The Number of Greats Diminished by One

Mark Ashton July 18, 2009

Did you hear the story of the Pastor driving home from church lamenting to his wife that there simply were not many great preachers left in the world? She nodded sadly and informed him there was even one less than he thought.
Mark Ashton, Vicar of The Round Church meeting at St. Andrew the Great Cambridge, was a great preacher. Humility does not always adorn the pulpits of the great. But this was one of those rare impressive men who was wholly unimpressed with himself.
Mark entered heaven on what some Christians call Holy Saturday, the day between Good Friday and Easter. April 3rd 2010. He was 62 years old.
I remember the exact date I first heard Mark preach. It was The Lord's Day 26 March, 2006. Easy to remember because it was our wedding anniversary and Jane was with me. We'd gone to another Cambridge Church in the morning, but we made it to STAG for the 5pm service. It was between terms so the students were away from Cambridge. You can imagine my surprise when we entered a church packed with young people. The music was wonderful. A spirit of worship prevailed in the congregation.
The minister approached the platform and proceeded to amaze me. He read from Numbers 19 and delivered a verse by verse exposition on the subject of the Red Heifer. THE RED HEIFER! From Numbers! In the context of successive expository messages though the Fourth Book of Moses. To young people mainly. In the 21st Century. To a packed house.
The sermon was magnificent.
I felt dazed and grateful.
I determined there and then that Mark Ashton would be my friend.
It was not unlike the doctrine of Election. He did not choose me; I chose him.
Later that summer we did ministry together with students in the Czech Republic.
Just before his diagnosis he agreed to come and minister in our church in Budapest, a prospect abandoned as the cancer closed in. His last sermons in January were from the Book of Acts.
Mark had the bearing and carriage of an athlete which, in fact, he was. His first degree was from Oxford but he later rowed for Cambridge where he took his theology degree. He was one of those robust personalities we have trouble associating with illness and death. There are few things harder to trust God with than this business of who dies early and who stays late. Who but God could discharge a responsibility so grave?
But we do trust Him, because we must trust Him.
But just because we trust, that doesn't mean we don't grieve.
And we grieve most deeply.

Your beauty O Israel is slain upon your high places
Tell it not in Gath
Publish it not in the streets of Ashkelon
I am distressed for you my brother
You were very pleasant to me
How are the mighty now fallen
While the battle rages still