Rest Home to Royalty

A day of days in our nation!

While crowds risk their lives in the political turmoil of the Arab World in this undeservedly blessed land we crowd to see a glorious celebration of human love at the centre of our national life.  We have every reason to give thanks to God as we observed the elevation of Kate Middleton to the heart of the Royal Family.

And in it all one Scripture Reading.  It was beautifully read and a majestically suitable passage for a marriage.  And a great deal else.  For just yesterday afternoon I was reading that same Scripture from Romans 12 and from my point of view it had made a journey at least as dramatic as Kate Middleton!

The setting I read it in had been a little different: the hearers were in single figures, one was in not the transcept exactly but in her bed with the door open next door, their average age at or around 90 years and more, and walking frames replaced State Coaches while a CD recording replaced the Westminster Abbey Sub-Organist, choirs, fanfare trumpeters and the English Chamber Orchestra.  Yet to these elderly saints in the rest home as we shared Communion the apostle's words were still rich and replete with meaning and significance.

I won't forget today anyway, but if I were to do so Romans 12 would always remind me of God's timeless word, a victory of faith over fashion.

Happy Easter!

Augustine: Homilies on the Gospel of John; Tractate LV.

But why should we wonder that He rose from supper, and laid aside His garments, who, being in the form of God, made Himself of no reputation?    Literally, “emptied Himself,” as in the Greek.

And why should we wonder, if He girded Himself with a towel, who took upon Him the form of a servant, and was found in the likeness of a man?  Phil. ii. 6, 7.

Why wonder, if He poured water into a basin wherewith to wash His disciples’ feet, who poured His blood upon the earth to wash away the filth of their sins?

Why wonder, if with the towel wherewith He was girded He wiped the feet He had washed, who with the very flesh that clothed Him laid a firm pathway for the footsteps of His evangelists? In order, indeed, to gird Himself with the towel, He laid aside the garments He wore; but when He emptied Himself of His divine glory in order to assume the form of a servant, He laid not down what He had, but assumed that which He had not before. When about to be crucified, He was indeed stripped of His garments, and when dead was wrapped in linen clothes: and all that suffering of His is our purification.

When, therefore, about to suffer the last extremities of humiliation, He here illustrated beforehand its friendly compliances; not only to those for whom He was about to endure death, but to him also who had resolved on betraying Him to death. Because so great is the beneficence of human humility, that even the Divine Majesty was pleased to commend it by His own example; for proud man would have perished eternally, had he not been found by the lowly God. For the Son of man came to seek and to save that which was lost.     Luke xix. 10.

And as he was lost by imitating the pride of the deceiver, let him now, when found, imitate the Redeemer’s humility.

Franklin

Approaching the Royal Wedding fixes our thoughts on Westminster Abbey and marriage.  A marriage with an extraordinary end is commemorated there and today is important in the story.

Among the very many monuments in what is our National Shrine is a monument to Sir John Franklin - 'This monument was erected by Jane, his widow, who after long waiting and sending many in search of him, herself departed to seek and find him in the realms of light.'

Today is his birthday and his birth is a lot easier to understand than his death.  For sure his remains are not in the Abbey.  Indeed they are somewhere quite unknown and very, very cold.

Born on April 16, 1786, John went to sea at age 15 with Admiral Nelson. He survived the Battle of Copenhagen then returned to England only to leave again, this time on a voyage to chart Australia. He next joined the Battle of Trafalgar, and later the attack on New Orleans.

He fell in love with Arctic exploration, and when the ships were forced to return to England, he joined another expedition to chart the northern coasts of Canada.

One of his crew wrote of him, "We have church morning and evening on Sunday. The men say they would rather have him than half the parsons of England."

In 1845 he sailed from England to look for the Northwest Passage and to explore the Arctic. Two letters came from him, then news ceased. Years passed.  His beloved wife Jane spent a fortune searching for him. Finally a boat was found frozen in the north complete with two of the crew's skeletons  - and Sir John Franklin's Bible.

Psalm 139.9,10 was underlined: If I. . . dwell in the uttermost parts of the sea; even there shall thy hand lead me, and thy right hand shall hold me. 

A hand that reaches further even than the hand of a loving wife.

Fore!

Today I feel impelled to tell the story of one of golf's most famous words, aptly pictured here:

The game of golf as we know it developed amid the coastal sand dunes of Eastern Scotland.  St Andrews is enshrined as the town most associated with the development of the sport that now spans the world.  And with it the shout, "Fore" as the now traditional warning.

At the beginning of April in 1877, Alexander Kilcallon was playing on the Royal  course when, like many before and since, he was struck by a ball 'inflicting a wounde grievusse'.  What was to make Alexander's story amazing was that exactly a year later to the day - this day - he was struck by another golf ball in a very similar way.  The duality seemed too much of a coincidence and he consulted the Minister of the Kirk (Church).  The Minister, Rev. Hamish Kincaird, was not at all sympathetic.  He despised the worldly pleasure of sport and pointed Alexander to a Biblical Proverb that occurs identically twice (in Proverbs 22:3 and 27:12) - identical verses for identical incidents. In the King James version it reads

A prudent man foreseeth the evil, and hideth himself; but the simple pass on, and are punished.

Perhaps it was the way that the Reverend Kincaird pronounced the word foreseeth to make his point, but Alexander Kilcallon took the word back to his golfing party as a cry of warning.  Presumably it was quickly reduced to the one syllable that any passing walker is wise to observe!

Not the intended application of the Proverb but very useful and undoubtedly the most shouted Biblical syllable on the golf course - though perhaps others are sometimes used in anger as well . . .