In Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre in Jerusalem, under the floor in one of the rooms, visible through glass panels, is a pile of leather shoes, just a few of the 12 million shoes worn by those entering the gas chambers. There the shoes are now preserved in the dilapidated, worn-out state they were in when they were carefully put down by those who either thought they were going to have a shower or knew they were not. We all wear shoes and have done since the ancient Egyptians and countless civilisations before them, made primitive sandals. Shoes unite us with all humankind, past, present and future because everyone wears shoes if they can and no one can fail to be moved by the sight of the pile of discarded shoes. They are part of and witness to one of the darkest periods of human history. When the camp guards told the gas chamber victims to remove their shoes, they never dreamt that their inhuman task would yield the opposite effect and that those same shoes would end up viewed by millions as a symbol not only of how bad we have been but also of how good we can be. Those shoes lying there, as a mournful testimony to their wearers are also objects of hope. All shoes are objects of hope because they speak to us about journeys made and journeys yet to be taken. Shoes carry us forward; as the song says, they are made for walking. The Holocaust shoes carried their wearers to a miserable end but an end that will never be forgotten and which, in the years that have followed, has made those shoes haunt our consciences. For they say to us, ‘Do not walk this way; do not take the path of hate and horror.’ To those who perpetrate horror and terror today, those Holocaust shoes have a message: even if all that is left after the outrage is a pile of shoes, those shoes were made for walking and humanity will walk on, in spite of everything and because of everything. We are called in Christ to fight the good fight and run, or walk, the race of faith; this gives us hope, as well as warning, for we always look to the future, knowing we will be judged by the future. We also walk in the shoes of our predecessors: those who ran the race, fought the good fight and have received their reward. Whatever path we walk, in whatever shoes, it is hopefully a long walk and it is a walk that has a beginning and an end. No one else can walk it for us; they can lend or buy us shoes and give us a map but in the end we walk the paths ahead of us with all the turns, dead ends, hills and slopes that life puts in our way. The apostle Paul talks of running a race and fighting a good fight. Both are metaphors for the journey, the pilgrimage, the linear progression from the day we were born to the day we die. Most people take an average of around 7,500 steps a day. This means that if they live to 80 years old, they will have taken about 216,262,500 steps in their lifetime. The same average person with the average stride will have walked approximately 110,000 miles, which is the equivalent of walking more than five times around the earth’s equator or almost half way to the moon. We walk almost all those miles in shoes and apparently the average person owns 20 pairs of shoes at any one time. Yet we are born with bare feet and we die with bare feet. Shoes are only for the journey. Between the font and the grave, we wear shoes to carry us on our pilgrimage race, knowing that at the end we shall bare both our soles and our souls before our Lord, the righteous judge. Lent is a time to remember this inevitable finishing line and gives us an annual opportunity to walk the course. Each lent is a lifetime in miniature. We begin by recognising our frailty and our sinful nature, which we proceed to regret and repent of. Then, as we journey through the 40 days and nights, we resolve to repair our lives with the help of God, so that we may be renewed and at the end reach the goal of resurrection life. The journey through lent is a spiritual walk-through of the greater life we have, which itself carries us forward in hope to the eternal resurrection life we are promised in Jesus Christ. Next time you select a pair of shoes to wear, think how far they will travel and why.
The Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth. (John 1: 14) Wednesday 14th February this year marks not only Valentine’s Day, but also Ash Wednesday, two events that are not naturally connected or associated with each other, except this year when they share a date. Ash Wednesday marks the beginning of Lent, a period of 40 days that is traditionally a time of self-denial, repentance and spiritual discipline as we prepare to greet the Risen Christ on Easter Morning. Valentine’s Day is thought to have started around 500 AD drawing on stories of a priest named Valentine, who was imprisoned by the Emperor Claudius for his faith, but sent a love letter to the jailer’s daughter just before his death. For his work with persecuted Christians he was subsequently made a saint and two hundred years later the tradition of sending cards to a loved one on St Valentine’s Day began. Five hundred years earlier, God sent a love letter to the world in the form of His Son, Jesus, ‘the Word made flesh’, who lived among us. The Bible is full of the language of love, hope and the fulfilment of promises. We learn of a God who invites us to return to Him again and again, even when we have been unfaithful and turned away from His loving kindness. God always has his arms open wide, ready to welcome us into His embrace, arms that opened wide on the cross as His Son Jesus Christ was crucified for all that separated humanity from God. Valentine, as a Christian festival, captures something of the essence of God’s love, and Ash Wednesday is a call to return to our God who is abounding in love. Not usually celebrated or recognised together, but the words of Christina Rossetti’s poem penned on 14 February 1883 gives an expression of how death and love are entwined together: A world of change & loss, a world of death, Of heart & eyes that fail, of labouring breath, Of pains to bear & painful deeds to do:— Nevertheless a world of life to come And love; where you’re at home, while in our home Your Valentine rejoices having you. On Ash Wednesday, we gather in Church to be signed with a cross, using ashes from burning last year’s palm crosses, with the words ‘Remember that you are dust, and to dust you shall return.’ Words that are also echoed in a funeral service, ‘ashes to ashes, dust to dust’. It’s a reminder that, in our humanity, as we stand before God, each one of us is equal in His eyes. Our worldly lives are limited, but Christ is our hope of life and love that far exceeds that which humans can bestow on one another, a life that is eternal, under the gaze of a God who personified love in the person of Jesus. God loves us unconditionally and waits patiently for His love letter to us to be reciprocated, asking of us simply that we open our hearts to Him, so that he can welcome us home into His heart. For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. (John 3: 16) Revd Alison, Rector
