This evening at the ecumenical Easter service I was sitting admiring the stain glass windows, illumined from the outside by an April setting sun. There are two main windows facing the congregation. One has the four saints of Scotland and the other has the creation and the four seasons. Between them a smaller round window depicting the sower who went forth to sow.
At the top of the Scottish saints window was the image of the Lamb, holding the red crossed banner, illumined around the head with the shekinah of heaven. As I was looking at that particular image the organist started to play All in an April evening, and I thought of the line, "I thought of the Lamb of God". That was one of those coincidences that some of us read as a significant nudge of the Holy Spirit. More so because….
About 15 years ago, less than a mile from where I sat in the church, I was visiting an elderly member of the church where I was then minister. Her name was Carrie, and she was very near the end of her journey and I sat with her, along with her sister. There were five sisters, and their given name was Lamb. They had made up a singing group in their younger years. That Spring afternoon Carrie asked if her sister and I would sing All in an April Evening, and wouldn't take no for an answer.
In those days before Britain's Got Talent there was no one there to laugh at us – in fact, imperfect and at times hilarious as it was, Carrie joined in both the singing and the hilarity, and somehow we made our way through to the close. In those moments of unrehearsed friendship and pastoral encounter the three of us, in our own way, and from our own experiences, 'thought on the Lamb of God'. A day or two later Carrie died, and discovered that the eternal love of God is like another of her favourite pieces of music – the place where 'Sheep May safely Graze'.
So there I was tonight, looking at this lovely sunlit stained glass image of the Lamb of God, the organ playing a piece so replete with memory and affection for me, and within hearing distance of a bleating lamb from that room where in ministry and friendship, our faith was shared in a mixture of poignancy and hilarity. In the co-incidence of window, music and memory, of image, sound and remembering, I felt a deep and lovely feeling of what the Communion of Saints really means. I know I believe it as in the Creed; I've sung about it; I can do the theological exposition of it -but each of these is but the articulation of an experience that now and again transcends argument and intellectual grasp. It was an Easter moment, when in memory and love cor ad cor loquitur 'heart speaks to heart'.
These words were the motto of Cardinal Newman, whose prayer was a favourite of the sister who sang with me:
O LORD, support us all the day long of this troublous life, until the shades lengthen, and the evening cometh, and the busy world is hushed, the fever of life is over, and our work done. Then, Lord, in thy mercy, grant us safe lodging, a holy rest, and peace at the last; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.
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