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That Happy Certainty - Gospel | Culture | Planting
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And is it true? This most tremendous tale of all?

I love Christmas. Turkey sandwiches, catching up with friends and family, and of course the Queen. But there’s also something about this season that makes most of us at least stop for a second. As John Betjeman puts it in his poem Christmas:

This most tremendous tale of all,
Seen in a stained-glass window’s hue,
A Baby in an ox’s stall ?
The Maker of the stars and sea
Become a Child on earth for me?

Undoubtedly there’s a magic about Christmas. Yet as we put up the tree and gorge ourselves on festive food and Christmas TV, we’re often simultaneously aware of the emptiness and hopelessness of this world we live in.

Betjeman-460_981173c

It might be that this season forces us to recall a personal tragedy that has marked our path this year. Maybe we feel a sense of despair at what’s on our news screens. Maybe all the gathering with friends and family, the spending and spending, just leaves us very aware of our own inadequacies and brokenness.

And so we’re occasionally left wondering, maybe hoping, that this tale of the baby, shepherds and kings might just be true. It could be a moment’s reflection brought about by the striking words of a familiar carol, or perhaps it’s a sense of wonder as we watch loved ones act out that ‘tremendous tale’ in their nativity play.

Yet Betjeman’s question has got to be right: ‘And is it true?’ As he so wonderfully puts it:

For if it is, no loving fingers tying strings
Around those tissued fripperies,
The sweet and silly Christmas things,
Bath salts and inexpensive scent
And hideous tie so kindly meant,

No love that in a family dwells,
No carolling in frosty air,
Nor all the steeple-shaking bells
Can with this single Truth compare…’

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December 24, 2012by Robin Ham
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The Centrality of Jesus (or 'In case I'm in danger of forgetting it's all about Him')

We’re nearly coming up to the end of nine months in 1 Corinthians at church. Re-reading the whole thing I was struck afresh by the way Paul makes things kind of explicit in his opening verses of the letter:

1 ‘Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes. 2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours:

3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. 4 I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, 5 that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge—6 even as the testimony about Christ was confirmed among you—7 so that you are not lacking in any gift, as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ, 8 who will sustain you to the end, guiltless in the day of our Lord Jesus Christ. 9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of his Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.’

1 Corinthians 1:1-9, ESV

What’s that?! Nine direct references in nine verses? He’s gotta be making some kind of point, right?

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May 11, 2012by Robin Ham

About Me

 

Hello, my name is Robin. Welcome to That Happy Certainty, where I write and collate on Christianity, culture, and ministry. I’m based in Barrow-in-Furness in South Cumbria, England, where I serve a church family called St Paul’s Barrow, recently merged together from two existing churches, St Paul’s Church and Grace Church Barrow.

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“If we could be fully persuaded that we are in the good grace of God, that our sins are forgiven, that we have the Spirit of Christ, that we are the beloved children of God, we would be ever so happy and grateful to God. But because we often fear and doubt we cannot come to that happy certainty.”
- Martin Luther

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