This new tapestry is based on only two lines from George Herbert's poem, 'The Flower.' (Printed at the end, below) They happen to be lines that resonate in quite startling ways with my own spiritual experience of surprise at the seasons of the heart, and living through each year of life in the rhythm of growth, flourishing, fruitfulness and withdrawal. 

"Who would have thought my shrivel'd heart

     Could have recovered greennesse?" 

'The Flower' is one of those poems by George Herbert that defies mere exposition, as if parsing the words, and explaining the syntax, and awareness of the context in which such poetry is written, bears decisive relation to why the poem was written at all. Herbert's own explanation of the poems we now know as The Temple, should be enough to alert us that we are standing on the holy ground of another man's dealings and pleadings and negotiations with God. Even angels are careful where they put their feet in such spiritual terrain. 

Entrusting the manuscript of the poems to his friend Nicholas Ferrar through an intermediary, he passed on the message that the poems were "a picture of the many spiritual conflicts that passed betwixt God and my soul…" In these poems we are overhearing the struggles of a soul, the conversations between a man and the God he is determined to serve, and love, and know in the intimacy of trust. But a God who is also beyond understanding, whose thoughts are not our thoughts and whose ways are as likely to baffle and perplex as much as comfort and guide.  

The Temple records Herbert's inner climate, his responses to circumstances, his attempt at articulating the emotional fluctuations and frustrations of his desire to love and know God. But so much is ambiguous, unpredictable, well beyond longed for certainties and settledness of heart. Herbert is expert in the spiritual anxieties of one who both loves and fears God, longing for God's affirmation yet often feeling God is indifferent, or worse, disapproving, and so more distant than near, and more judgemental than accepting.

Then again, few have described the loving acceptance of God with more wondering trust, and when Herbert looks on the Cross the reader is drawn into the poet's awe, a combination of explicit description and adoring wonder at the mystery of divine love personified and crucified in Jesus. With many others I think 'Love III' is Herbert's finest poem, and one of the most moving accounts of God's love that I know. That first line! "Love bade me welcome. Yet my soul drew back / guilty of dust and sin." 

Back to 'The Flower', which comes quite late in the collection which may have more to do with Herbert's editors than any chronological sequence he might have planned. It is one of the poems that says more than our best scholarship and expositions can uncover. It is a deeply personal account of the inner impact of all those 'spiritual conflicts' he has endured along the road of his 'heart in pilgrimage.' There is no attempt to analyse or rationalise. Instead the reader overhears prayer as conversation with God, a combination of wonder and complaint, acceptance and questioning, gladness and perplexity, between intimates but of unequals. 

'The Flower' is an account of a plant that seems to be flourishing, but then as the seasons pass, begins to lose its life sources, withers and goes underground for the winter. And early in the poem occur the two lines which I chose to explore in a tapestry.

I began by reading about 17th Century gardens. What flowers were in common use in English gardens around 1630? What about French and Italian influences on Renaissance gardens being planned and planted in the great houses of England in Herbert's time? What about the garden as a place of meditation and prayer, at least for those who could afford them? I found a lot of what I was looking for in Stanley Stewart, The Enclosed Garden, which is a brilliant study of the use of the garden image in 17th Century poetry. 

Next I went looking for the flowers that were available seasonally in the period, and selected those most likely to be common in Herbert's time. The tapestry is a combination of these research findings, and worked around the two lines about 'recovered greenesse'. In the four corners, from bottom left we go clockwise through winter, spring, summer and autumn (the one illustrated). Put in floral terms, hellebore and crocus with winter jasmine; narcissus and tulips; yellow lupin and rambling rose; then aster and rose hips. 

The central square panel is from a plan for a formal parterre garden of the period, like such gardens, governed by both geometry and symmetry in providing the beds for the botany! There is a great deal of 'greennesse', in tones and shapes giving both vitality and vibrance to the recovered flourishing of the garden. Sunrise in spring and sunset in autumn, snow in winter and blue skies in summer – the four seasons of a garden – and for Herbert, the changing seasons in the life of the soul and its relation to God.

The overall aim in this tapestry is modest; to give some visual clues to two lines expressing astonishment at God's grace and the poet's returned creativity, energy and spiritual recovery. In that sense the tapestry is itself a way of celebrating what Henry Scougal, the 17th Century Aberdeen Professor of Divinity called in his small but celebrated essay on the spiritual life, The Life of God in the Soul of Man. 

On one personal note, I have found the synergy between Herbert's poems and designing tapestry to be a fascinating inner conversation. Being familiar with the poems from many readings of the book, I'm fascinated with the ways in which my own inner responsiveness to poems over the years, influences and suggests ways of giving visual expression to spiritual experience. That makes each of these tapestries very personal, perhaps even idiosyncratic. But I hope some of the explanation offered above at least helps make sense of what on earth I think I'm about!  

How fresh, O Lord, how sweet and clean
Are Thy returns! ev’n as the flow’rs in Spring,
To which, besides their own demean
The late-past frosts tributes of pleasure bring;
Grief melts away
Like snow in May,
As if there were no such cold thing.
Who would have thought my shrivel’d heart
Could have recover’d greennesse? It was gone
Quite under ground; as flow’rs depart
To see their mother-root, when they have blown,
Where they together
All the hard weather,
Dead to the world, keep house unknown.
These are Thy wonders, Lord of power,
Killing and quickning, bringing down to Hell
And up to Heaven in an houre;
Making a chiming of a passing-bell.
We say amisse
This or that is;
Thy word is all, if we could spell.
O that I once past changing were,
Fast in Thy Paradise, where no flower can wither;
Many a Spring I shoot up fair,
Offring at Heav’n, growing and groning thither,
Nor doth my flower
Want a Spring-showre,
My sinnes and I joyning together.
But while I grow in a straight line,
Still upwards bent, as if Heav’n were mine own,
Thy anger comes, and I decline:
What frost to that? what pole is not the zone
Where all things burn,
When Thou dost turn,
And the least frown of Thine is shown?
And now in age I bud again,
After so many deaths I live and write;
I once more smell the dew and rain,
And relish versing: O, my onely Light,
It cannot be
That I am he
On whom Thy tempests fell all night.
These are Thy wonders, Lord of love,
To make us see we are but flow’rs that glide;
Which when we once can find and prove,
Thou hast a garden for us where to bide.
Who would be more,
Swelling through store,
Forfeit their Paradise by their pride.

Monday

Psalm 95.1 “Come let us sing for joy to the Lord; let us shout aloud to the Rock of our salvation.”

This ancient poet reminds us that joyful shouting isn’t only for rock concerts and football matches. God is reason enough for joy because in a world that changes rapidly and unpredictably God is Rock solid. The rock is a metaphor for permanence. In fact Jesus said if you build your life on the rock of obedience to His teaching, your ‘house’ will stand firm when the inevitable life storms come. So yes! That’s reason enough for joy! “Come ye that love the Lord, and let your joys be known.”

Tuesday

Psalm 95.2 “Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him with music and song,”

Joyful shouting isn’t a mindless positivity hoping to create a feel-good factor. Joy arises from a grateful heart and is disciplined in song and prayer. Saying thank you is the least we can offer for the kindness of someone who has surprised us with unlooked for generosity. That’s what God does, every day we wake up: “Thou hast given so much to me. Give one thing more, a grateful heart.”

Wednesday

Psalm 95.3 “For the Lord is the great God, the great King above all gods.

God is that to which we give our whole lives. Whatever matters more than anything else, whatever we would sell our soul for, that to us is ‘god’. The Psalm-poet claims that the God of Israel is God the first and foremost. Jesus said just as clearly, the first commandment is to love “the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength.” God revealed to us in Jesus is the One whose love and grace has surprised us with unlooked for generosity”. “Crown him the Lord of heaven, enthroned in worlds above; Crown him the king, to whom is given the wondrous name of Love.”

Thursday

Psalm 95. 4 “In his hands are the depths of the earth, and the mountain peaks belong to him.”

However low we fall, however high we climb, God is there. Height and depth, length and breadth – the four dimensional reach and range of the gracious mercy of God is inescapable. For a pilgrim people, deep valleys and mountain ridges were hard places to navigate. But God is there. He holds the deeps, he owns the mountain heights. This too is reason for praise, and to extol him with music and song: “Let all the world in every corner sing: My God and King.”

Friday

Psalm 95.5 “The sea is his for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land.”

For Israel the sea was a mixed blessing. Many of their enemies came from the sea. The sea itself was a symbol of danger, trouble, and serious threats to life. But just as the boundaries of sea and land are set by God, so whatever the circumstances of life that can at times come crashing around us, they don’t overpower God. When Jesus calmed the storm he was enacting this visible and credible authority of God – “even the wind and seas obey him." “Eternal Father strong to save, whose arm has bound the restless wave, who bids the mighty ocean deep, its own appointed limits keep; O hear us when we cry to Thee, for those in Peril on the sea.”

Saturday

Psalm 95.6 “Come, let us bow down and worship, let us kneel before the Lord our maker.”

“Come” is an invitation, a bidding word of encouragement. We live in a culture that resists the humility and readiness for service that the bent knee signifies. And by the way, gratitude is closely related to humility; the acknowledgement of our indebtedness presupposes the relinquishment of our pride. When we worship our whole being becomes an offering, a song of gratitude, a statement of intent to love and serve God wherever we are. “O worship the King, all glorious above; O gratefully sing his power and his love…”

Sunday

Psalm 95.7 “For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, the flock under his care.”

To say “he is our God” doesn’t mean we own God, or have a claim on God. But it does mean we belong to God and are kept under his care. Verses like this help us make sense of Jesus’ words: “I am the good shepherd, I know my sheep and my sheep know me.” When we say “He is our God” that isn’t a possessive statement, but the glad recognition of a relationship of commitment, it is to find joy in God’s care and God’s giving of God’s own self in his Son, to be the Good Shepherd of his people. “The King of Love my shepherd is, whose goodness faileth never; I nothing lack if I am his and he is mine forever.”

O worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness;
bow down before him, his glory proclaim;
with gold of obedience, and incense of lowliness,
kneel and adore him: the Lord is his name.

"Let all the world in every corner sing:

My God and King. 

When George Herbert wrote about the cosmic praise song coming from every corner of the world he was not announcing his membership of the flat earth society. He was using terminology that would be familiar enough to those who would read and sing his poem, 'Antiphon 1'.

The phrase "the four corners of the earth" occur several times in the King James Version, by Herbert's time becoming increasingly familiar as the biblical translation of choice. Commentators cite Psalm 95.1-4 as a textual source echoed in Herbert's poem. In particular, "In his hands are all the corners of the earth." (v4) By the early 17th Century, science and cosmology had established by experimentation and empirical observation that planets are round – Galileo and Kepler had seen to that. The affirmation that "In his  hands are all the corners of the earth" is an assertion of God's sovereignty over all creation, God's presence in and through all that exists, and therefore the trustworthiness and benevolence of the one who is "My God and king."

There is an all-inclusiveness in the invitation to every corner of the world to sing the Creator-Redeemer's praise. Indeed, God is not truly praised until the reverberations of worship are heard and felt from all the world and every corner. One of the more suggestive and plausible explanations of what Herbert might mean by "the four corners of the earth" comes from Nicholas Jones:   

"We are to envision a "chorus" of affirmation, a group agreed on a common statement of worship. In a schismatic and doubting world,that's no small step. This grand chorus imagines an even grander choral unity-that "all the world" might sing this one common text. Apparently, heretics have been converted, deep hatreds among the people of the world have been miraculously settled; and the world joins together to welcome its "God and King!" ¹

Herbert was writing in a context where such communal and confessional agreement was very far from actuality, but it was legitimate aspiration and a vision to be sought and prayed for. 

Of the other occurrences of "the four corners of the earth" the most interesting is Isaiah 11.11-12. The prophet addresses a dispersed people and speaks of a great gathering initiated, instigated and implemented by God – it will all be God's doing as he acts in sovereign faithfulness.

Isaiah 11.12 reads: "He will raise an ensign for the nations, and will assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth." But these prophecies of return and regathering follow on from a verse which is less a geography lesson than a theological reconfiguring of history, both of the people of God and the other peoples of earth over whom God is also Lord. Isaiah's visions of a renewed creation, a restored and returned Israel, and of a Messiah as the light of the nations have a universal impulse.

Isaiah 11.11 reads: "In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant which is left of his people from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the costlands of the sea." John Sawyer is quick to point out that Hamath is in the North, Egypt is in the South, Elam and Shinar in the East, and the coastlands to the West. Isaiah the poet more than hints at the four primary points of the compass, the four corners of the earth. ²

Was Herbert likely to build a poem around an obscure Isaianic text? He was undoubtedly familiar with such prominent canonical texts as Psalms, Isaiah,the Gospels, and the Pauline Epistles. Whether or not there is dependence on, or allusion to this Isaianic text, its explicit use of the phrase "the four corners of the earth" in 17th Century translation of the biblical text puts it well within Herbert's semantic options. In addition, the biblical context of communal gathering and return to the place of blessing and promise, makes Isaiah's text an important reference point for the central exhortation of the poem, and the longings of the poet for Christians  from 'every corner' of the world, to sing from the same hymn sheet in choral unity and personal confession:

"My God and King." 

In other words, Herbert's own historical context of the people of God dispersed, divided, and at odds with each other, make 'Antiphon 1' a profoundly aspirational hymn, a longing that what is not yet true, should some day, please God, become actual. "Let all the world in every corner sing" is the poet's hymn of hoped for unity and harmony, a song of praise from every corner of the world to the God "in whose hands are all the corners of the earth." (Psalm 95.4)

^{1 Nicholas Jones, 'Texts and Contexts: Two Languages in George Herbert's Poetry.' Studies in Philology, Vol. 79, No. 2, (Spring 1982) P.166}

^{2. John Sawyer, Isaiah vol 1. DSB. Saint Andrews Press, 1984. P. 125. Gordon McConville, Isaiah. BCOTPB, 2023. Pages 185-189.}

On a summer evening forty years ago, the choir and congregation of Thomas Coats Memorial Church, Paisley, sang a Seventeenth Century hymn by George Herbert. The sun slanted through the lightly tinted stain glass windows, falling across the chancel. Old oak choir stalls and angels glowed in mellow golds of shafted sunlight. The Hill organ was played by Derek Norval who also conducted the choir. The word magical is too easy and lazy to describe those few minutes of heavenly music – mystical, mysterious, glorious – or perhaps gracious, in the theologically charged sense of full of grace, or as a personal experience, touched by grace.

Here are the words of the hymn we sang:

1 Let all the world in every corner sing:
My God and King!
The heavens are not too high,
His praise may thither fly;
The earth is not too low,
His praises there may grow.
Let all the world in every corner sing:
My God and King!

2 Let all the world in every corner sing:
My God and King!
The church with psalms must shout,
No door can keep them out;
But, more than all, the heart
Must bear the largest part.
Let all the world in every corner sing:
My God and King!

Praise is a recurring theme and a repeated exhortation woven within and throughout The Temple, Herbert's collection of poems. The two line refrain is both urgent and expansive. Leaving aside the advancing knowledge of cosmology from Galileo's telescope onwards, Herbert's invitation to praise and worship goes out to all four corners of the globe. And the four word acclamation, "My God and King",  is the distilled theology of the Psalms. The repeated refrain injects into the text "the steady massiveness of a group collectively affirming a premeditated truth." ¹

The first verse acknowledges a two dimensional way of seeing the world and the cosmos, the heavens and the earth, above and below. The second verse is similarly bi-focal, the church and the heart, the congregation and the individual, the liturgical and the personal. Together they gather the diversities of human experience and earthly existence into the choral praise of creation and humanity; it is creation praise in a cosmic nutshell -"Let all the world in every corner sing: My God and King."

As often in Herbert's poems, the psalter provides the poet with vocabulary for praise. "The church with psalms must shout!" That surprising word 'shout' recalls familiar exhortations: "Let us make a joyful noise…let us come into his presence with thanksgiving, let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise." (Psalm 95.1-2; cf. Ps 100) As one of Herbert's more recent editors notes with reference to the word 'shout' as used by Herbert, he probably had in mind memories of "the inelegant sound of a rustic congregation bellowing the metrical psalms in the barbarous Sternhold and Hopkins translation often included in copies of the Book of Common Prayer." ²

The wings of praise enable all voices to fly joyfully upwards and towards God, while the praises of earth and soil and all creation, accompanied by human voices, grow upwards. This is an interesting view of praise as a spiritual discipline that in its practice and exuberance, encourages and fertilises spiritual growth. Not only so. Praise is made imperative in verse 2, "The church with psalms must shout." Praise is the beating heart of a Christian community, a sign of communal cardiac health in relation to God. The doors can be closed but the music will be heard anyway, praise will ascend, a joyful noise will be made. The peace of God may well pass all understanding, but in heaven praise is always a welcome interruption!

But then again, not only so. It is the heart that must sustain the music, and creates and carries the energy and devotion that vitalises and renders worthy of God "the joyful noise of praise and thanksgiving." All the world, every corner, heaven and earth, each church and every heart, a full orchestration of creation praise making symphony to the one who is "My God and King."

But the Church's praise must include the communal and the personal, chorus and solo. And the solo part is the 'larger part', demanding of skill and effort, and the ability to sustain the music. And just in case the soloist forgets their place, Bloch is right in his reminder: "Antiphon 1 tells us that the heart does not sing solo; its song is always heard against a chorus of many voices."⁴

"Let all the world in every corner sing:

My God and King!

These were the words we sang on a June evening 40 years ago, with a robed choir, a Hill organ, a small but engaged congregation, in a large nonconformist replica cathedral with magnificent acoustics, in fading sunlight softening towards evening. George Herbert would have loved it!   

1. Nicholas Jones, "Text and Context: Two Languages in George Herbert's Poetry, Studies in Philology, Vol. 79.2, 1982, p.166.
2. ^{George Herbert. The Complete Poetry. John Drury, Penguin Classics. 2015. page 393.}
3. The photo above is the architect's own drawing of the church as it was conceived and subsequently built. His name was Hippolyte Blanc. 
4. Chana Bloch, George Herbert and the Spelling of the Word. University of California Press, 1985. p.245. 

The first words Jesus spoke to his disciples after the resurrection were “Peace be with you.” He spoke them to a group of folk hiding behind locked doors. They were struggling to make sense of their grief, and cope with bewilderment and anxiety about what happens now.

“Peace be with you.” They were the right words to hear when the heart is a mess and the mind can’t function clearly. We’ve all been there; feeling shut in, wondering how to move forward, and losing confidence in ourselves.

In John’s Gospel tells us the disciples were together, “and the doors were locked, but Jesus came and stood amongst them.” Grief does that – closes doors, puts us on the defensive against further hurt, and often drains our confidence in life.

“The doors were locked but Jesus came to them.” That’s a description of what God is like, the one who can’t be shut out even when we are shut in. “Peace be with you.” These are words worth considering, at those times when life comes apart in our hands. And just to be clear, these are words of benediction; Jesus conveys the blessing he speaks.

“Peace be with you”, is the prayer of the risen Jesus who has come through death to new life. He now comes looking for those hiding behind closed doors, alone and struggling with the messiness of their lives.

That can be any of us. Peace is a rich word filled with such meanings as trust, purpose, healing of heart, confidence in life, a sense of being held by a strength more than our own. This coming week, hear these words: “Peace be with you.”

……………………

This piece was first published in the Aberdeen Press and Journal, as The Saturday Sermon, on April 20th 2024. I've done this every 6 weeks or so since 1992! It is an exercise, or at least an attempt, at what John Calvin called 'lucid brevity'. In other words, the word limit is 275 words in which to say something that is meaningful, helpful and worth a readers time to read.

There's an important discipline in word limits. In the 1980's, when technology was much more basic, I was minister in a church in Paisley which had a telephone ministry. The machine recorded exactly two minutes which included time for it to kick in and sign off, to introduce myself, and then say something meaningful in 1 minute and 40 seconds. There was no edit facility, the first take was what callers heard when they dialled the number. 

All kinds of people used this ministry. We often had letters and cards of appreciation from folk struggling at home, calling from hospital, or who regularly listened for encouragement. The two minute sermon was renewed several times a week, so ideas and ways of saying them briefly and effectively slowly developed an instinct for what was essential to include and what was waffle!

Who knows the impact of words, spoken or written. With the Saturday Sermon there is a place where what is written can make a difference to how people think of themselves, see the world, and think about the life they are living. It's a privileged place in which to share with fellow travellers whatever wisdom and humane experience God has given. Not many newspapers have such a long tradition of including spiritual encouragement for their readers. 

Bookplate designed for me by Ian Smith, in 1976, when leaving College. Ian has illustrated various books over the years, and the simple lines convey depth, humour and the smiling compassion of the man himself. 

Monday

John 21.2-3 “Peter, Thomas, Nathanael, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together. “I’m going out to fish,” Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing!”

Peter knew about fishing. In a world that had become unfamiliar and where he felt powerless, he went back to what he knew and could control. Distraction, doing the routine things you know best, being in supportive company. But even this seemed to be gone. “That night they caught nothing.” We know this story well – this is the opening scene of one of the great stories of friendship, forgiveness, love and a new beginning. What a friend we have in Jesus! Peter was about to discover this.

Tuesday

John 21.4-6 “Early in the morning, Jesus stood on the shore, but the disciples did not realize that it was Jesus. He called out to them, “Friends, haven’t you any fish?” “No,” they answered. He said, “Throw your net on the right side of the boat and you will find some.” When they did, they were unable to haul the net in because of the large number of fish.

This isn’t the carpenter teaching fishermen. This is a sign that the stranger on the shore is no stranger! Water into wine, food for 5,000, walking on storm-lashed seas – and now more fish than they can catch! It can only be Jesus, in whose presence miracles happen, doors and hearts open, and life begins again. Try listening to Acker Bilk playing ‘Stranger on the Shore’ while reading John 21.1-14! It’s a brilliant combination of eye-opening truth and gentle summons to friendship with Jesus.

Wednesday

John 21.7-9 “Then the disciple whom Jesus loved said to Peter, “It is the Lord!” As soon as Simon Peter heard him say, “It is the Lord,” he wrapped his outer garment around him (for he had taken it off) and jumped into the water… When they landed, they saw a fire of burning coals there with fish on it, and some bread.”

Two details. Peter clothed himself and then jumped into the water. He wasn’t going to meet the Lord stripped for work – and he was leaving his boat behind again!  The other detail to note is the charcoal fire. The other time Peter stood near a charcoal fire for comfort he denied he ever knew Jesus. (John 18.18) Now he was going to meet the one he disowned around another fire. In the place of his biggest failure he would be forgiven – but only after facing the one question that matters for all who follow Jesus, fail, and want to begin again.

Thursday

John 21.10-11 Jesus said to them, “Bring some of the fish you have just caught.” Peter climbed aboard and dragged the net ashore. It was full of large fish, 153, but even with so many the net was not torn. Jesus said, “Come and have breakfast.”

Why 153? Ancient writers thought there were 153 species of fish, so this might be John’s way of saying that those who are “fishers of men” will gather disciples from all nations. Or maybe 153 was simply the total caught! It’s the invitation that matters in this story. Hungry people are invited to eat in Jesus’ company. But an invitation to share food is also an offer of hospitality and friendship, to people who weren’t sure of their welcome. But the net of Jesus love is tear-proof, and draws them in!

Friday

John 21.12-13 Jesus said to them, “Come and have breakfast.” None of the disciples dared ask him, “Who are you?” They knew it was the Lord. Jesus came, took the bread and gave it to them, and did the same with the fish.

You can just see them, embarrassed, eyes down, everyone trying hard not to be the first to speak. All through the story Jesus makes things happen, does what needs doing. He is the cook, the host and the server. Around a charcoal fire, in the early morning, after a night of failure, they are served with food by the one who said, “I will not leave you desolate, I will come to you.” What a friend we have in Jesus!

Saturday

John 21.15 When they had finished eating, Jesus said to Simon Peter, “Simon son of John, do you love me more than these?” “Yes, Lord,” he said, “you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my lambs.”

You know the story. Three times the same question, “Peter, do you love me?” Three times Peter denied Jesus, three times he gets the chance to repent of those fear filled disclaimers. Each time Peter insists on the truth of his “Yes”. Until he says what we all say, what we all know, “Lord, you know all things, you know that I love you.”

Sunday

1 John 3.20 And this is how we set our hearts at rest in his presence whenever our hearts condemn us. For God is greater than our hearts, and he knows everything.

Peter discovers failure is not final. The key question always is our answer to Jesus’ question: “Do you love me? More than these? Really?” Faith is about trust, but it is also about love. Jesus calls us to love and trust him, to know the love of God revealed to us at the deepest places of our need. For God is greater than our hearts.

Preaching recently on Romans 8.1-11, about being set free through Christ and by the law of the Spirit of life, I prepared a prayer in which together we give thanks for the love of God in Jesus Christ.

What does it mean that a Christian lives in a world like ours, knowing the eternal and inexhaustible love of God? It means trusting the love of the crucified and risen Lord, and acknowledging our human weakness and dependence on the presence and grace of God in Christ.

What kind of prayer at least begins to give words to an incalculable debt cancelled at infinite cost? And what is it we give thanks for, and to whom? 

This prayer is intentionally offered in words weighted with gratitude, spoken with hushed wonder, and offered as worship which is the fusion of love for God and a life of obedience in the service of Christ, 'The Son of God who loved me and gave himself for me.

Prayer of Thanksgiving for the Love of Christ, with Response: 

Into our world of darkness came Jesus, the Light of the world

Thanks be to God for Jesus, God's wonderful gift,

The Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me.

To hearts that are hungry comes Jesus, the Bread of Life.

Thanks be to God for Jesus, God's wonderful gift,

The Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me.

To those who are anxious and afraid, comes Jesus the Good Shepherd

Thanks be to God for Jesus, God's wonderful gift,

The Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me.

To those who feel life is going nowhere, comes Jesus the Way, the Truth and the Life

Thanks be to God for Jesus, God's wonderful gift,

The Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me.

To those who are thirsty for truth and new purpose in life, comes Jesus the Living Water.

Thanks be to God for Jesus, God's wonderful gift,

The Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me.

To those afraid of life, losing hope, struggling to hold things together, comes Jesus the Resurrection and the Life

Thanks be to God for Jesus, God's wonderful gift,

The Son of God who loved me, and gave himself for me.

Lord Jesus Christ, our Saviour, receive the gratitude and prayer of our hearts.

Spirit of life and freedom, give us the energy to live for you in the freedom and joy of Christ.

Creator God, send us out into this God-loved world to be channels of your love, agents of your compassion, and conduits of your peace.

Amen

 I know. We all have our particular interests. So allow me to mention how happy I was to find that James Denney's battered old commentary is still on the shelves in Aberdeen University library.

Old commentaries are not obsolete because they are old. It depends on the writer and the type of commentary. Denney's Thessalonians is his series of preached sermons at Broughty Ferry Free Church, published in 1899 with minimal alteration.

Denney's sermon manuscripts are written in small neat writing, usually 5-7 pages, and almost never a correction evident. Preaching to his congregation about God's love and Christian love he told them, and reading the minute books during my research, I learned that the good people of the church needed to be told!:

"We love because he first loved us. In whatever degree love exists in us, God is its source; it is like a faint pulse, every separate beat of which tells of the throbbing of the heart; and it is only as God imparts his Spirit to us more fully that our capacity for loving deepens and expands. When that Spirit springs up within us, an inexhaustible fountain, then rivers of living water, streams of love, will overflow on all around. For God is love, and he who dwells in love dwells in God, and God in him."

Now, yes, I will want Weima's commentary for solid and at times quite inspiring exegesis of the Greek text. F F Bruce is always still worth reading on the Thessalonians, and Gordon Fee is also within reach. But for sheer pastoral passion and homiletical force, Denney holds the floor, and deserves still to be consulted as an exemplar of pastoral theology in the service of a believing community. Oh, and by the way, as a believing critic, Denney was fully in control of New Testament critical scholarship and immersed in the New Testament text and history, and as learned in German criticism as his contemporary P. T. Forsyth – together two of Scotland's finest exponents of a theology of the cross.

Anyway, great to see his sermons to a suburban Free Church congregation, alongside the more mainstream volumes more usually found on the shelves of a University library

Monday

John 20.24. “Now Thomas (also known as Didymus), one of the Twelve, was not with the disciples when Jesus came.  So the other disciples told him, “We have seen the Lord!”

We don’t know why Thomas wasn’t with the others when Jesus appeared to the disciples. He was one of the first outside the inner circle to be told Jesus was risen, but not to have seen Jesus himself. What the disciples said to Thomas has always been the core truth of Christian witness. “We have seen the Lord.” Crucified and buried, and now risen, Jesus is the living presence of God, The resurrection is the evidence that God keeps his promises, and they are all fulfilled in Jesus, God’s Yes!

Tuesday

John 20.25 “But Thomas said to them, “Unless I see the nail marks in his hands and put my finger where the nails were, and put my hand into his side, I will not believe.”

Forget the dismissive nickname ‘doubting Thomas’. Grief carries a powerful payload of broken hopes. This strong minded, passionate man was working through loss of his life’s centre, not helped by claims that Jesus wasn’t really dead. He insists on evidence of sight and touch. Faith is not, and cannot be, a way of evading the searing realities of human loss, aching sorrow, and the hard facts of life. Thomas insists on seeing and meeting Jesus. Thomas’s persistence shows us that faith is born in a living relationship with Jesus. He too needs to hear God’s Yes, and in the presence of Jesus.

Wednesday

John 20.26 “A week later his disciples were in the house again and Thomas was with them. Though the doors were locked Jesus came and stood among them and said, “Peace be with you.”

For Thomas, a week is a long time of not knowing. But he’s back with his friends, and Jesus comes to be with them. For the second time we are told the doors were locked (19&26). Grief does that, locks the doors in a defensive move to give our mind and heart time to come to terms with things. But the risen Lord is not deterred or excluded by doors of fear and defensive mistrust. He stands amongst us and speaks the blessing, “Peace be with you.” These are powerful words of purposeful love. He is not here to rebuke unbelief, or mock their fear, but to heal hearts and restore trust.

Thursday

John 20.27-28 “Then he said to Thomas, “Put your finger here; see my hands. Reach out your hand and put it into my side. Stop doubting and believe.” Thomas said to him, “My Lord and my God!”

The best commentary on these two verses is 1 John 1.1-4. Read them, as Thomas’s testimony. They are written on the other side of doubt, as the shared experience of those who found in their grief, loss and buried hopes that the Word of life came to them, risen and present, always and everywhere. For Thomas, though his doors were closed, Jesus came and stood beside him. Faith is the recognition of this One who knows us deeply, completely and lovingly: Our response? “My Lord and my God.”

Friday

John 20.29 “Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”

These are forward-looking words. And they include us. True, we have not seen Jesus the way the first disciples did. Our faith comes from the Spirit of God opening our eyes to see the truth of who Jesus is, and what God has done through the death and resurrection of the Son of God. Faith is not some kind of worked up credulity, it is the gift of God, the movement of the Spirit opening our eyes to the Light of the World, and opening our hearts to the God who so loved the world that he gave his only Son.

Saturday

John 20.30-31 “Jesus performed many other signs in the presence of his disciples, which are not recorded in this book.  But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name.”

Peter, the Beloved Disciple, Mary, Thomas – people like us, confronted by events we can only imagine. Peter too scared to go into the tomb, John (who I think is the Beloved Disciple) whose love overcame his fear, Mary blinded by tears, Thomas blinded by grief. One way or another we have all been in those scary places where faith seems to desert us – and in our sense of abandonment the Risen Lord comes to us “that we may have life in his name.”

Sunday

1 John 1.1-5  “That which was from the beginning, which we have heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and our hands have touched—this we proclaim concerning the Word of life. The life appeared; we have seen it and testify to it, and we proclaim to you the eternal life, which was with the Father and has appeared to us.  We proclaim to you what we have seen and heard, so that you also may have fellowship with us. And our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son, Jesus Christ.  We write this to make our joy complete.”

Forty or fifty years after Jesus’ death and resurrection, this letter was written by John. Looking back in wonder at something the world had never seen before and which changes forever the way the world is. John insists, “We have seen with our eyes”, and “this we proclaim concerning the Word of life.” Our joy is complete!