‘Soon, oh soon the
light,
Pass within and soothe this endless night,
And wait here for you,
Our reason to be here’
From ‘The Gates of
Delirium’ from the 1974 album ’Relayer’’ by Yes
Waiting and longing are a big
part of this season of Advent.
Most of us will remember what it
was like as a child to journey through the seemingly long days of December,
waiting for Christmas and longing for the dawning of that day. Nowadays, it
seems to me that December rushes past and Christmas is upon us before we have properly
prepared!
But there is a still more significant
Day for which we now long and wait. In Advent we are reminded that the long
night will ultimately pass, and the light of God will dispel all darkness. We
await the Day of Redemption.
Still we long and we wait….
…for justice to come and exploitation
to end…
..for peace to come and war to
end…
…for healing to come and illness
to end…
…for comfort to come and sorrow
to end…
…for life to come and death to
end…
And so on.
Waiting and longing and hoping
and praying.
Oh that this Day would come, and
come quickly!
But, to turn to a more immediate
matter; for many years now I have reflected on the plight of the church in
Scotland and in the West in general. I know that the Christian faith is
advancing in so many parts of the world and that while the tide seems to be
ebbing in the West, it is in flood elsewhere. On the one hand, recent census
statistics indicate that Christianity is a minority in the UK (although there
are other perspectives on this) [1]. On
the other hand, most analyses show that the church is growing globally, and in
some cases very significantly and rapidly (especially in Africa, Asia and Latin
America).[2]
But I still find myself wondering
and (truth be told) worrying about the apparently relentless decline of the
church in our land and culture.
When will the light of ‘revival’ come?
When will the darkness of decline end.
(As an aside, the Church of
Scotland’s relentless decline began in 1956 – the year in which I was born.
Coincidence? I hope so!)
I mentioned revival, and I do not
necessarily or simply mean that in the limited sense of the ‘awakenings’ and spiritual
phenomena that have been historically recorded and described as ‘revivals’ (although
not to exclude them either). I mean the more general turning of the tide of
faith. And I certainly do not mean a return to ‘Christendom’ or the re-establishment
(so to speak!) of the church’s historical role in society.
But for all of my Christian
journey, people have affirmed that revival is coming, that they’ve had a
vision, or a ‘word from the Lord’, to say that the tide is about to turn… in
some cases they have insisted that this coming revival is but a season of prayer,
fasting, and repentance away, and yet all the while the decline has continued
and the drifting of our Western society from faith has not abated.
Am I despondent? Not really; just
wondering.
Have I lost hope? No, I still have
faith in the promises and plans of God.
But I am wondering and pondering
just what God may be saying to us, and how we are to respond.
Of course, we need to be serious
in asking ourselves what we might do better or how we might reflect on what
church should look like and act like in our context. But I am getting very impatient
with those who suggest that if only we did what we used to do then it would all
be ok, or those who insist that folks today (usually, they mean ‘Ministers
today’) are just not as (delete as appropriate) committed / prayerful /
faithful / good at visiting / committed to the parish / biblical / etc etc. It
is all so much nonsense in my view. It is simply shifting the blame and seeking
an easy scapegoat.
But, then, neither am I much
persuaded by those who think that if only we did everything in a new way, sang
more modern praise, embraced technology, tried new worship forms, became more ‘contemporary’
or ‘trendy’, then all would be fine. (and, to be clear, I do think our
ways of being and doing church need to be contextualised and always under review
reformata et semper reformanda and all that!). But… but… but…
while this may in some ways and to some extent be appropriate and right, it is
not a magic answer.
And I am certainly not at all denying
that we are still called to prayer, fasting, and repentance.
But we also need to consider what
it means to wait, to long, to wrestle with the issues, to journey through the
darkness, to continue on this road for as long as it takes before we turn the
corner and see the light coming (and, I suspect that may well be beyond the
lifetime of many of us).
I was reading Psalm 44 the other day.
It is a psalm of lament and also a cry for help. The people recall that they
have been told of how God did great things in times past, but now it is no
longer like that. (Sound familiar?). Indeed, they have become a ‘laughing stock’
(vs 14). And, the psalmist is clear, it is not because God’s people have
done anything wrong or abandoned God! (vs 17-18 & 20-21). So repentance is
not going to be a quick fix for this problem.
Yes, they cry out to God (‘Rise up!...
Rouse yourself!’ vs 23-26). But perhaps there will still be more waiting and
longing…
Waiting and longing.
[1] This
article by Giles Fraser is well worth a read:
[2]
See this for a balanced and thoughtful overview https://lausanne.org/content/lga/2021-03/is-christianity-shrinking-or-shifting
Thanks for sharing that meditation, David. I think I'll be pondering it a lot over the coming weeks.
ReplyDeleteThanks Roger
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