There are many folk who are grieving these days and having to say their goodbyes. While some probably knew the time was approaching when an older relative, spouse or friend was going to leave this life, they didn’t think it would come so soon, precipitated by an unknown virus, in the midst of a global pandemic. For others death has arrived as an unwelcome, unexpected surprise and shock. And there have been those stunned by an overwhelming sense of injustice at a young life cut tragically short. No death is just a statistic. Each one leaves grief in its wake. Every death matters, just as much as every life.
As long as there have been people, there has been death. It is the inevitable last experience of our lives here, all of which follow a pattern. We move from our earliest memories, on a journey via definable phases and critical events. Shakespeare likened life to a play (of course he did) and talked about how men and women have their “..exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts; His acts being seven ages.”(1). Less poetically perhaps, I remember enjoying 18th and 21st birthday parties with friends. Then it was University graduations and rounds of weddings. There was the arrival of kids (for most), and catching up with family exploits in the occasional Christmas epistle (some of which I actually read). I’m just getting to the stage of metallic wedding anniversaries and those milestone birthdays as the decades accumulate. And also for me, now there is that gradually souring note of parents, aunts and uncles being lost; a hint of what’s to come. The deaths of celebrities and others I grew up with, some I looked up to, are becoming more frequent. The diseases of ageing are beginning to take their toll on my contemporaries. A cancer scare here and there. And instead of births and birthdays, I know it that eventually there will be funerals and condolences. And then….
Fair enough, I know that this might be a bit morbid, but I’m thinking that it needn’t be. I’ll admit that the pandemic has encouraged morbid thoughts. Daily death statistics will do that to you. But we all know that we cannot live in this world forever, even if sometime we secretly think as though death won’t come for us, only other people. In our general culture too, pre-pandemic, death had perhaps become remote, the business of various professionals, leaving the rest of us to get on with living. So thoughts of it could be suppressed, and squeezed down into the farthest, dark recesses of our minds. The pandemic has changed that, at least for the moment. But as well as the pandemic I have two other reasons that have caused me to reflect on this. The first is, as it happens, a death, the second is a book.
Last Tuesday I heard of the death of a
man called Peter Maiden(2). I’m pretty sure he wouldn’t know me, although we
met on a couple of occasions. He came from, and never moved far from, Carlisle
(in the northwest of England, up near the Scottish border). He was widely known as the
International Director of a missionary organisation called Operation
Mobilisation from 2003 to 2013 (although he had been involved with OM since
1974) and he was a trustee of the Keswick Convention. I heard him teach the
Bible on a number of occasions. And although I can’t honestly remember any of
the specifics, what does stick in my memory is his manner – gracious, humble,
straightforward. Others have been speaking and writing about his influence on
them through his teaching, leadership and books. Now, to be honest, his death is
not that of a close friend of relative. There are many folk who will be
grieving for him in a way that I am not. But I am aware of a loss. He was one
of those people who served as a marker for me along the route of my journey.
Not just a marker of the way, but a marker of the destination. His teaching and
living pointed to a life beyond this life, that in many ways is more important
than this life. He devoted his life to sharing and teaching what he took to be
the words of God. In the process he was used to influence many thousands,
including me. His death is, of course, a demonstration of his mortality, but it
is to me a reminder of mine. His life here has ended, something he was
prepared for, knowing that more was to come. I wonder - was he deluded to think like this? Were those
he influenced deluded? Was (or am) I deluded? I don’t think so.
The book I mentioned above is the
snappily titled “Evangelicalism in Britain 1935-1995” by Oliver Barclay(3). I
confess it wasn’t one of the ones I mentioned in my last post as being on my summer
reading list. I met Oliver Barclay too, when I was a PhD student in the 1980’s,
at a Research Scientists Christian Fellowship (now Christians in Science) conference. He belonged to a very different generation, but was a clear and
long-sighted thinker, encourager and organiser. In particular, he played a key
role in the development of the Intervarsity Fellowship (now UCCF), the
organisation that links and supports Christian Unions in universities and
colleges in the UK. In the book, he relates the work and struggle of many men
and women, who established the evangelical culture and infrastructure that I
and many others depended on as we grew and matured in our Christian thinking. There
were those who ministered in churches in University cities throughout the UK,
with a clear commitment to the transforming truth of the Bible. There were resources
like commentaries, and books in critical areas of apologetics, written from a
robust evangelical perspective. He mentions the work of many who are now
obscure to many of us. And the book stops in 1995 - a quarter of a century ago.
As I read Barclay’s book, I found I was reading of many who seemed like giants –
Martin Lloyd Jones, J.I. Packer, John Stott and many others beside. Markers for
my journey, marking it out even before it began, now receding into the
distance. These were men and women, whether
I encountered them personally or not, to whom I owe a great debt. They made the
way easier for me, very often at cost to themselves. They were passionate about
God and His word. They lived it as well as taught it. They weren’t supermen and
women, they weren’t heroes to be placed on high pedestals; every single one of
them had his or her flaws. But they were critical to me and many others. And
one of the keys that comes out of Barclay's book is the utter centrality of that other book.
To them it was the book of God’s words, a notion that the world they inhabited
derided even more strongly than it is derided today. Their conviction and claim
was that by teaching it and living it, they were encountering and living for the
God who made, saved and sustained them.
The book was and is the Bible (of course), and its key message is the good news (the Gospel) of Jesus Christ. When others turned their back on its truth as truth, the Maidens and Barclays and their ilk believed, lived, taught and shared it, and encouraged others to do the same. I was one of those so encouraged. And ultimately it is the Bible and the God who stands behind it and is revealed in it, that provides not just the markers along the way, but the very way itself. It is a way does not end in bereft goodbyes. Don’t get me wrong, goodbyes there are and will be. Oliver Barclay moved on from this life in 2013, and I'm sure there was sadness and loss. And there will be a funeral in Carlisle at some point soon, with grief and grieving. There will be goodbyes along my journey, until it too, reaches an inevitable destination. But the Gospel is so powerful that it transforms these goodbyes. Death here is the destination of one part of our journey, but it is not the terminus. For those of us who have encountered, trusted and followed Jesus, the goodbyes are accompanied by a transforming hope that takes us beyond death and the grave, through resurrection to safety. And they are then followed by a welcome to a whole new journey.
1. William Shakespeare. “As you like it”, Act II Scene VII.
2. For tributes see https://www.uk.om.org/InMemoryOf/peter-maiden
or https://keswickministries.org/a-tribute-to-peter-maiden/
3. Oliver R Barclay. Evangelicalism in Britain
1935-1995. A personal sketch. IVP.
https://ivpbooks.com/evangelicalism-in-britain-1935-1995-pb
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