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|MINI MAG – 19th June |

|School’s out too soon for the summer |

|Tim Yearsley of LICC* considers the emptiness many students feel. This article comes from

|where you can find many more articles that look at current issues from a Christian point of view. |

Any other year, unexpected freedom from end-of-term lectures and exam timetables would surely be cause for celebration. But this year, many students’ terms have ended with a tremendous anticlimax.

Spare a thought for those who, whether they’re sixth-formers or prospective grads, have had no summer term, no celebration party, no opportunity to hug their friends goodbye. Many had to leave their student houses and head home suddenly, now figuring out how to complete their degrees from a distance. It wasn’t meant to be like this. And there’s nothing they can do about it, except sit in the disappointment.

The temptation is to run from or deny this reality: be it watching all of Tiger King in a weekend or bulldozing our emotions with ‘God’s in charge’ mantras. But the gospel shows us and the students we know a better way.Rather than a God who shows us how to escape disappointment, Christians believe in a God who shows up in our disappointment.

The writer of the letter to the Hebrews captures this fact, in pointing out that Jesus is not ‘unable to feel sympathy for our weaknesses’ (4:15). Jesus dealt with disappointment too – we see it in His response to His townsfolk’s lack of faith, and His closest friends falling asleep when He needed them most.

If disappointment was an experience for Jesus, we can be sure it will be an experience for those who follow Him. Recognising there is no quick fix, on-demand, life-hack solution might be a way to help the students we love to come to terms with their disappointment.

To do so might even be the first step towards a more profound truth: Christians do not believe that we face disappointment alone. He is Immanuel – God with us. And as we discover that reality, our disappointment might not only be validated, it might be transformed.

Knowing Jesus and trusting Him is a hope that ‘does not disappoint us’ (Romans 5:5). Because in God’s story, disappointment – whether a missed goodbye or a Saviour on a cross – is only momentary. The truth is that He’s putting this not-as-it-should-be world back together, as His kingdom comes, day by day. This is the hope of the gospel. And that kind of hope is good news for all of us, including students.

* (London Institute for Contemporary Christianity)

|God in the Arts |

|The Revd Michael Burgess looks at God in the Arts with ‘The Incredulity of St Thomas’ by Peter Paul Rubens. It hangs in theKoninklijk |

|Museum voorSchoneKunsten, Antwerp, Belgium. We understand the painting is now in the public domain. You can see a copy at: |

| |

‘My Lord and my God’

The calendar allows us to celebrate St Thomas the apostle in this month of July as well as traditionally in December. Thomas is mentioned with the other disciples in all the Gospels, but it is in the fourth Gospel that he moves into the centre of the stage in his own right.

In chapter 14 he queries the words of Jesus that evokes the confession ‘I am the way and the truth and the life’ from our Lord. Then after the resurrection, when unconvinced by the accounts of the others, Thomas has that memorable and moving encounter with the risen Lord. In chapter 20 Jesus meets him in his doubts and his faith is restored.

‘The Incredulity of St Thomas’ is the subject of this month’s painting by Peter Paul Rubens. Rubens (1577-1640) lived mainly in Antwerp, but his work displays a delight in sumptuous colour and the human form, which he would have learnt from his studies in Italy. Rubens was a good-humoured and genial person, and as a Roman Catholic, he cherished his religion and faith. This painting is from 1614 and is part of a triptych. The two outer panels portray the patrons who commissioned the work for their chapel in the Franciscan church in Antwerp – NicholaasRockox and his wife.

In this central panel, Thomas gazes in wonder at the marked hand of Jesus. He is there with a youthful St John and another disciple, who is looking at the face of the Lord. The light in the canvas comes from the risen body of Jesus, and the disciples move from the shadows into that light as their faith in the risen Lord grows and matures. In a moment, Thomas will raise his head and look up to Jesus. It is a momentous occasion in John’s Gospel, for this meeting of master and servant, of Lord and disciple, is not just an exercise in overcoming doubt. It is an affirmation that only God can raise or be raised from death. Only God has the key to life. Thomas recognises Jesus fully and completely as he utters the words ‘My Lord and my God.’

John ends his Gospel by saying, Yes, there was this moment of personal encounter, but believing without seeing is testimony to a more profound faith. Then it is not we who are invited to touch our Lord, but Jesus who can touch us. In the painting, one hand is turned towards the disciples, the other reaches out to us. We may come to Jesus, like Thomas, with doubts and concerns, with worry and anxiety. Jesus will meet us in the honesty and openness of our faith to reassure us that He is, as He was for Thomas, the way, the truth and the life – our Lord and our God.

Thomas Dale’s poem on ‘Unbelieving Thomas’ ends with this verse:

“Oh! If the iris of the skies

Transcends the painter’s art,

How could he trace to human eyes

The rainbow of the heart;

When love, joy, fear, repentance, shame,

Hope, faith, in swift succession came,

Each claiming there a part;

Each mingling in the tears that flowed,

The words that breathed – ‘My Lord!My God!’”

|SMILE LINES |

Telly trouble

A woman summoned a TV repairman to fix her set.  After spreading his tools out, the serviceman inquired: ‘What seems to be the trouble?’

Replied the woman: ‘Well, for starters, the programmes are appalling.’

You asked for it

The student, when asked by the teacher to write an essay on ‘The Effects of Laziness’, turned in a blank sheet of paper.

As good as it gets

A shipwrecked man spent five years on a deserted island.  One day he was overjoyed to see a ship drop anchor in the bay.  A dinghy approached, and a ship’s officer handed the sailor The Times, The Financial Times and The Daily Telegraph.  “The captain suggests,” said the officer, “that you read what’s going on in the world before you decide if you wish to be rescued.”

Some miscellaneous one-liners … 

In democracy your vote counts. In feudalism your count votes.

The Church:  under the same management for over 2000 years.

Soul food served here.

Don’t give up on yourself.  Even Moses was once a basket case.

Was Noah’s wife called Joan of Ark?

Lead me not into temptation.  I can find it myself.

Always keep your words soft and sweet, just in case you have to eat them.

If you lend someone £20, and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.

Birds of a feather flock together and mess on your car.

|Word Search - The Poor Man’s Earl |

Think of Piccadilly Circus, and that small statue of the angel poised with bow and arrow. Most people think it stands for Eros. It is in fact a memorial to the greatest Christian Victorian philanthropist, politician and social reformer of his generation – Lord Shaftesbury.

Anthony Ashley Cooper, the 7th Earl of Shaftesbury (1801 – 1885) was a devout Christian Member of Parliament who spent his life fighting to help ease the miserable conditions in lunatic asylums, to stop the practise of forcing young children to be chimney sweeps, to stop children working in factories below the age of 10, to stop women and children going in the mines at all, to stop opium addiction, and to provide Ragged Schools for children without any means of education. On the day of his funeral at Westminster Abbey, tens of thousands of poor Londoners thronged the streets to see his coffin go by. He was much loved as The Poor Man’s Earl.

Piccadilly Circus Statue Angel Memorial

Victorian Philanthropist Politician Social Reformer

Lunatics Chimney Sweeps Shaftesbury Earl

Poor Man Factories Ragged Schools

Coffin London Streets loved

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