The Gospel of John shows that darkness has not ovecome light (the Word or Jesus) and holds out a promise to us that no matter what may happen to us there is always an opportunity for a new start – but that can be hidden from view and make us think that it’s not there…

Goodgoat noticed that there are signs of new life after Winter around now – crocusses are showing their bright flowers heralding Spring – but where did they appear from? Goodgoat hadn’t noticed the buds before the flowers appeared, and yet it has happened.

When we are in dark places trust God that there is something new starting to happen that we haven’t noticed yet – then when least expected, will notice something that breaks us out of our darkness if only for an instant – keep trusting – there is more to come – there is light that can overcome the darkness.

Some time ago I heard a “Thought for the Day” on UK BBC Radio 4 that was given by the Bishop of Liverpool, James Jones. He wondered whether it was not possible to see the face of God and live because in the face of God is seen the pain of the fallenness of the World, and that that pain is so intense that if someone like Sadam Hussein were to see it, he would be destroyed by the encounter.

Let’s take this idea a stage further…in my mind any encounter between God and evil amounts in the destruction of the evil. What if when Jesus returns to earth for the last judgement, all of creation, including all people, are exposed to God’s ultimate goodness, and are therefore subject to being destroyed by the encounter between their fallenness and an absolutely good God?

On the Cross, we see Jesus taking our sin, all of our wrongdoings and fallenness on himself – the only one (being God Himself) that can take the confluence of the fallenness and Good? So…it’s only by a relationship with God through Jesus that the encounter between God’s goodness and our fallenness that we can survive the encounter? God is being totally generous in providing this route – He shows us forgivess through grace (sometimes explained as an acronym – God’s Riches at Christ’s Expense).

I find it very difficult to think about a God of Good that destroys anything that He has made – but the ideas given above help me to be able to accept this.

What do you think?

My grandmother died in 2007. She had got to her 90’s and had had a full life. The morning of the funeral I got a call from my mother – did I want to go and view my grandmother in the chapel of rest? At first, I thought “no” but then I realised that I had never faced death so I decided to go. I was accompanied by a priest friend and went in to the chapel of rest with some trepidation. I took at look at her body and very quickly realised that there was nothing of her left in the body and that she looked quite different. The absence of life had changed her appearance.

It’s always puzzled me why, in the recounting of the story in the Bible, e.g. The Gospel according to John, chapter 20 verses 14-16, people didn’t recognise Jesus after his resurrection (for more of a debate about the resurrection see Bishop Alan Wilson’s Blog). I can see that if the absence of life makes us look different then could not the addition of new, resurrection life, also make us look different?