This week’s reflection is written by Christopher Belk and thanks go to him for doing this and taking the service with Ruth.
I have the sort of mind which likes to know how things work, and where it is not obvious I take things to bits in order to find out. Sometimes I cannot work out how to put them together again but the dismantling is always fun. My latest effort involved a type of electric grill which we bought over 20 years ago and which blew all the power sockets when it was turned on: after doing my best I had to admit defeat and as it is well past guarantee date, it will be consigned to the tip.
With increasing age I find it more and more difficult to understand technical things. 60 years ago I knew in some detail how my car worked: last month we hired a holiday car in Switzerland which despite being one of the cheapest was new and full of extra gizmos, and the instruction book was only in German. The only way forward was to try out various buttons and knobs and amazingly it worked, mostly rather smoothly, to be fair. Only later we got our hosts to translate some of it for us.
Today’s OT passage is one of the most famous in the Bible. The verses set for today are only Isaiah 53 4-12, but I have printed on the back of the service sheet the whole section starting from Chap 52.13.
This passage is called “the Suffering Servant”. No one knows by academic research who Isaiah may have had in mind in writing it, some 600 years before Christ, but it was then and still is generally accepted he was a true prophet who genuinely heard from God. Apparently, Jews teach that it is all about the Jewish nation as a whole, not an individual, as other fairly similar parts of Isaiah (eg Chap 49) may well be, at least mostly. But Jesus himself referred to this passage as about him and all the NT writers do the same. You don’t need me to count the number of times the physical details in this passage were literally fulfilled in Jesus’ life, death and resurrection – you will have heard countless Holy Week sermons about them. My legal mind is completely convinced that on the balance of probabilities this is a true prophecy about an individual, and Jesus is an exact match. The apostle Philip was also convinced, a good Jew who was (Acts 8, 32-34) asked by the Ethiopian eunuch “who is the prophet talking about, himself or another man? Then Philip began with that very passage (vv.7&8) and told him the good news about Jesus.”
But my mind still has difficulties in understanding the spiritual effects: the why and the how. What does it mean to say he took up our infirmities, was smitten and crushed by God, bore the punishment that brought our peace, made his life a guilt offering, and bore the sin of many? Why did Jesus say if he was lifted up he would draw all men to him? (John 12.32). Why did he say to Nicodemus (John 3.14) his lifting up would be so that whoever believed in him would have eternal life? Why did he say to his disciples he would give his life as a ransom for many (today’s gospel)? Are we not nowadays past the old superstitions of blood sacrifice, and did not God say he takes no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats (Is.1.11)? Do not those who refuse to believe that a perfect God could send his son to die have something of a point?
This is where the car with the German instruction book comes in handy. I had no idea why the car should work, but clearly the makers thought it would and it had enough kilometers on the clock to show that others had made it work. So we set off in faith, and it proved better than we expected. That is the essence of the Christian gospel: the whole bible is a much better instruction book than the German one, and if you don’t at first understand much of it you can get help, but in the last resort God’s plan is a high mystery, and it is a matter of faith whether you try it out, whether you go on living by it, and whether you show others the joy of doing so. Sadly, many people think that because they cannot understand everything, and do not always have enough evidence that eternal life works for others, they give up on belief, and relegate the gospel and the church to the tip.
I am greatly comforted by noting how many great Christian hymn writers confess to not understanding everything, but nevertheless rejoice in having found eternal life, forgivenessand love in Jesus, eternal life being something that starts now. “Can it be? ‘Tis mystery all” says Wesley. “I scarce can take it in” says Boberg. “I cannot tell why” says Fullerton. “Love unknown” says Crossman, but “Blessed Assurance” says Fanny Crosby, and I don’t suppose even she reckoned fully to understand the Saviour whom she joyfully experienced.
So for us, let us put aside the intellectual arguments and apathy, and accept that if what the Bible says God has done and Jesus offers is true it must have been necessary, and the results are far too good to ignore. That simply leaves the step of faith, not just finding the initial starter switch which I’m sure all of us here have done long ago or we would not be here today, but the daily steps in committing or recommitting all our actions, griefs and love to him. As we decide again and again to try believing (but usually not until we do) the next step on the way becomes clearer, as also does our understanding, though even St. Paul never got further in this life than seeing in a glass darkly, and we should never kid ourselves that what we understand so far is enough.
We eventually found the satnav on that car and could see the way, if we bothered to go on looking at it. Jesus said he is the way and is with us always. Don’t let us take our eye off him.
So don’t stay stuck in the carpark, get on the motorway and go!