For the various shades of republicanism, it is part of the commemorations of the failed Easter Rising in Dublin in 1916 and as the numerous factions hold their respective commemorations and parades, the mixed messaging will always remain the same - which group really speaks the true message of republicanism?
As for the loyalist tradition, today also marks the official start of the marching season which will take us all the way through to the last Saturday in August, known as Black Saturday which is organised across the Province by the Royal Black Institution, the senior of the Protestant Loyal Orders.
As for the Christian Churches, they will have already had their services in places of worship to mark yesterday’s Resurrection Sunday when Jesus Christ rose from the dead to bring us the gift of salvation.
But apart from those services, what will the churches do to ensure that the Easter break remains a truly religious celebration of Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection?
Perhaps to regain the real meaning of Easter, the churches should emphasise the core themes of the Old Testament book of Psalms and especially number 139 under the banner of - are you hiding from God?
From that Old Testament Scripture text from Psalm 139, let me remind you of verse 23 - “Search me, God, and know my heart; test me, and know my anxious thoughts.” Put bluntly, we can put on an image that everything is alright in our lives, but we can never hide our hearts from God. This should be the real message of peace which the Churches need to be emphasising this Easter, and right throughout the year.
How often for all of us as Christians, when an opportunity for evangelism occurs, some of us take the view - don’t send me Lord! In my primary school days, when we wrote compositions on ‘what I want to be when I grow up’, I would always write that I wanted to be a Christian missionary like the woman I sat beside in church - the late Miss Nancy Alexander.
But what if God had called me to become a Christian missionary in North Korea? Would I have gone? How many of us when there’s the possibility we might be asked to do God’s work, we become Jonah Christians and go in the opposite direction?
Maybe we’re not only trying to hide from God Himself, but from other Christians? Or maybe we’re hiding from God because we believe we don’t want him to see what we’re doing?
If there is one lesson we can draw from this Psalm 139, it’s that God’s presence is everywhere. There’s no hiding place. God is always near us, whether we know it or not. God knows us even when we don’t want to know Him!
I grew up in a lovely Victorian-built Presbyterian Manse in the north Antrim hills and my sister and I used to play hide and seek. Each of us had our wee cubby holes which only we knew about and it would take ages for my sister and I to find each other. We both had our secret places.
Indeed, in life, we may have a wee place that we like to retreat to, as the saying goes, to clear our heads, or get some peace. But we should never forget whether that place be a room in our home, or a laneway, or somewhere quiet - God is always present.
Sometimes as Christians we find it difficult to comprehend the power of God in being present everywhere. We see this in the opening six verses of Psalm 139:
You have searched me, Lord and you know me. You know when I sit and when I rise. You perceive my thoughts from afar. You discern my going out and my lying down; you are familiar with all my ways. Before a word is on my tongue, you Lord, know it completely. You hem me in behind and before and you lay your hand upon me. Such knowledge is too wonderful for me, too lofty for me to attain.
Equally, the Psalmist here is very clear there is no hiding place from God. In verses seven to 12 he notes:
Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there; if I make my bed in the depths, you are there. If I rise on the wings of the dawn, if I settle on the far side of the sea, even there your hand will guide me, your right hand will hold me fast. If I say, surely the darkness will hide me and the light becomes night around me, even the darkness will not be dark to you; the night will shine like the day, for darkness is as light to you.
We live in a world where the fundamentals of our Christian faith are being constantly challenged. Topics of fertility rights and abortion laws present a huge challenge to the Christian faith; this specific Psalm makes it very clear we can’t hide from God even in the womb.
Note these four verses from 13 to 16 very carefully:
For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful. I know that full well. My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.
These verses make very clear folks that life begins at conception, not birth. This is a Biblical foundation of our Christian faith. God is with us from conception to the time of our days numbered.
We also hear the phrase often spoken – I’m not a mind reader! But God is, and there’s no hiding from God even in our thoughts. Verse 17 makes this clear:
How precious to me are your thoughts, God. How vast is the sum of them! Were I to count them, they would outnumber the grains of sand. When I awake, I am still with you.
If God can read our minds and hearts, we can’t hide the truth from Him. How often in life do we meet someone we detest, dislike, even dare I say it totally despise – and we put on a show as if we like them. Our facial expressions are hiding the thoughts in our minds!
The next few verses in this Psalm make very tough reading:
If only you, God would slay the wicked! Away from me you who are bloodthirsty! They speak of you with evil intent; your adversaries misuse your name. Do I not hate those who hate you Lord, and abhor those who are in rebellion against you? I have nothing but hatred for them; I count them my enemies.
Are there people that we secretly hate, but we try to hide it?
Let me give you an illustration of the challenge of this verse from my own life. Many years ago when my late father was an elected politician, he received a death threat from a terrorist organization. Such was the seriousness of the situation that for a period of time, my dad had to have a police escort even when he went to preach the Gospel. Thankfully, nothing ever happened. But all those years ago, it was a very tense time for us as a family.
Even to this day, I am not aware that the threat was ever formally lifted. Years later when I was working as a journalist for a national newspaper, I found myself having tea and tray bakes with an individual I perceived to have sympathies with the terror group that had issued the death threat against my dad.
We were in the living of a house in comfortable chairs, sipping tea and munching very delicious buns. As this mild-mannered interview progressed the thoughts kept coming through my mind – how much did this interviewee know about the death threat to dad? Indeed, was he the person who allegedly sanctioned the threat? Or even worse, did he allegedly write the wording of the threat itself?
Being totally honest folks, whilst I was smiling to this person’s face, these challenging verses summed up my emotions that day.
We might be able to hide our thoughts from other people, but we cannot hide them from God. That’s my personal story folks, we might challenge ourselves – what’s your’s? Happy Easter and I hope the churches are listening!
Let me give you an illustration of the challenge of this verse from my own life. Many years ago when my late father was an elected politician, he received a death threat from a terrorist organization. Such was the seriousness of the situation that for a period of time, my dad had to have a police escort even when he went to preach the Gospel. Thankfully, nothing ever happened. But all those years ago, it was a very tense time for us as a family.
Even to this day, I am not aware that the threat was ever formally lifted. Years later when I was working as a journalist for a national newspaper, I found myself having tea and tray bakes with an individual I perceived to have sympathies with the terror group that had issued the death threat against my dad.
We were in the living of a house in comfortable chairs, sipping tea and munching very delicious buns. As this mild-mannered interview progressed the thoughts kept coming through my mind – how much did this interviewee know about the death threat to dad? Indeed, was he the person who allegedly sanctioned the threat? Or even worse, did he allegedly write the wording of the threat itself?
Being totally honest folks, whilst I was smiling to this person’s face, these challenging verses summed up my emotions that day.
We might be able to hide our thoughts from other people, but we cannot hide them from God. That’s my personal story folks, we might challenge ourselves – what’s your’s? Happy Easter and I hope the churches are listening!
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| Follow Dr John Coulter on Twitter @JohnAHCoulter John is a Director for Belfast’s Christian radio station, Sunshine 1049 FM. |
