Meeting of the Parliament
Meeting date: Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Official Report
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Time for Reflection
Good afternoon. Our first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is the Rev Brian More from Newton Mearns Baptist church.
The Rev Brian More (Newton Mearns Baptist Church)
A reading from the Gospel of John:
“On the evening of that first day of the week, when the disciples were together, with the doors locked for fear of the Jews, Jesus came and stood among them and said, ‘Peace be with you!’ After he said this, he showed them his hands and side. The disciples were overjoyed when they saw the Lord. Again Jesus said, ‘Peace be with you! As the Father has sent me, I am sending you.’ And with that he breathed on them and said, ‘Receive the Holy Spirit.’”
I never expected that, shortly after arriving on the island of Staffa, I would be in a rowing boat, alone, venturing into Fingal’s cave. Rowing as far as one can into this natural cathedral takes one through a short, weathered channel of hexagonal basalt to the top of the cave. In a moment of quiet, in the darkness, the connection was established. Scotland’s scenery had suitably seduced the senses, and the wonder of one of the world’s most intricate and beautiful coastlines—our coastline—had begun to recalibrate the heart. The sound of silence brought the opening bars of Mendelssohn’s Hebrides overture to mind. I was now aware why Sir Walter Scott could have said that this cave was
“one of the most extraordinary places”
that he had every visited. I wondered whether the same feeling was experienced by Staffa’s other distinguished visitors, such as Keats; Wordsworth; Jules Verne; Alfred, Lord Tennyson; and Queen Victoria.
It was then that the epiphany commenced. A momentary glimpse south from the cave revealed the summer sun glistening on Iona cathedral’s roof, which brought to mind St Columba, an exiled Irish monk who brought a message to these islands many years ago—a message that would shape a nation’s life and history and would later see Scots share with others what Columba first shared with us. The message of God: God, who stepped beyond the beauty of creation to the necessity of incarnation; Jesus, the Son, who, in coming to this world enables this world to come to God; the Holy Spirit, who brings the news of peace that unites us around our common need of forgiveness and grace.
In Jesus Christ, God addresses every human impossibility with the news of resurrection. The broken flesh on his hands and side, visible to those who were present on that Easter evening, says to us that to love, sacrifice and die in the service of others is to serve with a view to saving.
Jesus’s appearance to those who were fearful was the beginning of a rescue that continues to this very hour. Jesus appears to those in the story who least expected it, in a way that they might never have imagined.
So it is today. Who among us here never needs to be strengthened and encouraged in the service of others? I suggest to you that when someone rises from the dead it is, indeed, time for reflection.