Scotch College

The HomecomingChaplain’s Reflection

The ‘Tom Tom’ navigation device, so popular as a Christmas gift for men, only works because of an astonishing infrastructure investment of $750 million a year by the US Government. Don’t ask why they should think so kindly of you and me and our need to get across town without getting lost. The answer (alas) has little to do with beneficence and more to do with military capability (and human error).

This raises in my mind, as the boys already know, the model of huge infra- structure investment that benefits large numbers of people. What appealed to me about the Tom Tom Navigator, in addition to its catchy name, is the navigation metaphor; after all, God’s first question in the Bible is ‘Where are you?’ (Genesis 3:9). Although the Bible’s 66 books were written over a span of more than 1,000 years, the theme, Genesis to Revelation, is ‘getting home’.

From the Genesis picture of our primary dislocation, the story quickly focuses on God’s intention to restore humanity. God picks Abraham. Many a Jew has asked ‘Why? Why not pick on someone else?’, but God’s purpose is clear.

The intention was to bring blessing to ‘all the nations of the earth’ (12:3).

Through a series of genealogies, characters, psalms, prophets, parables and histories, much once familiar to every child, the great scheme of redemption unfolded until, in the fullness of time, Jesus emerged, son of David, Israel’s promised Messiah.

Like David, Jesus spoke of God as the searching shepherd, but he went further; God the diligent housewife, God the loving father. His deeds matched his teaching. He healed the sick, restored the demented, and welcomed the marginalised. Astonishingly, he also offered forgiveness. Jesus’ first disciples knew the news was too good to be contained. They proclaimed it to the world, and person by person the world began to change. Herearenew dimensions to faith, hope and love as Jesus exposes life in all its fullness.

Thereis history here, and interpretation. Both have their detractors and not everything is clear. However, the apostles were clear in their understandings of their message and in taking it to the world they have made it our message.

Of course, you may not yet share a Christian interpretation of this rich Biblical repertoire.

Here is an Easter invitation to review your own understanding of biblical narrative which, in a unique way, is the most costly and sophisticated of navigation infrastructures, culminating as it does, at the Cross. It represents God’s commitment to bringing people ‘safely home’. We can only apprehend this by faith. Wesee it ‘through a glass, darkly’ as the King James Version translates St Paul, but one day ‘we shall see face to face’.

Charlie Marvin(Yr 2) read from Romans 15 in the Prep-2 Chapel Service today, may ‘the God of hope fill you with joy and peace through believing’.

Asafe and happy Easter!