G K CHESTERTON on the eternal appetite

A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, "Do it again"; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning, "Do it again" to the sun; and every evening, "Do it again" to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we.

G. K. Chesterton in Orthodoxy

TOM WRIGHT on the pattern of incarnation

"I tell you the truth, whoever accepts anyone I send accepts me; and whoever accepts me accepts the one who sent me." John 13:20

Those who go in Jesus' name, who get on with whatever work he gives them to do in his spirit and his love, are given an extraordinary status and privilege. Anyone who welcomes them, welcomes Jesus, and thereby also welcomes 'the one who sent him'. You probably won't recognise it at the time. You'll be too busy thinking of the people you're working for and with. But, as you look back, you may be startled by the joy of realizing that as you walked into that house, that hospital, that place of pain or love or sorrow or hope, Jesus was walking in, wearing your skin, speaking in your tone of voice. 'I've given you a pattern,' he said, and he meant it.

Tom Wright, in John for Everyone - Part 2

EVDOKIMOV on Vocation

"One's vocation is found exactly on the crest between necessity and creative freedom, along the line of faith, which reveals the direction as its free and strong confession grows... One's entire vocation is an option, an answer to a call that has been heard. It can simply be the present condition. It is never a voice that clarifies everything. The dimness inherent in faith never leaves us. "

Paul Evdokimov, quoted in 'Real Sex' by Lauren F. Winner

Touch and see

Continuing my reflections on the Incarnation...

I was struck on Sunday to recall the story of Thomas at the end of John's Gospel and the nature of his declaration of faith, "My Lord and my God!"

Thomas' statement of belief, the first of its kind in the Gospels, reads as an almost immediate response to Jesus' appearance amongst the disciples and his invitation to Thomas to touch and see that his wounds are real. Thomas is the first person to declare that Jesus is God, and although this is partly a response to Jesus' resurrection and new life, it is significant to find it following a demonstration not of Godly power, but of human life.

Jesus invites Thomas to touch him and affirm his reality, his bodily life, his humanity - still showing the marks of pain and death. In this short interaction we find an illustration of some of the magic and the paradox of the incarnation. Thomas recognises Jesus divinity, not in spite of his humanity but through it. Jesus wants Thomas to know that he is real, that he has bodily life, and is not just a spirit. But in this very human demonstration, Thomas suddenly sees the fullness of who Jesus is, Lord and God.

Sweeping up the competition

For some geek humour...check out the launch of Google Minesweeper!

It's no turkey

"Warren stresses that he's not for the right wing or the left wing but for the whole bird. Amen to that as well. Just need to make sure the bird one is holistically endorsing is the Gospel bird, and not a turkey."

Ben Witherington praises Rick Warren as a model of faith on his blog.

It's great to see one Christian writer being so generous about another, and both Rick Warren (the author of The Purpose Driven Life) and Ben W come across very well. The USA Today article Ben cites on 'America's most influential pastor' is also well worth a read.

CS Lewis on Time

We are so little reconciled to time that we are even astonished at it. "How he's grown!" we exclaim, "How time flies!" as though the universal form of our experience were again and again a novelty. It is as strange as if a fish were repeatedly surprised at the wetness of water. And that would be strange indeed; unless of course the fish were destined to become, one day, a land animal.

CS Lewis in Reflections on the Psalms