There is an important verse in the Bible that talks about renouncing ‘the hidden things of shame’. It is important because it tells us something essential about ourselves – and it is this: shame is something buried deeply within every person. I don’t mean as an emotion. I mean as a way of thinking.

We are told in the book of Genesis that the result of Adam’s disobedience to God was that he felt ‘ashamed’. He had lost access to God and felt unworthy of Him. Henceforth every man and woman would feel the need to verify him or herself, independently of God.

We seek to achieve this by what we do or how we make ourselves feel. If we feel successful or contented or accepted, we also feel verified. If we feel unsuccessful, discontented or not accepted, we feel that we have failed.

All this because we have no means – in ourselves – of approaching the One who alone can verify us. We are naked and ashamed. And so it seems (to us, anyway) easier to keep this One at arm’s length. If He gets too close it will exacerbate my shame - and, by the way, undermine my sense of self-importance.

Now self-importance and self-worth are not the same things at all. When I want to feel important it is because of some sense of inadequacy. My worth (or value), on the other hand, is intrinsically my own - whether anyone recognises it or not.

God gives every person on earth the same worth or value. Our attempt to give so much value to what we do is a direct result of our shame. We do not know our own worth. So we market ourselves and trade in the currency of mutual validation, hoping to be satisfied.

That we are not satisfied by this modus operandi is only too evident. But my main point is that our sense of worth is tied to what we worship. In fact, the words are directly related. Worship is the giving of worth. The Bible teaches us that we are able to give worth to God when we have renounced finding our own worth anywhere else.

Our hidden shame can be renounced and removed. What’s that worth to you?

The word ‘scapegoat’ came into our language through William Tyndale’s work of translating the Bible into English. It applied originally to the goat upon whom the sins of the nation of Israel were cast each year. It is recorded in the Old Testament that once every year a goat was chosen to be the bearer of the sins of every person in Israel. After having hands laid upon it the goat was released into the wilderness from whence it never returned.

In modern times the terms ‘lightning rod’ and ‘fall guy’ have probably taken over from ‘scapegoat’, but the concept remains a firm part of our culture. In fact, one would have to say that it is an intrinsic part of the machinery of our thought. We need scapegoats. We need people to blame. We need to place our accountability elsewhere. It makes us feel better.

The phenomenon works at all levels of society: for large numbers of people it is a profession. Talkback radio and current affairs programmes have made scapegoating something we can enjoy over lunch or dinner. There are whole university faculties that specialise in it; politicians of all colours live and die by it. We blame our parents, races of people, our spouses, children, the tax office – anybody, depending on what has shaped our thinking and experience.

The point is that somebody has to pay for the way things are. But it’s not going to be us. We are aware that there is a moral bill to be met, and we are determined to root out the guilty party.

It is awful that so much bitterness results from this way of thinking. But we don’t have to remain in it. Jesus offers us a way out of the blame game. In fact, He was the scapegoat of the New Testament – the one who took all the dystrophy, blame, guilt, shame, unforgiveness and sin of every person upon Himself.

Faith in Jesus is far more than a prop to our conscience or a comfort for the dying. Faith opens a pathway into a different kind of life. God asks us to be accountable for our own lives – to take the log out of our own eye. The life He offers us has the capacity to love, forgive, to be loved and to be forgiven. No ifs or butts.

To pass the time on a plane trip I recently (and unproductively) read the transcript of a debate between Tony Blair and Christopher Hitchens. It purported to be an exchange about whether religion has a positive influence in the world.

It was a very lopsided affair, landing much more strongly on the side of Hitchens, who had two things in his favour. First, he was the aggressor, which freed him to make assertions without real evidence. But the second thing working for him was that he really believed what he was saying. His conviction was unavoidable and in complete contrast to the non-committal statements of his opponent.

Even Hitchens was bemused by some of Tony Blair’s answers. In a post-debate interview he identified the key point that Tony Blair would not admit – that without a belief in the supernatural you do not have Christianity. It is no good saying that some Christians have done nice things for the world, because many non-Christians have also done nice things for the world.

It is either of the highest importance that God, through Christ, broke into time and revealed Himself to us; or it is a ridiculous and horrendously large confidence trick. We either live in a closed system ruled by the laws of naturalism; or there really is a supernatural dimension that can override these physical laws at any time.

The latter point can’t be refuted by saying that the behaviour of religious fanatics in Ireland (or Iran) proves that God doesn’t exist. Nor can the supernatural be proven by pointing out that Christians save lepers in India. Both are facts, but they do not reveal the truth to us.

In my experience the truth is hard-won and will not surrender easily to flabby platitudes. Jesus told us that we must ‘buy the truth and sell it not’. This scripture tells us two things. First, it costs us to find the truth. There is some suffering involved – certainly, there will be a social cost, perhaps the stalling of a career.

Second, having found the truth, we will undoubtedly be tempted to sell it out. Sometimes people sell out simply because the going gets hard. And this is the proving ground of all belief – when the testing comes.

It isn’t possible to assemble arguments for or against anything I have said in so small a space; I can only convey a conviction. My conviction is best summed up in the words of the apostle Paul:

For momentary, light affliction is producing for us an eternal weight of glory far beyond all comparison, while we look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal. 2 Cor 4:17-18.

Not everything can be settled in a debate...

There are some words in the Bible that lose much of their significance due to the limits of translation. One of those is ‘consolation’, sometimes also rendered as ‘comfort’. The most common use of the word consolation in our culture is to refer to a gift or prize gained by someone who fell short of their actual goal. In this instance, the consolation prize is recognition of an ‘almost-but-not-quite’ achievement. This is very far from what the Bible means by this important word.

Somewhat closer to the biblical meaning is consolation offered to a person in some grief. Out of sympathy – sometimes, even empathy – we will be moved to console someone who is suffering: an injured child, a disappointed work colleague, an unhappy spouse, a grieving widow. Our aim is to bring comfort because we care.

Now, there are different levels of care that we might have. We may, for instance, think: ‘this could be me’, which is a very human response, but not quite love. If, on the other hand, the person is very close to us we may be moved by their pain. Suddenly, only their needs are important. This is moving somewhat closer to selfless love.

And yet even our best attempts at ministering consolation are only a shadow of what God offers through Christ. How are we to find it? And what is it for?

The Greek word in the New Testament that is translated ‘consolation’ is ‘paraklesis’. A rather archaic name for the Holy Spirit – Paraclete – is derived from the same root. This is important because it grounds our understanding of consolation within the Godhead. Whatever consolation might be, its source is in God. This is true of all virtue.

In our quotation above the apostle Paul gives us an extraordinary insight into this fact. He calls God ‘the God of all comfort [paraklesis]’. Paraklesis (call it what you will), therefore, is the province of the Father, Son and Holy Spirit – able to be ministered to all who cry out to God for aid. Consolation is one of the benefits of enduring suffering. It is also the comfort we find in the midst of suffering.

What Paul describes in this passage is an activity of giving and receiving. Which is another way of talking about love. God is love and love always gives. Consolation is obtained, not as an end in itself, but in order to be given to another. More than that, consolation is the capacity to give to another – because the source of the consolation is the love of God, a love summed up by giving. This love generates its own economy of giving. We don’t just pass it on to someone else. Consolation sows after its own kind, producing more consolation and more children of God, able to pour out love in a unique ministry.

Consolation is the ministry of the love of God. Far from being the booby prize, it is one of the ultimate riches that God bestows upon those who love Him.

For the creation was subjected to futility, not of its own will, but because of Him who subjected it, in hope.Rom 8:20.

It’s no wonder so many writers and musicians have been preoccupied with the apparent futility of existence. We are born, grow up, reach our prime for a brief space, slowly decline into old age, and then we die. It sounds bleak.

On a day to day level, we feel the pinching threat of futility as well. We get up and go to work so that we can get up and go to work the next day. So much energy is expended on the effort to survive. Some people throw their hands in the air and say, ‘What’s it all for?’

As it turns out, this is a very good question to ask. As we will see, the impulse for this question comes from something very deep within – something part of our human ‘wiring’. We recoil from the idea that life should just end. At the same time, we know that this is precisely what happens.

The sense of futility is common to all humanity. But so is the nagging idea that we should not live out our lives as though they were futile. Where does this nagging feeling come from?

It arises because God has built eternity into our hearts.

The writer of Ecclesiastes makes a startling statement. He writes that God has made:

everything beautiful in its time. Also He has put eternity in their hearts, except that no one can find out the work that God does from beginning to end. Ecc 3:11.

It’s extraordinary to think that God has actually put eternity into our hearts. It is part of our deepest fabric – an in-built mechanism that wars against our tendency to believe only what we see. This means that some part of us is always yearning to be joined to what is eternal, even while we are being swept away in the moment.

God has placed a deep desire for eternity within us. And only the eternal will satisfy.

More than that, the writer of Ecclesiastes says that we are unable to comprehend eternity ourselves. We cannot fathom the workings of God. We sense that there is a reality, perhaps a world, or even a being, behind the one we observe. But the nature of this world must be revealed to us.

We are going to need some help.

We need help because if God has put eternity into our hearts, it means he has a purpose for us. Our lives mean far more than we think they do.

In other words, there is far more at stake than we necessarily perceive. The futility we are discussing is a result of human rebellion against God. The world was created to be in harmony with God. But because we have rejected him, we are subject to mortality. He gave us the desire for eternity – but on his terms, not ours.

God created us in order to have relationship with him – to live as he lives. But we have not lived this way. To live as God lives is not to obey a set of rules. In fact, the very attempt to live by some human code is itself a symptom of human futility. The more idealistic our plans, the bigger the failure. Think, for example, of the United Nations.

We cannot invent our own solution to the problems of humanity. The quest will go on. But because the real problem is rooted within human beings, the failure of the quest is inevitable. We are stuck in a closed system, like blind men in a dark room. We need someone to switch on the light. Someone on the outside.

Better still, someone on the outside who is light.

Jesus Christ said this:
I am the light of the world. He who follows me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life. Jn 8:12.

He is the light we need. He is the one who can illuminate our darkness. In fact, he is the one who can ignite us so that we can receive his life. Eternal life.

Eternal life is not just immortality. It doesn’t only mean that we go on forever. Eternal life is a completely different kind of life. And it has unique power. It doesn’t just bypass death: it overcomes death.

Christ overcame death when he died for our sin and was raised from the dead.
He was born as we all were, as an ordinary man. And yet he contained within himself all the capacity and power of eternal life. So he was both man and God. In becoming a man, he was able to demonstrate the power of God to overcome the human condition.

Christ offered himself once and for all. This was when he was crucified – killed on a cross. He took the burden of our sin upon himself. Not only that, three days after his death he demonstrated the power of his life by rising from the dead.

Christ conquered death. If we receive the power of his life, we can conquer death.
Futility can lead us to Christ.

The weight of mortality pressing upon us is supposed to alert us to our true condition. We know that life is important; but we also know that it doesn’t last. The existence of futility tells us something. It tells us that the powers of our life are inadequate. We want to go on living, but we can’t.

This is the great burden that weighs upon us. Eternity is in our hearts, but even more keenly felt is our sense of mortality.

We therefore face the simple question:
Will we continue chasing the wind –
Or will we accept the call of eternity?

We can see that futility is unavoidable. Life will not slow down for us. We are not going to find more meaning around the corner. At some point the tide will go out and we will be left on the shore.

We can go on living in denial of this very obvious fact. Or we can admit that there is something larger than ourselves at work in the universe – that there is, in fact, someone at work in the universe. Someone we can know, whose life we can receive.

And this is his offer to us. The life of God can be ours if we open ourselves to him and believe. In so doing, we participate in a miracle. That miracle can happen at the moment we respond to God. We can be saved. Our lives can be lifted above the ordinary and into the eternal.