A commentator remarked that the person who should be best remembered over the incident that developed in London that terrible day Wednesday last week is not the infamous Khalid Mahmood who perpetrated the appalling crime. He should be forgotten. The one remembered should be Tobias Ellwood, who battled for many minutes, that must have seemed like an eternity, to revive the dying policeman, Keith Palmer, with mouth-to-mouth resuscitation. He failed; but the point is that he was there and he tried.
It is these two actors in the drama whose names should live on while all else is forgotten. I don't think that will happen, because it is human nature to sensationalise crime and to speculate endlessly over the motivation of those who committed it. It becomes an absorbing fascination, the subject of ghoulish documentaries for decades to come.
Not that either of the other two men I have mentioned would seek to be remembered as heroes. As in the best traditions of service, they would claim that they were only doing their duty.
The Bible tells us that that is indeed all that God's servants should think about themselves when they had have done their Master's wishes.
“Will any one of you who has a servant plowing or keeping sheep say to him when he has come in from the field, ‘Come at once and recline at table’? Will he not rather say to him, ‘Prepare supper for me, and dress properly, and serve me while I eat and drink, and afterward you will eat and drink’? Does he thank the servant because he did what was commanded? So you also, when you have done all that you were commanded, say, ‘We are unworthy servants; we have only done what was our duty.’” Luke 17:7-12 ESV
Servants should not expect appreciation, but reckon that they have only done what they were supposed to do. As always, our example is our Master and Saviour. In fact the word “duty” falls short of describing the devotion of our Saviour to serving. It is more accurate to say that He was on mission. He fulfilled His heavenly Father’s commission to Him. It took Him all the way to the cross, but He did not flinch. In fact it was a joy to Him to play His supreme part in the Father’s plan to save the lost.
May we gladden His heart as we receive the salvation He came to give and then go on to serve others without looking for reward.
O Son of Man, our hero strong and tender,
Whose servants are the brave in all the earth,
Our living sacrifice to Thee we render,
Who sharest all our sorrows, all our mirth.
O feet so strong to climb the path of duty,
O lips divine that taught the word of truth,
Kind eyes that marked the lilies in their beauty,
And heart that kindled at the zeal of youth.
Frank Fletcher, 1870-1954
The famous parable of the sheep and the goats tells us that people will actually be surprised to learn that they have done their duty: fed the hungry, clothe the naked, heal the sick and visit prisoners. "When did we do that?" they will protest. But the Master will simply reply,
"Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me" (Matthew 25:40).
Friday 31 March 2017
Tuesday 14 March 2017
Diana or Christ?
This dramatic and, at the time, very popular picture is evocative of the pressures that were placed upon early Christians to conform to the religion of the day. The ugly form of the many-breasted Diana is on the left. She was a blatantly pagan goddess, also known as Artemis, with prominent headquarters in the ancient city of Ephesus.
The artist imagines a scene later in time where a young girl – who has the light shining on her and takes centre stage – is presented with an ultimatum to worship Diana, or else. We see the hard-faced acolytes of this goddess looking on from around the horrible statue, impatiently waiting for the girl to submit. Just a pinch of incense is all that is required to signal her allegiance to the goddess! Her boyfriend is begging her to conform and save her life. The town recorder pitilessly reads out to her the charge of blasphemy against the goddess. The priest of Diana, seated, looks venerable but menacing at the same time. Two young children, still in their innocence, stare wide-eyed at this girl, failing to comprehend why she will not worship their goddess. Soldiers mingle around, steeling themselves to receive orders to execute the girl if and when she fails to comply with the demands of the authorities. Maybe she will be killed publicly to entertain the crowd behind.
When the apostle Paul visited Ephesus, he was seen as a rival to this established Diana cult. We read about this in Acts 19. Those who profited by selling trinkets relating to Diana perceived a danger to their trade. They set up a huge demonstration at which the clamour went up for two hours:
“Great is Diana of the Ephesians!”
Paul was surely fortunate to escape with his life from that place.
It seems to me that we are facing exactly the same choice as the girl – Diana or Christ? – in today’s Britain. The goddess figure today might not be Diana, but it is something equally secular and degrading. There are the siren voices telling us that we must be even-handed with all minorities, whether they obey God’s law or not. Then there are those forced to go along with corruption or exploitation in the workplace. In all these different ways we are expected to compromise – to offer that little pinch of incense to Diana. Will we choose her – or will we choose Christ? You wonder whether there is anybody left who is willing to make the unpopular choice of the Lord Jesus Christ. Yet make it we must, if we are not to betray than those who have gone before us in the faith. They held out amid great provocation and great oppression. They kept a clear conscience and a consistent witness for Christ.
It is not as if what they went through took them by surprise. The Lord Jesus Himself prophesied that persecutions would take place. He promised no cushy outcome even for those who were the most prominent in His service. The rewards will be worth every trouble, but will only be fully realised in the life to come.
Do we trust in the life to come where everything is put to rights? We too often have a wrong perspective – basically kidding ourselves that this life is all there is, and we had better feather our own nest as far as possible in order to get the best enjoyment out of it. This would be a grave mistake. A life beckons where we spend eternity in the company of our Saviour in heaven.
The apostle Paul writes:
Therefore I endure everything for the sake of the elect, that they also may obtain the salvation that is in Christ Jesus with eternal glory.
The saying is trustworthy, for:
If we have died with him, we will also live with him;
if we endure, we will also reign with him;
if we deny him, he also will deny us;
if we are faithless, he remains faithful—
for he cannot deny himself.
2 Timothy 2:10-13 ESV
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