Matt Lillicrap's Blog

So we come to a very national sort of ending. It’s one which we all knew would come, and yet somehow felt as though it never really would. 3 or 4 generations of us have known nothing other than periodic jubilee celebrations, or singing “God save the Queen” or her face adorning coins and stamps and newspaper articles.

In the hours since the death of Queen Elizabeth tributes have rolled in. Countless words have been spoken, but one thing has stood out. It was there in Boris Johnson’s words in parliament, that “we have perhaps been lulled into thinking that she might be in some way eternal.” It was there as another MP quoted W.H. Auden’s famous words, “We thought that love would last for ever: We were wrong.”

Funnily enough, it was the French president, Emmanuel Macron who managed to capture it best:

“She was one with her nation: she embodied a people, a territory, and a shared will. And stability: above the fluctuations and upheaval of politics, she represented a sense of eternity.”

That “sense of eternity” is the recurring theme in so many tributes. Objectively speaking, the death of someone at 96—especially someone as beloved and remarkable as Queen Elizabeth II—is deeply sad, tragic even. But it won’t usually be described as a “shock.” Yet that seems to be the overwhelming description at the moment. The country is experiencing a “deep sense of shock.”

Queen Elizabeth was the ever-present ruler. She herself seemed almost unchanging despite the fantastic changes that took place in the UK and in the world throughout her reign.

But, as all things must, that reign has come to an end. And, as so many floral tributes have put it, we can’t really believe she’s gone.

Endings pervade everything we do. Every day of our lives comes to an end. The sun sets, the sun rises. We roll from season to season, spring giving way to summer to autumn to winter. Year after year starts and finishes. We watch children around us grow out of their baby-vests, leave toddlerhood behind, take their first faltering steps into primary school, stride into secondary school with as much confidence as they can muster, and then in a blink they’re adults. And the cycle starts again.

Yes, endings are everywhere. You could argue that they’re pretty much the most normal thing about our lives.

Yet, we have a strange relationship with them. Sometimes they relieve us. A difficult time recedes into the distance. Others excite us for what inevitably follows. Sometimes they daunt us for exactly the same reasons. And then there are those endings, like this one, which leave us feeling bereft.

The one thing which endings don’t do is pass unnoticed. But isn’t that odd? If endings are one of the most normal things about our lives, if they’re inescapable, then why should we be so surprised by them? To paraphrase C.S. Lewis, our constant surprise at the finality of endings—whether in relief or sadness—is rather like a fish being constantly surprised at the wetness of water.

The only conclusion to draw is that endings jar with us because we long for the world to be different. We yearn for reality not to be as it is. And we find hooks onto which those yearnings can be placed. Deep down we know that the story we have been subconsciously telling ourselves is an illusion. We knew that Elizabeth II’s reign would not simply continue—we know that the present is not, in fact, eternal. But we insulate ourselves from that truth.

Despite our love of the new and novel, we humans crave stability and permanence, and for 70 years Elizabeth provided that and then some.

This ending has taken us by surprise because it has shown us that she wasn't the place to find that permanence.

There is just one place to really find it; a higher throne.

Perhaps this particular ending reveals that our yearning for what can't be found in this world—even in the lengthy reign of an utterly remarkable woman—is proof enough that we were made for another.

If you would like to read more about how the tales we tell reveal the life we long for, grab a copy of Reality and Other Stories. I'd love to hear what you make of it!

So, I’ve written a book.

It has been a real joy to write Reality and Other Stories together with Pete Dray. He and I are both convinced that as well as being central to the way we understand the world, the stories we tell and enjoy are also like compasses. If we look along the desires to which they point—whether it’s a whispered hope that some monstrous hardship will be overcome, or the unspoken longing for the home we’re sure we belong to, but have never fully experienced—we’ll find that they converge on one point. Jesus is the culmination of the life we long for, revealed in the tales we tell.

Along the way I asked a few people for advice and tips on making writing smoother. I wasn’t overly surprised to hear the same answer over and over: “just get writing, it’s the only way.”

“You only learn to write by writing” they say.

Clever, really. There’s only one way to prove or disprove that isn’t there?!

I’m not sure if many other things in life are like that—where we can only learn to do something we cannot do by doing the very thing we cannot yet do. Walking, I guess. And there are sure to be some stumbles and bumps along the way.

Or then again, maybe most things have a hint of that. I remember walking onto a hospital ward as a freshly minted doctor, and being hit by the realisation that I knew… nothing. I had no clue how to be a doctor.

But then again, it wasn’t really like that. 5 years of medical school training do count for something. It was at least important to know what I didn’t know.

But this isn’t actually a post about writing. It’s about living. Although they’re connected.

That’s another of those phrases which ‘they’ say. It’s even become pretty cliché—maybe a parody of itself. Take a sip of your double-shot-skinny-soy-cappuccino, lean back in the faux-leather chair, pause just long enough that you might be about to say something profound, and repeat after me:

‘Life is story’

Or maybe tweet it, or instagram it. Add a soft focus landscape or a photo of the cappuccino you’re drinking as a background.

But when a truism becomes a cliché it’s only a matter of time before it appears to be as fake as the curated social media pictures it adorns.

The thing is, this truism is actually true.

Life is a story. We explain our actions and their consequences by telling stories. And we tell and retell ourselves stories all the time. We spot patterns and weave narratives. We know that the black shape we’re walking towards is a hole to be avoided because we’ve seen that sort of thing before, and we know how the story ends if we don’t step around it.

Some might say that’s because we can’t survive in a meaningless world any other way. We have to impose meaning. Take a pinch of pattern recognition, add an ounce of creativity, and stories are the result. Of course we needed to develop them: it’s an evolutionary necessity. It doesn’t mean the meaning is actually there in any real or objective sense.

Except, that’s a story itself, isn’t it? According to it’s own argument, somewhere along the line we noticed a story-telling pattern in ourselves and came up with that story to explain it. Meaning that by its own rules it can have no more basis in objective reality than all the stories it claims to explain.

Ask an author, though, and they’ll often describe writing a story as being more like discovering something than building it. Stephen King describes himself as a fossil hunter. His stories are waiting to be dug out of the ground, as it were.

"Time comes into it.

Say it. Say it.

The universe is made of stories,

not of atoms."

(Muriel Rukeyser)

In the end, all we can do with our creativity is rearrange meaning that was already there.

Which makes sense, and adds a whole load of weight to that line, “life is story.” We’re not just wondering through a sea of meaningless matter, clutching at dust moats and desperately trying to stick enough of them together to build something substantial. We are substantial already.

Life is a story because it has been written, or better, spoken, by an author. No, the Author.

And then, shock of all, he passed the pen. In his unfathomable wisdom he formed little sub-authors, writers within his own (hi)story. They all spill their ink and smudge their work, their plots are winding, repetitive and usually contradictory, but in the end they do produce actual stories.

And—get this, because it’s mind-blowing—because he’s the infinite Author, He’s also the infinite Reader—which means he pays equal and full attention to every single one.

No one gets to be his most-read. Your story means as much to him—and even delights him—as anyone else’s.

All of which is to say, life is story because life in God’s world is happening to us. We’re inescapably storied.

But life is also story because we’re happening to it—we’re inescapably story-telling too.

Which brings me back to writing.

If “the only way to learn to write is by writing” and it is actually true (which it is) that our lives are actually stories (which they are), then it turns out that the only way to learn to live is by living.

There are sure to be some stumbles and bumps along the way. But it’s the only way there is. You can’t read up on living at the library before you get on with it. There’s no preparatory course or training program. You just start, and start learning.

Is that really an earth-shattering revelation? Probably not.

But then again, I’ve been studying a lot of Ecclesiastes lately (can you tell?!). I’m pretty sure that one of the big reasons that God decided to include such an enigmatic book in his Book is because we need to understand this.

It occurs to me that we Christians have a problem here—often of our own making.

Here’s the problem: We have our theology of history all sewn up. We know things went badly wrong, and we rejoice that God has done something to put them wonderfully right. So we look back at the start of all our problems, rooted in our sin, we look around and groan at the effects of all the problems, and then we look ahead to the end of all the problems, knowing that one day it will all be put right.

It’s true, it’s wonderful, but it’s also got a huge chunk missing.

Can you spot it?

One of the other first lessons authors always teach is that every good story goes beginning, middle, end. We know this. It’s true of literally every story we’ve ever read or heard or watched. And we know that without the middle there’s no story. The princess is lost, the princess is found. Aladdin is poor… then he’s not. The Empire’s bad then the Empire’s gone. Ordinary citizens are going about their ordinary lives with no idea of the danger they’re in, then… they’re going about their ordinary lives with no idea of the danger they were in. Those aren’t plots which will form the next bestseller or box-office smash any time soon.

So why do we so often cut the middle out of the greatest story of all?

It happens all the time.

We struggle with a particular pattern of sin, always seeming to trip up in just the same way, and begin to imagine there’s no hope for change now. So we give up fighting, or plunge into despair. We forget that we’re still in the middle of the story of God’s grace towards us now.

Or, life feels like it’s going wrong. We start wondering if we messed up somewhere along the way. We know God is our Father, and we may not doubt his love per se, but we suspect that he’s constantly just a bit disappointed with us. Maybe he’s even given up on us for now and we’re relegated to the waiting room. We might still be (fairly) certain of salvation: we know what Jesus did in the past, but now all we can do is wait until the future finally comes, convinced that there’s nothing much to do until then. Again, we forget the middle of the story, God’s grace happening right now.

Or, we long to feel valued, so we look to our education, work, families, hobbies, or pleasures to provide some sense of significance. Only, we find that the best we manage is to come away with a fistful of wind, and our yearning only grows. This time we forget the middle of the story by assuming that we’re already at the end, and we mistake God’s good gifts now for the ultimate thing itself.

God’s grace is writing one enormous story onto the pages of history. But it’s made up of billions of smaller stories, all overlapping, all in process, all being witnessed and co-written by his sub-authors.

So, if the only way we learn to write is by writing, and if life is a story we’re co-authoring, then the only way to learn to live is by living as we keep going,

onwards to glory.

Another guest post. This time by my wife, Anika reflecting on grief, how it can grab at us even in the most mundane ways, and how it is overcome in Christ as we journey onwards to glory...

“I’m sorry. The dog got your shoe.”

With these words my husband broke the news that my favourite pair of shoes, ones that we’d bought just a few months ago on an anniversary weekend-away, were never to be worn again.

I had just come downstairs to get lunch and suddenly I wasn’t hungry anymore. Grief can do that—override appetite. And now maybe you’re thinking ‘It was just a shoe—get a grip!’ and in some ways you’re right. But if I’m being honest, the way I felt was grief-in-miniature.

Something that mattered to me,

something that showed I mattered to Matt,

something that told a funny part of our story,*

something that brought me joy,

was gone forever.

Cycling across the city later, thinking about my little loss, I noticed the different characters my mind and heart were tempted to play.

First there was the magician. My initial inclination to say ‘Oh it’s not really damaged—I can mend it’ was an attempt to make my loss simply disappear.

Then there was the gladiator. The temptation to fight, to protect myself from sorrow by overlaying it with empowering anger instead.

Anger at the dog—she did it!

Anger at Matt—he was in charge of her.

Anger at myself—I left my shoes where she could get them.

Anger at God—he let this happen.

I noticed an inner-stoic, rationalising and problem-solving: ‘It’s just a shoe, I can always buy another pair’ conversing with my inner-optimist: ‘At least I enjoyed them for a few months.’ Together they re-packaged my sadness neatly in a box and tied it with a ribbon.

And jostling amongst them all was a fantasy-writer inventing alternative scripts that began with ‘what if’ or ‘if only’ and, like the magician, finding a way to undo the loss.

Matt’s response revealed yet another character. He cried (we are not at our most resilient right now!) and his inner-pessimist catastrophised ‘This is awful. Just typical. Everything is going wrong.’

What difference does Jesus make to this slice of life? Can the gospel be brought to bear on a broken shoe? How does Christ-in-me change things?

Christ-IN-me: peddling past cows by the Cam, I was comforted that Christ-IN-me means Christ is here, in this moment with me. I can talk to him right now and by his Spirit he can shape my thoughts and feelings. The God who ordained my days and is familiar with my ways (Psalm 139:3,16) still invites me to pour out my heart to him (Psalm 62:8). ‘Lord I’m sad about my shoes. So many things feel hard at the moment and this seems like an extra unnecessary hard thing. I really loved wearing them and they reminded me of a happy time’

CHRIST-in-me: Broken things are death-reminders. My shoe is part of that which will perish, spoil and fade (1 Pet 1:4), part of that suffering-and-sin reality that started in Genesis 3. My sin is my personal contribution to the world’s brokenness. But Jesus entered that brokenness, becoming a man of sorrows familiar with grief (Isaiah 53:3), allowing himself to be broken, in order to redeem it. ‘You Lord know what sorrow really is. How much more sorrow you have felt than my small sorrow at my shoe. You took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows. Teach me to sorrow well. To be one of the blessed who mourn and who will be comforted (Matt 5:4). Lord, have I loved the things you have given me more than I have loved you? Forgive me. I groan along with creation, longing for all things to be made new. And they WILL be made new - because you rose.’

Christ-in-ME: Because he rose, and he is in me, I can daydream about my new-creation clothing! One day, as a member of Christ’s bride, beautifully dressed for her husband, my heavenly footwear will befit the redeemed and sanctified me. And I won’t be thinking of these old shoes then, nor of my sin, but only of Christ. ‘Lord, I can’t wait to be standing with that multitude in white, around your throne. Let the certainty of that day-to-come shape my experience of this day. Let thoughts of my perished shoes lead to thoughts of my living Hope, that inheritance kept in heaven for me which will never perish, spoil or fade, and fill me with your inexpressible and glorious joy (1 Peter 1:8) even as I go to collect the children from school.

So, Christ-in-me made this sole-destroying event a soul-restoring one!

Because of the gospel, I could grieve-with-hope-in-miniature. I need not be a magician, gladiator, stoic, optimist or pessimist but can allow myself to feel my sorrow with Jesus, who knows and has felt it. He holds both me and my tears (Psalm 56:8) until the time when they will all be wiped away, and I (and my feet!) will be clothed in glorious white around his throne.

*The funny part of the story being that at 8pm on the evening before officiating at a wedding during this weekend-away, Matt realised he had forgotten his suit. After some panic and prayer we managed to find a suit shop that stayed open late just to help us. And because he got a new outfit, as a bonus I did too! The shoes were the finishing touch.

It has been some time since my last post. A while spent adjusting to new surroundings and new circumstances. I plan to get posting again regularly, but for now, here's a wonderful post from a good friend of mine who has been serving overseas in East Asia

Reluctant Adventurers

In the stories of Tolkien, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins don’t charge down the road at Bag End, hungry for adventure. Gandalf must coax them out of their happy Hobbit existence in the Shire. They are reluctant adventurers. Yet for me that's what makes them so compelling.

Their reluctance comes from one of their chief characteristics as Hobbits: love of home.

A Hobbit wants nothing better than to put up their large feet in front of a cosy fire enjoying crumpets and tea or perhaps a beer with friends at The Ivy Bush on Bywater Road. No Hobbit has plans for a quiet night on the arid slopes of Mount Doom.

As a cross-cultural missionary there’s a certain amount of adventure that comes my way. Our family life on the road, in the air, or on a bike, meeting new people and seeing God at work in an unreached East Asian country of mega cities and rice paddies is never dull.

But the real adventure which I’m on, that we’re all on as Christians, is the quest to follow Jesus wherever he leads, to fight back the darkness by spreading rumours of the King and by pouring myself out, with all my might, for the church which he bought and the lost whom he calls.

For me and my family, fulfilling this call has meant a journey far from our Shire of the UK to East Asia and the least reached.

A Reluctant Missionary

Here’s my confession: I’m a reluctant missionary, a reluctant adventurer. Why? Perhaps there’s Baggins blood in me; I deeply love home. And I get on the plane with the same heavy heart as Frodo’s when he set out on his journey:

“Of course, I have sometimes thought of going away, but I imagined that as a kind of holiday a series of adventures like Bilbo’s or better, ending in peace. But this would mean exile, a flight from danger into danger, drawing after me. And I suppose I must go alone, if I am to do that and save the Shire. But I feel very small, and very uprooted, and well- desperate. The Enemy is so strong and terrible.”

Are you asking me to go on a holiday? Sure, I’ll do that. A short adventure ending in peace? No problem.

But that’s not the Christian call nor the missionary call. It’s to leave the Shire to save the Shire. It’s to leave the peace of home to secure for God’s global church eternal Home, eternal Shire, if you like, through hearts won and made strong in Christ.

Uprooted

But I feel very small, and very uprooted. We suddenly had to return home following the shock news that my dad had cancer. An emergency plane ride and five short, bitter-sweet days later with Dad, and he died. The grief is made all the more painful as we hadn’t seen each other for two years due to Covid. We left home for the sake of Home, the eternal kingdom of Christ. But the cost was more than we’d expected. I lost two years with the heart of my home, Dad, never to be regained. Many mission workers have lost much, much more.

And so, we’re back in the UK, but without Dad. And having lived in seven places in two and a half years, it’s hard to say where home even is anymore.

Somewhere

Will we get back on the plane to East Asia, leaving home again? You bet. Reluctantly. And here’s why:

“I feel that as long as the Shire lies behind, safe and comfortable, I shall find wandering more bearable: I shall know that somewhere there is a firm foothold, even if my feet cannot stand there again.”

Frodo left home, buoyed by knowledge of home that lay behind. With Dad gone, I’m not so sure that it’s the home that lies behind me that will make our wanderings for Christ bearable.

No, it is the Shire, the Home that lies ahead, safe and comfortable, that makes our wandering more bearable. We know that somewhere there is a firm foothold and our feet will stand there one day: “For here we have no lasting city, but we seek a city that is to come.” (Hebrews 13:14)

To my fellow missionaries and all pilgrims on this adventure we call the Christian life, secretly reluctant, aching for home: Home is why we go. The peace, security, and sheer settled-ness that we miss is why we must forsake it now so that as many as possible may rest their feet forever on the fair soil of the New Creation.

Adam Stephens (pseudonym) is a cross-cultural worker with his family in East Asia working alongside the church to develop healthy pastors who lead and plant healthy churches.

When you look in the mirror, what do you see? A lot of us don’t like it. Perhaps there are lumps and bulges that weren’t there a few years ago. Perhaps there are lines speaking of regret and pain. Perhaps you’d rather turn away, or even get rid of the mirror altogether.

Pause there a bit longer, and really look, and it can get more uncomfortable can’t it? Underneath the surface there’s that swirling pool. There are broken relationships, things we wish had been different. There’s guilt. There’s shame.

So what do you do when you stand in front of the mirror? Is it the kind of place you can talk to God? Would you even dare?

If we feel exposed by our own reflection, what do we do with what God thinks of us? We’re sinful, and we know that sin makes us ugly to him. Right?

At church this term we've started walking through Mark’s gospel, hearing the beginning of the good news about Jesus. Mark’s whole gospel is that beginning: a story which calls us to find our place in its pages. A story which is yet unfinished, which invites us to make it our own story by coming to Christ ourselves.

The early verses are packed with stand-out moments. John the Baptist comes wearing bizarre clothing, eating even more bizarre food, but speaking a compelling message about one to come. Jesus bursts onto the scene to be baptised before disappearing into the wilderness with the wild animals.

It’s can be a bit odd, but perhaps the most-stand-out moment is when, out of 400 years of silence since the last prophet spoke, God’s own voice is heard. God the Father speaks from heaven and declares of Jesus:

“You are my Son, whom I love, with you I am well pleased.”

We hear that Jesus really is the Messiah just as Mark claims in verse 1, God’s long promised king, in the line of those declared to be ‘sons’ of God like David, Solomon and the others. But we also hear something unique. As the Son whom God loves, Jesus is God’s unique Son. He is no less than God the Son himself come to us.

But what do those famous words spoken over Jesus at his baptism mean for us?

Astonishingly, as we are invited into the story of Jesus, we can begin to hear God speaking those very words over us.

Let’s make that clear:

If you trust in Jesus, God the Father declares over you: “You are my son, you are my daughter, whim I love. With you I am well pleased.”

When we talked about that at church a few people asked the important next question: But we’re sinful, and we know that sin makes us ugly. Right? So how can this be true now? Surely this is what we’re hoping for in the future—that God will be well pleased with us when his work is done?

It’s a good question. And it shows that we need to get our tenses right. Is this delight really something which is true now in the present? Or only something to for in the future?

Although we Christians often describe ourselves as sinners, the Bible itself barely ever (if at all) describes someone who is trusting Jesus as a sinner as though that were our current identity.

Instead, if we trust Jesus, that’s what we were. That old identity was nailed to the cross with Jesus. It’s now in the past.

Instead, we have now been given a new identity: Saint.

Which is another way of saying ‘holy one.’

Which is another way of saying ‘pleasing, delightful, beautiful one.’

Chatting through this with a few people, I’ve noticed that it’s easy to assume that this is just some cosmic trick God plays on himself. One friend told me that they feel as though God must pull the wool over his own eyes when he looks at us.

Perhaps you feel like that. Does God just hold his nose and close his eyes before coming near to you?

No! Wonderfully, he really doesn’t! Trusting in Jesus means being united with him. That means being united with the very one in whom God takes such delight!

Our unity with Jesus means that everything that was his becomes ours—including his beauty and delightfulness to his Father. He dresses us in new clothes. He makes his home in us.

Then, as he does all that he begins to create his beauty in us. Over time we begin to reflect him more and more. Yes we go on fighting with sin, but that process has begun, and God delights in it. Which means God delights in you!

Many of us carry around a weight of failure, thinking we can’t really be pleasing to God, even now. My heart’s prayer is that as we enjoy him together, we would realise our new identity in Jesus more and more.

Incredibly, not only can we hear God the Father saying “with you I am well-pleased” (Mark 1:11) we can even hear Jesus saying “Ah, you are beautiful my love. You are beautiful!” (Song of Songs 1:15).

It’s worth meditating on as we head to that final experience of delight.

Onwards, to glory!

We all love a good Hero story, don’t we?

It’s all the better if it’s a story of an unlikely hero. Maybe they were born in disadvantaged circumstances, lost their parents at a young age, were oppressed or abused. Then they rise up and break the shackles. Perhaps they discover a power or strength they never knew they had, or they bring together a community of freedom fighters to strike a blow against the oppressors.

It’s a narrative we recognise. We read, watch and tell those stories all the time. And all along we root for the underdog, the victim.

It’s also a story we connect with at a deep level. We resonate with the hero with a longing to make something of ourselves, break through barriers, and throw off oppression where we or others experience it.

But of course, it isn’t just a story we tell is it? Recent days have starkly reminded us that it’s one we live too. Our world is riddled with injustice, violence and oppression. Many have lived through traumatic and horrifying experiences.

We rightly rejoice when victims rise up, when individuals and minorities who have been crushed and unfairly treated speak out and raise their voices to fight for recognition and freedom.

I wonder, though, whether our love of these heroes also has another effect. Along with those heroes who speak out as victims of attitude and action, comes the increasing rise of the identity of victimhood. If I can present myself as a victim of a particular oppression, especially one in some way linked to a traditional cultural trend, then I have a platform. I can gather followers to my cause.

As a result, the narrative and dialogue of our culture has become more and more stridently one of dark and light sides, of wicked empire and virtuous rebel-freedom-fighters. Many of us become cheerleaders, urging victim-heroes on. Meanwhile, some find themselves able to rally to the cause and join the heroic movement. With a thrill they can unite their voices in the powerful roar of the virtuous rebellion against the oppressive tradition.

Now don’t get me wrong. So much of this is so good. After all, this is precisely what Jesus came to do isn’t it? To free victims? He identified with the oppressed and marginalised. He ate with ‘tax collectors and sinners’ and showed the kind of love towards outsiders which turned cultural norms and expectations upside down, and had others scratching their heads in bewilderment. He welcomed those with little or no status in the society of his day. He touched lepers, spoke with, ate with, and loved the most down-trodden outcasts.

Meanwhile, he had the harshest of criticisms for the elite, the establishment, who ‘devoured widows’ houses’ while congratulating themselves and one another for their uprightness. These are the victims and victimisers of the gospel stories, and it seems Jesus was firmly fighting for the victims.

And then of course, at the centre of this great story is an ultimate victory. Humanity itself was ruled by sin, captive to destruction, enslaved to death. So, Jesus allowed himself to be overcome by death itself, so that he could win the ultimate victory, and offer new life to all who come to him.

This is the story of the archetypal righteous rebellion-freedom-fighter.

Except. If we insist that society is made up starkly of victims and victimisers, we will run into problems when it comes to Jesus.

For example, what do you make of Paul? He was no victim. First, he was one of those very Pharisees who ‘devoured widow’s houses,’ then he began travelling from town to town to round up those who didn’t believe the right things so that he might imprison and kill them. Here was a typical victimiser, and yet Jesus met him and offered him the forgiveness which utterly transformed him.

Which has to get us thinking. Could it be that the gospel isn’t just good news for victims, but even good news for victimisers too? Could it even be that the gospel of Jesus Christ is good news for victims because it’s good news for victimisers?

That sounds like an outrageously insensitive thing to say. Perhaps I'm even at risk of colluding with so much of the societal oppression that’s such a problem. But bear with me a moment longer.

When you think about it, we seem to spend so much effort separating society into these two groups don’t we? Victim and victimiser. They become identities, labels with which we dismiss some and insist that we attentively to others. In the end we feel we absolutely have to know who are the good guys, and who are the bad guys. Then, when the good guys speak up, we know who to listen to.

Again, there's much good in that. For so long our culture simply silenced victims out of hand. We should celebrate the shift which has given more voice to the previously voiceless. But there’s also a danger which I'm not sure we’re noticing as much as we should.

So many current definitions of victimhood are rooted in the perception that victimisers are those who have systematically obstructed victims from expressing themselves and their identity. We live in an era that makes outright autonomous self-expression the highest good and calls on each one of us to heroically ‘be yourself,’ whatever the (victimising) establishment might say.

Yet it is not ironic that these identities of victim and victimiser are co-dependent? The one cannot exist without the other.

No one can claim the identity of victimhood without identifying others as victimisers.

Which means that if someone wants to maintain a victimhood status, so to hang onto the power to have a voice which that can provide, they must insist upon and maintain the victimiser status of a group of others. There's no room for the members of that group to turn and ask for forgiveness, let alone to change.

That has two damaging effects.

First, it means victimhood is an inherently unstable identity. Since societal views can shift so rapidly there is nothing to stop today’s oppressed minority becoming tomorrow’s oppressive traditionalists. Ask the traditional feminists who strove for so long against so much genuine injustice in androcentric culture, but now find themselves cast as victimisers in ideological sex and gender debates. When all is said and done, if the freedom-fight progresses and victims are actually able to throw off oppression, we all run into difficulty. Unless new identities can be found, new victimisers will always be needed.

Second, this turns victimhood itself into a prison. If we make victimhood a primary identity and are encouraged to do so by the voice that can give us, we have no escape. We cannot live in any other way than to constantly revisit and re-inhabit the experiences which have made us victims. In effect, however hard we may fight, however heroic we might be, we cannot escape from the identity-shaping power of victimisers.

And that is why it is so good to know that Jesus offers good news to victims and victimisers. Because the call of Christ is not only a call to liberation, though it is certainly not less than that. It’s also a call to transformation. It’s a call which is not afraid to call sin, sin, and to speak of the serious consequences. Which means it is also a call which can speak of the genuine repentance, which acknowledges, recognises and turns away from the wickedness of oppression to find the freedom of a new identity in relationship with the God of other-person centred love, in whose image we were designed.

In other words, the death and resurrection of Jesus takes the sin of oppression seriously even as it brings together justice and mercy. Here is a salvation which offers both freedom from an entrapping victimhood and freedom for trapped victimisers.

It seems to me that this is the better story our culture needs in these days. Rather than the boundaries of victim and victimiser which characterise so many current conversations, we need the redemptive story which might provide both groups with new roles to take up. Restoration on the one hand, repentance and redemption on the other. Dare I say it, the possibility of grace-wrought reconciliation in the middle. If all we have is underdog heroes fighting the establishment, we will never actually make the progress we all need, and we’ll be much the worse for it.

Isn't the ‘genius’ of the cross incredible? Who but the God of all wisdom, grace and power could possibly conceive of an offer of salvation to both victims and victimisers in one cosmic act?

Onwards, to the glory of that gospel.

The restrictions hurt, but this morning it was good to gather with a small number of people at church. The last couple of weeks have shown that there are all sorts of very strongly held opinions about whether or not we should be doing that.

Some will be frustrated that we seem to be doing too little by sticking so firmly to guidance. Others will be concerned that we are taking unfounded risks in the midst of what Chris Whitty has after all called “the worst days of the pandemic.”

… and everything in between!

And that’s absolutely fine. I am convinced that on this issue we each need to be free to come to our own conclusions on what we will do and when we do it—both expressing differences church-to-church, and between individual church members.

A number of different things have been written arguing on both sides of the debate. Personally, I appreciatedGarry Williams’ article articulating reasons why churches might go on meeting in person.

In the end, it seems we need to allow one another to make our decisions in good conscience.

But of course, it might not be all that simple! One concern many have voiced is: what about our witness? Given that workplaces, shops, pubs, restaurants, libraries, cinemas, gyms and have all closed their doors, should we really be opening ours? Is it really “good optics” to have a group of people arriving at a church building each Sunday morning?

In the end, that’s one area among many where the actions of one church may affect another. Even within an individual church, my actions as a church member may affect another’s life as a church member.

For example, your church may have decided not to hold in-person gatherings, but another church in town may have decided to do so. So even if you are not attending, you could still have that moment when a friend sends you a message:

“I can’t go to my gym or the pub, or the library, so how come the church is open?”

It might feel like the nightmare question you’re hoping doesn’t get asked, but I don’t think it needs to feel that way.

In fact, I want to suggest that the concern about witness risks looking at the question the wrong way around. In fact, I’d suggest that if we get asked that question, we have a great opportunity to witness to the good news of Christ. How? Because:

We don’t gather to witness: We witness because we gather

The New Testament gives lots of purposes for the church’s gatherings, and the vast majority seem to be focussed on our relationships with one another.

For example, there are the 59 (or so) ‘one another’ commands in the New Testament, encouraging when we gather to love one another, teach one another, speak God’s Word to one another, forgive one another, spur one another on to love and good deeds, etc etc.

So, it would seem that the horizontal weight of our gatherings at church is laid firmly in the direction of relationships within the church. But of course, there’s another dimension too. Church is not merely horizontal is it?!

When we gather, we give expression to something even more significant than our relationships with one another. What is the source and root of our relationships with one another? It is Christ! We are united together in him because he is the focus and goal of our lives. As the church gathers, we express that corporately.

Which makes sense when you think about it. The church is the gathering of people redeemed by the death of Christ, being conformed together into his image. That’s a familiar idea right from the first page of the Bible where the purpose of humanity in God’s image—individual and corporate—is to reflect and represent him in creation, giving him worship and glory.

In other words, the church is humanity being restored to our intended function: glorifying God and enjoying him forever. The wonderful implication of God’s grace powerfully at work in us is that all those one another commands are features of that overarching aim. What does restored humanity look like? How does restored humanity reflect God? By being conformed to the image of Christ, who never failed to act in ‘one another’ ways.

Meanwhile, the concern that gathering in-person could be detrimental to our witness gives away a potential assumption that witness is the reason we gather.

It’s easy to see why we might think that. After all, Paul’s message in Ephesians is very clear: when we get on with those one another commands together, and as we come together as people in Christ, we put God on display. And it’s not just the world who watch: “[God’s intent] is that through the church, the manifold wisdom of God should be made known to the rulers and authorities in the heavenly realms…” (Ephesians 3:10).

In other words, the church is the display case for trophies of God’s grace.

But does that mean that witness itself is the purpose of our gatherings? Actually no. There’s a different word which describes the purpose of gathering as church: Worship.

What happens when God’s people worship? They are built up together as he is given glory. Not that he lacks glory in some way and needs to be “filled up” but rather the glory which he has is highlighted and displayed to a watching universe.

That means that when we gather as a church, our primary focus is not on those who are not with us, or who are not yet Christians themselves. Rather, our primary focus is on Christ and even on meeting with him. Then, as he calls us together into relationship with himself, he becomes the lens through which we focus on one another.

If we are trophies of God’s grace, it’s as though we’re polishing one another up, to display that grace all the more brightly.

So, witness isn’t the reason we worship. Rather, it happens when we worship, and even more crucially, it’s one of the many things fuelled by our worship. If I am to go on sharing Christ with my neighbours and friends effectively, I need you to keep “spurring me on to love and good deeds” (Heb 10:24).

So, how might you answer that friend’s message? “I can’t go to my gym or the pub, or the library, so how come the church is open?”

Perhaps you could answer by showing that one of those things isn’t like the others. Even if you have taken the decision not to attend, you could point to God’s grace to us in calling us to faith in Christ, and to this amazing community of faith of which we get to be part by grace. And then, perhaps, you could invite your friend in!

Onwards, to glory!

In The Screwtape Letters, C.S. Lewis gave us a masterpiece of reflection on the different temptations and schemes which draw our minds and hearts away from "things which really matter." Wormwood was of course devoured, but if instead he had graduated to more senior ranks, I wonder, what advice would Lewis' "junior demon" have to pass on now, decades later?

Of course, I cannot say how this correspondence came into my hands, but I trust that it proves instructive as we navigate Christmas this Covid-affected year.

My Dear Galltongue,

It has been some time since I last wrote to you. Needless to say, the current situation has kept us all busy and perhaps even entertained in our work at times. And it has created much work for us to do, has it not?!

I thought it best to once again pass on some of the great wisdom which my Uncle passed on to me. Your work with your patient has been near-satisfactory thus far, but although you may not realise it, there are great dangers given all that is happening.

Of course, at first look we may think that nothing could be better than all that has been occurring of late. Why the enemy allows such chaos to reign I’ll admit I cannot fully say, yet even now he is dangerous and has devious ways of winning victories. Would you believe that some of his adherents actually suggest that circumstances like these can help his cause and see that hideous announcement they call ‘gospel’ declared even more widely?

However, with such matters, dear Galltongue, you need not concern yourself. Your job is to remain focussed on your patient. And great focus is required. Be on guard, Galltongue. At all costs, you must not allow this hideous time of year to push her thoughts anywhere near “eternal” things. Keep her grounded. Indeed, I recall that the humans themselves have a wonderful word for this: keep her “earthed.” Let her focus be on immediate priorities.

Of course, the usual whispers and suggestions are still all of great use to you. Allow her to muse on how she can please her family. Both her and her husband’s parents could of course provide all manner of opportunity given that it seems she has concluded that they can’t possibly see them all this year. Resentment, Galltongue, is tremendously powerful in our cause. Allow it to build and the effects can be delightful.

Meanwhile, her children might spend a great deal of profitable time pouring over their screens, giving you every opportunity to prompt their asking for all manner of different items. You need only remind her of her desire to make her children happy, and her focus may be entirely taken up with collecting as many of those trinkets as she can for some days.

You may even allow her own eye to be caught by the advertisements oozing delicious sentimentality. Here we might have an almost unique opportunity. Given all that has happened to her this year she will no doubt be easily persuadable that she ‘deserves’ to indulge. Of course that's our message every winter, but this year makes the suggestion all the more powerful in your hands.

However, Galltongue, I need hardly remind you to be cautious. The enemy knows that sentimentality is but a step from yearning, and we all understand how dangerous that can be. Once awakened in the heart, yearning is incredibly difficult to extinguish, and has led to the total loss of the most promising of patients in the past.

Finally, allow me a word on that hideous practice of prayer. Yes, don’t think that I haven’t noticed this oversight on your part. Extremely irresponsible of you to allow your patient to develop that nasty habit, particularly when there are so many distractions available to you! There is nothing our lord finds more odious than our enemy’s people at prayer. You must pay particular attention to your patient in this area. It is most dangerous ground for our cause, yet shrink her horizons and still now all is may not be lost.

It may seem counterintuitive, but even hope can be a powerful tool in our hands here. Allow her to dwell on some of the problems which surround her. This is perhaps a most pertinent opportunity. Her vulnerable parents can help you stoke her fear of the virus. Then you may allow her that faint bit of warm hope that there might be light at the end of that tunnel. Have her dwell on that most profitable of topics: human ingenuity.

Whisper it carefully and help her feel just enough hope there that she mistakes it for the real thing. This is most advanced work but do it thoroughly and you will drop her eyes very effectively. She may still pray (I fear you have lost her on that front most carelessly), but the effectiveness of that weapon in her hands will be considerably reduced. Above all things, though, you must not allow her to lift her eyes at this point. Again, keep her "earthed." Should she catch a glimpse of that greater hope from which you must keep her distracted at all costs, and worse, even turn her prayers towards it, then all will be lost.

As will you dear Galltongue. Tread carefully!

Your unaffectionate uncle,

Wormwood.

This week has seen an uptick in the mood of the headlines hasn't it? Hope springs, it seems, in a pharmacological behemoth's announcement of an effective vaccine.

It has been fascinating to see the response to this news. The entire mood of the nation has lifted. It's as though we're breathing a cautious, but collective sigh of relief. Top medical scientists have come out boldly predicting a 'return to normal life' as early as the spring.

It is good news, for which we should rightly be thankful. And we can direct that thanks to God. After all, He invented science, including pharmacology. Come to the point, he also invented scientists!

But have you noticed that this good news is coming to us clothed in a particular story?

It has been set up perfectly: For months, we've been hearing that "the science will save us," (Chris Whitty) that "the vaccine will be our salvation" (BBC, July). A salvation story has been spun which tells us that our greatest individual danger is found in a potential untimely death to a novel virus, that our greatest communal danger is the havoc that will cause. We have been called together to join the fight against what Boris Johnson called back in May, "a devilish disease" and the message has been clear: salvation is up to us, it's up to our science, our healthcare, our NHS.

And now the heralded vaccine is coming. Scientists, journalists, and Matt Hancock alike are queuing up like so many John the Baptists, to prepare the way. Yesterday, a picture of Pfizer bottles filled with vaccine came with exaltation: "you are looking at liquid hope!"

Today Matt Hancock made it even less subtle: "I know the NHS will be ready, when the science comes good, to inject hope into millions of arms this winter."

That's a remarkable statement. Hope comes as an injection now?!

This should make us pause. After months of bumping along, feeling frustrated and isolated, longing for life to start up again, it's easy to be swept along by this story, caught up in this great hope.

But where are we being told to look for this salvation?

Within. To our human ingenuity. That's why it's so attractive. Yet again we can convince ourselves that we are in control, that we can make our dreams come true.

But step back for a moment. We should also ask, what are we being told to hope for?

In a word: normality. This is a salvation story of getting from lockdown life to normal life.

When you put it that way, it's not a salvation story to set many hearts ablaze is it? From the perspective of now, parts of it sound utterly wonderful, but from the perspective of just 12 months ago… is that really the utopia we're looking for?

Compare the True Salvation Story we have to tell. The call from abject darkness to true and glorious light. The call from depths of our own making, captive in sin and death, to the heights of life as God created it to be lived, in worship and adoration of our Creator. Up next to that, the story we're being told by the offer of 'liquid hope' is pale and anaemic. It's a laughable parody!

So, yes, let's celebrate the potential that this vaccine, or another, might see progress made in the viral pandemic. But let's turn away from it as a source of hope in ourselves, to the one who offers us hope in himself, and make that the call of our hearts and the cry on our lips.

Onwards, to glory!

No 2. In a series of posts reflecting on Jesus' Ascension

It’s been a few weeks since my last post, when I started reflecting on Jesus’ Ascension. And I guess, quite a lot has happened in the meantime…

Whatever you’re feeling about recent events, the ascension is a powerful reminder that Jesus is still on the throne as the executive director of the universe on behalf of his people.

But there’s even more encouragement in the fact that Jesus has ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father.

Although we might not immediately spot it, one of the biggest challenges the Covid pandemic has brought home, is the challenge of home. Or rather, the challenge of what and where home is. Social distancing, and self-isolation have become part of our everyday vocabulary, and we have found ourselves in increasingly semi-fractured communities. Sometimes we can’t see one another at all, and even when we can, we long for it to be different, more complete and less diminished.

Then, lockdown comes along and once again our homes, which we tend to idealise (and even idolise?) as sanctuaries away from the bustle of life, become the venue for our whole lives themselves. For some, home can even begin to feel like somewhere to be trapped in, rather than somewhere to escape to. Somehow, sanctuary becomes confinement.

But if we can’t feel at home when we’re at home, can home really be home at all?

That’s a disconcerting question, but actually, it isn’t very new. Coronavirus didn’t create these dynamics. All it has done is turn up the volume from one particular perspective.

In essence, all of us, even the most solitary and independent, longs to belong. It’s been wired into us from the moment of our creation. We’re made to fit in, to feel at home, to feel like life ‘works.’ Yet so much about this world, coronavirus or otherwise, tells us that we aren’t at home.

Why else would we be so unyielding in our insistence that life in our society must be improved, when in so many ways and according to so many objective measures, we are living in one of the most privileged times in history; with more equality, more freedom, less poverty and less disease than any previous century? Just what are we comparing life to when we say it needs to get better? Certainly not a life any of us have actually experienced.

Just this week one of my kids was complaining that life never feels like it’s going quite as he’d want. They may be small, but there are inevitable frustrations even when things are good. This time, another thing he was looking forward to had been cancelled, but then again, even if it had gone ahead, he still senses enemies everywhere, from boredom, to falling out with a friend or sibling, to the frustrations of family chores(!).

“I just never feel I’m where I’m meant to be,” he said.

He might not have known it, but he was expressing that deep homesickness in every human heart. As Julian Barnes famously put it, “I don’t believe in God, but I miss him.”

Where, after all, is the end of frustration, boredom, fallings out with those we love? Where is the end of inequality and poverty? Where, for that matter, is the end of fractured community, or of feeling like we don’t quite belong?

It may surprise you, but for an answer we should look to the ascension. Again!

Do you ever wonder what the ascended Jesus is doing now? Perhaps you’d answer, ‘we don’t need to. We know: He’s sitting!” Which is true. Most fundamentally, the ascended Jesus is ruling at God’s right hand as his enemies are made a footstool for his feet. But there’s more.

He’s also preparing a place. That’s the wonderful, heart-bursting promise he made to his disciples:

“My Father’s house has many rooms; if that were not so, would I have told you that I am going there to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come back and take you to be with me that you also may be where I am.”

That’s quite the image isn’t it? Think of a luxury hotel. Think of all the work put in to prepare the rooms for the guests to arrive. Everything thoroughly cleaned. Then all the arrangements made, so that everything is just so. All the finishing touches which mark it out as a special place to stay. That’s a glimpse of the imagery Jesus is using here.

Except he’s not talking about a hotel is he? He’s talking about a home. There are no paying guests on view here. It’s astonishing to think of it, but when Jesus ascended to the right hand of the Father, he wasn’t just taking his throne as rightful ruler of the universe. He was also going to prepare a place for his people in his Father’s house.

In other words, he was going home as a home-maker for us!

As we head back into lockdown, perhaps we feel like we’re taking 2 steps forward and even 2 steps back. Perhaps we feel further away from our loved ones. Perhaps we feel as though our communities are fracturing even more.

In all that, we can remember where Jesus is right now. He died in our place, he rose that we might live, and he ascended to prepare a place for all who would follow him.

So that they—so that we who trust in him—could be called onwards to glory. Onwards to home.