When I wanted a fizzy drink as a child, it was either white lemonade or brown lemonade, eggs were scrambled, boiled or fried, sandwiches were salad or meat and potatoes were boiled in their skins or mashed. Television was BBC or ITV, football was Match of the Day or The Big Match, hymns were Songs of Victory or The Church Hymnal and favourite group was either Beatles or Rolling Stones. Ice cream was vanilla or ripple, bicycles were boys' or girls', bread was plain or pan and baked beans were Heinz or HP. In some cases there was no choice at all. Friday was CE or stay in the house, which generally wasn't an option. Helping to move cattle was obligatory as was washing or drying the dishes. Tea and dinner was what was set before you and evening viewing tended to be decided by the oldest member of the family, which wasn't me. So how do we survive today. Even simple things like listening to music, provides a variety of ways and players from the old vinyl record player, through cassette recorders, CD players and now MP3 gadgets and ipods. How wonderful that you can now put your whole music collection in your pocket and everybody on the bus can be listening to a different song. And if you want a packet of crisps, no longer is it a choice between Tayto cheese and onion and Smokey Bacon. Now you can have so many flavours and so many different ways of preparing the crisps that it is well nigh impossible to choose which variety to have. Why, the other day, son arrived home with some parsnip crisps that were just divine to taste. Of course I sympathise with those parents who are faced with buying the latest football skip for their eager sons. Once you realise the cost of the jersey alone, then it's even more difficult to decide whether to buy the home kit, the away kit, the third choice strip, the goalie kit or the goalie change kit. Or maybe a mix of all of them. And then there's the name and number that goes on the back and with most teams having a squad of over twenty players, how hard to choose one to grace your shoulders and then discover that he is sold a month into the season. Of course television is not much different and now there are so many channels, we have become a nation of remote control button pushers, unable to settle to find anything and when dinner comes around, sometimes you would need a menu on the table to cater for all the different tastes present. And when the kids aren't playing the Xbox, Wii or Playstation, they may be wading through a hundred children's channels or watching one of the many music channels.
Back in the days of one brand of tomato ketchup, Top Cat and Ready, Steady, Go, we learnt a little chorus at CE and Sunday school. The lyrics went something like this. 'Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world, red and yellow, black and white, all are precious in His sight, Jesus loves the little children of the world.' Most social commentators today might consider it to be politically incorrect, but I think the whole point of the colours used was to show the great variety of different types of people in the world, yet all were loved exactly the same by Jesus. And while we have such a vast array of personalities, languages and cultures across the globe, we have one Lord who desires nothing more than finding lost sheep and bringing them into the fold.
In Revelation 5v9, John writes of Jesus, 'You are worthy to take the scroll and to open its seals, because you were slain, and with your blood you purchased men for God from every tribe and language and people and nation.'
Tonight has not been easy. We say goodbye to our youngest son, still only twenty but with a faith of many twice his age, as he prepares to go to some of those children on the other side of the world and tell them about his heavenly Father for the next year. He will discover during his eXtreme walk, that there is no barrier of language, culture or continent to the love of God. The human pain and emotion is so difficult but in giving your children to God for His service, we can expect the road to be hard. So on this extremely strange and difficult evening, as I ponder on the variety of experiences he will face and the depth of faith he will discover, I find no greater comfort than in the words of our own Saviour who in sending His workers out into the fields, gave them this encouragement, 'All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth. Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost: Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you: and, lo, I am with you always, even unto the end of the world. Amen'
