03 From tears to hope David Neal reflects on the universal need for hope.

04 Crossing ‘The Bridge of Tears’ . . .Julian Hibbert assures readers that the trauma of separation will end one day soon.

08 God’s formula for happinessMark Finley suggests a bullet-proof formula for peace and happiness.

12 Is it time to reclaim C. S. Lewis for Ireland?David Marshall looks at the fine legacy of C. S. Lewis.

16 The man who composed MessiahJay Sheen discusses George Frideric Handel’s Dublin connection.

20 Is it really just an ‘old story’?Mark Finley takes a fresh look at the Passion and compassion of Christ.

24 Our history of helping others . . .Julian Hibbert discusses the Irish tradition of missionary service abroad.

28 Hope beyond the graveMark Finley shares hope regarding life’s darkest moments.

Focus MAGAZINEVol. 35. Special IM Issue. ISSN: 9771437920018-44

Editor: Julian HibbertDesign: David Bell Proof reader: Andrew PuckeringSubscriptions: 01476 539900

Printed in the UK

Cover photo: ©christobolo/istockphoto.com

What is it about the Samuel BeckettBridge over the River Liffey that inspires hope? In engineering terms it’s

a cable-stayed, steel box-girder structure with aspan of 123 metres. But its cool new and sleekdesign make it a work of art. Does it not saysomething about all we want and hope to be?

Located just a few metres away is the Cus-tom House Quay, where, on St Patrick’s Day in1846, long lines of men and women stood wait-ing to board the Perseverance. They were desti-tute – without hope. For them the only way upwas out! This was a long time ago and, as theysay, a lot of water has passed under the bridgesince then. But even in Samuel Beckett’s time,life was no barrel of laughs. The land of his timewas turbulent, and for many who once lived inthe vicinity of this bridge, raw poverty was real.

A walk across the bridge today, to where oldbuildings meet new, reminds us of how farwe’ve come. Look at us now – we have progressed; we have experienced prosperity;and most of us are not hungry. A glance up at the bridge’s 48-metre-high curving pylon reminds us that we can go higher.

I like to experience new things; ride a newbus, train, or plane; enter a newly paintedroom; or wear a new jumper. But new thingsdon’t always stay new, and that’s a problem forthe journey of hope. As soon as we’ve reachedwhere we think we want to be, there is often an‘unwelcome obstacle’ that suddenly blocks theway, threatening to set us three steps back.

We thought the Cold War between East andWest was over, but the shooting down ofMalaysian Airlines flight MH17 tells us we’reheading backwards, not forwards. As Israelisand Palestinians fire rockets at each other, any

hope of peace lies shattered. In West Africa thespreading, deadly Ebola virus shows no mercyto those it infects.

Global issues may cause us concern, butnothing equals those ‘unwelcome obstacles’ that confront us up close and personal; persist-ent money issues; the loss of a job; a newly diagnosed illness; or, most painful of all, the lossof a loved one. What happens to hope in the faceof such things? Do we have any real grounds forbelieving that the future will get better?

As I look to the top of the Samuel BeckettBridge pylon, that reminder that my hope canaim high – I see the sky beyond and wonderabout the God who is bigger and greater thanme. What hope does He offer me? What hopedoes He offer Dublin? Is the hope He offers anymore secure than that of my dreams?

Recently, I attended the funeral of Rita, 94years of age, who’d lived in Dublin all her life.Rita was a Christian, a person of hope, andyes, as with all funerals, there were tears. Butthere was more. In spite of those tears, therewas the hope that one day we’d meet Ritaagain. As we laid her to rest in Mount JeromeCemetery, I thought again about the meaning of hope. What’s the point of hoping at all, if atthe very end of the day it really is just one stepforwards and three backwards?

In this edition of FOCUS, I trust that we’llbegin to see some evidence that the God of theancient Scriptures has a real and lasting hopeto offer us today.

If you want to know more about hope thenview the YouT

ube series ‘Dublin asks tough questionsabout God’ at http://adventist.org.uk/news/2014/2014-ir/release-of-web-series-

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Have you ever crossed ‘The Bridge ofTears’? You’ve never even heard of it!Well, I hadn’t either, until very recently.

This simple stone bridge, known locally as Droichead na Caointe, is located nearMuckish Mountain in the Gaeltacht district ofCloughaneely, Republic of Ireland. It came to be known as ‘The Bridge of Tears’ during thenineteenth and early twentieth centuries because it marked the point at which thousands of Irish families were torn apart by emigration.1

Back before the railway was built, peoplefrom Donegal on their way to the Americas,Britain, Australia, South Africa and other destinations would have to cross this bridge to get to the port of Derry.

‘The emigrant was accompanied by familyand friends as far as this point, but crossed tothe opposite side alone. This walk had all thefinality of a funeral, as most of the emigrantsnever returned.’2

I’ve tried to imagine what it was like forthese families as they said their agonisingfarewells. Countless parents, watching helplessly, as their sons and daughters trudgedover the pass to Derry . . . and, often, fromtheir lives forever.

What was it like for a sobbing mother or achoked-up father back then? What was there to comfort them as they turned back at ‘TheBridge of Tears’? Perhaps – eventually – a letter. Perhaps not.

For many Irish families this sad walk to ‘The

Bridge of Tears’ certainly ‘had all the finality ofa funeral’. But there were many other places oftearful parting scattered across the EmeraldIsle. Places that bear silent testimony to thephenomenon some have come to call the Irish diaspora – the centuries-long process of emigration that has led to this astonishingfact:

‘The diaspora, maximally interpreted, contains more than 100 million people, whichis more than fifteen times the population of theisland of Ireland, which had approximately 6.4million in 2011.’3

According to the above source, this flow ofemigrants peaked in the 1830s and by 1890‘two out of every five Irish-born people wereliving abroad’, with almost 5 million of them inthe USA alone!

Why?The causes of such large and protracted social migration are never simple. We knowthat severe famine played a significant role, butit was by no means the only culprit, becausethe Irish ‘were facing discrimination in theUnited Kingdom based on their religion, increasing rents and evictions’.4 To put itbluntly, many felt that they were already livingin exile in their own homeland.

‘Another’s gain’It is deeply distressing when vast numbers ofpeople, through no fault of their own, feelforced to emigrate in search of a better life. But

For many Irish families thissad walk to ‘The Bridge ofTears’ certainly ‘had all thefinality of a funeral’.

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6 We weren’t designed for thisWe weren’t designed for the trauma of separation. In the second chapter of the Biblewe discover God’s intentions for mankind. He declares that it is ‘not good for the man tobe alone’ (Genesis 2:18, NIV). At this point He creates Eve, and suddenly Adam has acompanion of his own, with the potential tomake a family. Their togetherness is defined asfollows:

‘The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh ofmy flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ forshe was taken out of man.”‘That is why a man leaves his father andmother and is united to his wife, and theybecome one flesh.’ (Genesis 2:23, 24, NIV.)

God’s emphasis here is on togetherness andunity – on the building of strong and lasting relationships. This was His intention for us . . .all of us, always.

We were not designed to experience thetrauma of separation – either through brokenrelationships or through death.

Something better is on the way!God wants to banish the ‘bridge of tears’ experience forever. He doesn’t want the humanrace to stumble painfully onwards through further centuries of separation and trauma,which Revelation 21:4 (NIV) makes clear:

‘ “He will wipe every tear from theireyes. There will be no more death” ormourning or crying or pain, for the oldorder of things has passed away.’

God undertakes to put an end to separation and all that goes with it, finally, forever:

‘Listen, I tell you a mystery: We willnot all sleep, but we will all bechanged – in a flash, in thetwinkling of an eye, at thelast trumpet. For thetrumpet will sound, thedead will be raised imperishable, and wewill be changed. For theperishable must clothe

itself with the imperishable, and the mortalwith immortality. When the perishable hasbeen clothed with the imperishable, and themortal with immortality, then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has beenswallowed up in victory.” ’ (1 Corinthians15:51-54, NIV.)

As far as He is concerned there is something far better on the way, spelt out likethis by the apostle Paul:

‘For the Lord himself will come down fromheaven, with a loud command, with the voiceof the archangel and with the trumpet call ofGod, and the dead in Christ will rise first. Afterthat, we who are still alive and are left will becaught up together with them in the clouds tomeet the Lord in the air. And so we will be withthe Lord forever. Therefore encourage one another with these words.’ (1 Thessalonians4:16-18, NIV.)

If you are curious to find out more aboutthese events and how they will affect your life,why not request your very own Bible studyguide: see advert on p. 31.

1http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/environment-geography/transport/the-bridges-of-donegal-co/to-the-derry-boat-the-bri/ 2Ibid 3http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_diaspora4Ibid 5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_diaspora#Famous_members_of_the_diaspora

when we look at the impact that this diasporahas had around the world, we are remindedthat ‘one man’s loss is another’s gain’.

Not only have these emigrants quietly donetheir part to strengthen the nations that werewilling to receive them, but some have becomefamous in doing so. Here are just a few of thenotables who have had an Irish connection:Bernado O’Higgins (first president of Chile);John F. Kennedy (35th US president); Brian Mulroney (18th prime minister of Canada);James Callaghan and Tony Blair (UK primeministers); Álvaro Obregón (president of Mexico, 1920-1924); Che Guevara (Argentine-born revolutionary); Mariah Carey (singer);George Clooney, Matt Dillon, Kevin Kline andMel Gibson (actors); Judy Garland and Catherine Zeta-Jones (actresses); Grace Kelly(Princess Grace of Monaco); Paul, John andGeorge (of the Beatles); James D. Watson (co-discoverer of DNA); and Henry Ford (fatherof the Model T). Quite a list isn’t it!5

Back to the bridgeHaving said that – how does the distant anduncertain prospect of foreign fame and fortunefor her children console a mother’s aching,breaking heart? So what if her precious son, or

grandson, becomes the first president of Chile,more than 7,000 miles away in another hemisphere! So what if her boy strikes it richon the Klondike or at Kimberley! He’s gone. Her ‘nest’ is empty . . . with nothing in it butthreadbare memory.

‘The Bridge of Tears’, that weathered stone structure in Donegal, personifies one of our greatest human challenges, the traumaof separation, something we all have to face.

The trauma of separation presents itself inmany different shapes and forms throughoutlife. And, even though some are less dauntingthan others, none are ever pleasant.

My first personal visit to the ‘bridge of tears’was the day my pet dog died after being hit bya car. We carried him into the kitchen whereMother did all she could to help him, but to noavail. Since then I have stood at that bridge toomany times. I have shed tears of separation fortoo many special people – my wife’s parents,my own, grandparents, uncles and aunts,cousins and friends.

Many of us have stood at the ‘bridge of tears’ to see marriages fail and good friendships falter, none of which is withouttrauma.

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What would happen if this scenario wereto become reality? For one thing, thefreeways would be jammed with

people – some trying to get in, but most tryingto get out. Gun possession would skyrocket,and homes would become armed fortresses.The city’s boasted freedom would be short-lived. And once-sophisticated Californians, peering out from behind their bolts and bars, would wonder if the Ten Commandments were so bad after all.

Before you dismiss my Los Angeles

illustration as far-fetched, may I remind youthat such an experiment has already been tried.Not by a city alone, but by a whole nation.

In 1793, by a vote of its National Assembly,France outlawed the Bible and religion and officially declared that God did not exist. Thenation worshipped a dancing girl and made aprostitute the symbol of its moral code. Its goal– pleasure without restraint or guilt.

It took France just three and a half years tolearn that it needed the Ten Commandmentsafter all – three and a half years and the loss of the very flower of its people to the deadlyknife of the guillotine. Intellectuals, scientists,educators, religious leaders, business people,university students – all fell prey to the lawless.

The truth is that freedom can’t exist withoutboundaries. Laws offer protection. They givesecurity.

Let’s take a closer look at the boundaries God has set for us, the Ten Commandments. Usually when we read theTen Commandments, we turn to the twentiethchapter of Exodus and begin with verse 3, thefirst commandment. We don’t often notice thetwo verses that go before. I think, however, thatwe should. They say: ‘And God spoke all thesewords: “I am the LORD your God, who broughtyou out of Egypt, out of the land of slavery” ’(Exodus 20:1, 2, NIV).

What do these verses tell us? The God whois about to speak His ten commands and writethem down for all time has just demonstratedthat He wants people to be happy. He’s rescued His people from slavery. Made them free.

Wouldn’t it be strange if the God who put somuch effort into making His people free andhappy should then give them commands thatenslaved them again? Doesn’t it seem morelikely that what He gave them were rules, practical tips, for remaining free and happy?

That’s just what the Ten Commandmentsare. They’re God’s formula for happiness andpeace.

God’s first commandment says, ‘You shall have no other gods before me.’ A god isanything that you make supreme in your life. Itcould be money; it could be alcohol; it

Imagine that Los Angeles has been taken over by a group of radicals who are motivated by only one thing: pleasure. These people are tired of boundaries and restrictions. They believe mature adults should be able to decide right and wrong for themselves. They thinkthe Ten Commandments are outdated, the product of an unenlightened past, and that lawsgenerally are just the attempts of power-hungry tyrants to tell other people what to do.

So these radicals announce, through the media, that Los Angeles is now a free city.There are no laws. Its citizens are free to pursue happiness any way they want to. Speedlimits, stop lights, and traffic cops – all these might be appropriate for the conservativeEast, but not for fun-loving Los Angeles. In addition, Angelenos can enter any store orhome and take anything they’d like! And marriage is dissolved. Any man can enter into sexual relations with any woman he desires; women can have as many men as theychoose.

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by Mark Finley

The truth is that freedomcan’t exist without boundaries. Laws offerprotection. They give security.

Los Angeles city skyline

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10 kill with our words? With our attitudes?In Matthew 5:21-26, Jesus revealed the

larger meaning of the sixth commandment andurged us to develop positive relationships withpeople. He commanded us to fill our mindswith those things that build relationships, notthose things that tear them down. Is it possiblethat when we fill our minds with the violencebroadcast as entertainment we are reallybreaking the sixth commandment? This commandment is an appeal for us to find happiness in gentleness, kindness, mercy and compassion, rather than in brutality andbloodshed.

In the seventh commandment, God sayssomething that seems to have been forgottentoday: ‘You shall not commit adultery’ (Exodus20:14, NIV). Our society is sex-crazed. Sexualinnuendos are used to advertise almost everything, and sexual immorality is paradedby the media as entertainment. But happinessdoes not come to those who make sex theirgod. Sexual permissiveness leads only to broken homes and broken hearts, to sorrow,guilt, and despair. On the other hand, committed love, fulfilled in marriage, generatessome of life’s greatest happiness. God’s way is much better.

The eighth commandment, ‘You shall notsteal’ (Exodus 20:15, NIV), calls us to respectthe property of others. It was not meant just forthe professional thief. It calls to account thosewho pad their expense accounts or who cheaton their taxes. It applies to shoplifters, to dishonest repair people, to landlords who overcharge their tenants, to students who cheaton exams, to souvenir hunters who bundle offthe property of hotels and motels.

Stealing becomes a compulsion that destroys the happiness of the thief as well asof those whose goods are stolen. It destroysthe confidence members of a society have inone another.

The ninth commandment says, ‘You shall not give false testimony against yourneighbour’ (Exodus 20:16, NIV-UK). This commandment simply tells us to respect thereputation of others enough not to lie aboutthem. To tarnish someone’s reputation

destroys that person in the mind of others.Have you ever worked in an office where suspicion prevailed, where someone was constantly stirring the pot of unrest by his orher tales? They don’t have to be outright lies.Exaggerations and distortions will do just aswell. Are the employees in that office happy?Do they enjoy working there? The ninth commandment says life will be more enjoyablefor all concerned if you treat others as youwant to be treated.

The last commandment, the tenth, ‘You shallnot covet’ (Exodus 20:17, NIV), really cutsdeep. It gets past our actions and deals withsin at its very roots: sin in the mind. Peoplebreak this commandment before they steal.They break this commandment before theycommit adultery. To covet is to desire thatwhich belongs to another. Those who covet arenot free. They’re not happy. They’re in a prisonmade of their own wrong desires. It’s anotherof those false freedoms about which the TenCommandments warn us.

Do you want to know how the Ten Commandments work, what they look likewhen they are applied to a life? Look at Jesus.He is the Ten Commandments lived. It wasthese very principles that made His life so appealing, so attractive, so irresistible. Was Heharsh and unloving? Ask the people He healed.Ask the children who sat on His knee. Ask thewoman dragged into His presence by her accusers. Ask those whose sins He forgave.Ask Mary weeping in the Garden. Ask the martyrs who willingly gave their lives ratherthan deny Him.

Thank God that in His strength we can useHis formula for happiness and peace!

could be sports or television or sex. It could beanother person: a movie actress, a rock singer,or even your spouse. The world is full of falsegods waiting to be served. But God asks us toworship Him alone, because He’s the only Onewho can give us freedom and happiness.

The second commandment says, ‘You shallnot make for yourself an idol. . . . You shall notbow down to them or worship them’ (Exodus20:4, 5, NIV 1984). In this commandment, Godtells us to worship Him directly. We need notcome to Him through man-made images, northrough any human being. The God of the universe – the Creator of the sun, moon, andstars – says, ‘Come and worship Me. My heart is open to you. My arms are graciouslyextended to receive you. In this intimate fellowship, you can find the satisfaction of your heart’s deepest needs.’

The third commandment says, ‘You shallnot misuse the name of the LORD your God’(Exodus 20:7, NIV). Here’s an invitation to worship God reverently. Only as we treat Godwith the respect due to the King of the universewill we find lasting happiness.

Are those who use profanity free? No. Eventheir language is limited. Isn’t it a tragedy thatpeople made in the image of their Creatorshould thoughtlessly use His name as a swearword? Cursing and swearing demean God.They diminish our view of Him and deny whatHe is able to do for us.

The fourth commandment states, ‘Remember the Sabbath day by keeping it holy.Six days you shall labour and do all your work,but the seventh day is a sabbath to the LORD

your God’ (Exodus 20:8-10, NIV-UK). Here Godsets up a weekly appointment with us, a daywe can spend in His company. He invites us –in fact, commands us – to escape the pressureof our work with its relentless demands, and tofind our rest in Him.

The Sabbath also invites us to find our rootsin God – something particularly helpful in thisage of materialism and secular values. Thisspecial day reminds us that He is our Creator,that we are not products of blind chance.Knowing that the General Manager of the universe is our best Friend brings meaning

and happiness to our lives.If you love God with all your heart, you’ll

worship Him supremely, you’ll worship Him directly, you’ll worship Him reverently, andyou’ll worship Him weekly. Then His love willfill your heart with happiness and peace.

Just as the first four commandments tell ushow to love God, the last six tell us how to loveother people. The fifth commandment says,‘Honour your father and your mother’ (Exodus20:12, NIV-UK). It’s God’s call for positive relationships within families – the basic unit ofsociety. Happiness grows as husbands andwives, and parents and children, develop intimate relationships. Fractured family relationships, on the other hand, cause someof life’s greatest sorrows. I have some friendswhose daughter decided she never wants totalk to her parents again. I know that those parents are broken-hearted. Many a night theygo to sleep weeping.

It isn’t just fathers and mothers who are tobe honoured. The apostle Peter widened thecircle by telling us, ‘Show proper respect toeveryone’ (1 Peter 2:17, NIV). Respect menand women because they bear God’s image. Respect children because they are people, too,and they have feelings as keen and as sensitiveas your own. Respect black people, white people, yellow people, brown people, and redpeople. Respect people from across the tracksand people from across the sea. Business people and street sweepers. Teachers and students. Executives and factory workers. This commandment is a call to develop positiverelationships with those around you.

Commandment number six, ‘You shall not murder’ (Exodus 20:13, NIV), calls us todevelop positive relationships in our thoughtpatterns, as well as our actions. As Jesuspointed out, murder begins with anger andanger starts in the heart. We may feel distressed when mortar shells and sniper bullets fell civilians in Damascus. We may bemoved by injustice on the other side of theworld, but fail to recognise that murder beginswith criticism, gossip, anger, resentment, andbitterness. Are our hearts really free from violence? We may not kill with guns, but do we

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Kirkpatrick who confirmed him in the atheisminto which he had fallen since the death of hismother. His involvement in World War I didnothing to change this.

Oxford was the making of Lewis. Heachieved a ‘Triple First’2 and went on to become a fellow of Magdalen College. As adon, Lewis became part of an informal literarygroup called ‘the Inklings’, which included theman who was to be his lifelong friend: J. R. R.Tolkien. Tolkien was a Christian. In one all-nightdiscussion in the mid-1920s Tolkien convincedLewis of, among other things, the authenticityof the four New Testament Gospels as historical documents. Suddenly the tone of his writing, though still atheistic and dismissiveof religion, no longer made the broad-brushstatements that swept away Christianity too.Life was about the pursuit of Joy, Lewis decided. Who knew where that pursuit mightlead him? One thing Lewis had long been certain of: he could not believe in ‘a

bogey who is prepared to torture me for everand ever’.3

In common with others interested in the development of ideas, Lewis was eventuallyobliged to accept that the ‘Hellfire’ beloved ofevangelical preachers was rooted in Greekmythology. It had been absorbed by Christiantheology in the Middle Ages. Deliverance fromthe Hellfire god was one among many of the strands of thought that made way forsomething of a Christian revival in the 1920s.One celebrity convert to Christianity was the novelist Evelyn Waugh. His conversion occupied the front page of The Daily Express.There had been less publicity when G. K.Chesterton and Graham Greene had announcedtheir conversions. T. S. Eliot converted. Somefour years later, so did C. S. Lewis.

Few would disagree with the assertion that in the last 150 years some of the bestwriting in the English language has been

the work of Irishmen. Not nearly as many, however, would list C. S. Lewis as the greatestof these. Yet he probably was. The popularimagination associates Lewis with Oxford andthe BBC. Rightly. But he was rooted in Ireland,and Ireland provided the main influences of hislife.

Ireland stood for what was good in Lewis’sbackground. His father’s catastrophic decisionto send him to English boarding schools following the heart-crushing death of hismother (from cancer) when he was 9 almost destroyed him. Theyoung Lewis compared ‘the ugly country of

England’ with his traumatically truncated Irishchildhood among ‘the soft hills of Down’. Thefirst school to which he was sent was WynyardSchool in Watford, which was compared withWackford Squeers’ Dotheboys Hall in NicholasNickleby. Only months after Lewis was removed, Wynyard was closed down and its headmaster certified insane.1

Lewis gave Irish pedagogue Kirkpatrick –who, earlier, had tutored both his father and his brother Warnie – much of the credit for his intellectualdevelopment. It was

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Ross Wilson’s statue of C. S. Lewis in front of the wardrobe from hisbook The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe in East Belfast.©gollykim/iStockphoto.com

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14 Lewis’s broadcast talks would be reworkedinto his classic Mere Christianity. He began bymaking a strong case for belief in God.

A. N. Wilson, author of another Lewis biography,8 who knew Oxford very well, described it as a ‘strange place’ where, amongdons, ‘brilliance in a colleague is quite as likelyto excite envy as their esteem’. Both Wilsonand McGrath were aware that, despite Lewis’spublication of some impressive academic workin the 1940s, he was repeatedly ‘passed over’for promotion. Lord David Cecil, a former student of Lewis’s who became Goldsmith’sProfessor of English Literature at New College, said that, in Lewis’s presence, hiscontemporaries ‘look like pygmies’. Tolkienwas still fighting Lewis’s corner but even someChristian dons were embarrassed by his stanceagainst Darwinism.9 He became very isolatedand eventually accepted an appointment atCambridge. There, apparently, Lewis’s geniusand role as a Christian apologist added to hisstanding.

Although strong in his commitment to ‘mereChristianity’, Lewis had long felt that ‘therewere other, and better ways of telling the truth

than by means ofargument’. Beforethe war he hadpublished the firstof his trilogy ofnovels aimed atadults, Out of theSilent Planet. Bythe late ’40s, during which hehad acted as ‘midwife’ toTolkien’s Lord ofthe Rings,10 Lewisbegan to share hisideas for a seriesof children’s novelson Christianthemes. The first of these to be published was TheLion, the Witch andthe Wardrobe.

Lewis believed that ‘force of argument isnever enough to convert another human beingto Christianity’. The ‘whole person’, includingthe imagination, must be engaged.11 That wasthe point of the Narnia novels that keep Lewis’sname and ‘mere Christian’ beliefs high on thethought agenda 50 years after his death.

Lewis died on the same day President JohnF. Kennedy was assassinated. Hence the newswas ‘lost’ beneath the weight of the morealarming tragedy. Some who did write aboutLewis’s death saw him as a defender of adying cause who would be forgotten within thedecade. But, despite expectations in the 1960s,belief in God has not gone away. Indeed, adecade after his death, C. S. Lewis had ahigher standing internationally – especially inthe United States – than he had in his lifetime.Polls of American Christians regularly cite MereChristianity as the most influential book of thetwentieth century.

Postmodern societies are turned off by denominational imperialism and the abuses of power and privilege that too easily arisewhen denominational leaders rate their ownpreservation and that of the ‘distinctives’ oftheir franchise above the well-being of theChristian faith.

Is it time to reclaim the core of Christianity –the Person of Jesus – and present Him as thedynamic core of transforming faith?

Is Lewis’s message an idea whose time hascome? In Ireland? In Britain? Everywhere?

Lewis’s writings have recently found a newaudience. ‘He has come to be seen,’ writes Alister McGrath, ‘as a trustworthy, intelligent,and above all accessible representative of atheologically and culturally attractive vision ofthe Christian faith.’12 Can we in Ireland reclaimthat faith without affirming the institutions thathave tarnished it in recent years?

1Alister McGrath, C. S. Lewis: A Life (Hodder and Stoughton,2013, p. 27 2Ibid, p. 105 3Cited ibid, p. 42 4C. S. Lewis, Surprised by Joy (Collins, 1955), pp. 180, 181 5Ibid, pp 182,183 6Published in a single volume in 1979 by Collins and editedby Walter Hooper 7McGrath, op cit, pp. 148, 159 8A. N. Wilson,C. S. Lewis: A Biography (Harper Collins, 1990) 9Ibid, pp. 206,207, 208, 110, 171; McGrath, op cit, p. 309 10McGrath, p. 19711A. N. Wilson, p. 188 12McGrath, p. 371

Lewis insisted that the existence of God wasnot something he wished to be true. SigmundFreud’s argument that belief in God was prima-rily a matter of ‘wish-fulfilment’ was not borneout in the case of Lewis. In Surprised by JoyLewis told a story of how God gradually‘closed in’ on him. In 1926 ‘the hardest of all the atheists’ told him ‘that the evidence for the historicity of the Gospels was really surprisingly good’. If that ‘cynic of cynics, thetoughest of toughs’ was not ‘safe’, wouldthere, in the end, be any route of escape? ‘A young Atheist cannot guard his faith toocarefully,’ Lewis insisted. When he told the Godwho pursued him that he, Lewis, was no morethan ‘a zoo of lusts, a bedlam of ambitions, anursery of fears, a harem of fondled hatreds’,the Pursuer was unfazed. ‘My Adversarywaived the point’ and ‘would not argue’, insisting ‘I am that I Am.’4

Lewis wrote of ‘the steady, unrelenting approach of Him whom I earnestly desired notto meet’. Finally, ‘I gave in, and admitted thatGod was God, and knelt in prayer: perhaps thatnight, the most dejected and reluctant convertin all England.’ He continued, ‘I did not then seewhat is now the most shining and obviousthing: the Divine humility which will accept aconvert even on such terms.’ The lost son hadat least walked home on his own feet, but ‘whocan truly adore that Love which will open thehigh gates to a prodigal who is brought in kicking and struggling, resentful, and dartinghis eyes in every direction for a chance of escape?’5

Between 1914 and 1963 Lewis maintainedan in-depth correspondence with his Irishfriend Robert Greeves.6 This is a major primarysource on Lewis’s life. His most recent biographer Alister McGrath obliges us to accept– based on the Greeves correspondence – a revised timetable for Lewis’s two-stage conversion. He believes that the final phase,which resulted in his acceptance of Christ asLord and Saviour, took place on 19 September1931. Following a dinner at Magdalen, Lewistook a stroll with his close friends Tolkien andHugo Dyson, which began on a footpath alongthe Cherwell and ended between 3 and 4am in

Lewis’s rooms. That was one of a number ofsignificant night-time discussions that featuredin the life of Lewis. He told Greeves that itended by his acceptance of Christ and Christianity (to Lewis, a very different thingfrom religion, which he always resisted). Without that decision Lewis would not have become the foremost champion of Christ in thetwentieth century. In 1931, however, Lewis wasunknown, unlike Eliot, Waugh, Greene and theother celebrity converts. His coming to faithhad been, he wrote, ‘a road very rarely trodden’. It was ‘a private affair, unmarked by dramatic declarations and characterised byunderstatement’.7

Although Lewis had established a reputationas one of Oxford’s finest lecturers by 1939, itwas the world war that began in that year thatmade him a national figure. In 1940 his bookThe Problem of Pain became the centre ofmuch discussion. Christian faith was widelyseen by the BBC as vital to national morale.Lewis was enlisted to give a series of talks onthe ‘Home Service’ on Christian themes. Suchwas their success that he was to give manymore. He was preferred above other speakersbecause he had nodenominationalagenda. Headopted the concept of ‘mereChristianity’ – aphrase first usedby Richard Baxter,the Puritanpreacher – and expanded on it. Thelife-transformingpower of Christianity was,Lewis believed, inits core message,the Gospel. Not, he believed, thevarious ‘distinctivebeliefs’ that madeone denominationdifferent from another. In 1952

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16 Even though the little boy’s passion wasmusic, his father forbade having musicalinstruments in the home, because of his

parental concern that music offered almost nocareer security, and he feared that his sonmight not be able to support himself, let alonea family, should he become a musician.

A legal career offered a brighter future, thefather insisted. And his son might very wellhave become a lawyer had it not been for abusiness trip his father took.

The father, a surgeon in the German town ofHalle, had been summoned to the court ofDuke Johann Adolf at Weissenfels, some 30miles away. The young boy begged to comealong, so the father took him.

While the father conducted his business, theboy, somewhat bored, wandered into thepalace chapel and began improvising on the

royal organ. Before long, thesound of footstepscaused him toturn. Standingthere was theduke himself,watching in utteramazement at aboy playing suchmajestic music.

‘Who is this remarkable child?’the duke asked amember of hisstaff.

Learning thatthe youth was the

son of the surgeon visiting the palace, the dukespoke to the father and managed to persuadehim that it would be a mistake to turn such amusically gifted boy into a lawyer. Thus it wasthat the father allowed his son, George FridericHandel, to study music.

After returning to Halle, Handel learnedquickly. He was first a pupil of the cathedral organist, who trained him to compose and perform on several keyboard instruments aswell as the oboe and the violin. Handel soonoutgrew his teacher and left Halle, first for

Hamburg, then for Italy, where he mastered theart of composing operas. Although only in hismid-twenties, Handel’s glowing reputationspread from Italy back to Germany.

In 1710, a German prince, George Ludwigof Hanover, offered him the position of courtmusician. For any composer, this was a dreamcome true, because it provided a sizable andguaranteed income. The only negative part ofthe position was that it meant writing only tothe instructions of the employer.

However, it wasn’t long before Handel became dissatisfied and bored with his work in Germany. He learned that Italian opera hadrecently been introduced to London and that itscitizens could not get enough of it. Believing he could fare better on his own, Handel approached Ludwig for a short leave of absence. The prince granted Handel’s request,making it clear he expected Handel to return.

‘You may go for a reasonable time,’ Ludwigcautioned. Handel left immediately and that‘reasonable time’ turned into 50 years. Handelwould die in England, the country where heeventually chose to become a naturalised citizen.

Arriving in England towards the end of1710, Handel earned his first success with Rinaldo. The musical played for a remarkable15 consecutive nights to packed houses. Handel continued to turn out one opera afteranother, so that by the time he was 30, he had the distinction of being the most popularcomposer in England.

In 1713, Queen Anne granted Handel an annual stipend of £200. Together with the income from his own opera receipts, Handelbecame the best-paid composer in the world.When Queen Anne died, George Ludwig ofHanover, Handel’s previous employer, wascrowned the new king.

Deeply concerned about what the new kingof England might do to him for deserting hisservice back in Germany, Handel wrote the exquisite Water Music, arranging for it to beplayed by musicians aboard a barge as thenew king was rowed up the Thames.

‘What is that heavenly music?’ Ludwig exclaimed. ‘I must meet the composer.’

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what he (Jennens) had written.As Handel looked it over, he

saw immediately that it was not an original piece of writing. Rather,Jennens had creatively taken passages from the Bible and skilfully woven them into a stirring narrative of Christ’s birth,sacrifice, and resurrection. Jennens called his work Messiah.

Handel accepted Jennens’soffer and, seized by inspiration,wrote almost ceaselessly for three weeks. The entire work wascompleted on 14 September, only24 days after he began. Even Handel stared unbelievingly at theenormous musical score he hadcomposed.

With the work complete, Handelstumbled to his bed and fellasleep. When – 17 hours later –attempts to awaken him provedpointless, Christopher Smith, Handel’s script copyist, called

for a doctor.When Dr Jenkins arrived, Handel awoke

and strode to the harpsichord, where he playeda section of his new music. After Handel finished, Dr Jenkins said, ‘Never have I heardthe likes of this. Surely you must be possessedof the devil.’

Handel gently corrected the physician, saying, ‘I think that God has visited me.’

It was at Handel’s request that the first performance of Messiah took place in Dublin,Ireland, where he believed financial receiptswould be most substantial. However, he alsomade it clear that he did not wish to profit fromthe piece. Instead, he stipulated that the moneybe given to the care of prisoners, orphans, andthe sick.

His explanation: ‘I have myself been a verysick man and am now cured. I was a prisonerand have been set free!’

As rehearsals took place, word of themusic’s beauty quickly spread throughoutDublin. So many tickets were sold that thenewspapers appealed to women concert-goers

to remove the hoops from their skirts so that more people could be seated. Likewise,gentlemen were asked to ‘come without theirswords’.

Audiences were overwhelmed by Handel’swork. The second performance was so packedthat panes of glass had to be removed to keepthe concert hall from overheating.

Following the Irish performances, £400went to hospitals and infirmaries, and 142 prisoners were freed from prison becauseMessiah had paid their debts.

Encouraged by his success in Dublin, Handel returned to London, where he wasshocked to encounter fierce opposition to Messiah. For the clergy, Handel’s work was asacrilege. They objected to Christian truthsbeing mouthed by actors on a theatre stage.They organised to protest his work prior to its London premiere, and they preached sermons against it. Unsurprisingly, the Londonperformance of Messiah was a dismal failure.

Nevertheless, Handel, himself a devoutChristian, persisted in presenting Messiah. Forseveral years it continued to be denounced and boycotted. But eventually, the yearly performance of Messiah won over critics andbecame the highlight of the London season.

When King George II heard the oratorio for the first time, he was deeply stirred. Astrumpets rang out the great ‘Hallelujah’ chorus,he spontaneously rose to his feet. A stir wentthrough the audience and soon everyone elsestood up. To this day, when the majestic ‘Hallelujah’ chorus is heard, audiences traditionally stand out of respect.

By the age of 67, Handel was blind. Butevery year until his death at 74, he continued torehearse and conduct Messiah for London’sFoundling Hospital, often guided to the organby two children.

On 6 April, 1759, Handel collapsed and lingered in bed until the night of Good Friday,13 April. He died in the early morning hours, onthe same date Messiah had premiered in Dublin17 years earlier.

Two hundred and sixty years later, Handel’sMessiah continues to move its listeners asmuch as it did when it first made its debut.

If there were any feelings of disappointmentor anger on the part of King George, he neverrevealed them. In fact, he added an additional£200 to Handel’s yearly stipend!

The next ten years were Handel’s glory days as he composed and performed for anever-adoring audience. However, by the mid-1720s, Handel’s popularity had declined,audiences had dwindled, and in 1728 he wasforced into bankruptcy.

In order to survive, Handel turned to concertperformances. While that brought him a steadyincome, he continued to turn out Italian-styledoperas. Sadly, one after another, his operasfailed to generate public support. Finally, in1737, utterly exhausted from overwork anddeeply disappointed, Handel suffered aparalysing stroke.

That stroke took away the use of his rightarm, including the fingers he used to play theharpsichord and organ. Word of his strokespread rapidly through Europe. The future Frederick the Great of Prussia wrote his royalcousins in England declaring, ‘Handel’s great

days are over. His inspiration is exhausted andhis taste behind the fashion.’

Handel left England in the summer of 1737,hoping for a cure at the famous hot springs ofAachen, Germany. There he sat, day after day,in the bubbling waters, tended to by theCatholic nuns who operated the facility.

One day, Handel abruptly left the baths anddressed quickly. Several hours later, when hedid not return for his next treatment, the nunsgrew alarmed and began to search for him.Then, from the abbey church, they heard aburst of glorious music. Running to investigate,the nuns were stunned to see Handel, his rightarm and fingers completely restored, playingthe organ. Doctors could not account for hishealing.

Returning to London, Handel immediatelybegan writing operas again, none of whichwere well received. By 1741, Handel againfound himself deeply in debt. In the midst of that despairing time, a bulky parcel was delivered to him. It was from the poet CharlesJennens, inviting the composer to add music to

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1918 So many tickets were sold that thenewspapers appealed to women concert-goers to remove the hoopsfrom their skirts so that more peoplecould be seated.

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The Cross leads us to a lesson of love toodeep for our minds to fathom. In one ofthe most profound passages in the New

Testament, Paul put it this way: ‘God made himwho had no sin [Christ] to be sin for us, so thatin him we might become the righteousness ofGod’ (2 Corinthians 5:21, NIV).

God made Christ to be sin for us. Did Jesusever sin? Did He ever think an evil thought? DidHe ever commit a selfish act? Certainly not.But ‘God made him . . . to be sin for us.’

What does Christ becoming sin for usmean? What are the deep lessons of the Cross– those lessons that can transform ourthoughts and action?

Galatians 3:13 (NIV) says, ‘Christ redeemedus from the curse of the law by becoming acurse for us. . . .’ The curse of the law is death.When we sin, we deserve not only the physicaldeath that every individual experiences becauseof sin, but we also deserve eternal death. When Christ hung on the cross, He bore thecumulative guilt of the sins of the world. Hewas willing to go into the grave, experience the second death, and be separated from HisFather forever – for us.

Salvation comes as we personally receiveby faith Christ’s death on our behalf. Salvationis not something that we earn. It is not basedon our works. The apostle Paul eagerly declared, ‘For it is by grace you have beensaved, through faith – and this is not fromyourselves, it is the gift of God’ (Ephesians 2:8,NIV).

Salvation is rooted in Christ’s death on the cross. He died the death that was ours. Accepting by faith His death on our behalf, wepass from death to life. We become His sonsand His daughters. From that point on, the Father treats us as if we had never sinned.Scripture says, ‘If we confess our sins, he isfaithful and just and will forgive us our sins’ (1 John 1:9, NIV). Paul added, ‘Therefore, thereis now no condemnation for those who are inChrist Jesus’ (Romans 8:1).

When we’re forgiven our guilt is gone. Freefrom condemnation, we are God’s sons anddaughters. And even if we stumble in our attempt to serve Him, He still regards us as His children. He doesn’t cast us off when wefail.

My son is just as much my son when hemakes mistakes as when he doesn’t. Ofcourse, he can choose to separate himselffrom the family. He has the perfect right tochange his name. He is free to leave home atany time. But unless he rashly chooses tosever his relationship with the family, he’ll always remain my son. He has the assurancethat I won’t angrily throw him out of the homesimply because he has failed.

Our relationship to our heavenly Father islike that of my son and I. When, while desiringto live godly lives, we fail God, He will no more cast us out than I would my son. And it is the realisation of this forgiveness, this acceptance, that motivates us to live in obedience to Him.

Nine-year-old Braun lived in a little village not far from London. Braun’s parents were agnostics, but they felt that at least once in his life he ought to go to church. So, they dressedhim up in his little black suit and black bow tie and asked the governess to take him.

That Sunday, the parson preached about the crucifixion of a Man. He described the nailsdriven through the Man’s hands, the crown of thorns jammed upon His head, the blood thatran down His face, and the spear that ripped into His side. He described the agony in His eyesand the sorrow in His voice when He prayed, ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know whatthey are doing.’

Halfway through the sermon, little Braun was crying. Wouldn’t somebody do something?Wouldn’t the congregation rise up together and take the Man down from the cross? But as helooked around in astonished surprise, he saw that the people were complacent. ‘What’s the matter with these people, Nanny?’ he asked. ‘Why doesn’t somebody do something about thatMan on the cross?’

Patting Braun on the shoulder, his nanny nervously whispered in reply, ‘Braun, Braun, bequiet. It’s just a story. Don’t let it trouble you. Just listen quietly. You’ll soon forget about thisold story when we go home.’

What is the story of the Cross to you? Is it just something you sometimes sing about? Something you occasionally mention in prayer? Something you hear glibly referred to in sermons? What difference does the Cross make when you have feelings of condemnation andguilt? Does it enable you to cope with despair and discouragement?

by Mark Finley

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into communion with the Saviour, we enter theregion of peace’ (Ellen G. White, The Ministryof Healing, pp. 249, 250).

Are you suffering under a burden of guilt because you know that you have sinned? Doyou long for forgiveness? Does your heart cryout for acceptance with God? Would you like tobe His son or His daughter? Maybe you’re evena Christian, but you’ve failed, and now you feelextremely distant from God, separated from Hislove. He says to you, ‘Come to me, all you whoare weary and burdened, and I will give yourest. Take my yoke upon you and learn fromme, for I am gentle and humble in heart, andyou will find rest for your souls’ (Matthew11:28, 29, NIV).

Come to Him by faith. In your imagination,stand at the foot of His cross; see the nailsdriven through His hands. Visualise the crownof thorns jammed upon His head and the bloodrunning down His face. See the agony in Hiseyes and the grief etched across His face. Listen to His suffering groans. Why does Hesuffer so? He is taking my place and yours. He is dying on our behalf. He, the perfect, righteous One, is dying for those who are unrighteous. Will His death for you be in vain?

Come to Him right now. Confess your sins.Believe that the burden of guilt is removed from

your shoulders. Believe that the condemnationof sin passes from you to Him. Accept Hisgrace. Believe that you are made whole. Believe that you are now His son, His daughter,a child of God, and that nothing – not even ademon from hell – can take you out of Hishand.

He will never let you go. He will never takeHis hand from yours. Place your hand in thestrong grip of His love and walk on, confidentthat you are His child.

‘But,’ some may ask, ‘isn’t there a danger inbecoming too secure – won’t that remove ourincentive to grow?’

One thing is certain: We are not likely togrow as Christians if we have no security inChrist. When we realise what our security isbased on, we’re not likely to take that securityas a licence to plunge headlong into sin. Anyindividual who uses God’s grace as licence tosin does not understand grace.

When we come to Christ and are acceptedby His unmerited mercy, when we receive Hisgracious forgiveness and realise that we areHis children, we’re overwhelmed by love forHim. His love breaks our hardened hearts. Itleads to repentance. He grants us new hearts(Ezekiel 36:26). He writes the principles of Hislaw in both our hearts and our minds (Hebrews8:10). He gives us His Spirit, who empowersus to obey (John 16:7; Romans 8:13). Securein His grace as His sons and daughters, we desire to please Jesus. The chief desire of ourlives is to do His will, as His desire was to doHis Father’s will (Matthew 26:39; John 8:29).Duty becomes a delight and sacrifice a pleasure.

Let me repeat: Our spiritual security is notbased on our behaviour. We don’t gain securitythrough doing good things. If our security were based on our works, we’d be constantlywondering whether we’d done enough. Wewould be asking always, ‘At what stage am Isafe?’ Our security always comes from whatChrist has done for us – the life He lived, thedeath He died. Once we realise and accept

this security, Christ helps us to grow. As wesurrender our will to Him, He begins in us thework of developing a character like His. Andwhat He begins, He finishes; He is the ‘authorand finisher of our faith’ (Hebrews 12:2,NKJV).

Each student in a school has different learning abilities and different problem-solvingskills. But if they faithfully do the lessons theteacher assigns, in time they’ll graduate. Likewise, if I faithfully accept the lessons myheavenly Father assigns me, I will grow inknowledge and character, and He will see to itthat I graduate.

So, when I lose my temper and becomeangry, God still accepts me as His child. Hesimply invites me to recommit myself to Him in repentance and to confess my sin. He is willing, then, to pick me up. He is the God ofthe new start. He is the God of the secondchance – and the third chance and the fourthchance. Failure doesn’t make me any less dearto His heart.

One of my favourite authors wrote these encouraging words:

‘If in our ignorance we make missteps, theSaviour does not forsake us. . . . When sinstruggles for the mastery in the heart, whenguilt oppresses the soul and burdens the conscience, when unbelief clouds the mind, remember that Christ’s grace is sufficient to subdue sin and banish the darkness. Entering

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He is the God of the new start. He is theGod of the second chance – and the third

chance and the fourth chance. Failuredoesn’t make me any less dear to His heart.

Anyone who has travelled through, or livedin, those parts of the globe we like to callthe ‘third’ or ‘developing’ world, will know

that it is well seasoned with Irish missionaries.With many having worked for the betterment of humanity under difficult and dangerous circumstances – a tribute to their deep senseof personal commitment.

Some years ago my wife worked at the

Dominican School for the Deaf in Cape Town,where we caught a first-hand glimpse of the work being done by a group of deeply dedicated Irish nuns. They were there – 6,000-odd miles south of Dublin – to help young boysand girls enjoy a better life.

Spend a moment with me reflecting on the work of two of Ireland’s better-known missionaries.

Rufus HalleyRev. Rufus Halley, a missionary of the Societyof St Columban, ‘spentmore than 20 years promoting ecumenical dialogue between Christians and Muslims in Asia’. Having grown upin Butlerstown, CountyWaterford, he went to work in the Philippines in1969, soon after his ordination, where he livedwith and ministered to the ‘rural poor’.1

Later he was moved to Mindanao, in thesouth of the Philippines, where he worked tirelessly ‘to break down the mutual distrustand mistrust’ between the two groups. In theprocess he learnt two local languages andworked ‘in a store owned by a Muslim’.2

There, Rufus sold rice and corn for close ontwo decades . . . while quietly and tirelesslytrying to improve inter-faith relations. Until,sadly, on 28 August 2001, he was shot andkilled on the way home to his parish, aged just57 – a victim of the violence he had dedicatedhis life to prevent. As a tribute to the successof his work, hundreds of Muslims turned outfor his funeral.3

Wellesley BaileyWellesley Bailey was bornin 1846 and grew up inAbbeyleix, Queens County,partly during The GreatFamine (1845-1852) thatclaimed around a millionlives and drove anothermillion to leave the country.4

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Elsewhere in this issue, Julian Hibbert (FOCUS editor) discusses the so-called ‘Irish diaspora’ – the migration of many millions from Ireland in search of a better life elsewhere. Here he looks at the impact made bythose who were motivated to leave their kith and kin for another reason –to help improve the lives of millions elsewhere.

by Julian Hibbert

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as we said earlier – most of his professionallife living among the ‘rural poor’, selling cornand rice for a Muslim merchant. Based on that,many would consider his to be a very ordinary,unexceptional life!

As far as Wellesley Bailey is concerned, listen to what his granddaughter said abouthim: ‘He was not a saint, nor even a cleverman. . . .’9 He begins to sound pretty ordinarytoo, doesn’t he? So, in a certain sense thesewere not really ‘exceptional’ men. It seems thatthey were not much different to you and I.

With one exceptionThere is one quality, however, that lifted these‘ordinary’ men to another level. That one exception is a quality that is beautifullysummed up in the words of Bailey’s granddaughter: ‘His great gift was single-mindedness . . .’10 Both Halley and Bailey

possessed that single-mindedness. Each discovered a God-given purpose for living andstayed true to it.

Bailey, driven by compassion, committedhimself to making this world a better place forlepers. Halley, his heart fired by the same fuel,dedicated his efforts to reconciliation betweenMuslims and Christians in the Philippines.

Both men were true missionaries, in thehighest Irish tradition. They have become rolemodels for the rest of us, demonstrating thepositive influence that an ordinary life can havewhen single-mindedly committed to a goodcause!

Have you found your ‘good cause’ yet?

1http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rufus_Halley 2Ibid 3Ibid 4http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland) 5http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellesley_Bailey 6Ibid 7Ibid 8http://cara.georgetown.edu/caraservices/requestedchurchstats.html 9http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wellesley_Bailey 10Ibid

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Bailey was no exception, and in 1866 he leftfor a stint on the Australian goldfields. Threeyears later he was back and still restless – butnot for long. One of his brothers, serving as apoliceman in India, invited him to join him therein 1869 and he accepted the offer.

While waiting for the fog to lift so his shipcould sail, Wellesley attended a church servicein Gravesend where he ‘had a sense of God’spresence in a way he’d never known beforeand committed his life to Christ’.5 Upon arrivingin India, though, he found that his brother hadmoved elsewhere, so he dropped his plans tojoin the police and set about learning Hindi.

‘At this time he began to feel that God was calling him to missionary work’ and he obtained a teaching position with the AmericanPresbyterian Mission at a school in the Punjab.It was here that he saw the shocking effects ofleprosy for the first time and was moved towrite that ‘I felt that if there was ever a Christ-like work in the world it was to go amongstthese poor sufferers and bring them the consolation of the Gospel.’6 Wellesley Baileycommitted his life to that objective for the ‘best

part of 50 years’, and with the help of Alice(his childhood sweetheart who became his wife) and many others, the work of TheMission to Lepers was born.

Formally organised in 1886, it worked inIndia at first but then expanded its support tothe lepers of Burma, then to those of China in1891. Wellesley and Alice travelled tirelessly to promote the leprosy cause, raising fundswherever they went, and helping to establish anetwork of leprosy ‘houses’ and other projectsthat was ‘working with over 14,000 leprosy-affected people in 12 countries’ at the time ofhis retirement in 1917, aged 71.7

Exceptional men?I hear someone saying, ‘But these men wereexceptional. They weren’t just ordinary blokeslike most of us.’ Do you agree with that? I amnot sure that I do. Let me explain why.

Rufus Halley wasn’t a bishop or a cardinal;neither was he an academic or some otherrenowned ecclesiastical specialist. He was justone of the Roman Catholic Church’s 414,313priests worldwide.8 Someone who had spent –

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‘I felt that if there was evera Christlike work in theworld it was to go amongstthese poor sufferers andbring them the consolationof the Gospel.’

New Delhi, India – September 28, 2013: A leper with a detached prosthetic leg sits in line for charity medicine inChandni Chowkh, New Delhi, India.

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‘Wait a minute,’ someone says. ‘I don’twant to get caught up in mere words! Just answer me one thing: Our physical bodies die,but our souls can never, ever die, can they?’

Through the prophet Ezekiel, God said quiteplainly that they can and do: ‘The soul whosins shall die’ (Ezekiel 18:4, 20, NKJV). Thepagan Greeks – especially the philosopherPlato – asserted that people’s souls are

Tina thought that after the funeral of her father she’d be able to just go onwith her life. But nothing has been quite the same. She’s been haunted bythe parent who isn’t there. She’ll catch a whiff of Old Spice aftershaveor hear a Sinatra song he loved and be overcome with tears. Tinasays, ‘I know I’m an adult, and I’m supposed to be strong. But thereare some days when I feel like I’m four years old and all I want ismy dad.’

Like Tina, millions of people are facing one of life’s toughestrites of passage – watching a parent die. It’s an experiencethat’s going to hit many of us hard as we journey into thenext few years. The generation born after World War II –the baby boomers – are well into middle age. Statisticstell us that by the time we turn 50, a quarter of us havelost our mothers and half of us have lost our fathers.

Someone has said you’ve never really felt what it is to be alone in the world until you’ve stood at yourparents’ graves. That’s when you realise you’ve lost yourlifelong cheerleaders. That’swhen it dawns on you thatyou’re next in line. That experience haunts us with the question, ‘Can we find hope that extends beyond the grave?’

of life – the power of God – and he became aliving soul – a living being. So, the formulareads: dust + breath = living being.

Adam became a living soul – a living being,a living person. You see, a living soul is a livingperson. The Bible never says a person ‘has’ asoul – as if the soul were a separate entity wepossess. I don’t have a soul; I am a soul – aliving creature, a person – and so are you.

to what happens when a person dies. It says,‘And the LORD God formed man of the dust ofthe ground, and breathed into his nostrils thebreath of life; and man became a living soul’(Genesis 2:7, KJV).

Does it say that God put an immortal soulinto the man? No, it says that God formed himfrom the dust of the ground – that’s his body.Then God breathed into his nostrils the breath

People believe all kinds of things aboutdeath. Hindus say, ‘Your immortal soulleaves your body and eventually you’re

reincarnated as something or someone else.How you treated people in this life determineswhether you come back as a cow, a servant, awealthy businessman, an insect, or somethingelse.’ Catholics say, ‘Your immortal soul leavesyour body at death and ascends to Heaven ifyou’ve been good, to Purgatory if you’ve notbeen so good, and to hell if you’ve been reallybad.’ Most Protestants say something similarbut leave out the part about purgatory. OtherBible-believing Christians say death is merely a sleep until the resurrection day at Christ’ssecond coming. And secular humanists say,‘Death is the end. Once you’ve live, that’s it. It’sover – finished.’

It’s all so confusing. But the Bible givesrock-solid answers to our questions. It revealsnot only what happens when we die, but alsohow to face death with confidence.

The Bible’s story of Creation holds a clue as

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Find your purpose• Where are you headed? • Where is the world

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immortality of the soul there even once! Ifhuman beings really had an immortal soul or immortal spirit, don’t you think the Biblewould use one of these terms at least once?Obviously, the Word of God doesn’t teach sucha concept. In fact, Paul wrote of God that He ‘alone is immortal’ (1 Timothy 6:15, 16,NIV, emphasis supplied).

Since the Bible plainly declares that Godalone is immortal, we needn’t waste our timetrying to find verses that say human beings areimmortal or have an immortal soul, for wewon’t find them. The Holy Spirit doesn’t contradict Himself.

Scripture does promise life after death forthose who have put their trust in God. But itdoesn’t say that the life of believers continueswhen their physical bodies die. Instead, it indicates that their eternal life begins at the resurrection, which takes place at Jesus’ second coming. It is ‘at the last trump’, Paul wrote, that ‘this mortal must put on immortality’ (1 Corinthians 15:51-53, KJV). It’sat that time that ‘the dead will be raised imperishable . . . then the saying that is written will come true: “Death has been swallowed up in victory” ’ (1 Corinthians15:52, 54, NIV, emphasis supplied).

Can we have hope that extends beyond thegrave? To Martha, who was mourning thedeath of Lazarus, her brother, Jesus said, ‘I amthe resurrection and the life. The one who believes in me will live, even though they die’(John 11:25, NIV). And the last two chapters ofRevelation picture that future life – the eternallife – in terms of bright promise:

‘Not the dwelling of God [will be] with men,and he will live with them. . . . He will wipeevery tear from their eyes. There will be nomore death or mourning or crying or pain, forthe old order of things has passed away’ (Rev-elation 21:3, 4).

So, we have a reason for hope – even whenwe stand at the grave of a loved one. Whiledeath interrupts our relationships, that interruption need not be final. God has promised that those who have put their faith in Him will be able to renew their treasured relationships when Jesus returns.

King James Version twice rendered it ‘life’ and twice ‘soul’. These two words, then, are interchangeable. And this passage indicates that ‘life’ is not something naturallyand irrevocably ours – we can lose it; we’re not inherently immortal.

The word mortal means ‘subject to death’, and immortal means the opposite –‘imperishable’. While the Bible uses the wordssoul and spirit many times, never is the termimmortal attached to either word. You won’tfind either of the terms immortal soul or

‘imperishable’. If that pagan idea were true,however, why did the Holy Spirit inspire Ezekielto write what he wrote?

In the Bible, the word soul may also mean‘life’. For instance, Jesus said:

‘For whosoever will save his life shall lose it:and whosoever will lose his life for my sakeshall find it. For what is a man profited, if heshall gain the whole world, and lose his ownsoul? or what shall a man give in exchange forhis soul?’ (Matthew 16:25, 26, KJV).

In this passage, Matthew wrote the Greekword psyche four times. The translators of the

So, we have a reason for hope – even when westand at the grave of a loved one. While deathinterrupts our relationships, that interruptionneed not be final.

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