The world heard the sad news on Boxing day that Archbishop Desmond Tutu had gone to meet with God face to face. As the day went on I read through people’s tributes and I got a measure of the kind of man he was. One of the tributes that caught my eye, and many others looking at the retweets, was Giles Brandeth recording an interaction he had with the Arch.

The Archbishop has finished his homily, but somehow he can sense that I am not wholly satisfied. He smiles. He recognises a lapsed Anglican when he sees one. He leans towards me one last time and in a voice barely above a whisper, says, 

You are like so many, my friend. You have everything, but, inside, you feel there is something missing: deep down, somewhere, it’s not quite okay. Do not worry, do not feel troubled, do not be perplexed. God loves you as you are – with your doubts, with your intellectual reservations, with your inability to make the leap of faith. 

God says, “I made you, actually, and I made you as you are because I love you. Don’t try to titivate yourself. Just be you and know that I affirm you. You are precious. You matter enormously to me. You matter as if you were the only human being and, you know something,” – he pauses for a moment and smiles a wonderful smile –

‘I create only masterpieces. I have no doubt at all about your worth. You don’t have to do anything. 

Your worth for me is intrinsic. Please believe I love you. You are not going to find ultimate satisfaction in anything out there because I made you like me. 

As St Augustine says, ‘Thou hast made us for thyself and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in thee.’ I made you for a worshipping creature – and you have worshipped money and fame, I know it – but, ultimately, I am the only one worth worshipping. I won’t let you go, my child. I won’t give up on you – ever. I won’t. I will sit here like the father of the prodigal son, waiting,

Come back home, come back home to me, and our celebration will be mindboggling.

A final, explosion of laughter and the Archbishop pushes back his chair and says, ‘Come, we will go outside and watch the sun falling on Table Mountain and smell the flowers together. God is good, man, and he is waiting for you.’

There’s nothing I can add here but…..WOW……I hope that I will grow in my ability to communicate the heart of God in this way.