What happens when you can’t think of anything to blog about?
Well, that’s the situation I find myself in this morning. It’s been a quiet week, no runs following last week's (minor) surgery. And nothing from this morning’s news particularly grabs me.
An interesting article from the BBC on the process of how the CofE appoints its bishops, but nothing particularly bloggable. While my preparation for preaching in Blundellsands this Sunday doesn’t lend itself to being blogged.
We did have afternoon tea on a barge in Skipton on Tuesday – but hardly a gripping narrative. We glimpsed a kingfisher, but that’s about it.
I recall bumping into Andrew some weeks back. He wondered how I managed to find something to write about each Friday. Well, Andrew, it’s not easy.
With still another 3500 words still to go, I find myself in the kind of predicament which God loves best, a hopeless situation. The Bible is full of them.
Take the hugely formative Exodus situation, God’s remarkable rescue of his people from slavery in Egypt and their journey to the land promised to them by God. Time after time, Moses and the people of Israel faced disaster head-on; time and time again God came to their rescue.
You can actually hear Moses think “How is God going to get us out of this mess this time?” But he did, even providing for his people in the middle of nowhere.
You would have thought, of course, that the people of Israel would have learned how God keeps his word. But at every challenge, they failed - and moaned. The verse immortalised by Keith Green comes to mind: “We remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost—also the cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic.” (Numbers 11:5).
How the people of Israel managed to survive over the centuries is simply unprecedented. Even exiled to faraway Babylon with their religion apparently consigned to history, within a generation they were back! God used Nehemiah and Ezra (no one is quite sure of their order) to rebuild not just their temple but their community.
No wonder the Psalmist continually praised God for his steadfast love and faithfulness.
However, all this is but a prelude to the most hopeless situation of all. In fact, you would be hard-pressed to think of any situation more hopeless than Jesus being nailed alive to a wooden cross.
Betrayed, abandoned, abused, humiliated, beaten and mocked, he is guarded by a group of Roman legionaries, overseen by a centurion. No way are his followers plotting a daring rescue. And he is dying.
So his only hope is that God is going to somehow – and against all the odds – come to his rescue. After all there are no less than twelve legions of angels, as Jesus informs us, on standby.
But then, words so horrible that Matthew gives us the Aramaic original: Eli, Eli, lema sabachthani?” (which means “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?) (Matthew 27:46)
That’s it.
This has to be the most hopeless of all hopeless situations. And yet it is at the very heart of our faith – for the resurrection victory of Jesus changes everything and would deliver us from hopelessness, the curse of our age. So the apostle Paul proclaims: “And if (Jesus) is still dead, then all our preaching is useless and your trust in God is empty, worthless, hopeless!” (1 Corinthians 15:14)
All this has huge implications, of course. But an important one is that as Christians we do not fear hopeless situations; in fact, it’s our home territory. We may thrive in the wilderness.
I do a lot of upfront ministry nowadays, and fairly often I find myself in churches struggling with small numbers and facing huge problems. Often there may just be the one warden prepared to stick at it. And of course, many churches have closed, some even with a glorious pedigree. Maybe because of their glorious pedigree.
We do take casualties, of course. But we are not to be daunted when the outlook seems hopeless. There are times when God does prune his people and do a Gideon. You will remember the story when God, somewhat eccentrically, reduces Gideon’s army from 32,000 to just 300 to face 135,00 Midianites, to make a point – that the battle is his.
So what do we do when we find ourselves in what appears to be a hopeless situation? First of all, to be honest. “Did I bring this about, my disobedience or foolishness?” Not a problem as such if we are honest before God for the simple reason that he promises to forgive.
So the apostle John rejoices (in the Message translation): “On the other hand, if we admit our sins—simply come clean about them—he won’t let us down; he’ll be true to himself. He’ll forgive our sins and purge us of all wrongdoing.” (1 John 1:9)
The next step will probably be the most difficult. We need to face up to our relationships, especially the need to forgive. We are then in the place of grace, God’s grace that is. He gives and gives when we deserve nothing.
We wait, we wait for God. This is an attitude of mind rather than the passage of time. And more than likely he will surprise us, just like the demoralised disciples sitting in a locked room, fearful of the future.
As Gilbert K. Chesterton once famously observed: “Hope means hoping when everything seems hopeless.” Even when you have nothing to blog about.
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