The recent Folsom Street Fair (San Francisco) provided such an explicit expression of “gay pride” which was abhorrent to many but, allowed to take place in a public place, appeared to be condoned by society and those authorities charged with upholding the law. Morals aside, the law was broken many times over but no sanctions applied. The Fair celebrated the moral decline of the western world. Apart from the presence of children who were exposed to these things, a form of child abuse in itself, another obscenity arose in the blessing given events by some clergy members of The Episcopal Church. I am no longer shocked by the depravity of humankind, thanks to the nature of my professional career, but it is disturbing to witness the mockery of God who is holy and who in His compassion for us made that ultimate sacrifice for the restoration of our relationship with Him.

To change tack a little, so often I have found that words from the Bible are used out of context, or only part of the message is given so that it is purposely distorted to mean something else instead. It is always worth going back to have another look for oneself and, casting aside any agenda, being prepared to open one’s heart to the teaching that those words were meant to provide in the first place.

For instance, it is so fashionable today among some to fire off the admonition not to judge others, and neglect to see that Jesus taught us that we are indeed to make judgements, but that they are to be “righteous judgements” that involve discernment, recognition of sin, based on God’s revelation of Himself and His word. These same people will often adopt a sanctimonious “it is not my place to judge others” stance in defiance of Christ’s instruction as given in John 7:24, making out that those who make such righteous judgements of sin are Pharisaical - that they are self-righteous, hypocritical and pushing a non-God-given doctrine. The problem is that these critics read their Bibles with an agenda, and usually one with a liberal bias heavily loaded towards the social gospel which largely ignores the primary reason for the Incarnation in the first place.

I have heard it said that those who speak those righteous judgements that Christ has told us to make (John 7:24) are lacking compassion. Whereas some may be doing so, I would suggest that the opposite is often the case. Truth may be spoken without love, but love without truth is not love at all. It is merely some sentimental sop condoning permissiveness. A traveller comes to a crossroads and has to decide a destination. He makes an inquiry and is told “I care about you deeply, fellow traveller, and will even carry your bag for you. But I wont tell you which path ends up where”. That is not compassion. His informant doesn’t care a damn!

This is splitting God’s love from His righteousness and holiness. They are not to be split, being two facets of the one God, integrated parts of His character. Indeed they cannot be split. God requires us to be holy as He is Holy. Without His word concerning what is sin we can not know just what dire situation we are in, that mankind’s behaviour has become so debauched and depraved that we are desperately in need of His compassionate act of redemption in Christ. These things cannot be divorced from each other. There is little compassion in ignoring the crimes against God that we sinners are capable of committing, and the consequences of them both here-and-now and eternally. Hush up the nature of sin and its horrific consequences and you steer people away from their need for God.

We hear it so often today - “God is love” - but just what that love really is has been forgotten. It is seen as a description of certain behaviours, the loving thing to do. Indeed it is that, but the real basis of this love - and what is truly meant by “God is love” - is in the Incarnation where Jesus came among us primarily to give Himself as the atonement for our sins, for our redemption. That it was necessary, that our sin made that so, and that He willingly did this great thing is the real love of God. That is the foundation of His compassion - it is His compassion. The rest of what Jesus did emanates from this primary purpose. Lose sight of that, and love becomes just another word, one we hope to see and exercise ourselves, but seldom close to the great act of compassion that took place on Calvary nearly 2,000 years ago.

God is not mocked. He is patient and gives us time and many second chances, but there is an end to his patience and that will be coming. It comes for each one of us when we get to confront Him face-to-face, and at the end of time itself.

The more I think on that terrible Passion of Christ, his scourging and crucifixion, the agony of His burden in the Garden of Gethsemane, the events of the next day, the humilation, the pain, the utterly horrendous torment and trauma… the more I grieve for those who are unregenerate and the great harm that they bring to themselves in their ignorance, defiance and mockery of God. Christians who are most cognizant of what it cost Jesus are not ones who go around with the kind of attitudes that rejoice in the sufferings of others, who want to punish and gloat. That has been said of conservative Christians. It is that cognizance of Christ’s sacrifice that spawns compassion, a truly deep compassion that bears fruit in our evangelism and actions towards others. Anything pharisaical is from a superficial brush with Christian ideals, not from deep in the heart where Christ’s Passion is known, where God’s mercy and forgiveness has been received with genuine humility. Having been forgiven much, one does not dare condemn another. Those players in the Folsom Street Fair do not need my condemnation as they manage to do that most generously for themselves. They need Christ’s compassion, and more desperately than they surely care to know.

1 Corinthians 2: 12 We have not received the spirit of the world but the Spirit who is from God, that we may understand what God has freely given us. 13 This is what we speak, not in words taught us by human wisdom but in words taught by the Spirit, expressing spiritual truths in spiritual words. 14 The man without the Spirit does not accept the things that come from the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him, and he cannot understand them, because they are spiritually discerned. 15 The spiritual man makes judgments about all things, but he himself is not subject to any man's judgment.