“Unchanging God, who livest, Enthroned in realms on high”. Last Sunday I found myself quoting these words from the bellringers’ hymn in a sermon at my 9.30am (online) Service. St John’s has a solitary bell so the hymn would not have been familiar to anyone but me, but these words fitted the sermon.
Life around us, in what we can and cannot do, seems to be changing relatively rapidly. In the space of the last two weeks in Scotland we’ve been able to leave our local authority area, and non-essential shops are open as are hospitality venues. Some people are excited by these changes, wanting to take advantage of them, but for others they might create worry, anxiety or remind us of what we have lost in the past year. Dates in the diary have passed by, in some cases twice, and there may not be enough certainty to put a plan in place for the next few months. We know things are changing but not sure how they will continue to change and whether or how each of us see it changing for the better.
The passage of John’s Gospel which prompted me to quote the Ringers’ Hymn was where Jesus tells his disciples that He will be gone from them in the form that is familiar to them but in a little while they will experience Him again with them, in a mysterious new form (John 16:16–22). Life is always changing – it can seem rapid for us at the moment with travel, hospitality, gathering numbers. Do we welcome these and other changes in our lives? The Christian faith tells us God’s love, mercy, peace, and hope endure forever and will be with us through our doubts, uncertainties, questioning and as life changes around us. God is unchanging, life on earth is not, but God’s mercy endures forever. Or, as the hymn puts it, “Our lives, like bells, while changing, An ordered course pursue; Through joys and sorrows ranging, May all those lives ring true.”
Revd Dr JENNY HOLDEN
Assistant Curate,
St John the Evangelist Aberdeen