He's a Keeper!

I have to admit that I am not a keen follower of Royal Weddings, but news of a slight change to the marriage vows in the service got me interested.

Apparently, Kate is not going to promise to obey William (no surprise there) but instead she is going to promise 'keep him'.

Is this a new liturgical expression that has found its way into the Church of England's biggest wedding of the year?  And what does it mean?  Is Kate promising to 'keep him' in the style to which he has become accustomed?  I think that highly unlikely - as heir to the throne, surely it will be him 'keeping her' in the manner to which he is accustomed!

The word, of course, is not new - it appears in the 1662 Prayer Book where it is the groom who promises to "love her, comfort her, honour, and keep her".

Does that mean that they will be both be making the same promises to each other?  For goodness sake, I hope so!  The alternative, in the traditional language of the Prayer Book would have been for her to "obey him, and serve him, love, honour and keep him" which is a bit of a non-starter if you want an equal marriage.

Equal promises are the foundation of modern marriage vows, which see marriage as a partnership of equals, rather than a hierarchy of obedience.

But there are those for whom this concept is sacrilege!  Women must 'obey' their men at all costs or else the whole fabric of the universe will be torn - God will be upset - and society is doomed to marital anarchy!  (There have been more than a few such comments on the newspaper blogs already - see the comments on the Daily Mail article if you don't believe me)

At the end of the day, I am delighted that Kate is going to promise to 'keep' William, and I hope that he is going to promise to 'keep' her.  After all, that is a part of marriage which is all too often overlooked as people give up when the going gets tough, or when the temptation comes to trade your old spouse in for a newer model.

I looked for a definition for "He's a keeper" on the internet, just in case some people wouldn't get the play on words.

I could only find one for "She's a keeper!"  which went as follows...

"It means that he should keep her, and never lose her. She is a jewel."

I hope you are listening William!

Come alive!

The miracle of Easter is not just that Jesus rose from the grave - the real miracle is that his resurrection means new life for everyone.

Beyond the Easter cry "He is risen",  is God's call to us to take hold of this gift of life.

Today's song is the last in this series for Lent and Holy Week.  It is by Foo Fighters from the album "Echoes, Silence Patience and Grace".

It speaks to me of the transformation which Christ's resurrection has made, and is making, in my life.

"I lay there in the dark, and I closed my eyes

You saved me the day you came alive.

Come alive!

Nothing more to give

I can finally live

Come alive!

Your life into me

I can finally breathe

Come alive!"

God's Easter call to us this Easter is "Come alive!"

Song for Good Friday ...

"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me!"

This was the cry from the cross as Jesus took all the pain and injustice of human sin and failing to himself. 

Today's song is 'Iridescent' by Linkin Park, from the album 'A Thousand Suns'.

The whole album is one of repentance - not for the petty personal sins which we struggle with day to day - but for the sum of human sin which cumulate into global injustice, violence and war.

The album begins and ends with the lyric,

"God save us everyone

will we burn within the fires of a thousand suns

for this sins of our hands

the sins of our tongues

the sins of our father

the sins of our young"

When I hear 'Iridescent', I picture Christ on the cross.

When you we standing in the wake of devastation

When you were waiting on the edge of the unknown

And with the cataclysm raining down

insides crying "Save me now"

you were there impossibly alone.

And then the cry "It is finished" as the whole cosmos is transformed in an instant, with the impossible death of the Son of God.  This greatest moment of sacrificial love embraces the moment of ultimate risk as he gives up his spirit, and enters the unknown.

And in a burst of light that blinded every angel

as if the sky had blown the heavens into stars

You felt the gravity of tempered grace

falling into empty space

No one there to catch you in their arms

Christ, both human and divine, draws the whole of human failure to himself,

experiencing the desperation that it brings, and as he dies, it dies with him.

But there is more.

As the song develops, it moves beyond the desolation which Christ suffered,

and begins to demand a response from me.

Do you feel cold and lost in desperation

you build up hope but failure's all you've known

Remember all the sadness and frustration

Let it go!

The challenge is for me to take what He has done for me, and let him take my sins away - let him take my hurts and fears - let him take the pain of everything I have ever done, and let it die with him, so that I am free to live a new life.

This for me, is Good Friday, and this is my song for today.

The real you ...

I was struck during the Palm Sunday readings this year at how the crowds in Jerusalem greeted Jesus with ecstatic praise on that day, and yet cried 'Crucify' only 5 day later.  What a turnaround, in such a short space of time.

My mind went back 25 years to when I was working with heroin addicts in Hong Kong.  I was helping in a Christian ministry founded by a remarkable lady called Jackie Pullinger, who arrived in Hong Kong armed with nothing more than a sense of God's calling.

Several years later she had a thriving ministry among Hong Kong's numerous drug addicts and Triad members, who came to her because they had heard that there was a God called 'Jesus' who helped heroin addicts.

The part of the ministry where I lived and worked was a First Stage House, where the addicts came to live, straight from the streets - to come off heroin, and begin their new life in Christ.

Every evening, we would spend a good hour in prayer and worship, and I was struck, right from the beginning by the exuberance and intensity with which they worshipped.  Their hands raised, they would sing at the top of their voices, and would pray enthusiastic prayers of thanksgiving to Jesus for saving them. The atmosphere it created was often so intense that it felt just like Palm Sunday - that if they were silent, the very stones would sing!

But life wasn't like that all the time.  Like  drug addicts the world over, they were skilled manipulators, determined to get their own way - often challenging, occasionally intimidating or threatening, and almost always lazy when it came to doing any meaningful work!

After a while, I began to be less enthralled by their worship and praise in the evening.  Other thoughts started to creep into my mind like "How can you be so wrapped up in praise after the way you behaved earlier" or "You can't fool God - I know what you were like this afternoon!"  

After one particularly challenging day, I began to tell God not to be fooled, because I had seen what they were really like.  I guess this was the last straw for God, so he spoke to me.

"You see the real them when they worship me," He said.  "This is who they really are - not what you see during the day!"

I was more than a little taken aback.  How could this be them being real?  What about the rest of the time?

Then it occurred to me.  God, of course, was right.  When they came to him, called out to him, put their faith in him, God had done exactly what he promised.  God had given them a new life, they had been 'born again' - born of the Spirit.  Their true identity was now in Christ, not in the old habits and old ways that were passing away.  I had got things completely upside-down.

And we fall into the same trap too.  One minute we can be praising God, and the next, doing or thinking something far less godly.   When are we being real?  Is the real me the one who responds to God in praise and thanksgiving?  Or is the real me the one who falls into sin again and again.

Sometimes we get too hung up on our failings, thinking that they show what we are really like, but in fact the reverse is true.  The real me is not the one who falls into sin again, but the one who reaches out to God - not because I have done something special, but because of what God has done in me.

I don't know if the people who sang 'Hosanna!' on Palm Sunday, were the same crowd who shouted 'Crucify' on Good Friday, but I do know this.  Even if it was, the betrayal of Good Friday could not undo the reality of Palm Sunday, and the resurrection proves it.  In God's kingdom, life is victorious over death, and forgiveness triumphs over sin.

So the next time we feel burdened by the ways in which we have let God down, or we feel that  we are hypocrites in church, remember this.  The real you is the one who comes to God in praise and thanksgiving.  The real you comes out when you open your heart to God in spite of the ways you have let God down.   God wants to see the real you more and more - and the old you will slip away.

Praise and Worship in the Walled City, Hong Kong