So how about the head of ASIO saying that one of our former politicians was a foreign government asset? It was one of those announcements, in an otherwise routine speech that landed like a dead possum onto a picnic table – it had to be disposed of, but even when it’s gone its presence at all still puts you off your meal.
This week I attended the funeral of Joe Mullins. Joe died old and full of years (103 of them). He and his wife Edith (who died in 2009) had six children, and what seems to me like a bajillion grand-children and great grand-children.
1. I’m struck as I read the New Testament just how much of it is concerned with finding unity across distance.
Be it cultural distance (Jewish and non-Jewish Christians); confidence to live as a distinctive Christian minority who, nevertheless, are intelligible to the cultures around them (the so-called “stronger” and “weaker” Christians); and, of course, the mountains of passages about how to handle conflict, disagreement and sin.
A surprising thought rings out through these texts – unity within the body of Christ is deeply precious, it is worth contending for and is more important than being right. This thought is easier or harder to believe based on what’s going on around us.
If you are ever inclined to wonder if God has forgotten you, that you are unimportant to him, that his saving work at Easter doesn’t cover you – then know that all he has to do is look down at his nail marked palm and see your name.
Tonight, Canberra’s monuments will be coloured light pink and blue to mark International Pregnancy and Infant Loss Remembrance Day. Each day in Australia, approximately six unborn babies over 20 weeks gestation pass away. One in four Australian women will face miscarriage or stillbirth at some point. Thinking about losing a baby can make us fear for our future and drag up old sorrows.
So how about the head of ASIO saying that one of our former politicians was a foreign government asset? It was one of those announcements, in an otherwise routine speech that landed like a dead possum onto a picnic table – it had to be disposed of, but even when it’s gone its presence at all still puts you off your meal.
You might’ve heard this week that the Federal Government has landed a deal on new industrial relations laws which will entitle employees to be able to ignore texts and calls from their bosses outside of work hours.
Unions are annoyed that the bill won’t include penalties for employers who do reach out off-the-clock, while employer groups are concerned that this will impact on “flexible working.”
At the centre of the Christian faith is the belief that by coming to earth as one of us, Christ could die for our sins, rise to new life, bring us into fellowship with him, and begin the process of putting right all that is gone wrong. But at the centre of that centre, tucked away where we don't always see it, is the idea that to become one of us, Jesus had to become flesh. To become a human person, he needed to become a human body. In John 1: 14 we read The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.
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