Tag: fear

When human voices cannot sing

Today is All Souls’ day, the remembrance of the dead, and so I have picked a funeral song from the hymn book. ‘When human voices cannot sing’ by Shirley Murray.   

Verse 1 acknowledges that hearts do break in bereavement, and that singing praise must necessarily cease during that first period of intense grief. God knows that, and we can bring our grief to him, aloud or silently.  The second verse admits there is also often fear: the fear of not knowing what happens in death, or of dying in the same, perhaps unpleasant way. We ask to be set free from that fear of the unknown, and have our path lit by Christ.  The third verse asks for God’s love to be as real as it was at Easter. The fourth releases the beloved to go ahead of us on this unknown journey in peace and that our sorrow may come to an end.

The Church has to tread a wary path between the general assumption among most people in contemporary society that there is an afterlife or paradise to which all souls go without exception, and the apparent teaching of the bible that ‘not everyone will be saved’ (go to heaven, spend eternity with God, however you choose to express it).  Even Jesus who welcomed everyone in life and extended God’s covenant with Israel to the whole world, still taught of the narrow way that not all will find, of those who call him Lord but who will find themselves rejected, and of Gehenna, the unpleasant fate that awaits even those who call someone else a fool, from which the popular idea of hell may derive.  The Church’s teaching has generally been around the idea that entry into heaven is for all who believe in Jesus and repent of their sins, rather than for everyone or for the non-existent person who never sins.  Yet dare to challenge, however gently, someone who is convinced that their deceased relative is now an angel in paradise and we will be charged with insensitivity or prejudice.

What the lyrics of the hymn remind us is that the future is truly unknown. The Bible offers many images: of a stairway to heaven, souls given new bodies, people in white robes worshiping around a throne, a new Jerusalem.  In our own day people make comparisons with a caterpillar that cannot imagine the butterfly it will become.  All these can only be poor metaphors for what eternal life really is.  All we can do with certainty is put our trust in Christ who said he would go ahead of us to prepare a place. ‘Justorum animae in manu dei sunt’ – ‘the souls of the righteous are in the hands of God’.

Kindle a flame to lighten the dark

The song from “Sing Praise” for today, still on the theme of Candlemas, is a very short one, one of John Bell’s brief motets to be sung several times, slowly and meditatively, and ideally with different voices in harmony.  The text is short enough to quote in full: “Kindle a flame to lighten the dark and take all fear away”.

I wrote at length yesterday about Candlemas, so like the song I will keep it brief today.  Following on from where the last blog post finished, Candlemas is a time to remember that “do not fear” is one of the most common phrases in the Bible, and it is the light of eternal life kindled in Jesus that enables fears of all kinds to be taken away.

Whatever your fear is, sing (or say) this text to yourself several times, slowly, and ask Jesus to take the fear away and replace it with His light. “Kindle a flame to lighten the dark and take all fear away”.

Do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you

Today’s choice of hymn, following the themes of calling and baptism (or “Christian initiation” as the Sing Praise hymn book has it), is a song that our own church music group has used several times. The chorus is “do not be afraid, for I have redeemed you, I have called you by your name, you are mine”. That idea – that God calls us individually, in different ways (by our name) and that because of that there’s nothing to be feared in life – occurs throughout the Bible, in fact I’ve heard it said that the phrase “do not be afraid” is one of the most common in the Bible.

The first four short verses each suggest ways in which life might make us afraid, then the way in which God will protect us. All of these are relevant to the current Covid pandemic and lockdown.

Firstly we may feel we are “out of our depth” with what’s happening (perhaps especially appropriate today, as the North of England faces yet another warning of devastating floods), but he won’t let us drown. Or we may feel that we are surrounded by fire (the virus is just as dangerous, though invisible), but he won’t let us get burnt; or lonely (a problem many are facing in this pandemic) but God is always with us so we are never truly alone; or exiled away from home (perhaps in the sense that the culture around us is changing rapidly and makes us uncomfortable) but never far from God’s love.

The final verse reminds us again that we are God’s children and that he loves us. That’s what it all comes down to: whatever the pandemic brings, whether anxiety, fear of physical harm, loneliness or just life moving too fast for us to keep up with, the one constant is God’s love, so we need not fear.

The Bible in a Year – 8 March

If this is your first viewing, please see my Introduction before reading this.

8 March. Deuteronomy chapters 28-29

The difference between obeying and breaking the covenant between God and his people is set out in the starkest possible terms.  Keep it, and they could expect peace and prosperity.  Break it, and they could expect not only poverty and drought but also defeat in war, diseases and plagues of all kind, and starvation to be point of men eating their babies and women the afterbirth.   Images no doubt intended to frighten the mass of the people into obedience.

 

Is this an image of religion that people still have today?  That we believe if you don’t keep every rule in the Bible you will be punished for it in this life as well as the next?  If so, it is completely wrong. Even in the Old Testament there is much about God’s mercy and patience.  And ever since Jesus came to proclaim God’s gift of undeserved grace, the burden of keeping the law has been lifted, and we are free to “serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days” (Luke 1:74,75).  There will be much more to write about this later in the year when we get there, but for now the message is “do not be afraid” (sometimes said to be the most common phrase in the whole Bible).