Still Quarrying 159: Radical Change.

Darren McGarvey and I have some things in common.  He was brought up in Pollok and went to Crookston Castle Secondary school. It could also be said that we have a common need to communicate.  He is a writer, columnist and rap artist.   For the latter he has adopted the stage name ‘Loki’.  That caught my attention since some people think the name Pollok means ‘The pool of Loki’, Loki being the Norse god of mischief.   It’s a well chosen name since much of Darren’s writing arises from his own experience of poverty, the issues arising from that, and what he sees as the inadequate responses of government at all levels.  In the best sense he could be described as a ‘stirrer’.  

I have been aware of his book Poverty Safari since its publication but for some reason never quite got round to reading it.  It has been described as at least in part a ‘misery memoir’.  There are repeated references to his chaotic early life with a mother addicted to drugs and alcohol and the consequential neglect he and his siblings suffered.  He also writes about his own descent into drug addiction and his struggle to attain some stability and purpose in his life.  But there is more to the book than this.  The subtitle is ‘Understanding The Anger Of Britain’s Underclass’.  It is an exploration of the feelings of those who increasingly feel they are on the margins, unable to influence political decisions that shape the quality and direction of their own lives.  

I went to the book with expectations.  I was prepared to hear how a person’s early social and economic circumstances can shape the rest of their lives.  I was prepared to hear about the inadequacies of the education system in relation to those who are ‘born to fail’.  I was prepared for gruesome details of a family life characterised not only by neglect but also danger.  I was prepared for the tensions arising from peer pressure and the isolation in being recognised as ‘different’.   What I wasn’t prepared for was the emphasis Darren places on the role of individual responsibility in lives that could be described as caught in the poverty trap.  It is all too easy for individuals to blame external factors for the way they are but there are changes that can be made at a personal level that can diminish the effects of poverty and lead to a better quality of life.  Darren calls on the ‘poor’ to recognise that the ‘system’ is not going to change any time soon but they can change and make life easier for themselves and those around them.  Be aware of the effects  poor diet, smoking, drugs and alcohol can have on your life and be prepared to make changes.   Be aware of the anger within, how that can affect your attitudes to others and your willingness to listen to another point of view.   

This is not to say that speaking out, campaigning and resistance to injustice should cease but as Darren writes: 

‘ . . . one thing we have to concede is that part of the solution lies with the individual.  It’s counter-intuitive to accept responsibility for certain things particularly when our circumstances are beyond our control.  This is especially true if we have suffered abuse, neglect or oppression.  But striving to take responsibility is not about blame, it’s about honestly trying to identify what pieces of the puzzle are within our capacity to deal with.  This approach is far more radical than than simply attributing responsibility for every ill in society to a ‘system’  or a vaguely defined power dynamic . . .’  

There is no indication in his book that Darren has in any way been influenced by Christian teaching but through his own experience he has come to recognise the importance of individual responsibility, the need for change within ourselves and our dependance on outside help if we are to make the changes that matter.   These elements are consistent with a Christian perspective on life.  Jesus’ core message focused on the need for ‘repentance’, a turning away from damaging values and priorities and a turning towards God and His ways which alone can lead us to personal fulfilment.   Paul later called on Christians to ‘keep in step with the Spirit’, to look to Him to enable us to stay with God’s purpose for our lives.  It is inspiring to read Darren’s words:

‘Today, I realise that the most practical way of transforming my community is to first transform myself and, having done so, find a way to express how I did that to as many people as possible.’

Darren has a message of transformation which he hopes to communicate to others.  He has that in common with Paul although the Apostle had something even more radical to share.  Having been shown the way forward in Christ was the ultimate transformative experience.  He describes it as being like the light that God commanded at the beginning of Creation shining in his inner being and becoming a new creation.  (2 Corinthians 4: 6)  For Paul this is where radical change begins and from where the values of God’s Kingdom flow into society realising the vision of Jesus’ ministry in bringing ‘good news to the poor.’  

Still Quarrying 158: Regrets.

There wasn’t much reading done in the Stem Cell Unit.  My concentration was erratic to say the least and I found it difficult to settle to anything.  I had brought in Dickens’ Bleak House, all 913 pages hoping I would get through that.  Aye right.  One of my Christmas presents, however, was a year’s subscription to the New Yorker magazine.  If you know it you’ll be aware that the articles tend to be long and often heavy going.  But there are always the cartoons.  That was good.  I could always look at the pictures.  One in particular made me laugh out loud.  It showed a man in bed with a tragic expression on his face and he is surrounded by his family.  He is saying: ‘I wish I had spent more time arguing about ‘Star Wars’ online.’  

After the laughter has subsided the serious questions kick in for the man undergoing a bone marrow transplant.  When it comes to the crunch what are my priorities?  What are my consuming interests?  What are those things I need for a fulfilling life?  Those are the kinds of questions that rattle around in the brain.  You probably know Samuel Johnson’s oft quoted words: ‘Depend upon it, sir, when a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates the mind wonderfully.‘   Not that I ever really believed I was going to die but still if I were the man in cartoon what would be my ‘I wish’?  Apparently one of the most popular songs played at funerals is Frank Sinatra’s My Way.  I’ve always been a bit dubious about anyone who could say ‘Regrets I’ve had a few/ But then again too few to mention.’  If that is where you are then perhaps there is an unhealthy immunity to the consequences of moral choices made, the hurt that may have been caused by word and deed, the opportunities that may have been lost to set right something that was wrong.  

Now I know that you would not want anyone to be burdened with the weight of all this as they face the final challenge.  That’s not to say that it is not a reality for many people.  The way out of it, the easing of the weight, is for us to consider that whatever regrets we may have personally the whole of our past life, including those things that make us groan in remembrance, has been enveloped in the good and loving purpose of God.  I admitted in yesterday’s blog that this kind of statement can often come over as a platitude.  But it’s all over Scripture!   The goodness and love of God in His purpose for His people is obviously meant to be taken seriously.  I go back to Psalm 138: 8:

‘The Lord will fulfil his purpose for me;

 your love, O Lord, endures forever - 

 do not abandon the works of your hands.’  

So apply that to your life.  ‘When I said that, did that, thought that your purpose for me continued, you never stopped loving me, what you started in my life will be completed.‘   So we can face the end of our lives knowing that whatever thoughts threaten to disturb our peace we can fasten our minds to the great truth that God in the fulness of His love and goodness, the God revealed in Jesus, has never abandoned us and has brought us to this end which is actually the beginning of the fulness of life.  

Sometimes it feels as if we have to fight to allow these truths to grow in our inner being and to subdue every negative thought, every disturbing impulse.  That will always be part of being a follower of Jesus and being human but we can’t leave it there.  Is there a way through the fight to reassurance and peace?   That can only come to us when we know our God and His ways and our chief resource will always be His Word.   But I’m not going to say: ‘Just read your Bible.’  It’s more important to learn the Bible.  That came home to me years ago when I heard a friend say: ‘We need to read the Bible and learn the Bible.‘   What he meant was that it is not enough just to read, not even to understand, but to allow the eternal truths to make an impact in our lives from the inside out.  That is something that comes through time and time again in Psalm 119.  The Word of God is the focus of  this man’s life to the extent that he can say: 

‘It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees.’  (verse 71)

In other places he speaks about hiding the Word in his heart (v. 11), meditating on God’s wonders (v. 27), finding comfort in the Word (v. 52), delighting in the Word (v. 70).  And so it goes on.  The Word is not merely the focus of his mind but the core of his being.  

Eugene Peterson’s book Eat This Book is a call to ‘spiritual reading.’  He points out that the Hebrew word for ‘meditate’ is the same word used for an animal growling over its prey.  He compares this vigorous image, typically Hebrew, with the rather precious way people often speak of meditation, quietness, candles, positive thoughts etc.  The animal is focussed on something specific and to paraphrase Eugene chews and swallows ‘using teeth and tongue, stomach and intestines.’  If a lion was ‘meditating’ a goat she was really taking it in, digesting it, making it part of herself.  

For Eugene something similar goes on when a believer truly meditates on the Word:

‘There is a certain kind of writing that invites this kind of reading, soft purrs and low growls as we taste and savor, anticipate and take in the sweet and spicy, mouth-watering and soul-energizing morsel words - “O taste and see that the Lord is good!” (Psalm 34: 8)

We need to approach our Scripture reading in this way, with the prayer that the truths revealed concerning God and His ways will become part of our inner being.  This has to be the aspiration of Christian meditation.  This is what leads us to that realisation that we are enveloped in God’s love, to a deeper appreciation of His ways, and to that assurance that His good purpose will continue through death into that Kingdom where regrets have no more weight.  

Still Quarrying 157: The Click.

Sometimes it is difficult to focus on your Bible reading.  There might be things going on around you or in your head.  You might just be tired.  But the words just slide off your brain.  It was  like that for me the other day when reading Psalm 138.  But something went click when I lingered over verse 8: 'The Lord will fulfil his purpose for me; your love, O Lord, endured forever - do not abandon the works of your hands.' 

                                                                                 

Here was a truth I could lock on to.  It occurred to me that I often speak about God’s ‘good and loving purpose’.   It’s a phrase that pops up continually in my preaching, praying and writing.  And therefore it is in danger of becoming a platitude, something that easily and perhaps carelessly slips off the tongue.  But if it is true that God cherishes a good and loving purpose for all His people then that in the end is all that matters.  

That is not to say that it is always easy to live with that purpose as it is worked out in our lives.  David acknowledges that.  In verse 3 we see his need to be ‘bold and stout-hearted’.  There is a need for inner strength to live in the purpose of God.   David finds this strength in the assurance that God’s love endures forever and he will never be abandoned by God.   The work He has begun in our lives will not cease until its completion.  

David experienced this many times in his life.  In 1 Samuel 30 we read of an incident in the days when David was on the run from King Saul.  It was a particularly demanding crisis.    David and his men were billeted in a town called Ziklag.  In their absence an enemy tribe had overrun the town and taken captive all the women and children.  In their distress David’s men were turning against him and speaking of stoning him.  But in the midst of his inner turmoil ‘David found strength in the Lord his God.‘ (verse 6).   What could have happened but that David remembered God’s promises and renewed his faith in His good and loving purpose.   

So many thoughts flowed from Psalm 138: 8.  From now on when I open my Bible I will be praying for that ‘click’ in my head that will warm my heart with the assurance of God’s good and loving purpose.  

Still Quarrying 155: Where Is God?

Where Is God In A Coronavirus World? is the title of a booklet written by by John C. Lennox.   It embraces a question on many lips during times of personal or national tragedy.    Where is God in all this?  It may come mockingly from someone who is not really interested in an answer.  A colleague was making his way to his church to conduct the funeral of a young man who had drowned in a boating accident.  He passed a man who said to him: ‘On you way to make excuses for God?’  

But if we are honest we have to admit that sometimes the question arises within ourselves.   John Taylor Smith was an Anglican bishop in the early part of the twentieth century.  When he was faced with a setback or challenge in his life he would ask himself: ‘How does this fit into Romans 8: 28?’  This is the probably one of the most challenging verses in the Bible: ‘We know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.‘ I’ve put ‘in all things’ in bold because this is the challenge.  God is working in all things for our good?   Even in these Covid-19 days?  

If questions like that have been troubling you then you have a lot in common with many Bible people.  Psalm 137 arises from the experience of God’s people in exile.  The Babylonians have invaded Jerusalem, destroyed the Temple, perpetrated atrocities and taken the vast bulk of the population captive.  There are times when their distance from the land given to them by God and the Temple where they worshipped Him causes deep spiritual disturbance.  It is difficult to sing ‘songs of joy’.  In the Psalm we see they have have packed away their harps, hung them on the branches of trees.  And it’s made worse by the local inhabitants who pile on the pain: ‘Where are all your songs of joy?  Have the chosen people nothing to sing about?’  

However even as they ask themselves the painful questions God’s people find a way forward: 

‘If I forget you, Jerusalem, may my right hand forget its skill.  May my tongue cling to the roof of my mouth if I do not remember you, if I do not consider Jerusalem my highest joy.’  (vv. 5-6)

This is a commitment never to forget their past experiences in the faith and the joy they experienced in the blessings that flowed from God.  They were part of a community of faith that celebrated the reality of God in their midst.

They also placed their trust in the justice of God that the day would come when those who had worked evil against Israel, the Edomites as well as the Babylonians, would experience the weight of God’s judgement upon them.  We may baulk at the way this is expressed in verses 8-9 but in the raw pain of his experience the Psalmist is confident that an appropriate judgement will fall on the enemies of God’s people.  

So where do we stand in relation to this ancient text?  We are not a people in exile but it might often seem that way.  We are cut off from our places of worship and although we have ways of sustaining fellowship there is still a longing to gather once again under the Word, united in prayer and expressing our faith in song.  This is where we can take a lead from the ancient people of God in exile.  They were committed to remembering the blessings they had known in the worship of their community and the reality of God in their midst.  This was not just nostalgia.  The very fact that they continue to worship in Babylon and to raise their voices in prayer shows that they believed that the reality of God could still be experienced in exile.  Remembrance of the past led to present experience.  He was present to forgive, renew and reassure.  

But He was not just a God who delivered warm, fuzzy experiences to individual believers.   This exiled people believed in a God who was ‘marching on’, whose justice would not sleep forever, who would ultimately act for His people.  We are similarly assured that God is a dynamic presence in our midst, that He has promised to push back the darkness in human experience, that His Kingdom will in the end be established forever.   One of my memories of the community of faith on this Lord’s Day is when we sang the hymn: ‘Through the love of God our Saviour all will be well.‘   Remember the final verse:

‘We expect a bright tomorrow;

 all will be well;

 faith can sing through days of sorrow,

 ‘All, all is well.’

 On our Father’s love relying,

 Jesus every need supplying,

 or in living or in dying,

 all must be well.’  

This is not faith of ‘the everything always turns out well in the end’ variety but faith in the promises of the God revealed in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus.  He blessed the Apostle John with a vision which has sustained the whole Church through the millennia:

‘Then I saw “a new heaven and a new earth,” for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and there was no longer any sea.  I saw the Holy City, the new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride beautifully dressed for her husband.  And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Look! God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and he will dwell with them. They will be his people, and God himself will be with them and be their God.  ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes. There will be no more death’ or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.”  (Revelation 21: 1-4)

Still Quarrying 154: Social Distancing.

Social distancing has come even more to the fore in these Covid-19 days as some restrictions are being lifted throughout the UK although more so in England.  We have been seeing images of crowded buses and trains in London which have caused some alarm.  Thankfully our family Londoner is still working at home and still taking no chances.  

Social distancing was practiced in Ancient Israel where there was suspected disease.  If you have ever read the Law books in the Hebrew Bible you will come across provisions for quarantine when leprosy or other skin diseases are suspected.    There is a less worthy social distancing in evidence in the Gospels.  This was in relation to certain people who were deemed to be morally suspect.  Some of the more devout were taken aback that Jesus openly kept company with tax collectors, prostitutes and others who would not be welcome in what was considered the best kind of gathering.   One one occasion a Pharisee was scandalised when he saw a woman ‘who had lived a sinful life’ wiping her tears from Jesus’ feet with her hair, kissing his feet and pouring on perfume.  (Luke 7: 36-50)

This woman was the kind of person who was not placed in quarantine but unless you wanted people talking you kept your distance.  This still goes on.  There is no doubt that perspective on people can be coloured by the company they keep.  Jesus’ attitude, however, has rubbed off in many of His followers.  Examples are numerous but I was thinking about a colleague the other day.  He spent most of his ministry in Glasgow city-centre, often working with the homeless.  He sometimes conducted funerals for men who for various reasons had long since lost touch with their families.  At the age of 54 he was diagnosed with cancer and it was his wish that when the time came his ashes would be scattered in the same place as the homeless men who had become so much part of his life.  

Social distancing can be more subtle.  It’s possible to be uncomfortable with certain people because of their political or theological views and no matter how you try there is a distance.  The novelist Nick Hornby has written about his early days and how as a grammar school boy there was always a barrier with his ‘Secondary Modern’ contemporaries.   ‘Something separated us,’ he writes.  

I’m not sure how prominently the theory of ‘elaborated code’ features in modern sociology but it always interested me.  It had to do with verbal communication and how in certain words we use and the way we speak we send out signals to others who recognise us as ‘one of us.‘   This is done unconsciously by and large and need not be sinister but it explains how sometimes connections are made with some and social distance created with others.

There was social distancing in the Corinthian Church in the first century which was  most apparent when believers came together for the Lord’s Supper.  Paul saw this not only as a threat  to true Christian fellowship but as an affront to the Gospel.  His images of the Church - the body of Christ, the army of Christ, the Temple of Christ - allowed for no divisions along the lines of class, gender or nationality.  At a personal level he repeatedly encouraged Christians to practice the ‘holy kiss’ as a sign of their closeness in Christ.    Certainly this was direction for believers, those within the community of Christ.  But Paul had before him the bigger picture in which God was working ‘to bring all things in heaven and on earth together under one head, even Christ.’  (Ephesians 1: 10)  A vision of a society with no distancing of any kind, a vision which needs to shape our attitudes in the way we relate to one another.   

It may be necessary for the time being to exercise social distancing for our own safety and that of others but this might be another of those ‘opportunities’ we hear so much about these days.  To consider how in the best of times we keep others at a distance for less worthy reasons and pray for the inner change that will lead to the binding together of the Kingdom.  

Still Quarrying 152: Count Your Blessings!

When I was minister of Stevenston: Ardeer it was decided that we should put together our own hymn supplement.  The idea was to bring together new stuff along with old favourites not included in the Church of Scotland hymnary.  The congregation was asked to make some suggestions.  Among the most popular was ‘Count Your Blessings’.  Maybe you know it:

‘When upon life’s billows you are tempest-tossed,

 When you are discouraged, thinking all is lost,

 Count your many blessings, name them one by one,

                                                                             And it will surprise you what the Lord has done.’

It’s a long time since I have actually sung it but I’ve quoted it often enough.  It promotes a worthwhile spiritual exercise.  It can be helpful in challenging times to remember the good things that have fallen to you in the providence of God.  In these Covid-19 days people have told me how grateful they are for their gardens, for the good weather, for the kindness of neighbours, for the technology that keeps them in touch with family and friends.  Often this is tempered with an awareness that there are people who do not have some or all of these things.

I am often struck by the timing of my stem cell transplant.  When I was discharged around the middle of January it was with a warning to be careful about social contact especially as there was flu around.  Only a few weeks later the shadow of Covid-19 fell which eventually led to my being directed to observe complete lockdown.  I wasn’t too happy about that but then I began hearing about stem cell transplants and other cancer treatments being postponed indefinitely.  What must that be like for patients?   Talk about counting your blessings!  

That always has to be balanced with some considerations.  Counting your blessings can raise the spirits but that should never be allowed to exclude our concern for others who are struggling to find any blessings in life.  In days of celebration we have to be sensitive to the experiences and feelings of those with little to celebrate.  Surely that’s what Paul was getting at when he said: ‘Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn’.  (Romans 12: 15)

Also, being blessed in a particular way is not just  a comforter in which to wrap your soul.  If you have been spared a life diminishing experience, in modern parlance if you have ‘missed a bullet’, you have a responsibility to make the most of that.   I am grateful to John C. Lennox for his booklet Where Is God In a Coronavirus World?  (It’s only £2.99 on Amazon)  Writing about a Christian response to the present pandemic he quotes C.S. Lewis who in 1948 addressed himself to the increasing anxiety over nuclear weapons:

‘ . . . the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together.  If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things - praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts - not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs.  They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds.’  

How do you react to that?  For me, sometimes you need to hear a tough message like that.  It helps me to believe that while I may be restricted in many ways the blessings that have fallen to me are an assurance that I still have a place in God’s outreach to the world.  When Paul wrote to a number of Christian congregations that they should make the most of every opportunity ‘because the days are evil’ (Ephesians 5: 16) it was with the conviction that with the blessings they had experienced in Christ they could make a difference even in the worst of times.  Not ‘huddled together like frightened sheep’ but confidently holding out ‘the Word of life.’  (Philippians 2: 16)

That old hymn ends:

‘So, amid the conflict whether great or small,

 Do not be discouraged, God is over all;

 Count your many blessings, angels will attend,

 Help and comfort give you to your journey’s end.’  

Still Quarrying 151: God's Judgement?

The subject of God’s judgement has been in the minds of Christians and those of other faiths in these days of Covid-19.  I haven’t written at length on this possibly out of a fear of being misunderstood but also conscious of the enormity of the task.  The fact is that many people just don’t want to think about judgement in relation to God.  In his introduction to his translation of Paul’s Letter to the Romans J.B. Phillips refers to the general assumption that God is ‘a vague easy-going Benevolence.’  In my experience that is not wide of the mark.  People want to hear about the love and goodness of God and in their minds that does not sit easily with Him being a God of judgement, even when that judgement rests on those aspects of human behaviour that disturb His relationship with men and women.   Here we touch on another hot under the collar issue and that is sin.  

I was once told of a colleague addressing a school assembly.  For some reason he mentioned sin but with the addendum: ‘Whatever that is.’  That sums up the prevailing attitude not just in society but also sadly in the Church.  It’s not just that Christians might disagree about the rights and wrongs of a particular issue.  It’s a reluctance to face up to the reality that there are aspects of human behaviour that are out of step with God’s will and meet with His settled opposition.  Serious as this is it is merely symptomatic of a deeper malaise which festers at the heart not merely of humankind but Creation itself.  

Mention the early chapters of Genesis and there will be the inevitable knee-jerk responses.  I heard someone describe them as an invitation to intellectual suicide.  But let’s leave the particulars aside and concentrate on the truths revealed.  Most relevant to this discussion is what has been described as the ‘Fall’, the disobedience of humankind which created a distance between God and humankind and opened the door to suffering and death, ecological disturbance and broken relationships. (Genesis 3: 16-19)  This was no longer the Creation that was good in the eyes of God but in the words of the song a ‘world gone wrong.‘  Read beyond Genesis 3 and you will see the consequences in the lives of men and women.   Thousands  of years later Jesus opened up the future in the company of some disciples and saw a world scarred by war, famine and earthquake.  (Mark 13: 5-8)

This is all because of sin?  It’s not an idea that you will hear on Question Time but what you will hear from time to time are voices telling us how deeply our actions are affecting the environment and threatening the very survival of the planet.  Here is a recognition that careless actions have consequences that penetrate to the heart of Creation affecting quality of life and ecological balance.  This is a Genesis truth that has taken root in the public mind though not perhaps from the preaching of the Church.  It seems that God will find a way for His truth to rub up against the inner lives of men and women.  Every shadow that falls upon human experience is a consequence of a fundamental disorientation in the human condition.  We turn away from God and towards self.  Paul explores this in Romans chapter 1.  He presents a picture of a world where people have set their hearts against God and are therefore subject to ‘the wrath of God.’  

This lets us more deeply into our subject: the judgement of God on humankind.   Paul is quite clear in Romans 5: 12-21 that the fall away from God that we see in Adam was reversed in Jesus.  He was the One destined to bring us back to God.   So if the life, death and resurrection of Jesus was God’s ultimate push to bring humankind back to Himself, it is inevitable that anything that resists that push will meet with His opposition.  This is ‘the wrath of God.’  Not the irrational outbursts that we are prone to but His settled opposition to anything that thwarts His good and loving purpose to bring humankind back to Himself.  

It is interesting that Paul sees the demonstration of God’s wrath is not to blast humankind off the face of the earth but to give them over to those practices that are in opposition to His will.  In other words, he does not interfere with free choice.  In His love for humankind it is His desire to have a race of people who freely respond to Him in love.  (Romans 1: 18-32)  

This is not to say that there are no specific acts of judgement in Scripture.  But they are usually directed not at the world but at the people of God.  We find this repeatedly in the life of the covenant people of Israel and also in the early life of the Church.  It is quite a shock for us to read in 1 Corinthians 11: 30 that the reason for the sickness and death evident in the Corinthian Church is lack of respect and discernment at the Lord’s Table!   In his recent paper The Coronavirus Can Any Words Help? Professor Donald Macleod writes:

‘Most of the Bible’s references to the anger of God speak not of his anger against the world, but of his anger against his own people.  It is his chosen nation he punishes for their iniquity (Amos 3:2), and those he loves that he reproves and chastens (Rev. 3: 19)’

So we need to be careful when we speak of any event being an act of God’s judgement on the world.  I confess that when Covid-19 broke upon us the thought crossed my mind: ‘I wonder if God is fed up giving us hints!’  That was careless thinking.  What needs to be remembered is that when God’s judgement falls in Scripture there are prophets and apostles called and appointed by God who interpret those events in this way.  We no longer have these people who are undisputedly locked on to the mind of God and can speak into events with the words: ‘Thus says the Lord!’  

What we are left with as believers is a catastrophic event which God in His providence has allowed.  But there is a vast cloud of witnesses in the Christian tradition who have endured suffering and discovered new experiences of God’s love and goodness and a consequent strengthening of faith.  The eighteenth century poet and hymn writer William Cowper endured bouts of mental illness which on occasion drove him to the brink of suicide.   However his faith endured memorably expressed in the hymn ‘God moves in a mysterious way . . .’  The final verses are:

‘Judge not the Lord by feeble sense,

 But trust him for his grace;

 Behind a frowning providence

 He hides a smiling face. 

 Blind unbelief is sure to err,

 And scan his work in vain,

 God is his own interpreter,

 And he will make it plain.’

What I like about this is the assurance that our immediate experience is not the only reality.  The nineteenth century fantasy writer George Macdonald has a character he describes as ‘a butterfly fluttering over the mere surfaces of existence’.  Cowper’s faith would not allow him to accept that the world of sight, sound and touch is all we have.  The God revealed in Jesus is not the ‘easy-going Benevolence’ beloved of popular religion but a God who steeped Himself in human experience and through a Cross made a path through suffering to make possible a New Humanity which would find its fulfilment in a New Society, the New Jerusalem, where there is no place for anything that causes pain to us - or to Him.