Read Acts 6:7-16
When I was growing up in church at home, somehow, we never sang John Mason’s magnificent hymn, ‘how shall I sing that majesty.’ (Singing the Faith 53). The first time I ever heard it was on a recording of a songs of praise service where it was sung by a large congregation to the tune Soll’s Sein. I will be forever grateful for that encounter with a hymn I have chosen many times since, either to that same tune or the equally fitting Coe Fen.
John Mason expands on the difference between the things seen by a mortal and those that are the experience of the angels. He puts into poetry his vision of the expanse of all that is God. It is too much for our minds, but for me the idea of a sun without a sphere or a sea without a shore works.
For the same reason, every time I read the account of Saint Stephen’s martyrdom, I am left wondering at what it must have been like to realise that the embattled man was seeing into the eyes of Jesus and reflecting what he saw in his own face. What is it like to be there, in a crowd, in the presence of reflected glory? Mason wrote, ‘a sound of God comes to my ears but they behold thy face,’ but Stephen did behold it and he reflected it for all to see.
I then think of godly people I have known. The twinkle in the eye, the smile that is real, the genuineness of demeanour. These mirrors may not be as clear as the reflectiveness of Stephen’s face but the give us something to hope for and aspire to.
‘They sing because thou art their sun;
Lord, send a beam on me;
For where heaven is but once begun
There alleluias be.’
A prayer
Lord, ‘ten thousand time then thousand sound thy praise,’ and yet it can be hard to work out who we are, how we are loved and where you are as we reflect ‘but who am I?’ Help me realise that that when I glimpse you it is not imposter syndrome in play, you really have shown me something of yourself, blurring the line between humans and angels. ‘Thy place is everywhere’ and so we worship, adore, thank and praise you. Amen.