Collect For Epiphany 4
1 Corinthians 1: 18-31
Matthew 5: 1 – 12
For the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God…
…subtitled ‘You couldn’t make it up…’
The world is in a state, and has been for thousands of years. There have been a seemingly never-ending succession of cruel tyrannical rulers, warring countries, occupying armies, ordinary people treated like slaves, unspeakable atrocities. In so many countries, you’re not even allowed the freedom of belief, at pain of imprisonment, family threatened, sometimes even death.
So. Imagine for a moment that to fix this, you have been given the job of setting things right, with whatever you need to deploy in the way of human resources, clever advisors and lessons from history.
Hands up if your chosen strategy involves you being ridiculed, tortured, humiliated and nailed to a tree. You’d be laughed at and labelled as a feeble minded dreamer who doesn’t live in the real world, someone completely off their trolley.
Problem is, everything else people have attempted since the ark didn’t work, despite God sending prophet after prophet. Things got better for a time, and then, insidiously, the Satan crept back into people’s lives and wrecked ‘em.
What was really needed was a once-and-for-all victory over sin – and it didn’t involve the exercise of military might or clever politics. Instead, the power of unconditional love won the last battle that will ever need to be fought. God allowed His Son, the Servant King, to climb the cross that saves and redeems the world.
It’s a pity that the world doesn’t appear to want to be saved – the way of the cross appears to be too much effort and too little faith. Nations choose the easy way that inevitably ends in disaster – again and again. When will they ever learn? They deny the simple fact that the war is won, that victory belongs to Jesus, and if we so wish, we can share it and live it. Now. This minute. A simple ‘yes’ to God’s call. That’s the best bit – we don’t have to wait for eternity – we can be the body of Christ right here, right now. And then we can begin to take our part in the healing of the Nations.
The Christian ideal has not been tried and found wanting. It has been found difficult; and left untried.
G K Chesterton
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