Monday, March 21, 2011

Feast of Thomas Cranmer (Luke 2:25-35)

 

Two things stand out to me in these readings, one being the Luke passage. How times and cultures change.It was a day's journey before anyone decided to check on Jesus' whereabouts. Large extended families were walking together, headed home after the festival in Jerusalem--he's probably with some of them maybe even with friends. He's 12 after all:  don't boys have lots of ideas to talk about at that age?

Would I have waited  whole day before checking around? 

 

When my sons were a little older than that we used to celebrate "Patriots' Day" in April by walking with other townspeople through the woods from Carlisle into Concord and down the wide hill to the "Old North Bridge". It certainly didnt take days but hours and I don't think we were ever really out of sight of them even though they may have been with school chums. That was about 40 years ago. How much more things have changed since then. We would probably give them cell phones now and keep in close contact.

 

Of course we read later in this Luke passage that Jesus had something else in mind than walking with his earthly parents.

 

Then there was Thomas Cranmer, the Archbishop of Canterbury who was a martyr in 1556. Does one obey the Monarch as he believed he should since in Romans 13 it says "the powers that be are ordained of God." It was apparently easy for Cranmer to accept that the king was sent by God's providence while he ordered things Cranmer thought were good. So to obey the King was to obey God With Edward on the throne Cranmer had translated the worship into English but when Mary came to the throne she commanded him to "return to the Roman obedience" He struggled with this until he finally wrote a letter of submission to the Pope and Roman Catholic Doctrine. Mary didn't believe his sincerity and ordered him burned. At the end he repudiated his letter and said he died a Protestant

 

Standing up for what we believe may not be that severe but sometimes its easier to walk away from a conversation overheard between strangers, for instance who criticize our government or our God. Should we say---"excuse me but--" and tell them what we believe to be right or do we grit our teeth and walk away. I would probably walk away and ask God to forgive me for not standing up for Him.

 

Lord, grant that we can be your servants and honor you in what ever we do and say. Amen

 

(BJH)