During Lent we focus our minds on the journey Jesus made through his ministry towards the cross and eventually the empty tomb of Easter. It is a journey that begins on Ash Wednesday where we confess that we fail and fall short and that we rely completely upon God's grace. That humility is a prerequisite for true faith; you cannot believe you know everything about God and still worship Him, if you could that would make you by definition bigger than God which wont do at all!
Humility and openness to new revelation was sorely lacking amongst most of the religious people in Jesus day. They thought they had their knowledge of who God was and what He was like all nailed down. They knew quite clearly whose side God was on and who He rejected.
So when Jesus came along and ate with sinners and called tax collectors to follow Him and embraced lepers and welcomed women with questionable pasts to touch Him they didnt know what to do with Him. His behaviour and ministry challenged their assumptions about God's character and love, and He was rejected as mad bad and dangerous to know.
Today we live in the light of God's revelation of grace and love in and through Jesus; we know that God has revealed that none are beyond the scope of His redemptive love, but please lets not get to think we have all the information we need to understand God. That of course is exactly the sin of those religious folk that first Easter time, who rejected God in Jesus because He didnt look or sound anything like they thought God should.
In our Lent course looking at Julian of Norwich we have been challenged to think more deeply about the nature of this God who constantly is at work amongst us. We have thought long and hard about how little we truly can ever understand or nail down about the nature of this God who creates women and men in His image. We have recognised that all the titles we use to describe God are limited and in a way unsatisfactory.
So lets continue to be stretched and challenged; please allow God to constantly be about His business of recreation and revelation within you, or else you too will fall away from the new thing God might need to be doing in your life just like those religious folk were when Jesus came.
God bless you this Easter time
Revd Neil
