The paradox this week between the outcry over the rape and murder of Jill Meagher in Melbourne and the disappearance of April Jones in Wales, terrible as they are, and the global trafficking of women illustrates the massive gap between those who have power and those who don’t.

Lydia Cacho, a Mexican woman, whose new book “Slavery Inc” is reviewed this week, writes from a background which includes the exposing of a powerful paedophile ring in Mexico. She survived false imprisonment and torture in the process. The book is the product of 5 years investigative journeying during which she interviewed hundreds involved in all aspects of the trade.

She estimates the between 1 & 2 million are trafficked annually.

The older methods of drugging and kidnapping the victim have been to some extent displaced by an attempt to glamorise the trade. Apparently large amounts of money have been spent on magazines illustrating the culture of porn around the world resulting in changed cultural values.

Women, especially those in countries where they have few choices, are attracted to such life-styles and are open to offers of a new way of life abroad. They end up with a crippling debt which can only be met by entering the sex trade. In many cases this is increased as they have to send money home to dependant relatives. To prevent escape from this way of life the owner of the place where they live retains their papers rendering them powerless.

Some countries openly allow this culture to happen. Lydia came across a colony of 30,000 Dutchmen living in Northern Cambodia. In Holland they know about this as their Social Services pay the pensions to people living in that area. The irony is that many of them have a record of child abuse and would not be welcome back in Holland.

On a positive note Lydia commends the work of organisations such as World Hope who create safe houses and provide skills training to those who escape from this form of slavery.

What has the Bible to say about woman’s lot?

Whilst the widow and the orphan always had special protection in Israel it was Jesus who defended the defenceless. Take the case of the woman caught in the act of adultery. It was Jesus who saved her from the rigours of the law by pointing out the universality of sin as the accusers were brought to face their own fallibility (St John Chapter 8 verses 1 to 11).

It was women that were with him at the cross and it was a woman he first spoke to at the resurrection (St John Chapter 20 Verse 15).

The legacy today is that it is in countries where the Gospel of Jesus Christ has influenced the culture that displayed outrage over Jill and April reflecting the inestimable value of every human life.

Two commemorations in one week. In the North the 100 anniversary of the signing of the Ulster Solemn League and Covenant. In the South the national festival of Arthur’s Day.

The Ulster Covenant was against Home Rule (the fear was that it would become Rome Rule) preferring the British Crown to the Irish Harp. The Arthur’s Day festival was for the pint of Guinness and embraced its symbol of the Irish Harp.

The Covenant gained 471,414 signatures, some signed in their own blood, and came to be summarised in the phrase, “Ulster says No”. Arthur’s Day was started in 2009 to commemorate 250 years since Arthur Guinness brewed his first pint of stout and which is now being marketed as “The Black Stuff”.

The Northern celebration will be marked by unrest, police in riot gear deploying water canon and tear gas. Gangs of youths setting fire to anything inflammable and using their weapon of choice, the petrol bomb, on the police.

The Southern celebrations will breath new life into pubs (is it one day or three days?) for its duration. Garda stations and hospital emergency departments reported up to 30% increase in activity a fact confirmed by the constant wail of the ubiquitous ambulance siren.

We had better get used to these things as there many more commemorations coming down the track before this decade is over!

What has the Bible to do with all this?

The great Biblical festivals celebrated deliverances from bondage and had a strong future aspect. God was at the centre of them and was to be worshipped and praised.

Perhaps the best known was the Passover commemorating the rescue of God’s people from Egypt where they had been living as slaves. In obedience to God’s instructions a lamb was slaughtered and its blood spread on the doorposts and lintel of the homes giving protection to those inside. The final plague resulted in the death of the first born in a final act of judgement. In every home there was a death. Either the firstborn of children or livestock or the death of a lamb Exodus Chapter 12. As a result the whole nation was saved and the annual Passover celebration instigated.

Jesus celebrated the last Passover when he identified himself with the slain lamb who was about to effect deliverance for his people from their bondage to sin. He introduced the New Covenant in his blood which was about to be shed on the cross for the forgiveness of sins, St Matthew chapter 26 verse 28. His followers remember this event when they meet by eating bread and drinking from the cup together 1 Corinthians 11.

The Irish festivals celebrated this week speak of things considered to be important but pale into insignificance compare with the work of Jesus rescuing sinners from hell.

Trust Jesus for yourself and you will see the other festivals in a new light 2 Corinthians chapter 5 verse 17.

A week has passed since the unthinkable accident occurred on the Spence family farm at Hillsborough. The awfulness of the incident is heightened by the romantic misconception that farms are places of tranquillity and beauty.

The more usual causes of farm death, such as being gored by a bull, almost seem noble but to be drowned in slurry along with your two sons enters into the realm of science- fiction like exaggeration.

Apparently the manhole to the slurry pit had been opened and the pet dog had fallen in. The pit would have been around 10 feet deep with some 3 to 4 feet of slurry in the bottom. The eldest son Graham got a ladder and climbed down to rescue the dog but was overcome by fumes. His father Noel, seeing Graham in difficulty went down to assist him and he too was rendered unconscious, the methane and other lethal gases having displaced oxygen in the pit.

The youngest son Nevin tried to save them but became the third victim to the fumes. Their sister Emma went into the pit and, with some assistance from neighbours was successful in retrieving her father’s body. She went back down again but was unable to reach her brothers before she herself was overcome by the fumes and had to be pulled out by neighbours.

Mercifully she recovered in hospital and was able to give a moving tribute to the dead loved ones in the Ballynahinch Baptist Church last Thursday.

What comfort can we get from the Bible in the face of such tragedy?

The Christian understanding is the Christ loved us so much as to die for us,

“Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends”

St John Chapter 15 verse 13. The Spence’s self sacrifice exemplifies this text.

Others may ask, “Could God not have prevented it?” The implication is that God could but chose not to. Like Justin Hayward the songwriter we ask why?

“Why do we never get an answer

when we are knocking at the door?

With a thousand million questions

about hate and death and war?”

If death was the end, evil would have won. However the miracle of the new birth brings with it a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead (1Peter Chapter 1 verse 3).

Hayward’s song ends with these words:

“I’m looking for a miracle in my life.

I’m looking for someone to change my life.”

God’s answer to evil in this life is a cross and an empty tomb. Christ has completed His work. The miracle comes when we yield our lives to Him for time AND eternity.

“Now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known” St Paul in 1Corinthians 13 verse 12.

This is the name of a 14 minute film trailer, produced in California back in June 2012. At that time its production passed almost unnoticed. It was translated into Arabic before Sept 11^th and released by Google on Utube with explosive results in Muslim States.

The amateurish video opens with scenes of Egyptian security forces standing idle as Muslims pillage and burn the homes of Coptic Christians. Then it cuts to cartoonish scenes depicting the Prophet Muhammad as a child of uncertain parentage, a buffoon, a womaniser, a homosexual, a child molester and a greedy, bloodthirsty thug.

Apparently the original idea was to attract Muslims to a film thinking they were coming to a movie celebrating Islam. Then when they came in they would get this movie and see the truth about Islam as the authors saw it.

It is doubtful if the film was ever made, the trailer having achieved the discord the makers must have known what would occur.

Claiming the cause of free speech Google have refused to withdraw the video. They have however censored the video in India and Indonesia after blocking it on Wednesday in Egypt and Libya, where US embassies have been stormed by protestors. Up to the present there have been 7 deaths including the US Ambassador to Libya.

What has the Bible to say about all this?

The descendents of Abraham though Isaac’s line and the descendents of Ishmael were both promised to become great nations. But it was to be through Isaac’s line that the Redeemer would come (Genesis 17:20/21). From the start hostility was predicted between the brothers and has continued to this day between Jew and Arab. By extension the antagonism spreads to friends of Israel on the one side and friends of Arabs on the other.

There are various triggers that ignite the enmity but none are more effective than the religious one. Violence breaks out across the Muslim world and whilst the reasons for it may not be as simple as they first appear the aggression towards all things Jewish or in this case their Western allies is unmistakable.

It was this hostility that divides nations that was in view when St Paul wrote to the church at Ephesus, that Jesus Christ’s death had made the way of reconciliation possible through his redeeming love (Chapter 2 verses 11/22).

The title “Innocence of Muslins” is a misnomer. None are innocent before God. But where there is an acknowledgement of guilt, reconciliation is possible when we meet together at the foot of the cross.

During the call for prayer requests last Sunday in a small country Church there was a sharp intake of breath when a request was made to pray for the family of a man whose cousin’s son had died by his own hand some 3 days previously. The boy was in his mid-teens and although he was of a quiet disposition there were no abnormal features to his lifestyle which might have alerted his family and friends.

Monday 10^th September is World Suicide Prevention Day. It has been established in response to the rising levels of suicide with the idea that prevention is the cure.

Here lies the difficulty as reasons for suicide are hard to find. Each individual case presents a personal tragedy where the reasons are seldom immediately obvious, even to those within the closest circles of family and friends. Moreover, the problems are never one-dimensional or easily fixed. They accumulate till the darkness seems impenetrable and death the only solution.

Those who are left behind have the impossible task of trying to make sense of where it all went wrong. The spectres of guilt and blame appear out of impregnable mess of suicide as the search goes on for the reason why.
We cannot untangle it. We want clarity when life bleeds, and we think that answers will close the gaping wound of confusion. Like Job, this understanding can be the very thing that we demand in vain from God. 

In one of the Biblical scenes where we see Satan at work he tempts Jesus to kill himself by throwing himself off the pinnacle of the Temple. This suggestion to suicide was answered from scripture and the evil plan thwarted (St Matthew Chapter 4 verses 6/7).

The Apostle Paul wrote of his own struggles with unanswered prayer when he asked for his ailment to be cured. The Lord did not take away the pain but promised to provide the grace to endure it (2Corinthians chapter 12 verse 9). It is the promise of this supply of grace which sustains those who grieve over the loss of a loved one. Answers are beyond our comprehension but promises can uphold us as we mourn with those who mourn.

Following the success of the spectacular opening night of the London Olympics a month ago it was hard to imagine that the opening night of the Paralympics this week would surpass it – but it did.

The 4 hour epic took the theme of “Enlightenment” and was built around the narration of the metallic voice of Stephen Hawkings, perhaps the most famous disabled scientist in the world. From his high performance wheelchair he opened the proceedings with “Ever since the dawn of civilisation people have craved for an understanding about the underlying order of the world”. He then took us through “big bangs”, “black holes” and even the Biggs Boson Collider was thrown in for good measure.

Against this background of scientific endeavour it was good to see due deference made to our rainy weather. The recurring symbol of the umbrella was used to great affect enabling the disabled to fly or float as they triumphed over their handicaps.

The Queen had only a bit part amongst the 150 performers and was perhaps the only one not carrying a disability!

Possibly the most moving part of the evening came when the disabled dancer Birdy Bird Gerhl sang her beautiful haunting song “I am a bird girl now”. Although written 7 years ago it was a wonderfully appropriate to the athletes finding their form by surmounting their physical limitations. Some of the lyrics are: –

I’ve been searching
For my wings some time
I’m gonna be born
Into soon the sky
‘Cause I’m a bird girl
And the bird girls go to heaven

The ultimate goal is not to remain earthbound but to aim higher – to heaven itself.

The Bible would agree that we are made to be re-made for heaven.

It puts it this way, that because of Christ’s love for us he died as our substitute; his perfect life for us sinners. It is faith in this fact that enables us to no longer live to please ourselves but to please him. We now see people differently because believers are new creations embodying Christ’s way of seeing things and have been given the task of reconciling people to God (2 Corinthians chapter 5 verses 14 to 18).

To Stephen Hawkins, the Bible would say that we are creations not creators. As John Lennox reminds us “It is for the universe to shape our ideas about how it works, rather than for us to decide in our heads how it ought to work and then force the universe to comply”. Even the earth is not ours, but God’s … we are not our own – we are bought with a price, the precious blood of Christ (1Peter chapter 1 verses 18/21).

There was never any doubt about Anders Breivik’s guilt in the murder of 69 people and the wounding of 242 others following his bomb attack in Oslo and his rampage on the island of Utoya. The only doubts centred on his sanity and what verdict the court would impose this week.

Unlike American courts where many States have retained the death penalty as the ultimate sentence of retribution European courts have no such sanction. Instead they have gone for the rehabilitation of the guilty on the basis that none are beyond redemption.

Anders presented the court with two problems. First was his wish to be declared sane in order that his hyper-nationalistic views could not be written off as the ravings of a madman. The second was his tirade after the verdict was announced bemoaning that he had let down his Nationalistic friends by not having killed more people. The judge cut off his microphone terminating the rant to which Anders responded with a defiant clenched right fist in a fascist salute.

His sentence of 21 years imprisonment will be carried out in a high security prison where he will have his own 3 roomed suite. He will not be allowed access to other prisoners. He will be given the use of a computer but no internet access. The only people he will have contact with are his prison wardens who are presumably immune to his anti-Muslim anti-multiculturalism views.

Part of the country’s response to the attacks was the desire that Anders hateful beliefs should not be allowed to fill Norway with hate. In April, while the trial was taking place, tens of thousands of people around the country gathered for a mass sing-along of “Children of the Rainbow,” (a song Anders denounced in court) to show that he had not shattered their commitment to love, tolerance and inclusiveness.

The song itself is one of hopeful nation-building embracing thoughts of creation, the fall, sins of all, God’s law and a vague reference to Christ.

When it comes to justice for us our hope needs to be in Christ. He alone can judge justly because he knows each one of us intimately. His judgements will be perfect. (2Corinthians chapter 5 verse 10). Better for us to look for mercy replacing the clenched fist with the bended knee echoing the prayer of the Tax-collector “Lord be merciful to me, a sinner”.

That person is justified in God’s sight (St Luke Chapter 18 verses 13/14).

Matters of faith seldom get much of an airing in the newspapers but the handful of utterances Katie Taylor made with reference to Jesus have produced nearly as many column inches as her gold medal! Her heartfelt gratitude for His presence with her and her thanks to all who prayed for her has made some think.

Of course the good news that Jesus is a present reality to those who have placed their faith in Him is divisive – just as Jesus said it would be.

On the one hand there is the Journalist, who has conducted a lonely campaign for Christ in the media, taking pleasure at the embarrassment of his fellow reporters at Katie’s clear testimony.

This was countered by another who disingenuously argued that it was the time factor in having to rush his script to meet editor’s deadlines that made enquiry into what Katie meant impossible. Yet another article from a self proclaimed agnostic who in commending tolerance of individual beliefs added somewhat darkly that we need to set limits on religious fundamentalism.

Perhaps the confusion Katie’s unassuming love for Jesus has created was best summed up by one in the changing rooms of a public swimming pool. After weighing the arguments for and against knowing Jesus personally he announced that he now understood himself to be a “Catholic atheist”!

What has the Bible to say to all this?

Perhaps the most obvious thing was the almost total absence of any reference to it by any of the writers. One did admit to reading the Sermon on the Mount but used it to find inadequacies in the “Religious” and thus facilitate his rejection of faith.

The Biblical requirement for believers in Jesus to be witnesses is mandatory.

In the Old Testament, before Jesus arrived on the earth, The Psalmist could sing the words “Let the redeemed of the Lord say so” out of heartfelt thankfulness for His enduring love which rescued them out of exile in the other nations to be His people (Psalm 107 verses 1/2).

In the New Testament following the crucifixion and resurrection the risen Jesus commissioned His disciples to be witnesses of His enduring love which had rescued them from their addiction to sin and unbelief to be His people “you will be my witnesses in Jerusalem, and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the ends of the earth” (Acts 1 verse 8).

Katie stands in a long line of those who have trusted Jesus and out of gratitude for his love to them set out on a path of witness to His presence and His enabling grace to keep them in His care on this life and the next.

What Katie did was to trust in what Jesus has done and is doing. Will you?

Katie Taylor winning Olympic Gold in the Women’s Lightweight Boxing Final dominated the news this week. The fact that it coincided with the late arrival of our Irish Summer made it all the more appreciated!

Katie boxes from a platform created by her faith in Jesus. It is not so much that she boxes for Him – as in pay-back time. Nor is it the she does her best by trying to live for Him. Instead her faith is in what Jesus has done for her on the cross, liberating her from the power and guilt of sin. It is out of this relationship with Jesus, her Saviour that the freedom comes to speak of Him in her life.

Other athletes witness to their faith by using symbols such as crossing themselves before and sometimes after the event. Still others draw attention to their country by pointing to the logo on their clothing. Again we have witnessed competitors taking a moment to publicly pray on their knees giving thanks to God for their performance.

Harder to interpret are the index fingers pointing upwards. These could be pointing to a higher power but, in the absence of any collaborating evidence may simply be saying that they are number one!

Katie Taylor removes any ambiguity. Her words are often direct quotations from scripture. They centre on her thankfulness to Jesus. She attributes her success to Him.

The Bible contains many references to people who have had a life changing encounter with Jesus. They have gone on to tell others. Sometimes this has been impulsive, such as the Samaritan woman at the well who spoke to her neighbours (St John chapter 4). At other times it was on Jesus instruction that a transformed man returned to his family with the news of his changed life (St Mark chapter 5 verses 19/20).

In every case the focus is on Jesus not the church, not the person who was changed but on the Saviour who had changed them.

So it is with our “Golden Girl”. She does not soak up the applause but re-directs it to Jesus whom she testifies to as her Lord and Saviour who has made it all possible.

She presents us with the challenge to encounter Jesus for ourselves and then to live and speak for Him giving God the glory for the great things he has done.

Queen Maeve not the legendary Queen of Connaught but Maeve Binchy, Queen of Irish story writing died this week. The name Maeve is steeped in mythology and probably means “she who intoxicates” which our Maeve certainly did with her many novels.

These books reflected her lifelong interest in people, their problems and their ability to overcome them. She was a student of human nature who delighted to eavesdrop on others conversations. She had a lively imagination and, whilst her ability to lip-read was limited, her imagination made up for it producing fascinating dialogue which became the essence of her writings.

Seldom can the eulogies of fellow writers have been so uniformly flattering.

The warmth of her personality, her wit, her intellect and her prodigious appetite for hard work have occupied many column inches of newsprint his week. She will be sadly missed by all who knew her and by all those who enjoyed her writings.

The one facet of her life which she did not shrink from herself, although understandably the tributes do, was her inability to believe in God. In the homily the preacher said she was a searcher in the tradition of the Magi, a seeker of the Divine, but it eluded her.

She herself had wanted to be a Saint – but not the kind that got martyred! Her school friends said she made it up but she never looked up into trees in case she saw “Our Lady beckoning to me”!

What has the Bible to say to all this?

Perhaps the greatest irony is to have someone whose lifelong joy was the written word to come to the end after 72 years during which the Written Word remained a closed book. In the Bible St John wrote his Gospel expressly, “so that you may believe” (Chapter 20 verse 31). The consequences of unbelief are dire.

At Irish funerals, religion always finds a way to land the deceased in heaven but such texts as Psalm 23, which was read, ring hollow in the face of unbelief.

Maeve specially requested the theme from “The Brendan Voyage” to be played after the homily. The music depicts Brendan setting sail into the unknown in his home-made boat.

St Paul also prepared for his departure in a way which has modelled the response of faith in the face of death for generations of believers. “The time for my departure is near. I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith. Now there is in store for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, will award to me on that day —and not only to me, but also to all who have longed for his appearing.” (2Timothy Chapter 4 verses 6/8).

Who are you sailing with? Get on board with Christ and trust Him for your journey through this life and into the next.