Lindisfarne

I wanted to be somewhere special at Easter. For me, Holy Island (also known as Lindisfarne) was a place that was just right combining contemplation with inspiration.

This tidal island is forever associated with Cuthbert, one of the more remarkable Celtic Christian leaders of the first millennium. He was for a while, Abbot of the monastery though his preference was to be alone with God. At one time he lived on a tiny island offshore from Lindisfarne, but although he preferred the company of God to that of people he was prevailed upon to be Bishop at Durham because the people so loved him.

It is hard not to be moved by the depth of spirituality in such a man, the like of which is embarrassingly rare in Western Christianity today. Bede wrote of him,

He often spent whole nights in prayer, and sometimes, to resist sleep, worked or walked about the island whilst he prayed. If he heard others complain that they had been disturbed in their sleep, he used to say that he should think himself obliged to anyone that awaked him out of his sleep, that he might sing the praises of his Creator, and labour for his honour. His very countenance excited those who saw him to a love of virtue. He was so ...inflamed with heavenly desires, that he could never say mass without tears. He often moved penitents, who confessed to him their sins, to abundant tears by the torrents of his own, which he shed for them.

It is one thing to point out someone's sins. It is quite another to weep toward God over them.

Creeds

"Yes Lord, er, Jesus - We thank you Father that You're here with us, Jesus. That your Spirit is in this meeting Father . . ."

That's a slightly kind rendering of the near-incomprehensible opening by the worship leader at a fellowship I attended the other day. I'm enough of a Baptist to have little time for creeds but that guy needed some sorting out!

He'd be more than sorted out if he attended the church I'd been to just before. They keep religiously to the 1662 Book of Common Prayer where, I kid you not, on special feast days one gets to stand and say with the congregation the Athanasian Creed, yes, I mean ALL of it ...

Whosoever will be saved : before all things it is necessary that he hold the Catholick Faith.
Which Faith except every one do keep whole and undefiled : without doubt he shall perish everlastingly.
And the Catholick Faith is this: That we worship one God in Trinity, and Trinity in Unity;
Neither confounding the Persons : nor dividing the Substance.
For there is one Person of the Father, another of the Son : and another of the Holy Ghost.
But the Godhead of the Father, of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, is all one : the Glory equal, the Majesty co-eternal.
Such as the Father is, such is the Son : and such is the Holy Ghost.
The Father uncreate, the Son uncreate : and the Holy Ghost uncreate.
The Father incomprehensible, the Son incomprehensible : and the Holy Ghost incomprehensible. The Father eternal, the Son eternal : and the Holy Ghost eternal.
And yet they are not three eternals : but one eternal.
As also there are not three incomprehensibles, nor three uncreated : but one uncreated, and one incomprehensible.
So likewise the Father is Almighty, the Son Almighty : and the Holy Ghost Almighty.
And yet they are not three Almighties : but one Almighty.
So the Father is God, the Son is God : and the Holy Ghost is God.
And yet they are not three Gods : but one God.
So likewise the Father is Lord, the Son Lord : and the Holy Ghost Lord.
And yet not three Lords : but one Lord.
For like as we are compelled by the Christian verity to acknowledge every Person by himself to be both God and Lord;
So are we forbidden by the Catholick Religion : to say, There be three Gods, or three Lords.
The Father is made of none : neither created, nor begotten.
The Son is of the Father alone : not made, nor created, but begotten.
The Holy Ghost is of the Father and of the Son : neither made, nor created, nor begotten, but proceeding.
So there is one Father, not three Fathers; one Son, not three Sons : one Holy Ghost, not three Holy Ghosts.
And in this Trinity none is afore, or after other : none is greater, or less than another;
But the whole three Persons are co-eternal together : and co-equal.
So that in all things, as is aforesaid : the Unity in Trinity and the Trinity in Unity is to be worshipped.
He therefore that will be saved : must think thus of the Trinity.
Furthermore, it is necessary to everlasting salvation : that he also believe rightly the Incarnation of our Lord Jesus Christ.
For the right Faith is, that we believe and confess : that our Lord Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is God and Man;
God, of the substance of the Father, begotten before the worlds : and Man of the substance of his Mother, born in the world;
Perfect God and perfect Man : of a reasonable soul and human flesh subsisting.
Equal to the Father, as touching his Godhead : and inferior to the Father, as touching his manhood;
Who, although he be God and Man : yet he is not two, but one Christ;
One, not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh : but by taking of the Manhood into God;
One altogether; not by confusion of Substance : but by unity of Person.
For as the reasonable soul and flesh is one man : so God and Man is one Christ;
Who suffered for our salvation : descended into hell, rose again the third day from the dead.
He ascended into heaven, he sitteth at the right hand of the Father, God Almighty : from whence he will come to judge the quick and the dead.
At whose coming all men will rise again with their bodies : and shall give account for their own works.
And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting : and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the Catholick Faith : which except a man believe faithfully, he cannot be saved.

Well, did you get all that? Well done if you did. As I understand the Bible the Good News is a person, Jesus, not a Creed. In his own words, he is the Way, whether I can voice the complexities of Athanasius or not.

One picture might be that essentially and to start with all we need to do with a lifeboat is climb aboard (he is the Way) but once we're gratefully aboard we'll want know why it and its crew were able to save us when no-one else could. Athanasius describes in detail why Jesus is able to save when no-one else could and who the Captain of our salvation truly is.

Sweden

Someone asked me an obvious question, "Was it cold?".

Perhaps we can clear that one up with a couple of pictures;

I'm very grateful that several people helped to make my visit to Sweden worthwhile by giving me people I could visit.

Any Pastor visiting Stockholm is likely to find himself looking up the Filadelfia Church. For much of the 20th Century it was the largest Pentecostal Church in the world and although we have become accustomed to megachurches in contemporary-style buildings it is amazing to think that this cinemalike building was constructed in the 1930s. It was great to be shown a glimpse of the work of this great church.

Lewi Pethrus was Pastor for nearly half a century and was one of the instruments by which Pentecostalism became a great force in northern Scandinavia (though the original Filadelfia Church was that of T.B.Barratt in Oslo, Norway, perhaps the true Father of European Pentecostalism). Today, in this tradition, one of Europe's largest congregations gathers in the modest-size city of Uppsala at Livets Ord (Word of Life).

Lewi Pethrus began ministry in a small Baptist Church before the Swedish Baptist Union dispensed with him. Not so many kilometres from the Filadelfia Church I was shown round a more modest Baptist Church to which I had been pointed by a contact in Stockholm. The friendly man who showed me round was at pains to tell me what they weren't.

"In Sweden we are not conservative," he smiled. "I wish George Bush had never been born." (A comment that struck me as somewhat obscure to the purpose of a Swede explaining the church's work to an Englishman). And then out of the blue this classic comment,

"I've been coming to this Church for over twenty years and I've never heard hell mentioned. Not once, praise the Lord!"

So were the seats of this church in which you had a cat-in-hell's chance of hearing about hell filled with grateful, positive worshippers? You can probably guess the answer is No. "Young people round here are really sad. There have been a lot of suicides. But they never even think about Church."

A reasonable estimate of the Gospel material from the mouth of Jesus (as some miltant atheists have also pointed out) is that 10% of it is about hell, judgment and/or eternal punishment or loss. Jesus was switched on to a lost world. There is no more point in a Church in a lost society not mentioning hell than there is in an ambulance crew not wanting to upset anyone by flashing blue lights and sounding a disturbing horn.

Risen!

Don't miss this reflection too! This is an all-or-nothing day.

While it's great for a Christian preacher to have the rest from preaching that a sabbatical brings this is a frustrating day to keep silent. But I point you to this sermon as an inspiration.

Emma

In his well-researched account of Charles Darwin's faith (or increasing lack of faith) Nick Spencer pulls out a fascinating sentence from a letter written to Charles by his wife-to-be Emma.

May not the habit in scientific pursuits of believing nothing till it is proved, influence your mind too much in other things which cannot be proved in the same way, and which if true are likely to be above our comprehension.

As Easter approaches it seems to state the obvious that if we apply only reason and experiment we will never discover the wonder of the Easter message. Studying biological processes reveals only that dead means dead. No amount of evolutionary speculation can anticipate the human DNA becoming God-in-flesh. Consequently, that God incarnate died for my sins and came back to life is, frankly, unprojectable from the laboratory.


Walking past or standing at a place of burial I don't need a scientific experiment to tell me that the odds are stacked against a return to bodily life. So, to return to Emma's wise warning to her future husband, we are without hope if there is nowhere we can look above the laboratory.

On my travels in Scandinavia I was at first bewildered by several pews in the style above. It looked more like an intimate railway carriage than a church seating plan! All became clear when I attended a service in such a church. The pulpit was halfway along the side wall. Thus the pews in the front section had their back to the pulpit. When later in the liturgy the preacher entered the pulpit to preach, the half of the congregation in the front pews turn round by moving to sit on the opposite pew while the sermon is preached, thus facing the pulpit after all!

Though Emma Darwin was hardly an orthodox believer, she at least perceived the need to turn round to understand some things that will only be revealed by a higher Word. Easter week is supremely a time to stop facing the way I came into this world, and face the way that listens to what God's word is wonderfully revealing.

Richard

On this day often used to celebrate the reputed author of a famous prayer, I am struggling to make any connection between the 13th century originator and the 20th century interpretation . . .



The connection, albeit unintentional, is 'not living at a fixed address'!