16/02/2015

Good morning. I have loved history since I was in short trousers, but like many whose schooldays ended in the 1950s I was never taught anything about the history of Scotland. Lots about the French revolution and lots about how Germany became united, and lots about England. 

The first big, thick history book I ever bought was a History of England and it was written by a man called George Macaulay Trevelyan. He was a professor at CambridgeUniversity but as well as being a university teacher he was the first President of the Youth Hostel Association and he was passionate about preserving not only historic buildings but historic landscapes too. Like me he not only loved history but he loved cricket also – and that will convince a lot of people I suspect that I’m not the full shilling! 

Trevelyan spent all his working life teaching students. He once said “Never tell a young person that anything can’t be done. God may have waited centuries for someone ignorant enough of the impossible to do that very thing.” Or as someone else put it: impossible things can only be achieved by those who don’t believe they are impossible. 

So Jesus said to a man whose arm had been withered for years. Stretch it out. Or to someone else who was congenitally disabled: get up and walk. Or to anyone who is being diminished and demeaned by guilt: you are forgiven. Or to the person who is in some kind of despair: I am hope. A friend of mine once referred to these incidents in the Gospels and said: you see, Jesus wasn’t saying that if you believe in him, the impossible becomes possible. He meant the impossible remains impossible, but the deaf hear God’s challenging voice, and poor people are valued for their insights and guilt is erased. 

Loving God, bring – as always – light out of our darkness and meaning into our emptiness and insights in the midst of the ordinariness of our living. Amen.