Good afternoon. The first item of business is time for reflection. Our time for reflection leader today is the Rev Nicky Gumbel, pioneer of Alpha.
Good afternoon.
I cannot claim to be Scottish, but my mother came from Pittenweem. When I was 14, she told me that my father was German and Jewish, and that I was never to speak to him about it. I never did. More recently, I discovered why she said that. I was contacted by a museum in Berlin that was researching my family. It sent me my family tree, and I discovered that my great-grandfather was called Moses and that my great-great-grandfather was Abraham—not the Abraham. I also discovered the concentration camps in which they had died.
Aged 18, as an atheist at the University of Cambridge, I read the entire New Testament. It was as if the person of Jesus, whom I was reading about, emerged from the pages and I encountered him. That changed my life.
I come from a family of lawyers. My father was a barrister and my mother was a barrister. I practised as a barrister—I did law for 10 years. My sister is a King’s counsel. My son and my daughter qualified as barristers, and my grandfathers on both sides were barristers. My uncle was a barrister. If we had had a cat, it would have been a barrister.
As a lawyer, I was fascinated by how much evidence there is for the life, death and resurrection of Jesus. I read that
“God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not die but have eternal life.”
As you know, everyone is looking for three things: love, purpose and to belong. I understood that the son of God loved me and gave himself for me. The Holy Spirit gave me an experience of God’s love. I found purpose in a relationship with God, and I found the most amazing sense of belonging in the church of Jesus Christ. That was in 1974. Since then, I have spent my time trying to pass on the good news about Jesus.
Life is all about relationships. It starts with knowing that you are loved by God. That is the motivation to love God and to love others. That also gave me a passion for justice.
In the New Testament, I saw in Romans 13 that government is from God and in Revelation 13 that government is wicked. Some—such as the one my father’s family experienced—are entirely demonic. I hope, pray and believe that those who serve here will be as close as possible to Romans 13 and will bring freedom, equality and justice for all.
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