Twenty-one of us recently ventured off to Scotland and into the northern region of England. Our plan was not to play golf nor did we desire to be entertained as tourists. Trust me, this was not a vacation or a time to window shop. We were on a 10-day pilgrimage with a common focus on early Celtic Christianity dating back to the fifth and sixth centuries.
This may not catch the attention of many people. However, this was one of our many reasons for placing our minds on a time and a period of Christianity that is often overlooked by church historians. After the horrific fall of Rome in 476 AD the curtain seemed to drop on western civilization and the “Dark Ages” followed signaling a time of instability and a lack of progress in human development. This vulnerability, however, exposed the need for God to enter not as an abstract philosophy but a reality which brought about spiritual transformation in a specific time and geographical place where meaning and purpose thrived.
The light of the Gospel brought hope and the expectation of God at work by improving the lives and standards of a culture formed around the Christian faith. This gift of faith was not simply a new idea but from the time of Pentecost the Holy Spirit was set loose to relate and unite people to God’s will throughout the world in surprising areas such as, Ireland and Scotland. So, our pilgrimage, as an example, brought us to the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne. It was here, the Holy Spirit caught fire and brought throughout the region the light of the Gospel and it could not be extinguished. This was the Word of God in John’s Gospel who brought life with God as the light of all people and “the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it” (John 1: 4-5). As we walked around the grounds of the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne our imagination of this period in church history was not just a thing of the past but rather it opened us to our day and age where darkness is still present.
Our darkness today is a form of shallowness. Sure, we have technology in the palm of our hand that allows us to communicate all around the world with the push of a button. This same technology opens us to information which once was contained in libraries and volumes of books, now is within a nano-second delivered before our eyes. The darkness of our day is revealed by this same eyesight which looks at a screen now prevents us from true insight. The overwhelming amount of information available to us again, tends to impede inner spiritual formation.
Back to our pilgrimage as we stood on the Holy Isle of Lindisfarne, we imagined not only the past but embraced our present time which calls for God to take us deeper as a culture where meaning and purpose can once again be revealed in the Lordship of Jesus, as we pray, “thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).
