Thought for the week

By Rev. Richard Walker – Vicar of St. John’s Church, Yeadon

We live in very uncertain times. Recently, I have been tempted to stop checking the news because it is always so depressing! Acts of terrorism, natural disasters, refugees, threats of war, Brexit negotiations, child abuse scandals – the list is almost endless. It’s not surprising, therefore, that many people feel the need for some kind of certainty in life – an objective reference point from which to make sense of everything else.

Lloyd C. Douglas, the author of The Robe and other novels, lived in a boarding house when he was a student. On the first floor of that boarding house lived a retired music teacher who was in poor health, unable to leave his apartment. He and Douglas developed a friendship and a daily ritual. Each morning Douglas would come down the steps from his apartment, open the music teacher's door and ask him, "What's the good news?" The music teacher would pick up his tuning fork, tap it on the side of his wheelchair, and say "That's middle C! It was middle C yesterday; it will be middle C tomorrow; it will be middle C a thousand years from now. The tenor upstairs sings flat, the piano across the hall is out of tune, but my friend, that is middle C!"

Two thousand years ago, Jesus of Nazareth claimed to be the one who could provide us with an unchanging reference point. “Heaven and earth will pass away,” he said, “but my words will never pass away.” Christ is like the middle C that remains constant while everything else changes. His promises can be for us a sure foundation on which to build our lives and his presence in us can provide certainty and hope in our troubled times. Whatever the future may bring, there is nothing more solid to rely on than the promises and presence of Jesus Christ.