Some weeks ago my email account was hacked. The hacker sent dozens of emails from my account all of which bounced and rapidly filled up my inbox. In the course of a few days over 6,000 arrived. Fortunately, my email software spotted what was going on and once I’d sent a few spam emails to my junk folder, it took over and did the job for me. I quickly made the necessary changes, shut out the hacker and the stream of spam dried up.

In a similar way it’s possible for our minds to be filled with negative and destructive thought patterns that are sometimes hard to contain. We try and ignore them and push them away, but they can be very persistent.

The Apostle Paul recognised the problem and knew that if people were to follow Christ then they would need to change the way they thought and would need help to do so. He wrote that we needed to be ‘transformed by the renewing of our mind’ but that God would give us divine power ‘to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.’

Good to know that when it comes to our thought life God has provided the best spam filter and junk folder we might ever need!

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Marking two weeks since the shootings in Christchurch, New Zealand, Jacinda Ardern addressed the nation. Thrust into the global spotlight she has shown herself to be a remarkable leader, combining the deepest compassion for the victims with steely determination to effect real change and prevent a repeat. In her address she said, ’extremism in all its forms is not welcome here’, and ‘we are not immune to the viruses of hate… But we can be the nation that discovers the cure.’

But here’s the thing: there is a cure, but our lack of extremism prevents it being applied. Let me explain.

Jesus said, ‘As I have loved you, so you must love one another’, and ‘love your neighbour as yourself’, and ‘Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one’s life for one’s friends.’ The problem is that we are too half-hearted and don’t bother to do the things that Jesus said. Imagine if we were all extremists in terms of loving one another, putting others first and being prepared to sacrifice ourselves for the good of others? In such a world there would be no room for the hate that fills the hearts of those who pull the triggers. 

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On the day that the UK was meant to be securing its freedom from the EU, chaos and confusion continue to reign. This week one newspaper seemed to plumb new levels of despair with its headline that because of Brexit even Easter would have to be cancelled. Fortunately, the detail of the story revealed that in fact it was the MP’s Easter holiday that is at risk and not the celebration itself. For this we should all be grateful because a world without Easter would truly be a world without hope.

On a Friday 2,000 years ago Jesus’ friends had hoped that they were on the cusp of a brave new world. They thought that it would be one in which Jesus would ascend to an earthly throne, and they would reign alongside him, finally freed from the shackles of the Roman occupation. But the freedom Jesus had promised was far better than the political freedom they were hoping for.

Like Jesus’ disciples there are many freedoms that we long for in this life. But like them we too need to discover there is only one freedom that really matters – the freedom from sin and death that, no matter what the papers may say, we celebrate each Easter. 

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As a nine-year-old boy the future Archbishop of Cape Down, Desmond Tutu, had an experience that changed his life forever. He was walking along the street with his mother when they were approached by a white man in a black suit. Under the rules of apartheid, it was expected that Desmond and his mother would step into the gutter and nod their heads in deference as the white man passed. But this white man was different, and to their surprise he stepped off the pavement and tipped his hat as they passed him. The man was an Anglican priest called Trevor Huddleston who was bitterly opposed to apartheid. When Tutu’s mother explained to him that Huddleston was a ‘man of God’ he made up his mind there and then to become an Anglican priest just like him.

Huddleston’s action that day perfectly reflected the example of his Saviour Jesus Christ. The Bible says this of Jesus, ‘Who being in very nature God did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the very nature of a servant.’ It is an extraordinary thing that the holy God of all creation, loved us so much that he willingly gave up the glory of heaven and stepped into the gutter to save us.

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While most of us will be familiar with the phrase ‘going the extra mile’, it seems to be one that has passed by our local water company. They recently came to install a new water main to the houses in the road opposite where I live. Inevitably this involved digging up the road. After several weeks of disruption, new tarmac was laid and the white lines repainted. But bizarrely a decision was made to only paint the lines up to the edge of the new tarmac rather than repaint them all. It’s an old road and the lines are worn and faded. To say it now looks ridiculous would be something of an understatement.

While ‘going the extra mile’ doesn’t seem to be something many of us find easy, we ought to take the concept seriously because the saying comes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. It was the practice in his day that a Roman soldier could make someone carry their kit for one mile. But Jesus told his followers that they should carry the kit for two miles instead. As with so much of Jesus’ teaching it reflects a life of love and generosity, and one that doesn’t think ‘What’s the least I can give?’ but rather, ‘What’s the most I can give?’

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Once again, the world is stunned by the horrific events that unfolded in Christchurch, New Zealand, last week; and once again I’m reminded of the wise words spoken by a Muslim shopkeeper who welcomed me to his store in Pakistan a few years ago, ‘We were all created by the same God. The most important thing is that we love each other.’

In a well-known story from the Bible Cain becomes jealous of his brother Abel and kills him. When God challenges him about the murder, Cain responds by saying, ‘Am I my brother’s keeper?’ It is a devastating response because it shows that Cain no longer reflects the image of God in which he was made. His heart has grown selfish and hardened towards God and his brother. The answer should be a resounding ‘Yes, I am my brother’s keeper’ because I’m reflecting the character of a God whose very essence is love.

It’s the love that we see in the life of Jesus reflected in his saying that there is no greater love than to lay down your life for your friends. Evil and hatred will always seek to take and destroy and sometimes appear to succeed, but in the end, they will always be overcome by love and compassion.

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A few years ago some friends of mine travelled to Colombia to help with the refurbishment of a children’s centre in one of the poorest districts in the city. But a brief inspection of the building revealed a problem with the ground floor toilets – they’d never been plumbed in! Rather than being connected to a waste pipe connected to a sewer, they simply emptied into a void underneath the building. The gradual accumulation of waste had rotted way the foundations and the whole building was now unstable. Any idea of refurbishment had to be abandoned and instead the building was condemned before it fell down.

The waste may have been out of sight, but it was destroying the foundations, and as for the building so too for our lives. We all accumulate the ‘waste’ of sin as we go through life but what do we do with it? Do we just bury it and hope everything will be OK? St John sums up the Good News of Jesus like this, ‘If we confess our sins [Jesus] is faithful and just and will forgive us and purify us from all unrighteousness.’

Like a properly plumbed in toilet, then, Jesus takes our ‘waste’ away preventing it from causing lasting damage.

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There are many reasons why I could never be an atheist. Here’s one of them. Imagine if you will two laptops advertised for sale. They’re identical in every respect apart from the operating system. The first has been programmed by the brightest minds and runs on the fastest chip with the latest software. The second has been programmed by primary school children who were blind-folded and asked to tap randomly on a keyboard. Which one would we choose to buy I wonder? My guess is that unless we were being deliberately obtuse everyone of us would buy the first and laugh at the idea of the second.

I wouldn’t dream of paying good money for a computer that I knew had been programmed in such a random and chaotic manner. But it seems to me that in order to be an atheist I must believe that something far more complex and finely-balanced – the universe, the earth and human life itself – was formed in just such a way. I take for granted that fact that computers are the result of intelligent design, but I’m asked to believe that a supercomputer like the human brain is the result of chance. Like my chaotically programmed laptop – I just don’t buy it!

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A few years ago I was treated to membership at a local country club. Entering reception for the first time I remember being warmly greeted by the receptionist, and shown into the lovely bar and restaurant which opened out onto a terrace overlooking the gardens. I imagined taking a seat on the terrace with a cool drink and doing nothing.

But the friend who took me had other ideas, and I found myself being swept past the lovely terrace and gardens and into the gym for a gruelling work out. After half an hour I stumbled out of the gym barely able to walk and sank gratefully into the jacuzzi, hoping I’d never have to do it again. But I did, and over time I learned to appreciate the pain of the workout as much as I did the pleasure of sitting on the terrace.

The worst mistake we can make is to think that Jesus loves us so little that he accepts us just as we are but then leaves us that way. He may be the smiling receptionist who offers salvation and welcomes us into God’s family, but he’s also the personal trainer who gets us in the gym to work out our salvation and be changed into His likeness.

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I’ll never forget the day my school celebrated it’s 125thanniversary. There was much excitement because in honour of the occasion we were to be visited by the Duke and Duchess of Gloucester. (The Queen was patron of our school but I’m guessing she had something else on that day!) In advance of the visit the school went through something of a transformation – flowerbeds were neatly planted, broken windows repaired and the whole place smelt of fresh paint. When the day arrived everyone was smartly dressed in their very best clothes. It seemed to be assumed that in order greet a royal visitor you first had to clean up your act.

Sadly, that’s what many people think God expects of them, and even worse that that’s what he demands. Nothing could be further from the truth. A brief reading of the Gospels reveals that having your life in a mess is no barrier to meeting Jesus. Quite the contrary in fact. Jesus goes out of his way to meet thieves, adulterers, crooks and prostitutes declaring that he’s come to heal the sick and not the healthy. And as for them so too for us – the transformation is the result of meeting Jesus and not the condition for doing so. 

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