Before you read this - it's a work in progress. I have tended to wander a bit from where I start until when I get to my conclusion, and I will probably move things around, get rid of some things, and put in others, so if it doesn't make sense, then I've probably got it all wrong, and if it does, then God is really good at using our weaknesses to his purposes.

First, I want to thoroughy, from the bottom of my heart, with all my heart, soul, mind and strength, thank Jesus for dieing on the cross, and God the Father for resurrecting him after three days. It's coming up to easter, and it seems appropriate for me to write a piece about Jesus - ok, the fact that it's coming up to easter is actually total coincidence (i.e. planned by God), but it isn't necessarily coming up to easter as you read this, and in fact is a piece for any time of the year.

I want to talk about the other thing we need to thank Jesus for - thoroughly, from the bottom of our hearts, with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Yes, that's right, Jesus' other ministry.

What do I mean by his other ministry. We all know that he was born by the Holy Spirit overshadowing Mary, he lived for many years probably as a carpenter in Nazereth, and then he began his three year ministry of proclaiming the coming of the kingdom. He then went to Jerusalem, taught in the temple, was arrested, put to death, put in a cave and rose again on the third day. Well, that's the basic bit which almost all christians would accept as truth, and that's what I'm terming his main ministry. So, what was his other ministry?

Well, I'd like you all to think about God for a bit. Once you've got it all sorted out in your head, I'd like you to describe him for me. You probably are coming up with words like Father, immortal, eternal, loving, saving, creator, stuff like that. That's great, those are really good descriptions of parts of his character. I could tell you that my husband is an atheist, very tender, can make incredible catty comments about female fashion, cooks a good roast pork (apparently, he still hasn't done this for me), and has a very unforgettable face. Ok, I've given you bits about him - do you know him? Do you know how he'll react, say, when a Jehovah's witness knocks on the door. Unless you do happen to know him, and maybe you do, then knowing descriptions of what he looks like, what sort of character he has, cannot help you to understand who he is. You can't know who God is from knowing his characteristics. I certainly don't think we can have any idea of how he is going to handle any given situation, even if we are pretty sure of what our reaction would be - say dealing with the person who sent the suicide bombers to take down the world trade centre - will he forgive them, or will he judge them? Or perhaps he will do both? Or he may do something entirely different. You can't put God in a box.

And that is where we come down to one of the most fundamental pieces of the Bible. Exodus 20:3 "You shall have no other gods before Me." Verses 4-6 go on to say "You shall not make for yourself a carved image—any likeness of anything that is in heaven above, or that is in the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth; you shall not bow down to them nor serve them. For I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing mercy to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments." I've put the whole bit in, because I think it is important to understand God's reaction to idols. He hates them - so much so that if one person worships an idol, him, his children, his grand children and his great-great grandchildren will receive a negative consequence because of it (I don't want to say curse here, but only because 'I' don't want to say it, it may be true.) However, if one person worships the true God, putting no other gods before him, then their descendents, to the thousand'th generation will receive mercy from God.

With regard to idols, I have a sort of puritan view of the inside of churches. I'm not suggesting we go and tear down all those nice stained glass windows, destroy all the statues, and ruin all the nice churches. They are things of beauty, and made for the glory of God. However, I remeber quite clearly when we were looking at this passage during my confirmation into the CofE. The vicar was going into what an idol was (I'll do that in a minute) and I asked him why we had a carved image of Jesus on the cross above the altar. He said that wasn't a carved image of an animal, or something else, it was one of God. At that point he paused. "Oh, that's even worse." I let him recover his train of thought at this point. I didn't want him to know exactly how puritanical (or possibly heretical, according to the Anglicans) my views were. I think that having a nicely decorated church, with artist's impression of Jesus during various parts of his life adorning the windows and walls, can be a distraction to worship. You look at what man has made, and worship what he thought was god, and not worship God. Of course, it may not be that way to you, they may help you, I just find myself staring up at the stained glass windows in our chruch and my mind goes to wondering how they were made, how they were installed (they've been moved from their original window when the new building was built), and whether there is any symmatry in the glass. I find them a real distraction. I have, on occasion, looked at a really great piece of carving depicting a biblical scene and wondered at it - but am I wondering at the created, or the creator. Ok, I'm rambling here, but please do read on - I make a point eventually.

An idol is not just a piece of wood, carved prettily, and plated with gold. It is anything you put before God. If you would rather spend you Sunday mornings lying in bed with a newspaper, and you do that instead of going to church, when you know God is telling you to go to church, then your bed, and the paper, are idols. You are putting them before God. If you can't see that, have a look at, say, Russel Crowe, or Renée Zellweger. Big cinema stars - how much time do you spend swooning over them. Perhaps you prefer footballers, or even 'Footballers' Wives' on the telly. I don't personally buy any of the 'hello' type magazines, but they are, in my humble opinion, pure idol worship. Huge picture spreads of the places where these people work or live, writing telling you about the most intimate detail of this or that. Why do we want to know this? Are we actually worshipping them in putting our time into reading it?

One of the people I went to church with when I was a child was a missionary to Africa. He came across a local witch doctor who was trying to scare him off. "You go away or I'll get my god to curse you." the witch doctor said, pointing at an ornately carved ring he wore. My friend looked at the ring and started to chuckle. "You be careful," the witch doctor continued. "I'll get my god to curse you." At this point my friend burst out in laughter. He pointed to the ring, "Your god lives in there."  He laughed some more "Heaven and earth are not big enough to contain my God!"

So, we can't find God in an idol. And we shouldn't have any gods before him. But how can we know him to make sure we put him first. He is the real problem. How can a created being understand it's creator. Have you tried to speak to an animal recently - did it speak back. I must admit I speak to my cat all the time - usually she takes no notice, but sometimes she seems to understand what I am saying (normally when I wave my hands at her and shout "No"). But that is just me pretending she can understand. You can teach a cat to respond to a voice saying something - we've trained ours to use a particular meow when she wants milk - it makes it easier for us. But she can't discuss things with me. How about parrots then? They can talk. Can you spend time with a parrot and teach it to talk. Well, having just done a bit of research, you can. "That Damn Bird" is a great example of what you can teach an animal to do. Now, can you teach it to understand who you are. No, I don't mean get it to recognise you. Get it to understand why you sit down at the end of a day, brew yourself a cup of tea, and put your feet up - if that is what you do, of course. Can you get through to it the concepts of human love, appreciation of art, Einstein's theory of special relativity. Ok, the latter is a stretch for most people, but I use it as an example because I asked something of my husband. "Given sufficient ants, and sufficient time, could you create an ant, or an ant colony, which could pass a first  year university exam paper on  Einstein's special relativity". He thought and said that he could. I asked him how. "Well, increase the background radiation, wait for a while, and then start to cull anything which doesn't look like it can understand the theory".

This led me to a thought. How could God show us who he is? Well, perhaps he could take someone who has a vague idea, and teach him, so that he could teach his sons, and they could teach their sons, and that way get an entire race of people who could show the world who God is. And you can remove from the pot anything that hinders the race knowing God, whether that is a particular person or an entire race. It's a bold plan. God tried it. Gen 18:19 says "For I have known him, in order that he may command his children and his household after him, that they keep the way of the LORD, to do righteousness and justice, that the LORD may bring to Abraham what He has spoken to him." God knew Abraham, called him, in order that he may teach his children after him. That was God's purpose for Israel. He called them to be a kingdom of priests Exodus 19:5-6 says that "Now if you obey me fully and keep my covenant, then out of all nations you will be my treasured possession. Although the whole earth is mine, you will be for me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation.' These are the words you are to speak to the Israelites." He chose Abraham, he put his descendents through the trials in Egypt to winnow them. He gave them his covenant, with all the laws in it, so that they would be able to be priests for the whole earth. He even destroyed entire nations who otherwise would have lead them away from their primary mission - worshiping God to show others how to worship God (culling anything which doesn't understand the theory). A priest is someone who stands between you and God - God wanted all the earth to be able to know him through his people, Israel. Unfortunately that plan went wrong, as it was bound to. It is hard enough keeping the ten commandments (I know I'm really bad at exagerating my statements, but a lie is still a lie, bearing false witness), but keeping the entirity of the law. Have a look at the clothes you are wearing right now - any of them 'mixed fibres'? If so, you're breaking the covenantal law as shown to Moses.

So, that failed. There was only one plan left - the plan that had actually been the plan all along. God had to show us who he was in a form we could understand. Now you will probably see what Jesus' other ministry was - revealing the Father to us. Matt 11:27 says "All things have been delivered to Me by My Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father. Nor does anyone know the Father except the Son, and the one to whom the Son wills to reveal Him." We can't know God, however Jesus, the son who spent eternity past with him, has intimate knowledge of who he is. It is that knowledge which enabled Jesus to live the way he did. Only doing what he say the father do. And he did this to reveal to us who the Father is. That was the whole plan from the very beginning. When Adam was in the garden, God knew that he, or Eve, or both of them would eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. He allowed the serpent to talk to Eve, and watched while Adam stood by and allowed his wife to do what he knew was wrong, and then follow her into sin, rather than follow what he knew God had said. Because it did not matter how many evenings he and God spent walking through the garden of Eden, you can't know God. You don't have the right senses, or the right words. Even if you only look at the life of Jesus, John said at the end of his gospel "And there are also many other things that Jesus did, which if they were written one by one, I suppose that even the world itself could not contain the books that would be written", and this is of a human being, who you can touch with your hands, spend time with, discuss things with. This is the person, the human, who from the beginning of the world was destined to be our great high priest, the human who can stand between us and God, the human who can call us to be priests that we can start to show the world who God is, through Jesus' work in us.

This is Jesus' other ministry, the ministry he is doing right now - showing us who God is, and praying for us, on our behalf, continuously before God. It's as important as his death on the cross, in fact, it's what caused the death to become necessary. So perhaps it's his first ministry.