Most of you will have known my brother Stan, Flo’s husband, but not my other brother Ronnie, who was two years younger than Stan – the second eldest of four. I was the baby and I still am. As a child Ronnie was not in good health and, because of the choking smog which hung over London in the post-war years, he lived on a farm on the Isle of Wight where we spent our summer holidays to be with him for a week or so. He also underwent a colostomy – not a pleasant experience for anyone, but particularly unpleasant for a boy of his age. He was barely a teenager when it was decided to try to reverse the procedure and the surgeon at St Bart’s later told us he prayed before the operation that God would enable him to do what was necessary and, in his words, ‘to give this child back his life’.
The surgeon’s prayer was answered and Ronnie went on to marry the girl living next door in Malam Gardens and they had three children – a boy named after him and two girls. As is often the case with people like him, he had a great zest for life and I cannot recall him ever complaining about the hand he had been dealt. He was quick-witted with a robust sense of humour, which didn’t always go down well with some people and it led him into the occasional scrape or two. Ronnie was in his early thirties when he became unwell again. We were told the cancer was well advanced and that, this time, no operation was possible.
He and his young family were living in Giraud Street and I was present when he told our mother to go to his trousers at the foot of the bed and take out what was in his pocket. It was a pound note and he said to our mother: “That’s for you.” Now this was more than forty years ago when a pound note was worth considerably more than it is today, but as soon as she got home my mother put it in her personal bible and that was where it remained. This is that bible… and this is the pound note, still in pristine condition.
A few days later I was alone with Ronnie and as we embraced each other he said he wished he could live to see his children grow up. But the eldest was still only nine when the call came from St Bart’s that Ronnie had died. I took that call and had to tell my mother. It was predicted a sword would pierce the heart of Mary, the mother of Jesus, and can there be any experience more painful for a mother than the death of a child she once carried within her?
And yet, people can find remarkable reserves of strength even in the darkest moments. Mary is often referred to as ‘meek and mild’…but somehow I don’t think so. A mother stands with her child, as she stood at the foot of the cross, to share in that suffering. The strength to do so comes from within; from a remarkable love which makes even the greatest demands on someone bearable.
At the time of Ronnie’s death I believe I saw something of that in my own mother. She was not physically strong and undergone a number of operations herself, but at a time when we were concerned for her she was most concerned for those around her… and I believe she knew, as Mary must have known, that this was her supreme moment of trial.
Today we have heard how Mary was present again when, 40 days after his resurrection, Jesus appeared for the final time before his disciples and the ascended into heaven. “Father,” Jesus said, “the hour has come. I have finished the work that you gave me to do.”
We cannot separate out the events of his short, but remarkable life, because the nature of his birth was as important as his journey to the Cross; and both his resurrection and ascension were as important as his crucifixion. It was his humanity, as he stumbled on the way to Calvary that marked him out as well as his divinity. To Jesus, the cross was both the glory of life and the way to the glory of eternity. And his final words – as he said ‘I am coming to you, Holy Father’ – was to pray for his disciples: “Father, protect them in your name so that they may be one as we are one.”
They had been with him throughout those few, dramatic years of his earthly ministry and now they were quite certain he would be with them forever. And St Luke, in his gospel tells us: “They returned to Jerusalem with great joy.”
Many of you, I know will have been able to empathise with the personal aspects of my address this morning, because all of us experience moments in our lives when our emotions are stretched and our beliefs are put to the test. Personal grief and tragedy is part of being human; and it is at times like that when we are confronted with the true meaning of faith. The faith which brings us together this morning is something I don’t think any of us can fully understand or explain. The best I can offer is it is something you feel within and something you recognise in the nobility of others around you. An enduring faith; a faith that faced the supreme test. and did not fail.
The cross showed us there was no limit to God’s love. And that love never dies.
