THOUGHT FOR THE WEEK - Spurgeon's blessed 'snow day'

With those six words William Manchester began his account of the Presidency of his friend John Fitzgerald Kennedy, whose inauguration in January 1960 was in a day of snow.

It was also in a day of snow that a Colchester youth found his life dramatically changed.

The first Sunday in January 1850 was a day of heavy snow in eastern England. Our Colchester youth was Charles Haddon Spurgeon.

He set out that Sunday morning to head to the church where he regularly worshipped, but the heavy snowfall forced him to turn into a Primitive Methodist Chapel in Artillery Street. The minister appointed to conduct the service was likewise hampered by the snow, and only a handful of worshippers were scattered in a building capable of housing three hundred.

The elders deliberated among themselves who should deputise for the absent preacher, and eventually the service started. The elder hadn’t much to say, and after a few minutes he could do little more than repeat the text he had hastily chosen; ‘Look unto me and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth’ (Isaiah 45;22).

What happened next was both unusual and highly significant. The preacher looked directly at the young newcomer, observed that he looked miserable, and told him that he would continue to be miserable until he took to heart the challenge of the text.

Young Spurgeon later recorded; ‘I did: an, then and there, the cloud was gone, the darkness had rolled away, and that moment I saw the sun. I could have risen on the instant and sung with the most enthusiastic of them of the precious blood of Christ and of the simple faith which looks alone to Him’.

Young Spurgeon was destined to become one of the leading preacher of the Victorian age, noted not just for his eloquence but his wit. Congregations of 3,000 flocked to hear him in London’s Metropolitan Tabernacle, and his weekly printed sermons attained a wide distribution.

One distinguished writer and publisher made a habit of reading a Spurgeon sermon every day, and over a hundred years later, they are still in print.

One pithy line summarises his experience: ‘I have a great need for Christ; I have a great Christ for my need’.