Think Question Believe

In the story of the feeding of the five thousand we need to look beyond the confines of conventional interpretations, beyond the banal limitations of time and place, and seek instead what are timeless, eternal truths.

Is there a tendency, within the church, to revert to the Pharisee, to retreat into rules and constraints and the sanctuary of the few, the exclusive club, that cares more for law than the suffering of humanity?

‘Now we see through a glass darkly’ said the Apostle Paul, for both our ability to understand, and the lenses through which we look are compromised, each in their own way.

Donald Woods Winnicott who died in 1971 was an English paediatrician and psychoanalyst who was especially influential in the field of developmental psychology. He is best known for his ideas on the true self and the false self.

Let’s be honest, no one takes the whole Bible literally, no one. Otherwise, they would already be in prison for murder or a fugitive from the law. We are all selective, and rightly so, in our reading of scripture.

Throughout the Gospel of John “the Jews” are presented as hostile to Jesus and to all who assert that he is the Christ. They are said to plot against him, to convince Pilate to execute him; even after his crucifixion they are said to oppose Pilate placing the sign ‘King of the Jews’; supposedly the disciples hid for fear of “the Jews”.

It can be pleasing when you find a meeting of minds, as it were, between science and religion, after all, there is no need for them to be at odds, and at best they can act as a corrective and a refiner, one to the other.

J. John, the famous preacher speaks of how he was once asked at a funeral “Did your uncle leave much?” he replied “O yes - he left everything”.

Anyone who has held their newborn child in their arms knows that time, when nothing else is of any account,  when the miracle of new life is our total focus, when we become aware of the awesome continuity of it all.

As any parent knows the journey through the pregnancy is one of hope, joy, worry, optimism, struggle, expectation and fear. In a way the birth becomes such a focal point that we can’t see past that day, everything is building up to the delivery almost as if time beyond that point doesn’t exist.

But, of course, it does, and far from being a destination the new birth becomes just the start of such a change in our lives, inconceivable before; such a turning point, that you look back and hardly recognize yourself before.

The birth of any child is momentous and precious, the birth of this child is of cosmic and timeless significance.

And how infinitely more so with the coming of Jesus, a source of joy and hope not only to his parents and family, but soon to be a source of new hope to a world in desperate need. A tiny baby that grew up to be the most significant human being who has ever lived.

In the Gospels the writers report that Jesus warns of the times to come, of the apocalypse that his listeners should expect.