On hearing of a diagnosis of cancer, a friend remarked that life was not fair.
I think my friend meant that bad things shouldn’t happen to good people! But the reality is that life, for all of us, is a mixture of major and minor ups and downs, both good and bad.
The gospel Lectionary reading for this week comes from Luke, and is about the baptism of Jesus and His ringing endorsement from God that “You are my Son, whom I love...”. Certainly a major up. What happened next however was the
forty days in the wilderness where He faced temptation and, as the story goes, ‘He ate nothing during those days’. A major down.
Schools are now facing the New Year and the new term with a major down as yet another variant of the virus sweeps through society. Our teachers, support staff, parents, careers, children, and yes the DBE, had all hoped that the restrictions were behind us.
Jesus’s response to his ‘major down’ in the wilderness was one of faith in His Father’s love and provision which gave rise to hope for the future.
We can do no less than lean on our faith at this time. To keep hoping and extending God’s love to those around us. It is not just a way of life, it is the only way of life.
|
|
|
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
1 Corinthians 13.13
|
|
|
Love came down at Christmas. First line of Christina Rossetti’s poem
|
|
|
|
