Three Score Years and Ten

 

Over recent weeks a couple of the Care Homes, in which we used to hold regular services, have got in contact with us asking us to return.  This will be a great joy as, during the Pandemic, these homes have been ‘off limits’ resulting in an increased sense of isolation for their residents.

Such services are an important part of AFC’s life as it’s our opportunity to share half an hour of worship and fellowship with folks who can no longer attend a service in their own church.

Over the last couple of years I’ve taken a number of funerals of some of the residents who used to attend such services, their families having contacted me because ‘Mum used to love the times when AFC visited and she could sing her hymns again’.  All very moving.

I was struck by the recent findings, published this week, from last year’s Census.  Apparently, there are now close to 59 million of us living in the UK with 11 million being over 65 years of age, and that’s an increase of about 4% on ten years ago, whilst the number of young adults under 35 has fallen by 5%.  I suppose, in colloquial terms, that means society is ‘getting older’.

I remember the first time someone asked if they could give up their seat for me on the Tube!  It happens quite regularly now, but it happened first in 2012 as we piled into a carriage on our way back from attending the Olympic Games in East London.  To be truthful I was rather taken aback and declined, these days I always accept!

In Psalm 90 we are told a life span equates to the legendary Three Score Years and Ten.  Yet the truth is that if you are a mere 70 years old in a church today you’ll almost certainly be considered one of our ‘younger ones’!

One of my favourite bible stories is the one about Simeon and Anna, two aged saints who advanced in years with faith burning bright in their hearts.

Of course the Bible comes from a time when society had fewer ‘categories’.  The term ‘teenager’ hadn’t yet been invented so I suspect you were simply thought of as either young or old, with your ‘senior years’ almost certainly starting around your early fifties. 

We might also make the observation that Jesus only ‘experienced’ being a child and then young adulthood.  Dying at 33 meant he barely reached middle age.

Job says that wisdom and understanding belong to the old, whereas Joel, in a passage also quoted on the Day of Pentecost, declared that old men will dream dreams whilst young men will have their visions.

We need both, every community needs both, the dreamers and the vision see-ers, the young and the old.

A  modern hymn by David Mowbray, one time vicar in Watford just down the road, charts our lives with the first lines of each verse reading:
Lord of our growing years…
Lord of our strongest years…
… our middle years…
… our older years… and then
Lord of our closing years…

In some ways it’s a brave hymn because of its honesty, yet every verse has this wonderful refrain:
Your grace surround us all our days -
for all your gifts we bring our praise.