As we grow older, our birthdays are not met with quite the same enthusiasm as when we were young.
James Boswell was once rash enough to remind some ladies that the next day would be Dr. Johnson's birthday. They came to dinner and, says Boswell, 'plagued him unintentionally by wishing him joy.' For him, birthdays were a dread reminder of mortality.
This month of April will see Dr. John Stott turn 80; and whether it plagues him or not, there will be mighty celebrations at All Souls, Langham Place, the church which he has now served for well over half a century. Friends and supporters of his work will be coming from the States: plans are being made for some of them to visit Rugby where he was at school; and where, rather more than 60 years ago now, he committed his life to Jesus Christ. Cambridge too is on their itinerary, where he spent nearly six years as a student. An 80th birthday is a fitting opportunity to express something of the gratitude, esteem and affection in which a multitude of friends and acquaintances - and many who know him only through his writing - will want to be included.
Reminders of mortality
He himself does not share Dr. Johnson's aversion to birthdays. He has had other reminders of mortality. He tells against himself the story of how at Kennedy Airport in New York the elegant blonde at the check-in desk studied his passport and casually enquired as she handed it back, 'Are you any relation to John Stott?' 'Yes,' he replied, 'that's my name.' 'But I mean the other John Stott, the Christian apologist who recently died.' 'Well,' John Stott answered, feeling his way, 'I suppose you might describe me as a Christian apologist, but as you can see I haven't died yet!' 'There must be some mistake,' she persisted. 'I'm a graduate of Whateon College, where I heard John Stott speak several times, but I understand he is dead...'
Only with some difficulty, and to her increasing embarrassment, was he able to set the record straight!
20 years ago John Stott described in his personal newsletter some of his reflections on his 60th birthday:
'I was reading Leviticus 27 that day, which is about redemption prices. From it I learned that in Hebrew society "the value of a male between the ages of 20 and 60" was "50 shekels of silver", whereas at 60 he dropped 35 shekels to a mere 15! Perhaps therefore, I thought to myself, I should regard my 60th birthday as my "Devaluation Day". A Singaporean friend helped to rescue my sagging morale, however, by telling me that according to the Chinese a 60 year-old is worthy of added respect because he is now embarking on his sixth 12-year cycle. Leaving aside these cultural perspectives, I sat that afternoon in my favourite nook on the Pembrokeshire cliffs and read the exhortation in Hebrews 12.1 to "run with perseverance the race marked out for us". So I prayed for grace to persevere in Christian faith, life and service, and a few months later was encouraged by the promise of Psalm 92.14 that God's people "will still bear fruit in old age, they will stay fresh and green". May it be so!'
Wide-ranging life
In April 1986 The Church of England Newspaper marked his 65th birthday with 'an appreciation' which included a lightning survey of some of the enterprises and ministries of his wide-ranging life: All Souls, of course, and the London Institute, programmes of travelling, writing and speaking, any one of which alone would have satisfied a lesser man; and reference to a whole range of initials, concealing endless patient hours of correspondence, preparation, administration and prayer. There were congresses, councils and committees of all kinds plus the BST (The Bible Speaks Today series which he conceived and edited); and this is to scratch the surface.
The paper continued: 'Honours have come his way, lightly worn: the most recent from the Templeton Foundation. His appointment as an Honorary Chaplain to HM the Queen in 1959 was seen as an indication that a renewed evangelicalism (which did not always appear welcome in the Church) was valued in high places. His Lambeth DD three years ago was widely welcomed as signifying an appreciation of him by a Church which, in earlier days, seemed to have consistently passed him by for "high office". It has sometimes appeared a strange irony to his friends that the man who was received by churches abroad as a world figure should be so little regarded here at home.'
The intervening years, which have included the unusual honour of his appointment as an 'Extra Chaplain' to the Queen, at the age of 70, and further academic recognition, have done something to redress this balance.
Influences
To mark his 70th birthday the editor of the All Souls Broadsheet persuaded (I think that must be the right word) John Stott to look back and describe 'People who have influenced me'. He began with his parents: his mother, a devout Lutheran who taught him the discipline of daily prayer, and his father, a consultant physician who, together with an early schoolmaster, introduced him to his life-long love of ornithology. Eric Nash, who led him to Christ as a schoolboy, had an honoured place; followed by Dr. Martyn Lloyd-Jones and two less likely choices, L.F.E. Wilkinson and Ted Schroeder (a former All Souls curate), who each in his own way had a lasting influence on some aspect of his life. His family (his sister Joanna, and his three nieces with their husbands and children), so he confided to readers of his newsletter, 'generously gave me a television set, determined to drag me back into the modern world, from which I slipped about ten years ago when my first set went kaput and I decided not to have it replaced!'
There was a celebration for family and friends at Lambeth Palace, welcomed by the Archbishop and his wife to their new home; and two Festschriften, collections of theological essays written and published in his honour. To his friends he quoted the words of Barbara Cartland: 'The scintillating seventies are the gateway to the exciting eighties', and it is just this gateway that we prepare this month to celebrate.
New birth
Some people in the world would find it difficult to celebrate their birthdays because they do not know the day of their birth. They were present, certainly, but memory does not serve. In something of the same way, some Christians can, and some cannot, recall a specific date and time when they surrendered to the claims of Christ, experiencing the new birth of which Jesus spoke to Nicodemus, and so acquiring a 'second birthday', a spiritual anniversary. John Stott is one of those who can and does recall precisely just when he turned to Christ.
50 years later, to the day, he found himself at the Royal Albert Hall. Mrs. Thatcher, then Prime Minister, had come with a party of friends to 'Prom Praise', one of the series of Christian concerts arranged by the All Souls Orchestra and Choir under Noel Tredinnick. In a short address, John Stott took the opportunity to remember his spiritual birthday and to recount how '50 years ago today, on 13 February 1938' a young man knelt at his bedside and 'opened the door of his heart or personality, and invited Christ to come in. I was that young man. I have now had 50 years in which to test the reality of Jesus Christ. Tonight, on my 50th spiritual birthday, I want to bear witness to him, and to the length, depth, breadth and height of his love.' And after a sentence or two on each of these four dimensions of the love of Christ, he added: 'When I am asked if I have any further ambition, as my life approaches its end, I answer that my overriding desire is to become more like Jesus Christ, through the transforming power of his indwelling Spirit. For that is God's eternal purpose for us all. And when Christ comes again, in spectacular magnificence, we will at last be fully like him, for we shall see him as he is.'
The next . . .?
Two years after this, recognising the need to concentrate his energies, John Stott resigned the Presidency of EFAC, the Evangelical Fellowship in the Anglican Communion, of which he had been the founder and the prime mover for so many years. There was a Service of Thanksgiving, followed by a supper and a reception in Oxford, at which Bishop Michael Nazir-Ali, then General Secretary of CMS, was one of the speakers. He had been among the first of the Langham Scholars, now numbering nearly 100, which John Stott's vision for Christian scholarship in the developing world had helped to nurture and train. He posed the question (as relevant then as it is now) as we approach this 80th birthday: 'Where is the next John Stott?' This was his reply: 'The answer is that there will not be another John Stott. But because of his ministry there are and there will be many John Stotts throughout the world.'
And what of himself? At this next landmark there will be no lack of friends, like the ladies at Dr. Johnson's dinner party, to 'wish him joy'. Most of what he himself would want to say in response is, I believe, already written and in print, not least in his recent Evangelical Truth: a personal plea for unity, which he describes as 'a kind of spiritual legacy', a personal appeal to the rising generation. 'Of course I have changed over the last six decades', he writes, 'Yet I hope these changes have been not the denial of anything I previously affirmed, but rather the enrichment of what was inadequate, the deepening of what was shallow, and the clarification of what was obscure. The great evangelical truths remain. This is how I would wish to be remembered and judged, as I prepare to stand before the judgment seat of Christ.'
Incomparable Christ
But in the meantime the exciting 80s beckon. With Frances Whitehead, his secretary now for more than 45 years, and Corey Widmer, his current Study Assistant, there are more books to be written (his recent series of London Lectures in Contemporary Christianity on 'The Incomparable Christ' is even now being prepared for publication), more teaching and preaching and 'missionary journeys'.
John F. Kennedy is remembered as saying that one man can make a difference and that every man should try. In this young millennium many people the world over will be thanking God for the difference John Stott's life and ministry has made for them and for our unseen future; and silently wishing him joy and peace in believing, as he starts another new decade.
