Ivan Thompson

Ivan Thompson, my uncle, died in England a little over a week ago. 

His committal took place this afternoon in Garvagh, County Londonderry.

Current Government restrictions meant that for the simple service of at the graveside in the grounds of First Garvagh Presbyterian Church I joined, with another four of Ivan's nephews, my cousins James and Owen, and Ivan's brother's boys Stephen and Andrew in observing, socially distant, as our uncle was laid to rest. 

That was it.

There was no wake, no service in the church, only one garland of flowers, no friends or former colleagues. Not one of his four grandkids, nor his two daughters. And most poignantly of all, not even his wife, my auntie Liz! 

The guidelines are in place for a reason.

Follow them!

If people continue to ignore them the rules will become even tighter as the death toll from the virus becomes increasingly severe and perhaps even gatherings for committals may be banned!

Ignore the rules and there will be many more loved ones die because of the coronavirus than otherwise would not have. Flouting them may not impact you but it could harm a loved one, a neighbour, a stranger. All of who the Bible declares we are to love and treat with compassion.

In this case, loving them = not doing anything that might kill them! 

Don't be an idiot.

However, that's not the point of this blog post.

There are even more significant issues at stake. 

Eternal ones. 

As news of Ivan's passing became public and spread, I got a text message forwarded to me from someone I used to work with who now worships in a Presbyterian Church on the North Coast. It was from another member of the congregation. Part of it read...

"Those of us who had daughters at Coleraine High School remember Ivan as a great teacher and friend. We remember him fondly."

Around the time I was finishing my A-Levels I had a circle of friends that included quite a few former pupils of Coleraine High School so I know full well this to be true, and perhaps even somewhat of an understatement! Everyone's first comment when the name Ivan Thompson was ever mentioned was 'he's so lovely!' 

He was. 

They may not have known it (though many did) but what they were seeing was Jesus Christ in and through Ivan.

So, what would Ivan, & Jesus, want you to take from all of this. 

Simply this…

“I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more. But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him. Luke 12:4-5

In the fourth verse of the popular modern hymn "Yet not I but through Christ in me" we read these words

"With every breath I long to follow Jesus

For He has said that He will bring me home

And day by day I know He will renew me

Until I stand with joy before the throne".

This was my uncle's testimony. This IS his reality. He, like the repentant criminal on the cross, is with Jesus today. 

It was a respiratory disease that killed Ivan Thompson's body but that is all it could take. His soul was hidden with Christ a long time ago. 

He ran the race marked out for him (or should that be skied the run?) well to the end.

We have a distance yet to run. 

Palm Sunday - from an unusual perspective!

Many years ago, while I was serving as the youth worker for a church in Cookstown, I was given the task of organising a Palm Sunday Family Service at which I would deliver the talk.  

You'd think that writing a talk for Palm Sunday would be pretty straight forward wouldn't you? After all, it's a well-known part of the life story of Jesus, important enough for all four gospel writers to include it in their account (Matthew 21:1-11, Mark 11:1-11, Luke 19:28-44, and John 12:12-19), whereas not even the birth narrative makes it into all four gospels! Don't believe me? Go read Mark and see if you can find it! 

Well, it wasn't! 

Everything else about the service came together pretty quickly but for the longest time, I couldn't settle on what I was to say. At the Sunday service the week before I stood at the front of the church inviting everyone in the congregation along and challenging them to bring their friend and in the back of my mind, I was thinking "I really hope by this time next week I have something to say!'

For the first part of the next week, every waking hour was spent searching for what I should say - but I got nothing! 

Then one night, late in the week, in the wee small hours, I woke with a clear sense of the points I was to make. The contrast between the fog I'd been in for weeks and the clarity I had at stupid o'clock was palpable!

A lot of time has passed since I wrote the talk and we're living in different times plus back then I preached it whereas now should you choose to stick with it you are reading it (thank you for taking the time to do so!), all of which means that I've updated and adapted it slightly to hopefully better fit both the time and the medium. 

***

First of all, a reminder of the scene. 

Jesus and his disciples, in common with Jews from all over the place, are making their way to Jerusalem for the Passover Festival which is only a matter of days way.

In stark contrast to the majority of highways and byways today which are stripped of all but key workers and members of the public getting their one session of exercise or their weekly shopping, the roads connecting the surrounding villages to Jerusalem would have been absolutely rammed with people making their way to the city. For them there was no such thing as social distancing. In fact, at this time of year there was probably not much in the way of personal space! 

The whole experience would have been a full on assault on the senses: 

The incessant thuding of sandals and hoofs on the road,

The excited, expectant chatter between family groups, friends and strangers,

and, if that weren't enough add to that everything that happen once the crowd realise Jesus is a travelling companion:  

The colourful coats being thrown down on the road. 

The vigorous waving of palm branches.  

And the shouting - oh so much shouting!;  

"Hosanna to the Son of David!" 

"Blessed is he who comes in the name of the LORD!" 

"Hosanna in the highest!" 

"Blessed is the coming kingdom of our father David!" 

"Peace in heaven and glory in the highest!" 

"Blessed is the king of Israel!" 

And now, into all this comes a seemingly insignificant character but one we can learn so much from...

 ...THE DONKEY!

The gospels each record Jesus sending two of his disciples to the town just ahead of them where he tells them they will find a donkey tied up by the roadside. Actually, according to Matthew they bring back a colt ( a young donkey) and it's mother - we'll get to that shortly! 

There are three things I'd like us to consider. (What can I say?! I'm Presbyterian!)

1.

Have you ever played buckaroo?

You have to be very gentle when placing all the items on the donkey's back otherwise…'BAM!!!' Stuff flies everywhere. 

The game works because it is true to life. 

It is the nature of wild animals, and domesticated ones which haven't been broken in yet, to react badly to being sat upon and controlled by something or someone other than itself!  

In the accounts of Mark & Luke we read that Jesus gets on this hitherto unridden donkey and simply sets off for the city! If any other person had tried it they would have been lying in the ditch within a matter of seconds. 

Not Jesus! Only the Word made flesh, God the incarnate Son, the one through whom all things were made and have their being - including the very donkey he is now sat upon - could have tamed in an instant a colt which had never been ridden before.  

Likewise, only the creator God can subdue our wild, fallen and sinful nature - if we but let him. 

2.  

Not only was the young donkey out on the road that day but as we've already noted Matthew tells us it's mother was there too.   

Having been subdued by the master and pointed toward Jerusalm the colt has also got mummy there to look too!  With the crowd pressing in, the volume of shouting increasing and coats and palm branches going all over the place what a comfort that must have been to the 'little donkey' to have another one of it's kind walking alongside!

She may not have experienced absolutely everything that could possibly happen on any given road at any given time (like, say, a global pandemic!) but in the eyes of 'juniour' mum had seen enough for it to know that if she was ok with things then things would be alright! 

So it is for us. 

Submitting to the authority of the master is primary and vital but we do well to look to the wisdom, example and support of other Christians near and dear to us - people who can say from experience  "it's ok kid we can get through this, we're in good hands." 

3. 

Mark adds a detail that the other gospel writers omit. In verse 3 he notes that the disciples are to tell the donkey's owners that he will "send it back" once he has reached Jerusalem. Which is exactly what happened. 

Unlike Donkey in Shrek 2 there was no magical transformation into a noble steed but there was an even more dramatic change of character affected by the encounter with Jesus. 

Our donkey went right back to where the disciples had found it to be tied up to the same post, by the same road, to serve its earthly master by doing the donkey-like things it was supposed to. 

On the outside, nothing had changed but at the core of its innermost being the donkey would have had a new understanding of its purpose. 

Likewise, when we encounter the living God, acknowledge our sinful condition and submit to Christ's Lordship, we are changed in an instant from death to life. Our eternal destiny is dramatically altered but our temporal situation may remain exactly the same. 

Work, bills, family, the to-do list will be just as they were before but over time, as we go about the tasks set before we do so with a sense of purpose, one that demonstrates that the fulfillment of function to the best of our ability is an act not of service to an earthly master but of worship to the heavenly King.

So, in these uncertain times when people are feeling scared and confused we have an amazing opportunity to be like the donkey that Jesus rode into Jerusalem that day. 

Simply be the people we were created to be; get alongside others (obviously, in the current days keeping the required social distance or wearing the correct PPE or by utilising social media!) and show them a life transformed by Christ. 

And eat plenty of oats! 

But deliver us from evil...

I posted the following to my Facebook feed recently before I'd restarted blogging so I figured I would add it here now.

"...but deliver us from evil…"

Lots of people are, rightly, praying and sharing the LORD'S Prayer on their social media. 

In this current situation, prayer is being focused on asking, pleading even, that the Coronavirus might pass, and quickly. 

God ALWAYS answers honest, earnest prayers - though often not in the way, or timescale that we might want! 

Have you ever thought about just where that line about delivery comes in the prayer? It's actually pretty late on.

God is a God of order. 

Maybe by allowing this pandemic God's intention is for us to acknowledge and address everything that precedes that line in the prayer rather than just jump to the bit that we want in a 'pick-and-mix' grab? 

OUR FATHER 

1. If there was no 'He' there would be no 'We.'

2. As children, we have the right and privilege to talk with Abba 'daddy'.

WHO ART IN HEAVEN.  

There is a realm beyond our world. All we see is not all there is.

HALLOWED BE THY NAME. 

He is Holy

THY KINGDOM COME, 

He is Sovereign

THY WILL BE DONE, ON EARTH AS IT IS IN HEAVEN. 

His ways are not our ways. As the Psalmist says - Psalm 119:71

"It was good for me to be afflicted so that I might learn your decrees."

Might it be that at this time God is allowing this pandemic to save us from a fate worse than #Covid19?)

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD

God is faithful on a daily basis. His blessings are new EVERY MORNING and more than enough for the needs of that day.

AND FORGIVE US OUR TRESPASSES, AS WE FORGIVE THOSE WHO TRESPASS AGAINST US,

If we are to be forgiven, it follows that we must be forgiving to others and show that forgiveness in action; loving others by putting their needs before our own - whether that's picking up the phone, or some shopping, or maybe not picking up that extra packet of toilet rolls or pasta? 

AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATION 

God, will never cause us to sin though, as with Job He may allow us to be tested.

*BUT DELIVER US FROM EVIL*.

It's only at this point, having previously come to understand - as evidenced by our actions - that God is: 

Real,

Creator, 

Holy, 

Sovereign,

All powerful

Knowable

Relational, 

All Sufficient, 

Forgiving, 

Loving…

That we are instructed by Jesus to ask for deliverance from evil!

The lesson is in the learning. 

God's deliverance from this present evil will undoubtedly include a scientifically engineered vaccine or, at the very least a compliance to social distancing by the majority of citizens across the world. 

As such, deliverance might not come as soon as we might like it - for our own good and the good of those around us. 

Too soon - without individual and collective acknowledgment of our fallen state and our total reliance on God - and mankind will be fooled into thinking 'we beat this' and life will return as it was before; with no thought for God or our need to be in a right relationship with Him through Christ) 

Whatever our response; however this plays out...

THE KINGDOM, 

THE POWER, 

AND THE GLORY, ARE HIS

FOREVER AND EVER. 

AMEN.