“Strictly”, or the Cross Factor?

By Philippa Kerr

 

This morning I’m rejoicing (in a dancing inside kind of way!) with my friend, on the day that her first grandchild is born. Yesterday, as she chewed her nails alongside her scone, I was reminded that childbirth can still be perilous and offered silent prayers, urgently and continuously.

 

 

“Did you see the miners?” was the question on the streets last week as millions watched, all day and possibly all night, the media footage of the rescue of the 33 Chilean miners who had been trapped in their ‘tomb’ (or potentially so) underground for so many long weeks.

 

 

What is it that compels us to watch continuous coverage in these circumstances? They are many miles away; we don’t know them, or their families; most of the hours of television were, in normal terms, boring – technical description, mundane details of lives, wives, children. On the face of it, it’s not good television, apart, of course, from the moment when the tube came out of the ground and another life was proved to be safe.

 

It got me thinking. Is it a desire we all have to identify with the triumph – “we did it, against all the odds”?   If we can’t actually be there, we can still ask “did you see it?”. Do we empathise, as a human race, with these fears and dangers overcome –“it could have been me” after all, either the rescuer or the rescued.

 

Wasn’t it extra wonderful as we saw the miners and their families praying, in such a natural and un-self-conscious way? Something we might aspire to? Something which our hearts agree with? Something of our Father’s nature within us?

 

Does Grace sometimes dawn within us like a new day, reminding us that we are eternally loved and rescued (the Cross factor); and that our sole mission is to pass on that love and Grace because it’s God’s world – all of it? Does it remind us that everyone we encounter (yes, everyone) is God’s child, although many don’t know it yet? We have the honour of ‘yeasting’ and ‘salting’ it and sharing in the triumph of Grace.

 

 

One day there will be ‘Strictly’ no more pain and suffering – God’s Kingdom will be fully here.

 

My friend’s daughter endured the labour (aptly named!). Several un-famous people worked in unpleasant and dangerous conditions to sink the rescue shaft for the miners. The hard bit comes first but the triumph is worth it.

 

There are some ‘rescue shafts’ being dug in Ipswich right now – Talitha Koum is one (there are several others) and it’s in the ‘Cross’ phase right now. It needs all of what we can offer if lives are to be saved; hard work now, triumph later.

 

So how will you vote? Mine goes with both; the ‘cross factor’ because it has to be so for now. My heart however, stretches to the time when the rule of God’s Kingdom is fully here and there will be ‘Strictly’ no more pain and “He will wipe every tear from their eyes” (Rev 21.4). 

 

Amazing! Praise God.