Skip to main content

Each of us is waiting for the dove

Each of us is waiting for the dove (Noah and the ark cf. Genesis 8:1-9) the sign of the dove bringing the good news that the water has abated, that the flood is over and that new life can return.

We are people, most of the time of the flood; people drowning and floundering in the world, fighting hard to remain faithful, but often being absorbed by the wrong things. 

Where in your life are you obsessing about the wrong things?

What does God want you to focus on?

Jesus comes into the midst of our flood, whatever it may be to reassure us with words of peace: Peace be with you.

The presence of God in our lives can lead us to fear, rather than to be full of joy. Why? Because we are secular people, concerned with the things of this world.

Fear and doubt mount an attack on our faith, our hope and our peace.

Where is comfort to be found? In the words of our Saviour:

'The Messiah had to suffer and to rise from the dead' (Luke 24: 46).

New life comes through death; new life cannot come without death.

And so in our own lives we experience the desire for new life in the midst of death –

Faith is motivated by desire and it is faith which leads us from desire to hope and finally to peace.

With Noah we keep looking, keep sending the dove out again, and it is because we desire things to be different that we have the energy and desire to send out the dove.

Keep sending out your dove; keep looking, because it is in the search that we receive the promises of God. It is because of our doubt and our fear that God comes alongside us and says, ‘yes’ it is true, see my wounds, see my side’ – I am fulfilling what I promised.

He will send to us, power from on high.




Comments

Post a Comment

Please be respectful when posting comments

Popular posts from this blog

Art and Imagination: the apocalyptic vision

Rev 12.7-12   Michael Defeats the Dragon   And war broke out in heaven ; Michael and his angels fought against the dragon. The dragon and his angels fought back, but they were defeated, and there was no longer any place for them in heaven. The great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world—he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him.  Then I heard a loud voice in heaven, proclaiming, ‘Now have come the salvation and the power    and the kingdom of our God    and the authority of his Messiah, for the accuser of our comrades has been thrown down,    who accuses them day and night before our God. But they have conquered him by the blood of the Lamb    and by the word of their testimony, for they did not cling to life even in the face of death. Rejoice then, you heavens   ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Radical Story-telling?

Public Domain   The Flight into Egypt  File: Adam Elsheimer - Die Flucht nach Ägypten (Alte Pinakothek) 2.jpg Created: 31 December 1608 Which of the Gospel writers include an account of the birth of Jesus? When were they writing, for what audience? Mark’s Gospel is almost universally considered to be the earliest Gospel and it’s understood that both Matthew and Luke used it as a source text. But Mark has no account of the birth of Jesus, he begins with John the Baptist and Jesus’ baptism. Only Matthew and Luke have birth narratives and they are different whilst sharing some common features: Mary and Joseph are to be married and there’s a miraculous virgin birth in Bethlehem. But that’s about it. Jesus is born in a house in Matthew’s account whilst he is placed in a manger in Luke’s because there’s ‘no room at the inn’. Mary’s thoughts and feelings are not mentioned in Matthew at all, whilst from Luke we get the story of the Visitation, Annunciation and the wonderfu...
2 comments
Read more

‘Things Fall Apart – the centre cannot hold, mere anarchy is loosed upon the world’

 Holy Week Reflection   The Jewish people had a framework for understanding the world and most importantly their relationship with God and with one another. They had the Law and the Prophets and yet at various points in their history they were radically challenged by the events that occurred in their communal history. The deliverance from the hands of the Egyptians became a foundational narrative for them about God’s ability to save. They were not a people unused to suffering, unused to war, unused to persecution and these experiences led them as a people to expect from their God – compassion, mercy and most importantly deliverance. They could understand their sufferings in various ways, they could attribute them to their own sin and waywardness, but at the centre of their faith was a belief that God had established a covenant with them and that he would be faithful even if they were faithless. Jesus came into this history as a possible Messiah, as the Anointed One w...
Post a Comment
Read more