Friday 12th February 2010 7:28 PM
Vicar's article for Web. January 2010-01-19
As I write this, a new small group has begun following an Alpha course in the Autumn. Alpha gives people a chance to discover more about Jesus and his claims. This group are the latest in a long line stretching back 2000 years, to respond to the words of Jesus as he spoke them to the first disciples on the shore of the sea of Galilee -
"Come with me. I'll make a new kind of fishermen out of you. I'll show you how to catch men and women instead of perch and bass" They didn't ask questions. They dropped their nets and followed.
Mark 1. 17-18 ( All Saints' verse for the year from the Message translation.)
When we decide to get involved with Jesus, we become part of the great story of faith that gives reason and hope to our own brief lives and the tragedies that often beset our world. In times such as these, when we see people suffering through no fault of their own, we often ask, where was God, or even blame him for the situation. Why does God not step in, if he cares or loves the world?
I would argue, that is exactly what he has done, for thousands of years, and particularly in the person of Jesus. He has been involved, even though we mostly ignore him, and he knows what it means to have a family member executed at the hands of a brutal regime.
Jesus watched fishermen all his life, his best friends were fishermen. His dream - and like the small group mentioned above - it can be ours, was to see his friends catch men and women, to save people from themselves and others, so that they could taste abundant life. That life would have its roots in the knowledge that God loves us so much that nothing could overcome it or take it away from us, not even death at the hands of mischance or cruel men.
Our hope, as we approach Easter, lies in the hands of the Son of God that the grave could not hold. When he says, come with me, he is offering life to the full, satisfaction today and eternal in its nature. Jesus' offer remains open - 'come with me.......... ' (insert name)
Steve.
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