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This is a small interlude in the events of what I’ve been up to so that I can actually put something vaguely thoughtful in here – I’m just going to do this from time to time, so I hope it will be interesting to some and to those it’s not, feel free to just skip by. Please be aware this is written late at night and is therefore probably full of problems – but hopefully there’s some good things in there too.
So at small group at Christian Union, we are doing a Bible study on the gospel of John, and we’re just going to be working through the book over the course of the next few weeks. I have to confess, it’s not always my favourite gospel as I think it is too easy to just over-spiritualise it, turn it into our recipe-for-life-after-death gospel at the expense of the radical message of Jesus’ life, but despite that it is a cracking book. The epilogue, particularly, is something which is mind boggling and, I think, us really quite threatening to our nice comfortable Christianity that we so often construct. Not least because of the fact that John comes at the whole gospel from a completely different angle to the traditional evangelical presentation: we’re all sinners, Jesus suddenly came into the world to put things right, believe in him and you have the fire-insurance life-after-death.
The Jesus of John’s prologue, however, is a God who is heavily situated in the messiness and the tensions and the conflicts of the story of Israel. It is the story of a Creator God who breathed Creation into existence through his Word and who, like in Isaiah, sustains it and constantly refreshes it like rain. In his prologue, John brings in all the desires and hopes of the Jewish scriptures, of the character of Lady Wisdom and all the connotations of ‘life’ that will become so important throughout the gospel; the story of the exile and the hope that justice and righteousness will one day be shown; the Exodus imagery played out in the presence of John the Baptist, repeating the parting of the Red Sea in Baptism so that God’s people may prepare for Him; the idea of God coming down to dwell with us having echoes of the pillar of fire in the desert . . . far from being superhero Jesus, coming into the world from no-where to do a mathematical equation to cancel out the problem of sin, I think John sees Jesus as being the culmination and the natural development of a God who works through creation and in creation and with his created beings – Jesus is the culmination of the whole of Israel.
John’s view of Jesus is huge – talking about glory after glory, with mind-boggling time-scales about Jesus. Yet it is also the story of a God who became flesh. A God who, despite being the one who breathed life into the cosmos, came down and became flesh and became vulnerable and became weak. A God of contrasts who is the sustainer of life – and one who came into the world to visit all the dark corners of life and to be there with people in pain and in suffering and in despair. And I think that presents a challenge to us as people who claim to incarnate God – are we people who are willing to follow God into the ultimate depths of human emotion and human fear and human despair – or do we just play around with the nice, Christian emotions that we can understand so that we can get people to sign the form that says they’re “in” and they “have Jesus” and they’re “saved”. Maybe John’s Jesus challenges us to spend less time trying to make people fit into our nice, Modern, evangelical boxes – and to spend more time being Jesus hands and feet in the dark places of life, to sit down and cry with our friends who are crying, to grieve with those who have lost loved ones – and to follow the example of the one who went to the darkest places of life to bring Hope and the hint of healing and restoration.
So often, we try and make the Gospel so simple, so easy – something which we can get done in 2 minutes and get a conversion – another statistic. Nice, simple, ‘Biblical’ answers to people’s darkest pain and secrets. But I think John reminds me that actually the gospel is a person – it is Jesus – and so maybe we need to change the way we view people, expand our horizons of what it is to do mission – it’s not to assimilate people in a Star Trek Borg-like experience but rather to live out the life of One who since the beginning of time has been involved in Creation but who made Himself vulnerable and weak and poor. To live out the message of Jesus in our words and in our speech – the Jesus who constantly proclaimed the Kingdom of God is at hand. To see people as precious created beings of God, loved beyond all measure, rather than projects to be converted so we can tick them off the list of ‘evil-doers’ and onto the list of ‘one-of-us’.
To walk with people, to share their stories and their pain and their hopes and desperation. To live out our story, the story of a God who is living and active in His creation and who, by becoming vulnerable and weak, turned the whole world upside down. To invite those around us to come and join in the story, to take their place in God’s redemption and restoration of not only mankind but the whole cosmos.
And to then leave the rest in God’s hands.
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OK, so there’s not many of them, but there are at least some photos of my first week at St Andrtrws. to see them, go to “Recent Albums” section down the side and click on “St Andrews 1″. At least some of them warrant explaining:
1) Yes – I murdered a chocolate fondue. I have never been so ashamed in my life as I was last night. I can seemingly cook all sorts of things . . . but when it comes to melting chocolate, I apparently fail. How humiliating! Still, I could rescue myself a bit with some apple crumble and my roast vegetables earlier. But it was very embarrassing.
2) The picture of the quad is one of two main quads of the University (the other one being St Mary’s Quad, where the Scottish Parliament met for a few years in the 1600s due to it being too politically unstable to meet in Edinburgh).
3) The castle, likewise, has a fascinating history – it is the site of the first Protestant church in Scotland and experienced much violence from both sides during the Reformation. It was under siege for a long period of time and there is a fascinating network of tunnels going under the cliffs as each side tried to out-tunnel each other. The Castle also marks the break in beaches between the small Castle Sands (which is the site for BBQs and bonfire parties) and the much, much bigger and sandier West Sands which is one of the iconic photos of St Andrews, as well as being the location of the opening beach running scene from ‘Chariots of Fire’
4) The letters PH are set into the cobbles just outside the entrance to the main quad. They mark the site where a student was martyred during the Reformation, and legend at the University has it that if a student steps on the letters, even by accident, they are cursed to fail their degree, something which can only be reversed by running into the sea early in the morning on May 1st in what is known as the May Dip.
Well there you go – a few photos to give people a tantalising glimpse into this beautiful town and it’s amazing history! I hope to be able to give you some more as and when, together with some more of the history of the place (and trust me – it’s full of history).
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It’s a beautiful morning up here in St Andrews – the sun is blazing in through the window and there’s not a breath of wind in the air; the view out over the swamp outside my window is really nice too. Things are just beginning to settle down a little bit after being quite so manic; I matriculated and advised on Thursday morning, so I now have a very nice student ID card etc, and I also managed to pay for my accommodation after my Direct Debit card finally arrived (a huge relief!). Then, with that out of the way, we could move on to the main task of the day: the pizza dinner. Basically, I was getting fed up with the fact no-0ne in our apartment block really knew each other, so I decided the way forward was to have a pizza dinner where everyone could meet each other. So I persuaded my flatmates (not too hard!) and we invited everyone to bring some toppings whilst I made up the dough.
It was really, really successful. We ended up with 35+ people in our kitchen from all over the block, and the pizzas tasted really yummy. There was one scary moment when I came back from town after having made up the dough in the morning to discover it had risen to such an extent it now covered the counter, but that was soon remedied.
Thursday was the first meeting of CU small-group: we’re studying John this term, so that will be interesting (not my favourite gospel it has to be said, but it could be interesting none-the-less). The people there seem really nice: one of the leaders and her husband son de Chile so I chatted to them in Spanish for a little while.
Friday was laundry day. What. A. Mission.
First I realised it needed change and I only had notes. So I had to borrow two quid from a friend and then, whilst the washing was going, I had to hike all the way into town to find the nearest shop where I could buy something which would break up a note. Then having broken up the note (I bought a coriander plant – could be useful at some point) I went back to put it all in the tumble dryer, which was another mission. Still, it all got done in the end. I went to the volunteers fair in the afternoon, and found a few things I was interested in getting involved in, and filled in a few application forms. Also in the afternoon, there was a game of three legged rounders on the beach, which is perhaps one of the most tricky sports ever to play, but huge amounts of fun!
Finally, last night was the first meeting of the CU. It was generally OK apart from the end of the talk which was a bit militant-evangelism for my tastes, but I just glazed over during that bit and it was fine. Finished off the week in the pub chatting to someone from my small group, so that was really nice.
Tonight it’s a beach party and bonfire on West Sands, so I think that should be really good – anything that says “bring your own instrument” is fairly guaranteed to be interesting!
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The last two days have mostly been concerned with vaguely academic stuff – introductory talks and a taster lesson in Russian, so I have had to sober down a bit and get thinking seriously about things like time management. Having said that, there has still been a lot of time for fun: today, for instance, saw the DRA (the flats I’m staying in) BBQ and a CU Ceilidh, my second ever go. So my legs (and arms) hurt and I have a few bruises, so I’m sure I’ll feel it in the morning! On that note – I really need someone to teach me how to Polka and Waltz, as I am really let down by the fact I look about as graceful as an elephant falling down a hill. So – any volunteers for this role, please let me know!
In other news, I have now been semi-adopted: I have an academic Mother but am still very much on the look-out for an academic father, but it’s nice to get half way there 
. I also had a great chat with my small group leader, who is a really really nice guy and I look forward to getting to know better.
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So life is all busy still. I am now (almost) officially at the University having had the Welcome Event yesterday morning. We were piped in by a Piper (err . . . yeh, it would be) and had speeches by important people such as the Principal (interrupted by the charity mascot, a huge lion), the Proctor, the Dean of Arts (who took great pleasure in telling us we were probably sitting next to our future spouses) and the Students’ Association Representative. There was also a brass quintet who played Bohemian Rhapsody, which worked incredibly well. There was a distinct – although nice – sense of joining the Mafia: it was emphasised time and again that joining St Andrews was joining a community for life, and it is our responsibility to take the University and its traditions forward into the future. I think one thing that really appealed was the playful and slightly irreverent approach the University takes to its traditions: they are obviously important, but equally they’re not wanting to become staid.
I experienced my first Ceilidh Sunday afternoon, and as I am writing this on Tuesday morning, I am still finding it difficult to walk properly, which I am hoping is just a first time sort of occurrence, as it could get very old, very quickly. There’s another one done by the CU on Wednesday evening and another one by the SA on Sunday, so hopefully if I go to both, I will be able to get used to the whole idea (and maybe look slightly more competent on some of the things like the waltz and polka steps, at which I was epically bad).
Last night saw a pub quiz in the halls I’m staying in – our table did amazingly poorly, getting under half marks, so maybe it wasn’t our finest hour. Still, it was quite fun. Today – it’s the Jewish New Year Celebrations (a few days late – they were actually last weekend!) with the Jewish Society, so I think I might go to that.
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So today was the day of the journey; we left Didcot about 4am and got to St Andrews at around half twelve – apparently I slept through some of the most dramatic scenery, which is a bit of shame. Never mind.
The people in my flat who I have met so far seem really nice – none of them do languages, though I have found several people who do. We went out as a flat to bang on people’s doors to introduce ourselves (ok, to re-phrase – I was the main instigator in this process as I had very little fear of making a fool of myself!) and got to meet at least half of the people in my accommodation, which was nice. I also threw myself fully into the Freshers’ questions in the bar – “who are you?” “where are you from?” “what are you studying?”. English is definitely a minority nationality, with a lot of people being either Irish or Scottish, with a fair few Americans thrown in too.
When it came to cooking dinner, I found several key elements were missing – not least onions, vegetable oil (I know you gave me some Mum – where is it????), garlic and cumin. Nevertheless, I managed to knock up a nice dahl, though I went over the top on the cayenne, making it quite a bit spicier than I anticipated. However, it does mean I am going out early to Morrisons tomorrow morning to try and pick up some of the bits I need. Plus it’ll give me a good chance to try and find places and get my bearings.
Finally I saw Michael Chalmers, one of my best friends from Norfolk who’s also starting this year, and his Dad and shared a bit of an Indian with them, which was nice. He lives literally in the building next door, so it’s nice to have a definitive friendly face too.
By the way – for those of you who don’t know, I have Skype, so if you want to ring me up for free, feel free to add me. If I don’t answer it’s nothing personal – I probably just left the room and forgot to sign out.
That’s about all I can think of to say at the moment – I’m very tired after the early start, so I think I am going to begin to head towards bed so I have lots of strength for the week to come.
Lots of love to everyone
David
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