The curious case of Sarah Mullally's installation

Outside, there was a gale blowing; the temperature had dropped several degrees from the recent pleasant warmth, and there was even hail bashing against the window.

Inside, the TV was on and the installation of Sarah Mullally as Archbishop of Canterbury was underway.

On the sofa, your reviewer was approaching this ceremony with a certain jaded cynicism, a world-weary despair about the Church of England, and 1,001 theological reservations.

These included, firstly, a complementarian theology; secondly, questions about whether any church should ever be so closely linked to a state as this one is; and, thirdly, a natural revulsion at the flim-flam and flummery that seems to go with the C of E (what is it that makes people wear these ostentatious robes and pointy hats? And what is going on with the flipping on, and off, of the Archbishop's hat at certain moments in the ceremony?). Luke 20v46 comes to mind. Every. Single. Time. It seems so hard to square with the Jesus of the New Testament.

As a musician, your reviewer also feels it necessary to raise the question of some of the organ music, which, while impressively played, seemed to have a relentlessly discordant modern feel to it at times (i.e. rather jarring and unpleasant IMHO).

And yet...

There was a curious and striking juxtaposition of events unfolding on the BBC News Channel. Viewers found themselves being switched between coverage of the Middle East war and what was unfolding in Canterbury Cathedral.

Iran

One moment, we had a few minutes being baffled by the surreal and often incomprehensible pronouncements from the Trump White House, and the blood-curdling threats of the despotic regime in Iran. And then we were whisked back to what was unfolding in an ancient church building in Kent.

One moment, we were hearing that elements of the US 82nd Airborne Division headquarters, some "division enablers" and the 1st Brigade Combat Team would be deploying to the Middle East, and were listening to the harsh accents of an Iranian regime spokesman spitting against US "peace proposals".

And the next, we were back in the Cathedral.

One moment, the world, the flesh and the devil were writ large on our screens amid blood and gore and despotism and evil.

And then, we were returned to Canterbury.

There, amid all the things we might legitimately despair over, all the ceremony we might rightly disagree with, all the content we might quite appropriately question, the name of Jesus was being mentioned, quietly, over and over again.

As Sarah Mullally arrived, she was asked ceremonially by a group of children: "We greet you in the name of Christ. Who are you and why do you request entry?" And she replied: "I am Sarah, a servant of Jesus Christ, and I come as one seeking the grace of God, to travel with you in His service together."

Thousands of miles away, the blood of innocent men, women and children was being spattered; this violence at the behest of powerful men at the top of war machines fuelled by systems corrupted by sin and driven by principalities and powers. Homes were being destroyed, furniture torn apart, lives extinguished in an instant, and shattered by injury for ever.

And in Canterbury, Sarah Mullally was declaring: "I come knowing nothing except Jesus Christ and Him crucified, and in weakness and fear and in much trembling," to which the children responded: "Let us then humble ourselves before God and together seek His mercy and strength."

And for this I was glad.

Outside, the hail had stopped, the clouds had broken and a shaft of sunlight was cutting low across the garden.

All was far from well with the world, and my many reservations about the service remained unchanged. But somehow, against all expectations, the name of Jesus, and His counter-cultural gospel, so strikingly different from the kingdoms of this world, was quietly being held out to all those viewing.

On another day, without the striking alternating contrast unfolding in front of me on the screen, this review might have ended in a far more negative place.

As it was, on this particular day, I felt moved to pray.