When a child prays, "Dear God, please bless Mummy, please bless Daddy, please bless Auntie Joan and Uncle Bob, and please bless Buster the dog" the thought behind the prayer is usually a request that 'good' things will happen to these people (and the dog) - the sorts of things that will make them happy. Yesterday at CBC, as a part of our series looking at the Kingdom of God, we looked at the Beatitudes (Matthew 5:1-12) - helping us to explore a bit more what life in the kingdom looks like and recognising that the kingdom Jesus is inviting us to be a part of is very much an upside down kingdom.
That is to say, those values and people which are usually looked down on and despised suddenly find themselves at the top of the pile rather than at the bottom. We'll have a look at the individual Beatitudes later in the week but today I want just to think about what it means to be 'blessed'. The word used in the New Testament here is 'makarios'. In the NIV this is mostly translated 'blessed' but is also translated in a few verses as good (e.g. Matt. 24:46), fortunate (Acts 26:2) and happier (1 Cor. 7:40). Some translations, such as the Good News, translate 'makarios' here in Matthew 5 as 'happy' - e.g. "Happy are those who mourn; God will comfort them!" In his Life Builders Bible Study notes on the Sermon on the Mount, John Stott writes,
...it is seriously misleading to render makarios "happy". For happiness is a subjective state, whereas Jesus is making an objective judgement about these people. He is declaring not what they may feel like ("happy"), but what God thinks of them and what on that account they are ("blessed"). [page 56].
A while ago at CBC we started singing a few songs by Rend Collective, and for Christmas I got their latest CD - As Family We Go. One of the tracks on this album is 'Joy of the Lord' and the story behind this song demonstrates the Upside Down nature of the kingdom - how that even at times of great personal difficulty and pain we can still choose joy. Listen to Ali and Gareth from Rend Collective talk about a difficult time in their marriage due to a miscarriage and how the song "Joy Of The Lord" came about.
This morning we're starting a new series at CBC looking at the theme of the 'Kingdom of God'. We're going to be focusing on Matthew's gospel - of the four gospels Matthew says most about the Kingdom of God (although he often uses the phrase the Kingdom of heaven). We won't have time on Sunday to look at the structure of Matthew's gospel in any detail but here are two introductory videos that will provide us with a good overview of Matthew's gospel. Those of you who are following our Bible reading programme will recognise these videos as the work of the great people over at The Bible Project.
Happy New Year. I know that there are only a limited number of themes that fit with the first Sunday of a new year - resolutions, new beginnings, looking back, looking ahead...but I still think that there is value in having a series of annual 'signposts' that help keep us pointing in the right direction. When we were looking at Leviticus during the autumn we saw that within Israel's year there were a range of festivals that were designed to give them a break from 'normal' life, to pause and to reflect and to think about what their God had already done for them and what he had promised he would do for them in the future. The first Sunday of a new year can be one of those signposts - an opportunity to look back at the year just gone, and to look ahead to the year to come. This morning at CBC that's what we did. We looked back with thankfulness and we looked ahead putting our trust in God.
As I look back into 2015 there were things that happened that I was not expecting this time last year - some difficult times - but times when I experienced the presence and love of God. Events that give me confidence for the future, because God is faithful. He walked with me throughout a difficult 2015 and he has promised to walk with us in 2016 whatever this coming year holds. The words that we used this morning on the candle 'wrapper' came from a poem written by Minnie Louise Haskins and famously quoted by King George VI in his Christmas address of 1939, shortly after the outbreak of World War II. Here are the words of the first verse:
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
“Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown.”
And he replied:
“Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the Hand of God.That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way.”
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.And He led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
