With honour they served...

photo credit: screenshot

With honour they served…

This is a phrase that has been said maybe hundreds of times in the last week or so, as people remember the two Queensland Police officers that were brutally gunned down in the course of duty near Tara.

As the ABC covered the memorial service at the massive Boondall Enterntainment Centre on the 21st December 2022 and the 1.5km guard of honour of thousands of Police officers after the service, the term 'a huge display of honour' was used. 

It was an horrific crime and a fitting tribute. 

But it's the 'honour' element I want to highlight.

I can't help thinking that this is the biggest 'honouring' event I have seen in the Australian context in my lifetime.  Ok I've only live just over half a century which isn't that long in the grand scheme of things, but I began to wonder why there seemed to be this deep need in the psyche of so many to do such an huge 'honouring' and for so many members of the public to feel they needed to be there.

Other Police officers have been killed before, hundreds of our military have been killed across the world, yet this seemed to evoke an excessively strong response.  

Maybe it was because it was such an intentional slaughter of innocent lives and happened in a close-knit and normally 'quiet' rural setting.  But it provoked me to ponder this all a bit more.

So what might be going on here…..

Although we talk about 'honour-shame' oriented cultures being primarily Asia and Africa, we must not overlook that deep in the heart of us all is the hunger for honour…and as we see in this incident we are not only hungry for our own honour, but I think we are also desperate to find someone/something great and noble which to give our honour. And as the West more and more rejects, ignores or forgets about God for who He really is, the West will also more and more go looking for everything related to honour, but on an earthly level, thinking that is all there is. Honour on the level of God and eternity are no longer factors that are embraced.

In a world that has rejected God, there is no God to honour, there is no Jesus to honour. There is no-one in our lives on a daily basis to salute, to bow to, to humbly honour for their greatness, their goodness, their sacrifice for others.  We were made to 'look up' to a greater glory than our own. 

Like I talked about with the Queen's passing, and all the tributes and people feeling 'honoured' to just be in the room where her body Lay in State, people would have felt a sense of humble honour to attend and pay tribute to these two courageous, sacrificial officers.

Maybe it is also that unlike the Queen, these two officers represented in people's minds a situation of 'good people' who intentionally and knowingly deny themselves and give their lives every day knowing under what risks they serve, and they paid the price of social 'badness' with their lives - they sacrifically suffered something they should never have suffered. Is it that this reveals just a hint of the deep unconscious reality that our hearts want to honour such a person, and such a person deserves honour….and yet we miss honouring the One - the Lord Jesus Christ - who was perfectly good and suffered the greatest and most henious murder this earth has witnessed. 

Maybe this is another situation that you can use in conversation with others to draw them to think about matters of the heart…..ask them why they think we humans feel a need to give honour at all?…or why we say the police 'serve with honour'?…and what honour has to do with giving of oneself for others?….what else can you think of that might lead a person to think more deeply even if just for a moment, about why we act the way we do and what this might teach us about why we were made and Who made us….and Who deserves our highest honour and also wants to 're-make' us anew….

….The 'Who' of Christmas!…Jesus Christ the Lord!

Christ is Coming! The Cradle, Cross... and Crown of Christmas

Christmas is Coming!

with its season of traditions of Trees, tinsel, songs, food and presents.

But we could also say 

Christmas has Come

 - 2000 years ago Jesus entered this world as a baby in a manger cradle as - Immanuel - God with us.

- we remember that first Advent of Jesus when we celebrate Christmas each year (although sadly our world thinks little of the fact that Christmas is about Christ!)

- and yes, the Cradle led to the Cross, Jesus was born to die, for us and thus Christmas is also about Easter, and then about the Ascension of Christ too.

Yet there is a Coming we can often forget, that is truly still to come, a Coming that is the whole purpose of Christmas….

But I rarely hear this talked about at Christmas … this is the 'Coming' spoken about at the end of the last chapter of the last book of the bible - Revelation 22...and I would encourage you to read the whole of the book of Revelation in the lead-up to Christmas Day.

(it is interesting that Handel's 'Messiah' links the gospels to words from Revelation, and is sung at Christmas)....

It's the second Advent, the Coming of Jesus again, his second Coming, not as a baby to die, but as a King to reign.

So maybe we should be saying….Christ mas is Coming

Interestingly enough, for anyone who uses a 'read the bible through in a year' bible reading plan, Christmas lands right at the last book of the Bible. Yet we rarely, if ever, pause to make the connection.

But the cradle and the cross were not the end of the story. The end of the story is yet to come. The purpose of the cradle that led to the cross is yet to come. A shame story is yet to end in full glory.

The Garden of Eden began in glory and quickly descended into shame after only a couple of chapters. From there, until the last couple of chapters in Scripture, that shame of sin stays present in our human story. In the midst of that, from Adam and Eve's sin that ushered in shame for this world - to the shame filled birth of our Saviour laid in a manger - to the shame filled cross on which our Saviour died, it is the  mess that fills the story of humanity's hopeless state. 

But alongside this was another story, one of hope in the midst of hopelessness. 

Jesus let go of his heavenly honour to be born into an honour-less situation in the eyes of people of the world. 

But God gave a glimpse, for those who cared to think and see,

that the road to restored honour had begun. 

For though laid in a manger for a cradle, 

Jesus' birth was announced to the lowly shepherds with a huge angelic choir from heaven, and    

     surrounding them with the glory of the Lord, 

and then he was brought highly valuable gifts from kings. 

Joseph and Mary were willing to endure a life of shame in the eyes of their community 

in order to glorify the Lord and say, 'be it unto me according to your word'.

Then after the most shameful death after a shaming lead-up to death, 

Jesus was given the tomb of a wealthy man from which death could not hold him and he rose again on the third day as he had said

and then he was received back into heaven to the place of honour at the right hand of the Father's throne.

Yet, we who follow Christ, and are found 'in Him' and belong to God's Kingdom family, still endure the shame and suffering as servants of the Master who endured for us.

But we are told that though we experience sin in this world, we have already been given the positional place of glory in Christ, seated with him in heaven.

And the story hasn't yet ended…..

It is the end of the story and the ultimate glory yet to come which delivers our true dignity, defines our lives on earth, drives our perseverance, and determines our destiny. 

It is in the last chapters of Revelation that we see the hope fulfilled of the glory that flows through the story of Scripture, where Satan is defeated to suffer and be shamed forever along with his workers and followers on earth and his demonic forces, and where the saints that make up the church are adorned, and rewarded with crowns, as the full glorification of Christ's body is completed and brought into the presence of God forever and ever.

Immanuel - God with us isn't only a Christmas cradle story, and doesn't even end with the cross, 

but culminates with God's purpose to dwell with man forever (Revelation 21:3) in unhindered glory. 

And yes that is only possible as the holy glory of man, lost at the Fall, is restored in the holy glory of Christ 'in whom we live and move and have our being', so that man and God can dwell together in eternal glory and honour. 

The purpose of the manger-cradle and the cross is not just to have our sins forgiven as an end in itself, but so that the purpose of God's glory story can be fulfilled. 

The shameful cross is only filled with glory and honour for the Christian because the resurrection and ascension leads us to look to the ultimate second Coming of Christ, with his Crowns of honour as King of Kings….where we are not just going to attend a Christmas day roast turkey and ham, but we are called to an eternal marriage supper of the Lamb, as his bride the church, and with the example of the 24 elders, honouring him by laying our crowns at his feet. 

It is as the true glory of man is restored - through being 'in' the glory of the Son and his glory lived out through us, and brought to completion (all to God's glory and honour), that God's glory plan is fulfilled.  Christ's crown of thorns is yet to become the multiple crowns of Revelation 19  (not just in victory over all the kingdoms of the earth, but from the saints crowns given back to him our King).

As the coming year is set to be the crowning of the new King Charles III and media has just announced the late Queen's crown has already been taken to begin alterations to make it fit for the new king, maybe we need to turn our thoughts to much greater crowns and the King of Kings!

Jesus is yet to return to this world with the golden crown of honour as King. We are yet to receive our reward crowns. He is yet to ride and rule with his multiple crowns as King of Kings. We are yet to have the true Christ-celebration feast. We are yet to leave suffering and pain and sin's presence behind. Satan is yet to be judged. Full glory is yet to be known and full honour is yet be given to our God.

But that day is coming!

But also, let us also remember that while we are still on this earth, the Christmas trees and tinsel, songs and presents, must remind us that Jesus is coming again. It means hope for those of us who are found in the glory of Christ. But it also means there is an urgent message to bring to those still in shame and without hope. Let us be spurred on in motivation to share Christ and to more eagerly look toward His Coming again.

Amen, Come Lord Jesus!