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Familiar but Fresh…Ripped Apart

Posted by David Ward on 22/04/2025
Posted in: Bible, church, Divorce and remarriage. Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

“…a man leaves father and mother and is firmly bonded to his wife, becoming one flesh—no longer two bodies but one. Because God created this organic union of the two sexes, no one should desecrate his art by cutting them apart.”
Matthew 19:4-6 MSG

Matthew tells this story after he records Jesus teaching about forgiveness, using the story of the Unforgiving Servant (Matthew 18:21-35), so clearly he saw the connection between unforgiveness and hard-heartedness.

The Pharisees seem to have had a very transactional relationship with God…we keep the rules, God looks after us. So for them unthinkingly keeping the rules became more important than thinking about why God gave the rules in the first place…for their good and for the protection of the weak…foreigners, women and the poor. It wasn’t to limit their freedom but to protect it.

The divorce Laws provide a great example of this. In a world where women were often treated as second class citizens and a commodity, the divorce Laws provided a level of protection against women being used and abused.

Jesus calls out the exceptions that have been added because of hard-heartedness, but reiterates it was not how God intended things.

This is not a matter of theory to me. Anyone who has followed this blog for any time may remember my telling of my own experience of divorce and remarriage: “A Short History of Divorce”.

I want to say that whatever reason a marriage breaks down, it is often like being ripped apart, and many I have known have struggled to feel whole again after the experience. Too often the judgementalism of those who should know better, especially in the church, only adds to the sadness and burden. Jesus is encouraging not hard-hearts, but softened, forgiving hearts, much like the heart of the Father towards people like us who have effectively separated from God and gone our own way.

Jesus makes the point that God intends marriage to be for life, but recognises that there are some actions that so destroy the marriage spiritually and emotionally that actual separation is the only way towards wholeness.

I have written before about remarriage and adultery, once again from a personal perspective: “Perpetual adultery: do I dare?”

Jesus said, “Moses provided for divorce as a concession to your hard heartedness, but it is not part of God’s original plan. I’m holding you to the original plan, and holding you liable for adultery if you divorce your faithful wife and then marry someone else. I make an exception in cases where the spouse has committed adultery.”
Matthew 19:8-9 MSG

“Where the spouse has committed adultery”, or in some versions “has been unfaithful”. Unfaithfulness comes in many forms, not just the obvious one of extra-marital affairs. Ephesians 5:28 talks about “loving your spouse as you love your own body”, which I guess makes abusive relationships, domestic violence and controlling behaviour reasons for divorce too.

This is another passage of scripture that has been read and applied literally and legalistically by so many down through the years, especially in some church and social settings where women are still considered second class. This can only serve to increase the pain and sense of loss that divorcees are often feeling. All of which flies in the face of grace, forgiveness and tender-heartedness like that of the Father.

Jesus summary of the Law of Moses beautifully sums it up…”Love God and love your neighbour”. The apostle John takes it one step further…”Loving God includes loving people. You’ve got to love both!”…difficult to argue that you’re loving God by hating the ‘bad people’…

Can I encourege you to think deeply about forgiveness and tender-heartedness in the area of divorce and remarriage, in the way that Jesus was trying to encourage his listeners to do, especially if you hold deeply ingrained, inherited beliefs rather than those you’ve come to having listened well to all the evidence and humbly trying to find a godly attitude for yourself. You may find you disagree with my conclusions, but at least you can hold your view with integrity.

Familiar but Fresh…Forsaken or Defiant

Posted by David Ward on 19/04/2025
Posted in: Bible, Easter, Personal thoughts, the cross. Tagged: , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment

Around mid-afternoon Jesus groaned out of the depths, crying loudly, “Eli, Eli, lama sabachthani?” which means, “My God, my God, why have you abandoned me?”
Matthew 27:46 MSG

I’m writing this on Easter Saturday, the day when the first followers of Jesus hid, disillusioned, disappointed and despairing and more than a little afraid. All of Creation held its breath!

Based on a particular way of understanding Jesus work on the cross, that promotes the idea of an angry God needing to be appeased, there is a popular worship song that interprets Jesus words above as, “The Father turned his face away”. I’ve heard it said God couldn’t look on Jesus because of all of humanity’s sin that he took upon himself, but I think scripture abundantly teaches that although we’re all sinful, God still looks on us and loves us, despite our sin (or is it because we’re helpless sinners?). We’re all sinful, and without Jesus may be separated from God but we’re not abandoned…we continue to be deeply loved…that’s God’s very nature!

What I think is actually going on here is actually an act of defiance by Jesus to all the powers, human and spiritual, that had brought him to this place. It is a confidant statement of who he is (the Son of God) and why he came (to restore the break-up between Creation and it’s Creator) and bring in a new age filled with pregnant possibilities.

Jesus is quoting from Psalm 22:1. This is one of King David’s Messianic Psalms which is full of imagery that followers of Jesus have always associated with Jesus and his death on the cross.

It’s worth sitting down and reading the whole Psalm (31 verses). If you can read it in a version of the Bible you’re less familiar with, so the words have a new freshness.

It’s a Psalm that would have been familiar to every Jewish person in the crowd…They will have remembered it’s words, and ‘read’ on in their minds. The description of what’s going on in the Psalm parallels so much of Jesus experience on the cross, including what looks like a description of crucifixion:

  • Scorned and insulted
  • Not rescued by God
  • Suffering
  • Thirsty
  • Clothes divided up
  • Pierced hands and feet

Those who carried on reciting the Psalm in their heads will have arrived at verses 24 to 27, where the Psalmist makes the point that all that suffering had a purpose…it was achieving something! Finally they will arrive at verses 30 and 31, which in the NIV reads: “They will proclaim his righteousness, declaring to a people yet unborn: He has done it!”

“He has done it!” Mission accomplished…or as John put it in his account of Jesus life, death and resurrection, “It is finished!” (John 19:30 NIV) or “It’s done…complete!” (John 19:30 MSG)

And everyone in the crowd whose spiritual ears and eyes were tuned in, and whose hearts were open, will have heard not a cry of defeat and despair but a shout of victory. “My God, my God” not just a cry of abandonment but a defiant declaration of prophesy’s fulfilment. And then…

…Jesus may have appeared forsaken by God, but 3 days later God vindicated him by raising him from the dead.

Familiar but Fresh…Freely and Lightly

Posted by David Ward on 16/04/2025
Posted in: Bible, discipleship, Personal thoughts, Spirituality. Tagged: , , , , , , . Leave a comment

“Are you tired? Worn out? Burned out on religion? Come to me. Get away with me and you’ll recover your life. I’ll show you how to take a real rest. Walk with me and work with me—watch how I do it. Learn the unforced rhythms of grace. I won’t lay anything heavy or ill-fitting on you. Keep company with me and you’ll learn to live freely and lightly.”
Matthew 11:28-30 MSG

I think this must be one of the most quoted verses from The Message version of the Bible. It is such a dynamic translation of Jesus words to the crowds that had gathered around him. He’d just been teaching his twelve ‘apprentices’, before they set out with him to the surrounding villages, teaching and preaching.

A group of the ‘apprentices’ of John the Baptist, who was in Herod’s prison at this time, came with a question from John, “Are you the Messiah…or should we keep looking?” As Jesus answered them, a crowd gathered, and after John’s apprentices went on their way Jesus began to speak to the crowd. He talked about John the Baptist’s place in the long line of prophets who spoke about God’s plan to Israel, and who were largely ignored. He went on to speak about how some people were ignoring his message too, before praying for the people who had gathered.

It’s then that he gives the invitation that in more traditional translations begins, “Come to me, all of you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. [29] Take my yoke upon you… (Matthew 11:28-29 NLT).

In Jesus culture he was considered to be a rabbi (Hebrew “master” or “teacher”). Like every Rabbi of his day, Jesus will have had two things:

Firstly, he had disciples (‘apprentices ‘is a better word). To be an apprentice of Jesus (and any other rabbi) meant you organised life around three things

  • Be with Jesus
  • Become like Jesus
  • Do what he would do if he were you.

Wow! More than anything else Jesus wants us to be with him, to spend time in his presence, to do what he does and become like him. I guess that’s why I started this journey of simplifying my relationship with him from all the “heavy, ill-fitting” burdens that cultural Christianity can lay on you!

Secondly, every rabbi had a yoke (not a literal one, he’s not a farmer! This is an agricultural reference to the way young oxen are yoked together with an older, more experienced one, so they learn how to pull the plough properly. In the first century a yoke was how people described the way each rabbi read and interpreted the Torah, or Law of Moses. But it was more than that…it was his set of teachings on how to be fully human. His way to bear the burden of the sometimes-crippling weight of life…marriage, divorce, prayer, money, sex, conflict, government…everything.

So, rabbi Jesus had the same things as other rabbis…he had apprentices, and he had a yoke BUT what was different about Jesus was that his yoke was an easy yoke that gives its wearers “rest”.

What is this rest that Jesus offers?

The people in Jesus day would have understood it like this: rest was life at its best and fullest, it was “spiritual rest” …having peace of mind and heart because of having peace with God.

So, the rest Jesus offers has to do with having a close relationship with God. It comes from knowing that we don’t have to be constantly trying to earn God’s approval. Because of Jesus we can be sure of God’s love and friendship and experience his peace.

It doesn’t mean inactivity, an absence of work and busy-ness, like leisure time or a holiday It’s about finding rest in our work, because every part of our being has found that rest in God, which spreads into every part of our lives.

It means that whatever we are doing, whatever our circumstances in life, our heart and mind can still be at rest, peaceful, because we know God’s presence and care…God is our faithful friend.

If that isn’t the way to live freely and lightly, I don’t know what is!

PS I’m really grateful to John Mark Comer for his explanation of Jesus as a rabbi in his book “Practicing the Way” (which was a development of his teaching in “The Ruthless Elimination of Hurry”)