nine floors up

'The Reformation' lasted a little bit longer than the 20 minutes I'd thought it would be.

Not because I overstepped the mark in terms of time, but because the teachers had had second thoughts about the length of time involved. Either that or I didn't hear them correctly first time.

A good job I checked in advance! I was along at the school a good three times before finally pitching up at the P5 class in the afternoon. Two assemblies and one short session with the guy with whom I lead the SU group.

So I'd had ample chance to touch base with the teachers and do my double-checking. They said to give it more like an hour.

Which I did. And what with the questions the children all had, I was there for an hour and a half.

But we covered the ground, and they all had their sheets I'd prepared for the class, and the questions suggested they'd got at least some sort of grasp of the thing.

They wanted to know what all the fuss was about. What were they all 'protesting' about? I had a whole side (of the leaflet I gave them) on that.

I gave them the five so-called 'solas' of the Reformation - sola Scriptura (Scripture alone), sola fide (by faith alone), sola gratia (by grace alone), solo Christo (by Christ alone), soli Deo gloria (for the glory of God alone).

It afforded the chance to be giving them all a quick run through of the gospel. Five little bullet points that gives them the heart of it all.

Having spoken so much in the afternoon about all these Reformers were on about, and how they ended up as 'protest-ants', not exactly flavour of the month within the Roman Catholic church, I had to smile when 9 floors up in a block flats in Muirhouse later on I was asked -

Faither, are you Catholic?

Had I not been those 9 floors up, it would have brought me down to earth all right!

I'm not all that often down those parts, but the question then opened the way to be speaking about the Lord.

Strange how still in the minds of folk, these centuries on, there's a need to define a person like me as either Catholic or Protestant. I sometimes think it's a convenient way to be hiding away from Christ. So I by-passed the question and started explaining about Jesus.

And before very long we were joining together in prayer.

I'd had a call when I got back from the school, and the lady had asked for some help. Groceries. She was newly here from Glasgow, no job, no cash, no prospect of her benefit coming through for a good week yet. That sort of thing. A poor soul. She couldn't even spell the name of the block of flats.

So I'd gone and got the groceries and hauled them up the nine long sets of stairs and rang the bell. The lady invited me in. Well, in truth she seemed not that much more than a girl. A young woman, anyway.

And her man was there as well. Or a man, anyway. 'Hoggy', as he introduced himself. That's my nickname, by the way, he informed me (though I'd figured that out for myself). He wanted to know my name and, as I say, before very long we were right into chat about Jesus.

The woman's younger brother was in hospital. The Western General Hospital. Quite seriously ill. Would I remember him, please, in my prayers. So that's when I said, Well, let me just pray with you now.

And before I could even get started, 'Hoggy' was right off the floor, holding my hand, and the hand of the woman as well, and responding as I prayed as if he'd been in pentecostal prayer meetings all his life.

When I'd finished 'Hoggy' hugged me. Give me a lovey! he said, which I took to mean the hug that he had volunteered himself (my parliamo Glasgow is a little rusty).

It wasn't quite the Reformation, but 'Roman Catholic' was certainly encountering 'protestant' - and the need for radical reformation in their lives was all too clear.

The Lord re-forming this couple, in all of the complex disorder their lives are at present reflecting. Nine floors up, in a home where there's illness and sorrow and poverty all around, there's the chance and the need to be preaching the gospel of grace.

Reformation isn't just a lesson in the history of our land.

It's the need of the hour.