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.