Paul 7

 

But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city, and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them out of their coasts. But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy and with the Holy Ghost.   (Acts 13:50-52)

So far we have traced that missionary journey of Paul and Barnabas how they left the church in Antioch, Syria and sailed to Cyprus. They travelled the length of that Island of Cyprus preaching in the synagogues and then preaching before the Roman governor, Sergius Paulus at Pathos whom Paul subsequently converted. You will remember how Paul before that Roman governor dealt with the sorcerer, Elymas. Elymas the magician who tried to oppose him. Then, having completed their work in Cyprus, John Mark left them, but Paul and Barnabas sailed to that country we know today as Turkey, landing in Perga Pamphylia, they journeyed over the Taurus mountains before coming to Pisidian Antioch; Pisidian Antioch not to be confused with Antioch in Syria. In Pisidian Antioch you will recall that in the synagogue on the Sabbath day, Paul was invited to speak which he did, Paul preached the Christian gospel in the synagogue there. And afterwards both he and Barnabas were asked to preach the following week. And it was in that following week that the leading Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women and the chief men of the city and raised persecution against Paul and Barnabas. 

 Now when Paul and Barnabas visited that city in 48 AD it was then the Roman centre of civil and military administration.  What we are told about this city, under Roman rule, is that it was a city of a mixed population of Greeks, Romans, Jews, the local people who were known as Phrygians who were known to be volatile. And I think that word ‘volatile’ could probably be used to describe that city, Antioch, at the best of times. Trouble could spark up at any time. The Romans were, as we know, from the trials and crucifixion of Jesus in Jerusalem, were always careful and ready to maintain civil stability, and to use force, if necessary, to impose law and order in any of the territories that were under their control.

In saying this, I remind you of the prevailing circumstances surrounding the we are considering today, and those circumstances were quite simply this: 

‘But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city.’ 

The Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women, and the chief men of the city.

And why should that be? Well, you might recall how we are told in the Acts of the Apostles that following week, after Paul had preached in the synagogue how almost the whole city had gathered to hear Paul and Barnabas preach again and how that city and the surrounding villages had a population of around a 100,000 people.  So, when we think about that, I’m sure that we can get an idea of the scale of that event!

So, we can imagine that any Roman governor with his eye on law and order would be nervously watching and monitoring the situation.  Nervously watching and monitoring the situation, but he and his advisors, they wouldn’t be the only ones – the Jewish leadership were hardly going to be joyful to see the huge crowds that were turning out for Paul and Barnabas, to hear Paul preach. “Look at the crowds, look at the numbers – it’s enormous!  That’s what the leaders of the synagogue must have thought, 'We can’t get a congregation anything like that size, and our people are amongst them- it’s massive.' You can imagine how they’d feel. Threatened, marginalised, and jealous. I think we could understand that.

But it was worse than that – this Paul was preaching that, since the Jewish leadership were rejecting his message, his message of salvation of salvation through Jesus Christ, they the Jewish leaders in rejecting this message, according to Paul, were unfit for eternal life, unfit for the Kingdom of Heaven, and  Paul’s message of salvation was now to be addressed to the gentiles.  The worst possible thing – the Jewish leaders were being dishonoured and being side-lined.

The Jews really had a total disdain for the gentiles, after all, they, the Jews, were the chosen people, and felt, perhaps, quite reasonably in their opinion, that they had a monopoly on God, he was their God only, and they wanted to keep it that way.  At the same time, of course, in a gentile city like Pisidian Antioch, you could say that they might not be averse to doing a little business with those self-same gentiles. A little business would be one thing, but you know, it went a bit further than that. To be fair we also know that there were some gentiles who were allowed, to a certain extent, were allowed to share in the life of the synagogue. And I’ll come back to that in a minute.

But first, let’s go back to our text again, and I’m reading the first half of verse (50).  It reads: 

But the Jews stirred up the devout and honourable women.  

Who are these devout and honourable women?  You might well ask.  Well, one thing we can say for certain, is that they weren’t the Jewish women.  These devout and honourable women were gentiles and more than that they would have been the wives of the important men in town, the wife of the Roman Governor, wives of the general staff, wives of the high-ranking administrators, and the wives of Roman magistrates, and soldiers all of them gentiles.

Now in this somewhat cosmopolitan city we’d have to say that the rabbi and the leading members of the synagogue have had a working relationship with the Roman powers, that relationship possibly being an expedient, cosy relationship.  In order of importance if you look at that text again, you’ll see that it’s the honourable women who are mentioned first, followed by the ‘chief men of the city’.

Why should that be?  Well, once more I’m obliged once again to turn to the writing of William Barclay, who gives us a clear and succinct explanation of why this should be.

At this time the Jewish religion had a special attraction for women.  In nothing was the ancient world more lax than in sexual morality.  Family life was breaking down.  The worst sufferers were women.  The Jewish religion preached a purity of ethic and cleanness of life.  Round the synagogues gathered many women of high social position who found in the teaching just what they longed for.  Many became proselytes; still more were God-fearers.  The Jews persuaded them to incite their husbands who were often men in influential positions to take steps against the Christian preachers.  The inevitable result was persecution.  Antioch became unsafe for Paul and Barnabas and they had to go.

So, we see that it is the gentile women of high social standing who have gathered round the synagogue, those women who in fact had attached themselves to the Jewish faith although they weren’t Jews, some men who were also gentiles did the same. These kinds of people were known as God-fearers, meaning that they believed in and feared the God of the Jews, these God-fearers could sit and listen in a synagogue but they weren’t allowed to participate.  The proselytes were those who additionally had been circumcised, and who observed the Mosaic law, and thus were allowed to participate in the Jewish religious feasts like the Passover, for example.  Such proselytes and God-fearers were acceptable to the Jews and were indeed an important source of funding for the synagogue.

But again, it’s to the women, the ‘devout and honourable women’ we turn, and bearing in mind that such women at that time, had to live in a Roman society that celebrated and accepted sexual immorality. This was a society where women had few legal rights, where their position in society and within the family could be both tenuous and vulnerable. These Roman women had no property rights and were expected to remain loyal and subservient to their husbands.  On the other hand, their husbands were legally free to do what they wanted to do. They were free to have all kinds of sexual affairs outside marriage with whomever they could, including boys and other men and with their slaves who had no rights whatsoever.

From the standpoint of the women at least, one need not exercise the imagination too much to realise how terrible their lives could be.  A reading of Roman history will reveal that there were times when hardly any sexual abomination was forbidden.  The emperor Nero reigned from 58 -68 AD, during the time of Paul, and I mention the Roman Emperor perhaps to give you a sense of the wickedness of that age.  Nero proclaimed himself a god, he murdered his own mother and reportedly murdered his wife, Poppies Sabina. I won’t be too explicit but lets’ just say that he also mutilated the youth, Sporus and forced him to marry him. Sporus committed suicide when he reached the age of twenty.

Life was cheap – unwanted children were killed or simply left to die.  This is not to say that everyone approved, but given the culture and the depravity of such emperors as Nero, we can see the type of society in which the Jews and the emerging Christian Church were inhabiting and contending with. I hardly need remind you of the very obvious parallels between our own increasingly degenerate society, its culture, to that of ancient Rome. In Antioch unfortunately, the leading Jews were able to incite the honourable and devout gentile women against Paul. As Barclay has pointed out, these women through Judaism, through the Mosaic law had obtained a clearer, purer vision of a world that could be and should be.  Although not Jews themselves, they could find a place for themselves as part of the synagogue that would give them an identity and a dignity that Roman pagan society could not.  But they trusted the Jewish leaders who themselves would rather destroy the Christian Church than embrace it. In the end, it was not Judaism but the triumph of Christianity that through much of the world brought an end to that state sanctioned gratuitous immorality with its message of the integrity of marriage and the sacredness of human life.  Christianity with its teachings on faith, in repentance and believing in Christ bringing its own high standards of morality. 

Although Paul and Barnabas were forced to flee Antioch, we know that the message of the gospel had been received amongst many and that it had been received with joy. We may imagine now, Paul and Barnabas expelled, outside of the city walls of Antioch, an apparent ignoble end to what had begun as a promising ministry in that city of Pisidian Antioch, they shook the dust off their feet as they left, a final protest, and a symbolic act of rejection to those who had conspired or refused the gospel message.  It might seem that this episode in Antioch did finish on a low note, but in fact the work had been done.  It’s often said that that book – The Acts of the Apostles, should really be called ‘The Acts of the Holy Spirit’. In those early days it was indeed a spirit led church, a movement that broke out onto the world with enormous power. And so, we read or final verse:

But they shook off the dust of their feet against them, and came unto Iconium. And the disciples were filled with joy, and with the Holy Ghost.

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Paul 6

 

 

The aim of my studies in tracing St Paul’s missionary life through the book, the Acts of the Apostles, is to show something of his heroism, and the sacrifices that were made by Paul and the early Christians in order to establish the Church in a Pagan world. Far from the beginnings of the early Church being some obscure struggle that took place in the Mediterranean and near East, the issues that had to be faced were very much the same that Christians have to face today. God does not change and neither does human nature. So, today we are going to revisit Paul all those years ago in the middle of the first century, roundabout 48 AD.

 

It was at that time in a synagogue in Antioch Pisidia, in a region located today in modern south Turkey,  that Paul gave a sermon. You could say that he made an electrifying speech, (Acts 13: 16-41).  Here Paul in that speech proclaimed the Gospel of Christ.  Paul as a Jew, as a former Pharisee, declared in that synagogue, that the Law, the Law of Moses could not save. In other words, that the Law was not adequate for salvation, for making us acceptable in the eyes of God. Not adequate; the reason being that the level of righteousness required to live up to that Law was not possible to achieve, thus it would always leave one with feelings of guilt and inadequacy; that, the Law could only show us how inadequate the efforts to comply can be. Jesus pointed this out when he said:

 

‘But I say unto you. That whosever looks after a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her in his heart.’  (Matt 5: 27)

 

Jesus himself summed up how difficult would it be to fulfil the obligations of the Law when he said:

 

‘For I say unto you. That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the Scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter the Kingdom of Heaven.’

 

And Paul in that synagogue in Pisidian Antioch brought home that message to the congregation, that message, the Law of Moses could not save except only by faith in Christ:

 

‘Brothers, listen! We are to proclaim that through this man Jesus there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in him is made right in God’s sight – something that the law of Moses could never do! (13:38)

 

Preaching the message that you cannot be made righteous by following  the law of Moses is not the message that one should really preach in a synagogue if you want to win friends and influence people. But this is exactly what Paul did preach. He did preach that and he did win friends and he did influence people through his message, the good news, that is the gospel of Jesus Christ. He preached that we can be saved only through belief in him. Through his visit to that synagogue and his activities in Antioch in the city in the days afterwards leading up to the next Sabbath day we can imagine how busy he and his companion Barnabas must have been, because we are told that on the following Sabbath day that ‘almost the whole city’ gathered to hear him preach to ‘hear the word of God,’ as the Bible would have it. I just want to stop here for a moment, to consider those words, ‘almost the whole city gathered to ‘hear the word of God.’

 

Now, Pisidian Antioch, as stated, was situated in that area known today as Southern Turkey, and that city was the capital city of the Galatia province. Later, Paul would write to his churches in Galatia, and that is why we have that book in the New Testament, the Letter to the Galatians and we have in that letter Paul’s strong and uncompromising statement to those who would seek to undermine the faith, of the early Church he wrote:

 

‘But though we or an angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you than that which we have preached unto you, let him be accursed.’ (1:8)

 

‘Obviously, I’m not trying to win the approval of people, but of God. If pleasing people were my goal, I would not be Christ’s servant.’ (1:10)

 

This is the character of the Apostle Paul as he met the crowds in Pisidian Antioch that Sabbath day, and now we have that verse in full:

 

‘And the next Sabbath day came almost the whole city, together to hear the word of God.’ Acts13: 44

 

Came almost the whole city together. Almost the whole city! Would it surprise you to know by the middle of the 1^st century AD, that that city of Pisidian Antioch and the surrounding villages had a population of nearly 100,000 people? When Paul and Barnabas entered the city, they would have passed through a monumental gate known as ‘Propylon.’ The propylon at Pisidian Antioch was erected to honour the Roman Emperor, Augustus and was decorated with reliefs of gods, goddesses, winged beings and warfare. As Paul and Barnabas walked through the massive gates, they would have seen many grand buildings, foremost of which was the Temple to Augustus. (D. Coondrad: Drive Thru History Adventures)

 

But even as we consider the described grandeur of this city, and think about the awe-inspiring numbers that turned up to hear Paul and Barnabas on that Sabbath day, I wonder if we do really begin to grasp the scale of this event, almost all of that population of 100,000 in attendance. Whatever the final figure on that day, that was an enormous crowd. If for many in that crowd the good news was the revelation of God’s love, though the death and resurrection of Christ, and that message, ‘I am the way the truth and the life,’ then there was even more joy and wonderment for the God worshippers, for the gentile worshippers who were excluded from the covenant of God with Israel and were not therefore the ‘chosen people.’ Joyous news to the gentiles of their inclusion in this new Christian Church; what an invitation! But the Jews who saw the great crowd became envious and started to rail against Paul and Barnabas. Why should this be?

 

William Barclay in his commentaries provides an answer, he wrote:

 

‘The Jews were intent on keeping their privileges to themselves. From the beginning the Christians saw that a privilege is granted only to be shared. The Jews were intent on shutting the door. From the beginning the Christians saw that the door must be opened wide. As it has been said, “The Jews saw the heathen as chaff to be burned,” Jesus saw them as a harvest to be reaped for God.’ And his Church must have a like vision of a world for Christ.’

 

So, now as we survey that enormous gathering, that crowd in the city of Pisidian Antioch and we might think about the passionate cut and thrust of that dialogue, the supporters and the organised opposition and the courage of Paul and Barnabas, facing it all down and I think observing that scene, we should be inspired to see and to know that history was being made. Paul facing down the antagonism, bringing the good news, and reminding the Jews of Isaiah’s prophecy (13:47)

 

For the Lord gave us this command when he said: I have made you a light to the Gentiles, to bring salvation to the farthest corners of the earth.

 

Let’s hear those words from the prophet Hosea:

 

‘At that time I will plant a crop of Israelites and raise them for myself. I will show love to those I called ‘Not loved., And to those I called ‘Not my people, I will say, ‘Now you are my people.’ And they will reply, ‘You are our God!’ Hosea 2: 23

 

And those words of Jesus to the Samaritan woman at the well:

 

Jesus replied, “Believe me, dear woman, the time is coming when it will no longer matter whether you worship the Father on this mountain or in Jerusalem. You Samaritans know very little about the one you worship, while we Jews know all about him, for salvation comes through the Jews. But the time is coming—indeed it’s here now—when true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and in truth. The Father is looking for those who will worship him that way. For God is Spirit, so those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth.” John 4: 21-24

 

 

Paul 5

 We were last with Paul and Barnabas as Paul came to the end of his sermon in that synagogue of Antioch, Pisidia. You will recall mention of their dangerous and arduous journey over the Taurus Mountains and through some of the most dangerous rivers in the world in order to reach that destination, with Paul suffering from what was thought to be malaria, such details speak volumes of their steel and determination and the power of the Holy Spirit driving them ever onwards. Then, that Sabbath day and that invitation from those in charge of the service, in that synagogue, saying ‘Brothers if you have any words of encouragement for the people come and give it.’ You will recall that blunt, jarring message cutting across Jewish expectations, cutting across their expectations of their hoped-for and prophesied messiah, who would be a warrior king from the House of David a messiah who would bring liberation from the yoke of their Roman oppressors.

But, that messiah, according to Paul, had already arrived, the prophesies of his expected arrival had already been fulfilled in the form of a man who had been crucified and executed as a common criminal at the hands of the Sanhedrin and the Roman state. He was Jesus of Nazareth; the Son of God and he had been raised from the dead by God. This was the sign and the proclamation of the New Covenant. Paul said, ‘Brothers, listen! We are here to proclaim that through this man, Jesus, there is forgiveness for your sins. Everyone who believes in him is declared right with God-something the law of Moses could never do.’

Paul was very clear, and he made it very clear to the congregation of that synagogue, that just following the law of Moses, just obeying the commandments wasn’t enough, this was a fundamental point that he made in that synagogue. The failure of that kind of legal adherence was indeed made clear by Jesus through the story of the Rich Young Man as told in the Gospel of Matthew (19:6-26). The young man was devout, he kept all the commandments, but he asked Jesus how he could have eternal life. ‘Give everything you have to the poor and then come and follow me,’ said Jesus. But the young man walked away, he was sad because he was very wealthy. ‘It’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven,’ said Jesus to his disciples.

‘Then who in the world can be saved?’ they asked. And I think that is a very shrewd question. It’s a very shrewd question because that question, ‘Then who in the world can be saved?’ implies that we all have possessions, habits, thoughts, preoccupations that like the eye of the needle is to the camel, the kingdom of heaven may be to us. That is, we ourselves become our own barrier to the kingdom of heaven. This is the message of the inadequacy of human action in pursuit of our own salvation that Paul was putting across in that Synagogue, the simple point being that it is impossible for us to save ourselves, but as Jesus in reply to his disciples said, ‘Humanly speaking it is impossible. But with God everything is possible.’ This is what Paul meant when he said that with Jesus there is forgiveness for sin and that everyone who believes in him is declared right with God, he said it was ‘Something the law of Moses could never do.’ However, I do think that we need to unravel this question a little more.

Perhaps the real power of Paul’s argument, what we could call the U.S.P. the Unique Selling Point is to be found in the death and resurrection, that God raised Jesus from death and in doing so showed that God’s plans could not be defeated, God’s love for humanity, and his forgiveness for sins are free to those who would reach out for it and follow Jesus. Jesus who said, ‘I am the way the truth and the life.’ ‘Don’t miss out, don’t let the words of the prophets apply to you!’ said Paul. In other words, don’t turn away in disbelief. But what Paul was preaching in that synagogue in Antioch was revolutionary, shocking to Jewish ears. I think we could say at the close of that speech, that he, Paul had done a ‘hatchet job’ on the mores of the Jewish faith.

But here’s the interesting thing, after Paul’s speech, that is the Good News of Jesus, after the service there was no outrage. There were no angry words leading to the formation of an angry mob intent on beating or even stoning Paul and Barnabas to death. We must remember that’s what they tried to do to Jesus after his preaching in the synagogue at Nazareth, and they certainly killed Stephen in Jerusalem after he had spoken before the Sanhedrin, the Jewish Council. But rather instead, it seems that Paul received something like an accolade. At the very least, Paul’s sermon was met with much enthusiasm because at the close of the service we read, ‘As Paul and Barnabas left the synagogue that day, the people begged them to speak about these things the next week.’ So excited were the crowd that they were invited back the following week! I wonder what we might say if we had been there and able to understand the language? Superlatives, I should imagine, powerful preaching, backed by the authority of scripture. Paul and Barnabas would certainly have been men of power and presence, full of the Holy Spirit and their listeners were enthralled. And that’s no exaggeration, in fact when Paul and Barnabas left the synagogue that day, the people begged them to speak about these things again the next week.

I think that the emphasis is really on that word ‘begged.’ It wasn’t, at the end of the day, ‘Oh nice sermon, thanks for coming’, or ‘That was interesting’ – they might have said that too, but these words of Paul must have hit home, really hit home to many in that synagogue, that day. Those words of Paul must have aroused not just a deep curiosity, but something more than that, perhaps a deep yearning, a longing for a faith, for a meaning going beyond the strictures and the legalities of the mosaic law. Certainly, there would be more questions on seeking the kingdom of God and Paul’s insistence of the impossibility of achieving such perfection only through compliance with these Jewish laws. Those ringing words of Paul, ‘Everyone who believes in him is declared right with God.’

Again, and I think it’s worth thinking about this a little more, to consider those words of Paul, who said that ‘through this man, Jesus, there is forgiveness for your sins.’ Who wouldn’t be intrigued? We are all intrigued because although these words might capture our imagination, there seems to be a bit of the jigsaw missing, so to speak. I’m reminded of that story about that great pop group of the 1960s, the Beatles, a story of their very early days and the story is that one of this group took the trouble to take a bus journey across town to visit someone who could show him what a B7th guitar chord looked like. Now a B7th guitar chord is an essential chord if you want to play rock or blues, the B7th chord is an essential part of any guitarist’s armoury.

In the same way, if we want to know more about Jesus and the kingdom of heaven, we too need that piece of the jigsaw, we really need to know what, our essential part of the jigsaw should look like, to know and see what Paul is driving at, what it is he is preaching and how it all works, how it all comes together. That big question. What is it that separates us from God?  That’s really the question. In the simplest of terms, the answer is, the sin of pride, the sin of pride that’s why it’s deemed to be the deadliest of all the sins, it can be summed like this, ‘Pride is excessive belief in one's own abilities, that interferes with the individual's recognition of the grace of God.’ In pride we can use our reason and create a God in our own image: ourselves. That was certainly what Adam and Eve did just before the fall, they imagined that they need not listen to God, that they need pay him no heed, because through eating from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil that Eve had become convinced that they could become like God themselves, that God the true God, the living God could then be forsaken and made redundant since he could be replaced by human reason and human knowledge. The truth of the matter is that this is not possible, since the quest for the meaning of life itself cannot be found outside of God’s love, cannot be found outside the mystery of God himself. I think also, that many Christians commit a serious error when they believe or say that God’s love is unconditional and that we may be loved and forgiven by him no matter what we may do. But it’s obvious isn't it, that yes, our God is the God of love, but that he is also a God of consequences? Surely, we can see that, when we read in that first book of the Bible when we read about the punishment, what the consequences of disobedience were for Adam and Eve, when they were banished from the garden of Eden? When we read of God’s disapproving words to Adam’s son, Cain, even before he murdered his own brother. God said, ‘You will be accepted if you do what is right; But if you refuse to do what is right, then watch out! Sin is crouching at your door, eager to control you.’

What is the problem? Why can’t we, all of us, meet those standards, why can’t we, in God’s words, do what is right?  I said yes, God is a God of consequences but he also loves us with a perfect love there is no contradiction in that.  So, what is really the problem?  Well, the problem is that we fail to realise who God is.  All our problems are spiritual problems when it comes down to it.  We fail to recognise who God is, we then reject him, deny him, forsake him and then ultimately, we try to replace him.  Then we try to save ourselves by doing good deeds, but again this only leads to spiritual pride and arrogance since we feel that we may be able to transform ourselves, that we may become the author of our own perfection and then comes that false pride that we can do all this on our own. 

But, Paul in his letter to the Ephesians wrote:

“God saved you by his grace when you believed. And you can’t take credit for this; it is a gift from God.  Salvation is not a reward for the good things we have done, so none of us can boast about it.  For we are God’s masterpiece.  He then created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago.’ (Ephesians 2).

So here in this letter to the Ephesians, Paul, as it were, nails it.  But perhaps in his sermon his speech in the synagogue he was unable to be quite so explicit, possibly because of the constraints of time.  There was much to talk about and that’s why they begged him to speak about these things again next week.  It might be a very obvious thing to say, but our spiritual lives depend entirely on God’s will as in everything else, all depends on God’s will and on God’s grace.  Not to put too fine a point on it, God controls everything but perhaps the most mind blowing, the most inspiring thing, is that God is perfect love, and that we are loved with that perfect love, and the tragedy is we don’t know it, and even when we do know it, we cannot entirely grasp the infinitude of this love.  We simply cannot grasp such magnitude; we can only accept it.

 

In the first letter of John, he writes: ‘Dear Friends, let us continue to love one another, for love comes from God.  For anyone who loves is a child of God and knows God.  But anyone who does not love does not know God for God is Love.’ 

Again, I refer to that thirteenth chapter of the Acts of the Apostles.  As Paul and Barnabas left the synagogue that day, the people begged them to speak about these things again the next week.  And again, I bring your attention to that word ‘Begged’ (meaning pleading, imploring, beseeching).  To beg is to be in desperate need, to really desire that which is the longing in your heart.  How can we understand the feelings of people like that who begged so earnestly?  Except perhaps to read how Peter’s spirit-led preaching at Pentecost in Jerusalem pierced the hearts of those who listened, pierced the hearts of those who listened so much so that they cried out ‘Brothers, what shall we do?”  Such is the power of this revelation, pure anguish brought about by the realisation of this overarching omnipotence of God’s love made manifest in the life of Christ, his life, his death on the cross and his resurrection.  Religion is not an affair of the head, it’s an affair of the heart Why would I say that?  Why would anyone say that? It’s an affair of the heart?  My answer, quite simply, is because in that one act of sacrifice is revealed the height and depth of God’s love, paying the cost of our sin, our estrangement from him.  To be touched by this incredible vision is not only to have the heart pierced but to have the heart broken, as in the psalms that acceptable sacrifice a broken spirit and a broken and repentant heart. 

Only from there can we be born anew, only from there can we say, as Paul said, that through this man Jesus, there is forgiveness for your sins.