One would not expect a Bede travel devotional to include a visit to Chatsworth House, but it did, and there is a connection.
The Christmas Market at Chatsworth House
Notwithstanding my original reservations about Christmas markets, I was very pleasantly surprised. I went to be with The Wife, who had always wanted to go to the Christmas Market at Chatsworth House, and I had a wonderful time.
The Christmas Market at Chatsworth House is a collection of speciality pop-up shops set up on the lawn of Chatsworth House in the weeks leading up to Christmas. The shops have a Christmas theme and include a variety of food, bakeries, sweets, and drinks.
Chocolate covered apples and marshmallows, fires prepared so you can roast marshmallow on a stick, fudge and pastries, are all available along with beef, chicken, and vegetarian pastries, sausages, and, of course, coffee and drink vendors, including those peddling craft beer and wine.
There was also the familiar sight of Brits eating ice cream in the cold of November. This is not the first time we’ve noticed this on the trip. Yet, in the heat of the summer here you have to ask for ice to be put in your water. All I can say is that it’s a mystery, like the trinity. No one can adequately explain it, and we are not meant to understand it.
An answer to Bede’s question at Chatsworth House
After exhausting the shops and the magnificent Chatsworth House gift shop, we toured Chatsworth House. The tour covers only a third of the living space, but it is enough to capture the grandeur of the place. The entry hall evokes images of the Sistine Chapel, and every room is filled with paintings and sculptures. The library and its leather bound book-filled shelves seemed to go on forever. In almost every large room there was a Christmas tree.
In all this, there is a reminder of the answer to a question Bede asked in 731 A.D. at the end of his Ecclesiastical History:
What will be the end hereof, the next age will show. This is for the present the state of all Britain; in the year since the coming of the English into Britain about 285, but in the 731st year of the incarnation of our Lord, in whose reign may the earth ever rejoice; may Britain exult in the profession of his faith; and may many islands be glad, and sing praises in honor of his holiness!
Bede, Ecclesiastical History, Bk. V, Chp. XXIII
Nearly 1,300 years later the echos of God’s providence are still heard in Britain, in a market devoted to a season, rooted in the birth of the Savior, Jesus Christ, and in a home replete with art and symbols of a Christianity Bede wrote of taking root in the soil of this island nation. The Christianity Bede had written about had not only shaped the hearts but the culture of England.
Culture can be both a reflection and shaper of hearts. Sometimes it can be merely an empty echo from the past. It ultimately falls on Christians to shine the light of Truth that will continue to shape a culture that will turn people to the Lord:
You are the salt of the earth; but if the salt has become tasteless, how can it be made salty again? It is no longer good for anything, except to be thrown out and trampled under foot by men. “You are the light of the world. A city set on a hill cannot be hidden; nor does anyone light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on the lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. “Let your light shine before men in such a way that they may see your good works, and glorify your Father who is in heaven.”
We left Chatsworth House with full hearts and full stomachs, and set out for our three hour drive to London and the final day on our Bede travel devotional. GS
