Vision

A couple of weeks back, Russia planted a flag under the North Pole to symbolise the Kremlin's claim to the Arctic. In an unprecedented mission, a veteran Arctic explorer went down 14,000 feet in a kind of submarine and dropped a Russian titanium pole onto the seabed. Somebody said, ‘They can have it; it is after all just one big chunk of ice.’

But of course it’s not actually just one big chunk of ice at all – what the Russians are interested in, and other countries will become interested in fairly soon, is the likelihood of finding a huge amount of oil under the ice. As oil supplies run down through the world this is an area so far untapped, with huge potential for oil, and with it, the profit and the power that will inevitably follow.

This mission is all about vision – planning something not for today or even tomorrow, but for sometime in the future… This evening both of our readings (Rev.21:1-5a and Mark 8:31-34) have observations to make about vision. In the reading from the Book of Revelation we have the great heavenly vision – a vision of a place with no tears, death, mourning or crying and no pain.

You can almost sense the glorious peace of a kingdom truly ruled by God. But this kingdom seems a long way away when we hear the gospel reading where Jesus is telling his disciples about the suffering that he is going to face, and ultimately his death. Peter couldn’t see it – this wasn’t in his vision for the future ! We’re told that he even rebuked Jesus, who reacted angrily with his words, ‘Get behind me Satan ! For you are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.’

Jesus is asking his disciples to capture a vision for the future – and it is that vision that John writes about in the Book of Revelation – a vision of a world where God is completely in control, a vision where people fall down and worship him, obey him and trust him.

And today I believe God is calling us all to have a vision for the future, and also of how the world can look today. When George Carey was the Archbishop of Canterbury he talked about a lack of vision as an ecclesiastical terminal illness, and a lack of vision can genuinely be that serious.

And so we need a vision for the future, and a vision of what is possible here and now. On the point of a vision for the future, someone once said a woman worries about the future until she gets a husband. A man doesn’t worry about the future, until he gets a wife !!

Anyway what is the vision that we need to capture. Well firstly it must be a vision of glorifying God in all that we do. As his people we inevitably get many things wrong, but that never reduces our need to try and do right ! Our behaviour, our mannerisms, our faith, our lack of unity in Churches, our attitudes, and so on, all reflect on God.

The vision that we need to capture is the vision of trusting God to help us make some better decisions. And that is really a second vision altogether. Having the vision to see our faith in God rewarded with a brighter future for ourselves and for people around us is a vision that we all need.

And that vision must genuinely reflect that belief that God will make things better around us. Sometimes I think we are all conditioned to look at the world without too much hope. What hope is there of stopping wars, of ending poverty or injustice. What hope is there of stopping crime.

At lunchtime today there was an article on the news about some of the violence against young people in London that has occurred since the start of this year. The reporter talked to a couple of 15 year old black children – they were good children, who had never been in trouble with the law, but they were at a crucial age, because they were the sort of people that are not fitting into society very well, or society is not allowing to fit in. It is around this age that a lot of their friends are turning to crime, and one of the things that is often missing from their lives is hope.

They can’t see a future, or at least not a good future. It may sound simplistic to say that Jesus can offer them that future, but the evidence is that he can – literally millions of lives of people without hope have been turned around through the centuries by Jesus.

As his people today, we must have the vision to tell people that, and to actually believe and see that it can happen. Somebody once said that a pile of rocks ceases to become a pile of rocks when somebody contemplates it with a cathedral in mind. However bleak things sometime look we must have a vision of a brighter future, and we must reflect out that vision to others.

And the third vision is the reflection of our belief that lives all around us can be changed, and that more people can come to know the love of Jesus for themselves… Apparently the man who was President of Coca-Cola between 1922 and 1955 had a vision that no one on the face of this earth should die without having tasted coca cola. They may not be quite there, but it’s been an incredibly effective vision so far.

Another vision involving coca cola tells us about the accidental discovery of the drink when a man called Asa Chandler mixed together tonic syrup and carbonated water by mistake. After tasting he decided to sell it in his shop to locals. One of the people who came to taste it was a businessman called B N Thomas. He felt there might be a future in bottling the drink for wider sale, but Chandler thought it was a silly idea.

So Chandler sold Thomas the right to make the drink for just one dollar. He gave away a multi million dollar industry because he had no vision – how much of what God has for us to do fails just because we lack vision ?

We must capture and reveal to others the vision of a world where people know Jesus, and follow his will and his commands, and feel the peace that he brings. A vision of a better world for everyone to live in and share.

William Booth, the founder of the Salvation Army, spoke his last public words at the Royal Albert Hall, and he said,

‘While women weep now, as they do, I’ll fight

While children go hungry, as they do now, I’ll fight

When men go to prison, in and out, I’ll fight

While there is a drunkard left, I’ll fight

While there is a poor girl left on the streets, I’ll fight

While there remains one dark soul without the light of God, I’ll fight.

I’ll fight – I’ll fight to the very end.’

May that be a vision that we can all capture. AMEN