Still Quarrying: Fixed On The Eternal.

 

I once attended a Presbytery meeting in which a retired minister was congratulated on the fiftieth anniversary of his Ordination. He was obviously quite frail and losing his sight, but he spoke movingly of the privilege of being a parish minister over so many years.  In particular he expressed his gratitude for the people in all the parishes he served who on reflection gave him more than he ever gave them.  

I had just been ordained when I heard him speak and fifty years seemed a long way in the future.  But when I look back now, I see the truth in what he said about the people he was called to serve, those who gave him so much.   On of those who comes to mind is John.  He was diagnosed with cancer around the same time that abnormalities were detect in my blood which would in course of time lead to a cancer diagnosis. 

It was a long and hard road for John which falls to many in this cancer life.  But the sense that you are not alone can be a boost and John and I would often get together   The joke was that we were meeting to compare test tubes!

The inspiring thing was that whenever he was able John was faithful in his attendance at church.  It was a time when people told me there was a new emphasis in my preaching.  I think that probably had to do with my heightened awareness of the fragility of our lives, the strength the find in Christ, and the hope we have in God’s good and loving purpose in life and in death.  

John and I were together not long after a particular preaching when I was majoring on these themes.  He said: ‘It dawned on me that you were preaching about yourself.’  I suppose I was.  It’s one of those things people don’t often realise but in the process of preaching the preacher is seeking the impact on his own soul that he prays for in the souls of his hearers.  So, John and I were together on that day, preacher and hearer seeking the same assurances. 

When his illness finally overwhelmed him, I was present at his graveside with the wife and family who had supported him so well.  It was in my heart to share the great promises Jesus makes for all those who face the death of a loved one.  But something happened which was way beyond any preparation.  Just before the coffin was lowered into the grave a butterfly flew out.  In a sense there was nothing more for me to add!  Everything that we believe as Christians was symbolised in that moment.  As the butterfly wears out its life as a chrysalis and takes on the beauty of a new creature, light and colourful, so we believe that Jesus’ resurrection promises us a new life with everything that has ever made us cry behind us. 

Reflecting on Jesus’ resurrection Paul wrote:

Therefore, we do not lose heart.  Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day after 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, since what is seen is temporary but what is unseen is eternal.

2 Corinthians 4: 16-18.

With all the things that will be vying for our attention in this Easter season, and especially if we are feeling fragile and hope is weak, we need to pray for grace to fix our eyes on the eternal which Jesus shows us is real and to be enjoyed even in the midst of those things which threaten to weigh us down. 

We believe that Jesus died and rose again and so we believe that all those who sleep in death will also be raised.  

I Thessalonians 4: 14.

Still Quarrying: A Day Of Silence?

 

We call it Holy Week but for most parishes in the Church of Scotland it is Holy Two Days: Thursday when the Lord's Supper was instituted and Friday when the death of Jesus is commemorated.  Saturday is ignored.  Even those churches which have a programme of special services throughout Holy Week do nothing on Saturday.  This is deemed appropriate by some.  Apart from Matthew’s sparse account nothing is said about the day when Jesus lay dead in the tomb.    And so Saturday in Holy Week has taken on the name, the Day Of Silence. But do we have to leave it at that?   

Alan Lewis taught theology in New College, Edinburgh before moving to Austin Theological Seminary in Texas.  His major printed work is an examination of Holy Saturday and its significance.  My copy of his book ‘Between Cross and Resurrection’ covers 477 pages and draws on a wide range of sources throughout Christian history.  So there really is no need to be silent about Holy Saturday.  

Think about it.  Jesus was dead.  All His vial functions were stretched to their limit until they gave out.  Of course, this happens to every man and woman, but this is Jesus, the Son of God, who existed with the Father from  all creation.  Charles Wesley draws us all in when he has us sing:

‘Tis mystery all: the Immortal dies!

Who can explore his strange design?’

 

Wesley goes on to comfort us by saying that even the angels can’t work it out!  But it is still worth our reflection.  What does it mean to us that Jesus died?

Alan Lewis says in the Prologue of his book: 

‘The non-event of the second day could after all be a significant zero, a pregnant emptiness, a silent nothing which says everything.’  

It takes all those pages in his book as he tries to work it out. Which makes me wonder what I can possibly add. Certainly, I have tried over the years whenever I have taken a service on Holy Saturday to ‘sound the depths.’ But in the end, there is one thought that echoes in my soul: Jesus died.  As all of us must do.  In His humanity he identified with us to that extent.  He shared our flesh and our psychology and like us, at a certain point, He was subject to death.  But let’s get back to Alan Lewis’ words.  Jesus’ death may well be thought of as a ‘zero’, an ‘emptiness’, a ‘silent nothing’.  But it is a ‘significant zero’, a ‘pregnant emptiness’, ‘a silent nothing which says everything.’ 

There has been much imaginative speculation about Jesus’ experience between the Cross and the Resurrection.  It’s most helpful to ne, however, to simply acknowledge that He was dead.  And in that He shared our humanity to the end.   But that death accomplished so much that is in any way significant to humanity.  Dietrich Boenhoffer said it all as he approached his execution: 

‘This is the end.  For me, the beginning of life.’

When Alan Lewis was researching what would become his book on Holy Saturday he was diagnosed with cancer in 1987.  It finally overwhelmed him in 1994.  In the final chapter he gives an account of how, in effect, he was living out the truths at the heart of his work.  Reflecting on the diversity but ultimate togetherness within humanity he writes:

‘. . . our single human nature was raised to wholeness and new possibilities from the one grave wherein it lay on Easter Saturday.’

Still Quarrying: Ten Thousand Places.

I have a thing about kingfishers.  Kingfisher curtains in my wee study, kingfisher print on a house wall, kingfisher ornaments.  I don't try to analyse it too much but the shape, the colour, the flight, it all just seems to come together and make a deep impression on me.  Not  to mention the thought that this is just one more evidence of God's Goodness to us in Creation.

Yet in all my seventy  years of life I have only actually seen one kingfisher in flight.  I was walking on the bank of the Forth and Clyde canal with Gabrielle and one flashed across the surface of the water, brightening up an otherwise overcast morning.  Just one sight of a favourite living creature but the impact has lasted with me and, please God, will last forever. 

Gerard Manley Hopkins touches on this in his poem: As kingfishers catch fire . . .’    The things we hear, touch and see have the power to touch us in the depths because they all come from God.  Those great lines:

‘For Christ plays in ten thousand places,

Lovely in limbs, lovely in eyes not his

To the Father through the features of men’s faces.’  

So, it’s not surprising that even a brief glimpse of something beautiful can stay with you forever.  This is Christ playing out in ten thousand places!  Even more so when the Word who was there in the beginning speaks clearly to you and draws you close to His heart, perhaps for the first time.  Or perhaps with a word of assurance when live is hard and challenging to faith.  Or when He strikes you with a truth hitherto not completely understood.

In the long run of things these are moments, drops in time, but in Christ  they are eternal.  ‘As kingfishers catch fire’ and touch the heart of one man forever so, as the apostle Peter would say, the Word is a seed eternally planted.