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| "For ye were sometimes darkness..." The Man Born Blind - Duccio 1308-11 http://edgeofenclosure.org/lent4a.html |
There is a pretty bad movie, starring Robert Downey Jr and Meg Ryan, called "Restoration", that despite its awful contrivances still intrigues me. Not because of its picturesque frivolities but because of its actually serious topic. "Restoration" is set during the period of the restoration of the English monarchy after the Interregnum under Parliament and Oliver Cromwell the Protector. (The time is the 1660s of our era.)
So there is a reaction against the constraints of a Puritan dictatorship not only in politics but in morals. (For a more balanced and thorough personal account of these changes, read the diaries of Samuel Pepys - or listen, as I did, to Kenneth Brannagh reading portions.)
The hero, if we can call him that, of the film, is the King's new Physician, a fool, as we meet him, who quickly gets himself into trouble as he trivializes himself and the already frivolous life of court.
But then plague strikes. And all becomes more serious than he can handle......
And in some sense he finds redemption - a restoration to himself, if you will - as he begins to serve people who need him: a physician after all.
He finds his calling in horrendous times.
No one wants them.
Cue Gandalf talking to Frodo:
Frodo: ... I wish none of this had happened.
Gandalf: So do all who live to see such times but that is not for them to decide. All you have to decide is what to do with the time that is given to you.
Did God ever choose such times? Well, yes, in a sense. Look at the times into which he sent his Son.
If ever the world needed a Shepherd, a light-bearer, it was then (and always now). Imperial occupation, corrupt quislings leading the people, abject poverty, ongoing contagion, - it was time.
Perhaps it is always time. Time for a Shepherd. Time to bear light into the world.
And so the light comes into the world. It does not only come once, but for all. All people, all times.
So often when we visit somebody in hospital, there are some old words that hold comfort and meaning. The 23rd Psalm, and the Lord's Prayer. This is not hiding. This is facing the light.
Here they are as they appear in the "new" Prayer Book of 1662, the time of the Restoration.
PSAL. 23. Dominus regit me. The Lord is my ſhepherd: therefore can I lack nothing. 2 He ſhall feed me in a green paſture: and lead me forth beſide the waters of comfort. 3 He ſhall convert my ſoul: and bring me forth in the paths of righteouſneſs, for his Name’s ſake. 4 Yea, thou I walk through the valley of the ſhadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy ſtaff comfort me. 5 Thou ſhalt prepare a table before me againſt them that trouble me: thou haſt anointed my head with oil, and my cup ſhall be full. 6 But thy loving-kindneſs and mercy ſhall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the houſe of the Lord for ever.
Our Father which art in heaven, Hallowed be thy Name; Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven: Give us this day our daily bread; And forgive us our treſpaſſes, as we forgive them that treſpaſs againſt us; And lead us not into temptation, But deliver us from evil. Amen.
We too might long for a 'restoration' of times before. What we face instead are new times. What we carry forward from the past is - not nostalgia - but resources that last: Word, sacrament, prayer, fellowship; with these to sustain us, we carry forward the light that is always with us.
What we carry forward is also vision - a vision, a longing, for how things can be - and indeed what the blind man saw, and what disturbed the universe, was something new: not since the world began had a man born blind received his sight. This is not restoration; this is new.
Light has entered the world, as it has since the first dawning, as it did this morning. And as it always does it is old and it is new. We have not chosen our times; we choose how to live them.
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