Moving Immoveable Mountains

When the service came to an end Stefan recognised a couple he knew from days gone by.  He got engrossed in conversation and I stood by.

I was itching to talk to the person who had taken the service.

I looked around.

He was nowhere to be seen.

I rushed to the door and saw him disappearing over the other side of the park we had walked through to get to the park.

Honouring the Olympic Legacy I set off in pursuit and was quite out of breath when I caught up with him.

I was glad I did.

It wasn’t long before we were in deep conversation … and a good twenty minutes had passed.

It wasn’t long after I came to Highbury in 1991 that we were joined in the congregation by a young girl from Meissen in what until two years before had been East Germany.  She was doing a year’s voluntary work, but the placement she was on collapsed.  She found a replacement in Nottingham and I arranged to meet her at a training weekend that September.  She turned up at our Centre in Nottingham at her wit’s end – the placement was appalling, the accommodation worse.

So it was we put an ad hoc placement together, supported her in staying in Cheltenham for the rest of her year and Katja became the first of our volunteers.

She was the first of a number of a wonderful series of volunteers from Germany, the UK and Poland.

Then came the round-robin email to all the churches of Gloucestershire looking for a pastoral placement for a student who was coming from the Geissen seminary in Germany to study at the University of Gloucestershire.  We offered him a placement – and he made his mark wonderfully.  Before his year was out he suggested a friend and colleage from Geissen might follow in his footsteps as he was coming to do a PhD.

Stefan and Birgit joined us for three wonderful years.

Stefan, a German, having completed his PhD in English soon announced he and Birgit were going to learn Portuguese and he was going to take up a post at a theological seminary in South America – Faculdade Teologica Sul Americana in Rolandia, Brazil.

We’ve been in touch since and we at Highbury provide a way for people to give their support to Stefan and Birgit.

After four years of mission work in Brazil they are back in Germany, in Marburg for six months and will join us in October.  When he invited me to join him at the bi-ennial conference of the Fellowship of European Evangelical Theologians in Berlin, it was an opportunity not to miss.

So it was I found myself catching the 4-30 bus from the Royal Well a week last Thursday morning, and meeting Stefan in the Tegel Airport at lunch time.

It was a stimulating weekend with some thought-provoking papers and a wonderful opportunity to share in what was very much an academic conference, something I had not experienced quite in that way before.

Beyond the Bible – in mission and practical theology was the theme – and speakers ranged over biblical and theological subjects in a stimulating way.  Much food for thought that I will be digesting and, perhaps not quite the right word (!) re-gurgitating before too long!!!

The conference didn’t begin until Friday evening.

On the Thursday afternoon Stefan and I explored the Pergamon museum, Berlin’s equivalent of the British Museum with the Altar to Zeus from Pergamon which 40 years earlier on my one student adventure to Turkey and Greece I had missed when I visited Pergamon itself.  So where’s the altar itself, we enquired … in Berlin came the response.  The Pergamon altar is to Berlin what the Elgin Marbles are to London – a wonderful display.  The museum was full of interest to any student of the Bible with so many artefacts from the Ancient Near East.

Then on Friday came for me the highlight of the weekend.

I hadn’t seen Stefan since my visit to the Holy Land.  I had much to share.  It was fascinating talking with others with a different perspective on the Holy Land.  One thing came across very powerfully that a tour round the museum reminded me of.  That was the impact the archaeology, the historical sites had on my reading of the text.

I shared with Stefan a conversation I had had with a young Bethlehem lad who had just finished his studies to become a guide to the biblical sites.

What text would I read differently, having visited the Holy Land?  I asked him.

Without a moment’s hesitation this was the text he quoted.  Matthew 14:20

For truly I tell you, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, “Move from here to there”, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.’

I had always thought of any mountains I had recently seen.  But visiting the summer palace and mausoleum of King Herod the Great, towering on a mountain overlooking Bethlehem, and visitng the remarkable Temple mount in Jerusalem, we had been all too aware of the sheer power and brute force of King Herod and his building achievements.

It was wonderful meeting a couple of PhD students and a couple of staff from the Geissen Seminary where Jurgen and Stefan had studied.  They were just the same kind of spirit as our two friends – it was wonderful!  One was in charge of the Bookshop.  On the last day I wrote in a book about the world of the Old Testament and the Ancient Near East for Stefan while he inscribed an introduction to Josephus the Jewish 1^st century historian.  It was a book by someone from Geissen so seemed very appropriate.

I read it through on my return journey.  It was fascinating to see my impressions of King Herod the Great confirmed in reading that account.  He was one who could literally move mountains – the summer palace he had sliced the top of the mountain off – at the Temple Mount he had levelled the mountain top off and extended it too. 

The power of the king who could literally move mountains and his dynasty was closely linked with the awesome power of the Romans.  It was a sheer strength that nothing could topple in the time of Jesus.

This, suggested, my guide was perhaps at the back of Jesus’ mind.

Have faith, hold on to that faith that is so much a part of you … and when your faith wavers, keep holding on.  Even if it is but the size of a grain of mustard seed … yet it has a power that nothing in the world can prevail against it.

You don’t need the brute force of Herod and his armies of builders, or the brute force of Rome and its armies of legionaries – have faith and say to this mountain, move from here to there, and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.

That’s the power of faith.

It was the hope the exiles had expressed so powerfully when they longed for a return from exile.  The route from far off Babylon back to Jerusalem was a tough one – so hard.  With hills and mountains, rough places and valleys to negotiate.

Isaiah of Babylon had a wonderful vision – hold on to your faith, keep believing.  For come the day and

Every valley shall be lifted up,

And every mountain and hill be made low;

The uneven ground shall become level,

And the rough placves a plain.

Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed …

What a wonderful vision.

They held on to their faith … and the return from exile came.

And John the Baptist came with those words echoing in his words as he faced the immoveable mountain of Herod the Great and the Roman regime.  It seemed that they got the better of John with his execution … but Jesus took up where John left off.

It seemed they got the better of Jesus at his crucifixion but on the third day he rose again and nothing could keep him down.

It seemed they had the last word with the fall of Jerusalem and the destruction of the temple.

But no, that young man in Bethlehem said – the immoveable mountains were moved in the fullness of time.  Hold fast the faith … even if that faith is the size of a grain of mustard seed.

IN the two years before I arrived in Highbury two remarkable things happened.  In the next six years a third thing happened too.

I had lived until that time with immoveable mountains.  The Berlin Wall, the Iron Curtain, the Cold War were there to stay – nothing could move them.

Apartheid in South Africa and then the troubles in Northern Ireland – were here to stay – nothing could move them.

Immoveable mountains.

But something remarkable happened.

The Peace Process in Northern Ireland, the ending of Apartheid, and in 1989 the coming down of the Berlin Wall.

We had made it just in time for the service.  I really wanted to catch up with the person who had led the service, and I was delighted when I did.

I had something I wanted to present to him.

My predecessor, Eric Burton, as he arrived in Highbury back in 1966 was just finishing off a little book that he published in 1968 dedicating it to Highbury.  It sets out his vision for a church that embraces all ages and all peoples.  It finishes with a vision for a church with, in the words of the book’s title, No Walls Within.

He speaks of the sheer awfulness of a church in East Berlin, cut off from its congregation by the wall only a metre or so from its front door.  A photo was on the cover of the book.  And he holds out the hope that the church can be a church with no walls, no barriers, that’s welcoming to all.

In 1985 the East German regime demolished the church.  But a church is not a building, it’s people.

The people danced in defiance on the wall.

In 1989 the wall came down.

And in 1999 a new church, the Chapel of Reconciliation was built on the spot.

It was deeply moving to here the person who had taken the service telling the story of the church.

He spoke of their vision – it was a vision of reconciliation.  It was a vision to share with the world.  They longed for walls the world over to come down.

I handed over a copy of Eric’s book, with a greeting from the church here at Highbury … and included a greeting from Eric as well.

In my lifetime I have seen the impossible happen.

The wall came down.

The immoveable mountain really did move.

I recall the wall in Bethlehem, in Palestine and I think of the seemingly immoveable mountains there are in the Middle East today.

I think of circumstanes that seem to trap us in our own personal lives.

And I am moved in that place to hold on to my faith.

Every valley shall be lifted up,

And every mountain and hill be made low;

For truly, I tell you, said Jesus, if you have faith the size of a mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there’ and it will move; and nothing will be impossible for you.”

For I am convinced that neither death nor life,

Nor angels, nor rulers,

Nor things present, nor things to come,

Nor powers, nor height, nor depth,

Nor anything else in all creation

Will be able to separate us from the love of God

In Christ Jesus our Lord.