Why is there this endless

carrying of the cross?

 Why setback after setback?

Why do we keep on going?

Because Christ Jesus our Lord calls us to follow him towards unutterable realms of glory. The plans of his heart are for our good not disaster. All things work for the good for those who love Christ – even the pain.

That is the message of a long poem G. K. Chesterton wrote called “The Ballad of the White Horse”. There is a white horse carved out of the chalk hillside ages ago in western England, which is where the poem is set.

It is middle of the ninth century, and Saxon England has been invaded by strong Viking armies who ravage the country and subject it. At the lowest point, the king of the western Saxons, Alfred of Wessex is defeated and held prisoner at the Viking headquarters.

One night Alfred is present at a gathering of the Viking king Guthrun with his warrior chieftains. They are deep in drink telling the old tales and singing their saga songs. They are singing of the world of the old Norse gods, where Vikings find their sense of what this life is all about. Each in turn takes up the harp to chant his deepest convictions.

A young warrior hero sings of Balder the beautiful, the ideal God who is murdered too young. He sings of the intensity of beauty and how easily it is crushed, leaving a lingering sense of tragedy. What a mysterious sadness is in all high hopes.

A senior gnarled warrior chief sings of the fading of all beauty and the perversity of life. While we sing and imagine gods like ourselves, there are evil gods behind the gods who wish us no good. All that can make him feel alive is to rage against destruction.

Guthrun the great king, takes up the harp. He is more philosophical. He sings of the calm that comes from accepting how things go round in circles. We sit where our fathers sat, and so it will always be. For him the only exultation is in battle when for a moment a man throw off all restraint and deals out death. Then he is most fully alive. The depression which follows victory is a price worth paying.

The harp falls from Guthrun’s hand and they all fall mute as they ponder the hopeless complexity of life. It is the mellow time when drink and feasting loses their attraction.

Alfred the Christian prisoner takes up the harp and sings a powerful song.

You Vikings are full of bruit strength. You fall upon things and devour them, and you move on to the next. Never satisfied, set on endless adventure, but really you are running away from something. 

You mock us Christian men because we are meek and monkish, and seem easy prey to your armies, but “you are more tired of victory than we are tired of shame. Though you hunt the Christian man like hare on the hillside, the hare has still more heart to run than you have heart to ride”. Though you seem invincible, “we have more lust to lose again than you to win again. Therefore your end is on you, on you and your kings, because it is only Christian men guard even heathen things”.

The Vikings have attacked monasteries and destroyed them seeing no need for prayer and learning. Yet it is those very monks who will preserve for us the stories and history of these Vikings who obliterate the stories of the people they conquer. Christians value knowledge and the expansion of knowledge, not its restriction. There are always more questions to ask for the believer, who desires to know more of the secrets of creation, because he/she thirsts to discover the footprints of the Creator.

Eventually, other Saxons who have ignored Alfred at first, will appreciate his quality and rally to him. He will win victories and eventually arrange a peace settlement with Guthrun who will become Christian and withdraw to the east. Secure in the west, Alfred will enact good laws and encourage learning, and the English nation will begin to take shape. From Alfred's Lent, the English nation was born. For Christians Lent is about reinforcing the hope of Easter.

Only those who believe there is a good plan for the renewal of creation can endure the whippings of adversity right through to the end. As they struggle on, holding hard to the hand of our Saviour, the supreme confidence of God takes root in their hearts. Instead of dying out, hope develops. Christ’s living water of hope carries us through all adversity. Did he not teach that the meek inherit the earth?

Today, we ourselves are not so far from Alfred’s struggle. A host of scientists full of the pride of knowledge, along with some ‘logical’ intellectuals have fallen on Christian culture and tried to suppress all things spiritual. Convinced that they will discover the answers to how things work, they have no answer to the question of where things came from, and are even more mute on where all things are going. Their followers embrace the cold courage of stoicism or, more frequently, fall into the barrenness of enjoying things while you are still alive. Their appeal is already waning as the people they once dazzled begin to huger for meaning. Their “end is on them and their kings”. It is only Christians who guard even heathen things.

When the history and triumphs of today's scientific revolution is written, it will be written by Christians, because it can never be seen in a wholesome way separate from the spiritual realm.

Turning the tide of the pagan culture which is trying to dominate us puts great strain upon believers. Chesterton says of Christian monks that though, they “go clothed in snow and ice”, there burns the “fire of faith within”. And that it is “better to fast for joy than feast for misery”. I hope your lent is a “fast for joy”. It will be, if you see all that you endure as being included in the process of the resurrection of humanity.

We fast and endure so that we can have, like St Paul, the “supreme advantage of knowing Christ Jesus, and the power of his resurrection” (Philippians 3: 8-10), and also because we want to be prepared to “do what I can to make up all that has still to be undergone by Christ for the sake of his body, the Church.” (Colossians 1: 25).  We know that, through his people, Christ is working his resurrection into the whole fabric of creation. It is hidden but inexorable – it is “the reason for your hope” (1 Peter 3:15).

Lent is all about resurrection.