A Trip to a Museum Has Shaken Me.

One of the benefits of retirement is that I can use public transport midweek, where on the trains, I can be assured of a full service without worrying about weekend engineering works on the line and the dreadful replacement buses slowing the journey down to a crawl. And so, a trip to London on the eve of the Queen's 70-year Jubilee extended Bank Holiday proved to be a worthwhile experience.

And indeed, I should be thankful. Very thankful! As I buy a Travelcard ticket from a machine and pass through the barriers onto the station platform, at the same time, there were hundreds, probably thousands, of passengers waiting to board an aeroplane, being told by a police officer that their holiday to the sunshine Mediterranean coast is cancelled. All due to staff shortages after shedding thousands of jobs due to the recent Coronavirus pandemic.

And so, I eventually arrive at the gates of the British Museum, located in the well-to-do Bloomsbury District of Central London. As I hesitated, a marshall called me over and asked for my small backpack to be checked. Thinking that I was unlucky enough to be randomly selected as if I looked to be a potential terrorist, I submitted the bag to his inspection. Satisfied that I won't blow the museum up to Kingdom come, he directed me straight to the main entrance without any further ado. It was at that moment that I realised that I was bypassing a queue leading up to the main airport-style security station, an apparently recently-erected separate edifice up to a hundred metres away from the outer gate.

British Museum, London. The main entrance.

Oh, what a shame to have such tight security checks just to visit a museum. As I recall previous visits to this venue over the last forty years or so, where anyone can just walk up to the main entrance without any bag checks, I see parents carrying their newborns and young children. Indeed, the coming generation will grow up to believe that security checks at public buildings were always the norm and think little or nothing of it. It's people of my age who sigh over the decrease in social trust.

In one of the ground floor galleries, a crowd had gathered around a large glass cubicle, their cameras, mobile phones and tablets snapping away as each took pictures of the Rosetta Stone housed inside the casing. And I sigh over this as well. I recall around 40 years ago when this particular exhibit was housed in one of the upstairs galleries. Erected on a metal stand, it was approachable to the point of touch. Back then, I recall a small group of uniformed schoolboys running up with the loud, excited exclamation, Wow! The Rosetta Stone! Indeed, those boys must have attended a good school, as I never heard of this ancient artefact until well into adulthood.

But why the need to house this massive slab of stone inside a glass casing remains a bit of a mystery. Maybe, with the constant touching, there was a threat of the writing carved into the surface suffering slow erosion, as if from a lead pencil on paper. Rather, the rock on which the writing is carved is a granodiorite stone, a hard intrusive material of igneous origin and related to granite. Not the type of exhibit in danger of crumbling into powder such as chalk, sandstone, or clay would. Yet, with Egyptian, Demotic and Ancient Greek scripts all telling the same tale of the Egyptian King Ptolomy, the Rosetta Stone became the key source for graphologists to learn how to decipher the Egyptian hieroglyphics.

Or maybe housing the stone in a glass cubicle protects it from possible theft. But I still find it difficult to imagine an opportunist burglar snatching the stone from its place in the middle of the night and then making off with it, a slab around a metre in size and weighing a ton, stuffed into his duffle bag slung across his shoulder before making his escape! 

With ancient Egypt already on my mind, I made my way upstairs to the Egyptian Gallery. Here is a display of coffins which housed Egyptian mummies, along with some mummies themselves. They too were all in glass cases, but this time for a proper reason. Unless kept under special atmospheric conditions, the linen wrapped around the bodies of the deceased would quickly gather mould whilst on their highway to disintegration and ending up as a mere pile of dust.

Indeed, I always had a fascination with morbidity. For example, I once stood alone in the Catecombe dei Cappuccini in the underground crypt of a church in Palermo. Although open to the public, I visited during the off-season, when there weren't any other tourists about. The whole place was silent except for a constant flapping of a metal trapdoor attached to an air vent, giving the catacomb an extra feeling of creepiness as the rows of long-dead faces stared down at any passing visitor. Then not to mention the subterranean Catacombes of Paris, where I walked alone through a corridor lined with countless femur bones and skulls. Oh, the joys of an independent vacationer!

Therefore, I was drawn to the Egyptian gallery of the afterlife. Among the coffins and mummies, both humans and animals, there was one of a well-preserved body of a "strong young man" - according to the commentary panel attached to the glass case enclosing the corpse. According to the archaeologists, the body, complete with internal organs and leathered skin, was estimated as 5,000 years old. Sounds amazing. But as a Bible scholar, I knew that this young man couldn't be as old as five millennia. Or else, he lived around 600 years before the Noachian Deluge! If, on the other hand, he lived about the time of Abraham, around 2,000 BC, then this dating would be entirely plausible. 

The exhibit of the deceased ancient Egyptian.

Like the Rosetta Stone downstairs, this exhibit attracted a larger crowd than all the surrounding magnificent artwork of ancestry. But, as I approached it, a feeling of sadness came over me. Although I question the dating of this young man, yet, the panel still dispensed a lot of useful information about this unnamed individual.

When the body was first discovered buried and preserved in dry sand, they also discovered a stab wound just below his left shoulder, and since there was no sign of healing, it was assumed that the stab wound led to his death. This sort of situation can certainly be verified medically. If true, then all sorts of questions are asked in my mind. Who was he? Did he provoke an argument leading to violence and received what he deserved? Or was he an innocent victim of a vicious perpetrator? Or did he die in battle? Was he a slave who, with or without deliberate intention, displeased his master? Or a victim of a fierce rivalry or jealousy? Although we now know that he suffered a violent death, if only he would speak, to tell me about his life and how he came to this. And to hear him confess his involvement in a fight or plead his innocence as a victim of hate.

Eventually, the crowd dispersed for a moment or two, and I was alone with him. It was then I crouched down to his level and spoke gentle, soft words to him, the wanting to comfort, to give him hope and assurance. If you think that I'm a little bit insane or addle-headed to be talking to a dead person, so be it. What I expressed was in my heart.

The feeling I had was sadness, a longing to know him, who he was, although there were indications of being fit, strong and healthy and good looking, I also pondered on how he would have felt in my presence. Would he have jelled to me as a potential new friend? Or take an instant dislike, perhaps thinking of me as a threat to his ego or wellbeing, a possible sexual pervert, or just wanting something? Or would he see me as one of those religious hypocrites who make sanctimonious acts to hide a greedy, insincere or even a lecherous heart?

He lived during Old Testament times when reconciliation to God through the Atonement made by Jesus Christ hadn't yet taken place, thus leaving him to prop up his hope on Ra and other ancient gods in a vain hope to receive their favours. Or like in modern times, he might have been so deluded by the hypocrisy of all Egyptian priests and clerics that he eventually led a life of atheism. 

Such questions will remain unanswered for the rest of my life. In an overall question, I ask:

Had this individual been alive now, or had I lived in his day, would we be good friends?

I would also ponder whether had he been alive during New Testament times or even today, how would he feel about Jesus Christ? Had he been positive about God, then wouldn't it be fair that he's now lost for all eternity just because he was born at the "wrong" time in history? Or, by having faith in the true God, would he have been another Abraham, Moses, or Job?

And so, as I crouch in front of the glass panel encasing this unnamed individual, I think back to the time when he was born, a newborn held in his mother's arms and suckling on her breast. I imagine him growing up and playing the Egyptian equivalent of street football or cricket with his young friends. Then going to school, maybe preparing for university or even called up to serve in the forces. Or he might have been born as a slave, a property of little worth and later disposed of by his unkind master, or even by another slave. And so, the list of possibilities goes on.

I value friendship greatly. Living in a fallen, sinful world brings many sorrows, but having friends that would lead to brotherly love through faith in Christ brings endless benefits. As surveys and polls suggest that a married man is more settled in himself than a singleton, and his own self-esteem rises with the knowledge of his wife's love for him and her devotion. Also, I have seen that a single man also benefits from a devoted friend or group of friends. Maybe that was why Jesus had not only set up his church, but he had to lay down his life for it to redeem his people, and then refer to them as his bride. God's love for the Church is strong and with intense devotion.

Therefore, having recently lost a very good friend of several years due to my own sinful emotions and doings, not only do I look upon this poor deceased individual on display in the museum, but I also reflect on my own shortcomings, admitting my sinful nature and acknowledging my desperate need for salvation through faith in the atonement made by the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, this condemned Jew two millennia ago, but his love and forgiveness are equally effective now. No, I don't need to be reminded of my own shortcomings. I am already aware of them. What I do need is love and forgiveness from God, his imputed righteousness, and reparation of our broken friendship that only God can bring about - if we let him.