Spring clean your faith

February may be fondly remembered with Valentine’s Day. But other events feature in this month.

In February 1918, women first gained the right to vote.

This anniversary should act as a clarion call to society that the genuine rights of women are still being denied.

The disgraceful Dorchester charity event and the Hollywood harassment scandal are only two in a multitude of incidents highlighting the unacceptable treatment of women.

Another February commemoration can cause disquiet to many pious believers.

February 12 has virtually been designated in the scientific community as Darwin Day, when would-be scientists rejoice in the triumph of science over blinkered uneducated religion.

Proper scientists make more modest claims for their discoveries.

Both events, and there are others, disturb or should disturb us.

Society must be disturbed by the treatment given to women.

While the exciting advancements of science should provoke sincere believers of every religion into articulating a more intelligent expression of their particular faith.

We are preparing ourselves to commemorate Easter.

We will do so with quiet, pious and meditational services of reverent worship.

The first Easter was nothing like that.

It was a national disturbance, a religious revolution and a fundamental change in the lives of those involved.

All because of that figure at the centre of Easter. Jesus of Nazareth was, and had been all his life, a national disturbance, a religious revolution and the figure with the power to transform men and women.

Easter was a national and religious earthquake with a magnitude well off the religious Richter scale.

All because that figure on the cross was that same Jesus of Bethlehem in whom God came to sojourn among us.

Measure Easter and the Jesus of Easter in these dimensions and you are beginning to appreciate the scale and importance of Easter.

It is the unique God-given event and Jesus is the Godinspired soul at its centre.

Jesus’generation looked for a Messiah and God gave them a servant.

Their promised Messiah would rule with strength and power.

He would down the foreign invaders from Rome and restore Israel.

Instead, Jesus, in meekness and majesty, mixed with the poor and down-and-outs, and befriended the marginalised.

So much so that John the Baptist, who had championed Jesus as the Coming One, sent a message to the Lord,“Are you the promised One who is to come or should we look for another?” (Matthew 11.3).

Jesus’answer outlined all the hallmarks of his genuine Messiahship from God.“Go tell John what you hear and see.

“The blind see, the lame walk, the leper are cleansed, the deaf hear and the dead are raised” (Matthew 11. 4-5).

Jesus had chosen a band of followers.

Now if Jesus had been worldly-wise, he would have gone to the Temple and reached an agreeable understanding with the religious hierarchy.

Perhaps seeking to enrol some of their professional clergy in his ranks.

A scribe actually did want to follow Jesus. But Jesus bluntly indicated what it would be like (Matthew 8.19-20).

Instead, Jesus selected ordinary working guys, chaps who did not even follow the accepted religious practices.

“Why do your disciples not live according to the tradition of the elders?”(Mark 7.1-5).

Jesus even called a tax gatherer into his service (Matthew 9.9).

He handled the immutable law of Moses with a cavalier freedom.

On the one hand, he declared, “Think not that I have come to abolish the law and the prophets”(Matthew 5.17).

But, on the other hand, Jesus replaced their entire legalreligious system,“But I say unto you”(Matthew 5.28).

Jesus’ministry was a religious earthquake.

Jesus’God was different. Jesus made God come near when he called God“Abba, Father”.

God came so near in Jesus that God forgave sins, found his lost children and listened to the sincere prayers of the heart.

God came so near that God saw the utter wretchedness of humanity and met the entire cost to heal and restore.

The full price was the Cross of Calvary.

This Easter, let Jesus spring clean your faith and make it sparkling white.

“For me to live is Christ and to die in gain”(Philippians 1.21).