Monday Reflection – June 08, 2020
Who Will Comfort? Who Will Cry?

Speak tenderly to Jerusalem, and proclaim to her that her hard service has been completed, that her sin has been paid for. Isaiah 40:2  

I continue to agonize over the murder of George Floyd at the hands at law enforcement officers in Minneapolis, USA. Derek Chauvin pressed his knee into Floyd’s neck for nearly nine minutes in full view of three other police officers. As if that were not enough, the case of Noel Chambers makes me enraged. Based on the Quarterly Report (January -March 2020) of the Independent Commission of Investigations (INDECOM), Chambers died in custody at the Tower Street Adult Correctional Centre (TSACC) in January 2020 at 81 years old. He was incarcerated on February 4, 1980 and had been in prison for 40 years without being tried. He was being held at the Governor General’s pleasure, deemed unfit to plead to a charge of murder. Twice Chambers received ‘Fitness for Trial Certificates’ from two different psychiatrists and despite these, there is no indication that they were sent to the Court or that he was taken back to court for trial. Family members and a human rights attorney tried to have his case heard in Court, but this proved futile. In time, his family grew disheartened with the process. INDECOM noted that Noel is not alone, but many others are in similar situations. They highlighted nine cases of persons ranging from 19 to 49 years, with some deemed fit to plead, yet have last listed court dates as far back as 1975.

As we contemplate our appropriate response to such ungodly and unjust actions, we are invited to reflect on today’s text. Isaiah 40 signals a shift in tone from one of judgement and warning to that of comfort and blessing. Isaiah 39 ends with the announcement of the coming Babylonian conquest of Jerusalem and the impending exile. Yet, beginning in chapter 40 the Lord offers his people comfort. Today, so many with hurting hearts, obvious and hidden, are waiting for a word of hope. It is important for hurting hearts to hear a word of comfort from God’s messenger. God’s comfort is not a hollow, positive-thinking kind of message. God always gives his people reasons for comfort – her hard service has been completed; her sin has been paid for. Another version puts it like this: Her warfare is ended and her iniquity pardoned. At the moment Isaiah spoke this, the battle may have still loomed, yet as far as God was concerned, her warfare is ended. The people knew of their sinful lives, yet God offers pardon. These are reasons for comfort.

Indeed, we must offer comfort to the families of George Floyd, Noel Chambers and so many others who are hurt and in pain today. We must assure them that God’s comfort is able to heal the deepest of pain and sorrow. Yet, there is more for us to do. Verses 3 to 5 of Isaiah 40 speaks of the voice of one crying in the wilderness. What does he cry? “Prepare the way of the Lord…Every valley shall be exalted and every mountain and hill brought low; the crooked places shall be made straight and the rough places smooth…” It’s a call for the levelling of the field. Where inequality, inequity and injustice prevail, our voices must cry until every obstacle in the way is removed and whatever is wrong in the road is corrected. It is a cry that demands that we treat everyone as brothers and sisters. It’s a cry that lifts us the downtrodden and brings down the exalted. Who will cry until the glory of the Lord is revealed and all people see it together?

Jermaine Gibson 

Saturday Reflection – 06 June 2020

“How great are God’s signs, how mighty his wonders! His kingdom is an eternal kingdom; his dominion endures from generation to generation.” Daniel 4:3

Tomorrow is Trinity Sunday, where we acknowledge our Triune God, having now revealed himself to humanity as Father, Son and Holy Spirit. How fitting then, as we approach that special day in our church’s calendar, is our watchword for today, where King Nebuchadnezzar acknowledges the power and greatness of God and therein commands the people to respect and honour God. For Nebuchadnezzar, (as recorded in Daniel 3), having experienced the faith of the three Hebrew boys and how God protected them in the midst of the fiery furnace, he is led to make this profession of faith.

Many times, when we share our faith with others, we are immediately asked, what do we believe? Or what is that your church believes or stands for? When confronted with this question, some time ago, in later reflection, it became clear that we profess our faith every Sunday, by the Apostles or Nicene Creed or the Affirmation of Faith, which is the foundation of what we believe. Every statement that is made in our creed we affirm with the words “I believe.” It’s like Nebuchadnezzar who comes to this recognition, that as salvation is made known to us, as we experience God and celebrate these events on our Church’s Calendar, it becomes more and more real to us. Even as Nebuchadnezzar experienced it before his very eyes.

The problem, my brothers and sisters, is that we may soon forget the solemnity and meaning of our profession of faith, and it is evident in the Daniel 4, where in a short space of time, after the experience with Shadrach, Meshach and Abednego and twelve months after Daniel interprets the dream and implores Nebuchadnezzar to repent, that he goes back to square one and proclaims in verse 30 “Is this not magnificent Babylon, which I have built as a royal capital by my mighty power and for my glorious majesty?” It’s almost as everything he had seen, heard and experienced meant nothing to him or in more familiar terms “all that went through the window” Because he forgot Jehovah, he was made to eat grass, losing his power and his sanity so that he could be reminded and humbled. Again, having survived, he ends with his profession of faith.

For me, the reason we say these creeds each week, is that we would, in understanding and in reflection and later committing to memory, it becomes a reminder, of God’s omnipotence, omniscience and omnipresence and we experience God’s grace as we say “I believe.” In a world, where so many things are going wrong, where the challenges of life, seem to be coming just one after the other, our “I believe” keeps us connected to God, and our faith is grounded. So, brothers and sisters, we cannot allow anything to shake our belief, nor can we get to the point where our affirmation of this faith, becomes ritualistic and meaningless.

We celebrate and experience, the majesty of our creator God, who said “Let there be, and there was”, where after the fall of humanity, his unending love led him, through Christ to be born in this world, to teach us of the kingdom and how to live godly lives, then to offer himself a ransom for our sin. We see the risen Lord, who conquered sin, death and the grave, who ascended to heaven and sent us a comforter, the Holy Spirit, as our guide and friend. We experience the community of faith, known as the church, made up of our brothers and sisters in Christ, and we are apart of the family of God. We cling to the hope of the resurrection, where the Lord will return as King and Judge. Together, we worship and serve him, and we continually feel his presence, and experience his grace. And we believe that one day, the church militant will become the church triumphant and then shall we evermore be with the Lord. When we stand on these promises, proclaiming and living the truth, then we can be all that God intends his church to be.

Until next week, we cannot be fickle, that we allow anything that we face to shake our belief and our resolve and would take away God’s Holy Spirit from us. From now on, every time, we profess, let it be a solemn and true profession, as it is the foundation of our faith. And in turn, we must be the church that spreads this hope and confidence to others, so that they too, might know and believe, until the day when our faith becomes sight. Amen.

Dominic J. Blair