‘Great crowds followed him.’ That is hardly our experience today. Indeed, we find it difficult to visualise a response to Jesus’ teaching that led to problems of crowd control. True, a winning style and a ready link with people from the same background are factors we have to consider. People then were very much like us in many ways but their destiny under the law of Moses provided a perspective on life that we find difficult to imagine.
But it was so. Forty days in the wilderness were followed by busy days in Capernaum and elsewhere. He became known. He was sought after. Solitude as he wrestled with his career was followed by the press and stress of the needy and the seekers. He retreated up a mountain. He sought some privacy in a boat. He was a popular figure.
When it mattered, things were different. He had the solitude of desertion. He moved on to what had urged him in the first place, a destiny. To his friends there came a moment when they realised that he was different, that he was not only God’s man but God incarnate, the man born to be king, as Dorothy L. Sayers saw it.
The presence of great crowds is the lot of a celebrity. That does not mean that a big following is a reliable indicator of authenticity. Demagogues attract a big following. However, if great crowds are no guarantee of probity, they may none the less high-light the kernel of a matter and its appeal to common decency. Such an occasion as the funeral of William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, for example, had thousands paying tribute. Common people and others recognised the value of a life lived for others.
When, as the Gospel-writers put it, Jesus sat down to deliver the Sermon on the Mount, he bequeathed a memorable conspectus of his teaching. It has had wide appeal. There was a later occasion when he sat down and delivered a quite different message – the little apocalypse, as it is known. We find it in Mark 13. It was a warning about great delusion, great misunderstanding, great tribulation. Compared with the Sermon on the Mount, it is hardly known. But it is as much part of the Gospel-story as is the SOM and it has to do with not so much the teaching as the mission of Jesus. The supernatural aspect is an inescapable part of the Jesus-story.
CARTOONIST
How many churches do you know that have a cartoonist buried in the churchyard? Sanderstead parish church, Surrey has the grave of Bernard Thomas Hugh (1881-1936). He drew cartoons for the cover of Chelsea football club programme from 1910-1936 and figured in a recent issue of the enterprising parish magazine of All Saints’. The Rector is Martin Greenfield.
WELLINGTON GRAPHICS
All Saints’ church, Wellington, Telford has a superabundance of pictures illustrating its people and activities. Built when the French Revolution took off, the church introduced to Shropshire the idea of a classical portico. All Saints’ features ‘Shift Church’, designed for those on shift work and others the opportunity of joining in without being actually present. Re-ordering took place in 1990. Leading the ministry team is Tim Carter.
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