Copyright © S P Townsend
Last weekend was a defining moment for our church. On Saturday morning the Elders and the Vestry met together to pray and consider the way forward for the church building project in the light of your responses to the Pledge Day. Our foremost desire was to hear from God as to what was His purpose, and what our next step should be. For many months previously there had been a sense of uncertainty within the church, firstly as to whether we had sufficiently clear direction from God to proceed with the building programme, and secondly whether the current design is fit for purpose. Last weekend as we prayed together and waited on God we shared with one another what we believed God was showing us. We shared pictures and dreams, thoughts and meditations. Last week Jill told us about some of the content of that prayer time. I will not repeat at this time what she shared with us, but will merely confirm that the Lord graciously placed upon each of our hearts a strong conviction of the way ahead, and united us in a quite remarkable unity of purpose.
After we had prayed we considered together the outcome of the pledge day, the current status of the building project, and various lessons learned from other nearby churches that have recently undertaken building programmes. Again, I will not at this time go into detail, but if you would like further information you should certainly talk with members of the Vestry or leadership team. I must, however, give you feedback on the outcome of your Pledge Day giving. A significant majority of you contributed to the request for pledges. The amount committed through the Pledge Day was over £324,000 – a few thousand short of one third of a million pounds. God willing this will raise our building fund reserves to over a million pounds before the end of this year, and up to £1.2 in three years time. I have to say that this response is remarkable and humbling. It is an outstanding amount of money for you to give in the present economic climate, and it reflects great generosity, great sacrifice, great faith and great love. On behalf of the leadership team I want to express to you a very sincere “thank you” for your faithfulness to God’s work. And I think that we too should express our thankfulness to God for his wonderful provision. “Clap your hands, all you people, shout to God with cries of joy!” (Ps 47: 1)
Now I said that last weekend was a defining moment, and so it was. The Lord has given complete unity to your leadership – both elders and Vestry, and I speak also for your Rector Ian – that we should proceed with all speed to erect a church building on Broadshade to the glory of God’s name. We believe that God has marked out and paved the road before us, and that His hand of blessing is on this venture. Indeed He calls us to follow after Him now, with faith and without fear. The building we erect may be somewhat different to the design we have considered so far. We want to be wise to ensure that the money we have available is spent economically and effectively. But nevertheless we believe that God has revealed His purpose in providing us with this building for His glory.
Last Sunday morning as I woke up I was reminded of the story in the Book of Joshua of how the Children of Israel entered the land of Canaan. “As soon as the priests who carried the Ark of the Covenant reached the Jordan and their feet touched the water’s edge, the water from upstream stopped flowing … So the people crossed over opposite Jericho.” This wasn’t their moment of victory, you understand. Victories – and sometimes defeats – would come later. This was their moment of commitment, a moment when they turned their backs on fear, looked up to the One who had called them and saved them, and stepped forward in faith. Last Saturday your leaders similarly stepped into the water to lead you to receive what God has given. And you, too, in pledging and giving towards this building, have stepped forward with your leaders into the water. Just a small patch of ground in our case compared to the land Israel entered, but still requiring steps of faith.
We believe God has heard our prayers regarding this building. We believe He will clear any remaining obstacles before us and will provide the resources we need. We believe He has confirmed to us that he has set a roadway before us, and calls us now to walk upon it. One implication of this is that we no longer have to ask God to provide the resources for this building. He has already heard our prayer and granted our request. Heb 1:1 tells us faith is being certain of what we do not see. We should still keep praying, of course, even more than before; but our prayers should now be prayers of thanksgiving. Thank you Lord for giving this land; thank you Lord for providing the money we can already see; thank you Lord for providing the money we don’t yet see; thank you for the building you have given us. Of course we don’t have to be legalistic about this; nobody is going to condemn you if you pray a prayer of request rather than a prayer of thanksgiving, and indeed there are still many details we will want to bring to the Lord.
But be careful not to allow this building to assume an importance it does not have. It is but scaffolding, here for a time to help us work together with the Lord as He builds his true church in this community, but the scaffolding will one day come down. It is but clothing to cover us as we meet together to worship God and bring others to Him, and your heavenly Father knows that you have need of clothing; but seek first His kingdom and His righteousness, and all these things will be given you as well.
As I meditated last Sunday morning my mind turned to the name of the land where the church will be built. I felt God impress on me that it is significant, and that He will fulfil the purposes embodied in that name.
As far as I can understand the meaning of broadshade, or “broad shed” is “a division of land,” or “portion of land” deriving originally from the Scandinavian tongue. So I believe God has set aside this portion of land for His honour and glory, and has given it to us as a centre for the work of His kingdom. It is interesting that after Israel took possession of Canaan the land was divided out amongst the tribes. Each of them received their own “broadshade.” But to us today the name “Broadshade” conveys a quite different understanding – that of extensive shade or shelter. I am reminded of the words of a wonderful hymn, written 160 or so years ago:
Beneath the cross of Jesus
I fain would take my stand,
The shadow of a mighty rock
Within a weary land;
A home within the wilderness,
A rest upon the way,
From the burning of the noontide heat,
And the burden of the day.
One of the important meanings of shade or shadow in the Bible is that of God’s protection. Psalm 91 commences “He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.” Psalm 17:8 “Hide me in the shadow of your wings.” Psalm 36:7 “Both high and low among men find refuge in the shadow of your wings.” Psalm 57:1 “I will take refuge in the shadow of your wings until the disaster has passed.” I believe that God intends the church building on Broadshade to be a place where people find refuge in the shadow of His wings. People who are afflicted and troubled; people who are beset by worries and fears; people who are weary and heavy laden; a place of refuge and shelter; a place of safety. It is not the church building that is a place of safety. It is the shadow of his wings that provides this shelter and refuge.
The shadow of his wings is not merely a place of rest, although for the weary it is of course a place to relax and be at peace. It is primarily a place of refuge. “Hide me,” says the psalmist, “in the shadow of your wings, from the wicked who assail me, from my mortal enemies who surround me.” For the disciples in the boat on Galilee the “shadow of his wings” was not the easy bobbing of the boat in harbour, lulling them gently to sleep; it was the refuge and safety of his protecting power out in the midst of the fiercest of storms, with the lightning flashing around them, the thunder crashing, the wind howling, the waves bursting over the bow.
We are all no doubt familiar with the places of shelter available for walkers and climbers in the hills. These bothies are wonderful places of refuge and protection, and you cannot experience that shelter by reading about it in the comfort of your own living room. But if you are out on the hills in the late afternoon in November, and your trek has been slower than you had planned, and evening is rapidly advancing, and then the wind gets up and hail, sleet and snow beat against you, and your legs become increasingly weary as you push through the thickening snow, and the darkness closes in, and the cold penetrates to your very bone marrow, and then through a brief lull in the driving snow you see a bothy before you, and you struggle to reach it and wearily push open the door and fall through it, and it is slammed loudly behind you by the wind, as if in fury at your escape, and you see that others have arrived before you, and a fire is burning brightly in the hearth, and a kettle is whistling, then you know what it means for the bothy to be a shelter and refuge.
In our reading from Isaiah today God is described as Israel’s Saviour (Isa 43:1-3, 11. Again the message given is that God is a sanctuary, a place of refuge from flood and fire, a place of safety. Previously Isaiah described this protection God provides most graphically. “Then the LORD will create over all of Mount Zion and over those who assemble there a cloud of smoke by day and a glow of flaming fire by night; over all the glory will be a canopy. It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.” (Isa 4:5,6).
The Hebrew word for Saviour is “Moshia”, from the verb “Yasha” to deliver or save, and the word for salvation is “Yeshuah”. Joshua, Hosea and Isaiah are all essentially the same name as Yeshuah, and the Greek form of the name is, of course, Jesus. Jesus was given this name because he would save his people from their sins (Matt 1:21), Jesus said of himself, “The Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost” (Luke 19:10). Jesus came to Israel as her saviour, but for the most part they rejected him. He said "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, you who kill the prophets and stone those sent to you, how often I have longed to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, but you were not willing!” (Lu 13:34).
How tragic that when the protection of His wings was offered, when a place of refuge and safety was close by, the people refused to enter in. It is as if a weary mountaineer, beset by a storm and the onset of darkness, encountered a bothy but walked right on by without entering. One of our members had a dream a week ago on Friday, and in this dream the church building was finished but for some reason unused. And someone living close by said, “If the building were being used we would come.”
There are many who need to come to Jesus, the Lord our Saviour. But in order to come they need to hear his call, “Come unto me, all who are weary and heavy-laden and I will give you rest.” I need to challenge us this morning to take that invitation out into the community where we live and work and play. We who rest under the shadow of the Almighty encounter many others who need to find refuge there too. Are you willing to call them, as Jesus did, to share with them the testimony of what great things the Lord has done for you, and to tell them that He loves them too and is ready to receive them?
But perhaps you are not yourself in that place of shelter. O, you have heard that there is a place of safety and refuge under His wings, but you have never personally entered in. Like Jerusalem at the time of Jesus you have not been willing. Perhaps it is the very storms of life that He would shelter you from that have kept you away from Him. Maybe you have suffered hurt and grief and calamity, or have watched others go through such times, and the enemy of your soul has whispered lies in your ear that if God loved you he would not have allowed you or them to go through such suffering. God does not promise to keep us from suffering, but He does promise that all who take refuge in Him will be sheltered, protected and saved. In the passage from Isaiah that we read it is when we pass through the waters that He is with us to keep us from being overwhelmed; it is when we walk through the fire that He will prevent the flames from setting us ablaze. But for whatever reason it is that you walked on past the bothy and did not enter into its refuge, why not decide now to change.
Actually it is not the storms and pressures of life from which we most need refuge. It is actually the law of God himself, the holy and righteous One, that puts us at our greatest peril. In the words of another familiar old hymn,
Rock of Ages cleft for me, Let me hide myself in Thee.
Let the water and the blood, from Thy riven side which flowed,
Be of sin the double cure – cleanse me from its guilt and power.
Not the labours of my hands could fulfil Thy law’s demands.
Could my tears for ever flow, could my tears no respite know,
All for sin could not atone; Thou must save and Thou alone.
The Apostle Peter said that there is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved (Acts 4:12). Will you not come to Him now to receive His salvation, to shelter under the shadow of His wings?
Perhaps you have entered into that place of salvation, but for some reason you do not feel yourself protected and overshadowed by His wings. The psalmist said, “I sing in the shadow of your wings” (Ps 63:7) but you haven’t felt like singing for a long time. Maybe like the disciples in the boat your eyes have focussed on the force of the storm besetting you. Unlike Jesus, who slept peacefully through the storm, content in the knowledge of His Father’s protection, they were petrified by the assault upon the boat. Focus your eyes again upon Jesus. Hear again His word, “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have summoned you by name; you are mine. When you pass through the waters I will be with you.” (Isa 43:1,2).
Copyright © S P Townsend