by the midnight of human hopes, has been succeeded by a resplendent dawn. A full-stop had become a comma; a terminus becomes a tunnel; in the very centre of the black wall of death there opens the golden-gate and out of it walks the prince of life.
Consolation can be found in remembering the past and that way was always rocky. In “The harvest of the Holy Spirit” he uses another image from nature:
Time, like a dim haze, softens the rugged features of the landscape, so that even the jagged edges of a rock seen in midsummer seem smoother than they are. We must not let the mists of the centuries blind us to the terrific problems that the first Christian community had to face, how jagged were its rocks. Nor must we forget how the Holy Spirit produced terrific fruits of love in them, enabled them, like pioneers, to surmount the jagged precipice to achievement.
In “Wanted, a perpetual Pentecost” and in “Saints alive” he appeals to the army of the soldiers of Christ: the first martial metaphor unites the faith of judgment with the faith of forgiveness for those who are trying to divorce Christianity from Judaism: “Everyone of them had given himself up to Christ up to the hilt” and “We have the marching orders in the Ten Commandments.” The latter, drawn from animal imagery, describes the swarm of underground Christians trying to gain Rome to their cause: “Christianity’s attempt to gain this citadel must have been like the attempt of mosquitoes to subdue a lion.” In “Terminus Becomes Tunnel” there is a vision of the great and final battle, a reference to Revelation, not unrelated to the hopes of the allied armies of the time:
The Home of the Caesars and the Church of Christ are locked in a death-grapple. The mailed fists of Nero and Domitian are smashing their way through the dreams of the saints. Here you have the second Babylon, mother of all the abominations of the earth, drunk with the blood of the friends of Jesus, laughing in the intoxication of her triumph, shrieking with fiendish laughter to see the poor pathetic body of Christ being crushed and mangled and battered out of existence. That is what the author of Revelation sees over his shoulder as he writes. What will he say? Will he write: “The battle is lost? Our cause is ruined. There is only one thing to do, which is to sue for mercy.” Does he write this? No. He writes: “Hallelujah! Babylon is fallen, is fallen.” And why? At the back of the visible world, behind all his pomp and pride and power, he had seen something which Caesar had never seen, something that spelt the doom of Caesar and of all tyranny; he saw a throne up reared above the earth and, sitting on the right hand of the throne of God, the risen and reigning Christ.
And yet Davies insists that the battle is not won for ever. In “Wanted . . . ” Davies uses a nautical image to show the demise and rebirth of the church. It is depicted as an old ship lying down in the shipyard on the Clydebank in Scotland, a place familiar to Davies who had worked many summers as a purser on the Clyde steamers. Revamped, the vessel sails the seas again. Then the Christian church becomes a flotilla of ships, according to each denomination, to serve, as he is called in “Terminus becomes tunnel,” “Christ the explorer,” who fulfills God’s offerings in his covenant with men by three alliterating words: “power, pardon and peace.”
Life, for Davies, can only be expressed in poetry, as in hymns and vivid images. He says: “Life is a rare poem from a foreign land” in “The Divinity of our Lord.” He uses his eyes as a painter both for description and evocation of living tableaux: such as a vivid portrait of Jesus’s physical appearance or showing Christ in action. In “The living union of Christ and his disciples” we see Jesus ambling along the dark streets and entering the precinct of the Temple Court. Then follows symbolic scenery: “gleaming in the light of the full moon was the great Golden Vine that trailed over the Temple Porch . . .” In “The Harvest of the Spirit” Davies describes the ruby-red love of Christ: “What was this new love? It was a love such as was exhibited by our Lord, a deep, constant, sacrificial love for the sons and daughters of men, love with the blood-red stamp of cross upon it.” The image is contrasted to the simplicity of the followers, by the use of simple phraseology: “The disciples and the apostles knew that God was always like that.”
Finally one has to sense the rhythm of Davies’s prose, at times, not unlike that of the Baptist preachers. In “Why I Believe in the Catholic Church” we hear the quick pace of the conquering church:
More facts also amaze me about the church. It stretches across space; it stretches across time. Its mighty span reaches across the five continents. It embraces the pale-faced Eskimo in his igloo and the swarthy African in his kraal. There is in Christ no East or West; no North nor South.
And in “Victorious faith conquering prejudice” one could almost hear Martin Luther King in the delivery of the force of his convictions:
When my brother for whom Jesus Christ died, suffers insults, and the Jews and the Negroes and Africans are the races that Christians (so-called) have insulted most in the modern world, when my white brethren who are suffering for Christian color-blindness are jailed or have heart-attacks or are kicked out of the ministry, I am insulted; but more, this nation is insulted and supremely God is insulted.
And:
Next time, recall Jesus was a Jew, Paul was a Jew, Peter was a Jew, Einstein was a Jew, Ann Frank was a Jew, and Arthur Miller is a Jew.
lord, i believe, help my unbelief
Immediately, the father of the child cried out and said: “I believe; help my unbelief.”
—Mark 9:24
I wish you could see a famous picture by the Italian master Raphael. It would preach a more memorable sermon on this text than I can. It depicts a great contrast. On one side of the canvas, it shows the mountain of Transfiguration, with our Savior on its summit surrounded by an area of light; on the other side and below on the plain a confused concourse of people, like sheep without shepherd, wrangling and arguing amongst one another; a motley assembly of bystanders of Scribes and Pharisees, disciples and bystanders. In the midst is a man grievously anxious, trying to control his son who is in the midst of a convulsive fit.
Convert the static oil-painting into a moving picture and you see our Savior descending in to the center of the world’s confusion and healing the boy possessed by a demon. But first hear their conversation: the boy’s father and Jesus translated into modern terms:
Jesus seeing the disputants asks: What are you discussing so hotly? What is the point at issue?
The man: It’s like this, sir. I’ve really come to see you about my epileptic son; something is torturing him badly; sometimes he cannot speak; sometimes, he foams at the mouth and seems to snarl just like a wild animal; and sometimes after one of these fits, he’s left limp and lifeless. I brought him first of all to your assistants and asked them to cure him. But they couldn’t.
Jesus to the crowd: You skeptical people! I haven’t much longer to remain in your midst. Will you never learn the lesson of faith? Bring the boy to me.
As they brought him, he was again seized by a fit and dropped to the ground, foaming.
Jesus to the father: Has he been like this for long?
The Father: Ever since he was a youngster. It’s been very dangerous; it made him throw himself into the fire and into the river; just as if he wanted to kill himself. But if you can do anything about it, take pity on us and help us.
Jesus: If you have complete faith in me, anything is possible.
The father immediately cried in reply: Lord I believe; help my unbelief.
With the story as a whole, I am not concerned; I want to direct your thoughts
