Ponder: "beauty's her dress"

Truth never changes,

And Beauty's her dress;

And Good never changes,

Which these two express.

It is the parson's duty to see that his parishioners are offered all three.  

If he does not, can he complain when people go out into the hills from whence perhaps cometh their help, and find an escape into the Infinite from the debased architecture and ornaments of their parish church, in places where they are surrounded by the colours and the jewels of the Supreme Artist? For, as Bacon says, "God Almighty first planted a garden"; and God knows our need of beauty.

           Percy Dearmer, Public Worship Today.

Ponder: "the binding is love"

"All of us here need a body that is mutually supportive, that loves one another, that stoops to lift the fallen and kneels to bind the wounds of the injured. Without each other we are deeply weakened, because we have a mission that is only sustainable when we conform to the image of Christ, which is first to love one another. The idea is often put forward that truth and unity are in conflict, or in tension. That is not true. Disunity presents to the world an untrue image of Jesus Christ. Lack of truth corrodes and destroys unity. They are bound together, but the binding is love. In a world of war, of rapid communications, of instant hearing and misunderstanding where the response is only hatred and separation, the Holy Spirit whose creative and sustaining gifting of the church is done in diversity, demands that diversity of history, culture, gift, vision be expressed in a unity of love. That is what a Spirit filled church looks like."

Archbishop Justin Welby, Archbishop's Address to the Primates' Meeting, 11 Jan. 2016.

For Meditation: If it Weren't True

A friend sent this to me yesterday, a word about lying and truthtelling written by a man who, by his own admission, came to know a great deal about both.

"I know the resurrection is a fact, and Watergate proved it to me.  How?  Because 12 men testified that they had seen Jesus raised from the dead, and then they proclaimed that truth for 40 years, never once denying it.  Every one was beaten, tortured, stoned, and put in prison.  They would not have endured that if it wasn't true.  Watergate embroiled 12 of the most powerful men in the world--and they couldn't keep a lie for three weeks.  You're telling me 12 apostles could keep a lie for 40 years?  Absolutely impossible."  Chuck Colson.

At Christ Church, we have a rose window with twelve petals.  Each petal represents an apostle and depicts the symbol of his martyrdom.  I'd never before recalled that for what it really is, 12 testimonies to the truth of the resurrection.