From the Churches November 2023

Reflecting the new partnership between Churches in Gorleston, this column will now feature leaders from different churches in our town

This month we hear from Rev Derek McClean, Minister of Cliff Park Community Church

 
November is a month full of dates set aside for Remembrance. We remember and give thanks for faithful Christians of the past. We celebrate the foiling of a plot to destroy Parliament and assassinate King James I. We give thanks for all those who have paid the ultimate price by dying for our freedoms. However, we also have one time of looking forward by celebrating the Kingship of Christ, and remember the call to look after the marginalised, poor, hungry and neglected. It’s a very mixed set of festivals
 
Through it all is the understanding that we are called to love one another, and bear one another’s burdens. To weep with those who weep. To mourn with those who mourn. To laugh with those who laugh
 
We can also reflect on the depths human nature can fall to. The slaughter of the battles in WWI. The failures in understanding that the Death Camps were real in WWII. The ongoing litany of war crimes in battles in the last decades since the end of WWII
 
In the midst of a speech about his melancholy mood, Hamlet breaks out into intense sarcasm about humanity (“What a piece of work is man!” Act 2, scene 2). It is a reminder that humans are capable of some genuine moments of greatness, but also capable of great evil. Thus, Hamlet calls us the “quintessence of dust”
 
November allows us to reflect on this. To know that as creatures, made in God’s image, we can produce and appreciate great works of Art. We can produce a Mozart and be deeply moved by his music. We can marvel at the works and genius of a Leonardo Da Vinci. And can rally to help end disasters, or put on huge worldwide rock concerts in aid of famine relief
 
But we are also capable of great, great evil. Whilst we do have our Mozarts, we also have our Hitlers and Stalins and Pol Pots
 
If ever Hamlet’s phrase, “What a piece of work is man!” can be applied without sarcasm, it is applied to Jesus. If we wonder what it means to be the humans
 
God intended us to be, then we sit and read through the Gospels and learn what that means. We are called to be full of compassion, and love. To confront injustice, and break the chains that keep people imprisoned
 
Jesus came to free us from our tendency to darkness, our sin, by paying the price, through His death on the Cross, and offering us forgiveness and the gift of His Spirit to transform us into being the people God intends us to be
 
As we work through the festivals in November, let us reflect on what God has done for us, and ask His help to become the people He called us to be

courtesy of the Gorleston Community Magazine

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