DVD’s of films come complete with extras that include the
Director’s Cut and behind the scenes accounts of how the film was made.
This morning I want to share a ‘behind-the-scenes’ account
of how my thinking has gone this week in preparation for this Second Sunday of
Advent, as we light the second Advent candle and think of Preparation.
I settled on the themes for the Sundays of Advent about ten
days ago and worked out the readings, drawing on material from Embrace the Middle East as we are this Christmas supporting their
Syrian Appeal.
Thanks to encouragement from Judi and Shirley as they have
prepared their anthologies of Poetry and Prayers I have moved away from using
other people’s prayers on the front of the Order of Service sheet to putting
together my own short prayer reflection, seeking to encapsulate the theme of
the day, the sermon itself.
And so on Thursday morning I set to.
I would tell the story of John the Baptist in the first part
of the service and then focus on the song Zechariah sang at the birth of John,
the Benedictus.
The words of the Benedictus touch on the great themes that
are at the heart of our Christian faith.
‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has looked favourably on his people and redeemed
them.
He has raised up a mighty saviour for us
in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of
all who hate us.
Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
and has remembered his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our
enemies,
might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness
before him all our days.
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.’
There are a lot of words there and so I began to look for
the key words and themes.
One leapt off the page at me.
‘Blessed be the Lord
God of Israel,
for he has looked favourably on his people and redeemed them
That word ‘redeemed’ means among many things ‘set them free’
That’s what our Christian faith is all about – we are ‘set
free’. A wonderful freedom to celebrate.
The next is a key thought.
He has raised up a
mighty saviour for us
in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke through the mouth of his
holy prophets from of old,
There are those wonderful passages especially from Isaiah
that we shall be reading as Christmas approaches. They map out what it takes to rule in the kingdom of God
– they establish what it is that all Kings in the kingdom of God
should aspire too. And the tragedy of
those kings is that they failed to live up to these expectations. The wonder of these passages is that Jesus
got it – as he came to usher in the Kingdom
of God, to be the King of
kings, the prince of peace, he modelled all he did on these wonderful
statements.
One such passage is in the beginning of Isaiah 40.
Comfort, O comfort my people,
says your God.
Speak tenderly to Jerusalem,
and cry to her
that she has served her term,
that her penalty is paid,
that she has received from the Lord’s hand
double for all her sins.
A voice cries out:
‘In the wilderness prepare the way of the Lord,
make straight in the desert a highway for our God.
Every valley shall be lifted up,
and every mountain and hill be made low;
the uneven ground shall become level,
and the rough places a plain.
Then the glory of the Lord shall be revealed,
and all people shall see it together,
for the mouth of the Lord has spoken.’
A voice says, ‘Cry out!’
And I said, ‘What shall I cry?’
All people are grass,
The grass withers, the flower fades;
but the word of our God will stand for ever.
Get you up to a high mountain,
say to the cities of Judah,
‘Here is your God!’
See, the Lord God comes with might,
and his arm rules for him;
his reward is with him,
and his recompense before him.
He will feed his flock like a shepherd;
he will gather the lambs in his arms,
and carry them in his bosom,
and gently lead the mother sheep.
This is what John modelled his ministry on – it is what
inspired Jesus. And it has a wonderful
sense out of catastrophe, the catastrophe in the first instance of the
devastation of Jerusalem
and the destruction of exile, comes a sense of comfort … the Good News Bible
captures that finality well.
Encourage the people
of Jerusalem.
Tell them they have
suffered long enough
and their sins are now
forgiven.
Back to Zechariah’s song, the Benedictus.
I worked through it emphasising all the key words and
thoughts and phrases.
‘Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has looked favourably on his people and set
them free.
He has raised up a mighty saviour for
us
in the house of his servant David,
as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we would be saved from
our enemies and from the
hand of all who hate us.
Thus he has shown the mercy promised
to our ancestors,
and has remembered his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our
enemies,
might serve him without fear, in
holiness and
justice before him all our
days.
And you, child, will be called the
prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to
prepare his ways,
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness
of their sins.
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
to give light to those who sit in
darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet
into the way of peace.’
The over-riding theme was one of ‘setting free’ and so I
felt all the rest filled out what that meant.
For me, the covenant, is the wonderful link of love between
the God who is love and the people who are God’s beloved in a relationship of
utter love. And so for me the word
covenant suggests the word ‘love’.
I then sought to encapsulate what this song is saying to me
in a prayer meditation for our Order of Service sheet.
Lord God,
Mighty saviour
You call us to be
A people set free
Set free from hostility
Set free from hatred
Set free with mercy
Set free in love
Set free to serve
Set free for holiness
Set free for justice
You call us
To prepare the way for you
A way of salvation and forgiveness
A way of light in a world of darkness
Guide us in that way of peace
It poses then for me a major question.
Is this an impossible ideal?
When God’s will is done on earth as it is in heaven this is
what it looks like.
Read on into Luke 3 and listen into what John the Baptist
goes on to say as the core of his message and he is passionate this is not an
impossible ideal.
He preaches a message of justice, of sharing, of caring in
following that way of peace.
Read on into Luke 4 and listen into what Jesus has to say in
that first sermon in the synagogue in Nazareth
and he is passionate this is not an impossible ideal.
Good news to the poor, sight to the blind is the keynote of
what he is about. His message is a
message of love for God, love for neighbour, love for enemy too. Forgiveness is the heart of the Gospel
message.
Jesus takes that passage from Isaiah 40 and many others like
it that map out what it takes to rule in a kingdom that is God’s and then
shapes his whole ministry, his whole understanding of kingdom and what it takes
to be king according to that pattern.
He invites us to pray ‘thy kingdom come, thy will be done on
earth as it is in heaven’ and expects us to take this pattern seriously.
It is not an impossible ideal!
Thursday was a busy day for me. In the evening we had the Church Meeting that
saw the confirmation that our new Governance documents have been approved and
sealed and the appointment of our new Ministry Leaders – Shirley
Fiddimore for Worship, Karen Haden for discipleship, Jean
Gregory for mission and outreach and Mary Buchanan
for young people.
The meeting over we set out the chairs ready for our
Christmas Café.
We got home and had just started to watch a TV drama when I
had a text from my older son with the news that Nelson Mandela had died.
We switched over and were absorbed with the coverage of his
death.
I found it most moving for all sorts of reasons. I come from a family who have always been
passionate in their opposition to apartheid.
We did not have South African fruit as I was growing up, we demonstrated
against the Springboks tour in 1969 to stop the 1970 cricket tour, my mother
had a photo of Nelson Mandela on her mantelpiece through the 80’s.
My mother was looking forward with eager anticipation to the
elections in 1994 when she died tragically in a road accident.
A couple of days after the funeral Felicity and I went to a
vigil in the Lady Chapel of Gloucester Cathedral on the day of the elections. We bumped into the son in law of my
predecessor in our Shropshire Churches, himself an Afrikaaner, a personal
friend of Desmond Tutu. It was a moment
of triumph touched with my own personal sense of tragedy at the loss of my
mother.
We shared the conference centre with South Africa’s
very first children’s parliament. On the
Saturday evening the phone lines were cut off and rumours began to circulate
that Nelson Mandela was going to visit.
On the Sunday evening the youngsters were all excited at the
prospect of seeing him the next day.
I found myself in conversation with a couple of their
leaders outside the squash courts.
What they said I have heard repeated time and again in the
last couple of days as tributes have been made.
“The wonderful thing
about Nelson Mandela is the way he was able to forgive.”
We had strict instructions not to go and listen to Nelson Mandela. I could not keep away.
First, he opened a herb garden of healing. Nearby was a choir in uniform – it turned out
they were prisoners from a local Gaol.
Nelson Mandela ensured that prisoners from a local prison would come
when he visited anywhere and he would speak to them.
They were the choir.
How moving it was to hear them sing "Nkosi Sikelel' iAfrika"
in rich harmony.
Nelson Mandela then was driven round to an enormous marquee
where he was to address the children.
I listened in from outside the marquee.
What he said was powerful.
When he spoke to the children, he spoke very directly of the
fear of illness and of dying – sobering thoughts when you think that a high
proportion of those youngsters were living with HIV Aids.
He urged them to he open about illness problems – in talking
and sharing is real help.
He spoke of the importance
of children to the future of the nation.
In ringing tones he challenged them, and all of us, to fulfil their
responsibilities as citizens and to be caring people.
He touched on
violence, On HIV Aids and on sickness too.
“Talk about it! Don’t keep it to yourself,” he said.
All of this was incredibly moving. Only a couple of weeks ago I had been at a
meeting with our local Palliative Care consultants – they said in the 19th
century everyone spoke of death and no one spoke of sex. Now everyone speaks of sex and no one speaks
of death. They were impressing on us how
important it was to speak of death and dying openly.
This was exactly Nelson Mandela’s message.
Very powerful.
Next year I must do Movember!!!
And then he spoke of
having TB and prostate cancer.
“They keep telling me
to go to the USA
and have it treated.
“But I say, no! What would people think of our doctors and
nurses if I said they were not good enough to look after me.
“They are good enough
and I will stay.
“When I die,” he said
and corrected himself. “If I die …” he
paused and laughter swept through the marquee.
“if I did I hope to go to the place where I will meet old friends. And when they greet me there I look forward
to being directed to the room where I will meet my ANC friends.
“Then I will say,
‘Send my prostate gland suffering from cancer to the USA. Their doctors are so wonderful; let them
treat it then. When they return it to me
I shall be back to see how you are all getting on.”
With more words about
the importance of caring he greeted the members of the Children’s Parliament
and his speech was over!
Great courage. Great
conviction.
Here was some who took seriously the principles of love for
God, love for neighbour, love for enemy too.
He took so seriously the challenge to forgive.
What a difference it made to Nelson Mandela and in the last
twenty years in South Africa. How much it is our prayer that that spirit of
forgiveness can prevail there in the months and years to come. How much it is our prayer that that spirit of
forgiveness can prevail in other troubled parts of the world and in our own
hearts too.
Let’s pause a moment in quiet and share in reading together
that prayer meditation that encapsulates the words of Zechariah’s song, the
Benedictus.
Lord God,
Mighty saviour
You call us to be
A people set free
Set free from hostility
Set free from hatred
Set free with mercy
Set free in love
Set free to serve
Set free for holiness
Set free for justice
You call us
To prepare the way for you
A way of salvation and forgiveness
A way of light in a world of darkness
Guide us in that way of peace
