When enemies become friends

February 12, 2024, 4:48 am

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The teaching of Jesus was counter-cultural and very relevant in his day and in ours. He challenged the teaching of the religious teachers of his time. In the Sermon on the Mount he told his disciples, “You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. If you love those who love you, what reward will you get? If you greet only your own people, what are you doing more than others? Do not even pagans do that?”

Naturally we find it easy to love our family and friends but feel no obligation to love our enemies. We feel justified in hating them. In the conflicts of today political leaders feel justified in taking retribution on their enemies. Sometimes religion plays a major role in these conflicts. Even people from the same religion fight against each other. Some national Christian churches support and encourage unjust wars. They give the impression that God is ‘on their side’.

We all have an obligation to love God and to love our neighbours. God’s whole law is summed up in two great commandments. The first commandment is, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind.” The second commandment is, “Love your neighbour as yourself.” One day an expert in the law asked Jesus, “Who is my neighbour?” Jesus told a story showing we can’t restrict the commandment to love our neighbour to people of our own race or religion. The hero of the story was a Samaritan man, a race of people that the people of Jesus’ day hated.

In Jesus’ story a man travelling on a lonely road was attacked by robbers who beat him and left him half deaf. Two priests of the same religion as the wounded man ‘passed by one the other side.’ Then a Samaritan came by and had pity on the man. “He went to him and bandaged his wounds, pouring on oil and wine. Then he put the man on his own donkey, brought him to an inn and took care of him. The next day he took out two denarii and gave them to the innkeeper. ‘Look after him,’ he said, ‘and when I return, I will reimburse you for any extra expense you may have.’” The Samaritan loved his enemy. When we love people as God has loved us in Jesus enemies become friends.

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Remembering Alexi Navalny

February 19, 2024, 5:48 am

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The tragic death of Alexi Navalny gives a chilling insight into life in Russia today. Alexi was a leader in the Russian Opposition Coordination Council and was the main political opponent of President Putin. He was a lawyer by training and campaigned for human rights and against corruption. He was married with two children. On 20 August 2020 Alexi fell ill during a flight from Tomsk to Moscow. The plane made an emergency landing, and he was taken to hospital. He had been poisoned with the Novichok nerve agent and was screaming loudly not from pain but because he thought he was dying. He was evacuated to a hospital in Berlin where he recovered through the excellent treatment he received.

In January 2021 Alexi returned to Moscow and was immediately arrested and charged with violating parole conditions while he was in Germany. He was imprisoned and was never free again. He was charged with various serious offences and sentenced to many years in prison. It was clear that the Russian government was determined to silence him and even to arrange for him to die. In December 2023 he was sent to an Arctic Circle corrective colony, which has one the severest prison regimes in Russia. On 16 February he died suddenly at the age of 47. The report of his death on Russian television took just 28 seconds and hundreds of ordinary people who laid flowers in memory of him were arrested.

In the face of such blatant and wicked injustice it would be easy to feel totally helpless but Jesus, the Son of God, gives us hope. Alexi was originally an atheist but later became a member of the Russian Orthodox Church. He would have known that Jesus was a good man who was hated by the religious leaders of his day who treated him unjustly. They made false accusations against him and demanded that he be put to death. He was executed at the command of Pilate, the governor appointed by Imperial Rome, which was then the supreme super-power. Pilate knew that Jesus was an innocent man but wanted to please the mob.

Jesus is able to comfort those who suffer injustice in this life because he knows what is like to treated unjustly and has promised to be with us and to give us strength when we suffer. It is also important to remember that no-one will escape God’s righteous judgement because he has appointed a day when his Son, Jesus, will judge the whole world with justice.

God is miraculously sustaining them

February 26, 2024, 4:16 am

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On 24 February 2022 Russia invaded Ukraine. It was a massive escalation of a war that began in Crimea and the Donbas in 2014. For the past 2 years the people of Ukraine have experienced daily attacks on their cities and national infrastructure. Out of a total population of 41 million people, 8 million have been displaced within Ukraine and more than 8 million people, mainly women and children, have fled the country to places of safety. President Zelensky said recently that 31,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been killed since the invasion and many thousands more civilians have been killed and injured by the Russian forces.

We have Christian friends whose home is in Kharkiv, the second city of Ukraine, which is very near the border with Russia. They recently wrote about what life has been like for their friends in Kharkiv over the past 2 years, “People are under constant fire and bombardment. Their neighbour wants to wound them, kill them, destroy all their hope. The conflict drags on, pain and trauma are the new ‘normal’. Children sleep on the floor in corridors, elderly people run to underground bunkers in the middle of the night, no-one sleeps from the constant air raids. Everyone knows someone in danger defending the country, or bereaved in the war, or constantly checking if their loved ones are still alive.”

Our friends have responded by engaging in a ministry of supporting, strengthening, coming alongside the weary and broken, and giving hope to those that are desperate and hurting. They write, “Many servant-hearted Christians continue to labour long hours every day in this conflict, caring for the needy and reaching out to those cut off or wounded or now homeless. Those who serve have served above and beyond – they have drained all their natural energy and are now exhausted, feeling weak and inadequate, crying out to God for help and strength to face another day, another winter.”

How are these people encouraged to keep enduring in such a struggle? There are finding profound encouragement in what they see God is doing. Despite the conflict, God is at work in an amazing way as many people are turning to him and finding hope in Jesus whose death and resurrection sets them free and gives them eternal hope. God is also giving them strength. Our friends wrote, “The people of Eastern Europe are not super strong or super brave; they are weak and exhausted. But they have learned to trust and rely on their heavenly Father who strengthens them every single day. Prayer is not something they have to remember to do, or “schedule in” – they are crying out to God like they breathe oxygen. And God is miraculously sustaining them.”

Giving thanks for the men and women of the RNLI

March 4, 2024, 4:47 am

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This month the Royal National Life Institution is celebrating its 200th anniversary. Over the history of the RNLI a total of more than 144,000 people have been saved, including 389 in 2022. Almost all the operational crew members are volunteers who are ready to put their lives at risk in order to save lives at sea. The RNLI now has a fleet of more than 400 boats stationed around the coast of Great Britain and Ireland, including all-weather lifeboats and inshore rescue boats. The sight of a brightly coloured lifeboat speeding to their rescue, in all conditions, has brought hope to many in danger on the sea.

The RNLI Memorial Books commemorate the 438 people who have died on lifeboat service since 1824. On 19 December 1981 the MV Union Star, a mini-bulk carrier, got into difficulty in heavy seas off the coast of Cornwall. The RNLI lifeboat Solomon Browne, based at Penlee Lifeboat Station, went to the aid of the 5 crew members and captain’s wife and 2 teenage stepdaughters. The powerless ship was being blown on to rocks by hurricane force winds gusting at speeds up to 100mph and was being battered by waves up to 60ft high.

After it had made several attempts to get alongside, four people jumped across to the lifeboat. It reported: “we got four … off … male and female. There are two left on board.” This was the last report received from either vessel. Ten minutes later, the lifeboat’s lights disappeared. Sixteen people perished, including the 8 crew members of the Solomon Browne, who died trying to save people they had never met. Within a day of the disaster enough local people had volunteered to form a new lifeboat crew.

The pilot of a Royal Navy Sea King helicopter, which was assisting the rescue, reported: “The greatest act of courage that I have ever seen, and am ever likely to see, was the penultimate courage and dedication shown by the crew of the Penlee lifeboat when it manoeuvred back alongside the casualty in over 60ft breakers and rescued four people shortly after the Penlee had been bashed on top of the casualty’s hatch covers. They were truly the bravest eight men I’ve ever seen, who were totally dedicated to upholding the highest standards of the RNLI.”

The sacrifice offered by the crew of the Solomon Browne reminds us of the sacrifice the Lord Jesus Christ made in performing the greatest rescue ever. The Bible tells us, “For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.” Love always gives of itself. Jesus said, “There is no greater love than to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.”

A mother’s love

March 11, 2024, 5:38 am

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Many people around the world have celebrated Mother’s Day. Children and families took time to remember their mother and to thank them for their love and care. The Bible tells us the first woman was called Eve, which means ‘life’, “because she would become the mother of all the living.” Every person born into this world has a mother. For most their relationship with their mother is very positive but, sadly, for some the experience is negative. Mother’s Day also may be a sad day for women who would love to be a mother but have had difficulties in conceiving a child or in carrying a baby to full term. Thankfully, some of these women can experience the joy of motherhood through adopting a baby or child who needs a mother.

Our mother’s influence is formative and goes back to the moment of conception and the months when our mother carried us in her womb. In Psalm 139 King David reflects on this, “For you O Lord created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful; I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”

For many people Mother’s Day is a time to thank God for their mother’s love. It was God’s intention from the beginning of time that children should experience a mother’s love. The Lord Jesus experienced the love of Mary, his young mother. One Christmas carol reflects on this, “And through all his wondrous childhood
he would honour and obey, love and watch the gentle mother in whose tender arms he lay.” A well-known hymn says, “Now thank we all our God with heart and hands and voices, who wondrous things has done, in whom this world rejoices; who from our mother’s arms has blessed us on our way with countless gifts of love, and still is ours today.”

The love of a good mother points us to God’s eternal love expressed in the gift of his Son, Jesus. In one of his hymns William Cowper, the poet and hymnwriter, says, “Can a woman’s tender care cease towards the child she bare? Yes, she may forgetful be, yet will I remember thee. Mine is an unchanging love, higher than the heights above, deeper than the depths beneath, free and faithful, strong as death.”

God is light and gives life

March 18, 2024, 6:31 am

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Spring is a time of light and life. The days are lengthening, and the clocks will soon change. It is good to have the lighter mornings and soon the longer summer evenings will be with us. Many of us have found the wet and dark days of winter difficult even if we don’t suffer from seasonal affective disorder. A bright array of spring flowers is blooming – snow drops, crocuses, primroses, daffodils, tulips, forsythias, magnolias – all bringing a delightful array of colour to our lives. They are all clear signs of brighter, warmer days to come, and they lift our spirits.

They also remind us that the things God does fill our hearts with hope whereas many of the things that people do promote a sense of hopelessness. God’s wonderful creation declares to us that he exists. He is there and clearly communicates with us telling us what he is like. The Apostle John says, “God is light; in him there is no darkness at all.” John also tells us about Jesus that he “gave life to everything that was created, and his life brought light to everyone. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness can never extinguish it.”

The loss of faith in the Western world has left many with a feeling of meaninglessness and a profound sense of hopelessness. Young people feel this keenly. Again and again, we are told that we human beings are simply animals who have evolved over millions of years. At the end of life there is nothing for us. But is this true?

The Apostle Paul once preached in Athens, a centre of Greek culture where they worshipped many gods. Paul wanted them to know the living God and said, “The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. For in him we live and move and have our being.” The signs of spring remind us that God “is not far from any one of us” and that “in him we live and move and have our being.”

The Prince of Peace

March 25, 2024, 5:23 am

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Easter reminds us of the climactic events of the life and ministry of Jesus of Nazareth. When the Gospel writers wrote their biographies of Jesus all of them focused most on the last week of his life. That week began with his Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem when the crowds proclaimed him as their Messiah King. As he entered the city, he fulfilled a prophecy, written more than 500 years earlier, “Say to the Daughter of Zion, ‘See your king comes to you, gentle and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.’” Jesus is a king like no other; he is the Prince of Peace.

When he was on trial, Pilate, the Roman Governor, asked him, “Are you the king of the Jews?” Jesus replied, “My kingdom is not of this world. If it were, my servants would fight to prevent my arrest. You are right in saying I am a king. In fact, for this reason I was born, and for this I came into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone on the side of truth listens to me.” Pilate asked, “What is truth?”

Pilate decided that Jesus should be executed, even though he knew he was innocent, but that did not bring an end to Jesus’ kingdom. Following his death and resurrection the good news about Jesus has spread throughout the world. In the early years of the Christian church the number of Christians grew despite the fierce persecution they faced. The power of Imperial Rome came to an end, but the kingdom of Jesus continues still. It has outlasted every earthly kingdom because it is different. It is a spiritual kingdom; it is “not of this world.” Those who belong to Jesus’ kingdom are “on the side of truth” and listen to him.

People still ask the same question as Pilate asked, “What is truth?” The pundits of our modern world tell us that there is no such thing as absolute truth, but they are wrong. The outworking of their philosophy is plain to see in the moral chaos and tragic personal emptiness of our western world. How different it is when, like little children, we listen to Jesus and receive the truth we see in him and hear in his words. As we listen to Jesus and trust in him, we understand how we, too, may enter into his kingdom, which is so different from every worldly kingdom, but which will outlast the years.

The Lord is risen!

April 1, 2024, 3:24 am

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The wonderful message of Easter is “The Lord is risen!” After the crucifixion of Jesus, his disciples were devastated and despondent. The Lord whom they loved, and in whom all their hopes were centred, had died in the most terrible way. Early in the morning on the third day after Jesus died, Mary Magdalene went to the tomb where his body had been laid. She was horrified to find that the stone had been rolled away and assumed that someone had stolen his body. As she was weeping outside the tomb Jesus appeared to her and spoke her name, “Mary”. She was overwhelmed with joy to see her Lord again and ran to tell the disciples, “I have seen the Lord!”

Although Jesus had often told his disciples that he would be killed and on the third day be raised to life, they did not remember his words. None of them was expecting him to rise from the dead. After his resurrection, however, Jesus appeared to his disciples over a period of 40 days and gave them many infallible proofs that he was alive. They did not simply have a general feeling that he was with them, or that all he had taught them was still relevant, they knew that just as he had really died so, also, he had really been raised bodily from the grave.

The resurrection of Jesus was a decisive event in the history of the church. Knowing that Jesus had overcome death, and seeing him alive, transformed the disciples. Now they were ready to go into all the world and preach the good news of Jesus. When they faced terrible persecution, and even death, they were not afraid because they knew he was with them and that when they died, they would go to be with him in heaven. Millions of people in every nation on earth who have received Jesus as their Saviour rejoice in that same hope.

One thing that is certain for us all is that we will die. We may not want to think about it or talk about it. We may be afraid of death and the things that may happen to us in the process of dying. On the day that Jesus was crucified two other men, both criminals, died alongside him. One of them said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Jesus replied, “I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise.” None of us deserves God’s love, but no-one who has come to him and asked him to receive them has ever been turned away.

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An amazing rescue

April 8, 2024, 7:06 am

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Tony Bullimore was a millionaire British businessman and international yachtsman. In November 1996 he set off from France in his yacht Exide Challenger in the non-stop Vendée Globe round-the-world yacht race. The route took competitors southwards to South Africa and eastwards into the Southern Ocean towards Australia. In January 1997 his yacht, and the yachts of other competitors, were struck by a violent storm in one of the remotest and wildest areas of the Southern Ocean. Tony was 1500 miles west of Australia and less than 1000 miles north of Antarctica. He had to contend with 70 mph winds and 50ft waves.

Tony’s yacht capsized and he was trapped in an air pocket inside the upturned hull of Exide Challenger. He activated the distress beacon and then spent nearly 5 days in a wet, dark, freezing space hoping to be rescued. He knew that all he could do was to wait and pray! The manufacturers of the yacht estimated that there was enough air in the upturned hull for someone to survive for about 140 hours. As the days passed Tony prepared to move into a smaller section of the hull and thought, “I may be preparing my own grave.”

Meanwhile the Maritime Rescue Centre in Canberra organised a search. The air force put up a long-range reconnaissance aircraft and the Royal Australian Navy sent the frigate HMAS Adelaide to scour the desolate area, seeking to home in on the beacons. Eventually, Tony’s boat was sighted with its keel all but broken off and no sign of Tony. When he heard a diver knocking on the upturned hull Tony said, “I started shouting, I’m coming! I’m coming! It took only a few seconds to get to the other end of the boat. When I saw the ship standing there and the plane going overhead and a couple of guys peering over the top of the upturned hull, it was heaven, absolute heaven! I could only get a tremendous ecstasy, that I was looking at life, that I was saved.” The rescue cost the Australian Government about £3 million. After that dramatic rescue Tony lived for more than 20 years until his death from cancer in July 2018.

The Lord Jesus Christ came from heaven to earth to rescue unworthy and undeserving people like you and me. Tony Bullimore knew he desperately needed to be rescued but some people are unaware of their need to be rescued by Jesus. The cost of the rescue Jesus accomplished was his own death on the cross in our place. The consequence of the rescue is an eternal relationship with God which begins in this life and continues for ever in heaven.

Be still

April 15, 2024, 9:03 am

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No other generation has been bombarded by words, both spoken and written, as we are today. Newspapers and magazines provide news and comment on current events. Television 24-hour news channels communicate information from around the world. Chat shows and phone-in programmes offer the opportunity for people to express their views. Social networking enables millions of people to publish information about themselves. People send and receive text and WhatsApp messages from family and friends. Many struggle to cope with the increasing volume of emails at work and at home. In every sphere of life word processors churn out long and complex documents. The internet provides vast quantities of information. No wonder many of us find little time to stop and think and reflect.

Yet amongst all these words there are very few that really matter and that significantly impact our lives. However, some words can really make a difference. In the Bible God has communicated his truth to all people in every generation. Through reading the Bible, millions of people have discovered truth by which they can live and a Saviour whose amazing love they can experience. The words of the Bible have a wonderful depth and calm authority because they are God’s words.

A minister was visiting an elderly lady who belonged to his congregation. She was recovering from major surgery and was confined to bed. The minister asked her what she had been doing that day. She said, “I have been thinking about those words in Psalm 46, ‘Be still and know that I am God.’” Today I have been thinking especially about the words “Be still.” That day they talked about how, in the busyness of life, we don’t find time to be quiet and think about God.

The next time he visited the lady she told him she had been thinking about the words “and know” in the same verse. They talked about the privilege of knowing God personally. On the next visit they spoke about the words “that I” and reflected on the fact that God’s is an eternal person. Then on the fourth visit they spoke about the words “am God” and rejoiced that God is all powerful and is able and willing to help us. That one short sentence from God’s Word had wonderfully spoken to this lady’s heart and assured her of his love and care for her in a time of weakness. How good it is for us all to find time, amidst the noise and rush of life, to be still and to listen to what God says.