God says: When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
Isaiah 43.2
You may wonder why it is my custom to wear a black beret throughout the winter months. Indeed, many people, on seeing me thus attired, have asked, “Where are your onions then?” Don’t let the politically-correct thought police catch you asking me such a question, because they would probably regard it as a form of racism. I however just laugh and wonder when was the last time that you actually saw a genuine Onion Johnnie, with his black beret, his bicycle, and his string of onions around his neck. Probably in about 1957! You are as likely to see a Frenchman on the streets of Paris today wearing a black beret as you are to see a real Onion Johnnie in Maidenhead on your way home.
I am fond of France, the French, their literature, their lifestyle, their food and – dare one say it in a Methodist church – their wine. But I do not wear a black beret for that reason. Apart from the practicality of its seasonal warmth, I wear it in memory and honour of one of my sporting heroes.
Do you have sporting heroes who inspire you? I hope you do. I derive great pleasure from considering people doing things well in sport that I could not even attempt to do. It makes me thank God for real gifts and talents in others and persuades me to make more effort in my life generally than I might otherwise be inclined to do.
In the field of motor sport, in which I have been involved one way or another throughout my adult life, three drivers have given me particular inspiration, way ahead of all the others… and you may not even have heard of them! Top of the list must come the incomparable little man from Mantua, who drove for Alfa Romeo in the 1930s – Tazio Nuvolari. In second place comes the man from Argentina who also drove for Alfa Romeo (amongst others) in the 1950s – Juan Manuel Fangio. In third place comes the man whose black beret was his signature trademark – Sammy Davis.
No! I do not mean Sammy Davis Junior, who sang with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra. I mean the Sammy Davis who was one of the Bentley Boys in the 1920s. I saw him at Brooklands in about 1980. Then he was a frail old man in his nineties, but he was still sporting his black beret, as all the photographs of him from the 1920s show him doing. Sammy shared a 3-litre Bentley with Dudley Benjafield in the 1927 Le Mans race. They were very much the third-string pairing in the works team. As dusk fell on the Saturday evening, Sammy was about to hurl his dark green monster through the very fast, blind S-bend on the circuit known as Maison Blanche, so called because of the house, painted white, around which the road had to twist at that point. From a scattering of earth on the road surface, he had a premonition that danger lay ahead, and so began to apply his brakes. He was right. Four crashed cars had completely blocked the road round the blind corner. Sammy forced his Bentley into a spin so that he could take the unavoidable impact on the side of the car, not head-on. Though the spin slowed him somewhat, the inevitable crash still caused a considerable amount of damage. He just managed to extricate his very bent Bentley from the wreckage and, when the road was cleared, he drove gingerly back to the pits.
Closer inspection revealed a very sorry sight indeed. Sammy effected what repairs he could, but the car was a battered mess, although still just about running. They were a long way down the classification, but Sammy and Dudley drove on through the heavy rain that fell during the night, and then on into the Sunday morning. By late morning, utterly remarkably, because of other cars’ misfortunes, they found themselves in second place, but four laps down. W.O. Bentley ordered them to go faster! The leading car responded to their challenge, but with just one of the twenty-four hours left to run, the French car’s engine cried enough and Sammy’s battered old Bentley swept into the lead, and held it to the chequered flag.
I think of that story every time I visit somebody in hospital who has had a hip or a knee replacement operation. I sometimes tell it to somebody who is about to have heart by-pass surgery. Perhaps age, arthritis, or general immobility is getting somebody down: I tell them that story. I never like to use the very sad observation: “Old age does not come alone.” I prefer to tell people: “We all become classic cars in the end. What matters is that we drive on to the chequered flag, even if the bodywork is rather battered and bits have started to fall off! Drive on to the flag. We have got to be there for the prize-giving.”
Sammy Davis was about forty years old when he won Le Mans in 1927 – in the prime of life, you may say. If you are younger than that and your bodywork is still shiny and neat, you may have wondered whether you are going to get through the race of life without incurring any damage, bumps, scrapes, or component failure. It is unlikely, isn’t it? The prophecy of Isaiah gives a wonderful comfort in God’s promises, but it is sincerely realistic too. God says: When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. Note that it says “When you pass through the waters…”, not IF. “When you walk through fire…”, not IF. Neither drowned nor consumed… but it is unlikely that you will complete the race of life unscathed. The chequered flag will fall, sooner or later. The race of mortal life is not endless. We know that. The question is: Is there a prize-giving after the race is over?
In 1927, the Bentley team held a celebratory dinner at the Savoy Hotel, back in London. They had smuggled the dilapidated winning Bentley into the hotel, and when the toasts were given, a curtain in the dining room was drawn back and there she was, the battered victorious old car in all her glory. They cheered her to the rafters.
God does not remove the waters or the fire from the course of your life. It would be unreasonable of you to expect him to do so, but his Holy Spirit gives you the courage to battle on through to the chequered flag, whatever the state of the track. I have proven that again and again during the course of my life, but many Christians before us have also seen it in the course of their Christian pilgrimage too. Think of John Bunyan, and all the trials that he had to face. The opening lines of his great hymn are absolutely magnificent, and amply illustrate the promise that God has given us through the prophecy of Isaiah…
Who would true valour see,
Let him come hither;
One here will constant be,
Come wind, come weather;
There’s no discouragement
Shall make him once relent
His first avowed intent
To be a pilgrim.
* * * * *
What do you think was in the mind of Jesus when he stepped into the River Jordan to receive baptism at the hands of John the Baptist? Not exactly the lines of Bunyan – Who would true valour see, let him come hither – Bunyan had not written them yet. But Jesus would have known the words of the prophets, and I like to think that our text was somewhere in his mind at that moment: When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you… Did he smile at the irony of the coincidence between the prophecy and what was happening to him in baptism? The fire would come later, of course. Jesus had spent thirty years growing up and becoming the carpenter of Nazareth. What was this moment of baptism going to lead to? It was going to lead to a very short race indeed… just three more years…
But he ploughed on, faithfully, determinedly. Did he know how his journey would end? Did he anticipate how damaged he would be by the journey? He had a fair idea well before Palm Sunday. By Maundy Thursday he had reached the point of no return: When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you. And yet that is what appeared to have happened. The starkness of Saint Mark’s account of Good Friday makes that clear… he seemed to have been overwhelmed, consumed…
If the story of Jesus had ended on Good Friday, then we would all have said that those promises related by Isaiah were just worthless wish-fulfilment, both for Jesus and for us. But his story did not end there. Easter Day was to come. The end of the journey, damaged as he had been, ended not in defeat but in victory.
No – in the course of this earthly life, it is very unlikely that your race will be without incident, difficulty, or trial. But Easter Day means that the promise that God gave you through the words of the prophet Isaiah still stands: When you pass through the waters I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you; when you walk through fire you shall not be burned, and the flame shall not consume you.
Trust that promise. Strive for the victory. Then comes the celebration with all who have made the journey before you. Who would true valour see, let him come hither… God says: When you pass through the waters I will be with you…