Michael Wood - For Strangers And Sojourners

T hroughout the Scriptures, the Old Testament and the New, the term Strangers and Sojourners is used to denote the true followers of God. We are not of this world, we merely travel through it on our way beyond to the true and everlasting world of God .

Books of meditations often consist of strings of platitudes as Churchmen of all sorts imagine that they are imparting their wisdom to lesser beings. This is a pity because the real advantage is in the fact that seeing a familiar problem from a different angle may help any of us to understand ourselves a little better. Then there is the teaching aspect of meditation. Here the writer perhaps attempts to show the reader a different aspect of the Christian life well led, shed a different light in order that it may be seen in three dimensions rather that the familiar two .

Some of the following are taken from sermons that I gave during my years at university. Contrary to popular imagination, university sermons do not have to be the work of amazingly erudite scholars. University academics and students are much like everyone else when it comes to the spiritual life, as lost as anyone else, and if they are into philosophy or science, probably more lost than most .

I offer no wisdom, for I possess none, I only offer pointers towards where wisdom may be found. Follow them assiduously for these are increasingly dangerous times and we, all of us need all the help we can get to struggle through them. It has been said that in the last times things will be different, that Believers will find strange new difficulties and will struggle with a renewed satan. Let us then guard our souls and gird ourselves for our eternal future is to be decided .

Fr Michael

2/15 September, 2017

Saint Hieu of Tadcaster

T he Christian has a whole year full of Church seasons which in some cases have particular emphases. The fact that Lent is a season for repentance and Advent is a season for preparation doesn't mean that we are restricted to those seasons for those activities. It is merely that the Church considers them particularly appropriate .

Those wishing to live a truly Christian life have to find a place to start. There is not much point in writing a book such as this if it does not lead readers through a sequence however dimly perceived .

The Believer has to start somewhere. In the first place must come faith belief in God is alright even satan believes in God, it is actual faith in God that counts, faith in Him, His ability, His love for His creation and His mercy that begins to mark us out because faith isn't something earned; it isn't something we can manufacture for ourselves, faith in the first place is a gift from God. The gift is available to everyone, our part in it is only to actually receive it and act upon it .

However, there is a problem: God is, according to Christ Himself, totally good, totally merciful, He is the embodiment of truth. We however, are not all that good and certainly not all that truthful. We fall well short of those marks (popularly called sinning), we do things that are offensive to one such as God. So we need to do something about that .

He who would be Christ-like, because he is a human, must of necessity, then begin with repentance. Repentance however must be put in a context .

Repentance means a change of mind, a re-thinking, a change of the intention from permitting sin to not permitting sin, which results in a change of our behaviour. It involves the decision to make a change of behaviour and our attitude to our behaviour .

Repentance means to turn from sinning with a genuine desire to change and not continue doing it. The desire to never sin again and actually not sinning again aren't quite the same thing. We often fail in this as we know Saint Paul said: For the good that I would I do not: but the evil which I would not, that I do. We may well have remorse over it and honestly desire to not commit sin again, but because of our nature and profound weakness, we often fail in our remedy .

There are several ways to translate the words used for repentance in the Old Testament and the New Testament, but the basic meaning is to turn, to have an attitude of change so as to not do wrong again .

The Greek word used in the Septuagint that is translated into the English as "repentance" is metanoeo, . The word is derived from the basic roots meta to change place or condition, and noeo to exercise the mind, to think, to comprehend. We must change the way that we think .

For all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God; (Romans 3:)

Sorrow may lead to repentance, or it may not, for they are not the same despite modern confusion of the terms. "Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death" (2 Corinthians 7:10). Sorrow and repentance, are not the same thing, sorrow is concerned with feelings, whereas repentance, involves a complete change of mind and attitude .

We need to seriously think this through. Of course we are aware of some of our offences, and we are genuinely sorry for them, and we genuinely wish that we hadn't done them, we wish that we could turn the clock back and not do them. None of that is repentance. Repentance is totally re-thinking, it is seeing what we have done and why we have done it and then thinking carefully how to avoid doing that again ever. That is where we change our minds, really change our minds, and that is a major thing .

It is when we determinedly change our mind that we gain God's grace and forgiveness .

It is important to understand that repentance always occurs in relation to someone else - always God. Repentance is never private .

Repentance is a process by which a person who has in some degree gone away from God recognises that and turns definitely back to God. C. S. Lewis said, repentance is not something God demands of you before he will take you back, and which he could let you off if he chose; it is simply a description of what going back is like. It is basically a U-turn. Instead of going away from God, or ignoring him, you turn around, go to him and choose to give him his rightful place in your life. Repentance, therefore, has more to do with your will than it has to do with your feelings. You may feel deep sorrow about certain things that you regret, or you may not, but the real issue is whether or not you go back to where you belong. Of course, sorrow may assist that process.

The Greek word translated as "repent" in the New Testament means "changing the mind". However, in the Bible it also means changing one's attitude towards that thing .

Repentance is recognising that we have done wrong but also it is a recognition that fundamentally sense we are wrong. As F. Allshorn said: Repentance is not a mere feeling of sorrow or contrition for an act of wrongdoing. Repentance is contrition for what we are in our fundamental beings, that we are wrong in our deepest roots because our interior government is by Self and not by God .

C. S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, said it differently :

...fallen man is not simply an imperfect creature who needs improvement; he is a rebel who must lay down his arms. Laying down your arms, surrendering, saying you are sorry, realising that you have been on the wrong track and getting ready to start life over again from the ground floor - that is the only way out of our 'hole'. This process of surrender - this movement full speed astern - is what Christians call repentance. Now repentance is no fun at all. It is something much harder than merely eating humble pie. It means unlearning all the self-conceit and self-will that we have been training ourselves into for thousands of years.