The Easter Story.

While children search your garden for Easter Eggs, you may like to consider…

Gardens figure prominently in the bible story, three different gardens provide the back drop for 3 of the most significant events in history.

The garden of Eden.
The story of the Bible begins in a garden, the Garden of Eden.  The earthly paradise created by God for people to live in.  A place of beauty, which provided all that, was needed for our comfort and a place where God could meet with his people.  This was a perfect garden.

It did not stay that way.  The Garden of Eden is also the place people rebelled against God.  All God had done for them was not enough!  We wanted more. People wanted to be gods themselves.  So they disobeyed God, and brought destruction on the world.  They also brought judgment on themselves.

The Garden of Eden the perfect garden became the place of the world’s most disastrous rebellion.

The Garden of Gethsemane.

This garden is on a hill. The Mount of Olives is across the Kidron Valley from the Temple in Jerusalem.  The garden of Gethsemane was where an ancient wine press had most likely stood.  Gethsemane means wine press.

It is from this Garden that people most likely found the branches to wave and lay down before Jesus as He made his entry into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday.  The palms the crowd used when hailing Jesus as Son of David, their rightful King.

Less than a week later.   Jesus celebrated the last supper with his closest, dearest and most trusted friends,  near the end of that meal he told them he would  be betrayed and handed over to die.  Then he goes with most of those friends to the Mount of Olives to pray.  To prepare himself for the ordeal that he must face with the dawn.  It was in this garden surrounded by his closest friends that one of their own betrays Jesus for thirty pieces of silver.

Jesus was taken away to another place, the city garbage dump and there he was executed.  Left alone, failed by his friends, abandoned and betrayed to pay the price for the world’s redemption.  Jesus became the atoning sacrifice for the sins of the world.  He, who had never sinned, became our sin.

The Garden of Gethsemane, one week the place from which people hailed their king is also the place of the world’s greatest betrayal.

The Garden of the New Tomb.

After Jesus was executed, a man went to the Roman Governor and asked if he could have Jesus’ body.  He was given the body and took it to his own tomb and laid the body there to prepare it properly for burial. 

We have the third Garden, the site of a new tomb; Jesus’ grave.  Jesus had died, and with him died the hope of the world.   

Or had hoped died? 

The story did not finish there.  Three days latter when the women went to finish preparing Jesus’ body for final burial they found something extraordinary.  Jesus had risen from the dead.  Death had been defeated.

The Garden of the New Tomb the place of the world’s greatest despair is also the place of the world’s greatest miracle; the resurrection of Jesus who is the Savior and Redeemer of the whole world.

Reincarnation

In a recent survey it was found 55 % of all Americans under the age of 40 believe in life after death.  When asked about their belief in God, only 45% of them believed in Him.  Many Americans believe in a life after death that does not include God.  I wonder what figures would result if King Islanders were surveyed?

I assume what young people are thinking about is reincarnation.  I fail to see the attraction of reincarnation.  Reincarnation is a popular belief in India.  It is that belief that has led too much of the suffering the poor endure there.  Reincarnation believes that we keep on living lives till our spirit achieves a state of enlightenment.  Each previous life determining the quality of our next life.  If I have lived a good life this time, I will return in a little better condition than in my previously.  If I muck things up this time round.  Then next time I will return in a lower state.  All life is karma; we live the lives we deserve.  No moral obligation for anyone to do anything to help make conditions better for the millions who suffer in extreme poverty.  The poor are living the lives they deserve.  To help would only interfere with karma.

Reincarnation is morally bankrupt.

The next problem is that the guidelines are vague.  How good do you have to be?   How many life times will it take before you even start on the road?  In a system where even cockroaches have the potential to attain Nirvana, it must be nearly impossible to reach the required state of enlightenment.

Reincarnation is not only morally bankrupt it vague on detail.

The third problem with reincarnation is there is not one jot of tangible evidence to support the belief.  Just vague stories of past life experiences.  Surely even if re- incarnation was true only one person could have been Marie Antoinette? 

Reincarnation is morally bankrupt, vague and it has no evidence to support the belief.

Just compare reincarnation to Christianity.  Christianity demands I help others, do what I can to see justice done and people are treated with dignity and compassion as Jesus did himself.  The Christian Church has always led the world in charitable works. 

God through the Bible has made it clear that people live only once.  Then we enter eternity, either to be with God in heaven or to be punished.  The relationship we have established with God in this one life is what determines where you will spend eternity.   If we get to know God in this life God, God will welcome you into heaven, reject God in this life and God will reject you in the next.

All this has real evidence.  Jesus lived, that is a fact.  He died, an historical fact. Executed on a cross, fact, recorded in numerous places.  But death did not hold Jesus.  He rose from the grave.  He conquered death and offers all who believe in him an eternal home in heaven.  That also is fact witnessed by over 500 people over a period of 40 days.

As I said earlier I don’t see why anyone would find reincarnation an attractive philosophy when Christianity has so much more to offer.

Change is a painful process

What follows was written while I was serving as Chaplain to Norfolk Island.  During that time there was talk of Australia 'taking over' the Island, of Norfolk loosing her independent status.

Government House, Norfolk Island.

 Thirty years ago writer M. Scott Peck wrote a best seller, “The Road Less Travelled”.    It started with the often quoted sentence …

“Life is difficult”.  Then continues a paragraph later …

Most do not fully see this truth that life is difficult.  Instead they moan more or less incessantly, noisily or subtly, about the enormity of their problems, their burdens, and their difficulties as if life was generally easy, as if life should be easy.”

Life is difficult.  It is difficult because we have to constantly learn to adapt to changes.

All of us have had to make many, many changes.  Most of them have been difficult, sometimes painful but often very beneficial.  Change is part of growing up.  It is part of life.  A healthy person can never stay as they are.
You started life as a baby.  Completely helpless and dependent upon your parents for everything.  It was through them that you interpreted your world.  Was a thing good, or safe?  Over time you learnt to do these things for yourself.   But this is not always easy.  It is very safe being a baby.  Never having to make a decision or do anything for ourselves.  We can never make mistakes.  We always have some one else to blame if and when things go wrong.  Becoming responsible is not an easy process.

Government Administration Buildings, Norfolk Island.

Then we need to learn to speak, to walk, to read and to write.  In time we need to learn to earn our own wages so we provide for ourselves.  We have to learn how to relate to members of the opposite sex.  These are hard and sometimes painful choices and changes that help make us independent adults. 

Then it seems just as you start to get the hang of being an adult, of making decisions for ourselves, our body starts to grow a little older, not as quick or strong as we once were.  The eyes need glasses.  We get tired more easily.  We have to learn to adapt to becoming older.  Again not an easy change for us to adapt to. 

It is in how we cope with difficulty and the challenges these changes bring that our characters are formed.

I have a friend who was a body builder.  He used to “pump iron” at the gym a couple of times a week.  He would work on one part of his body at a time.  Just lifting weights again and again with that same set of muscles until his muscle was torn.  It was the pain of his muscle being torn that let his muscle grow bigger and more defined.   Growth for him always came with pain.

We on Norfolk are facing the possibility of a change of Governance.  It is the hot topic of local discussions.  Everyone it seems has an opinion about whether we will be better or worse of if Norfolk was to no longer be self governing.

There is an even more vital decision we all have to make about governance.  Each one of us at some time needs to decide who rules our lives.  Do we allow God to direct us or do we continue as mutineers, rebelling against God our maker.  The benefits of letting God have control and direct our lives although at times difficult, even painful, is always beneficial, is always character forming, is always good.

All religions are the same: or are they?

Perhaps you have heard statements like …

“All religions are the same.”

“He is the same God, just called different names by different religions.”

But are they?

Nearly all of the world’s religions believe in some sort of a life after death.  The details and nature of that life varies, but just about all faiths believe that life continues in some form after the grave. 

Does that mean they all teach the same thing and lead to the same God?

Although they all may believe in life after death, they are all very different. 

1.      Everyone goes to heaven. 

A loving God lets everyone in.  Entrance is automatic for all after death.  This is a teaching of the Baha’i faith and many of the new age religions.  The problem is sin is not accounted for:  Saddam Hussein and Adolf Hitler both get to spend eternity with people like St. Teresa and you and I.  God’s justice and holiness are totally ignored. 

So then the second possibility …

2.     We have earn our way to heaven. 

Either by being perfect, (this is the teaching of Islam) or being very good, as if our lives or weighed in a balance; so if we are more good than bad we are admitted into heaven.  A variation on this theme is reincarnation; we keep on living our lives over and over again till we get it right, until we are good enough.  Until we reach a state of enlightenment and Nirvana, this is the teaching of most middle eastern religions. 

This view also has problems:

a.     It does not account for our fallen human nature and our capacity to sin.  Put simply, we all sin, all the time so no one is ever going to be good enough and so as a consequence we all miss out on going to heaven.  It ignores the mercy of God.

b.     The second major problem for me is it does not align with what God himself has told us about life and death or heaven in the Bible.  There we are told we live just once, no second, third or fourth attempt to get it right.

The last view:

3.     There has to be another way and there is, God provided it.  By God entering the world and taking our penalty, with Jesus dying the death we all deserve, by Jesus taking our punishment upon himself.  Justice is satisfied and we can be forgiven. 

For me this view has three things going for it.  

·        It is just.  Sin is punished in full.  No exceptions. No pardons.

·        It is consistent with what I see of the world.  The world is in a sorry state because we as a people are not perfect and none of us, except Jesus ever has been.

·        It takes into account God’s nature.  God is a God who loves and longs for us to return that love.  God is a God who acts with grace and mercy. 

God’s grace does three things.

1.     Gives us forgiveness and makes us right with God.  We experience God’s complete justice.

2.     It gives us the gift of the presence of the Holy Spirit.  God with us where ever we go what ever we are doing.  We enjoy the mercy and love of God.

3.     It gives us the sure and certain hope of life eternal. 

So how do we receive it?

·        By doing nothing because Jesus has already done it all. 

·        We only have to believe.

All the religions are not the same.  There is only one that fully accounts for the justice and mercy of God.  There is only one way to God’s blessings and that is the way of grace through faith in what was achieved by Jesus on the cross. 

There is no other true religion except Christianity.

There is no other Saviour only Jesus.

There is no other way to heaven but through the cross of Jesus.

“No Man is an Island.”

Mr. David Buffet, Chief Minister of Norfolk Island

We have just celebrated 30 years of self government.  During the special Assembly meeting David Buffet reminded us of Norfolk’s history.  There was much to be proud of in that history.  What impressed me was how close the community was on Pitcairn Island and how difficult the discission to leave was .  To quote David …

“Their move to Norfolk Island – was not a straight forward event.  They did however decide this very clearly … we will all go or none of us go.  We will continue to be a people together.”

The bonds that held that tiny community together were so strong that no one was willing to leave Pitcairn unless everyone went together. 

David’s speech then went on to outline recent history and developments.  But I could not help thinking about that decision to leave Pitcairn.  With the progress and changes that have happened in the years since arriving on Norfolk the community has become more fractured.  These days I read letters to the editor and a phrase keeps repeating itself. “if you don’t like it leave.” 

A very different attitude to the one that says we all go or we all stay.  That statement values all people as individuals and values their contributions.  It is an attitude that says each person is valuable, unique and precious. 

That attitude comes directly out of Pitcairn’s Christian heritage.  God when he made people, made us unique and special. 

As the Bible says …

Then God said … “Let us make people in our image, in our likeness … So God created man in his own image, in  the image of God he created him;  male and female he created them.”

God made us special, and each different to each other.  Each with our unique personality and abilities, each with our own special contributions to make to each other but each of us made in God’s image. This is not saying we are gods ourselves  but we all share in some way in God’s moral nature.  We are made to be in relationships with other people.  Made to love and care for others as God is in relationship with Himself, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.  Made to be creative and contribute to the good of others. 

We are made to live in close and supportive communities.  Where each contributes to the well being of that community.  English poet and Church of England priest John Donne expressed these thoughts well in his meditation 17,  a piece of prose writing  which has become better known in it’s poem form …

For Whom The Bell Tolls

No man is an island,

Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manner of thine own
Or of thine friend’s were.
Each man’s death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

Bounty Day Celebration,
 the annual anniversary of arrival of the settlers from Pitcairn Island.

Suffer the Little Children to Come Unto Me.

New calves

My favourite seasons would have to be spring.  The weather is mild.  The island looks spectacular.  Flowers in bloom and with all the rain we have here the grass is a rich deep green, the Island is at her most spectacular.  I love sitting with a cup of coffee first thing in the morning looking out over the Church paddock beside the Rectory.  We have a dozen cows and they usually calve over spring and that is perhaps the ultimate reason I like spring best, it is the season of new births.

If I let myself I could sit for hours watching the antics of the calves.  They play chasings, head butts and king of the castle with each other.  They are inquisitive and have to investigate everything and test everything to see if they can eat it.  In many ways they are like little children.

I think Jesus enjoyed the company of children.  There is a story in the Bible of a large crowd gathering to hear and see him and with the crowd were lots of children and they wanted to see and hear Jesus as well. 

Can you picture the scene; out in the dusty country side, probably a hot day in the desert sun and a large crowd pushing in.  Wanting to get close to see and hear, children squealing, sticky hands wanting to touch and Jesus sitting teaching the people surrounded by his closest friends. 

Jesus’ friends want to hold the people back a little, especially the grubby faced children.  Jesus sees this and what does He do?  He says to them …
“Let the children come to me.  They are a lesson to us all about heaven.  Heaven will be made up of people just like them”.

What an amazing statement.  The people who populate heaven will be like those children.  Children when they are young are helpless.  They can not stand by themselves.  They cannot speak, they cannot feed themselves, they cannot reason, they cannot dress themselves, or wash themselves.  They are completely and absolutely dependent on their parents for everything, even their very survival.

What is Jesus saying? 

Jesus is saying we all need to be like children.  It was not a matter of what we do; we can not earn, deserve or merit the love of God.  We need to know we can do nothing because God has already done it all.  We are totally dependent on God and what he has done for us in the person and work of Jesus on the cross.  All we can do is be like little children who totally trust and love their parents.  We need to totally love and trust God.

It is a hard lesson to learn but it is one we all need to take to heart.

If we want to be of any use to God:

·        We all have to face the moral poverty of our own existence.

·        We must realize we can bring nothing to the relationship with God, except our willingness to worship him.

·        We all have to get to the place where we know we have no worth except what God gives to us.

·        We need to recognize that we can do nothing for God, except trust in Him.

The wonderful news of the Bible is: if do love and trust God then our lives can and will be transformed.  We enter into an eternal relationship with God; we become adopted by Him as his sons and daughter for ever.

First time on four legs, and they are still very wobbly.

Our great unchangable steadfast God

Me in cowby suit with my family

There are times when we all long for the unchanging security we knew while growing up.  Do you remember what it was like to be a child?  If we skinned our knee, all it needed was for Mum to give it a kiss and it was all better.  Or waking in the middle of the night and being scared of the dark, all you had to do was climb into the safety of Mum and Dad’s bed and instantly the “Boggy Man” disappeared, and our world was safe again.  It didn’t seem to matter what our problems were Mum and Dad had a solution for them. 

My first day at school

I remember starting school, and feeling very alone that first day.  I didn’t know anyone there.  The teacher had lots of rules.  You couldn’t talk when you wanted to, or play with the toys in the room except at set times, and Mum had left me there by myself.

Then it all changed at lunch time, sitting on the seats under a tree in the play ground another boy in my class sat beside me and started talking to me.   We discovered we lived in the same street and enjoyed the same games.  I had my first friend and he helped make school a whole lot less scary.   The next ten years we walked to and from school together, played cowboys and Indians after school, learned to ride bikes at the same time and saved our pocket money to go to the pictures on the weekend together.   Robert was my best mate.

I remember discovering girls didn’t really carry girl germs and the excitement of first love.  So many tricky decisions, where to take a girl on a first date?  The pictures where always safe, but then do you have the courage to put an arm about her and what about  later, just how to say good night? 

We did kiss and I thought I had found the love of my life.  While walking home from her back to her house I planned out the rest of our lives, marriage, a couple of children and an early retirement after making my first million dollars. 

She was the person I was going to love for ever and she was going to love me forever.

Needless to say, none of that worked out.  I didn’t earn my first million dollars.  I didn’t marry that girl.  The same with my best mate at school, by the time we had finished high school we had both found ourselves with a different circle of friends.  Even the relationship I have with my parents has changed.   With age they are no longer as active and healthy as they were and I have found that increasingly I have been the one who has to listen to their problems and help them.

I think that is one of the great things about God.  He never changes.  He is the same today, tomorrow and for ever.  When the world is constantly changing God is always the same.

God offers the assurance that He really does love us with a love that will endure for eternity.  People change, love can fade, friends change, parents age but God is unchanging.