Whatever happens in this time of lockdown, it is important to hold onto the things that matter. This period of inactivity need not apply to our minds; having time and space on our hands is not to be squandered. Cleaning out the kitchen cupboards is one good use of our time, but cleaning out our mind-sets is another. The various tests that that we have all been under in our segregated “bubbles” will have brought to the surface both the good and the bad in us. What clowns we are, if we let the opportunity go by to reset our compasses in the relative absence of distractions.

As our Communion liturgy says, “some sins are plain to us, some are hidden, and some we cannot face.” What are we to do, apart from confessing them, to safeguard ourselves from being constantly at their mercy? Is there some housekeeping that we can do to tidy up our act?

We could start by identifying those sins that keep reappearing, and taint our relationship with God. While we all know that He is slow to anger and quick to forgive (Psalm 110) do we also know that there are things that He expects us to do to keep the door shut, to both our sins and the demons that take advantage of the footholds that we give them?

I have found it helpful to identify the point at which any recurring sin is given my permission. What I find is not ignorance of what is right or wrong, but rather a justification that I have presented to myself for not doing the right thing. Therein lies my enemy. If you ever hear yourself say “but where’s the harm” or “I was provoked” or “everybody else is doing it” just know that your enemy the devil pricks up his ears.

Before confessing our sins next time, perhaps we could start by confessing our justifications.

Barry Struthers

When catastrophe strikes, such as the current Corona Virus Pandemic, it is easy to welcome the thought that maybe our liberator is at hand. Maybe today He will come and take us out of our earth-bound turmoil and gather us up with all the believers on earth, past and present, and remove us from this climate of woe. With so many uncertainties that lie ahead, there will be few who are not feeling the weight of anxiety as the fall-out from the lockdown proceeds. How appealing is the thought that we might skip the next page of history.

Whatever our circumstances prove to be in the coming weeks, one thing is certain. Our faith will be tested. Can God be relied upon to secure our earthly needs when our livelihoods have been brought to a crunching halt? Will earthly mechanisms have enough in storage for the whole world, all at once, and just how far can the combined human budget be spread?

This current crisis is set against a very different back-drop from those like it in the past. Whereas once we relied on the community to pool its resources, this may no longer be the case, as the plug has been well and truly pulled from the sink of human unity. In recent years, all the trends have been to isolate rather than to gather. People feel less need to make human contact now that everything can be organised and provided for on-line, and less concerned by how their actions impact others. We have discovered that we hardly have to leave our homes at all, and if it weren’t for the few strong friendships we have maintained, for the most part we could look no further than ourselves and the internet to survive.

Jesus popped a telling question about his return: “When the Son of Man comes, will He find faith on Earth?”(Luke 18:8).

Will we join those who disappoint him, or will we now especially, hold on to Him more firmly than ever? Never has our witness mattered more.

Barry Struthers

“He is not here; he has risen, just as he said.”
Matt 28:6

We see in these confident words, the great overview of God. What was at the time concealed from the world, was in full view of Him who ordained it. The resurrection of Jesus was no fluke, nor was his death the disaster it seemed. Often we are not made a full party to the intentions of God and must live off the scraps of our own insight. So, where to for us next in this on-going story?

When all is said and done this Easter Sunday, we may be no wiser as to the full meaning of the resurrection. Yet, if Christ has died for us, then there must be something in it for us now that he has risen.  If it is in God’s power to make one man transcend the limits of the natural world, then it cannot be beyond him to do the same for us. The Gospel suggests greater things can come of our prayers than maybe we expect with any confidence.

When we eventually all appear before the Judgement seat of Christ (2 Cor 5:10) we will see with greater clarity how much of our lives has borne the character of the Christ within us. Worryingly, we may also see how much we have lived oblivious to him; how much time we have wasted. The Easter message has this one bottom line, that despite all odds and irrespective of our understanding, he has risen. Because he lives, everything we hope for, eternal life included, must start from there.

Barry Struthers

“Take a guard”, Pilate answered. Go make the tomb as secure as you know how.”
Matt. 27:65

The Easter story does a little jump over Easter Saturday. The above scripture is the only event mentioned in the four gospels. Being the Sabbath, the entire Jewish community was in a “lockdown” of its own, observing the customary requirements of an enforced day of rest. The crucifixion story was in a state of limbo, much as we are at present due to the Pandemic. The grieving family and friends of Jesus could not attend to his body in the customary way until after the Sabbath had passed. There were countless limits and restrictions placed on everybody at the same time, much as there are on us today. For all of us the desire to re-engage with normal unregulated activity has been put on hold, no matter how pressing the things are we have to do. When at last the Sabbath was over the three Marys were ready and equipped with spices to prepare Jesus’ body, but on finding the tomb empty, they were denied their chance to serve him one last time.
 
Yesterday we heard of a New Zealand woman in her nineties who died from the Corona virus, contracted somehow in her otherwise secure Rest Home. No family were allowed to attend her. She died among strangers, and her body prepared in cold isolation from everyone. Thankfully, she is only the second person to die from this dreaded disease in this country. When I heard her story on the news, I spared a thought for the three Marys too.

What useful things may we now do with our time before we are safe to be released from our imposed isolation? Will it be simply filled with mindless entertainment and trips to the fridge? Or will the forced slowdown teach us afresh the value of our relationships, and the benefits from taking time to nurture and to cherish? Hopefully so. May it last.

Barry Struthers

Jesus called out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this he breathed his last.
Luke 23:46

The spirit of Jesus was the last thing he had to give. Having been given a mortal body, this awful death had to play out to the last breath. Who can follow such a man and be indifferent to his personal loss? Had he not done enough to be spared this final agony? In our economy of things that are important, he had certainly deserved better. Can we now not revisit this scene without railing at the injustice of it all; have we got so used to the story that it has become mere religion, something we can gloss over without entering the grief?

Jesus death was a loss. The fact that it led to great gain for all mankind does not diminish the wrongfulness of it. Were he to have avoided the cross, it is true that our own story would have ended differently, but surely his story, his life, deserved to be spared. The trade-off was so huge that we must not move past it without a second thought.

We will have many opportunities in this period of “lockdown” for the Covid 19 pandemic to offer our own spirits to take a back seat too, for the sake of others and the greater good. There will be some in their bubbles whose needs are greater than ours and whose stress-levels will be higher. Can we muster a spare thought for the agony of others while safe in our own cocoons? We may be spared of the many deaths experienced in other countries, but we will not be immune to the fallout. Lives will undoubtedly be changed, some perhaps for the better, but most others for the worse.

When we calculate the final tally of loss caused by this global event, we need to factor in the untold moments of grief, big and small, through our own loss of one kind or another. Perhaps this Good Friday we can take a moment to take the weight of all that distress, and put it beside the broken body of Jesus. Not only will it give us some perspective, it will place it where it can find healing.

Barry Struthers

Peter declared, “Even if all fall away, I will not”.
Mark 14:29

The Lord has no use for bravado. How many personal disasters are born out of an arrogant spirit? At its root is presumption; the enemy of faith. Do we imagine that we really do deserve a safe passage through life, or may in some way earn it?

The Easter message is a collision of old and new. Under the old Law of Moses a pathway is prescribed that meets all of God’s requirements, yet none were found until Jesus who could do so. Enough time had been given to make the connection that righteousness was beyond mortal man. Not even Moses was up to it, and because of his presumption was left on the wrong side of the Jordan River when the promised-land appeared. Mankind was meant to fail, meant to recognise their need of a Saviour. It was time for the new.

The Peter that went on to become an empowered Apostle had to first be stripped of his own self-sufficiency. His denial of Jesus when put to the test proved to be his most important revelation about himself: he had limits. We too need to make that discovery for ourselves on a daily basis. When we come to Good Friday, we do well to acknowledge our shortcomings with some remorse.
Jesus re-instated Peter, just as he does for us when we come to Him for forgiveness. The new way to be put right with God is so profoundly different from the old. When we take the communion cup in our homes this Easter, will we recognise the great escape we have been given?

​Barry Struthers

Luke 22:11,12

“Say to the owner of the house, ‘The teacher asks: Where is the guest room where I might eat the Passover with my disciples?’ He will show you a large upper room, all furnished. Make preparations there.”

The Lord is never caught short of what He needs in the way that we often are. His foreknowledge of the Upper Room was exactly what was needed to set the stage for what was to become the most sacred of all celebrations for the Christian: Holy Communion. Every detail had symbolic significance which, like finishing a jig-saw, produced a whole new picture of God on Earth. No longer was He a remote, all-powerful and fearful deity in the heavens, but rather a fully present being, seated at the table beside us. The imagery is just as astounding for us today when we take it in.

It is all too easy for us to take Jesus’ presence for granted, yet fail to make contact. If we know that He did not hold himself back from even his enemies, then how much more does he desire the company of his friends? The invitation to join Him in Holy Communion is more than a symbolic gesture. He requires our presence. Even Judas was invited to the last supper. What Jesus has done is lay a table for all of us; one that is as perfectly prepared as the Upper Room itself. Man and God working together can result in great things. This is the message of today’s scripture.

We may want to shrink back from the thought that God requires something from us in order to get His own work done. Yet the Jesus we know is present within rather than outside of us. He is preparing us as He did the owner of the Upper Room, to make available everything we have for His purposes. “We are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for a life of good works, which God has prepared in advance for us to do.” (Ephesians 2;10). Why would we resist such adventure?
 
Barry Struthers

The things we do in the dark betray our own capacity for evil. Whatever performance we muster for the benefit of others, it is what goes on in our minds when no one is around that speaks more of who we really are. It takes little inspiration to betray Jesus.

Should we ever make a stand for righteousness, the label “hypocrite” is never far away. We know that original sin still lurks within us, and can only be curbed by a determination to turn 180 degrees the other way i.e. repent. Having done so we become available for the Lord to have his way with us once again. Old sins may be forgiven, but they rarely die. They can however be negated by simple choice each time they emerge, and we have our friend and champion, the Lord Jesus, to give us all the encouragement we could need.

Jesus’ betrayal brought to light the manoeuvrings of Satan: “Then Satan entered Judas’ (vs 3) It was all the explanation given to what was to follow, as otherwise it would seem unlikely that someone who had spent so much time with Jesus could think that He deserved to be destroyed. What weakness in Judas did Satan exploit? How prone are we to being “entered” by Satan? Do we offer him footholds in our thinking and actions? All of us no doubt can attest to having thoughts or urges that we know are dangerous to pursue. How often have we let Satan triumph?

It’s good to remember that, like Jesus, there is a price on our heads. Thirty pieces of silver did the deal for the Son of God; how much would our betrayal be worth? Do we represent Jesus well enough to make out that we pose a threat to Satan’s plans? In the build up to Easter Friday this week, a momentary pause to confess our shortcomings would be good.

Barry Struthers

This is the triumphal final note of Psalm 91. Having listed various rewards in the earlier lines, it now finishes with a flourish: the promise of a fulfilled long life and the understanding of the Lord’s rescue package. Mostly we have heard the Lord’s voice alone, apart from the Psalmist’s response in vs 2: “I will say of the lord, He is my refuge and my fortress”. From beginning to end the psalm centres on the Lord’s protection for those who “dwell” in Him (vs1) This final promise of a long and satisfying life speaks to the deepest desire of all of us.

Most of us can relate to this Psalm very easily, and indeed it has brought comfort to many thousands through the centuries. It is one of the anchor chapters in the Bible that is easily reached and easily remembered. Somehow even when the outlook seems unlikely, it still resonates in times of trouble like few others. It is a lifeline that draws us in towards the lifeboat of Christ Himself. We only have to believe Him, and climb aboard.

At the centre of all faith is trust. Trust firstly that we do indeed have a saviour who has our number, and secondly that He is able to step out of the written word and become available within us. Our belief allows us to carry Him wherever we go, and partake of all the benefits of knowing a servant King. At any time He is present to perform whatever service is required, that we may serve Him in return. Satisfaction is guaranteed despite the turmoil all around us. A lowly virus called Covid 19 may well be seeking us out one by one, but the king of Kings has well beaten it to us! 

However bad things may get, we can take from this scripture that God will remain on our side. More than that, He will intervene should we ask Him, and even honour us in the process. This verse alone should suffice in our current Covid 19 “trouble”. Even better than the comfort of a Government subsidy, we have a rescue package waiting in the heavens, which is there for the asking!

Why am I so reluctant to trust the promises of God such as these? Often I find I have a dollar each way: lip service to the scripture but a fierce attention to a survival plan of my own. The Bible can seem too far-fetched for intelligent, reasonable people, and the unbeliever can be excused for their reluctance to embrace even a rescue package as good as this.

Many times I think we retreat behind pious sounding platitudes when what is required is simple faith. If God has shown His ability to order the universe, then surely he can manage our lives as well. There is a destination waiting for all of us, and we can either embrace it with joy, or try to hide from its’ implication. Will we choose to keep our distance from these words of God and still expect to find intimacy with the One who spoke them? Somehow even the most basic understanding of cause and effect would suggest that this cannot be so.

If we are to take Psalm 91 seriously, then we must embrace it all. We cannot overlap our doubts with what are clear-cut offers of help in our time of need; let’s face it, the world has never been more needy. Christians must take their stand for the sake of all.
 
​Barry Struthers