Dear Friends,

We enter All Saints through a courtyard which, thanks to the imagination and initiative of Canon David Hutt, was transformed into a garden.

When we enter the church, we see on the chancel arch, one of the most striking features revealed fully by the recent restoration: the cross flanked by the Alpha and Omega. Those first and last letters of the Greek alphabet appear in this Sunday’s reading from Revelation:

"I am the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and the end."

They are spoken by the one who sits on the throne of heaven in the vision of the new Jerusalem.

At the end of the Bible and speaking of the end of all things, Revelation looks back to the beginning, to Genesis and creation.

In Genesis the sea is the place of conflict between God and chaos. Now tamed, it has become the "sea of glass" – represented by the ornate floor of the sanctuary.

Revelation’s looking to creation shows God’s continued concern with the world he has made. 

God intends the reconciliation and restoration brought about through the cross to flow through a restored humanity to all creation.

As John’s vision of the new creation unfolds, the distinction between heaven and earth falls away. Heaven descends to earth, radically renewing it: all life on earth is restored to God’s purpose for it.

So, our courtyard garden, our little Eden, lovingly tended by those who have inherited Canon Hutt’s gardening gloves, is a theological statement as well as a thing of beauty. It stands against those who see Revelation justifying the ruthless exploitation of the environment because it is all going to be destroyed anyway.

It fits with Butterfield’s theological statement:  building a city church which mirrored the heavenly city, to show the earthly city we inhabit its proper nature and end.

Yours in Christ,

Fr. Alan Moses

Monday 29 April, 7pm – PCC Meeting

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