Fatima

The end of a week with the Pope’s visit to Portugal and around half a million people gathered together at the shrine of Fatima about 100 km north of here. Which is a lot, when you consider the population of this country is not much more than 10 million. Fatima sort of sums up the relationship of the Portuguese people with their religion.

Apart from cynical elderly gentlemen like José Saramago, even those Portuguese who have already shrugged off any personal faith in God retain some sort of affection or affinity for the devotion that Fatima stirs up. The columnist José Gameiro in Saturday’s paper writes : “I’m an agnostic of 17 years, following an intense period of connection to the church .... but more and more I am finding myself trying to transmit to my children the same values that I had back then, and that are consistently vomitted out by today’s society”.

So what is there at Fatima? There’s an aura of mystery in the whole history of the place. It has to do with visions that were supposed to have been seen by three poor shepherd children in 1917. Balls of light, secret prophesies, an attempted assassination of the Pope and a cloistered nun. A curious mixture of reality and mystery, of fact and fiction.We’ve only been to Fatima once. We found it a bit bewildering. An odd mixture of lofty architecture and tacky commercialism, of individual piety and of ecclesiastical hierarchy. Shops selling religious artifacts. The heady sell of burning candlewax. Silent devotion.

What the place lacks is, well - Jesus.

Well he’s there set on an oddly incongruous

crucifix set far away in the corner of the plaza that surrounds the sanctuary. That was the thing that struck me forcibly in my impression of the place. This angular steel structure set in a corner, oddly jarring with the white marble and soft curves of the rest of the place. Its as though Jesus has been sidelined, forgotten about - which, in reality is pretty much the story of the place. The story of this country

Fatima needs Jesus. Portugal needs Jesus. We need Jesus. I need Jesus.

Lead me to the cross
Where Your love poured out
Bring me to my knees
Lord I lay me down
Rid me of myself
I belong to You
Oh Lead me, lead me to the cross

New Life, Old Body

When Nicodemus came to Jesus by night, he seemed confused by the idea of being born again. I always thought his response to Jesus to be a bit simplistic. “How can that be?” he says “can a man return to his mothers womb after he is old?” Hold, on, Nic, don’t you realise that Jesus is talking in metaphors. It’s not about physical birth. He’s a spiritual teacher, remember.

The thing is, Nicodemus was no fool. He was a Rabbi, a member of the Jewish ruling council. He knew his stuff. He spent his days talking in riddles and parables. And, in asking that question, he actually opens up a whole other area of philosophical inquiry, one that continues to confuse and to challenge.

If I become a Christian at the age of, say, twenty, what happens to all the stuff that has gone on before. Is it just obliterated? Do I just become like a clean slate? What about all the bad stuff that I have done, and the bad stuff that has been done to me. Do

es it no longer affect my life?

Well, yes and no. We do continue to be exactly the way we are, with all those early influences that shaped our character for good or ill. The big difference is that the perspective has shifted and the control has changed. Now are freed. No longer bound by the terrors of the past. Sin – abuse – hatred – lust – addiction. None of this stuff any longer has any power over us.

No wonder then, when Jesus died on that dark day on the cross, that it was Nicodemus who emerged from the shadows along with Joseph of Arimathea, to take down the body and lay it in the cold tomb. He’d learnt where true freedom and new life was to be found.

Who will sack Goldmann?

In all the complicated arguments back and forth on our TV screens and newspapers concerning the Goldman Sachs fraud investigation, the most compelling I find has nothing to do with weighty concepts like derivatives, hedge funds or subprime mortgages. Its a simple illustration a commentator came up with. If you were a used car salesman, he asks, would you sell a car with a faulty axle to a working man with his family, and then, bet that they would be in an accident before the weekend.

Because that would seem to sum up what they in fact did. When you surround yourself with the mumbo jumbo and jargon of high economics, when you wear a suit and tie to work, and when your society and peers applaud and richly reward you for what you are doing, it might seem that you are operating in a world beyond morals. It might make you feel like, as Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman’s CEO expressed it. “I am doing God’s work.”

In one sense that is an amazingly honest and accurate observation for him to make. In their ivory towers they do act as gods, and the whole world bows down. And was that not what was predicted as one of the results of eating the fruit of the tree in the middle of the Garden. “You shall be as gods”? And are we not all, to one degree or another, little gods, born to be creative, yes, but with a streak of self interest and greed inbuilt in us that drives us sometimes to the most inhuman of acts? We are little “goldmen”. And when self interest develops from personal selfishness to corporate selfishness or national selfishness, the results are clear - chaos in the Eurozone, panic in the markets, insecurity in the unemployment lines.

Thank God, that the future image that John reveals in the Book Revelation is not that of a bull or of a bear, but of “a lamb, as it had been slain”. And the Lamb, which epitomised unselfishness through its offering of itself as a sacrifice for sin, is deemed worthy. Worthy to receive “power and wealth, wisdom and might and honour and glory and blessing”. Things that the executives of Goldmann Sachs might covet, and indeed think they possess, but which are a figment of their own imagination. Arturo Di Modica, who, in 1989 created the famous “Charging Bull” statue that stands near Wall St, New York, described his creation as a symbol of strength, power and hope for the American people for the future. Where is that hope now?

Snooker

I like Steve Davis. He is like everybody’s favourite uncle, smooth, relaxed, unflappable. Now, at not that far short of my age, he could be a favourite grandfather as well. So it gave me great pleasure at the weekend to watch him strut his stuff at the snooker table once again against world champion John Higgins. Not that I watch snooker that much. To confess to being a snooker fan is normally an indicator of a misspent youth or an idle retirement. But there is something remarkable poetic about the movement of the balls around the table. The different colours arranged against the green background. The angle of the elbow, the chin almost resting on the cue, the deep concentration, the elegant stroke, the click of the cue ball, and the satisfying plop of the ball in the pocket.

There can’t be many other sports, where one’s opponent has to sit out the entire length of the game until you make an error. No such thing as turn and turn about. I guess the nearest thing is squash, where you continue to hold your serve and score points until you make an error. But even then your opponent still plays. He doesn’t sit on the sidelines scratching his head and biting his fingernails.

But the thing about the game is that its all about control and about placement and knowing two or three moves ahead of time where the balls are likely to end up. Thats what I like about watching a maestro like Steve. You watch the delicate balance of the balls moving about the table Sometimes I see God in control of the events of my life like that. The balls are all over the place. Some awkwardly placed or hidden from view. But when he takes control, when He watches over my ways, He manages to connect each event together and propel them in such a way that I grow in grace and He gets the glory

"He knows the way that I take and when He has tested me I shall come forth as gold". (Job 23:10)

The things that happen, by themselves don’t seem like much, but they all work together with a single vision and purpose in mind.

God's presence and God's back

This past week we drove to Gandia in Spain and back again under the cloud of God’s presence. We stopped overnight in Toledo on the way which is an amazing magical city lying on a bend in the River Tejo. Yes, the same water that passes by our house in Lisbon flows by here in the heart of Spain. I mention the cloud of Gods presence because it seems appropriate. The ECM Conference we attended kicked off with a meditation on Exodus 33 by our President, Johan Lukasse, where God gives Moses an awesome promise, “My Presence shall go with you, and I will give you rest.” Then on the final session of the final day, Johan returned to the same chapter and theme.

That chapter in the Bible has aways been for us hugely significant throughout our 30 years of marriage, so it was good to be thinking of it in a new light. Toward the end of the Chapter, Moses asks of God “Show me your Glory”, and there’s this odd little account of how God places Moses in the cleft of a rock, and causes His glory to pass by him, while saying to Moses that you cannot look see My Glory and live. The idea being that Moses is nevertheless able to get a glimpse of God’s back. That always intrigued me as an impressionable schoolboy. What on earth would God’s back look like?

But that night, as the conference drew to a close, I suddenly see it differently. No, we can’t see God’s face. We’re sinful mortal beings, and he is holy and altogether other. Yes, we do see Jesus, standing in our place and enabling us to come before a Holy God. But, God’s back? Well, we see God’s back, simply because He’s there before us and - we’re in position - following Him. If you can see someone’s back, it means that they’re ahead of you. And you are behind. You know that they’re leading you on. The evening drew to a close with almost 30 people coming to the front, new missionaries for Europe, to be commissioned and prayed for. Amazing. Yes, God’s doing a new thing in Europe, and His presence does continue with us still, and He does give us His rest.

What's so Good about Friday?

The acronym TGIF is one of those quirky features of the post modern era. So much does it reflect the “zeitgeist”, that it has turned itself into a global money making restaurant franchise. It’s basically saying, I’m done with the working week of drudgery - bring on the weekend. Lets’s eat, drink and be merry, for, come Monday we go back to our daily death. Now, you can eat in TGI Friday in Belfast, Dublin, Melbourne or Washington. And the menu and the decor will be the same wherever you go, no doubt.

Well, I say, Thank God it’s Good Friday!

TGIGF, I suppose.

Because the “good” in Good Friday is about a Life that passed through Death, and a Death that produced yet more Life. The one TGIF is a reflection of the negativity of the age we live in. Life is just to be tolerated and money to be earned, for the sake of those transient moments of pleasure when you can lose yourself in the drink and the crack and the fun.

Well, I’d rather live a life that goes on getting better and better and moving towards an unending and glorious future. Even if it means you don’t get to blow it all on one Saturday night. Its good to be back in Lisbon again and worshipping along with friends this afternoon, contemplating the Cross. Not that Ireland wasn’t fine. We spent four wonderful weeks there, were enriched, refreshed and inspired. But its nice to be home again. And just now, its Lisbon that feels like home.

In the run up to the first Good Friday, in all his popularity and acclaim, a few Greeks, (non Jews) came into Jerusalem asking after Jesus. They came up to Andrew and the others saying “We would see Jesus”. And in that instant, jesus perceives this is it. This is the moment I have been for. To give my life as a sacrifice, so that all men, whether jew or greek or any other shape or size, might see and know God. And so he said :

"The hour has come....

unless a grain of wheat falls into the ground and dies, it remains alone;

But if it dies, it produces much grain."

So, Thank you, Lord, for allowing yourself to be sown, as it were, into the ground, and producing me ... the fruit!!!

The Walk to the Bank

An amazing rainbow hangs in the air in the early morning. Clear as crystal. The sun shimmers through a curtain of light rain. The river dazzles. We take a walk along the river down to the Branch of the Santander Bank. We do this at the end of every month. It’s become something of a ritual for us. A symbolic walk for us - an exercise in prayer and faith. We go there to ensure we have enough money in our account for the rent withdrawal which takes place on the 5th of every month and we do any transactions if we have to. We could do the transactions online from home, but it has become meaningful to walk to the bank. Its high tide, so the river is awash with all sorts of flotsam and driftwood from the recent storms that have lashed the country. People died in France and Galicia over the weekend.

We leave the river bank to walk up between two apartment blocks and past Escola Vasco da Gama. We think of last night, which was the first time we held church in the auditorium there. For just over two years we have been paying our rent, and each week, watching our place being used as the small fellowship into something more significant. Like a small plant that you keep in a plant pot on the windowsill it grows and stretches its roots till its ready to be planted out. As numbers increase and commitment to one another grows, now is the time to begin to just stretch a little. Not move entirely. That will come in time. But just feel that gentle moving to the edge of the nest. To feel what its like to meet with one another and worship God in another place.

So the rainbow fades. We return home. The sky is clear now and the rain stops. And God reminds us through his provision for one more month, of his unending faithfulness.