Words for Worship

Ministry Today

Ship Wreck

It’s a fair enough question. And it is what do you use the bible for? Of course, the answer to that one is probably as varied as the billions of Jews, Muslims and Christians who do use the sacred texts that we call the Bible. But we all most often turn to the Bible during the personal  crisis in our own lives. Times when the bon mot – worse things happen at sea - is trite. Nevertheless often worse things do happen in unfamiliar environments as Paul found out on his last journey in chains aboard a sinking ship.

But, of course, we really don’t have to go to sea to experience a shipwreck. In fact, most of our personal disasters happen far from the briny. For example, John Killinger, tells a story about a man who is all-alone in a hotel room in Canada. The man was the chairman of a large shipping company yet he was in a state of deep depression. In fact, he was absolutely overwhelmed by the pressures and demands of life. And so moaned out loud: "Life isn't worth living this way, I wish I were dead!" Here then is a ship wreck as real as Paul’s off Malta.

But then, his eyes alight on a Bible on the bedside table and he wondered, what God would think if he heard him talking this way.
Speaking aloud again he says, "God, it's a joke, isn't it? Life is nothing
but a joke." Suddenly, it occurs to the man that this is the first time he's
talked to God since he was a little boy. He is silent for a moment and then
he begins to pray. He describes it like this: "I just talked out loud about
what a mess my life was in and how tired I was and how much I wanted things
to be different in my life. And you know what happened next? A voice!! I
heard a voice say, 'It doesn't have to be that way t- here is more."

Here then is our first use of the Bible. For it has always been a way to remember God, to make contact with God and to assist in having a conversation with God. Indeed, in times of ship wreck it always meets our craving to hear God’s voice not as in past history but to hear it as the saving solution to our own prevailing crises and impending disasters. In truth, we want to hear the Bible like the siren call of the approaching life boat. We want to feel it like a lifejacket in the engulfing waves.

The Vatican city authorities a few weeks issued guidelines for drivers upon its territory. Indeed, this civic powers saw the car as often a place that brings out the primitive side of humanity. And this acknowledgement of the lack of driverly love in the eternal city is a fair reminder that the whole world is far from God’s will for it. And this never feels truer then when we are in the midst of some shipwreck trauma.

Yet this brings us to the second great purpose of the Bible and that is to tell us of Jesus’ teaching of the Kingdom. Now the idea of a future time of perfection is as old as the bible is itself. But Jesus words on it really surprised people. For he suggested it was already here but some how hidden. And it is using the Bible to remind ourselves of this enigmatic interpretation of the kingdom that is of most value at times of life’s ship wrecks. Because the promise of the future being OK is usually not much help. We want the present to be also. And therefore the idea of God’s kingdom and its perfection available here and now definitely brings us reassurance. Because it offers the prospect that the current tragedy does have meaning, it does have some immediate benefit and that it is already bearing sweeter if unseen fruit. For ultimately, the Bible’s reminder of the Kingdom here and now comforts us with the faith that even suffering although not willed by God still offers the progress of his plan and our travelling back to our lives in one peace.

The wayside pulpit out a Baptist church recently showed the sign – ASDA is not the only saving place. Yet still the love of any place even if it is God’s Kingdom can never equal the love of a person for another.  The love, say, of our holiday resort on the costa packeta can surely never equal the depthless love of a couple on their golden wedding anniversary. And it is here that the Bible does us the greatest service in times of trouble. Just the sort of trouble Paul found himself in when his dhow started to sink in a storm off the Mediterranean equivalent of the Goodwin stands and his guard have homicidal tendencies.   

For the greatest use of the bible in tribulation is to remind us of the person of salvation. For, Christ is not just the describer of the kingdom of heaven but far, far more importantly, he is the Son of the King of that Heaven. Therefore, he also has the supernatural power to be our guide on our journey towards it.  

Put another way, there is an old British mariner’s saying which went - when at sea have faith in God and the admiralty chart. However any seamen will tell you it is one thing having a chart of the entrance to safe harbour on a dark treacherous night and another to have a pilot with an intimate knowledge of the homing.  Let then us have faith in Bible’s chart for the passage to heaven. Yet more importantly, let us have absolute certainty in our helmsman that the Bible puts each of us in touch with in our individual times of trouble. For, it is Christ who alone sees the road to safety even though the wind and waves hides it from us for awhile.  And that is why he is our navigator, our saviour and our lifeboat man.  

Years ago a minister was travelling by ship with his young daughter across the
ocean. Earlier that particular Sunday he had preached about God's
love. It had been a very difficult service, because he was newly
widowed. He was standing against the rail of the ship, looking out at the vast ocean, when his daughter asked him if God loved them as much as
they had loved her late mother. "Of course He does," answered her father. look across the sea as far as you can. Look up and down and all around. God's love stretches around to cover all of that; above the blue sky and deeper than the deepest part of the ocean underneath us." The little girl pondered for a minute and replied, "And to think Daddy, we're right in the middle of it!

If then you have a storm in your life or even the gusts of difficulty.  Find your Bible and use it for all it is worth. For it will put you in touch with God more certainly than the latest Nokia phone. It will show you God’s Kingdom of peace that lies just at hand. But crowning even that, it will show you the kingdom’s prophet; the divine man who in our stormy midnight brings us all to the perfect land in safely.  That infinite height and breadth and depth which in Christ we are always right in the middle of!

Amen

Ship Wreck