has no place in the Bible or in God or anywhere. It seems to be almost universal. This is why I love the Jews so much. Because they don't have it.

I think I should try to write something substantialish on Grace. This is, as David says, the single greatest and most alien-to-fallen-human-nature reality in God, that there is. And hardly anyone in the faith here gets it right. Oh the Revelation TV lot do, most of them. But I'm talking about locally. You get the odd jewel. I hope they know who they are. I love them so much. I had better be jolly careful how I write because last time I nearly lost my salvation.

Just seen something I haven't seen since I was six years old, that's 39 years ago. Michael Hordern pronouncing Paddington stories on YouTube.

I'm having a totally surreal ondervinding at the moment. Totally surreal. Extraordinarily so. I've been having it for what seems like months! Weird. I mean, what if ... you know. Yeah. But... no idea. Totally toasted teacake on the lawn with the Vicar don't you know.

If I started taking my pills properly would it all go away? Then what would I do? But I can't carry on like this indefinitely. I'll ... I dunno. Owww.

It was horrible this morning. She's all right now. Thank God. I didn't know what was going on. It was Sunday. All day. Is that you? Everything's very trippy suddenly, like it was 1975.

Quite pleased with this one.

A holy nation, a royal priesthood (1 Peter 2:9)

Martin Luther had the revelation, radical at the time, that every believer is a priest of God, with Jesus Christ our Great High Priest (1 Peter 2:9, Hebrews 4:14). This was new at a time when everyone, apart from the ‘heretics’, was Roman Catholic and had to go to God through a Roman priest. He read in the Bible that we are all priests – this idea is found in both Testaments (Exodus 19:6, 1 Peter 2:9).

What is a priest? Very simply, a priest is a representative. He represents the people to God, and he represents God to the people. One of the ways in which he represents the people to God, is by praying for them (Hebrews 7:25). This is a vital part of the believer’s life – intercessory prayer, which entails a sacrificial life, just as Jesus is both High Priest and holy sacrifice (Hebrews 4:14, Romans 12:1). Not everyone is called to be a full-time intercessor – there have been, and are still today, people whose main calling it is to be intercessors, that is, people who pray for other people. But we all have the ability, and the duty to intercede before God for those people whom God gives us to pray for (Isaiah 8:18). Just as Christ is touched with the infirmities of his people (Hebrews 4:15), so each of us is called to carry other people’s loads (Galatians 6:2, 5). This is part and parcel of the priest’s vocation. Just as Jesus was given for our sake, so we are saved for the sake of those yet to hear the Gospel, to make disciples (Matthew 28:19).

So we stand before God representing the people (Hebrews 5:1). But we also stand before the people representing God (Romans 8:19). What does this entail? It means, again in Luther’s words, that each believer is a “little Christ”; it is often preached from the pulpit that each of us may be the only New Testament some people ever get to read. As John says, he who calls himself a believer must walk as Jesus walked (1 John 2:6). Jesus walked in the Spirit, whose fruit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control (Galatians 5:22-23).

Representing the God who represents us

Our priesthood becomes visible when we are abused, hurt or insulted, struck on the cheek, forced to walk the extra mile (Matthew 3:9). We do not return insult for insult, but we soak up the pain of the blow, taking it to Jesus, and even turn the other cheek offering ourselves as living sacrifices for the pain of the world. (Isaiah 53:7, Romans 12:1). Hurting people hurt people, so when someone strikes us, they are forcing us to endure their own pain, which we bear in the Spirit with Christ before the Father. When someone wounds us, they are exposing the wound of their pain to us. So we don’t return evil for evil, making their pain worse, but we respond to it with love, offering ourselves, vulnerable to more. As we love and forgive those who sin against us (Matthew 6:12), Christ’s love pours through our wound into the exposed wound of the painful one and is as the soothing balm of Gilead to them (Jeremiah 8:22; Luke 10:34). The insults they give us as thost with which they insult Christ (Romans 15:3); so we are the crucified God to them as they hurt us. And the love we lavish on the hurting in return for their blows, is the flowing Spirit of Christ the risen God in us, healing and restoring (1 Peter 3:9, Colossians 1:29). Sacrificial faith, sacrificial hope and above all, sacrificial love are those things which mark us out as being God’s children (1 John, James passim). They are the content of our priestly standing before the people as ambassadors of Christ (2 Corinthians 5:20). Let us therefore be reconciled to God, so that Christ can reconcile the world to himself through us (2 Corinthians 5:18, 20).

Oh I want her so bad.

I dreamt of marrying a Cape Town girl,
all brown skin and sparkling eyes and black, black hair
with jewels in her black hair
and we eloped! a whirlwind romance
Paris honeymoon. A week in the summer at Sabie
and back home to Cape Town

So was my dream. My nightmare is over, I am stirring in my sleep
and breaking through the waves of sleep
into a daydream of love with my Cape Town girl
all brown skin and sparkling eyes and black, black hair
with jewels in her black hair

Clever girl. Musical girl. Theatre girl. Sexy girl.
So I dreamt my opium dream
but I will awake now