Saturday 5th December
When I was a child, my family lived in Jerusalem,
Israel for two years. While we were there, violence was commonplace; from our
back garden we could hear the gunshots and mortars exploding from the nightly skirmishes
in nearby Bethlehem. At one point after several attacks happened near to where
my parents worked and my brothers and I attended school, when my family were
all feeling discouraged and alone, a friend of my mother’s saw a flock of sheep
near an area where guns were being fired. Every time a shot rang out, the sheep
would scatter and panic. The shepherd would then take his staff and walk to
each sheep and touch it, and the sheep responded to his touch by quieting and
becoming still. They trusted their shepherd, and even though the entire process
had to be repeated every time a round was fired, the shepherd never tired of
reassuring them.
In today’s passages, we are reminded both of the
shepherd that we need and the hope that he brings. The promises of the kingdom
of God are particularly poignant in Brussels today - in a time when we feel
unsafe and unsettled, the Lord promises that injustices will be made just, that
wrongs will be righted, and that we will be guided in the way we are meant to
go. Let us be bringers of this kingdom of justice and mercy today, walking in
love and not fear. Let us cling to our shepherd our audacious faith and hope.
Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as
it is in heaven.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment