Isaiah 10.20

JESUS MANIA

(Preached November 1995)

"On the day of the Lord the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean upon him that smote them, but will lean upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel in truth". Isaiah 10.20.

Whether or not the song "Free as a Bird" reaches the number one spot in the musical charts by Christmas remains to be seen.

It certainly had a spectacular launch. In the early hours of Monday morning it was whisked away from the vaults of Abbey Road studios in West London, to be premiered by Radio 1 at 4.00am.

For those of you who do not know what I am talking.about perhaps I should explain that "Free as a Bird" is the first new recording of the Beatles for 25 years. It was written by John Lennon and recorded on a demo tape in 1977, three years before he was killed by a fan outside his apartment in New York. The song has been completed by the group's survivors, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr with the permission of Lennon’s widow, Yoko Ono.

The launch of this record is part of a whole resurrection package of the Beatles music currently on offer. It includes a 60 track anthology and a six-part series on T.V., starting tonight.

I suppose my own interest in the Beatles goes back to the days of my first curacy in Liverpool. I arrived there two years after the launch of their first record in 1963. The whole city was alive with the new musical sound known as "The Merseybeat". The Cavern, the nightclub where they regularly performed, was a shrine to their music. Other places of pilgrimage included Penny Lane and Strawberry Fields, both immortalised in their songs.

It seemed at the time as if everyone was caught up in the phenomenon known as "Beatle Mania". So popular were they at the time that John Lennon claimed that the Beatles were more popular than Jesus Christ among the young people. Some thought this was blasphemous.

But will "Free as a Bird" go to the top of the charts by Christmas? After all, a new generation of music lovers now dominates the record market. My own generation is now middle-aged and our tastes in music may have changed. Nevertheless, I am sure there are former Beatle followers who will want to add this new record to their collection of Beatle music.

Today, the words of John Lennon concerning the Beatles’ popularity have a hollow ring. In the swinging sixties they may well have been more popular than Jesus Christ among young people, but I doubt whether they are so popular nowadays, some thirty years on. And what of their future popularity, say in a 530 years’ time or even 130 years’ time? I suspect they may be completely forgotten by then.

As regards Jesus Christ, I am confident he will not be forgotten. After all, in spite of all the attempts in history to stamp out Christianity it still continues and I see no reason why Jesus should not continue to attract followers in the future.

I am not saying that the numbers will necessarily be many. Nevertheless I am convinced that there will continue to be a remnant who will claim to be followers of Jesus Christ.

I know that some of you find my frequent references to history a bit of a bore. However, I make no apology because unless you know from where you have come, you cannot appreciate the present and nor have any idea where you are going in the future.

You see, my friends, Christianity is not just a living faith of today, but also historic faith of yesterday. It is this which gives me confidence and hope for the future.

Take for instance our Old Testament reading for today. It concerned the prophet Isaiah who lived in the eighth century before Christ. Unlike the other prophets of his time, he was brought up in a city environment where he mixed freely with the courtiers and aristocrats of his day.

After the political and economic stability of the reign of King Uzziah, Israel faced an uncertain future. The Assyrian Empire was anxious to expand its boundaries in order to be able to control the international trading routes which crossed through the Fertile Crescent occupied by Israel.

Many of the political leaders of the time sought to place their faith in a political alliance with Syria as a means of security for the future. Isaiah counselled against such an alliance. He encouraged the people to put their faith in God for protection and not in a political alliance.

By and large his words went unheeded. Nevertheless, he never gave up hope. Isaiah clearly foresaw that:

"On the day of the Lord the remnant of Israel and the survivors of the house of Jacob will no more lean upon him that smote them, but will lean upon the Lord, the Holy One of Israel, in truth".

Whilst he recognised that it was unlikely that the majority of the people would turn and put their trust in God, he was convinced that there would nevertheless be a remnant who would remain faithful to the God who had rescued them from slavery and led them through the wilderness into the promised land.

And there was.

And it was to this small nucleus of believers, some 750 years later, that God revealed himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

I would suggest that if you hold up to the light all the pages of both the Old and New Testaments, and the pages of subsequent Christian history, as one might hold a bank note up to the light, you will see the watermark of God's action running throughout, linking together almost 4,000 years of history. A history of God's people which starts with Abraham and finishes with us today. It is a watermark which reveals that there has been in each and every generation a faithful few who have formed the nucleus of the people of God, and through whom he has revealed himself to the world. A nucleus of faithful men and women, who have kept the torch of faith burning both in good times and in bad.

I mention this because it is all too easy to become depressed and disheartened as one sees people putting their faith in more popular movements and ideologies of our time, and turning their back upon God. It is easy to become dispirited and disenchanted as one looks around at the handful of people who continue to remain faithful to God and are found in churches Sunday by Sunday. It is easy to lose confidence as the media continually attacks and ridicules the church of God and to wonder whether we should place our faith in an alternative alliance.

At times like this it is important to recall that we are not called upon to be successful but to be faithful. It is among those who have remained faithful, and continue to remain so that God makes himself known, as he did in Jesus 2,000 years ago.

We are the remnant of God's people today, of whom Isaiah speaks. Not unwanted useless leftovers, like a piece of cloth at a remnant sale, but rather the valuable and necessary means by which God continues to be present in the world of today.

As I said earlier, whether or not "Free as a Bird" becomes the number 1 hit this coming Christmas, I do not know.

What I do know, is that Jesus Mania will continue to be around long after Beatle Mania has disappeared into the annals of musical history. Amen.