Saint John 14:1-14
At midnight on May 8, 1945 seventy-five years ago last Friday Germany surrendered officially marking the end of World War II. Understandably, the people of the United States and especially Britain celebrated.
After years of wartime restrictions and dangers – from food and clothes rationing to blackouts and bombing raids – it was understandable how eager they were to finally be able to let loose and enjoy themselves.
A national holiday was declared in Britain for 8 May 1945. In the morning, Churchill had gained assurances from the Ministry of Food that there were enough beer supplies in London.
At 3pm that afternoon, Churchill made a national radio broadcast. In it, he announced the welcome news that the war had ended in Europe – but he included a note of caution, saying: ‘We may allow ourselves a brief period of rejoicing; but let us not forget for a moment the toil and efforts that lie ahead.” He knew that the war was not over: Japan still had to be defeated.1
It had been a brutal time for Britain in which the island nation had been subject to devastating bombing raids that came at all hours.
I have been thinking a lot about how dark those times must have been as I read Erik Larson’s brilliant new Book, The Splendid and the Vile, about what life was like during the War for the people of Britain and the Churchill family in particular.
One of the few upsides of online worship is my being able to not only ask you to imagine what the devastation must have been like but show you.
Here is a picture of what was left of Coventry Cathedral after the night of November 14, 1940 in which the single most concentrated air attack on any British city during the war occurred.
Just over half of the cities housing stock was destroyed. Larson writes that “A team of Mass-Observation researchers, experienced in chronicling the effects of air raids, had arrived. In their subsequent report they wrote of having found ‘more open signs of hysteria [and] terror. [But] the overwhelmingly dominate feeling on Friday was the feeling of utter helplessness.”2
If that was not enough,
On 10 May 1941, incendiary and high-explosive bombs were dropped on the Palace of Westminster, destroying the House of Commons Chamber and damaging the House of Lords Chamber, Westminster Hall and the Clock Tower. The attack launched by the Luftwaffe . . . was its biggest air raid on London during the Second World War. It resulted in 1,436 civilian deaths.
Again the devastation was complete as the picture shows.
While we have seen buildings and institutions attacked in our time, reading Larson’s book and living through the last five months I wonder how 21st Century Americans would have faired during those trying times.
We face our sense of helplessness with a sense of restlessness that just wants the whole business to end.
Some have taken to the streets - some without face masks, others ignoring the reasonable requests for social distancing – demanding that things are opened up so that people can get back to work.
Nobody is going to tell them what they can do and when they can do it. They want things back to the way things were before and they want them now.
If one is foolish enough to tell some folks they can’t have what they want they get . . . well, difficult. They want to pin the blame on somebody. It’s the governors who are being unreasonable.
Some have even taken to the internet citing dubious sources to blame a cabal of business leaders who are only trying to make money off of the virus and who are infringing on our rights by saying we have to get vaccinated or we have to wear a face mask.
Conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg reminds all of us:
According to any remotely recognizable theory of limited government—whether you call it libertarianism, constitutionalism, conservatism, classical liberalism, or even Americanism—the government has not just the authority but the obligation to prevent threats to public welfare.
In other words, epidemics, like wars, are the great exceptions to limited government. This used to be Conservatism 101: The government shouldn’t boss us around unless there is a truly compelling reason, like an invading army or, in this case, an invading virus.
He concludes by saying that we wear masks [or get vaccinated when the right formula becomes available] to “ensure you won’t kill someone’s grandmother—never mind simply to reassure said grandmother it’s safe for her to shop at the supermarket.”4
What we are reacting to is our feeling of “utter helplessness.”
Here we need to take a breath and let Jesus speak: “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Believe in God, believe also in me.”5
Jesus gathers with his disciples to prepare them for the somber events that are to come. [His crucifixion and death.] This prompts anxious questions from his followers that center around the anxiety of “What will become of us?” All their power has come from their proximity to Jesus. Now that Jesus is going away, what is to become of them?6
That is our question. That is the source of our anxiety. That is the source of out troubled hearts. We want to know what is going to become of us.
What Jesus says is that, no matter what, you’re going to be with me and I am going to be with you.
When what he says next is read at funerals it is rightly described as our “heavenly home” the place where we go after we die. But that makes it into some future event, some comfort for the next life. We need some comfort here in this life.
So, maybe instead of thinking I get a fabulous house in heaven, we notice the relationship of the verbs in the original Greek where it “means simply ‘to remain, stay, abide.’ It’s not the place, the nature of the abode, but the abiding, the being with Jesus.”7
That, Jesus says, can allow us to do great things.
Jesus boldly predicts: you will do even greater marvels than I have done, implying that these disciples, so filled with dread and anxiety; are also being filled with a miraculous power because of their relationship with Jesus.
I don’t know about you but I think that the power I need most now is patience. I need to wait, amid all the noise, and the craziness, and the outright stupidity, that seems to surround me on every side and be patient.
While we may not have been bombed like Coventry Cathedral or the Palace of Westminister, we are being bombarded by bad news of every side. I need patience to remember and learn from history.
It took nine years for the Palace of Westminister to be rebuilt so that, up until last fall when he retired, we could enjoy raucous debate punctuated by Speaker John Bercow’s calls for, “Order. Ordeeer.”
The Cathedral Church of Saint Michael, Coventry Cathedral, took even more time.
“Her Majesty the Queen laid the foundation stone on 23 March 1956 and the building was consecrated on 25 May 1962.” It took sixteen years for the rebuilding to start and 32 years for it to be completed.
But look at the Cathedral now!
Rather than sweeping away the ruins or rebuilding a replica of the former church, inspired by the message of Christ for reconciliation, the then leaders of the Cathedral Community took the courageous step to build a new Cathedral and preserve the remains of the old Cathedral as a moving reminder of the folly and waste of war.9
The powerful message that Christ gives his disciples in one of reconciliation and the folly of turning on one another, especially in a time of crises. We need to hold on to Christ to be sure but we also need to hold on to each other.
I’ll close with these words of wisdom from a recent article in The Atlantic entitled “I Flew. It Was Worse Than I Thought it Would Be.”
The things we miss most about our pre-pandemic lives—dine-in restaurants and recreational travel, karaoke nights and baseball games—require more than government permission to be enjoyed. These activities are predicated not only on close human contact but mutual affection and good-natured patience, on our ability to put up with one another. Governors can lift restrictions and companies can implement public-health protocols. But until we stop reflexively seeing people as viral threats, those old small pleasures we crave are likely to remain elusive.10
Maybe if we stop seeing each other as threats but see them as Christ does the small pleasures will return and our hearts will be less troubled.
Don’t you think?
____________
1. Staff, IWM. “What You Need To Know About VE Day.” Imperial War Museums. Accessed May 9, 2020. https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/what-you-need-to-know-about-ve-day.
2. Erik Larson. Splendid and the Vile: a Saga of Churchill, Family, and Defiance during the Bombing of London. (New York, N.Y.: HarperCollins Publishers, 2020.) p. 296.
3. “Bombing of the Houses of Parliment: 75th Anniversary.” In Focus. House of Lords. Accessed May 8, 2020. https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/LIF-2016-0028/LIF-2016-0028.
4. Jonah Goldberg. “Idiocy Unmasked.” The Dispatch, May 8, 2020. https://thedispatch.com/p/idiocy-unmasked.
5. Saint John 14:1. {NRSV=The New Revised Standard Version]
6. William Willimon. “Power Surge.” Pulpit Resource, Year A, 39, no. 2 (April, May, June 2011): 37–40.
7. James Howell C. “What Can We Say May 10? 5th Sunday of Easter.” James Howell's Weekly Preaching Notions (blog). Myers Park United Methodist Church, January 1, 2019. http://jameshowellsweeklypreachingnotions.blogspot.com/2019/01/what-can-we-say-may-10-5th-sunday-of.html.
8. Willimon, loc. cit.
9. “About Us.” Coventry Cathedral. Accessed May 9, 2020. http://www.coventrycathedral.org.uk/wpsite/about-us/.
10. McKay Coppins. “I Just Flew. It Was Worse Than I Thought It Would Be.” The Atlantic. Atlantic Media Company, May 8, 2020. https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2020/05/is-flying-safe-coronavirus/611335/.
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