By Rev Nicholas Sykes

In the Letter to the Hebrews chap 7 v. 26 we read:

“For it was indeed fitting that we should have such a high priest, holy, innocent, unstained, separated from sinners, and exalted above the heavens.” But some will question whether such a thing is “indeed fitting”. For thinking of Jesus as a High Priest in the way the Letter to the Hebrews does, is inconsistent with the idea that the human spirit is without reservation free and indomitable. We are heirs to a culture that for hundreds of years has spoken to our fathers and to us, voicing how our unaided humanity has the power to throw off all the shackles that restrain it. The way to this power is to become what we want to be, it is suggested to us: make progress in that and you will eventually become immortal.

Every so often however, there is something that looms up in the public eye by way of a corrective to this cultural mindset. When this happens I get reminded of the Challenger shuttle disaster of the 1990s in its impact, even if the occasion might mercifully lack the tragedy of that event. Some readers will remember the last commercial transatlantic flight of the Concorde supersonic airliner about six years ago, which we saw on television taking off from JFK airport. This great technological marvel, this most beautiful of aircraft that flew faster than a bullet, and that we in Grand Cayman had once flocked down to the airport to marvel at, that had been hoped to pave the way for a new era of supersonic travel around the world, had proved from its beginning to be an economic nightmare, and instead of 300 aircraft being built, as the project had hoped, only 20 actually were. In the end, therefore, what had seemed to be at the beginning a wonderful project became a brilliant cul-de-sac, perhaps like putting men on the moon for the purpose of eventual inhabitation - though that is an idea that has never died - a huge achievement in technical terms, but without any practical prospects of declaring a future pattern for humanity.

Indeed there are many examples of human developments of all sorts that turn out not to be practically futuristic, contrary to initial assumptions. One example could be the pansexuality lifestyles of the modern human relationships, including unlimited artificial insemination and the prospect of human cloning, that differ radically from age-old family patterns. The nuts and bolts consequences, so to speak, of these lifestyles seem though, to make them in practice unsustainable, and impossible for any society to support for long. Like the Concorde project collapsing under the weight of economic considerations, human pansexuality too, sooner or later will have to be limited by the weight of its own consequences. Yet the general outlook of human illimitability or boundlessness, flying in the face of what St. Paul calls the last enemy of death, is often accepted without being recognised for what it is.

It is not the indomitable, Promethean-like human spirit or intellect that will save us. It is the intercession of the ever-living High Priest, the Risen Jesus, that will for all time save those who come near to God through Him. That’s an opposition of attitudes that we need to be aware of, if we are to enable the mind of Christ to grow in us and avoid being misled and consumed by a most popular voice of our time, hardly less active in the Church herself than in the wider world. One difference is that in the one attitude God takes the initiative, and in the other, humans take the initiative. What do we do if we believe humans take the initiative rather than being led? What happens to us is that we do not wait sufficiently before firing off in wrong or unhelpful directions. We are not reflective enough; we become like unguided missiles, and our intentions are frustrated rather than effected. Now if we take the Gospel view that God takes the initiative, it doesn’t mean that we become “do nothing” people, for indeed the Gospel proclamation is that God already has taken the initiative in our Lord Jesus Christ, who in His incarnation and redemptive work provides for us at all times a model which we need faithfully to follow. So if we believe as we should that God takes the initiative, then we at once have a source of guidance for our own action. If we are faithful to that guidance, and indeed part of being faithful is to increase in the knowledge of God and His obedience, then our action will be fruitful. And that does not mean that we will get every action right; nevertheless the Lord will use even our unsteady steps on His way to effect His purpose. Now, which would we rather have, the actions of unguided human initiative, or fruitful human action modelled upon the divine initiative? Surely the answer is clear. It’s well worth being reflective and having the discipline, difficult as it is sometimes, of conforming one’s own action to the divine initiative.

Jesus in Mark chap 10 verses 46-52 didn’t follow His own followers and self-appointed protectors who tried to silence the blind man crying out for help. Rather, He was led or guided to stop the procession, attend to the crying blind man and heal him. Better too that we be crying out to Him as blind, yet persistent in our faith in Him, than resisting Him by our own sightedness, initiatives, self-certainties and agendas!

For commentary, information and devotional material see www.churchofenglandcayman.com and www.anglicansatprayer.org