“The Old Order Changeth…”
As most of you who read this bit each month will know, we at the Baptist Church now have a new minister, Rev. Gill Lee. So she will be taking over. She’ll be different, but I don’t think you’ll be disappointed.
Anyway, I hope you will bear with me if I indulge myself in a final manifesto of faith! In 1942 I met a schoolfellow who talked about God like he was a next door neighbour. Well, I’d been sent to Sunday School and church, but this was different... and he started talking about Jesus in the same way, and it all worked on me until one day, he asked me point-blank whether I believed that Jesus Christ died to save me from my sins, so I said, casually, ‘Well, yes.’ And suddenly the reality of it all took hold of me, and life was never the same. I went home, and for the first time in my life, I wanted to pray, and to my astonishment, I knew I was being heard. Then I started reading the Bible, and couldn’t put it down - it was telling me what had happened to me! The years since then have been a fascinating mixture of embarrassing struggles with aspects of my character and behaviour which get shown up as very obviously bad; of amazement at the way this God could change things - often with delight at the results, and even changing an anxiously obstinate refusal of unpleasant duties; and, every so often, another life-changingly fresh insight into God’s nature.
Of all this, some things stand out. One is, that He is real; often speaking in our thoughts so strangely that we hardly recognise it, but what He says turns out to have an unexpected truth and practicality. Another is the love manifested in the life and death of Jesus, the only thing worth living and dying for, and there is no-one on this planet who can escape its offers and demands (and I’ve tried hard and often enough!). And finally, there’s only one record of His doings which can have any claim to authenticity (and what little of it I understand has never failed me), is… yes, the Bible. And only one community, in all its forms, in which I can grow up in love as a real person among others, be they the good, the bad, or the ugly. That is what keeps me praying, belonging to a church, and trying to help others on the Way. Some things haven’t changed.
Forgive me, but more than anything I have enjoyed learning from some of you, as I hope you might have found something to learn from me.
Blessings on you!
John Peck