Address 18th Feb 07
The No 1 bus from Blackburn goes to Darwen Cemetery. It runs every fifteen minutes and we often see it as we travel into Darwen for a meal at our favourite Indian restaurant.
I have to admit it fascinates me to think of anyone catching a bus and asking for ‘A single to the cemetery, please”.
Darwen is a strange little town nestling at the foot of the moors between Bolton and Blackburn. It only seems to have one main street and that has just been bypassed, so only the cemetery bus can pass to and through.
Around the centre of this little town there are swathes of stone terraced houses. Most are boarded up. They are either awaiting re development or they are waiting for their own No 1 bus to a cemetry.
In my imagination , I sometimes see the bus being full of ghosts going all going to the cemetery after the day’s funerals.
What must these ghosts see as they travel through the town they have lived their lives in?
They will see people that they know - family of course and will they wonder if they have done right by them. Have they made their peace with the people they fell out with over the years?
They will pass the houses and shops where they have lived and worked and they might wonder if they have lived their lives to the full.
Could they have done more? Could they have been kinder? What happened to the people they knew?
How is life going on without them as the bus trundles up the steep hill to the cemetery at the top?
If given the chance what would they say to their family and their friends before the bus arrives at the cemetery and they have to get off.?
What would they like to tell us about the future they can now see?
If they were able to speak and we were able to write down every word they said, it would be known as a testament.
We are used to the word through the Bible - the Old Testament - as it used to be called - Now better known as the Hebrew Bible - and the New Testament - the story of Jesus and his apostles.
In the Book of Genesis, before the great patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob died, they each gave a testament.
The Testament of Abraham is not actually included in the Old Testament - mostly because, I think, it is such a great piece of comic writing. It is included in the Apocryphal Old Testament.
Abraham is coming to the end of his life and the angel comes to collect his spirit - except Abraham doesn’t want to go and you read this wonderful dialogue of excuses and counter arguments that take you through this testament.
When Jacob died, part of his testament is included in the final chapter of Genesis.
He gathers his sons around him. He speaks to each of them gives a rather too frank assessment of their qualities - their strengths and their weaknesses and what will become of them,
Rueben is like water, Dan shall be a judge, Simeon and Levi will always be always be violent ‘ May I never come to their Council’ he says.
Judah shall inherit - even though the is the fourth son. Judah will be the ruler and so will his tribe be rulersd for ever more. He is the strong lion, there will always be prosperity etc.under his rule “His eyes are darker than wine and his teeth whiter than milk”.
And so Jacob goes through his list, son by son, finishing with the youngest Benjamin, always the trouble maker - always the unpredictable rebel.- “Benjamin is a ravenous wolf - in the morning devouring the prey and at evening dividing the spoil”
Funny really because Benjamin was a favourite the last son born to Rachel the wife Jacob truly loved. She died giving birth to him.
The greatest praise is for Joseph. He really is the great one. A perfect person ‘ a fruitful bough by the spring, his branches run over the wall’ says Jacob.
Joseph was married to an Egyptian lady called Asenath - and she was the daughter of an Egyptian priest who served at the temple of the sun god, Re, in Heliopolis.
The story of the meeting and their marriage is also told in the Apocraphyl Old Testament - it is all about his religious purity, his spiritual purity; her incredible beauty and her conversion to his faith -and in the final moments as they swear to keep the faith of their God they are surrounded by a swarm of heavenly pure white bees.
What the significance of bees is, I don’t really know but Napoleon adopted the bee as the symbol of his empire. If you ever go into Manchester Town Hall, look at the carpets and symbols around the building - the golden bee
These stories from the Old Testament can be read simply as a history of what happened - or they can be read differently - as the myths of the people - epic poems that united a culture - and also myths that taught spiritual lessons.
The sons of Jacob all have different characteristics - and it could be said they are the same characteristics that can be found in anyone. There are times when people feel violent, there are times when people feel as weak as water and there are times when they feel strong as a lion and their teeth are the colour of milk and their eyes the colour of wine.
We read the story and recognise these characteristics and we recognise the same strengths and weaknesses in other people.
Of his sons Jacon passes over Simeon and Levi because of they massacred the city of Shechem; but such is life - even today. People’s misdeeds catch up with them and they find themselves bypassed.
But for Joseph there was never a person before or since as perfect as he - yet he was given no territory by his father - his greatness lay in his holiness.
Perhaps in the trials of life people should be trying to recognise all those weakness and faults in their own lives and tryto reach that state of spiritual purity that was Joseph.
It always fascinated me that the Book of Genesis ends with Joseph and all the brothers in Egypt.
Joseph is never the leader of Israel but he rules over them all.
Genesis should end on a triumph but it doesn’t. Somehow the myth and the story continue to live even today.
Joseph had two sons. ‘Who are these two?’ asked Jacob as he lay on his death bed.
‘These are Manessah and Ephraim’. ‘I want to bless them and adopt them as my own sons’, said Jacob.
They all knelt before Jacob whose right hand would be laid on Manessah as the first born - but Jacob crossed his hands over and blessed the younger son instead. He said that the younger brother Ephraim would be the greater of the two and his offspring would become a multitude of nations.
So the twelve soons of Jacob became thirteen
Jacob died and eventually Joseph died and through the story of the Exodus these thirteen children of Jacob and their tribes returned to Canaan.
Manessah’s tribe settled either side of the River Jordan. Manessah means ‘to forget’.
Ephraim’s tribe settled in what became known as Samaria. For a long time Samaria was the main province - the holy cities of Shiloh and Shechem were in Samaria - it was the centre of Jewish worship - but eventually power shifted and Jerusalem in Judah became the centre of the religion and where they built their temple. It was a prson from Samaria who is the good Samaritan.
Ephraim means ‘fruitful’ and they were a fruitful people. The story goes that they did spread all over the world.
Many Jewish groups around the world traced their genealogy to Ephraim. The Persian Jews did.
And to this day - these two tribes - the forgotten tribes are centres of interest. There is a Christian sect called the ‘The Church of God in Christ’. In the UK say they are descendants of the lost tribe of Ephraim. In the American version they say they are descendants of the lost tribe of Manessa.
The Church of Latter Day Saints - the Mormons, believe that they are descended from the lost tribes of Israel - that the fruitfulness of Ephraim spread out to America - that when Jacob said Joseph was the fruitful bough that grows over the wall, what it really meant was that the wall was a coded way of saying they would spread across the Atlantic Ocean.
We can wonder about these stories and how influential they have been and how they continue to be even in the present day - maybe it is because they always will have within them a kernel of truth about ourselves and some role models we could take note of.
They continue because they also contain an element of mystery - as all great stories do. They have hidden truths and some things which we will never understand. We can spin these stories out into many meanings - as many as will fascinate us.
We can believe them, interpret them, study them but isn’t it good that they can still help us - as real people to-day or maybe even as ghosts on the bus to Darwen cemetry thinking through our testaments..
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