Devotion for W/C 22nd March 2020

Weekly Reflection
W/C 22nd March 2020

This evening as I was browsing through Facebook I came across a Virtual Choir recording of one of our best known modern worship songs, “In Christ Alone” by Stuart Townend & Keith Getty.  It is one of my favourite songs and the choir sung it beautifully.  If you want to listen you can find it here: https://youtu.be/RY4CW5pte98 .

It struck me as I was listening that part of the first verse is particularly appropriate for our current situation:
In Christ alone my hope is found,
he is my light, my strength, my song;
this Cornerstone, this solid Ground,
firm through the fiercest drought and storm.

This song is a good reminder that as Christian people our hope is found in Jesus Christ and in him only.  Hope is something we need at this current time as the numbers of those infected with the Coronavirus Corvid-19 grow and as the death toll sadly rises.  Hope in Christ means believing that all he promises is true; it is living as if everything Jesus said is true.

In Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians the Apostle writes, “But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away……  And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.”   Faith, hope and love will remain when all other things have passed away; to have hope is to have faith in the eternal love of God, shown in Jesus: such hope is never a false hope because it is an eternal hope.

The song reminds us who Jesus is for Christian disciples.  He is our light.  Jesus called himself the Light of the World and the opening chapter of John’s gospel reminds us that ‘The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.”  No matter how dark things may seem in the next few weeks the light of Christ will help us to overcome the darkness.

Christ is our strength too.  In Philippians 4:13 we read, “I can do all things through him (Christ) who strengthens me.”  This is something we often say in assembly at Hippings Methodist School.  There will be times for us all in the coming weeks that will be difficult.  Already some of us are finding it quite difficult being basically confined in our own homes and there will be other tests of our personal mental and spiritual strength in the coming weeks.  When our own strength is exhausted, we can turn to Jesus in prayer and he will strengthen us and help us to keep going.

The song talks about Jesus as a Cornerstone, an allusion to 1 Peter 2:7: “To you then who believe, he is precious; but for those who do not believe, ‘The stone that the builders rejected has become the very head of the corner.’”  The cornerstone was the most carefully chosen piece of stone in an ancient building.  Jesus is the cornerstone the church will be built on.  He is its very foundation.  Once the cornerstone in a building was set it became the basis for construction and everything was measured and aligned with it.  Jesus is our standard of measurement and alignment.  If we look to Jesus, as individuals and as a church, if we rely completely on him, nothing can stand against us spiritually.

Jesus is also referred to as solid ground.  Jesus told a parable about a man who built his house on the sand and another who built his house on solid ground.  When the storm came the house built on sand collapsed, but the house built on solid ground stood firm.  The firm foundation of our faith in Jesus will help us to stand firm as the storm of our current situation tries its best to batter us, because, as the song says, Jesus is “firm through the fiercest drought and storm.”

There will be challenges to us all over the coming weeks, and perhaps even months, there will be challenges and times of fear, but if we hold onto Jesus, if we keep our spiritual eyes fixed on him as the rock and foundation of our lives then we overcome the difficulties life can bring.