In February I attended a series of lectures by Dr Jean Claude Verrrecchia, NT lecturer at Newbold College. He spoke and challenged us on the topic of the gospel in the book of Hebrews.

I came away with a vivid picture in my mind of the contrast of approaching God portrayed by the OT Mosaic covenant and the NT Jesus covenant. Let me put it very simply.

The OT covenant said to:

Women – no you can’t approach God!
Gentiles – no you can’t approach God!
Deformed or disabled – no you can’t approach God!
Jews who were not Levites – no you can’t approach God!
Levites who were not Aaronic priests – no you can’t approach God!
Levites and priests who were not the High Priest – no you can’t approach God!
ONLY one man – the High Priest – and even then he could not approach God except with blood.

The NT covenant says:
You are a woman – you can come
You are a child – you can come
You are a Gentile – you can come
You are a Jew – you can come
You are a Scot – you can come
You are Polish – you can come
You are from Ghana – you can come
You are by nature a sinner – you can come
You are disabled – you can come
You are an outcast – abhorrent in the eyes of my fellow man – you can come!

Wow what a contrast!

But it is more than a contrast – it is the essential power of the new covenant. This ‘welcome’ is the mysterious power that helps turn the wanderer home to the Father. Note these two statements from the pen of Ellen White.

‘Medical Ministry’ pp109-110

“Tell the suffering ones of a compassionate Saviour. . . . He looks with compassion upon those who regard their case as hopeless. While the soul is filled with fear and terror, the mind cannot see the tender compassion of Christ.”

‘Lift Him Up’ p206

“Study the life and character of Christ, and seek to imitate His example. The unconsecrated course of some of those who claim to be believers in the third angel’s message has resulted in driving some of the poor sheep into the desert; and who is it that has manifested a shepherd’s care for the lost and wandering? Is it not time to be Christians in practice as well as profession? What benevolence, what compassion, what tender sympathy, Jesus has manifested toward suffering humanity! The heart that beats in unison with His great heart of infinite love will give sympathy to every needy soul, and will make it manifest that he has the mind of Christ. . . . Every suffering soul has a claim upon the sympathy of others, and those who are imbued with the love of Christ, filled with His pity, tenderness, and compassion, will respond to every appeal to their sympathy. . . . Every soul who attempts to retrace his wanderings and return to God needs the help of those who have a tender, pitying heart of Christlike love.”

That’s what each of us needs to know. It is what our neighbours need to know. You are welcome to come into God’s presence.

There are times in life when it is right to search one’s heart and ask the Spirit of God to show me where I need to grow. These times are sometimes precipitated by a crisis – such as a death of a loved one, the loss of a job, or an incident at church or at home, or simply just over-work and tiredness.

Often we can respond to this situation by casting blame; on God for His apparent loss of control or lack of power over circumstance, or on the brother or sister involved in the incident or a family member. This is usually accompanied by the careful rehearsing and wallowing in self-justifying arguments.

Another response is to foster a sense of guilt. Thoughts with the tag – “Oh, if only I had …” – run through our minds and we can find ourselves in a critical mode that saps our spirit and depresses our hearts. Through this and the response above we can end up isolating ourselves from God.

While many of these processes are natural and possibly need to be experienced as a process of evaluating our relationship with God, they must not be where we stop. There is, when we are ready – a step further.

The Apostle John, in the third chapter of his first epistle, gives us practical and sound advice.

“My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly; living in God’s reality. It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves.” [The MESSAGE]

This is the season when opportunities for practicing real love abound – whether it be for the neighbour we have not had time all year to visit, or the AIDS orphan in Africa, or the church member we need to put things right with, or the oft forgotten elderly person in a lonely nursing home, or the beggar on our streets, or your heavy laden postie, or your prodigal son or daughter. Every person becomes an opportunity.

May this Christmas bless you with a heart blessed by living in God’s reality.     

A few days ago I helped to conduct the funeral of a man of incredible hope. His name was Ken. He had suffered for some years from a degenerative illness that slowly ebbed away at the quality of his life and health. Yet through all the time of his illness I never heard a murmur against his God – rather he spoke inspiringly of his hope. A hope so real that it was not to be compared to the sufferings he was going through nor dimmed by the approach of death.

I have tried to put my mind into the mind of a person who doesn’t have this hope and mostly come up with a sense of the waste of life, its purposelessness and despair.

Some possible alternatives include just not thinking about it – ignore the issue and act like it isn’t there  – but this is like turning your back on the morning sun only to find that in your sunset years there it is in front of you!

Or to imagine that the loved one has gone into the soil and become part of the flowers and lovely things of the Earth in which we live. Sweet nonsense that does not mask the pit of despair – hopeless.

By utter contrast Ken’s hope of the Scriptures, made his funeral just the closing of a chapter in his life – when the next page is turned we see the coming of Jesus, the putting on of immortality, the presence of angels, and the life eternal.  So where is death’s sting? Ken just closed their eyes in sleep for the great wakening up morning. What a hope!

Someone might say – Isn’t this resurrection talk also sweet nonsense?

I have two things to reply to that.

First – Show me what you have that is better!

Secondly, Ken’s hope was not based on wishful thinking – it is based on mercy – the mercy and compassion of the God of Hope. And that is based in the historical facts of the life of One who walked amongst us and revealed the character and heart of God. There can be no greater or more solid basis for hope than the grace and mercy of the heart of the God of Heaven.

I commend Ken’s hope to you.