450 years ago today Menno Simons died.
"True evangelical faith cannot lie dormant. It clothes the naked, it feeds the hungry, it comforts the sorrowful, it shelters the destitute, it serves those that harm it, it binds up that which is wounded, it has become all things to all people."
Menno -from whose name derives the Christian denominator Mennonites - is notable as a man committed wholly to the Bible. In an age when the Catholics and Melchorites, from opposite extremes, sought to exercise political, worldly sway, Simons headed into the scriptures.
More remarkably, and rather like his Lord, there are chunks of his life that remain unknown. His birth is unrecorded, his upbringing is obscure and his years on leaving the Catholic priesthood appear to have been spent at no fixed abode, as they say at the Magistrates' Court. Yet his influence was immense as he doggedly wrote and spoke of the Scriptures. He called warmongers toward peace, the indulgent toward sacrifice and the Church toward Jesus.
All those, now, who accept this means of divine grace, Jesus Christ, with believing hearts, and enclose him in their consciences, believe and confess that their sins are forgiven through his sacrifice, death, and blood; that his wrath and damnation will not be upon them forever; that he accepts them as his beloved sons and daughters, and gives them life eternal. All such become of peaceable and joyous spirit, and give thanks to God, with renewed hearts; for the power of faith quickens and changes them into newness of life, and they walk thus, by the gift and grace of the Holy Spirit in the power of their new birth, according to the measure of their faith, in obedience to their God who has shown them such great love.
