My Favourite Christmas Carols - No 1

This has been my favourite carol for as long as I can remember, so it took no decision to choose it here.  I imagine I first liked it because of its opening imagery as I have always loved deep midwinter.  Other carols throw in the snow but this carol feels it. 

Then came my right-theology phase when every carol evoking snow was to be dismissed as nonsense - probably, as in this case, Victorian nonsense.  It was then that I realised that the poetry here is different - winter is not so much the pretty Christmas card type, it is the hard-as-iron type.  Snow is cold and therefore strangely dark. It therefore may be meteorologically inaccurate but it tells an accurate story in the same way that the Apostle describes Jesus being the Light born into the darkness.  Here he is hope being born into the dead winter death of the earth.

 

Later, in a verse almost invariably omitted (one suspects because of the shock factor of a breastful of milk - the truth is too much for us perhaps?), even the mythical ox, ass and camel are used primarily as a poetic device to highlight the awesome truth of the incarnation.

 

In the bleak mid-winter
Frosty wind made moan,
Earth stood hard as iron,
Water like a stone;
Snow had fallen, snow on snow,
Snow on snow,
In the bleak mid-winter
Long ago.

Our God, Heaven cannot hold Him
Nor earth sustain;
Heaven and earth shall flee away
When He comes to reign:
In the bleak mid-winter
A stable-place sufficed
The Lord God Almighty,
Jesus Christ.

Enough for Him, whom cherubim
Worship night and day,
A breastful of milk
And a mangerful of hay;
Enough for Him, whom angels
Fall down before,
The ox and ass and camel
Which adore.

Angels and archangels
May have gathered there,
Cherubim and seraphim
Thronged the air,
But only His mother
In her maiden bliss,
Worshipped the Beloved
With a kiss.

What can I give Him,
Poor as I am?
If I were a shepherd
I would bring a lamb,
If I were a wise man
I would do my part,
Yet what I can I give Him,
Give my heart.

 

Like nearly all great carols it draws the starkest contrast between the proper setting of the Son of God and his incarnate setting with us lot; the exchange of heaven's glory for a maiden mother's kiss.  And it ends by giving us the opportunity, which every Christmas offers, to voice that we will give the one present that such a Saviour deserves.  This simple version by the late Dan Fogelberg captures the poem quite beautifully I think:

 

 

Presumably its author Christina Rosetti never heard it sung for it was written as a poem.  She spent time away from her Highgate home in the country at Holmer Green, just up the road from Wycombe, and maybe it was there that she saw the snow and hard-as-iron winter landscape?  Anyway it is a nice thought that my favourite carol has some connection to the place I now live.

 

Have a Happy Christmas with your favourite Christmas carol, whatever it is!

My Favourite Christmas Carols - No 2

Many people have tapped into the popularity of Christmas as a singing season and produced skilful or sad purpose-built carols.  John Rutter springs to mind as the most commercially successful, and Cliff Richard has his own commercial take on the genre.  On the whole I am not overly drawn to designer carols as evidenced in my other choices which are really poetry set to music or folk songs from no-one notable.  Nevertheless at No 2 I have just such a carol, written by the once hugely popular Graham Kendrick.

Like a candle flame
Flickering small in our darkness
Uncreated light
Shines through infant eyes

God is with us, alleluia (Men)
God is with us, alleluia (Women)
Come to save us, alleluia (Men)
Come to save us (Women)
Alleluia! (All)

Stars and angels sing
Yet the earth sleeps in shadows
Can this tiny spark
Set a world on fire?

Yet his light shall shine
From our lives, Spirit blazing
As we touch the flame
Of his holy fire

Graham Kendrick
Copyright © 1988 Make Way Music,
www.grahamkendrick.co.uk

It is my second choice because it is, in my opinion, utterly beautiful.  Added to which it is simple and somehow combines the simplicity of the Christ-child with the power of the Holy Spirit, the latter scarcely ever meaningfully referenced in carols which seem to often lead to Easter but never on to Pentecost.



My Favourite Christmas Carols - No 3

The Virgin Mary had a baby boy
The Virgin Mary had a baby boy
The Virgin Mary had a baby boy
And they say that His name is Jesus.

He came from the glory
He came from the glorious kingdom
He came from the glory
He came from the glorious kingdom
Oh yes, believer!
Oh yes, believer!
He came from the glory
He came from the glorious kingdom.

The angels sang when the baby was born
The angels sang when the baby was born
The angels sang when the baby was born
And proclaimed Him the Saviour, Jesus.

The wise men saw where the baby was born
The wise men saw where the baby was born
The wise men saw where the baby was born
And they said that His name was Jesus.

I love this carol!

 

It is great fun to sing; it tells the story and shows that the story is to be believed and not just listened to; it comes from the Caribbean and takes us away from the North European carol tradition.  It's just great.

Happy Birthday WA!

You may be accustomed to this blog's tradition of celebrating birthdays on this date. As well as Horatius Bonar and Edith Piaf, today is the birthday of W.A. Criswell.  W.A. was the first Pastor I worked with when I left Spurgeon's College and moved to Dallas, Texas and as long as my memory lasts it will be my privilege and joy to recall working with him.

 

W.A. occupied a place of influence far beyond that of any British Baptist other than C H Spurgeon but to meet the man week by week, on a corridor or a catfish restaurant or his somewhat palatial church house was to realise that, for all his reputation in American and Texan politics, in Southern Baptist controversies and in fund raising on a mind-boggling scale here was a man whose greatest excitement was seeing, one by one, ordinary people come from the darkness of sin into the light of Christ's salvation. 

 

It is amazing how many lesser men I have met before and since, especially on this island and in its religion, who have nowhere near as huge a story but nonetheless have somehow managed to lose the plot.

 

 

You can listen to one of his Christmas Sermons here.



My Favourite Christmas Carols - No 4

The purist might observe my fifth choice was an Epiphany Hymn rather than a carol, and this one - my fourth choice -is an Advent Hymn.  But then again, one reason I like it is that it is as old as Christmas.  Not the Mary-giving-birth Christmas but the regularised celebrating of the birth in the Christian Calendar as a separate event which, like Prudentius's hymn, dates from the fourth century.  Baptists don't know what to do with it (let's be honest - we struggle to know what to do with anything before Charles Wesley or possibly five years ago's Soul Survivor) so we don't sing it. That's our loss though.

 

Of the Father’s heart begotten
    Ere the world from chaos rose,
He is Alpha: from that Fountain,
    All that is and hath been flows;
He is Omega, of all things
    Yet to come the mystic Close,
     Evermore and evermore.

 

By his word was all created;
    He commanded and ’twas done;
Earth and sky and boundless ocean,
  Universe of three in one,
All that sees the moon’s soft radiance,
    All that breathes beneath the sun,
     Evermore and evermore.

 

He assumed this mortal body,
    Frail and feeble, doomed to die,
That the race from dust created
   Might not perish utterly,
Which the dreadful Law had sentenced
  In the depths of hell to lie,
     Evermore and evermore.

 

O how blest that wondrous birthday,
    When the Maid the curse retrieved,
Brought to birth mankind’s salvation,
    By the Holy Ghost conceived,
And the Babe, the world’s Redeemer,
    In her loving arms received,
     Evermore and evermore.

 

Sing, ye heights of heaven, his praises;
    Angels and Archangels, sing!
Wheresoe’er ye be, ye faithful,
    Let your joyous anthems ring,
Every tongue his name confessing,
    Countless voices answering,
      Evermore and evermore.

 

Written in Latin originally the poem sets out the meaning of the Son of God becoming flesh as thoroughly as can be imagined in a few lines: no snow here - just an amazing contrast between the soaring dignity of the Creator and the dusty doomed-to-die state of the human race to which he came.  And then it soars back to the glory. The tune to which it is sung is haunting yet melodic and rare in being duple metre.

 

Here it is from St George's Cathedral in Southwark. 

 

 

If you watch the video moderately closely you'll quickly gather that the congregation there couldn't sing it either, though the choir does great.  The best bit comes in the devastating third verse (2:00 on the video) when inexplicably (albeit on a live broadcast) the director pans to two ladies who appear to be discussing the way to the bus home and a little chap in a Santa hat pops up behind them as the choir sings about the human race subjected by the old Law to lie in hell. 

 

No matter how awesome the words of a carol we always seem to be able to puncture them when we celebrate Christmas . . .

My Favourite Christmas Carols - No 5

Just ten days to go!

This year I've decided to come clean about Christmas Carols.  You could never guess which ones I like by what I choose for services for those choices are constrained by all kinds of factors.  So yesterday as I played stoically through another Bethlehem Carol Sheet's worth of carols in a local shopping centre as we gave out Christmas invitations I decided I'd think through my favourites. 

 

In the event it was surprisingly easy. 

 

In fifth place is a carol that I like for several reasons. 

---

We three kings of Orient are;
Bearing gifts we traverse afar,
Field and fountain, moor and mountain,
Following yonder star.

 

O star of wonder, star of light,
Star with royal beauty bright,
Westward leading, still proceeding,
Guide us to thy perfect light.

 

Born a King on Bethlehem’s plain
Gold I bring to crown Him again,
King forever, ceasing never,
Over us all to reign.

 

Frankincense to offer have I;
Incense owns a Deity nigh;
Prayer and praising, voices raising,
Worshipping God on high.

 

Myrrh is mine, its bitter perfume
Breathes a life of gathering gloom;
Sorrowing, sighing, bleeding, dying,
Sealed in the stone cold tomb.

 

Glorious now behold Him arise;
King and God and sacrifice;
Alleluia, Alleluia,
Sounds through the earth and skies.

 

 

Here is an interesting version: 

 

 

Mungo Jerry shows one reason I like it - the tune, which is rhythmically memorable both in the minor key (the verses) and the major key (chorus) and very adaptable - it works fast and slow, loud and soft or both.  Some carols have VERY boring tunes.

 

More surprisingly MJ also grasp some of the song's theology by the way they portray the death and resurrection of Christ near the end.  And that's what I love about this interpretive carol.  Whilst we may argue whether the gifts meant exactly all that Hopkins claims it has depth and truth and points the singer to the cross and resurrection, to the Saviour and to the Gospel.

 

What more could you ask of a carol?

 

 

Mandela

It is a rare thing for quite so many people to be honouring one human being in his death as are now lining up to pay tribute to Nelson Mandela.  It is easy to be cynical about this when no politician can afford to be other than fulsome in their tribute of the man.  If anything resembling this honour had been afforded him in his imprisonment he would have been released far more quickly.  In other political times equally heroic people have passed unnoticed into oblivion.

 

On the other hand, his story of forgiveness and reconciliation (not tolerance, as some have tried to suggest - don't western politicians love that word?) is a heart-warming and affirming one to celebrate and to imitate.  This is humanity at its better end.  When we see it cheered it cheers us all.

 

Humanity at its most humane is an awesome creation.  It is easy to focus on the times when the animal world seems to hold higher virtues and standards - and frankly in South Africa that has probably been sometimes true.  However, the image of God has vestiges enough in the human frame that we see glimpsed many lights in a dark landscape and, like the Christmas lights in December, they warm our hearts.  We pray for our leaders and so now we thank God for what he showed us in Nelson Mandella who will remain a lasting hero for so many of us.  Admittedly that is partly because he was outstanding for doing so often the right thing after suffering the wrong thing.  How nice it would be if that was normal instead of shockingly good.

 

I thought I'd wait until the third day to write about Nelson Mandela.

I think he is a true hero of humanity.  But on this third day as we await his funeral and know that what the apartheid regime couldn't defeat death has, I would not want anyone to mistake who is humanity's only truly victorious hero.

And he's living today and is still forgiving and reconciling human beings day by day.



Andrew's Day

A recent blog I read was bewailing why the churches (in England) are not taking more interest in next year's Scottish independence referendum.

 

I think today explains that. 

 

 

 

Eight people died in a horrible helicopter crash in Glasgow city centre last night - someone remarking it was the worst possible beginning to St Andrew's Day (the national day of Scotland - [and Barbados, see last year's blog]).

 

Whilst understanding what they meant, they are also possibly wrong.

 

Insofar as St Andrew's Day is about the Biblical disciple Andrew it was beautifully portrayed in the help that ordinary people gave to one another in Glasgow last night when the helicopter crashed on the city centre.  Andrew the fisherman was as ordinary as any Glaswegian, and he helped, first of all by bringing his brother to the Lord Jesus.

 

And whether Scotland is independent (as it usually has been) or in a union with the UK (as it currently is) the big things like city centre disasters are what the people of God and the kingdom of God are firstly about.  I can't get excited about Scottish independence not because it doesn't matter but because it doesn't matter enough.

Paul Flowers

For a host of reasons I am reluctant to comment on the evident and alleged sins of others, especially when the media is busy at it.  In the case of Paul Flowers my policy serves me especially well as with each succeeding day I am increasingly bereft of anything to write that adequately expresses my amazement.  Less a case of not casting the first stone; more of being too gobsmacked to think of even looking for one to pick up.

 

 

In this context I was in a service this week where we sang the following words.  They are a translation from the French (well, if you look closely one key word is not translated) by John Wesley.  With his brother's prodigious hymn output it is slightly surprising that he tapped into a European mystic's hymn except that Antoinette Bourignon's words exactly describe the desires for consecrated holiness for which Methodism was born.  It's a long way back from here.  But God is gracious . . .

 

While in this region here below,
No other good will I pursue;
I'll bid this world of noise and show,
With all its glittering snares, adieu!

 

That path, with humble speed, I'll seek,
In which my Saviour's footsteps shine;
Nor will I hear, nor will I speak,
Of any other love but thine.

 

Henceforth may no profane delight
Divide this consecrated soul;
Possess it thou, who hast the right,
As Lord and Master of the whole.

 

Wealth, honour, pleasure, and what else
This short-enduring world can give,
Tempt as ye will, my soul repels,
To Christ alone resolved to live.

Invaders

The other Sunday, by way of illustration, we noted in a service the countries of the world that Britain had not invaded.

NOT invaded.

I imagine this supposed fact is open to considerable historical controversy but it doesn't need to be exactly right to be very telling. Invasion includes more negotiated occupations of nations too.  Just 22 nations have avoided British boots.

Here is Stuart Laycock's short list of the only countries Britain has not invaded in case you haven't used the link above.

 Andorra

Belarus

Bolivia

Burundi

Central African Republic

Chad

Congo, Republic of

Guatemala

Ivory Coast

Kyrgyzstan

Liechtenstein

Luxembourg

Mali

Marshall Islands

Monaco

Mongolia

Paraguay

Sao Tome and Principe

Sweden

Tajikistan

Uzbekistan

Vatican City

 

Stuart, probably wisely, abrogated all moral judgment about his list and described it as a bitt of fun.   In doing so he was probably neatly reflecting the sense of responsibility most modern Britons feel for the past, though this Sunday we like to remember some noble victories over nasty enemies in the last century.

 

It creates quite an alarming image when the nations stand before the throne of God's judgment.  In my mind's eye I imagine all these peoples being questioned about their responsibilities for the nationally and ethnically inspired wrongs amid humankind's history - and frequently seeing them pointing over at, er, us.

 

No wonder we stop and pray and think about the wars of the world.

All Souls

This is an interesting day to me this year, the year in which I laid my Dad's remains to rest.  Mostly but not exclusively in Catholic settings this is All Souls Day, or the Commemoration of the Faithful Departed.



There is unquestionably a fellowship between the Church on earth and the Church at rest but this has been an awkward fellowship to define.  It has alarming, spooky elements when Spiritualists or those inclined their way seek to speak with the Dead.  It is only a little better in the one way communication by which the Saints are allegedly spoken to in prayer (without any assurance that they can hear and no Bible promise that suggests they can).  In evangelicalism a peculiar two part problem arises when the Faithful Departed are dispensed with in somewhat the way of any text containing the word Thou, i.e. they are fine but they are history.  This, however is countered by a hope that in the sweet by and by we will meet on that beautiful shore and reconstitute our families.

This latter hope has always bemused me given that my Grandad was also someone else's nephew or Grandson - so how would that work?  Jesus was asked a similar question about married reunion - what happens if a wife has remarried six times?  Who's she married to up there?  Jesus answer is authoritative and exactly explains what the future state is all about - one family in God not Mr and Mrs, Father and Son.

Or to put it another way, today a son celebrates not a departed father but a departed brother in Christ; a widower not a departed wife but a departed sister in Christ. 

There are other times when old relationships, contingent to this world, may be reflected upon with tears or cheers.  But once in a while it is good to remember our soul-fellowship; to remember that relationship in baptism which binds us eternally; to remember the Lover whose love modelled the best of our earthly love without ever being matched down here; to remember that unity in Him that holds us tighter to him and to each other than any imitation found in the relationships recorded on birth, marriage and death certificates. 

This is the fellowship planned and formed and preserved by the love of Jesus.

Yikes!

So I decided to press the Google home screen Halloween thingy.  It tells me about witches.

A witch is a practitioner of witchcraft, which is the use of magical faculties, most commonly for religious, divinatory or medicinal purposes.

Origin: Early human cultures
Grouping: Homo Sapiens
Sub-grouping: Supernatural human
Food source: Strange Brew, candy
How to avoid: Don't eat red apples from strangers; hide if you see a flock of flying monkeys
How to defeat: Throw a pail of water

 

The definition is decent enough, the origin and grouping somewhat dissonant with the sub-grouping (surely a supernatural human originates Somewhere Else and is more like a super-group than a sub-group).  Still, this is all serious stuff in a way.

 

No, wait.  Someone in the Googleplex thinks , 'It's about the kids really - let's get kid-friendly' and plonks in some comic food sources - especially candy.  After all we don't want anyone - nay, even any animal (vegans can be witches too!) getting eaten.

 

Hey no we don't want our kids to feel that the witches might really be able to GET them.  Let's make witches really easy to avoid.  Strangers and Monkeys take a hit here.

 

And given the limited possibility of having eaten such an apple proffered by the stranger, there is a moderately easy solution via a pail of water (though I imagine if practised in the child's bedroom this endangers the child's life from an irate parent).

 

Well, what fun that was.

 

Not.

 

Because the first parts are true (for supernatural human read in harmony with the divine creative principal which is the Witches' own definition) it would be useful for Google to have stuck to the facts later on.

 

The food source is the same supermarket or farm shop or village market as everyone else. 

 

Avoidance is nigh on impossible - and very discriminatory.  I'm quite surprised that Google have got away with that.  It's not going to play well if they try the same thing about Atheists, Muslims or any other religiously orientated definition of people.

 

How to defeat.  Again Google has gone all discriminatory.  Google wants to defeat a religious expression?  At least on this last point Monotheists and Witches can agree that there is - in the spiritual sense - a conspiracy of victory and defeat which spans the centuries.  Sometimes it's been expressed very unpleasantly one way or another.

 

Let me say this in sympathy of witches:  I really don't think that Google has any right to seek their defeat, or encourage children to do so.  Furthermore the average Pagan Witch would have a great deal more respect and harmony with a pail of water than a global Western-based behemoth corporation or the targeting child.

 

Yet in its simple way Google has stumbled upon spiritual warfare.  Where there is supernatural there is battle and, in the End, defeat or victory leading to harmony.  The Bible describes this as the Lord Jesus eventually putting all his enemies beneath his feet.  The Witch, on the other hand, might describe victory as beliefs in the likes of Jesus or Mohammed being subsumed in the great creative divinity god/goddess/force thingy.

 

If ordinary humans are to be on the winning side spiritually, the Bible explains, they'd be a lot wiser to put down the bucket of water and climb (as it were) the hill with a cross on it where one of them who was also God defeated other spiritual powers by the greatest possible sacrifice.  Blood, not just water.

Paid?

Continuing the theme of last Sunday's African Children Choir's inspirational visit to our church, I was brought down to (English) earth by reading this national newspaper correspondent's letter about his granddaughter's involvement in her Parish Church choir.

When asked if she was now considering being baptized into the Church, my granddaughter said she was unsure (she's 11). When asked why she sings in the Choir I was enlightened to these facts:

1) she likes singing

2) it gets her away from her nagging mum and

3) she gets paid (not a lot but paid nevertheless) and tells me she is saving her money so she can go to UNI later on in life.

She likes singing but feels the rest of the service, especially the sermon, is 'boring'. I asked her how many people attend church. "Quite a few in the morning", says she,

"How many?" says I,

"Oh about 20."

"What about Evensong" says I,

"Oh not many, about 8."

 

 

Backflips

Our church has a limited platform area.

There are two reasons why I have never done back flips as part of a service.  The first is that there is not enough room.  The second - let the reader judge whether this should be the first - is that I can't.

 

Undeterred by my poor advertisement for such an activity we had a back flip or two on Sunday evening with the third visit to our Church of the African Children's Choir (more specifically the 39th African Children's Choir).

 

What a fantastic evening we had! It is one of those evenings that makes me prouder of my faith than my country.  I should be this anyway I know.  I just cannot see how the primary school pseudo-nativity or the Cathedral School Evensong training can hope to produce the dynamic spiritual life that these choirs always display.

 

What I loved was the way that they made US feel special.  This was quite an achievement on their part.  I notice that among other things the Choir, as part of a long, long tour has sung the National Anthem at an Atlanta Braves home game which must make Sunday Evening at Union Baptist Church feel, well, intimate.

 

They have spent a lot of their recent weeks on tour in Florida.  Which must make High Wycombe feel, well, grey.





And as if that wasn't humbling enough, they leave us (and our 168th Church Anniversary weekend) to go to Malmesbury Abbey which was founded before England and over 1300 years ago.

 

 

So, what made last night special was certainly nothing that we brought to the party.  We'll have to put the specialness and the origin of back flips down to God and Africa.

Disconnect

Jesus said, "Do not worry about tomorrow" (Matthew 6).  Tomorrow is our Church's anniversary day.

We are blessed by being disconnected from our future.  Joseph Parker lyricised it thus:

What if tomorrow’s cares were here

Without its rest!

I’d rather He unlocked the day;

And, as the hours swing open, say,

“My will is best.”

The very dimness of my sight

Makes me secure;

For, groping in my misty way,

I feel His hand; I hear Him say,

“My help is sure.”

To the unbeliever, the one certainty that the future holds for all human beings is decline and death.  This, Jesus has conquered!  For the believer decline and death are the two things that can be definitively ruled out.  Jesus has disconnected us.

We are blessed in as far as we can choose to be disconnected from our past.  Lots of stuff there we want to hold in memory but plenty else:  sudden deaths, failed tests, disrupted relationships, missed opportunities, wasted years - I could go on. One thing I do, letting go those things which are past, and stretching out to the things which are before, wrote Paul the apostle.

Jesus has detached the past from us, our sins forgiven, our defeats redeemed, our failings covered, our inner wounds healed.

But there is not a third disconnect - a disconnect from the present. We may wish there was. We may behave as though there is. But with the future unrevealed and the past put behind us the Present is the location of service, commitment, attachment. 'If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me'. Today is mine!  I must make it His.

"I am only one, but I am one. I cannot do everything, but I can do something. What I can do, that I ought to do. And what I ought to do, by the grace of God, I shall do." (Edward Everett Hale).

Book Review: Francis Schaeffar

 

Part of Evangelical Press’s Bitesize Biographies Series, this book is an introduction to Schaeffer’s teaching and writing as well as an outline biography.  This is entirely appropriate as many readers will meet Schaeffer primarily in his writings.

There is enough information to help the reader contextualise Schaeffer’s thought in the issues he faced in the last century.  We observe him battling liberalism in American Presbyterianism then wrestling with the markedly different 20^th century evangelical cultures of North America and Europe where he founded the L’Abri Fellowship before returning to the States and engaging in some of its late century ethical issues.

This is an ideal book to read before launching into one of Schaeffer’s works.  As we move further away from the 20^th Century it becomes increasingly important to remember the issues that its evangelical leaders faced so that their writings can be appreciated in a new generation.   The mind-set of the youth of the sixties to whom Schaeffer ministered is the mind-set that inhabits the corridors of power today.  And it's hurting.

Harvest

Of all the special days, even including Christmas an Easter, there are none that have more messages for the soul than harvest thanksgiving. This is what Victorian preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon once said of it - and he was in the middle of the world's largest city at the time;

'If you have an opportunity to journey into the country during the next three weeks, you will, if your heart is rightly attuned, find a marvellous mass of wisdom couched in a cornfield. Why I could not attempt for a moment to open the mighty mines of gabled treasure which are hidden there.

Think, beloved, of the joy of harvest. How does it tell us of the joy of the redeemed if we, being saved, shall at last be carried like shocks of corn fully ripe into the garner!

Look at the ear of corn when it is fully ripe, and see how it bends toward the earth! It held its head erect before, but in getting ripe how humble does it become! And how does God speak to the sinner and tell him, that if he would be fit for the great harvest he must drop his head and cry, "Lord, have mercy upon me a sinner."

And when we see the weeds spring up amongst wheat, do we not recall our Master's parable over again of the tares among the wheat; and are we not reminded of the great day of division, when he shall say to the reaper, "Gather first the tares and bind them in bundles, to burn them; but gather the wheat into my barn."

O yellow field of corn, you preach well to me, the minister, "Behold, the fields are ripe already to the harvest." Work yourself; and pray you the Lord of the harvest to send forth more labourers into the harvest."

And it preaches well to you, O man of years, for it tells you that the sickle of death is sharp, and that you must soon fall. But it cheers and comforts you, for it tells that the wheat shall be safely housed, and it bids thee hope that you will be carried to your Master's garner to be his joy and his delight for ever. Hark, then, to the rustling eloquence of the yellow harvest.'

Joy

Today our Church is rockin' to the sounds of a Caribbean funeral.   If you've never heard Tony Campolo's well-travelled story about a similar experience to this then it is here (and even if you have heard it you'll like hearing it again) . . .

 

Hang in there and you'll hear this:  When you were born you cried and everyone else was happy.  That's not important.  What's important is that when you die, even though everyone else is crying, you're happy.

International

Someone visiting our Church the other week remarked, "It's very international, isn't it?"  Whilst technology changes at breath-taking speed, the make up of Wycombe has been changing just as fast.  And because the British have lost their love for God the Church is changing more rapidly even than the High Street.  Scarcely a week goes by when I am not writing a Welcome Letter to someone with a name that certainly doesn't owe its origin to the Anglo-Saxons.

 

It struck me forcibly a few weeks ago when we went to lunch with some people from the Church.  Our family was born in England; one was from Africa, one from North America, two from Central America, one from Oceania.

 

In fact it struck me that the mix of people in our Church is more international than in the International Church we visited on vacation.

 

On September 11 it is good to realise that although the world is full of differences it is also full of people with shared lives, including those whose destiny lies beyond nationality in a Heavenly City with gates in every direction.

Eisriesenwelt (Ice Caves)

On any vacation there are things you are never likely to forget.  When you pay out the money you anticipate (perhaps over optimistically) that the thing(s) you will never forget will be good.  The reality of vacations: long distance travel, unfamiliar food, different climates, different insect life etc. suggest that this optimism needs qualifying.

 

One thing I will never forget from this vacation was an announcement.

 

It is probably true that there have been several Church Services in which an announcement has stolen the show, notwithstanding the preparatory efforts of the musicians, the preacher and other participants.  That day the announcement somewhat stole the show.  The Eisreisenwelt are lauded as one of Austria's most spectacular places.  That is quite something in an alpine nation that is filled with amazing landscapes and an enormous historical significance over many centuries of culture, politics and the arts.

 

Certainly these ice caves are amazing - though possibly less so than the hype and world recognition suggest.  A cave is, after all, a cave.  And every cave I have ever visited has shapes and clever lighting shows them up.  Whatever.

 

The announcement that my daughter and I will not forget was memorable for its context as well as its content.

The caves are high, high up the mountain.  There was a bus to start with which (together with its amazingly grumpy driver - isn't it strange how you can tell that someone is grumpy and swearing at every passing car even when you can't speak his language?) took us to the car park.  The car park is itself a steep slope, then a facility building, and another uphill walk of some minutes to the cable car.

 

I mentally associate cable cars with going up mountains from bottom to top but this one turned out to go up from about 6/10ths of the way up to 7/10ths.  It left us with a further climb, the following photo being taken about a third of the way up that last climb.  You can see the entrance to the cave in the middle.

 



 

Even at the cave entrance the temperature, on the day we climbed, was in the mid 20s.  The English language has several words available for how we felt on getting to the entrance (how everyone arriving at the entrance seemed to feel).  I'll choose this one: knackered.

 

That was the context of the announcement. 

 

The content of the announcement?  At the entrance tired climbers were offered a Deutsch or Englisch queue each with fit-looking young guides in very warm-looking coats.  And ours, in decent English, made this announcement;

 

"I have good news and bad news.  The bad news is that there are 700 steps up and 700 steps down.  The good news is that although it is freezing you will not feel cold with all those steps to climb!"  On the cheerful delivery of which he led us to light our lamps and on into the caves.

 

My inadequacy of language means I cannot accurately convey the experience of arriving with exhausted relief at a destination to find that the destination is a 1400 step climb.  The best I can do is that it felt like my body remained at several thousand feet up but my heart sank back to the shuttle bus stop at the valley bottom.

 

I wonder how many people climb their way through life without realising what they are climbing towards.  I wonder whether they would so climb if they knew.  I wonder if there is a whole different Way that ends with rest?

 



Berchtesgaden

Alongside the beauty of the Austrian landscape lies the beauty of the Bavarian Alps.  There, at the foot of one Germany's highest mountains, is the town of Berchtesgaden.  We arrived by train.

Berchtesgaden is not tiny, but neither is it a large town.  It is very picturesque, offering ice creams that you could die for - or more accurately die of.  To be fair to Berchtesgaden its most extraordinary feature is its setting and probably its second-most amazing feature is its palace complex where the Bavarian princes lived.

 

 

Yet right up there with the word amazing is the railway station.  Trundled would be the word to describe the winding, single track journey through the mountains that brought us to the town.  Winding and stunningly beautiful.  The trains ran every hour which, given the isolation of the line, was relatively remarkable.  Finally the three coaches clattered over some points (US: switches) and came to a halt in Berchtesgaden station, the end of the line.  There, one could deduce from the timetable, the train stopped for 20 minutes before setting off back through the mountains on its return journey.

 

I think it was on platform (line) 4 that we stopped on.  Platform 4.  But wasn't there only one train at a time?  Why ever would you need four platforms?  And then there is the station buildings themselves.  They are absolutely huge.  Befitting a large town or moderate city perhaps - but a mountain town at the end of a single track railway?

 

It was not always like this.  Berchtesgaden had its railway for many decades in humbler surroundings until, in the mid 1930s a man called Hitler bought a country retreat in the hills a few miles away.  The date on the station says 1937.  It was actually completed in 1938 and here the likes of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain were welcomed for meetings of state.  The meetings kept the world leaders abreast with the plans and developments of the Third Reich.  The meetings were about as much use as the monumental station is today - all outward importance, no true function.

 

It reminded me of that other World War 2 railway monument at Auschwitz.  There a bleak track leads to a dead end.  Here in the mountains of Bavaria a beautiful track and a magnificent station are part of the same great dead end that is man's inhumanity to man.

 

Mozart

Salzburg is very proud of Mozart.  I had no wish to avoid him, but even if I had so wished I could not have done.  As the story unfolded I started to find this quite amusing.

 

Poor Wolfgang Amadeus himself did not like Salzburg anything like as much as Salzburg has come to like him.  As far as the story can be understood, he spent a great deal of energy trying to extricate himself from the mediocre Salzburg Court to become more widely rich and famous in Vienna or Munich or the like.

 

It is nearly as ironic that to do almost anything truly Mozartian in Salzburg will cost a small fortune.  Some people somewhere are making a lot of money when an opera ticket costs over £300.00.  Mozart himself made a decent amount of money but spent an indecent amount leaving him indecently in debt: a few forward royalties might have helped as I imagine his link to the city adds up to 20% to the cost.

 

One might imagine that no-one is more empowered to control their legacy than a genius composer or artist.  Hundreds of years on their work is still being enjoyed, their locations remembered.  Yet human beings are not like that.  They take up legacies and shape them in the way that suits them.

 

The only way to ultimately control your legacy would be to rise again from the dead.

Austria

Mountains are amazingly emotive.  This despite them being nowhere near as alive as Julie Andrews implied in The Sound of Music.  In the average lowland marsh there are countless more living things, so what is it that makes the traveller gooey eyed about mountains?  Why do we climb them, leaving ourselves exhausted?

 

Long before the Victorians were sea-dipping people were heading for the hills and I suppose it is about perspective.  The greatness of the view, the greatness of the mountain itself, somehow St Gilgan looks attractive in the photograph even though you cannot really see it.  It's beauty is made by the mountain perspective.

 

Isn't that what faith in God does too?

Pre Seasons

The new Football League season kicks off at about the time everyone is off on their holidays.  The reason is next summer's World Cup in Brazil and the need for the English season to be wrapped up well before it.

 

Here, then, ends preseason.  This is a strange time of sweaty endeavour to get fit for the winter to come.  In blistering heat the lads run themselves into shape for the wet and windy nights in some football outpost on a Tuesday night in November and blistering heat is a distant, incredible memory.

 

The disconcerting thought occurs to me, though, that the actual season is also a preseason - which is why it starts so early.  Beyond the parochial ranks of the local supporters the big world of football is looking at next summer and the season for which we have just had the preseason is itself a preseason.

This week hundreds of local families in and around Wycombe will have sent their children and teenagers to Lighthouse Holiday Clubs and Fresh Cafe youth nights.  These are brilliant events.  We are very blessed to have them.

 

Certainly one way of approaching Children and Youth ministry is that it is a kind of preseason.  This is alarming for two reasons - the most obvious being that children and young people are real people (and may not make adulthood) and need to know forgiveness and faith right where they are. The second reason is that the attrition between children's ministry and adult faith is appallingly high.  No truism seems less true now than the old maxim, Give me the child for seven years and I will give you the man.

 

I am somewhat of the view that, like the season about to unfold, the whole season of life is preseason.  Admittedly the World Cup with its gathering of the nations under a near equatorial sun seems a distant dream right now.  Yet it is shaping everything about football in months to come.

 

And so our whole life, even to what we misleadingly describe as our last breath, is a season that is really a preseason.  And under the same Son that we now live, the nations will gather for the Real Thing and the momentary things of preseason will give way in the shadow of its glory.

 

Maranatha.

Life

The other day we were walking round an amazing landscaped garden.  Water features, wisely placed roses, glasshouses and beautiful shrubs and flower beds adorned the summer scene.  It was very beautiful, even to a relatively untrained eye such as mine.

 

Then there was a startling section.

 

Simply enough, it was left wild and in such a setting it looked quite wrong (in my own garden it would have blended somewhat better!).  That was not what was startling though.

 

It was startling because it was absolutely full of life.  I don't mean that, instead of one flying insect for every 20 flowers there were two.  I mean startling.  Instead of a decent few insects this area was teeming with them, large butterflies and tiny gnat-like insects and all points in between.  Soon I was hardly looking at the somewhat common looking wild flowers but was staring at this flying sea (to mix the metaphor) of life.

 

We have just spent much of a year in 1 Corinthians.  This letter dispels any notion that the Church of the 21st century is in some kind of qualitative decline for there is portrayed a wild church such as even the trendiest, most rebellious of Christian outlaws in the 21st century would find hard to emulate.  More to the point it was wilder than is the Sunday Assembly, the atheist parody of Christian services but is actually more decent than Corinth was.

 

Wild. 

 

But there was life there.  Like the insects he created, God does not seek out human formality and order for its own sake.   He is the author and partaker of spiritual life and if that is in the chaotic meadow it is better to him than a neatly ordered spiritual mausoleum.

Focus

I was delighted to read that someone of international standing has recommended my car!

 

Pope Francis said: "It hurts me when I see a priest or a nun with the latest model car, you can't do this.  Cars are necessary. But take a more humble one. Think of how many children die of hunger and dedicate the savings to them."

Further investigation proves, allegedly, that he practices what he preaches. The Pope himself shuns comfortable expensive transport and when driving around his city he uses . . .

. . . a humble Ford Focus.

I was really feeling quite good about this.  Though not under Pope Francis's administration or tutelage I was conducting my ministry from the same humble transportation that he himself uses by way of example.

 

Then something bothered me.

 

When, in something of an emergency as my previous car clapped out, I bought my Ford Focus I thought it was a nice car, a good one that made me wonder whether, well, I should have bought something more humble.

 

Which only goes to show that a Pope's humility is a Baptist Pastor's luxury (at least in Britain!).

 

There again, Jesus walked . . .

Free

It wasn't especially hot today.  But for me it was extraordinary none the less.

 

First, I was walking along through the town and decided to buy a bottle of fizzy water.  It's Market Day.  There are people everywhere and lines of people in all the cheap shops.  I decide that I have no time to line up so I'll get my drink in a more expensive shop.

 

A strange conversation ensues.  I don't have enough change so I offer a £10 note.  This requires over £8 in change.  As the lady (I think she is the owner) starts to get the change together I hit upon some extra change in another pocket.  I offer the change to make it easier for her.  She looks at the change.  Says in slightly broken "English you want the change?" and proceeds to give me the ten pounds back while taking her change back.  So far so good.  So I offer the right money.  She says, "You have paid" and I say "I have not" and she says, "No, that is good -it is finished - you paid" and (she is a slightly irritable lady) shoves the till shut and sits back down saying thank you and expecting me to leave.  I have a free drink having placed all kinds of stuff on her counter but having been given it all back, and a drink.  All of which might not be very bloggable were it not for this afternoon.

 

This afternoon I was visiting the hospital.  It is a decent journey and with no drink in the car I headed into the Café before doing my visit.  As it happened, and keeping the calories decently low, I set out to purchase the same kind of fizzy water again.  And a dark chocolate  because I'd had no lunch.  The lady in front of me was served.  Then a young, business-looking lady kind of pushed in the line in front of me (I think I was dozingly debating whether to have exactly the same bottle as in the morning).  I was politely  frustrated as I was in a bit of a hurry and she asked for four different drinks for her party.  Ah well.

Then she said, "And I'll pay for this gentleman's drink and chocolate too".  I looked up. "Please", she said.  "I have to use up the company expenses or Ill get offered less next year.  I know it sounds ridiculous and it is.  But I'll buy them".  And so she did.

So I sat down and drank my second free drink of the day (this time with a free chocolate too!)

Or was it the third? Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life