Fear, not self esteem.

This photo was taken in the sanctuary following church. After writing and showing multiple Italian churches over Lent it is a contrast. We held the service in the smaller, chapel area (which is more modern and easier to heat) but that overflowed so we had to go and get benches from the older church. Which, for people who read this over time, is one that I have argued we should demolish. It will cost us over a million dollars to get this up to earthquake standards, and I’d rather have something simpler, smaller, and cheaper.

But that is the Pentecostal background of my parents. Pentecostals like warehouses for churches, because they are cheap, and only build big centres when they run out of room in schools. One of the unintended consequences of having earthquake regulations is that a fair number of historical churches will be lost — left to become ruins, or demolished and rebuilt to code, simply because no church will spend that kind of money with a clear conscience to restore when you can rebuild. The church is the people, not the building.

Besides, the building now feels strange. My congregation meets in the hall across the road: the folks I worship with when they are in abeyance (or I sleep in) from Grace Presbyterian meet in a bowling club.

The building and the governance are important, but they are not of great importance. Christ is. For this world is falling.

” I can no longer write about politics or political issues because they are superficial, transient and only partially attached to what is real; they are sinkholes of illusion meant to turn us away from the outreach of love that is the taproot of all that is reality — all that is genuine — and that is begging to be accepted. I wrote about politics yesterday and did it poorly because I hated it, and how it made me feel.I don’t want to write about these theatrics anymore, and become complicit in the distraction; I don’t want to assist in leading people away from that pulsing affirmation I felt, “Oh, my people…””

This. This is why HHH isn’t about being-a-dear-wife 99% of the time. Not that being a good wife isn’t important. But being a good wife flows from being in love with Christ. So I try to write as rawly as possible, and I write about the state of my soul and how it got there. I tried writing about other stuff, it felt fake.

We can get caught up in the politics of the day, in the craft of the day. We can forget that our society is at the end of the cycle, atomizing into lonely individuals grokking screens connected to the internet in some search for comfort, for fleeting pleasure in a nation that calls good evil and evil good. It has to be about Christ.

1 CORINTHIANS 15:1-11

¹Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, ²through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you – unless you have come to believe in vain.

³For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, ⁴and that he was buried, and that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, ⁵and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve. ⁶Then he appeared to more than five hundred brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. ⁷Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. ⁸Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. ⁹For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. ¹⁰But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them – though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. ¹¹Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

GOSPEL READING MARK 16:1-8

¹When the sabbath was over, Mary Magdalene, and Mary the mother of James, and Salome bought spices, so that they might go and anoint him. ²And very early on the first day of the week, when the sun had risen, they went to the tomb. ³They had been saying to one another, “Who will roll away the stone for us from the entrance to the tomb?” ⁴When they looked up, they saw that the stone, which was very large, had already been rolled back. ⁵As they entered the tomb, they saw a young man, dressed in a white robe, sitting on the right side; and they were alarmed. ⁶But he said to them, “Do not be alarmed; you are looking for Jesus of Nazareth, who was crucified. He has been raised; he is not here. Look, there is the place they laid him. ⁷But go, tell his disciples and Peter that he is going ahead of you to Galilee; there you will see him, just as he told you.” ⁸So they went out and fled from the tomb, for terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid.

I want to concentrate for a second on the response of the women. One of the things that makes the gospels read like history is that the approved or pious reaction does not occur. “For terror and amazement had seized them; and they said nothing to anyone, for they were afraid” . Calvin says this is because that the disciples had not the power of the spirit, and had not reached a point where their fears were consoled.

With fear and great joy. By these words Matthew means that they were indeed gladdened by what the angel told them, but, at the same the were struck with fear, so that they were held in suspense between joy and perplexity. For there are sometimes opposite feelings in the hearts of the godly, which move them alternately in opposite directions, until at length the peace of the Spirit brings them into a settled condition. For if their faith had been strong, it would have given them entire composure by subduing fear; but now fear, mingled with joy, shows that they had not yet fully relied on the testimony of the angel. And here Christ exhibited a remarkable instance of compassion, in meeting them while they thus doubted and trembled, so as to remove all remaining doubt.

Yet there is some diversity in the words of Mark, that they fled, seized with trembling and amazement, so that through fear they were dismayed. But the solution is not very difficult; for though they were resolved to obey the angel, still they had not power to do so, “Toutesfois le moyen leur defailloit, et elles n’eussent sceu le faire;” — “yet they wanted the means, and would not have known how to do it.” if the Lord himself had not loosed their tongues. But in what follows there is greater appearance of contradiction; for Mark does not say that Christ met them, but only that he appeared first to Mary Magdalene, while Luke says nothing whatever of this appearance. But this omission ought not to appear strange to us, since it is far from being unusual with the Evangelists.

As to the difference between the words of Matthew and of Mark, it is possible that Magdalene may have been a partaker of so great a favor before the other women, or even that Matthew, by synecdoche, may have extended to all what was peculiar to one of their number. It is more probable, however, that Mark names her alone, because she first obtained a sight of Christ, and in a peculiar manner, in preference to the others, and yet that her companions also saw Christ in their order, and that on this account Matthew attributes it to all them in common. This was an astonishing instance of goodness, that Christ manifested his heavenly glory to a wretched woman, who had been possessed by seven devils, (Luke 8:2,) and, intending to display the light of a new and eternal life, began where there was nothing in the eyes of man but what was base and contemptible. But by this example Christ showed how generously he is wont to continue the progress of his grace, when he has once displayed it towards us; and, at the same time, he threw down the pride of the flesh.

Fear is consistent with being in the presence of God. If you look at the prophets, when they met God the first thing they were aware of was their own unworthiness. The law came down with some much glory that the people of God stood back — and Moses alone ascended. It is a terrifying thing to be in the hand of the living God. It is only through the work of the Spirit in our lives that we can indeed approach him.

Calvin’s comment about Christ appearing first to Magdalene and this pushing our pride into the mud is also important. Our self-esteem is but a lie. We are broken, we are fallen, we are not worthy — that is the truth. None of us deserve to be near the righteous.

The rebellion of our society began when we decided that liberty and its bastard child self-esteem was going to be the measure of all things, instead of the older more stern rules of duty and honour.

The problem is that pleasure has no spine, and getting one’s self-worth out of your score on the latest game has no reflection on real life. Struggle is the very essence of being human: dealing with our daily failures, remaining in training, remaining disciplined, doing our duty to others. For in this world, in your college, in your employment, you are generally but a number — indeed when I mark student’s essays I see but their number, to ensure impartiality. The dissonance around this is breaking.

Locally, this is a public holiday. Let us praise God, who made this world, and even in the most broken state, still reflects his glory.