The Outs and Ins of New Year

A New Year is coming! 

Scarcely ever can so many people have been looking forward to a better 'next year'.

Alfred, Lord Tennyson:

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky, 

The flying cloud, the frosty light; The year is dying in the night; 

Ring out, wild bells, and let him die. 

Ring out the old, ring in the new, 

Ring, happy bells, across the snow: The year is going, let him go; 

Ring out the false, ring in the true. 

Ring out the grief that saps the mind, 

For those that here we see no more, Ring out the feud of rich and poor,  

Ring in redress to all mankind. 

Ring out a slowly dying cause, 

And ancient forms of party strife; Ring in the nobler modes of life, 

With sweeter manners, purer laws. 

Ring out the want, the care, the sin, 

The faithless coldness of the times; Ring out, ring out thy mournful rhymes, 

 But ring the fuller minstrel in. 

Ring out false pride in place and blood, 

The civic slander and the spite; Ring in the love of truth and right,  

Ring in the common love of good. 

Ring out old shapes of foul disease, 

Ring out the narrowing lust of gold; Ring out the thousand wars of old, 

Ring in the thousand years of peace. 

Ring in the valiant man and free, 

The larger heart, the kindlier hand; Ring out the darkness of the land, 

Ring in the Christ that is to be. 

Twinning

What British town might best be twinned with Bethlehem?

Musing on this I feel that perhaps a city twinned with Bethlehem ought to be - well - holy and perhaps very old. We might think of St Albans, with a history going back to Roman times and architecturally dominated by a great Abbey Church and Cathedral honouring an early martyr of Christ. Not very Middle Eastern though.

The most obvious place to twin with Bethlehem has, in a sense, already started. It is a little Carmarthenshire village once known as Dyffryn Ceidrich. The village chapel was (not unusually) called Bethlehem and such was the overwhelming nature of the spiritual revivals experienced in the area and the smallness of the village that somewhere in the mists of history the village stopped being known by its original name and took on the name of the chapel. Hence Britain has its very own Bethlehem, complete with nearby sheep.

However the truth is that just one British place is twinned with Bethlehem. I confess to a whiff of pride as Diane and I are former residents of that place. On the other hand, even as I write this article, my head continues to involuntarily shake from side to side in a kind of deeply disturbed bewilderment. For the British city now twinned with Bethlehem is....

Glasgow.

Yes, that Glasgow. Rangers and Celtic, Billy Connolly, Barlinnie Prison and a homing device for Atlantic low pressure areas. Whether I was climbing over a sozzled seasonal celebrant on the underground, fighting the wind and rain between shops on Sauchiehall Street, queuing in a launderette full of students or sitting in a bleakly dark and forbidding kirk, thoughts of Bethlehem rarely surfaced in my student life in Glasgow - even near Christmas!

Yet thinking on, Bethlehem and Christmas are all about incongruous twinning.

I don’t know what angelic heralds do after a major performance - do they get straight on with heavenly ministry or do they take time out? If the latter then surely, as the shepherds made their expectant way down to Bethlehem to see the Christ-child who was Lord of glory, one of the heavenly chorus muttered to another, "I just don’t understand why He would twin with them"

King of kings, yet born of Mary,

As of old on earth He stood,

Lord of lords, in human vesture,

In the body and the blood;

Happy Birthday Kim!

Kim Walker-Smith is 39 today.  Happy Birthday, Kim!  If this was the only worship she had sung we would be grateful for her, her voice and her Lord.

A Nation's Day

As I drove through a chill November fog this morning my thoughts headed north. For not only is it cold - it is also St Andrew's Day, the national day of Scotland (which, for the time being at least, is part of the same country as I am).  I shivered.

 

I decided to think warmer thoughts.  There is another country that celebrates its national day today, and its a LOT warmer.  

 

Barbados!

 

You'll be wanting the words of the National Anthem perhaps? Here's verse 2:

 

The Lord has been the people's guide
For past three hundred years.
With Him still on the people's side
We have no doubts or fears.
Upward and onward we shall go,
Inspired, exulting, free,
And greater will our nation grow
In strength and unity.

Thanksgiving Wisdom: 4. Flattery

The culture of the United States accepts, far more willingly than that of the UK, the idea of talking people up.  As someone who worked in the US I went through strange reactions to this.

At first I hated it, wanting my old British realism.

Then I started to love it.  How much more motivating to be told how great you are!  I started to see why many Americans I knew exhibited far more confidence than we did in the UK.

Then, later, I started to revert to type.  Flattery can only take you so far, and sincerity seemed a more beautifying companion.   Donald, are you reading?

Wherever this braggadocio derived from, we can be confident it did not travel over on the Mayflower from members of John Robinson's congregation in Leiden.  For he said of flattery:

Flattery is in all cases and persons a base sin . . . but in ministers of God's holy Word is most pernicious.  How few are there so hating their vices as may not rather seek friends that cover their faults than cure them by faithful reproofs.  A man needs no other flatterer than his own partial heart to infatuate him. 

Thanksgiving Wisdom 3. God's Love

As tens of millions have travelled in the United States to celebrate Thanksgiving with their families, it is a reminder of how much love there is in families.  Isn't it?

Maybe, maybe not.  

The public health officials travelling to gather in mixed ages from different States may just be the most dangerous thing a group can do towards each other mid-pandemic.  Endangering each other is not love.  And here lies an example of the problem with love. 

We define our own love.  And we will not be told what love really is by anyone else.  Including God.

John Robinson, the Pastor of the Pilgrim Fathers, was wise enough to see that self-defining love is true of just one being - God.  He wrote:

God loveth himself first and most as the chiefest good

Jesus made the same point in the prayer to His Father in John chapter 17.  

“Father, I want those you have given me to be with me where I am, and to see my glory, the glory you have given me because you loved me before the creation of the world.  

God lived, love lived, before any human love.  And any human love is to be defined by God, not human beings.  And this offends us very much, but that doesn't change its truth.

Love in the creature ever presupposeth some good, true or apparent, in the thing loved, by which that affection of union is drawn.

Our love is a victim of our unreliable attraction to things and people, sometimes worthy, sometimes pleasant, sometimes dodgy, sometimes criminal. But our love reaches out to what attracts us.  But God?

But the love of God, to the contrary, causeth all good to be produced in the creature.

His love gives the goodness rather than seeking it out.  Jesus came to seek the lost, the sick, the unlovely, the dead, the criminal, the leper.

Like all Western Countries - but bigger and better of course - the United States has a culture of self-defining love. Holywood has helped it along fabulously.  Yet 400 years ago those pilgrims were fed by their Pastor a view of love which would draw out holiness rather than Holywood.  And may that wisdom not disappear from either side of the Atlantic completely.

Thanksgiving Wisdom: 2. Scripture and Knowledge

The coronavirus virus has done strange things to people's view of science.  People have disregarded it and depended upon it all at once.  Not two groups of people, one disregarding, the other depending, but a kind of overlapping internal confusion.  

Christians have struggled with this too:  praying for a cure from science and from God and not sure if God likes science.  Praying to God about the worrying data and fearful modelling while wanting to ignore the fear and trust 'the promises'.

John Robinson offered this wisdom to his people: 

When we avow the Scriptures perfection, we do not exclude from men common sense and the light of nature.  Yea, we ... beg of God as necessary for their fruitful understanding the light of His Holy Spirit.

Or to put it another way. the Scriptures teach us that God is the giver of all good gifts, so the benefits of science are from Him.  The work of scientists using the light of nature and common sense is no less from God than the Biblical promises they (maybe unwittingly) fulfil by supplying us with more safety. 

Thanksgiving Wisdom: 1. Not Back to Normal

In this week of Thanksgiving in America, I'd like to look back to the Pilgrims from whom the festival derives.  They have become lost in the current ferment of the United States, a later political creation, but 400 years ago a body of people set sail on the Mayflower (well, they actually set sail on another ship first) to join other settlers on the shores of the New World.

Many were from a church in Holland that had been formed from Christians fleeing England, and they have become known as the Pilgrim Fathers. The majority of the Church in Leiden, Holland stayed back, as did their Pastor.  It was the younger, more adventurous who set sail, yet the harsh conditions took many of their lives in the opening years of settlement.   Thanksgiving was born out of gratitude for their first Harvest.  

John Robinson, their Pastor, never did the journey from Holland (though he had previously fled England of course).  Yet his wisdom and determination played a large part in the Mayflower story and I want to look at a few things he said or wrote:  first this, from a letter to a sympathetic English nobleman who had supported them throughout:

It is not with us as with other men, whom small things can discourage, or small discontentments cause to wish themselves at home again . . . we hope not to recover our present helps, neither look ever to attain the like in any other place in our lives . . .

This quotation reminds us of wisely adopting a pilgrim spirit in this world.  Covid-19 has left everyone wanting to recover normality - these pilgrims understood they were giving up a lot in order to go forward.

As the disciples might have done when they left their nets by Galilee to follow Jesus. With Jesus most of the good things are in front, not behind.

Baptists for a pandemic: 3. Joseph Binney

Augusta, Georgia' figures in the modern media each year.  It's golf course annually hosts one of the four great world Tournaments.  It is known for its pristine beauty - a far cry from a windy links course on the coast of Britain, for example.

Augusta is, for America, an old city.  It sits on the border of South Carolina.  In the mid 1800s it was part of the increasing influence of the Baptists, though also pointedly in their North-South divisions regarding slave ownership.

Pastor Joseph Binney and his wife arrived at its First Baptist Church because they had been unable to stay in Burma (today, Myanmar).  Ill health had cut short their missionary endeavours.  

The safer environs of Augusta did not turn out to be safe however.  In 1854 an epidemic of Yellow Fever arrived in the city.  You can be vaccinated for Yellow Fever today - but there is still no medical cure if the mosquitos win.  

Deaths were reported, and the people of the city fled.  The Binneys left the city but lived nearby, Joseph returning each day to minister to the sick and dying.  The missionary who had been defeated by ill-health, was found in its midst.

Almost inevitably, Joseph eventually caught the fever.  

He survived.

He not only survived, but recovered sufficient strength to leave Augusta - and return to Burma as a missionary!

Here was a man, a family, whose calling was stronger than their challenges.  May we be like them.

Baptists for a pandemic 2. John Bunyan

When Church of England envoy Terry Waite was held captive in Beirut by Hezbollah in the late 1980s he famously received a postcard from well wishers in England.  It bore an image in stained glass of John Bunyan writing in prison.  The meaning was - good can come from confinement.

It is impossible to overestimate the literary and spiritual value of Pilgrim's Progress, a book so skilled that people of any religion and none can enjoy it while deep-thinking Christians can mine it and children can engage easily with its story.  It is inevitably still mentioned in lists of primary English literature.

Yet Bunyan spent about 12 of his 60 years in gaol.  He was primarily known in his day as an Independent/Baptist preacher but his lasting fame belongs to his writing and his writing owes much to his years of lockdown.

Very unwise it is of us to dismiss lockdowns as unproductive.  Had Bunyan been a Baptist Pastor today he would have been out of prison more but, if he had written anything, it probably wouldn't have outlived him.  I feel I know - I've read what today's preachers write . .. 

Baptists for a pandemic: 1. Thomas Grantham

I have been reading about some Baptists who I think are very useful for our pandemic season.

First, and on one level most interestingly, I begin with Thomas Grantham.  That I hadn't heard of him on July 12th will be obvious from my blog of that day.   But that is to my shame.  For Thomas Grantham was very well-known in the 17th century.

It is important to note that what I am about to reveal is not at all unique to Thomas.  He was the most famous advocate of the position because at the time because he was, well, famous.  His book Christianus Primitivus was one of the great early Baptist theologies.

Thomas Grantham represents a marked strand in Baptist history that rejected congregational singing.  As Baptists, more than most, we are bewailing our loss of freedom to sing in the pandemic.  It is peculiar to note that our forefathers were quite strongly opposed to the practice.  One cantor singing a Psalm was the preferred rule.

We imagine Thomas Grantham to be very 'strict', but that turns out to be false.  Thomas Grantham held the view that 'Christ died for all', which was a 'General' Baptist 17th century interpretation, creating an openness and evangelistic edge that many stricter Baptists (and others) rejected.

The next time I complain of a year without congregational singing I will remember that some of the most formative years of Baptist fellowships were decades without congregational singing.  So no excuses for us complaining that we can't go on like this!

God in the Garden 3. Seeing Beyond

When we arrived at our house and to this garden there were one or two potted leftovers from previous residents. 

They were either flowering or livening up toward that happening.  It was nice to have a garden hose (our previous house didn't have an outside tap) to help them on their way.

One pot, however, looked a lost cause . . .

Looking at the single flower at the bottom and no apparent buds anywhere else it appeared a waste of a good pot.  I made a mental note to get a good plant for it the next year.  But i watered it anyway.

And suddenly in July - over about two days - it turned into this,  A riot of flowers that essentially buries the leaves!

This has helped my in pandemic ministry.  It feels alot like the leafy, productless pot.  But the watering goes on; perhaps obedience, perhaps habit, perhaps desperation, perhaps faithfulness.

May the God who made and cares for the flowers, care for all of his work in the hearts of mankind too.

God in the Garden 2. Hidden Problems

It even surprises me.

When we filmed the Easter Morning pandemic recording in the garden there was the awkwardness of a derelict pond motor cupboard, used by a previous resident to create a flowing water feature.  It is clearly many years into its decay.

'Why,' I wondered, 'have I never fixed it?'   

I ventured my best explanation - that in the summer it was hidden, because in truth I could hardly remember thinking about it in days in the garden over the years.

And so it proved to be.  I simply hadn't realised how totally the greenery in the pond left the old cupboard out of sight and out of mind.  Here it is in the summer:

That is why it is never fixed!

As we thought about at Easter, the reason for the coming and sacrifice of Jesus is because sin is never hidden from Him - it required action.  The reason why humankind can be equivocal about, blase towards or disinterested in the great salvation Jesus achieved is because we simply cover up our sinfulness to ourselves and among ourselves.  It doesn't need fixing, so we don't need Jesus.

This strategy fails to take account of the end of the story - where what God sees is the basis of our eternal accountability.

God in the Garden 1. Life from the Cross

Like Church leaders of all kinds, I spent significant lockdown time broadcasting from the garden.  I'm very blessed, especially in London, to have a garden.

Maundy Thursday - what a long time ago that feels - our family was in lockdown with Covid in the house.  For our online Maundy Communion (watch here) we needed a cross.  As it happened, my wife had made her own from two old garden twigs because she had done her school's online Easter talk.  We used that very stark-looking cross.

When summer came, we sat in the garden in happier circumstances - and one day looked at that cross:

Out of the apparently dead wood was growing a flower.  It is a fantastic picture of the hope that God offers during a dead year, and that he always offers through the cross to the soul who turns his way.

Pandemic Parables 6: Whether or not we're indoors . . .

Jesus also said, “This is what the kingdom of God is like. A man scatters seed on the ground. Night and day, whether he sleeps or gets up, the seed sprouts and grows, though he does not know how. All by itself the soil produces grain—first the stalk, then the head, then the full kernel in the head. As soon as the grain is ripe, he puts the sickle to it, because the harvest has come.” 

This is perhaps the most encouraging of parables for the church in a pandemic.  The list of what can be done in building relationships for the Kingdom is very much shorter.  The possibilities for the winter ahead are filled with uncertainties, and even next summer is tough to plan towards.  Whilst some expressions of Christianity are more content with a low-key private or contemplative approach, Baptist and Evangelical Christians have always viewed life as seizing opportunities and working for them when they are missing.  More like Jesus' Galilean ministry than his earlier Nazareth days of carpentry.

Another parable I cited was about the sower sowing the seed.  It reflected different kinds of soil productivity.  This little parable from Mark's Gospel is about providence.  The farmer must do something - sow the seed - but then cannot really do anything.  Whether locked down (asleep) or up and busy, the soil produces the grain.

This does not entirely reflect modern agriculture - but it brilliantly reflects 2020 church work.  Thank you, Jesus!

Pandemic Parables 5. Accountable to myself

Today I availed myself of the Government's 'Eat Out to Help Out' scheme.  Walking around a sparsely populated city block I say a mainly empty cafe and took up the offer of the half priced lunch.  I would have eaten anyway, which seems to me to point up the ludicrous nature of the scheme - but if you're a tax payer - thanks!!  It was nice.  

My table had a QR code.  This was how I was to register for the NHS Test and Trace scheme.  As a diligent enforcer in our church, I felt i ought to co-operate, even though it was hardly prominent.  But I'm not great with QR codes, so after a few complications on my phone I gave up and enjoyed my sandwiches anyway.  As far as I could tell I was the only person in the Cafe even trying to use the code.

That's how we like it.  An important regulation - qualification - that we can choose to ignore.  In the end, it's my decision.

Jesus spoke to them again in parables, saying: “The kingdom of heaven is like a king who prepared a wedding banquet for his son . . .

“Then he said to his servants, ‘The wedding banquet is ready, but those I invited did not deserve to come. So go to the street corners and invite to the banquet anyone you find.’ So the servants went out into the streets and gathered all the people they could find, the bad as well as the good, and the wedding hall was filled with guests.

“But when the king came in to see the guests, he noticed a man there who was not wearing wedding clothes. He asked, ‘How did you get in here without wedding clothes, friend?’ The man was speechless.

“Then the king told the attendants, ‘Tie him hand and foot, and throw him outside, into the darkness, where there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’

“For many are invited, but few are chosen.”

My hunch is that, in the minds of very many people Jesus, the Gospel, salvation, being born again,  believing all figure like the Kingdom of Heaven's QR Code.  Maybe we should attend to him/them but in the end, let's wing it - 'after all my great grandad went to Church' (actually mine didn't as far as I know).

The question arises whether God's judgment and final entry into Heaven's Kingdom will operate with the laxity of the cafe I visited - or indeed the Government's own enforcement.  If so, a great deal of sin is going to be part of that kingdom and eternity looks very uninviting for us all.   But as Jesus' parable points out, God's Kingdom will ultimately require the right clothes - it is a Wedding Banquet, not a Cafe.  Being dressed right is the only way in, and the only way to be dressed right is to put on the new clothes the King has provided, Jesus, the Gospel, salvation, being born again,  believing.

Pandemic Parables 4. Working with what you've got

So we can't sing; we can't have refreshments, we can't stay long in church, we can't sit near each other, greet each other, touch each other, share communion bread, baptise, organise events for invitees, visit people in their homes, serve people indoors at a soup kitchen . . .

“Again, here is what the kingdom of heaven will be like. A man was going on a journey. He sent for his slaves and put them in charge of his money. He gave five bags of gold to one. He gave two bags to another. And he gave one bag to the third. The man gave each slave the amount of money he knew the slave could take care of. Then he went on his journey. The slave who had received five bags of gold went at once and put his money to work. He earned five bags more. The one with the two bags of gold earned two more. But the man who had received one bag went and dug a hole in the ground. He hid his master’s money in it.

“After a long time the master of those slaves returned. He wanted to collect all the money they had earned. The man who had received five bags of gold brought the other five. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you trusted me with five bags of gold. See, I have earned five more.’

“His master replied, ‘You have done well, good and faithful slave! You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

“The man with two bags of gold also came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘you trusted me with two bags of gold. See, I have earned two more.’

“His master replied, ‘You have done well, good and faithful slave! You have been faithful with a few things. I will put you in charge of many things. Come and share your master’s happiness!’

“Then the man who had received one bag of gold came. ‘Master,’ he said, ‘I knew that you are a hard man. You harvest where you have not planted. You gather crops where you have not scattered seed. So I was afraid. I went out and hid your gold in the ground. See, here is what belongs to you.’

“His master replied, ‘You evil, lazy slave! So you knew that I harvest where I have not planted? You knew that I gather crops where I have not scattered seed? Well then, you should have put my money in the bank. When I returned, I would have received it back with interest.’

“Then his master commanded the other slaves, ‘Take the bag of gold from him. Give it to the one who has ten bags. Everyone who has will be given more. They will have more than enough. And what about anyone who doesn’t have? Even what they have will be taken away from them. Throw that worthless slave outside. There in the darkness, people will weep and grind their teeth.’

Ah.

So the Kingdom of God is not about what we have or haven't got.  It's about what we do with what we have.

Pandemic Parables 3. What's happened to the seed?

Jesus explains his Parable of the Sower (which we often note is really the parable of the soil - and the seed).

“Listen then to what the parable of the sower means: 

When anyone hears the message about the kingdom and does not understand it, the evil one comes and snatches away what was sown in their heart. This is the seed sown along the path. The seed falling on rocky ground refers to someone who hears the word and at once receives it with joy. But since they have no root, they last only a short time. When trouble or persecution comes because of the word, they quickly fall away. The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful. But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”

Most of us preachers have spoken on this story quite a few times.  But now I see the pandemic here.

It appears in the form of thorns.  

The seed falling among the thorns refers to someone who hears the word, but the worries of this life and the deceitfulness of wealth choke the word, making it unfruitful.

The worries of this life.  That's a pandemic.  You don't have to catch it to be choked by it spiritually.  The promises of the Word overwhelmed by the latest Government edict, the light of the word lost behind the clouds of despair, the search for a vaccine a deeper longing than the search for a Saviour.  

Though a seemingly gentle, rustic parable there is brutal reality here.  Farming is quite brutally realistic at times.  The pandemic will find people out.  Assumed spiritual growth will be found to be wanting and corners of the spiritual landscape will deny the Lord of the Harvest.

None of this means that the harvest will be disappointing - to the contrary it will be amazing and wonderful.  But will it include me?  And you?

Pandemic Parables 2. Within 2 Metres

Among the best known of all Jesus' parables is that of the Good Samaritan (Luke chapter 10):

“And who is my neighbour?”

 Jesus replied, “A man was going down from Jerusalem to Jericho. Robbers attacked him. They stripped off his clothes and beat him. Then they went away, leaving him almost dead. A priest happened to be going down that same road. When he saw the man, he passed by on the other side.  A Levite also came by. When he saw the man, he passed by on the other side too.  But a Samaritan came to the place where the man was. When he saw the man, he felt sorry for him.  He went to him, poured olive oil and wine on his wounds and bandaged them. Then he put the man on his own donkey. He brought him to an inn and took care of him.

Very early in the lockdown it occured to me that this parable now illustrates a fundamental Christian problem derived from the pandemic.  This has been reinforced as, with leaders everywhere, I share the agonies of trying to get some sort of meaningful restart to church life.

In this parable social distancing is seen to be the safe course, and the respectable passers by stick, I would imagine, to a good 2 metres.

But the only way to be in the will of God is to get close.  

Now to be clear, this is hardly directly relevant to the church choir standing close, or the greeting hug at the door, or serving communion in a common cup.  It is, however, illustrative of the difficulty of  doing God's will in a pandemic.  

At a stroke it has separated our church - and almost every church - from developing contacts with the lost, the poor and those we meet on the road of life.  We can keep them and ourselves apart and go to our Zoom meeting - but the result is that we are not able to be the neighbours we were told to be.

The pandemic is making it very hard to do God's work.

Pandemic Parables 1. It isn't going to happen . . .

Life has changed a lot in 2020.  I've been thinking about how it changes the way I look at some Parables of Jesus.

Like this one:

Matthew 25:1-13

“At that time the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went out to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish and five were wise. The foolish ones took their lamps but did not take any oil with them. The wise ones, however, took oil in jars along with their lamps. The bridegroom was a long time in coming, and they all became drowsy and fell asleep.

“At midnight the cry rang out: ‘Here’s the bridegroom! Come out to meet him!’

“Then all the virgins woke up and trimmed their lamps.  The foolish ones said to the wise, ‘Give us some of your oil; our lamps are going out.’

“‘No,’ they replied, ‘there may not be enough for both us and you. Instead, go to those who sell oil and buy some for yourselves.’

“But while they were on their way to buy the oil, the bridegroom arrived. The virgins who were ready went in with him to the wedding banquet. And the door was shut.

“Later the others also came. ‘Lord, Lord,’ they said, ‘open the door for us!’

“But he replied, ‘Truly I tell you, I don’t know you.’

“Therefore keep watch, because you do not know the day or the hour.

This parable speaks into the pandemic's most amazing and controversial issue - preparedness.  Put simply, we (that is the whole world) didn't see it coming.  Look up any example of 'Looking ahead to 2020' on the internet and you will not find a trace of the coronavirus - but plenty about the Olympics and Brexit.  This absence of foresight even applies to this report about China (where the virus was already known to exist late in 2019).

We won't get a practice run for Jesus' Return.  But I think that Covid-19 is a reasonable echo which has quickly (but not in the blink of an eye, 1 Corinthians 15) re-ordered the world without an army or an assembly being able to stop it.

Surely this generation will never live quite so complacently ever again?  But then again, the parable suggests that even those who should be attuned to watching, become drowsy.  Great shocks can speak to unpreparedness, but cannot cure it.

May the Holy Spirit of God reach the drowsy souls before midnight.

How can I keep from singing?

It has been a surreal experience to return to the church building for Sunday morning worship these past two weeks.  Certainly things were feeling pandemically safe, but then again so is the local cemetery (for its residents).  We have some imaginative ideas for worship in the weeks ahead: but singing with our voices seems a distance away.

It is easy to OVERestimate the importance of singing.
The viral rise of the Contemporary Christian Music industry (CCM) has left most of us wondering how we ever found God without five of this year's new songs being sung.  Yet astonishingly we did.  You don't have to be a Quaker to object that God is at work when songs are silent.  Countless believers have spent years or lifetimes imprisoned or isolated in such ways as to render congregational singing a distant dream.  The Bible enjoins and reports praying far more often than singing (especially in the New Testament!).

But it is easy to UNDERestimate the importance of singing.
Most religions have some kind of music and song, but Christianity is full of it.  Whole service forms are based around singing, and whole church traditions defined by its forms (Anglican Evensong, Hillsongs, Gaelic Psalms).  One look at our church building gives the clue that singing is part of it . . .

. . . the organ, the choir stalls, the piano, the drums, the screen (mainly for projecting song words).
Singing, in Christianity, is an expression of the fundamental joy of a saving faith.  It is not a necessary rite; it is more than that.  Christianity is a new song.

Shai Linne: George Floyd and me

To my mind, Shai Linne's piece is required reading:

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/george-floyd-and-me/

In case you don't get to it's end (or the link disappears) - this is how it ends:

For me, “life as usual” means recognizing some people perceive me as a threat based solely on the color of my skin. For me, “life as usual” means preparing my sons for the coming time when they’re no longer perceived as cute little boys, but teenage “thugs.” Long after George Floyd disappears from the headlines, I will still be a black man in America.

And you know what? I thank God for that! He knew exactly what he was doing when he made me the way he did. Despite the real and exhausting challenges that come with my outward packaging, I know that I’m fearfully and wonderfully made. And I wouldn’t want to be anything other than what I am: a follower of Jesus Christ who has been saved by grace and redeemed by the blood of the Lamb—who also has brown skin and dreadlocks and does hip-hop.

Good News in a Pandemic: 7. Warning

STAY HOME

STAY ALERT

KEEP YOUR DISTANCE

WASH YOUR HANDS

DO NOT TRAVEL

SELF-ISOLATE

The last few months have multiplied the warnings.  Even though they're becoming more complicated these days they keep on coming.

It's not that warnings, including Government warnings, are anything new.  There is a whole industry of them, like packets of peanuts with warnings that the packet contains nuts.  It is just that they are now serious news - and well received by most, however unpalatable they appear to be for our comfort zone.

The renaissance of the warning as good news is itself good news.  Through increasingly complacent times the idea that the Bible warns has been offensive almost, that God warns irritating, that the Holy Spirit warns best avoided and the Jesus warned (he did it a lot) just perplexing.

Given that the Bible begins (in a perfect relationship between God and Man) with a warning, and that its last chapter is replete with warnings, we should better understand warning as a positive thing.

What is a pandemic if it is not a general warning to humanity?  The birds don't care, the moon doesn't mind, no angel has caught Covid-19 and nobody who died before last November had it either.  It is a warning to the people of now - to me, to you - that life is finite, material things are temporary, relationships are precious, and attention must be given to our soul's relationship with its Maker before we are brought face-to-face with Him.  That's where the Good News of a Saviour comes in - it was the most important thing after all . . .

Good News in a Pandemic: 6. Ascension Day

Charles Haddon Spurgeon explains why, however sad we may feel, this day (perhaps more than any other) reminds us that we now have reason for great joy!!

Our Lord is risen from the dead; 

Our Jesus is gone up on high; 

The powers of hell are captive led— 

Dragged to the portals of the sky. 

I have known that one thought of our Lord’s exaltation lift me up from the borders of despair, in a dread hour, long since past, when reason almost reeled after great calamities had overtaken me. I recovered my balance and my peace of mind, in a single moment, by the recollection of that one text, “Wherefore God also has highly exalted Him, and given Him a name which is above every name.”

So long as He lives and reigns, all is well. Men may rave at me as they will, but what does it matter so long as He is exalted?  I want you, dear friends, to feel like that concerning your ascended Lord. Go home [During the pandemic we would amend to Stay Home!], and worship Him, and be filled with great joy.  

Good News in a Pandemic: 5. NHS (etc.)

Someone writing about the National Health Service was wistfully observing that it seems to have become a national religion.

There is no doubt that the NHS is held in high regard by most Britons - even ones who might tolerate the opposite extreme in the USA were they living there.  The pandemic centres everyone on doctors, nurses and paramedics and in the UK they are synonymous with the NHS.

Thus every Thursday we clap our praise to our religion in the form of community thanks for NHS staff (more recently widened to care workers in general). 

Normally applause is reserved for sportspeople, for actors or for speeches.  But when we are sick, or when we fear we might be sick, we suddenly see the value of the doctors and nurses.

"It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick", said Jesus (Luke 5:31).  "I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

It is the person who needs a Saviour - who knows they need a Saviour - who praises Jesus the Saviour.

Good News in a Pandemic 4. Creation

There is no doubt that Genesis reveals human beings as the crown of creation. 'So God created man in his own image; in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.' [Genesis 1:27]

Time and again, though, the Bible demonstrates that they are not the totality of creation.  Take, for example, these verses from Psalm 104:

8 

The mountains rose, the valleys sank down

    to the place that you appointed for them.

9 

You set a boundary that they may not pass,

    so that they might not again cover the earth.

10 

You make springs gush forth in the valleys;

    they flow between the hills;

11 

they give drink to every beast of the field;

    the wild donkeys quench their thirst.

12 

Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell;

    they sing among the branches.

13 

From your lofty abode you water the mountains;

    the earth is satisfied with the fruit of your work.

14 

You cause the grass to grow for the livestock

    and plants for man to cultivate,

that he may bring forth food from the earth 

and wine to gladden the heart of man,

15 

    

oil to make his face shine

    and bread to strengthen man's heart.

16 

The trees of the Lord are watered abundantly,

    the cedars of Lebanon that he planted.

17 

In them the birds build their nests;

    the stork has her home in the fir trees.

18 

The high mountains are for the wild goats;

    the rocks are a refuge for the rock badgers.

The Lord Jesus references creation many times; most starkly on Palm Sunday when he tells the critics of praising children in Jerusalem that if they silence the children the very stones on the hillsides will begin praising instead.

So, a pandemic certainly appears to mute human praise on earth.  Literally, because we cannot meet to sing and speak our praise - but perhaps also psychologically because we are emotionally and mentally reduced by the whole experience of lockdown and its attendant life inputs.

Yet we are but a part of creation.  

And the rest of it seems to be having a much better time!

The Lord may weep with us but He has plenty of reason to smile with many of the creatures and plants he has also made as the streets clear, the air clears and nature finds her voice.

Good News in a Pandemic: 3. Prophecy

Jesus said, "There will be great earthquakes, famines and pestilences in various places and fearful events and great signs from heaven." (Luke 21:11).

While each of the first three Gospels devotes a chapter's length to Jesus' prophecies of things to come, in the good times that are now past there has been a strong preference to avoid them.  Better by far (it has seemed) to speak and think about the Parable of the Lost Sheep, the healing of the lepers or the welcoming of little children.  The good news is not in those scary prophecies.

However, now we see why Jesus told us about such things.  If our faith is in Jesus we are glad to find that the pestilence which has knocked the 21st century world sideways is perfectly in keeping with our Saviour and our Heavenly Father's plans.

Had Jesus only predicted the good times, then we should lose our faith in Him.  Instead we can learn the lesson of the fig tree.  In his words, "When its branch becomes tender and sprouts leaves you know that the summer is near.  In the same way, when you see these things, know that [the Master] is near, at the gates." (Matthew 24:33)

Good News in a Pandemic: 2. Science

Science (from the Latin word for. knowledge) has been good news in the pandemic.  Indeed it offers the only plausible way out for the full resumption of life as we knew it.  Or if the coronavirus miraculously disappeared we would rely on science to find the explanation to reassure us.

I have chosen science as my second area of good news because it is usually placed in opposition to, or more likely in superiority to, God.  It is, more truthfully, a gift from God.

Science is good news when we understand its boundaries.

1. The Information Boundary: It informs but does not decide

As the UK tries to leave national lockdown it is always, we are told, led by the science.  But at the daily news conferences it becomes clear that the scientists in the room (two usually), are quick to point out that there are decisions that will have to be made and that these decisions will be political.  

Or to put it another way - they can see the numbers but do not wish to make decisions about the choices on offer.  Indeed, scientists actively disagree with the ones that appear in Downing Street - creating decisions that need to be made between scientists.  

We misuse science when we imply that it has the answers.  It has the information (in varying degrees of certainty).  Could an all-powerful deity have created the first two human beings?  Scientifically he could have and there are other theories too.  What I believe about that is a decision, not a piece of scientific data. Informed, not led, by the science.

2.  The Finite Knowledge Boundary: It is the best we know but not enough

The advances in knowledge have been phenomenal in recent centuries.  Just take the fact you are reading this via the internet, possibly on a phone.

There is a widespread undercurrent of fake news that assumes science explains everything in the world around us.  Only the most arrogant celebrity scientists allow that view because good scientists know that there is much they do not know.

An important piece of good news in this pandemic has been seeing scientists addressing the public honestly, explaining they do not have an answer when the public are desperate for one.  To treat our knowledge as finite is an important humility for humans.  When we sigh a relief after science has helped us through this virus, we will remember for a generation that science does not yet know the next virus, and so on.

3.  The Earthly Boundary:  It is earthly not heavenly

If the plague angel in Revelation 21:9 (remember that angel?) gives a whole new perspective on plagues it is worth reflecting that no science can ever investigate Heaven's perspective.  Science (even cosmology) looks at things from earth and from humans.  Revelation (both the book and the principle) shows us the other side of  things.

Arguably, the other side - the heavenly side - is the only one that ultimately matters, and it is certainly the one that matters most.

Good News in a Pandemic 1. God

There is no shortage of bad news in a pandemic.  As it is over a hundred years since Western societies really had a proper community-battering one we don't know what to think.  Whereas in the busy rush of working, travelling, dealing, chilling, training, coffee-drinking, sport-watching, family visiting and so on there is precious little time to think, we now have time to think.  But think about what?

"Whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is just, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is commendable, if there is any excellence, if there is anything worthy of praise, think about these things." Philippians 4:8

Guaranteed to tick all these boxes is . . . God.  Let's think about God.

No, wait, Western societies don't do God any more.  This is a pandemic for the politicians and the scientists.  The odd mention or two for religion - the Pope at Easter, the Jews at Passover and the Muslims now in Ramadan.  But no National Day of Prayer - because collectively we don't believe in God.

And so we miss the good news.  Here's Revelation 21.

5 And he who was seated on the throne said, “Behold, I am making all things new.” Also he said, “Write this down, for these words are trustworthy and true.” 6 And he said to me, “It is done! I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end. To the thirsty I will give from the spring of the water of life without payment. 7 The one who conquers will have this heritage, and I will be his God and he will be my son. 8 But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable, as for murderers, the sexually immoral, sorcerers, idolaters, and all liars, their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulphur, which is the second death.”9 Then came one of the seven angels who had the seven bowls full of the seven last plagues and spoke to me, saying, “Come, I will show you the Bride, the wife of the Lamb.” 10 And he carried me away in the Spirit to a great, high mountain, and showed me the holy city Jerusalem coming down out of heaven from God, 11 having the glory of God, its radiance like a most rare jewel, like a jasper, clear as crystal.

Why is this significant just now?

Verse 9.

An angel points John to the most amazing vision of the people of God, the bride of (Jesus) the lamb.  But this is one of the angels who also had the bowls of the plagues (described with all-too-graphic power in chapter 16).

Looked at through the lens of God plagues are an ordered and holy thing (chapter 15).  They may intrude upon the churches of earth and our patterns of worship but they ultimately speed the Church's finest hour when this earth is over and glory begun.

The Lord travels with us through earthly agonies as our Saviour and Friend - but do not ever mistake his loving presence for weakness, his sharing of our journey for a lack of sovereignty, his passion and compassion for powerlessness.

No, the world's bad news is part of the divine good news.  The very angels under whose watch humanity is brought low, pull the believer away to a sight where human beings in Christ are brought indescribably high by grace alone. 

In the words of Jesus (Luke 21), 'There will be signs . . . on earth dismay . . . when these things begin to happen look up because your redemption draws near!