Australian Thoughts at the Weekend 11th April 2009

Australian Thoughts at the Weekend 11th April 2009

Get Real!

“Get real!” are words I used to hear a lot. It was often a way that my then teenage daughter expressed her disagreement with something I had just said to her. It was an invitation for me to reconsider my attitude. Sometimes it was a reminder that I was may be a little out of touch with the real way things were and that I ought to come up to date in my views.

“He’s a real Aussie!” is something else we often hear. Many said the deceased Australian Country Singer Slim Dusty was a real Aussie. We may ask ‘what is a real Aussie?’ To many it is the man or woman from the bush. That is the outback person. It is the person who knows what it is to bend their back in hard labour amongst the horses, sheep and cattle out where the flies are many and the comforts are few. It’s the person who works in jeans and blue singlet or khaki or checked flannelette shirt. And of course it is a broad brimmed hat. None of those poncy baseball caps forwards or backwards are worn by real Aussies. Except of course for sportsmen whose caps are part of their official and unofficial uniform.

I don’t know what the millions of us who live the comfortable mostly hatless life around the coast and only encounter bits of sheep and cattle on our dinner plates are if we are not ‘real Aussies.”

Reality programs fill TV schedules. Most nights we can have a dose of reality as we watch the lives of real people as they face real life situations with real determination. It is something special to intrude into peoples’ real lives or so the promoters tell us. We won’t mention other realities of these shows. That is realities like ‘real’ scenario guidelines, real directors and real editors. Oh, and of course there is the real selection process which throws together people who will create audience interest or cause heated conflict on the set. There are also the real spin doctors who write the media releases and select the teasing glimpses of real action for the promotional clips and still shots.

It is hard to believe that it was 5 years ago as we prepared our hearts and minds for Easter, we were confronted with Mel Gibson’s version of the reality of the suffering Jesus in ‘The Passion of Christ’. It is a film which many Christians decided they must see. Just as determinedly others decided not to see it. One writer in our daily newspaper who has a good knowledge of Christianity reminded us that the Gospels are not eyewitness accounts of the crucifixion, written while the events were fresh in the mind. The Gospels are limited in detailing of the horrors Christ faced. The writers showed a real constraint Gibson did not bother with.

It is however, a real attempt by Gibson to remind us of the reality of the suffering of our Saviour. Many have tried to do this in various ways. I read of one Pastor in the USA who preparing for Good Friday worship borrowed a real electric chair from the nearby prison and placed it on the altar. His parishioners thought it so inappropriate, they sacked him for his effort. He was attempting to show the cross was a real instrument of execution. The reality was obviously too confronting.

Dr. George MacLeod says:
I simply argue that the Cross be raised again at the centre of the market-place as well as on the steeple of the church. I am recovering the claim that Jesus was not crucified in a cathedral between two candles, but on a cross between two thieves;
on the town garbage-heap; at a crossroads so cosmopolitan that they had to write his title in Hebrew and in Latin and in Greek; at the kind of place were cynics talk smut, and thieves curse, and soldiers gamble.
Because that is where He died. And that is what He died about. And that is where churchmen should be and what churchmanship should be about.

Our prayer should be:

Lord, make Calvary real to me;
Lord, make Calvary real to me,
Open mine eyes to see victory in Christ for me;
Lord, make Calvary real to me.
Chorus 81 (SA Song Book)


Once again the Message gives an up-to-date reality to familiar verses:

Isaiah 53 :: (The Message)

1Who believes what we've heard and seen?
Who would have thought GOD's saving power would look like this?
2The servant grew up before God--a scrawny seedling,
a scrubby plant in a parched field.
There was nothing attractive about him,
nothing to cause us to take a second look.
3He was looked down on and passed over,
a man who suffered, who knew pain firsthand.
One look at him and people turned away.
We looked down on him, thought he was scum.
4But the fact is, it was our pains he carried--
our disfigurements, all the things wrong with us.
We thought he brought it on himself,
that God was punishing him for his own failures.
5But it was our sins that did that to him,
that ripped and tore and crushed him--our sins!
He took the punishment, and that made us whole.
Through his bruises we get healed.
6We're all like sheep who've wandered off and gotten lost.
We've all done our own thing, gone our own way.
And GOD has piled all our sins, everything we've done wrong,
on him, on him.
7He was beaten, he was tortured,
but he didn't say a word.
Like a lamb taken to be slaughtered
and like a sheep being sheared,
he took it all in silence.
8Justice miscarried, and he was led off--
and did anyone really know what was happening?
He died without a thought for his own welfare,
beaten bloody for the sins of my people.
9They buried him with the wicked,
threw him in a grave with a rich man,
Even though he'd never hurt a soul
or said one word that wasn't true.
10Still, it's what GOD had in mind all along,
to crush him with pain.
The plan was that he give himself as an offering for sin
so that he'd see life come from it--life, life, and more life.
And GOD's plan will deeply prosper through him.
11Out of that terrible travail of soul,
he'll see that it's worth it and be glad he did it.
Through what he experienced, my righteous one, my servant,
will make many "righteous ones,"
as he himself carries the burden of their sins.
12Therefore I'll reward him extravagantly--
the best of everything, the highest honours--
Because he looked death in the face and didn't flinch,
because he embraced the company of the lowest.
He took on his own shoulders the sin of the many,
he took up the cause of all the black sheep.

[Listen: Piano: http://www.salvoaudio.com/audio/music/mus_557.mp3 ]

Is it nothing to you that one day Jesus came
All our sorrow and suffering to share?
He came as the light of new hope for a world
In the day of its darkest despair.

Chorus
Is it nothing to you that his cross speaks our shame?
Is it nothing to you, for whose cleansing he came,
That our guilt made his Calvary and pierced his hands through?
Is it nothing to you? Is it nothing, nothing to you?

Is it nothing to you that one day Jesus gave,
Gave in love of his measureless all?
So richly he poured out his limitless life
When he answered our pitiful call.

Is it nothing to you that one day Jesus died,
That men mocked him and, heedless, passed by?
No sorrow was e'er like the sorrow he bore
When they scorned him and left him to die.

Is it nothing to you that today Jesus saves?
Though we stand all condemned before God
He carries our sin on his own loving heart,
And he saves by his pardoning blood.
Albert E. Mingay
The Salvation Army Song Book Song Number: 245

[Listen: http://www.salvoaudio.com/audio/music/mus_2184.mp3
or
Look and Listen : Paul Robeson : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b-0xzU0qMe4
(only a still picture but the song (and the voice) is worth hearing)].

Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they crucified my Lord?

Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they nailed Him to the tree?

Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?
Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?
Oh! Sometimes it causes me to tremble, tremble, tremble.
Were you there when they laid Him in the tomb?
Words & Music: African-American spiritual

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You might like to listen to “Salvoaudio Songster Selection for Easter”. It is a choice selection of 11 songster pieces by at least 7 Songster Brigades.
Click here:
http://www.salvoaudio.com/songsters/salvoaudio_songsters.htm
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