All Terrain questions 16 and

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New episodes of The All Terrain Podcast are usually released on the last Friday of the month on Apple Podcasts, Podbean and Spotify. The third episode of season 3 will be available a day earlier, on 23 December.

Sketch notes and group questions that support each episode can be downloaded from the podcast’s webpage at salvationarmy.org.uk/ youth-and-children.

about attending therapy with a mental health professional. In episode 15 she says: ‘If we try and ignore suffering – whether that’s mental health, a persistent bully at work, physical pain – nothing changes. If we pretend it doesn’t exist or fail to deal with the root causes, it doesn’t go away. The only way to deal with suffering is to face it head-on.’

CROSSING STORMY SEAS

Anyone living in Israel would have known how dangerous it could be to cross the Sea of Galilee in a boat at night. Yet during his tour of the 10 cities known as the Decapolis, Jesus has his disciples do just that, four times (see Mark 4 to 8).

In the first of these crossings, a violent storm suddenly occurs and batters their boat. The disciples, including experienced fishermen, fear they will drown. They wake Jesus who rebukes the wind and waves, calming the sea. And he asks, ‘Why are you so afraid? Do you still have no faith?’ (4:40).

Following Jesus will involve us metaphorically travelling across stormy seas while fearing death, so he expects us to recognise that he’s with us on the journey and to have faith that he will protect us.

RIGHT THERE WITH ME

In episode 14 of The All Terrain Podcast, Territorial Commander Commissioner Anthony Cotterill shares how helping in the aftermath of the Lockerbie plane bombing in 1988 influences his ability to cope with suffering today: ‘Walking into that horrendous suffering is helped by an understanding that this isn’t about God abandoning us... He makes it very clear in his word that there is going to be trouble, tribulation, flooding, fire, bereavement, sickness ... but “I promise to be with you”.

‘Now, if I get that into my heart, it makes it possible for me as a Salvation Army officer to actually face up to all kinds of horrendous stuff. I can face that suffering, knowing that God is right there in the midst of it with me.’

GETTING CLOSURE

The footnotes to the final chapter of Mark will tell you that most ancient manuscripts end at verse 8. Scholars believe that the two alternative endings printed in most Bibles – written in a distinctly different tone – were added later.

So, after the women who visit the tomb receive angelic instruction to tell Peter and the others that Jesus is risen, the original ending of Mark concludes: ‘Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid’ (16:8).

While I appreciate this being dubbed something of an anti-climax, for me it makes for the more authentic ending to a Gospel that encourages us to consider how we move through suffering.

As happened to the women who visited the tomb, suffering can confuse us, terrify us and make us feel lost at sea – yet we all will experience it at some point in our lives. Whereas Matthew’s Gospel, with its question of how we face change, mirrors the transitions of autumn, Mark’s Gospel represents the long, dark nights of winter. It can be the most painful of the four paths, and with no end in sight it can be easy to lose hope. But we can face that suffering, knowing that Jesus is right there in the midst of it with us, and that he calls us gently – but firmly – not to give up hope. Spring is coming.

MATT WORSHIPS AT SUTTON AND WRITES THE ALL TERRAIN PODCAST SMALL GROUP QUESTIONS

Reflecting true light

Major Liesl Baldwin considers how Christ’s disciples can witness to God’s glory

JOHN 1:6–27

THE season of Advent invites us to enter once more into the mystery of the Incarnation: ‘The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighbourhood’ (John 1:14 The Message). They are easy words to say, but our minds burst with wonder as we say them. As we begin to ponder further, we realise that this incarnation wasn’t just for then; the eternal Word is still living in our neighbourhoods today.

Teresa of Avila suggested that: ‘Christ has no body now but yours./ No hands, no feet on Earth but yours./ Yours are the eyes through which he looks compassion on this world./ Yours are the feet with which he walks to do good./ Yours are the hands through which he blesses all the world./ Yours are the hands, yours are the feet, yours are the eyes, you are his body./ Christ has no body now on Earth but yours.’

As people in whom Jesus lives, we might ask ourselves: ‘What would Jesus do?’ We want to know the answer so that we can be Jesus to others.

QUESTIONS

Can we really be Jesus to others? Is this what we are called to do?

Here lies another profound mystery. At the very beginning of everything there was a true light emanating from the very life of Jesus (see John 1:4). This true light was not static; it had a purpose, a destination, a mission to fulfil.

‘The true light that gives light to everyone was coming into the world’ (John 1:9) – and it came. Although misunderstood, unrecognised and rejected, this light was never overcome by darkness. The life came to bring true light and nothing thwarted his arrival.

John the Baptist was a pivotal character who was ‘sent from God’ (v6). His courageous exploits come later, but what is important is that he ‘came as a witness to testify concerning that light, so that through him all might believe. He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light’ (vv7 and 8).

When asked to recall how John testified about Jesus, people simply remembered him crying out: ‘He who comes after me has surpassed me because he was before me’ (v15). In the great drama of God’s salvation story, John the Baptist knew his place. He did not attempt to be the light. He simply pointed others to its source.

In a similar vein, Jesus’ own disciples would be challenged to consider their place, for the light might actually be in

Through the week with Salvationist

– a devotional thought for each day

by Lieut-Colonel Ray Oakley

SUNDAY

He was in the world, and though the world was made through him, the world did not recognise him.

(John 1:10)

MONDAY

O Lord my God, when I in awesome wonder/ Consider all the worlds thy hands have made;/ I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,/ Thy power throughout the universe displayed./ Then sings my soul, my Saviour God, to thee:/ How great thou art!

(SASB 49)

TUESDAY

He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. Yet to all who did receive him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God – children born not of natural descent, nor of human decision or a husband’s will, but born of God. (John 1:11–13)