Flesh&Stone Sing

Lyrics taken from Christian Hymns

…and the heart of a sinner

We sing the praise of God who died

Then like a lion rose with light

Let all the world my king deride

I’ll worship you LORD with my life

You who search hearts come strengthen mine

To see you on your glorious throne

Grant me a taste of love divine

That I will treasure you alone

Ride on, ride on, in majesty my King

For you are robed in jealousy, in victory

Ride on, ride on, your saints’ ‘hosanna’ cry

With all our spirits yearning, for you LORD we would die

You bid our wounded heart to soar

And sweeten every bitter cup

For we know if we suffer pain

Your glory will be lifted up

Your Spirit braves our cowardly hearts

To nerve our feeble tongues for fight

This revelation you impart

Darkness won’t overcome the light

Ride on, ride on, to capture hearts for which You died

Ride on, ride on, come cleanse this land again with fire

Ride on, ride on, and claim the victory You have won

Ride on, ride on, all glory belongs to the Lamb

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Why Write…?

Those of you who have read anything I have posted recently, or have had the unfotunate priviledge of talking to me or hearing me speak recently, may have noticed a consistent theme arising: that of grief, mourning and suffering. More specifically how these are acts and responses of worship and devotion that are beautifully true to our Father. Furthermore that they are not accidents of fate, a sign of divine displeasure (neccesarily) or of divine neglect, but rather the purposeful use of sons and daughters by a loving merciful father. For as the Father sent Jesus, so he sends us: blood and all.

My reasons for writing are twofold.

Firstly: I write because this is what God is teaching me; what he is impressing upon my own heart. Whether for the reason that I should help show others these glorious truths or that I should embody them myself I am still uncertain. Though I suspect both to be the case.

Secondly: I write because I am convinced that an incomplete, diluted theology of lament and suffering will leave us with an incomplete, diluted conception of God’s purposes for the church.

I have been for some time thinking about the next instalment in the series, which will be on the subject of ‘Joy, Suffering and Lament.’ I have been thinking about how we can fuse and hold in tension the truths of heart-breaking mourning and inexpressable joy. How the examples of suffering, the exhortation to weeing and the command to rejoicing in all things intertwine.

Hopefully a post will be coming soon. But until then I will leave you with what God has impressed upon me. Oh that we would be a generation characterised by unspeakable devotion to the Risen Lamb, that we would be those who do not love our lives so much as to shrink from death but who overcome by the blood of the Lamb and the word our testimony, in word and action.

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What does it mean to weep for a nation?

Not in the abstract sense of land and trees and rivers, the voiceless grass and sea. But to weep for a people, individuals, an ocean of faces and souls torn by divorce, drugs, gang violence, bullying, isolation, ostracism, domestic violence, abuse, addiction, sex, pornography, apathy, false religion and piety, hopelessness, a valley of hate. People who have a voice, but who use it to scream, or muffle it in the bosom of a broken breast.

What does it mean to cry out as one?

A family who share the same pains as our eternal paternal benefactor. A body whose skin itches and gut wretches at the same injustice, or even mercy starved streets. A bride who refuses to rest in riches ignoring the squalor and slums outside of the palace gate.

I do not want to talk about theology, although I will say that there are so many references to lamenting and crying and rending and tearing our clothes in the bible, that it is as if the bible itself weeps and spills great floods of emotion out over the cracking floor.

Rather than theology I want to say this:

Today I sat on the floor and wept.

Without knowing exactly why I began to cry and could not stop. I fell to my knees and even curled up into a ball such was the intensity of the emotion of grief I felt. I put my face to the expensive patterned rug in my living room and I wept. The rug did not invalidate my tears anymore than a council estate ghetto validates anyone elses. So be generous with your tears, for He hears the years of pain and waits for the cry of a penitent heart.

Oh that my tears ran like great rivers coursing down my cheeks. Rivers that flowed into a sea of cheek shed passion from a generation of believers, believers who believed the one who changes hears hearts. That this sea would flow across the open wound of our country and soothe our aches like healing balm.

For we do not need a generation of heroes, great people of whom we tell stories so that we do not need to enact greatness ourselves. We need a generation of ordinary people who weep because it is the right thing to do, who pray because desperation reaps fervency, who dance because joy is the cry of the bride, and who speak because hope must have a voice, because hope has earned a voice, and because she waits on the mountains to ride to the rescue of her children.

But before we speak hope. We must learn to weep.

I do not mean to deny hope a voice. For in fact hope shouts loud from mountains above the roar of our dissent and horror. But, I feel we must taste the mud and blood and sweat and tears of grief before we have to right to raise our voices. We must learn again that genuine grief is a beautiful offering of worship before our Father. That our bowls of prayers are most full when they are full of tears.

For mercy and hope and the grief of the Father’s heart.

N.B- John 16:19-21 

 Jesus saw that they wanted to ask him about this, so he said to them, “Are you asking one another what I meant when I said, ‘In a little while you will see me no more, and then after a little while you will see me’?

I tell you the truth, you will weep and mourn while the world rejoices. You will grieve, but your grief will turn to joy. A woman giving birth to a child has pain because her time has come; but when her baby is born she forgets the anguish because of her joy that a child is born into the world.

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What does it mean to walk closely with the Holy Spirit. What does it look like when we are ‘in step’ with our great comforter, lover and teacher. Is it manifested through incredible gifts of prophecy, miracles, healing or through visions, dreams and revelations? Possibly. But these are gifts, apportioned by the Spirit as he choses. They are not earned or gained by ‘righteous’ acts like some great slot machine in the sky handing out goodies when we pull the right leavers. It is undoubtedly a walk of love, grace and humility. But I want to pick out one element that I have felt keenly recently. That is the burden of sin and the sinful nature.

When we draw near to the Holy Spirit, He acts as a light, highlighting the staining tar on what we had previously thought to be our clean inner shores. Not only this, but as awareness increases, so does our burden and grievance at the sin we find ourselves entangled in. It is this that causes Paul to cry out in Romans 7

What a wretched man I am! Who will rescue me from this body of death?

It is the same sentiment that John Newton expresses in his hymn.

I asked the Lord that I might grow
In faith, and love, and every grace;
Might more of His salvation know,
And seek, more earnestly, His face.

 

’Twas He who taught me thus to pray,
And He, I trust, has answered prayer!
But it has been in such a way,
As almost drove me to despair.

 

I hoped that in some favored hour,
At once He’d answer my request;
And by His love’s constraining pow’r,
Subdue my sins, and give me rest.

 

Instead of this, He made me feel
The hidden evils of my heart;
And let the angry pow’rs of hell
Assault my soul in every part.

 

Yea more, with His own hand He seemed
Intent to aggravate my woe;
Crossed all the fair designs I schemed,
Blasted my gourds, and laid me low.

 

Lord, why is this, I trembling cried,
Wilt thou pursue thy worm to death?
“’Tis in this way, the Lord replied,
I answer prayer for grace and faith.

 

These inward trials I employ,
From self, and pride, to set thee free;
And break thy schemes of earthly joy,
That thou may’st find thy all in Me.”

It is as if we groan and yearn for the grave clothes of sin to be shredded from our bones, because when we come close to the beautiful Spirit we realise afresh we are alive. We are alive and no longer to be snatched by the cords of death. But we feel the weight of the last remnants of death clinging like stinking grave clothes to our backs. The final throws of the death of death heavy like entrails on our shoulders. Our own guilt is a twelve ton skip full of last weeks kebabs, heavy and stinking.

But we also have the blessing of feeling keenly the overflowing grace of God into our lives. The intimacy of his love and tender forgiveness. It is here, in the midst of our filthy rags, that the grace of God is most majestic, most full, most sweet in our hearts. Though we are caught in mud, our loving Father lifts our gaze to where we are seated in heavenly places. Where it is finished and the angels line the streets waiting for the bride to come and take her place in the banquet hall. Yes, these inwards trials bear our souls into affliction and grief, and though we cry out for the burden to be lifted, we seem only more afflicted the closer we draw. But, the sweet release of grace that breaks the chains of sin and condemnation brings honey to our lips the like of which we have never before tasted. The revelation of the goodness and mercy of God is all the more complete, and our trust, dependance and faith in his grace and salvation accomplished by his mighty hand wrought with blood and sweat is strengthened and sured up until the day we are stripped of the grave clothes and robed in the glory of the king. In that day we will be the royal diadem in the hand of the king, the sculplted vase, beautiful and without defect, free from the burden of sin.

Lord, haste the day.

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speak

I spoke no conviction,

My tongue like a blunt knife,

Empty of the true vine,

And wine, sublime divine.

 

I opened wide the grave,

My teeth like flowers staved,

Upon the score of death,

I wrought with unmeant words.

 

Repent that soul and mind,

Are not found intertwined,

That beguiled eyes that smile,

Usher no denial.

 

I tell thee subtle tongue,

That makes my will undone,

You pink thin fleshed rudder,

For once speak conviction.

 

Wash my guttural deep,

And let your honey seep,

Sweet truth to free then speak,

The overflow of meek.

 

Therein rise affection,

My new third day diction,

Born like borne affliction,

So speak with conviction.

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The music is less about who is playing, and more about who is hearing.

You sit on a barely cushioned black wooden bench. Your feet rest lightly against three small metal paddles, applying the bearest pressure. Your eyes are closed. Across the room an old man sits quietly, his hand resting on an old leather-bound journal placed delicately on the mosaic surface of the coffee table. A couple sit closer to the slightly elevated stage. They drink wine like time sliding away and listen only to what the other is saying. Young men with fancy shoes lean at the bar, fishing, some of the girls with short skirts bite. Although the room is full of tobacco smoke, wood fills your pores like incense, your head is full of piano hammers waiting to go off. The ivory is warm from where your fingers and face have christened the keys with your wait. Then, you begin to play.

The dampener is on. Your fingers dance across the board like electric-fire, alive with the beat of your heart and blood pulsing through and through your veins. Chord to chord to crescendo to fall quietly into the slow trace of true intention. The music is beautiful. Blue like the sky or creation singing with you. There are no stage lights. The stage is made of coarse wood and the piano is slightly out of tune. The curtain behind is faded red and torn. No glamour to drown out the clamour around you.

Everyone continues on. They have not stopped to hear you play. Men in brown jumpers play poker and shout at tables arranged along the side of the wall. The couple in front blow smoke into each other’s mouthes, and the boys at the bar whistle, out of key with your melody. You have played your heart with piano strings and black-white keys. They have not listened, haven’t heard your sweet symphony. But wait. There. At the back. In the shadow by the door. In the last seat left, where he is easily ignored. The old man cries. The cavernous cracks that time and life wrote on his face gleam with streams. He alone heard. He opened wide his eyes and ears. And, as he gets up to leave, placing the journal in the inside pocket of his jacket near to his heart, he smiles.

Worship is less about who is playing, and more about who is listening.

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“I don’t want anybody buying up my life’s work and

turning it intosomething it wasn’t meant to be. 

A man wants to leave something behind.

And he wants it left behind the way he made it.”

Bill Parish, Meet Joe Black.

At this juncture I would like to break from considering life directly. Take a moment, a brief breath held second or two, and think about the weight of life. What is left behind. When all is said and done, poems have been written, songs have been sung, love loved and life lived. Of what is man made? What is our legacy? 

We all leave a stamp, an imprint, a trace of life like a footprint showing where we have walked and danced. We all want to be remembered, with fondness maybe, a soft glow, a desire to imitate, perhaps we even want people to remember how we shook the world. And we all know people who have left their mark, not just the great historical figures who loom from the pages of books or haunt from the past like a great shadow. But those who we have known, family maybe, good friends old and fine like wine, who have carved our hearts like roads a man walks, laying the next bricks before our feet. They often never even knew what were doing as they gave us their heritage.

What is the measure of a life well lived?

To this John replied, “A man can receive only what is given him from heaven. You yourselves can testify that I said, ‘I am not the Christ but am sent ahead of him.’ The bride belongs to the bridegroom. The friend who attends the bridegroom waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice. That joy is mine, and it is now complete. He must become greater; I must become less. “

When John’s followers left, Jesus began talking to the people about John: “What did you go out into the desert to see? A reed blown by the wind? What did you go out to see? A man dressed in fine clothes? No, people who have fine clothes and much wealth live in kings’ palaces. But what did you go out to see? A prophet? Yes, and I tell you, John is more than a prophet. This was written about him:
    ‘I will send my messenger ahead of you, 
     who will prepare the way for you.’ — Malachi 3:1
I tell you, John is greater than any other person ever born, but even the least important person in the kingdom of God is greater than John.”

John claimed that he was a friend of the bridegroom, one who attends him, waits and listens for him, and is full of joy when he hears the bridegroom’s voice.

Jesus held John in great admiration, God held John in great admiration. When discussion about John breaks out, Jesus is quick to lay out why he was a great man. He takes great care to point out that the reason John attracted such attention was not because of the show he put on, how he dressed himself up in finery and tickled the people’s ears with fairytales or small words. He was not blown by the winds of societies opinion, he was not distracted into pride. He was faithful to the message and prophecy given to him by God, breathed into the core of his being by divine wind.

John left little behind that would stand as great legacy in the world’s eyes. But he left behind that which brought delight to the eyes of God. Faithfulness, patience, fiery passion, and love.

He was a friend of the bridegroom. What a legacy to leave behind. Yes, John turned hearts. As he walked through the wilderness the hearts of children were turned to fathers and fathers to children. Hearts were  turned to Jesus as messiah, disciples who would follow him. But John’s joy was found in this, he heard the voice of the bridegroom.

Jesus tells the tale of a faithful servant to whom he says:  

‘Well done, good and faithful servant! You have been faithful with a few things; I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

 I imagine he will say this to John, and my desire is that he would say it to me.

There is a point at the end of the film ‘Meet Joe Black’ where Bill Parrish gets up on the stage of his 65th birthday. The sky above swollen with stars and the white of his shirt glancing under the moon and stage lights, he is cajoled before a microphone. He is about to die, and more than this, he has the priviledge so few of us are ever granted, he knows he is about to die. In one moment he sees his past like a great tapestry, grains of sand falling slowly through time in a boulevard of faces and cities, treasures and regrets, love and love lost. He sees his life in its near entirety, short but a few precious minutes and a last dance with his daughter. He reaches up to the ornate cake, lays his hands either side of the table, and blows the single candle out. Then he speaks.

“What a glorious night, every face I see is a memory.  It may not be a perfectly perfect memory
 sometimes we had our ups and downs– but we’re all together, and you’re mine for a night.
And I’m going to break precedent, and tell you my one-candle wish…

that you would have a life as lucky as mine, where you can wake up one morning and say

“I don’t want anything more. I have no regrets.”

Sixty-five years - don’t they go by in a blink?”

What does it mean to live a life without regret?

I do not think Bill Parrish lived a life without mistakes. In fact, I do not consider Bill Parrish to be a role model for the perfect legacy, far from it, after all, he is only a film character.

But I would like, no, I aspire to stand at the final moment, when time and history role up like a great scroll, and say I have no regrets. Many, many mistakes, yes. But covered, and recovered by Jesus.

I would like to stand before my saviour, and with tear strewn face, have him turn to me and call me friend, and faithful. I would like to leave a legacy of hearts turned by the love of God through my hands. That on the day I leave, many would weep with joy and loss, that they would praise God for what he had done with a fool like me. But mostly, what I desire, is that one person, one face, His face, would look on me and smile.

I invite you to consider your legacy.

What will men say of you? Were you a reed blown in the wind? Or did you stand faithful, waiting to hear the bridegroom’s voice, the friend you long to see.

Choose a life well lived.

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How great the love He lavished,
How beautiful His grief,
As with His blood He purchased,
Our hearts to kneel before His feet.

How He shall come with glory,
His voice to rend the clouds,
How He shall clutch the faithful,
And at His bosom bestow crowns.

And how my face shall flood with tears,

As perfect love drowns out my fears,

Then there before the blazing Son,

At last we shall be one.

How He will tread the winepress,

Injustice ‘neath His feet,

Then as He stands in triumph,

He up will beckon all the meek.

So ’til the day when you return,

And clasp me tender in your palm,

Forgive my heart and make me burn,

To have You call me friend,

To have You call me friend.

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Activism VS Intercession

We have in church culture and Christian life an too frequent tendancy to sway towards one or the other.

We are all action, go go go, save the world, feed the poor, preach the gospel. Or.

All prayer, lock ourselves away, pray until Jesus comes back, he is mighty to save, he can restore justice. Never fully realising that his hand moves silently beside ours in action, God works, often, when we work.

Even worse than this, we have an infrequent tendancy to view and treat the two as inextricably linked. This could just be me, but I don’t practice half the things I pray about, and I don’t pray about half the things I do.

A social action movement is initiated in one church, people protest, clean gardens and graffiti, feed the poor and preach the gospel, but forget to fervently pray. While in another church a prayer day, or week, or hour is set in motion, but they never get round to acting.

Nehemiah, one of the great leaders of Israel, however, had a dual existence.

The first with actions on a broken earth, ordering and arranging builders, craftsmen, politicians, and governers. All to bring about the rebuilding of the wall of Jerusalem; the first step to restoring the kingdom of God in his generation on earth.

The second before the throne of God in heaven, carried by the spirit through Jesus to the Father who hears all prayers by his children and whose hand is mighty enough to answer even the most incredible requests.

We see this duo-core lifestyle exercised in the first two chapters of Nehemiah.

Nehemiah One

Nehemiah Two

Nehemiah weeps, mourns, fasts, and prays.

He laments with all his being the destruction of the walls of Jerusalem. He rends his heart, not just his clothes and outward appearance. He prays honestly and humbly, accepting his own responsibility in Israel’s current plight. But he also prays with confidence based on the knowledge of God and his promises.

He does this for some days.

Nehemiah leads us in an intercessory lifestyle.

Then, he acts.

He goes before the king with his requests, buoyed by prayer, but no doubt absolutely bricking it.

He makes outrageous requests to the king. The kind of requests which in a second could have him snapped into the jaws of death by the king.

Those present in the room must have been wide eyed and slack jawed at the audacity of this man. He asks for the king to allow a nation which he has conquered to effectively re-establish its defences so that it would have the capacity to break away and reform itself. He then asks for the king to give him a royal seal and blessing for his journey, allow his army to escort him, and provide the materials for the rebuilding from his own private stores.

Nehemiah leads us towards bold action without fear of repercussions.

Nehemiah demonstrates that Intercession is not an excuse not to act, but a reason to be assured of the effect our actions.

He portrays to us a heart rent towards God and his will, then a hand that forcefully grasps and implants the kingdom of God on earth. He offers himself as a vessel and tool for God to spread heaven on earth like gold, pleads for it, then puts his life on the line to see it happen.

We must see Action and Intercession not as divisible from one another.

But as intertwined hands cupping water.

If one hand alone tries to lift the water, the water flows out from the hand, or slides through the fingers, and the hand is left empty.

But when both hands are entwined together, the water is carried from the fountain, to the lips of the thirsty.

I do not mean to discredit the value of recognising the various roles within the body of the church.

However, there are some things which all are called to pursue and enact. Faith without works is dead according to James. In the same way, a heart that is truely turned to the will and compassion of the Father in prayer cannot sit back while there is no action. One who prays for justice must if they truely desire justice, enact it. One who prays for salvation must act based on the knowledge that faith comes through hearing the word of God. There may be those who support in prayer those who are acting. Perhaps it is a special commission by the Father, or they are too far removed from the situation to be able to act practically. But in general, intercession and action weave together in a beautiful tapestry that moves the hand and builds the kingdom of God

As we pursue life, life worth living, a costly life with lasting effect. I exhort you to employ your tongue towards the heavens and the earth. Your outstretched arms clutching the world to your bosom in compassion and mercy, while reaching for the white throne as symbols of our torn and wrestling hearts.

 We must overcome both our pride that we can do all things ourselves, and our fears and complacency that hold us back from courageous action.

Choose life.

A life lived on the knees with pleas,

Then an outstretched arm with love and truth, and a tongue that’s tamed to the sword of life.

Choose Sword&Supplication

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