Calvary

LEANING INTO LENT

(March 09, 2023) Dr Jim McClure shares… 

We are very familiar with the festivals of Christmas, Good Friday and Easter that are commemorated each year.  In fact they are so popular that the secular and commercial world has largely taken over Christmas and Easter as holidays rather than ‘holy days.’

Even so, as Christians, we do try to focus on the profound spiritual significance and meaning of those events. 

Lent
We are in the midst of festival of ‘Lent’ that is celebrated each year by millions of Christians throughout the world. It is a 6-week event that began this year on Wednesday, February 22, and will end on Saturday April 8, 2023 – the day before Easter Day. While many churches worldwide observe Lent, some denominations – and Christians – pay little attention to it.

What is Lent and why did it become part of Christian practice?  Almost 1900 years ago one of the leaders of the church, Irenaeus, mentioned a time of prayer and fasting for 40 days before Easter.    A couple of hundred years later it was generally practised by Christians worldwide. Its purpose was focusing on God, developing a closer relationship with Him and reflecting on the wonderful fact that Jesus Christ rose triumphantly from the tomb.

I am not suggesting that Lent should become part of the  calendar of every church and every Christian.  I wholly agree with the comment, ‘You could observe 1,000 Lents and it won’t ever accomplish in your life what the cross of Jesus has.’ That is absolutely true. 

Nevertheless, I believe that that our relationship with God can be greatly deepened and strengthened whenever we seriously set aside time in prayer and think deeply about what it truly means to be a Christian.

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FAMOUS LAST WORDS FROM THE CROSS

(April 04, 2022) Richard Winter challenges…

We’ve all been in a discussion when we wanted to get the last word… but sometimes that’s the wrong thing to aim at.

For example… Guys, you may say when asked: ‘Yes, Honey, those jeans do make you look fat.’ But they may be your famous last words!

Let’s look at Jesus’ last words.

The context is that Jesus is on a cross and Luke 23: 32-33 tell us that ‘Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals – one on His right, the other on His left.’ 

What had led Jesus to this point?

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REMEMBERING CALVARY

(April 01, 2022) Brian Bell challenges us to remember and really know that God loves us…

In the United Kingdom last week, we ‘put our clocks forward’ a reminder that for us we are moving into the spring season.

If you’re anything like me, your memory may have good recall in some things, not so good on others. God knows our human tendency to forget and takes steps to help us remember.

One example of this is found in Deuteronomy 15:15ESB: ‘You shall remember that you were a slave in the land of Egypt, and the Lord your God redeemed you.’

As we approach this Easter season, I offer some very simple thoughts from this verse to help us remember.

1. A season to remember
In Ecclesiastes 3:1KJV the writer tells us that ‘To everything there is a season and a time to every purpose under heaven.’

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THAT DARK FRIDAY’S HOURS

(April 01, 2022) Robert and Maureen McQuillan solemnly share Easter thoughts…

‘The night is always darkest before the dawn!’ is an old but for many today still a very realistic adage.

It’s Easter’s Good Friday next week – but a dark Friday indeed when one fully realises what Jesus Christ must have gone through!

Good Friday? Bad Friday, evil Friday, fearful Friday!

Thinking aboutthat daycaused Robert to recall staying overnight at a colleague’s home many Easters ago. Not immediately sleepy, he browsed the bedroom’s shelves and found the most unusual book… an old, handwritten volume of on-the-scene experiences of a young WW1 British soldier.

An amazing diary really, filled with drawings of horrific battle scenes. One incident caught Robert’s attention… aware of what his friends and he would face as one particular new day broke on them, the writer had painfully detailed fears, confusions, and concerns.

Dark hours
Certain death faced this little group of outnumbered comrades when superior forces would attack them! Graphically he described that dark lonely night filled with alarm, horror, fear, and tension as they waited in the terrifying blackness during those long trying, uncertain hours.

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FREE WILL

(July 25, 2021) Robert and Maureen McQuillan discourage blaming God and others…

Free will… there’s a catchphrase that often come up conversations with Christians over concern about the evil in our world and wars, bad judgments, murders, family distresses, terrorism, Holocaust type atrocities, drug taking, alcoholism, the quickness to sin, Christians including ministers falling from grace, the current covid-19 crisis… and other sad happenings.

Regarding bad choices, so often, when trying to offer explanations, hope and comfort, Christians usually say, ‘Well it all gets back to God allowing us to have free will… in our humanity we either choose to do or say the right thing or not.’

Now that’s true… but at times it comes across that we’re blaming an unthoughtful creator! The reality is that when God created humanbeings in his own image back in Eden, Adam and Eve could have made the right choice, and sin would not have become a dangerous reality and the world would not be in the mess it’s in!

Hold it…
Even as we mustn’t even consider accusing God, let’s not dump blame at Adam and Eve’s feet either!

Their big slip-up is in the past, decades ago… we’re in the present and need to readily accept our responsibilities to make the right choices today!

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THE GENERAL’S UNANSWERABLE QUESTION
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(April 01, 2021) Robert McQuillan recalls an Easter reflection…

As many know, Maureen and I often relax by watching old movies and TV series. Anyone remember that avant-garde classic cult British series from the 60s The Prisoner?

The late Patrick McGoohan, its creator, played an unnamed secret service agent who for no apparent reason resigns only to be taken captive to a mysterious coastal locale in Wales known as The Village. Here he is technologically interrogated as to his real motive for resigning – with what was then unheard-of equipment.

Consequently the question his inquisitors repeatedly ask is – Why? meaning ‘for what purpose; with what intention, reason, or motive.’

Unanswerable question
Number 6 – as he’s referred to – turns the tables in one episode when his interrogators are using The General, an invincible machine regarding any question asked. He requests to type in a one-word question claiming it cannot be answered.

‘Impossible,’ he’s countered, told that there’s no question The General can’t understand, answer.

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But on his one word being inserted the machine abruptly goes haywire, smoke and sparks flying everywhere.

To the inquisitors’ amazement, it totally disintegrates exploding with a great erupting bang.

What was the question that Number 6 then states as being ‘Insoluble to man and machine’? The one unanswerable word – ‘Why?’

Different ‘General’
Some 40 years ago I knew a certain businessman – whose name I can’t disclose – but call the General. Taking me to lunch at a classy restaurant, he insisted on lavishly treating me.

But this was more than a business luncheon… it was his way of thanking me for having gladly stood alongside him for several hours in a private hospital while surgeons preformed a dangerous operation on his wife.

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LEST WE FORGET

(August 21, 2020) Dr Jim McClure, straight shooting theologian, challenges us not to forget…

Last Saturday in various countries throughout the world commemoration services were held reflecting the surrender of Japan on August 15, 1945 which signified the end of World War 2.

World War 2
Below is a photo taken shortly after that day back then in which a celebration party was arranged for the children in the street where I lived in Belfast.

I just about remember that day… the street lined with tables filled with ‘goodies’ 
that, because of food shortages had been in limited availability during the war years, yet the mums somehow managed to turn the meagre supplies into a celebratory meal! I do remember the sense of joy in all the mums who, after six years of suffering, were so elated to celebrate this wonderful news with their children.

And what a time of suffering those six years were. My father worked at night in an engineering factory in Belfast and most nights German planes tried to bomb it. When my dad went out to work neither he nor my mum knew if he would be returning home the following morning.  Just before I was born, German fighter planes would try to shoot civilians; my parents described their fear as they covered my brother and the unborn ‘me’ with their bodies as they watched the bullets rip along the ground close to where they were under cover.

World War 2 was the most lethal military conflict in history. Around 75 million people died (that is about 3.3% of the world population in those days) and that included around 20 million of those who served in the military and 40 million civilians, many of whom died because of deliberate slaughter, mass-bombings, disease, starvation and limited medical services.

We must not forget the horror and the social consequences of those years and the years that followed nor must we forget the sacrifices that brave men and women made to rescue us from ruthless domination.  It is right that we from time to time reflect on those events – lest we forget!

The Covid-19 War (more…)

THE FORGOTTEN TREE

Stephen Hanna
Stephen Hanna reminds us of a great Christmastime truth…

There’s an object that is very much part of the furniture at this time of year. In many homes, it‘s the first thing put up and the last to be taken down. For some, Christmas would not be Christmas without it. I am, of course, referring to the Christmas tree! (more…)