Worshipping Covid              Word on the Week                 24^th April 2021.

A new priority has been established in the land.   It is to do with the Covid pandemic.   It has taken over the news bulletins.   The numbers of ‘new cases’ heads the statistics commanding fear and obedience.   To add weight, the daily death toll is revealed and a running total displayed.

Governments control of the disease involves actions which lie contrary to Christian practice.   The prohibition of meeting together, the avoidance of significant touch and the masking which prevents facial communication.   We have to obey rules which can be ramped up through 5 levels of severity and the law is being used to enforce them.

The aim is to save lives.   Those most at risk have been identified and have been vaccinated.   Now with the older cohort done vaccination has been distributed on an age basis with the oldest coming first.   By this means the entire population will receive the vaccine.   In the UK consideration is being given to the issue of a certificate recognising that you have been done.   In future the rules may state that only those with certificates can travel etc.

Here the ship of state, having cast off its Christian moorings, is floating rudderless, while funding weekly the bulk of the working population out of borrowed money.  Those receiving an income cannot work because the Covid rules forbid it. At present all hope is centred on the vaccines being effective over time and against variants of the disease.

There has been no recognition that we are made in the image of God with a life expectancy which extends beyond the grave.    This desire to keep the elderly population alive for another few years, however worthy, sits uneasily against the background of the government’s dallying with euthanasia.   And for the remainder of the country the preserving of life flies in the face of the legalisation permitting abortion where not even the dead are given a burial.

Where is God in all this?   He must know all about the pandemic – after all He permitted it!   Where is the call to prayer to call upon his mercy?   Where is the recognition of guilt before a holy God?   Where is the pleading of the merits of the blood of Christ on the altar which is Calvary? 1 Chronicles chapter 21 verses 13 to 27 is where a repentant King David caused a plague to cease.

Repent of letting RTE’s 6 o’clock news become your daily diet of fear and rules.   Rely on the God who answers prayer (despite our doubts that He will) as when Peter tried to join a prayer meeting which was praying for his release (Acts Chapter 12 verses 5 to 17)!

Jesus answered “Have faith in God” (St Mark Chapter 11 verse 22).

Well Woman Reimagined                    Word on the Week           17^th April 2021.

It was a hot day in Samaria when Jesus arrived at the well.   He had sent his disciples off to a neighbouring village to get food and was resting when a woman from Sychar approached the well to get water.

Jesus asked her for some water.   This astonished her as she was a Samaritan and the Jews had nothing to do with these mixed race people.

In addition, she was a woman.   It was just not the done thing to speak to a woman in public.   She had come to the well in the heat of the day to get away from people.   She was not good at relationships.   Apparently she had had five husbands so in this regard she was quite contemporary!

Whether the husbands had died or divorced her it had not dissuaded the current boyfriend.   However, living together does not constitute marriage as Jesus pointed out (St John Chapter 4 verse 14).   We could reimagine the scene happening today.

Jesus was not bound by tradition or convention.   He reached out across the gender gap to talk to her at the risk of being misunderstood by his disciples. His concern to present her with the Scripture over-rode the accustomed norms of the place.

There was the ever present problem of race.   The Samaritans stemmed from foreign people brought in by the Assyrians in 722 BC. Over time they intermarried with the Jews who had remained in the area.   The mixed race had its own culture and version of the Pentateuch!   

Today we are all too familiar with poor race relations.   The underdog seldom gets the respect they deserve.   And when it comes to justice, as in the case of George Floyd in Minneapolis, it can be a long time coming.

Jesus showed no ethic prejudice.   He was critical of tradition but rock solid in his belief that Scripture was the Word of God.

All this enabled Jesus to engage with the woman at a deep level.   The exposure of her sin should have meant that a Rabbi like Jesus would not talk, touch or drink from a vessel tainted by a such a Samaritan.   Yet Jesus was not bound by any moralistic superiority.    He showed her love and respect by inviting her to take the living water which had been spurned so often in the past (Jeramiah Chapter 2 verse 13).

In today’s terms Jesus was not deflected by gender, race or sinfulness from seeking her salvation by revealing himself to her (St John Chapter 4 verse 26).  

Death of a Duke              Word on the Week          10^th April 2021.

The death of the Duke of Edinburgh had been anticipated because of the increasing frequency of his hospital visits.   On his last visit, as he was leaving he came to the door of the hospital to meet some soldiers and hear the bugler play the last post!    He stood erect, negotiated the steps without a walking stick and looked likely to achieve his 100 birthday in a few weeks’ time.  

Alas it was not to be.   He died this week.   He had been Consort to the Queen for more than 70 years.   Our sympathies go to her.   He was her faithful shadow, keeping his place behind the Queen and being a support to her in the many-sided round of duties she was expected to perform.

Prince Philip was educated at Gordonstoun, a college in the Scottish Highlands founded by a German disciplinarian, Kurt Hann.   Its motto was “There is more in you” and Kurt saw it as his business to get it out of you!  Whereas Philip enjoyed his time there his son Charles, the Prince of Wales, found it difficult.   He described the school a “Colditz in kilts” alluding to the prisoner-of-war camp Colditz Castle in Germany!

Perhaps the most lasting thing which Philip did was to inaugurate the Duke of Edinburgh Award programme, an outward bound challenge primarily for teenagers.   It had three levels; Bronze, Silver and the most arduous, Gold.  The Gold involved surviving for three days in remote countryside carrying tent, stove etc.   You could trace its origins to his time in Gordonstoun!

During his life Prince Philip’s love of nature led him to become involved in many “Saving the Planet” projects long before they became popular. 

His career in the Royal Navy brought him into action in WW11.  On land he was given the task of looking after the Crown Lands – a considerable number of farms and forests.  

There have been a number of references to the Queen’s Christian faith and its part in sustaining them through the long reign.  No doubt they were familiar with the Reformers teaching about the Crown Rights of the Redeemer.   There are two Monarchs; one is in the Palace in London the other is King Jesus ascended to the right hand of the majesty on high.  

The governance of the State is in the prerogative of the former.  The latter however was instituted by Christ and owes its allegiance to Him alone (St Matthew Chapter 28 Verses 16 to 20).   In this day when everyone knows their rights it is good to be reminder of the prior right of the one who by His blood purchased men for God (Revelation Chapter 5 verse 9 to 10).

Ecce homo                       Word on the Week                     3^rd April 2021.

Ecce homo ‘behold the man’! (St John Chapter 19 verse 5).    Pilot had got himself into a predicament.   He wanted Jesus to look like weak, foolish and a poor creature.   In fact, he wanted to make him look pitiful.   He had him flogged and now Pilot allowed the soldiers to dress him in mock regal garments.   It was as an imitation of a King that Pilot now displayed Jesus before the mob calling out ‘ecce homo’.  He hoped that they would reckon he had suffered enough and permit his release.   

But there was a separate agenda going on here.   Jesus was in the process of ‘emptying himself’ as the Apostle Paul wrote in Philippians chapter 2 verse 8.   This entailed Jesus stooping to the lowest place (Isaiah 53).   All his rights were set aside. He became ‘nothing’!

It was Pilot who was the weak man!   He was frustrated by Jesus’s silence during his interrogation.   Furthermore, his wife had sent a message to him stating that he was to have nothing to do with this innocent man (St Matthew Chapter 27 verse 19).  Apparently she had been warned in a dream.    This put more stress onto Pilot who now pinned his hope of release on the governor’s custom, during the Passover feast, for the crowd to call for the release of a prisoner among those condemned to die.

The High Priest and the Sanhedrin are the instigators of the prosecution.   The text says “it was out of envy” that they wanted Jesus crucified (St Matthew Chapter 27 verse 18).   They were envious of the crowds he gathered.   They were envious of the way he taught the people with authority.   They were envious that he could answer every question that was put to him with astonishing clarity.   Their trumped up reason for requesting the death penalty – that Jesus called himself King of the Jews and therefore was a threat to Caesar did not really concern them – Pilot knew all this!

At the start of Jesus ministry John the Baptist recognised Jesus as the sacrificial lamb. “Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” (St John Chapter 1 verse 29).   His crucifixion was where the Lamb of God’s life blood ran down the cross as the sacrifice was completed.   

He called out ‘tetelestai’- it is finished; (St John Chapter 19 verse 30).   The ascent into the abyss was over. Atonement on behalf of sinners has been made.   The work he came to do has been accomplished (St John Chapter 17 verse 4). Assess to heaven is open by way of faith (Romans Chapter 5 verses 6 to 8).     Come to Him this Easter!