A Reading
On the walk to Emmaus ...
Then Jesus said to them, ‘You foolish people! You find it so hard to believe all that the prophets wrote in the Scriptures. Wasn’t it clearly predicted that the Messiah would have to suffer all these things before entering his glory?’ Then Jesus took them through the writings of Moses and all the prophets, explaining from all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
(Luke 24: 25-27)
A Thought
Our Sunday scripture readings have recently stimulated discussion about holding faith in a secular society. The message of Jesus’ sacrifice and offer of salvation that was made 2000 years ago is easily drowned out by the many attractions and distractions of the consumer economy. Christian belief is often characterised in social media as being unsubstantiated, offensive to other beliefs and irrelevant to current livelihoods.
A member of our congregation recently remarked that faith becomes a higher priority as we age towards our natural lifespan. This partly reflects the lowering of consumer priority in our later life ambitions. But it also reflects another feature of ageing that had not occurred to me before it was mentioned this week – there is a steady reduction in peer group pressure!
An essential teaching from the bible is that we can invite Jesus into our lives at any time. We do not have to wait until we are older, we can do it today and every day.
With the promise from Jesus of forgiveness and eternal life, the challenge of holding faith in a secular world becomes one of wanting our families and friends to know and share this belief.
That is something to be getting on with sooner rather than later.
A prayer
Dear Lord, You will all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of Your truth. May we with faith be strong, as were the prophets,
Each of us given authority from you to speak of the gospel to others.
Amen
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