Dear friends,

From 1^st December to Christmas Eve the Church of Scotland has been publishing a video Advent message online. I was asked to give a short message on the theme of ‘community’ at Christmas. The sort of Christian community that makes up our congregation in Brussels is varied in terms of age, origin and duration of stay in Belgium. Some people have been living in Belgium for decades while others are relatively new and might only be with us for a matter of years, months or even weeks. The increasingly transient nature of our worshipping community is nothing new to us; I have written about this before.

Many members of our Church will travel home for Christmas. This year, some of our congregation will visit loved ones in South Africa, New Zealand, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France. I am sure that other people will be leaving for destinations that I have not mentioned.

The consequence for us as a worshipping community is that our congregation changes significantly over Christmas time. The Christmas Day service is attended mostly by visitors. In my previous congregation in Scotland there was no Christmas Day service and generally if there is an act of worship on Christmas Day, it can often be a small gathering of people who come along. Until relatively recently, Christmas Day was not a public holiday in Scotland. During my time as minister of Flowerhill Parish Church, in Airdrie, it was the Christmas Eve Watchnight service that brought in the crowds of visitors. This is not the case in Brussels. The habits and make-up of the two congregations to which I have ministered are very different.

I continue to reflect on our Brussels congregation. The worshipping community that we have become over the decades reflects the different ebbs and flows of life within the city over those years. Within the past two decades the congregation has become much more international; there are fewer British people who make up the core of the congregation and more people from the far-flung places of the world. There was a critical point in the congregation’s past when there were as few as 20 worshippers on a Sunday morning, but after that the congregation grew significantly. Since then, St Andrew’s has been a dynamic international church that offers Anglophone worship in the Presbyterian style.

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Dear friends,

A couple were kind enough to give me a red flowered camellia for my 50^th birthday. I look forward to it blooming next spring. Those of you who know me well are quite aware that I like growing plants whether it’s spring bulbs, lily, dahlias, annuals or perennials. Some of my plants were given to me by church elders in Airdrie and have given me a lot of pleasure over the years. Early in my time there an elder give me a viburnum bush, once again it was a birthday present. It flowered faithfully each year, late winter and into spring. However over the summer months the said viburnum began to look sick and its leaves were droopy and without lustre. I tried removing the plant from its pot and renewing the compost. It didn’t like it and now the plant has died. I need to replace it with a new plant.

I enjoy gardening because it is therapeutic and relational. The keen gardener develops a relationship with the plants which means he/she nurtures them so that they thrive and do well. The gardener can also detect if there is something has gone with plant, if it is suffering from disease, insect damage, nutrient deficiency or over/under watering.

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Dear friends,

My late father would have been 86 on 13^th April; my sisters were quick to remind me, but I hadn’t forgotten.  I had been listening to some Nat King Cole ballads on my ‘phone.  Dad liked American crooner music; artists like Nat Cole, Andy Williams, Sammy Davis Jnr. and probably a few others whose names I cannot recall.  He wasn’t a perfect dad, but then we weren’t a perfect family. I appreciate all that he did for me; taking me fishing, visiting the British Open Championship on several occasions (as a boy I remember interrupting Harry Carpenter interviewing the legendary Jack Nicklaus, just for an autograph – I was none the wiser).  He tried too to pass on his joinery skills to me, I wish I had listened to him.  I was too busy being a geeky Dr Who/Star Wars fan – dreaming of galaxies far, far away.  Who needed to learn joinery when there were galaxies to explore and daleks to defeat?

In later life he was helpful to all of us, again using his joinery skills.  In early December 2005, weeks into our arrival in Brussels, one of the last things that he did for us was to rebuild the girls’ playhouse.  The playhouse stood for longer than need be, for sentimental reasons, and you may have noticed that Bethany and Karalyn outgrew their playhouse a long time ago.

I usually think of the Church as an extended family of sorts; the language of family prevails in the ways that we refer to God and in how we refer to other believers as ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’ in the Lord. The hymn ‘Brother, Sister let me serve you’ is one that I like to sing.  Like our genetic family, our Church family is usually far from perfect either.  What are the factors that make the Church our spiritual family?

To begin with we might think of the Church as a community of grace.  The Church is borne out of God’s generous and overwhelming grace for us. We would never hear God’s call to faith unless he had shown us the fullness of his grace in the Lord Jesus Christ.  Not only are we borne out of that amazing divine grace, God’s desire for us is that we treat other people in the same way that God treats us. Therefore we are to be practitioners and channels of God’s grace, showing wisdom and forbearance in how we deal with all people; this includes members of God’s family.

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Dear friends,

In our present age, most of us have the opportunity to become a celebrity through social media.  Our messages are forever posted on Facebook and our images preserved on Instagram for all the world to see.  There is a real blur now between the celebrity world and every day life.

The early days of January saw the loss of two men of great talent and genius- (true celebrities) with the deaths of David Bowie and Alan Rickman in the same week.  Rickman was versatile in his acting ability from Jamie in the bitter-sweet romance ‘Truly Madly Deeply’ to the, cold, mysterious and misunderstood Professor Severus Snape from the Harry Potter films.  Bowie was a creative genius;  an actor, singer, songwriter and the master of reinvention.  There is no doubt that his music was appreciated by a lot of people and there is more than a touch of irony that Bowie’s final album ‘Blackstar’ was released just days before his untimely death.  The opening track on the album is titled ‘Lazarus’ which eerily begins with the words ‘Look up here I’m in heaven…’

If you recall the story from the 11^th chapter of John’s gospel, Lazarus was the brother of Mary and Martha from Bethany.  He was the man who died but didn’t stay dead.  After four days in the tomb, Jesus raises his friend from the dead; a precursor to the resurrection. Moments before that, in an anguished conversation with Martha, Jesus speaks the words , ‘I am the resurrection and the life.  The one who believes in me will live, even though they die; and whoever lives by believing in me will never die.’

Many people today still speak of Heaven.  For example other pop stars including, Belinda Carlisle and Elton John, speak about Heaven in their songs, while over the years hundreds of poems have been written on the subject.  Why are we so interested in the afterlife?  There are several reasons:To begin with we must remember that human beings are imprinted with the divine, i.e. we are made in God’s image.  In essence we were designed by God to reach out to him through worship and this is driven, in part, by our yearning something which lies beyond ourselves.  We can experience those things that transcend ourselves not only through worship but we can glimpse them in the sheer beauty of creation.  When we see a beautiful sunset, witness the Aurora Borealis, look up at the stars or catch sight of something the soul is stirred.

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‘But this I would say, standing as I do in view of God and Eternity: I realise that patriotism is not enough. I have no hatred or bitterness towards anyone’

Dear friends,

These words were spoken from her cell at St Gilles prison, by the British nurse Edith Cavell, to the Anglican Chaplain Rev. Stirling Gahan. Along with Philippe Baucq, She was executed by firing squad in Brussels, on 12^th October 1915.

On Monday 12^th October I was privileged to be invited to the Belgian Senate for a Commemoration of the Centenary of the death of Edith Cavell. Present were H.R.H Princess Astrid, H.R.H The Princess Royal and Vice-Admiral Sir Tim Lawrence. Some other members of St Andrew’s were there including Mr Andrew Brown, Chairman of the Belgian Edith Cavell Commemoration Group and Rev. Professor Hugh Boudin, who has written a new biography on her life.

Cavell, along with eight others, was tried in the Belgian Senate on 7^th and 8^th October and three days later was sentenced to death. Her crime was assisting up to 200 Allied prisoners to escape to Holland and Britain from the hospital where she worked, in contravention of German wartime law.

Edith Cavell’s Christian faith took root in her formative years. She was the eldest daughter of Rev. Frederick and Mrs Louisa Sophia Cavell. Her siblings were Florence, Lillian and John. Her father was vicar to the community of Swardeston for 45 years and regularly conducted pauper’s funerals for occupants of the local workhouse. Her father impressed upon his family care of the needy by ensuring there was enough of the Sunday roast for the Cavell children to take out to poor families in the parish. When the Church needed to build a new Sunday School room, Edith and one of her sisters painted and sold decorative cards to help raise funds for the venture in addition to writing directly to the Bishop of Norwich.

After home schooling, Edith attended Norwich High School, later she studied at three different boarding schools, the last one being Laurel Court School, Peterborough, where she became fluent in French.

After schooling, she spent her first stint as a governess with a clerical family in Steeple Bumpstead and after a year there, having been left a modest legacy, she spent the summer of 1888 in Austria and Bavaria. After her first taste of life on the continent, it was then, on a recommendation from Miss Gibson, her former head teacher at Laurel Court School, that Cavell went to work as a governess of the chic François family who resided at 154 Avenue Louise. She looked after their four children, speaking only to them in English, taking the older ones back and forth to school and teaching the younger ones to read and write. Much as she enjoyed this time, in 1895, Edith was compelled to return to Swardeston to help her mother look after her ailing father.

At the end of the following year, Edith enrolled as an assistant nurse at the Fountains Fever Hospital in London, spending 7 months there before continuing as a probationer nurse under Matron Eva Lükes, at the London Hospital, Whitechapel. During her training she was seconded to Maidstone nurse during a Typhoid epidemic. She qualified as a staff nurse in 1898. Over the following years she worked as a Night Supervisor at St Pancras Infirmary and thereafter she was appointed as Assistant Matron at Shoreditch infirmary. After an extended holiday, she was appointed as Queen’s District Nurse in Manchester and, for a short time, acted as Matron. In 1907, she was invited by the renowned Belgian surgeon Dr Antoine Depage to become Matron of Belgium’s first school of nursing. Thus, that August, Edith Cavell returned to Brussels.

The premises for new nursing school were 143-149 rue de la Culture, Brussels (now rue Franz Merjay). The school, “L’École Belge d’Infirmières Diplômées”, part of Depage’s “Institut de Berkendael” opened its doors in the October and the probationer nurses were taught by experienced nurses from London. Cavell was assisted in her duties by Marie Depage, the wife of Dr Depage. In 1909, 23 probationer nurses enrolled in the school and in the same year at hospitals St Jean and St Camille in Brussels. The following year a new hospital in St Gilles opened its doors, with Antoine Depage as its lead surgeon. As result probationer nurses in their second and third year under Cavell’s tutelage did their training in this modern hospital facility. By this stage, the “L’École Belge d’Infirmières Diplômées”, was providing nurses to three of the city’s hospitals and number of communal schools and kindergartens. In 1913 Queen Elisabeth of the Belgians broke her arm and asked for one of Edith Cavell’s trained nurses to aid her recuperation; such the renown of the school.

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Dear friends,

The Bible begins and ends with descriptions of God’s creative genius and his relationship with all that he made out of nothing (Gen. 1:1).

The opening chapters of the book of Genesis describe the creation of the Universe, the stars and the planets, the planet earth and all forms of life. While the events are described in a systematic way, Genesis does not provide a scientific account of how Creation came into being. However we are provided with a description of God’s active and purposeful involvement in the work of Creation.

The end of the Bible describes how God will bring to an end Creation as we know it and replace it with the new heaven and the new earth. It seems that the realms for heaven and earth will somehow be brought together, there will be harmony (not conflict) in this new realm where Jesus will reign over those who have been resurrected from the dead and have been saved through faith in his Lordship (Rev. 21:1-5).

Human beings are part of God’s Creation. The Bible describes us as the pinnacle of God’s creative endeavours (Psalm 8:5). But, we have been invited to be stewards of the world with which God has blessed us. Human beings have always had an impact on the environment. This week I read about an improvement in North Sea cod stocks, as reported by the Marine Conservation Society. The improvement comes in the wake of years of reduced fishing quotas and other regulations to help stocks recover from their impoverished levels of the 1980’s. In the long term this is good news. Yet, there was another story in the news this week that is disturbing. Volkswagen has fitted software to its diesel cars that provide false information on exhaust emissions. In other words their vehicles have had a more negative impact on the environment than the customer has been led to believe. Where ever we look, human activity has an impact on the environment; from mining, fishing, farming, industry and waste management, transport etc. Have we been good stewards and held true to God’s invitation to look after the world?

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Dear friends,

On Wednesday 1st July we were privileged to set off as a family for Ghana to visit our friends in Christ Presbyterian Congregation Adentan, the congregation with which St Andrew’s has been twinned with for the past 8 years. It was truly wonderful for Julie and I to be back in Ghana; this time accompanied by Bethany and Karalyn.

We offer our sincere thanks for the generous hospitality that was extended to us, and it was very moving to be welcomed by Rev Nii Armah Ashittey and the members of his congregation with such warmth. We were deeply touched to rekindle friendships that were forged when we have met visitors from Christ Presbyterian Congregation over these past years. We were equally touched by the affection that the people of Christ Presbyterian Congregation have for our own congregation in Brussels.

As a family we visited the General Assembly offices, GA Presbytery offices, the Abokobi Women’s Retreat Centre and Akrapong, where the early missionaries establish Presbyterianism. Not far from Akrapong is Aburi girls school, where our very own Edith Sangster taught as a missionary teacher in the early 1950’s.

Returning to Ghana after a period of 8 years has led me to reflect on a deeper level about our twinning. What have we gained over the years with both congregations putting time and effort into sustaining and developing the relationship?

Firstly congregations that have developed a twinning relationship experience the world church first hand. It is quite a different thing to speak and pray about the world church than it is to experience fellowship with other Christians from a different continent. To some extent at St Andrew’s we are very blessed to be an international congregation that welcomes believers from all over the world. However by and large this is a very different situation to other congregations in Scotland.

Secondly, we discover what we have in common. We share the same scriptures and we have the same purpose to be a living and faithful witness to the Lord Jesus Christ. Both churches share some of the same problems. So it is a blessing to gain a mutual understanding of one another’s context. Over the years we have been able to be of mutual support and encouragement to one another with various projects.

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Dear friends,

Jesus often posed questions to people. He did this to make them think and deepen their understanding of Jesus’ identity and the purpose of his ministry. One of the questions that Jesus asks his disciples is, “Who do people say that I am?”  Jesus then poses a follow-up question: “Who do you say I am?”  In Mark 8:27-30, Peter immediately responds “You are the Christ.”

There is the famous story when an expert in the law comes to Jesus and asks the question “What must I do to inherit eternal life?” The man has a supplementary question “Who is my neighbour?”  and Jesus goes on tell the parable of ‘The Good Samaritan’. But the scene finishes with Jesus himself asking the question “Which of these three do you think was a neighbour to the man who fell into the hands of robbers?” [Luke 10: 25-37]

Questions cause us to explore issues more deeply and they help us to think things through. In Paul’s letter to the Romans chapter 8 there is the question, “What then shall we say in response to this? If God is for us who can be against us?” [vs. 31] Paul is provoking the reader to think. Sometimes I will ask questions during sermon to make us think.

When I was young, I was always asking questions: who, where, why and what? But when I became older I continued to enjoy asking questions and this led me to pursue studies in plant biochemistry. Through my scientific research, I was able to find answers to some of my questions.

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‘Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall trouble or hardship, or persecution, or nakedness or danger or sword? [Romans 8:35] ‘

Dear Friends,

The ultimate expression of God’s love is seen on the Cross. God gives up his only son for us. Sending Jesus to Calvary is both a mark of his love for us and an act of His will.  We know from the human perspective that true love is sacrificial in its expression. True love has a view of the greater good that can be gained from a sacrificial act. We might think of a soldier on the front line bravely sacrificing his safety for the good of his friends. How much more good does God the Father have in mind when he gives up Jesus for no ordinary crucifixion?

If the Cross is about God’s love, then the Resurrection is all about hope. Death is the great taboo that none of us speaks about: but it is the greatest of life’s certainties. God knows how much we fear death and so in the ultimate act of hope, God the Father raises Jesus the Son from the death and he shares this resurrection life with us.

On the one hand we have God’s cross-centred love and other we have his resurrection hope. What is it that binds them together for the Christian? Surely it is the Christian’s faith in God that ties the two together.

Without faith which gives the scriptures context, then the events described on Good Friday might well describe any other crucifixion of a Roman criminal. There may have been hundreds of thousands of Roman criminals crucified during the height of the empire but our faith in Christ provides meaning for this particular crucifixion described in the gospels, as it provides us with God’s explanation of the events. Jesus’s violent end was part of God’s plan for him and for humanity and creation as a whole. There is a grand purpose to Jesus’s crucifixion.

To begin with we must remember that God is a relational being. One of the best examples of this is how God relates to himself as Father, Son and Holy Spirit within the Trinity. He also desires to relate to humans beings; but sin gets in the way and results in a vast gulf between ourselves and a God who is holy. The sacrificial system of the Old Testament provided temporary relief for the sinner to come to God in penitence and receive God’s forgiveness, but a more permanent and universal solution was provided by Jesus’s sacrifice on the Cross, as the unblemished Lamb of God. He takes the place that we deserve and the punishment for our sins. The result is that the Cross is not only the place of Jesus’s dereliction, but it is also the place of forgiveness between God and ourselves. Indeed it is more than that, it is the place of reconciliation between God and all of creation which had been tainted by sin.

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