Remembering and reflection.
In the book of Ecclesiastes, King Solomon examines various aspects of human experience. He explores the meaninglessness of life on earth if it is lived apart from or in denial of God, before presenting “the conclusion of the matter: fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the whole duty of man.” (Ecclesiastes 12:13).
The Great Game might seem an anachronism: a meaningless conflict played out by people who are strangers to us, for purposes that appeared worthwhile to them but which seem illusory nowadays. We may think it difficult to discern what good, if any, came from such heavy investment of idealism, courage and self-sacrifice. Looking at this and reflecting on the bravery and talent of many of those involved, we might agree that, since people do not always get what they deserve, this means that our actions are of no account: “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong, nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned; but time and chance happen to them all.” (Ecclesiastes 9:11). We might conclude from the uncertainty which characterises human affairs that nothing but blind chance is involved: “Moreover, no man knows when his hour will come.” (Ecclesiastes 9:12). If so, we would plunge all too easily into nihilism, apathy and despair.
It is of the greatest importance, therefore, that we ponder deeply on such things and reach considered conclusions about them. This involves a process of remembrance: to remember facts so that we have a proper basis on which to make our assessment, to remember the wisdom of our forefathers so that we do not forget the lessons of ages past and to remember God so that we have a proper perspective on events.
Remembering facts.
In the process of trying to make sense of life, Solomon recalls facts and reflects on them: “I also saw under the sun this example of wisdom that greatly impressed me: There was once a small city with only a few people in it. And a powerful king came against it, surrounded it and built huge siegeworks against it. Now there lived in that city a man poor but wise, and he saved the city by his wisdom.” (Ecclesiastes 9:13-15).
Solomon recounts an extraordinary series of events, making several pointed contrasts. In circumstances that should have been ones of utter hopelessness, the weak stood against the strong, the few in number against a mighty army, and a poor man outwitted a powerful king. Thus was a small city enabled to withstand huge siegeworks. Not surprisingly, Solomon says that this “greatly impressed me” (Ecclesiastes 9:13) and it should greatly impress us, too. If anything should cause us to doubt that our deeds are of no effect, events of this kind should do so. Life is neither deterministic nor mechanistic. The triumph against all odds of countless English men and women down the ages proves the opposite to be true.
Sadly, “nobody remembered that poor man.”(Ecclesiastes 9:15). In failing to remember him, those he had saved showed disrespect and rank ingratitude. They also harmed themselves, for in forgetting their saviour, the real lessons to be learnt from what had befallen them would have been overlooked: that no situation is ever hopeless, that victory does not always go to those who appear strongest or are greatest in number, that insight and discernment are not monopolies of the wealthy or powerful and that wisdom can overcome a mighty army.
These lessons apply not just to the physical world, but to the spiritual. In failing to remember our Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ who gave his life for us and who has blessed our nation so abundantly, we are guilty of the most appalling disrespect and ingratitude. We have also turned our backs on the most important lessons and the greatest gifts of all. In seeking modernity, in elevating relevance to current circumstances over timeless truth and in trying to be progressive, inclusive and tolerant whatever the consequences we have thrown the baby out with the bathwater.
We need to remember the wisdom of our forefathers. In a land where nihilism, apathy and despair abound, we must remind our fellow countrymen that Christianity stands for the very opposite of such attitudes. The gospel brings a message hope and a call to a lifetime of meaningful activity in the service of God and our fellow men.
Remembering past wisdom.
In reflecting on the past, Solomon draws a number of conclusions. These are as important for what he does not say as much as for what he does. He does not conclude that the poor man’s actions were of no account because they are now forgotten by those he saved. Neither does he say that these actions were of no effect. Nor does not say that the events he describes came about through blind chance. Instead he extols the virtues of the godly and the results of their deeds:
• “Wisdom is better than strength.” (Ecclesiastes 9:16).
• “The quiet words of the wise are more to be heeded than the shouts of a ruler of fools.” (Ecclesiastes 9:17).
• “Wisdom is better than weapons of war” (Ecclesiastes 9:18).
Correspondingly, he acknowledges the harm that can be done by just one unrighteous person. We see all around us the truth of the saying that “one sinner destroys much good” (Ecclesiastes 9:18): whilst the vast majority of Englishmen remain decent and law-abiding, disproportionate mayhem is caused by a relatively small number. We are complicit in this by failing in our duty to instruct people in the truth, by failing to uphold proper values and most of all by allowing God to be marginalised.
The result is a society that signally lacks wisdom and the blessings that flow from it. Elsewhere, Solomon strongly identifies wisdom with godliness: “The fear of the LORD is the beginning of wisdom and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding. For through me your days will be many and years will be added to your life. If you are wise, your wisdom will reward you; if you are a mocker, you alone will suffer.” (Proverbs 9:10-12). St Paul reminds us: “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows. The one who sows to please his sinful nature, from that nature will reap destruction; the one who sows to please the Spirit, from the Spirit will reap eternal life.” (Galatians 6:7-8). We are presently holding God up to mockery and scorn. We are suffering for it, and will suffer further unless we desist. We are trampling the gift of eternal life in the dust.
Remembering God.
We should thus remember God for our own sakes, as well as because duty and gratitude demand it. Without God we cannot expect to see clearly, neither to be wise nor to draw proper conclusions from the facts. The same circumstances that, without God, might seem cause for despair and confirmation that life lacks meaning become with him sources of hope and the inspiration for action. Hence the very things that Solomon talks about can be turned on their heads to strike a note of hope rather than of despair. If “The race is not to the swift or the battle to the strong” (Ecclesiastes 9:11) it follows that the mailed fist will not always triumph nor might always be right. If “nor does food come to the wise or wealth to the brilliant or favour to the learned” (Ecclesiastes 9:11) it follows that someone who lacks these qualities yet is godly can still aspire to good things. If “time and chance happen to [us] all” (Ecclesiastes 9:11) it follows that there is a level playing field between men, regardless of outward appearances.
What makes the difference is whether we invite God to come close or keep him at arm’s length. He yearns to be part of our lives. If he is not, it is only because we do not allow him to be. If once we genuinely turn to him and ask him to be with us, he will come. Jesus says: “Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelation 3:20).
Conclusion.
Between 1848 and 1871 the population of the Russian Empire increased by twenty millions, or more than a quarter. By 1910, her people numbered over 155 millions. Between 1835 and 1914 her railway network grew from nothing to be larger than that of Britain, France and Germany. In an age when power was measured by the size of conscript armies and the ability to deploy them quickly, this represented an exponential increase in military might.
Russia’s rapid progress eastwards showed that she had no inhibitions about using
force against whoever stood in her way. One by one the khanates of what had once been the territory of the Golden Horde fell under her sway: Kazan, Astrakhan, Bokhara, Khiva and Khokand.[94] Her Cossacks seemed unstoppable and her ambitions boundless. With hindsight we may conclude that she overreached herself and that she had no realistic prospect of taking India, but that was not how it appeared to contemporaries. Imperial Russia hid her weaknesses just as effectively as the Soviets were to do generations later. In the context of the times, Britain had no choice but to deflect and oppose the ambitious power growing ever nearer her sphere of influence.
Many brave men played the Great Game, and many died in doing so. There is no telling what would have been without their sacrifice. They have left us a legacy not just in their deeds but in their attitudes: in their courage, sense of duty, unashamed patriotism, decency and honour, but most of all in the Christian faith that was then so strong in these islands. When we look at what these men undertook, it is sometimes difficult to avoid the conclusion that they were quite simply of greater stature than we.
Old attitudes and old ways of doing things can be outmoded, old-fashioned and out-of-date. Yet that should not blind us to the fact that sometimes the wisdom of our forefathers has more to commend it than any number of new-fangled suppositions. Sir Edward Coke, Lord Chief Justice of England in the early seventeenth century, said: “We have a maxim in the House of Commons ... that old ways are the safest and surest ways.” We need to feed on the wisdom of the past and to keep alive the remembrance of former things. If this becomes a land where “the poor man’s wisdom is despised, and his words are no longer heeded” (Ecclesiastes 9:16), we are the ones who will be impoverished. When we reject our history and forget those who had a hand in making it, we set at naught all that God has done for us in years gone by. This should be a cause for shame and outrage amongst us. There is one the remembrance of whose deeds and character should always be foremost: the Lord God Almighty, maker of heaven and earth. In recovering our past, let us lift his name on high.
39. Lady of the Lamp
1 John 1:1-7.
Key word: light.
On 7 February 1837 a seventeen-year-old girl had a powerful experience of the presence of God. She put it simply: “God spoke to me and called me to his service.” From then on, she was consumed with a longing to nurse, but her family forbade it. Such was her passion that she felt it was “eating out my vital strength.” At times, she plunged into depression: “I feel myself perishing when I go to bed,” she wrote; “I wish it were my grave.” She had to wait seventeen difficult years before the Lord’s purpose for her life was revealed.
The Crimean war, which pitted Britain, France and Turkey against imperial Russia, broke out in 1853 and raged for three years. Poorly led and inadequately equipped troops suffered appallingly, above all in the harsh winters. Frostbite and disease took an even heavier toll than Russian bullets. Victories at Alma, Balaclava, Inkerman and Sebastopol could not disguise official incompetence from those at home. This was not merely an issue of battlefield blunders, like that which sent the Light Brigade on its suicidal charge at Balaclava. Supplies were mishandled and casualties had minimal medical attention, until press reports galvanised action: the young girl’s time had come.
Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) arrived in the Crimea in 1854, bringing with her a staff of 38 nurses. Relentless in her energy, after a full day’s work she would nevertheless insist on touring the wards by night. Hence her nickname: the Lady of the Lamp. From the Barrack Hospital in Scutari (modern Uskudur, near Istanbul) she instituted proper care for the sick and wounded. Within four months, the death rate in British military hospitals was reduced from 42% to 2%.
Her achievement, in organising and motivating her nurses, in badgering and hectoring the authorities and in giving succour to the sick and wounded is monumental. Yet arguably her most important work was done upon her return to England, and that when she was almost incapacitated by illness. From her sickbed, she organised the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas’ Hospital in London, which was opened in 1860. She was instrumental in setting up training for midwives and for nurses in workhouse infirmaries, helped establish a drainage and sewage system for India, campaigned for improved conditions for the rank and file of the British Army and wrote a work of religious philosophy, Suggestions for Thought. She is widely regarded as the founder of modern nursing.
All this was done by the sheltered daughter of a rich country gentleman, every circumstance of whose early life might have seemed inimical to the role that God marked out for her.
Seeing the light.
We talk of having “seen the light.” It is another way of saying that we have heard and understood the message. Like the apostle John, whose relationship with Christ was so close that he describes himself as the “disciple whom Jesus loved” (John 13:23, 19:26, 21:7 and 21:20), Florence Nightingale could say: ”this is the message [I] have heard from him” (1 John 1:5). God spoke clearly to her and gave her a mission. It seems that she had no doubts about what she was to do, though she had to wait patiently to learn the timing and manner of fulfilment of God’s charge.
Many do not have the experience of God speaking so manifestly into their lives. The way is uncertain, the path dim, the light veiled. We grope and search, sometimes with greater success than others. In his letter to the early church, the apostle John helps us to understand how we can nevertheless “walk in the light” (1 John 1:7) and in consequence allow our own light to shine.
Darkness into light.
John was an eyewitness to the miracles and teaching of Jesus. He talks of “That which was from the beginning, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked at and which our hands have touched” (1 John 1:1). Speaking of Jesus as the source of life, he says: “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” (1 John 1:2-3).
It is important for us to hold on to the eyewitness testimony of John and others like him. When our own eyes do not see, or glimpse but indistinctly, we need to walk in faith. At such times, our hearts are warmed and our trust is increased by hearing the experiences of those whose word we have reason to consider trustworthy. We do not have to delve into distant societies and far-flung realms to find such testimony. It is all about us in the lives of Christians in our own land, both those living today and those who trod the earth in years past.
To “walk in darkness” or “walk in light” (1 John 1:6-7) has nothing to do with physical conditions. Florence Nightingale trod the gloomy wards and corridors of the Barrack Hospital at Scutari but shone light all about her. The light she carried belongs to Jesus, “the light of the world.” (John 8:12), whose Word is “a light to our path and a lamp to our feet.” (Psalm 119:105). Through him, we are able to say that “my God turns my darkness into light” (Psalm 18:28).
The words of Scripture and the deeds of believers past and present remind us that there is not a single situation that we cannot transform from darkness to light by the power of God working in us. They remind us that there is not a single circumstance that should hold us captive to the power of darkness. Yet somehow we seem to be forgetting this, or at best giving intellectual assent to it without truly believing it in our hearts. We need to change this attitude of mind, to claim the light for our own and thereby to banish the darkness in our land.
Bathed in light.
The characteristics of light are seen in the sun: brightness, heat and radiation. With light we can see clearly, distinguishing truth from falsehood and rooting out what does not belong. With light the darkness is dispersed, bringing cleanliness and purity where before was filth and rottenness. With light comes heat – warming, comforting and sustaining. Light radiates, transmitting energy. The trilogy of light, heat and radiation is indeed an imperfect analogy for the Trinitarian nature of the one true God.
John is in no doubt
: “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” (1 John 1:5). The consequence is this: “If we claim to have fellowship with him yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live by the truth.” (1 John 1:6). We need to move ourselves physically and spiritually from the side of darkness to the side of light. We need to bathe in the light rather than wallow in darkness. Doing so will bring closeness to God and closeness to other believers: “But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7).
St Paul has practical advice as to how we can bathe in the light. “Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable – if anything is excellent or praiseworthy – think about such things. Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me – put it into practice.” (Philippians 4:8-9).
Redeeming a Nation (Timeless Teaching) Page 28