Bert was born in England, and the age of sixteen ran away to join the Navy. He played the trombone, and was enrolled as a musician on a light cruiser similar to the HMS Ulysses featured in Alistair Maclean’s novel. Bert said that the novel was remarkably accurate – even to the detail of the battle stations assigned to musicians. His ship also did the frightful northern route to Murmansk. He told me how, under fire, you always wanted something over your head – even if it was only a canvas awning.

 

After the war, Bert came to South Africa, but retained his Hampshire accent. Always ready for a laugh, Bert was actually a deeply serious man, and very dignified – even when he was wearing casual clothing, his shirt, shorts and socks all matched and were impeccably clean and ironed.

 

At the time I was assistant pastor to Terry Rae at Rosebank Union Church. Terry had been elected to the presidency of the Baptist Union, and we arranged a very special service one Sunday evening to set him aside for that ministry. It was a service that had everything – baptisms (by immersion), communion, and, of course, the ceremony of setting aside Terry Rae. The elders took the whole service, and Bert was the master of ceremonies. The baptistry was a pool set into the floor of the stage. Normally it was covered, but for this this particular service it was open. The first part of the service, and the baptisms, went without incident. And then Bert announced, “Now, before brother Bob comes to preach to us, we will sing three verses of hymn number four hundred and twenty-one.” But he didn’t say which three verses. So we all sang the first verse and then looked up to see if he would say anything. He didn’t, so we sang the second verse. At the end of the second verse we again looked up to see if he would say anything. But he didn’t, so we sang the third verse. At the end of the third verse, everybody – including the organist – stopped and looked up to see what we were supposed to do. At that point Bert, in a dignified manner, stepped back from the pulpit to make way for brother Bob … and fell into the baptistry – three-piece suit and all.

 

Now they were about four hundred people in the church – half of them under the age of twenty. The young people had no inhibitions and began to roar with laughter. Things weren’t made any better when Bert emerged from under the water, wet from head to toe. For a moment, he contemplated crawling back onto the platform on his hands and knees. But then dignity took over, and he sedately turned around, walked up the stairs and disappeared into the back of the church.

 

Now, as one of the pastors, I felt that it would not be becoming for me to laugh. Fortunately I did not hear a member of our home group, who said in a perfect Eccles voice: “He’s fallen in the water.”

 

We found out later that Bert had simply walked out of the building, got into his car and gone home. Actually, he had grazed his leg quite badly, and if people had known that, I suppose they would not have laughed so much.

 

Well, once the hubbub had died down, brother Bob bumbled his way through the sermon, with nobody listening, and with stifled giggles continuing throughout. All this time I had to maintain my dignity on the stage – especially through the communion service. It definitely wouldn’t have done for me to giggle my way through serving the bread and wine. The chair of one of the elders who were helping at communion was millimetres from the edge of the baptistry, but I was at the other end of the stage and couldn’t do anything about it. Fortunately no one else fell in.

 

At last, we came to the end of the service and the formal dedication of Terry Rae for the presidency. Terry knelt down down on the stage and the elders gathered around him to lay hands on him. Two others prayed first, and I was to do the last prayer, which was also to close the service. As I started praying, I thought to myself, like the Pharisee, “I’d better say a really good prayer now to try to redeem this service.” I found myself saying, “Lord we know that Terry is anxious about the great task which lies in front of him, but we thank you, Lord, that you have given us your treasure in clays of jar.”

 

I knew there was something wrong with that, but I couldn’t for the life of me think what it was. So I stood silent, like sheep before his sharers, for many seconds. Eventually I fumbled my way through the benediction, and the agony was over.

 

Only when I got home did I start to laugh - so loudly that I woke up the children.

 

Ever since that day, when I want to refer to jars of clay, I say “earthen vessels.”