Diana's Weekly Thoughts
Just when you think you have seen it all, cards bearing nude Father Christmases, flashing (in the criminal sense of the word) angels, etc., along comes something so outrageous you wonder how you could have been so wrong. Featured in the Daily Telegraph last week was a coffee mug bearing a picture of Jesus. He was holding a razor and when you put hot liquid in the mug his beard disappeared! What can possibly be the rationale for producing such a product? Surely it is not much of a business venture, who would buy one? Believers would shun it and non-believers, especially in the credit crunch, would not spend money on an image of Christ, even for a joke. Can you imagine the outcry if a similar product were to be sold bearing an image of Mohammed?
A couple of weeks ago, Bob M spoke about the ways Christ’s blood was shed before the crucifixion. One of the things he suggested happened was that Jesus’ beard, a sign of masculinity and authority to the Jews, was sadistically pulled out by the clean-shaven Romans. Now that same brutality is being represented in the crime ridden and sinful twenty-first century. The technology of the mug is clever, I have seen it used to great effect on freebies advertising various skin preparations or antibiotics but is there no depth of depravity to which man will not sink to get “a laugh”. Modern life is so shallow and unrewarding that nothing is sacred any more, everything is sacrificed to the great “Me” and my right to instant gratification.
However, before we sink too far into gloom there is a glimmer of hope. The Enemy may have been at work in the china factory but the Lord has come back at him in a quiet and understated way – no shouting or abusing, just a gentle reminder that He sent His son to save us all. Also reported in the Daily Telegraph, a mystery artist has been painting the image of a baby wrapped in swaddling on large pebbles and leaving them around the Cornish resort of Newquay. I hope, in years to come, when all the mugs have been broken and forgotten forever, the artist will have been discovered and become famous, and the stones will be treasured items, maybe making the odd appearance on “Bargain Hunt” or “Flog It”.
As we approach the New Year we have been asking God what He wants us, as a church, to do next. We have talked about being an army and rising up as the dry bones of Ezekiel 37 but this is a reminder that we do not always have to be militant, we can achieve much by gentler actions – consider how dripping water can wear down the hardest stone. Working towards the Carol Service we have become a closer and more effective team. What originally looked like being a bit of a traditional Christmas get together for the in-crowd has become a major production and provided opportunities for contact with outsiders, invitations to strangers and the chances to spread the Word wanted. God is so clever!
