In a country awash with sexual perversions it is almost a relief to read of the serial adultery of Tiger Woods. So skewed has our moral compass gone that the philandering of this superb athlete does not seem so remarkable. What makes his fall from grace intriguing is the fact that he had all his liaisons while he was in the limelight as the world’s top golfer. His wife did not know and the journalists, who make careers out of delving into the secrets of the rich and famous, were taken by surprise. His ability to control the media was in evidence on Friday when he delivered a prepared confession before a hand-picked audience of friends and sympathisers with only three journalists in attendance. They were there simply to take notes – no questions were permitted. After 45 days of therapy Woods was in control. Addictions are hard to handle and Woods struggled to rationalise his behaviour. “I convinced myself normal rules did not apply…I thought only about myself…I thought I could get away with whatever I wanted to …I felt I was entitled.” He returns to therapy and to the Buddhism of his youth. In it he would have been taught the “4 Noble Truths”; Life is suffering. Suffering is caused by desire. The cessation of desire eliminates suffering. This comes by following the path between the extremes of sensuousness and asceticism. In Woods own words, “Buddhism teaches that a craving for things outside ourselves, causes an unhappy and pointless search for security. It teaches me to stop following every impulse and to learn restraint. Obviously I lost track of what I was taught.” Like many of the world’s religions Buddhism seeks the remedy within the person. Jesus contradicts this, “For from within, out of the heart of man come evil thoughts… theft, murder, adultery… all these evil things come from within, and they defile a person.” St Mark ch.7 V21. All sin is against God because he made the rules which we all transgress. When we sin we create a debt. Even the most elastic conscience knows that. Therapy cannot remove it. Going within is looking for a remedy in the wrong place. We need to look away from ourselves to Jesus atoning work on the cross and believe that he was there in the sinners place. When we recognise that he died for me we experience the freedom of forgiveness which now evokes in the heart a new desire to live in conformity to his word. The addict will always have his Achilles heel. He will be tested. But for the Christian who has personally experienced the love of Jesus there is the power to live above the ordinary and the assurance that he is not alone in his struggles. Jesus has promised that he will never leave or forsake him in this life or the next. Our “tiger” natures need to be tamed by faith in Jesus.

At this time of the year we have cows calving in the farmyard so it was with some curiosity that I learned of the Mertz glacier in Antarctica calving earlier this month. Apparently the gesticulation period is not as predictable as cows occurring every 50 or 100 years but when the calf is an iceberg the size of Luxembourg it must make quite a splash! The birth was assisted by another iceberg called B-9B, itself a mere 60 miles long, bumping into it like a gigantic dodgem car. Scientists reckon the pair may have some effect on global ocean circulation. As I write news is breaking of a massive earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale. The epicentre was 70 miles from Concepcion, Chile’s second-largest city, where more than 200,000 people live. President Michele Bachelet declared a “state of catastrophe.” Buildings collapsed and phone and electricity lines are down, making the extent of the damage difficult to determine. A tsunami is travelling across the Pacific and the inhabitants of Islands in its path are taking to the boats. Its effects may reach New Zealand and Australia. It may be my imagination but there seems to be a stepping up of these natural phenomena. The Lord Jesus did say that prior to his return there would be various signs in the heavens and “on earth distress of nations in perplexity because of the roaring of the sea and the waves” – St Luke chapter 21 verse 25. If you are of a scientific bent you will find explanations for these occurrences in the movement of plaetonic plates and ridicule the notion of fulfilling Biblical prediction. If you are in that category the words written by St Peter in a letter to the churches are especially relevant: – “you should remember the predictions of the holy prophets and the commandment of the Lord and Saviour through your apostles, knowing this first of all, that scoffers will come in the last days with scoffing, following their own sinful desires. They will say, “Where is the promise of his coming? For ever since the fathers fell asleep, all things are continuing as they were from the beginning of creation.” For they deliberately overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, and that by means of these the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of the ungodly. But do not overlook this one fact, beloved, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance.” 2 Peter chapter 3 verses2-9. Please take note of these events, take St Peter’s advice and turn to Jesus.

We have had a famine of resignations in Ireland but recently this has turned into, what for us, is something of a flood. Some have been voluntary like the two politicians who resigned this week. Others like the handful of Bishops whose resignations were involuntary came reluctantly. The reasons given by the politicians are somewhat obscure. In their explanations the temptation to wash someone else’s dirty linen in public proved too hard to resist. The Bishop’s suffered from the general blindness of society towards child abuse but since they knew about it they were faced with no alternative but to go. What exactly was the deciding factor that brought them to their decision may never be revealed. What was the straw that broke the camels back, the bridge too far, the action or word that triggered the letter of resignation? We may never know. What is certain is that none of them ever expected to end up this way. There are no resignations in the New Testament. The Apostles would have had plenty of grounds for taking that route. Their mandate was to be “fishers of men” and to experience the abundant life that Jesus offered. Indeed in the commissioning service did He not forecast that they would do greater things than he had done? A great future beckoned. Perhaps if they had not been arguing about who would get the top job in the new Kingdom they would have heard that suffering and service go together. The amount of hardship they suffered for simply doing their work would have had people today running to the Labour Court or the Rights Commissioner for redress! On the other hand if they had listened better they would have heard the bit about cross-bearing which Jesus modelled so graphically and realised that there is a close relationship between discipleship and martyrdom. Their message to “come and die” is not one to pull in the crowds. But this was the way they were to go – Jesus said it clearly. “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” Of course it was the love of Jesus, experienced by the presence of the Holy Spirit within them that gave them the confidence that indeed he would “never leave them nor forsake them”. In all their trials there was only young Mark who found the going a bit too tough and even he repented and joined Barnabas on a mission trip to Cyprus. None of them resigned or retired. Their Gospel told of a saviour who died so that sinners like you and me might be forgiven and rose from the dead to guarantee our future with Him in heaven. May we be granted a like faith to follow in their footsteps.

Word on the Week. 6th February 2010. We are not told in the Bible why God made Adam and Eve instead of Adam and Steve but it makes sense when a short time later he commands them to “be fruitful and multiply”. We are not told why the one man and one woman in lifelong monogamous relationship was the best arrangement to rear a family but we can see throughout Scripture the blessings it brought when it was not transgressed. We are not told why St Paul in his first letter to Timothy rules that, in the church, a woman should not teach or have authority over a man relating this back to the creation order, but at the very minimum it implies that gender matters. There are God-given roles which we breach at our peril. Once you say that gender doesn’t matter, it may seem to be a small thing, but you “sow to the wind and reap the whirlwind”. The consequences of our actions may not be apparent at the time but they will appear and there is no means of redress. We are told why there is an order in opposite sex marriage (the only marriage the Bible recognises). The husband is head of the house. He is to love his wife enough to die for her. The wife is to submit to her husband. She is to love him enough to live for him. Because we are sinners the roles are to be worked out in a setting of mutual forgiveness. “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you. Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.” But the underlying reason for marriage is simply that it provides us with a picture of Christ’s relationship to his church. He is the head of the church. The church is his bride. He loved the church and died for her. She is to submit to him and obey his word. “Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her to make her holy, cleansing her by the washing with water through the word, and to present her to himself as a radiant church, without stain or wrinkle or any other blemish, but holy and blameless.” So where does this leave Adam and Steve? The proposed Civil Bill would recognise their relationship and make allowance for it. The Bible also recognises their relationship and tells us that the love of God is so strong that Christ died for them. The out-working of his death was to enable those who trust Jesus to turn from their homosexual practices as instanced in the Corinthian church: “And that is what some of you were. But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God”. The love of God for the homosexual is no less strong today. Trust in Jesus. Further recommended reading – Ephesians Chapter 5.

This film, from the director who gave us “Titanic” is the hottest thing to hit the science fiction world. Aided with 3D glasses audiences can see where the $280 million went in making the film and the Director’s bankers can see the $1 billion it netted in the first 17 days! It is impossible not to be fascinated and enthralled by this action-filled vision of adventure and battles in an iridescent jungle on an alien planet, where hideous, dragon-like creatures appear to leap off the screen, flora and fauna wave in the air and a heroic avatar does battle with a pterodactyl-like beast before subduing it and soaring off on its back. This is Pandora, an Earthlike-planet with a lush rainforest environment, trees a thousand feet tall, floating mountains and an abundance of life forms, some beautiful and some terrifying. Into this new world our hero, Jake, is sent on a spying mission. Here the natives, the tall blue-skinned “Na’vi”, (navy blue perhaps!) have long resisted the miners from earth trying to plunder their land for the valuable mineral Unobtainium. Borrowing from Hinduism where Avatars are incarnations sent to earth by Hindu deities and in his artificially-grown alien body, our ‘Avatar’ Jake must go among the Na’vi, learn their ways, and win their trust. The idea that he might do them wrong is upset when he falls in love with a 10 foot beauty. As he becomes increasingly involved with her and her clan he finds himself caught between the military and industrial forces of Earth and the Na’vi, who are increasingly threatened by human expansion on Pandora. Jake wants a cause. Can this extraterrestrial girl teach him something? “All I ever wanted was a single thing worth fighting for” he says. Well he gets plenty of fighting when he chooses to side with the Na’vi! Then there is the big white tree. It represents Mother Nature and is the life force of all the animals and plants on the planet. It also bonds the Na’vi with nature and must be protected. If it dies Pandora is doomed. The Bible teaches that salvation did not originate in nature but in revelation. The grand narrative of our salvation is not found in worshipping nature, but in God’s interventions in redemptive history. They do, however, culminate with a tree, or rather with the One who was hung on it. It is through faith in the atoning death of Jesus that we have life. Life that is not dependant on nature but on the forgiveness of our sins and our adoption into God’s family for ever. As St Peter put it in his letter to the churches: He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we, might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed. For you were straying like sheep, but have now returned unto the Shepherd and Overseer of your souls.

There is something satisfactory when, in a National scientific competition for schoolchildren the winner out of the 1,000 plus entries was the designer of a home-made stove. It heightens the satisfaction to learn that he did not make it for the cash prize nor for its marketing potential but to have it taken up by Charities working in developing countries. Richard O’Shea, an 18 year old sixth year student from Blarney, Co Cork, designed his biomass (wood dung and plant material) fired cooking stove out of tin cans. It can be made with a screwdriver, a small knife and a nail! The stove uses small quantities of fuel and produces little or no smoke. It is reckoned that over 2 billion people in the world depend on fires for cooking. These use a lot of fuel and produce smoke. The beauty of Richard’s simple design is that it can be made from materials readily available. The life-span of the stove was not examined but, given the ease with which it could be made; replacements could form a sustainable cottage industry! The welfare of the poor has always gone hand in hand with the proclamation of the Gospel in Scripture. In fact when St Paul was commissioned to preach the Gospel to the Gentiles the church leaders asked him to remember the poor back in Jerusalem. It was not as if St Paul was wealthy at the time, quite the reverse, but it was an accepted fact that when the lord saves a person from their sins he puts a desire into their hearts to give to those in need. Their attitude to money changes when Christ is Lord of all. Those who were converted to Christ during St Paul’s ministry contributed to the needs of the saints in the Jerusalem Church. Seldom is giving purely altruistic as the donor, be it an individual or the State, usually looks for some reciprocal benefit. What makes Richard’s gesture different is its generosity, a Christ-like commodity in a greedy world.

Word on the Week. 9th January 2010. We thought postmodernity had put it out of the house but in it comes through the back door. The “A” word was heard in the media just when it seemed adultery had been dropped from the vocabulary. After all the current descriptions of “having an affair” blunts the impact and to be “in a relationship” sounds almost healthy. A possible reason is that we are dealing with Biblically literate Northern Ireland where the evangelicals call a spade a spade and not an agricultural implement. Another reason could be that the one guilty of adultery is the wife of the First Minister who herself was a formidable political figure. The fact that she recently condemned “same sex unions” in Biblical terms provided ready ammunition for her detractors. Her husband, the First Minister, mentioned his wife’s repentance and granted his forgiveness in a moving broadcast marred, perhaps a little, by his desire to remain in Office declaring, “I have done nothing wrong”. It’s not every week that we see two professing Christians in the spotlight for all the wrong reasons. It is fairly common in the USA and each revelation is met with some agonising by the evangelical community and the issue of more books on “How to” pray more, practice forgiveness better, be more holy etc. etc. Another temptation is to look for better role models only to find that they too have feet of clay. Now it is understandable for people who have put their faith in Christ to look for some transformation, some conquering of sin, a victorious life. In 2Corinthians ch.5 verse 17 it says “If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold the new has come”. So it is commendable that we want to see a bit more of it in ourselves. The problem is that what Christ offers and what we want are two different things! Instead of some form of sinlessness we are told to take our sin-stained broken lives into the world and proclaim that we are sinners saved, not by our efforts, but by God’s grace alone. What we are to do is offer, not ourselves but “Jesus Christ and him crucified”. We are to point to the way of faith in the work of Jesus. We are to show that fulfilled the law on our behalf so that we are now free to live a life of love – love to God and our neighbour. Whatever the fate of the First Minister’s job, perhaps he should revisit his confession of blamelessness, even if it was made in the restricted sense of his wife’s adultery. Like all of us we bow to the Bible’s verdict of universal sinfulness and get on with making known Christ as the remedy.

This New Year’s Eve, at a family gathering, I was asked to quote the words of the above Scottish song. Traditionally it is always sung at the start of a New Year, usually by people gathered in an out of door setting who mangle the words! I, coming from Scotland, was asked to supply the words and only just managed to remember the first verse and chorus! We did make some attempt at the last verse which involves the crossing over of hands, grasping the hands of your neighbours on either side and shaking them in time with the music. The handshake, of course, is symbolic of friendship and the whole poem reminisces over the old times when the singers were growing up together. An interesting change took place in the chorus from when it was first penned in 1788. Then the toast was to “Jo”. The Bard’s waywardness with the ladies caused him to substitute the anonymous “dear” five years later and it is this inclusive version which we now sing! For auld lang syne, my dear,

For auld lang syne,

We’ll tak a cup of kindness yet,

For auld lang syne! A loose translation would be “For old times, my dear, For old times, We’ll drink together in fellowship, Remembering the old times”. The Bible has always been big into relationships. Perhaps the most inclusive of these was the bond between Jesus and his disciples. St John, who was there in the upper room at the end of the earthly ministry of Jesus makes this comment; “when Jesus knew that his hour was come that he should depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own which were in the world, he loved them to the end”. This was not the eros love of the poet but the agape love of the Saviour which is unshakeable. It is best seen at the cross when Jesus died for those who were actively seeking to destroy him. It is the unquenchable love of God for his own rebellious people. Did it include the poet Robert Burns? That is something which is in God’s province. Will it include you? That requires you to turn your life over to Jesus who said, “All that the Father gives me will come to me; and whosoever comes to me I will in never cast out”

Among the greetings from the East this Christmas came one from someone who was to be in Cebu (in the Philippines) during the early days of January. He was lamenting the influx of Filipinos to worship the effigy of Santo Nino – a representation of the baby Jesus – dating back to 1521. The feast day on 14th January deflects attention from Christmas and contravenes the second commandment. In Ireland we are not unfamiliar with relics or statues and recently there has been renewed interest in the Marian shrine at Knock. This occurred when a local “faith healer” prophesied that the Virgin Mary would appear and on the first occasion drew a large crowd which he asked to stare at the sun. Apart from some eye damage nothing miraculous appears to have happened and on the second occasion few turned up. It is not anticipated that there will be a third! What the Bible says about these things has been helpfully analysed for me recently by James R Edwards in his book “Is Jesus the only Saviour?” He finds two broad categories of those who worship and serve the creature (or created things) rather that the Creator as St Paul put it in Romans chapter 1. In the first category are the Canaanite Cults which worshipped the divine force pulsating through nature. This revolved around powers of fertility in the soil. Baal was the lord of the land and the source of its fertility. Union between Baal and his consort in heaven produced the rain that made the land productive. This was helped by similar behaviour and human sacrifice by the devotees. Other gods mentioned in the Bible are Moloch and Chemosh who required sacred prostitution and child sacrifice. These Canaanite fertility cults were the subject of unrelieved repudiation in Scripture. The second category rejects religious practices, not for their wickedness but for their worthlessness. Barnabas appealed to worshippers of Greek gods and goddesses to “turn from these worthless images to the living God”. (Acts 14:15) The Old Testament identifies their human origins; “the work of human hands. They have mouths but they do not speak; they have eyes, but they do not see; they have ears, but they do not hear, nor is there any breath in there mouths. Those who make them become like them, so do all who trust in them!” (Psalm 135: 15/18). Thus the Bible views them as folly but not innocuous folly as those who worship them become like them – dumb, blind, deaf and lifeless – and are drawn away from seeking Christ. Cults in the first category are wholly rejected as evil. In the second category, the adherents are not condemned and certainly not annihilated but persuaded to abandon their folly and embrace the true God. So what are we to make of all this? If you are not a believer you need to reject these cultic ways and turn to Christ. For the believers in both Cebu and Ireland, may God give us discernment in our proclamation of the incomparable Christ our Saviour.

This week a friend sent me a homily recounting the martyrdom of Bishop Fisher for opposing Henry Vlll’s divorce. He wrote, “in defending the King’s first marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Fisher noted how John the Baptist, as Friend of the Bridegroom, Christ, had laid down his life in defence of marriage, “since,” he said, “the violation of marriage is no little insult to Him who is called the Bridegroom.” The Pope of the day got involved; “Shortly afterwards, news reached England that Fisher had been created a cardinal by Pope Paul III. The king’s reaction was that the Pope could send Fisher the red hat whenever he liked, but he’d make sure by the time it arrived that Fisher would have to wear it on his shoulder, ‘for head he shall not have to set it on.’ Of such steel stuff were Kings, Popes and martyrs made in the middle ages. Today the odour of martyrdom is in the air as one Bishop after another professes his innocence in the face of the Murphy Report into the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Dublin diocese. It is not as if a stand was being made against a King, who was hell-bent in ignoring the sacredness of marriage on one hand, and wielding the axe with the other. The modern martyrs are seen clinging to their crosiers when the real martyrs – those children brutalised on their watch – are living witnesses to their dereliction of duty. For the Bishops indicted in the report there will be no public execution, only resignation and some wounding of pride but for the victims of child sexual abuse the daily martyrdom of living with the loss of childhood continues. At the time of Christ’s birth King Herod was the one in authority. Having been told of the birth of a king by the wise men, he set about to eliminate any possible rival to his position. The most vulnerable in the land were easy victims and the slaughter of the innocents was his response. (St Matthew Chapter 2 Verse 18). The astonishing thing is that God sent his son into such a world. Even more astounding is that he should show his love for his own to the ultimate degree by dying in their place. And today that salvation is available to everyone who believes. Joy to the world! The Lord has come Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare Him room And heaven and nature sing – This week a friend sent me a homily recounting the martyrdom of Bishop Fisher for opposing Henry Vlll’s divorce. He wrote, “in defending the King’s first marriage to Catherine of Aragon, Fisher noted how John the Baptist, as Friend of the Bridegroom, Christ, had laid down his life in defence of marriage, “since,” he said, “the violation of marriage is no little insult to Him who is called the Bridegroom.” The Pope of the day got involved; “Shortly afterwards, news reached England that Fisher had been created a cardinal by Pope Paul III. The king’s reaction was that the Pope could send Fisher the red hat whenever he liked, but he’d make sure by the time it arrived that Fisher would have to wear it on his shoulder, ‘for head he shall not have to set it on.’ Of such steel stuff were Kings, Popes and martyrs made in the middle ages. Today the odour of martyrdom is in the air as one Bishop after another professes his innocence in the face of the Murphy Report into the cover-up of child sexual abuse in the Dublin diocese. It is not as if a stand was being made against a King, who was hell-bent in ignoring the sacredness of marriage on one hand, and wielding the axe with the other. The modern martyrs are seen clinging to their crosiers when the real martyrs – those children brutalised on their watch – are living witnesses to their dereliction of duty. For the Bishops indicted in the report there will be no public execution, only resignation and some wounding of pride but for the victims of child sexual abuse the daily martyrdom of living with the loss of childhood continues. At the time of Christ’s birth King Herod was the one in authority. Having been told of the birth of a king by the wise men, he set about to eliminate any possible rival to his position. The most vulnerable in the land were easy victims and the slaughter of the innocents was his response. (St Matthew Chapter 2 Verse 18). The astonishing thing is that God sent his son into such a world. Even more astounding is that he should show his love for his own to the ultimate degree by dying in their place. And today that salvation is available to everyone who believes. Joy to the world! The Lord has come Let earth receive her King. Let every heart prepare Him room And heaven and nature sing –