Jesus is the Barley Harvest

How can you not love the book of Ruth? This is the small package good things come in. It has everything. Romance, intrigue, drama, history, a possibly loopy mother-in-law.

But perhaps one of the reasons we love Ruth so much is that the characters are so human. Boaz is passed the first flush or youth, and so doesn't approach Ruth when he perhaps would have as a younger man. Ruth is an outsider, who grows from timid farm help to a proposing lover. Perhaps no one's humanity is so raw as Naomi's in the first six verses.

There's no food in Bethlehem, no crops coming though. The city is filled with sin. It's not a place to bring up two young boys. She trusts Elimelech, she loves him. Our God is King, he's always telling her, so maybe the move to Moab won't be that bad. She pushes the worries about where they'll worship, and who the boys will marry to the back of her minds and they pack up and leave the Promised Land.

But it didn't work out. There's food in Moab sure, but not much else. The people are wicked here, in a different way to her friends in Bethlehem. Sure, their religion was pretty empty, but it had a heart. She doesn't know what to make of chemosh, or his rituals or his followers.

And then, Elimelech is sick, and there's no one to help. He dies in her arms as she wipes his brow. There's no going home now, better to make a life of it here, and let the boys marry those Moabite girls they've been talking to. It seemed like things were going to turn out ok, but now she'll never forget that day. The noise, the blood, the screams of the Moabite widows, bent over the broken bodies of their lifeless husbands.

We need Naomi in the Bible because she knows life as we know it. Sometimes life is brutal for no good reason. But more than that, we need Naomi, because of what she hears in verse 6. The rebellion at home is over, the Lord has visited His people and given them food. The rains have come, and crop is growing. There will be a barley harvest, she can glean, she can eat. She's bitter, but she has hope, more than she knows.

And we, like her, have more hope than we know. Jesus is the barley harvest. Jesus is the sweet good news from a far country. Jesus is our hope. Jesus who was plunged into a brutality more focused and less deserved than we'll ever know, and came out the other side. Jesus is the hope humming along in the background while the noise of the world tries to drown Him out. Because Jesus lives, so will we, because Jesus lives, we can face tomorrow. Jesus is the anvil, His enemies the hammer, smashing themselves to ruin.

Jesus is the promise of good, and the promise of better to come.
Jesus is the good. Jesus is the better to come.
Jesus is the barley harvest who draws us home. Come to Him.

A Resurrection Mission

It is perfectly clear then that the first Christian missionaries did not come forward with an exhortation; they did not say, 'Jesus of Nazareth lived a wonderful life of filial piety, and we call upon our hearers to yield yourselves, as we have, to the spell of that life.' Certainly that is what modern historians would have expected the first Christian missionaries to say, but it must be recognized as a matter of fact that they said nothing of the sort. Conceivably, the first disciples of Jesus, after the catastrophe of His death, might have engaged themselves in some quiet meditation on His teaching. They might have said to themselves that 'Our Father who are in Heaven,' was a good way of addressing God, even though the One who taught them to do it was dead. They might have clung to the ethical principles of Jesus and cherished the hope that the one who enunciated such principles might have had some personal existence beyond the grave.

Such reflections might have seemed very natural to the modern man, but to Peter, James and John, the certainly never occurred. Jesus had raised in them high hopes, and those hopes were destroyed by the cross; and reflections on the general principles of religion and ethics were powerless to revive them again. The disciples of Jesus had evidently been inferior to their master in every possible way; they had not understood His spiritual teaching; but even in the hour of solemn crisis had quarrled over great places in the Kingdom. What hope was there that such men could succeed when their Master had failed? Even when He had been with them, they were powerless; now that He was taken from them, what little power they may have had was gone.

Yet those same, weak, discouraged men, within a few days of the death of their Master, instituted the most important spiritual movement the world has ever seen. What had produced this astonishing change? What had transformed the weak and cowardly disciples into the spiritual conquerors of the world? Evidently it was not the mere memory of Jesus life, for the was a source of sadness, not of joy. Evidently the disciples of Jesus, within the few days between the crucifixion and the beginning of their work in Jerusalem had received some new equipment for their task. What that new equipment was, at leas the outstanding and eternal element in it, (to say nothing of the endowment which Christian men believe to have received at Pentecost) is perfectly plain. The great weapon with which the disciples of Jesus set out to conquer the world was not a mere comprehension of eternal principles; it was a historical message, an account of something that had happened, it was the message, 'He is risen!'

But the message of the resurrection was not isolated, it was connected with Jesus' death, seen now, to be not a failure but a triumphant act of divine grace; it was connected with the entire appearance of Jesus on the Earth.

J. Gresham Machen, Christianity and Liberalism, Pp23-25

Genesis 4: Resurrection.

As we turn the page to Genesis 4, our eyes should be on the look out for the serpent crusher. For the one who will put right what Adam put wrong. As Eve holds Cain in her hands, we can forgive her for thinking that she's found him.

I've gotten a man with the held of the Lord. Another Adam, one unsullied by sin, one who could crush the serpent. Is he the one? We very quickly learn the answer is no. His offering is not by faith, it's not a fatty animal, it's just a token. Abel gave God the best of his flock, Cain just picked some fruit off the floor and showed up with it. Man sins with fruit.

Sin crouches once more, and we lean forward to see what this second Adam will do? He opens the door, walks to the field, and kills his brother. He is cursed, and sent to wander, seven generations later, the chaos of the fall is perfected, as Lamech is avenged seventy seven times.

Through this all, Abel is silent. He never speaks. Passive, he doesn't fight back. That's the fate of the faithful, isn't it? The Israelites on the wrong side of the Jordan would have thought. We're faithful, but we're lambs to the slaughter. We're faithful, but what hope do we have? And we can think the same. The church is faithful, but outnumbered, the church is faithful, but outgunned. The serpent has been crushed, but it's death throes are so powerful, how can we keep going? How can we keep trusting?

Because at the end of Genesis 4, we see resurrection. As in the rest of Genesis, Moses get's the unimportant out of the way before returning to the seed of the woman and the progression of the story. Cain's family are evil, Abel lays dead in the ground, but God appoints another, Seth, to carry on his line. And in the time of Seth's son Enosh, people begin to call on the name of the Lord.

Resurrection.

JC Ryle said that without the cross the Bible is a dark book, and without the resurrection, the cross is the darkest of days. Without Seth, Genesis 4 is nothing but doom and despair, without Sunday, we can't face Saturday.

But there is Seth, there is Sunday, there is an empty tomb. So even in this day of legislated and celebrated immorality, we don't need to say with Elijah that we alone are left. Instead we remember, because Jesus walked out of the tomb, that God will always provide what He promised. One to crush the serpent, in the past, now, and forever.

Mark 16: From Mourners to Messengers

Mark's Gospel is a story of eucutastrophe, and tonight, in the last 8 verses of Mark’s Gospel, we see the biggest eucutastrophe of them all, we see the most important moment in human history, and the most important moment of your life and my life, that happened two thousand years before we were born. Tonight we see with two women, the empty tomb.

One man is notably absent from Mark’s account. Jesus! We hear Jesus message from the angels, but we don’t actually hear of see Jesus. Why not? Because Mark’s point is that He is not there. Mark’s point is that the tomb is empty. Jesus has risen! The women came expecting to find a dead body, what they found changed them, and changed the world forever. Tonight’s question, and the question that Mark leaves us with is, ‘how does the resurrection change you?’ What’s different about you because of the resurrection.

Let’s read the first seven verses together, and see who these women were, and why it’s important. Three times in nine verses, in 15:40, 15:47 and 16:1 Mark is careful to identify who these women are. Why? Well these women were eyewitnesses of Jesus death and burial. They stood by the cross watching Him die and they followed Joseph of Arimathea to the tomb. And they’re back as soon as they can be on Sunday morning after the Sabbath. They are the only faithful ones left, they are the remnant of Jesus’ ministry. Right now, they are the Kingdom of God.

These women didn't come because they expected Jesus to have risen. Look at verse 1, they bought spices so that they might anoint Him. That was what you did to a dead body before burial, but they didn't have time on Friday, so as soon as they could they came to wash and cover Jesus’ body with spices. It’s amazing isn't it, how none of Jesus followers came to the tomb expecting to see Jesus rise. Mark tells us that Jesus taught about His resurrection three times, which, given how selective Mark is in what he tells us, probably means that Jesus told them about it again and again. But none of them came. I hope that encourages you, when you struggle to trust or understand Jesus, so did His disciples!

Look at verse 4, Mark tells us the stone has been rolled away. Matthew tells us in his Gospel that there had been an earthquake on Saturday that moved the stone. They look inside, and all the see is a young man, an angel. No Jesus. No wonder they were alarmed! The angel tells them what is going on, he tells them three words that will change the world. He has risen! That changes everything. The resurrection changes everything! These women are amazed, scared, and trembling. They literally can not believe what their eyes and ears are telling them. The angel tells them to pass on their message, and to gather the disciples in Galilee. Right now the fate of the whole world hangs on their shoulders.

Mark tells us they said nothing to anyone, but that can’t have lasted long. We know  from Luke that  eventually this news came bursting out of their mouths to Peter and John, and that they ran to the tomb. These women humbly and obediently spread the message about Jesus resurrection, and you and I have to do the same. These women were changed by the resurrection from mourners into messengers, and the resurrection must change us in the same way. Before we were saved, we had nothing to live for, now we have the greatest message in the world to share.

These woman were amazed by the resurrection and changed by the resurrection. Is the same true for us? Are we humble, obedient messengers? Calvin said that if our hearts are turned to the power of the resurrection, then, in our hearts, the cross of Christ will triumph over every evil. The resurrection changed these women externally. Their world had ended that first Good Friday, but now they have hope again. And as we think about Christ's victory over the grave, as we look at the empty tomb, we won't be able to stop this truth changing us as well. We'll be encouraged, because we'll know that the Father has accepted Christ's sacrifice. We'll be encouraged because we'll know that one day we'll never be tempted again, raised from our earthly bodies into His glorious body, and we'll be changed, because the very power to change us was unleashed by the resurrection. 

JK Rowling and Happy Endings

I've read a couple of reviews of JK Rowling's new book, 'The Casual Vacancy' yesterday (here and here. Some bad language in the second one). Quite apart from the fascinating thought that one of the most recognizable authors of our day can not seem to get away from the Biblical narrative, what seems to unite the two reviews is a problem with the lack of a happy ending.

There's no Harry Potter in Pagford, no one to overcome evil and set the world aright again. Not eucatastrophe, just catastrophe. Just racism and classicism and an ending that 'makes Thomas Hardy look like PG Wodehouse.' Something about a book, or a film, or any story, without a happy ending leaves us wanting more. Something about a story without redemption makes us feel like the story isn't quite finished yet. When the guy doesn't get the girl, somethings wrong. Why is that? Because the reality of the Biblical narrative is written into our hearts. We can't accept an bleak ending, we can't accept things not turning out alright in the end, because it's not true.


I used to tease Rachel because she just likes movies with happy endings, but now i've come to see that not only is she right to like happy endings, but that she's more in touch with reality because of it.

Tolkien says: (the happy ending) denies universal final defeat, and insofar as evangeliom, giving a fleeting glimpse of Joy, joy beyond the walls of the world, poignant as grief...When the sudden 'turn' comes we get a piercing glimpse of joy, and hearts desire, that more a moment passes outside the frame, rends indeed the very web of story, and lets a gleam come through.

Happy endings are true endings. Because Jesus has come, and lived, and died and lived, happy endings are true endings. How will the universe end? Happily ever after. This sounds like hopeless wishful thinking doesn't it? And it is, until we put our hands in His wounds and talk to the eye witnesses. If the resurrection isn't true, we're to be pitied more than all men, but if it is true, we can look forward to the happiest of happy ending.

Happy endings are true endings. Morning Glory was a film that was forgotten almost as soon as it was made, but we liked it. Why? Girl from nowhere gets dream job in city, she's given a tough deadline to make things come together in the face of adversity and...well you get the rest. It was a happy ending, and a true ending. We like happy endings because, as Tolkien said, they touch us somewhere deep, somewhere real, somewhere almost primal. Because they're true. Because in the wedding supper of the lamb, time itself has the happiest of endings.