Together

In general, a good fire needs the pieces of wood to lie close to one another. Separate them and the fire will go out.

One of the "in" words today is "synergy." Our strength together is greater than the sum of our individual strengths. Our world has long experienced this phenomenon - for both good and ill.

On the bad side, we are aware that gangs can do things together that none of the individuals would contemplate doing alone. We have called it "mass psychology."

The principle applies to the well-intentioned as well. Many worthwhile activities have begun with a lone visionary. But their fulfilment and growth has depended on others catching, sharing and implementing the vision.

John Wesley, the founder of Methodism, said once that Christianity is a social religion and that to turn it into a solitary one is to destroy it.

Of course, our whole life is like that. We aren’t meant to live as hermits. Societies and civilisations can take many shapes, but there is always some level of interdependence that marks them all.

The interdependence of Christians is described by Paul as being like the different parts of a body - the Body of Christ. We need one another. We are incomplete without one another.

Psalm 121 is headed "A song of ascents. Of David." It was of special significance for pilgrims coming to Jerusalem for one of the major feasts. However, it has much wider application than that obvious immediate use. It expresses the centrality of worship and the importance of fellowship.

"I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord’." (v. 1)

I still recall our ascent of Mount Scopus by bus in February 2001. "Close your eyes," our guide told us. "Now open them!" and the sight of the walled city of Jerusalem was before us. It was an amazing, breath-taking sight.

It was Friday and an amplified call to prayer was booming across the valley from several minarets. The golden Dome of the Rock stood out clearly on the Temple Mount.

It was a "window of opportunity" that enabled me to visit Israel – an opportunity that is closed again for the moment. That very view of Jerusalem gave a glimpse into the very contention that has erupted into violence since that time.

"Pray for the peace of Jerusalem: ‘May those who love you be secure. May there be peace within your walls and security within your citadels’." (vv. 6-7).

These words have a new significance for me having seen that place. The Moslem call to prayer is, so I have been told, common to all Islamic cities. Yet here in Jerusalem as Jews were preparing for the Sabbath, it seemed like a call of a different kind. And with the Temple Mount now having become Haram ash-Sharif ("the noble sanctuary"), third most holy Moslem site in the world...

How can there be peace in that place until Jew and Moslem alike accept Jesus as the Prince of Peace?

The centrality of worship and the importance of fellowship... That’s it! We need to be rightly related to God and rightly related to one another. All of that only becomes possible in Jesus Christ who gave his life as the very means of reconciliation - with God and with one another.

The report in the Jerusalem Post of Sunday’s horrific suicide bombing of a bus near Safed in northern Israel included this eye-witness report, "A soldier came out with his face and uniform covered with blood, and two Arabs from the nearby restaurant gave him first aid" (internet edition, 2 August 2002).

Perhaps there is more good-will being expressed than is ever reported in our media. That is certainly our hope and prayer.

Meantime, we need to give ourselves wholeheartedly to the God who didn’t take human rejection for an answer, but kept on seeking us out and, at great cost, came into human history to accept our ultimate rejection and turn it into the means of reconciliation.

"I rejoiced with those who said to me, ‘Let us go to the house of the Lord’."

Prayer: Eternal Lord, you made this world to be a place of harmony, co-operation and good-will. At Christmas time we pause to celebrate "peace and good-will". But Lord, it isn’t working! We hear the news of terror and reprisal in the very land where Jesus lived and died - the land where he prayed, "Forgive them, Father, for they don’t know what they are doing!" We face division and industrial strife in our own land. Help us to return to you - to be reconciled to you so that we can begin to build the peace with one another that Jesus died to make possible. Help us to reach out in love and practical care for one another. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

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