The Fine Art of Christmas: The Tenebrist

Gerard van Honthorst was not an Italian - a slightly weird thing for a painting from the 17th century on a Christmas card.  Coming from the Netherlands, he joined a horde - should that be palette - of painters who painted 'The Adoration of the Shepherds.'  

In truth the Christmas story offers limited scope for painters and preachers alike, so its rather down to what you do with the inevitable scene.  What Gerard liked to do, and the reason that he was described as a tenebrist, was compose (in layman's terms) very dark pictures with contrasting light.  As it happens, this scene is one of his classics.  But this is a chopped version.

The original painting is bigger - and all that which has been chopped off is wodges of dark.  It suits Christmas tastes to have a light picture, but van Honthorst was really making the point that the very bright baby is in a very dark place.  The editing loses this point, while making a nice picture for a card.

On Christmas Day at church we prayed for those who are not as blessed as we are on Christmas Day.  We prayed for those who suffer for their faith on Christmas Day.  And later the Soup Kitchen provided an amazing Christmas dinner. 

We tried to keep some dark in.

Because Christmas is more about the darkness than this cropped picture might have us believe.

The Fine Art of Christmas - Starry Night over the Rhone

Atmospherically this is certainly Christmassy.

It might look good on the card but  Christmas wasn't in Van Gogh's mind when he painted this night scene of the River Rhone in September 1888.  He was fascinated by the colours of night and the challenge of painting them.

To fit the painting on the card, a devastating transaction has happened however.  Here is the original painting:

Leaving aside the colour differences we can see that the original has Ursa Major (the Great Bear) constellation with great prominence.  Van Gogh's intention was to make the stars the star over against the gas lighting.  Instead, the card has left in the lovers at the expense of the stars.

Every Christmas we are prone to cut out a little or a lot of heavenly glory to keep humans in the centre of the picture.

The Fine Art of Christmas - The Putti

Here, emerging from the dark stable (on a Christmas Card), is Carlo Maratta's Madonna and Child.  Well, again, it is one of countless versions produced for the Italian devotional market.  Here the virgin might be, as often was in his paintings, his illegitimate daughter.

And then there's the putti.

Peering into my Christmas card are three little chaps.  Possibly chaps.  They cannot be found in the Bible, but they can be found in great numbers on paintings of various kinds.  So, with much academic effort devoted to art the meaning of putti must be over documented?  No.  They have been written about very little apparently, and they are variously little boys, angel thingies, cupid-type thingies or just children.

It's a decent guess that in a Madonna and child scene they are kind of angels, or boys with a heavenly background (if such a thing is possible).

Possible?  The mystical decorations are a waste of Carlo's time.  In the arms of the virgin is a real baby boy.  Yet he is not only a bit heavenly - he is the very centre of heaven's attention.  He is not a half heavenling; he is all human and all divine.

The truth is more wonderful than the putti.

The Fine Art of Christmas - The Madonna Praying

This blog has a mild obsession with Christmas Cards - as any back reference of it will show.  This year we're moving upmarket - only paying attention to those that might be worth making money from.  (This is what London does for you - can I sell it on? etc.)

Enter The Madonna Praying by Sassoferrato.

Sent to me by a Baptist Church leader, this is very apt because . . . no, wait a minute, what IS it?

Sassoferrato was known for these paintings.  He may or may not have had a deep Catholic Marian affection, but the real reason he kept on painting the Madonna praying was because all sorts of wealthier Italians would pay for them to put in their homes to aid their devotion or just for good (divine) luck.

Today it will set you back about £10,000.

The connection to Christmas is quite thin - Mary must have been far too busy to look this peaceful and baby Jesus was not relevant to Sassoferatto's retail model.  But while unBaptist and not Christmassy, perhaps in true London fashion I can pass it off somewhere in January for a few pounds and make Christmas out of it after all!!

Advent

Advent is about reflective waiting.

Isn't it?

Is it not a haven from the madding crowds of Black Friday, every subsequent Saturday, Sunday and Thursday late and through to Christmas eve?   There is something appealing about retreating into a Carmelite Christmas.  (It will be less expensive for a start . . .)

"Baptists are too activist," Baptists say.  This has become an early 21st Century Received Truth and it is a slightly suspicious Truth for two reasons:

1.  It is not said to us but by us.  Many colleagues in other Church groupings seem a tad envious of our activism.

2.  It is quite convenient.  So perhaps worth questioning.  By being less active we have more opportunity for, well, shopping and, er, restaurants and, um, travelling.  My sense of people who 'rest' from church is that they do not fill that time with spiritually useful things as a rule.

William Booth was an activist.  You don't start an expression of church that becomes called The Salvation Army with the intention of being overly reflective.  Strangely (or perhaps not) when we think of Christmas we immediately think of The Salvation Army.

William was not a man to ignore the spiritual.  To the contrary he regarded formalised religion, Advent and the like as too often lacking the Spirit.  Nor was he a man to down tools to dwell in a waiting that might be otherwise interpreted as a mite too convenient.  How did he hold it all together?

Well in a way he did and in a way he didn't.  he saw the paradox through which every believer in an unbelieving world must travel in Advent or any other time:

He said,

Work as if everything depended upon work and pray as if everything depended upon prayer.  

Proxy

The upcoming December 12 election is the first time in my quite long electoral history when I have been out of the country for a General Election, and at relatively short notice.

It has brought me to the Proxy Vote.  This is where you nominate someone to cast your vote on your behalf because you are not able to do so on the day.

The Proxy Vote has also brought me many interesting comparisons with a much bigger representation issue.

First, your proxy must be qualified to vote.  So, for example, you can'task your friendly Member of the House of Lords to do it for you.  Or your cat.  Or President Trump etc.

Secondly, they have to be willing.  They cannot be forced to be your Proxy by you or anyone else.  They do it for you of their own free will.

Thirdly, of course, you have to trust your Proxy.  They could simply use the Proxy vote for their own purposes and ignore your wishes.  Because it is a secret ballot nobody, apart from them, could ever know.

MEANWHILE

the Scriptures teach me that I have a Greater Proxy in a Greater Place.

Jesus is fully qualified to represent me for he, too, is human.

Jesus is willing to represent me, because he loved me and gave himself for me.

Jesus is trustworthy and he who began a good work in us will carry it to completion.

Praise God!

Health and (much less) Safety

In a famous section of the Chronicles of Narnia Lucy asks Mr Beaver about Aslan. 

"Is.. is he a man?" asked Lucy.

"Aslan a man!" said Mr. Beaver sternly. "Certainly not. I tell you he is the King of wood and the son of the great Emperor-Beyond-the-Sea. Don't you know who is the King of the Beasts? Aslan is a lion - the Lion, the great Lion."

"Ooh," said Susan, "I thought he was a man. Is he.. quite safe? I shall feel rather nervous about meeting a lion."

"That you will, dearie, and make no mistake," said Mrs. Beaver, "if there's anyone who can appear before Aslan without their knees knocking, they're either braver than most or else silly."

"Then he isn't safe?" said Lucy.

"Safe?" said Mr. Beaver, "don't you hear what Mrs. Beaver tells you? Who said anything about safe? 'Course he isn't safe. But he's good. He's the King, I tell you."

Erwin McManus might have been reading that before the following interaction with his young son, who had just returned from a week at a Christian children’s camp;

He writes, ‘Unfortunately, since it was a Christian camp and they didn't tell ghost stories, because we don't believe in ghosts; they told demon and Satan stories instead. And so when Aaron got home, he was terrified.

"Dad, don't turn off the light!" he said before going to bed. "No, Daddy, could you stay here with me? Daddy, I'm afraid. They told all these stories about demons."

And I wanted to say, "They're not real."

He goes, "Daddy, Daddy, would you pray for me that I would be safe?" I could feel it. I could feel warm-blanket Christianity beginning to wrap around him, a life of safety, safety, safety.

I said, "Aaron, I will not pray for you to be safe. I will pray that God will make you dangerous, so dangerous that demons will flee when you enter the room."

And he goes, "All right. But pray I would be really, really dangerous, Daddy."’

Beset, as we are, by a culture of risk removal and social diffidence it is time to break free with the Lion!  The Lion said, ‘Take up your cross and follow me”.  And his followers were said to be “Turning the world upside down”.   Try risk assessing those statements!

Our buildings and activities can be made safe, but our faith can never be.

Unknown

These moving Bible words are found on the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, just inside Westminster Abbey,

THEY BURIED HIM AMONG THE KINGS BECAUSE HE
HAD DONE GOOD TOWARD GOD AND TOWARD HIS HOUSE

It was the first such tomb in the world, though many nations have since followed suit. The soldier's corpse within was chosen by a series of randomisations to make sure he was absolutely unknown. The Tomb says so much about the impersonality of War and its random destructiveness of young and other lives.

It is an extraordinary place, and deeply moving.

Strangely, it is also one of the most astonishing misuses of the Bible to be found anywhere. For the text is adapted from the Chronicler's statement at the end of the life of a priest named Jehoiada who was responsible for God's temple in the days of King Joash. Sure, he was buried among the kings but once you get past that observation the text is vexingly inappropriate. For a start, he was not unknown.

Not only that, he was a man who spent his life in Temple service (while Joash went around killing people as a soldier-king). Jehoiada was the very opposite of a soldier.

Perhaps the weirdest thing of all is that Jehoiada lived to 130 years old - in the words of the text he died 'full of years' - which is the exact opposite of what makes the young soldier in that Abbey tomb a reason for poignant remembrance.

Indeed, the more I think about it the more I struggle to imagine a more inappropriate epitaph. It is as if someone selected words from the Bible in as random a way as they selected the corpse to bury. Which is sad because the Bible has plenty of poignant and meaningful things to say for such a place and for such a day as today when we remember the waste of human life.

For example, how about the following which combines both the meaning of the tomb and the meaning of the Abbey:

Gone; and the place thereof shall know it no more.
But the mercy of the Lord is from everlasting to everlasting.

It's Reformation Day!!

Lamping Out

The Harvest season comes to an end and the dark evenings are upon us.  But London doesn't easily sleep.

Although London has long had all-night buses it now has all night underground trains.  As well as being helpful to people who must travel at night, it certainly doesn't make hectic London any more restful.

And although there are currently only a few lines on two nights it threatens the unique moment - unknown to all but a handful of Londoners - of lamping out.

I thought about this the other day when I hurried down a passageway only for the doors on the train to shut in my face.  It is not a rare thing for London travellers.  Except on one train.

The exact exception to this common experience takes place nightly when the last train runs.  A member of staff stands on the platform, another in the entry upstairs.  On the platform the train does not leave until anyone counted into the station has boarded the train, whereupon it is lamped out.  Instead of the passenger being held up by the leaving train, the passenger becomes the focus, the pivotal crux of the leaving train.  

And I thought about it again when I heard the harvest hymn about 'all is safely gathered in'.  The story of harvest but the metaphor of salvation.  For not one of God's elect will be missing; for every believer a place, for every place a believer.  Continuation of the current universe is because there are still sheep that are lost, still prodigals in a far country who must come home.  

Rugby Cancellations

Scotland rugby officials were greatly exercised by the typhoon approaching Japan.  The cancellation of their game with World Cup hosts Japan would have meant they could not secure the win they needed to progress.  In the event, the game went ahead - and they still didn't secure the win they needed!

Wales are doing better than Scotland in this World Cup.  Rugby in Wales has also had its cancellations.  On the captains' board at Crynant RFC, founded in the same-named village north of Swansea in 1898 there are some gaps.  Some from lost early years of recorded history, some when the club closed in the First World War, and . . .

. . . and five years when the Club closed on account of a Religious Revival.   Yes, such was the impact of the Welsh Revival on the men of the valleys that there was no time for practicing or playing rugby.  We would not expect a monastery to have too many active sports teams - they should be praying.  

But the nature of true revival is that ordinary men and women are consumed by the fervour that institutionally holds monks and nuns - a fervour not from a Rule but from within.  It is a distance from where many Christians live their lives.  Too often lesser things interrupt the Spirit rather than the reverse.  Yet we pray on.

Holiday Pics 5: Beautiful Redundancy

Spread along the coast of West Wales are the remains of seaside mills.  The corn was brought from the nearby farms and the many tiny harbours, in the manner of Cornwall, provided an efficient sea route out for the milled grain.

Today they provide great photo opportunities.  I doubt that they will ever be called into action again, but they tell a story of times gone by.

This particular mill was on the bay near the village we stayed in.  In the village itself were two other buildings that were no longer in use - a Baptist Chapel and a Methodist Chapel.  There were no places of worship, as there were no mills, that were still in use.

So do redundant chapels also reflect changing times and times gone by?

Well, no.  Whereas the products of farms nearby have new and better methods of refinement, transportation and therefore business, the redundant chapels tell another story.  The village has just as many souls in as ever it had, God is still the God who the villagers once worshipped, Jesus story of salvation is still the same, the 21st century souls in the village are all, like their forebears, going to pass into judgment and eternity.

There is nothing improving or efficient about redundant chapels.  They are just a community's death-mark.

Holiday pics 4: Ish

We saw this brilliant sign on holiday.

I imagine the lack of such a sign in our local shopping streets in London.  Everything is very exact.  I can be sure that if a shutter is being pulled down it will be close to an exact time.

To me this sign is a sign of freedom.  The clock matters less than we think.

Holiday Pics 3: Nelson's Request

The sea figures large in the story of Ireland, for the plain reason that it has not been possible to get there or to leave there without using it until the arrival of flying.  

At first this thought seems incompatible with the observation that Ireland is not thought of as an old seafaring nation in the manner of England, Portugal or the Netherlands.  This is explained by the history in which the peak years of seafaring fame were ones in which Ireland was in union with England and Wales.

And so, in an Irish country house by the sea we came across this; a letter from Admiral Nelson in the era when Irish bays were suitable resting places for English fighting ships.

What struck me about the letter - quite exciting to see a real letter from such a person in such a place - was what it is about.  A great battle won perhaps?  A secret disclosure for the King's attention?  A theological observation (he was, after all, the son of a clergyman)?

It is, mundanely, a request for a new sail for his ship.

No matter how great a man or a woman is, they are nothing unless they can catch the winds that blow.  And this is the more true of any Christian, for we all need to be able to be moved for God the Holy Spirit, the wind of heaven.

Holiday Pics 2: Poundland

British readers will probably feel a tinge of familiarity in this picture.  'Those are colours that look familiar', we think.  Even in our local High Street there is a store looking almost exactly like this - only with another name.

Yes, Muswell Hill - and many other British shopping streets  - has this colour scheme in the form of Poundland.  This is not a name that translates very easily into a country like Ireland that doesn't use the pound.

There are those who believe that this works for God too.  Jesus here, but something else in another context.

Not so, it turns out. 

8Then Peter, filled with the Holy Spirit, said to them: “Rulers and elders of the people! 9If we are being called to account today for an act of kindness shown to a man who was lame and are being asked how he was healed, 10then know this, you and all the people of Israel: It is by the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, whom you crucified but whom God raised from the dead, that this man stands before you healed. 11Jesus is

“ ‘the stone you builders rejected,

which has become the cornerstone.’ ^a

12Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven given to mankind by which we must be saved.”

Holiday Pics: 1. In the Cell

St Canice's Cathedral in Kilkenny is interesting in very many ways.

As with all ancient cathedrals in the Republic of Ireland it is Church of Ireland (Anglican, Protestant) not Roman Catholic.  This is an ecclesiastical remnant of British rule when Ireland's ancient foundations departed Catholicism with the English establishment rather than the local majority.

It also contains the remains of an Anchorite Cell.

The nun would enter the cell, thereby dying to secular life.  Dedicated to a life of prayer, the cells of Anchorites were usually by the altar so they could receive the Eucharist.  On entering the cell, the Bishop recited a rite that closely resembled the funeral liturgy: this really was dying to the world.

Protestants eschew such medieval practices.  I was, however, speaking to a Christian lady recently.  She had been baptised many moons before, but no longer attended any church (or Eucharist) on account of being far too busy.

I thought of this when I thought of the Anchorite. 

I'm too Protestant to believe it is a great thing for a young woman to be in a cell by the altar for life.  But I can't help feeling it has its strengths over against a life that has forsaken the altar entirely for a life barely Christian in its expression at all.

Top Funeral Songs 2018: 1. My Way

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs (now containing no Christian songs or hymns).  I'm looking at the merits and demerits of the top ten, and here is number 1 (no surprise to those of us who frequent crematoria) - 'My Way' (Frank Sinatra)

Why it's good for a funeral:

It celebrates individuality.

Why it's bad for a funeral:

The sentiment in the song is the direct opposite of Christian discipleship.  Without (presumably) intending to be,  it is about as deeply offensive to Christian faith as it is possible to be.

Line that's most like a Christian song:

And now, the end is near

Line that's least like a Christian song:

For what is a man, what he has got, if not himself then he has naught.

A Quote from (singer) Frank Sinatra:

'Alcohol may be a man's worst enemy but the Bible says, "Love your enemy"'.

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

Because if I did it my way it was a waste of a whole life.

A better Christian alternative:

This is a hymn we sang (yes, I was there) at the memorial Service for Martin Lloyd-Jones in 1981.  If you can spare the time, absorb it and reflect on how opposite it is to the sentiments of Sinatra's mistakenly much-loved croon.

Here is a recording of that singing:

Top Ten Funeral Songs 2018: 2. Time to say Good-bye (orig. Con te partiro)

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs (now containing no Christian songs or hymns).  I'm looking at the merits and demerits of the top ten, and this time number 2 - 'Time to say Good-bye' (Andrea Bocelli and Sarah Brightman) . . .

Why it's good for a funeral:

It IS 'Time to say Good-bye'.

Why it's bad for a funeral:

Its English translation from the Italian is widely regarded as gobbledygook [see example below].

Line that's most like a Christian song:

Then I know you are here with me

Line that's least like a Christian song:

Mm. A lot to choose from, including lines shouldn't be in any song.  How about
'over seas that I know now, no, they don't exist any more.'

A Quote from (singer) Sarah Brightman:

'We are all made up of stars and all of us are billions of years old.  That's what I believe, at least.'

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

Because even if I did want a secular song I'd want one that I'd understood.

A better Christian alternative:

'When we all get to heaven
What a day of rejoicing that will be
When we all see Jesus,
We'll sing and shout the victory!'

Top Ten Funeral Songs 2018: 3. Over the Rainbow (Eva Cassidy)

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs (now containing no Christian songs or hymns).  I'm looking at the merits and demerits of the top ten, and this time number 3 - 'Over the Rainbow' (Eva Cassidy) . . .

Why it's good for a funeral:

It has wistful longing, reflecting feelings associated with Eva Cassidy's own early death from cancer and, more recently, Ariana Grande's response tribute to the Manchester Arena bombing of 2017.  Though originally it hails from Judy Garland and The Wizard of Oz.

Why it's bad for a funeral:

It rather misses the point of a rainbow which is SomeONE over it rather than someWHERE.

Line that's most like a Christian song:

What a wonderful world.

Line that's least like a Christian song:

Someday I wish upon a star.

A Quote from (singer) Ariana Grande's grandpa:

"You know what you should end with? 'Over the Rainbow'" [so, after the Manchester bombing, she did]

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

It may be a wonderful world but by my funeral I'll have seen the last of it.  And it's not that wonderful compared to where I trust by the grace of God I might be going.

A better Christian alternative:

All the wonderful world - but with soul and a hope.

Top Ten Funeral Songs 2018: 4. Wind beneath my wings (Bette Midler)

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs (now containing no Christian songs or hymns).  I'm looking at the merits and demerits of the top ten, and this time number 4 - 'Wind beneath my wings' performed by Bette Midler  . . .

Why it's good for a funeral:

It thanks God (just about).

Why it's bad for a funeral:

It's all about the other person - presumably the dead one - so a bit late to sing it to them.

Line that's most like a Christian song:

Thank God for you.

Line that's least like a Christian song:

So I was the one with all the glory.

A Quote from (singer) Bette Midler:

'I celebrate everyone's religious holidays.  If it's good enough for the righteous, it's good enough for the self-righteous I always say.'

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

It seems doggerel to me, and I'm nobody's hero.

A better Christian alternative:

Top Ten Funeral Songs 2018: 5. Angels (Robbie Williams)

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs (now containing no Christian songs or hymns).  I'm looking at the merits and demerits of the top ten, and this time number 5 - 'Angels' - (Robbie Williams)  . . .

Why it's good for a funeral:

Great melody and sort of other-worldly.

Why it's bad for a funeral:

Angels have their uses but they're a poor substitute for their Boss.  Death is a big deal and needs the Boss.

Line that's most like a Christian Song

And I know I'll always be blessed with love

Line that's least like a Christian song:

I'm loving angels instead

A Quote from (singer) Robbie Williams:

Sometimes I feel like I'm sailing on a sunken dream.

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

Nothing against angels, but this song is like requesting the funeral director's window cleaner instead of the director themselves - how about loving God instead?

A better Christian alternative:

[Hail the day that sees him rise]

Highest heaven its Lord recieves

Yet he loves the earth he leaves

Though returning to his throne

Still he calls us all his own.

Top Ten Funeral Songs 2018: 6. Supermarket Flowers (Ed Sheeran)

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs (now containing no Christian songs or hymns).  I'm looking at the merits and demerits of the top ten, and this time number 6 - 'Supermarket Flowers' performed by Ed Sheeran  . . .

Why it's good for a funeral:

It was written for a funeral and it has God in it - although strangely the God in this song says, "Hallelujah" (which means Praise God . . .).

Why it's bad for a funeral:

It's a personal tribute song with little to do with anyone else's loved one.  A bit like listening to the funeral before the one you're at.

Line that's most like a Christian song:

So I'll sing Hallelujah

Line that's least like a Christian song:

'Poured the old ginger beer down the sink'

A Quote from (singer) Ed Sheeran:

Everything will be okay in the end.

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

It's about someone else's family and private grief.

A better Christian alternative:

Hallelujah! sing to Jesus,
  His the scepter, His the throne;
Hallelujah! His the triumph,
  His the victory alone . . .

Top Ten Funeral Songs 2018: 7. Unforgettable (Nat King Cole)

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs (now containing no Christian songs or hymns).  I'm looking at the merits and demerits of the top ten, and this time number 7 - 'Unforgettable' performed by Nat King Cole  . . .

Why it's good for a funeral:

Funerals help us remember - to make someone more unforgettable.

Why it's bad for a funeral:

It's nothing to do with death, life in general, or life beyond death - just a sweet romantic song.

Line that's most like a Christian song:

It's incredible that someone so unforgettable thinks I'm unforgettable too.

Line that's least like a Christian song:

'Darling' [It's the one word in the song that means, however hard you try, you can't associate it with your relationship with God!]

A Quote from (singer) Nat King Cole:

'I'm in the music business for one purpose - to make money'

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

I have no interest in being unforgettable - at least by humans. 

A better Christian alternative:

Top Ten Funeral Songs 2018: 8. You Raise Me Up (Westlife)

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs (now containing no Christian songs or hymns).  I'm looking at the merits and demerits of the top ten, and this time number 8 - You raise me up, popularised by Westlife, covered by half the music industry . . .

Why it's good for a funeral:

Norwegian Rolf Lovland originally wrote the music for his own mother's funeral. (Brendan Graham wrote the lyrics).

Why it's bad for a funeral:

It doesn't contain God (unless you supply him by how you mean the words).

Line that's most like a Christian song:

You raise me up to more than I can be

Line that's least like a Christian song:

[Not applicable - as Brendan Graham was for a while a Catholic Seminarian it all has Christian echoes]

A Quote from (writer) Brendan Graham:

'Keep a green bough in your heart and the singing bird will come'.

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

It is so much like a hymn I might as well have a real hymn which honours God rather than one that reflects a hopeful ideal.

A better Christian alternative:

.

[There is a Redeemer . . .]

When I stand in Glory

I will see His face

And there I'll serve my King forever

In that Holy Place

Thank you, oh my father

For giving us Your Son

And leaving Your Spirit

'Til the work on Earth is done

Top Ten Funeral Songs 2018: 9. We'll meet again (Vera Lynn)

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs (now containing no Christian songs or hymns).  I'm looking at the merits and demerits of the top ten, and number 9 - We'll meet again, sung by Vera Lynn:

Why it's good for a funeral:

It sounds hopeful.

Why it's bad for a funeral:

Dying is not much like going off to war (the song dates from 1939 and the hope of sunnier, post-war times down the track).  Over 99% of UK military personnel outlived the Second World War.  The percentage for general death survival hovers around 0%.  (Though at the time of writing Vera Lynn is closer to cheating this statistic than most of us - she's aged 102!)

Line that's most like a Christian song:

We'll meet again

Line that's least like a Christian song:

Don't know where

A Quote from (performer) Vera Lynn:

Seeing a severely disabled five-year-old smile, or his parents laugh, reminds me that giving up isn’t worth it — persistence can be so rewarding.

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

I wasn't alive in World War 2.

A better Christian alternative:

.

[Ten Thousand times Ten Thousand . . .]

O then what raptured greetings

On Canaan's happy shore.

What knitting severed friendships up

Where partings are no more!

Then eyes with joy shall sparkle

That brimmed with tears of late;

Orphans no longer fatherless

Nor widows desolate.

Top Ten Funeral Songs 2018: 10. Always look on the Bright Side of Life [Eric Idle]

2018:  The Co-operative Funeral Services list of Top Ten Funeral Songs now contains no Christian songs or hymns at all - for the first time.  So let's take a look at the merits and demerits of the top ten, starting with 10th place : Always look on the bright side of life;

Why it's good for a funeral:

It makes you feel you can laugh.

Why it's bad for a funeral:

It doesn't give you any grounds to laugh in death

Line that's most like a Christian song:

You know, you came from nothing

Line that's least like a Christian song:

Life's a laugh and death's a joke, it's true

A Quote from (writer) Eric Idle:

Life doesn't make any sense, and we all pretend it does. Comedy's job is to point out that it doesn't make sense, and that it doesn't make much difference anyway.

Why I don't want this song at my funeral:

The song is originally sung to the Jesus figure (Brian) on the cross in Monty Python's Life of Brian film.  So not only is it meaninglessly defiant rubbish, it's origin is blasphemous too.

A better Christian alternative:

On that bright and cloudless morning when the dead in Christ shall rise,

And the glory of His resurrection share;

When His chosen ones shall gather to their home beyond the skies,

And the roll is called up yonder, I’ll be there.

[A brightness of a better sort.]

The Glory of Salvation

Among the questions we ask is: why does God not bring all the sufferings of this world to an end RIGHT NOW - assuming he can?

Today at our Fellowship meeting we thought about the words 'NO LONGER', found in many Bible verses.  Including this one in Revelation 22: 

No longer will there be any curse. The throne of God and of the Lamb will be within the city, and His servants will worship Him.

Yes but - why must we wait for that happy day?

In any Lifeboat Station, as in the picture above, a place of honour is given to the record of salvation.  What, after all, is a lifeboat that has never saved?  There is no lifeboat in our back garden pond, and no frightening waves or storms, but there is also no record of salvation there.

The same book of Revelation that reveals the coming day when the curse is no longer also reveals the adoring praise of heaven to the Saviour, the Lamb at the centre of heaven's glory.  His glory is the salvation he has accomplished, the salvation is from the cursed environment of sin.

So the agonies of this world are the backcloth of his glory, a trick pulled by Satan and rebels like me that has backfired to the glory of the God against whom we sinned.  The storm of sin has - and continues to - produce ever more praise to the one whose grace saves human beings from the curse of their own making.

And they sang a new song: "Worthy are You to take the scroll and open its seals, because You were slain, and by Your blood You purchased for God those from every tribe and tongue and people and nation

Easter Weekend translated for cats?

Good Friday

Today I heard again these lines that so profoundly describe the meaning of this day:

From the "Holy, Holy, Holy,

We adore thee, O most high,"

Down to earth's blaspheming voices

And the shout of "Crucify!

Notre Dame et Notre Seigneur

I am not well travelled, but even with my limitations it was not hard to dig into my pictures and find one of a recent (rainy!) visit to Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris, one of the most visited tourist sites in the world.

And yesterday France, to its horror, saw a great fire that reduced the great building to what appears little more than a stone shell.  The French President prioritised a site meeting and vowed that it shall be rebuilt.  At first hearing this appears an unlikely ambition for the ultra-secular French Republic - but an icon is an icon.  Hundreds of millions of Euros are already promised for its restoration.

'The World weeps', reads one newspaper headline, thereby conveniently forgetting hundreds of millions of people in the Muslim and the Eastern world who either don't know or certainly don't care that Notre Dame exists.  It is a little hard to imagine the refugee camps along the Turkish border feeling that this morning they have lost something important.

What a contrast there is, this Easter Week, between the way we regard a Christian cultural icon and the way we regard the One that Christianity is all about.

Not for him a nation hanging a tearful head in mourning;

Not for him a National Leader making pledges of restoration;

Not for him a world weeping or a tweet from Rome's Imperial Palace.

Not for him (despite the written appellation the King of the Jews) a declaration that we have all lost a part of us.

A mocking crowd;

A Governor who has washed his hands;

A world that didn't notice;

A man abandoned, betrayed, denied even by his friends - not a part of us, said Peter.

May the flames of the icon, inflame our love for the Saviour to whom, at its best, the icon seeks to point.

Parliamentary Chaos: we could all do better - couldn't we?

Our hearts skip a beat, our excitement is almost uncontained, the sky is blue, the Members of the the UK Parliament are going to spend the day parleying.  

Whilst this is - as the name suggests - what they are supposed to do, their parleying is usually about what the Government of the day is doing or about to do.  Today they are, as far as we can tell, just parleying.

And, it so happens, our Church has a meeting to conduct business this very same evening.  There is a natural instinct for us all to feel we could to better than the current Members of Parliament are doing.  But can we be so sure.

1653.  Lord Protector Oliver Cromwell is trying to sort out Parliament, and the Bible and the Churches are figuring large in the Protector's consciousness.  They decide to go for a thoroughly Biblical 70 members - the same as the Jewish Sanhedrin.  (An irony here, for the Sanhedrin proved less than perfect in the light of Jesus the Messiah's encounters with them.)

Not enough, it proved: So 144 (12x12) was settled upon as a larger, thoroughly Biblical number.  Thence to the appointment.  A few were appointed more directly, but to this Nominated Assembly churches of various kinds - including baptist-type churches - were given the power to elect Members of Parliament from their ranks.

Such a godly, Biblical set up.  What could possibly go wrong? 

To be fair, starting in April, the Parliament achieved some notable benefits for the nation.  But then the religious arguments broke out.  The State Church shouldn't be the State Church, said some Baptist and Quaker types.  Yes it should, said the State Church types.  Doing to that Parliament what Brexit has done to this one it all descended into acrimonious chaos.  Cromwell sighed and dissolved the very Biblical Parliament.

Perhaps the clue is found by pondering the Gospels observation of the 12 disciples as they bickered and misunderstood their Lord.  Whatever we think of the current crop of politicians, to err is certainly human: it is not uniquely their problem.

Brexit and the folk on Thorney Island

Brexit has preoccupied another week of UK news, and it has taken (briefly) the horror of the New Zealand terrorist attack to dislodge it.  Brexit has proved and is proving a very thorny issue for the House of Commons.  Just round the corner is a street that perhaps makes that point:

Perhaps a Lord Thorney was a nobleman, or a mayor of Westminster or the owner of a big house in the street.  But no, this street is named after the island once nearby - Thorney Island.

The island was formed by the Tyburn River dividing as it entered the River Thames. It was surrounded by mud, almost fully flooded when the rivers overfilled and it was populated, we assume, by much wild, thorny vegetation.

Its inhospitable, isolated setting explains why it was chosen by the monks of the first millennium for their house and abbey.  The abbey was unsurprisingly called Thorney Abbey.  In relation to the East Minster in London, this abbey became known as West Minster and, as you know, the name has stuck.  A king added a Palace and then a Parliament arrived.

The monks, to put it mildly, would be surprised to find the Westminster of today.  Perhaps, though, they would not be surprised to find that all the collected wisdom of the 650 (actually 642 thanks to Sinn Fein abstentionists and the ever present spectre of death) souls who famously occupy the spot amounts to nothing much more than the thorns they cut down long ago.  The journey from prayer to palace to parliament to pandemonium is an invitation to complete the cycle back to prayer.

Mercy on the 134 bus

A few stops down the road from us one of London's latest knife attacks took place - on a bus.  The next day I sat on the same numbered bus and all of a sudden a 134 bus felt all bad.

The Curate's Egg is famously used to describe the part-good, part bad.

The wit derives from the curate awkwardly answering the Bishop that his bad egg is good in some parts.  Awed by the Clerical Eminence he is too timid to agree that it is all bad.  But a bad egg is, of course, just bad.

Life is a curate's egg of good and bad.  Only in the bad, such as on my 134 bus, it rarely feels that there's another chunk that is/was/will be good.  Only one organ may be diseased but the whole body seems bad;  only one neighbourhood gang is hostile, but the whole place feels unsafe; only one charge relating to one incident is made in court against you but you feel wholly criminal; only one relative is dangerously ill but the whole family lives under a cloud.  And so on. 

Psalm 23 does this in reverse. 

Goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life. 

Part of life is goodness from God.  And the other part?  Well, others may call it badness, the wrong side of the street, a run of bad luck or the going getting tough.  But for the believer it is interpreted as the place of God's Mercy.  Was my bus ride no longer good?  Then it had become a place, for me, of mercy instead.  But no less divine.

Selling Baptist Life: Part 3. Making a Mockery

Having forked out £19 million for a very interesting old religious building, an upscale hotel franchise has to decide what to do with it.  One option is to ignore its history.  Another is to embrace it a little (Bunyan's pristine restored statue - see Part 1).  In the end though, whether we are standing by Noah's half-built ark, by Jeremiah prophesying in encircled Jerusalem or at the foot of the Son of God's cross at Golgotha the unchanging inclination of an unbelieving world is to resort to mockery.

Over the years my sense of humour, not least in churches, has irked some primpy souls so it is from such a personality that I write that the way the hotel has appropriated Biblical themes in the old Baptist House is not funny at all.

I'm OK with The Baptist Grill conjuring memories of several church interviews.  Or even that person who doesn't leave after church with the others but lurks, waiting for the pleasantries to be over so that they can deliver their unpleasantry!

But hereon you may like to refer to the hotel's website (click here), a venue 'Devoted to the Divine.'

'Chef Tony Fleming will preach the gospel for seasonal British ingredients'

'In an irony Oscar Wilde would have appreciated a place of piety has been transformed into a place of decadence'

'The business of L'Oscar is to put every temptation in front of its guests'

'The Baptist Bar: Succumb to Temptation . . . sip on a 'New Testament' cocktail.'

'Perfect for a late night pilgrimage'

All in all it shows up the problem of building religion into stone and not into souls.  For while those who served the Lord they loved in that place are largely gone into His nearer presence where they cannot be mocked, their building and heritage in stone has fallen victim to the mercilessness of a secular age.

Selling Baptist Life: Part 2. Alexander MacLaren

'This Memorial Stone was laid by Alexander Maclaren D.D. LittD., President of the Baptist Union 1875-76 and 1901-2 on Wednesday 24th April 1901.'

Many of us have benefited from the Dr Maclaren's sermons, published with an enthusiasm not so far short of those of C H Spurgeon (though without the same earthy wit).  What would the good doctor make of the disengagement of this building that he witnessed in its proud inauguration?

He might do quite well - here is Maclaren preaching on God's refusal, delivered by the prophet Nathan, to allow King David to build him a house (i.e. a Jerusalem Temple):

Unless we can with our hearts rejoicingly confess, 'Thou art the King of glory, O Christ! Thy kingdom is an everlasting kingdom,' we do not pierce to the full understanding of Nathan's prophecy.
He, that is Christ, has built the true Temple, in that His body is the seat of sacrifice and of revelation, and the meeting-place of God and man, and inasmuch as through Him we are built up into a spiritual house for an habitation of God. In Him is fulfilled the great prophecy of 'My Servant the Branch,' who 'shall build the Temple of the Lord' and 'be a Priest upon His throne.' In Him, too, is fulfilled in highest truth the filial relationship... In that filial relation lies the assurance of Christ's everlasting kingdom, for 'the Father loveth the Son, and hath given all things into His hand.'

God's work is never ultimately about buildings.

Selling Baptist Life - Part 1: The Statue

Years ago, in the heart of one of the world's greatest cities, there was a building that was used by Baptist Christians.  I could have found that out by research, but the actual reason that I know is that I went there.

It was not a building that was especially encouraging.  It looked and smelled as though the maintenance level was determined by the needs of the budget more than the needs of the premises.  Nevertheless it represented the Great Baptist Headquarters and it was in Central London.  (To be technical it is not in London at all but in Holborn aka London Borough of Camden - the Free Churches have always been and remain almost entirely outside the City of London).

The Grand Vision that bequeathed the building to the current generations of British Baptists was that of early 20th Century Free Churchmanship, the same sense of Grand Vision that bequeathed a beautiful Edwardian church in Muswell Hill where I serve - complete with its galleries that imitate the old Langham Hall where the Promenade Concerts first began.

No Baptist congregation today would build such a chapel, and neither would the Baptist Union of today build the building in Southampton Row.  And so, in 1989, the building was sold. Today it is a hotel. Yet these old buildings are hugely instructive and symbolic and Baptist House is the more so for having been sold.

Here's the outside:

Yes, that's right.  A statue.

It is not very easy to understand a statue on Baptist House.  Baptists, after all, have scant love of statues and even at the height of ecumenism (the movement that blurred some lines between denominations in the hope of a visible unity) Baptists rarely had much positivity toward statuary.

Given the Biblicist nature of Baptists we might have expected a Biblical figure - John the Baptist perhaps?  Instead, leaving Biblical figures to the Catholics and High Anglicans the Biblical Baptists resorted to congregationalist John Bunyan.  He was probably, but not certainly, a Baptist too.  And famous.  But quite what a passer by is supposed to do with him remains a mystery.  Surely not a slight bow?  Not a garland on a saints day?  What, then?

Anyhow, fascinatingly the renovation of the building to an upscale hotel included bringing the statue into pristine condition, such as had not been seen since, perhaps, about 1905/6 as the London grime took hold.

Statues, you see, pose no threat.  Whereas the real John Bunyan was put in gaol, his statue can be secularly renovated without fear that it will ever do harm.  That's why we need living faith and not stonework.