Among the many strange nautical species that run aground on the coastline of the Isle of Skye the HMS Astute must rank as the strangest. This 2 month old baby weighed in at 7,800 tonnes and is reputed to have cost £1.2 billion. Pity Cdr Andy Coles as this sub is controlled by a platform management system – untouched by human hand! This fly by wire technology has been designed to deliver high tech troops onto foreign soil – unseen and unheard. To do this the sub is required to navigate in shallow water which explains why the vessel was in the narrow Kyle of Lochalsh. The sonar equipment will need some fine tuning before venturing into the Kyle again! The Bible has quite a lot of subversive material, much of it surrounding the person and work of Jesus. He was recognised from the outset by Satan who was out to destroy the Messiah. Sadly those who should have recognised Him, the religious authorities who were living in anticipation of his arrival, failed to do so. But those of every class who recognised their need of a saviour had their spiritual eyes opened and followed him. However all seemed lost when the fickle crowd changed their cry from “Hallelujah” to “Crucify him”. Pilot asked the question at his trial, “What is truth” thinking that the answer might be in a proposition instead of a person. Jesus is the truth. The dying thief recognised this fact and committed his life to him. His accomplishment of dying in the sinners place to make a complete atonement for sin, opened a way of deliverance for the believing sinner to be with his saviour God for time and eternity, and was totally subversive. It went under Satan’s radar. It went under the authorities’ radar. They were spiritually blind. Many today are still blinded by Satan and cannot see the relevance of putting their faith in the one who, as Saint Paul put it, “loved me and gave himself for me”. Cdr Coles may not have lived up to his vessels name, “Astute” but for those astute enough to admit their culpability before a Holy God and commit themselves to him the words of Jude’s doxology are packed with timeless meaning. “Now to him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you before his glorious presence without fault and with great joy— to the only God our Saviour be glory, majesty, power and authority, through Jesus Christ our Lord, before all ages, now and forevermore! Amen.”

The news this week has been dominated by the thrilling final act of rescue of the 33 Chilean minors trapped 2,300 feet down the copper and gold mine in the Atacama Desert. All 33 were in remarkably good shape only Mario Gomez, the eldest, remains in hospital with pneumonia. It has been a huge triumph of human resourcefulness and engineering brilliance to bring the men back alive from the bowels of the earth. Irish engineering played its part in the rescue. The Irish drill used in the bore holes sucks out the drilled material through its hollow core and sends it back to the surface. This minimises the chance of rock fracturing as the drill passes through it. Whilst the rescue is of heroic proportions it should be remembered that Chile lost 35 miners in accidents last year. Clearly mining is still a very hazardous business for the men who go down the shaft. The fragment of the old children’s song comes to mind; “Don’t go down the mine Daddy”. Even with all the safety precautions, mining is not a good career choice! Where was God in all of this? Jimmy Sanchez, was in no doubt about God’s presence. “There are actually 34 of us,” the nineteen-year-old miner wrote in a letter sent up from the mine on Tuesday, “because God has never left us down here.” Jimmy was only echoing the words of the Psalmist, If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.” Psalm 139:8 Certainly He was much prayed to – along with every other saint in the calendar! So how are we to pray? When the worst seemed certain, Jesus pleaded with God to avoid it. It was not a prayer confident of bright tomorrows: “Take this cup from me. But not my will, but yours be done.”(Saint Matthew Chapter 26 verse 39) It was grounded in the realism of prophesy which was about to be fulfilled. God was working out His purposes in the miners rescue just as He was working out His purposes in the death and resurrection of Jesus. Only, in the case of Jesus, it was our rescue He had in mind. As Saint Paul puts it in the opening paragraph of his letter to the Galatians, “Who gave Himself for our sins to rescue us from the present evil age, according to the will of our God and Father, to whom be glory for ever and ever”.  It has been a great rescue there in the Chilean desert but the greatest rescue of all was made at Calvary – and whether we are working below ground or above ground we need to call out to Jesus, the only one who can rescue us for time and eternity.

Anyone who knows anything about “free speech” knows that it is not free – it comes with a large price tag! In many cases the price is not paid in cash but imprisonment or martyrdom. Of course some would transgress the boundaries of moderation and use extreme language so it has become necessary to introduce the “incitement to hatred” offence to our statute book. Incitement to hatred seems to be absent from the language of the Manifesto 08 advocating democracy, human rights and the rule of law in China. Indeed these freedoms are enshrined in the Chinese constitution and in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which China subscribes. However Liu Xiaobo got an 11 year jail sentence for his part in writing the Manifesto and this week he was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize! The jail sentence was passed under Chinese criminal law where Liu was found guilty of leading a group which spread rumours and slanders presumably found in the Manifesto and his 700 essays. The internet has contributed to the circulation of these documents and although there is currently a news blackout in China on the awarding of the Nobel Prize, we now live in a global world where even the ‘great wall’ cannot keep information out. What does the Bible have to say? Some of the proverbs in the Book of Proverbs were written by King Solomon, who would have had absolute power. Yet he penned the lines: – “With patience a ruler can be persuaded and a gentle tongue can break a bone” Quiet persuasion and a refusal to be provoked may win surprising victories. Jesus is perhaps the best example of this. Isaiah’s prediction, “He was oppressed and afflicted, yet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth” came true at His trial. Respect for authorities, even when they are acting unjustly, recognises that they have their power from God. Biblical limitations arise when freedom of speech is threatened and the Gospel is hindered. We have Saint Peter’s reply to the threat: “We gave you strict orders not to teach in this name, yet you have filled Jerusalem with your teaching and are determined to make us guilty of this man’s blood.” Peter and the other apostles replied: “We must obey God rather than men!” (Acts chapter 5 verses 28/9). Three lessons can be made: Patience is a strong persuader Silence when false accusations are being made Non-violent disobedience when proclaiming the Gospel is at stake. The Gospel imperative caused Wesley to pen these words: “Preach Him to all and cry in death behold, behold the Lamb.”

This month will reveal the inside story to Mark Zuckerberg’s Facebook. The launch of the movie anticipates Facebook reaching the 500 millionth user. The film is to be called “The Social Network” with the tagline “You don’t get to 500M friends without making some enemies”. It’s the curious tale of a social outsider who became the gateway for social interaction. All this has happened completely ignoring the usual channels through which power flows: wealth, authority, age, experience. Mark is part of the generation sociologists are calling Millenials. The movies tagline wryly refers to a number of lawsuits he has accumulated from fellow Millenials! His youthful indiscretions and mishaps, though they lost him friends, also made him into the world’s youngest billionaire at age 26. Basically Zuckerberg desperately wants to belong to a group and has invented what has become the largest group in the world! The trouble is that it is high on networking and news but low in discussion and relationships. What does the Bible have to do with all this? The most important things the Bible says are our relationships; first the vertical with God and second the horizontal with our fellow human beings. The lawyer’s words recorded in Saint Luke’s Gospel chapter 10 verse 26 were commended by Jesus and summarise the law for us: “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, Love your neighbour as yourself.” The lawyer must have been pleased with himself in getting it right but perhaps his pleasure faded when Jesus added “Do this and you will live”! Like many of us it’s not our understanding of what Jesus says that’s difficult, it’s the putting it into practice that is the hard bit. In case the lawyer didn’t get it the illustration of a loathsome Samaritan looking after a wounded and robbed Jew – even to the point of long term care would have been something he would have balked at. Relationships in Scripture come with a price tag! The initial price, the big one, which seals our relationship with a thrice holy God has, for the one who trusts in the work of Jesus on the cross, been already paid. It cost us our sins. It caused Him to become a sin offering. He made a way for love to flow between us and God. We turn away from our sins and, by God’s grace trust, in the influence of the Holy Spirit to forge these helpful relationships between us and those we meet. The challenge is not simply to love our friends but like the Jew and the Samaritan, love our enemies. These relationships require a much more hands on approach than those operating in cyberspace can produce. Emotion, eye contact, the tone of voice cannot be transmitted over the airwaves. We need to copy the Father. (St. Luke Ch.15v20). “But while he was still a long way off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion for him; he ran to his son, threw his arms around him and kissed him.” And that’s something you cannot do on facebook!