Time for Reflection
The first item of business is time for reflection. I am pleased to welcome as our time for reflection leader the Rev Mark Malcolm, the minister of Ormiston and Pencaitland parishes.
The Rev Mark Malcolm (Ormiston and Pencaitland Parish Churches):
The warmest of afternoons to you all, and thank you for the invitation, Presiding Officer.
Two summers ago, I went with my parents to visit my great-grandfather's grave in France. He was a soldier in the Black Watch and his grave was two hundred yards away from the very spot where he had lost his life. It was a moving time, as I understood for the first time that my father grew up without his grandpa, and my grandpa grew up without his dad.
And yet, as moving as his grave was, the grave beside his was equally moving. It looked exactly the same as my great-grandfather's grave, except for the inscription. There was no name at the top of the headstone, simply the inscription:
"A Soldier of the Great War".
The grave was of a young man, buried unknown. At the foot of the stone was the inscription, "Known unto God".
This week, in our village, Mary died. Mary was a character: an old-fashioned, fierce matron. In her later life, even her doctors were afraid to visit her. She had never married, as her fiancée had died in the war. She had little truck with politicians, or ministers, and had a laugh that made you think that this 80 year-old lady had had a more colourful past than she ever let on. She lived a life of service—a life lived for others—and yet, on passing her in the street, she looked like any other old lady. But Mary was known unto God.
God is a God who deals with people—a God who knows them, loves them, and cares for them. Psalm 139 expresses it like this:
I praise you, for I am fearfully and wonderfully made.
Wonderful are your works; my soul knows it very well.
My frame was not hidden from you,
when I was being made in secret,
intricately woven in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed substance;
in your book were written, every one of them,
the days that were formed for me,
when as yet there were none of them.
How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
John chapter 3 takes it further: it says:
"For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him."
Could not we say, "for God so loved the unknown soldier," or, "for God so loved Mary"—unknown maybe to the world, but not to Him? Unknown, and yet loved, but loved at a cost.
God is a God who deals with people. Is that not both a comfort and challenge to us—that we are known unto God who was willing to count the cost?
Every blessing to you in your work today.