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!

Ship Ashore                     Word on the Week                    27^th March 2021.

Few things capture the imagination more than a maritime disaster.    If the ship is big and its cargo highly visible, then it is newsworthy.   If, in addition, the ship flounders in the Suez Canal, effectively blocking it, then we have all the ingredients of a prime maritime disaster!  

This occurred on Tuesday when the MV EVER GIVEN apparently was blown off course when a 40 knot gust hit the side of the vessel.   Photographs show that the cargo of containers was stacked eight high above the deck and would present considerable wind resistance.   The ship, which is longer than four soccer fields, has been wedged diagonally across the canal, shutting the waterway in both directions.

Ships waiting to use the canal have accumulated at either end of it.   They total 213 at present.   Some may attempt the long route around South Africa but the cost of additional fuel, plus normal ships overheads incurred during the ten-day journey, would take make it unattractive. 

Freeing the vessel is going to require the removal of copious quantities of sand by dredgers and much pushing by five tugboats which are on the scene. Of course the spring tides are due tomorrow and will create an above normal high water level.   They are influenced by the gravitation pull of the moon and reduce in height as the moon waxes only to rise again at the next full moon.

This presents a small window of opportunity which the salvage crews will use to exert the maximum pressure against the side of the vessel coinciding with the high tide.   It is tempting to pray to the Lord that he might send a reduced version of Noah’s flood which got his ark to float in former times (Genesis Chapter 6 verses 13 to 22).

There are also storms which spring up suddenly and can put fear into experienced fishermen, in the Bible.  One occurred to the north in the Lake of Galilee when Jesus was crossing with his disciples.  As St Mark records “A furious squall came up, and the waves broke over the boat, so that it was nearly swamped. Jesus was asleep in the stern. The disciples woke him and said to him, ‘Teacher, don’t you care if we drown?  Jesus calmed the storm showing that he has authority over nature (Chapter 4 verses 35 – 41).

But it is not usual for Jesus to do a miracle to free an enormous ship which has been designed more as a testimony to man’s greed than to seaworthiness.   The storms that blow today on the bridge of the MV EVER GIVEN are more likely to require Jesus help with repentance and forgiveness between the owners and the ships command; and they may be in short supply!

Spring Equinox                Word on the Week                     20^th March 2021.

It’s that time of year that only happens twice when night and day are approximately the same length.   This is the March equinox.   From now on the days get longer and the nights get shorter – and don’t the birds know it!

The bird song moved up a few decibels this week, helped by the warmer weather and absence of wind.    The notes from some birds such as the Goldcrest belie their tiny size.   The shrill high ‘zee-zee-zee’ is guaranteed to persecute the wearer of hearing aids!

Chaffinch, Robins, Blackbirds and Coal Tits, to name but a few, are in full voice while the Blue Tits are busy house hunting!    They visit the nest boxes which have been idle since last Spring.   They are not easy pleased as both male and female need to agree with the location!

The magpies that successfully bred at the top of the Scotch Pine last year are also prospecting!   In folklore they are an unwelcome bird creating dissidence amongst the other garden birds.   Their fondness of eating their eggs is one of their less endearing qualities.   One for sorrow, Two for mirth, Three for a funeral, Four for a birth is one of a number of Magpie poems!

On the ground natures palate is rich in colour.   At first sight there seems to be a preponderance of yellow.   The primroses and daffodils stealing the show.   However, if you mix in the purple heaths with the blue hyacinths and the crocuses coming through the ground ivy there is a feast for the eyes.

Perhaps it’s the hellebores that in white or purple dress create the wow factor.   They modestly hang their heads concealing their beauty till its discovered by the gardener.   Betty’s preference is for the stinking hellebore – a misnamed plant for sure!   It is evergreen, its dark green leaves, sprouting from a thick stem. The flowers are green also but a lighter, yellowish shade; drooping cup-like shape. Lovely, but there is better.

“One thing have I asked of the Lord, that will I seek after: that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to gaze upon the beauty of the Lord …” (Psalm 27 verse 4).

Fairest Lord Jesus, ruler of all nature
O thou of God and man the Son
Thee will I cherish, Thee will I honour
Thou, my soul’s glory, joy, and crown.

Beautiful Saviour! Lord of all the nations
Son of God and Son of Man
Glory and honour, praise, adoration
Now and forevermore be thine.

A Royal Mess                  Word on the Week              13^th March 2021.

Family life in the 21^st century is not an easy business but when it has to be lived out in the full glare of the monarchy everything must take on a larger than life appearance.    Harry and Megan’s interview on Monday night had an estimated Irish TV audience of 725,000.   Not bad for an interview!

The couple had a tough assignment.   They had decided that royal life was not for them and had sought to put together a part-time post.   In it they would cut out most of the functions but keep the perks.   The perks that the interview highlighted were titles and security.   The latter gives an insight into the sort of life that goes with fame and the anxieties that attach to the name of Windsor.

Megan did most of the talking and delivered the two ‘bombshells’ well.   They were the charge of racism (Megan is of mixed race) from the palace and lack of help when Megan felt suicidal.   The interviewer, Oprah Winfrey, has a sphinx like face which betrayed little emotion.  She extracted the maximum impact from the interviewees words by using minimal words and subtle facial inflections.

Megan’s father, Thomas, when asked what he thought of the interview said “Megan has ghosted all of her family on both sides”.   ‘Ghosted’ according to the Oxford Dictionary is explained by the statement ‘being ghosted is one of the toughest ways of being dumped’.  

Piers Morgan’s claim on Good Morning Britain that he “didn’t believe” her when she said she had suicidal thoughts and failed to get mental health support from within the royal household. It cost him his job.   Piers clearly values free speech more than the job he has held down for a number of years!

Will it sink the monarchy?   For all its faults the monarchy, since Brexit, is one of the few assets the UK have left.   The Pomp and Circumstance are coveted by EC. The Queen, who has the task of reconciling the matter, has maintained contact with her grandson Harry.    She is a godly person and will realise that before reconciliation can flow there is the hard work of repentance and forgiveness to be worked out on both sides.

All this depends on a willingness for those involved to want it to happen.  The prodigal son would never have returned home if he had not been hungry (St Luke Chapter 15 verse 17).   It may be some time before Harry gets hungry and at age 94 his grandmother will want the process to keep moving!

Families have the power to inflict the maximum hurt or the maximum good on one another.   May God give them the desire to sort it out.

Who am I?                       Word on the Week                     6^th March 2021.

The question of one’s identity is about the most personal thing that can happen to you.    To be told you are not who you thought you were, as brought out by the wrongdoings chronicled in RTÉ Investigates: Ireland’s Illegal Adoptions (RTÉ One, last Wednesday) are devastating.

It is who you think you are that enables you to play your part in society with self-assurance.    How you were treated as a child has a lot to do with the confidence you bring to life’s decisions.   To be told, later in life, that your parents are not your birth parents, as one person said “Takes time to process”.

Apparently there are 126 cases of falsely registered births where the adoptees names were substituted for those of the birth parents.  This number has now increased to 151 and there are thought to be many more.   The church agency St Patricks Guild which handled these cases is currently being wound up.

In an attempt to trace her siblings one adoptee was given the name of a birth sibling living in the United States. They met over the internet and bonded. A DNA test subsequently revealed the initial information had been incorrect: they were not related at all!   She said she wanted to scream!

There has been some question of these birth records being classified information under the GDPR privacy legislation which would prevent Tusla sharing information about adoptees’ biological families.   There should be no such restriction.

To know who your Mother is, where and when you were born is a self-evident right.   Whether or not you have siblings and their circumstances is also information of prime importance to establishing who you are.   But the best anchor of all is to be a Christian, a son or daughter of the living God.  

And this is not by random chance but “He chose us in him before the creation of the world” (Ephesians Chapter 1 verse 4).   That is from all eternity God the Father has been gathering a family – the Children of God.     

This choice is effective in the world through Christ as St Peter said “it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God (St Peter Chapter 1 verses 18 -21).

Your identity is secure in the family of God.

Good News Rediscovered         Word on the Week          27^th February 2021.

As zoom meetings go there was one this week that worked well!   It’s not that the technology behaved perfectly, it didn’t, or the ‘breakout rooms’ served their purpose, I lost my video screen and had difficulty recognising the voices but the content was what we needed to hear!

The content took us back to when Jesus was being harassed and hounded by the Chief Priests and Elders of the People.   Rather like the media. They always turn up and often get the message wrong!   Now having dealt with the Sadducees (Matthew Chapter 23 verse 34).  The Pharisees, confronted by truth, stopped asking any more questions (Matthew Chapter 23 verse 46). Somewhat like today with the religious in Ireland silenced.

It seemed that all the frustration which had built up over the previous three years of teaching was channelled into one sustained outburst of home truths from Jesus’ lips which St Matthew recorded for us in Chapter 23 of his book.   It was a full frontal attack on the religious of his day!  Sometimes known as the seven woes.

The sermon begins with a confirming word acknowledging the role the Pharisees received from Moses recommending obedience to the law.   The problem was the Pharisees had added to the law and the 10 Commandments now added up to 612 rules and regulations!   They did not keep the laws themselves!    Not much has changed today.   There is still a lot of hypocrisy around (St Matthew Chapter 23 verses 1 to 36).

Chapter 23 ends with an invitation.   Not to go to the Priests nor the Temple.   But to come to Jesus. This was in line with the other invitations Jesus gave – to his disciples to ‘follow me’ and to the weary to give him their burden (Chapter 11 verse 28).  

This is a passionate invitation from one who could see where Jerusalem was heading “Jerusalem, Jerusalem! She who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her. How often I wanted to gather your children together, as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, yet you were not willing”!

This is the last appeal Jesus gave.   He was bypassing the religious system which had been abused by its leaders.  His plea has no strings attached.   It is to all – unlimited.  Even to those who had been unwilling to trust in his words.  God’s omnipotent grace!  As the hymn puts it; “His love has no limit, His grace has no measure, His power no boundary known unto men. For out of His infinite riches in Jesus, He giveth and He giveth and He giveth again.” ~ A. J. Flint.

Time Flies                        Word on the Week               20^th February 2021.

“I’m not as young as I used to be” said the Chinese Christian worker.   I had failed to recognise her (it had been some years). Then came the obvious reply “none of us are as young as we used to be!”   Psalm 39 verse 4 reminded me of these thoughts.   It reads, “Show me, Lord, my life’s end and the number of my days; let me know how fleeting my life is”.

It would be nice to know how we will end up and how soon that end will come!  The added comment on the brevity of life hardly needs to be made let alone sung about as this indeed is a song of King David.   It’s one of a number he composed for Jeduthun who, with his sons, played the trumpet, cymbals, harp and lyres.   A musical family!

Of course, for those who have, by God’s grace, become followers of Christ the Apostle Paul says we are already dead to these thoughts.   As the song puts it, “For me to live is Christ to die is gain”.   Words inspired by the text in Galatians Chapter 2 verse 20 which says “I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me”.

I had a boss whose management style was pugnacious!   His personal outlook was “People are problems”!    We were together on a long car journey and I thought it would be a good idea to share Galatians 2:20 with him.   His immediate response – “What’s that in English?” was not too encouraging!

It did highlight for me the ‘great gulf’ there is between the lover of Jesus and the communicating of that life-changing love to another.   Explanations may go some way but a note of incredulity creeps into the other’s voice which it requires the gift of faith to remove.

Lydia was a business woman but also a woman of prayer.  Women from Philippi met for prayer outside the city on the river bank.   As St Paul writes “The Lord opened Lydia’s heart to respond to Paul’s message”.   She then ‘took the plunge’ and was baptised in the river demonstrating visually her death to the old life and her rising with Christ to the new life in Him.

The very expression ‘time flies’ is loaded with regret and in itself speaks of a longing for eternity.   And that is exactly what every child of God looks forward to.   For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life (St John Chapter 3 verse 16).    God’s gift solves the time problem!