It went fine. I went back to my seat and the service progressed. I played again for the offering. Then Iain got up for the sermon. I had by now been watching him enough to be sure he was aware of Alasdair’s presence. Still he gave no indication of it and hadn’t looked directly at him.
When he began to speak, however, I thought I knew Iain well enough to recognize that, whatever he had been intending to say, he was now thinking on his feet. He was obviously very thoughtful, even occasionally hesitant, as he spoke.
“My friends,” he began, “I would like to speak to you this morning about reconciliation. It is what the Bible calls unity.”
He paused to allow the word to sink in. He may have also been trying to settle his own thoughts.
“I believe,” he went on, “that unity is what God cares about more than anything in all the world. The Jews still repeat the prayer called the Shema. I am sure you are familiar with the words. They are taken from the words of Moses in Deuteronomy. The Shema begins, Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one.
“Think about that carefully. God is one. God’s very nature is singleness, oneness… unity. For things to be one as God intends, for relationships within God’s creation to reflect their Creator, all apartness, all disconnection, all discord, all separation, all disharmony… these must be reconciled, brought together, made one. Everything in life, everything in the world, must be made one, because God is one. That is why Jesus prayed, That they might be one as we are one.
“Reconciliation is the great goal and purpose of God’s heart. He would have his created beings reconciled with his Father-heart. That is the ultimate oneness, the ultimate unity, the ultimate reconciliation. God would have his prodigal children brought home to that great Heart of the universe. Until this reconciliation is perfected between God and his created universe, all creation is in strife. There can be no peace until we as a race rise and return to our Father, until we are again one with him, until unity is fulfilled within us.”
Iain paused and drew in a deep breath. His eyes closed briefly. He seemed to be thinking—or praying—about what he was about to say.
“But this unity is not a reconciliation that can take place in some grand and sweeping way between mankind and God. It is a reconciliation that takes place individually—one man, one woman at a time. It takes place in my heart, not mankind’s heart. And it takes place in your heart, not the whole world’s heart.
“That is where unity originates—in my heart, and yours. The words of the prodigal are the universal words of the reconciliation of the universe, the words by which we acknowledge and repent of our disconnection, and return to oneness in relationship with God our Father. They are beautiful words that Jesus gave in this extraordinary parable that is the story of mankind’s entire history. Every time I read them I think of the father waiting to receive the prodigal with a smile and outstretched hand, waiting to receive his son home. And the first step in that homecoming is the son’s humble acknowledgment. I will arise and go to my father. I will say to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against heaven and before you. I am no longer worthy to be called your son.’
“What wonderful, beautiful, touching words of reconciliation!
“Then the Lord’s next words tell us God’s response. They are more beautiful even than the son’s humble repentance. They are among the most important words in the whole Bible, for they tell us what God is like. Can you imagine it—we here have a personality description of God himself! While he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with love. He ran to him and threw his arms around him and kissed him.
“This image makes my heart swell. God is waiting for us! He sees us coming even while we are yet far off!
“He runs to us, filled with love. Can you grasp it—God running to us, waiting to throw his arms around us and kiss us in loving welcome!
“How different this is from the austere image of God presented by the old theologians. Does this sound to you like the God of the hellfire evangelists who rant and rave about sinners in the hands of an angry God, about sinners being dangled over the flames of hell?
“Of course not. The Father of Jesus Christ does not demand that we repent in sackcloth and ashes before he will deign to look down upon us from his almighty throne, wielding thunderbolts of retribution if we do not. He is a loving Father, a patient Father, a good Father, a forgiving Father.
“Of course there are consequences if we refuse this reconciliation. But they are consequences we bring upon ourselves, consequences that he watches with tears in his loving eyes. They are not the consequences of vengeance, retribution, and wrath. They are consequences of our own stubbornness.
“Oh, my friends, if we could but grasp the reality of who and what God really is, how it would change our lives!
“He is waiting to run to us and throw his arms around us and kiss us! His heart is full of the love of reconciliation. God is nothing more nor less, than our Father.”
Iain paused again and drew in a deep breath and closed his eyes briefly. This time I knew he was praying.
“But there is another kind of reconciliation,” he went on after a moment. His tone was softer, gentler, and, I sensed, full of compassion. “I believe this other kind of reconciliation is just as dear to God’s heart as that his children are reconciled to him. He also longs for them to be reconciled with one another.
“When division exists within humanity, any division—between man and man, between man and woman, between father or mother and son or daughter, division between friends—that division pierces to the very heart of God. It is a pain only God, as the Father of all, can possibly know. This reconciliation, too, is made in the same way as the prodigal made reconciliation with his father. The father of the prodigal was not unaware that the return of his son would in some measure remain incomplete until his two sons were reconciled to each other. And he would wait patiently and prayerfully for them to mature into that reunion.
“It takes humility, great humility, to seek reconciliation. Yet humility is the doorway into reconciliation. The prodigal son whose story Jesus told looked around and realized he was eating with pigs. He had had such dreams! He had been so eager to claim his inheritance and to live life, as we of this modern age say, on his own. But where had it brought him in the end? What did he have?
“Only loneliness. He was eating with pigs!
“When he realized it, and admitted it, there was born in him the humility that leads to reconciliation. That humility, that swallowing of pride, that recognition that he had sunk to the level of the pigs, led him home to his father. It is humility that leads us home. It is humility that leads to unity.
“It is that same humility that leads us to be reconciled with our brothers, with our fathers, with our daughters, with our mothers, with our sons, with our friends and acquaintances.
“Humility, my friends. The humility to say, I do not want to be alone and disconnected any longer. I do not want to be apart from this other whom I once loved. I am ready to swallow my pride and say, ‘I will arise and go to my brother.’ I will say, ‘I am no longer worthy to be called your brother, but with all my heart I desire again to be your brother. And thus, I will be your brother again.’
“Humility, my friends. Substitute whatever words are appropriate. The humility to admit, I no longer want to be apart from this one whom I once loved. I am ready in humbleness of heart to say, ‘I will arise and go to my sister… my mother… my daughter… my father… my son.’ I will say, ‘I am no longer worthy to be called your loved one, but with all my heart I desire again to be in relationship with you. I am sorry to have failed in loving you, but I will try to love you again.’
“The humility to acknowledge, I do not want to be estranged one day more. I will arise and go to my friend. I will say, ‘I am no longer worthy to be called your friend, but with all my heart I desire again to be your friend. And thus, I will do my best to be a friend to you again.’
“Humility, my friends. Humi
lity to recognize that life is not what we had hoped. Humility to re-extend the hand of fellowship and friendship. Humility to recognize that life is full of mistakes, that we have made our own share of them, that we have hurt others. Humility to apologize. Humility to arise and go to the one we have hurt.
“Humility is the doorway, my friends. It is the door to reconciliation, the door that leads to our brethren, the door that leads to our sons and daughters and mothers and fathers and our friends, the door that leads to the heart of God.”
Iain stopped. He glanced around for a moment, exhaled deeply, then sat down with his head bowed. It was obvious he was spent. The church was silent. Iain sat for probably thirty seconds in silent prayer. Finally he stood again, and asked the congregation to stand with him as the organist played the introduction to the closing hymn.
As we sang, I saw Alasdair descend the steps from the duke’s balcony, the eyes of half the church upon him, and walk to the door at the back and outside. I knew what he was feeling, the same thing I had felt last time I was here. But I stayed where I was. This time I would not be afraid to face Iain as I left.
When the hymn was over and Iain left the pulpit, he glanced at me with a smile as he passed down the aisle.
Chapter Thirty-eight
I Will Arise and Go to My Father
Oh, the Gallowa’ hills are covered wi’ broom,
Wi’ heather bells, in bonnie bloom.
Wi’ heather bells an’ rivers a’,
An’ I’ll gang oot ower the hills tae Gallowa’.
—“The Gallowa’ Hills”
Whether Iain’s sermon had stirred up a hundred thoughts and feelings in anyone else, I didn’t know. But it had in me.
I was an emotional wreck!
I tried to hide it, but not very successfully.
People came up to me after the service and thanked me. I tried to smile and return their words. Mostly I was anxious to get out of there so I could be alone. Gradually the little cluster dissipated and followed the rest toward the door. I put my harp and music away as the last of the congregation filed out of the church. I was just getting up to walk out as Iain, the last of the handshakes behind him, came back inside.
“It was beautiful, Marie,” he said. “Thank you again.”
“Of course,” I replied, forcing a smile. “I should probably also thank you… I mean, for your sermon—”
It was useless. I couldn’t continue. I didn’t know what to say. I felt myself starting to cry.
I gave Iain a quick hug, then grabbed my harp case as my eyes filled with tears. I ran from the church.
I got home, still struggling with my tears, took my harp inside, changed my clothes, and immediately left the cottage and set out for the headlands.
I had never been that much of a walker before coming here. Now I sometimes walked for several hours a day. It was so peaceful and so beautiful, the scenery and coastline so infinitely varied and changeable. I never tired of it. Whether I was up on the cliff a hundred feet above the water, or walking down along the sandy beach, or picking my way among the rocks and tide pools of one or another of the coves, the ocean was mesmerizing. The sea had become my solace, my companion, my friend.
Now I sought this friend to try to figure out what to do with everything Iain had said, and where it fit with the tune from Ranald’s violin and its old, old story, and with my teary drive down through the Cairngorms.
I walked and walked. I walked along the sand, up to the top of the promontory, scrambled down one or two steep paths to the rocky shore, and back up again. The emotion I had felt at the end of the service waned. But its impact remained with me. Something had happened as I listened. It was a culmination of everything that had been building since the day I first met Iain by the bench along the path.
In the churches I had been part of in my life, Jesus had always been the sole focus, the basis for salvation. Everything was Jesus, Jesus, Jesus.
Suddenly for the first time in my life I wondered what it was Jesus saved us from. I knew the stock answer ought to be, from sin. But now it dawned on me that what I had actually thought down inside, without saying it, maybe without even actually thinking it, was that Jesus saved us from God—from God’s wrath and punishment.
All at once—how could I have never seen it before!—I saw how little sense that made. How could there be a division between Jesus and God? How could one save us from the other when they were supposed to be one?
It was very confusing. Today’s sermon had set my brain spinning with possibilities that blew my mind.
Suddenly I heard Jesus’ words, Come, follow me, being spoken in the midst of the prodigal son parable. Suddenly the picture came into my mind of Jesus going to that prodigal as he sat with the pigs, stooping down and taking his hand, and saying, Come, follow me… I will lead you home. I will take you back to your father. He is waiting for you.
It was a completely new image. It wasn’t Jesus as protector from wrath, it was Jesus leading us home!
It was Jesus leading us to the Father’s open arms, to the Father’s love.
He came to lead us home to God… home to his Father!
It was our home, too. That was the old story, of Jesus and his love… and his Father’s love, too.
All this raced through my brain as I listened to Iain talk about the prodigal, and what it meant to be reconciled to God. It was a completely new image of what Christianity meant!
In the middle of the afternoon I found myself sitting on a large rock, my shoes off, my feet dangling over the edge, listening to the sounds of the waves ebbing and flowing about me. The sun was warm. Nobody was nearby. I felt like I was all alone in the world.
Everything Iain had said from the first day I had met him, along with the sound of Ranald’s violin, and my recent trip… Bannockburn… Glencoe… everything, the whole tapestry was stirring in my brain.
Suddenly a wave came in, splashed against the rock and up onto my feet and ankles. The cold momentarily took my breath away. It felt invigorating. I looked about and realized the tide was coming in. The wave that had splashed me continued onto the sand behind me. I glanced back over my shoulder.
The rock I was sitting on had briefly become an island.
It lasted but a few seconds. Then the water retreated back down the gentle slope of the shoreline. Within two hours, this rock would probably be underwater.
I sat for another thirty minutes. By then my feet were being splashed and inundated by every incoming wave. The water was reaching a point where any minute a larger wave might knock me off my perch.
It was time to move.
I put on my sandals and climbed to my feet. As I stood, Iain’s voice came back to me as vividly as if he had been right beside me.
I will arise and go to my father.
I stood on the top of the rock for a moment, pondering the words. I had been thinking about them all day. Yet suddenly it was like hearing them for the first time.
Waiting for the water to retreat from around the base of the rock, I leaped across to the sand and ran up the shore.
I had never thought of myself as a “prodigal.” Why did those words from the parable suddenly hit home so hard? I hadn’t squandered my life on riotous living. I’d married as a virgin and had always been faithful to the one man who was my husband. Actually, I had been the kind of girl people called a Goody Two-shoes. I remember going through a phase when I was in church when I wondered if there was something wrong with me because I hadn’t had a dramatic conversion out of the depths of “sin.” I had no flamboyant testimony. I had grown up in the church and had been generally a pretty good person.
And yet, here I was identifying with the prodigal son.
Gradually, because of Iain Barclay, I knew why.
I had never known God as my own personal, intimate Father… as a Father in the way Iain seemed to know him, as a Father in the way Jesus talked about him and knew him.
Then again came Jesus’ words to the rich young
ruler: Come, follow me.
No, they weren’t his words to the rich young ruler.
They were Jesus’ words to me.
Come, Angel Dawn Marie… follow me. I have someone to introduce you to, someone who has been waiting for you. He knows your name. He knows all about you and he loves you. He is your Father, and he wants you at last to become his daughter.
A chill swept through me. My eyes began to fill with tears.
Jesus was speaking to me.
I knew it. I felt it. I could almost hear the words. I was hearing them in my heart.
I started walking along the sand. In my mind I held out my hand as if for Jesus to take it. I walked slowly, conscious that he was leading me and that I was following. For the first time in my life I was really following Jesus, doing what he had asked me to do.
I had read the Footprints poem. I looked down at my feet, almost as if expecting to see a second set of indentations in the sand beside my own, from Jesus walking beside me.
After a few seconds I looked up. There was no blinding flash of light, no vision, only a solitary beach on the coast of northern Scotland. But I knew what was ahead of me, waiting for me, though my physical eyes could not see him. My heart saw him, and that was enough.
Jesus’ Father was waiting to receive me into his embrace!
Jesus let go of my hand and stood back. He had brought me to where he had wanted me to follow.
I fell on my knees in the sand and burst into sobs.
“Oh, God,” I said, “I am sorry for waiting so long. I want to be your daughter! Help me, my Father. Help me be all you want me to be!”
I wept for several minutes with my head buried in my hands and lap. I was almost afraid to look up. I was so aware that Jesus and his Father were with me, I could almost feel the Father’s arms encircling me in his loving embrace as the prodigal’s earthly father had embraced him.
Angel Harp: A Novel Page 25