The latest tragedy to hit Malaysian Airlines is the shooting down of their flight MH17 as it flew over Ukraine’s war zone on its way from the Netherlands to Malaysia. It was taking the direct route, perhaps to save fuel or simply following the normal flight path feeling safe at a height of 33,000 feet.

Travelling at a speed of between 500/600mph one thing is certain it was not a bullet from a Kalashnikov rifle that brought down the jet killing all 298 people on board. It is much more likely to have been a guided missile from the Buk system which the rebels have obtained from Russia presumably to continue their practice of shooting down planes from the Pro-Western part of Ukraine.

If you give a child a loaded weapon it is unlikely that he will be able to resist using it. In the same way the rebels with their new rocket system may have not been able to resist trying it out on the commercial airliner when it appeared in their airspace. There is also the report of a Ukrainian transport plane flying in the area and it may have been the original target.

The wreckage has fallen in rebel held territory and reports confirm that they have secured the two black boxes. I would think the chances of them being sent to Malaysia are slim!

Whilst all the world powers have had something to say about the tragedy Russia’s Putin blaming Western Ukraine “as they had resumed fighting against the separatists” is particularly myopic!

Of all the soft targets that the rebels could find this must be the softest. The Boeing 777 did not stand a chance. Once the rocket locked on to it there was only going to be one result. The bodies and the wreckage were strewn over several kilometres.

Christians know what is like to be a “soft target” in many countries today. Take the case of Asia Bibi in Pakistan. More than four years ago she was the victim of persecution by some Muslim women who wanted her to confess the prophet Muhammad. Instead she asked them what had their prophet done for them – she said Jesus, her saviour, had died for her.

This unanswerable question landed her in Jail for blasphemy, convicted by the Lower Court in 2010 and now awaiting the result of her appeal to the Lahore High Court. The appeal has been postponed four times by judges who seem to have come under pressure from Islam extremists and would prefer not to get involved.

Meanwhile Asia languishes in death row in wretched conditions in Multan rather that renounce her faith. “Blessed is the one who perseveres under trial because, having stood the test, that person will receive the crown of life that the Lord has promised to those who love him. James Chapter 1 verse 12.

There was once the notion the governments were to cherish all their citizens equally and respect their rights so long as they did not impinge on another’s liberty. This principle was strained in Belfast recently when Asher’s Bakery, a Christian company, was taken to task by the Equality Commission for Northern Ireland for refusing to decorate a cake with the slogan “Support Gay Marriage” and feature the logo of “Queerspace”, a GLBT organisation.

The cake was to be produced for an International Day against Homophobia and Transphobia in Co Down. Asher’s refused to bake it. They got their money back and had the cake baked elsewhere.

Despite the fact that the Northern Ireland Assembly recently voted against redefining marriage for the third time in two years the Equality Commission said the bakery had breached equality laws which outlaw discrimination in the provision of goods and services.

When raised in the Westminster Parliament at Prime Minister’s question time Cameron’s response was to hide behind the flawed Equality, maintain that Gay marriage is equal and use the legislation to try to bend Christian people’s conscience.

Another piece of State Control comes in the form of the Children and Young People (Scotland) Bill where children from the age of 0 to18 will be assigned a State appointed guardian. This law will enable the guardian to intervene without parental consent where there is reckoned to be physical or psychological cruelty.

The guardian or named person will be appointed by the National Health Service for those from age 0 to 5 and will most likely be a teacher for those from 6 to 18. The idea is that the youngster would know who to go to for help – without their parent’s knowledge.

Family life can be tough but with secret meetings being added to the equation it will get tougher!

When you move away from Biblical principles you end up copying other Nation’s Laws and make it up as you go along without any moral compass to guide you.

In the first case, having declared unequal things to be equal – that gay marriage equals heterosexual marriage – they now have to adjust the Christian conscience to comply. No conscience clause is to be permitted!

In the second case, having dismissed the commandment, “Honour your father and your mother” (Exodus Chapter 20 verse 12) as the key to securing stability in the land the breakup of family life continues with the insertion of an officer of the State with legal powers that trump those of the parents.

St Paul’s words commissioning Timothy have a prophet resonance, “preach the word; be ready in season and out of season; reprove, rebuke, and exhort, with complete patience and teaching. For the time is coming when people will not endure sound teaching, but having itching ears they will accumulate for themselves teachers to suit their own passions, and will turn away from listening to the truth and wander off into myths” (2 Timothy Chapter 4 verses 2-4). That time has come!

Attention has been focussed this week on the area between the Euphrates and the Tigris rivers where Abraham and his family and flocks once travelled and where the Garden of Eden lay, today lies conquered by ISIS.

Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has hopped out of the cradle of civilisation, as the region was once called, brandishing sophisticated weapons aiming to set up a Caliphate incorporating a large part of Syria and Iraq.

Having established footholds in Syria ISIS declared the abolition of the border with Iraq and swiftly captured Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city.

This has given ISIS a launching pad for a rapid series of attacks in which its fighters have seized towns along the Tigris River heading south to Baghdad.

Their success is due to careful planning and intimidation of populations by means of public executions. This has enabled ISIS to obtain weaponry from the captured soldiers, wealth from the banks and control of the oil refineries in their path. They have made al-Qaeda look like amateurs and their methods have attracted would be Jihadists to join them from Europe.

It is estimated that up to 1,700 Westerners have been attracted to join the conflict via information circulated by Islamists and picked up on their smartphones. These young impressionable people are seen as a potential future threat as they could be used to pursue ISIS aggression against the West where they would not be easily detected and identified as Jihadists.

These would become missionaries of militant Islam bearing a message of choice -conversion to Islam or death!

When Abraham headed up the Euphrates valley be was going in the opposite direction to ISIS in more ways than one. His mission unfolded as he obeyed God’s plan to create a people who would be uniquely His own and provide a witness of His gracious love to the nations (“all peoples on earth will be blessed through you” Genesis Chapter 12 verse 3).

In fact St Paul states that when Abraham believed God’s word he was declared to be righteous. This was not on account of anything Abraham had done (he was not yet circumcised) and he was still fallible! It was sheer grace and St Paul was able to say that this act of God was an advance proclamation of the Gospel of grace (Galatians chapter 3 verses 6/9).

St Paul concludes the passage by referring to the work of the Gospel today heralding a vastly different Spirit from that of the Jihadist; so that by the authority given by Jesus Christ the blessing originally given to Abraham might flow to the nations, producing new Christians perhaps even out of the Jihadists (chapter 3 verse 14).

This subject is of universal interest. For none of us does time stand still!

Of course when we were very young time did appear to stand still. Adult conversations seemed so long and boring.

During schooldays time seemed to shorten or lengthen depending on whether we liked or disliked the subject we were supposed to be learning.

As young adults we entered a “timeless” zone where it could be stretched by “burning the midnight oil”. On these occasions sleep seemed to be an optional extra.

Adults seldom have enough hours in the day. Competing demands are juggled and compromises made as our priorities are revised again and again. Questions arise like, “how does he manage to all that he does?” And, “I don’t know how she manages to keep going with her workload” as we look at the lives of others?

Then we come to these years when calculating pension income or how to get by in its absence replace the time spent planning holidays.

We are now entering the world of Pensioners Outings when, guess what, your age becomes a major taking point! This time however it is coupled with health whereas before it was all to do with physique or beauty!

Moses, who lived for a fair old age himself, wrote in Psalm 90 that we are allotted 70 years but if health (and now pills) permits may hit 80.

However there is no cause for gloom as Caleb was 85 when he did some of his most famous exploits (Joshua Chapters 14 & 15).

The crucial thing which troubles our latter years is not how long we are here but where we are going. We may ask the doctor “how long have I got?” But the real answer is an eternity – it’s where we are to spend it that is the real issue.

When Jesus’ time had come to leave he had this to say, “Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me” (St John Chapter 14 verse 1). He’s not simply talking about faith in a Jesus of the history books but faith in a real person who loves you enough to die in your place bearing your sins, including the monumental one of not believing his word.

We need to repent of our unbelief as well as the other stuff. My Mother used to say it was too big an ask to make of God but it’s not. This is why he died. He is the way. There is no other.

Our accomplishments in this world St Paul says are as rubbish by comparison with knowing Christ as our Saviour (Philippians Chapter 3 verses 7-10). Don’t rely on anything you have done but trust completely on what Jesus has accomplished for sinners such as us.

The name was first attributed to Pele the Brazilian football star of yesteryear but made popular by Stuart Hall in his commenting on soccer matches. When played by two evenly matched professional teams it can certainly live up to that description.

This week marks the commencement of the World Cup a tournament which brings the best sides in the world together every four years. The host country for the competition is keenly contested as enormous prestige comes with holding the event.

This time around it is the turn of Brazil. The country has been preparing the stadiums and infrastructure for a long time. This has incurred costs which have created tension as available resources have been directed away from welfare projects into sporting facilities. However Brazilians are passionate about their football (they have won the World Cup five times) and it is reckoned that the hardships endured will be forgotten as soon as their team takes to the pitch.

A global audience is ensured as over 200 national teams commence the elimination stages of the competition three years ago. This fires interest in the event till it peaks at the final when it is reckoned that one ninth of the world’s population tune in to the match.

The final 32 teams have travelled to Brazil and have been grouped into eight groups of four teams each. All teams play 3 games in this preliminary stage the winners and runners up then drawn against each other in the knockout stage to produce a winner in approximately four weeks time.

There will be plenty of football widows over the next month!

What has the Bible to say to all this?

Athletic prowess featured in Scripture and in particular in the writings of St Paul. In his advice to young Timothy he contrasted physical training which he reckoned to be of some value with training in “godliness which is of value in every way, as it holds promise for this present life and also for the life to come” (Chapter 4 verse 8).

He expanded on this by describing the Christian who has been cleansed and indwelt by the Holy Spirit as someone who knows contentment (chapter 6 verse 6). All of this stems from faith in the work of the Lord Jesus Christ, writes St Paul, enabling us to have peace with God (Romans Chapter 5 verse 1).

The danger is, as it was then, that we train for the physical but neglect the spiritual. Getting the balance right will not just get you through the next month but will serve you well for this life and the next.

This week we were treated by the media to bodies on the beach and they weren’t the sunbathing variety either! This was newsreels of men of the Allied Forces landing on the beaches of Normandy under sustained enemy gunfire which left half of the 6,000 soldiers dead on the sand.

It was the 60^th anniversary of “The Longest Day”. A few survivors of the onslaught survived to join the participating nation’s current leaders to remember the lessons of war. Hopefully some will have learned their lessons.

At the other side of the world another commemoration was not happening!

It was the 25^th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square massacre in Beijing. The authorities studiously avoided any hint of remembrance by locking up all the artistic types and free thinkers! By contrast on the island of Hong Kong they have a freer regime. There very large crowds filled the public spaces as they remembered the un-numbered masses who were crushed to death when they brought in the tanks and had their bodies ground into the surface of the square in 1989.

Back home the naming of the 796 dead babies found in the grounds of the Bon Secours Home drew attention to the high mortality rate and unmarked graves which featured in children’s homes in the earlier part of last century.

This story went round the world when the journalists learned that some remains had been found in sceptic tank

We will now no doubt learn of a number of other such homes where, due to similar crowded conditions and the presence of infectious diseases, there would have been higher than average mortality rates. In those days we were still looking for a treatment for infections which today we see as commonplace or have been eradicated completely.

In each of the three news items those who died did not die naturally. In most cases their death would have been violent and in other cases it would have been disease.

When an infant dies the adult has the consolation of the scriptures, 1 Samuel Chapter 12 verses 22-23 where David recognises he cannot bring his son back from the dead but he can go to him.

For those killed in conflict each one had lived out his allotted life-span. No ones death took God by surprise. St Paul put it simply when preaching to the pagan worshipping Athenians. “From one man he made every nation of men that they should inhabit the whole earth, and he determined the times set for them” Acts Chapter 17 verse 26.

In the violence many would have died helping others. Some may have taken the bullet to save a comrade and in that way shown something of the sacrificial love that Jesus showed for sinners on the cross. And it’s there at the cross that forgiveness and peace are found and the battle worn and all who are weary of this world find their strength.

The closure of “All Hallows” College in Dublin last week has brought to light the plight of colleges offering courses in theology, ethics and social justice in a society which no longer rates these subjects highly.

In conjunction with many other such colleges they lack the money to continue despite the fact that they are asset rich. The discovery of the “Kennedy letters” (correspondence between Jacqueline Kennedy and a Priest) in the College were put up for sale then withdrawn at the request of the Kennedy family. Had they been sold the money raised would have been barely adequate to keep the College open for another year.

Apparently a recent inventory of the contents of the library revealed many valuable items some of which are now missing. It seems the fate of these College libraries is to be plundered.

Hopefully the library in Maynooth will be better protected. It contains 800 year old Bibles, presumably the Latin Septuagint, along with, what a Journalist called, the first printed Bible dated 1482. The latter may have been the English translation in the common tongue carried out by John Wycliffe. This was not to the liking of his fellow academics who said, “The jewel of the clergy has become the toy of the laity.”

In the same vein William Tyndale 100 years later translated the Bible into English using the Hebrew and Greek texts. He also took advantage of the recently invented printing press producing Bibles which could be read by the common man breaking the monopoly of the literate elite.

However there is a danger that these old copies of Scripture can be treated as a talisman. There is a tendency towards superstition where we revere the bones of the person rather than work of the person, or the antiquity of the book rather than its content. The Bible, commenting on its uses writes, “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work” 2 Timothy Chapter 3 verses 16/17.

The “Man of God” could read the Scriptures all his life and it would do him little good. Studying them does not get you to heaven. Jesus said it! “You search the Scriptures because you think that in them you have eternal life; and it is they that bear witness about me, yet you refuse to come to me that you may have life.” St John Chapter 5 verses 39/40. First turn to the lifegiver and trust this same Jesus who speaks today from His Word the Bible.

There cannot be many softer targets for well armed soldiers to engage than the kidnapping of teenage schoolgirls. These heavily armed men of the Muslin Boko Haram tribe in the name of Allah raided the dormitory of a girl’s school. The raid was carried out in the middle of the night, darkness permitting some to escape but the majority, well over 100, were taken captive. This was on 14^th April and apart from videos produced by their captors no trace of the girls has been found.

One Muslin media outlet commenting on the international attention being given to the disgraceful nature of the schoolchildren’s kidnapping said it was giving the Mujahid (guerrilla soldiers) a bad name!

Boko Haram stands against all things Western of which Christian people, in their eyes, represent living symbols whose destruction or conversion pleases Allah. It should be added that they have not much time for any Muslim non-fundamentalist and non-jihadist institutions either. More recently they have shown a dislike for western education hence the burning of many schools and churches in North Eastern Nigeria.

In a video these militants say that they are following Allah’s instructions, to sell the girls, as they are his property. They are shown to be dressed as Muslins and are alleged to have converted to Islam. To prove it they are heard to be reciting the creed. A few of the girls have been forcibly married to their kidnappers so this matter is far from reaching a satisfactory conclusion.

In the Bible we have a somewhat similar situation with Joseph. He was taken prisoner by his brothers and sold into slavery. Later he was married to an Egyptian (Genesis Chapter 41 verse 45) and, in the will of God, saved many lives (Chapter 50 verse 20).

Because of his ability to bear failure and success with equal equanimity allowing neither to distract him from his sense of Devine calling Joseph resembles Jesus of whom it was said that “He set his face to go to Jerusalem” (St Luke Chapter 9 verse 51) ignoring all distractions. He did this in order to fulfill his destiny which he summed up in answer to Pilot, “For this purpose I was born and for this purpose I have come into the world—to bear witness to the truth.  Everyone who is of the truth listens to my voice” (St John Chapter 18 verse 37).

Whilst a dreadful injustice has been perpetuated on these girls those who have truly heard and responded in faith to Jesus’s voice belong to him and no amount of reciting of Islamic creeds can pluck them out of their heavenly Father’s hand (St John Chapter 10 verse 28).

When we left Ireland at the end of April, Charities were under scrutiny for concealing the truth about their money and when we came back this week we find the Garda have been in the dock over allegations of malpractice and incompetence. The news in America is very staid by comparison!

With the history of hatred hanging out of the “Informer” the modern version, the “Whistleblower”, has a psychological mountain to climb before he gives his first toot on his whistle! It must require great tenacity for truth to report misconduct which, in the case of the Garda if found guilty, could lead to criminal prosecution and discharge from the force. There is also loyalty to colleagues to be considered. You may be in circumstances where your life literally is in their hands so mutual trust must rank highly in your relationships.

Whistleblowers are to be commended especially when they know that they are unlikely to be believed and their careers will probably suffer as a result of their accusations.

This was the fate of the former executive of the Japanese Olympus Corporation who was speaking in Dublin this week at the European Insurance Forum. He had raised questions of the propriety of a $1.7billion deal which had nothing to do with the Corporations business. What disturbed him most was not so much his dismissal but the withdrawl of support by his colleagues in the aftermath of his sacking.

To the Bible reader it all sounds familiar. Even Jesus’s most loyal disciple was no better than the rest. ”Then all the disciples deserted him and fled” St Matthew Chapter 26 verse 56. To make a stand for truth always has implications both for the one standing for it and those who, if they are not for it, are against it. There is no middle ground. Truth knows of no compromise.

Pilot preferred compromise! He claimed to be ignorant of truth when the truth incarnate in the form of Jesus Christ was standing in front of him St John Chapter 18 verse 38.

To live for Jesus is to tell the truth. But this will not happen unless we are first embraced by the Truth. Turn to Him, the Way, the Truth and the Life

St John Chapter 14 verse 6.

Easter has come and gone and perhaps we should reflect on what an impact religion has made on the world we live in and also on ourselves.

In a popular move in Rome Pope Francis will canonise two of his predecessors. They meet their Church’s requirements and so Pope John Paul 11 and Pope John XX111 will become Saints of Rome. All this is planned for tomorrow in front of a large crowd including our Taoiseach.

On the other side of the world in Japan the Yasukuni Shrine is again in the news. It is the place where the historical imperial Japan lives on. In addition to being a war memorial it is the last resting place of 14 leaders of the Japanese war effort who were tried and executed by the War Crimes Tribunal. Their bodies were secretly enshrined there by the Shinto Priests who also continue to believe their Emperor is a deity. It’s one place where Barak Obama will not be visiting this coming week although he may not be able to prevent the Prime Minister from stirring up nationalism by going there again.

Turning from the outward trappings of religion to the inward and personal place where God meets with us as individuals. Please forgive a personal illustration as, in this area; no one can speak for another.

I was around the age of 26 when I professed faith in Jesus acknowledging him to be my Saviour from my sins. It took me by surprise as I certainly had not planned it! “He died for me” became a reality (Galatians chapter 2 verse 20).

A deeper inward joy came with the realisation that the whole ceremonial law, with its multiple offerings enabling the repentant to get right with God, exploded in majestic fulfilment at the cross.

Sinless blood had been shed for me, the sinner. God’s lamb was the offering. The law, in all its forms, had been kept by Christ removing the curse of its perpetual guilt (Galatians chapter 3 verse 13). “It is for freedom that Christ has set us free…and do not be subject again to a yoke of slavery” (Galatians chapter 5 verse 1).

Easter stands as a reminder that the Christian enjoys a freedom, under Christ’s governance, that truly liberates and allows for joyful service.