I don’t know about you, but if I am going into a new situation, particularly if it means performing publicly, I like to put on my armour. That might mean wearing particular clothes, or preparing mentally by doing some prior research, or giving myself a little pep talk, like, “What’s the worst that could happen?” Sometimes I even pray!

I suspect I’m not alone in this. What’s your armour? Is it the make-up you put on? Perhaps it’s humour? Or perhaps you avoid new situations altogether?

It’s natural for us to want to protect ourselves. Which is why Jesus’ advice to the twelve disciples is particularly challenging. “When you have opportunity to testify about me”, he says (and notice it’s ‘when’ not ‘if’), “leave your armour at home”.

Jesus knows that if his disciples are thinking about their armour then they’re thinking about themselves: protecting themselves, defending themselves, getting out alive. But, that’s not Jesus’ way. Jesus’ way is to think about others. And, Jesus wasn’t asking them to do anything he wasn’t prepared to do himself. So, he stood before the governor of Judea and refused to defend himself. And, he trusted that he too would be given the words to say at the right time. Those words came as he hung on the cross. He cried out, “Father, forgive them.”

And they mocked him for it, but the world hasn’t been the same since.

~ Pastor John

I wonder, have you entertained angels without knowing it?

Have we entertained angels without knowing it?

“I saw one like a human being coming with the clouds of heaven. To him was given dominion and glory and kingship”

In her 1963 book Eichmann in Jerusalem philosopher and political thinker Hannah Arendt coined the phrase ‘the banality of evil’. She used this phrase after witnessing the trial of Adolf Eichmann, the main organizer of the Holocaust. Eichmann’s defense of his actions was that he was simply doing his duty, following orders and obeying the laws of the land, hence he couldn’t be held personally responsible for the deliberate murder of millions of people.

Eichmann tried to defend himself as just an ordinary person – just another human being – doing his job, but his actions made a mockery of his defense. To be human is not to simply follow orders, to be human is to act as Martin Luther outlines in his explanation of the fifth commandment: “[That] we neither endanger nor harm the lives of our neighbours, but instead help and support them in all of life’s needs”

Sadly, Hungarian-Canadian poet, Robert Zend may have been right when he said: “There are too many people in the world and too few human beings”.

~ Pastor John