Text: 2 Corinthians 5. 20 “Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God”1

Door opening
The King receiving the Ukrainian Ambassador’s Credentials | Credit: The Royal Family - Twitter

Listen to the sermon as preached below:

The service began with the singing of Psalm 119. 33-40, reproduced below:

 Teach me, O Lord, the perfect way
    of thy precepts divine,
 And to observe it to the end
    I shall my heart incline.

 Give understanding unto me,
    so keep thy law shall I;
 Yea, ev'n with my whole heart I shall
    observe it carefully.

 In thy law's path make me to go;
    for I delight therein.
 My heart unto thy testimonies,
    and not to greed, incline.

 Turn thou away my sight and eyes
    from viewing vanity;
 And in thy good and holy way
    be pleased to quicken me.

 Confirm to me thy gracious word,
    which I did gladly hear,
 Ev'n to thy servant, Lord, who is
    devoted to thy fear.

 Turn thou away my fear'd reproach;
    for good thy judgments be.
 Lo, for thy precepts I have long'd;
    in thy truth quicken me.

The Scottish Psalter 1650

Have you ever considered what it is like to be an ambassador?

A few years ago I watched a fascinating television programme on that very subject. It followed four British Ambassadors in their different roles around the world: our Ambassador in America, China, Iran and Bangkok. In the television series we saw some of the many things they get up to, from helping a British teenage girl out of an arranged marriage and providing safe passage back to the UK, to challenging a foreign nation on their extradition policy, to arranging state dinners for a visiting Royal. Their life is busy, important and varied, and it is the Ambassador’s life that I would like to examine with you this evening.

i) The Dictionary defines an Ambassador as “an accredited diplomat sent by a state as its permanent representative in a foreign country”2, and indeed the word comes from the Latin word “ambactus”, meaning ‘servant’. Even for those of us not versed in international law, we all know that an ambassador’s primary role is to represent their own country in a foreign land. The Ambassador represents not just their nation, but their head of state. In our case, the Ambassador is a personal envoy and representative of the King, the American Ambassador represents the President, etc etc. It is expected, therefore, that the Ambassador be treated with the same honour and distinction as the person they represent. After all, it is in their place that the Ambassador comes. In much the same way as soldiers, when saluting military officer, are actually saluting the King’s Commission, so too a nation honours an Ambassador to show honour to the Head of State they represent.

Not only does the Ambassador represent the nation from which they come, and their Head of State, but their residency (usually called an Embassy) is seen in International Law as belonging to the land from which they come. The British Embassy in Washington, for example, is seen as part of Britain. Within the walls it is British law that applies. Indeed, when all of America went ‘dry’, one would always find alcohol on the Ambassador’s table, and he was not breaking the law! Even though America had gone tee-total, Britain still allowed alcohol, so alcohol was present.

It is clear, therefore, that an Ambassador is loyal to their own land, their Head of State, and their nation’s laws. But what use is this to us?

So, says St Paul, ‘we are ambassadors for Christ’3

Yes, friends, you and I are ambassadors for Jesus Christ. We are called to be personal representatives of our Heavenly King. The hymn, ‘Who is on the Lord’s side?’ contains the following couplet:

Chosen to be soldiers, in an alien land.4

But yet the hymn goes on:

Chosen, called and faithful, for our Captain’s band.5

I wonder whether you and I are living up to our Ambassadorial status? Nobody, after all, can make light of this important duty and responsibility. When a new Ambassador is to be appointed, they don’t advertise in the back of the Glasgow Times or the People’s Friend. No, friends, they look for experienced, qualified officials - people who have shown they are cut out for the great duty that befalls them. It is a tremendous responsibility and privilege.

Imagine the feeling when, on September 3rd, 1939, the British Ambassador in Berlin handed the German Government a final note, stating that unless he heard from them by 11.00am that they would withdraw their troops from Poland, a state of war would exist between Britain and Germany6. I daresay the Ambassador’s heart was pumping in his chest as he delivered his message. Yet he knew that he had the might of the British nation behind him, and that although he may have been small, he represented 1/3 of the world’s population - the then British Empire.

Ours is a high office, the office of Ambassador. But I wonder whether our homes are truly Embassies? In his Epistle to the Philippians, St Paul reminds his readers that

Our conversation [that’s to say, our citizenship] is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ.7

Paul was writing to a people who were proud to be Roman citizens. They lived in Philippi, which was a colony of the Roman Empire. In this colony it was Roman laws that applied, Roman customs that were followed, Roman values that were practised. With this came many privileges and protections - the might of the greatest Empire the world had ever known, yet it was not in Rome that Paul encouraged his readers to find a home, but rather in heaven.

Are you part of the colony of heaven? Is your home, as far as you can make it, the Embassy of Jesus Christ? Is it His laws and customs that You follow? Is it His values that you respect? If someone walked into your home off the street, would he or she notice they had entered another nation’s territory?

ii) An Ambassador, in order to carry out their role fully, must have uninterrupted communication with their Head of State and Government. Indeed, this is one of the privileges of an Ambassador, to be able to speak freely with their Monarch or leader. After all, without this privilege, how could they hope to represent the one who sent them? Because of this, it is International Law that messages sent from Embassies to their home nations are never intercepted, never interrupted and never hindered. At this very moment, across the airwaves and within the postal service of almost every nation on earth, there travel letters and documents bearing the Royal Seal. Diplomatic bags are carried on and off aeroplanes and boats, not to be tampered with by government or police force. Likewise foreign embassies in our own land can enjoy uninterrupted contact with their home nation, and the privacy of their communication is protected in law.

As Christian Ambassadors, we are promised no less. As Christians, bearing the Priesthood of All Believers, we are promised the same privilege of uninterrupted access to our Head of State. We are sent by Jesus to represent Him in a foreign place, but we know that communications with Him can never be lost. And indeed, our communications are even safer than those inside a diplomatic bag, because not even the cleverest secret agent can intercept prayer - the method of communication between us, as Ambassadors, and our King.

We need only look back through history to see how this indispensable method of uninterrupted communication has been enjoyed by fellow Ambassadors even in the midst of trouble. Let us consider those imprisoned for their beliefs during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - John Bunyan, for example. Bunyan was thrown into prison, and from there he communed with his Lord daily. Or perhaps Donald Caskie, the Church of Scotland minister who was in Germany during the Second World War. Moved from dungeon to dungeon, surrounded by the screams of tortured prisoners and dripping pipes, Caskie enjoyed unhindered intercourse with his God.

Perhaps you have enjoyed this Ambassadorial privilege in your life? Perhaps, in the midst of despair or doubt, or when things were seeming to go wrong all around you, you were able to open the communication channel with your God, to tell your sorrows and hear His plan. This is the way that Ambassadors succeed in their role.

This, indeed, is one of the reasons that so many Ambassadors fail - because they do not maintain regular contact with the One Who sends them.

But do you know the other reason that so many Ambassadors begin to stumble? Sir Samuel Hoare, later Viscount Templewood and British Ambassador to Spain during the 1940s, explained that there is another reason that so many Ambassadors fail in their duties - if an Ambassador stays for too long in their posting, that’s to say, stay away from their homeland for too long, they start to become almost denationalised.

My grandparents, my father’s parents, moved around a lot because of my grandfather’s job. He was a senior officer in the Royal Signals and, as one of his postings, worked at the British Embassy in Washington, as part of the Ambassador’s staff. It was there that my father spent his early years but, even after only being there four years, when the family returned home they realised how Americanised my father had become. He had got so used to the land he was living in that he had almost lost the land of his ancestors. Even my grandfather, so I’m told, picked up a couple of American ways. This is no problem if it is a slight pronunciation here and there, or a liking for foodstuff - but if, as an Ambassador, one starts to forget the land one represents and instead becomes part of the foreign nation, the system of representation begins to crumble.

When the Ambassador first arrives, they may as well have ‘Made in Britain’ stamped on their face - a bit like the detective in Death in Paradise for those who have watched it - but before long, and without them knowing it, the atmosphere of the alien land gets into their lungs. Whenever the Ambassador speaks to anyone, it is to the foreigner; any opinion he or she hears is a foreign one. The difficulty of an Ambassador is, while remaining sympathetic to the nation in which they live, to remain loyal to the nation that sent them.

And this is true also for the Christian Ambassador. We are, after all, strangers and pilgrims in a foreign land. None of us can hope to be faithful emissaries of the Lord unless we maintain our prime allegiance with Him. This world in which we live affects us all the time - the ways of the world shape our lives, our attitudes, our personalities.

Without realising it, we begin to conform to the ways of the world; we lose the sharp distinction between right and wrong; we start to accept a lower, worldly, standard; we maintain the facade of a Christian Ambassador by preserving a few Christian customs, but in reality are little different to the bloke next door. Is this true of you and me, friends? Are we able to say, with our hands on our hearts, alongside Paul, that we are true Ambassadors of Jesus Christ?

How can we save ourselves from this subtle process of denationalisation? How can we ensure that we do not slip into the ways of those around us? How can we remain true to the land that sent us, to the One Who we represent? The answer is simple - we must make sure we visit that sending nation from time to time. We must not go too long without breathing its air and taking in its views. Not only must our correspondence go unhindered, but we must join together in Christian fellowship.

There will be many who, during the dark months of lockdown, were not able to attend a Christian act of worship at all. Even if their prayer lives were at top strength, their Diplomatic Bags unhindered, there is no doubt in my mind that a time of corporate worship and fellowship would have helped them no end. They risked becoming nationalised into the ways of the COVID-infused, fearful world, instead of maintaining their true allegiance to heaven. No amount of letters and ‘wish you were here’s’ can replace true, physical fellowship - a return trip.

iii) You may remember that, as I began, I described the Ambassador’s life as ‘busy, important and varied’? I said this deliberately - because the life and work of an Ambassador is a serious thing. Ambassadors are dispatched to carry out a specific mission or task. Often it is to represent the interests of Great Britain in the host nation, and to safeguard nationals in that land. But sometimes a more important mission comes up - negotiating the release of a prisoner, assisting the police or security services with an operation, or some other exciting or heroic thing.

We, too, have a Christian mission to fulfil. Let us recall what St Paul wrote, in full:

“Now then we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God did beseech you by us: we pray you in Christ’s stead, be ye reconciled to God”8

‘Be ye reconciled to God’ - what a task and duty it is to endeavour to draw people back to God! What a heavy responsibility we bear, as Christ’s Ambassadors.

In order to carry out our mission, we have to prepare ourselves. When an Embassy needs an Ambassador, often a civil servant with knowledge of the host nation is appointed. It is important that he or she knows the landscape, can communicate effectively with the people around about, and can understand the political situation. So too with us - if we are to have any hope of fulfilling our mission, we must make sure that we have studied those to whom we are sent. We must make sure that we know their needs, their wants, their highs, their lows. We must, to quote a minister I once knew, ‘smell like the sheep’ - we must be prepared to get our hands dirty, to learn what it is like for those around us. Then, and only then, can we fulfil our mission.

iv) When an Ambassador has fulfilled their mission, or when their time of service is up, they would not normally retire in their host nation. That is too politically sensitive - besides which, they miss the land of their birth too much. Instead they return back home, and there are normally honoured with a peerage or the like - in recognition of services rendered. Indeed, an ambassador is not sent for, or fetched, rather they are ‘recalled’. The sending nation calls them home.

As Christian Ambassadors, we are promised that, when our time is up or our duty done, we too will be recalled back to our home. But our homeland is not in Partick, friends, nor even in Scotland. But, as those who represent the King of Heaven, our homeland is at the right hand of God. Having completed our mission, having represented our Lord and shared His Message with others, the time will come when God calls us home too. On that day I pray that we, like those who have gone before us, may proudly lay down our charge and accept the homecoming with gladness, as our King and Head of State says, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant! Thou hast been faithful over a few things: enter thou into the joy of thy Lord.’9

Friends, it is my hope and prayer that we will remember the high calling to which you and I have been called. I pray that we will remember that we are sent by the Lord Jesus Christ as His personal emissaries and Ambassadors in a confusing world. Remember that He promises us the gifts and tools we need - and eagerly await the day when you too are called back to the Throne, to your ‘citizenship in heaven’10.

The service ended with the singing of Psalm 137. 1-6, reproduced below:

By Babel's streams we sat and wept,
   when Zion we thought on.
In midst thereof we hanged our harps
   the willow-trees upon.

For there a song required they,
   who did us captive bring:
Our spoilers called for mirth, and said,
   A song of Zion sing.

O how the Lord's song shall we sing
   within a foreign land?
If thee, Jerus'lem, I forget,
   skill part from my right hand.

My tongue to my mouth's roof let cleave,
   if I do thee forget, 
Jerusalem, and thee above
   my chief joy do not set.

The Scottish Psalter 1650

References: 1) 2 Corinthians 5. 20 2) Apple Dictionary] 3) 2 Cor. 5. 20 4) Who is on the Lord’s side?’; F. R. Havergal (1836 - 1879) 5) Ibid. 6) Neville Chamberlain’s Declaration of War Speech (para.) 7) Philippians 3. 20 8) 2 Cor. 5. 20 9) Matthew 25. 23 10) Phil. 3. 20 (para)