Starvation Averted Just in Time

December 28th is a red letter day in the history of the Channel Islands. Late on the 27th, 75 years ago, the Red Cross ship the SS Vega docked in Guernsey's St Peter Port harbour. Aboard this rescue ship were parcels of unimaginable food and luxury supplies for the starving islanders. Up to this point, after 4 years of German occupation, the people of the island were in deep trouble. The Allies were 6 months into their liberation of Western Europe since D-Day, and were ensconced just 30 miles away on the French coast. The local occupying forces were cut off from all supply routes except the occasional submarine or aircraft and were in turn reduced to starvation rations. People were falling in the streets. The intense winter cold was claiming as many victims as the lack of food.

Then - wonder of wonders - into the harbour came this vessel of joy! If Guernsey punches above its weight today in terms of giving charitable funds to overseas disasters and relief work, it is, among other things, because in our culture there is a deep sense of gratitude for this international relief mission in 1944. Without these amazing food parcels which came again through the months that followed, the local population might have perished in its entirety.

How appropriate that this rescue mission should have occurred at Christmas. This is the season in which we commemorate God's great intervention in our human condition. In a land that was also then occupied by foreign troops, Jesus came as a sign that God is with us. And that first coming of Christ, and the mercy that he brought into a warring world, was almost certainly at the root of the grace gifts that the SS Vega brought with her. This is how one eye-witness put it: "It was the most marvellous revelation of the Almighty Power of the Living God, but if his dear son had never come and lived and died for us on this earth, that Red Cross ship would never have come to bring us those parcels, and in a very short time we would all have starved to death".

Today, when spiritual starvation marks our communities and blights our relationships, maybe we should celebrate the mercy of the coming of the Son of God like those Channel Islanders did in 1944.