Til We Have Built Jerusalem...

Happy St. George's Day everyone.

It's tradition on this day to sing/play Parry's Jerusalem in cathedrals and churches upon this day. In researching this post, I discovered that some clergy object because they don't class it as a hymn. For me personally, it is a song of hope... a recollection of what God is capable of, who he is... and a genuine desire to see his glory among his people here in the British Isles, as it was seen in ancient days among his people Israel (although in truth, we have God's promise to dwell within each of our hearts... which is even more amazing and humbling than following his Shekinah glory cloud around).

I also feel that Jerusalem is a pledge, a commitment to put your heart into the trim (slight nod to Shakespeare there... but it is his birthday too), to be prepared to steel yourself and do whatever it takes to envisage the dream of Jerusalem and manifest it as reality.

However, I'm quite aware that the song isn't just claimed by Christians... indeed the tune is so popular it has often been described as England's national anthem in waiting. In fact, King George V actually preferred it to God Save the King.

It has a place in the heart of so many people up and down the land... as can be seen at the climax of the Proms concerts:

During my time in Israel, I learned of various ways in which the city of Jerusalem was figuratively identified in theology.

In the time of the priest-king Melchizedek (Jerusalem's first appearance known at the time as Salem), it represented a city of hope... a place of promise for future generations.

In King David's time, it was a city of strength... a mighty fortress unassailable by it's opponents.

In the early part of Solomon's reign, Jerusalem took on the form of a queenly city... as God's relationship with his people in the old covenant, reached it's zenith. The Temple was built and the glory cloud came and resided at the heart of the city as it's people worshipped the living God.

However, it wasn't long before the crown slipped...

During the second half of his reign, Solomon fell into all the traps that God said would begin to lead his people astray... and it is during this period that the city was viewed as a prostitute city... as God's people lay down with other "gods" and erected altars above the city on the Mount of Olives.

Eventually God called his people to account and the city became a widow city, as the glory of the Lord departed and the city was destroyed... it's people being carried off into exile.

When the exile was over and Israelites returned to rebuild and occupy the city, it became a shadow city. The oldest generations who remembered the glory of the old Jerusalem, wept openly to see a lesser city built in it's place.

During the New Testament era, Christian scholars perceived Jerusalem as the rejecting city, due to the fact that the generation in the time of Christ failed to recognize Jesus as the promised Messiah.

Following that, the city fell once more... and was seen as the rejected city.

Eventually in the time of Hadrian the city was completely ploughed into the ground and rebuilt as Aelia Capitolina... a city dedicated to pagan worship and which, due to the fierce (and understandable) Judaean insurrection... was out of bounds to all Jews.

Ahead in time, we have the hope of the future city... the New Jerusalem, a place where God will dwell with his people more intimately than ever... where he will wipe away every tear in the home of eternal celebration.

So why the history lesson?

It's quite simple really... on this day as we remember the past glories of our nation and we celebrate the idea of building Jerusalem in England's green and pleasant land... the question we have to ask ourselves is what kind of Jerusalem are we building?

Are we building...

A city of hope - a place that puts it's trust in God to bring about a brighter future?

A city of strength - a place that trusts in God for it's protection and deliverance?

A queenly city - a place that has pledged it's heart to God and is living completely in the blessing that comes through a relationship with God?

Or are we in fact building...

A city that prostitutes itself - place that follows after strange gods, that looks to finance and materialism as it's ultimate saviour, or one that puts celebrities in a pantheon and ignores the tender voice of it's faithful, loving God?

A widowed city - a place that has become so detached from God, that it is called to account and sent into the desolate sands of the wilderness until it realises just what it has lost?

A shadow city - a place that remembers the things of God as little more than a memory and lives with a cultural religion... but not really a living faith?

A rejecting city - a place that doesn't love it's neighbours as itself... a place that doesn't recognise Jesus in others and willingly neglects, persecutes or abuses him by proxy in it's attitudes to others (on this national day, with regard to this point I especially think of disgusting groups such as the BNP)?

A rejected city - a place that is handed over to it's ways and abandoned to it's own doom?

A pagan city - a place that forgets it's identity in God and becomes a place of unrest, in-fighting and destruction?

Or is it the city that it should be? The city that is being built on the foundation that Christ lay down, by his death and resurrection - the New Jerusalem.

It's something I think we should think on if we are serious about singing that song a little more often than just at Rugby matches or other sporting events, or the Proms.

Have a blessed St. George's Day and may the city he is building in your heart continue to grow to his glory.

Christmas Presence

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas.

We had a bit of an interesting situation for ours. To explain, let me take you back a few days to when I was wrapping my presents. Most of them were done except for a few main ones that had no real bulk... I'd left them in a small carrier bag by the pile of wrapped presents and intended to wrap them last on Christmas Eve.

When I came home from work though,I discovered to my horror that they were missing. I searched high and low... I completely trashed my room looking for the bag. I had a familiar suspicion in my mind as to what had actually happened to them but I tried not to entertain that thought.

Fast forward to just after the Midnight Eucharist in the early hours of Christmas Day; the bag still hasn't shown up and I'm really bothered now.

Now my mother has a certain reputation... and my father is very quick to point it out. She has a habit of throwing out important things like ooh I don't know, cheques, bills and cold hard cash... into the rubbish. This had been my initial suspicion about what had happened to the presents... but it was Christmas and I had chosen to ignore it (it being the season of goodwill and all).

Nevertheless, when I came home from church after the morning service... Mum, true to form handed me a small plastic bag... and there inside were the presents for my sister, her boyfriend and mum herself.

So it was not under a pristine tree laden with gold and silver tinsel, flashing lights and baubles... that my mum's present was found. Nor was it wrapped in fine shiny paper. No... mum's present was found to be in the most unlikely of places... a smelly rubbish bin in the kitchen.

It got me thinking of a parallel with the Christmas story (well actually Epiphany, but seeing as most people tend to think of the wise men arriving at the Nativity, I thought I'd play on that a little.)

It also has a lot to do with what I was saying a few days ago about God's choice. First lets look at the scripture:

"After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, "Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people's chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Christ was to be born. "In Bethlehem in Judea," they replied, "for this is what the prophet has written:

" 'But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah,
are by no means least among the rulers of Judah;
for out of you will come a ruler
who will be the shepherd of my people Israel.'"

Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, "Go and make a careful search for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him."

After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen in the east went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold and of incense and of myrrh."

Matthew 2:1-11

Jesus was not be found in the capital city... the seat of power from where king's reign. Nor was he to be found in a richly decorated palace - the magnificent home of a king.

No. Jesus was found in a sleepy rural backwater village that few people remembered or cared about... except when it came to taxing the people, making a census... or remembering the glory days of King David - Bethlehem's other great son. Again, God's choice was not man's choice.

So the question I want to ask today is... where do you look for your presents? Or more to the point: where do you find you Christmas presence?

Did you go to church expecting to find Jesus amidst the bells and smells - the pomp of the usual annual service? Did you come away disappointed? Did you come in search of meaning and find an empty box inside your wrapping paper?

I want to encourage you today that there is hope. Go and look in the garbage. Scary as it may seem, delve through all the banana skins and stink of superficial stuff... dig right to the bottom - I'm not talking about the bin in your kitchen...I'm talking about the human heart. We have a tendency to get bogged down by things that really aren't important... and we miss out.

However, God gives us this promise in scripture - that if we look for him with all our heart... we will find him:

"But if from there you seek the LORD your God, you will find him if you look for him with all your heart and with all your soul. When you are in distress and all these things have happened to you, then in later days you will return to the LORD your God and obey him. For the LORD your God is a merciful God; he will not abandon or destroy you or forget the covenant with your forefathers, which he confirmed to them by oath."

Deuteronomy 4:29-31

"You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart."

Jeremiah 29:13

I really encourage to find a quiet place and look for God in your heart through prayer.

May you find that place in your heart... and be overjoyed.