I went to the gym yesterday trying to get back to some level of fitness after a few weeks of not running or exercising, although I have sweated a lot in the heat. As I got back to the changing rooms eager to take a cold shower I was suddenly aware of singing, not a usual feature of the changing rooms, and I wondered for a moment whether I had overdone it and had suddenly been transported to Heaven to be greeted by the angelic choir who had turned out especially for my arrival. As I regained my composure and realised I was still firmly on earth I slowly realised that the sounds were coming from the TV screen on the wall.
Usually the TV is tuned into Sky Sports News but today it happened to be on the Sky News channel and they were broadcasting live from the Pope’s visit to Scotland. As the strains of ‘Amazing Grace’ rebounded off the walls of this room filled with sweaty men it felt strange for the sacred to have invaded this secular place and to be honest I felt a little embarrassed by it. As I continued to cool down my embarrassment was tempered by a conversation I overheard. It was between two boys, aged about 9 years old, who were discussing the Pope’s visit to the UK. Suddenly one of the boys asked the other, ‘Do you believe in God?’ The sacred had invaded the secular once again.
I admired the boy’s boldness to ask such a question but knew that if the TV had been tuned into its usual diet of rolling sports news the question may have been ‘Do you support Man Utd?’ and the more crucial, life changing question may never have been asked. I didn’t hear the reply but for that moment I was reminded of the truth that God is invading the secular all the time, in fact, as U2 named their last album, there is no line on the horizon. We tend to separate the sacred and secular but God is all over the place breaking into the most unexpected places at the least likely times in the lives of the most unlikely people.
As I continue to reflect on my time in Hong Kong, the third thing I have learnt is that the extraordinary power of God breaks into the ordinary all the time, that the supernatural overwhelms the natural, that the sacred does invades the secular and not just in changing rooms.
I have had the privilege of seeing the transforming power of the Holy Spirit change the lives of drug addicts. Nothing else could do that, no programme, medication, positive thinking, will power or alternative therapy, it is only the power of the Spirit in the context of a community that can bring lasting change. The scared invades the secular and lives are given a new future.
If that is true for drug addicts it has to be true for me, in fact for everyone whatever it is we are struggling with or facing. When we allow the sacred power to invade and overwhelm our secular lives then there is hope for us all.
When Jesus began His ministry, when the sacred burst into the secular, he quoted from Isaiah 61:1-2 (Luke 4:18-19), ‘The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed me to preach good news to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim freedom to the prisoners and recovery of sight for the blind, to release the oppressed, to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favour.’
The powerful sacred is right in the middle of the mundane secular and, in the power of the Spirit, we will be able see transformation in the most unexpected places and in the most unlikely people. Do you believe in God?
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