To blog or not to blog...that is the question.

It is Easter, so it seemed like a good time to begin this blog. I’ve been in two minds about blogging. There seems something inherently narcissistic about broadcasting your own opinions. And I know that pride certainly isn’t something I’m likely to get free of any time soon!  However, there is also a need for the church to engage with the world outside its walls through these media, so I’m praying to be able to use this space in a God-honouring way.

I have called the blog ‘Strangers and Pilgrims’ because that is how the Bible describes the people of God in relation to the world. According to the writer of Hebrews, the great heroes of faith:

‘…admitted that they were aliens and stranger (strangers and pilgrims) on earth… Instead, they were longing for a better country, a heavenly one.’ Hebrews 11:13,16

The Greek phrase for strangers and pilgrims is ‘xenoi kai parepidemoi’. Parepidemoi literally means ‘the ones that are passing through’. It carries the sense of people living in a foreign land for a limited season and a specific purpose, interacting with the society they move in but not belonging there. This reminds me straightaway of the old Spiritual;

‘This world is not my home, I’m just a passin’ through

My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue

My saviour’s beckonin’ me from heaven’s open door

And I can’t feel at home in this world any more.’

I find this metaphor helps both to know how we should relate to the world and to explain some of the struggles that we experience as we go through the Christian life.  Expatriates experience considerable challenges in some countries. In some countries their presence may be tolerated rather than welcomed, and in others Britons are at risk of  violence because of their nationality. Even where this is not the case, a host government does not have their welfare at heart; this is the responsibility of the British Government. Expatriates are governed by two legislatures as they must abide by the laws of the nation where they reside but are also still subject to the laws of their own country. They never truly ‘belong’ in that country although they may learn the language, make local friends and even adopt some local practices.

Do some of those things resonate with you? Do you have a sense of alienation at times from contemporary British society? Do its values and laws clash with your Christian beliefs? Does it feel at times as though society has turned on the Church - that it is tolerated but not really welcome in society? This is what it means to be parepidemoi. This earth is not where we ultimately belong and this life is not all that there is. Abraham, the archetypal figure of faith in the Bible, is described as ‘looking forward to a city with foundations, whose builder and architect is God’ (Hebrews 11:10) and, once  God had called him, he put down no roots in this world. Living as a nomad and owning no land on the earth, God made him a living picture of this ‘sojourning’ existence. He was happy to live that way because he knew that he had a home elsewhere, a city where he held citizenship. That city, the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21, will be the final resting place of all God’s children and it is the place that we should all be homesick for.

So I’m hoping this blog will be a space to explore our ‘sojourning’ here and to contemplate the great hope that we have before us.

Have a very Happy Easter.