Tilehouse Street Baptist Church,
Hitchin Tilehouse Street Baptist Church,
Hitchin
OUTLOOK
Joshua told the people, "Consecrate yourselves,
for tomorrow the Lord will do
amazing things among you."
Joshua 3:5
Dear Friends
When writing for a church magazine that is only published bi-monthly what do I comment on and what do I leave out? Do I look back, do I focus on what is happening now or do I look ahead? Or should it include a combination of all three!? Decisions. Choices.
Whatever stage we’re at in life we all have to make them.
- Some will be easy and it won’t really matter which choice we make.
- Others not so easy and with life-long implications.
Our text for the year has been chosen to reflect the season in which we now find ourselves as a church. And the season to come. A season where, more than ever, we need to trust the God who loves us and who has walked with us through 356 years of history. And who will continue to walk with us into our 357th year. And so we have a choice. Do we look up and keep our focus on the God who is for us and "who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us…" (Ephesians 3:20) or do we look down and focus only on what we have and can do?
Joshua 3:5 declares that we will do the former. And as part of that I want us all to understand the importance of the Church Day on Saturday 5 April and how much the presence and participation of each one of us is needed and wanted. Please make sure you’ve put this date in your diary and find out what it’s all about.
Martin Luther King Jr
President Donald Trump
But that’s in April. What of now? The season of remembering the birth of our Saviour has passed once more and soon it will be time to look forward to the season of remembering his journey to the cross. Lent begins on another 5th, the 5th of March, Ash Wednesday. An obvious period of time for intentionally continuing to consecrate ourselves.
And in the meantime we are faced with the return of Trump as President of the USA…
It’s easy to cast Trump’s return as simply ‘bad’. (It certainly isn’t great, that’s for sure.) But at the same time as Trump swore his oath, America marked Martin Luther King Day. This coincidence has happened only once before and it serves as a poignant reminder that, as MLK said: "the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice."
As one man epitomises where single-minded bombast and a shameless quest for power can get you, so the other is still reminding us of another way; a way that requires a persistent courage, a giving up of power, a standing in solidarity with others in the hope of change.
A man who consecrated himself and through whom the Lord did amazing things. A man who followed the one "Who, being in very nature God, did not consider equality with God something to be used to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness. And being found in appearance as a man, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to death - even death on a cross!" (Philippians 2:6-8)
And that is what we are called to be and do: people of faith and hope; people who want to be like Jesus, who want to see the Lord do amazing things. Not just among us at Tilehouse Street but throughout the world. Trump or no Trump.
Every blessing,
Jane
