The Martyrdom of Thomas Becket

Almighty God, you enabled Saint Thomas Becket to lay down his life with undaunted spirit  for the rights of the Church. Let his prayer help us to deny ourselves for Christ in this life,  and so find our true life in heaven.[We make our prayer] through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,  who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,  God for ever and ever. Amen.

Murder in the Cathedral ~ T. S. Eliot                               Interlude

The Archbishop preaches in the Cathedral on Christmas Morning, 1170 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men.'  The fourteenth verse of the second chapter of the Gospel according to Saint Luke.  In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

     

Dear children of God, my sermon this morning will be a very short one. I wish only that you should ponder and meditate the deep meaning and mystery of our masses of Christmas Day. For whenever Mass is said, we re-enact the Passion and Death of Our Lord; and on this Christmas Day we do this in celebration of His Birth.  So that at the same moment we rejoice in His coming for the salvation of men, and offer again to God His Body and Blood in sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the whole world.

It was in this same night that has just passed, that a multitude of the heavenly host appeared before the shepherds at Bethlehem, saying, 'Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good will toward men'; at this same time of all the year that we celebrate at once the Birth of Our Lord and His Passion and Death upon the Cross.

Beloved, as the World sees, this is to behave in a strange fashion. For who in the World will both mourn and rejoice at once and for the same reason? For either joy will be overborne by mourning, or mourning will be cast out by joy; so it is only in these our Christian mysteries that we can rejoice and mourn at once for the same reason. 'But think for a while on the meaning of this word 'peace.'

Does it seem strange to you that the angels should have announced Peace, when ceaselessly the world has been stricken with War and the fear of War? Does it seem to you that the      angelic voices were mistaken, and that the promise was a disappointment and a cheat?       

Reflect now, how Our Lord Himself spoke of Peace. He said to His disciples 'My peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.' Did He mean peace as we think of it: the kingdom of England at peace with its neighbours, the barons at peace with the King, the householder counting over his peaceful gains, the swept hearth, his best wine for a friend at the table, his wife singing to the children?

Those men His disciples knew no such things: they went forth to journey afar, to suffer by land and sea, to know torture, imprisonment, disappointment, to suffer death by martyrdom. What then did He mean? If you ask that, remember then that He said also, 'Not as the world gives, give I unto you.' So then, He gave to His disciples peace, but not peace as the world gives.

Consider also one thing of which you have probably never thought. Not only do we at the feast of Christmas celebrate at once Our Lord's Birth and His Death: but on the next day we celebrate the martyrdom of His first martyr, the blessed Stephen.

Is it an accident, do you think, that the day of the first martyr follows immediately the day of the Birth of Christ?  By no means.  Just as we rejoice and mourn at once, in the Birth and in the Passion of Our Lord; so also, in a smaller figure, we both rejoice and mourn in the death of martyrs. We mourn, for the sins of the world that has martyred them; we rejoice, that another soul is numbered among the Saints in Heaven, for the glory of God and for the salvation of men.

T. S. Eliot, The Complete Poems and Plays, (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1967), p. 198

The Authority of the King

Who is he who is to be born at Christmas?  The angel Gabriel, resplendent in holy light, tells us, “He will be great and will be called the Son of the Most High.  And the Lord God will give him the throne of his father David, and he will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and of his kingdom there will be no end” (Luke 1:32, 33).  But what is a King?

The concept of God as Monarch, sole ruler, is a lost concept in today’s world.  The closest we get to it is constitutional monarchy, or arbitrary dictatorship, neither of which adequately conveys the idea of monarchy.  Constitutional monarchy is a titular headship, and arbitrary dictatorship, especially in this world, can end with rebellion and death.

An understanding of the concept of monarch starts predictably “In the beginning.”  In the beginning Elohim created the heavens and the earth.  Elohim, in English is God, and is at the outset a plural word giving the first hint of the Trinity.  Elohim created humankind out of the dust of the earth and breathed His Spirit, the Breath of Life, into humankind.

It is one thing to talk about this fundamental reality in generalities; it is quite another to speak of it as a personal reality.  Elohim is your creator.  He created you out of the dust of the ground, and to dust shall you return.  Elohim has breathed into you, as an individual, His own Breath of Life.  You are a created thing, a thing created by Him in His image, a thing utterly dependent on Him for each breath you draw, a thing not only created by Him and sustained by Him, but also loved by Him; not only a created thing but a person in your own right, a beloved child.

He is your Father Almighty; all things have their being at His divine fiat, His spoken word.  All that exists, exists because He has spoken.  Nothing exists without the sound of His voice.  There is none before Elohim and none greater than Elohim.  He is the original and only cause.

His very name “Elohim” is a plural of majesty, and a revelation of the multiplicity of His being.  He is the Triune God at the very beginning; His voice is the Living Word, the Logos, His Son, eternally begotten before all time.  He utters His voice, and the Eternal Logos goes forth.  All things were made through Him, and without Him nothing was made that was made.  At the culmination of all things, He will utter His Voice, and the earth will melt.

His creative Spirit hovers over the waters and breathes Life into all living things, to each according to His kind.  The Spirit, even as is the Father and the Son, is omnipresent, omniscient, and omnipotent.  He is the Anointing resting on the Son, and all who are called by His name, “Christians”, little anointeds.  That anointing rests on you as his beloved child.

Tertullian, in Against Praxeas, says, “I know that monarchy indicates neither more nor less than a single and sole empire!”  The Father shares His kingdom with His Son and Spirit, administering His kingdom, through the hosts of angels, the armies of the Lord.  This kingdom, this heavenly empire is eternal.  Even Nebuchadnezzar was humbled, and confessed, “At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honoured him who lives forever, for his dominion is an everlasting dominion, and his kingdom endures from generation to generation;  all the inhabitants of the earth are accounted as nothing, and he does according to his will among the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth; and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What have you done?" (Daniel 4:34-35).  

In his lectures on St. Cyril, Bishop James Stanton remarks, “The heading of this lecture in Greek is not really about the “unity” of God, but God’s monarchia, God’s singular, sovereign rule. This word was very important to the early Christians.  There is nothing mightier than God, and nothing challenges Him. Though He may be described with various terms – good, just, etc. – there is no variation in Him.  He is all of these things at once. He is perfect in power, wisdom, knowledge and love.  “He foreknows the things that be; He is holy, almighty, and excels in all goodness, majesty and wisdom.” He exceeds every being in everything. In a word, God is transcendent. Quoting Moses, Cyril asserts that there is nothing like God.  It is this utter uniqueness and transcendence of God that compels and impels Christians.”  (James Stanton: The Catechetical Lectures of St. Cyril).

The 17^th Century French Bishop, Jacques Bousset unfolds the absolute power of the monarch, “The royal power is absolute. The prince need render account of his acts to no one. "I counsel thee to keep the king's commandment, and that in regard of the oath of God. Be not hasty to go out of his sight: stand not on an evil thing for he does whatsoever pleases him. Where the word of a king is, there is power: and who may say unto him, What do you do?  Whoever keeps the royal commandment shall feel no evil thing." … I do not call majesty that pomp which surrounds kings or that exterior magnificence which dazzles the vulgar. That is but the reflection of majesty and not majesty itself. Majesty is the image of the grandeur of God in the prince. The power of God makes itself felt in a moment from one extremity of the earth to another. Royal power works at the same time throughout all the realm. It holds all the realm in position, as God holds the earth. Should God withdraw his hand, the earth would fall to pieces; should the king's authority cease in the realm, all would be in confusion” (J.H. Robinson, ed. Readings in European History 2 vols. (Boston: Ginn, 1906), 2:273-277).

That Sovereignty is given by the Father to the Son, “I saw in the night visions, and behold, with the clouds of heaven there came one like a son of man, and he came to the Ancient of Days and was presented before him.  14 And to him was given dominion and glory and a kingdom, that all peoples, nations, and languages should serve him; his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom one that shall not be destroyed”  (Daniel 7:13-14).

In His birth of a Virgin, he who comes as a child comes as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords. “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon(1 )his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace.  Of the increase of his government and of peace there will be no end, on the throne of David and over his kingdom, to establish it and to uphold it with justice and with righteousness from this time forth and forevermore. The zeal of the LORD of hosts will do this” (Isaiah 9:6-7).  

We have a King. Jesus the Son of God.  He alone has the divine right of kings.  This is not mere pomp and ceremony, although that is included.  The King is Omnipotent, Omnipresent, and Omniscient.  Before Him every knee shall bow, in heaven and on earth, and under the earth (Philippians 2:10).

Who are you?  Who am I?  We are citizens of the kingdom, servants of the king, children of the king, before we are anything else.  To deny our citizenship is to deny our identity, and if effect to be lost.  To claim that kingship for our own is to place ourselves in the place of the King of Kings.  That was the core of the rebellion of Adam and Eve.  That refusal of the sovereignty of God, and our place as beloved creation is to lay claim to ourselves for ourselves.  George MacDonald reminds us, ““The one principal of hell is – ‘I am my own.’”

Regarding Devotion to Our Lady:

Raphael ~ Madonna and Child

Let me make a clarification about the place of the Blessed Virgin Mary in Anglican devotions.  Devotion to our Lady has been for centuries part of our tradition, but Anglicans generally have their own slant on it:

1.      Martin Thornton, the author of English Spirituality, writes:

 “Devotion to our Lady—and St. Bernard probably invented that title—is the obvious safe guard against ascetical Apollinarianism, and our lack of such devotion to her is equally the cause of its modern prevalence.”[1]

2.      What is Apollinarianism?  "Apollinarius (b. about AD 310) taught that Jesus was not fully human because he did not have a      human soul. He imagined Christ as God clothed in flesh and with many human attributes, but the guiding principal (ego) remained totally divine. Jesus being totally divine could not be tempted.”[2

3.      It important not separate the affective (or emotional) side of our understanding of God from the speculative (or intellectual) side. Thornton goes on to say:

“Devotion to St. Mary supports and strengthens orthodox Christology against Apollinarianism: if Mary is his mother, then Jesus is unquestionably man.”[3]

The “Hail Mary” was originally intended as a defense against Apollinarianism.

Hail Mary, full of grace

the Lord is with you.

Blessed are you amongst women

and blessed is the fruit of your womb, Jesus.

Holy Mary, God-bearer,[4]

pray for us sinners now

and at the hour of our death.[5]

A common Anglican rule of thumb is: Never ask Mary or the Saints for anything that you should be asking God for, but by all means ask anybody in the ongoing Body of Christ, including Mary and the Saints, for prayer on your behalf.  However there is even within Anglicanism a broad spectrum of practice. The Book of Common Prayer acknowledges the role of our Lady, and her wonderful example, but does not give us a model of prayer to Mary.

The Visitation                                                May 31

Father in heaven, by your grace the virgin mother of your

incarnate Son was blessed in bearing him, but still more

blessed in keeping your word: Grant us who honor the

exaltation of her lowliness to follow the example of her

devotion to your will; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who

lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, for

ever and ever. Amen.[6]

Saint Mary the Virgin                                   August 15

O God, you have taken to yourself the blessed Virgin Mary,

mother of your incarnate Son: Grant that we, who have been

redeemed by his blood, may share with her the glory of your

eternal kingdom; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives

and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God,

now and for ever. Amen.[7]

The Annunciation                                         March 25

Pour your grace into our hearts, O Lord, that we who have

known the incarnation of your Son Jesus Christ, announced

by an angel to the Virgin Mary, may by his cross and passion

be brought to the glory of his resurrection; who lives and

reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, now

and for ever. Amen.[8]

You will also notice in these collects not only the blessedness of Mary, but also the cause for that blessedness; the incarnation of God in the flesh of Mary, Jesus God Incarnate.  She is called Theotokos which means “God-bearer” in the original version which is different than “Mother of God.”  In one of our hymns, Ye Watchers and Ye Holy Ones, we sing of Mary as the bearer of the eternal word.

O higher than the cherubim,
more glorious than the seraphim,
lead their praises, Alleluia!
Thou bearer of the eternal Word,
most gracious, magnify the Lord.[9]

Let me offer my own tribute to our Lady. 

LADY LAUD YOUR SON

Lady laud your son.

Cast down your golden crown and worship him,

born a babe in stable laid,

who walked the hills of Galilee

with fisher folk and tax collectors,

made of them a holy band,

shocked the scribe and Pharisee

not less than priest and Sadducee.

No simple man, nor plain was he.

His is the power that calls forth you and me.

Lady laud your son

whose death pierced your own soul

with grief too sharp to bear

fulfilling prophet's words in temple court

so long ago.  Proud mother of a little babe,

with head bowed down

you contemplate the way

he cast down the mighty from their thrones.

Lady laud your son.

You have given once again.

In mothering you have given many times before.

Resurrection joy, ascension parting mingle in your breast.

The old ways of holding him can never be again.

Lady laud your son.

Cast down your golden crown and worship him

in the circle of the saints, his sisters, brothers,

all your children now, all crowned like you

God-bearer, now for ever blessed

held in warm embrace by glad hearts everywhere.

Lady laud your son.

                                                           

PAX

The Rev. Canon Dr. Robin P. Smith

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[1] Thornton, p. 87

[2] Introduction to Anglican Foundations Class at Apostles.

[3] Thornton, p. 87

[4] Literally in Greek: Theotokos, which is accurately translated “God-bearer.”

[5] Edited version by Father Abbot Morales and Dom Anselm+.

[6] The Book of Common Prayer, p. 240

[7] BCP, p. 243

[8] BCP, p. 240

[9] Hymnal 1940, p. # 599

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Copyright © 2011 Robin P. Smith

Blaise Pascal 17th C

Our American values are reflected in the basic rights which we hold dear: Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness.  These values are not equal.  The right to life is fundamental in a way that liberty and the pursuit of happiness are not.  Even at that whales seem to have a clearer right to life than unborn babies.

We consider liberty to be a guardian of life.  We might formulate it this way: we have the liberty to preserve life, and we believe that all should have the basic right to life and liberty.  Slowly the rest of the world is coming around to our way of thinking, even to the extent of some sacrificing their lives so that other may have both life and liberty.  In these days this pursuit of liberty and life is being propelled forward by social media and we see uprisings in many parts of the world.  But please remember the difference between whales and unborn babies.

The pursuit of happiness is another matter.  The right to pursue happiness presupposes that we are fundamentally unhappy and that much of our life is spent in the pursuit of happiness.  Even having life and liberty does not guarantee happiness.  That popular contemporary philosopher Mick Jagger is correct when he tells us, “You can’t always get what you want,” and “I can’t get no satisfaction.”  That is a profound truth, not just a wail of unhappiness. 

What the right to the pursuit of happiness declares is that we have the right to pursue it, not a guarantee that by pursuing we can find it.

The underlying premise is that “We do not know our place is the cosmos,”[i]  We don’t really know who or what we are and in our pursuit of happiness we pursue creation instead of the Creator.  People are unaware that the pursuit of happiness is the pursuit of God.  Some people are so bent on pursuing happiness in the world, and in themselves, that they become angry at the suggestion that the pursuit of happiness just might turn out to be the pursuit of God.   Somehow we think that’s not fair, after all we want to find what we want to find, not what is actually there.

Blaise Pascal argues that man is like a complicated lock with all kinds of crevices and slots and only Christianity is the key that can fit the lock.[ii]  In short what creates and drives the pursuit of happiness is that man is incomplete in himself.  He has a hole in the middle of his being that can’t be filled with material things, or even with the people we treasure.  Kreeft says, “To place divine expectations on human shoulders is an infallible recipe for ruin and bitter disappointment.”[iii]  Others can’t make you happy, and you aren’t responsible for the happiness of others.  You don’t have that kind of power.  You do have responsibility not to willfully add to the unhappiness of others by thoughtless or loveless behaviour.  Knowing the difference is part of knowing our place in the cosmos.

You know, as you have been so often been told before, that there is hole in the human heart, a God shaped hole that only God can fill.  While that truth is so commonplace as to be almost trite, it happens to be true.

According to Pascal there are two basic truths.  Man without God is wretched.  Man with God is happy.[iv]  St. Augustine had it right when he said, “Thou hast made us for thyself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in thee.”[v]

Out discussion of this meditation at our Chapter meeting this afternoon brought several things to light:

For the Christian there is a tremendous joy of knowing Christ an in knowing that through his sacrifice we are actually forgiven and accepted.  That itself can be breathtaking.

There is also a joy in the world around us, a joy that is experienced more richly through grace and the understanding of the self-revealing love of the Creator.  Let me give you an analogy.  When I was very young I had taken several lessons in oil painting under a professional artist of some repute.  One of my assignments was painting a scene with autumn leaves.  There came a time after my encounter with Christ and my surrender to the infilling of the Holy Spirit that something new began to happen.  Shortly after that discovery of the overwhelming love of God I walked out in the yard between my parent’s house and a neighbour’s.  It was a beautiful fall Canadian day and I saw the autumn leaves in full colour for the first time.  I had seen that display of autumn leaves many times before, but now I was amazed by the gorgeous radiant colours, the shades of red, orange, and yellow resplendent before me.  It was as though I had never seen autumn leaves before.  It was not the leaves that were different, but it was me.  “My eyes were different because my eyes had been opened to beauty.  O, Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness.”   

When a child of the world encounters Christ for himself all his perceptions of joy are heightened and deepened, and even in the midst of difficult circumstances that joy begins to creep on silent feet into our consciousness.  Under grace there is an enriched grasp of the joys that come through beauty, knowledge, and relationships.

The Christian experiences joy rather than mere happiness.  The children of the world also experience joy although they may not realize its source in the Creator.  When you seek Truth, you seek Christ, and in seeking Christ you discover joy.  There is a certain joy that comes through the very process of seeking.  One of our Benedictines, who in his youth held a number of weight lifting world records in his weight class, likened it to the excitement of preparing for a competition, but when the competition was over there was no abiding experience of joy, until the next time of preparation.  The joy was in the pursuit.  So also there is joy in the pursuit of God.  In the seeking is the leading edge of the fulfillment.

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[i] Peter Kreeft, Christianity for Modern Pagans, (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1993), p. 53

[ii] Ibid. p. 47

[iii] Ibid. p. 48

[iv] Ibid. p. 25

[v] St. Augustine, The Confessions, I 1.2

O Virgin, By Whose Blessing All Nature Is Blessed

A sermon by St Anselm, via Universalis.com

I was told a long time ago to read two classics for every contemporary book we read.  There is a reason why!  In the classics of the faith we get in tough with an ageless faith. We believe what has been believed, everywhere, always, and by all.

Blessed Lady, sky and stars, earth and rivers, day and night – everything that is subject to the power or use of man – rejoice that through you they are in some sense restored to their lost beauty and are endowed with inexpressible new grace. All creatures were dead, as it were, useless for men or for the praise of God, who made them. The world, contrary to its true destiny, was corrupted and tainted by the acts of men who served idols. Now all creation has been restored to life and rejoices that it is controlled and given splendour by men who believe in God.

The universe rejoices with new and indefinable loveliness. Not only does it feel the unseen presence of God himself, its Creator, it sees him openly, working and making it holy. These great blessings spring from the blessed fruit of Mary’s womb.

Through the fullness of the grace that was given you, dead things rejoice in their freedom, and those in heaven are glad to be made new. Through the Son who was the glorious fruit of your virgin womb, just souls who died before his life-giving death rejoice as they are freed from captivity, and the angels are glad at the restoration of their shattered domain.

Lady, full and overflowing with grace, all creation receives new life from your abundance. Virgin, blessed above all creatures, through your blessing all creation is blessed, not only creation from its Creator, but the Creator himself has been blessed by creation.

To Mary God gave his only-begotten Son, whom he loved as himself. Through Mary God made himself a Son, not different but the same, by nature Son of God and Son of Mary. The whole universe was created by God, and God was born of Mary. God created all things, and Mary gave birth to God. The God who made all things gave himself form through Mary, and thus he made his own creation. He who could create all things from nothing would not remake his ruined creation without Mary.

God, then, is the Father of the created world and Mary the mother of the re-created world. God is the Father by whom all things were given life, and Mary the mother through whom all things were given new life. For God begot the Son, through whom all things were made, and Mary gave birth to him as the Saviour of the world. Without God’s Son, nothing could exist; without Mary’s Son, nothing could be redeemed.

Truly the Lord is with you, to whom the Lord granted that all nature should owe as much to you as to himself.

           

The Purifying Ground

It has occurred to me that I have lived twice the age of Jesus when He ascended into heaven.  When you are a child looking forward to my age it seems like a very long time.  Long enough that fortunately I can’t remember all that happened.  Not only that, grace and forgiveness have filtered out some of my past wickedness leaving only a pale sepia toned impression of those events.

Some of those events show up in a quite different light; grace often throws into clear relief the ridiculous side of human actions, so much so that even we can see the humorous side of our stupidity.  At the time those events were embarrassing and the cause of great guilt and remorse.  Further, the record of our sins, through grace, becomes the very stuff of our testimony of redemption.  When Christ Jesus our Kinsman Redeemer redeems us He does so completely.  With joy we can tell another, “These are the foolish things I have done, and I am forgiven.”  Every effective testimony must carry within it the vulnerability of Truth, not an idealization of the past.

Over all that lengthy period of time, lengthy to me, but only the opening and closing of a door to Him who loves me; over all that lengthy period of time I see at play the law of undulation.  Screwtape fears that we will see and understand that the course of human spiritual experience is an undulating wave, a series of troughs and peaks, moving ever on as we slowly ascend to our heavenly home.

"'So you 'have great hopes that the patient’s religious phase is dying away', have you? I always thought the Training College had gone to pieces since they put old Slubgob at the head of it, and now I am sure. Has no one ever told you about the law of Undulation?

Humans are amphibians—half spirit and half animal. (The Enemy’s determination to produce such a revolting hybrid was one of the things that determined Our Father to withdraw his support from Him.) As spirits they belong to the eternal world, but as animals they inhabit time. This means that while their spirit can be directed to an eternal object, their bodies, passions, and imaginations are in continual change, for to be in time means to change. Their nearest approach to constancy, therefore, is undulation—the repeated return to a level from which they repeatedly fall back, a series of troughs and peaks. If you had watched your patient carefully you would have seen this undulation in every department of his life—his interest in his work, his affection for his friends, his physical appetites, all go up and down. As long as he lives on earth periods of emotional and bodily richness and liveliness will alternate with periods of numbness and poverty. The dryness and dullness through which your patient is now going are not, as you fondly suppose, your workmanship; they are merely a natural phenomenon which will do us no good unless you make a good use of it.'"[i]

Christ Jesus came for this, to become one with us and to catch us up and carry us home to God the Father.[ii]  The pilgrimage of our lives is a Purifying Ground and the God of love is a consuming fire.  As we draw closer to Him the intensity of the fire of His love will burn away our dross.   Being transformed into the image of Christ does not come from keeping a list of rules.  Transformation, purification, comes from drawing close to God, and is a natural result of being close to Him.

C. S. Lewis often quotes George MacDonald, and published an anthology of Macdonald’s sayings.  The following is his second entry titled “Inexorable Love.’

"Nothing is inexorable but love. Love which will yield to prayer is imperfect and poor. Nor is it then the love that yields, but its alloy. . . . For love loves unto purity. Love has ever in view the absolute loveliness of that which it beholds. Where loveliness is incomplete, and love cannot love its fill of loving, it spends itself to make more lovely, that it may love more; it strives for perfection, even that itself may be perfected--not in itself, but in the object. . . . Therefore all that is not beautiful in the beloved, all that comes between and is not of love's kind, must be destroyed. And our God is a consuming fire."[iii]

And again, “As always, the first step is to keep knowledge out of his mind. Do not let him suspect the law of undulation.  Let him assume that the first ardours of his conversion might have been expected to last, and ought to have lasted, forever, and that his present dryness is an equally permanent condition.”[iv]  From the viewpoint of Screwtape you are to forget that you have read this; remembering can only arm you against his deceptions.

In those troughs the battle can be hazardous for we travel through the Valley of the Giants; the sons of  Anak are there, whom the Israelites feared. “And there we saw the … the sons of Anak, who come from the Nephilim), and we seemed to ourselves like grasshoppers, and so we seemed to them.”[v]   What are the contemporary giants that need slaying?  We know them by their old names and they have not changed: Unbelief, Accidie,   Self-love, Anger,  Pride, Addictions, Porneia, and Mammon, and all their maleficent cousins.   The Valley of Giants is part of the Purifying Ground; all must pass through it on the way to Zion.   “For you, O God, have tested us; you have tried us as silver is tried. 11 You brought us into the net; you laid a crushing burden on our backs; 12 you let men ride over our heads; we went through fire and through water; yet you have brought us out to a place of abundance.”[vi]  

Like Paul kicking against the ox goad[vii] we resist the grace extended to us and often reap the resulting pain of flying in the face of grace.  That is part of the undulation.  There are troughs and there are lofty mountains where we are drawn into the sweet intimacy of God’s love and reassured by His presence we stride forward on our upward journey.  We are not to rest in the troughs, and we are not yet fit to live for ever on the heights, but even as we journey on our pilgrimage we are to embrace with joy the presence of God in both the valleys and the heights. 

St. Augustine gives us direction on the manner of our pilgrimage, “So now, my brethren, let us sing, not to delight our leisure, but to ease our toil. In the way that travellers are in the habit of singing, sing, but keep on walking. What does it mean, “keep on walking”? Go onward always – but go onward in goodness, for there are, according to the Apostle, some people who go ever onward from bad to worse. If you are going onward, you are walking; but always go onward in goodness, onward in the right faith, onward in good habits and behaviour. Sing, and walk onwards."[viii]

When we walk as pilgrims through this Purifying Ground on Middle Earth[ix] an attitude born of faith is everything.  While all the valleys may not be as deep as the Abyss and all the Peaks may not be an Everest, the journey downhill and up can be arduous.  Not every spiritual height is alpine, even though some are.  Abide in Christ.  To walk in the Presence is not to walk alone, but to walk with him who brings the comfort of a solemn joy throughout our journey.  Our experience of the Faith is not meant to be cold and distant.

The great 19^th Century Scottish Preacher Robert Murray M’Cheyne, observed:

“Some people are afraid of anything like joy in religion.  They have none themselves, and they do not love to see it in others.  Their religion is something like the stars, very high, and very clear, but very cold.  When they see tears of anxiety, or tears of joy, they cry out, Enthusiasm, enthusiasm!  Well, then to the law and to the testimony.  “I sat down under His shadow with great delight” (Songs 2:3).  Is this enthusiasm? O Lord, evermore give us this enthusiasm! May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing!  If it be really sitting under the shadow of Christ, let there be no bounds to your joy.  O if God would but open your eyes, and give you simple, child-like faith, to look to Jesus, to sit under His shadow, then would songs of joy rise from all our dwellings. Rejoice in the Lord always, and again, I say rejoice!"[x]

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[i] C. S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters, (new York: Simon and Shuster, 1996), p. 40 [Ch. VIII].

[ii] The Creed of St. Athanasius, “Who although he be God and Man, yet he is not two, but one Christ; One not by conversion of the Godhead into flesh, but by taking of the Manhood into God.” (BCP, p. 865).

[iii] C. S. Lewis, George MacDonald an Anthology, (New York: Macmillan). p. 1 [Currently available at Amazon].

[iv] Screwtape, p. 44

[v] ESV Numbers 13:33

[vi] ESV Psalm 66:10 -12

[vii] Acts 26:14-15 [ESV]  “Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me? It is hard for you to kick against the goads.'  15 And I said, 'Who are you, Lord?' And the Lord said, 'I am Jesus whom you are persecuting.”

[viii]   St. Augustine, “Universalis”, Saturday 26 November 2011

[ix] “The turning circle of the years had spun . . . Still thirty more since Almighty God, The King of Glory, had been born on this Middle-Earth of ours, light for the faithful In Human form, ”Elene,” trans: Burton Raffel, Poems and Prose from the Middle English, (New York: Vail-Ballou Press, 1998), p. 35, lines 1-7

[x] Robert Murray M’Cheyne, “Sermon 2”, in Memoirs and Remains of the Rev. R. M. M’Cheyne, ed. Andrew Bonar, (Edinburgh: William Oliphant, MDCCLXV), p. 316-317.