Looking at Christ

You know that experience of finding everything just slightly frustrated: The computer that you got two months ago starts crashing. There's a tiny leak slowly soaking the kitchen floor.  The car, which you haven't moved for a month, has a flat battery.  You put up a shelf and it's just slightly off horizontal. Only you will notice, or someone who looks very carefully, but you're annoyed that it is not right. You’ve proof read the manuscript twenty times but the moment you press send you realise there’s a typo on page one. A social media message misinterpreted opens a can of worms. The biscuits/cake/meal you’ve spent an hour preparing stays in the oven or on the stove just five minutes too long. It’s still edible but has that acrid taste round the edges. This is not real suffering. It's not  bereavement, pain, trauma. It's not a 14 hour shift in a PPE suit tending to the critically ill. It's not losing your job. It's not living under constan...

“It is to be numbered among the evils of our day, that the churches are so divided one from another, that there is scarcely any friendly intercourse strengthened between us; much less does that holy communion of the members of Christ flourish, which all profess with the mouth, but few sincerely regard in the heart.” (letter from John Calvin to Thomas Cranmer dated 1552 responding to Cranmer’s idea of an international protestant council)   May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you a common mind among one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. (Romans 15:5-6) That is a prayer that I’m praying repeatedly at the moment and coming to love more and more. It tells us the great reason for Christian unity – worship . It’s not just that unity is a joy (it is) or that it is more effective (it can be). What glorifies God the most is when people of every accent and culture a...