Crash Helmets and Church Bells
23 February 2007
Crash Helmets and Church Bells
Today’s Cross Purposes is not mine. I have ‘borrowed’ it from “Pulpit Resource” Feb 4, 2007. It touched something deep in me. I pray it does so for you too!
Writer Steven Vryhof tells the story of a miraculous, life-giving glimpse of God in worship:
One Sunday morning, years ago, I entered a Lutheran Church in a small village on the coast of Sweden. Perhaps because of the early hour, or the lure of a beautiful summer morning, or the effects of state-run Lutheranism, there were only fourteen congregants gathered. The minister was a slender, blonde lad who had to be fresh out of seminary. I struggled with the Swedish hymns and the Lutheran tendancy to stand to pray and sit to sing, the opposite of what I was used to. I joined the others at the front railing for communion, taking the bread and the wine, then returning to my seat.
While the minister, his back to us, was putting away the elements, a parishioner, a middle-aged woman, returned to the front, this time pushing an old woman, presumably her mother, in a wheelchair. The mother had the classic nursing-home look: slumped to the right, thin, scraggly, colourless hair, vacant eyes, and a slack-jaw with her tongue showing a bit. She was here for communion. There was an awkward minute as we all waited for the minister to notice the two waiting at the railing. He finally did turn, perceived the situation, and proceeded to retrieve the elements. He carefully administered the bit of bread and the sip of wine to the old woman. And then he paused, and I held my breath, because I knew what was going to happen next. The young minister looked at the old woman, physically a wreck of a human being, and he said to her the most important words that one human being can say to another human being. The minister looked her right straight in the eye, and said to her, “var Herre Jesus Krist, vem kroop och blod ni hartatt emot, bevaran din sjal til evigh liv”. Our Lord Jesus Christ, whose body and blood you have received, preserve your soul unto everlasting life.
And I suppose it was a coincidence, but it was a God-given coincidence nonetheless. At that precise moment, the bells of the church started pealing, ringing and resonating and resounding and reverberating through the church and through me, making the hair on the back of my head stand up. Heaven touched earth and it seemed that Var Herre Jesus Krist, himself was saying, “Yes! I will do that!” And then the Father and the Spirit joined the Son, and using the same words given to Julian of Norwich, the Triune God proclaimed loudly over the ringing of the bells, “I may make all things well, and I can make all things well, and I shall make all things well; and I will make all things well, and you will see yourself that every kind of thing will be well!”
(Steven Vryhof, “Crash Helmets and Church Bells”, Perspectives, August/September 2000, p.3).
Crash Helmets and Church Bells
Today’s Cross Purposes is not mine. I have ‘borrowed’ it from “Pulpit Resource” Feb 4, 2007. It touched something deep in me. I pray it does so for you too!
Writer Steven Vryhof tells the story of a miraculous, life-giving glimpse of God in worship:
One Sunday morning, years ago, I entered a Lutheran Church in a small village on the coast of Sweden. Perhaps because of the early hour, or the lure of a beautiful summer morning, or the effects of state-run Lutheranism, there were only fourteen congregants gathered. The minister was a slender, blonde lad who had to be fresh out of seminary. I struggled with the Swedish hymns and the Lutheran tendancy to stand to pray and sit to sing, the opposite of what I was used to. I joined the others at the front railing for communion, taking the bread and the wine, then returning to my seat.
While the minister, his back to us, was putting away the elements, a parishioner, a middle-aged woman, returned to the front, this time pushing an old woman, presumably her mother, in a wheelchair. The mother had the classic nursing-home look: slumped to the right, thin, scraggly, colourless hair, vacant eyes, and a slack-jaw with her tongue showing a bit. She was here for communion. There was an awkward minute as we all waited for the minister to notice the two waiting at the railing. He finally did turn, perceived the situation, and proceeded to retrieve the elements. He carefully administered the bit of bread and the sip of wine to the old woman. And then he paused, and I held my breath, because I knew what was going to happen next. The young minister looked at the old woman, physically a wreck of a human being, and he said to her the most important words that one human being can say to another human being. The minister looked her right straight in the eye, and said to her, “var Herre Jesus Krist, vem kroop och blod ni hartatt emot, bevaran din sjal til evigh liv”. Our Lord Jesus Christ, whose body and blood you have received, preserve your soul unto everlasting life.
And I suppose it was a coincidence, but it was a God-given coincidence nonetheless. At that precise moment, the bells of the church started pealing, ringing and resonating and resounding and reverberating through the church and through me, making the hair on the back of my head stand up. Heaven touched earth and it seemed that Var Herre Jesus Krist, himself was saying, “Yes! I will do that!” And then the Father and the Spirit joined the Son, and using the same words given to Julian of Norwich, the Triune God proclaimed loudly over the ringing of the bells, “I may make all things well, and I can make all things well, and I shall make all things well; and I will make all things well, and you will see yourself that every kind of thing will be well!”
(Steven Vryhof, “Crash Helmets and Church Bells”, Perspectives, August/September 2000, p.3).
posted by PastorFredVeerhuis at 1:02 PM
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