I`d like to share some personal discoveries. I hope they`ll help you too. It`s my Good Friday gift to you.
Here goes:
At the age of 8 I was at the bottom of my Class at School. I`d been at the bottom or very near to it for the whole of my School life. But something happened to change that.
It was war time, and I was evacuated from Liverpool where the bombs were dropping, to a village about 20 miles awa and the Village School really suited me. The teacher was very encouraging, and for the first time in my School life I started to work really hard. I worked so hard that, by the end of the year I was 2nd in that Village Class, and I never looked back.
Back home in Liverpool I regularly came first in the Class, and three years later won the 1st Schol;arship in 20 years from that School to Merchant Taylor`s School, Crosby. My Mum and Dad were very proud of me - my Headmaster was very proud of me - and, if the truth were known, I was very proud of me!
But it was hard at Merchant Taylors` School. This was no village School - it was totally unlike my School in Liverpool too - here was I, the son of working class parents at a school which everyone where I lived regarded as a school for sons of gentlemen. I felt inferior, terribly inferior. I thought, "I`ve got to live up to this", but I couldn`t. Besides I discovered that I was basically lazy, and found it too much to live up to the expectations of the masters, my parents and myself. School reports said, "Eric could do better" - "not coming up to expectations", "Needs to try harder" - but, though I actually DID try, O level results were quite disappointing - 7 fair passes, just scraped through in French, failed in Lation. I was no good at languages (you will see later that this conclusion is important).
At the age of 18 I went into the Army for National Service. I was a potential Officer - but only one out of ten were accepted, and I wasn`t the one. So I spent the rest of the two years as a drill Instructor and weapon training Instructing - teaching men how to kill. I hated it. Some of those I trained went to Korea and killed because of my training - others were killed themselves.
So I came out of the Army at the end of National Service with no idea what I was geeing to do with the rest of my life..... but just then a strange thing happened. I still don`t know whether to doubt my senses - I leave the judgement to you. On holiday at a Summer School for Sunday School Teachers in a College in the Lake District, I knelt down in the College Chapel, I knelt down to pray, "God, help me with my future"....... and while I was kneeling there I opened my eyes, and saw a face - it was the face of Jesus surrounded by light. He said to me, "Don`t worry, Eric. Everything will be alright"!
At that point I started work in an Insurance Office, but after 6 months I was convinced I was in the wrong job - I left two years later. And then, despite the objections of my parents, I took a job in London, a good job with excellent prospects working in the Legal Department of a firm of Merchant Shippers and Bankers. "This is it", I thought, but God thought otherwise.
That Summer I went to the Summer School again, and, during the week we had a talk by an artist about his work. He showed us some of his paintings, and one of them was a silhouette of Calvary. As I looked at those three Crosses on the hill, those Crosses seemed to be saying to me, "This is what I did for you, Eric. What will you do for me?"..................
That question has stayed with me down the years. It`s a question that all of us are faced with at some time in our lives - but never less so than on Good Friday.
When I saw that Cross, something that had been nagging at me for 7 years came to the surface again........... for 7 years (maybe more) I had been wrestling with the idea that God was calling me to be Ordained - but each time I`d said `No!`.
I`d said `No`, because I knew that being Ordained meant that I would have to learn Greek - and remember I was no good at languages.......... but, when Christ calls you, He isn`t held back by your limitations. He gives you the power to do what He`s calling you to do. At Theological College I came first in my year in Greek each of the three years that I was there.
But I was also a very shy person, with an inferiority complex - I found it hard to get on with people, found it hard to start a conversation. I was worried stiff about what would happen when I was placed in a Parish. I didn`t realise, of course, what Christ was doing.
He was thrusting me into contact with people - making me face up to the deficiencies of my character, and the self-centredness of my life. "If you are shy and self-concscious, it is because you are too aware of yourself, too afraid for yourself", He was saying. "So I`m putting you into a situation where you`ve got to meet people - got to give love to them - got to learn how to receive it as well".That is when I learned that Christ gives you the opportunities to learn how to be a citizen of heaven, and gives you the grace to do it too.
The years that followed were a trial for me. I found it terribly difficult to mix with people. I was scared stiff they would find me out, find out how lacking in resources I was, how utterly empty I felt, how incapable of giving love, never mind receiving it in return. I asked myself, "Have I anything to give", and the answer I came up with was "NOTHING".
That was the point where I nearly broke down. The year`s of my Ministry had been a Crucifixion.
But it was here that the turning-point came. I went to talk to a fellow-priest. I told him about my fears, my inadequacies, my emptiness. I told him those deep sins I hadn`t confessed to anyone else - and found that he still accepted me.
It`s strange, isn`t it - we are so ashamed of our secret sins, we feel that if anyone knew the truth about us, they would reject us. That`s what the judgment is geeing to be like.
But here was someone who accepted me - and through him I found that Christ still accepted me. He accepted me as an empty failure and in many ways a fraud (as many of us are - if not all of us). Yes, Christ still accepted me. What a relief that was - what a joy it was. I, who could not accept myself, was accepted by my wife, by my fellow priest, and now by Jesus.
Do you know, I felt freer at that point than I have ever felt in my life. I saw that I didn`t have to play-act, trying to live up to the expectations of others, and failing dreadfully - Jesus accepted me as I was. Now I didn`t have to do things because I had to - now I wanted to. Church life was no longer a chore, but a joy........ no longer a place where I could never be at home because I was unacceptable. Now I was at a place where I was accepted as I was.
THAT IS THE PLACE OF THE CROSS - it is the place where the REAL YOU is accepted - no matter how ghastly the real you seems to be.
I suppose that what I`ve been saying is this:
"There will always be people who want you to be something you`re not.
There will always be people who do not accept you as you are.
But there will always be some people who do accept you - and since Christ accepts you, surely He is all that matters".
The story of Good Friday is the story of how far Christ is prepared to go to show you that you are accepted by Him.
Are you lacking in love? Come to Him and let Him show you the truth - He will forgive you and accept you.
Are you a failure - come to Him and tell Him so - and see that He still accepts you.
After all wasn`t the Cross the biggest natural failure in the Universe - certainly not the way the world expects God to succeed.
And (I wonder if you see it), if Christ accepts you as you are (and forgives you for being what you are), then YOU`RE FREE........ you`re free to be yourself before Him for the first time in your life, for you know that, whatever you are like He will never reject you.
THAT`S FREEDOM - REAL FREEDOM.
And it leads to OTHER freedoms. I found that, as Christ accepted me, I could begin to accept myself, even though there are times when I still wonder how Christ can accept someone as ugly as me.
And, if I am loved for what I am, then I can stop worrying about myself, stop trying to produce behaviour which will make me acceptable to others - turn away from self entirely if I will..........
And that is what the Cross is for - it is there to Cross out the "I", to eliminate the need to focus on myself, and my own selfish need, for that need is already satisfied. I AM ACCEPTED AND ACCEPTABLE TO HIM - that is all I need.
Then, if I have stopped worrying about myself I can start thinking of others.
I can begin to look at them - begin to consider THEIR needs..... and when I do, I find countless others who are in the same trouble that I was.
YOU may be in the same trouble that I was -= feeling a failure, you can`t accept yourself as a failure - so you push yourself away. But doesn`t it come as a tremendous relief that Christ came to accept failures like me and you. Wasn`t it only those who knew their sense of failure who responded to Him, and truly found His acceptance.
Of course, I still wonder if I`ve got anything to give - but when I forget what I`VE got to give (which is nothing), I find then that Christ gives through me, and, SURPRISE, SURPRISE, I start to recognise the love that other people are giving me, and accept it.
Thank you Jesus for that love - thank you my fellow Christians for that love. I hope you will accept this woefully incomplete personal story as a love offering back to you on Good Friday.
