The Realities Of Heaven Can Break In Right Here, Right Now

No one is too far from coming home to a community of brothers and sisters who gather round the risen Jesus with his fiery hearth and heart of love.

As a scientist, I prize the rationalistic logic of my training, but Lighting the Beacons emerged out of a vision. Not a 3D bolt-upright-in-the-night vision, complete with surround sound. But a series of corner-of-the-eye, yet-another-coincidence promptings over the last decade. A deep longing in my heart coming into focus all around me. A reality which is just a trailer of the full-blown blockbuster movie to come.

It is best introduced with a clip from the film version of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

In the film of the third book, The Return of the King, when the darkness seems greatest, a little hobbit manages to scramble up to light the beacon. Then there’s this amazing cinematography of a chain of beacons being lit all across the hills. And Gandalf breathes a sigh of relief: “Hope is kindled”.

Films are often astonishing windows into the purposes of heaven (and, of course, the purposes of hell). God has placed longings for the eternal into our human hearts. “You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are restless until they rest in you”, to quote the famous 4th century African theologian, Augustine. Our savvy film industry makes billions at the box office each year, because they know how to resonate with our deepest hopes. Films have glimpses, pre-views, of our home in heaven.

When I first noticed this film clip, it was in a student presentation I was marking at St Mellitus College in 2014. Our final year students had to give a talk about where they were going to serve as newly ordained ministers. Ashley was going to Liverpool, to St George’s Church on the hill in Everton, overlooking the city. The local primary school was the Beacon school. My role as tutor was to assess her presentation for theological content and clarity of speech. But as she played the film clip, I found myself quietly overcome by tears. The sort of tears that come from a very deep place inside. This was my hope for Liverpool, my husband’s home city, which had become my beloved home and the birthplace of my boys. This was my hope for the North West of England, my family’s home for generations. This was a picture of my hope for the nation. Beacons of hope lit in the darkest places across our land.

Then I remembered a stray comment from the previous year. I was being interviewed for the post of Director, to set up St Mellitus College North West in Liverpool Cathedral, in partnership with bishops in the North West of England. When it came to “any questions for us?”, I asked the panel: “What would success look like in ten years’ time?” Bishop Graham Tomlin (then Dean of St Mellitus) answered self-effacingly: “When I pray for the college, I see this picture of little lights coming on round the country wherever our students are sent”.

And like scrolling through the showreel on a phone or a time hop on Facebook, this picture of the beacons has come back to me again and again and again.

As the Anglican Bishop of Lancaster in Lancashire, I minister in a county which is home to many beacon sites. I started to speak about this vision in different contexts and different ways. And the language of beacons has travelled like wildfire.

Then my husband dared me to write about it. My son said you’ve got to write it so the rugby dads can read it. Cue: riotous book launch in a late night bar on rugby tour. I did a test drive of it on some school Mums (“This has made me want to read the Bible more!” “Do you mean God loves me like I love my boys?”). Cue civilised book launch with Mums, lunch and prosecco.

What are the beacons?

What do they signal?

Who are the beacon lighters?

My prayer is that Lighting The Beacons would kindle the fire of faith in our hearts, breathe life where faith has been doused by pain or disappointment, inspire courage in giants with faith to see the heavenly transformation of society breaking in for real right now.

Beacons lighting up every sphere of our society: our families, our church life, our education system, our government and legal system, arts and media, sports, economy, science. Beacons are there so that no one is too far from a witness to God’s good news. No one is too far from coming home to a community of brothers and sisters who gather round the risen Jesus with his fiery hearth and heart of love.

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