Ken's Pastoral Letter: January 2022
Dear Friends,
As we look ahead to the New Year it is likely that we are not without some trepidation in doing so. The year that we are leaving behind and the ongoing nature of the pandemic that we are still battling to overcome are quite understandably, and rightly, urging caution on us. All is far from clear. We hear that the Omicron variant is less of a threat than the Delta variant one day, and more of a threat the next! The government tells us it will not hesitate to act then seems reluctant to do so. Little wonder then that we may not be sorry to see the back of 2021 and yet be hesitant to set foot in 2022!
For all this we speak of the passing of the years in an affectionate and familiar manner as though they were entities in themselves, personalities almost. As though Old Father Time truly does oversee a handover at the stroke of midnight and takes the baton from the exhausted and grateful Old Year before passing it on to the fresh and vigorous New Year. It is not uncommon at this season to refer to the poem written by Minnie Louise Haskins entitled 'God Knows,' but which came to be referred to by the more popular title, 'The Gate of the Year.' A part of this reads as follows:
And I said to the man who stood at the gate of the year:
"Give me a light that I may tread safely into the unknown."
And he replied:
"Go out into the darkness and put your hand into the hand of God.
That shall be to you better than light and safer than a known way."
So I went forth, and finding the Hand of God, trod gladly into the night.
And he led me towards the hills and the breaking of day in the lone East.
Written in 1908 the poem caught the public's imagination when it was quoted by King George VI in his 1939 Christmas broadcast to the British Empire. It may have been our queen, then the young Princess Elizabeth, who handed the poem to her father.
The image of the Gate of the Year created by Haskins is an alluring one. It is almost as though she offers the reader a choice as to whether to enter through it or not. But of course, this is not so, and since we cannot go back, and we cannot remain at the gate, there is only one thing to do as we go through, and that is to "put our hand into the hand of God."
As Methodists, a traditional part of our New Year observance is the annual covenant service, which acknowledges that our life of faith has many of the characteristics of a marriage relationship: that is, the union between the partners is legally established but their relationship needs to be worked at and may be at times intimate while at others estranged or even cold. The covenant service with its beautiful prayers: "I am no longer my own but yours. Put me to what you will . . . " call us to recommit to our relationship with Christ as both individuals and as a church. It does not call into question our union with HIm, that objective state of justification, or forgiveness, which we enjoy through the gift of faith and only by His grace. It rather asks us to honestly evaluate our attitude towards Him, our will, even our feelings about Him - the subjective nature of our faith and whether we are doing all that we can to maintain this.
For the mature Christian the will is more important than the feelings and when guided by conscience should be exercised regardless of one's emotional state. The old evangelicals used to say, and this still holds true today: that feelings follow faith, which follows facts, and these facts are to be found in the Bible. If we want warm assurances of faith, then cold obedience is sometimes the only way to attain these (Romans 5: 1-5).
In St Paul's Cathedral hangs Holman Hunt's famous painting of Christ standing at the door overgrown with foliage, the inspiration for which is our Lord's sad plea in Revelation 3:20 "Behold I stand at the door and knock." As with Haskins' 'Gate of the Year,' so with Holman Hunt's 'Light of the World,' each asks us to contemplate what lies before us and how we are now living. In the first image we are asked to put our hand into the hand of God while in the second, for us to do this, for Christ to come in and sup with us, it may be necessary to prise open a long-overgrown door. This latter thought, though commonly directed at individuals, is more applicable to churches in its textual context!
Indeed, the covenant service is as much about the local church as it is about the individuals within it. The church is called to renew its passion for Christ and to treat as secondary its obsession with itself. It is a passion for Christ that alone can attract the outsider to faith in Him. There is a glittering array of attractions in the modern world, but the Church is not called to compete with these, only to hold loyally to her first love (Revelation 2:4)."And I, if I am lifted up from the earth," said Jesus, "I will draw all peoples to Myself," (John 12: 32). Or as Paul puts it, about sincere and genuine worship, "But if all prophesy [attend seriously upon the teachings of the Word] and an unbeliever or an uninformed person comes in, he is convinced by all, he is convicted by all . . . . and will report that God is truly among you." (1 Corinthians 14:24-25)
Let us then tread boldly into the year ahead by first taking the opportunity again to put our hand into the hand of God through our annual act of renewal in the covenant service. Providence features strongly in its covenant promise and Wesley sees God's guiding hand everywhere.
A young Calvinist opponent of John Wesley was the author of the famous hymn 'Rock of Ages.' Scornful of Wesley's theology, since it differed from that of the Anglican Church of his day in the matter of election, the two wrote acerbically and even caustically of each other and of each other's position but were reconciled towards the end of Wesley's life when the latter had become tenderer in his faith and the former less of a hothead. The young opponent was of course Augustus Montague Toplady who also wrote the hymn 'A sov'reign Protecter I have.' We would do well to embrace his sentiments, as I feel sure Wesley would have done in his later years, as we look back on 2021 and forward together to the yet unrevealed 2022:
A sov'reign Protector I have,
unseen, yet forever at hand,
unchangeably faithful to save,
almighty to rule and command.
He smiles, and my comforts abound,
His grace as the dew shall descend,
and walls of salvation surround
the soul He delights to defend.
Inspirer and hearer of pray'r,
Thou Shepherd and Guardian of Thine,
my all to Thy covenant care
I sleeping and waking resign.
If Thou art my Shield and my Sun,
the night is no darkness to me;
and fast as my moments roll on,
they bring me but nearer to Thee.
Kind Author and Ground of my hope,
Thee, Thee for my God I avow;
my glad Ebenezer* set up,
and own Thou hast helped me till now.
I muse on the years that are past,
wherein my defense Thou has proved;
nor wilt Thou relinquish at last
a sinner so signally loved!
May God's actual presence be your subjective experience throughout 2022.
Yours ever in Christian love,
Ken
*Ebenezer: thus far the LORD has helped us. Hebrew: a stone of help (1 Samuel 7:12).
