First Presbyterian Church
Marianna, Florida
Sunday, March 18, 2007
Sermon by Huw Christopher, Pastor

Scripture Readings: John 19: 16b-30
                                 Hebrews 6:13-20
Sermon Title: “The Cross of Jesus: Our Anchor of Hope”
Sermon Text: Hebrews 6:19-20: We have this hope, a sure and steadfast 
anchor of the soul, a hope that enters the inner shrine behind the curtain 
where Jesus, a forerunner on our behalf, has entered, having become a 
high priest forever according to the order of Melchizedek.

	About this time of the year twenty-one years ago Rachel and I were meeting 
with the Pulpit Nominating Committee at the Little Chapel on the Boardwalk at 
Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina The church itself is located one block from the 
Atlantic Ocean and since 1959 the church has owned a manse on Banks Channel 
which is on the other end of the block from the church.  As we met with that 
committee in that location surrounded by water we shared with them the fact that 
neither of us nor our son, Micol, had any great desire either to be in or on the 
water.  They said that that was all right with them because that might mean they 
would probably get more work out of me than out of some of the other people who 
had sent them their Personal Information Forms with a note that they felt God 
could really call them to Wrightsville Beach.  
Over the following eighteen years that I served as pastor of that 
congregation my love and that of my family for the water did not increase.  In fact 
as we sat on our front porch at the manse and looked out at the dock attached to the  
front of the house and so saw many people enjoying boating on Banks Channel we 
often said that the whole location and its access to the water was lost on people like 
ourselves.  Our lack of love of the water means that unlike many of our friends at 
Wrightsville Beach, and even many of you here, I have not had the experience of 
dropping an anchor into the water.  My general knowledge, though, of the function 
of the anchor in holding a boat firm and steady means that I can appreciate 
something of what the writer of the letter to the Hebrews is saying in those words 
which we have just heard.  We do not know exactly who wrote this letter so that 
while we know that some of the first disciples were fishermen and would, 
therefore, be very familiar with anchors, we do not know if this was also the case 
with this writer.  Clearly though as he uses this image of the hope that we have in 
God as being a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul he feels that he is using an 
image with which his first readers would be familiar even if, like myself, they had 
never dropped an anchor.  The picture of the anchor cross on the front of our 
bulletin also reminds us, as we will see further on Tuesday at our Lenten luncheon, 
that such a cross shape became one of the first cross symbols of the Christian 
Church.
In speaking of the hope that his first readers, and each of us as Christian men 
and women still have today, as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul he is 
reminding them, and each of us, of the fact that our hope is not based in ourselves, 
in our own thoughts and moods and actions that can vary and change, but in 
promises of God. That hope is sure and steadfast because it depends upon the 
unshakable reliability of God to fulfill the  promises God has made.  The writer 
sees these promises and their fulfillment beginning with God’s promises to 
Abraham and continuing and being seen most significantly in God’s work in Jesus 
Christ.  We will see the continued influence of his thinking on our own 
Presbyterian faith still today in the words of the recent Brief Statement of Faith of 
the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) that we will use today as our Affirmation of 
Faith.
The picture the writer uses of Jesus would have been far more familiar to his 
first readers than it is to us today as he speaks of Jesus as being the high priest who 
has entered the inner shrine behind the curtain.  The immediate picture that would 
have come to the minds of his first readers is that of the Temple in Jerusalem 
where only the High Priest was allowed to enter the Holy of Holies, which 
symbolized the presence of God, and which was separated from the view of all the 
people by a curtain.  As the high priest as the representative of the people went in 
to the Holy of Holies he did so in order to seek God’s forgiveness for himself and 
for all of the people.  Now the writer is saying we have an even greater hope than 
those people had because we know that Jesus who has died for us on the cross to 
assure us that our sins are forgiven has now entered into the very presence of God 
as the clear sign that all that he said and all that he did truly was God’s work and 
will.  As we see him even as he suffered all of the pain and agony of death on the 
cross showing such love and compassion for his mother, so we can be assured that 
he still has such love and compassion for each one of us.  It is because Jesus has 
entered into the presence of God that we can know that all that he said and all of 
the promises he has made to us can be trusted.  It is in this assurance that we can 
seize the hope that he wants to give us as a sure and steadfast anchor for our souls 
in the midst of whatever storms or dangers life may throw at us.  It is as we claim 
that hope that we can sing with Maltbie Davenport Babcock, “This is my Father’s 
world: Oh, let me ne’er forget that though the wrong seems oft so strong, God is 
the Ruler yet.  This is my Father’s world:  The battle is not done.  Jesus who died 
shall be satisfied and earth and heaven be one.”
	In our newsletter this past week we listed the top twelve hymns about the 
cross or the death of Jesus chosen over the past few weeks by this congregation.  
Last Wednesday night at our covered dish supper we sang part of each one of those 
twelve hymns. Over the six weeks of our Lenten luncheons on Tuesdays we will 
also sing all twelve of these hymns.  That is why we have the top twelve rather 
than the top ten so we can have two to sing each week!  We are also singing most 
of them during one of our Worship Services through this season of Lent.  At our 
covered dish supper on Wednesday, March 28 I will be inviting people to share 
why a particular hymn may be a favorite or any particular story or experience that 
they might associate with it.  One of the hymns in our top twelve is the hymn of 
assurance, “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go.”  It is indeed a most appropriate 
hymn to sing as we think about the hope that we have as Christian men and women 
as a sure and steadfast anchor for our souls.  I will be interested to hear any stories 
people may have as to why this hymn has made it to the top twelve list.  For me 
there is no way in which I can ever sing that hymn without my mind going back to 
Friday, October 21, 1966. I was a second year student at Cardiff University and the 
South Wales Baptist College in Cardiff in South Wales.  As we gathered for lunch 
that day so we all became more and more aware of the tragedy that had occurred 
just about twenty miles away that morning in the town of Aberfan.  At 9:15 that 
morning after a period of rain the waste tip containing unwanted rock from the 
local coal mine had slid down the mountain side. As it did, it destroyed twenty 
houses and a farm before going on to demolish virtually all of Pantglas Junior 
School.  In total 144 people were killed.  This total included five teachers and 116 
children from the school, most of them between the ages of seven and ten.  As we 
gathered for lunch at the South Wales Baptist College that day we did not know the 
exact extent of the fatalities, but that day became the only occasion in the six years 
that I was a student there that I remember our principal, the Rev. Dr. J. Ithel Jones, 
inviting any of the student body who wished to do so to join him in the College 
Chapel immediately after lunch for a prayer service.  At that service he invited us 
to sing this hymn, “O love that wilt not let me go.”  Before we sang it though he 
shared something of the life of George Matheson, the blind minister from Scotland 
who had written the hymn.  Certainly I do not claim to remember back over forty 
years to exactly what Ithel Jones said on that occasion.  Clearly, though, his 
message was that this hymn was not written at a time of pleasure and joy but rather 
in the midst of a time of distress and of loss.  Over the years I have come to learn 
what George Matheson himself  said of this hymn when he wrote,  “My hymn was 
composed in the manse of Innellan on the evening of the 6th of June, 1882. I was 
at that time alone. It was the day of my sister’s marriage, and the rest of the family 
were staying overnight in Glasgow. Something happened to me, which was known 
only to myself, and which caused me the most severe mental suffering. The hymn 
was the fruit of that suffering. It was the quickest bit of work I ever did in my life. I 
had the impression rather of having it dictated to me by some inward voice than of 
working it out myself. I am quite sure that the whole work was completed in five 
minutes, and equally sure it never received at my hands any retouching or 
correction. I have no natural gift of rhythm. All the other verses I have ever written 
are manufactured articles; this came like a dayspring from on high. I have never 
been able to gain once more the same fervor in verse.”  (Singing with 
Understanding by Kenneth W, Osbeck, Kregel Publications, 1979, page 224)
Although he makes no reference to it himself many have suggested that his 
mental stress at the wedding of his sister was caused by the reminder of his own 
great disappointment that he himself had known when as a University student he 
become engaged to a fellow student. When he told her of his impending blindness 
she broke the engagement, returned his ring, and exclaimed, “I do not want to be 
the wife of a blind man.” (Great Hymn Stories, Ambassador, 1998, page 105)  His 
distress may also have been intensified because the sister who was getting married 
had been his housekeeper and close companion. She herself had learned Greek, 
Latin, and Hebrew in order to aid him in his theological studies. She had been his 
faithful co-worker and helper throughout his life, assisting in his calling and other 
pastoral duties. (The Nation’s Favorite Hymns by Andrew Barr, Lion Book, 2002, 
page 67)
Certainly the message of the hymn speaks so eloquently against such a 
background.  In the light of experiencing the rejection of human love and now the 
human love that would have to be shared in a far different way with his sister who 
was getting married he consoled himself in thinking of God’s love which is never 
limited, never conditional, never withdrawn, and never uncertain. This is the love 
seen most clearly in the cross, when even a death points us to a love that is stronger 
than death. It is this love that will not let us go that also brings light and joy to our 
lives, even in the midst of whatever dark storms we might face.  
The circumstances in which we sang that hymn of George Matheson on Friday, 
October 21, 1966 were very different from those in which he first wrote it.  Yet his 
sharing of his own personal experience of distress and the comfort and assurance 
he found in the midst of it has meant that his hymn has brought comfort and 
assurance and hope to so many in many very different circumstances of distress 
and tragedy and anxiety in their lives.  The hope, the comfort and the assurance has 
come only as people have been able to look, like George Matheson, even in the 
midst of their sense of loss to that love which they can never lose. This is the love 
of God seen in the faithful promises of God, even though we may not deserve it.  
This is the hope and the sure and steadfast anchor for our souls in all the changing 
circumstances of our lives.  Let us claim the assurance of that love and that hope 
for our own lives once again as we first of all affirm our faith using the words of 
affirmation printed in the bulletin and then as we sing the hymn of George 
Matheson.  Let us stand and affirm our faith together …

Affirmation of Faith   
                 from the Brief Statement of Faith of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)

We trust in God, whom Jesus called Abba, Father.
In sovereign love God created the world good and makes everyone equally in 
God's image male and female, of every race and people, to live as one 
community.
But we rebel against God; we hide from our Creator. Ignoring God's 
commandments, we violate the image of God in others and ourselves, accept 
lies as truth, exploit neighbor and nature, and threaten death to the planet 
entrusted to our care. We deserve God's condemnation.
Yet God acts with justice and mercy to redeem creation. In everlasting love, 
the God of Abraham and Sarah chose a covenant people to bless all families of 
the earth.  Hearing their cry, God delivered the children of Israel from the 
house of bondage. Loving us still, God makes us heirs with Christ of the 
covenant.
Like a mother who will not forsake her nursing child, like a father who runs 
to welcome the prodigal home. God is faithful still.
With believers in every time and place, we rejoice that nothing in life or in 
death can separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord.
  
Hymn of Assurance in God’s Love No. 384                                        St. Margaret                                                              
                                                           “O Love That Wilt Not Let Me Go”




 
 
 
 


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