Lindsay Prior

 

My first wife, Lindsay, died 31 years ago.  She had been ill for many years with cancer, and a liver transplant extended her life  by four years.  During her final year, a pain specialist from our local hospice at Dorothy House told her how impressed he was that she, unlike most people he met, had had done more than merely come to terms with the fact that she was dying. She had overcome and was in no way daunted by her situation. Could she, he asked, write down her account of how she had achieved this?   Lindsay had no strength left even to hold a pen, but I interviewed her and wrote down her responses

 

CONVERSATION WITH LINDSAY, written down by Michael.   29.1.94  - ten days before she died (and three days before she lost consciousness).

 

Fear of what lies ahead

I am not in the least frightened, although this time I know that I am dying. But I'm  not in the least bit afraid of death. I'm looking forward to it with great excitement: in a very peaceful sort of way, if you can be excited and at peace.

 

I've looked forward all my life to going to heaven, and now that it's coming about, I'm longing to know what it's going to be like.  I've talked about it, I've sung about it, I've prayed about it all my  life, as most Christians have, and now it's actually coming about I  find it absolutely fascinating to know just how it's going to manifest  itself and what it's going to be like.

 

I've had a wonderful, wonderful life with lots and lots of great happiness, particularly with family affairs. I've had lots of wonderful family holidays and outings and occasions and there are many of those which leave me with great memories. And I'm very pleased about that because they will stand the family in good stead I hope, as they're left behind without me.

 It won't be a wrench to leave my family and friends. I know that sounds absolutely awful, and I  don't really know how it is that I can say it. But I'm going to such a wonderful place that I can't even miss them. I feel terribly sorry  because the family will miss me, but I'm afraid I don't think I'll miss  them.

I am so looking forward to where I am going.  I've been brought up as a committed Christian all my life I suppose, and the Lord Jesus Christ has been my friend and  my guide for all that time. And as I've learnt various things about Him it's gradually built up, and with it has built up a picture of what is to come. A hazy picture, I might say, but an exciting picture nevertheless. 

I have never had any doubts about this. It's really to my sorrow in a way, because I'm no use to people who do have doubts. I can't be of any use to them, because I can't  understand what their problem is, and so I'm useless, whereas the doubter who has forged his way through and come out the other end is  much more useful, because He's got an answer to the questions. That's a more useful situation to be in.

I have been asked what my relationship with Jesus is like, and whether he talks to me.

I do spend a lot of time in prayer and I feel He answers me.  I find it difficult to say how He answers me except that I believe that He does.

I don't hear a human voice. But I do know instinctively on many occasions what I should be doing, and what the Lord's answer is, even if it's something that I don't what to do myself. He gives me a very clear answer which I can grasp and experience. 

 

Fear of pain

 I think it's vital to accept the advice of the doctors around you. There's no merit in being noble, so if you are in pain I think it's a good thing to admit it. I haven't always done so myself, but I think where I haven't, I've made a mistake and I should have done.

 

Fear of death

This is where it's very difficult, because I find even in the last week  or so my attitude has changed anyway, and a lovely chorus has come very much to the  full in my life in a way which I didn't realise would happen even as  recently as a month ago. 

‘Turn your eyes upon Jesus

Look full in His wonderful face;

And the things of earth will grow strangely dim

In the light of His glory and grace.’

 

It's now become very true, and the things of earth have faded, and with them the fear of what might happen when I die. So I have no fears now.

 

 

Why do bad things happen to good people?

Well the first thing is, it's very debatable whether or not I'm good.  And if I am good, then so are a very large number of other people, because we're all a mixture of good and bad, of nasty and unpleasant things, and of lots of lovely things as well. Far more important than that, why shouldn't they? What reason is there for me to be spared? I  see no reason of any sort why I shouldn't experience exactly the same as every other human being. If I were to have a charmed life then non-Christians could look and say, "Well of course it's easy to be a Christian. You have a charmed life." But if I am able to be a Christian when life is ordinary and just like everybody else's then that is when  it is more recognisable as being something which is worth-while. Despite all the pain and weakness, and the fact that I'm still young, I feel my heavenly Father has looked after me through thick and thin, and it's His right to bless us in whatever way He wishes, and I feel that this is what He has done. 

 

Why does a good and powerful God let you suffer?

It means that life is full of mysteries. I'm sorry to just leave it at  that, but life is full of mysteries which this side of heaven we will not understand because He is all-powerful and so He could do whatever He chose, and we do not understand why He chooses one way and rejects  another way in one particular person's life. We just have to accept that that is what He does, and he has every right to, because He is the sovereign Lord. And so I feel that I have complete peace to leave the choice to Him to permit me to be treated in whatever way He sees fit.  And I'm absolutely convinced that His way has been best for me. 

 

I think too that our family has benefitted by the suffering because it  has drawn us together and taught us very valuable, very difficult lessons. And when you think of all sorts of things in nature: a diamond can't be made without great pressure, a gemstone is something which takes a great deal of making, a beautiful garden requires a great deal  of pruning, and there are many instances in nature of things which  have to be treated in a way which you might consider to be unkind in  order to bring out the very best. And we have been privileged in our family that He has considered us worthy to treat us in this way and bring out the very best. I see in my children that they have learnt a great deal of love and care and joy in their lives because of the sorrow that we have been through, and I'm grateful that they have  been permitted to do this. It's been a real privilege to be their mother, and to be Michael's wife. 

 

 

 

Is the timing wrong if a young person dies?

All I can say is that the timing that I can see has always been  perfect. I've had a lot of very happy occasions in the last few years.  I suppose the first one is my successful liver transplant, which came absolutely spot on time. If it had waited any longer it would have been too late. But since then we've had family holidays where I've been ill  beforehand, then for the time it was booked I've been really well for the whole period of the holiday. We've had family occasions when the same thing has happened: where there was something that we really wanted to go to.

 

In Leeds after the liver transplant

What about the loneliness of those you leave behind?

Well I hope no-one will be bitter, because I personally believe that the Lord Jesus' timing has been absolutely spot on. I can't pretend to understand that because it is a mystery, but I do feel that if it's right for me to be dead, and it must be because that's my heavenly  Father's plan for me, then it must be right for all those around me, for me to be dead. It cannot be right for me and wrong for them, and so there must be some even more glorious explanation of why it was  necessary to do it just this way. And the Lord promises he will give us His comfort. He says, "I will not leave you comfortless" and He promises that when He goes away He will leave His Holy Spirit, and that is still valid today. His Holy Spirit is still here, willing and able and longing to be a comfort to all those who are left behind.

 

I think He's given a baton to me to carry up to now, and now for whatever reason He sees fit, my carrying of it is over. I've done my bit. Like a relay runner I've done my bit and now the next runner has to take over to do his bit. No relay runner can run three laps of the relay: he only runs his one, and I'm only running my one. 

 

One wish for future.

My wish for those I leave behind is that they all have a strong and determined faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, and that they continue to walk with Him. 

That's the only wish I have. If that is right, then everything else falls into place. Basically if that bit of your life is right, then if you are wanting to serve Him, and that is the paramount wish in your life, then everything else has got to fall into place, and then you will be blessed as I have  been blessed. I know, from utter conviction.

 

Has your life been a success?

Oh yes, my life has been an infinite success. I have had a very happy, contented life for many years, and I have thoroughly enjoyed everything that came my way, because I was determined to live it through the Lord Jesus Christ. I have had sorrows; there have been quite a few sorrows, but they have nearly all been because of my own stupidity and on occasions when I upset the applecart, and had to come back to the Lord and ask His forgiveness and pick up things and carry on; but while I have let Him do the ruling, everything has gone well.

 

I believe the secret of life is to spend it with the Lord Jesus Christ, so the transition from this life to the next really won't be that great. It'll be just like changing trains, only the new train will be a corker!

 

I haven't got a clear imagination of what heaven is going to be like but it doesn't matter a bit. It's quite exciting waiting to find out what it's going to be like.  I'm really looking forward to it, and not just because I shall no longer be in pain.  I shall meet again those who have gone before me. I don't know whether I shall be conscious of having to wait for those who follow behind me because I will have stepped out of time as we know it. But the Lord Jesus said that when He returns He will raise the dead in Christ, and that will be me and my father; and then they who are alive, and that will be Michael and the children. And we'll all meet the Lord together. I think that makes absolute sense to me.

 

But sadly I think there will be some people whom I will not meet in heaven. Good people, who have rejected the Lord Jesus Christ. I can't bear to think of it but I'm afraid there are those who just haven't had it in them to accept Him. But I do wish that they  would think very seriously about Him and decide that He is worth their  allegiance from many points of view. I think the other thing is that there will be many people there that we'll be surprised by. People whom we didn't expect to see there, and they are there too.  I myself have been very blessed. A lot of people haven't had  the opportunities that I've had. But I do long that they will take advantage in the time that's left. I think we need to be positive because there are a lot of people are very close and I feel many of  them have never rejected the Lord. And if you haven't rejected Him then you are with Him, I believe. I think there may even be Christians there who didn't know they were.

 

The kingdom of heaven is open to absolutely everybody. Secondly,  there are people all over the place who would be very willing to help you., or if you just pick up a Bible from a bookshop, or in your own home, and read  through it. Talk with a believer. He or she will be able to guide you to the Lord Jesus Christ, who can make  all the difference in your life. 

 

I've never been very courageous for the Lord, which is  one of my great shames, and perhaps it's because I'm so near the  end that I've got the courage to talk for Him, at least to redeem a little bit of time right at the end.  

Teenager in Northern Rhodesia

 

In our garden in Uganda, with Janine

Moor Park Quarry, Neston.

 

When I came to Neston in the early 1970s,  Moor Park Quarry inhabited the area now occupied by Moor Park, The Stoneworks and Sheppards. The quarry itself is probably still there, under the field between the two housing estates, and there are a few photos of it in ‘Secret Underground Corsham’ p57-58 by Nick McCamley. There is a ventilation shaft beside the final corner of the road into The Stoneworks. There was a two-story office block straddling what is now the entrance to Moor Park, owned by the Bath and Portland Stone Company. Behind it was a stone-cutting yard, a deep and dangerous pond (roughly where the field now is), and a large spoil heap which extended all the way to Greenhill, where the Sheppards housing estate has subsequently been built. The quarry was already disused in the 1970s, I think. Later, the land where The Stoneworks is sited was turned into what we called ‘the Fireworks Factory’. I think the factory made emergency flares (as used aboard ships in distress), and I believe it was owned by Leafield Engineering Ltd (on Leafield Industrial Estate), later renamed Honeywell Aerospace & Defence Ltd. The old spoil heap provided a useful barrier around the factory to protect Neston if there were ever an accidental explosion on the site. This remains in place to this day. The entrance drive to the factory was where the footpath to Westwells Road now lies.

When the factory eventually closed it remained unoccupied for years, and from time to time travellers would come and park their caravans on the drive, eventually leaving the area in a considerable mess. 

 

The driveway to the 'Fireworks Factory'

 

Fireworks Factory being demolished

Sheppards

The spoil heap extended to Greenhill, and that end of it was a wilderness area full of buddleia and bramble bushes where our children loved to play.  When the bungalows were built there, the road was named Sheppards after Ernie and Ena Sheppard who had lived in the house further up Greenhill next to the spoil heap. Ernie had been a stonemason before retirement.

 

Moor Park and The Stoneworks

After the quarry works and the office block were demolished, diggers and levellers spent many months preparing the area for housing. There was even a proposal to shift Neston School to a new site on Moor Park (where the field is), and my wife who was a school governor used to pore over the plans for the school with fellow governors. The old fireworks factory site was cleared and The Stoneworks housing estate built in its place. To our surprise, the entrance road was connected to Moor Park and the original entrance road turned into a footpath.

D-Day afterthoughts

In all the commemorations of D-Day on our TV screens in the last few days there is one aspect of the success of D-Day that is barely mentioned today, yet it was of huge importance at the time – and those in charge of the invasion knew it well.  

 

Two of the most astounding events of the the Second World War happened on the coast of France. The first was at Dunkirk in 1940 – rightly called ‘The Miracle of Dunkirk’ by Winston Churchill.  The second was of course D-Day in 1944.

 

The King

In 1940, King George VI rallied the public to a national Day of Prayer – and miraculously well over 300,000 troops were saved from the shores of France, far more than anyone might have expected.  

 

Queuing for the National Day of Prayer

 

Then again in 1944 the King called the nation to prayer again, saying    Once again what is demanded from us all is something more than courage and endurance; we need a revival of spirit, a new unconquerable resolve. After nearly five years of toil and suffering, we must renew that crusading impulse on which we entered the war and met its darkest hour. We and our Allies are sure that our fight is against evil and for a world in which goodness and honour may be the foundation of the life of men in every land…….  I  desire solemnly to call my people to prayer and dedication. We are not unmindful of our own shortcomings, past and present. We shall ask not that God may do our will, but that we may be enabled to do the will of God: and we dare to believe that God has used our Nation and Empire as an instrument for fulfilling his high purpose.

 

Eisenhower

Several of  the key leaders of the invasion were committed Christians who knew well that in fighting Naziism we were fighting a great evil.  They knew they could not achieve the necessary victory on the shores of France without divine help, and they echoed the words of the King.  The Commander in Chief was General Eisenhower, and his Order of the Day included these words:  “… The hopes and prayers of liberty loving people everywhere march with you … let us all beseech the blessing of Almighty God upon this great and noble undertaking.”

 

Later, in 1952  he said “This day eight years ago, I made the most agonising decision of my life. I had to decide to postpone by at least twenty-four hours the most formidable array of fighting ships and of fighting man that was ever launched across the sea against a hostile shore. … If there were nothing else in my life to prove the existence of an almighty and merciful God, the events of the next twenty-four hours did it … The greatest break in a terrible outlay of weather occurred the next day and allowed that great invasion to proceed, with losses far below those we had anticipated …”

 

General Eisenhower

 

General Montgomery

The Commander of Land Troops was General Montgomery. Some years earlier, before Alamein,  he had said “I would as soon think of going into battle without my artillery as without my chaplains”. 

Now, on the eve of D-Day, Montgomery sent a message to all his troops :  “To us is given the honour of striking a blow for freedom which will live in history; and in the better days that lie ahead men will speak with pride in our doings. We have a great and righteous cause.  Let us pray that ‘The Lord Mighty in Battle’ will go forth with our armies, and that His special providence will aid us in the struggle.”

 

General Bernard Montgomery

Chaplains

Prayer surrounded D-Day. Army chaplains prayed with troops. On Sunday 4 June there was a prayer vigil attended by 400 officers and men of the Second Army HQ, where the final prayer included the following:“As we stand upon the threshold of the greatest adventure in our history, let us now offer to Almighty God all our powers of body, mind and spirit, so that our great endeavour may be thoroughly finished.”

The D-Day invasion of Normandy was the largest and most complex invasion in history.  If it had failed, Britain and Europe would be very different today. There were many reasons why it might have gone disastrously wrong – the most dramatic of which was the uncertain weather. There is a good 10-minute video about this at 

https://youtu.be/W4piAK9uRhk      

 

Films about D Day or about Dunkirk concentrate on the events themselves. Generally there are no references in them to the role of prayer or to God’s blessing. Yet I believe that ultimately prayer was the most vital ingredient in these events. Would it be the same if we were involved in a battle against evil today?

Neston Gospel Hall - and other places of worship in Neston

Corshamside Gospel Hall, Neston

Corshamside

In the  early 19th century Neston did not exist. An area of hamlets including Elley Green, Moor Green, Greenhill and Westwells were all part of what was known as Corshamside, and the little clusters of houses in the area were occupied by farmworkers and quarrymen and their families.  There were several farms, the oldest of which was Overmoor Farm, part of which dates back to the 12th century.  There was no church.

Overmoor Farm 1972

 In 1856 Corshamside Gospel Hall was built on the southern edge of this area in a rural setting where the land adjoins Neston Park.  

A visitor today might wonder why the Gospel Hall was built right out in the country.  But one has only to think back 170 years to the days when people went  everywhere on foot, to realise that it was a central location for villagers of Corsham, Atworth, Wadswick and Corshamside, who walked to the Gospel Hall on Sundays. Unusually, this nonconformist chapel was the first place of worship in the Corshamside area.

 

Gospel Halls as a rule do not have burial grounds, but Corshamside Gospel Hall is unique in Britain in having its own graveyard, which is still in use. This came about because it predated the building of  the Parish Church in Neston, and was therefore the only graveyard in the neighbourhood for a while.

 

 Although the Gospel Hall has been converted into a private house, the graveyard continues to be supervised by the Brethren.

Looked at from the perspective of today, when the industrial infrastructure of the Corsham stone quarries has all but vanished, it is worth noting that the Gospel Hall was built for and by the men who worked in the stone quarries and who used the stone to build their Chapel.

Brethren assemblies

The Gospel Hall was built by the Brethren (sometimes known as the Plymouth Brethren). Their chapels were known as 'Brethren Assemblies' The origins of the Brethren movement date back to the 1830s, when groups of Christians sought to return to the simplicity of worship described in the New Testament and began meeting without clergy to ‘break bread’ (hold communion services), initially in people’s homes. In 1832 Rev John Methuen, the vicar of Corsham, resigned his living to join the group of Brethren in Neston.  In the early days  the group met in Pockeridge House, then owned by Mr John Edridge. (now part of the MoD estate at Basil Hill).

 Subsequently the Gospel Hall and the adjoining ground in Chapel Lane Neston were given to the assembly by Mr. Edridge  as a ‘place of preaching and a graveyard for the society of brethren’. Unfortunately, the generous donor died whilst the hall was being built and was buried alongside it in the graveyard. He died in January 1856 aged 68 years and was the first to be buried there. The local believers erected a large memorial expressing their indebtedness to one ‘who had it in his heart to build this place of worship.’ His relatives sought (but failed) to have his body exhumed, since they did not want him to be buried in some ‘ unconsecrated field ’.   Later in 1856 the Gospel Hall was opened and amongst the trustees were a local gamekeeper, a butcher, a blacksmith, and Captain H. M. Becher who was associated with George Muller of Ashley Down Orphanages in Bristol. The gamekeeper was Daniel Davis,  gamekeeper to Squire George Fuller of Neston Park. In 1864, it is recorded that “Daniel gained a place in history whilst out shooting with Squire George Fuller and his cousin, the African explorer, John Hanning Speke. When climbing over a wall, Capt Speke’s gun discharged with fatal consequences. Daniel was one of the carriers of Speke from the field in Wadswick where he died.”

(For more on Speke, see my entry of January 2020 entitled 'Death in Neston'.     It's at  

https://mpriorblog.blogspot.com/2020/01/death-in-neston_14.html     )

 

Moor Green Baptist Chapel

In 1860 a chapel was built at Moor Green by the Baptists. This photo was taken in 1956 when a stone quarry operated immediately opposite (where Moor Park has subsequently been built).

Moor Green Baptist Chapel, 1956

 The Parish Church

In 1866  the Church of England Parish Church of St Philip and St James was built about half a mile away, and because some of the benefactors of this church lived at Neston Park, it was regularly referred to as Neston Parish Church. Thus 'Neston' came into existence.  

 

Neston Parish Church

But wasn't until the 1970s that Corshamside Gospel Hall changed its name to Neston Gospel Hall. (I was responsible for that! As a member there I persuaded the leadership that a change of name would be a good idea because the public, espedially incomers,  were no longer familiar with where Corshamside was).

Over the past 170 years or so, the Assembly exercised an influence in the surrounding district more than its founders could have ever imagined. Few of the older established families in the area have not had a family member in fellowship at one time or another. In its heyday the gospel hall (which could seat about 120 people) was regularly full, had two choirs, a Sunday-school and a teenagers’ study group.

Neston Gospel Hall 1903

I have many personal memories of the Gospel Hall, having been a member of the congregation for 20 years during the  1970s and 1980s. My first wife Lindsay was buried in the graveyard there. 

As the years have passed, the Gospel Hall (though not its graveyard) has fallen victim like so many other village chapels, schools, post offices and shops to the onslaught of widespread car ownership, which results in local facilities diminishing as people choose instead to travel to nearby towns.  It is now a private home. But there must have been other factors at play too: only a mile or so away the beautiful and historic Monks Chapel survives as a rural place of worship.

 

Monks Chapel

 The Gospel Hall has become a private house, as has Moor Green Baptist Chapel, which at the time of writing this footnote is under extensive renovation.

 

 

 

Meanwhile, Corsham Baptist Church is extending its reach by not only using its own premises in Corsham , but also making use of Neston Memorial Hall, where (in 2024) a lively and thriving congregation meets every Sunday morning at 10 a.m.

 

 

Neston's link with the Covid vaccine

The origins of your covid jab can be traced back to our home in Neston!..... Read on…….

 

 

 

 

 

Edward Holmes (born 1965) spent his earliest years at 46 Greenhill, Neston (we bought the house from his parents in 1973) and his earliest education was at Neston School. 

 

Now living in Australia, Prof Edward Holmes of the University of Sydney has won the prime minister’s prize for science, worth $250,000, for his “transformative role in the scientific response to Covid-19”. The role played by Prof Holmes in the COVID pandemic is already the stuff of legend. His decision to tweet the genome of SARS-CoV-2 on January 11 2020, making the data freely available to everyone, sparked urgent work in labs around the world to develop a test and a vaccine. Within days, the first diagnostic tests were available, and that weekend, scientists at Moderna and Pfizer are reported to have downloaded the genome and set to work on their mRNA vaccines, bringing a new technology to medicine in record time.  

If you type Prof Edward Holmes or Prof Eddie Holmes into a search engine you see that there are several articles about him and several youtube videos.

 

Where will we be in a hundred years from now?

 I wrote this blog entry before the appalling events in Israel and Gaza  came out of the blue to horrify us all and dominate the headlines.  But the thoughts I had then seem even more pertinent now, in this uncertain world in which we live......

'Where will we be in a hundred years from now?' is the title of a macabre song which was popular in the 1950s, and which as children we found hilarious.  I’ve now had most of my hundred years and the question seems ever more relevant.  The world has become a different place, with many concerns vying to top the list of worries:

Warfare and terrorism

 Overpopulation

Environmental pollution

Food shortages

Contaminated water

Global warming

Pandemics

A ‘hurricane of immigration’

It seems that the four horsemen of the apocalypse have doubled to at least eight!

 

As people worry about the future of mankind on earth, Tim Peake, a British spaceman, recently produced an engrossing TV series entitled Secrets of our Universe. In the first programme we were told that the universe consists of billions of galaxies, each containing billions of stars, many of which are surrounded by planets.  

 

Distant galaxies, photographed by the James Webb telescope

My first thought was that it takes a greater step of 'faith' to believe that this is all a random result of a random big bang which came out of nothing than  it takes to believe in a creator. To me, intelligent design makes much more sense.  Later Tim addressed one potential solution to the problem of the survival of mankind – setting up human colonies on other planets! He took us to an experimental environment (not dissimilar to the Eden Project) called Biosphere 2 in Arizona, where research is going into the requirements for living on other planets. 

 

 

Biosphere 2

My reaction to this is to think that preserving the human race by sending tiny numbers of people to Mars or elsewhere will be hugely expensive, will only benefit a tiny number of humans, and will put them in an alien environment where they will be virtually trapped in very limited spaces.   Maybe it might preserve the human race,  but it won’t solve the problem of where you or I will be a hundred years from now.  It also makes me think back to ancient times when humans had no concept of an afterlife.  Abraham, for example, thought in terms only of preserving his family line by reproduction.  When he was 100 and his wife Sarah was 90 they were still childless. When they were promised by an angelic visitor that their descendents would be ‘as numerous as the sand on the seashore’ , Sarah found the very idea laughable – yet they did indeed become the ancestors of a huge tribe, later to become a nation. (The Bible: Genesis 17 and 18; also Genesis 22.17)

Yet what really interests most of us, particularly as we get older, is whether we will survive death  or whether this life is all we have. Atheists will try to persuade us that  as random products of a self-generated universe we only have one life and then we’re snuffed out.   Yet many people believe instinctively that although our bodies will die, some part of us (which we’ll call our spirit) will survive death.

I’m writing here from a Christian standpoint, and believe that the universe, the earth and all that is in it were designed and created by a being higher than ourselves – namely God.   God has provided us with hope for the future because he has given us many hints in the Bible (which I believe consists of writings inspired by God) about life after death. 

 Hint 1: resurrection

Let’s start with the strongest hint of all.   Christianity hinges upon the belief that Jesus is alive today, having been killed by his enemies but having risen bodily from the dead. If he could rise from the dead, so can we!   But we have no need to fear that if we die riddled with disease or disability we’ll rise with an identical body.  No, we’re told that our resurrection body will be as different as wheat is from its seed..... 

 

 and that our new ‘spiritual’ body will be imperishable. In the Bible Paul says “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”  and he goes on to explain the answer.  (1 Corinthians 15.35-54)    We see the miracle of renewal every year: winter to summer and seedtime to harvest.  We too shall be renewed.  

 

 

Hint 2: What kind of renewed body will we have?

We won’t be like immaterial ghosts!   When Jesus rose, it was in a resurrection body which was material and could eat. (Luke 24.39-43).  Yet it was not bound by the laws of nature ( Luke 24.31, 24.36-37) . We're told that in the next life we will be like him: (1 Corinthians 15.49 and Philippians 3.21)

 

Hint 3: Renewal isn’t just for us!

Renewal isn’t just for us!   The whole earth is to be renewed, and long before Jesus came to live on earth, the prophet Isaiah was given an insight into this: in a remarkable piece of foreknowledge he says “the earth will be filled with the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea.”   (Isaiah 11.9)  It suggests that the whole earth will be renewed, drenched in the knowledge of the Lord: evil will be swept away.    It hasn’t happened yet.  The world around us is waiting for this renewal, and we’re told that    “creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.  We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.” (Romans 8.21)  

 This powerful imagery of childbirth reminds us of the fantastic renewal which occurs every time a baby is born.  The process is dramatic and traumatic, but the whole of creation is to be renewed  - and so will we, if we take this on board and trust in our creator, God, who will bring it all about.

Hint  4  -Where will we be?  Do we go to heaven when we die?

People tend to think that heaven is ‘up there somewhere’, partly because we describe the night sky as ‘the heavens’ and we vaguely think of the dead sitting on clouds playing harps.

 

 Some have questioned where ‘up there’ can be, since ‘up’ for us in Britain and ‘up’ for people in Australia takes us in opposite directions! But this is not how the Bible describes our destination. 

The clearest image of the renewal and the new creation, of which Christians will be a part, is at the end of the Bible, in Revelation 21 and 22, where the picture language is of a wedding – where the groom (Jesus) comes down to meet his bride (us). 

There is a supplementary picture too of the church community, which is described as the heavenly Jerusalem and it comes down to earth.  Heaven is combined with a renewed  earth – which is what we pray for every time we pray the Lord’s prayer: “Thy kingdom come, on earth as it is in heaven”. 

So the destination of those who are committed to the Lord Jesus Christ is heaven, if by that we mean ‘where the Lord is’.  But it isn’t in an identifiable location somewhere in the sky.  The Kingdom of Heaven comes to us! We’ll be re-created and part of a new creation.   Charles Wesley in his well-known  hymn,  ‘Love divine, all loves excelling’ rounded off with

Finish then, Thy new creation;
pure and spotless let us be;
let us see Thy great salvation
perfectly restored in Thee.
Changed from glory into glory,
till in heav'n we take our place,
till we cast our crowns before Thee,
lost in wonder, love, and praise.

 

 

 

Flower Power

 

 Some years ago my wife Wendy noticed that a lady was silently weeping at the back of the church during a service.  When the service was over she went to talk to her, and as the lady dried her eyes she said “I’ve never come here before, but something made me come today. I’ve no idea what the sermon was about, and I didn’t know the songs people were singing.  But as I looked at the flowers I began to think ‘Life is worth living after all. I’m ok now.’”