I felt so much better on Sunday morning after getting a good night’s sleep. I found out that all of England was in a celebratory mood, because England’s national soccer team (more properly their “football team,” since we were in Europe) had just defeated Germany 5-1 in a World Cup qualifier that evening while we slept. In soccer, 5-1 is a major beating, and this win had come against a historical rival on their home turf, in Munich. England’s Michael Owen recorded a hat trick (three goals in one game), which is cause for celebration in ice hockey but truly a rarity in soccer.
We got breakfast in the hotel’s cafeteria. I got there a bit late asked the woman at the cafeteria line for some scrambled eggs, and she responded with something I didn’t understand. I repeated myself, and she repeated herself a few times, until finally she gave up and served me some scrambled eggs. Finally, one of my classmates explained that she had been trying to tell me that the hot breakfast items weren’t included in our room fee and I’d have to pay for them. I had the money to pay, so it was no problem, but I felt bad that I hadn’t been able to decipher her accent. It was strangely ironic that during the course of our whole trip, the only time I couldn’t understand someone speaking English, it had happened not in France, Germany, or Italy, but in England.
We attended a morning service at All Souls Church, an Evangelical Anglican church in London. According to Wikipedia, the building has stood since 1823 and survived damage during World War II. The church itself has withstood a trend in 20th-century Christianity (in America as well as in Europe) to focus on preaching about what humans should do to improve our lives rather than what Jesus Christ has done to save us from the penalty for our sins. Influential evangelical leader John Stott, who passed away just a few months ago at the age of 90, ministered and worshipped at All Souls Church for most of his life.
I found the service very encouraging. As we sang the hymns and worship songs and read the Lord’s Prayer, I thought about my family, who would be going to church back home in Ohio in a few hours. They were probably praying for me, and I could pray for them. We were on opposite sides of the ocean, but we were loved by the same God. All the years I had been going to church in the U.S., there had been believers in England and other countries, in every continent, meeting to worship God.
The sermon that morning was from Zephaniah 3, which I’m having a hard time summing up because so much is in it. It’s a message from God to Jerusalem, the capital city of his covenant people Israel. At the start, God declares “woe” upon the city because its leaders– the rulers, prophets and priests– are preying on the weak and leading the people to disobey God. The preacher was quite bold in talking about leaders within the church in Britain who were leading people astray. (He made the point that God’s message in this passage is directed towards those who consider themselves very religious– not people who don’t go to church.)
God promises to be the righteous judge that those disobedient leaders were not; he will pour out his anger on those who deserve it. Which is bad news for me, because I too have disobeyed God, and I’m sure I’ve led other people to disobey him, even if it was just by watching how I behaved. But that is why we need a Savior. As impossible as it may seem, our hope is to turn to that same God who promises to punish sin. God tells the city that “the remnant of Israel will trust in the name of the Lord.”
The second half of the chapter is as joyful and tender as the first half is severe: “Be glad and rejoice with all your heart, Daughter Jerusalem! The Lord has taken away your punishment, he has turned back your enemy.” God promises his people “I will bring you home.” How can this be, if being a righteous judge requires him to punish the city? It is only possible because God poured out that judgment on his own perfect Son, who willingly took the punishment we all deserved in order to save us.
Sorry; that got a bit long– I told you it was hard to summarize briefly. I’m not sure I did it justice. One of my favorite souveniers from the trip is a recording of that sermon. I really wanted to share it with my parents, but the group was getting ready to leave, so I did something I don’t like to do and asked a stranger where I could get sermon tapes. At first the elderly man didn’t understand what I was saying, but after I repeated myself, he said, “Oh, TYPES!” (pronouncing the “A” like a “Y”) and pointed me in the right direction.
That afternoon, we visited the British Museum. I stuck close to Dr. B. and took digital photos of each artifact according to his instructions, using a notepad to record the identity of each object. I wish I could give more detail about the things we saw there, because they were really neat, but the museum visits have blended together a bit in my mind, and so I can’t remember which things I saw in which museum. The British Museum had artifacts from Egypt, Assyria, and Babylon, some of which were old when Zephaniah was still alive.
Land of My Sojourn 