By: MARGARET BROWN
IT IS said that present times are a product of what has gone before, and in the here and now we are sowing seeds for the future.
As a lone traveller there is no way to illuminate the path ahead except by light falling over one’s shoulder from the past. While some people believe that they have only the years between the cradle and the grave, there is also an inner source of light which allows people who follow Christ, however waywardly, to reach in hope beyond the grave.
Without that hope the future is in shadow and the journey may be wearisome: which is all the more reason to look for a guide to lead, and sometimes carry, a traveller when the going gets hard.
In John’s Gospel shortly before his Crucifixion, Jesus told the disciples that “Where I am going you cannot follow now, but you will follow later” causing them much confusion and some indignation. Thomas, one of the twelve, pointed out that if they did not know his destination, then “how can we know the way?” To this Christ replied: “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life, no one comes to the Father except through me”.
Was this a rejection of all religions other than Christianity? And yet Jesus helped many who were not Jews: the Samaritan woman at the well, the Canaanite woman who ate the crumbs beneath his table, and the healing of a Roman Centurion’s son.
Is it not possible that a person may live the Christian way by doing God’s work, but remain outside The Established Church?
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