Blowing The Embers

Last year the historian Simon Schama gave a talk about his most recent book which was a history of the Jewish people.  He shared his conviction that anti-semitism was on the increase.  He memorably described it a ‘a gathering, hideous drum-roll.’  The reasons for this are complex but he mentioned the contribution that religious extremism played, something that many historians had failed to foresee.  He cited the eminent historian, Eric Hobsbawm.  Schama heard him give a lecture sometime in the 1960s in which he cast a rather gloomy eye on the future but stated confidently: ‘At least we don’t have to be worried about religious extremism.’  Yet it is this which is casting a shadow over many lives at this moment in time.  

This is not to hold Hobsbawn and others up to ridicule.  Those with the surest grasp of human history could not have predicted the events that have caused so much pain recently in France and other parts of the world.   Human wisdom, however, is limited.  Many predictions concerning the future have been realized and celebrated but there is much that that has been unexpected and horrifying.  

Christians find the horrors of human experience as unsettling as anyone.  Jesus himself stood before the tomb of a friend and was deeply disturbed.  Yet we still speak of hope.  Joseph Conrad once wrote of a great European city as ‘a cruel devourer of the world’s light’.  There are movements amongst us that could be described in this way but still we proclaim the hope established by the Apostle John: ‘The light shines through the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.‘   Jesus showed a way to live that challenges the darkness but in His death and resurrection He showed that the days of darkness are numbered.  As He stood before his disciples as the Risen Lord He showed them their destiny.  He was the first-born of a new humanity which would inhabit a new creation with the darkness of sin and death flushed out forever.   The Apostle Paul saw human history moving towards that great climax.  Now it is as if creation is in the throes of child-birth but the day has been appointed for the new creation to be revealed.  

It is with this faith that we go forward and not as a people passively waiting for everything to work out as promised.  We are called to live now as it will be then.  We are called to be a people who show the world what the Kingdom will be when it comes.  We are called to stand against the devourers of the light with the love of Christ which alone can radically transform priorities, attitudes, relationships and breathe decisively on the embers of hope.  

I saw this in practice in the words of the French journalist Antoine Leiris whose wife was killed in the attack on the Bataclan theatre:

‘On Friday night you stole the life of an exceptional being, the love of my life, the mother of my son, but you won't have my hatred.

I don't know who you are and I don't want to know - you are dead souls. If this God for which you kill indiscriminately made us in his own image, every bullet in the body of my wife will have been a wound in his heart.

So no, I don't give you the gift of hating you. You are asking for it but responding to hatred with anger would be giving in to the same ignorance that made you what you are. You want me to be afraid, to view my fellow countrymen with mistrust, to sacrifice my freedom for security. You have lost.

I saw her this morning. Finally, after many nights and days of waiting. She was just as beautiful as when she left on Friday night, just as beautiful as when I fell hopelessly in love over 12 years ago.

Of course I'm devastated with grief, I admit this small victory, but it will be short-lived. I know she will accompany us every day and that we will find ourselves in this paradise of free souls to which you'll never have access.

We are two, my son and I, but we are stronger than all the armies of the world. I don't have any more time to devote to you, I have to join Melvil who is waking up from his nap. He is barely 17-months-old. He will eat his meals as usual, and then we are going to play as usual, and for his whole life this little boy will threaten you by being happy and free. Because no, you will not have his hatred either. ‘

The Season approaches when we remember the birth of our Saviour Jesus.  The ancient people of Israel were encouraged to think of the Messiah as the Prince of Peace.  Let everything within us focus on the truths concerning Him that will bring us peace as individuals and enable us to be that light of the world that He has called us to be.  

Witness To The Resurrection.

I once heard the American ‘humourist’ Joe Queenan commenting on funerals in his own country:

‘Funerals have become a cabaret.  There is no recognition that someone has died.  Eight or nine friends get up and tell jokes and talk about your golf game.’ 

I’ve never actually attended a funeral like that but I think I know what he means.  No one wants a funeral to be unduly morbid and a burden to those who attend but neither should it swing too much in the other direction.   Someone has died and that has had painful consequences in a family and in a circle of friendship.  That should be recognised.   I am grateful, however, that as a Christian pastor I can hold alongside that the hope that Jesus’ resurrection has brought to the world.   No matter how often I recite these words of Jesus they are always powerfully felt:

 "Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms; if it were not so, I would have told you. I am going there to prepare a place for you.”

It was encouraging to hear that this hope was emphasized in the recent funeral of Cilla Black. Yes there were the funny stories that you might expect but there was also a powerful witness from Sir Cliff Richard.  A troubled man these days but he shared his own faith and with great conviction sang a song of Christian hope.  I had never heard it before but it speaks of God’s faithfulness to his people through all the dark experiences of life and  through death itself:

‘I see your wounded hands, I touch your side

With thorns upon your brow you bled and died

But there's an empty tomb, and love for all who come

And give their hearts to You, the faithful One.’

I often reflect on the great privilege of conducting funerals for people who were greatly loved by those who were closest to them, but even more being able to bring to their moment of heartache the promises of Jesus that can never fail.   I cannot think of anything better than standing in the tradition of the earliest believers who regarded themselves as ‘witnesses to the Resurrection.’     

Holiday Shadow

Port de Pollenca in Mallorca is a very pleasant place to have a holiday.   It is geared for families, provides a variety of outdoor activities, and there are plenty of places to shop and eat and drink. 

There is also something of a celebrity appeal.  You can stay in a hotel once frequented by Agatha Christie; you can eat in Bradley Wiggins’ favourite restaurant in the presence of two of his bikes and a selection of his jerseys; and at certain times it is possible to look out to sea and catch sight of the holiday flotilla of King Juan Carlos. 

Usually, the only time you are ever aware of the Guardia Civil, the local police, is when there is a traffic problem of some kind.   So when you are having a coffee in a sea-front café and four members of the GC stroll by carrying automatic rifles it comes as something of a shock.   Then we remembered that it was a week to the day since 38 tourists were murdered on a beach in Tunisia.  Perhaps this was an attempt to provide some assurance to the tourists in Port De Pollenca but to some extent it was a shadow falling over the brightness and colour of that late morning.  The memory of those scenes was vivid.  Violence and death breaking into the lives of people like us seeking relaxation and renewal in the sun. 

The apostle Paul had experiences like this.  In one of his letters he speaks of the disasters and cruelty he has had to cope with in his work as a Christian missionary.  Not only has there been shipwrecks, prison and hunger.   He has also been flogged, stoned, and preyed upon by bandits and other men of violence, people who seem to emerge from the darkness of human experience bringing pain and suffering.

Despite all of this Paul kept going.  He believed that while the darkness seemed to be in the ascendant a light had arisen which offered hope to humankind.  The Son of God had come to the world and not only preached the love of God but showed this love in the midst of pain and tragedy and loss.   And with his death and resurrection Jesus had given notice that the days of the darkness were numbered.  The Kingdom of God was advancing and a time had been appointed when everything that has ever made us cry would be overwhelmed by the love and the justice of God. 

The apostle John had a vision of this described in the Book of Revelation.   He saw a New Creation where death, mourning, and pain had no place, the climax of God’s great plan of renewal.  But like Paul, John realised the great need for followers of Jesus to live now as people of the Kingdom.  As we work for justice and peace in our own time we point forward to the time of their triumph under Christ.   

Waiting

Waiting.

He told us to stay in Jerusalem until the power came.

It wasn’t bad, the waiting.

We had one another, meeting for prayer.

There was business, the gap Judas left.

But still . . .

When?

When it did, it was like nothing we imagined.

Together for worship.

The space was transformed,

Filled with Jesus.

And we were transformed,

Filled with Jesus.

Speaking in languages never learned,

The work was clear.

Jesus not just for us, not just for Israel.

‘You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria,

And to the ends of the earth.’

The world was waiting.  

Who Governs?

A Very British Coup was a television drama that made a big impact in the late 1980s.  It told the story of Harry Perkins MP, a former steel worker from Sheffield, who becomes Prime Minister in a socialist government.  His radical policies are generally popular with the country at large but he is constantly frustrated by unsympathetic civil servants, smeared by an influential media mogul and undermined by governments of other countries.   Eventually forces opposed to Perkins come together in a bloodless coup to have him removed from office. 

It   was first-class drama with the late Ray McAnally excelling as Harry Perkins.  It raised a serious question, however, which is still being asked and ought to be of concern to us all: who governs Britain?  Is it our elected representatives or is it people we have never heard of who are in the background but press the buttons and pull the levers of power? 

Contributions to that debate are still flowing from the pens of political and social commentators and rightly so.  Whatever conclusions Christian people might come to we must always hold the perspective of the Scriptures on political power.   Psalm 2 presents a picture of a God who is above political machination but is ultimately in control of the flow of human history.  The Apostle Paul is clear that political authority is part of God’s plan for the stability of the nations.  Jesus boldly proclaimed to Pilate that he would have no power if it were not given ‘from above.’ 

It is a great encouragement for us to know that whatever plans emerge from political manifestoes there is a Deep Story unfolding.   Jesus would call it the building of God’s Kingdom, the transformation of the whole of God’s Creation, restoring it to that state where suffering and injustice and death have no place.  In the meantime, certain individuals are entrusted with the welfare of the nations.  They are given power ‘from above’ and are responsible to God for the exercise of that power.   In the end, the big question will be how close a government has been to the Deep Story. 

This is why we are commanded in Scripture to pray for those in authority.   Paul writes:

‘I urge, then, first of all, that requests, prayers, intercession and thanksgiving be made for everyone - for kings and all those in authority, that we may live peaceful and quiet lives in all godliness and holiness.  (1 Timothy 2: 1-2)’ 

Not that we are to endorse everything a government stands for but that a vision of the Kingdom might be kept before all those in authority along with an awareness of their awesome responsibility.   

Easter Fragrance.

I caught the Great British Bake off on television the other night – quite by accident you understand.   It was the Easter Masterclass with Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood showing us how we can have a more calorific Easter.  It was Paul’s task to bake the ultimate hot cross buns and I must say they looked quite delicious. 

While he was kneading away at his dough, Paul recalled the days when his father’s bakery turned out thousands of hot cross buns every Easter.   And he had ways of making sure everyone know they were on the go.  He would mix in some bun essence with a pail of water and then wash the floor of the shop.  Everyone who came in was wrapped in the fragrance of the hot cross buns.  Even more craftily, he placed a capful of bun essence above the extractor fan so that the fragrance would flow out from the shop to hook unsuspecting passersby.  

That’s how to pack them in and ship out thousands of hot cross buns!

The Apostle Paul writes of Christians as a fragrance that leads people to  knowledge of Christ.  (2 Corinthians 2: 12-17)  He is realistic enough to know that not everyone will be captivated but to many the Gospel we share and the values we embrace will be ‘the fragrance of life’.  That is what it means to live the Easter faith.  There is too much in the world that gives off the stench of death, the materialism, the violence, the injustice.  Those who have been touched by the story of Christ and live by His ways can show a better way leading to renewal, the fragrance of life that flows from self-sacrifice, compassion and truth.  

Mr Hollywood’s bakery poured out a fragrance that drew people in to taste and see.  An Easter people, pouring out the fragrance of Christ, brings the hope of life to the world.  

Renewal Promised!

The other day I passed a flowerbed at Milngavie Town Hall.  It has been prepared by Milngavie In Bloom and has a notice that says: ‘Please keep off the garden.  Tulips and daffodils are planted and will soon be appearing.’  It was a cold day, cloudy, and threatening rain so to see that promise was really quite heartening.  To know that very soon there would be a display of life and colour.  Amazing too to think that a promise like that could be made, that we can have faith in the cycle of the seasons and the renewing power of creation. 

Perhaps we do not go in for Lent to the same extent as other Christian traditions but there can never be any harm in reminding ourselves that often the life of faith can be challenging and demanding of all our resources.  We may not be in the position of many Christians in the Middle East and some parts of Africa who are daily in fear of their lives but there are times when we have difficulty making sense of dark and difficult experiences that have fallen to us.

In this we are in good company.  The apostle Paul once wrote that life can sometimes be like seeing ‘a poor reflection in a mirror’, hard to work out.  But Paul was in the grip of a promise that God’s renewing purpose would never be denied by the worst of circumstances.   Some of his most challenging words are in 2 Corinthians 4: 16-17:

‘Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.  So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen. For what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.’

I have often thought about these words and their implications for believers.  We are being invited to see our ‘troubles’ from the perspective of eternity, a time beyond this life when we will see that no matter what was happening to us and how badly we were troubled, God was still working in our lives to take forward his good purpose for us.  The key to Paul’s faith was that quite simply he knew his God.  He once wrote: ‘I know whom I have believed.’   He was convinced that the God ‘who did not spare his own Son for us all’ had nothing but a good and loving purpose in the lives of those he loved.    

My hope for these weeks leading to Easter is that as a people we will know our God better through our reflection on His promises which alone can sustain us through the challenges that fall to us.