Psalm 23: A Sermon upon the Death of Queen Elizabeth II

1. The Lord is my shepherd 

I lack nothing  . . . and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

The psalm has two main characters.  But they are not EQUAL characters.  The well-being of one – the Psalmist – depends on the other – the LORD.

This is a Psalm the Queen – and her mother before her – loved.  It figured in the Thanksgiving Service in St Paul’s immediately after her death, in St. Giles Cathedral Edinburgh and in her funeral at Westminster Abbey. 

The familiarity of this Psalm masks a great surprise in it.  Compare for a moment the (nearly as well known) Psalm 100 –

Shout for joy to the Lord, all the earth. Worship the Lord with gladness; come before him with joyful songs.

Know that the Lord is God.  It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.

That makes perfect sense.  We are familiar with the Shepherd and the flock of sheep (gathered in the fold or dispersed across the hills).  

But Psalm 23 is not about a flock of sheep. The Psalmist writes from the perspective of just one sheep. 'My Shepherd'; 'leads me'; 'restores my soul' etc.  An individual can know the shepherd’s love and care. 

Although she was the Supreme Governor of the Church of England, the Queen often referenced her personal faith: And as surely as it was true for King David of old and Queen Elizabeth II it can be true for me and for you.  Not a general God-Shepherd and an uncertainty about whether we are in or out of the flock.  A personal grasp that The Lord is my Shepherd.

2. I shall not want 

This cannot mean I will have no problems because most of the rest of the Psalm is exactly about those problems.  There are four that are plain to see:

a. Need for Refreshment

²  He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, ³ he refreshes my soul.

The Queen served us in a phenomenal way for a historic duration.  But she died at a place very dear to her and where she could relax from the hectic Constitutional life of London. Even in London she liked to listen daily to her bagpiper- a reminder of Balmoral!  Part of the secret of her longevity of service is that she did not try to do it 24/7.

What is true for our bodies and minds is true for our souls.  Many people, seeking inner refreshment, turn to a multitude of places and methods.  Yet if we let Our Shepherd lead us this will be seal peace into our souls.

b. Choosing Right over Wrong.

He guides me along the right paths for his name’s sake.

Not only will life’s journey have the capacity to weary us, it also has many ways to go wrong.  It also has paths that are RIGHT. 

No Shepherd choreographs sheep!  They can have choice – but they must he headed away from what is dangerous and bad for them.  Whoever we are, we need to be led by Someone greater than ourselves. In the words of a great Scottish hymnwriter:

Thy way, not mine, O Lord, 

however dark it be;

lead me by thine own hand,

choose Thou the path for me.

I dare not choose my lot;
I would not if I might:

choose thou for me, my God,
so shall I walk aright.
 
The kingdom that I seek
is thine, so let the way
that leads to it be thine,
else I must surely stray.
 
Not mine, not mine, the choice
in things or great or small;
be thou my guide, my strength,
my wisdom, and my all.

c. Dark Times

⁴ Even though I walk through the darkest valley, I will fear no evil, for you are with me; your rod and your staff, they comfort me.

Her late Majesty said, in the year of a major fire at Windsor and of the break up of three of her children's marriages --  “1992 is not a year on which I shall look back with undiluted pleasure. In the words of one of my more sympathetic correspondents, it has turned out to be an ‘Annus Horribilis.’ I suspect that I am not alone in thinking it so.”

More recently she suffered the great loss of her husband on whom she greatly relied.

All of us know such seasons of life’s journey.  The Shepherd is the same, but the environments we travel through are wildly different.

d. Enemies

⁵ You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies. You anoint my head with oil; my cup overflows.

In some of the Psalms the enemies loom very large.  But in this psalm, with this trust, they are simply a background.  Like the Pharisees in the Gospels; the soldiers guarding the tomb and – at Christ’s return one day the Kings of the Earth, they serve only to enhance the central figure – or in the case of Psalm 23 the meal.

The Shepherd reduces enemies to background.

3. I shall dwell in the house of the Lord

⁶ Surely your goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life,
and I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever.

One of the last people that the Queen met at Balmoral, on her last Sunday, was the current Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland.  In his capacity, he had tea with the Queen and they talked about many things.  

In the middle of this conversation, he said, the Queen suddenly talked about the Christian hope and the meaning of our Resurrection. They discussed a while, then moved to another subject.  In the light of the last week he reflected on the fact that she began her last week anticipating life beyond death.

In Psalm 23 the Psalmist does the same.  Faith is not an endless journey.  It is a journey home. 

The Queen took many journeys in her lifetime.  She also had many homes, official and private, that she lived in throughout the UK.  But she could only, this week, have one home that actually matters.

And that’s our story too.  We all have different ‘home’ stories. Maybe we even have more than one home, we own a home, we don’t own a home, we lodge, we live in a shed (yes, someone connected to our church has done that!).

But actually in the end the issue is about whether we have this promise - I will dwell in the house of the Lord for ever - I'm heading home.

Today hundreds of planes will land at London's Heathrow Airport.  Coming from everywhere, hot or cold climates, rich or poor countries, long or short distances, small or large planes - all that then matters is that they land.

Our journeys are all different; but as for Her Majesty the Queen, so for us each and all, we need a Shepherd in life and a Home in death.   

We need the Lord.

Psalm 121: Hope from the Hills

 'I lift up my eyes to the hills,  Where does my help come from?'

Psalm 121 has long been a favourite psalm for many people.  To me it evokes one word - 'Scotland'.   Apart from having live there and the hilly landscape I think it also derives from the Scottish Psalm settings in which I first sang this psalm.

For good measure, here are some Scottish hills:

Whichever way you do the geology, hills are old.  They are also very big.  The Psalmist seems a little awed by the danger he faces, but when he looks to the hills . . . re remembers that his God is the Maker of hills. 

'My strength comes from the Lord who made the heavens and the earth'.

After such a daunting year it is a good thing to look at the hills, and to look beyond them to their Creator.  And to be strengthened by Him.

Psalms in Lent: Psalm 105 - Lockdown Anniversary

The past week marked a year since the UK went into full lockdown.  Nothing in any living Briton's experience of life in the UK prepared us for that day and its subsequent year.

It also marked a year since our household went into lockdown when our nurse daughter came home from hospital with Covid symptoms.

We celebrated the unwelcome anniversary with an Indian curry and a sense of quiet gratitude to God for a year of provision and safety in the storm.

Psalm 105 seemed an apt place to be one day last week in our Lent readings.  In it the story of Israel is recounted, and the providence of God celebrated, which I abbreviate below.  Just one line at the end is, however, significant - that they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws.

When the Lord is merciful to us, it is incumbent on us to respond in faithfulness back to him.  And if not - as Israel was later to discover - it all happens again  . .

O give thanks unto the Lord; call upon his name: 

. . . He is the Lord our God: his judgments are in all the earth.

He hath remembered his covenant for ever,

the word which he commanded to a thousand generations.

When they went from one nation to another,  from one kingdom to another people;

he suffered no man to do them wrong:

yea, he reproved kings for their sakes;

Joseph, who was sold for a servant:

whose feet they hurt with fetters:

he was laid in iron:

until the time that his word came:

the word of the Lord tried him.

The king sent and loosed him;

even the ruler of the people, and let him go free.

Israel also came into Egypt;

and Jacob sojourned in the land of Ham.

And he increased his people greatly;

and made them stronger than their enemies.

He turned their heart to hate his people,

to deal subtilly with his servants.

He sent Moses his servant;

and Aaron whom he had chosen.

They shewed his signs among them,

and wonders in the land of Ham.

He brought them forth also with silver and gold:

and there was not one feeble person among their tribes.

Egypt was glad when they departed:

for the fear of them fell upon them.

He spread a cloud for a covering;

and fire to give light in the night.

The people asked, and he brought quails,

and satisfied them with the bread of heaven.

He opened the rock, and the waters gushed out;

they ran in the dry places like a river.

For he remembered his holy promise,

and Abraham his servant.

And he brought forth his people with joy,

and his chosen with gladness:

and gave them the lands of the heathen:

and they inherited the labour of the people;

that they might observe his statutes, and keep his laws.

Praise ye the Lord.

Psalms in Lent: Psalm 57 Mothers Day Plus

This amazing Psalm begins with the experience that we have all known as the Covid-19 pandemic: disaster barrels through in the manner of a great storm.

For peoples across the world there is nothing new about this, natural disaster, famine, plague, war and ethnic persecution.  For the people of the early/mid 20th century in the UK it came in the form of World Wars.  Yet for people in my generation in the West the coronavirus pandemic has introduced us to the experience this psalm begins in - helplessness in an incoming storm.

The remedy the Psalmist enjoys is the shelter of the wings of God, a motherly picture for Mothering Sunday.

Have mercy on me, my God, have mercy on me,

    for in you I take refuge.

I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings

    until the disaster has passed. (1)

How cosy is that?

But this Psalm is far from finished.  It unfolds a view of God which is infinitely greater than the mother bird's wings, ending (10,11):

For great is your love, reaching to the heavens;

    your faithfulness reaches to the skies.

Be exalted, O God, above the heavens;

    let your glory be over all the earth.

What kind of God is above the heavens and underneath the storm at the same time?  What kind of God can shelter me personally, but also dwarf everything?

The God of the Universe who is the God of the Cross.

Psalms in Lent: Psalm 3 Asleep?

For our Lenten readings as a church we are reflecting on one of the Psalms each day.  

The reflective question from Psalm 3 is, 'What is happening spiritually when I am asleep?'

Psalm 3 is a battle-type Psalm but in the midst of enemies, David anticipates a good sleep 'because the Lord sustains me'. (He wasn't always enjoying good sleep in the psalms, but that's for another day (night?)).

A person's waking faith (say, two thirds of their life) sustains them in their sleep (one third).  After all, a sleeping atheist is actively believing as much as a sleeping Christian; a sleeping Hindu has the same non-theological thoughts as a sleeping Christian - and so on.  For anyone who thinks that our relationship with God depends on what we do - or on what we are actively believing - there is a third of our life that testifies it is down to Him, not us.

Psalm 91: A Psalm for a Pandemic in Lent

The text of a sermon preached at Muswell Hill Baptist Church on March 15, 2020.  This was the church's last meeting before the growing pandemic led the Government to instruct all religious groups to stop gathering in order to hold back the spread of the COVID-19 virus.

We are in unusual times – for us.  

But these are far from unusual times for the human race.  More locally, these are far from unusual times in London.

Every so often you may be checking out the increasingly grim coronavirus statistics.  But in the Diary of Samuel Pepys we find him reading the 17^th century Bills of Mortality:  

Thus this month ends, with great sadness upon the public through the greatness of the plague, everywhere through the Kingdom almost. Every day sadder and sadder news of its increase. In the City died this week 7496; and all of them, 6102 of the plague. But it is feared that the true number of the dead this week is near 10000 - partly from the poor that cannot be taken notice of through the greatness of the number, and partly from the Quakers and others that will not have any bell ring for them. As to myself, I am very well; only, in fear of the plague . .

So we are not at all the first London congregation to turn to Psalm 91 as a pestilence happens around us.

1. This Psalm is for You - personally

Psalm 90 begins this 4th book of Psalms. 

1 Lord, you have been our dwelling-place

throughout all generations.

. . .4 A thousand years in your sight

are like a day that has just gone by,

or like a watch in the night.

5 Yet you sweep people away in the sleep of death –

they are like the new grass of the morning:

It makes uncomfortable human reading  (until you trust in God.)  The individual human being seems very small, part of a tide.  This is what a global epidemic feels like - numbers and statistics and curves and percentages.  And it always was:

The Bills of Mortality began to be published regularly in 1603, in which year 33,347 deaths were recorded from plague. 1625 saw 41,313 dead.  The 1625 outbreak was recorded at the time as the 'Great Plague', until deaths from the plague of 1665 surpassed it.  The official returns for 1665 record 68,596 cases of plague, but a reasonable estimate suggests this figure is 30,000 short of the true total.

Into all these fearful statistics comes Psalm 91.

1 He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High

will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.

2 I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress,

my God, in whom I trust.’

In every ‘you’ in this Psalm it is addressed to the singular.  

HE who dwells – that’s just him, you, me.

The numbers are here of course: 

7 A thousand may fall at your side,

ten thousand at your right hand,

but it will not come near you.

But the number that matters is just you. 

This is a pointed and opportune time to ask this question – how is your personal relationship with God?

ISAIAH 55:6 Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is near.  7 Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon.

If  you must self-isolate in this epidemic – take this Psalm with you – and remember it is for you, not for church.  Provided you too can say:

2 I will say of the Lord, ‘He is my refuge and my fortress,

my God, in whom I trust.’

2. This Psalm is for Salvation but not for Show

a. For Salvation

3 Surely he will save you

from the fowler’s snare

and from the deadly pestilence.

4 He will cover you with his feathers,

and under his wings you will find refuge;

his faithfulness will be your shield and rampart.

14 ‘Because he loves me,’ says the Lord, ‘I will rescue him;

I will protect him, for he acknowledges my name.

15 He will call on me, and I will answer him;

I will be with him in trouble,

I will deliver him and honour him.

16 With long life I will satisfy him

and show him my salvation.’

There are many troubles in this Psalm:

5 You will not fear the terror of night,

nor the arrow that flies by day,

6 nor the pestilence that stalks in the darkness,

nor the plague that destroys at midday.

But His feathers are enough.  They are as a shield, as a rampart.  Feathers so gentle, so powerful.

Lord Craven lived in London when the plague raged. On the plague growing epidemic, his Lordship, to avoid the danger, resolved to go to his seat in the country. His coach and six were accordingly at the door, his baggage put up, and all things in readiness for the journey. As he was walking through his hall he overheard his servant saying to another servant. "I suppose, by my Lord's quitting London to avoid the plague, that his God lives in the country, and not in town." The man said this really believing a plurality of gods.

Lord Craven paused. "My God lives everywhere, and can preserve me in town as well as in the country. I will stay where I am.”

He continued in London, helped his sick neighbours, and never caught the infection.

It is a Psalm to place our trust in because God is personally with us where we are.

b. Not for Show

A Psalm for a Pandemic  - in Lent.  What has it to do with Lent? 

Lent is framed around the forty days when Jesus, in the wilderness, confronted and overcame Satan, the tempter.

LUKE 4:9 The devil led him to Jerusalem and had him stand on the highest point of the temple. ‘If you are the Son of God,’ he said, ‘throw yourself down from here. 10 For it is written [Psalm 91]:

‘“He will command his angels concerning you

    to guard you carefully;

11 they will lift you up in their hands,

    so that you will not strike your foot against a stone.”’

12 Jesus answered, ‘It is said: “Do not put the Lord your God to the test.”’

Satan tempts Jesus with Psalm 91.  It is Jesus’ chance to display his invincibility.  Jesus, instead, shows his obedience to his calling.

Even the most wonderful promises are part of our discipleship, our discipline, our self-denial.  Like the gifts of the Holy Spirit, the promises of God are for Service and for Salvation, not for Show.

Charles Haddon Spurgeon, the great Baptist Preacher in Victorian London told this account of service and salvation in pestilential times:

In the year 1854, when I had scarcely been in London twelve months, the neighbourhood in which I laboured was visited by Asiatic cholera, and my congregation suffered from its inroads. Family after family summoned me to the bedside of the smitten, and almost every day I was called to visit the grave... I became weary in body and sick at heart. My friends seemed falling one by one, and I felt or fancied that I was sickening like those around me… As God would have it, I was returning mournfully home from a funeral, when my curiosity led me to read a paper in a shoemaker's window in the Dover Road. It bore in a good bold handwriting these words: "Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling." The effect upon my heart was immediate. Faith appropriated the passage as her own. I felt secure, refreshed, girt with immortality ... The providence which moved the tradesman to place those verses in his window I gratefully acknowledge, and in the remembrance of its marvellous power I adore the Lord my God.

Nobody can have two homes — two places of ultimate resort. And if the Lord be truly my dwelling place then even in these times, my home is enough and is secure - a home of divine feathers in a hard world.

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.

Sowing and Reaping (Psalm 126)

Today at out Harvest Thanksgiving we considered one of the great Psalms - 126.

5  Those who sow in tears will reap with songs of joy.

6  He who goes out weeping, carrying seed to sow, will return with songs of joy, carrying sheaves with him.

Here's what C H Spurgeon had to say about it 150 years ago:

Heralds of the cross have to do a deal of rough work and toil on. For the Gospel, which ought to be welcomed, is rejected. And as there was no room for Christ in the inn when He became incarnate, so there is no room for the Gospel in the hearts of mankind. Yes, and this makes us weep, since where there should be so much readiness to accept, there is so much obstinacy and rebellion. The Christian worker weeps because, when he does see some signs of success, he is often disappointed. Blossoms come not to be fruit, or fruit half-ripe drops from the tree. He has to weep before God oftentimes, because he is afraid that these failures may be the result of his own lack of tact, or want of grace. I marvel not that the minister weeps, or that any worker for Christ bedews the seed with his tears—the wonder is he does not lament far more than he does. Perhaps we should all weep more if we were more Christ-like, more what we should be.

Christ, the model of the Christian life, assures you of this. He went forth weeping, sowing drops of bloody sweat, sowing with pierced hands and feet that dropped with blood. He went forth sowing living seeds of love, and they are springing up today already in the glory and in the multitudes that are gathered into it. And soon, in the coming and the superior splendour that shall envelop it, the Christ who sowed in tears will reap in joy. Even thus it must be with you. And if this is not enough to comfort you, remember those who have gone before you in this service, who have proved this fact. Think of those you have known, who have not been unsuccessful. When, with hearts broken and bruised, they have spent their life-power in their Lord’s work. Remember Judson and the thousands that this day sing of the Saviour whom he first taught to them. Think of Moffat, in his old age still in the villages of the mission field, not without glorious seals to his ministry. Think of Jamaica, of the wonders and trophies of grace in the South Sea Islands, the multitudes that were turned to Christ during revival seasons in our own land, and in the United States, and you have proof that those that know how to weep and sow, and who go forth from God to the sowing, shall, beyond a doubt, come again rejoicing with their sheaves. 

Foundling Hospital

Growing up attending Church services yields surprising snippets of information.  This is because during seemingly interminable sermons and sometimes prayers, and lacking the multiple resources of mobile phones, the hymnbook became a permissible and available distraction.  So, for example, I always know (but never need to know) that Charles Wesley lived from 1707 to 1788 because on so many pages a hymn ended;

Charles Wesley 1707-88

More mysteriously an occasional hymn hinted at more exotic origins: Scottish Psalter or Latin 4th Century. And then, in a riddle I have only solved in very recent years, Foundling Hospital Collection. 

This Mothers' Day at Church we thought about the story of London's foundlings, children who were taken in to the Foundling Hospital when a mother could or would no longer care for them.  Great chapel services at the Hospital demanded a hymnbook and this hymn, anonymously written, first appeared there.

We reflected on Psalm 27:10 - Though my father and mother forsake me, Yahweh (the Lord) will receive me.  No human being needs to be entirely abandoned, whatever the vagaries of family or city life may inflict upon them.  It was part of London's story then.  Praise God that in very many ways it remains part of London's story in the 21st century through countless agencies of Christian goodwill to the needy of this metropolis.

Psalm 102

St Andrew's Day (today) is Scotland's national day because of alleged stories of ancient saint's relics being taken to and enshrined there.  Thankfully, Scotland has given the world higher spiritual input than this.  Not least, psalm singing.

So,  

• Is it imaginable that God could ever be praised without a band or an organ?  And if so, how poor would that be? Well, that might work actually always bearing in mind the lack of organs and guitars in first century Galilee.
• Could Psalm 102 possibly be intended for singing? A Psalm perhaps, but all that sense of misery in it - and not even an added chorus bit? But yes, the Psalms are for singing.
• Can groups of people do the singing by themselves?  No choir or lead  vocalist? Apparently so.

1 To this my prayer O listen, LORD!
And let my cry for help reach You.
2 In day of grief hide not Your face.
Your list'ning ear toward me O bend;
The day I call, Your answer send,

3 For all my days go up in smoke,
And like a hearth my bones are burned.
4 Like grass my heart is crushed and dried;
I daily food forgotten leave;
5 My skin and bones together cleave.

With sighs and groans my frame resounds.
6 I'm like a desert pelican,
Or like an owl in ruined wastes.
7 I lie awake, as on the roof
A sparrow stands, alone, aloof.

8 All day my foes their taunts repeat;
Those filled with anger curse my name.
9 I food with tears and ashes mix,
10 For You on me in anger frown;
You raised me up to throw me down.

11 An ev'ning shadow are my days;
Like grass I wither soon away.
12 But You, Jehovah, sit enthroned
Forever; Your memorial
Abides through generations all.

Who am I?

Last Sunday we read Psalm 139.  Psalm 139 is one of the most dramatic pieces of Scripture.  It affirms God's total knowledge of us; that he knows us better than we know ourselves.

 

An obvious reason is that he saw my unformed body.  Another that he knows all the days ordained for me.  Our self knowledge of our early life is nil as is our knowledge of our future.

 

What we might excel in is our self-knowledge in adult life - the middling bit.  There at least we can know what we're about even if God knows us better.  Or so we'd like to think.

 

I have always been struck by the disciples' question at the Last Supper when Jesus says someone will betray him.  They asked, "Is it me?" (Mark 14:19).  Do we know ourselves in mid-adulthood?

 

 

I have also witnessed a thousand broken promises made by grown up people - promises made perhaps with great ceremony - only for time to prove that the vowmaker did not know their own heart.  A few days ago I read a glowing statement by a wife writing about her husband after he'd had a great sadness: she wrote of how much it made her realise she loved him.  She added that, looking through their future life, I want to be there for him through it all.  I found the statement scary because I know this model marriage, applauded in several Christian publications, ended with her running off with someone else one Christmas.  Through it all, didn't even mean, as it was to turn out, through very much.

 

The Psalmist wisely ends with a prayer that is ironically often used as a statement of emptiness: Search me!  The believer can add that crucial other word - Search me, God.  The disciples didn't know themselves very well, but they knew who did!

Mrs Green

A year and a half ago, not many miles down the road from my Mum, an elderly lady in a Nursing Home slipped quietly away to meet her Maker.  It was a predictable event, given that she was nearly 111 years old - by any contemporary reckoning her passing was almost overdue.

 

What made Mrs Florence Green's death into news was that she was the last living First World War Veteran.  This is a technical term in that as a 17 year old she joined the newly formed Royal Air Force right at the end of the war and worked a few weeks as a waitress in the Mess but this rendered her a servicewoman and therefore an official Veteran.  By starting late and living long she became the symbolic end of the living human story of the Great War, closing the book on the war to end all wars almost 100 years after it began as the reporter rather beautifully put it.

 So there you have it.

The unpalatable human fact that every single man and woman who served in the First World War died.  On Sunday at the Cenotaph Isaac Watts version of Psalm 90 was sung . . .  Time like an ever rolling stream bears all its sons away.

Some of us feel very blessed to have avoided the historically frequent shortening of life that war brings on the young.  How much more blessed the believer who realises that death itself has been subject to defeat in Jesus; that the sons of time can be the children of eternity in him. 

Through

Yesterday I was at CCK Brighton for John Turner's thanksgiving service.  John was a truly amazing man of God who served that most famous of evangelical churches with quiet, faithful humility.  As with all the best people, the tributes from his family and his church - though from  different perspectives - described exactly the same man and his life.  In evangelical consciousness CCK will forever be associated with Terry Virgo, but like churches everywhere its blessing includes lesser known saints like John who bend their practical gifting to the service of God's people and their mission.  I never remember seeing John other than calm in life, so he will certainly not be other than calm as he rests in the presence of Jesus! 

I loved he wrote his own tribute to be read out.  I was born etc. etc.  This might seem the height of arrogance but of course he wrote it for the opposite reason - to ensure that the audience of the admiring bereaved gave the glory to Jesus, to whom it is rightly due.

One of the words we were led to in Psalm 23 was the word 'through'. Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death . . . Sure there are valleys.  But the valleys are pathways, not destinations!  Praise God. And death is now but a shadow of its former self.

Franklin

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Child Safety

You are the one who put me together inside my mother's body, and I praise you because of the wonderful way you created me. Everything you do is marvellous! Of this I have no doubt.

This is what the Psalmist said to God. Let me add my tip for each baby-to-be-born. Head for Panama.  After you're born, it will be safe to come back.

Ted

Dr.Ted Herbert, Vice-Principal of the International Christian College in Glasgow, speaking at his home church a few days before his death and just a few weeks after suddenly being diagnosed with cancer.



Master, You only are immortal, the creator and maker of all:
and we are mortal, formed from the dust of the earth,
and unto earth shall we return.
For so you ordained when you created me, saying:
'Dust you are and to dust you shall return.'
All of us go down to the dust,
yet weeping at the grave, we make our song:
Alleluia, alleluia, alleluia.