Nothing Left to Hide: An Easter Poem
And so he swept away sin’s tide; / Demons, death denied; / Came back to win his bride.
And so he swept away sin’s tide; / Demons, death denied; / Came back to win his bride.
I’ll still bless you in the middle of the storm, in the middle of my trial. I’ll still bless you, when I’m in the middle of the road, and I don’t know which way to go. – Naomi Raine It has been two months since my dad died. I had just picked my kids up from their daycare orientation when I received a call from my brother telling me that dad had suffered a stroke and would be unlikely to make it through to the next morning. A couple of hours later I was on a plane to Sydney praying...
Tim Patrick continues TGCA’s Apostles’ Creed series … The penultimate clause of the Apostles’ Creed forms a theological pair with the earlier line, ‘on the third day he rose again’. One speaks of what happened to Jesus after his crucifixion and burial, and the enduring change to his human nature. The other speaks of the future that awaits all who have died, and all who will die, before the return of Jesus. Theologians call the latter the General Resurrection of all people, to distinguish it from the singular resurrection of Christ. Resurrection Begun Jesus’ resurrection is not a discrete event, but...
Part 10 of TGCA’s series on The Apostle’s Creed As I have been writing this, I have also been reading the last Harry Potter book (Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows). That’s right, it is 2020 and I am only now reading Harry Potter (maybe after I finish I will get to the Hobbit and the Lord of the Rings neither of which I have read). Spoiler alert: In the previous book in the series … still time to turn away if you haven’t read it… Harry Potter dies! I was reading it to my 11 year-old son and we...
Part 9 of TGCA’s series on The Apostle’s Creed The bodily resurrection of Jesus is one of the central affirmations of the evangelical church. Sadly, there have been times in our recent past when we have needed to defend this belief not only against materialistic atheists who are sceptical about the possibility of anything miraculous, but also against groups within the wider church who prioritise an apparent theological sentiment behind the resurrection texts over the relatively straightforward message of the texts themselves. For these groups, ideas like ‘Jesus is now risen in our hearts’ are more the point than the...