Anthony's autumn message

Friends,

This time of year throughout the churches is one of remembrance and celebration. Remembrance firstly because at the end of October we are focused on the lives of the great and good on All Saints Day, traditionally celebrated on 1st November [or the Sunday nearest]. This leads us quite aptly to Remembrancetide itself, with the high point being Remembrance Day on 11th November and the services at which we commemorate those who died in conflict in the service of their country. So you see we spend a good deal of our time remembering.  If we study the lives of the saints, however, we see that their lives were spent 'looking forward in faith'. This is why I like All Saints, when we can truly celebrate the 'life of faith'. The early Christians were forced to meet secretly for fear of persecution; they lived literally in fear for their lives and yet they had remarkable joy, faith and fortitude. There were no church buildings as such - only the fellowship held in common.  As a minister you get to preach from a great variety of pulpits. None more so, as an ordinand and student of church history, than the pulpit I preached from at Cambridge - that of Hugh Latimer at the church of St Edward King & Martyr. Latimer was one of the greatest Protestant Reformers of the 16th century. It is said that he preached many of his sermons licensed by the University from the pulpit. The experience was always quite thrilling and awe-inspiring as I trod the steps into the pulpit.  Later in my studies my attention was drawn to a cross in Broad Street, Oxford, that marks the spot where Hugh Latimer was martyred, burnt at the stake in 1555 for refusing to recant his beliefs.  [A similar fate awaited Patrick Hamilton, the first martyr of the Scottish Reformation at St. Andrews in 1528.] Who would be our hero of faith today: St. Andrew, William Wallace, Thomas More, Thomas a Beckett, Martin Luther, David Livingstone, John Bunyan, William Wilberforce, Charles Wesley? Not all died for what they believed, but their lives were each of sacrifice for their faith.  After Remembrance comes Christmas when we celebrate the birth of the greatest hero of all time. As Saint Paul himself reminds us there is one hero, one mediator between God and man - Jesus Christ, "the perfecter and finisher of faith". In Him all things hold together and find their consummation. May our lives bear living testimony to the faith that is in us. Would that we could have such faith as these!

With every blessing for Remembrance & Christmastide,

Your friend & minister

Anthony
Rev Anthony M. Jones, BD (Hons), DPS, Dip Th, F.R.S.A.