God’s eternal time

Fifteen years ago Martin Rees, now Lord Rees , the Astronomer Royal, wrote a little book. It was called Our Final Century. In this prophetic volume he questioned if the human race could survive throughout this century.

Already, some of his predictions have become alarming realities, like the nuclear confrontation between the USA and North Korea.

In his book, Lord Rees speaks of the Doomsday Clock.

The Doomsday Clock features in the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, a magazine founded by contemporary atomic specialists.

When they gauge an increased level of danger in the global situation they move the minute hand of the clock nearer to midnight’s final hour.

During the 1950’s Cuban nuclear missile crisis, the clock was seconds away from midnight.

Recently the Doomsday Clock was pushed 30 seconds closer to midnight.

These leading scientists estimate that the risk to global civilisation is as high today as it has ever been due to the twin threats of nuclear warfare and global warming.

Welcome to 21st century civilisation.

We will celebrate the God-given Easter in this global uncertain climate.

But Easter is not like the Brexit negotiations, with their claims and counter-claims and uncertainties.

Easter is the unilateral decisive act of God for the safety and welfare of the universe. We call that welfare‘salvation’. Samuel Rutherford, that 17th century martyr for the gospel, complained from his Aberdeen prison:“We have all shapen Christ but too narrow and too short.”

This complaint applies to the entire gospel message.

The church and Christian community have allowed this contemporary secular society to confine Christianity within private faith and personal devotions.

Easter and the Christ of Easter are the decisive acts of the eternal God.

Jesus Christ in his life, passion, death and rising towers independently over the history of the human race. In Jesus, God controls our destiny.

Easter is more than Easter eggs.

The Jesus who fed the hungry people demands that no child of God goes hungry.

The Jesus who called the peacemakers blessed and instructed that we love our enemies, demands that warfare should cease and suffering should end.

The Jesus who died on the cross, the helpless victim of evil, sin and wrong, rose again to defeat these very powers of evil and corruption.

That same risen Christ now calls on the people of our world to defeat evil, rid the world of corruption, and eradicate sin.

In Jesus Christ and Easter, God made the world a moral stage and human beings moral agents.

Peoples and nations are responsible for one another, but are ultimately answerable to God. There will be a Day of Judgment. We are living in troubled times. The Doomsday Clock may be ticking away just like the Brexit timetable.

Who knows what disasters await the human race.

I struggle desperately to square the glorious promises of the gospel with this mad world scene.

The most difficult prayer I have to make is the Prayer of Intercession in public worship.

But it was like this in Jesus’time and in the early years of the fledgling church.

During Jesus’life Jewish unrest simmered threateningly below the surface. Only 15 years after the crucifixion, Herod purged the young Church, leading to the death of James, the Lord’s brother.

Then 35 years after Easter the Jewish War of independence erupted. In other words, Christianity was born in troubled times. So we must witness and be faithful in our own restless age.

But enter the Garden of the Empty Tomb and find new life (John 20.11-18).

Travel the Emmaeus road and talk with Jesus (Luke 24.28-35).

To frightened disciples came the new Jesus with a heavenly, “Peace be with you”(John 20.19)

Into your life that same peace of God can quietly enter. There need not be the Doomsday Clock close to midnight’s hour of doom.

We can set our days to God’s eternal time moving towards the dawning of the Day of the Lord.

We can say with Mary, and in company with countless generations, that we have seen the Lord. God guides our life and directs the course of history according to the destiny God created for people at that first Easter.

“Mary told the disciples I have seen the Lord”(John 20.18).