Recently, I saw an image of Cornwall, England, one of the picturesque coastlines of the country, located on the southwest end of the island, overlooking the Atlantic. One of the beautiful church buildings in the region is St. Just in Roseland, with a history connecting back to a 6th century Celtic chapel, but the current structure was dedicated in 1261. On the church’s website, you can even read about “a local legend…of Joseph of Arimathea bringing his boy nephew, Jesus, to Cornwall, and that he landed at St Just in Roseland.”
Regardless, what drew me further into the online visuals of this particular faith community is its nickname “church by the creek,” including beautiful gardens, but also a cemetery with gravestones dating back 400 years. Perhaps a rather fitting “resting place,” in the serene tranquility of the Creation, as a symbolic reminder of reaching the ultimate “peace that surpasses all understanding,” far away from the non-stop, always trafficked roads of business profit-maximizing and the rest of humanity attempting to maximize all the rest of earthly busy-ness. After all, many burial grounds, even closer to our home, were originally constructed away from such always on-the-go-ness, but soon became enclosed with our hustling and bustling, nonetheless.
So, there’s something rather…wonderful about this particular graveyard that has somehow managed to remain an ultimate peace-filled-to-the-brim “resting place.” Granted, one could argue that, no matter what goes on around the headstones, the saints are forever in the Divine-embracing rest anyway. And yet, there’s something rather majestically reassuring to the rest of us earthly travelers to be in the midst of such places: away from the maximizing of time and wealth and whatever else. And maybe there’s another near-heavenly layer added in when we stand in the midst of the saints who have gone before, all of whom with a story, all of who with dates lived in between and lived through, all of whom with names given, but ultimately all called children of God no matter the story, no matter the earthly duration, no matter the identity on a stone. It’s almost as if they each proclaim their own Gospel that’s more breathtaking than a creekside church building or an ocean coastline, and the love-filled story from God in Jesus Christ that will stand the test of our time and for all eternity. Thanks be to God, indeed!
In Christ,
Pastor Brad
For the parish website, please visit:
https://stjustandstmawes.org.uk/