Going Back

My cousin and I were talking about holidays.   She’d discovered how expensive was a particular option, and was now considering returning again to the same resort that had welcomed her for the last couple of years.  I was adamant that I would not go back anywhere, citing a place in the south of France where I’d been some years ago with my then girl-friend.  Relationships changed; the following year I returned alone. It was an experience that had done nothing but enhance my loneliness.

I’ve since realised that my general claim, based as it was on a single unwise decision, was unfounded, and I recall a number of occasions when I’ve been back to a place that in the past had been the venue of some sadness or disappointment.  At the time I’d referred to these return journeys as ‘laying a ghost’, and the second visit usually brought me pleasure or satisfaction.  So why should I have instinctively responded as I did?  My conclusion is that it was based on fear; but fear of what?  These other instances that I have since recalled have surely proved that such an emotion is unjustified.

In his inaugural address in March 1933, Franklin D Roosevelt said “The only thing we have to fear is ... fear itself.”  Maybe that thought has a wider relevance than we would allow.  There were many people in the Bible who ‘went back’.  Naomi, for example, returned from Moab to Bethlehem (Ruth 1:22); Jonah went back into Nineveh at God’s command (Jonah 3:3); the people of Israel returned to Jerusalem in their thousands after their exile in Babylon (Ezra ch. 2) and, in a way, Jacob’s sons returned to their brother Joseph by travelling to Egypt (Gen. 43:1-15).  In all of these examples the outcome was for good rather than ill: there was no need for fear, even if at the time at least some of them were fearful (Gen. 45:3).

Towards the end of His life on earth, Jesus talked at length to his disciples, explaining just what was going to happen to Him, and how they would be scattered to their own homes.  This clarity must have been daunting to them, but He understood.  “In this world you will have trouble,” He concluded, “But take heart! I have overcome the world.”

While there is much in the world around us that is uncertain – perhaps most crucially those things that Donald Rumsfeld famously described as ‘unknown unknowns’ – this is one ‘known’ that supersedes all others, and in which we can confidently place all our trust.