The third Sunday of Bible Month: Holding On

Has anyone ever said to you “can you do this or that thing” and you say “hold on a minute, I’m just doing this.” And does the person get exasperated because they need help now? We don’t like being told to hold on. I remember ringing one organisation and you had to listen to almost the entirety of Vivaldi’s four seasons before they spoke to you. You ring up the hospital and you don’t get to speak to a real person and sometimes the voice when you’ve clearly said which ward or department you want, says “sorry I didn’t understand that.” 

 

There is another sort of holding on. Holding on to support so you can get through a difficulty. At school they made me attend Weak Swimmers Club. What a dreadful thing that was, it made you feel really good about yourself. Weak Swimmers Club! Anyway I’d be made to swim a length on my back from the deep end and the scary PE teacher because all PE teachers were scary in the 1970’s would hold a large pole above me as I splashed and struggled down the pool. He’d yell “hold on to it if you feel you need to.” But the water was what I was thinking of, not the pole. The support was there but I didn’t reach for it.

 

Some friends convinced me to go on the Big One at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Never again. I had to hold on for dear life as we turned upside down over the sea.

 

It seems to me having preached on Revelation for the last three Sundays and led Bible studies on it, that it is rather like a roller coaster. There are promises shared which leave us on a high, but then we are led into some very dark places, with the Antichrist and the Tribulation. John in his vision wants us to have enough to hold on when everything around us is uncertain. Remember Revelation’s context is the threat of persecution of the new Christian community by the mighty Roman Empire. How do you hold on when life is crumbling about you?

 

There’s that old dreadful story of the patient who ran into the doctors and said “I’ve only got 40 seconds to live” and the doctor says “hold on a minute, I’ll be with you.” 

 

Did you hear this week about part of Poland called the Hel Peninsula. There’s a bus that goes to Hel. What’s it’s number? 666! Some religious conservatives claim the route is "spreading Satanism".

 

The Bible identifies 666 as the "number of the beast", and Hel is just one "l" short of the English word "hell". Following the complaints, bus company PKS Gdynia announced: 

"We are turning the last 6 upside down!"Explaining the reason for the change, the bus company said the number 669 was "less controversial". For many people there is a road to hell. Do they have the resources to get off it onto a better road?

 

Let’s delve into Revelation chapter 11. How to hold on is here. The encouragement here isGod will protect his people against all satanic opposition, and they will proclaim the gospel until the kingdom comes. There isencouragement to keep proclaiming and living out the gospel message even as life becomes increasingly hostile. Revelation is meant to encourage you, embolden you, and motivate you. 

The chapter begins with a new instruction to John. In verse one he’s given a measuring rod and specific instructions: “Rise and measure the temple of God and the altar and those who worship there.” The measuring of the temple is intended to send a message about the certainty of God’s plan.

Then there’s the emergence of two witnesses who will prophesy during the hard times ahead while clothed in the sackcloth of mourning and repentance. It probably won’t surprise you to learn that scholars differ on whether the two witnesses are figurative or actual people. One view sees these witnesses as representative of the church. They would argue that the two witnesses are merely symbolic for the church’s witness, and they connect it to the Old Testament principle of having two witnesses confirm the validity of testimony. That’s in Deuteronomy chapter 15 verse 19. Others take this more literally to refer to two prophetic-like figures who emerge during this time and who speak boldly for the people of God in the tribulation.

The proclamation ministry of these witnesses reaches its conclusion in verse 7, after which they receive fierce opposition from “the beast that rises from the bottomless pit.” And they are killed. 

According to verses 9-10 the world (“peoples and tribes and languages and nations”) rejoices over the death of these two witnesses because of the “torment” that they have been to those who dwell on the earth. It would seem that the witnesses have lost. But not so fast!

After three and a half days, the witnesses are raised to life. Some take this to be literally three-plus days; others connect it to three and a half years where it seems that the people of God have lost while under horrendous persecution. 

According to verse 12, a loud voice from heaven calls to them: “Come up here!” And just like Jesus, they are taken from the earth as their enemies watched them. And in similar fashion at Jesus’ death, there was an earthquake. 

This one results in seven thousand people being killed, many people are terrified, and they realise that they are on the wrong side of God’s glory. 

Whether you think these two witnesses are literal people or whether they symbolise the church, or if you think the temple is a literal rebuilt temple in Jerusalem or you think the temple is a figurative picture of the church, God protects his people and his Word from defeat.

Remember these words of Jesus:

“If you were of the world, the world would love you as its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you…but when the Helper comes, whom I will send to you from the Father, the Spirit of truth, who proceeds from the Father, he will bear witness about me. And you also will bear witness, because you have been with me from the beginning. “I have said all these things to you to keep you from falling away. They will put you out of the synagogues. Indeed, the hour is coming when whoever kills you will think he is offering service to God. And they will do these things because they have not known the Father, nor me. 

But I have said these things to you, that when their hour comes you may remember that I told them to you.”

Faithful witness is rarely affirmed and loved by the world in which we live. 

That shouldn’t give us a persecution complex or a martyr’s syndrome, but help us to live faithfully and confidently. God protects his witness in the world. The witness is called to hold on. 

Martin Luther knew the fury of being opposed for the gospel. Can I remind you about one of the verses of “A Mighty Fortress is our God”?

And though this world, with devils filled,
should threaten to undo us,
we will not fear, for God has willed
his truth to triumph through us.
The prince of darkness grim,
we tremble not for him;
his rage we can endure,
for lo! his doom is sure;
one little word shall fell him. Let goods and kindred go,
this mortal life also;
the body they may kill:
God's truth abideth still;
his kingdom is forever!

Then, this. The last section in chapter 11 is a glorious celebration of where history is headed. Verses 14-15 indicate that it happens again through judgment as the second woe is past. The third is soon to come. It is the seventh trumpet, and the final trumpet is blown.

Remember that there were seven seals, so this represents the culmination of God’s plan. It’s as if we are taken to the mountain to see the conclusion of everything. Verse 15 tells us that there are loud voices in heaven who make a glorious announcement: “The kingdom of the world has become the kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he shall reign forever and ever.” You could think of this as the centreof the book of Revelation. It’s where the Revelation of Jesus Christ is heading. The chapter ends with another image of God’s glory. In verse 19 we see a temple that is open. 

The ark of the covenant was visible, something that was never the case in the Old Testament. 

Only one person saw the ark once a year. And with this image there’s powerful flashes of lightning, rumblings, peals of thunder, an earthquake, and hail.

It’s a glorious vision of the victory afforded to God’s people, and it’s meant to be deeply encouraging. So God’s people are called to hold on. And I’ve not time to dwell on our other reading from Revelation 14 but there is a word that even in death we hold on to see the glory of heaven. We quote it in funerals “I heard a voice from heaven say “Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord, for they rest from their labours.” My pastoral tutor in college David Dunn-Wilson taught us “always preach the Gospel at a funeral.” I’ve done four of them in the last ten days and there’s another coming soon. At one this week someone said to me “thank you for giving us hope.” 

Isn’t that what people want today? Not just to hold on, but to travel well and find life in all its fullness.

So what’s the work of the Church? This Sunday is the 142nd Anniversary of our church at Allhallowgate. Are we called to help people hold on, be a witness and anticipate the Kingdom? Well, yes, yes and yes.

Let me end by pointing you to the Gospel for this Sunday. Jesus is travelling around cities and villages teaching, healing and proclaiming "the good news of the kingdom". When Jesus encounters crowds he feels compassion for them, for they were "like sheep without a shepherd". Jesus gives the twelve disciples "authority over unclean spirits" and the task of curing disease and sickness. The charge they are tasked with is a rippling out of the ministry of Jesus, an extension of that ministry. Jesus is not asking them to do anything he has not done and they have not witnessed.

Later, there are further instructions for the disciples – travel light, accept hospitality ,offer peace but where no welcome is received move on. Jesus offers a warning that they may meet hostility, so they should be "wise as serpents and innocent as doves". 

They may be arrested and punished but they are assured that God, through the Holy Spirit, will provide them with the words they need at the appropriate moment. In other words they will not be alone and unsupported. It’s hard to be church today. The labourers are few! 

But the task is the same. To show a different and more powerful way. To lead people to see the glory of God and meet Jesus. Last night I joked what the church at Allhallowgate might look like in another 142 years! My colleague Sarah asked her churches at their AGM where they might be in 3 years to which some said “ we might not be here” - at least I didn’t hear “ shut!” We have to have some hope and some vision else all is lost. 

We go forward today holding on to Jesus, to each other, to our tradition and our story. We go forward to be witnesses of the power of God. We anticipate the Kingdom. We go out to share good news. In the end holding on now will lead to glory later. As someone shared in a quote with me this week: words of William Barclay: 

"Endurance is not just the ability to bear a hard thing, but to turn it into glory." 

 

And today we will end like this getting through another Revelation migraine and discovering our purpose: “changed from glory into glory til in heaven we take our place, til we cast our crowns before thee, lost in wonder, love and praise.” 

 

“The kingdom of the world has become
    the kingdom of our Lord and of his Messiah,
    and he will reign for ever and ever.”

Amen.

The second Sunday of Bible Month: Heaven’s door opened

In his important book Knowing God, Jim Packer says, "The study of God, who He is, what He's like, is the most practical project anyone can engage in." The most practical project anyone can engage in. "Knowing about God is crucially important for the living of our lives," he says, "as it would be cruel to an Amazonian tribesman to fly him to London, to put him down without explanation in Trafalgar Square, and leave him as one who knew nothing of England or English to fend for himself, so," Packer says, "we are cruel to ourselves if we try to live in this world without knowing the God whose world it is and who runs it. The world becomes a strange, mad, painful place and life in it a disappointing and unpleasant business for those who do not know about God. Disregard the study of God and you sentence yourself to stumble and blunder through life, blindfold as it were, with no sense of direction and no understand of what's around you. This way," Packer says, "you can waste your life and lose your soul." 

 

So today we continue our journey through the minefield of the Revelation of Christ revealed to John. We are encouraged to look up. We see heaven in our readings this morning and we see Jesus as king enthroned in glory. 

 

Let’s think about kings first. There’s been a lot of discussion since 8.17 on Friday night about the nature of honest and respected and trusted leadership. I had to look up the meaning of the word egregious used by Boris in his venomous and angry resignation statement! He’s not a happy bunny is he but nor are a lot of people about him. It was really something the audience live at Any Questions on Radio 4 on Friday night cheered loudly when the presenter announced his going. Then there’s what’s going on in the United States and your man Trump. How many counts of felony? And they’ll still elect him unless he’s in jail because some of them think he’s Jesus come back to save them and Jesus was wrongly accused. Thank God I say — and you might disagree with me —- that we have a monarchy in this country. We watched King Charles III crowned and seated on an ancient throne in a ceremony going back centuries. He’s not immune from scrutiny in a social media age but largely we think him a good man, and best of all a man of faith and Christian conviction trying to make the world better.

Revelation chapter 4 is a lovely chapter. John is there struggling in exile and he’s written to the seven churches about the persecution coming and to hold on to their faith. 

But surely those churches needed proof they weren’t being fobbed off with just words. Was God really going to show them his glory and power? In an amazing scene we can only really start to imagine God says to John, “come up here and I’ll show you.” And John is lifted up to heaven. Wow!  Revelation chapters 4 and 5 were written at a time when the church was suffering terribly for its faith in Jesus and more suffering was on the way. 

And it is designed to help hurting Christians look beyond the strange, mad, painful place, the realities of this world, to see God's greatness and glory and majesty and grace, and seeing that, be enabled to press on. Notice how John begins with his vision in the first verse of chapter 4. "After this I looked and behold, a door standing open in heaven." That word, "behold," by the way, is the most frequent command in the book of Revelation. "Behold." I wonder if you know what the second most common command is. "Fear not." Behold! Fear not! How will we obey the command to "fear not" in this strange, mad, painful place that we live in? How will we face our present sufferings, future trials? How shall we "fear not," John? We'll do it by obeying the command to "behold," to look. 

You silence fear by looking where John points us. God opens the door of heaven and tells John and tells us to look, to behold. And what is it that John sees? Verse 2 - "and behold a throne and one seated on it." That is, if you'd like, the message of the book of Revelation in a nutshell - "Fear not! Behold a throne and one seated on it!" The Lord has not abdicated His rule. He has not defected from His sovereignty. Though we may not always be able to grasp how it is so, John is inviting us to lift our eyes from our circumstances and to see again the throne and the one seated upon it. The message is, as Jeremiah put it long before, that "a glorious throne, set on high from the beginning, is the place of our sanctuary." The glorious throne is our sanctuary. Let us run to it, rest in and cling to the vision of the greatness of God that John sets before our eyes - God in His sovereignty and in His mercy. And that vision is given to John and to us to say “hold on, there is a bigger picture. Today is not tomorrow.” So the first thing we need to remind ourselves of today is this – the church is here to seek and share the glory of God in Christ — so together in everything we do – we worship the king all glorious above. 

I’m overwhelmed with funerals at the moment. I had one on Wednesday, one on Thursday, one on Friday and I’ve another on Tuesday. I try and offer the promise of heaven to those I’m sharing with. People want to know there’s something beyond trouble and tribulation and death. 

I like what Gareth Baron has written in the worship from home for this week: “Being a Minister I have heard many people express their thoughts of what heaven will be like. “I believe heaven is..., I think heaven will be like…, I want heaven to be this…” various prefaces to their beliefs, wants and likes projecting what heaven would be for them. Oppositely are those who have asked me what heaven is like, almost expecting me to produce my phone with photos as if I have been.” We don’t know. But it’s got to be better than here. No more death or roadworks or Donald Trump. In the conclusion to the Narnia Chronicles, C.S. Lewis attempts to express the absolute joy that will come as our earthly lives come to an end and we are reunited with our God for all of eternity:

 

The things that began to happen after that were so great and beautiful that I cannot write them. And for us this is the end of all the stories, and we can most truly say that they all lived happily ever after. But for them it was only the beginning of the real story. All their life in this world had only been the cover and the title page: now at last they were beginning Chapter One of the Great Story which no one on earth has read: which goes on for ever: in which every chapter is better than the one before.

I like that. 

And see this: Around the throne in heaven were twenty-four thrones and seated on the thrones were elders clothed in white garments with golden crowns on their heads." These are the representatives of the people of God across the ages - the twelve tribes of Israel, the twelve apostles of the new covenant era - here are the representatives of the church from across history. And what are they doing? They are participating in the reign of God. 

What a thing heaven will be - the church participating in the reign of God, there, seated on the throne. They have crowns on their heads. And with the elders are these four strange living creatures who almost defy imagination. John piles up symbol upon symbol to teach us about them. They are positioned, one on each side of the throne, facing every direction, poised to do the will of the one who sits there. They're covered inside and out with eyes. That is, they're full of wisdom. One is like a lion, another an ox, the third a man, the fourth an eagle. What are they? What are they for? Hard to say. Are they perhaps here to represent all the creatures that God has made and over whom He continues to rule. 

More important than their description is their activity, these servants of God. Look at what the elders and the living creatures are about. Like the seraphim in Isaiah chapter 6, day and night the living creatures never cease to say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty, who was and is and is to come!" They adore God for His holiness. They adore God for His holiness; they adore God for His power. "Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty" - infinite in His power. And they adore Him for His immutability, His unchangability - "He was and is and is to come." "As thou hast been, thou forever wilt be. Great is thy faithfulness!" That is their song.

And as they sing praise, they cast their crowns before the throne. Even their rule is but an aspect of the reign and rule of the sovereign God. And they sing, "Worthy are you, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things and by your will they existed and were created." And so must sing that too to make a difference in our world, giving a glimpse of heaven, as Charles Wesley puts it so well we anticipate that heaven below and own that love is heaven.

The first Sunday of Bible Month: Looking up, he is coming!

A bishop is at a parish for Confirmation and decides that in his homily he will quiz the teenagers he is supposed to be confirming.
So he asks them,  “who can tell me what the Trinity is?”
They all look at their shoes, in that way that teenagers do.
So he calls on one young man who mumbles a reply, in that way that teenagers do. The bishop says, “I’m sorry, I didn’t understand that.”
The boy sighs, in that way that teenagers do, and replies, only slightly louder, 
“Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.”
The bishop, wanting the boy to speak up  so everyone can hear him,
says, “I’m sorry, I still didn’t understand.”
And the boy, rolling his eyes, in that way that teenagers do,
says loudly and clearly, “ You’re not supposed to understand it. It’s a mystery.”

 

This Sunday is a bit of a challenge for the preacher. Trinity Sunday is not a popular day to take an appointment. Then the Methodist Church says “let’s do Revelation in June” perhaps the hardest book of the Bible! It’s no wonder we didn’t have enough preachers wanting to do it so we can’t do it across the Circuit as we hoped. Well, let’s be brave here and go on a bit of a fun theological journey. 

 

First, let’s think big. Who is God? 

 

The schoolmaster in Alan Bennett’s play Forty Years On says, ‘Three in one, one in three, perfectly straight-forward. Any doubts about that, see your maths master.’

 

But there are doubts, of course. Mention the Trinity as three Persons in one God and most people start to glaze over. But what we have here is a brilliant model of God. It reflects the experience of the first Christians that they knew God in creation (the Father), in history (the Son) and in themselves (the Spirit).

So, God above, God beside, God within.

God to protect, God to befriend, God to inspire. We are reminded today there is always more to God than we will ever know. 

 

The story is told of St Augustine of Hippo, a great philosopher and theologian. He was preoccupied with the doctrine of the Trinity. He wanted so much to understand the doctrine of one God in three persons and to be able to explain it logically. One day he was walking along the sea shore reflecting on this matter….the mystery of the Trinity. Suddenly, he saw a little child all alone on the shore. The child made a hole in the sand, ran to the sea with a little cup, filled her cup with sea water, ran up and emptied the cup into the hole she had made in the sand. 

Back and forth she went to the sea, filled her cup and came and poured it into the hole. Augustine drew up alongside and said to her, “Little child, what are you doing?” 
She replied, “I am trying to empty the sea into this hole.” 

“How do you think,” Augustine asked her, “that you can empty this immense sea into this tiny hole and with this tiny cup?” 
She answered back, “And you, how do you suppose that with your small head you can comprehend the immensity of God?” With that the child disappeared.

 

Bishop David Jenkins, remember him, the controversial Bishop of Durham in the 1980’s. He talked of God as greater than great, more loving than love, closer than close.

 

The fifteenth century icon of the Trinity by the Russian Andrei Rublev is also helpful to try and get it.

 

Rublev has depicted three angels sitting equi-distant from each other They have a harmonious elegance about them as they sit round a table. On the table is a chalice with bread and wine. The angels look at each other with mutual affection, and at the bread and wine with reverence and adoration.

 

But the way the icon has been written is so that we’re drawn into the scene. There’s a space at the table for us. We’re being invited to share the very life of the Trinity, the life of God.

 

And that’s where the doctrine of the Trinity finally makes sense.

 

What’s the purpose of our Christian faith? It isn’t to have somewhere nice to go to on a Sunday morning or afternoon. It isn’t to be reminded of how to be good. It isn’t even to learn more about the Bible and doctrine and worship and ethics.

 

The purpose of our faith is to be drawn into the very life of God, to be in union with God, so that the lifeblood of God flows in our veins. ‘To be participants in the divine nature’ Faith isn’t something we look at from the outside and say ‘how nice.’ 

It’s something we enter into and say - nothing. Because we’re speechless, embraced in a love greater than words.

This is not a faith of small things. This is a faith of ultimate things. And you can’t get any more ultimate than sharing the very life of God. That’s what we’re for.

And that’s what the Trinity is about at the end of the day. So we think big…

 

The Scriptures, while teaching that God is one, also claim for Jesus and the Spirit  things that can only be true of God. Not three gods, but one God eternally existing in three persons, who are united in a perfect and eternal dance of love, each fully sharing in what it means to be God. Think big. 

Then look up - who is Jesus? 

 

John the apostle writes this vision not on a sunny Saturday in Ripon like I did this sermon but in exile on Patmos. Where is Patmos? Patmos is a small Greek island in the Aegean Sea. John was a leader of the church at Ephesus. 

The new Christianity needed stamping out. It was a threat. Before his exile one tradition says he was immersed in a cauldron of boiling oil during the persecution of the Christians under the Roman emperor Domitian, He emerged miraculously unharmed, even rejuvenated. He sat naked in the pot, his hands joined in prayer, while his executioners applied bellows to the fire and ladled oil over his head.

Eventually, he was captured and sentenced to Patmos. Patmos was a small, rocky and barren area where many criminals of Rome were sent to serve out their prison terms in harsh conditions. There were mines on the island that the criminals were forced to work. John was sent to the island for the same reasons because the early Christians were considered a strange cult group who were known for causing trouble within the Empire. 

The Revelation of Jesus Christ is seen not from comfort but from turmoil, which makes it all the more powerful. John is writing a letter to seven churches in Asia Minor. The churches have already experienced some persecution, the church in Pergamum has experienced one martyrdom, but the persecution is about to get worse. John is concerned that these churches simply are not ready for the increase in persecution. Its not just John who is concerned: Jesus is concerned. That’s why Jesus gave John this Revelation — it was to prepare these seven churches for hard times, to encourage them to not give up hope.

 

Who is Jesus? He is the first and the last – and he is coming again soon – on the clouds – and every eye will see him. Perhaps we are not good at seeing. You will remember I scratched the cornea in my right eye when I was in hospital last year. I couldn’t see out of it for several weeks. When it had healed I went for an eye test. My eye had changed so I needed a new lens in my glasses. “Come back in six months” they said. So last week I went back for another eye test. Guess what? My eye had gone back to how it was so I needed another new lens in my glasses. Another £141! But we need to be able to see clearly. I hate that bit of the test where you click on the thing when you see the little lights. I know I miss a lot of them. I guess that’s how it is with Jesus, especially when we are struggling. We forget he is always and everywhere and is fighting a battle for us against those things which would destroy us. 

 

John is constantly trying to help his churches frame current events in light of the greater Biblical story. This is why John says, “Blessed are those read aloud the words of this prophecy, and blessed are those who hear it and take heart what is written in it, because the time is near.” 

Read it aloud: you know, the friends at Snape chapel did just that last Thursday. They met and read 22 chapters aloud to each other. 

 

I’ll say it again: the churches were to hear these words and take heart. John is encouraging them to hold fast to their faith and their witness to Jesus Christ. John is very concerned that they are not up for it. He sees the church on a collision course with the state. Things will get worse before they get better — yet in spite of that, John encourages them not to give up hope, not to abandon their witness. Christ is on the throne. That constantly remains the focus of John. 

 

The glory, the splendour, the power, and the goodness of God. Listen to the way John opens his letter, as a greeting from the Triune God — Father, Holy Spirit and Son. John says: “To the seven churches in the province of Asia: Grace and peace to you from him who is, and who was, and who is to come, from the seven spirits who are before his throne, and from Jesus Christ. First, John greets his churches in the name of the One Who Is, Who Was and Who Is to Come — the great I Am. The same God who revealed Himself to Moses, the same God who delivered the Israelites from slavery to Egypt — He is here with you now, and He greets you with grace and peace. John then greets the church in the name of the Holy Spirit. Grace to you and peace to you from the seven Spirits before his throne. 

 

Why does John says “the seven spirits”? John is drawing from Zechariah 4 where the seven lamps are seen as one Spirit, and from the Greek version of Isaiah 11, Isaiah’s prophecy about the Messiah coming from the stump of Jesse. Isaiah says the Spirit of God shall rest upon him — now count the attributes of the Spirit: the Spirit of wisdom and understanding, the spirit of counsel and strength, the spirit of knowledge and godliness shall fill him; the spirit of the fear of God. 

 

The seven attributes of the One Spirit: wisdom and understanding, counsel and strength, knowledge and godliness, and the fear of God. That’s why some translations say — “the sevenfold Spirit.” This same Spirit who was with the Messiah with wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, godliness, and fear of the Lord — 

this same Spirit now intimately dwells with the people of God. Grace to you and peace from the Sevenfold Spirit before the throne.

 

So we look up despite today because there is a bigger picture. We are discombobulated as a church today, we worry a lot and we forget Jesus the first and the last is here. I presented some big ideas to a church AGM on Tuesday. Someone in the discussion afterwards said we have to take risks. By our mediocrity and tiredness we have limited the love of Jesus because we don’t rely on it ourselves. The church has become the power, not its Lord.Look up. He is coming! 

 

Then go – go in the power of the Spirit to live and work to his praise and glory. Jesus last commission on earth was to make disciples and baptise them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. Go is the call of the Church. Go, with Jesus who is with us always to the end of the age. 

 

David Adam, in the introduction to his book of prayers, which he calls “Traces of Glory”, describes the island on which he was living, Holy Island, as the home of many saints. Aidan came and founded a monastery there, Chad, Cedd, Wilfred, Cuthbert all spent times of prayer and dedication on the island. On this patch of earth, Eadfrith wrote the Lindisfarne Gospels to the glory of God and St Cuthbert. Later, the Benedictines built a daughter house to their monastery in Durham. David Adam says, “All have left traces of themselves and their work”.

 

There are many places on earth where transformations are brought about by God’s love and grace acting in the lives of ordinary people. We sometimes only think of them when we sum up their lives in a funeral.

I’ve four funerals at the moment in my head – three are on consecutive days this week. We will gather to mark how Brian and Greta and Margaret and Pat made a difference. 

 

The scale of human giving making a difference is not ours to know – suffice, that ordinary children, women and men, do bring lasting change by the love and presence of God revealed through them. David Adam dedicates his book to Will, who died aged 56, and who in life, showed many traces of glory.

 

“If life is to have traces of eternal it must have the Eternal with it and around it. Now, in this world, we need to show traces of glory.”

 

Go. 

 

Revelation calls God’s people to hold on. And to remember the heavenly things, the eternal love, the power of God in Christ, the gift of the Spirit especially when we think other things are winning. So, well done for being brave. We need a big God, a faith that looks up, and a reminder that God is working his purpose out and that sometimes is through us. And sometimes despite us!