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Lent with Life and Work

Lent with Life and Work

Thursday April 17 2014

The Rev Laurence Whitley offers a special series of Lenten reflections.

Final Part - 'He came back for her'

It was once suggested to me by the staff of a home for the elderly that, since it was Easter Day, we might make their regular afternoon service a communion one. 

Although many of the residents were quite fragile, we thought it would indeed be a truly nice thing to do and so went ahead.

There was one resident present who had sadly become very isolated: locked in her own world, she had ceased to speak or even make eye contact.  However, her son, who had been sitting with her for the service, came up afterwards glowing with delight.  “He came back for her,” he beamed. When we asked what he meant, he said that when the elders came and stood there with the bread and wine, she looked and suddenly her whole face lit up with joy and recognition. It lasted only as long as her taking the bread and wine, and then faded away. But for the son, it was an ecstatic moment. This was because it had always seemed to him such a shame that this fine Christian woman had been left abandoned in the world she now inhabited. Cut off not only from people but the Lord she had known and served all her life.  But not that day. She had not been forgotten: He had come back for her.

Of course He did. It’s why we can believe so surely in Easter. Anyone who gives their trust to Him is not going to be forgotten. We can be lost in the farthest, loneliest wilderness, out of reach and out of hope, but He will come for us. It is because we are His – indissolubly, irreversibly, unbreakably His.  And no condition, no situation or circumstances, not even death itself will keep us from Him – or those we ache to see again.  And when that moment comes, we will look up and realise we are His special guests at the feast of endless joy.

 

Part Six - Stepping into the Unknown

There was once a sign above a chemist’s shop: “We dispense with accuracy.”  

When one turns to look at the gospel accounts of Palm Sunday, one might just think that they too have done away with it. Only one writer specifically mentions palms: the others refer to garments and branches of brushwood.  One account says the crowd simply noticed Jesus, while another says they went out to meet Him.  Again, one gospel has it that the donkey was pre-planned, while according to another, Jesus happened across it.  St. Matthew even claims there were two donkeys!

Actually, these differences are a good sign. Jerusalem at that time would have been crammed with pilgrims.  Everything would have been noise and confusion, with all sorts of processions and groups, so naturally, different witnesses would have seen different things. What is interesting is that Jesus doesn’t say anything about what He is doing or why. He leaves it open for us all to make of Him what we will.

 In other words, we have to decide who He is and what that means. “Yes, but,” some might say, “I don’t have enough information to make that choice.”  Exactly – none of us do. Palm Sunday means we have to decide before we know, trust before we understand, jump before we can see.

As someone once said, no great writer or composer wastes time waiting for inspiration: they become inspired because they are working.  Yes, we can rely upon divine inspiration to show us who Jesus really is, but an interesting meaning of the bible word for revelation is “the uncovering of a lamp that is already lit.”  What we start, the Spirit finishes, but we do have to start.

Stepping into the dark unknown with Jesus may seem to some like a prescription for disaster, but for those who go on to finish the course this week, there awaits a life whose wonder no one could correctly measure.   

 

 

Part Five - What You Know

It used to be said, rather unkindly, of one of my relatives that “she never let the facts interfere with a good story.”

The inference was of course that without the presence of hard facts, none of her tales could be taken all that seriously.

I wonder, however, if there are times when the facts are actually a hindrance to what can be trusted and relied upon?

I say that because I often think of the parish I once served through which there was a narrow but busy road. Visibility was not good and because of the semi-rural location, drivers rarely kept to the speed limit. We lobbied the Council for a pedestrian crossing, but the Council refused on the grounds that since there was no history of accidents and injuries, the road was therefore not dangerous. I well remember the residents’ frustration: there were indeed no facts to provide evidence that the road was dangerous, yet it was blindingly obvious that it was just that. 

Does that not suggest that just sometimes, the hard facts are not the best things to trust, and that rather what you know to be the case, matters much more?

In John 11, despite the harsh fact of her brother Lazarus being dead, Martha says to Jesus: “But even now I know that God will give you whatever you ask of Him.”

Jesus then adopts precisely the same confidence although there is no obvious reason to do so. He says: “I thank you, Father, for having heard me,” before He has even made His request for Lazarus to come out of the tomb!

What both are telling us is that in our faith journey, it’s not what you see that matters, but what you know.  And if this means that you decide to pin your hopes on 'knowing' that you are secure in your heavenly Father’s hands, then you can be sure you will never walk along a safer road – however poor the visibility.

 

 

Part Four - Encounter

Whenever I see the volunteer guides at work showing visitors around Glasgow Cathedral, I remember the story I once heard of someone who was just such a guide in a medieval Cathedral in England.

He had no Christian belief, but he liked the history and the atmosphere of the building.  It was adorned with many beautiful things, and the script he was asked to learn included information on their donors, most of whom were commemorated by stained glass windows depicting gospel scenes.

What the guide had not bargained for, however, was the number of times children and tourists asked him to tell them the story of the scene in a window. This meant there was nothing for it but he had to get a bible and read up on the miracles and parables portrayed. At first they meant nothing to him. Then one day, he was repeating the story of Jesus healing the blind man in John 9, when, as he described it, “The Christ I had shut out for so long opened the door and flooded my heart.”

Without his realising it, day by day, bit by bit, he had been encountering the Christ of the gospels and the seed of faith had been quietly growing.

Interestingly, the same thing happened to the blind man in the story.  After his first encounter with Him, he talks of Jesus “the man” [v.11].  Then as the day goes on, his faith and understanding grows.  He now calls Jesus “a prophet” [v.17].  Another encounter takes place and now the healed man bows and says “Lord, I believe” [v.38].

The truth is, there’s no need for anyone to say, “I wish I had a stronger faith.”  They can have it: it’s waiting for anyone who has an ear to listen, an eye to see and a mind to learn more about the one who is the subject of the greatest story anyone can be told.

 

Part Three - Refreshment

You’ve got to admire the author of John’s gospel – just when you think you know all about a passage, you keep finding he has slipped in something else. 

Take the story of Jesus’ meeting with the woman at the well at Sychar [Ch. 4].   They both start chatting about the well and Jesus’ request for a drink from it.  Then suddenly, for no obvious reason, John starts using a completely different word for “well.”  The first term he uses describes a well which is constantly replenished by an underground spring. Thus, it also means “fountain.”  However, the word to which John then changes, means something quite different: it is a collecting cistern, ie., where the water only gathers by a slow leaching through the well walls.

The first offers water that is fresh and lively, whereas the liquid collected by the other is ”dead” water.

That word change is no mistake.  What John is saying is that the water supply at Sychar is a spring until Jesus comes. Then in His presence, its worth and reputation for excellence fades, for, as John means us to understand, there is only one true spring.

It’s a good point to remember especially if, as sometimes happens, the accusation is levelled at church people that they are suspicious of people enjoying themselves and are always saying “no” to worldly pursuits.  

In fact, Christians have no difficulty saying “yes” to the world and all it has to offer. Except it is always a “Yes, but...”

That “but” is simply a remembrance that however exciting and fun-filled we can make our life, beyond it all there is another source of incomparable joy and satisfaction that is far more worthwhile, and for any who wish to sample it, there is waiting there refreshment, life and growth in endless, sparkling abundance.

 

 

Part Two - Reputation

Reputation is a fickle thing.

People make up their mind what is the truth and it sticks.  The reputation of Nicodemus in John’s gospel is not great: he approached Jesus at night because he was apparently afraid. He pretended he didn’t know what “born again” meant, when it was a common expression applied to gentiles converting to Judaism. It would seem he did not like the idea of change as radical as acting as if one’s previous life never existed.

However, what people tend not to recall is that religious men like him very often studied the scriptures at night. This means his approach to Jesus may well have stemmed from the insights he derived from his reading and which he felt impelled to act upon without a moment’s delay. Would that we all had a similar sense of urgency!

Again, at the close of Good Friday, it is Nicodemus who does not hesitate to step out of the shadows and assist in Jesus’ burial.  At the sight of God’s suffering love he could not let it pass without response.

Yet Nicodemus’ reputation remains.  However, does it matter?

I once heard a preacher say: “What the Church needs now is men and women who know the difference between reputation and character: reputation is what people think you are; character is what God knows you are. Reputation is what you have when you come, character is what you leave when you go. Reputation grows like a mushroom, character grows like the oak.  If you want to gain position, have a reputation; if you want to keep it, have a character. Reputation is preserved on tombstones, character is preserved in the books of Heaven.”

The point is: listen to God and do what is right. Yes, it’s not always nice if the world gets it wrong about you, but does reputation matter?

Only you can answer that.  

 

Part One - Fear and Doubt

Have you noticed, fear and doubt are always asking questions, while faith simply makes statements? Doubt says, why has this happened? What is God doing about it?  Faith says, thank you Father for being present in this.

At the start of their exodus from Egypt, the Israelites asked: why have you brought us out here to starve from lack of bread? By the end it had become: the Lord has things to say about this.

Have you noticed too that fear and doubt say, let us carefully weigh up the dangers, while faith says, let us trust God’s promises? When the Israelites were near the promised land, they insisted on sending spies ahead, who of course looked, were frightened and said we can’t go there. But a minority said, let us go and possess what God has already promised.

Have you noticed that fear and doubt say, make sure you look with the eyes of reason, while faith says; look with the eyes of God?  The Israelites saw an impregnable Jericho, while Joshua said: cheer and blow your trumpets, because the victory is already won.

Centuries later, when Jesus was also in the wilderness, the same challenges came to him. Instead of saying, why isn’t God giving me bread, he said, His word is enough for me.  Then, when later his trust was called in question, he said, I don’t need proof of my father’s care for me - I know it’s already there.   And when he had a vision of earthly kingdoms, he chose a kingdom of far greater worth.

 It’s all about choices. Fear and doubt want to turn your statements to questions, your trust to caution and your faith-vision to earthly seeing. Don’t let them.

If you use this Lent to make the right choices, you’ll find the wilderness need hold no fears - however often you find yourself there.

 

The Rev Laurence Whitley is minister at Glasgow Cathedral.