Church News THE UNIVERSAL CHRIST

Samuel Rutherford was a 17th century Scottish church leader and theologian.

For political reasons and a personal indiscretion he was deposed from his church in the Borders and imprisoned in Aberdeen. From his prison he wrote many letters. In one, he wrote:“For we have all shapen Christ but too narrow and too short and formed conceptions of his love, in our conceit, very unworthy of him.”

His complaint is as real today as it was then. We have reduced Christ to the size of our puny ideas, neutralized the significance of his life, and evaporated the dynamic impetus of his abiding presence. In a multitude of ways Jesus Christ has simply been marginalised and forgotten.

Modern global society desperately needs to recapture the stature of Jesus.

Or rather, the human race needs to be confronted by that‘mighty Figure’(CFD Moule).

Moule wrote:“Jesus is a person of such magnitude that no insight can fathom him and any description is pitifully adequate’(The Origins of Christology) .

There is a dramatic scene in Bach’s St Matthew’s Passion immediately after Christ’s arrest and leading to Christ’s impending crucifixion.

The chorus shouts out:“Have lightning and thunders their fury forgotten? Then, open O fathomless pit, all thy terrors.”

Bach suggests that the arrest and subsequent passion of our Lord involved a wider existence than our narrow human scene.

Jesus’arrest and death would shatter the universe’s order and transform the world.

This idea of the universal significance of Jesus’life and death is also captured in that simple gospel verse,‘Now from the sixth hour (midday) to the ninth hour (3pm.) there was thick darkness over the earth’(Luke 23.44). This verse is not about the weather forecast. Luke also wrote‘The sun’s light failed’(Luke 23.45).

In other words, the death of Christ affected the human race and its history but also time and eternity, and the eternal span of the universe itself.

For we members of the human family are confronted by universal issues in our ordinary daily routine. Covid-19 forces upon us question of a future of prosperity or decline.

The global health of the nations, the fate of the migrant millions, the opportunities for employment for the young generation.

Will we return to our previous‘normal’way of living?

The future destiny of the global family is being decided within our own lifetime.

We simply cannot avoid these issues, and bury our heads in the sand.

They are being thrust in upon us.

It was issues of this dimension that were raised by these Thessalonian Christians with Paul.

We read about them in 1 Thessalonians chapter 4. They believed in the gospel and had given their lives to the Jesus of the gospel as preached by Paul.

They had been led to believe that Jesus would return within their own life time to scoop them up to God. Paul certainly believed in Christ’s imminent return.

But Christ’s return had been delayed and now some of the believers had died.

Had their loved ones lost their chance of eternity? Life and death, time and eternity, a faith to answer our pressing questions.

These were the issues confronting these Christians.

Paul answered them in the most profound way. ‘For since we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so through Jesus, God will bring with him those who have fallen asleep’(1 Thessalonians 4.13-18 especially verse 14).

Paul gave a+ faith-gospel more than adequate to answer their questions and meet their deepest needs.

Paul gave them Jesus of Nazareth, the supreme Saviour of Calvary and the Emptied Tomb.

If you want a faith that stands the tests of time throughout the full passage of your life.

If you want a soul strength able to look without fear into the darkest passages of your days.

If you want a soul certainty, quietly but supremely confident that all is well twixt you and eternity. If you want a Saviour to whom you can always turn as you would to a friend.

And why would you want anything less from your faith?

Then find it in the universal Jesus, whom Paul introduced to the Thessalonians and the gospel always brings to your soul.

‘Therefore, comfort one another with these words’

(1 Thessalonians 4.18).

HOLY TRINITY & ST BARNABAS’

The Scottish Episcopal Church has begun broadcasting video coverage of Eucharistic services via its website, social media channels and YouTube channel.

The web page for the broadcast is www.scotland.anglican.org/ broadcast-sunday-worship.

The next Sunday service is tomorrow at 11am and marks the 7th Sunday after Pentecost.

There will also be a Service of the Word on Thursday, July 23 at 6.30pm.

The website will also contain a downloadable video and audio format of the service.

We are conscious of the need to offer as much assistance as possible to those who have no access to the internet, and we encourage people to distribute the video/audio recordings and the Liturgy widely within their own personal networks.

In households with no internet or playback capacity, people who can be helped by others through the provision of printed materials will have the opportunity to read the words of the Liturgy.

The St Vincent de Paul Ozanam Centre and StreetConnect/ Cornerstone Paisley drop-in centre have now also suspended their activities from our church hall.

We would like also to continue to offer what assistance we can to the vulnerable in our society so if you know of anyone in need of assistance, please reach out to us via www. facebook.com/HTSBPaisley