Garden Visitors

I've never had a garden before with any wildlife in it so I'm enjoying the the furry and feathered visitors we get at our new house.

This greater spotted vandal is steadily demolishing one of our trees.

These two look like they're having a row!
 

Not quite sure what species of bird this is!

And we also get cute bunnies!

The Gospel According to The Tour de France

Having now followed the Tour de France for 25 years I never dreamed that a stage of it would be passing just a few miles away from my home. But that is exactlly what's happening this weekend as the Tour starts in Leeds and I am really looking forward to going out to watch it.

I had a drive up to the Yorkshire Dales last weekend and it was great to see all the bunting and signs out in the villages ready to welcome Le Tour.

So in honour of Le Tour coming to God's chosen county I thought I would reprise a sermon that I wrote a couple of years ago about about the Tour de France

The Gospel According to The Tour De France

I’m sure that it won’t have escaped your notice that the Tour de France bike race which will start in Yorkshire next Saturday. The Tour de France lasts three weeks and it is the greatest bike race in the world. I have been watching it now for 25 years and it’s a bit like American football in that when you first start to watch it you haven’t got a clue what’s going on half the time. But after a few years you start to understand it and come to see that it is one of the greatest dramas and spectacles that take place in the sporting world.

And one thing that has struck me over the years is how much Christian imagery and symbolism you can find within the race. As I watch the race I often think of events and situations from the Bible, Let me share some of those thoughts with you.

There are twenty two teams in the tour and each team comprises nine riders. Each team leader chooses his team and they are like his disciples. He will choose team members for their different talents and abilities and those team mates will embody qualities that we associate with Christ. 

As Christ always sought to do the will of the Father so the team members will seek to do the will of the team leader.  And they adopt the role of the self sacrificial servant. For those three weeks they put aside their personal ambition to serve the team leader. They will fetch drinks for him from the team car, if he has a puncture they will give him their wheel or even their bike, they will encircle him in the main group of the race to protect him. They will shield him from headwinds and they will act as his pacemaker to keep him at the front of the race until they are exhausted and have to drop back. They are the model for Christian servanthood, they work tirelessly for the team leader emptying themselves in the process. But sometimes the roles will be reversed, sometimes the leader will serve his teammates, perhaps helping a team mate who has a chance of winning a stage. When that happens it always reminds me of Jesus tying a towel around his waist and washing his disciples’ feet.

And there will be much suffering along the way. During the three week race the riders will cover on average around 130 miles a day at an average speed of 25-30mph. They will climb mountains on their bikes that you probably wouldn’t attempt going up in a car. They will keep going whatever the weather, in torrential rain or blistering heat. Injury very rarely stops them as well. A few years ago an American rider called Tyler Hamilton crashed early on in a stage. He rode on another 100 miles to the finish in terrible pain because unbeknown to him he had broken his collar bone. By the end of the stage he had been in such pain that he had ground down a number of his teeth.

As in the Gospels a number of the significant events of the Tour de France will take place on the mountains. The mountains are where the Tour de France is won and lost, if you don’t perform well in the mountains you will never win the race.  They go over mountain pass after mountain pass in the Alps and Pyrenees with the highest measuring 2100 metres. 

 I wonder whether on those horrendous climbs any of the riders ever think of the words of the Psalmist in Psalm 121

“I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come?”

 And when I see those mountain stages I am always reminded of those words from Isaiah 52

 “How lovely on the mountains are the feet of him who brings good news. Who announces peace And brings good news of happiness, Who announces salvation, And says to Zion, "Your God reigns!"

And I am also reminded of how many of the significant events of Jesus’ life took place on hills and mountains.  I am reminded of the Sermon on the Mount, of the Transfiguration of our Lord and how Jesus took his disciples up on a mountain before he ascended to the father and said to them

“Remember I am with you always, to the end of the age.

And sometimes during the Tour de France’ history there have been even starker reminders of important events from Jesus’ life that took place on hillsides. In 1967 the British rider Tom Simpson died of heat exhaustion on the slopes of Mont Ventoux during a stage of the Tour. Mont Ventoux is in the Pyrenees and the upper slopes of that hill are stark and stripped of vegetation. In the summer it gets very hot up there and it was there Tom Simpson died. A young man suffering and then dying on a hillside, does that remind you of anyone?

As Jesus faced a time of trial of his own so the riders in the Tour de France will also face their time of trial. On stage 20, the penultimate stage of the Tour the riders have to complete an individual time trial against the clock. There is no hiding place on the individual time trial, any weakness that you have will be exposed, you are on your own!

But ultimately of course any race is about victory. The ultimate goal for all the team leaders in the Tour de France is to pull on the winners yellow journey on the podium in Paris at the end of the race. Then you are victorious, then you have vanquished your foes. The winner will receive a cheque for €450,000 but here’s the strange bit, he won’t keep a single euro of that money for himself but will give it all to his team mates. In his moment of victory he will keep nothing back but will give everything he has won to those who have been with him during the race, his victory is shared by all of them. And that definitely makes me think of Christ.  

On the cross Jesus achieves his victory and vanquishes his foes. In his hour of victory he defeats sin, the devil and even death itself. On the cross Jesus holds nothing back, his generosity is such that he endures ridicule, shame, suffering and death for us. And like the winner of the Tour de France does, Jesus shares the spoils of his victory with his followers. The prize he wins he does not keep for himself but instead he wins the prize specifically so that he can share it with us. The prize is reconciliation with the Father, the prize is the forgiveness of sins, the prize is eternal life. It is a prize that Jesus shares not just with small group of disciples who were with him on his journey, he shares it with the whole world, with anyone who believes in him and acknowledges him as their saviour. Unlike the Tour de France winners teammates we have not earned our share in the winners glory through our own efforts, Our share in Christ’s glory is freely given to us by the love and grace of God.

Disciples, servanthood, suffering, drama and death on mountainsides, times of testing, the Tour de France has them all. And as I watch the Tour de France over the next few weeks I know that I will be reminded of important elements of my faith. And what this tells me is that we can find God in the ordinary. We don’t have to be in a church gazing at beautiful stained glass windows to find Christian imagery and symbolism. It is all around us in the everyday things of our lives and our world. We can find reminders of our faith in the people we meet, the places we go, the buildings that we enter and yes, even in a bike race.  And that ability to find God in the ordinary is the proof of what Jesus said to his disciples

“Remember I am with you always. To the end of the age.”

Betty Dawson - The remarkable story of how a little old lady from Mansfield took aid to the Kurds

My mother in law Betty Dawson died last week aged 86. She was a lovely and remarkable lady but I suspect that few people who met this quiet and gentle old lady would have guessed what adventures she had experienced as a pensioner.

In 1991 Betty and her husband Arthur were deeply moved by the plight of the Kurdish refugees. They decided to do something to help the Kurds and after collecting aid from people in their home town of Mansfield they set off to take the aid to the Kurds themselves.

This article which was written by the journalist John Edwards and published in the Daily Mail on Thursday 25th April 1991 tells the story of that remarkable journey.

The smallest and bravest mission of them all

(by John Edwards – Daily Mail – 25^th April 1991)

They sat at home in Mansfield and watched stunned at television pictures of the camps in the mountains, and some nights the Dawsons nearly cried. Betty and Arthur sitting there in their home, seeing death and awfulness and a great pain coming off the screen in the faces of the children. And what began as a crazy idea ended yesterday 7,500 feet up in Eastern Turkey with the two of them strapped in a Chinook helicopter, twisting through the mountain passes with the sides of towering canyons just out there where you could touch them.

“We couldn’t just sit at home and do nothing” Betty Dawson said with her grey hair bundled into a spotted blue headscarf and even a lady’s umbrella shoved into the shopping bag she had trapped between her feet. “All we did was get the word out that anybody with something to give to the refugees could come to the house and we’d try to get it out there” she said. There was so much, they had to put the Cavalier out in the street when the garage filled up.

When they couldn’t store any more, they went over to the Budget van rental depot and the lady gave them a good deal on two seven and a half ton Transits when they told her they were going to Turkey. Colin Wallis, who was 43 years in the Nottingham coalmines and John Shooter, a friend for years, loaded the second van. And 12 days ago, without people waving flags, they set off like the world’s smallest relief mission and drove all the way to Turkey. They slept in the vans most nights.

“It just proved the Christian spirit” Arthur Dawson said when he told you about what people had delivered to his home. He was 61. Maybe, if it had been a good day at home yesterday, he and Betty would have driven up to Darley Dale in Derbyshire and had a meal at The Highwaymen. They often did. But it worked out differently. So just after dawn, in the noise and slap of Diyarbikar’s huge relief helicopter base, they stood in misty sunlight and watched everything they had brought from Mansfield go in the back of an RAF Chinook from 18 Squadron. They stood and watched and felt the glow which their faith as born again Christians makes tiredness go away in ways not understood.

Betty had on an anorak and cord trousers because the RAF said the wind came rushing into the helicopter and one minute it was a roast and the next it was like winter. Everything they brought was in the back. The clothes were in Woolworth and Tesco bags and cardboard boxes of shoes marked “ladies on the top, Gentleman's on the bottom”. “Baby clothes was written on another and then “woollens” and “baby food” on a few more. The Chinook filled up with everything people in Mansfield had brought over to the Dawson’s house and stacked in the garage

You talk about born again Christians and sometimes it is accompanied by laughter and jokes. On the Diyarbikar airfield very early yesterday, you just watched four old people and Colin Wallis with his silver crucifix dangling out of his shirt, and they were surrounded by faith. “You can’t watch starving people in desperate need and feel its too far away to be personal, “ Arthur Dawson said. And then they told you how they had driven to Romania six times and often to Poland when the stories there moved them.

Now, though, the pilot headed them into adventure and excitement, and they sat and listened and looked at each other and Betty tucked her hair tighter under the scarf. “I don’t know how you feel about this” the captain let them know, “but first of all we’re making a delivery in Iraq.” Betty wondered if she had got the message straight. But then the Chinook put down in Zakho and there were Royal Marines everywhere in trucks and the city was right there on the edge of the landing site. The four of them looked around Iraq and were speechless.

The Chinook climbed out of Iraq and went north to the canyons. Burnt out Iraqi tanks were in litters on the ground. This had once been on their television back home. Now it was right under the Chinook and Betty looked up and shook her head, hardly believing what she saw. John Shooter didn’t remember if the refugee camp at Cukurca was the one he had been looking at every night at home. They all look the same he said, “Just acres of depression on a hillside”. It described Cukurca perfectly.

And now the Chinook corkscrewed into the plateau and Betty watched the tents blow and the thousands of people running when she stretched to look through the open door. She was shocked. The people came like extras in a huge movie, tumbling and falling, and boxes all the way from Mansfield went over the ramp and ended in the turmoil. “Ladies on the top, Gentleman’s on the bottom” went floating into hungry hands.

The Dawsons couldn’t speak. They watched the faces just outside the open door, all with an expression of pleading which these refugees have made their own. So many people came running, the Chinook couldn’t land. The last time the pilot had put down here, it was like an invasion of curds coming through the door.

Three low air drops were made into the camp and Mansfield was spread over half the hillside. “I’m glad they didn’t put it all in one place” Arthur said. “At least its given a lot of people a chance to get something.”

Last night in Cukurca, there were warm clothes on the backs of freezing Kurds and some baby food on tin plates and shoes on feet, though nobody knew about a town in Nottinghamshire, and Betty said that wasn’t important.

“Why did you come all the way yourself” she was asked in a shout over the roar of the blades. “Because we can tell the people who gave everything to us that we saw it reach the people it was meant for,” she said. “Aren’t you frightened?” The question made her smile. “We’re Christians and we believe in Jesus and we’re prepared for anything,” she said. A badge on the lapel of her anorak said it in big letters: There is Hope. Betty touched it and made the point seem louder than the helicopter.

A US Navy F14 Tomcat screamed through the high valley, keeping cover over the drop. Arthur threw his head back, “I’ll tell you something,” he said, “This is a lot more exciting than mowing the lawn.” The Chinook climbed away from Cukurca and Arthur reached out and held Betty’s hand. One of the crew shook his head. It meant he was in awe.

“Do you think they will believe we’ve been to Iraq?” Betty asked. “I think they will believe you all the way” he said. “I don’t know how I feel really” she said, watching Cukurca going away behind the mountains, “Just pleased we could do something I suppose.” Then she put her head back and closed her eyes, and it looked as if she was praying.

Elements of the Passion: Number 7: Rock and Stones

On Good Friday I led a Good Friday Meditation at one of my churches called Elements of the Passion. During the meditation I looked at seven elements that are present in the Passion story and explored them in turn. (I'm not a scientist so I'm sure that some of my seven are not strictly elements so please humour me!)

I thought that I would share them with you here over the next seven days so here's the seventh which is on rock and stones.

Jesus is Laid in the Tomb

Then Joseph bought a linen cloth, and taking down the body, wrapped it in the linen cloth, and laid it in a tomb that had been hewn out of the rock. He then rolled a stone against the door of the tomb. (Mark 15:46)

Stone and rock, something else that is there throughout the gospel accounts of Jesus’ life. The rolling of the stone over the entrance of Jesus’ tomb brings to an end a journey that has started in the wilderness with Satan trying to tempt Jesus to turn stones into bread, but Jesus wouldn’t. 

Then he had taken Jesus to the pinnacle of the temple and encouraged him to throw himself off reminding him of the scripture that says:

“He will command his angels concerning you

And on their hands they will bear you up,

So that you will not dash your foot against a stone.”

But Jesus would not put God to the test. And Jesus often spoke about stones and rocks in his teaching. When he was teaching his disciples about prayer he said;

“Is there anyone among you who’ if your child asks for bread, would give a stone.”

He talked about the wise man building his house upon the rock and in the parable of the sower he spoke about seed falling on rock

And continuing with that theme of foundations being rooted on rock he said to Peter;

“I will tell you that you are Peter and on this rock I will build my church.”

Stones and rock are symbols of strength and endurance. The house founded on rock doesn’t collapse when the storms come. Sometimes they might wobble a little, as Peter had done when he denied Jesus three times on the night that he had been arrested. But ultimately a house founded on rock stands firm and that is what Peter did becoming the foundation for the Christian church as we know it today.

And Jesus also described himself in terms of solid stone foundations in Chapter 21 of Matthew’s gospel when he said;

“The stone that the builders rejected has become the chief cornerstone.”

 And it was on the rock of Golgotha that Jesus established the foundation of our faith when he suffered and died for us on the cross.

And what about us. Have we built our life on the secure foundation Of Jesus? Is he the rock that holds us fast when the temptations and trials of this world assail us?

Elements of the Passion - Number 6: Perfume and Spices

On Good Friday I led a Good Friday Meditation at one of my churches called Elements of the Passion. During the meditation I looked at seven elements that are present in the Passion story and explored them in turn. (I'm not a scientist so I'm sure that some of my seven are not strictly elements so please humour me!)

I thought that I would share them with you here over the next seven days so here's the sixth which is on perfume and spices

The Burial of Jesus

After these things, Joseph of Arimathea, who was a disciple of Jesus, though a secret one because of his fear of the Jews, asked Pilate to let him take away the body of Jesus. Pilate gave him permission; so he came and removed his body. Nicodemus, who had at first come to Jesus by night, also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about a hundred pounds. They took the body of Jesus and wrapped it with the spices in linen cloths, according to the burial custom of the Jews.                                                                                            (John 19:38-40)

We only encounter references to perfume and spices three times in the gospel stories. The first time is in Matthew’s gospel which tells us that when Jesus was born wise men from the east came to visit him and one of the gifts that they brought him was myrrh. This spice was brought to Jesus in a spirit of worship and adoration. It was brought by wise men indeed who could truly recognise that God was at work in the world in a most wonderful way.

The second time that we encounter perfume is when a dinner is given for Jesus at Bethany and Mary pours a pound of pure Nard on Jesus’ feet to anoint them and John’s gospel tells us that the whole house was filled with the fragrance of the perfume. This perfume was brought to Jesus in a spirit of love. 

And then in the passage that we have just heard Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus bring myrrh and aloes and they place the spices inside the linen cloth that they use to wrap Jesus’ body in for burial. These spices were brought to Jesus in a spirit of sorrow and defiance. They had great sorrow for the evil that had been done. They had great sorrow for the death of a man they had come to love and respect, a man they had come to realise was God’s son. But they came in a spirit of defiance because Jesus’ death had emboldened them to stand up and be counted. Joseph of Arimathea had been a secret disciple of Jesus because of his fear of the Jews. But now he was afraid no longer. He boldly brought his spices to Jesus to show that he was not afraid to be called Jesus’ disciple.  

Spices and perfume were used to disguise the stench of dead bodies in Jesus day. But not even a hundred pounds of spices could mask the stench of what had been done on that day. They could not disguise the stench of injustice, of an innocent man being cruelly tortured and killed. They could not disguise the stench of betrayal, of Jesus being abandoned by those he had come to save. They could not disguise the stench of hypocrisy of those people such as the Pharisees and Chief Priests who claimed to lead the people in matters of God but instead had lead them astray . No spices or perfumes could ever take away that stench.

Isn’t it strange how once again an element that was there at the start of Jesus’ story is there again at the end? The wise men brought myrrh to Jesus when his life had just begun. Joseph and Nicodemus brought myrrh to Jesus when his life ended. And the sweet smell of the myrrh reminds us how God was able to transform something as awful as Jesus death into something smelling sweet and good. We see that in the transformation of Joseph and Nicodemus from people who were once afraid to acknowledge that they were followers of Christ but now boldly serve him for all to see. And we see it daily in the lives of people who have found salvation and new life through that man who was crucified and laid behind the stone in that tomb.

Elements of the Passion - Number 5: Blood

On Good Friday I led a Good Friday Meditation at one of my churches called Elements of the Passion. During the meditation I looked at seven elements that are present in the Passion story and explored them in turn. (I'm not a scientist so I'm sure that some of my seven are not strictly elements so please humour me!)

I thought that I would share them with you here over the next seven days so here's the fifth which is on blood.

The Soldiers Pierce Jesus’ Side

Since it was the day of Preparation, the Jews did not want the bodies left on the cross during the Sabbath, especially because that Sabbath was a day of great solemnity. So they asked Pilate to have the legs of the crucified men broken and the bodies removed. Then the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. Instead, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once blood and water came out.         (John 19:31-34)

Strange stuff blood. It can be a sign of life, a doctor will take our pulse and when they feel that blood pulsing through our veins they know that we are alive. And yet when we see lots of blood next to a person in a crime drama we know that they are probably dead, the life has gone out of them.

In Jesus’ time blood was sometimes a sign of shame and exclusion. The women who had been suffering from haemorrhages for many years knew all about that. Because of the blood she was ritually unclean for a good part of her life. Because of the blood she was excluded and rejected. In her case Jesus stopping the blood replaced shame with acceptance.

Blood could also be a sign of guilt. In the reading that we started our meditation with Pilate was keen to absolve himself of the guilt for Jesus’ death. He said to the crowd;

“I am innocent of this man’s blood”

And yet the crowd replied to Pilate;

“His blood be on us and on our children”

What a terrible thing it is that the crowd does. They reject Jesus and are happy to accept the guilt for his death, they shout “Let his blood be on us”.

And, as we’ve just heard, blood could also be a symbol of a covenant. As we just heard at the Last Supper Jesus had said;

“this is my blood of the new covenant”

The covenant that Jesus had set up between God and humanity was one that would open salvation up to all who believed in him and it was covenant that was sealed with Christ’s blood. 

As Jesus says in John’s gospel;

“Those who eat my flesh and drink my blood have eternal life, and I will raise them up on the last day.”

Blood could also be a sign of suffering. Luke’s gospel tells us that when Jesus was praying on the Mount of Olives on the night before he died he was in such anguish that his sweat became like great drops of blood falling down on the ground. And when we see artists pictures of the crucifixion there is always blood there. There is blood running from his head onto which that cruel crown of thorns had been thrust down. There is blood on his back where he has been mercilessly scourged. There is blood on his hands and his feet where those cruel nails have been driven. Yes blood is truly a symbol of suffering.

Chapter 17 of Leviticus says: 

'For the LIFE of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls"

The cross was that altar on which Christ made atonement for our souls. The blood of Christ gave life to us. That blood shed on the cross gives us eternal life.