There is something incongruous in seeing President Mugabe with a Bible in his hand. The same hand that is stained with the blood of his own people whose only crime was to exercise their democratic right and vote for the opposition. Not that the Bible doesn’t highlight many bloody examples of rulers who like Mugabe started off well but the corrupting influence of power eventually undid all the good they had done. It simply shows how we are when power is unbridled. The vows made at the inauguration ceremony must be familiar after five previous occasions. Each time they have been made they have become more meaningless. But why are vows taken? The intention is to put the person making them under stronger constraints. There is a tacit recognition of human frailty to honour any promise. The irony in Mugabe’s case was that the vows were being made during the afternoon, in bright sunlight, before the election results were made known. The National TV news was simply delayed in order to produce the result “live”, in the darkness of the evening, alongside pictures of the sunlit inauguration ceremony! Mugabe may mock his people but if he were to read the Book he had in his hand he would find that God is not taken in. “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.” Mugabe needs a redeemer and so do we! For him to repent now would seem to be impossible he is so set in his ways. But it is really only a question of degree and there is not a better time for you and me to turn and trust in Jesus the redeemer.