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NEWS FROM THE FRONT
“EVEN THE UNCLEAN SPIRITS OBEY HIM”
By our special correspondents, Matthew, Mark, Luke & John
- “He had pity on the crowds, because they were like sheep without a shepherd”
- “Come to me”, he said, “ all you who labour and are over-burdened and I will refresh you”
- “That evening they brought to him all who were sick and possessed by unclean spirits”
- “Give them something to eat yourselves”, he told them.
- “To prove to you that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins, Get up take up your bed and go home”.
- “Who is this, that even the wind and the sea obey him?”
- “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God still, and trust in me.”
- “Take the stone away” he said, “Unbind him, let him go free.”
- “They were all astonished and praised God saying, “We have seen strange things today.”
A new word has risen from the depths; “TSUNAMI.” Over one hundred and fifty thousand people killed. Whole towns wiped off the earth as if they had never been. And when the Media people have moved on, taking our attention with them, millions will be left behind with their memories to haunt them until the day they die. And all because of an earthquake hundreds of miles away and ten miles beneath the ocean floor. How was it for you? Did it shake your faith in God? Or is there something closer to home that tests you even more? Living with constant pain for instance, struggling with an addiction or a habit of sin, poverty, failure, loss of face. Soon it will be Lent; wilderness time. TSUNAMI spells wilderness for millions of people, a wilderness not of their making. Lent must spell wilderness for us, a wilderness of our choosing. For this is the time when we look into our own lives, recognise evil for what it is, call it by its name and face it down.
Matthew, Mark, Luke and John were not written so that we would look back in envy at those who saw Jesus in the flesh. They were written to help us recognise his Risen Presence in our own lives, today. The Gospel of the first Sunday of Lent always shows us Jesus confronting Satan in the wilderness, and the second Sunday always shows his Transfigured glory on the mount. It is between these extremes that we try to live the life of faith. For this reason, The Voice this month focuses on places of tension in all our lives; wilderness areas where we can be truly shaken by tremors in their own way as devastating as those of an earthquake. It is in precisely these areas, that our trust in God is most severely tested. This is indeed “The Front” where the battle is fiercest. As we pray on our way to Holy Communion, “Deliver us Lord, from every evil…protect us from all anxiety”.
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BISHOP PATRICK: "This will be a long haul. It is our duty to support these people spiritually - with prayer, as well as materially. Such a tragedy calls us to a deeper contemplation of our faith in a Creator God. We do not fully understand the complexities or pow-ers, of creation, but we do understand the compassion of our God, and how through Jesus we are called to be compassionate."
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