At the Scottish VCF weekend this year held at Kincraig in the Highlands, Guy Gordon, a mixed practice vet in Thurso, a town on the very north coast, spoke to the gathering on the theme of “Jesus, the light shining throughout history”. He broke us in gently on Friday evening with his testimony, where at 17, an invitation to an outreach event left him compelled to find out more, and the ‘rest is history’. A brief mention was made of his role in the TV series “The Highland Vet” which, according to Jennifer his wife, has made him at least a Z-list celebrity. He moved on to draw a message from the idea of pixels on a high-res screen. A new TV delivered to his parents had a single malfunctioning pixel. Out of the 2 million present, the dud pixel was surprisingly noticeable. He encouraged us to consider that the ‘picture’ of God’s people on earth is incomplete without each of us doing our little bit to shine for Jesus.
On the Saturday Guy started with Jesus’ plea for unity among believers (John 17: 20-23). A pictorial analogy used basic Venn diagrams to show overlapping beliefs within the various denominations across the globe. Could there be a core to Christianity where the circles overlap? Those who do not hold to this core would not be considered Christian, but the difficulty is deciding what should reside in this core. It was accepted that the picture was simplistic, but it gave us a starting point for reflection. When asked how many denominations there are, a Google search yields a figure of at least 33000. So much for unity! The Reformation was mentioned as a mixed blessing, rightly addressing some issues within the church, but creating others, notably fragmentation based on interpretation and opinion.
Part of Guy and Jennifer’s passion during their quarter century in Caithness has been to foster more cooperation and interaction between the churches. His morning session ended with another analogy, this time using music to express the working relationship of several churches where each are singing different tunes, but all come together in pleasant harmony because, despite their differing parts, they are all singing the same song. Their song being: Jesus crucified, resurrected, glorified, our Saviour. Indeed, their harmony sounds better than their individual chanting.
In the evening Guy revisited the idea of the core of Christianity but rather than raise controversy by trying to nail down slippery eels like predestination, infant baptism, speaking in tongues and so on, he stuck to three aspects that all would espouse: A relationship with God, a knowledge of His Word, and Jesus – Light of the World. Getting to grips with all of these would allow each of us to develop our own strong cores, to “hone our spiritual sixpacks”. As a ballroom dancer (Strictly watch out), Guy drew on this for a further analogy about the need for a strong core in the face of a secular society, both as a church and as individuals.
The remainder of this talk and much of his final presentation on Sunday focused on finding themes and threads that pervade scripture from Genesis to Revelation. The metanarratives, as he called them, help us to see scripture as a coherent whole, lest we should focus primarily on the, often more digestible, New Testament. After he and Jennifer had entertained us with a humorous sketch based on the fall of Adam and Eve, there was a summary of the Biblical covenants as they thread from Genesis, through Moses and David into the New Covenant.
On the Sunday before we all partook of the bread and wine, Guy divided “Relationship with God” into “doing” and “being”. Again, a simplification for the sake of understanding, “doing” comprises our acts of service. Here, he referenced Matthew 5 “You are the light of the world …” where we are encouraged to not keep our lights under a bushel (to use the old translation). Guy provocatively suggested that maybe we need to get out more, and that perhaps our church buildings and routines could function as large bushels that many of us hide under. “Being” was about the importance of prayer, though he admitted he found prayer challenging personally.
As a finale, he elucidated the ultimate metanarrative of scripture by finding Jesus in the Old Testament, from Genesis, through Isaiah until his arrival in Bethlehem in human form. Jesus has been, and is, the Light that shines throughout history, and yet we are told in Matthew 5 that we carry this light too. So get out there and shine like a pixel in the great picture of Christianity!