Zetland Park Methodist Church Pastoral Letters
90 seconds
A number of years ago now, I invited my local minister to
contribute to a series of ‘Thoughts for the
Day’ on a local radio station. Nothing unusual you
may say as that was part of my brief as the Methodist
representative in that area. However, it was both the
timing and the content of those messages which made the
impact, and even some twenty years on, when I listen to a
recording, my whole being is stretched by the pictures
which Graham painted for those ‘Holy Week’
broadcasts. The brief presented to me by my producer was
for a 90 second item to be broadcast just prior to a
7:30a.m. News bulletin, when morning listening to that
station was beginning to peak in terms of audience share
[a vital indicator to any radio station’s
viability], and so the ‘impact’ had to be
‘spot on’ ---- not an easy
‘brief’ when you are trying to concentrate
thoughts into such a small space. Have you tried to limit
your explanation of a subject to 90 seconds?
But my colleague’s experience was a vital factor in
the choosing of such a presenter, and Graham rose to the
occasion.
He chose as his subject images of people who could have
been around at the time of the Crucifixion and the walk
up the Via Dolorosa. I remember, as if it were yesterday,
as I sat with my producer and the sound engineer as
Graham recorded his pieces. There was a growing sense of
climax as each piece was presented and laid on tape. I
remember the growing sense of awe and enquiry on the face
of the engineer, who was not a Christian, as he heard
words uttered that were to catapult the listening
audience to that first-century time in Jerusalem. One in
particular stills stands out some thirty years on -----
the comments from the blacksmith who made a quantity of
assorted nails for the Romans and saw his work being used
in the murder of the Saviour. When Graham finished that
piece there was a deafening silence; it was as if the
entire radio station had, for many milliseconds, stopped
------ I remember him looking toward me in the control
booth wondering what was happening. After what appeared
to be a long time, he was given the ‘thumbs
up’ and we moved on, but the ‘pain’
from that character was real in many a sense and when the
item was eventually broadcast on Good Friday, there was
quite a reaction.
Was it guilt through a realization of what folk may have
or had not done?
Was there a realization as to how human this story of
‘Holy Week’ really was?
Was there a questioning of mind, body and soul as to how
the entire scenario affects or reflects in individual
lives?
Was it a sheer absorbance into the story of God and His
deep love for the world?
The whole story into which we too are plunged some twenty
centuries later still has a similar impact today ----- or
am I being too naïve?
Does the sheer fact that God’s Son, our Saviour,
was murdered by an occupying force at the whim of
religious leaders have any impact? It certainly has a
very loud resonance in many a worldly situation today.
But has God such an impact on our local community?
“
God so loved the world that He gave His only Son”
What DOES that mean for Marske and the surrounding area, or indeed us in this Year of Grace, 2005?
I’m realising how many questions this
world-shattering; life-changing event still evokes,
despite all our intelligence gathering and means of
obtaining information electronically and in an instance,
God is able still to stop us in our tracks with the
message of Lent; Holy Week and Easter.
Our Lenten services have taken a new dimension this year
as we have placed symbols before a large representation
of the Cross, and this will explode with colour on the
Day of Resurrection, but I know that there will be those
who will argue, somewhat painfully, that there is no need
for this new-fangled approach or to change ‘the
habit of a life-time’ in absorbing new forms of
worship, the old ways have served the past, why change
for the future? Why indeed.
The exact-same argument was put up by the Pharisees, and
‘put up’ because of the sheer FEAR of change.
The platform of stability was being rocked, if not
destroyed from beneath their feet and they did not like
it, but the world and its people had to face a change or
destruction was the next item on the agenda, and the
story is EXACTLY that of today. Because the Church, in
the main, has failed to ‘move on’, it and the
world around it, have become complacent and fallen into a
rut and as a consequence the Church’s influence in
that same world has diminished to such an extent that its
organization and the people who are part of it are being
laughed off the face of the earth.
‘Compliance’ is NOT the answer.
‘Action’ for the good of that self-same world
is, and that means being pro-active and not re-active.
Being up and in there with the ‘message of freedom;
love and reconciliation’ and letting go the past
which has all but killed the Church.
The message of that Glorious Easter morn is that nothing
will be the same again, and the question from that
declaration is this -----
“Can it affect Marske the same way?”
A community following Christ, or a ‘club’
content?