Coventry Cathedral

I thought I would instantly dislike Coventry Cathedral. Completed in 1962 right next to the ruined remains of its medieval predecessor which had been obliterated by wartime German bombs, little attempt was made to make it resemble traditional ecclesiastical styles. It was to be completed as a truly twentieth-century piece, without harking back to some perceived golden age. Although the usual furnishings and fittings are found, dozens of modern artists were commissioned to construct them afresh. Once, I would have sneered at such a place, but I think I fell in love with it. If I were local, and the Church of England rather more faithful to God’s word, I should have been pleased to come and worship here, to call this magnificent structure my place of worship.

We who are fascinated by the past and enjoy the legacy bequeathed us from former generations are sometimes inclined to snootily disregard the present, or the immediate past. Old men are sometimes dismissive of anything which happens in their later years, never willing to be pleased and satisfied. Although we live in days when plenty of church leaders are revising this, altering that and re-moulding the rest to squeeze it into worldly frames, we take comfort from a God who does not change or alter His views. Yet neither must we consign the Living God to the past nor be bound to previous human experiences. God through Isaiah (43:19) proclaims:

Behold, I will do a new thing; now it shall spring forth; shall ye not know it? I will even make a way in the wilderness, and rivers in the desert.

He is not the God of the dead, but of the living; He is not locked in the past, but occupies the present and the future without contradiction. Coventry Cathedral’s architecture cannot be described as contemporary, for its is now very much dated and ‘of its time’, but may we be open to what the Lord is doing in our own days. We His children must not be stuck in the past either; we have vastly more future with Christ than we have past or present.