Filled with Hope and Gratefulness - Watoto Children's Choir

This amazing choir of Ugandan children are in Guernsey this weekend. If you're in the Island - don't miss them! The Watoto Children's Choir has sung in the past in the US White House and this choir has performed before the Welsh Assembly and even Her Majesty the Queen! Just listening to them on BBC Radio Guernsey it was so moving to hear their stories:

• Precious, who was abandoned as a baby outside a hospital and taken in by the 'Baby Watoto' programme
• Eric, who wants to be a pastor when he grows up (Yay!!)
• Kim, whose parents have disappeared after their house was destroyed

and many more! Watoto offers hope and a future to so many young children and single women too through their neighbourhood projects.

When the small group of children on the radio interview sang 'I am Grateful' I was moved to tears. They have so little compared to children in our community and yet they are so thankful for their lot. Their music and dance is powerful and inspiring. Plan on catching them while they're here, or go to their website.

See them at: Eldad Elim Church, Union Street, St Peter Port, Guernsey Sat. April 27th 6pm

Vazon Elim Church, La Mare road, Vazon, Guernsey, Sun 28th April, 10.45am & 5pm.

Is there any Hope? A Glimpse beyond the Grave.

"Hope is vital - it's not a question of what you hope for, but who you hope in." These words on BBC Radio 4 recently challenged me. We all hope for things - whether for relief from pain or distress, a great holiday, or a home that is our own, and these are all legitimate. But hope for life beyond the grave is a huge ask. Nobody knows what waits for us there because no-one has come back to tell us.

But hang on a moment - somebody has! This Easter Day we celebrate the greatest day in history. Jesus Christ died on the cross for our sins on the first Good Friday and then rose again from the dead on the following Sunday. More than 500 eye witnesses confirmed sightings of him with some them touching his body and others speaking with him. The early Christian church would never have grown to become the world's major religion if the resurrection was a fraud or a lie. The disciples would not have given their lives as martyrs in painful deaths if they knew they had stolen the body. All the Jewish leaders had to do was go to the guarded tomb and produce Christ's remains and the new faith would have been stopped in its tracks. They did not because they could not. Christ is risen!

Through the storms of major illness that have come my way over the last couple of decades I have had several moments very close to death. I even reviewed my own 'final arrangements' again last week as I prepared to undergo potentially dangerous (for me) cardiac procedures in hospital a few days ago. One day I will walk that valley right through, but I have a serious and sustaining hope. Since Jesus rose from the dead I shall also rise, because I believe in and am following Him. Jesus said; 'Because I live, you shall live also' (John 14:19).

In the words of the Old Testament writer of the Psalms "Put your hope in God". The message of this great resurrection day is that hope in Him will see you through this life's struggles and even into eternity. Christ is risen indeed!

To Cross or not to Cross?

I suppose that one of the most iconic items produced in historically Christian countries in celebration of Easter is the traditional hot cross bun. Very early on Good Friday morning in our island community there will be a long queue at the door of a small independent bakers to collect their freshly made buns.

Tradition says that early Greek Christians marked cakes with a cross, but of course, the Bible does not say anything about followers of Jesus Christ needing confectionery to aid their faith or express their worship! In less enlightened times people began using these hot cross buns as a kind of good luck token, claiming that if a ship sailed with them on board it would be protected against shipwreck and other such phoney baloney.

So don't get me wrong - I am not an advocate for the hot cross bun - but my blood was stirred to see in our local supermarket that under the 'hot cross bun' display there was a pile without the crosses!! I suppose that this is in an effort to avoid offending religious minorities - political correctness gone religious - but it just kind of illustrated to me a bit of a challenge this Easter.  Is my life marked by the cross the Christ or is it just fruit and flavouring? Is the cross central to the story of my faith or is it disposable when mentioning it might offend someone? The Bible does say that the cross will appear foolish to people who don't want to believe and it also foretold that the cross would one day become an offence to many, not just a religious minority.

So I want to come back to the cross of Christ this Easter, and thank Jesus for giving His all for me there. To cross your buns?  Well- that's up to you - I don't find they taste any different anyway!

Donkey speaks out!

Some years ago on a Palm Sunday I interviewed the donkey of the story! Guernsey people are known colloquially as donkeys due to our historic stubbornness (I'm not sure if that is being entirely fair - to donkeys!). There is even a statue of a kicking donkey in the island, supposed to reflect how the islanders kicked out the German occupying forces at the end of World War II but I think that probably had to do with outside forces rather than the islanders' own actions. Anyhow, the epithet has stuck and so the story of Jesus riding into Jerusalem on a donkey has local appeal!

But what was it that led Jesus to choose a donkey rather than a white charger? Well, a couple of things really, but predominantly it was a sign of humility. In selecting this kind of mount the King of Kings was harking back to his birth in a stable. See our conquering hero now - humble and riding on a donkey! I doubt that any invading monarch or attacking general ever arrived in such a manner. So it is all the more surprising that the crowds lining the path into the city cried 'Hosanna' - literally 'rule now!' and laid palm branches in his path.

The palm branch is a symbol of victory, triumph, peace, and eternal life originating in the ancient Near East and Mediterranean world. So the folk watching the donkey riding Christ must have been impressed with something about him, despite his humble mount. Another aspect of the choice Jesus made was the fulfilment of Bible prophecy - the Old Testament had suggested this day would come in Zechariah 9:9.

But for me the most significant part of that famous donkey-ride is that the very same people who applauded his arrival were to chant a different slogan just 5 days later. "Crucify him!" they yelled, when the implications of supporting him had been laid bare. Perhaps this Holy Week we would do well to ask ourselves which cry really reflects our attitude to the donkey-riding Lord.

"Is there any word from the Lord?"

I am reading Andrew Robert's great book Churchill: Walking with Destiny and am amazed at how his warning voice was so loud and clear during the wilderness years of 1935-39. Churchill spoke again and again of the coming conflagration that would consume the youth of the world between 1939 and 1945 in World War II. His speeches were so rousing and stirring that members of the House of Commons, where he was a back-bench MP, often stamped and cheered him afterwards, but did nothing in response to his pleadings. He was a virtually lone figure during that period as Hitler's Nazi Germany re-armed and prepared for war on a massive scale. The voice of the prophet was being sounded in the wilderness but just about nobody was listening, at least not those in power. The result was that Britain was so unprepared for war when it came that it is only by the grace of God - and the leadership of Winston Churchill in the crisis - that the total disaster of a Nazi occupation of the UK was averted.

We need a prophetic voice today in the corridors of power or the front pages of our media. An Old Testament king once asked the pertinent question "Is there any word from the Lord?" and that query rings loud and clear at this time in our land. There is a national crisis of violence, of corruption in huge corporations, of extremism in political views, of racism, of knife crime, of bullying and disrespect for authority, and political impasse that threatens the future well-being of our great democracy. What would Winston Churchill be saying if he was an MP today?

And where are the Christian prophets? I know that Mrs May, the British Prime Minister, has had at least one audience with the Archbishop of Canterbury over the Brexit issue and that's good. But let's pray that God will raise up a person, or a people, of such prophetic lives and words, that in this wilderness of human need, those in power, and those around us, will have to admit that there has been a word from the Lord'!

And, when it comes, let's hope that our leaders will be more responsive to that word than were the government of Great Britain in the 1930's!