Opening

I saw the following poem by Elizabeth Rooney quoted in a book and was blown away by it because it expresses in a short poem so much of what resurrection life in the Kingdom of God is all about.

Opening
Now is the shining fabric of our day
Torn open, flung apart,
Rent wide by Love.
Never again
The tight, enclosing sky,
The blue bowl,
Or the star-illumined tent.
We are laid open to infinity,
For Easter Love
Has burst His tomb and ours.
Now nothing shelters us
From God's desire --
Not flesh, not sky,
Not stars, not even sin.
Now Glory waits
So He can enter in.
Now does the dance begin.

 

Why it impacts me so greatly I may attempt to explain in far too many words at some other time

Resurgam

About 6 years ago I walked into Brecon library and there upon the "returns" trolley I spotted a very large paperback entitled "The Resurrection of the Son of God" by N.T Wright. I began the book with little hope of ever reading it through but quickly found myself engaged and very soon it became as absorbing as any page-turner I have ever read. It has been said of  Tom Wright that he has never written an uninteresting sentence and this book is testimony to that fact. Since that time I have read much of what Wright has written and while there are many points which find either difficult and often just don't agree with, yet there is so much in his enthusiastic scholarship which is both fresh and convincing that it has been a pleasure to listen and engage with his worldview.

I am in no way qualified to comment on some of the finer points of exegesis and theology which others (and I) have found difficulty with in Wright's writings but there is more to enthusiastically embrace than to shelve as dubious.

The resurrection of the Son of God is among the least controversial of his books as well as being the most eye-opening. Those who are not inclined to read through the vast amount of historical evidence that he presents will be well served by reading his more popular "Surprised by Hope" (written as Tom Wright) which contains most of the major conclusions of the larger work.

My overwhelming reaction to reading this book is to question, "Why have I never seen this before?" and "Why has such an important event as the resurrection been so neglected in the general teaching and preaching of the church?" Undoubtedly the major emphasis should and must be on the centrality of the Cross with all it has to say not only about personal salvation but also as the climax of the history of the world and in particular of Israel the people of God. But the resurrection is also climactic as the moment when God's kingdom is inaugurated and the promise of a future New Creation is sealed.

I am amazed to realise that the shift in emphasis away from the importance of the resurrection is a comparatively recent thing. It was common for gravestones prior to the mid 1800's to bear the single Latin word "Resurgam" which means, "I shall rise again". After all resurrection is the great future event which is promised to believers and it naturally predicates a physical body in a physical environment. So Wright's insistence that there is life after life after death is not just a smart aphorism. The fact that Revelation 21 describes the descent of the city of God to a renewed earth and the presence of God Himself dwelling with mankind is just so amazingly appropriate in the light of the whole overarching story of God's dealings with His Creation and mankind.

To be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord. Heaven is a reality but it is an interim and not the final destination. For when we read the New Testament carefully we realise that the return of the Lord which signals the resurrection of the blessed and the transformation of those who remain (1 Cor 15) will not be to join Him in heaven but to accompany Him to earth now in transformed physical bodies. "For our citizenship is in heaven, from which we also eagerly wait for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ,  who will transform our lowly body that it may be conformed to His glorious body, according to the working by which He is able even to subdue all things to Himself." Philippians 3:20-21

We look around this world marred by sin and yet we often glimpse the wonder and glory of the Creator who saw the unmarred earth and declared it good. Just imagine what a wonder it will be to gaze upon the glory of the renewed heavens and earth "the home of righteousness" and the eternal dwelling place of God with His people.

Morse and Brahms

Watching a recent episode of Endeavour with the excellent Shaun Evans playing the young Inspector Morse) the haunting choral background music stirred echoes in in my mind. It sounded familiar but I could not place it and that really annoyed me to the point that I couldn't rest until I'd solved the mystery. It was choral, it was sad and it sounded German. Beethoven? No, I couldn't think of anything? Mendelsohn then - no. Eventually I got to Brahms Ein Deutches Requiem but a skim through on You Tube didn't immediately find it. I knew it had to be German because the first line contained the word "Alles". Eventually I found it. It was the Geman Requim after all - "Denn alles Fleisch ist wie Gras" from Isaiah 40 and other texts. here's a translation of the chorus

For all flesh is as grass,
and the glory of man
like flowers.
The grass withers
and the flower falls.

Therefore be patient, dear brothers,
for the coming of the Lord.
Behold, the husbandman waits
for the delicious fruits of the earth
and is patient for it, until he receives
the morning rain and evening rain.

But the word of the Lord endures for eternity.

The redeemed of the Lord will come again,
and come to Zion with a shout;
eternal joy shall be upon her head;
They shall take joy and gladness,
and sorrow and sighing must depart.

 

I was overjoyed - I hadn't heard this music for so long. But to discover the words that Brahms set to music was also a joy because while the chorus begins on an appropriately sorrowful note it is balanced by the other texts. The powerful declaration that the word of the Lord endures for eternity is followed by the joyful Isaiah 51:11

Therefore the redeemed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their head: they shall obtain gladness and joy; and sorrow and mourning shall flee away.

And so sorrow is turned to joy at the glorious day of resurrection. Thank you Brahms, thank you Endeavour but above all Thank You God.

Easter Monday 2014

Busy but rewarding weekend the highlight of which was being at a baptismal service in the grounds of Derwen Fawr, the Swansea Bible College and now home to Liberty Church. Ten people young and older were baptised on confession of their faith. Many different backgrounds - some with dramatic testimonies of being set free from all sorts of addictions and circumstances and others who had simply grown in their faith to the point where they wanted to be baptised in obedience and as a testimony to their commitment. I was particularly moved by one young man who simply read a portion of Ecclesiastes 2 as a testimony of how he had come to faith.

Whatever my eyes desired I did not keep from them.
I did not withhold my heart from any pleasure,
For my heart rejoiced in all my labour;
And this was my reward from all my labour.
¹¹ Then I looked on all the works that my hands had done
And on the labour in which I had toiled;
And indeed all was vanity and grasping for the wind.
There was no profit under the sun.

It reminded me powerfully of the months before I finally acknowledged my need of God and the salvation that He has offered freely through the death of His dear Son. That was some 35 years ago now but it is good to be reminded because the temptation to get my priorities wrong is still a powerful one - a temptation to which I have often given in along the way.

Thoughts after a Funeral

Recently I attended two funerals in successive weeks. An older friend whom I love dearly was at both of them. After the second one he turned to me and said, " We don't want any more of these for a while. Two in as many weeks, once they start ........!" and he shook his head. I know what he meant, nobody enjoys going to funerals. Many attend out of a sense of duty but even those who go because they want to honour the departed usually go reluctantly.
Funerals seem to me to be important, not only because we attend to give thanks for a life lived, but also because they should (even momentarily) remind us of our own mortality. We hear the words of the psalmist -

Our days are like the grass;
we flourish like a flower of the field;
when the wind goes over it, it is gone
and its place will know it no more.
 
and we instinctively try to forget them as soon as possible.

However, the Resurrection of Jesus Christ transforms the Christian's view of death. Two quotes that spring to mind here -

George MacDonald in an Unspoken Sermon on the Temptation of Christ -

"Without the bread he will die, as men say; but he will not find that he dies. He will only find that the tent which hid the stars from him is gone, and that he can see the heavens; or rather, the earthly house will melt away from around him, and he will find that he has a palace-home about him, another and loftier word of God clothing upon him."

And C.S. Lewis -

“It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad.”

I suppose that it would prove to be puzzling and maybe even contentious but I cannot think of a better or more simple epitaph than "Hatched"

Grado, Mahler and Veni Creator Spiritus

Last week I finally got around to sending for some replacements for my Grado SR80 earphones. Some months ago I noticed that the spongy material on the ear pieces had degraded to the point where they were not just leaving black rings around my ears but also a kind of black dusting down the front of my shirts.
I had thought to invest in some expensive replacements but heyI'm 65 and the frequency range of my hearing must be deteriorating by now - so after an online search I found some replacement "doughnuts". which duly arrived at the end of last week. The reorganisation of my workroom also meant that I hadn't got my Sony CD player back in action until quite recently either and this coincidence of events prompted me to play something - but what?

During my late teens and early twenties I had been introduced to Mahler's first and fourth symphonies. I was intrigued by the contrasts between the beauty of so much of his music and the cacophony (or so it seemed) of some of the more raucous passages. However I was coming around to a genuine appreciation of the man's genius. I was 24 when I was persuaded by a good friend to accompany him to some concerts in London, On Sunday 10 September 1972 at 5:00PM we, with hundreds of others, stood in the Royal Albert Hall, having queued for several (enjoyable) hours to hear a prom concert. How can I be so precise? Well mainly because I still have a programme and also because the BBC have provided an archive of prom concert programmes from as far back as 1890. Here's the entry -

Gustav Mahler Symphony No. 2 in C minor 'Resurrection'

Elgar Howarth associate conductor
Sheila Armstrong soprano
Anna Reynolds mezzo-soprano

Philharmonia Chorus (1964-77, New Philharmonia Chorus)
Munich Philharmonic
Rudolf Kempe conductor

I believe that the work is 80 to 90 minutes long. I could not have told you how long it lasted (nor could I since) because time was totally suspended and I could have stood there for hours. This was the concert at which I really began to appreciate Mahler's genius. A live performance of the 3rd symphony at the Festival Hall on my way to a work-related course followed soon after and I was a convert.

But it was not the second symphony that I turned to last night. Back in July last year after a gap of a few years, I had listened again to Mahler's 8th symphony, "The Symphony of a Thousand", being performed at the proms. The opening movement - Mahler's setting of the ancient hymn "Veni Creator Spiritus" is one of the most spectacular and moving pieced of music ever written. It is also a piece of music that has been in my mind for months now. So I dug out my recording by the Berlin Philharmonic conducted by Claudio Abbado and hit play.

WOW! What an experience! After recovering from the full-on opening I sat enraptured for the 24 minutes of that first movement, hearing intricacies and nuances that I had never before noticed. This is music that has layer upon layer of wonderful counterpoint, harmony, dissonance. It's by turns angelic, brash, daring. It has more climaxes than it seems possible to fit into 24 minutes. It seems almost impossible that soloists and choir can sing such high notes. But above all it's glorious.

The soaring double fugue "Accende lumen sensibus infunde amorem cordibus" (Kindle our sense from above, and make our hearts o'erflow with love) is just thrilling and when the chorus and orchestra finally burst into "Deo Patri sit Gloria" (Now to the Father and the Son, who rose from death, be glory given, with Thou, O Holy Comforter, henceforth by all in earth and heaven.) I always feel that this must be the absolute climax - what can top this? And then just to confound all expectations the "Amen" soars to the highest heaven before the final triumphal E flat major chord. I will confess freely that the finale never fails to move me to tears.

Just a couple of technicalities. I am a huge Solti fan and still rate his recording with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra highly but I have to say that this Abbado recording is brilliantly produced and the sound is amazing. The Grado's did me proud - clarity and loads of punch.

Thank you Grado, Sony, Abbado, BSO. Thank you Mahler for over 40 years of delight and pleasure and thanks be to the God who inspires such glorious words which inspire such glorious music.

(In case anyone should think otherwise, I love the rest of the symphony too although somehow, this first movement seems almost to stand alone)

An Inconsolable Longing

Tim Keller paraphrasing a quote from C S Lewis 'The Weight of Glory'

"The inconsolable secret within each one of us, the secret that hurts so much that you take your revenge on it by calling it names like nostalgia, or romanticism or adolescence – that is our lifelong longing to be reunited with something in the universe from which we all feel now cut off; the longing to be on the inside of some door that we have always seen from the outside.  That inconsolable longing, that secret, is no mere neurotic fantasy but it's the truest index of our real situation. The sense that in this universe we are strangers; the longing to be acknowledged, to meet with some response, to bridge some chasm that yawns between us and reality is part of our inconsolable secret. 

It's a longing to please God, to be a real ingredient in the divine happiness, to be loved by God – not just pitied – but delighted in as an artist delights in his work. Acceptance by God, acknowledged by Him, welcomed into the heart of things – then the door on which we have been knocking all our lives will open at last." 

For the full text of C S Lewis' original sermon  look here. 

http://ericredmond.wordpress.com/2010/09/29/the-weight-of-glory-by-c-s-lewis/

Flash

Sent from my iPhone

The View from the Bridge

I must confess to being an involuntary river-gazer! I can never resist peering over the parapet of any bridge that I walk over - and I don't appear to being the only one.  I can't tell why others do it but I know that one of the reasons apart from fish spotting is just the fascination that rivers have for me. Whether it's a slow moving canal or a roaring torrent I can't resist - although the sight of a good flow in sunshine is perfect.

I grew up in the Mid Wales town of Brecon which had three river bridges. the main one on the Usk, a small one nearby over the Honddu where it joins the Usk and one over the Tarell. At certain times of the year it was common knowledge that to see certain well know locals staring over the bridges was a sure sign that salmon were either in the river or expected very shortly. I recall one occasion when I was working near the Tarell bridge there was great interest being shown in a pool just above the bridge. Curiosity getting the better of me I walked up to the bridge to see what was so interesting. The river was low and two large salmon were lying practically motionless in the pool awaiting the arrival of some fresh water before being able to make their way upstream. It was soon obvious that the temptation was far too great for one local character and after a brief exhortation to all present to keep a sharp look-out (by this time there must have been about ten people on the bridge) a gaff hook was magically produced from an inside pocket and quickly lashed to a stick cut out of the hedge. In what seemed no time at all the two salmon were lying on the bank and the next minute had vanished into a bag on the back of a bike which also promptly disappeared. The whole thing was so slick that the assembled company broke out into spontaneous applause and cheers.

But more vividly I also recall a morning in late summer standing on the Usk bridge. Mist had formed over the river overnight but the sun was beginning to burn it away. Looking upstream the scene was brilliant, not a hint of mist. Downstream looking East the mist hung over the river in curtains and the rising sun behind the curtain gave the mist a backlit ethereal glow.

Thinking about that today it's a kind of metaphor for the present. Upstream, in the past are 64 years and 364 days of my life, for tomorrow is my 65th birthday. Downstream the future is shrouded in mist but though the detail is unclear yet there is a growing light which guarantees that ultimately the sun will break through in all its glory. In one respect this birthday is no different to any other, neither is tomorrow any different to any other day - I am always on this bridge. However, if I'm honest as I grow older I do gaze a lot more upstream than I used to. There are more times when the traffic on the bridge and others on it seem less absorbing than the view upstream - but that is only temporary. For here, now in the present there is so much to rejoice in and to give thanks for. Like God's people of old, here I raise my Ebenezer stone - hitherto hath the Lord helped me - and look downstream with the confidence that the future is in safe hands - thank God they're not mine. So the song from the bridge today is simply this -

Pardon for sin

And a peace that endureth

Thine own dear presence

To cheer and to guide

Strength for today

And bright hope for tomorrow

Blessings all mine

With ten thousand beside

Great is Thy faithfulness

Morning by morning new mercies I see

All I have needed They hand hath provided

Great is Thy faithfulness Lord unto me